When his soldiers displeased him he flogged them with merciless severity: bnt he indemnified them by permitting them to sleep on watch, to reel drunk about the streets, to rob, beat, and insult the merchants and the labourers. When Tangier was abandoned, Kirke returned to England. He still continued to command his old soldiers, who were designated sometimes as the First Tangier Regiment, and sometimes as Queen Catharine's Regiment. As they had been levied for the purpose of waging war on an infidel nation, they bore on their flag a Christian emblem, the Paschal Lamb. In allusion to this device, and with a bitterly ironical meaning, these men, the rudest and most ferocious in the English army, were called Kirke's Lambs. The regiment, now the second of the line, still retains this ancient badge, which is however thrown into the shade by decorations honourably earned in Egypt, in Spain, and in the heart of Asia.* Such was the captain and such the soldiers who were now let loose on the people of Somersetshire. From Bridgewater Kirke marched to Taunton. He was accompanied by two carts filled with wounded rebels whose gashes had not been dressed, and by a long drove of prisoners on foot, who were chained two and two. Several of these he hanged as soon as he reached Taunton, without the form of a trial. They were not suffered even to take leave of their nearest relations. The signpost of the White Hart Inn served for a gallows. It is said that the work of death went on in sight of the windows where the officers of the Tangier regiment were carousing, and that at every health a wretch was turned off. When the legs of the dying men quivered in the last agony, the colonel ordered the drums to strike up. He would give the rebels, he said, music to their dancing. The tradition runs that one of the captives was not even allowed the indulgence of a speedy death. Twice he was suspended from the sign-post, and twice cut down. Twice he was *Pepys's Diary, kept at Tangier; Historical Records of the Second or Queen's Royal Regiment of Foot. asked if he repented of his treason; and twice he replied that, if the thing were to do again, he would do it. Then he was tied up for the last time. So many dead bodies were quartered that the executioner stood ankle deep in blood. He was assisted by a poor man whose loyalty was suspected, and who was compelled to ransom his own life by seething the remains of his friends in pitch. The peasant who had consented to perform this hideous office afterwards returned to his plough. But a mark like that of Cain was upon him. He was known through his village by the horrible name of Tom Boilman. The rustics long continued to relate that, though he had, by his sinful and shameful deed, saved himself from the vengeance of the Lambs, he had not escaped the vengeance of a higher power. In a great storm he fled for shelter under an oak, and was there struck dead by lightning.* The number of those who were thus butchered cannot now be ascertained. Nine were entered in the parish registers of Taunton: but those registers contain the names of such only as had Christian burial. Those who were hanged in chains, and those whose heads and limbs were sent to the neighbouring villages, must have been much more numerous. It was believed in London, at the time, that Kirke put a hundred captives to death during the week which followed the battle.† Cruelty, however, was not this man's only passion. He loved money; and was no novice in the arts of extortion. A safe conduct might be bought of him for thirty or forty pounds; and such a safe conduct, though of no value in law, enabled the purchaser to pass the posts of the Lambs without molestation, to reach a seaport, and to fly to a foreign country. The ships which were bound for New England were crowded at this juncture with so many fugitives from Sedgemoor that there was great danger *Bloody Assizes; Burnet, i. 647.; Luttrell's Diary, July 15. 1685; Locke's Western Rebellion; Toulmin's History of Taunton, edited by Savage. † Luttrell's Diary, July 15. 1685; Toulmin's History of Taunton. lest the water and provisions should fail.* charge was brought against Joseph Lebon, one of the most odious agents of the Committee of Public Safety, and, after inquiry, was admitted even by his prosecutors to be unfounded.* The government was dissatisfied with Kirke, not on account of the barbarity with which he had treated his needy prisoners, but on account of the interested lenity which he had shown to rich delinquents. He was soon recalled from the West. A less irregular and more cruel massacre was about to be perpetrated. The vengeance was deferred during some weeks. It was thought desirable that the Western Circuit should not begin till the other circuits had terminated. In the meantime the gaols of Somersetshire and Dorsetshire were filled with thousands of captives. The chief friend and protector of these unhappy men in their extremity was one who abhorred their religious and political opinions, one whose order they hated, and to whom they had done unprovoked wrong, Bishop Ken. That good prelate used all his influence to soften the gaolers, and retrenched from his own episcopal state that he might be able to make some addition to the coarse and scanty fare