Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne - "Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v15"

David Starr Jordan - "The Philosophy of Despair"

Doris Stevens - "Jailed for Freedom"

Charles Dickens - "Pictures from Italy"

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Books: A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second

C >> Charles James Fox >> A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second




In Macpherson's extract from King James's "Memoirs," it is confessed
that the king ought not to have seen, if he was not disposed to
pardon the culprit; but whether the observation is made by the
exiled prince himself, or by him who gives the extract, is in this,
as in many other passages of those "Memoirs," difficult to
determine. Surely if the king had made this reflection before
Monmouth's execution, it must have occurred to that monarch, that if
he had inadvertently done that which he ought not to have done,
without an intention to pardon, the only remedy was to correct that
part of his conduct which was still in his power, and since he could
not recall the interview, to grant the pardon.

Pursuant to this hard-hearted arrangement, Monmouth and Grey, on the
very day of their arrival, were brought to Whitehall, where they had
severally interviews with his majesty. James, in a letter to the
Prince of Orange, dated the following day, gives a short account of
both these interviews. Monmouth, he says, betrayed a weakness which
did not become one who had claimed the title of king; but made no
discovery of consequence.

Grey was more ingenuous (it is not certain in what sense his majesty
uses the term, since he does not refer to any discovery made by that
lord), and never once begged his life. Short as this account is, it
seems the only authentic one of those interviews. Bishop Kennet,
who has been followed by most of the modern historians, relates,
that "This unhappy captive, by the intercession of the queen
dowager, was brought to the king's presence, and fell presently at
his feet, and confessed he deserved to die; but conjured him, with
tears in his eyes, not to use him with the severity of justice, and
to grant him a life, which he would be ever ready to sacrifice for
his service. He mentioned to him the example of several great
princes, who had yielded to the impressions of clemency on the like
occasions, and who had never afterwards repented of those acts of
generosity and mercy; concluding, in a most pathetical manner,
'Remember, sir, I am your brother's son, and if you take my life, it
is your own blood that you will shed.' The king asked him several
questions, and made him sign a declaration that his father told him
he was never married to his mother: and then said, he was sorry
indeed for his misfortunes; but his crime was of too great a
consequence to be left unpunished, and he must of necessity suffer
for it. The queen is said to have insulted him in a very arrogant
and unmerciful manner. So that when the duke saw there was nothing
designed by this interview but to satisfy the queen's revenge, he
rose up from his majesty's feet with a new air of bravery, and was
carried back to the Tower."

The topics used by Monmouth are such as he might naturally have
employed, and the demeanour attributed to him, upon finding the king
inexorable, is consistent enough with general probability, and his
particular character; but that the king took care to extract from
him a confession of Charles's declaration with respect to his
illegitimacy, before he announced his final refusal of mercy, and
that the queen was present for the purpose of reviling and insulting
him, are circumstances too atrocious to merit belief, without some
more certain evidence. It must be remarked also, that Burnet, whose
general prejudices would not lead him to doubt any imputations
against the queen, does not mention her majesty's being present.
Monmouth's offer of changing religion is mentioned by him, but no
authority quoted; and no hint of the kind appears either in James's
Letters, or in the extract from his "Memoirs."

From Whitehall Monmouth was at night carried to the Tower, where, no
longer uncertain as to his fate, he seems to have collected his
mind, and to have resumed his wonted fortitude. The bill of
attainder that had lately passed having superseded the necessity of
a legal trial, his execution was fixed for the next day but one
after his commitment. This interval appeared too short even for the
worldly business which he wished to transact, and he wrote again to
the king on the 14th, desiring some short respite, which was
peremptorily refused. The difficulty of obtaining any certainty
concerning facts, even in instances where there has not been any
apparent motive for disguising them, is nowhere more striking than
in the few remaining hours of this unfortunate man's life.
According to King James's statement in his "Memoirs," he refused to
see his wife, while other accounts assert positively that she
refused to see him, unless in presence of witnesses. Burnet, who
was not likely to be mistaken in a fact of this kind, says they did
meet, and parted very coldly, a circumstance which, if true, gives
us no very favourable idea of the lady's character. There is also
mention of a third letter written by him to the king, which being
entrusted to a perfidious officer of the name of Scott, never
reached its destination; but for this there is no foundation. What
seems most certain is, that in the Tower, and not in the closet, he
signed a paper, renouncing his pretensions to the crown, the same
which he afterwards delivered on the scaffold; and that he was
inclined to make this declaration, not by any vain hope of life, but
by his affection for his children, whose situation he rightly judged
would be safer and better under the reigning monarch and his
successors, when it should be evident that they could no longer be
competitors for the throne.

