He
accordingly stole away with a few followers to the Dutch quarters.
accordingly stole away with a few followers to the Dutch quarters.
Macaulay
All the neighbouring villages poured forth their inhabitants.
A great crowd, consisting chiefly of young peasants, brandishing their
cudgels, had assembled on the top of Haldon Hill, whence the army,
marching from Chudleigh, first descried the rich valley of the Exe, and
the two massive towers rising from the cloud of smoke which overhung the
capital of the West. The road, all down the long descent, and through
the plain to the banks of the river, was lined, mile after mile, with
spectators. From the West Gate to the Cathedral Close, the pressing and
shouting on each side was such as reminded Londoners of the crowds on
the Lord Mayor's day. The houses were gaily decorated. Doors, windows,
balconies, and roofs were thronged with gazers. An eye accustomed to
the pomp of war would have found much to criticize in the spectacle.
For several toilsome marches in the rain, through roads where one who
travelled on foot sank at every step up to the ancles in clay, had not
improved the appearance either of the men or of their accoutrements.
But the people of Devonshire, altogether unused to the splendour of well
ordered camps, were overwhelmed with delight and awe. Descriptions of
the martial pageant were circulated all over the kingdom. They contained
much that was well fitted to gratify the vulgar appetite for the
marvellous. For the Dutch army, composed of men who had been born in
various climates, and had served under various standards, presented an
aspect at once grotesque, gorgeous, and terrible to islanders who had,
in general, a very indistinct notion of foreign countries. First rode
Macclesfield at the head of two hundred gentlemen, mostly of English
blood, glittering in helmets and cuirasses, and mounted on Flemish war
horses. Each was attended by a negro, brought from the sugar plantations
on the coast of Guiana. The citizens of Exeter, who had never seen so
many specimens of the African race, gazed with wonder on those black
faces set off by embroidered turbans and white feathers. Then with drawn
broad swords came a squadron of Swedish horsemen in black armour and fur
cloaks. They were regarded with a strange interest; for it was rumoured
that they were natives of a land where the ocean was frozen and where
the night lasted through half the year, and that they had themselves
slain the huge bears whose skins they wore. Next, surrounded by a goodly
company of gentlemen and pages, was borne aloft the Prince's banner. On
its broad folds the crowd which covered the roofs and filled the windows
read with delight that memorable inscription, "The Protestant religion
and the liberties of England. " But the acclamations redoubled when,
attended by forty running footmen, the Prince himself appeared, armed on
back and breast, wearing a white plume and mounted on a white charger.
With how martial an air he curbed his horse, how thoughtful and
commanding was the expression of his ample forehead and falcon eye,
may still be seen on the canvass of Kneller. Once those grave features
relaxed into a smile. It was when an ancient woman, perhaps one of
the zealous Puritans who through twenty-eight years of persecution had
waited with firm faith for the consolation of Israel, perhaps the mother
of some rebel who had perished in the carnage of Sedgemoor, or in the
more fearful carnage of the Bloody Circuit, broke from the crowd, rushed
through the drawn swords and curvetting horses, touched the hand of the
deliverer, and cried out that now she was happy. Near to the Prince was
one who divided with him the gaze of the multitude. That, men said, was
the great Count Schomberg, the first soldier in Europe, since Turenne
and Conde were gone, the man whose genius and valour had saved the
Portuguese monarchy on the field of Montes Claros, the man who had
earned a still higher glory by resigning the truncheon of a Marshal of
France for the sake of the true religion. It was not forgotten that the
two heroes who, indissolubly united by their common Protestantism, were
entering Exeter together, had twelve years before been opposed to each
other under the walls of Maestricht, and that the energy of the young
Prince had not then been found a match for the cool science of the
veteran who now rode in friendship by his side. Then came a long column
of the whiskered infantry of Switzerland, distinguished in all the
continental wars of two centuries by preeminent valour and discipline,
but never till that week seen on English ground. And then marched a
succession of bands designated, as was the fashion of that age, after
their leaders, Bentinck, Solmes and Ginkell, Talmash and Mackay. With
peculiar pleasure Englishmen might look on one gallant regiment which
still bore the name of the honoured and lamented Ossory. The effect of
the spectacle was heightened by the recollection of the renowned events
in which many of the warriors now pouring through the West Gate had
borne a share. For they had seen service very different from that of the
Devonshire militia or of the camp at Hounslow. Some of them had repelled
the fiery onset of the French on the field of Seneff; and others had
crossed swords with the infidels in the cause of Christendom on that
great day when the siege of Vienna was raised. The very senses of the
multitude were fooled by imagination. Newsletters conveyed to every
part of the kingdom fabulous accounts of the size and strength of the
invaders. It was affirmed that they were, with scarcely an exception,
above six feet high, and that they wielded such huge pikes, swords, and
muskets, as had never before been seen in England. Nor did the wonder
of the population diminish when the artillery arrived, twenty-one huge
pieces of brass cannon, which were with difficulty tugged along by
sixteen cart horses to each. Much curiosity was excited by a strange
structure mounted on wheels. It proved to be a moveable smithy,
furnished with all tools and materials necessary for repairing arms and
carriages. But nothing raised so much admiration as the bridge of
boats, which was laid with great speed on the Exe for the conveyance of
waggons, and afterwards as speedily taken to pieces and carried away.
It was made, if report said true, after a pattern contrived by the
Christians who were warring against the Great Turk on the Danube. The
foreigners inspired as much good will as admiration. Their politic
leader took care to distribute the quarters in such a manner as to cause
the smallest possible inconvenience to the inhabitants of Exeter and of
the neighbouring villages. The most rigid discipline was maintained. Not
only were pillage and outrage effectually prevented, but the troops were
required to demean themselves with civility towards all classes. Those
who had formed their notions of an army from the conduct of Kirke and
his Lambs were amazed to see soldiers who never swore at a landlady or
took an egg without paying for it. In return for this moderation the
people furnished the troops with provisions in great abundance and at
reasonable prices. [512]
Much depended on the course which, at this great crisis, the clergy
of the Church of England might take; and the members of the Chapter of
Exeter were the first who were called upon to declare their sentiments.
Burnet informed the Canons, now left without a head by the flight of the
Dean, that they could not be permitted to use the prayer for the Prince
of Wales, and that a solemn service must be performed in honour of the
safe arrival of the Prince. The Canons did not choose to appear in their
stalls; but some of the choristers and prebendaries attended. William
repaired in military state to the Cathedral. As he passed under the
gorgeous screen, that renowned organ, scarcely surpassed by any of those
which are the boast of his native Holland, gave out a peal of triumph.
He mounted the Bishop's seat, a stately throne rich with the carving of
the fifteenth century. Burnet stood below; and a crowd of warriors and
nobles appeared on the right hand and on the left. The singers, robed
in white, sang the Te Deum. When the chaunt was over, Burnet read the
Prince's Declaration: but as soon as the first words were uttered,
prebendaries and singers crowded in all haste out of the choir. At the
close Burnet cried in a loud voice, "God save the Prince of Orange! " and
many fervent voices answered, "Amen. " [513]
On Sunday, the eleventh of November, Burnet preached before the Prince
in the Cathedral, and dilated on the signal mercy vouchsafed by God
to the English Church and nation. At the same time a singular event
happened in a humbler place of worship. Ferguson resolved to preach
at the Presbyterian meeting house. The minister and elders would not
consent but the turbulent and halfwitted knave, fancying that the times
of Fleetwood and Harrison were come again, forced the door, went through
the congregation sword in hand, mounted the pulpit, and there poured
forth a fiery invective against the King. The time for such follies had
gone by; and this exhibition excited nothing but derision and disgust.
[514]
While these things were passing in Devonshire the ferment was great in
London. The Prince's Declaration, in spite of all precautions, was now
in every man's hands. On the sixth of November James, still uncertain on
what part of the coast the invaders had landed, summoned the Primate and
three other Bishops, Compton of London, White of Peterborough, and
Sprat of Rochester, to a conference in the closet. The King listened
graciously while the prelates made warm professions of loyalty, and
assured them that he did not suspect them. "But where," said he, "is
the paper that you were to bring me? " "Sir," answered Sancroft, "we have
brought no paper. We are not solicitous to clear our fame to the
world. It is no new thing to us to be reviled and falsely accused. Our
consciences acquit us: your Majesty acquits us: and we are satisfied. "
"Yes," said the King; "but a declaration from you is necessary to my
service. " He then produced a copy of the Prince's manifesto. "See," he
said, "how you are mentioned here. " "Sir," answered one of the Bishops,
"not one person in five hundred believes this manifesto to be genuine. "
"No! " cried the King fiercely; "then those five hundred would bring the
Prince of Orange to cut my throat. " "God forbid," exclaimed the prelates
in concert. But the King's understanding, never very clear, was now
quite bewildered. One of his peculiarities was that, whenever his
opinion was not adopted, he fancied that his veracity was questioned.
"This paper not genuine! " he exclaimed, turning over the leaves with his
hands. "Am I not worthy to be believed? Is my word not to be taken? "
"At all events, sir," said one of the Bishops, "this is not an
ecclesiastical matter. It lies within the sphere of the civil power.
God has entrusted your Majesty with the sword: and it is not for us
to invade your functions. " Then the Archbishop, with that gentle and
temperate malice which inflicts the deepest wounds, declared that he
must be excused from setting his hand to any political document. "I and
my brethren, sir," he said, "have already smarted severely for meddling
with affairs of state; and we shall be very cautious how we do so again.
We once subscribed a petition of the most harmless kind: we presented it
in the most respectful manner; and we found that we had committed a high
offence. We were saved from ruin only by the merciful protection of God.
