Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/130

 delinquents and committed to the Tower during the pleasure of the king and house, kept in separate confinement, and not allowed to receive visitors without the leave of the house. According to Burnet, Shaftesbury and Salisbury, pretending fear of poisoning, made a special request that they might be attended by their own cooks. In this agitation Shaftesbury and his colleagues were so flagrantly wrong (, ii. 233), that they only did harm to their cause; and the immediate result of this grave political blunder was a great accession of strength to the court, and the entire alienation of the present House of Commons, whose existence they had attacked. The four peers now sent up a joint petition to the king for release, with no result. They then petitioned separately, Shaftesbury's request for leave to go to Dorsetshire (Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. 232 a) being presented on 2 May by Henry Coventry (, ii. 551). On 23 June he moved the king's bench for a writ of habeas corpus. On the 27th he appeared before the court, and his case was heard on the 29th; he was opposed by the court lawyers, but allowed to speak for himself. In a very powerful argument he admitted the supreme judicature of the lords, but denied their power to commit to indefinite imprisonment on a general warrant. The judges, however, said that they had no jurisdiction in the case, and Shaftesbury was sent back to the Tower. Salisbury was released in June, and Buckingham in July, but Shaftesbury and Wharton were still detained. Shaftesbury, indeed, was for a while laid under still stricter confinement, but this was taken off on his petition alleging that his health was suffering (Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. 232 a). He now found relaxation in reading and in studying the war maps of Europe; while at the end of September his friends were allowed to visit him freely. He appeared, too, though troubled with gout, to improve greatly in health through his enforced idleness.

Shaftesbury was not released until 26 Feb. 1678. His petition was presented in the House of Lords by Halifax on 14 Feb. (, ii. 580). A long debate on his conduct in appealing to the king's bench was adjourned to the 21st, on which day he made a final petition, admitting that he might have done wrong in this respect, and asking forgiveness. He was allowed to address the house on 25 Feb., when he acknowledged that his maintaining parliament to be dissolved was ill-advised, and he begged pardon for it, as also again for the appeal to the king's bench. In fact, he made a complete submission. Upon this he was released on the 26th, and on the following day took his place in the lords. During Shaftesbury's imprisonment negotiations had been going on between Louis XIV and the leaders of the opposition. There is no doubt that Shaftesbury was cognisant of their schemes, for Russell was a frequent visitor at the Tower during January, and in March Louis was informed by Barillon that Shaftesbury would be fully engaged in the treaty.

The alliance noticed above between James and Shaftesbury appears to have lapsed, and this with Louis to have taken its place. During the spring of 1678 an overture was again made by James (, ii. 283–5). In James's ‘Memoirs,’ indeed (i. 513), the exact reverse is said to have occurred, namely, that Russell and others had promised to restore him to the high admiralship if he would concur in Danby's removal. There can be little doubt, however, from a comparison of authorities, that the former is the correct statement, and that Shaftesbury and his friends refused the overtures.

Before the meeting of parliament on 21 Oct. the popish terror had broken out. Shaftesbury is not accused of starting, but of cherishing, the agitation (, Examen, p. 95). He was from the first foremost in his zeal for the plot. The temptation to use this means of avenging himself upon his enemies was probably irresistible; that he could have believed in the plot is impossible. According to Burnet (ii. 164, 171 n.) he declared that the evidence must be supported. On 23 Oct. he was one of a committee for drawing up an address for the removal of papists from London and Westminster, and on 26 Oct. on another for examining Coleman and other prisoners. On 30 Oct. he was added to the sub-committee for investigating the murder of Godfrey, and on 16 Nov. was one of the committee for preparing the papers for Coleman's trial. On 4 Nov. the great attack was opened at his instance by Lord Russell in the commons; it was proposed to address the king to remove James from his person and councils. On 20 Nov. he carried a bill in the lords, disabling all Roman catholics from sitting in either house, with a proviso, carried by only two voices in the commons, to except the Duke of York from its operation. On 28 Nov., with two other peers, he protested against a refusal of the lords to concur in the address of the commons to remove the queen, her retinue, and all papists from court. One of the worst acts of Shaftesbury's career was his vote in 1680 for Stafford's death, especially if (ib. ii. 272 n.) it was because Stafford had named him before the lords as having undertaken to procure toleration for them at