Virginia and Philadelphia 1775: Standing armies - "the last arguments to which kings resort" - the Monmouth Rebellion, and a visit to Bath

In his renowned "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" speech of 23 March 1775, Patrick Henry (depicted above, by Peter Frederick Rothermel) made this stark observation of the standing army, of around 7,000 men, that was being assembled in the Colonies –

"... warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? 

Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? 

Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging ..."

 

Henry was right. Less than a month later the armed Revolution formally began, at Lexington and Concord on 19 April 1775 - the famous "shot heard around the world". Among the colonists was David Spear who had led a company of 44 "minutemen" from Ulster-Scots areas of western Massachussetts who were present at Lexington that historic day (see previous post here).

A few months later, on 21 August 1775, the newspaper of Strabane-born John Dunlap, entitled Dunlap's Pennsylvania Packet and General Advertiser, reprinted a long letter by an anonymous writer called Caractacus. The choice of classical pseudonym, which was the name of an ancient British hero who resisted the invading Roman Empire, is tantalising – it was also the name of Thomas Jefferson's horse. The letter reminded the reader to "beware of standing armies" and of how King James II had used a relatively small army to crush a far larger number of mobilised civilians during the Monmouth Rebellion back in 1685 – 

"... A standing army in a part of a country which is not the immediate seat of war, is attended with all the inconveniences and dangers of a standing army in the most profound peace. History is dyed in blood when it speaks of the ravages which standing armies have committed upon the liberties of mankind. Officers and soldiers of the best principles and characters, have been converted into instruments of tyranny, by the arts of wicked Ministers and Kings. Cromwell overturned the commonwealth of England with the remains of his army of Saints. Nor is the small size of a standing army any security again the dangers to be apprehended from them. 

King James the Second, at the head of only 2000 mercenaries, defeated the popular Duke of Monmouth at the head of 8000 men, and was led from his success in this battle to trample under his feet the most sacred rights of his country. It is true the same mercenaries afterwards threw down their arms, and refused to oppose the landing of King William – but ... in a word – had I the wings, and tongue of an Angel, I would fly from one end of the Continent to the other at the present juncture, and proclaim constantly in the ears of my countrymen – BEWARE OF STANDING ARMIES..."

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King James II's brutal use of the army against civilians had - theoretically - been dealt with after his ousting in the new 1689 Bill of Rights – which stated "Standing Army: By raising and keeping a Standing Army within this Kingdome in time of Peace without Consent of Parlyament and Quartering Soldiers contrary to Law." 

King James II's standing army had carried out his monarchical, maniacal, orders. I was back in Somerset a few weeks ago, we drove through Corston and stopped to photograph the 1685 Hanging Tree location. In Bath city centre I visited the open pedestrianised piazza-like space called Saw Close, which was where the Monmouth Rebellion public executions had taken place in November 1685.

Saw Close was the location of the old city timber yard, so maybe the easy availability of both wood and sharp tools made it a logical location for a round of public hanging, drawing and quartering - following exactly the grisly instructions which had been relayed to the Sheriff of Somerset. Six men were hanged almost to death, then cut down, and slowly chopped to pieces before a crowd of onlookers. Their names are here, on historian Steve Carter's excellent website.

Some signage in Bath recalls Monmouth and his ill-conceived attempt to overthrow the tyranny of James. It's no surprise that the American colonists saw the potential for the bloody 1685 that their grandparents' generation endured to be repeated upon them in America in 1775.