The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (diy ebook reader .txt) π
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/> 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.444
In Hampshire Alice Lisle was the only victim: but, on the day
following her execution, Jeffreys reached Dorchester, the
principal town of the county in which Monmouth had landed; and
the judicial massacre began. The court was hung, by order of the
Chief Justice, with scarlet; and this innovation seemed to the
multitude to indicate a bloody purpose. It was also rumoured
that, when the clergyman who preached the assize sermon enforced
the duty of mercy, the ferocious mouth of the Judge was distorted
by an ominous grin. These things made men augur ill of what was
to follow.445
More than three hundred prisoners were to be tried. The work
seemed heavy; but Jeffreys had a contrivance for making it light.
He let it be understood that the only chance of obtaining pardon
or respite was to plead guilty. Twenty-nine persons, who put
themselves on their country and were convicted, were ordered to
be tied up without delay. The remaining prisoners pleaded guilty
by scores. Two hundred and ninety-two received sentence of death.
The whole number hanged in Dorsetshire amounted to seventy-four.
From Dorchester Jeffreys proceeded to Exeter. The civil war had
barely grazed the frontier of Devonshire. Here, therefore,
comparatively few persons were capitally punished. Somersetshire,
the chief seat of the rebellion, had been reserved for the last
and most fearful vengeance. In this county two hundred and
thirty-three prisoners were in a few days hanged, drawn, and
quartered. At every spot where two roads met, on every
marketplace, on the green of every large village which had
furnished Monmouth with soldiers, ironed corpses clattering in
the wind, or heads and quarters stuck on poles, poisoned the air,
and made the traveller sick with horror. In many parishes the
peasantry could not assemble in the house of God without seeing
the ghastly face of a neighbour grinning at them over the porch.
The Chief Justice was all himself. His spirits rose higher and
higher as the work went on. He laughed, shouted, joked, and swore
in such a way that many thought him drunk from morning to night.
But in him it was not easy to distinguish the madness produced by
evil passions from the madness produced by brandy. A prisoner
affirmed that the witnesses who appeared against him were not
entitled to credit. One of them, he said, was a Papist, and
another a prostitute. "Thou impudent rebel," exclaimed the Judge,
"to reflect on the King's evidence! I see thee, villain, I see
thee already with the halter round thy neck." Another produced
testimony that he was a good Protestant. "Protestant! " said
Jeffreys; "you mean Presbyterian. I'll hold you a wager of it. I
can smell a Presbyterian forty miles." One wretched man moved the
pity even of bitter Tories. "My Lord," they said, "this poor
creature is on the parish." "Do not trouble yourselves," said the
Judge, "I will ease the parish of the burden." It was not only
against the prisoners that his fury broke forth. Gentlemen and
noblemen of high consideration and stainless loyalty, who
ventured to bring to his notice any extenuating circumstance,
were almost sure to receive what he called, in the coarse dialect
which he had learned in the pothouses of Whitechapel, a lick with
the rough side of his tongue. Lord Stawell, a Tory peer, who
could not conceal his horror at the remorseless manner in which
his poor neighbours were butchered, was punished by having a
corpse suspended in chains at his park gate.446 In such
spectacles originated many tales of terror, which were long told
over the cider by the Christmas fires of the farmers of
Somersetshire. Within the last forty years, peasants, in some
districts, well knew the accursed spots, and passed them
unwillingly after sunset.447
Jeffreys boasted that he had hanged more traitors than all his
predecessors together since the Conquest. It is certain that the
number of persons whom he put to death in one month, and in one
shire, very much exceeded the number of all the political
offenders who have been put to death in our island since the
Revolution. The rebellions of 1715 and 1745 were of longer
duration, of wider extent, and of more formidable aspect than
that which was put down at Sedgemoor. It has not been generally
thought that, either after the rebellion of 1715, or after the
rebellion of 1745, the House of Hanover erred on the side of
clemency. Yet all the executions of 1715 and 1745 added together
will appear to have been few indeed when compared with those
which disgraced the Bloody Assizes. The number of the rebels whom
Jeffreys hanged on this circuit was three hundred and twenty.448
Such havoc must have excited disgust even if the sufferers had
been generally odious. But they were, for the most part, men of
blameless life, and of high religious profession. They were
regarded by themselves, and by a large proportion of their
neighbours, not as wrongdoers, but as martyrs who sealed with
blood the truth of the Protestant religion. Very few of the
convicts professed any repentance for what they had done. Many,
animated by the old Puritan spirit, met death, not merely with
fortitude, but with exultation. It was in vain that the ministers
of the Established Church lectured them on the guilt of rebellion
and on the importance of priestly absolution. The claim of the
King to unbounded authority in things temporal, and the claim of
the clergy to the spiritual power of binding and loosing, moved
the bitter scorn of the intrepid sectaries. Some of them composed
hymns in the dungeon, and chaunted them on the fatal sledge.
