The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous Volume II Part 7

But another charge had we, I trow. Of all times had this famous fortress of the Tower of London been a place of hold for the King's prisoners.

Felons, nor cutpurses, nor wantons suffered we indeed in our precincts, nor gave we the hospitality of dungeons to; but of state prisoners, n.o.blemen and gentlemen in durance for High Treason, or for other offences against the Royal State and Prerogative, had we always a plentiful store. Some of the greatest Barons--the proudest names in England--have pined their lives away within the Tower's inexorable walls. Walls! why there were little dungeons and casemates built in the very thickness of those huge mural stones. In ancient days I have heard that foul deeds were common in the fortress--that princes were done to Death here--notably the two poor Royal infants that the wicked Richard of Gloucester bid his h.e.l.l-hounds smother and bury at the foot of the stairs in that building which has ever since gone by the name of the b.l.o.o.d.y Tower. So, too, I am afraid it is a true bill that Torture was in the bad old days indiscriminately used towards both gentle and simple in some gloomy underground places in this said Tower. I have heard of a Sworn Tormentor and his a.s.sistants, whose fiendish task it was to torture poor creatures' souls out of their miserable bodies, and of a Chirurgeon who had to watch lest the agonies used upon 'em should be too much for human endurance, and so, putting 'em out of their misery, rob the headsman of his due, the scaffold of its prey, and the vile mobile that congregate at public executions of their raree show. Of "Scavenger's Daughters," Backs, Thumbscrews, iron boots, and wedges, and other horrible engines of pain, I have heard many dismal tales told; but all had long fallen into disuse before my time. The last persons tortured within the Tower walls were, I believe, Colonel Faux (Guido) and his confederates, for their most abominable Gunpowder Plot, which was to put an end to the Protestant Religion and the ill.u.s.trious House of Stuart at one fell blow; but happily came to nothing, through the prudence of my Lord Monteagle, and the well-nigh superhuman sagacity of his Majesty King James the First. Guy and his accomplices they tortured horribly; and did not even give 'em the honour of being beheaded on Tower Hall,--they being sent away as common traitors to Old Palace Yard (close to the scene of their desperately meditated but fortunately abortive crime), and there half-hanged, cut down while yet warm, disembowelled, their Hearts and Inwards taken out and burnt by Gregory (that was hangman then, and that, as Gregory Brandon, had a coat-of-arms given him as a gentleman, through a fraud practised upon Garter King), and their mangled bodies--their heads severed--cut into quarters, well coated with pitch, and stuck upon spikes over London Bridge, east Portcullis, Ludgate, Temple Bar, and other places of public resort, according to the then b.l.o.o.d.y-minded custom, and the statute in that case made and provided. But after Colonel Guido Faux, Back, Thumbscrews, boots, and wedges, and Scavenger's daughters fell into a decline, from which, thank G.o.d, they have never, in this fair realm of England, recovered. I question even if the Jesuit Garnett and his fellows, albeit most barbarously executed, were tortured in prison; but it is certain that when Felton killed the Duke of Bucks at Portsmouth, and was taken red-handed, the Courtiers, Parasites, and other cruel persons that were about the King, would fain have had him racked; but the public,--which by this time had begun to inquire pretty sharply about Things of State,--cried out that Felton should not be tormented (their not loving the Duke of Bucks too much may have been one reason for their wis.h.i.+ng some degree of leniency to be shown to the a.s.sa.s.sin), and the opinion of the Judges being taken, those learned Persons, in full court of King's Bench a.s.sembled, decided that Torture was contrary to the Law of England, and could not legally be used upon any of the King's subjects howsoever guilty he might have been.

But I confess that when I first took up service as a Tower Warder, and gazed upon those horrible implements of Man's cruelty and hard-heartedness collected in the Armoury, I imagined with dismay that, all rusty as they had grown, there might be occasions for them to be used upon the persons of unfortunate captives. For I had lived much abroad, and knew what devilish freaks were often indulged in by arbitrary and unrestrained power. But my comrades soon put my mind at ease, and pointed out to me that few, very few, of these instruments of Anguish were of English use or origin at all; but that the great majority of these wicked things were from among the spoils of the Great Armada, when the proud Spaniards, designing to invade this free and happy country with their monstrous Flotilla of Caravels and Galleons, provided numerous tools of Torture for despitefully using the Heretics (as they called them) who would not obey the unrighteous mandates of a foreign despot, or submit to the domination (usurped) of the Bishop of Rome. And so tender indeed of the bodies of the King's prisoners had the Tower authorities become, that the underground dungeons were now never used, commodious apartments being provided for the n.o.blemen and gentlemen in hold: and a pretty penny they had to pay for their accommodation; five guineas a day, besides warder and gentlemen gaolers'

fees, being the ordinary charge for a n.o.bleman, and half that sum for a knight and private esquire. Besides this, the Lieutenant of the Tower had a gratuity of thirty pounds from every peer that came into his custody, and twenty pounds for every gentleman writing himself _Armiger_, and in default could seize upon their cloaks: whence arose a merry saying--"best go to the Tower like a peeled carrot than come forth like one."

