rd day,[c] they reached Southmolton in a state of exhaustion
and despondency. At that moment, Captain Crook, who had followed them for
several hours, charged into the town with a troop of cavalry. Hardly a show
of resistance was made; Penruddock, Grove, and Jones, three of the leaders,
with some fifty others, were made

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1655. March 7.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1655. March 11.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1655. March 14.]

prisoners; the rest, of whom Wagstaff had the good fortune to be one, aided
by the darkness of the night, effected their escape.[1]

The Hampshire royalists had commenced their march for Salisbury, when,
learning that Wagstaff had left that city, they immediately dispersed.
Other risings at the same time took place in the counties of Montgomery,
Shropshire, Nottingham, York, and Northumberland, but everywhere with
similar results. The republicans, ardently as they desired to see the
protector humbled in the dust, were unwilling that his ruin should be
effected by a party whose ascendancy appeared to them a still more grievous
evil. The insurgents were ashamed and alarmed at the paucity of their
numbers; prudence taught them to disband before they proceeded to acts of
hostility; and they slunk away in secrecy to their homes, that they might
escape the proof, if not the suspicion, of guilt. Even Rochester himself,
sanguine as he was by disposition, renounced the attempt; and, with his
usual good fortune, was able to thread back his way, through a thousand
dangers, from the centre of Yorkshire to the court of the exiled sovereign
at Cologne.[2]

Whether it was through a feeling of shame, or apprehension of the
consequences, Cromwell, even under the provocations which he had received,
ventured not to bring to trial any of the men who had formerly fought by
his side, and now combined against him because he trampled on the liberties
of the nation. With the royalists it was otherwise. He knew that their
sufferings would excite little commiseration in those whose

[Footnote 1: Whitelock, 620. Thurloe, iii. 263, 295, 306. Heath, 367.
Clarendon, iii. 551, 560. Ludlow, ii. 69. Vaughan, i. 149.]

[Footnote 2: Whitelock, 618, 620. Heath, 368. Clarendon, iii. 560.]

favour he sought; and he was anxious to intimidate the more eager by the
punishment of their captive associates. Though they had surrendered[a]
under articles, Penruddock and Grove were beheaded at Exeter; about fifteen
others suffered in that ci