Kitabı oku: «Devonshire Characters and Strange Events», sayfa 13

Sir Richard being now in high favour with the King made petition to be given his wife’s estates in Devonshire, on the ground that her continued residence in London made her a rebel. The King, with monstrous injustice, granted what was asked, and at once – a fortnight after his having marched out of London – he arrived in Tavistock, with powers from the King to take possession of all his wife’s estates. Armed with a warrant from Prince Maurice, then quartered at Tavistock, Sir Richard threw Cutteford and his wife and son into prison, and proceeded to plunder his house, and scrape together what money he could from the tenants. Plymouth was at this time invested by the Royal army; Sir Richard was placed in command, and he remained there till the approach of Essex with a large army compelled him to retreat into Cornwall with his troops, leaving only a few soldiers in his wife’s house, Fitzford, to defend it.

Essex was not slow to avail himself of the chance of punishing Skellum Grenville – the Red Fox – and his own regiment and another proceeded to Fitzford, and after damaging it with cannon, compelled the garrison of one hundred and eighty to lay down their arms. Those who agreed to take the Covenant, about sixty, were enrolled in the Parliamentary army, the rest were detained as prisoners. The house was given up to plunder. There was in it “excellent pillage for the soldiers, even at least £3000 in money and plate, and other provisions in great quantity.”

Unhappily, the plate, the money, the furniture, the provisions did not belong to Skellum Grenville at all, but to Lady Howard, accounted a Parliamentarian. They were his by usurpation only. After the defeat of Essex in Cornwall, the King gave Sir Richard all the Earl of Bedford’s estates and those of Sir Francis Drake, and he resumed command at the siege of Plymouth. He was made Sheriff of Devon in the same year, 1645, and his exactions were great, both as sheriff and as the “King’s General in the West.” But he was not a man to behave with moderation; he speedily abused all these favours, and his acts were so notoriously tyrannical and cruel that they were formally brought as charges against him before the Council, where he was summoned to appear in person and answer for his misdeeds whilst governor of Lydford Castle. One instance of his cruelty deserves particular notice, as it shows the bitterness wherewith he recollected his quarrels with his wife. During the time of her proceedings against him in Chancery she employed an attorney-at-law whose name was Brabant; he bore the character of being an honest man, and loyal to the King. He lived somewhere in this part of Devonshire. Many years elapsed since the decision of that suit against him, before Sir Richard became a man of so much importance by his high military command in the west. No sooner did Brabant learn the news of his arrival, than, well knowing he was not of a disposition to forget or forgive an old adversary, Brabant judged it prudent to keep as much as possible out of the way. Having occasion, however, to make a journey that would take him near Sir Richard’s quarters, he disguised himself as well as he could and put on a montero cap. Sir Richard, who probably had been on the watch to catch him, notwithstanding all these precautions, received intelligence of the movements of the man of law. He caused him to be intercepted on his road, made prisoner, and brought before him. In vain did Brabant protest that he was journeying on no errand but his own private affairs; for Sir Richard affecting, on account of his montero cap, to believe him to be a spy, without a council of war, or any further inquiry, ordered the luckless lawyer to be hanged on the spot. The offences of Sir Richard were so gross that he was sent a prisoner to St. Michael’s Mount, in Cornwall; but on the approach of the Parliamentary army he was allowed to escape on 3 March, 1645–6. He sailed to Brest, and joined his son at Nantes.

Lady Howard, so soon as she heard that Sir Richard was out of England, hastened down to Fitzford, where she found that her steward was dead and her mansion wrecked. When the country was somewhat more peaceful she brought down to it from London her furniture, books, and plate, and set to work to repair the damage that the house had sustained. Her son, George Howard, was with her and managed her affairs eventually, not at first, for if he were born in 1634 he would be still a child.

