which that plot took its name, but the insolence with which they treated the dying man seems to our more humane age almost incredible. One of the Scotch privy councillors told him that he was a confounded villain. "I am at peace with God," answered Rumbold, calmly; "how then can I be confounded?"

He was hastily tried, convicted, and sentenced to be hanged and quartered within a few hours, near the city cross in the High Street. Though unable to stand without the support of two men, he maintained his fortitude to the last, and under the gibbet raised his feeble voice against Popery and tyranny with such vehemence that the officers ordered the drums to strike up lest the people should hear him. He was a friend, he said, to limited monarchy. But he never would believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden. "I desire," he cried, "to bless and magnify God's holy name for this, that I stand here, not for any wrong that I have done, but for adhering to his cause in an evil day. If every hair of my head were a man, in this quarrel I would venture them all."

Both at his trial and at his execution he spoke of assassination with the abhorrence which became a good Christian and a brave soldier. He had never, he protested, on the faith of a dying man, harbored the thought of committing such villany. But he frankly owned that in conversation with his fellowconspirators he had mentioned his own house as a place where the king and the duke might with advantage be attacked, and that much had been said on the subject, though nothing had ‚been determined. It may at first sight seem that this acknow!edgment is inconsistent with his declaration that he had always regarded assassination with horror. But the truth appears to be, that he was imposed upon by a distinction which deluded many of his contemporaries. Nothing would have induced him to put poison into the food of the two princes, or to poniard them in their sleep. But to make an unexpected onset on the troop of Life guards which surrounded the royal coach, to exchange sword cuts and pistol shots, and to take the chance of slaying or of being slain, was, in his view, a lawful military operation. Ambuscades and surprises were among the ordinary incidents of war. Every old soldier, Cavalier or Roundhead, had beer engaged in such enterprises. If in the skirmish the king should fall, he would fall by fair fighting, and not by murder. Pre

cisely the same reasoning was employed, after the revclution, by James himself and by his most gallant and devoted followers, to justify a wicked attempt on the life of William the Third. A band of Jacobites was commissioned to attack the Prince of Orange in his winter quarters. The meaning latent under this specious phrase was, that the prince's throat was to be cut as he went in his coach from Richmond to Kensington. It may seem strange that such fallacies, the dregs of the Jesuitical casuistry, should have had power to seduce men of heroic spirit, both Whigs and Tories, into a crime on which divine and human laws have justly set a peculiar note of infamy. But no sophism is too gross to delude minds distempered by party spirit.*

Argyle, who survived Rumbold a few hours, left a dying testimony to the virtues of the gallant Englishman. "Poor Rumbold was a great support to me, and a brave man, and died christianly."+

Ayloffe showed as much contempt of death as either Argyle or Rumbold; but his end did not, like theirs, edify pious minds. Though political sympathy had drawn him towards the Puritans, he had no religious sympathy with them, and was indeed regarded by them as little better than an atheist. He belonged to that section of the Whigs which sought for models rather among the patriots of Greece and Rome than among the prophets and judges of Israel. He was taken

prisoner, and carried to Glasgow. There he attempted to destroy himself with a small penknife; but, though he gave himself several wounds, none of them proved mortal, and he had strength enough left to bear a journey to London.

He

* Wodrow, III. ix. 10; Western Martyrology; Burnet, i. 633, Fox's History, Appendix, iv. I can find no way except that indicated in the text of reconciling Rumbold's denial that he had ever admitted into his mind the thought of assassination with his confession that he had himself mentioned his own house as a convenient place for an attack on the royal brothers. The distinction which I suppose him to have taken was taken by another Rye House conspirator, who was, like him, an old soldier of the Commonwealth, Captain Walcot. On Walcot's trial West, the witness for the crown, Baid, 66 Captain, you did agree to be one of those that were to fight the guards." "What, then, was the reason," asked Chief Justice Pemberton, "that he would not kill the king?" "He said," anwered West, "that it was a base thing to kill a naked inan, and na would not do it."

T Wodrow, III. ix. ©

was brought before the privy council, and interrogated by the king, but had too much elevation of mind to save himself by informing against others. A story was current among the Whigs that the king said, "You had better be frank with me Mr. Ayloffe. You know that it is in my power to pardon you.' Then, it was rumored, the captive broke his sullen silence, and answered, “It may be in your power; but it is not in your nature." He was executed under his old outlawry before the gate of the Temple, and died with stoical composure. In the mean time the vengeance of the conquerors was mercilessly wreaked on the people of Argyleshire. Many of the Campbells were hanged without a trial by Athol; and he was with difficulty restrained by the privy council from taking more lives. The country to the extent of thirty miles round Inverary was wasted. Houses were burned, the stones of mills broken to pieces, fruit trees cut down, and the very roots seared with fire. The nets and fishing boats, the sole means by which many inhabitants of the coast subsisted, were destroyed. More than three hundred rebels and malcontents were transported to the colonies. Many of them were also sentenced to mutilation. On a single day the hangman of Edinburgh cut off the ears of thirty-five prisoners. Several women were sent across the Atlantic after being first branded in the cheek with a hot iron. It was even in contemplation to obtain an act of parliament proscribing the name of Campbell, as the name of Mac Gregor had been proscribed eighty years before.t

Argyle's expedition appears to have produced little sensa tion in the south of the island. The tidings of his landing reached London just before the English parliament met. The king mentioned the news from the throne; and the Houses assured him that they would stand by him against every enemy. Nothing more was required of them. Over Scotland they had no authority; and a war of which the theatre was so distant, and of which the event might, almost from the first, be easily foreseen, excited only a languid interest in London.

