The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (diy ebook reader .txt) π
Excerpt from the book:
Read free book Β«The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (diy ebook reader .txt) πΒ» - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
Download in Format:
- Author: Thomas Babington Macaulay
Read book online Β«The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (diy ebook reader .txt) πΒ». Author - Thomas Babington Macaulay
love was of no long duration. A rapid and effectual
gaol delivery was at hand. Early in September, Jeffreys,
accompanied by four other judges, set out on that circuit of
which the memory will last as long as our race and language. The
officers who commanded the troops in the districts through which
his course lay had orders to furnish him with whatever military
aid he might require. His ferocious temper needed no spur; yet a
spur was applied. The health and spirits of the Lord Keeper had
given way. He had been deeply mortified by the coldness of the
King and by the insolence of the Chief Justice, and could find
little consolation in looking back on a life, not indeed
blackened by any atrocious crime, but sullied by cowardice,
selfishness, and servility. So deeply was the unhappy man humbled
that, when he appeared for the last time in Westminster Hall. he
took with him a nosegay to hide his face, because, as he
afterwards owned, he could not bear the eyes of the bar and of
the audience. The prospect of his approaching end seems to have
inspired him with unwonted courage. He determined to discharge
his conscience, requested an audience of the King, spoke
earnestly of the dangers inseparable from violent and arbitrary
counsels, and condemned the lawless cruelties which the soldiers
had committed in Somersetshire. He soon after retired from London
to die. He breathed his last a few days after the Judges set out
for the West. It was immediately notified to Jeffreys that he
might expect the Great Seal as the reward of faithful and
vigorous service.442
At Winchester the Chief Justice first opened his commission.
Hampshire had not been the theatre of war; but many of the
vanquished rebels had, like their leader, fled thither. Two of
them, John Hickes, a Nonconformist divine, and Richard Nelthorpe,
a lawyer who had been outlawed for taking part in the Rye House
plot, had sought refuge at the house of Alice, widow of John
Lisle. John Lisle had sate in the Long Parliament and in the High
Court of Justice, had been a commissioner of the Great Seal in
the days of the Commonwealth and had been created a Lord by
Cromwell. The titles given by the Protector had not been
recognised by any government which had ruled England since the
downfall of his house; but they appear to have been often used in
conversation even by Royalists. John Lisle's widow was therefore
commonly known as the Lady Alice. She was related to many
respectable, and to some noble, families; and she was generally
esteemed even by the Tory gentlemen of her country. For it was
well known to them that she had deeply regretted some violent
acts in which her husband had borne a part, that she had shed
bitter tears for Charles the First, and that she had protected
and relieved many Cavaliers in their distress. The same womanly
kindness, which had led her to befriend the Royalists in their
time of trouble, would not suffer her to refuse a meal and a
hiding place to the wretched men who now entreated her to protect
them. She took them into her house, set meat and drink before
them, and showed them where they might take rest. The next
morning her dwelling was surrounded by soldiers. Strict search
was made. Hickes was found concealed in the malthouse, and
Nelthorpe in the chimney. If Lady Alice knew her guests to have
been concerned in the insurrection, she was undoubtedly guilty of
what in strictness was a capital crime. For the law of principal
and accessory, as respects high treason, then was, and is to this
day, in a state disgraceful to English jurisprudence. In cases of
felony, a distinction founded on justice and reason, is made
between the principal and the accessory after the fact. He who
conceals from justice one whom he knows to be a murderer is
liable to punishment, but not to the punishment of murder. He, on
the other hand, who shelters one whom he knows to be a traitor
is, according to all our jurists, guilty of high treason. It is
unnecessary to point out the absurdity and cruelty of a law which
includes under the same definition, and visits with the same
penalty, offences lying at the opposite extremes of the scale of
guilt. The feeling which makes the most loyal subject shrink from
the thought of giving up to a shameful death the rebel who,
vanquished, hunted down, and in mortal agony, begs for a morsel
of bread and a cup of water, may be a weakness; but it is surely
a weakness very nearly allied to virtue, a weakness which,
constituted as human beings are, we can hardly eradicate from the
mind without eradicating many noble and benevolent sentiments. A
wise and good ruler may not think it right to sanction this
weakness; but he will generally connive at it, or punish it very
tenderly. In no case will he treat it as a crime of the blackest
dye. Whether Flora Macdonald was justified in concealing the
attainted heir of the Stuarts, whether a brave soldier of our own
time was justified in assisting the escape of Lavalette, are
questions on which casuists may differ: but to class such actions
with the crimes of Guy Faux and Fieschi is an outrage to humanity
and common sense. Such, however, is the classification of our
law. It is evident that nothing but a lenient administration
could make such a state of the law endurable. And it is just to
say that, during many generations, no English government, save
one, has treated with rigour persons guilty merely of harbouring
defeated and flying insurgents. To women especially has been
granted, by a kind of tacit prescription, the right of indulging
in the midst of havoc and vengeance, that compassion which is the
most endearing of all their charms. Since the beginning of the
great civil war, numerous rebels, some of them far more important
than Hickes or Nelthorpe, have been protected from the severity
of victorious governments by female adroitness and generosity.
