LXXXIX. very careless manner to some tedious remarks of Sir William CHAP. Jones, an old lawyer, on the Lord Chancellor's "Accord, temp. Ed. III." Going up to the bar of the House of Lords, A. D. 1681. there they saw the King with the crown on his head, and heard him say, "My Lords and Gentlemen,-all the world may see we are not like to have a good end when the divisions at the beginning are such. Therefore, my Lord Chancellor, do as I have commanded you." Lord Chancellor." My Lords and Gentlemen, his Majesty has commanded me to say that it is his Majesty's royal will and pleasure that this parliament be dissolved, and this parliament is accordingly dissolved.” * ford. Charles instantly stepped into his carriage, and set off at full The King speed for Windsor. Shaftesbury, when he had recovered his leaves Oxbreath, talked of sitting for the dispatch of business in spite of the dissolution, called on his friends not to separate, and sent several messengers to the Commons, entreating them to wait as the Lords were still sitting. But the members of the General popular party in both Houses gradually withdrew; Shaftes- dispersion. bury, almost deserted, went out into the streets, where he saw a general dispersion; in a few hours he found Oxford in Shaftesits state of wonted torpidity, and, by way of relief to his bury retroubled thoughts, he himself hurried off for London. † 4 Parl. Hist. 1339. Examen, 104. ↑ He had been lodged in Baliol College, to which he presented a magnificent piece of plate as a mark of his gratitude. Rawleigh Redivivus, Part II. 101. turns to London, CHAPTER XC. CONCLUSION OF THE LIFE OF LORD SHAFTESBURY. CHAP. April, 1681. Complete victory of the Court. Execution of Fitzharris, and of College. FOR some time after his arrival in London, Shaftesbury flattered himself that the dissolution of the parliament at Oxford, like former violent dissolutions, would aggravate the public discontent; but the victory of his opponents was complete, and Charles was enabled from henceforth for the rest of his reign to rule by prerogative,-to carry into execution all his plans,—and, though the victim he most panted for escaped him, to execute a bloody revenge upon others who had incurred his resentment. There remained a most formidable popular party, and it was fortunate for the King that neither pecuniary difficulties nor the state of public affairs imposed upon him such a necessity for calling a parliament as, forty years before, had been felt by his father on the Scottish invasion; but there can be no doubt that there was now a considerable reaction in his favour, which arose partly from the general fickleness of the public mind, partly from Shaftesbury's dangerous character and designs being more clearly developed, partly from the proffered concessions to guard against a Popish succession; but, above all, from the discredit into which the Popish plot had fallen, and the desire of mankind to blame others for their own credulity and folly. govern Shaftesbury entrenched himself in the city of London, but saw that he would soon be assailed there. The ment began the celebration of their triumph with the conviction and execution of Fitzharris, in spite of the resolution of the House of Commons, that, after their impeachment of him, his trial by the course of the common law would be a high breach of their privileges. Still more alarming was * *8 St. Tr. 243. the fate of COLLEGE," the Protestant Joiner," who, after a bill of indictment against him had been thrown out by a Middlesex grand jury, was carried down into Oxfordshire, under pretence that he had been guilty of an overt act of treason in that county, by going armed to the parliament,-and was there found guilty and put to death, although nothing was satisfactorily proved against him, except that he was a turbulent demagogue, who had gained great distinction by bawling out "No Popery.' CHAP. XC. A. D. 1681. bury arrested for son. But the eyes of England and of all Europe were turned to Shaftesthe fate of the man who had so long held a divided sway with his Sovereign, and by whose destruction it was hoped that high treaall further opposition to the plans of the Court would for ever cease. Early in the morning of the 2d of July, 1681, under a warrant from the Secretary of State, the Earl of Shaftesbury was apprehended at Thanet House, in Aldersgate Street, on a charge of high treason, his papers were seized, and he was carried, under a military escort, to be examined before the Council at Whitehall. Arriving there, he found the Council assembled, and the King had the bad taste to be present, having come from Windsor that morning for the pleasure of seeing his old friend and arch enemy in custody on a capital charge. him. Certain depositions were read against him made by Irish Evidence witnesses, who were to have been examined against the Duke against of York and the Queen, and who, accusing Shaftesbury of having suborned them, swore that he had entered into a conspiracy with them, in case he should be worsted in the parliament at Oxford, to carry his measures by an open insurrection, and