9. =The Whig Combination. 1683.=--The discovery of the Rye House Plot brought to light a dangerous combination amongst the Parliamentary Whigs, in which Monmouth, Russell, Essex, Lord Howard of Escrick, and other notable persons were implicated. They had, indeed, kept themselves free from any intention to offer personal violence to the king, but they had attempted to form an association strong enough to compel him to summon another Parliament, though apparently without coming to a definite conclusion as to the way in which they were to use compulsion. In their own eyes their project was no more than constitutional agitation. In the eyes of the king and of the Crown lawyers it was a preparation for rebellion. Essex committed suicide in prison, whilst Howard of Escrick turned informer against his friends. 10. =Trial and Execution of Lord Russell. 1683.=--Russell was accordingly put on his trial as a traitor. In those days no one on his trial for treason was allowed to be defended by a lawyer, as far as the facts of the case were concerned, but no objection was taken to his having some one near him to take notes of the evidence and to assist his memory. "Your friends," wrote his wife to him shortly before the trial, "believing I can do you some service at your trial, I am extremely willing to try. My resolution will hold out, pray let yours." Her offer was accepted, and she gave her husband all the help that it was possible to give. The jury, however, brought in a verdict of guilty, and sentence of death followed. In prison Russell was visited by two ministers, Tillotson and Burnet. No clergymen in England were more liberal-minded than these two, yet they urged the prisoner to acknowledge that resistance to the king was in all cases unlawful. Russell maintained that, in extreme cases, subjects might resist. Here lay the root of the political animosity between Whig and Tory. Whether an extreme case had occurred was a matter of opinion. "As for the share I had in the prosecution of the Popish Plot," Russell declared on the scaffold, "I take God to witness that I proceeded in it in the sincerity of my heart, being then really convinced, as I am still, that there was a conspiracy against the king, the nation, and the Protestant religion." It was because the nation at large no longer held this to be true that the Tories were in power.