"Divine protection and prosperous success" - Letter from the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I to King William III : 16 July 1689

As a follow-up to the previous post, here's another brilliant primary source letter to shed more light on the events of 1689 and of how the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I wished "Divine protection and prosperous success" upon the new King William III and Queen Mary II. 

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Copia Litterarum Caesarearum ad Regem Magnae Brittanniae Guilielmum III. 

The Emperor‘s letter to William III, King of Great Britain.

Licensed July 16, 1689

Leopold &c.

The notice which Your Serenity has been pleased by your letter written at the beginning of the month of March last past to give us of the accession of Your Self and Your most Serene Consort to the Royal Throne of Great Britain, is a fresh and plain testimony of the uninterrupted friendship and kindness you have always had for us and our august family: Which friendship, together with the person of Your Serenity and your signal services for the universal good, we having always highly esteemed; we do with so much the greater joy consider within our self and congratulate to your serenity these illustrious additions of Glory which the Divine Providence has bestowed upon you; by how much we are persuaded that from this increase of your power the common cause will receive a greater support and assistance.

Therefore sincerely wishing that this high honour of Your Serenity may be as well for your own glory as for the advantage of your several realms and provinces, and also for the procuring and establishing the tranquility of Christendom; we give you for this message all condign thanks and desire Your Serenity to have this opinion of us, that we design nothing more heartily than by repeated services to manifest our constancy in observing the ancient friendship and amity between us and Your Serenity: and not only exactly to keep and observe those alliances and mutual ties which have long being between Our Self the sacred Roman Empire and the Noble Realm of Great Britain; but we will on our parts most readily and diligently contribute to whatsoever shall be for the common good of the Empire and of Your respective realms.

And this we do the more religiously promise to make good because we are persuaded Your Serenity will treat those of your subjects of our Catholic Religion who are peaceable, faithful and obedient with the same moderation and benignity, which heretofore you used always in the United Provinces of the Netherlands, and whereof lately you assured us by your letters upon your arrival in England, and which then we so earnestly recommended to you.

With these hopes we heartily recommend Your Serenity to the Divine Protection for all prosperous success in your affairs.

Given at Vienna, June 16, 1689.

Printed for Robert Clavel at The Peacock at the West End of St. Pauls. 1689.

(edition shown above is online here)

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• The extract coloured in dark orange above chimes perfectly with the thinking of William's grandfather, William I Prince of Orange in 1572, as cited in this recent post.

William III Prince of Orange, the Liberator of Catholic Europe? - Letter from the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I to King James II: 9 April 1689

Above: the Destruction of Heidelberg by the French under General Melac, 2 March 1689

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The primary sources for the 1688 Revolution shed so much light on the era. Here's a superb one, again from The life of James the Second, King of England, &c., collected out of memoirs writ of his own hand. Vol II, (1816) and is online here. The text is also online here.

The letter was written by Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, in reply to one which had been written almost two months before from King James II, who was then in exile in France. With William III Prince of Orange having landed in England on 5 November 1688, heading a liberation army which the Holy Roman Empire openly supported, James was in full-on panic mode in trying to cling to his throne. James had fled from England to France to the court of his cousin and megalomaniacal mentor Louis XIV of France, and in this letter he tried desperately to repair relationships with former friends. But that ship had long sailed, and Leopold's reply to James's plea was patronising and brimming with sarcasm.

Leopold said that Louis XIV's army was burning palaces, destroying churches, carrying away people into slavery, and doing "horrible things to Catholics" - "our religion suffers no more from any people than the French themselves".

All of which means that William III Prince of Orange, as leader of the multi-national campaign to stop the French superpower, could be regarded as the liberator of Catholic Europe...

NB: The original text is a bit flowery and formal as well as dated, it took me a few goes to decipher it. So, experimenting with modern technology, I ran it through an AI tool to simplify and modernise the language. The dark orange part is unedited. Consider this the NIV – but do refer back to the original King James...

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Vienna, April 9, 1689.

We got your letter from February 6th, sent by your ambassador, the Earl of Carlingford*, who is with us.

You explained how, when the Prince of Orange arrived, not just your soldiers, but also people you trusted, left you. This made you seek safety in France, and now you’re asking for our help to get your kingdoms back.

We were really saddened to hear about your situation. It’s upsetting to see how quickly things can change, especially since we care about you.

If you had listened more to what our Ambassador, Count Kaunitz**, was telling you instead of believing France's lies, things could have been different. France was trying to create problems between you and your people to make it easier for them to disrespect Europe. If you had used your power as arbiter of the Peace of Nijmegen to put an end to their continual breaches of faith and agreements to fix these issues and agreed with us and those who understood the situation, we believe you could have improved how your people feel about our religion, leading to peace in your country and throughout the Roman Empire.

We are leaving it up to you to decide if we can help you. We are currently fighting a war with the Turks and also dealing with a harsh attack from the French, who feel safe because of their alliance with England, even though they promised to act differently.

