The Apocryphal Anecdote of the Calendar Correction

                              

                    In my earlier post on the Battle of Sedgemoor, I mentioned that it occurred on July 6^th 1685 (Old Style), and said I would return to this subject later. This is that return. The ‘Old Style’ calendar refers to the Julian calendar, which was introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BCE and implemented in 45 BCE. 

Julius Caesar

BCE is the abbreviation of Before Common Era, which has come to replace BC, standing for Before Christ, in the standard designation of the year, reflecting the reality that not everybody follows the Christian religion (or is even religious in any way, shape or form). Similarly, AD (Anno Domini – the Year of the Lord) has been replaced with CE (Common Era). Some argue, correctly in my view, that the designation is merely cosmetic, as the division between BCE and CE is still made at the supposed year of the birth of Christ, regardless of what you call it. But that’s an argument for another day. And before you start, it is not ‘political correctness gone mad’ either – it’s been around since at least 1708, with the Vulgar Era designation predating that by another couple of centuries. 

Roman Calendar Stone

Prior to Caesar’s reform, the Roman calendar was a pretty arbitrary affair, with months added to keep it roughly in line with the tropical (solar) year, but these were not applied systematically and were often added or omitted at the whim of the current pontifex. The Julian year was divided into 365 days with an additional day added every four years, on the leap year, to give an average year length of 365 and one-quarter days. Which would be fine if this was the same as the tropical year, but it isn’t. There is a discrepancy of just over eleven minutes per year, which doesn’t sound like much if you say it quickly but over four centuries this adds up to another three full days, which is quite a lot. 

Pope Gregory XIII

And so, in 1582, the problem was addressed and the Roman Catholic Church adopted the so-called Gregorian calendar, named for Pope Gregory XIII. The dates had moved by ten days since Roman times, meaning that the Spring equinox happened on March 11^th rather than March 21^st, which had implications in the placing of the Easter feast, which should occur on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring equinox (or the Sunday after the 21^st, if that is also the day of the full moon). As the variable feast days are dated in their relation to Easter, this had implications throughout the following year. Spain, Portugal, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and most of Italy adopted the New Style, or Gregorian, calendar in October 1582, with France and the Dutch provinces following suit soon after. 

Calendarium Gregorianum

Many Protestant countries initially resisted the change, on the suspicion that it was a move to reinstate Papal authority over them, but when it was seen that the change was an astronomical necessity rather than a religious reform, they also moved to the New Style. Britain and the British Empire (which then included the eastern part of America) changed in September 1752, when Wednesday September 2^nd was followed by Thursday September 14^th (the change needed eleven days, to accommodate the extra day’s difference that occurred between 1582 and 1752). 

I Predict a Riot

If you look at almost any history book or one of the numerous webpages describing this event, you will also find the story that people took to the streets and rioted, in London or Bristol, demanded that the government ‘give us back our eleven days’. Some will cite that the public of the time believed in predestination and that God had allocated them a certain number of days of life, which had been taken away from them, thus shortening their designated life span. Except it didn’t happen. There were no riots. It’s a lie. It’s one of those things that everyone believes but isn’t actually true. 

Here’s what really happened. The change went through, a few bankers got upset about calculating interest rates for the short month, but everyone else saw the sense of it and got on with more important things. And then, in 1754, the son of the Earl of Macclesfield stood as the Whig candidate for a parliamentary seat in Oxfordshire. As his father had been influential in the earlier calendar reform, his Tory opponents brought this up in their canvassing for their own candidate. 

William Hogarth - An Election Entertainment - c. 1755

In the following year, William Hogarth displayed a series of four oil paintings called The Humours of the Election, which satirized the various corrupt practices of politicians of the day. Corruption was endemic in politics before the Great Reform Act, when bribery and intimidation were openly indulged, there were no secret ballots and there was a property qualification for voters, which disenfranchised many men. Women were denied the vote all together. Hogarth presented examples of these crooked practices in his paintings, which were later made into engravings that were very popular, spreading the images to a much wider audience. In one of the paintings, An Election Entertainment, the Whigs are holding a banquet in an inn, where their shady dealings are depicted in a series of little tableaux. People are bribed, women are kissed, drink is provided and votes are bought. In the front, a wounded man sits over his placard, which reads ‘Give us our eleven days’. 

