At the parliament on April 1685, Scotland demonstrated how loyal subjects should treat their king – an example which was duly followed by their southern neighbours soon afterwards. Yet despite this enthusiastic reception, within weeks James faced two rebellions. In Western Scotland the Earl of Argyl raised the fiery cross to summon the clans, and in South West England the Duke of Monmouth was joined by thousands of rebels eager to fight for religious freedom. The outcome would be soaked in blood.

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Transcript

Last time we welcomed James II of Great Britain to the thrones of the Three Kingdoms. This was an opportunity to discuss the much disputed historiography of the Glorious Revolution – a title which nowadays requires quotation marks around it or be consigned to eternal fire – which might or might not be just around the corner, depending on your view of plot spoilers. I am forced to admit that the episode caused a bit of outrage in the pews of this parish, and I would like to formally apologise, and try to put that right. The issue is that I made no mention of the primary source for the period, the Ladybird Kings and Queens of England – which is indeed a grievous sin. However, there is no dedicated title for Jimmy II and VII, just a single page of which two paragraphs are all he  gets. The picture is great though – James dropping the seal into the Thames. This is their judgement

James II…was brave and intelligent, but he was a Catholic, and his two aims were to make England a Catholic country, and himself an absolute monarch.

There then follows a plot spoiler – I’ll leave that out. Then Jonathan got in touch and sent me images of the pages – that is so kind of you Jonathan, because this turned out to be a much newer edition – 1981 if my skill at Latin numerals is sufficient. This had much more text that the old one, pictures are great as well. They are just as uncompromising, and beat around no bushes; James

Intended to make England a Catholic country again and rule according to the ‘divine right of kings’ with total power

The phrase ‘outrageous king’ is used, and James flees because

He became afraid he would have his head chopped off, like his father.

It’s a straightforward – not a hint of revisionism. I hope I have hereby righted the outrageous wrong, and that I in turn will now not have my head chopped off. With thanks to Jonathan for saving my life

Last time then we also talked about fears that, given the kerfuffle of the exclusion crisis, James would not be welcome on the throne of England. And on his death Charles had been gloomy about his prospects

When my brother comes to the throne he will be obliged again to leave his native soil

But actually Charles had prepared the ground well, the Tories and Anglican’s were well up to welcome him as the embodiment of supreme majesty, law and defender of the Anglican church – and the promises he made in February 1685 in his first fluish of enthusiasm to defend England’s religion ’as established in law’ seemed to confirm there was no egg more good. And he probably wouldn’t be around long, and Queen Mary had failed to produce an heir – so there would only be a Catholic monarch for a short while anyway, before his protestant daughter succeeded him.

This unfortunately also meant James was a man in a hurry, because he probably read the situation the same. He expected to use his royal powers to advance the cause of Catholicism, and that once the light shone on his kingdoms, there would anyway be a stream of conversions. A Jesuit had written to his colleague in Germany with an upbeat assessment, quoting James as saying that he would

Either convert England or die a martyr

And when said Jesuit had suggested he take things slowly, little by little, don’t scare the horses sort of thing, James had replied he was

Growing old, and must take large steps

He would start in Scotland, because as he said in his letter to them,

‘to distinguish the confidence he had in the Scotch Nobility and Gentry who had stuck so close to him in his adversity”

Which meant they would do

Duty to us in the same manner

And in

Being exemplary to others…

in the

demonstrations of affection to our person, and compliance with our desires

Also, the Scottish parliament was easier to control, being unicameral, with all MPs under the eye of their lords, and the agenda set and controlled specifically by the king with the Lords of the Articles,  with less room for debate. James, like Henry VII in England 150 years before, saw parliament simply as an extension, an enhancer of his royal will. So – they were to sit in April., and in England parliament would sit in May.

James could not have been better pleased with the result. As the start,. his commissioner, the Duke of Queensberry re-iterated his king’s commitment to

defend and protect…religion as established by law

and with that said, asked that his loyal parliament

assert the rights and privileges of the crown

so that together they develop effective ways

for destroying that desperate phanatical and irreclaimable party who have brought us to the brink of ruin and disgrace

He’s talking here about the hotter kind of Presbyterians and covenanters, groups like the Cameronians who rejected royal power over religion. And it’s a canny move. Whatever his belief in toleration, and most historians believe it was genuine, none the less he equated radical Protestantism with rebellion and sedition. And on several occasions, the Presbyterians of the SW had given evidence of just that. Their country was now garrisoned by watchful and frequently brutal government soldiers, because the Scottish elites were terrified of a return of the Covenanter regime of the Revolution. They were therefore very keen to empower their king as a bulwark against them – always assuming he was as good as his word in defending the church as established in law.

