They believed, that the person executed was not Monmouth, but one, who, having the fortune to resemble him nearly, was willing to give this proof of his extreme attachment, and to suffer death in his stead.
This victory, obtained by the king in the commencement of his reign, would naturally, had it been managed with prudence, have tended much to increase his power and authority.

But by reason of the cruelty with which it was prosecuted, and of the temerity with which it afterwards inspired him, it was a principal cause of his sudden ruin and downfall.
Such arbitrary principles had the court instilled into all its servants, that Feversham, immediately after the victory, hanged above twenty prisoners; and was proceeding in his executions, when the bishop of Bath and Wells warned him, that these unhappy men were now by law entitled to a trial, and that their execution would be deemed a real murder.

This remonstrance, however, did not stop the savage nature of Colonel Kirke, a soldier of fortune, who had long served at Tangiers, and had contracted, from his intercourse with the Moors, an inhumanity less known in European and in free countries.

At his first entry into Bridge water, he hanged nineteen prisoners without the least inquiry into the merits of their cause.

As if to make sport with death, he ordered a certain number to be executed, while he and his company should drink the king's health, or the queen's, or that of Chief Justice Jefferies.
Observing their feet to quiver in the agonies of death, he cried that he would give them music to their dancing; and he immediately commanded the drums to beat and the trumpets to sound.