with standards and a Bible, which he kissed, and promised to defend. [Sidenote: Battle of Sedgemoor.] [Sidenote: Death of Monmouth.] But all this enthusiasm was soon to end. The Duke of Albemarle--the son of General Monk, who restored Charles II.--advanced against him with the militia of the country, and Monmouth was supported only by the vulgar, the weak, and the credulous. Not a single nobleman joined his standard, and but few of the gentry. He made innumerable blunders. He lost time by vain attempts to drill the peasants and farmers who followed his fortunes. He slowly advanced to the west of England, where he hoped to be joined by the body of the people. But all men of station and influence stood aloof. Discouraged and dismayed, he reached Wells, and pushed forward to capture Bristol, then the second city in the kingdom. He was again disappointed. He was forced, from unexpected calamities, to abandon the enterprise. He then turned his eye to Wilts; but when he arrived at the borders of the county, he found that none of the bodies on which he had calculated had made their appearance. At Phillips Norton was a slight skirmish, which ended favorably to Monmouth, in which the young Duke of Grafton, natural son of Charles II., distinguished himself against his half brother; but Monmouth was discouraged, and fell back to Bridgewater. Meanwhile the royal army approached, and encamped at Sedgemoor. Here was fought a decisive battle, which was fatal to the rebels, "the last deserving the name of _battle_, that has been fought on English ground." Monmouth, when all was lost, fled from the field, and hastened to the British Channel, hoping to gain the Continent. He was found near the New Forest, hidden in a ditch, exhausted by hunger and fatigue. He was sent, under a strong guard, to Ringwood; and all that was left him was, to prepare to meet the death of a rebel. But he clung to life, so justly forfeited, with singular tenacity. He abjectly and meanly sued for pardon from that inexorable tyrant who never forgot or forgave the slightest resistance from a friend, when even that resistance was lawful, much less rebellion from a man he both hated and despised. He was transferred to London, lodged in the Tower, and executed in a bungling manner by "Jack Ketch"--the name given for several centuries to the public executioner. He was buried under St. Peter's Chapel, in the Tower, where reposed the headless bodies of so many noted saints and political martyrs--the great Somerset, and the still greater Northumberland, the two Earls of Essex, and the fourth Duke of Norfolk, and other great men who figured in the reigns of the Plantagenets and the Tudors. Monmouth's rebellion was completely suppressed, and a most signal vengeance was inflicted on all who were concerned in it. No mercy was shown, on the part of government, to any party or person.