For Faith and Freedom
Page 52
CHAPTER L.
THE GREAT LORD CHANCELLOR.
But the Prince of Orange had already landed.
We learned this news next day, and you may be sure that we were inthe saddle again and riding to Exeter, there to join his standard.
This we did with the full consent of Madam and of Alice. Much as wehad suffered already, they would not deter us, because this thingwould have been approved by Sir Christopher and Dr. Eykin. Thereforewe went. As all the world knows, this expedition was successful. Yetwas not Barnaby made an Admiral, nor was I made a Court physician;we got, in fact, no reward at all, except that for Barnaby wasprocured a full pardon on account of the homicide of his late master.
My second campaign, as everybody knows, was bloodless. To beginwith, we had an army, not of raw country lads armed indifferentlyand untrained, but of veteran troops, fifteen thousand strong, allwell equipped, and with the best General in Europe at their head.At first, indeed, such was the dread in men's minds caused by LordJeffreys' cruelties, few came in; yet this was presently made upby what followed, when, without any fighting at all, the King'sregiments melted away, his priests fled, and his friends desertedhim. This was a very different business from that other, when wefollowed one whom I now know to have been a mere tawdry pretender,no better fitted to be a King than a vagabond actor at a fair is fitto be a Lord. Alas! what blood was wasted in that mad attempt!--ofwhich I was myself one of the most eager promoters. I was thenyoung, and I believed all that I was told by the conspirators inHolland; I took their list of well-wishers for insurgents alreadyarmed and waiting only for a signal; I thought that the roll ofnoble names set down for sturdy Protestants was that of men alreadypledged to the Cause; I believed that the whole nation would rise atthe first opportunity to turn out the priests; I even believed inthe legitimacy of the Duke, and that against the express statementof his father (if King Charles was in reality his father); and Ibelieved what they told me of his princely virtues, his knowledgeof the art of war, and his heroic valour. I say that I believed allthese things and that I became a willing and zealous tool in theirhands. As for what those who planned the expedition believed, Iknow not; nor will any one now ever learn what promises were madeto the Duke, what were broken, and why he was, from the outset,save for a few days at Taunton, so dejected and disappointed. Asfor me, I shall always believe that the unhappy man--unwise andsoft-hearted--was betrayed by those whom he trusted.
It is now an old tale, though King Monmouth will not speedily beforgotten in the West Country, nor will the memory of the BloodyAssize. The brave lads who followed him are dead and buried; somein unhonoured graves hard by the place where they were hanged, someunder the burning sun of the West Indies. The Duke himself hath longsince paid the penalty of his rash attempt. All is over and ended,except the memory of it.
It is now common history, known to everybody, how the Prince ofOrange lingered in the West Country, his army inactive, as if heknew (doubtless he was well informed upon this particular) thatthe longer he remained idle the more likely was the King's Causeto fall to pieces. There are some who think that if King Jameshad risked an action he could not but have gained, whatsoeverits event--I mean that, the blood of his soldiers once roused,they would have remained steadfast to him, and would have foughtfor him. But this he dared not to risk; wherefore the Prince didnothing, while the King's regiments fell to pieces and his friendsdeserted him. It was in December when the Prince came to Windsor,and I with him, once more Chyrurgeon in a rebel army. While thereI rode to London--partly with the intention of judging for myselfas to the temper of the people; partly because, after so long anabsence, I wished once more to visit a place where there are booksand pictures; and partly because there were certain notes andherbs which I desired to communicate to the College of Physiciansin Warwick Lane. It happened to be the very day when the King'sfirst flight--that, namely, when he was taken in the Isle ofSheppey--became known. The streets in the City of London I foundcrowded with people hurrying to and fro, running in bands andcompanies, shouting and crying, as if in the presence of some greatand imminent danger. It was reported and currently believed thatthe disbanded Irish soldiers had begun to massacre the Protestants.There was no truth at all in the report; but yet the bells