Instructor’s Notes and Solutions Microsoft Office 2016 Projects Module 1-1

Illustrated Microsoft Office 365 and Office

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Microsoft Office 2016 Projects

Module 1: Word Projects I
Module Overview
The projects in this module require students to create common documents, including a two-page
program, a form, and a term paper. The goal of this module is to encourage students to determine
how they can use the various Word features to produce specific document types. The principal
features that students focus on in this module include working with columns to create a four-panel
event program, using the table form feature to create a form, and using References features to create a
term paper that includes a Works Cited list.

Table of Contents
INSTRUCTOR’S NOTES ............................................................................................................................................ 2
PROJECT 1: EVENT PROGRAM FOR AUTHOR READINGS ..........................................................................................................2
PROJECT 2: FEEDBACK FORM FOR SUMMER CAMP ...............................................................................................................3
PROJECT 3: RESEARCH PAPER IN MLA STYLE .......................................................................................................................4
EOU SOLUTIONS .................................................................................................................................................... 6
INDEPENDENT CHALLENGE 1 ............................................................................................................................................6
INDEPENDENT CHALLENGE 2 ............................................................................................................................................8
INDEPENDENT CHALLENGE 3 ............................................................................................................................................9
TEAM PROJECT ............................................................................................................................................................10
VISUAL WORKSHOP ......................................................................................................................................................11
Instructor’s Notes and Solutions Microsoft Office 2016 Projects Module 1-2

INSTRUCTOR’S NOTES
Project 1: Event Program for Author Readings
PR 1-Event Program for Author Readings.docx

In Project 1, students use columns and landscape orientation to create a four-panel event program.
This project can be adapted for numerous uses. Encourage students to think of how they could use
the skills covered in this project to create a program for a music event, a theatrical performance, a
lecture series, etc. Before students begin Project 1, review the following materials.

Using Show/Hide ¶
Sometimes students prefer not to activate the Show/Hide ¶ button. However, advise students that
they will be able to use advanced features of Microsoft Word and apply formatting much more easily
with the Show/Hide ¶ button activated.

Change Page Orientation

The event program that students create requires them to change page orientation from portrait to
landscape. Review situations in which students may need to use landscape orientation to display the
contents of a document.

Document Setup
Review how to create columns and how to set custom margins. Note that students modify the spacing
between the two columns in the event program.

Insert Text from a File

Review how students can save typing time by inserting text from one file into the current Word
document. The file is inserted from the Object menu in the Text group on the Insert tab.

Themes and Styles

Almost every Word project in the textbook requires students to work with themes and styles. If
students are not familiar with themes and styles, review how they are used to give documents a
unified look. Encourage students to explore the various themes available and to experiment with
using them to format their own documents. Review how to use styles from the Style Gallery to
format text. Emphasize that using styles saves time because changes applied to text formatted with a
style are automatically applied to all other text formatted with the same style.

Sort Command
Review the various ways in which the Sort command can be used to sort paragraphs of text according
to three types: text, dates, and number. Encourage students to experiment with the Sort command
and how they can use it to save typing time.
Instructor’s Notes and Solutions Microsoft Office 2016 Projects Module 1-3

Picture Modification
Refer to the completed title page shown in Figure 1-6 on page 7 of the text. Discuss how a picture is
inserted and modified, and then placed behind text. Encourage students to apply the skills they
learned to create the title page for the event program to create interesting effects that place
photographs or other clip art behind text.

Further Practice
After students have completed Project 1, direct them to use the table form feature to create an event
program of their own for Independent Challenge 1, on page 20 of the text.

Project 2: Feedback Form for Summer Camp

PR 1-Summer Day Camp Feedback Form.docx

The goal of Project 2 is to teach students how they can adapt the table form to create a wide variety
of useful documents, including forms, questionnaires, inventory lists, and schedules. The feedback
form that students create in Project 2 makes use of many table functions, including borders and
shading, cell height, and cell merging. Encourage students to think about how they can apply the
skills they learn as they create the form to create forms or schedules for other purposes. For example,
students can apply the same techniques to create a weekly or a monthly calendar, a production
schedule, or an application form.

Before students begin Project 2, review the following materials.

Using Show/Hide ¶
Sometimes students prefer not to activate the Show/Hide ¶ button. However, advise students that
they will be able to use advanced features of Microsoft Word and apply formatting much more easily
with the Show/Hide ¶ button activated.

Using Style Sets

Students apply a theme and then select a new Style Set (the Centered style set) from the Style Set
gallery. Encourage students to explore the various style sets available and to think about how they
can use style sets to format their own documents.

Using Tables to Structure Data

Using tables to structure data enables students to sort data, and add, remove, and resize columns and
rows. The formatting features in Word provide ways to define headings and distinguish cells by
applying borders and fills. The feedback form that students create for Project 2 consists of a table with
two columns and 14 rows. As students build the form, they use merge and split commands to further
modify the form. Review both Figure 1-8 on page 9 and Figure 1-11 on page 11 to see the “before”
and “after” versions of the table. A simple two-column table can be modified with merging and
splitting to create the finished table form shown in Figure 1-11.

Modifying Table Properties

In Step 3 on page 12, students use the Height text box in the Cell Size group to specify the height of
selected table cells. Discuss with students the various ways in which they can modify the alignment
of text in table cells by using the many options available in the Alignment group on the Table Tools
Instructor’s Notes and Solutions Microsoft Office 2016 Projects Module 1-4

Layout tab. Encourage students to experiment with these and other options on the Table Tools
Layout tab and the Table Tools Design tab to give their tables a professional look.

Drawing and Editing a Shape

In Steps 4 to 9 on page 12 of the text, students draw a sun shape and then use the Edit Points feature
to change the shapes of selected objects that make up the sun shape. Encourage students to
experiment with using the Edit Points feature to modify the appearance of drawn shapes.

Further Practice
After students have completed Project 2, direct them to use the table form feature to create a form of
their own for Independent Challenge 2, on page 21 of the text.

Project 3: Research Paper in MLA Style

PR 1-Literature Research Paper.docx

The goal of Project 3 is to teach students how to use the MLA style to format documents with page
numbers, spacing, font size, and other specifications, as well as to use Word tools to create a Works
Cited page. Before students begin Project 3, you may wish to review the following materials.

What is MLA Style?

Institutions such as universities require term papers to follow style guidelines, such as MLA (Modern
Language Association). The guidelines include font size, line spacing, indentation, placement of page
number, and formatting for endnotes, footnotes, and works cited pages. Students need to find out
what style is preferred at their institution before writing any term paper. They want to avoid losing
marks, or worse, having their paper rejected if it is not in the proper form.

Formatting the Text in MLA Style

Table 1-1 on page 15 of the text lists a summary of MLA guidelines. Students open a term paper that
needs to be formatted according to MLA guidelines, which include: double line spacing, and the
Times New Roman 12 pt. font. In step 5 on page 14, students add a header and footer with their name
and the page number. In step 6, they type their name into the header, then insert a page number.

Selecting and Replacing Formatting

In steps 1-3 on page 16, students replace underlining with italics in all book titles without changing
the content. This is an important skill when adapting a document such as a term paper to a style
guide.

Including References in a Term Paper

Students should be reminded that while writing a term paper it is their responsibility to keep track of
their sources in order to properly credit them in the paper. Sources can include: books, articles, and
websites. Sources need to be identified in the term paper, and included in a Works Cited list or
Bibliography. In step 6 on page 16, students open the Create Source dialog box in order to enter the
source information. By selecting the style as MLA, students can insert a properly formatted source
reference.
Instructor’s Notes and Solutions Microsoft Office 2016 Projects Module 1-5

Creating a Works Cited List

Also known as a Bibliography, a Works Cited list usually appears after the last page of a term paper,
and includes all of the sources used, even the ones not quoted in the paper. On page 18, the students
create a Works Cited page without retyping their source information. The Works Cited page uses the
same data that students entered in the Create Source dialog box.

