CHAPTER XCIII. CONCLUSION OF THE LIFE OF LORD NOTTINGHAM. CHAP. XCIII. DURING the short parliament which met in October, 1680, Nottingham, under the Earl of Halifax, assisted the ministerial majority in the House of Lords to counteract the schemes of Shaftesbury, who made a stout fight in his own House, and dictated all the resolutions of the other. The Exclusion Bill being renewed in the Commons was followed up by addresses to remove Halifax and Seymour, who opposed it, and by impeachments of Scroggs, Jeffreys, and North, for their obstruction of the prosecution of the Duke of York as a Popish recusant, and their interference with the right of petitioning. In spite of Nottingham's very superior legal Superiority acquirements, Shaftesbury seems generally to have had the bury over advantage over him in debate, even on constitutional ques- Nottingtions, the "Patriot" making up for his deficiency in know- debate. ledge by boldness of assertion and bitterness of sarcasm. The poor Lord Chancellor, leading such an uneasy life, must have very heartily concurred in the resolution to put a sudden end to this parliament; and, thankful for the respite, must joy- Jan. 18. fully have pronounced the words by which it was dissolved, although another was summoned to meet at Oxford as a last experiment, before laying parliaments entirely aside. On the last day of the session he assisted the King in a most unworthy manœuvre, -to steal from the table a disagreeable Bill, which both Houses had passed "for the protection of Dissenters from being prosecuted for not going to their parish church,"-so that it was defeated without the odium of a public exercise of the royal veto. This affair might have led to very serious consequences to the Chancellor if he had been questioned for it by a patriotic House of Commons, backed by an approving public; but the House of Shaftes ham in 1681. Nottingham assists in sup pressing a Bill passed by the two Houses. CHAP. March 21, 1681. Parliament Shaftes bury. of Commons was outrageously factious, the public were disgusted with it, and he escaped. When the Oxford Parliament met, fortune favoured him in every thing. The Commons took up with great at Oxford. eagerness the stealing of the Dissenters' Relief Bill; but they rejected with contumely all the King's proferred concessions to guard the reformed religion from the Popish successor, by banishing him from the kingdom for life, and providing that the next Protestant heir should govern as Regent in his name; and, to defeat the government prosecution of their informer Fitzharris, they resolved that they would themselves Indiscreet impeach him for high treason before the House of Lords. conduct of This last was Shaftesbuty's fatal blunder. A great many Protestant zealots still stuck by him for the "exclusion," while the more discerning members of his party now saw through his design of gaining power to himself by trying to establish the legitimacy of the Duke of Monmouth ; — but nearly all were shocked by observing a capital prosecution sported with as an instrument of faction, and an attempt to try a commoner for his life before those who were not his peers. Nottingham dexterously seized the advantage presented him, and advised the Lords to reject the impeachment, on the ground that Fitzharris, as a commoner, was entitled to be tried specting for this offence by a jury of commoners. We have a very peachment imperfect report of his speech on this occasion; but he seems very successfully to have thrown odium on the House of Commons for betraying the rights of their constituents, under pretence of supporting their own privileges; and he brought forward, with prodigious effect, the precedent of the judgment on the murderers of Edward II., where it was declared in full parliament that commoners should not thereafter be tried on a capital charge by the House of Lords.* Advantage gained by Nottingham re the im of Fitzhar ris. Sudden dissolution While the Commons voted the rejection of the impeachof Oxford ment "a denial of justice," the nation on this question took parliament, part with the Lords; and the sudden dissolution of the parliament gave a decided victory to the Court. † March 28. 