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The Golden Falcon |
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Chapter XV/1 - Cockade |
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THE WHITE COCKADE "Alas!
My love's enlisted He
wears a white cockade He
is as gay a gallant As
any roving blade. He's
gone the king a-serving The
white cockade to wear Whilst
my poor heart is breaking For
the love to him I bear." Leave
off your grief and sorrow And
quit this doleful strain, The
white cockade adorns me Whilst
marching o'er the plain. When
I return I'll marry, By
this cockade I swear Your
heart from grief must rally And
my departure bear." "Fair
maid, I bring bad tidings," So
did the Sergeant say, "Your
love was slain in battle, He
sends you this today, The
white cockade he flourished Now
dabbled in his gore. With
his last kiss he sends it, The
white cockade he wore." She
spoke no word - her tears, They
fell a salten flood, And
from the draggled ribbons Washed
out the stain of blood. "O,
mother I am a dying! And
when in grave I'm laid. Upon
my bosom mother! Then
pin the white cockade." (Edmund
Fry - "Songs
of the West"
- Baring-Gould, Fleetwood-Shephard & Bussell). This ballad was popular in Lancashire and Yorkshire and with other ballads and poems show what the popular feeling about the Stuarts. "To
my true king I offered, free from stain, Courage
and faith; vain faith, and courage vain, For
him I threw lands, honours, wealth away, And
one dear hope that was more prized than they. For
him I languished ina foreign clime. Grey-haired
with sorrow in my manhood's prime; Heard
on Lavernia Scargills' whispering trees, And
pined by Arno for my lovelier Tees; Beheld
each night my home in fevered sleep, Each
morning started from the dream to weep' Till
God, who saw me tried too sorely, gave The
resting-place I asked - an early grave. O
thou whom chance leads to his nameless stone, From
that proud country which was once mine own, By
those white cliffs I never more must see, By
the dear language which I speak like thee, Forget
all feuds, and shed one English tear O'er
English dust. A broken heart
lies here. ("Epitaph
of one who died for the Stuarts" - Macaulay). Charles I's dependence on the duke of Buckingham led to a quarrel with Parliament and when the duke was assassinated in 1628, the king became just as dependent on his wife Henrietta Maria who was a devout Catholic. She refused to attend his Protestant coronation, insisted on having the Mass said in private and surrounded herself with priests and prominent co-religionists like Sir John Winter whose devastation of the Forest of Dean helped to bring about the Ship Money Tax. The English Navy had been neglected and in 1630 Charles I imposed the Ship Money Tax without Parliament's approval, not only on coastal towns as was the usual practice, but also on those inland. John Hampden of Stoke Mandeville, Buckinghamshire, refused to pay the 20 shillings required of him and in 1637 was summoned to the Court of the Exchequer. When he appeared before it on 6.11.1637, he was defended by Oliver St. John. After nearly a week 7 of the 12 judges decided he had to pay the tax. When the civil war broke out Hampden siding with the Roundheads, was wounded in his shoulder at Chalgrove near Oxford in July 1643 and died. In 1629 Charles, convinced Parliamentary reforms would lead to rebellion, dismissed it and ruled as an absolute monarch for 11 years. In 1639 the rebellion in Scotland led to him bringing back Parliament. Charles I, badly advised by the High Church William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury on religious policy, tried to impose the English Prayerbook in Scotland in 1637. The Scots signed the National Covenant of 1638 to defend the Kirk. leading to the Bishops War (1639-40) in which the King was defeated. In 1640 there was an uprising in Ireland but Parliament refused to let the king raise an army until he dismissed his councillors. The king was forced to sign the death warrant of his faithful servant Thomas Strafford, hated by the people for his cruelty in Ireland. Strafford was attainted and executed in on 12.5.1641. The Royalists led by Lord Digby and Edward Hyde rallied and the king marched on Parliament to arrest five leaders but they had fled. Charles left London to go North and on 22.10.1649 raised his standard at Nottingham. During the Civil War in England the Scottish Covenanters sided with Parliament, forcing them to accept the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643. The two armies met at Edgehill in October 1642 when Prince Rupert of the Rhine arrived from Bohemia to help his uncle Charles and fought an indecisive battle. Charles retreated to Oxford but lost the battle of Turnham Green to the Trained Bands on his march to capture London. It was after this battle that Oliver Cromwell formed his New Model Army which defeated the Royalists at Naseby on 13.6.1645. Charles was tried and condemned, 69 Parliamentarians signed his death warrant and he was executed on 30.1.1649. The Scots did not want to get rid of Charles and after the king was executed, they immediately recognised Charles II as king. He went to Scotland in 1650 but Cromwell defeated the Royalists at Dunbar and Worcester. The princes Charles and James escaped to join Henrietta Maria in France, Henry (who later died) and Elizabeth remained in Parliamentary hands. Charles was an exile for 11 years. Ironically Cromwell also dissolved parliament on 20.4.1653 and ruled as a military dictator. After Charles was restored on 25.5.1660, the 11 remaining regicides were tried and those who did not repent were executed. The bodies of Cromwell, Ireton and Bradshaw were dug up, exposed and mutilated. Evelyn wrote: 30.1.1661:
"This day were the carcasses of those arch rebells Cromwell, Bradshaw
the Judge who condemned his Majestie and Ireton, sonn-in-law to the
Usurper dragg'd out of their superb tombs in Westminster among the Kings,
to Tyburne and hang'd on the gallows there from 9 in the morning till 6 at
night and then buried under that fatal and ignominious monument in a deep
pit; thousands of people who had seene them in all their pride being
spectators." In
1665: the Great Plague swept England for a year.
