As a response to the Monmouth Rebellion James 2nd had a series of trials take place throughout the country. Five judges were led by The Lord Chief Justice; George Jeffries.These trials started in Winchester and then moved through Dorchester, Exeter, Taunton, Bristol and Wells. The first trial was of Alice Lyle who was originally sentenced to be burnt for treason. This sentence was commuted to beheading which was carried out on the 2nd September 1685.

The judge was in Taunton mid September of that year and held trials on the 17th, 18th and 19th in the great hall of Taunton Castle. This is where the museum is now situated. The number of prisoners brought before the judge varies depending on the source you read but Wikipedia claims 500 prisoners were brought before the judge. Of these 144 were sentenced to death and were hanged drawn and quartered. Their remains were displayed throughout the county as a deterrent to all who would oppose the King. The rest of the prisoners either bought their freedom or were sold into slavery in the west indies. Once the campaign was over the chronicler wrote this:

"Jeffreys, made all the West an Aceldama; some places quite depopulated and nothing to be seen in 'em but forsaken walls, unlucky gibbets and ghostly carcases. The trees were loaden almost as thick with quarters as leaves; the houses and steeples covered as close with heads as at other times with crows or ravens. Nothing could be liker hell than all those parts; nothing so like the devil as he. Caldrons hizzing, carkases boyling, pitch and tar sparkling and glowing, blood and limbs boyling and tearing and mangling, and he the great director of all."

Simon Hamlyn is a notable case tried in Taunton. It is said that this man was a dissenter but had no part in the actual rebellion. He lived a few miles outside Taunton and had visited the town to advise his son to stay clear and not meddle with the rebels. He was brought in and put before Jeffries as a dissenter and found guilty of treason. It is recorded that Mr Bernard Smith, the Mayor if Taunton, tried to intervene and told the judge that he was an innocent man. The judges reply to this was "You have brought him on: if he be innocent, his blood be upon you." There was a pardon made for Simon Hamlyn but the judge had already had him executed by the time it arrived.

Remember Miss Blake and the Maids of Taunton from the Battle of Sedgemoor section. The schoolmistress; Susannah Musgrave, and all the schoolgirls had to surrender themselves to the court of Jeffries. There were two miss Blakes, sisters, one is thought to have been pardoned while the other died of smallpox in Dorchester prison. They were seen as revenue generation for the crown and large ransoms were expected to be paid for their release. One of the schoolgirls, who was eight years old, was brought before the judge. Jeffries is said to have "raved at the child with his custom brutality" she fell to the floor in tears and was dead within a few hours thought to have died from fear. The rest of the maids were to be a gift to the Queen from the King and used as her maids until such time as a suitable ransom for them could be raised. What actually happened to them seems to be a little vague but at some time during 1686 they were released. A ransom was paid for them but this ransom was roughly half of the original £7000 set by the judge.

Some prisoners were not drawn and quatered and all it took for this privilege was money. Benjamin Hewling was brought before Jeffries in Taunton and was 21 years old. He was found guilty but for the sum of £1000 his sister bought the right to have him buried in St Mary Magdalen Church. Other prisoners were kept in jail until such time as they could be transported to the West Indies and sold into slavery. White labour was a valuable commodity on the sugar plantations the profits from the sale of these prisoners went to the crown.

Three years later in 1688 the Glorious Revolution took place. This was a revolution by Parliamentarians and William of Orange and no monarch has ever had absolute power in this country ever since. Jeffries tried to flee the country during this time but was captured and kept in protective custody in the Tower of London. He died of kidney disease while he was there.