lived, and his descendants are among the principal inhabitants of the town of Stratton to this day.[84] That same year the battle of Lansdown, near Bath, was fought. The forces of the Parliament prevailed, and Sir Beville nobly died. Payne was still at his side, and, when his master fell, he mounted young John Granville, a youth of sixteen, whom he had always in charge, on his father’s horse, and he led the Granville troop into the fight. A letter[85] which the faithful retainer wrote to his lady at Stowe still survives. It breathes in the quaint language of the day a noble strain of sympathy and homage. Thus it ran:-- “HONOURED MADAM,--Ill news flieth apace. The heavy tidings no doubt hath already travelled to Stowe that we have lost our blessed master by the enemy’s advantage. You must not, dear lady, grieve too much for your noble spouse. You know, as we all believe, that his soul was in heaven before his bones were cold. He fell, as he did often tell us he wished to die, in the great Stuart cause, for his country and his king. He delivered to me his last commands, and with such tender words for you and for his children as are not to be set down with my poor pen, but must come to your ears upon my best heart’s breath. Master John, when I mounted him on his father’s horse, rode him into the war like a young prince, as he is, and our men followed him with their swords drawn and with tears in their eyes. They did say they would kill a rebel for every hair of Sir Beville’s beard. But I bade them remember their good master’s word, when he wiped his sword after Stamford fight; how he said, when their cry was, ‘Stab and slay!’ ‘Halt, men! God will avenge.’ I am coming down with the mournfullest load that ever a poor servant did bear, to bring the great heart that is cold to Kilkhampton vault. Oh, my lady, how shall I ever brook your weeping face? But I will be trothful to the living and to the dead. “These, honoured madam, from thy saddest, truest servant, “ANTONY PAYNE.” [Illustration: ANTONY PAYNE (p. 118) _From the picture by Sir Godfrey Kneller_]