All Bridgewater was in a ferment¹ as we rode in, for King James’s forces were within four miles, on the Sedgemoor Plain, and it was likely that they would push on at once and storm the town. Some rude works had been thrown up on the Eastover side, behind which two brigades were drawn⁴ up in arms, while the rest of the army was held in reserve in the market-place and Castle Field. Towards afternoon, however, parties of our horse and peasants from the fen⁵ country came in with the news that there was no fear of an assault being attempted. The Royal troops had quartered themselves snugly⁶ in the little villages of the neighbourhood, and having levied⁷ contributions of cider and of beer from the farmers, they showed no sign of any wish to advance.

The town was full of women, the wives, mothers, and sisters of our peasants, who had come in from far and near to see their loved ones once more. Fleet Street or Cheapside upon a busy day are not more crowded than were the narrow streets and lanes of the Somersetshire town. Jack-booted, buff-coated troopers; scarlet¹⁰ militiamen; brown, stern-faced Tauntonians; serge-clad pikemen; wild, ragged¹² miners; smockfrocked yokels¹³; reckless, weather-tanned seamen¹⁴; gaunt cragsmen from the northern coast — all pushed and jostled each other in a thick, many-coloured crowd. Everywhere among them were the country women, straw-bonneted and loud-tongued, weeping, embracing, and exhorting¹⁵. Here and there amid the motley dresses and gleam of arms moved the dark, sombre figure of a Puritan minister, with

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