The world from my window

Some 330 years ago, ancestors of mine were on a battlefield in Somerset, engaged in a hopeless fight. It became known as The Monmouth Rebellion . At least five members of the Herring family (to whom I'm related on my father's side) from Pitminster, Somerset, were fighting for the Duke of Monmouth. William Crabb, a 'gentleman from Ashill', from whom I'm directly descended on my mother's side, was also at Sedgemoor on 6 July 1685. It was the last battle on English soil. It was an heroic but hopeless attempt to overthrow an unpopular king, the Duke's uncle, James II. Monmouth, the oldest of King Charles II's illegitimate children, landed at Lyme Regis on 11 June 1685 with a party of eighty men. He gathered a significant proportion of the population of West Dorset, East Devon and Somerset along the way. He was handsome, a proven hero on the battlefield and popular with Westcountry folk who had met him on a charm offensive of the region a few year...