Page:A History of Horncastle from the Earliest Period to the Present Time.djvu/60

Rh Close to this, and above the arch leading into the nave, are a number of scythes, some with straight wooden handles, attached to the wall, which are said to have been used at the Winceby fight. The origin of these scythes has of late years been a vexata questio. It has been suggested that they are not, as generally supposed, relics of the Parliamentary War, but of the earlier so-called "Pilgrimage of Grace," or "Lincolnshire Rising," a movement intended as a protest against certain abuses attending the Reformation, in the reign of Henry VIII. The evidence, however, gathered from various directions, would seem to be strongly corroborative of the old and more general opinion. History shows that, for many years, about the period of the Commonwealth, scythes were among the commonest, rude weapons of war. The artist Edgar Bundy, in his painting "The morning of Edgemoor," recently (1905) purchased for the National Gallery by the Chantry Trustees, represents a soldier armed with a straight wooden-handled scythe. The battle of Edgemoor was fought Oct. 23, 1642, one year before that of Winceby. We have also contemporary testimony in the Memoirs of the Verney Family (vol. i, pp. 109-118 and 315), members of which took part in the civil war of that period, that King Charles' forces consisted largely of untrained peasants, "ill-fed and clothed ... having neither colours, nor halberts ... many only rude pikes ... few a musket." To such the scythes used in their farm labour would be handy weapons in emergency. As a parallel to these cases Sir Walter Scott, in his preface to Rob Roy states that "many of the followers of MacGregor, at the battle of Prestonpans (Sep. 21, 1745), were armed with scythe blades, set straight upon their handles, for want of guns and swords." It is not without interest to note, that about 60 years ago there were exhumed, on the farm above Langton Hill, in Horncastle, the remains of 6 bodies, lying buried in a row, with scythe blades beside them. It is known that skirmishes between Royalists and Roundheads took place in this locality, and it can hardly be doubted that these also were relics of the Winceby fightfight. [sic] The then tenant of the farm, Mr. Dobson (as the writer has been informed by his granddaughter, Mrs. H. Boulton of St. Mary's Square, Horncastle), carted these remains to the town and they were re-buried in the south side of St. Mary's Churchyard, while the scythes were added to those already in the church. An incident, which further confirms their connection with the Winceby fight, is that the present writer has in his possession a pair of spurs, which were found on the field of Winceby, remarkable for the long spikes of their rowels; and he himself once found the rowel of a spur, with similarly long spikes, within a few yards of where the bodies were discovered; and in the year 1905 he also examined several bones, pronounced by a doctor to be human, which were found near the same spot, while workmen were digging for the foundations of a house since erected there. On the other hand, as against the theory of the scythes having been used in the earlier "Pilgrimage of Grace," we are distinctly told that the mobs concerned in that movement were deprived of all weapons before they could use them. In the Lincoln Chapter House books (c. i, 20, f 193) is a letter from Richard Cromwell, dated Oct. 29, 1586, which says that he, and Admiral Sir John Russell, went to Louth, where "all the harness and weapons were seized, and conveyed to Lincoln," and that for the same purpose Mr. Bryan had been sent to Horncastle, and Mr. Brown to Market Rasen. On the whole, therefore, the preponderance of evidence is strongly in favour of the connection of all these scythes with the neighbouring Battle of Winceby—the original tradition.

On the wall of the north aisle, nearest the archway into the chancel, on a small slab of Purbeck marble, is a brass of Sir Lionel Dymoke, kneeling on a cushion; on either side were formerly small shields displaying the arms of Dymoke, Waterton, Marmyon, Hebden and Haydon; and on small brasses were the figures of two sons and three daughters. Parts of these are now lost. The figure of Sir Lionel is in the attitude of prayer, from his left elbow issues a scroll with the inscription "S'cta Trinitas, unus Deus, miserere nob." Beneath is another inscription, "In Honore s'cte et individue trinitatis. Orate pro a'i'a Leonis Dymoke, milit' q' obijt xvij die me'se Augusti, A° D'ni M° cccccxix. Cuj' a'i'e p' piciet, de.' Amen." Below this monument, in the pavement, is a brass, now mutilated, of the same Sir Lionel Dymoke, wrapped in a shroud, with two scrolls issuing from the head, the lettering of which is now effaced. Beneath is an inscription also now obliterated, but which Mr. Weir gives as follows:—