cause by his crimes, he betrayed it in order to escape from his well merited punishment.* Rumbold. Nathaniel Wade was, like Ayloffe, a lawyer. He had long resided Wade. at Bristol, and had been celebrated in his own neighbourhood as a Very different was the character of vehement republican. At one time Richard Rumbold. He had he had formed a project of emigrating held a commission in Cromto New Jersey, where he expected to well's own regiment, had guarded the find institutions better suited to his scaffold before the Banqueting House taste than those of England. His activity on the day of the great execution, had in electioneering had introduced him to fought at Dunbar and Worcester, and the notice of some Whig nobles. They had always shown in the highest degree had employed him professionally, and the qualities which distinguished the had, at length, admitted him to their invincible army in which he served, most secret counsels. He had been courage of the truest temper, fiery deeply concerned in the scheme of enthusiasm, both political and religious, insurrection, and had undertaken to and with that enthusiasm, all the power head a rising in his own city. He had of self-government which is characteralso been privy to the more odious plotistic of men trained in well disciplined against the lives of Charles and James. camps to command and to obey. When But he always declared that, though the republican troops were disbanded, privy to it, he had abhorred it, and had Rumbold became a maltster, and carried attempted to dissuade his associates on his trade near Hoddesdon, in that from carrying their design into effect. building from which the Rye House For a man bred to civil pursuits, Wade plot derives its name. It had been seems to have had, in an unusual suggested, though not absolutely deterdegree, that sort of ability and that mined, in the conferences of the most sort of nerve which make a good violent and unscrupulous of the malesoldier. Unhappily his principles and contents, that armed men should be his courage proved to be not of suffi- stationed in the Rye House to attack cient force to support him when the the Guards who were to escort Charles fight was over, and when, in a prison, and James from Newmarket to London. he had to choose between death and In these conferences Rumbold had infamy.* borne a part from which he would have Another fugitive was Richard Good-shrunk with horror, if his clear underenough, who had formerly been enough. Under Sheriff of London. On this man his party had long relied for services of no honourable kind, and A more important exile was Ford especially for the selection of jurymen Grey, Lord Grey of Wark. He not likely to be troubled with scruples had been a zealous Exclusionin political cases. He had been deeply ist, had concurred in the design of inconcerned in those dark and atrocious surrection, and had been committed to parts of the Whig plot which had been the Tower, but had succeeded in makcarefully concealed from the most re-ing his keepers drunk, and in effecting spectable Whigs. Nor is it possible to his escape to the Continent. plead, in extenuation of his guilt, that parliamentary abilities were great, and he was misled by inordinate zeal for his manners pleasing: but his life had the public good. For it will be seen been sullied by a great domestic crime. that, after having. disgraced a noble His wife was a daughter of the noble story was not part of his original confession, house of Berkeley. Her sister, the Lady but was added afterwards by way of supple- Henrietta Berkeley, was allowed to ment, and therefore deserves no credit what Good ever. *Wade's Confession, Harl. MS. 6845.; Lansdowne MS. 1152.; Holloway's narrative in the Appendix to Sprat's True Account. Wade owned that Holloway had told nothing but truth. standing had not been overclouded, and his manly heart corrupted, by party spirit.t Lord Grey. His * Sprat's True Account and Appendix, passim. † Sprat's True Account and Appendix; Proceedings against Rumbold in the Collec tion of State Trials; Burnet's Own Times, i 633.; Appendix to Fox's History, No. IV. associate and correspond with him as | But as a soldier he incurred, less perwith a brother by blood. A fatal at- haps by his fault than by mischance, tachment sprang up. The high spirit the degrading imputation of personal and strong passions of Lady Henrietta cowardice. broke through all restraints of virtue In this respect he differed widely and decorum. A scandalous elopement from his friend the Duke of Mondisclosed to the whole kingdom the Monmouth. Ardent and intre- mouth. shame of two illustrious families. Grey pid on the field of battle, Monmouth and some of the agents who had served was everywhere else effeminate and him in his amour were brought to trial irresolute. The accident of his birth, on a charge of conspiracy. A scene his personal courage, and his superficial unparalleled in our legal history was graces, had placed him in a post for exhibited in the Court of