London and the Kingdom Volume II Part 33

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Within a few days of delivery of judgment against the City, discovery was made of a plot against the lives of the king and the Duke of York.(1546) This was the famous Rye House Plot, which brought the heads of Lord Russell and Algernon Sydney to the block. Among the minor conspirators were two men who had been employed by Broom, the city coroner, in the recent arrest of the lord mayor. Broom himself was suspected of being implicated in the conspiracy, and was on that ground ordered into custody for the purpose of being examined by a justice of the peace. In the meantime he was to be suspended from his office of coroner, as well as from his duties as a member of the Common Council.(1547) Concurrently with the Rye House Plot there was, so it was said, a design to raise an insurrection in the city, in which Alderman Cornish was believed to be implicated.(1548) The munic.i.p.al authorities, however, as a body, were indignant at the threatened attack on the king and his brother, and lost no time in voting an address (2 July) of congratulation upon their escape, a.s.suring the king at the same time of their readiness to hazard their lives and fortunes in defence of his person and the maintenance of the government in Church and State.(1549)

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On Thursday, the 27th September, the mayor laid before the Common Council drafts of a surrender of the City's franchise to his majesty, and of a re-grant from his majesty which the Attorney-general had prepared for their acceptance. After long debate the opinion of the Attorney-general, the Solicitor-general, and the Recorder was taken upon the following questions, viz., (1) Whether the surrender was agreeable to the submission of the Common Council already made and necessary for the regulations required by his majesty; (2) whether by this surrender the office of mayoralty was surrendered; (3) if so, whether the customs and prescriptions belonging to that office were not thereby surrendered and lost; (4) whether in case judgment should be entered up (as the king had threatened) the consequences would not be worse than a surrender; and (5) how far did the re-grant confirm and restore the city to the liberties, etc., therein mentioned. On the following Tuesday (2 Oct.) the opinions of the several counsel were ready.(1550) Two of them, viz., that of the Attorney-general and that of the Solicitor-general were decidedly in favour of the City surrendering its liberties in preference to allowing judgment to be entered up. The Recorder took a diametrically opposite view of the matter, one of the reasons urged by him against a surrender being that such action would be against their oaths, and that if they freely surrendered their liberties there would be no redress left open to them.

If, on the other hand, they suffered judgment to be entered up, they could take proceedings against it by writ of error. These opinions gave rise to much debate, and many hard things were spoken against the Recorder. At last the matter was put to the vote, when 103 were found against sealing the deed of surrender as against 85 who were in favour of it; and so this momentous question was settled, and the council broke up at eleven o'clock at night.(1551)

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Judgment was forthwith (4 Oct.) entered against the City. The mayor and the new sheriffs were summoned to attend the king. Pritchard received a commission to continue in office during pleasure, and similar commissions were handed to the new sheriffs. The Recorder was dismissed and his place given to Sir Thomas Jenner.(1552) Eight aldermen were turned out and their places filled by nominees of the king.(1553) On the 25th October the Court of Aldermen was informed of his majesty's commission having been issued for Sir Henry Tulse to be mayor for the ensuing year, and on the 29th he was sworn with the usual accompaniment of civic procession and banquet.(1554)

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Having thus reduced the Corporation of the city to submission, Charles proceeded to take similar action against the livery companies, with the object of getting into his own hands the power of appointing and dismissing their governing body. Seeing that opposition was useless, they submitted with the best grace they could, surrendering their former charters and receiving new charters in their place. The first master, wardens and a.s.sistants were usually named in these new charters, which provided (_inter alia_) that they should be removable at the king's pleasure by Order in Council, that they should take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy and make the declaration prescribed by the Corporation Act, that none should be elected members who were not of the Church of England, and that in all things concerning the government of the city they should be subject to the mayor and aldermen.