So – they delivered. In spades. They delivered plus size. They celebrated 2,000 years hereditary monarchs, 111 of them, and professed damnation to all who did anything

Contrary or derogatory to the King’s sacred, supreme, absolute power and authority

They voted the customs and excise for James, as was customary. But, they did not give them for just his life – but to the monarchy in perpetuity. For ever, here you go, fill up your boots, cut my own throat if you don’t. They extended the Test Acts and voted an extra subsidy of £216,000 Scots when then news came of rebellion approaching from the exiled Earl of Argyl, who had been forced to flee in 1681 to the Netherlands, and been convicted of Treason in absentia. So  – job done. Oh – and while they were at it they added to the penal laws against the Presbyterians; even talking positively about the Covenant was now treason, attending a field conventicle was now a capital offence. In the memory of the Presbyterians, the Covenanters who had run Scotland and tamed its kings in the Revolution, this was a terrible parliament

More cruel acts of parliament enacted in this tyrant’s time than the former made in all his reign

They would not forget the persecution and death visited on them since 1660. They would wait; and watch – and there would be a reckoning.

The English parliament met on May 19^th 1685; by which time, news had arrived of said rebel landing by the Earl of Argyle in the west of Scotland, so there’s a bit of context. James laid out the role of parliament in his view; which was to do what he told them to do when he told them. And to be quick about it. He started by telling them, cross my heart and hope to die, I mean everything I said about defending the laws and church as established, cut my own throat if I don’t guv’, and then gave them some pointers as to their conduct. Do NOT, under any circumstances try that thing of

Feeding me from time to time by such proportions as they shall think convenient

DO, under all circumstances,

Comply with me in what I have desired, and that you will do it speedily.

So – that seems nice, simple and clear then. And to be fair, James was not facing a tough crowd. The days of Shaftesbury were long since gone; Charles’ purge of the early 80s had swept Whigs away from positions of influence, and where they still sat, crawling out like toads from under unturned rocks, there was always dirty tricks to put them back. Elections back then loved a few tricks, dirty or otherwise. For just one example. At Leicester the Whig Edward Abney was hot to contest this election, he’d lined up his supporters or the big day, 16^th March, headed for the hustings…too late. The Tory Sheriff had held the elections on 13^th, and not seen fit to tell anyone except Tories. Sweet.

So the vast, vast majority of MPs were Tory, Anglicans, loyal to the majesty of the Crown – of 517 MPs a mere 57 were Whigs. But the truth is that it wasn’t all manipulation; Charles had used the power of the Crown, but he had also won the argument, of authority vs chaos. The composition of the house reflected the mood of the nation – it stood tall for king, church of England, custom and law.

And so rather than flicking V’s at the King’s pre-emptory instruction to do the dead ant thing, roll over and wiggle their legs in the air, that is broadly what they did – though not quite to the Scottish extent. They voted James the same normal income as his brother had got used to, and customs and excise; though only for the customary life, rather than the monarchy in perpetuity. They did, however, underestimate the customs yield, it turned out much bigger, and as a result James’ income would go up from Charles’ £1.3m, to £2m. So James was flush; whatever went wrong with Jimmy’s reign, it wasn’t lack of cash. The Licensing act was renewed, Roger L’Estrange would eagerly continue his happy work of censorship and shagging.

So, it was a great success; James was delighted with parliament. He might not have quite grasped the nature of the deal though, might not have fully understood that all of this cheerleading and bunting hanging was based on one central and critical assumption: That he would in turn live up to the promise in his declaration to stand by and support the authority of church of England with all his might, including the penal laws that underpinned its supremacy. And in this regard, there was an early sour note, a discordant strand to the sweet melody. A committee of 330 MPs voted to ask the king to vigorous execute the laws against Dissenters. James didn’t think kings should be told what to do, so when he received it he took great offence, and told his court controlled MPs to make this clear to the others. The MPs hurriedly backed off.

