sent into the western districts to try the adherents of this rash enterprise, accompanied by a military force under the command of the ruffian Colonel Kirk, a merciless coadjutor of this judge, appointed by the state authorities, and especially by the concurrence of the tyrant sovereign. These human vultures, in their memorable tour of blood and barbarity, hanged these misguided partisans of the duke by scores, in the most grossly insulting and inhuman manner. Kirk ordered thirty to be suspended at once upon the same gallows, which was erected immediately in front of the inn, where himself and his officers being at dinner, they might gratify their hellish cruelty by a nearer sight of the sufferings of their victims; of these-horrible to recite!-ten were launched into dread eternity with a health to the bigot king, which was accompanied by a shout; ten with a health to the fanatic queen, the late Duchess of Modena; and ten with a health to the arch-demon, Judge Jefferies! The principal scenes of the atrocities perpetrated by Jefferies and Kirk occurred in the neighbourhood of the battle of Sedgmoor, where the duke was defeated, and shortly after made prisoner. The following towns were stained with the blood of the unhappy victims to the inconsiderate, and, it must be inferred, unpardonable rashness of the Duke of Monmouth, -Bridgewater, Taunton, Dorchester, and Wells. Jefferies openly boasted on this horrible occasion, that he had hanged more than all the British judges who had lived in England from the period of the Norman Conquest! On his return to London after this murderous expedition, he was invested with the dignity of lord-chancellor by the king, an indubitable proof that his sanguinary conduct met with the entire approbation of the unfeeling despot. It was now too evident that James determined to establish Popery in his dominions; almost all places of honour or profit were bestowed upon Papists or their adherents; and although the nation was in a state of peace, he caused an army of 15,000 men to be encamped on Hounslow Heath, under the command of Lord Feversham; and in his camp was set up a public chapel, which was erected on wheels, and in which mass was daily performed. At the abdication of James, the chapel was stationed on the south side of Conduit Street; and it being reconsecrated, the service of the Protestant church was performed therein until about the year 1725, when it was removed, and Trinity Chapel was erected on its site. King James, to obtain a specific object, most unadvisedly published two papers, taken out of the late king's strong-box, to assure the British people, had other proof been wanting, of this gratuitous act of folly in making it public that Charles had died a Papist. The character of this king, the most profligate of the Stuart race, has been thus faithfully portrayed by a noble poet :— "Fortune, or fair or frowning on his soul, Could stamp no virtue, and no vice control; Honour or morals, gratitude or truth, Nor learned his ripen'd age, nor knew his youth. The care of nations left to knaves or chance, Plunderer of Britain, pensioner of France; From this period it appears that all the measures of King James were governed by a strange infatuation, for every public and private act savoured of the grossest fanaticism and stark-blind zealotry; and the monstrous absurdities of the revived old system of the Popish church terrified or disgusted all thinking people. On the 25th of March, 1685, a proclamation was issued from the court, appointing a day of public thanksgiving, on discovering the queen's pregnancy. This absurdity was immediately seen through, and ascribed to those stratagem-mongers, the priests, who were encouraged at the court of St. James's. The extravagant joy of the Papists on this occasion, and the sanguine hopes and expectations of the Jesuits, were openly declared, who made no secret of their belief that this conception was miraculous, and asserted that it was the immediate effect of a holy vow made to our Lady of Loretto by the other Lady of Modena, who performed a pilgrimage to the Loretto shrine expressly to obtain the promise that she should be brought to bed of a prince! This occasioned the Protestants, whose interest it was to encourage the expectation of no such birth, to entertain suspicions of this anticipated pregnancy, and to persuade themselves that these Papists were hatching a scheme for imposing an heir on the nation. On the 10th of the following June the queen was said to be safely delivered of a prince, afterwards known to our history under the title of the Pretender. ; Many believed at the time, and still do believe, that this was a supposititious birth. This event, which the king had long made the object of his most ardent prayers, and from which he expected the firmest establishment of his throne, ultimately proved the cause of his downfal for as he was now in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and the Princess of Orange was the next heir to the British throne, the nation had entertained hopes of at last obtaining a peaceable and safe redress of all their grievances; but when a son (real or pretended) was born to the king, they were reduced to despair, and saw no resource left except