Further Practice
After students have completed Project 3, direct them to complete Independent Challenge 3, on page
22 of the text. In this project, students open a file containing the text of a Sociology term paper and
then follow instructions to format the term paper using the APA style.
Another document from Scribd.com that is
random and unrelated content:
the realm. Charles replied he would consider it, and heartily wished that
all others were as solicitous as himself for the good and peace of the
nation. Three days later he shewed the meaning of his answer by
proroguing Parliament, without the advice of the council, to November
1680. He followed the stroke by summoning the Lord Mayor and
aldermen to his presence to enforce on them their duty of preserving the
peace and preventing ill-disposed persons from pursuing the ends of
discord under cover of petitioning. The surprise of the Whigs was
intense. Only one thing was left for them to do. They went on
petitioning. Petitions, prepared in accordance with Shaftesbury’s
instructions, bombarded the king from all over the country. A
proclamation issued to denounce merely had the effect of redoubling
them. Charles’ own answers were far more effective. The men of
Wiltshire presented a petition as from their county, but lacking the
sanction of the grand jury were rated as a company of loose and
disaffected persons. The petitioners from London and Westminster were
told by Charles that he was the head of the government and would do as
he thought best; while to the Berkshire gentlemen he replied, “We will
argue the matter over a cup of ale when we meet at Windsor, though I
wonder my neighbours should meddle with my business.” In one case
alone Charles had the worst of a passage of arms. When a citizen of
Taunton offered him a petition, the king asked how he dared do so? To
which the man replied, “Sir, my name is Dare.” The government was not
behindhand in dealing with the situation. To shew that the petitioners did
not represent the country, an immediate flood of counter addresses
poured in, expressing confidence in the king’s wisdom and abhorrence of
the petitioners. Petitioners and abhorrers divided the nation, and it was
by no other godfather than Titus Oates that the latter party, by a name
famous in English history, was christened Tory.430 In this clamorous
contest the king gained an undeniable success. But success did not bring
repose. Watchfulness was more severely needed than ever. To calm
suspicion the penal laws were once more sharpened against the
Catholics. Additional garrisons were thrown into the Tower and Tilbury
Fort. Portsmouth and Sheerness were strengthened. London remained
quiet, but the Christmas festivities were suspected of unfortunate
possibilities. There was talk of threatening Shaftesbury with a
prosecution.431
Instead of a prosecution Shaftesbury was drawn into a negotiation
with the court. The French ambassador learned with agitation that the
earl went secretly by night to Whitehall to discuss terms of settlement
with the king. Shaftesbury offered to let drop the Exclusion bill and
assure Charles an ample revenue for the rest of his life if he would
consent to a divorce and to marry a Protestant. The king should make a
show of resistance, to be overborne by apparently irresistible pressure,
the country would be satisfied, and peace return to the land. Charles
made believe that he viewed the notion with favour. Only Lord Holles
and very few others were admitted to knowledge of what was passing.
Soon Lauderdale, whose character and career were particularly
displeasing to the Presbyterians, was added to their number. Holles drew
back, then fell ill, and the scheme languished. Nevertheless Shaftesbury
hoped for success. Suddenly his hopes were shattered. On January 29,
1680 Charles brought the matter to an end by declaring to the council
that, since the Duke of York’s absence had not produced the desired
effect, he was about to recall him to England. A royal yacht left
immediately for Edinburgh to convey him thence. On February 24 James
arrived in London. The recorder of the city presented him with a
complimentary address. A sumptuous banquet was given the royal
brothers by the Lord Mayor. To crown the display a grand illumination
was arranged to testify the extraordinary joy all good subjects were
supposed to feel.432 Shaftesbury might well harbour resentment at the
artifice of which he had been a victim.
In the “Appeal from the Country to the City” the Duke of Monmouth
was recommended by name to be the saviour of the people, since he who
had the worst title was like to make the best king. Between that, the
project of the queen’s divorce, and the pretence that Monmouth was in
fact the legitimate heir to the throne the minds of Whig politicians
wavered. The last idea had already risen to such prominence that, when
the Duke of York left the kingdom in March, a solemn declaration was
drawn from Charles that he had never married or made any contract of
marriage with any other woman than his wife, Queen Catherine, then
living.433 For greater security the king’s signature was attested by his
councillors and the deed enrolled in Chancery. Shaftesbury had no
sooner emerged from his defeat of the midnight meetings at Whitehall
than the fable sprang into renewed life. Mysterious tales were bruited
abroad of a certain black box, which, if found, should contain the
contract of marriage between the king and Lucy Walters, mother of the
Duke of Monmouth. The box was said to be in the possession of Sir
Gilbert Gerard. If it did not contain the actual contract, at any rate there
lay in it a certificate from the hand of Dr. Cosens, late Bishop of
Durham, who had solemnised the marriage. Others had it that one Dr.
Clare, an eminent royalist parson, had read the service. At least the
ceremony had been witnessed by a judge and three other persons of
quality. The story attained such proportions that an extraordinary
meeting of the council was held. Sir Gilbert Gerard was called to state
what he knew. It appeared that he knew nothing. He had never seen
either contract or box, and had no knowledge whatever of anything of
the sort. The rumour was traced to a maternal aunt of the late Lucy
Walters: who had set her on could only be conjectured. It cannot be
doubted that the tale emanated from the office of the Whig party. The
authors of it were men of versatility. Sir Gilbert Gerard’s statement
seemed to have dissolved the myth, but within a few weeks the
appearance of a pamphlet entitled “A Letter to a Person of Honour
concerning the Black Box” brought the facts again into question.434 The
whole account of the black box, affirmed the letter, was a mere romance,
an ingenious device of the Duke of York to sham and ridicule the
marriage, which indeed had no relation to it, for with the exposure of the
box the true history would at the same time fall into discredit. It was
notorious that assurance of Monmouth’s legitimacy had been given to the
Countess of Wemyss before she disposed her daughter in marriage to
him. In a letter from the king to Mrs. Walters, intercepted by Cromwell’s
officers, he had addressed her as wife. And it was beyond doubt that she
had actually received homage from many of the royalist party. Many
copies of this pamphlet were scattered in the Exchange and dispersed
throughout the kingdom. It had an instant effect. On June 7 another
declaration was published by the king, condemning the libel, denouncing
its falsehood, and forbidding all subjects on pain of the utmost rigour of
the law to utter anything contrary to the royal pronouncement. The result
was a second “Letter to a Person of Honour,” in which Charles’ word
was contradicted and his motives traduced. All the former statements
were repeated, some arguments added, and the pamphlet ended by the
modest proposals, “That Parliament, being admitted to sit, may examine
this affair, whereof they alone are competent judges; and that the Duke
of York may be legally tried for his manifold treasons and conspiracies
against the king and kingdom,” which treasons were set out at length in
thirty-four articles.435 To carry the war still further into the enemies’
camp, on June 26 Shaftesbury appeared in Westminster Hall in company
with the Earl of Huntingdon, Lord Grey, Lord Gerard, Lord Russell,
Lord Cavendish, and nine commoners to present the Duke of York to the
grand jury as a popish recusant and to indict the Duchess of Portsmouth
for a national nuisance. With them went Titus Oates, invested as it were
with a representative authority on behalf of the Whig party. That both
charges were true is certain; but the action of the Whigs was dictated by
a purely partisan spirit, and Chief Justice Scroggs, judging the fact so,
discharged the jury before they could find a bill. Four days later the
attack was repeated in another court, and with the same result. The
judges only followed their chief’s example. James appeared downcast
and knew well what danger he ran. His adversaries seemed to be
throwing off the mask, strong in the support of which they were assumed
to be conscious. When it was told to Shaftesbury that the king had railed
at him and his party as seditious rebels, he replied aloud and in public,
“The king has nothing to do but take the pains to punish rebels and
seditious persons. We will keep with the bounds of the law, and we shall
easily find means by the law to make him walk out of the kingdom.”
There were not many who could boast of having the last laugh in a game
with Charles. Not many months after, when the law by which he held
was put into operation against the Whig leader, Charles heard that
Shaftesbury had accused him of suborning perjurers, and thereupon very
pleasantly quoted a Scotch proverb. Veiled in the decency of a learned
language it ran: “In die extremi judicii videbimus cui podex nigerrimus
sit.”436
Violent distempers were now feared on all sides. Partisans of the
Prince of Orange were intriguing keenly on his behalf. In the spring of
the year Charles was ill again, and the several parties hastily met to
concert action. “God keep the nation,” wrote Dorothy Sidney, “from the
experiment what they could have done.” The danger may be gauged by
the fact that, had the king’s illness continued, three hundred members of
the Commons were determined to remain sitting despite the prorogation.
A considerable movement was detected among the London prentices.
The date of May 29 had been fixed for a large meeting to be held under
pretence of burning the Rump; four or five thousand men had pledged
themselves to attend, but information was laid, the leaders arrested, and
the outbreak apprehended by the court did not take place.437 Those of the
opposite party were no less alarmed. Their chief enemy, James, was
holding a brilliant court and still maintained himself against them.
Shaftesbury left town for Easter, fearing a personal attack. Mr. William
Harbord looked abroad to spy some safe retreat. Sir William Waller fled
to Holland, thence to Italy, pursued by the watchful eye of the
government. On the pretext of Catholic intrigues, the city guards were
doubled.438 A penetrating observer might have perceived a change
drawing over the spirit of the times. While the Whig attack, far from
having spent itself, grew only the more fierce, and a final struggle with
authority seemed imminent, the nation had begun to reflect upon the turn
of events. If passion was exasperated by the last bold step against the
Duke of York, it shewed too the extremity to which his opponents were
driving. Thereafter could be no thought of reconciliation: they must
either ruin him or themselves end in ruin. It was not without some justice
that Charles I called the English sober. As the future was dimly shaped to
men in shadows of high misfortune, the fear of open strife and loss of all
they had given so much to gain in recalling Charles II to the throne of his
fathers weighed more heavily upon them. Innate reverence for authority,
standing to the letter of its rights, returned in some of its ancient force.
Though they were willing to see the royal prerogative curbed, there was
no sympathy for those who would strike against its existence. And in the
party which fostered terror and maddened the nation by the Popish Plot
were not a few to whom this was the object, Independents and other
sectaries, fierce republicans who had fought through the Civil War and
might not be sorry at the chance of fighting through another. It was felt
that the least accident might throw everything into confusion. People
began at length to test the stories circulated for their consumption. Tales
“that Holborn should be burnt down and the streets run with blood” were
no longer accepted on the mere statement. The Irish Plot, loudly
denounced about this time by Shaftesbury, found small credence except
from the London mob, and even in London the busy merchants who
feared disorder exercised an influence of restraint. At the end of July Sir
Leoline Jenkins was able to write: “Letters from several parts beyond the
seas do tell us that we are represented there as if we were already in a
flame. God be praised! ’tis no such matter. All things are as still and
peaceable as ever they were, only we are pelted at with impudent, horrid
libels.” Evidently the English nation was in no humour for a second civil
war.439
The king met Parliament on October 21, 1680. James was again on his
way to Edinburgh, induced to withdraw himself by a promise of full
support, but inwardly persuaded that he was lost. Seven of the council
had favoured the journey, eleven were against it. “Since he has so many
friends for him,” said Charles, “I see he must go.” In spite of gay hearts
the royal prospect was not bright. The king had tried a bout with the
Whigs over the city elections, and was forced to accept their choice; and
the Duchess of Portsmouth, fearful of an attack on herself and with a
heavy bribe in her purse, had gone over to the side of his enemies.440 The
session opened with turbulence almost unexampled even in the hot times
that had passed. For discrediting the Plot in the last parliament, a
member had been expelled by the Commons. He was now followed by
two others. Petitioning was voted to be the right of the subject. Abhorrers
were violently attacked. Charles had long expressed his willingness for
any compromise that should leave his brother the title of king when he
came to the throne, and offered Expedients, the effect of which would be
to take all power from the hands of the sovereign. Similar proposals were
made by others also. Halifax suggested that the duke should be banished
for five years, Essex an association in defence of the Protestant religion,
Shaftesbury would still be satisfied by a divorce. Otherwise he stood
firm for Exclusion. James viewed the Expedients alike with horror, and
the Commons rejected them with insult. Once let a popish king have the
title, it was said, and he would take the power too. “Expedients in
politics are like mountebanks’ tricks in physic,” cried Sir William Jones.
The bill, the bill, and nothing but the bill, was the cry. Colonel Titus
summed the matter up neatly. “You shall have the Protestant religion,” he
said, “you shall have what you will to protect you, but you must have a
popish king who shall command your armies and your navies, make your
bishops and judges. Suppose there were a lion in the lobby, one cries:
Shut the door and keep him out. No, says another, open the door and let
us chain him when he comes in.” The metaphor became popular in verse:
—

