April 11: A Decollation, A Burning, and A Coronation

On April 11, 1554, Thomas Wyatt the Younger was executed on Tower Hill for leading his eponymous rebellion against Mary I. I have to post on this event for three reasons: using the words "eponymous" and "decollation" and using this great profile portrait.

The Wyatt Rebellion, as this site notes, failed completely:

The plan itself involved too many ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ if it was to succeed. The noble conspirators planned to remove Mary, instate Elizabeth as Queen and arrange for her to marry Edward Courtenay – a man Mary had already rejected as a husband. [It sounds like the Gunpowder Plot!]

The plan was for three rebellions to take place in separate parts of the country. They would occur at the same time – in the Midlands, the West Country and Kent. The plan was that the government would not know which one to put down first and each would blossom as a result of their localised success and attract more and more supporters among the common people.

The French Navy would blockade the English Channel with eighty ships so that the Habsburgs would not be able to help Mary.

The plan failed miserably. The Imperial Ambassador, Simon Renard, had heard rumours that such a plot existed and informed the Lord Chancellor, Stephen Gardner [sic], of his concerns. Gardner brought in Courtenay for questioning as Renard had mentioned his name. The records stated that Gardner’s questioning was ‘robust’ and Courtenay was not a man who could stand up to this. Edward Courtenay told Gardner all that he knew about the plot so that the government knew about the plot even before it had begun – even if Courtenay would not have known about the details.

The ‘uprisings’ in the Midlands and the West Country were a failure as few of the people there gave Carew and the Duke of Suffolk the support they needed for success. It seems that though there was concern about Mary marrying a foreigner, loyalty to the Queen took precedence. Those in the Midlands did not want to commit treason (Suffolk raised a force of just 140 men) while many in the West were Catholic. . . .

Only two of the leaders were executed for their treason – Wyatt and the Duke of Suffolk. Other minor nobles were also executed but some – guilty of treason – were spared. In total about 90 rebels were executed but many of the common people who had joined Wyatt and survived were spared. Two other casualties were Lady Jane Grey and her husband Guildford Dudley. Both had been in prison since the failed attempt to put Lady Jane on the throne and had nothing to do with Wyatt’s rebellion. However Mary felt that she could no longer risk anyone rallying to Lady Jane’s cause – hence her execution – especially as her father, the Duke of Suffolk, had been involved in this plot and had been executed for treason.

I find it interesting that the website does not mention that Queen Mary had rallied her people to defend her and their city. Even John Foxe, who had no reason to present Mary in a good light, recounted her bravery, her devotion, and her resolve in her speech at Guildhall:

I am your Queen, to whom at my coronation, when I was wedded to the realm and laws of the same (the spousal ring whereof I have on my finger, which never hitherto was, not hereafter shall be, left off), you promised your allegiance and obedience to me…. And I say to you, on the word of a Prince, I cannot tell how naturally the mother loveth the child, for I was never the mother of any; but certainly, if a Prince and Governor may as naturally and earnestly love her subjects as the mother doth love the child, then assure yourselves that I, being your lady and mistress, do as earnestly and tenderly love and favour you. And I, thus loving you, cannot but think that ye as heartily and faithfully love me; and then I doubt not but we shall give these rebels a short and speedy overthrow.

Some details about Wyatt's execution for treason; although he was beheaded and therefore did not endure the full agony of being hanged, drawn, and quartered, his remains were eviscerated and quartered as a the body of a traitor would be:

After he was beheaded, his body was subjected to all the barbarities that formed part of punishment for treason. Next day his head was hung to a gallows on ‘Hay Hill beside Hyde Park,’ and subsequently his limbs were distributed among gibbets in various quarters of the town (Machyn, Diary, p. 60). His head was stolen on 17 April.

On April 11, 1612 the last execution for heresy took place in England, during the reign of James I. Edward Wightman was actually burned at the stake twice:

Wightman seems to have denied the doctrine of the Trinity, denied that Jesus Christ was God, denied the Resurrection and the legitimacy of Holy Communion and maintained that he himself was both the Holy Spirit and, though not himself divine, the Messiah appointed by God as the saviour of the world. From a modern perspective it seems clear that he had gone completely insane.

