the lawfulness of resistance in extreme cases. Rye House Plot He had no share in the schemes of Whig Lord Shaftesbury after the election of Tory sheriffs for London in 1682; upon the 1683 violation of the charters, however, he began seriously to consider the best means of resisting the King's government. In October 1682, he attended a meeting at which what might be construed as treason was talked: Monmouth, Essex, Hampden, Algernon Sidney, Lord Howard of Escrick and Sir Thomas Armstrong met at the house of one Mr Sheppard, a wine merchant. There they met Richard Rumbold, the owner of Rye House, a fortified mansion in Hertfordshire. This was followed by the unsuccessful Rye House Plot, a plan to ambush Charles II and his brother James near Rye House, Hoddesdon, on their way back to London from the Newmarket races. However, the plot was disclosed to the government. Unlike several co-conspirators, Russell refused to escape to Holland. He was accused of promising his assistance to raise an insurrection and bring about the death of the king. He was sent on 26 June 1683 to the Tower of London where he prepared himself for his death. Monmouth offered to return to England and be tried if doing so would help Russell, and Essex refused to abscond for fear of injuring his friend's chance of escape. However, he was tried and convicted of treason and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, afterwards commuted by Charles II to death by beheading. By the standards of the time (when those charged with treason rarely escaped death) he received a fair trial. Lord Chief Justice Francis Pemberton, in his summing up to the jury, clearly leaned towards an acquittal, thereby offending the King, who dismissed him soon afterwards. No defence counsel was permitted in a treason trial until the passing of the Treason Act 1695, but in a rare concession to the defence, Lady Russell was allowed to act as her husband's secretary. Even Jeffreys, leading for the prosecution, conducted the trial in a sober and dignified manner quite different from his normal bullying style, and, while stressing the strength of the evidence, reminded the jury that no innocent man should have his life taken away. After the verdict Russell's wife and friends made desperate efforts to save him, making pleas for mercy to the King, the Duke of York, and the French