CHAP. XIII. he arrived in London (July 13th) the King, therefore, sent for him to Whitehall, in the expectation that he would make the revelation. But the unhappy prince only craved abjectly for life, James never Monmouth's with Lady which James, who never forgave, inhumanly refused, forgave. contrary to the practice of civilized nations, when their monarchs deign to see a prisoner. When Monmouth saw that there was no hope for him on this side of the grave, he recovered his courage. He had two interviews with his wife, whom he received coldly, for he had lived with the Lady Henrietta Wentworth for the last two years. In consequence of his connection refusal to express his contrition for this immorality, and Wentworth to give satisfactory replies to their questions on passive obedience and other points, Turner and Ken, who attended him in his last moments, refused him the sacrament. His death was a horrible one, owing to the unskilfulness of the executioner (July 15th). Lady Wentworth, who cherished his memory with idolatrous fondness, died of a broken heart a few months afterwards. The people of that generation also affectionately His memory remembered him; articles of apparel which he had worn, were treasured up as relics by those who had fought for him; it was a popular belief that he was still living, and several impostors arose who pretended to be the duke; and even so late as the reign of George III., Voltaire thought it necessary gravely to confute the hypothesis that the man in the iron mask was the Duke of Monmouth. To this day, also, the inhabitants of some parts of the west of England, when any bill affecting their interests is before the House of Lords, think themselves entitled to claim the help of the Duke of Buccleuch, the descendant of him for whom their ancestors bled.* held in reverence. of Kirke's 7. The Bloody Assize. The rebellious districts, in the meantime, were enduring all that a ferocious soldiery could inflict. Martial law was executed upon the prisoners; Colonel Kirke, a rough and brutal soldier from Tangiers, was commissioned by Atrocities Feversham to superintend the brutal work, and the "Lambs." manner in which he performed his task endeared him to the King. This man went from town to town with cart loads of wounded rebels, whose gashes were not allowed to be dressed, and accompanied by droves of prisoners on foot, chained two and Some of them were hanged at every town they came to, without trial: while Kirke and his drunken officers were carousing at the White Hart, in Taunton, a prisoner was hanged up for * Macaulay, II., 208-210. two. 1685 their merriment at every toast; and in the week which followed the battle, not less than 100 captives were put to death.* Yet even all this butchery did not satisfy James, who appointed a commission, consisting of Jeffreys and four other judges, to effect a rapid gaol delivery in the rebellious districts, and promised Jeffreys the great seal if he performed the work vigorously. A strong body of troops was placed at his command, and "Jeffreys's this circumstance induced the King and his courtiers to campaign." call his progress during the circuit "Jeffreys's campaign." Execution of Alice Lisle. The commission opened at Winchester, where Alice Lisle, the widow of Lord Lisle, one of Oliver's peers, and also one of the regicides, was the first victim. Her offence was, that she had sheltered two of the rebels from the King's officers, knowing them to be rebels. She was well known for her kindness in this way, and had aforetime befriended Royalists in like manner; but James was more bitter against those who concealed the disaffected than against the disaffected themselves; equally so was his instrument the chief justice. Lady Alice was convicted, although the men she had concealed had not yet been tried, or convicted of any offence. Her furious judge, after assailing her with horrible curses and blasphemies, sentenced her to be burnt alive that very afternoon. Such an excess of barbarity moved the pity and indignation even of the most devoted friends of the crown, and Jeffreys was prevailed upon to postpone the execution for five days. During that time, every exertion was made to obtain a pardon, but the inexorable King only consented to commute the sentence from burning to beheading. Lady Alice underwent her fate with serene courage, and with a composure which her unrighteous judge must have resented, as the proof of his impotence to kill the soul. The day following, Jeffreys reached Dorchester (September 10th), where 74 persons were executed, out of 292 who received sentence of death. From Dorchester he proceeded to Exeter, where only 13 were hanged; Somersetshire, which had been the chief seat of the rebellion, was reserved for the last and most