y prisoners.' Of one of these 'necessary and brisk
expeditions' Chagford was the goal, and arriving very early in the
morning, still in the dark, they fell upon it before day. The chilly
January dawn broke over a much-discomforted town, ringing with shots,
the trampling of horses, and the clash of steel, but the Royalist troops
were sturdily resisted, and Godolphin was slain, it is said, in the
porch of the Three Crowns Inn. Clarendon writes of him: 'There was never
so great a mind and spirit contained in so little room;' and in his
account of the skirmish he says: 'As his advice was of great authority
with all the commanders ... so he exposed his person to all action,
travel, and hazard; and by too forward engaging himself in this last
received a mortal shot by a musket, a little above the knee, of which he
died in the instant.' Sidney Godolphin, it will be remembered, was one
of the celebrated 'four wheels of Charles's Wain, all Devonshire and
Cornish men, and all slain at or near the same place, the same time, and
in the same cause....

'"Th' four wheels of Charles's wain,
Grenvill, Godolphin, Trevanion, Slanning slain."'

In early days Chagford was one of the four Stannary towns, the others
being Ashburton, Tavistock, and Plympton. Risdon mentions that 'This
place is priviledged with many immunities which tinners enjoy; and here
is holden one of the courts for Stannary causes.'

The river flows from Chagford in a north-easterly direction till
Drewsteignton stands due north, when it turns to the east. Drewsteignton
is a large village, and has a granite church, the tower of which is
Decorated, and the nave Perpendicular. In this parish was the barton of
Drascombe, and in the reign of Edward I, Walter de Bromehall held it 'by
the sergeanty of finding our Lord the King, whensoever he should hunt in
the forest of Dartmoor, one bow and three barbed arrows. And it was let
at five shillings a year rent.' One would imagine that King Edward I can
seldom have found time to amuse himself so far west, and the tenant
would not find the conditions a heavy tax.

The scenery by the river is very fine all about here, and Fingle Gorge
is generally considered to be the most beautiful of the many beautiful
glens through which the Teign passes. It is a deep ravine with high and
steep sides, that are thickly wooded and broken by great boulders. At
Fingle Bridge four winding valleys meet; that is, the combe down which
the river