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the tremendous circumstances insisted on by his pre- CHAP. decessors. He said, that the second Dutch war was LXVIIL entered into with a view of extirpating the protestant religion, both abroad and at home; that father Parry, a Jesuit, on the disappointment by the peace, told him, that the catholics resolved to murder the King, and had even engaged the Queen in that design; that the envoy of Modena offered him 10,000 pounds to kill the King, and upon his refusal the envoy said that the Dutchess of Mazarine, who was as expert at poisoning as her sister, the Countess of Soissons, would, with a little phial, execute that design; that upon the King's death, the army in Flanders was to come over, and massacre the protestants; that money was raised in Italy for recruits and supplies, and there should be no more parliaments; and that the Duke was privy to this whole plan, and had even entered into the design of Godfrey's murder, which was executed in the manner related by Prance.

THE popular leaders had, all along, been very desirous of having an accusation against the Duke; and though Oates and Bedloe, in their first evidence, had not dared to go so far, both Dugdale and Dangerfield had afterwards been encouraged to supply so material a defect, by comprehending him in the conspiracy. The commons, therefore, finding that Fitz-harris was also willing to serve this purpose, were not ashamed to adopt his evidence, and resolved for that end to save him from the destruction with which he was at present threatened. The King had removed him from the city-prison, where he was exposed to be tampered with by the exclusionists; had sent him to the Tower; and had ordered him to be prosecuted by an indictment at common law. In order to prevent his trial and execution, an impeachment was voted by the commons against him, and sent up to the lords. That they might shew the

greater

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CHAP. greater contempt of the court, they ordered, by way LXVIII. of derision, that the impeachment should be carried up by secretary Jenkins; who was so provoked by the intended affront, that he at first refused obedidience; though afterwards, being threatened with commitment, he was induced to comply. The lords voted to remit the affair to the ordinary courts of justice, before whom, as the attorney-general informed them, it was already determined to try Fitzharris. The commons maintained, that the peers were obliged to receive every impeachment from the commons; and this indeed seems to have been the first instance of their refusal: They therefore voted, that the lords, in rejecting their impeachment, had denied justice, and had violated the constitution of parliament. They also declared, that whatever inferior court should proceed against Fitz-harris, or any one that lay under impeachment, would be guilty of a high breach of privilege. Great heats were likely to ensue; and as the King saw no appearance of any better temper in the commons, he gladly laid hold of the opportunity, afforded by a quarrel between the two houses; and he proceeded dissolved. to a dissolution of the parliament. The secret was so well kept, that the commons had no intimation of it, till the black rod came to their doors, and summoned them to attend the King at the house of peers.

Parliament

THIS vigorous measure, though it might have been foreseen, excited such astonishment in the country party, as deprived them of all spirit, and reduced them to absolute despair. They were sensible, though too late, that the King had finally taken his resolution, and was determined to endure any extremity rather than submit to those terms which they had resolved to impose upon him. They found, that he had patiently waited till affairs should come to full maturity; and having now engaged a national party

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party on his side, had boldly set his enemies at CHA P. defiance: No parliament, they knew would be LXVIII. summoned for some years; and during that long interval, the court, though perhaps at the head of an inferior party, yet being possessed of all authority, would have every advantage over a body dispersed and disunited. These reflections crowded upon every one; and all the exclusionists were terrified, lest Charles should follow the blow by some action more violent, and immediately take vengeance on them for their long and obstinate opposition to his measures. The King, on his part, was no less apprehensive lest despair might prompt them to have recourse to force, and make some sudden attempt upon his person. Both parties therefore hurried from Oxford; and in an instant, that city, so crowded and busy, was left in its usual emptiness and tranquillity.

THE Court-party gathered force from the dispersion and astonishment of their antagonists, and adhered more firmly to the King, whose resolutions, they now saw, could be entirely depended on. The Victory violences of the exclusionists were every where of the exclaimed against and aggravated; and even the royalists reality of the plot, that great engine of their authority, was openly called in question. The clergy especially were busy in this great revolution; and being moved, partly by their own fears, partly by the insinuations of the court, they represented all their antagonists as sectaries and republicans, and rejoiced in escaping those perils, which they believed to have been hanging over them. Principles the most opposite to civil liberty were every where enforced from the pulpit, and adopted in numerous addresses; where the King was flattered in his present measures, and congratulated on his escape from parliaments. Could words have been depended on, the nation appeared to be running fast into voluntary servitude, and seemed even ambitious of resigning into the

3

King's

CHAP. King's hands all the privileges, transmitted to them, LXVIII. through so many ages, by their gallant ancestors.

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BUT Charles had sagacity enough to distinguish between men's real internal sentiments, and the language which zeal and opposition to a contrary faction may sometimes extort from them. Notwithstanding all these professions of duty and obedience, he was resolved not to trust, for a long time, the people with a new election, but to depend entirely on his own œconomy for alleviating those necessities under which he laboured. Great retrenchments were made in the household: Even his favourite navy was neglected: Tangiers, though it had cost great sums of money, was a few years after abandoned and demolished. The mole was entirely destroyed; and the garrison, being brought over to England, served to augment that small army, which the King relied on, as the solid basis of his authority. It had been happy for the nation, had Charles used his victory with justice and moderation equal to the prudence and dexterity with which he obtained it.

THE first step, taken by the court, was the trial of Fitz-harris. Doubts were raised by the jury with regard to their power of trying him, after the concluding vote of the commons: But the judges took upon them to decide the question in the affirmative; and the jury were obliged to proceed. The writing of the libel was clearly proved upon Fitz-harris: The only question was with regard to his intentions. He asserted, that he was a spy of the court, and had accordingly carried the libel to the Dutchess of Portsmouth; and he was desirous that the jury should, in this transaction, consider him as a cheat, not as a traitor. He failed however somewhat in the brought in guilty of treason by

proof; and was

the jury.

FINDING himself entirely in the hands of the King, he now retracted all his former impostures with regard to the popish plot, and even endeavoured

to

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to atone for them by new impostures against the CHAP. country party. He affirmed, that these fictions LXVIII. had been extorted from him by the suggestions and artifices of Treby the recorder, and of Bethel and Cornish, the two sheriffs: This account he persisted in even at his execution; and though men knew, that nothing could be depended on, which came from one so corrupt, and so lost to all sense of honour; yet were they inclined, from his perseverance, to rely somewhat more on his veracity in these last asseverations. But it appears that his wife had some connexions with Mrs. Wall, the favourite maid of the Dutchess of Portsmouth; and Fitz-harris hoped, if he persisted in a story agreeable to the court, that some favour might, on that account, be shown to his family.

Ir is amusing to reflect on the several lights in which this story has been represented by the opposite factions. The country party affirmed, that Fitz-harris had been employed by the court, in order to throw the odium of the libel on the exclusionists, and thereby give rise to a protestant plot: The court-party maintained, that the exclusionists had found out Fitz-harris, a spy of the ministers, and had set him upon this undertaking, from an intention of loading the court with the imputation of such a design upon the exclusionists. Rather than acquit their antagonists, both sides were willing to adopt an account the most intricate and incedible. It was a strange situation, in which the people at this time were placed; to be every day tortured with these perplexed stories, and inflamed with such dark suspicions against their fellow-citizens. This was no less than the fifteenth false plot, or sham-plot, as they were then called, with which the court, it was imagined, had endeavoured to load their adversaries'.

College's Trial.

THE