I hear a lion in the lobby roar;

Say, Mr. Speaker, shall we shut the door
And keep him out?—or shall we let him in
To try if we can turn him out again?441

On November 4 the Exclusion bill was introduced, heralded by

denunciations of James. The violence of the debates beggars description.
If swords were not drawn, their use was not forgotten. The prospect of
civil war was freely mooted. “The case, in short, is this,” exclaimed Mr.
Henry Booth, “in plain English, whether we would fight for or against
the law.” Sir William Jones pursued, “The art of man cannot find out any
remedy as long as there is a popish successor and the fears of a popish
king.” He was answered by Colonel Legge, a personal friend of the Duke
of York: “There has been talk in the world of another successor than the
duke, in a Black Box; but if Pandora’s box must be opened, I would have
it in my time, not in my children’s, that I may draw my sword to defend
the right heir.” On November 11 the bill was passed, and four days later
with a mighty shout was carried to the Lords by Russell, followed by a
great body of the Commons. To signify the attitude of the city, he was
accompanied by the Lord Mayor and aldermen. At the debate which
followed Charles was present. He heard the passionate attacks of
Shaftesbury, the grave force of Essex’s oratory. He witnessed the
treachery of Sunderland, who joined his enemies. He heard Monmouth
urge Exclusion as the only safety for the king’s life, and broke in with a
loud whisper, “the kiss of Judas.” He saw Halifax rise to champion the
right, and heard him speak fifteen or sixteen times and carry the day by
his inexhaustible powers of wit, sarcasm, and eloquence. At nine o’clock
in the evening, after a debate of six hours, the bill was thrown out by
sixty-three votes to thirty.442 It was a memorable victory.
The fury of the Commons exceeded all bounds. Supplies were refused.
Votes and addresses were passed against Halifax, against Jeffreys,
Recorder of London, against Lord Chief Justice North, against placemen
and pensioners, against the judges, against James. “No sooner does a
man stand by the king but he is attacked,” wrote the duke to William of
Orange. To the attack against Halifax Charles answered suavely that “he
doth not find the grounds in the address of this House to be sufficient to
induce him to remove the Earl of Halifax.” He told Reresby: “Let them
do what they will, I will never part with any officer at the request of
either House. My father lost his head by such compliance; but as for me,
I intend to die another way.” And Halifax took occasion to say to Sir
John: “Well, if it comes to a war, you and I must go together.” A bill for
a Protestant association for the government of the country with
Monmouth at its head was being prepared, when on January 10, 1681 the
king suddenly prorogued and then dissolved Parliament, leaving twenty-
two bills depending and eight more already ordered. The next parliament
was summoned for March 21, and according to the old advice of Danby
not in the capital, but at Oxford.443
Charles’ wisdom in this course cannot be questioned. Before the last
session Ferguson the Plotter had returned from concealment in Holland.
An agent of Essex was busy in London concerning “the linen
manufacture,” for which he had enrolled three or four hundred men and
spent as much as a thousand pounds. Hugh Speke sent down to the
country to have his horse ready. “Get him in as good case as you can,” he
wrote, “for God knows what use I may have for him and how suddenly.”
There is reason to think that Shaftesbury had been planning to place
Parliament under control of the city.444 London had always armed the
Whigs with the possibility of support other than parliamentary. The
removal of Parliament to Oxford made it certain that the coming struggle
would be fought on ground favourable to the king. No sooner was
Charles’ determination known than Shaftesbury, Monmouth, and Essex,
together with thirteen other peers, presented a petition shewing that evil
men, favourers of popery and enemies of the happiness of England, had
made choice of Oxford as a place where the Houses would be daily
menaced by the swords of papists who had crept into the ranks of the
king’s guards, and making their humble prayer and advice that the
parliament should sit at Westminster as usual. “That, my lord, may be
your opinion,” returned the king to Essex; “it is not mine.”445 The Whigs
promptly set to making the elections their own. Nothing was omitted to
secure their success. Instructions from the Green Ribbon Club directed
events in all parts of the country. Members bound themselves to
prosecute the Plot, to demand restriction of the king’s power to prorogue
and dissolve Parliament, to support the Exclusion, the right of
petitioning, the Association.446 When the means of man were exhausted,
supernatural powers were called to assist. On the one side and on the
other were raised ghosts, who foretold doom to their opponents. The city
of London elected its old representatives. They were begged to refuse
supplies and assured that in pursuit of their ends they should have the
support of the citizens’ lives and fortunes. A host of scribblers, libellers,
and caricaturists poured into Oxford. A rumour was spread that the city
would be the scene of a massacre. The Whig chiefs rode down attended
by bands of armed retainers. Guards of townsmen accompanied members
from the boroughs. The Londoners appeared in a great company with
bows of blue satin in their hats, on which were woven the inscription:
“No Popery! No Slavery!” Tory crowds met them at the gates, red-
ribboned, brandishing clubs and staves, and crying, “Make ready! Stand
to it! Knock ’em down! Knock ’em down!” In the midst of his life-
guards, among whom Essex had failed at Charles’ polite request to point
out the creeping papists, the king drove from Windsor. Information had
come to hand of a plot to kidnap him at Oxford. Measures were taken
accordingly. A regiment was moved up to the Mews in case of an attack
on Whitehall. The constable of the Tower was advised to hold himself in
readiness. Attention was given to Lambeth Palace and the forts on the
Thames. The cannon at Windsor were looked to, and Lord Oxford’s
regiment was posted along the Windsor road, should Charles be
compelled to retreat. “If the king would be advised,” said Halifax, “it is
in his power to make all his opponents tremble.”447 It was what he had
come prepared to do.
Since the fall of Danby, Charles had lived in a state of poverty.
Scarcely any supplies were furnished by Parliament. None came from
France. His resources were at one moment so low that he even thought of
recalling his ministers from the courts of foreign princes.448 At the same
time thousands of pounds were being absorbed by the informers against
popish plotters, tens of thousands by the royal mistresses. The treasury
was in the hands of Laurence Hyde, second son of Lord Chancellor
Clarendon. That he was able to pay the way is a source of wonder and
admiration. Such a state of affairs could not last for ever, and Charles
had recourse to the mine whence he had drawn so much wealth before.
Though Louis XIV had gained his immediate object by turning against
his cousin, he felt as time went on that the tools he used might destroy
his own work. His constant desire was to keep England in such a position
that, if she would, she could not thwart his plans. For this he had joined
the Whigs against Danby. From the same motive his ambassador
supported Shaftesbury in his advertisement of Monmouth and bribed not
only members of parliament, but city merchants and Presbyterian
preachers. But there was a point beyond which he could not follow this
line. It would be as little to his interest to see Charles’ authority
overthrown and English policy directed by a Protestant parliament as to
contend with Charles adopting and leading the same policy. Therefore in
the autumn of 1679 Barillon had tried to come to an agreement with
Charles. He offered the sum of £200,000 for three years but, attempting
to get more than the king was willing to give, found the proposal fall to
the ground. Charles threw himself on to the side of the allies against
France and in July of the following year concluded a treaty with Spain to
resist the pretensions of Louis. Alarmed by the violence of the Commons
and realising that their hostility to France could not be cured by gold,
Barillon again broached the subject. The king hung back until just before
