The fact that Monmouth was in arms against the government was so

notorious that the bill of attainder became a law with only a faint

show of opposition from one or two peers, and has seldom been severely

censured even by Whig historians. Yet, when we consider how important it

is that legislative and judicial functions should be kept distinct, how

important it is that common fame, however strong and general, should not

be received as a legal proof of guilt, how important it is to maintain

the rule that no man shall be condemned to death without an opportunity

of defending himself, and how easily and speedily breaches in great

principles, when once made, are widened, we shall probably be disposed

to think that the course taken by the Parliament was open to some

objection. Neither House had before it anything which even so corrupt

a judge as Jeffreys could have directed a jury to consider as proof of

Monmouth's crime. The messengers examined by the Commons were not on

oath, and might therefore have related mere fictions without incurring

the penalties of perjury. The Lords, who might have administered an

oath, appeared not to have examined any witness, and to have had no

evidence before them except the letter of the Mayor of Lyme, which, in

the eye of the law, was no evidence at all. Extreme danger, it is true,

justifies extreme remedies. But the Act of Attainder was a remedy which

could not operate till all danger was over, and which would become

superfluous at the very moment at which it ceased to be null. While

Monmouth was in arms it was impossible to execute him. If he should

be vanquished and taken, there would be no hazard and no difficulty in

trying him. It was afterwards remembered as a curious circumstance that,

among zealous Tories who went up with the bill from the House of

Commons to the bar of the Lords, was Sir John Fenwick, member for

Northumberland. This gentleman, a few years later, had occasion to

reconsider the whole subject, and then came to the conclusion that acts

of attainder are altogether unjustifiable. [370]

The Parliament gave other proofs of loyalty in this hour of peril.

The Commons authorised the King to raise an extraordinary sum of four

hundred thousand pounds for his present necessities, and that he

might have no difficulty in finding the money, proceeded to devise new

imposts. The scheme of taxing houses lately built in the capital was

revived and strenuously supported by the country gentlemen. It was

resolved not only that such houses should be taxed, but that a bill

should be brought in prohibiting the laying of any new foundations

within the bills of mortality. The resolution, however, was not carried

into effect. Powerful men who had land in the suburbs and who hoped to

see new streets and squares rise on their estates, exerted all their

influence against the project. It was found that to adjust the details

would be a work of time; and the King's wants were so pressing that he

thought it necessary to quicken the movements of the House by a gentle

exhortation to speed. The plan of taxing buildings was therefore

relinquished; and new duties were imposed for a term of five years on

foreign silks, linens, and spirits. [371]

The Tories of the Lower House proceeded to introduce what they called

a bill for the preservation of the King's person and government.

They proposed that it should be high treason to say that Monmouth was

legitimate, to utter any words tending to bring the person or government

of the sovereign into hatred or contempt, or to make any motion

in Parliament for changing the order of succession. Some of these

provisions excited general disgust and alarm. The Whigs, few and weak

as they were, attempted to rally, and found themselves reinforced by a

considerable number of moderate and sensible Cavaliers. Words, it was

said, may easily be misunderstood by a dull man. They may be easily

misconstrued by a knave. What was spoken metaphorically may be

apprehended literally. What was spoken ludicrously may be apprehended

seriously. A particle, a tense, a mood, an emphasis, may make the whole

difference between guilt and innocence. The Saviour of mankind himself,

in whose blameless life malice could find no acts to impeach, had been

called in question for words spoken. False witnesses had suppressed

a syllable which would have made it clear that those words were

figurative, and had thus furnished the Sanhedrim with a pretext under

which the foulest of all judicial murders had been perpetrated. With

such an example on record, who could affirm that, if mere talk were

made a substantive treason, the most loyal subject would be safe? These

arguments produced so great an effect that in the committee amendments

were introduced which greatly mitigated the severity of the bill. But

the clause which made it high treason in a member of Parliament to

propose the exclusion of a prince of the blood seems to have raised no

debate, and was retained. That clause was indeed altogether unimportant,

except as a proof of the ignorance and inexperience of the hotheaded

Royalists who thronged the House of Commons. Had they learned the first

rudiments of legislation, they would have known that the enactment

to which they attached so much value would be superfluous while the

Parliament was disposed to maintain the order of succession, and would

be repealed as soon as there was a Parliament bent on changing the order

of succession. [372]

The bill, as amended, was passed and carried up to the Lords, but

did not become law. The King had obtained from the Parliament all the

pecuniary assistance that he could expect; and he conceived that, while

rebellion was actually raging, the loyal nobility and gentry would be

of more use in their counties than at Westminster. He therefore hurried

their deliberations to a close, and, on the second of July, dismissed

them. On the same day the royal assent was given to a law reviving that

censorship of the press which had terminated in 1679. This object was

affected by a few words at the end of a miscellaneous statute which

continued several expiring acts. The courtiers did not think that they

had gained a triumph. The Whigs did not utter a murmur. Neither in the

Lords nor in the Commons was there any division, or even, as far as

can now be learned, any debate on a question which would, in our age,

convulse the whole frame of society. In truth, the change was slight and

almost imperceptible; for, since the detection of the Rye House plot,

the liberty of unlicensed printing had existed only in name. During many

months scarcely one Whig pamphlet had been published except by stealth;

and by stealth such pamphlets might be published still. [373]

The Houses then rose. They were not prorogued, but only adjourned,

in order that, when they should reassemble, they might take up their

business in the exact state in which they had left it. [374]

While the Parliament was devising sharp laws against Monmouth and his

partisans, he found at Taunton a reception which might well encourage

him to hope that his enterprise would have a prosperous issue. Taunton,

like most other towns in the south of England, was, in that age, more

important than at present. Those towns have not indeed declined. On the

contrary, they are, with very few exceptions, larger and richer, better

built and better peopled, than in the seventeenth century. But, though

they have positively advanced, they have relatively gone back. They have

been far outstripped in wealth and population by the great manufacturing

and commercial cities of the north, cities which, in the time of the

Stuarts, were but beginning to be known as seats of industry. When

Monmouth marched into Taunton it was an eminently prosperous place.

Its markets were plentifully supplied. It was a celebrated seat of

the woollen manufacture. The people boasted that they lived in a land

flowing with milk and honey. Nor was this language held only by partial

natives; for every stranger who climbed the graceful tower of St. Mary

Magdalene owned that he saw beneath him the most fertile of English

valleys. It was a country rich with orchards and green pastures, among

which were scattered, in gay abundance, manor houses, cottages, and

village spires. The townsmen had long leaned towards Presbyterian

divinity and Whig politics. In the great civil war Taunton had, through

all vicissitudes, adhered to the Parliament, had been twice closely

besieged by Goring, and had been twice defended with heroic valour by

Robert Blake, afterwards the renowned Admiral of the Commonwealth.

Whole streets had been burned down by the mortars and grenades of

the Cavaliers. Food had been so scarce that the resolute governor had

announced his intention of putting the garrison on rations of horse

flesh. But the spirit of the town had never been subdued either by fire

or by hunger. [375]

The Restoration had produced no effect on the temper of the Taunton men.

They had still continued to celebrate the anniversary of the happy day

on which the siege laid to their town by the royal army had been raised;

and their stubborn attachment to the old cause had excited so much fear

and resentment at Whitehall that, by a royal order, their moat had

been filled up, and their wall demolished to the foundation. [376] The

puritanical spirit had been kept up to the height among them by the

precepts and example of one of the most celebrated of the dissenting

clergy, Joseph Alleine. Alleine was the author of a tract, entitled, An

Alarm to the Unconverted, which is still popular both in England and

in America. From the gaol to which he was consigned by the victorious

Cavaliers, he addressed to his loving friends at Taunton many epistles

breathing the spirit of a truly heroic piety. His frame soon sank under

the effects of study, toil, and persecution: but his memory was long

cherished with exceeding love and reverence by those whom he had

exhorted and catechised. [377]

The children of the men who, forty years before, had manned the ramparts

of Taunton against the Royalists, now welcomed Monmouth with transports

of joy and affection. Every door and window was adorned with wreaths

of flowers. No man appeared in the streets without wearing in his hat

a green bough, the badge of the popular cause. Damsels of the best

families in the town wove colours for the insurgents. One flag in

particular was embroidered gorgeously with emblems of royal dignity, and

was offered to Monmouth by a train of young girls. He received the gift

with the winning courtesy which distinguished him. The lady who headed

the procession presented him also with a small Bible of great price.

He took it with a show of reverence. "I come," he said, "to defend the

truths contained in this book, and to seal them, if it must be so, with

my blood." [378]

But while Monmouth enjoyed the applause of the multitude, he could not

but perceive, with concern and apprehension, that the higher classes

were, with scarcely an exception, hostile to his undertaking, and that

no rising had taken place except in the counties where he had himself

appeared. He had been assured by agents, who professed to have derived

their information from Wildman, that the whole Whig aristocracy was

eager to take arms. Nevertheless more than a week had now elapsed since

the blue standard had been set up at Lyme. Day labourers, small farmers,

shopkeepers, apprentices, dissenting preachers, had flocked to the rebel

camp: but not a single peer, baronet, or knight, not a single member

of the House of Commons, and scarcely any esquire of sufficient note to

have ever been in the commission of the peace, had joined the invaders.

Ferguson, who, ever since the death of Charles, had been Monmouth's evil

angel, had a suggestion ready. The Duke had put himself into a false

position by declining the royal title. Had he declared himself sovereign

of England, his cause would have worn a show of legality. At present it

was impossible to reconcile his Declaration with the principles of

the constitution. It was clear that either Monmouth or his uncle

was rightful King. Monmouth did not venture to pronounce himself the

rightful King, and yet denied that his uncle was so. Those who fought

for James fought for the only person who ventured to claim the throne,

and were therefore clearly in their duty, according to the laws of the

realm. Those who fought for Monmouth fought for some unknown polity,

which was to be set up by a convention not yet in existence. None could

wonder that men of high rank and ample fortune stood aloof from

an enterprise which threatened with destruction that system in the

permanence of which they were deeply interested. If the Duke would

assert his legitimacy and assume the crown, he would at once remove this

objection. The question would cease to be a question between the old

constitution and a new constitution. It would be merely a question of

hereditary right between two princes.

