whole library in his hall window; and Cotton was a man of letters. Even
when Franklin first visited London in 1724, circulating libraries were
unknown there. The crowd at the booksellers' shops in Little Britain is
mentioned by Roger North in his life of his brother John.]
[Footnote 170: One instance will suffice. Queen Mary, the daughter of
James, had excellent natural abilities, had been educated by a Bishop,
was fond of history and poetry and was regarded by very eminent men as a
superior woman. There is, in the library at the Hague, a superb English
Bible which was delivered to her when she was crowned in Westminster
Abbey. In the titlepage are these words in her own hand, "This book was
given the King and I, at our crownation. Marie R."]
[Footnote 171: Roger North tells us that his brother John, who was Greek
professor at Cambridge, complained bitterly of the general neglect of
the Greek tongue among the academical clergy.]
[Footnote 172: Butler, in a satire of great asperity, says,
"For, though to smelter words of Greek
And Latin be the rhetorique
Of pedants counted, and vainglorious,
To smatter French is meritorious."]
[Footnote 173: The most offensive instance which I remember is in a poem
on the coronation of Charles the Second by Dryden, who certainly could
not plead poverty as an excuse for borrowing words from any foreign
tongue:--
"Hither in summer evenings you repair
To taste the fraicheur of the cooler air."]
[Footnote 174: Jeremy Collier has censured this odious practice with his
usual force and keenness.]
[Footnote 175: The contrast will be found in Sir Walter Scott's edition
of Dryden.]
[Footnote 176: See the Life of Southern. by Shiels.]
[Footnote 177: See Rochester's Trial of the Poets.]
[Footnote 178: Some Account of the English Stage.]
[Footnote 179: Life of Southern, by Shiels.]
[Footnote 180: If any reader thinks my expressions too severe, I would
advise him to read Dryden's Epilogue to the Duke of Guise, and to
observe that it was spoken by a woman.]
[Footnote 181: See particularly Harrington's Oceana.]
[Footnote 182: See Sprat's History of the Royal Society.]
[Footnote 183: Cowley's Ode to the Royal Society.]
[Footnote 184:
"Then we upon the globe's last verge shall go,
And view the ocean leaning on the sky;
From thence our rolling neighbours we shall know,
And on the lunar world secretly pry.']
--Annus Mirabilis, 164]
[Footnote 185: North's Life of Guildford.]
[Footnote 186: Pepys's Diary, May 30, 1667.]
[Footnote 187: Butler was, I think, the only man of real genius who,
between the Restoration and the Revolution showed a bitter enmity to
the new philosophy, as it was then called. See the Satire on the Royal
Society, and the Elephant in the Moon.]
[Footnote 188: The eagerness with which the agriculturists of that
age tried experiments and introduced improvements is well described by
Aubrey. See the Natural history of Wiltshire, 1685.]
[Footnote 189: Sprat's History of the Royal Society.]
[Footnote 190: Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, London Gazette, May 31,
1683; North's Life of Guildford.]
[Footnote 191: The great prices paid to Varelst and Verrio are mentioned
in Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting.]
[Footnote 192: Petty's Political Arithmetic.]
[Footnote 193: Stat 5 Eliz. c. 4; Archaeologia, vol. xi.]
[Footnote 194: Plain and easy Method showing how the office of Overseer
of the Poor may be managed, by Richard Dunning; 1st edition, 1685; 2d
edition, 1686.]
[Footnote 195: Cullum's History of Hawsted.]
[Footnote 196: Ruggles on the Poor.]
[Footnote 197: See, in Thurloe's State Papers, the memorandum of the
Dutch Deputies dated August 2-12, 1653.]
[Footnote 198: The orator was Mr. John Basset, member for Barnstaple.
See Smith's Memoirs of Wool, chapter lxviii.]
[Footnote 199: This ballad is in the British Museum. The precise year
is not given; but the Imprimatur of Roger Lestrange fixes the date
sufficiently for my purpose. I will quote some of the lines. The master
clothier is introduced speaking as follows:
"In former ages we used to give,
So that our workfolks like farmers did live;
But the times are changed, we will make them know.
"We will make them to work hard for sixpence a day,
Though a shilling they deserve if they kind their just pay;
If at all they murmur and say 'tis too small,
We bid them choose whether they'll work at all.
And thus we forgain all our wealth and estate,
By many poor men that work early and late.
Then hey for the clothing trade! It goes on brave;
We scorn for to toyl and moyl, nor yet to slave.
Our workmen do work hard, but we live at ease,
We go when we will, and we come when we please."]
[Footnote 200: Chamberlayne's State of England; Petty's Political
Arithmetic, chapter viii.; Dunning's Plain and Easy Method; Firmin's
Proposition for the Employing of the Poor. It ought to be observed that
Firmin was an eminent philanthropist.]
[Footnote 201: King in his Natural and Political Conclusions roughly
estimated the common people of England at 880,000 families. Of these
families 440,000, according to him ate animal food twice a week. The
remaining 440,000, ate it not at all, or at most not oftener than once a
week.]
[Footnote 202: Fourteenth Report of the Poor Law Commissioners, Appendix
B. No. 2, Appendix C. No 1, 1848. Of the two estimates of the poor rate
mentioned in the text one was formed by Arthur Moore, the other, some
years later, by Richard Dunning. Moore's estimate will be found in
Davenant's Essay on Ways and Means; Dunning's in Sir Frederic Eden's
valuable work on the poor. King and Davenant estimate the paupers
and beggars in 1696, at the incredible number of 1,330,000 out of a
population of 5,500,000. In 1846 the number of persons who received
relief appears from the official returns to have been only 1,332,089 out
of a population of about 17,000,000. It ought also to be observed that,
in those returns, a pauper must very often be reckoned more than once.
I would advise the reader to consult De Foe's pamphlet entitled "Giving
Alms no Charity," and the Greenwich tables which will be found in Mr.
M'Culloch's Commercial Dictionary under the head Prices.]
[Footnote 203: The deaths were 23,222. Petty's Political Arithmetic.]
[Footnote 204: Burnet, i. 560.]
[Footnote 205: Muggleton's Acts of the Witnesses of the Spirit.]
[Footnote 206: Tom Brown describes such a scene in lines which I do not
venture to quote.]
[Footnote 207: Ward's London Spy.]
[Footnote 208: Pepys's Diary, Dec. 28, 1663, Sept. 2, 1667.]
[Footnote 209: Burnet, i, 606; Spectator, No. 462; Lords' Journals,
October 28, 1678; Cibber's Apology.]
[Footnote 210: Burnet, i. 605, 606, Welwood, North's Life of Guildford,
251.]
[Footnote 211: I may take this opportunity of mentioning that whenever
I give only one date, I follow the old style, which was, in the
seventeenth century, the style of England; but I reckon the year from
the first of January.]
[Footnote 212: Saint Everemond, passim; Saint Real, Memoires de la
Duchesse de Mazarin; Rochester's Farewell; Evelyn's Diary, Sept. 6,
1676, June 11, 1699.]
[Footnote 213: Evelyn's Diary, Jan. 28, 1684-5, Saint Evremond's Letter
to Dery.]
[Footnote 214: Id., February 4, 1684-5.]
[Footnote 215: Roger North's Life of Sir Dudley North, 170; The true
Patriot vindicated, or a Justification of his Excellency the E-of
R-; Burnet, i. 605. The Treasury Books prove that Burnet had good
intelligence.]
[Footnote 216: Evelyn's Diary, Jan. 24, 1681-2, Oct. 4, 1683.]
[Footnote 217: Dugdale's Correspondence.]
[Footnote 218: Hawkins's Life of Ken, 1713.]
[Footnote 219: See the London Gazette of Nov. 21, 1678. Barillon
and Burnet say that Huddleston was excepted out of all the Acts of
Parliament made against priests; but this is a mistake.]
[Footnote 220: Clark's Life of James the Second, i, 746. Orig. Mem.;
Barillon's Despatch of Feb. 1-18, 1685; Van Citters's Despatches of Feb.
3-13 and Feb. 1-16. Huddleston's Narrative; Letters of Philip, second
Earl of Chesterfield, 277; Sir H. Ellis's Original Letters, First
Series. iii. 333: Second Series, iv 74; Chaillot MS.; Burnet, i. 606:
Evelyn's Diary, Feb. 4. 1684-5: Welwood's Memoires 140; North's Life of
Guildford. 252; Examen, 648; Hawkins's Life of Ken; Dryden's Threnodia
Augustalis; Sir H. Halford's Essay on Deaths of Eminent Persons. See
also a fragment of a letter written by the Earl of Ailesbury, which is
printed in the European Magazine for April, 1795. Ailesbury calls Burnet
an impostor. Yet his own narrative and Burnet's will not, to any candid
and sensible reader, appear to contradict each other. I have seen in
the British Museum, and also in the Library of the Royal Institution, a
curious broadside containing an account of the death of Charles. It will
be found in the Somers Collections. The author was evidently a zealous
Roman Catholic, and must have had access to good sources of information.
