The charter of London was accordingly attacked by a writ of
_quo warranto_, and in June, 1683, the time-serving judges declared it
confiscated. George Jeffreys, a low drunken fellow whom Charles had made
Lord Chief Justice, went on a circuit through the country; and, as Roger
North says, "made all the charters, like the walls of Jericho, fall down
before him, and returned laden with surrenders, the spoils of towns."
At the same time a terrible blow was dealt at two of the greatest Whig
families in England. Lord William Russell, son of the Earl of Bedford,
and Algernon Sidney, younger son of the Earl of Leicester, two of the
purest patriots and ablest liberal leaders of the day, were tried on a
false charge of treason and beheaded. [Sidenote: Secret treaty between
Charles II. and Louis XIV] [Sidenote: Shameful proceedings in England]
By this quick succession of high-handed measures, the friends of law and
liberty were for a moment disconcerted and paralyzed. In the frightful
abasement of the courts of justice which these events so clearly showed,
the freedom of Englishmen seemed threatened in its last stronghold. The
doctrine of passive obedience to monarchs was preached in the pulpits
and inculcated by the university of Oxford, which ordered the works of
John Milton to be publicly burned.
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