Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 10.djvu/289

 her own worst enemy. This circumstance is not mentioned by any other writer, and from what we know of the character of Charlotte de la Tremoille it certainly seems strange what she should have submitted to such a humiliation if she really shared Sir Philip Musgrave's opinion respecting the character of her host. The statement of some later writers, that Christian kept the countess imprisoned for several months, is demonstrably untrue.

Christian continued to be receiver-general under Lord Fairfax, to whom the lordship of the island had been granted after the execution of the Earl of Derby, and in 1666 he was appointed governor. In 1658 he was superseded by James Chaloner [q. v.] (a connection of Fairfax's), who discovered that Christian had been guilty of extensive misappropriation of the revenues of the sequestrated bishopric. Chaloner ordered the arrest of Christian, but he escaped to England, whereupon the governor arrested John Christian, the deemster, for having assisted the flight of his brother.

After Christian's escape from the Isle of Man we hear nothing more of him until 1660, the year of Charles II’s restoration. He then ventured to emerge from his concealment, and, as he says in his dying speech, ‘went to London, with many others, to have a sight of his gracious king.' While in London he was arrested upon an action of 20,000l. (no doubt the moneys which he had embezzled as receiver), and imprisoned in the Fleet, where he remained nearly a year, being unable to obtain bail. On regaining his liberty he ventured to rejoin his family in the Isle of Man, having been advised that the king’s Act of Indemnity secured him against all legal consequences.

Christian’s acts of treason, however, had not been committed against the English crown, but against his immediate feudal sovereigns of the house of Derby; and the new Earl of Derby was eager for revenge, and determined to exercise his hereditary power. On 12 Sept. 1662 he issued ‘to all his officers both civil and military in the Isle of Man’ a mandate ordering them to proceed immediately against Christian ‘for all his illegal actions at or before the year 1651.’ Christian was at once arrested, and the reparation of the evidence was promptly taken in hand. We have a series of dispositions taken at Castletown on 3 Oct., and another at Peel on the following day, and witnesses continued to be examined down to the end of November.

On 13 Nov. the governor, Henry Newell, asked the opinion of the twenty-four members of the House of Keys on the question whether the case of Christian fell within the scope of an act of the insular legislature passed in 1422, which provided that any person who rose in rebellion against the representatives of the lord of the island should be deemed guilty of high treason, and should, at the pleasure of the house, either be sentenced by the deemsters without trial, or should take his trial before a jury. The house decided that the case fell within the statute, but that the prisoner should be allowed a jury. In accordance with what was then the law of the island, the evidence was in the first place submitted to a coroner's jury of six persons. The jurymen were all of very humble rank, and it was afterwards confirmed that most of them were dependents of the Earl of Derby, and too ignorant of English to understand the pleadings submitted to them. Eventually the coroner’s jury returned a verdict of guilty; but if we accept the testimony of Christian’s dying speech, it appears that they only came to this decision when ‘prompted and threatened,’ after having twice found that the object of the rising in which Christian had been concerned was no treason against the house of Derby, but merely ‘to present grievances’ to the countess. At the gaol delivery at Castle Rushen on 26 Nov. the prisoner was commanded to appear to take his trial, and a guard of soldiers was sent to bring him into court; but he denied the legality of the tribunal, and refused to comply with the summons. The record of the gaol delivery contains a minute of the fact, and the remark that there was conseguently ‘noe occasion to impannel a jury.’ The governor requested the deemsters and the House of Keys to inform him what the laws of the island provided should be done in the case of a prisoner refusing to plead. The reply was that the life and property of the recusant were at the absolute disposal of the lord of the island. The document, however, was not signed by all the members of the house, and, in order to secure a unanimous acquiescence, the Earl of Derby commanded that seven of the Keys who had been concerned in the rising of 1651 should be dismissed, and their places filled by persons of his own selection. The question was on 29 Dec. again submitted to the house as thus reconstituted, who unanimously confirmed the former decision. On the same day the governor issued an order to the deemsters to pronounce sentence, intimating that, on the petition of the prisoner’s wife, the penalty of hanging, drawing, and quartering was to be commuted for death by shooting. The sentence was carried into effect at Hango Hill