of those who had defaced his beloved Cathedral. His conduct on this occasion was of a piece with his whole life. His intellect was indeed darkened by many superstitions and prejudices: but his moral character, when impartially reviewed, sustains a comparison Kirke was also, in his own coarse and ferocious way, a man of pleasure; and nothing is more probable than that he employed his power for the purpose of gratifying his licentious appetites. It was reported that he conquered the virtue of a beautiful woman by promising to spare the life of one to whom she was strongly attached, and that, after she had yielded, he showed her suspended on the gallows the lifeless remains of him for whose sake she had sacrificed her honour. This tale an impartial judge must reject. It is unsupported by proof. The earliest authority for it is a poem written by Pomfret. The respectable historians of that age, while they speak with just severity of the crimes of Kirke, either omit all mention of this most atrocious crime, or mention it as a thing rumoured but not proved. Those who tell the story tell it with such variations as deprive it of all title to credit. Some lay the scene at Taunton, some at Exeter. Some make the heroine of the tale a maiden, some a married woman. The relation for whom the shameful ransom was paid is described by some as her father, by some as her brother, and by some as her husband. Lastly the story is one which, long before Kirke was born, had been told of many other oppressors, and had become a favourite theme of novelists and dramatists. Two politicians of the fifteenth century, Rhynsault, the favourite of Charles the Bold of *The silence of Whig writers so credulous Burgundy, and Oliver le Dain, the and so malevolent as Oldmixon and the comfavourite of Lewis the Eleventh of pilers of the Western Martyrology would alone. France, had been accused of the same seem to me to settle the question. It also decrime. Cintio had taken it for the serves to be remarked that the story of Rhynsault is told by Steele in the Spectator, No. subject of a romance. Whetstone had 491. Surely it is hardly possible to believe made out of Cintio's narrative the rude that, if a crime exactly resembling that of play of Promos and Cassandra; and Rhynsault had been committed within living memory in England by an officer of James the Shakspeare had borrowed from Whet-Second, Steele, who was indiscreetly and unstone the plot of the noble tragicomedy of Measure for Measure. As Kirke was not the first, so he was not the last, to whom this excess of wickedness was popularly imputed. During the reaction which followed the Jacobin tyranny in France, a very similar Oldmixon, 705.; Life and Errors of John Dunton, chap. vii. seasonably forward to display his Whiggism, would have made no allusion to that fact. For the case of Lebon, see the Moniteur, 4 Messidor, l'an 3. † Sunderland to Kirke, July 14. and 28. 1685. "His Majesty," says Sunderland, these proceedings, and desires you to take care "commands me to signify to you his dislike of that no person concerned in the rebellion be at large." It is but just to add that, in the same letter, Kirke is blamed for allowing his soldiers to live at free quarter. with any in ecclesiastical history, and | He breathed his last a few days after seems to approach, as near as human the Judges set out for the West. It infirmity permits, to the ideal perfec- was immediately notified to Jeffreys tion of Christian virtue.* that he might expect the Great Seal as the reward of faithful and vigorous service.* Jeffreys sets out on the Western Circuit. Trial of At Winchester the Chief Justice first opened his commission. Hampshire had not been the Alice theatre of war; but many of Lisle. the vanquished rebels had, like their leader, fled thither. Two of them, John Hickes, a Nonconformist divine, and Richard Nelthorpe, a lawyer who had been outlawed for taking part in the Rye House plot, had sought refuge at the house of Alice, widow of John Lisle. John Lisle had sate in the Long Parliament and in the High Court of Justice, had been a Commissioner of the Great Seal in the days of the Commonwealth, and had been created a lord by Cromwell. The titles given by the Protector had not been recognised by any govern His labour of love was of no long duration. A rapid and effectual gaol delivery was at hand. Early in September, Jeffreys, accompanied by four other judges, set out on that circuit of which the memory will last as long as our race and language. The officers who commanded the troops in the districts through which his course lay had orders to furnish him with whatever military aid he might require. His ferocious temper needed no spur; yet a spur was applied. The health and spirits of the Lord Keeper had given way. He had been deeply mortified by the coldness of the King and by the insolence of the Chief Justice, and could find little consolation in looking back on a life, not indeed blackened by any atrocious crime, but sullied by cowardice, selfish-ment which had ruled England since ness, and servility. So deeply was the unhappy man humbled that, when he appeared for the last time in Westminster Hall, he took with him a nosegay to hide his face, because, as he afterwards owned, he could