Among them were Colonel John Russell (brother of the Earl of Bedford), Colonel John White, Sir William Compton, Sir William Clayton, Sir Henry Slingsby (a prisoner in Hull since the Royalist rising of 1654-5, but negotiating there desperately of late to secure the officers and the town itself for Charles), Sir Humphrey Bennett, Mr. John Mordaunt (brother of the Earl of Peterborough), Dr. John Hewit (a London Episcopal clergyman), Mr. Thomas Woodcock, and a Henry Mallory.  It was part of the understanding with Willis that several of the prisoners, Willis’s particular friends, should be ultimately released.  For trial were selected Slingsby, Clayton, Bennett, Mordaunt, Woodcock, Mallory, and Dr. Hewit.  The trials were in Westminster Hall, in May and June, before a great High Court of Justice, consisting of all the judges, some of the great state officers, and a hundred and thirty commissioners besides, all in conformity with an Act of the late Parliament prescribing the mode of trial for such prime offences.  Five of the seven were either acquitted or spared:  only Slingsby and Dr. Hewit were brought to the scaffold.  They were beheaded on Tower Hill, June 8.  Much influence was exerted in behalf of Hewit; but, besides that he had been deeply implicated, he had been contumacious in the Court, challenging its competency, and refusing to plead.  Prynne had stood by him, and prepared his demurrer.—­From the evidence collected in Dr. Hewit’s case it appeared that he, if not Ormond, had been calculating on the co-operation of Fairfax, Lambent, Sir William Waller, and a great many other persons of name, up and down the country, not included among those whom Cromwell had seen fit to arrest.  As Thurloe distinctly says, “It’s certain Sir William Waller was fully engaged,” the omission, of that veteran commander from the number must have been an act of grace.  About Lambert the speculation seems to have been absurd; and, though Cromwell must have known that Fairfax was now inclining generally towards a Restoration, he cannot have believed anything stronger at present in his case.  There was no public reference to such high personages; nor, with the exception of some friendly expostulation by the Protector with a young Mr. John Stapley of Sussex (son of Stapley the Regicide and Councillor of the Commonwealth), who had been lured into the business, was any account taken of the other miscellaneous persons in Hewit’s list of reputable sympathisers.  It was enough for Cromwell to know who had swerved so far, and to have made examples of Hewit himself and Slingsby.—­These two would have been the only victims but for a wild sub-conspiracy in the City of London while the trials of Hewit and Slingsby were in progress.  A few desperate cavaliers about town, the chief of whom were a Sir William Leighton, a Colonel Deane, and a Colonel Manley, holding commissions from Charles, had met several times at the Mermaid Tavern and elsewhere, and had arranged for a midnight