News of lion carried to Loyalty of ment. any hazardous service. He therefore general, should not be received as a marched towards Taunton, where he legal proof of guilt, how important it arrived on the eighteenth of June, is to maintain the rule that no man exactly a week after his landing.* shall be condemned to death without The Court and the Parliament had an opportunity of defending himself, been greatly moved by the and how easily and speedily breaches the rebel- news from the West. At five in great principles, when once made, in the morning of Saturday are widened, we shall probably be London. the thirteenth of June, the disposed to think that the course taken King had received the letter which the by the Parliament was open to some Mayor of Lyme had despatched from objection. Neither House had before Honiton. The Privy Council was it anything which even so corrupt a instantly called together. Orders were judge as Jeffreys could have directed a given that the strength of every com-jury to consider as proof of Monmouth's pany of infantry and of every troop of crime. The messengers examined by cavalry should be increased. the Commons were not on oath, and the Parlia Commissions were issued for might therefore have related mere the levying of new regiments. fictions without incurring the penalties Alford's communication was laid before of perjury. The Lords, who might the Lords; and its substance was com- have administered an oath, appear not municated to the Commons by a mes- to have examined any witness, and to sage. The Commons examined the have had no evidence before them couriers who had arrived from the except the letter of the Mayor of West, and instantly ordered a bill Lyme, which, in the eye of the law, to be brought in for attainting Mon- was no evidence at all. Extreme mouth of high treason. Addresses danger, it is true, justifies extreme were voted assuring the King that both his peers and his people were determined to stand by him with life and fortune against all his enemies. At the next meeting of the Houses they ordered the declaration of the rebels to be burned by the hangman, and passed the bill of attainder through all its stages. That bill received the royal assent on the same day; and a reward of five thousand pounds was promised for the apprehension of Monmouth.t The fact that Monmouth was in arms against the government was so notorious that the bill of attainder became a law with only a faint show of opposition from one or two peers, and has seldom been severely censured even by Whig historians. Yet, when we consider how important it is that legislative and judicial functions should be kept distinct, how important it is that common fame, however strong and *Wade's Confession; Ferguson MS.; Axe Papers, Harl. MS. 6845.; Oldmixon, 701, 702. Oldmixon, who was then a boy, lived very near the scene of these events. London Gazette, June 18. 1685; Lords' and Commons' Journals, June 13. and 15.; Dutch Despatch, June 16 26 remedies. But the Act of Attainder was a remedy which could not operate till all danger was over, and which would become superfluous at the very moment at which it ceased to be null. While Monmouth was in arms it was impossible to execute him. If he should be vanquished and taken, there would be no hazard and no difficulty in trying him. It was afterwards remembered as a curious circumstance that, among the zealous Tories who went up with the bill from the House of Commons to the bar of the Lords, was Sir John Fenwick, member for Northumberland. This gentleman, a few years later, had occasion to reconsider the whole subject, and then came to the conclusion that acts of attainder are altogether unjustifiable. * The Parliament gave other proofs of loyalty in this hour of peril. The Commons authorised the King to raise an extraordinary sum of four hundred thousand pounds for his present necessities, and, that he might have no diffi * Oldmixon is wrong in saying that Fenwick carried up the bill. It was carried up, as appears from the Journals, by Lord Ancram. See Delamere's Observations on the Attainder of the late Duke of Monmouth. culty in finding the money, proceeded spoken. False witnesses had suppressed to devise new imposts. The scheme of a syllable which would have made it taxing houses lately built in the capital clear that those words were figurative, was revived and strenuously supported and had thus furnished the Sanhedrim by the country gentlemen. It was with a pretext under which the foulest resolved not only that such houses of all judicial murders had been perpeshould be taxed, but that a bill should trated. With such an example on be brought in prohibiting the laying of record, who could affirm that, if mere any new foundations within the bills talk were made a substantive treason, of mortality. The resolution, however, the most loyal subject could be safe? was not carried into effect. Powerful These arguments produced so great an men who had land in the suburbs, and effect that in the committee amendwho hoped to see new streets and ments were introduced which greatly squares rise on their estates, exerted