A.D. 1682.]

ELECTION OF LORD MAYOR.

309

trate. The real origin of this custom was unknown, some considering it as a compromise of their respective claims on the part of the lord mayor and the livery, others as a mere compliment to the chief magistrate from the livery, who still retained the power of admitting or rejecting his nomination. From the commencement of the late rebellion the practice had been laid aside, and both sheriffs had been annually elected by the common-hall. Now, however, at the recommendation of the king, sir John Moore drank, and sent the cup to a brother of the chief justice, Dudley North, who had previously consented to accept the office: but the oppoposite party, alarmed at the nomination, resolved to dispute the claim of the lord mayor. On the morning of midsummer-day the hall was crowded with the retainers of the two factions: their clamour and violence terrified the mayor: North, the chief justice, and serjeant Jeffries were privately in attendance to aid him with their advice; and lord Grey, with the members of the green ribbon club, directed the proceedings of his opponents. The show of hands was against the nominee of the chief magistrate, who after a long debate adjourned the hall to another day but Pilkington and Shute declared the proceeding irregular, continued to poll for some hours, and then adjourned the court. Thus a new question arose. On the one part it was contended that the lord mayor, as he called and dissolved, had also the right of adjourning, the common-hall; and that the sheriffs had no authority to preside in any civic court, because, though chosen by the city, they were in effect officers of the crown. On the other, that the lord mayor merely held the office of chairman, that the livery were the judges, and that the hall could not be adjourned without their consent. The dispute engrossed the public attention for several months. Breaches of the peace were committed and prosecutions instituted; the poll was renewed; opposite polls were opened, one by the Sept. mayor and the other by the sheriffs; and in conclusion 19.

the first declared North and Rich, the second Papillion and Dubois duly elected. All four demanded to be Sept. sworn; but the oaths were administered only to North 28. and Rich, and the same afternoon the old sheriffs surrendered to them the custody of the gaols and prisons*. This victory was accompanied by another. At the election of lord mayor, Gould the opposition candidate appeared to have a majority of fifty votes; but a scrutiny turned the balance in favour of Pritchard, his com petitor, and the court obtained a complete ascendency in the city, where the king had both the mayor and sheriffs at his devotion.

1. Under these circumstances Sunderland, who had already learned to condemn, hastened to repair, his error. He sought a reconciliation with the duke of York, who consented to join with the duchess of Portsmouth in soliciting the king in his favour. It was not that James at this period entertained any esteem for the versatile statesman who had so ungratefully abandoned his interests; but he feared to hazard his own influence in a contest with the duchess, who, as she had brought Sunderland into disgrace, made it a point of honour to restore him to favour. The easy monarch, happy to gratify his mistress without displeasing his 20. brother, accepted the earl's protestations of repentance, admitted him into the council, and soon afterwards replaced him in his former office of secretary of state .

Jan.

2. Another nobleman, of still greater importance to 28. the party, began to waver. Monmouth remarked the rapid decline of the Whig interest; unwelcome anticipations were awakened in his mind; and he gave a tardy assent that his wife should offer his dutiful ser

Compare North, 595. 624, with the extract from Narcissus Luttrell in State Trials, ix. 211. 219. That much irregularity occurred in these proceedings cannot be doubted: but the presumption is, that the election of the court candidates was legal, because, after the revolution, when men were eager in pursuit of vengeance, and the question was brought by petition before parliament, each house, after a separate examination of Moore and North, deemed it advisable to drop the inquiry.

+ Ralph, 697.

James (Memoirs), i. 735, 736.

A.D. 1682.]

MONMOUTH HELD TO BAIL.

311

vices to the king, as an opening to a reconciliation with both Charles and James. But the bitter reproaches of Shaftesbury, lord Russell, and his other friends, made him ashamed of his weakness; he recalled his word, and, under the pretence of visiting the earl of Macclesfield, began a progress into the north with the view of reviving the affection, and of adding to the number, of his partisans. He travelled with one hundred attendants on horseback, divided into two bodies, of which one preceded, the other followed, the duke. In the open space between them, Monmouth rode alone on a spirited charger, acknowledging, with bows and smiles, the courtesy of the spectators. In some places the higher classes deemed it prudent or loyal to shun his approach; but wherever the Whig interest prevailed, the gentlemen met him at the head of their respective tenants, and the populace were taught to welcome him with the ringing of bells, discharges of musketry, and shouts of "A Monmouth, a Monmouth, and no York!" He was careful to appear at the principal fairs, races, and public sports; at Liverpool he assumed the royal office of touching for the evil; and wherever he dined in public, covers were laid for two hundred guests, and the people, conducted by proper officers, passed in a constant stream through the apartment, that all might gratify their curiosity with a sight of their favourite. But the jealousy of the king narrowly watched his progress; daily reports were forwarded to the council; some partial disturbances in Cheshire added to the alarm; and a warrant was issued for his apprehension on the charge of "passing through the kingdom with multitudes of "riotous people, to the disturbance of the peace and the "terror of the king's subjects." He was walking in the streets of Stafford at the time he was taken into custody. Had Shaftesbury been at his ear, he would probably have returned into Cheshire, and have called on his friends to protect the king's son from the malice of his enemies; but he surrendered to the sergeant-at

