HISTORIC SKETCHES.-IX. THE BLOODY ASSIZE. THERE are some historical events of which we gladly cherish the memory, because of the lustre they spread around our national character, or because of the intrinsic worth of the events themselves. Such are the great victories of the nation, abroad and at home, the enforcers of our foreign and colonial policy against external foes, the winners of steps onward in the path of constitutional freedom, in opposition to the tactics of absolutists and tyrants. Other events there are over which we would gladly draw a veil, if it were permitted us to do so, events so sad and disgraceful, not only to our national character, but to humanity itself, that, we would fain not look at them. But we cannot afford to lose sight of them, much as the contemplation may disgust us; we are bound in our own interests, and in the interests of those who are to come after us, not to "let oblivion damn" the record in which these ugly histories are written. There is, seemingly, a natural tendency in politics to repeat themselves, and in principles to re-assert themselves: and if, according to this rule, we may look for a re-appearance of past glories, so we must look also for a fresh advent of past evils. They may not come in the same shape-indeed, the chances are strongly against their doing so-but come they will, and it behoves us to watch very diligently against the evils lest they take us by surprise, and furnish for posterity a chapter of horrors, a counterpart of those old chapters which we are bound freshly to remember. To use the emphatic language of Lord Erskine, with reference to some irregular proceedings in the law courts, presided over by the subject of this sketch (Judge Jeffreys), which were taken off the file and burnt, "to the intent that the same might no longer be visible to after ages:"-"It was a sin against posterity; it was a treason against society; for, instead of being burnt, they should have been directed to be blazoned in large letters upon the walls of our courts of justice, that, like the characters deciphered by the prophet of God to the Eastern tyrant, they might enlarge and blacken in your sight to terrify you from acts of injustice." It is a sketch of one of those subjects which, for the above reason, should never be forgotten, that it is proposed now to bring under the notice of our readers. The Duke of Monmouth, the illegitimate son of Charles II. and Lucy Waters, having been engaged in many intrigues to procure his own elevation to the throne instead of the Duke of York (James II.), had got into trouble during his father's lifetime; but when Charles died in 1685, and his brother, James II., succeeded him, the Duke of Monmouth renewed more energetically his intrigues, and succeeded in fastening to his cause a very considerable following. There were said to exist proofs of Charles II. having been married to Lucy Waters, and though they did not actually exist, many believed they did, and on that ground alone, apart from their dislike to James, regarded him as their lawful king. Finding his party, as he fancied, sufficiently strong, he determined, in the spring of 1685, a few weeks after the king's accession, to try his hand at an invasion. With a slender force he landed on the 11th of June, at Lyme, in Dorsetshire, where many of the country people joined him. Shortly afterwards he proclaimed himself king, denounced James as a usurper, and all his adherents as traitors. In a lengthy declaration, Monmouth asserted the reasons why James ought to be deposed, and stated the measures which he intended to introduce if the people would put him in possession of the throne. Four days after landing he left Lyme at the head of over 3,000 men, raw levies for the most part, badly officered, and without the countenance or help of any of the country gentlemen. At Taunton, where the Duke was received with open arms, some addition was made to the number, but hardly to the quality of his army. At Bridport, where a detachment of his men first came in contact with the royal forces, he experienced a check, and nowhere did he gain anything by force of arms. Wells, Bridgewater, and Exeter received him; but Bath and Bristol shut their gates on him, and refused him supplies. At Sedgemoor, about five miles to the south-east of Bridgewater, in Somersetshire, he was compelled to fight on the 6th of July, by the king's general, Lord Feversham; and after a combat of some hours' duration, in which the royal troops lost about 300 men, and the rebels 800, besides three times that number of prisoners, he was completely defeated. The duke, wit'. two companions, fled before the fight was done, and galloped off in hope of ultimately reaching the Hampshire coast, but after skulking about for several days in various disguises, they were captured, and Monmouth, who had been already condemned by Act of Parlia