OLIVER CROMWELL.

Charles I. leaving Westminster Hall after his Trial.(From the picture by Sir John Gilbert, R.A., in the Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield. By permission of the Corporation of Sheffield.)

CROMWELL AT MARSTON MOOR.(From the picture by Ernest Crofts, A.R.A.)

“Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a cloudNot of war only, but detractions rude,Guided by faith and matchless fortitude.”

“Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a cloud

Not of war only, but detractions rude,

Guided by faith and matchless fortitude.”

Six years have come and gone since the execution of Charles the First, and England has had no king in the interval. The great, strong man, Oliver Cromwell, who by his military genius has overthrown the king and made the army supreme, has crushed all opposition by the weight of his iron hand. At the head of his buff-coated Ironsides—men with psalms on their lips and ruth in their hearts—he has stamped the very life out of Ireland, and by a happy accident, which he believes to be an interposition of Providence, he has reduced Scotland to impotence. Now he is master of three kingdoms, and only the remnant of an old Parliament stands in his way. The “Rump,” as it is contemptuously called, refuses to dissolve, so Cromwell strides into the House and, after roundly rating the members, stamps on the floor. At the signal armed men enter and proceed to drive out the occupants of the chamber. The Speaker refuses to leave the chair, and tries to speak, but his voice is drowned in the uproar. Then one of Cromwell’s friends offers to lend him a hand to come down, and the Speaker, yielding to force, does so. Pointing to the mace, the symbol of the authority of the House of Commons, Cromwell cries, “What shall we do with this bauble? Here, take it away!” and a soldier removes it. Then he locks the door and strides away with the key in his pocket, while a wag chalks up on the building, “This house to let.”

Six weeks later he summons another Parliament, and finds it composed of fanatics and doctrinaires who are passionate admirers of his, but propose to overturn every established custom. Under the leadership of “Praise-God Barebone” it actually suggests that the law of England shall be superseded in favour of the law of Moses! The members quarrel fiercely, and at last give up to the Lord-General the powers which they have received from him. The Council of State begs him to become Lord Protector, with rights and duties which differ very little from those of a king, and he accepts the proffered honour. Nine months elapse, and another Parliament is called; but it is a hindrance to the Lord Protector’s schemes, and is dissolved. Another takes its place, and offers to make Cromwell king. He refuses, for the name of king is loathsome to him, and he is already king in all but name. Then this Parliament goes the way of the others, and Cromwell never calls another.

You see him now an even more absolute ruler than “martyred Charles:” he is a despot, but with a difference. Whatever his detractors may say of him, this cannot be disputed, that never was the sceptre of England wielded by a more vigorous or sagacious hand. His protectorship, compared with any preceding age, or with several ages succeeding it, was an era of toleration, justice, and law. Weakened though she was by the Civil Wars, England rose to respect and greatness abroad, and foreign tyrants and persecutors trembled at her name. “We always reckon,” said a Royalist bishop, “those eight years of the usurpation as a time of great peace and prosperity.” Trade and commerce increased, and the land grew wealthy and great; yet all the while Cromwell was bitterly hated, and his life was always in peril. He wore mail beneath his clothes, and slept in a different room almost every night. Despite his ever-present danger, he went his way fearlessly, though expecting a pistol-shot from every dark corner.

Now let us witness a scene which shows Cromwell at his best. You see before you the interior of a room in the palace of Whitehall. Seated carelessly on a table is the Lord Protector. He is a man of massive build, with a “figure of sufficient impressiveness: not lovely to the man-milliner species, nor pretending to be so.” A massive “head so shaped as you might see in it a storehouse and shop of a vast treasury of natural parts. . . . On the whole, a right noble lion-face and hero-face; and to me royal enough.” He is careless in his dress, utterly indifferent to externals, and wholly without affectation. He is the man who warned Lely, when painting his picture, to put in all the roughnesses, pimples, and warts of his countenance, or he would not pay a farthing for the work. Hard, stern, implacable in warfare, he is nevertheless simple, loving, and pure in his private life, sincerely and ardently religious, and convinced to the bottom of his soul that he is a chosen instrument “to do God’s people some good.” True, he owes his power to the sword; but he wields that power so well, and stoops to so little that is mean or base, that future generations will have good cause to rejoice that the guidance of the state was for a brief space of years entrusted to him.

At the other end of the table sits John Milton, that inspired poet of whom Wordsworth wrote:——

“His soul was like a star, and dwelt apart;So didst thou travel on life’s common wayIn cheerful godliness.”

“His soul was like a star, and dwelt apart;

So didst thou travel on life’s common way

In cheerful godliness.”

Look at his noble face, which reflects in its every expression the splendid mind with which he is gifted and the noble thoughts which flit through it. No man ever served the Muses with such exquisite devotion. He comes to his desk as a knight to his vigil, believing that no man can worthily write of great things unless his life is worthily lived. He loves virtue with all the passion of his nature——

“She can teach ye how to climbHigher than the sphery chime.”

“She can teach ye how to climb

Higher than the sphery chime.”

And now he is engaged on a task which enlists all his sympathy, and sends a throb of righteous indignation through his veins.

He is Latin Secretary to the Council, and it is his task to Latinize all communications to foreign states. Cromwell has heard that in the valleys of Piedmont the Waldenses, a body of dogged Puritans, are being persecuted by the Duke of Savoy, who is harrying them with savage cruelty, and has already slain thousands of them. Cromwell is greatly moved by the news, and his anger breaks forth in a torrent of inconsequent words. The upshot, however, is clear to Milton: France shall receive those attentions which have made the English fleet the terror of the Mediterranean, unless an immediate end is put to the persecution. Milton has already written the most sublime of all his sonnets on this subject:——

“Avenge, O Lord! Thy slaughtered saints, whose bonesLie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;Even them who kept Thy truth so pure of old,When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones,Forget not; in Thy book record their groansWho were Thy sheep, and in their ancient foldSlain by the bloody Piedmontese that rolledMother with infant down the rocks. Their moansThe vales redoubled to the hills, and theyTo heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sowO’er all the Italian fields, where still doth swayThe triple Tyrant; that from these may growA hundredfold, who, having learned Thy way,Early may fly the Babylonian woe.”

“Avenge, O Lord! Thy slaughtered saints, whose bones

Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;

Even them who kept Thy truth so pure of old,

When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones,

Forget not; in Thy book record their groans

Who were Thy sheep, and in their ancient fold

Slain by the bloody Piedmontese that rolled

Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans

The vales redoubled to the hills, and they

To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow

O’er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway

The triple Tyrant; that from these may grow

A hundredfold, who, having learned Thy way,

Early may fly the Babylonian woe.”

