A Child's History of England

by Dickens, Charles

  could understand, but which everybody was to take, as a proof that

  his religion was the lawful religion. The Earl of Argyle, taking

  it with the explanation that he did not consider it to prevent him

  from favouring any alteration either in the Church or State which

  was not inconsistent with the Protestant religion or with his

  loyalty, was tried for high treason before a Scottish jury of which

  the MARQUIS OF MONTROSE was foreman, and was found guilty. He

  escaped the scaffold, for that time, by getting away, in the

  disguise of a page, in the train of his daughter, LADY SOPHIA

  LINDSAY. It was absolutely proposed, by certain members of the

  Scottish Council, that this lady should be whipped through the

  streets of Edinburgh. But this was too much even for the Duke, who

  had the manliness then (he had very little at most times) to remark

  that Englishmen were not accustomed to treat ladies in that manner.

  In those merry times nothing could equal the brutal servility of

  the Scottish fawners, but the conduct of similar degraded beings in

  England.

  After the settlement of these little affairs, the Duke returned to

  England, and soon resumed his place at the Council, and his office

  of High Admiral - all this by his brother's favour, and in open

  defiance of the law. It would have been no loss to the country, if

  he had been drowned when his ship, in going to Scotland to fetch

  his family, struck on a sand-bank, and was lost with two hundred

  souls on board. But he escaped in a boat with some friends; and

  the sailors were so brave and unselfish, that, when they saw him

  rowing away, they gave three cheers, while they themselves were

  going down for ever.

  The Merry Monarch, having got rid of his Parliament, went to work

  to make himself despotic, with all speed. Having had the villainy

  to order the execution of OLIVER PLUNKET, BISHOP OF ARMAGH, falsely

  accused of a plot to establish Popery in that country by means of a

  French army - the very thing this royal traitor was himself trying

  to do at home - and having tried to ruin Lord Shaftesbury, and

  failed - he turned his hand to controlling the corporations all

  over the country; because, if he could only do that, he could get

  what juries he chose, to bring in perjured verdicts, and could get

  what members he chose returned to Parliament. These merry times

  produced, and made Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench, a

  drunken ruffian of the name of JEFFREYS; a red-faced, swollen,

  bloated, horrible creature, with a bullying, roaring voice, and a

  more savage nature perhaps than was ever lodged in any human

  breast. This monster was the Merry Monarch's especial favourite,

  and he testified his admiration of him by giving him a ring from

  his own finger, which the people used to call Judge Jeffreys's

  Bloodstone. Him the King employed to go about and bully the

  corporations, beginning with London; or, as Jeffreys himself

  elegantly called it, 'to give them a lick with the rough side of

  his tongue.' And he did it so thoroughly, that they soon became

  the basest and most sycophantic bodies in the kingdom - except the

  University of Oxford, which, in that respect, was quite pre-eminent

  Page 238

  Dickens, Charles - A Child's History of England

  and unapproachable.

  Lord Shaftesbury (who died soon after the King's failure against

  him), LORD WILLIAM RUSSELL, the Duke of Monmouth, LORD HOWARD, LORD

  JERSEY, ALGERNON SIDNEY, JOHN HAMPDEN (grandson of the great

  Hampden), and some others, used to hold a council together after

  the dissolution of the Parliament, arranging what it might be

  necessary to do, if the King carried his Popish plot to the utmost

  height. Lord Shaftesbury having been much the most violent of this

  party, brought two violent men into their secrets - RUMSEY, who had

  been a soldier in the Republican army; and WEST, a lawyer. These

  two knew an old officer of CROMWELL'S, called RUMBOLD, who had

  married a maltster's widow, and so had come into possession of a

  solitary dwelling called the Rye House, near Hoddesdon, in

  Hertfordshire. Rumbold said to them what a capital place this

  house of his would be from which to shoot at the King, who often

  passed there going to and fro from Newmarket. They liked the idea,

  and entertained it. But, one of their body gave information; and

  they, together with SHEPHERD a wine merchant, Lord Russell,

  Algernon Sidney, LORD ESSEX, LORD HOWARD, and Hampden, were all

  arrested.

  Lord Russell might have easily escaped, but scorned to do so, being

  innocent of any wrong; Lord Essex might have easily escaped, but

  scorned to do so, lest his flight should prejudice Lord Russell.

  But it weighed upon his mind that he had brought into their

  council, Lord Howard - who now turned a miserable traitor - against

  a great dislike Lord Russell had always had of him. He could not

  bear the reflection, and destroyed himself before Lord Russell was

  brought to trial at the Old Bailey.

