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Page 6 of 10
The Relief of Exeter
Lord Russell pressed on to the relief of Exeter, a city running close to starvation. Sir William Herbert and his 1,000 Welsh soldiers loyal to the Tudor dynasty arrived the same day, having missed out on the fighting so far, and were set to looting as much food from the surrounding countryside as they could. Scouring the city for dissidents, Russell exercised as much severity as he could, even hanging Father Robert Welsh – the man who had saved the city from being set ablaze – from his own church tower.
Meanwhile, in London, a proclamation had been issued allowing the lands of those involved in the uprising to be confiscated. Unknown to Arundell himself, all his own estates were illegally transferred to Sir Gawen Carew. Sir Peter Carew found himself rewarded with all of John Wynslade’s Devon estates. The lands of many others were forcably taken and passed to those members of the Cornish gentry who had chosen to side with Cranmer and the Lord Protector and, to this day, several large landowners in Cornwall have more than questionable claims as to the legitimacy of their ownerships.
Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector, wielding power on behalf of the boy king Edward VI, congratulated Russell on relieving Exeter and carrying out so many executions, and also issued an order for leaders of the uprising – Arundell, Wynslade and Underhill – to be apprehended and brought to London to be dealt with in a way that would shock everyone into compliance with the Act of Uniformity. There was, however, one problem to be overcome – those leaders were still on the loose. But, with this order came another – genocide. Russell was to send forces into Cornwall and he: “shall not suffer those rebels to breathe”.
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