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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Exclusion Bill to the bar of the Lords. The court was
therefore bent on throwing him out by fair or foul means. The
Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys himself came down into
Buckinghamshire, for the purpose of assisting a gentleman named
Hacket, who stood on the high Tory interest. A stratagem was
devised which, it was thought, could not fail of success. It was
given out that the polling would take place at Ailesbury; and
Wharton, whose skill in all the arts of electioneering was
unrivalled, made his arrangements on that supposition. At a
moment's warning the Sheriff adjourned the poll to Newport
Pagnell. Wharton and his friends hurried thither, and found that
Hacket, who was in the secret, had already secured every inn and
lodging. The Whig freeholders were compelled to tie their horses
to the hedges, and to sleep under the open sky in the meadows
which surround the little town. It was with the greatest
difficulty that refreshments could be procured at such short
notice for so large a number of men and beasts, though Wharton,
who was utterly regardless of money when his ambition and party
spirit were roused, disbursed fifteen hundred pounds in one day,
an immense outlay for those times. Injustice seems, however, to
have animated the courage of the stouthearted yeomen of Bucks,
the sons of the constituents of John Hampden. Not only was
Wharton at the head of the poll; but he was able to spare his
second votes to a man of moderate opinions, and to throw out the
Chief Justice's candidate.261
In Cheshire the contest lasted six days. The Whigs polled about
seventeen hundred votes, the Tories about two thousand. The
common people were vehement on the Whig side, raised the cry of
"Down with the Bishops," insulted the clergy in the streets of
Chester, knocked down one gentleman of the Tory party, broke the
windows and beat the constables. The militia was called out to
quell the riot, and was kept assembled, in order to protect the
festivities of the conquerors. When the poll closed, a salute of
five great guns from the castle proclaimed the triumph of the
Church and the Crown to the surrounding country. The bells rang.
The newly elected members went in state to the City Cross,
accompanied by a band of music, and by a long train of knights
and squires. The procession, as it marched, sang "Joy to Great
Caesar," a loyal ode, which had lately been written by Durfey,
and which, though like all Durfey's writings, utterly
contemptible, was, at that time, almost as popular as
Lillibullero became a few years later.262 Round the Cross the
trainbands were drawn up in order: a bonfire was lighted: the
Exclusion Bill was burned: and the health of King James was drunk
with loud acclamations. The following day was Sunday. In the
morning the militia lined the streets leading to the Cathedral.
The two knights of the shire were escorted with great pomp to
their choir by the magistracy of the city, heard the Dean preach
a sermon, probably on the duty of passive obedience, and were
afterwards feasted by the Mayor.263
In Northumberland the triumph of Sir John Fenwick, a courtier
whose name afterwards obtained a melancholy celebrity, was
attended by circumstances which excited interest in London, and
which were thought not unworthy of being mentioned in the
despatches of foreign ministers. Newcastle was lighted up with
great piles of coal. The steeples sent forth a joyous peal. A
copy of the Exclusion Bill, and a black box, resembling that
which, according to the popular fable, contained the contract
between Charles the Second and Lucy Walters, were publicly
committed to the flames, with loud acclamations.264
The general result of the elections exceeded the most sanguine
expectations of the court. James found with delight that it would
be unnecessary for him to expend a farthing in buying votes. He
Said that, with the exception of about forty members, the House
of Commons was just such as he should himself have named.265 And
this House of Commons it was in his power, as the law then stood,
to keep to the end of his reign.
Secure of parliamentary support, be might now indulge in the
luxury of revenge. His nature was not placable; and, while still
a subject, he had suffered some injuries and indignities which
might move even a placable nature to fierce and lasting
resentment. One set of men in particular had, with a baseness and
cruelty beyond all example and all description, attacked his
honour and his life, the witnesses of the plot. He may well be
excused for hating them; since, even at this day, the mention of
their names excites the disgust and horror of all sects and
parties.
Some of these wretches were already beyond the reach of human
justice. Bedloe had died in his wickedness, without one sign of
remorse or shame.266 Dugdale had followed, driven mad, men said,
by the Furies of an evil conscience, and with loud shrieks
imploring those who stood round his bed to take away Lord
Stafford.267 Carstairs, too, was gone. His end had been all
horror and despair; and, with his last breath, he had told his
attendants to throw him into a ditch like a dog, for that he was
not fit to sleep in a Christian burial ground.268 But Oates and
Dangerfield were still within the reach of the stern prince whom
they had wronged. James, a short time before his accession, had
instituted a civil suit against Oates for defamatory words; and a
jury had given damages to the enormous amount of a hundred
thousand pounds.269 The defendant had been taken in execution,
and was lying in prison as a debtor, without hope of release. Two
bills of indictment against him for perjury had been found by the
grand jury of Middlesex, a few weeks before the death of Charles.
