entirely to their prejudices. He called the king the duke of York, and denominated him a traitor, a tyrant, a murderer, and a popish ufurper. He imputed to him the fire of London, the murder of Godfrey and Effex, and even the poisoning the late king.

The parliament was no fooner informed of Monmouth's landing, than they presented an addrefs to the king, affuring him of their loyalty, zeal, and affiftance. The duke of Albemarle, raifing a body of four thousand militia, advanced, in order to block him up in Lyme; but finding his foldiers difaffected to the king, he foon after retreated with precipitation.

In the mean time the duke advanced to Taunton, where he was reinforced by confiderable numbers. Twenty young maids of fome rank prefented Monmouth with a pair of colours, their handywork, together with a copy of the Bible. There he affumed the title of king, and was proclaimed with great folemnity. His numbers had now encreased to fix thousand men; and he was obliged every day, for want of arms, to difmifs numbers, who crowded to his standard. He entered Bridgewater, Wells, and Frome, and was proclaimed in all thofe places; but he lost the hour of action, in receiving and claiming thefe empty honours.

The king was not a little alarmed at his invafion; but still more at the fuccefs of an undertaking, that at first appeared defperate. Six regiments of British troops were called over from Holland, and a body of regulars to the number of three thousand men, were fent under the command of the earl of Feverfham and Churchill, to check the progrefs of the rebels. They took poft at Sedgemore, a village in the neighbourhood of Bridgewater, and were joined by the militia of the country in confiderable numbers. It was there that Monmouth refolved, by a defperate effort, to lofe his life or gain the kingdom. The negligent difpofition made by Feversham invited him to the attack; and his faithful followers fhewed what courage and principle could do against discipline and superior numbers. They drove the royal infantry from their ground, and were upon the point of gaining the victory, when the misconduct of Monmouth, and the cowardice of lord Gray, who commanded the horse, brought all to ruin. This nobleman fled at the first onset; and the rebels being charged in flank by the victorious army, gave way after a three hours contest. About three hundred were killed in the engagement, and a thousand in the purfuit; and thus ended an enterprize, rafhly begun, and more feebly conducted.

Monmouth fled from the field of battle above twenty miles, till his horse funk under him. He then alighted, and exchanging cloaths with a fhepherd, fled on foot, attended by a German count, who had accompanied him from Holland. Being quite exhaufted with hunger and fatigue, they both lay down in a field, and covered themselves with fern. The fhepherd being found in Monmouth's cloaths by the pursuers, encreased the diligence of the search; and, by the means of blood hounds, he was detected in his miferable fituation, with raw pease in his pocket, which he had gathered in the fields to fuftain life. He burst into tears when feized by his enemies; and petitioned, with the most abject fubmiffion, for life. He wrote the most fubmiffive letters to the king; and that monarch, willing to feast his eyes with the miseries of a fallen enemy, gave him an audience. At this interview the duke fell upon his knees, and begged his life in the most abject terms. He even figned a paper, offered him by the king, declaring his own illegitimacy; and then the stern tyrant affured him, that his crime was of fuch a nature, as could not be pardoned. The duke perceiving that he had nothing to hope from the clemency of his uncle, recollected his fpirits, rose up,

and

and retired with an air of difdain. He was followed to the fcaffold, with great compassion from the populace. He warned the executioner not to fall into the fame error which he had committed in beheading Ruffel, where it had been neceffary to redouble the blow. But this only encreafed the feverity of his punishment, the man was seized with an univerfal trepidation; and he ftruck a feeble blow, upon which the duke raised his head from the block, as if to reproach him; he gently laid down his head a fecond time, and the executioner ftruck him again and again to no purpose. He at last threw the ax down; but the fheriff compelled him to resume the attempt, and at two blows more the head was fevered from the body. Such was the end of James, duke of Monmouth, the darling of the English people. He was brave, fincere, and good natured, open to flattery and by that feduced into an enterprize, which exceded his capacity.

But it were well for the infurgents, and fortunate for the king, if the blood that was now shed had been thought a fufficient expiation for the late offence. The victorious army behaved with the most favage cruelty to the prifoners taken after the battle. Feverfham immediately after the victory hanged up above twenty prisoners; and was proceeding in his

execu

executions, when the bishop of Bath and Wells warned him that thefe unhappy men were now by law entitled to trial, and that their execu tion would be deemed a real murther. Nineteen were put to death in the fame manner at Bridgewater, by colonel Kirke, a man of a favage and bloody difpofition. This vile fellow, practised in the arts of flaughter at Tangier, where he ferved in garrifon, took a pleafure in committing inftances of wanton barbarity. He ordered a certain number to be put to death, while he and his company were drinking the king's health. Obferving their feet to shake in the agonies of death, he cried that they fhould have mufic to their dancing, and ordered the trumpets to found. He ravaged the whole country, without making any diftinction between friend or foe. His own regiment, for their peculiar barbarity, went by the name of Kirke's Lambs. A story is told of his offering a young woman the life of her brother, in cafe the confented to his defires, which, when she had done, he fhewed her her brother hanging out of the window. But this is told of several others, who have been notorious for cruelty, and may be the tale of malignity.

But the military feverities of the commanders were still inferior to the legal flaughters,