"The King is dead! the King is dead! God save us all! The Duke of York is proclaimed King in his stead!"
"The King was poisoned by his brother!" whispered a voice in the crowd. I know not whence it came; but the word was taken up in the lowest of tones, and one heard it go surging along accompanied by a sort of shuddering sigh, as though men half feared to utter the fearful words. Other wild whispers soon got afloat. Some vowed it was the Queen who had administered the poison in her intolerant jealousy; others, that it was the notorious Duchess of Portsmouth; but the favourite and most lasting impression of those who believed that foul means had been employed to put the King out of the way, was that his brother the Duke had contrived to poison him, either through his snuff or in his food,—and since he was the man of all others to reap advantage from that death, the opinion flourished and gained ground amongst his enemies apace.
But crowding round the weary messenger, who had galloped to Taunton with the news since noon the previous day, we strove to learn from him every detail of the calamity; and he told his tale again and again.
That the King had been out of health since the fall of the previous year was a thing known to all the country. Some called it gout, and said it was a matter of small moment; others shook their heads over it, and said it showed a break up of the sound constitution which had hitherto marked the monarch. But although there had been much anxious discussion as to the succession, men were not really prepared for this sudden end to the King's life; and when we heard that he had been only four days actually ill, the end did indeed seem to be sudden.
But the terrible thing to us was the story with which the messenger said that all London was ringing—namely, that upon his death-bed the King had been admitted into the Romish Church; that a priest had been found and brought to him by his brother; and that all the courtiers, with the exception of the Earls of Feversham and Bath, had been turned out of the room whilst extreme unction had been administered, and his Majesty confessed and shrived by the priest found with some difficulty for the office.
This was indeed grave news; for if the Duke of York had acted thus, was there any hope but that he would openly profess the Romish faith when he was set upon the throne? At once a vision of Smithfield fires rose before the mind's eye of numbers and numbers of those who heard the story. It seemed to us that with a Papist King, a man notorious for his cruelty and love of inflicting misery and bloodshed, any sort of horror was possible. What wonder that faces grew pale, that we looked at each other in silent amaze, whilst the women wept aloud and gathered their children into their arms as though to protect them from some menacing peril!
"And the King himself, what did he say?" was asked in many quarters. "Did he speak of the Duke—the Duke of Monmouth? Did he say aught of him and his rights?"
The messenger shook his head as this question reached him. The man was one who knew our Duke and thought well of him. He was a West Country fellow himself, and not yet vitiated by the atmosphere of the Court in which he had lived so long.
"His Majesty called for his other children," said he—meaning, of course, children born out of lawful wedlock; for, as all men know, the Queen was childless, to the great grief of the nation—"but of the Duke of Monmouth no word was spoken. The King did not breathe his name—so, at least, it is averred. None dared to speak of him, the Duke of York standing by. Nay, my friends, I fear me there is no hope for England in that quarter. The Duke of York is King in his brother's stead. But what we may lawfully do to stand by the laws and the rights of our nation and our faith, that let every man do to the utmost that is in him. James may wear the crown and be called King, but we will have no tyrant forcing us to a faith against which we have fought and triumphed years ago. He may rule us indeed, but he shall not make of us Papists nor slaves!"