There were even no chains used in this state prison; of fetters and manacles we had indeed a plenitude, all of an antique pattern and covered with rust; but no irons such as are put upon their prisoners by vulgar gaolers in Newgate and elsewhere. I have heard say, that when poor Counsellor Layer, that was afterwards hanged, drawn, and quartered as a Jacobite, and his head stuck atop of Temple Bar hard by his own chambers,--was first brought for safer custody to the Tower, breakings out of Newgate having been common, the Government sent down word that, as a deep-dyed conspirator and desperate rebel, he was to be double-ironed. Upon this Mr. Lieutenant flies into a mighty heat, and taking boat to Whitehall, waits on Mr. Secretary at the c.o.c.kpit, and tells him plainly that such an indignity towards his Majesty's prisoners in the Tower was never heard of, that no such base modes of coercion as chains or bilboes had ever been known in use since the reign of King Charles I., and that the King's warders were there to see that the prisoners did not attempt Evasion. To which Mr. Secretary answered, with a grim smile, that notwithstanding all the keenness of the watch and ward, he had often heard of prisoners escaping from durance in the Tower, notably mentioning the case of my Lord Nithesdale, who escaped in his lady's clothes, and without more ado informed the Lieutenant that Counsellor Layer must be chained as directed, even if the chains had to be forged expressly for him. Upon which Mr. Lieutenant took a very surly leave of the Great Man, cursing him as he comes down the steps for a Thief-catcher and Tyburn purveyor, and sped him to Newgate, where he borrowed a set of double-irons from the Peachum or Lockit, or whatever the fellow's name it was that kept that Den of Thieves. And even then, when they had gotten the chains to the Tower, none of the warders knew how to put them on, or cared to sully their fingers with such hangman's work; and so they were fain to have a blacksmith with his anvil, and a couple of turnkeys down from Newgate, to rivet the chains upon the poor gentleman's limbs; he being at the time half dead of a Strangury; but so cruel was justice in those days.

When I first came to the Tower, we had but few prisoners; for it was before the Great Rebellion of the 'Forty-five; and for a few years previous the times had been after a manner quiet. Now and then some notorious Jacobite, Seminarist, or seditious person was taken up; but he was rarely of sufficient importance to be confined in our ill.u.s.trious Prison; and was either had to Newgate, or else incarcerated in the lodgings of a King's Messenger till his examinations were over, and he was either committed or Enlarged. These Messengers kept, in those days, a kind of Sponging Houses for High Treason, where Gentlemen Traitors who were not in very great peril lived, as it were, at an ordinary, and paid much dearer for their meat and lodging than though they had been at some bailiffs lock-up in Cursitor Street, or Tooke's Court, or at the Pied Bull in the Borough. We had, it is true, for a long time a Romanist Bishop that was suspected of being in correspondence with St. Germain's, and lay for a long time under detention. He was a merry old soul, and most learned man; would dine very gaily with Mr. Lieutenant, or his deputy, or the Fort Major, swig his bottle of claret, and play a game of tric-trac afterwards; and it was something laughable to watch the quiet cunning way in which he would seek to Convert us Warders who had the guarding of him to the Romanist faith. They let him out at last upon something they called a _Nolle prosequi_ of the Attorney-General, or some suchlike dignitary of the law--which _nolle prosequi_ I take to be a kind of _habeas corpus_ for gentlefolks. He was as liberal to us when he departed as his means would allow; for I believe that save his ca.s.sock, his breviary, a gold cross round his neck, and episcopal ring, and a portmantel full of linen, the old gentleman had neither goods nor chattels in the wide world: indeed, we heard that the Lieutenant lent him, on leaving, a score of gold pieces, for friends.h.i.+p-sake, to distribute among us. But he went away--to foreign parts, I infer--with flying colours; for every body loved the old Bishop, all Romanist and suspected Jacobite as he was.

Then came that dreadful era of rebellion of which I have spoken, and we Tower Warders found that our holiday time was over. Whilst the war still raged in Scotland, scarcely a day pa.s.sed without some person of consequence being brought either by water to Traitor's Gate, or by a strong escort of Horse and Foot to the Tower Postern; not for active partic.i.p.ation in the Rebellion, but as a measure of safety, and to prevent worse harm being done. And many persons of consequence, trust me, saved their heads by being laid by the heels for a little time while the hue and cry was afoot, and Habeas Corpus suspended. Fast bind, safe find, is a true proverb; and you may thank your stars, even if your enemies have for a time bound you with chains and with links of iron, if, when the stormy season has gone past, you find your head still safe on your shoulders. Now it was a great Lord who was brought to the Tower, and from whom Mr. Lieutenant did not forget to claim his thirty-pound fee on entrance; for "here to-day, gone to-morrow," he reasoned, and so shot his game as soon as he had good parview of the same. Now it was some Ches.h.i.+re or Lancas.h.i.+re Squire, s.n.a.t.c.hed away from his Inn, at the Hercules' Pillars, or the Catherine Wheel in the Borough, as being vehemently suspected of Jacobitism. These gentlemen mostly took their captivity in a very cheerful and philosophical manner. They would call for a round of spiced beef, a tankard of ale, and a pipe of tobacco, so soon as ever they were fairly bestowed in their lodgings; drank to the King--taking care not to let us know whether his name began with a G or a J, with many jovial ha-has, and were as happy as the day was long, so it seemed to us, if they had but a pack of cards and a volume of the Gentleman's Recreation, or Academy of Field Sports. What bowls of punch, too, they would imbibe o' nights, and what mad carouses they would have!

Such roaring Squires as these would have been much better bestowed in the Messengers' Houses; but these were all full, likewise the common gaols; nay, the debtors' prisons and vile sponging-houses were taken up by Government for the temporary incarceration of suspected persons.

