Decorative bannerCHAPTERXVIII.(1722.)
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THE BISHOP IN THE TOWER.
onthe 24th of August the storm burst on the prelate’s head. Of this event the public were aware long before the press reported it. When the reportwasmade, it described the following scenes of this Jacobite time:—‘OnSt.Bartholomew’s day last, in the afternoon, the Right Reverend Dr. Francis Atterbury, Lord Bishop of Rochester and Dean of Westminster, was committed to the Tower, on an accusation of High Treason. His Lordship was at his Deanery of Westminster, when two Officers of the Guards and two Messengers came to his House and carried him and his papers to a Committee of Council. At the same time two other Officers and as many Messengers were despatched to the Episcopal Palace of Bromley, in Kent, who, with the assistance of a Constable, searched his Lordship’s House and brought away what Papers they thought proper. John Morrice,Esq., the High Bailiff of Westminster, and his lady, the Bishop’s daughter, were then at his Lordship’s House at Bromley. On Monday last, they both went to the Tower to enquire after the Bishop’s health, but were notsuffered to see him.’ So spoke the ‘Weekly Journal’ of Saturday, September 1st. ‘It was on Friday last,’ says another paper, the ‘Post Boy,’ of August 25th to Tuesday, August 28th, ‘in the afternoon that the Bishop of Rochester was committed to the Tower; but the Bishop was not carried to the Tower in his own coach, as some papers have mentioned.’ The ‘Post Boy’ says that his Lordship went from the Committee of Council in Whitehall ‘in his own Coach round by Holbourne, London Wall, &c., attended by a Messenger and Colonel Williamson of the Guards.’ He was again before the Committee on the following day. In the Tower, ‘his chaplain, hisvalet-de-chambreand a footman are allowed to attend him, but nobody else is permitted to see him. ’Tis said that several letters in his own hand-writing, but signed in fictitious names, have been intercepted, by which the Government has made some important discoveries.’ A strong military force from the camp in the Park was marched through the City to reinforce the Guard at the Tower. In September the bishop was little likely to break locks and take flight, being confined to his bed with gout in both hands and feet. The report that he would be tried by a special commission of Oyer and Terminer, at the King’s Bench Bar, gained little credit, for the feeling was very strong that even if he were guilty, the crafty leader of the Opposition against Walpole, in the Lords, was not likely to have left any traces of his guilt. The publication of the prelate’s portrait looking through a grate, with Ward’s seditious verses beneath,caused much excitement, the confiscation of the portrait, and the incarceration of the poet.
POPE AND ATTERBURY.
In the Tower the bishop was treated with unusual severity. Pope, in a letter to Gay (September 11th, 1722), ridicules the rigour observed with respect to small things: ‘Even pigeon-pies and hogs’-puddings are thought dangerous by our governors; for those that have been sent to the Bishop of Rochester are opened and profanely pried into at the Tower. It is the first time that dead pigeons have been suspected of carrying intelligence.’ In October, however, means seem to have been adopted by which the annoyance of ‘prying’ could be avoided. In a letter to Carlyle (October 26th) Pope says: ‘I very much condole with my friend whose confinement you mention, and very much applaud your obliging desire of paying him a compliment at this time of some venison, the method of which I have been bold to prescribe to Lady Mary.’
‘THE BLACKBIRD.’
John Wesley’s elder brother, ‘Sam,’ earnest in his duties as one of the masters of Westminster School, but still more earnestly hopeful, though not active, as a High Tory and Jacobite, showed his indignation at his patron’s incarceration and treatment, in a lively poem called ‘The Blackbird.’ This pleasant songster’s enemies were nailed to the general ‘barn-door’ as screech-owl, vulture, hawk, bat, and
The noisy, senseless, chattering Pie,The mere Lord William of the sky.
The noisy, senseless, chattering Pie,The mere Lord William of the sky.
The noisy, senseless, chattering Pie,
The mere Lord William of the sky.
The poet next disposed of ColonelWilliamson:—
The Kite, fit gaoler must be nam’d,In prose and verse already fam’d:Bold to kill mice, and now and thenTo steal a chicken from a hen.None readier was, when seized, to slay,And often to dissect his prey;With all the insolence can riseFrom power when join’d to cowardice.The captive Blackbird kept his cheer;The gaoler, anxious, shook with fear,Lest roguy traitors should conspireT’ unlock the door or break the wire;Traitors, if they but silence broke,And disaffected if they look.For, by himself, he judg’d his prey,If once let loose, would fly away.Conscious of weakness when alone,He dares not trust him, one to one.So, every day and every hour,He shows his caution and his power,Each water-drop he close inspects,And every single seed dissects;Nay, swears with a suspicious rage,He’ll shut the air out of the cage.The Blackbird, with a look, replies,That flash’d majestic from his eyes;Not sprung of Eagle-brood, the KiteFalls prostrate, grovelling, at the sight.A Hero thus, with awful air(If birds with heroes may compare),A ruffian greatly could dismay:‘Man! dar’st thou Caius Marius slay?’Blasted the coward wretch remains,And owns the Roman, though in chains.
