The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1, Thomas Babington Macaulay [ebook pc reader txt] 📗

in Bridgewater. The town was full of women, who had

repaired thither by hundreds from the surrounding region, to see

their husbands, sons, lovers, and brothers once more. There were

many sad partings that day; and many parted never to meet

again.409 The report of the intended attack came to the ears of a

young girl who was zealous for the King. Though of modest

character, she had the courage to resolve that she would herself

bear the intelligence to Feversham. She stole out of Bridgewater,

and made her way to the royal camp. But that camp was not a place

where female innocence could be safe. Even the officers,

despising alike the irregular force to which they were opposed,

and the negligent general who commanded them, had indulged

largely in wine, and were ready for any excess of licentiousness

and cruelty. One of them seized the unhappy maiden, refused to

listen to her errand, and brutally outraged her. She fled in

agonies of rage and shame, leaving the wicked army to its

doom.410


And now the time for the great hazard drew near. The night was

not ill suited for such an enterprise. The moon was indeed at the

full, and the northern streamers were shining brilliantly. But

the marsh fog lay so thick on Sedgemoor that no object could be

discerned there at the distance of fifty paces.411


The clock struck eleven; and the Duke with his body guard rode

out of the Castle. He was not in the frame of mind which befits

one who is about to strike a decisive blow. The very children who

pressed to see him pass observed, and long remembered, that his

look was sad and full of evil augury. His army marched by a

circuitous path, near six miles in length, towards the royal

encampment on Sedgemoor. Part of the route is to this day called

War Lane. The foot were led by Monmouth himself. The horse were

confided to Grey, in spite of the remonstrances of some who

remembered the mishap at Bridport. Orders were given that strict

silence should be preserved, that no drum should be beaten, and

no shot fired. The word by which the insurgents were to recognise

one another in the darkness was Soho. It had doubtless been

selected in allusion to Soho Fields in London, where their

leader's palace stood.412


At about one in the morning of Monday the sixth of July, the

rebels were on the open moor. But between them and the enemy lay

three broad rhines filled with water and soft mud. Two of these,

called the Black Ditch and the Langmoor Rhine, Monmouth knew that

he must pass. But, strange to say, the existence of a trench,

called the Bussex Rhine, which immediately covered the royal

encampment, had not been mentioned to him by any of his scouts.


The wains which carried the ammunition remained at the entrance

of the moor. The horse and foot, in a long narrow column, passed

the Black Ditch by a causeway. There was a similar causeway

across the Langmoor Rhine: but the guide, in the fog, missed his

way. There was some delay and some tumult before the error could

be rectified. At length the passage was effected: but, in the

confusion, a pistol went off. Some men of the Horse Guards, who

were on watch, heard the report, and perceived that a great

multitude was advancing through the mist. They fired their

carbines, and galloped off in different directions to give the

alarm. Some hastened to Weston Zoyland, where the cavalry lay.

One trooper spurred to the encampment of the infantry, and cried

out vehemently that the enemy was at hand. The drums of

Dumbarton's regiment beat to arms; and the men got fast into

their ranks. It was time; for Monmouth was already drawing up his

army for action. He ordered Grey to lead the way with the

cavalry, and followed himself at the head of the infantry. Grey

pushed on till his progress was unexpectedly arrested by the

Bussex Rhine. On the opposite side of the ditch the King's foot

were hastily forming in order of battle.


"For whom are you?" called out an officer of the Foot Guards.

"For the King," replied a voice from the ranks of the rebel

cavalry. "For which King?" was then demanded. The answer was a

shout of "King Monmouth," mingled with the war cry, which forty

years before had been inscribed on the colours of the

parliamentary regiments, "God with us." The royal troops

instantly fired such a volley of musketry as sent the rebel horse

flying in all directions. The world agreed to ascribe this

ignominious rout to Grey's pusillanimity. Yet it is by no means

clear that Churchill would have succeeded better at the head of

men who had never before handled arms on horseback, and whose

horses were unused, not only to stand fire, but to obey the rein.


A few minutes after the Duke's horse had dispersed themselves

over the moor, his infantry came up running fast, and guided

through the gloom by the lighted matches of Dumbarton's regiment.


Monmouth was startled by finding that a broad and profound trench

lay between him and the camp which he had hoped to surprise. The

insurgents halted on the edge of the rhine, and fired. Part of

the royal infantry on the opposite bank returned the fire. During

three quarters of an hour the roar of the musketry was incessant.