How well do I remember the dreadful amazement and consternation which broke over this city when the news came that the Prince--I mean the Pretender--had utterly routed the King's troops commanded by Sir John Cope at Prestonpans; that the Misguided Young Man had entered Edinborough at the head of a furious mob of Highlandmen, whose preposterous style of dress I never could abide, and who in those days we Southrons held as being very little better than painted Savages; that the ladies of the Scottish capital had all mounted the white c.o.c.kade, and were embroidering scarves for the Pretender and his officers, and that the Castle of Edinborough alone held out 'gainst this monstrous uprising to destroy authority! But how much greater was the Dismay in London when we learnt that the Rebels, not satisfied with their conquests in his Majesty's Scottish Dominions, had been so venturous as to invade England itself, and had actually advanced so far as the trading town of Derby! Then did those who had been long, albeit obscurely, suspected of Jacobitism, come forth from their lurking holes and corners, and almost openly avow their preference for the House of Stuart. Then did very many respectable persons, formerly thought to be excellently well affected towards King George's person and Government, become waverers, or prove themselves the Turncoats they had always, in secret, been, and seditiously prophesy that the days of the Hanoverian dynasty were numbered. Then did spies and traitors abound, together with numbers of alarming rumours, that the Chevalier had advanced as far as Barnet on the Great North Road; that his Majesty was about to convey himself away to Hanover; that the Duke of c.u.mberland was dead; that barrels of gunpowder had been discovered in the Crypt beneath Guildhall, and in the vaults of the Chapel Royal; that mutiny was rife among the troops; that the Bank of England was about to break, with sundry other distracting reports and noises.

Of course authority did all it could to rea.s.sure the public mind, tossed in a most tempestuous manner as it was by conflicting accounts.

Authority bestirred itself to put down seditious meetings by proclamation, and to interdict residence in the capital to all known Papists; whereby several most estimable Catholic gentlemen (as many there be of that old Faith) were forced to leave their Town Houses, and betake themselves to mean and inconvenient dwellings in the country. The gates of Temple Bar were now shut, on sudden alarms, two or three times a week; as though the closing of these rotten portals could in any way impede the progress of rebellion, or do any thing more than further to hamper the already choked-up progress of the streets. The Lord Mayor was mighty busy calling out the Train-bands, and having them drilled in Moorfields, for the defence of the City; and a mighty fine show those citizen soldiers would have made no doubt to the bare-legged Highlandmen, had they come that way. The Guards at all the posts at the Court end of the town were doubled, and we at the Tower put ourselves into a perfect state of defence. Cannon were run out; matches kept lighted; whole battalions maintained under arms; munitions and provisions of war laid in, as though to withstand a regular siege; drawbridges pulled up and portcullises lowered, with great clanking of chains and gnas.h.i.+ng of old iron teeth;--and rich sport it was to see those old rust-eaten engines once more brought into gear again.

But, as the Wise Man saith that a soft answer turneth away wrath, so do we often find that a merry word spoken in season will do more than all your Flaming Ordinances, and Terrific Denunciations of Fire and Sword.

And although at this time (beginning of the year 1746) authority very properly exerted itself to procure obedience to the const.i.tution, by instilling Awe into men's minds, and did breathe nothing in its official doc.u.ments but heading, hanging, and quartering, with threats of bombardments, free quarters, drum-head courts-martial, chains, gags, fines, imprisonment, and sequestration,--yet I question whether so much good was done by these towards the stability of the cause of the Protestant Religion and King George, or so much harm to that of the Pretender, Popery, bra.s.s money, and wooden shoes, as by a little series of Pamphlets put forth by the witty Mr. Henry Fielding, a writer of plays and novels then much in vogue; but a sad loose fish, although he afterwards, as I am told, did good service to the State as one of the justices of peace for Middles.e.x, and helped to put down many notorious gangs of murderers, highwaymen, and footpads infesting the metropolis.

This Mr. Fielding--whom his intimates used to call Harry, and whom I have often seen lounging in the Temple Gardens, or about the gaming-houses in St. James's Street, and whom I have often met, I grieve to say, in the very worst of company under the Piazzas in Covent Garden much overtaken in liquor, and his fine Lace clothes and curled periwig all besmirched and bewrayed after a carouse--took up the Hanoverian cause very hotly,--having perhaps weighty reasons for so doing--and, making the very best use of his natural gifts and natural weapons, namely, a very strong and caustic humour, with most keen and trenchant satire, did infinite harm to the Pretender's side by laughing at him and his adherents. He published, probably at the charges of authority,--for he was a needy gentleman, always in love, in liquor, or in debt,--a paper called the _True Patriot_, in which the Jacobites were most mercilessly treated. Notably do I recall a sort of sham diary or almanack, purporting to be written by an honest tradesman of the City during the predicted triumph of the Pretender, and in which such occurrences were noted down as London being at the mercy of Highlanders and Friars; Walbrook church and many others being razed to the ground; Father O'Blaze, a Dominican, exulting over it; Queen Anne's statue at Paul's taken away, and a large Crucifix erected in its place; the Bank, South-Sea, India Houses, &c. converted into convents; Father Macdagger, the Royal confessor, preaching at St. James's; three Anabaptists hung at Tyburn, attended by their ordinary, Mr. Machenly (a grotesque name for the ranting fellow who was wont to be known as Orator Henley); Father Poignardini, an Italian Jesuit, made Privy-Seal; four Heretics burnt in Smithfield; the French Amba.s.sador made a Duke, with precedence; Cape Breton given back to the French, with Gibraltar and Port Mahon to the Spaniards; the Pope's nuncio entering London, and the Lord Mayor and Aldermen kissing his feet; an office opened in Drury Lane for the sale of papistical Pardons and Indulgences; with the like prophecies calculated to arouse the bigotry of the lower and middle orders, and to lash them into a religious as well as a political frenzy. For a cry of "No Popery" has ever acted upon a true-born Englishman as a red rag does on a bull. Perhaps the thing that went best down of all Mr.

