Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/541

] such a state of excitement from morning to night, that many thought him drunk the whole time. He laughed like a maniac, bellowed, scolded, cut his filthy jokes on the confounded prisoners, and was more like an exulting demon than a man. There were two hundred and thirty-three prisoners hanged, drawn, and quartered in a few days. The whole number hanged in this bloody campaign have been variously stated at from three to seven hundred. Probably the medium is the most correct. But so many were hung in chains, or their jointed quarters and limbs displayed on the highways, village greens, and in the market-places, that the whole country was infected with the intolerable stench. Some of their heads were nailed on the porches of parish churches, the whole district was a perfect Golgotha. It was in vain that the most distinguished people endeavoured to check the infuriated judge's fury, he only turned his evil diatribes on them, and gave them what he called "a lick with the rough side of his tongue." Because lord Stowell, a royalist, complained of the remorseless butchery of the poor people of his neighbourhood, he gibbeted a corpse at his kirk-gate.

That James was perfectly cognisant daily of these proceedings, his own letters to William of Orange too unquivocally testify. On the 24th of September he wrote:—"Lord chief justice has almost done his campaign; he has already condemned several hundreds, some of which are already executed, more are to be, and the others sent to the plantations." Amongst the prisoners were a considerable number of a superior station, but nothing could save them. Abraham Holmes, an aged officer, who had fought under Cromwell, lost an arm at the battle of Sedgemoor, yet when on the way to the gallows, the horses turned restive, and would not go forward, he got out and walked thither, saying, "Stop, gentlemen, there is more in this than you think. The ass saw formerly what the rider could not." A young templar, of the name of Battiscombe, was another victim, whose affianced bride threw herself at Jeffreys' feet to implore his life, but the hideous monster refused her with a jest too detestable for any ears but his own. In another case, the sister of two mere youths, of the name of Hewling, got admittance to the king at Whitehall, to solicit the pardon of the second after the execution of the first. Churchill saw her in the antechamber, and warned her not to hope, for, said he, touching the chimney-piece, "this marble is not harder than the king," and it proved so.

The fate of the transported prisoners was worse than death itself. They were eight hundred and forty in number, and were granted as favours to the courtiers. Jeffreys estimated that they were, on an average, worth from ten pounds to fifteen pounds apiece to the grantee. They were not to be shipped to New England or New Jersey, because the puritan inhabitants might have a sympathy with them on account of their religion, and mitigate the hardship of their lot. They were to go to the West Indies, where they were to be slaves, and not acquire their freedom for ten years. They were transported in small vessels with all the horrors of the slave trade. They were crowded so that they had not room for lying down all at once; were never allowed to go on deck; and in darkness, starvation, and pestiferous stench, they died daily in such quantities, that the loss of one-fifth of them was calculated on. The rest reached the plantations, ghastly, emaciated, and all but lifeless.

The property of these unfortunates, and of those who were put to death, was clutched by Jeffreys, or scrambled for by his myrmidons. Every means was taken by these bullies and informers to terrify the widows and relations out of their substance, and the amount of bribery for pardons or for exemptions from trial, was something enormous. In London, as in the west, the same severity to the poor or obstinate, and extortion from the rich was carried on. Cornish, formerly sheriff of London, was hanged within sight of his own door. Elizabeth Gaunt of Wapping was burnt at Tyburn, for giving refuge to one Burton after the battle of Sedgemoor, on the evidence of the scoundrel Burton himself; and one Edward Prideaux, arrested on mere suspicion, was frightened out of fifteen thousand pounds, with which Jeffreys bought an estate, which the people named Aceldama, the field of blood. During this time James not only revelled in descriptions of these horrors amongst the courtiers and foreign ministers, but went to Winchester and enjoyed himself at the races. Still more expressive of his approbation, was the éclat with which Jeffreys was received on his return at court, and the parade with which his new honours were gazetted.

Macaulay says, "Jeffreys boasted that he had hanged more traitors than all his predecessors together since the Conquest. It is certain that the number of persons whom he put to death in one month, and in one shire, very much exceeded the number of all the political offenders who have been put to death in our island since the Revolution. The rebellions of 1715 and 1745 were of longer duration, of wider extent, and of more formidable aspect than that which was put down at Sedgemoor. It has not been generally thought that, either after the rebellion of 1715, or after the rebellion of 1745, the house of Hanover erred on the side of clemency. Yet all the executions of 1715 and 1745 added together will appear to have been few indeed when compared with those which disgraced the bloody assizes."

Even the innocent school girls, many under ten years of age, at Taunton, who had gone in procession to present a banner to Monmouth, at the command of their mistress, were not excused. The queen, who had never preferred a single prayer to her husband for mercy to the victims of this unexampled proscription, was eager to participate in the profit, and had a hundred sentenced men awarded to her, the profit on which was calculated at one thousand pounds. Her maids of honour solicited a share of this blood-money, and had a fine of seven thousand pounds on these poor girls assigned to them. In noticing this disgraceful fact, Macaulay has perpetrated a gross and most unsupported calumny on the celebrated William Penn. He says, "Sir Francis Warre of Hestercombe, the tory member for Bridgewater, was requested to undertake the office of exacting the ransom. Warre excused himself from taking any part in a transaction so scandalous. The maids of honour then requested William Penn to act for them, and Penn accepted the commission." Now, it is a grave charge against an historian to say that there is not one word of truth in this most injurious assertion. The charge rests entirely on a