On such grounds as these Ferguson, almost immediately after the landing,

had earnestly pressed the Duke to proclaim himself King; and Grey had

seconded Ferguson. Monmouth had been very willing to take this advice;

but Wade and other republicans had been refractory; and their chief,

with his usual pliability, had yielded to their arguments. At

Taunton the subject was revived. Monmouth talked in private with the

dissentients, assured them that he saw no other way of obtaining the

support of any portion of the aristocracy, and succeeded in extorting

their reluctant consent. On the morning of the twentieth of June he was

proclaimed in the market place of Taunton. His followers repeated his

new title with affectionate delight. But, as some confusion might have

arisen if he had been called King James the Second, they commonly used

the strange appellation of King Monmouth: and by this name their unhappy

favourite was often mentioned in the western counties, within the memory

of persons still living. [379]

Within twenty-four hours after he had assumed the regal title, he put

forth several proclamations headed with his sign manual. By one of these

he set a price on the head of his rival. Another declared the Parliament

then sitting at Westminster an unlawful assembly, and commanded the

members to disperse. A third forbade the people to pay taxes to the

usurper. A fourth pronounced Albemarle a traitor. [380]

Albemarle transmitted these proclamations to London merely as specimens

of folly and impertinence. They produced no effect, except wonder and

contempt; nor had Monmouth any reason to think that the assumption of

royalty had improved his position. Only a week had elapsed since he

had solemnly bound himself not to take the crown till a free Parliament

should have acknowledged his rights. By breaking that engagement he had

incurred the imputation of levity, if not of perfidy. The class which he

had hoped to conciliate still stood aloof. The reasons which prevented

the great Whig lords and gentlemen from recognising him as their King

were at least as strong as those which had prevented them from rallying

round him as their Captain General. They disliked indeed the person, the

religion, and the politics of James. But James was no longer young. His

eldest daughter was justly popular. She was attached to the reformed

faith. She was married to a prince who was the hereditary chief of

the Protestants of the Continent, to a prince who had been bred in a

republic, and whose sentiments were supposed to be such as became a

constitutional King. Was it wise to incur the horrors of civil war, for

the mere chance of being able to effect immediately what nature

would, without bloodshed, without any violation of law, effect, in all

probability, before many years should have expired? Perhaps there might

be reasons for pulling down James. But what reason could be given for

setting up Monmouth? To exclude a prince from the throne on account of

unfitness was a course agreeable to Whig principles. But on no principle

could it be proper to exclude rightful heirs, who were admitted to

be, not only blameless, but eminently qualified for the highest public

trust. That Monmouth was legitimate, nay, that he thought himself

legitimate, intelligent men could not believe. He was therefore not

merely an usurper, but an usurper of the worst sort, an impostor. If

he made out any semblance of a case, he could do so only by means of

forgery and perjury. All honest and sensible persons were unwilling to

see a fraud which, if practiced to obtain an estate, would have been

punished with the scourge and the pillory, rewarded with the English

crown. To the old nobility of the realm it seemed insupportable that

the bastard of Lucy Walters should be set up high above the lawful

descendants of the Fitzalans and De Veres. Those who were capable of

looking forward must have seen that, if Monmouth should succeed in

overpowering the existing government, there would still remain a war

between him and the House of Orange, a war which might last longer

and produce more misery than the war of the Roses, a war which might

probably break up the Protestants of Europe into hostile parties, might

arm England and Holland against each other, and might make both those

countries an easy prey to France. The opinion, therefore, of almost all

the leading Whigs seems to have been that Monmouth's enterprise could

not fail to end in some great disaster to the nation, but that, on the

whole, his defeat would be a less disaster than his victory.

It was not only by the inaction of the Whig aristocracy that the

invaders were disappointed. The wealth and power of London had sufficed

in the preceding generation, and might again suffice, to turn the scale

in a civil conflict. The Londoners had formerly given many proofs of

their hatred of Popery and of their affection for the Protestant Duke.

He had too readily believed that, as soon as he landed, there would be

a rising in the capital. But, though advices came down to him that many

thousands of the citizens had been enrolled as volunteers for the good

cause, nothing was done. The plain truth was that the agitators who

had urged him to invade England, who had promised to rise on the first

signal, and who had perhaps imagined, while the danger was remote, that

they should have the courage to keep their promise, lost heart when the

critical time drew near. Wildman's fright was such that he seemed to

have lost his understanding. The craven Danvers at first excused his

inaction by saying that he would not take up arms till Monmouth was

proclaimed King, and when Monmouth had been proclaimed King, turned

round and declared that good republicans were absolved from all

engagements to a leader who had so shamefully broken faith. In every age

the vilest specimens of human nature are to be found among demagogues.

[381]

On the day following that on which Monmouth had assumed the regal

title he marched from Taunton to Bridgewater. His own spirits, it was

remarked, were not high. The acclamations of the devoted thousands who

surrounded him wherever he turned could not dispel the gloom which

sate on his brow. Those who had seen him during his progress through

Somersetshire five years before could not now observe without pity the

traces of distress and anxiety on those soft and pleasing features which

had won so many hearts. [382]

Ferguson was in a very different temper. With this man's knavery was

strangely mingled an eccentric vanity which resembled madness. The

thought that he had raised a rebellion and bestowed a crown had turned

his head. He swaggered about, brandishing his naked sword, and crying to

the crowd of spectators who had assembled to see the army march out of

Taunton, "Look at me! You have heard of me. I am Ferguson, the famous

Ferguson, the Ferguson for whose head so many hundred pounds have been

offered." And this man, at once unprincipled and brainsick, had in his

keeping the understanding and the conscience of the unhappy Monmouth.

[383]

Bridgewater was one of the few towns which still had some Whig

magistrates. The Mayor and Aldermen came in their robes to welcome

the Duke, walked before him in procession to the high cross, and there

proclaimed him King. His troops found excellent quarters, and were

furnished with necessaries at little or no cost by the people of the

town and neighbourhood. He took up his residence in the Castle, a

building which had been honoured by several royal visits. In the Castle

Field his army was encamped. It now consisted of about six thousand men,

and might easily have been increased to double the number, but for the

want of arms. The Duke had brought with him from the Continent but

a scanty supply of pikes and muskets. Many of his followers had,

therefore, no other weapons than such as could be fashioned out of

the tools which they had used in husbandry or mining. Of these rude

implements of war the most formidable was made by fastening the blade

of a scythe erect on a strong pole. [384] The tithing men of the country

round Taunton and Bridgewater received orders to search everywhere

for scythes and to bring all that could be found to the camp. It was

impossible, however, even with the help of these contrivances, to supply

the demand; and great numbers who were desirous to enlist were sent

away. [385]

The foot were divided into six regiments. Many of the men had been in

the militia, and still wore their uniforms, red and yellow. The cavalry

were about a thousand in number; but most of them had only large colts,

such as were then bred in great herds on the marshes of Somersetshire

for the purpose of supplying London with coach horses and cart horses.

These animals were so far from being fit for any military purpose that

they had not yet learned to obey the bridle, and became ungovernable as

soon as they heard a gun fired or a drum beaten. A small body guard of

forty young men, well armed, and mounted at their own charge, attended

Monmouth. The people of Bridgewater, who were enriched by a thriving

coast trade, furnished him with a small sum of money. [386]

All this time the forces of the government were fast assembling. On the

west of the rebel army, Albemarle still kept together a large body

of Devonshire militia. On the east, the trainbands of Wiltshire had

mustered under the command of Thomas Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. On the

north east, Henry Somerset, Duke of Beaufort, was in arms. The power of

Beaufort bore some faint resemblance to that of the great barons of the

fifteenth century. He was President of Wales and Lord Lieutenant of four

English counties. His official tours through the extensive region in

which he represented the majesty of the throne were scarcely inferior in

pomp to royal progresses. His household at Badminton was regulated after

the fashion of an earlier generation. The land to a great extent

round his pleasure grounds was in his own hands; and the labourers who

cultivated it formed part of his family. Nine tables were every day

spread under his roof for two hundred persons. A crowd of gentlemen and

pages were under the orders of the steward. A whole troop of cavalry

obeyed the master of the horse. The fame of the kitchen, the cellar, the

kennel, and the stables was spread over all England. The gentry, many

miles round, were proud of the magnificence of their great neighbour,

and were at the same time charmed by his affability and good nature. He

was a zealous Cavalier of the old school. At this crisis, therefore,

he used his whole influence and authority in support of the crown, and

occupied Bristol with the trainbands of Gloucestershire, who seem to

have been better disciplined than most other troops of that description.

[387]

In the counties more remote from Somersetshire the supporters of the

throne were on the alert. The militia of Sussex began to march westward,

under the command of Richard, Lord Lumley, who, though he had lately

been converted from the Roman Catholic religion, was still firm in his

allegiance to a Roman Catholic King. James Bertie, Earl of Abingdon,

called out the array of Oxfordshire. John Fell, Bishop of Oxford,

who was also Dean of Christchurch, summoned the undergraduates of his

University to take arms for the crown. The gownsmen crowded to give in

their names. Christchurch alone furnished near a hundred pikemen and

musketeers. Young noblemen and gentlemen commoners acted as officers;

and the eldest son of the Lord Lieutenant was Colonel. [388]

But it was chiefly on the regular troops that the King relied. Churchill

had been sent westward with the Blues; and Feversham was following with

all the forces that could be spared from the neighbourhood of London.

A courier had started for Holland with a letter directing Skelton

instantly to request that the three English regiments in the Dutch

service might be sent to the Thames. When the request was made,

the party hostile to the House of Orange, headed by the deputies of

Amsterdam, again tried to cause delay. But the energy of William, who

had almost as much at stake as James, and who saw Monmouth's progress

with serious uneasiness, bore down opposition, and in a few days the

troops sailed. [389] The three Scotch regiments were already in England.