wereringing from all the towers, the crowds were exhorting each other totear down and destroy the Romish chapels, to hunt for and to hangthe priests, and especially Jesuits (I know not whether they foundany), and to shout for the Prince of Orange. I stood aside to letthe crowds (thus religiously disposed) run past, but there seemed noend to them. Presently, however (this was in front of the new RoyalExchange), there drew near another kind of crowd. There marched sixor eight sturdy fellows bearing stout cudgels and haling along aprisoner. Round them there ran, shrieking, hooting, and cursing,a mob of a hundred men and more; they continually made attacksupon the guard, fighting them with sticks and fists; but they werealways thrust back. I thought at first that they had caught somepoor, wretched priest whom they desired to murder. But it provedto be a prize worth many priests. As they drew nearer, I discernedthe prisoner. He was dressed in the garb of a common sailor, withshort petticoats (which they call slops), and a jacket; his cap hadbeen torn off, leaving the bare skull, which showed that he was nosailor, because common sailors do not wear wigs; blood was flowingdown his cheek from a fresh wound; his eyes rolled hither andthither in an extremity of terror; I could not hear what he said forthe shouting of those around him, but his lips moved, and I think hewas praying his guards to close in and protect him. Never, surely,was seen a more terror-stricken creature.
I knew his face. Once seen (I had seen it once) it could never beforgotten. The red and bloated cheeks, which even his fear couldnot make pale; the eyes, more terrible than have been given to anyother human creature: these I could not forget--in dreams I see themstill. I saw that face at Exeter, when the cruel Judge exulted overour misery and rejoiced over the sentence which he pronounced. Yea,he laughed when he told us how we should swing, but not till we weredead, and then the knife--delivering his sentence so that no singlepoint of its horror should be lost to us. Yes; it was the faceof Judge Jeffreys--none other--this abject wretch was that greatJudge. Why, when we went back to our prison there were some who castthemselves upon the ground, and, for terror of what was to come,fell into mere _dementia_. And now I saw him thus humbled, thusdisgraced, thus threatened, thus in the last extremity and agony ofterror.
They had discovered him, thus disguised and in hiding, at a tavernin Wapping, and were dragging him to the presence of the Lord Mayor.It is a long distance from Wapping to Guildhall, and they went butslowly, because they were beset and surrounded by these wolves whohowled to have his blood. And all the way he shrieked and trembledfor fear!
Sure and certain is the vengeance of the Lord!
This Haman, this unjust Judge, was thus suffering, at the handsof the savage mob, pangs far worse than those endured by the poorrustics whom he had delivered to the executioner. I say worse,because I have not only read, but have myself proved, that the richand the learned--those, that is, who live luxuriously and those whohave power to imagine and to feel beforehand--do suffer far more indisease than the common, ignorant folk. The scholar dies of terrorbefore ever he feels the surgeon's knife, while the rustic bares hislimb, insensible and callous, however deep the cut or keen the pain.I make no doubt, therefore, that the great Lord Chancellor, whilethey haled him all the way from Wapping to Guildhall, suffered asmuch as fifty ploughboys flogged at the cart-tail.
Many thousands there were who desired revenge upon him--I know notwhat revenge would satisfy the implacable; because revenge can do nomore than kill the body, but his worst enemy should be satisfiedwith this, his dreadful fate. Even Barnaby, who was sad because hecould get no revenge on his own account (he wanted a bloody battle,with the rout of the King's armies and the pursuit of a flyingenemy, such as had happened at Sedgemoor), was satisfied with thejustice which was done to that miserable man. It is wonderful thathe was not killed amidst
so many threatening cudgels; but his guardsprevented that, not from any love they bore him; but quite thecontrary (more unforgiving faces one never saw); for they intendedto hand him over to the Lord Mayor, and that he should be tried forall his cruelties and treacheries, and, perhaps, experience himselfthat punishment of hanging and disembowelling which he had inflictedon so many ignorant and misled men.
How he was committed to the Tower, where he shortly died in thegreatest torture of body as well as mind, everybody knows.