| Name. | Tonnage. | Master. | Men. |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Gallion | 100 | Richard Miller | 50 |
| The Catherine | 60 | 30 | |
| The Heath Hen | 60 | 30 | |
| The Golden Lion | 120 | 60 | |
| The Sutton | 70 | Hugh Preston | 40 |
| The Expedition | 70 | 50 |
Sidney Heath
A Relic of the Armada.
Notwithstanding that their largest vessel was only of 120 tons, the Weymouth contingent captured two of the galleons and brought them as prizes into the harbour. The only other vessels sent by the county on this occasion were two from Lyme Regis—The Revenge, of 60 tons, and The Jacob, of 90 tons—and four from Poole. In the Guildhall there is a memorial of the event in the shape of a massive iron-bound chest (see illustration), believed to have been brought from one of the captured galleons; and many other relics are scattered over the county, as at Bingham’s Melcombe, where there is a magnificent oval dining-table, of massive form and marvellous workmanship, with the crest of a Spanish grandee in the centre, the whole mounted on a sea-chest in lieu of legs. Many Spanish coins have been washed ashore on the Chesil Bank, and it is possible that others of the ill-fated ships sank in the vicinity of Portland, or that the dons threw their money and valuables overboard rather than let them fall into the hands of their captors.
Little is recorded during the next fifty years, save the building of a wooden bridge of seventeen arches to unite the two towns, in 1594; and thirteen years later the town was visited by one of those great plagues which periodically swept over mediæval England.
The outbreak of the Civil War in 1642 found the county fairly evenly divided in support of the rival parties, and Corfe Castle became the headquarters of the Royalist, and Bingham’s Melcombe that of the Parliamentary forces. In 1643 the Earl of Carnarvon seized and held for the King, Weymouth, Melcombe, and Portland, and left them in charge of Prince Maurice, whose troops are said to have pillaged and ravaged the district. The following year the Earl of Essex defeated the Royalist troops, and took the town for the Parliament, when he was assisted by a fleet under the Lord High Admiral, the Earl of Warwick. The towns proved a rich prize for the captors, as, in addition to much ammunition, etc., no less than sixty ships fell into their hands. The troubles of the inhabitants, however, were far from over, as in 1645 Sir Lewis Dyves received orders from the King to make an attempt to re-capture Weymouth, which, with the help of Sir W. Hastings, the Governor of Portland, he succeeded in doing, and drove the defenders across the harbour into Melcombe. On June 15th, 1644, the town surrendered to the Parliamentary Commander, Sir William Balfour, the final overthrow being largely due to the Earl of Warwick, who appeared off the harbour with a large fleet, originally mobilised for the relief of Lyme Regis. The spoils of war which fell into the hands of the captors included 100 pieces of ordnance, 2,000 muskets, 150 cases of pistols, 200 barrels of powder, and 1,000 swords, in addition to sixty ships of various tonnage lying in the harbour. The losses sustained by the combined towns in the Civil War amounted to £20,000, as a certificate from the Justices, in the Parliamentary Roll, testifies. The town to-day shows no trace of the fierce bombardments it underwent, but a house in Maiden Street has a “bogus” memento in the shape of a cannon ball foolishly inserted in the masonry some decades since.
Sidney Heath
Sandsfoot Castle