It was at that notorious tribunal, in horrible mockery nicknamed The Merciful Assize' of Winchester, and before Chief-Justice Jeffreys, that the infirm yet stately Lady Alice Lisle, now past her seventieth year, stood arraigned for high treason, in having concealed and supported two of Monmouth's followers in a cell or vault at Moyles Court, originally constructed to secure the persecuted priesthood of either party from the malice of their pursuers. The aspect of the judge and prisoner presented a remarkable contrast. The countenance of the former betrayed nothing of that pride or ferocity which might be imagined from the character of the man. From continued habits of intoxication and sensuality, his face and demeanour were indicative rather of sottish indolence and brutal doggedness than of active cruelty or revenge.

Few witnesses were called in the present case, yet their hasty evidence seemed too dilatory for the judge's petulance; he declared the charge to be established, and directed the jury to find their verdict accordingly. But the spirit of the indignant matron was not so tamely to be extinguished. She rose majestically from the seat which her infirmities had demanded, rather than her wishes entreated. She raised her lofty form to its full proportions, and cast around, for a moment, her wan yet impressive features, maintaining in wrinkles and fatigue the serenity if not the fire of youth. Then, with an air which awed even the heartless judge upon the bench, she warned the jury of their duty, reminding them that 'the services her son had just performed should

now exonerate her from regal animosity, had any accrued to her name from the disloyalties of her husband; that her crime amounted to no more than this: that in ignorance both of the condition of the fugitives and of the law, which now pretended to condemn her, she had opened her doors to the hungry, the naked, and the forlorn; that even this offence, if offence it were, must rest upon her own confession alone, as no evidence had proved the fact upon her trial; that she had been allowed neither notice of the accusation, nor counsel, nor defences; and that the safety of his Majesty's subjects was far more endangered by one unjust trial and condemnation than by conspiracies or treason of his people ; and that their own bodies had better be given over to the anger of a bigoted taskmaster than their minds to the fangs of conscious iniquity, and their souls to that place of torment whither the curses of a murdered woman would irrevocably consign them.'

The effect of this appeal was visible even on the judge: he leaned forward, with his eyes half raised from the ground, and without suppressing a malicious smile, he motioned the jury to withdraw. They remained absent an unusual time, during which intense anxiety pervaded all except the judge himself, who rolled about from side to side with manifest uneasiness and displeasure. At length the foreman appeared, and pronounced 'Not guilty.' An indistinct murmur of approbation followed, whilst the mortified judge, lifting his unwieldy limbs from the chair, his eyes swollen with rage, his mouth foaming, his hands clenched, and stamping

with rage, yet with the impotence of a child, gave vent to a loud, rapid, and unconnected volley of oaths; whilst, shaking his fist with frightful vehemence, he drove back the terrified jurymen by the menace of his gesture.

Again he sat down; wrath and disappointment gave way at length to a smile of contempt, which indicated that some scheme was at hand to prevent the recurrence of a like rebuff. Again the door opened; the same messenger of justice returned, and commenced an apologetic preface, which was speedily interrupted by a demand of their decision. The same verdict was delivered as before; and every one expected from the judge a still more terrible burst of fury. But their expectations were baulked: he merely nodded in sarcasm, and beckoning to a sergeant, who attended with some score of that barbarous troupe distinguished by the title of Kirke's Lambs,'' whispered him to keep guard at the door of the jury-room till the verdict was a third time brought in. The very mention of this merciless brigade, the recollection of the horrid cruelties practised by the Colonel and themselves, was sufficient to

1 After the death of Monmouth, and the suppression of the revolt, the Earl of Feversham hanged twenty-two men at Bridgewater, on the evening of the battle of Sedgemoor, without any form of trial; and on the Earl leaving the command to Colonel Kirke, the severity and violence of the soldiery were increased, so that Kirke's name was long the object of popular execration in the west of England. Between Kirke and Jeffreys, in their 'campaign,' as the king jocularly called it, the south-western counties were strewed with the carcases and the dismembered limbs of human beings, women as well as men, butchered by the sword or the axe.

subdue a stouter heart than that of a juryman in the days of Jeffreys. He alone could feast his eyes upon them; and as he sat in delightful anticipation of success, he reached down the black cap which hung above his head, and handled it and examined it with evident satisfaction. A third time the door opened; and the verdict having been first communicated to the sergeant, and by him, with a smile of approbation, to the judge, Guilty; death,' was recorded. Four judges sat the silent witnesses of these proceedings; and the jury, finding themselves rudely shut out from all means of saving the prisoner, at length consented, rather than have a further collision with the court, to deliver the prey to the destroyer. The strange scene in court has been painted by Mr. E. M. Ward, R.A., and is one of hist finest historical works. A slight tumult succeeded; but a few brandished swords restored silence. The Lady Alice remained totally unmoved. She listened to her doom with firmness and composure, and seemed, in one glance towards the bench, to bid farewell to her enemies for ever.

On the following morning she was placed at the bar, when Jeffreys, having pronounced sentence, issued his orders that the prisoner should be burnt alive in the afternoon of the same day. Lady Lisle suffered death on the 2d of September in the market-place at Winchester, her sentence being changed by the king, at her own request, from burning to decapitation. She appeared at the place of execution with great composure, and delivered a paper to the sheriff, in which she observed: My defence was

such as might be expected from a weak woman; but such as it was, I did not hear it repeated again to the jury. But I forgive all persons who have done me wrong, and I desire that God will do likewise.' A plain slab inscribed to her memory is in Ellingham Churchyard.

By the above special commission, having Chief-Justice Jeffreys at its head, a great number of persons were condemned and executed at Dorchester, Exeter, and especially Taunton and Wells. The prisoners for trial in Somersetshire alone were above 1000; and of these at least 239 were executed, and probably more. The sentences were carried into effect in thirty-six different towns and villages, among which they were distributed. At Dorchester, in the Town Hall, they have still the chair in which Jeffreys sat at the Assizes.

Jeffreys, who is scarcely over-coloured in the above narrative, is thus described by Burnet: All people,' he says,

were apprehensive of very black designs when they saw Jeffreys made Lord Chief-Justice, who was scandalously vicious, and was drunk every day, besides a drunkenness of fury in his temper, that looked like enthusiasm. He did not consider the decencies of his post, nor did he so much as affect to seem impartial, as became a judge, but ran out upon all occasions into declamations that did not become the bar, much less the bench. He was not learned in his profession; and his eloquence, though viciously copious, yet was neither correct nor agreeable.'

Long after the judge had gone to his grave, his infamous