The story so far, then, has been pretty much as positive a start as you could imagine – James is off to a flyer in all three kingdoms, including Ireland where expectation is high for his reign. There are some voices objecting – but they are off the main stage and distant. There are two qualifications to the positivity; the first is just to make the point again that this support is conditional on James delivering on his promise to maintain the Established churches in their dominant position as embedded in law. The other is that within 6 months of his accession James will face two rebellions, one in Scotland, one in England. So let’s hear how he deals with those.

Archibald Campbell, was the nineth earl of Argyll, who came from a covenanter background, had refused to take the Test Act in Scotland while James had been in control there in Charles’ reign, because it recognised the king as supreme over church as well as state. He had skulked for quite a while in London after escaping from Edinburgh Castle, and lived with a wealthy, fiercely passionate Baptist and political activist in London called Ann Smith, and together they did some fomenting and plotting. With government agents on his tail, he then fled to the free air of The Netherlands and took up with various Scottish exiles…most of whom, he annoyed with his inflated sense of his own importance, and his resentment at his lowly position. Nonetheless they continued to foment and plot.

Before long  by 1684, they heard of a new addition to the plotting ex pat community, with the arrival of the illegitimate son of Charles II, James Scott, Duke of Monmouth and Rye House Plotter. Now Monmouth was able to rely on plotters much higher up the food chain even than the wealthy Mrs Smith. The governor of the Spanish Netherlands gave him a generous annuity, and made him colonel of a Spanish regiment. He was welcomed by William of Orange at The Hague. There he lived with his long time squeeze, Henrietta Wentworth – rather than with his wife, obs. While still Duke of York, James heard about his welcome there, and was scandalised, writing sternly to his daughter Mary. She, however, was too busy ice skating with the Protestant Duke, from where the French count of Avaux reported back to Louis that it was

A very extraordinary thing to see the Princess of Orange, with very short petticoats, and those tucked up half way to her waist, with iron pattins on her feet learning to slide, sometimes on one foot, sometimes on the other

Sounds all rather lovely, and Monmouth was enjoying it all so much that at one stage he even said he was ready to give up the political ambitions to do some kinging. That changed though when his Dad died; the atmosphere changed, suddenly the Spanish king wanted him gone so as not to annoy the new Catholic king, and even William of Orange was forced to officially ban him. So bidding for the position of King once more seemed the best option.

It seems obvious that Argyle and Monmouth should have hooked up – in fact they hadn’t. But now they came together in Utrecht; it didn’t go that well. Argyl was very jealous of the Duke, wanted nothing to do with him

‘the Erle was high, peremptory, and passionate … and parted in that temper

Someone said Argyl. But his supporters said they wouldn’t prime a musket unless the pair planned together. And so it was to be a Pincer movement; simultaneous risings. Argyl would head to the lands of his loyal clansmen where he would raise them to fever pitch with the traditional call to war  – the burning cross. Monmouth would go to the West Country, where he’d had such a successful Progress back in the day. He might have taken squeefed out this agent reported a lack of enthusiasm – ‘people were cold’ he wrote. But Monmouth pressed on – and he heard news that there would be co-ordinated risings in Chester and in London by his supporters. Both he and Argyl were bankrolled by women – Argyll by Ann Smith’s £10,000 which is a whopper – modern equivalent of £1.2m, so he had 300 ships and 300 men. All Monmouth had was Henrietta’s jewellery, and another £1,000 from Mrs Smith  – which bought 3 ships, 4 small guns, 1500 muskets and 83 men. All they had to do was to launch at the same time.

Well – that didn’t happen. Monmouth was behind schedule and then was trapped in port by a Catholic wind, while Argyll sailed up via the Orkney Isles down the West coast to land at Tobermoray on 11^th May; one of the men with him was Richard Rumbold, by the way, of the Rye House Plot. Once a rebel, always a rebel. Argyll put out stirring proclamations – which basically focussed on lay down your  life to ‘make me great again’ – I exaggerate for effect but not much. Later he was pressured to give people some idea of else what risking their lives in rebellion might gain; so Argyll’s banner then read

For God and Religion against Poperie, Tyrrany, Arbitrary Government, and Erastianism

As a piece of copyrighting, I think it leaves something to be desired. If there are any budding copywriters out there, I have a tip – erastianism doesn’t belong on any marketing material. Not even for a book on erastianism I would suggest. There’s little sex in Erastianism. It is not the language of populism.