They had arrived at Gravesend in excellent condition, and James had

reviewed them on Blackheath. He repeatedly declared to the Dutch

Ambassador that he had never in his life seen finer or better

disciplined soldiers, and expressed the warmest gratitude to the Prince

of Orange and the States for so valuable and seasonable a reinforcement

This satisfaction, however, was not unmixed. Excellently as the men went

through their drill, they were not untainted with Dutch politics and

Dutch divinity. One of them was shot and another flogged for drinking

the Duke of Monmouth's health. It was therefore not thought advisable to

place them in the post of danger. They were kept in the neighbourhood of

London till the end of the campaign. But their arrival enabled the King

to send to the West some infantry which would otherwise have been wanted

in the capital. [390]

While the government was thus preparing for a conflict with the rebels

in the field, precautions of a different kind were not neglected. In

London alone two hundred of those persons who were thought most likely

to be at the head of a Whig movement were arrested. Among the prisoners

were some merchants of great note. Every man who was obnoxious to the

Court went in fear. A general gloom overhung the capital. Business

languished on the Exchange; and the theatres were so generally deserted

that a new opera, written by Dryden, and set off by decorations of

unprecedented magnificence, was withdrawn, because the receipts would

not cover the expenses of the performance. [391] The magistrates and

clergy were everywhere active, the Dissenters were everywhere closely

observed. In Cheshire and Shropshire a fierce persecution raged; in

Northamptonshire arrests were numerous; and the gaol of Oxford was

crowded with prisoners. No Puritan divine, however moderate his

opinions, however guarded his conduct, could feel any confidence that he

should not be torn from his family and flung into a dungeon. [392]

Meanwhile Monmouth advanced from Bridgewater harassed through the whole

march by Churchill, who appears to have done all that, with a handful

of men, it was possible for a brave and skilful officer to effect. The

rebel army, much annoyed, both by the enemy and by a heavy fall of rain,

halted in the evening of the twenty-second of June at Glastonbury. The

houses of the little town did not afford shelter for so large a force.

Some of the troops were therefore quartered in the churches, and others

lighted their fires among the venerable ruins of the Abbey, once the

wealthiest religious house in our island. From Glastonbury the Duke

marched to Wells, and from Wells to Shepton Mallet. [393]

Hitherto he seems to have wandered from place to place with no other

object than that of collecting troops. It was now necessary for him to

form some plan of military operations. His first scheme was to seize

Bristol. Many of the chief inhabitants of that important place were

Whigs. One of the ramifications of the Whig plot had extended thither.

The garrison consisted only of the Gloucestershire trainbands. If

Beaufort and his rustic followers could be overpowered before the

regular troops arrived, the rebels would at once find themselves

possessed of ample pecuniary resources; the credit of Monmouth's

arms would be raised; and his friends throughout the kingdom would be

encouraged to declare themselves. Bristol had fortifications which, on

the north of the Avon towards Gloucestershire, were weak, but on

the south towards Somersetshire were much stronger. It was therefore

determined that the attack should be made on the Gloucestershire side.

But for this purpose it was necessary to take a circuitous route, and

to cross the Avon at Keynsham. The bridge at Keynsham had been partly

demolished by the militia, and was at present impassable. A detachment

was therefore sent forward to make the necessary repairs. The other

troops followed more slowly, and on the evening of the twenty-fourth

of June halted for repose at Pensford. At Pensford they were only five

miles from the Somersetshire side of Bristol; but the Gloucestershire

side, which could be reached only by going round through Keynsham, was

distant a long day's march. [394]

That night was one of great tumult and expectation in Bristol. The

partisans of Monmouth knew that he was almost within sight of their

city, and imagined that he would be among them before daybreak. About

an hour after sunset a merchantman lying at the quay took fire. Such an

occurrence, in a port crowded with shipping, could not but excite great

alarm. The whole river was in commotion. The streets were crowded.

Seditious cries were heard amidst the darkness and confusion. It was

afterwards asserted, both by Whigs and by Tories, that the fire had

been kindled by the friends of Monmouth, in the hope that the trainbands

would be busied in preventing the conflagration from spreading, and that

in the meantime the rebel army would make a bold push, and would enter

the city on the Somersetshire side. If such was the design of the

incendiaries, it completely failed. Beaufort, instead of sending his men

to the quay, kept them all night drawn up under arms round the beautiful

church of Saint Mary Redcliff, on the south of the Avon. He would see

Bristol burnt down, he said, nay, he would burn it down himself, rather

than that it should be occupied by traitors. He was able, with the help

of some regular cavalry which had joined him from Chippenham a few hours

before, to prevent an insurrection. It might perhaps have been beyond

his power at once to overawe the malecontents within the walls and to

repel an attack from without: but no such attack was made. The fire,

which caused so much commotion at Bristol, was distinctly seen at

Pensford. Monmouth, however, did not think it expedient to change his

plan. He remained quiet till sunrise, and then marched to Keynsham.

There he found the bridge repaired. He determined to let his army rest

during the afternoon, and, as soon as night came, to proceed to Bristol.

[395]

But it was too late. The King's forces were now near at hand. Colonel

Oglethorpe, at the head of about a hundred men of the Life Guards,

dashed into Keynsham, scattered two troops of rebel horse which ventured

to oppose him, and retired after inflicting much injury and suffering

little. In these circumstances it was thought necessary to relinquish

the design on Bristol. [396]

But what was to be done? Several schemes were proposed and discussed. It

was suggested that Monmouth might hasten to Gloucester, might cross

the Severn there, might break down the bridge behind him, and, with his

right flank protected by the river, might march through Worcestershire

into Shropshire and Cheshire. He had formerly made a progress through

those counties, and had been received there with as much enthusiasm as

in Somersetshire and Devonshire. His presence might revive the zeal of

his old friends; and his army might in a few days be swollen to double

its present numbers.

On full consideration, however, it appeared that this plan, though

specious, was impracticable. The rebels were ill shod for such work as

they had lately undergone, and were exhausted by toiling, day after day,

through deep mud under heavy rain. Harassed and impeded as they would

be at every stage by the enemy's cavalry, they could not hope to reach

Gloucester without being overtaken by the main body of the royal troops,

and forced to a general action under every disadvantage.

Then it was proposed to enter Wiltshire. Persons who professed to know

that county well assured the Duke that he would be joined there by such

strong reinforcements as would make it safe for him to give battle.

[397]

He took this advice, and turned towards Wiltshire. He first summoned

Bath. But Bath was strongly garrisoned for the King; and Feversham was

fast approaching. The rebels, therefore made no attempt on the walls,

but hastened to Philip's Norton, where they halted on the evening of the

twenty-sixth of June.

Feversham followed them thither. Early on the morning of the

twenty-seventh they were alarmed by tidings that he was close at hand.

They got into order, and lined the hedges leading to the town.

The advanced guard of the royal army soon appeared. It consisted of

about five hundred men, commanded by the Duke of Grafton, a youth of

bold spirit and rough manners, who was probably eager to show that he

had no share in the disloyal schemes of his half brother. Grafton soon

found himself in a deep lane with fences on both sides of him, from

which a galling fire of musketry was kept up. Still he pushed boldly

on till he came to the entrance of Philip's Norton. There his way was

crossed by a barricade, from which a third fire met him full in front.

His men now lost heart, and made the best of their way back. Before

they got out of the lane more than a hundred of them had been killed or

wounded. Grafton's retreat was intercepted by some of the rebel cavalry:

but he cut his way gallantly through them, and came off safe. [398]

The advanced guard, thus repulsed, fell back on the main body of the

royal forces. The two armies were now face to face; and a few shots were

exchanged that did little or no execution. Neither side was impatient to

come to action. Feversham did not wish to fight till his artillery came

up, and fell back to Bradford. Monmouth, as soon as the night closed

in, quitted his position, marched southward, and by daybreak arrived at

Frome, where he hoped to find reinforcements.

Frome was as zealous in his cause as either Taunton or Bridgewater,

but could do nothing to serve him. There had been a rising a few days

before; and Monmouth's declaration had been posted up in the market

place. But the news of this movement had been carried to the Earl of

Pembroke, who lay at no great distance with the Wiltshire militia. He

had instantly marched to Frome, had routed a mob of rustics who, with

scythes and pitchforks, attempted to oppose him, had entered the town

and had disarmed the inhabitants. No weapons, therefore, were left

there; nor was Monmouth able to furnish any. [399]

The rebel army was in evil case. The march of the preceding night had

been wearisome. The rain had fallen in torrents; and the roads had

become mere quagmires. Nothing was heard of the promised succours from

Wiltshire. One messenger brought news that Argyle's forces had been

dispersed in Scotland. Another reported that Feversham, having been

joined by his artillery, was about to advance. Monmouth understood war

too well not to know that his followers, with all their courage and

all their zeal, were no match for regular soldiers. He had till lately

flattered himself with the hope that some of those regiments which he

had formerly commanded would pass over to his standard: but that hope he

was now compelled to relinquish. His heart failed him. He could scarcely

muster firmness enough to give orders. In his misery he complained

bitterly of the evil counsellors who had induced him to quit his happy

retreat in Brabant. Against Wildman in particular he broke forth into

violent imprecations. [400] And now an ignominious thought rose in his

weak and agitated mind. He would leave to the mercy of the government

the thousands who had, at his call and for his sake, abandoned their

quiet fields and dwellings. He would steal away with his chief officers,

would gain some seaport before his flight was suspected, would escape to

the Continent, and would forget his ambition and his shame in the arms

of Lady Wentworth. He seriously discussed this scheme with his leading

advisers. Some of them, trembling for their necks, listened to it with

approbation; but Grey, who, by the admission of his detractors, was

intrepid everywhere except where swords were clashing and guns going

off around him, opposed the dastardly proposition with great ardour,

and implored the Duke to face every danger rather than requite with

ingratitude and treachery the devoted attachment of the Western

peasantry. [401]

The scheme of flight was abandoned: but it was not now easy to form any

plan for a campaign. To advance towards London would have been madness;

for the road lay right across Salisbury Plain; and on that vast open

space regular troops, and above all regular cavalry, would have acted

with every advantage against undisciplined men. At this juncture a

report reached the camp that the rustics of the marshes near Axbridge

had risen in defence of the Protestant religion, had armed themselves

with flails, bludgeons, and pitchforks, and were assembling by thousands

at Bridgewater. Monmouth determined to return thither, and to strengthen

himself with these new allies. [402]

The rebels accordingly proceeded to Wells, and arrived there in no

amiable temper. They were, with few exceptions, hostile to Prelacy; and

they showed their hostility in a way very little to their honour. They

not only tore the lead from the roof of the magnificent Cathedral to

make bullets, an act for which they might fairly plead the necessities

of war, but wantonly defaced the ornaments of the building. Grey with

difficulty preserved the altar from the insults of some ruffians who

wished to carouse round it, by taking his stand before it with his sword

drawn. [403]

On Thursday, the second of July, Monmouth again entered Bridgewater,

In circumstances far less cheering than those in which he had marched

thence ten days before. The reinforcement which he found there was

inconsiderable. The royal army was close upon him. At one moment he

thought of fortifying the town; and hundreds of labourers were summoned

to dig trenches and throw up mounds. Then his mind recurred to the plan

of marching into Cheshire, a plan which he had rejected as impracticable

when he was at Keynsham, and which assuredly was not more practicable

now that he was at Bridgewater. [404]

While he was thus wavering between projects equally hopeless, the King's

forces came in sight. They consisted of about two thousand five hundred

regular troops, and of about fifteen hundred of the Wiltshire militia.