The 45-year old John Evelyn reported that 5,000 died in August and
wrote in his Diary: 28.8.1665:
"The contagion still
increasing and growing now all about us, I sent my wife and whole family
(two or three necessary servants excepted) to my brother's at Wootton,
being resolved to stay at my house myselfe and to looke after my
charge". ("The Diary of
John Evelyn"). 7.9.1665:
"Came home, there perishing neere 10,000 poore creatures weekly;
however I went all along the City and suburbs from Kent Street to St.
James, a dismal passage and dangerous to see so many coffines expos'd in
the streetes, now thin of people; the shops shut up and all in mourneful
silence, as not known whose turn might be next.
I went to the duke of Albemarle for a pest-ship, to wait on our
infected men, were not a few".("The
Diary of John Evelyn"). 11.10.1665:
"To London and went thro' the whole Citty, having occasion to alight
out of the coach in severall places about business of mony when I was
environ'd with multitudes of poore pestiferous creatures begging almes;
the shops universally shut up, a dreadful prospect!"("The
Diary of John Evelyn"). The
plague decreased by 23.11.1665 when he wrote "Went
home, the contagion having now decreased considerably" and by
6.2.1666 it was safe enough for his family to return to Sayes Court, near
Deptford: "My
wife and family return'd to me from the country, where they had ben since
August by reason of the contagion, now almost universally ceasing.
I have gone thro' so much danger and lost so many of my poor
officers."("The Diary of
John Evelyn"). Samuel Pepys (who bravely remained in London) wrote a more detailed account of the Plague: 10.6.1665: "In
the evening home to supper; and there, to my great trouble hear that the
plague is come into the City (though it hath these three or four weeks
since its beginning been wholly out of the City); but where should it
begin but in my good friend and neighbour's Dr. Burnett in Fanchurch
Street; which in both points troubles me mightily." ("Diary
of Samuel Pepys"). 14.6.1665:
"The town grows very sickly
and people to be afraid of it, there dying this last week of the plague
112 from 43 the week before, whereof but one in Fanchurch Streete and one
in Broad Streete by the Treasurer's office." ("Diary
of Samuel Pepys"). 25.6.1665:
"I find all the town almost
going out of town, the coaches and waggons being all full of people going
into the country." ("Diary of Samuel Pepys"). 25.6.1665:
"The plague increases
mightily." ("Diary of
Samuel Pepys"). 28.6.1665:
"On my way to Westminster
Hall, I observed several plague houses in King's Street and the
Palace." ("Diary of Samuel
Pepys"). 29.6.1665: "To White
Hall, where the Court full of waggons and people ready to go out of town.
This end of the town every day grows very bad of the plague.
