'5. That private masses were not to be omitted.
'6. That auricular confession was necessary in the Church of God.
'To these demands of the Cornish rebels the King so far condescended as to send an answer in writing to every article, and also a general pardon to every one of them, if they would lay down arms. (See Fox's "Acts and Monuments," Book IX. p. 668). But, alas! those overtures of the King were not only rejected by the rebels, but made them the more bold and desperate; especially finding themselves unable longer to subsist upon their own estates and money, or the bounty of the country, which hitherto they had done. The General therefore resolved, as the fox who seldom chucks at home, to prey upon other men's goods and estates farther off for his army's better subsistence. Whereupon he dislodged from Bodmin, and marched with his soldiers into Devon, where Sir Peter Carew, Knight, was ready to obstruct their passage with his posse comitatus. But when they saw the order and discipline of the rebels, and that their army consisted of above 6,000 fighting-men, desperate, well armed, and prepared for battle, the Sheriff and his troops permitted them quietly to pass through the heart of that country to Exeter, where the citizens, upon notice of their approaches (as formerly done), shut the gates, and put themselves in a posture of defence.
'Things being in this posture, the General, Arundell, summoned the citizens to deliver their town and castle to his dominion; but they sent him a flat denial. Whereupon, forthwith he ordered his men to fire the gates of the city, which accordingly they did; but the citizens on the inside supplied those fires with such quantities of combustible matter, so long till they had cast up a half-moon on the inside thereof, upon which, when the rebels attempted to enter, they were shot to death or cut to pieces. Their entrance being thus obstructed at the gates, they put in practice other expedients, viz., either to undermine the walls or blow them up with barrels of gunpowder, which they had placed in the same; but the citizens also prevented this their design, by countermining their mines and casting so much water on the places where their powder-barrels were lodged, that the powder would not take fire. Thus stratagems of war were daily practised between the besieged and besiegers to the great hurt and damage of each other.
'King Edward being informed by his council of this siege, and that there was little or no dependance upon the valour and conduct of the Sheriff of Devon and his bailiwick to suppress this rebellion or raise the siege of Exeter, granted his commission to John Lord Russell, created Baron Russell of Tavistock by King Henry, and Lord High Admiral and Lord Privy Seal, an old experienced soldier who had lost an eye at the Siege of Montreuil in France, to be his General for raising soldiers to fight those rebels; who forthwith, pursuant thereto, raised a considerable army and marched them to Honiton; but when he came there he was informed that the enemy consisted of 10,000 able fighting-men armed; which occasioned his halting there longer than he intended, expecting greater supplies of men, that were coming to his aid under conduct of the Lord Grey; which at length arrived and joined his forces, whereupon he dislodged from thence and marched towards Exeter; where, on the way, he had several sharp conflicts with the rebels with various success, sometimes the better and sometimes the worse; though at length after much fatigue of war, maugre all opposition and resistance of the rebels, he forced them to raise their siege, and entered the city of Exeter with relief, 6th August, 1549, after thirty-two days' siege, wherein the inhabitants had valiantly defended themselves, though in that extremity they were necessitated by famine to eat horses, moulded cloth, and bread made of bran; in reward of whose loyalty King Edward gave to the city for ever the Manor of Evyland, since sold by the city for making the river Exe navigable.
'After raising the siege, as aforesaid, the General, Arundell, rallied his routed forces of rebels, and gave battle to the Lord Russell and the King's army with that inveterate courage, animosity, and resolution, that the greatest part of his men were slain upon the spot, others threw down their arms on mercy, the remainder fled, and were afterwards many of them taken and executed. Sir Anthony Kingston, Knight, a Gloucestershire man, after this rebellion, was made Provost-Marshal for executing such western rebels as could be taken, or were made prisoners in Cornwall and Devon, together with all such who had been aiders or assisters of them in that rebellion; upon whom, according to his power and office, he executed martial law with sport and justice (as Mr. Carew and other historians tell us); and the principal persons that have come to my knowledge, over whose misery he triumphed, was Boyer, the Mayor of Bodmin; Mayow of Clevyan, in St. Colomb Major, whom he hanged at the tavern sign-post in that town, of whom tradition saith his crime was not capital; and, therefore, his wife was advised by her friends to hasten to the town after the Marshal and his men, who had him in custody, and beg his life. Which, accordingly, she prepared to do, and to render herself the more amiable petitioner before the Marshal's eyes, this dame spent so much time in attiring herself and putting on her French hood, then in fashion, that her husband was put to death before her arrival. In like manner the Marshal hanged one John Payne, the Mayor, or Portreeve of St. Ives, on a gallows erected in the middle of that town, whose arms are still to be seen in one of the foreseats in that church, viz. in a plain field three pine-apples. Besides those he executed many more in other places in Cornwall, that had been actors, assisters, or promoters of this rebellion. Lastly, it is further memorable of this Sir Anthony Kingston, that in Sir John Heywood's chronicle he is taxed of extreme cruelty in doing his Marshal's office aforesaid. Of whom Fuller, in Gloucestershire, gives us this further account of him; that afterwards, in the reign of Queen Mary, being detected, with several others, of a design to rob her exchequer, though he made his escape and fled into his own country, yet there he was apprehended and taken into custody by a messenger, who was bringing him up to London in order to have justice done upon him for his crime; but he being conscious of his guilt, and despairing of pardon, so effectually poisoned himself that he died on the way, without having the due reward of his desert.
'After the death of Humphrey Arundell, Governor of St. Michael's Mount, executed for treason as aforesaid, King Edward VI. sold or gave the government and revenues thereof to Job Militon, Esq., aforesaid, then Sheriff of Cornwall, during his life; but his son, dying without issue male, the government, by what title I know not, devolved upon the Bassets of Tihidy, from some of whom, as I am informed, it came by purchase to Sir John St. Aubyn, Bart., now in possession thereof.'
A contemporary account of Humphrey Arundell's execution in Mr. Richard Howlett's 'Monumenta Franciscana,' vol. ii., 27th January, 1550, states: 'Was drawne from the Tower of London vnto Tyborne iiii persons (Humfre Avrnedelle, Bere Vynch, Chyffe, Homes), and there hangyd and qwarterd, and their qwarteres sette abowte London on euery gatte; thes was of them that dyd ryse in the West cuntre.'
It has already been observed that an attachment to the Roman Catholic faith led many of the Arundells into trouble: as exemplifying this, I have culled a few other instances from the pages of a writer belonging to that Communion.
'The next successor to the property' (a son of John Arundell, the friend of Father Cornelius), 'was indeed a great sufferer for conscience' sake. In a letter before me of F. Richard Blount, dated 7th Nov., 1606, he says that Mr. Arundell, amongst others, had been forced to compound for the possession of his property by paying heavy fines to the Crown. He had been convicted of recusancy, but King James directed by his letters patent (20 Feb., 4 Jac. I., 1607) that none of Mr. Arundell's lands were to be seized so long as he paid £240 a year for not frequenting church,' etc.