ment, was brought to London and executed. Perhaps it cannot be said, on a calm review of the facts, that the Duke of Monmouth received anything but what he deserved. He was "the head and front of the offending," and in his person it might be said that the law fairly claimed its due. Not much could have been said on the score of strict justice if the other leaders in the rebellion had shared his fate, but the proceedings of Judge Jeffreys on the circuit, well called the "Bloody Assize," were of such a kind as to make one doubt whether even the guilty were not unwarrantably condemned. Immediately after the battle of Sedgemoor thirteen of the prisoners were hanged without trial, by order of Colonel Kirk, a brutal commander of brutal soldiers, who were called by the satirical nickname of "Kirk's Lambs." Further military executions would, no doubt, have taken place; but the king decided to have the rebels tried according to the law of the land, a decision which would have been recorded to his advantage, had he not chosen the man he did choose to put the law in motion. The prisons in the western counties, except Cornwall, which had remained loyal, were crowded with prisoners. On account of the disturbed state of the country there had not been any summer assize on the western circuit, so that the ordinary prisoners remained for trial, but the people who crowded te gaols to overflowing were the captives taken at and after Sedgemoor. For the trial of these a special commission was issued, with Jeffreys, Lord Chief Justice of England, at its head. A second commission was given to Jeffreys alone, appointing him temporarily commander-in-chief of the troops in the west, with the rank of lieutenant-general. Now Jeffreys was a man who had risen at the bar by brute force exhibited through his mind. Was there any dirty, disgusting case to be taken in hand, any utter scoundrel to be defended, any honest man to be hunted down, Jeffreys was the counsel employed. His knowledge of law was small, but the amount of his brazen hardihood was enormous, and by dint of this questionable quality he acquired a large practice of the baser sort. When the Crown, during the life of Charles II., wanted such talents for the purpose of prosecuting its enemies to death, Jeffreys came forthwith to the front. He was rapidly promoted to the highest official dignity at the bar, and when Lord William Russell and Colonel Algernon Sydney were to be tried for complicity in the Rye House Plot-a plot to waylay and assassinate the king and Duke of York on their return from Newmarket— with which neither of the accused had any real connection, it was recognised as a necessity that Jeffreys should be promoted to the office of their judge. The selection was thoroughly justi fied by the result. In defiance of the rules of evidence, even such as they were in those days, with brutal browbeating and cross-examining of witnesses from the bench, the prisoners all the while being undefended by counsel, Jeffreys, the judge, helped the Crown lawyers to procure a verdict of guilty; and having succeeded, he had the indecency to mock the prisoners after having sentenced them to death. The public of that day, not over-squeamish, were scandalised at his proceedings, and many about the court made no secret of their disgust for him; but the man was necessary to such a government as then existed, and the king distinguished him with favour. When James II. succeeded his brother, the chief justice found favour in the sight of the new king, to whom he was as necessary as he had been to Charles. When Monmouth ́s rebellion had filled the West-country gaols with prisoners, there was no fitter man than Jeffreys to clear them in the only way the Crown meant them to be cleared. With an escort of soldiers Jeffreys opened his commission at Winchester, when the only trial connected with Monmonth's rebellion was that of Alice, Lady Lisle, the widow of one of the judges of Charles I. This lady had given shelter to two refugees from the rebel army after the battle of Sedgemoor, and had denied them, when Colonel Penruddock, one of the king's officers, came to search her house. The men were found concealed on the premises (the event furnishes a subject for one of the beautiful frescoes on the walls of the entrance to the House of Commons); she was arrested for having harboured known traitors, and was indicted as a participator in their guilt. Her case was, that she did not know the men had been concerned in the rebellion; that she understood one of them, a minister, was merely persecuted for non-conformity; and she made this capital point herself for no legal assistance was in those days allowed to prisoners on trial for treason-that it was unreasonable to try her for complicity in treason, when the person implicated as the traitor had not been proved one, seeing that he had not been tried at