698

"'Tis not so difficult to die!"

He felt anxious, with good cause, lest the butcherly Jack Ketch were to torture him in his death, as Ketch had tortured Russell; but met his fate with quiet courage. The bitterness of death was past.

:0:

Note 1.-On the Children of Monmouth and his Duchess. (Cf. p. 712.) This child, Lady Anne Scott, on whom the gloom of the Tower had fallen so heavily, was buried in what was then known as the Monmouth Vault, and the interment is thus recorded in the Westminster Register of Burials:

1685. August 13.-Lady Anne Scott [in the Abbey].

"Second daughter of James, Duke of Monmouth, by Lady Anne Seatt [daughter of Francis, second Earl of Buccleugh], and born 17 Sept. 1675. She died in the Tower of London. See her brother's burial [Charles, Earl of Doncaster, eldest son, died on the 9th Feb. 167, aged one year, five month, and fifteen days], 10 Feb. 1673-74; and the burials of another brother [Lord Francis, fourth son, born in 1678], 6 Dec. 1679, and of her sister [Charlotte], 5 Sept. 1683. The unofficial Register says that she [i.e. Anne] was buried in Monmouth's vault privately.'"-Colonel Joseph Lemuel Chester's Marriage, Baptismal, and Burial Registers of the Abbey of St. Peter, Westminster, 1876 edit., p. 214. Monmouth was buried in the Tower church, St. Peter ad Vincula. The second-born but eldest-surviving son, the Rt. Hon. James, Earl of Dalkeith, died on the 14th of March. 1703, and was buried at Westminster on the 19th.-Ibid. p. 255, Note. Of the offspring born during the ten years of the Duchess's second marriage, another Lady Anne Scott, an infant, died in 1690; and Lord George Scott in May, 1693, also in infancy.

Note 2.-The Clergymen attending Monmouth's Execution.

They were the Bishops of Ely (Dr. Turner), and of Bath and Wells (Dr. (Ken); Dr. Tenison and Dr. Hooper. We differ widely in our estimate of the conduct of the officiating "Holy Men." There is an authoritative “Account of what passed at the Execution of the late Duke of Monmouth, on Wednesday, the 15th of July, 1685 on Tower-Hill; together with a Paper signed by himself that Morning in the Tower, in the presence of the Lords Bishops of Ely (Turner) and Bath and Wells (Ken), Dr. Tenison, and Dr. Hooper," etc., in Lord Somers' Collection of Tracts, i. 216. These ecclesiastical "Assistants" of the executioner Ketch persecuted the unhappy Monmouth on the scaffold, insisting on answers regarding the "Doctrine of Non-Resistance:" not content with "general" repentance, but "particularly with respect to your case.' (Still worse had been the intolerance of the Calvinists against the far nobler Marquis of Montrose, in 1650.) They insisted on mere "natural courage" accounting for Monmouth's calm endurance, instead of it being from "true repentance." This was impolitic as well as inhuman. For a full account of the Bishops' doings, see the Camden Society's Autobiography of Sir John Bramston, pp. 188 to 193.

Note 3.-The Duchess of Monmouth, after her first husband's death. She survived her loss many years, until February 6th, 173, aged 81, when she was buried at Dalkeith, near Edinburgh, and had found more happiness in her second marriage (in May, 1688), with Charles, third Lord Cornwallis (who died of fever in April, 1698), than in her union with Monmouth. Narcissus Luttrell mentions her at the Court of St. James's, "on that very day, Queen Anne's birthday, 171, the company in richer habits than has been known since 1660, the ladies appeared with jewels very glorious, the Dutchess of Monmouth having to the value of 50,0001. about her."-Luttrell's Brief Relation, vi. 688.

骂

[Pepys Collection, II. 244; British Museum, C. 21. e. 2, fol. 139.]
The Late

Duke of Monmouth's Lamentation.

TO THE TUNE OF, On the bank of a River; or, Now, now the
Fight's done. [See pp. 37, 354.]

THe

He World is ungrateful, the People deceitful-
Ambition and Pride our first Parents did chouk,

It leads to high places as slip'ry as glass is,

Their gilded pretences all vanish like smoak.
Their fatal delusion brought me to confusion,

I fall by those Powers I did justly provoke.

Those Men of Sedition, that nurst my Ambition,

And sooth'd up my Fancy with hopes of a Crown,
Their fates are depending, and must have an Ending,
'Tis they ruin'd me and my former Renown:
Seducers of Reason made me commit Treason,

For which on the Block I lay my head down.

["glasses."

6

12

700

The Duke of Monmouth's Lamentation.'

My Grief I discover for those I brought over,

And those in this Land I seduc'd to the Sin;
True Churchmen deni'd me, the Gentry defy'd me,
With none but the Factious I favor did win.
This sorrowful sentence brings me to Repentance,
Unfortunate Monmouth, this Act to begin!

The Second Part, to the same Tune.

Hus my Allegiance was all disobedience, "The King of the West" in those parts they me call, Each Village and City was spoil'd without pitty,

18

The King's better Subjects I brought into Thrall:

But now such vile doing hath caused my ruin,
My Pride and Ambition must now have a Fall.

