Colonel Kirke draws the attention of a distressed young lady to the body of her brother whom he had hanged in an adjoining room. Engraving by F. Deeves after W. Hamilton.

Colonel Percy Kirke (1646-1691), colonel of a regiment called Kirke's Lambs. He was appointed to command in the west of England by Lord Faversham. He marched into Taunton with his "Lambs", escorting a convoy of prisoners and two cartloads of wounded. He at once hanged nineteen prisoners in the marketplace and appears to have taken credit for not hanging more. Samuel Pepys described him as "a very brute"