A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second

by Charles James Fox

If this measure was in reality taken with views of policy, those views were miserably disappointed; for it does not appear that one proselyte was gained. The threats in the proclamation were received with derision by the king’s army, and no other sentiments were excited by the assumption of the royal title than those of contempt and indignation. The commonwealthsmen were dissatisfied, of course, with the principle of the measure: the favourers of hereditary right held it in abhorrence, and considered it as a kind of sacrilegious profanation; nor even among those who considered monarchy in a more rational light, and as a magistracy instituted for the good of the people, could it be at all agreeable that such a magistrate should be elected by the army that had thronged to his standard, or by the particular partiality of a provincial town. Monmouth’s strength, therefore, was by no means increased by his new title, and seemed to be still limited to two descriptions of persons; first, those who, from thoughtlessness or desperation, were willing to join in any attempt at innovation; secondly, such as, directing their views to a single point, considered the destruction of James’s tyranny as the object which, at all hazards, and without regard to consequences, they were bound to pursue. On the other hand, his reputation both for moderation and good faith was considerably impaired, inasmuch as his present conduct was in direct contradiction to that part of his declaration wherein he had promised to leave the future adjustment of government, and especially the consideration of his own claims, to a free and independent parliament.

The notion of improving his new levies by discipline seems to have taken such possession of Monmouth’s mind that he overlooked the probable, or rather the certain, consequences of a delay, by which the enemy would be enabled to bring into the field forces far better disciplined and appointed than any which, even with the most strenuous and successful exertions, he could hope to oppose to them. Upon this principle, and especially as he had not yet fixed upon any definite object of enterprise, he did not think a stay of a few days at Taunton would be materially, if at all, prejudicial to his affairs; and it was not till the 21st of June that he proceeded to Bridgewater, where he was received in the most cordial manner. In his march, the following day, from that town to Glastonbury, he was alarmed by a party of the Earl of Oxford’s horse; but all apprehensions of any material interruptions were removed by an account of the militia having left Wells, and retreated to Bath and Bristol. From Glastonbury he went to Shipton-Mallet, where the project of an attack upon Bristol was communicated by the duke to his officers. After some discussion, it was agreed that the attack should be made on the Gloucestershire side of the city, and with that view to pass the Avon at Keynsham Bridge, a few miles from Bath. In their march from Shipton-Mallet, the troops were again harassed in their rear by a party of horse and dragoons, but lodged quietly at night at a village called Pensford. A detachment was sent early the next morning to possess itself of Keynsham, and to repair the bridge, which might probably be broken down to prevent a passage. Upon their approach, a troop of the Gloucestershire horse-militia immediately abandoned the town in great precipitation, leaving behind them two horses and one man. By break of day, the bridge, which had not been much injured, was repaired, and before noon, Monmouth, having passed it with his whole army, was in full march to Bristol, which he determined to attack the ensuing night. But the weather proving rainy and bad, it was deemed expedient to return to Keynsham, a measure from which he expected to reap a double advantage; to procure dry and commodious quarters for the soldiery, and to lull the enemy, by a movement, which bore the semblance of a retreat, into a false and delusive security. The event, however, did not answer his expectation, for the troops had scarcely taken up their quarters, when they were disturbed by two parties of horse, who entered the town at two several places. An engagement ensued, in which Monmouth lost fourteen men, and a captain of horse, though in the end the Royalists were obliged to retire, leaving three prisoners. From these the duke had information that the king’s army was near at hand, and, as they said, about four thousand strong.

This new state of affairs seemed to demand new councils. The projected enterprise upon Bristol was laid aside, and the question was, whether to make by forced marches for Gloucester, in order to pass the Severn at that city, and so to gain the counties of Salop and Chester, where he expected to be met by many friends, or to march directly into Wiltshire, where, according to some intelligence received [“from one Adlam”] the day before, there was a considerable body of horse (under whose command does not appear) ready, by their junction, to afford him a most important and seasonable support. To the first of these plans a decisive objection was stated. The distance by Gloucester was so great, that, considering the slow marches to which he would be limited, by the daily attacks with which the different small bodies of the enemy’s cavalry would not fail to harass his rear, he was in great danger of being overtaken by the king’s forces, and might thus be driven to risk all in an engagement upon terms the most disadvantageous. On the contrary, if joined in Wiltshire by the expected aids, he might confidently offer battle to the royal army; and, provided he could bring them to an action before they were strengthened by new reinforcements, there was no unreasonable prospect of success. The latter plan was therefore adopted, and no sooner adopted than put in execution. The army was in motion without delay, and being before Bath on the morning of the 26th of June, summoned the place, rather (as it should seem) in sport than in earnest, as there was no hope of its surrender. After this bravado they marched on southward to Philip’s Norton, where they rested; the horse in the town, and the foot in the field.