I strongly suspect that he had been in communication, directly or
indirectly, with James himself. No name is given at length; but the
initials are perfectly intelligible, except in one place. It is said
that the D. of Y. was reminded of the duty which he owed to his brother
by P.M.A.C.F. I must own myself quite unable to decipher the last
five letters. It is some consolation that Sir Walter Scott was
equally unsuccessful. (1848.) Since the first edition of this work
was published, several ingenious conjectures touching these mysterious
letters have been communicated to me, but I am convinced that the true
solution has not yet been suggested. (1850.) I still greatly
doubt whether the riddle has been solved. But the most plausible
interpretation is one which, with some variations, occurred, almost at
the same time, to myself and to several other persons; I am inclined to
read "Pere Mansuete A Cordelier Friar." Mansuete, a Cordelier, was
then James's confessor. To Mansuete therefore it peculiarly belonged
to remind James of a sacred duty which had been culpably neglected. The
writer of the broadside must have been unwilling to inform the world
that a soul which many devout Roman Catholics had left to perish had
been snatched from destruction by the courageous charity of a woman of
loose character. It is therefore not unlikely that he would prefer a
fiction, at once probable and edifying, to a truth which could not
fail to give scandal. (1856.)----It should seem that no transactions in
history ought to be more accurately known to us than those which
took place round the deathbed of Charles the Second. We have several
relations written by persons who were actually in his room. We have
several relations written by persons who, though not themselves
eyewitnesses, had the best opportunity of obtaining information from
eyewitnesses. Yet whoever attempts to digest this vast mass of materials
into a consistent narrative will find the task a difficult one. Indeed
James and his wife, when they told the story to the nuns of Chaillot,
could not agree as to some circumstances. The Queen said that, after
Charles had received the last sacraments the Protestant Bishops renewed
their exhortations. The King said that nothing of the kind took place.
"Surely," said the Queen, "you told me so yourself." "It is impossible
that I have told you so," said the King, "for nothing of the sort
happened."----It is much to be regretted that Sir Henry Halford should
have taken so little trouble ascertain the facts on which he pronounced
judgment. He does not seem to have been aware of the existence of the
narrative of James, Barillon, and Huddleston.----As this is the first
occasion on which I cite the correspondence of the Dutch ministers
at the English court, I ought here to mention that a series of their
despatches, from the accession of James the Second to his flight,
forms one of the most valuable parts of the Mackintosh collection.
The subsequent despatches, down to the settlement of the government in
February, 1689, I procured from the Hague. The Dutch archives have been
far too little explored. They abound with information interesting in the
highest degree to every Englishman. They are admirably arranged and they
are in the charge of gentlemen whose courtesy, liberality and zeal for
the interests of literature, cannot be too highly praised. I wish to
acknowledge, in the strongest manner, my own obligations to Mr. De Jonge
and to Mr. Van Zwanne.]
[Footnote 221: Clarendon mentions this calumny with just scorn.
"According to the charity of the time towards Cromwell, very many would
have it believed to be by poison, of which there was no appearance, nor
any proof ever after made."--Book xiv.]
[Footnote 222: Welwood, 139 Burnet, i. 609; Sheffield's Character
of Charles the Second; North's Life of Guildford, 252; Examen,
648; Revolution Politics; Higgons on Burnet. What North says of the
embarrassment and vacillation of the physicians is confirmed by the
despatches of Van Citters. I have been much perplexed by the strange
story about Short's suspicions. I was, at one time, inclined to adopt
North's solution. But, though I attach little weight to the authority of
Welwood and Burnet in such a case, I cannot reject the testimony of so
well informed and so unwilling a witness as Sheffield.]
[Footnote 223: London Gazette, Feb. 9. 1684-5; Clarke's Life of James
the Second, ii. 3; Barillon, Feb. 9-19: Evelyn's Diary, Feb. 6.]
[Footnote 224: See the authorities cited in the last note. See also the
Examen, 647; Burnet, i. 620; Higgons on Burnet.]
[Footnote 225: London Gazette, Feb. 14, 1684-5; Evelyn's Diary of the
same day; Burnet, i. 610: The Hind let loose.]
[Footnote 226: Burnet, i. 628; Lestrange, Observator, Feb. 11, 1684.]
[Footnote 227: The letters which passed between Rochester and Ormond on
this subject will be found in the Clarendon Correspondence.]
[Footnote 228: The ministerial changes are announced in the London
Gazette, Feb. 19, 1684-5. See Burnet, i. 621; Barillon, Feb. 9-19,
16-26; and Feb. 19,/Mar. 1.]
[Footnote 229: Carte's Life of Ormond; Secret Consults of the Romish
Party in Ireland, 1690; Memoirs of Ireland, 1716.]
[Footnote 230: Christmas Sessions Paper of 1678.]
[Footnote 231: The Acts of the Witnesses of the Spirit, part v chapter
v. In this work Lodowick, after his fashion, revenges himself on the
"bawling devil," as he calls Jeffreys, by a string of curses which
Ernulphus, or Jeffreys himself, might have envied. The trial was in
January, 1677.]
[Footnote 232: This saying is to be found in many contemporary
pamphlets. Titus Oates was never tired of quoting it. See his Eikwg
Basilikh.]
[Footnote 233: The chief sources of information concerning Jeffreys are
the State Trials and North's Life of Lord Guildford. Some touches of
minor importance I owe to contemporary pamphlets in verse and prose.
Such are the Bloody Assizes the life and Death of George Lord Jeffreys,
the Panegyric on the late Lord Jeffreys, the Letter to the Lord
Chancellor, Jeffreys's Elegy. See also Evelyn's Diary, Dec. 5, 1683,
Oct. 31. 1685. I scarcely need advise every reader to consult Lord
Campbell's excellent Life of Jeffreys.]
[Footnote 234: London Gazette, Feb. 12, 1684-5. North's Life of
Guildford, 254.]
[Footnote 235: The chief authority for these transactions is Barillon's
despatch of February 9-19, 1685. It will be found in the Appendix to Mr.
Fox's History. See also Preston's Letter to James, dated April 18-28,
1685, in Dalrymple.]
[Footnote 236: Lewis to Barillon, Feb. 16-26, 1685.]
[Footnote 237: Barillon, Feb. 16-26, 1685.]
[Footnote 238: Barillon, Feb. 18-28, 1685.]
[Footnote 239: Swift who hated Marlborough, and who was little disposed
to allow any merit to those whom he hated, says, in the famous letter to
Crassus, "You are no ill orator in the Senate."]
[Footnote 240: Dartmouth's note on Burnet, i. 264. Chesterfleld's
Letters, Nov., 18, 1748. Chesterfield is an unexceptional witness; for
the annuity was a charge on the estate of his grandfather, Halifax. I
believe that there is no foundation for a disgraceful addition to the
story which may be found in Pope:
"The gallant too, to whom she paid it down,
Lived to refuse his mistress half a crown."
Curll calls this a piece of travelling scandal.]
[Footnote 241: Pope in Spence's Anecdotes.]
[Footnote 242: See the Historical Records of the first or Royal
Dragoons. The appointment of Churchill to the command of this regiment
was ridiculed as an instance of absurd partiality. One lampoon of that
time which I do not remember to have seen in print, but of which a
manuscript copy is in the British Museum, contains these lines:
"Let's cut our meat with spoons:
The sense is as good
As that Churchill should
Be put to command the dragoons."]
[Footnote 243: Barillon, Feb. 16-26, 1685.]
[Footnote 244: Barillon, April 6-16; Lewis to Barillon, April 14-24.]
[Footnote 245: I might transcribe half Barillon's correspondence in
proof of this proposition, but I will quote only one passage, in
which the policy of the French government towards England is exhibited
concisely and with perfect clearness.---- "On peut tenir pour un maxime
indubitable que l'accord du Roy d'Angleterre avec son parlement, en
quelque maniere qu'il se fasse, n'est pas conforme aux interets de V. M.
Je me contente de penser cela sane m'en ouvrir a personne, et je cache
avec soin mes sentimens a cet egard."--Barillon to Lewis, Feb. 28,/Mar.
1687. That this was the real secret of the whole policy of Lewis towards
our country was perfectly understood at Vienna. The Emperor Leopold
wrote thus to James, March 30,/April 9, 1689: "Galli id unum agebant,
ut, perpetuas inter Serenitatem vestram et ejusdem populos fovendo
simultates, reliquæ Christianæ Europe tanto securius insultarent."]
[Footnote 246: "Que sea unido con su reyno, yen todo buena intelligencia
con el parlamenyo." Despatch from the King of Spain to Don Pedro
Ronquillo, March 16-26, 1685. This despatch is in the archives of
Samancas, which contain a great mass of papers relating to English
affairs. Copies of the most interesting of those papers are in the
possession of M. Guizot, and were by him lent to me. It is with peculiar
pleasure that at this time, I acknowledge this mark of the friendship of
so great a man. (1848.)]
[Footnote 247: Few English readers will be desirous to go deep into the
history of this quarrel. Summaries will be found in Cardinal Bausset's
Life of Bossuet, and in Voltaire's Age of Lewis XIV.]
[Footnote 248: Burnet, i. 661, and Letter from Rome, Dodd's Church
History, part viii. book i. art. 1.]
[Footnote 249: Consultations of the Spanish Council of State on April
2-12 and April 16-26, In the Archives of Simancas.]
[Footnote 250: Lewis to Barillon, May 22,/June 1, 1685; Burnet, i. 623.]
[Footnote 251: Life of James the Second, i. 5. Barillon, Feb. 19,/Mar.
1, 1685; Evelyn's Diary, March 5, 1685.]
[Footnote 252:
"To those that ask boons
He swears by God's oons
And chides them as if they came there to steal spoons."
Lamentable Lory, a ballad, 1684.]
[Footnote 253: Barillon, April 20-30. 1685.]
