horses. From thence they crossed the country in almost a due southerly
direction. The tract of land in which the Duke took refuge is rightly
described by Mr. Macaulay, as "separated by an inclosure from the open
country." Its nature is no less clearly indicated by its local name of
"The Island." The open down which surrounds it is called Shag's Heath.
The Island is described as being about a mile and a half from Woodlands,
and in the parish of Horton, in Dorsetshire. The field in which the Duke
concealed himself is still called "Monmouth Close." It is at the
north-eastern extremity of the Island. An ash-tree at the foot of which
the would-be-king was found crouching in a ditch and half hid under the
fern, was standing a few years ago, and was deeply indented with the
carved initials of crowds of persons who has been to visit it. Mr.
Macaulay has mentioned that the fields were covered--it was the eighth
of July--with standing crops of rye, pease, and oats. In one of them, a
field of pease, tradition tells us that the Duke dropped a gold
snuff-box. It was picked up some time afterwards by a labourer, who
carried it to Mrs. Uvedale of Horton, probably the proprietress of the
field, and received in reward fifteen pounds, which was said to be half
its value. On his capture, the Duke was first taken to the house of
Anthony Etterick, Esq., a magistrate who resided at Holt, which adjoins
Horton. Tradition, which records the popular feeling rather than the
fact, reports, that the poor woman who informed the pursuers that she
had seen two strangers lurking in the Island--her name was Amy
Farrant--never prospered afterwards; and that Henry Parkin, the soldier,
who, spying the skirt of the smock-frock which the Duke had assumed as a
disguise, recalled the searching party just as they were leaving the
Island, burst into tears and reproached himself bitterly for his fatal
discovery.

It is a defect in the Ordnance Survey, that neither the Island nor