Fielding's drolleries, and tickled the taste of the town most amazingly, was the pa.s.sage where he made his honest London tradesman enter in his diary to this effect: "My little boy Jacky taken ill of the itch. He had been on the parade with his G.o.dfather the day before to see the Life Guards, and had just touched one of their plaids." One of the King's Ministers said long afterwards that this pa.s.sage touching the itch was worth two regiments of horse to the cause of Government. At this distance of time one doesn't see much wit in a scurrilous lampoon, of which the gist was to taunt one's neighbours with being afflicted with a disease of the skin: and, indeed, the lower ranks of English were, in those days, anything but free from similar ailments, and, in London at least, were in their persons and manners inconceivably filthy. But 'tis astonis.h.i.+ng what a mark you can make with a coa.r.s.e jest, if you only go far enough, and forswear justice and decency.

Strange but true is it to remark that, in the midst of all such tremendous convulsions as wars, battles, sieges, rebellions, and other martial conflagrations, men and women and children do eat and drink, and love and marry, and beget other babes of humanity, and at last Die and turn to dust, precisely as though the world--or rather the concerns of that gross...o...b..-were all going on in their ordinary jog-trot manner.

Although from day to day we people in London knew not whether before the sun set the dreaded pibroch of the Highland Clans might not be heard at Charing Cross, and the barbarian rout of Caterans that formed the Prince,--I mean the Chevalier,--I mean the Pretender's Army, scattered all about the City, plundering our Chattels, and ravaging our fair English homes; although, for aught men knew, another month, nay another week, might see King George the Second toppled from his Throne, and King James the Third installed, with his Royal Highness Charles Edward Prince of Wales as Regent; although it was but a toss-up whether the Archbishop of Canterbury should not be ousted from Lambeth by a Popish Prelate, and the whole country reduced to Slavery and Bankruptcy;--yet to those who lived quiet lives, and kept civil tongues in their heads, all things went on pretty much as usual: and each day had its evil, and sufficient for the day was the evil thereof. That the Highlandmen were at Derby did not prevent the Hostess of the Stone Kitchen--that famous Tavern in the Tower--from bringing in one's reckoning and insisting on payment. That there was consternation at St. James's, with the King meditating flight and the Royal Family in tears and swooning, did not save the little schoolboy a whipping if he knew not his lesson at morning call. It will be so, I suppose, until the end of the world. We must needs eat and drink, and feel heat and cold, and marry or be given in marriage, whatsoever party prevail, and whatsoever King carries crown and sceptre; and however dreadful the crisis, we must have our Dinners, and fleas will bite us, and corns pinch our Feet. So while all the Public were talking about the Rebellion, all the world went nevertheless to the Playhouses, where they played loyal Pieces and sang "G.o.d save great George our King" every night; as also to b.a.l.l.s, Ridottos, Clubs, Masquerades, Drums, Routs, Concerts, and Pharaoh parties. They read Novels and flirted their fans, and powdered and patched themselves, and distended their coats with hoops, just as though there were no such persons in the world as the Duke of c.u.mberland and Charles Edward Stuart. And in like manner we Warders in the Tower, though ready for any martial emergency that might turn up, were by no means unnecessarily afeard or distraught with anxiety; but ate and drank our fill, joked the pretty girls who came to see the shows in the Tower, and trailed our halberts in our usual jovial devil-me-care manner, as true Cavaliers, Warders in the service of his Majesty the King, should do.

By and by came the news of Stirling and Falkirk, after the disastrous retreat of the Highlandmen back into England. And then happened that short but tremendous fight of Drummossie Moor, commonly called the Battle of Culloden, where claymores and Lochaber axes clashed and glinted for the last time against English broadswords and bayonets.

After this was what was called the pacification of the Highlands, meaning that the Duke and his dragoons devastated all before them with fire and sword; and then "retributive justice" had its turn, and the work of the Tower Warders began in earnest.

Poor creatures! theirs was a hard fate. At Carlisle, at Manchester, at Tyburn, and at Kennington Common, London, how many unhappy persons suffered death in its most frightful form, to say nothing of the unspeakable ignominy of being dragged on a hurdle to the place of execution, and mangled in the most horrible manner by the Hangman's butcherly knife, merely because they held that King James, and not King George, was the rightful sovereign of these realms! Is there in all History--at least insomuch as it touches our sentiments and feelings--a more lamentable and pathetic narration than the story of Jemmy Dawson?

