Page:A Book of the West (vol. 2).djvu/185

Rh discontented. It is sheltered from the furious gales, which Bude is not; it has trees and flowers about it, which Bude has not; it has a fine parish church, which Bude has not; and it has a history, deficient to Bude, which is a parvenu, and self-assertive accordingly.

And Stratton further has got its battlefield. The height above the town was the scene of one of those encounters in which the Royalist forces for Charles I. were successful. The following description of the battle is from Professor Gardiner's History of the Great Civil War:—

"The Earl of Stamford placed himself at the head of the army under his command, and resolved on carrying the war into Cornwall. As he could dispose of 6800 men, whilst Hopton and the Cornish leaders at Launceston had with them less than half the number, he determined to despatch the greater part of his horse to Bodmin in order to suppress any attempt to muster the trained bands there. With his infantry and a few remaining horse he established himself near Stratton, in the extreme north-west of the county, in a position apparently strong enough to secure him from attack, at least till his cavalry returned. "The ground occupied by Stamford was well chosen. A ridge of high ground running from the north to south parallel with the coast dips sharply down, and rises as sharply again to a grassy hill, from the southern end of which there is a still deeper cleft through which the road descends steeply to the left into the valley in which lies the little town of Stratton. On the top of this hill, the sides of which slope in all directions from the highest point to the edge of the plateau, the Parliamentary army lay. Beyond