15 was overruled; the violent and inhuman Jefferies, who was now chief-justice, easily prevailed on a partial jury to bring him in guilty, and his execution followed soon after. One can scarce contemplate the transactions of this reign without horror. Such a picture of factious guilt on each side; a court at once immersed in sensuality and blood, a people armed against each other with the most deadly animosity, and no single party to be found with sense enough to stem the general torrent of rancour and factious suspicion. Hampden was tried soon after, and as there was nothing to affect his life, he was fined forty thousand pounds. Holloway, a merchant of Bristol, who had fled to the West Indies, was brought over, condemned, and executed. Sir Thomas Armstrong also, who had fled to Holland, was brought over, and shared the same fate. 17. Lord Essex, who had been imprisoned in the Tower, was found in an apartment with his throat cut; but whether he was guilty of suicide, or whether the bigotry of the times might not have induced some assassin to commit the crime, cannot now be known. This was the last blood that was shed for an imputation of plots or conspiracies, which continued during the greatest part of this reign. 18. At this period the government of Charles was as absolute as that of any monarch in Europe; but, happily for mankind, his tyranny was but of short duration. The king was seized with a sudden fit, which resembled an apoplexy; and although he was recovered by bleeding, yet he languished only for a few days, and then expired, in the fifty-fifth. year of his age, and twenty-fifth of his reign. During his illness some clergymen of the church of England attended him, to whom he discovered a total indifference. Catholic priests were brought to his bedside, and from their hands he received the rites of their communion. In this reign was begun the celebrated naval hospital at Greenwich. The design was by Inigo Jones, and it was intended as a rol palace. It remained unfinished till the reign of William III., when it was converted to its present 'se. It was enlarged by the addition of three wings, en riched by donations, and by a tax of 6d. a month from every reaman, and it now supports 3,000 boarders, and pays pen. rions to 5,400 in different parts of the kingdom. The reign of Charles II., which some preposterously re present as our Augustan age, retarded the progress of polite literature; and the immeasurable licentiousness indulged, or rather applauded at court, was more destructive to the fine arts, than even the court nonsense and enthusiasm of the preceding period.-HUME. Bishop Burnet, in his History of his own Times, says, there were apparent suspicions that Charles had been poisoned. He also observes that the King's body was indecently neglected; his funeral was very mean; he did not lie in state; no mourning was given, and the expense of it was not equal to what an ordinary nobleman's funeral will amount to. Questions for Examination 1. What new conspiracy was formed? 6. What was the fate of the conspirators? 7. What eminent nobleman was concerned in this conspiracy? 8 Describe the character of Russel. 9. Where did lord Russel suffer? Who was principal evidence against him 10. Who was the next brought to trial? M. Describe the character and conduct of Algernon Sidney. 12, 13. What methods were taken to procure his condemnation? 14. Was his defence attended to? and by whom was he tried? 15. What dreadful picture did the kingdom now present? 16. 17. What other persons suffered? 18. Describe the manner of the death of the king. EMINENT PERSONS. Hyde, earl of Clarendon; Villiers, duke of Buckingham. Butler, duke of Ormond; Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury; sir William Temple; Algernon Sidney; Wentworth Dillon, earl of Roscommon; R. Boyle, earl of Orrery; G. Mackenzie, earl of Cromarty; G. Monk, duke of Aibemarle; C. Stanley, carl of Derby: Montague, earl of Sandwich; J. Powlett, marquis of Winchester; W. Cavendish, duke of Newcastle; G. Digby, earl of Bristol; Denzil, lord Hollis; Dudley, lord North; J. Touchet, earl of Castlehaven and baron Audley; H. Pierpont, marquis of Dorchester; J. Wilmot, carl of Rochester; † Anthony Ashley; Heneage Finch, earl of Nottingham; Francis North, lord-keeper Guildford; J. Robarts, earl of Radnor; Arthur Annesley, earl of Anglesea; marquis of Argyle, H. Finch, earl of Winchelsea; A Carey, lord Falkland; Anne, countess of Dorset, Pembroke and Montgomery; Margaret, dutchess of Newcastle. Born 1633. Began to reign February 6, 1685. Abdicated the throne January 22. Reigned 2 years. 1688 SECTION I. Near Bridgewater, the fatal place Of Monmouth's downfall and disgrace, The hopeless duke, half starved, half drown'd, In covert of a ditch was found. -Dibdin. 