About July this year, [1645,] the plague increased so fast in Bristol,
that the Prince and all his retinue went to Barnstaple, which is one
of the finest towns in England; and your father and I went two days
after the Prince; for during all the time I was in the Court I never
journeyed but either before him, or when he was gone, nor ever saw him
but at church, for it was not in those days the fashion for honest
women, except they had business, to visit a man's Court. I saw there
at Mr. Palmer's, where we lay, who was a merchant, a parrot above a
hundred years old. They have, near this town, a fruit called a
massard, like a cherry, but different in taste, and makes the best
pies with their sort of cream I ever eat. My Lady Capell here left us,
and with a pass from the Earl of Essex, went to London with her eldest
daughter, now Marquesse of Worcester. Sir Allan Apsley was governor of
the town, and we had all sorts of good provision and accommodation;
but the Prince's affairs calling him from that place, we went to
Launceston, in Cornwall, and thither came very many gentlemen of that
county to do their duties to his Highness: they were generally loyal
to the crown and hospitable to their neighbours, but they are of a
crafty and censorious nature, as most are so far from London. That
country hath great plenty, especially of fish and fowl, but nothing
near so fat and sweet as within forty miles of London. We were
quartered at Truro, twenty miles beyond Launceston, in which place I
had like to have been robbed. One night having with me but seven or
eight persons, my husband being then at Launceston with his master,
somebody had discovered that my husband had a little trunk of the
Prince's in keeping, in which were some jewels that tempted them us to
assay; but, praised be God, I defended, with the few servants I had,
the house so long that help came from the town to my rescue, which was
not above a flight shot from the place where I dwelt; and the next day
upon my notice my husband sent me a guard by his Highness's command.