CHAP. Death of of war. Every old soldier, Cavalier or Roundhead, had been engaged in such enterprises. If in the skirmish the King should fall, he would fall by fair fighting and not by murder. Precisely the same reasoning was employed, after the Revolution, by James himself and by some of his most devoted followers, to justify a wicked attempt on the life of William the Third. A band of Jacobites was commissioned to attack the Prince of Orange in his winter quarters. The meaning latent under this specious phrase was that the Prince's throat was to be cut as he went in his coach from Richmond to Kensington. It may seem strange that such fallacies, the dregs of the Jesuitical casuistry, should have had power to seduce men of heroic spirit, both Whigs and Tories, into a crime on which divine and human laws have justly set a peculiar note of infamy. But no sophism is too gross to delude minds distempered by party spirit.* Argyle, who survived Rumbold a few hours, left a dying testimony to the virtues of the gallant Englishman. "Poor Rumbold was a great support to me, and a brave man, and died Christianly."+ Ayloffe showed as much contempt of death as either Argyle or Rumbold: but his end did not, like theirs, edify pious minds. Though political sympathy had drawn him towards the Puritans, he had no religious sympathy with them, and was indeed regarded by them as little better than an atheist. He belonged to that section of the Whigs which sought for models rather among the patriots of Greece and Rome than among the prophets and judges of Israel. He was taken prisoner, and carried to Glasgow. There he attempted to destroy himself with a small penknife: but though he gave himself several wounds, none of them proved mortal, and he had strength enough left to bear a journey to London. He was brought before the Privy Council, and interrogated by *Wodrow, III. ix. 10.; Western Martyrology; Burnet, i. 633.; Fox's History, Appendix iv. I can find no way, except that indicated in the text, of reconciling Rumbold's denial that he had ever admitted into his mind the thought of assassination with his confession that he had himself mentioned his own house as a convenient place for an attack on the royal brothers. The distinction which I suppose him to have taken was certainly taken by another Rye House conspirator, who was, like him, an old soldier of the Commonwealth, Captain Walcot. On Walcot's trial, West, the witness for the crown, said, "Captain, you did agree to be one of those that were to fight the Guards." "What, then, was the reason," asked Chief Justice Pemberton, "that he would not kill the King?" "He said," answered West, "that it was a base thing to kill a naked man, and he would not do it." Wodrow, III. ix. 9. V. the King, but had too much elevation of mind to save himself CHAP. by informing against others. A story was current among the Whigs that the King said, "You had better be frank with me, Mr. Ayloffe. You know that it is in my power to pardon you." Then, it was rumoured, the captive broke his sullen silence, and answered, "It may be in your power; but it is not in your nature." He was executed under his old outlawry before the gate of the Temple, and died with stoical composure.* Argyle In the meantime the vengeance of the conquerors was Devastamercilessly wreaked on the people of Argyleshire. Many of tion of the Campbells were hanged by Athol without a trial; and he shire. was with difficulty restrained by the Privy Council from taking more lives. The country to the extent of thirty miles round Inverary was wasted. Houses were burned: the stones of mills were broken to pieces: fruit trees were cut down, and the very roots seared with fire. The nets and fishing boats, the sole means by which many inhabitants of the coast subsisted, were destroyed. More than three hundred rebels and malecontents were transported to the colonies. Many of them were also sentenced to mutilation. On a single day the hangman of Edinburgh cut off the ears of thirty-five prisoners. Several women were sent across the Atlantic after being first branded in the cheek with a hot iron. It was even in contemplation to obtain an act of Parliament proscribing the name of Campbell, as the name of Macgregor had been proscribed eighty years before.† Argyle's expedition appears to have produced little sensation in the south of the island. The tidings of his landing reached London just before the English Parliament met. The King mentioned the news from the throne; and the Houses assured him that they would stand by him against every enemy. Nothing more was required of them. Over Scotland they had no authority; and a war of which the theatre was so distant, and of which the event might, almost from the first, be easily foreseen, excited only a languid interest in London. But, a week before the final dispersion of Argyle's army, Ineffectual England was agitated by the news that a more formidable attempts to prevent *Wade's narrative, Harl. MS. 6845.; Burnet, i. 634.; Van Citters' Despatch of 1685; Luttrell's Diary of the Oct. 30. same date. + Wodrow, III. ix. 4. and III. ix. 10. Wodrow gives from the Acts of Council the names of all the prisoners who were transported, mutilated, or branded. CHAP. from leaving Holland. invader had landed on her own shores. It had been agreed among the refugees that Monmouth should sail from Holland Monmouth six days after the departure of the Scots. He had deferred his expedition a short time, probably in the hope that most of the troops in the south of the island would be moved to the north as soon as war broke out in the Highlands, and that he should find no force ready to oppose him. When at length he was desirous to proceed, the wind had become adverse and violent. While his small fleet lay tossing in the Texel, a contest was going on among the Dutch authorities. The States General and the Prince of Orange were on one side, the Town Council and Admiralty of Amsterdam on the other. Skelton had delivered to the States General a list of the refugees whose residence in the United Provinces caused uneasiness to his master. The States General, anxious to grant