5. =The Bloody Assizes. 1685.=--Large numbers of Monmouth's followers were hanged by the pursuing soldiers without form of law. Many were thrust into prison to await their trial. Jeffreys, the most insolent of the judges, was sent to hold, in the western counties, what will always be known as the Bloody Assizes. It is true that the law which he had to administer was cruel, but Jeffreys gained peculiar obloquy by delighting in its cruelty, and by sneering at its unhappy victims. At Winchester he condemned to death an old lady, Alice Lisle, who was guilty of hiding in her house two fugitives from vengeance. At Dorchester 74 persons were hanged. In Somersetshire no less than 233 were put to death. Jeffreys overwhelmed his victims with scornful mockery. One of them pleaded that he was a good Protestant: "Protestant!" cried Jeffreys, "you mean Presbyterian; I'll hold you a wager of it, I can smell a Presbyterian forty miles." Some one tried to move his compassion in favour of one of the accused. "My lord," he said, "this poor creature is on the parish." "Do not trouble yourselves," was the only answer given, "I will ease the parish of the burden," and he ordered the man to be hanged at once. The whole number of those who perished in the Bloody Assizes was 320, whilst 841 were transported to the West Indies to work as slaves under a broiling sun. James welcomed Jeffreys on his return, and made him Lord Chancellor as a reward for his achievements. 6. =The Violation of the Test Act. 1685.=--James's success made him believe that he could overpower any opposition. He had already increased his army and had appointed officers who had refused to take the test. On his return to London he resolved to ask Parliament to repeal the Test Act, and dismissed Halifax for refusing to support his proposal. It would probably have been difficult for him to obtain the repeal even of the Recusancy Laws which punished Catholics for acting on their religious belief. It was not only hopeless, but rightly hopeless, for him to ask for a repeal of the Test Act, which, as long as a Catholic king was on the throne, stood in the way of his filling all posts in the army as well as in the state with men who would be ready to assist him in designs against the religion and liberties of Englishmen. If anything could increase the dislike of the nation to the repeal of the Test Act it was the fact that, in that very year, Louis had revoked the Edict of Nantes issued by his ancestor, Henry IV., to protect the French Protestants, and had handed them over to a cruel persecution. It might be fairly argued that what Louis had done, James, if he got the power, might be expected to do hereafter.