232

BISTORT OF ENGLAND.

ciup. deaths of which they had read in Fox. William Penn, for1685. whom exhibitions which humane men generally avoid seemto have had a strong attraction, hastened from Cheapside,where he had seen Cornish hanged, to Tyburn, in order tosee Elizabeth Gaunt burned. He afterwards related that,when she calmly disposed the straw about her in such amanner as to shorten her sufferings, all the bystanders burstinto tears. It was much noticed that, while the foulest judi-cial murder which had disgraced even those times was per-petrating, a tempest burst forth, such as had not been knownsince that great hurricance which had raged round the deathbed of Oliver. The oppressed Puritans reckoned up, notwithout a gloomy satisfaction, the houses which had beenblown down, and the ships which had been cast away, andderived some consolation from thinking that heaven wasbearing awful testimony against the iniquity which afflictedthe earth. Since that terrible day no woman has suffereddeath in England for any political offence. *

Trial and It was not thought that Goodenough had yet earned hisof l Baie- n pardon. The government was bent on destroying a victim“*“• of no high rank, a surgeon in the city, named Bateman. Hehad attended Shaftesbury professionally, and had been azealous Exclusionist. He may possibly have been privy tothe Whig plot; but it is certain that he had not been one ofthe leading conspirators; for, in the great mass of depositionspublished by the government, his name occurs only once,and then not in connection with any crime bordering on hightreason.. From his indictment, and from the scanty accountwhich remains of his trial, it seems clear that he was not evenaccused of participating in the design of murdering the royalbrothers. The malignity with which so obscure a man, guilty

* Trials of Fernley and Elizabelh Gaunt, in the Collection of StaleTrials; Burnet, i. 649.; Bloody Assizes; Sir J. Bramston’s Memoirs;Luttrell’s Diary, Oct. 23. 1685. /