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Notwithstanding the treatment that the citizens had received at the king's hands they heard of his sudden illness (2 Feb., 1685) with unfeigned sorrow, and the Court of Aldermen (5 Feb.) instructed the sheriffs to attend at Whitehall every morning and Sir William Turner and Sir James Edwards every evening during his majesty's illness.(1555) Their attendance, however, was not long required, for next day (6 Feb.) the king died.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

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"They will never kill me, James, to make you king," the late king is said to have cynically remarked to his brother; and, indeed, the accession of the Duke of York was accepted by the nation in general, as well as by the City of London in particular, with considerable foreboding. The new king for a short while was content to feel his way before plunging into the headstrong course of action which eventually lost him the crown. Although suspected of being a Catholic at heart, it was only during his last moments that Charles had accepted the ministrations of the Roman Church.

The new king had for years been an avowed Catholic; nevertheless, in his first speech to the Privy Council he announced his intention of maintaining the established government, both in Church and State. This speech, made within an hour of the late king's death, was received with rapturous applause. It was quickly followed by a proclamation of his majesty's wish that all persons in office at the time of the decease of the late king should so continue until further notice.(1556) Another doc.u.ment proclaiming the death of the late king and the devolution of the crown to the Duke of York was at the same time drawn up by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, with the a.s.sistance of the privy council, the mayor, aldermen and citizens of London and others.(1557) This doc.u.ment did not bear the signature of the mayor as that proclaiming James I had done.

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James had not been many days on the throne before the question of supply had to be settled. More than one-half of the whole revenue of the crown was derived from the customs, and these had been settled on Charles for life only, and could not therefore be exacted by his successor without the a.s.sent of parliament. No parliament had been summoned since the dissolution of the parliament at Oxford four years since (28 March, 1681).

As time was pressing and some delay must have taken place before a new parliament could meet, James took the advice of Chief Justice Jeffreys, and did violence to the const.i.tution by proclaiming (9 Feb.) the continuation of the payment of customs as a matter of necessity, whilst at the same time he intimated his intention of speedily calling a parliament.(1558) The pill thus gilded was swallowed without protest. The excise duties was another matter and was dealt with differently. The "additional excise," like the customs, had been given to the late king for life, but there was a clause in the Act which empowered the Lords of the Treasury to let them to farm for a term of three years without any limitation as to their being so long due. A lease was now propounded as having been made during the late king's life (the doc.u.ment bearing date the 5th February, the day preceding his decease), although there was every reason for supposing it to have been made after his death and to have been post-dated. The judges were appealed to, and with every desire to curry favour with the new king, the majority p.r.o.nounced the doc.u.ment to be good in law. Thus fortified, James no longer hesitated to issue a proclamation (16 Feb.) for the continuation of the excise.(1559)

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A parliament was summoned for the 9th April, but did not meet until the 19th May. In the meantime the king and queen had been crowned at Westminster on St. George's day (23 April). The City put in their customary claim,(1560) but this was at first disallowed "in regard of the judgment upon the _Quo Warranto_ for seizure of the cities franchise."

Upon appeal being made, however, to the king himself the claim was allowed, and the mayor, aldermen and citizens were treated with high honour both in the Abbey and at the banquet in Westminster Hall, the mayor being presented by the king with the cup of pure gold and cover, weighing in all upwards of twenty ounces, with which he had served his majesty with wine.(1561) A few days before the banquet took place Sir Robert Vyner sent to the mayor to borrow the City's plate for the occasion. The matter was laid before the Court of Aldermen and permission was granted the lord mayor to lend such plate as could be spared.(1562)

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When parliament met (19 May) the majority in favour of the court party was enormous. This was in no small measure due to the reformation that had been forced on other corporate towns besides the city of London. They had been made to surrender their charters, and the late king had in return granted them new charters in which Tories alone were named as members of the corporations. Only one more step was necessary in order to secure the return of a Tory parliament when the time for fresh elections should arrive, and that step was taken. The parliamentary franchise in boroughs was restricted to members of the corporations.(1563) In London the Whigs were kept down by fear, and the Tory party reigned supreme. The mayor and half the Court of Aldermen were nominees of the Crown, acting by royal commission. No Common Council sat, or if it did it was only for the purpose of enrolling a proclamation by the king or a precept by the mayor.

