who took him he was murdered before his own door by two young men, calling themselves Rumbold's sons, who ripped out his heart, in imitation of what their father had suffered on the scaffold. Thus does crime beget crime, and cruelty engender cruelty. The actors in this bloody deed made their escape, not so much as a dog baying at them. Before quitting the subject of Argyle's rebellion, I may mention a species of oppression practised on the nonconformists, of a nature differing from those I have already mentioned. When the alarm of invasion arose, it was resolved by the privy council, that all such persons as were in prison on account of religion should be sent to the north, for their more safe custody. After a toilsome march, rendered bitter by want of food and accommodation, as well as by the raillery of pipers, who insulted with ridiculous tunes a set of persons who held their minstrelsy to be sinful, the wanderers, to the number of an hundred and sixty persons, of whom there were several women, and even some children, reached the place of their destination. This proved to be the castle of Dunottar, a strong fortress, almost surrounded by the German ocean, the same in which, as I have told you, the regalia of Scotland were preserved for some time. Here the prisoners were, without distinction, packed into a large dungeon, having a window open to the sea, in front of a huge precipice. They were neither allowed bedding nor provisions, excepting what they bought, and were treated by their keepers with the utmost rigour. The walls of this place, still called the Whigs' vault, bear token to the severities inflicted on those unhappy persons. There are, in particular, a number of apertures cut in the wall, about a man's height, and it was the custom, when such was the jailor's pleasure, that any prisoner who was accounted refractory, should be obliged to stand up with his arms extended, and his fingers secured by wedges in the crevices I have described. It appears that some of these apertures or crevices, which are lower than the others, have been intended for women, and even for children. In this cruel confinement many died, some were deprived of the use of their limbs by rheumatism and other diseases, and several lost their lives by desperate attempts to descend from the rock on which the castle is founded. Some who actually escaped by descending the precipice, were retaken, and so cruelly tortured for the attempt, by lighted matches tied between their fingers, that several were mutilated, and others died of the inflammation which ensued. The survivors, after enduring this horrid imprisonment for six weeks or two months, had the test offered to them. Those who, overcome by bodily anguish, and the hopeless misery of their condition, agreed to take this engagement, were discharged, and the others transported to the plantations. A tombstone in Dunottar churchyard, still preserves the names of such as died in this cruel captivity, in the various modes we have mentioned. The failure of the invasions of Monmouth and Argyle, with the revenge which had been taken on their unfortunate leaders, was by James, in his triumph, recorded by two medals struck for the occasion, which bore on one side two severed heads, on the other two headless trunks; a device as inhuman as the proceedings by which these advantages had been followed up, and as the royal vengeance which had been so unsparingly executed. JEFFREYS' WESTERN CIRCUIT. SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. "Woe to the vanquished" is an inductive maxim when rebellion has been put down. The vengeance of James was wreaked upon the companions and adherents of Monmouth with signal, but not, as it continues to be said, unparalleled atrocity. **** The two persons charged by James with the execution of his vengeance, within the theatre of the late rebellion, were worthy of any mission however inhuman. They were colonel Kirke and the lord chief justice Jeffreys. Both treated human agony, whether of body or mind, as matter of savage sport,-with the distinction of obscenity on the part of the judge. The partisans of James and his cause will have it, that they transgressed his orders; others are no less earnest in maintaining that they were not "bloody enough" for their master, the latter upon testimony, the admission of which would imply a great want of judgment or scruple, and that of the miscreants themselves in their own defence. Lord Feversham, after his unhonoured victory,* massacred about a thousand in the rout, and next morning hanged above twenty of his prisoners-some in chains on gibbets by the road. Ken, bishop of Bath and Wells, remonstrated with him, "My lord," said he, "this is murder, not law; the battle being over, these poor wretches should be tried." Had the bishop forwarded or carried in person his remonstrance to the king, or had he remonstrated against the iniquities of Kirke and Jeffreys in the correspondence † he appears to have had with the king, he would have done unequivocal honour to his conscience and humanity, and settled the question how far James was cognisant of their cruelties. Feversham's pleas doubtless would have been, that he did military execution upon rebels taken with arms in their hands. He proceeded immediately to court, leaving the command to Kirke. This person followed up the atrocities of Feversham. The number hanged by him without trial, is stated to have been only nineteen. But if his victims were fewer, his sacrifices were more refined. He caused the wretches to be hanged at his door, whilst he caroused with his companions to the health of the king, the queen, or his colleague the chief justice; and as he observed the convulsive agonies of the dying, he ordered his trumpets to sound "so that they should have music to their dancing." James had the The special commission of Jeffreys to try the western rebels, was called in the country "the bloody assize;" at court, "Jeffreys' campaign." indecency to give it this name in writing to the prince of Orange. is stated to have been commissioned for the time as a