Once more the scene is laid in Whitehall. James, the brother of Charles, is king, and he is now about to grant an audience to a nephew who has unsuccessfully rebelled against him and lies under sentence of death. Look at the king’s face. You see at once that he is a slow, narrow man, singularly obstinate, harsh, and implacable. His heart is as hard as the marble chimney-pieces of his own palace. He never forgets and he never forgives an injury. As you glance at his hard, cruel face you feel that he will be deaf to every cry of mercy and relentless to every touch of pity. Now the door of an antechamber is thrown open and the Duke of Monmouth, a handsome man, pale as death, is ushered in. His arms are bound behind him with a silken cord. At once he throws himself on the ground, and in an agony of weeping crawls to the king’s feet. He begs—oh, how passionately he begs—for life, only life—life at any price. In frenzied tones he beseeches his uncle to show him mercy for the sake of the late king, his father. If he is spared, he will never, never offend again.

“I am sorry for you,” says the king in icy tones, “but you have brought all this upon yourself. You have called yourself king, you have raised rebellion, and foully aspersed me in your Declaration. Your treasons are black and many. There is no hope of pardon for you this side the grave.”

At once the wretched prisoner cries out that he signed the Declaration without reading it; that it was the work of a villain.

“Do you expect me to believe,” says James with contempt, “that you set your hand to a paper of such moment without knowing what it contained?”

Now Monmouth makes his final and most abject appeal. He who has been the champion of Protestantism, and has called men to arms against a Catholic king, now offers to be reconciled with the Church of Rome! The king, always eager to make converts, immediately offers his spiritual assistance, but not a word does he say of pardon or respite.

“Is there no hope?” asks Monmouth.

The king turns away in silence, and the prisoner rises from his knees. The bitterness of death is past; his craven weakness has gone; he leaves the room with a firm step. In the Tower he takes farewell of his children and of the brave wife who has reclaimed him from a life of vice. Then he goes to the block, and his head is hacked off by an executioner whose nerve has failed him.

Let the story of the ill-starred rising be told. Monmouth was the son of King Charles and Lucy Walters, the daughter of a Welsh Royalist. In his thirty-first year he was probably the most popular man in England, extremely handsome, and gifted with the most charming manners. His father had conferred all possible honours on him, and as there was a movement to exclude his Roman Catholic uncle James from the succession he had come to regard himself as heir to the throne. He had proved himself no mean soldier on battlefields in the Netherlands and in Scotland, where he had shown mercy to the vanquished. He neglected no opportunity of making himself popular with the people. “He stood godfather to the children of the peasantry, mingled in every rustic sport, wrestled, played at quarter-staff, and won foot races in his boots against fleet runners in shoes.”

His great claim, however, to the sympathy of the people was his staunch Protestantism. As a matter of fact, he had no settled religious opinions. His private life was bad, and his Protestantism was but a means to an end. He had taken part in a reckless plot towards the close of his father’s reign, and had been obliged to take refuge in the Netherlands, with a sentence of death hanging over his head. On his deathbed, when Charles blessed his children, his eldest and best-loved son was an exile and a wanderer. The dying king never mentioned his name.

James began his reign by promising to “preserve the government both in Church and State as by law established.” There was no opposition to him; men were ready to rely upon “the word of a king who was never worse than his word.” They remembered his good work at the Admiralty and praised his personal courage, while they hated and feared his religion. Really, James was a stronger and better man than Charles; but while the late king was witty, gracious, good-natured, and easy-going, James was dull, suspicious, sullen, and silent. A contemporary said, “Charles could have been a great king if he would, and James would have been a great king if he could.” While Charles cared nothing for religion, and would risk nothing for the Church which he favoured, James was a zealous Roman Catholic, and was prepared to risk his crown for the sake of his Church.

The Protestantism of the nation was soon alarmed. The king openly heard mass, and a week or two later the rites of the Church of Rome, after an interval of a hundred and twenty-seven years, were once more performed at Westminster. Then came a proclamation suspending the penal laws against Nonconformists, and thousands of prisoners, including the author of “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” were released. Parliament showed no anger; it was packed with the king’s friends. They granted James a most liberal income, which almost made him independent of further Parliamentary grants.

