Page:A Book of the West (vol. 2).djvu/216

160 Ruthven, retreated to their stronghold at Saltash, and here made an obstinate resistance; but the Royalists, led by Grenville and Mohun, attacked the place, took it, and made havoc among the rebels, many of whom were drowned. Their leader, Ruthven, succeeded in effecting his escape to Plymouth, which was held for the Parliament by a member of my own family, Colonel William Gould.

This resulted in the Royalists recovering the whole of Cornwall. Saltash, however, was again occupied by the Parliamentary forces in 1645.

Among the rights and privileges exercised by the borough of Saltash was that the mayor or recorder held a court of quarter sessions till 1886. In 1772 a woman was sentenced to be stripped to her waist and whipped in public for stealing a hat. But this sentence, if repugnant to our sense of decency, was light compared to one passed in 1844 on two women for stealing some shirting wherewith to make garments for their husbands. They were transported for seven years. The natural result was that they married again and settled in Botany Bay, and the husbands found for themselves fresh mates at Saltash. In this century the mayor sentenced a man to transportation for stealing a watch at a regatta. The only church at Saltash is the chapel of the Guildhall, and the chaplain formerly had a bad time of it as the creature of the mayor. Happily the advowson was sold in 1836 for £40S, and fell to the bishop. The church possesses a splendid piece of plate, a silver cup over a foot high. This was given to the church in 1624 by Ambrose and Abraham Jennens and William Pawley, but it is far older.