that he had used many violent and threatening expressions against the King. The prisoner treated this charge with the utmost scorn, desiring to be confronted with the witnesses; and observing that, if he really could treat of such matters with such persons, he was fitter for Bedlam than the Tower. Among his papers was found the draught of an association rather of a dangerous nature; but it was not in his handwriting, and there was nothing to show that he had CHAP. A. D. 1681. He is com mitted to the Tower. Difficulty to get an indictment found against him jury. ever perused it. Upon such evidence he could not be fairly convicted; but, in the hope of the case being strengthened, or of a partial tribunal, he was committed to take his trial. In James's Memoirs* it is said, that his boldness forsook him when the warrant for his commitment was signed, and that the very rabble hooted him on his way to the Tower. Martyn asserts, with much more probability, that he remained undaunted; that, as he was conducted to prison, he was saluted by vast multitudes with wishes and prayers for his prosperity; and that one among the rest having cried out, "God bless your Lordship, and deliver you from your enemies,” he replied, with a smile, "I thank you, sir, but I have nothing to fear: they have much, therefore pray God to deliver them from me." A few days after, one of the Popish Lords, whom he had been instrumental in sending to the Tower, affecting great surprise to find him among them, he coolly answered, "that he had been lately indisposed with an ague, and was come to take some Jesuits' powder.” ↑ It seems certain, however, that, while in the Tower, he offered to expatriate himself, and to spend the remainder of his days in Carolina, a colony which he had assisted to settle, and where he had property ‡, but the King declared “he should be tried by his Peers." The difficulty of the government was to get a bill of indictment found against him by a grand jury. Parliament not sitting, and there being a determination that a parliaby a grand ment should never sit again, this was the only mode of commencing the prosecution. But the first step being gained, all the rest of the process would have been most easy; for the indictment being removed before the Court of the Lord High Steward, consisting of Peers selected by the King, his subsequent trial would have been mere matter of form, — as much as after sentence the warrant to behead him. All regard to truth and justice being set aside, the clever course would have been for the witnesses to have sworn to an • Vol. i. 713. Life by Martyn, ii. 288. Life and Death of Earl of Shaftesbury, published immediately after his death. Harl. Misc. The aristocratic constitution for this colony was drawn up at his request by Mr. Locke. - Locke's Works, x. 175. XC. A. D. 1681. overt act of treason in some county where there was a CHAP. manageable grand jury; but they had not been properly drilled upon this point, and they represented all the treasonable consults to have taken place in Thanet House, in the city of London. By a London grand jury alone, therefore, could the bill of indictment be found; and London was still in the power of the old liberal corporation. The grand jury was to be summoned by the Sheriffs, and the Sheriffs were Whigs. There were Old Bailey Sessions held on the 7th of July, at which regularly the indictment ought to have been preferred; but the Attorney General waited in the hope of better Sheriffs. Shute and Pilkington, the next couple, were "Whigs and something more." bail him The trial being delayed, Shaftesbury repeatedly applied by Refusal to counsel at the Old Bailey and Hicks's Hall, that, according according to his own HABEAS CORPUS ACT, he might be bailed; but to Habeas Corpus on the suggestion that the Tower was not under the jurisdic- Act. tion of the Court, and other frivolous excuses, the application, to which he was clearly entitled, was refused. He prepared an indictment against the Justice who had taken the depositions on which he was committed, and against several of the witnesses for a conspiracy to convict him by perjury; but Pemberton, and the other Judges who wished to please the King, would not suffer the indictment to be submitted to a grand jury. In the mean time every exertion was made to poison the Pamphlets public mind, and to prejudice against the accused those who published against were to decide upon his fate. Innumerable pamphlets issued him. from the press, denouncing him as "the great agitator, without whose baleful presence all resistance to sound principles in church and state would be at an end." The pulpits rang with the dangers to true religion from the nonconformists, and he was reviled by name as "the Apostle of Schism." The Catholics very excusably joined loudly in the cry against him, and called him "the Man of Sin." Political vituperators branded him as "Mephistophiles," "the Fiend," and "Alderman Shiftsbury." For the purpose of lowering his reputation, a story was revived of his having boasted that he might have been King of Poland when John Sobieski was |