King's Bench. which he was altogether unfitted. After The seducer appeared with dauntless witnessing the ruin of the party of front, accompanied by his paramour. which he had been the nominal head, Nor did the great Whig lords flinch he had retired to Holland. The Prince from their friend's side even in that and Princess of Orange had now ceased extremity. Those whom he had wronged to regard him as a rival. They received stood over against him, and were moved him most hospitably; for they hoped to transports of rage by the sight of that, by treating him with kindness, him. The old Earl of Berkeley poured they should establish a claim to the forth reproaches and curses on the gratitude of his father. They knew wretched Henrietta. The Countess gave that paternal affection was not yet evidence broken by many sobs, and at wearied out, that letters and supplies of length fell down in a swoon. The jury money still came secretly from Whitefound a verdict of guilty. When the hall to Monmouth's retreat, and that court rose, Lord Berkeley called on all Charles frowned on those who sought his friends to help him to seize his to pay their court to him by speaking daughter. The partisans of Grey rallied ill of his banished son. The Duke had round her. Swords were drawn on both been encouraged to expect that, in a sides a skirmish took place in West- very short time, if he gave no new cause minster Hall; and it was with difficulty of displeasure, he would be recalled to that the Judges and tipstaves parted his native land, and restored to all his the combatants. In our time such a high honours and commands. Anitrial would be fatal to the character of mated by such expectations he had been a public man; but in that age the the life of the Hague during the late standard of morality among the great winter. He had been the most conspiwas so low, and party spirit was so cuous figure at a succession of balls in violent, that Grey still continued to that splendid Orange Hall, which have considerable influence, though the blazes on every side with the most Puritans, who formed a strong section ostentatious colouring of Jordaens and of the Whig party, looked somewhat Hondthorst.* He had taught the Engcoldly on him.* lish country dance to the Dutch ladies, and had in his turn learned from them to skate on the canals. The Princess had accompanied him in his expeditions on the ice; and the figure which she made there, poised on one leg, and clad in petticoats shorter than are generally worn by ladies so strictly decorous, had caused some wonder and mirth to the foreign ministers. The sullen gravity One part of the character, or rather, it may be, of the fortune, of Grey deserves notice. It was admitted that everywhere, except on the field of battle, he showed a high degree of courage. More than once, in embarrassing circumstances, when his life and liberty were at stake, the dignity of his deportment and his perfect command of all his faculties extorted praise from those who neither loved nor esteemed him *In the Pepysian Collection is a print representing one of the balls which about this Grey's Narrative; his trial in the Collec-time William and Mary gave in the Oranje tion of State Trials; Sprat's True Account. Zaal. which had been characteristic of the | riety, delighting in intrigue, in tumult, Stadtholder's court seemed to have in mischief for its own sake, he toiled vanished before the influence of the during many years in the darkest mines fascinating Englishman. Even the stern and pensive William relaxed into good humour when his brilliant guest appeared.* Monmouth meanwhile carefully avoided all that could give offence in the quarter to which he looked for protection. He saw little of any Whigs, and nothing of those violent men who had been concerned in the worst part of the Whig plot. He was therefore loudly accused, by his old associates, of fickleness and ingratitude.† of faction. He lived among libellers and false witnesses. He was the keeper of a secret purse from which agents too vile to be acknowledged received hire, and the director of a secret press whence pamphlets, bearing no name, were daily issued. He boasted that he had contrived to scatter lampoons about the terrace of Windsor, and even to lay them under the royal pillow. In this way of life he was put to many shifts, was forced to assume many names, and at one time had four different lodgings By none of the exiles was this accu- in different corners of London. He sation urged with more vehe- was deeply engaged in the Rye House Ferguson. mence and bitterness than plot. There is, indeed, reason to beby Robert Ferguson, the Judas of lieve that he was the original author Dryden's great satire. Ferguson was of those sanguinary schemes which by birth a Scot; but England had long brought so much discredit on the whole been his residence. At the time of the Whig party. When the conspiracy was Restoration, indeed, he had held a living detected and his associates were in in Kent. He had been bred