Those days passed, and were followed presently by the unhappy years of the great Civil Wars. It was perhaps not unfitting that a Grenville--Sir Bevil Grenville--led an army against the Parliamentarian troops in the Battle of Lansdown Hill, though it was an army of Cornishmen he led, and not of Devonshire men, for the Grenvilles were then living at their Cornish home of Stowe. Sir Bevil was killed in battle, but Anthony Payne, his servant, a great giant of a man, and a true friend to his master, set Sir Bevil's young son upon his father's horse, and bade him lead his father's men to victory, as, had he lived, his father would have done. Afterwards Anthony Payne brought Sir Bevil's body back to Stowe, and he wrote to Lady Grenville a letter which deserves to be recorded for its true and simple dignity: "HONOURED MADAM,-- "Ill news flieth apace: the heavy tidings hath no doubt already travelled to Stowe that we have lost our blessed master by the enemies' 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, for the good Stewart 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. . . . I am coming down with the mournfullest burden 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? . . ." This perhaps, is Cornish history and not Devonshire, except that the name of Grenville is so inseparably linked in our minds with Devon. During the Royalist wars from 1642-1650 Exeter was twice besieged by the Parliamentarians; Ilfracombe twice changed hands, in 1644 being taken by Doddington for the Royalists, and two years later falling to Fairfax after his capture of Barnstaple; Tiverton also was besieged by the Royalists, though it seems to have held within itself the two irreconcilable factions. But it was not in Devon that the fiercest battles of that time were fought, nor the greatest and bitterest disunion prevailed. Of the subsequent history of Devon I shall say little. The unhappy expedition of the Duke of Monmouth landed at Lyme Regis, just on the borders of Dorset and Devon, and he himself was joyfully received in Exeter; but it was in Somerset that the battle of Sedgemoor was lost, and Somerset that suffered chiefly from the Bloody Assizes.