1685.

were exposed to the ravages of this barbarian. The CHAP. soldiery were let loose to live at free quarters; and LXX. his own regiment, instructed by his example, and encouraged by his exhortations, distinguished themselves in a particular manner by their outrages. By way of pleasantry he used to call them his lambs; an appellation which was long remembered with horror in the west of England.

THE violent Jefferies succeeded after some interval; and showed the people, that the rigours of law might equal, if not exceed, the ravages of military tyranny. This man, who wantoned in cruelty, had already given a specimen of his character in many trials where he presided; and he now set out with a savage joy, as to a full harvest of death and destruction. He began at Dorchester; and thirty rebels being arraigned, he exhorted them, but in vain, to save him, by their free confession, the trouble of trying them: And when twenty-nine were found guilty, he ordered them, as an additional punishment of their disobedience, to be led to immediate execution. Most of the other prisoners, terrified with this example, pleaded guilty; and no less than two hundred and ninety-two received sentence at Dorchester. Of these, eighty were executed. Exeter was the next stage of his cruelty: Two hundred and forty-three were there tried, of whom a great number were condemned and executed. He also opened his commission at Taunton and Wells; and every where carried consternation along with him. The juries were so struck with his menaces, that they gave their verdict with precipitation; and many innocent persons, it is said, were involved with the guilty. And on the whole, besides those who were butchered by the military commanders, two hundred and fifty-one are computed to have fallen by the hand of justice. The whole country was strewed with the heads and limbs of traitors. Every village almost beheld the

dead

CHAP. dead carcase of a wretched inhabitant. And all the LXX. rigours of justice, unabated by any appearance of clemency, were fully displayed to the people by the inhuman Jefferies.

1685.

Of all the executions, during this dismal period, the most remarkable were those of Mrs. Gaunt and Lady Lisle, who had been accused of harbouring traitors. Mrs. Gaunt was an anabaptist, noted for her beneficence, which she extended to persons of all professions and persuasions. One of the rebels, knowing her humane disposition, had recourse to her in his distress, and was concealed by her. Hearing of the proclamation, which offered an indemnity and rewards to such as discovered criminals, he betrayed his benefactress, and bore evidence against her. He received a pardon as a recompence for his treachery; she was burned alive for her charity.

LADY Lisle was widow of one of the regicides who had enjoyed great favour and authority under Cromwel, and who having fled, after the restoration, to Lauzanne in Swisserland, was there assassinated by three Irish ruffians, who hoped to make their fortune by this piece of service. His widow was now prosecuted for harbouring two rebels the day after the battle of Sedgemoor; and Jefferies pushed on the trial with an unrelenting violence. In vain did the aged prisoner plead, that these criminals had been put into no proclamation; had been convicted by no verdict; nor could any man be denominated a traitor, till the sentence of some legal court was passed upon him: That it appeared not by any proof, that she was so much as acquainted with the guilt of the persons, or had heard of their joining the rebellion of Monmouth : though she might be obnoxious on account of her family, it was well known, that her heart was ever loyal, and that no person in England had shed more tears for that tragical event, in which her husband

That

had unfortunately borne too great a share: And CHAP. that the same principles, which she herself had ever LXX. embraced, she had carefully instilled into her son, and 1685. had, at that very time, sent him to fight against those rebels, whom she was now accused of harbouring. Though these arguments did not move Jefferies, they had influence on the jury. Twice they seemed inclined to bring in a favourable verdict: They were as often sent back with menaces and reproaches; and at last were constrained to give sentence against the prisoner. Notwithstanding all applications for pardon, the cruel sentence was executed. The King said, that he had given Jefferies a promise not to pardon her: An excuse which could serve only to aggravate the blame against himself.