We want to remind you that the French harm our religion just as much as anyone else. They believe it is okay to join forces with our enemies to hurt our efforts for God’s glory. They have also broken their promises and are unfairly demanding money from towns that surrendered to them.

They broke the agreement signed by the Dauphin*** and not content with that, have plundered them and reduced them at last to ashes or heaps of rubbish.

They have burnt the palaces of princes which the most cruel wars had spared until now, spoiled churches, and (like the most barbarous nations) carried away the people into slavery. They have made a jest of executing such horrible things to Catholics, as the very Turks would have been ashamed of, which has put a necessity upon us to exert our power in our own defence and that of the Roman Empire, no less against them than the Turks themselves.

Because of this, we must use our power to protect ourselves and the Roman Empire, just as much against them as we would against the Turks.We believe you will understand that we are not doing anything wrong by using our power to protect ourselves, especially since past agreements haven’t worked.

We want to join forces with others who share our goals for safety and defense. We pray that God guides us and brings you comfort during tough times, and we send you our warmest and brotherly support.

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* Nicholas Taffe, who was killed at the Battle of the Boyne

** Dominik Andreas I von Kaunitz

*** Louis the Grand Dauphin (son of Louis XIV)

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Below: an engraving of a church in today's Germany being desecrated by Louis XIV's army, entitled "Die Franzosen in der Pfalz" / "The French in the Palatinate", 1689.

Letters from 1688 – citing the Duke of Monmouth again

 Here are two sources on 1688 that I came across in recent reading:

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Hoffmann, Imperial Envoy to the English Court,
to the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I.
October 8, 1688.

The King (James II) is labouring night and day to prepare for this invasion - he holds Council upon Council, in one of them he exposed the great danger which threatens the Crown, it being no question of a Duke of Monmouth coming without troops, money or experience, but of a valiant and prudent prince commanding a brave army, wanting for nothing ... He prayed his Council to give him their advice and co-operation …The sailors are flying and hiding themselves, so as not to be employed against their friends, as they call them, the Dutch …

– from Queen Mary of Modena, Her Life and Letters (1905) Online here

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"His Majesty had been long before advertised, in the life of the late King, by one Monpoulan a companion of their drinking bouts, of the strict correspondence and friendship betwixt the Prince of Orange and that Duke, when he was first in Holland; upon which his late Majesty sayd, It seem'd strange to him how those two should appear so good friends, and agree so well together, that aim'd both to usurp the Crown, but his Majesty did not then see into the Prince of Orange's views in that matter, which apear'd so plainly afterwards; it behoved the King therefore when he heard how the Prince of Orange countenanc'd both the Duke of Monmouth and Argile's preparations at Amsterdam to increase his troops then on foot there being no time to raise new ones, and even that could not be done time enough ...

... the Earle of Sunderland and some others about him, whom he trusted most, used all imaginable arguments to persuade the King it was impossible the Prince of Orange could go through with such an undertaking; and particularly My Ld. Sunderland turn’d any one to ridicule, that did but seem to believe it, and had so great an influence over all those the King most confided in, that not one of them except My Lord Dartmouth seemed to give any credit to the report; and he indeed ever since the Duke of Monmouth's invasion always told the King, that sooner or later he was confident the Prince of Orange would attempt it.

But tho the King was thus lulled asleep by ye treacherous Councel of those that ow'd him better service, nevertheless he was not altogether negligent in preparations at home, and by his Agents abroad, to Sift as much as possible into the bottom of this armeing in Holland 

– from The life of James the Second, King of England, &c., collected out of memoirs writ of his own hand. Vol II, p 177-8 (1816), online here

Pope Innocent XI and William III Prince of Orange - Autumn 1688: Countdown to Revolution

This post is a summary of Gilbert Burnet's chronology of 1688, of the Putin-esque Louis XIV of France's plans for continental domination in tandem with his cousin King James II.

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Gilbert Burnet's autobiography, History of His Own Time Volume II (published posthumously from 1724-34), is a well known primary source for the background to the 1688 Glorious Revolution.

Burnet was an exiled Scot in the Netherlands, and a nephew of Archibald Johnston of Warriston who had co-authored Scotland's National Covenant in 1638. Burnet was present at many of the most significant events in Holland and England, accompanying William III Prince of Orange on his landing at Torbay in Devon on 5 November 1688.  The autobiography is online here - jump to page 700 to where he starts the year of 1687.

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• 1685-1688

The backdrop to the story is that Louis XIV had been one of the parties to an international peace agreement in 1684. It didn't last long.

Some troublesome people believe that the king is not the head of the church, is a mere mortal, and that there is a higher power. Those people are the most immediate threat to an "absolute monarch".

So, in 1685 Louis made the Reformed Faith illegal and turned his own army against his own Huguenot civilian population – hundreds of thousands of Huguenots fled from France, many of them eastwards into the provinces of today's Germany.

