334

HISTOEr OP ENGLAND.

CHAP.

XX.

1694 .

homing villages filled the streets of the town, and saw with■ grief and indignation the array of drawn swords and loaded car-bines which surrounded the culprits. Aaron Smith’s arrange-ments do not seem to have been skilful. The chief counsel forthe Crown was Sir AVilliam Williams, who, though now wellstricken in years and possessed of a great estate, still continuedto practise. One fault had thrown a dark shade over the latterpart of his life. The recollection of that day on which he hadstood up in Westminster Hall, amidst laughter and hooting, todefend the dispensing power and to attack the right of petition,had, ever since the Revolution, kept him back from honour,lie was an angry and disappointed man, and was by no meansdisposed to incur unpopularity in the cause of a government towhich he owed nothing, and from which he hoped nothing.

Of the trial no detailed report has come down to us; but wehave both a Whig narrative and a Jacobite narrative.* It seemsthat the prisoners who were first arraigned did not sever in theirchallenges, and were consequently tried together. Williamsexamined or rather crossexamined his own witnesses with aseverity which confused them. The crowd which filled the courtlaughed and clamoured. Lunt in particular became completelybewildered, mistook one person for another, and did not re-cover himself till the Judges took him out of the hands of thecounsel for the Crown. For some of the prisoners an alibi wasset up. Evidence was also produced to show, what was un-doubtedly quite true, that Lunt was a man of abandoned cha-racter. The result however seemed doubtful till, to the dismayof the prosecutors, Taaffe entered the box. He swore with un-blushing forehead that the whole story of the plot was a circum-

* The Whig narrative is Kingston’s; the Jacobite narrative, by ananonymous author, has lately been printed by the Chetham Society. Secalso a Letter out of Lancashire to a Friend in London, giving some Accountof the late Trials, 1694.