Early on the morning of Sunday, the fifth of July, they left Somerton,

and pitched their tents that day about three miles from Bridgewater, on

the plain of Sedgemoor.

Dr. Peter Mew, Bishop of Winchester, accompanied them. This prelate had

in his youth borne arms for Charles the First against the Parliament.

Neither his years nor his profession had wholly extinguished his martial

ardour; and he probably thought that the appearance of a father of the

Protestant Church in the King's camp might confirm the loyalty of some

honest men who were wavering between their horror of Popery and their

horror of rebellion.

The steeple of the parish church of Bridgewater is said to be the

loftiest of Somersetshire, and commands a wide view over the surrounding

country. Monmouth, accompanied by some of his officers, went up to

the top of the square tower from which the spire ascends, and observed

through a telescope the position of the enemy. Beneath him lay a flat

expanse, now rich with cornfields and apple trees, but then, as its name

imports, for the most part a dreary morass. When the rains were heavy,

and the Parret and its tributary streams rose above their banks, this

tract was often flooded. It was indeed anciently part of that great

swamp which is renowned in our early chronicles as having arrested the

progress of two successive races of invaders, which long protected

the Celts against the aggressions of the kings of Wessex, and which

sheltered Alfred from the pursuit of the Danes. In those remote times

this region could be traversed only in boats. It was a vast pool,

wherein were scattered many islets of shifting and treacherous soil,

overhung with rank jungle, and swarming with deer and wild swine.

Even in the days of the Tudors, the traveller whose journey lay from

Ilchester to Bridgewater was forced to make a circuit of several miles

in order to avoid the waters. When Monmouth looked upon Sedgemoor, it

had been partially reclaimed by art, and was intersected by many deep

and wide trenches which, in that country, are called rhines. In the

midst of the moor rose, clustering round the towers of churches, a

few villages of which the names seem to indicate that they once were

surrounded by waves. In one of these villages, called Weston Zoyland,

the royal cavalry lay; and Feversham had fixed his headquarters there.

Many persons still living have seen the daughter of the servant girl who

waited on him that day at table; and a large dish of Persian ware, which

was set before him, is still carefully preserved in the neighbourhood.

It is to be observed that the population of Somersetshire does not, like

that of the manufacturing districts, consist of emigrants from distant

places. It is by no means unusual to find farmers who cultivate the same

land which their ancestors cultivated when the Plantagenets reigned in

England. The Somersetshire traditions are therefore, of no small value

to a historian. [405]

At a greater distance from Bridgewater lies the village of Middlezoy.

In that village and its neighbourhood, the Wiltshire militia were

quartered, under the command of Pembroke. On the open moor, not far from

Chedzoy, were encamped several battalions of regular infantry. Monmouth

looked gloomily on them. He could not but remember how, a few years

before, he had, at the head of a column composed of some of those very

men, driven before him in confusion the fierce enthusiasts who defended

Bothwell Bridge He could distinguish among the hostile ranks that

gallant band which was then called from the name of its Colonel,

Dumbarton's regiment, but which has long been known as the first of

the line, and which, in all the four quarters of the world, has nobly

supported its early reputation. "I know those men," said Monmouth; "they

will fight. If I had but them, all would go well." [406]

Yet the aspect of the enemy was not altogether discouraging. The three

divisions of the royal army lay far apart from one another. There was

all appearance of negligence and of relaxed discipline in all their

movements. It was reported that they were drinking themselves drunk with

the Zoyland cider. The incapacity of Feversham, who commanded in chief,

was notorious. Even at this momentous crisis he thought only of eating

and sleeping. Churchill was indeed a captain equal to tasks far more

arduous than that of scattering a crowd of ill armed and ill trained

peasants. But the genius, which, at a later period, humbled six Marshals

of France, was not now in its proper place. Feversham told Churchill

little, and gave him no encouragement to offer any suggestion. The

lieutenant, conscious of superior abilities and science, impatient of

the control of a chief whom he despised, and trembling for the fate of

the army, nevertheless preserved his characteristic self-command, and

dissembled his feelings so well that Feversham praised his submissive

alacrity, and promised to report it to the King. [407]

Monmouth, having observed the disposition of the royal forces, and

having been apprised of the state in which they were, conceived that

a night attack might be attended with success. He resolved to run the

hazard; and preparations were instantly made.

It was Sunday; and his followers, who had, for the most part, been

brought up after the Puritan fashion, passed a great part of the day in

religious exercises. The Castle Field, in which the army was encamped,

presented a spectacle such as, since the disbanding of Cromwell's

soldiers, England had never seen. The dissenting preachers who had taken

arms against Popery, and some of whom had probably fought in the great

civil war, prayed and preached in red coats and huge jackboots, with

swords by their sides. Ferguson was one of those who harangued. He took

for his text the awful imprecation by which the Israelites who dwelt

beyond Jordan cleared themselves from the charge ignorantly brought

against them by their brethren on the other side of the river. "The Lord

God of Gods, the Lord God of Gods, he knoweth; and Israel he shall know.

If it be in rebellion, or if in transgression against the Lord, save us

not this day." [408]

That an attack was to be made under cover of the night was no secret

in Bridgewater. The town was full of women, who had repaired thither

by hundreds from the surrounding region, to see their husbands, sons,

lovers, and brothers once more. There were many sad partings that day;

and many parted never to meet again. [409] The report of the intended

attack came to the ears of a young girl who was zealous for the King.

Though of modest character, she had the courage to resolve that she

would herself bear the intelligence to Feversham. She stole out of

Bridgewater, and made her way to the royal camp. But that camp was not a

place where female innocence could be safe. Even the officers, despising

alike the irregular force to which they were opposed, and the negligent

general who commanded them, had indulged largely in wine, and were ready

for any excess of licentiousness and cruelty. One of them seized the

unhappy maiden, refused to listen to her errand, and brutally outraged

her. She fled in agonies of rage and shame, leaving the wicked army to

its doom. [410]

And now the time for the great hazard drew near. The night was not ill

suited for such an enterprise. The moon was indeed at the full, and the

northern streamers were shining brilliantly. But the marsh fog lay

so thick on Sedgemoor that no object could be discerned there at the

distance of fifty paces. [411]

The clock struck eleven; and the Duke with his body guard rode out of

the Castle. He was not in the frame of mind which befits one who is

about to strike a decisive blow. The very children who pressed to see

him pass observed, and long remembered, that his look was sad and full

of evil augury. His army marched by a circuitous path, near six miles in

length, towards the royal encampment on Sedgemoor. Part of the route is

to this day called War Lane. The foot were led by Monmouth himself. The

horse were confided to Grey, in spite of the remonstrances of some who

remembered the mishap at Bridport. Orders were given that strict silence

should be preserved, that no drum should be beaten, and no shot fired.

The word by which the insurgents were to recognise one another in the

darkness was Soho. It had doubtless been selected in allusion to Soho

Fields in London, where their leader's palace stood. [412]

At about one in the morning of Monday the sixth of July, the rebels were

on the open moor. But between them and the enemy lay three broad rhines

filled with water and soft mud. Two of these, called the Black Ditch

and the Langmoor Rhine, Monmouth knew that he must pass. But, strange

to say, the existence of a trench, called the Bussex Rhine, which

immediately covered the royal encampment, had not been mentioned to him

by any of his scouts.

The wains which carried the ammunition remained at the entrance of the

moor. The horse and foot, in a long narrow column, passed the Black

Ditch by a causeway. There was a similar causeway across the Langmoor

Rhine: but the guide, in the fog, missed his way. There was some delay

and some tumult before the error could be rectified. At length the

passage was effected: but, in the confusion, a pistol went off. Some men

of the Horse Guards, who were on watch, heard the report, and perceived

that a great multitude was advancing through the mist. They fired their

carbines, and galloped off in different directions to give the alarm.

Some hastened to Weston Zoyland, where the cavalry lay. One trooper

spurred to the encampment of the infantry, and cried out vehemently that

the enemy was at hand. The drums of Dumbarton's regiment beat to arms;

and the men got fast into their ranks. It was time; for Monmouth was

already drawing up his army for action. He ordered Grey to lead the way

with the cavalry, and followed himself at the head of the infantry.

Grey pushed on till his progress was unexpectedly arrested by the Bussex

Rhine. On the opposite side of the ditch the King's foot were hastily

forming in order of battle.

"For whom are you?" called out an officer of the Foot Guards. "For the

King," replied a voice from the ranks of the rebel cavalry. "For which

King?" was then demanded. The answer was a shout of "King Monmouth,"

mingled with the war cry, which forty years before had been inscribed

on the colours of the parliamentary regiments, "God with us." The royal

troops instantly fired such a volley of musketry as sent the rebel horse

flying in all directions. The world agreed to ascribe this ignominious

rout to Grey's pusillanimity. Yet it is by no means clear that Churchill

would have succeeded better at the head of men who had never before

handled arms on horseback, and whose horses were unused, not only to

stand fire, but to obey the rein.

