A. C. 1683. ping the king's coach, by overturning a cart in the highway at this place, and fhooting him from the hedges. It was likewife propofed that his guards fhould be engaged by forty horfe under Walcot, while Rumfey should affaffinate his perfon. In the midst of these confultations the house in which the king refided at Newmarket taking fire, he quitted the place fooner than he intended: fo that the confpirators were disappointed in their aim of dispatching him on his return to London; and this escape was afterwards magnified by the courtiers, as an interpofition of providence. One of the confpirators, whofe name was Keiling, finding himself in danger of a profecution for being concerned in arrefting the mayor of London, at the fuit of Papillon and Dubois, the two excluded fheriffs, refolved to earn his pardon by discovering this plot to the miniftry. Colonel Rumfey, and Weft a lawyer, no fooner understood that this man had informed against them, than they agreed to fave their lives by turning king's evidences, and furrendered themfelves accordingly. Shephard being apprehended, confeffed all he knew, and warrants were iffued against the chiefs of the confpiracy. Monmouth abfconded, Grey escaped from the meffenger by whom he had been arrested. Ruffel was committed to the Tower; Howard, being found concealed in a chimney, was base enough to purchase pardon by betraying his friends: he informed against Effex, Sidney, and Hambden, who were immediately fecured, and many other confpirators detected and imprifoned.

Trial of

Walter was first brought to trial, and condemnlord Ruffel ed, together with Hone and Roufe, upon the evidence of Rumfey, Weft, and Shephard: they died with compofure, acknowledging the juftice of the fentence by virtue of which they were exe

cuted.

cuted. The fame witneffes were produced against A. C. 1683.
lord Ruffel, whom, however, they accused with
great reluctance. He was the beft beloved noble-
man in the kingdom, and even his enemies could
not help revering his virtues. The lord Howard
fwore he was engaged in the defign of an infurrec-
tion, but all three acquitted him of any fhare in the
scheme of affaffination. His own candour would
not allow him to deny the defign in which he really
was concerned, though the laws against treafon
were wrested for his conviction. After his condem-
nation the king was strongly folicited in his behalf.
His father, the old earl of Bedford, offered to pur-
chase his pardon of the dutchefs of Portsmouth
with the fum of one hundred thousand pounds;
lord Ruffel's lady, daughter of the earl of South-
ampton, threw herself at the king's feet, in a flood
of tears, and pleaded the merits of her father in
behalf of her husband. Charles was inexorable: he
dreaded the principles and popularity of lord Ruffel;
he deeply refented that eagernefs and perfeverance
with which he had opposed him in the late parlia-
ments; he had even denied the king's power of
remitting the barbarous part of the fentence pro-
nounced against lord Stafford. Charles now miti-
gated his doom into fimple decapitation, faying,

My lord Ruffel fhall find I am poffeffed of that "prerogative which he thought fit to deny me in "the cafe of lord Stafford." Lord Cavendish, the intimate friend of Ruffel, offered to effect his escape, by exchanging apparel with him, and remaining a prifoner in his room; the duke of Monmouth fent a meffage to him, importing that he would furrender himself, if he thought that step would contribute to his fafety. Lord Ruffel generously rejected both thefe expedients, and refigned himself to his fate with admirable fortitude.

His lady,

1

A. C. 1683. lady, that he might not be fhocked in his last moments, fummoned up the refolution of a heroine, and parted from him without fhedding a tear. "Now (cried he) the bitterness of death is paft;" and afterwards behaved with furprising ferenity of temper, exhibiting fome extraordinary marks of good humour. On the day that preceded his death his nose beginning to bleed, he faid to Dr. Burnet, who attended him, "I fhall not now let blood to "divert this diftemper; that will be done to-mor"row." Immediately before he was conveyed to the scaffold he wound up his watch, faying, with a fmile, "Now I have done with time, and muft "henceforth think folely of eternity." The fcaffold was erected in Lincoln's inn-fields, that the triumph of the court might appear the more confpicuous in his being conveyed through the whole city of London. Even the populace wept as he paffed along in the coach with Tillotfon and Burnet. On the scaffold he prefented a paper to the fheriffs, expreffing his zeal against popery, protefting his own innocence with regard to any defign against the king's life. He prayed God would preferve his majefty, and the proteftant religion; and, without the leaft change of countenance, calmlyfubmitted to the ftroke of the executioner.

