An intercepted letter first awakened suspicion of what was going on, Keeling, one of the Rye House desperadoes then offered to reveal the plans. Hints of a discovery led the guilty to abscond, and a proclamation was issued for the apprehension of the conspirators of the Rye House. The other party was also blown on ; Russell, Sydney, Howard, and Essex were taken and confined in the Tower, but Monmouth and the others escaped.

Lord William Russell's trial excited great interest, on account of the doubt felt whether his party were implicated in the designs of the other. Rumsey, Shepherd, and Lord Howard witnessed against him, the latter was the principal, but he only proved that Russell had taken part in two discussions with respect to an insurrection, and not that he had any part in the design against the king's life. The jury returned a verdict of guilty. Great exertions were made to save him, but the king was inexorable, and he was executed in Lincoln's Inn Fields, July 21. The attainder of Lord Russell was reversed in the first parliament after the Revolution, on the ground that he had been "wrongfully convicted by partial and unjust constructions of law". On the same day that Russell was executed for maintaining the lawfulness of resistance, the University of Oxford published a decree asserting the necessity of passive obedience and condemning the following propositions that civil authority is originally derived from the people: that there exists any compact between the prince and his subjects: that the sovereign by bad government can forfeit his right: &c., &c., to the number of twenty-seven taken from the works of Buchanan, Milton, Baxter, Hobbes, and others, all of which were condemned to be burnt.

Algernon Sydney was the next considerable conspirator that was tried. The infamous Jeffreys was the newly-made chief justice, and public interest was all alive to see how he would comport himself. Howard was again the principal witness; he declared that Sydney was a member of a council of six, and that he had attended meetings for purposes of conspiracy. Evidence was then put in of another overt act of treason; this was a manuscript which Sydney had composed years before, in refutation of Filmer's celebrated work in defence of absolute government. The evidence given by Howard and that derived from the manuscript, were held to be the two witnesses required by statute, and a verdict of guilty followed. Sydney was beheaded on Tower Hill, Dec. 7. Of the other conspirators, Monmouth was pardoned, Essex committed suicide in the Tower, Hampden was convicted of a misdemeanour and fined £40,000; several of the Rye House party were executed at different times, as they fell into the hands of the government. Charles had now a complete ascendency, and no events mark

the remainder of his reign, but the release of some catholic peers, exorbitant fines levied on those who opposed or reflected on the government, and the restoration of the Duke of York to the office of lord high admiral, in defiance of the Test Act.

SECTION VIII.-AFFAIRS OF SCOTLAND.

1. The Covenanters defeated on the Pentland Hills, Nov. 28, 1666. The restoration of episcopacy led to the expulsion of large numbers of the Presbyterian clergy; this left so many vacant pulpits that the prelates were compelled to appoint many new students with "as little morality as learning, and still less devotion than either". At first, the congregations treated the curates with neglect; they then withdrew from their parish churches. The Covenanters, as those who adhered to Presbyterianism were called, took to open-air meetings, in wild and desolate places, where they were not likely to be disturbed by either peace-officers or soldiers. In the West of Scotland, where the aversion to Episcopacy was the greatest, several regiments under the command of Sir James Turner, were sent to live at free quarters. But the more the Covenanters were oppressed, the more "obstinate" they became, and believing themselves called thereto, mustered in an armed body of about eleven hundred men, and marched to Edinburgh. Receiving no encouragement from the capital, they retreated and were followed and defeated by the royal army under general Dalziel, at Rullion Green, a spur of the Pentland Hills. "About twenty of the prisoners were executed at Edinburgh as rebels, many of them being put to the torture. This was practised in various ways-sometimes by squeezing the fingers with screws called thumbikins, sometimes by the boot, a species of punishment peculiar to Scotland. It consisted in placing the leg of the unfortunate person in a strong wooden case called a Boot, and driving down wedges between his knee and the frame, by which the limb was often crushed and broken."

