STATE TRIALS
First impression, March 1899
Second impression, September 1899
All rights reserved
STATE TRIALS
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL
SELECTED AND EDITED
BY H. L. STEPHEN
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II
LONDON
DUCKWORTH AND CO
1899
Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty
CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
| LORD RUSSELL, | 3 |
| THE EARL OF WARWICK, | 59 |
| SPENCER COWPER AND OTHERS, | 139 |
| SAMUEL GOODERE AND OTHERS, | 231 |
| INDEX, | 305 |
LORD RUSSELL
Lord Russell's trial marks the moment in thelatter part of Charles II.'s reign when his powerreached its highest point. The Exclusion Billwas thrown out by the House of Lords in 1680,and though Stafford was tried and executed atthe end of the year, the dissolution of the short-livedOxford Parliament in April 1681 left theCountry party, who had just acquired the nameof Whigs, in a temporarily hopeless position. Onthe 2nd of July in the same year Shaftesburywas arrested on a charge of suborning witnessesin the Popish Plot, but the bill presented againsthim was thrown out by the Grand Jury, whichhad been packed in his favour by a friendlysheriff, and he was liberated in November. Anunscrupulous exercise of the power of the Courtled to North (brother of the Chief-Justice of theCommon Pleas, soon to become Lord Keeper)and Rich being sworn in as sheriffs in June 1682,and Shaftesbury, no longer being able to rely onhis City friends, retired into hiding and enteredon the illegal practices described in Russell'strial. The security afforded to the opponents of[Pg 4]the Court was further diminished in 1683 by thesuppression of the charter of the City by a writof Quo Warranto, which, although it was too lateto have any effect on Russell's conduct, may helpto justify it. The position of the Country partythus appeared desperate. The King had contrivedto overcome all constitutional means ofopposition; Shaftesbury's unscrupulous policyhad alienated most of his natural adherents; hisviolent disposition made it impossible for hisremain