festation of the feeling of the nobility | tered in that suburb, assembled before would have been no slight blow to the the gate of his palace. They formed in government. It was also known that one of the most opulent Dissenters of the City had begged that he might have the honour of giving security for Ken.

of an honourable house, and the heir] that, from the moment at which he through twenty descents of ancestors began to counsel well, he began to who had been of great note before the counsel in vain. He had shown some Normans had set foot on English ground. All over the country the peasants chanted a ballad of which the burden is still remembered:

signs of slackness in the proceeding against Magdalene College. He had recently attempted to convince the King that Tyrconnel's scheme of con

"And shall Trelawney die, and shall Trelaw-fiscating the property of the English

ney die ?

Then thirty thousand Cornish boys will know the reason why."

The miners from their caverns reechoed the song with a variation:

"Then twenty thousand under ground will know the reason why."*

The rustics in many parts of the country loudly expressed a strange hope which had never ceased to live in their hearts. Their Protestant Duke, their beloved Monmouth, would suddenly appear, would lead them to victory, and would tread down the King and the Jesuits under his feet.†

The ministers were appalled. Even Jeffreys would gladly have retraced his steps. He charged Clarendon with friendly messages to the Bishops, and threw on others the blame of the prosecution which he had himself recommended. Sunderland again ventured to recommend concession. The late auspicious birth, he said, had given the King an excellent opportunity of withdrawing from a position full of danger and inconvenience without incurring the reproach of timidity or of caprice. On such happy occasions it had been usual for sovereigns to make the hearts of subjects glad by acts of clemency; and nothing_could be more advantageous to the Prince of Wales than that The should, while still in his cradle, be the peacemaker between his father and the agitated nation. But the King's resolution was fixed. "I will go on, he said. "I have been only too indulgent. Indulgence ruined my father." The artful minister found that Uneaners his advice had been formerly taken only because it had been shaped to suit the royal temper, and

land.

* This fact was communicated to me in the most obliging manner by the Reverend R. S. Hawker of Morwenstow in Cornwall.

† Johnstone, June 18. 1688.

June 29.

Adda, July 9.

1688.

colonists in Ireland was full of danger, and had, with the help of Powis and cution of the design had been postBellasyse, so far succeeded that the exeponed for another year. But this timidity and scrupulosity had excited disgust and suspicion in the royal mind. The day of retribution had arrived. Sunderland was in the same situation in which his rival Rochester had been some months before. Each of the two statesmen in turn experienced the misery of clutching with an agonizing grasp, power which was perceptibly slipping away. Each in turn saw his endured the pain of reading displeasure suggestions scornfully rejected. Both and distrust in the countenance and demeanour of their master; yet both were by their country held responsible for those crimes and errors from which they had vainly endeavoured to dissuade him. While he suspected them of trying to win popularity at the expense of his authority and dignity, the public voice loudly accused them of trying to win his favour at the expense of their own honour and of the general weal. Yet, in spite of mortifications and humiliations, they both clung to office with the gripe of drowning men. Both attempted to propitiate the King by affecting a willingness to be reconciled to his Church. But there was a point at which Rochester was determined to stop. He went to the verge of apostasy: but there he recoiled: and the world, in consideration of the firmness with which he refused to take the final step, granted him a liberal amnesty for all former compliances. Sunderland, less scrupulous and less fesses sensible of shame, resolved to Roman atone for his late moderation, Catholic.

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himself a

* Sunderland's own narrative is, of course, not to be implicitly trusted. But he vouched Godolphin as a witness of what took place respecting the Irish Act of Settlement.

were said to be several servants of the King, and several Roman Catholics.* But as the counsel for the Bishops had a right to strike off twelve, these persons were removed. The crown lawyers also struck off twelve. The list was thus reduced to twenty four. The first twelve who answered to their names were to try the issue.

