Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/366

352 entreated to be heard by counsel; and this being refused, he said, "Since your lordships will not allow me counsel, I don't know nothing!" He was found guilty; but he had gained more time than his accomplices, and finally managed to escape from the Tower.

In April the inferior prisonera were tried in the Common Pleas. Forster, brigadier Macintosh, and twenty of their accomplices were condemned; but both Forester and Macintosh, and some of the others, managed, like Wintoun, to escape; so that, of all the crowds of prisoners, only twenty-two in Lancashire and four in London were hanged. Bills of attainder were passed against the lords Tulibardine, Mar, and many others who were at large. Above a thousand submitted to the king's mercy, and petitioned to be transported to America. As the estate of Derwentwater devolved to a great charity, so did that of Forster. It was purchased of the crown by lord Crewe, bishop of Durham, who had married Forster's aunt, and who bequeathed the castle and manor of Bamborough to unrestricted charitable purposes — one of these being properly considered by the trustees the rescue and assistance of sufferers by wreck on that iron-bound and stormy coast.

But although, on the whole, the insurgents taken in the act had been dealt with more leniently than they had a right to expect, yet the ministers showed a strong spirit of resentment against them, especially as catholics. Lord chancellor Cowper, in passing sentence on those condemned, advised them to choose other spiritual guides in their last moments; and no sooner were these disposed of, than the ministers resorted to the old system of attacks and coercions of the catholics under the idea of strengthening the throne. The pretender being an unbendable catholic, his exclusion from the throne being on anti-catholic grounds, and his late supporters in the Highlands and elsewhere being chiefly catholics, it was deemed necessary anew to protect the crown against catholic machinations. On the 1st of March Lechmere moved to bring in a bill to strengthen the protestant interest by enforcing the laws already in existence against papists. The bill was passed without any opposition, and one of the clauses was to punish exemplarily any papists who should dare to enlist themselves in his majesty's service!

But it was not enough to secure the throne by rejecting the services of catholics; the whigs were anxious to add fresh security to their own lease of office. At the last election they had procured the return of a powerful majority; but two years out of the triennial term had expired, and they looked with apprehension to the end of the next year, when a dissolution must take place. They were aware that there were still strong plottings and secret agitations for the restoration of the banished dynasty. By both the king and his ministers all tories were regarded as Jacobites, and it was resolved to keep them out of office, and, as much as possible, out of parliament. They had the power in their own hands in this parliament, and, in order to keep it, they did not hesitate to destroy that triennial act for which their own party had claimed so much credit in 1694, and substitute a septennial act in its place. They would thereby give to their own party in parliament more than a double term of the present legal possession of their seats. Instead of one year they would be able to look forward four years without any fear of tory increase of power through a new election. It would be a singular spectacle now-a-days to see the whigs exerting themselves to lengthen the duration of parliament, and tories zealously arguing for a greater limitation, as necessary for the independence of the subject; such, however, are the anomalies produced by the possession or non -possession of power. Had the tories been in, they would undoubtedly have willingly resorted to the same measure for the same object; but the whigs being in, they were induced, for self-security, to become the suicides of one of their own most popular acts, the Triennial Bill of 1694.

In order, however, that as little damage as possible might be done to the popularity of the members of the house where the change was to take place, they originated the measure in the peers; and the duke of Devonshire, whose father had been one of the most active promoters of the triennial bill, was selected to propose its destruction. On the l0th of April Devonshire, lord steward of the household, moved the repeal of the triennial act, long lauded as one of the bulwarks of our liberties, under the now convenient plea that it had been "found very grievous and burthensome, by occasioning much greater and more continued expenses in order to elections of members to serve in parliament, and more lasting heats and animosities amongst the subjects of this realm than ever were known before the said clause was enacted." In the preamble to the new bill, the object of that extended bill was candidly avowed, namely, that, when "a restless and popish faction are designing and endeavouring to renew the rebellion in this kingdom and an invasion from abroad, it might be destructive to the peace and security of the government."

The bill was supported by the duke of Argyll, his brother, the earl of Isla, the lords Cowper, Dorset, Carteret, and others of the ministerial party. It was opposed zealously by all the tory lords, conspicuous amongst them the earl of Peterborough, the dukes of Buckingham, Somerset, and Shrewsbury. Somerset and Shrewsbury had taken strong ground now in the opposition — Somerset for reasons already explained; and Shrewsbury, who was always vacillating and drawing back, the more so when most warmly encouraged by his sovereign, was now, on the evidence of the Stuart papers, actively engaged in the very dubious interests of the pretender. The bill passed the lords by a large majority, the number when it went into committee being ninety-six to sixty; but thirty peers entered a protest against it.

It was sent down to the commons on the 24th of April. Walpole was confined by illness, and could take no public part in promoting it; but it was supported by all the power of the other members of the ministry in that house, by secretary Stanhope, lord Coningsby, Craggs, Aislabic, Jekyll, and others; in fact, by all the whigs in office or out of it. Steele took that side, and represented "the state of England like that of a vessel at sea ever since the Triennial Bill had been in operation; that at the commencement of a parliament members were, as it were, insolent and defiant in their attitude, in the middle quiescent, towards the end slavish towards their constituents." But really, this argument, well considered, told for the retention of the bill. If members felt themselves independent of their constituents at three years' distance from dissolution, what would they naturally