Soon after the close of the elections the trial came on.
Among the upper and middle classes Oates had few friends left.
The most respectable Whigs were now convinced that, even if his
narrative had some foundation in fact, he had erected on that
foundation a vast superstructure of romance. A considerable
number of low fanatics, however, still regarded him as a public
benefactor. These people well knew that, if he were convicted,
his sentence would be one of extreme severity, and were therefore
indefatigable in their endeavours to manage an escape. Though he
was as yet in confinement only for debt, he was put into irons by
the authorities of the King's Bench prison; and even so he was
with difficulty kept in safe custody. The mastiff that guarded
his door was poisoned; and, on the very night preceding the
trial, a ladder of ropes was introduced into the cell.
On the day in which Titus was brought to the bar, Westminster
Hall was crowded with spectators, among whom were many Roman
Catholics, eager to see the misery and humiliation of their
persecutor.270 A few years earlier his short neck, his legs
uneven, the vulgar said, as those of a badger, his forehead low
as that of a baboon, his purple cheeks, and his monstrous length
of chin, had been familiar to all who frequented the courts of
law. He had then been the idol of the nation. Wherever he had
appeared, men had uncovered their heads to him. The lives and
estates of the magnates of the realm had been at his mercy. Times
had now changed; and many, who had formerly regarded him as the
deliverer of his country, shuddered at the sight of those hideous
features on which villany seemed to be written by the hand of
God.271
It was proved, beyond all possibility of doubt, that this man had
by false testimony deliberately murdered several guiltless
persons. He called in vain on the most eminent members of the
Parliaments which had rewarded and extolled him to give evidence
in his favour. Some of those whom he had summoned absented
themselves. None of them said anything tending to his
vindication. One of them, the Earl of Huntingdon, bitterly
reproached him with having deceived the Houses and drawn on them
the guilt of shedding innocent blood. The Judges browbeat and
reviled the prisoner with an intemperance which, even in the most
atrocious cases, ill becomes the judicial character. He betrayed,
however, no sign of fear or of shame, and faced the storm of
invective which burst upon him from bar, bench, and witness box,
with the insolence of despair. He was convicted on both
indictments. His offence, though, in a moral light, murder of the
most aggravated kind, was, in the eye of the law, merely a
misdemeanour. The tribunal, however, was desirous to make his
punishment more severe than that of felons or traitors, and not
merely to put him to death, but to put him to death by frightful
torments. He was sentenced to be stripped of his clerical habit,
to be pilloried in Palace Yard, to be led round Westminster Hall
with an inscription declaring his infamy over his head, to be
pilloried again in front of the Royal Exchange, to be whipped
from Aldgate to Newgate, and, after an interval of two days, to
be whipped from Newgate to Tyburn. If, against all probability,
he should happen to survive this horrible infliction, he was to
be kept close prisoner during life. Five times every year he was
to be brought forth from his dungeon and exposed on the pillory
in different parts of the capital.272 This rigorous sentence was
rigorously executed. On the day on which Oates was pilloried in
Palace Yard he was mercilessly pelted and ran some risk of being
pulled in pieces.273 But in the City his partisans mustered in
great force, raised a riot, and upset the pillory.274 They were,
however, unable to rescue their favourite. It was supposed that
he would try to escape the horrible doom which awaited him by
swallowing poison. All that he ate and drank was therefore
carefully inspected. On the following morning he was brought
forth to undergo his first flogging. At an early hour an
innumerable multitude filled all the streets from Aldgate to the
Old Bailey. The hangman laid on the lash with such unusual
severity as showed that he had received special instructions. The
blood ran down in rivulets. For a time the criminal showed a
strange constancy: but at last his stubborn fortitude gave way.