Home, calling at Somerset House, where all were packing up
too." ("Diary of Samuel
Pepys"). 1.7.1665:
"Sad at the new that 7 or 8
house in Burying Hall (Basinghall) Street are shut up of the plague"
("Diary of Samuel Pepys"). 12.7.1665: "A solemn
fast day for the plague growing upon us. My Lady Carteret did this day give me a bottle of
plague-water home with me." ("Diary
of Samuel Pepys"). 21.7.1664:
"Late in my chamber, setting
some papers in order; the plague growing very raging and my apprehension
of it great!" ("Diary of
Samuel Pepys"). 25.7.1665:
"Sad the story of the plague
in the City, it growing mightily." ("Diary
of Samuel Pepys"). 26.7.1655: "News of
the death of so many in the parish of the plague, 40 last night.
The bell is always going. The
sickness is got into our parish this week and is got indeed everywhere so
that I begin to think of setting things in order." ("Diary
of Samuel Pepys"). 30.8.1665:
"It was a sad noise to hear
our bells to toll and ring so often today, either for death or burials; I
think 5 or 6 times." ("Diary of Samuel Pepys"). 12.8.1665:
"The people died so that now
it seeme they are faint to carrry the dead to be buried by day light, the
nights not sufficing to do it in". ("Diary
of Samuel Pepys"). 31.8.1665:
"Up and after putting
several things in order to my removal to Woolwich the plague having a
great encrease this week beyond all expectation”. ("Diary
of Samuel Pepys"). 3.9.1665:
"Up and put on my coloured
silk suit very fine and my new periwig bought a good while since but durst
not wear, because of the plague was in Westminster when I bought it and it
is a wonder what will be the fashion after the plague is done as to
periwiggs for nobody will dare to buy any hairs for fear of the infection
that it had been cut off the heads of people dead of the plague”. ("Diary
of Samuel Pepys"). “A
child of a very able citizen in Gracious Street, who had buried the rest
of his children from the plague and himself and wife now being shut up,
did desire only to save the life of this little child and so prevailed to
have it received stark naked into the arms of a friend who brought it
(having put it in new fresh clothes) to Greenwich". ("Diary
of Samuel Pepys"). 4.9.1665:
"It trouble me to pass by
Coome Farm where about 21 people have died of the plague". ("Diary
of Samuel Pepys"). 6.9.1665: "To London
to pack up more things. Thence
by water to the Duke of Albemarle's; all the way fires on each side of the
Thames and strange to see in broad day light 2 or 3 burials upon the
Bankeside one at the very heels of the another, doubtless of the plague
about at least 40 or 50 people going along with each one of them". ("Diary of Samuel Pepys"). 4.10.1665:
"This night comes Sir George
Smith to see me at the office and tells me how the plague is decreased
this week by 740. but that it encreased at our end of the town
still". ("Diary of Samuel
Pepys"). 6.10.1665:
"I walked to the Tower, but
Lord! how empty the street are and melancholy, so many poor sick people in
the streets full of sores and so many sad stories overhead as I
walk." ("Diary of Samuel
Pepys"). 14.10.1665: "Captain
Cocke and I in his coach through Kente Street, a sad place through the
plague, people sitting sick and with plaisters about in the street
begging". ("Diary of
Samuel Pepys"). Pepys had access to accurate figures from the Bills of Mortality. Total
No. of dead Plague deaths 12.06.1665
267 (4 in the city) 13.07.1665
700 + 20.07.1665
1,089. 03.08.1665
2,020 08.08.1665
4, 000+
3,000 31.08.1665
7,100
6.000 + (increase of. 2,000)
.
7,496
6,012 (in the
city) "The
true number of the dead (on
31.8.1665)
is 10,000 from the
poor that cannot be take notice of, through the greatness of the number
and partly from the Quakers and others that will not have any bell ring
for them". 07.09.1665
7,235
6,978 18.09.1665
8,297
7,165 04.10.1665
- 740 09.10.1665
+ 399 05.10.1666
- 400
1,300 + 22.10.1665
1,000-
600 + 30.10.1665
554
333 16.01.1666
375
158 23.01.1666
272
72 1666 was the year of the Great Fire of London which was blamed on the Catholics. Pepys reported: 2.9.1666:
"Some of our maids sitting
up late last night to get thing ready against our feast today, Jane called
us up about three in the morning, to tell us of a great fire they saw in
the City”. ("Diary of Samuel
Pepys"). “So
I rose and slipped on my night gown and went to her window and thought it
to be on the back side of Marke Lane at the farthest, but being unused to
such fires as followed, I though it far enough off and so went to bed
again and to sleep. About
seven rose again dressed myself and there looked out at the window and saw
the fire not so much, as it was and further off.” ("Diary
of Samuel Pepys"). “By
and by Jane comes and tells me that she hears that above 300 houses have
been burned down tonight by London Bridge.
