DEATH OF "COURTENAY" 181 



Lieutenant Bennett advanced and called upon them 

 to surrender, but Courtenay, raising his pistol, shot 

 him dead, and his men leapt out from the woods 

 furiously, armed only ^\^th cudgels and fanaticism, 

 to attack the soldiers. One volley, however, stretched 

 many dying, or bleeding from severe wounds, upon 

 the ground, and Courtenay himself fell mortally 

 wounded, exclaiming, " I have Jesus in my heart." 



Thirteen people in all were killed in this affray : 

 Mears the constable. Lieutenant Bennett, and Cour- 

 tenay ; eight " rioters " dying on the spot, and two 

 others afterwards succumbing to their wounds. Many 

 more were crippled for life. Twenty-three were 

 committed to gaol : some transported across the seas, 

 and others sentenced to short terms of imprisonment 

 at home. Some of the men were buried in Boughton 

 Churchyard, others at Hernhill, three miles away, 

 overlooking the rich land that slopes towards the sea. 

 Here Courtenay was buried, but the graves of himself 

 and his men are unmarked by stone or mound. The 

 fanaticism of the peasantry was not altogether 

 extinguished by this dreadful ending, and the tale is 

 told, on excellent authority, of a woman drawing 

 water from a well and walking half a mile with it to 

 moisten the lips of the dead leader, who had said that, 

 should he fall, a drop of water applied to his mouth 

 would restore him from death to life. The barbarous 

 expedients of keeping his body in a shed of the 

 " Red Lion " at Dunkirk until corruption had set in, 

 and of omitting the resurrection clause from the 

 Burial Service were resorted to, lest the country folk 

 should persist in their belief of his divinity. 



Thus ended the so-called " Courtenay Rebellion " 

 of 1838. When he was dead, it became generally 

 known that " Sir William Courtenay " was really but 

 John Nichols Thom, the son of a Cornish innkeeper 

 and farmer. Always a clever and handsome lad, he 

 had grown up still more handsome, but with a religious 

 enthusiasm and a romantic imagination inherited from 



