a.d. 1683.] triAL OF LORD WILLIAM RUSSELL.

319

fact was taken as a proof of the guilt of that unfortunate nobleman; and with such impression on the mind it was difficult not to form the same conclusion as to his intimate friend and associate, the prisoner at the bar. As soon as the shock had subsided, Howard gave his evidence in an artful narrative, which, while it detailed at length the plans and proceedings of Shaftesbury and his immediate accomplices, touched but sparingly and tenderly on the conduct of lord William Russell. That the disclosure was wrung from him by the hope, perhaps the secret promise, of pardon, cannot be doubted; that he deserved all the obloquy which it has entailed on his character may likewise be true; but there exists no pretence for charging him with false testimony. It is plain that he was a reluctant witness; that he knew more than he was willing to disclose; that he sought not to establish, but rather to extenuate, the offence of the accused. The only point in his evidence which could affect lord Russell, was that he had twice assembled with Monmouth, Essex, Grey, Howard, Sydney, and Hampden, the first time to consult on the most proper place for the commencement of an insurrection, and the second on the propriety of sending an agent to form a party in Scotland, a measure which was accordingly adopted. Lord Russell made but a feeble defence. He acknowledged that he was present at the meeting at Shepherd's: but it was by mere accident; he stepped in for the purpose of tasting some wine; and heard no mention of any design of surprising the guards. He was also present at the meetings described by lord Howard; but recollected no other subject of conversation than the public news of the day. He denied that credit was due to the witnesses against him, because they laboured to been driven to this desperate act by self-reproach, by the consciousness that to him was owing the danger in which lord Russell then stood: for the latter had always refused to have any communication with lord Howard, till he was unknowingly led into the company of that nobleman by lord Essex. See Burnet's journal, in App. to the Life of William Lord Russell, ii. 262. I shall not detain the reader with the story of the murder of lord Essex by the king and the duke of York, a story so utterly improbable, that it could never have obtained circulation had it not been through the violence of party.

save their own lives by bringing his into danger; and be proved that lord Howard had on some occasions denied the existence of any plot, and on another had asserted the innocence of lord William Russell upon oath. At the request of the jury lord Howard was re-examined. He replied that he had done nothing which any other man in his situation would not have done. As long as he was at liberty, it was plainly his interest to ridicule the plot as forgery; and when the design of assassinating the king was mentioned in his presence, he hesitated not to assert with an oath, what he could assert with truth, that lord Russell was innocent of any such offence.

The chief argument alleged by the prisoner was drawn from the statute of the 25th of Edward III. That statute pronounced the act of levying of war, not the intention of levying war, to be treason. By confining the guilt of treason to the act, it removed it from the intention. Now supposing all the evidence against him to be true, it might prove his intention; but not one of the witnesses asserted that he had proceeded to any open act. The same reply was made which would be made to the same arguments at the present day that it was the doctrine of the courts of law, that actually to levy war against the king amounts in all cases to the guilt of treason; and that to conspire to levy war is also treason, when the object of such conspiracy is to destroy, or depose, or restrain and control the king; and that, whether such was or was not the object of the consultations at which lord Russell attended, was a question for the determination of the jury. The jury returned a verdict of guilty *.

State Trials, 578-636. Burnet, ii. 365-369. After the revolution the sheriffs, the secondaries and their clerk, and the ten surviving jurors, were examined before a committee of the house of lords: but the result of their answers is that the jury were fairly selected, and that no attempt was made to influence their verdict. Lords' Journals, xiv. 381, 382, 383. 389. 392. His attainder was, however, reversed on account of "undue and "illegal returu of jurors, he having been refused his lawful challenge to "the said jurors for want of freehold, and of partial and unjust construe"tions of law." Stat. 1 William and Mary.

A.D. 1683.]

PETITIONS FOR HIS LIFE.

321

If we may credit report, a strong appeal was made to the indigence of Charles in favour of the unfortunate prisoner. The duchess of Portsmouth received a hint that a large sum, 50,000%., perhaps 100,000l., would be give in return for a pardon. But the king treated the proposal as an insult. "I will not," he hastily replied, "sell my own and my subjects' blood at so cheap a rate *" Lord Russell himself was drawn, by the earnest entreaties of his wife, to petition the king, and to solicit the intercession of the duke of York. To the former he most solemnly maintained that he never cherished a thought against his life or against the government. At the same time he confessed with humility and sorrow, that he had been present through ignorance and inadvertence at meetings which were unlawful in themselves, and provoking to his sovereign; and he therefore declared himself ready to spend the remainder of his days wherever the king might appoint, and promised never more to interfere in political matters without his majesty's command. Lord Russell indulged no hope of success from this petition. It could not be expected that Charles should extend to one whom he thought guilty of treason that mercy, which the same individual and his associates had by intimidation prevented him from extending to so many victims whom he believed to be innocent. It cost the unfortunate prisoner still July more to solicit the favour of the duke of York, whom for 16. several years he had pursued with the most bitter and unrelenting hostility. It was to the influence of lord Russell's authority, as much as to the contrivance of Shaftesbury, that the duke owed his banishment from the council and the country: lord Russell had moved

Luttrell, in State Trials, 1010. Burnet, ii. 369. This story receives some confirmation from a passage in the earl of Bedford's petition: that he never had the presumption to think that the royal mercy could be obtained by indirect means: but should think himself, his wife, and children much happier to be left with but bread and water than to lose his dear son for so foul a crime against the best of princes. See it in Life of William Lord Russell, ii. 78.