A few minutes after the Duke's horse had dispersed themselves over the

moor, his infantry came up running fast, and guided through the gloom by

the lighted matches of Dumbarton's regiment.

Monmouth was startled by finding that a broad and profound trench lay

between him and the camp which he had hoped to surprise. The insurgents

halted on the edge of the rhine, and fired. Part of the royal infantry

on the opposite bank returned the fire. During three quarters of an

hour the roar of the musketry was incessant. The Somersetshire peasants

behaved themselves as if they had been veteran soldiers, save only that

they levelled their pieces too high.

But now the other divisions of the royal army were in motion. The Life

Guards and Blues came pricking fast from Weston Zoyland, and scattered

in an instant some of Grey's horse, who had attempted to rally. The

fugitives spread a panic among their comrades in the rear, who had

charge of the ammunition. The waggoners drove off at full speed, and

never stopped till they were many miles from the field of battle.

Monmouth had hitherto done his part like a stout and able warrior. He

had been seen on foot, pike in hand, encouraging his infantry by voice

and by example. But he was too well acquainted with military affairs not

to know that all was over. His men had lost the advantage which surprise

and darkness had given them. They were deserted by the horse and by the

ammunition waggons. The King's forces were now united and in good order.

Feversham had been awakened by the firing, had got out of bed, had

adjusted his cravat, had looked at himself well in the glass, and had

come to see what his men were doing. Meanwhile, what was of much more

importance, Churchill had rapidly made an entirely new disposition of

the royal infantry. The day was about to break. The event of a conflict

on an open plain, by broad sunlight, could not be doubtful. Yet Monmouth

should have felt that it was not for him to fly, while thousands

whom affection for him had hurried to destruction were still fighting

manfully in his cause. But vain hopes and the intense love of life

prevailed. He saw that if he tarried the royal cavalry would soon

intercept his retreat. He mounted and rode from the field.

Yet his foot, though deserted, made a gallant stand. The Life Guards

attacked them on the right, the Blues on the left; but the Somersetshire

clowns, with their scythes and the butt ends of their muskets, faced

the royal horse like old soldiers. Oglethorpe made a vigorous attempt to

break them and was manfully repulsed. Sarsfield, a brave Irish officer,

whose name afterwards obtained a melancholy celebrity, charged on the

other flank. His men were beaten back. He was himself struck to the

ground, and lay for a time as one dead. But the struggle of the hardy

rustics could not last. Their powder and ball were spent. Cries were

heard of "Ammunition! For God's sake ammunition!" But no ammunition was

at hand. And now the King's artillery came up. It had been posted half

a mile off, on the high road from Weston Zoyland to Bridgewater. So

defective were then the appointments of an English army that there would

have been much difficulty in dragging the great guns to the place where

the battle was raging, had not the Bishop of Winchester offered

his coach horses and traces for the purpose. This interference of a

Christian prelate in a matter of blood has, with strange inconsistency,

been condemned by some Whig writers who can see nothing criminal in

the conduct of the numerous Puritan ministers then in arms against the

government. Even when the guns had arrived, there was such a want of

gunners that a serjeant of Dumbarton's regiment was forced to take on

himself the management of several pieces. [413] The cannon, however,

though ill served, brought the engagement to a speedy close. The pikes

of the rebel battalions began to shake: the ranks broke; the King's

cavalry charged again, and bore down everything before them; the King's

infantry came pouring across the ditch. Even in that extremity the

Mendip miners stood bravely to their arms, and sold their lives dearly.

But the rout was in a few minutes complete. Three hundred of the

soldiers had been killed or wounded. Of the rebels more than a thousand

lay dead on the moor. [414]

So ended the last fight deserving the name of battle, that has been

fought on English ground. The impression left on the simple inhabitants

of the neighbourhood was deep and lasting. That impression, indeed, has

been frequently renewed. For even in our own time the plough and the

spade have not seldom turned up ghastly memorials of the slaughter,

skulls, and thigh bones, and strange weapons made out of implements of

husbandry. Old peasants related very recently that, in their childhood,

they were accustomed to play on the moor at the fight between King

James's men and King Monmouth's men, and that King Monmouth's men always

raised the cry of Soho. [415]

What seems most extraordinary in the battle of Sedgemoor is that the

event should have been for a moment doubtful, and that the rebels should

have resisted so long. That five or six thousand colliers and ploughmen

should contend during an hour with half that number of regular cavalry

and infantry would now be thought a miracle. Our wonder will, perhaps,

be diminished when we remember that, in the time of James the Second,

the discipline of the regular army was extremely lax, and that, on the

other hand, the peasantry were accustomed to serve in the militia.

The difference, therefore, between a regiment of the Foot Guards and a

regiment of clowns just enrolled, though doubtless considerable, was by

no means what it now is. Monmouth did not lead a mere mob to attack good

soldiers. For his followers were not altogether without a tincture of

soldiership; and Feversham's troops, when compared with English troops

of our time, might almost be called a mob.

It was four o'clock: the sun was rising; and the routed army came

pouring into the streets of Bridgewater. The uproar, the blood, the

gashes, the ghastly figures which sank down and never rose again,

spread horror and dismay through the town. The pursuers, too, were close

behind. Those inhabitants who had favoured the insurrection expected

sack and massacre, and implored the protection of their neighbours

who professed the Roman Catholic religion, or had made themselves

conspicuous by Tory politics; and it is acknowledged by the bitterest

of Whig historians that this protection was kindly and generously given.

[416]

During that day the conquerors continued to chase the fugitives. The

neighbouring villagers long remembered with what a clatter of horsehoofs

and what a storm of curses the whirlwind of cavalry swept by. Before

evening five hundred prisoners had been crowded into the parish church

of Weston Zoyland. Eighty of them were wounded; and five expired within

the consecrated walls. Great numbers of labourers were impressed for the

purpose of burying the slain. A few, who were notoriously partial to the

vanquished side, were set apart for the hideous office of quartering the

captives. The tithing men of the neighbouring parishes were busied in

setting up gibbets and providing chains. All this while the bells of

Weston Zoyland and Chedzoy rang joyously; and the soldiers sang

and rioted on the moor amidst the corpses. For the farmers of the

neighbourhood had made haste, as soon as the event of the fight was

known to send hogsheads of their best cider as peace offerings to the

victors. [417]

Feversham passed for a goodnatured man: but he was a foreigner,

ignorant of the laws and careless of the feelings of the English. He was

accustomed to the military license of France, and had learned from

his great kinsman, the conqueror and devastator of the Palatinate, not

indeed how to conquer, but how to devastate. A considerable number of

prisoners were immediately selected for execution. Among them was a

youth famous for his speed. Hopes were held out to him that his life

would be spared If he could run a race with one of the colts of the

marsh. The space through which the man kept up with the horse is still

marked by well known bounds on the moor, and is about three quarters of

a mile. Feversham was not ashamed, after seeing the performance, to

send the wretched performer to the gallows. The next day a long line of

gibbets appeared on the road leading from Bridgewater to Weston Zoyland.

On each gibbet a prisoner was suspended. Four of the sufferers were left

to rot in irons. [418]

Meanwhile Monmouth, accompanied by Grey, by Buyse, and by a few other

friends, was flying from the field of battle. At Chedzoy he stopped

a moment to mount a fresh horse and to hide his blue riband and his

George. He then hastened towards the Bristol Channel. From the rising

ground on the north of the field of battle he saw the flash and the

smoke of the last volley fired by his deserted followers. Before six

o'clock he was twenty miles from Sedgemoor. Some of his companions

advised him to cross the water, and seek refuge in Wales; and this would

undoubtedly have been his wisest course. He would have been in Wales

many hours before the news of his defeat was known there; and in a

country so wild and so remote from the seat of government, he might

have remained long undiscovered. He determined, however, to push for

Hampshire, in the hope that he might lurk in the cabins of deerstealers

among the oaks of the New Forest, till means of conveyance to the

Continent could be procured. He therefore, with Grey and the German,

turned to the southeast. But the way was beset with dangers. The three

fugitives had to traverse a country in which every one already knew the

event of the battle, and in which no traveller of suspicious appearance

could escape a close scrutiny. They rode on all day, shunning towns and

villages. Nor was this so difficult as it may now appear. For men then

living could remember the time when the wild deer ranged freely through

a succession of forests from the banks of the Avon in Wiltshire to the

southern coast of Hampshire. [419] At length, on Cranbourne Chase, the

strength of the horses failed. They were therefore turned loose. The

bridles and saddles were concealed. Monmouth and his friends procured

rustic attire, disguised themselves, and proceeded on foot towards the

New Forest. They passed the night in the open air: but before morning

they were Surrounded on every side by toils. Lord Lumley, who lay

at Ringwood with a strong body of the Sussex militia, had sent forth

parties in every direction. Sir William Portman, with the Somerset

militia, had formed a chain of posts from the sea to the northern

extremity of Dorset. At five in the morning of the seventh, Grey, who

had wandered from his friends, was seized by two of the Sussex scouts.

He submitted to his fate with the calmness of one to whom suspense was

more intolerable than despair. "Since we landed," he said, "I have not

had one comfortable meal or one quiet night." It could hardly be doubted

that the chief rebel was not far off. The pursuers redoubled their

vigilance and activity. The cottages scattered over the heathy country

on the boundaries of Dorsetshire and Hampshire were strictly examined

by Lumley; and the clown with whom Monmouth had changed clothes was

discovered. Portman came with a strong body of horse and foot to assist

in the search. Attention was soon drawn to a place well fitted to

shelter fugitives. It was an extensive tract of land separated by an

enclosure from the open country, and divided by numerous hedges into

small fields. In some of these fields the rye, the pease, and the oats

were high enough to conceal a man. Others were overgrown with fern and

brambles. A poor woman reported that she had seen two strangers lurking

in this covert. The near prospect of reward animated the zeal of the

troops. It was agreed that every man who did his duty in the search

should have a share of the promised five thousand pounds. The outer

fence was strictly guarded: the space within was examined with

indefatigable diligence; and several dogs of quick scent were turned out

among the bushes. The day closed before the work could be completed: but

careful watch was kept all night. Thirty times the fugitives ventured

to look through the outer hedge: but everywhere they found a sentinel

on the alert: once they were seen and fired at; they then separated and

concealed themselves in different hiding places.