Cromwell has already sent £2,000 out of his own purse to the sufferers. Now he dictates his stern message, and Milton translates it into resounding Latin of such force and fervour that Cardinal Mazarin dare not ignore its purport. The Duke of Savoy and the cardinal may gnash their teeth with rage, but, with the whole power of France at their command, they dare not again lift a finger against the Waldenses while Cromwell lives. No incident in the whole history of the Commonwealth reveals more clearly the salutary fear which the name of Cromwell excites on the Continent.

But his days are numbered. In three short years he will go hence, and in two years more a Stuart will sit on the throne, and at his coming England will be “reduced to a nullity”—aye, and worse, to reproach and shame. Worn out with constant anxiety, the death of a favourite daughter brings him speedily to the valley of the shadow. “I would be willing to live,” murmurs the dying man, “to be further serviceable to God and His people; but my work is done.” He lies on his deathbed while a great storm rages over England. In the morning calm succeeds tempest, and on the anniversary of his great victories at Dunbar and Worcester he breathes his last. They bury him in Westminster Abbey, amidst the kings; but his bones are not long to rest in that hallowed fane. The Stuart king, to his everlasting shame, will tear the unoffending body from its coffin and gibbet it in unavailing contempt. But ages to come will do him tardy justice, and men will come to honour his memory even while they lift their hats and pray, “God save the king!”

Cromwell dictating Dispatches to Milton.(From the picture by Ford Madox Brown, in the Manchester Art Gallery. By permission of the Manchester Corporation.)

“Where Blake and mighty Nelson fellYour manly hearts shall glow,As ye sweep through the deep,While the stormy winds do blow,While the battle rages loud and long,And the stormy winds do blow.”

“Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell

Your manly hearts shall glow,

As ye sweep through the deep,

While the stormy winds do blow,

While the battle rages loud and long,

And the stormy winds do blow.”

An admiral sits writing at a table in the cabin of his dismasted flagship, theTriumph. He is a short, squat, ungainly man, but within that unprepossessing exterior there is one of the most heroic and purely patriotic souls that ever existed. His heavy face is clouded by deep depression. He is a beaten man, and he is even now inditing the frank and ungarnished story of his defeat to the Lords of the Council. “Your honours,” he writes, “I hope it will not be unreasonable for me to desire your honours that you would think of giving me, your unworthy servant, a discharge from this employment so far too great for me, that so I may be freed from that burden of spirit which lies upon me, arising from the sense of my own insufficiency.” He finishes his task, signs it “Robert Blake, Admiral,” strews the sand upon the wet ink, folds the missive, and dispatches it.

What is the meaning of this scene? You see a man of the sublimest courage and the most ardent patriotism humiliated and vexed with himself because he has failed to achieve the impossible. A little more than a month ago he met the Dutch fleet, and fought a furious battle which raged until nightfall, when the foe, too severely handled to continue the struggle, drew off and sailed for home. “Nothing in this to be ashamed of,” you will say; but you do not yet know the whole story.

After the victory—for such it was—the Commonwealth, feeling secure, dispersed the fleet either on various detached services or to refit, and left Blake with only thirty-seven ships to guard the Channel. The Dutchmen, on the other hand, flung themselves heart and soul into the work of preparing a fleet which should speedily cancel their reverse and restore that great prestige which they then enjoyed as the first of maritime nations. Yesterday this fleet of eighty ships of war, convoying three hundred merchantmen, appeared off the Goodwins, standing to the southward, and evidently about to force the strait in defiance of its guardian. As the vast and well-equipped fleet of the Dutchmen hove in sight Blake called a hasty council of war, and announced his determination of attacking it with the wholly inadequate forces at his command. It was a venture rash almost to the verge of madness, but Blake could not sit still and see the proudly defiant foe go by without attempting to chastise it. Twice before he had met the Dutchman and belaboured him; he would do so again.

In the battle which followed, the wind blew Blake’s leading ships into the midst of the enemy. A stout fight was stubbornly maintained against tremendous odds; but the Dutchmen were overwhelmingly strong, and by evening two English ships had been captured, one had been burnt, another had blown up, and the remainder, under cover of the darkness, had staggered into Dover for safety. And now the Channel is full of Dutch ships, and their admiral, in the arrogance of victory, has hoisted a broom at his masthead to signify that he has swept the narrow seas clean! No wonder Blake is sick at heart; no wonder he writes himself down failure, and begs to be relieved of his command. But to-morrow he will be himself again. The Council will refuse to supersede him; they will cheer him with tokens of their confidence; they will immediately set about repairing their errors, and will speedily give him a fleet adequate to the work which they expect him to do. They know full well the splendid courage and the unswerving fidelity of their admiral, and they repudiate the “insufficiency” which, with the modesty of the truly brave, he ascribes to himself.

And now, before we relate the story of his subsequent exploits, let us learn something of his earlier career. As a young Oxford scholar he coveted a fellowship, but his appearance offended the artistic eye of the warden of his college and he was passed over. When the Civil War broke out he was forty-three years of age, and his sentiments were strongly republican. Joining the Parliamentary army, he was entrusted with the defence of a post at Bristol, which was then besieged by the Royalists. The town was yielded by the governor after a feeble resistance, but Blake resolutely held on to his post for twenty-four hours after the capitulation was signed. He was compelled to yield, and narrowly escaped hanging; but the eye of the Parliament was now upon him, and before long he found himself entrusted with the defence of Taunton town.

The place was wholly without defences. It had no forts, no walls, and only a meagre garrison of eighty men. Nevertheless, it was a most important strategic post, situated at a point on which all the main roads converged, and Blake saw that it must be defended at all costs. He worked like a Trojan, and inspired his men to similar efforts. Roads were barricaded, breastworks were thrown up, guns were mounted, houses loopholed, and the Royalists, unable to carry it by storm, were forced to invest it and wait for famine to do its deadly work. The little garrison grew terribly hungry, but Blake was as blithe as a lad on a holiday escapade. When only one pig remained, he had it driven about the town and whipped from time to time, so that its squeals might delude the besiegers into the belief that he still possessed a whole herd of porkers. When the Royalist captain sent in a ragged messenger to treat for terms, Blake dismissed him with a new suit of clothes! Taunton never yielded. After the battle of Naseby the siege was raised, and Blake emerged from his heap of ruins a man of mark. He had delayed a whole army in the west, and had enabled the Parliamentary army in the Midlands to win the decisive battle of the Civil War.