24

The popular Bable, and noise of the Rabble,

It pleas'd me at first and did nourish the Vice;
'Twas Pride and Vainglory did furnish the Story,
And gave to my after proceedings the Rise.
While that I did aspire t' fly higher and higher,
Like th' generous Bird I was snar'd in a trice.

30

All did me admire, nought I could require,
But the Royal Bounty did freely allow;

[I] was of Royal standing, had all at commanding,
And men of the highest Ranck to me did bow.

But I've taken ill measures, and lost all those Treasures;
Poor Monmouth, thy case is alter'd now.

36

Ambition can't borrow one day, e're to-morrow

Poor Monmouth must be in the silent dark Grave:

Let his sad conclusion be Traytors' Confusion,

And dash them to pieces, as Rocks do the waves.
Take Warning, you Traytors, and all you Crown-haters,
Your cunning designs your Heads shall not save.

42

This may be printed. July 18. R. L. S. Printed for P. Brooksby, at the Golden-Ball, in Pye-Corner. [Black-letter. See p. 704. Date of L'Estrange's License, 18 July, 1685.] The Earl of Essex is mentioned on pp. 691, 723. On his suicide a Lampoon was issued (now in the Editor's possession), entitled, "A Match, between the keen Rasor and the dull Axe, 1683, occasioned by the Death of the Lord Russel and the Earl of Essex." It begins thus, "Ten pounds to a crown! (who will make the match ?) On Bomini head, against 'Squire Catch; Whose instrument shall make most quick dispatch, The noble Rasor or the Axe." Paul Bomené, who first gave the alarm, had been the Earl's French valet (see pp. 316, 345).

A Description of Monmouth's Rebellion.
"The young Lord,

THE

Whose veins are stretch'd by passion's hottest wine,
Tied to no law except his lawless will,

Ranges and riots headlong through the World: .
Thus has he been from boy to youth and manhood,
Reprov'd, then favour'd; threaten'd, next forgiven;
Renounced, to be embrac'd, but till this hour,
Never was indignation like to this."

-T. L. Beddoes: Torrismond, Act i.

HE following poem, whether read early, before the details have been given separately in ballads and prose comment, or after we now reach legitimately the close of Monmouth's career on the scaffold, is undoubtedly one of the most important contemporary popular documents concerning the series of events in the West. Circulating widely among the middle-classes and the populace of the time which it chronicles, it cannot be without interest to a later generation.

It is singularly accurate in its details, as our Notes confirm with citations from the London Gazette. Only when he introduces Neptune's silver hair," in line 67, does the describer lose his foothold. The big drain of Sedgemoor, the Bussex Rhine, or 'Brooka de Gutter,' broadens into ocean, and is swayed by Poseidon.

[Luttrell Collection, II. 55.]

A Description of the Late Rebellion in the West. A Heroick Poem.

[With a large Woodcut: portions of it are copied on pp. 699, 701.]

From a coils came

Rom Belgia's shore, with a pretended claim,

(Though fatal to him in a fatal Time)

The traytor MONMOUTH, and surprized Lyme,

1

I' th' West of England; whence o' th' fourteenth day

He marched with all his Rebel Rout away.

Part of which fell on Bridport, and there shed 2
The blood of Loyalists, but were repaid,

With tripple Deaths; there REBEL Blood first stain'd
The guiltless Ground; there Loyalty first gain'd
A lucky vantage, seaven were kill'd outright,
Twenty-three Prisoners made, the rest by flight,
Scatt'ring their Arms, to their main Strength retreat,
And the sad Tale of their Defeat relate.
No sooner news of this REBELLIOUS Crew
To our dread Monarch and his Senate flew,
On Fame's swift Wings, but an Attaindure's laid
'Gainst MONMOUTH, and upon his REBEL Head
Five thousand pounds, to bring him alive or dead:
When worthy Monaux on June's nineteenth day 3
With twenty Horse the Rebels did dismay,
Killing them twelve, though in the valiant strife
Death (still the Brave's worst Foe) surpriz'd his Life:
But unreveng'd he did not long remain,

Brave Oglethorp's commanded Troops distain
Canisham's Bridge, with eighty Rebels slain ;

Whilst bold Trevanion Lyme's Recovery wrought,
With th' Arms and Powder which the Rebels brought,
And noble Pembroke entred factious Frome,
Scatt'ring the Rabble that were thither come;
Took the Ring-leader, and made him recant
The Trayterous Declaration he durst plant
Up in the Market-place, and Traytor own
MONMOUTH to be, who had such mischief done.
Soon after thrice renowned Feversham7

Near to the Town call'd Phillips-Norton came,
Where leading on, the Rebels flanked the Lane.
Yet Hero-like undaunted Grafton made 8

10

20

A brave attempt, and beat their Ambuscade,
Speaking in Thunder his unshaken sence

Of Loyalty and Justice to his Prince;

Whilst from the Hill the loud-mouthed Cannons, bent

Against the Foe, their Globes of Ruin sent,

Wing'd with swift Death: which made them soon remove,

Not longer daring such destruction prove:

But fearful of approaching Fate retire

Before those Swords that spoke a Monarch's Ire.