Part 23 (1/2)

Whether the disembodied souls left their bodies in the north or in the south, they will all rejoice in the society of each other. The spirits of the patriarchs of old, as well as of those who die to-day in the Lord, will meet in one large community. Console thyself, therefore, with the thought of a future, joyful, and eternal re-union; and let that consolation be also an active precept, teaching thee so to order thy daily conversation as to complete thy fitness for that re-union.”

He then entreated her to remember the inestimable consolation she possessed, in knowing that Eustace lived and was worthy of her affections, faithful to his vows, to his King, and his G.o.d. He advised her, if possible, to remove with her aunt, Isabel, and Colonel Evellin, and to place themselves under his protection. If his situation permitted, he advised her to marry him as the best way of being safe and respectable, to endeavour to procure an honest livelihood by following some humble occupation, and to forget the station to which their birth ent.i.tled them to aspire. He was almost hopeless of a speedy change of times. He feared the spirit of the nation was so broken that it would submit to the establishment of the usurping family. Policy would teach Cromwell to soften the terrors of his administration as soon as he could found his government on the safer principles of expedience and prescription. He had already adopted many popular measures; and, in making the power of England formidable abroad, he had gratified the public-feeling. Though the persecution of individuals, and actions of glaring oppression and injustice, soon excited discord in peaceable times, and under the government of a legitimate King, they were so congenial to the nature of tyranny, that people were more apt to rejoice in their own escape than to animadvert on the sufferings of their neighbours. Nor would an acc.u.mulation of such deeds rouse to arms a nation, that had recently bled so copiously from the multiplied wounds of civil war. Dreadful calamities had stupified the finer feelings, while self-interest and a mean anxiety for personal safety absorbed their sensibility for the distressed. Above all, he regretted to say that an unfavourable impression of the young monarch's personal qualities had gone abroad; and though the disadvantageous reports might be aggravated by ill-will, it would be inferred that the person on whom they fastened was by no means blameless. For all these reasons, Dr.

Beaumont feared that the present ostensible form of a republican government would imperceptibly slide into the restoration of what the laws, inst.i.tutions, habits, and character of England required, a limited monarchy in the person of one of Cromwell's family, should such a one arise, who, without being stained by the atrocious guilt of his progenitor, should display qualities that would eclipse the legitimate prince. Much, he said, depended on the personal character of a King of England, who was not, like an Eastern sovereign, shown from a distant eminence to be wors.h.i.+pped with prostrations, or, like a Grand Monarque, to be flattered and implicitly obeyed. He ruled over a nation of freemen; he lived in the observation of his subjects, not as a despot coercing slaves and parasites, but as the administrator of public justice, and the conservator of the national rights. He could not put up a more salutary prayer for his country, than that each future Prince (especially in times of great political turbulence) would remember that he is set like a city upon a hill, and that his whole conduct is canva.s.sed by a free, inquisitive, and, generally speaking, an intelligent and high-minded nation, attached to hereditary rule, but indignant at the contamination of the blood-royal. It was impossible for persons eminent for birth to sin in secret; and one bad action of theirs, divulged to the public, did more injury than the machinations of the most subtile traitor. Woe would it be to England, if her liberties were thus made to depend on the mercy and prudence of those who grasped her sceptre in despite of law, while its rightful owner discovered such base propensities as made it safer even in an Usurper's hands than in his, who less prized the inheritance of three kingdoms than the praise of debauchees and the indulgence of depraved appet.i.tes.

