144 ANTIQUITIES OF OKEHAMPTON. 



ing, we may suppose, with feverish anxiety, tlie alternate rise and 

 fall of his cause in the western counties. With the fanatics of the 

 Parliamentary side, disorder wore the cloak of religion ; with the 

 reckless and unprincipled adventurers of the King's troops she was 

 the undisguised idol. The terrors of the Provost Marshal were 

 insufficient to scare her from the very verge of the court : Master 

 Richard notices, during Charles' stay here, that " a soldier was 

 hung in the street for plundering a house in Inwardleigh, '' or 

 Coffin's Ingerley, * as Risdon somewhere calls the parish. The 

 good burgesses of Okehampton might feel, though they hardly ven- 

 tured on complaint that the exactors were not always of a rank 

 merely plebian ; for Shebbear notices without a word of comment 

 that Mr. Mayor gave the King £25. 0. 0., and the Earl of Lind- 

 sey and his servants £3. 6. 6., making altogether no small sum in 

 those days for a place like Okehampton to contribute. 



Three years after the town was barricadoed and kept as a mili- 

 tary post for more than six weeks by Sir Richard Grenville. But 

 he was at length driven out by Fairfax the parliamentary general, 

 who, after a very short stay here, marched from Okehampton on 

 Easter day, 1646. 



This neighbourhod had witnessed a meeting of the conflicting 

 parties once before : it occured, as I learn from an old record, 

 about four months previously to the king's visit. The Roundheads 

 under command of Major James Chudleigh, seem to have thrown 

 up a breastwork in a field over this town called Stonypark; the 

 cavaliers were posted on Meldondown. The writer merely ob- 

 serves, that the troops were sometime engaged in this last 

 place " in a great tempest of wind and rain :" with what issue we 

 are not informed. I find here (as well as in Shebbear 's journal) 

 frequent notice of expedients to which the burgesses were reduced 

 in order to meet the exactions made on them ; as either cause in 

 turn predominated. 



To be continued. 



* I find the foUoAving " Memorandum" in the Register book of that Parish 

 — made about the year 1763: — 



"Francis Nation my grandfather was rector of Parkham and this parish too, 

 till May 19th, 1762, at which time he died at Parkham and was buried there, aged 

 82, having been rector of this parish about 56 years ; but was turned out for 

 some time in Oliver's days for his loyalty, to the king, afterwards restored 

 again when the king was returned. 



G. P. HEARDER, PLYMOUTH. 



