IV. THE NIGHT OF CHARITY--The Case Of The Lady Alice Lisle
Of all the cases tried in the course of that terrible circuit, justlyknown as the Bloody Assizes, the only one that survives at all in thepopular memory is the case of the Lady Alice Lisle. Her advanced age,the fact that she was the first woman known in English history to havesuffered death for no worse an offence than that of having exercised thefeminine prerogative of mercy, and the further fact that, even so, thisoffence--technical as it was--was never fully proved against her, areall circumstances which have left their indelible stamp of horror uponthe public mind. There is also the further circumstance that hers wasthe first case tried in the West by that terrible Chief Justice, BaronJeffreys of Wem.
But the feature that renders her case peculiarly interesting to thehistorical psychologist--and it is a feature that is in danger of beingoverlooked--is that she cannot really be said to have suffered for thetechnical offence for which she took her trial. That was the pretextrather than the cause. In reality she was the innocent victim of arelentless, undiscerning Nemesis.
The battle of Sedgemoor had been fought and lost by the Protestantchampion, James, Duke of Monmouth. In the West, which had answered theDuke's summons to revolt, there was established now a horrible reign ofterror reflecting the bigoted, pitiless, vindictive nature of the King.Faversham had left Colonel Percy Kirke in command at Bridgwater, aruthless ruffian, who at one time had commanded the Tangier garrison,and whose men were full worthy of their commander. Kirke's Lambs theywere called, in an irony provoked by the emblem of the Paschal Lamb onthe flag of this, the First Tangier Regiment, originally levied to wagewar upon the infidel.
From Bridgwater Colonel Kirke made a horrible punitive progress toTaunton, where he put up at the White Hart Inn. Now, there was a verysolid signpost standing upon a triangular patch of green before thedoor of the White Hart, and Colonel Kirke conceived the quite facetiousnotion of converting this advertisement of hospitality into a gallows--asignpost of temporal welfare into a signpost of eternity. So forth hefetched the prisoners he had brought in chains from Bridgwater, andproceeded, without any form of trial whatsoever, to string them upbefore the inn. The story runs that as they were hoisted to thatimprovised gibbet, Kirke and his officers, standing at the windows,raised their glasses to pledge their happy deliverance; then, whenthe victims began to kick convulsively, Kirke would order the drumsto strike up, so that the gentlemen might have music for their betterdancing.
The colonel, you see, was a humorist, as humour was then understood uponthe northern shores of Africa, where he had been schooled.
When, eventually, Colonel Kirke was recalled and reprimanded, it was notbecause of his barbarities many of which transcend the possibilities ofdecent print--but because of a lenity which this venal gentleman beganto display when he discovered that many of his victims were willing topay handsomely for mercy.
Meanwhile, under his reign of terror, men who had cause to fear theterrible hand of the King's vengeance went into hiding wherever theycould. Among those who escaped into Hampshire, thinking themselves saferin a county that had not participated in the war, were a dissentingparson named George Hicks, who had been in Monmouth's army, and a lawyernamed Richard Nelthorp, outlawed for participation in the Rye HousePlot. In his desperate quest for shelter, Hicks bethought him of thecharitable Nonconformist lady of Moyle's Court, the widow of that JohnLisle who had been one of Cromwell's Lords Commissioners of the GreatSeal, and most active in bringing King Charles I to justice.
John Lisle had fled to Switzerland at the Restoration; but Stuartvengeance had followed him, set a price upon his head, and procuredhis murder at Lausanne. That was twenty years ago. Since then his lady,because she was known to have befriended and sheltered many Royalists,and because she had some stout Tory friends to plead for her, wasallowed to remain in tranquil possession of her estates. And there theLady Alice Lisle--so called by courtesy, since Cromwell's titles did notat law survive the Restoration--might have ended her days in peace, butthat it was written that those who hated her--innocent and aged thoughshe was--for the name she bore, who included her in the rancour whichhad procured her husband's assassination, were to be fully satisfied.And the instrument of fate was this parson Hicks. He prevailed uponDunne, a baker of Warminster, and a Nonconformist, to convey to the LadyLisle his prayer for shelter. With that message Dunne set out on July25th for Ellingham, a journey of some twenty miles. He went by way ofFovant and Chalk to Salisbury Plain. But as he did not know the waythence, he sought out a co-religionist named Barter, who undertook, fora consideration, to go with him and direct him.