And, sir, the ground then taken by your Majesty's Attorney and Solicitor
was that, out of Parliament, we were private men, and that it was
criminal presumption in private men to meddle with politics. They
attacked us so fiercely that for my part I gave myself over for lost. "
"I thank you for that, my Lord of Canterbury," said the King; "I should
have hoped that you would not have thought yourself lost by falling
into my hands. " Such a speech might have become the mouth of a merciful
sovereign, but it came with a bad grace from a prince who had burned
a woman alive for harbouring one of his flying enemies, from a
prince round whose knees his own nephew had clung in vain agonies of
supplication. The Archbishop was not to be so silenced. He resumed his
story, and recounted the insults which the creatures of the court had
offered to the Church of England, among which some ridicule thrown on
his own style occupied a conspicuous place. The King had nothing to say
but that there was no use in repeating old grievances, and that he had
hoped that these things had been quite forgotten. He, who never forgot
the smallest injury that he had suffered, could not understand how
others should remember for a few weeks the most deadly injuries that he
had inflicted.
At length the conversation came back to the point from which it had
wandered. The King insisted on having from the Bishops a paper declaring
their abhorrence of the Prince's enterprise. They, with many professions
of the most submissive loyalty, pertinaciously refused. The Prince,
they said, asserted that he had been invited by temporal as well as by
spiritual peers. The imputation was common. Why should not the purgation
be common also? "I see how it is," said the King. "Some of the temporal
peers have been with you, and have persuaded you to cross me in this
matter. " The Bishops solemnly averred that it was not so. But it would,
they said, seem strange that, on a question involving grave political
and military considerations, the temporal peers should be entirely
passed over, and the prelates alone should be required to take a
prominent part. "But this," said James, "is my method. I am your King.
It is for me to judge what is best. I will go my own way; and I call on
you to assist me. " The Bishops assured him that they would assist him in
their proper department, as Christian ministers with their prayers, and
as peers of the realm with their advice in his Parliament. James, who
wanted neither the prayers of heretics nor the advice of Parliaments,
was bitterly disappointed. After a long altercation, "I have done," he
said, "I will urge you no further. Since you will not help me, I must
trust to myself and to my own arms. " [515]
The Bishops had hardly left the royal presence, when a courier arrived
with the news that on the preceding day the Prince of Orange had landed
in Devonshire. During the following week London was violently agitated.
On Sunday, the eleventh of November, a rumour was circulated that
knives, gridirons, and caldrons, intended for the torturing of heretics,
were concealed in the monastery which had been established under the
King's protection at Clerkenwell. Great multitudes assembled round the
building, and were about to demolish it, when a military force arrived.
The crowd was dispersed, and several of the rioters were slain. An
inquest sate on the bodies, and came to a decision which strongly
indicated the temper of the public mind. The jury found that certain
loyal and well disposed persons, who had gone to put down the meetings
of traitors and public enemies at a mass house, had been wilfully
murdered by the soldiers; and this strange verdict was signed by all
the jurors. The ecclesiastics at Clerkenwell, naturally alarmed by these
symptoms of popular feeling, were desirous to place their property in
safety. They succeeded in removing most of their furniture before any
report of their intentions got abroad. But at length the suspicions of
the rabble were excited. The two last carts were stopped in Holborn, and
all that they contained was publicly burned in the middle of the street.
So great was the alarm among the Catholics that all their places of
worship were closed, except those which belonged to the royal family and
to foreign Ambassadors. [516]
On the whole, however, things as yet looked not unfavourably for James.
The invaders had been more than a week on English ground. Yet no man of
note had joined them. No rebellion had broken out in the north or the
east. No servant of the crown appeared to have betrayed his trust. The
royal army was assembling fast at Salisbury, and, though inferior in
discipline to that of William, was superior in numbers.
The Prince was undoubtedly surprised and mortified by the slackness
of those who had invited him to England. By the common people of
Devonshire, indeed, he had been received with every sign of good will:
but no nobleman, no gentleman of high consideration, had yet repaired
to his quarters. The explanation of this singular fact is probably to
be found in the circumstance that he had landed in a part of the island
where he had not been expected. His friends in the north had made their
arrangements for a rising, on the supposition that he would be among
them with an army. His friends in the west had made no arrangements
at all, and were naturally disconcerted at finding themselves suddenly
called upon to take the lead in a movement so important and perilous.
They had also fresh in their recollection, and indeed full in their
sight, the disastrous consequences of rebellion, gibbets, heads, mangled
quarters, families still in deep mourning for brave sufferers who had
loved their country well but not wisely. After a warning so terrible and
so recent, some hesitation was natural. It was equally natural, however,
that William, who, trusting to promises from England, had put to
hazard, not only his own fame and fortunes, but also the prosperity and
independence of his native land, should feel deeply mortified. He
was, indeed, so indignant, that he talked of falling back to Torbay,
reembarking his troops, returning to Holland, and leaving those who had
betrayed him to the fate which they deserved. At length, on Monday, the
twelfth of November, a gentleman named Burrington, who resided in the
neighbourhood of Crediton, joined the Prince's standard, and his example
was followed by several of his neighbours.
Men of higher consequence had already set out from different parts
of the country for Exeter. The first of these was John Lord Lovelace,
distinguished by his taste, by his magnificence, and by the audacious
and intemperate vehemence of his Whiggism. He had been five or six times
arrested for political offences. The last crime laid to his charge was,
that he had contemptuously denied the validity of a warrant, signed by
a Roman Catholic Justice of the Peace. He had been brought before
the Privy Council and strictly examined, but to little purpose. He
resolutely refused to criminate himself; and the evidence against
him was insufficient. He was dismissed; but, before he retired, James
exclaimed in great heat, "My Lord, this is not the first trick that you
have played me. " "Sir," answered Lovelace, with undaunted spirit, "I
never played any trick to your Majesty, or to any other person. Whoever
has accused me to your Majesty of playing tricks is a liar. " Lovelace
had subsequently been admitted into the confidence of those who planned
the Revolution. [517] His mansion, built by his ancestors out of the
spoils of Spanish galleons from the Indies, rose on the ruins of a house
of Our Lady in that beautiful valley through which the Thames, not yet
defiled by the precincts of a great capital, nor rising and falling with
the flow and ebb of the sea, rolls under woods of beech round the gentle
hills of Berkshire. Beneath the stately saloon, adorned by Italian
pencils, was a subterraneous vault, in which the bones of ancient monks
had sometimes been found. In this dark chamber some zealous and daring
opponents of the government had held many midnight conferences during
that anxious time when England was impatiently expecting the Protestant
wind. [518] The season for action had now arrived. Lovelace, with
seventy followers, well armed and mounted, quitted his dwelling,
and directed his course westward. He reached Gloucestershire without
difficulty. But Beaufort, who governed that county, was exerting all his
great authority and influence in support of the crown. The militia had
been called out. A strong party had been posted at Cirencester. When
Lovelace arrived there he was informed that he could not be suffered to
pass. It was necessary for him either to relinquish his undertaking
or to fight his way through. He resolved to force a passage; and his
friends and tenants stood gallantly by him. A sharp conflict took place.
The militia lost an officer and six or seven men; but at length the
followers of Lovelace were overpowered: he was made a prisoner, and sent
to Gloucester Castle. [519]
Others were more fortunate. On the day on which the skirmish took place
at Cirencester, Richard Savage, Lord Colchester, son and heir of the
Earl Rivers, and father, by a lawless amour, of that unhappy poet whose
misdeeds and misfortunes form one of the darkest portions of literary
history, came with between sixty and seventy horse to Exeter. With him
arrived the bold and turbulent Thomas Wharton. A few hours later came
Edward Russell, son of the Earl of Bedford, and brother of the virtuous
nobleman whose blood had been shed on the scaffold. Another arrival
still more important was speedily announced. Colchester, Wharton, and
Russell belonged to that party which had been constantly opposed to
the court. James Bertie, Earl of Abingdon, had, on the contrary, been
regarded as a supporter of arbitrary government. He had been true to
James in the days of the Exclusion Bill. He had, as Lord Lieutenant of
Oxfordshire, acted with vigour and severity against the adherents of
Monmouth, and had lighted bonfires to celebrate the defeat of Argyle.
But dread of Popery had driven him into opposition and rebellion. He was
the first peer of the realm who made his appearance at the quarters of
the Prince of Orange. [520]
But the King had less to fear from those who openly arrayed themselves
against his authority, than from the dark conspiracy which had spread
its ramifications through his army and his family. Of that conspiracy
Churchill, unrivalled in sagacity and address, endowed by nature with
a certain cool intrepidity which never failed him either in fighting
or lying, high in military rank, and high in the favour of the Princess
Anne, must be regarded as the soul. It was not yet time for him to
strike the decisive blow. But even thus early he inflicted, by the
instrumentality of a subordinate agent, a wound, serious if not deadly,
on the royal cause.
Edward, Viscount Cornbury, eldest son of the Earl of Clarendon, was a
young man of slender abilities, loose principles, and violent temper. He
had been early taught to consider his relationship to the Princess Anne
as the groundwork of his fortunes, and had been exhorted to pay her
assiduous court. It had never occurred to his father that the hereditary
loyalty of the Hydes could run any risk of contamination in the
household of the King's favourite daughter: but in that household
the Churchills held absolute sway; and Cornbury became their tool. He
commanded one of the regiments of dragoons which had been sent westward.
