CHAPTER VII.

Causes which render the Theory probable that makes Monmouth the Man with the Iron Mask—Political Position of Monmouth—His Portrait—He is persuaded to revolt against his Uncle James II.—He lands near Lyme Regis—His first Successes—Enthusiasm with which he is received—His premature Discouragement—His Defeat at Sedgemoor—His shameful Flight—He is captured and taken to London—Cowardly Terrors of the Prisoner—His Interview with James II.

“It has been asserted,” says M. de Sévelinges, in an article of theBiographie Universelle,[148]“that the famous Man with the Iron Mask was no other than the Duke of Monmouth. Of all the conjectures that have been made upon this subject, it is perhaps one of the least unreasonable.” M. de Sévelinges says truly that in favour of this candidate for the honour of being the Man with the Iron Mask, if we cannot invoke one of those decisive proofs which enforce conviction, there are at least several indications which seem to unite in designating him, and in forming what the English call cumulative evidence. The greatness of the crime to be punished, the powerful interest there was to effect the disappearance of this leader of revolt, and carry him off for ever from his partisans, the persistentincredulity of the people respecting his death, his near relationship to James II., which renders the penalty of perpetual imprisonment more probable than that of death, are so many circumstances which, in certain respects, justify the opinion put forth in the last century by Saint-Foix, and explain the obstinacy of this publicist in defending it.

Monmouth is one of those historical personages who have been very variously, and in some degree contradictorily, appreciated. Placed at the head of a party which, from the first days of the reign of James II., sought to overthrow a king who remained a Catholic in the midst of a nation almost entirely Protestant; having attempted in 1685 a revolution which, three years later, was to be accomplished with perfect success by a prince better endowed and much more apt in playing this great part, Monmouth has incurred the blind enmity of the Catholics, and met with excessive praise from their adversaries. Unjustly vilified by the one party, insulted beyond measure by the other, he has been represented on the one side as an adventurer devoid of all qualities, and rashly engaging against his uncle in a mad enterprise fatally condemned to insuccess. Others have seen in him the glorious defender of the interests of the Anglican religion, threatened by the sovereign, the worthy precursor of William of Orange, the champion of the true faith, whose failure is to be ascribed to unforeseen circumstances and the incapacity of his lieutenants. The same contradiction that exists in the judgments passed upon his attempt is to be found in the opinions given by his biographers as to his origin. Whilst some deny that he was the natural son of Charles II., and give us to understand that Lucy Walters was already pregnant with himwhen she became the mistress of the exiled Stuart, others are inclined to see in Monmouth his legitimate offspring, the issue of a regular marriage contracted during his exile by a king deprived of his crown, very thoughtless, and madly in love. As always is the case, the truth lies between these two extremes of disparagement and favour. Charles II. constantly showed the love of a father for Monmouth; but if a marriage had united him to Lucy Walters, the proofs would not have remained hidden in the famous “black box” in which Monmouth’s friends supposed them to be. Brought to light, they would have allowed Charles II., deprived of other legitimate descendants, to indulge his fondness for a son, an accomplished gentleman, and already the object at Whitehall of several distinctions reserved only for royal princes,[149]and to whom only legitimacy was wanting for him to be universally received as the heir-presumptive to the throne. During his father’s reign he enjoyed, in fact, a popularity which not even great defects had been able to compromise, and which the hatred inspired by the Duke of York increased. People detected in the latter a future king entirely devoted to the Papists, and loved still more in Monmouth a prince of engaging and courteous manner, distinguished without haughtiness, sometimes familiar, but without lowering himself, less effeminate in his manners than his royal father,[150]and whose libertinage,fiery character, and acts of violence, were pardoned in remembrance of his brilliant military exploits, in consideration of his past, and the hopes that were based upon him. But the position at which he had arrived was far above his merits. His birth and the attractions of his person had raised him to it. As long as his father lived he maintained himself in it, supported by the interested affection of the Whigs, and never having to display any qualities but those he was liberally endowed with. When, at the death of Charles II., it was necessary for him to exhibit not only the gifts which had made him the idol of the people, but the talents requisite to accomplish a revolution, and to seize upon a crown, the mediocrity of his faculties soon became apparent. Intrepid upon the field of battle, he lacked decision in the council, and wavered irresolute between contrary suggestions. His natural kindness, which had won him the love of the people, sometimes degenerated into weakness. Of a very malleable disposition, he yielded too easily to the influence of others, and was often only the executant of their will. His ardour in action, above all, arose from the contact of those surrounding him. He hardly ever derived it from his own powers, and, left to himself, he readily sank into indolence. When he learnt in Holland the accession of James II., which closed England to him, he could form no manly resolution, and forgot[151]in the companyof a loved woman[152]that he was the hope of a numerous party, the support of a great cause, the pretender to a throne. This inaction had its source in his carelessness and in his indolence of mind, much more than in a taste for obscurity; for he did not long resist the prayers of his friends when they came to drag him from his retreat and arm him against James II.,[153]and not having had sufficient energy to conceive the enterprise himself, he equally lacked the resolution to object to it. Such was the man whose coming a notable part of the English nation longed for, who was about to shake a throne, but without succeeding in overthrowing it; because he had neither the profound views nor the persevering audacity with which great ambitions ripen and execute their projects.

