and bestowed a crown had turned his head. He swaggered about, brandishing his naked sword, and crying to the crowd of spectators who had assembled to see the army march out of Taunton, "Look at me! You have heard of me! I am Ferguson, the famous Ferguson, the Ferguson for whose head so many hundred pounds have been offered.” And this man, at once unprincipled and brain-sick, had in his keeping the understanding and the conscience of the unhappy Monmouth.

Bridgewater was one of the few towns which still had some Whig magistrates. The mayor and aldermen came in their robes to welcome the duke, walked before him in procession to the high cross, and there proclaimed him king. His troops found excellent quarters, and were furnished with necessaries at little or no cost by the people of the town and neighborhood. He took up his residence in the castle, a building which had been honored by several royal visits. In the castle field his army was encamped. It now consisted of about six thousand men, and might easily have been increased to double the number but for the want of arms. The duke had brought with him from the Continent but a scanty supply of pikes and muskets. Many of his followers had, therefore, no other weapons than such as could be fashioned out of the tools which they had used in husbandry or mining. Of these rude implements of war, the most formidable was made by fastening the blade of a scythe erect on a strong pole. The tithingmen of the country round Taunton and Bridgewater received orders to search everywhere for scythes, and to bring all that could be found to the camp. It was impossible, however, even with the help of these contrivances, to supply the demand, and great numbers who were desirous to enlist were sent away.

The foot were divided into six regiments. Many of the men had been in the militia, and still wore their uniforms, red and yellow. The cavalry were about a thousand in number; but most of them had only large colts, such as were then bred in great herds on the marshes of Somersetshire for the purpose of supplying London with coach-horses and cart-horses. These

animals were so far from being fit for any military purpose, that they had not yet learned to obey the bridle, and became ungovernable as soon as they heard a gun fired or a drum beaten. A small body-guard of forty young men, well armed, and mounted at their own charge, attended Monmouth. The people of Bridgewater, who were enriched by a thriving coast trade, furnished him with a small sum of money.

All this time the forces of the Government were fast assembling. On the west of the rebel army, Albemarle still kept together a large body of Devonshire militia. On the east, the train-bands of Wiltshire had mustered under the command of Thomas Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. On the north-east, Henry Somerset, Duke of Beaufort, was in arms. The power of Beaufort bore some faint resemblance to that of the great barons of the fifteenth century. He was president of Wales and lord-lieutenant of four English counties. Iis official tours through the extensive region in which he represented the majesty of the throne were scarcely inferior in pomp to royal progresses. His household at Badminton was regulated after the fashion of an earlier generation. The land to a great extent round his pleasure-grounds was in his own hands; and the laborers who cultivated it formed part of his family. Nine tables were every day spread under his roof for two hundred persons. A crowd of gentlemen and pages were under the orders of the steward. A whole troop of cavalry obeyed the master of the horse. The fame of the kitchen, the cellar, the kennel, and the stables was spread all over England. The gentry, many miles round, were proud of the magnificence of their great neighbor, and were at the same time charmed by his affability and good-nature. He was a zealous Cavalier of the old school. At this crisis, therefore, he used his whole influence and authority in support of the crown, and occupied Bristol with the train-bands of Gloucestershire, who seem to have been better disciplined than most other troops of that description.

In the counties more remote from Somersetshire the supporters of the throne were on the alert. The militia of Sussex began to march westward, under the command of Richard,

Lord Lumley, who, though he had lately been converted from the Roman Catholic religion, was still firm in his allegiance to a Roman Catholic king. James Bertie, Earl of Abingdon, called out the array of Oxfordshire. John Fell, Bishop of Oxford, who was also Dean of Christchurch, summoned the under-graduates of his university to take arms for the crown. The gownmen crowded to give in their names. Christchurch alone furnished near a hundred pikemen and musketeers. Young noblemen and gentlemen-commoners acted as officers; and the eldest son of the lord-lieutenant was colonel.

