ender years was surely enough for one house to
furnish. Even Jeffreys was, or pretended to be, inclined to lenity. The
truth was that one of his kinsmen, from whom he had large expectations,
and whom, therefore, he could not treat as he generally treated
intercessors pleaded strongly for the afflicted family. Time was allowed
for a reference to London. The sister of the prisoner went to Whitehall
with a petition. Many courtiers wished her success; and Churchill, among
whose numerous faults cruelty had no place, obtained admittance for her.
"I wish well to your suit with all my heart," he said, as they stood
together in the antechamber; "but do not flatter yourself with hopes.
This marble,"--and he laid his hand on the chimneypiece,--"is not
harder than the King." The prediction proved true. James was inexorable.
Benjamin Hewling died with dauntless courage, amidst lamentations in
which the soldiers who kept guard round the gallows could not refrain
from joining. [452]

Yet those rebels who were doomed to death were less to be pitied than
some of the survivors. Several prisoners to whom Jeffreys was unable to
bring home the charge of high treason were convicted of misdemeanours,
and were sentenced to scourging not less terrible than that which Oates
had undergone. A woman for some idle words, such as had been uttered by
half the women in the districts where the war had raged, was condemned
to be whipped through all the market towns in the county of Dorset. She
suffered part of her punishment before Jeffreys returned to London;
but, when he was no longer in the West, the gaolers, with the humane
connivance of the magistrates, took on themselves the responsibility
of sparing her any further torture. A still more frightful sentence was
passed on a lad named Tutchin, who was tried for seditious words. He
was, as usual, interrupted in his defence by ribaldry and scurrility
from the judgment seat. "You are a rebel; and all your family have been
rebels Since Adam. They tell me that you are a poet. I'll cap verses
with you." The sentence was that the boy should be imprisoned seven
years, and should, during that period, be flogged through every market
town in Dorsetshire every year. The women in the galleries burst into
tears. The clerk of the arraigns stood up in great disorder. "My Lord,"
said he, "the prisoner is very young. There are many market towns in
our county. The sentence amounts to whipping once a fortnight for seven