صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

CHAPTER XIII.

Commission of Oyer and Terminer for trying the prisoners taken at Carlisle-Opening of the Court at St Margaret's Hill, Southwark-Bills of indictment found-Trial and execution of Colonel Francis Townley and others-Affecting circumstances attending their execution-Trial of Lords Kilmarnock, Cromarty, and Balmerino-Cromarty pardoned-Execution of Kilmarnock and Balmerino-Trial and execution of Sir John Wedderburn and others-Trials and executions of other prisoners-Trial and execution of Mr Ratcliffe, titular Earl of Derwentwater-Trial and execution of Lord Lovat -Act of indemnity passed.

WHILST the issue of the contest remained doubtful the government took no steps to punish the prisoners who had fallen into their hands at Carlisle; but after the decisive affair of Culloden, when there appeared no chance of the Jacobite party ever having it in their power to retaliate, the government resolved to vindicate the authority of the law by making examples of some of the prisoners.

As it was intended to try the prisoners at different places for the sake of convenience, an act was passed empowering his majesty to try them in any county he might select. Pursuant to this act a commission of oyer and terminer, and gaol delivery for the county of Surrey passed the great seal about the latter end of Trinity term, seventeen hundred and forty-six, directed to every privy-councillor by name, to all the judges, and some private gentlemen, empowering them, or any three of them, to execute the commission. The precept was signed by the three chief judges, and made returnable on the twenty-third of June, making fifteen days exclusive between the teste and the return. that day most of the judges met at Serjeant's-inn, and from thence proceeded in order of seniority to the court-house at St Magaret's-hill, in the borough of Southwark.

On

On the two following days bills of indictment were found against thirty-six of the prisoners taken at Carlisle, and against one David Morgan a barrister, who had been apprehended in Staffordshire. The prisoners were then brought to the bar, and informed of the bills found against them, and the court ordered that they should be furnished with copies of the indictments, wich were delivered to them the same day. The court then adjourned to the third of July, on which day the prison

ers were severally arraigned. Three only pleaded guilty. The rest applied for a postponement of their trials on the ground that material witnesses for their defence were at a considerable distance. The court in consequence ruled that in cases where witnesses were in England the trial should be put off to the fifteenth of July, and where they were in Scotland, to the twenty-fifth of the same month.

The court accordingly met on the fifteenth of July, and proceeded with the trial of Francis Townley, Esquire, before a grand jury at the court-house, Southwark. This unfortunate gentleman had been colonel of the Manchester regiment. He was of a respectable family in Lancashire. Obliged to retire to France in seventeen hundred and twentyeight, he had obtained a commission from the king of France, and had served at the siege of Philipsburgh under the duke of Berwick, who lost his life before the walls of that place. He continued sixteen years in the French service; and after his return to England had received a commission to raise a regiment. A plea was set up by his counsel, that holding a commission in the French service he was entitled to the benefit of the cartel as well as any other French officer, but this was overruled, and he was found guilty. On the next, and two following days, eighteen other persons, chiefly officers in the said regiment, were brought to trial. Five were attainted by their own confession of high treason, twelve on a verdict of high treason of levying war against the king, and one was acquitted. These seventeen persons, along with Townley, were all condemned to death. The nine following were selected for execution on the thirtieth, an order to that effect having arrived the previous day, viz. Francis Townley, George Fletcher, Thomas Chadwick, James Dawson, Thomas Theodorus Deacon, Andrew Blood, Thomas Syddal, John Berwick, and David Morgan. With the exception of the last, all these were officers in the Manchester regiment. The rest were reprieved for three weeks.