Thus fortifying his daughter's mind with the best principles, and then gradually withdrawing it from the agonizing present to circ.u.mstances connected with her future fortunes, Dr. Beaumont consoled and instructed Constantia. ”I am firm and patient, my dearest father,” said she. ”Your voice, like that of the angel to Hagar, has pointed out springs of comfort in a frightful desert. One request I must make. Let me stand by your side at your trial. Perhaps my appearance may influence your judges. Men who seem to have renounced every feeling of humanity have been induced to pity orphan wretchedness. Some circ.u.mstances may escape your observation that my quick-sighted fears will seize on; at least I may serve as your notary. These times of woe have often witnessed female heroism claiming its affinity to the proscribed victims of injustice, and glorying in partaking their dangers. Thus let me triumph, and, to the last, exult in having such a father.” Dr. Beaumont gazed on her with affection, and acceded to her desires. Like his royal Master, he had at first resolved to object to the legality of these high courts of justice; but further consideration made him doubt if the plea was admissible by a Christian, who was required to submit to the powers that are; and its inexpediency was apparent, by the immediate condemnation of all who urged it, since, whatever degree of proof their offences admitted, they were infallibly condemned for contumacy. Being asked, therefore, if he acknowledged the authority of the court, he lifted up the cap which covered his thin silvered locks, and declared that he submitted to be tried by the laws of G.o.d and his country, though, as he had not been furnished with a copy of the charges brought against him, he came with no other means of defence than a general consciousness of inoffensive behaviour.

As Dr. Beaumont spoke he withdrew his arm from the feeble support of his trembling daughter. A sun-beam fell upon his pale countenance, and irradiated its expression of piety and resignation, while his clasped hands, and eyes elevated to heaven, bespoke him engrossed by the fervour of mental devotion. Constantia, silent, trembling, and almost fearing to breathe, contrasted, by her apprehensiveness, beauty, and elegance, the awful solemnity of her father's aspect. He was invested with the insignia of his academical honours, and attired in his sacerdotal habit, which, in its decay, seemed emblematical of the ruined Church for whom he was a confessor. Meek but dignified, patient but courageous, he looked like one of the pillars of episcopacy, who, though the beauty of holiness was defaced, and the visible cherubim removed from the sanctuary, continued to support the tottering edifice, deeming the ruins of Zion a better station than the gorgeous temple of Baal. Nor did the celebrated cla.s.sical example of Antigone more forcibly ill.u.s.trate the persevering fort.i.tude of pa.s.sive heroism and enduring love in woman's gentle bosom, than did the interesting, lovely Constantia. Like the renowned daughter of Sir Thomas More, ”she seemed to have forgotten herself, being ravished with the entire love of her dear father,” and fearful of danger only as it pointed at him. She turned her eyes upon the court with a boldness unusual to their general expression, to see if in any of their faces she could trace the lineaments of justice or compa.s.sion; but they were soon arrested by recognising, in the president, the well-remembered face of Major Monthault. The brims of his hat were of more than ordinary dimensions; his hair was notched into the exact shape prescribed by the highest standard of puritanical orthodoxy; his band was crimped, and his robes folded with prim decorum; while his hands demurely rested on the cus.h.i.+on before him, holding a small edition of the sacred volume, on which he seemed to be meditating in the intervals between the exercise of his professional duties. But neither the starched sobriety of his aspect, nor his newly a.s.sumed name of Mephibosheth could obliterate her recollection of the daring libertine who had seduced her Eustace, and attempted her honour. She pointed him out to her father, inquiring if he might not be challenged as a personal enemy; but Dr. Beaumont wisely thought it more prudent to avoid a recognition, which would only confirm his enmity by exposing his former conduct; and, reminding Constantia that as no exceptions of theirs would be attended to, they must know Monthault only in his present character, he entreated, as her alarm was so visible, that she would retire, and leave him to the care of Williams.

