If St. Austell is the capital of clayland, St. Blazey is second to it as a trading-centre for granite and china clay. Its saint was said to be the patron of woolcombers, though this is probably a mere modern confusion of names. Here was born Ralph Allen, who invented cross country posts and, while obliging his fatherland, managed to enrich himself. Pope, who stayed with him at Prior Park (Bath), describes him somewhat contemptuously:
"Let humble Allen with an awkward shame
Do good by stealth and blush to find it fame."
'Tis true that Allen was the son of a St. Blazey innkeeper, that he had made instead of inheriting his money, but to go down to posterity as "humble" and "awkward!" The first edition is "low-born Allen," but this was altered at the poor man's protest.
The Civil Wars
It is pleasant to leave the china clay with its milky fouling of clear waters and its diseased outcrops, white with the white of leprosy. Crossing Par sands, where Essex watched in vain for the ships laden with his supplies and where, of the old lead smelting works even the chimney known all over the countryside as Par Stack is now gone, the road turns down the coast—past Menabilly with its geological grotto and museum, past Gribben Head set with a day-mark tower some 80 ft. high—and so round the little peninsula into which the Parliamentarian Army was penned by the more active Royalists in 1644, and up to Fowey.
When Charles I. in the August of that year pursued the foolish and shortsighted Essex into Cornwall, the King began by calling together his soldiers and enumerating the services rendered to his cause by the people of the duchy, and he strictly and with divers threats forbade plundering. That for once he meant what he said, was proved a fortnight later by Prince Maurice, who hanged a soldier for plundering Lanhydrock; and that there might be no misunderstanding about the matter, left him with a ticket to that effect pinned on his breast.
Essex, a stupid and inactive man, had come into Cornwall against his better judgment, Lord Robartes having said that the country would rise to join him. Before he got as far as Bodmin he discovered that the contrary was like to be the case; and when the King came sweeping into the duchy and Sir Richard Grenville marched out of Truro, Essex, who was between them, saw the hopelessness of his position. In the midst of a country so hostile that his soldiery had to forage far and wide for grudged provisions, he had nothing upon which to fall back, for some ships loaded with cheese and biscuit which he was daily expecting had not arrived. Essex, who always did the wrong thing or else the right thing too late, cast about at this eleventh hour to keep a passage open for his supplies and, anxious to get nearer the sea, made for Lostwithiel. The immediate result of this movement was that the forces of Grenville and the King presently formed a semicircle about him from shore to shore, and matters went from bad to worse. His soldiers, in need of food and tempted by papers offering a free pardon which the Royalists scattered among them, were daily slipping away to join the King. Having left the eastern side of the harbour unguarded, the forts there, as well as Polruan and Hall House, were soon taken; and this gave Charles the command of the estuary, while on the other side Grenville had secured the little haven of Par, where Essex was hoping his delayed stores would be landed. At this juncture he made a belated effort to help himself and those dependent on him. On the evening of August 31 deserters reported that the Parliamentarian cavalry was drawn up on the east bank of the river. It was evident that Essex was contemplating a move, and orders were issued to the Royalists to stand at arms throughout the night, break down all bridges, and throw baulks of timber across the roads and lanes. Furthermore Goring was bidden collect his cavalry and be in readiness to act on any point at which the enemy might attempt to break through.
Unfortunately, when the King's orders reached Goring he was in no condition to obey them. The night came on dark and foggy. There was a narrow space on St. Winnow's Downs between the two Royalist divisions; but though not covered with troops it was guarded by some fifty fusiliers. These men were—what shall we say? They could scarcely on such a raw night have been asleep and why should they have been absent? At any rate it was over this space that, moving with silent celerity, Sir Wm. Balfour with the whole of the Parliamentarian horse passed unchallenged out on to the open ground. Until a second message from the King reached Goring, he could not be got from his wine. The enemy was then actually passing over the hill, and had it not been for this scandalous behaviour probably not a man would have escaped.
Some days earlier poor old Restormel Castle had been stormed by Grenville, and his forces under cover of a mist had then moved down towards Lostwithiel, but it was reserved for the King to take that ancient town; which he did just in time to prevent the destruction by the retreating Essex of the beautiful bridge.
Although the Parliamentarian General was forced to retire, he did so doggedly, contesting every street and every field, and that night the King slept in the rain under a hedge by the prehistoric earthwork of Castle Dor.