Together the pair came in the late afternoon of that Saturday to thehandsome house of Moyle's Court, and to my lady's steward, who receivedthem. Dunne, who appears to have been silly and imprudent, states thathe is sent to know if my lady will entertain a minister named Hicks.
Carpenter, the steward, a staid, elderly fellow, took fright at once.Although he may not have associated an absconding Presbyterian parsonwith the late rebellion, he must have supposed at least that he was oneof those against whom there were warrants for preaching in forbiddenprivate meetings. So to her ladyship above stairs Carpenter conveyed awarning with the message.
But that slight, frail, homely lady of seventy, with kindly eyes ofa faded blue, smiled upon his fears. She had sheltered fugitivesbefore--in the old days of the Commonwealth--and nothing but good hadever come of it. She would see this messenger.
With misgivings, Carpenter haled Dunne into her presence, and left themalone together. The impression conveyed by Dunne was that Hicks wasin hiding from the warrants that were out against all Nonconformistpreachers. But when he mentioned that Hicks had a companion, she desiredto know his name.
"I do not know, my lady. But I do not think he has been in the army,either."
She considered a while. But in the end pity conquered doubt in hersweetly charitable soul.
"Very well," she said, "I will give them entertainment for a week.Bring them on Tuesday after dark, and come by the back way through theorchard, that they may not be seen."
And upon this she rose, and took up an ebony cane, herself to reconducthim and to see to his entertainment before he left. Not until they cameto the kitchen did she realize that he had a companion. At sight ofBarter, who rose respectfully when she entered, she checked, turned toDunne, and whispered something, to which his answer provoked from her alaugh.
Now Barter, intrigued by this whispering and laughing, of which hedeemed himself the object, questioned Dunne upon it as they rode forthagain together.
"She asked me if you knew aught of the business," replied Dunne; "and Ianswered 'No."'
"Business, say'st thou?" quoth Barter. "What business?"
"Sure, the business on which we came," Dunne evaded; and he laughed.
It was an answer that left Barter uneasy. Nor was his mind set at restby the parting words with which Dunne accompanied the half-crown for hisservices.
"This is but an earnest of what's to come if you will meet me here onTuesday to show me the way to Moyle's Court again. I shall be bringingtwo gentlemen with me--wealthy men, of a half-score thousand pounds ayear apiece. I tell you there will be a fine booty for my part, so finethat I shall never want for money again all the days of my life. And, sothat you meet us here, you too may count upon a handsome reward."
Consenting, Barter went his ways home. But as he pondered Dunne's sillyspeech, and marvelled that honest men should pay so disproportionatelyfor an honest service, he came to the reasonable conclusion that he hadto do with rebels. This made him so uneasy that he resolved at last tolodge information with the nearest justice.
Now, it happened, by the irony of Fate, that the justice sought byBarter was one Colonel Penruddock--the vindictive son of that Penruddockwhom the late John Lisle--whilst Lord President of the High Court--hadsentenced to death some thirty years ago for participation in anunsuccessful Wiltshire rising against the Commonwealth.
The colonel, a lean, stark man of forty-five, heard with interestBarter's story.
"Art an honest fellow!" he commended him. "What are the names of theserogues?"
"The fellow named no names, sir."
"Well, well, we shall discover that for ourselves when we come to takethem at this trysting-place. Whither do you say you are to conductthem?"
"To Moyle's Court, sir, where my Lady Lisle is to give thementertainment."
The colonel stared a moment; then a heavy smile came to light thesaturnine face under the heavy periwig. Beyond that he gave no sign ofwhat was passing in his mind.
"You may go," he said slowly, at last. "Be sure we shall be at the trystto take these rascals."
But the colonel did not keep his promise. To Barter's surprise, therewere no soldiers at the tryst on Salisbury Plain on the followingTuesday; and he was suffered to lead Dunne and the two men with him theshort, corpulent Mr. Hicks and the long, lean Nelthorp--to Moyle's Courtwithout interference.
The rich reward that Dunne had promised him amounted in actual factto five shillings, that he had from Nelthorpe at parting. Puzzled byColonel Penruddock's failure to do his part, Barter went off at onceto the colonel's house to inform him that the pair were now at LadyLisle's.