William Hogarth - Detail - An Election Entertainment - c. 1755

It is satire – Hogarth is showing us the nonsense that corrupt politicians got up in their attempts to win a seat. Think of a modern cartoonist drawing a picture of the European Parliament imposing a law only allowing straight bananas to be sold in England. Or perhaps changing the name of Christmas to Winterval. 

These sorts of stories get trotted out periodically by the worst of our tabloid rags (Daily Mail, I’m looking at you), but there is no truth behind them. They are deliberately used to get a knee-jerk reaction from a conservative audience. But people will tell you, with a straight face and a stabbing finger, that they are The Truth. Except that they aren’t. And that’s what Hogarth is doing. He is making something up, to show what sorts of lies the politicians will use in an attempt to gain power at any cost and the lies their opponents will use to blacken their policies. 

William Hogarth - Detail - An Election Entertainment - c. 1755

Outside, through the window, the Tories carry an effigy of a Jew, referring to recent legislation that gave the Jews greater freedom -  read anti-Semitism then for Islamophobia now. It’s satire. Look at the composition of the picture, which parodies the Last Supper. Satire. The Whigs favouring the ‘Popish’ calendar. Satire. 

Leonardo da Vinci - The Last Supper

Another incident is reported by Lord Chesterfield, who was also influential in passing the calendar reform, who wrote to his son about the debate that took part in parliament regarding the passing of the Bill. Letter CXXXV, dated March 18^th 1751 (Old Style), contains the following, 

“This will ever be the case; every numerous assembly is MOB, let the individuals who compose it be what they will. Mere reason and good sense is never to be talked to a mob; their passions, their sentiments, their senses, and their seeming interests, are alone to be applied to. Understanding they have collectively none, but they have ears and eyes, which must be flattered and seduced.” 

Lord Chesterfield - Letter CXXXV - 1751

This ‘mob’ was his fellow peers in the House of Lords, but in subsequent accounts it changed into an actual public mob, a rioting mob that demanded their eleven days back. 

William Coxee - Memoirs Vol 2 - 1829

In 1829, Archdeacon William Coxe published his two-volume Memoirs of the Administration of the Right Honourable Henry Pelham, in which (Volume 2, chapter XXVI), he notes, 

“At the period when the bill took effect, the populace marked their dissatisfaction, by exclaiming, "Give us back our eleven days!" and by other tumultuary indications. This spirit was slow in subsiding; and years elapsed, before the people were fully reconciled to the new regulation.” 

Except it didn’t happen. It put the story in the public imagination but it didn’t happen and when has that ever stopped a good story taking hold. Chesterfield’s ‘mob’ of his letter became conflated with the ‘mob’ in Hogarth’s painting, and further confused with the man and his placard and from there it passed into ‘truth’, as further history books reported the supposed riots. 

But, and this is the important but, there are no contemporary reports of these riots. Nothing at all, in the newspapers, the magazines or the diaries from the time. If they had happened, somebody, somewhere, would have either reported it or made a comment about it. But they didn’t. There is no contemporary evidence at all. It’s a later invention. One of those ‘look how thick our ancestors were and the bunkum they believed in’ constructs, like Christopher Columbus thought the Earth was flat, or ‘geese grow out of barnacles’ stories. A nice story but with absolutely no basis in fact. There are many, many more, to which I will return from time to time.

The Various Versions of the Sedgemoor Storytellers

                 You’d imagine, given the potential and the romance, that the Monmouth Rebellion would be the source material for dozens of fictional novels based either directly on it, or using it as a background against which a story unfolds. Oddly, there aren’t that many. 

R D Blackmore - Lorna Doone

Perhaps the most popular novel that is still read today is R D Blackmore’s Lorna Doone, first published in 1869 it has remained in print ever since, and has been adapted for films and television dramas several times. Subtitled A Romance of Exmoor, it tells the story of the eponymous Lorna Doone, a member of the notorious family of Doone, once noble but now outlawed, who falls in love with the respectable farmer John Ridd. 