[Footnote 254: From Adda's despatch of Jan. 22,/Feb. 1, 1686, and
from the expressions of the Pere d'Orleans (Histoire des Revolutions
d'Angleterre, liv. xi.), it is clear that rigid Catholics thought the
King's conduct indefensible.]
[Footnote 255: London Gazette, Gazette de France; Life of James the
Second, ii. 10; History of the Coronation of King James the Second and
Queen Mary, by Francis Sandford, Lancaster Herald, fol. 1687; Evelyn's
Diary, May, 21, 1685; Despatch of the Dutch Ambassadors, April 10-20,
1685; Burnet, i. 628; Eachard, iii. 734; A sermon preached before their
Majesties King James the Second and Queen Mary at their Coronation in
Westminster Abbey, April 23, 1695, by Francis Lord Bishop of Ely, and
Lord Almoner. I have seen an Italian account of the Coronation which was
published at Modena, and which is chiefly remarkable for the skill with
which the writer sinks the fact that the prayers and psalms were in
English, and that the Bishops were heretics.]
[Footnote 256: See the London Gazette during the months of February,
March, and April, 1685.]
[Footnote 257: It would be easy to fill a volume with what Whig
historians and pamphleteers have written on this subject. I will cite
only one witness, a churchman and a Tory. "Elections," says Evelyn,
"were thought to be very indecently carried on in most places. God give
a better issue of it than some expect!" May 10, 1685. Again he says,
"The truth is there were many of the new members whose elections and
returns were universally condemned." May 22.]
[Footnote 258: This fact I learned from a newsletter in the library of
the Royal Institution. Van Citters mentions the strength of the Whig
party in Bedfordshire.]
[Footnote 259: Bramston's Memoirs.]
[Footnote 260: Reflections on a Remonstrance and Protestation of all the
good Protestants of this Kingdom, 1689; Dialogue between Two Friends,
1689.]
[Footnote 261: Memoirs of the Life of Thomas Marquess of Wharton, 1715.]
[Footnote 262: See the Guardian, No. 67; an exquisite specimen of
Addison's peculiar manner. It would be difficult to find in the works
of any other writer such an instance of benevolence delicately flavoured
with contempt.]
[Footnote 263: The Observator, April 4, 1685.]
[Footnote 264: Despatch of the Dutch Ambasadors, April 10-20, 1685.]
[Footnote 265: Burnet, i. 626.]
[Footnote 266: A faithful account of the Sickness, Death, and Burial of
Captain Bedlow, 1680; Narrative of Lord Chief Justice North.]
[Footnote 267: Smith's Intrigues of the Popish Plot, 1685.]
[Footnote 268: Burnet, i. 439.]
[Footnote 269: See the proceedings in the Collection of State Trials.]
[Footnote 270: Evelyn's Diary, May 7, 1685.]
[Footnote 271: There remain many pictures of Oates. The most striking
descriptions of his person are in North's Examen, 225, in Dryden's
Absalom and Achitophel, and In a broadside entitled, A Hue and Cry after
T. O.]
[Footnote 272: The proceedings will be found at length in the Collection
of State Trials.]
[Footnote 273: Gazette de France May 29,/June 9, 1685.]
[Footnote 274: Despatch of the Dutch Ambassadors, May 19-29, 1685.]
[Footnote 275: Evelyn's Diary, May 22, 1685; Eachard, iii. 741; Burnet,
i. 637; Observator, May 27, 1685; Oates's Eikvn, 89; Eikwn Brotoloigon,
1697; Commons' Journals of May, June, and July, 1689; Tom Brown's
advice to Dr. Oates. Some interesting circumstances are mentioned in
a broadside, printed for A. Brooks, Charing Cross, 1685. I have seen
contemporary French and Italian pamphlets containing the history of the
trial and execution. A print of Titus in the pillory was published at
Milan, with the following curious inscription: "Questo e il naturale
ritratto di Tito Otez, o vero Oatz, Inglese, posto in berlina, uno de'
principali professor della religion protestante, acerrimo persecutore
de' Cattolici, e gran spergiuro." I have also seen a Dutch engraving
of his punishment, with some Latin verses, of which the following are a
specimen:
"At Doctor fictus non fictos pertulit ictus
A tortore datos haud molli in corpore gratos,
Disceret ut vere scelera ob commissa rubere."
The anagram of his name, "Testis Ovat," may be found on many prints
published in different countries.]
[Footnote 276: Blackstone's Commentaries, Chapter of Homicide.]
[Footnote 277: According to Roger North the judges decided that
Dangerfield, having been previously convicted of perjury, was
incompetent to be a witness of the plot. But this is one among many
instances of Roger's inaccuracy. It appears, from the report of the
trial of Lord Castlemaine in June 1680, that, after much altercation
between counsel, and much consultation among the judges of the different
courts in Westminster Hall, Dangerfield was sworn and suffered to tell
his story; but the jury very properly gave no credit to his testimony.]
[Footnote 278: Dangerfield's trial was not reported; but I have seen a
concise account of it in a contemporary broadside. An abstract of the
evidence against Francis, and his dying speech, will be found in the
Collection of State Trials. See Eachard, iii. 741. Burnet's narrative
contains more mistakes than lines. See also North's Examen, 256, the
sketch of Dangerfield's life in the Bloody Assizes, the Observator of
July 29, 1685, and the poem entitled "Dangerfield's Ghost to Jeffreys."
In the very rare volume entitled "Succinct Genealogies, by Robert
Halstead," Lord Peterbough says that Dangerfield, with whom he had had
some intercourse, was "a young man who appeared under a decent figure,
a serious behaviour, and with words that did not seem to proceed from a
common understanding."]
[Footnote 279: Baxter's preface to Sir Mathew Hale's Judgment of the
Nature of True Religion, 1684.]
[Footnote 280: See the Observator of February 28, 1685, the information
in the Collection of State Trials, the account of what passed in court
given by Calamy, Life of Baxter, chap. xiv., and the very curious
extracts from the Baxter MSS. in the Life, by Orme, published in 1830.]
[Footnote 281: Baxter MS. cited by Orme.]
[Footnote 282: Act Parl. Car. II. March 29,1661, Jac. VII. April 28,
1685, and May 13, 1685.]
[Footnote 283: Act Parl. Jac. VII. May 8, 1685, Observator, June 20,
1685; Lestrange evidently wished to see the precedent followed in
England.]
[Footnote 284: His own words reported by himself. Life of James the
Second, i. 666. Orig. Mem.]
[Footnote 285: Act Parl. Car. II. August 31, 1681.]
[Footnote 286: Burnet, i. 583; Wodrow, III. v. 2. Unfortunately the Acta
of the Scottish Privy Council during almost the whole administration of
the Duke of York are wanting. (1848.) This assertion has been met by a
direct contradiction. But the fact is exactly as I have stated it. There
is in he Acta of the Scottish Privy Council a hiatus extending from
August 1678 to August 1682. The Duke of York began to reside in Scotland
in December 1679. He left Scotland, never to return in May 1682.
(1857.)]
[Footnote 287: Wodrow, III. ix. 6.]
[Footnote 288: Wodrow, III. ix. 6. The editor of the Oxford edition of
Burnet attempts to excuse this act by alleging that Claverhouse was then
employed to intercept all communication between Argyle and Monmouth,
and by supposing that John Brown may have been detected in conveying
intelligence between the rebel camps. Unfortunately for this hypothesis
John Brown was shot on the first of May, when both Argyle and Monmouth
were in Holland, and when there was no insurrection in any part of our
island.]
[Footnote 289: Wodrow, III. ix, 6.]
[Footnote 290: Wodrow, III. ix. 6. It has been confidently asserted, by
persons who have not taken the trouble to look at the authority to which
I have referred, that I have grossly calumniated these unfortunate
men; that I do not understand the Calvinistic theology; and that it is
impossible that members of the Church of Scotland can have refused to
pray for any man on the ground that he was not one of the elect.----
I can only refer to the narrative which Wodrow has inserted in his
history, and which he justly calls plain and natural. That narrative
is signed by two eyewitnesses, and Wodrow, before he published it,
submitted it to a third eyewitness, who pronounced it strictly accurate.
From that narrative I will extract the only words which bear on
the point in question: "When all the three were taken, the officers
consulted among themselves, and, withdrawing to the west side of the
town, questioned the prisoners, particularly if they would pray for King
James VII. They answered, they would pray for all within the election of
grace. Balfour said Do you question the King's election? They answered,
sometimes they questioned their own. Upon which he swore dreadfully, and
said they should die presently, because they would not pray for Christ's
vicegerent, and so without one word more, commanded Thomas Cook to go to
his prayers, for he should die.---- In this narrative Wodrow saw nothing
improbable; and I shall not easily be convinced that any writer now
living understands the feelings and opinions of the Covenanters better
than Wodrow did. (1857.)]
[Footnote 291: Wodrow, III. ix. 6. Cloud of Witnesses.]
[Footnote 292: Wodrow, III. ix. 6. The epitaph of Margaret Wilson, in
the churchyard at Wigton, is printed in the Appendix to the Cloud of
Witnesses;
"Murdered for owning Christ supreme
Head of his church, and no more crime,
But her not owning Prelacy.
And not abjuring Presbytery,
Within the sea, tied to a stake,
She suffered for Christ Jesus' sake."]
[Footnote 293: See the letter to King Charles II. prefixed to Barclay's
Apology.]
[Footnote 294: Sewel's History of the Quakers, book x.]
[Footnote 295: Minutes of Yearly Meetings, 1689, 1690.]
