Pursuant to this hard-hearted arrangement, Monmouth and Grey, on the very day of their arrival, were brought to Whitehall, where they had severally interviews with his majesty. James, in a letter to the Prince of Orange, dated the following day, gives a short account of both these interviews. Monmouth, he says, betrayed a weakness which did not become one who had claimed the title of king; but made no discovery of consequence.
Grey was more ingenuous (it is not certain in what sense his majesty uses the term, since he does not refer to any discovery made by that lord), and never once begged his life. Short as this account is, it seems the only authentic one of those interviews. Bishop Kennet, who has been followed by most of the modern historians, relates, that “This unhappy captive, by the intercession of the queen dowager, was brought to the king’s presence, and fell presently at his feet, and confessed he deserved to die; but conjured him, with tears in his eyes, not to use him with the severity of justice, and to grant him a life, which he would be ever ready to sacrifice for his service. He mentioned to him the example of several great princes, who had yielded to the impressions of clemency on the like occasions, and who had never afterwards repented of those acts of generosity and mercy; concluding, in a most pathetical manner, ‘Remember, sir, I am your brother’s son, and if you take my life, it is your own blood that you will shed.’ The king asked him several questions, and made him sign a declaration that his father told him he was never married to his mother: and then said, he was sorry indeed for his misfortunes; but his crime was of too great a consequence to be left unpunished, and he must of necessity suffer for it. The queen is said to have insulted him in a very arrogant and unmerciful manner. So that when the duke saw there was nothing designed by this interview but to satisfy the queen’s revenge, he rose up from his majesty’s feet with a new air of bravery, and was carried back to the Tower.”
The topics used by Monmouth are such as he might naturally have employed, and the demeanour attributed to him, upon finding the king inexorable, is consistent enough with general probability, and his particular character; but that the king took care to extract from him a confession of Charles’s declaration with respect to his illegitimacy, before he announced his final refusal of mercy, and that the queen was present for the purpose of reviling and insulting him, are circumstances too atrocious to merit belief, without some more certain evidence. It must be remarked also, that Burnet, whose general prejudices would not lead him to doubt any imputations against the queen, does not mention her majesty’s being present. Monmouth’s offer of changing religion is mentioned by him, but no authority quoted; and no hint of the kind appears either in James’s Letters, or in the extract from his “Memoirs.”
From Whitehall Monmouth was at night carried to the Tower, where, no longer uncertain as to his fate, he seems to have collected his mind, and to have resumed his wonted fortitude. The bill of attainder that had lately passed having superseded the necessity of a legal trial, his execution was fixed for the next day but one after his commitment. This interval appeared too short even for the worldly business which he wished to transact, and he wrote again to the king on the 14th, desiring some short respite, which was peremptorily refused. The difficulty of obtaining any certainty concerning facts, even in instances where there has not been any apparent motive for disguising them, is nowhere more striking than in the few remaining hours of this unfortunate man’s life. According to King James’s statement in his “Memoirs,” he refused to see his wife, while other accounts assert positively that she refused to see him, unless in presence of witnesses. Burnet, who was not likely to be mistaken in a fact of this kind, says they did meet, and parted very coldly, a circumstance which, if true, gives us no very favourable idea of the lady’s character. There is also mention of a third letter written by him to the king, which being entrusted to a perfidious officer of the name of Scott, never reached its destination; but for this there is no foundation. What seems most certain is, that in the Tower, and not in the closet, he signed a paper, renouncing his pretensions to the crown, the same which he afterwards delivered on the scaffold; and that he was inclined to make this declaration, not by any vain hope of life, but by his affection for his children, whose situation he rightly judged would be safer and better under the reigning monarch and his successors, when it should be evident that they could no longer be competitors for the throne.
Monmouth was very sincere in his religious professions, and it is probable that a great portion of this sad day was passed in devotion and religious discourse with the two prelates who had been sent by his majesty to assist him in his spiritual concerns. Turner, bishop of Ely, had been with him early in the morning, and Kenn, bishop of Bath and Wells, was sent, upon the refusal of a respite, to prepare him for the stroke, which it was now irrevocably fixed he should suffer the ensuing day. They stayed with him all night, and in the morning of the 15th were joined by Dr. Hooper, afterwards, in the reign of Anne, made bishop of Bath and Wells, and by Dr. Tennison, who succeeded Tillotson in the see of Canterbury. This last divine is stated by Burnet to have been most acceptable to the duke, and, though he joined the others in some harsh expostulations, to have done what the right reverend historian conceives to have been his duty, in a softer and less peremptory manner. Certain it is, that none of these holy men seem to have erred on the side of compassion or complaisance to their illustrious penitent. Besides endeavouring to convince him of the guilt of his connection with his beloved lady Harriet, of which he could never be brought to a due sense, they seem to have repeatedly teased him with controversy, and to have been far more solicitous to make him profess what they deemed the true creed of the Church of England, than to soften or console his sorrows, or to help him to that composure of mind so necessary for his situation. He declared himself to be a member of their Church, but, they denied that he could be so, unless he thoroughly believed the doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance. He repented generally of his sins, and especially of his late enterprise, but they insisted that he must repent of it in the way they prescribed to him, that he must own it to have been a wicked resistance to his lawful king, and a detestable act of rebellion. Some historians have imputed this seemingly cruel conduct to the king’s particular instructions, who might be desirous of extracting, or rather extorting, from the lips of his dying nephew such a confession as would be matter of triumph to the royal cause. But the character of the two prelates principally concerned, both for general uprightness and sincerity as Church of England men, makes it more candid to suppose that they did not act from motives of servile compliance, but rather from an intemperate party zeal for the honour of their Church, which they judged would be signally promoted if such a man as Monmouth, after having throughout his life acted in defiance of their favourite doctrine, could be brought in his last moments to acknowledge it as a divine truth. It must never be forgotten, if we would understand the history of this period, that the truly orthodox members of our Church regarded monarchy not as a human, but as a divine institution, and passive obedience and non-resistance, not as political maxims, but as articles of religion.