Christ, they sang while they were undressing for the butchery,
would soon come to rescue Zion and to make war on Babylon, would
set up his standard, would blow his trumpet, and would requite
his foes tenfold for all the evil which had been inflicted on his
servants. The dying words of these men were noted down: their
farewell letters were kept as treasures; and, in this way, with
the help of some invention and exaggeration, was formed a copious
supplement to the Marian martyrology.449
A few eases deserve special mention. Abraham Holmes, a retired
officer of the parliamentary army, and one of those zealots who
would own no king but King Jesus, had been taken at Sedgemoor.
His arm had been frightfully mangled and shattered in the battle;
and, as no surgeon was at hand, the stout old soldier amputated
it himself. He was carried up to London, and examined by the King
in Council, but would make no submission. "I am an aged man," he
said, "and what remains to me of life is not worth a falsehood or
a baseness. I have always been a republican; and I am so still."
He was sent back to the West and hanged. The people remarked with
awe and wonder that the beasts which were to drag him to the
gallows became restive and went back. Holmes himself doubted not
that the Angel of the Lord, as in the old time, stood in the way
sword in hand, invisible to human eyes, but visible to the
inferior animals. "Stop, gentlemen," he cried: "let me go on
foot. There is more in this than you think. Remember how the ass
saw him whom the prophet could not see." He walked manfully to
the gallows, harangued the people with a smile, prayed fervently
that God would hasten the downfall of Antichrist and the
deliverance of England, and went up the ladder with an apology
for mounting so awkwardly. "You see," he said, "I have but one
arm."450
Not less courageously died Christopher Balttiscombe, a young
Templar of good family and fortune, who, at Dorchester, an
agreeable provincial town proud of its taste and refinement, was
regarded by all as the model of a fine gentleman. Great interest
was made to save him. It was believed through the West of England
that he was engaged to a young lady of gentle blood, the sister
of the Sheriff, that she threw herself at the feet of Jeffreys to
beg for mercy, and that Jeffreys drove her from him with a jest
so hideous that to repeat it would be an offence against decency
and humanity. Her lover suffered at Lyme piously and
courageously.451
A still deeper interest was excited by the fate of two gallant
brothers, William and Benjamin Hewling. They were young,
handsome, accomplished, and well connected. Their maternal
grandfather was named Kiffin. He was one of the first merchants
in London, and was generally considered as the head of the
Baptists. The Chief Justice behaved to William Hewling on the
trial with characteristic brutality. "You have a grandfather," he
said, "who deserves to be hanged as richly as you." The poor lad,
who was only nineteen, suffered death with so much meekness and
fortitude, that an officer of the army who attended the
execution, and who had made himself remarkable by rudeness and
severity, was strangely melted, and said, "I do not believe that
my Lord Chief Justice himself could be proof against this." Hopes
were entertained that Benjamin would be pardoned. One victim of
tender years was surely enough for one house to furnish. Even
Jeffreys was, or pretended to be, inclined to lenity. The truth
was that one of his kinsmen, from whom he had large expectations,
and whom, therefore, he could not treat as he generally treated
intercessors. pleaded strongly for the afflicted family. Time was
allowed for a reference to London. The sister of the prisoner
went to Whitehall with a petition. Many courtiers wished her
success; and Churchill, among whose numerous faults cruelty had
no place, obtained admittance for her. "I wish well to your suit
with all my heart," he said, as they stood together in the
antechamber; "but do not flatter yourself with hopes. This
marble,"- and he laid his hand on the chimneypiece,-"is not
harder than the King." The prediction proved true. James was
inexorable. Benjamin Hewling died with dauntless courage, amidst
lamentations in which
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.444
In Hampshire Alice Lisle was the only victim: but, on the day
following her execution, Jeffreys reached Dorchester, the
principal town of the county in which Monmouth had landed; and
the judicial massacre began. The court was hung, by order of the
Chief Justice, with scarlet; and this innovation seemed to the
multitude to indicate a bloody purpose. It was also rumoured
that, when the clergyman who preached the assize sermon enforced
the duty of mercy, the ferocious mouth of the Judge was distorted
by an ominous grin. These things made men augur ill of what was
to follow.445
More than three hundred prisoners were to be tried. The work
seemed heavy; but Jeffreys had a contrivance for making it light.
