277 According to Roger North the judges decided that Dangerfield, having been previously convicted of perjury, was incompetent to be a witness of the plot. But this is one among many instances of Roger's inaccuracy. It appears, from the report of the trial of Lord Castlemaine in June 1680, that, after much altercation between counsel, and much consultation among the judges of the different courts in Westminster Hall, Dangerfield was sworn and suffered to tell his story; but the jury very properly gave no credit to his testimony.
278 Dangerfield's trial was not reported; but I have seen a concise account of it in a contemporary broadside. An abstract of the evidence against Francis, and his dying speech, will be found in the Collection of State Trials. See Eachard, iii. 741.
Burnet's narrative contains more mistakes than lines. See also North's Examen, 256, the sketch of Dangerfield's life in the Bloody Assizes, the Observator of July 29, 1685, and the poem entitled "Dangerfield's Ghost to Jeffreys." In the very rare volume entitled "Succinct Genealogies, by Robert Halstead," Lord Peterbough says that Dangerfield, with whom he had had some intercourse, was "a young man who appeared under a decent figure, a serious behaviour, and with words that did not seem to proceed from a common understanding."279 Baxter's preface to Sir Mathew Hale's Judgment of the Nature of True Religion, 1684.
280 See the Observator of February 28, 1685, the information in the Collection of State Trials, the account of what passed in court given by Calamy, Life of Baxter, chap. xiv., and the very curious extracts from the Baxter MSS. in the Life, by Orme, published in 1830.
281 Baxter MS. cited by Orme.
282 Act Parl. Car. II. March 29,1661, Jac. VII. April 28, 1685, and May 13, 1685.
283 Act Parl. Jac. VII. May 8, 1685, Observator, June 20, 1685;Lestrange evidently wished to see the precedent followed in England.
284 His own words reported by himself. Life of James the Second, i. 666. Orig. Mem.
285 Act Parl. Car. II. August 31, 1681.
286 Burnet, i. 583; Wodrow, III. v. 2. Unfortunately the Acta of the Scottish Privy Council during almost the whole administration of the Duke of York are wanting. (1848.) This assertion has been met by a direct contradiction. But the fact is exactly as I have stated it. There is in he Acta of the Scottish Privy Council a hiatus extending from August 1678 to August 1682. The Duke of York began to reside in Scotland in December 1679. He left Scotland, never to return in May 1682. (1857.)287 Wodrow, III. ix. 6.
288 Wodrow, III. ix. 6. The editor of the Oxford edition of Burnet attempts to excuse this act by alleging that Claverhouse was then employed to intercept all communication between Argyle and Monmouth, and by supposing that John Brown may have been detected in conveying intelligence between the rebel camps.
Unfortunately for this hypothesis John Brown was shot on the first of May, when both Argyle and Monmouth were in Holland, and when there was no insurrection in any part of our island.
289 Wodrow, III. ix, 6.
290 Wodrow, III. ix. 6. It has been confidently asserted, by persons who have not taken the trouble to look at the authority to which I have referred, that I have grossly calumniated these unfortunate men; that I do not understand the Calvinistic theology; and that it is impossible that members of the Church of Scotland can have refused to pray for any man on the ground that he was not one of the elect.
I can only refer to the narrative which Wodrow has inserted in his history, and which he justly calls plain and natural. That narrative is signed by two eyewitnesses, and Wodrow, before he published it, submitted it to a third eyewitness, who pronounced it strictly accurate. From that narrative I will extract the only words which bear on the point in question: "When all the three were taken, the officers consulted among themselves, and, withdrawing to the west side of the town, questioned the prisoners, particularly if they would pray for King James VII.
They answered, they would pray for all within the election of grace. Balfour said Do you question the King's election? They answered, sometimes they questioned their own. Upon which he swore dreadfully, and said they should die presently, because they would not pray for Christ's vicegerent, and so without one word more, commanded Thomas Cook to go to his prayers, for he should die.
In this narrative Wodrow saw nothing improbable; and I shall not easily be convinced that any writer now living understands the feelings and opinions of the Covenanters better than Wodrow did.
(1857.)
291 Wodrow, III. ix. 6. Cloud of Witnesses.
292 Wodrow, III. ix. 6. The epitaph of Margaret Wilson, in the churchyard at Wigton, is printed in the Appendix to the Cloud of Witnesses;"Murdered for owning Christ supreme Head of his church, and no more crime, But her not owning Prelacy.
And not abjuring Presbytery, Within the sea, tied to a stake, She suffered for Christ Jesus' sake."293 See the letter to King Charles II. prefixed to Barclay's Apology.
294 Sewel's History of the Quakers, book x.
295 Minutes of Yearly Meetings, 1689, 1690.
296 Clarkson on Quakerism; Peculiar Customs, chapter v.
297 After this passage was written, I found in the British Museum, a manuscript (Harl. MS. 7506) entitled, "An Account of the Seizures, Sequestrations, great Spoil and Havock made upon the Estates of the several Protestant Dissenters called Quakers, upon Prosecution of old Statutes made against Papist and Popish Recusants." The manuscript is marked as having belonged to James, and appears to have been given by his confidential servant, Colonel Graham, to Lord Oxford. This circumstance appears to me to confirm the view which I have taken of the King's conduct towards the Quakers.