lieutenant-general. A commission so preposterous even in those times, would be credible only on proof little short of the production of the document itself. The simple fact seems to have been, that the commanding officers furnished him at his direction with military escorts for the execution of his execrable sentences, and the safety of his execrable life. Jeffreys carried with him on his bloody mission, not only his fierce nature, but torturing disease; and he irritated both by habitual debauchery. Four other judges, Montague, Levinz, Watkins, and Wright, were joined with him in the commission. They crouched, or lent themselves to him as mere cyphers. The only antagonist mitigation was his rapacity. His atrocities, like those of Kirke, may here be compendiously disposed of. They have often been detailed in print, and the decency of modern narrative recoils from his brutal ribaldries. He opened his commission at Winchester on the 27th of August, with the well-known sacrifice of Mrs. Lisle. She was the widow of Lisle, who sat in judgment on Charles I., and filled high posts in * Over Monmouth (Edit.). See Biog. Brit. art. Ken. the magistracy of the commonwealth. Her crime was harbouring two fugitives from Monmouth's army, named Hickes and Melthorpe. She was lethargic and deaf, age having thus impaired her faculties and her senses. She was without counsel. Both the crown lawyers and the judge pressed her with inhuman adroitness. She yet placed the office of common charity which she had performed in a light so clearly innocent, even in law, that the jury disclosed their purpose to acquit her. Jeffreys rebuked them with violence and menace; they withstood two sallies from him, but after the third explosion of his rage, brought in a craven verdict of " "guilty." "Gentlemen," said Jeffreys, "in your place I would find her guilty, were she my own mother." It was perhaps the only truth that fell during the trial from his sanguinary lips. Great efforts were used to procure her the king's pardon, but the only grace which could be obtained from him, was mitigating her sentence from burning to decapitation. It was a judicial murder and her attainder was reversed after the Revolution, on the ground that she was condemned as accessory before the conviction of Hickes the principal, and that the verdict was extorted by the judge. From Winchester Jeffreys proceeded to Dorchester, where, by his own account, he dispatched ninety-eight the first morning. To save himself trouble, he intimated that a plea of guilty afforded the only hope of life, and some hundreds confessed accordingly. The number executed at Dorchester was eighty. To follow his track of death and blood through Exeter, Taunton, Bristol, Wells, would only revolt the reader. The country is described by eye witnesses as another Aceldama." Was the king cognisant of these barbarities? Those who excuse him, urge the testimony of Sheffield, duke of Buckingham, and the fact that James received without displeasure the solicitation of sir Thomas Cutler and bishop Ken for mercy for some convicts. His accusers bring against him the averment of Kirke and Jeffreys, that they did not act up to their instructions. These adverse proofs are so inconclusive, as to prove but little. But there is a third evidence recently brought to light, that of the letters of Jeffreys to Sunderland and James preserved in the state paper office. From these letters, it is apparent that James's cognisance could be one only of degree, for Jeffreys transmitted by regular dispatch, an account of his operations to the ministers of the king. The martial chief justice even sent his despatches by a military officer, as a general would employ his aide-de-camp; and the favoured officer in one instance was no less a person than lord Churchill, to whom he refers James for particulars.* Churchill, the royal favourite, and personally engaged in the operations of Jeffreys's campaign, communicated, it may be presumed, full particulars to the king. * * * * * There is further proof against James. He made Jeffreys chancellor, doubtless as a reward for his services; and innocent blood was shed under his immediate eye in London without touching his heart. Cornish, formerly sheriff, was taken up for the Ryehouse plot, tried with iniquitous haste before he could produce witnesses, condemned upon the evidence of Rumsey (who now avowed his having sworn falsely against lord Russell), and executed as a traitor with the barbarous forms of law. The restoration of his quartered limbs to his family by the king's order, has less in it of mitigation than of revolting mockery. Elizabeth Gaunt, a woman of humble condition, who combined sectarian enthusiasm with human charity, was convicted of *Writing to the king from Taunton, Sept. 19, he says, "I most humbly beseech your Imajte to give me leave to lay hold of this opportunity by my lord Churchill to give your majie an account that I have this day finished what was necessary for your majtie's service in this place; and begge leave that your majtie will be gratiously pleased to let me referre to my lord Churchill for the particulars, for I have not as yet perfected my papers soe as to be able to doe it see exactly as my duty to your majtie's service requires." This is unhappily not the only stain upon the laurels of the duke of Marlborough. ** U compassing the king's death, in favouring the escape to Holland of a person charged in the Ryehouse treason, and sentenced to be burnt alive. She bore it like one of the early martyrs. It should be stated, that Jeffreys did not preside at these sacrifices. The fact, instead of extenuating his wickedness, only proves that there were other judges little less inhuman. The only chance for life, it has been observed, against Jeffreys and the other court myrmidons, was corruption. Prideaux, obnoxious as the son of Prideaux who served the commonwealth, was shut up in the Tower, by an arbitrary warrant on mere suspicion, and compelled to ransom his liberty and life by a bribe of £1,500 to Jeffreys. Hampden, still imprisoned under his sentence, for