THE MEDAL. A SATIRE AGAINST SEDITION. Per Graium populos, mediæque per Elidis urbem Ibat ovans; Divumque sibi poscebat honores. [The Medal. A Satire against Sedition. By the Author of Absalom and Achitophel. Per Graium populos, mediæque per Elidis urbem Ibat ovans; Divumque sibi poscebat honores. London Printed for Jacob Tonson at The Judge's Head, in Chancery Lane, near Fleet Street, 1682.—ED.] THE MEDAL. THE MEDAL was published in the beginning of March 1682, about four months after the appearance of the first part of "Absalom and Achitophel," and eight months before the publication of the second part of that poem. The circumstances which led to it require us to notice Shaftesbury's imprisonment and acquittal. On the 2d July 1681, the Earl of Shaftesbury was apprehended by virtue of a warrant from Council, and after his papers had been seized, and he himself had undergone an examination, was committed to the Tower. Upon the 24th November 1681, a bill for high treason was presented against him to the grand jury of Middlesex. When the witnesses were adduced, the jurors demanded that they might be examined in private; and Pilkington, the Whig Sheriff, required that they should be examined separately. Both requests were refused by the court. One Booth was then examined, who swore that Lord Shaftesbury had told him he intended to carry down to the Oxford Parliament a party of fifty gentlemen, and their servants, armed and mounted, to be commanded by a Captain Wilkinson; and that his Lordship stated this force to be provided for the purpose of repelling any attack which the King's guards might make on the Parliament, and if necessary, to take the King from his bad advisers by force, and bring him to the city of London. The witness, said he, was invited by Wilkinson to be one of this band, and provided himself with a good horse and arms for the service, which was prevented by the sudden dissolution of the Oxford Parliament. Seven other witnesses, Smith, Turberville, Haynes, and three persons called Macnamara, swore that Shaftesbury had used to them, and each of them individually, the most treasonable expressions concerning the King's person; had declared he had no more title to the crown than the Duke of Buckingham; that he deserved to be deposed; and that he, Shaftesbury, would dethrone him, and convert the kingdom into a commonwealth. Here was enough of swearing at least to make a true bill. But the character of the witnesses was infamous: Booth was a swindler, and could never give an account of the stable in which he kept his pretended charger, or produce any one who had seen it. Smith, by his own confession, had changed his religion twice, was one of the evidences of the Popish Plot, and intimate with the villain Oates. Turberville stood in the same predicament of an infamous fellow, and an evidence for the plot; he is said to have apologised for his apostasy, by saying plainly that "the Protestant citizens had forsaken him, and, God damn him, he would not starve." The other witnesses were Irishmen, and there was something remarkable in their history. They had pretended to discover a Catholic plot in Ireland, which, if one had existed anywhere, was doubtless the place where it might have been found. Their evidence, however, contained pretty much such a raw-head and bloody-bones story as that of Oates, and equally unworthy of credit. Yet Shaftesbury constituted himself their protector, and had them brought over to England, where he doubtless intended that their Irish plot should be as warmly agitated in the Oxford Parliament as the English conspiracy in that of 1679. Macnamara's "Narrative of the Conspiracy" is dedicated to his Lordship, because it was not only known to the dedicator, "but to the whole Christian world, how conspicuous his Lordship had been for his indefatigable zeal and vigilance over the safety of His Majesty's most sacred person, and the welfare of the whole extent of his dominions." The sudden dissolution of the Oxford Parliament, which had such important consequences in various respects, prevented the prosecution of the Irish plot. Besides, it seems to have escaped even Shaftesbury, that popular terror, the most powerful of engines, loses its excitability by too frequent alarms. The theme of a plot began to be listened to with indifference. That of Ireland fell to the ground without exciting clamour or terror, but the witnesses remained. There is a story of some Irish recruits, who, being detected in a brawl, justified themselves by saying they were paid by the King for fighting, and it was quite the same to them where they fought, or with whom. The witnesses were equally sedulous in their vocation, and equally indifferent about the application of their labours; for, finding the court had obtained an ascendancy, they had readily turned with the tide, and bore evidence, as we have seen, against their original protector and encourager. The Tories basely availed themselves of the readiness with which this hungry pack of blood-hounds turned against their huntsman, and triumphantly claimed for them the same credit which the Whigs had demanded in former cases; although they must have been conscious that they were employing the worst arts, as well as the most infamous implements, of their enemies. Besides the infamy of these men's character, their story was very improbable; as it could hardly be supposed that Shaftesbury, the veteran leader of a party, should have committed himself so deeply in unnecessary and unreserved communication with these vulgar banditti, or expressed himself against the King in such low and gross language as they imputed to him. Such being the oral testimony, and such its defects, the Crown lawyers endeavoured to aid it by founding upon certain papers found in Shaftesbury's study. One of these contained the names of the principal persons in the nation, divided into two lists, one titled Worthy Men, and the other Men Worthy; which last contained the principal Tories, and the legend was understood to mean, "Men worthy to be hanged.' This was too enigmatical to bear much argument. But there was also found a draft, of an association against Popery, in which many dangerous topics were stated. It was thereby declared that the Papist Plot was still advancing, and that the Catholics had been highly encouraged by James Duke of York; that mercenary forces had been levied, and kept on foot, contrary to law, and to the danger of the King's person: therefore the persons associating were to bind themselves to defend, first the Protestant religion, and then the King's person and liberties of the subject, against all encroachment and usurpation of arbitrary power, and to endeavour to disband all such mercenary forces as were kept up in and about the city of London, to the great amazement and terror of all the good people of the land; also, never to consent that the Duke of York, or any professed Papist, should succeed to the crown, but by all lawful means, and by force of arms if necessary, to resist and oppose his so doing. By a still more formidable clause, it was provided that the subscribers were to receive orders from the Parliament, if sitting; but, if it should be dissolved, from the majority of the association itself. Lastly, that no one should separate from the rest of the association, on pain of being by the others prosecuted and suppressed as a perjured person and public enemy. Much dangerous, and even treasonable inference may be drawn from this model. But it was only an unsigned scroll, and did not appear to have been framed, or even revised and approved of, by Shaftesbury. With such evidence against him, Shaftesbury might have gone safely before a jury of indifferent men, could such have been found. But the Whig Sheriffs, Shute and Pilkington, |