Leland appears to have jotted down his notes as the information was given him on the spot; and the fact that his informants were not always agreed would account for some discrepancies and repetitions. He did not live long enough to arrange his notes. A very short time after his visit the “poore celle of monkes” ceased to exist. With the dissolution of monasteries in 1539, the Abbey of Tavistock fell, and its lands in Scilly passed to the Crown. Another ten years, and we find the islands being used as a pawn in the game of a man of high ambitions. Lord Admiral Seymour, the brother of the Lord Protector, was accused, in a bill of attainder brought against him in 1549, of having entered into relations with the pirates of the Channel, forged cannon, collected money and munitions of war, and “gotten into his hands the strong and dangerous isles of Scilly.” On these and other charges he was put to death. [Illustration: THE GARRISON GATEWAY, ST. MARY’S] In the same year, 1549, the name of Godolphin occurs for the first time in the annals of the islands, as that of the captain of the group; and in 1571, Queen Elizabeth leased the islands to Frances Godolphin at a yearly rent of £10, “with power and jurisdiction to hear and finally to determine all plaints, suits, matters, actions, controversies, contentions, and demands whatever, which shall happen to be depending between party and party within any of the said isles,” heresies, treasons, matters of life and limb and land, and Admiralty questions alone being excepted. At the same time he was ordered and encouraged to keep the islands in a proper state of defence. To this end many batteries were erected on St. Mary’s, and Star Castle was built on the summit of the “Hugh” in 1593. The next grant of Scilly was to Sir William Godolphin, for fifty years from 1609 to 1659; he was to pay £20 a year and to receive one last of gunpowder every year for their defence, with the condition that he should not “give or bequeath any of the said isles unto any of his daughters,” because they were considered incapable of defending them. Later on the possession of an able-bodied husband seems to have been sufficient to qualify a daughter to inherit. In the struggle between King and Parliament, Scilly more than once afforded a refuge for the Cavaliers, and was finally their last retreat. In March, 1646, when General Fairfax had defeated the King’s forces in Cornwall, Prince Charles fled from the Castle of Pendennis to Scilly, and was lodged in Star Castle. The chair on which he sat there may still be seen in Holy Vale, to which place it has been removed. Two days after his landing he sent Lord Colepepper to France to acquaint the Queen “with the wants and incommodities of the place,” and to desire “a supply of men and moneys.”