For Death is of an hour, and after death
Peace!
—SWINBURNE.
The news that Michael Kestyon—the hero of one of the most exciting adventures in the history of gallantry, the man who less than twenty-four hours ago had by the king's mandate obtained the titles and estates for which he had fought for over ten years—the news that he had been arrested for treason connected with the hellish Popish plot, horrified and astonished all London.
It seemed incredible that a man whose romantic personality had charmed all the women and even fascinated the king, could lend himself to such base treachery as to sell his country to the foreigners, and to incite others to poison the merry monarch who even at that moment had with one stroke of the pen seen that justice was done to the miserable reprobate.
Such is popularity! Michael, who a couple of days ago was the idol of society, the cynosure of all eyes at assemblies or in the playhouse, on whom the women smiled, and whom the men were proud to know, Michael now was naught but an abominable traitor, for whom hanging and the rack were more suitable than the block to which he was entitled by virtue of his newly acquired dignities.
And there was no doubt as to his villainies: the infamous blackguard had confessed, even at the time of his arrest, which no doubt had taken him wholly by surprise, and thus forced on an avowal which would expedite the trial and give every one a chance of seeing the traitor's head on Tyburn gate before many days were over.
Excitement and terror had by this time so taken hold of the people of England that all sense of justice had gone hopelessly astray, and there was but little chance of any man—however high placed he might be, however upright and loyal had been his conduct throughout his life—escaping condemnation and death, once the army of false informers and perjurers had singled him out for attack.
As for Michael, everything was against him from the first. His former dissolute life, his long wanderings abroad, where he was supposed to have imbibed all the imaginary desires of the foreigners to turn England into an obedient vassal of France and Rome, also his sudden accession to wealth and the rumours anent that certain adventure, the details of which grew both in confusion, in mystery and even in horror as they were passed from mouth to mouth.
When the fact that the young girl-wife of the dispossessed Earl of Stowmaries would be one of the witnesses for the Crown became known, gossip became still more wild. Interest in that former adventure increased an hundred fold, and the news did of a truth give verisimilitude to the most weird conjecture. The words black magic and witchcraft were soon freely bandied about. Michael Kestyon was no longer an ordinary plotter, but the veriest anti-Christ himself, who was in league with the Pope of Rome to ruin England and to bring forth her submission by such means even as the Lord employed against the Egyptians in favour of the Israelites. Only in this case, the devil was to be the instrument whereby the ten plagues were to be hurled on this defenceless isle.
There was to be a plague of locusts and one of rats, the waters of the Thames would turn to corroding acid and the miscreant Earl of Stowmaries had promised to give the devil the blood of every noble virgin in England as payment for his satanic help.
Had we not the testimony of sane-minded men and women who lived at the time, and who witnessed every phase of that amazing frenzy which swept over England during these awful years, we could not believe that the people of this country, usually so gifted with sound minds and above all with a sense of justice and of tolerance, could thus have rushed headlong into an abyss of maniacal fanaticism which hath for ever remained a blot upon the history of the seventeenth century.
There is a curious letter extant written by Mistress Julia Peyton in her usual almost illegible scrawl and embellished by her more than quaint spelling; it was addressed to her cousin, Sir John Ayloffe, a week or so before the trial, and in it she says:
"I wod Like to know the truth about this Story wich sayth that my lord Stowmaries wil be acused of witchcraft. They do sa he praktised Black Magic, and tried to kil the talor's daughter, so to use her blood for his Arts and his Inkantations. She being a Virgin. They do sa also that her Evidens against Him wil vastly startle Every one. As for me I tak vast Interest in the reprobate and do wish him well at his Trial. The husband of the talor's wench is naut to me. I do not desire to see him become Earl of Stowmaries, but rather that Michael be suksesful."
What other schemes the fair lady now nurtured in her heart we know from the fact that she made several attempts to have access to the prisoner, all of which were unsuccessful, despite the fact that she used the influence of her other admirers to effect her ends, whilst on one occasion she wrote to Cousin John:
"An Michael doth sukseed in getting an acquittal, I pra you bring him to my house forthwith afterwards. Remember good coz that I promisd you twelve thousand pounds if I do marry the Earl of Stowmaries."
But beyond these secret wishes of the fair beauty, and mayhap a sigh of regret or so from pretty lips for the handsome adventurer, popular feeling was raging highly against the accused, and many chroniclers aver that among the many conspirators who were brought to these shameful trials during this time, against none was there so much venomous hatred as there was against Michael Kestyon.
There is this to be remembered—though truly 'tis but weak palliation for the disgraceful antagonism displayed against the accused—that this was the first instance where a man so highly placed as was the Earl of Stowmaries was directly implicated in the plot; he was a sop thrown to the rampant radicalism of the anti-Church party as well as to its intolerant fanaticism.
Public sympathy on the other hand had at once gone out to the dispossessed Earl of Stowmaries, whom the traitor had tried to rob of his wife and had effectually succeeded in robbing of his inheritance.
But retribution for the guilty and compensation for the innocent had come together hand in hand. Michael Kestyon would hang, of course, whereupon the only rightful Lord of Stowmaries would once more come back into his own. The latter with commendable delicacy had left London directly his cousin's arrest became known; he would not stay to gloat over his enemy's downfall.
In fact, for the moment everything that Rupert did was right and proper and worthy of sympathy, and everything that Michael had ever said and done and all that he had never said or done was held up against him by all those who awhile ago were ready to acclaim him as a friend.
Of all these rumours Michael himself knew nothing. On his arrest he had at once pleaded guilty, hoping thereby to expedite his trial, and to curtail the time during which he would have to linger in prison. Echoes of the turmoil which was raging in the capital did reach him from time to time. The murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey had sent raging fanaticism to boiling point. Needless to say that here was another crime to fasten on the already overburdened shoulders of the accused.
All these fresh outbursts of hatred and injustice, however, left Michael cold and indifferent, even when through a subordinate he heard the amazing story of how he was supposed to have tried to murder his cousin's wife by means of black magic, he had nothing but an almost humorous smile for the quaint monstrosity of the suggestion.
He quickly tired of prison life and though there was no pang of suspense connected with it, for the issue was of course a foregone conclusion, yet he fretted at the delay which the importance of his case had brought about in the otherwise simple machinery of summary justice.