12 SIXTH ANNUAL MEETING. 
be discerned a small quantity of brown dust, the residuum 
of human blood, which may be that of A’Beckett himself. 
Here again stands Cannington, where the Fair Rosamond, 
the vietim of a King’s lust and a Queen’s vengeance, 
passed her noviciate, and where a few years since a ring, 
apparently of the 13th century, now in the possession of 
Mr. Stradling, was found, on which were engraved the 
armorial bearings of the house of Clifford. 
“From this spot too may be seen the sites of no less 
than four of the medi®yal castles of Somerset,—Dunster, 
the stronghold of the Moions ; Stoke Courcey, the resi- 
dence of the De Courcey family; Bridgwater, founded in 
the reign of Henry I., by William Brewere; and Taunton, 
founded by Ina in the year 702, destroyed by his sister 
Ethelburga about twenty years after, and restored by 
William Gifford, Bishop of Winchester, in the reign of 
Henry the First. 
“] am not aware of any event of importance having 
taken place within sight of this place during the 13th, 
14th, and the earlier part of the 15th century, sufficient to 
invest any partieular spot with historical interest. "There 
indeed lies Halsway, the hunting seat of Cardinal Beaufort; 
but grand indeed as a medi®val hunting scene must have 
been in these beautiful hills, and though painter or poet 
might rejoice at the recollection of the stately Prelate, sur- 
rounded by knights and esquires, and, if all tales be true, 
with ladies fair, sallying forth with hound and horn to rouse 
the good red deer in the woods of Cocker Coombe and 
Sevenwells, Halsway, exelusive of its architectural value, 
has little historical interest attached to it beyond that of 
having been the occasional residence of the celebrated 
Cardinal; and in this it is perhaps surpassed by Milverton, 
where there is a house built for himself by the more cele- 
brated Wolsey. 