Sir Richard Grenville and his son Richard wandered about the Continent till 1647, when he formed the rash intention to return to London. What induced him to take this desperate step can only be conjectured. Perhaps he had money in London, which it was only possible to secure personally; possibly he may have desired to get possession of his daughter Elizabeth and take her abroad with him, rightly conjecturing that her mother had no affection, but the contrary, for a child of his. Indeed, it is probable that the tradition of Lady Howard’s persistent hatred displayed towards one of her daughters pertains to this Elizabeth Grenville.

There must have been some very strong reason for Sir Richard’s venturing to England, for he knew perfectly in what estimation he was held by the Puritans. He disguised himself, cutting his hair short and wearing “a very large periwigg hanging on his shoulders,” and blackening his foxy-red beard with a lead comb, so that “none would know him but by his voyse.”

How he fared in England we know not; he did secure his daughter and escaped with his life to Holland, but of his son we hear nothing more, and it is possible that he met his death while in England.

Lord Lansdowne, in his Vindication of his uncle, says, “His only son, unluckily falling afterwards into whose hands, was hanged.”

In 1652 Sir Richard Grenville, being in the Low Countries, seized goods belonging to the Earl of Suffolk that were at Bruges, to the value of £27,000, as some abatement of the debt he considered was due to him out of Lady Howard’s estate.

In 1655 that lady’s son, George Howard, married Mistress Burnby, and by her had a son George who died young, and he had no more children, so that with this child died his grandmother’s hopes of a descendant in the male line. If George Howard, the father, were born in 1634, he would have been one-and-twenty when he married.

Sir Richard Grenville died at Ghent about 1659, attended by his daughter Elizabeth, who shortly after married a privateer captain named Lennard, who cruised the Channel stopping and plundering English vessels, on the principle that all who did not fight for King Charles were his enemies and the enemies of his country. He was taken prisoner 8 February, 1659–60, and only escaped being hanged by the Restoration. He was set at liberty and given the post of captain of the Black Horse at Tilbury; but he did not long enjoy the post, as he died in 1665.

Something must now be said about this daughter, Elizabeth Grenville, concerning whom tradition has a good deal to say, but it is unsupported by documentary evidence.

The story is that Lady Howard hated the child with a deadly hate as the offspring of the plague of her life, Sir Richard Grenville. As she was unkind to it, a lady carried it away, and without the knowledge of the mother brought it up as her own. In after years this lady introduced Elizabeth to her mother under a fictitious name, and Lady Howard became quite attached to her. Seeing this, the lady revealed to her who the young girl was. At this Lady Howard started to her feet, her eyes flaming with rage, and drove Elizabeth from her presence.

A few years passed, and this Elizabeth Grenville made another attempt to see and soften her mother. She went to her at Walreddon, but when Lady Howard saw her she rushed from the room up the stairs pursued by her daughter, who implored her to stay and hear and love her. Elizabeth clung to her mother’s dress on the landing, as Lady Howard passed into one of the upper rooms. The unnatural mother swung back the door with such violence that it broke her daughter’s arm. If this took place at all it was probably before Elizabeth departed for the Continent with her father, when she was aged sixteen. She never after met her mother.

Lady Howard was getting on in life; her son George lived with her at Fitzford and managed her property. Feeling old age creeping on, she by deed made over all her estates to him, in the hopes that when she was gone he would live on in her ancestral home. But in the prime of life George Howard died on 17 September, 1671. To his mother the shock was so great that she did not recover from it, and she also died, just one month after him. Hearing that she was ill, her first cousin, Sir William Courtenay, hurried to her bedside, and gained such power over Lady Howard as to induce her to make a will leaving all her possessions to him, to the exclusion of her daughters. Mary Howard, married to one Vernon, was to be given £500 within four years after her decease, and £1000 to her daughter Elizabeth, married to Captain Lennard, to be paid within two years, and £20 within one year; but should she protest against the will, then what she was to receive would be reduced to £20. The will was signed on 14 October, 1671, and she died on the seventeenth of the same month. “This is the one action of Lady Howard’s life,” says Mrs. Radford, “that seems to have shocked her contemporaries. They have not a word to say against her moral character; but she disinherited her children. Could anything be more dreadful?”

