_"--Pages 51_ et seq._
The proprietor of the Rye-house (for Rumbold was but a tenant)
shocked at the intended purpose, for which it was to have been
used, is said to have fired it with his own hand. This is the
subject of a poem, called the Loyal Incendiary, or the generous
_Boute-feu_.
10. The total ruin of those, who were directly involved in the
Rye-house, was little to be regretted, had it not involved the fate
of those who were pursuing reform, by means more manly and
constitutional,--the fate of Russel, Essex, and Sidney.
Rumbold, "the one-eyed archer," fled to Holland, and came to
Scotland with Argyle, on his ill-concerted expedition. He was
singled out and pursued, after the dispersion of his companions in
a skirmish. He defended himself with desperate resolution against
two armed peasants, till a third, coming behind him with a
pitch-fork, turned off his head-piece, when he was cut down and
made prisoner, exclaiming, "Cruel countryman, to use me thus, while
my face was to mine enemy." He suffered the doom of a traitor at
Edinburgh, and maintained on the scaffold, with inflexible
firmness, the principles in which he had lived. He could never
believe, he said, that the many of human kind came into the world
bridled and saddled, and the few with whips and spurs to ride them.
Pages:
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309