Monmouth was very sincere in his religious professions, and it is
probable that a great portion of this sad day was passed in devotion
and religious discourse with the two prelates who had been sent by
his majesty to assist him in his spiritual concerns. Turner, bishop
of Ely, had been with him early in the morning, and Kenn, bishop of
Bath and Wells, was sent, upon the refusal of a respite, to prepare
him for the stroke, which it was now irrevocably fixed he should
suffer the ensuing day. They stayed with him all night, and in the
morning of the 15th were joined by Dr. Hooper, afterwards, in the
reign of Anne, made bishop of Bath and Wells, and by Dr. Tennison,
who succeeded Tillotson in the see of Canterbury. This last divine
is stated by Burnet to have been most acceptable to the duke, and,
though he joined the others in some harsh expostulations, to have
done what the right reverend historian conceives to have been his
duty, in a softer and less peremptory manner. Certain it is, that
none of these holy men seem to have erred on the side of compassion
or complaisance to their illustrious penitent. Besides endeavouring
to convince him of the guilt of his connection with his beloved lady
Harriet, of which he could never be brought to a due sense, they
seem to have repeatedly teased him with controversy, and to have
been far more solicitous to make him profess what they deemed the
true creed of the Church of England, than to soften or console his
sorrows, or to help him to that composure of mind so necessary for
his situation. He declared himself to be a member of their Church,
but, they denied that he could be so, unless he thoroughly believed
the doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance. He repented
generally of his sins, and especially of his late enterprise, but
they insisted that he must repent of it in the way they prescribed
to him, that he must own it to have been a wicked resistance to his
lawful king, and a detestable act of rebellion. Some historians
have imputed this seemingly cruel conduct to the king's particular
instructions, who might be desirous of extracting, or rather
extorting, from the lips of his dying nephew such a confession as
would be matter of triumph to the royal cause. But the character of
the two prelates principally concerned, both for general uprightness
and sincerity as Church of England men, makes it more candid to
suppose that they did not act from motives of servile compliance,
but rather from an intemperate party zeal for the honour of their
Church, which they judged would be signally promoted if such a man
as Monmouth, after having throughout his life acted in defiance of
their favourite doctrine, could be brought in his last moments to
acknowledge it as a divine truth. It must never be forgotten, if we
would understand the history of this period, that the truly orthodox
members of our Church regarded monarchy not as a human, but as a
divine institution, and passive obedience and non-resistance, not as
political maxims, but as articles of religion.

At ten o'clock on the 15th Monmouth proceeded in a carriage of the
lieutenant of the Tower to Tower Hill, the place destined for his
execution. The two bishops were in the carriage with him, and one
of them took that opportunity of informing him that their
controversial altercations were not yet at an end, and that upon the
scaffold he would again be pressed for more explicit and
satisfactory declarations of repentance. When arrived at the bar
which had been put up for the purpose of keeping out the multitude,
Monmouth descended from the carriage, and mounted the scaffold, with
a firm step, attended by his spiritual assistants. The sheriffs and
executioners were already there. The concourse of spectators was
innumerable; and if we are to credit traditional accounts, never was
the general compassion more affectingly expressed. The tears,
sighs, and groans, which the first sight of this heartrending
spectacle produced, were soon succeeded by a universal and awful
silence; a respectful attention and affectionate anxiety to hear
every syllable that should pass the lips of the sufferer. The duke
began by saying he should speak little; he came to die, and he
should die a Protestant of the Church of England. Here he was
interrupted by the assistants, and told, that if he was of the
Church of England, he must acknowledge the doctrine of non-
resistance to be true. In vain did he reply that if he acknowledged
the doctrine of the Church in general it included all: they
insisted he should own that doctrine, particularly with respect to
his case, and urged much more concerning their favourite point, upon
which, however, they obtained nothing but a repetition in substance
of former answers. He was then proceeding to speak of Lady Harriet
Wentworth, of his high esteem for her, and of his confirmed opinion
that their connection was innocent in the sight of God, when Goslin,
the sheriff, asked him, with all the unfeeling bluntness of a vulgar
mind, whether he was ever married to her. The duke refusing to
answer, the same magistrate, in the like strain, though changing his
subject, said he hoped to have heard of his repentance for the
treason and bloodshed which had been committed; to which the
prisoner replied, with great mildness, that he died very penitent.
Here the Churchmen again interposed, and renewing their demand of
particular penitence and public acknowledgment upon public affairs,
Monmouth referred them to the following paper, which he had signed
that morning:


"I declare that the title of king was forced upon me, and that it
was very much contrary to my opinion when I was proclaimed. For the
satisfaction of the world, I do declare that the late king told me
he was never married to my mother. Having declared this, I hope the
king who is now will not let my children suffer on this account.
And to this I put my hand this fifteenth day of July, 1685.