When the second Civil War broke out, part of the fleet declared for the king, and, under Prince Rupert, the “mad Cavalier,” was giving much trouble. A fleet was fitted out to meet this new danger, and, somewhat inexplicably, Blake was chosen as one of the generals-at-sea. Probably Cromwell thought that the man who could defend Taunton town could defend anything. Blake knew little more about naval matters than the Duke of Medina Sidonia; but he was a born sailor, and before long he was a master of seamanship in all its intricacies. Rupert was a most difficult man to catch; but Blake cornered him at last, and at Cartagena drove his ships ashore and set fire to them. For this exploit Blake received the grateful thanks of Parliament and a sum of one thousand pounds.

Blake had now to meet a much more powerful foe than Rupert. The Dutch and the English, old allies against Spain, were now at daggers drawn. Ill-feeling between the two nations had been long rife; now it came to a head. Holland swarmed with Royalist exiles, and the Government showed them much friendship. A Commonwealth envoy was murdered, and the Dutch Government would give no satisfaction for the outrage. Further, and beyond all, the two nations were rivals in trade, and the Dutch were going ahead every day. The bulk of the carrying trade of the world was in their hands; they waxed fat and kicked. The heads of the Commonwealth knew that war with Holland would be popular, and in spite of Cromwell’s opposition they proceeded to provoke it. A Navigation Act was passed, aimed directly at Dutch trade. Henceforth no goods were to be imported into England unless they came in English ships or in those of the country which produced them. This hit the Dutch hard, and war began.

Under Van Tromp, a genuine son of the Vikings, who had risen from cabin-boy to admiral, the Dutch sent to sea a magnificent fleet of one hundred sail, which the raw English navy could scarcely hope to beat. The first shot was fired off Dover in May 1652, and you already know something of the course of events up to that bitter day in November of the same year, when Blake was beaten by a largely superior force of the enemy, and wrote despairingly to the Council of State to suggest that he should be retired on account of his “insufficiency.” You know, too, what their answer was. They were true to their promise, and by the middle of February 1653 Blake was provided with more than seventy sail, ready to renew the contest.

He had not long to wait for a chance of retrieving his credit. Tromp, with ninety ships, was returning with the home-coming fleet from the Indies, and Blake was scouring the Channel looking for him. On Friday, February 18, Blake sighted him; but Tromp took him at a disadvantage, and he had to bear the brunt of the fighting with his single division of twelve ships, the remaining divisions under Penn and Monk being then at a considerable distance from the scene of the battle.

The battle raged fiercely round theTriumph, and Blake was in the utmost peril. He himself was severely wounded, and large numbers of his men fell around him. Four ships were captured, and the end seemed near, when Penn and Monk arrived. At once the fight assumed a different complexion, and the captured ships were retaken before nightfall suspended the battle. Neither side could yet claim the victory, and the loss of both, though very great, was fairly equal. In the night Tromp slipped off; but he was followed, and the battle was resumed. The “four days’ battle” ended on Sunday the 20th. Five Dutch ships had been sunk and four captured, as well as some thirty or forty merchant vessels. Tromp, however, got the remainder away safely by dint of clever seamanship. The Dutch had been beaten, but they were by no means dismayed, and immediately began to make preparations for a renewal of the struggle.

While Blake was making a slow recovery from his wound news arrived that the Dutch were again at sea. Before, however, he could reach the fleet a great battle had been fought. He and his squadron did not arrive till late in the afternoon, but their coming turned the victory into a rout. Tromp’s vessel was boarded; but to save her from falling into the hands of his foes, he blew her up, and by a miracle saved both himself and his ship. Another English victory followed, in which the gallant Tromp was killed, and then the war was brought to a close. Holland paid a war indemnity, and agreed that the English were masters of the sea. Henceforth the Dutch might only pass through the Strait of Dover by the kind permission of England. Blake and Monk received the thanks of Parliament, gold medals, and gold chains valued at £300. A few weeks’ rest restored Blake to health so far as to enable him to return to the fleet, and all was ready for his next exploit.

Cromwell, now dictator, turned his attention to Spain, which was the most dangerous trade rival of the English Puritans in America. Accordingly, in 1654, he sent out two fleets, one to the Mediterranean under Blake, the other to the West Indies under Penn and Venables. Blake had a general commission to protect British commerce, and this he interpreted as permission to attack the Barbary pirates, who levied blackmail on all the commerce of Europe passing their shores. Scores of luckless merchantmen bound for the Levant were boarded and rifled, and their crews carried off as slaves. Possibly the compilers of the English Church Litany had the sufferings of thousands of their fellow-countrymen in mind when they wrote, “That it may please Thee to show Thy pity upon all prisoners and captives.” Blake ran into the harbour of Tunis in spite of fleet, castles, moles, batteries, and musketeers, and in a few hours nine vessels of the pirate fleet were in flames, and he was outward bound, congratulating himself on a good work well done. This gallant exploit made the British name a terror in the Mediterranean. He now visited the chief ports of the western Mediterranean “to show his flag” and everywhere he was received with fear and trembling.

He returned to England in October 1655, but spent little time ashore, for the Protector had now a daring task to set him. Penn and Venables had failed miserably in the West Indies, and British arms had suffered a discreditable reverse. Cromwell was not the man to overlook failures of this sort. He promptly sent the quarrelsome officers to the Tower, and dispatched Blake to the Spanish Main to do the work properly. In a preliminary cruise off the Spanish coast he captured several Plate ships, and in 1657 he set sail for Santa Cruz, in Teneriffe, where he accomplished his last and most brilliant feat. Within the horseshoe-shaped harbour, belted with forts mounting the heaviest artillery then known, lay sixteen great galleons, all well armed. The Spaniards boasted that within that death-trap their treasure-ships were absolutely safe. The historian of the time wrote truly: “All men who knew the place concluded that no sober men, with whatever courage soever endued, would ever undertake it.”

Blake discovered that the six largest galleons were drawn up in line, commanding the entrance to the harbour, and that behind them were the other ships. When he learnt this he might have repeated Cromwell’s exulting cry at Dunbar, “The Lord hath delivered them into my hands.” If he ran in with a fair wind and a flowing tide beneath the walls of the great fort at the entrance, little harm could come to him, for its great guns could not readily be depressed so as to stay his progress. Further, the massing of the largest galleons at the harbour mouth covered the fire of the ships behind, and prevented several of the forts from firing lest they should injure friend and foe alike.