1. (A. D.) 1685.) THE duke of York, who succeeded his brother by the title of king James the second, had been bred a papist by his mother, and was strongly bigoted to his principles. He went openly to mass with all the ensigns of his dignity, and even sent one Caryl as his agent to Rome, *The strange character of this highly-gifted but profligate nobleman, is thus graphically described by Dryden: "A man so various that he seemed to be He died in wretchedness. Pope thus describes the miserable end of his career: "In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung Rochester was equally celebrated for his wit and profligacy. His mock epitaph on Charles II. contains a severe but just character of that monarch: "Here lies our mutton-eating king, Whose word no man relies on: He never said a foolish thing, to make submission to the pope, and to pave the way for the readmission of England into the bosom of the catholic church. 2. A conspiracy, set on foot by the duke of Monmouth, was the first disturbance in this reign. He had, since his last conspiracy, been pardoned, but was ordered to depart the kingdom, and had retired to Holland. Being dismissed from thence by the prince of Orange, upon James's accession he went to Brussels, where finding himself still pursued by the king's severity, he resolved to retaliate, and make an attempt upon the kingdom. 3. He had ever been the darling of the people, and some averred that Charles had married his mother, and owned Monmouth's legitimacy at his death, The duke of Argyle seconded his views in Scotland, and they formed the scheme of a double insurrection; so that, while Monmouth should attempt to make a rising in the west, Argyle was also to try his endeavours in the north. 4. Argyle was the first who landed in Scotland, where he published his manifestos, put himself at the head of two thonsand five hundred men, and strove to influence the people in his cause. But a formidable body of the king's forces coming against him, his army fell away, and he himself, after being wounded in attempting to escape, was taken prisoner by a peasant, who found him standing up to his neck in a pool of water. He was from thence carried to Edinburgh, where, after enduring many indignities with a gallant spirit, he was publicly executed. 5. Meanwhile Monmouth was by this time landed in Dorsetshire, with scarcely a hundred followers. However, his name was so popular, and so great was the hatred of the people both for the person and religion of James, that in four days he had assembled a body of above two thousand men. 6. Being advanced to Taunton, his numbers had increased to six thousand men; and he was obliged every day, for want of arms, to dismiss numbers who crowded to his standard. He entered Bridgewater, Wells and Frome, and was proclaimed in all those places; but he lost the hour of action in receiving and claiming these empty honours. 7. The king was not a little alarmed at his invasion; but still more so at the success of an undertaking that at first appeared desperate. Six regiments of British troops were recalled from Holland, and a body of regulars, to the num ber of three thousand men, were sent, under the command of the earls of Feversham and Churchill, to check the progress of the rebels. 8. They took post at Sedgemore, a village in the neighbourhood of Bridgewater, and were joined by the militia of the county in considerable numbers. It was there that Monmouth resolved, by a desperate effort, to lose his life or gain the kingdom. The negligent disposition made by Feversham invited him to the attack; and his faithful followers showed what courage and principle could do against discipline and numbers. 9. They drove the royal infantry from their ground, and were upon the point of gaining the victory, when the misconduct of Monmouth, and the cowardice of lord Grey, who commanded the horse, brought all to ruin. This nobleman fled at the first onset; and the rebels being charged in flank by the victorious army, gave way, after three hours' contest. 10. About three hundred were killed in the engagement, and a thousand in the pursuit; and thus ended an enterprise rashly begun, and more feebly conducted. Monmouth fled from the field of battle about twenty miles, till his horse supk under him. He then alighted, and changing his clothes with a shepherd, fled on foot, attended by a German count, who had accompanied him from Holland. 11. Being quite exhausted with hunger and fatigue, they both lay down in a field, and covered themselves with fern. The shepherd being found in Monmouth's clothes by the pursuers, increased the diligence of the search; and by the means of blood-hounds he was detected in this miserable situation, with raw peas in his pocket, which he had gathered in the fields to sustain life. 12. He wrote the most submissive letters to the king; and that monarch, willing to feast his eyes with the miseries of a fallen enemy, gave him an audience. At this interview the duke fell upon his knees, and begged his life in the most abject terms. He even signed a paper, offered him by the king, declaring his own illegitimacy; and then the stern tyrant assured him that his crime was of such a nature as could not be pardoned. 13 The duke, perceiving that he had nothing to hope from the clemency of his uncle, recollected his spirits, rose up, and retired with an air of disdain. He was followed to the scaffold with great compassion from the populace. He warned the executioner not to fall into the same error which he had committed in beheading Russel, where it had been necessary to redouble the blow. 14. But this only increased the se |