Dissembling his knowledge of the prisoner, the President showed, by his address to the Court, that he had adopted the language as well as the habit of a fanatic. He observed that the malignants could hardly be bound by any specific terms, being full of evasions and subtleties of expression, by which they ensnared the simplicity of the faithful. He then called on Eusebius Beaumont to say, unequivocally, whether he did so truly and _bona fide_ submit to the authority of this Court, as to acknowledge it was legally a.s.sembled by the supreme power in the Commonwealth, namely, His Highness Oliver Cromwell, Protector of the liberties, and General of the armies of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

Dr. Beaumont answered, that he did acknowledge the supreme power was now lodged in the Protector; and that, according to the ordinances made by him, the present High Court of Justice possessed a right to try him. He was then asked if he meant to deny his sending a.s.sistance to Charles Stewart, and praying for a restoration of the ancient system; to which he answered, he admitted the truth of these accusations; and being in his heart convinced that the former government of church and state was not only most consonant to the const.i.tution, but also to the prosperity of the kingdom, he must ever wish and pray that it might be restored.

But yet, abhorring all conspiracies and plots, the only acts of contumacy of which he had been guilty to the existing powers, were the supplications he offered at the Throne of Grace, and the scanty contributions, which the purse of penury could ill spare, given to the necessities of those who espoused the same cause, and whose wants exceeded his own.

The indictment was then read, in which the charges already noticed were dressed out in vituperative language; but the crimes princ.i.p.ally insisted on were, that he had secreted several desperate and proscribed delinquents in a ruinous mansion which he inhabited for the purpose; and that by their a.s.sistance he had clandestinely conveyed away, destroyed, and murdered, divers good and faithful citizens. Among these was a G.o.dly officer of the commonwealth, Arthur De Vallance, commonly called Lord Sedley, son and heir to the Earl of Bellingham, whom he was known to have kept in custody, and who had never been heard of since. To give a tragical effect to this accusation, the Earl and his Countess, attired in deep mourning, presented themselves in a conspicuous gallery, and, as if overpowered by the sudden emotions of parental anguish, wrung their hands and with loud lamentations besought the court to grant them justice.

Dr. Beaumont's astonishment for some moments precluded the possibility of reply, but as his native integrity never deserted him, he soon recovered sufficient presence of mind to determine rather to fall a victim to the malice of his foes, than to make any discovery which should endanger the life of Arthur De Vallance, who having borne arms against Cromwell was become amenable to the penal ordinances, and would be marked by the Usurper's personal hatred as a confidential friend changed into a renegado. He soon answered in a firm tone, that, being unable to divine that such a charge could be brought against him, he must crave a few days grace to form his reply, and produce evidence which should disprove it. He would, however, observe, that at the time of the supposed murder, and his concealment of desperadoes, he was a suspected persecuted man in distressed circ.u.mstances, and all his actions were watched with insidious vigilance. To impute to him a power of restraining a man of Lord Sedley's rank was a futile charge, disproved by its impossibility. There was a person in court (looking at Morgan) who knew the hospitality and kindness he had shown to that n.o.bleman; but he was certain the being did not exist, who could fasten on him the slightest suspicion of his having subsequently practised against his life.

The counsel for the prosecution answered, that his long confinement had given him sufficient opportunity of recollecting his misdeeds, and therefore no accusation could take him by surprise. There could be no occasion to adjourn the court, or longer suspend justice, which thirsted to seize the sanguinary old hypocrite. The feelings of the bereaved parent should be regarded (here a loud sobbing was heard from Lady Bellingham), and as the culprit had declared that there was a person in court who could prove his innocence, they would yield him the advantage of inverting the general order of the trial, and permit him to call and examine his evidence, before they discovered the dark machination, by which an ill.u.s.trious pair lost the son of their hopes, the only heir to their magnificent fortune.

Dr. Beaumont's strong confidence in his own innocence prevented him from discovering that the proposal was a snare, intended to give indubitable authority to the evidence of Morgan, who now pressed forward, stretched out his hand with an air of friends.h.i.+p to the prisoner, and seemed to rejoice in the opportunity of befriending him. He took the oath, and answered the questions put to him, by giving a minute and (as far as his coa.r.s.e mind would permit) a pathetic description of the care and attention which the Beaumont family showed to the young n.o.bleman, and of his voluntary continuance with them after his wounds were healed.