in forming a confederacy for their mutual interests; and this comprehensive union of Whigs and Tories, Churchmen and DissentersProtestants, speedily produced the Glorious Revolution! In the year 1688, on the 1st of October, the Prince of Orange published a declaration, with the reasons of his intended expedition to England: one of these was "to inquire into the birth of this supposed Prince of Wales." So general had the public hatred spread against James in every part of the kingdom, from the flagitious acts of those about the court, and the sanction which he gave to the daily atrocities which were committed to the injury of his subjects, that the whole body of the Protestant people willingly believed every report that had got abroad to the prejudice of the house of the Stuarts; for the whole empire, with the exception of the Papists and the Jacobites, had imbibed a hatred for the name, and the wish became universal. All the judicious amongst those of the Catholic communion were alarmed and disgusted with the violent measures of the frantic James, and wisely foresaw the consequences that must of necessity ensue; but he was too self-willed to listen to advice, and blindly rushed upon his fate. But James was the victim to an incurable infatuation, and was entirely governed by the rash counsels of the bigot queen, and of his own confessor, Father Peters, a Jesuit, whom he created a privy-councillor; all was now hastening to rapid ruin, and the last act of the direful drama had reached the very threshold of the throne. Before the arrival of the Prince of Orange, indeed, only within a very few days, all the real friends of humanity, however influential their station might seem, at once absented themselves from the court; the palace was deserted, and James was left without a friend. Every day, every hour, brought the tyrant bigot a new disaster. In his agitation, he entreated the support of certain amongst the most honoured and respected of the nobility; but his appeal was made too late. Some injured party answered him with the bitterness of sarcasm or reproach, and every one left him without sympathy for his fate. He had not the balm of family consolation to repose upon in his trouble,- for the last who fled from the palace was his daughter, the Princess Anne, the wife of Prince George of Denmark; which saddest sorrow he was constrained to endure without an appeal, for he had forfeited all claim to the affections of relations, and as for friends he had none, saving those who had been active abettors of his persecutions. It is related that his son-in-law, the husband of Princess Anne, who remained at St. James's as one of his last friends, and who appeared to commiserate his disasters, having heard from the king's own lips how, one by one, his court had been deserted, and that all were gone over to join the bands of his rival, the Prince of Orange, he shrugged his royal shoulders, and exclaimed, "What! is he gone too? Mon Dieu! est il possible!" At length, Princess Anne departed from the court under the wing of one of the bishops; when, immediately after, the prince himself absconded also. The king, on being informed of this last blow, remained silent; when he observed, "So much for-est il possible? Then he is gone at last!" and in bitter sadness added, "Then it is expedient that I go too!" When the Dutch troops arrived to take up their quarters in the barracks at St. James's Palace and at Whitehall, Lord Feversham was then upon duty; he commanded the king's guard. He expostulated with the new commander, and said, that as he had received his commission from his lawful sovereign, he would defend his post until he obtained the royal authority to the contrary; and that he and his soldiers would defend his trust with their best blood. Happily for the peace of the city, James forwarded his commands to his lordship to give the Dutch troops peaceable possession. Some few months after the atrocities which were committed on the victims in the west of England by Judge Jefferies and Colonel Kirk, a spirit of resistance began to manifest itself amongst his majesty's Protestant subjects; and the guards under Lord Feversham were frequently insulted on their posts, particularly by the Thames watermen and bargemen, who had stout Protestant hearts, and were known to be brave, even to the last man. Some remnants of the wits of the last age penned several smart dialogues upon the court, and severely lashed those who were prominent characters in the public abuses of that atrocious period; and amongst others was one that gave the life, character, and transactions of old Granny James, our Lady of Loretto, whom they dubbed Lucifer's greatgrandmother, wood-chandler to Mary, wife to Philip of Spain, and wholesale fagot-binder of Smithfield. A considerable mob accompanied the vendor of these satires, which increasing, they surrounded the Romish chapel in the court-yard of St. James's Palace, and vociferated, "Our Lady of Loretto!" with a groan; "Our Lady of Modena!" (the queen) with two groans; and a groan for the mass, ending with a shout and a yell. And as for the priests, whenever they appeared, they were mocked by a noise resembling the braying of asses. More than once, this clamour of derision