We--we the authorities--have now the upper hand, and mean to be revenged. On the morrow, then, behold the military, with the Prebendary of Ely, Sir Bate Dudley, and many gentlemen and persons of consideration, invading Littleport and wilfully stirring up again the excitement that had spent itself. Rumours of this advance have been spread, and on entering the village they find the men of the place hidden behind doors and windows, whence they fire with some effect, wounding a few. The soldiers return the fire, and one man is killed and another pitifully mangled. The rest flee, soldiers and magistracy after them, hunting for some days in fen and dyke, and taking at last seventy-three; all marched into Ely and clapped in gaol, there to await the coming of the Judge presiding over the Special Assize appointed to try them.
The proceedings lasted six days, opened in state by a service in the Cathedral: an exultant service of thanksgiving to God for this sorry triumph. To it the Judge and his javelin-men went in procession, behind the Bishop, and escorted by fifty of the principal inhabitants carrying white wands. The Bishop himself, the last to wield the old dual palatine authority of Church and State, was preceded by his butler, bearing the Sword of State that symbolised the temporal power; and as he entered the Cathedral the organ burst forth in the joyful strains of Handel's anthem: "Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing?" with its triumphant chorus, "Let us break their bands asunder!"
Nothing else so well portrays the unchristian savagery of the time as the doings of this prelate--let us record his name, Bishop Bowyer Edward Sparke, that it may he execrated--a veritable Hew-Agag-in-pieces-before-the-Lord, who preached earthly vengeance and spiritual damnation to the three-score and thirteen in prison close by. Truly, a wolf sent to shepherd the flock.
Those were times when to steal to the value of forty shillings, and to steal to the value of a shilling, accompanied by violence, were capital offences. Five of the prisoners, convicted on these counts, were sentenced to be hanged, and five were transported for life. To the others were dealt out various terms of imprisonment. Chief among the ill-fated five was John Dennis, the leader, somewhat against his own judgment, of the outbreak. His, we must allow, is a figure tragical above the rest, touched with something like the dignity of martyrdom. They hanged him and the four others, in due course, on Ely Common, on a day of high holiday, when three hundred wand-bearers and bodies of troops assembled to protect the authorities and to see execution done. It may be read, in old records, how the whole of the city was searched for a cart to take the condemned men to the scaffold, and how at last five pounds was paid for the use of one; so there was evidently a public opinion opposed to this policy of bloodshed. Let us not seek to discover who was that man who took those five pounds, and with the taking of them sold his immortal soul.