Meanwhile, Monmouth in Holland was busy hatching a plot to oust James and secure the throne for himself. His fellow-conspirator was Archibald Campbell, Earl of Argyll, the leader of the Covenanters who had suffered persecutions many and sore during the last reign. Two years after the Restoration Episcopacy had been re-established in Scotland, and more than three hundred ministers had given up their livings rather than conform. Severe fines were inflicted on all who dared to abstain from public worship in the parish churches, and troopers rode about the country cursing and swearing, harrying and plundering, wounding and killing to their hearts’ content. Many of the ejected ministers continued to preach in the open air, and their flocks, greatly daring, attended their secret ministrations. “Conventicles” increased daily in number. With a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other, the blue-bonneted Covenanters gathered on lonely hillsides for worship, while scouts kept watch for the coming of the dreaded troopers. Persecution at last drove them to arms. After a victory at Drumclog, they were utterly defeated at Bothwell Bridge, and a terribly cruel time of shooting and hanging, torture and transportation set in.

Argyll’s father had been leader of the Covenanters in the days of Charles the First, and after the Restoration he lost his head. The son, Monmouth’s fellow-conspirator, refused to take the oath of the Scottish Test Act without adding a statement that thereby he was not precluded from trying to amend both Church and State. For this he was brought to trial, and on evidence that would not hang a dog condemned to death. Fortunately, however, he escaped in disguise, and found a refuge in Amsterdam, where the leading English and Scottish exiles were assembled. Though there was not much sympathy between Monmouth and Argyll, they joined hands, and arranged that the great MacCallum More should rouse his clansmen and head a rising in Scotland. This was to be promptly followed by Monmouth’s descent on England.

The Scottish expedition was doomed to failure from the first, because it was commanded, not by a single general, but by a committee, which disputed and quarrelled on every possible occasion. The expedition reached Campbeltown, on the coast of Kintyre, and here Argyll issued a proclamation declaring that King James had murdered King Charles, and that Monmouth was the rightful king. His clansmen flocked to him; but the Lowland leaders despised them, and endeavoured to raise the Cameronians of Ayrshire, who showed not the slightest disposition to take up arms. Soon the committee was at loggerheads, and all was confusion and despondency. Food ran short, and the Highlanders deserted in hundreds. Argyll now yielded to the committeemen, who urged him to march into the Lowlands. Ere a battle could be fought his army had melted away, and his only safety lay in flight.

Argyll disguised himself as a peasant, and pretended to be the guide of Major Fullarton. The friends journeyed through Renfrewshire until they reached the junction of the Black Cart and the White Cart. Here they found that the only practicable ford was held by a party of militia. The travellers were challenged, their answers were evasive, and an attempt was made to seize the supposed guide. He broke loose and sprang into the water, where for a short time he held his own against five assailants. His pistols, however, had been wetted and were useless. Struck down with a broadsword, he was easily overcome, and his captors learnt to their dismay that the champion of the Protestant religion, the heir of a great and honoured name in Scotland, was in their hands.

On June 20, 1685, Argyll was dragged through the streets of Edinburgh bareheaded, his hands tied behind his back, guards surrounding him, and the hangman walking in front. Up the Canongate and the High Street he passed, and when the castle was reached he was put in irons and informed that he had but a few days to live. No new trial was necessary; he was to be executed on his old sentence. He heard his fate with majestic resignation, for he did not fear death. Torture was threatened, but the threat did not move him, and not a word would he say to betray a friend. He composed his own epitaph, and spent the short remaining hours in devotion.

On the very day on which he was to die he dined well, and according to his wont, lay down for a short slumber after the meal. A Lord of the Council who came with a message insisted on seeing him. He was told that the earl was asleep, but could not believe that such was the case. The door of the cell was softly opened, “and there lay Argyll on his bed, sleeping in his irons the placid sleep of infancy.” In his last hour he wrote a most loving and cheering letter to his wife, and at the call of his jailers mounted the scaffold with undaunted courage. He made a short speech to the people, declaring that he died “not only a Protestant, but with a heart-hatred of Popery, of Prelacy, and of all superstition.” He then embraced his friends, gave them tokens of remembrance, prayed a few moments, and the axe fell.

