The answer put in by Lord Widdrington, who was brought in with the same grim ceremony as Lord Derwentwater, was even more abject than that of the earl who had just retired. He stood aghast, as it were, at the measure of his own guilt, ‘but he came,’ as he said, ‘unawares into this sudden and unpremeditated action.’ He went with his kinsmen to the assembling at Plainfield in October, 1715, without any definite knowledge as to what was intended! When treason came of it, he took credit to himself for having practised it with small amount of wrong or violence to those who withstood the traitors. Moreover, as he was the last to take up arms, he was the first to lay them down, by which Lord Widdrington suggested that he was less of a rebel than some of his comrades in misfortune. He added that the surrender at Preston was made on the encouraging assurances from the general on the other side that they would experience the royal clemency. ‘Nature must have started at yielding themselves up,’ on other grounds. Those who were in arms against King George at Preston might have escaped had they chosen to spill more blood, but they preferred to yield on the happy prospects held out to them. In the same strain the answer went on to the end, concluding with the assertion that clemency from the throne, and the recommendation of mercy by the parliament, would make him for ever the most loyal of subjects to King George, and cause him to have undying esteem and veneration for the two Houses of Lords and Commons!!! [Sidenote: _APPEAL FOR MERCY._] As Widdrington remained standing at the bar, he was asked if he had anything further to say. Whereupon he replied, that he hoped for mercy; that he had the gout in the stomach! that he had not been able to finish his answer till that morning; that it was doubtless full of defects; and that ‘he humbly implored their Lordships’ intercession to his Majesty for favour and mercy’――and therewith the unhappy lord withdrew. Patten’s testimony of him, if it be true, would lead us to expect this undignified bearing in the unheroic son of a most heroic race. ‘There is but a small part of that left in this lord. I could never discover anything like boldness or bravery in him, especially after his Majesty’s forces came before Preston.’ Patten states that Lord Widdrington was as unfit for a general as Mr. Forster himself, over whose easy temper he had considerable influence. The peer’s family had been distinguished for their bravery and their loyalty to the English Crown; but ‘yet there is little of it left in this lord,’ writes Patten, ‘or at least he did not show it that ever we could find, unless it consisted in his early persuasions to surrender, for he was never seen at any barrier or in any action but where there was the least hazard. He was wonderfully esteemed at home by all the gentlemen of the county, and it had been happy for him, and so we thought it had been better for us (the rebels) had he stayed at home.’