Nor has the town many definite associations as far as personalities go. True, Titus Oates was baptized here in 1619, when his father was rector of All Saints, and was himself curate in 1674; but the town can scarcely be proud of him. One of the few old timbered houses in All Saints Street is pointed out as the home of the mother of Sir Cloudesley Shovell, but the only evidence in support of the claim is the following extract (generally discredited) from De la Prynne's diary: "I heard a gentleman say, who was in the ship with him six years ago, that as they were sailing over against the town of Hastings in Sussex, Sir Cloudesley called out: 'Pilot, put near; I have a little business on shore.' They came to a little house--'Come,' says he, 'my business is here; I came on purpose to see the good woman of this house.' Upon which they knocked at the door, and out came a poor old woman, upon which Sir Cloudesley kissed her, and then, falling down on his knees, begged her blessing, and called her mother." Coventry Patmore and Sir John Moore both lived in the town for a time. Otherwise the famous folk have for the most part been visitors. The Duke of Wellington, then Major-General Wellesley, came hither with his bride in 1806, he being then in charge of some twelve thousand soldiers encamped near by. In August, 1814, Byron stayed for a period. "I have been renewing my acquaintance with my old friend Ocean," he wrote, "and I find his bosom as pleasant a pillow for one's head in the morning as his daughters of Paphos could be in the twilight. I have been swimming and eating turbot and smuggling neat brandies and silk handkerchiefs, and walking on cliffs and tumbling down hills, and making the most of the _dolce far niente_ of the last fortnight." Thomas Hood spent his honeymoon in the town about a decade later. Garrick, while staying at East Cliffe House, planted in the garden a slip from Shakespeare's mulberry-tree.