ce.
He had, therefore, ample time and means for a systematic attack on
the opposition under the forms of the constitution. The Judges were
removable at his pleasure: the juries were nominated by the Sheriffs;
and, in almost all the counties of England, the Sheriffs were nominated
by himself. Witnesses, of the same class with those who had recently
sworn away the lives of Papists, were ready to swear away the lives of
Whigs.

The first victim was College, a noisy and violent demagogue of mean
birth and education. He was by trade a joiner, and was celebrated as the
inventor of the Protestant flail. [23] He had been at Oxford when the
Parliament sate there, and was accused of having planned a rising and an
attack on the King's guards. Evidence was given against him by Dugdale
and Turberville, the same infamous men who had, a few months earlier,
borne false witness against Stafford. In the sight of a jury of
country squires no Exclusionist was likely to find favour. College was
convicted. The crowd which filled the court house of Oxford received the
verdict with a roar of exultation, as barbarous as that which he and
his friends had been in the habit of raising when innocent Papists were
doomed to the gallows. His execution was the beginning of a new judicial
massacre not less atrocious than that in which he had himself borne a
share.

The government, emboldened by this first victory, now aimed a blow at an
enemy of a very different class. It was resolved that Shaftesbury should
be brought to trial for his life. Evidence was collected which, it was
thought, would support a charge of treason. But the facts which it was
necessary to prove were alleged to have been committed in London. The
Sheriffs of London, chosen by the citizens, were zealous Whigs. They
named a Whig grand jury, which threw out the bill. This defeat, far from
discouraging those who advised the King, suggested to them a new and
daring scheme. Since the charter of the capital was in their way, that
charter must be annulled. It was pretended, therefore, that the City
had by some irregularities forfeited its municipal privileges; and
proceedings were instituted against the corporation in the Court of
King's Bench. At the same time those laws which had, soon after the
Restoration, been enacted against Nonconformists, and which had remained
dormant during the ascendency of the Whigs, were enforced all over the
kingdom with extreme rigour.

Yet the spirit of t