But no English ruler who has been thus baffled, the savage and
implacable James alone excepted, has had the barbarity even to
think of putting a lady to a cruel and shameful death for so
venial and amiable a transgression.
Odious as the law was, it was strained for the purpose of
destroying Alice Lisle. She could not, according to the doctrine
laid down by the highest authority, be convicted till after the
conviction of the rebels whom she had harboured.443 She was,
however, set to the bar before either Hickes or Nelthorpe had
been tried. It was no easy matter in such a case to obtain a
verdict for the crown. The witnesses prevaricated. The jury,
consisting of the principal gentlemen of Hampshire, shrank from
the thought of sending a fellow creature to the stake for conduct
which seemed deserving rather of praise than of blame. Jeffreys
was beside himself with fury. This was the first case of treason
on the circuit; and there seemed to be a strong probability that
his prey would escape him. He stormed, cursed, and swore in
language which no wellbred man would have used at a race or a
cockfight. One witness named Dunne, partly from concern for Lady
Alice, and partly from fright at the threats and maledictions of
the Chief Justice, entirely lost his head, and at last stood
silent. "Oh how hard the truth is," said Jeffreys, "to come out
of a lying Presbyterian knave." The witness, after a pause of
some minutes, stammered a few unmeaning words. "Was there ever,"
exclaimed the judge, with an oath, "was there ever such a villain
on the face of the earth? Dost thou believe that there is a God?
Dost thou believe in hell fire. Of all the witnesses that I ever
met with I never saw thy fellow." Still the poor man, scared out
of his senses, remained mute; and again Jeffreys burst forth. "I
hope, gentlemen of the jury, that you take notice of the horrible
carriage of this fellow. How can one help abhorring both these
men and their religion? A Turk is a saint to such a fellow as
this. A Pagan would be ashamed of such villany. Oh blessed Jesus!
What a generation of vipers do we live among!" "I cannot tell
what to say, my Lord," faltered Dunne. The judge again broke
forth into a volley of oaths. "Was there ever," he cried, "such
an impudent rascal? Hold the candle to him that we may see his
brazen face. You, gentlemen, that are of counsel for the crown,
see that an information for perjury be preferred against this
fellow." After the witnesses had been thus handled, the Lady
Alice was called on for her defence. She began by saying, what
may possibly have been true, that though she knew Hickes to be in
trouble when she took him in, she did not know or suspect that he
had been concerned in the rebellion. He was a divine, a man of
peace. It had, therefore, never occurred to her that he could
have borne arms against the government; and she had supposed that
he wished to conceal himself because warrants were out against
him for field preaching. The Chief Justice began to storm. "But I
will tell you. There is not one of those lying, snivelling,
canting Presbyterians but, one way or another, had a hand in the
rebellion. Presbytery has all manner of villany in it. Nothing
but Presbytery could have made Dunne such a rogue. Show me a
Presbyterian; and I'll show thee a lying knave." He summed up in
the same style, declaimed during an hour against Whigs and
Dissenters, and reminded the jury that the prisoner's husband had
borne a part in the death of Charles the First, a fact which had
not been proved by any testimony, and which, if it had been
proved, would have been utterly irrelevant to the issue. The jury
retired, and remained long in consultation. The judge grew
impatient. He could not conceive, he said, how, in so plain a
case, they should even have left the box. He sent a messenger to
tell them that, if they did not instantly return, he would
adjourn the court and lock them up all night. Thus put to the
torture, they came, but came to say that they doubted whether the
charge had been made out. Jeffreys expostulated with them
vehemently, and, after another consultation, they gave a
reluctant verdict of Guilty.