"Why, that is very well," said the colonel, his smile more sinister thanever. "Trouble not yourself about that."
And Barter, the unreasoning instrument of Fate, was not to know thatthe apprehending of a couple of traitorous Jack Presbyters was of smallaccount to Colonel Penruddock by comparison with the satisfaction of theblood-feud between himself and the House of Lisle.
Meanwhile the fugitives were being entertained at Moyle's Court, andwhilst they sat at supper in a room above-stairs, Dunne being still ofthe party, my lady came in person to see that they had all that theyrequired, and stayed a little while in talk with them. There was somemention of Monmouth and the battle of Sedgemoor, which was natural, thatbeing the topic of the hour.
My lady asked no questions at the time regarding Hicks's long, leancompanion. But it occurred to her later that perhaps she should knowmore about him. Early next morning, therefore, she sent for Hicks as hewas in the act of sitting down to breakfast, and by her direct questionselicited from him that this companion was that Richard Nelthorp outlawedfor his share in the Rye House Plot. Not only was the informationalarming, but it gave her a sense that she had not been dealt withfairly, as indeed she told him.
"You will see, sir," she concluded, "that you cannot bide here. So longas I thought it was on the score of Nonconformity alone that you weresuffering persecution, I was willing to take some risk in hiding you.But since your friend is what he is, the risk is greater than I shouldbe asked to face, for my own sake and for that of my daughters. Norcan I say that I have ever held plottings and civil war in anything butabhorrence--as much in the old days as now. I am a loyal woman, and asa loyal woman I must bid you take your friend hence as soon as your fastis broken."
The corpulent and swarthy Hicks stood dejectedly before her. He mighthave pleaded, but at that moment there came a loud knocking at the gatesbelow, and instantly Carpenter flung into the room with a white, scaredface and whirling gestures.
"Soldiers, my lady!" he panted in affright. "We have been betrayed. Thepresence of Mr. Hicks here is known. What shall we do? What shall wedo?"
She stood quite still, her countenance entirely unchanged, unless itwere to smile a little upon Carpenter's terror. The mercy of her naturerose dominant now.
"Why, we must hide these poor fellows as best we can," said she; andHicks flung down upon one knee to kiss her hand with protestations thathe would sooner be hanged than bring trouble upon her house.
But she insisted, calm and self-contained; and Carpenter carried Hicksaway to bestow him, together with Dunne, in a hole in the malt-houseunder a heap of sacking. Nelthorp had already vanished completely on hisown initiative.
Meanwhile, the insistent knocking at the gate continued. Came shouteddemands to open in the name of the King, until from a window my lady'sdaughters looked out to challenge those who knocked.
Colonel Penruddock, who had come in person with the soldiers to raid thehouse of his hereditary foe, stood forth to answer, very stiff and bravein his scarlet coat and black plumed hat.
"You have rebels in the house," he announced, "and I require you in theKing's name to deliver them up to me."
And then, before they could answer him, came Carpenter to unbar thedoor, and admit them to the court. Penruddock, standing squarely beforethe steward, admonished him very sternly.
"Friend," said he, "you had best be ingenuous with me and discoverwho are in your lady's house, for it is within my knowledge that somestrangers came hither last night."
The stricken Carpenter stood white-faced and trembling.
"Sir--sir--" he faltered.
But the colonel was impatient.
"Come, come, my friend. Since I know they are here, there's an end on't.Show me where they are hid if you would save your own neck from thehalter."
It was enough for Carpenter. The pair in the malthouse might haveeluded all search but for the steward's pusillanimity. Incontinently, hebetrayed the hiding-place.
"But, sir, of your charity do not tell my mistress that I have told you.Pray, sir--"
Penruddock brushed him aside as if he had been a pestering fly, and withhis men went in, and straight to the spot where Hicks and Dunne werelurking. When he had taken them, he swung round on Carpenter, who hadfollowed.
"These be but two," he said, "and to my knowledge three rogues camehither last night. No shufling with me, rascal. Where have you bestowedthe other?"
"I swear, as Heaven's my witness, I do not know where he is," protestedthe afflicted steward, truly enough.
Penruddock turned to his men.