So I made myself ready presently and walked to the Tower and there
got up upon one of the high places and there I did see the houses at that
end of the bridge, all on fire and an infinite great fire on this and the
other side the end of the bridge. So
down with my heart full of trouble to the Lieutenant of the Tower who
tells me that it begun this morning in the King's baker's house in Pudding
Lane and that it hath burned down St. Magnes Church and most part of Fish
Street already. So I down to
the waterside and there got a boat and through bridge and there saw a
lamentable fire”. ("Diary of
Samuel Pepys"). “Poor
Michell's house, as far as the Old Swan already burned that way and the
fire running further, that in a very little time it got as far as the
Steele yard, while I was there everybody endeavouring to remove their
goods and flinging into the river or bringing them into lighters that lay
off, poor people staying in their houses as long as till the very fire
touched them and then running into boats or clambering from on pair of
stairs by the waterside to another. The
poor pigeons were loth to leave their houses but hovered about the windows
and balconys till they burned their wings and fell down”. ("Diary
of Samuel Pepys"). “Having
staid and in an hour's time seen the fire rage everyway and nobody to my
sight endeavouring to quench it but to remove their goods and leave all to
the fire and having seen it get as far as the Steele yard and the wind
mighty high and driving it into the City and everything after so long a
drought proving combustible, even the very stones of churches and among
others the poor steeple”. ("Diary
of Samuel Pepys"). “I
to White Hall and there up to the King's closet in the Chapel where people
come about me and I did give them an account dismayed them all and word
was carried to the King. So I
was called for and did tell the King and the Duke of York what I saw and
that unless his Majesty did command houses to be pulled down, nothing
could stop the fire. They
seemed much troubled and the King commanded me to go to my lord Mayor from
him and command him to spare no houses but to pull down before the fire
everyway". ("Diary of
Samuel Pepys"). Pepys met the mayor who had been up all night, pulling down the houses but the fire was faster and no one would help him. The houses were close together and had inflammable materials like pitch and tar; the warehouses had wine brandy and oil stored in them. By the time he had dinner, the fire had spread to Canning street. "Soon
as dined Moone and I away and walked through the City, the streets full of
nothing but people and horses and carts loaden with goods, ready to run
over one another and removing goods from one burned house to another. We
parted at Paul's and I to Paul's Wharf where I had appointed a boat to
attend me.. Met with the King
and the Duke of York in their barge and with them to Queenhithe, Their order was only to pull down houses apace and so below
bridge at the waterside but little was or could be done, the fire coming
upon them so fast. Good hopes
there was of stopping it at the Three Cranes above and at Buttolph's Wharf
below bridge, if care be used but the wind carries it into the City. River
full of lighters and boats taking in goods and good goods swimming in the
water and only I observed that hardly one lighter or boat in three had the
goods of a house in, but there was a pair of virginalls in it. The
fire up and down it still encreasing and the wind great.
So near the fire as we could for smoke and all over the Thames with
one's face in the wind, you were almost burned with a shower of
fire-drops. Houses were
burned by these drops and flakes of fire, 3 or 4 , nay 5 or 6 house, one
from another. Then we could
endure no more upon the water, we to a little alehouse on the Bankside
over against the Three Cranes and there staid till it was dark almost and
saw the fire grow and as it grew darker, appeared more and more and in
corners and upon steeples and between churches and houses as far as we
could see up the hill of the City in a most horrid malicious bloody flame,
not like the fine flame of an ordinary fire.
We staid till it being darkish, we saw the fire as only one entire
arch of fire from this to the other side the bridge and in a bow up the
hill for an arch of above a mile long.
It made me weep to see it.. The
churches, houses and all on fire and flaming at once and a horrid noise
the flames made and the cracking of houses at their ruine.
News coming every moment of the growth of the fire so as we were
forced to begin to pack up our own goods and prepared for their removal
and did by moonshine (it being brave dry and moonshine and warm
weather)”. 3.9.1666: “About 4
o'clock in the morning my Lady Batten sent me a cart to carry away all my
money and plate and best things to Sir W. Rider's at Bednall Greene.