The place destined for the execution of these unfortunate men was Kennington-common, to which, at an early hour in the morning of the thirtieth of July, crowds of people were seen hastening from London to witness the revolting spectacle. At six o'clock in the morning the prisoners received notice to prepare for death, and were shortly thereafter removed to the court-yard of the gaol, where they partook of some coffee. With the exception of Syddal, who began to tremble when the halter was put about his neck, the rest displayed uncommon fortitude and presence of mind. After their irons were knocked off, their arms were pinioned, and the ropes being placed about their necks they were put into three hurdles, on which they were drawn to the place of exe

• This man, who was a peruke-maker by profession, and Deacon were strongly tinged with religious enthusiasm. They made each of them the following profession of faith at their last moments: "I die a member not of the church of Rome, nor yet that of England; but of a pure episcopal church, which hath reformed all the errors, corruptions, and defects that have been introduced into the modern churches of Christendom."

cution, surrounded by a strong guard. Townley, Blood, and Berwick, and the executioner with a naked scimitar in his hand, were in the first sledge. Near the gallows a pile of faggots and a block were placed, and whilst the prisoners were removing from their hurdles into a cart under the gallows, the faggots were set on fire, and the guards formed a circle round the fire and place of execution. No clergyman of any description attended on the occasion, but the deficiency was in some measure supplied by Morgan, who read some prayers and pious meditations from a book of devotion. All the prisoners appeared to listen with great attention, and evinced their devotion by the fervour of their responses. They spent half an hour in these exercises, after which they drew some papers from their pockets which they threw among the spectators. In these papers they asserted the justice of the cause for which they were about to suffer, declared that they did not repent of their conduct in acting as they had done, and stated their conviction that their deaths would be avenged. At the same time they delivered papers of a similar description to the sheriff; and taking off their hats, some of which were gold-laced, threw them also among the crowd. These hats, it is said, contained some treasonable papers.

The prisoners being now ready, the executioner pulled caps over their eyes, and on a given signal instantly turned them off, Aster they had hung three minutes some of the soldiers went forward, and whilst they pulled off the shoes, white stockings, and breeches of these ill-fated sufferers, the executioner drew off the rest of their clothes. After they had been all stripped quite naked, Mr Townley was cut down and laid on the block. Although he had been suspended six minutes there was still life in him, to extinguish which the executioner gave him several knocks on the breast. The executioner finding that these blows had not the desired effect, he immediately cut the gentleman's throat. He then cut off the verenda, which he threw into the fire. With a cleaver he next chopped off the head, then ripped the body open, took out the bowels and heart and threw them into the fire. He finally separated the four quarters, and put them along with the head into a coffin. The other bodies underwent the same barbarous process of beheading, embowelling, and quartering. When the executioner threw the last heart into the fire, which was that of James Dawson, he vociferated, "God save the king,”. an invocation which was answered with a shout by the spectators. The mutilated remains of these unfortunate men were conveyed back to prison on the hurdles. Three days after the execution, the heads of Townley and Fletcher were fixed upon Temple-bar; and those of Deacon, Chadwick, Berwick, and Syddal were preserved in spirits for the purpose of being exposed in the same way at Carlisle and Manchester. All the bodies except Townley's were interred in the burying-ground near the Foundling hospital, that of Townley at Pancrass.

Two singular and interesting circumstances occurred at this execution The one was the attendance of a younger brother of Deacon's, and one

of those who had obtained a reprieve. At his own request he was allowed to witness the execution of his brother in a coach under the charge of a guard. The other was one of a very affecting description. Hurried away by the impetuosity of youth, James Dawson, one of the , sufferers, the son of a Lancashire gentleman, had abandoned his studies at St John's college, Cambridge, and had joined the Jacobite standard He and a young lady of a good family and handsome fortune were warmly attached to each other, and had Dawson been acquitted, or, after condemnation, found mercy, the day of his enlargement was to have been that of their marriage. When all hopes of mercy were extinguished, the young lady resolved to witness the execution of her lover, and so firm was her resolution that no persuasions of her friends could induce her to abandon her determination. On the morning of the execution she accordingly followed the sledges to the place of execution in a hackney coach, accompanied by a gentleman nearly related to her, and one female friend. She got near enough to see the fire kindled which was to consume that heart she knew was so much devoted to her, and to observe the other appalling preparations without committing any of those extravagances her friends had apprehended. She had even the fortitude to restrain her feelings while the executioner was pulling the cap over the eyes of her lover; but when he was thrown off she in an agony of grief drew back her head into the coach, and, crying out, "My dear, I follow thee, I follow thee;-sweet Jesus, receive both our souls together!" fell upon the neck of her female companion, and instant. ly expired.*