"Make search," he bade them; and search was made in the ruthless mannerof such searches.
The brutal soldiers passed from room to room beating the wainscotingwith pike and musket-butts, splintering and smashing heedlessly. Presseswere burst open and their contents scattered; chests were broken intoand emptied, the searchers appropriating such objects as took theirfancy, with true military cynicism. A mirror was shattered, and someboards of the floor were torn up because a sergeant conceived that theblows of his halbert rang hollow.
When the tumult was at its height, came her ladyship at last into theroom, where Colonel Penruddock stood watching the operations of his men.She stood in the doorway leaning upon her ebony cane, her faded eyesconsidering the gaunt soldier with reproachful question.
"Sir," she asked him with gentle irony, masking her agitation, "has myhouse been given over to pillage?"
He bowed, doffing his plumed hat with an almost excessive courtesy.
"To search, madame," he corrected her. And added: "In the King's name."
"The King," she answered, "may give you authority to search my house,but not to plunder it. Your men are robbing and destroying."
He shrugged. It was the way of soldiers. Fine manners, he suggested,were not to be expected of their kind. And he harangued her upon thewrong she had done in harbouring rebels and giving entertainment to theKing's enemies.
"That is not true," said she. "I know of no King's enemies."
He smiled darkly upon her from his great height. She was so frail a bodyand so old that surely it was not worth a man's while to sacrificeher on the altar of revenge. But not so thought Colonel Penruddock.Therefore he smiled.
"Two of them, a snivelling Jack Presbyter named Hicks and a rascal namedDunne, are taken already. Pray, madame, be so free and ingenuous with meaye, and so kind to yourself--as if there be any other person concealedin your house--and I am sure there is somebody else--to deliver him up,and you shall come to no further trouble."
She looked up at him, and returned him smile for smile.
"I know nothing," she said, "of what you tell me, or of what you ask."
His countenance hardened.
"Then, mi
stress, the search must go on."
But a shout from the adjoining room announced that it was at an end.Nelthorp had been discovered and dragged from the chimney into which hehad crept.
Almost exactly a month later--on August 27th the Lady Alice Lisle wasbrought to the bar of the court-house at Winchester upon a charge ofhigh treason.
The indictment ran that secretly, wickedly, and traitorously she didentertain, conceal, comfort, uphold, and maintain John Hicks, knowinghim to be a false traitor, against the duty of her allegiance andagainst the peace of "our sovereign lord the King that now is."
Demurely dressed in grey, the little white-haired lady calmly faced theLord Chief Justice Jeffreys and the four judges of oyer and terminer whosat with him, and confidently made her plea of "Not Guilty."
It was inconceivable that Christian men should deal harshly with her fora technical offence amounting to an act of Christian charity. And thejudge, sitting there in his robe of scarlet reversed with ermine, lookeda gentle, kindly man; his handsome, oval, youthful face--Jeffreys was inhis thirty-sixth year--set in the heavy black periwig, was so pale thatthe mouth made a vivid line of scarlet; and the eyes that now surveyedher were large and liquid and compassionate, as it seemed to her.
She was not to know that the pallor which gave him so interesting anair, and the dark stains which lent his eyes that gentle wistfulness,were the advertisements at once of the debauch that had kept him fromhis bed until after two o'clock that morning and of the inexorabledisease that slowly gnawed away his life and enraged him out of allhumanity.
And the confidence his gentle countenance inspired was confirmed bythe first words he had occasion to address to her. She had interruptedcounsel to the Crown when, in his opening address to the jury--composedof some of the most considerable gentlemen of Hampshire--he seemed toimply that she had been in sympathy with Monmouth's cause. She was, ofcourse, without counsel, and must look herself to her defence.
"My lord," she cried, "I abhorred that rebellion as much as any woman inthe world!"
Jeffreys leaned forward with a restraining gesture.
"Look you, Mrs. Lisle," he admonished her sweetly, "because we mustobserve the common and usual methods of trial in your case I mustinterrupt you now." And upon that he promised that she should be fullyheard in her own defence at the proper time, and that himself he wouldinstruct her in the forms of law to her advantage. He reassured herby reverent allusions to the great Judge of Heaven and Earth, in whosesight they stood, that she should have justice. "And as to what you sayconcerning yourself," he concluded, "I pray God with all my heart youmay be innocent."