the dissolution of the last parliament at Westminster and by skilful play
obtained what he wanted. A verbal treaty was concluded in the queen’s
bedroom, between the bed and the wall. Charles agreed to disengage
himself from the Spanish alliance and to prevent the interference of
Parliament. In return he was to receive from Louis an amount equivalent
to twelve and a half million francs in the course of the next three years.
So close was the secret kept that besides the two kings only Barillon,
Laurence Hyde, and the Duke of York had knowledge of the treaty.449
Though he was tight bound by it for the matter of foreign policy, Charles
had attained his object. Except for the advancement of his power at home
and to quicken the growth of English commerce he did not care for
foreign politics. So long as he could turn Louis’ ambition to his own
advantage he was satisfied. This the new treaty accomplished, and
although Louis too gained handsomely by it, he was obliged to confess
the victory not altogether his by the complete reversal of his policy of the
last four years in England. Charles met Parliament strong in the
consciousness of his independence.
The session that now opened gave little hope of a peaceful end.
Meeting on March 21, the Houses listened to a speech of studious
moderation from the throne. Charles promised consent to any means
whereby under a Catholic successor the administration should remain in
Protestant hands, but what he had already said with regard to the
succession, by that he would abide—there should be no tampering with
that. There could be no mistake as to his attitude. “I, who will never use
arbitrary government myself,” he said with a proud lie, “am resolved
never to suffer it in others.” Charles could well offer a compromise, for
he knew it would never be accepted. The two parties, it was said, were
like hostile forces on opposite heights. The Commons refused the
Expedients. They adopted the cause of a wretch named Fitzharris, whose
obscure intrigue, by whomever directed, was certainly most base and
most criminal, and tried to turn him into an engine of political
aggression. It was evident that they meant to force the king to abandon
James and recognise the Duke of Monmouth. Shaftesbury once more
tried negotiation. In conversation with Charles in the House of Lords he
pressed him in the public interest and for the peace of the nation to
accept the position and give way. The king returned: “My Lord, let there
be no self-delusion, I will never yield and will not let myself be
intimidated. I have the law and reason on my side. Good men will be
with me. There is the church,” and he pointed to where the bishops sat,
“which will remain united with me. Believe me, my Lord, we shall not
be divided.” It was an open declaration of war. On March 26 the
Exclusion bill was voted. Monday, March 28, was fixed for the first
reading. On Sunday the king busied himself with preparing the
Sheldonian theatre for the Commons, who complained that Convocation
House was too small; he viewed the plans, strolled among the workmen,
congratulated himself on being able to arrange for the better comfort of
his faithful subjects, and made all show of expecting a long session. That
night his coach was privately sent a stage outside Oxford with a troop of
horse. Next morning he was carried as usual to the House of Lords in a
sedan chair, followed by another with drawn curtains, seeming to contain
a friend. When the king stepped out his friend was found to be a change
of clothes. He had come to make his enemies tremble. At the last
moment an accident nearly wrecked the scheme. The wrong robes had
been brought. Hastily the chair was sent back for the robes of state, while
Charles held an unwilling peer in conversation that he might not give the
alarm. Then, when all was ready, he swiftly took his seat on the throne
and, without giving the Lords time to robe, summoned the Commons to
attend. As Sir William Jones was in the act of appealing to Magna Carta
as the safeguard of the subject’s right, the Black Rod knocked at the
door. The Commons thronged eagerly through the narrow passages to the
king’s presence, the Speaker leading with Russell and Cavendish at
either hand. They thought they had come to receive Charles’ surrender.
When the tumult was calmed the king spoke; “My lords and gentlemen,
that all the world may see to what a point we are come, that we are not
like to have a good end, when the divisions at the beginning are such,
therefore, my Lord Chancellor, do as I have commanded you.” Finch
thereupon declared Parliament, which had lived for exactly one week, to
be dissolved, and Charles immediately left the throne. As he reached his
dressing-room he turned to a friend, his eyes gleaming, with the remark
that it was better to have one king than five hundred. He made a short
dinner and, leaving by the back stairs, drove off in Sir Edward
Seymour’s coach to where his own was waiting. That night he was in
Windsor.450
The dissolution scattered the opposition as a gust of wind the leaves of
a tree in autumn. Shaftesbury in vain attempted to hold the Houses
together. His followers in the Lords remained for an hour under pretence
of signing a protest, while messengers were dispatched urging the
Commons to fulfil their promises. But they were too much cowed by the
stroke. They feared “if they did not disperse, the king would come and
pull them out by the ears.” Presently they fled. In a quarter of an hour the
price of coaches in the town doubled. Oxford had the appearance of a
surrendered city disgorging its garrison.451 And with their flight the
history of the Popish Plot comes to an end. On that the Whigs had staked
all, and they had lost. The country was alienated by their violence and
rapacity and fearful of the horrors of civil war. Once deprived of their
means of action in Parliament they could do nothing but go whither the
king drove them, to plot frank rebellion without the shadow of legality.
Up to this point Shaftesbury had led a bold attack, not without good hope
of success. Now he was left to sustain the defence, stubborn and keen,
but in the end incapable of avoiding ruin. The tide had at last turned, and
Charles, who since the first appearance of Oates had borne with
unexampled equanimity a series of the most fierce assaults, found
himself upon a pinnacle of triumph, his enemies lying crushed beneath
his throne until he should goad them to complete disaster. Had he struck
twelve months sooner the country would in all likelihood have been on
their side; but he had gauged the temper of his people correctly and knew
now that they would be with him. The history of these years is in brief
the history of Charles II’s reign, the history of a long struggle for the
power of the crown. In the panic of the Popish Plot and the wild agitation
of the Exclusion bill that struggle, exasperated by the Dover treaty and
the Catholic intrigues, came to a head. Its consequence was the Rye
House Plot, the perfection of Whig failure. In that struggle too the
conflicting principles found their absolute exponents in the two wittiest
and two of the most able statesmen in English history, each gifted with a
supreme political genius, each exclusive of the other, each fighting for
personal ascendency no less than for an idea, for principle no less than
for power, Charles II and the Earl of Shaftesbury. Without a grasp of this
the history of the times cannot be understood, and for this reason some
historians have found in them, and more have left, a mere tangle of
helpless chaos. Of the two Charles had the better fortune in his life,
Shaftesbury after death. For Shaftesbury, ruined, disappointed,
embittered at the loss of all his hopes, was yet the father of the
Revolution: all that Charles had gained was thrown away by his less
worthy brother. But the personal triumph of the king was unique. While
to the world he seemed a genial debauchee, whose varied talents would
have fitted him equally to be a chemist, shipwright, jockey, or dancing-
master, the horseman, angler, walker, musician, whose energy tired while
his company delighted the most brilliant of English courts, more
admirable than Crichton had he not been more indolent, he laboured in
an inner life at a great endeavour and, chiefly by letting himself be
misunderstood, achieved it.452 He restored the crown to its ancient place
in the state, whence his father and his grandfather had let it fall. He gave
Parliament just enough rope to hang itself.
TRIALS FOR TREASON
 CHAPTER I
MAGISTRATES AND JUDGES

