:

being hanged for three days he would eat nothing, and seemed resolved to starve himself, but nature overcame his resolutions; and then he told all he knew, and perhaps more than he knew; for I believe it was at this time that he wrote his narrative. And in that he told a new story of lord Howard, which was not very credible, that he thought the best way of killing the king and the duke, was for the duke of Monmouth to fall into Newmarket with a body of three or four hundred horse when they were all asleep, and so to take them all: as if it had been an easy matter to get such a body together, and to carry them thither invisibly upon so desperate a service. Upon lord Howard's examination, he told a long story of lord Shaftesbury's design of raising the city: he affirmed, that the duke of Monmouth had told him, how Trenchard had undertaken to bring a body of men from Taunton, but had failed in it he confirmed that of a rising intended in the city on the seventeenth or the nineteenth of November last; but he knew of nobody that was to be at the head of it. So this was looked on as only talk. But that which came more home was, that he owned there was a council of six settled, of which he himself was one; and that they had several debates among them concerning an insurrection, and where it should begin, whether in the city or in the country; but that they resolved to be first well informed concerning the state Scotland was in; and that Sidney had sent Aaron Smith to Scotland, to bring him a sure information from thence, and that he gave him sixty guineas for his journey: more of that matter he did not know; for he had gone out of town to the Bath, and to his estate in the country. During his absence the lords began to apprehend their error in trusting him: and upon it lord Essex said to lord Russel, as the last told me in prison, that the putting themselves in the power of such a man would be their reproach, as well as their ruin, for trusting a man of so ill a character: so they resolved to talk no more to him: but at his next coming to town they told him, they saw it was necessary at present to give over all consultations, and to be quiet : and after that they saw him very little. Hampden was upon lord Howard's discovery seized on: he, when examined, desired not to be pressed with questions; so he was sent to the Tower.

A party of horse was sent to bring up lord Essex, who had stayed all this while at his house in the country; and seemed so little apprehensive of danger, that his own lady did not imagine he had any concern on his mind. He was offered to be conveyed away very safely, but he would not stir. His tenderness for lord Russel was the cause of this; for he thought his going out of the way might incline the jury to believe the evidence the more for his absconding. He seemed resolved, as soon as he saw how that went, to take care of himself. When the party came to bring him up, he was at first in some disorder, yet he recovered himself; but when he came before the council, he was in much confusion. He was sent to the Tower; and there he fell under a great depression of spirit: he could not sleep at all. He had fallen before that twice under great fits of the spleen, which returned now upon him with more violence. He sent by a servant, whom he had long trusted, and who was suffered to come to him, a very melancholy message to his wife; that what he was charged with was true: he was sorry he had ruined her and her children; but he had sent for the earl of Clarendon, to talk freely to him, who had married his sister. She immediately sent back the servant, to beg of him that he would not think of her or her children, but only study to support his own spirits; and desired him to say nothing to lord Clarendon, nor to any body else, till she should come to him, which she was in hope to obtain leave to do in a day or two. Lord Clarendon came to him upon his message; but he turned the matter so well to him, as if he had been only to explain somewhat, that he had mistaken himself in, when he was before the council: but as to that for which he was clapped up, he said there was nothing in it, and it would appear how innocent he was. So lord Clarendon went away in a great measure satisfied, as he himself told me. His lady had another message from him, that he was much calmer; especially when he found how she took his condition to heart, without seeming concerned for her own share in it. He ordered many things to be sent to him; and among other things he called at several times for a penknife, with which he used to pare his nails very nicely so this was thought intended for an amusement: but it was not brought from his house in the country, though sent for. And when it did not come, he called for a razor, and said, that would do as well. The king and the duke canic to the

:

Tower that morning, as was given out, to see some invention about the ordnance. As they were going into their barge, the cry came after them of what had happened to lord Essex; for his man, thinking he staid longer than ordinary in his closet, said, he looked through the key-hole, and there saw him lying dead: upon which the door being broken open, he was found dead; his throat cut, so that both the jugulars and the gullet were cut, a little above the aspera arteria. I shall afterwards give an account of the further inquiry into this matter, which passed then universally as done by himself. The coroner's jury found it self-murder. And when his body was brought home to his own house, and the wound was examined by his own surgeon, he said to me; it was impossible the wound could be as it was, if given by any hand but his own: for, except he had cast his head back, and stretched up his neck all he could, the aspera arteria must have been cut. But to go on with this tragical day, in which I lost the two best friends I had in the world:

