near the army, there was an inconsiderable ditch, in the passing which he lost so much more time, that the officers had leisure to rise and be dressed, now they had the alarm. And they put themselves in order. Yet the duke of Monmouth's foot stood longer and fought better than could have been expected; especially, when the small body of horse they had, ran upon the first charge, the blame of which was cast on the lord Grey. The foot being thus forsaken, and galled by the cannon, did run at last. About a thousand of them were killed on the spot; and fifteen hundred were taken prisoners. Their numbers, when fullest, were between five and six thousand. The duke of Monmouth left the field too soon for a man of courage, who had such high pretensions: for a few days before he had suffered himself to be called king, which did him no service, even among those that followed him. He rode towards Dorsetshire; and when his horse could carry him no further, he changed clothes with a shepherd, and went as far as his legs could carry him, being accompanied only with a German, whom he had brought over with him. At last, when he could go no further, he lay down in a field where there was hay and straw, with which they covered themselves, so that they hoped to lie there unseen till night. Parties went out on all hands to take prisoners. The shepherd was found by the lord Lumley in the duke of Monmouth's clothes. So this put them on his track, and having some dogs with them they followed the scent, and came to the place where the German was first discovered. And he immediately pointed to the place where the duke of Monmouth lay. So he was taken in a very indecent dress and posture.

His body was quite sunk with fatigue; and his mind was now so low, that he begged his life in a manner that agreed ill with the courage of the former parts of it. He called for pen, ink, and paper; and wrote to the earl of Feversham, and both to the queen and the queen dowager, to intercede with the king for his life. The king's temper, as well as his interest, made it so impossible to hope for that, that it showed a great meanness in him to ask it in such terms as he used in his letters. He was carried up to Whitehall; where the king examined him in person, which was thought very indecent, since he was resolved not to pardon him.* He made new and unbecoming submissions, and insinuated a readiness to change his religion; for he said, the king knew what his first education was in religion. There were no discoveries to be got from him; for the attempt was too rash to be well concerted, or to be so deep laid that many were involved in the guilt of it. He was examined on Monday, and orders were given for his execution on Wednesday.

Turner and Ken, the bishops of Ely and of Bath and Wells, were ordered to wait on him. But he called for Dr. Tennison. The bishops studied to convince him of the sin of rebellion. He answered, he was sorry for the blood that was shed in it; but he did not seem to repent of the design. Yet he confessed that his father had often told him, that there was no truth in the reports of his having married his mother. This he set under his hand, probably for his children's sake, who were then prisoners in the Tower, that so they might not be ill used on his account. He showed a great neglect of his duchess. And her resentments for his course of life with the lady Wentworth wrought so much on her, that [she seemed not to have any of that tenderness left, that became her sex and his present circumstances; for] though he desired to speak privately with her, she would have witnesses to hear all that passed, to justify herself, and to preserve her family. They parted very coldly.

*The duke of Monmouth pressed extremely that the king would see him, from whence the king concluded he had something to say to him, that he would tell to nobody else: but when he found it ended in nothing but lower submission than he either expected or desired, he told him plainly he had put it out of his power to pardon him, by having proclaimed himself king. Thus, as the Fishop observes in another place, may the most innocent actions of a man's life be sometimes turned to his disadvantage. D.

He only recommended to her the breeding their children in the protestant religion. The bishops continued still to press on him a deep sense of the sin of rebellion; at which he grew so uneasy, that he desired them to speak to him of other matters. They next charged him with the sin of living with the lady Wentworth as he had done. In that he justified himself; he had married his duchess too young to give a true consent; he said, that lady was a pious worthy woman, and that he had never lived so well in all respects, as since his engagements with her. All the pains they took to convince him of the unlawfulness of that course of life had no effect. They did certainly very well in discharging their consciences, and speaking so plainly to him. But they did very ill to talk so much of this matter, and to make it so public as they did; for divines ought not to repeat what they say to dying penitents, no more than what the penitents say to them. By this means the duke of Monmouth had little satisfaction in them, and they had as little in him.

