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

judgment, he was about to die in a perilous state

of mind, and that, if they attended him it would be their duty to

exhort him to the last. As he passed along the ranks of the

guards he saluted them with a smile; and he mounted the scaffold

with a firm tread. Tower Hill was covered up to the chimney tops

with an innumerable multitude of gazers, who, in awful silence,

broken only by sighs and the noise of weeping, listened for the

last accents of the darling of the people. "I shall say little,"

he began. "I come here, not to speak, but to die. I die a

Protestant of the Church of England." The Bishops interrupted

him, and told him that, unless he acknowledged resistance to be

sinful, he was no member of their church He went on to speak of

his Henrietta. She was, he said, a young lady of virtue and

honour. He loved her to the last, and he could not die without

giving utterance to his feelings The Bishops again interfered,

and begged him not to use such language. Some altercation

followed. The divines have been accused of dealing harshly with

the dying man. But they appear to have only discharged what, in

their view, was a sacred duty. Monmouth knew their principles,

and, if he wished to avoid their importunity, should have

dispensed with their attendance. Their general arguments against

resistance had no effect on him. But when they reminded him of

the ruin which he had brought on his brave and loving followers,

of the blood which had been shed, of the souls which had been

sent unprepared to the great account, he was touched, and said,

in a softened voice, "I do own that. I am sorry that it ever

happened." They prayed with him long and fervently; and he joined

in their petitions till they invoked a blessing on the King. He

remained silent. "Sir," said one of the Bishops, "do you not pray

for the King with us?" Monmouth paused some time, and, after an

internal struggle, exclaimed "Amen." But it was in vain that the

prelates implored him to address to the soldiers and to the

people a few words on the duty of obedience to the government. "I

will make no speeches," he exclaimed. "Only ten words, my Lord."

He turned away, called his servant, and put into the man's hand a

toothpick case, the last token of ill starred love. "Give it," he

said, "to that person." He then accosted John Ketch the

executioner, a wretch who had butchered many brave and noble

victims, and whose name has, during a century and a half, been

vulgarly given to all who have succeeded him in his odious

office.430 "Here," said the Duke, "are six guineas for you. Do

not hack me as you did my Lord Russell. I have heard that you

struck him three or four times. My servant will give you some

more gold if you do the work well." He then undressed, felt the

edge of the axe, expressed some fear that it was not sharp

enough, and laid his head on the block. The divines in the

meantime continued to ejaculate with great energy: "God accept

your repentance! God accept your imperfect repentance!"


The hangman addressed himself to his office. But he had been

disconcerted by what the Duke had said. The first blow inflicted

only a slight wound. The Duke struggled, rose from the block, and

looked reproachfully at the executioner. The head sunk down once

more. The stroke was repeated again and again; but still the neck

was not severed, and the body continued to move. Yells of rage

and horror rose from the crowd. Ketch flung down the axe with a

curse. "I cannot do it," he said; "my heart fails me." "Take up

the axe, man," cried the sheriff. "Fling him over the rails,"

roared the mob. At length the axe was taken up. Two more blows

extinguished the last remains of life; but a knife was used to

separate the head from the shoulders. The crowd was wrought up to

such an ecstasy of rage that the executioner was in danger of

being torn in pieces, and was conveyed away under a strong

guard.431


In the meantime many handkerchiefs were dipped in the Duke's

blood; for by a large part of the multitude he was regarded as a

martyr who had died for the Protestant religion. The head and

body were placed in a coffin covered with black velvet, and were

laid privately under the communion table of Saint Peter's Chapel

in the Tower. Within four years the pavement of the chancel was

again disturbed, and hard by the remains of Monmouth were laid

the remains of Jeffreys. In truth there is no sadder spot on the

earth than that little cemetery. Death is there associated, not,

as in Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's, with genius and virtue,

with public veneration and imperishable renown; not, as in our

humblest churches and churchyards, with everything that is most

endearing in social and domestic charities; but with whatever is

darkest in human nature and in human destiny, with the savage

triumph of implacable enemies, with the inconstancy, the

ingratitude, the cowardice of friends, with all the miseries of

fallen greatness and of blighted fame. Thither have been carried,

through successive ages, by the rude hands of gaolers, without

one mourner following, the bleeding relics of men who had been

the captains of armies, the leaders of parties, the oracles of

senates, and the ornaments of courts. Thither was borne, before

the window where Jane Grey was praying, the mangled corpse of

Guilford Dudley. Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, and Protector

of the realm, reposes there by the brother whom he murdered.

