IV.

1658.

BOOK the different petitions of the disaffected, to arrest the most dangerous republicans, to organise the city-militia, to check the appearances of mutiny in the army, to trace by the instrumentality of his spies the communications of the purposed insurgents, and to block up the ports of Flanders so as to prevent the coming out of a foreign enemy.

517

CHAPTER XXX.

TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF SIR HENRY SLINGSBY.
-OF DR. HEWIT.-MORDAUNT ACQUITTED.—
PLAN FOR SURPRISING THE METROPOLIS.-TWO
OF THE CONSPIRATORS HANGED AND QUAR-
TERED. DEATH OF WARWICK.

XXX.

1658. Proceed

ings against engaged in treason re

the persons

solved on.

THE next thing the government had to consider CHAP. was, how to proceed respecting those persons who had been unequivocally detected in projects for raising war, and plunging the community in bloodshed. Thurloe very justly observes in a letter to Henry Cromwel, that it was necessary for the rulers so to conduct themselves, that the country should not every year periodically be exposed to such attempts as the present. This coincides with the remark of Clarendon b, that winter was the season in which only attempts were to be tried upon England. It was resolved therefore that some examples should be made, to deter men from such aggressions in future. The principal victims fixed on were Dr. Hewit, an episcopal clergyman, who seems to have been indefatigable in en

a

Thurloe, Vol. VII, p. 84.

See above, p. 499.

IV.

1658.

BOOK listing new partisans to give effect to the insurrection ; and sir Henry Slingsby, who was deeply involved in Penruddock's attempt, but who had been spared at that time, and had since been several times a state-prisoner in the castle of Hulle. Nothing it seems could deter this generous loyalist from at all times expressing his partialities in the most unequivocal manner, or from entering into any project of conspiracy that was set before him'. A third intended victim was John Mordaunt, next brother to the earl of Peterborough. This gallant youth, though only twenty years of age 5, and lately married to a young lady of great spirit and beauty, could not withhold himself from what he deemed so auspicious an occasion for pressing the restoration of the legitimate successor of so illustrious a line of kings".

High court of justice.

England was not yet in a state of tranquillity that would authorise her governors in referring a question of this sort to a trial by jury and accordingly, on the twenty-seventh of April, a commission passed the great seal for organising a high court of justice, agreeably to an act passed early in the last parliament, for the security of the protector's person, and the continuance of the

XXX.

1658.

nation in peace and safety. This act provided CHAP. that, for the trial of the offences therein described, the lord chancellor or keepers of the seal should issue from time to time, by warrant from the protector, a commission to the lords of the treasury, the twelve judges, the master of the rolls, and one hundred and thirty other persons therein named, constituting, according to the language of those times, a high court of justice, who were by a majority of voices to regulate their own proceedings, and to pronounce upon the innocence or guilt of such persons as, by the appointment of the protector, should be accused before them. The names of these one hundred and thirty persons, with the great officers of justice and the state, were accordingly inserted in the commission now issued. The court, thus constituted, sat for the first time on the twelfth of May, and again on the seventeenth, and the twentieth'.

Hewit, colonel John Russel and sir William Compton were finally committed to the Tower in the first week of April m, and Mordaunt shortly after". These names occur again as prisoners on the nineteenth of May, with the addition of Slingsby and Willis. On the

an

Mercurius Politicus, Apr. 29. 'Mercurius Politicus, May 13, 20. m Public Intelligencer, Apr. 12. • Mercurius Politicus, May 20.

* Scobel, 1656, cap. 3. Public Intelligencer, May 24.

n

Ibid, May 3.

BOOK order was issued by Cromwel for the trial of

IV.

1658.

Trial of Slingsby.

of Hewit.

Hewit, Mordaunt, Slingsby, and two other per-
sons P. Thurloe states in April, that the whole
time of the administration was taken up in making
discoveries, that sir William Waller was fully en-
gaged with the conspirators, and that, though
Fairfax perhaps was not, they certainly promised
themselves much from his discontents 9. May-
nard was promoted to be serjeant to the protec
tor on the first of May, in order to his being
employed as counsel for the state on the trials. ·
Slingsby was brought to trial and convicted on
the twenty-fifth of that month, and then the court
immediately adjourned to the first of June.
On that day Hewit was tried, and, persisting

P Public Intelligencer, May 24.

Thurloe, Vol. VII, p. 83, 84, 100.

Public Intelligencer, May 3. He was one of the members excluded from the house at the meeting of parliament in September 1656 (Journals, Sept. 19), and therefore must be considered as having been at that time an anti-courtier. His name however is not annexed to the celebrated remonstrance (See above, p. 291). Sir Thomas Widdrington, the brother-in-law of Fairfax, and speaker of the late parliament, was sworn into the office of chief baron of the exchequer on the twenty-sixth of June (Public Intelligencer, June 28. Whitlocke), after a vacancy of two years from the appointment of Steele to be lord chancellor of Ireland (See above, p. 453). He had taken a conspicuous part in the consultations of December 1648 (See above, Vol. II, p. 653, 654), and is supposed to have supported the proposition for placing the crown on the head of the duke of Gloucester (Whitlocke, Dec. 23).

$ Mercurius Politicus, May 27.