Well. The thing is that not only was Argyll’s pitch far from inspiring, he wasn’t well loved; the Campbells were famously exploitative landlords and unpopular around the western Isles– just ask a MacDonald. The Campbell homelands on Kintyre had been ruthlessly persecuted by the Marquis of Athol after Argyll had fled, as had the other potential source of supporters, the enthusiastically protestants Presbyterians of the lowland South West, with those government soldiers quartered through the counties. So as Argyll worked southwards trying to find support his army gradually disintegrated until he was left alone to flee. He disguised himself to sneak back up to the highlands…and even that went wrong when he was arrested by a weaver called John. By the 12^th June he was in Edinburgh castle, on 30^th June he was standing in front of the Maiden.

I shouldn’t really be blathering about this, I should be getting on with Monmouth, but you know, it’s my podcast and I’ll blather if I want to and all that. The Maiden was a Guillotine in use for a couple of hundred years before the French claimed it; one difference though was that you lay on your back looking up at the blade. That sounds uncomfortable to me. Anyway, as he gazed upwards, Argyl saw that it was a bit wonky. So he had tools brought, measured it up and had it set straight before making his speech. I like this story for the sang froid, obviously, though no engine of destruction subjected to my level of DIY skills would ever be capable of taking anyone’s life. Sadly the story seems to be untrue; instead, the sight horrified him, and he asked to be blindfolded. Then – gross anecdote alert – when the Maiden severed his neck, as the blood spurted out in a cascade, the body gave a massive spasm and leapt upright, blood flying everywhere, until the executioner rugby tackled it to the ground. Yuck really.

It was not until Argyll was passing into Edinburgh castle, that the Protestant Duke Monmouth had landed in SW England, at Lyme Regis on 11^th June. His arrival was greeted with much more enthusiasm, – ‘A Monmouth’ A Monmouth!’ cheered the crowd that quickly gathered. By the end of the day, 300 men had already joined the rebels. That’s a bit more like it – maybe this version will sell better than the Argyll edition.

Monmouth had chosen the South West because it had a tradition of being a home to radical protestants and Dissenters and lovers of the Good Old Cause. So on June 11^th, he gave out his proclamation, which included a demand for toleration – for Dissenters, but also Catholics as it happens. And for a range of constitutional reforms, very much along whig lines. For some people it worked; estimates vary, but the government figured Monmouth attracted an army of 6,000; Monmouth claimed he could have had an army of 20,000 but didn’t have enough guns to arm them. But the people who came were almost exclusively ordinary people, not the kind of gentry with money and wider appeal you really needed to mount a challenge. Monmouth’s pronouncements weren’t really attracting the sort of people who had rallied round Charles and James, because as far as they could see, this was exactly the sort of thing they had been worried about in the Exclusion Brouhaha, Roundhead types out to undermine the good old CofE and start another civil war.

Still – best foot forward. Monmouth started off northwards towards Bristol figuring that was lightly defended, and would provide a good base, while rebellions hopefully broke out in the north and in London as promised. As he marched, more volunteers joined; including a group of 4 young men in their early 20s, who a few years before had been school mates at Morton’s Dissenting Academy in London – their names were  Battiscombe, Jenkyns, Hewlett and one Daniel Foe, who having recently married, had changed his name to the posher sounding Daniel Defoe. They marched under the banner ‘Fear nothing but God’. And so Daniel Defoe enters our story, him of Robinson Crusoe fame.

As they marched, they met local Dorset Trained Bands called out to destroy them. There was one sharp skirmish where the Duke’s cavalry commander Lord Grey was forced to withdraw so that’s bad. But then most of the Trained Bands deserted, being pretty sympathetic to Monmouth; it’s estimated that maybe half of the Somerset militia deserted too. So whatever might happen next, the local militias were not going to deal with it.

So it was a good thing that James had a professional army approaching, of maybe 2,600, under the command of the Earl of Feversham, a delightfully incompetent commander. So it is fortunate that he had with him a thoroughly competent second in command – John Churchill; and also a King who knew what he was doing, and ordered them to fortify Bristol. Which is what they were doing when Monmouth reached Taunton on 20^th June. Here, to get a bit more momentum going, he had himself declared king – while the local council were forced to watch and cheer at swordpoint. And then onwards, to where he planned a surprise attack on Bristol, by crossing the River Avon at Keynsham south of the city. Where he was unlucky, because a scouting cavalry contingent from Churchill’s command met them, and the rebels were turned back.