At ten o’clock on the 15th Monmouth proceeded in a carriage of the lieutenant of the Tower to Tower Hill, the place destined for his execution. The two bishops were in the carriage with him, and one of them took that opportunity of informing him that their controversial altercations were not yet at an end, and that upon the scaffold he would again be pressed for more explicit and satisfactory declarations of repentance. When arrived at the bar which had been put up for the purpose of keeping out the multitude, Monmouth descended from the carriage, and mounted the scaffold, with a firm step, attended by his spiritual assistants. The sheriffs and executioners were already there. The concourse of spectators was innumerable; and if we are to credit traditional accounts, never was the general compassion more affectingly expressed. The tears, sighs, and groans, which the first sight of this heartrending spectacle produced, were soon succeeded by a universal and awful silence; a respectful attention and affectionate anxiety to hear every syllable that should pass the lips of the sufferer. The duke began by saying he should speak little; he came to die, and he should die a Protestant of the Church of England. Here he was interrupted by the assistants, and told, that if he was of the Church of England, he must acknowledge the doctrine of non-resistance to be true. In vain did he reply that if he acknowledged the doctrine of the Church in general it included all: they insisted he should own that doctrine, particularly with respect to his case, and urged much more concerning their favourite point, upon which, however, they obtained nothing but a repetition in substance of former answers. He was then proceeding to speak of Lady Harriet Wentworth, of his high esteem for her, and of his confirmed opinion that their connection was innocent in the sight of God, when Goslin, the sheriff, asked him, with all the unfeeling bluntness of a vulgar mind, whether he was ever married to her. The duke refusing to answer, the same magistrate, in the like strain, though changing his subject, said he hoped to have heard of his repentance for the treason and bloodshed which had been committed; to which the prisoner replied, with great mildness, that he died very penitent. Here the Churchmen again interposed, and renewing their demand of particular penitence and public acknowledgment upon public affairs, Monmouth referred them to the following paper, which he had signed that morning:
“I declare that the title of king was forced upon me, and that it was very much contrary to my opinion when I was proclaimed. For the satisfaction of the world, I do declare that the late king told me he was never married to my mother. Having declared this, I hope the king who is now will not let my children suffer on this account. And to this I put my hand this fifteenth day of July, 1685.
“Monmouth.”
There was nothing, they said, in that paper about resistance; nor, though Monmouth, quite worn-out with their importunities, said to one of them, in the most affecting manner, “I am to die—pray my lord—I refer to my paper,” would those men think it consistent with their duty to desist. There were only a few words they desired on one point. The substance of these applications on the one hand, and answers on the other, was repeated over and over again, in a manner that could not be believed, if the facts were not attested by the signatures of the persons principally concerned. If the duke, in declaring his sorrow for what had passed, used the word invasion, “Give it the true name,” said they, “and call it rebellion.” “What name you please,” replied the mild-tempered Monmouth. He was sure he was going to everlasting happiness, and considered the serenity of his mind in his present circumstances as a certain earnest of the favour of his Creator. His repentance, he said, must be true, for he had no fear of dying; he should die like a lamb. “Much may come from natural courage,” was the unfeeling and stupid reply of one of the assistants. Monmouth, with that modesty inseparable from true bravery, denied that he was in general less fearful than other men, maintaining that his present courage was owing to his consciousness that God had forgiven him his past transgressions, of all which generally he repented with all his soul.
At last the reverend assistants consented to join with him in prayer, but no sooner were they risen from their kneeling posture than they returned to their charge. Not satisfied with what had passed, they exhorted him to a true and thorough repentance. Would he not pray for the king, and send a dutiful message to his majesty to recommend the duchess and his children? “As you please,” was the reply; “I pray for him and for all men.” He now spoke to the executioner, desiring that he might have no cap over his eyes, and began undressing. One would have thought that in this last sad ceremony, the poor prisoner might have been unmolested, and that the divines would have been satisfied that prayer was the only part of their function for which their duty now called upon them. They judged differently, and one of them had the fortitude to request the duke, even in this stage of the business, that he would address himself to the soldiers then present, to tell them he stood a sad example of rebellion, and entreat the people to be loyal and obedient to the king. “I have said I will make no speeches,” repeated Monmouth, in a tone more peremptory than he had before been provoked to; “I will make no speeches. I come to die.” “My lord, ten words will be enough,” said the persevering divine; to which the duke made no answer, but turning to the executioner, expressed a hope that he would do his work better now than in the case of Lord Russell. He then felt the axe, which he apprehended was not sharp enough, but being assured that it was of proper sharpness and weight, he laid down his head. In the meantime many fervent ejaculations were used by the reverend assistants, who, it must be observed, even in these moments of horror, showed themselves not unmindful of the points upon which they had been disputing, praying God to accept his imperfect and general repentance.
The executioner now struck the blow, but so feebly or unskilfully, that Monmouth, being but slightly wounded, lifted up his head, and looked him in the face as if to upbraid him, but said nothing. The two following strokes were as ineffectual as the first, and the headsman, in a fit of horror, declared he could not finish his work. The sheriffs threatened him; he was forced again to make a further trial, and in two more strokes separated the head from the body.