Crown, to be exercised by responsible advisers,-where the prosecution has been by impeachment as well as in the name of the King,* although, according to the old law, where a capital prosecution was instituted by appeal at the suit of the party injured the prosecutor might pardon, but the King could not.† It must have been an amusing sight, immediately after this controversy about Danby's pardon, during which Shaftesbury had vowed that "he would have Nottingham's head," to have seen the two sitting next each other in council, and seerningly on terms of cordiality. But they hated each other as much as ever, and secretly prepared for a rupture. Nottingham, not venturing openly to oppose Shaftesbury's Habeas Corpus Bill, in vain intrigued to have it thrown out, by the expedient of a difference between the two Houses, which had been so successfully worked against himself. Hopes were entertained that Shaftesbury might now be prevailed upon to give up his Exclusion Bill; but he, feeling that his only chance of permanent power was to compel the King to take him for his sole minister, and to recognise Monmouth for his successor, thwarted the measures of Nottingham and the inner cabinet, and showed himself as hostile as ever to the Duke of York. It was no surprise to Nottingham, although it was to Shaftesbury, when the King, without any previous deliberation with the Council, suddenly turned round to him, and ordered him first to prepare a commission for proroguing parliament, and then a proclamation to dissolve it.‡ Shaftesbury being immediately turned out of office, Nottingham and he for the rest of their days were at open and mortal enmity with each other. CHAPTER XCIII. CONCLUSION OF THE LIFE OF LORD NOTTINGHAM. DURING the short parliament which met in October, 1680, Notting. ham, under the Earl of Halifax, assisted the ministerial majority in the House of Lords to counteract the schemes of Shaftesbury, who made a stout fight in his own House, and dictated all the resolutions of the other. The Exclusion Bill being renewed in the Commons was followed up by addresses to remove Halifax and Seymour, who opposed it, and by impeachments of Scroggs, Jeffreys, and North, for their obstruction of the prosecution of the Duke of York as a Popish recusant, and their interference with the right of petitioning. In spite of Nottingham's very superior legal acquirements, Shaftesbury seems generally to have had the advantage over him in debate, even on constitutional questions, * After the conviction on impeachment of the six rebel lords in 1715, three of them were pardoned. + Ante, p. 260. † 4 Bl. Com. 400. -the "Patriot” making up for his deficiency in knowledge by boldness of assertion and bitterness of sarcasm. The poor Lord Chancellor, leading such an uneasy life, must have very heartily concurred in the resolution to put a sudden end to this parliament; and, thankful for the respite, must joyfully have pronounced the words by [JAN. 18, 1681.] which it was dissolved, although another was summoned to meet at Oxford as a last experiment, before laying parlia ments entirely aside. On the last day of the session he assisted the King in a most unworthy manœuvre,-to steal from the table a disagreeable Bill, which both Houses had passed "for the protection of Dissenters from being prosecuted for not going to their parish church," so that it was defeated without the odium of a public exercise of the royal veto.* This affair might have led to very serious consequences to the Chancellor if he had been questioned for it by a patriotic House of Commons, backed by an approving public; but the House of Commons was outrageously factious-the public were disgusted with it,—and he escaped. When the Oxford Parliament met, fortune favoured him in every thing. The Commons took up with great eagerness [MARCH 21, 1681.] the stealing of the Dissenters' Relief Bill; but they rejected with contumely all the King's proffered concessions to guard the reformed religion from the Popish successor by banishing him from the kingdom for life, and providing that the next Protestant heir should govern as Regent in his name ;—and to defeat the government prosecution of their informer Fitzharris, they resolved that they would themselves impeach him for high treason before the House of Lords. This last was Shaftesbury's fatal blunder. A great many Protestant zealots still stuck by him for the "exclusion," while the more discerning members of his party now saw through his design of gaining power to him. self by trying to establish the legitimacy of the Duke of Monmouth,-— but nearly all were shocked by observing a capital prosecution sported with as an instrument of faction, and an attempt to try a commoner for his life before those who were not his peers. Nottingham dexterously seized the advantage presented him, and advised the Lords to reject the impeachment, on the ground that Fitzharris, as a commoner, was entitled to be tried for this offence by a jury of commoners. We have a very imperfect report of his speech on this occasion; but he seems very successfully to have thrown odium on the House of Commons for betraying the rights of their constituents, under pretence of supporting their own privileges; and he brought for. ward, with prodigious effect, the precedent of the judgrnent on the mur. derers of Edward II., where it was declared in full parliament that commoners should not thereafter be tried on a capital charge by the House of Lords.