1681. * See ante, p. 357. Hale's Jurisdiction of the House of Lords, e. xiv. XCIII. Here ended Nottingham's senatorial career, the King CHAP. ruling by high prerogative alone during the rest of his reign. Trial of Pembroke He had on two other occasions, which I have not mentioned, presided in the Lords as High Steward on the trial of Peers. The first was that of the Earl of Pembroke and and Montgomery. Montgomery, for the murder of a Mr. Cony in an affray in a tavern. In a note to his MS. Reports, Nottingham has left an account of the ceremonial on this occasion, to which he seems to have attached great importance. "Being come to the Lords' House, and retired to putt on my robes, after prayers said, wee adjourned the House into Westminster Hall, and went, in the order prescribed, through the Painted Chamber, Court of Requests, and Court of Wards, into the Hall. In which procession the Duke of York and Prince Rupert*, to do honour to the King's Lieutenant (for so they called me), gave me the precedence, and suffered me to come last all the while, till the tryall was over and the white staff broaken. When we came into Westminster Hall, the Court was prepared like the House of Peers in all points; with scaffolds on each side for the spectators, and a place for all the foreign ministers. So the Lords spirituall and temporall did quickly know their own places. I took my place upon the woolsack, near the cloth of state, but not directly under it, haveing first made my obeysance to the chaire, and then to the King and Queen, who satt by al incognito." The Lord High Steward is reported to have delivered a preliminary address to the noble prisoner, by way of encou raging him, which seems to have been in a strange taste. "Let not the disgrace of standing as a felon at the bar too much deject you; no man's credit can fall so low but that, if he bear his shame as he should do, and profit by it as he ought to do, it is in his own power to redeem his reputation. Therefore let no man despair that desires and endeavours to recover himself again; much less let the terrors of justice affright you; for though your Lordship have great cause to fear, yet whatever may be lawfully hoped for, your Lordship may expect from the Peers." • Duke of Cambridge, but he still went by his nom de guerre. СНАР. Trial of wallis. Lord Pembroke, being found guilty of manslaughter, was discharged with an admonition, that upon a second conviction for the like offence he would be liable to be hanged. * The other case occurred soon after, and excited considerLord Corn- able interest, being that of a minor peer, a school-boy, prosecuted for the murder of a companion, with whom he had quarrelled in the palace at Whitehall. The Lord High Steward's address, to encourage the accused, was again any thing but encouraging. "My Lord Cornwallis, the violation of the King's peace, in the chief sanctuary of it, his own royal palace, and in so high a manner as by the death of one of his subjects, is a matter that must be accounted for. It is your Lordship's great unhappiness, at this time, to stand prisoner at the bar under the weight of no less a charge than an indictment of murder. And it is not to be wondered at if so great a misfortune as this be attended with some sort of confusion of face; when a man sees himself become a spectacle of misery in so great a presence, and before so noble and so illustrious an assembly. But be not yet dismayed, my Lord, for all this: let not the terrors of justice so amaze and surprise you as to betray those succours that your reason would afford you, or to disarm you of those helps which good discretion may administer, and which are now so necessary. It is indeed a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of justice, where the law is the rule, and a severe and inflexible measure both of life and death." Improper conduct of Nottingnam after It turned out, however, that the poor young Lord was hardly at all to blame; and notwithstanding strong speeches against him by Sir William Jones, the Attorney General, and old Serjeant Maynard, and that he was not allowed counsel to assist him, he was acquitted both of murder and manslaughter, to the great joy of the by-standers. † Nottingham survived the dissolution of the Oxford parliament nearly two years, and, continuing Chancellor, is chiefly responsible for the unconstitutional system of government by tion of the which justice was perverted, and every institution was attacked which had a tendency to check the arbitrary will of the dissolu Oxford Parlia ment. 6 St. Tr. 1309. 7 St. Tr. 143. the Sovereign. He sanctioned the execution of Fitzharris ex CHAP. XCIII. But he has not to answer for the blood of Russell and His illness. Sydney, as he was removed from this mortal scene before the worst atrocities of the reign of Charles II. were completed. He had long suffered from the gout; and his attacks from that disorder had become so frequent and severe, that he was for months together prevented from attending the House of |