John Coad, One of the Sufferers - the primary account of a "Godfearing Carpenter": 1685 defector rebel, slave in Jamaica, and an inspiration for "Robinson Crusoe"

This is amazing stuff - John Coad, the "Godfearing carpenter" of Stoford in Somerset, was recruited as a soldier in King James II's army, but in June 1685 he defected to the Duke of Monmouth, was captured, was sentenced to be sent to Jamaica as a plantation slave, was freed at the Glorious Revolution and eventually returned to England in 1690.

His surviving manuscript of his life was published in 1849, entitled A Memorandum of the Wonderful Providences of God to a Poor Unworthy Creature: During the Time of the Duke of Monmouth's Rebellion and to the Revolution in 1688.

Coad was one of over 800 men who were shipped off to the Caribbean plantations as slaves; and who were plausibly the inspiration for their fellow Monmouth 'rebel' Daniel Defoe for his world famous novel Robinson Crusoe (1719) - a link recognised by Tom Paulin in his 2001 essay in the London Review of Books, entitled 'Fugitive Crusoe' (subscription required).

• 1849 printed edition of the original manuscript is online here
• A account of the Coad family from 1870 is online here, in Rambles, Roamings and Recollections by John Trotandot
• His son, Rev Thomas Coad, was a Presbyterian minister in England (1740 letter online here)

The notorious evil of Percy Kirk / Kirke in the "Bloody Assizes" of autumn 1685

Percy Kirk / Kirke is best known to history for his involvement in the 1689 Siege of Derry. However, given his past brutalities during the 1685 "Bloody Assizes" of King James II, many were utterly incredulous that William of Orange had recruited Kirk / Kirke. Here's why:

"... Nor was Judge Jeffreys the only person who was thought to execute the King's orders ; but Colonel Kirk, a soldier of fortune, a man of boldness and looseness, did also act a considerable part in these unhappy tragedies:

after the Duke (of Monmouth)'s defeat, he caused ninety wounded men to be hang'd at Taunton, not only without permitting their relations to speak with them, but with pipes playing, drums beating, trumpets founding, and all other military pomp and joy.

At another town he invited his officers to dinner, near the place where some of the condemned rebels were to be executed, and order 'd ten of them to be turn'd off with a health to the King, ten in a health to the Queen, and ten more in a health to the Lord Jeffreys. These Cruelties he afterwards endeavour'd to palliate, by pretending, that he did nothing but by express order from the King, and his General.

But he was charged with one action that could proceed only from his own brutal inclination to lust and blood, and that was, the drawing in a poor maiden to prostitute her self to him, with the promise of saving her brother's life, and nevertheless causing him to be hang'd on the sign-post of the same house, and out of the window presenting the credulous abused damsel with that barbarous spectacle of his treachery and cruelty..."

– From this source

William Disney, the printer of the treacherous 1685 Declaration of James, Duke of Monmouth

Faithless I proved to my Prince and Nation,

Printing a most Rebellious Declaration:

By which foul Fact I wrought my overthrow,

Let all beware that they may not do so.

My Head upon the Bridge must surely stand,
Because I was a Traytor to my Land:
Upon the Gates they'l set my Quarters too,
For doing what I was forbid to do.

William Disney - seemingly a "barrister at law" of the "Citty of West Minister" - was charged with high treason. He was hanged, drawn and quartered on Kennington Common in London on 29 June 1685. His head and quarters were displayed on one of London's city gates.

Why? His home, and business premises, had been raided by King James II's troops on 15 June where they found a printing press, along with 750 partially complete copies of the Duke of Monmouth's Declaration, and five which were fully complete. These were all burned before the Royal Exchange, apart from one copy which is shown below (it's from the Lansdowne MSS in the British Museum.)

When Monmouth and his rebels first landed at Lyme Regis on 11 June, his Declaration was publicly read at the market cross, at Taunton on 20 June ("where he suffered himself to be proclaimed king") and probably at numerous other places too during his six week rebellion in south west England. 

Disney had form. Around 1680 he had gone to some lengths to prove that Monmouth, who was the first born son of King Charles II, to Lucy Walter, was in fact legitimate and was therefore the rightful heir to the throne. Disney had been implicated in the failed 1683 "Rye House Plot" to kill King Charles II and his brother James, Duke of York, who became King James II.

