About three miles farther down the river one arrives at Chagford, and perhaps the two things that a stranger will first notice about this little town are, that the air is very exhilarating and the people particularly courteous. For the rest, though not echoing Lord Clarendon's remark, that, but for the calamity of Sidney Godolphin's death, it is 'a place which could never otherwise have had a mention in this world,' one must admit that it is not very remarkable. The moment when Chagford came most violently into contact with public affairs was that mentioned by Lord Clarendon, and most heartily must the inhabitants have wished themselves back in their usual peaceful solitude. Sir John Berkeley, at that time, 'with a good party, volant, of horse and dragoons,' was descending in 'all places in the surrounding country where Parliamentarians were known to be assembled, "dissolving" them, and taking many 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.'