Such dispositions had been made that, on the fourteenth of November, he
was, during a few hours, the senior officer at Salisbury, and all
the troops assembled there were subject to his authority. It seems
extraordinary that, at such a crisis, the army on which every thing
depended should have been left, even for a moment, under the command of
a young Colonel who had neither abilities nor experience. There can
be little doubt that so strange an arrangement was the result of deep
design, and as little doubt to what head and to what heart the design is
to be imputed.
Suddenly three of the regiments of cavalry which had assembled at
Salisbury were ordered to march westward. Cornbury put himself at their
head, and conducted them first to Blandford and thence to Dorchester.
From Dorchester, after a halt of an hour or two, they set out for
Axminster. Some of the officers began to be uneasy, and demanded an
explanation of these strange movements. Cornbury replied that he had
instructions to make a night attack on some troops which the Prince
of Orange had posted at Honiton. But suspicion was awake. Searching
questions were put, and were evasively answered. At last Cornbury was
pressed to produce his orders. He perceived, not only that it would
be impossible for him to carry over all the three regiments, as he had
hoped, but that he was himself in a situation of considerable peril.
He
accordingly stole away with a few followers to the Dutch quarters. Most
of his troops returned to Salisbury but some who had been detached
from the main body, and who had no suspicion of the designs of their
commander, proceeded to Honiton. There they found themselves in the
midst of a large force which was fully prepared to receive them.
Resistance was impossible. Their leader pressed them to take service
under William. A gratuity of a month's pay was offered to them, and was
by most of them accepted. [521]
The news of these events reached London on the fifteenth. James had been
on the morning of that day in high good humour. Bishop Lamplugh had just
presented himself at court on his arrival from Exeter, and had been most
graciously received. "My Lord," said the King, "you are a genuine old
Cavalier. " The archbishopric of York, which had now been vacant more
than two years and a half, was immediately bestowed on Lamplugh as the
reward of loyalty. That afternoon, just as the King was sitting down
to dinner, arrived an express with the tidings of Cornbury's defection.
James turned away from his untasted meal, swallowed a crust of bread and
a glass of wine, and retired to his closet. He afterwards learned that,
as he was rising from table, several of the Lords in whom he reposed the
greatest confidence were shaking hands and congratulating each other
in the adjoining gallery. When the news was carried to the Queen's
apartments she and her ladies broke out into tears and loud cries of
sorrow. [522]
The blow was indeed a heavy one. It was true that the direct loss to the
crown and the direct gain to the invaders hardly amounted to two hundred
men and as many horses. But where could the King henceforth expect to
find those sentiments in which consists the strength of states and of
armies? Cornbury was the heir of a house conspicuous for its attachment
to monarchy. His father Clarendon, his uncle Rochester, were men whose
loyalty was supposed to be proof to all temptation. What must be the
strength of that feeling against which the most deeply rooted hereditary
prejudices were of no avail, of that feeling which could reconcile a
young officer of high birth to desertion, aggravated by breach of trust
and by gross falsehood? That Cornbury was not a man of brilliant parts
or enterprising temper made the event more alarming. It was impossible
to doubt that he had in some quarter a powerful and artful prompter.
Who that prompter was soon became evident. In the meantime no man in the
royal camp could feel assured that he was not surrounded by traitors.
Political rank, military rank, the honour of a nobleman, the honour of a
soldier, the strongest professions, the purest Cavalier blood, could no
longer afford security. Every man might reasonably doubt whether every
order which he received from his superior was not meant to serve the
purposes of the enemy. That prompt obedience without which an army is
merely a rabble was necessarily at an end. What discipline could there
be among soldiers who had just been saved from a snare by refusing to
follow their commanding officer on a secret expedition, and by insisting
on a sight of his orders?
Cornbury was soon kept in countenance by a crowd of deserters superior
to him in rank and capacity: but during a few days he stood alone in
his shame, and was bitterly reviled by many who afterwards imitated his
example and envied his dishonourable precedence. Among these was his
own father. The first outbreak of Clarendon's rage and sorrow was highly
pathetic. "Oh God! " he ejaculated, "that a son of mine should be a
rebel! " A fortnight later he made up his mind to be a rebel himself. Yet
it would be unjust to pronounce him a mere hypocrite. In revolutions men
live fast: the experience of years is crowded into hours: old habits of
thought and action are violently broken; novelties, which at first sight
inspire dread and disgust, become in a few days familiar, endurable,
attractive. Many men of far purer virtue and higher spirit than
Clarendon were prepared, before that memorable year ended, to do what
they would have pronounced wicked and infamous when it began.
The unhappy father composed himself as well as he could, and sent to ask
a private audience of the King. It was granted. James said, with more
than his usual graciousness, that he from his heart pitied Cornbury's
relations, and should not hold them at all accountable for the crime of
their unworthy kinsman. Clarendon went home, scarcely daring to look his
friends in the face. Soon, however, he learned with surprise that the
act, which had, as he at first thought, for ever dishonoured his family,
was applauded by some persons of high station. His niece, the Princess
of Denmark, asked him why he shut himself up. He answered that he had
been overwhelmed with confusion by his son's villany. Anne seemed not
at all to understand this feeling. "People," she said, "are very uneasy
about Popery. I believe that many of the army will do the same. " [523]
And now the King, greatly disturbed, called together the principal
officers who were still in London. Churchill, who was about this time
promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General, made his appearance with
that bland serenity which neither peril nor infamy could ever disturb.
The meeting was attended by Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Grafton, whose
audacity and activity made him conspicuous among the natural children
of Charles the Second. Grafton was colonel of the first regiment of Foot
Guards. He seems to have been at this time completely under Churchill's
influence, and was prepared to desert the royal standard as soon as the
favourable moment should arrive. Two other traitors were in the circle,
Kirke and Trelawney, who commanded those two fierce and lawless bands
then known as the Tangier regiments. Both of them had, like the other
Protestant officers of the army, long seen with extreme displeasure the
partiality which the King had shown to members of his own Church; and
Trelawney remembered with bitter resentment the persecution of his
brother the Bishop of Bristol. James addressed the assembly in terms
worthy of a better man and of a better cause. It might be, he said, that
some of the officers had conscientious scruples about fighting for him.
If so he was willing to receive back their commissions. But he adjured
them as gentlemen and soldiers not to imitate the shameful example of
Cornbury. All seemed moved; and none more than Churchill. He was the
first to vow with well feigned enthusiasm that he would shed the last
drop of his blood in the service of his gracious master: Grafton was
loud and forward in similar protestations; and the example was followed
by Kirke and Trelawney. [524]
Deceived by these professions, the King prepared to set out for
Salisbury. Before his departure he was informed that a considerable
number of peers, temporal and spiritual, desired to be admitted to an
audience. They came, with Sancroft at their head, to present a petition,
praying that a free and legal Parliament might be called, and that a
negotiation might be opened with the Prince of Orange.
The history of this petition is curious. The thought seems to have
occurred at once to two great chiefs of parties who had long been rivals
and enemies, Rochester and Halifax. They both, independently of one
another, consulted the Bishops. The Bishops warmly approved of the
suggestion. It was then proposed that a general meeting of peers should
be called to deliberate on the form of an address to the King. It was
term time; and in term time men of rank and fashion then lounged every
day in Westminster Hall as they now lounge in the clubs of Pall Mall
and Saint James's Street. Nothing could be easier than for the Lords
who assembled there to step aside into some adjoining room and to hold
a consultation. But unexpected difficulties arose. Halifax became first
cold and then adverse. It was his nature to discover objections to
everything; and on this occasion his sagacity was quickened by rivalry.
The scheme, which he had approved while he regarded it as his own, began
to displease him as soon as he found that it was also the scheme of
Rochester, by whom he had been long thwarted and at length supplanted,
and whom he disliked as much as it was in his easy nature to dislike
anybody. Nottingham was at that time much under the influence of
Halifax. They both declared that they would not join in the address
if Rochester signed it. Clarendon expostulated in vain. "I mean no
disrespect," said Halifax, "to my Lord Rochester: but he has been a
member of the Ecclesiastical Commission: the proceedings of that court
must soon be the subject of a very serious inquiry; and it is not fit
that one who has sate there should take any part in our petition. "
Nottingham, with strong expressions of personal esteem for Rochester,
avowed the same opinion. The authority of the two dissentient Lords
prevented several other noblemen from subscribing the address but the
Hydes and the Bishops persisted. Nineteen signatures were procured; and
the petitioners waited in a body on the King. [525]
He received their address ungraciously. He assured them, indeed, that he
passionately desired the meeting of a free Parliament; and he promised
them, on the faith of a King, that he would call one as soon as the
Prince of Orange should have left the island. "But how," said he, "can a
Parliament be free when an enemy is in the kingdom, and can return near
a hundred votes? " To the prelates he spoke with peculiar acrimony. "I
could not," he said, "prevail on you the other day to declare against
this invasion: but you are ready enough to declare against me. Then you
would not meddle with politics. You have no scruple about meddling now.
