We advanced to the attack of the bridge, to the defence of which, the [militia] officers had with much ado prevailed with their soldiers to stand. Our foot fired one volley upon them, which they answered with another, and killed us two men of the foot; at which my Lord Grey and the horse ran till they came to Lyme, where they reported me to be slain, and all the foot to be cut off. This flight of Lord Grey so discouraged the vanguard of the foot, that they threw down their arms and began to run; but I bringing up another body to their succour, they were persuaded to take up their arms again … [The enemy] contented themselves to repossess the town, and shout at us out of musket-shot; and we answered them alike, and by this bravo having a little established the staggering courage of our soldiers we retreated in pretty good order with 12 or 14 prisoners and about 30 horses.61
The first clash of a campaign often sets the tone of what follows, and here we see in microcosm the story of Monmouth’s defeat. His cavalry was poor, which tells us more about the difficulty of getting untrained horses to fight in rank and file than it does about the courage of the rebel troopers or the quality of some of their officers. His infantry was better, but only massed formation and brave leadership would nerve it to its task. Monmouth must have recognised that his men could not face regular troops in open field in broad daylight. Like a powerful but clumsy fighter facing a more skilled opponent, his only chance was to move fast and get in close: inaction would ruin him.
On 15 June Monmouth pounced on Axminster, dispersing the Devon and Somerset militia who were trying to rendezvous there before moving on to attack Lyme. He then marched north to Chard and Ilminster, his ranks swelled by local volunteers and disenchanted militiamen, reaching Taunton, where he was proclaimed king in the marketplace, on the eighteenth. Optimistically signing himself ‘James R’, he asked both Albemarle and Churchill to join him. Monmouth and Albemarle were old drinking companions, but Albemarle’s dignified reply informed Monmouth that ‘I never was, nor ever will be, a rebel to my lawful King, who is James the second.’62 John Churchill did not enter into a correspondence which, one way or another, might have been misconstrued, but sent Monmouth’s letter on to London.
Churchill had reached Bridport with his weary cavalry and dragoons on the seventeenth. His first report, written that day, warned James very frankly that:
we are likely to lose this country [i.e. the West Country] to the rebels, for we have those two [Devon and Somerset militia] regiments run away a second time … there is not any relying on these regiments that are left unless we had some of your Majesty’s standing forces to lead them on and encourage them; for at this unfortunate news I never saw people so much daunted in my life.63
He also drafted a letter to the Duke of Somerset, lord lieutenant of that county, urging him to send 4,000 men to Chard and Crewkerne, and saying that he would do his best to support them if Monmouth took advantage of the collapse of the militia by marching straight for London. The government was already doing its best to guard against a sudden thrust at the capital, concentrating the militia of Surrey, Oxfordshire and Berkshire at Reading to cover the Great West Road, and ordering the Duke of Beaufort to assemble the militia of Gloucestershire, Hereford and Monmouthshire to protect Bristol, which was believed to be Monmouth’s preferred target.
None of this would beat Monmouth, but it would give the royal army time to concentrate. The Earl of Dumbarton’s Regiment set off with a train of artillery from the Tower of London, and Colonel Charles Trelawney’s Regiment, commanded by its lieutenant colonel, Charles Churchill, accompanied a smaller train from Portsmouth. James recalled the English and Scots regiments in Dutch service: William of Orange was not only happy to release them but, possibly fearing that his own prospects in England would be compromised if Monmouth succeeded, volunteered to command them himself, an offer James felt able to decline.
Churchill, with his advance guard, hung on to the rebels like a terrier locked on to a burglar’s ankle. He reached Chard on 19 June, and sent out a strong patrol of the Blues under Lieutenant Philip Munnocks. Near Ashill, three miles from Ilminster, it met ‘about the like number of sturdy rebels, well armed, between whom there happened a very brisk encounter’. Churchill’s men had the best of the first clash, but the rebel patrol was supported by a stronger force and the Blues fell back, leaving their officer ‘upon the place, shot in the head and killed on the first charge’.64 Churchill told the Duke of Somerset that he intended to follow Monmouth ‘so close as I can upon his marches’, and suggested that the duke should get Albemarle to join him because the latter’s militiamen would not be able to keep pace with Churchill’s horse.
This advance guard of cavalry was ‘to be commanded by our trusty and wellbeloved John Lord Churchill in all things according to the rules and discipline of war’, and Churchill had been appointed brigadier general for the purpose.65 However, he was not entitled to give orders to the lords lieutenant, magnates like the Dukes of Somerset and Albemarle who were responsible for the county militias and commissioned their officers. He may have had a professional soldier’s grasp of tactics, but as the most junior baron in the House of Lords he was simply not in their league. On or about the eighteenth James decided to appoint Louis de Duras, Earl of Feversham, his lieutenant general for the campaign. Feversham was ‘to command in chief wherever he is, the militia as well as the King’s forces’.66
There is no foundation for suggestions that this reflected a sudden loss of confidence in Churchill on James’s part. Churchill had only been appointed to head the advance guard, and command of the whole royal army evidently required a more senior officer. Not only has Winston S. Churchill’s assertion that Churchill ‘resented his supersession, and he knew it could only come from mistrust’ little contemporary foundation, but to maintain that ‘this snub … eventually turned Churchill from loyalty to the Stuart kings’ stretches the evidence to breaking point.67 It was only later in the campaign, when he thought that Feversham was inclined to favour Colonel Theophilus Oglethorpe and to ignore his own contribution to the early stages of the campaign, that Churchill’s irritation can be detected.
On 21 June Percy Kirke joined a wholly unsnubbed Churchill at Chard with five companies of his regiment, having marched 140 miles in eight days. This now gave Churchill a small combined-arms brigade, and he told the Duke of Somerset that ‘I have enough forces not to apprehend [fear] the Duke of Monmouth, but on the contrary should be glad to meet with him and my men are in so good heart.’68 Although Churchill was not to know it at the time, Feversham was making good speed into the West Country, travelling with the remaining troops of the Life Guards and Royals, as well as the Horse Grenadiers, who looked ‘very fierce and fantastical’ with their moustaches and grenadier caps, even if their complicated drill made experienced officers grumble that no good would come from combining grenade-throwing with galloping about on horseback.
Feversham marched from London to Maidenhead on 20 June, reached Newbury the next day and joined the Dukes of Beaufort and Somerset at Bristol on the twenty-third. He had slipped Colonel Oglethorpe, with a party of Life Guards and Horse Grenadiers, off to his left flank by way of Andover and Warminster in case Monmouth tried to break eastwards between Churchill and his own force. There can be no faulting Feversham’s performance in the early stages of the campaign. He reached Bristol in time to thwart Monmouth, and screened his open flank as he marched. We cannot say for certain how close the militia were to total collapse, but a fragmentary undated letter from the Duke of Somerset to either Albemarle or Churchill shows the state he was in:
I do desire your Lordship to come away towards me