gallows. The next day a long line of
gibbets appeared on the road leading from Bridgewater to Weston Zoyland.
On each gibbet a prisoner was suspended. Four of the sufferers were left
to rot in irons. [418]

Meanwhile Monmouth, accompanied by Grey, by Buyse, and by a few other
friends, was flying from the field of battle. At Chedzoy he stopped
a moment to mount a fresh horse and to hide his blue riband and his
George. He then hastened towards the Bristol Channel. From the rising
ground on the north of the field of battle he saw the flash and the
smoke of the last volley fired by his deserted followers. Before six
o'clock he was twenty miles from Sedgemoor. Some of his companions
advised him to cross the water, and seek refuge in Wales; and this would
undoubtedly have been his wisest course. He would have been in Wales
many hours before the news of his defeat was known there; and in a
country so wild and so remote from the seat of government, he might
have remained long undiscovered. He determined, however, to push for
Hampshire, in the hope that he might lurk in the cabins of deerstealers
among the oaks of the New Forest, till means of conveyance to the
Continent could be procured. He therefore, with Grey and the German,
turned to the southeast. But the way was beset with dangers. The three
fugitives had to traverse a country in which every one already knew the
event of the battle, and in which no traveller of suspicious appearance
could escape a close scrutiny. They rode on all day, shunning towns and
villages. Nor was this so difficult as it may now appear. For men then
living could remember the time when the wild deer ranged freely through
a succession of forests from the banks of the Avon in Wiltshire to the
southern coast of Hampshire. [419] At length, on Cranbourne Chase, the
strength of the horses failed. They were therefore turned loose. The
bridles and saddles were concealed. Monmouth and his friends procured
rustic attire, disguised themselves, and proceeded on foot towards the
New Forest. They passed the night in the open air: but before morning
they were Surrounded on every side by toils. Lord Lumley, who lay
at Ringwood with a strong body of the Sussex militia, had sent forth
parties in every direction. Sir William Portman, with the Somerset
militia, had formed a chain of posts from the sea to the northern
extremity of Dorset. At five in the morning of the seventh, Grey, who
had wandered from his friends, wa