to do, and the only notice taken of the disobedience was that
Charles forbade him to appear at court.
It was at this time that the Appeal from the Country to the City, written by Ferguson, was published, in which the legitimacy was tacitly given up, and in which it was urged that “he that hath the worst title will make the best king.” Now it was, too, that the exclusionists, who in the absence of parliament were deprived of their best basis for agitation, developed the system of petitioning. So promptly and successfully was this answered by the “abhorrers” that Charles, feeling the ground safer under him, recalled James to London—a step immediately followed by the resignation of the chief Whigs in the council.
Once more, however, a desperate attempt was made, by the fable of the “black box,” to establish Monmouth’s claims; and once more these claims were met by Charles’s public declarations in the Gazette that he had never been married but to the queen. Still acting under Shaftesbury’s advice, Monmouth now Went upon the first of his progresses in the west of England, visiting the chief members of the country party, and gaining by his open and engaging manner much popularity among the people. In August 1680 James returned to Edinburgh, his right to the succession being again formally acknowledged by Charles. Monmouth at once threw himself more vehemently than ever into the plans of the exclusionists. He spoke and voted for exclusion in the House of Lords, and used language not likely to be forgotten by James when an opportunity should come for resenting it. He was ostentatiously feasted by the city, the stronghold of Shaftesbury’s influence; and it was observed as he drove to dinner that the mark of illegitimacy had been removed from the arms on his coach.
The year 1681 seemed likely to witness another civil war. The parliament finished a session of hysterical passion by passing a series of resolutions of extreme violence, of which one was that Monmouth should be restored to all his offices and commands; and when Charles summoned a fresh parliament to meet at Oxford the leaders of the exclusionists went thither with troops of armed men. Not until the dissolution of this last parliament, on the 27th of March 1681, did the weakness of Monmouth’s cause appear. The deep-seated respect for legitimate descent asserted itself, and a great reaction took place. In November Dryden published Absalom and Achitophel. Shaftesbury was attacked, but was saved for the time by a favouring jury. Monmouth himself did not escape insult in the street and from the pulpit. He was forbidden to hold communication with the court; and when he went, in September 1682, on a second progress through the western and north-western counties his proceedings were narrowly watched, and he was at length arrested at Stafford. Severity and extreme lenity were strangely mingled in the treatment he received. He was released on bail, and in February 1683, after the flight and death of Shaftesbury, he openly broke the implied conditions of his bail by paying a third visit to Chichester with Lord Grey and others on pretence of a hunting expedition.
It is probable that Monmouth never went so far as to think of armed rebellion; but there is little doubt that he had talked over schemes likely to lead to this, and that Shaftesbury had gone farther still. The Rye House plot gave an excuse for arresting the Whig leaders; Russell and Sidney were judicially murdered; Monmouth retired to Toddington, in Bedfordshire, and was left untouched. Court intrigue favouring him, he succeeded, by the betrayal of his comrades and by two submissive letters, in reconciling himself with the help of Halifax both to the king and to James, though he had the humiliation of seeing his confessions and declarations of penitence published at length in the Gazette. His character for pettishness and folly was thus amply illustrated. Charles heartily despised him, and yet appears to have retained affection for him. His partial return to favour raised the hopes of his partisans; to check these, Algernon Sidney was executed. Monmouth was now subpoenaed to give evidence at the trial of young Hampden. To escape from the difficulties thus opened before him he fled to Holland, probably with Charles’s connivance, and though he once more, in November 1684, visited England, it is doubtful whether he ever again saw the king.
The quiet accession of James II. soon brought Monmouth to the crisis of his fate. Within two months of Charles’s death he had yielded to the impetuosity of Argyll and others of the exiles and to vague invitations from England. It is curious, as showing the light in which his claims were viewed by his fellow-conspirators, that one of the terms of the compact between them was that, though Monmouth should lead the expedition, he should not assume the title of king without their consent, and should, if the rebellion were successful, resign it and accept Whatever rank the nation might offer. Now, as always, he was but a puppet in other men’s hands.
On the 2nd of May Argyll sailed with three ships to raise the west of Scotland; and three weeks later, with a following of only eighty-two persons—of whom Lord Grey, Fletcher of Saltoun, Wade, and Ferguson, the author of the Appeal from the Country to the City, were the chief—Monmouth himself set out for the west of England, where, as the stronghold of Protestant dissent and as the scene of his former progresses, he could alone hope for immediate support. Even here, however, there was no movement; and when on the 11th of June Monmouth’s three ships, having eluded the royal fleet, arrived off Lyme Regis, he landed amid the curiosity rather than the sympathy of the inhabitants. In the market-place his “declaration,” drawn up by Ferguson, was read aloud. In this document James was painted in the blackest colours. Not only was he declared to be the murderer of Essex, but he was directly charged with having poisoned Charles to obtain his crown. Monmouth soon collected an undisciplined body of some 1500 men, with whom he seized Axminster, and entered Taunton. Meanwhile the parliament had declared it treason to assert Monmouth’s legitimacy, or his title to the crown; a reward of £5000 was offered for him dead or alive, and an act of attainder was passed in unusual haste. Troops had been hurriedly sent to meet him, and when he reached Bridgwater Albemarle was already in his rear. From Bridgwater the army marched through Glastonbury to attack Bristol, into which Lord Feversham had hastily thrown a regiment of foot-guards. The attempt, however, miscarried; and, after summoning Bath in vain, Monmouth, with a disordered force, began his retrograde march through Philips Norton and Frome, continually harassed by Feversham’s soldiers. At the latter place he heard of Argyll’s total rout in the western Highlands. He was now anxious to give up the enterprise, but was overruled by Grey, Wade and others. On the 3rd of July he reached Bridgwater again, with an army little better than a rabble, living at free quarters and behaving with reckless violence. On Sunday, the 5th, Feversham entered Sedgemoor in pursuit; Monmouth the same night attempted a surprise, but his troops were hopelessly routed. He himself, with Grey and a few others, fled over the Mendip Hills to the New Forest, hoping to reach the coast and escape by sea. The whole country, however, was on the alert, and at midnight on the 8th, within a month of their landing, James heard that the revolt, desperate from the first, was over and that his rival had been captured close to Ringwood in Hampshire.
On the day of his capture Monmouth wrote to James in terms of the most unmanly contrition, ascribing his wrong-doings to the action of others, and imploring an interview. On the 13th the prisoners reached the Tower, and on the next day Monmouth was allowed to see James. No mercy was shown him, nor did he in the least deserve mercy; he had wantonly attacked the peace of the country, and had cruelly libelled James. The king had not, even in his own mind, any family tie to restrain him from exercising just severity, for he had never believed Monmouth to be the son of any one but Robert Sidney. Two painful interviews followed with the wife for whom he bore no love, and who for him could feel no respect; another imploring letter was sent to the king, and abject protestations and beseechings were made to all whom he saw. He offered, as the last hope, to become a Roman Catholic, and this might possibly have proved successful, but the priests sent by James to ascertain
