don with coach horses and cart horses.
These animals were so far from being fit for any military purpose that
they had not yet learned to obey the bridle, and became ungovernable as
soon as they heard a gun fired or a drum beaten. A small body guard of
forty young men, well armed, and mounted at their own charge, attended
Monmouth. The people of Bridgewater, who were enriched by a thriving
coast trade, furnished him with a small sum of money. [386]

All this time the forces of the government were fast assembling. On the
west of the rebel army, Albemarle still kept together a large body
of Devonshire militia. On the east, the trainbands of Wiltshire had
mustered under the command of Thomas Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. On the
north east, Henry Somerset, Duke of Beaufort, was in arms. The power of
Beaufort bore some faint resemblance to that of the great barons of the
fifteenth century. He was President of Wales and Lord Lieutenant of four
English counties. His official tours through the extensive region in
which he represented the majesty of the throne were scarcely inferior in
pomp to royal progresses. His household at Badminton was regulated after
the fashion of an earlier generation. The land to a great extent
round his pleasure grounds was in his own hands; and the labourers who
cultivated it formed part of his family. Nine tables were every day
spread under his roof for two hundred persons. A crowd of gentlemen and
pages were under the orders of the steward. A whole troop of cavalry
obeyed the master of the horse. The fame of the kitchen, the cellar, the
kennel, and the stables was spread over all England. The gentry, many
miles round, were proud of the magnificence of their great neighbour,
and were at the same time charmed by his affability and good nature. He
was a zealous Cavalier of the old school. At this crisis, therefore,
he used his whole influence and authority in support of the crown, and
occupied Bristol with the trainbands of Gloucestershire, who seem to
have been better disciplined than most other troops of that description.
[387]

In the counties more remote from Somersetshire the supporters of the
throne were on the alert. The militia of Sussex began to march westward,
under the command of Richard, Lord Lumley, who, though he had lately
been converted from the Roman Catholic religion, was still firm in his
allegiance to a Roman Catholic King. James Bertie, Earl of Abingdon,
called out the array of Oxfo