Christian, a vsefull member related to this body, was also slain. And this church began to be diminished.” Then came the catastrophe of Sedgemoor, and a dreadful orgie of hangings and quarterings in this West of England. Axminster, however, witnessed only one execution, that of Mr. Rose, one of Monmouth’s gunners. As the rebellion was not merely a political movement, but also in some sort religious--a Protestant rising against Roman Catholicism--it followed that its failure was the beginning of bitter persecutions against Protestants--Churchmen and Dissenters alike. It must not be supposed, however, that Protestantism has a monopoly of martyrs. When that original form of dissent obtained the upper hand, there generally followed an equally bad time for members of the older Church, which then had the peculiar honour of furnishing victims for stake or gibbet. Foxe’s “Book of Martyrs” only shows us one side of religious persecution; the other side, were it equally well compiled, would be as lurid, as merciless: religious bigots seem to have been sadly deficient in humour. Axminster has given an undying name to a particular make of carpet that is no longer manufactured here, but at Wilton, in Wiltshire. The Axminster factory was finally closed in 1835, having been in work for eighty years. XXIX. Two miles south of Axminster, on our way to Seaton, we came upon the farmhouse of Ashe, at one time the mansion of the Drakes. Here was born, on May 24, 1650, John Churchill, the future Duke of Marlborough. Here, too, in the private chapel of the house, now used as a cider cellar, was married Lord North, one of that tactless ministry who lost us the New England States. In 1782, the last of the Ashe Drakes died, and five years later the greater portion of the house was destroyed by fire. [Illustration: AXMOUTH from Seaton] In Musbury church, a mile farther down the road, are monuments to Drakes of Ashe. Amongst those commemorated is that Sir Bernard Drake who disputed so hotly with his kinsman the great Sir Francis, most renowned of all Drakes, the question of armorial bearings. When Elizabeth granted the latter a new coat-of-arms, Sir Bernard replied that “though her Majesty could give him a nobler, yet she could not give him an antienter coat than his,” and with that flattering unction, self-administered, he was fain to be content. To Ashe presently succeeds the straggling village of Axmouth, whence the sea is visible at the farther end of the marshy lands where the Axe struggles out into the Channel over a bed of shingle. Just above Haven Cliff the highroad is carried over the river by a bridge of three arches that gives access to Seaton. [Illustration: Seaton Bridge.]