Executed on this day 15th July, 1685. – Monmouth Rebellion: James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth is executed at Tower Hill, England after his defeat at the Battle of Sedgemoor on 6 July 1685. The Monmouth Rebellion was an attempt to depose his uncle, King James II. Declaring himself the legitimate King, Monmouth attempted to capitalise on his position as the son of Charles II, and his Protestantism, in opposition to James, who was a Roman Catholic. The rebellion failed, and Monmouth was beheaded for treason on 15 July 1685. On 6 July 1685 the two armies met at the Battle of Sedgemoor, the last clear-cut pitched battle on open ground between two military forces fought on English soil: Monmouths makeshift force could not compete with the regular army, and was soundly defeated. Monmouth himself was captured and arrested at Ringwood in Hampshire. It is said that it took multiple blows of the axe to sever his head (though some sources say it took eight blows, the official Tower of London fact sheet says it took five blows, while Charles Spencer, in his book Blenheim, claims it was seven). One of the many theories about the identity of The Man in the Iron Mask is that he was Monmouth: this seems to be based on the unlikely reasoning that James II would not execute his own nephew, so someone else was executed, and James II arranged for Monmouth to be taken to France and put in the custody of his cousin Louis XIV of France. According to legend, a portrait was painted of Monmouth after his execution: the tradition states that it was realised after the execution that there was no official portrait of the Duke, so his body was exhumed, the head stitched back on the body, and it was sat for its portrait to be painted. However, there are at least two formal portraits of Monmouth tentatively dated to before his death currently in the National Portrait Gallery in London, and another painting once identified with Monmouth that shows a sleeping or dead man that could have given rise to the story. He commanded the small army raised to put down the rebellion of the Scottish Covenanters and despite being heavily outnumbered, he decisively defeated the Covenanter rebels at the Battle of Bothwell Bridge on 22 June 1679.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 08:55:50 +0000
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