This young man, Mr. James Dawson by name,--for by the endearing aggravative of Jemmy he is only known in Mr. William Shenstone's charming ballad (the gentleman that lived at the Leasowes, and writ the Schoolmistress, among other pleasing pieces, and spent so much money upon Ornamental Gardening),--this Mr. James Dawson, I say, was the son of highly reputable parents, dwelling, by some, 'tis said, in the county of Lancas.h.i.+re, by others, in the county of Middles.e.x. At all events, his father was a Gentleman of good estate, who strove hard to bring up his son in the ways of piety and virtue. But the youth was wild and froward, and would not listen to the sage Counsels that were continually given him. After the ordinary grammar-school education, during which course he much angered his teachers,--less by his reckless and disobedient conduct than by his perverse flinging away of his opportunities, and manifest ignoring of the parts with which he had been gifted by Heaven,--he was sent to the University of Oxford to complete the curriculum of studies necessary to make him a complete gentleman. And I have heard, indeed, that he was singularly endowed with the properties requisite for the making of that very rare animal:--that he was quick, ready, generous, warm-hearted, skilful, and accomplished,--that he rode, and drove, and shot, and fenced, and swam, and fished in that marvellously finished manner only possible to those who seem to have been destined by a capricious Fate to do so well that which they have never learned to do.

And at college, who but Jemmy Dawson--who but he? For a wicked prank, or a mad carouse; for a trick to be played on a proctor, or a kiss to be taken by stealth,--who such a Master of Arts as our young Undergraduate?

But at his lectures and chapels and repet.i.tions he was (although always with a vast natural capacity) an inveterate Idler; and he did besides so continually violate and outrage the college rules and discipline, that his Superiors, after repeated admonitions, gatings, impositions, and rustications (which are a kind of temporary banishment), were at last fain solemnly to expel him from the University. Upon which his father discarded him from his house, vowing that he would leave his broad acres (which were not entailed) to his Nephew, and bidding him go to the Devil; whither he accordingly proceeded, but by a very leisurely and circuitous route. But the young Rogue had already made a more perilous journey than this, for he had fallen in Love with a young Madam of exceeding Beauty, and of large Fortune in her own right, the daughter of a neighbouring Baronet. And she, to her sorrow, poor soul, became as desperately enamoured of this young Scapegrace, and would have run away with him, I have no doubt, had he asked her, but for a spark of honour which still remained in that reckless Heart, and forbade his linking the young girl, all good and pure as she was, to so desperate a life as his.

And so he went wandering for a time up and down the country, swaggering with his boon companions, and p.a.w.ning his Father's credit in whatsoever inns and pothouses he came unto, until, in the beginning of that fatal year '46, he must needs find himself at Manchester without a s.h.i.+lling in his pocket, or the means of raising one. It was then the time that the town of Manchester had been captured, in the Pretender's interest, by a Scots Sergeant and a Wench; and the notorious Colonel Towneley was about raising the Manchester Regiment of Lancas.h.i.+re Lads to fight for Prince Charlie. Desperate Jemmy Dawson enlisted under Towneley; and soon, being a young fellow of good figure and s.h.i.+ning talents, was made a Captain.

But the ill-fated Manchester Regiment was ere long broken up; and Jemmy Dawson, with Colonel Towneley himself, and many other of the officers, were captured. They were all tried at the a.s.sizes held after the a.s.sizes at St. Margaret's Hill, Southwark; and James Dawson, being convicted of high treason, was sentenced to the usual horrible punishment for that offence. He was drawn on a hurdle to Kennington Common; he was hanged, disembowelled, and quartered; but the young Madam of whom I have spoken was true to him unto the last. For many days following the sentence she vainly solicited his pardon; but finding all useless, she on the fatal morning (having trimmed a shroud for him overnight, in which, poor Soul, his mangled remains were not to rest) followed him in a Mourning Coach to Kennington Common. She saw the Dreadful Tragedy played out to its very last Act; and then she just turned on her Side in the Coach, and with a soft Murmur, breathing Jemmy's Name, she Died. Surely a story so piteous as this needs no comment. And by Heaven it is True!

CHAPTER THE NINTH.

REBELLION IS MADE AN END OF, AND AFTER SOME FURTHER SERVICE WITH HIS MAJESTY I GO INTO BUSINESS ON MY OWN ACCOUNT.

MEMORANDUM.--About a year before the Rebellion, as the Earl of Kilmarnock was one day walking in his Garden, he was suddenly alarmed with a fearful Shriek, which, while he was reflecting on with Astonishment, was soon after repeated. On this he went into the House, and inquired of his Lady and all the Servants, but could not discover from whom or whence the Cry proceeded; but missing his Lady's Woman, he was informed that she was gone into an Upper Room to inspect some Linen.

Whereupon the Earl and his Lady went up and opened the Door, which was only latched. But no sooner did the Gentlewoman within set eyes on his Lords.h.i.+p's face than she fainted away. When, proper aid being given to her, she was brought to herself, they asked her the meaning of what they had heard and seen. She replied, that while she sat sewing some Linen she had taken up to mend, the Door opened of itself, and a _b.l.o.o.d.y Head_ entered the Room, and rolled upon the Floor; that this dreadful Sight had made her cry out, and then the b.l.o.o.d.y Head disappeared; that in a few Moments she saw the same frightful Apparition again, on which she repeated her Shrieks; and at the third time she fainted away, but was just recovered when she saw his Lords.h.i.+p coming in, which had made the Impression on her they had been witness of.

