One of these good men was William Lord Russell; and another was Algernon Sidney. The king and his wicked friends found out that they were considering how to save the country from the bad government of Charles and James. They took Lord Russell and Algernon Sidney, and put them in prison, and shortly after condemned them to have their heads cut off. Lord Russell’s wife was one of the best women I ever read about. She went and knelt down at Charles’s feet to beg him to spare her husband. She even tried to save him by offering a great deal of money to the greedy king; but he would not save Lord Russell, and when Lady Russell found her dear husband must die, she attended him like a servant, she wrote for him like a clerk, she comforted him as none but a good wife can comfort a great man in his misfortunes; and after his death she brought up his children to know his goodness and try to be like him. The man who attended most to Lord and Lady Russell at that time was Bishop Burnet, who has written a true history of those things. He tells us that after Lord Russell had taken leave of his wife, he said, “The bitterness of death is past.” Lord Cavendish, a friend of Lord Russell’s, offered to save him by changing clothes with him, but Lord Russell refused, lest his friend should be punished for saving him. He behaved as an Englishman ought to do at his death, with courage, with gentleness to those people who were with him, even to the man who was to cut off his head, and with meekness and piety to God. Algernon Sidney, who, though he wished for freedom, took money from the King of France, was the next man put to death by King Charles, and after him a great many who were either his friends or Lord Russell’s. These were almost the last crimes Charles had time to commit. He died suddenly, disliked by most of his people, and that by his own fault. As I told you, they were ready to love him when he first came to be king; but his extravagance and harshness soon changed their love into dislike. CHAPTER LII. JAMES II.—1685 to 1688. How the Duke of Monmouth rebelled against James the Second, and was beheaded; how Colonel Kirke and Judge Jeffries committed great cruelties; how the people wished to get rid of James on account of his tyranny; how the Prince of Orange came over to England, and was made King; and how James escaped to France. The reign of James the Second was a very short one, but many things were done in it which we must remember. You know that he was son of King Charles the First, who sent him to his mother in France to be taken care of during the civil war. This was bad for James, who was taught in France to be a Roman Catholic, to hate the English parliaments, and to think that kings might do as they chose, and change the religion of the country they governed, or take money, or put men in prison, without thinking whether it was just or unjust.