The Kite, fit gaoler must be nam’d,In prose and verse already fam’d:Bold to kill mice, and now and thenTo steal a chicken from a hen.None readier was, when seized, to slay,And often to dissect his prey;With all the insolence can riseFrom power when join’d to cowardice.The captive Blackbird kept his cheer;The gaoler, anxious, shook with fear,Lest roguy traitors should conspireT’ unlock the door or break the wire;Traitors, if they but silence broke,And disaffected if they look.For, by himself, he judg’d his prey,If once let loose, would fly away.Conscious of weakness when alone,He dares not trust him, one to one.So, every day and every hour,He shows his caution and his power,Each water-drop he close inspects,And every single seed dissects;Nay, swears with a suspicious rage,He’ll shut the air out of the cage.The Blackbird, with a look, replies,That flash’d majestic from his eyes;Not sprung of Eagle-brood, the KiteFalls prostrate, grovelling, at the sight.A Hero thus, with awful air(If birds with heroes may compare),A ruffian greatly could dismay:‘Man! dar’st thou Caius Marius slay?’Blasted the coward wretch remains,And owns the Roman, though in chains.
The Kite, fit gaoler must be nam’d,
In prose and verse already fam’d:
Bold to kill mice, and now and then
To steal a chicken from a hen.
None readier was, when seized, to slay,
And often to dissect his prey;
With all the insolence can rise
From power when join’d to cowardice.
The captive Blackbird kept his cheer;
The gaoler, anxious, shook with fear,
Lest roguy traitors should conspire
T’ unlock the door or break the wire;
Traitors, if they but silence broke,
And disaffected if they look.
For, by himself, he judg’d his prey,
If once let loose, would fly away.
Conscious of weakness when alone,
He dares not trust him, one to one.
So, every day and every hour,
He shows his caution and his power,
Each water-drop he close inspects,
And every single seed dissects;
Nay, swears with a suspicious rage,
He’ll shut the air out of the cage.
The Blackbird, with a look, replies,
That flash’d majestic from his eyes;
Not sprung of Eagle-brood, the Kite
Falls prostrate, grovelling, at the sight.
A Hero thus, with awful air
(If birds with heroes may compare),
A ruffian greatly could dismay:
‘Man! dar’st thou Caius Marius slay?’
Blasted the coward wretch remains,
And owns the Roman, though in chains.
TREATMENT OF ATTERBURY.
The Jacobite sympathy for Atterbury was, of course, very active. Hawkers boldly sold seditious songs and broadsheets in his favour, despite the magistrates. The prelate himself lay day and night in bedin the Tower, suffering from gout in hands and feet. The Jacobite barrister, Sir Constantine Phipps, moved for his release, and that of Kelly, on bail; but the application was refused. On the following Sunday bills were distributed by active agents through the London churches, asking the prayers of the congregation for a suffering captive in bonds. The only favour granted to Atterbury was that he should have the occasional company of the Rev. M. Hawkins, of the Tower, to whose companionship the bishop preferred that of the gout. When the illustrious prisoner was convalescent, he used to sit at a window of the house in which he was confined, and converse with his friends who assembled below. It was manifest that mischief might come of it, but there was meanness in the method taken to prevent it. The window was nailed up and partly covered with deal boards. The chief warden of the Tower was censured for allowing Atterbury’s servants to speak with those of his son-in-law, Mr. Morrice, without the warden being present. At last, the bishop’s servants were kept as closely confined as their master.
SCENES IN CAMP.
London was busy with the Tower incidents to talk about, and with the martial spectacle in the Park, which people daily witnessed. But all things must have an end; and the camp, which was pitched in May, was broken up towards the end of October. The gayest times were when the king visited it, or reviewed the troops. He was popular there, for the various regiments, foot, horse, and artillery, had, in marching to orfrom the ground, to pass through the Mall, and the king invariably greeted them from his garden wall. He was so pleased with the City of London artillery, that he ordered 500l.to be paid in to their treasurer. After the reviews held near the camp, the Earl of Cadogan entertained the monarch and a noble company, either in the earl’s tent or at his house in Piccadilly. Each banquet cost the host about 800l.A costly hospitality was maintained by other commanders. The dinners in tent given by Colonel Pitt to the Duke of Wharton and other peers were the subject of admiration. In what sense the Jacobite duke drank the king’s health, may be easily conjectured. A coarser jollity prevailed in the booths set up near the camp, and there, a reckless reveller of the night was, now and then, to be found stark dead on the grass in the morning.
SOLDIERS AND FOOTPADS.
