O! And for to fetch the summer home
The summer and the May, O!“
My father was pleased with the hay, but his oats and wheat were thin because of the dry weather and because the land had not rested enough. We needed rain, he said, not this damnation wind.
I remember on the 21st the weather set fine again, because it was the day I rode into Truro for more medicines for my grandmother. Every time I went to see Mistress Footmarker I stayed an hour or two learning fresh things about herbs and their mixtures and administrations; but she never let me see her mix the diacodium. She was so generous of her secrets that I sought for some other reason, and thought that she found satisfaction in doling out bottle by bottle the physic which did so much good for the woman she disliked. That way Lady Killigrew remained beholden to her, even though she might not know it. That way at any time, perhaps, the remedy could be withdrawn.
At dawn on the 22nd three shallops, easily identifiable as Spanish, were in Falmouth Bay. They never came close enough to be fired on and after a morning of tension turned away and disappeared towards the southwest. Towards evening, in accordance with the agreement of two weeks ago, my father sent Belemus to Jack Arundell and me to tell Sir Francis.
At Godolphin all was quiet. Lady Godolphin was unwell with an attack of the stone. For that she had been prescribed in London to take saxifrage root steeped in the blood of a hare, and she esteemed this as a remedy. My great aunt Margaret had been dead some years and I did not know Sir Francis’s second wife well enough to query her cure; nor did I know Katherine Footmarker’s though I remembered it had something to do with a prolonged diet of goat’s milk. Sir Francis had as yet received no answer from Essex.
At Godolphin the family supped in one room and the servants afterwards in another. Sir Francis himself when busy with his papers ate frugally and alone. My father said he was mean, to eat so sparsely when so rich. That night we had a lonely meal, for Lady Godolphin was upstairs, his daughter was long since married, while his sons were all away, one still soldiering in Ireland, one commanding in the Scillies, a third at Westminster.
Sir Francis said before I returned home tomorrow he would show me the tin works on Godolphin Hill, and so we went early to bed. I slept dreamlessly and was wakened by a thunderous knocking shortly after six. I thought I had overslept and pulled back the bed curtains as a servant came in.
“Begging your pardon, sir. Sir Francis’s compliments and the Spanish have landed! “
“What? Is it true? Where? How many?”
“Tis thought about a thousand in the first landings. They come in by first light and captured the village of Mousehole. Word come five minutes gone! “
I turned to claw into my clothes. Every button, every tie took twice the length of an ordinary day. Mousehole. I had never been there but I knew it as a fishing village horseshoed around a tiny harbour. And just above it, on the hill above it, was the twin village of Paul.
We were not above ten miles distant here. An hour’s gallop on a good horse … I bolted downstairs, found Sir Francis fastening his doublet while a servant buckled on his sword.
“Ah, Maugan, you slept well? You have heard the news? So it has come at last. I have a commission for you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ride and tell your father what is happening. Tell him to raise the alarm throughout his district and to gather his musters for instant use. Then I shall be obliged to him “
“Sir,” I said, “I ask to be excused from carrying such a message.” He looked at me straightly from under his level brows. “Let one of your servants carry it. It will not matter who bears the tidings. I wish to ride in the other direction.”
Sir Francis looked down at his sword and lifted the hilt an inch to be sure it was free in its sheath. His face was grey with a tension that he did not allow to show in his words or speech. “That is the way I am riding.”
“Yes, sir, so I thought.”
“It is more important that the country should be raised than that the invasion should be at once resisted.”
“How many soldiers have you at call, sir?”
“Soldiers? None. Nor any relatives of combat age in this house. I shall take eight of my best servants, and I have sent to St Aubyn at Clowance, who is my nearest neighbour; there will be others coming across country as they hear.”
“What arms will you have?”
“Arms? Oh, we shall have some shot. And there will be billhooks a-plenty.”
“I shall be more useful accompanying you than spreading the alarm. Another sword may not be unwelcome, and if you have pistols I can shoot.”
Lady Godolphin came in. “Do not go, Francis, wait until the alarm has been generally raised. What can you do against the best soldiers in Europe?”
“Oppress them by weight of numbers.”
“You have no numbers. And what if the invasion spreads along the coast as the day goes on there may be other landings it is perhaps planned to take the whole of West Cornwall. Who is to guard this house?”
Sir Francis put his gloved hand on his wife’s arm. “I like the choice no more than you, my love … But we are five miles from the nearest coast. And the miners with their pickaxes and shovels would be a stumbling block at the last.”
“Oh, Francis, have care for yourself. You are not so young but that you must lead all the charges.”
“I am not so old that I can stay behind.” He kissed her. “Be rid of your fears by the time I return. I’ll bring you a Spanish helmet for a cooking pot. Come, Maugan.”
There was Sir Francis and myself and a yeoman farmer called Rame and eight servants. At the hamlet of Relubbas we overtook John St Aubyn who was going at half speed until we caught him up; with him were four servants, and presently we met Thomas Chiverton, who had fled his property at the first alarm but now took courage in our presence. Thereafter we picked up no more reinforcements while we circled Mount’s Bay.
It was a splendid morning with a low fur of white fog hiding some of the sea. As we rode the three gentlemen talked in urgent tones. Mr St Aubyn was a rosy-faced, white moustached man of fifty, and he looked anything but a soldier. Sir Francis before setting out had sent off five messengers: one to Sir Anthony Rowse, one to Bernard Grenville, one to my father, one to the Privy Council in Whitehall and one to Drake and Hawkins in Plymouth, asking for immediate action to save the country.
As we skirted Market Jew we found the first people fleeing in terror; women leading small children, old men hobbling and young men too, just as intent on getting away. Sir Francis spoke sharply to some of these latter, and a few turned about. But most pressed past us without pause. The Spaniards, they said, were pillaging and burning whatever they found and putting women and children to the sword. The dreadful fate of Antwerp where 7,000 had been slaughtered in a night was in everyone’s mind.
Smoke was rising round the bend of the bay. I jumped off my horse and caught one straggler urgently by the arm. “How are the Spaniards heading? Are they set this way?”
“Aye, master, they’m comin’ this way and every way. There’s thousands of ‘em landing! They come in a dozen great ships! There were no wind at dawn an’ they oared in under cover of the fog. They was on us afore we could gather our wits! “
“Are they going inland towards Paul?”
“They’m gain’ all ways, master.” The man shook himself free.
I caught the others up where they had stopped on the slope into Penzance and were talking to a group of a dozen men headed by a constable called Veysey. Veysey was plainly a level-headed fellow. He said the Spanish had landed several hundred men to begin and had thrown forward a slow moving and slow expanding semicircle of picked troops, with pikes and guns. Behind them, behind the screen thus formed, came a second force which appeared in truth to be burning and pillaging everything it found. Lacking officers or gentlemen to command, the group of Cornishmen forming round Veysey had accepted him as their leader, and the numbers swelled to about fifty men while information was being exchanged.