"While Jeffreys on the bench, Ketch on the gibbet sits,'' says one poet. In the year which followed Monmouth's execution Ketch was turned out of his office for insulting one of the Sheriffs, and was succeeded by a butcher named Rose. But in four months Rose himself was hanged at Tyburn, and Ketch was reinstated. Luttrell's Diary, January 20, and May 28, 1686. See a curious note by Dr, Grey, on Hudibras, part iii. canto ii. line 1534.
431 Account of the execution of Monmouth, signed by the divines who attended him; Buccleuch MS; Burnet, i. 646; Van Citters, July 17-27,1685, Luttrell's Diary; Evelyn's Diary, July 15; Barillon, July 19-29.
432 I cannot refrain from expressing my disgust at the barbarous stupidity which has transformed this most interesting little church into the likeness of a meetinghouse in a manufacturing town.
433 Observator, August 1, 1685; Gazette de France, Nov. 2, 1686;Letter from Humphrey Wanley, dated Aug. 25, 1698, in the Aubrey Collection; Voltaire, Dict. Phil. There are, in the Pepysian Collection, several ballads written after Monmouth's death which represent him as living, and predict his speedy return. I will give two specimens.
"Though this is a dismal story Of the fall of my design, Yet I'll come again in glory, If I live till eighty-nine:
For I'll have a stronger army And of ammunition store."Again;"Then shall Monmouth in his glories Unto his English friends appear, And will stifle all such stories As are vended everywhere.
"They'll see I was not so degraded, To be taken gathering pease, Or in a cock of hay up braided.
What strange stories now are these!"
434 London Gazette, August 3, 1685; the Battle of Sedgemoor, a Farce.
435 Pepys's Diary, kept at Tangier; Historical Records of the Second or Queen's Royal Regiment of Foot.
436 Bloody Assizes, Burnet, i. 647; Luttrell's Diary, July 15, 1685; Locke's Western Rebellion; Toulmin's History of Taunton, edited by Savage.
437 Luttrell's Diary, July 15, 1685; Toulmin's Hist. of Taunton.
438 Oldmixon, 705; Life and Errors of John Dunton, chap. vii.
439 The silence of Whig writers so credulous and so malevolent as Oldmixon and the compilers of the Western Martyrology would alone seem to me to settle the question. It also deserves to be remarked that the story of Rhynsault is told by Steele in the Spectator, No. 491. Surely it is hardly possible to believe that, if a crime exactly resembling that of Rhynsault had been committed within living memory in England by an officer of James the Second, Steele, who was indiscreetly and unseasonably 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.
440 Sunderland to Kirke, July 14 and 28, 1685. "His Majesty,"says Sunderland, "commands me to signify to you his dislike of these proceedings, and desires you to take care 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.
441 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.
442 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.
443 See the preamble of the Act of Parliament reversing her attainder.
444 Trial of Alice Lisle in the Collection of State Trials; Act of the First of William and Mary for annulling and making void the Attainder of Alice Lisle widow; Burnet, i. 649; Caveat against the Whigs.
445 Bloody Assizes.
446 Locke's Western Rebellion.
447 This I can attest from my own childish recollections.
448 Lord Lonsdale says seven hundred; Burnet six hundred. I have followed the list which the Judges sent to the Treasury, and which may still be seen there in the letter book of 1685. See the Bloody Assizes, Locke's Western Rebellion; the Panegyric on Lord Jeffreys; Burnet, i. 648; Eachard, iii. 775; Oldmixon, 705.
449 Some of the prayers, exhortations, and hymns of the sufferers will be found in the Bloody Assizes.
450 Bloody Assizes; Locke's Western Rebellion; Lord Lonsdale's Memoirs; Account of the Battle of Sedgemoor in the Hardwicke Papers. The story in the Life of James the Second, ii. 43; is not taken from the King's manuscripts, and sufficiently refutes itself.
451 Bloody Assizes; Locke's Western Rebellion, Humble Petition of Widows and Fatherless Children in the West of England;Panegyric on Lord Jeffreys.
452 As to the Hewlings, I have followed Kiffin's Memoirs, and Mr. Hewling Luson's narrative, which will be found in the second edition of the Hughes Correspondence, vol. ii. Appendix. The accounts in Locke's Western Rebellion and in the Panegyric on Jeffreys are full of errors. Great part of the account in the Bloody Assizes was written by Kiffin, and agrees word for word with his Memoirs.
453 See Tutchin's account of his own case in the Bloody Assizes.
454 Sunderland to Jeffreys, Sept. 14, 1685; Jeffreys to the King, Sept. 19, 1685, in the State Paper Office.
