The History of England, from the Accession of James II Volume I Part 35

[Footnote 447: This I can attest from my own childish recollections.]

[Footnote 448: Lord Lonsdale says seven hundred; Burnet six hundred. I have followed the list which the Judges sent to the Treasury, and which may still be seen there in the letter book of 1685. See the b.l.o.o.d.y a.s.sizes, Locke's Western Rebellion; the Panegyric on Lord Jeffreys; Burnet, i. 648; Eachard, iii. 775; Oldmixon, 705.]

[Footnote 449: Some of the prayers, exhortations, and hymns of the sufferers will be found in the b.l.o.o.d.y a.s.sizes.]

[Footnote 450: b.l.o.o.d.y a.s.sizes; Locke's Western Rebellion; Lord Lonsdale's Memoirs; Account of the Battle of Sedgemoor in the Hardwicke Papers. The story in the Life of James the Second, ii. 43; is not taken from the King's ma.n.u.scripts, and sufficiently refutes itself.]

[Footnote 451: b.l.o.o.d.y a.s.sizes; Locke's Western Rebellion, Humble Pet.i.tion of Widows and Fatherless Children in the West of England; Panegyric on Lord Jeffreys.]

[Footnote 452: As to the Hewlings, I have followed Kiffin's Memoirs, and Mr. Hewling Luson's narrative, which will be found in the second edition of the Hughes Correspondence, vol. ii. Appendix. The accounts in Locke's Western Rebellion and in the Panegyric on Jeffreys are full of errors.

Great part of the account in the b.l.o.o.d.y a.s.sizes was written by Kiffin, and agrees word for word with his Memoirs.]

[Footnote 453: See Tutchin's account of his own case in the b.l.o.o.d.y a.s.sizes.]

[Footnote 454: Sunderland to Jeffreys, Sept. 14, 1685; Jeffreys to the King, Sept. 19, 1685, in the State Paper Office.]

[Footnote 455: The best account of the sufferings of those rebels who were sentenced to transportation is to be found in a very curious narrative written by John Coad, an honest, G.o.dfearing carpenter who joined Monmouth, was badly wounded at Philip's Norton, was tried by Jeffreys, and was sent to Jamaica. The original ma.n.u.script was kindly lent to me by Mr. Phippard, to whom it belongs.]

[Footnote 456: In the Treasury records of the autumn of 1685 are several letters directing search to be made for trifles of this sort.]

[Footnote 457: Commons' Journals, Oct. 9, Nov. 10, Dec 26, 1690; Oldmixon, 706. Panegyrie on Jeffreys.]

[Footnote 458: Life and Death of Lord Jeffreys; Panegyric on Jeffreys; Kiffin's Memoirs.]

[Footnote 459: Burnet, i 368; Evelyn's Diary, Feb. 4, 1684-5, July 13, 1686. In one of the satires of that time are these lines:

"When d.u.c.h.ess, she was gentle, mild, and civil; When Queen, she proved a raging furious devil."]

[Footnote 460: Sunderland to Jeffreys, Sept. 14, 1685.]

[Footnote 461: Locke's Western Rebellion; Toulmin's History of Taunton, edited by Savage, Letter of the Duke of Somerset to Sir F. Warre; Letter of Sunderland to Penn, Feb. 13, 1685-6, from the State Paper Office, in the Mackintosh Collection. (1848.)---- The letter of Sunderland is as follows:--

"Whitehall, Feb. 13, 1685-6.

"Mr. Penne,

"Her Majesty's Maids of Honour having acquainted me that they design to employ you and Mr. Walden in making a composition with the Relations of the Maids of Taunton for the high Misdemeanour they have been guilty of, I do at their request hereby let you know that His Majesty has been pleased to give their Fines to the said Maids of Honour, and therefore recommend it to Mr. Walden and you to make the most advantageous composition you can in their behalf."

I am, Sir,

"Your humble servant,

"SUNDERLAND."