a misdemeanour, of a fine of £40,000, was now tried as a traitor for the same act, pleaded guilty upon a previous compact of his giving the king's chancellor Jeffreys, and the king's confessor Father Petre, a bribe of £6,000. The young girls of Taunton who had presented Monmouth with colours, obtained their pardons by bribes, varying from £50 to £100 each; and the proceeds went to the maids of honour, who negociated a composition with their families, and sent down as their agent, the famous William Penn.t This should not be too readily viewed as a stain upon the quaker's virtuous life and illustrious name. The transaction presents two phases, and Penn doubtless thought, not of the lucre of the traffickers, but of the mercy which they sold. Lords Brandon, Delamere, and Stamford, were proceeded against as traitors. Brandon was condemned but spared, either through the influence of his sister-in-law, who was in favour at court, or in pursuance of a condition made by lord Grey, one of the witnesses against him, that no life should be taken upon his evidence. The perjury of one chief witness was so flagrant, that Delamere was acquitted, and Stamford, without trial, took the benefit of a subsequent amnesty. These atrocities, of which little more than a glimpse has been afforded, are calculated to shut the heart to all compassion for this unhappy prince; but it *** should not be forgotten that, were his government still more atrocious, it would not, without his popery, have deprived him of the crown. [We add from subsequent pages the following incidents as to the king's efforts at proselytizing.] It occurred very naturally to James, that the conversion of his chief servants to his religion, would greatly forward the success of his projects. He as naturally concluded, that men who lent themselves so unscrupulously to his measures of government, would adopt as implicitly his religious faith. It was the destiny of this prince to encounter scruples where he had reason to expect compliance, and treason where he might look for fidelity. Some pleaded their protestant conscience and conviction, some replied by an ingenious turn or a jest. James, as a mark perhaps of his personal esteem, took upon himself the conversion of lord Dartmouth, who proved equally faithful to his religion, and what he considered his duty to his unfortunate sovereign. A priest sent to convert Lord Middleton, began with transubstantiation, and opened with one of the forms of argument most familiar to the schoolmen. "Your lordship believes in the trinity," said the priest. "Who told you that?" replied the secretary of state; and the matter ended as it began. *** The noted Kirke is said to have been sounded, and to have excused himself by saying, he was pledged to the emperor of Morocco to become a mussulman if he ever changed his religion. It was **** The attempt to convert the princess Anne has but recently come to light. some time a floating project, and untimately proved an abortive intrigue, to deprive the princess, or rather the prince of Orange, of the succession. The king's jealous hatred of the prince, appears to have suggested it to the intriguers, but there is no evidence to show that he consented for a moment to deprive his eldest daughter of her birth-right, however he may have desired the conversion and salvation of the younger. THE LADY LISLE AND ELIZABETH GAUNT.* WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR (IMAGINARY CONVERSATION). Lady Lisle.-Madam, I am confident you will pardon me; for affliction teaches forgiveness. Elizabeth Gaunt.-From the cell of the condemned, we are going, unless my hopes mislead me, where alone we can receive it. Tell me, I beseech you, lady! in what matter or manner do you think you can have offended a poor sinner, such as I am? Surely we come into this dismal place for our offences; and it is not here that any can be given or taken. Lady Lisle.-Just now when I entered the prison I saw your countenance serene and cheerful: you looked upon me for a time with an unaltered eye; you turned away from me, as I fancied, only to utter some expressions of devotion; and again you looked on me, and tears rolled down your face. Alas! that I should by any circumstance, any action or recollection, make another unhappy. Alas! that I should deepen the gloom in the very shadow of death. Elizabeth Gaunt.-Be comforted: you have not done it. Grief softens and melts and flows away with tears. I wept because another was so greatly more wretched than myself. I wept at that black attire; at that attire of modesty and widowhood. Lady Lisle. It covers a wounded, almost a broken heart: an unworthy offering to our blessed Redeemer. Elizabeth Gaunt.-In His Name let us now rejoice! let us offer our prayers and our thanks at once together. We may yield up our souls, perhaps, at the same hour. Lady Lisle.-Is mine so pure? have I bemoaned as I should have done, the faults I have committed? Have my sighs arisen for the unmerited mercies of my God? and not rather for him, the beloved of my heart, the adviser and sustainer I have lost. Open, O gates of death! Smile on me, approve my last action in this world, O virtuous husband! O saint and martyr! my brave, my compassionate, and loving Lisle ! 0! Elizabeth Gaunt.-And cannot you smile, sweet lady? are not you with him even now? Doth body, doth clay, doth air, separate and estrange free spirits? Bethink you of his gladness, of his glory, and begin to partake of them. how could an Englishman, how could twelve, condemn to death, condemn to so great an evil as they thought it and may find it, this innocent and helpless widow. Lady Lisle.-Blame not that jury blame not the jury which brought against me the verdict of guilty. I was so I received in my house a wanderer who had fought *Burnet relates that he heard from William Penn a narrative of this pious woman's last moments, at which the generous founder of American liberty attended. She placed the faggots round her body with her own hands. Lady Lisle was not burnt alive, though sentenced to it, but was only hanged and beheaded. |