As the election drew near the king, in order to render the result in his favour more sure, authorized the Court of Aldermen to grant liveries to several of the city companies, taking care that such only should be admitted to the livery as were of "unquestionable loyalty" for the purpose of voting.(1564) By this means four of the most p.r.o.nounced Tories in the city were returned, all of them being aldermen. These were Sir John Moore and Sir William Pritchard, both of whom had been placed in the mayoralty chair, one after the other (in 1681 and 1682), by court influence, Sir Peter Rich, who had served as sheriff with Dudley North in 1682, and Sir Samuel Dashwood, who filled the same office the following year with Peter Daniel, both of them, like their immediate predecessors, being nominees of the Crown. As soon as the House met the Commons unanimously granted the king the full revenue which had been enjoyed by his brother.(1565)

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The bent of the king's mind was quickly discerned in the sentences p.r.o.nounced by judges eager to secure his favour. t.i.tus Oates was taken out of prison and whipt at the cart's tail from Aldgate to Newgate the day after parliament met. Two days later he was again whipt from Newgate to Tyburn, and the punishment was so mercilessly carried out that it nearly cost him his life. Precautions had to be taken by the mayor to prevent a display of force by Oates's partisans, who overturned the pillory on which he was to stand.(1566) Dangerfield, another professional informer, was made to undergo a punishment scarcely less severe. He survived the punishment, but only to die from the effect of a vicious blow dealt him by a bystander as he was being carried back to gaol from Tyburn.

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On the other hand Richard Baxter-the most learned and moderate of Nonconformists-was tried at the Guildhall on a charge of having introduced into his commentary on the New Testament some seditious remarks respecting the att.i.tude of the government towards dissenters. The infamous Jeffreys presided at the trial, and spared neither counsel nor prisoner his insolent invectives. The whole proceedings were nothing less than a farce, and the evidence adduced was of such a flimsy character that Baxter volunteered a remark expressing a doubt whether any jury would convict a man on it. He was, however, mistaken. The sheriffs, like the mayor, were but tools of the court party, and the jurymen selected to sit on the trial did not hesitate to bring in a verdict of guilty. He was fortunate to get off with no worse sentence than a fine of 500 marks and imprisonment until it was paid.(1567)

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There was doubtless a large number of inhabitants of the city who would gladly have a.s.sisted Monmouth-"the champion of the dissenters and extreme Protestants"-had they been in a position to do so. But as soon as the news of the duke's landing in Dorsetshire reached London orders were issued by the mayor for a strict watch to be kept by night throughout the city, and for the arrest of all suspicious characters, whilst the duke and his supporters were proclaimed traitors and rebels. It was forbidden to circulate the duke's manifesto in the city, and on the 16th June, or within five days of his landing, a price of 5,000 was put upon his head.(1568) After Monmouth's defeat at Sedgmoor (6 July) he and his companions sought safety in flight. Monmouth himself fled to the New Forest, where he was captured in the last stage of poverty, sleeping in a ditch, and was brought to London. He was lodged in the Tower, where his wife and three children had already been sent. Thousands of spectators, who, we are told, "seemed much troubled," went forth to witness his arrival by water on the evening of the 13th July. Two days later he was executed on Tower Hill.

