The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (diy ebook reader .txt) π
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office of Sheriff
when the question of the Exclusion Bill occupied the public mind.
In politics he was a Whig: his religious opinions leaned towards
Presbyterianism: but his temper was cautious and moderate. It is
not proved by trustworthy evidence that he ever approached the
verge of treason. He had, indeed, when Sheriff, been very
unwilling to employ as his deputy a man so violent and
unprincipled as Goodenough. When the Rye House plot was
discovered, great hopes were entertained at Whitehall that
Cornish would appear to have been concerned: but these hopes were
disappointed. One of the conspirators, indeed, John Rumsey, was
ready to swear anything: but a single witness was not sufficient;
and no second witness could be found. More than two years had
since elapsed. Cornish thought himself safe; but the eye of the
tyrant was upon him. Goodenough, terrified by the near prospect
of death, and still harbouring malice on account of the
unfavourable opinion which had always been entertained of him by
his old master, consented to supply the testimony which had
hitherto been wanting. Cornish was arrested while transacting
business on the Exchange, was hurried to gaol, was kept there
some days in solitary confinement, and was brought altogether
unprepared to the bar of the Old Bailey. The case against him
rested wholly on the evidence of Rumsey and Goodenough. Both
were, by their own confession accomplices in the plot with which
they charged the prisoner. Both were impelled by the strongest
pressure of hope end fear to criminate him. Evidence was produced
which proved that Goodenough was also under the influence of
personal enmity. Rumsey's story was inconsistent with the story
which he had told when he appeared as a witness against Lord
Russell. But these things were urged in vain. On the bench sate
three judges who had been with Jeffreys in the West; and it was
remarked by those who watched their deportment that they had come
back from the carnage of Taunton in a fierce and excited state.
It is indeed but too true that the taste for blood is a taste
which even men not naturally cruel may, by habit, speedily
acquire. The bar and the bench united to browbeat the unfortunate
Whig. The jury, named by a courtly Sheriff, readily found a
verdict of Guilty; and, in spite of the indignant murmurs of the
public, Cornish suffered death within ten days after he had been
arrested. That no circumstance of degradation might be wanting,
the gibbet was set up where King Street meets Cheapside, in sight
of the house where he had long lived in general respect, of the
Exchange where his credit had always stood high, and of the
Guildhall where he had distinguished himself as a popular leader.
He died with courage and with many pious expressions, but showed,
by look and gesture, such strong resentment at the barbarity and
injustice with which he had been treated, that his enemies spread
a calumnious report concerning him. He was drunk, they said, or
out of his mind, when he was turned off. William Penn, however,
who stood near the gallows, and whose prejudice were all on the
side of the government, afterwards said that he could see in
Cornish's deportment nothing but the natural indignation of an
innocent man slain under the forms of law. The head of the
murdered magistrate was placed over the Guildhall.469
Black as this case was, it was not the blackest which disgraced
the sessions of that autumn at the Old Bailey. Among the persons
concerned in the Rye House plot was a man named James Burton. By
his own confession he had been present when the design of
assassination was discussed by his accomplices. When the
conspiracy was detected, a reward was offered for his
apprehension. He was saved from death by an ancient matron of the
Baptist persuasion, named Elizabeth Gaunt. This woman, with the
peculiar manners and phraseology which then distinguished her
sect, had a large charity. Her life was passed in relieving the
unhappy of all religious denominations, and she was well known as
a constant visitor of the gaols. Her political and theological
opinions, as well as her compassionate disposition, led her to do
everything in her power for Burton. She procured a boat which
took him to Gravesend, where he got on board of a ship bound for
Amsterdam. At the moment of parting she put into his hand a sum
of money which, for her means, was very large. Burton, after
living some time in exile, returned to England with Monmouth,
fought at Sedgemoor, fled to London, and took refuge in the house
of John Fernley, a barber in Whitechapel. Fernley was very poor.