To make a long story short, Blake dashed into the harbour, attacked at the very closest quarters, and before evening had burnt, blown up, or sunk every Spanish ship in it. Then, under cover of the dense masses of smoke blowing seaward, the British ships crept out into safety, with not above fifty men slain outright and one hundred and twenty wounded. Nothing so daring or so brilliant had ever been accomplished before, not even by Drake when he “singed the King of Spain’s beard.” The sea-power of Spain was absolutely annihilated, and England rang with the praises of the man who had done it.

A public thanksgiving was held, and the Protector wrote to the victorious admiral: “We cannot but take notice how eminently it hath pleased God to make use of you in this service, assisting you with wisdom in the conduct and courage in the execution; and have sent you a small jewel”—his own portrait set in gold and diamonds—“as a testimony of our own and the Parliament’s good acceptance of your courage in this action.”

Blake now sailed for home, and his countrymen eagerly waited his coming. Alas, he was never to tread the shores of his native land again, never to see the fields and hedgerows, the hills and moorlands of his dear-loved West Country. Worn out by the fatigues and anxieties of warfare, he grew feebler day by day, and constantly asked if the shores of England were in sight. When at last the look-out at the masthead cried “Land O!” Blake was a dying man. He called his captains to him and bade them farewell. Then just as his ship entered Plymouth Sound he breathed his last.

In what lay the great glory and inspiration of Blake’s life? Not so much in his brilliant achievements, not so much in the care and forethought which he exhibited, as in his chivalrous character and splendid patriotism. His men loved him and honoured him because his honour and honesty of purpose were unimpeachable, and because he had no trace of self-seeking in his character. His first and only thought was for the honour and glory of his land. He was a British sailor—nothing more and nothing less. To him was entrusted the sacred jewel of the national honour, and never was it placed in cleaner or more zealous hands. “It is not for us,” he once declared, “to mend state affairs, but to keep foreigners from fooling us.” This was the watchword of his life, and this was his fame.

Chapter XIV.FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE REVOLUTION.

“Who comes with rapture greeted, and caressedWith frantic love,—his kingdom to regain?”

“Who comes with rapture greeted, and caressed

With frantic love,—his kingdom to regain?”

IT is the 29th of May, 1660, and London is a gala city. The streets are hung with tapestry; flags and banners wave from the housetops; the citizens in their best attire throng the streets; the mayor, aldermen, and the gilds in all their bravery of ceremonial robes and gold chains hie them to the city gates; every balcony is full of lords and ladies clad in the sumptuous trappings of state; drums roll, trumpets sound, and bells clash from the steeples. The guns of the Tower roar out a welcome, and loud cries of “The king! the king!” are heard. His procession approaches “with a triumph of twenty thousand horse and foot, brandishing their swords and shouting with inexpressible joy.” Now you see him sitting his horse with easy grace, and bowing calmly as he responds to the acclamations of the crowd. He is tall and graceful, his countenance somewhat swarthy and forbidding. He smiles as maidens strew flowers in his way and men cheer until they can cheer no more. “It must be my own fault,” he says, “that I have not come back sooner, for I find nobody who does not tell me that he has always longed for my return.”

He passes on to Whitehall and takes possession of the palace from which his father stepped on to the scaffold. Courtiers and sycophants, and honest men with tears in their eyes, crowd the presence-chamber to kiss his hands and wish him a long and happy reign, while the citizens outside give themselves up to unrestrained joy. A special Lord Mayor’s show is paraded as part of the festivities, and several of the pageants represent scenes from the life of the king who has just come into his own again.

Look at this device now passing on a great wheeled platform. It is a scene in Boscobel Wood. In the midst is a spreading oak, and high in the branches you see a figure representing Charles hiding from the Commonwealth soldiers, who are searching for him below. This incident actually happened just nine years ago, after the “crowning mercy” of Worcester, when Cromwell thoroughly routed the Royalists and the young prince was a hunted fugitive. Another scene in the show represents him riding towards safety as the servant of faithful Jane Lane, who sits behind him trembling with anxiety. The fugitive is now receiving the obeisance of a gay, glittering throng in the palace of his sires. As he does so he recalls the shifts and subterfuges, the hairbreadth escapes, the privations and perils of those dark days, and bitterly contrasts the glorious present with the long years of his shabby and penurious exile.

And now he is crowned and anointed king—hailed with enthusiasm by the very men who overthrew his father and consented unto his death. How has this wondrous change come about? Cromwell built his power on the sand, and with his last breath it fell to pieces like a house of cards. His son Richard, an easy-going country squire devoted to hawking, hunting, and horse-racing, hated the greatness which was thrust upon him, and within a year laid down his office. Then “Honest George” Monk, in command of the army in Scotland, saw that the hour had arrived when his countrymen were eager for steady and lawful government in place of the harsh and uncertain rule of the sword. He marched south, and the Londoners hailed him with wild shouts of delight. Like the Israelites of old time they cried, “Give us a king to reign over us,” and Charles was invited to return and claim his birthright.

The monarchy has been restored, and what manner of man is he who sets up the throne anew? Nature has given him excellent parts and a good temper; he has polite and engaging manners and a unique experience of the world; but otherwise he is utterly selfish and utterly ungrateful, “without desire of renown and without sensibility to reproach.” He is a cynic; he has absolutely no faith in human nature; he believes that every man has his price; and he values his kingship precisely for the amount of selfish indulgence which it can afford him. The father who was sent to the block was an angel of light compared with the son who has now been recalled to fill the empty throne. Forthwith he tramples all that is good as well as all that is harsh and unlovely in Puritanism under foot. He sets the nation a shameless example of licence and frivolity, and his subjects are not slow to imitate it. His court is filled with every kind of open wickedness; religion is scoffed at; morality, honour, steadfastness, and justice are fit subjects for the ribald jests of reckless roysterers. The pendulum has swung to the other extreme with a vengeance. Never before has national virtue been at so low an ebb.

The reign of Charles was one long reaction in Church, State, and national life. The efficiency of old Noll’s day became a thing of the past. The king wasted huge sums of money on his follies and vices, and the services were shamefully starved. Only fourteen years ago the Dutch were forced to acknowledge England as mistress of the seas; and now they entered the Thames, destroyed Sheerness, sailed up the Medway to Chatham, and burnt eight men of war, while the navy, paralyzed by corruption and mismanagement, was powerless to chastise them. At this humiliation the anger of the nation knew no bounds. “Then at length tardy justice was done to the memory of Oliver. Everywhere men magnified his valour, genius, and patriotism. Everywhere it was remembered how, when he ruled, all foreign powers had trembled at the name of England; how the States General, now so haughty, had crouched at his feet; and how, when it was known that he was no more, Amsterdam was lighted up as for a great deliverance, and children ran along the canals shouting for joy that the devil was dead! Even Royalists exclaimed that the State could be saved only by calling the old soldiers of the Commonwealth to arms. . . . Tilbury Fort, the place where Elizabeth had, with manly spirit, hurled foul scorn at Parma and Spain, was insulted by the invaders. The roar of foreign guns was heard, for the first and last time, by the citizens of London.”