It was a big moment for Monmouth as it happens. Because a bunch of captured prisoners  filled his head with tales of a vast impregnable royal army, and anyway his surprise route to attack Bristol had been discovered. Maybe he should have kept going towards the Midlands and North in the hope others would join, but instead he lost his nerve. Reports came in that salvation lay in Wiltshire, with support and arms and provisions being gathered for him. So he effectively started to retreat, which never looks good.

He did try a morale booster on his way at Bath, going to demand its surrender in front of the city walls. Where a lucky shot from a cannon blew his herald’s head off, which was not the sort of thing to boost morale either. He then reached Norton St Philip in Somerset – a lovely place these days, with a fantastic Pub, one of the many claiming to be Britain’s oldest I think. So, Monmouth made that his HQ for a while. There, the rebels came under attack from a hardened pro of the royal army, Colonel Percy Kirke. But at Norton St Philip, this Tangiers veteran walked into a hail of fire, and suffered heavy losses, maybe 500 men down. At last, the rebels were winning something, morale rose, this might have been the moment for a bold counter attack. But the rain, the rain was falling, the ground was a quagmire. The opportunity was lost, Kirke escaped.

That night, Feversham, and Churchill saw the rebel fires burning in the town. But when they advanced in the morning they found Monmouth had gone – to Frome, Shepton Mallet, into the marshy Somerset Levels close to Bridgewater, which Monmouth then ordered to be fortified. He now knew there was to be no rising in the north, nor in London, and Feversham was closing in; he decided he must be bold, strike north, past the royal force and burst into the Midlands to find support. But on the night of 5^th July as Feversham camped at a little settlement called Westonzoyland, Monmouth though he saw an opportunity. Feversham had deployed very poorly; he had camped his men strung out  in 3 disconnected units. They were in the open, unprotected; Few scouts and pickets had been set, because Feversham was convinced Monmouth was beaten, and would keep running. Monmouth was worried about the royalist artillery, far superior to anything he had, capable of cutting them to pieces in a set piece; but they were all focussed together at the main road, from where any attack might be expected.

So – here was a chance. To attack the unprotected camp from an unexpected direction, a night attack across the moor, Sedgemoor. While Lord Grey’s Cavalry swung round on their flank, attacked in the dark, destroyed the artillery and drove the royalist infantry out of their camp – into the waiting rebel infantry, where, in chaotic hand to hand fighting, the advantage of the superior organisation of a professional army would be lost. It was a plan, it was bold – and it could work.

So, at 10 o’Clock that night, they were ready. Monmouth led his infantry out in the dark, in silence; Grey mounted with his cavalry, horses hooves muffled, the wheels of artillery carriages greased so as to make no sound.

Monmouth’s advance went better than he had dared hope. They met no scouts, and by 2 in the morning were less than 3/4s of a mile from the unsuspecting royalist army. When disaster struck – a shot, in the dark, broke the night – maybe a nervous trooper, maybe a royal scout. But it was enough; from the camp came the cry

“Beat your drums, the enemy is come. For the Lord’s sake, beat your drums”.

Monmouth and Grey were close; a quick strike now, and the daring attack could still work. So Monmouth hurried to attack the royalist camps, while Grey set off as fast as he could while he still had time to fall on the artillery regiment before they were ready, and cause chaos in the rear of the royal camp.

The trouble was – the low lying, marshy Sedgemoor was criss-crossed with man-made drains and ditches – Rhynes they were called locally. And at this crucial moment Grey could not find the crossing places they had planned to use – in the end even having to cross right in front of the royalist army, and coming under heavy fire – Grey’s cavalry broke, and fled. Monmouth’s infantry were also baulked by Langmoor Rhine, and failing to find a crossing at all, started firing at the enemy from far too long away to be effective, and the royal army was able to organise. And then came the counter attack.

The sun was up now, the rebels were in plain view, the rebel cavalry was gone, the professional army was in good order, with cavalry alongside.  Rebel foot soldiers faced cavalry, totally unprotected by their won. It became a slaughter. Everyone ran. More were slaughtered.