Wightman was eventually put on trial in the diocesan court in Lichfield, which in December pronounced him guilty of blasphemy and of promoting the heresies of figures ranging from Simon Magus to the Arians, the Manicheans and the Anabaptists. He was sent to the stake in the square in Lichfield in March 1612. When the flames began to scorch him he cried out in pain and it was thought he wanted to recant. Some of the crowd of spectators rushed to rescue him, though getting burned themselves. He was taken back to prison to recover, but when he was brought before the court again he refused to sign a formal recantation and on Easter Saturday in April he was sent back to the stake and was this time burned to death.

Finally, on April 11, 1689, William of Orange and Mary his wife and the daughter of the overthrown and deposed James II were crowned together in Westminster Abbey. A few notes from this blog, which indicate that we don't have all the details about the regalia used at this double coronation:

As we know, Mary and William were crowned as joint-monarchs in a ceremony at Westminster Abbey on 11 April 1689. An interesting note, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who typically presides over the coronation, refused to do so because he continued to support James II. So for this coronation, the bishop of London crowned the new queen and king (things like this happened several times in the Middle Ages, but there would often be a second coronation done with the AB of Canterbury for sake of continuity and because of fears over the illegitimacy of the ceremony).  . . 

King Edward’s Chair (or St. Edward’s Chair or the Coronation Chair) has been used for the coronation of English (and British later on) since Edward II, with the exceptions of Edward V and Edward VIII, both of whom were not crowned. Oddly enough, Mary II was not crowned in the chair as well. A second chair was constructed before the coronation for Mary to sit in. . . .

For the coronation of Mary and William there is no mention of the use of St. Edward’s Crown. Instead, some of the sources state that they wore their pair of imperial state crowns. A second crown, then, was either used from a previous queen (perhaps the consort of James II?) or a new crown imperial state crown was made for one or both of the new monarchs. 

Limited Toleration in England, 1689

The Act of Toleration, after being passed in Parliament, was approved on May 24, 1689 by William and Mary (1 Will & Mary c 18). The long title of the Act reveals its limited scope: An Act for Exempting their Majesties Protestant Subjects dissenting from the Church of England from the Penalties of Certain Laws (modern spelling). It was limited to allowing some freedom of worship to some dissenters. Catholics and Unitarians were excluded from the Act of Toleration.

The Protestants who dissented from the Church of England (Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, etc.) were not "granted" freedom of religion and the Church of England remained the established church--its members had all the privileges of citizenship. England would certainly be protected from the dangers of Catholicism, as this paragraph emphasizes:

Be it enacted by the King's and Queen's most excellent majesties, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons, in this present Parliament assembled and by the authority of the same, That neither the statute made in the three and twentieth year of the reign of the late Queen Elizabeth, entitled, An act to retain the Queen's majesty's subjects in their due obedience; nor the statute made in the twenty ninth year of the said Queen, entitled, An act for the more speedy and due execution of certain branches of the statute made in the three and twentieth year of the Queen's majesty's reign viz. the aforesaid act; nor that branch or clause of a statute made in the first year of the reign of the said Queen, entitled, An act for the uniformity of common prayer and service in the church, and administration of the sacraments; whereby all persons, having no lawful or reasonable excuse to be absent, are required to resort to their parish church or chapel, or some usual place where the common prayer shall be used, upon pain or punishment by the censures of the church, and also upon pain that every person so offending shall forfeit for every such offence twelve pence; nor the statute made in the third year of the reign of the late King James the First, entitled, An act for the better discovering and repressing popish recusants; nor that other statute made in the same year, entitled, An act to prevent and avoid dangers which may grow by popish recusants; nor any other law or statute of this realm made against papists or popish recusants, except the statute made in the five and twentieth year of King Charles the Second, entitled, An act for preventing dangers which may happen from popish recusants; and except also the statute made in the thirtieth year of the said King Charles the Second, entitled, An act for the more effectual preserving the King's person and government, by disabling papists from sitting in either house of parliament; shall be construed to extend to any person or persons dissenting from the Church of England, that shall take the oaths mentioned in a statute made this present Parliament, entitled, An act for removing and preventing all questions and disputes concerning the assembling and sitting of this present Parliament; and shall make and subscribe the declaration mentioned in a statute made in the thirtieth year of the reign of King Charles the Second, entitled, An act to prevent papists from sitting in either house of Parliament; which oaths and declaration the justices of peace at the general sessions of the peace, to be held for the county or place where such person shall live, are hereby required to tender and administer to such persons as shall offer themselves to take, make, and subscribe the same, and thereof to keep a register: and likewise none of the persons aforesaid shall give or pay, as any fee or reward, to any officer or officers belonging to the court aforesaid, above the sum of six pence, nor that more than once, for his of their entry of his taking the said oaths, and making and subscribing the said declaration; nor above the further sum of six pence for any certificate of the same, to be made out and signed by the officer or officers of the said court.