Ir might have been hoped, that, by all these bloody executions, a rebellion, so precipitate, so ill supported, and of such short duration, would have been sufficiently expiated: But nothing could satiate the spirit of rigour which possessed the administration. Even those multitudes, who received pardon, were obliged to to atone for their guilt by fines, which reduced them to beggary; or where their former poverty made them incapable of paying, they were condemned to cruel whippings or severe imprisonments. Nor could the innocent escape the hands, no less rapacious than cruel, of the chief justice. Prideaux, a gentleman of Devonshire, being thrown into prison, and dreading the severe and arbitrary spirit, which at that time met with no control, was obliged to buy his liberty of Jefferies at the price of fifteen thousand pounds; though he could never so much as learn the crime of which he was accused.

GOODENOUGH, the seditious under-sheriff of London, who had been engaged in the most bloody and desperate part of the Rye-house conspiracy, was taken prisoner after the battle of Sedgemoor, and resolved to save his own life by an accusation of

Cornish,

CHAP. Cornish, the sheriff, whom he knew to be extremely LXX. obnoxious to the court. Colonel Rumsey joined

him in the accusation; and the prosecution was so 1685. hastened, that the prisoner was tried, condemned, and executed in the space of a week. The perjury of the witnesses appeared immediately after; and the King seemed to regret the execution of Cornish. He granted his estate to his family, and condemned the witnesses to perpetual imprisonment.

State of

Scotland.

THE injustice of this sentence against Cornish was not wanted to disgust the nation with the court: The continued rigour of the other executions had already impressed an universal hatred against the ministers of justice, attended with compassion for the unhappy sufferers, who, as they had been seduced into this crime by mistaken principles, bore their punishmen with the spirit and zeal of martyrs. The people might have been willing on this occasion to distinguish between the King and his ministers: But care was taken to prove, that the latter had done nothing but what was agreeable to their master. Jefferies, on his return, was immediately, for those eminent services, created a peer; and was soon after vested with the dignity of chancellor. It is pretended, however, with some appearance of authority, that the King was displeased with these cruelties, and put a stop to them by orders, as soon as proper information of them was conveyed to him".

WE must now take a view of the state of affairs affairs in in Scotland; where the fate of Argyle had been decided before that of Monmouth. Immediately after the King's accession, a parliament had been summoned at Edinburgh; and all affairs were there conducted by the Duke of Queensberry the commissioner, and the Earl of Perth chancellor. The former had resolved to make an entire surrender of the liberties of his country; but was determined still to

Life of Lord Keeper North, p. 260. King James's Memoirs,

P. 144.

3

adhere

1685.

adhere to its religion: The latter entertained no CHAP. scruple of paying court even by the sacrifice of both. LXX. But no courtier, even the most prostitute, could go farther than the parliament itself towards a resignation of their liberties. In a vote, which they called an offer of duty, after adopting the fabulous history of a hundred and eleven Scottish monarchs, they acknowledged, that all these Princes, by the primary and fundamental law of the state, had been vested with a solid and absolute authority. They declared their abhorrence of all principles and positions, derogatory to the King's sacred, supreme, sovereign, absolute power, of which none, they said, whether single persons or collective bodies, can participate, but in dependence on him and by commission from him. They promised that the whole nation, between sixteen and sixty, shall be in readiness for His Majesty's service, where and as oft as it shall be his royal pleasure to require them. And they annexed the whole excise, both of inland and foreign commodities, for ever to the crown.

ALL the other acts of this assembly savoured of the same spirit. They declared it treason for any person to refuse the test, if tendered by the council. To defend the obligation of the covenant, subjected a person to the same penalty. To be present at any conventicle, was made punishable with death and confiscation of moveables. Even such as refused to give testimony, either in cases of treason or nonconformity, were declared equally punishable as if guilty of those very crimes: An excellent prelude to all the rigours of an inquisition. It must be confessed, that nothing could equal the abject servility of the Scottish nation during this period, but the arbitrary severity of the administration.

It was in vain that Argyle summoned a people, Argyle's so lost to all sense of liberty, so degraded by repeated invasion: indignities, to rise in vindication of their violated

laws