That same year, just across the English Channel, his cousin King James II had been crowned in England, and in June 1685 James was faced with two co-ordinated rebellions, both planned in Holland – one among the Scottish Presbyterians (led by the Marquis of Argyll), and another in south west England among the Dissenters/Non-Conformists (led by the Duke of Monmouth). James defeated both of them, and also turned his army upon the rebellious civilians.

Burnet said this:

"... So I went to Paris. And, there being many there whom I had reason to look on as spies, I took a little house, and lived by my self as privately as I could. I continued there till the beginning of August, that I went to Italy. I found the Earl of Mountague at Paris, with whom I conversed much, and got from him most of the secrets of the Court, and of the negotiations he was engaged in. 

The King of France had been for many years weakening the whole Protestant interest there, and was then upon the last resolution of recalling the Edict of Nantes. And, as far as I could judge, the affairs of England gave the last stroke to that matter. 

This year, of which I am now writing, must ever be  remembered, as the most fatal to the Protestant Religion ..."

In September 1685 King James II appointed an 'Ambassador at Rome' - Roger Palmer, Earl of Castlemaine. A figure of ridicule across Europe, Burnet wrote that "The Romans were amazed, when they heard that he was to be the person. His misfortunes were so eminent and publick". Castlemaine had assented to his own wife bearing 5 children to King Charles II - which is how Castlemaine got his Earldom and sinecures. 

Castlemaine openly put a plan to the Pope Innocent XI's Secretary of State, Cardinal Alderano Cibo, that if a reconciliation could be found between the Pope and King Louis XIV, they could all combine forces and launch an attack on Holland.

"... He added, that, if these matters were settled, and if the Pope would enter into concert with them, they would set about the destroying nerely every where, and would begin with the Dutch; upon whom, he said, they would fall without any declaration of war, treating them as a company of rebels and pirates, who had not a right, as free States and Princes have, to a formal denunciation of war. 

Cibo, who was then Cardinal Patron, was amazed at this, and gave notice of it to the Imperial Cardinals. They sent it to the Emperor, and he signified it to the Prince of Orange ..."

Rome was appalled. The information was fed straight to William III Prince of Orange (page 704 here). 

The Papal-Orange Alliance was underway....

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• 29 April 1688

The most powerful 'elector' of Germany, Frederick William, Elector of Brandenbergh, died. He had welcomed refugee French Huguenots to settle on his territories, through his Edict of Potsdam of 29 October 1685 (online here). He was succeeded by his son, Frederick III. His Dutch-born cousin was William III Prince of Orange, who sent his close advisor William Bentinck to offer congratulations to Frederick III - and to outline the emerging plan to take the entire Dutch army, plus whoever else would ally with them, to England, to oust King James II. 

This of course would leave Holland vulnerable, so William wanted backup from various European princes. 

Another of William's cousins with a German title and territory was Sophia the Duchess of Hannover, and discussions with her were undertaken by a Mr. Boucour.

With plans on the continent taking shape, in a letter of 30 June 1688 the Prince of Orange got the green light to come to England. You can see the letter here on the National Archives website.

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• July & August 1688

Burnet gives this overview:

"... The foolish pride of the French Court, which had affronted the Pope, in a point in which, since they allowed him to be the Prince of Rome, he certainly could lay down such rules as he thought fit, did now defeat a design that they had been long driving at, and which could not have miscarried by any other means, than those that they had found out. Such great events may and do often rife from inconsiderable beginnings.

These things furnished the Prince (William III of Orange) with a good blind for covering all his preparations; since here a war in their neighbourhood was unavoidable, and it was necessary to strengthen both their alliances and their troops. 

For it was visible to all the world, that, if the French could have fixed themselves in the territory of Colen (Cologne), the way was opened to enter Holland, or to seize on Flanders, when the King pleased; and he would have the four Electors on the Rhine at mercy. It was necessary to dislodge them, and this could not be done without a war with France.

The Prince got the States to settle a fund for nine thousand seamen to be constantly in their service. And orders were given to put the naval preparations in such a case, that they might be ready to put to sea upon orders. 

Thus things went on in July and August, with so much secrecy and so little suspicion, that neither the Court of England nor the Court of France seemed to be alarmed at them ..."

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• 6 September 1688

King Louis XIV of France flexed his muscles. He wrote The French King's Memorial to the Pope at Versailles, for Cardinal César d'Estrées to bring to the Pope in Rome. It wasn't friendly – Louis denounced the Pope and declared him to be "a prince engaged with my enemies". French original version is online here / the text in both French and English is online here.

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• 24 September 1688

Louis XIV upped the ante even more and published his Memoire Des Raisons Qui Ont Obligé Le Roy à Reprendre les Armes, asserting his intentions to invade various neighbouring countries. It's online here for the fluent French readers / the text in both French and English is online here, entitled The French King's Memorial of the Emperor of Germany.

Within days Louis XIV renewed military hostilities and began the threatened invasion – his army besieged Philippsburg in the Rhineland, today's south west Germany. All bets were off.

