Jump to content

Page:Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries.djvu/97

From Wikisource
This page needs to be proofread.

64 Devon Notes and Queries, by Jeflfery. The Court at Exeter was opened on the 14th September. For some reason there were comparatively few prisoners. Roberts {vide Life, &c., of James, Duke of Monmouth, George Roberts, 1844, ii» P« 215) tells us that there were thirteen executed, and thirteen were fined and whipped. But a very remarkable thing is that at the end of the business it was found that no less than three hundred and forty two persons implicated in the rising were at large. Their names were published, and we know from what parts of the County they came, — all border-land towns and villages. Coly- ton, 76, Axmouth 34, Combpyne 6, Luppit 30, Thorncombe 33, Yarcombe 7, Membury 18, Upottery 31, Musbury 9, Axminster 92, Coomb Raleigh 6, a total of 342 (Harleian MS. 4689, B.M. ; quoted by Roberts, "» p. 217). The contemporary broadside, a facsimile of which we give, states the total number condemned as twenty-six, as does Roberts, but it says that fourteen were ordered to be executed. A month later the Justices of the Peace in Devon issued an order [6th Oct., 1685"] which the Bishop of Exeter requested the clergy to publish. It is printed nearly in full in Roberts' book (Roberts, n, p. 249). As it was printed in London, although for an Exeter publisher, and as it is signed in ink by the Clerk of the Peace, we are inclined to think that Devon was not the only County in which this order was promulgated, and the Justices were only doing what the King ordered. The copy before us is signed '* Hugo Vaughan, Cler. Pacis. Com. praed." '* Licensed October 15, 1685. R. L' Estrange." The Bishop's order, printed in the left hand corner is as follows : — " That the just Resentment of His Majesties justices of Peace for the County of Devon have of the late Horrid Rebellion, and that their care for the Safety of His Majesties Sacred Person, the Preservation of the Puhlick Peace ^ and the Prevention of the like Detestable Rebellion for tJte future, may be fuller known and have better effect, I do order and require all the Clergy of my Diocese in the County of Devon deliberately to publish this order next Sunday after it shall be tendered to tJiem, Tho. Exon. Tho. Exon was Thomas Larnplough, afterwards Arch- bishop of York. See Prince's Worthies and Oliver's Lives. The imprint is London, Printed by Freeman Collins, for Charles Yeo. Bookseller in Exon, 1685. J. B. R.