The real King?
The Declaration refused to acknowledge that King James II was king at all, referring to him by his prior title of Duke of York and denouncing him as a usurper. 

One of Disney's colleagues in the printing operation was printer John Bringhurst (article here) who managed to escape to the Netherlands. Another was Henry Danvers (Wikipedia here). The project seems to have been masterminded by "W. C." of Paternoster Row, a prolific London printer of the era.

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• Here is an online edition of the published True Account of the Behaviour and Confession of William Disney Esq. Text edition is online here.

• Oxford DNB entry for William Disney is online here.

• The Declaration of James, Duke of Monmouth is online here.

• An analysis of the 1685 Declaration of James, Duke of Monmouth, and how it compares with the 1688 Declaration of William Prince of Orange is online here.

(top image from the English Broadside Ballad Archive)

So who sectarianised Ireland? The cross-community Centenary commemorations of the Siege of Derry, 1788

For some in our part of the world, sectarianism is their identity, and they almost wallow in how they choose to apply it to themselves. It has not always been this way.

“In 1788 and 1789 there were important centenary anniversary commemorations.

In early December 1788 the closing of the gates was remembered by special church services in both the cathedral and a Presbyterian church, followed by a civic procession, a military parade and the burning of Lundy.

It also involved a special dinner, attended by town dignitaries as well as Catholic clergy.

In August 1789 commemoration of the breaking of the boom and the relief of the city included a sizeable procession to the cathedral which involved not only the members of the corporation but the Catholic bishop and his clergy, as well as the Presbyterian clergy and elders.

On both these occasions the siege was commemorated as a great blow against tyranny which brought liberty to people of all Christian denominations…

In the atmosphere of late eighteenth-century Ireland, with the rise of a tolerant Irish patriotism, events of 1688-9 were seen as part of the Glorious Revolution with its constitutional benefits for all, embracing Presbyterians and members of the Church of Ireland, and Protestants and Catholics”.

From The Sieges of Derry, William Kelly (Four Courts Press, 2001)

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Difference doesn't have to lead to division, but it will if we want it to. In the first 15 minutes of this recent podcast, Jimmy Dore talks from a US perspective about how social cultural division is inflamed by power élites for their own ends.

Illustration above from National Library of Ireland.

Pictures of Ireland in 2024

Here is director and film producer Terry McMahon delivering a speech at March for Justice in Dublin back on 18 September, on the suppression and subversion of free speech in the Republic of Ireland - it used to be the Church that did this, now it's secular government, lobbyists, NGOs and global technology giants. It's still the "establishment" that's shutting down speech.

And below is KeyWest's song Dreamstealers, slicing through the illusions of prosperity and growth, showing the vast disconnect between my GenX world and the GenZ of my children. "What's the cost of this so-called progress?". 

 

And for good measure, here's some Oliver Anthony:

Liberty is more important than nationality

So, this is interesting. In the dual Referenda in March 2024, the entire Republic of Ireland 'establishment' campaigned and lobbied the population for  a "Yes" vote. But the people thought otherwise and returned a landslide 67.69% "No" vote. The shockwaves were enormous, so much so that the immediate aftermath the government postponed its proposed, and controversial, "Hate Speech" legislation. 

But, here we are about six months later in October, and with various crises around the world, and a likely election in the next few weeks, guess what? Two days ago, this happens.

Five Bills were considered and passed in the Dáil in under six hours, a process that normally takes weeks. The most contentious was the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill which was amended because of a groundswell of opposition that turned into a backbench revolt, after it had been passed in the Dáil.

The Bill that was passed at speed was amended from the original version, rightly separating "hate crime" from "hate speech", but it has all happened so suddenly that no-one seems to have got into the detail yet. Once the election is over, something closer to the original version will probably be back on the table again.

People - and politicians and political journalists - in Northern Ireland who obsess over the prospect of a "United Ireland" and fill up our heads with identity and nationality as a subject, would be much better to actually scrutinise the substance of the sort of Ireland - and also the sort of UK for that matter - that has developed.

