Part 1 (1/2)

State Trials.

Vol. 2.

by Various.

LORD RUSSELL

Lord Russell's trial marks the moment in the latter part of Charles II.'s reign when his power reached its highest point. The Exclusion Bill was thrown out by the House of Lords in 1680, and though Stafford was tried and executed at the end of the year, the dissolution of the short-lived Oxford Parliament in April 1681 left the Country party, who had just acquired the name of Whigs, in a temporarily hopeless position.

On the 2nd of July in the same year Shaftesbury was arrested on a charge of suborning witnesses in the Popish Plot, but the bill presented against him was thrown out by the Grand Jury, which had been packed in his favour by a friendly sheriff, and he was liberated in November. An unscrupulous exercise of the power of the Court led to North (brother of the Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas, soon to become Lord Keeper) and Rich being sworn in as sheriffs in June 1682, and Shaftesbury, no longer being able to rely on his City friends, retired into hiding and entered on the illegal practices described in Russell's trial. The security afforded to the opponents of the Court was further diminished in 1683 by the suppression of the charter of the City by a writ of Quo Warranto, which, although it was too late to have any effect on Russell's conduct, may help to justify it. The position of the Country party thus appeared desperate. The King had contrived to overcome all const.i.tutional means of opposition; Shaftesbury's unscrupulous policy had alienated most of his natural adherents; his violent disposition made it impossible for his remaining followers to take advantage of the difficulties which the King was preparing for himself and his successor; and by antic.i.p.ating the crisis of 1688, Shaftesbury, Ess.e.x, and Russell brought down destruction on themselves.

Lord Russell was tried at the Old Bailey on the 13th of July 1683 before the Lord Chief-Justice, Sir Francis Pemberton,[1] the Lord Chief-Baron, Mr. William Montague, and nine other judges. There appeared for the prosecution the Attorney-General, Sir Robert Sawyer[2], the Solicitor-General, Mr. Finch[3], Serjeant Jeffreys[4], Mr. North[5].

The charge against Lord Russell was that he was guilty of high treason in conspiring to depose and kill the King, and to stir up rebellion against him. To this he pleaded Not Guilty.

He objected that he ought not to be arraigned and tried on the same day, to which it was replied that he had had more than a fortnight's notice of his trial and the facts alleged against him by having questions put to him when he was in custody in the Tower. On the first juror being called, Lord Russell objected that he was not a 40s. freeholder in the City. He was allowed to have counsel a.s.signed to him to argue as to whether this was a good ground of objection; the counsel he chose were Pollexfen[6], Holt[7], and Ward. The question was whether the statute 2 Hen. V. c. 3, which enacted that in the case of capital offences the jurors must have lands of the yearly value of 40s., applied to trials for treason or to trials in the City. It was decided by all the judges that it did not,[8] the objection was overruled, and a jury was sworn without any challenges being made.

_North_ then shortly opened the case. He alleged that in the previous October and November a council consisting of Russell, the Duke of Monmouth, Lord Grey,[9] Sir Thomas Armstrong, and one Ferguson, were plotting a rising in conjunction with the Earl of Shaftesbury. The Earl was anxious that the opportunity of the celebration of Queen Elizabeth's birthday on the 19th of November should be used for the purpose. The conspirators objected to this on the ground that Trenchard, who was to have headed a rising in the West, was not ready. On this Shaftesbury and Ferguson left the country, and the so-called council was re-organised by Armstrong and Grey being left out, and Lord Howard,[10] Lord Ess.e.x,[11]

Colonel Algernon Sidney,[12] and Mr. Hampden,[13] being taken in.

Frequent consultations were held at Russell's house, and Aaron Smith was despatched to Scotland to arrange a rising on the part of the malcontents there.

_Rumsey_[14] was called, and being sworn deposed that at the end of October or the beginning of November Shaftesbury had sent for him to his lodgings in Wapping, where he was hiding, and told him to go to the house of one Sheppard, where he could find Monmouth, Russell, Grey, Armstrong, and Ferguson, and to ask what resolution they had come to as to the rising at Taunton. He took this message accordingly, and received an answer that Trenchard had promised 1000 foot and 300 horse, but had failed them. Most of this answer was delivered by Ferguson, but others, including Russell, were in the room at the time.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL--Was there nothing of my lord Shaftesbury to be contented?

RUMSEY--Yes, that my lord Shaftesbury must be contented; and upon that he took his resolution to be gone.

LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE--Did you hear any such resolution from him?

RUMSEY--Yes, my lord.

Shaftesbury told him of the meeting; he was not there more than a quarter of an hour; he heard something of a declaration to be made, either there, or on a report of Ferguson's.

JEFFREYS--To what purpose was the declaration?

LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE--We must do the prisoner that right; he says he cannot tell whether he had it from him or Mr. Ferguson.

There was some discourse begun by Armstrong as to the posture of the guards at the Savoy and at the Mews. Monmouth, Grey, and Armstrong, in Russell's presence, undertook to see the guards,

with what care and vigilance they did guard themselves at the Savoy and Mews, whether they might be surprised or not.

The rising was to be on the 19th of November. It was arranged by Shaftesbury that he himself was to go to Bristol, in what capacity it was not stated.

JEFFREYS--If my lord Russell pleases to ask him any questions he may.

LORD RUSSELL--I have very few questions to ask him for I know little of the matter; for it was the greatest accident in the world I was there, and when I saw that company was there I would have been gone again. I came there accidentally to speak with Mr. Sheppard; I had just come to town, but there was no discourse of surprising the guards, nor no undertaking of raising an army.

LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE--We will hear you to anything by and by, but that which we desire to know of your lords.h.i.+p is, as the witnesses come, to know if you would have any particular questions asked of them.

On being pressed by Russell, Rumsey repeated that Russell 'did discourse of the rising' at Taunton and consented to it.