the foot, and Colonel Morgan with the horse, came up in the night after them, and cut off all intelligence from coming to the town, so that they were never discovered; that one night they came too

short;

could not perfect, though it burnt far, and suffocated some of their miners, our water did, breaking in upon them, and drowning that which the fire had not consumed; and this saved us the paines of pursuing a mine, which we had sunk on purpose to render theirs in that place ineffectual.

"The 29th, Leven, a mercifull Generall, assayes the towne by his last offer of honorable conditions to surrender; but he found us still unrelenting, the terror of his cannon making no impression at all upon our spirits, though the bullets discharged from them had done so much on our walls this, though some of their commanders were remisse and coole at the debate, and some contradictory, drives their greatest spirits into a passionate resolution of storming; and to that purpose, August 31st, and September 1st, they prepare ladders, hurdles, and other accommodations for advancing their designe, and securing their persons in the attempt, and plaied very hot with their cannon upon Bysters-Gate, and the half-moon next St. Owen's-Gate, intending the morning after to fall on; presuming, as they boasted, that, after they had rung us this passing peale, they should presently force the garrison to give up her loyal ghost.' But the same night, his Majesty advancing from Worcester, gave them a very hot alarum; and drawing a little nearer to us, like the sunne to the meridian,' the Scottish miste begane to disperse, and the next morning vanished out of sight.

"I may not forget one remarkable piece of divine providence, that GOD sent us singular men of all professions, very usefull and necessary to us in this distresse, and so accidentally to us, as if they had been on purpose let down from Heaven to serve our present and emergent occasions; such as skilful miners, excellent cannoneers, one whereof spent but one shot in vain throughout the whole seidge; an expert carpenter, the only man in all the country to make mills, without whom we had been much disfurnisht of our meanes to make powder, (after our powder-mill was burnt,) or grind corne. That Providence that brought these to us, at last drove our enemies from us, after the destruction of foure or five mines, the expense of three hundred cannon-shot, besides other ammunition spent with muskets, and the losse, by their confession, of 1200, and, as the country sayes, 2000, men: we in all, not losing above twenty-one, by all casualties whatsoever."

short; but the next night, with careful spies and scouts, they car ried on the business; and in the morning, upon letting down the draw-bridge, the six countrymen, and the constable, went with their pick-axes and spades to the bridge; that the guard beginning to examine them, they killed three of the guard, and kept the rest in play, till the firelocks came up to them, and then made it good till the body came up, who entered the town with small loss, and became masters of it."

"

To elucidate this statement, it may be necessary to remark, that the country people had been summoned by the Governor of Hereford to repair to the city, for the purpose of assisting in strengthening the walls and fortifications, which had been greatly damaged during the siege by the Scotch army; and that some of the warrants issued on this occasion, having been intercepted, gave origin to the stratagem by which the city was surprised. Among the prisoners were the Lord Brudenell, and Judge Jenkins, together with many Knights, and other gentlemen.

The bravery which the inhabitants of Hereford had displayed in resisting the Scotch, was rewarded, after the Restoration, by a new charter, and an augmentation of arms, with the motto INVICTA FIDELITATIS PREMIUM. No event of distinguished historical celebrity has occurred within the city since that period,

Among the public buildings of Hereford, the CATHEDRAL, though deprived of much of its venerable appearance by the fall of the west front in the year 1786, still stands pre-eminently conspicuous. This structure, as already mentioned, owes its origin to the murder of Ethelbert, King of the East Angles, by the Mercian King, Offa, whose many valuable donations to the Church which previously occupied the same site, and had been dedicated to St. Mary, has occasioned him to be sometimes considered as the founder of the New Cathedral (in the construction of which those gifts were applied) erected by Milfrid, a Viceroy, or Provincial Governor, under Egbert, about the year 825. The circumstances attending the murder of Ethelbert, are thus detailed by ancient historians.

Offa,

*Whitelock's Memoirs, fol. p. 184, under the date Dec. 26, 1645.

Offa, whose principles had been corrupted by the possession of wealth and dominion, invited Ethelbert to his palace at Sutton Walls, about three miles north-east from Hereford, under pretence of giving him his daughter in marriage. Here Offa, with Quendreda, his Queen, received him with much apparent kindness; but the latter, impelled by the ambition of procuring a new kingdom for her family, quickly obtained the consent of Offa to violate all the ties of honor and hospitality, by putting their unfortunate guest to death. Some accounts relate that Ethelbert was beheaded; but others state him to have been precipitated into a hollow space beneath his bed-chamber, where he was stifled by some partizans in the service of the treacherous Queen. His body was first interred privately at Marden; but soon afterwards Offa gave orders for its removal to the Church at Hereford, where he erected a magnificent tomb to his memory,

Ethelbert, who had been considered as the possessor of various eminent qualifications, was soon regarded as a saint, and many miraculous events were affirmed to have occurred at the place of his interment. Milfrid, the Viceroy of Mercia under Egbert, was induced to inquire into the truth of these reputed miracles, and the result of the investigation proved so satisfactory to him, that he determined to erect a new Church of stone (lapidea structura) on the site of the former, and in honor of St. Ethelbert. The ample grants made by Milfrid himself, were augmented by the revenues arising from the gifts of Offa, and still further increased by the numerous offerings made by the pilgrims who flocked in multitudes to the shrine of the murdered King; so that the Cathedral was soon completed; but no description of its then state is supposed to exist. Within less than 200 years, however, it appears to have wholly fallen to decay; and was rebuilt by the munificence of Bishop Athelstan, or Ethelstan, who had been appointed to this See in the year 1012, and presided till the time of his decease in 1055. In that same year, the Cathedral itself was destroyed by fire, during the hostile incursion of the Welsh under Gryffyth, and the Earl of Chester; it continued in ruins till about the year 1079,

*See pages 441, 442.