XXIX. vaders looked for a scene of commotion and dis- CHAP. turbance, as that which should enable them to make the passage in safety. A 1658. lation. So perilous was the state of the English go- Recapituvernment in the beginning of the year 1658. A majority of the parliament being determined to thwart the measures of the protector, afforded an encouragement to every open and every secret enemy, that had not occurred since the commencement of the commonwealth. They all seemed to see that this was the time for them to be doubly assiduous in pursuing their different intrigues. A petition was put forward by the republicans for reducing the power of the protector to a cipher. Another petition was said to be prepared in express terms for the restoration of the Stuarts. conspiracy was organised by certain members of the republican party to take up arms for the overthrow of the government. The royalists were ready in the north, in the east, in the west, in the south, and even in the metropolis, to appear simultaneously in insurrection. A foreign army was quartered at Brussels, at Bruges, and at Ostend, prepared to invade us. Amidst these dangers which threatened the government on every side, undoubtedly nothing could have saved them from destruction short of the dissolution of the parliament. That capital measure being effected, Cromwel applied himself with vigilance to counteract the progress of discontent, to crush IV. 1658. BOOK the different petitions of the disaffected, to arrest the most dangerous republicans, to organise the city-militia, to check the appearances of mutiny in the army, to trace by the instrumentality of his spies the communications of the purposed insurgents, and to block up the ports of Flanders so as to prevent the coming out of a foreign enemy. 517 CHAPTER XXX. TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF SIR HENRY SLINGSBY. -OF DR. HEWIT.-MORDAUNT ACQUITTED.PLAN FOR SURPRISING THE METROPOLIS.-TWO OF THE CONSPIRATORS HANGED AND QUARTERED.-DEATH OF WARWICK. XXX. 1658. Proceed ings against engaged in treason re the persons solved on. THE next thing the government had to consider CHAP. was, how to proceed respecting those persons who had been unequivocally detected in projects for raising war, and plunging the community in bloodshed. Thurloe very justly observes in a letter to Henry Cromwel, that it was necessary for the rulers so to conduct themselves, that the country should not every year periodically be exposed to such attempts as the present. This coincides with the remark of Clarendon, that winter was the season in which only attempts were to be tried upon England. It was resolved therefore that some examples should be made, to deter men from such aggressions in future. The principal victims fixed on were Dr. Hewit, an episcopal clergyman, who seems to have been indefatigable in en * Thurloe, Vol. VII, p. 84. See above, p. 499. IV. 1658. BOOK listing new partisans to give effect to the insurrection ; and sir Henry Slingsby, who was deeply involved in Penruddock's attempt, but who had been spared at that time, and had since been several times a state-prisoner in the castle of Hulle. Nothing it seems could deter this generous loyalist from at all times expressing his partialities in the most unequivocal manner, or from entering into any project of conspiracy that was set before him. A third intended victim was John Mordaunt, next brother to the earl of Peterborough. This gallant youth, though only twenty years of age, and lately married to a young lady of great spirit and beauty, could not withhold himself from what he deemed so auspicious an occasion for pressing the restoration of the legitimate successor of so illustrious a line of kings". High court of justice. England was not yet in a state of tranquillity that would authorise her governors in referring a question of this sort to a trial by jury and accordingly, on the twenty-seventh of April, a commission passed the great seal for organising a high court of justice, agreeably to an act passed early in the last parliament, for the security of the protector's person, and the continuance of the XXX. 1658. nation in peace and safety. This act provided CHAP. that, for the trial of the offences therein described, the lord chancellor or keepers of the seal should issue from time to time, by warrant from the protector, a commission to the lords of the treasury, the twelve judges, the master of the rolls, and one hundred and thirty other persons therein named, constituting, according to the language of those times, a high court of justice, who were by a majority of voices to regulate their own proceedings, and to pronounce upon the innocence or guilt of such persons as, by the appointment of the protector, should be accused before them k. The names of these one hundred and thirty persons, with the great officers of justice and the state, were accordingly inserted in the commission now issued. The court, thus constituted, sat for the first time on the twelfth of May, and again on the seventeenth, and the twentieth1. Hewit, colonel John Russel and sir William Compton were finally committed to the Tower in the first week of April m, and Mordaunt shortly after". These names occur again as prisoners on the nineteenth of May, with the addition of Slingsby and Willis o. On the an 1 Mercurius Politicus, Apr. 29. * Scobel, 1656, cap. 3. Public Intelligencer, May 24. n Ibid, May 3. |