The individuals next proceeded against were persons of a higher grade. The marquis of Tullibardine escaped the fate which awaited him, having died of a lingering indisposition in the Tower on the ninth of July; but on the twenty-third of that month the grand jury of the county of Sur rey found bills for high treason against the earls of Kilmarnock, and Cromarty, and Lord Balmerino. The three indictments against these noblemen having been drawn up, a certiorari was issued from chancery removing the indictments in order to their trials by their peers, and before the return of the writ his majesty appointed Lord-chancellor Hardwicke to be the lord-high-steward for the trial of these peers. The lordhigh-steward then directed a precept under his seal to the commissioners named in the special commission to certify that the indictments were found. The indictments being certified, the house of lords, on the motion of the lord-high-steward, fixed the twenty-eighth of July for the day of trial; and a precept was directed to Lord Cornwallis, constable and lieutenant of the Tower, to bring the bodies of the prisoners that day to Westminster hall at eight o'clock in the morning.

Accordingly, at the time appointed the three lords proceeded from the

⚫ Shenstone has commemorated this melancholy event in his plaintive ballad of 'Jem my Dawson'

Tower towards Westminster-hall, in three coaches. In the first coach was the earl of Kilmarnock, attended by Lieutenant-general Williamson, deputy-governor of the Tower, and the captain of the guard. In the second was the earl of Cromarty, attended by Captain Marshall; and in the third Lord Balmerino, attended by Mr Fowler, gentleman-gaoler, who had the axe lying before him on the seat of the coach. The coaches were escorted by a strong guard of soldiers. The lord-highsteward, accompanied by the judges in their robes, the master of the rolls, and a number of officials, went to the house of peers at an early hour. After the names of the peers had been called over, and a list made of the names of those present, the whole court, preceded by the lord-high-steward, walked in procession to Westminster-hall, and took their seats. There were a hundred and thirty-five peers present. The appearance of the hall, which was elegantly fitted up, and the great pomp with which the whole proceedings were conducted, were calculated to impress every person present with feelings of awe and respect. At the request of Lord Cromarty, Mr Adam Gordon was appointed his solicitor, and Mr George Ross solicitor for the other lords, in terms of their own wish.

The prisoners were received at the gate of Westminster-hall by General Folliott. The commission having been read, and proclamation made for the lord-lieutenant of the Tower to return the precept directed to him with the bodies of the prisoners, the gentleman-gaoler brought them to the bar, the axe being carried before them by that functionary, with its edge turned away from them. After the indictments had been read, the earls of Kilmarnock and Cromarty pleaded "guilty," and threw themselves entirely upon the king's mercy. Before pleading to his indictment, Lord Balmerino stated that he was not at Carlisle at the time specified in the indictment, being eleven miles off when that city was taken, and he requested to know from his grace if it would avail him any thing to prove that fact. Lord Hardwicke said that such a circumstance might, or might not, be of use to him; but he informed him that it was contrary to form to permit him to put any questions before pleading to the indictment, by saying whether he was guilty or not guilty. His grace desiring his lordship to plead, the intrepid Balmerino apparently not understanding the meaning of that legal term, exclaimed, with great animation, "Plead! Why, I am pleading as fast as I can." The lord-high-steward having explained the import of the phrase, the noble baron answered, "Not guilty."

The trial then proceeded. Four witnesses were examined. One of them proved that he saw Lord Balmerino ride into Carlisle on a bay horse the day after it was taken by the Highlanders;—that he saw him afterwards ride up to the market-place with his sword drawn at the head of his troop of horse, which was the second troop of Charles's body guards, and was called Elphinstone's horse. Another witness deponed that he saw his lordship ride into Manchester at the head of his

« السابقةمتابعة »