Ch. 35 - James the Second - Page 2

the ferocious barrister was deservedly tried and executed.

As soon as James was on the throne, Argyle and Monmouth went from
Brussels to Rotterdam, and attended a meeting of Scottish exiles
held there, to concert measures for a rising in England. It was
agreed that Argyle should effect a landing in Scotland, and
Monmouth in England; and that two Englishmen should be sent with
Argyle to be in his confidence, and two Scotchmen with the Duke of
Monmouth.

Argyle was the first to act upon this contract. But, two of his
men being taken prisoners at the Orkney Islands, the Government
became aware of his intention, and was able to act against him with
such vigour as to prevent his raising more than two or three
thousand Highlanders, although he sent a fiery cross, by trusty
messengers, from clan to clan and from glen to glen, as the custom
then was when those wild people were to be excited by their chiefs.
As he was moving towards Glasgow with his small force, he was
betrayed by some of his followers, taken, and carried, with his
hands tied behind his back, to his old prison in Edinburgh Castle.
James ordered him to be executed, on his old shamefully unjust
sentence, within three days; and he appears to have been anxious
that his legs should have been pounded with his old favourite the
boot. However, the boot was not applied; he was simply beheaded,
and his head was set upon the top of Edinburgh Jail. One of those
Englishmen who had been assigned to him was that old soldier
Rumbold, the master of the Rye House. He was sorely wounded, and
within a week after Argyle had suffered with great courage, was
brought up for trial, lest he should die and disappoint the King.
He, too, was executed, after defending himself with great spirit,
and saying that he did not believe that God had made the greater
part of mankind to carry saddles on their backs and bridles in
their mouths, and to be ridden by a few, booted and spurred for the
purpose - in which I thoroughly agree with Rumbold.

The Duke of Monmouth, partly through being detained and partly
through idling his time away, was five or six weeks behind his
friend when he landed at Lyme, in Dorset: having at his right hand
an unlucky nobleman called LORD GREY OF WERK, who of himself would
have ruined a far more promising expedition. He immediately set up
his standard in the market-place, and proclaimed the King a tyrant,
and a Popish usurper, and I know not what else; charging him, not
only with what he had done, which was bad enough, but with what
neither he nor anybody else had done, such as setting fire to
London, and poisoning the late King. Raising some four thousand
men by these means, he marched on to Taunton, where there were many