If that wasn't clear enough, article XIV reiterated:

Provided always and bee it further enacted by the authorities aforesaid That neither this Act nor any Clause Article or Thing herein contained shall extend or be construed to extend to give any ease benefit or advantage to any Papist or Popish Recusant whatsoever or any person that shall deny in his Preaching or Writing the Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity as it is declared in the aforesaid Articles of Religion.

This book explores the progress of religious toleration through the seventeenth century in England:

The seventeenth century is traditionally regarded as a period of expanding and extended liberalism, when superstition and received truth were overthrown. The book questions how far England moved towards becoming a liberal society at that time and whether or not the end of the century crowned a period of progress, or if one set of intolerant orthodoxies had simply been replaced by another.

The book examines what toleration means now and meant then, explaining why some early modern thinkers supported persecution and how a growing number came to advocate toleration. Introduced with a survey of concepts and theory, the book then studies the practice of toleration at the time of Elizabeth I and the Stuarts, the Puritan Revolution and the Restoration. The seventeenth century emerges as a turning point after which, for the first time, a good Christian society also had to be a tolerant one.

Persecution and Toleration is a critical addition to the study of early modern Britain and to religious and political history.

But the difficulty for such an argument is that Catholics and Quakers were so completely shut out of the progress for toleration--except for under James II's Declaration of Toleration (1687 and 1688) which opened England up to freedom of religion:

We do likewise declare, that it is our royal will and pleasure, that from henceforth the execution of all and all manner of penal laws in matters ecclesiastical, for not coming to church, or not receiving the Sacrament, or for any other nonconformity to the religion established, or for or by reason of the exercise of religion in any manner whatsoever, be immediately suspended; and the further execution of the said penal laws and every of them is hereby suspended.

And to the end that by the liberty hereby granted, the peace and security of our government in the practice thereof may not be endangered, we have thought fit, and do hereby straightly charge and command all our loving subjects, that as we do freely give them leave to meet and serve God after their own way and manner, be it in private houses or in places purposely hired or built for that use, so that they take especial care, that nothing be preached or taught amongst them which may any ways tend to alienate the hearts of our people from us or our government; and that their meetings and assemblies be peaceably, openly, and publicly held, and all persons freely admitted to them; and that they do signify and make known to some one or more of the next justices of the peace what place or places they set apart for those uses.

And that all our subjects may enjoy such their religious assemblies with greater assurance and protection, we have thought it requisite, and do hereby command, that no disturbance of any kind be made or given unto them, under pain of our displeasure, and to be further proceeded against with the uttermost severity. (from the 1687 version)

And yet, John Coffey gives only ten (10) pages to considering James II and Toleration in his book (according to the Table of Contents)!

Treason in 1688

From Crisis Magazine, K.V. Turley writes about "The Last Catholic King of Ireland":

The King’s brother, the Duke of York, was now King James II of England and of Ireland, and James VII of Scotland. This passing of throne from one brother to another was not met with universal rejoicing, however, for James was Catholic. And one who had come to the Faith in adulthood through a path of reason and, of course, grace—a path that was as unpopular as it was to prove dangerous for him. But that was not the whole story. Whereas Charles had placated the oligarchy that since his return from exile had effectively ruled, James was made of different stuff. His was a character as straight as his brother’s had been strategic, it was this that was to be his undoing. As he ascended the throne, it is fair to say that traitors encircled him, a virtual vipers nest, who were ready to sell him to the highest bidder. Conveniently, and to that end, they did not have far to look.

