was so fond of him, except when he presumed too far."
"Oh, I know, I know," answered Mary restlessly, "I have heard it all argued a thousand times over. No, I do not want the Duke of Monmouth or any other pretender; but I long for a King who can show mercy and kindness and generosity; not a man full of the most bitter and vindictive spite, who chooses as his tools and instruments those to whom cruelty is a delight!"
It was no wonder that Mary Bridges' soul was stirred within her at this time. She was the second daughter of Sir Ralph Bridges, of Bishop's Hull, near Taunton, and when she was a young girl of some fourteen summers, the whole district was stirred into violent excitement and violent emotion by the sharp outbreak of rebellion under the Duke of Monmouth.
The unpopularity of James II. was on the increase in those places where the Protestant faith had its strongholds. It was openly asserted that the King was a professed Romanist now, and that, in time, the whole constitution of the country would be undermined by him, and that persecutions of a terrible kind would break out under his rule.
The Duke of Monmouth came as the champion of the Protestant faith; and hundreds who would not, in calmer moments, have admitted his claim, or have thought it right for a moment to support one whose