Now, having seen a noble man pay the price of failure, let us turn to the progress of Monmouth. On the morning of June 11, 1685, a week before the capture of Argyll, three ships appeared off the little port of Lyme Regis, in Dorsetshire. The inhabitants from the cliffs saw eighty well-armed men land on the shore, kneel down, and pray for a blessing on their venture. Then they saw a gallant figure draw his sword and lead his men over the cliffs into the little town. His name and the character of his mission were soon known, and there was great excitement in the place. The fishermen flocked to him shouting, “A Monmouth! a Monmouth! the Protestant religion!” Meanwhile a blue flag had been set up in the market-place, and now Monmouth’s Declaration was read. It was full of wild charges against James, and accused him of burning London and poisoning the late king, his brother. James was denounced as a tyrant, murderer, and usurper. Monmouth said that he had come as captain-general of the English Protestants in arms against tyranny and Popery.

The news of his coming spread like wildfire through the West Country. Many of the people were Dissenters, who had suffered all kinds of petty persecution, and they hailed the advent of Monmouth with the utmost eagerness. They remembered how he had endeared himself to them when he made his progress through the country five years before, and they rushed to his banner with alacrity. By the time he reached Exeter nearly all Devonshire had flocked to him, and nine hundred young men in white uniform marched before him into the city. Recruits came in by hundreds daily; there were not enough clerks to take down their names. Arming and drilling went on all day, and everything promised well.

On June 18, Monmouth reached the pleasant and prosperous town of Taunton, which gave him a right royal welcome. The children of the men who had helped Blake to hold out against the Cavaliers now welcomed Monmouth with unrestrained joy. Every door and window was adorned with wreaths of flowers, and no man appeared in the streets without the badge of the popular cause in his hat. Damsels of the best families in the town wove colours for the rebels. One flag in particular was embroidered with the royal arms, and was offered to Monmouth by a party of school-girls. Their school-mistress presented the duke with a small Bible of great price. He took it with a show of reverence. “I come,” he said, “to defend the truths contained in this book, and to seal them, if it must be so, with my blood.”

Now let us hasten on to the final scene. It is Sunday morning, July 5, 1685, and “King” Monmouth is standing on the lofty tower of Bridgwater parish church, looking out over an expanse of fertile and well-wooded country, with the Mendip Hills to the north-east and the Quantocks to the south-west. He turns his eyes anxiously towards the south-east, where there is a wide extent of dreary morass known as Sedgemoor. In the villages round the moor the royal troops are encamped, and are rapidly drinking themselves drunk with Somerset cider. Monmouth is in a despondent mood; his heart has failed him, and he has already meditated flight. The trainbands of the surrounding counties and the life-guards of the king are closing in upon him in overwhelming force, and if victory is to be secured a battle must be fought without delay. He forthwith determines to march that very night, under cover of the darkness, and fall on the surprised enemy before dawn.

As the clock strikes eleven, Monmouth and his men march out of Taunton, the moon shining brightly and the northern streamers flashing in the sky. By one o’clock his half-armed rabble is on the moor, where the marsh-fog lies so thick that nothing can be seen fifty paces away. Between him and the enemy are three broad ditches or rhines full of mud and water. Monmouth knows of two of these ditches, and has planned the advance so as to cross them by the causeways. He is, however, ignorant of the third, and when his army reaches its brink it is powerless to cross and attack the king’s troops, only a few paces away. A random pistol-shot has already aroused the Royalists; their drums beat to arms, and the cavalry and foot, scrambling into order, advance towards the rhine which separates them from the enemy. “For whom are you?” shouts an officer of foot-guards. “For the king,” is the reply from the rebel ranks. “For which king?” is then demanded. The answer is a loud shout of “King Monmouth! God be with us!” The royal troops fire; the rebel horsemen flee, and the drivers of the ammunition wagons hasten after them with the powder and ball.

Now the sun rises and the battle begins in earnest. It resolves itself into two rows of men firing at each other across a broad ditch of inky water. The Somersetshire rustics fight like veterans, but all in vain. The unequal contest is soon decided, and Monmouth, seeing that all hope has gone, turns and runs away. His deserted followers, however, make a gallant stand, but their scythes and pitchforks are useless against the swords of the king’s troopers. The arrival of the artillery brings the engagement to a speedy close. The rebel battalions waver, break, and flee, the Mendip miners alone remaining to stain the marshy ground with their blood. More than one thousand of the rebels lie dead on the field. The last battle has been fought on English ground.

But what of Monmouth? He did not draw rein until he reached Chedzoy, where he stopped a moment to mount a fresh horse and hide his blue ribbon and his George. He rode on all day towards the south-east, hoping to gain the New Forest, where he might lurk in the cabins of deer-stealers until an opportunity arrived to escape to the Continent. The night was passed in the open air; in the morning he and his companions found themselves ringed in by their foes. Monmouth changed clothes with a peasant and betook himself into a field, partly of rye, pease, and oats, partly overgrown with furze and brambles.

