'Nowhere was the Royal cause to take so brave or noble a form as among the Cornishmen. Cornwall stood apart from the general life of England: cut off from it not only by differences of blood and speech, but by the feudal tendencies of its people, who clung with a Celtic loyalty to their local chieftains, and suffered their fidelity to the Crown to determine their own. They had as yet done little more than keep the war out of their own county; but the march of a small Parliamentary force under Lord Stamford upon Launceston, forced them into action. A little brave band of Cornishmen gathered around the chivalrous _Sir Bevil Greenvil_, "so destitute of provisions that the best officers had but a biscuit a day," and with only a handful of powder for the whole force; but, starving and out-numbered as they were, they scaled the steep rise of Stratton Hill, sword in hand, and drove Stamford back to Exeter, with a loss of two thousand men, his ordnance and baggage train. Sir Ralph Hopton, the best of the Royalist generals, took the command of their army as it advanced into Somerset, and drew the stress of the war into the west. Essex despatched a picked force under Sir William Waller to check their advance; but Somerset was already lost ere he reached Bath, and the Cornishmen stormed his strong position on Lansdowne Hill in the teeth of his guns.' [32] Sir Bevill Grenville was forty-eight years of age at the time of his death, as appears by the following record of his birth in the parish register at Kilkhampton: 'Bevell, the sonne of the worshipful Bernarde Greynville, Esquire, was borne and baptized at Brinn in Cornwall, Ao. Dni. 1595.' In the margin, 'Marche 1595, borne the 23d day; baptized the 25th day of Marche.' [33] Sir Bevill's name and memory were of course long revered in the family. Mrs. Delany was particularly anxious that it should be always borne by some member of it, and it may be convenient to note here that his grandson, Sir Bevill Grenville, was Governor of Barbadoes, in 1704 (cf. Rawlinson, A 271, Bodleian Library), a major-general in the army, and M.P. for Fowey, 1685-89. [34] Echard gives some interesting details respecting the conduct of this delicate business; and Masson refers to it in his 'Life of Milton' (vol. v.) [35] The following extract from Pepys is so amusing that I cannot forbear inserting it: 'This afternoon Mr. Ed. Pickering told me in what a sad, poor condition for clothes and money the King was, and all his attendants, when he came to him first from my Lord, their clothes not being worth forty shillings the best of them. And how overjoyed the King was when Sir J. Greenville brought him some money: so joyful, that he called the Princess Royal and Duke of York to look upon it as it lay in the portmanteau before it was taken out.'