"MONMOUTH."


There was nothing, they said, in that paper about resistance; nor,
though Monmouth, quite worn-out with their importunities, said to
one of them, in the most affecting manner, "I am to die--pray my
lord--I refer to my paper," would those men think it consistent with
their duty to desist. There were only a few words they desired on
one point. The substance of these applications on the one hand, and
answers on the other, was repeated over and over again, in a manner
that could not be believed, if the facts were not attested by the
signatures of the persons principally concerned. If the duke, in
declaring his sorrow for what had passed, used the word invasion,
"Give it the true name," said they, "and call it rebellion." "What
name you please," replied the mild-tempered Monmouth. He was sure
he was going to everlasting happiness, and considered the serenity
of his mind in his present circumstances as a certain earnest of the
favour of his Creator. His repentance, he said, must be true, for
he had no fear of dying; he should die like a lamb. "Much may come
from natural courage," was the unfeeling and stupid reply of one of
the assistants. Monmouth, with that modesty inseparable from true
bravery, denied that he was in general less fearful than other men,
maintaining that his present courage was owing to his consciousness
that God had forgiven him his past transgressions, of all which
generally he repented with all his soul.

At last the reverend assistants consented to join with him in
prayer, but no sooner were they risen from their kneeling posture
than they returned to their charge. Not satisfied with what had
passed, they exhorted him to a true and thorough repentance. Would
he not pray for the king, and send a dutiful message to his majesty
to recommend the duchess and his children? "As you please," was the
reply; "I pray for him and for all men." He now spoke to the
executioner, desiring that he might have no cap over his eyes, and
began undressing. One would have thought that in this last sad
ceremony, the poor prisoner might have been unmolested, and that the
divines would have been satisfied that prayer was the only part of
their function for which their duty now called upon them. They
judged differently, and one of them had the fortitude to request the
duke, even in this stage of the business, that he would address
himself to the soldiers then present, to tell them he stood a sad
example of rebellion, and entreat the people to be loyal and
obedient to the king. "I have said I will make no speeches,"
repeated Monmouth, in a tone more peremptory than he had before been
provoked to; "I will make no speeches. I come to die." "My lord,
ten words will be enough," said the persevering divine; to which the
duke made no answer, but turning to the executioner, expressed a
hope that he would do his work better now than in the case of Lord
Russell. He then felt the axe, which he apprehended was not sharp
enough, but being assured that it was of proper sharpness and
weight, he laid down his head. In the meantime many fervent
ejaculations were used by the reverend assistants, who, it must be
observed, even in these moments of horror, showed themselves not
unmindful of the points upon which they had been disputing, praying
God to accept his imperfect and general repentance.

The executioner now struck the blow, but so feebly or unskilfully,
that Monmouth, being but slightly wounded, lifted up his head, and
looked him in the face as if to upbraid him, but said nothing. The
two following strokes were as ineffectual as the first, and the
headsman, in a fit of horror, declared he could not finish his work.
The sheriffs threatened him; he was forced again to make a further
trial, and in two more strokes separated the head from the body.

