FOOTNOTES:
[157] Amours de Charles II. et de Jacques II., Rois d’Angleterre. First part, pp. 74, 75.
[158] Réponse de M. de Saint-Foix au R.P. Griffet, Paris. Ventes, Libraire à la Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, 1770, p. 94.
[159] Ibid., p. 95 et seq.
[160] Réponse de M. de Saint-Foix au R. P. Griffet, p. 96.
[161] Born, June 21, 1688, of James II. and Marie d’Este; recognized as King by Louis XIV., November, 16 1701, on the death of James II.
[162] Réponse de Saint-Foix au P. Griffet, p. 118 et seq.
[163] On the death of James II. This ill-timed boldness was one of Louis XIV.’s gravest errors, and stirred up the English nation against him. See our work L’Europe et les Bourbons sous Louis XIV., chap. viii. p. 190.
[164] See Chap. iv. ([p. 51] ante) of the present work, in which this accusation of criminal fraud brought by William of Orange against his father-in-law, James II., has already been considered.
[165] According to Saint-Foix, the bishops chosen were not acquainted with Monmouth’s appearance, and the pretended officer only uttered a few words, while the look given by the victim after the third blow of the axe was intended as a reproach to those who had promised that he should die without pain. But these observations are more ingenious than well-founded. Monmouth was accompanied to the scaffold by the bishops who had visited him in prison, and we shall shortly see that he said a good deal, that the execution took place at ten o’clock in the morning, and that far from complaining even by a look of the executioner’s unskilfulness, Monmouth bore his horrible punishment with great resignation.
[166] Observator, August 1, 1685; Gazette de France, November 2, 1686; Letter of Humphrey Wanley, August 25, 1698, in the Aubrey collection, given by Macaulay in his History of England.
[167] “If the Duke of Monmouth had been able to have concealed himself or to have escaped, his last action had given him such a good reputation amongst the English that he would have been able to have drawn many persons towards him every time that he might have shown himself to the people of England,” wrote the French ambassador to Louis XIV., July 19, 1685:—Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, section England, 155.
[168] They are to be found in the Pepsyan Collection, and have been given by Macaulay in his History of England.
[169] Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, section England, 155; Despatches, June 23 and 28, and July 12, 19, 23, 25 and 26, 1685.
[170] Despatch from the French Ambassador, July 26, 1685: “He asked a second time to speak to him, but it was not allowed.”
[171] Burnet, i. 645; Macaulay.
[172] Official despatches from the French Ambassador in England, July 15-25 and July 16-26, 1685.