Series 2 > Origins of the 'Forty-five

ORIGINS OF THE ’FORTY-FIVE xxi
Atterbury not to do so ; his correspondence was inter¬
cepted, and a letter was found which incriminated Atter¬
bury and his associates. Government was not hasty in
acting, and the first conspirator to be arrested was George
Kelly, a Non-juring Irish clergyman who acted as Atter-
bury’s secretary. He was seized at his lodgings on
May 21st; and he very nearly saved the situation. His
papers and sword being placed in a window by his captors,
Kelly managed during a moment of negligence to recover
them. Holding his sword in his right hand he threatened
to run through the first man who approached him, while
all the time he held the incriminating papers to a candle
with his left hand, and not till they were burned did he
surrender. It was not until the end of August that
Bishop Atterbury was taken into custody and committed
to the Tower. His trial did not begin until the spring of
the following year. Layer, who was betrayed by a mis¬
tress, was arrested in September and tried in November.
He was condemned to death, but was respited from time
to time in the hope that he would give evidence to incrimi¬
nate Atterbury and his associates. Layer refused to re¬
veal anything and was executed at Tyburn in May 1723,
at the very time when the bishop’s trial was taking place
in the House of Lords. Atterbury was found guilty : he
was sentenced to be deprived of all his ecclesiastical
benefices and functions, to be incapacitated from holding
any civil offices, and to be banished from the kingdom for
ever. His associates of the Junta escaped with compara¬
tively light penalties. Kelly, sentenced to imprison-
ment during the King’s pleasure, was kept in the Tower
until 1736, when he managed to escape, to reappear
later in the drama. Atterbury went abroad and entered
the Chevalier’s service. He died in exile at Paris in 1732,
but he was buried in Westminster Abbey.
The failure of the schemes of Atterbury had a remark-