At sunrise the next morning the search recommenced, and Buyse was found.

He owned that he had parted from the Duke only a few hours before. The

corn and copsewood were now beaten with more care than ever. At length

a gaunt figure was discovered hidden in a ditch. The pursuers sprang

on their prey. Some of them were about to fire: but Portman forbade

all violence. The prisoner's dress was that of a shepherd; his beard,

prematurely grey, was of several days' growth. He trembled greatly, and

was unable to speak. Even those who had often seen him were at first in

doubt whether this were truly the brilliant and graceful Monmouth. His

pockets were searched by Portman, and in them were found, among some raw

pease gathered in the rage of hunger, a watch, a purse of gold, a

small treatise on fortification, an album filled with songs, receipts,

prayers, and charms, and the George with which, many years before, King

Charles the Second had decorated his favourite son. Messengers were

instantly despatched to Whitehall with the good news, and with the

George as a token that the news was true. The prisoner was conveyed

under a strong guard to Ringwood. [420]

And all was lost; and nothing remained but that he should prepare to

meet death as became one who had thought himself not unworthy to wear

the crown of William the Conqueror and of Richard the Lionhearted,

of the hero of Cressy and of the hero of Agincourt. The captive might

easily have called to mind other domestic examples, still better suited

to his condition. Within a hundred years, two sovereigns whose blood ran

in his veins, one of them a delicate woman, had been placed in the same

situation in which he now stood. They had shown, in the prison and on

the scaffold, virtue of which, in the season of prosperity, they had

seemed incapable, and had half redeemed great crimes and errors

by enduring with Christian meekness and princely dignity all that

victorious enemies could inflict. Of cowardice Monmouth had never been

accused; and, even had he been wanting in constitutional courage, it

might have been expected that the defect would be supplied by pride

and by despair. The eyes of the whole world were upon him. The latest

generations would know how, in that extremity, he had borne himself.

To the brave peasants of the West he owed it to show that they had not

poured forth their blood for a leader unworthy of their attachment. To

her who had sacrificed everything for his sake he owed it so to bear

himself that, though she might weep for him, she should not blush for

him. It was not for him to lament and supplicate. His reason, too,

should have told him that lamentation and supplication would be

unavailing. He had done that which could never be forgiven. He was in

the grasp of one who never forgave.

But the fortitude of Monmouth was not that highest sort of fortitude

which is derived from reflection and from selfrespect; nor had nature

given him one of those stout hearts from which neither adversity nor

peril can extort any sign of weakness. His courage rose and fell with

his animal spirits. It was sustained on the field of battle by the

excitement of action. By the hope of victory, by the strange influence

of sympathy. All such aids were now taken away. The spoiled darling of

the court and of the populace, accustomed to be loved and worshipped

wherever he appeared, was now surrounded by stern gaolers in whose eyes

he read his doom. Yet a few hours of gloomy seclusion, and he must die a

violent and shameful death. His heart sank within him. Life seemed worth

purchasing by any humiliation; nor could his mind, always feeble, and

now distracted by terror, perceive that humiliation must degrade, but

could not save him.

As soon as he reached Ringwood he wrote to the King. The letter was that

of a man whom a craven fear had made insensible to shame. He professed

in vehement terms his remorse for his treason. He affirmed that, when he

promised his cousins at the Hague not to raise troubles in England,

he had fully meant to keep his word. Unhappily he had afterwards been

seduced from his allegiance by some horrid people who had heated his

mind by calumnies and misled him by sophistry; but now he abhorred

them: he abhorred himself. He begged in piteous terms that he might be

admitted to the royal presence. There was a secret which he could not

trust to paper, a secret which lay in a single word, and which, if he

spoke that word, would secure the throne against all danger. On the

following day he despatched letters, imploring the Queen Dowager and the

Lord Treasurer to intercede in his behalf. [421]

When it was known in London how he had abased himself the general

surprise was great; and no man was more amazed than Barillon, who

had resided in England during two bloody proscriptions, and had seen

numerous victims, both of the Opposition and of the Court, submit to

their fate without womanish entreaties and lamentations. [422]

Monmouth and Grey remained at Ringwood two days. They were then carried

up to London, under the guard of a large body of regular troops and

militia. In the coach with the Duke was an officer whose orders were to

stab the prisoner if a rescue were attempted. At every town along the

road the trainbands of the neighbourhood had been mustered under the

command of the principal gentry. The march lasted three days, and

terminated at Vauxhall, where a regiment, commanded by George Legge,

Lord Dartmouth, was in readiness to receive the prisoners. They were

put on board of a state barge, and carried down the river to Whitehall

Stairs. Lumley and Portman had alternately watched the Duke day and

night till they had brought him within the walls of the palace. [423]

Both the demeanour of Monmouth and that of Grey, during the journey,

filled all observers with surprise. Monmouth was altogether unnerved.

Grey was not only calm but cheerful, talked pleasantly of horses,

dogs, and field sports, and even made jocose allusions to the perilous

situation in which he stood.

The King cannot be blamed for determining that Monmouth should suffer

death. Every man who heads a rebellion against an established government

stakes his life on the event; and rebellion was the smallest part

of Monmouth's crime. He had declared against his uncle a war without

quarter. In the manifesto put forth at Lyme, James had been held up

to execration as an incendiary, as an assassin who had strangled one

innocent man and cut the throat of another, and, lastly, as the poisoner

of his own brother. To spare an enemy who had not scrupled to resort

to such extremities would have been an act of rare, perhaps of blamable

generosity. But to see him and not to spare him was an outrage on

humanity and decency. [424] This outrage the King resolved to commit.

The arms of the prisoner were bound behind him with a silken cord; and,

thus secured, he was ushered into the presence of the implacable kinsman

whom he had wronged.

Then Monmouth threw himself on the ground, and crawled to the King's

feet. He wept. He tried to embrace his uncle's knees with his pinioned

arms. He begged for life, only life, life at any price. He owned that

he had been guilty of a great crime, but tried to throw the blame on

others, particularly on Argyle, who would rather have put his legs into

the boots than have saved his own life by such baseness. By the ties

of kindred, by the memory of the late King, who had been the best and

truest of brothers, the unhappy man adjured James to show some mercy.

James gravely replied that this repentance was of the latest, that he

was sorry for the misery which the prisoner had brought on himself,

but that the case was not one for lenity. A Declaration, filled with

atrocious calumnies, had been put forth. The regal title had been

assumed. For treasons so aggravated there could be no pardon on this

side of the grave. The poor terrified Duke vowed that he had never

wished to take the crown, but had been led into that fatal error by

others. As to the Declaration, he had not written it: he had not read

it: he had signed it without looking at it: it was all the work of

Ferguson, that bloody villain Ferguson. "Do you expect me to believe,"

said James, with contempt but too well merited, "that you set your hand

to a paper of such moment without knowing what it contained?" One depth

of infamy only remained; and even to that the prisoner descended. He was

preeminently the champion of the Protestant religion. The interest of

that religion had been his plea for conspiring against the government of

his father, and for bringing on his country the miseries of civil war;

yet he was not ashamed to hint that he was inclined to be reconciled to

the Church of Rome. The King eagerly offered him spiritual assistance,

but said nothing of pardon or respite. "Is there then no hope?" asked

Monmouth. James turned away in silence. Then Monmouth strove to rally

his courage, rose from his knees, and retired with a firmness which he

had not shown since his overthrow. [425]

Grey was introduced next. He behaved with a propriety and fortitude

which moved even the stern and resentful King, frankly owned himself

guilty, made no excuses, and did not once stoop to ask his life. Both

the prisoners were sent to the Tower by water. There was no tumult; but

many thousands of people, with anxiety and sorrow in their faces, tried

to catch a glimpse of the captives. The Duke's resolution failed as soon

as he had left the royal presence. On his way to his prison he bemoaned

himself, accused his followers, and abjectly implored the intercession

of Dartmouth. "I know, my Lord, that you loved my father. For his sake,

for God's sake, try if there be any room for mercy." Dartmouth replied

that the King had spoken the truth, and that a subject who assumed the

regal title excluded himself from all hope of pardon. [426]

Soon after Monmouth had been lodged in the Tower, he was informed

that his wife had, by the royal command, been sent to see him. She was

accompanied by the Earl of Clarendon, Keeper of the Privy Seal. Her

husband received her very coldly, and addressed almost all his discourse

to Clarendon whose intercession he earnestly implored. Clarendon held

out no hopes; and that same evening two prelates, Turner, Bishop of Ely,

and Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, arrived at the Tower with a solemn

message from the King. It was Monday night. On Wednesday morning

Monmouth was to die.

He was greatly agitated. The blood left his cheeks; and it was some time

before he could speak. Most of the short time which remained to him he

wasted in vain attempts to obtain, if not a pardon, at least a respite.

He wrote piteous letters to the King and to several courtiers, but in

vain. Some Roman Catholic divines were sent to him from Whitehall. But

they soon discovered that, though he would gladly have purchased his

life by renouncing the religion of which he had professed himself in an

especial manner the defender, yet, if he was to die, he would as soon

die without their absolution as with it. [427]

Nor were Ken and Turner much better pleased with his frame of mind. The

doctrine of nonresistance was, in their view, as in the view of most of

their brethren, the distinguishing badge of the Anglican Church. The two

Bishops insisted on Monmouth's owning that, in drawing the sword against

the government, he had committed a great sin; and, on this point,

they found him obstinately heterodox. Nor was this his only heresy. He

maintained that his connection with Lady Wentworth was blameless in the

sight of God. He had been married, he said, when a child. He had never

cared for his Duchess. The happiness which he had not found at home

he had sought in a round of loose amours, condemned by religion and

morality. Henrietta had reclaimed him from a life of vice. To her he had

been strictly constant. They had, by common consent, offered up fervent

prayers for the divine guidance. After those prayers they had found

their affection for each other strengthened; and they could then no

longer doubt that, in the sight of God, they were a wedded pair. The

Bishops were so much scandalised by this view of the conjugal relation

that they refused to administer the sacrament to the prisoner. All that

they could obtain from him was a promise that, during the single night

which still remained to him, he would pray to be enlightened if he were

in error.

