To those demands of the Cornish rebels the King so far condescended as to send an answer in writing to every article, and also a general pardon to every one of them if they would lay down arms. (See Fox’s Acts and Monuments, Book ix. p. 668.) But, alas! those overtures of the King were not only rejected by the rebels, but made them the more bold and desperate; especially finding themselves unable longer to subsist upon their own estates and money, or the bounty of the country, which hitherto they had done. The general therefore resolved, as the fox who seldom chucks at home, to prey upon other men’s goods and estates further off, for his army’s better subsistence. Whereupon he dislodged from Bodmin, and marched with his soldiers into Devon, where Sir Peter Carew, Knight, was ready to obstruct their passage with his posse comitatus. But when they saw the order and discipline of the rebels, and that their army consisted of above six thousand fighting men, desperate, well-armed, and prepared for battle, the Sheriff and his troops permitted them quietly to pass through the heart of that country to Exeter; where the citizens, upon notice of their approaches (as formerly done), shut the gates, and put themselves in a posture of defence. At which time Dr. John Voysey was Bishop of Exeter, viz. 10th July, 1549, John Blacaler was Mayor, William Tothill was Sheriff, Lewis Pollard, Recorder, William Beaumont, Sword-bearer; John Drake, Geffery Arundell, Henry Maunder, and John Tooker, were Bailiffs or Stewards; Thomas Prestwood, John Maynard, John Webb, William Hals, Hugh Pope, William Hurst, Nicholas Limmet, Robert Midwinter, Henry Booth, John Berry, John Britnall, John Tuckfield, John Stawell, Edward Bridgman, Thomas Grigg, John Drake, Thomas Skidmore, John Bodley, and others (all which had before that time been Mayors), Stewards or Bailiffs of the city.――See Isaack’s Memorials of Exeter, p. 122. Things being in this posture, the general Arundell summoned the citizens to deliver their town and castle to his dominion; but they sent him a flat denial. Whereupon, forthwith he ordered his men to fire the gates of the city, which accordingly they did; but the citizens on the inside supplied those fires with such quantities of combustible matter, so long till they had cast up a half-moon on the inside thereof, upon which, when the rebels attempted to enter, they were shot to death or cut in pieces. Their entrance being thus obstructed at the gates, they put in practice other expedients, viz. either to undermine the walls or blow them up with barrels of gunpowder, which they had placed in the same; but the citizens also prevented this their design, by countermining their mines and casting so much water on the places where their powder barrels were lodged, that the powder would not take fire. Thus stratagems of war were daily practised between the besieged and besiegers, to the great hurt and damage of each other.