He was besieged by creditors. He knew that a reward of a hundred
pounds had been offered by the government for the apprehension of
Burton. But the honest man was incapable of betraying one who, in
extreme peril, had come under the shadow of his roof. Unhappily
it was soon noised abroad that the anger of James was more
strongly excited against those who harboured rebels than against
the rebels themselves. He had publicly declared that of all forms
of treason the hiding of traitors from his vengeance was the most
unpardonable. Burton knew this. He delivered himself up to the
government; and he gave information against Fernley and Elizabeth
Gaunt. They were brought to trial. The villain whose life they
had preserved had the heart and the forehead to appear as the
principal witness against them. They were convicted. Fernley was
sentenced to the gallows, Elizabeth Gaunt to the stake. Even
after all the horrors of that year, many thought it impossible
that these judgments should be carried into execution. But the
King was without pity. Fernley was hanged. Elizabeth Gaunt was
burned alive at Tyburn on the same day on which Cornish suffered
death in Cheapside. She left a paper written, indeed, in no
graceful style, yet such as was read by many thousands with
compassion and horror. "My fault," she said, "was one which a
prince might well have forgiven. I did but relieve a poor family;
and lo! I must die for it." She complained of the insolence of
the judges, of the ferocity of the gaoler, and of the tyranny of
him, the great one of all, to whose pleasure she and so many
other victims had been sacrificed. In so far as they had injured
herself, she forgave them: but, in that they were implacable
enemies of that good cause which would yet revive and flourish,
she left them to the judgment of the King of Kings. To the last
she preserved a tranquil courage, which reminded the spectators
of the most heroic deaths of which they had read in Fox. William
Penn, for whom exhibitions which humane men generally avoid seem
to have had a strong attraction, hastened from Cheapside, where
he had seen Cornish hanged, to Tyburn, in order to see Elizabeth
Gaunt burned. He afterwards related that, when she calmly
disposed the straw about her in such a manner as to shorten her
sufferings, all the bystanders burst into tears. It was much
noticed that, while the foulest judicial murder which had
disgraced even those times was perpetrating, a tempest burst
forth, such as had not been known since that great hurricane
which had raged round the deathbed of Oliver. The oppressed
Puritans reckoned up, not without a gloomy satisfaction the
houses which had been blown down, and the ships which had been
cast away, and derived some consolation from thinking that heaven
was bearing awful testimony against the iniquity which afflicted
the earth. Since that terrible day no woman has suffered death in
England for any political offence.470
It was not thought that Goodenough had yet earned his pardon. The
government was bent on destroying a victim of no high rank, a
surgeon in the City, named Bateman. He had attended Shaftesbury
professionally, and had been a zealous Exclusionist. He may
possibly have been privy to the Whig plot; but it is certain that
he had not been one of the leading conspirators; for, in the
great mass of depositions published by the government, his name
occurs only once, and then not in connection with any crime
bordering on high treason. From his indictment, and from the
scanty account which remains of his trial, it seems clear that he
was not even accused of participating in the design of murdering
the royal brothers. The malignity with which so obscure a man,
guilty of so slight an offence, was hunted down, while traitors
far more criminal and far more eminent were allowed to ransom
themselves by giving evidence against him, seemed to require
explanation; and a disgraceful explanation was found. When Oates,
after his scourging, was carried into Newgate insensible, and, as
all thought, in the last agony, he had been bled and his wounds
had been dressed by Bateman. This was an offence not to be
forgiven. Bateman was arrested and indicted. The witnesses
against him were men of infamous character, men, too, who were
swearing for their own lives. None of them had yet got his
pardon; and it was a popular saying, that they fished for prey,
like tame cormorants, with ropes round their necks. The prisoner,
stupefied by illness, was unable to articulate, or to understand
what passed. His son and daughter stood by him at the bar. They
read as well as they could some notes which he had set down, and
examined his witnesses. It was to little purpose. He was
convicted, hanged, and quartered.471
Never, not even under the tyranny of Laud, had the condition of
the Puritans been so deplorable as at that time. Never had spies
been so actively employed in detecting congregations. Never had
magistrates, grand jurors, rectors and churchwardens been so much
on the alert. Many Dissenters were cited before the
ecclesiastical courts. Others found it necessary to purchase the
connivance of the agents of the government by presents of
hogsheads of wine, and of gloves stuffed with guineas. It was
impossible for the separatists to pray together without
precautions such as are employed by coiners and receivers of
stolen goods. The places of meeting were frequently changed.
Worship was performed sometimes just before break of day and
sometimes at dead of night. Round the building where the little
flock was gathered sentinels were posted to give the alarm if a
stranger drew near. The minister in disguise was introduced
through the garden and the back yard. In some houses there were
trap doors through which, in case of danger, he might descend.
Where Nonconformists lived next door to each other, the walls
were often broken open, and secret passages were made from
dwelling to dwelling. No psalm was sung; and many contrivances
were used to prevent the voice of the preacher, in his moments of
fervour,
when the question of the Exclusion Bill occupied the public mind.