This Relation given by the affrighted Gentlewoman was only laughed at and ridiculed as the Effect of Spleen-Vapours, or the Frenzy of a deluded Imagination, and was thought no more of, till one Night, when the Earl of Kilmarnock, sitting round a Bowl by the Winter Fire with my Lord Galloway,--and it is at such a Time that men are most p.r.o.ne to fall-to telling of Ghost Stories,--and their Lords.h.i.+ps' conversation turning on Spectres and Apparitions, the vulgar notions of which they were deriding, the terrible tale of the b.l.o.o.d.y Head was brought up, and then dismissed as the idle fancy of a Hoity-toity Tirewoman. But after Kilmarnock had engaged in the Rebellion, and Lord Galloway was told of it, he instantly recollected this Story, and said, "I will wager a dozen Magnums of Claret, and my best Silver-laced Justaucorps, that my Lord Kilmarnock will lose his Head."

n.o.body took his bet, not daring thus to trifle with the lives of the Quality; but that Scots Lord lost his Head, notwithstanding; and I saw it cut off on Tower Hill in the latter summer of the year '46.

This story of the b.l.o.o.d.y Head was common Talk among us Warders at the time,--who were full as superst.i.tious as other Folks, you may be sure.

Many such Legends are there, too, current of Persons who were to die Violent Deaths at the hands of the Public Executioner, being forewarned many years before of their Impending Fate. And sometimes hath the Monition come nearer to the Catastrophe, as in the case of K. C. the 1st, who, entering Westminster Hall at that Unnatural a.s.size presided over by Bradshaw, the Gold Head fell off his Walking-Staff, and rolled on the Pavement of the Hall among the Soldiers; nor, when it was restored to him, could any Efforts of his make it remain on. Also it is said of my Lord Derwent.w.a.ter, that the last time he went a hunting in the north, before he joined the Old Chevalier of St. George, his whippers-in unearthed a litter of Fox-cubs, every one of which Vermin had been born without Heads. And as well authenticated is it, that when my Lord Balmerino (that suffered on Tower Hill with the Earl of Kilmarnock) was coming back condemned to Death from his Trial before his Peers at Westminster, his Lords.h.i.+p being of a merry, Epicurean temper, and caring no more for Death than a Sailor does for a wet s.h.i.+rt, stopped the coach at a Fruiterer's at Charing Cross, where he must needs ask Mr. Lieutenant's Attendant to buy him some Honey-Blobbs, which is the Scottish name for ripe Gooseberries.

"And King Geordie maun pay for the bit fruitie; for King James's auld soldier has nae siller of his ain save twa guineas for Jock Headsman,"

quoth he in his jocular manner, meaning that those about him must pay for the Gooseberries; for indeed this Lord was very poor, and I have heard was, when in town, so much driven as to borrow money from the man who keeps the Tennis-court in James Street, Haymarket.

Well, it so happened that the Season was a backward one; and the Fruiterer sends his duty out to his Lords.h.i.+p, saying that he has no ripe Gooseberries, but that of green ones he has a store, to which that unfortunate n.o.bleman is heartily welcome.

"I'll e'en try one," says my Lord; and from a Punnet they brought him he picks a Green Gooseberry; when, wonderful to relate, it swells in his hand to the bigness at least of an egg-plum, and turns the colour of Blood. "The de'il's in the Honey-Blobb," cries my Lord in a tiff, and flings it out of window, where it made a great red stain on the pavement.

And this the Warder who stood by, and the Messenger who was in the coach itself, told me.

Less need is there to speak of such strange adventures as my Lady Nithisdale's child (that was born soon after her Lord's escape from the Tower, in which, with such a n.o.ble valour and self-sacrifice, she aided him) being brought into the World with a broad Axe figured, as though by a Limner, on its Neck; or of the Countess of Cromartie's infant (she likewise Lay-in while the Earl was under sentence) having a thin red line or thread right round its neck. These things are perhaps to be accounted more as Phenomena of nature than as ominous prognostications, and I so dismiss 'em. But it is worth while to note that, for all the good authority we have of Lord Kilmarnock's Waiting-woman being affrighted by the vision of a b.l.o.o.d.y Head, the story itself, or at least something germane to it, is as old as the Hills. During my travels in Sweden, I was told of a very strange mischance that had happened to one of their Kings who was named Charles;--but Charles the what, I do confess I know not;--who walking one evening in his garden, saw all at once a Wing of the Palace, that had been shut up and deserted for Twenty years, all blazing with Light from the Windows, as for some great Festival. And his Majesty, half suspecting this might be some Masquerading prank on the part of the Court Ladies, and half afraid that there was mischief in it, drew his Sword, and calling upon a brace of his Gentlemen to follow him, stave in a door and came into a Great Old Hall, that was the princ.i.p.al apartment in the said Wing. And at the upper End, where the ancient Throne of his ancestors was long since gone to Rags and Tatters, and abandoned to Dust and Cobwebs, he saw, sitting on the chair of Estate, and crowned, a little child that was then but a boy--the Duke of Sudermania. And lo! as he gazed upon him a Dreadful Ball, that seemed fas.h.i.+oned in the similitude of his own Head, showed itself under the Throne, rolled down the steps, and so came on to his very Feet, where it stopped, splas.h.i.+ng his Boots unto the very ankle with Gore. The tale of the b.l.o.o.d.y Boots, as 'tis called, is still quite familiar to every Nurse in Sweden; but I never heard how it ended, or whether King Charles had his Head cut off in the Long-run; but every Swede will swear to the Story; and as for the Boots, I have heard that they are to be seen, with the dark brown stains of the Blood still upon 'em, in a gla.s.s case at the House of one Mr. Herdstrom, who sells Aqua Vitae over the Milliner's in the Bogbindersgade at Stockholm.

