Note 24 — LORD RUSSELL

Burnet had at this time retired into private life, having lost the Court favour which he had gained at an earlier period. He had been an intimate friend of Stafford, and was living on terms of the closest intimacy with Essex and Russell at the time of their arrest. After Russell's execution he left the country, and eventually found his way to the Hague just before the Revolution, where he performed services for William and Mary requiring the utmost degree of confidence. He landed at Torbay with William, soon became Bishop of Salisbury, and until the end of William's life remained one of his most trusted councillors. He retained a position of great influence under Anne, and died in 1715. In relation to his evidence in this case, it is interesting to read in his history that Russell was privy to a plot for promoting a rebellion in the country and for bringing in the Scotch. He says further: 'Lord Russell desired that his counsel might be heard to this point of seizing the guards; but that was denied unless he would confess the fact, and he would not do that, because as the witnesses had sworn it, it was false. He once intended to have related the whole fact just as it was; but his counsel advised him against it'; in fact Russell admitted that he knew of a traitorous plot, and did not reveal it. 'He was a man of so much candour that he spoke little as to the fact; for since he was advised not to tell the whole truth, he could not speak against that which he knew to be true, though in some particulars it had been carried beyond the truth.' See too post, p. 55.