It hapned, that what time the Earle of Oxford surprized S. Michaels mount by policy, and kept the same by strong hand, this Sir Iohn Arundel was Sherife of Cornwall, wherethrough, vpon duety of his office, and commaundement from the Prince, hee marched thither, with posse Comitatus, to besiege it, and there, in a Skirmish on the sands, which deuide the mount from the continent, he fulfilled the effect of the prophecy, with the losse of his life, and in the said mounts Chappell lieth buried.
So Cambises lighted on Ecbatana in Egypt, and Alexander Epirot, on Acheros in Italy, to bring them to their end. So Philip of Macedon, and Atis the sonne of Croesus, found a chariot in a swords hilt, and an Iron poynted weapon at the hunting of a Bore, to delude their preuentiue wearinesse. So Amilcar supped in Siracusa, & the Prince of Wales ware a Crown thorow Cheapside, in another sort and sense then they imagined, or desired. And so Pope Gerebert, and our king H. the 4, trauailed no farther, for meeting their fatal Hierusalem, then the one to a Chappell in Rome, the other to a chamber in Westminster.
S. Marie Wike standeth in a fruitfull soyle, skirted with a moore, course for pasture, and combrous for trauellers. Wic, by master Lambert, signifieth a towne: by master Camden, Stationem, vel Sinum, ubi exercitus agit. This village was the birth-place of Thomasine Bonauenture, I know not, whether by descent, or euent, so called: [120] for-whiles in her girlish age she kept sheepe on the foreremembred moore, it chanced, that a London merchant passing by, saw her, heeded her, liked her, begged her of her poore parents, and carried her to his home. In processe of time, her mistres was summoned by death to appeare in the other world, and her good thewes, no lesse then her seemely personage, so much contented her master, that he aduanced her from a seruant to a wife, and left her a wealthy widdow. Her second mariage befell with one Henry Gall: her third and last, with Sir John Perciual, Lord Maior of London, whom she also ouerliued. And to shew, that vertue as well bare a part in the desert, as fortune in the meanes of her preferment, she employed the whole residue of her life and last widdowhood, to works no lesse bountifull, then charitable: namely, repayring of high waies, building of bridges, endowing of maydens, relieuing of prisoners, feeding and apparelling the poor, &c. Amongst the rest, at this S. Mary Wike, she founded a Chauntery and free-schoole, together with faire lodgings, for the Schoolemasters, schollers, and officers, and added twenty pound of yeerely reuennue, for supporting the incident charges: wherein as the bent of her desire was holy, so God blessed the same with al wished successe: for diuers the best Gent. sonnes of Deuon and Cornwall were there vertuously trained vp, in both kinds of diuine and humane learning, vnder one Cholwel, an honest and religious teacher, which caused the neighbours so much the rather, and the more to rewe, that a petty smacke onely of Popery, opened a gap to the oppression of the whole, by the statute made in Edw. the 6. raigne, touching the suppression of Chaunteries.
Such strange accidents of extraordinary aduancements are verified by the ample testimonie of many histories, and, amongst the rest, we read in Machiauell (howbeit controuled by the often reproued Iouius) that Castruccio Caestracani climed from a baser birth, to a farre higher estate. For being begotten in Lucca, by vnknowne parents, and cast out, in his swadling clouts, to the wide world, he was taken vp by a widdowe, placed by her with a Clergy man her brother, giuen by him to a Gent, called Francesco Guinigi, and by Guinigi left tutor to his onely sonne. From which step, his courage and wisedome raysed him by degrees, to the soueraignty of Lucca, the Senatorship of Rome, the speciall fauour of the Emperour, and a neere hope (only by death preuented) of subduing Florence.
Lesnewith Hundred.
LEsnewith Hundred taketh his name of a parish therein (as Stratton doth of a towne) memorable for nothing else.