The pathetic Brexit excitement about "blue passports", or chatter about what would the flag be like in a future United Ireland, are exactly the types of cosmetic nonsense that are used to distract populations while the politicians strip their liberty away.

I spoke with an octogenarian, extremely wealthy, Dublin man a few days ago. He likes coming up to Belfast, but openly said to me "in 1921 the unionists were right to go for partition. Who would want to live in the repressive Ireland that I grew up in? I went to London, I went to America".

The Ulster Covenant of 1912 stated that it was right to be concerned that a new Home Rule Ireland would be "subversive of our civil and religious freedom". Whatever the Parliament, in Dublin or London or Belfast, it remains right to prioritise freedom.

The Belfast "Good Friday" Agreement created space for dual nationality. The real issue is liberty, for all people, of all cultures, in all nations.

20 years ago - my Ulster-Scots Agency invitation

20 years ago today I was invited to consider becoming the “post Lord Laird” chair of the Ulster-Scots Agency. A senior NIO official came to the boardroom of my workplace, GCAS, and we talked for nearly two hours.

Many people told me to not take the role. But I did accept it, and did what I could for a four year term, from June 2005 - June 2009, squeezed in around my day job and family and all sorts of "real life" stuff.

I didn't get paid for doing it, the few hundred pounds a month for the role was paid directly to GCAS for the inconvenience. Some people from those years are still friends and I thank them all for working with me, and together we did some positive things. But nowhere near enough.

Ireland is an island of cultural variety. Some are still struggling to accept that.

I will always believe that rooted, authentic, community-led heritage and culture is of critical importance to us all.

Without culture, we’re all just consumers or constituents, pawns in the bigger game of finance and politics. We are all more than what we buy, and how we vote.

Thomas Delacourt of Dorset and the "Bloody Bank" - from collecting the executed in 1685, to imprisoning the executor in 1688

Wareham on the south Dorset coast has an ancient Saxon era earthwork wall that surrounds the town. On its West Walls is a section known as the "Bloody Bank" because it was where, after the "Bloody Assizes" of King James II and Judge George Jeffreys, at least five men were hung drawn and quartered on 22 September 1685. 

"There can have been few villages in Dorset and Somerset, west of a line drawn from Bath to Wareham, which did not contain folk who had seen their friends' flesh displayed in public, or heard of the price paid for a kinsman's living body for toil in the plantations, or for a girl sold to a Court lady for a servant. Jeffreys' chair and a spike on which a rebel's head was set are still preserved at Dorchester in the museum opposite his house: it can hardly have been accident that has distinguished and kept them. Local memories show how deep and intimate was the touch of his work. One man ("Burn-guts") sold furze to the authorities for burning rebel entrails: his horses one by one pined and died. A woman said it did her eyes good to see a very old man called Larke hanged. She lost her sight within a short time.

One man of Wareham, Thomas Delacourt, was present at the final stage in this horrible drama. Quarters of some of the victims were exposed on Bloody Bank at Wareham the place gets its name there from. Delacourt and some friends stole the remains and buried them. 

Delacourt was one of the first to join William of Orange, and went to London in his train: and it fell to him to be made sentry over Jeffreys when the judge, in the year of that more successful Revolution, was cast into the Tower, where he died".

- from The Soul of Dorset by F.J. Harvey Darton (1922)

• At the first show trial of the "Bloody Assizes", held at Dorchester on 27 August, Jeffreys had described the people of the south west of England as "lying, snivelling Presbyterian Rescals". Later generations of Delacourts in Wareham belonged to the United Reformed Church in the town, which tends to be the name given in England for Presbyterian.

• Here is a pic of the Old Meeting House in Church Street (formerly Meeting House Lane) in the town - a datestone on the front of the building says "Founded 1662".

• At Dorchester, Jeffreys condemned 251 people to death

The Boston Sons of Liberty and Paul Revere's "Liberty Bowl" of 1768 - inscribed with Magna Carta, Bill of Rights and John Wilkes No. 45

The original 1768 Paul Revere Bowl is in the collection of the MFA in Boston. And here is yet another example of pre-Revolution America pointing to the ancient liberties of their ancestral British Isles, through Magna Carta and King William III and Queen Mary II's Bill of Rights of 1689.