Walreddon to the present day belongs to the Earl of Devon; but Fitzford was sold in 1750 to the Duke of Bedford.

Lady Howard was a person of strong will and imperious temper, and left a deep and lasting impression on the people of Tavistock. Mrs. Bray collected several traditions relative to her, which she published in her Notes to Fitz, of Fitzford, in 1828. She bore the reputation of having been hard-hearted in her lifetime. For some crime she had committed (nobody knew what), she was said to be doomed to run in the shape of a hound from the gateway of Fitzford to Okehampton Park, between the hours of midnight and cock-crowing, and to return with a single blade of grass in her mouth to the place whence she had started; and this she was to do till every blade was picked, when the world would be at an end.

“Dr. Jago, the clergyman of Milton Abbot, however, told me that occasionally she was said to ride in a coach of bones up West Street, Tavistock, towards the moor; and an old man of this place told a friend of mine the same story, adding that ‘he had seen her scores of times.’ A lady also who was once resident here, and whom I met in company, assured me that, happening many years before to pass the old gateway at Fitzford, as the church clock struck twelve, in returning from a party, she had herself seen the hound start.”

When a child I heard the story, but somewhat varied, that Lady Howard drove nightly from Okehampton Castle to Launceston Castle in a black coach driven by a headless coachman, and preceded by a fire-breathing black hound; that when the coach stopped at a door, there was sure to be a death in that house the same night. There was a ballad about it, of which I can only recall fragments. Mr. Sheppard picked it up also at South Brent from old Helmore the miller; but being more concerned about the tune than the words, and thinking that I had the latter already, he did not trouble himself to take down the whole ballad.

In the first edition of Songs of the West, I gave the ballad reconstructed by me from the poor fragments that I recollected; and as such I give it here: —

 
My ladye hath a sable coach,
And horses two and four;
My ladye hath a black blood-hound
That runneth on before.
My ladye’s coach hath nodding plumes,
The driver hath no head;
My ladye is an ashen white,
As one that long is dead.
 
 
“Now pray step in!” my ladye saith,
“Now pray step in and ride.”
I thank thee, I had rather walk
Than gather to thy side.
The wheels go round without a sound,
Or tramp or turn of wheels;
As cloud at night, in pale moonlight,
Along the carriage steals.
 
 
“Now pray step in!” my ladye saith,
“Now prithee come to me.”
She takes the baby from the crib,
She sits it on her knee.
“Now pray step in!” my ladye saith,
“Now pray step in and ride.”
Then deadly pale, in waving veil,
She takes to her the bride.
 
 
“Now pray step in!” my ladye saith,
“There’s room I wot for you.”
She wav’d her hand, the coach did stand,
The Squire within she drew.
“Now pray step in!” my ladye saith,
“Why shouldst thou trudge afoot?”
She took the gaffer in by her,
His crutches in the boot.
 
 
I’d rather walk a hundred miles,
And run by night and day,
Than have that carriage halt for me
And hear my ladye say —
“Now pray step in, and make no din,
Step in with me to ride;
There’s room, I trow, by me for you,
And all the world beside.”
 

As a fact, Lady Howard did not have a carriage but a Sedan-chair. An inventory of her goods was taken at her death for probate, and this shows that she had no wheeled conveyance. The story of the Death Coach is probably a vague reminiscence of the Goddess of Death travelling over the world collecting human souls.

The authorities for the Life of Lady Howard are: —

Lord Lansdowne’s Vindication of Sir Richard Grenville, printed in Holland, 1654, reprinted in Lord Lansdowne’s Works, 1732; also Clarendon’s History of the Great Rebellion, and Mrs. G. Radford’s “Lady Howard, of Fitzford,” in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 1890.

