Certainly it would be hard to find a more ideal place for overworked humanity seeking rest and recuperation. The climate is all that could be desired, living is cheap, the whole atmosphere breathes rest, and there are ever present the constant sunshine and the eternal sea.
On St. Mary’s Sir Walter Besant lived while engaged on his celebrated romance, “Armorel of Lyonesse,” the home of whose beautiful Armorel Sir Walter located on the now uninhabited island of Samson. Half a century ago Samson had a population of fifty souls, with ten houses, among which “Armorel’s cottage” may still be seen. In 1885, only one family was left, and now nothing remains save the wreck of the houses and the traces of former cultivation, rapidly disappearing. The inhabitants were moved to other islands to insure the better education of their children, and, incidentally, to curtail a little private and untaxed trade which they carried on with their French neighbors.
To trace the history of these fragments of a lost continent through former generations would be most interesting, but it must be here foregone. They have, however, bulked considerably in English history and figured frequently in her relations with her continental neighbors. They remained true to the royal cause after Charles I had been put to death, having been held by Sir John Grenville for Charles II. The garrison was reduced to submission by Ascue and Blake in 1651. Prince Charles was sheltered in Star Castle for a short while after his flight from Cornwall.
The islands were notorious as the scenes of smuggling operations during the eighteenth century, but this was so vigorously dealt with that it proved as unprofitable as the various honest efforts to earn a livelihood that have been successively experimented with in this little world.
It is said that Hamilco of Carthage, a colony of Phœnicia, discovered the islands in 3000 B.C.; at any rate, they have been identified with the Cassiterides or Hesperides of the Greeks, and the Sillinæ Insulæ of the Romans. The Phœnicians traded with them for tin, which was most probably brought from Cornwall, as there is no evidence that tin was ever found on the islands. An allusion in Diodorus Siculus throws light on this custom. He says: The tin “was first refined and then carried to an adjacent island for shipment to Gaul.” The Romans reduced the islands during their occupation of Great Britain and made them a place of banishment, a use to which they were put by Great Britain also during the seventeenth century.
The Danish sea-kings found them a convenient rallying point for raids upon places in the Bristol Channel, but Athelstan drove the Danes out in 927. Subsequently an order of monks settled there, retaining an independent government till Henry I subordinated them to the Abbot of Tavistock. Scilly remained under the jurisdiction of the monks till the dissolution of the monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII. The ruins of an old abbey are still visible on the island of Tresco.
During the reign of Elizabeth, Sir Francis Godolphin built a number of forts and Star Castle near Hugh Town. The latter remains to the present, on the left of the harbor, at Star Fort.
We have noted that the islands were used by both Romans and Britons as a place of punishment, and we learn that in 1637 John Bastwick, M.D., after having been banished there for writing libelous books against church and government, was sentenced to pay a fine of £1,000, to stand in the pillory, to have his ears cut off, and finally to be confined in St. Mary’s castle. After such a generous assignment the story of the “ducking chair” sounds like comedy. The offender guilty of some trifling misdemeanor was tied in the chair at the head of the dock and thrown into the water. One cannot help feeling that this would be fine treatment for the American “hobo,” especially if the salt water was available and it was not necessary to haul him out too soon.
The inhabitants have had a hard fight for existence and have been on the verge of starvation more than once. Farming proved a failure. So likewise did smuggling, shipbuilding, fishing, and other experiments, that for a time seemed to promise success.
Now, however, they are more prosperous than they have ever been. Early potatoes, asparagus, and other vegetables are raised in large quantities for the English market. In this respect Scilly is to London what Bermuda is to New York. Besides the vegetables, flowers are cultivated for the London market, and grow in such luxuriant profusion as to guarantee a handsome return to the gardener. Anyone who has seen an acre or two of lilies abloom in Bermuda knows what a glorious sight a field of flowers is. We cannot judge from a florist’s window how splendid is a flower farm.