He was much better pleased with Dr. Tennison, who did very plainly speak to him, with relation to his public actings, and to his course of life; but he did it in a softer and less peremptory manner. And having said all that he thought proper, he left those points, in which he saw he could not convince him, to his own conscience, and turned to other things fit to be laid before a dying man. The duke begged one day more of life with such repeated earnestness, that as the king was much blamed for denying so small a favour, so it gave occasion to others to believe, that he had some hope from astrologers, that if he outlived that day, he might have a better fate.* As long as he fancied there was any hope, he was too much unsettled in his mind to be capable of any thing.t

But when he saw all was to no purpose, and that he must die, he complained a little that his death was hurried on so fast. But all on the sudden he came into a composure of mind that surprised those that saw it. There was no affectation in it.

His whole behaviour was easy and calm, not without a decent cheerfulness. He prayed God to forgive all his sins, unknown as well as known. He seemed confident of the mercies of God, and that he was going to be happy with him. And he went to the place of execution on Tower-hill with an air of undisturbed courage, that was grave and composed. He said little there, only that he was sorry for the blood that was shed; but he had ever meant well to the nation. When he saw the ax, he touched it, and said, it was not sharp enough. He gave the hangman but half the reward he intended; and said, if he cut off his head cleverly, and not so butcherly as he did the lord Russell's, his man would give him the rest. The executioner was in great disorder, trembling all over; so he gave him two or three strokes without being able to finish the matter, and then flung the ax out of his hand. But the sheriff forced him to take it up; and at three or four more strokes he severed his head from his body; and both were presently buried in the chapel of the Tower. Thus lived and died this unfortunate young man. He had several good qualities in him, and some that were as bad. He was soft and gentle even to excess, and too

*My uncle, colonel William Legge, who went in the coach with him to London, as a guard, with orders to stab him, if there were any disorders upon the road, showed me several charms that were tied about him when he was taken, and his tablebook which was full of astrological figures that nobody could understand. But he told my uncle they had been given him some years before in Scotland, and said he now found they were but foolish conceits.

D.

When my father carried him to the Tower, he pressed him in a most indecent manner to intercede once more with the king for his life, upon any terms; and told him he knew lord Dartmouth loved king Charles; therefore, for his sake, and God's sake, to try if there were yet no room for mercy. My father said, the king had told him the truth, which was, that he had made it impracticable to save his life, by having declared himself king. "That's my misfortune, said he, "and those that put me upon it will fare better themselves:" and then told him, that lord Grey had threatened to leave him upon their first landing, if he did not do it. D.

easy to those who had credit with him. and understood war well.

He was both sincere and good natured, But he was too much given to pleasure and to favourites.

THE FATE OF ARGYLE.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

While the brief tragedy of Monmouth's invasion, defeat, and death was passing in England, Argyle's invasion of Scotland was brought to as disastrous a conclusion. The leaders, even before they left their ships, differed as to the course to be pursued. Argyle, a great chieftain in the Highlands, was naturally disposed to make the principal efforts in that part of the country which his friends and followers inhabited. Sir Patrick Hume and sir John Cochrane, while they admitted that they were certain to raise the clan of Campbell by following the earl's counsel, maintained, nevertheless, that this single clan, however brave and numerous, could not contend with the united strength of all the other western tribes, who were hostile to Argyle, and personally attached to James II. They complained, that by landing in the west highlands, they should expose themselves to be shut up in a corner of the kingdom, where they could expect to be joined by none save Argyle's immediate dependents; and where they must necessarily be separated from the western provinces, in which the oppressed covenanters had shown themselves ready to rise, even without the encouragement of money or arms, or of a number of brave gentlemen to command and lead them on.

These disputes augmented, when, on landing in Kintyre, the earl of Argyle raised his clan to the number of about a thousand men. Joined to the adventurers embarked from Holland, who were about three hundred, and to other recruits, the insurgent army might amount in all to fifteen hundred, a sufficient number to have struck a severe blow before the royal forces could have assembled, if the invaders could have determined among themselves where to aim at.

