The Rye House Plot against the lives of Charles II. and his brother, then James, Duke of York, was the means of another distinguished man, Sir Thomas Armstrong, suffering an ignominious end on Tyburn’s fatal tree. Later, a further victim was claimed in Elizabeth Gaunt, who had sheltered one of the conspirators. After the failure of the plot Armstrong fled to Holland, but was seized at Leyden in 1684, and conveyed to England, swearing his innocence. He was taken before Judge Jefferies, and when again he insisted on his innocence, protested against the perjured evidence, and asked for nothing but the free course of the law, Jefferies said “he should have it to the full”; and so ordered his execution within six days. Like a common malefactor, the knight was dragged through the streets to Tyburn on a hurdle, and was there hanged and quartered. Bishop Burnett says that one of the quarters was sent to Stafford, which place Armstrong represented in Parliament. The execution of Elizabeth Gaunt was a still more shameless affair, and bears witness to the degeneracy and brutal inhumanity of the times. She was then an old woman, well known for her good works in helping the afflicted and visiting the prisoners. Among those who took part in the Rye House Plot was one James Burton, for whose apprehension a reward was offered. Chance led him in the way of Elizabeth Gaunt, who assisted him to the utmost of her power, and sent him in a boat to Gravesend, whence he escaped to Amsterdam. He was supplied with a large sum of money by his benefactress. On Monmouth’s landing in England to raise the standard of rebellion in 1685, Burton came among his following, fought in the hopeless fight at Sedgemoor, and after the rout fled to London, where he took refuge in the house of John Fernley, a barber in Whitechapel. Fernley was poor, and his creditors were troubling him. Yet, though he knew the Government were offering £100 for Burton, he would not betray him. The wretch, whom he was thus sheltering, had no such scruples. Finding that James II. was dealing out punishment more severely to those who sheltered rebels, than to the rebels themselves, he gave himself up to the Government, and tendered information against both Fernley and Elizabeth Gaunt. They were brought to trial, and Burton was the chief witness against them. Of Burton’s fate we learn nothing. Fernley was hanged, and for Elizabeth Gaunt was reserved the more dreadful end of death by fire. William Penn, the famous Quaker, who lies buried at Jordans, near Beaconsfield, and who during his life travelled far afield and founded Pennsylvania, went to Tyburn to witness the execution. He afterwards related that, when this poor woman had calmly disposed the straw about her in such a manner as to hasten the blaze and so shorten her sufferings, all the bystanders burst into tears. Elizabeth Gaunt was the last woman who suffered death in England for a political offence.