fact that,
while the letters of the agents for the royalists often passed through the
hands of Bishop himself, his secret papers belonging to the council of
state were copied and forwarded to the king.[2] This consequence however
followed,

[Footnote 1: Milton's State Papers, 35, 37, 39, 47, 49, 50. Baillie, ii. 5,
8. Carte's Letters, i. 414.]

[Footnote 2: State Trials, v. 4. Milton's State Papers, 39, 47, 50, 57. One
of these agents employed by both parties was a Mrs. Walters, alias Hamlin,
on whose services Bishop placed great reliance. She was to introduce
herself to Cromwell by pronouncing the word "prosperity."--Ibid.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. December.]

that the plans of the royalists were always discovered, and by that means
defeated by the precautions of the council. While the king was on his
way to Scotland, a number of blank commissions had been seized in the
possession of Dr. Lewen, a civilian, who suffered[a] the penalty of death.
Soon afterwards Sir John Gell, Colonel Eusebius Andrews, and Captain
Benson, were arraigned on the charge of conspiring the destruction of
the government established by law. They opposed three objections to the
jurisdiction of the court: it was contrary to Magna Charta, which gave
to every freeman the right of being tried by his peers; contrary to the
petition of right, by which courts-martial (and the present court was most
certainly a court-martial) had been forbidden; and contrary to the many
declarations of parliament, that the laws, the rights of the people, and
the courts of justice, should be maintained. But the court repelled[b] the
objections; Andrews and Benson suffered death, and Gell, who had not
been an accomplice, but only cognizant of the plot, was condemned[c] to
perpetual imprisonment, with the forfeiture of his property.[1]

These executions did not repress the eagerness of the royalists, nor relax
the vigilance of the council. In the beginning of December the friends of
Charles took up arms[d] in Norfolk, but the rising was premature; a body of
roundheads dispersed the insurgents; and twenty of the latter atoned for
their temerity with their lives. Still the failure of one plot did not
prevent

[Footnote 1: Whitelock, 464, 468, 473, 474. Heath, 269, 270. See mention of
several discoveries in Carte's Letters, i. 443, 464, 472.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1652. July 13.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1652. August 22.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1652. Oct. 7.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1650.