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The execution of Sidney is regarded as one of the greatest blemishes of the present reign. The evidence against him, it must be confessed, was not legal; and the jury who condemned him were, for that reason, very blamable. But that, after sentence passed by a court of judicature, the king should interpose and pardon a man who, though otherwise possessed of merit, was undoubtedly guilty, who had ever been a most inflexible and most inveterate enemy to the royal family, and who lately had even abused the king’s clemency, might be an act of heroic generosity, but can never be regarded as a necessary and indispensable duty.

Howard was also the sole evidence against Hambden; and his testimony was not supported by any material circumstance. The crown lawyers therefore found it in vain to try the prisoner for treason: they laid the indictment only for a misdemeanor, and obtained sentence against him. The fine imposed was exorbitant; no less than forty thousand pounds.

Holloway, a merchant of Bristol, one of the conspirators, had fled to the West Indies, and was now brought over. He had been outlawed; but the year allowed him for surrendering himself was not expired. A trial was therefore offered him but as he had at first confessed his being engaged in a conspiracy for an insurrection, and even allowed that he had heard some discourse of an assassination, though he had not approved of it, he thought it more expedient to throw himself on the king’s mercy. He was executed, persisting in the same confession.

Sir Thomas Armstrong, who had been seized in Holland, and sent over by Chidley, the king’s minister, was precisely in the same situation with Holloway: but the same favor, or rather justice, was refused him. The lawyers pretended, that unless he had voluntarily surrendered himself before the expiration of the time assigned, he could not claim the privilege of a trial; not considering that the seizure of his person ought in equity to be supposed the accident which prevented him. The king bore a great enmity against this gentleman, by whom he believed the duke of Monmouth to have been seduced from his duty; he also asserted, that Armstrong had once promised Cromwell to assassinate him; though it must be confessed, that the prisoner justified himself from this imputation by very strong arguments. These were the reasons of that injustice which was now done him. It was apprehended that sufficient evidence of his guilt could not be produced; and that even the partial juries which were now returned, and which allowed themselves to be entirely directed by Jefferies and other violent judges, would not give sentence against him.

On the day that Russel was tried, Essex, a man eminent both for virtues and abilities, was found in the Tower with his throat cut. The coroner’s inquest brought in their verdict, self-murder; yet because two children ten years old (one of whom, too, departed from his evidence) had affirmed that they heard a great noise from his window, and that they saw a hand throw out a bloody razor, these circumstances were laid hold of, and the murder was ascribed to the king and the duke, who happened that morning to pay a visit to the Tower. Essex was subject to fits of deep melancholy, and had been seized with one immediately upon his commitment: he was accustomed to maintain the lawfulness of suicide: and his countess upon a strict inquiry, which was committed to the care of Dr. Burnet, found no reason to confirm the suspicion: yet could not all these circumstances, joined to many others, entirely remove the imputation. It is no wonder, that faction is so productive of vices of all kinds; for, besides that it inflames all the passions, it tends much to remove those great restraints, horror and shame; when men find that no iniquity can lose them the applause of their own party, and no innocence secure them against the calumnies of the opposite.

But though there is no reason to think that Essex had been murdered by any orders from court, it must be acknowledged that an unjustifiable use in Russel’s trial was made of that incident. The king’s counsel mentioned it in their pleadings as a strong proof of the conspiracy; and it is said to have had great weight with the jury. It was insisted on in Sidney’s trial for the same purpose.

Some memorable causes, tried about this time, though they have no relation to the Rye-house conspiracy, show the temper of the bench and of the juries. Oates was convicted of having called the duke a Popish traitor; was condemned in damages to the amount of one hundred thousand pounds; and was adjudged to remain in prison till he should make payment. A like sentence was passed upon Dutton-Colt, for a like offence Sir Samuel Barnardiston was fined ten thousand pounds, because, in some private letters which had been intercepted, he had reflected on the government. This gentleman was obnoxious, because he had been foreman of that jury which rejected the bill against Shaftesbury. A pretence was therefore fallen upon for punishing him; though such a precedent may justly be deemed a very unusual act of severity, and sufficient to destroy all confidence in private friendship and correspondence.

There is another remarkable trial, which shows the disposition of the courts of judicature, and which, though it passed in the ensuing year, it may not be improper to relate in this place. One Rosewel, a Presbyterian preacher, was accused by three women of having spoken treasonable words in a sermon. They swore to two or three periods, and agreed so exactly together, that there was not the smallest variation in their depositions. Rosewel, on the other hand, made a very good defence. He proved that the witnesses were lewd and infamous persons. He proved that, even during Cromwell’s usurpation, he had always been a royalist; that he prayed constantly for the king in his family; and that in his sermons he often inculcated the obligations of loyalty. And as to the sermon of which he was accused, several witnesses who heard it, and some who wrote it in shorthand, deposed that he had used no such expressions as those which were imputed to him. He offered his own notes as a further proof. The women could not show by any circumstance or witness that they were at his meeting. And the expressions to which they deposed were so gross, that no man in his senses could be supposed to employ them before a mixed audience. It was also urged, that it appeared next to impossible for three women to remember so long a period upon one single hearing, and to remember it so exactly, as to agree to a tittle in their depositions with regard to it. The prisoner offered to put the whole upon this issue: he would pronounce, with his usual tone of voice, a period as long as that to which they had sworn; and then let them try to repeat it, if they could. What was more unaccountable, they had forgotten even the text of his sermon; nor did they remember any single passage but the words to which they gave evidence. After so strong a defence, the solicitor-general thought not proper to make any reply: even Jefferies went no further than some general declamations against conventicles and Presbyterians: yet so violent were party prejudices, that the jury gave a verdict against the prisoner; which, however, appeared so palpably unjust, that it was not carried into execution.

The duke of Monmouth had absconded on the first discovery of the conspiracy; and the court could get no intelligence of him. At length, Halifax, who began to apprehend the too great prevalence of the royal party, and who thought that Monmouth’s interest would prove the best counterpoise to the duke’s, discovered his retreat, and prevailed on him to write two letters to the king, full of the tenderest and most submissive expressions. The king’s fondness was revived; and he permitted Monmouth to come to court. He even endeavored to mediate a reconciliation between his son and his brother; and having promised Monmouth, that his testimony should never be employed against any of his friends, he engaged him to give a full account of the plot. But, in order to put the country party to silence, he called next day an extraordinary council, and informed them, that Monmouth had showed great penitence for the share which he had had in the late conspiracy, and had expressed his resolutions never more to engage in such criminal enterprises. He went so far as to give orders, that a paragraph to the like purpose should be inserted in the gazette. Monmouth kept silence till he had obtained his pardon in form: but finding that, by taking this step, he was entirely disgraced with his party, and that, even though he should not be produced in court as an evidence, his testimony, being so publicly known might have weight with juries on any future trial, he resolved at all hazards to retrieve his honor. His emissaries, therefore received orders to deny that he had ever made any such confession as that which was imputed to him; and the party exclaimed that the whole was an imposture of the court. The king, provoked at this conduct, banished Monmouth his presence, and afterwards ordered him to depart the kingdom.