[Footnote 296: Clarkson on Quakerism; Peculiar Customs, chapter v.]
[Footnote 297: After this passage was written, I found in the British
Museum, a manuscript (Harl. MS. 7506) entitled, "An Account of the
Seizures, Sequestrations, great Spoil and Havock made upon the Estates
of the several Protestant Dissenters called Quakers, upon Prosecution of
old Statutes made against Papist and Popish Recusants." The manuscript
is marked as having belonged to James, and appears to have been given
by his confidential servant, Colonel Graham, to Lord Oxford. This
circumstance appears to me to confirm the view which I have taken of the
King's conduct towards the Quakers.]
[Footnote 298: Penn's visits to Whitehall, and levees at Kensington,
are described with great vivacity, though in very bad Latin, by Gerard
Croese. "Sumebat," he says, "rex sæpe secretum, non horarium, vero
horarum plurium, in quo de variis rebus cum Penno serio sermonem
conferebat, et interim differebat audire præcipuorum nobilium ordinem,
qui hoc interim spatio in proc¦tone, in proximo, regem conventum præsto
erant." Of the crowd of suitors at Penn's house. Croese says, "Visi
quandoquo de hoc genere hominum non minus bis centum."--Historia
Quakeriana, lib. ii. 1695.]
[Footnote 299: "Twenty thousand into my pocket; and a hundred thousand
into my province." Penn's "Letter to Popple."]
[Footnote 300: These orders, signed by Sunderland, will be found in
Sewel's History. They bear date April 18, 1685. They are written in
a style singularly obscure and intricate: but I think that I have
exhibited the meaning correctly. I have not been able to find any proof
that any person, not a Roman Catholic or a Quaker, regained his freedom
under these orders. See Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. ii. chap.
ii.; Gerard Croese, lib. ii. Croese estimates the number of Quakers
liberated at fourteen hundred and sixty.]
[Footnote 301: Barillon, May 28,/June 7, 1685. Observator, May 27, 1685;
Sir J. Reresby's Memoirs.]
[Footnote 302: Lewis wrote to Barillon about this class of Exclusionists
as follows: "L'interet qu'ils auront a effacer cette tache par des
services considerables les portera, aelon toutes les apparences, a le
servir plus utilement que ne pourraient faire ceux qui ont toujours ete
les plus attaches a sa personne." May 15-25,1685.]
[Footnote 303: Barillon, May 4-14, 1685; Sir John Reresby's Memoirs.]
[Footnote 304: Burnet, i. 626; Evelyn's Diary, May, 22, 1685.]
[Footnote 305: Roger North's Life of Guildford, 218; Bramston's
Memoirs.]
[Footnote 306: North's Life of Guildford, 228; News from Westminster.]
[Footnote 307: Burnet, i. 382; Letter from Lord Conway to Sir George
Rawdon, Dec. 28, 1677. in the Rawdon Papers.]
[Footnote 308: London Gazette, May 25, 1685; Evelyn's Diary, May 22,
1685.]
[Footnote 309: North's Life of Guildford, 256.]
[Footnote 310: Burnet, i. 639; Evelyn's Diary, May 22, 1685; Barillon,
May 23,/June 2, and May 25,/June 4, 1685 The silence of the journals
perplexed Mr. Fox; but it is explained by the circumstance that
Seymour's motion was not seconded.]
[Footnote 311: Journals, May 22. Stat. Jac. II. i. 1.]
[Footnote 312: Journals, May 26, 27. Sir J. Reresby's Memoirs.]
[Footnote 313: Commons' Journals, May 27, 1685.]
[Footnote 314: Roger North's Life of Sir Dudley North; Life of Lord
Guilford, 166; Mr M'Cullough's Literature of Political Economy.]
[Footnote 315: Life of Dudley North, 176, Lonsdale's Memoirs, Van
Citters, June 12-22, 1685.]
[Footnote 316: Commons' Journals, March 1, 1689.]
[Footnote 317: Lords' Journals, March 18, 19, 1679, May 22, 1685.]
[Footnote 318: Stat. 5 Geo. IV. c. 46.]
[Footnote 319: Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, book xiv.; Burnet's
Own Times, i. 546, 625; Wade's and Ireton's Narratives, Lansdowne MS.
1152; West's information in the Appendix to Sprat's True Account.]
[Footnote 320: London Gazette, January, 4, 1684-5; Ferguson MS. in
Eachard's History, iii. 764; Grey's Narratives; Sprat's True Account,
Danvers's Treatise on Baptism; Danvers's Innocency and Truth vindicated;
Crosby's History of the English Baptists.]
[Footnote 321: Sprat's True Account; Burnet, i. 634; Wade's Confession,
Earl. MS. 6845.---- Lord Howard of Escrick accused Ayloffe of proposing
to assassinate the Duke of York; but Lord Howard was an abject liar;
and this story was not part of his original confession, but was added
afterwards by way of supplement, and therefore deserves no credit
whatever.]
[Footnote 322: Wade's Confession, Harl. MS. 6845; Lansdowne MS. 1152;
Holloway's narrative in the Appendix to Sprat's True Account. Wade owned
that Holloway had told nothing but truth.]
[Footnote 323: Sprat's True Account and Appendix, passim.]
[Footnote 324: Sprat's True Account and Appendix, Proceedings against
Rumbold in the Collection of State Trials; Burnet's Own Times, i. 633;
Appendix to Fox's History, No. IV.]
[Footnote 325: Grey's narrative; his trial in the Collection of State
Trials; Sprat's True Account.]
[Footnote 326: In the Pepysian Collection is a print representing one
of the balls which About this time William and Mary gave in the Oranje
Zaal.]
[Footnote 327: Avaux Neg. January 25, 1685. Letter from James to the
Princess of Orange dated January 1684-5, among Birch's Extracts in the
British Museum.]
[Footnote 328: Grey's Narrative; Wade's Confession, Lansdowne MS. 1152.]
[Footnote 329: Burnet, i. 542; Wood, Ath. Ox. under the name of Owen;
Absalom and Achtophel, part ii.; Eachard, iii. 682, 697; Sprat's True
Account, passim; Lond. Gaz. Aug. 6,1683; Nonconformist's Memorial;
North's Examen, 399.]
[Footnote 330: Wade's Confession, Harl. MS. 6845.]
[Footnote 331: Avaux Neg. Feb. 20, 22, 1685; Monmouth's letter to James
from Ringwood.]
[Footnote 332: Boyer's History of King William the Third, 2d edition,
1703, vol. i 160.]
[Footnote 333: Welwood's Memoirs, App. xv.; Burnet, i. 530. Grey told a
somewhat different story, but he told it to save his life. The Spanish
ambassador at the English court, Don Pedro de Ronquillo, in a letter
to the governor of the Low Countries written about this time, sneers
at Monmouth for living on the bounty of a fond woman, and hints a very
unfounded suspicion that the Duke's passion was altogether interested.
"Hallandose hoy tan falto de medios que ha menester trasformarse en Amor
con Miledi en vista de la ecesidad de poder subsistir."--Ronquillo to
Grana. Mar. 30,/Apr. 9, 1685.]
[Footnote 334: Proceedings against Argyle in the Collection of State
Trials, Burnet, i 521; A True and Plain Account of the Discoveries
made in Scotland, 1684, The Scotch Mist Cleared; Sir George Mackenzie's
Vindication, Lord Fountainhall's Chronological Notes.]
[Footnote 335: Information of Robert Smith in the Appendix to Sprat's
True Account.]
[Footnote 336: True and Plain Account of the Discoveries made in
Scotland.]
[Footnote 337: Discorsi sopra la prima Deca di Tito Livio, lib. ii. cap.
33.]
[Footnote 338: See Sir Patrick Hume's Narrative, passim.]
[Footnote 339: Grey's Narrative; Wade's Confession, Harl. MS. 6845.]
[Footnote 340: Burnet, i. 631.]
[Footnote 341: Grey's Narrative.]
[Footnote 342: Le Clerc's Life of Locke; Lord King's Life of Locke;
Lord Grenville's Oxford and Locke. Locke must not be confounded with
the Anabapist Nicholas Look, whose name was spelled Locke in Grey's
Confession, and who is mentioned in the Lansdowne MS. 1152, and in the
Buccleuch narrative appended to Mr. Rose's dissertation. I should hardly
think it necessary to make this remark, but that the similarity of
the two names appears to have misled a man so well acquainted with the
history of those times as Speaker Onslow. See his note on Burnet, i,
629.]
[Footnote 343: Wodrow, book iii. chap. ix; London Gazette, May 11, 1685;
Barillon, May 11-21.]
[Footnote 344: Register of the Proceedings of the States General, May
5-15, 1685.]
[Footnote 345: This is mentioned in his credentials, dated on the 16th
of March, 1684-5.]
[Footnote 346: Bonrepaux to Seignelay, February 4-14, 1686.]
[Footnote 347: Avaux Neg. April 30,/May 10, May 1-11, May 5-15, 1685;
Sir Patrick Hume's Narrative; Letter from The Admiralty of Amsterdam to
the States General, dated June 20, 1685; Memorial of Skelton, delivered
to the States General, May 10, 1685.]
[Footnote 348: If any person is inclined to suspect that I have
exaggerated the absurdity and ferocity of these men, I would advise him
to read two books, which will convince him that I have rather softened
than overcharged the portrait, the Hind Let Loose, and Faithful
Contendings Displayed.]
[Footnote 349: A few words which were in the first five editions have
been omitted in this place. Here and in another passage I had, as Mr.
