iet. And yet he always considered
himself to be a good, sound Royalist.

But now as I stayed there, only desirous to be heard and to get away,
and scarcely even guessing yet what was wanted of me (for even Jeremy
Stickles knew not, or pretended not to know), things came to a dreadful
pass between the King and all the people who dared to have an opinion.
For about the middle of June, the judges gave their sentence, that the
City of London had forfeited its charter, and that its franchise should
be taken into the hands of the King. Scarcely was this judgment forth,
and all men hotly talking of it, when a far worse thing befell. News of
some great conspiracy was spread at every corner, and that a man in the
malting business had tried to take up the brewer's work, and lop the
King and the Duke of York. Everybody was shocked at this, for the King
himself was not disliked so much as his advisers; but everybody was more
than shocked, grieved indeed to the heart with pain, at hearing that
Lord William Russell and Mr. Algernon Sidney had been seized and sent to
the Tower of London, upon a charge of high treason.

Having no knowledge of these great men, nor of the matter how far it was
true, I had not very much to say about either of them or it; but this
silence was not shared (although the ignorance may have been) by the
hundreds of people around me. Such a commotion was astir, such universal
sense of wrong, and stern resolve to right it, that each man grasped his
fellow's hand, and led him into the vintner's. Even I, although at that
time given to excess in temperance, and afraid of the name of cordials,
was hard set (I do assure you) not to be drunk at intervals without
coarse discourtesy.

However, that (as Betty Muxworthy used to say, when argued down, and
ready to take the mop for it) is neither here nor there. I have naught
to do with great history and am sorry for those who have to write it;
because they are sure to have both friends and enemies in it, and cannot
act as they would towards them, without damage to their own consciences.

But as great events draw little ones, and the rattle of the churn
decides the uncertainty of the flies, so this movement of the town, and
eloquence, and passion had more than I guessed at the time, to do with
my own little fortunes. For in the first place it was fixed (perhaps
from down right contumely, because the citizens loved him so) that Lord
Russell should be tried neither at Westm