Across the sea in Holland lived one of the oddest pairs ever to sit upon any throne in Europe: their names, William, Prince of Orange, and his spouse, the daughter of James, Mary. A strange woman who cried bitter tears on her wedding day, her husband’s manner and reputation were odder still. It was towards these that the whole treacherous cabal now crept. At the time its members were in the employ of James, no doubt with endless assertions of loyalty, whilst all the while searching for an opportunity to betray him. Despite protestations of fears about religion, this circle was really only ever interested in one thing: its own ambitions. It didn't take long before it found the basis on which to rally the mob and produce the coup d’état it longed for, ironically, wrapped in the guise of “Religious Liberty.”

Turley also describes James's conversion in exile after the failure of the Battle of Boyne:

By 1690, his libertine youth long since behind him, he turned inward. Soon after, in November of that same year, he was to be seen making pilgrimage to the Cistercian monastery of La Trappe, one of the most austere of all religious houses. There he sought out a hermit—a former soldier and man of the world who had shunned all for a life of solitude and silence in a forest near the monastery. The conversation that passed between the two left an indelible mark. When asked if there was anything the man missed of the world the reply was as blunt as it was thought provoking. And, needless to say, it was the king who left their brief exchange the more thoughtful. Later this was to be compounded by his stay at the monastery where the first chant he heard intoned was Psalm 118, its words of lament for this changing world and all its woes struck a chord for the Royal who sat listening. When he left the monks some days later, to those around him he was a changed man; one determined to live his Catholic faith in as heroic a fashion as he had observed in the cloisters of La Trappe.

Thereafter, this desire for sanctity was now to be lived out in the world as his prayer and reception of the Sacraments intensified. In addition, he took to the mortification of the flesh with a zeal (and an iron chain) that raised ironic smiles among the more worldly courtiers of Versailles, for this deposed King had become a penitent. Suddenly all his life, both the intensely personal vices he had struggled with since youth through to the very public calamity sealed at the Boyne, appeared to at last make sense. And as it did so, he understood that the loss of his realm was mysteriously the Will of God and with this knowledge, he resolved to spend what time was left him in prayer and penance.

Read the rest there.

Limited Religious Tolerance in 1689

The Act of Toleration, after being passed in Parliament, was approved on May 24, 1689 by William and Mary (1 Will & Mary c 18). The long title of the Act reveals its limited scope: An Act for Exempting their Majesties Protestant Subjects dissenting from the Church of England from the Penalties of Certain Laws (modern spelling). It was limited to allowing some freedom of worship to some dissenters. Catholics and Unitarians were excluded from the Act of Toleration.

The Protestants who dissented from the Church of England (Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, etc.) were not "granted" freedom of religion and the Church of England remained the established church--its members had all the privileges of citizenship. England would certainly be protected from the dangers of Catholicism, as this paragraph emphasizes:

Be it enacted by the King's and Queen's most excellent majesties, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons, in this present Parliament assembled and by the authority of the same, That neither the statute made in the three and twentieth year of the reign of the late Queen Elizabeth, intituled, An act to retain the Queen's majesty's subjects in their due obedience; nor the statute made in the twenty ninth year of the said Queen, intituled, An act for the more speedy and due execution of certain branches of the statute made in the three and twentieth year of the Queen's majesty's reign viz. the aforesaid act; nor that branch or clause of a statute made in the first year of the reign of the said Queen, intituled, An act for the uniformity of common prayer and service in the church, and administration of the sacraments; whereby all persons, having no lawful or reasonable excuse to be absent, are required to resort to their parish church or chapel, or some usual place where the common prayer shall be used, upon pain or punishment by the censures of the church, and also upon pain that every person so offending shall forfeit for every such offence twelve pence; nor the statute made in the third year of the reign of the late King James the First, intituled, An act for the better discovering and repressing popish recusants; nor that other statute made in the same year, intituled, An act to prevent and avoid dangers which may grow by popish recusants; nor any other law or statute of this realm made against papists or popish recusants, except the statute made in the five and twentieth year of King Charles the Second, intituled, An act for preventing dangers which may happen from popish recusants; and except also the statute made in the thirtieth year of the said King Charles the Second, intituled, An act for the more effectual preserving the King's person and government, by disabling papists from sitting in either house of parliament; shall be construed to extend to any person or persons dissenting from the Church of England, that shall take the oaths mentioned in a statute made this present Parliament, intituled, An act for removing and preventing all questions and disputes concerning the assembling and sitting of this present Parliament; and shall make and subscribe the declaration mentioned in a statute made in the thirtieth year of the reign of King Charles the Second, intituled, An act to prevent papists from sitting in either house of Parliament; which oaths and declaration the justices of peace at the general sessions of the peace, to be held for the county or place where such person shall live, are hereby required to tender and administer to such persons as shall offer themselves to take, make, and subscribe the same, and thereof to keep a register: and likewise none of the persons aforesaid shall give or pay, as any fee or reward, to any officer or officers belonging to the court aforesaid, above the sum of six pence, nor that more than once, for his of their entry of his taking the said oaths, and making and subscribing the said declaration; nor above the further sum of six pence for any certificate of the same, to be made out and signed by the officer or officers of the said court.

