Chapter 5. Roundheads and Cavaliers.

In September, 1644, Lord Goring and Sir John Berkley united their forces at Tiverton, and Berkley's horse, engaging the enemy in or near the town, forced them to beat a retreat. The possession of Tiverton was just then of considerable value to the King, forming as it did one of regular stages for the royal forces in their march from Plymouth. It would appear also to have been important from a strategic point of view, being, to use the phrase then current, "upon a passe."

Whilst these events were in progress, a new disaster loomed on the horizon. This was the plague or sweating sickness. Cases of the sort had occurred in the two previous months, but the epidemic was most virulent in October. In this month alone 105 persons are recorded to have died. The total number of victims was 450, and largely on account of this visitation the town was almost forsaken. The hasty burial of so many corpses in a few feet of earth afterwards excited fears lest the pestilence should return, and the south and east parts of St. Peter's Churchyard, where most of the interments took place, were raised much above their original level by heaps of earth which, in the hope of pre- venting infection, were thrown down there. The market was held in a field (which from that circumstance received the name of Shambles) near the two-mile-stone on the Halberton road ; and it has been conjectured that Little Silver, which is said to have been colonized as a harbour of refuge during a time of pestilence, may have sprung up at this period. Certainly what with cavalry skirmishes, the oppressions of Colonel Connocke, and the plague, Tiverton was then no very enviable spot to dwell in.