Argyle proposed marching to Inverary, to attack the laird of Ballechan, who was lying there for the king with six hundred Highlanders, waiting the support of the marquis of Athole, then at the head of several clans, and in motion towards Argyleshire. But sir John Cochrane, having had some communications in the west, which promised a general rising in that country, insisted that the main effort should be made in that quarter. He had a letter also from a gentleman of Lanarkshire, named William Cleland, undertaking, that if the marquis of Argyle would declare for the work of reformation, carried on from the year 1638 to 1648, he should be joined by all the faithful presbyterians in that country. Sir John, therefore, demanded from Argyle a supply of men and ammunition, that he might raise the western shires; and was so eager in the request, that he said if nobody would support him, he would go alone, with a pitchfork in his hand.

Either project was hopeful, if either had been rapidly executed, but the loss of time in debating the question was fatal. At length the Lowland expedition was determined on; and Argyle, with an army augmented to two thousand five hundred men, descended into Lennox, proposing to cross the Clyde, and summon to arms the covenanters of the west country. But the various parties among the presbyterians had already fallen into debates, whether or not they should own Argyle, and unite under his standard; so that, when that unhappy, and, it would seem, irresolute nobleman, had crossed the river Leven, near to Dunbarton, he found his little army, without any prospect of reinforcement, nearly surrounded by superior forces of the king,

assembling from different points, under the marquis of Athole, the duke of Gordon, and the earl of Dunbarton.

Argyle, pressed on all sides, proposed to give battle to the enemy; but the majority of the council of war which he convoked were of opinion, that it was more advisable to give the royalists the slip, and leaving their encampment in the night, to march for Glasgow, or for Bothwell bridge; and thus at the same time get into a friendly country, and place a large and unfordable river betwixt them and a superior enemy. Lighting, therefore, numerous fires in the camp, as if it were still occupied by them, Argyle and his troops commenced their projected manœuvre; but a retreat is always a discouraging movement, a night-march commonly a confused one, and the want of discipline in these hasty levies added to the general want of confidence and the universal disorder. Their guides, also, were either treacherous or ignorant, for, when morning dawned on the dispirited insurgents, instead of finding themselves near Glasgow, they perceived they were much lower on the banks of the Clyde, near Kilpatrick. Here the leaders came to an open rupture. Their army broke up and separated; and when the unfortunate earl, being left almost alone, endeavoured to take refuge in the house of a person who had been once his servant, he was inhospitably refused admittance. He then crossed the Clyde, accompanied by a single friend, who, perceiving that they were pursued, had the generosity to halt and draw upon himself the attention of the party who followed them. This was at Inchinnan ford, upon the river Cart, close to Blythswood house.

But Argyle was not more safe alone than in company. It was observed by some soldiers of the militia, who were out in every direction, that the fugitive quitted his horse and waded through the river on foot, from which they argued he must be a person of importance, who was careless about losing his horse, so that he himself made his escape. As soon, therefore, as he reached the bank, they fell upon him, and though he made some defence, at length struck him down. As he fell he exclaimed, "Unfortunate Argyle!"—thus apprising his captors of the importance of their prisoner. A large fragment of rock, still called Argyle's Stone, marks the place where he was taken.*

Thus terminated this unfortunate expedition, in which Argyle seems to have engaged, from an over estimation both of his own consequence and military talents, and which the Lowland gentlemen seem to have joined, from their imperfect knowledge of the state of the country, as reported to them by those who deeply felt their own wrongs, and did not consider that the majority of their countrymen was overawed and intimidated, as well as discontented.

