Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/352

342[March 13, 1869] of Arragon, with her cold Spanish pride, stepped on shore at Plymouth, on her way to meet her husband. An old house in Catte-street used to be shown as the one in which Painter, the mayor, welcomed her. Spenser mentions the Hoe as the spot, according to the fabulous British history, where Corineus, the companion of Brute of Troy, fought with Goemot, one of the stoutest of those giant aborigines, tall as lighthouses, who once prevailed here. Two giants, with clubs in their hands, were cut, ages ago, on the turf of the Hoe to celebrate this great duel, and the steps were, till recently, pointed out by which Corineus dragged down the lumbering body of his rival and flung it over the cliff into the sea.

The crow remembers that, from the Hoe, keen eyes first saw the great gilded and crimson sails of the Armada, towering against the horizon. There is a legend, that, some hours before this, Drake was pacing here in jewelled hat, ruff, cloak, and rapier, with other brave Devonshire captains. He was playing at bowls when news of the proud fleet's approach came, but he would not leave till the game was finished. "Let's play the last bowl," he said, "and then have a bowl at the Spaniards." Could men of such calm courage fail to give the Armada to fire and storm, to hungry reefs and greedy sands? No wonder that on the anniversary of that grand day it was the fashion for Devonshire bells to clash, and men to shout, maidens to wear posies, 'prentices to rejoice, and the mayor and corporation of Plymouth to flaunt their grandeur in scarlet, and to treat their visitors with cake and wine.

Sir Francis Drake appears in Plymouth legends as a magician. It is believed by the country people that when the Plymouth people wanted water, Sir Francis Drake called for his horse and rode straight to Dartmoor. There, among the granite blocks and the heathery valleys, he searched about for, and found, the clearest and fullest spring of Sheeps Tor. Instantly uttering some words of incantation, Sir Francis galloped back the thirty miles to Plymouth, without pulling bridle, the obedient stream racing after its master close at his horse's heels, and following him into the grateful and rejoicing town. The sober fact is, that Sir Francis obtained a prosaic act of parliament from good Queen Bess, and coaxed a score of proud private gentlemen to allow the stream to pass through their lands. When, at last, the water coursed into Plymouth, it was welcomed as if it had been a living sovereign, by the firing of cannon and by mayor and corporation in full scarlet.

Plymouth had some hard rubs in 1643, when, after the Cavaliers had taken Exeter, Prince Maurice levied an army of seven thousand stout-hearted western men, and joined Colonel John Digby, who, with three thousand Royalist foot and six hundred horse, had already taken Mount Stamford, which was within half a mile of the Sound, and commanded part of the river.

What was Plymouth then? Clarendon tells us it was a rich and populous corporation, and the greatest port in the west, next to Bristol. The castle stood strong towards the sea, with good platforms and ordnance, and a little more than musket-shot from the town rose a fort much stronger than the castle, both commanding the entrance into the harbour, then under command of Sir Jacob Ashley, and a garrison of not more than fifty men. These forts had guns and shot, but no provisions, the king having been afraid of alarming his enemies by making any preparations for war. Sir Jacob Ashley being recalled to the king's side, the mayor, aided by a parliamentary committee, who kept a sharp eye on him, held the castle and town, which was guarded with a small and irregular earthwork, while to Sir Alexander Carew, a Cornish gentleman of fortune, the fort and island were entrusted. And here one of those romantic episodes, so frequent in the civil war, mingles its intrigues and vicissitudes with the story of Plymouth. Carew, afraid for his Cornish estates, and seeing Cornwall and all Devonshire, but Plymouth, pass over to the king, began to propose secret terms to Sir John Berkley, the governor of Exeter. But Carew, too anxious for a pardon, under the king's own hand, delayed so long that he was betrayed by a servant, and the mayor instantly surprised him in his fort, and packed him off, a prisoner, by sea to London.

Clarendon paints very strongly the state of mutual distrust in Plymouth when Digby first sat down before the walls. If Carew, who had been so violent for the Puritan cause, had been false, who could hope to be unsuspected? But the trembling town was saved by the indiscretion of Prince Maurice who, on taking Exeter, marched to Dartmouth, which he surprised. He had lost the tide in the affairs of men when he returned to Plymouth. The parliament had sent five hundred resolute men and a staunch Scotch officer, who meant mischief, a perfect Dalgetty, ready to eat his own boots and everybody else's, and prepared for rat soup and nettle salad, rather than surrender. The Cavaliers made no way against Plymouth.

In 1644, the king appeared, in person, before the place, hoping to scare it into a sudden surrender; but the Governor Essex had put in the town Lord Roberts, a sour dogged man, who never knew when he was beaten. The king, tired of waiting for the surrender, left it to Sir Richard Grenville, who had sworn a soldier's oath to take the town before Christmas, and who had already so quarrelled with Lord Roberts, that every prisoner on either side was either hung or put to the sword.

Sir Richard drew off from the town, and retired to Ockington, which he barricaded with three regiments of old soldiers to keep the Parliament men from Plymouth, and then proposed, among other crazed schemes, to cut a trench for forty miles from Barnstaple to the sea, by which, like a true Bobadil, he offered to defend Cornwall and Devon from all the world. After that Grenville's vanity,