Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/219

Charles Dickens] struck eleven. He looked desponding, so people thought. His army marched up what is now called the War-lane, towards the dykes of Sedgemoor, where Faversham's men were revelling. Monmouth led the foot; Grey, the horse. No drum was to be sounded, no shot fired. The word for the night was "Soho." About one in the morning the rebels were on the boggy moor. Three broad ditches filled with water lay between them and the enemy. Their ammunition waggons remained behind. The pike and scythemen passed the Black Ditch by a muddy causeway. The second causeway, that over Longmoor Rhine, the guide missed in the fog, and the third, over Bussex Rhine, he had forgotten. The new recruits, rough ploughmen and fishermen, became confused. Some of King James's Horse Guards seeing them advancing, fired their carbines, and rode back to rouse the troopers at Weston Zoyland. Dumbarton's regiments beat to arms. Monmouth moving forward fast, suddenly found himself stopped by the yawning darkness of Bussex Rhine.

"For whom are you?" cried a hoarse voice across the trench.

"For the king."

"What king?"

"King Monmouth," and then the rebels shouted their war cry, "God with us!"

The reply was a blazing volley, that sent the wild marsh horses to the rightabout; they never rallied again. Just then the rebel infantry came running up, and fired across the dark trench, steadily, but too high. The Life Guards and Blues scattered the fugitive cavalry, and the waggoners fled wildly with the powder waggons. Monmouth was left, without cavalry or ammunition, shut in between the trenches of Sedgemoor. The duke showed good blood: he snatched a pike, rallied his men, and led them, as day broke, over the causeway. But Faversham was now on the field, and Captain Churchill was massing the royal infantry. Then Monmouth fled.

The rebels held out, though hemmed in by the Life Guards and the Blues. Accustomed to wield flails and mining tools, Monmouth's men were stubborn with their scythes and musket butts. They beat back Oglethorpe, and struck down Sarsfield. Their incessant cry was, "Ammunition, for God's sake, ammunition!" Just then the king's guns dashed up from the Bridgewater-road, the Bishop of Winchester having lent his coach horses and traces for the purpose. There was a want of gunners; but the king's officers helped to load, point, and fire, and sent the shot tearing through the ranks of rebel pikes. They wavered, they retired, they broke. Then, straight through the hot smoke, the Blues swept down with savage swords, and Faversham's infantry came streaming across the ditch. The Mendip miners held out bravely for a minute or two, but they were soon felled or ridden down. Then the rout was total, and the moor was covered with shouting and screaming men. Three hundred of the king's soldiers lay dead beside Bussex Rhine, and a thousand rebels strewed the moor.

Faversham ordered many of the prisoners to instant execution. Among these was a young Somersetshire lad famous for his swift running. Faversham, with a brutal laugh, made him a promise of life, if he would outrun one of the wild marsh horses. A halter was tied to his neck and attached at the other end to the horse, on which a soldier sat to urge the animal to the fullest speed. The prisoner, maddened by the hope of life, leaped away and actually kept up with the horse for three quarters of a mile, from Bussex Rhine to Brentsfeld Bridge. The cruel general, rather enraged than pleased at the performance of the tremendous feat, instantly ordered the young rebel to the gallows. Another prisoner was more fortunate. He had to leap for his life—so far in three leaps. He leaped madly, and at the third bound dashed headlong into an adjoining wood, and escaped pursuit. His name was Swayne, and three stones on the Shapwick estate are still pointed out as Swayne's Jumps. The next day there was a line of twenty gibbets on the road leading from Weston Zoyland to Bridgewater, and on every gibbet swung a rebel. A day or two afterwards, a gaunt, greybearded man, in a shepherd's dress, was seized in a field of pease on the borders of Hampshire. It was Monmouth. A few months later Jefferies opened the Bloody Assize in Somersetshire, and in a few days hung, drew, and quartered two hundred and thirty-three prisoners. Every village green, church porch, and market-place was rendered loathsome by heads stuck on poles, or corpses hung in irons. Monmouth perished on Tower-hill, and Faversham was made Knight of the Garter and Captain of the First Life Guards.

In an Elizabethan house in Mill-street, Bridgewater, the great Admiral Blake was born. His father was a merchant, his mother the co-heiress of a knightly family. A blunt, bold, honest man, he distinguished himself during the civil wars at the head of his troop of horse, surprising Taunton and defending it desperately during two sieges. His services to the Parliament were of the most splendid kind; he destroyed the Royalist fleet, took the Channel Islands, and beat the Dutch from the narrow seas. He bullied the Dey of Tunis, and with incredible daring sailed into the bay of Teneriffe and burnt some Spanish galleons which he could not carry off. He died on his return home, just as he was entering Plymouth Sound. Blake did not commence his naval career till he was fifty years of age, yet he became one of our greatest admirals. Clarendon says he was the first who disdained to keep his ship and men out of danger, and to teach sailors to despise land forts, which he proved to be more noisy than dangerous. When people expressed their scruples of serving Cromwell, Blake said nobly, "It is not our business to mind state affairs, but to prevent foreigners fooling us." His most desperate action was off the Goodwin Sands, when he bore down on Van Tromp's eighty vessels with only forty men-of-war, but was beaten off,