Which I did , riding myself in my night gowne in the cart." Pepys's house and office were at Seething Lane, probably the house which Sir William Winter had owned. Sir William Batten dug a pit in his garden and buried his wine, Pepys putting his office papers in it. He later dug another with Sir William Pen putting in his, wine, parmesan cheese and other things. Houses were blown up and by the 7th the Fire had been put out. On the 27.8.1666, 5 days before the fire began, Evelyn had gone with Christopher Wren, the Bishop of London, the Dean of St. Paul's and others to survey St Paul's Cathedral which was in a bad state of disrepair. He joined with other gentleman of the Court to help put out the fire and submitted a survey to the king of the damage done. He too wrote in his Diary: 3.9.1666: "All the
skie was of a fiery aspect, like the top of a burning oven and the light
seene above 40 miles round about for many nights. Above 10,000 houses all in on flame and the noise and
cracking and thunder of the impetuous flames, the shrieking of women and
children the hury of people, the fall of toweres, houses and churches like
an hideous storme and the are all about so hot and inflam'd that at last
one was not able to approach it, so that they were forc'd to stand still
and let the flames burn on, which they did for neere two miles in length
and one in bredth. The clowds
of smoke were dismall and reach'd upon computation neer 56 miles in
length." ("The Diary of
John Evelyn"). 4.9.1666: "The burning
still rages, and it was now gotten as far as the Inner Temple; all Fleet
Streete, the Old Bailey, Ludgate Hill. Warwick Lane, Newgate, Paules
Chaines, Watling Streete. now flaming and most of it reduc'd to ashes; the
stones of Paules flew like granados, the mealting lead running downe the
streetes in a streame and the very pavements glowing with fiery rednesse
so as no horse nor man was able to tread on them and the demolition had
stopp'd all the passages."
("The
Diary of John Evelyn"). Evelyn was involved with plans to rebuild the city after the Fire: 13.9.1666:
"I presented his Majesty
with a survey of the ruines and a plot for a new CIty with a discourse on
it." The
Catholics were blamed for the Fire and a monument was set up saying so.
About the time of Monmouth's rebellion John Evelyn wrote: 17.6.1685: "At
this time the words engraved on the monument in London, intimating that
the Papists fir'd the Citty, were erased and cut out." In 1666 when Charles II tried to impose episcopacy by force in Scotland, the Scots rebelled. Pepys reported on it but strangely John Evelyn did not: 21.11.1666:
"The discourse of Scotland
it seems is confirmed, and that they were 4,000 of them in armes and do
declare for King and Covenent." ("Diary
of Samuel Pepys"). 25.11.1666:
"All the talk of Scotland, where the highest report runs but upon 300
or 400 in armes." ("Diary
of Samuel Pepys"). 3.12.1666: "For
certain the Scott rebels are all routed; they having been so bold as to
come within 3 miles of Edinburgh and there given 2 or 3 repulses to the
King's forces, but all at last were mastered.
300 or 400 killed or taken, among which their leader, Wallis, and
seven ministers (they having all taken the Covenant a few days before and
sworn to live and die in it, as they did)".
("Diary
of Samuel Pepys"). In
exchange for funds Charles II signed a secret treaty with Louis XIV In
1670 to support the Dutch war and declare himself a Catholic at some vague
time in the future (he converted on his deathbed). His court was as dissolute as his grandfather's. He had numerous mistressess, the most notorious were Barbara Villiers, Lady Castlemaine, the orange seller turned actress Nell Gwyn and the Breton Louise de Keroualle sent to spy on him by the French. He had several children but no legitimate heirs as his Queen, Catherine of Bragança, was barren. The Villiers family descended from Alexander Villiers (13th century) of Brooksby, Leicestershire which remained their property until the 18th century. His descendant Sir George Villiers married a Beaumont and their son George, 1st duke of Buckingham (b.1592), favourite of James II and Charles II, married Catherine Manners, daughter of the earl of Rutland. The 2nd duke's daughter Barbara Villiers, wife of Roger Palmer, Duchess of Castlemaine and Cleveland was Charles II's mistress. Their daughter Mary Villiers married first Charles Herbert, Lord Herbert, secondly James Stuart, 4th Duke of Lennox and Richmond (d. 1695) and thirdly Thomas Howard, brother of the earl of Carlisle. A relative Elizabeth Villiers was mistress of William III and wife of Lord George Hamilton, 1st earl of Orkney. The paranoia after Titus Oates Plot (backed in secret by the sinister Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury, founder of the