XCVII. before he might do it with safety to his dignity. He in- CHAP. tended to stay till the King would bear him no longer, and then make it his Majesty's own act to remove him." * A. D. 1685. into uni versal dis He felt keenly a sense of the insignificance and disfavour He falls into which he had fallen; and the anticipation of " the worse remaining behind," when he was to be finally kicked out, credit. preyed upon his spirits. No longer was he ear-wigged by the Lord Cravens, who worship a favourite; no more did the foreign ambassadors bow low when they thought that he observed them: his levee was now deserted; he seemed to himself to discover a sneer on every countenance at Whitehall; and he suspected that the bar, the officers of the Court, and the by-standers in Chancery, looked at him as if they were sure of his coming disgrace. To shade himself from observation, while he sat on the bench he held a large nosegay before his face. † under mined. Dreadfully dejected, he lost his appetite and his strength. His health He could not even get through the business of the Court; and remanets multiplying upon him kept him awake at night, and haunted him in his sleep. He drooped so much, that for some time he seemed quite heart-broken. At last, he had an attack of fever, which confined him to his bed. at the coronation like a The coronation was approaching, and it was important that He walks he should sit in the "Court of Claims." Having recovered a little by the use of Jesuits' bark, he presided there though still extremely weak;-and he walked at the Coronation "as a ghost with the visage of death upon him, such a sunk and spiritless countenance he had."‡ ghost. 1685. While he was in this wretched state, news arrived of the June 13. Duke of Monmouth having landed in the West of England and raised the standard of rebellion. The parliament, having mouth's recome to a number of loyal votes, having attainted the Duke, and granted a supply, was adjourned, that the members July 2. might assist in preserving tranquillity in their several districts. bellion. The Lord Keeper talked of resigning, and wrote a letter Lord to the Earl of Rochester, to ask leave to go into the country Keeper obfor the recovery of his health, saying, "I have put myself of absence. into the hands of a doctor, who assures me of a speedy cure tains leave * Life, ii. 222. 239. † Ibid. 133. Ibid. 205. XCVII. CHAP. by entering into a course of physic." Leave was given, and he proceeded to Wroxton, in Oxfordshire, the seat which beA. D. 1685. longed to him in right of his wife. He retires to Wrox ton. False state ment of Roger North that the Lord Keeper interposed to cruelties of Jeffreys. stop the Here he languished while the battle of Sedgemoor was fought,― Monmouth, after in vain trying to melt the heart of his obdurate uncle, was executed on Tower Hill under his parliamentary attainder, — and the inhuman Jeffreys, armed with civil and military authority, set out on his celebrated "campaign." Roger North would make us believe that the dying Guilford was horrified by the effusion of blood which was now incarnardining the western counties by command of the Lord General Chief Justice, and that he actually interposed to stay it :-"Upon the news returned of his violent proceedings, his Lordship saw the King would be a great sufferer thereby, and went directly to the King, and moved him to put a stop to the fury, which was in no respect for his service; but in many respects for the contrary. For though the executions were by law just, yet never were the deluded people all capitally punished; and it would be accounted a carnage and not law or justice; and thereupon orders went to mitigate the proceeding. I am sure of his Lordship's intercession to the King on this occasion, being told it at the very time by himself." It is painful to doubt this exertion of mercy and firmness by the Lord Keeper; but an attention to dates, of which the biographer is always so inconceivably negligent, shows the story to be impossible. Jeffreys did not open his campaign by the slaughter of the Lady Lisle, at Winchester, till the 27th of August, and he carried it on with increased cruelty till the very end of September.* On the 5th of September, died Lord Keeper Guilford, at Wroxton, after having been for some weeks in a state of such debility and exhaustion, that, able only to attend to his spiritual concerns, he thought no more of domestic treason or foreign levy than if he had already slept in the grave. † 11 St. Tr. 297. et seq. Roger (I will not say from any bad motive) does not mention the day of his brother's death; but this is placed beyond all doubt by the entry on the record respecting the appointment of his successor. Cr. Off. Min. Book, 121. This is like a story he tells equally incredible and impossible, of a caution given by the Lord Keeper in an interview with the King, after Monmouth's execution, to beware of the Prince of Orange. — Life, ii. 227. Monmouth was executed on the 15th of July, and the Lord Keeper and the King never could have met afterwards. See Ralph, i. 893. 