74 KINGSBRIDGE 



patience, and promised that they should have no such cause 

 of complaint for the future. Soon after this the Dissenters 

 had some favour shown them, and liberty was given to 

 build meeting-houses. Hicks had a congregation after- 

 wards at Portsmouth, and continued there until he was 

 driven away by fresh persecutions; and his last place of 

 residence is ascertained from an old indictment, in which 

 he is described as " John Hicks, clerk, of Keynsham, near 

 Bristol." 



At length, being led on by the impulses of his ardent 

 nature, he joined in the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion, 

 for which he suffered death in 1685; but he seems to 

 have been firmly impressed to the last with the belief 

 that Monmouth had the prior claim to the throne, and 

 not the Catholic Duke of York. His brother, Dr. George 

 Hicks, became Dean of Worcester. 



The atrocities perpetrated by the Royalist troops after the 

 suppression of this rebellion, in the reign of James II., 

 were for many long years bitterly remembered in the West 

 of England. Few cases excited at the time more com- 

 miseration than that of the Lady Alice Lisle, who was 

 actually executed for giving shelter to this same John Hicks. 

 She was the widow of John Lisle, a man (says T. B. 

 Macaulay) "who had sat in the Long Parliament, and in 

 the High Court of Justice ; had been a Commissioner 

 of the Great Seal, in the days of the Commonwealth, and 

 had been created a Lord by Cromwell. Lady Lisle was 

 generally esteemed, even by the Tory gentlemen of her 

 county, for it was well known to them that she had deeply 

 regretted some violent acts in which her husband had 

 borne a part, that she had shed bitter tears for Charles I., 

 and that she had protected and relieved many cavaliers 

 in their distress." 