On the Wednesday morning, at his particular request, Doctor Thomas

Tenison, who then held the vicarage of Saint Martin's, and, in that

important cure, had obtained the high esteem of the public, came to the

Tower. From Tenison, whose opinions were known to be moderate, the Duke

expected more indulgence than Ken and Turner were disposed to show. But

Tenison, whatever might be his sentiments concerning nonresistance in

the abstract, thought the late rebellion rash and wicked, and considered

Monmouth's notion respecting marriage as a most dangerous delusion.

Monmouth was obstinate. He had prayed, he said, for the divine

direction. His sentiments remained unchanged; and he could not doubt

that they were correct. Tenison's exhortations were in milder tone than

those of the Bishops. But he, like them, thought that he should not be

justified in administering the Eucharist to one whose penitence was of

so unsatisfactory a nature. [428]

The hour drew near: all hope was over; and Monmouth had passed from

pusillanimous fear to the apathy of despair. His children were brought

to his room that he might take leave of them, and were followed by his

wife. He spoke to her kindly, but without emotion. Though she was a

woman of great strength of mind, and had little cause to love him, her

misery was such that none of the bystanders could refrain from weeping.

He alone was unmoved. [429]

It was ten o'clock. The coach of the Lieutenant of the Tower was ready.

Monmouth requested his spiritual advisers to accompany him to the place

of execution; and they consented: but they told him that, in their

judgment, he was about to die in a perilous state of mind, and that, if

they attended him it would be their duty to exhort him to the last. As

he passed along the ranks of the guards he saluted them with a smile;

and he mounted the scaffold with a firm tread. Tower Hill was covered

up to the chimney tops with an innumerable multitude of gazers, who, in

awful silence, broken only by sighs and the noise of weeping, listened

for the last accents of the darling of the people. "I shall say little,"

he began. "I come here, not to speak, but to die. I die a Protestant of

the Church of England." The Bishops interrupted him, and told him that,

unless he acknowledged resistance to be sinful, he was no member of

their church He went on to speak of his Henrietta. She was, he said, a

young lady of virtue and honour. He loved her to the last, and he could

not die without giving utterance to his feelings The Bishops again

interfered, and begged him not to use such language. Some altercation

followed. The divines have been accused of dealing harshly with the

dying man. But they appear to have only discharged what, in their view,

was a sacred duty. Monmouth knew their principles, and, if he wished to

avoid their importunity, should have dispensed with their attendance.

Their general arguments against resistance had no effect on him. But

when they reminded him of the ruin which he had brought on his brave and

loving followers, of the blood which had been shed, of the souls which

had been sent unprepared to the great account, he was touched, and said,

in a softened voice, "I do own that. I am sorry that it ever happened."

They prayed with him long and fervently; and he joined in their

petitions till they invoked a blessing on the King. He remained silent.

"Sir," said one of the Bishops, "do you not pray for the King with us?"

Monmouth paused some time, and, after an internal struggle, exclaimed

"Amen." But it was in vain that the prelates implored him to address to

the soldiers and to the people a few words on the duty of obedience

to the government. "I will make no speeches," he exclaimed. "Only ten

words, my Lord." He turned away, called his servant, and put into the

man's hand a toothpick case, the last token of ill starred love.

"Give it," he said, "to that person." He then accosted John Ketch the

executioner, a wretch who had butchered many brave and noble victims,

and whose name has, during a century and a half, been vulgarly given to

all who have succeeded him in his odious office. [430] "Here," said

the Duke, "are six guineas for you. Do not hack me as you did my Lord

Russell. I have heard that you struck him three or four times. My

servant will give you some more gold if you do the work well." He then

undressed, felt the edge of the axe, expressed some fear that it was

not sharp enough, and laid his head on the block. The divines in the

meantime continued to ejaculate with great energy: "God accept your

repentance! God accept your imperfect repentance!"

The hangman addressed himself to his office. But he had been

disconcerted by what the Duke had said. The first blow inflicted only

a slight wound. The Duke struggled, rose from the block, and looked

reproachfully at the executioner. The head sunk down once more. The

stroke was repeated again and again; but still the neck was not severed,

and the body continued to move. Yells of rage and horror rose from the

crowd. Ketch flung down the axe with a curse. "I cannot do it," he said;

"my heart fails me." "Take up the axe, man," cried the sheriff. "Fling

him over the rails," roared the mob. At length the axe was taken up. Two

more blows extinguished the last remains of life; but a knife was used

to separate the head from the shoulders. The crowd was wrought up to

such an ecstasy of rage that the executioner was in danger of being torn

in pieces, and was conveyed away under a strong guard. [431]

In the meantime many handkerchiefs were dipped in the Duke's blood; for

by a large part of the multitude he was regarded as a martyr who had

died for the Protestant religion. The head and body were placed in a

coffin covered with black velvet, and were laid privately under the

communion table of Saint Peter's Chapel in the Tower. Within four years

the pavement of the chancel was again disturbed, and hard by the remains

of Monmouth were laid the remains of Jeffreys. In truth there is no

sadder spot on the earth than that little cemetery. Death is there

associated, not, as in Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's, with genius and

virtue, with public veneration and imperishable renown; not, as in

our humblest churches and churchyards, with everything that is most

endearing in social and domestic charities; but with whatever is

darkest in human nature and in human destiny, with the savage triumph of

implacable enemies, with the inconstancy, the ingratitude, the cowardice

of friends, with all the miseries of fallen greatness and of blighted

fame. Thither have been carried, through successive ages, by the rude

hands of gaolers, without one mourner following, the bleeding relics

of men who had been the captains of armies, the leaders of parties,

the oracles of senates, and the ornaments of courts. Thither was borne,

before the window where Jane Grey was praying, the mangled corpse of

Guilford Dudley. Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, and Protector of

the realm, reposes there by the brother whom he murdered. There has

mouldered away the headless trunk of John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester

and Cardinal of Saint Vitalis, a man worthy to have lived in a better

age and to have died in a better cause. There are laid John Dudley,

Duke of Northumberland, Lord High Admiral, and Thomas Cromwell, Earl of

Essex, Lord High Treasurer. There, too, is another Essex, on whom nature

and fortune had lavished all their bounties in vain, and whom valour,

grace, genius, royal favour, popular applause, conducted to an early

and ignominious doom. Not far off sleep two chiefs of the great house

of Howard, Thomas, fourth Duke of Norfolk, and Philip, eleventh Earl of

Arundel. Here and there, among the thick graves of unquiet and aspiring

statesmen, lie more delicate sufferers; Margaret of Salisbury, the last

of the proud name of Plantagenet; and those two fair Queens who perished

by the jealous rage of Henry. Such was the dust with which the dust of

Monmouth mingled. [432]

Yet a few months, and the quiet village of Toddington, in Bedfordshire,

witnessed a still sadder funeral. Near that village stood an ancient

and stately hall, the seat of the Wentworths. The transept of the parish

church had long been their burial place. To that burial place, in the

spring which followed the death of Monmouth, was borne the coffin of the

young Baroness Wentworth of Nettlestede. Her family reared a sumptuous

mausoleum over her remains: but a less costly memorial of her was long

contemplated with far deeper interest. Her name, carved by the hand of

him whom she loved too well, was, a few years ago, still discernible on

a tree in the adjoining park.

It was not by Lady Wentworth alone that the memory of Monmouth was

cherished with idolatrous fondness. His hold on the hearts of the people

lasted till the generation which had seen him had passed away. Ribands,

buckles, and other trifling articles of apparel which he had worn, were

treasured up as precious relics by those who had fought under him at

Sedgemoor. Old men who long survived him desired, when they were dying,

that these trinkets might be buried with them. One button of gold thread

which narrowly escaped this fate may still be seen at a house which

overlooks the field of battle. Nay, such was the devotion of the people

to their unhappy favourite that, in the face of the strongest evidence

by which the fact of a death was ever verified, many continued to

cherish a hope that he was still living, and that he would again appear

in arms. A person, it was said, who was remarkably like Monmouth,

had sacrificed himself to save the Protestant hero. The vulgar long

continued, at every important crisis, to whisper that the time was at

hand, and that King Monmouth would soon show himself. In 1686, a knave

who had pretended to be the Duke, and had levied contributions in

several villages of Wiltshire, was apprehended, and whipped from Newgate

to Tyburn. In 1698, when England had long enjoyed constitutional freedom

under a new dynasty, the son of an innkeeper passed himself on the

yeomanry of Sussex as their beloved Monmouth, and defrauded many who

were by no means of the lowest class. Five hundred pounds were collected

for him. The farmers provided him with a horse. Their wives sent him

baskets of chickens and ducks, and were lavish, it was said, of favours

of a more tender kind; for in gallantry at least, the counterfeit was

a not unworthy representative of the original. When this impostor

was thrown into prison for his fraud, his followers maintained him in

luxury. Several of them appeared at the bar to countenance him when he

was tried at the Horsham assizes. So long did this delusion last

that, when George the Third had been some years on the English throne,

Voltaire thought it necessary gravely to confute the hypothesis that the

man in the iron mask was the Duke of Monmouth. [433]

It is, perhaps, a fact scarcely less remarkable that, to this day,

the inhabitants of some parts of the West of England, when any bill

affecting their interest is before the House of Lords, think themselves

entitled to claim the help of the Duke of Buccleuch, the descendant of

the unfortunate leader for whom their ancestors bled.

