God bless King Monmouth and the Protestant religion!' The trumpeters struck up a flourish and the people huzzaed, but the Mayor raised his thin white hands as a signal for silence.

'A messenger hath reached me this morning from the King,' he continued.

'He sends a greeting to all his faithful Protestant subjects, and having halted at Axminster to rest after his victory, he will advance presently and be with ye in two days at the latest.
'Ye will grieve to hear that good Alderman Rider was struck down in the thick of the fray.

He hath died like a man and a Christian, leaving all his worldly goods, together with his cloth-works and household property, to the carrying on of the war.

Of the other slain there are not more than ten of Taunton birth.