mitigated the severity of the bill. But all their influence against the project. the clause which made it high treason It was found that to adjust the details in a member of Parliament to propose would be a work of time; and the the exclusion of a prince of the blood King's wants were so pressing that he seems to have raised no debate, and thought it necessary to quicken the was retained. That clause was indeed movements of the House by a gentle altogether unimportant, except as a exhortation to speed. The plan of proof of the ignorance and inexperience taxing buildings was therefore relin- of the hot-headed Royalists who quished; and new duties were imposed thronged the House of Commons. Had for a term of five years on foreign silks, thoy learned the first rudiments of linens, and spirits.* legislation, they would have known that the enactment to which they attached so much value would be superfluous while the Parliament was disposed to maintain the order of succession, and would be repealed as soon as there was a Parliament bent on changing the order of succession.* The Tories of the Lower House proceeded to introduce what they called a bill for the preservation of the King's person and government. They proposed that it should be high treason to say that Monmouth was legitimate, to utter any words tending to bring the person or government of the sovereign into The bill, as amended, was passed hatred or contempt, or to make any and carried up to the Lords, but did motion in Parliament for changing the not become law. The King had oborder of succession. Some of these tained from the Parliament all the provisions excited general disgust and pecuniary assistance that he could alarm. The Whigs, few and weak as expect; and he conceived that, while they were, attempted to rally, and rebellion was actually raging, the loyal found themselves reinforced by a con- nobility and gentry would be of more use siderable number of moderate and in their counties than at Westminster. sensible Cavaliers. Words, it was said, He therefore hurried their deliberations may easily be misunderstood by a dull to a close, and, on the second of July, man. They may easily be misconstrued dismissed them. On the same day by a knave. What was spoken meta- the royal assent was given to a law phorically may be apprehended liter-reviving that censorship of the press ally. What was spoken ludicrously which had terminated in 1679. This may be apprehended seriously. A object was effected by a few words at particle, a tense, a mood, an emphasis, the end of a miscellaneous statute may make the whole difference between guilt and innocence. The Saviour of mankind himself, in whose blameless life malice could find no act to impeach, had been called in question for words *Commons' Journals of June 17, 18, and 19. 1685; Reresby's Memoirs. * Commons' Journals, June 19, 29. 1685; Lord Lonsdale's Memoirs, 8, 9.; Burnet, i. 639. The bill, as amended by the committee, will be found in Mr. Fox's historical work, Appendix iii. If Burnet's account be correct, the offences which, by the amended bill, were made punishable only with civil incapacities, were, by the original bill, made capital. which continued several expiring acts. | held only by partial natives; for every The courtiers did not think that they stranger who climbed the graceful had gained a triumph. The Whigs did not utter a murmur. Neither in the Lords nor in the Commons was there any division, or even, as far as can now be learned, any debate on a question which would, in our age, convulse the whole frame of society. In truth, the change was slight and almost imperceptible; for, since the detection of the Rye House plot, the liberty of unlicensed printing had existed only in name. During many months scarcely one Whig pamphlet had been published except by stealth; and by stealth such pamphlets might be published still.* tower of Saint Mary Magdalene owned that he saw beneath him the most fertile of English valleys. It was a country rich with orchards and green pastures, among which were scattered, in gay abundance, manor houses, cottages, and village spires. The townsmen had long leaned towards Presbyterian divinity and Whig politics. In the great civil war Taunton had, through all vicissitudes, adhered to the Parliament, had been twice closely besieged by Goring, and had been twice defended with heroic valour by Robert Blake, afterwards the renowned AdmiThe Houses then rose. They were ral of the Commonwealth. Whole not prorogued, but only adjourned, in streets had been burned down by the in order that, when they should re-mortars and grenades of the Cavaliers. assemble, they might take up their Food had been so scarce that the business in the exact state in which resolute governor had announced his they had left it.t intention of putting the garrison on rations of horse flesh. But the spirit of the town had never been subdued either by fire or by hunger.