As it was pretty well understood that Charles was friendly to the Catholic religion, which indeed he had secretly embraced, no pains were spared to point out this tendency to the people, who connected with the faith of Rome all the bugbear horrors of the plot, as well as the real reasons which they had to dread its influence. Dryden probably alludes to the language held by Colledge, which was that of his party. Smith deposed against him, that, while he was carrying him to dine with one Alderman Willcox, he told him, "He was a man as true as steel, and a man that would endeavour to root out Popery.'—Says I, 'That may be easily done, if you can but prevail with the king to pass the bill against the duke of York.'—'No, no, (said he) now you are mistaken, for Rowley is as great a papist as the duke of York is, (now he called the king, Rowley,) and every way as dangerous to the Protestant interest, as is too apparent by his arbitrary ruling."—State Trials, Vol. iii. p. 359.

Note XIII.

The legitimacy of the duke of Monmouth, though boldly and repeatedly asserted by his immediate partizans, did not receive general credit even in the popular faction. It was one of Shaftesbury's principal advantages, to have chosen, for the ostensible head of his party, a candidate, whose right, had he ever attained the crown, must have fluctuated betwixt an elective and hereditary title. The consciousness of how much he was to depend upon Shaftesbury's arts, for stating and supporting so dubious a claim, obliged the duke to remain at the devotion of that intriguing politician. It seems to have been shrewdly suspected by some of Monmouth's friends, that Shaftesbury had no real intention of serving his interest. A poem, written by one of Monmouth's followers, called "Judah Betrayed, or the Egyptian Plot turned on the Israelites," expresses their fears, and very plainly intimates this suspicion: and the reader may bear with some bad poetry, to be convinced how far this faction was from being firmly united together:

Note XIV.

In 1679, when the antipathy to popery had taken the deepest root in men's minds, the House of Commons passed a vote, "That the Duke of York's being a papist, and the hopes of his coming to the crown, had given the highest countenance to the present conspiracies and designs of the papists, against the king and the protestant religion." Charles endeavoured to parry the obvious consequences of this vote, by proposing to the council a set of limitations, which deprived his successor, if a catholic, of the chief branches of royalty. Shaftesbury, then president of the council, argued against this plan as totally ineffectual; urging, that when the future king should find a parliament to his mind, the limitations might be as effectually taken off as they could be imposed. When the bill was brought in, for the total exclusion of the Duke of York from the succession, Shaftesbury favoured it with all his influence. It passed the Lower House by a very large majority, but was rejected by the House of Lords, where Halifax opposed it with very great ability. Shaftesbury, who had taken so decided a part against the Duke of York in his dearest interests, was now irreconcilable with him, and could only look for safety in his ruin.

Note XV.

If we can believe the honourable Roger North, Lord Shaftesbury made a fair experiment, for the purpose of ascertaining whether Charles's love of ease and affection for Monmouth would induce him to consent to an alteration of the succession in his favour, to the prejudice of the Duke of York. He quotes a pamphlet, called, "The Earl of Shaftesbury's expedient to settle the nation, discoursed with his Majesty at Oxford, 24 March, 1681," which gives the following account of the transaction; and, as it was published at the time, and remained uncontradicted, either by Shaftesbury, or the king, probably contains some essential truth. The Earl of Shaftesbury having received, or pretended to receive, an unsigned letter, in a disguised hand, bustled away to court, "as hard," says the pamphleteer, "as legs, stick, and man could carry him." When he arrived there, the Lord Chamberlain conceiving the Duke of Monmouth might be in the secret, applied to him to know what the great concern was. His grace answered, with an appearance of hesitation, that it was something relating to himself, in which, as in other affairs of his, Lord Shaftesbury took a deeper concern than he desired. Meanwhile. Shaftesbury was introduced to the audience he solicited with the king, and produced the letter, containing, as he said, a plan for settling the interests of religion and state, which proved to be a proposal for calling the Duke of Monmouth to the succession. The king answered, he was surprized such a plan should be pressed upon him, after all the declarations he had made on the subject, and that, far from being more timorous, he became more resolute the nearer he approached his grave. Shaftesbury expressing great horror at such an expression, the king assured him he was no less anxious for his own preservation, than those who pretended to so much concern for the security of his person; and yet, that he would rather lay down his life than alter the true succession of the crown, against both law and conscience. For that, said the earl, let us alone; we will make a law for it. To which the king replied, that, if such was his lordship's conscience, it was not his; and that he did not think even his life of sufficient value to be preserved with the forfeiture of his honour, and essential injury to the laws of the land.—North's Examen, p. 100. 123.