a Presby- dismay, he bade them farewell with a terian; but the Presbyterians had cast laugh, and told them that they were him out, and he had become an Inde- novices, that he had been used to flight, pendent. He had been master of an ccncealment, and disguise, and that he academy which the Dissenters had set should never leave off plotting while he up at Islington as a rival to West-lived. He escaped to the Continent. minster School and the Charter House; But it seemed that even on the Contiand he had preached to large congrega-nent he was not secure. The English tions at a meeting house in Moorfields. envoys at foreign courts were directed He had also published some theological to be on the watch for him. The French treatises which may still be found in government offered a reward of five the dusty recesses of a few old libraries; hundred pistoles to any who would but, though texts of scripture were al- seize him. Nor was it easy for him to ways on his lips, those who had pecu- escape notice; for his broad Scotch niary transactions with him soon found accent, his tall and lean figure, his him to be a mere swindler. lantern jaws, the gleam of his sharp eyes which were always overhung by his wig, his cheeks inflamed by an eruption, his shoulders deformed by a stoop, and his gait distinguished from that of other men by a peculiar shuffle, made him remarkable wherever he appeared. But, though he was, as it seemed, pursued with peculiar an mosity, it was whispered that this animosity was feigned, and that the officers of justice had secret orders not to see him. That he was really a bitter malecontent can scarcely be doubted. But there is strong reason to believe that he provided for his own safety by pretending at Whitehall to be a spy on At length he turned his attention almost entirely from theology to the worst part of politics. He belonged to the class whose office it is to render in troubled times to exasperated parties those services from which honest men shrink in disgust and prudent men in fear, the class of fanatical knaves. Violent, malignant, regardless of truth, insensible to shame, insatiable of noto Avaux Neg. Jan. 25. 1685. Letter from James to the Princess of Orange dated Jan. 168, among Birch's Extracts in the British Museum. Grey's Narrative; Wade's Confession, Lansdowne MS. 1152. the Whigs, and by furnishing the go- | Destitute of the talents both of a vernment with just so much informa- writer and of a statesman, he had in a tion as sufficed to keep up his credit. high degree the unenviable qualificaThis hypothesis furnishes a simple tions of a tempter; and now, with the explanation of what seemed to his malevolent activity and dexterity of an associates to be his unnatural reckless- evil spirit, he ran from outlaw to outlaw, ness and audacity. Being himself out chattered in every ear, and stirred up of danger, he always gave his vote for in every bosom savage animosities and the most violent and perilous course, wild desires. and sneered very complacently at the pusillanimity of men who, not having taken the infamous precautions on which he relied, were disposed to think twice before they placed life, and objects dearer than life, on a single hazard.* He no longer despaired of being able to seduce Monmouth. The situation of that unhappy young man was completely changed. While he was dancing and skating at the Hague, and expecting every day a summons to London, he was overwhelmed with misery by the tidings of his father's death and of his uncle's succession. During the night which followed the arrival of the news, those who lodged near him could distinctly hear his sobs and his piercing cries. He quitted the Hague the next day, having solemnly pledged his word, both to the Prince and to the Princess of Orange, not to attempt anything against the government of England, and having been supplied by them with money to meet immediate demands.* As soon as he was in the Low Countries he began to form new projects against the English government, and found among his fellow emigrants men ready to listen to his evil counsels. Monmouth, however, stood obstinately aloof; and without the help of Monmouth's immense popularity, it was impossible to effect anything. Yet such was the impatience and rashness of the exiles that they tried to find another leader. They sent an embassy to that solitary retreat on the shores of Lake Leman where Edmund Ludlow, The prospect which lay before Mononce conspicuous among the chiefs of mouth was not a bright one. There the parliamentary army and among the was now no probability that he would members of the High Court of Justice, be recalled from banishment. On the had, during many years, hidden him- Continent his life could no longer be self from the vengeance of the restored passed amidst the splendour and festiStuarts. The stern old regicide, how-vity of a court. His cousins at the ever, refused to quit his hermitage. His work, he said, was done. If England was still to be saved, she must be saved by