  He knew very well that he had nothing to hope, having always been

  manful in the Protestant cause against the two false brothers, the

  one on the throne, and the other standing next to it. He had a

  wife, one of the noblest and best of women, who acted as his

  secretary on his trial, who comforted him in his prison, who supped

  with him on the night before he died, and whose love and virtue and

  devotion have made her name imperishable. Of course, he was found

  guilty, and was sentenced to be beheaded in Lincoln's Inn-fields,

  not many yards from his own house. When he had parted from his

  children on the evening before his death, his wife still stayed

  with him until ten o'clock at night; and when their final

  separation in this world was over, and he had kissed her many

  times, he still sat for a long while in his prison, talking of her

  goodness. Hearing the rain fall fast at that time, he calmly said,

  'Such a rain to-morrow will spoil a great show, which is a dull

  thing on a rainy day.' At midnight he went to bed, and slept till

  four; even when his servant called him, he fell asleep again while

  his clothes were being made ready. He rode to the scaffold in his

  own carriage, attended by two famous clergymen, TILLOTSON and

  BURNET, and sang a psalm to himself very softly, as he went along.

  He was as quiet and as steady as if he had been going out for an

  ordinary ride. After saying that he was surprised to see so great

  a crowd, he laid down his head upon the block, as if upon the

  pillow of his bed, and had it struck off at the second blow. His

  noble wife was busy for him even then; for that true-hearted lady

  printed and widely circulated his last words, of which he had given

  her a copy. They made the blood of all the honest men in England

  boil.

  The University of Oxford distinguished itself on the very same day

  by pretending to believe that the accusation against Lord Russell

  was true, and by calling the King, in a written paper, the Breath

  of their Nostrils an
d the Anointed of the Lord. This paper the

  Page 239

  Dickens, Charles - A Child's History of England

  Parliament afterwards caused to be burned by the common hangman;

  which I am sorry for, as I wish it had been framed and glazed and

  hung up in some public place, as a monument of baseness for the

  scorn of mankind.

  Next, came the trial of Algernon Sidney, at which Jeffreys

  presided, like a great crimson toad, sweltering and swelling with

  rage. 'I pray God, Mr. Sidney,' said this Chief Justice of a merry

  reign, after passing sentence, 'to work in you a temper fit to go

  to the other world, for I see you are not fit for this.' 'My

  lord,' said the prisoner, composedly holding out his arm, 'feel my

  pulse, and see if I be disordered. I thank Heaven I never was in

  better temper than I am now.' Algernon Sidney was executed on

  Tower Hill, on the seventh of December, one thousand six hundred

  and eighty-three. He died a hero, and died, in his own words, 'For

  that good old cause in which he had been engaged from his youth,

  and for which God had so often and so wonderfully declared

  himself.'

  The Duke of Monmouth had been making his uncle, the Duke of York,

  very jealous, by going about the country in a royal sort of way,

  playing at the people's games, becoming godfather to their

  children, and even touching for the King's evil, or stroking the

  faces of the sick to cure them - though, for the matter of that, I

  should say he did them about as much good as any crowned king could

  have done. His father had got him to write a letter, confessing

  his having had a part in the conspiracy, for which Lord Russell had

  been beheaded; but he was ever a weak man, and as soon as he had

  written it, he was ashamed of it and got it back again. For this,

  he was banished to the Netherlands; but he soon returned and had an

  interview with his father, unknown to his uncle. It would seem

  that he was coming into the Merry Monarch's favour again, and that

  the Duke of York was sliding out of it, when Death appeared to the

  merry galleries at Whitehall, and astonished the debauched lords

  and gentlemen, and the shameless ladies, very considerably.

  On Monday, the second of February, one thousand six hundred and

  eighty-five, the merry pensioner and servant of the King of France

  fell down in a fit of apoplexy. By the Wednesday his case was

  hopeless, and on the Thursday he was told so. As he made a

  difficulty about taking the sacrament from the Protestant Bishop of

  Bath, the Duke of York got all who were present away from the bed,

  and asked his brother, in a whisper, if he should send for a

  Catholic priest? The King replied, 'For God's sake, brother, do!'

  The Duke smuggled in, up the back stairs, disguised in a wig and

  gown, a priest named HUDDLESTON, who had saved the King's life

  after the battle of Worcester: telling him that this worthy man in

  the wig had once saved his body, and was now come to save his soul.

  The Merry Monarch lived through that night, and died before noon on

  the next day, which was Friday, the sixth. Two of the last things

  he said were of a human sort, and your remembrance will give him

  the full benefit of them. When the Queen sent to say she was too

  unwell to attend him and to ask his pardon, he said, 'Alas! poor

  woman, SHE beg MY pardon! I beg hers with all my heart. Take back

  that answer to her.' And he also said, in reference to Nell Gwyn,

  'Do not let poor Nelly starve.'

  He died in the fifty-fifth year of his age, and the twenty-fifth of

  his reign.

