we followed her in the anxious and unceasing solicitations which she made, on every side, to obtain his pardon; and, amidst her restless endeavours to save his life, we still had to admire a heart, which could lead her to abstain from even hinting to the patriot she was about to see perish on the scaffold, that his existence might be prolonged by means degrading to his spirit, or inconsistent with his honour.

The life of Lady Russell, after the death of her lord, was occupied and embittered by that grief, of which she has left in her letters so affecting a memorial. Yet we are not to suppose that sorrow for her departed husband made her incapable of the duties which remained to her to perform. We find her, on the occasion of the marriage of her daughter, expressing her resolve not to bend her child's inclinations to her own judgment. There remains a letter to Mrs. Howland, whose daughter was to marry her son, afterwards Duke of Bedford, giving very sensible advice upon the manner in which the child, then eight years old, ought to be educated. And it is worthy of remark, that so serious a person as Lady Russell does not omit to mention dancing as one of the things which her future daughter-inlaw ought to learn: for, "though I confess," she says, “fashion, and those other accomplishments are, perhaps, over-rated by the world, and I esteem them but as dross and as a shadow, in comparison of religion and virtue, yet the perfections of nature are ornaments to the body, as grace is to the mind." It appears, by another letter, that she gave a large sum from her own fortune, to pay the debts which her son had contracted by gambling; and, to conclude these quotations, there is another, in which she exhorts him, by every argument she can imagine, to seek for support in religion, which had been her own guide and consolation. The peculiarity which is most striking in Lady Russell is, that she was esteemed and consulted by her cotemporaries, and has been admired and revered by posterity, without any ambitious effort of her own. She neither sought to shine in the world by the extent of her capacity, nor to display, by affected retirement, the elevation of her soul; and when

circumstances obliged her to come forward on the stage of history, she showed herself in the appropriate character of a wife and a mother. Hence we may believe, that the unobtrusive modesty of private life contains many a female capable of giving the same example to her sex, and to mankind. But the hour of danger is past the liberties for which Lord Russell sacrificed his life are established; and it is to be hoped that no English widow may, in future, have to mourn a husband, unjustly condemned, and tyrannically executed.

CHAP. XIX.

TRIALS OF OTHER PERSONS FOR THE PLOT. - ENQUIRY INTO THE REALITY OF THE RYE-HOUSE PLOT.

BEFORE Concluding this work, it will be proper to give some account of those who were involved with Lord Russell in the accusation of conspiring against the King, and to offer some observations on the reality of the Rye-House plot.

In November, Algernon Sydney was brought to trial. He was much more hardly used than Lord Russell had been; and the trial exhibits a strange and unnatural contrast between the violence, the injustice, and the brutality of the judge; and the calmness, the pointed reasoning, and the heroic fortitude of the prisoner. He was tried by a jury, many of whom were not freeholders. Jeffries, then Chief Justice, said the point had been decided on Lord Russell's trial, although, in that case, the trial had been in the city of London, and this was at the King's Bench. Rumsey and West were the first witnesses against him; and they swore that they knew nothing of the prisoner since the conspiracy began. They had heard that he was one of the council of six; and, what is most curious, West had heard this from Rumsey, and Rumsey had heard it from West. Lord Howard followed, adding many particulars to his former tale; but as he was the only direct witness, the evidence required by law was filled with a manuscript-book, in Sydney's hand-writing, writtten some years before. Quotations, proving that he approved of the conspiracies against Nero, and against Caligula, were read as proofs of his having compassed the King's death. The Lord Chief Justice, in summing up the evidence, laid it down as law, that if one witness deposed that a man had said he would kill the King with a knife, and

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another witness deposed that he had bought a knife, these two would form the two witnesses required by law. It is needless to enter farther into this well-known case; but I cannot help expressing my own sentiment, that there is no murder which history has recorded of Cæsar Borgia, which exceeds in violence, or in fraud, that by which Charles took away the life of the gallant and patriotic Sydney.

The Duke of Monmouth was persuaded, by Lord Halifax, to make his confession. He did this in a letter, in very general terms; but being told that he might hurt Mr. Hampden, and others of his friends, he went to the King, and desired to have it back. The King gave him his letter, but accompanied it with some severe expressions, and forbad him the court. He retired to Holland, where he was treated by the Prince of Orange with particular respect.

Not even a scrap of old writing could be found to corroborate the evidence of Lord Howard against Hampden; but the crown-lawyers thought proper to try him for a misdemeanour, for which one witness is sufficient. To convert the acts for which Russell and Sydney had been beheaded into a misdemeanour, seems strikingly absurd; but a fine of 40,000l., which was equivalent to imprisonment for life, shows the intention of the Royal brothers. After this sentence, he was confined in different prisons, and all his real and personal property sequestered, till Monmouth's unsuccessful attempt. At that time Lord Grey consented to become a second witness against him ; but some of his friends having raised six thousand pounds, which they offered to Jeffries and Mr. Petre, obtained his pardon, on condition that he should plead guilty.* Dalrymple, who was perfectly aware of these facts, mixes them up, as usual, with romance. He attributes it to the unpopularity which Sydney's trial had brought on the government, that Hampden was not at first tried for his life; and he suppresses the fact of 60001. having been given for his pardon, in order to insert the following passage, which is a mixture of odious misrepresentation and affected sentiment :-" In despair he pleaded

guilty. It was a sad spectacle to the generous of all parties, to see the grandson of the great Hampden entreating the meanest of mankind to interpose with the King for his life. Satisfied with the humiliation, because it was worse than death, Jeffries obtained his pardon from James."

In 1684, Holloway, who had been sent home, confessed all he knew, refused a trial, and was executed. He hinted, at his death, that had he chosen to discover more than was true, he might have saved his life. His discoveries produced an impression unfavourable to the belief of the plot. *

This impression was strengthened by the last words of Armstrong, who was taken in Holland, and condemned on a sentence of outlawry. He asked in vain for a trial, on the ground that the year allowed for him to come in was not expired, so that he might have surrendered himself voluntarily some months afterwards. When he asked for the benefit of the law, and said he demanded no more, Jeffries answered, with a savage repartee, "That you shall have, by the grace of God. See that execution be done on Friday next, according to law. You shall have the full benefit of the law.” †

We come now to the trials in Scotland. By an order in council of October 22. 1683, the King ordered the laird of Cesnock, and his son, the lairds of Rowallan, elder and younger, Crawford of Crawfordland, Fairly of Brunsfield, Alexander Monro of Beaucrofts, Baillie of Jerviswood, Mr. William Carstairs, Hepburn, son to Major Hepburn, and Spence, servant to the Earl of Argyle, to be sent prisoners to Edinburgh, to be tried according to the law of Scotland. This was done, as Wodrow says, because the Scotch law was far more arbitrary than the English.

Sir Hugh Campbell, of Cesnock, was indicted in February, 1684, not for the Rye-House plot, but for harbouring rebels in the rising of Bothwell-Bridge. For the purpose of convicting him, two witnesses were brought, Ingrham and Crawford. When Ingrham was brought in,