The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1, Thomas Babington Macaulay [ebook pc reader txt] 📗

office of Sheriff

when the question of the Exclusion Bill occupied the public mind.

In politics he was a Whig: his religious opinions leaned towards

Presbyterianism: but his temper was cautious and moderate. It is

not proved by trustworthy evidence that he ever approached the

verge of treason. He had, indeed, when Sheriff, been very

unwilling to employ as his deputy a man so violent and

unprincipled as Goodenough. When the Rye House plot was

discovered, great hopes were entertained at Whitehall that

Cornish would appear to have been concerned: but these hopes were

disappointed. One of the conspirators, indeed, John Rumsey, was

ready to swear anything: but a single witness was not sufficient;

and no second witness could be found. More than two years had

since elapsed. Cornish thought himself safe; but the eye of the

tyrant was upon him. Goodenough, terrified by the near prospect

of death, and still harbouring malice on account of the

unfavourable opinion which had always been entertained of him by

his old master, consented to supply the testimony which had

hitherto been wanting. Cornish was arrested while transacting

business on the Exchange, was hurried to gaol, was kept there

some days in solitary confinement, and was brought altogether

unprepared to the bar of the Old Bailey. The case against him

rested wholly on the evidence of Rumsey and Goodenough. Both

were, by their own confession accomplices in the plot with which

they charged the prisoner. Both were impelled by the strongest

pressure of hope end fear to criminate him. Evidence was produced

which proved that Goodenough was also under the influence of

personal enmity. Rumsey's story was inconsistent with the story

which he had told when he appeared as a witness against Lord

Russell. But these things were urged in vain. On the bench sate

three judges who had been with Jeffreys in the West; and it was

remarked by those who watched their deportment that they had come

back from the carnage of Taunton in a fierce and excited state.

It is indeed but too true that the taste for blood is a taste

which even men not naturally cruel may, by habit, speedily

acquire. The bar and the bench united to browbeat the unfortunate

Whig. The jury, named by a courtly Sheriff, readily found a

verdict of Guilty; and, in spite of the indignant murmurs of the

public, Cornish suffered death within ten days after he had been

arrested. That no circumstance of degradation might be wanting,

the gibbet was set up where King Street meets Cheapside, in sight

of the house where he had long lived in general respect, of the

Exchange where his credit had always stood high, and of the

Guildhall where he had distinguished himself as a popular leader.

He died with courage and with many pious expressions, but showed,

by look and gesture, such strong resentment at the barbarity and

injustice with which he had been treated, that his enemies spread

a calumnious report concerning him. He was drunk, they said, or

out of his mind, when he was turned off. William Penn, however,

who stood near the gallows, and whose prejudice were all on the

side of the government, afterwards said that he could see in

Cornish's deportment nothing but the natural indignation of an

innocent man slain under the forms of law. The head of the

murdered magistrate was placed over the Guildhall.469


Black as this case was, it was not the blackest which disgraced

the sessions of that autumn at the Old Bailey. Among the persons

concerned in the Rye House plot was a man named James Burton. By

his own confession he had been present when the design of

assassination was discussed by his accomplices. When the

conspiracy was detected, a reward was offered for his

apprehension. He was saved from death by an ancient matron of the

Baptist persuasion, named Elizabeth Gaunt. This woman, with the

peculiar manners and phraseology which then distinguished her

sect, had a large charity. Her life was passed in relieving the

unhappy of all religious denominations, and she was well known as

a constant visitor of the gaols. Her political and theological

opinions, as well as her compassionate disposition, led her to do

everything in her power for Burton. She procured a boat which

took him to Gravesend, where he got on board of a ship bound for

Amsterdam. At the moment of parting she put into his hand a sum

of money which, for her means, was very large. Burton, after

living some time in exile, returned to England with Monmouth,

fought at Sedgemoor, fled to London, and took refuge in the house

of John Fernley, a barber in Whitechapel. Fernley was very poor.