The lord Russel's trial was fixed for that day. A jury was returned that consisted of citizens of London who were not freeholders. So the first point argued in law was, whether this could be a legal jury. The statute was express: and the reason was, that none but men of certain estates might try a man upon his life. It was answered, that the practice of the city was to the contrary, upon the very reason of the law: for the richest men of the city were often no freeholders, but merchants whose wealth lay in their trade and stock. So this was overruled, and the jury was sworn. They were picked out with great care, being men of fair reputation in other respects, but so engaged in the party for the court, that they were easy to believe any thing on that side. Rumsey, Shepherd, and lord Howard were the witnesses, who deposed according to what was formerly related. Shepherd swore lord Russel was twice at his house, though he was never there but once. And when lord Russel sent him word after his sentence, that he forgave him all he had sworn against him, but that he must remember that he was never within his doors but one single time: to which all the answer Shepherd made was, that all the while he was in court during the trial, he was under such a confusion, that he scarce knew what he said. Both Rumsey and he swore, that lord Russel had expressed his consent to the seizing on the guards, though they did not swear any one word that he spoke which imported it: so that here a man was convicted of treason, for being present by accident, or for some innocent purpose, where treasonable matter was discoursed, without bearing a part in that discourse, or giving any assent by words or otherwise to what was so discoursed; which at the most amounts to misprision, or concealment, of treason only. As lord Howard began his evidence, the news of the earl of Essex's death came to the court. Upon which lord Howard stopped, and said, he could not go on till he gave vent to his grief in some tears. He soon recovered himself, and told all his story. Lord Russel defended himself by many compurgators, who spoke very fully of his great worth, and that it was not likely he would engage in ill designs. Some others besides myself testified, how solemnly lord Howard had denied his knowledge of any plot, upon its first breaking out. Finch, the solicitor-general, said, no regard was to be had to that, for all witnesses denied at first. It was answered, if these denials had been only to a magistrate, or at an examination, it might be thought of less moment; but such solemn denials, with asseverations, to friends, and officiously offered, shewed that such a witness was so bad a man, that no credit was due to his testimony. It was also urged that it was not sworn by any of the witnesses, that lord Russel had spoken any such words, or words to that effect: and without some such indication, it could not be known that he hearkened to the discourse, or consented to it. Lord Russel also asked, upon what statute he was tried: if upon the old statute of the twenty-fifth of Edward the Third, or if upon the statute made declaring what shall be held treason during the king's reign? They could not rely on the last, because of the limitation of time in it: six months, and something more, were passed since the time of these discourses; so they relied on the old statute. Upon which he asked, where was the overt act? For none appeared. It was also said, that by that statute the very imagining the king's death, when proved by an overt act, was treason: but it was only the levying war, and not the imagining to levy war against the king, that was treason by that statute. Cook and Hale were of this opinion, and gave their reasons for it. And it seemed, that the parliament that passed the act of treason during the present reign were of that mind; for they

enumerated consultations to raise war among those things which were declared to be treason during that reign: this shewed that they did not look on them as comprehended within the old statute. The king's counsel pretended, that consultations to seize on the guards were an overt act of a design against the king's person. But those forces that have got the designation of guards appropriated to them, are not the king's guards in law: they are not so much as allowed of by law: for even the lately dissolved long parliament, that was so careful of the king, and so kind to him, would never take notice of the king's forces, much less call them his guards. The guards were only a company of men in the king's pay; so that a design to seize on them amounted to no more, than to a design to seize on a part of the king's army. But the word guards sounded so like a security to the king's person, that the design against them was constructed a design against his life: and yet none of the witnesses spoke of any design against the king's person. Lord Howard swore positively, that they had no such design. Yet the one was constructed to be the natural consequence of the other. So that after all the declaiming against a constructive treason in the case of lord Strafford, the court was always running into it, when they had a mind to destroy any that stood in their way. Lord Russel desired, that his counsel might be heard to this point of seizing the guards; but that was denied, unless he would confess the fact: and he would not do that, because, as the witnesses had sworn it, it was false. He once intended to have related the whole fact, just as it was; but his counsel advised him against it. Some of his friends were for it, who thought that it could amount to no more than a concealment and misprision of treason. Yet the counsel distinguished between a bare knowledge, and a concealing that, and a joining designedly in council with men that did design treason; for in that case, though a man should differ in opinion from a treasonable proposition, yet his mixing in council with such men will in law make him a traitor. Lord Russel spoke but little yet in few words he touched on all the material points of law that had been suggested to him. Finch summed up the evidence against him; but in that, and in several other trials afterwards, he shewed more of a vicious eloquence, in turning matters with some subtlety against the prisoners, than of solid or sincere reasoning. Jefferies would shew his zeal, and speak after him; but it was only an insolent declamation, such as all his were, full of fury and indecent invectives. Pemberton was the head of the court, the other bench not being yet filled. He summed up

