LUCY HUTCHINSON, In the course of the alterations, one touching inci- dent occurred. At the top of one tower, " a dove- cote had been built, but the Governor took down the roof of it, and made it a platform for two or three pieces of ordnance, which commanded some streets and all the meadows better than the higher tower." Of the private feelings and domestic life of Lucy Hutchinson, during this troubled time, we hear very little ; in the " Memoirs " of her husband, she relates scarcely anything of her own individual actions ; but by the apparent accuracy with which she details every incident, however trifling, connected with the Colonel, we are assured that she was ever near him, ready to cheer or aid him. She was now become a soldier's wife-she who by her tastes and refinement was so fitted for the calm retirement of the most peaceful domestic life. Cannon ever thundering in her ears, all the signs and tokens of deadliest war raging around her, she must have viewed the progress of events with intense anxiety, for her brother was then keeping Barnstaple for the King, and numbers of her relatives were actively engaged in the struggle, on the side opposed to that of her husband. Although urged in the first instance to accept his post, soon, on all sides, Colonel Hutchinson was met by jealousies and annoyances ; intrigues and heart- burnings harassed the town and slender garrison, despite their perilous situation. In the following year-1644-the Earl of Newcastle sent a formal 34
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