Note XVI.

Before James went to Flanders, he had testified a jealousy of Monmouth. "The Duke of York, before he went abroad," says Carte, "was concerned to see that the king could observe his frequent whispers at court to the Lord Shaftesbury, without being moved or expressing his dislike of it, but was much more alarmed at hearing of their frequent and clandestine meetings, without any apparent dissatisfaction expressed by his Majesty." p. 493. vol. II.

Note XVII.

The royalists recriminated upon the popular party, the charge of plots and machinations against the government. There is no doubt that every engine was put in motion, to secure the mob of London, "the Solymean rout" of Dryden, to Shaftesbury's party. Every one has heard of the 30,000 brisk boys, who were ready to follow the wagging of his finger. The plots, and sham-plots, charged by the parties against each other, form a dismal picture of the depravity of the times. Settle thus ridicules the idea of the protestant, or fanatical plot for seizing the king at Oxford.

Note XVIII.

This inimitable description refers, as is well known, to the famous George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, son of the favourite of Charles I., who was murdered by Felton. The Restoration put into the hands of the most lively, mercurial, ambitious, and licentious genius, who ever lived, an estate of 20,000l a-year, to be squandered in every wild scheme which the lust of power, of pleasure, of licence, or of whim, could dictate to an unrestrained imagination. Being refused the situation of President of the North, he was suspected of having favoured the disaffected in that part of England, and was disgraced accordingly. But, in 1666, he regained the favour of the king, and became a member of the famous administration called the Cabal, which first led Charles into unpopular and arbitrary measures, and laid the foundation for the troubles of his future reign. Buckingham changed sides about 1675, and, becoming attached to the country party, made a most active figure in all proceedings which had relation to the Popish plot; intrigued deeply with Shaftesbury, and distinguished himself as a promoter of the bill of exclusion. Hence, he stood an eminent mark for Dryden's satire; which, we may believe, was not the less poignant, that the poet had sustained a personal affront, from being depicted by his grace under the character of Bayes in the Rehearsal. As Dryden owed the Duke no favour, he has shewn him none. Yet, even here, the ridiculous, rather than the infamous part of his character, is touched upon; and the unprincipled libertine, who slew the Earl of Shrewsbury while his adulterous countess held his horse in the disguise of a page, and who boasted of caressing her before he changed the bloody cloaths in which he had murdered her husband,[314] is not exposed to hatred, while the spendthrift and castle-builder are held up to contempt. So just, however, is the picture drawn by Dryden, that it differs little from the following sober historical character.

"The Duke of Buckingham was a man of great parts, and an infinite deal of wit and humour; but wanted judgement, and had no virtue, or principle of any kind. These essential defects made his whole life one continued train of inconsistencies. He was ambitious beyond measure, and implacable in his resentments; these qualities were the effects, or different faces of his pride; which, whenever he pleased to lay aside, no man living could be more entertaining in conversation. He had a wonderful talent in turning all things into ridicule; but, by his own conduct, made a more ridiculous figure in the world, than any other he could, with all his vivacity of wit, and turn of imagination, draw of others. Frolick and pleasure took up the greatest part of his life; and in these he neither had any taste, nor set himself any bounds; running into the wildest extravagancies, and pushing his debaucheries to a height, which even a libertine age could not help censuring as downright madness. He inherited the best estate which any subject had at that time in England; yet, his profuseness made him always necessitous; as that necessity made him grasp at every thing that would help to support his expences. He was lavish without generosity, and proud without magnanimity; and, though he did not want some bright talents, yet, no good one ever made part of his composition; for there was nothing so mean that he would not stoop to, nor any thing so flagrantly impious, but he was capable of undertaking."[315]

