Page:Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire.djvu/309

COLONEL BOLLES AT ALTON Sir John Bolle is the hero of the story. The lady fell in love with him, but on hearing that he had a wife at home, she retired to a nunnery and sent rich presents to his wife of tapestry, plate and jewels, and her picture in a green dress. The jewels are now in the hands of many of Lady Bolle's descendants, the necklet of 298 pearls being, it is said, in the Bosvile family at Ravensfield Park, Yorkshire. The last warden of Winchester College was called Godfrey Bolles Lee, and was related to the Bosviles; and, curiously enough, in the Cathedral of Winchester is a brass plate giving an account of the death of Colonel John Bolles. It seems that Charles, the elder of the three sons whose effigies are on Sir John's monument in the quaint little church of Haugh, was a Royalist, living at Thorpe Hall, Louth, where he raised a regiment of foot, which was commanded by his brother John, a soldier of unusual gallantry. Charles once saved his life when pursued, by hiding under the bridge at Louth. The regiment was engaged at Edgehill and other places, and finally cut to pieces in a most bloody engagement inside Alton Church in Hampshire. Clarendon tells us that Sir William Waller, finding that Lord Hopton's troops lay quartered at too great distance from each other, had, by a night march, come suddenly upon the Royalist forces at Alton. The horse made good their escape to Winchester, and Colonel Bolles, who was in command of his own regiment of 500 men, being outnumbered, retired with some four score men into the church, hoping to defend it till succour arrived. But the enemy, as he had not had time to barricade the doors, entered with him, and some sixty of his men were killed before the rest asked for quarter; this was granted, but Colonel Bolles refused the offer, and was killed fighting. Alton is seventeen miles from Winchester, and the little brass plate on the eastern pillar of the north arcade of the nave in Winchester Cathedral, just where the steps go up to the choir, has a counterpart in Alton Church. The inscription on it was composed almost fifty years after the event by a relative who describes himself M.A., but he does no credit to the learning of the time, for it is full of errors, both of spelling and of facts; for instance, he calls the gallant Colonel, Richard instead of John, and gives the date of the fight as 1641 instead of December, 1643; but it is too quaint a thing not to be transcribed in full.