Monmouth, thus driven upon his fate, set sail with three ships; landed at Lyme with hardly an hundred followers; and, such was the magic of his popularity, soon found himself at the head of a considerable force. He baffled the Duke of Albemarle who attempted to coop him up at Lyme, and, advancing to Taunton took upon him fatally the title of King. At length, he surprised the Earl of Feversham, James's general, in his entrenchments near Bridgewater; and the native stubborn valour of his followers nearly proved too much for the discipline of the veterans, whom they attacked. The cowardice of Lord Grey,[298] who fled with the cavalry, led to a total defeat and much slaughter among Monmouth's forces. Still more fell a sacrifice to the bloody zeal of the brutal Jefferies. The Duke himself was taken in his flight; and, depressed by fatigue and disappointment, shewed some symptoms of weakness, inconsistent with his former character. He solicited his life by submissive letters to James, and, at length, obtained an interview with the king. But James forgot the noble, though homely popular saying,
A king's face
Should give grace.
With the natural sternness of his character, he only strove to extort from Monmouth a disavowal of his legitimacy, and a confession of his accomplices. To the former the Duke submitted; but, when urged to the latter, rose from the posture of supplication, and retorted with dignity the reproaches of James. When he returned to the Tower, he wrote a letter to the king, supposed to contain a secret, the revealing of which might have purchased his life. This letter he intrusted to Captain Scott of Dumbarton's regiment, a descendant of the family of Harden, and, consequently, related to the Duchess of Monmouth. The famous Blood is said to have compelled Scott to deliver up the letter, and carried it to Sunderland, who destroyed it.[299]
The Duke of Monmouth, finding all efforts to procure a pardon ineffectual, met death with great resolution. He smiled on the guards who surrounded the scaffold, and whom in his better days he had commanded; bowed to the populace, who expressed by sighs and tears their interest in his fate; and submitted to his doom. His death was cruelly prolonged by the hesitation of the executioner, who, after several ineffectual strokes of the axe, threw it down, and could scarcely be prevailed on to finish his bloody work. The execution took place on the 15th of July, 1685.
It would be difficult, were it here necessary, to draw a character of the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth. His qualities and accomplishments were fitted for times more gentle than those in which he lived, where he might be compared to a pleasure barge struggling against a hurricane. In gentler times, he had proved a successful leader in war; and in peace, what the reviver of tragedy has aptly stiled, "An honoured courtly gentleman." Count Basil. Act I. Scene II.
And made the charming Annabel his bride.—P. [218.]
Anne, Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth, a lady of high spirit, great beauty, and unimpeachable honour. We have had repeated occasion to mention her in the course of these notes. She was reckoned the richest heiress in Europe; as, upon the death of her elder sister, Anne Countess of Buccleuch, wife of Walter Earl of Tarras, she succeeded to the extensive land estate of that family. Charles made this advantageous match for his son, by the intervention of the young lady's mother, the Countess of Wemyss. The Duchess of Buccleuch was a distinguished protectress of poetical merit, and evinced her discriminating taste, by early selecting Dryden as the object of her patronage; she cultivated the friendship of the Duke of York, and established an intimacy between him and her husband, which paved the way for the advancement of the latter.[300] When by an occasional rivalry they quarrelled, and became irreconcileable enemies, she still opposed her prudence to the precipitate counsels of Monmouth's worse advisers. It is probable her influence saved his life, by determining him to make a timely confession, concerning all he knew of the Rye-house conspiracy, upon condition, it was not to be used against his friends. When he imprudently retracted that confession, her advice prevailed on him to offer a renewal of it.[301] Their last interview before the Duke's execution, is thus narrated in a MS. now before me.