19
detemined he should lose his places, and remain in confinement during the queen’s pleasure. Had his behaviour, during his confinement, answered the mildness with which he was treated, he no doubt would soon have been restored to favour; but he was too hot-headed, and those about him gave him wrong counsel: they told him the ministers were his enemies, and since he could not by fair means, he ought to endeavour to remove them by force.
Essex and his colleagues, now formed a design of seizing upon the palace, and in it the queen and her counsel, and also upon the Tower and the city of London; but being suspected, he was summoned before the council, and refused to appear, under a pretence of indisposition. Finding his measures entirely broken, on the 8th of February, 1800, being Sunday, and early in the morning, he had got some noblemen and about 300 gentlemen with him. The news of this being brought to the queen, she sent the lord keeper, with three more of the council, to learn the meaning of so tumultuous a convention; but instead of answering them, he put them into custody, till he could get into the city, expecting to find every body there would join him; but in this he was entirely deceived, as not one person would take up arms. He was now proclaimed a traitor, and a party of the queen’s meeting him near St Paul’s, there was a skirmish, in which some few were killed, and Essex was obliged to retreat by water. He went to his own house, which he fortified in some measure, but in vain. The great ordnance was brought against him, and, after a short defence, in which some lives were lost, he surrendered and was brought to trial, with Southampton, before his peers, impeached of high treason, convicted, and condemned. Southampton was saved; but Essex, on the 25th, (being Ash-Wednesday) was privately executed in the Tower.
