going on with the reading of the exclusion bill, when sud- | was taking place. The long series of pretended plot had denly the king summoned them to the house of lords, and dissolved parliament. He had, on hearing of their proceedings, privately put the crown and robes of state into a sedan chair, and hastened to the house. The astonishment and rage of the opposition were inconceivable. Shaftesbury called on the members not to leave the house, but it was in

gradually opened the eyes of the people: they began to wonder how they could have believed them, and have consented to the spilling of so much blood on the evidence of such despicable characters. At the execution of lord Staf ford, instead of those yells of rage with which they had received some of the previous victims, they cried that they

refused to find the bill of indictment against lord Howard; they did the same in the case of Rouse, but College was tried, and the same witnesses which had been deemed

believed him, and prayed God to bless him. They might have seen this change still more clearly in what now followed. Charles issued a declaration of his reasons for dissolving this parliament. That he had offered them every-worthy enough to condemn the catholics, were brought thing that reasonable men could desire, for which he had received only expressions of discontent, and endeavours to usurp his authority. That they had arrested Englishmen for offences with which parliament had nothing to do; had declared the most distinguished persons enemies to the king on mere suspicion; had forbade any one to lend the king money in anticipation of his revenue; insisted on excluding the heir-apparent from the succession, notwithstanding all possible guarantees conceded, and were endeavouring to create a quarrel betwixt the two houses, because the lords would not interfere with the king's prerogative. This declaration, which was read in the churches, produced a strong effect. The king was regarded as unreasonably treated, and addresses of support were sent up from all quarters. The university of Cambridge went the length to say that "our kings derive not their titles from the people, but from God, and that to him only they are accountable. They had an hereditary right of succession, which no religion, no law, no fault, no forfeiture can alter or diminish." The whigs published a counter-address, but still drawing their arguments from Oates's plot, it failed to tell; that delusion had gone by, and the opposite one of "divine right"| was moving now, in consequence, with an exaggerated impetus. The king persisted on bringing Fitzharris to trial; the whigs endeavoured to defend him by pleading that being impeached by the commons, no other court than parliament could try him; but this was overruled, he was tried, condemned, and hanged.

At the same time suffered the titular archbishop of Armagh; the last victim of the popish plot, and perhaps the most hardly and unjustly used. Oliver Plunket, the archbishop, was imprisoned merely for receiving orders in the catholic church, contrary to the law; but whilst in prison some of the Irish informers charged him with being concerned in the popish plot; but instead of trying him in Ireland, where he was well known, and could produce his witnesses, he was brought over to England, and before his evidence could arrive, was tried and condemned. A more shameful proceeding never disgraced any country. The earl of Essex, who had been lord-lieutenant in Ireland, solicited his pardon, saying to Charles, that from his own knowledge, the charge against him was undoubtedly false. "Then," retorted the king, "on your head, my lord, be his blood. You might have saved him if you would. I cannot pardon him, because I dare not." The storm, in fact, was about to burst on the heads of those who had raised it. There was no parliament to defend them, and the government now proceeded to retaliate.. The miscreants who had served Shaftesbury in running down his victims, now perceived the change of public opinion, and either slunk away or offered their services to government against their former employers.

The first to be arrested were Shaftesbury himself, College, surnamed the protestant joiner, and Rouse, the leader of the mob from Wapping; Lord Howard was already in the Tower on the denunciation of Fitzharris. The grand jury

against him. But the jury now refused to believe them against a protestant, and acquitted him. College, however, was not permitted to escape so easily. He was a noisy and determined leader of the people, sung songs and distributed prints, ridiculing the king and court, and was celebrated as the inventor of the protestant flail. It was found that some of his misdemeanours had been committed in Oxfordshire, and he was sent down and tried there, where the tory feeling was not likely to let him off again. There the miserable wretches, whose concocted evidence had doomed to death so many charged by them as participators in the popish plot, were now arrayed against each other. Dugdale, Tuberville, and Smith swore against College; Oates, Bolron, and others committed the political blunder of contradicting them, and representing them in colours that in truth belonged to the whole crew. For this proceeding Oates was deprived of his pension and turned out of Whitehall; but College was condemned amid the roars of applause from the gownsmen. The execution of College was the commencement of a murderous retaliation on the whigs, as savage as had been theirs on the catholics. Shaftesbury, through the influence of the sheriffs, and the vehement demonstrations of the city made in his favour, was saved for the present by the jury ignoring the indictment, amid the acclamations of the people, and the event was celebrated by bonfires, ringing of bells, and shouts of "a Monmouth, a Shaftesbury, and a Buckingham!"

But the arrest of Shaftesbury had led to consequences which were fatal to him, and most disastrous to the whig party generally. Amongst his papers were found, in particular, two which roused the indignation of the tory and catholic parties to a perfect fury. One was the form of an association for excluding James and all catholics from the throne, and from political power, and including a vow to pursue to the death all who should oppose this great purpose; the other contained two lists of the leading persons in every county, ranged under the heads of "worthy men," and "men worthy," the latter phrase being suppose-1 to mean worthy to be hanged. When this was published, the "men worthy" sent up the most ardent addresses of loyalty, and readiness to support the crown in all its views; and many of the "worthy men" even hastened to escape from the invidious distinction. The king lost no time in taking advantage of this ferment. He availed himself of the information contained in these lists, and struck out the most prominent "worthy men" in office and commission. As the dissenters had supported Shaftesbury and his party, he let loose the myrmidons of persecution against them, and they were fined, distrained upon, and imprisoned as remorselessly as ever. He determined to punish the city for its partisanship, and by a quo warranto to inquire into its privileges, of which we shall ere long see the result.