11 St. Tr. 303. XCVII. A. D. 1685. For a short time after his arrival there, he rallied, from CHAP. the use of mineral waters, but he soon had a relapse, and he could with difficulty sign his will. He was peevish and fretful during his sickness, but calmly met his end. "He advised his friends not to mourn for him, yet commended an old maidservant, for her good will, that said, As long as there is life there is hope. At length, having strove a little to rise, he Death of said, It will not do,- and then, with patience and resignation, Keeper lay down for good and all, and expired.' He was buried in Wroxton Church, in a vault belonging to his wife's family, the Earls of Down. There is no other monument to him than a large marble slab in the middle of the floor of the chancel, bearing the following inscrip tion: "Here lyeth the body of the Right Honble Francis Lord Guilford, He was borne the 22d of October, 1637, and departed this life the 5th of "He was a crafty and designing man," says Bishop Burnet. Lord Guilford. His epi taph. His character by Bishop Burnet. Guilford had as much law as he could contain, but he was His merits incapable of taking an enlarged and commanding view of as a lawyer, any subject. The best specimen of his juridical powers is his judgment, when Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, in the * Life, ii. 215. † O. T. ii. 185. 357. CHAP. XCVII. As a politician. He lament ed the abolition of military tenures. great case of Soames v. Barnardiston, in which it was decided He labours under the imputation of once having expressed a constitutional sentiment, "that his Majesty's defensive weapons were his guards, and his offensive weapons the laws, and that rebels were to be overcome by opposing force to force, but to be punished only by law," which from its rarity caused a great sensation. But where he was not under the apprehension of personal responsibility, there was nothing which he would not say or do to exalt the prerogative and to please his patrons. I shall add only one instance. Sir Thomas Armstrong was outlawed for high treason while beyond the seas, unless he surrendered within a year. Being sent over a prisoner from Holland within a year, he insisted that he was entitled to a writ of error to reverse the outlawry and to be admitted to make his defence; but the Lord Keeper refused him his writ of error, first, on the pretence that there was no fiat for it by the Attorney General, and then, that he had no right to reverse his outlawry as he was present by compulsion. Thus the unhappy victim was sent to instant execution without trial. † So zealous a Conservative was Guilford, that "he thought the taking away of the tenures" (i. e. the abolition of wardship and the other oppressive feudal burdens introduced at the Conquest) "a desperate wound to the liberties of the people." The Court wags made great sport of him, the Earl of the butt of Sunderland taking the lead, and giving out the signal, while He was the Court jesters. * 6 St. Tr. 1092. 1098. His judgment was confirmed on a writ of error by the House of Lords after the Revolution. · See Lord Campbell's Speeches, 277. † 10 St. Tr. 106. XCVII. riding on a Jeffreys was always ready to join in the laugh. I may give as CHAP. an example "the story of the Rhinoceros." My Lord Keeper went one day into the City, accompanied by his brother Sir Dudley, to see a Rhinoceros of enormous size lately imported, and about to be exhibited as a show.* Next morning, at White- Story of his hall, a rumour was industriously spread, that the Lord Keeper Rhinohad been riding on the Rhinoceros, "and soon after dinner ceros. some Lords and others came to his Lordship to know the truth from himself; for the setters of the lie affirmed it positively, as of their own knowledge. That did not give his Lordship much disturbance, for he expected no better from his adversaries. But that his friends, intelligent persons, who must know him to be far from guilty of any childish levity, should believe it, was what roiled him extremely, and much more when they had the face to come to him to know if it were true. So it passed; and the Earl of Sunderland, with Jeffreys and others of that crew, never blushed at the lie of their own making, but valued themselves upon it as a very good jest."t To see how far his compliance with the humours of the Court would go, they next persuaded his own brother-in-law (that he might not suspect the hoax) to wait upon him, and in strict confidence, and with great seriousness, to advise him to keep a mistress, "otherwise he would lose all his interest with the King; for it was well understood that he was ill looked upon for want of doing so, because he seemed continually to reprehend them by not falling in with the general custom; and the messenger added, that if his Lordship pleased, he would help him to one." He declined the offer, -with much politeness, however, lest he should give offence. But with his familiar friends "he made wonderfully merry with this state-policy, especially the procuring part, and said, that if he were to entertain a madam, it should be one of his own choosing, and not one of their state trumpery.”‡ * Evelyn tells us that this was the first Rhinoceros ever introduced into England, and that it sold for 20007. Shakspeare may have seen "the Hyrcan Tiger," but he could only have heard, or read, or seen a picture of "the armed Rhinoceros." Life, ii. 167. The marginal note to this anecdote by Roger is amusing: "The foolish lie of the Rhinoceros. His Lordship much roiled thereat." Life, ii. 165. The advice to him to keep a mis tress. |