Sir William, his son, was charged, upon the evidence of a semi-lunatic, with conspiring to assassinate Henry III, and on the strength of it was condemned to death--a sentence that, as he fled to Lundy, was not carried out for four years, when he was taken by stratagem. Lundy was then seized by the King, but forty years later the Moriscoes once more gained possession of it. Edward II granted the island to one of the Despencers, and in his own distress attempted to take refuge here:
'To Lundy, which in Sabrin's mouth doth stand, Carried with hope (still hoping to find ease), Imagining it were his native land, England itself; Severn, the narrow sea; With this conceit, poor soul! himself doth please. And sith his rule is over-ruled by men, On birds and beasts he'll king it once again.
''Tis treble death a freezing death to feel; For him on whom the sun hath ever shone, Who hath been kneeled unto, can hardly kneel, Nor hardly beg what once hath been his own. A fearful thing to tumble from a throne! Fain would he be king of a little isle; All were his empire bounded in a mile.'
But the winds were against him, and he was driven on to the Welsh coast, into the hands of his enemies.
During the reign of Henry VIII, French pirates seized the island, and plundered and robbed at large, but they were accounted for by the valour of Clovelly fishermen, who made a determined attack, and killed or made prisoners of the whole band. In 1608 a commission was held to consider the grievances of merchants who complained of piracy in the Bristol Channel; and in 1610 'another commission was issued to the Earl of Nottingham to authorize the town of Barnstaple to send out ships for the capture of pirates, and the deposition was taken of one William Young, who had been made prisoner by Captain Salkeld, who entitled himself "King of Lundy," and was a notorious pirate.' Two years later 'the _John of Braunton_ and the _Mayflower_ of Barnstaple caught as notorious Rogues as any in England.' After another thirteen years: 'The Mayor of Bristol reports to the Council that three Turkish pirate vessels had surprised and taken the island of Lundy with the inhabitants, and had threatened to burn Ilfracombe.' During an inquiry following this report, evidence was given that seems very curious when one considers the date, nearly halfway through the seventeenth century: 'From Nicholas Cullen, "That the Turks had taken out of a church in Cornwall about sixty men, and carried them away prisoners."'