He was besieged by creditors. He knew that a reward of a hundred

pounds had been offered by the government for the apprehension of

Burton. But the honest man was incapable of betraying one who, in

extreme peril, had come under the shadow of his roof. Unhappily

it was soon noised abroad that the anger of James was more

strongly excited against those who harboured rebels than against

the rebels themselves. He had publicly declared that of all forms

of treason the hiding of traitors from his vengeance was the most

unpardonable. Burton knew this. He delivered himself up to the

government; and he gave information against Fernley and Elizabeth

Gaunt. They were brought to trial. The villain whose life they

had preserved had the heart and the forehead to appear as the

principal witness against them. They were convicted. Fernley was

sentenced to the gallows, Elizabeth Gaunt to the stake. Even

after all the horrors of that year, many thought it impossible

that these judgments should be carried into execution. But the

King was without pity. Fernley was hanged. Elizabeth Gaunt was

burned alive at Tyburn on the same day on which Cornish suffered

death in Cheapside. She left a paper written, indeed, in no

graceful style, yet such as was read by many thousands with

compassion and horror. "My fault," she said, "was one which a

prince might well have forgiven. I did but relieve a poor family;

and lo! I must die for it." She complained of the insolence of

the judges, of the ferocity of the gaoler, and of the tyranny of

him, the great one of all, to whose pleasure she and so many

other victims had been sacrificed. In so far as they had injured

herself, she forgave them: but, in that they were implacable

enemies of that good cause which would yet revive and flourish,

she left them to the judgment of the King of Kings. To the last

she preserved a tranquil courage, which reminded the spectators

of the most heroic deaths of which they had read in Fox. William

Penn, for whom exhibitions which humane men generally avoid seem

to have had a strong attraction, hastened from Cheapside, where

he had seen Cornish hanged, to Tyburn, in order to see Elizabeth

Gaunt burned. He afterwards related that, when she calmly

disposed the straw about her in such a manner as to shorten her

sufferings, all the bystanders burst into tears. It was much

noticed that, while the foulest judicial murder which had

disgraced even those times was perpetrating, a tempest burst

forth, such as had not been known since that great hurricane

which had raged round the deathbed of Oliver. The oppressed

Puritans reckoned up, not without a gloomy satisfaction the

houses which had been blown down, and the ships which had been

cast away, and derived some consolation from thinking that heaven

was bearing awful testimony against the iniquity which afflicted

the earth. Since that terrible day no woman has suffered death in

England for any political offence.470


It was not thought that Goodenough had yet earned his pardon. The

government was bent on destroying a victim of no high rank, a

surgeon in the City, named Bateman. He had attended Shaftesbury

professionally, and had been a zealous Exclusionist. He may

possibly have been privy to the Whig plot; but it is certain that

he had not been one of the leading conspirators; for, in the

great mass of depositions published by the government, his name

occurs only once, and then not in connection with any crime

bordering on high treason. From his indictment, and from the

scanty account which remains of his trial, it seems clear that he

was not even accused of participating in the design of murdering

the royal brothers. The malignity with which so obscure a man,

guilty of so slight an offence, was hunted down, while traitors

far more criminal and far more eminent were allowed to ransom

themselves by giving evidence against him, seemed to require

explanation; and a disgraceful explanation was found. When Oates,

after his scourging, was carried into Newgate insensible, and, as

all thought, in the last agony, he had been bled and his wounds

had been dressed by Bateman. This was an offence not to be

forgiven. Bateman was arrested and indicted. The witnesses

against him were men of infamous character, men, too, who were

swearing for their own lives. None of them had yet got his

pardon; and it was a popular saying, that they fished for prey,

like tame cormorants, with ropes round their necks. The prisoner,

stupefied by illness, was unable to articulate, or to understand

what passed. His son and daughter stood by him at the bar. They

read as well as they could some notes which he had set down, and

examined his witnesses. It was to little purpose. He was

convicted, hanged, and quartered.471


Never, not even under the tyranny of Laud, had the condition of

the Puritans been so deplorable as at that time. Never had spies

been so actively employed in detecting congregations. Never had

magistrates, grand jurors, rectors and churchwardens been so much

on the alert. Many Dissenters were cited before the

ecclesiastical courts. Others found it necessary to purchase the

connivance of the agents of the government by presents of

hogsheads of wine, and of gloves stuffed with guineas. It was

impossible for the separatists to pray together without

precautions such as are employed by coiners and receivers of

stolen goods. The places of meeting were frequently changed.

Worship was performed sometimes just before break of day and

sometimes at dead of night. Round the building where the little

flock was gathered sentinels were posted to give the alarm if a

stranger drew near. The minister in disguise was introduced

through the garden and the back yard. In some houses there were

trap doors through which, in case of danger, he might descend.

Where Nonconformists lived next door to each other, the walls

were often broken open, and secret passages were made from

dwelling to dwelling. No psalm was sung; and many contrivances

were used to prevent the voice of the preacher, in his moments of

fervour,