all, and that "peradventure he might afterwards be acquitted as innocent after she had been condemned for harbouring him." This very reasonable objection was overruled by the judge, who himself examined adversely to the prisoner the witnesses for the prosecution, and then summed up in violent language against her. Some accounts, written at the time, report that the jury three times refused to find a verdict, and that it was only in consequence of the threats of the judge that they at length found her guilty. It is but right to say that the account given in the State Trials says nothing about this, though it gives enough to show the disgraceful bias of the judge against the prisoner, and the unjudicial part, and that a violent one, which he played. He expressed the greatest surprise that the jury should have hesitated so long about their verdict, adding, "If I had been among you, and she had been my own mother, I should have found her guilty." He then passed sentence, the sentence of the law be it observed, not of the judge, "That you be conveyed hence to the place from whence you came, and from thence you are to be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution, where your body is to be burnt alive till you be dead. And the Lord have mercy on your soul." This horrible sentence to death by fire was changed by the royal clemency-save the mark-to death by beheading, the utmost King James could be induced to grant to a woman. When James himself was sent into exile, an Act of Parliament reversed the attainder of Lady Lisle, on the ground that "the verdict was injuriously extorted by the menaces and violence, and other illegal practices of George, Lord Jeffreys, Baron of Wem, the Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench." At Salisbury, the next town on the circuit, various punishments, including flogging and imprisonment, were passed on rebel sympathisers who had wished "the cause" good speed; but there were not any actual rebels for trial till the judge came to Dorchester, where the real campaign began. He charged the grand jury to the effect, that he would punish with the extreme rigour of the law, not only principals, but all aiders and abettors, all who had encouraged traitors, whether by word or deed, and all who had helped any of them to escape. Several hundreds of "true bills" were found, when the meshes of the net were declared to be so ample, and Jeffreys, alarmed for his own convenience if so many prisoners were tried singly, announced that those who would plead guilty "should find him to be a merciful judge; but that those who put themselves on their trial, if found guilty, would have very little time to live; and, therefore, that such as were conscious they had no defence, had better spare him the trouble of trying them." To show that he was in earnest, he ordered thirteen out of twenty-nine of those first convicted to be hanged in thirty-six hours after sentence, and the remainder the next morning. To one man who objected to the competency of a witness, he exclaimed, "Villain! rebel! methinks I see thee already with a halter about thy neck;" and this poor man he ordered specially to be hanged first. Two aundred and ninety-two were condemned to death at this town, and seventy-four of them were actually hanged; the others were sold as slaves, and sent to the plantations in the West Indies. Cruel floggings took place, in addition to these severities, on those who had taken smaller part in the rebellion; one poor wretch was sentenced to be whipped through every market town in the county for seven years, that is to say, once a fortnight for seven years. sickening iteration, and then Jeffreys went on to Bristol, where, however, he had but three victims. Two men of tho same family having been convicted in Somersetshire, one of them was condemned to death, and the other procured a pardon; but before his release, the other man escaping, Jeffreys ordered execution to be done on the pardoned one, because "his family owed a life!" A large sum of money was made by the judge in the sale of pardons, notwithstanding the quantity of blood actually shed. As much as £15,000 was given in one case, £3,000 was refused in another, and by the time the circuit was over, Lord Jeffreys found himself rich enough to support the dignity of lord-chancellor, a post which was the reward of his zealous services in the west. Neither king nor judge profited in the end. The former lost his throne, which has been ever since barred against the return of any of his dynasty, and the spirits disembodied on the Bloody Assize sat heavily on the soul of the judge, and pressed it down to death. As soon as it was found that King James had fled on the approach of the Prince of Orange, in 1688, the people demanded with loud voices that his ill advisers should not escape. The chief one for whose punishment they thirsted was