While this ignominious war was raging, London suffered two disasters of such a terrible character that men openly spoke of them as the well-deserved scourges of Almighty God. Turn to the diary of Samuel Pepys, the Admiralty clerk who so faithfully mirrored the loose, careless life of the time, and read the entry of July 7, 1665: “This day, much against my will, I did in Drury Lane see two or three houses marked with a red cross upon the doors and ‘Lord, have mercy upon us’ writ there, which was a sad sight to me, being the first of the kind that to my remembrance I ever saw.” The Great Plague had arrived. Those who were stricken with the disease began to shiver; then they had headaches and were light-headed. On the third or fourth day they fainted suddenly, and spots broke out on the breast. As soon as these appeared, all hope was gone; the poor victim was dead within an hour.

As we follow Pepys’s pages we see alarm spreading, the clergy taking flight to the country, the stoppage of all work and trading, grass growing in the deserted streets, the bells tolling all day long, searchers going about to discover infected houses, dreaded death-carts rumbling over the stones to the mournful cry of “Bring out your dead;” then the last scene of all—the carts shooting their contents into huge pits dug at St. Martin’s in the Fields and at Mile-End. It is a terrible picture, and we shudder as we realize it.

All infected houses become prisons, with watchers at the doors so that none might come out or go in. Pepys tells us that a complaint was brought against a man for taking a child from an infected house, and the case was inquired into by the magistrates. They discovered that the child was the little daughter of a saddler. All his other children had died of the plague, and the saddler and his wife were shut up in their house, never expecting to leave it alive. They had one only wish in their despair, and that was to save the life of their little girl. At last they managed to communicate with a friend, who promised to take her away from London. The child was handed down from the window stark naked, and the friend, having dressed it in fresh clothes, took it to Greenwich, where, when the story was known, it was permitted to remain.

In all, the death-roll of that terrible year reached nearly 100,000, or about one-fifth of the total population. The worst time of all was in the first fortnight of September, when the deaths were over a thousand a day. As the summer passed, and the cold, high winds of winter blew, the plague gradually passed away.

Scarcely, however, had the dead-cart ceased to go its rounds when fire laid well-nigh the whole city in ruins. It broke out at one o’clock on Sunday morning, September 2, 1666, at the house of a baker in Pudding Lane, not far from the Monument which now commemorates the visitation. Most of the city was then built of wood, and as a high wind was blowing at the time the flames spread rapidly. The citizens could do nothing to stop the fire, and before long the city from the Tower to the Temple, and from the river to Smithfield, was one sheet of flame. A great terror seized the people, but as soon as they recovered from their fright they endeavoured to save what they could from the flames. Five, ten, and even fifty pounds were given for a cart, and the barges and boats on the river were laden to the gunwale with fugitives and their belongings. The fields round London were full of furniture and of people camping out amidst the pitiful remnants of property which they had saved. On Monday night the streets were as light as noonday, and the flames had reached St. Paul’s.

John Evelyn tells us in his diary that the stones flew like bombs, melting lead ran down the streets in streams, and the very pavements were red hot. “God grant,” says he, “my eyes may never behold the like. I now saw about ten thousand houses all in one flame. The noise and cracking and thunder of the flames, the shrieking of women and children, the hurry of the people, the fall of towers, houses, and churches, was like an awful storm. The air was so hot that at last men were not able to approach the fire, and were forced to stand still and let the flames burn on, which they did for nearly two miles in length and one in breadth. The clouds of smoke were dismal, and reached nearly fifty-six miles in length. London was, but is no more!”

At last the fire was checked by blowing up a number of houses with gunpowder. The wind fell, and on Wednesday morning the fire ceased, “as it were by a command from Heaven.” It began at Pudding Lane, and it ended at Pie Corner in Giltspur Street. Actually 13,000 houses and 89 churches were burnt down, but only fourteen persons were killed. Every dwelling and building over an area of 436 acres was destroyed. The fire, however, was a blessing in disguise, for it swept away the foul courts and alleys and destroyed the plague germs lingering in the soil. Wider and more open streets were built, and new and stately churches arose. The genius of Sir Christopher Wren was afforded a unique opportunity. He re-created St. Paul’s, his chief monument, and erected fifty-four churches, each with its own special features, yet all in harmony with the great mother-church of the city.

The restoration of Charles was a triumph for the Church of England, and marked the downfall of that religious toleration which Cromwell had established. At the instigation of Clarendon, the only man of real zeal and probity about the king, the Cavalier Parliament passed a series of spiteful Acts against the Puritans, or Nonconformists, as they may now be called. Henceforth all mayors, aldermen, councillors, and other borough officers must renounce the Solemn League and Covenant, deny the lawfulness of taking up arms against the king, and receive the sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England. This harsh and unfair Act was a great blow to the Nonconformists, and it practically drove them out of local government. They were next excluded from the Church by the Act of Uniformity; and then the expelled ministers began to form congregations outside the pale. But a new Act of Parliament forbidding the holding of all religious services except those of the Church of England, under pain of fine and imprisonment, was speedily passed to keep them forcibly within the fold. This shocking law actually made family worship a crime if more than five persons not belonging to the family were present. Then came another Act which forbade ministers expelled under the Act of Uniformity from teaching in a school or living within five miles of a city or corporate town. Thus the Church system which Laud had lost his head in trying to establish in the reign of Charles the First became the law of the land by the will of the people in the reign of his indifferent and cynical son.

The author of these cruel Acts was not long to sit high in the king’s favour. He was a grave, ponderous man, with the utmost scorn for the idle triflers and wicked spendthrifts amongst whom the king wasted his days. Frequently he took Charles to task for his misdemeanours, and by his importunity goaded him into keeping his promises. “He often said it was the making those promises which had brought the king home, and the keeping of them must keep him at home.” The king’s friends hated the solemn, long-winded Polonius, and one of them used to whisper in Charles’s ear, “There goes your schoolmaster.”

After the second Dutch War, in which England was covered with disgrace, Clarendon was a convenient scapegoat, and Charles dismissed him without a shade of regret and no single mark of gratitude for the long and faithful service which the deposed chancellor had rendered him both in exile and after the Restoration. Clarendon’s fall was the signal for great rejoicing amongst the shameless crew which surrounded the king. As he left Whitehall, disgraced and abandoned, a courtier assured Charles “that this was the first time he could ever call him King of England, being freed from this great man.”