After Sedgemoor - Lorna Doone

Lorna has been promised to the heir of the Doone clan, the piratical Carver Doone, and is, in fact, the kidnapped heiress of the wealthy Dugal family. She is sent to London as a ward of Chancery and following the death of Charles II, the Doones side with the Duke of Monmouth, hoping to regain their lost lands and titles. After the battle of Sedgemoor, John Ridd is captured and sent for trial in London, where he proves his innocence and is reunited with Lorna. During their wedding, Carver Doone bursts into the ceremony and shoots Lorna, and is chased onto Exmoor by Ridd. 

John Ridd and Carver Doone on Exmoor

They fight and Carver is killed, Ridd returns to the church and finds Lorna still lives. She recovers and they live happily ever after. It is, as the preface points out, a ‘romance’ rather than an historical novel, but none the worse for that, and it has stood the test of time well. 

Arthur Conan Doyle - Micah Clarke

Another work that uses the battle of Sedgemoor as a background is Micah Clarke (1889) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, of Sherlock Holmes fame. The novel is a bildungsroman – it follows the life of a naive boy as he grows into mature manhood through a series of adventures, culminating in Sedgemoor and its aftermath. All the historical characters appear, in one form or another, along with comedy West Country yokels who say things like, “If it plaize you, zur,” but the novel considers the religious implications of the Rebellion in some detail (which is nowhere as bad as it sounds), and is improved by Doyle’s obvious ability of being able to spin a good yarn. 

Arthur Conan Doyle - Title Page - Micah Clarke

Doyle’s works other than the Holmes stories are often overlooked, which is a shame as they are rather good, in a late Victorian adventure story kind of a way, and one of the reasons that Doyle ‘killed off’ Sherlock at the Reichenbach Falls was that he felt his other works were being overshadowed by the Holmes legacy. 

Monmouth in Taunton - A C Doyle - Micah Clarke

Popular sentiment demanded that Doyle bring back Holmes, but the latter stories are nowhere near as good as the earlier ones and some are down-right formulaic, as Doyle went through the motions to satisfy the popular appetite. 

Rafael Sabatini - Captain Blood

Slightly later is Rafael Sabatini’s Captain Blood (1922), which tells the story of an Irish Doctor, Peter Blood, who is in practice at Bridgewater, Somerset, and who is drawn into the Monmouth Rebellion when he treats the rebels injured during the battle of Sedgemoor. Found guilty by association by Judge Jeffreys, Blood is sold into slavery and transported to the Caribbean, where his skills as a physician are put to good use. 

Walking the Plank - R Sabatini - Captain Blood

After the Spanish attack Bridgetown, Blood and other slaves escape, capture a Spanish ship and become buccaneers and the scourge of the Spanish Main. After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, Blood is pardoned and goes on to become the Governor of Jamaica. Only the first couple of chapters are Monmouth-related but the courtroom scenes with Judge Jeffreys are excellent and recreate the corruption and arbitrary nature of Jeffreys’ ‘justice’ convincingly. Sabatini uses a number of models in his creation of Peter Blood, including the pirate Henry Morgan and the real-life Irish adventurer Colonel Thomas Blood. 

Colonel Thomas Blood

Blood is remembered as the man who stole the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London, which is a story in itself. After the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660, the exchequer had insufficient funds to pay the salary of Talbot Edwards, assistant keeper of the Royal regalia, who was allowed instead to keep what fees he could earn by showing the Crown Jewels to interested visitors. 

Crown Jewels - The Crown

Edwards was approaching eighty years of age and lived with his family in rooms above the chamber where the Jewels were housed in the Martin Tower. In April 1671, Thomas Blood disguised himself as a parson and went with a woman whom he said was his wife to see the jewels (his real wife was ill, at their home in Holcroft, Lancashire). As Edwards was showing them the jewels, ‘Mrs’ Blood suffered a ‘qualme to the stomack’ and called for brandy. Revived, she was led upstairs to lie on Mrs Edwards’s bed until she was well enough to leave. 

Crown Jewels - The Sceptre

Several days later, Parson Blood returned with a thank you gift of white gloves for Mrs Edwards, and over the next couple of weeks he became a regular visitor at the Tower. He mentioned to the Edwards that he had a nephew (entirely fictitious) who had two or three hundred pounds a year and was in need of a wife, and might be married to the Edwards’s daughter. 