Monmouth and Grey disguised themselves as labourers and tried to make for the south coast; they were discovered in a ditch near Ringwood in Hampshire, starved and desperate – Monmouth had nothing but a handful of peas in his pocket. He was taken to London, and within a few days was executed at the Tower, by an executioner so bad that his name would be used as a synonym for Satan – Jack Ketch he was called. He’d botched the beheading of Russell after the Rye House plot too, so much so half way, through Russell is supposed to have asked for his money back. As he put his head down, Monmouth is reported to have said

Do not serve me as you did my Lord Russell. I have heard you struck him three or four times…

On reflection it was probably bad idea to get lippy with someone whose job it is to chop your head off, and so Ketch took his time. It took five blows for him to dispatch Monmouth, and the crowd were so incensed, Ketch had to be rescued by the guards before he was lynched. Ketch was dead within a year, but lived on as a character in the Punch and Judy show – he’s the hangman who pursues Punch, but is tricked into hanging himself.

Of the 4 companions of Morton’s Academy, one of the them, Daniel Defoe, made it to Scotland and then to the continent. In later life he would write of Monmouth’s failure to cross Langmoor Rhine

Had not these accidents conspired to his defeat he had certainly cut the Lord Feversham’s army all to pieces, but by these circumstances, he was brought to a battle on unequal terms, and defeated. The rest I need not mention

The rest that he need not mention refers to one of those famous events in English history everyone used to learn about at school – do they still I wonder? Anyway it was part of the national, folk story – Hanging Judge Jeffreys and the Bloody Assizes. Part of the reason it’s so well known was the Whig political writers that later fuelled the fury, but for once their invective was not much of an exaggeration.

The brutality started immediately after the battle with a stream of executions without trial – the Dutch gunner for example, had been pretty much the most effective person in the whole rebellion. Well – he was strung up straightaway. King James had a personal hand in this, when he issued the instruction that rebels

Who proclaimed Monmouth king may be hanged without bringing them to formal trial

And that

He would have some of them made an example for terror to the rest[1]

Exemplary justice. Well – mainly exemplary. Probably something like 50 were killed without trial. Percy Kirke, the man beaten at Norton St Philip, once more comes into the story; his men were so brutal that they were known as Kirke’s Lambs – that’s irony, by the way; at a regimental dinner party to celebrate their recall to London on 31^st August, a full 6 weeks after the battle, they had three rebels brought out and shot for a bit of fun. I’ve hardly ever seen that at any of the parties I’ve been to. We’ve lost so many of those good old traditions here in today’s England.

The Chief Justice was George Geoffreys, who had been one of the monarchy’s most effective legal bully boys in Charles’ Quo Warranto campaign, and had been rewarded by James with a Barony. In May, James had exacted revenge on Titus Oates, in which trial it’s been suggested that Jeffreys maybe possibly perhaps might be accused of leading the juries. I am no legal expert, so let me turn it over to you to decide. This is ole Jeffers addressing the court about the defendant, Titus Oates

You are a shame to mankind…the blackness of his soul…the baseness of his actions ought to be looked on with such horror and detestation as to think him unworthy any longer to tread upon the face of God’s earth

What do you think? Seems pretty balanced to me. Anyway, the Jury did convict Oates for perjury, to be whipped and pilloried, also fined £100,000 and banged up in debtor’s prison, which would be for life with a fine of that size. It’s difficult to feel a lot of sympathy for him, it must be said.

Anyway, it was Judge Jeffreys who led the legal team after Sedgemoor, and the trials kicked off in Winchester on 29^th August, where hundreds were held in jail waiting. One of the earliest cases was Alice Lisle, whose husband John Lisle had been a regicide back in the day.  The good judge was almost dribbling as he fixed his glare on the 67 year old, who kept falling asleep in the hot court, and he provided a textbook model of judicial impartiality for Alice, by reminding the jury constantly that her husband was a Cromwellian and regicide, at one point telling the jury

I will not say, what hand her husband had in the death of that blessed martyr, she has enough to answer for in her own guilt

When the jury expressed their doubts he replied

there is as full proof as proof can be … for my part, I thought there was no difficulty in it

So that’s clear then. Against all the odds, Alice was convicted and sentenced to burn. It might well have been assumed that the King would commute the conviction or even offer a pardon; but not a bit of it – although he did change the punishment to beheading. This is a feature of these bloody assizes; James consistently refused to reprieve the convicted, although this was often the practice – he was keen to have an example set, who durst defy the omnipotent to arms.