:

the evidence at first very fairly; but in conclusion he told the jury, that a design to seize the guards was surely a design against the king's life. But though he struck upon this, which was the main point, yet it was thought that his stating the whole matter with so little eagerness against lord Russel, was that which lost him his place; for he was turned out soon after. Lord Russel's behaviour during the trial was decent and composed: so that he seemed very little concerned in the issue of the matter. He was a man of so much candour, that he spoke little as to the fact: for since he was advised not to tell the whole truth, he could not speak against that which he knew to be true, though in some particulars it had been carried beyond the truth. But he was not allowed to make the difference: so he left that wholly to the jury, who brought in their verdict against him, upon which he received

sentence.

He then composed himself to die with great seriousness. He said he was sure the day of his trial was more uneasy to him than that of his execution would be. All possible methods were used to have saved his life. Money was offered to the lady Portsmouth, and to all that had credit, and that without measure. He was pressed to send petitions and submissions to the king, and to the duke; but he left it to his friends to consider how far these might go, and how they were to be worded. All he was brought to was to offer to live beyond sea in any place that the king should name, and never to meddle any more in English affairs. But all was in vain; both king and duke were fixed in their resolutions; but with this difference, as lord Rochester afterwards told me, that the duke suffered some, among whom he was one, to argue the point with him, but the king could not bear the discourse. Some have said, that the duke moved that he might be executed in Southampton-square, before his own house, but that the king rejected that as indecent. So Lincoln's-inn-fields was the place appointed for his execution. The last week of his life he was shut up all the mornings, as he himself desired; and about noon I came to him, and stayed with him till

night. All the while he expressed a very Christian temper, without sharpness or resentment, vanity or affectation. His whole behaviour looked like a triumph over death. Upon some occasions, as at table, or when his friends came to see him, he was decently cheerful. I was by him when the sheriffs came to show him the warrant for his execution. He read it with indifference; and when they were gone, he told me it was not decent to be merry with such a matter, otherwise he was near telling Rich (who, though he was now of the other side, yet had been a member of the house of commons, and had voted for the exclusion), that they should never sit together in that house any more to vote for the bill of exclusion. The day before his death he fell a bleeding at the nose; upon that he said to me. pleasantly, "I shall not now let blood to divert this, that will be done to-morrow." At night it rained hard, and he said, such a rain to-morrow will spoil a great show, which was a dull thing on a rainy day. He said, the sins of his youth lay heavy upon his mind; but he hoped God had forgiven them, for he was sure he had forsaken them, and for many years he had walked before God with a sincere heart; if in his public actings he had committed errors, they were only the errors of his understanding, for he had no private ends, nor ill designs of his own in them. He was still of opinion that the king was limited by law, and that when he broke through those limits his subjects might defend themselves, and restrain him. He thought a violent death was a very desirable way of ending one's life; it was only the being exposed to be a little gazed at, and to suffer the pain of one minute, which, he was confident, was not equal to the pain of drawing a tooth. He said he felt none of those transports that some good people felt; but he had a full calm in his mind, no palpitation at heart, nor trembling at the thoughts of death. He was much concerned at the cloud that seemed to be now over his country; but he hoped his death should do more service than his life could have done.

Tillotson was oft with him

This was the substance of the discourse between him and me. that last week. We thought the party had gone too quick in their consultations, and too far; and that resistance in the condition we were then in was not lawful. He said he had not leisure to enter into discourses of politics; but he thought a government limited by law was only a name, if the subjects might not maintain those limitations by force; otherwise all was at the discretion of the prince; that was contrary to all the notions he had lived in of our government. But he said there was nothing among them but the embryos of things that were never like to have any effect, and that were now quite dissolved. He thought it was necessary for him to leave a paper behind him at his death; and because he had not been accustomed to draw such papers, he desired me to give him a scheme of the heads fit to be spoken to, and of the order in which they should be laid, which I did. And he was three days employed for some time in the morning to write out his speech. He ordered four copies to be made of it, all which he signed; and gave the original with three of the copies to his lady, and kept the other to give to the sheriffs on the scaffold. He wrote it with great care; and the passages that were tender he wrote in papers apart, and showed them to his lady and to myself before he wrote them out fair. He was very easy when this was ended. He also wrote a letter to the king, in which he asked pardon for everything he had said, or done, contrary to his duty, protesting he was innocent as to all designs against his person or government, and that his heart was ever devoted to that which he thought was his true interest. He added, that though he thought he had met with hard measure, yet he forgave all concerned in it, from the highest to the lowest; and ended, hoping that his majesty's displeasure at him would cease with his own life, and that no part of it should fall on his wife and children. The day before his death he received the sacrament from Tillotson, with much devotion. And I preached two short sermons to him, which he heard with great affection. And we were shut up till towards the evening. Then he suffered his children that were very young, and some few of his friends, to take leave of him; in which he maintained his constancy of temper, though he was a very fond father. He also parted with his lady with a composed silence; and, as soon as she was gone, he said to me, "The bitterness of death is past;" for he loved and esteemed her beyond expression, as she well deserved it in all respects. She had the command of herself so much, that at parting she gave him no disturbance. He went into his chamber about midnight, and I