By way of retaliating upon this unhappy nobleman the severities exercised towards Montrose, which he is said to have looked upon in triumph, the same disgraceful indignities were used towards Argyle, to which his enemy had been subjected. He was carried up the High-street bare-headed, and mounted on an

* Argyle himself, being alone on a little pownie, was overtaken by two men of Sir John Shaw's who would have had his pownie to carry their baggage; thereupon he fired a pistol at them, for he had three on him, whereof I have two, which I got from his son-in-law, the second marquis of Lothian, and thereafter took the water of Inshenan. But a webster, dwelling there, hearing the noise, came with a broadsword, and while the other two were capitulating with him, told him to go for some gold. The weaver being drunk, would not part with him, whereupon Argyle offered to fire on him; but the powder in the pan being wet in the water, would not fire, whereon the webster gave him a great pelt over the head with his sword, that he dampt him so that he fell in the river, and in the fall cried—“ Ab, the unfortunate Argyle!" He was taken to sir John Shaw's, who knew him, albeit he kept on his beard since his escape out of Edinburgh Castle, and had a blue bonnet on his head. He gave his purse of 130 guineas to sir John (conform to the law of war), and was taken to Glasgow tolbooth.-Lord Fountainhall's Chronological Notes, p. 53.

unsaddled horse, with the hangman preceding him, and was thus escorted to the Tolbooth. In both cases the disgrace lay with those who gave such orders, and did not attach to the objects of their mean malevolence.

The council debated whether Argyle should be executed on the extravagant sentence which had condemned him for a traitor and depraver of the laws, on account of his adding a qualification to the test, or whether it were not better to try him anew, for the undoubted treason which he had committed by this subsequent act of invasion, which afforded a more legal and unchallengeable course of procedure. It was resolved, nevertheless, they should follow the first course, and hold Argyle as a man already condemned, lest, by doing otherwise, they should seem to throw doubt upon, if not indirectly admit, the illegality of the first sentence. The unfortunate earl was appointed to be beheaded by the Maiden,* an instrument resembling the guillotine of modern France. He mounted the scaffold with great firmness, and embracing the engine by which he was to suffer, declared it the sweetest maiden he ever kissed, and submitted with courage to the fatal accomplishment of his sentence. When this nobleman's death is considered as the consequence of a sentence passed against him for presuming to comment upon and explain an oath which was self-contradictory, it can only be termed a judicial murder. Upwards of twenty of the most considerable gentlemen of his clan were executed in consequence of having joined him. His estate was wasted and confiscated; his brother, lord Niel Campbell, was forced to fly to America, and his name doomed to extirpation.

Several of Argyle's Lowland followers were also condemned to death. Amongst these was Richard Rumbold, an Englishman, the principal conspirator in what was called the Ryehouse Plot. He was a republican of the old stamp, who might have ridden right-hand man to Cromwell himself. He was the most active in the scheme for assassinating the two royal brothers, which was to have been executed at his farm called the Ryehouse, by one party firing on the royal guards, and another pouring their shot into the king's carriage. Rumbold, who was to head the latter party, expressed some scruple at shooting the innocent postilion, but had no compunction on the project of assassinating the king and duke of York.

Escaping from England when the discovery took place, this stern republican had found refuge in Holland, until he was persuaded to take part in Argyle's expedition. When the Scottish leaders broke up in confusion and deserted each other, a stranger and an Englishman was not likely to experience much aid or attention. Rumbold, left to shift for himself amid the general dispersion and flight, was soon beset by a party of the royalists, and while he stoutly defended himself against two men in front, a third came behind him with a pitchfork, put it behind his ear, and turned off his steel cap, leaving his head exposed; on which Rumbold exclaimed, "O cruel countryman, to use me thus when my face was to mine enemy!"

He died the death of a traitor, as his share in the Ryehouse conspiracy justly merited. But on the scaffold Rumbold maintained the same undaunted courage he had often shown in the field. One of his dying observations was, "that he had ever believed that the generality of mankind came into the world bridled and saddled, and a few booted and spurred to ride upon them."

This man's death was afterwards avenged on one Mark Kerr, the chief of those

"This machine of death," says Pennant, "was introduced by the Regent Morton, who afterwards suffered by it himself. It is in form of a painter's easel, and about ten feet high; at four feet from the bottom is a cross bar, on which the felon lays his head, which is kept down by another placed above. In the inner edges of the frame are grooves; in these is placed a sharp axe, with a vast weight of lead, supported at the very summit with a cord, which the executioner cutting, the axe falls, and does the affair effectually, without suffering the unhappy criminal to undergo a repetition of strokes, as has been the case in the common method."