You have excited this rebellious temper among your flocks, and now you
foment it. You would be better employed in teaching them how to obey
than in teaching me how to govern. " He was much incensed against his
nephew Grafton, whose signature stood next to that of Sancroft, and said
to the young man, with great asperity, "You know nothing about religion;
you care nothing about it; and yet, forsooth, you must pretend to have
a conscience. " "It is true, sir," answered Grafton, with impudent
frankness, "that I have very little conscience: but I belong to a party
which has a great deal. " [526]
Bitter as was the King's language to the petitioners, it was far less
bitter that that which he held after they had withdrawn. He had done,
he said, far too much already in the hope of satisfying an undutiful and
ungrateful people. He had always hated the thought of concession: but
he had suffered himself to be talked over; and now he, like his
father before him, had found that concession only made subjects more
encroaching. He would yield nothing more, not an atom, and, after his
fashion, he vehemently repeated many times, "Not an atom. " Not only
would he make no overtures to the invaders, but he would receive
none. If the Dutch sent flags of truce, the first messenger should be
dismissed without an answer; the second should be hanged. [527] In such
a mood James set out for Salisbury. His last act before his departure
was to appoint a Council of five Lords to represent him in London during
his absence. Of the five, two were Papists, and by law incapable of
office. Joined with them was Jeffreys, a Protestant indeed, but more
detested by the nation than any Papist. To the other two members of this
board, Preston and Godolphin, no serious objection could be made. On
the day on which the King left London the Prince of Wales was sent to
Portsmouth. That fortress was strongly garrisoned, and was under the
government of Berwick. The fleet commanded by Dartmouth lay close at
hand: and it was supposed that, if things went ill, the royal infant
would, without difficulty, be conveyed from Portsmouth to France. [528]
On the nineteenth James reached Salisbury, and took up his quarters in
the episcopal palace. Evil news was now fast pouring in upon him from
all sides. The western counties had at length risen. As soon as the news
of Cornbury's desertion was known, many wealthy landowners took
heart and hastened to Exeter. Among them was Sir William Portman of
Bryanstone, one of the greatest men in Dorsetshire, and Sir Francis
Warre of Hestercombe, whose interest was great in Somersetshire. [529]
But the most important of the new comets was Seymour, who had recently
inherited a baronetcy which added little to his dignity, and who, in
birth, in political influence, and in parliamentary abilities, was
beyond comparison the foremost among the Tory gentlemen of England. At
his first audience he is said to have exhibited his characteristic pride
in a way which surprised and amused the Prince. "I think, Sir Edward,"
said William, meaning to be very civil, "that you are of the family
of the Duke of Somerset. " "Pardon me, sir," said Sir Edward, who never
forgot that he was the head of the elder branch of the Seymours, "the
Duke of Somerset is of my family. " [530]
The quarters of William now began to present the appearance of a court.
More than sixty men of rank and fortune were lodged at Exeter; and the
daily display of rich liveries, and of coaches drawn by six horses,
in the Cathedral Close, gave to that quiet precinct something of the
splendour and gaiety of Whitehall. The common people were eager to take
arms; and it would have been easy to form many battalions of infantry.
But Schomberg, who thought little of soldiers fresh from the plough,
maintained that, if the expedition could not succeed without such help,
it would not succeed at all: and William, who had as much professional
feeling as Schomberg, concurred in this opinion. Commissions therefore
for raising new regiments were very sparingly given; and none but picked
recruits were enlisted.
It was now thought desirable that the Prince should give a public
reception to the whole body of noblemen and gentlemen who had assembled
at Exeter. He addressed them in a short but dignified and well
considered speech. He was not, he said, acquainted with the faces of all
whom he saw. But he had a list of their names, and knew how high
they stood in the estimation of their country. He gently chid their
tardiness, but expressed a confident hope that it was not yet too late
to save the kingdom. "Therefore," he said, "gentlemen, friends, and
fellow Protestants, we bid you and all your followers most heartily
welcome to our court and camp. " [531]
Seymour, a keen politician, long accustomed to the tactics of faction,
saw in a moment that the party which had begun to rally round the Prince
stood in need of organization. It was as yet, he said, a mere rope of
sand: no common object had been publicly and formally avowed: nobody was
pledged to anything. As soon as the assembly at the Deanery broke up, he
sent for Burnet, and suggested that an association should be formed, and
that all the English adherents of the Prince should put their hands to
an instrument binding them to be true to their leader and to each other.
Burnet carried the suggestion to the Prince and to Shrewsbury, by both
of whom it was approved. A meeting was held in the Cathedral. A short
paper drawn up by Burnet was produced, approved, and eagerly signed. The
subscribers engaged to pursue in concert the objects set forth in the
Prince's declaration; to stand by him and by each other; to take signal
vengeance on all who should make any attempt on his person; and, even
if such an attempt should unhappily succeed, to persist in their
undertaking till the liberties and the religion of the nation should be
effectually secured. [532]
About the same time a messenger arrived at Exeter from the Earl of Bath,
who commanded at Plymouth. Bath declared that he placed himself, his
troops, and the fortress which he governed at the Prince's disposal. The
invaders therefore had now not a single enemy in their rear. [533]
While the West was thus rising to confront the King, the North was all
in a flame behind him. On the sixteenth Delamere took arms in Cheshire.
He convoked his tenants, called upon them to stand by him, promised
that, if they fell in the cause, their leases should be renewed to their
children, and exhorted every one who had a good horse either to take the
field or to provide a substitute. [534] He appeared at Manchester with
fifty men armed and mounted, and his force had trebled before he reached
Boaden Downs.
The neighbouring counties were violently agitated. It had been arranged
that Danby should seize York, and that Devonshire should appear at
Nottingham. At Nottingham no resistance was anticipated. But at York
there was a small garrison under the command of Sir John Reresby. Danby
acted with rare dexterity. A meeting of the gentry and freeholders of
Yorkshire had been summoned for the twenty-second of November to address
the King on the state of affairs. All the Deputy Lieutenants of the
three Ridings, several noblemen, and a multitude of opulent esquires and
substantial yeomen had been attracted to the provincial capital. Four
troops of militia had been drawn out under arms to preserve the public
peace. The Common Hall was crowded with freeholders, and the discussion
had begun, when a cry was suddenly raised that the Papists were up, and
were slaying the Protestants. The Papists of York were much more likely
to be employed in seeking for hiding places than in attacking enemies
who outnumbered them in the proportion of a hundred to one. But at that
time no story of Popish atrocity could be so wild and marvellous as not
to find ready belief. The meeting separated in dismay. The whole city
was in confusion. At this moment Danby at the head of about a hundred
horsemen rode up to the militia, and raised the cry "No Popery! A free
Parliament! The Protestant religion! " The militia echoed the shout. The
garrison was instantly surprised and disarmed. The governor was placed
under arrest. The gates were closed. Sentinels were posted everywhere.
The populace was suffered to pull down a Roman Catholic chapel; but
no other harm appears to have been done. On the following morning the
Guildhall was crowded with the first gentlemen of the shire, and with
the principal magistrates of the city. The Lord Mayor was placed in the
chair. Danby proposed a Declaration setting forth the reasons which had
induced the friends of the constitution and of the Protestant religion
to rise in arms. This Declaration was eagerly adopted, and received in a
few hours the signatures of six peers, of five baronets, of six knights,
and of many gentlemen of high consideration. [535]
Devonshire meantime, at the head of a great body of friends and
dependents, quitted the palace which he was rearing at Chatsworth, and
appeared in arms at Derby. There he formally delivered to the municipal
authorities a paper setting forth the reasons which had moved him to
this enterprise. He then proceeded to Nottingham, which soon became the
head quarters of the Northern insurrection. Here a proclamation was put
forth couched in bold and severe terms. The name of rebellion, it was
said, was a bugbear which could frighten no reasonable man. Was it
rebellion to defend those laws and that religion which every King of
England bound himself by oath to maintain? How that oath had lately been
observed was a question on which, it was to be hoped, a free Parliament
would soon pronounce. In the meantime, the insurgents declared that they
held it to be not rebellion, but legitimate self defence, to resist
a tyrant who knew no law but his own will. The Northern rising became
every day more formidable. Four powerful and wealthy Earls, Manchester,
Stamford, Rutland, and Chesterfield, repaired to Nottingham, and were
joined there by Lord Cholmondley and by Lord Grey de Ruthyn. [536]
All this time the hostile armies in the south were approaching each
other. The Prince of Orange, when he learned that the King had arrived
at Salisbury, thought it time to leave Exeter. He placed that city and
the surrounding country under the government of Sir Edward Seymour, and
set out on Wednesday the twenty-first of November, escorted by many of
the most considerable gentlemen of the western counties, for Axminster,
where he remained several days.
The King was eager to fight; and it was obviously his interest to do
so. Every hour took away something from his own strength, and added
something to the strength of his enemies. It was most important, too,
that his troops should be blooded. A great battle, however it might
terminate, could not but injure the Prince's popularity. All this
William perfectly understood, and determined to avoid an action as long
as possible. It is said that, when Schomberg was told that the enemy
were advancing and were determined to fight, he answered, with the
composure of a tactician confident in his skill, "That will be just as
we may choose. " It was, however, impossible to prevent all skirmishing
between the advanced guards of the armies. William was desirous that
in such skirmishing nothing might happen which could wound the pride or
rouse the vindictive feelings of the nation which he meant to deliver.
He therefore, with admirable prudence, placed his British regiments in
the situations where there was most risk of collision. The outposts
of the royal army were Irish. The consequence was that, in the little
combats of this short campaign, the invaders had on their side the
hearty sympathy of all Englishmen.
The first of these encounters took place at Wincanton. Mackay's
regiment, composed of British soldiers, lay near a body of the King's
Irish troops, commanded by their countryman, the gallant Sarsfield.
Mackay sent out a small party under a lieutenant named Campbell,
to procure horses for the baggage. Campbell found what he wanted at
Wincanton, and was just leaving that town on his return, when a strong
detachment of Sarsfield's troops approached. The Irish were four to one:
but Campbell resolved to fight it out to the last. With a handful of
resolute men he took his stand in the road. The rest of his soldiers
lined the hedges which overhung the highway on the right and on the
left. The enemy came up. "Stand," cried Campbell: "for whom are you? " "I
am for King James," answered the leader of the other party.