Crown Jewels - The Orb

Plans were made for the nephew to be introduced to his prospective bride, and on May 9^th 1671, Parson Thomas Blood and three other men arrived at the Martin Tower. Would it be possible, the good parson said to assistant keeper Edwards, for his friends to see the Crown Jewels whilst they waited for Mrs Blood to arrive. Edwards took the party downstairs, where they jumped on him, forced a wooden gag into his mouth (with a hole drilled in it to allow him to breathe), put an iron peg on his nose and threw a cloak over his head. They told him to remain quiet but when he continued to thrash about, they knocked him insensible with a wooden mallet and stabbed him a couple of times. 

Colonel Blood steals the Crown Jewels

Blood took the mallet and flattened the King Edward Crown, which he hid beneath his clerical robes. Another man, Parrot (who may well be the same Robert Parrot hanged for his part in the Monmouth Rebellion) took the orb and hid it in his baggy trousers, whilst the third, Tom Hunt, started to file the sceptre into two halves, to fit it into a bag. By coincidence, Edwards’s young son returned home from the wars in Europe on this May morning and was surprised when he was met by a young man, Richard Hallowell (or Holloway), standing outside to door of his parents’ dwelling. Young Edwards mounted the stairs and Hallowell followed him up, stopping at the floor below to alert his three associates. Hunt dropped the sceptre and the four robbers ran from the Martin Tower. Upstairs, Mrs Edwards and her daughter told young Edwards about the young nephew and Parson Blood, and he went back downstairs to find his father. 

Colonel Blood steals the Crown Jewels

Talbot Edwards raised the alarm, shouting, “Treason! The Crown is stolen!” and young Edwards and his brother-in-law, Captain Beckman, took up the alarm. Pursuit ensued, as the fugitives passed under the Bloody Tower and along Water Lane, towards the Byward Tower, where Blood shot and injured a yeoman. They ran over the drawbridge, and along the wharf towards the Iron Gate, exposing themselves to the full view of the guards. Captain Beckman caught up to Blood as he was mounting his horse, and Blood fired a pistol point blank at Bechman’s head, who managed to dodge the shot. They fought and Blood and Parrot were overpowered and taken prisoner; Hunt made it to his horse and began to ride away but struck his head on a pole sticking out of a laden wagon, was knocked from the horse and also captured. 

Colonel Thomas Blood

In gaol, Colonel Blood refused to answer any questions unless the King himself asked them and so, on May 12^th, he was brought before Charles II, his brother the Duke of York and other members of the royal household. Far from being angry, Charles was highly amused by the effrontery of the incident and roared with laughter when the details were told to him. He pardoned Blood, restored his lands to him, made him a member of the royal bodyguard and awarded him a pension of £500 a year. There have been rumours and theories ever since that there were some deeper reasons other than simple theft involved, as there always are in stories of this sort. 

Blood became involved in a libel case with his patron, the Duke of Buckingham, and was imprisoned at the King’s Bench prison, where his health was damaged, and soon after his release he passed into a coma and died on August 24^th 1680. There were rumours that his death was a sham and the living man was living hidden elsewhere, so some days after the burial his body was disinterred and an inquest held to identify the remains, which were then reburied. The story remains one of the classics of audaciousness, bravado and downright brass-neckery.

The Bloody Barbarity of the Atrocious Assizes

                     The optimism, confidence and expectations that had filled the hearts of the West Country men during June 1685 vanished in the dawn light of July 6^th. Monmouth’s rebellion ended when it was crushed by the efficiency and experience of King James II’s army. The remnants of Monmouth’s raggle-taggle band of farmers, apprentices and shop keepers were chased from the battlefield of Sedgemoor, into the fields, ditches and lanes of Somerset by James’s trained killers, where they were mopped up in their hundreds. Some were slaughtered on the spot, others were taken prisoner and marched or shipped in carts to local towns and villages. 