The Liberty Bowl honoured ninety-two members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives who refused to rescind a letter sent throughout the colonies protesting the Townshend Acts (1767), which taxed tea, paper, glass, and other commodities imported from England. This act of civil disobedience by the "Glorious Ninety-Two" was a major step leading to the American Revolution. The bowl was commissioned by fifteen members of the Sons of Liberty, a secret, revolutionary organization to which Revere belonged; their names are engraved on the bowl as are references to Englishman John Wilkes, whose writing in defence of liberty inspired American patriots

(description from this website)

 

"...cruel and unusual punishments..." Two Bills of Rights - Britain 1689 & America 1789 (Linking the 8th Amendment with the 1685 Monmouth Rebellion)

Last week I was in England, and visited the Museum of Somerset. It is in the superbly restored Taunton Castle, which was one of the locations in 1685 of imprisonment, fast-tracked show trials, and horrific public executions of those suspected of involvement in the Duke of Monmouth's failed rebellion. We had just missed a two hour walking tour of the town, all about the 1685 rebellion. One of the tour guides was keen to point out to us a cauldron from the era, and she speculated that it may even have been one of those which were used to boil quartered human remains. 

A blood-red exhibition about the 1685 Bloody Assizes:

• Queen Mary and John Locke
Also in the Museum of Somerset is an original portrait of the future Queen Mary, and one of Somerset-born political theorist John Locke. Locke is said to have been "a comrade of Monmouth" but had fled to the Netherlands in 1683. The Netherlands made sense as a destination  – Dutch-born Monmouth and Dutchman William Prince of Orange were cousins (they were both grandsons of the late King Charles I), they were war hero compatriots defending the Netherlands from French invasion. Here's an engraving of them together from the Rijksmuseum - captioned as:

“Large representation of the Battle of St. Denis on 14 August 1678. On the left in the foreground Prince William III beside the Duke of Monmouth on horseback with other members of his staff.”

They were in the Netherlands together on 8 February 1685, when news reached them of the death of Monmouth's father, and William's uncle – King Charles I. The French Ambassador at The Hague wrote that:

"the letters from England arrived yesterday ... they brought the sad news of the death of the King of England ... the Duke of Monmouth was also there, then retired to his home, and did not return to the Prince of Orange until ten o'clock in the evening. They remained locked up alone until midnight".

Undoubtedly Monmouth and William were mourning, but also plausibly making plans to try to stop the late King's ambitious brother James' accession to become King James II. Monmouth's summer 1685 rebellion failed and the reprisals were butchery and slavery. During the months of executions which followed 'Bloody Assizes', on 20 November 1685 James suspended or 'prorogued' Parliament and ruled the nation by himself.

William's revolution, which began in November 1688 succeeded. On 13 February 1689, John Locke accompanied William's wife, the future Queen Mary II, from the Netherlands back to her native London, on board this shallop boat. Mary and Locke arrived at Greenwich where she and William were offered the Crown, as joint monarchs, and a draft of a new Bill of Rights for the people which had been prepared by a 'Convention Parliament'. 

Locke's writings shaped the philosophy of the Glorious Revolution of Mary and her husband William Prince of Orange, and then in turn inspired the ideas of the 1776 American Revolution. The wording of the Bill of Rights would also impact the future United States.

So, let's criss-cross the Atlantic...

• From Declaration to Constitution to Bill of Rights
Like the American 1776 Declaration of Independence, the first edition of the United States Constitution was also printed by the Ulsterman John Dunlap. An earlier version, called the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, had been printed by another Ulsterman, Francis Bailey.

In the years that followed, various amendments to the Constitution were proposed, some by County Antrim born William Findley. These were then captured in an additional document, the name of which was another direct reference back to King William III’s and Queen Mary II’s first act of Parliament at their coronation. The new, American, Bill of Rights was ratified in December 1791.

• The Eighth Amendment: "Cruel and Unjust Punishments"
The Eighth Amendment of the American Bill of Rights “has long been treated as an enigma”*. It states:

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

The wording of this has baffled later American writers, not realising that it was directly lifted from King William III and Queen Mary II’s original 1689 Bill of Rights:

That excessive Baile ought not to be required nor excessive Fines imposed nor cruell and unusuall Punishments inflicted.

