Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/516

502 that he had cancelled that obligation by his subsequently withdrawing his letter. Seeing by this that he would be dragged before a public court to play the disgraceful part of lord Howard, he suddenly disappeared from his house in Holborn, and escaped to Holland, where he was well received by prince William, who was now the grand refuge of English and Scotch refugees of all parties and politics. As Monmouth's escape deprived the court of his evidence, and only one main witness, lord Howard, could be obtained, the charge of high treason was abandoned, and that of a misdemeanour was substituted. Howard was the chief witness, and Hampden was found guilty and punished by a fine of forty thousand pounds, and imprisoned till paid, besides finding two securities for his good behaviour during life. When he complained of the severity of the sentence, which was equivalent to imprisonment during the life of his father, he was reminded that his crime really amounted to treason, and therefore was very mild.

Halloway and Armstrong next suffered death on account of the plot. Halloway was seized in the West Indies, and being brought to England, he refused a trial, but petitioned for mercy. This, however, was denied, and he was condemned on his outlawries, and hanged. Sir Thomas Armstrong was taken at Leyden, and handed over by the civil authorities to Chudleigh, the British ambassador at the Hague. He demanded a trial by the statute of the 6th of Edward VI., which gave this favour to outlaws who surrendered within a year. But Jeffreys replied that was allowed only to outlaws who voluntarily surrendered, which he had not done. Armstrong still demanded the benefit of the law, and Jeffreys exclaimed, By the grace of God, the benefit of the law you shall have; let him be executed according to the law on Friday next." Both these prisoners, like all the rest, positively denied any intention of assailing the king's life; but Halloway confessed to the design of the insurrection, and Armstrong was silent on that head. Here the thirst of blood for this plot was at length stayed in England, but the Scottish partisans of Shaftesbury, Russell, and Sidney, who were arrested in London, were sent down to Scotland, and tried in a most arbitrary and illegal manner.

On the return of the duke of York to Scotland, the persecutions of the defeated covenanters had been renewed there with a fury and diabolical ferocity which has scarcely a parallel in history. Wives were tortured for refusing to betray their husbands, children because they would not discover their parents. People were tortured and then hanged merely because they would not say that the insurrection there was a rebellion, or the idling of archbishop Sharp was a murder. The fortress of the Bass Rock, Dumbarton Castle, and other strongholds were crammed with covenanters and Cameronians. Witnesses, a thing unheard of before, were now tortured. "This," says Sir John Lauder of Fountain Hall, "was agreeable to the Roman law, but not to ours; it was a barbarous practice, but yet of late frequently used amongst us." He also informs us that generals Dalziell and Drummond had imported thumb-screws from Russia, where they had seen them used, by which they crushed the thumbs of prisoners to compel them to confess. All the laws of evidence were thrown aside, and the accused were condemned on presumptive evidence. On such evidence the property of numbers was forfeited, and the notorious Graham of Claverhouse was enriched by the estate of a suspected covenanter.

The prisoners now sent from London were tried and condemned on the evidence of living witnesses, or by written depositions taken from the trials of Russell, Sidney, and others in England. Baillie of Jarviswood was the first victim; Spence, the secretary of the earl of Argyll, and Carstairs, a presbyterian clergyman, were horribly tortured to force revelations from them. Their thumbs were crushed, and they were kept awake for four or five days and nights together, by the application of hair shirts and by pricking, till they were nearly driven mad, and were at length compelled to confess that there had been an agreement betwixt Argyll, Stair, and others now in Holland, with the whigs in England, for a general rising in Scotland. Spence was forced to read the letters of cypher from these noblemen, proving this; and Carstairs not only confessed that the plot had existed for ten years to keep out the duke of York, but he betrayed the names of the earl of Tarras, Murray of Philiphaugh, Pringle of Torwoodlee, Scott of Galashiels, and many other gentlemen as privy to it. Several of these gentlemen were tortured. One of them, Gordon of Earlstone, became furious at the sight of the boots and thumbscrews, and accused Dalziell, Drummond, and duke Hamilton, the torturers themselves, as being concerned, which made the spectators think he was gone mad.

By these torrents of blood, these diabolical engines of iron boots, thumbscrews, and other tortures; by witnesses forced to implicate their neighbours, and a herd of vile caitifis brought forward to swear away the lives and fortunes of every man who dared to entertain, though he scarcely ventured to avow, a free opinion; by a church preaching passive obedience; by servile, bullying, and brutal judges; Charles had now completely subdued the spirit of the nation, and had, through the aid of French money, obtained that absolute power which his father in vain fought for. "He enjoyed," says Lingard, "uninterrupted tranquillity during the remainder of his reign. Relieved from the constant assaults of a powerful faction, he employed his attention in strengthening his power, and in guiding the opposite parties which sprung up among his own members." What a tranquillity! What relief! purchased by the destruction of everything dear to a nation, and to men with souls. The dominion of lust and tyranny enthroned on the blood and groans of the best men of the realm.

One of the first uses which he made of this beautiful tranquillity, was to destroy the ancient seminaries of freedom—the corporations of the country. Writs of quo warranto were issued, and the corporations, like the nation at large, prostrate at the feet of the polluted throne, were compelled by threats and promises to resign their ancient privileges.

"Neither," says Lingard, "had the boroughs much reason to complain. By the renewal of their charters they lost no franchise which it was reasonable they should retain; many acquired rights which they did not previously possess; but individuals suffered, because the exercise of authority was restricted to a smaller number of burgesses, and these, according to custom, were in the first instance named by the crown."