His bellowings were frightful to hear. He swooned several times;
but the scourge still continued to descend. When he was unbound,
it seemed that he had borne as much as the human frame can bear
without dissolution. James was entreated to remit the second
flogging. His answer was short and clear: "He shall go through
with it, if he has breath in his body." An attempt was
therefore bent on throwing him out by fair or foul means. The
Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys himself came down into
Buckinghamshire, for the purpose of assisting a gentleman named
Hacket, who stood on the high Tory interest. A stratagem was
devised which, it was thought, could not fail of success. It was
given out that the polling would take place at Ailesbury; and
Wharton, whose skill in all the arts of electioneering was
unrivalled, made his arrangements on that supposition. At a
moment's warning the Sheriff adjourned the poll to Newport
Pagnell. Wharton and his friends hurried thither, and found that
Hacket, who was in the secret, had already secured every inn and
lodging. The Whig freeholders were compelled to tie their horses
to the hedges, and to sleep under the open sky in the meadows
which surround the little town. It was with the greatest
difficulty that refreshments could be procured at such short
notice for so large a number of men and beasts, though Wharton,
who was utterly regardless of money when his ambition and party
spirit were roused, disbursed fifteen hundred pounds in one day,
an immense outlay for those times. Injustice seems, however, to
have animated the courage of the stouthearted yeomen of Bucks,
the sons of the constituents of John Hampden. Not only was
Wharton at the head of the poll; but he was able to spare his
second votes to a man of moderate opinions, and to throw out the
Chief Justice's candidate.261
In Cheshire the contest lasted six days. The Whigs polled about
seventeen hundred votes, the Tories about two thousand. The
common people were vehement on the Whig side, raised the cry of
"Down with the Bishops," insulted the clergy in the streets of
Chester, knocked down one gentleman of the Tory party, broke the
windows and beat the constables. The militia was called out to
quell the riot, and was kept assembled, in order to protect the
festivities of the conquerors. When the poll closed, a salute of
five great guns from the castle proclaimed the triumph of the
Church and the Crown to the surrounding country. The bells rang.
The newly elected members went in state to the City Cross,
accompanied by a band of music, and by a long train of knights
and squires. The procession, as it marched, sang "Joy to Great
Caesar," a loyal ode, which had lately been written by Durfey,
and which, though like all Durfey's writings, utterly
contemptible, was, at that time, almost as popular as
Lillibullero became a few years later.262 Round the Cross the
trainbands were drawn up in order: a bonfire was lighted: the
Exclusion Bill was burned: and the health of King James was drunk
with loud acclamations. The following day was Sunday. In the
morning the militia lined the streets leading to the Cathedral.
The two knights of the shire were escorted with great pomp to
their choir by the magistracy of the city, heard the Dean preach
a sermon, probably on the duty of passive obedience, and were
afterwards feasted by the Mayor.263
In Northumberland the triumph of Sir John Fenwick, a courtier
whose name afterwards obtained a melancholy celebrity, was
attended by circumstances which excited interest in London, and
which were thought not unworthy of being mentioned in the
despatches of foreign ministers. Newcastle was lighted up with
great piles of coal. The steeples sent forth a joyous peal. A
copy of the Exclusion Bill, and a black box, resembling that
which, according to the popular fable, contained the contract
between Charles the Second and Lucy Walters, were publicly
committed to the flames, with loud acclamations.264
The general result of the elections exceeded the most sanguine
expectations of the court. James found with delight that it would
be unnecessary for him to expend a farthing in buying votes. He
Said that, with the exception of about forty members, the House
of Commons was just such as he should himself have named.265 And
this House of Commons it was in his power, as the law then stood,
to keep to the end of his reign.
Secure of parliamentary support, be might now indulge in the
luxury of revenge. His nature was not placable; and, while still
a subject, he had suffered some injuries and indignities which
might move even a placable nature to fierce and lasting
resentment. One set of men in particular had, with a baseness and
cruelty beyond all example and all description, attacked his
honour and his life, the witnesses of the plot. He may well be
excused for hating them; since, even at this day, the mention of
their names excites the disgust and horror of all sects and
parties.
Some of these wretches were already beyond the reach of human
justice. Bedloe had died in his wickedness, without one sign of
remorse or shame.266 Dugdale had followed, driven mad, men said,
by the Furies of an evil conscience, and with loud shrieks
imploring those who stood round his bed to take away Lord
Stafford.267 Carstairs, too, was gone. His end had been all
horror and despair; and, with his last breath, he had told his
attendants to throw him into a ditch like a dog, for that he was
not fit to sleep in a Christian burial ground.268 But Oates and
Dangerfield were still within the reach of the stern prince whom
they had wronged. James, a short time before his accession, had
instituted a civil suit against Oates for defamatory words; and a
jury had given damages to the enormous amount of a hundred
thousand pounds.269 The defendant had been taken in execution,
and was lying in prison as a debtor, without hope of release. Two
bills of indictment against him for perjury had been found by the
grand jury of Middlesex, a few weeks before the death of Charles.