He was benign and reassuring. But she had the first taste of his truequality in the examination of Dunne--a most unwilling witness.
Reluctantly, under the pressure put upon him, did Dunne yield up thetale of how he had conducted the two absconders to my lady's house withher consent, and it was sought to prove that she was aware of theirconnection with the rebellion. The stubbornly evasive Dunne was asked atlast:
"Do you believe that she knew Mr. Hicks before?"
He returned the answer that already he had returned to many questions ofthe sort.
"I cannot tell truly."
Jeffreys stirred in his scarlet robes, and his wistful eyes grewterrible as they bent from under beetling brows upon the witness.
"Why," he asked, "dost thou think that she would entertain any one shehad no knowledge of merely upon thy message? Mr. Dunne, Mr. Dunne! Havea care. It may be more is known to me of this matter than you thinkfor."
"My lord, I speak nothing but the truth!" bleated the terrified Dunne.
"I only bid you have a care," Jeffreys smiled; and his smile was moreterrible than his frown. "Truth never wants a subterfuge; it alwaysloves to appear naked; it needs no enamel nor any covering. But lyingand snivelling and canting and Hicksing always appear in masquerade.Come, go on with your evidence."
But Dunne was reluctant to go on, and out of his reluctance he liedfoolishly, and pretended that both Hicks and Nelthorp were unknown tohim. When pressed to say why he should have served two men whom he hadnever seen before, he answered:
"All the reason that induced me to it was that they said they were menin debt, and desired to be concealed for a while."
Then the thunder was heard in Jeffreys' voice.
"Dost thou believe that any one here believes thee? Prithee, what tradeart thou?"
"My lord," stammered the unfortunate, "I--I am a baker by trade."
"And wilt thou bake thy bread at such easy rates? Upon my word, then,thou art very kind. Prithee, tell me. I believe thou dost use to bake onSundays, dost thou not?"
"No, my lord, I do not!" cried Dunne indignantly.
"Alackaday! Art precise in that," sneered the judge. "But thou cansttravel on Sundays to lead rogues into lurking-holes."
Later, when to implicate the prisoner, it was sought to draw from Dunnea full account of the reception she had given his companions, his terrorunder the bullying to which he was subjected made him contradict himselfmore flagrantly than ever. Jeffreys addressed the jury.
"You see, gentlemen, what a precious fellow this is; a very pretty toolto be employed upon such an errand; a knave that nobody would trust forhalf a crown. A Turk has more title to an eternity of bliss than thesepretenders to Christianity."
And as there was no more to be got from Dunne just then, he waspresently dismissed, and Barter's damning evidence was taken.Thereafter the wretched Dunne was recalled, to be bullied by Jeffreys inblasphemous terms that may not be printed here.
Barter had told the Court how my lady had come into the kitchen withDunne, and how, when he had afterwards questioned Dunne as to why theyhad whispered and laughed together, Dunne told him she had asked "Ifhe knew aught of the business." Jeffreys sought now to wring from Dunnewhat was this business to which he had so mysteriously alluded--thiswith the object of establishing Lady Lisle's knowledge of Hicks'streason.
Dunne resisted more stubbornly than ever. Jeffreys, exasperated--sincewithout the admission it would be difficult to convict herladyship--invited the jury to take notice of the strange, horriblecarriage of the fellow, and heaped abuse upon the snivelling, cantingsect of which he was a member. Finally, he reminded Dunne of his oath totell the truth, and addressed him with a sort of loving ferocity.
"What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his ownsoul?" bellowed that terrible judge, his eyes aflame. "Is not this thevoice of Scripture itself? And wilt thou hazard so dear and precious athing as thy soul for a lie? Thou wretch! All the mountains and hills ofthe world heaped upon one another will not cover thee from the vengeanceof the Great God for this transgression of false-witness bearing."
"I cannot tell what to say, my lord," gasped Dunne.
In his rage to see all efforts vain, the judge's language became thatof the cockpit. Recovering at last, he tried gentleness again, and veryelaborately invited Dunne, in my lady's own interest, to tell him whatwas the business to which he had referred to Barter.
"She asked me whether I did not know that Hicks was a Nonconformist."
