A HISTORY OF DORSET 



suspicions of the wife of the sailing-master upon whom all depended. The 

 Prince and Wyndham spent an anxious night at Charmouth, and got safely 

 away in the morning, owing to the dilatoriness of the parson Bartholomew 

 Wesley,^ great-great-grandfather of John Wesley. From Charmouth they 

 rode to Bridport (a journey said to be commemorated in the local field-name 

 ' Girtups ') and thence on to Broadwindsor. Here they took shelter with a 

 Royalist inn-keeper and his wife. Forty Parliamentarian troopers came to 

 quarter in the very inn where they were, but while these slept the fugitives 

 got away to Trent. Thence Charles went to Salisbury, and so after many 

 adventures to the continent.' 



The Royalist rising in the west in 1655 was not joined by any very 

 large body of Dorset men. On the other hand, there can be no doubt 

 that an appreciable Royalist sentiment did exist at that time in north-east 

 Dorset, stimulated probably by dislike of existing militarism. On Sun- 

 day, II March, 1654—5, 100 men, under the leadership of Sir Joseph 

 WagstafFe, Colonel John Penruddock, and Mr. Hugh Grove, met at 

 Clarendon Park, 3 miles from Salisbury. The leaders were all Wiltshire 

 men, though Penruddock's mother was the daughter of John Frcke of 

 Iwerne Courtney and Melcombe, a well-known Dorset family. From 

 Clarendon Park they rode to Blandford, where they were joined by eighty 

 more men. Having vainly waited for further reinforcements, the whole 

 force, now numbering nearly two hundred, rode back to Salisbury, and early 

 on the Monday morning occupied the town, seizing the judges in their beds, 

 for the western assizes were then on. Penruddock proclaimed Charles II. 

 Again failing to attract recruits, they decided to make for Devon and 

 Cornwall, hoping to get shelter with their friends, or at the worst to escape 

 by sea. They took the road through Downton to Blandford, which they 

 reached on Monday afternoon. Here 



Penruddocke forced the crier to go to the Market Cross, to proclaim Charles Stuart King, 

 who made 'Ho Yes' four times, but still when Penruddock (who dictated to him) said 

 Charles II King, he the crier stopped, and said he could not say that word, and he was every 

 time much beaten by them and yet told them they might kill him, but he could not say that 

 word, though they should call for faggots and burn him presently ; his constancy and faith- 

 fulness is taken notice of.' 



From Blandford they rode to Sherborne, where they stayed two hours, and 

 then to Babylon Hill, east of Yeovil ; they entered Yeovil at i p.m. on Tues- 

 day. Going by Cullompton, 10 miles only from Exeter, they were attacked by 

 Crook at South Molton with a detachment of the Exeter garrison. Thinned 

 in numbers, and disheartened, after some stand they surrendered, late on the 

 Wednesday evening.* 



By Friday, the i6th, the indefatigable Desborough, major-general of the 

 western counties, had arrived at Shaftesbury. He garrisoned Bridport to 

 prevent escape,^ and wrote at once to the sheriffs of the five counties to appre- 



' Gentltmon's Mag. Ix, 427. 



' See Hutchins, ii, 218. The Bcscobel Tracts, ed. J. Hughes {1857). W. Wilson, Life and Times of 

 Daniel Defoe, \, 1 12. Pulman, The Book of the Axe, 212 (4th. ed.). Pnc. Dors. Field Club, viii, 9-28. 

 l\otes and Queries for Som. and Dors., i, 80, 136-7 ; iii, 306 ; iv, 6 ; v, 150, 216. 



' Perfect Proceedings, 29 March to 6 April, 1654-5. 



' See the account in ff'ilts. Arch. Mag. 3utxviii, 135, sqq. W. W. Ravenhill. ' Thurloe Papers, iii, 263. 



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