On the twenty ninth of June, Westminster Hall, Old and New Palace Yard, and all the neighbouring streets to a great distance were thronged with people. Such an auditory had never before and has never since been assembled in the Court of King's Bench. Thirty five temporal peers of the realm were counted in the crowd.†

and to recover the royal confidence, by an act which, to a mind impressed with the importance of religious truth, must have appeared to be one of the most flagitious of crimes, and which even men of the world regard as the last excess of baseness. About a week before the day fixed for the great trial, it was publicly announced that he was a Papist. The King talked with delight of this triumph of divine grace. Courtiers and envoys kept their countenances as well as they could while the renegade protested that he had been long convinced of the impossibility of finding salvation out of the communion of Rome, and that his conscience would not let him rest till he had renounced the heresies in which he had been brought up. The All the four Judges of the Court news spread fast. At all the coffee- were on the bench. Wright, who houses it was told how the prime mi-presided, had been raised to his high nister of England, his feet bare, and a taper in his hand, had repaired to the royal chapel and knocked humbly for admittance; how a priestly voice from within had demanded who was there; how Sunderland had made answer that a poor sinner who had long wandered from the true Church entreated her to receive and to absolve him; how the doors were opened; and how the neophyte partook of the holy mysteries.* This scandalous apostasy could not but heighten the interest with which the nation looked forBishops. ward to the day when the fate of the seven brave confessors of the English Church was to be decided. To pack a jury was now the great object of the King. The crown lawyers were ordered to make strict inquiry as to the sentiments of the persons who were registered in the freeholders' book. Sir Samuel Astry, Clerk of the Crown, whose duty it was, in cases of this description, to select the names, was summoned to the palace, and had an interview with James in the presence of the Chancellor. Sir Samuel seems to have done his best. For, among the forty eight persons whom he nominated,

Trial of the

place over the heads of many abler and
more learned men solely on account of
his unscrupulous servility. Allibone
was a Papist, and owed his situation
to that dispensing power, the legality
of which was now in question. Hollo-
way had hitherto been a serviceable
tool of the government. Even Powell,
whose character for honesty stood high,
had borne a part in some proceedings
which it is impossible to defend.
had, in the great case of Sir Edward
Hales, with some hesitation, it is true,
and after some delay, concurred with
the majority of the bench, and had
thus brought on his character a stain
which his honourable conduct on this
day completely effaced.

He

The counsel were by no means fairly matched. The government had required from its law officers services so odious and disgraceful that all the ablest jurists and advocates of the Tory party had, one after another, refused to comply, and had been dismissed from their employments. Sir Thomas Powis, the Attorney General, was scarcely of the third rank in his profession. Sir William Williams, the Solicitor General, had great abilities and dauntless courage: but he wanted discretion; he loved wrangling; he

had no command over his temper; and this brief, he should never have he was hated and despised by all another.* political parties. The most conspi- Sir George Treby, an able and cuous assistants of the Attorney and zealous Whig, who had been Recorder Solicitor were Serjeant Trinder, a Ro- of London under the old charter, was man Catholic, and Sir Bartholomew on the same side. Sir John Holt, a Shower, Recorder of London, who had still more eminent Whig lawyer, was some legal learning, but whose fulsome not retained for the defence, in conseapologies and endless repetitions were quence, it should seem, of some prejuthe jest of Westminster Hall. The dice conceived against him by Sangovernment had wished to secure the croft, but was privately consulted on services of Maynard: but he had the case by the Bishop of London.t plainly declared that he could not in The junior counsel for the Bishops conscience do what was asked of him.* was a young barrister named John On the other side were arrayed Somers. He had no advantages of almost all the eminent forensic talents birth or fortune; nor had he yet had of the age. Sawyer and Finch, who, any opportunity of distinguishing himat the time of the accession of James, self before the eyes of the public: but had been Attorney and Solicitor Gene- his genius, his industry, his great and ral, and who, during the persecution of various accomplishments, were well the Whigs in the late reign, had served known to a small circle of friends; the crown with but too much vehe- and, in spite of his Whig opinions, his mence and success, were of counsel for pertinent and lucid mode of arguing the defendants. With them were and the constant propriety of his joined two persons who, since age had demeanour had already secured to him diminished the activity of Maynard, the ear of the Court of King's Bench. were reputed the two best lawyers that The importance of obtaining his sercould be found in the Inns of Court; vices had been strongly represented to Pemberton, who had, in the time of the Bishops by Johnstone; and PolCharles the Second, been Chief Justice lexfen, it is said, had declared that no of the King's Bench, who had been man in Westminster Hall was so well removed from his high place on qualified to treat a historical and conaccount of his humanity and modera-stitutional question as Somers. tion, and who had resumed his practice The jury was sworn. at the bar; and Pollexfen, who had long been at the head of the Western circuit, and who, though he had incurred much unpopularity by holding briefs for the crown at the Bloody Assizes, and particularly by appearing against Alice Lisle, was known to be at heart a Whig, if not a republican. Sir Creswell Levinz was also there, a man of great knowledge and experience, but of singularly timid nature. He had been removed from the bench some years before, because he was afraid to serve the purposes of the government. He was now afraid to appear as the advocate of the Bishops, and had at first refused to receive their

retainer: but it had been intimated to him by the whole body of attorneys who employed him that, if he declined

* Johnstone, July 2. 1688.