Wine and politics brought several men to grief. Inspired by the first, an Ensign Dolben spoke disrespectfully of the king’s Government, and was cashiered for his recklessness. Some indiscreet wagging of tongues led to Captain Nicholls and Mr. Isaac Hancocke drawing their swords, and the Captain passinghis, up to the hilt, through Hancocke’s body. As the dead man lay on the ground, someone remarked, he was worth 300l.a year; and for killing so well-furnished a gentleman, the Captain got off with a slight punishment under a verdict of manslaughter. Other ‘bloody duels’ are recorded, and the pugnacity of the gentlemen took a savage character in some of the rankand file. It was by no means rare to hear of a hackney-coach full of officers returning at night, through Piccadilly to the camp, being attacked, brutally used, and plundered by men in disguise, who were at least suspected of being soldiers. Never were so many footpads northward, in the direction of Harrow and of Hampstead (which latter place yielded victims laden with gold on their road from the ‘tables’ at Belsize), as during the time of the encampment. A Lieutenant, who was entrusted with 10l.subsistence-money, to pay to some men of his (the second) regiment of Guards, hired a hackney-coach, rather early in the morning, put the coachman inside, and took the reins himself. He thought by this means to carry his money safely. The coach, however, was stopped by a single mounted highwayman in Piccadilly, who bade the inside gentleman deliver his money or his life. ‘I am only a poor man,’ said the rascal, ‘but the gentleman on the box has 10l.in his pocket, a gold watch in his fob, and a silver-hilted sword under his coat,’—and the highwayman stripped the young hero of his property, and rode contentedly away, by Hay Hill.
DISCIPLINE.
In camp itself, there were continual quarrels and savage fights between brawlers of the horse and foot. The rioters there lost all respect for their officers. On one occasion, the Earl of Albemarle intervened, but with so little effect that he was soon seen issuing from the fray without his hat and wig! Nevertheless, these savage rioters could be subdued to the melting mood, and weep solemn showers like old Greek heroes. Detachmentsfrom the camp attended Marlborough’s funeral, in August. As they passed under their old commander’s garden wall in the Park, many officers and men are said to have burst into tears; a circumstance which the Whig papers were unanimous in describing as ‘very remarkable,’ and ‘well worth mentioning.’ A Jacobite hackney-coachman laid his whip to the shoulders of one of these honest fellows; and, strangely enough, for all punishment only lost his license. A fact more ‘remarkable’ than the genuine sympathy of the soldiers for Marlborough, was that there were Frenchmen in the ranks, in camp! One of them, named Leman, did, what might have been expected of him, drank the Pretender’s health, in liquor bought with money coming to him from King George. Monsieur Leman did not love the latter any the more for the terrible whipping he received in the Savoy. Other military offenders ‘ran the gauntlet,’ at the hands and scourges of their comrades in the Park. The place was not so pleasant as to make desertions unfrequent. But, deserters, when caught, were summarily treated. One Tompkins, ‘a jolly young fellow of about twenty,’ say the newsmongers, was shot for the crime; yet, the practice was not diminished by the penalty. When the camp was about to break up in October, the infantry, artillery, cavalry, and the gentlemen of his Majesty’s horse guards paraded, for the last time. The Earl of Cadogan inspected the line from right to left; and when it was announced that he had left a guinea to each troop and company, to drink the king’s health, cheers, as thenews spread, burst forth along the line like a running fire. Soon after, there was not a soldier left in the Park, except the bodies of those who had been shot there, and were buried where they fell.
On the day of the break-up, however, there were Jacobites on the ground who were contemplating how they could most easily seize the person of the king, murder the Earl of Cadogan, and restore the Chevalier deSt.George to his rightful place. A few soldiers, having left their arms behind them, stealthily followed those men to aid them in their purpose. They went towards Chancery Lane, where however the civil authorities had long been on the watch before them.
CHRISTOPHER LAYER.
Neither exile nor death on the scaffold, which had followed this outbreak of 1715-16, quenched the ardour of individual Jacobites. An enthusiastic candidate for martyrdom was earning the reward of his unrighteous enthusiasm this year. He was an eminent barrister of the Middle Temple, named Christopher Layer. He was a man of extreme views. He hated the Act of Settlement and (it is said) he loved unlovable women. In order that he might be the Lord Chancellor of JamesIII., he was willing to murder, by deputy, GeorgeI.Layer went to Rome and had an interview with ‘the King over the Water.’ The zealot sought to be permitted to accomplish a revolution which, he said, no one would understand till it had been carried out successfully. Layer’s theory was that King George should be seized, which meant murdered, at Kensington, by hired assassins; that, at the same time, the princeand princess should be secured, and the ministry be summarily dispatched. Layer boasted of having the ultra-Papists and Jacobites with him, and it is certain that, whether James favoured the design or not, Layer and his confederates met at an inn in Stratford-le-Bow; where Layer protested that the so-called Prince of Wales should never succeed to the crown of England.
THE PLOT.