THE BIDLAKES, OF BIDLAKE

The Bidlake family can be traced back to the thirteenth century. Their original seat was Combe or Combebow, in the parish of Bridestowe, where they had a mansion on a knoll of limestone rising out of a narrow valley. The site is of interest. The old Roman road, probably a pre-Roman road from Exeter to Launceston and the West, ran through this contracted glen, on the south-east side of which rises steeply a lofty chain of hills cut sharply through by the Lew River. This ridge goes by the name of Galaford, or the Forked Way, because the ancient roads did fork – that already mentioned ran along one side, and that leading to Lydford ran on the other, the fork being on Sourton Down. At the point or promontory above the cleft cut by the Lew, and immediately above the knoll of Combe, is an extensive series of earthworks, prehistoric and Saxon. The prehistoric camp is oval, with outworks to the south, where the tongue of hill is cut through from one side to the other by an artificial moat with bank.

If I am not mistaken, here was the scene of the final contest of the Britons against the Saxons in 823, fought at Gavulford, when the former were routed. This was, in fact, the best position along the road into Cornwall at which they could make a stand. That the Saxons considered it a point of importance is shown by their erecting here a burh or burg in addition to the powerfully entrenched prehistoric fortress. The knoll in the valley below was also probably fortified, but all traces have been swept away by quarrymen who have dug the hill over for lime, only sparing one point that was heaped up with the ruins of the mansion of the Combes.

William de Combe early in the fifteenth century had a son John, who moved to Bidlake, built himself a house there, and called himself John de Bidlake. His grandson, John de Bidlake, married a cousin Alice, daughter of Richard de Combe of Bradstone, and this John had a son, another John, who married a Joan of Bridestowe, his cousin in the fourth degree. Combe came thus to be united to the possessions of the Bidlakes, for one or other of these ladies was an heiress.

There was in Bridestowe another family ancient and well estated, the Ebsworthys, of Ebsworthy, and the Bidlakes and Ebsworthys were too near neighbours to be good friends. In fact, there was an hereditary feud between them. One of the Ebsworthys had married a daughter of Gilbert Germyn, the rector. This was quite enough for the Bidlakes to look with an evil eye on the parson. William Bidlake and Agnes his wife drew up charges against the parson in 1613.

But before coming to the complaints of 1613, we must see what sort of man this Gilbert Germyn was. The convulsions and changes in religion that had succeeded each other in waves since the year 1531 had unsettled men’s minds; with the exception of fanatics on one side or the other – the staunch adherents to the Papacy, and the thorough-going Puritans – dead apathy had settled down on the majority with regard to religion: they knew not what to believe and how worship was to be conducted, and they did not much care. Having been taught to abhor the distinctive errors of the Church of Rome, they had not been instructed in the distinctive errors of the Church of England that they were required to embrace. The clergy to fill the vacant benefices were ignorant and brutish. They had no religious convictions and no culture. So long as they had pliant consciences, Elizabeth was content. In many dioceses in England, a third of the parishes were left without a pastor, resident or non-resident. In 1561 there were in the Archdeaconry of Norfolk a hundred and eighty parishes, in the Archdeaconry of Suffolk a hundred and thirty parishes in this condition. Cobblers and tailors occupied the pulpits, where there were no incumbents. “The Bishops,” said Cecil, “had no credit either for learning, good living or hospitality. The Bishops … were generally covetous, and were rather despised than reverenced or beloved.” The Archbishop of York was convicted of adultery with the wife of an innkeeper at Doncaster. Other prelates bestowed ordination “on men of lewd life and corrupt behaviour.” And a good many of them sold the livings in their gift to the highest bidder.

Gilbert Germyn was the son of an apothecary in Exeter. At the time, Bridestowe cum Sourton, one of the best livings in the gift of the Bishop, was held by Chancellor Marston. The apothecary, it is stated, bribed the Chancellor to resign, with a present of £100, and then negotiated with the Bishop – at what price is not known – to present his son to the united benefices.

