He

Barter, who had guided Dunne, was next called. said, inter alia, that when Dunne and he got to Moyle's Court, Lady Lisle "goes to this man Dunne and there she was laughing with him, and looked upon me, and afterwards, when we were going along, I asked him what she laughed at. He told me, my lord, my lady asked whether I knew anything of the concern, and that he answered her, No. This the fellow told me was that she laughed at." Dunne was recalled to explain this incident, and he said that Barter's story was true. He was asked to say what the business was to which Lady Lisle referred, but he remained silent, "as if musing." Again and again he was pressed for a reply, but he obstinately kept silence. Jeffreys appealed to him repeatedly, quoting scripture and bursting out with pious exclamations of horror at his obstinacy. "A Turk," said Jeffreys, "is a saint to such a fellow as this O blessed Jesus, what an age do we live in." Even the Lord Chief Baron Montague joined in the appeal to Dunne. At last the witness said that the business was, whether Hicks was a nonconformist. Jeffreys thereupon burst out, "Why, dost thou think, that after all this pains that I have been at to get an answer to my question that thou can'st banter me with such sham stuff as this? Hold the candle to his face, that we may see his brazen face." It is not surprising that poor Dunne bleated out, "My lord, I am so baulked, I do not know what I say myself. Tell me what you would have me to say, for I am cluttered out of my senses." Barter was then recalled, and made the damning statement that Dunne had told him that he had concealed Hicks and Nelthorpe in his own house for ten days. After this Dunne was completely discredited, and Jeffreys ordered that an information of perjury should be preferred against him.

Colonel Penruddock was next called. He was the magistrate to whom Barter had gone and told his suspicions

about Dunne and his friends. As a result of that communication Colonel Penruddock had gone with some soldiers to Moyle's Court on Wednesday morning, and had taken Hicks and Dunne in the malthouse, and Nelthorpe in a hole beside the chimney. Lady Lisle, on being questioned by Colonel Penruddock, denied any knowledge that Hicks and Dunne had been in her house. When Colonel Penruddock was giving his evidence she ejaculated, "My lord, I hope I shall not be condemned without being heard," to which Jeffreys replied, "No, God forbid, Mrs. Lisle. That was a sort of practice in your husband's time. You know very well what I mean. But, God be thanked, it is not so now. The King's Courts of law never condemn without hearing." One Dowding corroborated the evidence of Colonel Penruddock.

Mrs. Carpenter, the wife of Lady Lisle's bailiff, was next called, and gave evidence as to the arrival of Hicks, Nelthorpe, and Dunne, and as to their having supper in presence of Lady Lisle. She was followed by her husband, the bailiff, who also gave evidence. At this point, Dunne struck in and offered to tell the truth, whether it made for him or against him. He said that Lady Lisle had asked him whether Hicks had been in the army or not, and he told her that he could not tell, he did not know who he was. He admitted that he had supper with Hicks and Nelthorpe, and that there was talk of the battle and of their being in the army, while they were at supper. It was not, however, specifically stated that Lady Lisle was present during this conversation.

concluded, Lady Lisle

She said that she had

The case for the Crown being Iwas called on for her statement. abhorred the rebellion, that she was loyal to the king, that her son had fought on the king's side in the rebellion, and that she knew nothing about Nelthorpe. She said, “I knew of nobody's coming to my house but Mr. Hicks, and for

him I was informed that he did abscond by reason of warrants that were out against him for preaching in private meetings, but I never heard that he was in the army, being a Presbyterian minister, that used to preach and not to fight." After Lady Lisle's statement, the Chief Justice charged the jury at some length. He denounced nonconformist ministers as "the bell-wethers of rebellion," and indulged in a great deal of pious moralising about rebellion in general and the Monmouth rebellion in particular. About three-fourths of his address was quite irrelevant, and he wholly failed to show that there was any evidence to prove that Lady Lisle had any guilty knowledge that Hicks had been a participant in the rebellion. He referred to the fact that her husband had had a hand in the death of Charles the First, and that he had also been judge when Colonel Penruddock, the father of the witness, had been condemned to death for fidelity to Charles the First. Those facts had, of course, nothing to do with the case, and were simply introduced by Jeffreys to prejudice the jury. When Jeffreys was finished, the question was raised by a juryman as to whether Lady Lisle could be found guilty, seeing that Hicks had never been convicted of treason, but the judge said that she could.