A great crowd, consisting chiefly of young peasants, brandishing their
cudgels, had assembled on the top of Haldon Hill, whence the army,
marching from Chudleigh, first descried the rich valley of the Exe, and
the two massive towers rising from the cloud of smoke which overhung the
capital of the West. The road, all down the long descent, and through
the plain to the banks of the river, was lined, mile after mile, with
spectators. From the West Gate to the Cathedral Close, the pressing and
shouting on each side was such as reminded Londoners of the crowds on
the Lord Mayor's day. The houses were gaily decorated. Doors, windows,
balconies, and roofs were thronged with gazers. An eye accustomed to
the pomp of war would have found much to criticize in the spectacle.
For several toilsome marches in the rain, through roads where one who
travelled on foot sank at every step up to the ancles in clay, had not
improved the appearance either of the men or of their accoutrements.
But the people of Devonshire, altogether unused to the splendour of well
ordered camps, were overwhelmed with delight and awe. Descriptions of
the martial pageant were circulated all over the kingdom. They contained
much that was well fitted to gratify the vulgar appetite for the
marvellous. For the Dutch army, composed of men who had been born in
various climates, and had served under various standards, presented an
aspect at once grotesque, gorgeous, and terrible to islanders who had,
in general, a very indistinct notion of foreign countries. First rode
Macclesfield at the head of two hundred gentlemen, mostly of English
blood, glittering in helmets and cuirasses, and mounted on Flemish war
horses. Each was attended by a negro, brought from the sugar plantations
on the coast of Guiana. The citizens of Exeter, who had never seen so
many specimens of the African race, gazed with wonder on those black
faces set off by embroidered turbans and white feathers. Then with drawn
broad swords came a squadron of Swedish horsemen in black armour and fur
cloaks. They were regarded with a strange interest; for it was rumoured
that they were natives of a land where the ocean was frozen and where
the night lasted through half the year, and that they had themselves
slain the huge bears whose skins they wore. Next, surrounded by a goodly
company of gentlemen and pages, was borne aloft the Prince's banner. On
its broad folds the crowd which covered the roofs and filled the windows
read with delight that memorable inscription, "The Protestant religion
and the liberties of England. " But the acclamations redoubled when,
attended by forty running footmen, the Prince himself appeared, armed on
back and breast, wearing a white plume and mounted on a white charger.
With how martial an air he curbed his horse, how thoughtful and
commanding was the expression of his ample forehead and falcon eye,
may still be seen on the canvass of Kneller. Once those grave features
relaxed into a smile. It was when an ancient woman, perhaps one of
the zealous Puritans who through twenty-eight years of persecution had
waited with firm faith for the consolation of Israel, perhaps the mother
of some rebel who had perished in the carnage of Sedgemoor, or in the
more fearful carnage of the Bloody Circuit, broke from the crowd, rushed
through the drawn swords and curvetting horses, touched the hand of the
deliverer, and cried out that now she was happy. Near to the Prince was
one who divided with him the gaze of the multitude. That, men said, was
the great Count Schomberg, the first soldier in Europe, since Turenne
and Conde were gone, the man whose genius and valour had saved the
Portuguese monarchy on the field of Montes Claros, the man who had
earned a still higher glory by resigning the truncheon of a Marshal of
France for the sake of the true religion. It was not forgotten that the
two heroes who, indissolubly united by their common Protestantism, were
entering Exeter together, had twelve years before been opposed to each
other under the walls of Maestricht, and that the energy of the young
Prince had not then been found a match for the cool science of the
veteran who now rode in friendship by his side. Then came a long column
of the whiskered infantry of Switzerland, distinguished in all the
continental wars of two centuries by preeminent valour and discipline,
but never till that week seen on English ground. And then marched a
succession of bands designated, as was the fashion of that age, after
their leaders, Bentinck, Solmes and Ginkell, Talmash and Mackay. With
peculiar pleasure Englishmen might look on one gallant regiment which
still bore the name of the honoured and lamented Ossory. The effect of
the spectacle was heightened by the recollection of the renowned events
in which many of the warriors now pouring through the West Gate had
borne a share. For they had seen service very different from that of the
Devonshire militia or of the camp at Hounslow. Some of them had repelled
the fiery onset of the French on the field of Seneff; and others had
crossed swords with the infidels in the cause of Christendom on that
great day when the siege of Vienna was raised. The very senses of the
multitude were fooled by imagination. Newsletters conveyed to every
part of the kingdom fabulous accounts of the size and strength of the
invaders. It was affirmed that they were, with scarcely an exception,
above six feet high, and that they wielded such huge pikes, swords, and
muskets, as had never before been seen in England. Nor did the wonder
of the population diminish when the artillery arrived, twenty-one huge
pieces of brass cannon, which were with difficulty tugged along by
sixteen cart horses to each. Much curiosity was excited by a strange
structure mounted on wheels. It proved to be a moveable smithy,
furnished with all tools and materials necessary for repairing arms and
carriages. But nothing raised so much admiration as the bridge of
boats, which was laid with great speed on the Exe for the conveyance of
waggons, and afterwards as speedily taken to pieces and carried away.
It was made, if report said true, after a pattern contrived by the
Christians who were warring against the Great Turk on the Danube. The
foreigners inspired as much good will as admiration. Their politic
leader took care to distribute the quarters in such a manner as to cause
the smallest possible inconvenience to the inhabitants of Exeter and of
the neighbouring villages. The most rigid discipline was maintained. Not
only were pillage and outrage effectually prevented, but the troops were
required to demean themselves with civility towards all classes. Those
who had formed their notions of an army from the conduct of Kirke and
his Lambs were amazed to see soldiers who never swore at a landlady or
took an egg without paying for it. In return for this moderation the
people furnished the troops with provisions in great abundance and at
reasonable prices. [512]
Much depended on the course which, at this great crisis, the clergy
of the Church of England might take; and the members of the Chapter of
Exeter were the first who were called upon to declare their sentiments.
Burnet informed the Canons, now left without a head by the flight of the
Dean, that they could not be permitted to use the prayer for the Prince
of Wales, and that a solemn service must be performed in honour of the
safe arrival of the Prince. The Canons did not choose to appear in their
stalls; but some of the choristers and prebendaries attended. William
repaired in military state to the Cathedral. As he passed under the
gorgeous screen, that renowned organ, scarcely surpassed by any of those
which are the boast of his native Holland, gave out a peal of triumph.
He mounted the Bishop's seat, a stately throne rich with the carving of
the fifteenth century. Burnet stood below; and a crowd of warriors and
nobles appeared on the right hand and on the left. The singers, robed
in white, sang the Te Deum. When the chaunt was over, Burnet read the
Prince's Declaration: but as soon as the first words were uttered,
prebendaries and singers crowded in all haste out of the choir. At the
close Burnet cried in a loud voice, "God save the Prince of Orange! " and
many fervent voices answered, "Amen. " [513]
On Sunday, the eleventh of November, Burnet preached before the Prince
in the Cathedral, and dilated on the signal mercy vouchsafed by God
to the English Church and nation. At the same time a singular event
happened in a humbler place of worship. Ferguson resolved to preach
at the Presbyterian meeting house. The minister and elders would not
consent but the turbulent and halfwitted knave, fancying that the times
of Fleetwood and Harrison were come again, forced the door, went through
the congregation sword in hand, mounted the pulpit, and there poured
forth a fiery invective against the King. The time for such follies had
gone by; and this exhibition excited nothing but derision and disgust.
[514]
While these things were passing in Devonshire the ferment was great in
London. The Prince's Declaration, in spite of all precautions, was now
in every man's hands. On the sixth of November James, still uncertain on
what part of the coast the invaders had landed, summoned the Primate and
three other Bishops, Compton of London, White of Peterborough, and
Sprat of Rochester, to a conference in the closet. The King listened
graciously while the prelates made warm professions of loyalty, and
assured them that he did not suspect them. "But where," said he, "is
the paper that you were to bring me? " "Sir," answered Sancroft, "we have
brought no paper. We are not solicitous to clear our fame to the
world. It is no new thing to us to be reviled and falsely accused. Our
consciences acquit us: your Majesty acquits us: and we are satisfied. "
"Yes," said the King; "but a declaration from you is necessary to my
service. " He then produced a copy of the Prince's manifesto. "See," he
said, "how you are mentioned here. " "Sir," answered one of the Bishops,
"not one person in five hundred believes this manifesto to be genuine. "
"No! " cried the King fiercely; "then those five hundred would bring the
Prince of Orange to cut my throat. " "God forbid," exclaimed the prelates
in concert. But the King's understanding, never very clear, was now
quite bewildered. One of his peculiarities was that, whenever his
opinion was not adopted, he fancied that his veracity was questioned.
"This paper not genuine! " he exclaimed, turning over the leaves with his
hands. "Am I not worthy to be believed? Is my word not to be taken? "
"At all events, sir," said one of the Bishops, "this is not an
ecclesiastical matter. It lies within the sphere of the civil power.
God has entrusted your Majesty with the sword: and it is not for us
to invade your functions. " Then the Archbishop, with that gentle and
temperate malice which inflicts the deepest wounds, declared that he
must be excused from setting his hand to any political document. "I and
my brethren, sir," he said, "have already smarted severely for meddling
with affairs of state; and we shall be very cautious how we do so again.
We once subscribed a petition of the most harmless kind: we presented it
in the most respectful manner; and we found that we had committed a high
offence. We were saved from ruin only by the merciful protection of God.