Hanging Rebels

The Earl of Feversham, commander of the King’s army, left Bridgwater in the command of Colonel Percy Kirke, a corrupt, merciless adventurer who had made his brutal reputation in Tangier, where he had ruled with a rod of iron. He brought his own regiment with him, called with cruel irony Kirke’s Lambs, from the paschal lamb on its badge, who were the most vicious, ferocious soldiers in the whole army. Kirke marched his train of prisoners from Bridgwater to Taunton, hanging men along the roadside as he went, and at Taunton he hanged the rest, some from the signpost of the White Hart Inn, others from trees and hastily erected gibbets. 

An improvised gibbet

He set his trumpeters to sound, his fifers to play and his drummers to strike up a paradiddle as the rebels jerked and danced on the ends of their ropes, to watch them dance and to drown out their cries and those of their watching friends and relations. His executioner was ankle deep in blood as he quartered the dying, and a local ploughman, cruelly nicknamed Tom Boilman, was pressed into sealing the quarters of his neighbours’ bodies in a vat of boiling pitch. Local legend has it that, although he escaped the vengeance of the Lambs, Heaven punished him later, as he was sheltering beneath an oak tree during a storm and was killed by a bolt of lightning. Rumour says Kirke hanged one hundred men in the week following Sedgemoor and many more bought their lives with bribes paid to him, but when news of this reached London he was recalled, not for the bribery but because he was letting wealthier rebels escape with their lives. 

Judge George Jefferys

Kirke’s place was taken by five judges sent from London; Sir William Montague, Sir Robert Wright, Sir Francis Wythens, Sir Creswell Levinz and Sir Henry Polexfen, all under the command of Lord Chief Justice Sir George Jeffreys. Jeffreys was the rising star in the legal world, although only forty at the time, he had already become Lord Chief Justice and had tried and sentenced Titus Oates for his part in the Popish Plot. The Western Circuit convened first at Winchester, as many rebels had fled into Hampshire, and one of their first cases was the trial of Lady Alice Lisle. 

The Arrest of Lady Alice Lisle

This elderly gentlewoman carried her title by courtesy (her husband had been made Lord by Cromwell), and was known to be a pious and charitable widow. Two fugitives from Sedgemoor, John Hicks and Richard Nelthorpe sought sanctuary in her house, which was freely given, as might be expected by this virtuous lady. The following morning, the house was surrounded by soldiers and Hicks, Nelthorpe and their host were arrested. Lady Alice was brought before Jeffreys, who swore, ranted and raged at her and the other witnesses. Even though Hicks and Nelthorpe had yet to be found guilty, Lady Alice was tried for harbouring traitors, which made her guilty by association. With very great reluctance the jury, brow-beaten by Jeffreys, found her guilty, and although many people spoke on her behalf and pleaded for mercy, Jeffreys and even the King were resolute. In recognition of her status, her sentence was commuted from death by burning but nevertheless, on September 2^nd 1685, she was publicly beheaded in Winchester market place, (one of the first acts of parliament under William and Mary, in 1688, was to reverse the guilty verdict, on the grounds of an irregular prosecution by Jeffreys). 

Judge George Jeffreys

On the day following her execution, Jeffreys moved on to Dorchester, where he had the courtroom hung with scarlet, as if to presage his grisly purpose. He suffered from kidney and bladder stones, was in constant pain and consequently was always in an evil temper. He sentenced thirteen men to be hanged on the first day, followed by another two hundred and ninety two on a single day, although he hanged only seventy four in total, the rest being flogged, fined, imprisoned or transported to the West Indies, where they were sold into slavery on the plantations. By September 14^th, Jeffreys had moved on to Exeter, where another thirty-seven were executed, and then made for Taunton in Somerset, the county at the heart of the rebellion. There were five hundred and twenty-six prisoners held there, and Jeffreys ordered the deaths of one hundred and forty-four. 

In Jeffreys' Court

Bodies were quartered, boiled in pitch or pickled in brine, and placed in each place where Monmouth had formerly found supporters. The butchered parts of the rebels, stuck on spikes, pikes and poles, adorned every crossroads, every marketplace, every village green, and every church across Somerset. The stench of death was so bad on some roads that people stopped using them all together. Two hundred and forty-two men were transported, others were flogged or fined, with some imprisoned where many died from typhus, a condition so common that it was called ‘gaol fever’. Jeffreys laughed, joked, shouted and swore so much during these days that those who saw him believed that he was drunk from morning to night. He became known as the ‘Hanging Judge’ and the circuit was known as the ‘Bloody Assizes’. 