When so many livings were without incumbents, all sorts of unscrupulous men, of a low class, rushed into Orders, without university education, indeed without any education at all, so as to secure a living in which they could draw the tithe and farm the glebe, without a thought as to their religious responsibilities.

Such a man Gilbert Germyn seems to have been. In 1582 articles of misdemeanours were drawn up against him by Henry Bidlake and some of the parishioners, but as far as can be learnt without effect. The Bishop had presented him, for reasons best known to himself, and was indisposed to take cognizance of his conduct.

It is worth while looking at some of the charges brought against a man whom the Bishop, John Woolton, delighted to honour.

He was complained of for his grasping character. Although the glebe comprised a manor of eight or nine tenements, yet he did not rest till he got into his own hands “by dyvers meannes three of the best and most fruitfull tenements in the two parishes.”

That, in addition to being rector of Bridestowe and Sourton, he was vicar of another parish in Cornwall.

That he was litigious, citing his tenants and the tithe payers even for a halfpenny.

That he refused at Easter to give the Holy Communion to a bedridden woman, eighty years old, named Jane Adams, till she paid him a penny for his trouble.

“He is a great skold and faller owte with his neybors, for lyght occasyons, as with Mr. William Wrays, and other the best of the parishes; and stycketh not to saye yn the churche Thou lyest; and to skold yn the Churchyerde.

“For his pryde, Skoldyng, Avarice and Crueltye his manner is hated and abhorred of all the 2 parishes, and so driveth them awaye from the Church.

“He marryed hys wyffe, a notorryowse lyght woman, and of lyke parents descended being notoryusly suspectyd with the sayd German of [causing] her first husband’s death; after whose deathe one Edmonds, her servant claymed her in promise, to be his wyffe, and that openly, and yn the presence of dyvers requyred the Parson German to procleme the bannes bytwene them. But German refused to doo yt but presently shyfted secretly to marry her hymself, having a lycence, and yn a marryng before sun rysyng so dyd, having a lyttle before cyted the said Edmonds to … prove his contract with her, came too late, and thuse were they marryed withowt clearyng of the woman, to the offence of both parishioners and others, knowyng before her lyght behavyor.”

It seems that this widow whom Germyn married had some money. Her former husband had left a will making several bequests, but Parson Germyn having got the money of the deceased into his hands refused to pay the bequests, as also the debts of the man and of his widow, now his wife; also refused to pay annuitants.

It was further complained that Mrs. Germyn baked bread and sold it in the rectory.

It may be worthy of remark that there is no trace in the Episcopal Registers of Mr. Germyn having obtained a licence to marry this widow. It was probably a bit of bluff on his part to say that he had one. Who performed the ceremony we are not told. Unfortunately the Bridestowe registers do not go back sufficiently far to help us.

From 1582 to 1613 we hear no more of Parson Germyn. At this latter date fresh complaints were made against him. Another bishop now occupied the see, William Cotton, a man of some character and worth, and not one interested in protecting the disreputable priest.

It was now charged against Mr. Germyn that “he preached that John Baptist and Mary Magdalen wear married in a citie called Cana in Galilee,” also that “the said Parson readeth the usuall divine prayers soe fast that few can understand what he sayeth or the clarke can spare to answere him accordinge to what is sett fourth in the booke of Common prayer,” also that “he setteth out the Church yard for 8 shillings and sixpence, and suffereth the horses and sheepe to use the Church porche as a common folde, the smell being verie loathesome to the Parishioners.”

Then came in an accusation of Peter Ebsworthy, “for usurpinge of place in the Churche, being a man of no discent, or parentage, and claiminge a Seate unfittinge for a man of his ranke or position.”