* Wade's Narrative, Harl. MS. 6845; Burnet, i. 634; Citters's Despatch of 1685; Luttrell's Diary of the same date.

Oct. 30
Nov. 9'

+ Wodrow, III. ix. 4, and III. ix. 10. Wodrow gives from the Acts of Council the names of all the prisoners who were transported, mutilated, or branded.

But, a week before the final dispersion of Argyle's army, England was agitated by the news that a more formidable invader had landed on her own shores. It had been agreed among the refugees that Monmouth should sail from Holland six days after the departure of the Scots. He had deferred his expedition a short time, probably in the hope that most of the troops in the south of the island would be moved to the north as soon as war broke out in the Highlands, and that he should find no force ready to oppose him. When at length he was desirous to proceed, the wind had become adverse and violent.

While his small fleet lay tossing in the Texel, a contest was going on among the Dutch authorities. The States General and the Prince of Orange were on one side, the magistracy and admiralty of Amsterdam on the other.

Skelton had delivered to the States General a list of the efugees whose residence in the United Provinces caused uneasiness to his master. The States General, anxious to grant every reasonable request which James could make, sent copies of the list to the provincial authorities. The provincial authorities sent copies to the municipal authorities. The magistrates of all the towns were directed to take such measures as might prevent the proscribed Whigs from molesting the English government. In general those directions were obeyed. At Rotterdami in particular, where the influence of William was all powerful, such activity was shown as called forth warm acknowledgments from James. But Amsterdam was the chief seat of the emigrants; and the governing body if Amsterdam would see nothing, hear nothing, know of nothing. The high bailiff of the city, who was himself in daily communication with Ferguson, reported to the Hague that he did not know where to find a single one of the refugees; and with this excuse the federal government was forced to be content. The truth was, that the English exiles were as well known at Amsterdam and as much stared at in the streets as if they had been Chinese.*

* Skelton's letter is dated the 7th of May, 1686. It will be found, together with a letter of the Schout or High Bailiff of Amsterdam, in a little volume published a few months later, and entitled "Histoire des Evènemens Tragiques d'Angleterre.' The documents in

serted in that work are, as far as I have examined them, given exactly from the Dutch archives, except that Skelton's French, which was not the purest, is slightly corrected. See also Grey's Narrative. Goodenough, or his examination after the battle of Sedgemoor, said

A few days later, Skelton received orders from his court to request that, in consequence of the dangers which threatened his master's throne, the three Scotch regiments in the service of the United Provinces might be sent to Great Britain without delay. He applied to the Prince of Orange; and the prince undertook to manage the matter, but predicted that Amsterdam would raise some difficulty. The prediction proved correct. The deputies of Amsterdam refused to consent, and succeeded in causing some delay. But the question was not one of those on which, by the constitution of the republic, a single city could prevent the wish of the majority from being carried into effect. The influence of William prevailed; and the troops were embarked with great expedition.*

Skelton was at the same time exerting himself, not indeed very judiciously or temperately, to stop the ships which the English refugees had fitted out. He expostulated in warm terms with the admiralty of Amsterdam. The negligence of that board, he said, had already enabled one band of rebels to invade Britain. For a second error of the same kind there

could be no excuse. He peremptorily demanded that a large vessel, named the Helderenbergh, might be detained. It was pretended that this vessel was bound for the Canaries. But, in truth, she had been freighted by Monmouth, carried twentysix guns, and was loaded with arms and ammunition. The admiralty of Amsterdam replied that the liberty of trade and navigation was not to be restrained for light reasons, and that the Helderenbergh could not be stopped without an order from the States General. Skelton, whose uniform practice seems to have been to begin at the wrong end, now had recourse to the States General. The States General gave the necessary orders. Then the admiralty of Amsterdam pretended that

"The Schout of Amsterdam was a particular friend to his last design." Lansdowne MS. 1152.

It is not worth while to refute those writers who represent the Prince of Orange as an accomplice in Monmouth's enterprise. The circumstance on which they chiefly rely is, that the authorities of Amsterdam took no effectual steps for preventing the expedition from sailing. This circumstance is in truth the strongest proof that the expedition was not favored by William. No person, not profoundly ignorant of the institutions and politics of Holland, would hold the Stadtholder answerable for the proceedings of the heads of the Loe vestein party.

*Avaux Neg. June 17, 18, 1, 1685; Letter of the 1 rince of Orange to Lord Rochester, June 9, 1685.