'Twas in the summer of 1747 that I put off my Warder's dress for good and all, the Rebellion being by this time quite Dead and crushed out; but before I laid down my halbert 'twas my duty to a.s.sist at the crowning consummation of that disastrous Tragedy. One of the Prime Traitors in the Scottish Risings had been, it is well known, the notorious Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, of Castle Downie, in Scotland, then come to be Eighty years old, and as atrocious an old Villain as ever lived, but so cunning that he cheated the Gallows for three quarters of a century, and died like a Gentleman, by the Axe, at last. He had been mixed up in every plot for the bringing back of King James ever since the Old Chevalier's Father gave up the Ghost at St. Germain's, yet had somehow managed to escape scot-free from Attainder and Confiscation.

Even in the '45, when he sent the Clan Fraser to join the Young Chevalier, he tried his best to make his poor Son, the Master of Lovat (a very virtuous and gallant young Gentleman), the scapegoat for his misdeeds, playing Fast and Loose between France and the Jacobites on one side, and the Lord Justice Clerk and the King's Government on the other. But Justice had him on the hip at last, and the old Fox was caught. They brought him to London by Easy Stages, as he was, or pretended to be, mighty Infirm; and while he was resting at an Inn at St. Alban's, Mr. Hogarth the Painter (whom I have seen many a time smoking a pipe and making Caricatures of the Company at the Tavern he used--the Bedford Head, Maiden Lane, Covent Garden: a skilful Draughtsman, this Mr. Hogarth, but very Uppish and Impudent in his Tone; for I remember that he once called me Captain Compound, seeing, as the fellow said, that I was made up of three--Captain Bobadil, Captain Macheath, and Captain Kyd),--this Mr. H. went down to St. Alban's, and took a picture of the old Lord, as he sat in his great chair, counting the strength of the Scottish clans on his fingers. 'Twas afterwards graved on copper, and had a prodigious sale.

Monday, March 9th, began this Lord's Trial, very Grand and Stately, which took place in Westminster Hall, fitted up anew for the occasion, with the Throne, and chairs for the Prince and the Duke, brave in Velvet and Gold, Scarlet benches for the Peers, galleries for Ladies and Foreign Amba.s.sadors, boxes for the Lawyers and the Managers of the House of Commons that preferred the Impeachment, and a great railed platform, that was half like a Scaffold itself, for the Prisoner. So we Warders, and a Strong Guard of Horse Grenadiers and Foot-Soldiers, brought him down from the Tower to Westminster, Mr. Fowler, the Gentleman Gaoler, attending with the Axe; but the Edge thereof turned away from his Lords.h.i.+p. The Crown Lawyers, Sir William Yonge, Sir Dudley Rider, and Sir John Strange, that were of Counsel for the Crown, opened against him in a very bitter manner; at which the Old Sinner grinned, and likened them to hounds fighting for a very tough Morsel which was scarce worth the Tearing. Then he plagues the Lord Steward for permission for Counsel to be granted to him to speak on his behalf, which by law could not be granted, and for a short-hand writer to take minutes, which, after some delay, was allowed. One Schield, that was the first Witness called, deposing that Lord Lovat made one of a company of gentlemen who in 1740 drank healths and sang catches, such as "Confusion to the White Horse"

(meaning the heraldic cognizance of Hanover) "and all his generation,"

and

"When Jemmy comes o'er, We shall have blood and blows galore,"

my Lord cries out upon him as a False Villain and Perjured Rascal. And was thereupon admonished by the Lord Steward to more decorous behaviour.

Item: that he laid all the blame of the Frasers rising upon his Son, saying with Crocodile Tears that he was not the first who had an Undutiful Son; whereupon the young gentleman cries out in natural Resentment that he would put the Saddle on the right Horse. But this and many other charges were brought home to him, and that he had long foregathered with the Pretender, of whom he spoke in a mock-tragedy style as "the young man Thomas Kuli Khan." When upon his defence, he told many Lies, and strove to b.u.t.ter their Lords.h.i.+ps with specious Compliments and strained Eulogies; but 'twould not serve. The Lords being retired into their own chamber, and the question being put whether Simon Lord Lovat was guilty of all the charges of high treason brought against him, every one, laying his hand on his left breast, and beginning with the Junior Baron, answered, "GUILTY, upon my honour." And the next day, which was the seventh of the Trial, he was solemnly sentenced to Die as a Traitor; his Grace the Lord Steward making a most affecting Speech, in which he reproached the Lord at the Bar with having unnaturally endeavoured to cast the blame of his malpractices on his son; "which," said his Grace, "if it be true, is an impiety that makes one tremble: for, to quote a wise author of antiquity, the love of our country includes all other social affections, which," he continued, "shows a perfect knowledge of human nature; for we see, when that is gone, even the tenderest of all affections--the parental--may be extinguished with it." Upon which Admirable Discourse my fellow-Warder, Miles Bandolier, fell a blubbering, and wiping his eyes with his laced sleeve, whimpers that it is something, after all, to be a Lord to be cast for Death in such Sweet Terms; for no Judge at the Old Bailey would think of wasting Sugared words upon the rogue he sent to Tyburn. Which is true.

When all was done, and the Lord Steward had, by breaking his Staff, declared the commission void, the Prisoner with a grimace twinkling about his wicked old mouth, bespoke his Majesty's good consideration, and, turning to the Managers of the Commons, cries out, "I hope, as ye are stout, ye will be merciful!" Upon which one Mr. Polwhedlyan, that sate for a Cornish borough, and was a very Fat Man, thinking himself directly concerned, shook his head with great gravity of countenance.

