struck eleven. He looked desponding, so
people thought. His army marched up what
is now called the War-lane, towards the dykes
of Sedgemoor, where Faversham's men were
revelling. Monmouth led the foot; Grey, the
horse. No drum was to be sounded, no shot
fired. The word for the night was "Soho."
About one in the morning the rebels were on
the boggy moor. Three broad ditches filled
with water lay between them and the enemy.
Their ammunition waggons remained behind.
The pike and scythemen passed the Black Ditch
by a muddy causeway. The second causeway,
that over Longmoor Rhine, the guide missed in
the fog, and the third, over Sussex Rhine, he
had forgotten. The new recruits, rough ploughmen
and fishermen, became confused. Some
of King James's Horse Guards seeing them
advancing, fired their carbines, and rode back to
rouse the troopers at Weston Zoyland. Dumbarton's
regiments beat to arms. Monmouth moving
forward fast, suddenly found himself stopped
by the yawning darkness of Bussex Rhine.

"For whom are you?" cried a hoarse voice
across the trench.

"For the king."

"What king?"

"King Monmouth," and then the rebels
shouted their war cry, "God with us!"

The reply was a blazing volley, that sent the
wild marsh horses to the rightabout; they
never rallied again. Just then the rebel
infantry came running up, and fired across
the dark trench, steadily, but too high. The
Life Guards and Blues scattered the fugitive
cavalry, and the waggoners fled wildly with
the powder waggons. Monmouth was left,
without cavalry or ammunition, shut in between
the trenches of Sedgemoor. The duke showed
good blood: he snatched a pike, rallied his men,
and led them, as day broke, over the causeway.
But Faversham was now on the field, and Captain
Churchill was massing the royal infantry.
Then Monmouth fled.

The rebels held out, though hemmed in by
the Life Guards and the Blues. Accustomed to
wield flails and mining tools, Monmouth's men
were stubborn with their scythes and musket
butts. They beat back Oglethorpe, and struck
down Sarsfield. Their incessant cry was,
"Ammunition, for God's sake, ammunition!"
Just then the king's guns dashed up from the
Bridgewater-road, the Bishop of Winchester
having lent his coach horses and traces for the
purpose. There was a want of gunners; but
the king's officers helped to load, point, and fire,
and sent the shot tearing through the ranks of
rebel pikes. They wavered, they retired, they
broke. Then, straight through the hot smoke,
the Blues swept down with savage swords, and
Faversham's infantry came streaming across
the ditch. The Mendip miners held out
bravely for a minute or two, but they were
soon felled or ridden down. Then the rout
was total, and the moor was covered with
shouting and screaming men. Three hundred
of the king's soldiers lay dead beside Bussex
Rhine, and a thousand rebels strewed the moor.

Faversham ordered many of the prisoners to
instant execution. Among these was a young
Somersetshire lad famous for his swift running.
Faversham, with a brutal laugh, made him a
promise of life, if he would outrun one of the
wild marsh horses. A halter was tied to his neck
and attached at the other end to the horse, on
which a soldier sat to urge the animal to the
fullest speed. The prisoner, maddened by the
hope of life, leaped away and actually kept up
with the horse for three quarters of a mile,
from Bussex Rhine to Brentsfeld Bridge. The
cruel general, rather enraged than pleased at
the performance of the tremendous feat,
instantly ordered the young rebel to the gallows.
Another prisoner was more fortunate. He
had to leap for his life so far in three leaps.
He leaped madly, and at the third bound
dashed headlong into an adjoining wood, and
escaped pursuit. His name was Swayne, and
three stones on the Shapwick estate are still
pointed out as Swayne's Jumps. The next
day there was a line of twenty gibbets on the
road leading from Weston Zoyland to Bridgewater,
and on every gibbet swung a rebel. A
day or two afterwards, a gaunt, greybearded
man, in a shepherd's dress, was seized in a field
of pease on the borders of Hampshire. It was
Monmouth. A few months later Jefferies
opened the Bloody Assize in Somersetshire,
and in a few days hung, drew, and quartered
two hundred and thirty-three prisoners. Every
village green, church porch, and market-
place was rendered loathsome by heads stuck
on poles, or corpses hung in irons. Monmouth
perished on Tower-hill, and Faversham was
made Knight of the Garter and Captain of the
First Life Guards.

In an Elizabethan house in Mill-street,
Bridgewater, the great Admiral Blake was
born. His father was a merchant, his mother
the co-heiress of a knightly family. A blunt,
bold, honest man, he distinguished himself
during the civil wars at the head of his
troop of horse, surprising Taunton and
defending it desperately during two sieges. His
services to the Parliament were of the most
splendid kind; he destroyed the Royalist fleet,
took the Channel Islands, and beat the Dutch
from the narrow seas. He bullied the Dey of
Tunis, and with incredible daring sailed into
the bay of Teneriffe and burnt some Spanish
galleons which he could not carry off. He died
on his return home, just as he was entering
Plymouth Sound. Blake did not commence
his naval career till he was fifty years of age,
yet he became one of our greatest admirals.
Clarendon says he was the first who disdained
to keep his ship and men out of danger, and
to teach sailors to despise land forts, which
he proved to be more noisy than dangerous.
When people expressed their scruples of serving
Cromwell, Blake said nobly, "It is not our
business to mind state affairs, but to prevent
foreigners fooling us." His most desperate
action was off the Goodwin Sands, when he
bore down on Van Tromp's eighty vessels with
only forty men-of-war, but was beaten off,