Jeffreys, and search was made high and low for him. Almost he escaped. Steps to ensure his departure from England had been “secretly taken, and, disguised as a seaman, his eyebrows shaven off, the better to conceal his features, he had arrived on board the collier which was to take him to Hamburg, when he took it into his head to go on shore. At an alehouse in Wapping he was recognised by one to whom he had, as judge, behaved brutally; a mob surrounded the house, and would have torn the fugitive to pieces, had not some soldiers rescued him and taken him to the Lord Mayor. By order of the temporary Government he was sent to the Tower, where he died miserably, before he could be brought to trial on a charge of high treason." In the West of England the man's memory is still preserved as that of an incarnate fiend, the true representative of perfect injustice, the fit sign of brutal cruelty and oppression. Probably some inventions to his disadvantage have been made by the fertile brains of angry foes, and possibly some traits of goodness may have been forgotten amidst the universal execration which has been his historical epitaph; but there are few even now-a-days who think the epithet "bloody," which is usually prefixed to Jeffreys' name, too strong for the man who presided over the special commission after Monmouth's rebellion, and who, in his capacity of judge, "played such fantastic tricks before high Heaven, as made the angels weep." Denmark, King of. Christian V.. 1670 France, King of. Louis XIV. 1643 Germany, Emperor of. Leopold I. 1658 Poland, King of John Sobieski 1674 [This monarch was the last independent king of Poland. Не At Exeter, the first man convicted was sent to instant execution. Thirty-seven more suffered death at the same place, and 206 were condemned to whipping, slavery in the West Indies, or imprisonment. At Taunton 500 prisoners awaited their trial, and Jeffreys observed, in his address to the grand jury, that "it would not be his fault if he did not purify the place." One hundred and forty-three were ordered for execution, 284 were to be sent to the plantations, and, in order that the rebellious county might be duly warned for the future, Jeffreys ordered some of many battles, and comthe condemned men to be executed in the surrounding villages.pelled them to raise the At Wells, the scenes enacted at Taunton were repeated with siege of Vienna, in 1683. defeated the Turks in LESSONS IN BOTANY.-IX. SECTION XVII.-ON THE COROLLA, ITS PARTS AND MODIFICATIONS. [hu-po-kra-teer], a saucer, from uro under, and кparηp a cup), or SECTION XVIIL-ON FRUITS AND THEIR VARIETIES. 90 91 89 100 As the calyx may be made up of one sepal, in which case it is 94 95 (Latin, papilio, a but tutes an exceedingly well - marked natural 93 96 terfly) corolla consti- 89. CRUCIFORM COROLLA OF THE CELANDINE. 90. ROSACEOUS COROLLA OF THE STRAW- division, the name being in question. Hence the technical name papilionacea has been consist wh's 101. LIGULATE are termed carpels, from kаpros, fruit, because fruit is the result of their development. Sometimes the ovary alone becomes developed into the fruit, but occasionally other parts of the flower attach themselves to the ovary, and thus become incorporated with its substance, helping to form the fruit. In the majority of cases fruit will not ripen except the Ovary has been fertilised; but many exceptions occur to this rule. Thus certain varieties of oranges, grapes, and pine-apples ripen freely enough, although the ovaries from which they spring have never been fertilised, and consequently they bear no seed. Now, even in ordinary language, we employ various terms to denominate various kinds of fruit: it follows, therefore, that since botanists recog nise many growths as fruits which we in ordinary language fail to dignify by that pleasing term, many botanical designations become necessary. There are two methods of communicating to the reader these distinctions. The first is by telling in what the distinctions consist; the second by showing in what hey consist. Perhaps the latter method, will, of the two, be the more simple. We shall therefore give drawings of some of the chief varieties of fruit, which are as follow:Pomes, or fruits resembling apples (Fig. 102); drupes, or fruits resembling cherries, peaches, plums, so called from falling from the tree when ripe the term drupe being derived from the Greek Spurяа (drup'-pa), an over-ripe olive, or Spurens (dru'-pet-ees), quite ripe, which is derived from Spus (droos), an oak or tree, and TITT (pip'-to), to fall (Fig. 103); the achanium (from the Greek a, negative, and xava [ki'-no], to gape), a term applied to hard, dry fruits, such as the fruit of the ranunculus, which do not adhere to the shell or pericarp, and do not open when ripe (Fig. 104); the caryopsis (from kapvov [kar'-ru-on], a nut, and onTw [op'-to], to see), a