younger men.t Hague seem to have really regarded him with kindness; but they could no longer countenance him openly without serious risk of producing a rupture The unexpected demise of the crown between England and Holland. Wilchanged the whole aspect of affairs. liam offered a kind and judicious sugAny hope which the proscribed Whigs gestion. The war which was then might have cherished of returning raging in Hungary, between the Empepeaceably to their native land was ex-ror and the Turks, was watched by all tinguished by the death of a careless and goodnatured prince, and by the accession of a prince obstinate in all things, and especially obstinate in revenge. Ferguson was in his element. Europe with interest almost as great as that which the Crusades had excited five hundred years earlier. Many gallant gentlemen, both Protestant and Catholic, were fighting as volunteers in the common cause of Christendom. The Prince advised Monmouth to repair to the Imperial camp, and assured him * Avaux Neg. Feb. 20. 22. 1685; Monmouth's letter to James from Ringwood. that, if he would do so, he should not By the English exiles he was joyfully want the means of making an appear- welcomed, and unanimously Scotch ance befitting an English nobleman.* acknowledged as their head. refugees This counsel was excellent: but the But there was another class of emiDuke could not make up his mind. grants who were not disposed to recogHe retired to Brussels accompanied by nise his supremacy. Misgovernment, Henrietta Wentworth, Baroness Went- such as had never been known in the worth of Nettlestede, a damsel of high southern part of our island, had driven rank and ample fortune, who loved from Scotland to the Continent many him passionately, who had sacrificed fugitives, the intemperance of whose for his sake her maiden honour and the political and religious zeal was proporhope of a splendid alliance, who had tioned to the oppression which they followed him into exile, and whom he had undergone. These men were not believed to be his wife in the sight of willing to follow an English leader. heaven. Under the soothing influence Even in destitution and exile they reof female friendship, his lacerated tained their punctilious national pride, mind healed fast. He seemed to have and would not consent that their counfound happiness in obscurity and re- try should be, in their persons, degraded pose, and to have forgotten that he had into a province. They had a Earl of been the ornament of a splendid court captain of their own, Archibald, Argyle. and the head of a great party, that he ninth Earl of Argyle, who, as chief of had commanded armies, and that he the great tribe of Campbell, was known had aspired to a throne. among the population of the Highlands by the proud name of Mac Callum More. His father, the Marquess of Argyle, had been the head of the Scotch Covenanters, had greatly contributed to the ruin of Charles the First, and was not thought by the Royalists to have atoned for this offence by consenting to bestow the empty title of King, and a state prison in a palace, on Charles the Second. After the return of the royal family the Marquess was put to death. His marquisate became extinct; but his son was permitted to inherit the ancient earldom, and was still among the greatest, if not the greatest, of the nobles of Scotland. The Earl's conduct during the twenty years which followed the Restoration had been, as he afterwards thought, criminally moderate. He had, on some occasions, opposed the administration which afflicted his country: but his opposition had been languid and cautious. His compliances in ecclesiastical matters had given scandal to rigid Presby But he was not suffered to remain quiet. Ferguson employed all his powers of temptation. Grey, who knew not where to turn for a pistole, and was ready for any undertaking, however desperate, lent his aid. No art was spared which could draw Monmouth from retreat. To the first invitations which he received from his old associates he returned unfavourable answers. He pronounced the difficulties of a descent on England insuperable, protested that he was sick of public life, and begged to be left in the enjoyment of his newly found happiness. But he was little in the habit of resisting skilful and urgent importunity. It is said, too, that he was induced to quit his retirement by the same powerful influence which had made that retirement delightful. Lady Wentworth wished to see him a King. Her rents, her diamonds, her credit were put at his disposal. Monmouth's judgment was not convinced; but he had not firmness to resist such solicitations.† *Boyer's History of King William the Third, 2nd edition, 1703, vol. i. 160. Welwood's Memoirs, App. xv.; Burnet, i. 630. Grey told a somewhat different story: but he told it to save his life. The Spanish ambassador at the English court, Don Pedro de Ronquillo, in a letter to the governor of the Low Countries written about this time, sneers at Monmouth for living on the bounty |