And now, “freed from this great man,” Charles began to descend deeper and deeper into the mire. He formed a ministry of his friends, and laid deep plans for ruling as an absolute king, but without running any undue risks. Hitherto he had laughed at religion; now, when sick and serious, he turned to the Church of Rome, and desired to re-establish it in his land, but again without running undue risks. On one principle and one principle alone Charles was absolutely fixed—he would never go on his travels again. Then he perpetrated his last and foullest piece of infamy—he sold himself to Lewis of France for a miserable £200,000 a year. Henceforth he was the pensioner of the French king and a secret traitor to his own subjects.

No king so absolute as Charles when suddenly he was stricken with apoplexy. On his deathbed he was openly received into the Roman Catholic Church, to which he had long secretly belonged. He lingered until Friday, February 6, 1685. As the morning light began to peep through the windows he apologized to those who had watched him through the night for all the trouble which he had caused them. “He had been,” he said, “a most unconscionable time dying, but he hoped they would excuse it.”

So passes Charles. One of his friends had previously suggested this epitaph:—

“Here lies our sovereign lord the king,Whose word no man relies on;Who never said a foolish thing,And never did a wise one.”

“Here lies our sovereign lord the king,

Whose word no man relies on;

Who never said a foolish thing,

And never did a wise one.”

There was, however, another and a better side to Charles’s character. He frequented the society of the most learned men of his time, founded the Royal Society, and attended its meetings. He had undeniable talents and a taste for arts and sciences, but his talents only served to bring into high relief his grovelling vices and sordid treasons.

JANE LANE HELPING PRINCE CHARLES TO ESCAPE.(From the fresco by C. W. Cope, R.A., in the Houses of Parliament.)

RESCUED FROM THE PLAGUE, LONDON, 1665.(From the picture by Frank W. W. Topham, R.I. By permission of the Artist.)

The Fall of Clarendon.(From the picture by E. M. Ward, R.A., in the National Gallery of British Art.)

“Step by step, and word by word: who is ruled may read,Suffer not the old kings—for we know the breed.”

“Step by step, and word by word: who is ruled may read,

Suffer not the old kings—for we know the breed.”

Once more the scene is laid in Whitehall. James, the brother of Charles, is king, and he is now about to grant an audience to a nephew who has unsuccessfully rebelled against him and lies under sentence of death. Look at the king’s face. You see at once that he is a slow, narrow man, singularly obstinate, harsh, and implacable. His heart is as hard as the marble chimney-pieces of his own palace. He never forgets and he never forgives an injury. As you glance at his hard, cruel face you feel that he will be deaf to every cry of mercy and relentless to every touch of pity. Now the door of an antechamber is thrown open and the Duke of Monmouth, a handsome man, pale as death, is ushered in. His arms are bound behind him with a silken cord. At once he throws himself on the ground, and in an agony of weeping crawls to the king’s feet. He begs—oh, how passionately he begs—for life, only life—life at any price. In frenzied tones he beseeches his uncle to show him mercy for the sake of the late king, his father. If he is spared, he will never, never offend again.

“I am sorry for you,” says the king in icy tones, “but you have brought all this upon yourself. You have called yourself king, you have raised rebellion, and foully aspersed me in your Declaration. Your treasons are black and many. There is no hope of pardon for you this side the grave.”

At once the wretched prisoner cries out that he signed the Declaration without reading it; that it was the work of a villain.

“Do you expect me to believe,” says James with contempt, “that you set your hand to a paper of such moment without knowing what it contained?”

Now Monmouth makes his final and most abject appeal. He who has been the champion of Protestantism, and has called men to arms against a Catholic king, now offers to be reconciled with the Church of Rome! The king, always eager to make converts, immediately offers his spiritual assistance, but not a word does he say of pardon or respite.

“Is there no hope?” asks Monmouth.

The king turns away in silence, and the prisoner rises from his knees. The bitterness of death is past; his craven weakness has gone; he leaves the room with a firm step. In the Tower he takes farewell of his children and of the brave wife who has reclaimed him from a life of vice. Then he goes to the block, and his head is hacked off by an executioner whose nerve has failed him.

Let the story of the ill-starred rising be told. Monmouth was the son of King Charles and Lucy Walters, the daughter of a Welsh Royalist. In his thirty-first year he was probably the most popular man in England, extremely handsome, and gifted with the most charming manners. His father had conferred all possible honours on him, and as there was a movement to exclude his Roman Catholic uncle James from the succession he had come to regard himself as heir to the throne. He had proved himself no mean soldier on battlefields in the Netherlands and in Scotland, where he had shown mercy to the vanquished. He neglected no opportunity of making himself popular with the people. “He stood godfather to the children of the peasantry, mingled in every rustic sport, wrestled, played at quarter-staff, and won foot races in his boots against fleet runners in shoes.”

His great claim, however, to the sympathy of the people was his staunch Protestantism. As a matter of fact, he had no settled religious opinions. His private life was bad, and his Protestantism was but a means to an end. He had taken part in a reckless plot towards the close of his father’s reign, and had been obliged to take refuge in the Netherlands, with a sentence of death hanging over his head. On his deathbed, when Charles blessed his children, his eldest and best-loved son was an exile and a wanderer. The dying king never mentioned his name.

James began his reign by promising to “preserve the government both in Church and State as by law established.” There was no opposition to him; men were ready to rely upon “the word of a king who was never worse than his word.” They remembered his good work at the Admiralty and praised his personal courage, while they hated and feared his religion. Really, James was a stronger and better man than Charles; but while the late king was witty, gracious, good-natured, and easy-going, James was dull, suspicious, sullen, and silent. A contemporary said, “Charles could have been a great king if he would, and James would have been a great king if he could.” While Charles cared nothing for religion, and would risk nothing for the Church which he favoured, James was a zealous Roman Catholic, and was prepared to risk his crown for the sake of his Church.

The Protestantism of the nation was soon alarmed. The king openly heard mass, and a week or two later the rites of the Church of Rome, after an interval of a hundred and twenty-seven years, were once more performed at Westminster. Then came a proclamation suspending the penal laws against Nonconformists, and thousands of prisoners, including the author of “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” were released. Parliament showed no anger; it was packed with the king’s friends. They granted James a most liberal income, which almost made him independent of further Parliamentary grants.

