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and carried on projects quite unknown to Monmouth and his council. Among these men was Colonel Rumfey, an old Republican officer, together with lieutenant-colonel Walcot, of the fame ftamp, Goodenough, under-sheriff of London, a zealous and noted partyman, Ferguson, an independent minifter, and feveral attornies, merchants, and tradefmen of London. But Colonel Rumfey and Ferguson were the only perfons that had accefs to the great leaders of the confpiracy. Thefe men in their meetings embraced the most defperate refolutions. They propofed to affaffinate the king in his way to Newmarket; Rumbal, one of the party, poffeffed a farm upon that road called the Rye-houfe, and from thence the confpiracy was denominated the Rye-houfe plot. They deliberated upon a scheme of ftopping the king's coach, by over. turing a cart on the highway at this place, and fhooting him through the hedges. The house in which the king lived at Newmarket took fire accidentally, and he was obliged to leave Newmarket eight days fooner than was expected, to which circumftance his fafety was afcribed.

Among the confpirators was one Keiling, who, finding himfelf in danger of a profecution for arrefting the lord mayor of London, refolved to earn his pardon by disco. vering 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 evidence, and they furrendered themselves accordingly. Monmouth abfconded; Ruffel was fent to the Tower; Grey efcaped; Howard was taken concealed in a chimney; Effex, Sydney, and Hampden were foon after arrested, and had the mortification to find lord Howard an evidence against them.

Walcot was firft brought to trial and condemned, toge ther with Hone and Roufe, two affociates in the confpiracy, upon the evidence of Rumfey, Weft, and Sheppard. They died penitent, acknowledging the justice of the fentence by which they were execured. A much greater facrifice was fhortly after to follow. This was the lord Ruffel, fon of the Earl of Bedford, a nobleman of numberlefs good qualities, and led into this confpiracy from a conviction of the duke of York's intentions to reftore

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Fopery. He was liberal, popular, humane, and brave. All his virtues were fo many crimes in the present fufpicious difpofition of the court. The chief evidence against him was lord Howard, a man of very bad charac ter, one of the confpirators, who was now contented to take life upon fuch terms, and to acccept of infamous fafety. This witnefs fwore that Ruffel was engaged in the defign of an infurrection; but he acquitted him, as did alfo Rumfey and Weft, of being privy to the affaffination. The jury, who were zealous royalifts, after a fhort deliberation, brought the prifoner in guilty, and he was condemned to fuffer beheading. The fcaffold for his execution was erected in Lincoln's inn- fields; he laid his head on the block without the leaft change of countenance, and at two ftrokes it was fevered from his body.

The celebrated Algernon Sidney, fon to the earl of Leicester, was next brought to his trial. He had been formerly engaged in the parliamentary army against the late king, and was even named on the high court of justice that tried him, but had not taken his feat among the judges. He had ever oppofed Cromwell's ufurpation, and went into voluntary banishment on the Restoration. His affairs, however, requring his return, he applied to the king for a pardon, and obtained his request. But all his hopes and all his reafonings were formed upon republican principles. For his adored republic he had written and fought, and went into banishment, and ventured to return. It may easily be conceived how obnoxious a man of fuch principles was to a court that now was not even content without limitations to its power. They went fo far as to take illegal methods to procure his condemnation. The only witnefs that depofed against Sidney was lord Howard, and the law required two. In order, therefore, to make out a fecond witnefs, they had recourse to a very extraordinary expedient. In ranfacking his clofet, fome difcourfes on government were found in his own hand-writing, containing principles favourable to liberty, and in themfelves no way fubverfive of a limited government. By overftraining fome of these they were conftrued into treafon. It was in vain he alledged that papers were no evidence; that it could not be proved they were

written

written by him; that if proved, the papers themselves contained nothing criminal. His defence was over ruled; the violent and inhumam Jefferies, who was now chief juftice, eafily prevailed on a partial jury to bring him in guilty, and his execution followed foon after. One can fcarce contemplate the tranfactions of this reign without horror. Such a picture of factious guilt on each fide, a court at once immerfed in fenfuality and blood, a people armed against each other with the moft deadly animofity, and no fingle party to be found with fenfe enough to ftem the general torrent of rancour and factious fufpicion.