† While the Commons voted the rejection of the impeachment † See ante, p. 287. Hale's Jurisdiction of the House of Lords, c. xiv. 66 a denial of justice," the nation on this question took part with the Lords; and the sudden dissolution of [MARCH 28, 1681.] the parliament gave a decided victory to the Court.* Here ended Nottingham's senatorial career, the King ruling by high prerogative alone during the rest of his reign. He had on two other occasions, which I have not mentioned, presided in the Lords as High Steward on the trial of Peers. The first was that of the Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, for the murder of a Mr. Cony in an affray in a tavern. In a note to his MS. Reports, Nottingham has left an account of the ceremonial on this occasion, to which he seems to have attached great importance. "Being come to the Lords' House, and retired to putt on my robes, after prayers said, wee adjourned the House into Westminister Hall, and went, in the order prescribed, through the Painted Chamber, Court of Requests, and Court of Wards, into the Hall. In which procession the Duke of York and Prince Rupert,† to do honour to the King's Lieutenant (for so they called me), gave me the precedence, and suffered me to come last all the while, till the tryall was over and the white staff broken. When we came into Westminster Hall, the Court was prepared like the House of Peers in all points; with scaffolds on each side for the spectators, and a place for all the foreign ministers. So the Lords spirituall and temporall did quickly know their own places. I took my place upon the woolsack, near the cloth of state, but not directly under it, haveing first made my obeysance to the chaire, and then to the King and Queen, who satt by al incognito." The Lord High Steward is reported to have delivered a preliminary address to the noble prisoner, by way of encouraging him, which seems to have been in a strange taste: "Let not the disgrace of standing as a felon at the bar too much deject you; no man's credit can fall so low but that if he bear his shame as he should do, and profit by it as he ought to do, it is in his own power to redeem his reputation. Therefore let no man despair that desires and endeavours to recover himself again; much less let the terrors of justice affright you; for though your Lordship have great cause to fear, yet whatever may be lawfully hoped for, your Lordship may expect from the Peers." Lord Pembroke, being found guilty of manslaughter, was discharged with an admonition, that upon a second conviction for the like offence he would be liable to be hanged.‡ The other case occurred soon after, and excited considerable interest, being that of a minor peer, a schoolboy, prosecuted for the murder of a companion, with whom he had quarrelled in the palace at Whitehall. The Lord High Steward's address to encourage the accused, was again any thing but encouraging. "My Lord Cornwallis, the violation of the King's peace, in the chief sanctuary of it, his own royal palace, and in so high a manner as by the death of one of his subjects, is a matter * 4 Parl. Hist. 1298-1339. + Duke of Cambridge, but he still went by his nom de guerre. that must be accounted for. It is your Lordship's great unhappiness, at this time, to stand prisoner at the bar under the weight of no less a charge than an indictment of murder. And it is not to be wondered at if so great a misfortune as this be attended with some sort of confusion of face; when a man sees himself become a spectacle of misery in so great a presence, and before so noble and so illustrious an assembly. But be not yet dismayed, my Lord, for all this; let not the terrors of justice so amaze and surprise you as to betray those succours that your reason would afford you, or to disarm you of those helps which good discretion may administer, and which are now so necessary. It is indeed a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of justice, where the law is the rule, and a severe and inflexible measure both of life and death." It turned out, however, that the poor young Lord was hardly at all to blame; and notwithstanding strong speeches against him by Sir William Jones, the Attorney-General, and old Serjeant Maynard, and that he was not allowed counsel to assist him, he was acquitted both of murder and manslaughter, to the great joy of the bystanders.