It consisted of persons of highly respectable station. The foreman was Sir Roger Langley, a baronet of old and honourable family. With him were joined a knight and ten esquires, several of whom are known to have been men of large possessions. There were some Nonconformists in the number; for the Bishops had wisely resolved not to show any distrust of the Protestant Dissenters. One name excited considerable alarm, that of Michael Arnold. He was brewer to the palace; and it was apprehended that the government counted on his voice. The story goes that he complained bitterly of the

Levinz's Reports expresses great wonder that, * Johnstone, July 2. 1688. The editor of after the Revolution, Levinz was not replaced on the bench. The facts related by Johnstone may perhaps explain the seeming injustice.

I draw this inference from a letter of Compton to Sancroft, dated the 12th of June.

The trial then commenced, a trial which, even when coolly perused after the lapse of more than a century and a half, has all the interest of a drama. The advocates contended on both sides with far more than professional keenness and vehemence; the audience listened with as much anxiety as if the fate of every one of them was to be decided by the verdict; and the turns of fortune were so sudden and amazing that the multitude repeatedly passed in a single minute from anxiety to exultation, and back again from exultation to still deeper anxiety.

position in which he found himself.sity, to resort to this mode of proof. "Whatever I do," he said, "I am sure Pemberton stopped Blathwayt, subto be half ruined. If I say Not Guilty, jected him to a searching cross examiI shall brew no more for the King; nation, and insisted upon having all that and if I say Guilty, I shall brew no had passed between the King and the more for anybody else."* defendants fully related. "That is a pretty thing indeed," cried Williams. 'Do you think," said Powis, "that you are at liberty to ask our witnesses any impertinent question that comes into your heads?" The advocates of the Bishops were not men to be so put down. "He is sworn," said Pollexfen, "to tell the truth and the whole truth; and an answer we must and will have." The witness shuffled, equivocated, pretended to misunderstand the questions, implored the protection of the Court. But he was in hands from which it was not easy to escape. At length the Attorney again interposed. "If," he The information charged the Bishops said, "you persist in asking such a with having written or published, in question, tell us, at least, what use you the county of Middlesex, a false, mean to make of it." Pemberton, who, malicious, and seditious libel. The through the whole trial, did his duty Attorney and Solicitor first tried to manfully and ably, replied without prove the writing. For this purpose hesitation; "My Lords, I will answer several persons were called to speak to Mr. Attorney. I will deal plainly with the hands of the Bishops. But the the Court. If the Bishops owned this witnesses were so unwilling that hardly paper under a promise from His Maa single plain answer could be extracted jesty that their confession should not from any of them. Pemberton, Pol- be used against them, I hope that no lexfen, and Levinz contended that there unfair advantage will be taken of was no evidence to go to the jury. them." "You put on His Majesty Two of the Judges, Holloway and what I dare hardly name,' said Powell, declared themselves of the Williams. same opinion; and the hopes of the spectators rose high. All at once the crown lawyers announced their intention to take another line. Powis, with shame and reluctance which he could not dissemble, put into the witness box Blathwayt, à Clerk of the Privy Council, who had been present when the King interrogated the Bishops. Blathwayt swore that he had heard them own their signatures. His testimony was decisive. "Why," said Judge Holloway to the Attorney, "when you had such evidence, did not you produce it at first, without all this waste of time?" It soon appeared why the counsel for the crown had been unwilling, without absolute neces

Revolution Politics.

66

"Since you will be so pressing, I demand, for the King, that the question may be recorded." What do you mean, Mr. Solicitor?" said Sawyer, interposing. "I know what I mean," said the apostate: "I desire that the question may be recorded in Court." "Record what you will. I am not afraid of you, Mr. Solicitor," said Pemberton. Then came a loud and fierce altercation, which Wright could with difficulty quiet. In other circumstances, he would probably have ordered the question to be recorded, and Pemberton to be committed. But on this great day the unjust Judge was overawed. He often cast a side glance towards the thick rows of Earls and Barons by whom he was watched, and before whom, in the next Parliament, he might stand at the bar. He looked,