"That cannot be all. There must be something more in it."
"Yes, my lord," Dunne protested, "it is all. I know nothing more."
"Was there ever such an impudent rascal?" roared the judge. "Dolt thinkthat, after all the pains I have been at to get an answer, thou canstbanter me with such sham stuff as this? Hold the candle to his brazenface, that we may see it clearly."
Dunne stood terrified and trembling under the glance of those terribleeyes.
"My lord," he cried, "I am so baulked, I am cluttered out of my senses."
Again he was put down whilst Colonel Penruddock gave his evidence ofthe apprehension of the rebels. When he had told how he found Hicks andDunne concealed under some stuff in the malt-house, Dunne was broughtback yet again, that Jeffreys might resume his cross-examination.
"Dunne, how came you to hide yourself in the malthouse?"
&n
bsp; "My lord," said Dunne foolishly, "I was frighted by the noise."
"Prithee, what needest thou be afraid of, for thou didst not knowHicks nor Nelthorp; and my lady only asked thee whether Hicks were aNonconformist parson. Surely, so very innocent a soul needed no occasionto be afraid. I doubt there was something in the case of that businesswe were talking of before. If we could but get out of thee what it was."
But Dunne continued to evade.
"My lord, I heard a great noise in the house, and did not know what itmeant. So I went and hid myself."
"It is very strange thou shouldst hide thyself for a little noise, whenthou knewest nothing of the business."
Again the witness, with a candle still held close to his nose,complained that he was quite cluttered out of his senses, and did notknow what he was saying.
"But to tell the truth would not rob thee of any of thy senses, if everthou hadst any," Jeffreys told him angrily. "But it would seem thatneither thou nor thy mistress, the prisoner, had any; for she knewnothing of it either, though she had sent for them thither."
"My lord," cried her ladyship at that, "I hope I shall not be condemnedwithout being heard."
"No, God forbid, Mrs. Lisle," he answered; and then viciously flashedforth a hint of the true forces of Nemesis at work against her. "Thatwas a sort of practice in your late husband's time--you know very wellwhat I mean--but God be thanked it is not so now."
Came next the reluctant evidence of Carpenter and his wife, and afterthat there was yet a fourth equally futile attempt to drag from Dunnean admission that her ladyship was acquainted with Hicks's share in therebellion. But if stupid, Dunne at least was staunch, and so, with awealth of valedictory invective, Jeffreys dismissed him, and addressedat last the prisoner, inviting her to speak in her own defence.
She rose to do so, fearlessly yet gently.
"My lord, what I have to say is this. I knew of nobody's coming to myhouse but Mr. Hicks, and for him I was informed that he did abscond byreason of warrants that were out against him for preaching in privatemeetings; for that reason I sent to him to come by night. But I hadnever heard that Nelthorp was to come with him, nor what name Nelthorphad till after he had come to my house. I could die upon it. As forMr. Hicks, I did not in the least suspect that he had been in the army,being a Presbyterian minister that used to preach and not to fight."
"But I will tell you," Jeffreys interrupted her, "that there is not oneof those lying, snivelling, canting Presbyterian rascals but one way orthe other had a hand in the late horrid conspiracy and rebellion."
"My lord, I abhorred both the principles and the practices of the laterebellion," she protested; adding that if she had been tried in London,my Lady Abergavenny and many other persons of quality could havetestified with what detestation she had spoken of the rebellion, andthat she had been in London until Monmouth had been beheaded.
"If I had known the time of my trial in the country," she pursued, "Icould have had the testimony of those persons of honour for me. But,my lord, I have been told, and so I thought it would have been, thatI should not have been tried for harbouring Mr. Hicks until he shouldhimself be convict as a traitor. I did abhor those that were in the plotand conspiracy against the King. I know my duty to my King better, andhave always exercised it. I defy anybody in the world that ever knewcontrary to come and give testimony."
His voice broke harshly upon the pause. "Have you any more to say?"
"As to what they say to my denying Nelthorp to be in the house," sheresumed. "I was in very great consternation and fear of the soldiers,who were very rude and violent. I beseech your lordship to make thatconstruction of it, and not harbour an ill opinion of me because ofthose false reports that go about of me, relating to my carriage towardsthe old King, that I was anyways consenting to the death of King CharlesI; for, my lord, that is as false as God is true. I was not out of mychamber all the day in which that king was beheaded, and I believe Ished more tears for him than any other woman then living.