In politics he was a Whig: his religious opinions leaned towards
Presbyterianism: but his temper was cautious and moderate. It is
not proved by trustworthy evidence that he ever approached the
verge of treason. He had, indeed, when Sheriff, been very
unwilling to employ as his deputy a man so violent and
unprincipled as Goodenough. When the Rye House plot was
discovered, great hopes were entertained at Whitehall that
Cornish would appear to have been concerned: but these hopes were
disappointed. One of the conspirators, indeed, John Rumsey, was
ready to swear anything: but a single witness was not sufficient;
and no second witness could be found. More than two years had
since elapsed. Cornish thought himself safe; but the eye of the
tyrant was upon him. Goodenough, terrified by the near prospect
of death, and still harbouring malice on account of the
unfavourable opinion which had always been entertained of him by
his old master, consented to supply the testimony which had
hitherto been wanting. Cornish was arrested while transacting
business on the Exchange, was hurried to gaol, was kept there
some days in solitary confinement, and was brought altogether
unprepared to the bar of the Old Bailey. The case against him
rested wholly on the evidence of Rumsey and Goodenough. Both
were, by their own confession accomplices in the plot with which
they charged the prisoner. Both were impelled by the strongest
pressure of hope end fear to criminate him. Evidence was produced
which proved that Goodenough was also under the influence of
personal enmity. Rumsey's story was inconsistent with the story
which he had told when he appeared as a witness against Lord
Russell. But these things were urged in vain. On the bench sate
three judges who had been with Jeffreys in the West; and it was
remarked by those who watched their deportment that they had come
back from the carnage of Taunton in a fierce and excited state.
It is indeed but too true that the taste for blood is a taste
which even men not naturally cruel may, by habit, speedily
acquire. The bar and the bench united to browbeat the unfortunate
Whig. The jury, named by a courtly Sheriff, readily found a
verdict of Guilty; and, in spite of the indignant murmurs of the
public, Cornish suffered death within ten days after he had been
arrested. That no circumstance of degradation might be wanting,
the gibbet was set up where King Street meets Cheapside, in sight
of the house where he had long lived in general respect, of the
Exchange where his credit had always stood high, and of the
Guildhall where he had distinguished himself as a popular leader.
He died with courage and with many pious expressions, but showed,
by look and gesture, such strong resentment at the barbarity and
injustice with which he had been treated, that his enemies spread
a calumnious report concerning him. He was drunk, they said, or
out of his mind, when he was turned off. William Penn, however,
who stood near the gallows, and whose prejudice were all on the
side of the government, afterwards said that he could see in
Cornish's deportment nothing but the natural indignation of an
innocent man slain under the forms of law. The head of the
murdered magistrate was placed over the Guildhall.469
Black as this case was, it was not the blackest which disgraced
the sessions of that autumn at the Old Bailey. Among the persons
concerned in the Rye House plot was a man named James Burton. By
his own confession he had been present when the design of
assassination was discussed by his accomplices. When the
conspiracy was detected, a reward was offered for his
apprehension. He was saved from death by an ancient matron of the
Baptist persuasion, named Elizabeth Gaunt. This woman, with the
peculiar manners and phraseology which then distinguished her
sect, had a large charity. Her life was passed in relieving the
unhappy of all religious denominations, and she was well known as
a constant visitor of the gaols. Her political and theological
opinions, as well as her compassionate disposition, led her to do
everything in her power for Burton. She procured a boat which
took him to Gravesend, where he got on board of a ship bound for
Amsterdam. At the moment of parting she put into his hand a sum
of money which, for her means, was very large. Burton, after
living some time in exile, returned to England with Monmouth,
fought at Sedgemoor, fled to London, and took refuge in the house
of John Fernley, a barber in Whitechapel. Fernley was very poor.