But the old Villain was but Play-acting again, and could but see that the Game was up; for as the Lords were filing back to the House, he calls after them, "G.o.d bless you all! I bid you an everlasting farewell, for in this place we shall never meet again." He said "G.o.d bless you!"

with a kind of fiendish yowl quite horrible to behold; and if ever man's benison sounded like a curse, it was that of bad old Lord Lovat.

A very sad sight at this memorable Trial was the Appearance and Demeanour of J. Murray, of Broughton, Esq., that had been the Chevalier's Secretary,--deepest of all in his Secrets, and most loved and trusted by him. The unhappy man, to save his Life, had betrayed his master and turned King's Evidence, not only against Lord Lovat, but many other unhappy Gentlemen. I never saw such a shrinking, cowering, hang-dog figure as was made by this Person in the Box; and burned with shame within myself to think that this should be a Man of Gentle birth, and that had touched the hand of a King's Son--Grandson, I mean.

Accomplished scoundrel as Lovat was, even a deeper abhorrence was excited by this Judas: when he first stood up, the Lords, after gazing at him for a moment with Contempt, turned their Backs upon him. The Crown Lawyers treated him in the manner that an Old Bailey Counsellor would cross-examine an approver in a case of Larceny; and as for the Prisoner, he just shut his eyes while Murray was giving evidence; and when he had finished, turns to the Gentleman Gaoler, and asks, with his eyes still shut, "Is IT gone?" meaning Judas. At which there was some merriment.

'Twas just a month after this trial, on April 9th, that Justice was done upon Simon Fraser. He had eaten and drunk heartily, and cracked many scurril Jokes while under sentence, and seemed not to care Twopence whether he was Reprieved or Not. On the fatal day he waked about three in the morning, and prayed, or pretended to pray, with great Devotion.

At all events, we Warders heard him; and he made Noise enough. At five he rose, and called for a gla.s.s of Wine-and-Water, after drinking which he Read till seven. Then he took some more Wine-and-Water, and at eight desired that his Wig might be sent to the Barber to be combed out genteelly. Also, among some nicknacks that he kept in a casket, he looked out a purse made somewhat in the Scotch fas.h.i.+on, of sealskin, to hold the money which he desired to give to the Executioner. At half after nine he breakfasted very heartily of Minced Veal, which he hoped would not indigest, he facetiously remarked, ordering Chocolate and Coffee for his Friends, whose Health he drank himself in Wine-and-Water.

At eleven the Sheriffs sent to demand his Body, when he desired all present, save we who were at the Door, to retire, that he might say a short prayer. Presently he calls 'em again, saying, "I am ready." At the bottom of the first Pair of Stairs from his Chamber, General Williamson, the Commandant of the Garrison, invited him into his room to rest himself. He complied most cheerfully, and in French desired that he might be allowed to take leave of his Lady, and thank her for all the civilities--for she had sent him victuals every day from her own Table, dressed in the French fas.h.i.+on, which he much affected--which she had shown him during his confinement. But the General told him, likewise in French, that she was too much afflicted by his Lords.h.i.+p's Misfortunes to bear the shock of parting with him, and so begged to be excused. Which means, that she did not care about being pawed and mauled by this wicked Old Satyr in his last Moments; though, with the curiosity natural to her s.e.x, I saw with my own eyes Madame Williamson, in a new Hoop and a grand silk Calash, and with half-a-dozen of her gossips, at a window of the House on Tower Hill hard by the Sheriff's and overlooking the Scaffold.

Now we Warders closed up about him; and preceded and followed by Foot-Soldiers, he was conveyed in the Governor's Coach to the Outward Gate, and so delivered over to the Sheriffs, who, giving a Receipt for his Body, conveyed him in another coach (hired for the two former Lords, Kilmarnock and Balmerino) to the said House close to the Scaffold, in which (the House) was a room lined with Black Cloth and hung with Sconces.

A gentleman of a Pious Mien here beginning to read a Prayer for him, he bade me help him up that he might Kneel. One of the Sheriffs then asked him if he would take a Gla.s.s of Wine; but he said that he would prefer Negus. But there was no warm water, unhappily, at hand, and says his Lords.h.i.+p, with his old Grin, "The warm bluid is nae tappit yet;" so they brought him a gla.s.s of burnt brandy-and-bitters, which he drank with great Gusto.

He desired that all his Clothes should be given to his friends, together with his Corpse, remarking that for such end he would give the Executioner Ten instead of Five guineas, which is the customary Compliment. To each of the dozen Warders there present he gave a Jacobus; to Miles Bandolier fifty s.h.i.+llings; and on myself, who had specially attended on him ever since he was first brought to the Tower, he bestowed Five gold pieces. As I touched the money, he clapped me on the shoulder, and says in his comical way,

"I warrant, now, that beef and pudding would sit as easy under thy laced jerkin were 'J. R.,' and not 'G. R.,' blazoned on thee, back and breast."

But anon a light cloud pa.s.sed over his visage, and I heard him mutter to himself in the Scottish dialect, "Beef and pudding! 'tis cauld kail for Fraser the morn."

Then turning to the Sheriffs, he desired that his Head might be received in a Cloth and put into the Coffin, the which they promised him; likewise that (if it could be done without censure) the ceremony of holding up the Head at the Four Corners of the Scaffold should be dispensed with. His Lords.h.i.+p seemed now indeed very weak in his Body, albeit in no way disconcerted as to his Mind; and, as Miles Bandolier and your Humble Servant escorted him up the steps of the Scaffold, he looked around, and gazing upon the immense concourse of people,