The history of Monmouth would alone suffice to refute the Imputation

of inconstancy which is so frequently thrown on the common people. The

common people are sometimes inconstant; for they are human beings. But

that they are inconstant as compared with the educated classes, with

aristocracies, or with princes, may be confidently denied. It would be

easy to name demagogues whose popularity has remained undiminished while

sovereigns and parliaments have withdrawn their confidence from a long

succession of statesmen. When Swift had survived his faculties many

years, the Irish populace still continued to light bonfires on his

birthday, in commemoration of the services which they fancied that he

had rendered to his country when his mind was in full vigour. While

seven administrations were raised to power and hurled from it in

consequence of court intrigues or of changes in the sentiments of the

higher classes of society, the profligate Wilkes retained his hold on

the selections of a rabble whom he pillaged and ridiculed. Politicians,

who, in 1807, had sought to curry favour with George the Third by

defending Caroline of Brunswick, were not ashamed, in 1820, to curry

favour with George the Fourth by persecuting her. But in 1820, as in

1807, the whole body of working men was fanatically devoted to her

cause. So it was with Monmouth. In 1680, he had been adored alike by the

gentry and by the peasantry of the West. In 1685 he came again. To the

gentry he had become an object of aversion: but by the peasantry he

was still loved with a love strong as death, with a love not to be

extinguished by misfortunes or faults, by the flight from Sedgemoor, by

the letter from Ringwood, or by the tears and abject supplications at

Whitehall. The charge which may with justice be brought against the

common people is, not that they are inconstant, but that they almost

invariably choose their favourite so ill that their constancy is a vice

and not a virtue.

While the execution of Monmouth occupied the thoughts of the Londoners,

the counties which had risen against the government were enduring all

that a ferocious soldiery could inflict. Feversham had been summoned to

the court, where honours and rewards which he little deserved awaited

him. He was made a Knight of the Garter and Captain of the first and

most lucrative troop of Life Guards: but Court and City laughed at his

military exploits; and the wit of Buckingham gave forth its last feeble

flash at the expense of the general who had won a battle in bed. [434]

Feversham left in command at Bridgewater Colonel Percy Kirke, a military

adventurer whose vices had been developed by the worst of all schools,

Tangier. Kirke had during some years commanded the garrison of that

town, and had been constantly employed in hostilities against tribes of

foreign barbarians, ignorant of the laws which regulate the warfare of

civilized and Christian nations. Within the ramparts of his fortress

he was a despotic prince. The only check on his tyranny was the fear of

being called to account by a distant and a careless government. He might

therefore safely proceed to the most audacious excesses of rapacity,

licentiousness, and cruelty. He lived with boundless dissoluteness, and

procured by extortion the means of indulgence. No goods could be sold

till Kirke had had the refusal of them. No question of right could be

decided till Kirke had been bribed. Once, merely from a malignant whim,

he staved all the wine in a vintner's cellar. On another occasion he

drove all the Jews from Tangier. Two of them he sent to the Spanish

Inquisition, which forthwith burned them. Under this iron domination

scarce a complaint was heard; for hatred was effectually kept down by

terror. Two persons who had been refractory were found murdered; and it

was universally believed that they had been slain by Kirke's order. When

his soldiers displeased him he flogged them with merciless severity: but

he indemnified them by permitting them to sleep on watch, to reel

drunk about the streets, to rob, beat, and insult the merchants and the

labourers.

When Tangier was abandoned, Kirke returned to England. He still

continued to command his old soldiers, who were designated sometimes as

the First Tangier Regiment, and sometimes as Queen Catharine's Regiment.

As they had been levied for the purpose of waging war on an infidel

nation, they bore on their flag a Christian emblem, the Paschal Lamb.

In allusion to this device, and with a bitterly ironical meaning, these

men, the rudest and most ferocious in the English army, were called

Kirke's Lambs. The regiment, now the second of the line, still

retains this ancient badge, which is however thrown into the shade by

decorations honourably earned in Egypt, in Spain, and in the heart of

Asia. [435]

Such was the captain and such the soldiers who were now let loose on the

people of Somersetshire. From Bridgewater Kirke marched to Taunton. He

was accompanied by two carts filled with wounded rebels whose gashes

had not been dressed, and by a long drove of prisoners on foot, who were

chained two and two Several of these he hanged as soon as he reached

Taunton, without the form of a trial. They were not suffered even to

take leave of their nearest relations. The signpost of the White Hart

Inn served for a gallows. It is said that the work of death went on in

sight of the windows where the officers of the Tangier regiment were

carousing, and that at every health a wretch was turned off. When the

legs of the dying man quivered in the last agony, the colonel ordered

the drums to strike up. He would give the rebels, he said music to

their dancing. The tradition runs that one of the captives was not even

allowed the indulgence of a speedy death. Twice he was suspended from

the signpost, and twice cut down. Twice he was asked if he repented of

his treason, and twice he replied that, if the thing were to do again,

he would do it. Then he was tied up for the last time. So many dead

bodies were quartered that the executioner stood ankle deep in blood.

He was assisted by a poor man whose loyalty was suspected, and who was

compelled to ransom his own life by seething the remains of his friends

in pitch. The peasant who had consented to perform this hideous office

afterwards returned to his plough. But a mark like that of Cain was

upon him. He was known through his village by the horrible name of Tom

Boilman. The rustics long continued to relate that, though he had, by

his sinful and shameful deed, saved himself from the vengeance of the

Lambs, he had not escaped the vengeance of a higher power. In a great

storm he fled for shelter under an oak, and was there struck dead by

lightning. [436]

The number of those who were thus butchered cannot now be ascertained.

Nine were entered in the parish registers of Taunton: but those

registers contained the names of such only as had Christian burial.

Those who were hanged in chains, and those whose heads and limbs were

sent to the neighbouring villages, must have been much more numerous. It

was believed in London, at the time, that Kirke put a hundred captives

to death during the week which followed the battle. [437]

Cruelty, however, was not this man's only passion. He loved money; and

was no novice in the arts of extortion. A safe conduct might be bought

of him for thirty or forty pounds; and such a safe conduct, though of

no value in law, enabled the purchaser to pass the post of the Lambs

without molestation, to reach a seaport, and to fly to a foreign

country. The ships which were bound for New England were crowded at

this juncture with so many fugitives from Sedgemoor that there was great

danger lest the water and provisions should fail. [438]

Kirke was also, in his own coarse and ferocious way, a man of pleasure;

and nothing is more probable than that he employed his power for the

purpose of gratifying his licentious appetites. It was reported that he

conquered the virtue of a beautiful woman by promising to spare the

life of one to whom she was strongly attached, and that, after she had

yielded, he showed her suspended on the gallows the lifeless remains of

him for whose sake she had sacrificed her honour. This tale an impartial

judge must reject. It is unsupported by proof. The earliest authority

for it is a poem written by Pomfret. The respectable historians of that

age, while they speak with just severity of the crimes of Kirke, either

omit all mention of this most atrocious crime, or mention it as a thing

rumoured but not proved. Those who tell the story tell it with such

variations as deprive it of all title to credit. Some lay the scene at

Taunton, some at Exeter. Some make the heroine of the tale a maiden,

some a married woman. The relation for whom the shameful ransom was paid

is described by some as her father, by some as her brother, and by some

as her husband. Lastly the story is one which, long before Kirke was

born, had been told of many other oppressors, and had become a favourite

theme of novelists and dramatists. Two politicians of the fifteenth

century, Rhynsault, the favourite of Charles the Bold of Burgundy, and

Oliver le Dain, the favourite of Lewis the Eleventh of France, had been

accused of the same crime. Cintio had taken it for the subject of a

romance. Whetstone had made out of Cintio's narrative the rude play of

Promos and Cassandra; and Shakspeare had borrowed from Whetstone the

plot of the noble tragicomedy of Measure for Measure. As Kirke was not

the first so he was not the last, to whom this excess of wickedness

was popularly imputed. During the reaction which followed the Jacobin

tyranny in France, a very similar charge was brought against Joseph

Lebon, one of the most odious agents of the Committee of Public

Safety, and, after enquiry, was admitted even by his prosecutors to be

unfounded. [439]

The government was dissatisfied with Kirke, not on account of the

barbarity with which he had treated his needy prisoners, but on account

of the interested lenity which he had shown to rich delinquents. [440]

He was soon recalled from the West. A less irregular and more cruel

massacre was about to be perpetrated. The vengeance was deferred during

some weeks. It was thought desirable that the Western Circuit should not

begin till the other circuits had terminated. In the meantime the gaols

of Somersetshire and Dorsetshire were filled with thousands of captives.

The chief friend and protector of these unhappy men in their extremity

was one who abhorred their religious and political opinions, one whose

order they hated, and to whom they had done unprovoked wrong, Bishop

Ken. That good prelate used all his influence to soften the gaolers, and

retrenched from his own episcopal state that he might be able to make

some addition to the coarse and scanty fare of those who had defaced his

beloved Cathedral. His conduct on this occasion was of a piece with his

whole life. His intellect was indeed darkened by many superstitions and

prejudices: but his moral character, when impartially reviewed, sustains

a comparison with any in ecclesiastical history, and seems to approach,

as near as human infirmity permits, to the ideal perfection of Christian

virtue. [441]

His labour of love was of no long duration. A rapid and effectual gaol

delivery was at hand. Early in September, Jeffreys, accompanied by four

other judges, set out on that circuit of which the memory will last as

long as our race and language. The officers who commanded the troops

in the districts through which his course lay had orders to furnish him

with whatever military aid he might require. His ferocious temper needed

no spur; yet a spur was applied. The health and spirits of the Lord

Keeper had given way. He had been deeply mortified by the coldness

of the King and by the insolence of the Chief Justice, and could find

little consolation in looking back on a life, not indeed blackened

by any atrocious crime, but sullied by cowardice, selfishness, and

servility. So deeply was the unhappy man humbled that, when he appeared

for the last time in Westminster Hall he took with him a nosegay to hide

his face, because, as he afterwards owned, he could not bear the eyes of

the bar and of the audience. The prospect of his approaching end seems

to have inspired him with unwonted courage. He determined to discharge

his conscience, requested an audience of the King, spoke earnestly

of the dangers inseparable from violent and arbitrary counsels, and

condemned the lawless cruelties which the soldiers had committed in

Somersetshire. He soon after retired from London to die. He breathed

his last a few days after the Judges set out for the West. It was

immediately notified to Jeffreys that he might expect the Great Seal as

the reward of faithful and vigorous service. [442]