The emerging irony was not lost on Gilbert Burnet:

"... to see the King of France, after all his cruelty to the Protestants, now go to make war on the Pope ... The French, by the war that they had now begun, had lent their troops towards Germany and the upper Rhine; and so had rendered their sending an Army over to England impracticable: Nor could they send such a force into the Bishoprick of Colen (Cologne), as could any ways alarm the States. So that the invasion of Germany made the designs that the Prince of Orange was engaged in both practicable and safe ...".

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• 10 October 1688

William's own Declaration was completed and secretly printed - the biggest publicity campaign Europe had ever seen, to accompany the largest army and navy Europe had ever seen. There's loads on this blog about it so I'll not repeat all of that again. In her 2009 book Going Dutch, the late Professor Lisa Jardine CBE said this: 

“... As a piece of writing, William of Orange’s Declaration was a masterly effort in collaborative drafting on the part of the Prince, his English and Dutch advisers at The Hague, and selected members of the English expatriate community there ... specially commissioned printers worked simultaneously at The Hague, Amsterdam and Rotterdam to print the manifesto at speed, in an unprecedented run of sixty thousand copies ...”

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• 18 October 1688

The Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold I (King of Hungary, Croatia, and Bohemia) publishes his response to Louis XIV - The Emperor's Answer to the French King's Manifesto. An English printing is online here.

"... through too greedy a desire, not only of assuring to Himself for perpetuity, what He has got for a time by the Articles of the Truce, but also of Conquering the whole Roman Empire, He thinks Himself not oblig'd by any Pacts or Covenants, but that He may break them at any time at His Pleasure. Whatever it is, the Most Glorious King of France shall not escape the Infamous Mark of a Perfidious Prince that violates His Faith ..."

As Burnet said:

"... the publication of the alliance between France and England by the French Ambassador, made them conclude that England would join with France. They reckoned, they could not stand before such an united force, and that therefore it was necessary to take England out of the hands of a Prince, who was such a firm ally to France ..."

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• 5 November 1688

William III Prince of Orange landed at Torbay in Devon with a vast multi-national and multi-religious liberation army. The image above is from the 1899 colour lithograph Landing of William Prince of Orange at Torbay, and the coat of arms is from the Declaration - with the slogan 'Prot. Religion and Liberty' (please note it doesn't say "Liberties of England", that's a much-repeated error.) Smuggled copies of the Declaration were produced from their places of hiding and were flooded across England to spread the news.

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• 14 November 1687? (Burnet tells this story within his 1688 chapter, so I've kept it here in sequence) 

Henri-Charles de Beaumanoir the Marquis de Lavardin was the French Ambassador to Rome. In an attempt to intimidate Pope Innocent XI into co-operating with Louis XIV, Lavardin organised a military 'show of strength' within the area around the Embassy known as a 'franchise', where he had diplomatic immunity. Burnet explains it like this:

"... France and Rome seemed to be in a state of war. The Count Lavardin was sent Ambassador to Rome. But the Pope refused to receive him, unless he would renounce the pretension to the Franchises. So he entered Rome in a hostile manner, with some troops of horse, tho' not in form of troops: But the force was too great for the Pope. He kept guards about his house, and in the Franchises, and affronted the Pope's authority on all occasions. The Pope bore all silently; but would never admit him to an audience, nor receive any message nor intercession from the Court of France ..."

and also

"... The King of France sent a Gentleman to the Pope with a letter writ in his own hand, desiring him to accept of that resignation, and promising him upon it all reasonable satisfaction: But the Pope would not admit the bearer, nor receive the letter. He said, while the French Ambassador lived at Rome like an enemy, that had invaded it, he would receive nothing from that Court ..."

In December 1688, Lavardin relayed some very bad news to Louis XIV: 

“... If the Pope is concerned at all about the Prince of Orange’s enterprise, it is in the fear that it won’t succeed. . . . [the pope] hopes almost openly that James II will be thrown out of his throne. ... one could not wish William greater success than they do here at Rome ...”

(from a letter quoted in Steven Pincus' essay 'The European Catholic Context of the Revolution of 1688–89 : Gallicanism, Innocent XI, and Catholic Opposition' in Shaping the Stuart World, 1603-1714, The Atlantic Connection, 2006 - online here)

And so on.

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Where you end up with all of this massive, European-wide, contextual story is an era that bears little resemblance to the sectarianised tribalised version that we have grown up with in Ireland. Perhaps it has suited various social entities to present it in that way. Multi-generational social sectarian division is fantastic for repeat business - yet it wasn't always the case (see previous post here).

All of Europe - Protestant and Catholic - were united behind William III Prince of Orange to bring to an end the 'superpower' ambitions of King James II and King Louis XIV. 

In his works on his ancestor Marlborough and also The History of the English Speaking Peoples, none other than Winston Churchill said that 1688 was the first Liberation of Europe.

It looks like he was right.

Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter: Wolfe Tone, William Prince of Orange, and his 1688 'Declaration' in the original Dutch

Theobald Wolfe Tone is of course an icon of the Irish nationalist cause, and lauded for his vision of an inclusive republic, as expressed in these famous words from his Memoirs:

"... To unite the whole people of Ireland: to abolish the memory of all past dissension; and to substitute the common name of Irishmen in place of the denomination of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter—these were my means...".

Our secularised age tends to not understand the precise meaning of this. Tone states that all three are faith denominations. "Protestant" meant Church of Ireland. "Catholic" is of course pretty obvious. "Dissenter" doesn't mean "neither" of those, ie agnostic or irreligious, but rather it refers to Reformed traditions which weren't Anglican, such as Presbyterians.

Sometimes known as the "three strands" of traditional identity in Ireland, these religious denominations also map onto the cultural communities of English, Irish and Scottish, and onto the three languages too. Wolfe Tone gets the credit, but I have been told that it was his fellow 'United Irishman' the Belfast Presbyterian William Drennan who used this expression first. Worth further research.

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William III, Prince of Orange was in that triple "headspace" over 100 years before Tone. In his Declaration of 10 October 1688, authored by Gaspar Fagel, and translated into English by Gilbert Burnet, he included these words:

“…making such Laws as may establish a good Agreement between the Church of England and all Protestant Dissenters; as also, for the covering and securing of all such who would live peaceably under the Government, as becomes good Subjects, from all Persecution upon the account of their Religion, even Papists themselves not excepted…”.

 

Conscious that translations can sometimes lose the meaning of the original language, I found Fagel's original Dutch version - Declaratien van syn Hoogheyt Wilhem Henrik - on the excellent Brill.com website. It was worded as follows –

"... ende van gelijken tot het maken van soodanige Wetten, die bequaem zijn een goede eendragt tusselien de Kerk van Engelant en alle de Protestantse Dissenters te weegh te brengen: als mede tot beschermingh ende geruft- ftellingh van alle die gene, die vreedsamelijk als goede Onderdaenen onder de Regeeringh willen leven, fouder de minste vervolgingh ter oorsake van haer Religie, de Papisten selfs niet uitgesondert; ende tot het besorgen van alle andere saken, welke beide de Huisen des Parliaments sullen geraden vinden voor de Vrede, eer en behoudenis van de Natie ..."

So I put that text into Google Translate, and it gave me back an English translation which was virtually identical to Burnet's of 1688. Feel free to try it.

(image above from Alamy.com)

William's published Declaration of 10 October 1688 was followed a few weeks later by a published Resolution by the States General government of the Netherlands on 28 October (see previous post here), assuring European leaders of William's intentions –

"... His Highness hath declared to their Highness, that he is resolved, with Gods Grace and Favour, to go over into England, not with the least insight or intention to Invade or Subdue that Kingdom, or to remove the King from the Throne, much less to make himself Master thereof, or to invert or prejudice the Lawful Succession, as also not to drive thence, or persecute, the Roman Catholicks, but only and solely to help that Nation in Re-establishing the Laws and Priviledges that have been broken, as also in maintaining their Religion and Liberty..."

The religious toleration stated by these two Dutch documents can be traced back to William III's grandfather.

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William I Prince of Orange was recognised as the Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht in 1572. He had rebelled against the oppression of Spain. A Spanish sympathiser assassinated him in 1583. The late Professor Lisa Jardine CBE, who I posted about a few days ago, wrote this article entitled Liberalism Under Pressure for the BBC website in 2006 –

"... In July 1572, the Protestant leader of the northern Netherlands, William I of Orange - still celebrated today as the father of the Dutch nation - publicly proclaimed the right of all individuals to freedom of thought and worship at a political assembly at Dordrecht.

He vowed "to protect and preserve the country from foreign tyrants and oppressors", and he promised the Dutch people that "the free exercise of religion should be allowed as well to Papists as Protestants, without any molestation or impediment".

When, a month later, Catholic France turned on her own Protestants, and tens of thousands of Calvinist Huguenots were brutally murdered in the St Bartholomew's Day massacre, it was Holland which took in large numbers of the ensuing flood of refugees. It was Holland too which for centuries welcomed the Jews, displaced from all over Europe by Christian persecution ..."

• From this 2006 BBC article about Ayaan Hirsi Ali - online here

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After Sedgemoor - Butchery and horror against the civilian population, by King James II - England 1685, Ireland 1689

The 340th anniversary of the Battle of Sedgemoor in Somerset was last weekend. It was the "last stand" of the rebellion against the new King James II, led by the Duke of Monmouth in June 1685. We visited the excellent After Sedgemoor exhibition at the Museum of Somerset, a few weeks ago. (You can see ITV news coverage of the exhibition and commemorative events here)

It is often described as "the last pitched battle on English soil" - that terminology is historically correct, but it's a merely technical description which misses the emotive big picture narrative.

The Battle of Sedgemoor was the bridgehead for the Glorious Revolution - it was a failure in itself, but the lessons learned, intelligence gathered, popular support, and what its aftermath revealed about James II as an "absolute monarch" were essential elements for the massive liberation of 1688.