2. Murder of Sharpe: defeat of Covenanters at Bothwell Brig, June 22, 1679. Two years after the affair at the Pentland Hills, Mitchell, a preacher and a man of heated imagination, attempted to assassinate archbishop Sharpe, whose severity against his former party made him particularly obnoxious; the attempt failed on Sharp, though it wounded the bishop of Orkney. In 1674, Mitchell was seized, terribly tortured, and four years subsequently, executed. Sharpe was now more hated than ever, and his violence of disposition led to the banding of a few desperate men for mutual protection. Being out one day, these men saw the bishop's carriage coming in their direction; they felt the opportunity to be the work of heaven, ordered the

old man out of his coach, and in spite of the entreaties of his daughter, who happened to be with him, dashed his skull in pieces, May 3. The government being irritated, declared all attendance upon field-conventicles treason, and at once raised new troops; on the other hand, the Covenanters grew desperate, and beaded by the assassins defeated Graham of Claverhouse at Drumclog, June 1. The Duke of Monmouth, coming to Scotland as commander-in-chief, encamped with five thousand men on Bothwell-muir. On the 22nd of June, he came upon the Covenanters, who were drawn up in force behind the Clyde at Bothwell-bridge; their position was soon carried with a loss to the insurgents of five hundred killed. About twelve hundred were made prisoners, some of whom were executed, others gave bonds of conformity, and the more obstinate sent as slaves to the Plantations.

3. The Cameronians: severity of York's rule in Scotland, 1679-1684. When Charles was seriously ill in 1679, the Duke of York was sent for from Holland; instead of returning whence he came, he repaired to Scotland as high commissioner, Monk being recalled. For a time after the defeat of Bothwell Brig there was quiet, yet there was a remnant headed by Cameron and Cargill, two preachers who, with their followers, subsequently renounced their allegiance to Charles Stuart. The Cameronians, as this party was called, were put down by dragoons, and those not killed by the soldiers, were executed or transported to America. Sir Walter Scott, speaking of the attempt of the Duke of York to exterminate this sect, says, "All usual forms of law, all the bulwarks by which the subjects of a country are protected against the violence of armed power, were at once broken down, and officers and soldiers received commissions not only to appre hend, but to interrogate and punish, any persons whom they might suspect of fanatical principles; and if they thought proper, they might put them to death upon the spot. All that was necessary to condemnation was, that the individuals seized upon should scruple to renounce the Covenant-or should hesitate to admit, that the death of Sharpe was an act of murder-or should refuse to pray for the king-or decline to answer any other ensnaring or captious questions concerning their religious principles." The "cold-blooded and savage barbarity of the deeds" perpetuated by Claverhouse may be seen in the same writer, or better in the Scottish writers of the period. Cameron was killed (1680) in a skirmish with the military; and Cargill captured and executed the year after.

In 1681, the Duke of York held a parliament and procured the passing of an act, declaring that the kings of Scotland derive their powers from God alone, and that no difference of religion, no

act of parliament, made or to be made, could alter or divert the succession. But the most important act was the imposition of a new test, including a promise to adhere to the true Protestant religion; a recognition of the king's supremacy over all persons civil and ecclesiastical; a rejection of the doctrines and practices already condemned; and an acknowledgement that there “lay no obligation from the national covenant, or the solemn league and covenant, or any other manner of way whatsoever, to endeavour any alteration in the government in church or state, as it was then established by the laws of the kingdom". The Dukes of Hamilton and Monmouth objected to this test and resigned their offices. Argyle offered to take it, but without binding himself not to endeavour "in a lawful way and in his station, to make such changes in church and state as he might judge beneficial". For this qualifying sentence, the Earl was accused of treason, leasing-making, and perjury; he was tried and convicted, but in disguise escaped from prison and joined the discontented in Holland. This proceeding struck general terror, from its gross violation of justice many noblemen and others resolved to sell their property and remove to America, but they were stopped in their preparations, by information of the proposed scheme for altering the government of Charles II., a secret which was learnt in London by the deputation sent there to prepare for their emigration.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES.

