Lord Feversham lay with the King’s forces at Sedgemoor after having made some rather feeble and ineffectual attempts to get in touch with Monmouth. It was decided at a council of war that the latter’s forces should attack those of Lord Feversham by night, and one Richard Godfrey was sent to find out the number and position of the Royal troops. In due course he returned with, so far as it went, a true, but unfortunately very incomplete account. He stated for one thing that the enemy were not entrenched; but he somehow or other omitted to take notice of the fact that a deep “rhine” or great drain lay across the track by which Monmouth’s men would be compelled to approach. In this “rhine,” we are told by a contemporary writer, the water was only about two feet deep, but the soft bottom had enough mud to drown a man. This astonishing omission of Godfrey’s undoubtedly cost the Duke the battle; although the man was not a traitor, as has been stated by some authorities, but merely a blunderer, which, indeed, on occasion brings about even more disastrous results. The two opposing forces were, according to several contemporary accounts almost equal as regards numbers. Feversham’s was, of course, better armed, but there was the advantage of a night surprise to set against that fact, had it not been for the “rhine.” The attack of the Duke’s small body of horse failed, and the rest of his force, evidently finding themselves outflanked, broke and fled. Then at dawn, or soon after, ensued one of the most relentless pursuits, followed by a series of massacres in cornfields, barns, and coppices, under the hedges, and in the ditches of the countryside, which was only to be equalled a little later on by the bloody work of Jeffreys himself. In the immediate district it is estimated that at least 1,200 of the unfortunate followers of Monmouth were slain. The Duke became a fugitive, and was ultimately captured near Wimborne, and taken thence to London for trial and execution. A few weeks after Lyme Regis was to pay very dearly for the part it had played at the time of Monmouth’s landing, and early in September, Judge Jeffreys condemned thirteen Lyme Regis people at Dorchester, several of whom were mere lads; and these were executed in Lyme on September 12.