It was not long before a third name was on everyone's lips and it soon eclipsed the other two. George Jeffreys was a notably handsome man with a flair for vicious cross- examination and a fondness for low company. Though still in his thirties, he had risen to the exalted position of Lord Chief Justice and was accordingly dispatched to the West Country by King James to supervise the trials of those who had dared to raise their hands against their monarch. Under the strict and merciless control of Judge Jeffreys, the Bloody Assizes commenced.

The circuit began in Winchester and the trial of Dame Alice Lisle was a stark warning of the horrors that were to follow. A widow of eighty, Dame Alice was accused of harbouring two rebels, even though she had no idea who the men were and had little sympathy for the Duke of Monmouth's cause. In a bruising six-hour trial, Jeffreys frightened and confused the old woman so much that she was unable to muster a proper defence. A reluctant jury was bullied into bringing in a guilty verdict and Jeffreys gleefully sentenced her to be burnt at the stake, the penalty for women convicted of high treason. Five days later, after an appeal to the King, she was spared incineration and was instead beheaded by an axe.

Everyone quaked when they heard the news. If an innocent old woman could suffer such a fate, what would happen to those who had actually fought beside Monmouth? The answer soon came. Gallows were erected successively in Winchester, Dorchester and Exeter as the judges continued their assize circuit. When they reached Taunton, Jeffreys and the rest of his judicial team had still not slaked their thirst for blood. With a blatant disregard for any evidence in favour of the defendants, Judge Jeffreys continued his reign of terror. Plagued by a kidney stone, he was sometimes in such agony that he turned into a ranting tyrant, moved to even greater extremes of savagery. Those who trembled in the dock before him did not realise how much money the Lord Chief Justice was making out of the Bloody Assizes by selling pardons and profiting from the traffic of those he sentenced to transportation. Suffering was a lucrative enterprise.