case of the Duke's accession to the crown, the whole power should be vested in a council of forty-one; that all treaties should be negociated by commissioners taken out of this council, by which Ireland also was to be governed; and that it should have authority to fill up all vacancies, or to dismiss from employments, subject to the approbation of Parliament; that the Duke should be banished during the King's life, to some place 500 miles distant from England, to forfeit his revenue if he came nearer, and his life, if he returned to any of the King's dominions; and that whosoever harboured him in England and Ireland, should be guilty of high treason. But the further prosecution of this measure was postponed on account of the trial of Lord Stafford.

His

This nobleman had been selected out of the five then in the Tower, as the first victim, under the idea. that his age and infirmities would render him least capable of a vigorous defence. Three witnesses were produced against him, Oates, Dugdale, and Turberville. These wretches, among other grave charges, accused him of conspiring to murder the King. trial lasted six days; and all that malice could invent was employed to take away the life of this innocent man, because he was a Catholic. "He was condemned by fifty-four out of the eighty-six Peers who sat as judges, on testimony that ought not to be taken on the life of a dog."" To his eternal disgrace, Charles

signed the warrant for the execution of this unfortunate nobleman, and he was beheaded on Tower Hill, on the 29th of December. This was happily the last blood shed on account of the pretended Popish Plot. So terminated that year of horrors, 1680.

CHAPTER XIII.

Influence of the Duchess of Portsmouth.-Her league with Shaftesbury. The Duke of York indicted for Popery.Parliament removed to Oxford.-A new Plot.-Arrest of Fitzharris.-The Bill of Exclusion.-The King opens Parliament. Its sudden dissolution.-Execution of Fitzharris. -Lord Howard of Escrick.-Bishop Plunket executed.— Trial of Shaftesbury.-Visit of the Prince of Orange.The Scottish Parliament.-The Earl of Argyle convicted of high treason.-Escapes to Holland.-The Duke recalled to Court. Pilkington indicted and fined.-The Rye-House plot.-Trial and execution of Lord Russell and Algernon Sidney.-Hampden fined.-Mysterious death of Lord Essex.-Monmouth pardoned by the King.-Marriage of the Princess Anne.-Festivities on the Queen's birth-day.Gambling at Court on Sunday.-The King's illness.-Attentions of his brother.-Charles dies in the Catholic faith. -His last moments.-James proclaimed.-Unseemly treatment of the late King's remains. The royal funeral.Suspicions of poison.-Important papers found in the King's strong box.-The old Palace at Whitehall.-Character of Charles II.

T

HE heads of the factious party, though elated with their victory, durst not proceed to the trials of the other noblemen, having found the Lords much more scrupulous than they expected. The pros

pects of the Duke were not, on this account, at all improved, and he had not the least glimpse of hope from those who had most influence with the King. The Duchess of Portsmouth had of late paid great court to the Parliament men. She had placed herself near the Commons, dispensing her sweetmeats and her gracious looks among them; and, having formerly told the Duke to his face that the change of his religion was the cause of all his present evils, it was not to be doubted that she now used the like arguments with the King. Lord Sunderland not only concurred with Shaftesbury in all the proceedings against him and the Queen, but frequented the clubs of the party, and assured them, that if they would but persevere, the King would yield to the Exclusion Bill at last.

The Duchess of Portsmouth, who had need of money as well as protection, seconded the designs of Shaftesbury and his faction with all her credit. She was told that the House would not forget her among the reforms, and threatened to throw her into the scale of grievances. This they knew would frighten her entirely into their measures, to which she had already shown so great a disposition. Accordingly, she stuck at nothing to gain an interest among the Parliament men; the doors of her apartments were opened not only to many of the opposition party, but to Shaftesbury himself, who, in a jesting manner, boasted publicly of it; but others were so scandalized at this new alliance, that several were forced to clear themselves from the aspersion.1

1 Memoirs of James II., Vol. i. pp. 645-6.

There was no end to projects against the Papists, some of them as wild as they were unnatural and cruel.

On the 10th of January, 1681, the Commons having a suspicion of the King's intention to prorogue Parliament, voted that whosoever advised the King against passing the Bill of Exclusion, was a betrayer of his Majesty and the Protestant religion, a promoter of French interests, and a pensioner of France. On the same day, the prorogation actually took place; and the King, resolving not to permit this Parliament, which had offered so many indignities in their speeches and addresses, to meet any more, he dissolved it on the 18th of January, appointing the new one to meet at Oxford on the 21st of March.

The enemies of the Duke made another attempt to convict him as a Papist, by a presentment at the Old Bailey; and the grand jury, upon the affidavit of Oates, that he had seen his Highness at mass, and take the sacrament according to the rites of the church of Rome, found it a true Bill. The Duke's friends, thinking it would not be safe for him to appear in London, chose rather to remove the matter by certiorari to the King's Bench; and, if it could not otherwise be eluded, to stop it by a noli prosequi, which they had no doubt the King would grant.

The preparations made on all sides for the meeting of the new Parliament at Oxford, looked as if the debates were to be managed rather by force than argument; for which reason, the King took care not only