250 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
THE SIEGE OF PLYMOUTH. 
A CHAPTER OF PLYMOUTH HISTORY RE-WRITTEN. 
BY MR. R. N...WORTH, F.G.S. 
(Read December 18th, 1874.) 
For six hundred years has Plymouth been a fighting town. For 
nearly five hundred years have its shores been constantly familiar 
with 
“Thunder of fort and of fleet.” 
Many an expedition destined to act against a foreign foe has as- 
sembled in its waters. Again and again has the foeman retaliated 
by carrying the war within its borders. But none of its warlike 
memories stands out so forcibly as that with which we have here 
to deal. The Siege of Plymouth marks.an epoch of the first 
importance in our national as well as in our local history. Fore- 
most in defending the liberties of England in the 16th century, 
when the haughty Armada was launched against our shores; no 
town in the West of England—London excepted, none in the 
whole kingdom—did more for the defence of these same liberties 
in the 17th, when they were assailed from within. There are 
places in the West that have been besieged more often; Plymouth 
~ alone can claim the proud title of a maiden town. Bristol, Exeter, 
Taunton, have been attacked, and have fallen again and again. 
Plymouth endured a Siege longer and fiercer than either of theirs, 
and sustained it to the end. 
It singularly happens that while there is thus no part of our 
local history of which we may be more justly proud (for those 
who hold that Plymouth took the wrong side in the great conflict 
cannot, I think, help admiring its stoutness in defence), there is 
none so little known. I have called this a chapter of Plymouth 
history re-written; the chapter has hardly been written at all. 