Well, a Catholic take the oath required, but then he wouldn't really be a Catholic anymore, would he, because he'd have to deny the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and the authority of the Pope!

It's interesting to note that this Act of Toleration, and the "Ecclesiastical Enactments" of the Tudor English Reformation(s) were all repealed by the Statute Law (Repeals) Act of 1969. In fact, much of the legislation of the English Reformation was repealed by that Act: Henry VIII's, Edward VI's, and Elizabeth I's. For example, here are Henry's Acts undone:

 



July 12: Martyrs, A Wedding, and Battles in Ireland

July 12 offers three themes for this blog:

Martyrs:

The Franciscans honor their martyrs during the English Reformation: St. John Jones and St. John Wall, and Blesseds Arthur Bell, John Woodcock, and Charles Meehan-Mahoney--their Franciscan memorial date determined by St. John Jones' date of execution in 1598. (And although his memorial is on May 22, I can't leave out Blessed John Forest from this honor roll). Just like the Benedictines yesterday, the Franciscans have martyrs from all three eras: Supremacy, Recusant, and Popish Plot.

A Wedding:

On July 12, 1543, Henry VIII married for the sixth and last time--and his bride was Catherine Parr. This was her third of four marriages, as she married Thomas Seymour after Henry's death in 1547. She had previously been married to Edward Borough and John Neville, Lord Latimer. While married to John Neville she was held hostage in Yorkshire during the Pilgrimage of Grace. His death left her a wealthy widow. Henry VIII noticed her in the household of his daughter Mary. Although she was interested in wedding Thomas Seymour, she thought it prudent to accept the king's proposal!

Battles in Ireland:

While the dates have been under contention, because of the rivalry between the Julian and the Gregorian calendars in the Protestant and Catholic countries of Europe, the Orange Army in on the march today with their annual parades, celebrating the Battle of the Boyne and the Battle at Aughrim and the defeat of James II by William (of William and Mary).

After these decisive victories in Ireland, and the Jacobite surrender of the seige of Limerick, more punitive Penal Laws were passed against Irish Catholics, including, but limited to:

~Exclusion of Catholics from most public offices (since 1607)
~Ban on intermarriage with Protestants; repealed 1778
~Catholics barred from holding firearms or serving in the armed forces (rescinded by Militia Act of 1793)
~Exclusion from the legal professions and the judiciary; repealed (respectively) 1793 and 1829.
~Education Act 1695 – ban on foreign education; repealed 1782.
~Bar to Catholics entering Trinity College Dublin; repealed 1793.
~On a death by a Catholic, his legatee could benefit by conversion to the Church of Ireland;
~Popery Act – Catholic inheritances of land were to be equally subdivided between all an owner's sons with the exception that if the eldest son and heir converted to Protestantism that he would become the one and only tenant of estate and portions for other children not to exceed one third of the estate. This "Gavelkind" system had previously been abolished by 1600.
~Ban on converting from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism on pain of Praemunire: forfeiting all property estates and legacy to the monarch of the time and remaining in prison at the monarch's pleasure. In addition, forfeiting the monarch's protection. No injury however atrocious could have any action brought against it or any reparation for such.
~Ban on Catholics buying land under a lease of more than 31 years; repealed 1778.
~Ban on custody of orphans being granted to Catholics on pain of 500 pounds that was to be donated to the Blue Coat hospital in Dublin.
~Ban on Catholics inheriting Protestant land
~Prohibition on Catholics owning a horse valued at over £5 (in order to keep horses suitable for military activity out of the majority's hands)
~Roman Catholic lay priests had to register to preach under the Registration Act 1704, but seminary priests and Bishops were not able to do so until 1778
~When allowed, new Catholic churches were to be built from wood, not stone, and away from main roads. [Easier to burn down?]
~'No person of the popish religion shall publicly or in private houses teach school, or instruct youth in learning within this realm' upon pain of twenty pounds fine and three months in prison for every such offence. Repealed in 1782.
~Any and all rewards not paid by the crown for alerting authorities of offences to be levied upon the Catholic populace within parish and county.

