Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/131

 A commission of array, dated 16 March, and having attached to it the great seal, was brought to London by Lady d'Aubigny. She arrived on 19 May, having travelled from Oxford in company with Alexander Hampden, who came to demand from the parliament an answer to the king's message of 12 April. The commission was directed to Sir Nicholas Crisp and others, and eventually reached the hands of Richard Chaloner, a wealthy linendraper. Waller himself was answerable for introducing to the plot this man Chaloner, and also his own brother-in-law, Nathaniel Tomkins. The poet at this time lived at the lower end of Holborn, near Hatton House, while Tomkins's house was at the Holborn end of Fetter Lane. Meetings were held from time to time at one or other of these places, and reports made upon the disposition of the people of the various parishes in which the conspirators lived. One Hassell, a king's messenger, and Alexander Hampden were continually carrying messages between the conspirators and Falkland in Oxford; and on 29 May matters were considered to be in such a satisfactory state that the first of these was sent off to Oxford and returned with a verbal answer begging the conspirators to hasten the execution of their enterprise.

The discovery of the plot has been assigned to various causes: a letter written by the Earl of Dover to his wife had fallen into the hands of the committee, and Lord Denbigh had also told them of hints he had received; but it was probably upon the information of one Roe, a clerk of Tomkins, who had been bribed by the Earl of Manchester and Lord Saye, that Waller, Chaloner, Tomkins, and others were on 31 May arrested.

The character of Waller has suffered severely by reason of his conduct immediately after his arrest. Promises were no doubt made to him, and, in the hope of saving his life, he disclosed all that he knew about the design. He charged the Earl of Northumberland, the Earl of Portland, and Lord Conway with complicity in it; the first of these made light of the charge, and upon being confronted with his accuser was immediately set at liberty. The two other peers, after being detained in custody until 31 July, were then admitted to bail and heard no more of the matter, although no one who has read the letter which the poet wrote to Portland (, Illustrations', p. 563) can have any doubt of the latter's guilt. Chaloner and Tomkins were tried on 3 July by a court presided over by the Earl of Manchester, and, having been convicted and sentenced to death, were two days afterwards hanged in front of their own doors. The trial of Waller was postponed, but this is to be attributed rather to the disinclination of the house to proceed by martial law against one of its own members than to any consideration for the prisoner himself. Clarendon's suggestion that the delay was allowed ‘out of Christian compassion that he might recover his understanding’ can have little weight in face of the fact that on 4 July, on being brought to the bar of the house to say what he could for himself before he was expelled from it, the poet was able to deliver a speech which, in the opinion even of Clarendon himself, was the means of saving his life. On 14 July he was by resolution declared incapable of ever sitting as a member of parliament again. In or about September he was removed to the Tower, where he lay until the beginning of November in the following year. On 15 May 1644 a petition from him was read in the house—this was probably a request that he might be permitted to put his affairs in order—and on 23 Sept. came another, begging the house to hold his life precious and to accept a fine of 10,000l. out of his estate. Before his last petition was read an intimation had no doubt been given to Waller that his life was safe. Cromwell is said to have interested himself on his behalf, and large sums are reported to have been expended in bribery. There are, however, no traces among the papers in the possession of his family of any extensive dealing with his estate except for the purpose of raising the amount of his fine after his safety was assured. On 4 Nov. ‘An Ordinance of Lords and Commons for the fining and banishment of Edmond Waller, Esquire,’ was agreed to in the House of Lords. This declared that whereas it had been intended that Waller should be tried by court-martial, it had, upon further consideration, been ‘thought convenient’ that he should be fined 10,000l. and banished the realm. Twenty-eight days from 6 Nov. were allowed him within which to remove elsewhere.

It seems likely that before his departure he married, as his second wife, Mary Bracey, of the family of that name, of Thame in Oxfordshire. He spent the time of his exile at various places in France, having among his companions or correspondents John Evelyn and Thomas Hobbes. His mother looked after his affairs in England and sent him supplies, which enabled him to be mentioned with Lord Jermyn as the only