When Morgan's examination was over, the counsel for the prosecution addressed the court. ”My Lord President Monthault, and you other My Lords Judges of this honourable tribunal; we all know that the butcher fatteneth the lamb before he leadeth it to the slaughter-house, and therefore the care and hospitality pretended to have been shown to the n.o.ble person, whose loss we deplore, establishes nothing positively in the prisoner's favour. I shall prove to you, that Lord Sedley liberally rewarded him for his entertainment, and that notwithstanding all the peaceable professions he has this day made, he took great pains to change that Lord's principles, to make him false to the Commonwealth, and also to engage him in an alliance with his family; failing of which, and also suspecting that he gave information to His Highness of the plots then carrying on for restoring tyranny and superst.i.tion; he the prisoner was consenting unto, if not aiding and abetting, the murdering and secreting the aforesaid G.o.dly Lord. The time chosen for this business was immediately after his receiving a large remittance. To these facts, together with that of the prisoner's concealing a band of desperate malignants, armed with instruments of destruction, I shall, with leave of the court, proceed to call my evidence.”

The payment of several sums of money to Lord Sedley, during his residence at Ribblesdale, and the cessation of all demand for remittances from the period of his quitting it, were proved by his tenants; one of whom particularly specified his having sent him a very considerable sum, raised by mortgage of his princ.i.p.al farm, a few days previous to that fixed on for his disappearance. Morgan was now re-examined, who acted the part of a reluctant witness, with too marked partiality for Dr. Beaumont to deceive any who had not been accustomed to the grossest deceptions of fulsome hypocrisy. Much as he said of his hopes that his good old friend and neighbour would meet with favour, he took care to confirm every circ.u.mstance to his prejudice. He dwelt on the steadiness of Lord Sedley's principles; the regular communication he had with him, respecting the views of the royalists; the beauty and allurements of Constantia Beaumont, and the evident consternation of the family, together with her extreme grief at the time of Sedley's disappearing. He now hesitated and begged he might be dismissed; but a few threats of imprisonment restored his volubility, and he antic.i.p.ated the questions of the counsel by stating, that at the command of His Highness he had minutely searched the late residence of the Beaumonts, and at length found a sliding pannel concealing an arched pa.s.sage, through an extraordinarily thick wall, which, being excavated in one part, formed a small secret chamber or closet, concealed among the b.u.t.tresses, so as not to be visible on the out-side, and lighted by a small window in the roof; he found, he said, certain proof of its having been recently inhabited, and on removing the floor he discovered, with several arms and implements, the dress of a parliamentary officer; the same which he had seen Lord Sedley wear. Nor was this the only corroborative proof of his having been a.s.sa.s.sinated in that dark recess, for, on digging lower, they found several bones, which he feared were part of the remains of that unfortunate gentleman.

The incongruity of finding the dress sufficiently perfect to discover its ident.i.ty, while the body of Sedley was so dismembered by time, that only a few disjointed bones could be discovered, might have convinced the court, that they could not, without incurring great odium, find Dr.

Beaumont guilty of murder. But, indeed, they had not time to reflect on the inadmissibility of such vague circ.u.mstances in a criminal charge.

Lady Bellingham renewed her screams, to give effect, it was presumed, to the workings of compa.s.sion for a fond mother, wounded to agony by such a horrid narration. But her screams continued too long, and were too piercing, to proceed from feigned distress, and the intermingled cries of ”He is coming again! Save me!” directed the eyes of all to a figure, who was now perceived slowly making his way through the crowd below the bar. It was the aged Evellin advancing with feeble steps; his majestic form clad in a loose, black, serge gown, and his iron-grey hair and beard waving neglected over his breast and shoulders; his arched brows were still more elevated by disdain, while, glancing his eyes from his screaming sister and her trembling husband, he fixed their unextinguished l.u.s.tre on the President. ”I am an evidence for Eusebius Beaumont,” said he; ”tender me the oath. My name is Allan Neville, and I require to be confronted with Walter De Vallance, calling himself Earl of Bellingham. Let him not escape,” continued he, lifting his staff as it were an ensign of authority. ”I accuse him of perfidy, calumny, fraud, usurpation, and murder.”

