JAMES IL.
151
The members came up from the various constituencies full of ardent
attachment to the King and his throne. A revenue of £1,900,000
a-year, with tunnage and poundage for life, was settled on James with-
ut an opposing voice.
4. James was scarcely seated on the throne when a two-headed
Novement was planned against him in Holland. "The
Chiefs in this plot were two exiles--James’s nephew the en Sn
Duke of Monmouth, and the Earl of Argyle, son of {he OU
great Marquis who had been beheaded just after the Restoration.
Argyle landed among his own clan, the Campbells, on the Argyle: hire
coast ; but he was soon captured and brought to the block (June :Oth,
1685). "Three weeks before Argyle’s execution, Monmouth, with less
than a hundred followers, disembarked at Lyme Regie in Dorsetshire.
The rash adventurer claimed royal honors, and issued a proclamation,
in which he charged his uncle, the King, with having poisoned
Chartes IT., set fire to London, and murdered Sir Edmondbury God-
Frey. This ridieulous manifesto did not prevent the people of the west
from joining his ranks in great numbers, He soon found himself at
he head of an army. A royal force under the Karl of Fevershan,
with Churchill, afterwards Duke of Marlborough, as second in author-
ity, was sent against him. The decisive encounter took place at
Sedgemoor, three miles from Bridgewater, The erushing defeat of
the rebels was due chiefly to the military geninus of Churchill. Mon-
mouth was caught a few days after the battle, hidden, half-starved,
in a field of pease. On being brought to London, the captive Duke
piteously besought of his uncle, whom he had tried to injure, the
favor of a personal interview. "The King condescended to see {he
prisoner, but gave him no hope of merey. Monmouth was executed
an the 15th of July 1685. He was an illegitimate son of Charles IT,
by Lucy Walters, a Welsh girl whom Charles met during his exile in
Holland,
5. It would have been well for the reputation of James had he con:
tented himself with the execution of his nephew. But
he determined to strike such a blow in ihe western ES.
\hires, where the rebellion had ‘prevailed, as would v
offeetually intimidate others from similar attempts. "The work of
trying and sentenecing ihe rebels was intrusted to Judge Jeffreys, a
man in whom considerable ability was joined to a most violent temper
and an utter disregard of human suffering. The circuit of Jeffreys in
the west is known as the Bloody Assize, Three hundred persons were
convicted and hanged in Somerset and Dorset, Nearly a thousand
were transported to endure the horrors of slavery ; a nameless number
were whipped and imprisoned. Two women—Mra. Lisle, wife of one
of the regieides, and Elizabeth Gannt—were put to death for the
simple act of harboring a rebei, While it would not be fair ta hold