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The utmost cruelty, both military and judicial, was inflicted on Monmouth's supporters. Many were hanged by royalist soldiers-"Kirke's lambs," as they were called-without form of law. Others were committed for trial until Jeffreys came to hold his "b.l.o.o.d.y a.s.size," when to the cruelty of the sentences pa.s.sed on most of them was added the ribald insolence of the judge. The opportunity was taken of giving the city of London a lesson, and Henry Cornish, late alderman and sheriff, was suddenly arrested. This took place on Tuesday the 13th October. He was kept a close prisoner, not allowed to see friends or counsel, and deprived of writing materials. On Sat.u.r.day he was informed for the first time that he would be tried on a charge of high treason, and that the trial would commence on the following Monday (19 Oct.). His att.i.tude before the judges was calm and dignified. Before pleading not guilty to the charge of having consented to aid and abet the late Duke of Monmouth and others in their attempt on the life of the late king (the Rye House Plot), he entered a protest against the indecent haste with which he had been called upon to plead and the short time allowed him to prepare his case. He asked for further time, but this the judges refused.

One of the chief witnesses for the Crown was Goodenough, who had a personal spite against Cornish for his having objected to him (Goodenough) serving as under-sheriff in 1680-1, the year when Beth.e.l.l and Cornish were sheriffs.(1569) Goodenough had risked his neck in Monmouth's late rebellion, but he had succeeded in obtaining a pardon by promises of valuable information against others. With the king's pardon in his pocket he unblushingly declared before the judges that he, as well as Cornish and some others, had determined upon a general rising in the city at the time of the Rye House Plot. "We designed," said he, "to divide it (_i.e._, the city) into twenty parts, and out of each part to raise five hundred men, if it might be done, to make an insurrection."(1570) The Tower was to be seized and the guard expelled.

Cornish had been afforded no opportunity for instructing counsel in his defence. He was therefore obliged to act as his own counsel, with the result usual in such cases. He rested his main defence upon the improbability of his having acted as the prosecution endeavoured to make out. This he so persistently urged that the judges lost patience.

Improbability was not enough, they declared; let him call his witnesses.

When, however, Cornish desired an adjournment in order that he might bring a witness up from Lancashire, his request was refused. His chief witness he omitted to call until after the lord chief justice had summed up. This man was a vintner of the city, named Shephard, at whose house Cornish was charged with having met and held consultation with Monmouth and the rest of the conspirators. The bench after some demur a.s.sented to the prisoner's earnest prayer that Shephard's evidence might be taken. He showed that he had been in the habit of having commercial transactions with Cornish and was at that moment in his debt; that on the occasion in question Cornish had come to his house, but whether he came to speak with the Duke of Monmouth or not the witness could not say for certain; that he only remained a few minutes, and that no paper or declaration (on which so much stress had been laid) in connection with the conspiracy was read in Cornish's presence; that in fact Cornish was not considered at the time as being in the plot. Such evidence, if not conclusive, ought to have gone far towards obtaining a verdict of acquittal for the prisoner. This was not the case, however; the witness was characterised by one of the judges as "very forward," and when Cornish humbly remonstrated with the treatment his witness was receiving from the bench he was sharply told to hold his tongue. The jury after a brief consultation brought in a verdict of guilty, and Cornish had to submit to the indignity of being tied-like a dangerous criminal-whilst sentence of death was pa.s.sed upon him and three others who had been tried at the same time.

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The prisoner was allowed but three clear days before he was hanged at the corner of King Street and Cheapside, within sight of the Guildhall which he had so often frequented as an alderman of the city, and on which his head was afterwards placed. He met his end with courage and with many pious expressions, but to the last maintained his innocence with such vehemence that his enemies gave out that he had "died in a fit of fury."(1571) The injustice of his sentence was recognised and his conviction and attainder was afterwards reversed and annulled by parliament (22 June, 1689).(1572)

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Of the three others who had been tried with Cornish, two were reprieved (one was afterwards executed), but the third, Elizabeth Gaunt, was burnt at Tyburn the same day that Cornish suffered (23 Oct.) for having harboured an outlaw named Burton and a.s.sisted him to escape beyond the law. He had been implicated in the Rye House Plot, but with the aid of Mrs. Gaunt, who lived in the city, had contrived to avoid capture. In order to save his own skin the wretch did not hesitate to turn king's evidence and to sacrifice the life of his benefactress, a woman who is described as having "spent a great part of her life in acts of charity, visiting the gaols and looking after the poor." She too died with great fort.i.tude, arranging with her own hands the straw around her, so as to burn the more speedily.(1573)