+ Ibid.

VOL. XII.

66

and supported in successive parliaments the bill of exclusion, and it was in reality to deprive him of the succession, and perhaps of life, that he had engaged in those intrigues for which he had been condemned. In his letter to that prince he made no attempt to disguise the part which he had taken, but declared that his conduct did not arise from any personal animosity, or evil design: he had acted with sincerity, and under the persuasion that the bill of exclusion was the most eligible way of preserving the religion established by law: now, however, he was ready to engage never any more to "meddle in the least opposition to his royal highness;" and he promised that the interference of the duke on his behalf, as it was a favour beyond what he could expect, should make on him the deepest impression, and lay him under the most lasting obligation *. Both princes were inexorable. James, indeed, consented to hear what his friends could urge in his favour: but Charles listened to their prayers with impatience; and when lord Dartmouth represented to him the influence of the Russell family, whom it was better policy to conciliate than offend, and his personal obligations to the earl of Southampton, whose daughter lord Russell had married, he briefly replied, "All that is true: but it is as true, that if I do not take his life, he will soon have mine." It was, indeed, thought that Charles might have relented, if lord Russell could have been induced to admit the doctrine of passive obedience: but the arguments and entreaties of Burnet and of Tillotson were equally fruitless he persisted in his former opinion of the lawfulness of resistance to the encroachments of authority; and, as he was known to hold that existing circumstances called for such resistance, Charles might thence infer that the pardon of the prisoner was irreconcilable with the safety of his own person. But though he refused to grant the petition of the prisoner, he gave him to * Ibid. 79-81. Burnet's Journal, 262. + Burnet Hist. ii. 370, note.

A.D. 1683.]

HIS EXECUTION.

323

understand that no advantage should be taken of his forfeiture to the prejudice of his wife or children*.

Lord Russell met his fate with resignation and fortitude. It was not that he felt no pang at the thought of being separated from all that he valued in life-for, when he spoke of his wife, a tear would occasionally steal from his eye, and betray the emotion which he strove to conceal-but he sought and found consolation in the assurance of the divine mercy, and in the persuasion that his conduct had been justified by the principles which he conscientiously approved. He sometimes men

*Burnet's Journal, 274. Lord Russell's Life, 129. It appears from the life of Tillotson by Birch, that on the 16th Burnet argued with lord Russell respecting the question, whether the people " might defend their "religion and liberties, when invaded and taken from them, though under "pretence and colour of law." Burnet believed that he had convinced him of the unlawfulness of resistance, and communicated the fact to Tillotson, Tillotson to lord Halifax, and Halifax to the king. On Charles it made a deeper impression than anything which had been said in lord Russell's favour before. When, however, Tillotson visited the prisoner on Thursday, he found him fixed in his former opinion, and the utmost which he could extract from him was the assertion that, if he had done wrong in this persuasion, he had sinned through ignorance. The dean administered the sacrament to him the next morning, but afterwards appears to have been induced by his own scruples to write to him a letter, which he delivered in person. "My end," he said, " is to convince your lordship that "you are in a very great and dangerous mistake: and, being so con"vinced, that which before was a sin of ignorance, will appear of a much more heinous nature, as in truth it is, and call for a very particular and "deep repentance. . I am loth to give your lordship any disquiet in "the distress you are in... but am much more concerned that you do "not leave the world in a delusion and false peace, to the hindrance of your eternal happiness." His arguments against lord Russell's opinion are, 1. The Christian religion doth plainly forbid the resistance of authority. 2. The law which has established the protestant religion, hath declared that it is not lawful on any pretence whatsoever to take up arms, &c. 3. The opposite opinion is contrary to the declared doctrine of alí protestant churches. Lord Russell, taking the letter, retired to another apartment, and returning after some time, said that he was not convinced, but that, as he was willing to be so, he hoped God would forgive him if he were in error. It is worthy of remark that Burnet makes no mention of his conference with lord Russell on this subject in his journal, though he pronounces that journal" a punctual and true relation of all that he could remember between the noble prisoner and himself." (Jourual, 279.) After the revolution he alludes to it in his history: but at that time passive obedience was no longer in favour; and therefore, instead of owning that he and Tillotson endeavoured to impress that doctrine on the mind of lord Russell, he only represents them as maintaining that "the party "had gone too quick in their consultations, and that resistance, in the condition in which they were then, was not lawful." Burnet, ii. 372.