health on his knees, the Taunton men kept this
holiday with stubborn faith and truth. The
court, vexed at this, and roused by Tory
remonstrances from Somersetshire, filled up the
Taunton moat, and demolished the wall that
had held out so gallantly, backed by the brave
Somersetshire hearts behind it. The puritanical
fervour was kept up in Taunton by the
preaching and exhortation of that celebrated
Dissenter, Joseph Alleine, author of the still
well-known tract "The Alarm to the Unconverted."
He was thrown into prison by the
Cavaliers, and died worn out by toil and
persecution; but his precepts were not forgotten.

No wonder, then, that when Monmouth
arrived he was eagerly welcomed as a deliverer
from the Papists. Every door and window in
Taunton was adorned with flowers. The men
wore green boughs in their hats. A procession
of girls presented Monmouth with an
embroidered flag woven with royal emblems.
It was here evil advisers urged the son of
Lucy Walters to allow himself to be proclaimed
king in the market-place; King Monmouth—
within twenty-four hours he had set
a price on the head of his hook-nosed uncle,
and forbidden people to pay the usurper's
taxes. As the doomed army marched on the
twenty-first of June from Taunton, Ferguson,
the duke's worst adviser, spy and a
conspirator, waved his sword and cried out to
the Taunton townspeople in the craziness of
vanity—

"Look at me—you have heard of me. I am
Ferguson, the famous Ferguson, the Ferguson
for whose head many hundred pounds have
been offered."

And this was the duke's prime minister—
fitting minister for such a pretender!

After Sedgemoor, the dreadful vengeance of
James fell fiercely on Taunton. Faversham left
at Bridgewater, Colonel Percy Kirke, a cruel
licentious soldier, who had served against the
Moors at Tangier, and acquired there all the
African's sensuality and hardheartedness. He
had persecuted the Jews, flogged, and even
murdered, his soldiers, and extorted bribes; his
regiment, the most savage and dissolute in
the service, was known ironically as Kirke's
Lambs. They bore on their flag a Paschal
lamb as a sign they had fought against the
Infidel. Taunton trembled when this monster
entered the town, followed by two carts full of
wounded and groaning rebels, and by a drove
of pale prisoners chained two and two. That
same night many of Monmouth's men were
hung without a trial from the sign-post of the
White Hart. No shrive, no leave-taking. They
were strangled like dogs by the mocking and
brutal soldiers. The officers of Kirke's regiment
caroused at the windows while the executions
went on, and drunk a health every time
a rebel was thrown from the ladder. When
the poor wretches' legs quivered, Colonel Kirke
ordered the drums to strike up. "We'll give
the rebels," he said, "music for their dancing."

One poor fellow they hung and cut down
twice. Each time he was asked if he repented
of his treason, and on his saying no, that if
the thing was to do again, he would do it,
they hove him up. The third time they let
him die, and so ended his agony. The butcher
who quartered the bodies that were to be sent
to the villages all round Sedgemoor stood ankle-
deep in blood. One degraded fellow suspected of
leaning to Monmouth, they compelled to assist
in steeping the rebels' limbs in pitch. Macaulay
in his powerful way says: "He afterwards
returned to his plough, but a mark like that of
Cain was upon him. He was known through
his village by the horrible name of Tom Boilman.
The rustics long continued to relate that
though he had by his sinful and shameful deed
saved himself from the vengeance of the Lambs,
he had not escaped the vengeance of a higher
power. In a great storm he flew for shelter
under an oak, and was there struck dead by
lightning." It is said that Kirke put one hundred
prisoners to death, the week which followed
the battle. The savage was at last recalled
by James, chiefly because he had sold
safe conducts to rich fugitives, who were
willing to embark for New England.

But Taunton had no reason to rejoice when
the sound of Kirke's drums died away down
the valley, for the Bloody Assize was about
to commence, and Jefferies had just accepted
the Great Seal. King James, in parting, had
presented him with a blood-stone ring,
earnest of future favours. In Hampshire he
had condemned an amiable lady to be burned
alive for merely sheltering two fugitives. It
was reported that at Dorchester, when the
clergyman preached mercy in an assize
sermon, Jefferies had grimly grinned. In a few
days after he hung seventy-four persons.
He advanced by degrees to the full harvest of
death. All the time the judicial butchery was
going on, he swore, blustered, laughed, and
joked like a drunken man. He roared that he
could smell a Presbyterian forty miles off.
"That impudent rebel," he shouted to a
contumacious prisoner, "to reflect on the king's
evidence! I see thee, villain—I see thee already
with the halter round thy neck." One poor trembling
wretch said he was on the parish. "Then
I'll ease the parish of the burden," Jefferies said,
"hang him!" He even boasted that he had
hung more traitors than all the judges since
the Conquest. Many of the rebels died very
bravely. Abraham Holmes, an old Cromwellian,
having had his arm shattered at Sedgemoor,
amputated it himself, and apologised for
going awkwardly up the ladder. A lad of
family named Hewling died with such calm
fortitude, that his conduct touched even the
soldiers.

When Jefferies entered Taunton, the pen
where the sheep to be slaughtered lay thickest,
he declared openly in his charge that it would
not be his fault if he did not depopulate the
place. The poor girls who had presented the
standard to Monmouth were all thrown into
prison, though some of the poor little things
were children under ten years of age. They
had only carried the flag at the request of their