After Sedgemoor, King James II's dragoons - under Percy Kirke (see previous post here) - enacted a lawless and ruthless subjugation of the civilian population for 7 weeks through Dorset, Somerset and Devon. Summary "justice" resulted in public executions.

In late August, King James II decided that the indiscriminate slaughter needed a gloss of legal justification, so he sent Lord Chief Justice George Jeffreys and some other judges into the area to hold fast-tracked mass trials known as the 'Bloody Assizes'. Jeffreys infamously said he could smell a Presbyterian 40 miles away.

For the hundreds who were executed in the weeks and months after the battle, being hanged in the town street (maybe from the sign of the local pub in front of your family and neighbours) before being drawn and quartered and your remains boiled and tarred for public display - it made no difference to you whether Percy Kirke had decided to do it himself, or a judge had approved him doing it. 

The Battle of Sedgemoor had ended on 6 July. The dragoons wasted no time. They began rounding people up and butchered 19 in Taunton alone on the 9th July.  And after the judge turned up, after due legal process was observed, another 22 were butchered the same way in September.

The horrors in England were meticulously recorded by many contemporary writers, there are extensive corroborating primary sources for the violent and murderous rampage of James II's troops. 

What of Ireland?

Here is a 1693 source from our side of the water - King James II's huge army had arrived at Kinsale in March 1689, the Siege of Derry began in April, and the events below are from May. The description is horrifically similar to what James's dragoons had done in south west England in 1685:

"The Lord Galmoy was likewise sent with forces to guard the passages between the north of Ireland, and those parts of Munster and Connaught that adjoined to Ulster, to prevent the south and western Protestants from joining, who being a malicious and bloody Papist, first drew blood there, causing two gentlemen who had taken arms for their own defence, under Colonel Sandason, to be hanged on a signpost at Belnahatty, and their heads being cut off, were kicked about the streets by his soldiers, like foot-balls;

at Omagh he took two others upon the same pretence, and caused the son first to hang his father, and carry his head on a pole through the streets, crying, ‘This is the head of a traitor;’ and then the young man himself was hanged. It was also reported, that some of his dragoons meeting with a clergyman's wife, whose husband had fled northward, several of them, one after another, ravished her, and then ripped up her belly, and exposed her with a dead man upon her.

At Tipperary, an English gentleman seeing some dragoons marching towards his house, shut up his doors (it being late in the evening), as if they were gone to bed; but sixteen of them coming thither, and not being quickly admitted, they forced open his doors, calling him traitor for shutting them against the King's forces; and having pillaged all things of value, they then deflowered his daughter and only child before his face; all sixteen lay with her, and three of them (as was affirmed by his family) after she was actually dead. These were the beginnings of the villainies which the Protestants suffered from these execrable wretches."

- from The History of the Kingdom of Ireland by Richard Burton [Nathaniel Crouch] (1693)

Below: a 1684 book by Richard Burton / Nathaniel Crouch

"... James the Second, inherited all the diabolical spirit of his whole house; was a person that no experience could teach wisdom, laws make honest, nor oaths bind; and therefore the whole nation united, as one man, to exclude him, and his detested race, from the crown of these realms for ever ..."

- from 'An Historical Essay on the English Constitution'

by Obadiah Hulme / Holmes (London, 1771)

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"... if you now grow up to be free men in a free land, privileged to think or to pray as your consciences shall direct, you may thank God that you are reaping the harvest which your fathers sowed in blood and suffering when the Stuarts were on the throne ..."

- from Micah Clarke by Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle (1889)

his debut novel, about the Monmouth Rebellion

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Even in Rev John Graham's landmark A history of the siege of Londonderry and defence of Enniskillen, in 1688 and 1689 (first published in 1823) he begins with European liberty, and a notorious reference to the failed Monmouth Rebellion:

"... As Ireland was doomed to be the arena upon which the fate of the liberty of the West of Europe was to be decided, so was it from this Island that James II received the first intelligence of the Prince of Orange's designs against him. The Earl of Tyrconnel obtained the earliest account of the preparations in Holland, by a ship which arrived in the bay of Dublin, and he lost no time in transmitting his report of it to the King.

It was received with the utmost scorn and derision by the English Court; the Secretary ridiculed it in his reply to the Viceroy, who, nevertheless, was observed to lower his tone towards the Protestants, and to talk of his impartiality in such a way as to indicate his desire to secure the confidence and intercession of some of them, in his apprehension of a reverse of fortune.

Chief Justice Nugent, however, echoed the bolder sentiments of the Romish party, in his charge to a Grand Jury, in which he promised the Prince of Orange the fate of the Duke of Monmouth, and declared his conviction that the Protestant rebels of England would, before the expiration of one short month, be seen hanging in all parts of it like bunches of onions..." 