Whigs) led to Parliament trying to exclude the Catholic James Stuart, Duke of York as Charles's heir. Even Nell Gwynn, Louise de Keroualle and his illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth, supported Shaftesbury who was indicted for treason after the failure of Titus Oates' Plot, fled into Holland and died in exile a year later aged 61. When Charles died on 4.2.1685 James succeeded. On 11.6.1685 his nephew James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, rebelled. The handsome son of Lucy Walter, Monmouth was spoiled by his father Charles who doted on him and arranged a marriage with Anne Scott, Duchess of Buccleuch whose name he took. Monmouth was defeated at Sedgemoor by the earl of Feversham and John Churchill (later duke of Marlborough) Feversham was formerly the English ambassador to Holland, created Lord Duras by Charles II. 24.10.1675:
"Din'd at Lord Chamberlain's
with the Holland ambassader L. Duras, a valiant gentleman whom his Majesty
made an English Baron, of a cadet, and gave him his seate of Holmby in
Northamptonshire (since Earle of Feversham)". When he was Captain of the Guard, he was present at Charles II's deathbed and became Lieutenant General. "The duke of York not thinking fit that he should be left alone with King, desir'd the earl of Bath, a Lord of the Bedchamber and the Earl of Faversham, Captain of the Guard, should stay." ("Life of James II"). By the Glorious Revolution he was General of the Forces. Pepys wrote: 31.12.1662:
"The duke of Monmouth is in
so great splendour at Court and so dandled by the king, that some doubt,
that if the King should have no child by the Queene (which there is yet no
appearance of) whether he would not be acknowledged for a lawful son; and
that there will be a difference follow between the Duke of York and
him." 20.4.1663: "This day
the little Duke of Monmouth was married at White Hall, in the King's
chamber; and tonight is a great supper and dancing at his lodgings, near
Charing Cross. I observed his
coate at the taile of his coach; he gives the arms of England, Scotland
and France, quartered upon some other fields, but what it is that speake
his being a bastard, I know not." 27.4.1663:
"The Queene it seems was at
Windsor, at the late St. George's feast there; and the Duke of Monmouth,
dancing with her with his hat in his hand, the King came in and kissed
him, and made him put on his hat, which everybody took notice of." 4.5.1663:
"I do suspect that all is
not kind between the King and the Duke (of York) and that the King's
fondness to the little Duke (of Monmouth) do occasion it; and it may be that there is some fear of his being
made heire to the Crown". 22.2.1663-4:
"He is so fond of the Duke
of Monmouth, that every body admires it; and the Duke had said that he
would be the death of any man that says the King was not married to his
mother: though it is well known that she was a common strumpet before the
King was acquainted with her". And so did Evelyn: 18.6.1649:
"I went to St. Germain's to
kisse his Majesty's hand; in the coach, which was my Lord Wilmot's, went
Mrs Barlow, the King's mistress and mother to the Duke of Monmouth, a
browne, beautifull, bold, but insipid creature". 28.11.1679: "Came over
the Duke of Monmouth from Holland unexpectedly to his Majesty, whilst the
Duke of York was on his journey to Scotland, whither the King sent him to
reside and governe. The bells
and bonfires of the Citty at this arrival of the Duke of Monmouth
publishing their joy, to the no small regret of some at Court.
This Duke whom for distinction, they call'd the Protestant Duke (tho'
son of an abandon'd woman), the people made their idol". Soon after Titus Oates' imaginary Popish Plot, Duke of Monmouth was involved in a Protestant Plot with the earls of Bedford and Essex, Algernon Sydney and others. 28.6.1683: "After the
Popish Plot, there was now new, and (as they call'd it) a Protestant Plot
discover'd, that certain Lords and other should designe the assassination
of the King and the Duke as they were to come from Newmarket, with a
general rising of the nation, and especially of the Citty of London,
disaffected to the present Government; upon which were commited to the
Tower the Lord Russell, eldest son of the earle of Bedford, the Earle of
Essex, Mr Algernon Sydney, son of the old Earle of Leicester, Mr Trenchard,
Hampden, Lord Howard of Escrick and others.
A proclamation was issued against my Lord Grey, the Duke of
Monmouth, Sir Thomas Armstrong and one Ferguson, who had escaped beyond
sea; of these some were said to be for killing the King, others for onely
seizing on him, and persuading him to new counsel, on the pretence of the
danger of Popery should the Duke live to succeed, who was now again
admitted to the councils and cabinet seacrets.
