himself for the scathing portrait which Voltaire had drawn of him in the
'Ecossaise', called to his assistance a more redoubtable adversary than
Lagrange-Chancel. Sainte-Foix had brought to the front a brand new
theory, founded on a passage by Hume in an article in the 'Annee
Litteraire (1768, vol. iv.), in which he maintained that the Man in the
Iron Mask was the Duke of Monmouth, a natural son of Charles II, who was
found guilty of high treason and beheaded in London on the 15th July
1685.

This is what the English historian says:

"It was commonly reported in London that the Duke of Monmouth's life had
been saved, one of his adherents who bore a striking resemblance to the
duke having consented to die in his stead, while the real culprit was
secretly carried off to France, there to undergo a lifelong
imprisonment."

The great affection which the English felt for the Duke of Monmouth, and
his own conviction that the people only needed a leader to induce them to
shake off the yoke of James II, led him to undertake an enterprise which
might possibly have succeeded had it been carried out with prudence. He
landed at Lyme, in Dorset, with only one hundred and twenty men; six
thousand soon gathered round his standard; a few towns declared in his
favour; he caused himself to be proclaimed king, affirming that he was
born in wedlock, and that he possessed the proofs of the secret marriage
of Charles II and Lucy Waiters, his mother. He met the Royalists on the
battlefield, and victory seemed to be on his side, when just at the
decisive moment his ammunition ran short. Lord Gray, who commanded the
cavalry, beat a cowardly retreat, the unfortunate Monmouth was taken
prisoner, brought to London, and beheaded.