In Taunton town : a story of the rebellion of James Duke of Monmouth in 1685

by Evelyn Everett-Green

"O good Jem Truslove, good Jem Truslove! methinks I can see and hear him! O Dicon, it were a thousand pities I was not there to see it with mine own eyes! Had it been somebody else, how I would have thrashed him mine own self! So they made him remember Will Wiseman, did they? Ah, it was good of them! it was indeed a kindly act! Dicon, methinks after all he may have done me a good turn yet, for all that he meant to have killed me: for the Governor was here yesterday after thou hadst gone, and he told me that so soon as I could be moved I was free to go back to my friends; that my sentence had terminated, and that he was sorry I had been so roughly handled. Now that that monster of a Judge is gone, men are ashamed to think what he made them do. They are sick to death of bloodshed and cruelty, and would fain save all his victims from the fate he desired for them."

This indeed was very true. The Bloody Assizes, as men began to call them, had produced an indelible impression all over this West Country. The gentry, who had been all along against the rising for the Duke, and had joined hands with the party of order, on seeing the horrible and bloody vengeance taken upon the wretched inhabitants of their towns and villages, experienced a revulsion of feeling, and a great hatred of the King who could rejoice in and applaud such wholesale slaughter. They had believed that the ringleaders would of necessity suffer death—that was a necessary consequence of such an act of rebellion; but after the Duke had been beheaded, and after the rising had been so completely quelled, it was said by all moderate and merciful men that but a slight punishment should be inflicted upon the mass of lesser prisoners, who had been led away by ignorance and enthusiasm misplaced, and were like sheep following one another they knew not whither.

The sending down of the bloodiest and most iniquitous Judge upon the bench with authority to massacre wholesale, and the unbridled ferocity with which he had carried out his bloody task, had thoroughly displeased and disgusted all moderate and merciful men; and the honours heaped upon the bloody wretch by his admiring sovereign on his return had added to the universal execration in which he was held. All mercy that was possible was therefore fearlessly shown now to those who had escaped the peril of the law, or lay under some sentence like that of Will Wiseman. Other men—ay, and women too—had been condemned to be whipped through various places at intervals; but the magistrates took it upon themselves to release them after a very small part of the punishment had been inflicted. A sense of peace and security settled down upon a region so long rent by faction and fear. The citizens felt that the gentry were at heart with them in their indignation against the King, and in their desire after purer government; and although at the moment there was no thought of any fresh rising, the people began to whisper that a deliverer would come some day, and that the oppressed nation would turn as one man, and hurl the bloody tyrant from his throne.

So although there was mourning and woe in too many homes in Taunton, yet there was rejoicing in others; and amongst these latter was the house of Master Simpson, which was gladdened by the return of the master, on the very day when poor Will Wiseman had been got back, after having been so long away and suffered so much.

I had brought him back myself in a coach which my uncle had sent from our inn; and I had made him comfortable upon a couch, and Lizzie and her aunt were hanging over him and asking him all manner of questions, and making as much of him as though he had indeed been their brother and nephew, when we were startled by a heavy footfall up the flagged garden walk (for the impulse of fear was still strong within us, and we were easily alarmed at any unexpected sound), and Lizzie suddenly uttered a little scream of ecstasy, and the next moment had sprung right into her father's arms.

Oh, what a clatter of tongues and clamour of voices there was, everybody speaking at once, and nobody able to listen till the first joyful excitement had passed!

Master Simpson—he would never let himself be called Captain again—had a long story to tell us of his narrow escapes from the bands of soldiers after the fatal field of Sedgemoor. He had been amongst those who had made such a gallant stand upon the edge of the rhine, and had fired volley after volley into the surprised and disordered ranks of the enemy long after the Duke had fled at the instance of Lord Grey, and in fact until every round of ammunition had been used. He confirmed the story told me by the poor soldier in the ditch, that if the ammunition-waggons had but come up, and the cavalry had but re-formed even at a distance and shown something of a front, the day might easily have been ours. He spoke bitterly of Lord Grey, and declared that if Lord Vere had been there things would have gone very differently. But I have often thought since that Lord Grey was scarce as much to blame as our people always said. I doubt whether the untrained horses would have stood the sound of firing had their riders been never so stout of heart. It is a long time before the mettlesome creatures can be made to understand that they must face the flash of fire-arms and the terrible noise and smell. Sometimes it takes two years before a horse is seasoned; and these animals had been but a few weeks at most with the army, and had only smelt powder once or twice before.

Yet if the horses would not stand, their riders should have sent on the ammunition as fast as possible, instead of spreading dismay through the rear of the army and keeping back both the waggons and the rest of the foot. There was nothing to excuse the confusion which their rout created in the rear of the army. But what boots it to talk of these matters now? The day was lost, and Master Simpson, slightly wounded and greatly exhausted, had crawled into a ditch to hide himself, and was passed over by the soldiers in their first search. Afterwards he got up and slunk away in an opposite direction from Bridgewater, and received much kindness at a woodman's hut, where the people took care of him for several days, and where he healed him of his wound. Then fearing to remain so near to the scene of Colonel Kirke's activity, he fled towards Philip's Norton, knowing the country from having traversed it before but recently; and many narrow escapes did he have of falling into the hands of the soldiers. But fortune favoured him, and he escaped each time, though once he was up hiding in the rafters of an old barn, whilst the soldiers were eating and sleeping on the ground beneath him; and he almost gave himself up for lost once, when the beam creaked beneath his weight, and somebody called out, "Is anybody up there? Speak, man, or I fire!"

He did not, however, speak, nor did the soldier fire. The men laughed, and the officer swore at them for waking him up; and so they settled to their slumbers again.

That was the nearest shave he had, but many were his perils; and Lizzie sat holding his hand, and looking into his face with eyes full of terror and ecstasy; whilst the aunt bustled about to get the best supper the town could produce upon a sudden, and Master Simpson turned to Will and made him tell all his history.