After conspiring at Stratford, and trying to entice soldiers at Romford, the would-be Chancellor of the Stuart wrote his letters and despatches at the residence, now of one Dalilah, in Queen Street, now at that of another in Southampton Buildings! He who would fain have had the keeping of his king’s conscience could not keep his own secret. He might have written in comparative secrecy and safety in his own chambers in the Middle Temple, but he both wrote and prattled in the presence of two beautiful and worthless women, who, in their turn, first betrayed and then gave testimony against him. It was subsequent to one of his examinations before the magistrate by whose warrant Layer had been arrested, that the Jacobite counsellor was confined in a messenger’s house. There, he asked for pen, ink, and paper, and to be left perfectly undisturbed while he wrote out a full confession of all his treasonable designs. All that he asked was granted; but Layer devoted his undisturbed time to other objects, and not to confession. He prepared means for descending from the window of his room into a yard below. In testing them, he fell on to a bottle rack, by which he was grievously hurt; yet, not so much but that hewas up and off before the alarmed officials reached the yard. A hot pursuit commenced. The messenger and his men came upon Layer’s trail at Westminster Ferry, and finally ran him down at Newington.
LAYER AT WESTMINSTER.
Layer was put in close confinement in the Tower; even his clerks were placed in the custody of messengers; and his wife was brought to town from Dover in custody. Previous to his trial, his passage from the Tower to Whitehall, where the Secretaries of State and the Committee of Council sat to interrogate him, was one of the sights of London. The state prisoner was conveyed in a carriage, surrounded by warders, and preceded and followed by detachments of foot guards. With similar solemnity he was carried down to Romford, to plead, after a true bill had been found against him; and then followed, but not immediately, the last struggle for life.
ANTAGONISTIC LAWYERS.
The case was carried to the Court of King’s Bench, on the 21st of October, 1722. The accused traitor was brought into court, heavily chained and fettered. Threats from loyal Whigs assailed him as he staggered beneath his clanking burthen through Westminster Hall. A cowardly fellow shouted that Layer, or the plot, must die! Two or three men, waiting to be summoned on the jury, declared that, if called, they would hang him! He mentioned these insults in court, and he asked that he might be allowed to stand free of the grievous bonds which oppressed him. He would then have his reason clearer, and he might hope for ‘a fair and tender trial.’ Chief Justice Pratt promised him ‘afair and just one,’ but would not order his bonds to be unloosed. The Attorney-General, Raymond, said, ‘He has as much liberty as is allowed to prisoners who have tried to escape.’ Yorke, the Solicitor-General, declared that Layer’s complaints were only made to excite sympathy. Pratt agreed with both gentlemen. Hungerford, Layer’s chief counsel, protested that this was the first case of a prisoner from the Tower coming loaded with irons to plead; and Kettleby, also on his side, maintained that Layer had a right to stand unshackled before he pleaded to the charge against his life. This latter barrister tempered his boldness with a little servility. ‘Having been appointed by your lordship to defend the prisoner, I will not apologize for the course I take.’ This was one way of begging the court to excuse that course. Layer, in pitiful state from painful organic suffering, which was aggravated by his heavy load of chains, was compelled to stand. The sympathising ‘gentleman gaoler’ held up his captive’s bonds in his own hands, to save him from fainting. The charge was then read in Latin, and Kettleby argued its worthlessness, if not in law, in the badness of its Latin. ‘It is Latin,’ he said, ‘that may go down in Westminster Hall, but it would not in Westminster School.’ Similar pointed remarks came up at the close of long—very long—winded discussions, to which Sergeant Pengelly, for the Crown, replied by expressing his suspicion that Kettleby’s objections, made with such pomp and ceremony, probably meant something else than mere quashing of the indictment; upon which allthe judges, Pratt, Powys, and Fortescue Aland, declared all the objections groundless; but a world of words was wasted before Layer could be brought to plead. Ultimately he pleadedNot Guilty, and he was ordered back to the Tower. He asked earnestly to be allowed to have there the comfort of the company of his wife and sister. In his hour of great peril, he thought of his two best, truest, and wisest friends. Pratt sanctioned the companionship of the wife alone. Layer urged thatshe would be subject to humiliating search on the part of rude warders every time she passed to or fro; but that when there were two women, one might save the other from gross insult. ‘No, no!’ said the Chief Justice, ‘we must not be too forward in allowing women to go there. We all remember how an escape from the Tower was managed by women going thither.’
THE TRIAL.
