LAUNCESTON its three surrounding courts, must have seemed well-nigh impregnable ; but it did not prove so in the Civil War. Buller and Carew failed to hold it against Hopton and Grenville ; but two years later the Parliamentarians again seized it. For a second time the Royalists gained possession, and the castle was able to offer its hospitality to the fugitive Charles II. But when at last Fairfax came to crush the last embers of loyalism in the west, Launceston and many another boastful stronghold were com- pelled to yield to his fine soldiership. The inner tower of the keep, described as " a cylinder within a cylinder," has walls of 1 2 ft. in thickness ; its date is late Norm. In the eastern gatehouse George Fox was im- prisoned, in 1655, as an enemy of the public peace. To quote that remarkable man's ow^n journal, " We were brought to Launceston, where Captain Keat delivered us to the jailer. Now was there no friend nor friendly people near us ; and the people of the town were dark and hardened." Trial and long imprisonment awaited him here. The attraction of Launceston is divided between its castle and its churcK; and the Church again triumphs. It is the most richly decorated church in Cornwall. The tower is the oldest portion, supposed to date from 1380; but the main body of the present building was erected in granite by Sir Henry Trecarel of Trecarel, between the years i 5 1 1 and I 5 24. Sobered b}- personal bereavement, Trecarel 153