There has mouldered away the headless trunk of John Fisher,

Bishop of Rochester and Cardinal of Saint Vitalis, a man worthy

to have lived in a better age and to have died in a better cause.

There are laid John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, Lord High

Admiral, and Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, Lord High Treasurer.

There, too, is another Essex, on whom nature and fortune had

lavished all their bounties in vain, and whom valour, grace,

genius, royal favour, popular applause, conducted to an early and

ignominious doom. Not far off sleep two chiefs of the great house

of Howard, Thomas, fourth Duke of Norfolk, and Philip, eleventh

Earl of Arundel. Here and there, among the thick graves of

unquiet and aspiring statesmen, lie more delicate sufferers;

Margaret of Salisbury, the last of the proud name of Plantagenet;

and those two fair Queens who perished by the jealous rage of

Henry. Such was the dust with which the dust of Monmouth

mingled.432


Yet a few months, and the quiet village of Toddington, in

Bedfordshire, witnessed a still sadder funeral. Near that village

stood an ancient and stately hall, the seat of the Wentworths.

The transept of the parish church had long been their burial

place. To that burial place, in the spring which followed the

death of Monmouth, was borne the coffin of the young Baroness

Wentworth of Nettlestede. Her family reared a sumptuous mausoleum

over her remains: but a less costly memorial of her was long

contemplated with far deeper interest. Her name, carved by the

hand of him whom she loved too well, was, a few years ago, still

discernible on a tree in the adjoining park.


It was not by Lady Wentworth alone that the memory of Monmouth

was cherished with idolatrous fondness. His hold on the hearts of

the people lasted till the generation which had seen him had

passed away. Ribands, buckles, and other trifling articles of

apparel which he had worn, were treasured up as precious relics

by those who had fought under him at Sedgemoor. Old men who long

survived him desired, when they were dying, that these trinkets

might be buried with them. One button of gold thread which

narrowly escaped this fate may still be seen at a house which

overlooks the field of battle. Nay, such was the devotion of the

people to their unhappy favourite that, in the face of the

strongest evidence by which the fact of a death was ever

verified, many continued to cherish a hope that he was still

living, and that he would again appear in arms. A person, it was

said, who was remarkably like Monmouth, had sacrificed himself to

save the Protestant hero. The vulgar long continued, at every

important crisis, to whisper that the time was at hand, and that

King Monmouth would soon show himself. In 1686, a knave who had

pretended to be the Duke, and had levied contributions in several

villages of Wiltshire, was apprehended, and whipped from Newgate

to Tyburn. In 1698, when England had long enjoyed constitutional

freedom under a new dynasty, the son of an innkeeper passed

himself on the yeomanry of Sussex as their beloved Monmouth, and

defrauded many who were by no means of the lowest class. Five

hundred pounds were collected for him. The farmers provided him

with a horse. Their wives sent him baskets of chickens and ducks,

and were lavish, it was said, of favours of a more tender kind;

for in gallantry at least, the counterfeit was a not unworthy

representative of the original. When this impostor was thrown

into prison for his fraud, his followers maintained him in

luxury. Several of them appeared at the bar to countenance him

when he was tried at the Horsham assizes. So long did this

delusion last that, when George the Third had been some years on

the English throne, Voltaire thought it necessary gravely to

confute the hypothesis that the man in the iron mask was the Duke

of Monmouth.433


It is, perhaps, a fact scarcely less remarkable that, to this

day, the inhabitants of some parts of the West of England, when

any bill affecting their interest is before the House of Lords,

think themselves entitled to claim the help of the Duke of

Buccleuch, the descendant of the unfortunate leader for whom

their ancestors bled.


The history of Monmouth would alone suffice to refute the

Imputation of inconstancy which is so frequently thrown on the

common people. The common people are sometimes inconstant; for

they are human beings. But that they are inconstant as compared

with the educated classes, with aristocracies, or with princes,

may be confidently denied. It would be easy to name demagogues

whose popularity has remained undiminished while sovereigns and

parliaments have withdrawn their confidence from a long

succession of statesmen. When Swift had survived his faculties

many years, the Irish populace still continued to light bonfires

on his birthday, in commemoration of the services which they

fancied that he had rendered to his country when his mind was in

full vigour. While seven administrations were raised to power