[Illustration:  ATHELSTAN’S TOWER.]

He arrived at Exeter on September 27th, 1497, with 7,000 men, and after burning the North Gate he forced his way through the city towards the Castle, but was defeated there by Sir Richard Courtenay, the Earl of Devon, and taken prisoner.  For some mysterious reason it was not until November 3rd, 1499, more than two years after the battle, that he was hanged for treason, at Tyburn.  Another strange incident was that when King Henry VII came to Exeter after the battle, and the followers of Perkin Warbeck were brought before him with halters round their necks and bare-headed, to plead for mercy, he generously pardoned them and set them at liberty.

The fighting in the district we had passed through last night occurred in 1549, the second year of the reign of King Edward VI.  A pleasing story was related of this King, to the effect that when he was a boy and wanted something from a shelf he could not quite reach, his little playfellow, seeing the difficulty, carried him a big book to stand upon, that would just have enabled him to get what he wanted; but when Edward saw what book it was that he had brought he would not stand upon it because it was the “Holy Bible.”

The religious disturbances we have already recorded were not confined to the neighbourhood of Exeter, but extended all over England, and were the result of an Act of Parliament for which the people were not prepared, and which was apparently of too sweeping a character, for by it all private Masses were abolished, all images removed from churches, and the Book of Common Prayer introduced.  It was the agitation against this Act that caused the 10,000 Cornish and Devonian men, who were described as rebels, incited also by their priests, to besiege the city of Exeter, and to summon the Mayor and Council to capitulate.  This the “Ever-Faithful City” refused to do, and held out for thirty-six days, until Lord Russell and Lord Grey appeared on the scene with the Royal army and raised the siege.

In 1643, during the Civil War, Exeter surrendered to Prince Maurice, the nephew of Charles I, and three years later capitulated to the Army of the Parliament on condition that the garrison should march out with all the honours of war.

The unhappy wife of Charles I arrived at Exeter in 1644, having a few days previously bidden her husband “Good-bye” for the last time, a sorrowful parting which we had heard about at Abingdon, where it had taken place, and whither Charles had accompanied her from Oxford.  She stayed at Bedford House in Exeter, where she was delivered of a daughter, who was named Henrietta, being baptized in the cathedral in a magnificent new font erected especially for the occasion.  The Queen left the city on July 14th, and sailed from Falmouth to France, where she stayed at the Court of Louis XIV.  Twelve days later the King reached Exeter, and called to see his infant daughter, and he again stayed at Bedford House on his return from Cornwall on September 17th, 1645.