Soon after the close of the elections the trial came on.
Among the upper and middle classes Oates had few friends left.
The most respectable Whigs were now convinced that, even if his
narrative had some foundation in fact, he had erected on that
foundation a vast superstructure of romance. A considerable
number of low fanatics, however, still regarded him as a public
benefactor. These people well knew that, if he were convicted,
his sentence would be one of extreme severity, and were therefore
indefatigable in their endeavours to manage an escape. Though he
was as yet in confinement only for debt, he was put into irons by
the authorities of the King's Bench prison; and even so he was
with difficulty kept in safe custody. The mastiff that guarded
his door was poisoned; and, on the very night preceding the
trial, a ladder of ropes was introduced into the cell.
On the day in which Titus was brought to the bar, Westminster
Hall was crowded with spectators, among whom were many Roman
Catholics, eager to see the misery and humiliation of their
persecutor.270 A few years earlier his short neck, his legs
uneven, the vulgar said, as those of a badger, his forehead low
as that of a baboon, his purple cheeks, and his monstrous length
of chin, had been familiar to all who frequented the courts of
law. He had then been the idol of the nation. Wherever he had
appeared, men had uncovered their heads to him. The lives and
estates of the magnates of the realm had been at his mercy. Times
had now changed; and many, who had formerly regarded him as the
deliverer of his country, shuddered at the sight of those hideous
features on which villany seemed to be written by the hand of
God.271
It was proved, beyond all possibility of doubt, that this man had
by false testimony deliberately murdered several guiltless
persons. He called in vain on the most eminent members of the
Parliaments which had rewarded and extolled him to give evidence
in his favour. Some of those whom he had summoned absented
themselves. None of them said anything tending to his
vindication. One of them, the Earl of Huntingdon, bitterly
reproached him with having deceived the Houses and drawn on them
the guilt of shedding innocent blood. The Judges browbeat and
reviled the prisoner with an intemperance which, even in the most
atrocious cases, ill becomes the judicial character. He betrayed,
however, no sign of fear or of shame, and faced the storm of
invective which burst upon him from bar, bench, and witness box,
with the insolence of despair. He was convicted on both
indictments. His offence, though, in a moral light, murder of the
most aggravated kind, was, in the eye of the law, merely a
misdemeanour. The tribunal, however, was desirous to make his
punishment more severe than that of felons or traitors, and not
merely to put him to death, but to put him to death by frightful
torments. He was sentenced to be stripped of his clerical habit,
to be pilloried in Palace Yard, to be led round Westminster Hall
with an inscription declaring his infamy over his head, to be
pilloried again in front of the Royal Exchange, to be whipped
from Aldgate to Newgate, and, after an interval of two days, to
be whipped from Newgate to Tyburn. If, against all probability,
he should happen to survive this horrible infliction, he was to
be kept close prisoner during life. Five times every year he was
to be brought forth from his dungeon and exposed on the pillory
in different parts of the capital.272 This rigorous sentence was
rigorously executed. On the day on which Oates was pilloried in
Palace Yard he was mercilessly pelted and ran some risk of being
pulled in pieces.273 But in the City his partisans mustered in
great force, raised a riot, and upset the pillory.274 They were,
however, unable to rescue their favourite. It was supposed that
he would try to escape the horrible doom which awaited him by
swallowing poison. All that he ate and drank was therefore
carefully inspected. On the following morning he was brought
forth to undergo his first flogging. At an early hour an
innumerable multitude filled all the streets from Aldgate to the
Old Bailey. The hangman laid on the lash with such unusual
severity as showed that he had received special instructions. The
blood ran down in rivulets. For a time the criminal showed a
strange constancy: but at last his stubborn fortitude gave way.
His bellowings were frightful to hear. He swooned several times;
but the scourge still continued to descend. When he was unbound,
it seemed that he had borne as much as the human frame can bear
without dissolution. James was entreated to remit the second
flogging. His answer was short and clear: "He shall go through
with it, if he has breath in his body." An attempt was
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