The trial was opened on the 21st of November. Layer stumbled forward to his place, still weighed down by irons. Pratt, at the sight, exclaimed, as if the matter occurred to him for the first time, ‘I will not stir till the prisoner’s irons are taken off;’—accordingly they fell; and the next scene in the drama was the calling and challenging the jury. Layer recognised some of them who had said they would hang him if they were on the panel, and his ‘challenge for cause’ was allowed. His right to peremptory challenge was also unquestioned, but almost invariably when Layer accepted the juror, by remaining silent at the calling of the name, the Attorney-General struck in with thecry: ‘I challenge him for the king,’ and the possible Tory or Jacobite was set aside.A FALSE WITNESS.Every avenue of escape was as carefully closed by the Whig lawyers. The junior counsel, in opening the case, asked how the jury could find a man not guilty who had fled from justice as soon as he was accused. The jury were told, moreover, that even if it were possible they could not convict him, they would have ‘to enquire of his goods and chattels;’ thus forfeiture of estate seems to have followed the mere charge of high treason! Layer was charged with every possible sort of treason, but the heaviest and highest included all the rest,—regicide, or what Layer’s Jacobite friends called ‘securing the person of King George in safety from the mob.’ Wearg did not go into detail with much bitterness, and the Attorney-General, who followed, confined himself to a renewal of circumstances already detailed. He then called Stephen Lynch, and a very accomplished villain stept into the box with ostentatious alacrity. He was objected to by Layer as a man who had confessed to treason, and who was about to give evidence which had already bought for him a promise of pardon. This was pooh-poohed by one of the judges. Lynch, he remarked, might speak the truth under that promise; and suppose he did not, he could not be questioned on it. Lynch’s evidence showed one side of Jacobite hireling life. He (a broken-down merchant) had been engaged in affairs, he said, with a Dr. Murphy, abroad and at home. By Murphy he was introduced to Layer, who engaged him in a special affair, and paid him money for furthering theend desired by himself and confederates; or, he and ‘other gentlemen,’ as the witness called them. The means were the enlisting of discontented soldiers when the camp broke up; seizing the Tower, the Mint, the Bank, &c.; getting possession of the king and royal family, and (like the Cato Street conspirators of later days) murdering the commander-in-chief and ministers whenever the plotters could find them together. For all these objects ample aid was promised at all the several points, and much preparation was made, but there was vexatious delay, which Lynch protested against; and, most singular of all, there were two or three visits to the house of Lord North and Grey, in Essex, where the ‘affair’ was discussed; but not a word was said by Lynch, or asked by counsel on either side, to show what part in the ‘affair’ was borne by that peer of the realm.
A CONFEDERATE.
Lynch was succeeded by Matthew Plunket, a discharged sergeant, a confessed traitor, and an avowed purchaser of safety by giving testimony against the counsellor. According to this witness, he himself was a simple-minded soldier, who had been beguiled into attending Sacheverel’s church, in Holborn, and drawn further away from loyalty by a tippling, insinuating, ‘unjuring parson,’ named Jeffreys. Parson and sergeant met and drank and concocted treason in half the taverns of Fleet Street and Drury Lane. The ex-sergeant, having received his fee, was told that his services would be required in enlisting old soldiers who could discipline a mob. On yielding consent, Plunket wasintroduced to Layer, who encouraged him by the assurance that Lord North and Grey, an experienced soldier, was the ‘promoter’ of the enterprise, and that Lord Strafford was deeply engaged in it. Plunket affected to be scrupulous, like Lynch, on religious grounds. Would not bringing in the Chevalier be putting a Papist on the throne? What of that? asked Layer, the usurper who now sits there is a Lutheran. What’s the difference? The ex-halberdier thought there was none.
The cross-examination was carried on simultaneously by the two barristers and their client. Neither of them made the slightest allusion to the peers referred to by Plunket, and all three wandered from the point at issue.
LAYER’S LADIES.
The next step was to prove the discovery of treasonable papers in Layer’s handwriting. This proof was established by King’s Messengers, who, acting on information, made seizure of such papers in a house in Stonecutter’s Yard, Little Queen Street. Layer had entrusted them to the keeping of ‘an honest woman named Mason,’ who kept the house with equally honest ladies in it. He called them ‘love letters,’ said they were worth 500l., and was anxious that his wife should be kept from all knowledge of them. ‘What’s your trade, mistress?’ asked Kettleby. ‘What’s that to you?’ rejoined the honest woman; with which reply the learned gentleman seemed satisfied.
LAYER’S ‘SCHEME.’
Her testimony helped Layer towards the scaffold, for among the papers was one entitled the ‘Scheme,’which a Mr. Doyley, in whose office, many years before, Layer had been a clerk, swore to be in Layer’s handwriting, to the best of his belief. This most damaging document bore, by way of epigraph, these words: ‘Au défaut de la force il faut employer la ruse.’ In detail it gave instructions how the insurrection was to be begun, carried on, and ended,—from the first summoning of soldiers in their lodgings, and of drilled mobs, to their various quarters in and about London, to the insulting direction which bade ‘an officer to go to Richmond, and at the exact hour of 9, to seize on Prince Prettyman, and bring him away to Southwark.’ The details were made out as a stage-manager might note down dramatic business, wherein every actor knows what he has to do, and can find no obstacle in the doing of it, except from his own dulness. When some comment came to be made by the Chief Justice on this and on certain correspondence between Layer and the Pretender, Mr. Hungerford interrupted with ‘I humbly beg your lordship’s pardon——,’ but Pratt cut the remark and the maker of it short by petulantly exclaiming, ‘Sir, if you will not hear me, you’ll teach me not to hear you!’ After this rebuke, ample proof was adduced of the intimate relations which existed between the Pretender’s family and Mr. Layer’s. One instance was, that the exiled prince and his wife had consented to stand, by proxies, godfather and godmother to Layer’s daughter. The proxies were Lord North and Grey and the Duchess of Ormond. The ceremony was privately performed at a china shop in Chelsea, theminister being, doubtless, what Plunket would have called ‘an unjuring parson.’