And, sir, the ground then taken by your Majesty's Attorney and Solicitor
was that, out of Parliament, we were private men, and that it was
criminal presumption in private men to meddle with politics. They
attacked us so fiercely that for my part I gave myself over for lost. "
"I thank you for that, my Lord of Canterbury," said the King; "I should
have hoped that you would not have thought yourself lost by falling
into my hands. " Such a speech might have become the mouth of a merciful
sovereign, but it came with a bad grace from a prince who had burned
a woman alive for harbouring one of his flying enemies, from a
prince round whose knees his own nephew had clung in vain agonies of
supplication. The Archbishop was not to be so silenced. He resumed his
story, and recounted the insults which the creatures of the court had
offered to the Church of England, among which some ridicule thrown on
his own style occupied a conspicuous place. The King had nothing to say
but that there was no use in repeating old grievances, and that he had
hoped that these things had been quite forgotten. He, who never forgot
the smallest injury that he had suffered, could not understand how
others should remember for a few weeks the most deadly injuries that he
had inflicted.
At length the conversation came back to the point from which it had
wandered. The King insisted on having from the Bishops a paper declaring
their abhorrence of the Prince's enterprise. They, with many professions
of the most submissive loyalty, pertinaciously refused. The Prince,
they said, asserted that he had been invited by temporal as well as by
spiritual peers. The imputation was common. Why should not the purgation
be common also? "I see how it is," said the King. "Some of the temporal
peers have been with you, and have persuaded you to cross me in this
matter. " The Bishops solemnly averred that it was not so. But it would,
they said, seem strange that, on a question involving grave political
and military considerations, the temporal peers should be entirely
passed over, and the prelates alone should be required to take a
prominent part. "But this," said James, "is my method. I am your King.
It is for me to judge what is best. I will go my own way; and I call on
you to assist me. " The Bishops assured him that they would assist him in
their proper department, as Christian ministers with their prayers, and
as peers of the realm with their advice in his Parliament. James, who
wanted neither the prayers of heretics nor the advice of Parliaments,
was bitterly disappointed. After a long altercation, "I have done," he
said, "I will urge you no further. Since you will not help me, I must
trust to myself and to my own arms. " [515]
The Bishops had hardly left the royal presence, when a courier arrived
with the news that on the preceding day the Prince of Orange had landed
in Devonshire. During the following week London was violently agitated.
On Sunday, the eleventh of November, a rumour was circulated that
knives, gridirons, and caldrons, intended for the torturing of heretics,
were concealed in the monastery which had been established under the
King's protection at Clerkenwell. Great multitudes assembled round the
building, and were about to demolish it, when a military force arrived.
The crowd was dispersed, and several of the rioters were slain. An
inquest sate on the bodies, and came to a decision which strongly
indicated the temper of the public mind. The jury found that certain
loyal and well disposed persons, who had gone to put down the meetings
of traitors and public enemies at a mass house, had been wilfully
murdered by the soldiers; and this strange verdict was signed by all
the jurors. The ecclesiastics at Clerkenwell, naturally alarmed by these
symptoms of popular feeling, were desirous to place their property in
safety. They succeeded in removing most of their furniture before any
report of their intentions got abroad. But at length the suspicions of
the rabble were excited. The two last carts were stopped in Holborn, and
all that they contained was publicly burned in the middle of the street.
So great was the alarm among the Catholics that all their places of
worship were closed, except those which belonged to the royal family and
to foreign Ambassadors. [516]
On the whole, however, things as yet looked not unfavourably for James.
The invaders had been more than a week on English ground. Yet no man of
note had joined them. No rebellion had broken out in the north or the
east. No servant of the crown appeared to have betrayed his trust. The
royal army was assembling fast at Salisbury, and, though inferior in
discipline to that of William, was superior in numbers.
The Prince was undoubtedly surprised and mortified by the slackness
of those who had invited him to England. By the common people of
Devonshire, indeed, he had been received with every sign of good will:
but no nobleman, no gentleman of high consideration, had yet repaired
to his quarters. The explanation of this singular fact is probably to
be found in the circumstance that he had landed in a part of the island
where he had not been expected. His friends in the north had made their
arrangements for a rising, on the supposition that he would be among
them with an army. His friends in the west had made no arrangements
at all, and were naturally disconcerted at finding themselves suddenly
called upon to take the lead in a movement so important and perilous.
They had also fresh in their recollection, and indeed full in their
sight, the disastrous consequences of rebellion, gibbets, heads, mangled
quarters, families still in deep mourning for brave sufferers who had
loved their country well but not wisely. After a warning so terrible and
so recent, some hesitation was natural. It was equally natural, however,
that William, who, trusting to promises from England, had put to
hazard, not only his own fame and fortunes, but also the prosperity and
independence of his native land, should feel deeply mortified. He
was, indeed, so indignant, that he talked of falling back to Torbay,
reembarking his troops, returning to Holland, and leaving those who had
betrayed him to the fate which they deserved. At length, on Monday, the
twelfth of November, a gentleman named Burrington, who resided in the
neighbourhood of Crediton, joined the Prince's standard, and his example
was followed by several of his neighbours.
Men of higher consequence had already set out from different parts
of the country for Exeter. The first of these was John Lord Lovelace,
distinguished by his taste, by his magnificence, and by the audacious
and intemperate vehemence of his Whiggism. He had been five or six times
arrested for political offences. The last crime laid to his charge was,
that he had contemptuously denied the validity of a warrant, signed by
a Roman Catholic Justice of the Peace. He had been brought before
the Privy Council and strictly examined, but to little purpose. He
resolutely refused to criminate himself; and the evidence against
him was insufficient. He was dismissed; but, before he retired, James
exclaimed in great heat, "My Lord, this is not the first trick that you
have played me. " "Sir," answered Lovelace, with undaunted spirit, "I
never played any trick to your Majesty, or to any other person. Whoever
has accused me to your Majesty of playing tricks is a liar. " Lovelace
had subsequently been admitted into the confidence of those who planned
the Revolution. [517] His mansion, built by his ancestors out of the
spoils of Spanish galleons from the Indies, rose on the ruins of a house
of Our Lady in that beautiful valley through which the Thames, not yet
defiled by the precincts of a great capital, nor rising and falling with
the flow and ebb of the sea, rolls under woods of beech round the gentle
hills of Berkshire. Beneath the stately saloon, adorned by Italian
pencils, was a subterraneous vault, in which the bones of ancient monks
had sometimes been found. In this dark chamber some zealous and daring
opponents of the government had held many midnight conferences during
that anxious time when England was impatiently expecting the Protestant
wind. [518] The season for action had now arrived. Lovelace, with
seventy followers, well armed and mounted, quitted his dwelling,
and directed his course westward. He reached Gloucestershire without
difficulty. But Beaufort, who governed that county, was exerting all his
great authority and influence in support of the crown. The militia had
been called out. A strong party had been posted at Cirencester. When
Lovelace arrived there he was informed that he could not be suffered to
pass. It was necessary for him either to relinquish his undertaking
or to fight his way through. He resolved to force a passage; and his
friends and tenants stood gallantly by him. A sharp conflict took place.
The militia lost an officer and six or seven men; but at length the
followers of Lovelace were overpowered: he was made a prisoner, and sent
to Gloucester Castle. [519]
Others were more fortunate. On the day on which the skirmish took place
at Cirencester, Richard Savage, Lord Colchester, son and heir of the
Earl Rivers, and father, by a lawless amour, of that unhappy poet whose
misdeeds and misfortunes form one of the darkest portions of literary
history, came with between sixty and seventy horse to Exeter. With him
arrived the bold and turbulent Thomas Wharton. A few hours later came
Edward Russell, son of the Earl of Bedford, and brother of the virtuous
nobleman whose blood had been shed on the scaffold. Another arrival
still more important was speedily announced. Colchester, Wharton, and
Russell belonged to that party which had been constantly opposed to
the court. James Bertie, Earl of Abingdon, had, on the contrary, been
regarded as a supporter of arbitrary government. He had been true to
James in the days of the Exclusion Bill. He had, as Lord Lieutenant of
Oxfordshire, acted with vigour and severity against the adherents of
Monmouth, and had lighted bonfires to celebrate the defeat of Argyle.
But dread of Popery had driven him into opposition and rebellion. He was
the first peer of the realm who made his appearance at the quarters of
the Prince of Orange. [520]
But the King had less to fear from those who openly arrayed themselves
against his authority, than from the dark conspiracy which had spread
its ramifications through his army and his family. Of that conspiracy
Churchill, unrivalled in sagacity and address, endowed by nature with
a certain cool intrepidity which never failed him either in fighting
or lying, high in military rank, and high in the favour of the Princess
Anne, must be regarded as the soul. It was not yet time for him to
strike the decisive blow. But even thus early he inflicted, by the
instrumentality of a subordinate agent, a wound, serious if not deadly,
on the royal cause.
Edward, Viscount Cornbury, eldest son of the Earl of Clarendon, was a
young man of slender abilities, loose principles, and violent temper. He
had been early taught to consider his relationship to the Princess Anne
as the groundwork of his fortunes, and had been exhorted to pay her
assiduous court. It had never occurred to his father that the hereditary
loyalty of the Hydes could run any risk of contamination in the
household of the King's favourite daughter: but in that household
the Churchills held absolute sway; and Cornbury became their tool. He
commanded one of the regiments of dragoons which had been sent westward.