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Parliament began to be alarmed at the favour shown to Catholics, and this alarm was increased by a report from France that Louis XIV, with whom James was known to be closely allied, and on whom he depended, like his late brother, for pecuniary support, had revoked the Edict of Nantes granted by Henry IV in favour of his Protestant subjects. The report was soon confirmed by the appearance of numbers of French Protestants-refugees from persecution-in England, and more especially in the city of London.

What Louis had done in France James, it was feared, would carry out in England by means of his standing army commanded by Roman Catholic officers. Hence the alarm which pervaded not only parliament, but also the city and the nation at large.

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Hence too it was that when the Houses, which had been adjourned during the campaign in the West, met on the 9th November,(1574) they remonstrated with him for the favour he had shown to Catholics in direct contravention of the law. Finding himself unable to bend parliament to his will, he determined to do without one, and accordingly, after a brief session, it stood prorogued (20 Nov.),(1575) never to meet again during the present reign.

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Without a parliament James could act with a free hand. By a piece of chicanery he managed to get a legal decision acknowledging the dispensing power of the king.(1576) He established an Ecclesiastical Commission Court, with the infamous Jeffreys at its head, the first act of which was to suspend the Bishop of London for upholding the Protestant faith. He removed the Earl of Clarendon (son of the late Chancellor), who had recently been appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland,(1577) and appointed as lord deputy the Earl of Tyrconnel, a Roman Catholic of low character, who had gained an unenviable notoriety as the "lying d.i.c.k Talbot." The country was over-run with Papists from abroad. All the laws against the exercise of the Roman Catholic religion were set at defiance. There was no disguise. Ma.s.s was publicly celebrated at Whitehall and Roman Catholic chapels sprang up everywhere, giving rise to no small dissatisfaction and tumult. The agitation in London was great, but greater in the city, where men had been less accustomed to the sight of the Romish ceremonial than those who lived in the neighbourhood of the court. Riots in the city were of frequent occurrence, more especially on Sundays, when the Roman Catholics were more in evidence than on week days. A Roman Catholic chapel had recently been erected by the Elector Palatine in Lime Street. An ineffectual attempt had been made by the mayor and aldermen to stay the work. They were summoned to appear before the king and reprimanded. The work was accordingly allowed to go on and the chapel was opened. On Sunday, the 18th April (1686), the priests attached to the chapel were followed by a mob into Cheapside, and matters would have gone hard with them had not the mayor and aldermen appeared on the scene with a regiment of trained bands. James again sent for the mayor and told him that if he could not keep better order in the city he should himself send some "a.s.sistance."(1578) Nevertheless another riot broke out on the following Sunday. A mob entered a Roman Catholic chapel and carried away a crucifix, crying out they would have no "wooden G.o.ds." A cross was set up on the parish pump and mock obeisance made to it. The priests were insulted, but no violence was offered them. When the mayor appeared to quell the tumult the crowd affected to disbelieve that his lordship was in earnest. "What!

the lord mayor of our city come to preach up popery! too sure, it cannot be!" When the trained bands were ordered to disperse the crowd they declared that in conscience they could not hinder them in their work.(1579)

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These disturbances were very injurious to the trade of the city, and caused a considerable fall in the amount of customs paid for merchandise entering the port of London. A regiment or two of the standing army which James had formed might any day appear in the city. "I shall not wonder if the Scotch regiment of guards now quartering at Greenwich be quartered in Cheapside before this week is out," wrote a contemporary on the 27th April.(1580) A month later the army was encamped at Hounslow, the king himself being also there, ready to send "a.s.sistance" to the city should occasion arise.(1581)

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