T trials of the Popish Plot have remained the most celebrated in the
annals of our judicial history. Their reports occupy three volumes of the
State Trials and more than two thousand pages of crowded print. They
contain twenty-two trials for treason, three for murder or attempt to
murder, eleven for perjury, subornation of perjury, libel, and other
misdemeanours. They gave rise to proceedings in Parliament against two
Lord Chief Justices, and against two judges of the Court of King’s
Bench. They are a standing monument to the most astounding outburst of
successful perjury which has occurred in modern times. It is due to their
connection with these trials that posterity has branded the names of
three453 judges with lasting infamy, and that fourteen men executed as
traitors have earned the reputation of martyrs. Not only are they filled
and brimming with the romance of life and death, but there lies locked
within them the kernel of that vast mass of treason, intrigue, crime, and
falsehood which surrounds and is known as the Popish Plot. Strangely
enough, therefore, they have been little studied and never understood.
The consequence of this has been unfortunate. Instead of going to the
fountain-head for information, historians have for the most part
contented themselves with relying on accounts supplied by writers on the
one side or the other, sources which are always prejudiced and usually
contradictory. To extract truth from the mutual opposition of two lies is
an ingenious and useful task when evidence is not forthcoming at first
hand; but it is a method less accurate than the examination of original
authorities when these can be consulted. Nor is there only an obligation
to devote attention to the trials themselves; they cannot be judged alone:
and historians have not escaped error when, although they have studied
the trials immediately within view from the actual reports, they have
neglected to read them in the light of the preceding practice of the
English courts of law, and to ground their opinions upon the whole
judicial system which gave them their peculiar character, and of which
they were an inseparable part. To appreciate properly the significance of
the trials they must not be taken apart from their setting, and it is
necessary before passing judgment upon the events recorded in them to
review the past which lies behind them and the causes which influenced
their nature.
 The judicial system of England in the latter half of the seventeenth
century was very different from its descendant in the twentieth. Its nature
had been determined by the course of political events which moulded it
into a form as unlike to that of two centuries after as the later Stuart
constitution was to the Victorian.
Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, from the time
when Henry VIII broke the political power of Rome in England until the
day when the last revolution destroyed the influence of the Jesuits in
English politics, the English state lived and developed in an atmosphere
charged with the thunderstorm and resonant with the note of war. War
against foes within the land and without was the characteristic condition
of its existence. Besides conflict with foreign powers, war and rebellion,
constant in Scotland and almost chronic in Ireland, may be counted in
eight reigns three completed revolutions, ten454 armed rebellions, two
great civil wars, and plots innumerable, all emanating from within the
English nation alone. From beyond seas enemies schemed almost
without ceasing to overturn religion or government or both as they were
established at home. There is no need to wonder that the English
government was a fighting machine. In this light it was regarded by all
men. Where government is now looked on as a means of getting
necessary business done, of ameliorating conditions of life, and directing
the energy of the country to the highest pitch of efficiency, two centuries
and a half ago it was anxiously watched as an engine of attack or defence
of persons, property, and conscience. The first duty of government is to
govern; to guard the tranquillity of the society over which it is set, to
anticipate the efforts of malignants against the social security, and to
punish crime, the commission of which it has been unable to prevent.
This is at all times a heavy burden; but its weight is redoubled when
private gives way to public crime, and the criminal turns his strength
against the state itself. For acts directed against society in its corporate
being are fraught with far more danger than those which touch it
indirectly, however great their magnitude, not only because the
consequences of the successful act in the former case are vital, but also
because the restless class from which the actors are drawn commands a
higher ability than that containing men to whom crime is a means to
private gain, and is endowed with a reckless hardihood which springs
from the certainty of detection and retribution in case of failure. In the
seventeenth century this class was numerous, and the difficulties of
guarding against it great. The state was always in danger, the government
always battling for its own life and the safety of society, the morrow
always gloomy for the success of their cause. To be for or against the
government was the shibboleth which marked the peaceable man from
the revolutionary. To be “counted to be a very pernicious man against the
government”455 was sufficient to weigh against the credibility of a
witness before the highest tribunal of the kingdom. Therefore it was that
far wider scope could then be allowed to acts of administration than
ought to be allowed in peaceful times, and that the government might be
sure of support for its bad as well as its good measures when they
appeared to be directed towards the doing of rough justice on individuals
whose presence was felt to be a common danger. It could be assumed
that the means adopted for this purpose would not be too closely
scrutinised.
Government was from necessity a fighting machine. But it was a
machine so ill adapted for fighting that its action, far from attaining to
mechanical precision and gravity, was coarse, spasmodic, questionable,
and was driven to atone for want of ease and regularity by displaying an
excess of often ill-directed energy. The means ready to the hand of the
administration were scanty. Without an army, without police, without
detectives, the order maintained in the country practically depended upon
the goodwill of the upper and middle classes. The police of the kingdom
consisted of watchmen in the cities and boroughs; in the country, of
parish constables. Both were notoriously inefficient. The type of
watchmen with which Londoners were familiar in the opening years of
the seventeenth century is sufficiently known from the character of
Dogberry. About the same time the parish constables were distinguished
for being “often absent from their houses, being for the most part
husbandmen, and so most of the day in the fields.”456 As late as 1796 the
watchmen of London were recruited by the various authorities from
“such aged and often superannuated men living in their respective
districts as may offer their services,” and were recognised to be feeble,
half-starved, lacking the least hope of reward or stimulus to activity.457
Without an excessive strain on the imagination it may be conjectured that
in the intervening period the police system did not rise to a high pitch of
perfection. In the capital the king’s guards and the city trained bands
were available forces, but in the provinces the only body on which
reliance could be placed for the execution of justice was formed by the
sheriff’s officers or in the last resort the cumbrous militia. Even the
militia could not be maintained under arms for more than twelve days in
the year, for although the force of any county might be kept on foot for a
longer period by the king’s special direction, the Lord Lieutenant had no
power to raise money with which to pay the men.458 The only practicable
instrument of government for the defence of the state was the judicial
system of the country. As there was no method known for the prevention
of crime by an organised force of police, and no deterrent exerted on
would-be criminals by the existence of a standing body of soldiery, the
only possible weapon to be used against them was to be found in the law
courts. It followed that the judges and justices of the peace not only
fulfilled the judicial and magisterial functions which are known to
modern times, but constituted as well an active arm of the
administration.
The justices of the peace combined in their persons the characters,
which have since been distinguished, of prosecutor, magistrate,
detective, and often policeman. They raised the hue and cry, chased
malefactors, searched houses, took prisoners. A justice might issue a
warrant for the arrest, conduct the search himself, effect the capture,
examine the accused with and without witnesses, extract a confession by
alternately cajoling him as a friend and bullying him as a magistrate,
commit him, and finally give damning evidence against him at his trial.
Such was the conduct of Alderman Sir Thomas Aleyn in the case of
Colonel Turner, tried and convicted for burglary in 1664.459 The
alderman examined Turner in the first place, and charged him point-
blank with the offence. He then searched his house. In this he was
unsuccessful, but the next day, owing to information received, tracked
the colonel to a shop in the Minories, where he was found in possession
of money suspected to be part of the stolen property.460 Aleyn carried him
to the owner of the stolen goods, upon whose engagement not to
prosecute Turner confessed that he knew where the plunder was
concealed, and by a further series of artifices induced him to surrender,
through the agency of his wife, part of the missing jewelry. On this he
committed both Colonel and Mrs. Turner to Newgate, and finally
appeared at their trial to tell the whole story of his manœuvres in
considerable detail and with the greatest composure.461 Twenty years
later, as Sir John Reresby was going to bed one night, he was roused by
the Duke of Monmouth’s page to play a similar part. Mr. Thynne had
been shot dead as he was driving in his coach along Pall Mall,462 and Sir
John was summoned to raise the hue and cry. He went at once to the
house of the murdered man, issued warrants for the arrest of suspected
persons, and proceeded to investigate the case. From a Swede who was
brought before him he obtained the necessary information, and set out to
pursue the culprits. After giving chase all night and searching several
houses, he finally took the German officer who had been a principal in
