Following the defeat of the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion at the Battle of Sedgemoor, Lady Alice Lisle of Moyles Court, Hampshire, gave shelter to Richard Nelthorpe and to John Hickes, a dissenting minister who had supported the rebel Monmouth.
The painting shows the moment of her arrest by Colonel Penruddock, an officer of James II. Lady Lisle was brought before the notorious Judge Jeffries, and after an unjust trial, was executed on the 25th September.

The episode provoked outrage. Apart from Lady Lisle's age and saintly reputation, her husband had been a noted Parliamentarian, yet she had succoured Royalist fugitives. Such behaviour after Sedgemoor was a significant contributory cause of James II's enforced abdication a few years later.