Part 33

Sir Matthew Hale (1609-1676) was the grandson of a Gloucestershire weaver. He was educated as a Puritan and entered Magdalen Hall, Oxford, in 1626. He here suddenly dropped his Puritan habits, and would have become a soldier in the Low Countries, but that, having to consult the learned Glanville as to legal proceedings taken against him which endangered his patrimony, he was persuaded to become a law student. He again resumed a quiet method of life, and owing to the slovenliness of his dress narrowly escaped being shipped to the West Indies by a press-gang. He was called in 1637, and already enjoying a considerable reputation at once acquired a lucrative practice. He devilled for Noy, but according to Campbell refused to follow him when he joined the Court party. He kept clear of politics at the beginning of the Long Parliament, though courted by both sides. He is said to have taken part in Strafford's defence; he certainly defended Laud. He took the Covenant in 1644, and sat in the Westminster Assembly of Divines. He procured honourable terms for the garrison of Oxford on the capture of that town. He took the engagement to be true to the Commonwealth in 1649, and continued to practise, often appearing for the defence in State prosecutions; particularly for the Duke of Hamilton after the battle of Worcester. He took a prominent part in the Commission appointed to reform the laws, which abolished feudal tenures and caused all legal proceedings to be conducted in English. He became a Justice of the Common Pleas in 1654, when he was occasionally brought into opposition to the government. At last he refused to try criminal causes; particularly that of Colonel Penruddock (see post, p. 59). He supported Cromwell against the sectaries. He was summoned to act as assessor to Cromwell's House of Lords; but refused to act as a judge under Richard Cromwell, though he sat in his Parliament. He sat for Gloucestershire in the Convention Parliament, and took an active part in the Restoration. He sat at the trial of the Regicides, though not at Vane's. On Bridgman becoming Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas in 1660, Hale succeeded him as Chief-Baron, his appointment being due, it is said, to Clarendon's scheme for having the Comprehension Bill, which he had drafted, defeated. He became Lord Chief-Justice in 1671, in succession to Kelyng. He has the reputation of being one of the greatest judges in English history. He settled satisfactorily all claims arising out of the rebuilding of London after the great fire; he found himself unable to help Bunyan, whom he considered to have been unjustly imprisoned, thereby, according to Campbell, being entitled to some of the credit attaching to the production of The Pilgrim's Progress. On the failure of his health he retired from the bench in 1676. It may be of interest to quote Campbell's opinion of his conduct of the present trial. 'I wish to God,' says that author, 'I could as successfully' (as he has done in Bunyan's case) 'defend the conduct of Sir Matthew Hale in a case to which I most reluctantly refer, but which I dare not, like Bishop Burnet, pass over unnoticed--I mean the famous trial before him, at Bury St. Edmunds, for witchcraft. I fostered a hope that I should have been able, by strict inquiry, to contradict, or mitigate, the hallucination under which he is generally supposed to have then laboured, and which has clouded his fame--even in some degree impairing the usefulness of that bright example of Christian piety which he has left for the edification of mankind. But I am much concerned to say, that a careful perusal of the proceedings and of the evidence shows that upon this occasion he was not only under the influence of the most vulgar credulity, but that he violated the plainest rules of justice, and that he really was the murderer of two innocent women.... Had the miserable wretches, indicted for witchcraft before Sir Matthew Hale, pleaded guilty, or specifically confessed the acts of supernatural agency imputed to them, or if there had been witnesses who had given evidence, however improbable it might be, to substantiate the offence, I should hardly have regarded the Judge with less reverence because he pronounced sentence of death upon the unhappy victims of superstition, and sent them to the stake, or the gibbet. But they resolutely persisted in asserting their innocence, and there was not only no evidence against them which ought to have weighed in the mind of any reasonable man who believed in witchcraft, but during the trial the imposture practised by the prosecutors was detected and exposed.' 'Hale's motives were most laudable; but he furnishes a memorable instance of the mischiefs originating from superstition. He was afraid of an acquittal or of a pardon, lest countenance should be given to a disbelief in witchcraft, which he considered tantamount to a disbelief in Christianity. The following Sunday he wrote a "Meditation concerning the mercy of God in preserving us from the malice and power of Evil Angels," in which he refers, with extreme complacency, to the trial over which he had presided at Bury St. Edmunds.'

See ante, p. 127.

Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) was the well-known author of Religio Medici, published in 1642; Vulgar Errors, published in 1646; and numerous other mystic, pseudo-scientific and philosophical works. Mr. Leslie Stephen (Hours in a Library, vol. ii. p. 11) writes of him: 'Obviously we shall find in Sir Thomas Browne no inexorably severe guide to truth; he will not too sternly reject the amusing because it happens to be slightly improbable, or doubt an authority because he sometimes sanctions a mass of absurd fables.' So he more or less believed in the griffin, the phoenix, and the dragon: he knew that the elephant had no joints, and was caught by cutting down the tree against which he leant in sleep; that the pelican pierced its breast for the good of its young; that storks refused to live except in republics or free states; and that men were struck dumb, literally dumb, by the sight of a wolf: he discusses what would have happened had Adam eaten the apple of the Tree of Life before that of the Tree of Knowledge; he discovers error in every recorded speech but one delivered before the Flood; he admits that the phoenix is mentioned in holy writers, and alluded to in Job and the Psalms, but nevertheless adduces eight reasons for not believing in his existence, of which one is that no one has seen one, another that in the Scriptures the word translated phoenix also means a palm-tree, another that he could neither enter the ark in a pair, nor increase and multiply. At the same time, he probably possessed a considerable knowledge of physical science, and holds a high, though peculiar, position in English literature. Evidently he was not a suitable witness in the present case, and his appearance as recorded above is far the most unamiable thing known of him; but it is possible that his neighbours did not take him more seriously as a trustworthy authority than do his modern critics.

ALICE LISLE

Alice Lisle was the daughter and heiress of Sir White Bechenshaw of Moyles Court, Ellingham, Hants, the scene of the principal facts referred to in this trial. The house is still standing. In 1630 she became the second wife of John Lisle; he was called to the bar, and became a bencher of the Middle Temple. He sat in the Long Parliament for Winchester, was one of the managers of Charles I.'s trial, and is said to have drawn up the form of the sentence. He became President of the High Court of Justice in 1654, sat in the Parliament of that year, and was appointed one of the Commissioners of the Exchequer. He appears to have been a consistent follower of Cromwell, and became a member of his House of Lords in 1657. He left England on the Restoration and fled to Lausanne, where he was murdered by an Irish Royalist in 1664. He sentenced John Penruddock, the father of the Colonel Penruddock of this trial, to death in 1655 for his participation in an unsuccessful rising against the Commonwealth in Wiltshire.

Alice Lisle, commonly called Lady Lisle, was tried for high treason at Winchester on 27th August 1685, before Lord Chief-Justice Jeffreys, during his notorious 'Bloody Assize.' The charge against her was that knowing one George Hicks, a popular dissenting minister, to have been in Monmouth's army at Sedgemoor she entertained and concealed him in her house at Moyles Court. To convict her it was necessary to prove that Hicks had been in Monmouth's army, that she knew it, and that she entertained and concealed him. The prosecution was conducted by Pollexfen, Mundy, and Corriton, as far at least as it was not conducted by Jeffreys. Lady Lisle, according to the custom of the time, was not allowed counsel, though no doubt she had opportunities for receiving legal advice during the course of the trial. Hicks was afterwards tried, and hanged at Glastonbury.

The first three witnesses were Pope, Fitzherbert, and Taylor, who were visited by Hicks and Monmouth's chaplain, apparently for more or less charitable purposes, when they were prisoners to Monmouth's Army in Sir Thomas Bridge's stables at Keynsham. Two of them also spoke to having seen him actually in Monmouth's Army.

James Dunne was then sworn.

POLLEXFEN--If your lordship please to observe, the times will fall out to be very material in this case: the battle at Kings-Edgemore was the sixth of July; three or four days afterwards was the taking of Monmouth, and my lord Grey at Ringwood; upon the 26th of July, ten or twelve days after the taking of Monmouth, was this message sent by Dunne to Mrs. Lisle: so we call Dunne to prove what message he carried upon the 26th, and what answer was returned; he will tell you that Tuesday was the time appointed for them to come, in the night, and all the other circumstances. But withal, I must acquaint your lordship, that this fellow, Dunne, is a very unwilling witness; and therefore with submission to your lordship, we do humbly desire your lordship would please to examine him a little the more strictly.

LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE--You say well: Hark you, friend, I would take notice of something to you, by the way, and you would do well to mind what I say to you. According as the counsel that are here for the King seem to insinuate, you were employed as a messenger between these persons, one whereof has already been proved a notorious rebel, and the other is the prisoner at the bar, and your errand was to procure a reception at her house for him.

DUNNE--My lord, I did so.

LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE--Very well. Now mark what I say to you, friend: I would not by any means in the world endeavour to fright you into anything, or any ways tempt you to tell an untruth, but provoke you to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, that is the business we come about here. Know, friend, there is no religion that any man can pretend to, can give a countenance to lying, or can dispense with telling the truth: Thou hast a precious immortal soul, and there is nothing in the world equal to it in value: There is no relation to thy mistress, if she be so; no relation to thy friend; nay, to thy father or thy child; nay, not all the temporal relations in the world can be equal to thy precious immortal soul. Consider that the Great God of Heaven and Earth, before whose tribunal thou, and we, and all persons are to stand at the last day, will call thee to an account for the rescinding his truth, and take vengeance of thee for every falshood thou tellest. I charge thee therefore, as thou wilt answer it to the Great God, the judge of all the earth, that thou do not dare to waver one tittle from the truth, upon any account or pretence whatsoever: For though it were to save thy life, yet the value of thy precious and immortal soul is much greater, than that thou shouldst forfeit it for the saving of any the most precious outward blessing thou dost enjoy; for that God of Heaven may justly strike thee into eternal flames, and make thee drop into the bottomless lake of fire and brimstone, if thou offer to deviate the least from the truth, and nothing but the truth. According to the command of that oath that thou hast taken, tell us who employed you, when you were employed, and where? Who caused you to go on this message, and what the message was? For I tell thee God is not to be mocked, and thou canst not deceive him, though thou mayst us. But I assure you if I catch you prevaricating in any the least tittle (and perhaps I know more than you think I do; no, none of your saints can save your soul, nor shall they save your body neither) I will be sure to punish every variation from the truth that you are guilty of.

Now come and tell us, how you came to be employed upon such a message, what your errand was, and what was the issue and result of it?

Dunne then proceeds to depose that a man came to his house to desire him to go with a message to Lady Lisle; he came on a Friday, after the battle; he was a short black man, and promised a good reward. On Saturday Dunne went to Moyles Court, and Lady Lisle agreed to receive Hicks on Tuesday evening. He was pressed as to whether she asked if he knew Hicks--

LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE--Why dost thou think that she would entertain any one she had no knowledge of merely upon thy message? Mr. Dunne! Mr. Dunne! have a care, it may be more is known of this matter than you think for.

DUNNE--My Lord, I tell you the truth.

LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE--Ay, to be sure you do, do not let me take you prevaricating!

DUNNE--My Lord, I speak nothing but the truth.

LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE--Well, I only bid you have a care, truth never wants a subterfuge, it always loves to appear naked, it needs no enamel, nor any covering; but lying and snivelling, and canting, and Hicksing, always appear in masquerade. Come, go on with your evidence.

Dunne then proceeds--he went home, arriving on Sunday, and gave his message to the man he first saw, and on Tuesday morning he, and a 'full fat black man,' and a 'thin black man,' came to his house at seven in the morning. Starting with two of them whom he had not seen before, but identified as Hicks and Nelthorp, at eleven, he took them by way of Deverel, Chilmark and Sutton to Salisbury Plain, where one Barter met them to guide them on, by Chalk, Rochesborne and Fordingbridge. This way he alleged, apparently falsely, was a shorter way than he had taken on Saturday. Near Barton, however, they lost their way, and Dunne was sent down to the village to a man to tell him that one Hicks desired to speak to him. Who the man was, he hesitated to say.

DUNNE--His name, my Lord, I cannot rightly tell for the present.

LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE--Prithee recollect thyself: indeed thou canst tell us if thou wilt.

DUNNE--My Lord, I can go to the house again if I were at liberty.

LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE--I believe it, and so could I; but really neither you nor I can be spared at present; therefore prithee do us the kindness now to tell us his name.

DUNNE--My Lord, I think his name was Fane.

LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE--Thou sayest right, his name was Fane truly, thou seest I know something of the matter.

Dunne brought Fane to Hicks, who asked him the way to Mrs. Lisle's.

LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE--Now tell us what kind of man that was, that desired this of Mr. Fane?