the murder in the house of a Swedish doctor in Leicester fields at six
o’clock in the morning, and was able to boast in his diary that he had
performed the somewhat perilous task of entering the room first and
personally arresting the captain.463 On another occasion Reresby
deserved well of the government by his action in an episode connected
with the Rye House Plot. Six Scotchmen had been arrested and examined
in the North, and were being sent in custody to London by directions of
one of the secretaries of state. Sir John however was led to suspect that
the examination had not been thoroughly conducted and stopped the men
at York. He examined them again and extorted confessions of
considerable importance, which he was then able to forward to the
secretary in company with the prisoners.464
Instances to illustrate the nature of these more than magisterial duties
might easily be multiplied. The agitation caused by the Popish Plot was
naturally a spur to the activity of justices throughout the country.
Especially was this the case in the west of England, where the Roman
Catholics had their greatest strength. In Staffordshire Mr. Chetwyn, in
Derbyshire Mr. Gilbert, in Monmouthshire Captain Arnold were
unflagging in their efforts to scent out conspiracy and popery. In
consequence of information laid before the committee of the House of
Lords Mr. Chetwyn, in company with the celebrated Justice Warcup,465
searched Lord Stafford’s house. Tart Hall, for a secret vault in which
some priests were said to be concealed. The search was unsuccessful, but
the vigorous manner in which it was conducted is testified by Chetwyn’s
furious exclamation “that if he were the king, he would have the house
set fire to, and make the old rogues come forth.”466 The same magistrate
also would have assisted in the work of obtaining Dugdale’s confession,
had he not been absent in London at the time.467
To Henry Gilbert, justice of the peace for Derbyshire, belonged the
merit of tracking, arresting, and obtaining the conviction of George
Busby, Jesuit, for being a Romish priest, at the Derby Assizes of 1681.468
The evidence which Gilbert gave is very instructive as to the scope of a
magistrate’s duty.469 As early as January 1679 William Waller had come
to search Mr. Powtrel’s house at West Hallam, where the Jesuit was said
to be concealed, but was dissuaded on Gilbert’s assurance that he had
already been over the place several times in vain and believed Busby to
have escaped from England. Since then however trustworthy information
had come to hand that he was still in hiding. Gilbert first reconnoitred the
house under the pretext of buying wood for his coal-pits. He then went
away, returned with a constable and five or six other men and, fortified
by the news that Busby had been seen in the garden only a few moments
before, conducted a thorough search, which resulted in the discovery of
various priestly vestments, an altar, “a box of wafers, mass-books, and
divers other popish things.”470 This was on March 1, 1681. A fortnight
later, in spite of some opposition from Mr. Justice Charlton, who was on
circuit for the spring assizes, Gilbert sent the prize, which by law should
have been burnt, back to West Hallam, in the hope of lulling the priest to
a false security. On the same night he went to gather the fruits of his
manœuvre. Posting men round the house, he made a noise and then
waited to see “if they could spy any light, or hear any walking in the lofts
or false floors.”471 A constable and further assistance was summoned,
and about midnight Gilbert tapped at a window and demanded
admittance. It was refused, and after a proper interval the constable
broke in the door and the whole party entered the house. The priest’s
chamber was found in disorder; the fire had been lately extinguished, the
bedclothes were lying about the room in heaps, and the mattress, which
had been turned, was cold on the top, but warm underneath. This was the
prelude to a thorough examination of the house. The spies in the garden
had heard the priest’s footsteps near a corner under the roof as he
retreated to his hiding-place. From one until ten in the morning of March
16 the search was carried on, Gilbert tapping on the plaster inside with
his sword and the others meeting him by knocking on the tiles and walls
from the other side. Hope was nearly abandoned when the searchers
were spurred by the jeers of the people of the house to one last effort. At
length they were rewarded. Sounding the roof inch by inch, they came
upon a spot near some chimney stacks where the knocks from the two
sides did not tally; breaking open the tiles, they discovered a priest’s
hole, and in it Busby, whom Mr. Gilbert forthwith bore off in triumph
and committed to Derby gaol.
These exploits were no doubt typical of the range of activity common
to busy justices of the peace throughout the kingdom. Important business
passed through their hands, and they felt their position likewise to be
important. They were an energetic body of men and spared not
themselves, nor their neighbours, nor those against whom their action
was directed in the execution of their duty as government officials. Each
was sure to be in his way a local magnate, and thus the influence which
the government exerted on the justices was through them spread widely
over the country. Well known among provincial magistrates, and still
more active than the two above mentioned, was Captain Arnold, whose
name appeared in the commission of the peace for Monmouthshire. It
was this Arnold who in 1679 assisted Dr. Croft, Bishop of Hereford, in
his attack on the Jesuit college at Combe, near Monmouth. The college
was dispersed and ten horse loads of books, seized in it, were removed to
the library of Hereford Cathedral.472 In December of the previous year he
had been instrumental in the arrest of Father Pugh, formerly of the
Society of Jesus, and in the seizure of papers and valuables belonging to
Hall, another member of the society.473 But Arnold exhibited something
more than the zeal proper to an energetic and business-like justice. He
was a keen adherent to the Whig and extreme Protestant party. In
addition to the usual government reward of £50 for the apprehension of a
Jesuit, he offered £200 from his own resources for each capture.474 He
made friends with the missioners and then procured their own
dependents to give evidence against them. He armed bodies of servants
to assist him in his expeditions, and brought the unfortunate priest whom
Oates had named as prospective Bishop of Llandaff triumphantly into
Monmouth at the head of a dozen horsemen.475 Chief among his
performances was the capture of two well-known Jesuits, David Henry
Lewis and Philip Evans, popularly dubbed Captain. Lewis was taken by
Arnold in person, Evans through his agency. Against both he produced
the witnesses and managed the evidence.476 Both were convicted of high
treason under the statute of Elizabeth, for being priests in orders received
from the see of Rome. Evans was executed at Cardiff on July 22, Lewis
at Usk on August 27, 1679.477 In the summer of 1680 Arnold’s name
leaped into notoriety in London, when on July 16 John Giles was
brought to the bar at the Old Bailey “for assaulting and intending to
despatch and murder John Arnold, one of his Majesty’s justices of the
peace.”478 This incident however, which raised Arnold’s importance so
high with the Whig party that his popularity bade fair to rival even that
of the murdered Sir Edmund Godfrey,479 affords strong grounds for
doubting the candour of motive in his official alertness; for there is
reason to believe that no attempt whatever was made upon his life, and
that the whole affair was trumped up in a most discreditable manner with
a view to establishing more firmly the reputation of the Protestant party
and the guilt of the Roman Catholics.480 One more, and this again a
characteristic instance, may suffice to illustrate the varied, almost
intriguing, nature of a magistrate’s position and the inquisitorial side
which did not completely disappear from his duty until far into the
nineteenth century.481 At Lord Stafford’s trial the three justices who had
examined Dugdale immediately after his arrest in December 1678 were
called by the prisoner to prove that the witness had then absolutely
denied all knowledge of the Plot.482 To rebut this evidence the managers
of the prosecution called William Southall, coroner of the county of
Stafford. This man, who was not even a magistrate and occupied the
least judicial position known to the law, had taken the opportunity of
some legal business which was to be transacted between a cousin of his
and Dugdale to undertake a little private examination of the latter on his
own behalf in the hopes of obtaining information about the Plot.
According to his own account Southall acquitted himself with some skill
and, by assuming a knowing air as if convinced of Dugdale’s guilt and
playing upon his hopes of pardon and reward, managed to extract from
him a material confession. With this he repaired, not to the justices of the
peace by whom Dugdale had originally been examined, but to three
different magistrates, and in their company was present the next day at a
detailed examination of Dugdale, who then swore to nearly the same
evidence as he now gave at the trial of Lord Stafford.483 Whether this
story was true, or, as is suggested by the ease of Southall’s success where
others naturally better qualified had failed, the interview and its result
was arranged beforehand between the two men, is at this point
immaterial; for honest or fraudulent, the coroner’s behaviour was
accepted as a matter of course, and without the least hint that there was
any irregularity in the action of an inferior official going behind the
backs of his superiors, and finally transferring so delicate a matter out of
their cognisance altogether into the hands of a third party.
Such were the functions of the justices of the peace in the seventeenth
century, and so wide was the reach of the magisterial arm stretched out
as a weapon in the service of the administration of government. And if
the justices filled so important a position, still more important was that
assumed by the king’s judges. The justices were able administrators,
dealers of small mercy to the evildoer, guardians of the peace in the
name of which their commissions ran; but the judges took a place in the
foremost rank as great officers of state. The character of their office had
been determined by the famous conflict between James I and Lord Chief
Justice Coke which came to a head in 1616 and ended in Coke’s
dismissal.484 The Chief Justice’s endeavour had been to erect the bench
into an independent tribunal, founded on the ruins of broken agreement