He let it be understood that the only chance of obtaining pardon
or respite was to plead guilty. Twenty-nine persons, who put
themselves on their country and were convicted, were ordered to
be tied up without delay. The remaining prisoners pleaded guilty
by scores. Two hundred and ninety-two received sentence of death.
The whole number hanged in Dorsetshire amounted to seventy-four.
From Dorchester Jeffreys proceeded to Exeter. The civil war had
barely grazed the frontier of Devonshire. Here, therefore,
comparatively few persons were capitally punished. Somersetshire,
the chief seat of the rebellion, had been reserved for the last
and most fearful vengeance. In this county two hundred and
thirty-three prisoners were in a few days hanged, drawn, and
quartered. At every spot where two roads met, on every
marketplace, on the green of every large village which had
furnished Monmouth with soldiers, ironed corpses clattering in
the wind, or heads and quarters stuck on poles, poisoned the air,
and made the traveller sick with horror. In many parishes the
peasantry could not assemble in the house of God without seeing
the ghastly face of a neighbour grinning at them over the porch.
The Chief Justice was all himself. His spirits rose higher and
higher as the work went on. He laughed, shouted, joked, and swore
in such a way that many thought him drunk from morning to night.
But in him it was not easy to distinguish the madness produced by
evil passions from the madness produced by brandy. A prisoner
affirmed that the witnesses who appeared against him were not
entitled to credit. One of them, he said, was a Papist, and
another a prostitute. "Thou impudent rebel," exclaimed the Judge,
"to reflect on the King's evidence! I see thee, villain, I see
thee already with the halter round thy neck." Another produced
testimony that he was a good Protestant. "Protestant! " said
Jeffreys; "you mean Presbyterian. I'll hold you a wager of it. I
can smell a Presbyterian forty miles." One wretched man moved the
pity even of bitter Tories. "My Lord," they said, "this poor
creature is on the parish." "Do not trouble yourselves," said the
Judge, "I will ease the parish of the burden." It was not only
against the prisoners that his fury broke forth. Gentlemen and
noblemen of high consideration and stainless loyalty, who
ventured to bring to his notice any extenuating circumstance,
were almost sure to receive what he called, in the coarse dialect
which he had learned in the pothouses of Whitechapel, a lick with
the rough side of his tongue. Lord Stawell, a Tory peer, who
could not conceal his horror at the remorseless manner in which
his poor neighbours were butchered, was punished by having a
corpse suspended in chains at his park gate.446 In such
spectacles originated many tales of terror, which were long told
over the cider by the Christmas fires of the farmers of
Somersetshire. Within the last forty years, peasants, in some
districts, well knew the accursed spots, and passed them
unwillingly after sunset.447
Jeffreys boasted that he had hanged more traitors than all his
predecessors together since the Conquest. It is certain that the
number of persons whom he put to death in one month, and in one
shire, very much exceeded the number of all the political
offenders who have been put to death in our island since the
Revolution. The rebellions of 1715 and 1745 were of longer
duration, of wider extent, and of more formidable aspect than
that which was put down at Sedgemoor. It has not been generally
thought that, either after the rebellion of 1715, or after the
rebellion of 1745, the House of Hanover erred on the side of
clemency. Yet all the executions of 1715 and 1745 added together
will appear to have been few indeed when compared with those
which disgraced the Bloody Assizes. The number of the rebels whom
Jeffreys hanged on this circuit was three hundred and twenty.448
Such havoc must have excited disgust even if the sufferers had
been generally odious. But they were, for the most part, men of
blameless life, and of high religious profession. They were
regarded by themselves, and by a large proportion of their
neighbours, not as wrongdoers, but as martyrs who sealed with
blood the truth of the Protestant religion. Very few of the
convicts professed any repentance for what they had done. Many,
animated by the old Puritan spirit, met death, not merely with
fortitude, but with exultation. It was in vain that the ministers
of the Established Church lectured them on the guilt of rebellion
and on the importance of priestly absolution. The claim of the
King to unbounded authority in things temporal, and the claim of
the clergy to the spiritual power of binding and loosing, moved
the bitter scorn of the intrepid sectaries. Some of them composed
hymns in the dungeon, and chaunted them on the fatal sledge.
