WILLIAM AND MATtY.

171

fold temptations and dangers, adhered firmly to the principlesof his youth. His enemies could not deny that his life had been ■consistent, and that with the same spirit with which he hadstood up against the Stuarts he had stood up against the Crom-wells. There was but a single blemish on his fame: but thatblemish, in the opinion of the great majority of his country-men, was one for which no merit could compensate and whichno time could efface. His name and seal were on the deathwarrant of Charles the First.

After the Restoration, Ludlow found a refuge on the shoresof the Lake of Geneva. He was accompanied thither by anothermember of the High Court of Justice, John Lisle, the husbandof that Alice Lisle whose death has left a lasting stain on thememory of James the Second. But even in Switzerland theregicides were not safe. A large price was set on their heads;and a succession of Irish adventurers, inflamed by national andreligious animosity, attempted to earn the bribe. Lisle fell bythe hand of one of these assassins. But Ludlow escaped unhurtfrom all the machinations of his enemies. A small knot ofvehement and determined Whigs regarded him with a venera-tion , which increased as years rolled away, and left him almostthe only survivor, certainly the most illustrious survivor, of amighty race of men, the conquerors in a terrible civil war, thejudges of a king, the founders of a republic. More than oncehe had been invited by the enemies of the House of Stuart toleave his asylum, to become their captain, and to give thesignal for rebellion: but he had wisely refused to take any partin the desperate enterprises which the Wildmans and Fergusonswere never weary of planning*

The Revolution opened a new prospect to him. The rightof the people to resist oppression, a right which, during manyyears, no man could assert without exposing himself to ec-* Wade’s Confession, Harl. MS. 6840.

CHAP.

xv.

jesa.