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Viscount Dungannon on the 1688 'Declaration of the Prince of Orange' (1835 account) - The Cuckold, the Pope - and leaking the plan to destroy Holland

Above: an assembly of the States General of the Netherlands in the 1600s. © Rijksmuseum

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Arthur Hill-Trevor, the 3rd Viscount Dungannon (1798-1862) wrote The Life and Times of William the Third, King of England, and Stadtholder of Holland in 1835. It's online here - chapter 12 is about the Declaration of William Henry, Prince of Orange and has a summary of its content. There's some tantalising additional commentary too, on page 276:

"... About the same time was published the resolution of the States General*, containing the reasons that had obliged them to assist his Highness the Prince of Orange, with ships, men, and ammunition, in his intended expedition into England.

The two principal reasons were, —

1st, That the Prince of Orange had been invited to this expedition by the English nobility, gentry, and clergy.

2dly, That the States had just cause to fear, that, in case the King of England became absolute in his own kingdom, he would, in conjunction with the King of France, endeavour to bring their state to confusion, and, if possible, totally subject it.

This fear, according to Dr. Burnet, was founded upon the Earl of Castlemain having pressed the Pope to admit his master to mediate a reconciliation between the courts of Rome and Versailles, assuring his Holiness that when the reconciliation should be effected, the two kings would serve the cause of the church by a destructive war against Holland.

The Pope, who did not at the time approve the plan, informed the Emperor of the matter, by whom it was communicated to the Prince of Orange..."

The Earl of Castlemain was Roger Palmer (1634-1705 - Wikipedia here), and from this account he seems to have disclosed to Pope Innocent XI the masterplan to destroy Holland – by inviting the Pope to join the forthcoming King James II and Louis XIV team. But the Pope wasn't up for it – so he relayed this intelligence to William Prince of Orange, via the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia.

The backdrop is very seedy. Roger Palmer and Barbara Villiers (Wikipedia here) married in 1659, but the very next year she became one of the many mistresses of King Charles II. The King then granted Palmer the titles of Earl of Castlemaine and Baron Limerick - "for her services in the King's bedchamber". She had five, and probably six, children to Charles. There is low life in high places.

Fast forward to the new King James II and in 1686 he made Palmer Ambassador to the Vatican "where he was ridiculed as Europe's most famous cuckold" - and this is how Palmer came to have an audience with the Pope.

The Dr Burnet referred to was of course Gilbert Burnet, a first hand witness of the time...

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* the States General of the Netherlands is the overall governing legislature for its many provinces. The Extract of the States General their Resolution was published on 28 October 1688 and is online here.

"... His Highness hath declared to their Highness, that he is resolved, with Gods Grace and Favour, to go over into England, not with the least insight or intention to Invade or Subdue that Kingdom, or to remove the King from the Throne, much less to make himself Master thereof, or to invert or prejudice the Lawful Succession, as also not to drive thence, or persecute, the Roman Catholicks, but only and solely to help that Nation in Re-establishing the Laws and Priviledges that have been broken, as also in maintaining their Religion and Liberty..."

Professor Lisa Jardine CBE's "Going Dutch" (2009) - How William Prince of Orange's "Declaration" was developed - "a masterly effort in collaborative drafting"

(Image above from 2015 obituary in The Independent)

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"...While the invasion was still in the early planning stages, English aristocrats sympathetic to William's cause, and corresponding regularly with his closest Dutch advisers, Willem Bentinck, Everard Weede, Heer van Dijkvelt and Frederick van Nassau, Count Zuylestein, argued that a widely distributed manifesto was vital for the success of any bid for the English throne: if he wanted to keep England 'in humour', William must 'entertain it by papers'.

They also provided advice and information on the content and distribution of pamphlets, and established connections with local printers and publishers. Jacobite pamphleteers attributed the ready acceptance of regime change to the Prince of Orange's 'debauching' of the English people with his well-judged propaganda publications.

The carefully reasoned case made in the Prince of Orange’s Declaration ‘of the reasons inducing him to appear in armes in the Kingdome of England’ — composed in the greatest secrecy, and then blanket-distributed to all those likely to be affected by the invasion — has shaped the telling of the story of the Glorious Revolution ever since.

As a piece of writing, William of Orange’s Declaration was a masterly effort in collaborative drafting on the part of the Prince, his English and Dutch advisers at The Hague, and selected members of the English expatriate community there.

It originated in a series of discussions discreetly held in England in 1687, between Dijkvelt, who had been sent by William to sound out opinion concerning James II’s policies for the English succession, and a group of English aristocrats. The final text was produced months ahead of the campaign, during the early autumn of 1688, by Gaspar Fagel — a leading political figure in the States of Holland, and William’s chief spokesman in the Dutch government. It was further edited and translated into English by Gilbert Burnet, an expatriate Scottish cleric who had become close confidant and adviser to William and Mary, and who was to play a leading part in orchestrating the acceptance of the new English royal couple.

