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pable of finishing the bloody office. The sheriff obliged him to renew the attempt, and at two blows more the head was severed from his body.

He was executed in the thirty-sixth year of his age, on the 25th July, 1685. He possessed many good qualities, and some that were bad. Had he lived in less turbulent times he might have been an ornament to the court, and of service to his country. But the indulgence of Charles, the caresses of faction, and the allurements of popularity, seduced him into an enterprise which exceeded his capacity. The goodwill of the people followed him even after his death; and such was their fond attachment, that many believed he was still alive, and that some person resembling him had suffered in his stead. Hume, vol. viii., p. 227.

CAPTURE OF THE DUKE.

On Cranbourne Chase the strength of the horses failed; they were therefore turned loose; the bridles and saddles were concealed; Monmouth and his friends disguised themselves as countrymen, 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; at five in the morning of the 7th, Gray was seized by two of Lumley's scouts: it was hardly to be doubted that the rebel chief was not far off. The pursuers redoubled their vigilance and activity. The cottages scattered over the heathy country on the borders 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 suited to shelter fugitives; it was an extensive tract of land, separated by enclosures from the open country, and divided by numerous hedges into small fields. In some of these fields the rye, the pease, and oats were high enough to conceal a man; others were overgrown by furze 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; 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 search 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

* Tradition, which records the feeling rather than the fact, reports that the poor woman who informed the pursuers that she had seen two strangers lurking in the island-her name was Amy Farrant-never prospered afterwards, and that Henry Parkin, the soldier, who, spying the skirt of the smock frock which the duke had assumed as a disguise, recalled the searching party just as they were leaving the island, burst into tears, and reproached himself bitterly for the fatal discovery, John Bruce, Notes and Queries, vol. i., p. 4.

The ash tree under which the Duke was taken is still standing on the Woodland estate, now the property of the Earl of Shaftesbury.

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 copse-wood 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 day's growth; he trembled greatly, and was unable to speak. Even those who had often seen him were at first in doubt whether this were 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.* Macaulay's England, vol. i., p. 613.

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This sanguinary monster had already given a specimen of his character in many trials where he had presided, and he set out on the Western circuit with savage joy, as to a full harvest of blood and destruction. He began at Dorchester; and thirty delinquents being arraigned, he exhorted them, but in vain, to save him, by their confession, the trouble of trying them. And when twenty-nine of them were found guilty, he ordered them, as an additionel punishment of their disobedience, to be led to immediate execution. Most of the other prisoners, terrified with this example, pleaded guilty; and no less than two hundred and ninety two received sentence at Dorchester; of these eighty were executed. Exeter was the next stage of his cruelty; two hundred-and-thirty-three were there tried, of whom a vast number were condemned and executed. He also opened his commission at Taunton and Wells; and everywhere carried consternation along with him. On the whole, besides those butchered by Kirke, two-hundred-and fifty-one are computed to have fallen by the hand of this merciless tiger. The whole country was strewed with the heads and limbs of the insurgents. Every village almost beheld the dead carcase of a

*The British Museum has recently become possessed of the memorandum book which was found in the pocket of the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth, at the time he was taken prisoner by the troops of James II. It is about six inches long by four broad, and the cover is black leather. It contains some forty or fifty pages, most of which are written upon by the duke, but what gives it peculiar authenticity is an inscription on a fly leaf, in the handwriting of the king himself, stating that it was taken from the person of the Duke of Monmouth after the battle of Sedgemoor. After his abdication James II. seems to have presented the little volume to a monastery in Paris, where it was preserved with religious care until subsequent to the late revolution. The contents are of a very varied description, and singularly illustrative of the character of the noble writer. The relic has only been in this country a few weeks. Times Newspaper, June 21, 1851.

wretched inhabitant. England had never known such a carnage. Dr. Burnet says that no fewer than six hundred persons were hanged in consequence of Monmouth's rebellion. James applauded these proceedings, and he took pleasure to relate them in his drawingroom to foreign ministers, and at his table, calling it "Jeffreys' campaign. Upon his return Jeffreys was created a baron and peer of the realm.* Hume, vol. viii., p. 233.

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COLONEL KIRKE.

This ruffian had been a soldier of fortune at Tangiers, and had contracted, from his intercourse with the moors, an inhumanity less known in European and in free countries. At his first entry into Bridgewater he hanged nineteen persons, without the least inquiry into the merits of their cause. As if to make a sport of the sufferings of his victims, he ordered a certain number to be executed, while he and his company should drink the king's health, or that of Chief Justice Jeffreys. Observing their feet to quiver in the agonies of death, he cried that he would give them music to their dancing, and he immediately ordered the drums to beat and the trumpets to sound. By way of experiment he ordered one man to be hung up three times, questioning him at each interval, whether he repented of his crime; but the man persisting he would engage in the same cause, Kirke ordered him to be hung in chains. This monster suffered his regiment to live at free quarters, and instructed by his example, and encouraged by his exhortations, they committed all manner of excesses. By way of pleasantry he called the military his lambs, an appellation which was long remembered with horror in the west of England. It is worthy of remark, that Kirke afterwards served in the army of the Prince of Orange. Hume, vol. viii., p. 232.

TRIAL OF THE BISHOPS.

Never king mounted the throne of England with greater advantages than James; nay, possessed greater facility, if that were any advantage, of rendering himself and his posterity absolute. But

* The number of persons who suffered the sentence of the law in the famous western assize of Jeffreys, according to a list in the Harleian collection is as follows:-At Winchester, 1 (Mrs. Lisle) executed; at Salisbury, none; at Dorchester, 74 executed, 171 transported; at Taunton, 144 executed 284 transported; at Wells, 97 executed, 393 transported. In all, 330 executed, 855 transported.