A woman reported that she had seen two strangers enter the field, and soldiers, stimulated by the offer of £5,000 for the capture of the duke, were told off to watch the fences while dogs were turned out among the bushes. At nightfall no capture had been made. The fugitives lay close behind a thick hedge; thirty times they ventured to look out, and thirty times they saw an armed sentinel watching for them. At sunrise the search began again, and not a yard of the field went unexamined. At length a gaunt figure in a shepherd’s dress was discovered in a dry ditch. In his pockets were some raw pease, a watch, a purse of gold, and the George which he had received from the hands of his father in the days when he was the spoiled darling of the court.

The wretched man was conveyed to London in a state of abject terror. He begged for an interview with his uncle, and what happened at that interview you already know. The scene with which this chapter opened was the sequel to his capture, the painful episode which preceded his execution.

“Woe to the vanquished!” James now wreaked such a vengeance on Monmouth’s poor, deluded followers that his name has become a byword of inhuman cruelty. A brutal soldier named Kirke was sent down to the west with his “lambs,” and the savage sport began. You may still see at Taunton the house in which he lodged. It was formerly an inn, and on its signpost he hanged scores of peasants, while his drums struck up and his trumpets sounded “so that they should have music to their dancing!” “My lord,” said the Bishop of Bath and Wells to Lord Feversham, who was equally ferocious, “this is murder, not law; the battle being over, these poor wretches should be tried.”

Then came Judge Jeffreys, a drunken, foul-mouthed, degraded wretch, with a forehead of brass and lungs of leather. Nothing more revolting than his so-called trials have ever disgraced our annals. He roared, he bullied, he blasphemed, he laughed, joked, and swore until men believed him to be drunk from morning till night. So he was—drunk with blood. When the “Bloody Assize” was concluded, Jeffreys openly boasted that he had hanged more traitors than all the Chief-justices since the Conquest. “At every spot where two roads met, and every market-place, on the green of every large 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.”

Perhaps the most infamous sentence of this ermined fiend was that on Alice Lisle, the widow of a man who had been one of the regicides, and had filled high posts under the Commonwealth. Her crime was that she had sheltered two fugitives from Sedgemoor. She was old and deaf; she had no counsel to defend her; and she pleaded that what she had done was simply an act of common charity. So innocent and devoid of offence did she seem that the jury were inclined to acquit her. Jeffreys turned on them with the utmost fury, and at length they brought in a craven verdict of “guilty.” “Gentlemen,” said he, “in your place I would find her guilty were she my own mother.” It was the only word of truth which fell from his lips during the trial. Then he condemned her to be burnt alive that very afternoon.

Appeals for mercy came to him on all hands and from all classes. He consented to postpone the execution for five days, during which ladies of high rank interceded with James for the poor old lady, but all in vain. The only mercy wrung from the pitiless king was to forgo the burning in favour of hanging. She went to her death with serene courage, and good men and women held up their hands in horror throughout the length and breadth of the land. Elizabeth Gaunt, a pious and charitable Baptist, was actually burnt alive at Tyburn on a like charge.

The judicial murders reached in all three hundred and twenty; the number of persons transported as slaves to the West Indies was eight hundred and forty-one. The poor wretches destined to the plantations were distributed into gangs and bestowed on courtiers, who made huge sums by this traffic in the flesh and blood of their fellow subjects. The Chief-justice traded largely in pardons, and managed to accumulate a fortune in this way. No wonder the popular name for the estate which he bought with the money was Aceldama, “the field of blood.” The ladies of the queen’s household were specially prominent in this odious work of selling pardons. The little girls who had presented the banner to Monmouth became the portion of the queen’s maids of honour. Two of them died in prison, and the rest were only released upon payment of a heavy ransom.

And now James stands triumphant; his throne seems unassailable. He is at the height of his power and prosperity, and Jeffreys is his Lord Chancellor; yet already the writing appears on the wall, and the day of his doom is fast approaching. His terrible vengeance in the west has sent a thrill of horror through the whole country, and has made men loathe his very name.

The Last Sleep of Argyll.
(From the fresco by E. M. Ward., in Westminster Palace.)