The Non-Juror Schism in the Church of England

On April 21, 1689 (new style) William and Mary of Orange were crowned King and Queen of England at Westminster Abbey. William Sancroft, the Archbishop of Canterbury, refused to participate and so the Bishop of London, Henry Compton, presided. Note that Compton was one of the Immortal Seven who invited William of Orange to invade England. William was ready, having already begun to assemble an army.

When William of Orange and Mary (James II’s eldest daughter) replaced James II on the throne of England, their accession provoked the non-juror crisis in the Church of England. It became schism when the non-juring bishops ordained another bishop. They are called non-jurors because they refused the swear oaths of loyalty to the new monarchs. William and Mary had been invited to England to forestall James II’s efforts promoting tolerance and Catholicism. William and his invading army landed on November 5, 1688, a propitious date to James' enemies since it commemorated the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot discovery, 100 years after the failure of Spanish Armada, another religiously-driven invasion. The non-juring bishops had not thought of William actually becoming king, but Parliament deposed James II, declaring that his flight from England was an abdication; the revolutionary settlement of 1688, summed up in the term “The Glorious Revolution” placed William and Mary on the throne.

Ironically, five of the seven non-jurors had clashed with James in 1688 when they refused to read his Declaration of Tolerance from their pulpits. The king had them arrested and charged with seditious libel; when they were acquitted it was a great blow to his plans for religious tolerance in England.

In 1689, these non-jurors could not reconcile taking a new oath to William and Mary while still being bound by their oath to James II. Refusing to take the oath meant they were removed from their sees—a real blow to the High Church movement in the Church of England—leaving the way clear for more latitudinarian Low/Broad Church bishops to take their places.

The non-juring bishops were (the first five were James’ opponents in 1688):
--William Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury
--Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells (great hymnist)
--John Lake, Bishop of Chichester
--Francis Turner, Bishop of Ely
--Thomas White, Bishop of Peterborough
--Thomas Cartwright, Bishop of Chester
--Robert Frampton, Bishop of Gloucester
--William Lloyd, Bishop of Norwich
--William Thomas, Bishop of Worcester

Some 400 other Anglican clergy joined them. Although the non-jurors supported the goal of restoring James II and his heirs, they were usually not active in supporting the Jacobite invasions of the Pretenders.

Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, (pictured above) attended Charles II’s deathbed, leaving the room briefly at the urging of James, then Duke of York. Father John Huddleston received Charles into the Catholic Church and gave him Holy Communion. When the Bishop returned, he began to offer the Anglican sacraments to the king, and Charles refused. Ken is most famous as a writer of hymns, especially the chorus, “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow.”

The accession of the first Hanoverian king, George I would provoke another set of non-jurors in 1714. The death of Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) aka King Charles III in 1788 effectively ended the non-juror schism as the bishops and priests who succeeded the first non-jurors swore allegiance to King George III rather than to Henry Benedict Stuart, a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Massacre of Glencoe--February 13, 1692

The massacre of the MacDonald clan by the Campbell clan, and the subsequent horror of women and children freezing to death in the west highland glen was the scandal of William and Mary's reign--what did William III know and when? Finally it was determined that he did not know the intent of the Earl of Argyll's foray into Glencoe, and an underling received the blame.

According to this site:

The massacre commenced about five o'clock in the morning at three different places at once. Glenlyon, with a barbarity which fortunately for society has few parallels, undertook to butcher his own hospitable landlord and the other inhabitants of Inverriggen, where he and a party of his men were quartered, and despatched Lieutenant Lindsay with another party of soldiers to Glencoe's house to cut off the unsuspecting chief. Under the pretence of a friendly visit, he and his party obtained admission into the house. Glencoe was in bed, and while in the act of rising to receive his cruel visitors, was basely shot at by two of the soldiers, and fell lifeless into the arms of his wife. The lady in the extremity of her anguish leaped out of bed and put on her clothes, but the ruffians stripped her naked, pulled the rings off her fingers with their teeth, and treated her so cruelly that she died the following day. The party also killed two men whom they found in the house, and wounded a third named Duncan Don, who came occasionally to Glencoe with letters from Braemar.

