Monmouth, JAMES, DUKE OF, was born at Rotterdam, 9th April 1649, the son of 'browne, beautiful, bolde, but insipid' Lucy Walters (1630–83), by Charles II., she said, but more likely by Colonel Robert Sidney, to whom and to whose brother Algernon she had lately been mistress. When in 1656 she came with her son to London, she was treated as the king's wife, and by Cromwell was sent to the Tower, and then back to Paris. Charles sought out the boy and committed him to the care of Lord Crofts, who gave him his own name. In 1662, after the Restoration, 'Mr James Crofts' came to England with the queen-dowager, and was handsomely lodged at Hampton Court and Whitehall. In 1663 he was created Duke of Monmouth, and wedded to a rich heiress, Anne, Countess of Buccleuch (1651–1732); in 1670 he succeeded Monk as captain-general of the forces, and in 1673 received the additional title of Duke of Buccleuch. A poor, weak libertine, he yet became the idol of the populace, thanks to his beauty and his affability, to his humanity towards the Covenanters at Bothwell Bridge (1679), to the agitation of the Popish Plot and the Exclusion Bill, and to his two semi-royal progresses in the west and the north of England (1680–82). There were rumours of his legitimacy, the proofs in a certain 'black box;' and Shaftesbury knew well how to pit the 'Protes- tant Duke' against the Popish heir-presumptive to the throne, how to enmesh him in the Rye-house Plot (1683), on whose discovery Monmouth fled, as four years before, to the Low Countries. There he remained until Charles's death, when, in concert with Argyll's Scotch expedition, with eighty-two followers he invaded England. On 11th June 1685 he landed at Lyme-Regis, and issued a manifesto branding James as a murderer and popish usurper, and asserting his own legitimacy and right to the crown. He was received with acclamations at Taunton, where he was himself proclaimed King James II.; and on the early morning of 6th July, after a roundabout march to near Bristol and Bath, he attempted with 2600 foot and 600 horse (peasants mostly and miners), to surprise the king's forces, 2700 strong, which under the Earl of Feversham were encamped on Sedgemoor, near Bridgwater. His men could not cross a broad drain, and were mowed down by the royal artillery, 300 falling on the field, 1000 more in the pursuit. Monmouth himself had fled, but on the 8th was taken, disguised as a shepherd, in a ditch near Ringwood. His bearing before James was dastardly. He wept; he crawled to his feet; he even offered to turn Catholic. No; on 15th July he was bunglingly beheaded upon Tower Hill, and buried in the chapel of St Peter-ad-Vincula. His duchess had borne him six children; but his last thoughts were all with his mistress, Lady Henrietta Wentworth, who died of sorrow nine months after him. In the 'Bloody Assize' that followed the rebellion, Judge Jeffreys hanged 331 rebels, transported 849 to the plantations, and whipped or fined 33 others.
See G. Roberts, Life of Monmouth (2 vols. 1844), with works cited at CHARLES II. and JAMES II.