Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/170

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The New Forest: its History and its Scenery.

ceases to study and take pains both for the advancement of the commonwealth of this his realm of England, and for the defence of the same. . . . . Wherefore, his Majesty in his own personne took very laborious and painful journeys towards the sea-coasts. Also, he sent dyvers of his nobles and counsellors to view and search all the portes and dangers in the coastes, . . . . and in all soche doubtful places his Highness caused dyvers and many bulwarks and fortifications to be made."[1] And of them, Hurst Castle, like Calshot, which we have seen, was one, and still stands, additionally fortified by guns, and guarded by the far better defences of lighthouses, and beacons, and telegraph stations.[2]

Here it was, on the 1st December, 1642, Charles I. was brought, after holding his mock court at Newport, by Colonel Cobbit, who had seized him in the name of the army. Here, too, he still showed all the foolish childishness which Laud had taught him, putting faith in the omen of his candle burning


  1. Hall's Union of the Families of Leicester and York, xxxi. year of King Henry VIII., ff. 234, 235; London, 1548.
  2. From Peck (Desiderata Curiosa, vol. i., b. ii., part iv., p. 66) we find that in Elizabeth's reign the captain received 1s. 8d. a day; the officer under him, 1s.; and the master-gunner and porter, and eleven gunners and ten soldiers, 6d. each, which in Grose's time had been increased to 1s. (Grose's Antiquities, vol. ii., where a sketch is given of the castle). Hurst, on account of its strength, was to have been betrayed, in the Dudley conspiracy, to the French, by Uvedale, Captain of the Isle of Wight. (Uvedale's Confession, Domestic MSS., vol. vii., quoted in Froude's History of England, vol. vi. p. 438.) Ludlow mentions the great importance of Hurst being secured to the Commonwealth, as both commanding the Isle of Wight and stopping communication with the mainland (Memoirs, p. 323). Hammond, in a letter from Carisbrook Castle, June 25th, 1648, says it is "of very great importance to the island. It is a place of as great strength as any I know in England" (Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, vol. ii., b. ix., p. 383).
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