While the butchery was going on in Glencoe's house, Glenlyon was busily doing his bloody work at Inverriggen, where his own host was shot by his order. Here the party seized nine men, whom they first bound hand and foot, after which they shot them one by one. Glenlyon was desirous of saving the life of a young man about twenty years of age, but one Captain Drummond shot him dead. The same officer, impelled by a thirst for blood, ran his dagger through the body of a boy who has grasped Campbell by the legs and was supplicating for mercy.

A third party under the command of one Sergeant Barker, which was quartered in the village of Auchnaion, fired upon a body of nine men whom they observed in a house in the village sitting before a fire. Among these was the laird of Auchintriaten, who was killed on the spot, along with four more of the party. This gentleman had at the time a protection in his pocket from Colonel Hill, which he had received three months before. The remainder of the party in the house, two or three of whom were wounded, escaped by the back of the house, with the exception of a brother of Auchintriaten, who having been seized by Barker, requested him as a favour not to despatch him in the house but to kill him without. The sergeant consented, on account of having shared his generous hospitality; but when brought out he threw his plaid, which he had kept loose, over the faces of the soldiers who were appointed to shoot him, and thus escaped.
and then:

After the destruction of the houses, a heart-rending scene ensued. Ejected from their dwellings by the devouring element, aged matrons, women with child, and mothers, with infants at their breasts and followed by children on foot, clinging to them with all the solicitude and anxiety of helplessness, were to be seen wending their way, almost in a state of nudity, towards the mountains in a quest of some friendly hovel, beneath whose roof they might seek shelter from the pitiless tempest and deplore their unhappy fate. But as there were no houses within the distance of several miles, and as these could only be reached by crossing mountains deeply covered with snow, a great number of these unhappy human beings, overcome by fatigue , cold, and hunger, dropt down and perished miserably among the snow.

Jim MacLean's ballad depicts the horror of the attack:

They came in a blizzard, we offered them heat
A roof for their heads, dry shoes for their feet
We wined them and dined them, they ate of our meat
And they slept in the house of MacDonald.

Chorus: O, cruel was the snow that sweeps Glencoe
And covers the grave o'Donald
O, cruel was the foe that raped Glencoe
And murdered the house of MacDonald.

They came from Fort William with murder in mind
The Campbell had orders King William had signed
"Put all to the sword" these words underlined"
And leave none alive called MacDonald".

Chorus: O, cruel was the snow that sweeps Glencoe
And covers the grave o'Donald
O, cruel was the foe that raped Glencoe
And murdered the house of MacDonald.

They came in the night when the men were asleep
This band of Argyles, through snow soft and deep
Like murdering foxes amongst helpless sheep
They slaughtered the house of MacDonald.

Chorus: O, cruel was the snow that sweeps Glencoe
And covers the grave o'Donald
O, cruel was the foe that raped Glencoe
And murdered the house of MacDonald.

Some died in their beds at the hand of the foe
Some fled in the night and were lost in the snow
Some lived to accuse him who struck the first blow
But gone was the house of MacDonald.

Chorus: O, cruel was the snow that sweeps Glencoe
And covers the grave o'Donald
O, cruel was the foe that raped Glencoe
And murdered the house of MacDonald.

Image Source: wikipedia.

William II of Orange Dies

On November 6, 1650, William II, the Prince of Orange, stadtholder of the Netherlands died, leaving his widow, Mary, the former Princess Royal of England (daughter of Charles I and Henrietta Maria) as the regent for their son William III, Prince of Orange, who was born posthumously. The Prince of Orange was only 24 years old and died of smallpox. His widow would survive him until December 24, 1660, when she was only 29 years old, also of smallpox.

Their son would marry another royal princess, also named Mary (James, the Duke of York's daughter) and William and Mary would reign together as King and Queen of England after the Glorious Revolution, until Mary's death in 1694--of smallpox.

William III died of not smallpox but pneumonia in 1702.