Christ, they sang while they were undressing for the butchery,
would soon come to rescue Zion and to make war on Babylon, would
set up his standard, would blow his trumpet, and would requite
his foes tenfold for all the evil which had been inflicted on his
servants. The dying words of these men were noted down: their
farewell letters were kept as treasures; and, in this way, with
the help of some invention and exaggeration, was formed a copious
supplement to the Marian martyrology.449
A few eases deserve special mention. Abraham Holmes, a retired
officer of the parliamentary army, and one of those zealots who
would own no king but King Jesus, had been taken at Sedgemoor.
His arm had been frightfully mangled and shattered in the battle;
and, as no surgeon was at hand, the stout old soldier amputated
it himself. He was carried up to London, and examined by the King
in Council, but would make no submission. "I am an aged man," he
said, "and what remains to me of life is not worth a falsehood or
a baseness. I have always been a republican; and I am so still."
He was sent back to the West and hanged. The people remarked with
awe and wonder that the beasts which were to drag him to the
gallows became restive and went back. Holmes himself doubted not
that the Angel of the Lord, as in the old time, stood in the way
sword in hand, invisible to human eyes, but visible to the
inferior animals. "Stop, gentlemen," he cried: "let me go on
foot. There is more in this than you think. Remember how the ass
saw him whom the prophet could not see." He walked manfully to
the gallows, harangued the people with a smile, prayed fervently
that God would hasten the downfall of Antichrist and the
deliverance of England, and went up the ladder with an apology
for mounting so awkwardly. "You see," he said, "I have but one
arm."450
Not less courageously died Christopher Balttiscombe, a young
Templar of good family and fortune, who, at Dorchester, an
agreeable provincial town proud of its taste and refinement, was
regarded by all as the model of a fine gentleman. Great interest
was made to save him. It was believed through the West of England
that he was engaged to a young lady of gentle blood, the sister
of the Sheriff, that she threw herself at the feet of Jeffreys to
beg for mercy, and that Jeffreys drove her from him with a jest
so hideous that to repeat it would be an offence against decency
and humanity. Her lover suffered at Lyme piously and
courageously.451
A still deeper interest was excited by the fate of two gallant
brothers, William and Benjamin Hewling. They were young,
handsome, accomplished, and well connected. Their maternal
grandfather was named Kiffin. He was one of the first merchants
in London, and was generally considered as the head of the
Baptists. The Chief Justice behaved to William Hewling on the
trial with characteristic brutality. "You have a grandfather," he
said, "who deserves to be hanged as richly as you." The poor lad,
who was only nineteen, suffered death with so much meekness and
fortitude, that an officer of the army who attended the
execution, and who had made himself remarkable by rudeness and
severity, was strangely melted, and said, "I do not believe that
my Lord Chief Justice himself could be proof against this." Hopes
were entertained that Benjamin would be pardoned. One victim of
tender years was surely enough for one house to furnish. Even
Jeffreys was, or pretended to be, inclined to lenity. The truth
was that one of his kinsmen, from whom he had large expectations,
and whom, therefore, he could not treat as he generally treated
intercessors. pleaded strongly for the afflicted family. Time was
allowed for a reference to London. The sister of the prisoner
went to Whitehall with a petition. Many courtiers wished her
success; and Churchill, among whose numerous faults cruelty had
no place, obtained admittance for her. "I wish well to your suit
with all my heart," he said, as they stood together in the
antechamber; "but do not flatter yourself with hopes. This
marble,"- and he laid his hand on the chimneypiece,-"is not
harder than the King." The prediction proved true. James was
inexorable. Benjamin Hewling died with dauntless courage, amidst
lamentations in which
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