"And I do repeat it, my lord, as I hope to attain salvation, I never didknow Nelthorp, nor did I know of anybody's coming but Mr. Hicks. Him Iknew to be a Nonconformist minister, and there being, as is well known,warrants out to apprehend all Nonconformist ministers, I was willing togive him shelter from these warrants, which I knew was no treason."
"Have you any more to say for yourself?" he asked her.
"My lord," she was beginning, "I came but five days before this into thecountry."
"Nay," he broke in, "I cannot tell when you came into the country, nor Idon't care. It seems you came in time to harbour rebels."
She protested that if she would have ventured her life for anything, itwould have been to serve the King.
"But, though I could not fight for him myself, my son did; he wasactually in arms on the King's side in this business. It was I that bredhim in loyalty and to fight for the King."
"Well, have you done?" he asked her brutally.
"Yes, my lord," she answered; and resumed her seat, trembling a littlefrom the exertion and emotion of her address.
His charge to the jury began. It was very long, and the first half ofit was taken up with windy rhetoric in which the Almighty was invokedat every turn. It degenerated at one time into a sermon upon the text of"render unto Caesar," inveighing against the Presbyterian religion. Andthe dull length of his lordship's periods, combined with the monotonein which he spoke, lulled the wearied lady at the bar into slumber. Sheawakened with a start when suddenly his fist crashed down and his voicerose in fierce denunciation of the late rebellion. But she was dozingagain--so calm and so little moved was she--before he had come to applyhis denunciations to her own case, and this in spite of all her proteststhat she had held the rebellion in abhorrence.
It was all calculated to prejudice the minds of the jurymen beforehe came to the facts and the law of the case. And that charge of histhroughout, far from being a judicial summing-up, was a virulent addressfor the prosecution, just as his bearing hitherto in examining andcross-examining witnesses had been that of counsel for the Crown. Thestatement that she had made in her own defence he utterly ignored, savein one particular, where he saw his opportunity further to prejudice hercase.
"I am sorry," he said, his face lengthening, "to remember something thatdropped even from the gentlewoman herself. She pretends to religion andloyalty very much--how greatly she wept at the death of King Charles theMartyr--and owns her great obligations to the late king and his royalbrother. And yet no sooner is one in the grave than she forgets allgratitude and entertains those that were rebels against his royalsuccessor.
"I will not say," he continued with deliberate emphasis, "what handher husband had in the death of that blessed martyr; she has enough toanswer for her own guilt; and I must confess that it ought not, one wayor other, to make any ingredient into this case what she was in formertimes."
But he had dragged it in, protesting that it should not influence thecase, yet coldly, calculatingly intending it to do so. She was the widowof a regicide, reason and to spare in the views of himself and his royalmaster why she should be hounded to her death upon any pretext.
Thereafter he reviewed the evidence against her, dwelt upon theshuffling of Dunne, deduced that the reason for so much lying was toconceal the damning truth--namely, that she knew Hicks for a rebel whenshe gave him shelter, and thus became the partner of his horribleguilt. Upon that he charged them to find their verdict "without anyconsideration of persons, but considering only the truth."
Nevertheless, although his commands were clear, some of the jury wouldseem to have feared the God whom Jeffreys invoked so constantly. Oneof them rose to ask him pertinently, in point of law, whether it wastreason to have harboured Hicks before the man had been convicted oftreason.
Curtly he answered them that beyond doubt it was, and upon thatassurance the jury withdrew, the Court settled down into an expectantsilence, and her ladyship dozed again in her chair.
The minutes passed. It was grow
ing late, and Jeffreys was eager to bedone with this prejudged affair, that he might dine in peace. His voicebroke the stillness of the court, protesting his angry wonder at theneed to deliberate in so plain a case. He was threatening to adjournand let the jury lie by all night if they did not bring in their verdictquickly. When, at the end of a half-hour, they returned, his fierce,impatient glance found them ominously grave.
"My lord," said Mr. Whistler, the foreman, "we have to beg of yourlordship some directions before we can bring our verdict. We have somedoubt upon us whether there be sufficient proof that she knew Hicks tohave been in the army."