not bear the eyes of the bar and of the audience. The prospect of his approaching end seems to have inspired him with unwonted courage. He determined to discharge his conscience, requested an audience of the King, spoke earnestly of the dangers inseparable from violent and arbitrary counsels, and condemned the lawless cruelties which the soldiers had committed in Somersetshire. He soon after retired from London to die. I should be very glad if I could give credit to the popular story that Ken, immediately after the battle of Sedgemoor, represented to the chiefs of the royal army the illegality of military executions. He would, I doubt not, have exerted all his influence on the side of law and of mercy, if he had been present. But there is no trustworthy evidence that he was then in the West at all. Indeed what we know about his proceedings at this time amounts very nearly to proof of an alibi. It is certain from the Journals of the House of Lords that, on the Thursday before the battle, he was at Westminster: it is equally certain that, on the Monday after the battle, he was with Monmouth in the Tower; and, in that age, a journey from London to Bridgewater and back again was no light thing. the downfall of his house; but they appear to have been often used in conversation even by Royalists. John Lisle's widow was therefore commonly known as the Lady Alice. She was related to many respectable, and to some noble, families; and she was generally esteemed even by the Tory gentlemen of her county. For it was well known to them that she had deeply regretted some violent acts in which her husband had borne a part, that she had shed bitter tears for Charles the First, and that she had protected and relieved many Cavaliers in their distress. The same womanly kindness, which had led her to befriend the Royalists in their time of trouble, would not suffer her to refuse a meal and a hiding place to the wretched men who now entreated her to protect them. She took them into her house, set meat and drink before them, and showed them where they might take rest. The next morning her dwelling was sur rounded by soldiers. Strict search was made. Hickes was found con *North's Life of Guildford, 260. 263. 273.; Mackintosh's View of the Reign of James the Second, page 16. note; Letter of Jeffreys to Sunderland, Sept. 5. 1685. cealed in the malthouse, and Nelthorpe | government, save one, has treated with in the chimney. If Lady Alice knew rigour persons guilty merely of harbourher guests to have been concerned in ing defeated and flying insurgents. To the insurrection, she was undoubt- women especially has been granted, by edly guilty of what in strictness was a a kind of tacit prescription, the right capital crime. For the law of principal of indulging, in the midst of havoc and and accessory, as respects high treason, vengeance, that compassion which is then was, and is to this day, in a state the most endearing of all their charms. disgraceful to English jurisprudence. Since the beginning of the great civil In cases of felony, a distinction, founded war, numerous rebels, some of them on justice and reason, is made between far more important than Hickes or the principal and the accessory after Nelthorpe, have been protected from the fact. He who conceals from justice the severity of victorious governments one whom he knows to be a murderer by female adroitness and generosity. is liable to punishment, but not to the But no English ruler who has been punishment of murder. He, on the thus baffled, the savage and implacable other hand, who shelters one whom he James alone excepted, has had the knows to be a traitor is, according to barbarity even to think of putting a all our jurists, guilty of high treason. lady to a cruel and shameful death It is unnecessary to point out the for so venial and amiable a transgresabsurdity and cruelty of a law which sion. includes under the same definition, and Odious as the law was, it was strained visits with the same penalty, offences for the purpose of destroying Alice lying at the opposite extremes of the Lisle. She could not, according to the scale of guilt. The feeling which doctrine laid down by the highest makes the most loyal subject shrink authority, be convicted till after the from the thought of giving up to a conviction of the rebels whom she had shameful death the rebel who, van-harboured.* She was, however, set to quished, hunted down, and in mortal the bar before either Hickes or Nelagony, begs for a morsel of bread and a cup of water, may be a weakness: but it is surely a weakness very nearly allied to virtue, a weakness which, constituted as human beings are, we can hardly eradicate from the mind without eradicating many noble and benevolent sentiments. A wise and good ruler may not think it right to sanction this weakness; but he will generally connive at it, or punish it very tenderly. In no case will he treat it as a crime of the blackest dye. Whether Flora Macdonald was justified in concealing the attainted heir of the Stuarts, whether a brave soldier of our own time was justified in assisting the escape of Lavalette, are questions on which casuists may differ: but to class such actions with the crimes of Guy Faux and Fieschi is an outrage to humanity and