fearful vengeance. In this county, 233 prisoners were, in a few days, in Somerhanged, drawn, and quartered. At every spot where two roads met, on every market-place, on the green of every village which had furnished Monmouth with soldiers, ironed corpses clattering in the wind, or heads and quarters stuck on poles, poisoned the air, and made the traveller sick with horror. In many parishes, the peasantry could not assemble in the House of God without seeing the ghastly face of a neighbour grinning at them over the porch. In the midst of this reign of terror, Jeffreys was all himself. His spirits rose higher and higher as the work went on. He laughed, shouted, joked, and swore in such a way, that many thought him drunk from morning to night. Gentlemen and noblemen of high consideration, and stainless loyalty, who ventured to bring to his notice any extenuating circumstance, were almost sure to receive what he called, in the coarse dialect which he had learned in the pot-houses of Whitechapel, a lick with the rough side of his tongue; and one nobleman he punished by having a corpse suspended in chains at his park gate. Executions setshire. These barbarous executions, in addition to which, 149 persons were transported, and 33 fined or whipped, were matched by the infamy of the great, who sought to make a profit out of the sale *Kirke's soldiers had served at Tangiers against the Moors, and bore upon their flag that Christian emblem-The Paschal Lamb. For this reason the western people called them, in bitter irony, Kirke's Lambs. Sale of pardons. CHAP. XIII. of those who were transported as slaves, or of the fines of others. Jeffreys reaped £34,000 by the sale of pardons. The Queen asked for more than 100 of the rebels, and sold them at a profit of 1,000 guineas; and her maids of honour received £2,000 from the parents of the young girls, many of them mere children, who had embroidered Monmouth's banners. But the executions were not confined to the west. In London, Executions many were put to death for the mere gratification of in London. revenge, and one Elizabeth Gaunt, an aged and charitable lady of the Baptist persuasion, was burnt alive for having aided one Burton, a Rye-House conspirator, some years before, in escaping to Holland. Burton had returned, and fought at Sedgmoor, and was again sheltered in London by a poor barber, named Fernley. The villain gave evidence against both his benefactors, to save his own life, and Fernley was hanged.* three chief 8. The King's designs against the Test and Habeas Corpus Acts. James, now triumphant over his enemies, with an obsequious parliament, a church which was louder than ever in professions of attachment to him, judges who were his tools, corporations which were filled with his creatures, and a large revenue, resolved The King's upon accomplishing the three things on which he had objects. set his heart-the establishment of a standing army, the repeal of the Test Act, and the repeal of the Habeas Corpus Act. Happily for the nation, these were the only three things which the parliament would pertinaciously refuse. In the late rebellion, James had raised the army to 14,000 men, and had placed in it Roman Catholic officers, whom he determined to retain in command. Halifax and Rochester opposed his design, for which the former was dismissed from the council, and the latter admonished and deprived of his former influence. The Halifax sensation which this proceeding caused in England and dismissed. on the continent, where Halifax was well known to be the opponent of French influence at the English court, was very considerable; the Tories began to hold Whiggish language; the prelates even spoke of loyalty having its limits; Churchill, even Kirke, and many other officers, swore to stand by the Protestant religion; and rumours were everywhere prevalent that the King, in proposing to repeal the two acts, cherished designs against the liberties and religion of the country. By a strange fatality, it happened that while the nation Revocation was thus agitated by strong emotions, Louis XIV. of Nantes. revoked the edict of Nantes (October 12), under which Macaulay, II., 248 of the edict 1685 the Huguenots had lived undisturbed in the exercise of their religion for nearly a century. The military persecutions which ensued in the towns of Languedoc, Dauphiné, Provence, and Béarn, drove 50,000 families from France, some of whom engaged in the service of the Prince of Orange, and others inflamed Europe for the next 30 years by the pamphlets they published against the French government. A more peaceful class erected silk factories in the east of London, and taught the English to make the stuffs and hats of which the French had hitherto enjoyed a monopoly; and another body planted the first vines in the neighbourhood of the Cape of Good Hope. Nothing could have been more unwelcome to James than this persecution. He deemed it prudent not to forbid his subjects sheltering and supporting the refugees, and he publicly expressed his abhorrence of the Revocation as unchristian and impolitic. But in a few months it became clear that all this compassion was feigned, for the purpose of cajoling his parliament; that he regarded the refugees with mortal hatred; and that he regretted nothing so much as his own inability to do what Louis had done.