“Pride of feasts, profound and blue,
Of the ninth wave’s azure hue;
The drink of heroes formed to hold,
With art enriched and lid of gold.”—Hoare’s Gir.
From his hospitable quarters in Cardiganshire, Richmond sallied forth to meet the usurper; and marching through Shrewsbury, Newport, Stafford, and Lichfield, encountered him at Bosworth—
“What, ho! young Richmond, ho! ’tis Richard calls thee!
I hate thee, Harry, for thy blood of Lancaster!
Now, if thou dost not hide thee from my sword,
Now, while the angry trumpet sounds alarms
And dying groans transpierce the wounded air;
Richmond, I say, come forth and singly face me!
Richard is hoarse with daring thee to arms!”
The fate of that day is so familiar in the page of Shakspeare, that we close this part of our subject, and proceed to other particulars:—
Anecdote.—Of one of Richmond’s adherents, the following is told by Turner in his “History of Remarkable Providences:”—Mr. Henry Wyatt, a gentleman of Kent, was a confederate in the plan, and intrusted with the correspondence between the friends of the Earl, which he conducted with great personal risk, but the greatest fidelity, being the bearer of several dispatches to and from the parties at home and abroad. But at last his conduct being suspected, he was arrested, examined, and discharged for want of conclusive evidence. But on a second charge being brought against him, he was committed to the Tower, and there put to the torture; but such were his fortitude and resolution, that nothing could be drawn from him either to prove his own participation in the designs laid to his charge, or to incriminate others. Finding threats, tortures, and fair promises alike unavailing, he was cast into a dungeon, fed upon bread and water, and thus continued until the question of supremacy was decided by the battle of Bosworth Field. The pittance, it is said, to which he was condemned, would have been quite inadequate to support nature, had not a cat brought him food daily. He lived to be made a baronet, in compliment to his unflinching loyalty, and served in the Privy Council of Henry VII.-VIII.
A picture is said to be still preserved in the family, in which a cat is represented creeping in at a grate—having a pigeon in its mouth—with these lines:—
Hunc. macrum. rigidum. mæstum. fame. frigore. cura
Pavi. fovi. acui. carne. calore. joco.
Cromwell, before marching against the Scottish army, thought it advisable to suppress the returning loyalty of South Wales, which had recently defeated the Parliamentary forces. The town and castle of Pembroke had been consigned by Parliament to the government and defence of Colonel Poyer; but on his declaring for the King, the “gallant conduct of himself and the garrison afforded a brilliant example of devotion to the Royal cause.” The defence was continued with so much obstinacy and resolution, that the presence of Cromwell himself was necessary for the reduction of the castle: while the garrison, having suffered for some time from great deficiency of provisions, was at last—owing, as we shall see, to Lord Jermyn’s total neglect of his engagements—reduced to the verge of absolute famine.
Cromwell, in the meantime, was quite unaware of the real position of affairs within the walls; and thinking, from the resistance already offered, that the place might hold out much longer than would be consistent with his other plans, was on the point of raising the siege. But while this question was agitating his mind, a deserter from the Royalist camp brought him intelligence that, owing to the pressure of famine, it was impossible that Poyer and his companions could maintain their post beyond twenty-four hours. This unexpected news determined him to continue the siege; but however much he prized his timely information, he determined to express his abhorrence of the “informer;” and—as a salutary warning to all traitors—he ordered him to be hanged.
It has been doubted, however, whether, in his “military capacity,” Cromwell was ever in this part of Wales—though Mr. Yorke allows that he might have made a friendly visit there; for in an old house at Kinmael, that once belonged to the Llwyds, of the tribe of Maredudd—but at that period to Colonel Carter, an officer in his favour—there is a room called Cromwell’s parlour; and, with other circumstances taken into consideration, little doubt, he thinks, can be entertained of Cromwell’s having in person conducted the siege of Pembroke.[385]