That the person to whom this letter was addressed was William Penn the Quaker was not doubted by Sir James Mackintosh who first brought it to light, or, as far as I am aware, by any other person, till after the publication of the first part of this History. It has since been confidently a.s.serted that the letter was addressed to a certain George Penne, who appears from an old accountbook lately discovered to have been concerned in a negotiation for the ransom of one of Monmouth's followers, named Azariah Pinney.---- If I thought that I had committed an error, I should, I hope, have the honesty to acknowledge it. But, after full consideration, I am satisfied that Sunderland's letter was addressed to William Penn.---- Much has been said about the way in which the name is spelt. The Quaker, we are told, was not Mr. Penne, but Mr. Penn. I feel a.s.sured that no person conversant with the books and ma.n.u.scripts of the seventeenth century will attach any importance to this argument. It is notorious that a proper name was then thought to be well spelt if the sound were preserved. To go no further than the persons, who, in Penn's time, held the Great Seal, one of them is sometimes Hyde and sometimes Hide: another is Jefferies, Jeffries, Jeffereys, and Jeffreys: a third is Somers, Sommers, and Summers: a fourth is Wright and Wrighte; and a fifth is Cowper and Cooper. The Quaker's name was spelt in three ways. He, and his father the Admiral before him, invariably, as far as I have observed, spelt it Penn; but most people spelt it Pen; and there were some who adhered to the ancient form, Penne. For example. William the father is Penne in a letter from Disbrowe to Thurloe, dated on the 7th of December, 1654; and William the son is Penne in a newsletter of the 22nd of September, 1688, printed in the Ellis Correspondence. In Richard Ward's Life and Letters of Henry More, printed in 1710, the name of the Quaker will be found spelt in all the three ways, Penn in the index, Pen in page 197, and Penne in page 311. The name is Penne in the Commission which the Admiral carried out with him on his expedition to the West Indies. Burchett, who became Secretary to the Admiralty soon after the Revolution, and remained in office long after the accession of the House of Hannover, always, in his Naval History, wrote the name Penne. Surely it cannot be thought strange that an old-fashioned spelling, in which the Secretary of the Admiralty persisted so late as 1720, should have been used at the office of the Secretary of State in 1686. I am quite confident that, if the letter which we are considering had been of a different kind, if Mr. Penne had been informed that, in consequence of his earnest intercession, the King had been graciously pleased to grant a free pardon to the Taunton girls, and if I had attempted to deprive the Quaker of the credit of that intercession on the ground that his name was not Penne, the very persons who now complain so bitterly that I am unjust to his memory would have complained quite as bitterly, and, I must say, with much more reason.---- I think myself, therefore perfectly justified in considering the names, Penn and Penne, as the same. To which, then, of the two persons who bore that name George or William, is it probable that the letter of the Secretary of State was addressed?---- George was evidently an adventurer of a very low cla.s.s. All that we learn about him from the papers of the Pinney family is that he was employed in the purchase of a pardon for the younger son of a dissenting minister. The whole sum which appears to have pa.s.sed through George's hands on this occasion was sixty-five pounds. His commission on the transaction must therefore have been small. The only other information which we have about him, is that he, some time later, applied to the government for a favour which was very far from being an honour. In England the Groom Porter of the Palace had a jurisdiction over games of chance, and made some very dirty gain by issuing lottery tickets and licensing hazard tables. George appears to have pet.i.tioned for a similar privilege in the American colonies.---- William Penn was, during the reign of James the Second, the most active and powerful solicitor about the Court. I will quote the words of his admirer Crose. "Quum autem Pennus tanta gratia plurinum apud regem valeret, et per id perplures sibi amicos acquireret, illum omnes, etiam qui modo aliqua not.i.tia erant conjuncti, quoties aliquid a rege postulandum agendumve apud regem esset, adire, ambire, orare, ut eos apud regem adjuvaret." He was overwhelmed by business of this kind, "obrutus negotiationibus curationibusque." His house and the approaches to it were every day blocked up by crowds of persons who came to request his good offices; "domus ac vestibula quotidie referta clientium et suppliccantium." From the Fountainhall papers it appears that his influence was felt even in the highlands of Scotland. We learn from himself that, at this time, he was always toiling for others, that he was a daily suitor at Whitehall, and that, if he had chosen to sell his influence, he could, in little more than three, years, have put twenty thousand pounds into his pocket, and obtained a hundred thousand more for the improvement of the colony of which he was proprietor.---- Such was the position of these two men. Which of them, then, was the more likely to be employed in the matter to which Sunderland's letter related? Was it George or William, an agent of the lowest or of the highest cla.s.s? The persons interested were ladies of rank and fashion, resident at the palace. where George would hardly have been admitted into an outer room, but where William was every day in the presence chamber and was frequently called into the closet. The greatest n.o.bles in the kingdom were zealous and active in the cause of their fair friends, n.o.bles with whom William lived in habits of familiar intercourse, but who would hardly have thought George fit company for their grooms. The sum in question was seven thousand pounds, a sum not large when compared with the ma.s.ses of wealth with which William had constantly to deal, but more than a hundred times as large as the only ransom which is known to have pa.s.sed through the hands of George.