Raymond's Metrical Chronicle, p. 162.

Seward, in his anecdotes, says,-"Jeffreys was never regularly called to the bar. but having, by some means or other got a bar gown on his back, he began to practise with considerable success. He even braved the plague for the sake of briefs, and in 1666 came into notice at the Kingston assizes, at which, on account of the pestilence, very few counsel made their appearance."

He died in the Tower on the 18th April, 1689. He was endeavouring to leave England in the disguise of a sailor, but being recognised by an attorney in a cellar at Wapping, he was arrested, and taken before the Lord Mayor. The mob set upon him in his passage through the streets, and beat him so severely, that he shortly afterwards died from the injuries he received.

all these fortunate circumstances tended only, by his own misconduct, to bring more sudden ruin upon him. The nation seemed disposed of themselves to resign their liberties, had he not at the same time made an attack upon their religion. His indecent haste to re-establish popery finally drove him into banishment. He sent Caryl as his agent to Rome, in order to make submission to the pope, and to pave the way for the re-admission of England into the bosom of the Catholic church. Father Peter, a bold and intriguing Jesuit, was made a privy councillor, and directed all the king's measures. He nominated Farmer, a newly converted papist, to be president of Magdalen College, Oxford, the richest foundation in Europe. In Ireland all the Protestants were deprived of their commissions in the army, Catholics substituted in their stead. He re-established the Court of High Commission. This odious tribunal, with the Court of Star Chamber, had been abolished in the reign of Charles I., and the act of parliament prohibited its erection at any future time. But this law James deemed no obstacle, and an ecclesiastical commission was issued, by which seven commissioners were vested with unlimited power over all matters that concerned religion. They might proceed on bare suspicion, and, the better to set the law at defiance, it was expressly inserted in their patent that they were to exercise their jurisdiction, notwithstanding any law or statute to the contrary.

The king likewise went openly with all the ensigns of his dignity to mass-an illegal meeting. The more judicious of the Catholics themselves became alarmed at his inconsiderate zeal. The pope, Innocent XI., advised him not to be too precipitate, nor rashly attempt what repeated experience might convince him was impracticable. The Spanish ambassador, Ronquillo, deeming the tranquillity of England necessary for the support of Spain, made similar remonstrances. He observed to the king how busy the priests appeared at court, and advised him not to assent with too great facility to their councils. "Is it not the custom in Spain," said James, " for the king to consult with his confessor?" "Yes," replied the ambassador, "and it is for that very reason our affairs succeed so ill."

The first resistance to these arbitrary proceedings of the king came from the clergy; this class would readily have acquiesced in the destruction of civil liberty, but the king's open attack upon their own establishment filled them with alarm. He assumed the power of issuing a declaration of a general indulgence, and thus suspending at once all the penal laws by which a conformity was required to the established religion. By this monstrous assumption the nation was brought back to the time of Henry VIII., when the proclamation of a sovereign was deemed equal to an act of parliament. Finding that the first declaration of indulgence was submitted to, he issued a second, and subjoined an order that immediately after divine service it should be read by the clergy in all the churches. This they were determined to oppose, and hence arose the famous trial of THE SIX BISHOPS.

Six prelates with the primate met privately at Lambeth, and concerted the form of a petition to the king. Their petition was couched in the most cautious and respectful terms; representing that, though possessed of the highest sense of loyalty-a virtue of which the church of England had given such eminent testimoniesand though desirous of affording ease in a legal way to all Catholics and Dissenters, yet, because the declaration of indulgence was founded on a prerogative formerly declared illegal by parliament, they could not in honour or conscience so far make themselves parties as the distribution of it all over the kingdom would amount to; they therefore besought the king that he would not insist on their reading that declaration.

The king was inexorable; he immediately embraced a resolution of punishing the bishops. As the petition was delivered him in private he summoned them before the council, and questioned them whether they would acknowledge it. The bishops saw his intention, and seemed long desirous of declining an answer, but being pushed by the chancellor, they at last avowed the petition. On their refusal to give bail, an order was immediately drawn for their committal to the Tower, and the crown lawyers were directed to prosecute them for a pretended seditious libel.

The progress of the prelates from Whitehall to the Tower resembled more a triumph than a conveyance of prisoners to a dungeon. Both banks of the river were crowded with spectators, many of whom rushed into the water to implore blessings from the holy men who were suffering for their adherence to the Protestant faith. At the Tower the guards, officers, and men knelt to them, and prayed for their happy deliverance; the nobility and clergy came daily in large bodies to visit them in their prison, and express their sympathy in their cause, and their determination to uphold it.

Nothing could exceed the popularity of the prelates; the whole country waited the issue of the trial with the greatest anxiety; it took place on the 29th of June, 1688. Several of the judges declared themselves in favour of the prisoners; the jury, however, from what cause is unknown, took several hours to deliberate, and kept the people in the most anxious expectation; but when the wished for verdict of "Not Guilty" was at last pronounced, the intelligence was echoed through the hall, conveyed to the crowds without, carried into the city, and propogated with infinite joy throughout the kingdom.

Ever since Monmouth's rebellion the king had every summer encamped an army on Hounslow Heath, that he might both improve the discipline, and overawe the people. A popish chapel was openly erected in the camp, and great pains taken, though in vain, to bring over the soldiers to that communion. It happened that the very day on which the trial of the bishops was finished, James had reviewed the troops, and had returned into the tent of Lord Feversham, the general, when he was surprised to hear a great uproar in the camp, attended with the most extre

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