R 11 1 T A I N. 



607 



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ir. 



:ics til 

 and. 



f tlic 

 sh 



menr. 



e 

 in 

 ad, 



and ho refuted to be wit- 



; ;t them. The executive government of 

 the same country, scorned to he outdone in cruelty 

 by tin.' li-j;iliiiivc. A refusal to abjure the declara- 

 tion, in t!ie terms prescribed, was cause for immedi- 

 ate execution. Ii. one part of the country, informa- 

 tion h.ivini ved that a corpse had been bu- 

 iii iTquiry took pl.'.cc it was dug up, and 

 found to be that of a person proscribed. Those who 

 had interred him, were suspected, not of having 

 murdered, but of having harboured him. For this 

 crime, their house was destroyed ; the women and 

 children were driven out to wander as vagabonds ; 

 and a young man belonging to it was executed. In 

 another county, three females, one of sixty-three 

 years of age, one of eighteen, and one of twelve, were 

 charged with rebellion, and refusing to abjure the 

 declaration, were sentenced to be drowned. The 

 last was let oft", upon condition of her father's sign- 

 ing a bond for a hundred pounds. The elderly wo- 

 man bore her fdte with the greatest constancy. The 

 gii lot eighteen was more pitied, and, after many in- 

 treaties, and having been once under water, was pre- 

 vailed upon to utter some words, which might be fairly 

 construed into blessing the king, it was thought she 

 was safe ; but the merciless barbarian, who superin- 

 tended this business, was not satisfied, and upon her 

 refusing the abjuration, she was again plunged into 

 the water, where she was suffocated. It is to be 

 remarked, that being at Bothwell bridge, and Air- 

 moss, were among the crimes stated in the indict- 

 ment of all three, though, when the last of these af- 

 fairs happened, one of the girls was only thirteen, and 

 the other not eight years of age. 



The king met his English parliament on the 19th 

 of May, and their proceedings were marked by a ser- 

 vility almost equal to that of Scotland. Without 

 adverting to an unqualified menace, which the king 

 held out to them in his speech, of making the fre- 

 quency of their meetings dependent on their beha- 

 viour, i. c. their supplies to him ; and, without no- 

 ticing the illegality of theJdng's levying the revenue, 

 that revenue was granted. The king's assurance 

 was recognised ?.3 a sufficient security fur the national 

 religion, and the liberty of the press was destroyed 

 by the revival of the statute of the 13th and Hth of 

 Charles. In a bill which was passed for the preser- 

 vation of the king's person, it was made treason to 

 assert the legitimacy of Monmouth's birth, or to 

 propose, in parliament, any alteration in the succes- 

 sion of the crown. 



In his first address to this parliament, James had 

 been obliged to announce to them the intelligence of 

 Argyle's having landed in Scotland, and there erected 

 the standard of insurrection. The unjust sentence 

 of this nobleman, (whose real offence was his having 

 insisted, on the occasion of the test, that the royal 

 family should not be exempted from taking it,) and 

 his escape from prison having been already related, 

 the Duke of Monmouth, whose share in the cabal, 

 to which Sidney and Russel were martyrs, has been 

 also mentioned, had been naturally drawn, during his 

 exile in Holland, to a connection of designs with 

 Argyle, and the other banished patriots both of Scot- 

 land and England. The chief of these exiles were 



7 



JAMCH II. 



Fletcher of ballon, Hume ot' 1'olvwii.li, an.i -Si John 

 Cochrane, Scotsmen ; Lord Grey of Wark, and 

 Rumbold, a maltster, from whose house the Rye- 

 house plot took its name, were the most clistiiigu 

 cd Englishmen in the enterprise. When these men 

 had consulted on the project of redressing the suf- 

 ferings of their native country and themselves, Ar- and deter, 

 gyle's counsel, backed by Lord Grey and Moil- 

 mouth's other advisers, and opposed by none but jjn|an<l 

 Fletcher, was to invade the two kingdoms at one 

 time. It was so determined, and Argyle had a loan 

 of jt 10,000 from a rich widow in Amsterdam, and 

 Monmouth had raised some money by his jewels. 

 Argyle and his Scottish friends, together with Rum- 

 bold the maltster, sailed from Vly in three small ves- 

 sels, and, taking a circuit r^und the Orkneys, were 

 discovered long before they made a landing, which 

 was at last effected on Argyleshire. Here Argylr 

 was joined by some of his clan; and his numbers at 

 one period amounted to 2000. But being overrated 

 in all his plans by his own officers, and un;.ble to 

 establish himself in Argyleshire, he passed the Leven 

 a little above Dumbarton, and proceeded eastward 

 towards Glasgow, rather yielding to the despair of 

 others than led by his own hopes. When 1: , forces 

 reached Kilpatrick, after narrowly escaping from a 

 formidable body of the king's forces, his numbers 

 had fallen off to 500, and he was at last left deserted 

 and almost alone, by the resolution of Sir Patrick 

 Hume and Cochraue, to cross the Clyde, with such 

 as would follow them, and proceed into Renfrew- 

 shire. Unable to conceal himself, or to effect his re- u--, . A 



. . . * -|| i 1 i **" is SCI*'" 1 - 



treat to his own country, where he still cherished an d ex ccu- 



hopes of making a stand, he was at last seized in ted. 



the habit of a countryman, conveyed to Edinburgh, 



and consigned to execution. Moutnouth set sail 



from Holland shortly after Argyle, and landed at 



Lyme in Dorsetshire, on the llth of June. Here 



he published a manifesto, proclaiming James a tyrant 



and usurper, and promising to the people the reno- Monmouth 



vation of short parliaments, the restoration of char- lauds in 



ters, a militia to be governed by the parliament, and ling'and, 



a general toleration to Protestant dissenters. From a ! lci pr ." 



. j i r ,i claims ujm- 



scarcely an hundred, his followers soon rose to the se |( ^ ttg 



number of 6000, and he now did not hesitate to pro- 

 claim himself king. At Tauuton, the people strew- 

 ed his way with flowers, followed him with acclama- 

 tions and prayers, adorned their walls with green 

 boughs, and threw open their houses to his army. 

 But these were delusive promises of success. He 

 was joined by none of the superior gentry. liis slow 

 approach struck no terror, but gave time for his ene- 

 mies to prepare ; and he unfortunately lost Fletcher 

 of Salton, the only man of commanding gvn'tis in 

 his army, in consequence of that gentleman having 

 rashly killed a citizen in a dispute. James, in the 

 mean time, got his army increased to 15,000 men, 

 and obtained from parliament a grant of 400,000. 

 After some unimportant skirmishes with the king's 

 troops, and a variety of movements, which marked 

 his indecision and perplexity, Monmouth at last de- 

 termined to risk his fortunes in a pitched battle with 

 the forces of the king's geiierals, Feversham and 

 Churchill, who were posted to receive him at Sedge- 

 more, in the neighbourhood of Bridgewater. Here 