was silenced by the calling out of the guards; but the rabble shewing symptoms of resistance, the palace gates were closed, a reinforcement of the military assembled by beat of drum, and a strong guard remained in front of the chapel during the whole night. The frantic howlings uttered at the names of Jefferies and Kirk were quite appalling. The military at the Tower of London, during the time that the Lord-chancellor Jefferies remained in confinement there, after being discovered at a public-house at Wapping, were ready to affirm, on affidavit, that shadows of the devil and his lordship were nightly seen in the apartment wherein he was a prisoner, with a gallon of porter and tobaccopipes before them. A tale was equally current, that the shrieks of the same execrable miscreant were nightly audible to the inhabitants of that fortress during his stay there. An old Jacobite, whom Dr. Johnson had seen, and well remembered, contrived to be allowed to wait upon Jefferies in the Tower, during the term of his incarceration, and act as his messenger. All The hasty preparations for a general decampment from St. James's Palace kept the whole neighbourhood in a state of hurry and confusion; and the excitement, night and day, as soon as it was known that William and his friends intended to march to the metropolis, was extreme. the houses along the Strand and Fleet Street, that could spare even a single apartment, had numerous applications for their hire; for the nobility, gentry, country squires, landowners, and yeomanry, met their honoured deliverer, William, on the road between Torbay and London; and the people of every district appeared spontaneously to assemble together, as if called by Providence to celebrate an universal, happy jubilee! When the despot, James, to favour his party, arbitrarily ordered a declaration for liberty of conscience to be read in all churches and chapels, certain bishops having first agreed not to obey the order, presented a petition against it. The Archbishop of Canterbury, and his holy associates, who piously and boldly resisted this mandate of an infatuated king to distribute a declaration which they conscientiously considered to be entirely subversive of the Protestant religion, were William Sancroft, archbishop of Canterbury; William Lloyd, bishop of St. Asaph; Francis Turner, bishop of Ely; Thomas Kenn, bishop of Bath and Wells; John Lake, bishop of Chichester; Thomas White, bishop of Peterborough; Jonathan Trelawney, bishop of Bristol. These upright men, uncompromising and honest supporters of our holy church, were sent by James to the Tower of London, in order to receive trial; but were subsequently tried for a libel (as their dutiful address was designated by the frantic monarch); but they were acquitted on the memorable 17th of June, 1688, to the great joy of the whole people, excepting those who preferred to live under the most flagitious crimes and impositions that ever were imposed upon a generous, deserving people by a corrupt church and a wicked state. The recent birth of a prince at length impelled the people seriously to think of means for preventing their own religion and sacred liberties from being utterly destroyed; and with this view they determined to invite over to England the Prince of Orange from Holland. The eminent persons whose names were subscribed to the invitation addressed to the Prince of Orange, held several private meetings to arrange their plans for effecting this great national and most laudable object, at a place named Whittingdon, some distance north-west of Chesterfield, in Derbyshire. The seven subscribers to this most important document were (for ever honoured be their names!) the Earls of Danby, Shrewsbury, and Devonshire; Lords Delamere and Lumley; Bishop of London, and Admiral Russell. King William arrived at Torbay, November 4, 1688, on which glorious occasion the following two memorable lines of Claudian were applied :-"O nimium dilecte Deo, cui militat Ether, Et conjurati veniunt ad classica venti." The glorious Revolution forms a new epoch in the constitution, says Hume, and was probably attended with consequences more advantageous to the people than barely freeing them from an exceptionable administration. By deciding many important questions in favour of liberty, and still more, by that great precedent of deposing one king and establishing a new family, it gave such an ascendant to popular principles as has put the nature of the English constitution beyond all controversy. It may justly be affirmed, without any danger of exaggeration," that we in this island have ever since enjoyed, if not the best system of government, at least the most entire system of liberty that ever was known among mankind." It must ever be an honour to the English crown (says a late popular writer), that it has been worn by so great a man as William III. Compared with him, the statesmen who surrounded his throne-the Sunderlands, Godolphins, and Shrewsburys -are sadly eclipsed; even the Somersets and the Montagues sink in comparison with him; for he was, in truth, too great, not for the times wherein he was called to action, but for the peculiar condition of a king of England after the Revolution; and as he was the last sovereign