s, all of whom, it is affirmed, so long as they kept these
lands, were subjected to grievous disasters, in so much that the male
line became altogether extinct. About two hundred years from this
time, the lands again reverted to the Church, but in the reign of
Edward VI. the Castle of Sherborne was conveyed by the then Bishop of
Sarum to the Duke of Somerset, who lost his head on Tower Hill. Sir
Walter Raleigh, again, obtained the property from the crown, and it
was to expiate this offence, it has been suggested, he ultimately lost
his head. But in allusion to this reputed curse, Sir John Harrington
gravely tells how it happened one day that Sir Walter riding post
between Plymouth and the Court, "the castle being right in the way, he
cast such an eye upon it as Ahab did upon Naboth's vineyard, and
whilst talking of the commodiousness of the place, and of the great
strength of the seat, and how easily it might be got from the
Bishopric, suddenly over and over came his horse, and his very
face--which was then thought a very good one--ploughed up the earth
where he fell." Then again Prince Henry died shortly after he took
possession, and Carr, Earl of Somerset, the next proprietor fell in
disgrace. But the way the latter obtained Sherborne was far from
creditable, for, having discovered a technical flaw in the deed in
which Sir Walter Raleigh had settled the estate on his son, he
solicited it of his royal master, and obtained it. It was in vain that
Lady Raleigh on her knees appealed to James against this injustice,
for he only answered, "I mun have the land, I mun have it for Carr."
But Lady Raleigh was a woman of high spirit, and there on her knees,
before King James, she prayed to God that He would punish those who
had thus wrongfully exposed her, and her children, to ruin. She was,
in fact, re-echoing the curse uttered centuries beforehand. And that
prayer was not long unanswered, for Carr did not enjoy Sherborne for
any length of time. Committed to the Tower for the murder of Sir
Thomas Overbury, he was at last released and restricted to his house
in the country, "where in constant companionship with the wife, for
the guilty love of whom he had become the murderer of his friend, he
passed the remainder of his life, loathing the partner of his crimes,
and by her as cordially detested."

Spelman goes so far as to say that "all those families who took or had
Church property presented to them, came, either in their own pe