He was besieged by creditors. He knew that a reward of a hundred
pounds had been offered by the government for the apprehension of
Burton. But the honest man was incapable of betraying one who, in
extreme peril, had come under the shadow of his roof. Unhappily
it was soon noised abroad that the anger of James was more
strongly excited against those who harboured rebels than against
the rebels themselves. He had publicly declared that of all forms
of treason the hiding of traitors from his vengeance was the most
unpardonable. Burton knew this. He delivered himself up to the
government; and he gave information against Fernley and Elizabeth
Gaunt. They were brought to trial. The villain whose life they
had preserved had the heart and the forehead to appear as the
principal witness against them. They were convicted. Fernley was
sentenced to the gallows, Elizabeth Gaunt to the stake. Even
after all the horrors of that year, many thought it impossible
that these judgments should be carried into execution. But the
King was without pity. Fernley was hanged. Elizabeth Gaunt was
burned alive at Tyburn on the same day on which Cornish suffered
death in Cheapside. She left a paper written, indeed, in no
graceful style, yet such as was read by many thousands with
compassion and horror. "My fault," she said, "was one which a
prince might well have forgiven. I did but relieve a poor family;
and lo! I must die for it." She complained of the insolence of
the judges, of the ferocity of the gaoler, and of the tyranny of
him, the great one of all, to whose pleasure she and so many
other victims had been sacrificed. In so far as they had injured
herself, she forgave them: but, in that they were implacable
enemies of that good cause which would yet revive and flourish,
she left them to the judgment of the King of Kings. To the last
she preserved a tranquil courage, which reminded the spectators
of the most heroic deaths of which they had read in Fox. William
Penn, for whom exhibitions which humane men generally avoid seem
to have had a strong attraction, hastened from Cheapside, where
he had seen Cornish hanged, to Tyburn, in order to see Elizabeth
Gaunt burned. He afterwards related that, when she calmly
disposed the straw about her in such a manner as to shorten her
sufferings, all the bystanders burst into tears. It was much
noticed that, while the foulest judicial murder which had
disgraced even those times was perpetrating, a tempest burst
forth, such as had not been known since that great hurricane
which had raged round the deathbed of Oliver. The oppressed
Puritans reckoned up, not without a gloomy satisfaction the
houses which had been blown down, and the ships which had been
cast away, and derived some consolation from thinking that heaven
was bearing awful testimony against the iniquity which afflicted
the earth. Since that terrible day no woman has suffered death in
England for any political offence.470
It was not thought that Goodenough had yet earned his pardon. The
government was bent on destroying a victim of no high rank, a
surgeon in the City, named Bateman. He had attended Shaftesbury
professionally, and had been a zealous Exclusionist. He may
possibly have been privy to the Whig plot; but it is certain that
he had not been one of the leading conspirators; for, in the
great mass of depositions published by the government, his name
occurs only once, and then not in connection with any crime
bordering on high treason. From his indictment, and from the
scanty account which remains of his trial, it seems clear that he
was not even accused of participating in the design of murdering
the royal brothers. The malignity with which so obscure a man,
guilty of so slight an offence, was hunted down, while traitors
far more criminal and far more eminent were allowed to ransom
themselves by giving evidence against him, seemed to require
explanation; and a disgraceful explanation was found. When Oates,
after his scourging, was carried into Newgate insensible, and, as
all thought, in the last agony, he had been bled and his wounds
had been dressed by Bateman. This was an offence not to be
forgiven. Bateman was arrested and indicted. The witnesses
against him were men of infamous character, men, too, who were
swearing for their own lives. None of them had yet got his
pardon; and it was a popular saying, that they fished for prey,
like tame cormorants, with ropes round their necks. The prisoner,
stupefied by illness, was unable to articulate, or to understand
what passed. His son and daughter stood by him at the bar. They
read as well as they could some notes which he had set down, and
examined his witnesses. It was to little purpose. He was
convicted, hanged, and quartered.471
Never, not even under the tyranny of Laud, had the condition of
the Puritans been so deplorable as at that time. Never had spies
been so actively employed in detecting congregations. Never had
magistrates, grand jurors, rectors and churchwardens been so much
on the alert. Many Dissenters were cited before the
ecclesiastical courts. Others found it necessary to purchase the
connivance of the agents of the government by presents of
hogsheads of wine, and of gloves stuffed with guineas. It was
impossible for the separatists to pray together without
precautions such as are employed by coiners and receivers of
stolen goods. The places of meeting were frequently changed.
Worship was performed sometimes just before break of day and
sometimes at dead of night. Round the building where the little
flock was gathered sentinels were posted to give the alarm if a
stranger drew near. The minister in disguise was introduced
through the garden and the back yard. In some houses there were
trap doors through which, in case of danger, he might descend.
Where Nonconformists lived next door to each other, the walls
were often broken open, and secret passages were made from
dwelling to dwelling. No psalm was sung; and many contrivances
were used to prevent the voice of the preacher, in his moments of
fervour,
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