A patron like Buckingham, who piqued himself on his knowledge of literature, and had the means, if not the inclination, to be liberal, was not likely to want champions, such as they were, to repel the sharp attack of Dryden. Elkanah Settle compliments him with the following lines in his "Absalom Senior," some of which are really tolerable.

Another poet, at a period when interest could little sway his panegyrick, has apologized for the versatility and extravagance of the then deceased Duke of Buckingham:

Buckingham himself, smarting under the severity of Dryden's satire, strove to answer it in kind. He engaged in this work with more zeal and anger, than wit or prudence. It is one thing to write a farce, and another to support such a controversy with such an author. The Duke's pamphlet, however, sold at a high price, and had a celebrity, which is certainly rather to be imputed to the rank and reputation of the author, than to the merit of the performance. As it is the work of such an applauded wit, is exceedingly scarce, and relates entirely to the poem which I am illustrating, I shall here insert the introduction, and some extracts from the piece itself.

It is entitled "Poetic Reflections on a late Poem, entituled, Absalom and Achitophel, by a Person of Honour. London, printed for Richard Janeway, 1682. (14 December.)"

To the Reader.—"To epitomize which scandalous pamphlet, unworthy the denomination of poesy, no eye can inspect it without a prodigious amazement, the abuses being so gross and deliberate, that it seems rather a capital or national libel, than personal exposures, in order to an infamous detraction. For how does he character the King, but as a broad figure of scandalous inclinations, or contrived into such irregularities, as renders him rather the property of parasites and vice, than suitable to the accomplishment of so excellent a prince. Nay, he forces on king David such a royal resemblance, that he darkens his sanctity, in spite of illuminations from holy writ.

"Next, to take as near our king as he could, he calumniates the Duke of Monmouth, with that height of impudence, that his sense is far blacker than his ink, exposing him to all the censures that a murderer, a traitor, or what a subject of most ambitious evil can possibly comprehend.

"As to my Lord Shaftesbury, in his collusive Achitophel, what does he other than exceed malice itself, or that the more prudent deserts of that Peer were to be so impeached before hand by his impious poem, as that he might be granted more emphatically condign of the hangman's axe, and which his muse does in effect take upon her to hasten.

"And if the season be well observed when this adulterate poem was spread, it will be found purposely divulged near the time when this lord, with his other noble partner, were to be brought to their trial; and, I suppose this poet thought himself enough assured of their condemnation, at least that his genius had not otherwise ventured to have trampled on persons of such eminent abilities and interest in the nation; a consideration, I confess, incited my pen, its preceding respect being paid to the duke of Monmouth, to vindicate their reputations where I thought it due.

After much unintelligible panegyric on Shaftesbury, his Grace comes to Seymour:[320]

The noble author, with what cause the reader is now enabled to determine, piqued himself especially upon the satirical vigour of these last verses. "As to the character of Amiel, I confess my lines are something pointed: the one reason being, that it alludes much to a manner of expression of this writer's, as may be seen by the marginal notes; and a second will soon be allowed. The figure of Amiel has been so squeezed into paint, that his soul is seen in spite of the varnish." As these verses were written on an occasion, when personal indignation must have fired his Grace's wit, they incline us to believe, with Mr Malone, that his friends, Clifford and Sprat, had the greatest share in the lively farce of "The Rehearsal."

Buckingham's death was as awful a beacon as his life. He had dissipated a princely fortune, and lost both the means of procuring, and the power of enjoying, the pleasures to which he was devoted. He had fallen from the highest pinnacle of ambition, into the last degree of contempt and disregard. His dying scene, in a paltry inn in Yorkshire, has been immortalized by Pope's beautiful lines:

Note XIX.