This was not a reasonable charge. The Ebsworthys, it is true, in 1620 could prove only three descents, but one had married an heiress of Shilston, another an heiress of Durant, and they were allied by marriage with the Calmadys, the Harrises, and the Ingletts. The Ebsworthys, of Ebsworthy, had probably lived on their paternal acres as long as had the Bidlakes, of Bidlake, but as yet they had laid no claim to bear coat-armour. The Bidlakes bore two white doves, but naturalists say that doves and pigeons are the most quarrelsome of birds.

The spiteful remark about Peter Ebsworthy being of no descent and parentage was intended to wound the feelings of the rector, who had married one of his daughters to Peter Ebsworthy. The ancients said that doves were without gall.

“Next for his wief abusing of my wief in goinge to the Communion, by blowes and afterwards with disgracefull words.” Also, “Paule Ebsworthy for layinge of violent handes upon my wief in the Church yard: and his wiefs scouldinge, Katheren Ebsworthy using these wordes before the Parson unto her sister, Peter’s wief, that her sister might be ashamed to suffer such to goe before her as my wief was.”

It seems that Agnes Bidlake, the wife of William, sought assistance of her uncle, Sir Edward Giles, to bring these complaints before the Bishop. He replied to this by writing to William Bidlake: —

“I would intreat you and my niece your wife at the time of hearinge of these differences before his Lordshipp to be very temperate in your utterances. You know it is an old sayinge, A good matter may be marred in the handlinge; and I know if passion doe not overcome you all, it will be to my Lord’s good likeinge.”

Mr. Bidlake went up about the matter and interviewed the Bishop, who agreed to hear the case at Okehampton on the following Thursday.

The Bishop wrote to Parson Germyn: “Being credibly informed that Mr. Bidlake and his wief were latlie by your sonne Peter Ebsworthy and his wief verie disgracefully wronged at a Communion … as alsoe for your scandalous and indiscreete doctrine which you usually teach I may not att any hande suffer,” he summoned him to appear before him at his approaching visitation at Okehampton.

On 13 May, 1613, the Bishop of Exeter summoned plaintiffs and defendants and witnesses before him for the following Friday at Okehampton.

The Rev. Gilbert Germyn indignantly denied that he had ever preached scandalous and indiscreet doctrine; but what was the result of the suit before the Bishop does not transpire.

Old John Bidlake, the father of William, mightily disapproved of this contention. He wrote to his son: “Commend me heartily to your wief whom I pray God to give patience and charitie unto in all these troubles, and that yourselfe forgett not that which I said I lately dreamed of 2 snakes whereof the one seemed to me to ate up the other before me. And that which I formerly dreamed of the Man that firstlie riding from me said, Commend me to my friends that are like to be lost if they repent not er time be past. Good sonne, seeke peace and ensue it in what you may, for to live peaceably with all men maketh a man and woman long to seme younge. And if you knewe the hindrances and losses besides heartburnings, weariness of bodye and unquietness innumerable that suits of Lawe doe bring, as well as I, you would rather goe with your wief even unto all such as have donne you offence and openly imbrace them as brethren and sisters and fully forgive them and desier them to accept of your lives ever hereafter; as honest quyet neighbours should doe, rather than vex your neighbours by suits of laws therein, whereof are as variable as the turnings of a weathercock.”

This was dated 10 April, 1613.

William died before his father.

Old John was a fine and loyal man; the date of his death is not known. The estates devolved on Henry Bidlake, the son of William, born in 1606 or 1607.

After Henry Bidlake came of age, he married Philippa, daughter of William Kelly, of Kelly; whereupon his mother, the quarrelsome Agnes, retired to the south of Devon, there indulged in some costly lawsuits, and died in 1651.

