1S2 THE DOVER ROAD 



his mother. He was for a tmie employed at Truro, 

 but disappeared for some years until his strange descent 

 upon Canterbury in 1832. 



The " Red Lion," where the bodies of the dead 

 were laid out, stands by the roadside at Dunkirk, and 

 a cart-road on the hither side of it, to the left hand, 

 made long after this extraordinary affair, and called 

 " Courtenay Road," leads down to the still wild and 

 thickly grown woods of hazel, alder, and miscellaneous 

 scrub in which Bossenden Woods are situated. A gate 

 — " Courtenay Gate " — stands by the scene of the 

 struggle, but the trees marked at the time by the 

 rustics in memory of Courtenay and his men, are not 

 now to be discovered. The villagers still bear him 

 in memory, and truly he deserves to be kept in mind, 

 for though as "Sir William Courtenay" he was an 

 impostor, yet he truly loved the people, and his 

 naturally highly-strung mental organization, com- 

 pletely unstrung by an unnecessary imprisonment, 

 was responsible for his religious pretensions and his 

 blasphemous impersonation towards the end. Worse 

 men than he are honoured in history and in public 

 monuments, and it seems a pity that a childish spite 

 should have hidden his grave and the graves of the 

 poor fellows who fell that day. The pilgrim who 

 takes an interest in these strange events, happening 

 in this century, and in the reign of Queen Victoria, 

 and who happens to visit the secluded village of 

 Hernhill, may look for the site of " Sir William 

 Courtenay 's " resting-place beside the path where a 

 yew-tree spreads a shade over the west entrance to 

 the village church. 



His death did good. The Government ordered a 

 Commission to sit and inquire into the state of things 

 that produced these events, and it appeared that the 

 district was Godless and ignorant, a fit ground for 

 fanaticism to spring up in and flourish. Schools 

 were built, and the church of Dunkirk owes its existence 

 to Courtenay 's Rebellion. The superstitious country- 



