Recent Wiltshire Books, Pamphlets, and Articles. 251 



The Statecraft of Oliver Cromwell and the Salisbury 



Rising' of 1655 is the title of a lecture by Sir Keginald Palgrave, 

 K.C.B., at the Blackmore Museum, reported in full in the Salisbury 

 Journal, March 22nd, 1902, in which there is also a short article on the 

 subject. The lecturer maintains that this rising, which began with the 

 assembly of one hundred horsemen in Clarendon Park on the 11th March, 

 1655, under Major-Gen. Wagstaff, Col. Penruddocke, and Hugh Grove, of 

 Chisenbury, and ended miserably in the captui-e of the two latter at 

 South Molton four days latei-, was really entirely due to deceptive stories 

 purposely spread abroad, not without the knowledge of the Lord Protector 

 himself, of the willingness of great part of his army to revolt and join the 

 Royalists as soon as an open rising took place. He argues the fact that the 

 rising was promoted by Cromwell himself in order that he might have a 

 pretext for the step which immediately followed its suppression, the parcelling 

 out of the country into ten districts, each under the despotic government of 

 a major-general. For proof of this he appeals fi-om Clarendon, in his 

 History, to Clarendon, in his Aiitohiography, where he says that Cromwell 

 himself was aware of the deceptive offers of the army officers, and more 

 especially to a letter in the Thurloe Papers showing that Secretary Thurloe, 

 when he allowed the release of Major Armorer, one of the Royalist leaders, 

 who had been arrested on his landing at Dover, knew perfectly well the 

 reason for which he had come over from the Continent. Other Royalists 

 also confined in Dover Castle escaped with surprising ease, yet the Governor 

 of the Castle, Kelsey, so far from being reprimanded, was promoted by 

 Cromwell immediately afterwards. Col. Cromwell, the Protector's cousin, 

 also explicitly stated that Cromwell connived at Lord Rochester' s landing 

 in England. The author, in fact, maintains that the whole rising was 

 "provoked" for Cromwell's own purposes. The author knows his period, 

 and his argument is quite worth reading. 



Stonehenge. An attempt to ascertain the Date of 

 the Original Construction of, from its Orienta- 

 tion. By Sir Norman Lockyer, K.C.B., F.R.S., 



and P. C. Penrose, F.R.S. Pamphlet, 8vo. Reprinted from 

 the Proceedings of the Royal Society, vol. 69, pp. 137—147. 1901. Also 

 printed as a paper in Nature, Nov. 21st, 1901, pp. 55—57, with the exception 

 of the appendix of observations and calculations. The authors start with 

 the belief that the "circular temple of Apollo," mentioned by Hecatteus, is 

 in all probability Stonehenge — that it was a sun temple— and that it was 

 originally roofed over, so that the interior was dark, and that the " sun's 

 first ray, suddenly admitted into the darkness, formed a fundamental part 

 of the cultus." They regard the orientation of the axis of the temple as 

 the same as that of the avenue, and as accurate measurements can be taken 

 now of the avenue better than of the axis of the building, they found their 

 observations chiefly on the orientation of the avenue itself. These observations 

 were taken with very great care in the summer of 1901, the solsticial sunrise 

 being accurately observed on the morning of June 25th. Supposing the 

 VOL. XXXII.— NO. XCVII. S 



