606 



BRITAIN. 



Britain. 



Kyehouse 

 plot. 



Execution 

 of Rus*e!, 

 Sidney, 

 &c. 



Death of 



Charles, 

 2d Feb. 

 1685. 



that the condemnation of Russel and Sidney, who 

 suffered for it, was a flagrant violation of law and 

 justice. An inferior conspiracy was in the mean 

 time held among the agents of Shaftcshury, in the 

 city, who carried on projects unknown to Momnouth 

 and the other six. They met at the house of Rum- 

 bold, an old republican officer, now a maltster, who 

 possessed a farm called Ryehouse, and their conspi- 

 racy was from thence denominated the Ryehouse 

 Plot. They had laid a plan, we are told, for assas- 

 sinating the king ; yet no concerted design, as Mr 

 Hume acknowledges, had been laid, and the whole 

 was little more than loose discourse, the overflow- 

 ings of their zeal and rancour. Before the co-ispi- 

 racy h;id been detected, Shaftebbury fled to Hol- 

 land, and died. Keiling, one of the associates of 

 the City, revealed the inferior plot, and others, who 

 were arrested, confessed their associates ; and some 

 of the obscure partizans were executed, whose con- 

 fession in death, it was hoped, would prepare the 

 public mind for witnessing the executions of Russel 

 and Sidney. The particulars of the fate and trial 

 of those illustrious men, will be seen under the re- 

 spective articles of their names in this work. Mon- 

 mouth fled to the continent ; Lord Grey was ar- 

 rested, but escaped from the messenger; Howard, who 

 was found concealed in a chimney, a lurking place 

 suited to the baseness of a wretch who turned evi- 

 dence against Sidney and Hambden, suffered only by 

 a large tine ; and Essex, one of the greatest and 

 most virtuous men of the age, fell by a voluntary 

 death. Armstrong, one of the chief associates, was 

 refused the common benefit of law to be heard by 

 cours-1 ; " You shall have the full benefit of law," 

 saki the .ludge Jeffreys j " by the grace of God, you 

 shall be executed upon Friday next." 



Baillie of Jerviswood, a Scottish patriot connect- 

 ed with those in England, was sent to Scotland, 

 where, contrary to the laws, written depositions, ex- 

 torted by torture out of court, were read to the 

 jury. He suffered with several of his countrymen ; 

 but most of the Scottish associates fled to Holland, 

 and returned at the Revolution. Spence, the Earl 

 of Argyle's secretary, suffered the torture twice, 

 and Carstatrs for a complete hour, but neither would 

 confess, till it was agreed that they should not be 

 made evidences. Mr Gordon of Earlstone was 

 brought before the council to be tortured, after he 

 had bctn sentenced to death by the king's orders, but 

 when the infernal engines were shewn to him, horror 

 .drove him instantly into madness. 



Tin.- government of Charles was now as absolute 

 as that of any tyrant in Europe ; but an if to please 

 his subjects by an act of popularity, he thought pro- 

 per to marry the Lady Anne, his niece, to Pnnce 

 George, brother to the King of Denmark. This 

 was the last remarkable transaction of his reign. 

 On the 2d of February 168.5, he was seized with a 

 fit of the apoplexy ; and though he recovered his 

 senses a f;u- as to "give a death-bed exhortation to 

 his brotW the Duke of York, and to give a false 

 decl..i -iition of his satisfaction in the Church of Eng- 

 land, he expired li: the end of four days illness, after 

 a reign of 25 years, acd a life of 55. 



On the 6th of February, (the day of Charles's 



1085, 



death), his successor, James II., was proclaimed in 

 London. It was expected, from his known prin 

 ciples, that he would make his brother's reign the 

 model of his own. He declared to that effect in 

 his first speech to the privy council, and his conti- 

 nuing Charles's ministers in his confidence, confirm- 

 ed the declaration. Hyde, Earl of Rochester, was Jameil 

 appointed lord treasurer; Halifax, notwithstanding c ': l " ne H 



r t i i_ i KU" T 



some suspicions or his having been busy in recom- 

 mending a change of system to Charles, was conti- 

 nued in high employment ; and so was Sunderland, 

 although he had been at one time a favourer of the 

 exclusion bill. Whatever personal objections there 

 might be to some of these ministers, James supposed 

 that, with the same servants whom his brother had 

 employed in a reign which had almost eradicated the 

 sentiments of liberty from the minds of English- 

 men, he could hardly fail in the great object of his 

 views lo lit- ar'lilrary. For establishing this favour- 

 ite project, an intimate connection with the court of 

 Versailles being the principal engine, Jarr'S early 

 applied to Baiillon, the French ambassador, with an 

 indirect and timid hint at his necessity for pecuniary 

 assistance. Five hundred thousand livrcs were spee- 

 dily remitted, and James, if the French ambassador 

 is to be believed, received the gift with tears in his 

 eyes. It had been for some time Louis's favourite 

 object to annex to his dominions what remained of 

 the Spanish Netherlands, as well for their own va- 

 lue, as to second his views upon Holland ; and this 

 object Charles had bound himself by treaty with 

 Spain to oppose. The first fruits which France 

 reaped from the bribe, was to obtain from James a 

 dereliction of the Spanish treaty. The principal 

 agents in this business, besides the king himself, and 

 Lord Churchill, who acted a subordinate part, were 

 Sunderland, Rochester, and Godolphin. It is with 

 difficulty the reader can persuade himself, that these 

 were the Churchill and Godolphin who, the one in 

 the senate, the other in the field, redeemed this sub- 

 serviency to baseness, by their glorious efforts in the 

 war of the succession. 



The king having first informed the French ambas- 

 sador, and apologized for a measure apparently at 

 variance with his engagement to France, to support 

 an arbitrary government, issued proclamations for 

 meeting a parliament. He, at the same time, issued 

 orders for levying, upon his sole authority, the cus- 

 toms and other duties which had constituted part of 

 the late king's revenue, but to which, the acts grant- 

 ing them having expired with the prince, James was 

 not legally entitled. So servile was the spirit of the 

 nation, that addresses poured in from all quarters, ex- 

 pressing the highest approbation of this direct and 

 daring outrage on the constitution. 



Previous to meeting his English parliament, James Servilit 

 directed a Scottish parliament to assemble at Edin the Sco 

 burgh, where the spirit of loyalty, as the base and parhan 

 slavish spirit was then called, was not confined to 

 words: Acts were passed to ratify all the late iniqui- 

 tous judgments ; to indemnify the privy council, 

 judges, and all officers of the crown ; to authorise 

 the privy council in imposing the test (under what- 

 ever penalties they chose;) to punish with death 

 the hearers and preachers of house, as well as field 