On the following morning sentence was pronounced. Jeffreys gave
directions that Alice Lisle should be burned alive that very
afternoon. This excess of barbarity moved the pity and
indignation even of the class which was most devoted to the
crown. The clergy of Winchester Cathedral remonstrated with the
gaol delivery was at hand. Early in September, Jeffreys,
accompanied by four other judges, set out on that circuit of
which the memory will last as long as our race and language. The
officers who commanded the troops in the districts through which
his course lay had orders to furnish him with whatever military
aid he might require. His ferocious temper needed no spur; yet a
spur was applied. The health and spirits of the Lord Keeper had
given way. He had been deeply mortified by the coldness of the
King and by the insolence of the Chief Justice, and could find
little consolation in looking back on a life, not indeed
blackened by any atrocious crime, but sullied by cowardice,
selfishness, and servility. So deeply was the unhappy man humbled
that, when he appeared for the last time in Westminster Hall. he
took with him a nosegay to hide his face, because, as he
afterwards owned, he could not bear the eyes of the bar and of
the audience. The prospect of his approaching end seems to have
inspired him with unwonted courage. He determined to discharge
his conscience, requested an audience of the King, spoke
earnestly of the dangers inseparable from violent and arbitrary
counsels, and condemned the lawless cruelties which the soldiers
had committed in Somersetshire. He soon after retired from London
to die. He breathed his last a few days after the Judges set out
for the West. It was immediately notified to Jeffreys that he
might expect the Great Seal as the reward of faithful and
vigorous service.442
At Winchester the Chief Justice first opened his commission.
Hampshire had not been the theatre of war; but many of the
vanquished rebels had, like their leader, fled thither. Two of
them, John Hickes, a Nonconformist divine, and Richard Nelthorpe,
a lawyer who had been outlawed for taking part in the Rye House
plot, had sought refuge at the house of Alice, widow of John
Lisle. John Lisle had sate in the Long Parliament and in the High
Court of Justice, had been a commissioner of the Great Seal in
the days of the Commonwealth and had been created a Lord by
Cromwell. The titles given by the Protector had not been
recognised by any government which had ruled England since the
downfall of his house; but they appear to have been often used in
conversation even by Royalists. John Lisle's widow was therefore
commonly known as the Lady Alice. She was related to many
respectable, and to some noble, families; and she was generally
esteemed even by the Tory gentlemen of her country. For it was
well known to them that she had deeply regretted some violent
acts in which her husband had borne a part, that she had shed
bitter tears for Charles the First, and that she had protected
and relieved many Cavaliers in their distress. The same womanly
kindness, which had led her to befriend the Royalists in their
time of trouble, would not suffer her to refuse a meal and a
hiding place to the wretched men who now entreated her to protect
them. She took them into her house, set meat and drink before
them, and showed them where they might take rest. The next
morning her dwelling was surrounded by soldiers. Strict search
was made. Hickes was found concealed in the malthouse, and
Nelthorpe in the chimney. If Lady Alice knew her guests to have
been concerned in the insurrection, she was undoubtedly guilty of
what in strictness was a capital crime. For the law of principal
and accessory, as respects high treason, then was, and is to this
day, in a state disgraceful to English jurisprudence. In cases of
felony, a distinction founded on justice and reason, is made
between the principal and the accessory after the fact. He who
conceals from justice one whom he knows to be a murderer is
liable to punishment, but not to the punishment of murder. He, on
the other hand, who shelters one whom he knows to be a traitor
is, according to all our jurists, guilty of high treason. It is
unnecessary to point out the absurdity and cruelty of a law which
includes under the same definition, and visits with the same
penalty, offences lying at the opposite extremes of the scale of
guilt. The feeling which makes the most loyal subject shrink from
the thought of giving up to a shameful death the rebel who,
vanquished, hunted down, and in mortal agony, begs for a morsel
of bread and a cup of water, may be a weakness; but it is surely
a weakness very nearly allied to virtue, a weakness which,
constituted as human beings are, we can hardly eradicate from the
mind without eradicating many noble and benevolent sentiments. A
wise and good ruler may not think it right to sanction this
weakness; but he will generally connive at it, or punish it very
tenderly. In no case will he treat it as a crime of the blackest
dye. Whether Flora Macdonald was justified in concealing the
attainted heir of the Stuarts, whether a brave soldier of our own
time was justified in assisting the escape of Lavalette, are
questions on which casuists may differ: but to class such actions
with the crimes of Guy Faux and Fieschi is an outrage to humanity
and common sense. Such, however, is the classification of our
law. It is evident that nothing but a lenient administration
could make such a state of the law endurable. And it is just to
say that, during many generations, no English government, save
one, has treated with rigour persons guilty merely of harbouring
defeated and flying insurgents. To women especially has been
granted, by a kind of tacit prescription, the right of indulging
in the midst of havoc and vengeance, that compassion which is the
most endearing of all their charms. Since the beginning of the
great civil war, numerous rebels, some of them far more important
than Hickes or Nelthorpe, have been protected from the severity
of victorious governments by female adroitness and generosity.