Aytoun has observed, mistaken the City Guards, which were commanded by
an officer named Graham, for the Dragoons of Graham of Claverhouse.]
[Footnote 350: The authors from whom I have taken the history of
Argyle's expedition are Sir Patrick Hume, who was an eyewitness of what
he related, and Wodrow, who had access to materials of the greatest
value, among which were the Earl's own papers. Wherever there is a
question of veracity between Argyle and Hume, I have no doubt that
Argyle's narrative ought to be followed.---- See also Burnet, i. 631,
and the life of Bresson, published by Dr. Mac Crie. The account of
the Scotch rebellion in the Life of James the Second, is a ridiculous
romance, not written by the King himself, nor derived from his papers,
but composed by a Jacobite who did not even take the trouble to look at
a map of the seat of war.]
[Footnote 351: Wodrow, III. ix 10; Western Martyrology; Burnet, i. 633;
Fox's History, Appendix iv. I can find no way, except that indicated in
the text, of reconciling Rumbold's denial that he had ever admitted into
his mind the thought of assassination with his confession that he had
himself mentioned his own house as a convenient place for an attack on
the royal brothers. The distinction which I suppose him to have taken
was certainly taken by another Rye House conspirator, who was, like him,
an old soldier of the Commonwealth, Captain Walcot. On Walcot's trial,
West, the witness for the crown, said, "Captain, you did agree to be one
of those that were to fight the Guards." "What, then, was the reason."
asked Chief Justice Pemberton, "that he would not kill the King?" "He
said," answered West, "that it was a base thing to kill a naked man, and
he would not do it."]
[Footnote 352: Wodrow, III. ix. 9.]
[Footnote 353: Wade's narrative, Harl, MS. 6845; Burnet, i. 634; Van
Citters's Despatch of Oct. 30,/Nov. 9, 1685; Luttrell's Diary of the
same date.]
[Footnote 354: Wodrow, III, ix. 4, and III. ix. 10. Wodrow gives from
the Acts of Council the names of all the prisoners who were transported,
mutilated or branded.]
[Footnote 355: Skelton's letter is dated the 7-17th of May 1686. It
will be found, together with a letter of the Schout or High Bailiff
of Amsterdam, in a little volume published a few months later, and
entitled, "Histoire des Evenemens Tragiques d'Angleterre." The documents
inserted in that work are, as far as I have examined them, given exactly
from the Dutch archives, except that Skelton's French, which was not
the purest, is slightly corrected. See also Grey's Narrative.----
Goodenough, on his examination after the battle of Sedgemoor, said,
"The Schout of Amsterdam was a particular friend to this last design."
Lansdowne MS. 1152.---- It is not worth while to refute those writers
who represent the Prince of Orange as an accomplice in Monmouth's
enterprise. The circumstance on which they chiefly rely is that the
authorities of Amsterdam took no effectual steps for preventing the
expedition from sailing. This circumstance is in truth the strongest
proof that the expedition was not favoured by William. No person, not
profoundly ignorant of the institutions and politics of Holland, would
hold the Stadtholder answerable for the proceedings of the heads of the
Loevestein party.]
[Footnote 356: Avaux Neg. June 7-17, 8-18, 14-24, 1685, Letter of the
Prince of Orange to Lord Rochester, June 9, 1685.]
[Footnote 357: Van Citters, June 9-19, June 12-22,1685. The
correspondence of Skelton with the States General and with the Admiralty
of Amsterdam is in the archives at the Hague. Some pieces will be found
in the Evenemens Tragiques d'Angleterre. See also Burnet, i. 640.]
[Footnote 358: Wade's Confession in the Hardwicke Papers; Harl. MS.
6845.]
[Footnote 359: See Buyse's evidence against Monmouth and Fletcher in the
Collection of State Trials.]
[Footnote 360: Journals of the House of Commons, June 13, 1685; Harl.
MS. 6845; Lansdowne MS. 1152.]
[Footnote 361: Burnet, i. 641, Goodenough's confession in the Lansdowne
MS. 1152. Copies of the Declaration, as originally printed, are very
rare; but there is one in the British Museum.]
[Footnote 362: Historical Account of the Life and magnanimous Actions of
the most illustrious Protestant Prince James, Duke of Monmouth, 1683.]
[Footnote 363: Wade's Confession, Hardwicke Papers; Axe Papers; Harl.
MS. 6845.]
[Footnote 364: Harl. MS. 6845.]
[Footnote 365: Buyse's evidence in the Collection of State Trials;
Burnet i 642; Ferguson's MS. quoted by Eachard.]
[Footnote 366: London Gazette, June 18, 1685; Wade's Confession,
Hardwicke Papers.]
[Footnote 367: Lords' Journals, June 13,1685.]
[Footnote 368: Wade's Confession; Ferguson MS.; Axe Papers, Harl. MS.
6845, Oldmixon, 701, 702. Oldmixon, who was then a boy, lived very near
the scene of these events.]
[Footnote 369: London Gazette, June 18, 1685; Lords' and Commons'
Journals, June 13 and 15; Dutch Despatch, 16-26.]
[Footnote 370: Oldmixon is wrong in saying that Fenwick carried up the
bill. It was carried up, as appears from the Journals, by Lord Ancram.
See Delamere's Observations on the Attainder of the Late Duke of
Monmouth.]
[Footnote 371: Commons' Journals of June 17, 18, and 19, 1685; Reresby's
Memoirs.]
[Footnote 372: Commons' Journals, June 19, 29, 1685; Lord Lonsdale's
Memoirs, 8, 9, Burnet, i. 639. The bill, as amended by the committee,
will be found in Mr. Fox's historical work. Appendix iii. If Burnet's
account be correct, the offences which, by the amended bill, were made
punishable only with civil incapacities were, by the original bill, made
capital.]
[Footnote 373: 1 Jac. II. c. 7; Lords' Journals, July 2, 1685.]
[Footnote 374: Lords' and Commons' Journals, July 2, 1685.]
[Footnote 375: Savage's edition of Toulmin's History of Taunton.]
[Footnote 376: Sprat's true Account; Toulmin's History of Taunton.]
[Footnote 377: Life and Death of Joseph Alleine, 1672; Nonconformists'
Memorial.]
[Footnote 378: Harl. MS. 7006; Oldmixon. 702; Eachard, iii. 763.]
[Footnote 379: Wade's Confession; Goodenough's Confession, Harl. MS.
1152, Oldmixon, 702. Ferguson's denial is quite undeserving of credit. A
copy of the proclamation is in the Harl. MS. 7006.]
[Footnote 380: Copies of the last three proclamations are in the British
Museum; Harl. MS. 7006. The first I have never seen; but it is mentioned
by Wado.]
[Footnote 381: Grey's Narrative; Ferguson's MS., Eachard, iii. 754.]
[Footnote 382: Persecution Exposed, by John Whiting.]
[Footnote 383: Harl. MS. 6845.]
[Footnote 384: One of these weapons may still be seen in the tower.]
[Footnote 385: Grey's Narrative; Paschall's Narrative in the Appendix to
Heywood's Vindication.]
[Footnote 386: Oldmixon, 702.]
[Footnote 387: North's Life of Guildford, 132. Accounts of Beaufort's
progress through Wales and the neighbouring counties are in the London
Gazettes of July 1684. Letter of Beaufort to Clarendon, June 19, 1685.]
[Footnote 388: Bishop Fell to Clarendon, June 20; Abingdon to Clarendon,
June 20, 25, 26, 1685; Lansdowne MS. 846.]
[Footnote 389: Avaux, July 5-15, 6-16, 1685.]
[Footnote 390: Van Citters, June 30,/July 10, July 3-13, 21-31,1685;
Avaux Neg. July 5-15, London Gazette, July 6.]
[Footnote 391: Barillon, July 6-16, 1685; Scott's preface to Albion and
Albanius.]
[Footnote 392: Abingdon to Clarendon, June 29,1685; Life of Philip
Henry, by Bates.]
[Footnote 393: London Gazette, June 22, and June 25,1685; Wade's
Confession; Oldmixon, 703; Harl. MS. 6845.]
[Footnote 394: Wade's Confession.]
[Footnote 395: Wade's Confession; Oldmixon, 703; Harl. MS. 6845; Charge
of Jeffreys to the grand jury of Bristol, Sept. 21, 1685.]
[Footnote 396: London Gazette, June 29, 1685; Wade's Confession.]
[Footnote 397: Wade's Confession.]
[Footnote 398: London Gazette, July 2,1685; Barillon, July 6-16; Wade's
Confession.]
[Footnote 399: London Gazette, June 29,1685; Van Citters, June 30,/July
10,]
[Footnote 400: Harl. MS. 6845; Wade's Confession.]
[Footnote 401: Wade's Confession; Eachard, iii. 766.]
[Footnote 402: Wade's Confession.]
[Footnote 403: London Gazette, July 6, 1685; Van Citters, July 3-13,
Oldmixon, 703.]
[Footnote 404: Wade's Confession.]
[Footnote 405: Matt. West. Flor. Hist., A. D. 788; MS. Chronicle quoted
by Mr. Sharon Turner in the History of the Anglo-Saxons, book IV. chap.
xix; Drayton's Polyolbion, iii; Leland's Itinerary; Oldmixon, 703.
Oldmixon was then at Bridgewater, and probably saw the Duke on the
church tower. The dish mentioned in the text is the property of Mr.
