A Child's History of England.222

As soon as Oates's wickedness had met with this success, up started another villain, named William Bedloe, who, attracted by a reward of five hundred pounds offered for the apprehension of the murderers of Godfrey, came forward and charged two Jesuits and some other persons with having committed it at the Queen's desire. Oates, going into partnership with this new informer [告密者], had the audacity to accuse the poor Queen herself of high treason. Then appeared a third informer, as bad as either of the two, and accused a Catholic banker named Stayley of having said that the King was the greatest rogue in the world (which would not have been far from the truth), and that he would kill him with his own hand. This banker, being at once tried and executed, Coleman and two others were tried and executed. Then, a miserable wretch [非常不幸的人] named Prance, a Catholic silversmith [银匠], being accused by Bedloe, was tortured into confessing that he had taken part in Godfrey's murder, and into accusing three other men of having committed it. Then, five Jesuits were accused by Oates, Bedloe, and Prance together, and were all found guilty, and executed on the same kind of contradictory and absurd evidence. The Queen's physician and three monks were next put on their trial; but Oates and Bedloe had for the time gone far enough and these four were acquitted. The public mind, however, was so full of a Catholic plot, and so strong against the Duke of York, that James consented to obey a written order from his brother, and to go with his family to Brussels, provided that his rights should never be sacrificed in his absence to the Duke of Monmouth. The House of Commons, not satisfied with this as the King hoped, passed a bill to exclude the Duke from ever succeeding to the throne. In return, the King dissolved the Parliament. He had deserted his old favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, who was now in the opposition.

To give any sufficient idea of the miseries of Scotland in this merry reign, would occupy a hundred pages. Because the people would not have bishops, and were resolved to stand by their solemn League and Covenant, such cruelties were inflicted upon them as make the blood run cold. Ferocious dragoons [龙骑兵] galloped through the country to punish the peasants for deserting the churches; sons were hanged up at their fathers' doors for refusing to disclose where their fathers were concealed; wives were tortured to death for not betraying their husbands; people were taken out of their fields and gardens, and shot on the public roads without trial; lighted matches were tied to the fingers of prisoners, and a most horrible torment called the Boot was invented, and constantly applied, which ground [grind的过去式] and mashed the victims' legs with iron wedges. Witnesses were tortured as well as prisoners. All the prisons were full; all the gibbets [绞刑示众架] were heavy with bodies; murder and plunder devastated the whole country. In spite of all, the Covenanters were by no means to be dragged into the churches, and persisted in worshipping God as they thought right. A body of ferocious Highlanders, turned upon [attack] them from the mountains of their own country, had no greater effect than the English dragoons under Grahame of Claverhouse, the most cruel and rapacious [greedy] of all their enemies, whose name will ever be cursed through the length and breadth of Scotland. Archbishop Sharp had ever aided and abetted [唆使] all these outrages. But he fell at last; for, when the injuries of the Scottish people were at their height, he was seen, in his coach-and-six [六匹马拉的马车] coming across a moor [沼泽], by a body of men, headed by one John Balfour, who were waiting for another of their oppressors. Upon this they cried out that Heaven had delivered him into their hands, and killed him with many wounds. If ever a man deserved such a death, I think Archbishop Sharp did. [六缸不如四驱]

大体上骑马步兵都可以称龙骑兵，这个兵种最早出现要追溯到1552-1559年的意大利战争，法国人占领了皮特蒙德（Piedmont），为了对付随时可能在后背出现的西班牙人，当时的法军元帅de Brissac命令他的火枪手跨上马背，于是就组建了世界上最早的机动步兵
至于龙骑兵dragoon这个词的来历，则有两种说法：较流行的一种认为，当时该兵种使用的队旗上画了一头火龙，这是从加洛林时代（或者更早拜占庭就有）开始的传统，龙骑兵由是得名；另一种认为，当时他们使用的短身管燧发枪被称为火龙，龙骑兵来自这个典故。[链接]

Covenanter, any of the Scottish Presbyterians who at various crises during the 17th century subscribed to bonds or covenants, notably to the National Covenant (1638) and to the Solemn League and Covenant (1643), in which they pledged to maintain their chosen forms of church government and worship.

It made a great noise directly, and the Merry Monarch - strongly suspected of having goaded [鼓励] the Scottish people on, that he might have an excuse for a greater army than the Parliament were willing to give him - sent down his son, the Duke of Monmouth, as commander-in-chief, with instructions to attack the Scottish rebels, or Whigs as they were called, whenever he came up with them. Marching with ten thousand men from Edinburgh, he found them, in number four or five thousand, drawn up [聚集] at Bothwell Bridge, by the Clyde [大河名]. They were soon dispersed; and Monmouth showed a more humane character towards them, than he had shown towards that Member of Parliament whose nose he had caused to be slit with a penknife. But the Duke of Lauderdale was their bitter foe, and sent Claverhouse to finish them.

六级/考研单词: wicked, commit, desire, tertiary, catholic, execute, wretched, torture, confess, guilt, contradict, absurd, physician, plot, consent, obey, sacrifice, throne, dissolve, parliament, suffice, miserable, merry, reign, bishop, resolve, solemn, inflict, punish, peasant, disclose, conceal, betray, shot, fingerprint, wedge, devastate, persist, worship, curse, outrage, oppress, wound, subscribe, nationwide, pledge, sovereign, instruct, rebel, march, disperse, humane, foe

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来源： https://www.cnblogs.com/funwithwords/p/15838806.html