* of Mon mouth at While the Parliament was devising Reception sharp laws against Monmouth and his partisans, he found at Taunton. Taunton a reception which might well encourage him to hope that his enterprise would have a prosperous issue. Taunton, like most other towns in the south of England, was, in that age, more important than at present. Those towns have not indeed declined. On the contrary, they are, with very few exceptions, larger and richer, better built and better peopled, than in the seventeenth century. But, though they have positively advanced, they have relatively gone back. They have been far outstripped in wealth and population by the great manufacturing and commercial cities of the north, cities which, in the time of the Stuarts, were but beginning to be known as seats of industry. When Monmouth marched into Taunton it was an eminently prosperous place. Its markets were plentifully supplied. It was a celebrated seat of the woollen manufacture. The people boasted that they lived in a land flowing with milk and honey. Nor was this language 1 Jac. II. c. 17; Lords' Journals, July 2. 1685. t Lords' and Commons' Journals, July 2. 1685. The Restoration had produced no effect on the temper of the Taunton men. They had still continued to celebrate the anniversary of the happy day on which the siege laid to their town by the royal army had been raised; and their stubborn attachment to the old cause had excited so much fear and resentment at Whitehall that, by a royal order, their moat had been filled up, and their wall demolished to the foundation. The puritanical spirit had been kept up to the height among them by the precepts and example of one of the most celebrated of the dissenting clergy, Joseph Alleine. Alleine was the author of a tract, entitled, An Alarm to the Unconverted, which is still popular both in England and in America. From the gaol to which he was consigned by the victorious Cavaliers, he addressed to his loving friends at Taunton many epistles breathing the spirit of a truly heroic piety. His frame soon sank under the effects of study, toil, and persecution: but his memory was * Savage's edition of Toulmin's History of Taunton. + Sprat's True Account; Toulmin's History of Taunton. long cherished with exceeding love and reverence by those whom he had exhorted and catechised.* The children of the men who, forty years before, had manned the ramparts of Taunton against the Royalists, now welcomed Monmouth with transports of joy and affection. Every door and window was adorned with wreaths of flowers. No man appeared in the streets without wearing in his hat a green bough, the badge of the popular cause. Damsels of the best families in the town wove colours for the insurgents. One flag in particular was embroidered gorgeously with emblems of royal dignity, and was offered to Monmouth by a train of young girls. He received the gift with the winning courtesy which distinguished him. The lady who headed the procession presented him also with a small Bible of great price. He took it with a show of reverence. "I come,' he said, "to defend the truths contained in this book, and to seal them, if it must be so, with my blood."+ a false position by declining the royal title. Had he declared himself sovereign of England, his cause would have worn a show of legality. At present it was impossible to reconcile his Declaration with the principles of the constitution. It was clear that either Monmouth or his uncle was rightful King. Monmouth did not venture to pronounce himself the rightful King, and yet denied that his uncle was so. Those who fought for James fought for the only person who ventured to claim the throne, and were therefore clearly in their duty, according to the laws of the realm. Those who fought for Monmouth fought for some unknown polity, which was to be set up by a convention not yet in existence. None could wonder that men of high rank and ample fortune stood aloof from an enterprise which threatened with destruction that system in the permanence of which they were deeply interested. If the Duke would assert his legitimacy and assume the crown, he would at once remove this objection. The question would cease to be a question between the old constitution and a new constitution. It would be merely a question of hereditary right between two princes. He takes But, while Monmouth enjoyed the applause of the multitude, he could not but perceive, with concern and apprehension, that the higher classes were, with scarcely an exception, hostile to his undertaking, and that no rising had On such grounds as these Ferguson, taken place except in the counties where almost immediately after the he had himself appeared. He had been landing, had earnestly pressed the title of assured by agents, who professed to have the Duke to proclaim himself King. derived their information from Wild- King; and Grey had seconded Ferguman, that the whole Whig aristocracy son. Monmouth had been very willing was eager to take arms. Nevertheless to take this advice; but Wade and other more than a week had now elapsed since republicans had been refractory; and the blue standard had been set up at their chief, with his usual pliability, Lyme. Day labourers, small farmers, had yielded to their arguments. At shopkeepers, apprentices, dissenting