Specially commissioned printers worked simultaneously at The Hague, Amsterdam and Rotterdam to print the manifesto at speed, in an unprecedented run of sixty thousand copies. To ensure that the invasion and its aftermath went according to plan, enormous care was taken to conceal the contents of the pamphlet even from those sympathetic to William’s cause until immediately before the invasion, with Bentinck keeping all copies under lock and key in his personal lodgings. He subsequently arranged, through his agents, for stocks of copies to be carried to (and concealed in) key locations across England and Scotland, and then authorised their release simultaneously at all these places as the fleet left the Low Countries.

Enormous care was taken to avoid leaking the contents of the manifesto prior to the Prince’s landing. As soon as he heard of its existence, James II’s ambassador at The Hague tried to obtain a copy, entirely without success. On 28 September (new style), James's Secretary of State pressed him:

‘It would be of the greatest importance imaginable to his Majestie to see the Declaration they intend to sett out, as soon as possible, and this I am well assured, that you have us'd your best endeavours to gett it, yet the better to enable you, you are to spare no money, nor stick at any summe, that may procure it.’

It was to no avail. ‘You may imagine I have taken all possible care to come by the Declaration which | hear is on the press,’ the Ambassador responded, ‘but the States printer is not to be corrupted; I have employ’d some to see if any of his servants can be; they are all sworn, and their places so lucrative they will not endanger them.’ Three days later he reported that ‘the manifesto or Declaration can not yet be had at any rate for | have offer’d considerably for it, and you will, I believe, see it there [in England] sooner than we here.”

In fact, William signed and sealed the final, agreed text of the Declaration on 10 October. On 15 October, the English consul at Amsterdam reported that ‘order is come hither from The Hague for the printing of 20,000 copies of the Prince’s manifest’, and that ‘a proportionable number is printing at Rotterdam and at The Hague’, but that he too was unable to obtain a copy. ‘They are to be distributed at the same time that the Fleet putts to sea.’

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Gilbert Burnet's first-hand account of the development of the 'Declaration of William Henry, Prince of Orange' 10 October 1688

Here is an account of how the Declaration of William Henry, Prince of Orange of 1688 - which was a template for the American Declaration of Independence of 1776, came about. John Locke was in the Netherlands at the time, and was probably part of the editorial team. As per the account below, Gilbert Burnet was involved in its production; his uncle Archibald Johnston of Warriston had been one of the two authors of Scotland's National Covenant of 1638 –

"... The declaration that the Prince was to publish came to be considered. A great many draughts were sent from England by different hands. All these were put in the Pensioner Fagel’s hands, who upon that made a long and heavy draught, founded on the grounds of the civil law, and of the law of Nations That was brought to me to be put in English.

I saw he was fond of his own draught: And the prince left that matter wholly to him: Yet I got it to be much shortened, though it was still too long.

It set forth at first a long recital of all the violations of the laws of England, both with relation to religion, to the civil government, and to the administration of justice, which have been all opened in the series of the history. It set forth next all remedies that had been tried in a gentler way, all which had been ineffectual. Petitioning by the greatest persons, and in the privatest manner, was made a crime. Endeavours were used to pack a Parliament, and to pre-engage both the votes of the electors, and the votes of such as upon the election should be returned to sit in Parliament. The writs were to be addressed to unlawful officers, who were disabled by law to execute them: So that no legal Parliament could now be brought together. In conclusion, the reasons of suspecting the Queen's pretended delivery were set forth in general terms.

Upon these grounds the Prince, seeing how little hope was left of succeeding in any other method, and being sensible of the ruin both of the Protestant religion, and of the constitution of England and Ireland, that was imminent, and being earnestly invited by men of all ranks, and in particular by many of the Peers, both Spiritual and Temporal, he resolved, according to the obligation he lay under, both on the Princess's account, and on his own, to go over into England, and to see for proper and effectual remedies for redressing such growing evils, in a Parliament that should be lawfully chosen, and should sit in full freedom, according to the ancient custom and constitution of England, with which he would concur in all things that might tend to the peace and happiness of the Nation.

And he promised in particular, that he would preserve the Church and the established religion, and that he would endeavour to unite all such as divided from the Church to it, by the best means that could be thought on, and that he would suffer such as would live peaceably, to enjoy all due freedom in their consciences, and that he would refer the enquiry into the Queen's delivery to a Parliament, and acquiesce in its decision. This the Prince signed and sealed on the tenth of October. With this the Prince ordered letters to be writ in his name, inviting both the soldiers, seamen, and others to come and join with him, in order to the securing their religion, laws, and liberties..."

• From Bishop Burnet's History of His Own Time: from the restoration of King Charles II, to the conclusion of the Treaty of Peace at Utrecht, Vol II (Online here)

"The Economic Case for Constitutional Change" - Benjamin Franklin sets the London government straight

How out of touch can a government be? It's nothing new. When presented with the economics of finance versus freedom, Franklin could scarcely contain his exasperation -

"... They have no idea that any people can act from any principle but that of interest; and they believe that 3d. in a pound of tea, of which one does not drink perhaps 10lb in a year, is sufficient to overcome all the patriotism of an American"

- Benjamin Franklin, London, June 1773

Franklin knew that real values have no price. If you can be bought, you can be sold.