* declares his to the 9. The parliament resists him, and is prorogued. Parliament met on the 9th of November, and James boldly declared, in his speech at the opening, that, as the militia could not be James depended upon, as was shown in the late rebellion, he intentions had equipped a good and well disciplined force, officered parliament. by men who, possessing his confidence, he did not intend to remove, although their appointment was contrary to the Test Act. Such a plain declaration that he had broken the laws which the nation regarded as the chief safeguards of liberty and religion, and that he meant to persist in breaking them, was more than could be borne even by that House of Commons. The latter refused to grant supplies before considering the King's The address; they intimated to James that he had committed refuse to an illegal act; and instead of granting £1,200,000, which supplies. the court demanded, they only granted a supply of £700,000. When they presented their address, the King replied to it with a cold and sullen reprimand, which at first overawed them. But the spirit of opposition revived in a few hours, and Coke, member for Derby, exclaimed, "I hope that we are all Englishmen, and that we shall not be frightened from our duty by a few high words." For which he was committed to the Tower, and the house adjourned in an uproar. Next day (November 19th) the Lords displayed a greater spirit of indignation; Halifax, Compton, * Macaulay, II., 271; Carrel, 204. Commons grant spirit of CHAP. XIII. Bold Bishop of London, and Lord Mordaunt, afterwards the the Lords. famous Earl of Peterborough, boldly attacked the government; and not even James's presence in the house encouraged his ministers to reply, or protected the brutal Jeffreys, now lord chancellor, from the indignation of the peers. Parliament was therefore prorogued to the 20th of February, 1686, and James secretly resolved to accomplish, by his dispensing power, that object which he could not effect with the sanction of parliament.* Soon after the prorogation, John Hampden and others were, by the treachery of Grey, whom James pardoned in return, condemned to pay heavy fines for their participation in the RyeHouse plot. Lord Delamere, for abetting the western rebellion, was Acquittal also tried before the court of the lord high steward, the bill Delamere. against him not being found till after the prorogation.† But the lords triers acquitted him. James was greatly enraged at this acquittal; but the public rejoiced. The reign of terror was over, and the widow of Russell, in an affecting letter to a friend, expressed the general sentiment when she wrote, "I do bless God that he has caused some stop to be put to the shedding of blood in this poor land." As the death of Stafford had marked the close of the proscription which arose out of the Popish Plot, so the acquittal of Delamere marked the close of another, in which the crimes which had disgraced the stormy tribuneship of Shaftesbury, had been fearfully expiated by the blood of tenfold more Protestants than Papists. of Lord SECTION II.-FROM THE SUPPRESSION OF MONMOUTH'S REBELLION TO THE DISMISSAL OF THE EARL OF ROCHESTER. 1686. 10. The dispensing power confirmed by the judges. James united to a bigoted and arbitrary disposition an intense egotism, which led him to refer every action to himself, and to absorb in his own person all the functions and powers of the state. Jealous, as he knew the people were, of popery, and opposed, as he knew the parliament was, to any extension of the prerogative, he proceeded with a blind fatality to govern despotically, and force an obnoxious creed upon the nation. Clarendon and Rochester, who were steadfast in their adherence to Protestantism, were coldly treated; and Sunderland, who had embraced Catholicism, became his chief adviser, together with Father Petre, the Two parties council. * Macaulay, II., 280-287; Lingard, XIII., 62. + If the bill against Delamere had been found during the session, he could only have been tried in the House of Lords. A bill against Lord Stamford had been so found, but as the lords were not sitting, he was released. Delamere, however, was in the power of the court. Macaulay, II., 295. |