between king and Commons, and occupying the position of arbitrator
and guardian of the constitution midway between the two. To the king
and to Bacon, who advised him, this seemed intolerable; to James,
because the ideal of absolutism which guided his mind could not admit
in the state a constitutional oracle other than himself; to the Attorney-
General, because his liberal instincts, wide statesmanship, and
knowledge of political requirements made clear the impracticable nature
of Coke’s ideas, the bonds of crabbed technicality with which they
sought to shackle the future, their essential conservatism. Coke’s
parchment knowledge, too good for James, was not good enough for
Bacon. If Bacon inclined towards administrative absolutism, and Coke
represented in the struggle the majesty of the law, assuredly the law for
which the Chief Justice fought, for ever seeking guidance in the records
of the past, was unfit to mould the future of a great nation. So when
Coke fell, characteristically enough, over a sordid squabble into which a
question of principle was inappropriately dragged, his fall demands our
sympathy perhaps, but hardly our regret. Regret at a victory in the
personal cause of the monarch and the check given to the forward march
of constitutional progress is profitless. Between the ideas of Bacon and
Coke there was no middle course open at the moment when a choice
became necessary. It was impossible to avoid the conclusion that the
judges must either become an independent power in the state, an
irresponsible tribunal to which constitutional questions of the highest
importance should be referred for decision in strict accordance with the
rules of the Court of King’s Bench, or be content to remain in
subservience to the crown, supporters of the king’s prerogative, and
administrators of his policy. The expedient, which has since made the
way plain, of the constitutional supremacy of the Commons of England
was then unborn, and as yet in the light of practical affairs inconceivable.
The Lord Chief Justice, “toughest of men,” and too stubborn to yield,
was broken; but his brethren on the bench gave way and offered
assurances of their good conduct for the future and of their devotion to
the royal will. James took the opportunity of the lecture which he read to
the judges in the star chamber to compare their behaviour in meddling
with the prerogative of the crown to the atheism and blasphemy
committed by good Christians in disputing the word of God.
 Thus the judges became, according to Bacon’s wish, “lions, but yet
lions under the throne,” and carried themselves very circumspectly not to
“check or oppose any points of sovereignty.”485 Of their regularity in this
course there can be no doubt, for if any lapsed into forbidden ways, a
judge he speedily ceased to be. His appointment was durante
beneplacito486 and revocable at the will of the king; and the king took full
advantage of his power. The example offered by the case of Coke was
not left long in isolation. The government was engaged in the hopeless
attempt to uphold the constitution of the Tudor monarchy at a time when
the nation had outgrown it, and had opened a war to the death with the
progressive tendency of Parliament. In such a struggle the judges were
the king’s strongest weapon, and as a weapon that turns uselessly in the
hand, the recalcitrant judge was discarded without scruple. When the
better class of judges questioned the legality of acts of government they
met with the same fate as their rugged predecessor. Under Charles I two
Lord Chief Justices were dismissed and Chief Baron Walter was
suspended from office. Judicial offices of consequence were filled with
“men of confidence,” men who enjoyed the confidence of the king and
quickly lost that of every one else.487
In their support of the crown by technical legality and practical
injustice the courts lost all repute as temples of the law. Even that high
royalist, Lord Clarendon, recognised that reliance upon such means was
a cause of weakness, not of strength, and that men ceased to respect
judicial decisions when they were used to cloak the designs of
government. “When they saw,” he writes, “in a court of law (that law
that gave them a title to the possession of all they had) reason of state
urged as elements of law, judges as sharp-sighted as secretaries of state,
and in the mysteries of state, ... they had no reason to hope that doctrine,
or the promoter of it, would be contained within any bounds. And here
the damage and mischief cannot be expressed that the crown and state
sustained by the deserved reproach and infamy that attended the judges;
there being no possibility to preserve the dignity, reverence, and
estimation of the laws themselves but by the integrity and innocency of
the judges.”488 To the thorough supporter of the administration the matter
appeared in a different light. When the two dissenting judges gave way
under pressure and adhered to the report of the majority in favour of
ship-money, they were told by Lord Wentworth that it was the greatest
service the legal profession had rendered to the crown during this
period.489
 For good or evil the work of reducing the bench to an arm of the
administration had been done, and from this political degradation it did
not recover for nearly three-quarters of a century, until William III was
seated on the throne and the judges became independent of the crown.
The stirring events of the great rebellion, the Protectorate, and the
Restoration, which so profoundly affected the life and institutions of the
nation in other ways, touched the bench but slightly. In the early months
of the Long Parliament a resolution was passed by both houses of
Parliament to the effect that the judges’ appointments should be for the
future quamdiu se bene gesserint, and on January 15, 1641, the king
gave effect to this by a declaration that they should no longer hold office
at the pleasure of the crown but during good behaviour. For twenty-four
years the improvement was maintained in theory; in practice the old
system kept its hold unshaken. During the short remainder of Charles I’s
reign the judges were concerned on only two occasions in affairs of state.
These were however enough to demonstrate that the change in the
manner of their appointments had by no means the result of
rehabilitating the character of the bench and restoring to it the quality,
which it had long lacked, of independence. One of the first acts of the
Long Parliament, after dealing with the vital question of ship-money,
was to turn upon the judges who had lent the weight of their names to the
decision which pronounced its legality. Finch was violently attacked as a
traitor in the House of Commons, and his impeachment voted with
scarcely a dissentient voice. The Lord Keeper preferred the path of safety
to that of dignity and fled to Holland on board a royal vessel, leaving the
impeachment to be formally concluded in his absence. At the same time
proceedings were commenced against six other judges who had sat at
Hampden’s trial.490 The effect of this was immediate. Only once again
did the judges come into prominence before the outbreak of the Civil
War. Scarcely five months after Finch’s impeachment the House of Lords
demanded their opinion whether or no the articles against Strafford
amounted to making him guilty of treason. Without hesitation they
replied unanimously that upon the articles which the Lords had voted to
be proved it was their opinion that the Earl of Strafford did deserve to
undergo the pains and penalties of high treason by law.491 Not only was
their conduct in delivering this extra-judicial opinion decidedly
irregular,492 but their decision was in flagrant opposition to the clearest
dictates of justice and rules of law, for the accusations against Strafford
cannot be regarded as tantamount, or even approaching, to a substantial
charge of treason.493 The fault lay not in their intelligence, but in the
system which had made their honesty an asset in the treasury of
government, and had robbed them of their ability to judge facts in the
light of law and reason without reference to principles of statecraft or the
struggle of parties. It was not upon the merits of the case that their
decision was based now that it was unfavourable to the administration,
any more than their favourable decisions had been based upon the merits
of cases when the administration was in power: the only difference was
that formerly they had feared dismissal from the service of an angry
sovereign as the result of an independent opinion, whereas now they
feared impeachment at the hands of the angrier Commons.
Under the Commonwealth and the Protectorate the bench fared no
better. In October 1649 all judges and other officers of the law, down to
the very clerks of the courts, who had shown themselves hostile to the
Parliament and in sympathy with the monarchy, were summarily
dismissed, and their posts filled by men in whom trust could be reposed.
Even this was not sufficient. In affairs of state justice was at a still
greater discount under the Protectorate than under the monarchy. The
cause of right was pleaded in vain when it came into collision with the
power and plans of the Protector. “For not observing his pleasure” judges
were rebuked, suspended, dismissed. Special judicial commissions were
appointed to do his work; obnoxious attorneys and critical counsel were
imprisoned.494 The jury which acquitted Lilburn after “the furious hurley-
burleys” of his second trial were sharply examined on their conduct by
the Council of State.495 Moreover the new appointments to the bench in
spite of all care were not entirely satisfactory to Cromwell’s government.
The judges still exhibited a bent which must have been far from pleasing
to the republicans. Sir Matthew Hale withdrew as far as possible from all
political trials and refused to sit on Penruddock’s trial after the collapse
of the rising at Salisbury.496 Surely it is this rather than the respectability
of their characters that should explain how it came about that at the
Restoration nine out of the fifteen republican judges then in office were
found acceptable to the new government.
The character of the bench was no more altered by the Restoration
than by the rebellion. If the traditions of forty years had clung too closely
to be shaken off by those who might perhaps wish to be rid of them, they
were not likely to be removed ten years later by those whose interest it
was to retain them. The only practical difference was that the judges,
whose duty as partisans of the government had been sealed by time and
recognised by all who were concerned in the government, could now