small dry seed-like fruit which coheres inseparably with the seed within, as in buckwheat (Fig. 105; the follicle (from the Latin folliculus, the diminutive 105 flowering plants; and we shall presently discover that seeds of follis, a windball or bag), a fruit or seed vessel which splits on one side only, as in the columbine (Fig. 106); the legume or pod (from the Latin legumen, from the verb lego, to gather), a seed-vessel which splits into two valves, having the seeds attached only to one suture or seam at the union of the margin of the valves, as in the lotus (Fig. 109); the capsule (from the Latin capsula, a little chest), a pericarp which may have one cell only, or many cells, and which splits into pieces by valves, as in the gentian (Fig. 107); the colchicum (Fig. 110), the iris (Fig. 111), the lych. nis (Fig. 117), and the corn-poppy (Fig. 108); the pyaris (from the Gr. Tugis [puke'sis], a box), a fruit which is like a box and throws off a cap, as in the pimpernel (Fig. 118); the sili qua (from the Latin siliqua, a husk or pod), a pod which splits into two pieces or valves, separat ing from a frame and which is longer than it is broad, as in the celandine (Fig. 112); the silicule (from the Latin silicula), a little pod or husk, the diminutive of siliqua, a pod, which splits into two pieces or valves, separating from a frame, and which is about as broad as it is long), as in the mustard (Fig. 113); the samara (from the Latin samera, an elm-seed), a fruit which is hard, thin, and extended into a wing at the back, as in the maple (Fig. 114); the nut (from the Anglo-Saxon hnut, or the Latin nur, nucis, a nut), as in the chestnut (Fig. 115); and the berry (from the Anglo- 102. POME. Saxon beria, a grape, a succulent or pulpy or 108 Again, perhaps the reader has at some period of his life planted a grain of wheat, barley, or, still better, Indian corn (Fig. 120). If he has done this, he may have remarked the result to have differed from that noticeable when the bean was planted. Instead of two seedleaves, or cotyledons, only one in this case appears on the young plant, which, therefore, may be said to be a monocotyledonous plant. Extending these inquiries still further, it will be found that all plants which grow by external depositions and possess reticulated leaves in other words, all exogenous plantsyield dicotyledonous seeds; and, as an inevitable consequence of this deduction, all plants which grow by internal depositions, and possess straight-veined leaves, yield monocotyledonous seeds. 103. DRUPE. fruit containing SECTION XIX.-THE SEED. The seed, everybody knows, is that part of a plant which, being sown, gives rise to a new plant. We might write a whole treatise on the nature and varieties of seeds, especially as concerns their anatomical construction, but much of this information would be out of place in a series of elementary papers; we shall, therefore, content ourselves with recapitulating some points that have already been adverted to in relation to seeds, and shall then mention some general facts concerning seeds which must not be forgotten. Seeds, the reader will remember, belong exclusively to Thus, then, it follows that even already the reader is so far master of the principles of botanical classification, that he could indicate the grand division of the vegetable kingdom to which any plant belonged by one of three classes of signs-namely, * The germination of a bean may be watched from day to day by suspending the seed over water in the mouth of a hyacinth-glass, or crocus-glass. The bean should not be allowed to do more than barely touch the water. the signs of the section of the trunk, the signs of the leaf, Sañfee. 12. Haben Sie dieselben Bücher, welde max Rather gehabt her? and, lastly, the signs of the flower. We may, therefore, divide, 13. at ter Marrose seinem Bruter geantotta! 14. Raný zabe the various members of the vegetable kingdom as follows:- feinen Brief beantwortet. LESSONS IN GERMAN-XVII. SECTION XXXL-INSEPARABLE PARTICLES. BESIDES the separable particles (Sect. XXVI.), there is another class (be, emp, ent, er, mis, ver, etc., § 94 that, unlike the former, | are never used apart from the radical words to which they are prefixed, and hence are called inseparable particles; thus by the union of these particles be, emp, ent, er, etc., with the radicals feblen, etc., we have the compounds befehlen, emrünten, enthebren erbolen, mißfallen, verbëren, zermalmen, etc., corresponding in formation to the English compounds be-tray, de-rive, dis-may, mistake, etc. With few exceptions (as begeistern, befetien), however, German, unlike most English radicais, may be used as well alone as in combination with prefixes; as, fteren, to disturb; geristen, to demolish. Many particles in German, which are used to modify radical verbs, have their exact equivalents in English, as-Deuten, to interpret; misreuten, to misinterpret; fallen, to fall; beizen, to befall, etc. (§ 97. 