riffs; and the Sheriffs should be chosen by the freeholders.
Finally Monmouth declared that he could prove himself to have been born
in lawful wedlock, and to be, by right of blood, King of England, but
that, for the present, he waived his claims, that he would leave them to
the judgment of a free Parliament, and that, in the meantime, he desired
to be considered only as the Captain General of the English Protestants,
who were in arms against tyranny and Popery.

Disgraceful as this manifesto was to those who put it forth, it was not
unskilfully framed for the purpose of stimulating the passions of the
vulgar. In the West the effect was great. The gentry and clergy of
that part of England were indeed, with few exceptions, Tories. But the
yeomen, the traders of the towns, the peasants, and the artisans were
generally animated by the old Roundhead spirit. Many of them were
Dissenters, and had been goaded by petty persecution into a temper fit
for desperate enterprise. The great mass of the population abhorred
Popery and adored Monmouth. He was no stranger to them. His progress
through Somersetshire and Devonshire in the summer of 1680 was still
fresh in the memory of all men.

He was on that occasion sumptuously entertained by Thomas Thynne at
Longleat Hall, then, and perhaps still, the most magnificent country
house in England. From Longleat to Exeter the hedges were lined with
shouting spectators. The roads were strewn with boughs and flowers. The
multitude, in their eagerness to see and touch their favourite, broke
down the palings of parks, and besieged the mansions where he was
feasted. When he reached Chard his escort consisted of five thousand
horsemen. At Exeter all Devonshire had been gathered together to welcome
him. One striking part of the show was a company of nine hundred young
men who, clad in a white uniform, marched before him into the city.
[362] The turn of fortune which had alienated the gentry from his cause
had produced no effect on the common people. To them he was still the
good Duke, the Protestant Duke, the rightful heir whom a vile conspiracy
kept out of his own. They came to his standard in crowds. All the
clerks whom he could employ were too few to take down the names of the
recruits. Before he had been twenty-four hours on English ground he was
at the head of fifteen hundred men. Dare arrived from Taunton with
forty horsemen of no very martial appearance, and brought encouraging
intelligence