stayed all night in the outward room. He went not to bed till about two in the morning, and was fast asleep till four, when, according to his order, we called him. He was quickly dressed, but would lose no time in shaving; for he said he was not concerned in his good looks that day.

He was not ill pleased with the account he heard that morning of the manner of Walcot's death, who, together with one Hone and Rowse, had suffered the day before. These were condemned upon the evidence of the witnesses. Rumsey and West swore fully against Walcot; he had also written a letter to the secretary, offering to make discoveries, in which he said the plot was laid deep and wide. Walcot denied at his death the whole business of the Rye-plot, and of his undertaking to fight the guards while others should kill the king. He said West had often spoken of it to him in the phrase of lopping; and that he always said he would not meddle in it, and that he looked on it as an infamous thing, and as that which the duke of Monmouth would certainly revenge; though West assured him that duke had engaged under his hand to consent to it. This confession of Walcot's, as it showed himself very guilty, so it made West appear so black, that the court made no more use of him. Hone, a poor tradesman in London, who it seems had some heat but scarce any sense in him, was drawn in by Keeling, and Lee, another witness, who was also brought in by Keeling to a very wild thing of killing the king but sparing the duke, upon this conceit, that we would be in less danger in being under a professed papist than under the king. Hone had promised to serve in the execution of it, but neither knew when, where, nor how, it was to be done; so, though he seemed fitter for a Bedlam than a trial, yet he was tried the day before the lord Russel, and suffered with the others the day before him. He confessed his own guilt, but said these who witnessed against him had engaged him in that design, for which they now charged him; but he knew nothing of any other persons besides himself and the two witnesses. The third was one Rowse, who had belonged to Player, the chamberlain of London; against whom Lee and Keeling swore the same things. He was more affected with a sense of the heat and fury, with which he had been actuated, than the others were; but he denied that he was ever in any design against the king's life. He said the witnesses had let fall many wicked things of that matter in discourse with him, so that he was resolved to discover them, and was only waiting till he could find out the bottom of their designs; but that now they had prevented him. He vindicated all his acquaintance from being any way concerned in the matter, or from approving such designs. dying as they did was such a disgrace to the witnesses, that the court saw it was not fit to make any further use of them. Great use was made of the conjunction of these two plots, one for a rising, and another for an assassination. It was said, that the one was that which gave the heart and hope to the other black conspiracy, by which they were over all England blended together as a plot within a plot, which cast a great load on the whole party.

These men

Lord Russel seemed to have some satisfaction to find that there was no truth in the whole contrivance of the Rye-plot, so that he hoped that infamy, which now blasted their party, would soon go off. He went into his chamber six or seven times in the morning and prayed by himself, and then came out to Tillotson and me. He drank a little tea and some sherry. He wound up his watch, and said, now he had done with time and was going to eternity. He asked what he should give the executioner; I told him ten guineas. He said, with a smile, it was a pretty thing to give a fee to have his head cut off. When the sheriffs called him about ten o'clock, lord Cavendish was waiting below to take leave of him. They embraced very tenderly. Lord Russel, after he had left him, upon a sudden thought came back to him, and pressed him earnestly to apply himself more to religion; and told him what great comfort and support he felt from it now in his extremity. Lord Cavendish had very generously offered to manage his escape, and to stay in prison for him while he should go away in his clothes; but he would not hearken to the motion. The duke of Monmouth had also sent me word to let him know, that if he thought it could do him any service, he would come in, and run fortunes with him. He answered, it would be of no advantage to him to have his friends die with him. Tillotson and I went in the coach with him to the place of execution. Some of the crowd that filled the streets wept, while others insulted; he was touched with a tenderness that the one gave him, but did not seem at all provoked by the