  CHAPTER XXXVI - ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE SECOND

  Page 240

  Dickens, Charles - A Child's History of England

  KING JAMES THE SECOND was a man so very disagreeable, that even the

  best of historians has favoured his brother Charles, as becoming,

  by comparison, quite a pleasant character. The one object of his

  short reign was to re-establish the Catholic religion in England;

  and this he doggedly pursued with such a stupid obstinacy, that his

  career very soon came to a close.

  The first thing he did, was, to assure his council that he would

  make it his endeavour to preserve the Government, both in Church

  and State, as it was by law established; and that he would always

  take care to defend and support the Church. Great public

  acclamations were raised over this fair speech, and a great deal

  was said, from the pulpits and elsewhere, about the word of a King

  which was never broken, by credulous people who little supposed

  that he had formed a secret council for Catholic affairs, of which

  a mischievous Jesuit, called FATHER PETRE, was one of the chief

  members. With tears of joy in his eyes, he received, as the

  beginning of HIS pension from the King of France, five hundred

  thousand livres; yet, with a mixture of meanness and arrogance that

  belonged to his contemptible character, he was always jealous of

  making some show of being independent of the King of France, while

  he pocketed his money. As - notwithstanding his publishing two

  papers in favour of Popery (and not likely to do it much service, I

  should think) written by the King, his brother, and found in his

  strong-box; and his open display of himself attending mass - the

  Parliament was very obsequious, and granted him a large sum of

  money, he began his reign with a belief that he could do what he

  pleased, and with a determination to do it.

  Before we proceed to its principal events, let us dispose of Titus

  Oates. He was tried for perjury, a fortnight after the coronation,

  and besides being very heavily fined, was sentenced to stand twice

  in the pillory, to be whipped from Aldgate to Newgate one day, and

  from Newgate to Tyburn two days afterwards, and to stand in the

  pillory five times a year as long as he lived. This fearful

  sentence was actually inflicted on the rascal. Being unable to

  stand after his first flogging, he was dragged on a sledge from

  Newgate to Tyburn, and flogged as he was drawn along. He was so

  strong a villain that he did not die under the torture, but lived

  to be afterwards pardoned and rewarded, though not to be ever

  believed in any more. Dangerfield, the only other one of that crew

  left alive, was not so fortunate. He was almost killed by a

  whipping from Newgate to Tyburn, and, as if that were not

  punishment enough, a ferocious barrister of Gray's Inn gave him a

  poke in the eye with his cane, which caused his death; for which

  the ferocious barrister was deservedly tried and executed.

  As soon as James was on the throne, Argyle and Monmouth went from

  Brussels to Rotterdam, and attended a meeting of Scottish exiles

  held there, to concert measures for a rising in England. It was

  agreed that Argyle should effect a landing in Scotland, and

  Monmouth in England; and that two Englishmen should be sent with

  Argyle to be in his confidence, and two Scotchmen with the Duke of

  Monmouth.

  Argyle was the first to act upon this contract. But, two of his

  men being taken
prisoners at the Orkney Islands, the Government

  became aware of his intention, and was able to act against him with

  such vigour as to prevent his raising more than two or three

  thousand Highlanders, although he sent a fiery cross, by trusty

  messengers, from clan to clan and from glen to glen, as the custom

  Page 241

  Dickens, Charles - A Child's History of England

  then was when those wild people were to be excited by their chiefs.

  As he was moving towards Glasgow with his small force, he was

  betrayed by some of his followers, taken, and carried, with his

  hands tied behind his back, to his old prison in Edinburgh Castle.

  James ordered him to be executed, on his old shamefully unjust

  sentence, within three days; and he appears to have been anxious

  that his legs should have been pounded with his old favourite the

  boot. However, the boot was not applied; he was simply beheaded,

  and his head was set upon the top of Edinburgh Jail. One of those

  Englishmen who had been assigned to him was that old soldier

  Rumbold, the master of the Rye House. He was sorely wounded, and

  within a week after Argyle had suffered with great courage, was

  brought up for trial, lest he should die and disappoint the King.

  He, too, was executed, after defending himself with great spirit,

  and saying that he did not believe that God had made the greater

  part of mankind to carry saddles on their backs and bridles in

  their mouths, and to be ridden by a few, booted and spurred for the

  purpose - in which I thoroughly agree with Rumbold.

  The Duke of Monmouth, partly through being detained and partly

  through idling his time away, was five or six weeks behind his

  friend when he landed at Lyme, in Dorset: having at his right hand

  an unlucky nobleman called LORD GREY OF WERK, who of himself would

  have ruined a far more promising expedition. He immediately set up

  his standard in the market-place, and proclaimed the King a tyrant,

  and a Popish usurper, and I know not what else; charging him, not

  only with what he had done, which was bad enough, but with what

  neither he nor anybody else had done, such as setting fire to

  London, and poisoning the late King. Raising some four thousand

  men by these means, he marched on to Taunton, where there were many

  Protestant dissenters who were strongly opposed to the Catholics.

  Here, both the rich and poor turned out to receive him, ladies