James returned to London: he feared the influence of the Duke of Monmouth, who, trading on his father’s favour and his own handsome face and genial manners, posed as an ultra-Protestant, and, in spite of his illegitimate birth, aspired to the succession. James had Monmouth sent to Holland—then, under the Prince of Orange, the refuge for English and Scottish exiles.
But for Charles the world of time was now at its vanishing point. He was only in his fifty-fifth year when, in the midst of his sensuous pleasures, apoplexy seized him, and Bishop Ken had to tell him his hours were numbered. Certain religious exercises were gone through, and the sacramental elements being brought in, the bishop proposed their administration. The King put this off, and the bishop retired. And now James looked up a Catholic priest, and had him smuggled in by a private door to the King’s chamber. The King made confession, and had the last rites of the Church administered. Thus made safe by a Romish passport into heaven—the dying King no doubt enjoyed as a good joke the prayers and admonitions of the Protestant prelates, who, with the lords-in-waiting, were afterwards ushered into his chamber. He died February 6th, 1684-5.
Scotland under James the Second.
Within half-an-hour of his brother’s death, James was seated as the King in Council. He declared that he would govern by the laws, and maintain the established church. Loyal addresses from all parts of his dominions were poured in upon him; and the commencement of his reign gave promise of stability and popularity. In a lesser degree he had his brothers vices; but he had shewn considerable aptitude for public business, and was not deficient in personal courage. In 1665, he had, in a war with Holland, taken the command of the Channel fleet. On the 3rd of June a great battle was fought off the Norfolk coast, within sight of Lowestoft. When the fight was at its hottest, the Dutch admiral’s ship blew up, and a Dutch fire-ship grappled with and destroyed an English ship. James had twice to shift his flag, as his ships were successively disabled. After an obstinate contest the Dutch ships sailed for the Texel; James pursued for a time,—eighteen of the enemy’s ships being taken or destroyed.
But his accession to the throne was not to be unchallenged. The Duke of Monmouth and the Earl of Argyle met in Holland, and concerted simultaneous insurrections in England and Scotland.
Monmouth landed at Lyme, in Dorsetshire, on 11th June, and marched to Taunton, in Somersetshire, at the head of 5,000 irregularly armed troops. He had married the heiress of Buccleuch, and in other ways became associated with the nobility; stories had been set afloat of a marriage between his father and his Welsh mother, Lucy Walters, and he was looked on by many as the true heir to the throne. At Taunton he was received with acclamations; twenty young ladies presented him with a pocket-bible, a flag, and a naked sword. He had himself proclaimed King. After a good deal of tentative marching through the western counties, he fell back on Bridgewater, and three miles from this town, at Sedgemoor, a battle was fought, in which he was utterly defeated. He himself fled before the close of the fight; and was afterwards captured hiding in a bean-field.
He was taken to London, and at his own solicitation had an interview with the King. A larger-minded man than James would have been moved to generosity, at the sight of his brother’s son grovelling on his knees before him, and humbly suing for mercy; but generosity towards fallen enemies was not a distinguishing trait in the Stuart character. And this young man had long been a thorn in James’s path; so now no mercy for him—his doom was immediate execution.
And terrible was the vengeance of the King on not only the leaders of the insurrection, but on inferior participants, and on all who had given aid or countenance thereto. There were a number of military executions; and then Jeffreys was let loose upon the western counties. His “bloody assize” was a very devil’s carnival of barbarity and death. The campaign was opened at Winchester with the trial of Alice Lisle, the aged widow of one of Cromwell’s lieutenants, for affording food and shelter to two of the fugitive insurgents. Jeffreys bullied the jury into a verdict of guilty, and then he sentenced her to be burned alive that same afternoon. Horror-stricken, the clergy of the cathedral obtained a respite for three days. Noble ladies, whom she had befriended in the time of the Commonwealth, solicited her pardon from the King. Her son in the army had served against Monmouth. And James was actually moved to change her sentence from burning alive to beheading! And so it was executed. In this judicial massacre, more than three hundred persons were put to death, and very many who escaped death, suffered mutilation, imprisonment, or exile. Hundreds of the prisoners were presented to the courtiers,—to be sold for ten years as slaves in the West Indies. The twenty young ladies of Taunton, who had figured in the ovation to Monmouth, were assigned to the Queen’s maids-of-honour, and they sold pardons to the girls at the rate of a hundred pounds a head!
The accession of James brought no relaxation in the oppressive laws bearing upon Scottish presbyterianism. It was still in the power of the military to apprehend and interrogate, to torture, to confiscate the goods, and even to take the lives of those suspected of nonconformity, or of assisting outlawed persons. It was therefore to be expected that any attempt to throw off the galling yoke would have general sympathy and support. Argyle had himself been the victim of unjust persecution; and yet his invasion of Scotland was as futile and disastrous as that of Monmouth was of England.