When the news of the disturbance at Sampford had spread through the neighbourhood, the local magistrates met together to endeavour to pacify the people. They temporised and were timid; “they were afraid of their own shadows,” and “departed without having done anything at all.” So things went on till the news reached the King and his Council, who already had enough on their hands elsewhere. Sir Peter Carew and Sir Gawen Carew, Devonshire men, were sent down with commissions to deal with the rising as on consideration and conference with the magistrates might seem best. Lord Russell was to follow. The two knights came with all haste to Exeter, and sent for the Sheriff, “Sir Peter Courtneie,” and the Justices of the Peace, “and understanding that a great Company of the Commons were assembled at Crediton, which is a town distant about seven miles from Exeter, ... it was concluded that the said Sir Peter and Sir Gawen, with others, should ride to Crediton, ... and to use all the good ways and means they might to pacify and appease them.... But the people being by some secret intelligence advertised of the coming of the Gentlemen towards them, and they (being) fully resolved not to yield one jot from their determinations, but to maintain their cause taken in hand, do arm and make themselves strong, with such armors and furnitures as they had, they intrench the highways and make a mighty Rampire at the Town’s End, and fortify the same, as also the Barns next adjoining to the same Rampires with men and munitions, having pierced the walls of the Barns with Loops and Holes for their Shot.” When “the Gentlemen” reached the “Rampire,” they were surprised to find all conference refused, and Hooker says: “The Sun being in Cancer and the mid-summer moon at full, their minds were imbrued with such follies, and their heads carried with such Vanities, that ... they would hear no man speak but themselves, and thought nothing well said but what came out of their own mouths. The warlike knights, after conference, attempted the barrier, but a volley from the Barns repelled them with a loss of some, and the hurt of many.” But a servant of Sir Hugh Pollard, whose name was Fox, set one of the barns on fire, and the defenders fled. When the magistrates entered the town, they found none in it but old women and children. And so it might seem that the incident was closed, and the rebellion stamped out and quenched. It was not so. Here Hooker’s account must be given without alteration or abridgment:—