But it was chiefly on the regular troops that the king relied. Churchill(') had been sent westward with the Blues; and Feversham was following with all the forces that could be spared from the neighborhood of London. A courier had started for Holland with a letter directing Skelton(") instantly to request that the three English regiments in the Dutch service might be sent to the Thames. When the request was made, the party hostile to the House of Orange, headed by the deputies of Amsterdam, again tried to cause delay. But the energy of William,() who had almost as much at stake as James, and who saw Monmouth's progress with serious uneasiness, bore down opposition; and in a few days the troops sailed. The three Scotch regiments were already in England. They had arrived at Gravesend in excellent condition, and James had reviewed them on Blackheath. He repeatedly declared to the Dutch embassador that he had never in his life seen finer or better-disciplined soldiers, and expressed the warmest gratitude to the Prince of Orange and the States for so valuable and seasonable a re-enforcement. This satisfaction, however, was not unmixed. Excellently as the men went through their drill, they were not untainted with Dutch politics and Dutch divinity. One of them was shot and another flogged for drinking the Duke of Monmouth's health. It was, therefore, not thought advisable to place them in the

(')Churchill is famous in history as the Duke of Marlborough.

(*) Bevil Skelton was James the Second's envoy at the Hague.

(3) William of Orange, afterward William the Third of England, was at that time Stadtholder of Holland.

post of danger. They were kept in the neighborhood of London till the end of the campaign. But their arrival enabled the king to send to the West some infantry which would otherwise have been wanted in the capital.

On Thursday, the 2d of July, Monmouth again entered Bridgewater, in circumstances far less cheering than those in which he had marched thence ten days before. The re-enforcement which he found there was inconsiderable. The royal army was close upon him. At one moment he thought of fortifying the town; and hundreds of laborers were summoned to dig trenches and throw up mounds. Then his mind recurred to the plan of marching into Cheshire, a plan which he had rejected as impracticable when he was at Keynsham, and which assuredly was not more practicable now that he was at Bridgewater.

While he was thus wavering between projects equally hopeless, the king's forces came in sight. They consisted of about two thousand five hundred regular troops, and of about fifteen hundred of the Wiltshire militia. Early on the morning of Sunday, the 5th of July, they left Somerton, and pitched their tents that day about three miles from Bridgewater, on the plain of Sedgemoor.

Dr. Peter Mew, Bishop of Winchester, accompanied them. This prelate had in his youth borne arms for Charles the First against the Parliament. Neither his years nor his profession had wholly extinguished his martial ardor; and he probably thought that the appearance of a father of the Protestant Church in the king's camp might confirm the loyalty of some honest men who were wavering between their horror of Popery and their horror of rebellion.

The steeple of the parish church of Bridgewater is said to be the loftiest in Somersetshire, and commands a wide view over the surrounding country. Monmouth, accompanied by some of his officers, went up to the top of the square tower from which the spire ascends, and observed through a telescope the position of the enemy. Beneath him lay a flat expanse, now rich with corn-fields and apple-trees, but then, as

its name imports, for the most part a dreary morass. When the rains were heavy, and the Parret and its tributary streams rose above their banks, this tract was often flooded. It was indeed anciently part of that great swamp which is renowned in our early chronicles as having arrested the progress of two successive races of invaders, which long protected the Celts against the aggressions of the kings of Wessex, and which sheltered Alfred from the pursuit of the Danes. In those remote times this region could be traversed only in boats. It was a vast pool, wherein were scattered many islets of shifting and treacherous soil, overhung with rank jungle, and swarming with deer and wild swine. Even in the days of the Tudors, the traveler whose journey lay from Ilchester to Bridgewater was forced to make a circuit of several miles in order to avoid the waters. When Monmouth looked upon Sedgemoor, it had been partially reclaimed by art, and was intersected by many deep and wide trenches which, in that country, are called rhines. In the midst of the moor rose, clustering round the towers of churches, a few villages, of which the names seem to indicate that they once were surrounded by waves. In one of these villages, called Weston Zoyland, the royal cavalry lay; and Feversham had fixed his head-quarters there.(') Many persons still living have seen the daughter of the servant-girl who waited on him that day at table; and a large dish of Persian ware, which was set before him, is still carefully preserved in the neighborhood. It is to be observed that the population of Somersetshire does not, like that of the manufacturing districts, consist of emigrants from distant places. It is by no means unusual to find farmers who cultivate the same land which their ancestors cultivated when the Plantagenets reigned in England. The Somersetshire traditions are, therefore, of no small value to a historian.

At a greater distance from Bridgewater lies the village of Middlezoy. In that village and its neighborhood, the Wiltshire militia were quartered, under the command of Pembroke.

(') The Earl of Feversham was a French Protestant, naturalized in England. He commanded the royal army in the West.