* Nottingham survived the dissolution of the Oxford parliament nearly two years, and, continuing Chancellor, is chiefly responsible for the unconstitutional system of government by which justice was perverted, and every institution was attacked which had a tendency to check the arbitrary will of the Sovereign. He sanctioned the execution of Fitzharris for publishing a libel, and of College," the Protestant joiner," for making violent speeches at public meetings;-he approved of the plan of wreaking the vengeance of the Court on the popular leaders, by prosecuting them for high treason; he signed the warrant for the arrest of Shaftesbury, and his commitment to the Tower, on the unfounded charge of having conspired to control the King at Oxford by military violence:-he kept his political opponent many months illegally imprisoned, refusing either to discharge him or to bring him to trial; and he concurred in the irregular attempts to prevail on a grand jury to find an indictment for high treason against him, intending,-if the indictment had been found, to sit upon his trial as Lord High Steward, and, with the assistance of Peers to be selected for the occasion, to have consigned him to the scaffold. What is still more culpable, he poisoned the fountains of justice. He removed from the Commission of the Peace, throughout England, all magistrates whose political principles were adverse to his own, substituting for them the men that could be found most noted for their love of passive obedience, and their hatred of religious toleration. By the same rule did he universally appoint Sheriffs, by whom juries were to be returned,-except the Sheriffs for London and Middlesex, who by ancient charters, held sacred through a long succession of ages, were elected by popular choice. In violation of these charters, he procured the nomination of men who were the mere tools of the Government to be Sheriffs for * 7 St. Tr. 143. London and Middlesex ;-he instituted arbitrary proceedings in the Court of King's Bench to have those charters cancelled ;—and he arbitrarily removed and appointed Judges in this Court, that, contrary to the established law of the land, his purpose might be accomplished. But he has not to answer for the blood of Russell and Sydney, as he was removed from this mortal scene before the worst atrocities of the reign of Charles II. were completed. He had long suffered from the gout; and his attacks from that disorder had become so frequent and severe, that he was for months together prevented from attending the House of Lords, the Court of Chancery, or the Council. Chief Justice North used to sit for him frequently as Speaker of the House of Lords, and sometimes in the Court of Chancery, although his love of his work there induced him to struggle to perform it in person, when from bodily suffering he might well have been excused for throwing it on others. "I have known him," observes Roger North, "sit to hear petitions in great pain, and say that his servants had led him out, though he was fitter for his chamber."* His frame becoming more and more enfeebled, -soon after the flight of Shaftesbury to Holland, and about a month before the death of his predecessor in office and perpetual rival, Nottingham's career was for ever closed. He expired on the 18th of December, 1682, at his house in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in the 61st year of his age. His remains were interred in the parish church of Ravenstone in Buckinghamshire, where he had an estate which had belonged to Cardinal Wolsey, and reverting to the Crown, had been granted to Sir Moyle Finch, the Chancellor's grandfather. A splendid monument was erected to his memory by his eldest son, which thus describes him : "A Person Of extraordinary natural endowments, and for manly and unaffected eloquence, It is impossible with the slightest regard to justice to concur in the unqualified praise bestowed upon him as a statesman. Although he had no gratuitous love of despotic government, yet his respect for the constitution was always ready to give way to his own interest, and there Life of Lord Guilford, i. 49. His absences from Parliament were occasionally suspected to be from the apprehension of encountering Shaftesbury, as we learn from a stanza in "a loyal song :' "Ask me no more why little Finch With ease can clip a Finch's wings." + His origin, offices, and alliances, are detailed at great length. The monument likewise contains a Latin inscription still more florid. I am indebted for a copy of this to the kindness of the Rev. Mr. Godfrey, the present Vicar of Ravenstone. |