On June 11, 1685, Monmouth, accompanied by eighty men well armed, landed on the coast of Dorsetshire, near the little port of Lyme. The result of this expedition is a matter of history. There is no need to recount the triumphant march to Taunton, the enthusiasm of the West, the fatal field of Sedgemoor, and the ignominious flight of the leader of the insurgents.[154]Some days afterwards a man in tattered garments, with haggard face and hair prematurely white, is dragged from a ditch, at the bottom of which he was crouching, half hidden by the long grass and nettles, trembling and livid with fear, his pockets filled with peasgathered to satisfy the cravings of ravenous hunger. It was the darling of Charles’s court, the hero of Bothwell Brig, “King Monmouth.”

Finding himself in the power of a monarch whom he had come to overthrow, whose real faults he had not only pointed out, but whom he had also calumniated by accusations as infamous as unmerited, Monmouth did not understand that he was lost, and that James II., always inexorable, would not feel for his most cruel enemy a pity that was unknown to him. Self-respect and his own dignity should have prohibited the vanquished from appealing to the clemency of his conqueror, even had this clemency been at all probable. But mere reason indicated that to ask mercy of James II. would only be a useless abasement, and that there was nothing left but to prepare for death. Monmouth had neither the courage nor the wisdom to reject the thought of an unavailing humiliation. He wrote to James II. in the most abject terms.[155]His letter was that of a man crushed by the approach of death, and who sacrifices to the desire of living his past, his honour, those whom he had sought to gain over without succeeding, as well as the partisans whom he had conducted to their ruin. This was not all: no longer able to arrest himself in his ignominious descent, he desired to see James II., and the latter was sufficiently inhuman to consent to an interview, which it was his unalterable will should remain sterile. Not to spare such an enemy was justified to a certain extent by the violence of his attacks; but to admit him to his presence without pardoning him was a refinementof vengeance and harshness. He enjoyed the barbarous pleasure of seeing his redoubtable adversary confounded, falling at his feet, embracing his knees, shedding bitter tears, vainly trying to hold out his fettered hands to him, acknowledging and cursing his crime, offering to abjure his religion, and become a Catholic,[156]beseeching pardon, pardon at any price. To this eagerness for life, to these supplications James II. only opposed silence, and turning away his head he terminated an interview, in which we hardly know whether to feel most indignant at the cold cruelty of the conqueror or at the degrading terror and cowardly humiliation of the vanquished.

It is at this moment that Saint-Foix, introducing Monmouth into this problem, gives him Louis XIV. for a guardian, Saint-Mars for a gaoler, and the prison of Pignerol for a residence.

FOOTNOTES:[148]Biographie Universelleof Michaud, article “Monmouth.”[149]He resided in the King’s palace, had pages, and when he travelled was everywhere received like a prince. Charles II. created him successively Earl of Orkney, Knight of the Garter, and Duke of Monmouth.[150]Grammont says of Monmouth in hisMémoires:“His face and the graces of his person were such that Nature has perhaps never formed any more accomplished. His countenance was perfectly charming. It was the face of a man; nothing insipid, nothing effeminate about it. Every feature had its attraction and its especial delicacy. A marvellous inclination for all kinds of exercises, an engaging manner, an air of grandeur—in short, all bodily advantages pleaded in his favour; but he had no sentiment except such as was inspired by others.”[151]Letter from Monmouth to James, dated from Ringwode, quoted by Macaulay,Histoire d’Angleterre depuis l’Avénement de Jacques II., translation of M. de Peyronnet, vol. i. p. 398.[152]Lady Henrietta Wentworth.—Trans.[153]Burnet, vol. i. p. 630.[154]M. Topin’s narrative has been here condensed, as it was hardly necessary to repeat to English readers the well-known story of Monmouth’s futile enterprise, more especially as it has no kind of bearing on the point as to whether he was or was not the Man with the Iron Mask.—Trans.[155]Original Lettersof Sir H. Ellis; Newspapers of the period; Despatch of the French Ambassador Barillon, July 13, 1685.[156]Letter of James II. to the Prince of Orange, July 14, 1685;Sir J. Bramston’s Memoirs, related by Macaulay; Burnet, vol. i. p. 644.

[148]Biographie Universelleof Michaud, article “Monmouth.”

[149]He resided in the King’s palace, had pages, and when he travelled was everywhere received like a prince. Charles II. created him successively Earl of Orkney, Knight of the Garter, and Duke of Monmouth.

[150]Grammont says of Monmouth in hisMémoires:“His face and the graces of his person were such that Nature has perhaps never formed any more accomplished. His countenance was perfectly charming. It was the face of a man; nothing insipid, nothing effeminate about it. Every feature had its attraction and its especial delicacy. A marvellous inclination for all kinds of exercises, an engaging manner, an air of grandeur—in short, all bodily advantages pleaded in his favour; but he had no sentiment except such as was inspired by others.”

[151]Letter from Monmouth to James, dated from Ringwode, quoted by Macaulay,Histoire d’Angleterre depuis l’Avénement de Jacques II., translation of M. de Peyronnet, vol. i. p. 398.

[152]Lady Henrietta Wentworth.—Trans.

[153]Burnet, vol. i. p. 630.

[154]M. Topin’s narrative has been here condensed, as it was hardly necessary to repeat to English readers the well-known story of Monmouth’s futile enterprise, more especially as it has no kind of bearing on the point as to whether he was or was not the Man with the Iron Mask.—Trans.

[155]Original Lettersof Sir H. Ellis; Newspapers of the period; Despatch of the French Ambassador Barillon, July 13, 1685.

[156]Letter of James II. to the Prince of Orange, July 14, 1685;Sir J. Bramston’s Memoirs, related by Macaulay; Burnet, vol. i. p. 644.

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