608 



BRITAIN. 



Britain. 



JAMES II* 

 1685. 



Monmouth 

 is defented 

 in the bat- 

 tle of 

 ^cdgeraore. 



He is 



seized and 

 executed. 



Cruel treat- 

 ment of the 

 prisoners 

 taken at 

 Sedgemore. 



his undisciplined troops drove the royal infantry from 

 the ground, and seemed on the point of complete 

 victory, when the cowardice of Grey, who command- 

 ed the horse, brought all to ruin. That worthless 

 nobleman fled at the first onset ; and the rebels being 

 charged in flank, were slaughtered, during an una- 

 vailing resistance, for three hours, during which they 

 lost about 1300 men. Monmouth fled above twenty 

 miles from the field of battle, till his horse sunk un- 

 der him. He then alighted, and, exchanging clothes 

 with a shepherd, fled on foot with a single attend- 

 ant, till, exhausted with hunger and fatigue, they 

 both lay down in a field, and covered themselves with 

 fern. The country was searched with bloodhounds, 

 and James at last had the satisfaction of hearing that 

 his nephew was found in a ditch, half concealed by 

 weeds, with some raw peas in his pocket, a suste- 

 nance on which he had fed for two days. He burst 

 into tears when seized by his enemies. For some 

 time, the unfortunate Duke sought his life with im- 

 portunity ; but, when James received his entreaties 

 with all the sternness of his implacable character, he 

 recovered himself with dignity, and behaved, in his 

 last moments, with magnanimity, though persecuted 

 on the scaffold by his religious assistants. The exe- 

 cutioner struck the blow so feebly, that he only 

 slightly wounded him ; and Monmouth raised his 

 head from the block, and looked him in the face, as 

 if to upbraid him, but said nothing. After two 

 other ineffectual blows, the executioner threw down 

 the axe in horror, and declared he could not finish 

 the deed. The sheriffs threatened him ; he was 

 forced to proceed ; and, at two more strokes, sever- 

 ed the head from the body. He perished in his 

 36th year. 



The most vindictive inhumanities were practised 

 by government on the unfortunate prisoners taken at 

 Sedgemore. Immediately after the battle, Fevers- 

 ham hanged above twenty, and was proceeding in his 

 executions, when the Bishop of Bath and Wells in- 

 formed him that those unhappy men were now by 

 Jaw entitled to a trial, and that their execution was 

 absolute murder. Kirke, who hung up his victims 

 with the same avidity, when he saw the feet of the 

 dying shake, used to say they should have music to 

 their dancing, and ordered his trumpets to sound, 

 and his drums to strike up. Jeffreys, (now en- 

 nobled), was the judge who tried the prisoners 

 in the western circuit. This atrocious man was 

 not satisfied with the sacrifice of the principals, 

 but charged the juries also to search out the aiders 

 and abettors of the rebellion ; and those who, in com- 

 passion to the wretched fugitives, had let them be 

 hid in their houses, were denounced as such. It is 

 horrible to relate, that two women, Lady Lisle and 

 Mrs Gaunt, were sentenced to be burnt alive, literal- 

 ly, for such acts of compassion. James complained 

 of the unpopularity which Kirke and Jeffreys had 

 drawn upon his name; but he complained in the days 

 of his misfortunes, and such cruelties seem to have 

 been but too congenial to the nature of him, who 

 could jocularly style the bloody career of his judge, 

 " Jeffreys' campaign." 



At the next session of parliament, in November, 





ar 



James assumed a still higher ton? of language than 

 he had hitherto used. He spoke openly of the ne- ~v* 

 cessity for a larger standing army, and for enabling ^S. 

 popish officers to serve without taking the test. Lost 

 as the public mind seemed to be to every feeling 

 for civil liberty,- the fears for religion, roused by Proceed 

 this indication of the king's intentions, with respect ' 

 to the Catholics, created some symptoms of inde- ' 

 pcndence in a parliament, the most submissive which 

 had sat for 100 years. The commons ventured to 

 address the king, on the necessity of quieting the 

 fears of the people on the subject of religion, and 

 to leave the extent of the supply unsettled till 

 they should be satisfied as to the tests. The lords 

 were preparing to imitate their example ; and a mo- 

 tion proposed by Compton, bishop of London, ac- 

 tually prevailed, that a day should be fixed for 

 taking the king's speech into consideration ; a mo- 

 tion, by which it was understood, that the king's 

 exercise of the dispensing power should be exa- p,-; 

 mined by the peers. But James, alarmed at the pror 

 first though slight symptoms of resistance, pro- 

 rogued the parliament, after it had sat but 11 days, 

 and never assembled it again. He soon after dis- 

 missed many of his servants and officers, who had 

 voted against his measures. After the proroga- 

 tion of parliament, he established and regulated a 

 perpetual camp at Hounslow Heath, under pretence 

 of discipline and national defence, but, in reality, 

 with a view to overawe the metropolis. 



After the suppression of Monmouth's rebellion and j amc , 

 the dismission of parliament, James seems to have term! 

 been so elated with his success, in establishing arbi- to esi 

 trary power, that he proceeded without fear or can- tne > 

 tion in the second great object of his views, the esta- 

 blishment of the Catholic religion. His exercise of 

 the power of dispensing with the test, that security 

 which all Protestants believed to be the chief barrier 

 against the introduction of popery, was systemati- 

 cally employed to throw every place of honour and 

 emolument under government into the hands of Ca- 

 tholics ; and besides offeriag the lure of offices, the 

 king was active and zealous in making converts. Sun- 

 derland, ever versatile and unprincipled, continu- 

 ed in favour by becoming a convert to the king's re- 

 ligion ; but Rochester and Clarendon, James's own 

 brothers-in-law, though sufficiently subservient to his 

 arbitrary views in civil government, were dismissed 

 from office for their obstinacy in religion. Four Ca- 

 tholic Lords, Powis, Arundel, Dover, and Bellasis, 

 were admitted into the privy council, and these, with 

 father Petre, the queen's confessor, and James him- 

 self, formed a Catholic cabal of seven, who had the 

 whole administration of government. 



In Ireland the mask was more completely thrown c rue |, 

 off, where Talbot, earl of Tyrconnel, .in his fury tui ,*,_., 

 the Catholic cause, broke the Protestant officers, h y it 

 disbanded the soldiers, and disarmed all the natives of tholici 

 that faith, let loose a Popish banditti to prey upon 

 the inhabitants, and exposed the kingdom to all the 

 terrors of another massacre. The church was now 

 alarmed ; and that spirit of resistance which lay dor- 

 mant, while the most sacred civil rights of the sub- 

 ject were suffering violation, * was awakened by the 



16 



Irclau 



The elections in several places were transferred from the people to the magistrates. 



