Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/172

Rh man of more grim aspect, and no less robust and rude was his behaviour." The account is very life-like, though some allowance must be made for Herbert's prejudices against this gaunt Puritan captain, who, we learn, by-and-by became more civil. Colonel Cobbit, in whose charge the King was, seems to have treated him with uniform respect and kindness. Charles stayed here six-and-twenty days, walking along the beach, watching the ships passing up and down the Solent, and receiving the cavaliers of Hampshire, who came for the last time to pay their respects. Then, at last, he was suddenly taken away to show at Whitehall a better courage and wisdom in death than in life.

About three miles from Milford, on the mouth of the Boldre Water, lies the port of Lymington, the Mark of the Limingas, as the neighbouring hamlet of Pennington is that of the Penningas. Its manor, like that of Christchurch, once belonged to Isabella de Fortibus, and was given, with some other possessions, by Edward I., to her rightful heir, the Earl of Devon, whose arms are still quartered with those of the Corporation. It is another of those towns, which, like Christchurch, though in a very different way, is associated with the past. It has no monastic buildings, no ruins of any kind, no church worth even a glance. Yet, too, it can tell of departed greatness.

From the coins which have been dug up in the town, and the camp at Buckland Rings, it was evidently well known to the 154