Meanwhile, Monmouth in Holland was busy hatching a plot to oust James and secure the throne for himself. His fellow-conspirator was Archibald Campbell, Earl of Argyll, the leader of the Covenanters who had suffered persecutions many and sore during the last reign. Two years after the Restoration Episcopacy had been re-established in Scotland, and more than three hundred ministers had given up their livings rather than conform. Severe fines were inflicted on all who dared to abstain from public worship in the parish churches, and troopers rode about the country cursing and swearing, harrying and plundering, wounding and killing to their hearts’ content. Many of the ejected ministers continued to preach in the open air, and their flocks, greatly daring, attended their secret ministrations. “Conventicles” increased daily in number. With a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other, the blue-bonneted Covenanters gathered on lonely hillsides for worship, while scouts kept watch for the coming of the dreaded troopers. Persecution at last drove them to arms. After a victory at Drumclog, they were utterly defeated at Bothwell Bridge, and a terribly cruel time of shooting and hanging, torture and transportation set in.

Argyll’s father had been leader of the Covenanters in the days of Charles the First, and after the Restoration he lost his head. The son, Monmouth’s fellow-conspirator, refused to take the oath of the Scottish Test Act without adding a statement that thereby he was not precluded from trying to amend both Church and State. For this he was brought to trial, and on evidence that would not hang a dog condemned to death. Fortunately, however, he escaped in disguise, and found a refuge in Amsterdam, where the leading English and Scottish exiles were assembled. Though there was not much sympathy between Monmouth and Argyll, they joined hands, and arranged that the great MacCallum More should rouse his clansmen and head a rising in Scotland. This was to be promptly followed by Monmouth’s descent on England.

The Scottish expedition was doomed to failure from the first, because it was commanded, not by a single general, but by a committee, which disputed and quarrelled on every possible occasion. The expedition reached Campbeltown, on the coast of Kintyre, and here Argyll issued a proclamation declaring that King James had murdered King Charles, and that Monmouth was the rightful king. His clansmen flocked to him; but the Lowland leaders despised them, and endeavoured to raise the Cameronians of Ayrshire, who showed not the slightest disposition to take up arms. Soon the committee was at loggerheads, and all was confusion and despondency. Food ran short, and the Highlanders deserted in hundreds. Argyll now yielded to the committeemen, who urged him to march into the Lowlands. Ere a battle could be fought his army had melted away, and his only safety lay in flight.

Argyll disguised himself as a peasant, and pretended to be the guide of Major Fullarton. The friends journeyed through Renfrewshire until they reached the junction of the Black Cart and the White Cart. Here they found that the only practicable ford was held by a party of militia. The travellers were challenged, their answers were evasive, and an attempt was made to seize the supposed guide. He broke loose and sprang into the water, where for a short time he held his own against five assailants. His pistols, however, had been wetted and were useless. Struck down with a broadsword, he was easily overcome, and his captors learnt to their dismay that the champion of the Protestant religion, the heir of a great and honoured name in Scotland, was in their hands.

On June 20, 1685, Argyll was dragged through the streets of Edinburgh bareheaded, his hands tied behind his back, guards surrounding him, and the hangman walking in front. Up the Canongate and the High Street he passed, and when the castle was reached he was put in irons and informed that he had but a few days to live. No new trial was necessary; he was to be executed on his old sentence. He heard his fate with majestic resignation, for he did not fear death. Torture was threatened, but the threat did not move him, and not a word would he say to betray a friend. He composed his own epitaph, and spent the short remaining hours in devotion.

On the very day on which he was to die he dined well, and according to his wont, lay down for a short slumber after the meal. A Lord of the Council who came with a message insisted on seeing him. He was told that the earl was asleep, but could not believe that such was the case. The door of the cell was softly opened, “and there lay Argyll on his bed, sleeping in his irons the placid sleep of infancy.” In his last hour he wrote a most loving and cheering letter to his wife, and at the call of his jailers mounted the scaffold with undaunted courage. He made a short speech to the people, declaring that he died “not only a Protestant, but with a heart-hatred of Popery, of Prelacy, and of all superstition.” He then embraced his friends, gave them tokens of remembrance, prayed a few moments, and the axe fell.

Now, having seen a noble man pay the price of failure, let us turn to the progress of Monmouth. On the morning of June 11, 1685, a week before the capture of Argyll, three ships appeared off the little port of Lyme Regis, in Dorsetshire. The inhabitants from the cliffs saw eighty well-armed men land on the shore, kneel down, and pray for a blessing on their venture. Then they saw a gallant figure draw his sword and lead his men over the cliffs into the little town. His name and the character of his mission were soon known, and there was great excitement in the place. The fishermen flocked to him shouting, “A Monmouth! a Monmouth! the Protestant religion!” Meanwhile a blue flag had been set up in the market-place, and now Monmouth’s Declaration was read. It was full of wild charges against James, and accused him of burning London and poisoning the late king, his brother. James was denounced as a tyrant, murderer, and usurper. Monmouth said that he had come as captain-general of the English Protestants in arms against tyranny and Popery.

The news of his coming spread like wildfire through the West Country. Many of the people were Dissenters, who had suffered all kinds of petty persecution, and they hailed the advent of Monmouth with the utmost eagerness. They remembered how he had endeared himself to them when he made his progress through the country five years before, and they rushed to his banner with alacrity. By the time he reached Exeter nearly all Devonshire had flocked to him, and nine hundred young men in white uniform marched before him into the city. Recruits came in by hundreds daily; there were not enough clerks to take down their names. Arming and drilling went on all day, and everything promised well.

On June 18, Monmouth reached the pleasant and prosperous town of Taunton, which gave him a right royal welcome. The children of the men who had helped Blake to hold out against the Cavaliers now welcomed Monmouth with unrestrained joy. Every door and window was adorned with wreaths of flowers, and no man appeared in the streets without the badge of the popular cause in his hat. Damsels of the best families in the town wove colours for the rebels. One flag in particular was embroidered with the royal arms, and was offered to Monmouth by a party of school-girls. Their school-mistress presented the duke with a small Bible of great price. He took it with a show of reverence. “I come,” he said, “to defend the truths contained in this book, and to seal them, if it must be so, with my blood.”

Now let us hasten on to the final scene. It is Sunday morning, July 5, 1685, and “King” Monmouth is standing on the lofty tower of Bridgwater parish church, looking out over an expanse of fertile and well-wooded country, with the Mendip Hills to the north-east and the Quantocks to the south-west. He turns his eyes anxiously towards the south-east, where there is a wide extent of dreary morass known as Sedgemoor. In the villages round the moor the royal troops are encamped, and are rapidly drinking themselves drunk with Somerset cider. Monmouth is in a despondent mood; his heart has failed him, and he has already meditated flight. The trainbands of the surrounding counties and the life-guards of the king are closing in upon him in overwhelming force, and if victory is to be secured a battle must be fought without delay. He forthwith determines to march that very night, under cover of the darkness, and fall on the surprised enemy before dawn.

