een
put to death in our island since the Revolution. The rebellions of
1715 and 1745 were of longer duration, of wider extent, and of more
formidable aspect than that which was put down at Sedgemoor. It has
not been generally thought that, either after the rebellion of 1715, or
after the rebellion of 1745, the House of Hanover erred on the side of
clemency. Yet all the executions of 1715 and 1745 added together will
appear to have been few indeed when compared with those which disgraced
the Bloody Assizes. The number of the rebels whom Jeffreys hanged on
this circuit was three hundred and twenty. [448]

Such havoc must have excited disgust even if the sufferers had been
generally odious. But they were, for the most part, men of blameless
life, and of high religious profession. They were regarded by
themselves, and by a large proportion of their neighbours, not as
wrongdoers, but as martyrs who sealed with blood the truth of the
Protestant religion. Very few of the convicts professed any repentance
for what they had done. Many, animated by the old Puritan spirit, met
death, not merely with fortitude, but with exultation. It was in vain
that the ministers of the Established Church lectured them on the guilt
of rebellion and on the importance of priestly absolution. The claim of
the King to unbounded authority in things temporal, and the claim of the
clergy to the spiritual power of binding and loosing, moved the bitter
scorn of the intrepid sectaries. Some of them composed hymns in the
dungeon, and chaunted them on the fatal sledge. Christ, they sang while
they were undressing for the butchery, would soon come to rescue Zion
and to make war on Babylon, would set up his standard, would blow his
trumpet, and would requite his foes tenfold for all the evil which had
been inflicted on his servants. The dying words of these men were noted
down: their farewell letters were kept as treasures; and, in this way,
with the help of some invention and exaggeration, was formed a copious
supplement to the Marian martyrology. [449]

A few eases deserve special mention. Abraham Holmes, a retired officer
of the parliamentary army, and one of those zealots who would own no
king but King Jesus, had been taken at Sedgemoor. His arm had been
frightfully mangled and shattered in the battle; and, as no surgeon was
at hand, the stout old soldier amputated it himself. He was carried
up to London, and examined by the King in Council, but would mak