Such dispositions had been made that, on the fourteenth of November, he
was, during a few hours, the senior officer at Salisbury, and all
the troops assembled there were subject to his authority. It seems
extraordinary that, at such a crisis, the army on which every thing
depended should have been left, even for a moment, under the command of
a young Colonel who had neither abilities nor experience. There can
be little doubt that so strange an arrangement was the result of deep
design, and as little doubt to what head and to what heart the design is
to be imputed.
Suddenly three of the regiments of cavalry which had assembled at
Salisbury were ordered to march westward. Cornbury put himself at their
head, and conducted them first to Blandford and thence to Dorchester.
From Dorchester, after a halt of an hour or two, they set out for
Axminster. Some of the officers began to be uneasy, and demanded an
explanation of these strange movements. Cornbury replied that he had
instructions to make a night attack on some troops which the Prince
of Orange had posted at Honiton. But suspicion was awake. Searching
questions were put, and were evasively answered. At last Cornbury was
pressed to produce his orders. He perceived, not only that it would
be impossible for him to carry over all the three regiments, as he had
hoped, but that he was himself in a situation of considerable peril.
He
accordingly stole away with a few followers to the Dutch quarters. Most
of his troops returned to Salisbury but some who had been detached
from the main body, and who had no suspicion of the designs of their
commander, proceeded to Honiton. There they found themselves in the
midst of a large force which was fully prepared to receive them.
Resistance was impossible. Their leader pressed them to take service
under William. A gratuity of a month's pay was offered to them, and was
by most of them accepted. [521]
The news of these events reached London on the fifteenth. James had been
on the morning of that day in high good humour. Bishop Lamplugh had just
presented himself at court on his arrival from Exeter, and had been most
graciously received. "My Lord," said the King, "you are a genuine old
Cavalier. " The archbishopric of York, which had now been vacant more
than two years and a half, was immediately bestowed on Lamplugh as the
reward of loyalty. That afternoon, just as the King was sitting down
to dinner, arrived an express with the tidings of Cornbury's defection.
James turned away from his untasted meal, swallowed a crust of bread and
a glass of wine, and retired to his closet. He afterwards learned that,
as he was rising from table, several of the Lords in whom he reposed the
greatest confidence were shaking hands and congratulating each other
in the adjoining gallery. When the news was carried to the Queen's
apartments she and her ladies broke out into tears and loud cries of
sorrow. [522]
The blow was indeed a heavy one. It was true that the direct loss to the
crown and the direct gain to the invaders hardly amounted to two hundred
men and as many horses. But where could the King henceforth expect to
find those sentiments in which consists the strength of states and of
armies? Cornbury was the heir of a house conspicuous for its attachment
to monarchy. His father Clarendon, his uncle Rochester, were men whose
loyalty was supposed to be proof to all temptation. What must be the
strength of that feeling against which the most deeply rooted hereditary
prejudices were of no avail, of that feeling which could reconcile a
young officer of high birth to desertion, aggravated by breach of trust
and by gross falsehood? That Cornbury was not a man of brilliant parts
or enterprising temper made the event more alarming. It was impossible
to doubt that he had in some quarter a powerful and artful prompter.
Who that prompter was soon became evident. In the meantime no man in the
royal camp could feel assured that he was not surrounded by traitors.
Political rank, military rank, the honour of a nobleman, the honour of a
soldier, the strongest professions, the purest Cavalier blood, could no
longer afford security. Every man might reasonably doubt whether every
order which he received from his superior was not meant to serve the
purposes of the enemy. That prompt obedience without which an army is
merely a rabble was necessarily at an end. What discipline could there
be among soldiers who had just been saved from a snare by refusing to
follow their commanding officer on a secret expedition, and by insisting
on a sight of his orders?
Cornbury was soon kept in countenance by a crowd of deserters superior
to him in rank and capacity: but during a few days he stood alone in
his shame, and was bitterly reviled by many who afterwards imitated his
example and envied his dishonourable precedence. Among these was his
own father. The first outbreak of Clarendon's rage and sorrow was highly
pathetic. "Oh God! " he ejaculated, "that a son of mine should be a
rebel! " A fortnight later he made up his mind to be a rebel himself. Yet
it would be unjust to pronounce him a mere hypocrite. In revolutions men
live fast: the experience of years is crowded into hours: old habits of
thought and action are violently broken; novelties, which at first sight
inspire dread and disgust, become in a few days familiar, endurable,
attractive. Many men of far purer virtue and higher spirit than
Clarendon were prepared, before that memorable year ended, to do what
they would have pronounced wicked and infamous when it began.
The unhappy father composed himself as well as he could, and sent to ask
a private audience of the King. It was granted. James said, with more
than his usual graciousness, that he from his heart pitied Cornbury's
relations, and should not hold them at all accountable for the crime of
their unworthy kinsman. Clarendon went home, scarcely daring to look his
friends in the face. Soon, however, he learned with surprise that the
act, which had, as he at first thought, for ever dishonoured his family,
was applauded by some persons of high station. His niece, the Princess
of Denmark, asked him why he shut himself up. He answered that he had
been overwhelmed with confusion by his son's villany. Anne seemed not
at all to understand this feeling. "People," she said, "are very uneasy
about Popery. I believe that many of the army will do the same. " [523]
And now the King, greatly disturbed, called together the principal
officers who were still in London. Churchill, who was about this time
promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General, made his appearance with
that bland serenity which neither peril nor infamy could ever disturb.
The meeting was attended by Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Grafton, whose
audacity and activity made him conspicuous among the natural children
of Charles the Second. Grafton was colonel of the first regiment of Foot
Guards. He seems to have been at this time completely under Churchill's
influence, and was prepared to desert the royal standard as soon as the
favourable moment should arrive. Two other traitors were in the circle,
Kirke and Trelawney, who commanded those two fierce and lawless bands
then known as the Tangier regiments. Both of them had, like the other
Protestant officers of the army, long seen with extreme displeasure the
partiality which the King had shown to members of his own Church; and
Trelawney remembered with bitter resentment the persecution of his
brother the Bishop of Bristol. James addressed the assembly in terms
worthy of a better man and of a better cause. It might be, he said, that
some of the officers had conscientious scruples about fighting for him.
If so he was willing to receive back their commissions. But he adjured
them as gentlemen and soldiers not to imitate the shameful example of
Cornbury. All seemed moved; and none more than Churchill. He was the
first to vow with well feigned enthusiasm that he would shed the last
drop of his blood in the service of his gracious master: Grafton was
loud and forward in similar protestations; and the example was followed
by Kirke and Trelawney. [524]
Deceived by these professions, the King prepared to set out for
Salisbury. Before his departure he was informed that a considerable
number of peers, temporal and spiritual, desired to be admitted to an
audience. They came, with Sancroft at their head, to present a petition,
praying that a free and legal Parliament might be called, and that a
negotiation might be opened with the Prince of Orange.
The history of this petition is curious. The thought seems to have
occurred at once to two great chiefs of parties who had long been rivals
and enemies, Rochester and Halifax. They both, independently of one
another, consulted the Bishops. The Bishops warmly approved of the
suggestion. It was then proposed that a general meeting of peers should
be called to deliberate on the form of an address to the King. It was
term time; and in term time men of rank and fashion then lounged every
day in Westminster Hall as they now lounge in the clubs of Pall Mall
and Saint James's Street. Nothing could be easier than for the Lords
who assembled there to step aside into some adjoining room and to hold
a consultation. But unexpected difficulties arose. Halifax became first
cold and then adverse. It was his nature to discover objections to
everything; and on this occasion his sagacity was quickened by rivalry.
The scheme, which he had approved while he regarded it as his own, began
to displease him as soon as he found that it was also the scheme of
Rochester, by whom he had been long thwarted and at length supplanted,
and whom he disliked as much as it was in his easy nature to dislike
anybody. Nottingham was at that time much under the influence of
Halifax. They both declared that they would not join in the address
if Rochester signed it. Clarendon expostulated in vain. "I mean no
disrespect," said Halifax, "to my Lord Rochester: but he has been a
member of the Ecclesiastical Commission: the proceedings of that court
must soon be the subject of a very serious inquiry; and it is not fit
that one who has sate there should take any part in our petition. "
Nottingham, with strong expressions of personal esteem for Rochester,
avowed the same opinion. The authority of the two dissentient Lords
prevented several other noblemen from subscribing the address but the
Hydes and the Bishops persisted. Nineteen signatures were procured; and
the petitioners waited in a body on the King. [525]
He received their address ungraciously. He assured them, indeed, that he
passionately desired the meeting of a free Parliament; and he promised
them, on the faith of a King, that he would call one as soon as the
Prince of Orange should have left the island. "But how," said he, "can a
Parliament be free when an enemy is in the kingdom, and can return near
a hundred votes? " To the prelates he spoke with peculiar acrimony. "I
could not," he said, "prevail on you the other day to declare against
this invasion: but you are ready enough to declare against me. Then you
would not meddle with politics. You have no scruple about meddling now.