While Monmouth was making these marches, there were not wanting, in many parts of the adjacent country, strong symptoms of the attachment of the lower orders of people to his cause, and more especially in those manufacturing towns where the Protestant dissenters were numerous. In Froome there had been a considerable rising, headed by the constable, who posted up the duke’s declaration in the market-place. Many of the inhabitants of the neighbouring towns of Westbury and Warminster came in throngs to the town to join the insurgents; some armed with fire-arms, but more with such rustic weapons as opportunity could supply. Such a force, if it had joined the main army, or could have been otherwise directed by any leader of judgment and authority, might have proved very serviceable; but in its present state it was a mere rabble, and upon the first appearance of the Earl of Pembroke, who entered the town with a hundred and sixty horse and forty musketeers, fell, as might be expected, into total confusion. The rout was complete; all the arms of the insurgents were seized; and the constable, after having been compelled to abjure his principles, and confess the enormity of his offence, was committed to prison.

This transaction took place the 25th, the day before Monmouth’s arrival at Philip’s Norton, and may have, in a considerable degree, contributed to the disappointment, of which we learn from Wade, that he at this time began bitterly to complain. He was now upon the confines of Wiltshire, and near enough for the bodies of horse, upon whose favourable intentions so much reliance had been placed, to have effected a junction, if they had been so disposed; but whether that Adlam’s intelligence had been originally bad, or that Pembroke’s proceedings at Froome had intimidated them, no symptom of such an intention could be discovered. A desertion took place in his army, which the exaggerated accounts in the Gazette made to amount to near two thousand men. These dispiriting circumstances, added to the complete disappointment of the hopes entertained from the assumption of the royal title, produced in him a state of mind but little short of despondency. He complained that all people had deserted him, and is said to have been so dejected, as hardly to have the spirit requisite for giving the necessary orders.

From this state of torpor, however, he appears to have been effectually roused by a brisk attack that was made upon him on the 27th, in the morning, by the Royalists, under the command of his half-brother, the Duke of Grafton. That spirited young nobleman (whose intrepid courage, conspicuous upon every occasion, led him in this, and many other instances, to risk a life, which he finally lost in a better cause), heading an advanced detachment of Lord Feversham’s army, who had marched from Bath, with a view to fall on the enemy’s rear, marched boldly up a narrow lane leading to the town, and attacked a barricade, which Monmouth had caused to be made across the way, at the entrance of the town. Monmouth was no sooner apprised of this brisk attack, than he ordered a party to go out of the town by a by-way, who coming on the rear of the Grenadiers while others of his men were engaged with their front, had nearly surrounded them, and taken their commander prisoner, but Grafton forced his way through the enemy. An engagement ensued between the insurgents and the remainder of Feversham’s detachment, who had lined the hedges which flanked them. The former were victorious, and after driving the enemy from hedge to hedge, forced them at last into the open field, where they joined the rest of the king’s forces, newly come up. The killed and wounded in these encounters amounted to about forty on Feversham’s side, twenty on Monmouth’s; but among the latter there were several officers, and some of note, while the loss of the former, with the exception of two volunteers, Seymour and May, consisted entirely of common soldiers.

The Royalists now drew up on an eminence, about five hundred paces from the hedges, while Monmouth, having placed, of his four field-pieces, two at the mouth of the lane, and two upon a rising ground near it on the right, formed his army along the hedge. From these stations a firing of artillery was begun on each side, and continued near six hours, but with little or no effect. Monmouth, according to Wade, losing but one, and the Royalists, according to the Gazette, not one man, by the whole cannonade. In these circumstances, notwithstanding the recent and convincing experience he now had of the ability of his raw troops to face, in certain situations at least, the more regular forces of his enemy, Monmouth was advised by some to retreat; but upon a more general consultation, this advice was over-ruled, and it was determined to cut passages through the hedges and to offer battle. But before this could be effected the royal army, not willing again to engage among the enclosures, annoyed in the open field by the rain which continued to fall very heavily, and disappointed, no doubt, at the little effect of their artillery, began their retreat. The little confidence which Monmouth had in his horse—perhaps the ill opinion he now entertained of their leader—forbade him to think of pursuit, and having stayed till a late hour in the field, and leaving large fires burning, he set out on his march in the night, and on the 28th, in the morning, reached Froome, where he put his troops in quarter and rested two days.