The Bloody Assizes

From Tauton he went to Wells, where another ninety-seven were killed and another three hundred and eighty-five sentenced to transportation. Packed below decks in fetid slave ships, at least one fifth of those transported died before reaching the Indies; those that made it were sold, to work on the plantations. In all, Jeffreys executed over three hundred rebels, with over eight hundred more transported for life into slavery; on one day alone he issued one hundred and forty-four death sentences. For his zeal, James II rewarded him by making him Lord Chancellor, but following the Glorious Revolution he tried to flee to the continent but was arrested in a pub in Wapping, allegedly disguised as a sailor. 

Judge Jeffreys arrested

He was placed in the Tower of London, largely for his own safety, as the public threatened to dismember him. He died in the Tower in the following year, in 1689, probably from kidney failure. History has not remembered him well, and he has the reputation of being one of the worst human beings who have ever lived.

The Botched Butchery of the Condemned Conspirator

             Monmouth himself fled the field in the breaking light, throwing off his armour and removing his blue riband, with Lord Grey, his servant, his doctor and other friends, stopping at Chedzoy to change horse, and taking the Bath road, hidden and housed by sympathisers. Between Gillingham and Shaftsbury they entered the New Forest, and then on to Cranbourne Chase where, at the Woodyates Inn, they let loose their horses, hid the bridles, and Monmouth disguised himself as a shepherd. 

The Duke of Monmouth

On the early morning of July 7^th, Lord Lumley and his scouts surprised two men at a crossroads at Holt Lodge, they were Lord Grey and a New Forest guide. More men and horses flooded the surrounding countryside, and an old cottager, Amy Farrant, directed Lumley to a hedge where she had seen two men eating peas. Lumley’s men surrounded the area, known as the Island, and threatened to burn the men out, but they evaded capture until the next morning, when Anthony Busse, one of Monmouth’s close companions was discovered. He had left the Duke, he said, at about one in the morning but pointed out where he was to be found, in return, some say, for a pardon. 

Monmouth captured

At seven in the morning of July 8^th 1685, a militiaman, Henry Parkin, found Monmouth hiding in ditch, covered with ferns and brambles. Parkin, it was said, burst into tears and reproached himself for the discovery. Monmouth could not stand and said he had not eaten a meal in peace or had a night’s rest since landing at Lyme Regis. He was taken to Holt Lodge, where the magistrate, Anthony Etterick, ordered him to be taken to London. 

Text of Monmouth's Letter to the Queen - with signature added

Over the next week, under heavy guard, Monmouth was conveyed across southern England and to the Tower of London, and during this week he wrote piteous, abasing letters to the King, the Queen and others, begging for mercy. His proud spirit, so flamboyant when surrounded by fawning supporters and sycophants, was now broken and he descended into humiliating degradation. When brought before his uncle, the King, he fell to his knees and wept, hugging the King’s own knees and begging for his life. 

Monmouth begs before James II

He appealed to blood, invoking his father’s name, spread the blame to others, denied knowledge of events, and utterly debased himself, but to no avail. The crimes were too great to be pardoned, his offences too grave; he had defamed the King, his ministers and his parliament, he had declared war on the kingdom, waged war in the west, killed the King’s men and had claimed the crown for himself. Such treasons could not go unpunished, or be seen to be committed and go unpunished. There could only be one outcome. 

“Is there then no hope?” 

he asked the King, who simply turned away in silence. 

A Thanksgiving for the Defeat of the Rebels - 1685

Lord Grey, who had run at Bridport and fled from Sedgemoor, was brought next before his Majesty. He stood straight, heard the charges and quietly admitted to them, neither begging for life nor asking for mercy, and impressed even the stern King with his fortitude and propriety. Both prisoners were taken back to the Tower by water, and in through Traitor’s Gate, and on July 13^th, Monmouth’s wife, Anne, was allowed to visit him, bringing the news that his execution was to on the 15^th. He received her coldly and spent most of the visit entreating the accompanying Earl of Clarendon to intercede on his behalf. The next day, he wrote more piteous letters, begging to be spared or reprieved at least but all to no avail. On the morning of Wednesday July 15^th 1685, his wife and children came to the Tower and said their goodbyes but Monmouth, although kindly, was unmoved and emotionless. 