These considerations would suffice to raise a strong presumption that Sunderland's letter was addressed to William, and not to George: but there is a still stronger argument behind.---- It is most important to observe that the person to whom this letter was addressed was not the first person whom the Maids of Honour had requested to act for them.

They applied to him because another person to whom they had previously applied, had, after some correspondence, declined the office. From their first application we learn with certainty what sort of person they wished to employ. If their first application had been made to some obscure pettifogger or needy gambler, we should be warranted in believing that the Penne to whom their second application was made was George. If, on the other hand, their first application was made to a gentleman of the highest consideration, we can hardly be wrong in saying that the Penne to whom their second application was made must have been William. To whom, then, was their first application made? It was to Sir Francis Warre of Hestercombe, a Baronet and a Member of Parliament. The letters are still extant in which the Duke of Somerset, the proud Duke, not a man very likely to have corresponded with George Penne, pressed Sir Francis to undertake the commission. The latest of those letters is dated about three weeks before Sunderland's letter to Mr. Penne.

Somerset tells Sir Francis that the town clerk of Bridgewater, whose name, I may remark in pa.s.sing, is spelt sometimes Bird and sometimes Birde, had offered his services, but that those services had been declined. It is clear, therefore, that the Maids of Honour were desirous to have an agent of high station and character. And they were right. For the sum which they demanded was so large that no ordinary jobber could safely be entrusted with the care of their interests.---- As Sir Francis Warre excused himself from undertaking the negotiation, it became necessary for the Maids of Honour and their advisers to choose somebody who might supply his place; and they chose Penne. Which of the two Pennes, then, must have been their choice, George, a petty broker to whom a percentage on sixty-five pounds was an object, and whose highest ambition was to derive an infamous livelihood from cards and dice, or William, not inferior in social position to any commoner in the kingdom?

Is it possible to believe that the ladies, who, in January, employed the Duke of Somerset to procure for them an agent in the first rank of the English gentry, and who did not think an attorney, though occupying a respectable post in a respectable corporation, good enough for their purpose, would, in February, have resolved to trust everything to a fellow who was as much below Bird as Bird was below Warre?---- But, it is said, Sunderland's letter is dry and distant; and he never would have written in such a style to William Penn with whom he was on friendly terms. Can it be necessary for me to reply that the official communications which a Minister of State makes to his dearest friends and nearest relations are as cold and formal as those which he makes to strangers? Will it be contended that the General Wellesley to whom the Marquis Wellesley, when Governor of India, addressed so many letters beginning with "Sir," and ending with "I have the honour to be your obedient servant,'' cannot possibly have been his Lordship's brother Arthur?---- But, it is said, Oldmixon tells a different story. According to him, a Popish lawyer named Brent, and a subordinate jobber, named Crane, were the agents in the matter of the Taunton girls. Now it is notorious that of all our historians Oldmixon is the least trustworthy.

