104 CORNWALL the devotion and loyalty of the people that he addressed to' them a letter of recognition, copies of which may be seen in some of the churches. Prince Charles spent a great part of the autumn and winter of 1645 in Cornwall; on March 2, 1645-6, he embarked at Pendennis Castle for the Scilly Isles, where he " was much straitened for provisions." He quitted Scilly on April 16, and landed next day in Jersey, whence he sailed for France. Queen Henrietta Maria had left Pendennis for France in July, 1644. Cornwall took no active part in the Revolution; in the European War, it sent forth many gallant sailors, among whom in the first place may be reckoned Admiral Boscawen, "old Dreadnought." But since the Civil War the history of the Duchy has been mainly one of social and industrial advance. The principal events stirring the community were the introduction of steam-engines to pump the mines, affrays with smugglers, and the excite- ment and unlimited bribery and corruption at elections in the rotten boroughs till these latter were swept away by the Reform Bill of 1832. About these rotten boroughs a few words must be said. The old boroughs that existed before the reign of Edward VI were Truro, Helston, Lostwithiel, Bodmin, Liskeard, and Launceston. But the advisers of Edward VI, conscious of insecure tenure of the throne and doubting whether the country was willing to go with them in their sweeping alterations in religion, and desirous of counteracting the growing importance of the House of Commons, considered that their object would be best attained by conferring the right of returning members
