ed sometimes as
the First Tangier Regiment, and sometimes as Queen Catharine's Regiment.
As they had been levied for the purpose of waging war on an infidel
nation, they bore on their flag a Christian emblem, the Paschal Lamb.
In allusion to this device, and with a bitterly ironical meaning, these
men, the rudest and most ferocious in the English army, were called
Kirke's Lambs. The regiment, now the second of the line, still
retains this ancient badge, which is however thrown into the shade by
decorations honourably earned in Egypt, in Spain, and in the heart of
Asia. [435]

Such was the captain and such the soldiers who were now let loose on the
people of Somersetshire. From Bridgewater Kirke marched to Taunton. He
was accompanied by two carts filled with wounded rebels whose gashes
had not been dressed, and by a long drove of prisoners on foot, who were
chained two and two Several of these he hanged as soon as he reached
Taunton, without the form of a trial. They were not suffered even to
take leave of their nearest relations. The signpost of the White Hart
Inn served for a gallows. It is said that the work of death went on in
sight of the windows where the officers of the Tangier regiment were
carousing, and that at every health a wretch was turned off. When the
legs of the dying man quivered in the last agony, the colonel ordered
the drums to strike up. He would give the rebels, he said music to
their dancing. The tradition runs that one of the captives was not even
allowed the indulgence of a speedy death. Twice he was suspended from
the signpost, and twice cut down. Twice he was asked if he repented of
his treason, and twice he replied that, if the thing were to do again,
he would do it. Then he was tied up for the last time. So many dead
bodies were quartered that the executioner stood ankle deep in blood.
He was assisted by a poor man whose loyalty was suspected, and who was
compelled to ransom his own life by seething the remains of his friends
in pitch. The peasant who had consented to perform this hideous office
afterwards returned to his plough. But a mark like that of Cain was
upon him. He was known through his village by the horrible name of Tom
Boilman. The rustics long continued to relate that, though he had, by
his sinful and shameful deed, saved himself from the vengeance of the
Lambs, he had not escaped the vengeance of a higher power. In a great
storm he fled for shelter under an oak, and was there