218 WEYMOUTH AND THE GREAT CIVIL WAR. 



bridge from Melcombe, and within an hour stormed and 

 carried, with the loss of only one man, the Chapel Fort and 

 Weymouth proper. The Royalists did not discover the enemy 

 until they were on the outworks, and, probably overestimat- 

 ing their number, soon cried for " quarter." The Round- 

 heads took 60 prisoners, also a Lieutenant-Colonel, a Major, 

 three Captains, three Lieutenants, and 100 inferior officers 

 and common soldiers, with ome " of the profidious towns- 

 men, who after taking the covenant with us were got into 

 arms against us" (*). They also took prisoner Captain 

 Alexander Keynes, the owner of Radipole Farm, described 

 by Ince as " a Papist," and as having in his " Portmantle, 

 a parcell of Holy Beads, a Commission for a Ship to play the 

 Pirat with at Sea, which lay blank at Dunkirk." They also 

 captured 40 loads of provisions of which they were at this 

 time greatly in need. 



This was a disaster which was bitterly regretted by the 

 Royalists, who had held the fort for 17 days only. Sir Lewis 

 Dyve, in reporting the loss to his step-father, the Earl of 

 Bristol, described it as a " strange misfortune," and wrote to 

 Sir John Berkeley on the day of the disaster as follows : 

 " My Lord Goring hath set up his rest to go through with it, 

 being confident of your speedy assistance in a worke of that 



infinite importance to his Majestie's service so that 



this place being taken, which wee are confident cannot be a 

 worke of many dayes, the west is not only secured thereby, 

 but my Lord Goring will likewise have an opportunity of 

 advancing into the associated counties, which are now left 

 naked." 



The Nothe Fort and the small fort at Bincleaves remained 

 in the hands of the Royalists, but these were of small account, 

 while their adversaries held the Chapel Fort. On the two 

 following days the two neighbour towns battered away hard 

 at one another " both with great and small shott." 



* Ince. 