For Alice, maybe it was worth it though, because she will earn a special place in history; as the last woman to have been executed by a judicial sentence of beheading in England

Jeffreys went on tour running assizes in Dorchester, Taunton, Exeter and Wells; it’s also suggested he stayed at the George Inn in Norton St Philip and tried 12 rebels there. They were convicted, taken from the George across the road to an orchard, and hanged. It’s called Bloody Close now. Dan, Pat and I stayed in the George, and I can confirm it is just across the road so bloody close. We then walked Sedgemoor, which was fun.

People argue about the numbers but probably in the order of 1,400 people were tried. Jeffreys was not inclined to mercy any more than he was inclined to impartiality; many of the rebels were dissenters, and Jeffreys did not like Dissenters because, as he indeed pointed out to a jury

‘they are to blame for the death of King Charles I’

His job was to make his monarch safe, not quibble about legal niceties like I don’t know, guilt or innocence; as he told his royal master, he would pawn his

Life and loyalty that Taunton and Bristol and the County of Somerset too shall know their duty before I leave them.

In a letter James had written to William of Orange he casually mentioned that Jeffreys was

Making his campaign in the west

So – justice is just the extension of the war by other means, to pervert a famous expression. 1,400 is a lot to get through timewise, but efficiency was important, so there were shortcuts to help speed things up. Government agents would tell prisoners that if they confessed they’d be treated leniently…if not they’d suffer the hideous death of being hanged until almost dead but not quite, having their entrails cut out and burned in front of them, and then be pulled into bits by horses. So they’d confess, which meant no need to hear lots of long boring evidence, and they could  – be convicted and sentenced to being hanged until almost dead but not quite, having their entrails cut out and burned in front of them and then pulled into bits by horses. The site of so much death brings vultures as well. One such was the lawyer Andrew Loder, who promised rebels to get a royal pardon, for a fee, and then did nothing, except trousering the fee.

About 250 people were executed. That meant there was a lot of human bits to be processed after all that pulling apart – the horses must have been knackered. A newsletter in October 1685 summarised what happened to 3 of them

They were quartered and boiled, and one of them sent to be hung up at Plymouth, another at Dartmouth, and the other to be hung up there, his head on the top of the shambles and his quarters at four quarters around the borough.

As one historian noted, the south west was turned into one ‘vast anatomical museum’.

About 850 of them were sent to the West Indies as indentured servants, there to spend 10 years in service. They were not slaves, of course, but their lives were cheap and for 10 years they could be bought and sold. There is an absolutely remarkable story that survives of Henry and William Pitman, sentenced to transportation, sold to a, quote, ‘Needy Papist’ who then took a bribe to sell them on to someone nice, but then sold them on to a murderous brute. William died in the Caribbean, Henry escaped from Barbados with some others in 1687, to a tiny island where they copied the locals by living off Turtles and turtle eggs. He managed to find passage to the Bahamas, and then New York, and back to blighty in 1688. His pals were caught by a Spaniard and enslaved; he wrote

When they went to sea, we were carried as their slaves, to pump ship, wash their clothes, and beat corn in great wooden mortars, with Negroes, with naked swords, always standing by as overseers

The last thing to say, is that given the vast numbers involved this process went on for months and months, still going on deep into November, a running sore, so that even those close to court were sickened by the whole thing. But, that does not mean that the rebel cause led to an upswell of opposition to James; not a bit of it. The learning from the rebellions from May to July was the remarkable absence of much sympathy for either Argyll or Monmouth; so even if the Battle of Sedgemoor had gone the other way, it’s not at all clear there would have been a different King James, i.e. James III and VIII. And James had use of the 9,000 strong standing army his big brother had managed to squirrel away – so more royal troops had been mustering anyway.

There are things both rebels did wrong – their proclamations made no attempt top appeal to the middle ground moderates for example, certainly not to Anglicans. But the real conclusion is that James’ position was rock solid; his promise to support the Church of England, and the fear of the chaos of civil war trumped any sympathy for the rebels. And in fact in the short term, it strengthened his hand as the bulwark of stability, whose need had been demonstrated by this threatened chaos. He will immediately use it as an excuse to build an even greater standing army. All he really had to do for a long and happy reign, was to deliver on his promises.

And we will see how that goes next time! I hope you have enjoyed this rather gruesome episode, and I would like to thank you for listening, and those of you who get in touch, via the website, Facebook or email, it is always a joy to hear from you.

 

[1] Vallance, E ‘The Glorious Revolution’, p64