CHARLES II. 1630-1685. Charles, the son of Charles I. and Henrietta Maria, was born at St James's on the 24th of May, 1630, and shortly after his birth declared Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester. At the age of eight he was knighted, received the Order of the Garter, and was formally installed at Westminster. On the breaking out of the civil war in 1642, the prince was appointed to the command of a troop of horse, yet when the king's body-guard charged at the battle of Edgehill, Charles and his brother York were in charge of Hervey the celebrated physician, under cover of a hedge. In 1644, he saw his father for the last time, departing then with the title of general to the western counties, where being pressed he passed first to Scilly, thence to Jersey, and eventually to Paris in 1646, to join his mother. He soon withdrew to the Hague, where he remained till the assassination of Dorislaus in 1649; he then returned to Paris, but finding the French uneasy at his presence, removed to the royal island of Jersey. The preparations of the parliament to reduce that island compelled him to retire to Breda, where he accepted the conditions of the Scotch commissioners, and then sailed for Scotland. The story of Charles's wanderings and hair-breadth escapes, from the battle of Worcester till his embarkation at Shoreham, is full of romance and may be read in larger histories. His wanderings extended over forty-three days, through districts, closely watched; his secret was known to more than

forty persons, and a reward offered for his apprehension, and yet he was not betrayed.

Having resided three years in France, he made a short stay at Spa and Aix-la-Chapelle, and then took up his residence at Cologne, where his loose habits were sufficiently notorious. In 1656, he and his followers removed to Bruges; his court there was one constant scene of profligacy. A contemporary letter says, Fornication, drunkenness, and adultery, are esteemed no sins among them". From this period to the Restoration, his manner of life was much the same, and his residence either at Bruges or Brussels.

Charles II. was neither a good man, nor a good king. His profligate life was of the most unblushing character, and his station gave him sufficient influence to corrupt all who came within his reach. His court had infinitely less decency than the harems of eastern sensualists, and was further degraded by drawing into it the scum of the theatre. Charles was good-tempered, but it arose from indolence; he was not cruel, but he allowed innocent men to be executed. Charles professed himself a Protestant king, and agreed to severe laws against the Romanists-even to their death, but was all the while really a Romanist at heart, and engaged by treaty with Louis to subvert the constitution of the Protestant church in this country. That he had a design against the liberties of England is clear, though it was only in the last few years of his reign that they were fully understood.

The following remarks by Smyth are as just as they are important:"Such was the effect of the fascinating manners and specious qualities of Charles, that he was never hated or despised in the degree which he deserved. Even at this distance of time we may not readily bring ourselves to entertain sentiments sufficiently severe against the king, the courtiers, and all the considerable personages, that appeared during these critical times. The truth is, that the period was marked by a sort of conspiracy against all sobriety and order, against all liberty and law, against all dignity and happiness, public and private; and we must not suffer our taste for pleasantry, and our admiration of shining talents, to betray us into a forgetfulness of every graver virtue, which can seriously occupy our reflection, or engage our respect."

CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA, 1638-1705. Catherine, the queenconsort of Charles II., was the daughter of John, Duke of Braganza, who having rescued Portugal from servitude to Spain (1640), became its king. At the age of six years, she was offered by her father to Charles I., for his son the Prince of Wales, but received no encouragement. After receiving her early education in a convent, Catherine led so retired a life in the palace, that when she heard of her coming marriage, she had not been out of doors for five years. For political reasons, both Louis XIV. and Henrietta Maria persuaded Charles to conclude this alliance, to which, indeed, he himself greatly inclined, because of the dowry of £500,000, together with the settlements of Tangier and Bombay, and a free trade for the English to India and the Brazils. The objections made to her religion were overruled, and Charles on his part undertook to secure to her freedom of religious worship, and £30,000 a year for life. Catherine landed at Portsmouth in 1662, and was married to the king, first privately in