Well might they doubt it, for there was no proof at all. Yet he neverhesitated to answer them.
"There is as full proof as proof can be. But you are judges of theproof. For my part, I thought there was no difficulty in it."
"My lord," the foreman insisted, "we are in some doubt about it."
"I cannot help your doubts," he said irritably. "Was there not proveda discourse of the battle and of the battle and of the army atsupper-time?"
"But, my lord, we are not satisfied that she had notice that Hicks wasin the army."
He glowered upon them in silence for a moment. They deserved to bethemselves indicted for their slowness to perceive where lay their dutyto their king.
"I cannot tell what would satisfy you," he said; and sneered. "Did shenot inquire of Dunne whether Hicks had been in the army? And when hetold her he did not know, she did not say she would refuse if he hadbeen, but ordered him to come by night, by which it is evident shesuspected it."
He ignored, you see, her own complete explanation of that circumstance.
"And when Hicks and Nelthorp came, did she not discourse with them aboutthe battle and the army?" (As if that were not at the time a commontopic of discussion.) "Come, come, gentlemen," he said, with amazingimpudence, "it is plain proof."
But Mr. Whistler was not yet satisfied.
"We do not remember, my lord, that it was proved that she asked any suchquestion."
That put him in a passion.
"Sure," he bellowed, "you do not remember anything that has passed. Didnot Dunne tell you there was such a discourse, and she was by? But ifthere were no such proof, the circumstances and management of the thingare as full proof as can be. I wonder what it is you doubt of!"
Mrs. Lisle had risen. There was a faint flush of excitement on her greyold face.
"My lord, I hope--" she began, in trembling tones, to get no further.
"You must not speak now!" thundered her terrible judge; and thus struckher silent.
The brief resistance to his formidable will was soon at an end. Withina quarter of an hour the jury announced their verdict. They found herguilty.
"Gentlemen," said his lordship, "I did not think I should have occasionto speak after your verdict, but, finding some hesitancy and doubt amongyou, I cannot but say I wonder it should come about; for I think, in myconscience, the evidence was as full and plain as it could be, and if Ihad been among you, and she had been my own mother, I should have foundher guilty."
She was brought up for sentence on the morrow, together with severalothers subsequently convicted. Amid fresh invectives against thereligion she practised, he condemned her to be burned alive--which wasthe proper punishment for high treason--ordering the sheriff to preparefor her execution that same afternoon.
"But look you, Mrs. Lisle," he added, "we that are the judges shall stayin town an hour or two. You shall have pen, ink, and paper, and if, inthe mean time, you employ that pen, ink, and paper and that hour or twowell--you understand what I mean it may be that you shall hear furtherfrom us in a deferring of this execution."
What was this meaning that he assumed she understood? Jeffreys hadknowledge of Kirke's profitable traffic in the West, and it is knownthat he spared no means of acquiring an estate suitable to his rankwhich he did not possess by way of patrimony. Thus cynically he inviteda bribe.
It is the only inference that explains the subsequent rancour hedisplayed against her, aroused by her neglect to profit by hissuggestions. The intercession of the divines of Winchester procuredher a week's reprieve, and in that week her puissant friends in London,headed by the Earl of Abergavenny, petitioned the King on her behalf.Even Feversham, the victor of Sedgemoor, begged her life of theKing--bribed to it, as men say, by an offer of a thousand pounds. Butthe King withheld his mercy upon the plea that he had promised LordJeffreys he would not reprieve her, and the utmost clemency influentialpetitions could wring from James II was that she should be beheadedinstead of burned.
She suffered in the market-place of Winchester on September 2d.Christian charity was all her sin, and for this her head was demandedin atonement. She yielded it with a gentle fortitude and resolution. Inlieu of speech, she left with the sheriff a pathetic document whereinshe protests her innocence of all offence against the King, and forgivesher enemies specifically--the judge, who prejudiced her case, andforgot that "the Court should be counsel for the prisoner," and ColonelPenruddock, "though he told me he could have taken those men before theycame to my house."
Between those lines you may read the true reason why the Lady AliceLisle died. She died to slake the cruelly vindictive thirst of KingJames II on the one hand, and Colonel Penruddock on the other, againsther husband who had been dead for twenty years.