You have excited this rebellious temper among your flocks, and now you
foment it. You would be better employed in teaching them how to obey
than in teaching me how to govern. " He was much incensed against his
nephew Grafton, whose signature stood next to that of Sancroft, and said
to the young man, with great asperity, "You know nothing about religion;
you care nothing about it; and yet, forsooth, you must pretend to have
a conscience. " "It is true, sir," answered Grafton, with impudent
frankness, "that I have very little conscience: but I belong to a party
which has a great deal. " [526]
Bitter as was the King's language to the petitioners, it was far less
bitter that that which he held after they had withdrawn. He had done,
he said, far too much already in the hope of satisfying an undutiful and
ungrateful people. He had always hated the thought of concession: but
he had suffered himself to be talked over; and now he, like his
father before him, had found that concession only made subjects more
encroaching. He would yield nothing more, not an atom, and, after his
fashion, he vehemently repeated many times, "Not an atom. " Not only
would he make no overtures to the invaders, but he would receive
none. If the Dutch sent flags of truce, the first messenger should be
dismissed without an answer; the second should be hanged. [527] In such
a mood James set out for Salisbury. His last act before his departure
was to appoint a Council of five Lords to represent him in London during
his absence. Of the five, two were Papists, and by law incapable of
office. Joined with them was Jeffreys, a Protestant indeed, but more
detested by the nation than any Papist. To the other two members of this
board, Preston and Godolphin, no serious objection could be made. On
the day on which the King left London the Prince of Wales was sent to
Portsmouth. That fortress was strongly garrisoned, and was under the
government of Berwick. The fleet commanded by Dartmouth lay close at
hand: and it was supposed that, if things went ill, the royal infant
would, without difficulty, be conveyed from Portsmouth to France. [528]
On the nineteenth James reached Salisbury, and took up his quarters in
the episcopal palace. Evil news was now fast pouring in upon him from
all sides. The western counties had at length risen. As soon as the news
of Cornbury's desertion was known, many wealthy landowners took
heart and hastened to Exeter. Among them was Sir William Portman of
Bryanstone, one of the greatest men in Dorsetshire, and Sir Francis
Warre of Hestercombe, whose interest was great in Somersetshire. [529]
But the most important of the new comets was Seymour, who had recently
inherited a baronetcy which added little to his dignity, and who, in
birth, in political influence, and in parliamentary abilities, was
beyond comparison the foremost among the Tory gentlemen of England. At
his first audience he is said to have exhibited his characteristic pride
in a way which surprised and amused the Prince. "I think, Sir Edward,"
said William, meaning to be very civil, "that you are of the family
of the Duke of Somerset. " "Pardon me, sir," said Sir Edward, who never
forgot that he was the head of the elder branch of the Seymours, "the
Duke of Somerset is of my family. " [530]
The quarters of William now began to present the appearance of a court.
More than sixty men of rank and fortune were lodged at Exeter; and the
daily display of rich liveries, and of coaches drawn by six horses,
in the Cathedral Close, gave to that quiet precinct something of the
splendour and gaiety of Whitehall. The common people were eager to take
arms; and it would have been easy to form many battalions of infantry.
But Schomberg, who thought little of soldiers fresh from the plough,
maintained that, if the expedition could not succeed without such help,
it would not succeed at all: and William, who had as much professional
feeling as Schomberg, concurred in this opinion. Commissions therefore
for raising new regiments were very sparingly given; and none but picked
recruits were enlisted.
It was now thought desirable that the Prince should give a public
reception to the whole body of noblemen and gentlemen who had assembled
at Exeter. He addressed them in a short but dignified and well
considered speech. He was not, he said, acquainted with the faces of all
whom he saw. But he had a list of their names, and knew how high
they stood in the estimation of their country. He gently chid their
tardiness, but expressed a confident hope that it was not yet too late
to save the kingdom. "Therefore," he said, "gentlemen, friends, and
fellow Protestants, we bid you and all your followers most heartily
welcome to our court and camp. " [531]
Seymour, a keen politician, long accustomed to the tactics of faction,
saw in a moment that the party which had begun to rally round the Prince
stood in need of organization. It was as yet, he said, a mere rope of
sand: no common object had been publicly and formally avowed: nobody was
pledged to anything. As soon as the assembly at the Deanery broke up, he
sent for Burnet, and suggested that an association should be formed, and
that all the English adherents of the Prince should put their hands to
an instrument binding them to be true to their leader and to each other.
Burnet carried the suggestion to the Prince and to Shrewsbury, by both
of whom it was approved. A meeting was held in the Cathedral. A short
paper drawn up by Burnet was produced, approved, and eagerly signed. The
subscribers engaged to pursue in concert the objects set forth in the
Prince's declaration; to stand by him and by each other; to take signal
vengeance on all who should make any attempt on his person; and, even
if such an attempt should unhappily succeed, to persist in their
undertaking till the liberties and the religion of the nation should be
effectually secured. [532]
About the same time a messenger arrived at Exeter from the Earl of Bath,
who commanded at Plymouth. Bath declared that he placed himself, his
troops, and the fortress which he governed at the Prince's disposal. The
invaders therefore had now not a single enemy in their rear. [533]
While the West was thus rising to confront the King, the North was all
in a flame behind him. On the sixteenth Delamere took arms in Cheshire.
He convoked his tenants, called upon them to stand by him, promised
that, if they fell in the cause, their leases should be renewed to their
children, and exhorted every one who had a good horse either to take the
field or to provide a substitute. [534] He appeared at Manchester with
fifty men armed and mounted, and his force had trebled before he reached
Boaden Downs.
The neighbouring counties were violently agitated. It had been arranged
that Danby should seize York, and that Devonshire should appear at
Nottingham. At Nottingham no resistance was anticipated. But at York
there was a small garrison under the command of Sir John Reresby. Danby
acted with rare dexterity. A meeting of the gentry and freeholders of
Yorkshire had been summoned for the twenty-second of November to address
the King on the state of affairs. All the Deputy Lieutenants of the
three Ridings, several noblemen, and a multitude of opulent esquires and
substantial yeomen had been attracted to the provincial capital. Four
troops of militia had been drawn out under arms to preserve the public
peace. The Common Hall was crowded with freeholders, and the discussion
had begun, when a cry was suddenly raised that the Papists were up, and
were slaying the Protestants. The Papists of York were much more likely
to be employed in seeking for hiding places than in attacking enemies
who outnumbered them in the proportion of a hundred to one. But at that
time no story of Popish atrocity could be so wild and marvellous as not
to find ready belief. The meeting separated in dismay. The whole city
was in confusion. At this moment Danby at the head of about a hundred
horsemen rode up to the militia, and raised the cry "No Popery! A free
Parliament! The Protestant religion! " The militia echoed the shout. The
garrison was instantly surprised and disarmed. The governor was placed
under arrest. The gates were closed. Sentinels were posted everywhere.
The populace was suffered to pull down a Roman Catholic chapel; but
no other harm appears to have been done. On the following morning the
Guildhall was crowded with the first gentlemen of the shire, and with
the principal magistrates of the city. The Lord Mayor was placed in the
chair. Danby proposed a Declaration setting forth the reasons which had
induced the friends of the constitution and of the Protestant religion
to rise in arms. This Declaration was eagerly adopted, and received in a
few hours the signatures of six peers, of five baronets, of six knights,
and of many gentlemen of high consideration. [535]
Devonshire meantime, at the head of a great body of friends and
dependents, quitted the palace which he was rearing at Chatsworth, and
appeared in arms at Derby. There he formally delivered to the municipal
authorities a paper setting forth the reasons which had moved him to
this enterprise. He then proceeded to Nottingham, which soon became the
head quarters of the Northern insurrection. Here a proclamation was put
forth couched in bold and severe terms. The name of rebellion, it was
said, was a bugbear which could frighten no reasonable man. Was it
rebellion to defend those laws and that religion which every King of
England bound himself by oath to maintain? How that oath had lately been
observed was a question on which, it was to be hoped, a free Parliament
would soon pronounce. In the meantime, the insurgents declared that they
held it to be not rebellion, but legitimate self defence, to resist
a tyrant who knew no law but his own will. The Northern rising became
every day more formidable. Four powerful and wealthy Earls, Manchester,
Stamford, Rutland, and Chesterfield, repaired to Nottingham, and were
joined there by Lord Cholmondley and by Lord Grey de Ruthyn. [536]
All this time the hostile armies in the south were approaching each
other. The Prince of Orange, when he learned that the King had arrived
at Salisbury, thought it time to leave Exeter. He placed that city and
the surrounding country under the government of Sir Edward Seymour, and
set out on Wednesday the twenty-first of November, escorted by many of
the most considerable gentlemen of the western counties, for Axminster,
where he remained several days.
The King was eager to fight; and it was obviously his interest to do
so. Every hour took away something from his own strength, and added
something to the strength of his enemies. It was most important, too,
that his troops should be blooded. A great battle, however it might
terminate, could not but injure the Prince's popularity. All this
William perfectly understood, and determined to avoid an action as long
as possible. It is said that, when Schomberg was told that the enemy
were advancing and were determined to fight, he answered, with the
composure of a tactician confident in his skill, "That will be just as
we may choose. " It was, however, impossible to prevent all skirmishing
between the advanced guards of the armies. William was desirous that
in such skirmishing nothing might happen which could wound the pride or
rouse the vindictive feelings of the nation which he meant to deliver.
He therefore, with admirable prudence, placed his British regiments in
the situations where there was most risk of collision. The outposts
of the royal army were Irish. The consequence was that, in the little
combats of this short campaign, the invaders had on their side the
hearty sympathy of all Englishmen.
The first of these encounters took place at Wincanton. Mackay's
regiment, composed of British soldiers, lay near a body of the King's
Irish troops, commanded by their countryman, the gallant Sarsfield.
Mackay sent out a small party under a lieutenant named Campbell,
to procure horses for the baggage. Campbell found what he wanted at
Wincanton, and was just leaving that town on his return, when a strong
detachment of Sarsfield's troops approached. The Irish were four to one:
but Campbell resolved to fight it out to the last. With a handful of
resolute men he took his stand in the road. The rest of his soldiers
lined the hedges which overhung the highway on the right and on the
left. The enemy came up. "Stand," cried Campbell: "for whom are you? " "I
am for King James," answered the leader of the other party.