Stradling, who has taken laudable pain's to preserve the relics and
traditions of the Western insurrection.]
[Footnote 406: Oldmixon, 703.]
[Footnote 407: Churchill to Clarendon, July 4, 1685.]
[Footnote 408: Oldmixon, 703; Observator, Aug. 1, 1685.]
[Footnote 409: Paschall's Narrative in Heywood's Appendix.]
[Footnote 410: Kennet, ed. 1719, iii. 432. I am forced to believe
that this lamentable story is true. The Bishop declares that it was
communicated to him in the year 1718 by a brave officer of the Blues,
who had fought at Sedgemoor, and who had himself seen the poor girl
depart in an agony of distress.]
[Footnote 411: Narrative of an officer of the Horse Guards in Kennet,
ed. 1718, iii. 432; MS. Journal of the Western Rebellion, kept by Mr.
Edward Dummer, Dryden's Hind and Panther, part II. The lines of Dryden
are remarkable:
"Such were the pleasing triumphs of the sky
For James's late nocturnal victory.
The fireworks which his angels made above.
The pledge of his almighty patron's love,
I saw myself the lambent easy light
Gild the brown horror and dispel the night.
The messenger with speed the tidings bore.
News which three labouring nations did restore;
But heaven's own Nuntius was arrived before.']
[Footnote 412: It has been said by several writers, and among them by
Pennant, that the district in London called Soho derived its name from
the watchword of Monmouth's army at Sedgemoor. Mention of Soho Fields
will be found in many books printed before the Western insurrection; for
example, in Chamberlayne's State of England, 1684.]
[Footnote 413: There is a warrant of James directing that forty pounds
should be paid to Sergeant Weems, of Dumbarton's regiment, "for good
service in the action at Sedgemoor in firing the great guns against the
rebels." Historical Record of the First or Royal Regiment of Foot.]
[Footnote 414: James the Second's account of the battle of Sedgemoor
in Lord Hardwicke's State Papers; Wade's Confession; Ferguson's MS.
Narrative in Eachard, iii. 768; Narrative of an Officer of the Horse
Guards in Kennet, ed. 1719, iii. 432, London Gazette, July 9, 1685;
Oldmixon, 703; Paschall's Narrative; Burnet, i. 643; Evelyn's Diary,
July 8; Van Citters,.July 7-17; Barillon, July 9-19; Reresby's Memoirs;
the Duke of Buckingham's battle of Sedgemoor, a Farce; MS. Journal of
the Western Rebellion, kept by Mr. Edward Dummer, then serving in the
train of artillery employed by His Majesty for the suppression of the
same. The last mentioned manuscript is in the Pepysian library, and is
of the greatest value, not on account of the narrative, which contains
little that is remarkable, but on account of the plans, which exhibit
the battle in four or five different stages.]
"The history of a battle," says the greatest of living generals, "is
not unlike the history of a ball. Some individuals may recollect all the
little events of which the great result is the battle won or lost, but
no individual can recollect the order in which, or the exact moment at
which, they occurred, which makes all the difference as to their value
or importance..... Just to show you how little reliance can be placed
even on what are supposed the best accounts of a battle, I mention that
there are some circumstances mentioned in General--'s account which
did not occur as he relates them. It is impossible to say when each
important occurrence took place, or in what order."--Wellington Papers,
Aug. 8, and 17, 1815.---- The battle concerning which the Duke of
Wellington wrote thus was that of Waterloo, fought only a few weeks
before, by broad day, under his own vigilant and experienced eye.
What then must be the difficulty of compiling from twelve or thirteen
narratives an account of a battle fought more than a hundred and sixty
years ago in such darkness that not a man of those engaged could see
fifty paces before him? The difficulty is aggravated by the circumstance
that those witnesses who had the best opportunity of knowing the truth
were by no means inclined to tell it. The Paper which I have placed at
the head of my list of authorities was evidently drawn up with extreme
partiality to Feversham. Wade was writing under the dread of the halter.
Ferguson, who was seldom scrupulous about the truth of his assertions,
lied on this occasion like Bobadil or Parolles. Oldmixon, who was a boy
at Bridgewater when the battle was fought, and passed a great part of
his subsequent life there, was so much under the influence of local
passions that his local information was useless to him. His desire to
magnify the valour of the Somersetshire peasants, a valour which
their enemies acknowledged and which did not need to be set off by
exaggeration and fiction, led him to compose an absurd romance. The
eulogy which Barillon, a Frenchman accustomed to despise raw levies,
pronounced on the vanquished army, is of much more value, "Son
infanterie fit fort bien. On eut de la peine a les rompre, et les
soldats combattoient avec les crosses de mousquet et les scies qu'ils
avoient au bout de grands bastons au lieu de picques."---- Little is
now to be learned by visiting the field of battle for the face of the
country has been greatly changed; and the old Bussex Rhine on the banks
of which the great struggle took place, has long disappeared. The
rhine now called by that name is of later date, and takes a different
course.---- I have derived much assistance from Mr. Roberts's account of
the battle. Life of Monmouth, chap. xxii. His narrative is in the main
confirmed by Dummer's plans.]
[Footnote 415: I learned these things from persons living close to
Sedgemoor.]
[Footnote 416: Oldmixon, 704.]
[Footnote 417: Locke's Western Rebellion Stradling's Chilton Priory.]
[Footnote 418: Locke's Western Rebellion Stradling's Chilton Priory;
Oldmixon, 704.]
[Footnote 419: Aubrey's Natural History of Wiltshire, 1691.]
[Footnote 420: Account of the manner of taking the late Duke of
Monmouth, published by his Majesty's command; Gazette de France, July
18-28, 1688; Eachard, iii. 770; Burnet, i. 664, and Dartmouth's note:
Van Citters, July 10-20,1688.]
[Footnote 421: The letter to the King was printed at the time by
authority; that to the Queen Dowager will be found in Sir H. Ellis's
Original Letters; that to Rochester in the Clarendon Correspondence.]
[Footnote 422: "On trouve," he wrote, "fort a redire icy qu'il ayt fait
une chose si peu ordinaire aux Anglois." July 13-23, 1685.]
[Footnote 423: Account of the manner of taking the Duke of Monmouth;
Gazette, July 16, 1685; Van Citters, July 14-24,]
[Footnote 424: Barillon was evidently much shocked. "Ill se vient," he
says, "de passer icy, une chose bien extraordinaire et fort opposee a
l'usage ordinaire des autres nations" 13-23, 1685.]
[Footnote 425: Burnet. i. 644; Evelyn's Diary, July 15; Sir J.
Bramston's Memoirs; Reresby's Memoirs; James to the Prince of Orange,
July 14, 1685; Barillon, July 16-26; Bucclench MS.]
[Footnote 426: James to the Prince of Orange, July 14, 1685, Dutch
Despatch of the same date, Dartmouth's note on Burnet, i. 646; Narcissus
Luttrell's Diary, (1848) a copy of this diary, from July 1685 to Sept.
1690, is among the Mackintosh papers. To the rest I was allowed access
by the kindness of the Warden of All Souls' College, where the original
MS. is deposited. The delegates of the Press of the University of Oxford
have since published the whole in six substantial volumes, which will, I
am afraid, find little favour with readers who seek only for amusement,
but which will always be useful as materials for history. (1857.)]
[Footnote 427: Buccleuch MS; Life of James the Second, ii. 37, Orig.
Mem., Van Citters, July 14-24, 1685; Gazette de France, August 1-11.]
[Footnote 428: Buccleuch MS.; Life of James the Second, ii. 37, 38,
Orig. Mem., Burnet, i. 645; Tenison's account in Kennet, iii. 432, ed.
1719.]
[Footnote 429: Buccleuch MS.]
[Footnote 430: The name of Ketch was often associated with that of
Jeffreys in the lampoons of those days.
"While Jeffreys on the bench,
Ketch on the gibbet sits,"
says one poet. In the year which followed Monmouth's execution Ketch
was turned out of his office for insulting one of the Sheriffs, and was
succeeded by a butcher named Rose. But in four months Rose himself was
hanged at Tyburn, and Ketch was reinstated. Luttrell's Diary, January
20, and May 28, 1686. See a curious note by Dr. Grey, on Hudibras, part
iii. canto ii. line 1534.]
[Footnote 431: Account of the execution of Monmouth, signed by the
divines who attended him; Buccleuch MS; Burnet, i. 646; Van Citters,
July 17-27,1685, Luttrell's Diary; Evelyn's Diary, July 15; Barillon,
July 19-29.]
[Footnote 432: I cannot refrain from expressing my disgust at the
barbarous stupidity which has transformed this most interesting little
church into the likeness of a meetinghouse in a manufacturing town.]
[Footnote 433: Observator, August 1, 1685; Gazette de France, Nov. 2,
1686; Letter from Humphrey Wanley, dated Aug. 25, 1698, in the Aubrey
Collection; Voltaire, Dict. Phil. There are, in the Pepysian Collection,
several ballads written after Monmouth's death which represent him as
living, and predict his speedy return. I will give two specimens.
"Though this is a dismal story
Of the fall of my design,
Yet I'll come again in glory,
If I live till eighty-nine:
For I'll have a stronger army
And of ammunition store."
Again;
"Then shall Monmouth in his glories
Unto his English friends appear,
And will stifle all such stories
As are vended everywhere.
"They'll see I was not so degraded,
To be taken gathering pease,
Or in a cock of hay up braided.
What strange stories now are these!"]
[Footnote 434: London Gazette, August 3, 1685; the Battle of Sedgemoor,
a Farce.]