Monmouth brought to the scaffold

A coach took him to Tower Hill at ten o’clock, where an innumerable multitude was waiting, and in the company of two bishops and two clergymen, with a steady step, he mounted the scaffold. 

Jack Ketch

His first words were to Jack Ketch, the executioner, 

“Is this the man to do the business? Do your work well,” 

before turning to the silent crowd, 

“I shall say but very little: I come to die: I die a Protestant of the Church of England,” 

at which point the bishops intervened, pointing out that he was not considered to be a member of that church. Monmouth then turned to the subject of his mistress, Lady Henrietta Wentworth, with whom he had had an affair, but the bishops again intervened, and declared their relationship to have been sinful. There followed an altercation, as condemned man and the divines on the scaffold argued the niceties of his repentance and confession, before Monmouth turned again to the public hangman, Jack Ketch. 

Monmouth on the Block

He handed him six guineas and said, 

“Here are six guineas for you: pray do your business well: do not serve me as you did my Lord Russell. I have heard you struck him three or four times. Here [to his servant], take these remaining guineas, and give them to him, if he does his work well.” 

He was referring the execution of Lord William Russell, whom Ketch had hacked to death in 1683, using several blows of the axe to carry out the deed. It is not known if Ketch’s next actions resulted from his being disconcerted, annoyed or distracted by these words. Monmouth took off his coat, said a prayer and laid his head on the block, then raised himself on one elbow and felt the edge of the axe. 

“I fear it is not sharp enough,” 

he said to Ketch, who replied, 

“It is sharp enough and heavy enough.” 

Jack Ketch raised the axe and struck, but the blow was misplaced and only nicked Monmouth’s neck, who raised himself up and cast a reproachful glare at the executioner, before sinking down again. Ketch struck again and failed to cut deep enough, and then again and missed all together, with the body before him still twitching and moving, the neck unsevered, he threw down the axe crying, 

“God damn me, I cannot do it, my heart fails me.” 

Ketch hacks at Monmouth's neck

The crowd bayed at him, threatening to tear him apart if he did not continue, and the sheriff demanded that he take up the axe, which at length he did. Two more blows finally killed the prisoner but still the head remained attached, so Ketch drew a long knife from the scabbard at his belt and hacked through the remaining skin and sinew. He could not hold up the head, but showed it quickly to the crowd, who surged forward and threatened to murder him, so he was bundled away under heavy guard. The head and body of the dead Duke were placed in a coffin and laid under the altar of St Peter’s Chapel in the Tower. 

Portrait of the dead Monmouth - allegedly

One preposterous rumour that quickly spread was that James II could not bear to have his nephew killed, that a substitute had been beheaded and Monmouth was smuggled to France, where he lived imprisoned as the Man in the Iron Mask. 

Tomorrow - Monmouth may have gone but terrible retribution continued in the West Country …

The Nocturnal Navigation of the Sedgemoor Sloughs

                                Monmouth made plans to depart, making for Keynsham and thence to the Severn, where he would cross and then destroy the bridge, using the river to guard his right flank as he advanced north into Cheshire, where friends were waiting. Mr William Sparke, a Monmouth sympathiser viewed the King’s forces from the church tower of Weston, and sent his servant, Richard Godfrey, to inform Monmouth of their numbers and positions. Godfrey reported to Monmouth in Bridgwater, and from the spire of the church there, said to be the tallest in Somerset, the forces ranged against him were pointed out on the vast, dismal levels. 

Bridgport Church Spire

Two thousand foot were at Penzoy-pound, in Zog, under Weston Zoyland, where a further five hundred horse were camped. There were more militia at Middlezoy and Othery, with the artillery ranged alongside the Bridgwater road. Monmouth’s council advised him that the King’s forces could be attacked to advantage provided they were not intrenched; Richard Godfrey, the local, went out to spy, returned with the news that the King’s men were not intrenched and was paid a guinea. If the artillery were avoided, Monmouth could strike in the night, so a strategy was made to advance across Sedgemoor, but in his path lay three rhines or ditches, including a great rhine (the word rhymes with ‘seen’). This rhine no longer exists, and should not be confused with the later Bussex-rhine or the much broader Sedgemoor Drain or 'cut'; it contained no more than two feet of water but the mud at the bottom was deep enough to cover a man. 

