152 The New Forest : its History and its Scenery. 



ceases to study and take pains both for the advancement of 

 the commonwealth of this his realm of England, and for the 



defence of the same Wherefore, his Majesty in his 



own personne took very laborious and painful journeys towards 

 the sea-coasts. Also, he sent dyvers of his nobles and coun- 

 sellors to view and search all the portes and dangers in the 

 coastes, .... and in all soche doubtful places his Highness 

 caused dyvers and many bulwarks and fortifications to be made."* 

 And of them, Hurst Castle, like Calshot, which we have seen, 

 was one, and still stands, additionally fortified by guns, and 

 guarded by the far better defences of lighthouses, and beacons, 

 and telegraph stations.! 



Here it was, on the 1st December, 1642, Charles I. was 

 brought, after holding his mock court at Newport, by Colonel 

 Cobbit, who had seized him in the name of the army. Here, 

 too, he still showed all the foolish childishness which Laud had 

 taught him, putting faith in the omen of his candle burning 



* Hall's Union of the Families of Lancaster and York, xxxi. year of 

 King Henry VIII, ff 234. 235, London, 1548. 



f From Peck (Desiderata Curiosa. vol. i., b. ii., part iv , p. 66) we find 

 that in Elizabeths reign the captain received 1*. 8d. a day; the officer under 

 him, Is. ; and the master-gunner and porter, and eleven gunners and ten 

 soldiers, Qd. each, which in Grose's time had been increased to Is. (Grose's 

 Antiquities, vol. ii., where a sketch is given of the castle). Hurst, on account 

 of its strength, was to have been betrayed, in the Dudley conspiracy, to the 

 French, by Uvedale, Captain of the Isle of Wight. (Uvedale's Confession, 

 Domestic MSS., vol vii., quoted in Froude's History of England, vol. vi. 

 p. 438.) Ludlow mentions the great importance of Hurst being secured to 

 the Commonwealth, as both commanding the Isle of Wight and stopping 

 communication with the mainland (Memoirs, p. 323). Hammond, in a 

 letter from Carisbrook Castle, June 25th, 1648, says it is "of very great 

 importance to the island. It is a place of as great strength as any I know 

 in England " (Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, vol. ii., b. ix., p. 383). 