Henry, while yet young, joined the army of King Charles, and in 1643 was made a captain of horse under Colonel Sir Thomas Hele, Baronet. In 1645 he was one of the defenders of Pendennis Castle; a copy of the articles for its surrender is preserved among the Bidlake Papers. These articles were signed on 18 August, and the besieged went forth. From that time misfortune after misfortune befell Henry Bidlake. On 18 January, 1646, the Standing Committee of Devon “ordered upon Perusall of the inventory of the goods of Mr. Henry Bidlake amounting to Thirtie pounds that upon payment of fower and Twentie pounds unto the Treasurer or his Deputie by Mr. William Kelley, the sequestration of the said goods shall be removed and taken off, and the other six pounds is to be allowed to Mrs. Bidlake for her sixth part.”

Several stories are told of Henry hiding from Cromwell’s soldiers, who were sent to surround Bidlake in order to take him prisoner. He was warned, and dressed himself in rags in order to pass them. Some soldiers met him and asked him if he had seen Squire Bidlake. “Aye, sure,” he replied, “her was a-standin’ on ’is awn doorstep a foo minutes agoo.” So they went on to search Bidlake House while he escaped to the house of a tenant of his named Veale in Burleigh Wood. The troopers went there also, and Mrs. Veale made him slip into the clock-case; they hunted high and low, but could not find him. One of the soldiers looking up at the dial and seeing the hand at the hour said, “What, doant he strike?” “Aye, aye, mister,” replied Mrs. Veale, “there be a hand here as can strike, I tell ’ee.”

Mr. Bidlake suffered from a chronic cough, and just at that moment it began, but he had the art to dip his head, let the weight down behind his back, and the clock struck the hour and drowned the cough in the case.

According to another version of the story, his cough was heard, the clock-case was opened, and he taken. But I doubt this. An old man, William Pengelly, who had been with my grandfather, and father, and myself, told me that Henry Bidlake was concealed by the Veales in Burleigh Wood – that is, the wood over the promontory where are the camps – and they supplied him with blankets and food for some weeks till it was safe for him to reappear. Their farm is now completely ruined, but I can recall when it was occupied. According to Pengelly’s story, later on, Henry Bidlake granted that farm to the Veale family to be held in perpetuity on a tenure of half a crown per annum, so long as there remained a male Veale in the family. Pengelly informed me that the last Veale had died when the Rev. John Stafford Wollocombe held the estate, 1829–66, and that the tenure had remained the same till then. The Rev. J. H. Bidlake Wollocombe, present owner of the Bidlake estate, tells me that he can find no evidence of the grant to the Veales among the deeds, and that he never heard of the story save from me.

If Henry Bidlake had been secured on this occasion, it would certainly have been recorded. We have a narrative of the visit of a troop of horse sent to Bridestowe by the Earl of Stamford in 1647. In the Mercurius Rusticus of that year is an account of this expedition, but not a word about the capture of Henry Bidlake. There is, however, one of a barbarous act committed in the cottage of a husbandman in Bridestowe, whose name, however, is not given, but possibly enough it may have been Veale. This man having openly adhered to the King’s party, the Earl of Stamford sent a troop of horse to apprehend him in his cottage or farm. “When they came thither, they found not the good man at home, but a sonne of his, about ten or twelve years old, they ask him where his Father was, the childe replyed that he was not at home, they threaten him, and use all arts to make him discover where his Father had hid himselfe, the childe being ignorant where his father was, still persisted in the same answer, that he knew not where he was; hereupon they threaten to hang him, neither doth that prevail; at last they take the poore innocent childe and hang him up, either because he would not betray his Father, had he been able to satisfie their doubt, or for not having the spirit of Prophecy, not being able to reveale what by an ordinary way of knowledge he did not know; having let him hang a while, they cut him downe, not intending to hang him unto death, but being cut downe they could perceive nothing discovering life in him, hereupon in a barbarous way of experiment, they pricke him with their swords in the back and thighs, using the means leading to death to find out life; at last after some long stay, some small symptoms of life did appear; yet so weake, that they left him nearer the confines of death than life; and whether the child did ever recover, is more than my informer can assure me.”