The Duke of Monmouth

Country folk brought news that Lord Feversham’s men were drinking the local cider and going to their beds over in Weston, so at seven in the evening of July 5^th Monmouth’s men rendezvoused on Castle-field in the east side of the town. The King’s officers and men may well have been drunk on scrumpy, but many of Monmouth’s men were also half-cut when they left Bridgwater that evening. At about 11 pm on Sunday July 5^th, Monmouth marched at the head of his men into the narrow Somerset lanes, making for the village of Weston. 

The Duke of Monmouth

At Peasy Farm, on the Axbridge road, Monmouth left his forty-two baggage wagons, with a light guard, and turned into the Northmoor. Godfrey, the manservant turned spy, who had guided them through the lanes became indispensable on the open moor, leading them to the ford (also locally called a plungeon or steaning) over the Black Ditch, on to the Langmoor rhine, where in the darkness and fog Godfrey missed the crossing, leading to delay and confusion. The long, narrow, straggling column on the moor made its way forward, to within a mile of the King’s forces and divided into two, with foot soldiers on the left and cavalry on the right; it was, as yet, undiscovered. 

The Battle of Sedgemoor

No one knows for sure what happened next. Some say an officer, feeling he had been passed over for advancement, deliberately fired a pistol; others say a musketeer stumbled in the dark and discharged his weapon by accident. Either way, the alarm was raised and the King’s men were roused. Lord Grey started forward with the cavalry, but his advance was checked by the last great rhine, and he was challenged by sentries. The royal troops fired into the rebel horsemen, scattering them and driving them back; these were, it should be remembered, local volunteers, farm labourers and so forth, mounted on farm horses, both unused to warfare and armed combat. It is no surprise they were routed. 

The Battle of Sedgemoor

The Kings Guards and the Blues rode in at speed from Weston and scattered the insurgents. As they rode back, they spread fear and panic amongst the foot soldiers following them, who also began to retreat, taking the ammunition wains and baggage train with them. Monmouth brought his column of foot forward to the edge of the unexpected rhine, formed them up and began to fire on the King’s regiments on the opposite bank, but again, his men were untrained countrymen who tended to fire high. The King’s men, in contrast, were regular soldiers, disciplined and used to following orders; his cavalry were veterans and knew how to fight on horseback. John Churchill, later to become the famous Duke of Marlborough, commanded his infantry to great effect, and adding greatly to the distress of Monmouth’s raw men. The King’s artillery were brought up and caused even further damage and as dawn began to break, 

The Defeat of the Rebels

Monmouth could see that his plans had gone awry. His men ran in panic, crying for ammunition that was no longer to be had, leaping the ditches and fleeing into the moorland. The royal troops and horsemen pursued them, and whereas three hundred of Monmouth’s men had been killed in the battle, one thousand were slaughtered in the following pursuit, mainly in the ditches and a cornfield beyond, with another twelve hundred taken prisoner.  Monmouth’s original force had been numbered between four and six thousand, depending on differing reports; the King’s army had been about half that, but their better discipline and experience was invaluable and that, together with Monmouth losing the element of surprise, gained them the day – they lost only about two hundred of their number.

Throughout the day, the King’s men savagely ran down the fleeing rebels, into Bridgwater town where many were killed in the streets, others taken and slain on the roads and in the lanes. Locals were pressed into digging a great pit, in which the dead and the nearly dead were stacked and buried. Gibbets were set up along the road between Bridgwater and Weston and men hanged on each, some left to rot in chains, some quartered and put on spikes.

The Battle of Sedgemoor was the last battle to be fought on English soil. There are some other skirmishes and sieges which are claimed to be the last, but these are not really to be taken as serious claims. The last pitched battle between opposing armies in England was Sedgemoor.

Tomorrow - The fate of Monmouth ...