common sense. Such, however, is the classification of our law. It is evident that nothing but a lenient administration could make such a state of the law endurable. And it is just to say that, during many generations, no English thorpe had been tried. It was no easy matter in such a case to obtain a verdict for the crown. The witnesses prevaricated. The jury, consisting of the principal gentlemen of Hampshire, shrank from the thought of sending a fellow creature to the stake for conduct which seemed deserving rather of praise than of blame. Jeffreys was beside himself with fury. This was the first case of treason on the circuit; and there seemed to be a strong probability that his prey would escape him. He stormed, cursed, and swore in language which no wellbred man would have used at a race or a cockfight. One witness named Dunne, partly from concern for Lady Alice, and partly from fright at the threats and maledictions of the Chief Justice, entirely lost his head, and at last stood silent. "Oh how hard the truth is," said Jeffreys, "to come out of a lying Presbyterian knave." The witness, after a pause of some minutes, stammered a * See the preamble of the Act of Parliament reversing her attainder. 66 few unmeaning words. "Was there which had not been proved by any ever," exclaimed the judge, with an testimony, and which, if it had been oath, was there ever such a villain on proved, would have been utterly irrethe face of the earth? Dost thou levant to the issue. The jury retired, believe that there is a God? Dost thou and remained long in consultation. believe in hell fire? Of all the witnesses The judge grew impatient. He could that I ever met with, I never saw thy not conceive, he said, how, in so plain fellow." Still the poor man, scared out a case, they should even have left the of his senses, remained mute; and box. He sent a messenger to tell them again Jeffreys burst forth. "I hope, that, if they did not instantly return, gentlemen of the jury, that you take he would adjourn the court and lock notice of the horrible carriage of this them up all night. Thus put to the fellow. How can one help abhorring torture, they came, but came to say that both these men and their religion? they doubted whether the charge had A Turk is a saint to such a fellow as been made out. Jeffreys expostulated this. A Pagan would be ashamed of with them vehemently, and, after such villany. Oh blessed Jesus! What another consultation, they gave a rea generation of vipers do we live among!" luctant verdict of Guilty. "I cannot tell what to say, my Lord," faltered Dunne. The judge again broke forth into a volley of oaths. "Was there ever," he cried, "such an impudent rascal? Hold the candle to him that we may see his brazen face. You, gentlemen, that are of counsel for the crown, see that an information for perjury be preferred against this fellow." After the witnesses had been thus handled, the Lady Alice was called on for her defence. She began by saying, what may possibly have been true, that, though she knew Hickes to be in trouble when she took him in, she did not know or suspect that he had been concerned in the rebellion. He was a divine, a man of peace. It had, therefore, never occurred to her that he could have borne arms against the government; and she had supposed that he wished to conceal himself because warrants were out against him for field preaching. The Chief Justice began to storm. "But I will tell you. There is not one of those lying, snivelling, canting Presbyterians but, one way or another, had a hand in the rebellion. Presbytery has all manner of villany in it. Nothing but Presbytery could have made Dunne such a rogue. Show me a Presbyterian; and I'll show thee a lying knave." He summed up in the same style, declaimed during an hour against Whigs and Dissenters, and reminded the jury that the prisoner's husband had borne a part in the death of Charles the First, a fact On the following morning sentence was pronounced. Jeffreys gave direc tions that Alice Lisle should be burned alive that very afternoon. This excess of barbarity moved the pity and indig nation even of the class which was most devoted to the crown. The clergy of Winchester Cathedral remonstrated with the Chief Justice, who, brutal as he was, was not mad enough to risk a quarrel on such a subject with a body so much respected by the Tory party. He consented to put off the execution five days. During that time the friends of the prisoner besought James to be merciful. Ladies of high rank interceded for her. Feversham, whose recent victory had increased his influence at court, and who, it is said, had been bribed to take the compassionate side, spoke in her favour. Clarendon, the King's brother in law, pleaded her cause. But all was vain. The utmost that could be obtained was that her sentence should be commuted from burning to beheading. She was put to death on a scaffold in the marketplace of Winchester, and underwent her fate with serene courage.* In Hampshire Alice Lisle was the only victim: but, on the day The following her execution, Jef- Bloody freys reached Dorchester, the Assizes. * Trial of Alice Lisle in the Collection of State Trials; Act of the First of William and tainder of Alice Lisle, widow; Burnet, i. 649.; |