Note 165 — Chapter VIII

According to Saint-Foix, the bishops chosen were not acquainted with Monmouth’s appearance, and the pretended officer only uttered a few words, while the look given by the victim after the third blow of the axe was intended as a reproach to those who had promised that he should die without pain. But these observations are more ingenious than well-founded. Monmouth was accompanied to the scaffold by the bishops who had visited him in prison, and we shall shortly see that he said a good deal, that the execution took place at ten o’clock in the morning, and that far from complaining even by a look of the executioner’s unskilfulness, Monmouth bore his horrible punishment with great resignation.