rmy
times. He had instigated Monmouth first to invade the kingdom, and then
to usurp the crown. It was reasonable to expect that a strict search
would be made for the archtraitor, as he was often called; and such a
search a man of so singular an aspect and dialect could scarcely have
eluded. It was confidently reported in the coffee houses of London
that Ferguson was taken, and this report found credit with men who had
excellent opportunities of knowing the truth. The next thing that was
heard of him was that he was safe on the Continent. It was strongly
suspected that he had been in constant communication with the government
against which he was constantly plotting, that he had, while urging his
associates to every excess of rashness sent to Whitehall just so much
information about their proceedings as might suffice to save his own
neck, and that therefore orders had been given to let him escape. [466]

And now Jeffreys had done his work, and returned to claim his reward. He
arrived at Windsor from the West, leaving carnage, mourning, and terror
behind him. The hatred with which he was regarded by the people of
Somersetshire has no parallel in our history. It was not to be quenched
by time or by political changes, was long transmitted from generation to
generation, and raged fiercely against his innocent progeny. When he
had been many years dead, when his name and title were extinct, his
granddaughter, the Countess of Pomfret, travelling along the western
road, was insulted by the populace, and found that she could not safely
venture herself among the descendants of those who had witnessed the
Bloody Assizes. [467]

But at the Court Jeffreys was cordially welcomed. He was a judge after
his master's own heart. James had watched the circuit with interest and
delight. In his drawingroom and at his table he had frequently talked of
the havoc which was making among his disaffected subjects with a glee
at which the foreign ministers stood aghast. With his own hand he had
penned accounts of what he facetiously called his Lord Chief Justice's
campaign in the West. Some hundreds of rebels, His Majesty wrote to the
Hague, had been condemned. Some of them had been hanged: more should
be hanged: and the rest should be sent to the plantations. It was to no
purpose that Ken wrote to implore mercy for the misguided people, and
described with pathetic eloquence the frightful state of his diocese.
He complained that it was impossible