£804.] Prefent State of Society, Manners, Sc, at Taunton. 520 
vious flight from the town fuperfeded an 
engagement, and left the king to the enjoy- 
ment of an unbloody triumph. In the 
unhappy civil wars under the reign of 
_ Charles I, it became, being confidered as 
a key to the weft of England, the object 
of a vigorous ftruggle between the Royal 
and Parliamentary forces, which fhould 
poflefs its fortrefs, In Augult, 1642, it 
was taken bythe latter. Inthe next year, 
the Marquis of Hertford drove them from 
hence, and took poffeffion of it in favour 
of the King. In 1644, Colonel Blake and 
Sir Robert Pye retook it for the Parlia- 
ment. Early in the fpring of 1645, a large 
body of forces to the amount of 10,000, 
marched to the attack of the town under 
Lord Young. By the length of the fiege 
the town was'reduced to great extremities ; 
fo that a French writer called Taunton, 
** the Saguntum of the Parliament,”’ in 
allufion ‘to the Saguntum in Spain. On 
the 11th of May the town was relieved by 
the approach of a brigade of Sir Thomas 
Fairfax’s army ; and the royal army, un- 
der an apprehenfion that the whole force 
of General Fairfax was on the march to- 
wards them, withdrew. This deliverance 
was celebrated for fome years by aéts of 
public devotion and anniverfary fermons ; 
and even within the memory of fome living, 
the 11th of May has been obferved with 
joy, as the mercies of it have been per- 
petuated in an hiftorical fong. 
In the fubfequent reign, the town be- 
came again the fcene of popular commo- 
tions, and of royal revenge. The Duke 
ef Monmouth, when he entered the town 
on June 18, 1485, was received with un- 
ufual demonttrations of joy. The ftreets 
were thronged with people; the houfes 
and doors were garnifhed with boughs and 
flowers ; and twenty fix young ladies pre- 
fented him with colours at the expence of 
the townfmen: the captain preceding them, 
with ‘a naked fword in one hand, anda 
{mall curious bible in the other. 
After the defeat of the rafh and unhap- 
py duke, when Lord Chief Juftice Jet- 
fries, “* breathing death like a deftroying 
Angel, fanguined his very cruelties with 
blood,’? and fat out with a fpecial com- 
miffion to try all who had aided the duke, 
Taunton became the theatre of his warm- 
eft rage and cruelty. In this town and 
at Wells were more than 500 prifoners. 
Here 19 were executed : among whom 
were fome very diftinguifhed charaéters. 
The maidens who carried the colours be- 
fore the duke, though fome of them were 
children of eight or ten years old, were 
fot fuffered to efcape the rigor ef the 
Me@nTHiy Mac, No, 116. 
Chief Juftice’s inquifition. One was com- 
mitted to Dorchelter gaol, where fhe died 
of the fmall-pox : another, terrified by the 
fierce countenance with which, on being 
produced before him, the judge looked at 
her, died not many hours after with fear. 
The furvivors were excepted from the ge- 
neral pardon, which was afterwards iffued. 
The fum of 7oool. as a Chrifimas-box 
to the maids of honour, was demanded of 
their parents for their ranfom; and pro- 
ceedings were not dropt, till the fums of 
tool, or sol. had been gained from the 
parents of fome of them. 
Bat the crueltiesof which, under the 
cloak of a judicial procefs, this town was 
the fcene, were furpafled by the violence 
and barbarity of Colonel Kirk’s military 
executions. He came to Taunton witha 
number of prifoners, and two cart-loads 
of wounded men. Of thefe he immediate- 
ly hanged nineteen, on the Cornhill, by 
military law, their wounds yet bleeding : 
endeavouring to overpower their dying 
cries, and the lamentations of the people 
and relatives, by the playing of pipes, the 
found of the trumpet, and the beat of the 
drum. He one day, after a dinner given 
to his officers, commanded thirty men to 
be executed on the fign poft of the inn; by 
ten at a time, while the glafs went round 
in three healths ; one to the king, a fecond 
tothe queen, and a third to judge Jefferies. 
The mangled bodies of the victims of his 
cruelty were immediately ftripped, their 
breafts cleaved afunder, and their hearts, 
while warm, were feparately thrown into 
a large fire; and, as each was caft in, a 
great fhout was railed, faying, ‘ There 
goes the heart of atraitor.”” When their 
hearts were burnt, their quarters were 
boiled in pitch, and hung up in all the 
crofs ways and public parts of the town and 
neighbourhood. For a fuil, particular, 
and interefting detail of thefe tranfactions, 
and of many particulars connected with a 
review of the ftate of the town, and of the 
tranfaétions that have taken place in it, I 
refer to the ‘* Hitlory of the town of 
Taunton,” publifhed in 1791. gto. It 
fhall be added here, that asthe inhabitants 
of Taunton had feverely fuffered under 
the rod of cppreffion, no place, no town, 
hailed the revolution effeéted by William 
III. with greater aidour and gladne!s.— 
They flocked to the ttandard of the Prince 
of Orange ; and the generofivy of their zeal 
entailed on their pofterity a burdent/ome 
and difproportioned quota towards the 
land tax. 
Josuua ToOULMIN. 
Birmingham, May 245.1804. 
42 
T3 