Hampden was tried foon after, and as there was nothing to affect his life, he was fined forty thousand pounds. Holloway, a merchant of Bristol, who had fled to the West Indies, was brought over, condemned, and executed. Sir Thomas Armstrong alfo, who had fled to Holland, was brought over, and fhared the fame fate. Lord Effex, who had been imprifoned in the Tower, was found in an apartment with his throat cut; but whether he was guilty of fuicide, or whether the bigotry of the times might not have induced fome affaffin to commit the crime, cannot now be known.

This was the laft blood that was fhed for an imputation of plots or confpiracies, which continued during the greatest part of this reign.

At this period the government of Charles was as abfolute as that of any monarch in Europe; but happily for mankind his tyranny was but of fhort duration. The king was seized with a fudden fit, which resembled an apoplexy; and though he was recovered, by bleeding, yet he lauguished only for a few days, and then expired, in the fifty-ninth year of his age, and the twenty-fifth of his reigo. During his illnefs fome clergymen of the church of England attended him, to whom he difcovered a total indifference. Catholic priests were brought to his bedfide, and from their hands he received the rites of their communion.

CHAP.

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THE duke of York, who facceeded his brother

THE

by the title of king James the Second, had A. D. been bred a papift by his mother, and was ftrongly 1685.1 bigoted to his principles.

He went openly to mafs with all the enfigns of his dignity, and even fent one Caryl as his agent to Rome to make fubmiffions to the Pope, and to pave the way for the re-admiffion of England into the bofom of the catholic church.

A confpiracy, fet on foot by the duke of Monmouth, was the first disturbance in his reign. He had, fince his laft confpiracy, been pardoned, but was ordered to depart the kingdom, and had retired to Holland. Being difmiffed from thence by the prince of Orange, upon James's acceffion, he went to Bruffels, where, finding himself ftill purfued by the king's feverity, he refolved to retaliate, and make an attempt upon the kingdom. He had ever been the darling of the people, and fome averred that Charles had married his mother, and owned Monmouth's legitimacy at his death. The duke of Argyle feconded

his views in Scotland, and they formed the fcheme of a double infurrection; fo that while Monmouth fhould attempt to make a rifing in the Weft, Argyle was alfo to try his endeavours in the North.

Argyle was the first who landed in Scotland, where he published his manifeftoes, put himself at the head

of two thousand five hundred men, and ftrove to A. D. influence the people in his caufe. But a formi. 1685. dable body of the king's forces coming against

him, his army fell away, and he himself, after being wounded in attempting to efcape, was taken prifoner by a peafant, who found him standing up to his neck in a pool of water. He was from thence carried to Edinburgh, where, after enduring many indignities with a gallant fpirit, he was publicly executed.

Meanwhile Monmouth was by this time landed in Dorfetfhire, with fcarce a hundred followers. However his name was fo popular, and fo great was the hatred of the people both for the perfon and religion of James, that in four days he had affembled a body of above two thousand men.

Being advanced to Taunton, his numbers had increased to fix thousand men; and he was obliged every day, for want of arms, to difmifs numbers who crowded to his ftandard. He entered Bridgewater, Wells, and Frome, and was proclaimed in all thofe places: but he loft the hour of action in receiving and claiming thefe empty honours.

The king was not a little alarmed at his invafion; but ftill more at the fuccefs of an undertaking that at first appeared defperate. Six regiments of British troops were recalled from Holland, and a body of regulars, to the number of three thousand men, were fent, under the command of the earl of Feverfham and Churchill, to check the progrefs of the rebels. They took poft at Sedgemore, a village in the neighbourhood of Bridge. water, and were joined by the militia of the country in confiderable numbers. It was there that Monmouth refolved, by a defperate effort, to lofe his life or gain the kingdom. The negligent difpofition made by Feversham invited him to the attack; and his faithful followers

fhewed

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