return to their more natural sphere as servants of the crown as well.
Thenceforward until the end of the Stuart monarchy they were
indispensable as allies of the king, protectors of the administration,
shining examples of loyalty well applied and labour serviceably directed.
They possessed moreover the signal advantage of being able to enforce
the example which they inculcated. Those who did not obtained an evil
reputation at court; and Sir Matthew Hale was looked at askance as one
who was suspected of not lending a whole-hearted support to the
government.497 Even the theoretical advantage which had been gained by
the Long Parliament now disappeared. Charles II took advantage of the
lengthy prorogation of 1665 quietly to reintroduce appointments “at the
good pleasure” of the crown.498
There was however some change for the better. A large majority of the
nation was for the first time for thirty years united in sympathy with the
government. The universal desire was for peace and stability. The great
constitutional questions which had rent the kingdom and distracted the
bench lay for the moment at rest. Government was no longer divided
against itself; what was now found in opposition was not a combination
of popular feeling with constitutional principle, to crush which the law
must be strained by a serviceable judiciary, but a discredited party of
fanatics and dissenters, the dregs of a defeated rebellion, against whom
the law could be directed legally and to the satisfaction of the vast
majority of the king’s subjects.
The demand therefore for that cast of mind which under Charles I had
been the peculiarity of a successful judge no longer existed for Charles
II. When definitions of law were no longer needed to support the crown
in opposition to the other legitimate elements of the constitution, and
when the government was in close accord with the people, there was no
temptation to subject the law to such strains as it had formerly been
made to bear in the effort to galvanise into life a system which had
already died a natural death. Perhaps it was less that judges had become
more scrupulous than that the objection to their scruples had
disappeared. To whatever cause they were due, it is certain that the reign
of Charles II was marked by the renewal of decisions which must have
been obnoxious to the government. No doubt these are not to be found in
particular cases which were regarded as of high consequence, but the
tendency is perfectly visible, and in one instance at least proved to be of
profound importance. This was the trial of Penn and Meade in 1670, for
by the proceedings which arose from it was finally established the
principle that a jury has an absolute right to give such a verdict as it
thinks proper without being open to question therefore by any other
person or authority whatsoever.499 The Quakers had been indicted for an
unlawful assembly, and the jury before whom they were tried, in spite of
repeated direction and shameful abuse from the Lord Mayor and the
Recorder, found a verdict of not guilty. For this the court sentenced the
jurymen to a fine of forty marks apiece and imprisonment until the fine
was paid. Bushell, the foreman, and his fellow-jurors obtained a writ of
habeas corpus, and the point was argued at length on the return to the
writ. Ten judges out of twelve affirmed the absolute discretion of the jury
to believe or disbelieve the evidence given according to the dictates of
conscience, and not only were the jurymen discharged from custody
without paying the fine, but no attempt has ever been made since to
contest the principle thus established.500
One further instance may be noted. In 1675 a consultation of all the
judges but two was held to decide a case which was submitted to them
by the Attorney-General. A great riot had been made a month before by
the weavers’ apprentices in various parts and suburbs of London by way
of protest against the increased introduction of looms into their trade; the
looms had been broken, a large amount of property destroyed, and
several persons injured. The Attorney-General now wished to indict the
rioters for high treason; but the judges were divided, five for, five against
the opinion that treason had been committed, and in spite of the evident
anxiety of the government to proceed against the apprentices on the
graver issue, the Attorney-General had to be content with laying the
indictments for a riot and obtaining convictions for the lesser offence.501
When it is remembered that the London apprentices perpetually drew
upon themselves the watchful eye of the government by their obnoxious
politics, and that a trade riot was always suspected of being the
forerunner of a sectarian revolt, it is evident that the decision of the
judges meant considerable annoyance, if not an actual rebuff, to the
government.502
The general usefulness of the bench was not however impaired by
such exceptions. The judges still formed one of the most important parts
of the administrative machinery. They were consulted by the
government, gave advice, and put into effect the results of their advice.
They supplied the king during the long prorogation of 1675 with the
pretext which he required for the suppression of the coffee-houses.503
Before the trial of the regicides they had held a conference with the
king’s counsel, Attorney, and Solicitor-General to resolve debatable
points which were likely to arise in the course of the trials.504 When the
Licensing Act expired in 1679, the judges were ordered by the king to
make a report concerning the control of the press. Their unanimous
decision was “that his Majesty may, by law, prohibit the printing and
publishing of all newsbooks and pamphlets of news whatsoever, not
licensed by his Majesty’s authority, as manifestly tending to a breach of
the peace and disturbance of the kingdom”;505 and their preaching was
put into practice before many months had elapsed at the trials of Harris506
and Carr,507 the former of whom was sentenced to the pillory and a fine
of £500, and the latter to the suppression of the newspaper which he
owned.
Actions for libel had always afforded a wide field for the exercise of
administrative authority. Under the Clarendon régime the sentence
pronounced by Chief-Justice Hyde upon Twyn, the printer, had fully
sustained the traditions of the trials of Prynne, Bastwick, and Lilburn.508
With the multiplication of political pamphlets after 1678 trials and
convictions for libel became frequent. Within two years six important
prosecutions of authors, printers, or publishers were instituted, and not
only resulted almost always in the infliction of heavy punishments, but
offered at the same time opportunities for many caustic and edifying
remarks from the bench. Some time after, the number of trials for
political libels and seditious words held within the space of seven
months actually mounted to the total of sixteen.509
The advantage of lectures thus delivered in court on general politics
and the duties of a good subject was of considerable value to the
government. In this part of their duties the judges rivalled even the
courtly eloquence of divines whose chief occupation was the advocacy
of the doctrine of non-resistance. On his elevation to the bench in
October 1676 Sir William Scroggs “made so excellent a speech, that my
Lord Montague, then present, told the king he had since his happy
restoration caused many hundred sermons to be printed, all which
together taught not half so much loyalty; therefore as a sermon desired
his command to have it printed and published in all the market towns in
England.”510 It was afterwards made a ground for proceedings in
Parliament against Scroggs that he had publicly spoken “very much
against petitioning, condemning it as resembling 41, as factious and
tending to rebellion, or to that effect”511 and it was said that Sir Robert
Atkyns was dismissed from the bench for contradicting a dictum of the
Chief Justice while on circuit, “that the presentation of a petition for the
summoning of Parliament was high treason.”512 Similar behaviour was
also made the subject of complaint against Mr. Justice Jones.513 Even the
courteous Lord Chancellor Finch, in delivering sentence upon Lord
Stafford, undertook to prove by the way that Godfrey had been
murdered, and London burnt, by the papists.514 But most of all the
influence and importance of the judges was shown in trials for treason.
In those days state trials were not merely impartial inquiries into the
question whether or no certain persons had committed certain acts, the
nature of which was under examination: they were life-and-death
struggles of the king and his government against the attacks of those who
wished to subvert them. It was the business of those engaged in them to
see that the king’s cause took no hurt. In this light they were universally
regarded, and to this end their conduct was undertaken. Judges and jurors
alike were engaged in the recognised task of the defence of the state. To
the hearers it was no quaint piece of antiquated phraseology when the
clerk of the crown addressed the prisoner arraigned at the bar for high
treason: “These good men that are now called, and here appear, are those
which are to pass between you and our sovereign lord the king, upon
your life and death”; it was a sober expression of vivid truth. The jury
stood between the king’s life and the intrigues of a defeated malefactor.
Of his innocence they were indeed ready to be convinced, but it would
require strong evidence to convince them. In his guilt their belief was
already strong. They can scarcely have refrained from regarding
themselves less as agents employed in the cause of truth to examine
without prejudice the merits of the case before them than as executors of
an already predetermined justice.
And here the weight of the judge’s authority was preponderant. He
directed those heavy advantages which weighed on the side of the king
and against the prisoner. The stringent system of preliminary procedure,
which rendered extreme the difficulty of properly preparing his case
beforehand, his isolation when actually upon trial, and the unsympathetic
atmosphere by which he was surrounded, and of which the counsel for
the prosecution were ready to take advantage to press every point home,
combined to render the accused almost helpless against the crown. Even
when administered with mercy the system was severely favourable to the
prosecution; and the adverse rules which hemmed in the prisoner were
generally worked to the utmost. To understand these clearly, it will be
necessary to pass shortly in review the history of criminal procedure in
the English courts of law, and the developments which led to its state at
the time of the trials for the Popish Plot.515