Taunton the subject was revived. Monpreachers, had flocked to the rebel camp: mouth talked in private with the disbut not a single peer, baronet, or knight, sentients, assured them that he saw no not a single member of the House of other way of obtaining the support of Commons, and scarcely any esquire of any portion of the aristocracy, and sufficient note to have ever been in the succeeded in extorting their reluctant commission of the peace, had joined the consent. On the morning of the tweninvaders. Ferguson, who, ever since tieth of June he was proclaimed in the the death of Charles, had been Mon-market place of Taunton. His followmouth's evil angel, had a suggestion ready. The Duke had put himself into ers repeated his new title with affectionate delight. But, as some confusion might have arisen if he had been called King James the Second, they commonly used the strange appellation of King Monmouth: and by this name their in the western counties, within the memory of persons still living.* Within twenty-four hours after he had assumed the regal title, he put forth several proclamations headed with his sign manual. By one of these he set a price on the head of his rival. Another declared the Parliament then sitting at Westminster an unlawful assembly, and commanded the members to disperse. A third forbade the people to pay taxes to the usurper. A fourth pronounced Albemarle a traitor.t unhappy favourite was often mentioned, without bloodshed, without any violation of law, effect, in all probability, before many years should have expired? Perhaps there might be reasons for pulling down James. But what reason could be given for setting up Monmouth? To exclude a prince from the throne on account of unfitness was a course agreeable to Whig principles. But on no principle could it be proper to exclude rightful heirs, who were admitted to be, not only blameless, but eminently qualified for the highest public trust. That Monmouth was legitimate, nay, that he thought himself legitimate, intelligent men could not believe. He was therefore not merely an usurper, but an usurper of the worst sort, an impostor. If he made out any semblance of a case, he could do so only by means of forgery and perjury. All honest and sensible persons were unwilling to see a fraud which, if practised to obtain an estate, would have been punished with the scourge and the pillory, rewarded with the English crown. To the old nobility of the realm it seemed insupportable that the bastard of Lucy Walters should be set up high above the lawful descendants of the Fitzalans and De Veres. Those who were capable of looking forward must have seen that, if Monmouth should succeed in overpowering the existing government, there would still remain a war between him and the House of Orange, a war which might last longer and produce more misery than the war of the Roses, a war which might probably break up the Protestants of Europe into hostile parties, might arm England and Holland against each other, and might make both those countries an easy prey to France. opinion, therefore, of almost all the leading Whigs seems to have been that Monmouth's enterprise could not fail to end in some great disaster to the nation, but that, on the whole, his defeat would be a less disaster than his victory. Albemarle transmitted these proclamations to London merely as specimens of folly and impertinence. They produced no effect, except wonder and contempt; nor had Monmouth any reason to think that the assumption of royalty had improved his position. Only a week had elapsed since he had solemnly bound himself not to take the crown till a free Parliament should have acknowledged his rights. By breaking that engagement he had incurred the imputation of levity, if not of perfidy. The class which he had hoped to conciliate still stood aloof. The reasons which prevented the great Whig lords and gentlemen from recognising him as their King were at least as strong as those which had prevented them from rallying round him as their Captain General. They disliked indeed the person, the religion, and the politics of James. But James was no longer young. His eldest daughter was justly popular. She was attached to the reformed faith. She was married to a prince who was the hereditary chief of the Protestants of the Continent, to a prince who had been bred in a republic, and whose sentiments were supposed to be such as became a constitutional King. Was it wise to incur the horrors of civil war, for the mere chance of being able to effect immediately what nature would, Wade's Confession; Goodenough's Confession, Harl. MS. 1152; Oldmixon, 702. Ferguson's denial is quite undeserving of credit. A copy of the proclamation is in the Harl. MS. 7006. + Copies of the last three proclamations are in the British Museum; Harl. MS. 7006. The first I have never seen; 'but it is mentioned by Wade. The It was not only by the inaction of the Whig aristocracy that the invaders were disappointed. The wealth and power of London had sufficed in the preceding generation, and might again suffice, to turn the scale in a civil con |