The Lord Essex and Russell were much deplore'd, few believing they
had any evil intention against the King or the Church; some thought they
were cunningly drawn in by their enemies for not approving some late
council and management relating to France, to Popery, to the persecution
of the Dissenters &c. They
were discovered by the Lord Howard of Escrick and some false brethren of
the club, and the designe happily broken". 13.7.1683: "The earl
of Essex, having cut his throat, having ben but 3 days a prisoner, in the
Tower, and this happening on the very day and instant that Lord Russell
was on his trial and had sentence of death.
It is certaine the King and Duke were at the Tower, and pass'd by
his window about the same time this morning, when my Lord, asking for a
rasor, shut himselfe into a closet and perpetrated the horrid act.
Yet it was wondered by some how it was possible he should do it in
the manner he was found, for the wound was so deep and wide that being cut
thro', the gullet, wind-pipe and both jugulars, it reached to the very
vertebrae of the neck so that the head held to it by a very little skin as
it was, the gapping too of the rasor and cutting his owne fingers, was a
litle strange but more, that having pass'd the jugulars, he should have
strength to proceed so far that an executioner could hardly have done more
with an axe. For
my part I believe the crafty and ambitious Earl of Shaftesbury had brough
them into some dislike of the present carriage of matters at Court, not
with any designe of destroying the Monarchy.
He gave them the slip and got into Holland where the fox died, 3
moneths before these unhappy Lords and others were discover'd or
suspected". 21.7.1683:
"Lord Russell was beheaded in Lincoln's Inn Fields, the executioner
giving him three butcherly strokes". 23.11.1683:
"The Duke of Monmouth, till
now proclaim'd traytor, on the pretended plot for which Lord Russell was
lately beheaded, came this evening to Whitehall and render'd himselfe, on
which were various discourses." 30.11.1683: "A day or
two before was condemn'd Mr Algernon Sidny, who was executed on Tower
Hill, on the single witness of that monster of a man, Lord Howard of
Escrick, and some sheets of paper taken in Mr Sidney's study, pretended to
be written by him but not fully prov'd.
The Duke of Monmouth, now having his pardon refuses to acknowledge
there was any treasonable plot; for which he is banish'd Whitehall. The greate disappointment to some who had prosecuted
Trenchard, Hampden &c that for want of a second witnesse, were come
out of the Tower upon their habeas corpus." 14.5.1685: "There
was now certain intelligence of the Duke of Monmouth landing at Lyme in
Dorsetshire and of his having set up his standard as King of
England". 17.5.1685: "The Duke
landed with but 150 men but the whole kingdom was alarm'd, fearing that
the disaffected would joyn them, many of the train'd bands flocking to
him. At his landing he
publish'd a declaration, charging his Majesty with usurpation and several
horrid crimes, on pretence of his owne title and offering to call a free
Parliament. This declaration
was order'd to be burnt by the hangman, the Duke proclaim'd a traytor and
a reward of £5,000 to any man who should kill him.
At this time, the words engraved on the monument in London,
intimating that the Papists fir'd the City, were erased and cut out". 28.5.1685: "Argyle
taken in Scotland and executed and his party disper'd". 2.7.1685: “No
considerable account of the troops sent against the Duke of Monmouth tho'
greate forces sent. There was
a smart skirmish but he would not be provok'd to come to an encounter, but
still kept in the fastness. Dangerfield
whipp'd like Oates, for perjurie". 8.7.1685:
"Came news of Monmouth's utter defeat and the next day of his being
taken by Sir William Portman and Lord Lumley with the militia of their
counties. It seemes the horse, commanded by Lord Grey, being newly rais'd and undisciplin'd were not to be brought in so short a time to endure the fire, which expos'd the foote to the King's so as when Monmouth had led the foote in greate silence and order, thinking to surprise Lieutenant General Lord Feversham newly encamp'd and given him a smart charge, interchanging both greate and small shot, the horse breaking their owne ranks, Monmouth gave it over, and fled with Grey, leaving their party to be cut in piece to the number of 2,000. The whole number reported to be above 8,000, the King's but 2,700. The slaine were most of them Mendip miners, who did greate execution with their tooles and sold their lives very dearly, whilst their leader flying were pursu'd and taken the next morning, not far from one another. |