1684. merly. He was upon this more valued and trusted by his own party than ever. After some days he went beyond sea: and after a short concealment he appeared publicly in Holland, and was treated by the prince of Orange with a very particular respect.

The prince had come for a few days to England after the Oxford parliament, and had much private discourse with the king at Windsor. The king assured him, that he would keep things quiet, and not give way to the duke's eagerness, as long as he lived: and added, he was confident, whenever the duke should come to reign, he would be so restless and violent, that he could not hold it four years to an end. This I had from the prince's own mouth i. Another passage was told me by the earl of Port

velling, I am resolved to go "abroad no more: but when I am dead and gone, I know not "what my brother will do. I am much afraid, that when he "C comes to the crown, he will be obliged to travel again. And yet I will take care to leave my kingdoms to him in peace, "wishing he may long keep "them so. But this hath all of my fears, little of my hopes, "and less of my reason; and I am much afraid, that when my brother comes to the crown, he will be obliged again to leave his native soil.” p. 424.)

576

land. The king shewed the prince one of his seals; 1684. and told him, that whatever he might write to him, if the letter was not sealed with that seal, he was to look on it as only drawn from him by importunity. The reason for which I mention that in this place is, because, though the king wrote some terrible letters to the prince against the countenance he gave to the duke of Monmouth, yet they were not sealed with that seal; from which the prince inferred, that the king had a mind that he should keep him about him, and use him well. And the king gave orders, that in all the entries that were made in the council books of this whole business, nothing should be left on record that could blemish him.

trial.

Hamden was now the only man of the six that Hamden's was left. Yet there was nothing but Howard's evidence against him, without so much as any circumstance to support it. So, since two witnesses were necessary to treason, (whereas one was enough for a misdemeanor,) he was indicted of a misdemeanor, though the crime was either treason or nothing. Jefferies, upon Howard's evidence, charged the jury to bring him in guilty: otherwise, he told them, they would discredit all that had been done before, So they brought him in guilty. And the court set 40,000l. fine on him, the most extravagant fine that had ever been set for a misdemeanor in that court. It amounted indeed to an imprisonment for life. Sometime in the spring eighty-four, Halloway Halloway's was taken in the West Indies, and sent over. He was under an outlawry for treason. The attorney general offered him a trial, if he desired it. But he was prevailed on, by the hope of a pardon, to submit, and confess all he knew. He said, he was

execution,

1684. drawn into some meetings, in which they consulted how to raise an insurrection, and that he and two more had undertaken to manage a design for seizing on Bristol, with the help of some that were to come to them from Taunton: but he added, that they had never made any progress in it. He said, at their meetings at London, Rumsey and West were often talking of lopping the king and the duke: but that he had never entered into any discourse with them upon that subject: and he did not believe there were above five persons that approved of it. These were West, Rumsey, Rumbold, and his brother: the fifth person is not named in the printed relation. Some said, it was Ferguson: others said, it was Goodenough. Halloway was thought by the court not to be sincere in his confession. And so, since what he had acknowledged made himself very 577 guilty, he was executed, and died with a firm constancy. He shewed great presence of mind. He observed the partiality that was evident in managing this plot, different from what had appeared in managing the popish plot. The same men who were called rogues when they swore against papists, were looked on as honest men when they turned their evidence against protestants. In all his answers to the sheriffs, who at the place of execution troubled him with many impertinent questions, [that shewed their dulness as well as their officiousness,] he answered them with so much life, and yet with so much temper, that it appeared he was no ordinary man. His speech was suppressed for some days: but it broke out at last. In it he expressed a deep sense of religion: his prayer was an excellent composure. The credit of the Rye-plot re

ceived a great blow by his confession. All that 1684. discourse about an insurrection, in which the day was said to be set, appeared now to be a fiction; since Bristol had been so little taken care of, that three persons had only undertaken to dispose people to that design, but had not yet let it out to any of them. So that it was plain, that after all the story they had made of the plot, it had gone no further, than that a company of seditious and inconsiderable persons were framing among themselves some treasonable schemes, that were never likely to come to any thing; and that Rumsey and West had pushed on the execrable design of the assassination, in which, though there were few that agreed to it, yet too many had heard it from them, who were both so foolish and so wicked, as not to discover them.

strong's

But if the court lost much by the death of Hallo- Armway, whom they had brought from the West Indies, death. they lost much more by their proceedings against sir Thomas Armstrong, who was surprised at Leyden, by virtue of a warrant that Chudleigh the king's envoy had obtained from the States, for seizing on such as should fly out of England on the account of the plot. So the scout at Leyden, for five thousand gilders, seized on him; and delivered him to Chudleigh, who sent him over in great haste. Armstrong in that confusion forgot to claim that he was a native of the States: for he was born at Nimeguen: and that would have obliged the Dutch to have protected him, as one of their natural born subjects. He was trusted in every thing by the duke of Monmouth: and he having led a very vi

* Cursed partiality. S.

1684. cious life, the court hoped that he, not being able

to bear the thoughts of dying, would discover every thing. He shewed such a dejection of mind, while he was concealing himself, before he escaped out of 578 England, that Hamden, who saw him at that time, told me, he believed he would certainly do any thing that would save his life. Yet all were disappointed in him: for when he was examined before the council, he said, he knew of no plot but the popish plot: he desired he might have a fair trial for his life that was all he asked, He was loaded with irons; though that was not ordinary for a man who had served in such posts, as to be lieutenant of the first troop of guards, and gentleman of the horse to the king. There was nothing against him, but what Rumsey and Shepherd had sworn of the discourses at Shepherd's, for which lord Russel had suffered. But by this time the credit of the witnesses was so blasted, that it seems the court was afraid that juries would not now be so easy as they had been. The thing that Rumsey had sworn against him seemed not very credible: for he swore that at the first meeting, Armstrong undertook to go and view the guards in order to the seizing them; and that upon a view, he said at a second meeting, that the thing was very feasible. But Armstrong, who had commanded the guards so long, knew every thing that related to them so well, that without such a transient view he could of the sudden have answered every thing relating to them. The court had a mind to proceed in a summary way with him, that he should by the hurry of it be driven to say any thing that could save him. He was now in an outlawry; but though the sta