THE DEFENCE.
The defence was not badly sustained, especially by Layer himself. His chief point was that being accused of an overt act of treason in the county of Essex, if that accusation failed to be proved, whatever he had done elsewhere was irrelevant. Kettleby too addressed himself so clearly to this elucidation as to excite the chief judge to reprehensible pettishness. ‘You have mixed your discourse so,’ cried Pratt, ‘that nobody knows what to make of it!’ The counsel tried hard to prove that Layer had not even been where Lynch swore he had committed an act of treason. Mackreth, the host of the ‘Green Man,’ at Epping, his wife, and John Paulfreeman, their servant, swore positively that no one resembling Layer had ever been in that house. ‘But,’ said mine host, ‘there was the Duke of Grafton and Lord Halifax came to my house some time since. The Duke said to me, “Mackreth, you’re to be hanged.” “Hanged!” said I, “for what?” “You and your friend, Layer, are to be hanged!” Said I, “I never saw him in all my life.” He added, “They walked to and fro in the hall.” “What!” said they, “do you know nothing of this Layer?” “No!” said I, “I don’t, directly nor indirectly, as I hope to be saved.”’ This characteristic attempt by great personages to intimidate a witness failed.
STRANGE WITNESSES.
Great interest was next excited by the appearance of Lord North and Grey, a prisoner from the Tower. He had been captured in the Isle of Wight, in an attemptto escape to France. He served the Government rather than Layer, on whose part he was called. Lord North confessed that Lynch was twice at his house, in Essex; but was rather uncivilly got rid of the second time. Being pressed as to what passed between himself, Lynch, and Layer, he answered:—‘It is a little hard for a man of honour to betray conversation that passed over a bottle of wine, in discourse.’ Although he said he must submit if ordered to betray, he wasnotordered; and he the more confidently added: ‘As to particular things, I don’t care to speak of them. I should be sorry to say it, when it was said in my company and under my roof.’ Having made this singular speech, Layer’s counsel rejoined with one as singular:—‘We won’t press it,’—as if my lord’s silence bore less peril to their client than his outspokenness would bear. At length, said Lord North and Grey, ‘I must, by your Lordship’s leave, if these gentlemen have no further to say to me, and your Lordships have no further commands, ask that I may return to my prison.’ Upon which, Mr. Hungerford, as if he were glad to be well rid of him, called out, ‘I hope you will make way there for Lord North and Grey through the crowd!’ It was a turbulent crowd, and given to ‘tumbling about’ such witnesses as happened to displease them. This was especially the case with Sir Dennis O’Carroll, one of many witnesses who swore to the rascal repute of Lynch and Plunket. ‘It’s a mighty bad character Plunket has,’ said the gallant knight, ‘I wouldn’t take his evidence to hang a dog!’‘And here he is,’ said Hungerford, ‘trying to hang a Protestant!’ Other witnesses spoke to the infamous life led by Mrs. Mason; others swore that the ‘Scheme’ was not in Layer’s handwriting, and Layer himself denounced it as a forgery. He and his counsel argued one after the other in his defence; he did not trust his case entirely to their idea of conducting it; and they seemed more pleased than troubled by his interference. His courage, without the slightest bravado, was beyond all praise. His course was rather to deny the alleged proof adduced on the trial than to deny acts which, he contended, were unproved.
THE VERDICT.
The Solicitor-General then, in a manner, rushed at him. When he had finished his long and blindly furious speech, Kettleby merely said in reply: ‘I shall not take up much of your Lordship’s time, especially since your Lordship and Court have been so long and so well entertained by Mr. Solicitor-General at least two hours, as I have observed by my watch, but it was impossible for me to think him tedious, though so late at night.’ Therewith, he seated himself; and a few persons having been called by the Crown in support of the honesty and virtue of some of its very questionable witnesses, the Lord Chief Justice summed up with a cruel sort of equity, and the verdict ofGuilty, which followed from an unanimous jury, brought to an end a trial of eighteen hours’ duration.
LAYER’S DIGNITY.