Thus fell, in the thirty-sixth year of his age, James, Duke of
Monmouth, a man against whom all that has been said by the most
inveterate enemies both to him and his party amounts to little more
than this, that he had not a mind equal to the situations in which
his ambition, at different times, engaged him to place himself. But
to judge him with candour, we must make great allowances, not only
for the temptations into which he was led by the splendid prosperity
of the earlier parts of his life, but also for the adverse
prejudices with which he was regarded by almost all the contemporary
writers, from whom his actions and character are described. The
Tories, of course, are unfavourable to him; and even among the
Whigs, there seems, in many, a strong inclination to disparage him;
some to excuse themselves for not having joined him, others to make
a display of their exclusive attachment to their more successful
leader, King William. Burnet says of Monmouth, that he was gentle,
brave, and sincere: to these praises, from the united testimony of
all who knew him, we may add that of generosity; and surely those
qualities go a great way in making up the catalogue of all that is
amiable and estimable in human nature. One of the most conspicuous
features in his character seems to have been a remarkable, and, as
some think, a culpable degree of flexibility. That such a
disposition is preferable to its opposite extreme, will be admitted
by all who think that modesty, even in excess, is more nearly allied
to wisdom than conceit and self-sufficiency. He who has attentively
considered the political, or, indeed, the general concerns of life,
may possibly go still further, and rank a willingness to be
convinced, or in some cases even without conviction, to concede our
own opinion to that of other men, among the principal ingredients in
the composition of practical wisdom. Monmouth had suffered this
flexibility, so laudable in many cases, to degenerate into a habit
which made him often follow the advice, or yield to the entreaties,
of persons whose characters by no means entitled them to such
deference. The sagacity of Shaftesbury, the honour of Russell, the
genius of Sydney, might, in the opinion of a modest man, be safe and
eligible guides. The partiality of friendship, and the conviction
of his firm attachment, might be some excuse for his listening so
much to Grey; but he never could, at any period of his life, have
mistaken Ferguson for an honest man. There is reason to believe
that the advice of the two last-mentioned persons had great weight
in persuading him to the unjustifiable step of declaring himself
king. But far the most guilty act of this unfortunate man's life
was his lending his name to the declaration which was published at
Lyme, and in this instance Ferguson, who penned the paper, was both
the adviser and the instrument. To accuse the king of having burnt
London, murdered Essex in the Tower, and, finally, poisoned his
brother, unsupported by evidence to substantiate such dreadful
charges, was calumny of the most atrocious kind; but the guilt is
still heightened, when we observe, that from no conversation of
Monmouth, nor, indeed, from any other circumstance whatever, do we
collect that he himself believed the horrid accusations to be true.
With regard to Essex's death in particular, the only one of the
three charges which was believed by any man of common sense, the
late king was as much implicated in the suspicion as James. That
the latter should have dared to be concerned in such an act, without
the privacy of his brother, was too absurd an imputation to be
attempted, even in the days of the popish plot. On the other hand,
it was certainly not the intention of the son to brand his father as
an assassin. It is too plain that, in the instance of this
declaration, Monmouth, with a facility highly criminal, consented to
set his name to whatever Ferguson recommended as advantageous to the
cause. Among the many dreadful circumstances attending civil wars,
perhaps there are few more revolting to a good mind than the wicked
calumnies with which, in the heat of contention, men, otherwise men
of honour, have in all ages and countries permitted themselves to
load their adversaries. It is remarkable that there is no trace of
the divines who attended this unfortunate man having exhorted him to
a particular repentance of his manifesto, or having called for a
retraction or disavowal of the accusations contained in it. They
were so intent upon points more immediately connected with orthodoxy
of faith, that they omitted pressing their penitent to the only
declaration by which he could make any satisfactory atonement to
those whom he had injured.



FRAGMENTS.



The following detached paragraphs were probably intended for the
fourth chapter. They are here printed in the incomplete and
unfinished state in which they were found.

While the Whigs considered all religious opinions with a view to
politics, the Tories, on the other hand, referred all political
maxims to religion. Thus the former, even in their hatred to
popery, did not so much regard the superstition, or imputed idolatry
of that unpopular sect, as its tendency to establish arbitrary power
in the State, while the latter revered absolute monarchy as a divine
institution, and cherished the doctrines of passive obedience and
non-resistance as articles of religious faith.

* * *

To mark the importance of the late events, his majesty caused two
medals to be struck; one of himself, with the usual inscription, and
the motto, Aras et sceptra tuemur; the other of Monmouth, without
any inscription. On the reverse of the former were represented the
two headless trunks of his lately vanquished enemies, with other
circumstances in the same taste and spirit, the motto, Ambitio
malesuada ruit; on that of the latter appeared a young man falling
in the attempt to climb a rock with three crowns on it, under which
was the insulting motto, Superi risere.

* * *

With the lives of Monmouth and Argyle ended, or at least seemed to
end, all prospect of resistance to James's absolute power; and that
class of patriots who feel the pride of submission, and the dignity
of obedience, might be completely satisfied that the crown was in
its full lustre.

James was sufficiently conscious of the increased strength of his
situation, and it is probable that the security he now felt in his
power inspired him with the design of taking more decided steps in
favour of the popish religion and its professors than his connection
with the Church of England party had before allowed him to
entertain. That he from this time attached less importance to the
support and affection of the Tories is evident from Lord Rochester's
observations, communicated afterwards to Burnet. This nobleman's
abilities and experience in business, his hereditary merit, as son
of Lord Chancellor Clarendon, and his uniform opposition to the
Exclusion Bill, had raised him high in the esteem of the Church
party. This circumstance, perhaps, as much, or more than the king's
personal kindness to a brother-in-law, had contributed to his
advancement to the first office in the State. As long, therefore,
as James stood in need of the support of the party, as long as he
meant to make them the instruments of his power, and the channels of
his favour, Rochester was, in every respect, the fittest person in
whom to confide; and accordingly, as that nobleman related to
Burnet, his majesty honoured him with daily confidential
communications upon all his most secret schemes and projects. But
upon the defeat of the rebellion, an immediate change took place,
and from the day of Monmouth's execution, the king confined his
conversations with the treasurer to the mere business of his office.