[Illustration:  DUKE OF MONMOUTH.]

After the death of Charles II his place was filled by his brother, who ascended the throne as James II; but Charles had a natural son, James, the Duke of Monmouth, who had been sent abroad, but who now claimed the English crown.  On June 11th, 1685, the inhabitants of Lyme were alarmed by the appearance of three foreign ships which did not display any flags.  They were astonished to find that it was an expedition from Holland, and that James, Duke of Monmouth, had arrived to lead a rebellion against his uncle, James II.  The Duke landed on the Cobb, which at that time did not join the shore, so that he could not step on shore without wetting his legs; but Lieut.  Bagster of the Royal Navy, who happened to be in a boat close by, jumped into the water and presented his knee, upon which the Duke stepped and so reached the shore without inconvenience.  Monmouth then turned to Lieut.  Bagster, and familiarly striking him on the shoulder, said, “Brave young man, you will join me!” But Bagster replied, “No, sir!  I have sworn to be true to the King, and no consideration shall move me from my fidelity.”  Monmouth then knelt down on the beach and thanked God for having preserved the friends of liberty and pure religion from the perils of the sea, and implored the Divine blessing on what was to be done by land.  He was received with great rejoicings in Lyme, where there was a strong Protestant element, and many joined his standard there, including Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe, then only twenty-four years of age.  As the people generally had no grievance against James II, Monmouth’s rebellion failed from want of support, and although he raised an army of 5,000 men by the time he reached Sedgmoor, in Somerset, he was there defeated and taken prisoner by the King’s army, and beheaded in the same year.  Defoe appears to have escaped capture, but twelve local followers of Monmouth were hanged afterwards on the Cobb at Lyme Regis.  After Monmouth’s execution a satirical ballad was printed and hawked about the streets of London, entitled “The Little King of Lyme,” one verse being: 

  Lyme, although a little place,
    I think it wondrous pretty;
  If ’tis my fate to wear a crown
    I’ll make of it a city.

We had a look through the old church, and saw a stained-glass window which had been placed there in 1847 to the memory of Mary Anning, for the services rendered by her to science through her remarkable discovery of fossils in the cliffs of Lyme.  There were also some chained books in the church, one of which was a copy of the Breeches Bible, published in 1579, and so called because the seventh verse in the third chapter of Genesis was rendered, “The eyes of them bothe were opened ... and they sowed figge-tree leaves together, and made themselves breeches.”

We passed from Dorsetshire into Devonshire as we walked up the hill loading from Lyme Regis, and we had a fine view when we reached the summit of the road at Hunter’s Cross, where four roads meet.  Here we saw a flat stone supposed to have been the quoin of a fallen cromlech, and to have been used for sacrificial purposes.  From that point a sharp walk soon brought us to the River Axe and the town of Axminster.