1, 2, etc.) In German, as in English, the inseparable particles never take the primary accent. (§ 98.) 1. Ver, which is often rendered by the English "azo," unlike the latter, always precedes the word of time to which it refers, as:-Er war vor zwei Stunten bier, he was here two hours agɔ (literally, he was here before two hours), Seit (since), when used with words denoting time, often answers to "for" or "during," as:-Grift seit einer Woche frant he has been (literally is, see Sect. XVII. 6) sick for a week., Ich habe ihn seit einem ganzen Zabre nicht geieben, I have not seen him ¦ during a whole year (a whole year since). EXERCISE 55. 1. They have recommended the foreigners to me and to you. 2. There lives in Naples a friend of mine: I stall recommend him to you. 3. One of my friends, whom you have seen with me, has travelled in America, and has written a letter to me, in which he describes his journey. 4. A man of honour lowers himself to [ver] nobody, in whatever condition he may fnd himself. 5. Did you receive the news before us? 6. I received it after you; the whole neighbourhood too was informed of it, as we received your letter. 7. The children promised their father to tion, which nobody can account for. be obedient. 8. Advantages may be derived from this inven 1. Geht Ihr Herr Bater beute mit aus? 2. Er it in oulgegangen, et it (Sect. XXII) beute Norzen sehr früh cricetorten. 3. Se t er bingegangen? 4. Grit zu seinem Nachbar gegangen, er will auf ras Yant geben. 5. We wellen Sie bingeben? 6. 3ch maj ani ren Rarit, in ren Garten, an ten Brunnen geben. 7. Sein Breum bat ihm geschrieben, daß er in Amerika angekommen ist. 8. Wann baben Sie angefangen, etich zu lernen? 9. Ich habe vor fecht Woden angefangen zu leien 10. ann wollen Sie anfangen, französich zu lernen? 11. Se babe shra angefangen zu lesen, und werte balb anfangen zu irteten. 12. Sellen Sie mit den Gefallen erzeigen, eine Samre antuinen? 13. 35 mill eð mit rem ersten Berangen thun. 14. Hut to Durimärchen tað sever scen angemat? 15. Nein, fie bat es noch nicht angemacht. EXERCISE 57. 1. Wil you have the goodness to pronounce those words to me? 2. Do you pronounce well? 3. I believe I pronounce well, but my brother pronounces better. 4. Many an innocent mind has been hurt by reading pernicious books. 3. The tempest has disturbed the company in their enjoyments, and has destroyed the house. 6. I have papers to read and letters to write. 7. Those persons who set fire to the house ought to be punished. SECTION XXXII-VARIOUS IDIOMS. Bete (plural) is declined like an adjective, and, unlike its equivalent (both), comes after the article or pronoun with which it is used as:-Die beiden inte both the hands; meine bewen Simte, both my hands. Alle (all) is sometimes, for the sake of emphasis, placed before beite, and may together be translated, "both of them," or simply," both," as-Alle beite, both of them; beth. 1. Bet neuter singular) is frequently employed to couple two things diferent in kind, whether designated by nouns alike or different in gender, asem gehört (§ 129. 2) dieses Messer und ticies Sawert? Beizes gehört meinem Greunte, both belong to my friend. at Irnen der liermacher nur tie libt, eter auch diesen Ring gemacht? Or bat Brides gemacht: or, Beite gemacht. Sint Sie mit der libt und dem Kinz zufrieden ? Nein, ich bin mit Beitem unzufrieden, tenn Sotek å mot nad meinem Wunide, no, I am dissatisfied with both, for both are not according to my wish. 12. For the pronoun "neither" the phrase feines or keing ven beten is used, as-Siben Sie das neue ever tas alte Buch? Ich habe fens von Seiten I have neither (of the two). 1. ill Jr Sohn men T ́en halten? 2. Gr dat ef gehalten, aber er bet einen Brie erhalten welchen er leien will. 3. Bu bet så viset | Sabe betraak? 4. Er hat sich out detragen, er det menen Regersdirm getragen. 3. Die Nuñen baben einen tavern Helden geunden, 6. Tu Deklichen haben viele nüßliche Kürite erfunden. 7. Diviet Bettier dat eine Stunde an der Thüre quitanden er bat mid nicht veriaNDER 8. at der Schuhmacher Zeit, mir ein Paat (Sect. LXI) Snet m midva * 9. Er bat feine Zeit, Ihnen Stiefel zu machen, er dat Andern zu viel ver Straten 10. Hat der Bauer mehr Käfer zu trinken, als rot in een * Brot genug zu essen und Wasser zu trinken, aber er dat fänen 3. Rest and Urrect like the words "right" and "wrong," are nons, a Vectives, and adverbs. The phrases, however, "to be are expressed in German by the noun, with the tomsitive verb baten as-Gr bat Recht, he (has) is right. Su beben met Wird you kn) are not wrong. right to be wrong, 4. Oben de before an abjective, signifies "just as," as:-Dieses Kind ik eben je aut murd this child is just as old as that. Dieet Mann hat eben se mal diethet e Sertant, this man has just as much prudence as understanding. |