[Footnote 435: Pepys's Diary, kept at Tangier; Historical Records of the
Second or Queen's Royal Regiment of Foot.]
[Footnote 436: Bloody Assizes, Burnet, i. 647; Luttrell's Diary, July
15, 1685; Locke's Western Rebellion; Toulmin's History of Taunton,
edited by Savage.]
[Footnote 437: Luttrell's Diary, July 15, 1685; Toulmin's Hist. of
Taunton.]
[Footnote 438: Oldmixon, 705; Life and Errors of John Dunton, chap.
vii.]
[Footnote 439: The silence of Whig writers so credulous and so
malevolent as Oldmixon and the compilers of the Western Martyrology
would alone seem to me to settle the question. It also deserves to be
remarked that the story of Rhynsault is told by Steele in the Spectator,
No. 491. Surely it is hardly possible to believe that, if a crime
exactly resembling that of Rhynsault had been committed within living
memory in England by an officer of James the Second, Steele, who was
indiscreetly and unseasonably forward to display his Whiggism, would
have made no allusion to that fact. For the case of Lebon, see the
Moniteur, 4 Messidor, l'an 3.]
[Footnote 440: Sunderland to Kirke, July 14 and 28, 1685. "His Majesty,"
says Sunderland, "commands me to signify to you his dislike of these
proceedings, and desires you to take care that no person concerned in
the rebellion be at large." It is but just to add that, in the same
letter, Kirke is blamed for allowing his soldiers to live at free
quarter.]
[Footnote 441: I should be very glad if I could give credit to the
popular story that Ken, immediately after the battle of Sedgemoor,
represented to the chiefs of the royal army the illegality of military
executions. He would, I doubt not, have exerted all his influence on
the side of law and of mercy, if he had been present. But there is no
trustworthy evidence that he was then in the West at all. Indeed what we
know about his proceedings at this time amounts very nearly to proof of
an alibi. It is certain from the Journals of the House of Lords that,
on the Thursday before the battle, he was at Westminster, it is equally
certain that, on the Monday after the battle, he was with Monmouth in
the Tower; and, in that age, a journey from London to Bridgewater and
back again was no light thing.]
[Footnote 442: North's Life of Guildford, 260, 263, 273; Mackintosh's
View of the Reign of James the Second, page 16, note; Letter of Jeffreys
to Sunderland, Sept. 5, 1685.]
[Footnote 443: See the preamble of the Act of Parliament reversing her
attainder.]
[Footnote 444: Trial of Alice Lisle in the Collection of State Trials;
Act of the First of William and Mary for annulling and making void
the Attainder of Alice Lisle widow; Burnet, i. 649; Caveat against the
Whigs.]
[Footnote 445: Bloody Assizes.]
[Footnote 446: Locke's Western Rebellion.]
[Footnote 447: This I can attest from my own childish recollections.]
[Footnote 448: Lord Lonsdale says seven hundred; Burnet six hundred. I
have followed the list which the Judges sent to the Treasury, and which
may still be seen there in the letter book of 1685. See the Bloody
Assizes, Locke's Western Rebellion; the Panegyric on Lord Jeffreys;
Burnet, i. 648; Eachard, iii. 775; Oldmixon, 705.]
[Footnote 449: Some of the prayers, exhortations, and hymns of the
sufferers will be found in the Bloody Assizes.]
[Footnote 450: Bloody Assizes; Locke's Western Rebellion; Lord
Lonsdale's Memoirs; Account of the Battle of Sedgemoor in the Hardwicke
Papers. The story in the Life of James the Second, ii. 43; is not taken
from the King's manuscripts, and sufficiently refutes itself.]
[Footnote 451: Bloody Assizes; Locke's Western Rebellion, Humble
Petition of Widows and Fatherless Children in the West of England;
Panegyric on Lord Jeffreys.]
[Footnote 452: As to the Hewlings, I have followed Kiffin's Memoirs, and
Mr. Hewling Luson's narrative, which will be found in the second edition
of the Hughes Correspondence, vol. ii. Appendix. The accounts in Locke's
Western Rebellion and in the Panegyric on Jeffreys are full of errors.
Great part of the account in the Bloody Assizes was written by Kiffin,
and agrees word for word with his Memoirs.]
[Footnote 453: See Tutchin's account of his own case in the Bloody
Assizes.]
[Footnote 454: Sunderland to Jeffreys, Sept. 14, 1685; Jeffreys to the
King, Sept. 19, 1685, in the State Paper Office.]
[Footnote 455: The best account of the sufferings of those rebels
who were sentenced to transportation is to be found in a very curious
narrative written by John Coad, an honest, Godfearing carpenter who
joined Monmouth, was badly wounded at Philip's Norton, was tried by
Jeffreys, and was sent to Jamaica. The original manuscript was kindly
lent to me by Mr. Phippard, to whom it belongs.]
[Footnote 456: In the Treasury records of the autumn of 1685 are several
letters directing search to be made for trifles of this sort.]
[Footnote 457: Commons' Journals, Oct. 9, Nov. 10, Dec 26, 1690;
Oldmixon, 706. Panegyrie on Jeffreys.]
[Footnote 458: Life and Death of Lord Jeffreys; Panegyric on Jeffreys;
Kiffin's Memoirs.]
[Footnote 459: Burnet, i 368; Evelyn's Diary, Feb. 4, 1684-5, July 13,
1686. In one of the satires of that time are these lines:
"When Duchess, she was gentle, mild, and civil;
When Queen, she proved a raging furious devil."]
[Footnote 460: Sunderland to Jeffreys, Sept. 14, 1685.]
[Footnote 461: Locke's Western Rebellion; Toulmin's History of Taunton,
edited by Savage, Letter of the Duke of Somerset to Sir F. Warre; Letter
of Sunderland to Penn, Feb. 13, 1685-6, from the State Paper Office, in
the Mackintosh Collection. (1848.)---- The letter of Sunderland is as
follows:--
"Whitehall, Feb. 13, 1685-6.
"Mr. Penne,
"Her Majesty's Maids of Honour having acquainted me that they
design to employ you and Mr. Walden in making a composition with
the Relations of the Maids of Taunton for the high Misdemeanour
they have been guilty of, I do at their request hereby let you
know that His Majesty has been pleased to give their Fines to the
said Maids of Honour, and therefore recommend it to Mr. Walden
and you to make the most advantageous composition you can in
their behalf."
I am, Sir,
"Your humble servant,
"SUNDERLAND."
That the person to whom this letter was addressed was William Penn the
Quaker was not doubted by Sir James Mackintosh who first brought it to
light, or, as far as I am aware, by any other person, till after
the publication of the first part of this History. It has since been
confidently asserted that the letter was addressed to a certain George
Penne, who appears from an old accountbook lately discovered to have
been concerned in a negotiation for the ransom of one of Monmouth's
followers, named Azariah Pinney.---- If I thought that I had committed
an error, I should, I hope, have the honesty to acknowledge it. But,
after full consideration, I am satisfied that Sunderland's letter was
addressed to William Penn.---- Much has been said about the way in which
the name is spelt. The Quaker, we are told, was not Mr. Penne, but
Mr. Penn. I feel assured that no person conversant with the books and
manuscripts of the seventeenth century will attach any importance to
this argument. It is notorious that a proper name was then thought to
be well spelt if the sound were preserved. To go no further than the
persons, who, in Penn's time, held the Great Seal, one of them is
sometimes Hyde and sometimes Hide: another is Jefferies, Jeffries,
Jeffereys, and Jeffreys: a third is Somers, Sommers, and Summers: a
fourth is Wright and Wrighte; and a fifth is Cowper and Cooper. The
Quaker's name was spelt in three ways. He, and his father the Admiral
before him, invariably, as far as I have observed, spelt it Penn; but
most people spelt it Pen; and there were some who adhered to the ancient
form, Penne. For example. William the father is Penne in a letter from
Disbrowe to Thurloe, dated on the 7th of December, 1654; and William the
son is Penne in a newsletter of the 22nd of September, 1688, printed in
the Ellis Correspondence. In Richard Ward's Life and Letters of Henry
More, printed in 1710, the name of the Quaker will be found spelt in all
the three ways, Penn in the index, Pen in page 197, and Penne in page
311. The name is Penne in the Commission which the Admiral carried out
with him on his expedition to the West Indies. Burchett, who became
Secretary to the Admiralty soon after the Revolution, and remained in
office long after the accession of the House of Hannover, always, in his
Naval History, wrote the name Penne. Surely it cannot be thought strange
that an old-fashioned spelling, in which the Secretary of the Admiralty
persisted so late as 1720, should have been used at the office of the
Secretary of State in 1686. I am quite confident that, if the letter
which we are considering had been of a different kind, if Mr. Penne had
been informed that, in consequence of his earnest intercession, the King
had been graciously pleased to grant a free pardon to the Taunton girls,
and if I had attempted to deprive the Quaker of the credit of that
intercession on the ground that his name was not Penne, the very persons
who now complain so bitterly that I am unjust to his memory would
have complained quite as bitterly, and, I must say, with much more
reason.---- I think myself, therefore perfectly justified in considering
the names, Penn and Penne, as the same. To which, then, of the two
persons who bore that name George or William, is it probable that the
letter of the Secretary of State was addressed?---- George was evidently
an adventurer of a very low class. All that we learn about him from the
papers of the Pinney family is that he was employed in the purchase of a
pardon for the younger son of a dissenting minister. The whole sum
which appears to have passed through George's hands on this occasion was
sixty-five pounds. His commission on the transaction must therefore have
been small. The only other information which we have about him, is that
he, some time later, applied to the government for a favour which was
very far from being an honour. In England the Groom Porter of the Palace
had a jurisdiction over games of chance, and made some very dirty gain
by issuing lottery tickets and licensing hazard tables. George appears
to have petitioned for a similar privilege in the American colonies.----
William Penn was, during the reign of James the Second, the most active
and powerful solicitor about the Court. I will quote the words of his
admirer Crose. "Quum autem Pennus tanta gratia plurinum apud regem
valeret, et per id perplures sibi amicos acquireret, illum omnes,
etiam qui modo aliqua notitia erant conjuncti, quoties aliquid a rege
postulandum agendumve apud regem esset, adire, ambire, orare, ut eos
apud regem adjuvaret." He was overwhelmed by business of this kind,
"obrutus negotiationibus curationibusque." His house and the approaches
to it were every day blocked up by crowds of persons who came to request
his good offices; "domus ac vestibula quotidie referta clientium et
suppliccantium." From the Fountainhall papers it appears that his
influence was felt even in the highlands of Scotland. We learn from
himself that, at this time, he was always toiling for others, that he
was a daily suitor at Whitehall, and that, if he had chosen to sell his
influence, he could, in little more than three, years, have put twenty
thousand pounds into his pocket, and obtained a hundred thousand more
for the improvement of the colony of which he was proprietor.---- Such
was the position of these two men. Which of them, then, was the more
likely to be employed in the matter to which Sunderland's letter
related? Was it George or William, an agent of the lowest or of the
highest class? The persons interested were ladies of rank and fashion,
resident at the palace. where George would hardly have been admitted
into an outer room, but where William was every day in the presence
chamber and was frequently called into the closet. The greatest nobles
in the kingdom were zealous and active in the cause of their fair
friends, nobles with whom William lived in habits of familiar
intercourse, but who would hardly have thought George fit company for
their grooms. The sum in question was seven thousand pounds, a sum not
large when compared with the masses of wealth with which William had
constantly to deal, but more than a hundred times as large as the only
ransom which is known to have passed through the hands of George.