Bellingham had more self-command than his guilty consort. His long acquaintance with the terrors of guilt made him ever on his guard. He knew of the preservation of Allan Neville during the civil wars, but he hoped the death of his son might have terminated his days, or irrecoverably clouded his reason; yet he was ever in apprehension of having his t.i.tle to greatness disproved by a living claimant, though he knew all written doc.u.ments to confirm his treachery had been destroyed.

He had resolved, if ever this man of many woes should burst upon him, to abide by the criminal's last resource, denial of his ident.i.ty, and solemn protestations of his own innocence: and though the abode of Neville had been so carefully concealed, that no trace of his residence in London had been discovered, even by the vigilance of Oliverian spies, the terrors to which the wretched Bellingham was a constant prey gave him a degree of adroitness in a moment of surprise. Though a coward, when only in the presence of G.o.d and his own conscience, the adhesive habits of a practised courtier, gave him effrontery and address when endeavouring to propitiate mankind in his favour.

”My Lord President,” said he, ”I must request that this unhappy maniac may be taken into custody. The sight is too dreadful to the weakened spirits of Lady Bellingham. Being a distant kinsman, we long supported him by our bounty; but his disordered imagination has persuaded him that he is the brother of my countess--that unfortunate and guilty man has been long since numbered with the dead.”

Neville answered with stern composure, ”Stand forth, David Williams; identify thy true Lord, the son of thy old master, to whom thou hast adhered in all his calamities.” Williams instantly complied with the requisition, and Neville, then turning his indignant eyes on the horror-struct Bellingham, exclaimed--”I trusted thee with my life, my fortune, and my honour--I supplicated thy aid--I depended on thy integrity, on our alliance in blood, on a friends.h.i.+p formed in our boy-hood, on a thousand instances of kindness which I have shown thee.--Thou stolest from me a pearl, rich as an empire, threwest at me the worthless sh.e.l.l, and then badest thy plundered brother be grateful for thy mercy. Mine, Walter, is not the voice of a raving mendicant, it sounds not in thine ears as the ingrat.i.tude of an eleemosynary pensioner, but as the groan of a perturbed spirit, risen from the grave to demand vengeance.”

”Hear me,” continued he, as Bellingham hid his face with his cloak. ”Am not I the friend of thy youth, the brother of thy wife, the owner of thy lands, castles, of all that thou hast, except that wretched body.--Where is my son? My Eustace; condemned by thee in cold blood at Pembroke, for being faithful to the King who enn.o.bled thee, and was then betrayed by thy treasons! Mark, traitor; at the time that thou unpitying sawest the heir of the greatness thou hast long usurped walk to execution, this innocent man, whom thou art now persecuting, preserved the life of thy only child. And dost thou reproach me with the calamities thou hast brought upon me? Remember what I was, before thy avarice and ambition cancelled the ties of blood and grat.i.tude, crushed me to the earth, and plumed thy borrowed pomp with the wings of my lineal greatness. I am now a lame, old, dest.i.tute Loyalist; yet, for ten thousand worlds, I would not cease to be the thing I am, if the alternative must be to become what thou art; a meteor, born in the concussion of the elements; a timorous slave of power, scared into the commission of any action which may prolong a life, miserable in its continuance, tremendous in its close.”

