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Her eyes fell away from his face, they turned to Albemarle, who sat scowling again, and from him they flickered unsteadily to Phelips and Luttrell, and lastly, to Richard, who, very white and with set teeth, stood listening to the working of his ruin. "I... I do not know," she faltered at last. "Ah!" said Trenchard, drawing a deep breath. He turned to the Bench.
He had sent a letter to the Secretary of State when London was agog with the Axminster affair, and the tale of which Sir Edward Phelips wrote to Colonel Berkeley as "the shamefullest story that you ever heard" of how Albemarle's forces and the Somerset militia had run before Monmouth in spite of their own overwhelming numbers.
His next to the house where Sir Edward Phelips and Colonel Luttrell the gentlemen lately ordered to Taunton by His Majesty had their lodging. The fruits of Mr. Trenchard's extraordinary behaviour that night were to be seen at an early hour on the following day, when a constable and three tything-men came with a Lord-Lieutenant's warrant to arrest Mr. Richard Westmacott on a charge of high treason.
"This is very serious," said the Duke. "Very serious," assented Sir Edward Phelips. Albemarle, a little flustered, turned to his colleagues. "What do you say to this? Were it perhaps well to order Mr. Wilding's apprehension, and to have him brought hither?" "It were to give yourselves useless trouble, gentlemen," said Trenchard, with so much assurance that it was plain Albemarle hesitated.
Sir, In reply to B. in your third number, who requests information as to the meaning of the "&c." at the foot of a petition, I fear I must say, that at the present day, it means nothing at all. In former times it had a meaning. I send you a few instances from the Chancery Records of the year 1611. These petitions to Sir E. Phillips or Phelips, M.R., end thus:
"Because," said Wilding, and with his left hand he placed the wrapper before Albemarle, whilst his right dropped again to his pocket, "the letter, as you may see, was addressed to me." The quiet manner in which he made the announcement conveyed almost as great a shock as the announcement itself. Albemarle took up the wrapper; Luttrell and Phelips craned forward to join him in his scrutiny of it.
The chief honour of my ancestry is James Fiens, Baron Say and Scale, and Lord High Treasurer of England, in the reign of Henry the Sixth; from whom by the Phelips, the Whetnalls, and the Cromers, I am lineally descended in the eleventh degree.
Albemarle's face expressed a sort of satisfaction, which was reflected on the countenances of Phelips and Luttrell; whilst Trenchard never thought of attempting to dissemble his profound dismay. And this dismay was shared, though not in so deep a measure, by Wilding himself. Trenchard's presence gave him pause; for he had been far, indeed, from dreaming that his friend had a hand in this affair.
In a lofty, spacious room of the town hall at Taunton sat Sir Edward Phelips and Colonel Luttrell to dispense justice, and with them, flanked by one of them on either side of him, sat Christopher Monk, Duke of Albemarle, Lord-Lieutenant of Devonshire, who had been summoned in all haste from Exeter that he might be present at an examination which promised to be of so vast importance.
Buckingham's reckless daring led him to anticipate the danger by a series of blows which should strike terror into his opponents. The Councillors were humbled by the committal of Lord Arundel to the Tower. Sir Robert Phelips, Coke, and four other leading patriots were made sheriffs of their counties, and thus prevented from sitting in the coming Parliament.
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