When the war was over, Major Phillipson resolved to be avenged, and he
and some of his men rode over to Kendal one Sunday morning expecting to
find Colonel Briggs in the church, and either to kill him or take him
prisoner there. Major Phillipson rode into the church on horseback, but
the colonel was not there. The congregation, much surprised and annoyed
at this intrusion, surrounded the major, and, cutting the girths,
unhorsed him. On seeing this, the major's party made a furious attack on
the assailants, and the major killed with his own hand the man who had
seized him, and, placing the ungirthed saddle on his horse, vaulted into
it and rode through the streets of Kendal calling upon his men to follow
him, which they did, and the whole party escaped to their safe resort in
the Lake of Windermere.
This incident furnished Sir Walter Scott with materials for a similar
adventure in "Rokeby," canto vi.:
All eyes upon the gateway hung.
When through the Gothic arch there sprung
A horseman arm'd, at headlong speed--
Sable his cloak, his plume, his steed.
Fire from the flinty floor was spurn'd.
The vaults unwonted clang return'd!--
One instant's glance around he threw,
From saddle-bow his pistol drew.
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