The Somersetshire peasants behaved themselves as if they had been

veteran soldiers, save only that they levelled their pieces too

high.


But now the other divisions of the royal army were in motion. The

Life Guards and Blues came pricking fast from Weston Zoyland, and

scattered in an instant some of Grey's horse, who had attempted

to rally. The fugitives spread a panic among their comrades in

the rear, who had charge of the ammunition. The waggoners drove

off at full speed, and never stopped till they were many miles

from the field of battle. Monmouth had hitherto done his part

like a stout and able warrior. He had been seen on foot, pike in

hand, encouraging his infantry by voice and by example. But he

was too well acquainted with military affairs not to know that

all was over. His men had lost the advantage which surprise and

darkness had given them. They were deserted by the horse and by

the ammunition waggons. The King's forces were now united and in

good order. Feversham had been awakened by the firing, had got

out of bed, had adjusted his cravat, had looked at himself well

in the glass, and had come to see what his men were doing.

Meanwhile, what was of much more importance, Churchill had

rapidly made an entirely new disposition of the royal infantry.

The day was about to break. The event of a conflict on an open

plain, by broad sunlight, could not be doubtful. Yet Monmouth

should have felt that it was not for him to fly, while thousands

whom affection for him had hurried to destruction were still

fighting manfully in his cause. But vain hopes and the intense

love of life prevailed. He saw that if he tarried the royal

cavalry would soon intercept his retreat. He mounted and rode

from the field.


Yet his foot, though deserted, made a gallant stand. The Life

Guards attacked them on the right, the Blues on the left; but the

Somersetshire clowns, with their scythes and the butt ends of

their muskets, faced the royal horse like old soldiers.

Oglethorpe made a vigorous attempt to break them and was manfully

repulsed. Sarsfield, a brave Irish officer, whose name afterwards

obtained a melancholy celebrity, charged on the other flank. His

men were beaten back. He was himself struck to the ground, and

lay for a time as one dead. But the struggle of the hardy rustics

could not last. Their powder and ball were spent. Cries were

heard of "Ammunition! For God's sake ammunition!" But no

ammunition was at hand. And now the King's artillery came up. It

had been posted half a mile off, on the high road from Weston

Zoyland to Bridgewater. So defective were then the appointments

of an English army that there would have been much difficulty in

dragging the great guns to the place where the battle was raging,

had not the Bishop of Winchester offered his coach horses and

traces for the purpose. This interference of a Christian prelate

in a matter of blood has, with strange inconsistency, been

condemned by some Whig writers who can see nothing criminal in

the conduct of the numerous Puritan ministers then in arms

against the government. Even when the guns had arrived, there was

such a want of gunners that a serjeant of Dumbarton's regiment

was forced to take on himself the management of several

pieces.413 The cannon, however, though ill served, brought the

engagement to a speedy close. The pikes of the rebel battalions

began to shake: the ranks broke; the King's cavalry charged

again, and bore down everything before them; the King's infantry

came pouring across the ditch. Even in that extremity the Mendip

miners stood bravely to their arms, and sold their lives dearly.

But the rout was in a few minutes complete. Three hundred of the

soldiers had been killed or wounded. Of the rebels more than a

thousand lay dead on the moor.414


So ended the last fight deserving the name of battle, that has

been fought on English ground. The impression left on the simple

inhabitants of the neighbourhood was deep and lasting. That

impression, indeed, has been frequently renewed. For even in our

own time the plough and the spade have not seldom turned up

ghastly memorials of the slaughter, skulls, and thigh bones, and

strange weapons made out of implements of husbandry. Old peasants

related very recently that, in their childhood, they were

accustomed to play on the moor at the fight between King James's

men and King Monmouth's men, and that King Monmouth's men always

raised the cry of Soho.415


What seems most extraordinary in the battle of Sedgemoor is that

the event should have been for a moment doubtful, and that the

rebels should have resisted so long. That five or six thousand

colliers and ploughmen should contend during an hour with half

that number of regular cavalry and infantry would now be thought

a miracle. Our wonder will, perhaps, be diminished when we

remember that, in the time of James the Second, the discipline of

the regular army was extremely lax, and that, on the other hand,

the peasantry were accustomed to serve in the militia. The

difference, therefore, between a regiment of the Foot Guards and

a regiment of clowns just enrolled, though doubtless

considerable, was by no means what it now is. Monmouth did not