———Balaam.—P. 234.

The Earl of Huntington. A coarse reason is given by Luttrel in his MS. notes, for the epithet by which he is distinguished in the text.[321] He was one of the seventeen peers who signed a petition, beseeching Charles to have recourse to the advice of his parliament; and he himself presented it at Whitehall, on the 7th of December, 1679, in the name of the other lords subscribing. This advice was received very coldly by the king, who answered, "That he would consider of what they had offered, and could heartily wish, that all other people were as solicitous for the peace and good of the nation, as he would ever be." The Earl of Huntington also subscribed the petition and advice, presented by fifteen peers to the king, against removing the parliament to Oxford; where they stated, "Neither Lords nor Commons can be in safety, but will be daily exposed to the swords of the Papists, and their adherents, of whom too many are crept into your majesty's guards." Yet Lord Huntington did not go all the lengths of the Whig party. He became a privy councillor, was admitted to the honour of kissing the king's hand, and was stated in the Public Intelligencer, of the 25th of October, 1681, to have then confessed, that he had found by experience, "That they who promoted the bill of exclusion, were for the subversion of monarchy itself." Monmouth, Grey, and Herbert, state, in a paper published on this occasion, that Lord Huntington had denied the utterance of the said words; but, from the stile of their manifesto, it is obvious, they no longer regarded him as attached to their party. Ralph's History. Vol. I. p. 657. 709. Note.

Note XX.

———Cold Caleb.—P. 234.

Ford, Lord Grey of Wark, described among Absalom's IX worthies as

He appears to have been a man of very great indifference to his domestic concerns; as the Duke of Monmouth, under whose banners he enlisted himself, was generally believed to have an intrigue with Lady Grey. In an account of a mock apparition, which that lady is supposed to witness, she is made to state, "That on Saturday, the 29th of January, 1680, being alone in her closet about nine o'clock at night, she heard a voice behind her, which mildly said, sweetheart. At which she was at first not at all frightened, supposing it to be an apparition, which she says has often of late appeared to her in the absence of her lord, in the shape of a bright star and blue garter, but without hurting, or so much as frightening her." Lord Grey, ignorant or indifferent about these scandalous reports, went step for step with Monmouth in all his projects. He was a man of a restless temper, and lively talents, which he exercised in the service of the popular party. He was deep in the Rye-house Plot, and probably engaged in the very worst part of it; at least, Lord Howard deposed, that Grey was full of expectation of some great thing to be attempted on the day of the king's coming from Newmarket, which was that fixed by the inferior conspirators for his assassination. Upon the trial of Lord Russel, Howard was yet more particular, and said, that upon a dark intimation of an attempt on the king's person, the Duke of Monmouth, "with great emotion, struck his breast, and cried out, 'God so! kill the king! I will never suffer them.' That Lord Grey, with an oath, also observed upon it, that if they made such an attempt, they could not fail." Ramsey charged Lord Grey with arguing with Ferguson, on the project of the rising at Taunton. Grey, on the first discovery of this conspiracy, was arrested, but, filling the officers drunk, he escaped in a boat, and fled into Holland. He was afterwards very active in pushing on Monmouth to his desperate expedition in 1685. He landed with the duke at Lyme, and held the rank of general of horse in his army. Like many other politicians, his lordship proved totally devoid of that courage in executing bold plans, which he displayed in forming or abetting them. At the first skirmish at Bridport he ran away, although the troops he commanded did not follow his example, but actually gained a victory, while he returned on the gallop to announce a total defeat. Monmouth, much shocked, asked Colonel Mathews what he should do with him? who answered, he believed there was not another general in Europe would have asked such a question. Lord Grey, however, fatally for Monmouth, continued in his trust, and commanded the horse at the battle of Sedgemore. There he behaved like a poltroon as formerly, fled with the whole cavalry, and left the foot, who behaved most gallantly, to be cut to pieces by the horse of King James, who, without amusing themselves with pursuit, wheeled, and fell upon the rear of the hardy western peasants. So infamous was Grey's conduct, that many writers at the time, thinking mere cowardice insufficient to account for it, have surmised, some, that he was employed by the king to decoy Monmouth to his destruction; and others, that jealousy of the domestic injury he had received from the duke, induced him to betray the army.[322] This caitiff peer was taken in the disguise of a shepherd, near Holt Lodge, in Dorsetshire; and confessed, that "since his landing in England, he had never enjoyed a quiet meal, or a night's repose." He was conveyed to London, and would probably have been executed, had it not been discovered, that his estate, which had been given to Lord Rochester, was so strictly entailed, that nothing could be got by his death. He, therefore, by the liberal distribution, it is said, of large sums of money, received a pardon from the king, and appeared as a witness on the trial of Lord Delamere; and was ready to do so on that of Hampden; yet he is supposed to have kept some secrets with respect to the politics of the Prince of Orange, in reward of which, he was raised to the rank of an Earl after the Revolution.—Dalrymple's Memoirs, Vol. I. p. 185.