After a prolonged absence which greatly irritated the judge, the jury came back and said that they were not satisfied that she knew Hicks was in the following dialogue then took place :

army.

The

Did

L.C.J. "I cannot tell what would satisfy you. she not enquire of Dunne whether Hicks had been in the army? And when he told her he did not know, she did not say she would refuse if he had been there, but ordered him to come by night, by which it is evident she suspected it; and when he and Nelthorpe came, discoursed with them about the battle and the army. Come, come, gentlemen, it is a plain proof.

Foreman. My Lord, we do not remember that it was proved that she did ask any such question when they were there.

L.C.J.-Sure you do not remember anything that has passed? Did not Dunne tell you there was such discourse, and she was by and Nelthorpe's name was named? But if there were no such proof, the circumstances and management of the thing is as full a proof as can be. I wonder what it is you doubt of?"

This is incorrect. There is no specific proof that she discoursed with them about the battle and the army. Dunne did not say she was present when there was discourse of the battle. In spite of the statements of Jeffreys, the case was not proved, and the jury showed their consciousness of this by thrice returning a verdict of "Not guilty." It was not until the Lord Chief Justice threatened them with an attaint of jury that they brought in the required verdict of Guilty." Strenuous efforts were made by influential friends of the prisoner to save her life, but they proved unavailing. She was beheaded on the 2nd of September, 1685, in the market place of Winchester.

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It has just been stated that the case against Lady Lisle was not proved. She may have been extremely foolish in harbouring a nonconformist minister, after a rebellion in which many such ministers had taken part, and when the countryside was full of rebels trying to evade capture. But the scienter was never brought home to her, and the scienter was necessary to her conviction. There was the further point that was taken by a juryman, that she could not be rightly convicted of harbouring Hicks till he was proved guilty of high treason. The judge brushed this objection. aside, but it was an objection that went to the very root of the matter. On grounds alike of law and common-sense, it was grossly unjust to convict Lady Lisle of harbouring a

traitor, until the alleged traitor had been proved guilty of treason. After the accession of William and Mary her attainder was reversed, and one of the reasons given for doing so was "that she was, by an irregular and undue prosecution, indicted for entertaining and concealing John Hicks, a false traitor, knowing him to be such; though the said Hicks was not at the time of the trial attainted or convicted of any such crime.”

Unjust and cruel as Jeffreys was, one is forced to admit his great ability, and to recognise his astonishing success in his profession. A brief reference to his career may not be out of place in this account of the trial that probably most damaged him in the public estimation. He commenced his career as a barrister of a rather low class, confining himself chiefly to the Old Bailey and the London and Middlesex Sessions. He was addicted to drinking and fond of low company, and it was said that his pothouse companions proved useful in recommending' him for business and bringing him briefs. Lord Campbell, whose statements, however, must always be taken cum grano salis, says, "At his outset there was no art, however low, to which he would not resort with a view to get on." He ingratiated himself with the aldermen of the City of London and particularly with a wealthy namesake (but no relation) of his own, Alderman Jeffreys of Bread Street Ward, who had great influence with the livery. The result of his popularity in the City was that, at twenty-three years of age, before he had been two-and-a-half years at the Bar, he became Common Serjeant of London.

After his appointment as Common Serjeant he aspired to a better class of work than the criminal business which he had been doing. He transferred his attention to the King's Bench, and worked himself into commercial cases at the Guildhall. In 1677, while still under thirty, he was made Solicitor-General to the Duke of York, and was