It was here he first heard certain news of Argyle’s discomfiture. It was in vain to seek for any circumstance in his affairs that might mitigate the effect of the severe blow inflicted by this intelligence, and he relapsed into the same low spirits as at Philip’s Norton. No diversion, at least no successful diversion, had been made in his favour: there was no appearance of the horse, which had been the principal motive to allure him into that part of the country; and what was worst of all, no desertion from the king’s army. It was manifest, said the duke’s more timid advisers, that the affair must terminate ill, and the only measure now to be taken was, that the general with his officers should leave the army to shift for itself, and make severally for the most convenient sea-ports, whence they might possibly get a safe passage to the Continent. To account for Monmouth’s entertaining, even for a moment, a thought so unworthy of him, and so inconsistent with the character for spirit he had ever maintained—a character unimpeached even by his enemies—we must recollect the unwillingness with which he undertook this fatal expedition; that his engagement to Argyle, who was now past help, was perhaps his principal motive for embarking at the time; that it was with great reluctance he had torn himself from the arms of Lady Harriet Wentworth, with whom he had so firmly persuaded himself that he could be happy in the most obscure retirement, that he believed himself weaned from ambition, which had hitherto been the only passion of his mind. It is true, that when he had once yielded to the solicitations of his friends so far as to undertake a business of such magnitude, it was his duty (but a duty that required a stronger mind than his to execute) to discard from his thoughts all the arguments that had rendered his compliance reluctant. But it is one of the great distinctions between an ordinary mind and a superior one, to be able to carry on without relenting a plan we have not originally approved, and especially when it appears to have turned out ill. This proposal of disbanding was a step so pusillanimous and dishonourable that it could not be approved by any council, however composed. It was condemned by all except Colonel Venner, and was particularly inveighed against by Lord Grey, who was perhaps desirous of retrieving, by bold words at least, the reputation he had lost at Bridport. It is possible, too, that he might be really unconscious of his deficiency in point of personal courage till the moment of danger arrived, and even forgetful of it when it was passed. Monmouth was easily persuaded to give up a plan so uncongenial to his nature, resolved, though with little hope of success, to remain with his army to take the chance of events, and at the worst to stand or fall with men whose attachment to him had laid him under indelible obligations.

This resolution being taken, the first plan was to proceed to Warminster, but on the morning of his departure hearing, on the one hand, that the king’s troops were likely to cross his march, and on the other, being informed by a quaker, before known to the duke, that there was a great club army, amounting to ten thousand men, ready to join his standard in the marshes to the westward, he altered his intention, and returned to Shipton-Mallet, where he rested that night, his army being in good quarters. From Shipton-Mallet he proceeded, on the 1st of July, to Wells, upon information that there were in that city some carriages belonging to the king’s army, and ill-guarded. These he found and took, and stayed that night in the town. The following day he marched towards Bridgewater in search of the great succour he had been taught to expect; but found, of the promised ten thousand men, only a hundred and sixty. The army lay that night in the field, and once again entered Bridgewater on the 3rd of July. That the duke’s men were not yet completely dispirited or out of heart appears from the circumstance of great numbers of them going from Bridgewater to see their friends at Taunton, and other places in the neighbourhood, and almost all returning the next day according to their promise. On the 5th an account was received of the king’s army being considerably advanced, and Monmouth’s first thought was to retreat from it immediately, and marching by Axbridge and Keynsham to Gloucester, to pursue the plan formerly rejected, of penetrating into the counties of Chester and Salop.

His preparations for this march were all made, when, on the afternoon of the 5th, he learnt, more accurately than he had before done, the true situation of the royal army, and from the information now received, he thought it expedient to consult his principal officers, whether it might not be advisable to attempt to surprise the enemy by a night attack upon their quarters. The prevailing opinion was, that if the infantry were not entrenched the plan was worth the trial; otherwise not. Scouts were despatched to ascertain this point, and their report being that there was no entrenchment, an attack was resolved on. In pursuance of this resolution, at about eleven at night, the whole army was in march, Lord Grey commanding the horse, and Colonel Wade the vanguard of the foot. The duke’s orders were, that the horse should first advance, and pushing into the enemy’s camp, endeavour to prevent their infantry from coming together; that the cannon should follow the horse, and the foot the cannon, and draw all up in one line, and so finish what the cavalry should have begun, before the king’s horse and artillery could be got in order. But it was now discovered that though there were no entrenchments, there was a ditch which served as a drain to the great moor adjacent, of which no mention had been made by the scouts. To this ditch the horse under Lord Grey advanced, and no farther; and whether immediately, as according to some accounts, or after having been considerably harassed by the enemy in their attempts to find a place to pass, according to others, quitted the field. The cavalry being gone, and the principle upon which the attack had been undertaken being that of a surprise, the duke judged it necessary that the infantry should advance as speedily as possible. Wade, therefore, when he came within forty paces of the ditch, was obliged to halt to put his battalion into that order, which the extreme rapidity of the march had for the time disconcerted. His plan was to pass the ditch, reserving his fire; but while he was arranging his men for that purpose, another battalion, newly come up, began to fire, though at a considerable distance; a bad example, which it was impossible to prevent the vanguard from following, and it was now no longer in the power of their commander to persuade them to advance. The king’s forces, as well horse and artillery as foot, had now full time to assemble. The duke had no longer cavalry in the field, and though his artillery, which consisted only of three or four iron guns, was well served under the directions of a Dutch gunner, it was by no means equal to that of the royal army, which, as soon as it was light, began to do great execution. In these circumstances the unfortunate Monmouth, fearful of being encompassed and made prisoner by the king’s cavalry, who were approaching upon his flank, and urged, as it is reported, to flight by the same person who had stimulated him to his fatal enterprise, quitted the field accompanied by Lord Grey and some others. The left wing, under the command of Colonel Holmes and Matthews, next gave way; and Wade’s men, after having continued for an hour and a half a distant and ineffectual fire, seeing their left discomfited, began a retreat, which soon afterwards became a complete rout.