• England 1685: Over 300 victims of "cruel and unusual punishments"

The Fordham Law Review periodical (Volume 47, issue 5, 1979) made the connection crystal clear: 

 

The phrase itself, "cruel and unusual punishments" first appeared in the English Bill of Rights of 1689 which prohibited such sanctions. Historians generally have perceived the prohibition to be a reaction to the treason trials of 1685 - the "Bloody Assize" caused by the abortive rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth. The penalty for treason involved hanging by the neck, being cut down while still alive, and then being disembowelled, beheaded, and quartered. (I omit some of the more grisly details.) That the methods of punishment employed by the English then and later were cruel and barbarous by today's standards is quite apparent.

The way that the 1688 Revolution era is presented in England is different than Ireland's highly tribalised and sectarianised version. They are less focussed on King James II's Catholicism, and far more on his tyranny. The carnage of 1685 is critical context. 

The 1689 Bill of Rights was directly crafted in response to the extreme brutality of 1685. It was the bloody experience of "absolute monarchy" and tyranny in the British Isles that fuelled the desire for liberty in the 13 British Colonies of America.

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Further Reading:

• The Duke of Monmouth's veteran John Oldmixon wrote up a detailed account of the Monmouth & Prince of Orange collaborations in The Secret History Of Europe : Part II: Treating Of The Following Particulars: Of The Duke Of Monmouth's Reception At The Hague By The States, And The Prince Of Orange, which was published in 1713. It's refreshingly complex in its account - Online here.

• A previous post about the 'Right To Petition' in 1689

• * "A Century in the Making: The Glorious Revolution, the American Revolution, and the Origins of the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment" in William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal Volume 27 (May 2019) online here 

• "Cruel and Unusual Punishments: The Proportionality Rule" in Fordham Law Review Volume 47 (1979) online here

• "Glorious Revolution to American Revolution: The English Origin of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms" by Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in Notre Dame Law Review Volume 95 (2019) online here

• In his 2007 book Our First Revolution, Michael Barone gives a fuller account of the similarities between the two Bill of Rights, listing the Third Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, the Sixth Amendment, as well as the Eighth Amendment, saying:

“as an affirmative statement of individual rights, however limited, the Bill of Rights broke new ground, ground that would be extended in the New World”.

Ballad sheet below from the English Broadside Ballad Archive (online here):

As for the Town of brave Taunton-dean,

their Loyalty shall ne're be forgot,

For our most gracious King and his Queen,

they will engage with thundering shot;

Tiverton, and famous Totness,

noble true Souls came flocking amain,

Stout Lads brisk and airy, for William and Mary,

they'll valiantly fight their rights to maintain.

And another one from the same source, below:

'The Morning of Sedgemoor' (1685) > The Break of Killyleagh (1689)

This painting, of the failed summer 1685 Duke of Monmouth 'Pitchfork Rebellion', is entitled The Morning of Sedgemoor and was painted by Edgar Bundy in 1905. It shows a group of Somerset farmers, to invert a Biblical figure of speech, "forging their ploughshares into swords", preparing to face King James II's army at the Battle of Sedgemoor - often referred to as England's Last Battle - on 6 July 1685.

The leader of the 500 'scythemen' at Sedgmoor was William Thompson, who was described as "an officer and linnen draper of London". Two of the customised scythes that were found after the battle are in the collection of the Royal Armouries.

Monmouth had already begun plans to expand his rebellion into Ireland, at Carrickfergus and also other garrisons in the south, but the disastrous defeat at Sedgemoor ended the rebellion. King James II reigned on, and his brutal "Bloody Assizes" reprisals began. 1400 arrests, about 350 public executions.

Little wonder that when William Prince of Orange arrived at Brixham on 5 November 1688, the Devon population flocked to him - William's diarist recorded that the people said 'If this should fail, we are all undone' They told me about the invasion of Monmouth, when many people were hanged in Plymouth and elsewhere'. They had lived through it before, and saw hundreds of their friends and neighbours chopped up in public. 

The following spring, the men that Henry Hunter would gather around east Down and Killyleagh for his "insurrection" against King James II's army would have been much the same as these Sedgmoor men - armed mostly with modified farm implements. Courageous to the end.

