Sedgemoor

Meanwhile Lord Feversham was advancing at the head of the royalist army and had been joined by Churchill.

They encamped at Weston Zoyland, a village in Somersetshire, which rose out of the midst of a marsh called Sedgemoor.

Monmouth determined to risk a night attack on the royalist camp, for Feversham was an utterly incompetent commander and the discipline of his camp was lax.

Monmouth thought that if he could effect a surprise his chances might not be altogether hopeless.

He was taken to London, and though he abased himself to plead for life to James II in the most abject terms, was executed on July 15th.

James II showed the cruelty and hardness of his disposition by the terrible steps which he took to punish this insurrection.

Not satisfied by the horrors of the military executions which had followed the battle of Sedgemoor, he sent into the western counties Chief Justice Jeffries, a judge who had earned his favour by his unscrupulous violence and cruelty, to punish all who had had any share in the insurrection.

This circuit is commonly known as the Bloody Assize.