"
[Illustration: CITADEL GATE, PLYMOUTH.]
We had often heard and read about Brutus, one of those mysterious men
whose history we could not fathom, for as far north as York we read in a
book there that "Brutus settled in this country when the Prophet Eli
governed Israel and the Ark was taken from the Philistines, about 1140
B.C., or a century and a half later than when David was singing Psalms
in Jerusalem"; then the writer went on to say that a direct descendant
of Brutus, King Ebrancus, anxious to find occupation for his twenty sons
and thirty daughters, built two cities, one of which was York; so
possibly the other city might have been London.
Plymouth Hoe in the time of Drake was a piece of hilly common land with
a gallows standing at one corner, and nearer the sea a water tower and a
beacon to signal the approach of enemies. But it was also a place of
recreation, and used for drilling soldiers and sailors. There were
archery butts, and there must also have been a bowling green, on which
the captains of the fleet were playing bowls when the news reached them
of the approach of the Spanish Armada. Amongst the English captains were
one from Cheshire, George de Beeston, of Beeston, and a near relative of
his, Roger Townshend.
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