nd the jury decided by the hints they
received from the bench. He and sir John Friend underwent the sentence
of death, and suffered at Tyburn on the third day of April. Friend
protested before God that he knew of no immediate descent purposed by
king James, and therefore had made no preparations; that he was utterly
ignorant of the assassination scheme; that he died in the communion of
the church of England, and laid down his life cheerfully in the cause
for which he suffered. Perkins declared, upon the word of a dying man,
that the tenour of the king's commission which he saw was general,
directed to all his loving subjects, to raise and levy war against the
prince of Orange and his adherents, and to seize all forts, castles,
&c, but that he neither saw nor heard of any commission particularly
levelled against the person of the prince of Orange. He owned, however,
that he was privy to the design; but believed it was known to few or
none but the immediate undertakers. These two criminals were in their
last moments attended by Collier, Snatt, and Cook, three nonjuring
clergymen, who absolved them in the view of the populace, with an
imposition of hands; a public insult on the government which did not
pass unnoticed. Those three clergyman were presented by the grand jury
for having countenanced the treason by absolving the traitors, and
thereby encouraged other persons to disturb the peace of the kingdom. An
indictment being preferred against them, Cook and Snatt were committed
to Newgate; but Collier absconded, and published a vindication of their
conduct, in which he affirmed that the imposition of hands was the
general practice of the primitive church. On the other hand, the
two metropolitans and twelve other bishops subscribed a declaration,
condemning the administration of absolution without a previous
confession made, and abhorrence expressed, by the prisoners of the
heinous crimes for which they suffered.

In the course of the same month, Rookwood, Cranborne, and Lowick, were
tried as conspirators by a special commission in the king's-bench, and
convicted on the joint testimony of Porter, Harris, La Rue, Bertram,
Fisher, and Pendergrass. Some favourable circumstances appeared in the
case of Lowick. The proof of his having been concerned in the design
against the king's life was very defective; many persons of reputation
declared he was an honest, good natured, inoffensive man; and he himself
concluded his defence w