Sentence was not pronounced till the 27th. The doomed man was brought from the Tower heavily ironed. The cruelty excited sympathy, but the LordChief Justice said he could not interfere. It was not lawful for a man to be ironed when on his trial, but this trial was over, and Mr. Layer was legally in chains. Pity, however, prevailed, and the prisoner was relieved of the burthen while he pleaded ably but vainly in arrest of judgment. He made no craven cry for mercy promising abundant loyalty in return, but he did not affect to look with indifference on death, and he certainly hoped that his life might be spared. Pratt, in passing sentence, smote Layer’s counsel as well as their client. ‘Your Counsel,’ he said, ‘have been permitted to say whatever they thought proper for your service; and I heartily wish I could say they had not exceeded, that they had not taken a greater liberty than they ought to have done.’ After this philippic, Pratt pointed out the happiness of England in possessing such a church, such a constitution, such laws, such lords and commons, and such a king and royal family. Not to enthusiastically worship these blessings was, in his eyes, inexplicable folly. To attempt to overthrow any of them was a criminal madness worthy of death; and he who had so dared must now die. Layer was accordingly condemned to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. ‘I will dare,’ said he, ‘to die like a gentleman and a Christian.’ Whereupon, he was again ironed, hurried into a coach, and driven off to the Tower.
THE JACOBITES IN MOURNING.
There was another Jacobite ‘wanted’ by the Government. This was Carte, the Nonjuror. The Government thought it worth while to offer a thousand pounds forthe apprehension of this obnoxious clergyman, but as in the proclamation to that effect, he was described in exactly opposite terms to those by which he could possibly be recognised, Carte got off to France, where he lived under the name of Phillips, till in the next reign Queen Caroline kindly obtained permission for the Jacobite scholar to return to England. In the Mall, and at other public places, the authorised watchers of suspected persons were surprised to find several of the latter, in mourning. This was accounted for, when it was known that Princess Sobieska, the mother of her whom the Jacobites acknowledged as the true Queen of England,—the wife of the Chevalier—was dead. ‘Chevalier!’ said an enthusiastic handmaid to a distiller in Fleet Street, ‘I wish all the hairs on my head were so many dragoons, to fight for the Chevalier!’ That night she lay in Bridewell, and a day or two after, the poor handmaid was whipped,—into a more determined Jacobite than ever!
Towards the close of the year, the Tories took their condition joyously enough. Indeed, Whig and Tory fraternised over the punch-bowl. The Whig Sir John Shaw entered into drunken frolics with the Tory Duke of Wharton. A body of tipsy companions, members of Parliament, including Sir John, tumbled in to a committee of the whole House. ‘We met,’ he writes to Lord Cuthcart, ‘the Duke of Wharton, as well refreshed as I. He proposed to survey all the ladies in the galleries. I was for turning them all up: but he declined. He proposed to knock up Argyle;but I proposed the king.’ The roysterers did knock up Argyle, and the loyal Whig Duke received them well. A strong illustration of the coarseness of the times is to be seen in the circumstance that Sir John is not ashamed to let his wife know thathehad proposed to practise on the ladies, the ruffianly insult often indulged in by Mohawks, Bloods, and cowardly muscular gentlemen generally, namely, flinging their garments over their heads.
A JACOBITE PLAYER.
While the riotous character of the time was thus kept up by such gentlemen as the Duke and Sir John, the Jacobite feeling among a few actors of the Lincoln’s Inn Fields theatre was maintained by John Ogden. He was not a secret agent, like handsome Scudamore, of the same house, but an outspoken Tory in coffee-houses and elsewhere. He was too much of a roysterer for an actor who played such serious or dignified parts as theDuke de Bouillon, in Beckingham’s ‘HenryIV.,’Northumberland,Kent,Shylock,Mr. Page, andBellarius, in Shakespeare’s ‘RichardII.,’ ‘King Lear,’ ‘Merchant of Venice,’ ‘Merry Wives of Windsor,’ and ‘Cymbeline.’ Towards the close of the year, Ogden, being in a tavern, drank King James’s health on his knees; then, rising, he proposed that the company present should do the same, and the Tory player drew his sword, in order to enforce the proposal. At this time, there were always constables on the look-out for such offenders, and a leash of them on this occasion made a rush at John Ogden. The player kept them at a distance with his sword, very unceremoniouslydamned King George, and urged the constables to follow his example. Ultimately, John was knocked down and captured. He passed his Christmas in Newgate, before trial, when he had a narrow escape of going to Tyburn. Considering how full the air was of plots, Ogden was not harshly treated. On being foundguilty, he was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment, to pay a fine of 50l., and to find security for his good behaviour for three years. He satisfied all the conditions of law and justice. In the next summer season of Lincoln’s Inn Fields he made his reappearance asPrince of Rosignanoin d’Urfey’s revived play of ‘Masaniello,’ and he created the part ofDiocletianin Hurst’s tragedy, ‘The Roman Maid.’ He might have been seen studying both parts as he walked to and fro in the noisy Newgate press-yard.
SUSPENSION OF THE ‘HABEAS CORPUS.’