As the clock strikes eleven, Monmouth and his men march out of Taunton, the moon shining brightly and the northern streamers flashing in the sky. By one o’clock his half-armed rabble is on the moor, where the marsh-fog lies so thick that nothing can be seen fifty paces away. Between him and the enemy are three broad ditches or rhines full of mud and water. Monmouth knows of two of these ditches, and has planned the advance so as to cross them by the causeways. He is, however, ignorant of the third, and when his army reaches its brink it is powerless to cross and attack the king’s troops, only a few paces away. A random pistol-shot has already aroused the Royalists; their drums beat to arms, and the cavalry and foot, scrambling into order, advance towards the rhine which separates them from the enemy. “For whom are you?” shouts an officer of foot-guards. “For the king,” is the reply from the rebel ranks. “For which king?” is then demanded. The answer is a loud shout of “King Monmouth! God be with us!” The royal troops fire; the rebel horsemen flee, and the drivers of the ammunition wagons hasten after them with the powder and ball.

Now the sun rises and the battle begins in earnest. It resolves itself into two rows of men firing at each other across a broad ditch of inky water. The Somersetshire rustics fight like veterans, but all in vain. The unequal contest is soon decided, and Monmouth, seeing that all hope has gone, turns and runs away. His deserted followers, however, make a gallant stand, but their scythes and pitchforks are useless against the swords of the king’s troopers. The arrival of the artillery brings the engagement to a speedy close. The rebel battalions waver, break, and flee, the Mendip miners alone remaining to stain the marshy ground with their blood. More than one thousand of the rebels lie dead on the field. The last battle has been fought on English ground.

But what of Monmouth? He did not draw rein until he reached Chedzoy, where he stopped a moment to mount a fresh horse and hide his blue ribbon and his George. He rode on all day towards the south-east, hoping to gain the New Forest, where he might lurk in the cabins of deer-stealers until an opportunity arrived to escape to the Continent. The night was passed in the open air; in the morning he and his companions found themselves ringed in by their foes. Monmouth changed clothes with a peasant and betook himself into a field, partly of rye, pease, and oats, partly overgrown with furze and brambles.

A woman reported that she had seen two strangers enter the field, and soldiers, stimulated by the offer of £5,000 for the capture of the duke, were told off to watch the fences while dogs were turned out among the bushes. At nightfall no capture had been made. The fugitives lay close behind a thick hedge; thirty times they ventured to look out, and thirty times they saw an armed sentinel watching for them. At sunrise the search began again, and not a yard of the field went unexamined. At length a gaunt figure in a shepherd’s dress was discovered in a dry ditch. In his pockets were some raw pease, a watch, a purse of gold, and the George which he had received from the hands of his father in the days when he was the spoiled darling of the court.

The wretched man was conveyed to London in a state of abject terror. He begged for an interview with his uncle, and what happened at that interview you already know. The scene with which this chapter opened was the sequel to his capture, the painful episode which preceded his execution.

“Woe to the vanquished!” James now wreaked such a vengeance on Monmouth’s poor, deluded followers that his name has become a byword of inhuman cruelty. A brutal soldier named Kirke was sent down to the west with his “lambs,” and the savage sport began. You may still see at Taunton the house in which he lodged. It was formerly an inn, and on its signpost he hanged scores of peasants, while his drums struck up and his trumpets sounded “so that they should have music to their dancing!” “My lord,” said the Bishop of Bath and Wells to Lord Feversham, who was equally ferocious, “this is murder, not law; the battle being over, these poor wretches should be tried.”

Then came Judge Jeffreys, a drunken, foul-mouthed, degraded wretch, with a forehead of brass and lungs of leather. Nothing more revolting than his so-called trials have ever disgraced our annals. He roared, he bullied, he blasphemed, he laughed, joked, and swore until men believed him to be drunk from morning till night. So he was—drunk with blood. When the “Bloody Assize” was concluded, Jeffreys openly boasted that he had hanged more traitors than all the Chief-justices since the Conquest. “At every spot where two roads met, and every market-place, on the green of every large village which had furnished Monmouth with soldiers, ironed corpses clattering in the wind, or heads and quarters stuck on poles, poisoned the air and made the traveller sick with horror. In many parishes the peasantry could not assemble in the house of God without seeing the ghastly face of a neighbour grinning at them over the porch.”

Perhaps the most infamous sentence of this ermined fiend was that on Alice Lisle, the widow of a man who had been one of the regicides, and had filled high posts under the Commonwealth. Her crime was that she had sheltered two fugitives from Sedgemoor. She was old and deaf; she had no counsel to defend her; and she pleaded that what she had done was simply an act of common charity. So innocent and devoid of offence did she seem that the jury were inclined to acquit her. Jeffreys turned on them with the utmost fury, and at length they brought in a craven verdict of “guilty.” “Gentlemen,” said he, “in your place I would find her guilty were she my own mother.” It was the only word of truth which fell from his lips during the trial. Then he condemned her to be burnt alive that very afternoon.

Appeals for mercy came to him on all hands and from all classes. He consented to postpone the execution for five days, during which ladies of high rank interceded with James for the poor old lady, but all in vain. The only mercy wrung from the pitiless king was to forgo the burning in favour of hanging. She went to her death with serene courage, and good men and women held up their hands in horror throughout the length and breadth of the land. Elizabeth Gaunt, a pious and charitable Baptist, was actually burnt alive at Tyburn on a like charge.

The judicial murders reached in all three hundred and twenty; the number of persons transported as slaves to the West Indies was eight hundred and forty-one. The poor wretches destined to the plantations were distributed into gangs and bestowed on courtiers, who made huge sums by this traffic in the flesh and blood of their fellow subjects. The Chief-justice traded largely in pardons, and managed to accumulate a fortune in this way. No wonder the popular name for the estate which he bought with the money wasAceldama, “the field of blood.” The ladies of the queen’s household were specially prominent in this odious work of selling pardons. The little girls who had presented the banner to Monmouth became the portion of the queen’s maids of honour. Two of them died in prison, and the rest were only released upon payment of a heavy ransom.

And now James stands triumphant; his throne seems unassailable. He is at the height of his power and prosperity, and Jeffreys is his Lord Chancellor; yet already the writing appears on the wall, and the day of his doom is fast approaching. His terrible vengeance in the west has sent a thrill of horror through the whole country, and has made men loathe his very name.

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