The next grant of Scilly was to Sir William Godolphin, for fifty years from 1609 to 1659; he was to pay £20 a year and to receive one last of gunpowder every year for their defence, with the condition that he should not “give or bequeath any of the said isles unto any of his daughters,” because they were considered incapable of defending them. Later on the possession of an able-bodied husband seems to have been sufficient to qualify a daughter to inherit.
In the struggle between King and Parliament, Scilly more than once afforded a refuge for the Cavaliers, and was finally their last retreat.
In March, 1646, when General Fairfax had defeated the King’s forces in Cornwall, Prince Charles fled from the Castle of Pendennis to Scilly, and was lodged in Star Castle. The chair on which he sat there may still be seen in Holy Vale, to which place it has been removed.
Two days after his landing he sent Lord Colepepper to France to acquaint the Queen “with the wants and incommodities of the place,” and to desire “a supply of men and moneys.”
We get a glimpse into the “incommodities of the place” from the Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe, whose husband was in attendance on the Prince. She was set on shore almost dead after having been robbed by the seamen with whom they sailed from the Land’s End.
She writes: “When we had got to our quarters near the Castle where the Prince lay, I went immediately to bed, which was so vile that my footman ever lay in a better, and we had but three in the whole house, which consisted of four rooms, or rather partitions, two low rooms and two little lofts, with a ladder to go up: in one of these they kept dried fish, which was his trade, and in this my husband’s two clerks lay, one there was for my sister, and one for myself, and one amongst the rest of the servants. But when I waked in the morning I was so cold I knew not what to do, but the daylight discovered that my bed was near swimming with the sea, which the owner told us afterwards it never did so but at spring-tide.”
Poor comfort to be told this when it happens to be the season for the highest spring-tides! Nor was this all that the poor lady had to suffer, for she goes on to say: “With this, we were destitute of clothes; and meat and fuel for half the Court, to serve them for a month, was not to be had in the whole island; and truly we begged our daily bread of God, for we thought every meal our last. The Council sent for provisions to France, which served us, but they were bad, and a little of them.”
These privations had to be endured for six weeks, at the end of which time the Prince, despairing of receiving reinforcements, embarked for Jersey and thence to France.
The islands were left under the governorship of Sir John Granville, who held them in the King’s name till 1651, harassing the merchant-shipping, and capturing English and Dutch vessels that passed that way.
With the avowed object of demanding satisfaction for acts of piracy, the Dutch Admiral, Van Tromp, descended on Scilly with twelve men-of-war; but he had private orders to treat with the Governor for the handing over of the islands to the Dutch. Sir John was too loyal to listen to these proposals, whereupon Van Tromp tried to disguise the real nature of his overtures by pretending he had only wanted to get possession of the islands in order to restore Charles II. to his rights.