arms, was conducted to the capital, and admitted to bail, himself in the sum of 10,000l., and his sureties in the sum of 20001. each *.

3. From Monmouth we may proceed to Shaftesbury whose conduct, ever since his discharge, had been to the popular leaders a subject of increasing solicitude. His temper was soured; his judgment seemed to be impaired. The growing popularity of the king, and the rapid diffusion of the doctrine of non-resistance filled his mind with terrors, and led him to the approval of projects the most fanciful and dangerous. Under the conviction that he was marked out to be made the first victim to the ascendency of the court, he looked on nothing as impracticable which offered a chance of shielding him from the royal vengeance; and with this view he was constantly employed in forming plans of insurrection with his subordinate agents, men of desperate fortunes, and equally desperate counsels. They were Walcot, formerly an officer in the Irish army under Cromwell, and afterwards engaged in several conspiracies; Rumsey, a military adventurer, who had distinguished himself in the war of Portugal; Ferguson, an independent minister from Scotland, animated with the most bitter hatred of the royal brothers; and West, a practitioner in the law, and a diligent collector and distributor of reports in the coffee-houses. These, having formed connexions with men of similar habits and principles, persuaded him that they could raise the city at his nod; but the other leaders entertained a more correct notion of his resources, and apprehensive that a premature rising might plunge the whole party into destruction, shunned his company, and objected to his proposals. The renewal of the contest for the appointment of the sheriffs, the perseverance, and finally the victory, of the king augmented his alarms. He believed that

James (Memoirs), i. 737. Macpherson, 136. Bulstrode, 319. Lord Grey's Confession, 18. West's examination in Sprat, 33. Somers' Tracts, viii. 404. Dalrymple, Mem. i. 73.

A.D.1682.]

66

his life would be in jeopardy the moment that the nomination of jurors fell into the hands of officers devoted to the crown. Once he thought of seeking a reconciliation with the duke of York: but the overture was made in language so ambiguous, that James returned this cautious answer, 66 Though lord Shaftesbury has been "the most bitter of my enemies, all his offences will be forgotten, whenever he becomes a dutiful subject to "his majesty." The earl did not pursue the attempt. Leaving his own house, he concealed himself in different parts of the city, and by repeated messages urged the duke of Monmouth, the earl of Essex, and their friends to rise in arms. But disappointment followed disappointment: his fears of discovery increased; he repaired, in the disguise of a presbyterian minister, to Harwich, whence, after some time, he sailed to the coast of Holland. Amsterdam received the fugitive; where Dec. he was afterwards visited by Oates and Waller; but anxiety and vexation had impaired his health; the gout 1683. fixed itself in his stomach; and he expired about two Jan. months after his departure from England *.

4. Under the Whig sheriffs the Whigs triumphed in the courts of justice. Their adherents were invariably acquitted; and the only chance of safety for their opponents lay in the change of the venue to an indifferent county, the grant of which by the judges was constantly followed by the abandonment of the action on the part of the prosecutor. But now the Tories were lords of the ascendant, and the Whigs in their turn learned to quail before the juries summoned by Tory sheriffs. Pilkington had scarcely laid down his office when an action of scandalum magnatum was brought against him by the duke of York, for having said, on occasion of a dinner given to that prince by the artillery company, "The "duke has burnt the city, and has now come to cut our "throats." The cause was tried before a special jury of

* James (Memoirs), i, 734. Burnet, ii. 339, 340. Lord Howard's information, Sprat, 67. 76. Lord Grey's Confession, 15. 40. D'Avaux (i. 126. 139), who fixes his death on the 24th of January. Rawleigh Redivivus, 123, 125.

21.