These considerations would suffice to raise a strong presumption that
Sunderland's letter was addressed to William, and not to George: but
there is a still stronger argument behind.---- It is most important to
observe that the person to whom this letter was addressed was not the
first person whom the Maids of Honour had requested to act for them.
They applied to him because another person to whom they had previously
applied, had, after some correspondence, declined the office. From
their first application we learn with certainty what sort of person
they wished to employ. If their first application had been made to
some obscure pettifogger or needy gambler, we should be warranted in
believing that the Penne to whom their second application was made was
George. If, on the other hand, their first application was made to a
gentleman of the highest consideration, we can hardly be wrong in saying
that the Penne to whom their second application was made must have been
William. To whom, then, was their first application made? It was to Sir
Francis Warre of Hestercombe, a Baronet and a Member of Parliament. The
letters are still extant in which the Duke of Somerset, the proud Duke,
not a man very likely to have corresponded with George Penne, pressed
Sir Francis to undertake the commission. The latest of those letters
is dated about three weeks before Sunderland's letter to Mr. Penne.
Somerset tells Sir Francis that the town clerk of Bridgewater, whose
name, I may remark in passing, is spelt sometimes Bird and sometimes
Birde, had offered his services, but that those services had been
declined. It is clear, therefore, that the Maids of Honour were desirous
to have an agent of high station and character. And they were right. For
the sum which they demanded was so large that no ordinary jobber could
safely be entrusted with the care of their interests.---- As Sir Francis
Warre excused himself from undertaking the negotiation, it became
necessary for the Maids of Honour and their advisers to choose somebody
who might supply his place; and they chose Penne. Which of the two
Pennes, then, must have been their choice, George, a petty broker to
whom a percentage on sixty-five pounds was an object, and whose highest
ambition was to derive an infamous livelihood from cards and dice, or
William, not inferior in social position to any commoner in the kingdom?
Is it possible to believe that the ladies, who, in January, employed the
Duke of Somerset to procure for them an agent in the first rank of the
English gentry, and who did not think an attorney, though occupying a
respectable post in a respectable corporation, good enough for their
purpose, would, in February, have resolved to trust everything to a
fellow who was as much below Bird as Bird was below Warre?---- But, it
is said, Sunderland's letter is dry and distant; and he never would have
written in such a style to William Penn with whom he was on friendly
terms. Can it be necessary for me to reply that the official
communications which a Minister of State makes to his dearest friends
and nearest relations are as cold and formal as those which he makes to
strangers? Will it be contended that the General Wellesley to whom the
Marquis Wellesley, when Governor of India, addressed so many letters
beginning with "Sir," and ending with "I have the honour to be your
obedient servant,'' cannot possibly have been his Lordship's brother
Arthur?---- But, it is said, Oldmixon tells a different story. According
to him, a Popish lawyer named Brent, and a subordinate jobber, named
Crane, were the agents in the matter of the Taunton girls. Now it is
notorious that of all our historians Oldmixon is the least trustworthy.
His most positive assertion would be of no value when opposed to such
evidence as is furnished by Sunderland's letter, But Oldmixon asserts
nothing positively. Not only does he not assert positively that Brent
and Crane acted for the Maids of Honour; but he does not even assert
positively that the Maids of Honour were at all concerned. He goes
no further than "It was said," and "It was reported." It is plain,
therefore, that he was very imperfectly informed. I do not think it
impossible, however, that there may have been some foundation for the
rumour which he mentions. We have seen that one busy lawyer, named Bird,
volunteered to look after the interest of the Maids of Honour, and that
they were forced to tell him that they did not want his services. Other
persons, and among them the two whom Oldmixon names, may have tried to
thrust themselves into so lucrative a job, and may, by pretending to
interest at Court, have succeeded in obtaining a little money from
terrified families. But nothing can be more clear than that the
authorised agent of the Maids of Honour was the Mr. Penne, to whom the
Secretary of State wrote; and I firmly believe that Mr. Penne to have
been William the Quaker---- If it be said that it is incredible that
so good a man would have been concerned in so bad an affair, I can only
answer that this affair was very far indeed from being the worst in
which he was concerned.---- For those reasons I leave the text, and
shall leave it exactly as it originally stood. (1857.)]
[Footnote 462: Burnet, i. 646, and Speaker Onslow's note; Clarendon to
Rochester, May 8, 1686.]
[Footnote 463: Burnet, i. 634.]
[Footnote 464: Calamy's Memoirs; Commons' Journals, December 26,1690;
Sunderland to Jeffreys, September 14, 1685; Privy Council Book, February
26, 1685-6.]
[Footnote 465: Lansdowne MS. 1152; Harl. MS. 6845; London Gazette, July
20, 1685.]
[Footnote 466: Many writers have asserted, without the slightest
foundation, that a pardon was granted to Ferguson by James. Some have
been so absurd as to cite this imaginary pardon, which, if it were
real would prove only that Ferguson was a court spy, in proof of the
magnanimity and benignity of the prince who beheaded Alice Lisle and
burned Elizabeth Gaunt. Ferguson was not only not specially pardoned,
but was excluded by name from the general pardon published in the
following spring. (London Gazette, March 15, 1685-6.) If, as the public
suspected and as seems probable, indulgence was shown to him; it was
indulgence of which James was, not without reason, ashamed, and which
was, as far as possible, kept secret. The reports which were current in
London at the time are mentioned in the Observator, Aug. 1,1685.---- Sir
John Reresby, who ought to have been well informed, positively affirms
that Ferguson was taken three days after the battle of Sedgemoor. But
Sir John was certainly wrong as to the date, and may therefore have
been wrong as to the whole story. From the London Gazette, and from
Goodenough's confession (Lansdowne MS. 1152), it is clear that, a
fortnight after the battle, Ferguson had not been caught, and was
supposed to be still lurking in England.]
[Footnote 467: Granger's Biographical History.]
[Footnote 468: Burnet, i. 648; James to the Prince of Orange, Sept. 10,
and 24, 1685; Lord Lonadale's Memoirs; London Gazette, Oct. 1, 1685.]
[Footnote 469: Trial of Cornish in the Collection of State Trials,
Sir J. Hawles's Remarks on Mr. Cornish's Trial; Burnet, i. 651; Bloody
Assizes; Stat. 1 Gul. and Mar.]
[Footnote 470: Trials of Fernley and Elizabeth Gaunt, in the Collection
of State Trials Burnet, i. 649; Bloody Assizes; Sir J. Bramston's
Memoirs; Luttrell's Diary, Oct. 23, 1685.]
[Footnote 471: Bateman's Trial in the Collection of State Trials;
Sir John Hawles's Remarks. It is worth while to compare Thomas Lee's
evidence on this occasion with his confession previously published by
authority.]
[Footnote 472: Van Citters, Oct. 13-23, 1685.]
[Footnote 473: Neal's History of the Puritans, Calamy's Account of the
ejected Ministers and the Nonconformists' Memorial contain abundant
proofs of the severity of this persecution. Howe's farewell letter to
his flock will be found in the interesting life of that great man, by
Mr. Rogers. Howe complains that he could not venture to show himself in
the streets of London, and that his health had suffered from want of
air and exercise. But the most vivid picture of the distress of the
Nonconformists is furnished by their deadly enemy, Lestrange, in the
Observators of September and October, 1685.]