After the sham fights in the camp, the hotter contests in Parliament drew the attention of all London. In October, a Bill for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, for a whole year, was brought into the House of Lords, where it passed through all the forms, and was sent to the Commons, in one day. The Commons passed the Bill. Nineteen peers, including the Archbishop of York, protested against the suspension for so long a time of an Act which was the bulwark of the liberties of all Englishmen; and which was brought in when the detestable conspiracy, which was the motive for the suspension, had been rendered abortive. The ministry were of another opinion. In the latter half of October, the king asked the consent of the peersfor the continued detention of members of the House, namely, the Bishop of Rochester, the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Boyle (Earl of Orrery), and Lord North and Grey. In the case of the Duke of Norfolk, the consent was opposed, but was carried by 60 to 28. Again, nineteen peers protested, on very good grounds. The Duke was described as being suspected of having committed high treason, and the protestors held that it was contrary to the rights and privileges of the House, to detain any member (while a session was in existence) on suspicion, without the grounds for such suspicion being communicated to the House. There was probably no ground.
ARREST OF PEERS.
Commoners, naturally, were not treated with more courtesy than peers. Their houses were invaded by messengers in search of a reason for the invasion. On a similar search, in November 1722, Mr. Spratt, king’s messenger, knocked at young Mr. Cotton’s door, in Westminster, and entered the house with a warrant for his arrest. Cotton received the unwelcome visitor civilly, and Spratt’s eye, falling on a picture of a lady, he asked, as if he were interested, whose portrait it might be? Cotton answered, ‘the Queen’s.’ ‘What Queen’s?’ rejoined the messenger. ‘The Queen of England’s, the wife of JamesIII.,’ was the bold reply. ‘You mean,’ observed the officer, ‘the Princess Sobieska.’ ‘You may call it what you please,’ returned Cotton, ‘I acknowledge it as my Queen’s portrait; and if Lord Townshend was to ask me, I should make the same answer.’ On his trial subsequently, a constableand two men who supported the messenger, deposed to similar effect; but Mr. Cotton’s footman gave a modified relation. Their testimony was that when their master was asked as to the portrait, he replied, ‘You may call it whose you please!’ Counter-evidence was then adduced to corroborate the prosecutor’s story, according to which, the messenger had facetiously called the picture, ‘The portrait of the lady who married the young gentleman ‘tother side of the water!’ To which Mr. Cotton, being heated, cried, ‘A plague!—something worse, upon you! Why do you trouble me? Call it what you please!’
LORD CHIEF JUSTICE PRATT.
Lord Chief Justice Pratt, in summing up, found that the evidence for the Crown was confirmed rather than contradicted by the witnesses for the defence, and his lordship suggested a verdict accordingly. When, after a quarter of an hour’s consultation, the jury returned with the words ‘Not guilty!’ on the lips of their foreman, the Chief Justice looked surprised, and the Whig papers, in the course of the week, clearly thought the jury were as greatJacksas Mr. Cotton himself.
LONDON SIGHTS.
Never was society in London in a worse condition than at this time. In every class there was a pitiful cynicism, and pitiless savagery, with open contempt for becomingness in man and woman. A report of a sermon in the newspapers would be followed by an unutterably filthy epigram. Essayists claimed to exercise the utmost nastiness of life, and denied the right of anyone to find fault with it. The monthly executionsat Tyburn were periodical fiendish revels. The newspapers made jokes upon them; and Newgate convicts who cut their throats to avoid the long agony in a Tyburn cart, were banteringly censured for disappointing a public eager for such shows. The doomed man who rode thither pluckily, was lauded. Much notice was taken of a gentleman highwayman, with manyaliases, who was captured in a western county, and who drove up to Newgate with attendant constables, in his own coach and six. The papers reminded him, however, that his next ride would be in a cart and two. The departure of criminals for the Plantations was another sight. It was always spoken of as the exportation from the storehouse in Newgate Street of certain merchandise to America.AMBITIOUS THIEVES.The crowds of young thieves, who, with finer company, lined the route by which the older ruffians walked from Newgate to Blackfriars, where the lighter lay which was to convey them to the ship waiting for them off Gravesend—were spoken of as nice young shoots that would be transplanted in two or three years. The convicts walked, slightly guarded, free in limbs, free and foul in tongue, full of spirits and blasphemy. It was among their gentler acts of felony, committed on their way, to rob the fine gentlemen who stood near enough as they passed, of their hats and perukes. They clapped the stolen property on their own heads, and congratulated themselves that they would land in America, something like gentlemen. This sort of theft was a favourite one at the time. A gentleman riding in his chariot, to court or opera, wasnot so safe as walking on the highway with a sword in his hand. A thief, fond of dress, would cut a square in the back part of the chariot, draw the new wig off the beau’s head, and wear it proudly at night in presence of his own Sukey Tawdry! Gentlemen, in defence of their new wigs, were obliged to ride with their backs to their horses!
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