the most frightful proscription
that England has ever seen. Unhappily the only request that she is known
to have preferred touching the rebels was that a hundred of those who
were sentenced to transportation might be given to her. [460] The profit
which she cleared on the cargo, after making large allowance for those
who died of hunger and fever during the passage, cannot be estimated
at less than a thousand guineas. We cannot wonder that her attendants
should have imitated her unprincely greediness and her unwomanly
cruelty. They exacted a thousand pounds from Roger Hoare, a merchant
of Bridgewater; who had contributed to the military chest of the rebel
army. But the prey on which they pounced most eagerly was one which it
might have been thought that even the most ungentle natures would have
spared. Already some of the girls who had presented the standard to
Monmouth at Taunton had cruelly expiated their offence. One of them had
been thrown into prison where an infectious malady was raging. She had
sickened and died there. Another had presented herself at the bar before
Jeffreys to beg for mercy. "Take her, gaoler," vociferated the Judge,
with one of those frowns which had often struck terror into stouter
hearts than hers. She burst into tears, drew her hood over her face,
followed the gaoler out of the court, fell ill of fright, and in a few
hours was a corpse. Most of the young ladies, however, who had walked
in the procession were still alive. Some of them were under ten years
of age. All had acted under the orders of their schoolmistress, without
knowing that they were committing a crime. The Queen's maids of honour
asked the royal permission to wring money out of the parents of the
poor children; and the permission was granted. An order was sent down to
Taunton that all these little girls should be seized and imprisoned.
Sir Francis Warre of Hestercombe, the Tory member for Bridgewater, was
requested to undertake the office of exacting the ransom. He was charged
to declare in strong language that the maids of honour would not endure
delay, that they were determined to prosecute to outlawry, unless a
reasonable sum were forthcoming, and that by a reasonable sum was meant
seven thousand pounds. Warre excused himself from taking any part in a
transaction so scandalous. The maids of honour then requested William
Penn to act for them; and Penn accepted the commission. Yet it should
seem that a little of the pertinaciou