Notwithstanding the attribute which Dryden has ascribed to Lord Grey in this poem, he afterwards proved a man of unprincipled gallantry; and 23d of November, 1682, was tried in the King's Bench for debauching lady Henrietta Berkeley, daughter of the Earl of Berkeley, to whose sister, lady Mary, he was himself married. See State Trials, Vol. III. p. 519.

Note XXI

Lord Howard of Escricke, although an abandoned debauchee, made occasional pretensions to piety. He was an intimate of Shaftesbury and of Monmouth, but detested by Russel on account of the infamy of his character. Plots, counter-plots, and sham-plots, were at this time wrought like mine and countermine by each party, under the other's vantage-ground. One Fitzharris had written a virulent libel against the court party, which he probably intended to father upon the whigs; but being seized by Sir William Waller, he changed his note, and averred, that he had been employed by the court to write this libel, and to fix it upon the exclusionists; and to this probable story he added, ex mera gratia, a new account of the old Popish Plot. The court resolved to make an example of Fitzharris; they tried and convicted him of treason, for the libel fell nothing short of it. When condemned, finding his sole resource in the mercy of the crown, he retracted his evidence against the court, and affirmed, that Treby, the recorder, and Bethel and Cornish, the two sheriffs, had induced him to forge that accusation; and that Lord Howard was the person who drew up instructions, pointing out to him what he was to swear, and urging him so to manage his evidence, as to criminate the Queen and the Duke of York. The confession of Fitzharris did not save his life, although he adhered to it upon the scaffold. Lord Howard, as involved in this criminal intrigue, was sent to the Tower, where he uttered and published a canting declaration, asserting his innocence, upon the truth of which he received the sacrament. He is said, however, to have taken the communion in lamb's wool, (i. e. ale poured on roasted apples and sugar,) to which profanation Dryden alludes, with too much levity, in the second line above quoted. The circumstance is also mentioned in "Absalom's IX Worthies:"

Lord Howard was at length set at liberty from the Tower, upon finding bail, when he engaged under Shaftesbury, and ran into all the excesses of the party. Being deeply involved in the Rye-house Plot, he fled upon the discovery of that affair, and was detected in his shirt, covered with soot, in a chimney; a sordid place of concealment, which well suited the spirit of the man. A tory ballad-maker has the following strain of prophetic exultation on Howard's commitment:

Accustomed to tamper with evidence, Howard did not hesitate to contaminate the noblest name in England, by practising the meannesses and villainies he had taught to others. For the sake of his shameful life, he bore witness against Russel and Sidney to all he knew, and probably to a great deal more. The former had always hated and despised Howard, and had only been induced to tolerate his company by the persuasions of Essex: The recollection, that, by introducing his best friend to the contagion of such company, he had, in fact, prepared his ruin, was one of the reasons assigned for that unfortunate peer's remorse and suicide.