And of

Sidney.

The trial of Ruffel was followed by that of AlAlgernoon gernoon Sidney, brother to the earl of Leicester, a bold commonwealth's man, in whom the spirit of the antient republics furvived. He had been deeply concerned in the war against the king's father, though he vigorously oppofed the ufurpation of Cromwell. He afterwards ufed all his endeavours to prevent the restoration, and chofe to live in voJuntary exile, until his private affairs required his prefence in England; then he folicited and obtain

ed

ed the king's pardon. Notwithstanding this in- A. C. 1683, dulgence, he joined the popular party, and entered eagerly into all their fchemes against the government, in hope of seeing at last a perfect republic established. Lord Howard was the fole witness that appeared against him: but the profecutors produced fome Difcourfes upon government, found among his papers; and affirmed that thefe were equivalent to another evidence. They were written in defence of liberty, maintaining the original contract upon which government was raifed, and from which all power was derived; the lawfulnefs of refiftance, in cafe of tyranny and oppreffion; and the maxim of preferring a republic to the government of a fingle perfon. There was nothing treafonable in these doctrines. The papers appeared to have been long written. They could neither prove them to be in his hand-writing, nor that he had ever communicated them to any perfon upon earth and he obferved, in his own defence, that in a charge of treafon, the law abfolutely required two living witneffes. All thefe arguments were urged without effect. A jury had been packed for his trial, and the charge was given against him with great virulence, by the inhuman Jeffries, now chief-juftice. He was convicted of courfe, and in a few days executed. He complained of the iniquity of his fentence, by which he loft his life but far from denying his connections with Ruffel, and the other confpirators, he gloried in his fufferings for the good old caufe, in which, from his early youth, he had been inlifted.

;

the earl of

Howard being the fole evidence against Hamb- Fatal cataden, this laft was indicted for a mifdemeanour only: Atrophe of and caft in a fine of forty thousand pounds. Hol- EM:x. loway, a merchant of Bristol, one of the confpirators, had fled to the Weft Indies, from whence

he

A. C. 1683

he was now brought back to England. He fubmitted to the king's mercy, and was executed. Sir Thomas Armstrong had been outlawed for the confpiracy, and fled to Holland, where he was betrayed into the hands of Chudleigh the English minister, who fent him over to England. He demanded a fair trial, to which he was intitled by the statute, as the time prescribed for his furrendering himself was not yet elapfed. Jeffries declared he was not intitled to the benefit of the ftatute, because he had not furrendered voluntarily : he infulted him from the bench, and condemned him to die the death of a traitor, which he underwent with great refolution. No incident that dif tinguished this period was more remarkable than the death of the earl of Effex, prifoner in the Tower, who, on the morning of Ruffel's execution, was found murdered in his apartment, his throat being cut from ear to ear. Though the coroner's inqueft brought in their verdict felf-murder, and the earl had been known fubject to fits of melancholy, fome circumstances seemed to countenance a fufpicion of his having fallen by another hand; and that fufpicion did not even refpect the king and his brother, who happened that morning to be in the Tower, which for many years before they had not vifited. This, however, is a circumftance which might naturally be interpreted in their favour; for had they really been concerned in fuch an atrocious crime, they would have hardly appeared upon the fcene; a ftep which could not fail to aroufe the fufpicion of the public. Two children declared, that they faw a hand throw a bloody razor from the cafement. Lady Effex made a very minute inquiry into every circumstance relating to this tragedy, and communicated all the particulars to Dr. Burnet, who fays there was not

the