222 HAUNTS OF THE SHEARWATER 



wind, might, in such a case, have easily grown till it 

 seemed, when looked back upon in after years, a last 

 struggle for life, or a hand raised in prayer for help. 



The ring was handed over by the poor creature, who 

 had never before dared to show it to any one, to the 

 clergyman to whom she made her dying confession, and 

 sent by him to Lord Dursley, in whose family it has 

 since remained. 



The commonly accepted story that Sir Cloudesley 

 Shovel was of very low origin unless the researches 

 of a descendant of genealogical tastes, the Hon. Robert 

 Marsham-Townshend, have altogether misled him 

 rests on even less substantial foundation than the 

 legend that he was washed ashore alive and murdered 

 for his emerald ring. Mr. Townshend has traced Sir 

 Cloudesley's family as holding for at least three genera- 

 tions well established positions in Norfolk. 



His great-grandfather was Sheriff of Norwich in 1607, 

 and his grandfather and father rented land, respectively, 

 at Burnhain the birthplace of an even greater sailor 

 and at Cockthorpe. 



From a note in the town records against the name 

 of a still earlier Shovel probably one of the same 

 family, but whose connection with the admiral has 

 not yet been actually proved, alienus indigena 

 Mr. Townshend concludes that they were originally 

 immigrants, probably from the Low Countries. 



Among the Treasury papers catalogued by the Record 

 Office is a letter, dated the 20th January 1708, from the 

 Marquis of Kent, Lord Chamberlain of the Household, 