At this critical moment William of Orange proposed to pay a visit to his uncles, which his loving father-in-law James, strenuously opposed, but which the easy Charles permitted. It was soon seen that William, though his ostensible chject

PERSECUTION OF THE CAMERONIANS.

cerned in a doom of blood; and the earl's own friends and adherents had not the firmness to refuse selling their names. Argyll, however, disappointed his enemies, by escaping in the disguise of a page to his daughter-in-law, lady Lindsay, and made his way to England, and thence to Holland, where, like many other fugitives from England and Scotland, he took refuge with William of Orange. A decree was immediately issued, ordering him to be put to death whenever taken; his estates, goods, and chattels, to be forfeited to the crown; his name and honours to be extinct; and his posterity to be for ever incapable of holding place, honour, or office. The outraged feeling of the country against so wholesale and shameless a sentence for so trivial an offence as that of dissenting in his place in parliament from some of the provisions of a proposed measure, compelled the court to restore the estates to the earl's son, the marquis of Lorn, but the king took care to strip away his hereditary jurisdictions, and parcel them out amongst the creatures of James's Scottish court, to be holden at the royal pleasure-a certain means of securing their adhesion.

munication of the king, and say, "God bless him!" The persecuted people now began to deem that nothing but their utter destruction would satisfy the ruthless tyrant, and were contemplating shipping themselves to America, when political causes removed James to London.

The duke being allowed to return, and being restored to the office of lord high admiral, and lodged in St. James's Palace, Monmouth, who had been assured that James should be retained in Scotland, also returned from abroad, in spite of the positive command of the king. On the duke of York's return, the tories, who regarded it as a proof of the ascendancy of their principles, framed an address of congratulation, and of abhorrence of Shaftesbury's scheme of association. When Monmouth arrived, the whig party received him with still more boisterous enthusiasm. The city was in a turmoil of delight, but in the blaze of his popularity, Monmouth, conceiving that the whig influence was on the decline, endeavoured to follow the example of Sunderland, who had made his peace with the king, and the duke was readmitted to the cabinet. But Monmouth was too narrowly watched, and though he had sent offers of reconciliation through his wife, the reproaches of Shaftesbury, Russell, and his other partisans, made him draw back, and under pretence of paying a visit to the earl of Macclesfield, he set out as in 1680, in a tour through the provinces.

Nothing could exceed Monmouth's folly on this progress. Had he been the undoubted heir-apparent to the crown, he could not have assumed more airs of royalty; and at a

James now, whilst the parliament was terror-stricken by this example of royal vengeance, brought in a bill making it high treason in any one to maintain the lawfulness of excluding him from the throne, either on account of his religion or for any other reason whatever. By this he showed to the exclusionists that they must expect a civil war with Scotland if they attempted to bar his way to the throne of England. Deeming himself now secure, he gave way to his natural cruelty of temper, and indulged in tor-moment when the eyes of both the king and James were tures and barbarities which seemed almost to cast the atrocities of Lauderdale into the shade. It was his custom to have the prisoners for religion so tortured in the privy council, that even the old hardened courtiers who had stood out the merciless doings of Lauderdale and Middleton, escaped from the board as soon as the iron boots were introduced. But James not only seemed to enjoy the agonies of the sentenced with a peculiar satisfaction, but he made an order that the whole of the privy council should remain during these more than iniquisitorial horrors. He was thus employing himself when he was summoned to England by Charles, who assured him that he should be allowed soon to return permanently on condition that he made over part of his parliamentary allowance to the French mistress, the duchess of Portland. James consented, and then returning to Scotland by sea, the country was very nearly relieved from all further apprehensions of him by his being wrecked on the sandbank called the Lemon and Ore, about twelve leagues from Yarmouth. Unfortunately, however, he escaped, though lord O'Brien, the earl of Roxburgh, Sir Joseph Douglas, one of the Hydes, a lieutenant of the frigate, the captain, and above a hundred and thirty other persons perished. His narrow escape had produced no better feeling in him, but on reaching Edinburgh he returned to his favourite exercises of hunting up, torturing, and destroy-pedestrians, and after beating them in his shoes, he would ing covenanters, Cameronians, and all who dared to show them any favour. The earls of Perth, Aberdeen, and Queensbury were his unflinching agents. Above two thousand people were outlawed, courts of inquisition were erected all over the west and south of Scotland; the soldiers had orders to shoot down any who would not disavow Cargill's excom

following him with jealous vigilance, that folly was the more egregious. Wherever he came he was met by the nobles and great landowners at the head of their tenantry, most of whom were armed, and conducted in royal state to their houses. He was thus received by the lords Macclesfield, Brandon, Rivers, Colchester, Delamere, Russell, and Grey, as well as the leading gentry. He travelled attended by a hundred men on horseback, one half of whom preceded and the other followed him. As he approached a town, he quitted his coach and mounted his horse, on which he rode alone in the centre of the procession. On entering the town, the nobles, gentry, and city officials took their places in front, the tenantry and common people fell in behind, shouting, "A Monmouth! a Monmouth! and no York!" Wherever he dined he ordered two hundred covers to be laid for the guests, and the people, conducted by proper officers, passed through the room in at one door and out at another in order to see him, as if he were a king. At Liverpool he did not hesitate to touch for the king's evil. Wherever there were fairs, races, or other public assemblies, he was sure to appear and ingratiate himself with the populace, not only by his flattering bows and smiles, but by entering into their sports. He was a man of amazing agility, and ran races on foot with the most celebrated

run again in his boots, against them in their shoes, and won still. The prizes that he thus gained he gave away at christenings in the evening.

Whilst he was thus exciting the wonder of the common people by his popular acts, accomplishments, and condescensions, the spies of Chiffinch, his father's old agent for secret