But no English ruler who has been thus baffled, the savage and
implacable James alone excepted, has had the barbarity even to
think of putting a lady to a cruel and shameful death for so
venial and amiable a transgression.
Odious as the law was, it was strained for the purpose of
destroying Alice Lisle. She could not, according to the doctrine
laid down by the highest authority, be convicted till after the
conviction of the rebels whom she had harboured.443 She was,
however, set to the bar before either Hickes or Nelthorpe had
been tried. It was no easy matter in such a case to obtain a
verdict for the crown. The witnesses prevaricated. The jury,
consisting of the principal gentlemen of Hampshire, shrank from
the thought of sending a fellow creature to the stake for conduct
which seemed deserving rather of praise than of blame. Jeffreys
was beside himself with fury. This was the first case of treason
on the circuit; and there seemed to be a strong probability that
his prey would escape him. He stormed, cursed, and swore in
language which no wellbred man would have used at a race or a
cockfight. One witness named Dunne, partly from concern for Lady
Alice, and partly from fright at the threats and maledictions of
the Chief Justice, entirely lost his head, and at last stood
silent. "Oh how hard the truth is," said Jeffreys, "to come out
of a lying Presbyterian knave." The witness, after a pause of
some minutes, stammered a few unmeaning words. "Was there ever,"
exclaimed the judge, with an oath, "was there ever such a villain
on the face of the earth? Dost thou believe that there is a God?
Dost thou believe in hell fire. Of all the witnesses that I ever
met with I never saw thy fellow." Still the poor man, scared out
of his senses, remained mute; and again Jeffreys burst forth. "I
hope, gentlemen of the jury, that you take notice of the horrible
carriage of this fellow. How can one help abhorring both these
men and their religion? A Turk is a saint to such a fellow as
this. A Pagan would be ashamed of such villany. Oh blessed Jesus!
What a generation of vipers do we live among!" "I cannot tell
what to say, my Lord," faltered Dunne. The judge again broke
forth into a volley of oaths. "Was there ever," he cried, "such
an impudent rascal? Hold the candle to him that we may see his
brazen face. You, gentlemen, that are of counsel for the crown,
see that an information for perjury be preferred against this
fellow." After the witnesses had been thus handled, the Lady
Alice was called on for her defence. She began by saying, what
may possibly have been true, that though she knew Hickes to be in
trouble when she took him in, she did not know or suspect that he
had been concerned in the rebellion. He was a divine, a man of
peace. It had, therefore, never occurred to her that he could
have borne arms against the government; and she had supposed that
he wished to conceal himself because warrants were out against
him for field preaching. The Chief Justice began to storm. "But I
will tell you. There is not one of those lying, snivelling,
canting Presbyterians but, one way or another, had a hand in the
rebellion. Presbytery has all manner of villany in it. Nothing
but Presbytery could have made Dunne such a rogue. Show me a
Presbyterian; and I'll show thee a lying knave." He summed up in
the same style, declaimed during an hour against Whigs and
Dissenters, and reminded the jury that the prisoner's husband had
borne a part in the death of Charles the First, a fact which had
not been proved by any testimony, and which, if it had been
proved, would have been utterly irrelevant to the issue. The jury
retired, and remained long in consultation. The judge grew
impatient. He could not conceive, he said, how, in so plain a
case, they should even have left the box. He sent a messenger to
tell them that, if they did not instantly return, he would
adjourn the court and lock them up all night. Thus put to the
torture, they came, but came to say that they doubted whether the
charge had been made out. Jeffreys expostulated with them
vehemently, and, after another consultation, they gave a
reluctant verdict of Guilty.
On the following morning sentence was pronounced. Jeffreys gave
directions that Alice Lisle should be burned alive that very
afternoon. This excess of barbarity moved the pity and
indignation even of the class which was most devoted to the
crown. The clergy of Winchester Cathedral remonstrated with the
Free e-book: Β«The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (diy ebook reader .txt) πΒ» - read online now on website american library books (americanlibrarybooks.com)
Similar e-books:
Comments (0)