[151] Letter from Monmouth to James, dated from Ringwode, quoted by Macaulay, Histoire d’Angleterre depuis l’Avénement de Jacques II., translation of M. de Peyronnet, vol. i. p. 398.
[152] Lady Henrietta Wentworth.—Trans.
[153] Burnet, vol. i. p. 630.
[154] M. Topin’s narrative has been here condensed, as it was hardly necessary to repeat to English readers the well-known story of Monmouth’s futile enterprise, more especially as it has no kind of bearing on the point as to whether he was or was not the Man with the Iron Mask.—Trans.
[155] Original Letters of Sir H. Ellis; Newspapers of the period; Despatch of the French Ambassador Barillon, July 13, 1685.
[156] Letter of James II. to the Prince of Orange, July 14, 1685; Sir J. Bramston’s Memoirs, related by Macaulay; Burnet, vol. i. p. 644.
CHAPTER VIII.
Bases on which Saint-Foix has founded his Theory—Disputes of Saint-Foix and Father Griffet—The Recollection of Monmouth becomes Legendary in England—Ballads announcing his Return—Indisputable Proofs of Monmouth’s Death in 1685—Interview of Monmouth with his Wife and Children—He is conducted to the Scaffold—His Firmness—The Last Words which he utters—Awkwardness of the Executioner.
In an anonymous libel, published in Holland under the title of Amours de Charles II. et de Jacques II., Rois d’Angleterre, we read “that in 1688, a few days after the departure from London of King James II., overthrown by William of Orange, Earl Danby sent to seek Colonel Skelton, who had formerly been Lieutenant of the Tower, which post the Prince of Orange had taken away from him, in order to give it to Lord Lucas. ‘Mr. Skelton,’ said Earl Danby to him, ‘yesterday, when supping with Robert Johnston, you told him that the Duke of Monmouth was alive, and that he was imprisoned in some castle in England.’ ‘I have not said that he was alive, and imprisoned in any castle, since I know nothing about it,’ answered Skelton; ‘but I have said that the night after the Duke of Monmouth’s pretended execution, the King, accompanied by three men, came to remove him from the Tower; that they covered his head with a kind of hood, and that the King and the three men entered a carriage with him.’”[157]
With the exception of this story, in the exactitude of which Saint-Foix himself has not very great confidence, since he says, “These are books whose authors seek only to amuse those who read them,”[158] he invokes for the establishment of his theory merely vague conversations, confused reports which he has collected, and the testimony of public rumour. “A surgeon,” he tells us, “named Nélaton, who was in the habit of going every morning to the Café Procope, related there several times, that when first assistant to a surgeon near the Porte Saint-Antoine, he was sent for one day to bleed a person, and that he was taken to the Bastille, where the governor introduced him into the chamber of a prisoner, who had his head covered with a long napkin, tied behind the neck; that this prisoner complained of bad headaches; that his dressing-gown was yellow and black, with large gold flowers; and that from his accent he recognized him to be English.” “Father Tournemine,” adds Saint-Foix,[159] “has often repeated to me that, having gone to pay a visit to the Duchess of Portsmouth with Father Sanders, formerly King James’s confessor, she had said to them, in a succession of conversations, that she should always reproach that Prince’s memory with the execution of the Duke of Monmouth, after Charles II., in the hour of death, and ready to communicate, had made him promise, in the presence of the host, which Huldeston, a Catholic priest, had secretly brought in, that, whatever rebellion the Duke of Monmouth might attempt, he would never have him punished with death. ‘Nor did he do so,’ replied Father Sanders, with animation.” In order to explain how Monmouth could have been carried off alive, and how the people were deceived by this sham execution, Saint-Foix furnishes a proof not a whit less uncertain than the preceding. “It was reported about London,” he says, “that an officer of his army, who closely resembled him, being made prisoner, and certain of being condemned to death, had received the proposal to personate him with as much joy as if he had been accorded life, and that, on this being reported abroad, a great lady, having gained over those who could open his coffin, and having looked at his right arm, exclaimed, ‘Ah! this is not Monmouth!’”[160]