He now turned to the judges, who were gazing on him in silent consternation. ”Are you,” said he, ”administrators of the new code of criminal justice, or sworn extirpators of inconvenient rect.i.tude. You see in me the b.l.o.o.d.y malignant, whom Beaumont cherished for years in the secret chamber. Have I physical strength to a.s.sa.s.sinate a vigorous youth? This arm was rendered useless at the battle of Marston-Moor; these knees were enfeebled by infirmity, resulting from the hards.h.i.+ps I endured at the siege of Pontefract-Castle. Thus maimed and disabled, I was removed from a cave where I was hid by my kind comrades on a wain, concealed under rubbish and fed by my daughter, and by that firm friend, first in a sepulchre, and then among the ruins that sheltered his oppressed family. To justify his innocence, I commit my long painfully-preserved life to your clemency. Condemn me for what I have done for the King, to whom my heart is still faithful; bow my h.o.a.ry locks to the scaffold; cut off the useless trunk which now only serves to bear the unblemished insignia of the true Earls of Bellingham. I suffer worse than death by looking on the traitor you cherish in your bosom. But before you condemn me, mark my words--Young De Vallance lives--he is beyond your power; he is a firm royalist, and ready, like myself, to die for his King. Hear me yet again. If you determine to bring on your cause the odium of deeming an aged cripple dangerous, let my execution be private; for no pomp of death can quail my courage. On the scaffold I shall proclaim my attachment to the Sovereign, who bestowed my birth-right on that viper--the betrayer of us both. But spare Eusebius Beaumont, the minister of good to friend and foe. Keep him alive to be your beadsman, till you cease to provoke heaven by injustice and rebellion.”

The cry of ”Let us seek the Lord,” was immediately vociferated by the members of the mock tribunal. The President ordered Neville to be taken into custody. ”There needs no rush of marshals-men,” said he, ”to effect your purpose; a child may guard me to my dungeon, and a twine confine me in it. But since I have proved the innocence of Beaumont, give him the liberty I willingly resign.”

In these times of pretended freedom, a court of justice a.s.sembled to try state-criminals was nothing better than a clumsy engine of destruction, moved at the pleasure of the Protector. Condemnation and acquittal depended not on the facts which were disclosed at the trial, but on the pre-disposition of Cromwell, to whom (as was the usual interpretation of the phrase of seeking the Lord) the President immediately reported the appearance of Neville, his singular accusation of Lord Bellingham, his a.s.sertion of the existence of young De Vallance, and also of his change of principles. He suggested the impossibility of convicting Dr. Beaumont of murder; and though his concealing a royalist was now proved, the age, debility, and affinity of Neville, would make a strict execution of the penal ordinances, cruelty instead of justice; and throw an odium on His Highness's administration. Dr. Beaumont appeared to be an inoffensive, quiet character; as to Neville, though a furious, desperate delinquent, his infirmities made him insignificant, and death would probably soon relieve the state from his machinations.

At this time Cromwell courted popularity; he wished to engage honourable and eminent persons to support his government, and he thought an indisputable reputation for liberality and impartiality would expedite his ultimate projects. He had engaged some respectable characters in his service; and the description his emissaries gave him of Neville and Beaumont, showed him the impolicy of publickly sacrificing such victims for state-offences. He affected to think it was possible he might attach them to his interests, and declared he never could fear a disabled soldier and sequestered parson, but that he was even ready to vindicate the rights of a Loyalist, who had been injured by the partiality of the late tyrant, and thus prove his own impartial justice, while he transferred deserved odium on the memory of him who was called the Royal martyr. Monthault pleaded warmly for the Beaumonts, but not with disinterested earnestness. The appearance of Constantia in court revived the recollection of his former designs on her person, and as the acknowledged death of Eustace had removed what he supposed the chief barrier to his wishes, he deemed his suit might not be unsuccessfully urged, especially if he a.s.sumed the character of a mediator between her father and the government. He willingly obeyed Cromwell's order to adjourn the court to an indefinite time, till it could be ascertained if the prisoners would purchase prosperity by a change of principle, and he resolved to employ the interim in prosecuting his own designs.

CHAP. XXIV.

None but the guilty are long and completely miserable.

Goldsmith.