Lord Grey's progress being arrested by a trench of whose existence he was not aware, immediately turned his back to the enemy. The peasants defended themselves heroically; the miners from Mendip knocked down all who approached them with the butt-end of their muskets. They were still fighting when Monmouth took to flight, abandoning his unfortunate followers. Fifteen hundred corpses of the rebels strewed the plain, and five hundred prisoners were taken before the struggle terminated. Two days later Monmouth fell into the hands of a detachment of soldiers sent in search of him. "Now," said Barillon, with a sagacity true but malicious, "all the zealous Protestants will rest their hopes on the Prince of Orange."
No one hoped for mercy from the king. If Monmouth thought for a moment that possibly his life might be spared, his interview with James II. taught him his error. "Remember, Sire, that I am the son of your brother," cried the unhappy young man, throwing himself at the feet of the monarch; "it is your own blood that you shed in shedding mine." "Your crime is too great," coldly replied the king. The queen, it was said, was even more hard-hearted. Showing great weakness at first, and apparently overcome at the thought of death, piteously begging for "life, only life, life at any price," Monmouth nevertheless recovered his firmness in the presence of such pitiless resolution. "Very well," said he at last, "I have nothing more to do but to die."
For an instant, the unfortunate prisoner was cowardly enough to seek to save his life by abjuring the Protestant faith, of which he had styled himself the "Defender." Disabused, however, of that hope, he refused the absolution offered him by the priests of the royal chapel.
"Remember, Sire, I am your Brother's Son."
The Anglican bishops were not entirely satisfied with his repentance. They wished to obtain from him a confession of that doctrine of non-resistance which he had openly violated. The irregularities of his private life also excited their pious indignation. The duke at first refused to see his wife; when he finally received her, their interview was brief and cold. "I die penitent," repeated Monmouth; and as the bishops accompanied him to the foot of the scaffold, "I come here not to speak, but to die," said the young man; "pray for me." The name of the king was mingled in the episcopal intercessions. "Will you not pray for the king?" asked one of the clergy. Monmouth remained silent a moment; then, as if making a great effort, finally said, "Amen." He turned towards the executioner: "Look well to your axe," said he, "and do not hack me as you did my Lord Russell." He placed his head upon the block. Monmouth's appeal disconcerted the executioner; his hand trembled; blow after blow was struck, and yet the neck was not severed. The crowd were about to tear him in pieces when the head of the victim finally fell. The populace rushed up to dip their handkerchiefs in the blood of the young duke. Frivolous and superficial, without true courage or personal valor, he possessed that art of gaining hearts which seems sometimes independent of all true merit. The peasants of the western counties long worshipped Monmouth's memory; they refused to admit that he was dead, and many times impostors passed through the counties of Dorset and Wilts claiming to be the duke, miraculously raised from the dead, and were honored and feted.
Men long remember those for whom they have suffered. Many peasants of the west had perished on the field of battle, under the standards of Monmouth; many more were to suffer severely for their fidelity to him. Already Colonel Kirke, at the head of his regiment from Tangier, overran the insurgent counties, and his "Lambs," as his soldiers were called, in remembrance of the Pascal Lamb—represented on their banner while in Africa—spread everywhere terror and death. At each toast drunk by the officers, a rebel prisoner was executed. The toasts were numerous, the orgies prolonged. The love of money sometimes checked the cruelty of "the Butcher of Taunton." Those who possessed sufficient fortune were sometimes allowed to purchase their lives. Around the inn where Kirke had established his quarters, they waded ankle deep in blood. The country was depopulated; all those who were able to gain the coast embarked for America: they fled from the barbarity of Kirke and from the "justice" of Jeffreys.
Guilford, the Keeper of the Seals, had just died, sadly humbled and discouraged towards the end of a life of cowardly servility. King James promised the office to Jeffreys, on his return from the circuit, which he had just undertaken in the western counties—a splendid recompense for "The Bloody Assizes." The great judge resolved to merit the reward.