of this country whose understanding and energy of character have been very distinguished, so was he the last who encountered the resistance of his parliament, or stood apart and undisguised in the maintenance of his own prerogative. His reign is, no doubt, one of the most important in our constitutional history, both on account of its general character, and of those beneficial alterations in our law to which it gave rise. The conduct of this tyrant bigot, James, had long lost for him the respect of all the thinking people amongst his subjects; for long before he sent the seven bishops to the Tower, the public hatred had increased to a degree which would have made a stouter heart than that which inhabited his base, cruel, and most unkingly bosom tremble appalled; but James was not only a rash bigot, but proved himself ultimately to be equally pusillanimous as rash; and all sensible men of his own faith held him in derision. His meanness in discourse, his manner, and general behaviour, became the subjects of open animadversion; and one of the best reputed poets of the day laughed at him even to his face at his own court. His bigotry became so flagrant that the people about the palace appeared to feel scandalised; and even in his presence they could with difficulty avoid giving utterance to their contempt. His conduct and character were as well understood and as duly appreciated abroad as they were in England; the Archbishop of Rheims seeing him come from the chapel at the French court, could not forbear sarcastically remarking, in the hearing of Louis XIV.,-"Make way! here comes an honest gentleman, who has abandoned three kingdoms for a mass!" It is sufficiently known, that, from the times of which we are speaking, the Thames watermen have assumed the privilege of speaking out, or, in other words, giving way to the utterance of their thoughts as they occur, without the least fear or restraint. The guards, and the court authorities who attended the seven bishops to the Tower, were well advised of this; and it was supposed that all the wherries upon the Thames between Windsor and Greenwich accompanied these holy martyrs (as they were then considered to be) during their passage from Whitehall stairs to the Tower. On this momentous occasion an immense concourse assembled upon the water, and the scene was most touching, for the prelates were known to be wise, honest, and holy persons, universally and deservedly honoured and venerated accordingly. They were in consequence rowed to the place of their captivity amidst the prayers, tears, and blessings of the people. There were some accidents at the passage under London Bridge; but when these holy men attained the Traitor's Gate, where they were delivered into the custody of the authorities; and when the boats with their crews, at the returning tide, put about, their shouts were so loud and increasing, that it was asserted they were heard at the water-gate at Whitehall; and the yell of the boatmen against those who were in attendance ex officio at the melancholy procession surpasses the power of description. And further, it is related, that the commotion continued in the streets, and all the public and private parts of the metropolis, during the whole succeeding night; and that even in the morning of the succeeding day, vast groups of people assembled in every street; and such was the general excitement, that fifty thousand people might have been collected together ready to have become the perpetrators of every sort of insubordination and public mischief, had any influential person offered to become their leader. This wanton outrage committed against the independence and becoming holy zeal of the bishops sealed the evil fate of King James; for the measure of his iniquity had already been almost complete, and the reservoir of crime of late had been augmented through so many daily and hourly streams of iniquity, that it would bear no more; when hasty ruin and dismay now pervaded the court, and every miscreant agent and abettor of his crimes thereof were driven to seek safety, either by secreting himself or in hasty flight. The fiendlike Kirk evaded the just indignation of his enraged pursuers, by smuggling himself abroad in a trading vessel, hired by a fund supplied by the Romish priests, who were now conscious of their own danger in remaining even for another day in London; and his brother in iniquity, the atrocious Jefferies, had nearly accomplished his own escape by a similar contrivance, for he was on the way to get into a ship provided for him. But an attorney of one of the law courts, who had been scandalously maltreated by the insolent lord-chancellor, now determined, whatever might be the cost, to discover his hiding-place. Hence he secretly promulgated his intentions amongst all the sheriffs' officers in London and Westminster; and sent agents to Deptford, Greenwich, Rochester, and other districts the rendezvous of shipping and sailors; and circulated printed papers, praying every one of manly feeling and patriotic integrity to hold himself on the alert to detect such a traitor to the cause of humanity. This hue and cry succeeded; for late one night a seafaring man left a letter at the house of the vigilant inquirer, de |