Image: Tate/Digital Image © Tate, London 2014.

PS: Numerically, the opposing forces at the Battle of Sedgemoor, and the Break of Killyleagh, were the same. At each, King James II's army numbered 3000 soldiers. Against them, at Sedgemoor, a civilian militia of 4000 had been assembled. At Killyleagh, the highest reported estimate was 3000-4000 civilians.

"horrified by the secularism of the French Revolution"

"most of the Founders, in contrast to Jefferson, were horrified by the secularism of the French Revolution, and did not see it as the successor to the American one" (go to 1:04:00)

There's an irresistible simplicity in saying that all of the late 1700s revolutions - America, France and Ireland - were in some way inspired by each other. On closer scrutiny that's not quite the case. Video below is a recent conference from the American Enterprise Institute.

 

In 1795, William Drennan wrote:

"...You will be told , that the people in the North of Ireland are deeply infected with what are called French principles ... I do believe them most obstinately attached to the principles of Locke, as put in practice at the (Glorious) revolution... ... the very same principles of Locke were illustrated in the plains of America..."

John Adams and the Glorious Revolution (again), a letter from 1777

 

John Adams, 2nd President of the USA, writing to his son in 1777: “he suggested a comparison of the American Revolution with others that resembled it:

"The whole period of English history, from the accession of James I to the accession of William III will deserve your most critical attention”

Source here

"Walking the Liberty Trail" - the 28 mile 1685 Rebellion route, from Ham Hill to Lyme Regis

The Youngs of Galgorm and Fenaghy - supporting local Ulster-Scots writers

One of the things I discussed in my October 2004 "interview" conversation with a very senior civil servant, ahead of accepting the offer to become Chair of the Ulster-Scots Agency, was the tantalising prospect of an Ulster-Scots Academy which would have some kind of university affiliation(s) and would be tasked to deliver a generation of projects at the very highest level of scholarship. Unsurprisingly it never happened. 20 years of vital work has not been done. But perhaps that was always the real plan...

Regardless of the many failures of 'the system', community volunteers and enthusiasts have reassembled and unearthed a lot of important material. Being immersed in the local historical literature helps to join the dots. Even a rank amateur like me, through enough reading, can find some good stuff.

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John Young (1826-1915) of Galgorm was one of the Mid Antrim representatives at the Ulster Unionist Convention of 1892, along with other many other members of the family. Over 20 years later he was one of six signatories to the Ulster Proclamation of 24 September 1913 (see previous post here).

The Young family were also funders and supporters of Mid Antrim Ulster-Scots poetry:

• The Given Brothers' guarantors and subscribers for their 1900 Poems from College and Country included the Right Hon John Young PC, DL, Galgorm Castle and also his son William Young JP Fenaghy.

• Adam Lynn's 1911 Random Rhymes frae Cullybackey was dedicated to "Mrs Young, Fenaghy House, Cullybackey".

• Agnes Kerr's 1914 Poems from Ahoghill subscribers list included Mrs Wm Young, Galgorm Castle and also Mr G C G Young of Galgorm Castle.

• David Herbison's poetry also includes two addressed to members of the Young family

The Young family had various cultural interests. This recent BBC TV programme highlighted the photography of Mary Alice Young. Rose Maud Young is renowned for her interest in Gaelic language and culture. The 1892 Ulster Unionist Convention which the Youngs took part in is usually only ever talked about these days for its (apparently surprising) use of the Gaelic Irish slogan "Erin Go Bragh", but it was a slogan which was entirely mainstream and was also used by Adam Lynn within his Ulster-Scots poetry.

The Youngs, like their contemporaries the Milligans that I have mentioned here before, were comfortably multi-faceted in their cultural interests. It was an era long before our present-day divisions.

"The Unaccountability Machine" by Dan Davies

Following on from thoughts in this post from back in August, this book was published earlier this year and has been acclaimed by respected reviewers. It's on my "to-read" list.

"A corporation, or a government department isn't a conscious being, but it is an artificial intelligence. It has the capability to take decisions which are completely distinct from the intentions of any of the people who compose it. And under stressful conditions, it can go stark raving mad..."