every reasonable request which James could make, sent copies of the list to the provincial authorities. The provincial authorities sent copies to the municipal authorities. The magis trates of all the towns were directed to take such measures as might prevent the proscribed Whigs from molesting th English government. In general those directions were obeyed At Rotterdam in particular, where the influence of Willia was all powerful, such activity was shown as called forth warr acknowledgments from James. But Amsterdam was th chief seat of the emigrants; and the governing body of An sterdam would see nothing, hear nothing, know of nothing The High Bailiff of the city, who was himself in daily con munication with Ferguson, reported to the Hague that he d not know where to find a single one of the refugees; and wi this excuse the federal government was forced to be conter The truth was that the English exiles were as well known Amsterdam, and as much stared at in the streets, as if th had been Chinese.* * Skelton's letter is dated the 7th of May 1686. It will be found, together with a letter of the Schout or High Bailiff of Amsterdam, in a little volume published a few months later, and entitled, "Histoire des Evènemens Tragiques d'Angleterre." The documents inserted in that work are, as far as I have examined them, given exactly from the Dutch archives, except that Skelton's French, which was not the purest, is slightly corrected. See also Gr Narrative. 44 Goodenough, on his examination s the battle of Sedgemoor, said, Schout of Amsterdam was a partic friend to this last design." Lansdo MS. 1152. It is not worth while to refute t writers who represent the Prine Orange as an accomplice in Monmo enterprise. The circumstance on w ew days later, Skelton received orders from his Court to st that, in consequence of the dangers which threatened aster's throne, the three Scotch regiments in the serof the United Provinces might be sent to Great Britain ut delay. He applied to the Prince of Orange; and rince undertook to manage the matter, but predicted that serdam would raise some difficulty. The prediction ed correct. The deputies of Amsterdam refused to conand succeeded in causing some delay. But the question not one of those on which, by the constitution of the blic, a single city could prevent the wish of the majority being carried into effect. The influence of William preed; and the troops were embarked with great expedition.* kelton was at the same time exerting himself, not indeed judiciously or temperately, to stop the ships which the glish refugees had fitted out. He expostulated in warm ns with the Admiralty of Amsterdam. The negligence of t board, he said, had already enabled one band of rebels to ade Britain. For a second error of the same kind there uld be no excuse. He peremptorily demanded that a large sel, named the Helderenbergh, might be detained. It was etended that this vessel was bound for the Canaries. But, truth, she had been freighted by Monmouth, carried enty-six guns, and was loaded with arms and ammunition. e Admiralty of Amsterdam replied that the liberty of trade id navigation was not to be restrained for light reasons, and at the Helderenbergh could not be stopped without an der from the States General. Skelton, whose uniform pracce seems to have been to begin at the wrong end, now had course to the States General. The States General gave the ecessary orders. Then the Admiralty of Amsterdam preended that there was not a sufficient naval force in the Texel o seize so large a ship as the Helderenbergh, and suffered Monmouth to sail unmolested.† The weather was bad: the voyage was long; and several they chiefly rely is that the authorities of Amsterdam took no effectual steps for preventing the expedition from sailing. This circumstance is in truth the strongest proof that the expedition was not favoured by William. No person, not profoundly ignorant of the institutions and politics of Holland, would hold the Stadtholder answerable for the proceedings of the heads of the Loevestein party. 8 * Avaux Neg. June. Van Citters, June, June 13. 1685. СНАР. V. CHAP. V. His arrival at Lyme. As he English men of war were cruising in the Channel. But On the morning of the eleventh of June the Helderenbergh, accompanied by two smaller vessels, appeared off the port of Lyme. That town is a small knot of steep and narrow alleys, lying on a coast wild, rocky, and beaten by a stormy sea. The place was then chiefly remarkable for a pier which, in the days of the Plantagenets, had been constructed of stones, unhewn and uncemented. This ancient work, known by the name of the Cob, enclosed the only haven where, in a space of many miles, the fishermen could take refuge from the tempests of the Channel. The appearance of the three ships, foreign built and without colours, perplexed the inhabitants of Lyme; and the uneasiness increased when it was found that the Customhouse officers, who had gone on board according to usage, did not return. The town's people repaired to the cliffs, and gazed long and anxiously, but could find no solution of the mystery. At length seven boats put off from the largest of the strange vessels, and rowed to the shore. From these boats landed about eighty men, well armed and appointed. Among them were Monmouth, Grey, Fletcher, Ferguson, Wade, and Anthony Buyse, an officer who had been in the service of the Elector of Brandenburg.† Monmouth commanded silence, kneeled down on the shore, thanked God for having preserved the friends of liberty and pure religion from the perils of the sea, and implored the divine blessing on what was yet to be done by land. He then drew his sword, and led his men over the cliffs into the town. As soon as it was known under what leader and for what purpose the expedition came, the enthusiasm of the populace burst through all restraints. The little town was in an uproar with men running to and fro, and shouting "A Monmouth! a Monmouth! the Protestant religion!" Mean * Wade's Confession in the Hard- mouth and Fletcher in the Collection of wicke Papers; Harl. MS. 6845. State Trials. † See Buyse's evidence against Mon |