HISTORY OF HARTING. 8 1 



doubtedly the graves of the dead, three skeletons 

 having been found there some years ago, and two 

 more last year (1876) as the workmen were digging 

 chalk to mend the road at the gate immediately oppo- 

 site. About a quarter of a mile further over the downs 

 towards Chilgrove, in the direction of Arundel, there 

 is a regular encampment on the left hand, flanking a 

 little coombe approached by another pass in the downs 

 immediately opposite East Harting, near Beacon Hill, 

 a road familiar to huntsmen as it saves much of the 

 steep ascent of their way to Chilgrove or Compton. 

 Near this battery the main road passes u Ktidevil" 

 lane, whose euphonious name proclaims its descent 

 from the Cavaliers. There is a large green mound 

 south of Up Park House, in which, tradition says, a 

 number of horses were buried, and there is a similar 

 tumulus further to the south at the fern beds between 

 Compton and East Harden called "Solomons thumb."* 



A record of Lord Hopton's march from Winchester 

 to take Arundel was perhaps discovered at East Meon 

 not long ago, when four bodies were found buried in 

 an upright posture (like Ben Jonson in Westminster 

 Abbey) under a stone bearing the mysterious legend, 

 "AMENS PLENTY." The lettering is very plain and 

 precise, and might pass for a very modern effort ; but 

 it is almost identical with that cut on the grave of 

 Shakespeare's wife Anne at Stratford-on-Avon, Aug., 

 1623. Let the imaginative believe that four " Psalm- 

 -singing knaves" were killed on their way through East 

 Meon into Sussex, and buried in grim jest as a quartett 

 to sing " Amens plenty " without interruption. At all 

 events this is only one of the many hazards as to the 

 remarkable stone, and still more remarkable interment. 



The poor Royalists of Harting were taken as fish in 

 a prawn net when Arundel Castle fell. Old Sir William 

 Ford, seventy years old, "aged and sickly," was at large, 

 but his son, Sir Edward, or Colonel Ford, the Sheriff, 



* Alias " Baverses' Thumb." 