His most positive a.s.sertion would be of no value when opposed to such evidence as is furnished by Sunderland's letter, But Oldmixon a.s.serts nothing positively. Not only does he not a.s.sert positively that Brent and Crane acted for the Maids of Honour; but he does not even a.s.sert positively that the Maids of Honour were at all concerned. He goes no further than "It was said," and "It was reported." It is plain, therefore, that he was very imperfectly informed. I do not think it impossible, however, that there may have been some foundation for the rumour which he mentions. We have seen that one busy lawyer, named Bird, volunteered to look after the interest of the Maids of Honour, and that they were forced to tell him that they did not want his services. Other persons, and among them the two whom Oldmixon names, may have tried to thrust themselves into so lucrative a job, and may, by pretending to interest at Court, have succeeded in obtaining a little money from terrified families. But nothing can be more clear than that the authorised agent of the Maids of Honour was the Mr. Penne, to whom the Secretary of State wrote; and I firmly believe that Mr. Penne to have been William the Quaker---- If it be said that it is incredible that so good a man would have been concerned in so bad an affair, I can only answer that this affair was very far indeed from being the worst in which he was concerned.---- For those reasons I leave the text, and shall leave it exactly as it originally stood. (1857.)]

[Footnote 462: Burnet, i. 646, and Speaker Onslow's note; Clarendon to Rochester, May 8, 1686.]

[Footnote 463: Burnet, i. 634.]

[Footnote 464: Calamy's Memoirs; Commons' Journals, December 26,1690; Sunderland to Jeffreys, September 14, 1685; Privy Council Book, February 26, 1685-6.]

[Footnote 465: Lansdowne MS. 1152; Harl. MS. 6845; London Gazette, July 20, 1685.]

[Footnote 466: Many writers have a.s.serted, without the slightest foundation, that a pardon was granted to Ferguson by James. Some have been so absurd as to cite this imaginary pardon, which, if it were real would prove only that Ferguson was a court spy, in proof of the magnanimity and benignity of the prince who beheaded Alice Lisle and burned Elizabeth Gaunt. Ferguson was not only not specially pardoned, but was excluded by name from the general pardon published in the following spring. (London Gazette, March 15, 1685-6.) If, as the public suspected and as seems probable, indulgence was shown to him; it was indulgence of which James was, not without reason, ashamed, and which was, as far as possible, kept secret. The reports which were current in London at the time are mentioned in the Observator, Aug. 1,1685.---- Sir John Reresby, who ought to have been well informed, positively affirms that Ferguson was taken three days after the battle of Sedgemoor. But Sir John was certainly wrong as to the date, and may therefore have been wrong as to the whole story. From the London Gazette, and from Goodenough's confession (Lansdowne MS. 1152), it is clear that, a fortnight after the battle, Ferguson had not been caught, and was supposed to be still lurking in England.]

[Footnote 467: Granger's Biographical History.]

[Footnote 468: Burnet, i. 648; James to the Prince of Orange, Sept. 10, and 24, 1685; Lord Lonadale's Memoirs; London Gazette, Oct. 1, 1685.]

[Footnote 469: Trial of Cornish in the Collection of State Trials, Sir J. Hawles's Remarks on Mr. Cornish's Trial; Burnet, i. 651; b.l.o.o.d.y a.s.sizes; Stat. 1 Gul. and Mar.]

[Footnote 470: Trials of Fernley and Elizabeth Gaunt, in the Collection of State Trials Burnet, i. 649; b.l.o.o.d.y a.s.sizes; Sir J. Bramston's Memoirs; Luttrell's Diary, Oct. 23, 1685.]

[Footnote 471: Bateman's Trial in the Collection of State Trials; Sir John Hawles's Remarks. It is worth while to compare Thomas Lee's evidence on this occasion with his confession previously published by authority.]

[Footnote 472: Van Citters, Oct. 13-23, 1685.]

[Footnote 473: Neal's History of the Puritans, Calamy's Account of the ejected Ministers and the Nonconformists' Memorial contain abundant proofs of the severity of this persecution. Howe's farewell letter to his flock will be found in the interesting life of that great man, by Mr. Rogers. Howe complains that he could not venture to show himself in the streets of London, and that his health had suffered from want of air and exercise. But the most vivid picture of the distress of the Nonconformists is furnished by their deadly enemy, Lestrange, in the Observators of September and October, 1685.]