Note XXII.

Sir William Jones was an excellent lawyer, and, in his private character, an upright, worthy, and virtuous man; in his religion he had some tendency to nonconformity, and his political principles were of the popular cast. He was the king's attorney-general, and as such conducted all the prosecutions against those concerned in the Popish plot. He was, or affected to be, so deeply infected by the epidemic terror excited by this supposed conspiracy, that he had all his billets removed from his cellar, lest the Papists should throw in fire-balls, and set his house on fire. He closed, nevertheless, with the court, in an attempt to prohibit coffee-houses, on account of the facility which they afforded in propagating faction and scandal; for this, he was threatened by the country party with an impeachment in parliament. Sir William Jones shortly after resigned his office under government, and went into open opposition. He distinguished himself particularly, by supporting the bill of exclusion, and by a violent speech in the Oxford parliament, on the subject of the clerk's mislaying the Bill for repealing the 35th of Elizabeth, an act against dissenters. He was on his legs, as the phrase is, in the same house, arguing vehemently on the subject of Fitzharris, when the Black Rod knocked at the door, to announce the sudden and unexpected dissolution of the parliament. A well written pamphlet, entitled, "Advice to Grand Juries," which appeared on the eve of the presentment against Shaftesbury, is said to have had some effect in producing the ignoramus verdict, on that bill.

Sir William Jones is said to have regretted the share he took in the prosecutions on account of the plot; which is extremely probable, as his excellent talents, and sound legal principles, could not fail, when clamour and alarm were over, to teach him how far he had been misled. His anxiety for the situation of the country is supposed to have accelerated his death, which took place in 1682, at Mr Hampden's house, in Buckingham-shire.

Note XXIII.

Slingsby Bethel was son of Sir Walter Bethel, knight, by Mary, daughter of Sir Henry Slingsby of Scriven, in Yorkshire, and sister to Sir Henry Slingsby, a steady loyalist, who was condemned by Cromwell's high court of justice, and beheaded on Towerhill in 1655. Bethel was early attached to the fanatical interest, both by religious and political tenets; he was even a member of the Committee of Safety. But he was a staunch republican, and no friend to the Protector; being, it is believed, the author of that famous treatise, entitled "The World's Mistake in Oliver Cromwell." He was elected sheriff, with Cornish, on Midsummer-day 1680, and the choice was, in many respects, disadvantageous to the popular party. In the first place, they were both Independents; and, before taking upon them their offices, they conformed, and took the sacrament according to the church of England's ritual. It was believed, that nothing but the necessity of qualifying themselves to serve their party in this office, could have prevailed on them to have done so, and this gave advantages against their whole party. Besides, Cornish was a downright, plain-spoken republican, and Bethel had expressed himself very bluntly in justification of the execution of Charles I.; and was, therefore, obnoxious to every slur which the royalists could bring against him, as ill-disposed to monarchy. Further still, Bethel's extreme and sordid meanness gave great disgust to the citizens, who were accustomed to consider the exercise of a splendid and ostentatious hospitality as the principal part of a sheriff's duty. He kept no table, lived in a chop-house, and, long afterwards, whoever neglected to entertain during his shrievalty, was said to "Bethel the city." Bethel is mentioned among the subjects of deprecation in "The Loyal Litany:"

These two sheriffs first set the example of packing juries, when persons were to be tried for party offences; for they took the task of settling the pannels for juries out of the Compters into their own hands, and left the secondaries of the Compters, who had usually discharged that duty, only to return the lists, thus previously made up. In Middlesex, they had the assistance of Goodenough, the under-sheriff, a bustling and active partizan, who very narrowly escaped being hanged for the Rye-house Plot. By this selection of jurymen, the sheriffs insured a certainty of casting such bills as might be presented to the Grand Jury against any of their partizans. This practice was so openly avowed, that Settle has ventured to make it a subject of eulogy: