DUKE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2018 with funding from 
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 https://archive.org/details/historyofdevonsh01wort 
 
A HISTORY OF DEVONSHIRE. 
 
POPULAR COUNTT HISTORIES. 
 
 A 
 
 HISTORY OF DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 ? 
 
 WITH 
 
 SKETCHES OF ITS LEADING WORTHIES. 
 
 BY 
 
 R. N. WORTH, F.G.S., Etc., 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 ‘THE HISTORIES OF PLYMOUTH AND DEVONPORT,’ ‘TOURIST’S GUIDE TO 
 DEVONSHIRE,’ ‘WEST-COUNTRY GARLAND,’ ETC. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 
 
 1886. 
 
94-2.3S’ 
 W^l 
 li 4.73 
 \*°\S 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE . . . vii 
 
 I. EARLY HISTORY .... .1 
 
 II. EXETER . . . . . .12 
 
 III. EXMOUTH AND THE EXE ESTUARY . . 47 
 
 IV. AXMINSTER AND THE AXE. . . -59 
 
 V. SIDMOUTH . . . . . -74 
 
 VI. HONITON . . . . . -79 
 
 VII. OTTERY ST. MARY . . . . .84 
 
 VIII. COLLOMPTON AND BRADNINCH . . 87 
 
 IX. TIVERTON . . . . . 91 
 
 X. BAMPTON . . . . . .98 
 
 XI. SOUTH MOLTON . . . . . IOI 
 
 XII. CREDITON . . . . . -105 
 
 XIII. CHULMLEIGH . . . . .112 
 
 XIV. BARNSTAPLE . . . . I 15 
 
 XV. ILFRACOMBE AND LYNTON . . . .128 
 
 XVI. LUNDY ISLAND . . . . . 136 
 
 XVII. BIDEFORD . . . . . .141 
 
 XVIII. GREAT TORRINGTON . . . 154 
 
 XIX. HOLSWORTHY AND HATHERLEIGH . . .162 
 
vi Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XX. OKEHAMPTON . . . . .167 
 
 XXI. LYDFORD . . . . . 173 
 
 XXII. TAVISTOCK . . . . . 179 
 
 XXIII. BUCKLAND MONACHORUM . . . 194 
 
 XXIV. PLYMOUTH, DEVONPORT, AND STONEHOUSE . 201 
 
 XXV. PLYMPTON . . . . . .230 
 
 XXVI. MODBURY ...... 240 
 
 XXVII. KINGSBRIDGE AND SALCOMBE . . . 245 
 
 XXVIII. TOTNES ...... 254 
 
 XXIX. DARTMOUTH . . . . .267 
 
 XXX. ASHBURTON AND BUCKFASTLEIGH . . • 2 77 
 
 XXXI. TORQUAY, PAIGNTON, AND BRIXHAM . .291 
 
 XXXII. NEWTON ...... 305 
 
 XXXIII. TEIGNMOUTH AND DAWLISH . . . 311 
 
 XXXIV. CHUDLEIGH AND BOVEY TRACEY . . . 316 
 
 XXXV. MORETONHAMPSTEAD AND CHAGFORD . . 320 
 
 XXXVI. DARTMOOR . . . . ■ • 3 2 6 
 
 XXXVII. DIALECT AND FOLK-LORE .... 335 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 Sixty years have passed since the last successful attempt 
 was made to produce a complete History of Devonshire ; 
 and the volume of the brothers Lysons has remained from 
 that day to the present the most valuable contribution to 
 the general historical literature of the county. Of late, 
 however, many revisions have been made in local history : 
 and though Devon has not again been treated as a whole, 
 there are few of its corners which have not been made 
 the subject of independent and painstaking research; 
 while immense masses of original materials have been 
 collected which were either unknown or inaccessible when 
 the Lysonses were engaged on their great work. With 
 what has been done at the State Paper Office, all who 
 are interested in these topics are familiar. The local 
 inquiries of the Historical Manuscripts Commission have 
 thrown great light upon many obscure places of the 
 Devonian record. Much attention has been paid to the 
 archives of public bodies. The muniments of the Cor¬ 
 poration of Exeter, and of the Dean and Chapter of 
 Exeter Cathedral, have been arranged and calendared by 
 Mr. Stuart Moore, who has also investigated those of the 
 
Introductory Note. 
 
 viii 
 
 Corporation of Dartmouth. The records of the Cor¬ 
 poration of Plymouth have in like manner been brought 
 together and indexed by the author; while Mr. J. R. 
 Chanter has carefully examined the muniments of Barn¬ 
 staple ; and Mr. E. Windeatt those of Totnes. 
 
 This acquisition of new material, together with the 
 adoption of stricter methods of inquiry and the more 
 careful investigation of authorities, has led, in the course 
 of the last thirty years more especially, to the re-writing 
 in detail of much Devonian history. Among those who 
 have taken a prominent part in this work, and to whom 
 this volume is most largely indebted, are the late Sir John 
 Bowring, the late Dr. Oliver, the late Rev. S. Rowe, the 
 late Mr. R. J. King, the late Mr. J. B. Davidson, Messrs. 
 P. F. and J. S. Amerv, Mr. C. Spence Bate, F.R.S., 
 Mr. J. R. Chanter, Messrs. W. Cotton, F.S.A., and 
 R. W. Cotton, Mr. F. T. Elworthy, Mr. P. O. 
 Hutchinson, Mr. R. Dymond, F.S.A., Mr. T. Kerslake, 
 F.S.A., Mr. P. Q. Karkeek, Mr. G. W. Ormerod, F.G.S., 
 Mr. W. Pengelly, F.R.S., F.G.S., Mr. G. Pycroft, Mr. 
 J. Brooking Rowe, F.S.A., F.F.S. (whose presidential 
 address at Crediton to the Devonshire Association con¬ 
 tains a full list of printed books and MSS. dealing with 
 local topography and history), Mr. E. Windeatt, and 
 Mr. J. T. White. So many points of interest, however, 
 still continue unsettled, and the history of so many 
 places and families, after all that has been done, still 
 remains to be explored, that the work of the Devon¬ 
 shire historian must yet be largely tentative. While 
 presenting, therefore, what it is hoped will be found an 
 accurate statement of the present position of historical 
 
Introductory Note. 
 
 IX 
 
 inquiry in Devon, the need of further investigation is 
 fully recognised by the writer, with the certainty that 
 much still accepted as historical must, sooner or later, 
 be set aside by a better informed and more searching 
 criticism. 
 
 More than a sketch of the great history of Devon 
 and of its famous muster-roll of worthies this work 
 cannot pretend to be. A county which is all but the 
 largest in the kingdom; which has afforded the earliest 
 traces of the existence of man in these islands ; which 
 has never from the dawn of recorded history occupied 
 a secondary place in the national life; which again and 
 again in the hour of England’s need has found the 
 man; whose worthies, century by century, claim the 
 first rank in every class—soldiers, sailors, lawyers, divines, 
 inventors, poets, artists, explorers, statesmen, men of 
 science ; which, by the staunchness of its common folk 
 no less than the courage and skill of their leaders, has 
 more than once proved the pivot whereon the destinies 
 of the State have hung;—the history of such a county 
 is the history of England, and must be rather hinted at 
 than expressed in the compass of these pages. But they 
 will not be altogether unworthy of the noble Devon 
 whose record they set forth, if their readers judge of what 
 is wanting by what is said; and are led for themselves 
 to fill in an outline which it is hoped may at least claim 
 the merit of being inclusive, definite, and clear. 
 
 One word as to the arrangement. Neither of the 
 existing units of county organization supplied exactly 
 what was needed for the purpose in hand. It was there¬ 
 fore decided to treat the places of chief historical interest 
 
X 
 
 Introductory Note. 
 
 in their respective localities as centres, and to group 
 around them their more immediate territorial associa¬ 
 tions. The order is mainly topographical. Beginning with 
 Exeter, under which head—as subsequently under Ply¬ 
 mouth—general points of county history are treated, a 
 circuit is taken through East, North, West, and South 
 Devon, and the survey ends in the great central waste of 
 Dartmoor. 
 
HISTORY OF DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 -a_®S_s- 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EARLY HISTORY. 
 
 Devonshire stands alone among the counties of England 
 in its peculiar relation to the question of the antiquity of 
 the human race. Traces of Palaeolithic man are indeed 
 scattered throughout the kingdom, but in Devon only is 
 there fairly consecutive evidence. The contemporaneity 
 of man with the extinct quaternary mammalia was lifted 
 from the level of argument to that of demonstration by 
 the discoveries at the Windmill Hill Cave, at Brixham, 
 in 1858. The retrospect of Devon is thus inferior in 
 antiquity to that of no part of the British Isles, if we 
 assign due proportion and weight to the inferential and 
 material narrative which commonly passes under the name 
 of prehistoric; and, moreover, it is a record of singular 
 completeness. 
 
 That the men of Palaeolithic times inhabited, or at 
 least visited, the whole county of Devon, is proved by the 
 manner in which their traces have been found on every 
 hand. The caves at Brixham and Torquay; the submerged 
 forests in Barnstaple Bay, and at other points of the 
 Devon coast; the beds of the rivers; the depths of the 
 peat-bogs; the wild wastes of the moors; the cliffs, as at 
 
 1 
 
2 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 Croyde and Bovisand; the low-lying gravels of the Axe 
 Valley—these teem with the flint-chips, arrow-heads, axes, 
 and scrapers of the earliest Devonians who have left a 
 trace behind. Mr. Pengelly, F.R.S., has advanced cogent 
 reasons for the belief that the earliest men of the most 
 famous of the Devon caves, Kent’s Hole, Torquay, were 
 * inter-glacial, if not pre-glacial.’ The ‘ earliest men ’— 
 for it is a remarkable fact that the investigations in Kent’s 
 Cavern have yielded evidence of the existence of man in 
 Devon from the Palaeolithic, in the Neolithic, the Bronze, 
 and the Iron Ages. 
 
 Next to the Palaeolithic men of Devon came the Barrow- 
 builders ; but the gap between the two is so wide that, 
 while the cave-men of Palaeolithic date were of the period 
 of the extinct cave mammalia, no barrow has yielded even 
 fragmentary traces of these animals. 
 
 Of the two great classes of barrows, the long and the 
 round, the latter only occur in Devon. This is a curious 
 fact; for long-barrows are peculiarly abundant in the 
 adjoining counties of Dorset and of Wilts, and round- 
 barrows yet exist in Devon by hundreds, almost thousands. 
 The inference seems either that the long-barrow builders 
 did not dwell farther west than Dorset, or that all 
 vestiges of them have been destroyed on the western 
 side of the Dorsetshire border. In all probability the 
 Devonians of the long-barrow period were of a different 
 race to the long-barrow people—possibly the direct 
 descendants of the later Palaeolithic men, supplanted 
 and driven into the corners of the country by the long¬ 
 headed long-barrow builders, as these were supplanted and 
 driven by the round-headed builders of the round-barrows, 
 and as in historic times Kelt and Saxon were in turn 
 hunters and hunted. The long-barrow period seems to 
 be represented in the West by chambered round-barrows, 
 and by interments which have received the trivial name 
 of ‘ giants’ graves.’ The most remarkable examples of 
 
Early History. 
 
 3 
 
 these were discovered at Lundy Island, where two stone 
 kists were found to contain two gigantic skeletons, the 
 larger covered with limpet-shells. Like the long-barrows, 
 with which they are presumably contemporaneous, these 
 ‘ giants’ graves ’ and chambered-barrows belong to the 
 Age of Stone. 
 
 The round-barrows are the most important factor in 
 the earlier history of Devon. Abounding in every part 
 of the county, either continuously or by record, they 
 illustrate almost every variety of barrow interment asso¬ 
 ciated with the Bronze Age, thus indicating the occupation 
 of the West by a bronze-using people over a very long 
 time. How far back this may extend we cannot say. 
 The Barrow Period was undoubtedly of great duration ; 
 but there is good reason to believe that barrow interment 
 continued down even to post-Roman days. It is im¬ 
 portant to note, as indicating variations in race, in time, 
 or in custom, of a very important character, that inter¬ 
 ment by cremation is all but universal in the barrows of 
 Devon and of Cornwall; while in Wilts and Dorset the 
 proportion of unburnt bodies is as high as a third and a 
 fourth. Moreover, while in Devon the few unburnt in¬ 
 terments are in the contracted form, as usual, in Dorset 
 the extended position prevails. 
 
 One of the most difficult questions of Western Archaeo¬ 
 logy is that of the age and origin of the Bronze Period, 
 to which these round-barrows in the main belong. It is 
 seen almost from the first in somewhat settled form, and 
 it is traceable downwards until it merges in historic 
 civilization ; but its connection with the Stone Period is 
 to all appearance hopelessly obscured. There is, how¬ 
 ever, evidence of vast antiquity. The Western Peninsula 
 was the chief, if not the only, source of tin for the bronze- 
 users of Europe, save, perchance, upon Asiatic confines. 
 The tin-mining of the West, therefore, dates back to the 
 introduction of the use of metals on the Continent; and 
 
 I — 2 
 
4 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 when we attempt to give to this great epoch in the history 
 of man a definite chronological position, ‘ Cornwall proves 
 that tin-streaming was carried on at Carnon and Pentuan 
 at a time when the mammoth either still existed in the 
 West of England, or had not long disappeared; and when 
 the general level of Devon and Cornwall was at least 
 thirty feet higher than it is now.’ Within the historic 
 period no such change has taken place. Considerations 
 of this kind led Dr. Wibel to conclude that the civilization 
 of the Bronze Age originated in the West of England; 
 while M. Furnet has suggested a European civilization 
 contemporary with that of the East, dealing with minerals 
 before the arrival of the Kelts and their intervention in 
 metallurgy. The fact that the early bronze weapons 
 were evidently made for a small-limbed people gives 
 marked support to the latter theory. 
 
 That there was a distinct and well-marked civilization 
 in the West in pre-Roman times is indeed shown, not 
 only by the references of Greek and Roman writers to the 
 ancient tin trade of the Cassiterides with the Mediterranean 
 ports, but by the relics of the later Bronze Age which 
 Devon has yielded. Coins of the type which Dr. Evans, 
 F.R.S., assigns to about 150 B.c. have been found in the 
 county at Cot^, near Axminster, Exeter, and Mount 
 Batten, near Plymouth ; while an ancient cemetery in the 
 last locality has yielded mirrors, and various implements, 
 ornaments, and weapons of bronze (now preserved in the 
 Museum of the Plymouth Institution), all the characters 
 of which are Keltic, and not Roman. In some localities 
 such remains would undoubtedly suggest a post-Roman 
 origin. Here they are evidently the final types of the 
 older pre-Roman civilization ; not necessarily of any great 
 antiquity, nor free from foreign characters, but influenced 
 alike in origin and progress by an earlier intercourse with 
 the civilized world than that of Roman date. 
 
 This superior civilization of the West was probably the 
 
Early History. 
 
 D 
 
 leading cause of the peculiar form taken by the Roman 
 occupation in the ancient Keltic Kingdom of the Dun- 
 monii, which included both Devon and Cornwall. 
 Attempts have been made to prove the existence of 
 Roman roads and Roman stations throughout the extreme 
 West of England, but without success. The so-called 
 Roman roads of the older antiquaries are really the 
 British trackways, which here as elsewhere the Romans 
 adapted to their purpose. The British Fosseway ran 
 from Exeter over Dartmoor, crossed the Tamar near 
 Tavistock, and continued along the central highlands 
 of Cornwall by Cenion (Truro) to Giano (Marazion) in 
 Mount's Bay. There was only one Roman station of any 
 note within Devonian confines — the Isca Dunmoniorum 
 of the * Itinerary ’ of Antonine. This undoubtedly is 
 Exeter. Moridunum, which in the ‘ Itinerary ’ intervenes 
 beween Isca and Durnovaria (Dorchester), was in Devon, 
 but the site has not been clearly identified. 
 
 The long-accepted story of Roman conquest and sway 
 in Devon rests solely upon a mistaken identification and 
 a forgery. The false identification is the gloss of Geoffrey 
 of Monmouth, or one of his editors, that the Caer Pen- 
 saulcoit which Vespasian besieged was Exeter, instead of 
 Penselwood, on the Wilts and Somerset borderland. The 
 forgery is the ‘ Chronicle ’ attributed to Richard of Ciren¬ 
 cester. There is thus no evidence that the Dunmonii 
 were ever conquered by the Romans ; and the conclusion 
 of Mr. Beale Poste appears irresistible—that ‘ they re¬ 
 tained their nationality under their own native princes.’ 
 The same long-continued foreign intercourse which had 
 given the Western Peninsula its superiority in civilization 
 prompted its residents rather to welcome than oppose the 
 people with whom they were on such friendly terms, and 
 from whom they derived so much advantage. 
 
 Exeter, indeed, was both a Roman station of import¬ 
 ance and the head of the Roman power in the district. 
 
6 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 The only other points in Devon that appear by their 
 names to indicate the presence of Roman soldiery are on 
 the same parallel, near North Lew—Chester Moor, Scob- 
 chester, and Wickchester. West of Exeter no proofs of 
 Roman occupation, beyond an individual settlement here 
 and there, have ever been found, though traces of Roman 
 intercourse are by no means wanting. North and east 
 of Exeter there are only remains of Roman villas, as at 
 Hannaditches, near Seaton, while another is said to have 
 occupied the crest of a cliff near Hartland. The full 
 significance of these facts, in considering the character 
 of the Roman Period in Devon, is best seen when we 
 compare non-Roman Devon with thoroughly Romanized 
 Somerset, in which Roman structural and other relics of 
 importance—temples, potteries, villas, mines—have been 
 found in over one hundred places. 
 
 The later Dunmonii were a numerous as well as a 
 fairly civilized race. In every part of the county there 
 are to be found earthworks, some of very considerable 
 magnitude, which have commonly been classed by anti¬ 
 quaries as hill-forts, camps, or castles. By far the greater 
 majority of these are, however, simply the enclosures of 
 ancient villages or towns—the evidence, not of long- 
 continued or desperate warfare, but of a settled and 
 comparatively dense population. 
 
 Whether, when the Romans left Britain, and the Britons 
 had to rely upon their own efforts for protection against 
 northern and sea-borne marauders, Devon shared to the 
 full extent in the general despair is doubtful. The pre¬ 
 servation of an independent, or quasi-independent, status 
 would tell in its favour. It is impossible to credit the 
 assertion that Piets and Scots carried their raids so far 
 west. Probably Dunmonia, continuing its trade in 
 metals with the East, enjoyed for a while comparative 
 quiet, and was one of the last places visited by Saxon or 
 by Dane. The Saxons were familiar with the Channel 
 
Early History. 
 
 7 
 
 coast, ‘ the Saxon shore,’ long ere they reached Devon 
 and Cornwall; and the Danes make their first historical 
 appearance in the West as the allies of the Cornish race 
 against their own Teutonic kin in the reign of Ecgberht, 
 when they were defeated by the Saxons in a great battle 
 just over the Tamar at Hingston Down. 
 
 Obscurity shrouds the advent of the Saxons in Devon. 
 The only important contemporary record is the ‘ Anglo- 
 Saxon Chronicle;’ and that does not carry us further back 
 than the eighth century in its Devonian references. 
 Saxon intercourse with Devon began in an individual 
 form, and by colonization rather than by conquest. When 
 the Saxons of Wessex reached the county they had 
 become Christians, and had begun, as Mr. J. B. David¬ 
 son says, ‘ to make progress by colonization as well as by 
 the sword.’ And the late Mr. R. J. King showed how 
 in all probability settlements were pushed beyond the 
 border ‘ by small bodies of men, either by force or peace¬ 
 ably, but on the whole establishing themselves in more 
 peaceful fashion than would be the case when an entire 
 district lay at the mercy of the conqueror after a great 
 battle.’ The peculiar character and distribution of the 
 place-names of Devon lends great support to this view; 
 and as immigrant peoples usually accepted the place- 
 names they found until further distinctions became neces¬ 
 sary, and as the Keltic names of Devon can only have 
 been retained where there was continuity of occupation, 
 or association, it follows that wherever in Devon such 
 names are most plentiful, there we have the best proof of 
 extended intercourse and early Saxon colonization. 
 
 This would not have been the case, however, had not 
 the Saxon completed by war what he had begun in peace. 
 Colonization in the end did give place to conquest. Mr. 
 J. B. Davidson has shown conclusively that the Saxon 
 annexation of Devon must be placed somewhere between 
 710—in which year Ine fought the Welsh king Gereint, 
 
8 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 and shortly after which he made Taunton the chief defence 
 of his new frontier—and 823, in which the Weala and 
 the Defena—that is, the men of Cornwall and the men 
 of Devon—fought a battle at Gafulford, probably an 
 ancient passage on the Tamar. In 710 the whole force 
 of Devon and Cornwall was wielded by Gereint; in 823 
 the men of Devon and the men of Cornwall were mar¬ 
 shalled as two opposing hosts. But, inasmuch as there 
 is no reason to suppose that Ine pushed his conquests 
 further, and as the ‘ Chronicles ’ expressly state that in 813 
 Ecgberht harried the West Wealas, while William of 
 Malmesbury defines that monarch’s first great military 
 act as the conquest of Cornwall, the possible limit of the 
 subjugation of Devon is narrowed between the years 728 
 and 800. Of the kings of Wessex who fill this interval, 
 the only one to whom the conquest can be assigned is 
 Cynewulf—755-784—who is recorded to have fought many 
 battles against the Brit-Wealas. It is possible that 
 William of Malmesbury may have used the word Corn¬ 
 wall to include part of Devon, in which case the work 
 begun by Cynewulf was completed by Ecgberht. If he 
 employed that term with modern limitations, Cynewulf 
 brought all Devon under his sway. 
 
 A theory that there was a partial conquest of Devon by 
 the Saxons, and that the Exe became a frontier between 
 the Welsh and English, has been held by several dis¬ 
 tinguished authorities, including the late Sir Francis 
 Palgrave. But the data are insufficient. Sir F. Pal- 
 grave based his hypothesis upon an agreement ascribed 
 to the reign of iEtielred, between certain Dunsseta. Read¬ 
 ing this Devnsseta, or Defena, Sir Francis interpreted it 
 to be an agreement ‘ between the Wylisc Devonshire men 
 and the Englisc Devonshire men.’ The reference, how¬ 
 ever, is not to Devonshire men at all, but to certain 
 ‘ dwellers on the downs,’ probably inhabitants of Wales 
 proper. 
 
Early History. 
 
 9 
 
 True, William of Malmesbury states that in 926 
 iESelstan drove the Britons out of Exeter, which they 
 had inhabited sharing equal rights with the English, and 
 fixed the boundary of his province along the Tamar. Mr. 
 T. Kerslake has also shown that Exeter is really divisible 
 by the dedications of the ancient parishes into British 
 and Saxon quarters. A certain joint occupancy of that 
 city must therefore be held proven. It is further probable 
 that, at the time of Cynewulf’s invasion, Exeter was more 
 Saxon than Keltic; and there is reason to believe that 
 then, and long after, it enjoyed a kind of independence. 
 But however this may be, it is manifest that under 
 ^ESelstan the county at large was cleared of the Keltic 
 race—save, perhaps, in a few isolated spots—and that 
 whatever Keltic blood there is now in Devon must date 
 from before the Saxon Conquest, or have been acquired 
 mainly from Cornwall, since directly it is tested this 
 * ingenious theory of a bisected Devonshire, half Saxon, 
 half British, with Exeter as a border fortress, and the 
 river Exe as a boundary, vanishes into thin air.’ 
 
 One of the most cogent arguments against the theory 
 is the fact that we find no trace in the place-names of 
 Devon of a graduated Keltic element westward, which 
 must be apparent if the county had been so parcelled, or 
 the Saxon expulsion of the Britons had not been complete 
 and final. The Saxon element in the local topographical 
 nomenclature is quite as decided on the eastern bank of 
 the Tamar as it is upon the north coast; and the Keltic 
 names in the former locality are not a whit more plentiful 
 than in some other parts. It has been thought that the 
 recesses of Dartmoor may have retained their Keltic 
 population long after the rest of Devon had fallen under 
 Saxon rule ; but this cannot have been so, for Dartmoor 
 has hardly a Keltic name left, save upon the borders, with 
 which Saxon dwellers in the lowlands must have been 
 more or less familiar. 
 
IO 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 We may call in aid, too, the Saxon place-names to 
 supply the great gaps in the recorded history of the 
 county which the ‘ Saxon Chronicle ’ fails to cover. They 
 show that the early Saxon occupation of Devon must 
 have been mainly of the individual and peaceful kind 
 already suggested. The ordinary enclosure of the ‘ tun ’ 
 is scattered throughout the county, and is not predominant 
 anywhere, though somewhat less frequent in the north¬ 
 west than the south. The more defensible ‘ stocks ’ are 
 commonly associated with the navigable rivers, then the 
 great highways of piratical marauders, and needing rally- 
 ing-points and strongholds, especially when Danish inroads 
 became periodical. The frequent ‘ burys ’ are in many 
 cases not of direct Saxon origin, but mark the site of 
 some old earthwork. The three most distinctive and 
 notable marks of Saxon occupation are to be found in the 
 affixes ‘ worthy,’ ‘ cot,’ and £ hay,’ which have a very 
 peculiar and suggestive distribution. * Worthy’—probably 
 in the main a farm-place, with enclosures to protect the 
 cattle from the ravages of wild beasts—is most common 
 on the borders of Dartmoor, and particularly to the south 
 and west, where not only the name but the thing still 
 exists in the traces of the original walls and banks. 
 ‘ Cot,’ which shows the fullest evidence of individual 
 action, and on the smallest scale, is almost peculiar to 
 the west and north-west. ‘ Hay,’ which represents an 
 enclosure of a field character, has its chief centre in the 
 east. 
 
 There has, so far, only been found in Devon one definite 
 trace of the Teutonic mark—the existence of a certain 
 tenure of ‘ landscore ’ in the neighbourhood of Plymouth. 
 But the mark would only survive in a modified form 
 when Devon was absorbed into Wessex. The existence 
 of the family group is not much clearer. Personal and 
 individual settlements abound, and there are some few 
 traces of associative effort; but we do not find, nor can 
 
Early History. 
 
 11 
 
 we expect to find, precisely the same polity as is presented 
 h}' the shires and kingdoms first settled by the Saxons, 
 which was complete of its kind. The constitution of 
 Devon, however, is purely Saxon from village to shire: 
 each of its hundreds has a Saxon name, each of its 
 ancient municipalities originated in a Saxon community; 
 and in some of its towns, as Tavistock and Ashburton, 
 the elder form of government is still easily distinguishable 
 in the continued existence of the portreeve, or portgcrefa, 
 of the original free township, elected by the freeholders as 
 representatives of the estates of the original settlers. 
 
 As far as we may judge from the hundred lists, as 
 given in ‘ Domesday,’ the original hundreds of Devon 
 numbered twenty-six, which would give a Saxon popula¬ 
 tion of the county when Saxon government was first 
 completely established of about 15,000. The population 
 enumerated in ‘ Domesday ’ is 17,434; and the free 
 dwellers would not make the total exceed some 25,000. 
 
 But the purport of this chapter is mainly to summarize 
 the prehistoric times of Devon—those antecedent to the 
 Saxon Conquest. That end served, the further details of 
 the county history will be found under the various 
 heads. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 EXETER. 
 
 Those who believe that this island derives its name from 
 Brutus, the Trojan, will have no difficulty in accepting 
 the allied legend that before Brute built London he 
 founded Exeter. But as these once popular articles of 
 faith are sadly at a discount, we may dismiss them with¬ 
 out further concern. The origin of the city is really 
 unknown. The hill round which the Exe flowed long 
 ages since, as it flow's still, w'as chosen by the Kelts for 
 the site of one of their towms, and it may have had a 
 yet earlier appropriation. When the Romans made 
 the castrum of the Exe the headquarters of a legion 
 and the chief seat of their power in the extreme West 
 of England, Exeter was already a place of importance 
 and antiquity: and that is all we really know. It may 
 have been one of the marts where the ancient Briton 
 trafficked wdth the merchants of Phoenicia, but the 
 authority for saying so is very small. Palgrave held that 
 the city w'as a free republic before the reduction of the 
 inhabitants of West Britain, and that it enjoyed fran¬ 
 chises and liberties ‘ before any Anglo-Saxon king had a 
 crowm upon his head or a sceptre in his hand.’ At what¬ 
 ever date, then, the first hut w'as built in the forest on the 
 * red hill ’ above the marshes of the Exe, Exeter flashes 
 into history already a great towm. Each race dominant 
 
Exeter. 
 
 i3 
 
 in England has made it a stronghold—Kelt, Roman, 
 Saxon, Dane, and Norman. Hardly a great party in the 
 State, though its proud motto is Semper fidelis, but has 
 ruled therein in turn. 
 
 A few feet beneath the modern city lie remains which 
 show that Exeter was no Roman station in name only. 
 Its claims to be the Isca Dunmoniorum have been 
 seriously, but fruitlessly, questioned. Roman coins by 
 the thousand, with pottery and other articles of kindred 
 origin, have been found in almost every excavation within 
 the circuit of the ancient walls, and are still discovered. 
 
 When the Romans left Exeter it retained a large pro¬ 
 portion of the specialized civilization they had imported. 
 Moreover, its trading status, by keeping up a connection 
 with the exterior world, would have the effect of con¬ 
 tinuing its more polished characteristics. Exeter did not 
 rise, therefore, to note under the Saxons when it was 
 chosen as the meeting-place of a Witenagemot, and when 
 yESelstan replaced its rude earthworks by massive walls 
 and towers. It simply maintained the position which had 
 belonged to it for ages. So when Eadweard the Con¬ 
 fessor transferred thither the See of Devon and Cornwall 
 from Crediton, Exeter was merely asserting its position, 
 not only as the chief town of Devon, but as the most im¬ 
 portant city of all the West. Never was this shown more 
 completely than when the Conqueror appeared before its 
 walls; and when, in the eloquent words of Dr. Freeman, 
 Exeter ‘ stood forth for one moment to claim the rank of 
 a free imperial city, the chief of a confederation of the 
 lesser towns of the West—when she, or at least her 
 rulers, professed themselves willing to receive William 
 as an external lord, to pay him the tribute which had 
 been paid to the old kings, but refused to admit him 
 within her walls as her immediate sovereign.’ And 
 though the city had to yield, it yielded on such terms as 
 fairly secured its ancient liberties, and left it still one of 
 
14 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 the four chief cities of the realm, holding equal rank with 
 London, York, and Winchester. 
 
 There has never been a time of intestine strife, from 
 the dawn of history down to the Wars of the Common¬ 
 wealth, in which Exeter has not been regarded as the 
 key of the West. Well indeed might the quaint city 
 chronicler, Izaacke, tell us : 
 
 ‘ In midst of Devon, Exeter city, seated 
 Hath with ten sieges grievously been straitned.’ 
 
 In the wars between Charles and the Parliament, indeed, 
 Plymouth, by its obstinate and unbroken adhesion to the 
 popular side, led the fortunes of the Western Peninsula; 
 and the possession of Exeter was, for the first time, of 
 secondary importance. The prestige was recovered, 
 however, when William of Orange made it the focus of 
 his operations, and within the walls of Exeter won the 
 adhesion of Devon, Somerset, and Dorset, and thence a 
 kingdom. 
 
 Forty royal charters are said to have been conferred 
 upon the ancient city; and royalty has been a frequent 
 guest within its walls. Edward IV. gave the Corporation 
 one of their swords of state; Henry VII. another sword 
 and a cap of maintenance; Henry VIII. made it a 
 county; Edward VI. rewarded its stubborn resistance to 
 the Western Rebels by the gift of a manor; Elizabeth 
 conferred the proud motto ‘ Semper fidelis,’ which candour 
 compels the admission has been chiefly shown in a staunch 
 adherence to the ruling powers ; the second Charles, as 
 his mark of favour, gave the citizens the portrait of his 
 Exonian sister; the third William re-established the 
 ancient mint. 
 
 Setting aside the story of the capture of Exeter b}' 
 Vespasian as something more than mythical, the first 
 siege of the city recorded in history, if Matthew of West¬ 
 minster is to be accepted as sufficient authority, was in 
 633, when Penda was the leader of the besiegers, and 
 
Exeter. 
 
 15 
 
 Cadwalinus (whose nephew Brian held the city) the chief 
 of the relieving host. There is nothing intrinsically im¬ 
 probable in this; and it is certain that Saxon influence 
 had made itself felt in the vicinity at quite as early a 
 date. There are grounds, however, for believing, as 
 already shown, that the Saxon made his way in Devon to 
 a large degree by the more peaceful methods of immigra¬ 
 tion, and that it was not until the time of TDSelstan that 
 Exeter became a thoroughly Saxon town. But long 
 before iESelstan Exeter had been harried by a foreign 
 foe, more savage even than the early Saxon. The Danes 
 took up their winter quarters there in 877, and in 894 
 their siege of the city was raised by yElfred, who com¬ 
 mitted the spiritual oversight of the city, and in effect the 
 ecclesiastical headship of the Saxons in Devon, to his 
 favourite Asser. 
 
 The first great historical disaster recorded of Exeter is 
 its capture by Swegen in 1003. Two years previously the 
 Danes in large numbers had landed at Exmouth and 
 marched on Exeter, which was stoutly defended. The 
 forces of Devon and Somerset gathered with all speed 
 under their reeves, Eadsige and Kola, and were utterly 
 defeated at what is now the suburb of Pinhoe. Then the 
 Danes burnt the ‘ hams ’ at Pinhoe and Clyst, 4 and rode 
 over the land; and their “ after ” was ever worse than 
 their “ former,” ’ and they returned with great booty to 
 their ships. There is a curious tradition that a small 
 annuity received by the vicar of Pinhoe represents a 
 reward bestowed upon the mass priest of that place for 
 his skill and daring in procuring a supply of arrows on 
 this occasion, when the ammunition of the English was 
 falling short. 
 
 When the terrible massacre of the Danes by TDSelred 
 in 1002 brought Swegen upon the fated land once more, 
 no place felt his revenge in more deadly fashion than 
 Exeter. The city was then in the height of prosperity. 
 
i6 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 Its religious establishments were so notable that in after¬ 
 days they were said to have conferred upon it the name 
 of Monkton—a statement for which there is not the least 
 historical authority. It was populous, and the inhabitants 
 held out bravely; but they had a traitor within their 
 walls. The Norman Hugh, favourite of Queen Emma, 
 and her reeve of the city, on the igth of August, 1003, 
 admitted the Danes within the walls, and Exeter was so 
 ravaged with fire and sword that for the while ruin seemed 
 complete and recovery hopeless. But Cnut favoured it, 
 and the Confessor raised its chief monastery to cathedral 
 rank; and half a century from the Danish sack Exeter 
 was prosperous once more, with nearly 500 houses. 
 
 Nothing indicates more clearly the renewed importance 
 and independent spirit of Exeter than the answer returned 
 by the citizens to the Conqueror when he demanded sub¬ 
 mission. ‘ We will neither take any oath to the king 
 nor allow him to enter our city ; but the tribute which, 
 following ancient custom, we were wont to give formerly, 
 the same we will give to him.’ But William would have 
 ‘no subjects after this fashion.’ Marching upon Exeter, 
 he was met by the civic chiefs, who promised all that he 
 required, but when they returned were persuaded to forego 
 their pledges and trust rather to their skill in war and the 
 strength of their defences. Then, ‘ filled with rage and 
 wonder,’ William assaulted the stubborn town. For 
 eighteen days he unavailingly assailed it by all the 
 methods known to the warriors of those times. What 
 would have been the result had the siege continued it is 
 hard to say ; but the citizens found that whether William 
 could break down their active resistance or not, he could 
 starve them. So they asked for pardon and peace, and 
 found him clement. 
 
 Exeter did not stand quite alone in its opposition to 
 William. The citizens were stimulated to the course 
 they took by the presence of Gytha, the mother of 
 
Exeter. 
 
 17 
 
 Harold, who had taken refuge within their walls (she 
 escaped before the surrender), and they are said to have 
 roused the sister burghs of Devon to join in their resist¬ 
 ance. That Lydford and Barnstaple did so seems proven 
 by the waste recorded to have been made there since the 
 Conquest, in ‘ Domesday.’ Totnes, to all appearance, made 
 quiet submission. Had all the West been united under 
 one head, and that a capable one, the tide of victory might 
 have been rolled back, even upon the great Norman chief. 
 But this was not to be. 
 
 The most important result, in one respect, of the sur¬ 
 render of Exeter to the Normans was the erection of 
 Rougemont Castle on the ‘ red hill ’ dominating the city 
 —a site which had been occupied by older defensive works, 
 but which had never seen anything so elaborate as this 
 first Norman fortalice of the West of England. Scanty 
 as the remains now are, they suffice to show that it was 
 once a citadel of prime importance. Building commenced 
 in 1068, and could hardly have been finished when, in 
 the following year, a band of brave Saxons who had taken 
 up the cause of the sons of Harold assailed the city. 
 They were easily beaten off, however, with heavy loss by 
 the Norman garrison, probably helped by the citizens in 
 their new-found loyalty. The invading host of Godwin 
 and Edmund were annihilated in a fierce battle on the 
 banks of the Tavy; and there was an end once and for 
 ever of all organized attempts to throw off the hated 
 Norman yoke. After three years of nearly incessant 
 conflict the West gave up the struggle. The last Devon¬ 
 shire man of note to continue such resistance as might 
 yet be offered was Sithric the Saxon Abbot of Tavistock, 
 and he at length joined the famous Hereward in the Camp 
 of Refuge at Ely. 
 
 Such peace as could be enjoyed by a Saxon city held 
 by a Norman garrison, Exeter had for just seventy years. 
 Then Baldwin de Redvers, grandson of its first Norman 
 
 2 
 
i8 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 Governor, made Rougemont a stronghold for Matilda, and 
 proceeded to oppress the citizens, who, according to 
 Exonian wont, continued faithful to the ruling powers. 
 They sent to Stephen for help. Baldwin determined to 
 destroy the city ere aid could come, and fire and sword 
 had begun their work, when they were happily stayed by 
 the appearance of 200 horsemen, Stephen’s advanced 
 guard. Ere long the whole army arrived; Baldwin’s 
 troops were driven within the castle, and a siege com¬ 
 menced, which continued for three months. Force 
 appeared unavailing, but when the supply of water failed 
 the castle was surrendered. With it fell the last hopes 
 of Matilda in the West. The whole strength of her party 
 in Devon had been concentrated at Exeter. Baldwin’s 
 castle at Plympton had been given up by its garrison 
 without striking a blow; and all Baldwin’s friends had 
 submitted to the King with the exception of Alured, son 
 of Judhel of Totnes, who, abandoning his own indefensible 
 ‘ strength,’ by a clever stratagem joined Baldwin in Rouge¬ 
 mont. And once more, in the twelfth century as in the 
 eleventh, the fate of Exeter was the doom of Devon. 
 
 Exeter was one of the many towns upon which John 
 conferred the right of mayoralty, which here indeed meant 
 rather a change of name for the chief magistrate than the 
 grant of new civic powers. The city had formed part of 
 the dowry of Berengaria; but it was granted in 1231 to 
 Richard, Earl of Cornwall and King of the Romans ; and 
 in 1265 its first parliamentary representatives were elected. 
 Twenty years later Edward I. held a Parliament at 
 Exeter itself, at which a statute was passed to remedy 
 the abuses of coroners. Edward on this occasion kept 
 Christmastide within the ancient city. If the Black 
 Prince, as some authorities assert, landed at Plymouth 
 on his return from the battle of Poictiers, he passed 
 through Exeter with his royal captive ; and though this 
 is very doubtful, it is quite certain that he did visit Exeter 
 
Exeter. 
 
 19 
 
 on more than one occasion, on his way to and from Ply¬ 
 mouth, which was his favourite port. In 1388 Exeter 
 gave the title of Duke to John de Holland, who suffered 
 attainder in 1399. Restored to his son John in 1443, 
 after it had been held by Thomas Beaufort, the title was 
 finally lost by the disinheritance of the third Holland 
 Duke, Henry, who was reduced to beg his bread in exile. 
 
 The city pronounced emphatically on the Lancastrian 
 side, that generally taken in the West of England. 
 Henry VI. was entertained for eight days in 1452 with 
 the best the ‘ church and city ’ could afford, clergy and 
 citizens sharing the cost. In 1469 it sustained a twelve- 
 days’ siege from Sir William Courtenay of Powderham, 
 on behalf of Edward IV., which was raised by the media¬ 
 tion of the clergy; and in April, 1470, Clarence and 
 Warwick made Exeter their refuge, on the failure of their 
 efforts, before they went to Dartmouth and embarked for 
 Calais. Margaret was at Exeter after Barnet, arranging 
 for the final effort which for the time quenched the hopes 
 of the Lancastrians in blood at Tewkesbury ; and Exeter 
 was the place where the Lancastrians of the West 
 mustered under Sir John Arundel and Sir Hugh Courte¬ 
 nay. Clarence paid several visits to Devon in the 
 Lancastrian interest. However, Exeter was able to suit 
 itself to the times, for when Edward IV. came hither with 
 his wife and infant son, he was received so loyally that 
 he gave the Corporation the sword which is still carried 
 in state before the chief magistrate. But Edward 
 was well able to enforce his will, and that the citizens 
 knew. 
 
 Their loyalty to the ruling powers was even more 
 plainly manifested when, in 1483, Richard III. came into 
 the West. Edward had been content with a purse of 
 100 nobles; Richard was offered, and * graciously ac¬ 
 cepted,’ 200. Much need there was to keep him in good 
 humour, for Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset, had pro- 
 
 2—2 
 
20 History of Devonshire . 
 
 claimed the Earl of Richmond in the city; and it was 
 during this visit to Exeter that Richard had his own 
 brother-in-law, Sir Thomas St. Leger, beheaded in the 
 castle-yard. It was there, too, that the incident happened 
 recorded by Shakespeare in the well-known lines : 
 
 ‘ When last I was at Exeter, 
 
 The mayor in courtesy showed me the castle, 
 
 And called it Rougemont: at which name I started, 
 
 Because a bard of Ireland told me once 
 I should not live long after I saw Richmond.’ 
 
 In common speech the two words would have been almost 
 identical in sound. 
 
 It was only to be expected that Perkin Warbeck 
 should make Exeter the first object of his ambition. 
 Landing at Whitsand Bay, near the Land’s End, in 
 September, 1497, ten days later he appeared with his 
 motley host before the city walls. The citizens, as usual, 
 held with the King dc facto ; and the Courtenays (Edward 
 Earl of Devon, and William his son) drove Warbeck off, 
 after he had made desperate attacks upon the city gates, 
 which he succeeded in setting on fire. Then Henry, on 
 his march into the West, made Exeter his headquarters. 
 Hither Warbeck was brought a prisoner; and it was in 
 the Cathedral Close that the King had the captured 
 rebels brought before him * bareheaded, in their shirts, 
 and halters about their necks,’ and ‘ graciously pardoned 
 them, choosing rather to wash his hands in milk by for¬ 
 giving, than in blood by destroying them.’ 
 
 The next stage in Exonian history is supplied by the 
 Western Rebellion, the most formidable popular opposition 
 to the Reformation that England saw. It was almost 
 wholly a rural movement, and had little support from the 
 towns. The uprisings of town populations are commonly 
 associated with the idea of progress, however subversively 
 it may be urged ; when the country rebels, its action is 
 commonly retrogressive. This movement was undoubtedly, 
 
Exeter. 
 
 21 
 
 in one sense, economical. Twenty-four religious houses, 
 some of great wealth and extensive charities, had been 
 suppressed in Devon. The poorer dwellers in their 
 neighbourhoods felt the loss severely. Not only did alms 
 cease, but the new holders of the Church estates proved 
 harder landlords than the monks. The progress of 
 enclosure, and the substitution of pasturage for tillage, 
 increased this disadvantage. Little was required to fan 
 the vast amount of smouldering discontent thus created 
 into flame. 
 
 The occasion for the outbreak in Devon was the 
 abolition of the mass, and the substitution of the Prayer- 
 Book service; and the rebellion commenced in the parish 
 of Sampford Courtenay, far away from any town on the 
 northern skirts of the great waste of Dartmoor. The new 
 service was used there on the 9th of June, 1549; but on 
 the following day the parish priest was compelled to 
 resume his vestments and say mass as usual, by a body 
 of the inhabitants, headed by William Underhill, a tailor, 
 and Segar, a labourer. This popular element was evi¬ 
 dently directed from without. From Sampford Courtenay 
 the rising soon spread into the adjoining parishes. The 
 efforts made by the justices to suppress it were very 
 feeble and very vain. William Hellions, a Fleming 
 settled at Sampford, was killed: probably, being a 
 Fleming, he was also a Protestant. Presently Somerset 
 and Cornwall joined in the movement. 
 
 Crediton was then adopted as the place of rendezvous. 
 Hither flocked the disaffected from all parts of the West 
 of England; and ere long a strong force assembled, led 
 by men of repute and family—Sir Thomas Pomeroy, of 
 Berry-Pomeroy; Sir Humphry Arundel, of the great 
 Cornish family of that name; Coffin, Winslade, and 
 others. Sir Peter arid Sir Gawain Carew, marching on 
 Crediton, found the roads barricaded, and met with a 
 strong resistance. The rebels had garrisoned a row of 
 
22 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 barns with matchlock-men, and these were dislodged by- 
 setting the barns on fire. Thenceforward the ‘ Barns of 
 Crediton ’ became a rallying-cry. The Carews were 
 unable to make head against the storm. Marching upon 
 Exeter 10,000 strong, the rebels called the city to sur¬ 
 render. The summons was refused, and, assault being 
 unavailing, siege commenced. 
 
 Lord Russell, then Lord Lieutenant of the county, 
 hastened to the aid of the Carews; but his force was 
 small, and until he could gather strength he resorted to 
 negotiation. The rebels were willing to make peace, but 
 it must be upon their own terms—and these terms show 
 clearly enough that the rising by this time was no longer 
 a popular outburst, if it had ever really been so. The 
 proposals were not such as would come from a body of 
 country folk, however eager for their old faith. Dictated 
 in a professional sense so far as the religious articles 
 were concerned, in their economical relations they were 
 prompted by an aversion to new blood. 
 
 It was demanded that the Six Articles should be 
 observed, as in the reign of Henry VIII.; that Catholic 
 worship should be restored in all its details; that they 
 who would not worship the Sacrament hung over the 
 high altar should die like heretics ; that the Bible and all 
 books of Scripture in English should be called in, ‘ for 
 we are informed that otherwise the clergy shall not of 
 long time confound the hereticsthat Dr. Moreman 
 and Dr. Crispin should be sent them, and have livings 
 given to preach the Catholic faith ; that Cardinal Pole 
 should be pardoned and promoted to the King’s Council; 
 that no gentleman should have more servants than one, 
 * except he may dispense one hundred mark land, and for 
 every hundred mark we think it reasonable that he may 
 have a manthat the half part of all abbey and chantry 
 lands in each county should be appropriated to establish 
 therein, in the place of two of the chief abbeys, ‘ a place 
 
Exeter. 
 
 23 
 
 for devout persons, which shall pray for the King and the 
 Commonwealth.’ 
 
 Such demands were of course inadmissible ; but Russell 
 continued in his headquarters at Honiton until he was 
 strengthened by the arrival of sundry German and Italian 
 mercenaries. The first skirmish with the insurgents was 
 at Feniton Bridge, whence he returned to Honiton. Then 
 he met and beat them at Woodbury, and followed them 
 up through the Clyst Valley, inflicting such loss upon 
 them on the 5th of August at St. Mary Clyst, though 
 they fought desperately, that the siege was raised. Most 
 of the rebels who escaped retreated to Sampford, and 
 there, in its cradle, the rebellion as an organized move¬ 
 ment was finally crushed. The leaders were sent to 
 London, and with the exception of Sir Thomas Pomeroy, 
 tried and executed. He saved his life, but lost his estates. 
 Of the common sort 4,000 were slain. For miles round 
 Exeter the country was so harried and spoiled that for 
 years the marks of desolation remained. Welch, the 
 stalwart vicar of St. Thomas by Exeter, who had been 
 very active in the siege, was hanged in full canonicals 
 on his own church tower; and there his body remained 
 until the accession of Mary turned the rebel into a 
 martyr. 
 
 This siege of Exeter lasted from the 2nd of July to the 
 6th August. During the last ten days the citizens suffered 
 severely from famine, and were reduced to live on horse¬ 
 flesh and ‘ horse-bread.’ Nor were they free from other 
 difficulties, for the Catholic party in the city outnumbered 
 the Protestant, and treachery was threatened. Fortu¬ 
 nately, whatever their faith, the Mayor and his brethren 
 were loyal. They were rewarded by the renewal of their 
 charter, and the grant of the valuable manor of Exe 
 Island. 
 
 In 1555 Exeter had some share in the effort made by 
 the Carews before mentioned, with Sir Thomas Dennis 
 
24 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 and others, to arouse popular feeling against the reception 
 of King Philip in England. But this hardly reached 
 beyond a demonstration ; and Peter escaped to the Con¬ 
 tinent in a vessel belonging to Walter Ralegh, Sir 
 Walter’s father. 
 
 At the commencement of the war between Charles I. 
 and his Parliament Exeter was seized by the Earl of 
 Bedford, Lord Lieutenant of the county, and garrisoned by 
 him in the Roundhead interest. The Earl of Stamford, 
 defeated at Stratton in May, 1643, was the Governor. He 
 was at first besieged by Sir John Berkeley, and afterwards 
 by Prince Maurice, and surrendered in the September 
 following his defeat. There is little doubt that the bulk 
 of the inhabitants were Royalists, for the appointment of 
 Sir John Berkeley as Governor was received with great 
 joy. Exeter thenceforth was regarded as one of the most 
 secure Cavalier strongholds in the kingdom. 
 
 In May, 1644, having bid her husband farewell for the 
 last time at Abingdon, Henrietta Maria took up her 
 abode in Exeter; and on Sunday, the 16th of June 
 following, the Princess Henrietta Anne, afterwards 
 Duchess of Orleans, was born. The Earl of Essex was 
 then coming into the West, and the Queen asked him to 
 refrain from assaulting the city, and subsequently to give 
 her a safe-conduct to Bath. Essex would give a pass to 
 London, but in no other way would help her. Ill and 
 suffering as she was, she had therefore to escape. The 
 river was blockaded, and she fled by land, leaving her 
 child behind. Passing through Okehampton, Launceston, 
 and Truro, she reached Falmouth, set sail on the 14th July, 
 and on the 15th landed at Brest. Some wonderful stories 
 are told of the difficulties and privations of her escape; 
 but there is excellent evidence that she was escorted by 
 Prince Maurice to Launceston, if not beyond, where she 
 was among friends, and that she was never in any real 
 danger. 
 
Exeter. 
 
 25 
 
 The Exonian Princess, who had been left in charge of 
 Lady Moreton and Sir John Berkeley, was baptized in 
 the font yet remaining in the cathedral. Her portrait in 
 the Exeter Guildhall, by Sir Peter Lely, was presented to 
 the city, as a recognition of the kindness of the citizens, 
 by Charles II. in 1671. She had then been dead a year, 
 and there were grave suspicions that her death was caused 
 by poison. She was first seen by her father in July, 1644, 
 when he visited the city in company with Prince Charles, 
 and was welcomed by the Corporation with the acceptable 
 gift of £500. 
 
 Exeter, which had several important outposts in the 
 neighbouring parishes, was blockaded by Fairfax in the 
 spring of 1646, and was surrendered to him in April of 
 that year. The Princess, who had been duly cared for in 
 the articles of surrender, was taken to Paris by Lady 
 Moreton. 
 
 The city saw the closing scenes of the fruitless rising 
 for the restoration of Charles II., under Penruddock and 
 Groves, in 1655. They proclaimed Charles II. King of 
 England at South Molton, but before they could gather 
 their forces to a head, were captured and conveyed to 
 Exeter, where they were afterwards tried. Penruddock 
 and Groves, both Wiltshire men, were beheaded in the 
 castle, others of their associates hung at Heavitree, and 
 the bulk banished and sold into slavery. The Restoration 
 was, however, hailed at Exeter even more heartily than at 
 the other boroughs in the West, whose loyalty was, for 
 the most part, somewhat effusive. The temper of the 
 citizens, indeed, changed as time went on ; and Jeffries at 
 Exeter enacted some of the direst cruelties of his Bloody 
 Assize. But he left popular feeling only dormant, not 
 extinct. 
 
 * William the Deliverer ’ made his entry into the city by 
 the West Gate on the gth November, 1688, four days 
 after his landing at Brixham. Lord Mordaunt and Dr. 
 
26 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 Burnet on the previous day had found the West Gate 
 closed, but without barricade or fastening, so that it was 
 speedily opened. The civic authorities were then on the 
 side of the Stuarts. The Bishop and the Dean fled, but 
 the Mayor contented himself with ordering the gate to be 
 closed, and with excusing himself for receiving William on 
 the score that he had taken an oath to his lawful King 
 James, by whom he had recently been knighted. The 
 inhabitants generally welcomed William gladly, and 
 though the day was very wet and rainy, he made his 
 entrance with considerable state. The Deanery had been 
 chosen as his residence; and thence he crossed the yard 
 to the cathedral, where Te Deum was sung for his safe 
 arrival in England. The Prince occupied the Bishop’s 
 throne, and the cathedral was crowded. When Burnet 
 read the Declaration, setting forth the reasons of the 
 invasion, such of the cathedral clergy as were present left 
 the place, while the majority of the congregation responded 
 to Burnet’s ‘ God save the Prince of Orange ’ with a hearty 
 * Amen.’ 
 
 At Exeter William remained several days, holding his 
 Court at the Deanery, recruiting his army, and gradually 
 receiving the accession of men of influence in Devon and 
 the adjoining counties of Somerset and Dorset. It was at 
 the suggestion of Sir Edward Seymour that the £ gentle¬ 
 men of Devon ’ formed a ‘ general association,’ and 
 formally pledged themselves to the Prince’s cause by 
 signing a Declaration drawn up by Burnet. By this time 
 the Mayor and Aldermen thought it wise to pay William 
 all respect; and the Dean not only found his way back, 
 but enrolled himself as one of William’s followers. Before 
 the Prince left Exeter the conflict was practically over, 
 and the fate of James was sealed. The welcome of the 
 people of the ancient city, and the general, if somewhat 
 tardy, adhesion of the men of greatest weight in the West 
 of England, had won the battle before a blow was struck. 
 
Exeter. 
 
 2 7 
 
 This visit of William of Orange is the last great link that 
 connects Exeter with the vital national history. Thence¬ 
 forward its record is that of a more local life. 
 
 The ecclesiastical history of Exeter is to a large extent 
 that of Devon likewise. We have dismissed as altogether 
 idle the idea that in Saxon times it was called Monktown 
 from the number of its religious edifices. Still, the out¬ 
 lying parish of St. Sidwells takes name from Sativola, or 
 Sidwella, a virgin martyr said to have been beheaded with 
 a scythe, and buried here in 740 ; and it was to Exeter 
 that Winfrith, the future apostle of Germany, came to be 
 taught some half century earlier. But the definite eccle¬ 
 siastical history of the city begins with the transference 
 thither by Leofric of the seat of the See of Devon and 
 Cornwall, and the setting up of his bishopstool in the 
 monastery of St. Mary and St. Peter. 
 
 Mr. Davidson holds there is good evidence to show that 
 this monastery was founded by yE'Selstan, probably in the 
 year 926; and that it was at the great gemot held at 
 Exeter, April 16, 928, that y£5elstan’s laws were pro¬ 
 mulgated, and the Church consecrated. This minster is 
 believed to have occupied the site of the east part of the 
 present Lady Chapel of the cathedral. It was restored 
 under Eadgar in 965, and almost entirely rebuilt by Cnut 
 in 1019. To this already ancient Saxon foundation, then, 
 Leofric came in 1050. The occasion was one of singular 
 pomp, for the Bishop was personally installed in his new 
 chair by Eadweard the Confessor himself and Eadgytha, 
 his Queen, the one taking him by the right hand and the 
 other by the left, praying blessings upon all that should 
 increase the see, and denouncing ‘ a fearful and execrable 
 curse ’ upon all who should diminish or take aught there¬ 
 from ! 
 
 There was need of this execration if it could have been 
 made effective, especially if its retrospective action could 
 
28 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 have been assured. /ESelstan is said to have endowed the 
 monastery with twenty-six manors, and with one-third of 
 the relics which he collected. Other gifts had undoubtedly 
 been made. Yet when Leofric took to the minster, 
 all its lands in possession consisted of two hides at Ide, 
 near Exeter, with seven head of cattle ! When he died 
 in 1073 he left it again wealthy. He had recovered lands 
 at Culmstock, Branscombe, Salcombe, St. Mary Church, 
 Staverton, Sparkwell, Morchard, Sidwell, Huish, Brixton, 
 Topsham (taken away again by Harold), Stoke Canon, 
 Sidbury, Newton St. Cyres, Norton, and Traysbeare ; 
 and he added to the estates of the see of his own gift 
 lands at Bampton, Aston, Chimney, Dawlish, Holcombe, 
 and Southwood. In a very real and practical sense, 
 therefore, and not by title merely, Leofric was the founder 
 of the See of Exeter. Moreover, he entirely reformed the 
 foundation upon which his bishopric had been grafted. 
 Originally there were three religious houses within the 
 Close—a nunnery, a monastery, presumably founded by 
 y£3elred about 868, and the minster of St. Mary and St. 
 Peter. The ravages of the Danes made the monks and 
 nuns fly in terror, the buildings being destroyed and the 
 charters burnt, and but for the religious zeal of Cnut there 
 would in all probability have been an end of JESelstan’s 
 minster altogether. What Leofric did was to remove 
 the monks and nuns, adding both the nunnery and 
 zESelred’s monastery to the minster, and establishing in 
 the latter canons under the Lotharingian rule. 
 
 No part of the present cathedral saw the stately 
 enthronement of Leofric, though it has been suggested 
 that the little chapel of the Holy Ghost, next the Chapter 
 House, may be a portion of the Saxon fane. The Norman 
 cathedral was begun by William Warelwast, nephew of 
 the Conqueror, and Bishop of Exeter (1107-1136). By 
 him were built the great transeptal towers, with the choir 
 and its apse, and the eastern bay of the nave; but this 
 
Exeter. 
 
 29 
 
 work was not completed until the episcopate of Henry 
 Marshall (1194-1206), who added the Lady Chapel. The 
 north and south towers were thus transeptal from the 
 first, and not, as formerly thought, the western towers of 
 the Norman building adapted as transepts some century 
 and a half after they were erected. 
 
 Less than a century elapsed from the completion of the 
 Norman cathedral ere it began to be replaced by the 
 present structure, one of the finest examples of sym¬ 
 metrical Decorated Gothic in existence. Bishop Quivil 
 (12S0-1291) was the founder of the new structure, and the 
 beginner, in the Lady Chapel and transepts, of the work 
 of transformation, which was continued in the choir by 
 Bishop Bitton (1292-1307), and not completed—though 
 OuiviPs plans were evidently followed—until Bishop 
 Grandisson (1327-1369) carried out the nave. The noble 
 west front, with its ‘ statues of prophets and apostles, 
 martyrs, saints, and kings’—a screen of great interest and 
 of singular beauty, even in decay—originated with Bishop 
 Brantyngham (1370-1394). The Chapter House was 
 built by Bishop Bruere (1224-1244), but took its present 
 form in the episcopates of Bishops Lacy, Neville, and 
 Bothe (1420-1478). The two chief accessory features of 
 the interior—the choir screen, which now bears the 
 organ, originally la pulpytte, and the magnificent episcopal 
 throne, with its towering canopy of carved oak—are the 
 work of Bishop Stapledon (1308-1327), who also erected 
 the elaborate sedilia. The misereres are the earliest 
 extant in this country, and are assigned to Bishop Bruere. 
 Such are the chief master builders of this noble fane; 
 but for four centuries from the date of the accession of 
 Warelwast there was hardly a bishop to whom the 
 cathedral was not indebted for some addition in structure 
 or detail. We see it now, however, almost fresh, so far 
 as the interior is concerned, from the restoration of Sir 
 Gilbert Scott, which gave rise to an amount of controversy 
 
30 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 on points of technicality and taste unusual even in such 
 relations. But there has never been any difference of 
 opinion respecting the beauty of the modern carved work 
 which he designed, and which Messrs. Farmer and 
 Brindley executed. 
 
 Several of the Bishops are buried in the cathedral, 
 Leofric first of the number. Among the holders of the 
 see who won more than local repute and fame were 
 Leofric, who was Lord Chancellor; Walter Stapledon, 
 Lord High Treasurer, founder of Stapledon’s Inn at Ox¬ 
 ford, now Exeter College ; Bishop Brantyngham, who 
 held the same office; Bishop Stafford, Lord Privy Seal, 
 who completed the foundation of Exeter College ; Bishop 
 Neville, Lord Chancellor; Bishops Fox and Oldham, 
 founders of Corpus Christi College; Bishop Coverdale, 
 translator of the Bible; Bishop Hall, afterwards of 
 Norwich; and Bishop Trelawny, one of the seven Bishops 
 sent to the Tower by James II., and the hero of the 
 famous burden (modernized) : 
 
 ‘ And shall they scorn Tre, Pol, and Pen, 
 
 And shall Trelawny die? 
 
 There’s twenty thousand Cornishmen 
 Will know the reason why.’ 
 
 Among the religious houses of Exeter and its immediate 
 vicinity which fell at the Dissolution were the Benedictine 
 priory of St. Nicholas, originally with the church of St. 
 Olave an appendage of Battle Abbey, and founded by the 
 Conqueror; the Cluniac priory of St. James; Franciscan 
 and Dominican convents; and the Benedictine priories of 
 Cowick and Polsloe (nuns). The priory of St. Nicholas 
 became independent under Rufus, and, like the houses of 
 the Carmelites at Plymouth, and the Benedictines at Buck- 
 fast, portions of the site have been recently purchased by 
 the Roman Catholics, and in part restored to the olden uses. 
 
 Most notable among the Exeter parishes is that of St. 
 Petrock, which lies in the very heart of the ancient city. 
 
Exeter. 
 
 3 i 
 
 and is less than two acres and three quarters in extent. 
 It has given Exeter a long array of distinguished citizens ; 
 indeed, as Mr. R. Dymond says, £ The fortunes of more 
 than one distinguished English family were founded on 
 shrewd bargains driven by some mercantile ancestor 
 within that small area.’ The dedication to a British saint 
 appears to define the parish as part of that division of 
 Exeter in which for a time the Briton dwelt side by side 
 with the Saxon. There is little doubt, moreover, that it 
 was one of the twenty-nine city churches to which the 
 Conqueror directed the payment by the city provost of a 
 silver penny yearly out of the city taxes. Its most notable 
 antiquarian feature is the fact that it has an all but 
 complete series of churchwarden accounts from the year 
 1425, presumed to be unrivalled for antiquity and con¬ 
 tinuity. 
 
 Exeter, indeed, is rich in the matter of local records. 
 At the fine old Guildhall in the High Street, which dates 
 from 1466, though its front is late Elizabethan (1593), are 
 the municipal archives, extending back to the thirteenth 
 century, arranged and calendared by Mr. Stuart Moore, 
 who did the same for the muniments of the Dean and 
 Chapter. Among the chief treasures of the latter the 
 chiefest is the volume known as the ‘ Exon Domesday 
 but there are still several relics of the library given by 
 Leofric to his minster, though his Missal and several 
 other works have found their way to the Bodleian. The 
 most important volume of Anglo-Saxon date remaining at 
 Exeter is the unique collection of Anglo-Saxon poetry 
 known as the ‘ Codex Exoniensis and the miscellaneous 
 documents include some authentic and important Anglo- 
 Saxon charters. 
 
 By the death of Henry VIII. Devonshire had become 
 largely Puritan, though the majority of the inhabitants 
 were probably still Catholic. One martyr was burnt under 
 Henry, Thomas Benet, who suffered at Exeter. Only 
 
32 History of Devonshire. 
 
 one perished under Mary, a poor woman of Launceston, 
 called Agnes Prest. But Cardmaker, alias Taylor, Chan¬ 
 cellor of Wells, burnt at Smithfield in 1555, was an 
 Exonian. The absence of religious activity in this reign 
 seems to prove that the Protestantism of Devon was not 
 very pronounced. The fact that under Elizabeth the 
 Visitation Commissioners left so much untouched in the 
 churches, and that so many magnificent rood screens 
 remained down to the day of churchwardenism, and even 
 yet continue, clearly points also to the existence in the 
 county of a Catholic element of some strength and im¬ 
 portance. Under Elizabeth Puritanism took deep root 
 in the West; and the establishment of ‘ Prophesyings of 
 the Clergy ’ paved the way for the formal introduction of 
 Presbyterianism. The seed then sown sprang into active 
 life in the ensuing reigns, and was fostered with vigorous 
 growth by the proceedings of the Court of High Com¬ 
 mission. The records of that tribunal contain the names 
 of Devonshire men and women of all ranks of society— 
 members of the oldest and most respected families side 
 by side with those of poor husbandmen and handicraft 
 folk, recorded only in these dismal annals of the time. 
 The most remarkable point is the fact that they are 
 almost wholly from the rural districts and the smaller 
 towns. Was it the recognition of the growing strength 
 of popular feeling that caused the larger communities to 
 be passed by ? Assuredly it was not because they were 
 wanting in Puritanism, for they were its very heart and 
 life. Thus when Thomas Ford, born at Brixton, nigh 
 Plymouth, preached against the altar set up by Dr. 
 Fewens at Magdalen College, Oxford, and was expelled 
 the University, the Corporation of Plymouth chose him 
 as their lecturer. It took a letter under the royal sign- 
 manual and one from Laud to make them change their 
 minds. That they had purely submitted to circumstances 
 was abundantly evident not many years later, when Ply- 
 
Exeter. 
 
 mouth proved the one unconquerable centre of Western 
 Puritanism. 
 
 In a county which saw so much sharp * controversy ’ 
 during the struggle between Charles and the Parliament, 
 it was inevitable that religious institutions should be 
 largely affected. Nowhere were the changes so great as in 
 Exeter, because in no place was the Church of England so 
 strongly or so influentially represented. The cathedral was 
 denuded of its clergy and divided into ‘ East and West 
 Peters’ by a ‘ Babylonish wall,’ while sundry of the parish 
 churches were dismantled and sold, being recovered and 
 put to their former uses, however, after the Restoration. 
 
 Walker (himself an Exonian), in his ‘ Sufferings of the 
 Clergy,’ estimates the total number of deprivations under 
 the Commonwealth in Devon at a third of the whole 
 body of clergy. The county then contained 394 parish 
 churches. He gives the' names himself of just 200 as 
 deprived; but when the doubtfuls are weeded out, errors 
 corrected, and allowance made for pluralities, 128 remain, 
 which agrees very closely with Walker’s own calculation. 
 Most of the ejections were from rural parishes ; but while 
 Episcopacy was represented in almost all the large towns, 
 Presbyterianism had gained so great a hold in many 
 localities that the abolition of Episcopacy made no 
 change in them ; and subsequent events proved that 
 there must have been left in the livings of the county a 
 considerable body of clergy who were either Episcopalian 
 at heart, or who knew how to trim their course to suit 
 the favour of the party in power. 
 
 When the Act of Uniformity was passed, in 1662, 
 132 Presbyterian and Independent ministers were ejected. 
 The Episcopalians sequestrated and the Puritans ejected 
 were thus about equal in number; but the areas of de¬ 
 privation were by no means identical. In 44 towns 
 and parishes, including nearly all the chief centres of 
 population, both parties suffered in turn. In about 70, 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 Episcopalians only were turned out; in about 50, only 
 Presbyterians and Independents; but at one time or 
 another, more than half the parishes in the county were 
 affected. Of the sequestrated Episcopalians, some 50 
 regained their livings. Of those who had replaced them, 
 still more conformed and retained under the Bishop 
 what they had received under the Presbytery. Most of 
 the ejected Puritans endeavoured to keep their people 
 together; and about one-half availed themselves of the 
 provisions of the short-lived Declaration of Indulgence 
 of 1672. When William of Orange landed at Torbay, 
 among the heartiest in their welcome were those of the 
 ejected who remained, and their faithful followers. They 
 were in the main of the middle ranks of society, but 
 included many members of the leading families. 
 
 It is rather a remarkable fact that the old Presbyterian 
 organization of the county still survives. On the 18th 
 October, 1655, there was founded the Exeter Assembly, 
 an association of Presbyterian ministers (to which Inde¬ 
 pendents were afterwards admitted), intended to deal 
 with matters of doctrine and discipline. The original 
 articles, signed by 131 ministers, and the original minutes, 
 are still preserved; and the Assembly, which in process 
 of time became first Arian and then Unitarian, still holds 
 an annual meeting for worship and business. The last 
 survivor in Devon of the ejected of 1662 was John Knight 
 of Littlehempston, who died in 1715. The minutes of the 
 Assembly show that there were then in existence 59 
 congregations which had been founded by his brethren 
 and himself, with a total attendance of 21,750. Of these, 
 30 continue to this day unbroken and with many off¬ 
 shoots. In more than half the parishes or places for 
 which licenses were granted in 1672, the elder Non¬ 
 conformity still remains. 
 
 There is the fullest evidence that for more than 400 
 
Exeter. 
 
 35 
 
 years Exeter was the seat first of a Saxon and then of 
 a Norman mint. The earliest coin extant is a silver 
 penny of iElfred, who began his reign in 872; and the 
 latest is a penny of Edward I., 1272-1307. During 
 this period at least 254 varieties are known to have 
 been struck, in the reigns of 3 Elfred, Ec 5 elstan, Ead- 
 mund, Eadred, Eadwig, Eadgar, Eadweard the Martyr, 
 3 E 5 elred II., Cnut, Harold I., Harthacnut, Eadweard the 
 Confessor, Harold II., William I., William II., Henry I., 
 Stephen, Henry II., John, Henry III., Edward I. The 
 coins are all pennies; and the most numerous are those 
 of ^E'Selred, Cnut, and the Confessor, which comprise 
 more than five-sixths of those known to have been struck 
 before the Conquest. More than 100 types and varieties 
 exist of iE'Selred alone; and the largest collection is 
 that in the Royal Cabinet at Stockholm, relics of the 
 ancient Danegeld which iESelred was the first to impose. 
 
 After the lapse of some three and a half centuries, 
 the Exeter mint was again worked by Charles I. during 
 his struggle with the Parliament. Most of his coins 
 are dated 1644 '■> but many of the 37 varieties known 
 to exist were struck in the following year. They were 
 all of silver, and include ‘ half-pounds,’ crowns, half- 
 crowns, shillings, sixpences, groats, threepennies, and 
 pennies. 
 
 William III. was the last to employ the Exeter mint. 
 His coins were half-crowns, shillings, and sixpences; 
 dated 1696 and 1697. 
 
 Of the seventeenth-century tradesmen’s tokens, Exeter 
 issued a far larger proportion—just 90—of the 360 known 
 to have been struck in Devon than any other town; and 
 there could hardly be a better index to its relative import¬ 
 ance. Norwich alone, in all the provinces, had so many 
 issuers. Plymouth struck barely half the number. 
 
 The trade of Exeter forms a feature in its history 
 almost comparable in importance with its ecclesiastical 
 
 3—2 
 
36 History of Devonshire. 
 
 record. The commerce of the ancient city in Saxon times 
 led to the settlement therein of so large a number of 
 foreigners, that they were compelled by the inhabitants 
 to take part in the resistance offered to William. Woollen 
 manufacture became the staple industry, and so continued 
 until the decay of the cloth trade of Devon, in the latter 
 half cf the eighteenth century. In 1458 the Tuckers and 
 the Cordwainers had a fierce dispute anent precedency in 
 the civic processions. The Cordwainers and Curriers had 
 been incorporated in 1387; and the Tuckers must have 
 had something like the same antiquity, for the decision 
 was that they were of equal dignity, and that they were 
 to walk abreast, one of each trade. The Weavers and 
 Fullers, however, into whose hands the chief business of 
 the city eventually fell, were not incorporated until 1490; 
 and it was only in 1540 that the Exeter folk successfully 
 established their right against the inhabitants of Crediton 
 to maintain the weekly woollen market which they had 
 founded ten years earlier. To such dimensions did the 
 woollen trade of Exeter grow that goods to the value of 
 half a million were annually exported to foreign marts— 
 to Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, and Holland. More¬ 
 over, the Exeter merchants were travelled men, speaking 
 many languages fluently; and Sir John Bowring, the 
 greatest linguist of the West of England, and one of the 
 most distinguished of Exonians, records his early in¬ 
 debtedness to their instructions. Sir John’s father was 
 himself a woollen manufacturer; and though Sir John 
 died so recently as 1872, he remembered well when a 
 ‘ large proportion of the working classes of Exeter wore 
 a bright green apron of serge, fastened with a girdle of 
 the richest scarlet. These were the tuckers of the 
 privileged guild of fullers, weavers, and shearmen,’ whose 
 hall still stands on Fore Street Hill, now the meeting-place 
 of the oldest lodge of Masonry in the county. This great 
 and flourishing fraternity Sir John lived to see ‘ reduced 
 
Exeter. 
 
 37 
 
 to a few score of ancient people . . still the recipients of 
 the bounties, and many of them the occupants of the 
 almshouses built or endowed by those who had prospered 
 in the woollen trade.’ Decay seems to have arisen from 
 various causes. For one thing, masters and men were 
 thoroughly bound up in the trammels of a restrictive 
 policy, which prevented the adaptation of the trade to the 
 changed conditions of the markets. The hour of trial 
 came, but not the men to lead. The introduction of 
 machinery, discountenanced in every way by the members 
 of the old guilds, but fostered elsewhere, also played its 
 part. But even yet the manufacture flourishes in a few 
 Devonshire towns, which had the advantage of enterprise 
 and skill; and the Devon serges retain in Eastern countries 
 the reputation they have enjoyed for centuries, and win 
 their way to wider appreciation at home. 
 
 The external trade of the city was so considerable seven 
 centuries since that Isabella de Fortibus, Countess of 
 Devon, a lady of great force of character, having 
 quarrelled with the citizens, as the readiest means of 
 injuring them threw what has since been called Countess 
 Weir across the Exe. The citizens appealed to the law, 
 which was clearly on their side ; and at length an opening 
 was made in the weir through which ships could pass. 
 A quarrel with an Earl of Devon a century later led in 
 process of time to the construction of the finest com¬ 
 mercial undertaking of which England in its day could 
 boast. Izacke gives a gossiping narrative of what he 
 alleges to be the cause of the whole affair. While Exeter 
 market, as a rule, was noted for its supply of fish, one un¬ 
 lucky day there happened to be but three ‘ pots ’ on sale, 
 when the caterers of the Earl and of the Bishop both 
 came to buy. Each wanted the whole; neither would 
 give way. So Mayor Beynion was appealed to, and 
 settled the matter by giving one pot to each of the 
 disputants, and keeping the third for the general public. 
 
3 8 History of Devonshire. 
 
 ‘ Whereupon the Earl, in his high displeasure, maliciously 
 destroyed the haven.’ Of a truth, £ a mighty matter about 
 a pott of ffish.’ This was in 1311. In 1316, Hugh 
 Courtenay neither forgetting nor forgiving, matters 
 became even worse. ‘ His displeasure grew into anger, 
 and from thence to an extreme hatred and revenge, and 
 he devised all possible means to destroy the city !’ Be 
 all this as it may—and even important communities like 
 Exeter had often difficulty in holding their own against 
 such powerful neighbours as the Courtenays—the damage 
 done to the Exe led in process of time to the formation 
 of the Exeter Canal, by which vessels reach the city quays 
 from the sea—one of the earliest works of the kind in the 
 kingdom. It was opened in 1566, one Trew being the 
 engineer. 
 
 The enterprise of the citizens had been developed by a 
 great mercantile brotherhood. The Guild of Merchant 
 Adventurers of the City of Exeter originated in troublous 
 times. In July, 1549, while Lord Russell lay at Honiton, 
 unable to advance against the Western rebels for want of 
 men and means, three men of the old city—John Bodlie, 
 Thomas Prestwood, and John Periam—raised the funds 
 which enabled him to resume his march, and crush the 
 rising. This, and the loyalty of which it was but an 
 illustration, led, ten years later, to the charter, by 
 Elizabeth, of the Merchant Adventurers, who commenced 
 operations in August, 1560. It was high time that some¬ 
 thing should be done to encourage commerce, even if 
 after the fashion of these days by way of monopoly. In 
 I 557 it was reported to the Queen that no man in the 
 city or county of Exeter had any ship of his own, neither 
 means to take up vessels. Too much of their money had 
 been disbursed ‘ to the Quene’s mat ie byway of lone.’ One 
 of the first important acts of the guild was to grapple with 
 this point; and we find the brethren, in 1566, taking up 
 certain vessels on freight on behalf of the Corporation, 
 
Exeter. 
 
 39 
 
 and thus establishing a foreign carrying-trade with ships 
 that are noted as belonging to the city, as well as to other 
 ports in the county. The ventures were for Spain and 
 Portugal, and the goods sought wines and raisins. 
 Subsequently this special branch of trade was conducted 
 by a Spanish Guild. As years rolled on the ideas of the 
 Merchant Adventurers enlarged, and their business rami¬ 
 fications extended to the New World. They would have 
 nothing to do with Ralegh’s attempts in Virginia; but 
 they adventured with Adrian Gilbert and John Davis in 
 their voyages for the ‘ discovery of China,’ the special 
 object being to open up a trade in woollens. They 
 contributed also to the last expedition of Sir Humphry 
 Gilbert, though they thought the ‘ tyme of the yeare to 
 be far spente.’ They did not respond to the invitation 
 to join with Drake and Norris, on behalf of Don Antonio. 
 They were traders, and apparently kept strictly within 
 commercial limits, so far as the fashion of the times 
 allowed. Nothing is known of the circumstances under 
 which this once important corporation came to an end. 
 It is believed to have flourished most under the first 
 James, and to have collapsed during the troublous times 
 of the Civil Wars. Practically nothing whatever was 
 known of its internal affairs until its early minutes were 
 discovered among the archives of the Weavers’ Guild, and 
 made the text a few years since of an admirable narrative 
 by Mr.William Cotton. 
 
 Notwithstanding all efforts at rivalship, Exeter has 
 maintained its position as the chief town in Devon 
 worthily. Its manufactures and special industries have 
 one by one died out. In general commerce it has been 
 long distanced by communities more favourably placed 
 with regard to the sea; but it still enjoys the advantages 
 conferred by the neighbourhood of more notable families 
 than are to be found so thickly planted in any other part 
 of Devon. It remains the capital of the shire. The court- 
 
40 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 house, which has replaced its ancient castle, continues the 
 seat of county government. Its citizens have never been 
 found wanting in public spirit. Witness to this latter 
 point a host of institutions and charities, and the 
 Museum, Free Library, and Art Gallery, the finest build¬ 
 ing devoted to the promotion of science, literature, and 
 art, west of Bristol. An historic past has been worthily 
 succeeded by an active present. 
 
 Exeter has a marvellous muster-roll of worthies. 
 Archbishop Langton, the framer of Magna Charta, is 
 reputedly of Exonian birth. Archbishop Baldwin, who 
 died at Tyre in 1191, while engaged on a crusade, was 
 certainly a native of the city ; and so was his contemporary 
 Josephus Iscanus, ‘the Swan of Isca,’ the most distin¬ 
 guished of our mediaeval Latinists. Then we have Cardinal 
 Robert Pullein, who came from Exeter to Oxford in the 
 reign of Henry I., the reviver of learning in that university. 
 John Hoker, alias Vowell, the first historian of the 
 county, was born at Exeter about 1524, and died in 1601 ; 
 and his far more famous nephew, Richard Hooker the 
 ‘judicious,’ saw the light at Heavitree in 1553, and died 
 in 1600. It is worthy of note that while Exeter thus pro¬ 
 duced the chief defender of the Established Church, it gave 
 Puritanism also one of its most prominent leaders in John 
 Reynolds—born at Pinhoe 1549, died 1607—the chief 
 representative of Puritanism at the Hampton Court 
 Conference, and one of the translators of the Authorized 
 Version of the Bible. John Reynolds was originally a 
 Catholic, his brother William a Protestant. Each sought 
 to convert the other, and succeeded ! Contemporary with 
 these were the Bodleys—Thomas, Jonas, and Laurence; 
 the first and most famous being the founder of the 
 Bodleian Library. 
 
 The farmhouse of Dunscombe, near Crediton, which 
 still shows traces of its former importance, is the ancient 
 
Exeter. 
 
 4i 
 
 seat of this family. Sir Thomas Bodley was born at 
 Exeter in 1544, and left England at the early age of 
 twelve with his father, John Bodley, who was a staunch 
 Protestant, and lived an exile at Geneva until the accession 
 of Elizabeth. His studies, begun in the university of 
 Geneva, were then continued at Oxford. His chief public 
 work was done in connection with the Court, the Queen 
 employing him in many embassies and negotiations of the 
 first importance. His public career lasted from 1583, when 
 he was made gentleman usher to the Queen, until 1597, 
 when he retired from pursuits found both toilsome and 
 vexatious, and entered upon the great work which will 
 make his name ever memorable—the refounding of the 
 library which had originated with the ‘ good Duke ’ 
 Humphry of Gloucester. He died in 1612. 
 
 Lord Chief Baron Peryam (1534-1604) was another 
 worthy of Elizabethan Exeter, and so in part was the 
 famous Nicholas Hilliard (1547-1619), the most dis¬ 
 tinguished English portrait and miniature painter of his 
 day. Son of a leading citizen named Robert Hilliard, he 
 was brought up to the trade of a goldsmith and jeweller, 
 and acquired such fame by his portraits of royalty and 
 members of distinguished families, that Donne said of him : 
 
 ‘A hand or eye 
 
 By Hilliard drawn, is worth a history 
 
 By a worse painter made.’ 
 
 Hilliard’s only recorded predecessor in Devonian art was 
 John Shute, of Cullompton, who also worked in miniature, 
 and who died in 1563. Contemporary with the later 
 years of Hilliard was the first sculptor of note produced 
 by the county, Nicholas Stone (1586-1647), and almost an 
 Exonian, seeing that he was born at Woodbury. 
 
 The seventeenth century yields such names as Sir 
 William Morice (1602-1676), Secretary of State to Charles 
 II.; James Gandy (1619-1689), an admirable portrait- 
 painter and colourist; Sir Bartholomew Shower, lawyer 
 
42 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 and reporter, and his brother John, an eminent Dissent¬ 
 ing divine; Tom D’Urfey (1628-1723), wit and song¬ 
 writer, the descendant of one of the colony of Huguenot 
 families settled at Exeter, to whom the church of St. 
 Olave was assigned as a place of worship ; the Princess 
 Henrietta (1644-1670) ; Simon Ockley (1678-1720), orient¬ 
 alist and historian; and Lord Chancellor King, Baron 
 Oakham, the son of a grocer, and nephew of Locke 
 (1669-1743). 
 
 Then of the eighteenth century we have Thomas Hud¬ 
 son (1701-1779), the fashionable portrait-painter of his day, 
 and ‘master’ of Reynolds ; Francis Hayman (1708-1776), 
 the chief historical painter of his time, and the first 
 Librarian of the Royal Academy ; William Jackson (1730- 
 1803), the composer ; Sir Vicary Gibbs (1752-1820), Chief 
 Justice of the Common Pleas and Chief Baron of the 
 Exchequer ; Lord Gifford (1779-1826), Chief Justice of the 
 Common Pleas and Master of the Rolls ; John Herman 
 Merivale (1779-1844), the accomplished author and 
 reviewer; Sir W. Follett, born at Topsham (1798-1845), 
 Attorney-General; and Sir John Bowring (1792-1872), the 
 most many-sided of literary Exonians, familiar with every 
 European language, and the leading Oriental tongues ; a 
 political economist of the school of Bentham, his mentor 
 and friend ; a traveller and a diplomatist; the investiga¬ 
 tor of the commercial relations of England with the 
 Continent; the negotiator of several important treaties ; 
 and sometime Governor of Hong Kong. 
 
 The heaviest loss Exeter has had of late is that of 
 Edward Bowring Stephens, A.R.A. (1815-1882), the most 
 distinguished sculptor the West of England has produced, 
 of whose skill Exeter boasts the possession of some of the 
 finest examples. 
 
 Many of the local notables were connected with the 
 woollen trade, and the little erewhile suburban parish of 
 St. Leonards can claim at least five peerages, with a score 
 
Exeter. 
 
 43 
 
 of baronetages and knightages, for the descendants of its 
 quondam inhabitants. The great mercantile house of 
 Baring and its peerages date back to Matthew Baring, son 
 of a Lutheran pastor at Bremen, who came to Exeter 
 about 1717, and, after learning the serge manufacture with 
 Edmund Cock, married the daughter of a rich grocer 
 named Vowler, and founded a flourishing factory. His 
 son John was member for Exeter (1776-1803). Another 
 son, Francis, became a baronet in 1793. His daughter 
 Elizabeth married John Dunning, Lord Ashburton; and 
 the title was revived in 1835—after the death in 1823, 
 without issue, of Richard Barre, the second lord—in 
 Alexander, Sir Francis’s second son, while his grandson 
 Francis was created Baron Northbrook in 1866. The 
 founder of the family of Duntze, since represented in the 
 baronetage, was also a native of Bremen, who settled in 
 Exeter, and engaged in the woollen trade. Sir John Ken- 
 naway, again, is descended from a family largely engaged 
 in the same manufacture. John Cranch, the zoologist, 
 who perished in the Congo expedition, was the son of a 
 working fuller of the city. 
 
 Alike in their historical and personal associations, 
 the suburban and surrounding parishes of Exeter have 
 exceptional interest and importance. Heavitree, which 
 forms part of the parliamentary area of Exeter, but not 
 of the ‘ city,’ under the title of Wonford was the head of 
 the hundred in which Exeter is situated, and which still 
 retains its ancient name. As Wenford it appears in 
 ‘Domesday,’ part of the Royal demesnes which had been 
 held by Eadgytha; and Heavitree, or Hevetrove (‘hive- 
 tree’), was then an insignificant manor, belonging to Ralph 
 de Pomeroy. How the lesser name supplanted the greater 
 is not very apparent. There is an absurd legend that 
 names Heavitree from ‘ heavy-tree,’ i.e. the gallows, 
 because it was the common place of execution. The 
 
44 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 Cluniac Priory of St. James, here founded in 1146 as a 
 cell to St. Martin in the Fields, near Paris, passed to 
 King’s College, Cambridge. Polsloe Priory for Bene¬ 
 dictine nuns, founded by William Lord Briwere, temp. 
 Richard I., continued until 1538, when its revenues were 
 worth £164 8s. nd. 
 
 The parish of St. Thomas, lying west of the Exe, does 
 not form part either of the ancient city of Exeter or its 
 county, though included within its modern parliamentary 
 limits. It has been a place of some little note, though 
 overshadowed by its great neighbour. At Cowick was a 
 cell of Benedictine monks, from the Abbey of Bee 
 Harlewin, to which the estate had been given by 
 William Fitz-Baldwin. Here Hugh Lord Courtenay was 
 buried in 1340. Seized with the rest of the possessions 
 of the alien priories by Henry V., it was eventually 
 restored, and was granted, about 1462, to the Abbey of 
 Tavistock. Another religious foundation here was the 
 cell of St. Mary de Marisco, an appendage of Plympton 
 Priory. This was at Marsh Barton. Floyer Hayes, for 
 many centuries the seat of the Floyers, was held under 
 the Earl of Devon, by the service of waiting upon the 
 lord paramount whenever he should come into Exe Island, 
 the tenant being seemingly apparelled with a napkin 
 about his neck or on his shoulders, and having a pitcher 
 of wine and a silver cup in his hand, whereof to offer his 
 lord to drink. 
 
 Stoke Canon is claimed as having been given to his 
 minster in Exeter by yESelstan, and subsequently by Cnut 
 to his thegn Hunuwine, from whom presumably it passed 
 to the minster. Cnut’s grant at least is certain, and he 
 was traditionally regarded as the donor. In ‘Domesday’ 
 it appears simply as Stoche. Brampford Speke is also 
 entitled to regard, from its connection with the ancient 
 family of Speke, now settled in Somerset, but once 
 
Exeter. 
 
 45 
 
 holding a distinguished position in Devon. Of this 
 family was descended Captain Speke, the associate of 
 Captain Grant in the discovery of the source of the Nile, 
 in 1863, and himself a Devonshire man, born at Orleigh 
 Court, near Bideford. One of his ancestors is said to 
 have been hung by Jeffries, after that brutal judge had 
 breakfasted with him at his house at White Lackington. 
 There is a tradition that certain paths in Devon were 
 appropriated to the sole use of the Spekes, and hence 
 called ‘ Speke-paths.’ Thorverton manor was given to 
 the Abbey of Marmoustier in Tours, by Henry II., but 
 was bought of the monks by Sir John Wiger, and given 
 by him in 1276 to the Dean and Chapter of Exeter, 
 in support of three chantry priests celebrating specially 
 for the souls of Henry de Bracton (from whose estate a 
 part of the purchase-money had come) and of Sir John 
 Wiger and his benefactors. 
 
 Pynes, in Upton Pyne, the present seat of the North- 
 cote family (who were at Northcote in East Downe as 
 early as the year 1103), came to them by the marriage of 
 Sir Henry Northcote, the fifth baronet, with the heiress 
 of Stafford. Hence the additional name of Stafford, so 
 familiar in the title of the Earl of Iddesleigh when he was 
 Sir Stafford Northcote. Prior to acquiring Pynes, the 
 Northcotes were at Hayne, in the parish of Newton St. 
 Cyres. Here lived Sir John Northcote, the first baronet 
 of the family, a member of the Long Parliament, who left 
 behind him a volume of notes on the proceedings of that 
 body, and served as colonel for the Parliament in the 
 earlier part of the Civil War. The Northcotes were allied 
 with some of the most distinguished houses of the West, 
 and with the Plantagenets. By marrying heiresses they 
 extended their own importance and possessions; and 
 among the families they thus represent are Helion, Meoles, 
 Mamhede, Drew, Haswell, and Stafford. 
 
4 6 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 The Bampfyldes have been settled at Poltimore since 
 the reign of Edward I., and entered the ranks of the 
 baronetage in 1641. Sir John Bampfylde became for a 
 time Governor on behalf of the Parliament of the town of 
 Plymouth, and his son, Sir Copleston Bampfylde, took a 
 leading part in the restoration of Charles II. The family 
 were raised to the peerage as Barons Poltimore in 1831. 
 Among the houses with which the Bampfyldes are allied, 
 or whom they represent, are Pederton, St. Maure, 
 Copleston, Codrington, and Gorges. 
 
 Settled at Akland, in the parish of Landkey, for sixteen 
 descents before the Visitation of 1620, the ancient family 
 of Acland for nearly three centuries have made their home 
 in the vicinity of Exeter. Sir John Acland was the 
 builder of the house at Columbjohn, which gave title to 
 the baronetcy at its creation in 1644, and which was 
 garrisoned by its owner for the King. At one time it 
 contained the only Royalist garrison in the county; but 
 in March, 1646, it was the headquarters of Sir Thomas 
 Fairfax. This mansion has been destroyed, and the 
 present seat of the Aclands is at Killerton, in the same 
 parish of Broad Clyst. Originally built in the year 1788, 
 Killerton was greatly enlarged and improved by its late 
 owner, Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, to whom the dis¬ 
 tinguished honour was paid of the erection of a statue on 
 Northernhay, Exeter, in his lifetime, ‘ as a tribute for 
 private worth and public integrity, and in testimony of 
 admiration of a generous heart and open hand, which 
 have been ever ready to protect the weak, to relieve the 
 needy, and to succour the oppressed of whatever party, 
 race, or creed.’ The Aclands take their second name of 
 Dyke as representatives of the old Somersetshire family 
 of that name. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 EXMOUTH AND THE EXE ESTUARY. 
 
 Exmouth is one of the comparatively few places in Devon 
 that finds mention before the Conquest, though the earlier 
 references to Exanmutha in all likelihood really refer to 
 the river, or estuary, and not to any town. Thus it was 
 clearly at the ‘ mouth of the Exe’ that the Danes landed 
 in iooi, when they defeated the men of Somerset and 
 Devon at Pinhoe. Evidence exists, however, that Ex¬ 
 mouth was a local habitation, as well as a name, some 
 forty years later. There is extant a grant of half a mansa 
 of land by Eadweard the Confessor to a thane named 
 Ordgar in 1042 ; and this half-mansa Mr. J. B. David¬ 
 son has shown is practically identical with the present 
 parish of Littleham, in which the older part of modern 
 Exmouth stands. Among the boundaries mentioned in 
 the charter is Lydewic naesse, and this Lydewic seems 
 equivalent to ‘ Shipwick,’ the shipping or sailors’ village. 
 Another boundary-mark pointing to ancient settlement, 
 is the ‘plegin stowe’ or ‘playing-place.’ Ordgar gave 
 Littleham to the Abbey of Horton, which was annexed 
 in 1122 to Sherborne, and to Sherborne the manor con¬ 
 tinued to belong until the Dissolution. One of the rights 
 of the Abbey was the ferry over the Exe, from Prattshide 
 —which apparently supplanted Lydewic as the name for 
 ancient Exmouth—to Starcross, so named because the 
 
4 8 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 landing was at a flight of stone stairs, adjoining a cross 
 set up by the abbot. This ferry, it has been thought 
 highly probable, was rented by the Drakes of Pratts- 
 hide, who were certainly the ancestors of the Drakes of 
 Ash, and possibly of those of Tavistock, thence of Buck- 
 land and Nutwell. 
 
 The name Exmouth long continued to be applied to 
 the port rather than the infant town. The word is so 
 used under King John ; and in 1347 it must have been 
 Exeter under the title of Exmue, and not any Exmouth 
 ville, that furnished ten ships and 193 men for the expe¬ 
 dition against Calais. Exmouth was, indeed, only a 
 ‘ Fisschar Tounlet ’ when Leland saw it about 1540; 
 and therefore it must again be the port that is intended 
 when it is recorded that the Earl of March, afterwards 
 Duke of York and Edward IV., sailed thence in 1459 for 
 Calais, after the first battle of St. Albans. But Exmouth 
 itself was of sufficient note, a few years later, to give 
 Devon one of its stoutest Elizabethan seamen, Richard 
 Whitbourne, who was present when Sir Humphry 
 Gilbert took possession of Newfoundland in 1583; who 
 served, in 1588, in a ship of his own as a volunteer against 
 the Armada ; and who was the chief agent in the coloni¬ 
 zation of ‘Avalon in the New-found-land,’ under James I. 
 In the narrative of his voyages he describes amusingly 
 what he had taken for a ‘ Maremaid,’ but wisely adds, 
 
 * Whether it were a Maremaid or no, I know not ; I leaue 
 for others to judge.’ 
 
 Exmouth was made a Royal garrison in the wars of 
 the Commonwealth. A fort was erected on the sand-bar 
 at the entrance of the river, and held out for forty-six 
 days under Colonel Arundell before he surrendered, 
 March 16, 1646, to Sir Hardress Waller. And here 
 comes in a curious point of topography. 
 
 The ancient harbour not only had a bar, but a rock in 
 the channel, called the ‘ Chickstone,’ so much in the way, 
 
Exmouth and the Exe Estuary. 
 
 49 
 
 according to Westcote, that it grew to be proverbial that, 
 ‘ if we desire to be rid of anything we forthwith wish it to 
 be on Chickstone.’ The bar, or Warren, in the seven¬ 
 teenth century was connected, not with the Dawlish side 
 of the river as now, but with the Exmouth shore, and here 
 stood the fort. The entrance into the river from the sea 
 was by the western bank and not the eastern ; and it 
 was possible to cross from Exmouth to the Warren by 
 stepping-stones as late as 1730. There is a story told, 
 too, of a captain who, by trusting to an old chart, ran 
 his vessel high and dry one night on the track of the 
 ancient channel. 
 
 Littleham, after the Dissolution, came to Sir Thomas 
 Dinnis; and, by descent, eventually to the Rolles, its 
 present lords. 
 
 The northern portion of Exmouth lies in the parish of 
 Withycombe Ralegh. This passed to the Raleghs from 
 the Clavells, and hence became one of several parishes 
 that took and have retained the name of Ralegh as a 
 distinctive title. It seems an almost hopeless task to 
 attempt to connect the different branches of this wide¬ 
 spread and distinguished race with the original stock of 
 the Raleghs of Ralegh in Pilton, or to reconcile the dis¬ 
 cordant pedigrees. Yet there is no doubt the connection 
 exists. Wymond Ralegh, grandfather of the famous Sir 
 Walter Ralegh, whose seat was at Fardell, near Ply¬ 
 mouth, held estate in Withycombe Ralegh ; and this may 
 have been one of the causes that induced his son Walter 
 to remove to this neighbourhood, and thus give to Hayes 
 Barton in East Budleigh the honour of being the birth¬ 
 place of the most accomplished Devonian of Devon’s 
 greatest age. According to Westcote, Withycombe Ralegh 
 was held by the service of finding the King two good 
 arrows stuck in an oaten cake whenever he should hunt 
 on Dartmoor. 
 
 The Drakes were large owners of property in Withy- 
 
 4 
 
50 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 combe Ralegh, and the first wife of Walter Ralegh, the 
 father, was a Joan Drake. For his third he married 
 Katherine Champernowne, widow of Otho Gilbert, and 
 mother of Sir Humphry and Sir Adrian Gilbert. To no 
 other Devonshire woman has it been given to have three 
 such famous sons to represent her in the list of worthies. 
 Hayes Barton, where Sir Walter was born in 1552, still 
 stands, and there are several interesting memorials of the 
 family in the church. To attempt to trace the life of 
 Ralegh, even in bare outline, is impossible here. More 
 than any other man of his time, he was the epitome of 
 the restless, many-sided spirit of the age—courtier, states¬ 
 man, philosopher, sailor, soldier—accomplished in all 
 manner of honourable professions, and a leader in each 
 one. His apprenticeship to arms being passed with the 
 Huguenots in France, his first sea voyage was taken 
 with Humphry Gilbert’s disastrous colonizing expedition 
 in 1578. Next he served in stern fashion against the 
 Irish insurgents, and thus acquired the lands upon which 
 he afterwards introduced the cultivation of the potato. 
 Upon his return from Ireland he began his career as a 
 courtier; and he rose so rapidly that in 1587 he succeeded 
 Hatton as Captain of the Guard. Four years before this, 
 however, he had contributed the Ralegh to the expedition 
 in which Sir Humphry Gilbert took possession of New¬ 
 foundland, although her crew deserted their companions. 
 In 1584 he sent out the vessels, under Amadas and 
 Barlowe, which proved the abounding fertility of Virginia; 
 and in the following year planted a colony at Roanoake, 
 under Ralph Lane. Though his designs were doomed to 
 final failure, and no plantation made by him survived, 
 Ralegh persevered in the effort, at the cost of much 
 treasure and pains, for years; and in the event it was 
 under his patent, though in other hands, that the first 
 English colony of Jamestown was founded. As Lord 
 Warden of the Stannaries, Ralegh was chiefly concerned 
 
Exmouth and the Exe Estuary. 
 
 5i 
 
 in the land preparations for the reception of the Armada 
 in Devon and Cornwall; but he joined the fleet and had 
 his share in the great victory when his work on shore was 
 done. With the rise of Essex at Court the influence of 
 Ralegh waned ; while his secret marriage with Bessie 
 Throgmorton threw him into deep disgrace, and Elizabeth 
 in her anger sent him to the Tower. Released from 
 durance, he retired to his manor of Sherborne, and there 
 planned his expeditions to Guiana, the second of which, 
 in 1595, he himself conducted. Next we have him, by 
 his wise advice, securing the success of the expedition to 
 Cadiz in 1596, and winning all the honours of the ‘ Island 
 Voyage ’ in 1598. When Elizabeth died, Ralegh had re¬ 
 gained his old position at Court; but the accession of 
 James was the prelude to his downfall. Falsely accused 
 of conspiracy, he was imprisoned in the Tower from 1603 
 to 1616. Then came his last voyage to Guiana, in search 
 of the golden city of Manoa, in which his ‘ braines were 
 broken ’ by the loss of his son ; and in October, 1618, at 
 the dictation of Spain, the cowardly pedant James struck off 
 the head of the noblest Englishman of the day, who died 
 with ( the grace of a courtier, the dignity of a philosopher, 
 the courage of a soldier, and the faith of a Christian.’ 
 
 East Budleigh was originally a market town, and, 
 according to Pole, had a Sunday market. It seems to 
 have been a little port, vessels frequenting the estuary of 
 the Otter, up to the fifteenth century; but Leland says 
 that in his time the haven was ‘ clene barred,’ and that 
 the shipping had left for a hundred years. Budleigh 
 Salterton, upon the coast here, has developed of late 
 years considerably as a bathing-place. Here is the best 
 exposure of the Budleigh Salterton pebbles, a large pro¬ 
 portion of which contain Silurian fossils, and which seem 
 to have been derived from pre-Triassic extensions of 
 Silurian and Devonian rocks into the area now occupied 
 
 4—2 
 
52 History of Devonshire. 
 
 by the Channel. In the distinctive name of the contiguous 
 parish of Newton Poppleford, popple = pebble, and is 
 still a current form of speech. 
 
 Topsham ranks next to Exmouth of the towns of the 
 Exe estuary. Though in modern days little more than a 
 riverside suburb of Exeter, it was anciently a port of con¬ 
 siderable importance. It was a market-town so far back 
 as the reign of Edward I.; and it was for a long period 
 the chief seat of Exeter commerce, large vessels coming 
 no further than its quay. Topsham seamen had a 
 good deal to do also with the development of the 
 fishing-trade with Newfoundland; and as one result of 
 this it is recorded that in the reign of William III. it had 
 more trade with Newfoundland than any other port in 
 the kingdom, London alone excepted. Unjustly taken 
 from the see of Exeter, as Leofric notes, by Harold, the 
 manor was for several generations in the Courtenays, who 
 used their connection with it to the disadvantage of 
 Exeter, when differences arose between the citizens and 
 their powerful neighbours. On their attainder it passed 
 to the Crown, afterwards vesting in the De Courcys. It 
 is now the property of the Hamiltons. Topsham had its 
 share in the troubles of the seventeenth century. When 
 Exeter was held by the Royalists, they built a fort here, 
 which was battered down by the Earl of Warwick, the 
 Parliamentary Admiral, who killed therein some seventy or 
 eighty men. For a short time in October, 1645, Topsham 
 was the headquarters of Sir Thomas Fairfax. 
 
 Weare, once the seat of a younger branch of the 
 Hollands, Dukes of Exeter, has been the residence 
 of the Duckworths since 1804, in which year it was pur¬ 
 chased by Admiral Sir Thomas Duckworth, the hero of 
 the passage of the Dardanelles in 1807, when for the 
 first time Constantinople saw the fleet of an enemy. 
 
 Topsham in all probability affords an instance of the 
 
Exmouth and the Exe Estuary. 
 
 53 
 
 preservation of a personal name from Saxon days, and is 
 equivalent to ‘ Topa’s ham.’ In the sixteenth and seven¬ 
 teenth centuries it was frequently called Apsom. It is 
 Topeshant in ‘ Domesday.’ 
 
 The little stream of the Clyst, which falls into the Exe 
 at Topsham, has given name not only to the hundred of 
 Clyston, but to more manors and parishes than any other 
 river in the county save the Teign—a fact which indicates 
 the comparative populousness of this rich valley in Anglo- 
 Saxon times. There are Clysthydon, named from its 
 ancient lords the Hydons, now long in the Huyshes; St. 
 Lawrence Clyst, of old time in the Valletorts, one of the 
 estates which Elize Hele bequeathed to charitable 
 purposes ; Broad Clyst, already noted; Honiton Clyst; 
 St. Mary Clyst, in the church of which Walter Ralegh, 
 father of Sir Walter, took refuge from a band of the 
 Western Rebels for the restoration of Roman Catholicism, 
 and was rescued by a party of Exmouth seamen; and 
 Clyst St. George, a small estate in which, held by the 
 annual tender of an ivory bow, was reputed to have been 
 in the family of Sokespitch from Saxon times, but was 
 really granted to them by Henry de Pomeroy, temp. 
 Henry II. Of other Clysts which have not survived as 
 parishes, Clyst Fomison is now the parish of Sowton ; 
 while Bishops Clyst, in Farringdon and Sowton, once in 
 the Sackvilles, was an ancient episcopal manor anc 
 residence, and a little market town. 
 
 Nutwell, in the adjoining parish of Woodbury (which 
 takes name from ancient earthworks upon the high range 
 of moorland called Woodbury Common, and gave title in 
 the eleventh century to a fraternity known as the Wood¬ 
 bury Guild), is the chief seat of the Drakes of Tavistock, 
 the descendants of Thomas Drake, brother of the 
 renowned Sir Francis. It was long held by the Dinhams, 
 then passing successively to the Prideauxes, Fords, and 
 Pollexfens. These Drakes were on the Parliamentary 
 
54 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 side during the wars of the Commonwealth, and Nutwell 
 was garrisoned in that behalf. The first house of im¬ 
 portance here seems to have been built by Lord Dinham, 
 in the reign of Henry VII. The present Drakes of Nut- 
 well represent the old family through double female 
 descent. The first baronet of the line was Francis, 
 nephew of the circumnavigator, created in 1622 ; and this 
 title became extinct in 1794, when the last baronet 
 bequeathed his estates to his nephew, Lord Heathfield. 
 On his dying without issue, they passed in like manner to 
 his nephew, Thomas Trayton Fuller. The name of Drake 
 was resumed and a new baronetcy created in 1821. 
 
 Opposite Topsham, on the western shore of the 
 estuary, lies Exminster, indicated by its name as a place 
 of ecclesiastical importance in Saxon times, but to which 
 little that is noteworthy appears to attach. At the 
 present day it has rather an unpleasant reputation as the 
 location of the County Lunatic Asylum. The manor was 
 bequeathed by iElfred to his younger son, and at the 
 Domesday Survey was held by William Chievre, in suc¬ 
 cession to Wichin, but was not of any note. Several 
 distinguished families have been connected with Ex¬ 
 minster. The Courtenays, who are still lords of the 
 manor, are said to have had a magnificent mansion here. 
 Peamore, now the seat of the Kekewich family, was 
 formerly in the Cobhams and Bonviles, Tothills and 
 Northleighs. Shillingford, given to Torre Abbey by its 
 founder, William Lord Briwere, was purchased by the 
 Southcotes after the Dissolution, and, with other property 
 in the parish, has long been held by the Palks. The 
 vicarage is appendant to Crediton. 
 
 Next to Exminster comes Kenn, with its chief village 
 of Kennford, described in old records as a borough, and 
 having a market granted to its ancient owners, the 
 Courtenays, about 1299. The manor is now the property 
 
55 
 
 Exmouth and the Exe Estitary. 
 
 of Lord Haldon, whose principal residence, Haldon 
 House, is in this parish. Haldon House was originally 
 built by Sir George Chudleigh, the last baronet of that 
 family, but the mansion and grounds owe their present 
 aspect to the improvements effected since they were 
 purchased by Sir Robert Palk. The Palks are an old 
 Devonshire race, who were seated at Ambrook, in Ipple- 
 pen, as early as the fifteenth century. Sir Robert Palk, 
 the first baronet, the son of Henry Palk, sometime 
 member for Ashburton, became Governor of Madras, and 
 in India acquired both title and fortune. In India, too, 
 he formed a very close friendship with Major-General 
 Lawrence, to whom he erected a monument at Haldon, 
 and whose name has been continued in the family ever 
 since. Sir Lawrence Palk, M.P. for South Devon (as his 
 grandfather had been for the undivided county), was 
 raised to the peerage in 1880. 
 
 Powderham Castle holds the first place among the 
 ancient mansions of the county. No other great house 
 continues so fully its olden glories. Nearly six centuries 
 have passed since the Courtenays first seated themselves 
 by the Exe, at Powderham, and there, amidst many 
 vicissitudes, they have continued. At the compilation of 
 * Domesday,’ Powderham was one of the two Devonshire 
 manors of William de Ow, and on his forfeiture came 
 to a family who thence took name. The attainder of John 
 de Powderham led to the manor becoming the property of 
 Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford ; and his daughter 
 Margaret, in 1325, brought it to her husband Hugh, the 
 second Courtenay Earl of Devon. Earl Hugh gave it to 
 his younger son Philip, by whom the castle was built, 
 and in his descendants it has remained. When the 
 earldom of Devon, newly revived by Queen Mary, was 
 thought to have failed, through the death, without issue, 
 of Lord Edward Courtenay, in 1556, the Courtenays of 
 
56 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 Powderham continued simple knights, and subsequently 
 baronets, until Sir William, the third holder of the 
 baronetcy, was created Viscount Courtenay of Powder- 
 ham in 1762. William, the third viscount, in 1831, how¬ 
 ever, established his claim to the earldom created by 
 Queen Mary in 1553 (the title having been merely dormant, 
 and not extinct, for 265 years) ; becoming, in fact, the 
 tenth earl, though only the second who had borne the 
 title under Mary’s patent. The present Earl of Devon is 
 the eighteenth Courtenay lord of Powderham. 
 
 Powderham Castle saw service during the struggle 
 between Charles and the Parliament, when it was strongly 
 garrisoned for the King. An attack made by Fairfax in 
 December, 1645, proved a failure, and the Roundheads in 
 their turn garrisoned the church. The castle was, how¬ 
 ever, taken early in the following year by Colonel 
 Hammond. 
 
 The House of Courtenay is the most distinguished 
 family of Devon. They have been called ‘ the ubiquitous 
 Courtenays,’ for there is hardly a parish in the county 
 which is not linked with their history by some traces of 
 lordship or alliance. The history of the English branch 
 of this great house, whose famous coat of three torteaux 
 ‘ at once waved over the towers of Edessa, and was 
 reflected by the waters of the Seine,’ has been set forth 
 most graphically by Gibbon. Ranked among the chief 
 barons of the realm, it was not ‘ till after a strenuous 
 dispute that they yielded to the fief of Arundel the first 
 place in Parliament. Their alliances were contracted with 
 the noblest families—the Veres, De Spencers, Bonviles, 
 St. Johns, Talbots, Bohuns, and even the Plantagenets 
 themselves; and in a contest with John of Lancaster, a 
 Courtenay, Bishop of London and afterwards Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, might be accused of profane confidence in 
 the strength and numbers of his kindred. In peace the 
 Earls of Devon resided in their numerous castles and 
 
Exmouth and the Exe Estuary. 
 
 57 
 
 manors of the West, and their ample revenue was appro¬ 
 priated to devotion and hospitality. In war they fulfilled 
 the duties and deserved the honours of chivalry. They 
 were often entrusted to levy and command the militia of 
 Devon and Cornwall. They often attended their supreme 
 lord to the borders of Scotland and Wales, and in foreign 
 service they sometimes maintained four-score men-at-arms 
 and as many archers. By sea and land they fought under 
 the standard of the Edwards and Henrys. Their names 
 are conspicuous in battles, tournaments, and in the 
 original lists of the Order of the Garter. Three brothers 
 shared the Spanish victory of the Black Prince, and in 
 the lapse of six generations the English Courtenays learned 
 to despise the nation and country from which they derived 
 their origin. In the quarrels of the Roses the Earls of 
 Devon adhered to the House of Lancaster, and three 
 brothers successively died either in the field or on the 
 scaffold. A daughter of Edward IV. was not disgraced 
 by the nuptials of a Courtenay. Their son, created 
 Marquis of Exeter, enjoyed the capricious favour of his 
 cousin Henry VIII.; and in the camp of the Cloth of 
 Gold broke a lance against the monarch of France. 
 Among the victims of the jealous and tyrannical Henry, 
 the Marquis of Exeter was one of the most noble and 
 guiltless. His son Edward lived a prisoner and died in 
 exile; and the secret love of Queen Mary, whom he 
 slighted for the Princess Elizabeth, has shed a romantic 
 colour on the story of this beautiful youth. The relics of 
 his patrimony were conveyed into strange families by the 
 marriage of his four great-aunts, and his personal honours, 
 as if they had been legally extinct, were revived by the 
 patents of succeeding princes. But there still survived a 
 lineal descendant of Hugh, the first Earl of Devon, a 
 younger branch of the Courtenays, who have been seated 
 at Powderham Castle above 500 years, from the reign of 
 Edward III. to the present hour. Their estates have 
 
53 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 been increased by the grant and improvement of lands in 
 Ireland, and they have been restored to the honours of 
 the peerage. Yet the Courtenays long retained the plain¬ 
 tive motto which asserts their innocence and deplores the 
 fall of their ancient house—‘ Ubi lapsus , quid feci ?' 
 
 The little town, or rather village, of Starcross, which 
 lies on the western side of the Exe Bight, is the most 
 important centre in the parish of Kenton; and since the 
 construction of the South Devon Railway, efforts have 
 unavailingly been made to give it a commercial character. 
 It is best known now for its large philanthropic establish¬ 
 ment, the Western Counties Idiot Asylum. In Saxon 
 and early Norman days it was a royal demesne, and 
 subsequently held by the Courtenays until their attainder. 
 Kenton then reverted to the Crown; and after its grant 
 by Elizabeth to Lord Clifton, passed in rapid succession 
 through Exeter, Hungerford, Monk (Duke of Albemarle), 
 and Grenville, until, early in the last century, it was once 
 more acquired by the House of Courtenay. Kenton lies 
 beneath the long Greensand ridge of Haldon ; and the 
 local proverb runs: 
 
 ‘When Haldon wears a hat, 
 
 Kenton beware a scat 
 
 a cap of clouds on Haldon being an almost certain sign 
 of rainy weather. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 AXMINSTER AND THE AXE. 
 
 East Devon has all the marks of a populous and troubled 
 border-land of vast antiquity. Nowhere in all Devon are 
 there so many remains of the so-called ‘camps’or forti¬ 
 fied towns of the early Kelts within so narrow an area. 
 Taking Broaddown near Honiton as a centre, and exclud¬ 
 ing earthworks of minor importance, we have, for example, 
 Blackbury Castle, Bilbury Castle, Dumdun Castle, Far¬ 
 way Castle, Hocksdown Castle, Hembury Fort, Musbury 
 Castle, Membury Castle, Stockland Great and Little 
 Castles, Sidbury Castle, Widworthy Castle, Woodbury 
 Castle—all entrenchments, without masonry, notwith¬ 
 standing their ‘castle’ name. Within a radius of six 
 miles from Sidmouth, there are yet existing ninety-three 
 tumuli, many of notable size and considerable antiquarian 
 interest. The boundary-line between Devon and Dorset, 
 moreover, instead of following the natural features of the 
 country, is of so intricate and peculiar a character as to 
 render it evident that it was the result of hard and con¬ 
 tinual fighting, in which the possession on either side of 
 strong positions played an important part. And so, in 
 later times, though still in what are really prehistoric 
 days, as far as the absence of written record goes, we 
 have the important fact indicated by the character and 
 relations of the hundreds of East Devon that it was the 
 
6o 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 first district of the county which the Saxons occupied in 
 force, and in which, in the earlier years of Saxon domina¬ 
 tion, most frequent changes took place. 
 
 Axminster and the valley of the Axe, clustered with 
 ancient towns and villages, first claim attention. One of 
 a group of * minsters,’ the like of which is not to be 
 found elsewhere, Axminster was in all likelihood founded 
 by King Ine, to commemorate and consolidate his con¬ 
 quests, after the great battle in 710, in which he defeated 
 Gereint, the king of the West Welsh. The town itself 
 was doubtless of far older date, and may even have had 
 being in some form in pre-Keltic times. The valley of the 
 Axe has of late years yielded from its gravels such large 
 numbers of chipped chert implements as to show the ex¬ 
 istence of a considerable population in Palaeolithic days. 
 It certainly was in some sense a Roman settlement, for it 
 lies on their direct route between Dorchester and Exeter. 
 
 This, however, is, and must remain, largely tinged with 
 speculation. The first direct mention of Axminster in 
 history is as the burial-place, in 785, of Cyneheard the 
 iEtheling, who killed Cynewulf. We must dismiss, as 
 unhistoric, a tradition that the minster was founded by 
 ^ESelstan, and priests placed therein to pray for the souls 
 of seven earls and five kings who fell here in a great 
 battle at Calesdown, the fight raging to Colecroft by Ax¬ 
 minster. That the tradition, which is of very great anti¬ 
 quity, refers to actual fighting, may be granted ; but the 
 minster is much older than the date thus assigned, and 
 there appears to have been grafted upon the original 
 legend some memories of Brunanburgh, with which, 
 indeed, this fight has been mistakenly identified. But 
 Brunanburgh, the description of which in the * Saxon 
 Chronicle ’ is such a fine example of Anglo-Saxon poetry, 
 was certainly not waged in the West, and Devon cannot 
 claim ‘ that battle so fierce and so bloody, that never was 
 
Axminster and the Axe. 61 
 
 there bloodier seen from the days when the Saxons and 
 the Angles, famous smiters in war, came over the broad 
 seas to put the Britons to rout.' 
 
 Two Alseminstres are mentioned in ‘Domesday.’ One 
 held by the King had four serfs, thirty villeins, and twenty 
 bordars, with a couple of mills, and was worth twenty- 
 six pounds a year. The other held by Eddulf, under 
 William Chievre, had four serfs and twelve bordars, and 
 was worth twenty pounds annually. Probably both 
 manors were included in the present parish, the first 
 representing the modern town, which would seem to have 
 continued with the Crown, possibly until John granted it 
 to his trusty noble, William Lord Briwere, from whose 
 family it passed to the Mohuns. John confirmed the 
 market to Briwere in 1204, to be held on Sundays as 
 accustomed ; and a few years later made the town a free 
 borough. Briwere built a castle, of which every vestige 
 has disappeared, though walls have been found in exca¬ 
 vating which apparently belonged to such a structure. 
 
 For some centuries the history of Axminster is that of 
 the famous and dominant Abbey of Newenham, planted 
 in the pleasant meadows by the winding Axe by Reginald 
 and William de Mohun in 1246 ; Reginald, however, being 
 the accepted founder. The first Cistercian colony con¬ 
 sisted of twelve monks and four lay brethren, under John 
 Goddard as abbot, from the monastery of Beaulieu. The 
 permanent buildings were begun in 1250, and were of 
 great magnificence and beauty, for the Abbey had many 
 friends, and Bishop Bronescombe and Bishop Grandisson 
 were among its most liberal benefactors. Reginald de 
 Mohun chose Newenham as his burial-place, and there 
 his body was deposited in January, 1257-8, the first of a 
 long line of illustrious personages, Bonviles and Mohuns 
 and others, whose bones are now washed out by the en¬ 
 croachments of the river from the long-desecrated site. 
 The church took thirty years in building, and was 280 
 
62 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 feet long; breadth across the transepts, 152. At the 
 surrender the estates were valued at £227 7s. 8d. A 
 fragmentary wall is all that remains to mark the site. At 
 the Dissolution the manor of Axminster passed to the 
 Marquis of Dorset, then to the Duke of Norfolk, and was 
 sold in the reign of James I. to Lord Petre, in whose 
 family it remained until 1824. 
 
 Axminster was a good deal worried during the Civil 
 Wars of the seventeenth century, through being utilized 
 by the Royalist troops in their approaches to Lyme; and 
 though the sympathies of the town leant rather to the 
 Cavaliers, it must have had a peculiarly unpleasant time. 
 Prince Maurice made it his headquarters for a while in 
 April, May, and June, 1644, but retired on the approach 
 of Essex. Subsequently, on the petition of the wealthier 
 residents, a royal garrison was placed at Axminster under 
 the command of Sir Richard Cholmondeley. This only 
 made matters worse, for the Roundheads of Lyme, under 
 the command of Colonel Ceeley (October 25th), assaulted 
 the town, routed the Royalists, and killed their captain. 
 And when, in the ensuing month (November 15th), Major 
 Walker, who had succeeded Sir Richard, attacked Lyme, 
 not only was he killed, with many of his followers, but the 
 remnant of the Cavaliers were chased into Axminster 
 Church, whence they could not be dislodged. 
 
 Axminster became Fairfax’s headquarters in October, 
 1645 ; and it was at the village of Membury that he re¬ 
 ceived ‘the only affront’ put upon him in the West of 
 England : a party of Royalist cavalry, led by Goring and 
 Wentworth, making a night attack, getting within the 
 guards, and capturing some sixty prisoners. Sir Shilston 
 Calmady had been killed in a skirmish at Membury in 
 the previous February. 
 
 The town was the rendezvous of the Duke of Mon¬ 
 mouth on his first day’s march from Lyme, where he had 
 landed June 11, 1685; and here it was thought his first 
 
Axminster and the Axe. 63 
 
 battle would have been fought. The Devonshire and 
 Somerset militia, and the forces of Monmouth, were all 
 marching upon Axminster from different points within 
 view of the insurgents; but the latter, doubling their 
 speed, gained the town first; and Monk, who was in 
 command of the train-bands, deemed it expedient to 
 retire. Had Monmouth then taken Exeter, which he 
 could easily have done, the fortune of the campaign 
 might have been wholly different. That he had many 
 staunch followers in Axminster is recorded in the pages 
 of the ‘ Axminster Ecclesiastica,’ a singular contemporary 
 record of the Independent Church there, which notes 
 also many of the local horrors of the Bloody Assize. 
 
 It was at Axminster that Lord Cornbury deserted 
 from James II. to William of Orange. He had brought 
 three regiments of cavalry from Salisbury westward, 
 under pretence of making a night-attack upon some 
 Dutch troops at Honiton. Suspicion being excited, and 
 his orders not being forthcoming when demanded, he 
 then made the best of his way to William with a few 
 followers only, instead of the important contingent he 
 had hoped to secure. 
 
 Apart from the miserable vestige of Newenham, 
 Axminster has only one antiquity, its church, originally 
 a fine fabric, still retaining a Norman doorway, and with 
 a couple of early effigies: Alice de Mohun, daughter and 
 heiress of Lord Briwere, and Gervase de Prestaller, her 
 father’s chaplain. 
 
 Axminster gave name to a kind of carpet, which was 
 first manufactured there, in 1755, by Mr. Thomas Whitty, 
 a clothier, who developed the idea from an attempt to 
 imitate the Turkey fabrics. Eventually he produced the 
 finest carpets ever made in England ; and the manufacture 
 was carried on by the Whitty family until 1835, when 
 the looms were removed to Wilton. Among those who 
 attempted to retain the business in the town was Dr. 
 
6 4 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 Buckland, Dean of Westminster, the celebrated geologist, 
 and author of ‘ Reliquas DiluVianae,’ who was born at 
 Axminster (1784-1856), and acquired his taste for science 
 in the Lias quarries of the locality. 
 
 As Newenham Abbey is the one Cistercian house of 
 Devon which has the least to show for its former great¬ 
 ness, so its neighbour-house of Ford is that which retains 
 the most. Ford lies seven miles from Axminster, and is 
 now in Dorset; but as the site, up to the year 1842, 
 formed a detached portion of Devon, it falls into place in 
 the history of this county. A Cistercian house had been 
 founded at Brightley, near Okehampton, under the patron¬ 
 age of the De Redvers family, in 1135. The patron 
 died in 1137, before the establishment was permanently 
 founded ; and finding it impossible to make good their 
 position for themselves, the monks resolved to return to 
 the mother-house of Waverley. They were on the road, 
 and had reached Thorncombe, when they were met by 
 Adelicia, sister of their former benefactor, Richard the 
 Viscount. She gave them the manor of Thorncombe, 
 on which they stood ; and thus, instead of returning to 
 Waverley, they founded the Abbey of Ford. This was in 
 1141. In September, 1142, Adelicia died also; and her 
 remains, with those of Richard de Redvers, which were re¬ 
 moved from Brightley, were buried within the church. At 
 the same time, the monks translated the remains of their 
 first abbot, another Richard, who had died at Brightley. 
 
 The Abbey flourished under the care of a series of 
 abbots, who contributed some prominent names to the 
 general history of the kingdom. The third abbot, 
 Baldwin of Exeter, originally a monk at Ford, became 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, after filling the See of 
 Worcester. John, the confessor of King John, a great 
 theologian, made Ford famous for its learning. The 
 church was completed in 1239. The last abbot was 
 
Axminster and the Axe. 
 
 65 
 
 Thomas Charde, suffragan to Bishop Oldham, an emi¬ 
 nent scholar and divine, and, as the buildings of his 
 time show, an able architect. At the surrender, in 1539, 
 the revenue amounted to £374 10s. 6Jd. 
 
 The Abbey passed in the first place by lease to Richard 
 Pollard, but was afterwards bought by him. Sir John 
 Pollard, his son, sold it to his cousin, Sir Amias Poulett; 
 and he to William Rosewall, Elizabeth’s attorney-general. 
 Sir Henry Rosewall sold it to Edmund Prideaux, under 
 whom Inigo Jones converted the domestic buildings into a 
 stately mansion. The Abbey continued in the Prideaux, 
 Gwyn, and Fraunceis families until 1847, when it was 
 once more sold ; and after being for a short time the 
 property of Mr. G. F. Miles, became that of Mr. Evans. 
 It was for some time the residence of Jeremy Bentham. 
 
 Although not a vestige remains of the monastic church, 
 the so-called chapel being really the chapter-house, ‘ no 
 Cistercian building in England, perhaps none in the 
 world, is in so perfect a state as that of Ford.’ Thus 
 Mr. J. Brooking Rowe, who points out also that, * in spite 
 of the interference with his architecture, and the incon¬ 
 gruities of Inigo Jones’s additions, Charde’s [Perpendi¬ 
 cular] work remains pre-eminently beautiful, and renders 
 Ford Abbey perhaps the most interesting building archi¬ 
 tecturally, as it is archaeologically, in the West Country.’ 
 
 Returning to Axminster, and commencing our survey 
 of the lower portions of the Axe Valley, we find the first 
 point of interest in the remnant farmhouse of Ashe, a 
 couple of miles from Axminster towards Seaton, and just 
 over the borders of Musbury parish. Ashe is connected 
 with more than one distinguished personage, but is 
 specially identified with one of the greatest of English 
 generals. Given by the Courtenays to a family which 
 thence took name, it passed by marriage to the Drakes, 
 then of Exmouth. The most distinguished member of 
 
 5 
 
66 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 the Drakes of Ashe was that Sir Bernard Drake whom 
 Prince, in his ‘ Worthies,’ records to have boxed Sir 
 Francis Drake’s ears for assuming the wyvern in his coat. 
 Be the story true or false (and Prince is not always trust¬ 
 worthy, while in this case his own connection with the 
 Drakes of Ashe may count for something) Sir Bernard 
 was a brave sailor, and did good service against the 
 Spaniards and Portuguese. He died in 1586, stricken at 
 the Exeter Assizes by gaol-fever, which killed the judge— 
 Serjeant Flowerby—five magistrates, and eleven jurymen. 
 
 Elizabeth, daughter of John Drake, grandson of Sir 
 Bernard, married Sir William Churchill, of Minthorne, 
 Dorset, who, as a staunch Royalist, was greatly harassed 
 during the Commonwealth. This led to his living for 
 some time with his wife at her father’s house. Hence it 
 was that at Ashe there was born in June, 1650, John 
 Churchill, afterwards Duke of Marlborough ; and hence 
 the name of that famous warrior is registered among the 
 Axminster baptisms. 
 
 The life of the Duke of Marlborough belongs to national 
 history rather than local, like that of so many more of 
 Devon’s famous worthies. It was among his own native 
 hills, indeed, that he bore a part in subduing the insurrec¬ 
 tion of Monmouth ; but he seems in later life to have had 
 little if anything to do with the county, of which the victor 
 of Blenheim, with all his failings, must be ranked as one of 
 the most distinguished ornaments. He died in 1722, after 
 having won the highest honours the nation could bestow. 
 
 John Drake, uncle of Churchill, was created a baronet 
 in 1660, and his son re-edified Ashe, which had been 
 greatly damaged during the Civil Wars, utilizing 
 Newenham Abbey, of which one of his ancestors had 
 been steward, as a quarry ! The baronetcy came to an 
 end with its sixth holder in 1733, and the estate passed 
 to his widow. Her daughter by a second husband, 
 Colonel Speke, married Lord North, at Ashe chapel; and 
 
Axminster and the Axe. 
 
 67 
 
 during a visit in 1765, that statesman was so scared by 
 the cries of a body of reapers, who were ‘ crying the neck ’ 
 at the close of harvest, with upraised hooks and the 
 traditional shout, ‘ We have un !’ that he thought his life 
 was threatened. His friend Sir Robert Hamilton, seizing 
 a sword, rushed out to repulse the ‘ enemy,’ when the 
 time-honoured custom was explained and all fears allayed. 
 
 Another notable house in the vicinity of Axminster is 
 Shute, for a long time the chief residence of the Bonviles, 
 and as such the centre of the Yorkist interest in the West. 
 William Lord Bonvile was the chief adherent of the party 
 of the White Rose in Devon, and played a prominent part 
 in the local controversies of the day. His daughter 
 Margaret married Sir William Courtenay, whose family 
 were almost to a man Lancastrian, but the feuds of the 
 Bonviles and the Courtenays were none the less severe 
 on that account. What has been termed a duel, in all 
 probability a set-fight, between Lord Bonvile and Thomas 
 Courtenay, Earl of Devon, came off upon Clyst Heath. 
 In October, 1455, Nicholas Radford, ‘ who was of counseil 
 with my Lord Bonvyle,’ and who lived at Upcott Manor, 
 near Crediton, was murdered by a party of men headed by 
 the Earl of Devon’s eldest son ; and when Parliament met 
 complaint was made of the ‘ grete and grevous riotes done 
 in the West Countrey betwene th’ Erie of Devonshire and 
 the Lord Bonvile, by the which som men have been 
 murdred, some robbed, and children and wymen taken.’ 
 Bonvile was not, however, the only staunch friend of the 
 House of York in these parts. There still remain at 
 Olditch, in Thorncombe, a few walls of the mansion of 
 Lord Cobham, which was attacked by a party of some 200 
 men ‘ with force and armes arayd in man’r of werre ’ under 
 James Butler, Earl of Ormond—Cobham being as hearty a 
 partizan of the White Rose as Wiltshire was of the Red. 
 
 The Bonviles were one of the families extinguished by 
 these wars. Lord Bonvile was beheaded after the second 
 
 5—2 
 
68 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 battle of St. Albans, and his son and grandson being killed 
 at Wakefield, Shute passed to his daughter Cicely, who, 
 by her marriage with Sir Thomas Grey, Marquis of 
 Dorset, became ancestress of Lady Jane Grey. Shute, 
 which retains its fine old Tudor gatehouse, has for some 
 three centuries belonged to the Poles. 
 
 The intricacies of its ground-plan have been assumed to 
 indicate a British origin for the little town of Colyton ; 
 and it is clearly one of those ancient places that have 
 grown up by slow degrees around an original hamlet, and 
 along the lines of the trackways connecting the houses 
 of the first settlers. Though never a place of any great 
 importance, it has been associated with not a few notable 
 families—the De Dunstanvilles and Bassets, Yonges, 
 Courtenays, Poles, Petres, and Drakes among the number. 
 The hamlet of Colyford, midway between Colyton and 
 Seaton, is probably of older date, was chartered by the 
 Bassets and the Courtenays, and had its fair and its 
 mayor, to whom the profits of the fair belonged. Coly¬ 
 ton, held by Harold before the Conquest, became a royal 
 demesne. It had a fair, granted by King John ; and for 
 some centuries was the chief market of the district. 
 
 The most notable manor in the parish is Colcombe, an 
 ancient seat of the Courtenays, who built a castellated 
 mansion there about the year 1280. They held it until 
 the attainder of the Marquis of Exeter in 1538. Then 
 the house fell into decay, but was rebuilt early in the 
 seventeenth century by Sir William Pole, the Devonshire 
 historian and antiquary. Since his posterity preferred 
 to live at Shute, Colcombe Castle, as it is popularly 
 called, was again deserted. Colyton, however, made its 
 first mark in history in connection with this quondam 
 dwelling of the Courtenays; for Colcombe became the 
 headquarters of a detachment of Royalists, and as the 
 neighbouring town of Lyme was devoted to the Parlia- 
 
Axminster and the Axe. 
 
 69 
 
 mentary interest, there was more than one sharp 
 encounter, which did not materially help the integrity of 
 the building. All that remains of this ancient mansion 
 now forms part of a farmhouse; and the most interesting 
 memorial, alike of Colcombe and the Courtenays, yet to 
 be found in Colyton, is the ‘ Little Choky Bone’ monu¬ 
 ment in the fine old church of St. Andrew. A noble 
 altar tomb, with canopy, contains the recumbent figure of 
 a girl wearing a coronet, with the royal and Courtenay 
 arms. ‘ Margaret, daughter of William Courtenay, Earl 
 of Devon, and the Princess Katherine, youngest daughter 
 of Edward IV., King of England, died at Colcombe, 
 choked by a fishbone, a.d. mdxii.’ So runs the in¬ 
 scription ; but there are doubters, both as to the assign¬ 
 ment of the memorial and the cause of death. Many of 
 the Poles are buried in the church, and among them the 
 antiquary, whose * Collections’ have formed such a rich 
 storehouse for the modern historian and genealogist. The 
 Poles have been settled in Devon from the reign of 
 Richard II. 
 
 In the town of Colyton are yet portions of the ‘ Great 
 House,’ long the residence of the Yonges. Here Sir 
 Walter Yonge, in 1680, entertained the Duke of Mon¬ 
 mouth in his progress in the West of England. The 
 Puritanic sympathies of the townsfolk generally were 
 plainly manifested, not only when Colcombe was held by 
 the troops of Prince Maurice, but when the duke landed 
 at Lyme. Many Colyton men joined his standard ; not a 
 few were present at Sedgmoor ; and history, as well as 
 tradition, has sad tales to tell of the fate of those who fell 
 into the hands of ‘ Kirke’s lambs,’ or came before Jeffries. 
 One of these stories is that a wool-trader named Speed was 
 boiled in his own furnace ; and in any case Colyton had its 
 full share of hangings and quarterings. Several men em¬ 
 ployed by Sir William Yonge in building his mansion at 
 Escot, now the seat of Sir John Kennaway, and who joined 
 
7o History of Devonshire. 
 
 the insurgents, were hung within a mile of his gates, though 
 he himself escaped. 
 
 The most notable worthy of Colyton parish is Sir 
 Thomas Gates, born at Colyford ; who, with his neigh¬ 
 bour and friend Sir George Somers, a native of the little 
 Dorset port of Lyme, sailed for Virginia, with a fleet of 
 nine vessels, in 1609. The vessel in which were Gates 
 and Somers was separated from the rest of the fleet by a 
 storm, and driven on the ‘still vext Bermoothes.’ No 
 lives were lost, and the stout-hearted adventurers took 
 possession of the little archipelago for the King, under the 
 name of the Somers Islands. At length they built vessels 
 to transport themselves to Virginia ; and on their arrival 
 Gates took up his office as Governor, and held it until his 
 death in 1620. 
 
 Axmouth is only the shadow of its ancient self; but its 
 antiquity is well attested by the fact that, although some 
 distance from the sea, it bears this name instead of 
 Seaton, which is really at the river’s ‘ mouth.’ Another 
 reason, alike for its age and ancient importance, is that 
 it gave name to one of the original hundreds of the 
 county, and this the smallest, so that the population here 
 in the early days of Saxon rule must have been com¬ 
 paratively dense. Moreover, it was a member as Axan- 
 mufta of the Woodbury Guild. The hill above is crowned 
 with earthworks ; and traces have frequently been found 
 which prove Axmouth to have once been something more 
 even than the ‘ olde and bigge fischar toune ’ of Leland. 
 The church apart, it is a very unimportant place now. 
 
 Axmouth appears in ‘ Domesday ’ as part of the royal 
 demesne; but it passed to the Redverses, and was given 
 by Richard de Redvers to the Abbey of Monteburgh in 
 Normandy. Loders Priory, near Bridport, was a cell to 
 this abbey; and Axmouth eventually became an append¬ 
 age rather of Loders than of the mother house. When 
 
Axminster and the Axe. 
 
 7 l 
 
 Henry V. seized the possessions of the alien monasteries, 
 Loders was dissolved, and Axmouth given to the Abbey 
 of Sion. That in its turn suppressed, Axmouth became 
 part of the jointure of Queen Catharine Parr, and 
 Edward VI. gave it to Walter Erie. For some two 
 centuries it has been the property of the Hallets. Sted- 
 combe House, a seat of the Erles, was garrisoned by Sir 
 Walter for the Parliament, but taken and burned in March, 
 1644, by a party of Prince Maurice’s troops. The Erles 
 then resided at Bindon, now a farmhouse, but retaining 
 many traces of its ancient state, particularly its domestic 
 chapel. Sir Walter Erie had been imprisoned for refusing 
 to lend money to the King, and in revenge seized Lyme 
 for the Parliament in 1642. At Rousdon, which is a 
 member of the manor of Axmouth, Sir H. W. Peek has 
 erected the most magnificent modern mansion in Devon. 
 
 Probably no greater divergence of opinion concerning 
 any matter of Devonian topography has arisen than 
 touching the site of Moridunum, the lost Roman station 
 between Durnovaria and Isca Dunmoniorum. The early 
 writers generally, from Camden onwards, including 
 Stukeley, Musgrave, Gale, Hoare, and Borlase, place it 
 at Seaton, regarding sm and mor as equivalents. Horseley 
 locates it at Eggardun, eight miles from Dorchester ; 
 Baxter at Topsham, four miles from Exeter; Mr. J. 
 Davidson and Mr. P. O. Hutchinson at Hembury Fort; 
 Mr. J. B. Davidson at Honiton ; Mr. Heineken at Dump- 
 don. In truth, the whole district is singularly barren 
 of traces of Roman presence and intercourse, though 
 abounding in ‘ camps ’ and relics of ancient life. More¬ 
 over, while one interpretation of Moridunum is Mor- 
 y-dun, ‘ sea-town,’ another is Mawr-y-dun, the * great hill 
 fortress.’ Probably Hembury is the true site. There are 
 remains of a ‘ camp ’ at High Peak, Sidmouth, that meet 
 the requirements of the Itinerary as to distance. 
 
7 2 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 Whether Seaton be the lost Roman station or not, a 
 few years ago it was a mere village ; now it is a ‘ watering- 
 place.’ In time of yore, like other towns along this line 
 of coast, where the sea has made great inroads, it was a 
 port of some importance. But even when Leland wrote, 
 he had to say, ‘ Ther hath beene a very notable haven.’ 
 That the Romans did something more than visit the 
 neighbourhood, the foundations of a Roman villa, ex¬ 
 cavated at Hannaditches in 1859, amply testify. The 
 older antiquaries have much to say of the discovery of the 
 remains of vessels and of the original harbour-works; 
 but of late little has been found, though enough to show 
 that the Axe was navigable in the Middle Ages to a con¬ 
 siderable distance from the sea; and to justify the con¬ 
 clusion therefore that in Roman times the harbour, 
 whatever the precise situation of the town, was one of 
 very considerable importance. Probably this is as far 
 as we can now get. The first definite authority here 
 is * Domesday.’ Beer and Flveta, which included 
 Seaton, are set forth as belonging to the Priory of 
 Horton, in Dorsetshire, and as having an enumerated 
 population of fifty-five. The Earl of Moreton had 
 taken from Beer a ferling of land and four salt-works, 
 but at Flveta the Priory had twenty salt-works, and this 
 was Seaton proper. When under Henry I. (1122), 
 the possessions of Horton went to the Abbey of Sher¬ 
 borne, Beer and Seaton passed with them, and so 
 continued until the Dissolution. The growth of Seaton 
 as a port was fostered by its monastic lords; and in the 
 fourteenth century it had attained such importance that 
 it furnished two ships and twenty-five men as its con¬ 
 tingent to the Calais expedition. A century later new 
 harbour-works were needed, and we find Bishop Lacy 
 granting forty days’ indulgence to true penitents who 
 should contribute to the works ‘ in nova portu in litterore 
 mavis apud Seton.’ These works were the basis upon 
 
Axminster and the Axe. 
 
 73 
 
 which at various times efforts were made to restore to 
 Seaton something of its old mercantile importance. The 
 Erles of Bindon took the matter in hand, and the late 
 Mr. J. H. Hallet spent considerable sums. Nay, in the 
 early part of the present century a novel effort was made 
 by the farmers of the neighbourhood, who sent so many 
 men each, according to the sizes of their farms, to dig 
 out the ancient harbour, and actually made considerable 
 progress before their efforts were defeated by a flood. 
 
 At the Dissolution, Seaton, like Axmouth, became part 
 of the jointure of Queen Catharine Parr, the reversion 
 being granted by Plenry to John Frye of Yarty. He sold 
 it to the Willoughbys, and the heiress of Willoughby 
 brought it to the Trevelyans, its present lords. 
 
 The fishing village of Beer is about a mile from Seaton, 
 and the property of the Rolles. There is a local tradition 
 that it was resettled in the time of Elizabeth by the crew 
 of a wrecked Spanish vessel, who found the place almost 
 depopulated by the plague. Beer was the chief smug¬ 
 gling haunt of the East-Devon coast in the past century; 
 and here lived the prince of Western smugglers, ‘Jack 
 Rattenbury,’ the pluckiest and luckiest of them all, whose 
 memory has already passed into the heroic, not to say 
 the mythical stage. Beer is a seat of the Honiton lace 
 manufacture. In the Middle Ages the chalk hills behind 
 supplied the most famous local * freestone ’ of the county 
 —the ‘ Beer stone ’ used for much of the older work in 
 Exeter Cathedral, and in the churches of Eastern Devon, 
 and finding its way much farther afield. The original 
 quarries are subterranean workings of great extent. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 SIDMOUTH. 
 
 No town in Devonshire has yielded a more concise and 
 complete numismatological record than Sidmouth ; for it 
 dates back to the time of the Romans, and has repre¬ 
 sentatives of almost every reign since the Conquest, with 
 illustrations of foreign intercourse in the coins of French 
 and other nations. Probably other ancient seaports might 
 prove equally rich, but none have been worked so vigorously 
 by competent local antiquaries. The most interesting find 
 of Roman times is the fragment of a bronze centaur, sup¬ 
 posed to have adorned one of the standards. Sidmouth 
 in Roman days had an open harbour, but this has been 
 long destroyed by the recession of the red sandstone cliffs; 
 and the little river now percolates to the sea through the 
 pebbles of the beach—so that Sidmouth is now altogether 
 a misnomer. It is probable, however, that in addition to 
 the outer harbour the channel of the Sid itself formerly 
 afforded access to shipping. 
 
 The recorded history of Sidmouth begins with the pos¬ 
 session of the manor by Gytha, mother of Harold. It 
 was then an appendage to Otterton, and after the Conquest 
 was given to the Norman St. Michael’s Mount. The Prior 
 of Otterton acted as the deputy of the abbot of the 
 superior house. The Otterton cartulary is yet in existence, 
 and contains a list of the inhabitants of Sidmouth in 1260 
 
Sidmouth. 
 
 75 
 
 with the service of each. The whole sum raised for the 
 lord was about £18 a year, and Mr. P. O. Hutchinson has 
 calculated that the 160 tenants represent a population at 
 that date of some 600. Even then Sidmouth must have 
 been of some little importance, and it evidently retained 
 its harbour. The ‘ port ’ is mentioned in the early part of 
 the fourteenth century; and the bailiff of the ville of 
 Sidmouth, as a seaport town, sent a representative to a 
 shipping council of Edward III. 
 
 St. Michael’s Mount, as an alien house, lost the rich 
 manor of Sidmouth in 1414, and it was given to the 
 Convent of Sion. The year before the Dissolution it was 
 leased by Agnes Jordan, the last abbess, for ninety-nine 
 years, to Richard Gosnell. The manor, however, reverted 
 to the Crown, and was granted by Elizabeth to Sir William 
 Peryam. James sold it to Christopher Mainwaring, and 
 he disposed of the great tithes to Dorothy Wadham (who 
 gave them to Wadham College), and the manor to Sir 
 Edmund Prideaux of Netherton, in whose family it con¬ 
 tinued for nearly two centuries. 
 
 One of the proofs of the antiquity of Sidmouth is the 
 occurrence of remains of Norman work in the walls of 
 the church, rebuilt, with the exception of the tower, in 
 1859-60, and dating historically from the dedication in 
 1259. The west window of this church is a memorial 
 to the Duke of Kent, father of Queen Victoria, who died 
 at Sidmouth in 1820. The window is a very fine one by 
 Ward and Hughes, and was presented by her Majesty. 
 
 Sidmouth may now seem an unlikely place to have 
 attracted the attention of the Duke and Duchess of Kent 
 as a pleasant residence for themselves and their infant 
 daughter; but it had sprung into considerable notoriety 
 as a fashionable resort some twenty years before, and 
 retained its reputation as the Torquay of the period for a 
 score of years afterwards. George IV., when Prince of 
 Wales, lived here for a short time with Lord Gwyder; 
 
History of Devonshire. 
 
 76 
 
 and the fame of Sidmouth spread so far that in 1831 it 
 attracted for three months the Grand Duchess Helene of 
 Russia. These were the golden days of the little watering- 
 place, to which the old inhabitants still look fondly back, 
 although their town now enjoys all the advantages of 
 railway communication, and is keeping fairly abreast of 
 the times. 
 
 Concerning Otterton there is not much to say. The 
 Priory to which Otterton itself, Sidmouth, and other 
 manors in the neighbourhood belonged, as a cell of St. 
 Michael’s Mount in Normandy, was a small foundation 
 for four monks only. It is said to have originated with 
 King John, but it is quite as likely that he simply confirmed 
 an arrangement previously existing. Its connection with 
 the Mount lasted until the fall of the alien houses. The 
 remains of the Priory are very scanty—a few fragments of 
 crumbling wall adjoining the church, and the venerable 
 ‘ fayre house ’ built by Richard Duke, purchaser after the 
 Dissolution, and the ancestor of the Duke family, now 
 represented in name and blood by the Yonges of Puslinch, 
 near Plymouth, and the Coleridges of Ottery, the two 
 coheiresses of Duke marrying into the families of Yonge 
 and Taylor, and the heiress of Taylor marrying Coleridge. 
 
 Bicton is associated with a very peculiar tenure, and 
 with an amusing series of historical blunders. Soon 
 after the Conquest, Bicton manor was granted to one of 
 the Norman followers of William—a certain William the 
 Porter, whose duty it was to keep the door of the gaol, 
 and who held Bicton by this service. This tenure con¬ 
 tinued for some 700 years, down to the year 1787 ; and 
 the early owners of the manor-house at different periods 
 took the names Portitor, De Porta, De la Porte, and 
 Janitor. From the Janitors it came to the La Arbalisters, 
 the Sackvilles, and the Coplestones, and by sale to 
 Robert Denis, whose heiress Anne carried it to Sir 
 
Sidmouth. 
 
 77 
 
 Henry Rolle, of Stevenstone, from whom it descended to 
 the late Lord Rolle. It is now held by trustees during 
 Lady Rolle’s life for the Hon. Mark Rolle, brother of 
 Lord Clinton. It was under the present family that the 
 ancient tenure came to an end. It had lasted long 
 enough to float a marvellous series of traditions, over 
 which nearly every historical writer in the county has 
 tripped—based upon the idea that where the tenure was 
 there the gaol must have been also! Thus it is gravely 
 said that the county gaol was first at Harpford, and 
 then at Bicton, before it was removed to Exeter. West- 
 cote states that Henry I., who simply confirmed to John 
 Janitor the keeping of the gate of Exeter Castle and 
 gaol, moved the gaol to the city ; and the Lysonses aver 
 that it was moved from Bicton to Exeter for greater 
 security in 1518. Proof, however, is quite clear to the 
 contrary. Mr. P. O. Hutchinson discovered in the 
 ‘ Hundred Rolls ’ of Edward I. the statement that Bicton 
 was held in serjeantry by the service of keeping ‘Exeter 
 Gaoland another entry to the same purport in the 
 * Testa de Neville.’ 
 
 The village of Branscombe, with its partially Norman 
 church, claims a niche not merely in county but in 
 general history, from its personal connections. Soon 
 after the Conquest the property of a family named after 
 the place, it passed to the Wadhams, by whom it was 
 held for eight generations. Nicholas and Dorothy 
 Wadham, the last owners of that name, founding Wadham 
 College, appropriated thereto great portion of their wealth. 
 When Nicholas Wadham died, in 1609, he left his estate 
 to the families of Wyndham and Strangways. A monu¬ 
 ment in the church is appropriated to Dorothy Wadham. 
 The Wadhams lived in an old house still standing, called 
 Edge, or Egge. 
 
 Sidbury, like many other villages and hamlets of the 
 district, is a seat of the lace-manufacture. At Sand is 
 
78 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 the old Elizabethan mansion of the Huyshe family; and 
 in the church, originally Norman, but rebuilt, is an in¬ 
 scription recording the death of one Henry Parson, ‘ in 
 the second-first climacteric year of his age;’ and what 
 that might have been in Arabic figures, no one has been 
 able to decide. 
 
 A stone at the * Hunter’s Lodge,’ five miles from 
 Sidmouth on the Honiton road, is the subject of very 
 diverse traditions. According to one, it is the slaughter- 
 stone of a band of witches ; according to another, it 
 covers a heap of treasure. Like some other huge stones 
 in the neighbourhood, it is said to go down into the 
 valley to drink when it hears the clock strike midnight; 
 though a neighbour varies the performance by turning 
 round three times when twelve is heard. The latter 
 piece of folk-lore wit closely resembles the story told of 
 Roborough Rock, near Plymouth—a craggy mass which 
 from one point presents a singularly exact profile of 
 George III. This rock turns round whenever it hears 
 the cock crow; and, if report speaks true, the per¬ 
 formance has been eagerly watched for by credulous 
 rustics. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HONITON. 
 
 Unless we are to assume that in Honiton we have the 
 lost Moridunum, its history begins with ‘ Domesday,’ when 
 it was held by Drogo under the Earl of Moreton, who had 
 succeeded Elmer the Saxon. It was even then, however, 
 a place of no little importance, gelding for five hides, and 
 having land for eighteen ploughs, with a recorded popu¬ 
 lation of twenty-four villeins and ten serfs and bordars. 
 Moreover, it had a mill worth 6s. 6d., and two salt-workers, 
 rendering 5s. The manor, however, did not reach the 
 sea or a tidal estuary, for the salt-works were those 
 referred to as having been appropriated by the Earl of 
 Moreton at Beer, so that each ‘ salinarius ’ had charge of 
 two ‘ salinae.’ 
 
 In the reign of Henry I. we find Honiton in the Redvers 
 family, and in that line it continued mainly until it came 
 to the Courtenays. These held it until 1807, when the 
 third viscount sold it because—so current gossip averred 
 —his nephew had twice been defeated in contesting the 
 representation. From that time until the borough was 
 disfranchised it changed hands several times, its chief 
 value lying in the political influence conferred. 
 
 Although situated on the main road into the county 
 from the south-east, Honiton makes a poor figure in the 
 national history; and, save as a Parliamentary borough, 
 
8 o 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 its importance has always been very slight. It sent repre¬ 
 sentatives so far back as the thirteenth century ; but inter¬ 
 mitted for some hundreds of years, and did not resume 
 until 1640. For a long period it was very much of a 
 family borough. Members of the Yonge family sat almost 
 continuously from 1640 to 1796 ; and the Courtenays and 
 Dukes were frequent representatives. The most notable 
 member of modern days was the famous Lord Dundonald, 
 when Lord Cochrane. Contesting the borough in 1806, 
 and losing the election, he paid all who voted for him ten 
 guineas. Shortly afterwards there was another election, 
 and the result of this liberality was that he went in with 
 flying colours. Then he declined to pay any more, and 
 denounced the venality of his constituents. The borough 
 was finally disfranchised in 1868. It was only made a 
 municipality in 1846. 
 
 There is a curious nut for antiquaries to crack in the 
 seal of the Honiton Corporation. So far as the device 
 goes, it is a copy of one presented to the town by Sir W. 
 J. Pole in 1640; but what this original device meant no 
 two writers seem to agree. The engraver of the modern 
 seal interpreted it thus: A pregnant female figure to 
 knees—whether kneeling is not clear—before a demi-figure 
 erased, with long hair, but apparently a male. Above, a 
 huge hand, fingers as in benediction ; below, a spray of 
 honeysuckle in bloom. One of the old antiquaries calls 
 the demi-figure an idol, and the hand obstetric, and con¬ 
 nects the device with an old legend that barren women 
 in Honiton, in old time, were directed to pass a whole day 
 and night in prayer in St. Margaret’s Chapel, when they 
 would become pregnant by a vision. It has also been 
 thought to have some connection with the fanciful ety¬ 
 mology which interprets Honi as ‘ shame.’ 
 
 Honiton many years flourished exceedingly by the wool 
 trade ; and for some two or three centuries has been a seat 
 of the manufacture of the lace to which it has given name, 
 
Honiton. 
 
 81 
 
 though less Honiton lace is now made in Honiton itself 
 than in several of the other towns and villages in the 
 district. The art is said to have been originally intro¬ 
 duced by Flemish refugees, of whom many settled in the 
 neighbourhood, their descendants being yet traceable by 
 their names, though in many cases these are anglicised. 
 But the art may be of older date and have extended over 
 a much wider area, for it is to this manufacture that 
 Shakespeare alludes in ‘ Twelfth Night,’ in language as 
 apt now as if written but yesterday in East Devon itself: 
 
 ‘ The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, 
 
 And the free maids that weave their thread with bones, 
 
 Do use to chant it.’ 
 
 Like other East and North Devon towns, where thatch 
 has abounded, Honiton has had its fires; and in 1765, 115 
 houses and the Chapel of Allhallows were burnt. This 
 will account for the general absence of traces of antiquity. 
 There was an ancient chapel of Thomas a Becket. 
 
 The worthies of Honiton are few and far between. The 
 Pole family, now of Shute, appear to have sprung from 
 the little town ; but the most important individual notable 
 of old time is Thomas Marwood, physician to Queen 
 Elizabeth, who died—according to the epitaph on his 
 tomb in the old parish church — at the age of 105. 
 Honiton was also the birthplace of Ozias Humphry, R.A. 
 (1742-1810), an artist of great merit; and of William 
 Salter (1804-75), the painter of the ‘Waterloo Banquet.’ 
 One of his finest works, ‘ The Entombment of Christ,’ 
 was given by Salter to the church of his native town. 
 
 In the parish of Gittisham, but close to the Honiton 
 boundary, Johanna Southcott was born, about the year 
 1750. She was a woman of enthusiastic spirit, and, 
 though illiterate, of much natural ability. She founded a 
 sect which at one time had over 100,000 members, and 
 
 6 
 
82 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 which lingered on with a few earnest adherents—the men 
 distinguished, in shaving-days, by unfashionable beards— 
 until the last few years. Her special claim was to pro¬ 
 phetic power, and to being the woman of the Revelation ; 
 and in that capacity, deceived apparently by disease, she 
 in her old age avowed that she was about to become the 
 mother of Shiloh ; nor were the hopes of her followers 
 finally abandoned with her death in 1814. 
 
 An amusing legend attaches to a spot called ‘ Ring-in-the- 
 Mire,’ where the parishes of Honiton, Farway, Gittisham, 
 and Sidbury meet. Ring-in-the-Mire is a small swamp, 
 whence a stream issues ; and the story is that Isabella de 
 Fortibus, Countess of Devon, having been annoyed by 
 disputes between these parishes concerning their boun¬ 
 daries at this point, ordered a party from each to attend 
 her, rode to the place, took a ring from her finger, and 
 threw it into the marsh, declaring that where the ring fell 
 these parishes should meet, and that she would never 
 more be pestered by their disputes. The name is un¬ 
 doubtedly of great antiquity; but the tradition seems 
 made to order; and, in all probability, ‘ Ring-in-the-Mire’ 
 is a corruption of a far older and possibly Keltic name. 
 ‘ Mire ’ is suspiciously like inawr. 
 
 Netherton, in the parish of Farway, was given by 
 Walter de Clavill to the Monastery of Canonleigh, and 
 became the seat of the Prideaux family in the reign of 
 Queen Elizabeth, its first owner of that name being Sir 
 Edmund Prideaux. Between Buckerell and Broad Hem- 
 bury rises the high ground which is crowned by the fine 
 earthwork now known as Hembury Fort, with ‘its adjunct 
 or outwork, the long promontory occupied by Bushy Knap 
 and Buckerell Knap.’ Hembury is the finest ‘ camp ’ in 
 East Devon, and is the best claimant to be regarded as 
 Moridunum. Broad Hembury was parcel of the barony 
 of Torrington, and was given by William Lord Briwere 
 to Dunkeswell, the abbot of which, about 1290, obtained 
 
Honiton. 
 
 83 
 
 the grant of a weekly market. At Carswell was a small 
 Cluniac Priory or cell to Montacute. Toplady, author of 
 the ‘ Rock of Ages,’ was vicar here. 
 
 Mohuns Ottery, in Luppitt, was long the seat of the 
 famous baronial family of Carew, who claim the honour 
 of a traceable descent from Anglo-Saxon times. Several 
 members of this house acquired great renown in arms. 
 The Carews obtained Mohuns Ottery by the marriage 
 of Eleanor, elder co-heiress of Sir William Mohun, who 
 died in 1280, to John Baron Carew. Her son, another 
 John, who died in 1363, was one of the heroes of 
 Cressy, and held the distinguished post of Lord Deputy 
 of Ireland, losing his second son in the Irish wars. 
 Thomas Carew, grandson of the Lord Deputy, was like¬ 
 wise famed for his military prowess, and took part in the 
 victory of Agincourt, when he kept the passage of the 
 Somme. Several of the family came to untimely ends. 
 Sir Edmund Carew, who was knighted on Bosworth 
 Field, was killed in France in 1513; and three of his 
 grandsons fell in kindred ways. Sir John Carew, soldier 
 and sailor, was blown up in his vessel, the Mary Rose, 
 while engaging a French carrack. Philip Carew, Knight 
 of Malta, was slain by the Turks. Sir Peter Carew was 
 killed in Ireland. The last of the Carews of Mohuns 
 Ottery was Sir Peter, uncle of the last mentioned, and he 
 settled the manor on Thomas Southcott, who had married 
 his niece. Sir George Carew, Master of the Ordnance to 
 Elizabeth, created Earl of Totnes in 1626, was a younger 
 son of this house, now represented by the Carews of 
 Haccombe. 
 
 6—2 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OTTERY ST. MARY. 
 
 The earliest feature in the history of Ottery is ecclesias¬ 
 tical. Undistinguished then from other Otreis that took 
 name from the river along which they lay, it was granted 
 by the Confessor, in 1061, to the Abbey of St. Mary at 
 Rouen, and thus acquired an association which in later 
 times gave it the title of St. Mary Ottery, or Ottery St. 
 Mary. ‘ Domesday ’ records it the wealthiest manor in the 
 district. Taxed at 25 hides in the time of the Confessor, 
 there were 46 carucates in 1086. Moreover it had 17 serfs, 
 55 villeins, 24 bordars, and 5 swineherds, byway of popula¬ 
 tion. There were three mills, and a saltwork at Sid- 
 mouth, in the land of St. Michael; and the latter fact will 
 help to explain the association of saltworks with Honiton. 
 
 Bishop Grandisson, however, is the real founder of 
 Ottery, as we have it now. He seems to have had 
 differences with the monks of Rouen, finally settled by 
 his purchase of the manor from them in 1335. Two 
 years later he founded the College at Ottery, dedicated to 
 Our Lady and St. Edward the Confessor, of which the 
 noble church is now almost the only structural relic. This 
 College, which he endowed most liberally, consisted of 
 forty members with a warden, and one of its earliest 
 prebendaries was that Alexander Barclay to whom we owe 
 the English ‘ Ship of Foolis.’ 
 
Ottery St. Mary. 
 
 S5 
 
 Ottery has the finest parish church in Devon, remark¬ 
 able in its transeptal arrangements as being a reduced 
 copy of Exeter Cathedral. Local tradition will have 
 it that the cathedral is the copy, an assertion which 
 a glance at the two buildings is sufficient to controvert. 
 The church was originally built by Bishop Bronescombe, 
 possibly on the site of an older edifice of which no 
 traces remain, but was largely added to and in part 
 rebuilt by Grandisson, who erected therein some family 
 monuments. To the Early English work of Bronescombe, 
 and the Decorated of Grandisson, the Perpendicular 
 Dorset aisle was added by Cicely, daughter and heiress 
 of Lord Bonvile (lord of the manor of Knighteston in 
 Ottery parish), who married, first, the Marquis of Dorset, 
 and, secondly, the Earl of Stafford. The farmhouse of 
 Bishops Court takes its name as being reputedly a 
 residence of Bishop Grandisson. 
 
 When the College was dissolved a corporation was 
 created, to whom Henry VIII. granted the church and its 
 appurtenances, with the collegiate buildings, tithes, and 
 other properties (saving the tithe of corn), the duty of 
 the corporation being to pay certain annuities to the 
 vicar and schoolmaster, and to maintain the church and 
 school; the latter apparently a free grammar school, 
 which took the place of the ancient school of the College. 
 
 It is to this fact that Ottery owes its most famous 
 personal associations, for it was while his father, the Rev. 
 John Coleridge, was both vicar of Ottery and master of 
 the school that Devon’s foremost poet, Samuel Taylor 
 Coleridge, was born here in 1772 (d. 1834). Since then 
 the names of Coleridge and of Ottery have been inseparably 
 associated ; and the fame won by the author of ‘ Chris- 
 tabel ’ and the ‘ Rime of the Ancient Mariner ’ has been 
 continued in succeeding generations of his family. 
 Among the Coleridge memorials in Ottery churchyard is 
 a magnificent granite cross of Irish character, erected in 
 
86 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 1877, to commemorate the late Sir John Taylor Coleridge 
 (b. Tiverton, 1790), Judge of the Queen’s Bench, and 
 editor of the Quarterly Review between the death of Gifford 
 and the appointment of Lockhart in 1826. Sir John’s 
 son, the present Lord Coleridge, Lord Chief Justice of 
 England, now resides at the family seat of Heath’s 
 Court. 
 
 Several notable Devonians were educated at Ottery 
 grammar school. Two of the most distinguished, beyond 
 the various members of the Coleridge family, were the 
 martyred Bishop Pattison—whose life and labours are 
 commemorated by the nave pulpit in Exeter Cathedral— 
 and Richard Hurrell Froude. Henry VIII. appears to 
 have contemplated that it should become a chief educa¬ 
 tional centre for the county ; but that expectation has 
 never been approached; and, until revived by a new 
 scheme in 1883, it had dwindled into utter decay. 
 
 Ottery St. Mary has a very unimportant place in general 
 history, though from its position on the main road into 
 the county it was frequently visited by distinguished folk. 
 The Parliamentary troops were quartered in the church 
 for five weeks in 1645, when the pestilence began to rage, 
 and they moved. 
 
 Thatch has caused Ottery several visitations of fire. 
 The last was in 1866, when in houses were burned, and 
 500 persons rendered homeless. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CULLOMPTON AND BRADNINCH. 
 
 The valley of the Culme contains some of the earliest 
 settlements of the Saxons in Devon; and seems to have 
 formed the chief road by which the encroaching Wessex 
 immigrants pressed on from Somerset after Devon had 
 been reduced to Saxon sway. Even yet it retains a few 
 distinctive characteristics. 
 
 Cullompton is the chief town in the valley. As a part 
 of the royal demesne, the manor was bequeathed by 
 AElfred to his son TEfielweard ; and in Saxon times there 
 was founded here a collegiate church with five prebends, 
 which the Conqueror gave to the Abbey of Battle; but 
 which afterwards passed to the Priory of St. Nicholas in 
 Exeter, and so continued until the Dissolution. The 
 manor, granted by Richard I. to Richard de Clifford, 
 afterwards came to the Redvers Earls of Devon, and the 
 first grant of a market was made in 1278 to Earl Baldwin. 
 Being one of the manors given by Isabella de Fortibus to 
 the Abbey of Buckland, a further grant of market and 
 fair was made to that fraternity in 1317. After the Disso¬ 
 lution, the manor was for some time in the St. Legers 
 and Hillersdens, whose ancient seat of Hillersdon is in 
 the parish. 
 
 Cullompton was one of the homes of the woollen trade, 
 and to this fact the church owes its most notable feature. 
 
88 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 The Lane Chapel, erected by John Lane in the early part 
 of the sixteenth century, is one of the best Devonshire 
 examples of florid Perpendicular. An inscription runs 
 round the exterior of the aisle, which used mightily to 
 puzzle the learned, seeing that it was supposed to confer 
 on Lane the novel dignity of ‘ wapentaki custos lanuarius,’ 
 when all the while he only asked to be remembered ‘ with 
 a paternoster and an ave.’ 
 
 Uffculme, adjoining Cullompton on the north-east, 
 appears to have had a more considerable trade in serges 
 than either of the smaller towns in the vicinity; and had 
 the grant of a market so far back as 1266. Advantage 
 was taken of the river to erect machinery, driven by 
 water-power; and the result was that about the middle 
 of the last century the place flourished mightily. But 
 decay followed close upon. The manor was part of the 
 barony of Bampton. Bradfield House in this parish, 
 though the manor chiefly lies in Cullompton, has been 
 the seat of the Walronds since the reign of Henry III., 
 when they succeeded a family of the Bradfield name. 
 The house is one of the most interesting sixteenth-century 
 mansions in the county, and the hall still retains its 
 original roof and characteristics. 
 
 If the defensible element in the name have any special 
 meaning, Culmstock, another ancient market-town and 
 seat of the woollen manufacture, may be the oldest of 
 the Saxon settlements on the Culm; but, beyond the 
 statement that it was given by yESelstan to his minster 
 in Exeter in 938, it calls for no further remark. 
 
 The last of the Culme Valley villages in this direction is 
 Hemyock, concerning which there must be much more 
 to be known than has been learnt. The Hidons built a 
 castle here, of which there are yet important remains, 
 including the main gateway and its towers, and part of 
 the general cincture. It is an edifice of great strength, 
 and of some peculiar characteristics—Early Edwardian in 
 
Cullompton and Bradninch. 
 
 89 
 
 general character; but of its history absolutely nothing 
 seems to be known, save that it was garrisoned by the 
 Roundheads, and used by them as a prison. The manor 
 was long in the Dinhams. 
 
 The Abbey of Dunkeswell, sheltered among the neigh¬ 
 bouring hills, was founded in 1201 by William Lord 
 Briwere. Two years previously, he had acquired the 
 manor of Dunkeswell, and this formed part of the 
 endowment of the Abbey, with Briwere’s lands in 
 Wolford and at Uffculme. Dunkeswell was colonized by 
 monks from Ford, and the convent of that place was 
 liberal of its gifts to the daughter house. There were 
 also other donors, so that the Abbey had a very fair 
 start in life. Dunkeswell was chosen by the founder as 
 his burial-place in 1227, and it is presumed that his wife 
 was also buried there. Not long since, two stone coffins 
 were found within the ruins of the Abbey Church, one 
 containing the bones of a man, and the other those of a 
 woman ; and these are believed to have been the remains 
 of Lord and Lady Briwere. All the bones were placed 
 in one of the coffins, and reinterred. The annual value 
 of the Abbey lands at the surrender was just £300. The 
 history of this house was uneventful, and only a few 
 fragments of the building remain. 
 
 Bradninch, south of Cullompton, is one of the oldest 
 towns in Devon, so far as record goes; and in the later 
 Saxon days must have been the most important centre 
 from the source of the Culme to its junction with the Exe. 
 Held by Brichtwold under the Confessor, and part of the 
 demesne of William Chievre under the Conqueror, 
 ‘ Domesday ’ enumerates thereon no less than 7 serfs, 42 
 villeins, and 16 bordars. Moreover, it had a mill, and its 
 annual value was £14. Perhaps this importance was the 
 reason which led to its being attached as an honour or 
 barony to the earldom of Cornwall, in favour of his 
 
90 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 natural son Reginald, by Henry I. Appendant to the 
 earldom when that merged into the dukedom, since then 
 it has formed part of the duchy estates. The seal of the 
 town bears the date 1136, which may be intended to 
 indicate the year when it came into possession of Earl 
 Reginald. It does not seem to have been chartered until 
 1208, when King John granted the burgesses all the 
 liberties and free customs which the city of Exeter 
 enjoyed. Under Edward II. members were returned to 
 one Parliament. The town was first incorporated as a 
 municipality by James I. in 1604; and the Mayor of 
 Exeter, according to ‘ Bradneys lore,’ has to hold the 
 stirrup of the Mayor of Bradninch whenever the two 
 dignitaries meet. Beyond being the headquarters of 
 Charles in 1644, and of Fairfax in 1645, and being almost 
 consumed by fire in 1665, there are no points in the long 
 history of Bradninch worthy of special record. 
 
 Hele, now chiefly known for its paper-mills, was the 
 original seat of the elder branch of the ancient Devon¬ 
 shire family of that name. 
 
 The church of the adjoining parish of Plymtree 
 contains a screen, which has been described in a valuable 
 volume by the late rector, the Rev. T. Mozley. The 
 chief feature is a fine array of painted panels. One of 
 the groups figured represents the Adoration of the Three 
 Kings, and in this Mr. Mozley identifies the portraits of 
 Henry VII., Prince Arthur, and Cardinal Morton, ‘the 
 most remarkable Englishman of his period,’ of whom 
 there is no likeness extant if this be not one. 
 
 Silverton Park, in the parish of Silverton (which once 
 boasted a weekly market), is one of the seats of the 
 family of Egremont. Among the portraits here is that 
 which Reynolds painted of himself for the Corporation 
 of Plympton, and which they sold for £150 when that 
 borough was disfranchised. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 TIVERTON. 
 
 Tiverton is a very old town, taking name from its 
 position at the junction of the rivers Exe and Loman, 
 formerly the Suning. Tradition avers that in the reign 
 of King HLlfred it was a village on a little hill, the capital 
 of its hundred, and having twelve tithings, and governed 
 by a portreeve. Legend also claims it as one of the 
 places in which the Danes were massacred by order of 
 yESelred. Be all this as it may (or may not), it is pretty 
 clear that a church was erected on the site of the present 
 St. Peter soon after the Norman Conquest, and this is said 
 to have been consecrated by Leofric in 1073. But this 
 would not be the first place of worship Tiverton could 
 boast, and possibly we have here a British ecclesiastical 
 foundation—as certainly a Saxon. Before the Conquest 
 Tiverton formed part of the royal demesne, with the 
 hundred of which it was the head, Gytha holding it in 
 the reign of Harold ; and it was a place of such im¬ 
 portance at the compilation of ‘ Domesday,’ that it had 
 an enumerated population of 68, while several of the 
 adjacent manors seem to have been populous like¬ 
 wise. 
 
 In the reign of Henry I. the manor passed to the family 
 of Redvers, and Richard de Redvers, about the year 1106, 
 built the castle, which continued one of the principal seats 
 
92 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 of that powerful family for several generations. At the 
 death of Baldwin de Redvers in 1245, his widow, Amicia, 
 claimed the manor and lordship of Tiverton as part of 
 her dower. It had then a weekly market and three fairs 
 annually. Her daughter, Isabella de Fortibus, was a 
 great benefactor to the town, giving an estate called 
 Elmore for the pasturage of the cattle of the poor in¬ 
 habitants; and being, it is said, the donor of the Town 
 Leat, a stream of water conducted some five miles for the 
 use of the townsfolk. The last of the family of Redvers 
 that held the manor was Isabella’s daughter Avelina, 
 who married Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, second son of 
 Henry III.; and Tiverton then passed to Hugh Courtenay, 
 the first Earl of Devon of the Courtenay line. By the 
 Courtenays Tiverton was held, with an interval under the 
 Yorkist rule, when the Duke of Clarence was one of the 
 lords and Sir Richard Ratcliffe another, until the attainder 
 of the Marquis of Exeter. 
 
 Mary restored it to Edward Courtenay; but on his 
 death it passed, with other estates of the house, into other 
 families by the marriages of his coheiresses; and the 
 Carews of Haccombe have been the dominant owners, in 
 succession to the family of West, since 1759. The manor 
 at one time was subdivided into forty parts, but nearly all 
 became concentrated in the Carews. 
 
 The Courtenays were good lords to the town. The 
 first earl, Hugh, divided the rectory into four portions. 
 Westcote amusingly says that this arose from the greed 
 of a chaplain who was not satisfied with the living as it 
 stood, and complained to his patron. The earl told him 
 that he would give him a living more proportionate to 
 his deserts, if he would resign this. The chaplain re¬ 
 signing accordingly, the living was divided, and the fourth 
 only offered to the late incumbent—‘ thereby fayrely taught 
 to lyve by a crown that would not lyve by a pound.’ Earl 
 Hugh the first also gave the tolls of Tiverton market to 
 
Tiverton. 
 
 93 
 
 the poor. His son obtained the name of ‘ the good earl,’ 
 and the inscription on his stately tomb in Tiverton church 
 ran: 
 
 ‘ Hoe hoe, who lyes here? 
 
 ’Tis I, the goode Erie of Devonshere, 
 
 With Kate my wyfe, to mee full dere; 
 
 That wee spent wee hadde, 
 
 That wee gave wee have, 
 
 That wee lefte wee loste.’ 
 
 Tiverton Castle has borne its share in the history of 
 Devon, though not so prominently as its importance would 
 suggest. It had part in the wars of Stephen, and was of 
 some little note in those of the Roses, as a Lancastrian, 
 and afterwards as a Yorkist stronghold. In after years it 
 was the place where the Courtenays lived in their greatest 
 splendour. It stood a siege, moreover, in the wars of the 
 Commonwealth. Tiverton town leant strongly to the 
 Parliament; but the castle was garrisoned for the King, 
 the church being also occupied as an important outpost. 
 In October, 1645, General Massey was detached by Fairfax 
 to besiege the works, which were then under the command 
 of Sir Gilbert Talbot. After battering awhile, the castle 
 and church were taken by storm on Sunday the 19th, 
 with much slaughter. The castle is now one of the 
 residences of the Carews, and portions of Edwardian 
 date still stand. 
 
 No town in Devon was at one time more actively 
 engaged in the woollen manufacture than Tiverton, the 
 city of Exeter hardly excepted. The trade seems to 
 have begun so far back as the fourteenth century; and in 
 the sixteenth it brought great wealth to those engaged in it. 
 This prosperity continued with fluctuations until the latter 
 half of the last century. Then decay set in, helped by 
 quarrels between the employers and the workmen, which 
 developed at times into serious riots. Tiverton is a 
 manufacturing town of importance still, in consequence 
 
94 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 of the establishment of a flourishing lace factory there by 
 Mr. Heathcoat just sixty years ago. He introduced the 
 manufacture of lace net by machinery, and thus completely 
 revolutionized this branch of trade. His patent was taken 
 out in 1810, but the factory at Tiverton was not founded 
 until 1816, when difficulties with his workpeople induced 
 him to leave his former residence and settle in Devon. 
 
 Several of the old clothiers of Tiverton made good 
 use of their wealth, notably Peter Blundell, by whose 
 munificence Blundell’s school, the chief of the public 
 schools of Devon, was founded in 1604. Blundell was 
 born in 1523, of parents who were so poor that he had to 
 run errands and otherwise wait upon the carriers for his 
 support. Saving a little money, he commenced business 
 by sending a piece of cloth to London on sale by one of 
 his friends and employers. Gradually he accumulated 
 enough to go to London on his own account, and finally 
 he began the manufacture of kerseys. Dying unmarried, 
 he left the whole of a large fortune for the promotion of 
 learning and various charitable purposes. His school was 
 well endowed, and has acquired and maintains a very 
 high reputation : and the old buildings have not long been 
 abandoned for new and more commodious premises in a 
 better situation. Among earlier benefactors to the town, 
 connected with the same industry, was John Greenwaye, 
 who erected the Greenwaye chapel and a set of almshouses, 
 about the year 1517, the chapel being the most elaborate 
 and notable portion of the Church of St. Peter. With 
 John Greenwaye was associated his wife Joan. And so 
 another set of almshouses were built by ‘John Waldron 
 and Richoard his wyfe,’ in 1579. No town in Devon, 
 and certainly very few in the kingdom in proportion to 
 their size, had so many charitable bequests and gifts, and 
 of such value, as Tiverton ; but they had sadly depreciated 
 when a century since worthy Martin Dunsford compiled 
 the first account of them, and dedicated his ' Memoirs ’ 
 
Tiverton. 
 
 95 
 
 of the town * to all the virtuous and industrious poor of 
 Tiverton.’ 
 
 Tiverton has been noted, too, for the number and 
 ravages of its fires. The first recorded was in April, 1598, 
 when, in the course of an hour and a half, 400 houses and 
 several public buildings were burnt, and £150,000 worth 
 of property destroyed, while 33 persons lost their lives. 
 This was a severe blow to the town, which only eight 
 years previously had lost one in every nine of its popu¬ 
 lation by the plague. But still worse was in store, for 
 in August, 1612, the whole of the town was burnt, with 
 the exception of the castle, church, school, and almshouses, 
 and about thirty poor dwellings. Six hundred houses 
 were then destroyed, and the total loss was estimated at 
 £200,000. 
 
 It is stated to have been partially the result of this that 
 a charter of incorporation was granted by James I. in 
 1615. From that date to 1885 Tiverton was a Parlia¬ 
 mentary constituency; but there is a statement that a 
 couple of burgesses had been previously returned to the 
 first Parliament of James I. by the * potwallopers.’ 
 
 The next big fire was in November, 1661, when 45 
 houses were burnt; another in 1730 destroyed 15 dwellings, 
 with loss of life ; and in June, 1731, there was one of the 
 older type—298 dwellings being consumed, and 2,000 
 persons rendered homeless. Towards the loss of £60,000 
 there were £11,000 contributed, the King giving £1,000. 
 Twenty houses were burnt in 1762, 25 in 1773, 47 in 1785, 
 20 in 1788. 
 
 Blundell is the most notable of the worthies of 
 Tiverton; but there is an old proverb which may refer 
 to a real personage of even greater importance in his 
 own day : * Go to Tiverton and ask Mr. Able.’ Hannah 
 Cowley, the dramatist, born Parkhouse (1742-1809), was a 
 native of Tiverton ; and the town has produced several 
 artists of high repute. Richard Cosway, R.A., a miniature 
 
96 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 painter of the greatest merit, who died in 1821, was the 
 son of a master of Blundell’s school; John Cross, his¬ 
 torical painter (1819-1861), was son of the superintendent 
 of the lace factory; Richard Crosse, though born at 
 Knowle, near Cullompton, painter in enamel to George 
 III. (1745-1810), a deaf mute, may also be named here. 
 And Tiverton may finally claim, as a worthy by adoption, 
 the late Lord Palmerston, seeing that he sat for this quiet 
 little borough from 1835 until his death, the pride of both 
 political parties. 
 
 A battle was fought at Cranmore Castle, near Colli- 
 priest, adjoining Tiverton, in 1549, in which a party of the 
 insurgents who rose for the restoration of Roman 
 Catholicism were defeated, and several hung and quar¬ 
 tered. 
 
 There are several places of historical interest in the 
 vicinity of Tiverton. Worth, in Washfield, is one of the 
 three places in Devon which still remain the possession 
 and residence of families of the same name, the Worths 
 having been seated there since the thirteenth century. 
 The other examples are Fulford of Fulford and Kelly of 
 Kelly, of which more anon. The Exe Bickleigh was the 
 birthplace of the notorious Bampfylde Moore Carew 
 (1690-1758), ‘ the king of the beggars,’ whose father, 
 Theodore Carew, was sometime rector. Not far distant, 
 on opposite sides of the Exe Valley, rise the rival heights 
 of Cadbury and Dolbury, crowned by ancient earthworks, 
 of which the rhyme runs, evidently archaic : 
 
 1 If Cadbury Castle and Dolbury Hill dolven were 
 Then Devon might plough with a golden coulter 
 And eare with a gilded shere’— 
 
 so vast is the treasure that lies therein hidden under 
 charge of a fiery dragon! Fairfax made Cadbury his 
 rendezvous, December 26th, 1645. 
 
Tiverton. 
 
 97 
 
 Halberton church was given by William Earl of 
 Gloucester to the Abbey of St. Augustine ; and, with the 
 manor of Halberton Abbot, or Halberton Dean, passed 
 to the Dean and Chapter of Bristol. The adjacent 
 village of Sampford Peverell, described in old records as 
 a borough, had a somewhat considerable woollen manu¬ 
 facture. Named from its ancient lords, the Peverells, it 
 was some time in the Dinhams and the Paulets. One 
 of its owners was Margaret, Countess of Richmond, 
 mother of Henry VII., who is said to have lived here, 
 and built the south aisle of the church, which contains 
 the defaced effigy of a crusader, supposed to be Sir Hugh 
 Peverell, 1259. 
 
 7 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 BAMPTON. 
 
 Bampton affords a notable instance of decadence. A 
 very poor little market-town now, it was once the head of 
 an honour held of the Conqueror by Walter de Douay. 
 Previously it had formed part of the royal demesne. 
 * Domesday ’ records a population of 68, including 15 
 swineherds, rendering io6i pigs, whose presence indi¬ 
 cates the existence of extensive woods, set down as 320 
 acres. A hide adjacent to the manor had been held by 
 five thanes, and here Walter had three tenants, with 
 eight serfs, bordars, and villeins; while half a furlong was 
 held by William de Moion, unjustly to the said Walter. 
 There was also a mill; and the value of all Bampton was 
 £18, but had been £21. 
 
 A chalybeate spring here led Polwhele to call Bampton 
 a Roman station : his etymology for the river Batham, 
 on which it stands, being Bath-thernm —hot baths ! But 
 the Batham was originally no doubt the Baeth, and the 
 town Baeth-ham-tun, unless the ham be, as Dr. Pring has 
 suggested in ‘ hampton ’ suffixes, a corruption of the Keltic 
 avon, through aw or aim. It has been claimed as the 
 Beamdune where Kynegils defeated the Britons in 614; 
 but that was Bampton in Oxfordshire. 
 
 Walter de Douay’s son, Robert de Bampton, had an 
 only daughter, who brought the manor to the Paganells ; 
 
Bamplon. 
 
 99 
 
 and thence again it passed to the Cogans by the marriage 
 of the Paganell heiress to Sir Milo Cogan, ‘ the great 
 soldier and undertaker of the Irish Conquest.’ Her 
 descendant, Richard Cogan, had licence in 1336 to 
 castellate his mansion house at Bampton, and to empark 
 his wood and other lands at Uffculme. Every vestige of 
 the castle has long disappeared. The Fitzwarrens, 
 Hankfords, and Bourchiers were successively lords of the 
 manor, and it was afterwards purchased by the ancestor 
 of the present Earl of Portsmouth. 
 
 John de Bampton, the Aristotelian Carmelite (d. 1391) 
 was born at Bampton. In the following century the 
 church was made the subject of a singular exchange. It 
 had belonged to the Prior of Bath ; but was given, under 
 an Act of Parliament in 1439, to the Abbot of Buckland, 
 in compensation for surrendering his jurisdiction in 
 Plymouth, as lord of the hundred of Roborough, the 
 burgesses paying the Prior of Bath in his turn 10 marks 
 annually. 
 
 The adjacent parish of Morebath (and the name affords 
 additional evidence of the original name of the river) was 
 once the property of the Abbey of Barlynch, of which a 
 few traces yet remain within a short distance of 
 Dulverton, in Somerset. Clayhanger claims notice as 
 having been the property of the Knights Templars, who, 
 according to Tanner, had a hospital there. The Knights 
 Hospitallers are subsequently said to have held the 
 church. 
 
 Wadham in Ivnowstone parish, the original residence 
 of the Wadhams, is one of the few Devon manors noticed 
 in ‘ Domesday,’ as continuing in the same Saxon hands 
 from the reign of the Confessor, and the Lysonses suggest 
 it as not improbable that the holder, Ulf, may have been 
 the ancestor of the Wadham family. There is at any rate 
 nothing to militate against this hypothesis. Knowstone 
 gave Devon a worthy in Sir John Berry, an eminent 
 
 7—2 
 
IOO 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 naval officer, and sometime Governor of Deal (1635-1691), 
 born here while his father was vicar. He was of a 
 younger branch of the Berrys of Berry Narber. His 
 father, through adherence to Charles I., died in great 
 poverty, and the son was at first apprenticed to a trades¬ 
 man at Plymouth. His master failing, he walked to 
 London, and obtained employment in a small vessel. By 
 dint of ability and pluck, he speedily rose to the rank of 
 captain in the navy. He served with the greatest dis¬ 
 tinction and success against both French and Dutch, and 
 at length reached the highest honours of his profession, 
 valued alike by the second Charles and Tames, and by 
 William. 
 
 At Canonleigh, in Burlescombe, not far from the 
 Somersetshire border, are the remains of a monastery, 
 originally founded by Walter Claville, temp. Henry II., 
 for a prior and Austin canons. Maud de Clare, Countess 
 of Gloucester, converted it, however, in the reign of 
 Edward I. into a nunnery for an abbess and canonesses 
 of the same order. At the Dissolution, the house had a 
 clear yearly rental of £197 3s. id. A market had been 
 granted to it in 1286. The lands by exchange became 
 the property of Sir George St. Leger. In Burlescombe 
 parish is Ayshford, the seat of one of the oldest families 
 of this part of Devon, now represented on the female 
 side by the Ayshford Sandfords, of Nynehead. 
 
 Holcombe Rogus takes name from Rogo, its tenant 
 under Baldwin the Sheriff, from whom it descended, 
 through Chiseldon (Richard Chiseldon obtained a market 
 in 1343), to the Bluetts. Colonel Francis Bluett, an 
 active Cavalier, was killed at the siege of Lyme in 1644. 
 Spurway, in Okeford, was the original seat of the family 
 of that name. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 SOUTH MOLTON. 
 
 South Molton is the principal centre in a district 
 skirting the southern flank of Exmoor, which is singularly 
 barren in features of historical interest. Probably the 
 Melarnoni of the Ravennat; an ancient market-town of 
 considerable importance ; largely engaged in the serge 
 and shalloon* manufacture; represented in Parliament 
 in the reign of Edward I. ; incorporated by Elizabeth 
 in 1640—never but once did it forsake the even tenor 
 of its business way. And then it was rather by acci¬ 
 dent than design that John Penruddock and Hugh Grove 
 here proclaimed Charles II. in 1655, and formally com¬ 
 menced a rising which, so far as they were concerned, 
 never got further than words, but led to their execution 
 at Exeter on the 16th of May following. Penruddock 
 and Grove were Wiltshire Royalists, and with their 
 followers were taken prisoners by a party of soldiers 
 under Captain Crook. 
 
 The most interesting facts about South Molton are 
 connected with the families of whose estates it formed 
 part. Originally ancient demesne of the Crown (one 
 virgatewas held of the King by four priests in alms at the 
 compilation of ‘ Domesday ’), in the reign of Edward I. 
 it was held by Lord Martin, under the Earl of Gloucester, 
 by the service of finding a bow with three arrows to 
 
102 
 
 History of Devonshire . 
 
 attend the Earl when he should hunt in Gower. It was 
 afterwards held by the Audleys, by the Hollands, and 
 was granted for life to Margaret, Duchess of Richmond, 
 in 1487. Other manors in the parish now belong to Earl 
 Fortescue and Sir T. D. Acland. 
 
 The adjoining parish of North Molt on is a mineral 
 district, and has yielded small quantities of gold. The 
 manor was part of the portion of Eadgytha, wife of the 
 Confessor, and was given by John to Roger le Zouch. 
 From the Zouches it passed to the St. Maurs, then to 
 the Bampfyldes, and is now the property of Lord 
 Poltimore. The church was given by Alan le Zouch, 
 circa 1313, to the monastery of Lilleshull, in Shropshire. 
 North Molton is also the ancient dwelling of the Parkers, 
 now Earls of Morley; and the Lysonses suggest that 
 before the Reformation they were tenants of this house. 
 A holy well here still retains some reputation, Holy 
 Thursday being the special day of visitation; and at 
 Flitton is one of the most famous oaks in Devon, 33 feet 
 in circumference close to the ground. Here, too, is the 
 chief home of the leading strain of the famous native 
 Devon cattle; while the rugged expanse of Exmoor ad¬ 
 joining is still tenanted by herds of the wild red-deer. 
 
 Molland, or Molland Bottreaux, had a dominant 
 position in the hundreds of North Molton, Braunton, 
 and Bampton, taking their third penny, and having the 
 right to a third of the pasture of animals on the adjacent 
 moors. Before the Conquest it belonged to Harold, and 
 it passed to William. Shortly after the Conquest it 
 came to the Bottreauxs, whence its second name, and 
 continued in that ancient house until the reign of 
 Henry VI. The church was given by William de 
 Bottreaux to Hartland Abbey. The Bishop of Cloyne 
 regarded Molland as a British town, and it certainly does 
 lie upon an ancient trackway; but that it was the Roman 
 station Termolus of Richard of Cirencester, which the 
 
South Molt on. 
 
 io 
 
 Bishop had ‘ no hesitation ’ in fixing, is an assertion 
 that in the present day hardly needs to be controverted. 
 Even if the authority were accepted, there is no trace 
 whatever of the Roman in the neighbourhood. 
 
 Romansleigh, indeed, lying some miles to the south¬ 
 west, has, on the strength of its name, been held to 
 support the hypothesis of Roman occupation. It is 
 really, however, Rumonsleigh, from St. Rumon, the 
 patron saint of Tavistock Abbey, which had an estate 
 here. 
 
 In Filleigh is Castle Hill, the seat of Earl Fortescue, 
 the representative of this most ancient and distinguished 
 family, whose surname, as in their motto, Forte scutum, 
 salus ducum, is said to signify a ‘strong shield.’ The 
 common ancestor was settled at Wimpston or Wymon- 
 deston in Modbury, which, according to the family tradi¬ 
 tion, was given to Richard le Forte, shield-bearer to the 
 Conqueror, for his good services at Hastings. ‘ Domesday ’ 
 disposes of this by showing that Wimpston (Winestane) 
 was held by Reginald de Valletort under the Earl of 
 Moreton. John Fortescue was, however, settled at 
 Wimpston in 1209; and the elder branch continued to 
 live there until early in the seventeenth century. The 
 family branched out from Wimpston to Preston, Sprid- 
 dleston, Shipham, Wood, Fallapit, Wear Giffard, 
 Filleigh, and Buckland Filleigh in Devon, and settled 
 also in Cornwall, Hertford, Essex, Buckingham, and 
 Ireland. 
 
 Of its many distinguished members the most celebrated 
 is Sir John Fortescue, Lord Chief Justice (1442) and 
 Chancellor to Henry VI., who was born at Noreis in 
 North Huish, and was author of the great work on 
 jurisprudence—‘ De Laudibus Legum Anglise.’ From him 
 descends the present Earl Fortescue. Other notable 
 Fortescues are Sir John, Captain of Meux in France, 
 temp. Henry V.; Sir Henry, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland; 
 
io4 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 Sir Adrian, who did service at Calais for Henry VII.; Sir 
 Edmund, of Fallapit, High Sheriff for Charles I. and 
 Governor of the Castle of Salcombe; Sir Faithful, who 
 also rendered good service to Charles, whom he joined at 
 Edgehill. The public services of the late Earl Fortescue 
 are commemorated by a statue in the Castle Yard, Exeter. 
 
 The Fortescues obtained the manors both of Filleigh 
 and of Wear Giffard by the marriage of Martin Fortescue, 
 son of the Chief Justice, with the heiress of Densell, who 
 represented the Giffards in the female line. Wear then 
 became the chief seat of this branch of the Fortescues, 
 and so continued for a considerable time. Castle Hill 
 has, however, long been their residence, and in the early 
 part of the last century was greatly improved and 
 enlarged. 
 
 In the adjacent parish of West Buckland is the Devon 
 County School, one of the earliest, if not the earliest, effort 
 to provide good middle-class education upon modern lines 
 for rural districts. 
 
 Swymbridge, according to Risdon, is the birthplace of 
 St. Hieritha, a contemporary of Thomas a Becket. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 CREDITON. 
 
 It is in the year gog, and at Crediton, that the ecclesiastical 
 history of Devon on the present order begins. Seven 
 centuries before that date Christianity had reached these 
 shores; and the existence of an organized Church among 
 the Kelts can be traced very nearly thus far back. The 
 British Church held its own in Devon down to the Saxon 
 settlement of the county under Ecgberht; and retained 
 the chief power in the further West, although in later 
 years pressed hard by the Roman invaders, as the 
 adherents of the elder system deemed them, until the 
 approach of the tenth century. But its influence gradually 
 waned, and in gog the ecclesiastical order of Wessex was 
 made complete by the consecration in one day of seven 
 bishops. Of these Eadulph was one; and he became 
 the first Saxon Bishop of Devon, with a partial rule in 
 Cornwall, having assigned to him the manors of Pawton, 
 Callington, and Lawhitton, that he might thrice yearly 
 visit ‘ the Cornish race to extirpate their errors.’ The 
 fact that these three places are all in the east and north 
 of Cornwall probably indicates a greater Saxon influence 
 in that district of the county. 
 
 It has been shown that Crediton offered peculiar 
 advantages for the establishment of the bishop’s seat, 
 which probably led to its selection in preference to the 
 
io6 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 chief town of the shire—in the facts that it was ‘ central, 
 not too large, free from secular interference ; the ton, the 
 place of the Saxon—hallowed by its associations with 
 the great missionary, the earnest and devoted Wynfrid.’ 
 These considerations must have had their weight in the 
 selection of a place of perhaps a couple of hundred in¬ 
 habitants for this purpose (the enumerated population in 
 ‘ Domesday ’ is but 407). It is further probable, however, 
 that personal considerations, which it is now impossible 
 to trace, had some influence in the choice. 
 
 The original Cathedral of Crediton was dedicated to 
 the Virgin, and stood on or near the site of the present 
 Collegiate Church of the Holy Cross. Leland, who says 
 that the dedication was to St. Gregory, states that the 
 old church stood by the side of its successor; but of this 
 there is no distinct evidence. Nine bishops in succession 
 ruled at Crediton, or Cridiantune, its Saxon name. Under 
 the last but one, Lyfing, the Bishopric of Cornwall was 
 united to that of Devon; and under his successor, Leofric, 
 the seat of the see was transferred to Exeter, one of the 
 chief reasons assigned being the defenceless state of the 
 little ‘ tun ’ of the Creedy against the pirates, or Danes. 
 The removal of the see was followed by what in effect 
 became a removal of the minster—the Saxon Cathedral 
 of St. Mary was replaced by the Norman Collegiate 
 ‘ Church of the Holy Cross, and of the Mother of Him 
 crucified thereon,’ with its eight canons and eighteen 
 vicars. Herein it is recorded that on the 1st of August, 
 1315, one Thomas Orey, of Keynesham, who had been 
 totally blind, recovered his sight after spending two days 
 in prayer before the altar of St. Nicholas. Bishop Stapledon, 
 being satisfied of the truth of the miracle, ordered the bells 
 to be rung and a solemn thanksgiving offered, and set forth 
 the event in his ‘ Register.’ The church is now in the 
 hands of a corporation of governors. 
 
 In the time of the Confessor Crediton was the most 
 
Crediton. 
 
 107 
 
 valuable manor belonging to the see, with the exception 
 of Bishops Tawton ; but when ‘ Domesday ’ was compiled 
 it had a long way distanced all its competitors, the value 
 having risen from twenty-one pounds to seventy-five. 
 Originally taxed at 25 hides, it had 185 carucates. Six 
 hides and 13 carucates were in demesne; there were 
 40 serfs, 264 villeins, and 73 bordars, with 172 caru¬ 
 cates ; and 30 swineherds, returning 150 swine yearly. 
 There was a mill also, worth thirty pence. The woods, 
 as may be judged from the number of swineherds, 
 were very extensive—five miles long and half a mile 
 broad. 
 
 The manor of Crediton, with a brief alienation, con¬ 
 tinued to belong to the See of Exeter, and the bishops 
 retained there a residence and park. The palace is now 
 represented simply by a buttress, and the park indicated 
 by the name of the ‘ Lord’s Meadow.’ Under its episcopal 
 lords the little town seems to have flourished; and the 
 cloth trade, by which it mainly throve, is supposed to 
 have been established under Bishop Grandisson. Crediton 
 gained great fame for the fineness of its work, so that ‘ As 
 fine as Kirton spinning’ passed into a proverb, and West- 
 cote avers that one of the sights of London, at the shop 
 of ‘ Mr. Dunscombe, the Golden Bottle, in Watling Street,’ 
 was 140 threads of woollen yarn spun in Crediton, drawn 
 through the eye of a tailor’s needle. 
 
 There is ample proof, indeed, that Crediton was a place 
 of considerable trading note so far back as the thirteenth 
 century. Among documents relating to Crediton, entered 
 upon a roll in the British Museum, is a letter of procura¬ 
 tion from the Archdeacon of Totnes in 1249, stating that 
 he will be unable to attend a meeting of the Chapter of 
 Crediton and take part in ‘ treating and contracting with 
 the merchants who frequent our church,’ and appointing 
 his brother Archdeacons of Exeter and Cornwall his 
 proctors. The suggestion is that these merchants were 
 
io8 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 ‘ contractors for the wool grown upon the estates belong¬ 
 ing to the canons of Crediton, and that at this meeting 
 the prices were fixed and the contracts settled.’ This 
 shows the importance of Crediton as a mart of the woollen 
 trade six centuries since. There were several foreigners 
 living in or near the town at this time—the Peytevin 
 family, who were succeeded by the Widgers, ‘ Lord ’ Seer, 
 a Knight of the Teutonic Order, one Richard Marchpain, 
 and others. 
 
 Crediton was once a borough, and sent representatives 
 to Parliament temp. Edward I. The old seal is still ex¬ 
 tant, dated in 1469: ‘ the selle of the borowe towne 
 of credyton.’ The device is a bishop in benediction, 
 probably intended for Bishop Bothe, lord of the manor 
 of Crediton at the date given. The association of Crediton 
 with the Western Rebellion, which began at Sampford 
 Courtenay, when ‘ The barns of Crediton ’ became a 
 rallying-cry, has been treated under Exeter. 
 
 The earliest worthy of Crediton is also the earliest 
 Devonian known to us by name—Wynfrid, St. Boniface, 
 the Apostle of Germany. Born of Saxon parents at 
 Crediton in 680, converted to the Roman form of Chris¬ 
 tianity—probably by travelling monks—first trained in a 
 Saxon school at Exeter, and then at Nutschelle in Hamp¬ 
 shire, he devoted all his working life to the conversion of 
 Germany, and its reduction under the Roman rule. 
 Eventually he became Archbishop of Mentz, and the 
 spiritual head of the whole German kingdom, and was 
 martyred in old age (75), when attempting to convert the 
 still heathen portion of Friesland. No one of his day did 
 more to spread Christianity among the heathen, or to 
 destroy the influence of the elder British Church. 
 
 Crediton was occasionally occupied by both parties 
 during the last Civil War, but saw no fighting. It was 
 the headquarters of Prince Maurice for a time, in 1644; 
 and in July of that year Charles -was at Crediton, and 
 
Crediton. 
 
 109 
 
 reviewed his troops. Fairfax made it his headquarters 
 more than once early in 1646. 
 
 The town had its ‘ great fire ’ in 1743, when 460 houses 
 were burnt; and there was another serious one in 1769. 
 
 Several of the estates in and about Crediton are or 
 have been connected with ancient families of the county. 
 Downes, which once belonged to the Goulds, is now the 
 property of the Bullers ; Creedy of the Davies. Yewe, in 
 the tithing of Yewton, is said to have been formerly held 
 under the bishops by the barons of Okehampton, by the 
 service of being stewards at their installation, for which 
 they had all the vessels in which the bishop was served at 
 the first course. This right was, however, claimed at the 
 installation of Bishop Stapledon by Hugh Courtenay, as 
 lord of the manor of Slapton, his fee being four silver 
 dishes, two salts, one cup, one wine-pot, one spoon, and 
 two basins. Higher Dunscombe was the seat of the 
 Bodleys. 
 
 Shobrooke, now in the Shelleys, was long in the Erce- 
 deknes, whose heiress brought it to Carew. Little 
 Fulford was the seat of the Peryams, established there by 
 Sir William Peryam, Lord Chief Baron. Raddon, in the 
 same parish—which, after giving name to the family 
 of Raddon, was in the Martyns and Audleys—in the reign 
 of Henry VIII. was partially acquired by the Westcotes. 
 Here, in 1567, was born Thomas Westcote, the anti¬ 
 quary, and author of the ‘ View of Devonshire in 1630.’ 
 Of the parishes of Stockleigh, distinguished by the affixes 
 Pomeroy and English, the names of their ancient owners, it 
 has been mistakenly held that the latter title indicates a 
 descent in Saxon hands. This idea, however, * Domes¬ 
 day ’ at once dispels. At Upcotts, in Poughill, was the 
 scene of the murder of the Yorkist Radford by the Lan¬ 
 castrian Thomas Courtenay, already noted. 
 
 Newton St. Cyres was part of the ancient endowment of 
 
I IO 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 the original cathedral, the Church of the Holy Cross at 
 Crediton, which held it before the reign of the Confessor; 
 and it passed, with Crediton, to the See of Exeter. In 
 later days it came to Plympton Priory; and, after the 
 Dissolution, the manor was divided, for several genera¬ 
 tions, between the Ouickes and Xorthcotes, the former 
 acquiring the whole in 1762. Hayne is the old Xorthcote 
 seat. 
 
 At the meeting-point of the three parishes of Crediton, 
 Colebrook, and Down St. Man,-, stands a massive granite 
 shaft, known as Coplestone Cross. The head, if it ever 
 had any, has long been lost: but the shaft is perfect— 
 ten feet six inches in height, and one foot six and a half 
 inches in breadth at the top. It is four-square, and each 
 side is covered with carving, the special feature of which 
 is that twisted and interlaced ornament, generally held to 
 be of Keltic origin, comparatively common in the North of 
 England, but which occurs nowhere else in Devon, and is 
 but rarely met with in Cornwall. Each side of the cross 
 contains three panels, no two exactly alike ; while on one 
 face figures are introduced. There is no doubt that this 
 monument dates at least from the earlier period of Saxon 
 Christianity, when it was customary for the lords of land 
 where there were no churches, to erect crosses of wood or 
 of stone, to which outljdng ceorls or serfs might repair to 
 offer their prayers. It may be as old as the Crediton 
 bishopric (909). and possibly is older. But it is not much, 
 if at all, later, for it finds mention in a Saxon charter of 
 974, by which Eadgar grants three hides of land at Nymed 
 to his faithful JElfhere. The boundaries of these three 
 hides begin and end at Copelanstan, and they agree with 
 the present estate of Coplestone, which is about 160 
 acres in extent. 
 
 From the Copelanstan these three hides afterwards took 
 name, and they were granted, as an endorsement on the ori- 
 
Crediton. 
 
 111 
 
 ginal charter certifies, by the venerable priest Brihtric to the 
 minster of Crediton, some time before the Norman Con¬ 
 quest. At an unknown but very early period, however, 
 the estate passed into the hands of one of the oldest of 
 Devonshire families, who thence took name, and who 
 proudly held themselves to be descended from an English 
 ancestor who kept his lands through the Conquest, the 
 ancient rhyme running: 
 
 ‘ Crocker, Cruwys, and Coplestone, 
 
 When the Conqueror came were found at home.’ 
 
 These families fill a prominent place in Devonian his¬ 
 tory ; but neither can be linked on to any of the English 
 thegns who retained their estates. The Coplestones 
 held chief place of the three, and were called the ‘ Great 
 Coplestones,’ and ‘ Coplestones of the White Spur,’ 
 having, according to Westcote, the special grant of a 
 silver collar, or chain of SS., and of silver spurs. Cople¬ 
 stone, however, is no longer theirs ; though the Coplestone 
 aisle remains in Colebrook church. 
 
 The Crockers have long ceased out of Lyneham, their 
 ancient seat near Yealmpton, but the Cruwys remain 
 connected, through the female line, with their old estates 
 in Cruwys Morchard, which they have certainly held since 
 the reign of King John. 
 
 The origin of the name Copelanstan is doubtful; but 
 very likely it is the ‘ headland ’ or ‘ the chief stone.’ 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 CHULMLEIGH. 
 
 Chulmleigh, an ancient market-town, once enjoying the 
 reputation of a borough, was a member of the barony of 
 Okehampton, and long held by the Courtenays, who had 
 a castle here, of which no trace remains. Garland is 
 supposed by Prince to have been the birthplace of John 
 de Garland, a poet of the eleventh century, and it con¬ 
 tinued in the Garlands until the close of the seventeenth 
 century. Chulmleigh Church was once collegiate, with 
 seven prebends, originally distinct from the rectory. 
 The manner in which Westcote accounts for this is an 
 amusing version of an old myth which has many forms, 
 and which is most familiar in its assignment to the 
 Guelphs. A poor man of Chulmleigh was troubled at 
 the rapid increase of his family, and went on his travels 
 for seven years. A year after his return, however, his 
 wife was ‘ delivered of seven male children at one byrth, 
 whiche made the poore man think himself utterly undone ; 
 and, thereby despairing, put them into a baskett, and 
 hasteth to the river with intent to drowne.’ ‘ The lady 
 of the land,’ however, happening to come that way, 
 demanded ‘ what he carryed in his baskett, who replied 
 that he had whelpes, which she desired to see, proposing 
 to choose one of them.’ Finding, however, that they 
 were children, she insisted on an explanation; and, that 
 
Ckulmleigh. 
 
 ii 3 
 
 given, sharply rebuked him for his inhumanity, had the 
 children put to nurse, then to school, ‘ and consequently 
 being come to man’s estate, provided a prebendship for 
 every of them in this parishe.’ 
 
 There was a little fighting at Chulmleigh in the Civil 
 Wars, Colonel Okey defeating a party of Cavaliers in 
 December, 1645; and on the February following, Fairfax 
 rendezvoused at Ashreigny hard by. 
 
 Eggesford, also a possession of the family of Reigny, 
 like the parish last named, passed by female heirs to the 
 Coplestones and Chichesters; and Lord Chichester re¬ 
 built the manor-house in the reign of James I. This was 
 one of the mansions garrisoned for the King in the 
 subsequent reign, but it was captured by Colonel Okey 
 in December, 1645. From the Chichesters the manor 
 came to the St. Legers; and of them it was bought early 
 in the last century by Mr. Fellowes, ancestor of the 
 present owner, the Earl of Portsmouth. The house, 
 which has been rebuilt and enlarged at various times, is 
 now the principal residence of the family ; and one of 
 the most important hunting centres in Devon. 
 
 The large and important manor of Umberleigh, ex¬ 
 tending over the parishes of Atherington and Fligh 
 Bickington, has been held by some notable families— 
 chief the Willingtons (to whom it came from the 
 Champernownes) and the Bassets, its owners from the 
 sixteenth century. A mutilated figure in Atherington 
 Church, brought from the Chapel of the Holy Trinity at 
 Umberleigh when it was pulled down in 1800, is supposed 
 to represent the last Champernowne seated here, temp. 
 Henry III. The screen-work in this church is very fine ; 
 and the church of the adjoining parish of Chittlehampton 
 has the reputation of possessing the finest tower in 
 Devon, which looks, indeed, as if it had been transplanted 
 from Somerset. St. Hieritha, said to have been born at 
 Swymbridge, is also said to have been buried here. More 
 
 8 
 
114 History of Devonshire. 
 
 certain is it that the church contains fourteenth-century 
 brasses to the Cobleigh family. They succeeded by 
 marriage a younger branch of the Fitzwarrens, who had 
 taken the name of Brightley from their estate ; and this 
 was brought by the heiress of the Cobleighs to a younger 
 branch of the Giffards of Halsbury, who held it for 
 several descents. Hence the title of Lord Halsbury, 
 taken by Sir Hardinge Giffard on his recent elevation to 
 the Lord Chancellorship. Umberleigh in ‘Domesday’ is 
 entered as the ‘ manor of the Church of the Holy Trinity 
 at Caen,’ whence, of course, the dedication of the chapel. 
 
 An interesting group of parishes, etymologically and 
 thence historically, lies to the south of Chulmleigh. Nymet 
 Tracy, commonly called Bow, after a decayed town of 
 that name, which once had a market, granted to Henry 
 Tracy in 1258, and which was the scene of a skirmish 
 between Sir Hardress Waller and some Royalist troops, 
 wherein the former was successful; Nymet Rowland ; 
 and Broad Nymet, which, in spite of its name, is the 
 pettiest of the three, the smallest rural parish in Devon. 
 With these are to be associated George, Kings, and 
 Bishops Nympton, occasionally called Nymet also, 
 grouped but a few miles distant to the south and west of 
 South Molton. ‘Newtake’ is an expression used on 
 Dartmoor for an enclosure from the waste; and, as Mr. 
 R. J. King has shown, these ‘ Nymets’ are precisely the 
 same in meaning and in fact, nymet being the participle of 
 the verb nyman, to take. They mark, therefore, the sites 
 of ancient enclosures, or appropriations, long before the 
 Norman Conquest. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 BARNSTAPLE. 
 
 North Devon is so thickly seamed with a network of 
 ancient roads, still in use or long abandoned, as to show 
 that it had in pre-Norman times, to distinguish no 
 further, a fairly large population, dotted in numerous 
 settlements. These ancient trackways are, as a rule, 
 circuitous, and have been deeply worn by the traffic of 
 ages—such being the main characteristics of the proverbial 
 Devonshire lanes. A century since, they were described 
 as ‘ rough and rocky; watery and miry in some places, 
 deep and founderous in others ; the hills precipitous, and 
 the lanes everywhere narrow, with the hedges on each 
 side too high to afford the traveller any prospect.’ Better 
 kept now than then, they still retain their leading 
 features; and these very hedge-banks, ranging even to 
 30 feet in height, which in the old days had some value 
 in screening the traveller from the sun in summer, and 
 sheltering him from the driving storm in winter, grow 
 more beautiful year by year in their floral carpeting. 
 
 Mr. J. R. Chanter has further pointed out that ‘ near 
 Bratton, and at several other points north and east of 
 Barnstaple, especially in the mining districts of North 
 Molton and Combe Martin, and the ports and creeks of 
 the Severn Sea, the pedestrian may still trace many 
 deeply sunken lanes—mere clefts, which it is impossible 
 
 8—2 
 
 
 
116 History of Devonshire. 
 
 to imagine can have been formed otherwise than by long- 
 continued attrition of the feet of men and cattle for ages; 
 and yet now they are never used nor traversed, and form 
 concealed nooks thickly covered with vegetation, and 
 ferns, particularly the scolopodendria, growing in the 
 utmost luxuriance ; and others which, though still in use, 
 bear unmistakable marks of extreme antiquity.’ 
 
 These roads were traversed by a purely local breed of 
 horses called pack-horses, which carried their burdens in 
 panniers, or on rough saddles known as ‘ crocks.’ They 
 were a very useful handy race, unfortunately now lost, 
 though occasionally a strain makes its appearance here 
 and there. Tradition ascribed them to a cross of the 
 native pony of Dartmoor and Exmoor with a horse that 
 escaped from the wreck of a vessel of the Armada. The 
 story is more than doubtful, but the race had a dash of 
 the thoroughbred. There are yet living those who 
 recollect when it was a common thing to meet long strings 
 of pack-horses, the best of the lot proudly leading the way. 
 
 Now since Barnstaple, alias Barum, the capital of 
 North Devon, lies at the very heart of the densest net¬ 
 work of these ancient roads, its high antiquity is clear, 
 though there are no authoritative records of its origin. 
 The suggestion that it may be the lost Artavia of Richard 
 of Cirencester might have more weight if the authenticity 
 of his so-called ‘ Itinerary ’ could be proved ; though even 
 then Hartland puts in a claim on the score of similarity 
 of name, and Clovelly Dikes as presenting the most 
 important relics of an ancient town in the district. Mr. 
 Chanter has ingeniously shown that Artavia is near akin 
 to Aber-Taw, which would be very good Welsh for the 
 site of Barnstaple; and there can be little doubt it is the 
 Vertevia of the Ravennat. 
 
 The borough appears to have grown up around a 
 military settlement. This tradition, with somewhat more 
 than its usual uncertainty, attributes to the Danes. It 
 
Barnstaple. 
 
 ii 7 
 
 must once have had considerable strength. The ancient 
 town stood in a rude triangle, bounded on two sides by 
 the Taw and by its tributary the Yeo. Near the apex 
 was the castle; landward the town was defended by a 
 strong wall, the course of which is defined by the present 
 Boutport Street ( = ‘ About-port ’ street, port being used 
 in its old sense of town). Of this wall there are no 
 vestiges; the gates one after another have disappeared ; 
 and of the castle there only remains the mound. iESelstan, 
 the traditional founder of the castle, did probably translate 
 it from earthen rampart into mural fortress, and at the 
 same time restore and extend the cincture. Be that as it 
 may, * Domesday ’ describes Barnstaple as one of the four 
 boroughs of Devon, having forty burgesses within the 
 walls and nine without, and eleven that belonged to the 
 Bishop of Coutances. It was then held by the King, but 
 became the seat of a barony, sometime in the Tracys, 
 Martyns, Audleys, and Hollands, among others. 
 
 Its first Norman lord was Judhel of Totnes, who 
 founded a Cluniac Priory, dedicated to St. Mary Mag¬ 
 dalene, valued at the Dissolution at £129 15s. 8d. One of 
 the most curious antiquarian discoveries of recent years 
 in Devon has been the finding of the remains of the 
 twelfth-century chapel of this Priory in the main walls of 
 a couple of ancient but much modernized dwellings, so 
 perfect as to enable its plan, which is somewhat peculiar 
 — on the basilica type—to be distinctly traced. The 
 Priory lands were granted to Lord Howard of Effingham, 
 and part was eventually purchased by the Rolles, whose 
 present representative, the Hon. Mark Rolle, is Lord High 
 Steward of the borough. A chapel dedicated to Thomas 
 a Becket, which stood at the end of the bridge, is said to 
 have been founded in expiation during the Tracy rule by 
 William de Tracy, who took part in that prelate’s murder. 
 Like most of the Tracy traditions, this is doubtful. 
 
 The bridge, by the way, is historical. It is some six or 
 
118 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 seven centuries old, but nothing is known with certainty 
 as to its founder. In the thirty-sixth year of Henry VIII. 
 the * maior and maisters ’ sent out a begging letter to 
 obtain money to improve the structure and its causeways, 
 setting forth that the Taw was a ‘ great hug}.’, mighty, 
 perylous, and dreadfull water, whereas salte water doth 
 ebbe and flowe foure tymes in the day and the night,’ and 
 offering ‘ a gentle dirge and masse solemly songe ’ to all 
 benefactors. It is amusing to contrast this description 
 with the actual river. Perhaps the stream has learnt 
 manners since an embankment was thrown up on the 
 western shore by one of the Sir Bourchier Wreys of 
 Tawstock, towards the close of the last century. Being 
 the colonel of an infantry regiment stationed at Barnstaple, 
 he employed the men in raising these earthworks and 
 improving his foreshores. The Corporation didn’t like it, 
 and complained to headquarters. The authorities wrote, 
 asking what was meant; Sir Bourchier replied that he was 
 teaching his men ‘ practical engineering.’ And there the 
 matter dropped, possibly because the gallant colonel was 
 a member of Parliament as well as an officer. Barnstaple 
 Bridge is in the hands of a body of trustees, who hold 
 considerable property. Their antiquity is fairly indicated 
 by their seal, which is of fourteenth-century character and 
 nearly three inches in diameter. It shows the bridge, the 
 Chapel of St. Thomas, and a Calvary Cross, and between 
 the latter an eagle displayed. The inscription sets forth 
 that this is the seal of the ‘ long bridge ’ of Barnstaple. 
 
 The corporate and representative history of Barnstaple 
 is of almost unique interest, in the controversies to which 
 it has given rise. The Corporation proper dates from 
 Philip and Mary, but the town had sustained its pre¬ 
 scriptive right to a mayor two centuries before. The 
 earliest charter extant is by Henry II. confirming a pre¬ 
 decessor from Henry I. The latter has disappeared, but 
 in certain proceedings taken in the time of the third 
 
Barnstaple. 
 
 119 
 
 Edward, the burgesses asserted that they had a charter 
 from TLSelstan which had been lost, and which not only 
 gave them a right to choose a mayor, but to send repre¬ 
 sentatives to the Witenagemot. It may seem strange 
 now that either statement should ever have been seriously 
 treated. Reeves Barnstaple no doubt did have before the 
 Conquest, but certainly not mayors, and probably few will 
 be found now to endorse Lord Lyttelton’s opinion that 
 Barnstaple was a representative borough of pre-Norman 
 times, or even share in Turner’s more cautious reference 
 to the claim, as being entitled to considerable weight in 
 determining the question of the representation of cities 
 and burghs in the Witenagemot. It is a fact, however, 
 that 500 years ago Barnstaple did claim AESelstan as the 
 author of its representative rights; and the borough 
 returned members without intermission from twenty-third 
 Edward I. to fatal 1885. 
 
 Notable traces of an early guild at Barnstaple have 
 been discovered among the municipal records by Mr. 
 J. R. Chanter. They consist of three rolls setting forth 
 the names of the officers and members respectively in 
 1303, 1318, and 1329, and a few ancient deeds and frag¬ 
 ments of accounts. The guild was that of St. Nicholas, 
 but it is also spoken of as ‘ the Guild of the Liberty of the 
 Borough of Barnstaple ;’ and its customs are declared to 
 have been used and observed beyond memory of man. 
 Moreover, its connection with the government of the town 
 was most intimate, and the mayor was evidently its chief. 
 At the same time it was not the corporate authority, for 
 its members were scattered over the county; and after it 
 was dissolved in 1549, the municipality acquired ‘ the site 
 of the late Chapel of St. Nicholas, now a building called 
 the Kay Hall,’ by purchase. The Kay Hall, destroyed in 
 1852, was for centuries the ‘ common market,’ and was in 
 part of Norman architecture. The data are so few that it 
 is difficult to decide what the precise object of this guild 
 
120 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 might be. The lists are not those of freemen, but of a 
 distinct community. There seems also good evidence that 
 it was not a mere trading guild, certainly not such a guild 
 of sailors or seafaring men as the name might indicate; 
 and it is clear also that it was not purely religious. More¬ 
 over, Mr. Chanter concludes (though the mayor exercised 
 some authority) that comparatively few of the townsmen 
 were members. This is shown both by the occurrence of 
 the names of many who are specified as resident else¬ 
 where, and by a comparison of the roll of the guildry 
 with legal and other proceedings of the same period in 
 the borough courts. The guild, indeed, chiefly consisted 
 of the petty gentry, yeomen, and agriculturists of the 
 neighbourhood, with a sprinkling of persons of higher 
 rank, and from a distance. 
 
 The Priory of St. Mary at Pilton was reputedly founded 
 by iESelstan ; and the ancient seal of the brotherhood bears 
 testimony to the fact that no less an origin was claimed 
 five centuries since. Actual records do not go beyond 
 1200. The seal bears on the obverse the figure of the 
 Virgin Mary, to whom the Priory was dedicated ; and on 
 the reverse that of a king, evidently intended for iESelstan, 
 for the legend runs: ‘ hoc . athelstanus . ago . quod . 
 presens . signa . imago.’ It was a Benedictine house of 
 small size, a cell to the great Abbey of Malmesbury, to 
 which it gave a couple of abbots. It had an uneventful 
 career, and at the Dissolution contained only three 
 monks beside the prior, while its revenues amounted to 
 but £56 12s. 8d. 
 
 Pilton, really an ancient suburb of Barnstaple, was, 
 like it, largely engaged in textile manufactures, and had a 
 ‘ shoddy ’ reputation in consequence of its make of coarse 
 ‘ cottons ’ for linings. ‘ Woe unto ye Piltonians,’ quotes 
 Westcote, ‘ who make cloth without wool!’ 
 
 Barnstaple bore its part in the maritime activity of the 
 Elizabethan days, and contributed, as we shall see here- 
 
Barnstaple. 
 
 1 21 
 
 after under Bideford, to the fleet fitted out against the 
 Armada. Like nearly all the towns of Devon, it had 
 strong Parliamentary sympathies, and a contingent thence 
 took part in the defeat of Hopton at Modbury. It was, 
 however, taken by Maurice in September, 1643. In the 
 following July the townsfolk overpowered the garrison ; 
 and, with the aid of a contingent sent by the Earl of 
 Essex, repulsed a party of Royalists despatched by Maurice 
 to turn the scale. But the Roundheads did not hold it 
 long, for in September, 1644, it had to yield to Goring, 
 and then remained a Royal garrison until the close of the 
 war, when Fairfax took it in April, 1646. There are still 
 extant, specially at Fort Hill, a few lines of the defence 
 and works of attack ; and Puritan cannonading is said to 
 have partially destroyed Pilton Tower. 
 
 Barnstaple was one of the western towns in which 
 Huguenot refugees settled after the revocation of the 
 Edict of Nantes. Quite dramatic is the account of their 
 arrival and reception. The party left Rochelle in a small 
 crowded vessel, and had a very tempestuous passage. At 
 length they found themselves in Barnstaple Bay one 
 Sunday morning, sailed over the bar and up the river, and 
 landed on the quay during divine service. Utterly desti¬ 
 tute, they ranged themselves in the market-place, and 
 thither flocked the townsfolk when they left the churches. 
 Happily, neither the good Samaritan nor his spirit was 
 wanting. An old gentleman, whose name unfortunately 
 is not preserved, took a couple of the refugees home to 
 dinner, and recommended his example to his fellow- 
 townsmen. In a few minutes the Huguenots were dis¬ 
 tributed throughout the town, their immediate wants 
 supplied, and the foundation laid of a new period of com¬ 
 mercial prosperity for the hospitable borough. Intelligent 
 and industrious, and specially skilled in the woollen trade, 
 these poor French folk proved well able to repay their 
 benefactors. The Corporation gave them the Chapel of 
 
122 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 St. Anne as a place of worship ; and there French services 
 continued to be performed until 1761, when the immigrants 
 had become absorbed in the general population. Their 
 descendants can still, however, be traced here, as at 
 Exeter and Plymouth and Stonehouse, in the last of which 
 towns a French congregation continued to meet until the 
 present century. 
 
 This Chapel of St. Anne has for more than three cen¬ 
 turies been used as a grammar school, the original foun¬ 
 dation being presumably connected with the Guild of St. 
 Nicholas. Barnstaple school has a long list of illustrious 
 alumni. Bishop Jewell and his rival Harding; Jonathan 
 Hamner, one of the most famous of the ejected divines of 
 Devon ; John Gay, the poet; Brancker, the Rosicrucian ; 
 Judge Doddridge; and the learned Dr. Musgrave—among 
 the number. 
 
 Barnstaple is the seat of an important art pottery. 
 Excellent pottery of what is commonly regarded as Roman 
 type was made in Devon so far back as the Roman period ; 
 and some of the best clays of the county were then known 
 and worked. Mr. Phillips, of Aller, believes that much 
 that is commonly called Durobrivian ware is really of 
 Devonshire manufacture; and that some of the so-called 
 Samian found in the district, made on the wheel, is un¬ 
 questionably of Devonshire make and clay. In the Middle 
 Ages large quantities of encaustic tiles were made in various 
 localities. The chief production appears to have been 
 in the Barnstaple and Bideford districts, where potteries 
 have been carried on, historically, from time immemorial. 
 A mode of sgraffito ornamentation long since originated 
 in North Devon, dated specimens existing over a century 
 and a half old ; and this has been developed recently with 
 great effect. The decoration consists of ‘ washes of white 
 clay, with incised patterns, and coloured glazes of flowing 
 and pulsating lines.’ The occurrence of beds of culm or 
 anthracite in the Carboniferous rocks of the district may. 
 
Barnstaple. 
 
 123 
 
 by the provision of fuel, have stimulated the utilization of 
 the clay. 
 
 Until the assertion was questioned by the late Dr. 
 Oliver, Bishops Tawton, next Barnstaple, was commonly 
 accepted as having been the primary seat of the See of 
 Devonshire. It is now abundantly clear that Dr. Oliver 
 was justified in his scepticism, for later research has 
 shown that the belief rested entirely upon a statement 
 made by Hoker, of Exeter, in his catalogue and memoirs 
 of the Bishops of Devon down to 1583. Therein he states 
 that ‘Werstanus was the first who fixed the episcopal 
 chair at Bishops Tawton,’ in the year 905. No earlier 
 writer than Hoker assigns a bishop to Bishops Tawton; 
 such later writers as do, all follow Hoker ; and, while no 
 evidence confirmatory of this statement has anywhere 
 been found, the difficulties in the way of its acceptance 
 seem upon critical examination to be insuperable. There 
 is, however, no reason to doubt, to quote the words of 
 Dr. Oliver, that * the manor of Bishops Tawton, with its 
 members, Landkey and Swymbridge, formed a part of the 
 original endowment of the see,’ and was then regarded as 
 its most profitable estate. ‘ Here the bishops occasionally 
 resided, as they did at Clyst, in Farringdon parish ; at 
 Radway, in Bishops Teignton ; at Place, in Chudleigh; 
 and Paignton.’ Some small remains of the ancient palace 
 still continue. 
 
 The ancient manor was long since divided, though the 
 bishops retained their residence down to the fifteenth 
 century. The first important severance took place in 
 1225, when the church and rectory, with Landkey and 
 Swymbridge, and the ecclesiastical manor, were appro¬ 
 priated as an endowment to the deanery by Bishop 
 Brewer. The principal part of the manor was, however, 
 conveyed by Bishop Veysey to the Russell family. By 
 ancient practice the rectory was always granted to laymen, 
 on freehold leases for three lives, the rector, as lord farmer, 
 
124 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 receiving all the tithes, exercising all the manorial rights, 
 and granting leases on lives by copy of court roll. 
 Originally, the lord farmer also appointed the incum¬ 
 bents of the three parishes. 
 
 A hamlet on the verge of Bishops Tawton, now a part 
 of the borough of Barnstaple, was anciently the indepen¬ 
 dent borough of Newport. The date of its foundation is 
 uncertain, but the name shows it to be of later origin than 
 the old ‘ port ’ of Barnstaple ; and it may have been fos¬ 
 tered by the bishops, and grown up under their protection. 
 That it came to be called Newport Episcopi is but the 
 natural result of the connection with Bishops Tawton 
 parish. A market and fair were granted in 1294, and, 
 either then or not long subsequently it had a corporate 
 existence, for it is distinctly named the borough of 
 Newport in 1307, and the names of mayors are 
 recorded nearly as far back. Mayors were elected, 
 indeed, but rather in form than fact, until the last 
 century. 
 
 The distinguished natives of Barnstaple have been 
 claimed to include Lord Chancellor Fortescue, author of 
 ‘ De Laudibus Legum Anglias,’ who was, however, born, 
 as already stated, in North Huish ; Lord Audley (d. 1386), 
 the foremost hero of Poictiers, who was certainly the 
 owner of the barony in right of his mother, coheiress 
 of the Martyns, and resided at the castle ; Sir John 
 Doddridge, Judge of the King's Bench under James I. ; 
 and John Gay, the fabulist. There is some doubt even 
 as to Doddridge, who has been credited to South Holton. 
 But Barnstaple was certainly his home; and when he 
 died in 1628 at the age of seventy-three, his nephew suc¬ 
 ceeded to his property, and lived in the old town. Gay 
 (1688-1732) has been attributed to the adjoining parish 
 of Landkey ; but there is no doubt that his parents were 
 Barnstaple folk, and very little that he was born at their 
 residence in Joy Street. An old armchair, sold many 
 
Barnstaple. 
 
 125 
 
 years since in Barnstaple, was found to contain a drawer 
 with a number of unpublished poems by him. 
 
 Ralegh, Bishop of Winchester, 1244, was born at 
 Ralegh, in the parish of Pilton, the original seat of this 
 famous family. From the Raleghs it eventually passed 
 to the Chichesters, another notable Devonshire house, of 
 South Devon origin, but now chiefly settled in the North, 
 at Arlington, Hall, and Youlston. A Chichester was 
 Bishop of Exeter in 1128; but the most distinguished of 
 the race was Arthur Chichester (d. 1620), born at Ralegh, 
 knighted by Henri Quatre for his ‘ notable exploits ’ in 
 arms, and created by James I., whom he served as Lord 
 Deputy of Ireland, Baron Belfast. 
 
 Akland, in Landkey, near Barnstaple, is the first seat 
 of the Acland family, and has been held by them from 
 the twelfth century. Westcote gives a bad name to the 
 ladies of a village nigh, called Newlands, who, if annoyed 
 by the repetition of the phrase, ‘ Camp le tout, Newland,’ 
 would treat their aspersors so unsavourily, that ‘ he that 
 travels that way a fortnight afterwards may smell what 
 has been there done.’ 
 
 Tawstock used, in the common talk of the country¬ 
 side, to be regarded as having the finest manor, the 
 richest rectory, and the most stately residence—at any 
 rate in North Devon. If there is likelihood in the theory 
 that the ‘ stocks’ in a debatable land preceded the ‘ tuns,’ 
 then Tawstock may represent, as distinct from the Keltic 
 town of Barnstaple, the first Saxon settlement of the 
 Taw. However, we cannot trace it further than ‘ Domes¬ 
 day,’ where it appears as one of the manors held by the 
 King in succession to ‘ Harold the Earl,’ and a place of 
 note, having 18 serfs, 60 villeins, and 7 swineherds, with 
 5 houses in Exeter, and being worth £24 a year. William 
 Lord Briwere held it in the reign of Henry II., and gave 
 it to his daughter on her marriage with Robert, Earl of 
 
History of Devonshire. 
 
 126 
 
 Leicester. She, having no children, gave it to her niece 
 Matilda, wife of Henry de Tracy. Thence it went in 
 succession to the noble families of Martyn, Audley, and 
 Fitzwarren, and through the Hankfords to the Bourchiers, 
 Earls of Bath, now represented in the female line by its 
 present possessors, the Bourchier Wreys. The fine old 
 mansion of the Bourchiers, nearly all burnt in 1787, had 
 been garrisoned during the Civil Wars. The park remains 
 one of the oldest and finest in the county. The church 
 has several monuments of the Bourchiers; and an oaken 
 effigy, presumably a memorial of Thomasin, daughter of 
 Sir W. Hankford, is of an unusual character. 
 
 Adjoining Tawstock is the ancient borough of Freming- 
 ton, which sent burgesses to Parliament under Edward III., 
 but has little other claim to notice. Like Tawstock, it 
 had belonged to Harold, but was given by William to the 
 Bishop of Coutances, who likewise had 7 houses and lands 
 and 10 burgesses in Barnstaple itself. The population 
 of Fremington was even greater than that of Tawstock 
 —7 serfs, 40 villeins, 30 bordars, 13 swineherds, and 
 1 burgess in Barnstaple—but it was worth £2 less. This 
 also was one of the manors that came to the Tracys, 
 and, forming part of the barony of Barnstaple, passed 
 through the Martyns to the Audleys. Coming to the 
 Crown, it was granted by Richard II. to John Holland, 
 Earl of Huntingdon, and was likewise one of the western 
 manors granted to Margaret, Countess of Richmond. 
 
 Across the Taw lies Braunton, presumably derived 
 from Brannock’s ‘ tun,’ Brannock being the patron saint; 
 and the legend of the foundation of the church averring 
 that he was directed to build it where he next saw a sow 
 and her litter, in witness whereof sow and farrows are to 
 be seen duly carven on a boss. Legend further affirms 
 that he obtained the timber from a forest which then 
 grew upon the site of the sandy waste fringing the Taw, 
 
Barnstaple. 
 
 12 7 
 
 now known as Braunton Burrows, and drew it to the 
 spot by deer. And it would be a remarkable coincidence 
 —if the remains had not suggested the tradition—that 
 a submerged forest does exist in Barnstaple Bay near the 
 point indicated, and that cervine bones and antlers have 
 been found therein. On the cliffs at Croyde, hard by, 
 flint chips are so numerous as to indicate the existence 
 there of a prehistoric implement-manufactory. Braunton 
 also figures in * Domesday ’ as a populous manor in the 
 demesne of the King; and, indeed, the character of the 
 entries generally for this locality indicate a more thriving 
 condition than that of the county as a whole. By a grant 
 of Coeur de Lion, Braunton became the original Devon¬ 
 shire seat of the Carews, but was taken from them by 
 John in favour of Robert de Seckville; while Henry III. 
 gave two-thirds of the manor, with the lordship of the 
 hundred, to the Abbey of Cleve, in Somerset. At the 
 Dissolution, it was granted to the Earl of Westmoreland ; 
 and it was part of the property brought to the Courtenays 
 by the marriage of Sir William Courtenay to the daughter 
 of Sir William Waller and the heiress of the Reynells. 
 The custom of the manor is noted by the Lysonses, 
 following Chappie, as peculiar—some of the lands being 
 held by the tenure of Borough English; while others 
 passed to the elder son, and all were equally divided 
 between daughters. 
 
 Heanton Punchardon preserves the name of a dis¬ 
 tinguished family, of whom the most prominent member, 
 Sir Richard, served with great note in France under 
 Edward III. Through Beaumonts the manor came to 
 the Bassets; and Colonel Arthur Basset, born at Heanton 
 Court in 1597, was one of the leading Royalists of 
 Devon, and Governor of St. Michael’s Mount when it 
 surrendered to Colonel Hammond in 1646. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ILFRACOMBE AND LYNTON. 
 
 Ilfracombe, a little port of great antiquity, has developed, 
 within the last quarter of a century, into a watering-place 
 so thriving that it seems to have no history and to be all 
 but bran-new. But the town is old enough to have some 
 dozen names, varying from ^Elfringcombe, through Ilford- 
 combe, to the modern title; and to have been a harbour 
 of some repute in the twelfth century, for the Welsh and 
 the Irish traffic. In 1344 it was important enough to be 
 cited to send representatives to a Shipping Council, while 
 to the siege of Calais it contributed six ships to Liverpool’s 
 one ! Perhaps the best evidence of its standing in the 
 early Middle Ages is the quaint little chapel of St. Nicholas 
 on the peaked hill overlooking the quays, still, as it pro¬ 
 bably always has been, the harbour lighthouse. There 
 are many of these little half-sacred, half-secular cliff light- 
 chapels along the southern and western coasts; but, so far 
 as Devon is concerned, this alone retains its ancient uses. 
 Moreover, it was a place of pilgrimage in the fifteenth 
 century; and, though now sadly modernized, still has 
 features of interest. 
 
 Like every western port, Ilfracombe was the scene of 
 great activity during the Elizabethan era; and, though it 
 does not occupy a prominent place in the annals of that 
 time, evidently profited by the operations against the 
 
Ilfracombe. 
 
 129 
 
 Spaniards; and seems, by a few casual references, to 
 have kept up a regular traffic with the southern coast of 
 Ireland. Whenever war was onward Ilfracombe was 
 ready to do her share of privateering, or, to use the term 
 most in local favour, to engage in ‘ reprisals.’ 
 
 The town was of little consequence in the Civil Wars of 
 the Commonwealth ; though, like most of the Devonshire 
 centres, it had Puritan sympathies. It was captured by 
 Sir F. Doddington for the King in September, 1644, and 
 held by the Royalists until it fell into the hands of Fairfax, 
 soon after his capture of Barnstaple, in 1646. The isolated 
 position of Ilfracombe caused it to be selected as a refuge 
 by some of those who took part in the Penruddock rising in 
 1655. They were, however, taken; and history repeated itself 
 when in 1688 a party of refugees from Sedgmoor, headed by 
 Colonel Wade, seized and victualled a vessel at Ilfracombe 
 and put to sea, but were forced ashore by a couple of frigates. 
 
 The most curious incident in the later history of Ilfra¬ 
 combe is the fact that it was the intended scene of a 
 French invasion in 1797. On the 20th of February in 
 that year four French vessels came to an anchor to the 
 west of the port, and scuttled a few coasting craft. But 
 they made no attempt to land, for the North Devon 
 Volunteers manned the heights; and the Frenchmen set 
 sail for Wales. Here they disembarked 1,400 soldiers, 
 but surrendered without firing a shot to the militia under 
 Lord Cawdor, who is said to have dressed his miners in 
 their wives’ red petticoats and frightened the invaders by 
 the demonstration of superior force. Be that as it may, 
 there is hardly a seaport in Devon which has not some 
 tradition of invaders being scared by a muster of old 
 women in red cloaks. 
 
 The Champernownes were once lords of a part of 
 Ilfracombe (held by Baldwin the Sheriff in 1086), and 
 obtained a grant of a market and fair in 1278; and among 
 their successors were the Bonviles, Nevilles, Greys, and 
 
 9 
 
130 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 Gorges. Sir Philip Sydney, too, was one of its owners. 
 This manor is now dismembered. Another, of which the 
 harbour forms part, was a member of the barony of 
 Barnstaple, passed from the Audleys to the Bourchiers, 
 and has thence descended to the present owner, Sir H. 
 Bourchier Wrey. By the Bourchiers and the Wreys the 
 harbour-works have been several times improved and 
 extended. The shipping trade of Ilfracombe is now, 
 however, little more than local; and the modern im¬ 
 portance of the town rests entirely upon its attractions as 
 a watering-place, which have been developed with equal 
 good taste and spirit. The healthiness of the site has, 
 indeed, passed into a proverb: ‘You may live in ’Combe 
 as long as you like, but you must go somewhere else to 
 die!’ But there is a parish churchyard for all that. 
 
 Considering the antiquity of Ilfracombe, its personal 
 relations are singularly scant. Its one notable is John 
 Cutcliffe, whose name was Latinized into Johannes de 
 Rupecissa, a reforming friar of the fourteenth century. 
 He was born at Damage Farm in 1340, and died in 
 prison at Avignon, where he had been cast for his opinions. 
 He was a man of great earnestness and learning, but the 
 influence of his labours and writings, as a contemporary 
 of Wyclif, were chiefly confined to the Continent. 
 
 A far better known divine, John Jewel (1522-1571), the 
 famous Bishop of Salisbury, was born at Bowden Farm 
 in the adjoining parish of Berry Narbor, in an old house 
 among the hills still standing. His ‘ Sermons,’ in black- 
 letter, may yet be seen chained up as of yore in some 
 of the churches of the West. His stoutest opponent, 
 Thomas Harding (died 1572), was born in the next 
 parish of Combe Martin, and was Jewel’s schoolfellow at 
 Barnstaple Grammar School. 
 
 Sir William Herle, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, 
 1316, certainly lived at Chambercombe, near Ilfracombe, 
 but his birth there is doubtful. 
 
Combe Martin. 
 
 131 
 
 Of Berry Narbor there is little more to say. Originally 
 named after some old earthwork, ‘ burh ’ or ‘ bury,’ it 
 gave name in its turn to the family of Berry, from whom 
 it passed to the Narberts or Narbors. Monuments of 
 both families are in the old church; and hard by, fallen 
 sadly from its high estate, is the old manor-house. Stow- 
 ford in West Downe, and not Stowford in Berry, is the 
 seat of the Stowfords of whom came Sir John de Stowford, 
 Justice of the Common Pleas in 1343. 
 
 Combe Martin has a more formidable history. ‘ Mile- 
 long man stye,’ as Kingsley called it, some antiquaries 
 have seen in the little harbour wherewith the long Combe 
 Valley terminates, a haunt of the Phoenician galleys. 
 This is the purest speculation; but it must have been of 
 some little note when it took its distinctive surname from 
 the Martins of Tours, its Norman lords, to one of whom, 
 Nicholas Fitz Martin, market and fair were granted in 
 1264; and its first importance seems to have been derived, 
 not from its facilities for commerce, but its mineral 
 wealth. 
 
 There is a vague tradition, for which Westcote appears 
 to be responsible, that Combe Martin was a borough and 
 sent representatives to Parliament; but the assertion is 
 wholly unfounded. Its mines of silver lead, with those 
 of Bere Alston, were unusually productive in the reigns 
 of the first Edwards, the silver raised being turned to 
 account in the prosecution of war with France. They 
 were worked also under Henry V., and were then of little 
 account until the days of Elizabeth. Adrian Gilbert, half 
 brother of Sir Walter Ralegh, who had considerable skill 
 in mining matters, led the way in the new venture ; but 
 Sir Bevis Bulmer carried forward the work, and with 
 much success. He gave a cup of Combe Martin silver to 
 the City of London—still among the Corporation plate— 
 the cup and cover weighing 137 ounces; and another to 
 
 9—2 
 
1 3 2 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 the Earl of Bath (the manor of Combe Martin having 
 then passed to the Bourchiers). Each bore a quaint 
 inscription; but a portion of that on the City cup will 
 suffice as a sample : 
 
 ‘ Dispersed I in earth did lye 
 Since alle beginninge olde 
 In place called Combe, where Martin long 
 Had hid mee in his molde. 
 
 I dydd no service on the earth, 
 
 And no manne sate mee free, 
 
 Till Bulmer by his skill and charge 
 Did frame mee this to be.’ 
 
 Another attempt was made under Charles I. so late 
 as the year 1648, but without much being done, though 
 the project had his personal encouragement. In modern 
 times the old mines have been worked and new ones 
 opened, without any satisfactory result. Yet the ore is 
 rich, yielding 140 and 150 ounces of silver to the ton. 
 
 Not fifty years since Combe Martin supplied a curious 
 survival of history in a quaint custom of Ascension Day, 
 called the ‘ Hunting of the Earl of Rone.’ This part of 
 Devon had a noted exceptional intercourse with Ireland 
 through the Middle Ages, and, according to tradition, an 
 Irish refugee, known as the Earl of Tyrone, was captured 
 here by a body of soldiers in a place called Lady’s Wood. 
 This was the matter commemorated, with the addition 
 of a few details of still older May-day mumming; if indeed 
 the ‘ Earl of Rone ’ had not been grafted upon the more 
 ancient ceremonial, and given it a new lease of life. The 
 chief characters were the Earl of Rone, with mask and 
 smock, and a chain of biscuits round his neck ; the hobby¬ 
 horse of the elder time, a decorated donkey ; a fool; and a 
 troop of grotesquely dressed grenadiers. The prelimi¬ 
 naries lasted a week, which was devoted to processions ; 
 then the Earl was captured in Lady’s Wood, led in mock 
 triumph, shot at intervals, lamented by hobby-horse and 
 
Lynton. 
 
 T 
 
 1 J J 
 
 fool; and the process repeated while contributions could 
 be levied. 
 
 Lynton is the chief centre of a corner of Devon next 
 Somerset, enclosed on one hand by the high land of 
 Exmoor proper, and on the other by a spur which follows 
 down to the sea to the east of Combe Martin from Bratton 
 Down. To this comparative isolation is it due that the 
 district retains much of its original old-world characteris¬ 
 tics ; and that it has had so casual a share in the general 
 history of the county. This was not always so, and there 
 is abundant evidence, in ‘ camps ’ and barrows and other 
 memorials of antiquity, that the neighbourhood was well 
 populated in Keltic times ; and the next parish to Lynton, 
 that of Countisbury, is clearly the ‘ bury or camp of the 
 headland,’ Cant-ys-bury, akin to Kinterbury, near Plymouth, 
 and the Canterbury of Kent. 
 
 The Valley of Rocks, the most romantic feature of 
 Lynton, with its grotesque piles of weathered stone and 
 mimic natural masonry, has been held to indicate selection 
 for the performance of druidical rites—a freak of pure 
 fancy on the part of the elder antiquaries, without a 
 vestige of evidence in its favour. Far more reasonable is 
 the suggestion that Lynton was the scene of ancient raids 
 and incursions on the coast by the Severn Sea, especially 
 when Harold ravaged that district in 1052. This remote cor¬ 
 ner of Devon, too—probably from the natural strength of its 
 position, belted by hills—appears to have formed a kind 
 of refuge for the Saxons after the Conquest, for it is stated 
 that William himself expelled the natives therefrom. The 
 manors of Lynton, Crinton, and Countisbury all passed to 
 William Chievre, and Lynton and Countisbury eventually 
 came to the Tracys, and by them were given to Ford 
 Abbey. After the Dissolution they passed to the family 
 of Wichchalse, who are said to have been Protestant 
 refugees of Dutch origin. The name occurs, however, 
 
134 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 in the records of St. Petrock, Exeter, at a date much 
 earlier than that commonly assigned for their immi¬ 
 gration. 
 
 Old Lynton—or rather Lynmouth, but the two are really 
 one—was, in the main, a fishing port, with a bias towards 
 smuggling. Westcote tells a story against the ‘ parson ’ of 
 Lynton, how that when the herrings first resorted to the 
 coast he ‘ vexed the poor fishermen for extraordinary 
 unusual tithes.’ The sympathetic herrings ‘ suddenly 
 clean left the coast,’ but—possibly on the * parson ’ mend¬ 
 ing his way—* God be thanked, they began to resort hither 
 again.’ In the valley of Badgeworthy, or Badgery, on 
 Exmoor, there are yet traces of the huts of the Doones, 
 the last gang of professional banditti of a residential 
 character in England. Their characters are strongly 
 painted in ‘ Lorna Doone,’ which is full of the local 
 legends that have lingered long beyond their usual date 
 in this quiet spot; now, under the name of ‘ the English 
 Switzerland,’ the increasing resort of the tourist tribe. 
 
 Occasionally used by both parties during the Civil War, 
 Lynmouth was the final refuge of Major Wade, when, 
 after his escape from Sedgmoor, he had to leave Ilfra¬ 
 combe ; and he was captured in hiding at Farleigh, in 
 Brendon. Lydcote Hall, on the flank of Bratton Down, 
 has been assumed by many writers, following Sir Walter 
 Scott, as the birthplace of the ill-fated Amy Robsart: 
 this, however, is an error. 
 
 The little parish of Morthoe, which borders Morte Bay, 
 on the other side of Ilfracombe, has a niche alike in 
 history and in folk-lore. A tomb in Morthoe Church to 
 ‘ Syr Wiliame de Tracey’ was recorded by the elder his¬ 
 torians as that of the Tracy murderer of A. Becket. 
 Risdon is confident upon the point; and Westcote jokes 
 upon the assumption that some ill-affected persons stole 
 the leaden sheets in which Sir William’s body was 
 
Morthoe. 
 
 135 
 
 wrapped, leaving him * in danger of taking cold.’ But 
 Morthoe is an old Tracy seat, and a chantry in this very 
 church was founded by a rector of Morthoe, William 
 Tracy, who was undoubtedly buried here. This, coupled 
 with the fact that the figure on the tombstone is that of a 
 priest, and the frequent use in the Middle Ages of the pre¬ 
 fix ‘ Sir ’ to indicate a parish clergyman, renders it probable 
 that the whole of the tomb belongs to the rector, as a part 
 admittedly does. According to West-Country tradition, 
 after the murder of the Archbishop, 
 
 ‘ The Tracys 
 
 Had the wind in their faces’ 
 
 wherever they went, or from whatever quarter it might 
 blow; and, assuredly, high and rugged Morthoe was as 
 likely a place as any to secure a remarkable fulfilment. 
 Morthoe is ‘ High Morte,’ and Mort is fancifully inter¬ 
 preted to mean ‘ death.’ Beyond Morte Point is Morte 
 Stone, the cause of many a shipwreck, which will be 
 removed when it is taken in hand by a husband who can 
 say from experience that the grey mare is not the better 
 horse. There is, indeed, a version of the tradition which 
 places the power in the hands of a number of wives who 
 have the sovereignty, but adds sagely that enough have 
 not been got together to produce the result. And Mort¬ 
 hoe itself supplies material for yet another wise saw in 
 the declaration that it is the place which ‘ God made last, 
 and the devil will take first;’ which may be matched in 
 Northumberland at Elsdon, and probably in many other 
 rugged neighbourhoods. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 LUNDY ISLAND. 
 
 Lundy Island has afforded ample proof of its settlement 
 in far-back antiquity. Here in 1850 were found a couple 
 of huge stone kists lying side by side, the larger of which 
 contained an extended skeleton 8 feet 2 inches in length, 
 while the other held the bones of a body which was 
 several inches above the average height. Seven other 
 skeletons of ordinary size, without coffins, were found in 
 the same line; and then a burial-pit, containing a mass of 
 bones of men, women, and children, with pottery, 
 fragments of bronze, and beads. These remains belonged 
 to two distinct periods—the ‘ giants’ graves,’ as they are 
 locally called, dating from the Stone age. Another relic 
 of the distant past was discovered in the following year 
 —a huge earth-covered cromlech, the table-stone weigh¬ 
 ing about five tons. There are also traces of ancient 
 cultivation, which show the presence, many centuries 
 since, of a comparatively large population. 
 
 So much for the prehistoric days of this singular islet. 
 It does not appear to have definitely found its way upon 
 the historical record until the twelfth century, when it 
 was the stronghold of Jordan de Marisco, who had 
 married Agnes, daughter of Hamelin Plantagenet, natural 
 brother of Henry II. His turbulence led to the forfeiture 
 of Lundy, and its grant to the Knights Templars; but 
 
Lundy Island. 
 
 137 
 
 the family remained in possession notwithstanding, for 
 in 1199 Jordan’s son, William, followed in his father’s 
 steps, and forfeiture in favour of the Templars was then 
 declared by John. Again was it found that to forfeit 
 was one thing, and to seize another. Feeling secure in 
 his island strength, Sir William defied alike Templars and 
 King, levied contributions on the adjacent coast, and 
 finally had to be besieged—a special hidage rate being 
 levied in Devon and Cornwall to raise the funds. Whether 
 he was even then ejected is by no means certain ; for 
 little conclusion can be drawn from the appointment by 
 the Crown of keepers of Lundy; and it is known that 
 the Templars never entered into possession. 
 
 Sir William, however, must have found it desirable to 
 make an alliance with France, for he was among the 
 prisoners taken by the English in the naval battle of 
 August 24, 1217. He was speedily forgiven, and three 
 months later Lundy was restored. The next Lord of 
 Lundy, Jordan, or Geoffrey, de Marisco, was slain while 
 engaged in a raid at Kilkenny in 1234 > and his son 
 William, having set on an assassin to murder Henry III. 
 at Woodstock, was taken by stratagem, and hung, 
 drawn, and quartered, while sixteen of his associates 
 were dragged at the cart’s-tail, and hanged. Thus for a 
 time the Mariscos were at length effectually dispossessed. 
 Bearing a noble name, and claiming to be men of high 
 degree, they were really among the most pestilent piratical 
 rascalry that ever fulfilled the sad words of the old 
 chronicler, by filling their castles with ‘ devils and evil 
 men.’ There are several traces of their sway in the 
 remains of their castle and other buildings; and it has 
 been suggested that from this period date certain round 
 towers, the foundations of which have considerable 
 resemblance to those of Ireland. 
 
 Lundy was now in the possession of the Crown ; and, 
 as it was the common resort of the King’s enemies, was 
 
138 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 placed in charge of a succession of governors, among 
 whom were Henry de Tracy, Robert de Walerond, 
 Ralph de Wyllyngton, Humphry de Bohun, and Geoffrey 
 Dinant. Forty years had barely elapsed, however, before 
 (1281) the Mariscos were back again. Next we find 
 John de Wyllyngton keeping Lundy from Herbert de 
 Marisco by force of arms; and the Mariscos were finally 
 dispossessed in 1321 by the grant of the island, with the 
 other estates of De Wyllyngton, to the King’s favourite, 
 Hugh, Lord le Despencer. This led in 1326 to the 
 selection of Lundy by Edward II. as a place of refuge. 
 But the winds were contrary, and the King had to land 
 in Wales. With the fall of Le Despencer, and the 
 accession of Edward III., Lundy again returned to the 
 Crown, and was put in the keeping of Otho de Bodrigan. 
 Subsequently it got back to the Wyllyngtons, and was 
 sold by them to the Montacutes, Earls of Salisbury. In 
 1390, Lundy was held of the King in chief by Guy, Lord 
 Bryan, and it descended from him through the Butlers, 
 Earls of Wiltshire and Ormond, to the St. Legers of 
 Annery; thence passing, by the marriage of Mary St. 
 Leger with the gallant Sir Richard Grenville, to the 
 Grenvilles. From the Grenvilles it went to the Leveson- 
 Gowers ; but was sold by the executors of the first Earl 
 Gower, and since then has passed through several hands. 
 It seems impossible to obtain a complete account of the 
 holders and owners of the island; but, amidst much 
 uncertainty, its importance in the Middle Ages is pretty 
 plainly indicated by the number of prominent names 
 associated with it. 
 
 The most romantic part of the history of Lundy 
 extends through the seventeenth century. In the opening 
 years of the reign of James I. it gradually grew into 
 favour as a haunt of pirates, and had for ‘ king ’ one 
 Captain Salkeld. He must have been expelled, if it be 
 true that ‘Judas’ Stukely made it the place of his 
 
Lundy Island. 
 
 139 
 
 retreat; but in 1625 the island seems to have fallen into 
 the hands of a Turkish squadron, and thenceforward for 
 many years it was nothing if not piratical. In 1632 it 
 was reported the headquarters of a buccaneer named 
 Admiral Nutt, who required for his repression a fleet of 
 some do2en vessels. But in the next year the island 
 itself was plundered by a Spanish vessel; and it is some¬ 
 what doubtful how far the native inhabitants of Lundy, 
 and of the adjacent coasts of the mainland, were clear 
 from all participation in this special form of ‘ free 
 trade.’ 
 
 At the commencement of the Civil War, Lundy was 
 garrisoned for the King by one Thomas Bushell, who was 
 engaged in working the silver-lead mines of Combe 
 Martin, and who fortified it at his own cost. But it saw 
 no service ; and having been acquired by Lord Saye and 
 Sele, that nobleman, in February, 1646, called for its 
 surrender. Bushell, not complying, was summoned by 
 Sir Thomas Fairfax; but even then he declined to give 
 way until he had laid the case before the King, and 
 obtained his consent. Hence it was not until February 
 24th, 1647, that Lundy was given up to Colonel Richard 
 Fiennes, and handed over to Lord Saye and Sele. There 
 is a local tradition that his lordship died there, and was 
 buried beneath the west window of the Chapel of St. 
 Helen. 
 
 Under the Commonwealth the sea was too closely 
 kept to allow of Lundy resuming its evil reputation ; but 
 with the Restoration the Lundy piracies cropped up 
 again. In 1663 the island was actually held by French 
 privateers ; and so again in the reign of Queen Anne, to 
 the serious damage of the colonial trade of Barnstaple 
 and Bideford. There is no truth, however, in the story 
 told by Grose of the capture of the island by a French 
 vessel, the crew of whom gained an unopposed access by 
 the pretence that they wished to bury their captain. 
 
140 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 The last noteworthy thing about Lundy is its connection 
 with a certain Thomas Benson, the descendant of a 
 respectable merchant family of Bideford, and at one 
 time member for Barnstaple. Having entered into a 
 contract for the exportation of convicts to Virginia or 
 Maryland in 1747, in 1748 he obtained a lease of the 
 island from Lord Gower, and thereupon made that his 
 convict station, employing his unhappy slaves in his 
 improvements. Lundy or Virginia mattered not in his 
 view, so that they were out of the kingdom. Benson 
 was every way a great rascal. A smuggler, not far removed 
 from a pirate, he had at length to fly the kingdom for 
 an abominable fraud upon insurance offices, removing 
 the insured cargoes of vessels, and then scuttling the 
 ships. 
 
 Since Benson’s time, Lundy has had no national con¬ 
 cern, save the erection of a lighthouse on its highest 
 point by the Trinity Board in 1819. It has, however, at 
 various times been made the residence of its owners. 
 Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren, who bought it of the 
 executors of the first Earl Gower, continued there until 
 the outbreak of the American War ; and the late pro¬ 
 prietor, Mr. Heaven, lived there up to the time of his 
 death for nearly fifty years. The only attempt made to 
 develop a trade at Lundy was the working of granite 
 quarries, which he encouraged, but which did not prove 
 successful. These quarries must, however, have been 
 worked in former times, as the Lundy granite is largely 
 used in many of the churches on the north coast of 
 Devon and Cornwall. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 BIDEFORD. 
 
 Bideford is generally interpreted to mean ‘ by the ford,’ 
 and in name, at any rate, is therefore Saxon. The 
 ‘ ford,’ however, is of far older date, being that by which 
 the old British trackway, subsequently no doubt used by 
 the Romans, crossed the Torridge. Bideford was a place 
 of some importance when it belonged to Brictric, its last 
 Saxon owner; for at the Domesday Survey, when, like 
 most of the other manors of that unlucky thane, it passed 
 to Matilda, it had an enumerated population of 52, while, 
 as it then had a fishery worth 25s. a year, the germs of 
 its maritime character already existed. The manor is 
 remarkable for having remained for nearly seven centuries 
 in one family. After Matilda died, William gave it to 
 Richard Grenville ; and by the Grenvilles it continued to 
 be held until 1750. The first Grenville of Bideford was a 
 cousin of the Conqueror, and in his way a conqueror him¬ 
 self ; for he effected the reduction of Glamorganshire in 
 the reign of Rufus. The Grenvilles occupy a distinguished 
 position in English history; but the two most famous 
 bearers of the name are the Grenville of Elizabeth and 
 the Grenville of Charles. Most famous of all is the 
 former, the Sir Richard Grenville (1540-1591) of whom 
 Kingsley writes, one of the brightest stars in the 
 Elizabethan naval galaxy, who closed a noble life in the 
 
142 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 stoutest sea-fight ever waged. Ralegh has told the story 
 in noble prose, and Tennyson in heroic verse. Alone and 
 unaided in his ship the Revenge, with but 103 men and 
 many of them sick, he fought off Flores, in 1591, the 
 whole Spanish fleet of 52 sail and 10,000 men, from three 
 o’clock in the afternoon until daybreak the following 
 morning, repulsing fifteen attacks of the enemy, who 
 brought up two fresh vessels each time, sinking four of 
 their ships, and killing 1,000 of their men. The Revenge, 
 meantime, was shattered into a mere hulk, 800 cannon- 
 shot piercing her through and through, killing 40 of her 
 crew, and wounding nearly all the rest, Grenville among 
 the number. When the sun rose on the scene of carnage, 
 the Revenge, shattered and broken as she was, her decks 
 streaming with blood, a veritable shambles, lay in the 
 centre of a ring of baffled Spanish men-of-war, who dared 
 come no nearer. Want of ammunition, not of pluck, 
 compelled the crew to surrender, though Grenville himself 
 wished the vessel to be blown up. Three days afterwards, 
 Grenville died of his wounds, with a joyful and quiet 
 mind ; 1 for that I have ended my life as a true soldier 
 ought to do, that hath fought for his country, Queen, 
 religion, and honour.’ The Revenge was staunch to the 
 last. After the battle she was filled with the Spanish 
 wounded, and despatched for Spain; but a storm sprang 
 up, and she was never heard of more, sinking with all 
 hands. 
 
 Sir Bevil Grenville (1596-1643), whom Kingsley calls 
 the ‘ handsomest and most gallant of his generation ’—a 
 Cavalier in whom lived the truest spirit of ancient 
 chivalry—gained lasting fame for himself as one of the 
 four great Royalist leaders of the West—the ‘ four wheels 
 of Charles’s wain.’ Winning the day for his King at 
 Lansdowne fight, he lost his life in the winning; and for 
 a while the name of Grenville was dishonoured by the 
 atrocities of his brother Richard, one of the most 
 
Bideford. 
 
 143 
 
 rapacious and unscrupulous of the Cavalier generals, as 
 Bevil was the noblest. 
 
 It may fairly be assumed that it was to the Grenvilles, 
 and notably to Sir Richard, that Bideford owed the rapid 
 development of her maritime importance in the latter 
 years of the sixteenth century. Sir Richard was con¬ 
 cerned with Sir Walter Ralegh, his cousin, in the ex¬ 
 peditions to colonize Virginia ; and was General of the 
 fleet which, in 1585, settled Roanoake. In the following 
 year he was setting out again from Barnstaple to the 
 relief of the infant colony, when his vessels were beneaped 
 on the bar. The delay thus caused led the colonists to 
 despair of relief, and to return home in a barque given 
 them by Sir Francis Drake. This accident was, there¬ 
 fore, the direct cause of the breaking up of the first 
 English settlement in America; and of the loss of fifteen 
 North Devon men, whom Grenville left behind at 
 Roanoake when his second voyage was made, and who 
 were never heard of after, save that the Indians had 
 vague tidings to tell of death and disaster. 
 
 It was with a fleet destined for the same service that 
 North Devon participated in the fight with the Armada. 
 Grenville had prepared an expedition for the relief of the 
 colony planted by Ralegh in 1587, apparently consisting 
 of three vessels, which was only waiting for a fair wind to 
 put to sea, when the news came of the speedy advent of 
 the Armada, and ‘ most of the ships of warre then in a 
 readines in any hauen in England were stayed for seruice 
 at home.’ According to the contemporary Diary of 
 Philip Wyot, town clerk of Barnstaple, five ships went 
 over Barnstaple Bar to join Sir Francis Drake at Ply¬ 
 mouth ; but, while it has been held that three at least 
 were furnished by Barnstaple, Bideford—in consequence 
 of a statement in ‘ Westward Ho !’ not, however, historical 
 —has been credited with seven. Mr. R. W. Cotton, after 
 an exhaustive analysis of all the evidence, is of opinion 
 
I 44 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 that the North Devon Armada fleet consisted of these five 
 vessels only. The names of four have been preserved— 
 the Galeon Dudley, God save her, and Tyger, entered as 
 Barnstaple vessels, but probably forming Grenville’s con¬ 
 tingent ; and the John, a Barnstaple vessel proper. The 
 other was also in all likelihood a Barnstaple craft, possibly 
 one of six ‘ reprisal ships ’ which are recorded as having 
 belonged to that town. 
 
 That Bideford was the headquarters of the Ralegh- 
 Grenville expedition, and so the chief contributor to the 
 little squadron, there is every reason to believe ; but Mr. 
 Cotton has shown that eight years after the defeat of the 
 Armada it was only assessed at one-fifth as much as 
 Barnstaple, and that of itself it could by no means have 
 supplied all the seamen needed. Bideford, therefore, was 
 not one of the chief ports of England in the sixteenth 
 century, as Kingsley states, though it bore a chief part in 
 the Armada fight so far as North Devon is concerned. 
 It was then, in fact, simply in the dawn of its prosperity; 
 and had only been incorporated under Elizabeth. 
 
 When the commerce of the town began to rise, its 
 extension was very rapid. The merchants of the port 
 were quick to grasp the advantage of the traffic with 
 America and Newfoundland ; and this trade continued to 
 extend until the commencement of the last century, when 
 the export shipping to Newfoundland was exceeded by 
 only-two ports in the kingdom—London and Topsham ; 
 and the import trade by London only. Great was the 
 harvest reaped in these days by the French and Spanish 
 privateers, who preyed upon the ships of Bideford and 
 Barnstaple to such an extent that the offing of the Taw 
 and Torridge was named by them the ‘ Golden Bay.’ 
 But the American trade survived until the American war. 
 For some years more tobacco was imported into Bideford 
 than into London. These palmy days have long since 
 flown ; Barnstaple has once more recovered its superior 
 
Bideford. 
 
 145 
 
 position; and the shipping trade of the Torridge is 
 mostly conducted, not at Bideford, but at Appledore. 
 
 Bideford, like Barnstaple, has a famous bridge. In 
 fact, in Devonshire it is the bridge of bridges, and every 
 true Bideford man feels a pride in the old structure, 
 though he may not have seen it for half a century, and 
 solicitously inquires for its welfare. Its origin is super¬ 
 natural ; its history romantic ; and its demeanour philan¬ 
 thropic. It is quite uncertain when it was built, the early 
 records having been destroyed ; but, as the oldest seal of 
 the borough in existence, of fourteenth-century date, has 
 the bridge for device, so old at least must Bideford Bridge 
 be. According to tradition, no foundation could be laid 
 until Sir Richard Gornard, or Gurney, the parish priest, 
 dreamt that a rock had been rolled to the site to serve for 
 that purpose, and, going there in the morning, found his 
 dream accomplished ; whereupon the work was soon com¬ 
 pleted. The seal to which reference has been made 
 indicates the existence of buildings in association with 
 the bridge that have long disappeared. A structure 
 with a bell turret is on one side of the bridge, a church 
 with a spire on the other, and the centre bears the Virgin 
 and Child on a Maltese cross raised on a shaft. The 
 bridge is wealthy; and the feoffees, in whose care it is, 
 have been enabled from time to time to improve it 
 materially, and to expend a handsome surplus in education 
 and charity. Under the old regime the bridge was rather 
 noted for its hospitality, being addicted to the giving of 
 good dinners ; but these days have fled before the presence 
 of the Charity Commissioners. 
 
 Bideford, like Barnstaple, threw in its lot with the 
 Parliament at the outbreak of the Wars of the Common¬ 
 wealth, with more energy than staying-power. With their 
 neighbours from Barnstaple, the Bideford band joined the 
 rendezvous of the Devonshire Roundheads at Modbury in 
 1642, and took part in Sir Ralph Hopton’s defeat. 
 
 10 
 
146 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 This success inspired a confidence which led to their 
 downfall. Colonel Digby held Torrington with a strong 
 body of Cavaliers to keep the North Devon Parliamen¬ 
 tarians in check. In August, 1643, he was assailed by the 
 united forces of Bideford and Barnstaple, but their van¬ 
 guard of musketeers, being suddenly charged by the 
 colonel and a handful of his officers, were driven back upon 
 the main body. Panic-stricken, they all fled, and were 
 pursued by the Royalist cavalry until, as Clarendon 
 states, ‘their swords were blunted with slaughter, and 
 their numbers overburdened with prisoners.’ Those who 
 escaped had lost their wits as well as the day ; for when 
 they reached Bideford they declared that no one had seen 
 more than five or six of the enemy. Behind their walls 
 and within their forts, however, they regained their courage, 
 and, aided by Barnstaple, sustained a month’s siege from 
 Digby. They must then have stood to their guns well, 
 for they did not surrender until they had promise of pardon, 
 and guarantees of safety of person and property. Re¬ 
 mains of the old fortifications still exist, East-the-Water. 
 
 Shebbeare, the author of ‘ Chrysal,’ was a Bideford 
 man ; and here was first developed the genius of Edward 
 Capern, the Devonshire Burns and postman poet, who is, 
 however, a native of Tiverton. 
 
 Bideford is connected with the last execution for witch¬ 
 craft in the West of England—the last but one in the 
 kingdom. In 1682 there lived here ‘ three old women, 
 ugly, poor, and discontented ’ — Temperance Lloyd, 
 Susannah Edwards, Mary Trembles. Lloyd was a 
 reputed witch, and the fact that she fell upon her knees 
 in the street and thanked God for the recovery from 
 illness of a certain Mistress Thomas seemed ground 
 enough, when Thomas got worse again, to excite suspicion 
 that Lloyd was the moving cause. Taxed with the witch¬ 
 craft, she confessed. She confessed, moreover, that the 
 devil attended her in the shape of a magpie, of a ‘ braget 
 
Bide ford. 
 
 147 
 
 cat,’ of a hobgoblin ; and that she had killed by her 
 witcheries four persons, whom she named. Hints let 
 drop by her next led to the apprehension of Susannah 
 Edwards and Mary Trembles. They, too, gave full con¬ 
 fession. When Susannah Edwards made the acquaintance 
 of the devil, he was ‘like a gentleman.’ Trembles was 
 not so favoured. The devil had appeared to her ‘ like a 
 Lyon.’ The full text of these confessions is still extant, 
 and is equally absurd and revolting. But the trio were 
 convicted on their own testimony; and these three poor 
 women, either mad or weary of life—described by an 
 eye-witness as ‘ the most old, decrepid, despicable, 
 miserable creatures that he ever saw’—were hangedjat 
 Heavitree, near Exeter, on the 25th of August, within 
 two months of their apprehension. There were other 
 trials for witchcraft in Devon and Cornwall in 1695-6 ; 
 but though these ended in acquittal, it was not until 1716 
 that the last executions for this impossible offence took 
 place, when a woman and her daughter were hanged at 
 Huntingdon for selling their souls to the devil. It is an 
 unpleasant commentary upon this that the belief in 
 witchcraft is still widely prevalent in the rural districts of 
 Devon, and leads to the cremation of multitudes of 
 miserable toads, who are looked upon as the emissaries of 
 the Evil One. However, if there are ‘ black witches ’ to 
 do mischief, there are several ‘ white witches ’ who, for a 
 consideration, will baulk their projects. 
 
 Northam is said to have been the scene of the landing 
 of the Danes in 878; of their siege of Kenwith Castle, 
 and of their repulse with great slaughter, the defeat of 
 their chief, Hubba, and the capture of the Raven 
 standard. Few identifications have been more disputed ; 
 yet the existence of the ‘Hubbastow,’ Hubba’s traditional 
 place of burial, and the assignment of the ‘ Bloody Corner ’ 
 as the Danes’ last stand, is evidence that cannot lightly 
 
 10—2 
 
148 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 be gainsaid. The manor had some importance so far 
 back as ‘ Domesday,’ when it belonged to St. Stephen, of 
 Caen, in succession to Brictric; for it had then an 
 enumerated population of 36, with two salt-works and a 
 fishery. In 1252 it was confirmed as part of the posses¬ 
 sions of the Priory of Frampton, in Dorset, a cell to St. 
 Stephen; and when the possessions of the alien houses 
 were seized, was given to the College of St. Mary Ottery. 
 Ottery, in its turn, fell; and Elizabeth granted the manor 
 to the Dean and Chapter of Windsor, so that it has 
 almost continuously been under ecclesiastical lords. 
 
 The little town of Appledore had its rise in the early 
 days of the Newfoundland fisheries, and developed a 
 shipping trade of some importance. Appledore has been 
 treated as Keltic, ‘ A-pwl-dwr,’ the ‘ water-poolbut it 
 is really the Saxon * Appletree.’ Of late a new town has 
 sprung up at the mouth of the Torridge, created and 
 named by Kingsley’s ‘Westward Ho !’ This faces the sea 
 on the verge of the wide expanse of sandy dunes called 
 Northam Burrows, which is defended against the en¬ 
 croachments of the waves by the natural breakwater of 
 Carboniferous pebbles, known as the ‘ Pebble Ridge.’ 
 Rights over the Burrows are exercised by the potwallopers, 
 or householders, of Northam ; and it is one of the few 
 spots in England where the game of golf has been 
 thoroughly naturalized. 
 
 On the opposite side of the river is Instow, really 
 Johns-stow, and thus called in ‘ Domesday.’ 
 
 Borough, in Northam, made ever famous by Kingsley 
 in its association with his Sir Amyas Leigh, was the 
 seat of a family of the same name, which produced 
 at least two very eminent Devonshire seamen—Steven 
 and William Borough. Steven Borough, though little 
 known, is entitled to a very honourable place in the list 
 of Devon worthies. Born in 1525, he was master of the 
 largest vessel, the Edward Bonaventure, in Sir Hugh 
 
Bideford. 
 
 149 
 
 Willoughby’s luckless voyage to the Arctic Seas, planned 
 by Cabot, and which would have been an utter failure 
 had not Borough and his comrade, Richard Chancellor, 
 the pilot-major of the fleet, determined to prosecute their 
 voyage after they had been separated from Willoughby by 
 a storm. Keeping northward until they found no night 
 at all, naming the North Cape on their way, they sailed 
 into the White Sea—the first vessel that had ever entered 
 its wide waste of waters—thus, as it was afterwards said 
 in all earnestness, ‘ discovering ’ Russia. Chancellor 
 proceeded to Moscow, there obtained important trading 
 privileges, and laid the foundations of the important 
 Muscovy Company. In 1556, Borough went again to 
 the Northern Seas in a pinnace, to carry forward the 
 intentions of the original expedition, and to find a way 
 by the north-east to Cathay. He made the most re¬ 
 markable voyage in the annals of Arctic exploration. 
 The little vessel drew only four feet of water. She had 
 for crew only the brothers Borough and eight others ; 
 yet she entered the Kara Sea, and reached a point beyond 
 which no navigator went until our own days—English, 
 Dutch, and Russian failing each in turn. Borough made 
 sundry other voyages, and won such reputation that, in 
 January, 1563, he was appointed by Elizabeth Chief Pilot 
 of England, and one of the four Masters of the Navy. 
 For twenty years he toiled in official harness, and he was 
 buried in Chatham Church in 1584. William Borough, 
 also a seaman of distinction, wrote a treatise on the 
 magnet, and became Comptroller of the Navy. 
 
 Horwood, for many years the chief residence of the 
 Pollards, of whom one notable monument still remains 
 in the church—a fifteenth-century effigy of a lady, with 
 three children in the folds of her robe—claims mention 
 historically from the fact that a shoe nailed on the church 
 door was reputed to have been placed there by Michael 
 Joseph, the Cornish blacksmith, who headed the in- 
 
History of Devonshire. 
 
 150 
 
 surrection of 1497, and marched through Horwood on 
 the way to his defeat at Blackheath. 
 
 Abbotsham was anciently part of the estates of the 
 Abbey of Tavistock, whence its name; but early in the 
 seventeenth century belonged to the Coffin family, who 
 have been seated at Portledge, in the adjoining parish of 
 Alwington, almost from the time of the Conquest, and 
 who continued there in the male line until the death of 
 Richard Coffin in 1766. The family has produced many 
 men of note, Sir William Coffin, Master of the Horse 
 at the coronation of Anne Boleyn, and a prominent 
 participator in the Field of the Cloth of Gold, being of the 
 number. He is said to have been a leading cause of the 
 reform of mortuary fees by threatening to bury a priest— 
 who had declined to read the service over the body of a 
 poor man in Bideford churchyard until he had received 
 the dead man’s cow in payment—in the grave which had 
 been prepared. The disturbance thus created—for Sir 
 William proceeded to actual business—led to inquiry 
 and regulation. The present branch of the family bear 
 the name of Pine-Coffin. The Coffins spread also into 
 the adjoining parish of Parkham. 
 
 Buckland Brewer has name from the Briweres ; and, 
 by the gift of William Lord Briwere, formed part of the 
 endowments of the Abbeys of Dunkeswell and Torre. 
 
 On the hill above the quaint little port of Clovelly, the 
 most * upright ’ village in its structural relations in Eng¬ 
 land, are the gigantic earthworks of Clovelly Dikes. Not 
 only are they the finest in Devon, but they are fairly com¬ 
 parable withthe remains of such ancient cities as Old Sarum 
 or the Dorchester Maiden Castle. It is certain that 
 here was the capital of a powerful tribe. No remains in 
 Devon more strongly emphasize the common error of 
 calling all earthworks * camps,’ and treating them as relics 
 of active warfare. Nevertheless the £ Dikes ’ are a master- 
 
Bi deford. 
 
 151 
 
 piece of ancient defensive skill, and must have required 
 the long-continued labours of even a numerous population. 
 There are three complete circumvallations, the ramparts 
 ranging from 15 to 25 feet in height, with outworks or 
 fragmentary cinctures. 
 
 Visibly connecting the Dikes with ‘ cliff-cleft’ Clovelly, 
 are the remains of an ancient paved road, which has been 
 cited in proof of presumed Roman origin. It may very 
 well have been that the Romans used this landing-place, 
 seeing that traces of a Roman villa have been found in 
 Hartland parish adjoining, and that the coast here was 
 skirted by one of the old trackways ; but there is nothing 
 about Clovelly Roman in its character; and though the 
 name has been ingeniously derived from Clausa Vallis, 
 the ‘ hidden glen,’ there does not seem to be any reason 
 to regard it as being anything but Saxon—the * cliff-place ’ 
 —Cleaveleigh. The little town is really a sharp notch in 
 the cliff range, with a steep step road, lined with houses 
 on each side, running down to a beach and pier. There 
 is every appearance of considerable antiquity in this. 
 
 Clovelly, indeed, finds a place in ‘ Domesday ’ as one of 
 the manors that passed from Brictric to Matilda, and had 
 then an enumerated population of 37, so that it has fully 
 maintained its relative importance. At a very early date 
 it was in the hands of the Giffards; but in the reign of 
 Richard II. came to the Carys, who continued to hold it 
 until this branch of that distinguished family died out in 
 1724. One of the chief members of the Clovelly Carys 
 was Sir John, Chief Baron of the Exchequer in 1387, who 
 died in banishment at Waterford. His son John was, it 
 is said, nominated Bishop of Exeter in 1419 by the Pope 
 while in Italy, but only lived six weeks afterwards, and was 
 never installed. George Cary, Dean of Exeter (1644-1680), 
 is recorded in his epitaph to have twice refused a bishopric. 
 The church is said to have been made collegiate by Sir 
 William Cary in 1387. 
 
152 
 
 History of Devonshire . 
 
 Clovelly, for centuries a fishing village, has acquired 
 reputation as a seaside resort. 
 
 Hartland, or Harton, is the westernmost town in Devon, 
 and the extensive parish in which it lies occupies nearly 
 the whole of the north-west angle of the county. Hartland 
 Point is named by Ptolemy after Hercules; and the 
 Romans left unmistakable traces of their presence 
 in this remote corner. In Saxon times it was evidently a 
 county centre of considerable importance, for the popu¬ 
 lation recorded in ‘ Domesday ’ exceeds that of any other 
 Northern manor—30 serfs, 60 villeins, and 45 bordars. 
 Moreover, it was worth £48 a year. The name in ‘ Domes¬ 
 day ’ is Hertitone, agreeing with the modern Harton, but 
 the form Hartland is probably of as great antiquity, since 
 the affix ‘ land ’ is constantly employed in the Devon 
 Survey as signifying a district of a promontorial character, 
 somewhat akin in usage to the Kornu-Keltic lan. 
 
 The last Saxon holder of the manor was Gytha, mother 
 of Harold, and by her was founded what afterwards be¬ 
 came Hartland Abbey, for canons secular, in gratitude, it 
 is said, for the preservation of her husband, Earl Godwin, 
 from shipwreck. Her foundation was dedicated to St. 
 Nectan, the patron saint of the parish church of Stoke St. 
 Nectan, reputedly buried here. The abbey was refounded 
 for Augustine canons by Geoffrey de Dynham, or Dinant, 
 in the reign of Henry II., and by him re-endowed. It 
 had benefactors also in the Tracys, Peverells, and 
 Boterells, and Richard I. gave it the right of gallows. At 
 the Dissolution its revenues were valued at £306 3s. qd. 
 
 It was to Oliver de Dinant that the market was granted 
 to ‘ Harton borough ’ in 1280. The Dinants held Hart¬ 
 land until the last male of the name, created Lord Dinham 
 by Edward IV. in 1466, died without issue, and his estates 
 passed through his sisters to the families of Carew, Arun- 
 dell, Fitzwarine, and Zouch. There is some little con- 
 
Bideford. 
 
 153 
 
 fusion as to the further descent of the various manors; 
 but the Abbey, in the basement of which there remain 
 portions of the Early English cloisters, belongs to Sir 
 George Stucley, who represents, in the female line, the 
 Stukelys of Afton, several members of whom figure pro¬ 
 minently in Devonshire history. Thomas Stukely under¬ 
 took the plantation of Florida, but turned to something 
 like piracy instead, and died at Alcazar in Africa, fighting 
 side by side with Sebastian of Portugal, in 1578. He it 
 was who told Elizabeth that he would rather be the 
 sovereign of a molehill than the highest subject to the 
 greatest king in Christendom. It was Sir Lewis Stukely, 
 afterwards named ‘Judas,’ who arrested Ralegh on his 
 return from his last voyage ; and in later days Puritanism 
 and the Parliament had few more earnest advocates in 
 word and deed than another Lewis Stukely, the Indepen¬ 
 dent minister of Exeter. 
 
 A more striking illustration of the comparative isolation 
 of Hartland in the sixteenth century can hardly be afforded 
 than the fact that it was evidently overlooked by the com¬ 
 missioners of Edward and Elizabeth in their visitations 
 for the reform of religion. The church of Stoke St. 
 Nectan is not only one of singular architectural merit, 
 especially for so remote a situation, but it contains its 
 screen in perfect preservation, and, what is far more note¬ 
 worthy, its stone altar standing in its original place. 
 
 There are stated to have been anciently eleven chapels in 
 this extensive parish. The parish documents are unusually 
 numerous and interesting, and have been reported on by 
 the Historical Manuscripts Commission. Dr. Moreman, 
 born at Hartland in 1529, vicar of Menheniot, is reputed 
 to have been the first who used the English language in 
 public worship in Cornwall—teaching his parishioners the 
 Creed, Commandments, and Lord’s Prayer in that tongue. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 GREAT TORRINGTON. 
 
 What is now Great Torrington was of old Cheping 
 ( = Market) Torrington. There are several Torringtons 
 entered in ‘ Domesday,’ and the need of distinction was 
 early felt. Now we have Great Torrington, Little Torring¬ 
 ton close by, and Black Torrington some miles higher 
 up the river. Of these the only one that has a history is 
 the first. Gytha held lands in one of the Torringtons, but 
 probably not the ‘great ’ manor of that name. Under the 
 Normans Great Torrington became the head of an honour 
 containing twenty-nine knights’ fees, which were eventually 
 divided among the five daughters of Matthew de Tor¬ 
 rington, married respectively to Merton, Wallis, Tracy, 
 Sully, and Umfraville. This seriously complicates the 
 descent of the barony and manor. In 1228, however, the 
 Castle of Torrington belonged to Henry de Tracy, and 
 the Sheriff of Devon was directed to cause it to be thrown 
 down. A return to a writ of inquiry 7 under Edward I. 
 shows Thomas de Merton possessed of two parts, Walter 
 de Sully of one part, John Umfraville of one part, and 
 Galfride de Kamville, by the death of Henry de Tracy, of 
 one part. The names of De Brian, St. John, and Cary 
 afterwards come into the succession, and when John 
 de Cary was attainted 2 Henry IV. his estates passed to 
 Robert Chalons. The castle was rebuilt in 1340 by 
 
Great Torrington. 
 
 155 
 
 Robert de Merton. Little more than the name of Castle 
 Hill continues. It was at Torrington the Sessions were 
 held in 1484, at which the Marquis of Dorset, Sir Edward 
 Courtenay, Bishop Peter Courtenay, and 500 other noble¬ 
 men and gentlemen, were outlawed for treason against 
 Richard III.; while Sir Thomas St. Leger, who had 
 married Richard’s sister, and Thomas Rayme, were found 
 guilty of high treason, and beheaded at Exeter. Margaret 
 of Richmond was one of the chief residents of Torrington, 
 and gave her manor-house as a residence for the vicar. 
 Torrington no doubt was Lancastrian. Torrington has 
 had two illustrious vicars. Cardinal Wolsey, who held the 
 incumbency until his promotion to the See of Lincoln in 
 1514, and gave the church to his new foundation of Christ 
 Church, Oxford. And John Howe, chaplain to the Pro¬ 
 tector, who was ejected in 1662. 
 
 The church figures prominently in the one event which 
 links Torrington with the later history of the kingdom. 
 The town was held for the King by Sir John Digby in 
 August, 1643, when the Bideford and Barnstaple men 
 made their unsuccessful assault, and in the hands of the 
 Royalists it chiefly remained. In February, 1646, it was 
 the headquarters of Lord Hopton, who had been making 
 preparations for the relief of Exeter. Fairfax soon advanced 
 against him, marching from Crediton to Chulmleigh on 
 the 14th, and mustering all his forces at Ashreigney on 
 the 16th. Although he had an army of 9,500 men, Hopton 
 was unaware of his approach until attack was imminent; 
 and the preparations for defence were necessarily of a 
 hurried character. Nevertheless, the advance of the 
 Parliamentary troops was so obstructed by skirmishing 
 behind the hedges and by blocking the roads with trees, 
 that, although they left Ashreigney at seven in the morning, 
 it was eight in the evening before Torrington was reached, 
 Stevenstone House having been taken on the way. Even 
 then, although Hopton had no more than 5,000 troops, 
 
156 History of Devonshire. 
 
 his position might almost have been deemed impregnable. 
 Standing upon a hill among hills, all but girdled with 
 deep valleys, the place is one of great natural strength; 
 and Hopton had made good disposition of his forces. 
 Fairfax was content with what had been already done for 
 the day, and prepared for an assault in the morning. 
 About midnight, however, as he and Cromwell were going 
 their rounds, they heard sounds that led them to imagine 
 the enemy were in retreat. To test the point a small 
 body of dragoons was ordered to approach the first 
 barricade and fire over. They met with such a warm 
 reception that others had to be sent to their relief; and 
 then the reserve, thinking that an attack had been com¬ 
 menced, came running up without waiting for orders. 
 An assault in force was now inevitable; and, after an 
 hour’s desperate fighting, the place was won. Hopton 
 himself was wounded and barely escaped. The Royalist 
 losses were very heavy. More than 600 prisoners were 
 taken; and, though Fairfax did little in the way of 
 pursuit, there was another sharp conflict at Hembury 
 Fort, near Buckland Brewer, where the Cavaliers took 
 refuge within the earthworks of the ancient camp. 
 
 The capture of Torrington was the real end to the war 
 in the West. It was signalized, moreover, by a great 
 catastrophe. The Royalists had converted the church 
 into a powder-magazine. The Roundheads, ignorant of 
 this, drove into it 200 of their prisoners. Whether by 
 accident or by design the powder was fired, and the 
 church blew up, killing prisoners, guards, and townsfolk, 
 and destroying scores of houses. Fairfax nearly fell a 
 victim; but it was noted as an evidence of miraculous 
 interposition with the ‘ hellish plot ’—a ‘ mira non mirabilia ’ 
 —that ‘ though the Books of Common Prayer were blowne 
 up or burnt, the blessed Bible was preserved and not 
 obliterated, although it were blowne away.’ Hugh Peters 
 preached a thanksgiving sermon for the capture in the 
 
Great Torvington. 
 
 157 
 
 market-place, and a more formal thanksgiving was ap¬ 
 pointed by the Parliament. In addition to the prisoners, 
 3,000 stand of arms and the whole of the baggage and 
 money of the Royal army were taken. 
 
 The inhabitants of Great Torrington have extensive 
 and peculiar rights over the common lands adjoining their 
 town, which are said by Risdon to date from the time of 
 Richard I. The documentary history extends to the reign 
 of Elizabeth. Over the unenclosed commons of 370 acres 
 ‘ all occupiers of ancient messuages,’ locally called ‘ pot¬ 
 boilers,’ claim the right to common of pasture without 
 stint. Over another 163 acres of ‘ common fields ’ similar 
 rights are claimed, subject to a right of tillage in the 
 owner of the fee. The ancient custom was to remove the 
 gates of these fields annually after harvest, and stock 
 the land with cattle from the adjacent open commons until 
 the customary time for the next year’s tillage. In 1835 
 this plan was modified by an agreement on the part of the 
 occupiers to pay, and the commoners to receive, * quiet 
 possession rents,’ in consideration of which the fields are 
 allowed to be cultivated in any way thought proper. Still 
 more recently fresh disputes have arisen between the 
 commoners and the lord of the manor, the Hon. Mark 
 Rolle. 
 
 Considering the antiquity and early importance of 
 Torrington, and the large number of important families 
 resident in the neighbourhood, it may seem somewhat 
 singular that Torrington should not have had a more 
 prominent place in the national life. Two causes probably, 
 however, contributed to this—one, the fact that notwith¬ 
 standing its antiquity and trade, it lay in an isolated part 
 of the country, outside the run of ordinary traffic; the 
 other, its successful endeavour in 1368 to rid itself of the 
 burden of sending burgesses to Parliament, on the score 
 of its poverty. It was represented 23rd Edward I. to 
 45th Edward III. The present incorporation of the town 
 
158 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 as a municipality dates from Mary; but the seal of 
 ‘ Chipyngtoriton ’ is certainly of older date. The market 
 is held by prescription, and possibly has a Saxon origin. 
 The town was largely engaged in the woollen manufacture; 
 it is now chiefly occupied in gloving, of which it is a very 
 important centre. 
 
 Frithelstock, an adjoining parish to Great Torrington, 
 held by Ordulf before the Conquest, then passing to the 
 Earl of Moreton, is chiefly noteworthy here as having 
 been the site of a small priory of Austin canons, founded, 
 1220, by Sir Roger de Beauchamp. Portions of the 
 original Early English structure are still standing. The 
 Priory was settled by monks from Hartland, and the 
 two houses were always so far connected that the prior 
 of each had a voice in the election of the head of the 
 other. The revenues at the Dissolution were valued at 
 -£127 2s. ojd.; and the estate was granted by Henry VII. 
 to Arthur, Viscount Lisle, afterwards passing into the 
 family of Rolle, and descending to the Earl of Orford 
 and Lord Clinton. The advowson of Ashwater was 
 given by Richard de Braylegh, temp. Edward III., to the 
 prior and convent of Frithelstock for certain charities. 
 
 Monkleigh was given to the Priory of Montacute in 
 Somerset by its founder, William, Earl Moreton, in the 
 reign of Henry I., and after the Dissolution passed to the 
 family of Coffin. Here is the ancient seat and park of 
 Annery, once the home of the Stapledons, then by 
 marriage of the Hankfords. This was the residence of 
 Sir William Hankford, born at Hankford, in Bulkworthy, 
 and created in 1413 Lord Chief Justice of the King’s 
 Bench; the judge who traditionally disputes with 
 Gascoigne and Hody the credit of having committed 
 Henry V., as Prince of Wales, to prison for striking him 
 a blow on the Bench. Another tradition, probably of 
 equal authority, is connected with Flankford alone. 
 
Great Torrington. 
 
 159 
 
 Having returned to Annery, and being weary of his life, 
 he accused his park-keeper of want of care in the pre¬ 
 servation of his deer, and ordered him to shoot anyone 
 whom he might meet in his rounds at night, and who did 
 not answer upon being challenged. Having so provided, 
 he himself walked in the park, met his keeper, refused to 
 reply to the challenge, and, as he hoped and intended, 
 was shot by a quarrel from the keeper’s cross-bow. A 
 tree is still pointed out as that under which Hankford 
 was standing at the time ; and there is yet a little dread 
 in the country-side of meeting the ghost of the Lord 
 Chief Justice. All the ancient accounts of the transac¬ 
 tion differ so materially that speculation seems almost 
 idle. Hankford was, however, buried at Monkleigh, 
 where his mutilated monument remains. His descendants 
 married into the families of Fitzwarine, St. Leger, and 
 Bourchier, Grenville, Stukely, and Tremayne. Anne 
 Bullen was granddaughter of Anne, daughter and heiress 
 of Sir Richard Hankford, thus enabling the county to 
 claim Queen Elizabeth as in part of Devonshire kindred. 
 
 Wear Giffard has already been mentioned as one of 
 the seats of the once wide-spread and powerful family of 
 Giffard, and later of the Fortescues, whose manor-house 
 has one of the noblest halls of its period still left, the 
 roof being reckoned among the finest examples of 
 Perpendicular woodwork in England. 
 
 Then we have, on the east of Torrington, the extensive 
 parish of St. Giles-in-the-Wood, so called to distinguish 
 it from St. Giles-in-the-Heath, which lies on the borders 
 of Cornwall, and which contains the manor of Cary, 
 reputedly the original home of the Cary family. The 
 church of St. Giles was originally a chapel to Torrington. 
 Stevenstone here, now the property of the Hon. Mark 
 Rolle, in the time of Henry II. belonged to Richard St. 
 Michael, thence passing to Basset, De la Ley, Grant, and 
 Moyle; and finally, in the reign of Henry VIII., being 
 
i6o 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 bought by George Rolle, an eminent London merchant. 
 Way passed from the Ways to the Pollards and Wylling- 
 tons. Winscott from the Barrys came to Risdon, the 
 chorographer (1580-1640), now represented by Sir Stafford 
 Northcote, and is the seat of Mr. J. C. Moore-Stevens, a 
 descendant of one of the wealthy townsfolk and bene¬ 
 factors of Torrington, William Stevens. There are also 
 Dodescot, which belonged to the Howards; and Whits- 
 leigh, held by Dynants, Durants, Kellaways, Drakes, and 
 Woollacombes. 
 
 The parish of Merton is celebrated as containing the 
 manor of Potheridge, the home for many descents of the 
 family of Monk, made illustrious in their descendant, 
 the famous General. There is some little confusion as to 
 the exact place of Monk’s birth (1608), arising from the 
 fact that he was baptized, not at Merton, but at Land- 
 cross, a parish some miles distant, adjoining Bideford. 
 Hence he has been variously regarded as being born at 
 Potheridge and at Landcross. However, Potheridge 
 was both the seat of his family and became his own 
 chief residence. The mansion was rebuilt by him for 
 that purpose; but in greater part was destroyed after the 
 death of the widow of his son Christopher, the second 
 and last duke, in 1734. Monk was one of those men, so 
 characteristic of the period in which he lived, who were 
 equally at home at sea or on land; and his first service 
 was marine. Afterwards he saw much active duty in 
 Scotland and Ireland, originally as a partizan of Charles I.; 
 but subsequently in command of the Roundhead forces 
 under Cromwell. In Ireland he dispersed the forces of 
 O’Neale; and in Scotland he quenched the hopes of the 
 Royalists by the capture of Edinburgh and Stirling 
 Castles. Then he became * general at sea,’ and defeated 
 the Dutch in two great engagements; after which, for a 
 while, he took up his residence at Dalkeith. Here he 
 was living when Cromwell died; and hence he marched 
 
Great Torrington. 
 
 161 
 
 into England with a small army, and took the leadership 
 of affairs, and the direction of the movement which led to 
 the restoration of Charles II. The King was grateful. 
 Monk was made Captain-General, Baron Potheridge, 
 Earl of Torrington, and Duke of Albemarle. Thence¬ 
 forward, until his death in 1670, he held the foremost 
 position in the kingdom in all matters connected with the 
 national defence. His last service of importance was the 
 defeat of the Dutch in conjunction with Prince Rupert. 
 
 Concerning Merton itself, it may be noted that at the 
 Conquest it passed to Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances, 
 having been held by Torquil. The ‘ Domesday ’ entry 
 gives it all the characteristics of a wild woodland manor ; 
 for to a population of 23 serfs, villeins, and bordars, it 
 had no fewer than 9 swineherds. A much smaller manor 
 of the same name was held by Richard, under Baldwin 
 the Sheriff. Baldwin was likewise the lord of Porridge, 
 in which we may in all probability identify Potheridge. 
 This had been the land of Ulf, and was held under 
 Baldwin by Alberic. There seems to have been some 
 connection between Potheridge and Merton, possibly 
 derived from ancient common ownership, as the rector 
 of Merton was entitled to a dinner every Sunday and 
 the keep of his grey mare out of the barton of Potheridge, 
 which eventually was commuted for a modus of £3 per 
 annum. At least, so say the Lysonses, following Chappie. 
 Merton, which was for a while in the Stawells (following 
 the Mertons) and the Rolles, passed to the Trefusises, 
 Barons Clinton. 
 
 11 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 HOLSWORTHY AND HATHERLEIGH. 
 
 There is no more uninteresting part of Devon historically 
 than the corner next the Cornish border, of which the 
 chief centres are Holsworthy and Hatherleigh ; and yet it 
 is precisely here that almost the only trace of Roman 
 influence on the nomenclature of Devon, outside Exeter, is 
 to be found. Near North Lew—a bleak upland parish, 
 where, according to the local proverb, ‘ the devil died of the 
 cold’—are Chester Moor, Scobchester, and Wickchester; 
 and it does not seem possible to evade the conclusion that 
 these names mark the localities of Roman castra, and 
 point to some sort of Roman, perhaps frontier, occupation. 
 
 Hatherleigh formed part of the original endowment of 
 Tavistock Abbey, and appears in ‘Domesday’ under the 
 name of Adrelie. The entry has some interesting features. 
 The Abbey held in demesne 6 serfs, 26 villeins, and 6 
 coscets; and there were 4 tenants under the abbey— 
 Nigel, Walter, Geoffrey, and Ralph, who had 4 serfs, 12 
 villeins, 4 bordars, and 5 coscets. Geoffrey, moreover, 
 had a mill upon his lands. This tenancy—itself continu¬ 
 ing in all likelihood older divisions—probably originated 
 the subsequent manorial apportionments of the parish. 
 After the Dissolution the chief manor, Hatherleigh proper, 
 passed to the Arscotts. Hatherleigh Moor, the manor 
 waste, belongs to the inhabitants, and it is the common 
 
Holsworthy and Hatherleigh. 
 
 163 
 
 belief among them that this comes of the gift of John of 
 Gaunt, who executed the conveyance in the rhyme : 
 
 ‘ I, John of Gaunt, 
 
 Do give and do grant 
 Hatherleigh Moor 
 To Hatherleigh poor 
 For evermore.’ 
 
 And this is all that there is to be said of Hatherleigh, 
 beyond the fact that it gave birth to John Mayne, dramatist 
 and theologian (1604-72). 
 
 Holsworthy, the other town of the district, has a some¬ 
 what better claim to notice. The market is one of great 
 antiquity; and the chief fair was recorded in the time of 
 Edward I. as having belonged to the ancestors of William 
 Martyn from time immemorial. Holsworthy was held for 
 the King in 1646, and occupied by Fairfax, after his 
 capture of Torrington ; but apparently without a contest. 
 Probably the Haldeword, which Harold held before the 
 Conquest and William afterwards, it had even then an 
 enumerated population of 75. There is evidence also 
 that it must have been of much greater importance in the 
 Middle Ages than it has been since, in the fact that it had 
 600 houseling people in 1547. The manor has been the 
 property of several distinguished families. Henry II. 
 gave it to Fulk Paganell, until he should be able to recover 
 his own lands in Normandy. Afterwards it came to the 
 Chaworths, thence to the Tracys, the Martyns,. and 
 the Audleys. Then it reverted to the Crown, and was 
 held by royal grant in succession by John of Gaunt (and 
 this may have been the association that linked his name 
 with Hatherleigh tradition) John Holland, Duke of Exeter, 
 and Margaret, Countess of Richmond. For a while it 
 was in the Specotts and Prideauxes, and was sold by the 
 latter to Thomas Pitt, Lord Londonderry, from whom it 
 has descended to its present owner, Lord Stanhope. At 
 Thorne a family of that name were seated from the reign 
 
 11—2 
 
164 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 of King John till the early part of the seventeenth century. 
 Here also is Arscott, which gave name to that ancient 
 house, later of Tetcott. The ‘ church town ’ of Holsworthy 
 is now a thriving agricultural centre. 
 
 Few of the adjoining parishes call for special mention. 
 Ashbury has been the seat of the Morth-Woollcombes 
 for some two centuries; at Beaworthy a park was made 
 about 1366 by Sir Nigel Loring, one of the first Knights 
 of the Garter; Abbots Bickington takes its distinctive 
 name from being given by Geoffrey de Dinant to Hart- 
 land Abbey; Bradworthy Church was the gift of Lord 
 Briwere to the Abbey of Torre ; Bratton Clovelly disputes 
 with Bratton Fleming, and Bracton Court near Mine- 
 head in Somerset, the honour of being the birthplace of 
 Henry de Bracton, Chief Justiciary under Henry III., the 
 celebrated writer on the laws and customs of England— 
 * De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae’ (d. circa 1268)— 
 who lies buried in Exeter Cathedral; Bridgerule is really 
 Bridge Raoul, from its Norman owner, Ruald Adobed ; 
 Broadwood Widger, named from the once prominent 
 family of that name, belonged subsequently to Frithelstock 
 Priory, while the manor of Mere Malherbe was given by Fitz 
 Stephen to the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, and by 
 its prior conveyed to the Abbey of Buckland in Somerset; 
 Hollacombe, like Newton St. Petrock (the gift of TvSelstan), 
 was the property of Bodmin Priory ; Honeychurch gave 
 name to a family which has ceased to be connected with 
 it, but has only recently, if yet, become extinct; Iddes- 
 leigh was anciently the seat of the Sullys, the last of whom 
 was Sir John Sully, who served at Halidon, Cressy, 
 Poictiers, and in Spain, and at the reputed age of 105 (1387) 
 gave evidence at his residence in the Scrope and Gros- 
 venor controversy—he died soon after, and is said 
 to have been buried at Crediton, but a figure of a 
 Crusader at Iddesleigh is also assigned to him; In- 
 wardleigh was an early settlement of the family of 
 
Holswortliy and Hatherleigh. 165 
 
 Coffin ; Jacobstow, as Jacobescherche, is remarkable as 
 being not only one of the ‘ Devenescire ’ manors which 
 did not change hands at the Conquest, but as belonging 
 to a Saxon lady, Alveva, and as being the seat of a Saxon 
 church ; Pancrasweek, which anciently belonged to the 
 Briweres, was given by William Lord Briwere to Torre 
 Abbey, and, like the next manor, recalls a dedication of 
 the British Church ; Petrockstow was part of the posses¬ 
 sions of the Abbey of Buckfast, mentioned as such in 
 ‘ Domesday ’—the park of Heanton Satchville belongs to 
 Lord Clinton, whose seat is in the adjoining parish of 
 Huish, once possessed by the bearers of that ancient 
 name ; Shebbear was formerly in the Nevilles, and John 
 Alvethol held lands here by the service of holding the 
 King’s stirrup whenever he should come into the lordship ; 
 Sheepwash, adjoining, was of old a market-town ; Tet- 
 cott was the last seat of the family of Arscott, who died 
 out in the male line in 1788, and were succeeded by the 
 Molesworths ; Werrington was the chief manor of the 
 Abbey of Tavistock. 
 
 Winkleigh has claims to a more detailed notice. In 
 the first place, the parish forms a hundred of itself; and 
 in the second, it was part of the honour of Gloucester. 
 Before the Conquest, it was held by Brictric, who suc¬ 
 ceeded his father, Algar, in the Gloucester earldom ; and, 
 like other possessions of that unlucky Saxon, passed to 
 William’s Queen. ‘Domesday’ notes it an important 
 manor, with 40 ploughlands, and an enumerated popula¬ 
 tion of 76. Moreover, it contained the only park entered 
 for Devon. Upon Matilda’s death, Rufus became the 
 lord ; and, shortly after his accession, gave the manor to 
 Robert Fitz Hamon. By the marriage of Fitz Hamon’s 
 daughter, Mabel, to Robert Fitzroy, illegitimate son of 
 Henry I., the estates of the earldom of Gloucester passed 
 to him, and the title followed. Winkleigh was early 
 divided into the two manors of Winkleigh Keynes and 
 
i66 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 Winkleigh Tracy, named from their respective owners. 
 The Earls of Gloucester still continued, however, to 
 retain some interest—at least, down to the fourteenth 
 century. Risdon speaks of the existence of two castles 
 here ; but there is no trace of either now, beyond a couple 
 of mounds, which may have been the foundations; and 
 both manors were eventually for a time reunited in the 
 family of Lethbridge. It is quite possible that one of 
 those * castles ’ may have been the mansion at Up 
 Holecombe, which Richard Inglish had the licence of 
 the King to castellate about 1361, especially as one of 
 the mounds above mentioned is very doubtful. And as 
 William de Portu Mortuo obtained a charter for a market 
 at Hollacombe village in 1260, the place must then have 
 been of some little consequence. Indeed, Winkleigh is 
 sometimes called a borough town. Southcote, another 
 estate in the parish, appears to have given name to the 
 Southcote family. Winkleigh Church was given to the 
 Abbey of Tewkesbury by one of the Fitzroys, and it had 
 a Guild of St. Nicholas. The Rev. Wm. Davey, who 
 died vicar of Winkleigh in 1826, is remarkable for having, 
 while curate of Lustleigh, written and printed with his 
 own hands a system of divinity in twenty-six volumes, 
 working fourteen copies only. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 OKEHAMPTON. 
 
 Insignificant as Okehampton has been for many a long 
 year, deriving its sole importance since the days of the 
 Stuarts from its position on the high-road into Cornwall, 
 and losing even that when the construction of the Great 
 Western Railway diverted the course of traffic, there are 
 few towns in Devon associated with more distinguished 
 names. It is signalized in ‘ Domesday ’ as the one manor 
 in Devon stated to possess a castle. Moreover, it had a 
 mill and a market; and, in addition to 50 villeins, serfs, 
 and bordars, 4 burgesses. Though not one of the four 
 boroughs of the county, it had, therefore, a definitely 
 town-like character in the modern sense. How much of 
 this importance it enjoyed under its Saxon lord, Offers, is 
 doubtful; for, though his timbered ‘ strength ’ may have 
 been the nucleus, there is no ancient town in Devon that 
 seems more thoroughly the creation of its castle, the 
 only really defensible spot it possessed. 
 
 Baldwin the Sheriff, or Baldwin de Redvers (otherwise 
 De Sap, or De Brioniis), was the most important feudal 
 lord in Devon. No fewer than 181 manors fell to his 
 share in this county alone ; and from among them all he 
 selected ‘ Ochementone ’ (far more closely preserved in 
 the still current ‘ Ockington ’ of the natives than in the 
 polite and utterly unetymological Okehampton) for his 
 
i68 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 chief residence. Ninety-two fees were held of this barony. 
 Here in the centre of his domains, in the very heart of 
 Devon, commanding the passes to the north and west of 
 Dartmoor, and dominating the district far away to the 
 Severn Sea, he reared his castle. None of his masonry 
 remains ; but the site is that which he chose, the mound 
 is that which he scarped and isolated from the hillside, 
 of which it formed a rocky spur ; and the surroundings 
 have changed little from the day when the square Norman 
 keep first frowned upon the brawling waters of the rapid 
 Ockrnent in the valley below. 
 
 For a time the house of Redvers flourished. Not only 
 did they hold the chief barony of Devon in Okehampton, 
 not only were they hereditary castellans of Exeter, and 
 sheriffs of the county; but Richard, son of Baldwin, by 
 his faithful adherence to Henry I., gained the town of 
 Tiverton, and the honour of Plympton. His son, 
 Baldwin, espoused the cause of Matilda, and was driven 
 from the kingdom, with the loss of all his great posses¬ 
 sions. Yet it was not long ere the De Redverses were 
 reinstated in their honours and estates; and it was by 
 marriage with Mary, daughter of William de Verona, 
 sixth Redvers Earl, the coheiress of that great family, 
 that the historic house of Courtenay became not only 
 lords of Okehampton, but eventually obtained the 
 earldom of Devon they again so worthily enjoy. With 
 occasional intermissions of forfeiture, the Courtenays 
 held Okehampton, from the death of Isabella de Fortibus 
 in 1292, until the death of Edward Courtenay in 1556. 
 
 Robert de Courtenay is said to have made Okehampton 
 a free borough in the reign of Henry III. He can only, 
 however, have affirmed and extended pre-existing rights. 
 Representatives were sent to Parliament as early as 
 28th Edward I. ; but the town was not incorporated by 
 royal charter until 1623, and portreeve and mayor long 
 existed side by side, the custom being for the same 
 
Okehampton. 
 
 169 
 
 burgess to be chosen to fill both offices. From 7th 
 Edward II. until 1640 the town ceased to elect members; 
 then it resumed and continued until finally extinguished 
 in 1832. There are two corporate seals. One, pre¬ 
 sumably attached to the office of portreeve, bears for 
 device a triple towered castle; the municipal seal has a 
 cornucopia, charged- with an escutcheon, bearing the Red- 
 vers arms. A new corporation was chartered in 1885. 
 
 Brightley was the original seat of the Cistercians of 
 Ford Abbey, which they found it impossible to colonize 
 successfully. 
 
 The value of Okehampton as a strategic point entailed 
 many inconveniences and no little loss in the course of 
 the wars between Charles and the Parliament. Troops 
 of both parties occupied in turn, and it was never free 
 long together from the presence of one or the other. 
 Charles himself, Maurice, Essex, Goring, Richard 
 Grenville, Fairfax, and several minor commanders, held 
 possession at various times ; but it was never the scene 
 of actual conflict. The nearest fighting was a hotly 
 contested affair in May, 1643, between Chudleigh and 
 Hopton and Grenville, at Meldon, in Bridestowe, 
 memorable for being fought by night in a storm of wind 
 and rain. Chudleigh had somewhat the advantage ; but 
 the defeat of the Earl of Stamford followed too closely 
 to render the victory of any avail. Okehampton Castle 
 had been dismantled by Henry VIII., or in all probability 
 an effort would have been made to hold it. Okehampton 
 Park is still the name of the ancient demesne skirting 
 Dartmoor; but it was disparked and alienated by 
 Henry VIII. 
 
 Bridestowe, the adjoining parish to the south-west, was 
 held at the time of the Domesday Survey by Ralph 
 de Pomeroy, ancestor of the great house of Pomeroy, 
 under Baldwin. The name is really a corruption of 
 Bridgetstowe, the church being dedicated to that saint, 
 
i ;o 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 and thus marking the site of a pre-Norman foundation. 
 Sampford Courtena)', which lies to the north-east, has 
 been already noted as the place where the Western Re¬ 
 bellion for the restoration of Roman Catholicism had its 
 rise. It was a parcel of the barony of Okehampton. 
 
 North Tawton, a market-town of considerable antiquity 
 and of old time a borough, retained its portreeve as a 
 memorial of former importance, though the prefix has 
 long been dropped which gave it claim to rank with 
 Great Torrington as a Saxon market—Cheping or Chipping 
 Tawton. This may be taken as some guide to its identi¬ 
 fication in ‘ Domesday.’ It was certainly held by William ; 
 but whether it was the Tavyetone which had 3 serfs, 
 31 villeins, and 33 bordars, or the Tavetone which had 
 belonged to Gytha, with its 12 serfs, 50 villeins, and 
 30 bordars, there is very little direct evidence. The 
 greater importance of the latter would indeed seem to 
 make it likely that this was North Tawton, and Tavyetone 
 South Tawton ; but though at first sight the former iden¬ 
 tification would appear almost certain from the fact that 
 while Tavetone is associated in ‘ Domesday ’ with the 
 smaller manor of Ashe, there is still extant in North 
 Tawton the estate of Hs/zridge; oddly enough, we find 
 that at South Tawton we have the alias of Eastash. 
 
 North Tawton was one of the possessions of the famous 
 family of Valletort, to whom a market-grant was made in 
 1270. It came by coheiresses to the Champernownes, 
 from whom it descended to the St. Legers and Woods 
 (or Atwoods) who lived at Ashridge several generations. 
 
 The barton of Bath is associated with a notable piece 
 of folk-lore. It was the name, place, and seat of the 
 family of Bath, De Bath, or Bathon—a house sometime 
 of much note. Of this stock was Sir Henry Bath, Justice 
 Itinerant to Henry III., who was charged with corruption 
 in his office, and respecting whom Henry is said to have 
 
Okehampton. 
 
 i/i 
 
 declared at his trial, ‘Whosoever shall kill Henry de Bath 
 shall be quit of his death, and I do hereby acquit him.’ 
 However, Bath was fortunate enough not only to be 
 taken into favour again, but to be made Chief Justice of 
 the King’s Bench. He died in 1261. The point of folk¬ 
 lore raised is not unique, which makes it the more curious. 
 There is at Bath a large pit or excavation, which under 
 ordinary circumstances is perfectly dry, but becomes 
 filled with water, by an intermittent spring, before any 
 great national event or family calamity. This is said to 
 have occurred in recent days, immediately before the 
 death of the Duke of Wellington. As Bath is the Saxon 
 baeth, ‘ water,’ probably this phenomenon has continued 
 for many centuries, and gave name to the estate. 
 
 North Tawton is one of the very few centres of the 
 woollen manufacture which retains its trade. It possesses 
 a very large woollen factory which has always kept pace 
 with the times, and thus illustrates what might have been 
 done if masters and men had been everywhere equally 
 well advised to keep the ancient trade in the county. 
 
 The leading manor of South Tawton was once in the 
 Beaumonts, being granted by Henry I. to Roselm Beau¬ 
 mont, Viscount de Mayne, whose granddaughter brought 
 it to Roger de Tony. This family appear to have made 
 the village of South Zeal ( = Saxon, sell, a dwelling) the 
 borough which it is occasionally described as being, for 
 Robert de Tony had a grant of a market and fairs there 
 in 1298. Tantifer, Chiseldon, and Wadham are also 
 ancient names in connection with the descent of South 
 Tawton Manor. 
 
 A far more remarkable piece of Devonshire folk-lore 
 than that just noted is associated with this parish of 
 South Tawton — ‘the Oxenham omen’ —every fact in 
 relation to which has recently been collected with the 
 minutest care by Mr. R. W. Cotton. Oxenham here gave 
 
172 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 name to a family of repute, one of whose members was 
 John Oxenham, of Plymouth, the first Englishman who 
 sailed on the Pacific, a comrade of Drake at Nombre de 
 Dios, who eventually fell into the hands of the Spaniards 
 and was by them executed as a pirate—one of the bravest 
 and most unfortunate of the great seamen of Elizabethan 
 Devon. The * omen ’ consists in the appearance of a 
 ‘ bird with a white breast,’ or of a white bird, before the 
 deaths of members of the family. The earliest record of 
 this apparition refers to the year 1618; but in 1641 what 
 is now a rare pamphlet was published, detailing four 
 appearances before the deaths of four members of a 
 branch of the Oxenhams, settled at Zeal Monachorum, in 
 1635. The tradition continues in the family, where the 
 reality of the appearances is not doubted, though ‘ no 
 decided conviction obtains as to their cause.’ Recent 
 instances of the ‘ omen ’ are quoted in connection, the 
 most remarkable of which was the appearance of a white 
 bird outside the windows of a house in Kensington a week 
 before the death of Mr. G. N. Oxenham, then head of the 
 family, in 1873. The bird refused for some minutes to be 
 driven away, and a sound like the fluttering of wings is 
 stated to have been heard in the bedroom. Probably this 
 belief in the white bird of the Oxenhams is associated in 
 some way with the wide-spread superstition that the flying 
 of birds around a house and tapping against the window, 
 or resting on the sill, portends death. Mr. Cotton inclines 
 to the belief that the solution of the problem may be 
 ‘ physiological . . . and that heredity, of the force and 
 effects of which we have probably little conception, and 
 the marvellous instincts of animals, of which we know so 
 little, are the keys to it.’ Zeal Monachorum, by the way, 
 takes its distinctive name from having been given by Cnut 
 to Buckfastleigh Abbey. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 LYDFORD. 
 
 Ubi lapsus, quid feci ? might well be the motto of the 
 little town of Lydford, one of the oldest boroughs in all 
 broad Devon, populous and wealthy long before the 
 Norman Conquest—almost the rival of Exeter, as we see 
 it first emerging from the mists of antiquity—now the mere 
 shadow of a shade. Some scattered houses, a few green 
 mounds, a crumbling ruin—these are modern Lydford— 
 all we have left beside a few legends and tattered memories 
 of former greatness : a few scattered entries that make up 
 the sum-total of a history which extends over more than 
 ten centuries. No town or village in the West teaches 
 the mournful lesson —vanitas vanitatum —so thoroughly as 
 Lydford. We are even left to guess at the cause of its 
 fall. 
 
 Like Exeter, we have in Lydford an ancient British 
 settlement; but, unlike Exeter, one cast down from its 
 high estate. Approach it from any quarter, save where 
 the bridge of later days spans the chasm of the Lyd, and 
 the strength of the position is seen at once. So environed 
 is it with moor and bog, with hill and ravine, that in 
 ancient days there was but one mode of access, and that 
 most exposed and circuitous. The village stands upon a 
 tongue of land, bounded and defended towards the south 
 by the deep and, in old days, impassable gorge of the Lyd ; 
 
174 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 on the north by the ravine of a tributary of that river. 
 Northward and southward therefore, and on the angle to 
 the west, the natural strength of the position in days of 
 primitive warfare was enormous; and all that was needed 
 was to guard the approach from the higher ground to the 
 east. This was done by the construction of a line of 
 earthworks, yet traceable, though never observed until 
 their existence was recorded by the writer, from one 
 valley or ravine to the other. 
 
 Although Lydford finds no place in history until Anglo- 
 Saxon times, it then appears as a town that had some 
 antiquity to boast. Its importance is shown by the fact 
 that it was the seat of a Saxon mint, sharing that honour 
 in Devon with Exeter and Totnes. Lydford pennies are 
 extant of the reign of iESelred the Unready, Cnut, Harold 
 Harefoot, and possibly of Eadweard the Confessor and 
 the second Harold. Its earlier antiquity is indicated 
 not only by the earthworks of the Kelts, but by the Keltic 
 dedication of its church to St. Petrock; and, while the 
 font in the existing church is probably Saxon, there is 
 some reason to regard the north wall of that fabric as of 
 at least equal age. 
 
 It is under the reign of iESelred that Lydford first ap¬ 
 pears in the pages of history. The ‘ Saxon Chronicle ’ 
 records how, in 997, the Danes made a raid up the Tamar 
 and Tavy until they came to Hlidaforda, burning and 
 slaying everything they met; burning Ordulf’s minster at 
 /Etefingstoc (Tavistock), and bringing back to their ships 
 incalculable plunder. Whether the passage implies the 
 capture of Lydford by the Norsemen, to whom its mint 
 must have been a great attraction, or whether we are to 
 infer that it proved the barrier to their inroad, is not 
 certain. If taken and spoiled, recovery must have been 
 speedy, for * Domesday ’ ranks Lydford one of the four 
 Saxon boroughs of Devon—with Exeter, Barnstaple, and 
 Totnes—and as doing equal service. The most significant 
 
Lydford. 
 
 175 
 
 ‘ Domesday ’ entry, however, is the statement that forty 
 houses had been laid waste in Lydford since the Conqueror 
 came to England. Prior to 1066, therefore, it is evident 
 that Lydford must have been the most populous centre 
 in Devon, Exeter alone excepted. 
 
 History is silent as to the cause of this devastation of 
 Lydford, but there seems every reason to believe that it 
 was connected in some way with the Conquest, and that 
 it probably arose from the resistance which the sturdy 
 little borough offered to the Norman arms. Exeter, while 
 resisting, as we have seen, gave way in time, and was 
 spared. William may have deemed it desirable to make 
 an example of Lydford, though more merciful even here 
 than in the Northern counties. 
 
 Lydford never thoroughly recovered this blow ; though, 
 as it remained the head of the Forest of Dartmoor, and 
 was subsequently appointed the prison of the Stannaries of 
 Devon, it retained some importance in the Middle Ages, 
 particularly in the early part of the thirteenth century. 
 Thus, when Edward I. summoned his first Parliament, 
 Lydford was one of the boroughs to which writs were 
 directed. 
 
 The Castle of Lydford, in part at least Late Norman, 
 dates from the latter part of the twelfth century. The 
 Keltic earthworks were continued as defences by the 
 Saxons. There was no place within the circuit of supreme 
 command whereon to plant a citadel to dominate the 
 whole. Okehampton traces its origin to the castle near 
 which it grew—here the castle is the child of the town. 
 The building is a true keep, wholly differing in character 
 from the shell keeps which, as at Plympton and Totnes, 
 were planted by the Normans upon the mounds of the 
 elder ‘ strengths ’; and it was of peculiar importance as 
 one of the border fortresses by which the roads skirting 
 Dartmoor were commanded. The earliest traceable 
 mention of the castle in history is its grant, July 31st, 1216, 
 
History of Devonshire. 
 
 i 76 
 
 to William Briwere to be held during pleasure. A cen¬ 
 tury later (1305) it is named as the prison of the Stan¬ 
 naries. 
 
 Lydford law has the same bad proverbial reputation as 
 Jeddart justice ; and the rhymes of William Browne of 
 Tavistock, one of the sweetest of English pastoral poets, 
 are familiar far beyond the precincts of the county: 
 
 ‘ I oft have heard of Lydford law, 
 
 How in the morn they hang and draw, 
 
 And sit in judgment after. 
 
 At first I wondered at it much, 
 
 But now I find their reason such 
 That it deserves no laughter.’ 
 
 The piece is one of the most humorous topographical 
 poems in existence. The castle is likened to 
 
 ‘ An old windmill. 
 
 The vanes blown off by weather. 
 
 ***** 
 
 ‘ If any could devise by art 
 To get it up into a cart, 
 
 ’Twere fit to carry lions !’ 
 
 Besides the castle we are told 
 
 ‘There is a bridge, there is a church, 
 
 Seven ashes and an oak ; 
 
 Three houses standing and ten down. 
 
 ***** 
 
 ‘ One told me, “ In King Caesar’s time 
 The town was built of stone and lime ”— 
 
 But sure the walls were clay ; 
 
 For they are fall’n for aught I see, 
 
 And since the houses are got free, 
 
 The town is run away.’ 
 
 As to the neighbourhood and its denizens: 
 
 ‘ This town’s enclosed with desert moors, 
 
 But where no bear nor lion roars, 
 
 And nought can live but hogs ; 
 
 For all o’erturned by Noah’s flood, 
 
 Of fourscore miles scarce one foot’s good, 
 
 And hills are wholly bogs. 
 
Lydjord. 
 
 177 
 
 ‘And near hereto’s the Gubbins’ cave, 
 
 A people that no knowledge have 
 Of law, of God, or men : 
 
 Whom Caesar never yet subdued ; 
 
 Who lawless live, of manners rude, 
 
 All savage in their den.’ 
 
 Fuller gives a description of these Gubbinses, utilized 
 by Kingsley in ‘ Westward Ho !’ and the surname sur¬ 
 vives in the district, and in the saying ‘ Greedy Gubbins.’ 
 
 Many have been the attempts to account for the origin 
 of ‘ Lydford law.’ Local tradition avers that it origi¬ 
 nated in the cruelty of Jeffries during the Bloody Assize, 
 and that his ghost haunts the castle in the shape of a 
 black pig. But the Bloody Assize stopped short of Lyd¬ 
 ford, and the saying is far older than the days of Monmouth. 
 Browne wrote his rhymes when he visited Lydford to see 
 his friend, the Roundhead Colonel Hals, imprisoned there 
 by the brutal Sir Richard Grenville. But Browne had 
 often heard of the proverb, and it did not originate 
 with him. It has been usual to trace it to the practice of 
 the Stannary Courts, and to connect it with the case of 
 Richard Strode, imprisoned at Lydford as an offender 
 against the Stannary Laws in the reign of Henry VIII. ; 
 but Strodejwas certainly incarcerated by process of law, and 
 by no means ‘ hung first and tried after.’ Moreover, there 
 seems to be very fair ground for holding that, in the line of 
 action which led to his imprisonment, Strode was actuated 
 rather by personal motives, and was not, as most of the 
 county historians have assumed without inquiring into 
 the facts, a martyr for the public good. Be that as it 
 may, his detention in the ‘ hainous, contagious, and detest¬ 
 able’ dungeon pit of Lydford, now open to the day within 
 the castle walls, led to the declaration of the right of 
 Parliamentary free speech. Strode was member for 
 Plympton ; the sentence against him was annulled by 
 Act of Parliament, on the assumption that he was prose- 
 
178 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 cuted for preventing the tinners from injuring creeks and 
 harbours ; and it was declared in that statute that all pro¬ 
 ceedings against members of Parliament ‘ for any bill, 
 speaking, reasoning, or declaring of any matters ’ in Par¬ 
 liament, should be void and of none effect. 
 
 In any case the experience of Strode could not origi¬ 
 nate ‘ Lydford law;’ for the expression occurs in a poem, 
 assigned by Mr. T. Wright, on internal evidence, to 1399: 
 
 ‘ Now be the law of Lydfiford 
 in londe ne in water.’ 
 
 We thus get an antiquity of at least five hundred years, 
 and come too near to the establishment of the Stannary 
 Prison to look to the maladministration of the Stannary 
 Laws for the origin of the phrase. It is highly probable, 
 therefore, that we must seek it in the fact that the Forest 
 Courts of Dartmoor were held at Lydford, and the in¬ 
 tolerable Forest Laws there administered. From the 
 peculiar character of these laws, it was quite possible for 
 the Chief Warden—whose post, as Sir C. S. Maine notes, 
 was executive rather than judicial—to inflict summary 
 punishment, and yet for the case to be inquired into at 
 the Court of Swainmote, and not adjudicated on for three 
 years at the Court of Justice Seat. 
 
 From the time of the Commonwealth down to the early 
 part of the last century, the castle was in ruins. It was 
 then restored, and used as a prison and as the meeting- 
 place of the Manor and Borough Courts until the founda¬ 
 tion of Princetown. But Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt moved 
 the courts to his new capital of the Moor, and Lydford 
 Castle fell into deeper decay than ever. 
 
 As a municipal borough, Lydford continued to possess 
 and exercise many rights and privileges until comparatively 
 recent times. The election of mayor ceased about the 
 middle of the last century, and the corporate insignia 
 have disappeared. The borough coroner was invariably 
 ‘ the oldest and most grey-headed man in the place.’ 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 TAVISTOCK. 
 
 Few places in Devon have a greater antiquity than 
 Tavistock, if we take the Saxon period into chief account. 
 The ‘stock’ of the Tavy was the most important settle¬ 
 ment made by the Saxons on that river, and long before 
 the Conquest it assumed the characteristics of a provincial 
 centre of population and wealth. It was remarkable, until 
 1885, as being the only Parliamentary existing borough 
 in the county not municipal; for it had never received 
 any charter of incorporation, although it had been repre¬ 
 sented since the 23rd of Edward I. ; and it retained as 
 its chief officer the ancient Saxon portreeve, elected by 
 the voices of his fellow-freeholders. The old village 
 commune of the earliest Teutonic settlers had therefore 
 direct succession in Tavistock. But even this does not 
 fully indicate the antiquity of organized human settlement 
 in the vicinity. 
 
 It is a fact that must have a meaning, if this can only be 
 defined, that nearly all the ancient inscribed stones of 
 Devon are found upon one parallel in the south-west of 
 the county, between Stowford on the north and Yealmpton 
 on the south, the line passing through Tavistock as a kind 
 of centre. These all give token of ecclesiastical influence; 
 and two, by the Ogham writing which they bear, proof 
 also of Irish intercourse. They probably indicate there- 
 
 12—2 
 
iSo 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 fore a period of active mission-work on the part of the 
 Irish Church, somewhere about the latter part of the fifth 
 and first half of the sixth century. 
 
 Of six such monuments found upon the line noted, 
 three will be found within the vicarage garden at Tavi¬ 
 stock, placed there by an enthusiastic antiquary of the 
 past generation-—the Rev. E. A. Bray. Two of these 
 stones came from Buckland Monachorum. One, which 
 stood in a field, bears the inscription in Roman characters 
 -‘ DOBUNNI FABRII FILI ENABARRI,’ or simply ‘ NABARR ’ 
 
 —the reading adopted by Mr. C. Spence Bate. This 
 latter word is repeated as ‘ Nabarr’ in Ogham, and it is a 
 singular fact that the stone supplied the last letter want¬ 
 ing—‘b’—to the completion of Dr. Ferguson’s South 
 British Ogham alphabet. The second Buckland Mona¬ 
 chorum stone was found by Mr. Bray in use as the support 
 of the roof of a blacksmith’s shop. Here the legend is, 
 
 ‘ sabini fili maccodecheti.’ The third, which had been 
 adapted as a foot-bridge over a little stream near Tavi¬ 
 stock, appears to run, ‘ neprani fili conbevi,’ though the 
 last word has been read ‘ condevi.’ 
 
 Of the other three inscribed stones of this group the 
 most interesting was found lying across a brook near 
 Fardel, Cornwood, and is now in the British Museum. 
 This is also bilingual, with the legend both in Roman and 
 in Ogham characters, slightly varied. It was the first 
 stone found in England with an Ogham inscription. The 
 legend runs, ‘ sangranvi fanoni maqvirini.’ 
 
 The Stowford stone stands in Stowford churchyard, a 
 sepulchral monument, which appears to commemorate a 
 certain ‘ guniglei.’ The lettering is very rude and peculiar, 
 and the reading quite uncertain. This version, by Mr. 
 C. Spence Bate, seems, however, the most probable ; and 
 certainly commends itself much more than the ‘ gurgles ’ 
 of Professor Hubner. The chief interest about this stone 
 lies in the fact that, like the kindred memorial at Yealmpton 
 
Tavistock. 
 
 1 81 
 
 to ‘ torevs ’ or ‘ gorevs ’ (of which more anon), we find it 
 in a churchyard; and, so far as appears, upon its original 
 site. Lustleigh, as we shall see, affords another illustration 
 of this ; though, from the fact that the stone there has 
 been diverted from its original purpose, by no means of so 
 marked a character. 
 
 But the history of Tavistock itself begins with the 
 establishment of the Abbey of St. Rumon. Ordulf, son of 
 Orgar, Ealdorman of Devon, is the reputed founder. He 
 is one of the semi-mythic heroes of the Saxon race who 
 may be found in almost every county, a man of amazing 
 strength—a giant, whose sport it was to stride a stream 
 and cut off with one blow of his hunting-knife the heads 
 of animals brought him for the purpose. He was com¬ 
 manded to build the Abbey in a vision, and his wife was 
 guided by an angel to the site. There is thus ample 
 room for discriminating criticism as to the circumstances 
 attending the foundation, even if we ignore the counter 
 tradition that it was the joint work of Ordulf’s father, 
 Orgar, and himself. This much, however, does seem 
 certain, that the Abbey was founded about the year 961; 
 and that in 997 it was destroyed by the Danes during the 
 inroad in which they carried fire and sword from the 
 mouth of the Tamar to Lydford. The monastery must 
 then have been of great size and very wealthy, though we 
 may reject the statement that Ordulf’s magnificence made 
 it large enough for 1,000 men. It had, however, come 
 under royal patronage. Ordulf’s sister was that zElfryth 
 (or Elfrida) whose career forms one of the most notable 
 features of Anglo-Saxon annals. Though familiar, her 
 story forms part of Devonian history, and falls into place 
 here. Eadgar, hearing of the beauty of Elfrida, sent 
 ^EtSelwold to view, with instructions to report if rumour 
 spoke truth, to the intent that if it did he might make her 
 his queen. Instead of securing her for his master the 
 unlucky noble fell in love with her himself, and, disparaging 
 
182 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 her to the King, easily gained his monarch’s consent. At 
 length Eadgar visited Devon, and iESelwold, fearing the 
 consequences of his deceit, implored his wife to besmirch 
 her loveliness for awhile. She, finding that whereas she 
 was simply the wife of a noble she might have been 
 a queen, resented the fraud, and heightened her attractions 
 to the utmost of her power. The King came, saw, and 
 was overcome. HiSelwold was conveniently killed by 
 accident while hunting the following day with the monarch, 
 we may presume on Dartmoor, and his widow mounted 
 the throne. Her sons were Eadmund and fESelred, and 
 after the murder of his half-brother, Eadweard the Martyr, 
 by Elfrida’s orders, at Corfe Castle, the latter succeeded 
 to the crown, and became the liberal patron of the Abbey 
 of Tavistock. To this connection was due the fact that 
 after its destruction by the Danes the Abbey was rebuilt 
 with so much greater grandeur that it eclipsed every 
 religious house in Devon, in the extent, convenience, and 
 magnificence of its buildings. 
 
 It was fortunate, too, in its early heads. Lyfing, who 
 from his eloquence obtained the title of ‘ Wordsnotera,’ 
 and in whom the Sees of Devon and Cornwall were 
 united at Crediton, was one of them. His successor was 
 HHdred, afterwards Archbishop of York, who crowned 
 William the Conqueror. The final dedication was to St. 
 Mary and St. Rumon. 
 
 ‘ Domesday ’ places Tavistock Abbey far at the 
 head of the religious houses in Devon, in the extent 
 and value of its estates. Fourteen manors, besides a 
 house at Exeter, were its landed possessions; and the 
 total annual value is set down at £71 10s. 7d. A note¬ 
 worthy fact also is that the Abbey had several military 
 tenants, some of whom may have been among the thanes 
 by whom the lands so held were occupied in Saxon times. 
 Tavistock itself had an enumerated population, exclusive 
 of the monks and their five military tenants, of 79, and 
 
Tavistock. 
 
 183 
 
 was therefore the most populous place in the district at the 
 time the Survey was taken. To make its importance fully 
 apparent, however, other manors immediately adjacent 
 would have to be taken into account. There were a 
 dozen residents on that of Wrdiete, now Hurdwick, close 
 to the town ; while the next manor of Mideltone, now 
 Milton Abbot, had another fifty. Thus liberally endowed 
 at the time of the Conquest, the Abbey throve even more 
 mightily afterwards, for its possessions were so enlarged 
 by several liberal benefactors, that, while they do not seem 
 to have been always stewarded most heedfully—and in 
 fact the monks in the fourteenth century bore a bad repu¬ 
 tation for luxury, gluttony, and laziness—its revenues 
 were valued at the Dissolution at £902 5s. 7d. 
 
 In 1458 the abbot was mitred, and in 1514 Henry VIII. 
 put the finishing-touch to the Abbey’s glories by calling its 
 head, Richard Banham, to the House of Lords as Baron 
 Hurdwick, while Pope Leo X. granted the same dignitary 
 a bull exempting the Abbey from episcopal jurisdiction. A 
 quarter of a century later came the surrender; and the 
 site of the Abbey and its estates passed to John Russell, 
 ancestor of the Earls and Dukes of Bedford, by whom 
 they have ever since been enjoyed. 
 
 That Devonshire should be one of the first counties in 
 England into which the art of printing was introduced, is 
 due to the enterprise and zeal for learning of the monks of 
 Tavistock, in their later mended ways. Only two works 
 from this early Tavistock press now exist; but as the first 
 of these is dated 1525, and the second 1534, they must 
 have produced much more than these two fragments. 
 The earliest is a copy of Boethius’s * Consolations of 
 Philosophy,’ as translated by Walton of Osney: ‘ Em- 
 prented in the exempt monastery of Tauestok, in Den- 
 shyre, By me, Dan Thomas Rychard, Monke of the sayde 
 Monastery. To the instant desire of the ryght Worshyp- 
 ful esquyer, Mayster Robert Langdon.’ Langdon was a 
 
184 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 Cornishman, of Keverell, in St. Martins-by-Looe. The 
 other extant publication of the Tavistock press is a copy 
 of the ‘ Statutes of the Stannaries.’ 
 
 The remains of the Abbey are far from affording any 
 adequate idea of its former magnificence, thanks chiefly 
 to the iconoclastic work of a last century vandal named 
 Saunders, who built on part of the site, and with the 
 materials, the Abbey House, which is now the Bedford 
 Hotel. The east gate—essentially of late twelfth-century 
 work, with fifteenth-century additions, however—still 
 remains, with the western gateway, commonly called 
 Betsy Grimbal’s Tower, the tradition being that a nun of 
 that name was murdered there. There are also the 
 refectory, now used as the Unitarian chapel, its groined 
 porch being converted into a dairy attached to the Bedford 
 Hotel; a fragment of the north wall of the great Abbey 
 Church, sometimes called Ordulph’s Tomb, and at other 
 times Childe’s (of whom more anon) ; and the boundary 
 walls next the Tavy, with a tower which has always been 
 known as the Still House. The fragment of the Abbey 
 Church is in the churchyard of the parish church of St. 
 Eustatius ; but the site of the Abbey Church itself is now 
 part of the public street. 
 
 The Russells have ever been the most liberal of land¬ 
 lords. Every improvement made in Tavistock has been 
 carried out by the Duke for the time being, ‘ regardless 
 of expense,’ with a taste as well as a liberality that have 
 resulted in making the little town—so far as its main 
 thoroughfares go—the handsomest of its size in the West of 
 England. The venerable parish church, and the yet more 
 venerable Abbey, have governed the style adopted in the 
 erection of the chief public buildings, which are all gathered 
 to one centre ; and much expense has been incurred in 
 the removal of structures which did not harmonize with 
 the prevailing mediaeval character. At the same time 
 all that was worthy of preservation has been fully kept. 
 
Tavistock. 
 
 185 
 
 The gatehouse of the mansion of the Frizes of Fitzford, 
 noted in local history as the scene of a duel between Sir 
 John Friz and Sir Nicholas Slanning, in which the latter 
 was killed, had to be removed, but it was carefully rebuilt; 
 and close by now stands the latest gift to the town of its 
 ducal lords, a magnificent statue of Tavistock’s most dis¬ 
 tinguished son, Sir Francis Drake, by Boehm. Most of 
 the new public edifices, too, are built of the same material 
 as the old, a free-working green volcanic ash from Hurd- 
 wick. This is seen to special advantage in the buildings 
 of the Kelly College, founded on a site given by the 
 Russells, from a bequest of the late Admiral Kelly. 
 
 Tavistock is the chief mining centre in Devon, and was 
 one of the Stannary towns. Near it are the Devon 
 Consols Mines, which commenced with a capital of £1,000, 
 reworking an abandoned shaft, and immediately struck a 
 lode of copper so rich that nearly a million and a quarter 
 were paid in dividends. Not far off is Flingston Down, 
 of which it was said in old time : 
 
 ‘ Hingston Down, well y-wrought, 
 
 Is worth London town, dear y-bought.’ 
 
 But the modern operations in its mines have not borne 
 out the promise of the rhyme. Hingston was the scene 
 of the defeat of the Danes and their Cornish allies by 
 Eadgar, and of this it is said in Tavistock : 
 
 ‘ The blood that flowed down West Street 
 Would heave a stone a pound weight/ 
 
 Tavistock threw in its lot with the Parliament in the 
 Civil War of the seventeenth century. A town which had 
 chosen the famous Pym for representative, and which 
 had the Earl of Bedford for lord, would hardly do other. 
 At the commencement of the struggle in the West, Sir 
 George Chudleigh raised some troops here ; and after the 
 defeat of Ruthven at Bradock Down, Stamford retired on 
 Tavistock, but left it for Plymouth on the approach of the 
 
186 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 Royalist forces, who in their turn made it their head¬ 
 quarters. Having no defences, it was never made a 
 garrison, but served as a convenient station on the way 
 to Cornwall, for whichever side might for the time be 
 uppermost. 
 
 Prince Charles held a council here in December, 1645, 
 which proved the last attempt of the Cavaliers to make 
 head in the West. Exeter was then besieged by the 
 Roundheads ; but the Puritans of Plymouth were kept in 
 check by a blockade under Colonel Digby; and, on the 
 arrival of a large reinforcement of trained bands from 
 Cornwall, it was agreed to march upon Totnes, and use 
 that town as a base of operations for the relief of Exeter. 
 The march was about to commence when news came of 
 the advance of Fairfax and Cromwell, and a hasty retreat 
 was beat to Launceston. 
 
 The Royalist leader most closely connected with Tavi¬ 
 stock was Sir Richard Grenville. His first association 
 with Tavistock was as the claimant of Fitzford House, in 
 right of Lady Howard, his wife, the heiress of the Fitz 
 family. This house was the occasion of the only fighting 
 Tavistock at this time saw; being held for the King and 
 taken by Essex on his way into Cornwall in 1644. The 
 defeat of Essex proved Sir Richard’s opportunity; for he 
 added to his wife’s estates of Fitzford and Walreddon 
 those of the Earl of Bedford and Sir Francis Drake, con¬ 
 fiscated by Charles, so that not only Tavistock itself but 
 a wide extent of surrounding country fell into his hands. 
 His wife, however, contrived to rescue her portion ; and 
 the Bedford and Drake estates went back to their original 
 owners when the Parliament gained the upper hand. 
 
 Lady Howard had been married three times, before the 
 Duke of Buckingham prevailed with her on behalf of 
 Grenville ; and she was so well alive to her own interests, 
 that she settled her estates beyond the power of Grenville 
 to control. His violence when he discovered this led to 
 
Tavistock. 
 
 1 87 
 
 his being fined heavily in the Star Chamber, and in default 
 committed to the Fleet, whence he escaped to Holland. 
 On the breaking out of the Civil War, he naturally took 
 the Royalist side, as his wife inclined to the Parliament, 
 and, as a first reward of his loyalty, had a sequestration 
 of her estates. The meanness of his character is illustrated 
 by the fate of the unfortunate lawyer who had conducted 
 the suit against him—Francis Brabant; for he hung him 
 as a spy. 
 
 Tavistock sent two notable men to St. Stephen’s. One, 
 the great Pym, already mentioned ; who, with Strode 
 —one of the family of Newnham, Plympton—Hampden, 
 Holies, and Hazelrig, Charles I. sought to send to the 
 Tower for their fearless defence of the rights of the people. 
 The other, the unfortunate Lord William Russell, who 
 perished on the scaffold in 1683, a martyr to the popular 
 cause. Portraits of Pym and Russell, painted by Lady 
 Arthur Russell, adorn the New Hall of the town, which 
 contains the portraits of other local worthies by the same 
 lady. 
 
 For its size, Tavistock has produced more distinguished 
 men than any town in the county; and the neighbour¬ 
 hood contains the ancient seats of many leading families 
 of olden time. 
 
 Chief of the worthies of Tavistock is the renowned Sir 
 Francis Drake, born in a cottage at Crowndale, probably 
 in the year 1539; but the date is uncertain, and all that 
 is known of Drake’s parentage is that his father was a 
 clergyman. Drake is by no means an uncommon name 
 in the neighbourhood and throughout South Devon, and 
 all attempts to connect the Drakes of Tavistock with the 
 line of Ashe have failed. The Tavistock Drakes appear 
 to have been of the burgher class. The name occurs among 
 the monks, and while Sir Francis’s father was a clergy¬ 
 man, a contemporary William Drake was vicar of Whit¬ 
 church. Clerical position was, however, in those days no 
 
i88 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 proof of family, and the nearest evidence of station we 
 have is the record of a William Drake of Tavistock—temp. 
 Henry VII.—who was a smith. The register of the 
 name of Francis Drake as a Plymouth freeman, in 1570, 
 shows that no claim was then made to descent or arms, 
 the distinctions of rank being most scrupulously observed 
 in that record. 
 
 Francis Drake took to the sea, and made his first im¬ 
 portant voyages under his kinsman, John Hawkins, after¬ 
 wards the famous Sir John. Joint sufferers from the 
 Spanish treachery at San Juan de Ulloa, in 1568, from that 
 moment they waged unceasing war against Spain on their 
 own account. Drake’s first independent expedition was 
 in 1572, when he took Nombre de Dios, Vera Cruz, and 
 acquired great booty. In 1577 he sailed from Plymouth 
 Sound on the most remarkable voyage ever undertaken by 
 an English sailor. He had seen the Pacific while blocking 
 up ‘ the gulf of Mexico, for two years glorious with continual 
 defeats,’ and had resolved to sail thereon. So, with a squad¬ 
 ron of five vessels, the largest the Pelican of 120 tons, he 
 started to circumnavigate the globe. Nearly three years 
 elapsed ere he returned. Desertion and disaffection broke 
 up his little fleet; but he persevered, and brought his vessel 
 back to Plymouth, laden with treasure, on the 26th of 
 September, 1580. Great was the rejoicing, and great the 
 glory, for he had the honour of entertaining Elizabeth on 
 board his famous ship at Deptford, and of receiving 
 knighthood at her hands. In 1585 he did great damage 
 to the Spaniards in the West Indies with a fleet of twenty- 
 five sail; and in 1587 performed the exploit which he 
 jocularly called ‘ singeing the King of Spain’s beard ’—with 
 his fleet so ravaging the Spanish coast as to delay the 
 sailing of the Armada for a year. When the Armada 
 came he was the vice-admiral of the fleet which assembled 
 in Plymouth Sound to await them, and which hounded 
 the unlucky braggart Spaniards to their destruction up 
 
Tavistock. 
 
 189 
 
 Channel. In August, 1595, Drake and John Hawkins 
 sailed together from Plymouth in joint command of a fleet 
 intended for the West Indies, which from the first was 
 destined to failure. Hawkins died a few weeks after the 
 ships sailed—partly of old age, partly of chagrin. Two 
 months had not elapsed before Drake followed, from 
 dysentery, produced in the first instance by the disasters 
 which attended the expedition. 
 
 William Browne, the poet, author of ‘ Britannia’s Pas¬ 
 torals,’ was born at Tavistock in 1590. 
 
 Kilworthy, now sadly modernized, is the ancient seat of 
 the Glanvilles, of whom the first distinguished member is 
 Sir John, Judge of the Common Pleas under Elizabeth. 
 Either by him, or by his son, Kilworthy was built. A 
 daughter of Judge Glanville has been regarded as the 
 heroine of the once popular Elizabethan drama—* Page 
 of Plymouth’ — founded unhappily upon fact. Ulalia 
 Glanville was attached to one George Strangwidge, but 
 was married by her parents to an old and wealthy merchant 
 of Plymouth, named Page. This unequal match led to 
 the murder of the husband, and the wife and the lover 
 and their accomplices were executed for the crime at 
 Barnstaple. The event was made the theme of ballads 
 and tales as well as of the play; and the horror of the 
 deed was heightened in the popular mind by the tradition 
 that Judge Glanville himself pronounced the fatal sentence. 
 It is a sufficient answer to this to show that Glanville did 
 not become a judge until seven years after the murder ; 
 but beyond this, Ulalia Page was not the daughter of the 
 Judge, but of another member of the Glanville family who 
 had removed from Tavistock to Plymouth; and from 
 whom, in all probability, the once famous author of 
 ‘ Saducismus Triumphatus ’—Joseph Glanvill, Prebendary 
 and F.R.S., born at Plymouth in 1636 (died 1680)—was 
 descended. 
 
 Judge Glanville’s second son John was another Tavi- 
 
190 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 stock worthy, who sat for several years in the House of 
 Commons as member for Plymouth, and filled the difficult 
 post of Speaker in the Parliament of 1640. When all 
 hopes of a peaceful understanding were at an end, 
 Glanville withdrew with the King to Oxford ; and, when 
 the conflict was over, paid the penalty of his loyalty in 
 imprisonment and fine. He lost a son, Francis Glanville, 
 in the defence of Bridgewater in 1645. After the Restora¬ 
 tion he was appointed King’s Serjeant, and died in 1661. 
 By the failure of the male line Kilworthy came to the 
 Manatons, who are now also extinct. 
 
 Another Tavistock worthy of the law was Sir John 
 Maynard, said to have been born in a house that stood on 
 the site of the Abbey. He was a man of note throughout 
 the stirring days of the Stuarts and the Commonwealth, 
 his long life covering the whole of the Stuart reigns until 
 the final expulsion of the family and the accession of 
 William of Orange. Born in 1602, he did not die until 
 1690. William remarked, when he was presented at 
 Court, that he must have outlived all the judges and 
 eminent men of his day. ‘ Yes,’ rejoined Maynard, ‘and 
 I should have outlived the laws too, had it not been for 
 the happy arrival of your Majesty.’ Maynard was elected 
 to the Long Parliament for Totnes and for Newport in 
 Cornwall, but preferred Totnes, and took a prominent 
 part in the debates of the house. He was engaged in the 
 impeachments of Strafford and Laud, and sat in the 
 Assembly of Divines ; but was sent to the Tower in 1647 
 and 1653 for opposing Parliamentary measures. He 
 pleaded strongly for the life of the King, and was too 
 moderate a man for the temper of the times; but was 
 elected in 1657 for Plymouth, of which town he had 
 become recorder, in succession to his townsman Glanville, 
 in 1640. At the Restoration he was again elected for 
 Plymouth, and unseated as having been elected by the 
 Mayor and Corporation, and not by the freemen. 
 
Tavistock. 
 
 191 
 
 Charles II. then made him Serjeant-at-law, and knighted 
 him ; and in 1679 he was returned for Plymouth un¬ 
 questioned, and continued to sit for the town until the 
 accession of James II., though displaced from the recorder- 
 ship by Charles in 1684 in favour of John Grenville, Earl 
 of Bath. Thenceforward, in spite of his age, Maynard 
 proved a vigorous opponent of the royal policy—refused 
 to take part in the persecution of the Seven Bishops, and 
 became an ardent promoter of the Revolution. 
 
 Brent Tor is a remarkable eminence, of volcanic aspect 
 and origin, crowned by a quaint little church dedicated 
 to St. Michael. This is said to have been erected by a 
 merchant, who, in peril at sea, vowed, if saved, to build 
 a church on the first point of land he saw. It is also 
 associated with a local version of the common legend, 
 that the site of the church was to have been at the 
 bottom of the hill, but that in the night the materials 
 were carried to the top. In some versions of this myth 
 the conditions are reversed; and in all likelihood it is 
 simply a survival of the antagonism between the old 
 heathen faith in high places, grafted on a nominal Chris¬ 
 tianity, and the more definite religious idea which would 
 have nothing to do with places that had been profaned by 
 idolatrous rites. The form of the legend would naturally 
 depend upon the party who succeeded. As the Tor 
 belonged to the Abbey of Tavistock, we may assume that 
 the church was founded by the monks. 
 
 And here a curious question arises. The manor of 
 Liddaton, as Lideltone, belonged to the Abbey at the 
 compilation of ‘ Domesdayand this was in Brent Tor 
 parish. But the Abbey had another manor called Bernin- 
 tone, which has not been identified; and this also may be 
 associated with Brent. The one name seems to echo the 
 other. Moreover, this manor of Bernintone was not only 
 extensive and fairly populous, containing thirty-five plough¬ 
 lands and an enumerated population of forty-eight; but, 
 
1 92 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 in addition to serfs, villeins, bordars, and swineherds, it 
 had four bures and a quantity of ‘ common pasture.’ 
 
 In the adjoining parish of Marystow the Abbey held 
 from Saxon times the manor of Radone or Raddon. 
 Sydenham, which gave name to a family long extinct, had 
 come to the Wises so early as the reign of Henry IV.; 
 and their many-gabled house, now that of the Tremaynes, 
 is the best preserved Elizabethan mansion in this part of 
 the county, although it was garrisoned for the King under 
 Colonel Holbourn in 1645. Built by Sir Thomas Wise, it 
 passed from his name in the next generation; for his only 
 son died unmarried, and his granddaughter, Bridget 
 Hatherleigh, brought it to the Tremaynes, in whom it 
 has ever since remained. Prior to this marriage, the 
 Tremaynes had been seated at Collacombe in Lamerton 
 for several generations. They had the estate of Collacombe 
 by marriage from the Trenchards ; but the house was 
 erected by the Tremaynes in the latter part of the sixteenth 
 century, and retains many picturesque features. Here 
 were born the twin Tremaynes, Nicholas and Andrew, of 
 whose likeness and sympathy Prince tells some wonderful 
 tales, and who both fell at the siege of Newhaven in 1563. 
 Among the Tremayne memorials in Lamerton Church is 
 one recording how 
 
 ‘ One of both sore wounded lost his health, 
 
 And t’other slain, revenging brother’s death.’ 
 
 Lifton, which adjoins Marystow, one of the frontier 
 parishes of Devon next Cornwall, passed from the Crown, 
 by the grant of King John in 1199, to Agatha, who had 
 been nurse to Eleanor his mother. By Edward I. the 
 manor, hundred, and advowson were given to Thomas of 
 Woodstock, and descended thence through the Hollands 
 to the Nevilles. Then the Harrises had it a couple of 
 centuries, and next came the Arundells. 
 
 The Lysonses state that it was held of the chapel of 
 
Tavistock. 
 
 *93 
 
 Berkhampstead by the annual render of a pound of 
 incense. 
 
 Kelly is noteworthy as affording one of the few con¬ 
 tinuing local instances of families seated on the estates 
 whence they take name. The Kellys of Kelly have held 
 this manor from the time of Henry II. at least. 
 
 Milton Abbot, already mentioned, contains the lovely 
 Devonshire seat of the Dukes of Bedford—Endsleigh. 
 Edgcumbe, here, is the original home of the family of 
 Edgcumbe, and has continued in the possession of the 
 elder branch from the reign of Edward III. The younger 
 branch is ennobled as Earls Mount Edgcumbe. 
 
 There is additional testimony to the importance of the 
 valley of the Tavy in the early days of Saxon settle¬ 
 ment, in the fact that Whitchurch parish—Wicerce in 
 ‘ Domesday ’—by its name indicates the existence here of 
 a church in pre-Norman times. Like the other parishes 
 around Tavistock, in later days it testified to the im¬ 
 portance of that ancient town by giving home to several 
 families of ancient gentry. A younger branch of the 
 Courtenays was long settled at Walreddon ; Halwell was 
 a seat of the Glanvilles for some three centuries before 
 they removed to Ivilworthy; Grenofen, now belonging to 
 the Chichesters, was long in the Pollards; Britsworthy 
 long continued in the Mewys, Moortown in the Mooringes, 
 and Sortridge in the Pengellys. Whitchurch was once an 
 archpresbytery, on the foundation of Robert Champeaux, 
 abbot of Tavistock about the year 1300, the rector being 
 archpriest and having three fellows. 
 
 *3 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 BUCKLAND MONACHORUM. 
 
 One of the hundreds of the Exon ‘ Domesday,’ which 
 neither the Lysonses nor any other general writers on 
 Devonian history identified, is that of Walchentone, 
 which appears again in the ‘ Exchequer Domesday ’ as 
 Wachetone, with the appendant manors of Svdtone 
 (now Plymouth), Tanbretone (Tamerton), and Macretone 
 (Maker), all part of the royal demesne. Walchentone 
 hundred is now represented by the hundred of Roborough; 
 and Walchentone itself is to be found in the moorland 
 parish of Walkhampton, the identification being easy to 
 anyone acquainted with the ancient and indeed current 
 pronunciation—‘ Wackington.’ Nowhere in Devon has 
 so great a change taken place in the relationships of 
 manors — Walkhampton being quite an insignificant 
 parish, important only in its association with Buckland 
 Abbey, and Sutton the site of the largest town of the 
 West. 
 
 The Cistercian Abbey of Buckland was founded by 
 Amicia, the widowed countess of Baldwin, seventh Earl 
 of Devon, and the mother of Isabella de Fortibus. She 
 acquired in 1273 lands for the purpose by purchase or 
 gift from her daughter, and in 1280 signed the founda¬ 
 tion deed, vesting in the monks and their successors the 
 manors of Buckland, Bickleigh, and Walkhampton, with 
 
Buckland Monachorum. 
 
 *95 
 
 the advowsons, and the hundred of Roborough, for the 
 use of the Abbey dedicated in honour of God and the 
 blessed Mary, mother of God, and the blessed Benedict. 
 The monks came from the Abbey of Quarr in the Isle of 
 Wight, founded by Baldwin, second Earl of Devon, and 
 Robert was the first abbot. They were unfortunate 
 enough to start by incurring episcopal censure, cele¬ 
 brating divine offices without the consent of the parish 
 priest or the bishop’s license, and Bishop Bronescombe 
 therefore laid them under interdict. This was relaxed at 
 the solicitation of Queen Eleanor, and speedily removed. 
 
 The data for the history of Buckland are very scanty. 
 Soon after the foundation the title of the Abbey to the 
 hundred was questioned, and judgment given for the 
 King. Yet the abbot continued to exercise the jurisdic¬ 
 tion, and in that right successfully resisted the attempt of 
 Edward II. to grant a charter to the town of Plymouth, 
 which came within his authority. When Plymouth was 
 incorporated the Abbey was compensated with the church 
 of Bampton. In 1336 the royal license was granted to 
 crenellate the Abbey, Plymouth and its vicinity being at 
 this time in constant peril from foreign descent. Having 
 asserted their rights against the King, the convent were 
 not likely to allow them to be infringed by a plain squire. 
 James Derneford, lord of the manor of East Stonehouse, 
 set up a pillory and tumbrel in his manor, and held a 
 court of frankpledge there. This was resisted by the 
 monks, and eventually referred to the arbitration of 
 William Hylle, Prior of Plympton, and James Chudlegh. 
 They, in 1448, decided in favour of the Abbey, and Derne¬ 
 ford, besides removing the pillory and tumbrel, had to pay 
 £20 as a fine. 
 
 Thirty years later the monks themselves were cast. 
 They were sued at Lydford for encroachments upon the 
 rights of the duchy of Cornwall within the forest of Dart¬ 
 moor, and were found to have offended. 
 
 13—2 
 
196 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 None of the sixteen abbots of Buckland was a man of 
 note; but Thomas Olyver, who succeeded in 1463, was a 
 warm supporter of the Earl of Richmond, afterwards 
 Henry VII., and was proscribed, without result, by 
 Richard. The last abbot was John Toker. At the Dis¬ 
 solution the revenues were no more than £241 17s. g|d.; 
 but then Toker had been mindful of ‘ those of his own 
 household,’ and just prior to the surrender had leased 
 the rectorial tithes of Buckland, Walkhampton, Bickleigh, 
 Sheepstor, and Bampton, to his brother Robert, and his 
 nephews William and Hugh Toker. 
 
 The Abbey passed through various lay hands with 
 unusual rapidity. George Pollard, of London, had a 
 lease granted in 1539 for twenty-one years. In 1542 Sir 
 Richard Grenville had a grant of the reversion. In 1580 
 the Grenvilles sold the property to John Hele and 
 Christopher Harris, and nine months later it was conveyed 
 to Sir Francis Drake, to whose representatives it still 
 belongs. With the exception of the manor of Buckland, 
 the Abbey lands at Bickleigh, Walkhampton, and else¬ 
 where in the neighbourhood were purchased in 1546 by 
 John Slanning. Buckland was bought by a London 
 haberdasher, named Richard Crymes, in the same year; 
 but in 1660 it also was sold to the Slannings. From the 
 Slannings, through heiresses, the estates passed to the 
 Hey woods; from them, by purchase, to Sir Masseh 
 Manasseh Lopes; and they are now the property of his 
 grandson, Sir Massey Lopes. 
 
 What is yet known as Buckland Abbey is really the 
 Abbey Church, converted by Grenville into a dwelling- 
 house. The chief interest of the place lies in its connec¬ 
 tion with the great sailor into whose hands it subsequently 
 came. There are portraits of Drake and of his captive, 
 Don Pedro de Valdez, Vice-Admiral of the Armada, for 
 whom the Abbey became a prison pending the payment 
 of his ransom ; shields of arms of the Drake and allied 
 
Buck land Monachorum. 
 
 197 
 
 families ; and personal relics of Sir Francis—as his drum, 
 his Bible, sword, and shield ! Another noted warrior with 
 whom Buckland is associated is General Elliot, Lord 
 Heathfield, defender of Gibraltar, whose monument is in 
 the church. 
 
 Buckland parish, now from the Abbey known as 
 Buckland Monachorum, was in ‘ Domesday ’ the most 
 populous manor between Tavistock and the sea—held by 
 William de Pollei, in succession to Brismar—and had both 
 a saltwork and a fishery. Brismar had also held, and 
 William had succeeded to, the adjacent manors of Bick- 
 leigh and Sampford, now Sampford Spiney. The added 
 name, in this latter case, is said to have been derived 
 from its possession by the family of Spinet or De Spineto ; 
 but as the neighbouring parish of Shaugh takes its title 
 from the Saxon sceacga, ‘ rough coppice,’ it is quite as 
 probable that the Spiney here may be simply the allied 
 word spinney. Between Sampford and Shaugh lies the 
 parish of Meavy, made up of four Domesday manors of 
 that name, all of which passed from their Saxon holders 
 to Judhel of Totnes. To this fact is probably due the 
 foundation of a Norman church here, whereof some trace 
 yet remains in the present edifice. Either one of the 
 Meavys (the ancient form is Mewi, and the river, whence 
 the name is taken, is called the Mew in the older records), 
 or an unidentified manor of Metwi, is in all probability 
 the modern parish of Sheepstor ; but one of them has 
 been identified by Mr. Davidson in half a mansa granted 
 by Cnut in 1031 to a thane named .Etheric. The 
 boundaries can still be traced, even to a clcaca or set of 
 stepping-stones across the river. 
 
 Sheepstor alone of all the group, apart from Buckland, 
 has any historical connection. It was the ancient home 
 of the Elfords, and one of these, a staunch Royalist, is 
 said to have found refuge from his enemies in a cavity 
 amidst the confused heap or ‘ clatter ’ of detached rocks 
 
198 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 that clothes the precipitous side of Sheepstor Hill, and 
 possibly named it Schittis or Schattis Tor—the older 
 form—from its shattered aspect. The cavity is now 
 commonly called the Pixies’ Hole. Elford is said to have 
 employed his time in painting its rocky sides, but of this 
 there is no trace. 
 
 At Bickleigh there still remains the old house of the 
 Slannings, as at Sheepstor, its daughter parish, that of the 
 Elfords, and at Meavy the manor-house of the Strodes and 
 Drakes. South Devon has a large number of ancient 
 mansions, degraded to farms. Of the Slannings, who 
 were somewhat intimately connected with Plymouth, and 
 who were settled at Shaugh before Bickleigh, the most 
 distinguished member was Sir Nicholas, one of the ‘four 
 wheels of Charles’s wain,’ who was killed at the siege of 
 Bristol, 1643. 
 
 Two important parishes lie at the junction of the Tavy 
 with the Tamar, one on either side—Beer Ferrers and 
 Tamerton Foliott. Beer is the Birland which before the 
 Conquest belonged to Ordulf, and is entered in ‘ Domes¬ 
 day ’ as held by Reginald de Valletort under the Count of 
 Moreton. It was a very extensive manor, and had seven 
 salt-works. Henry, the common ancestor of the Ferrerses, 
 whence its distinctive name, held it as early as the reign 
 of Henry II. Sir William de Ferrers had a license for 
 castellating his house here in 1337 ; but before the end of 
 that century the coheiress of the Ferrerses brought the 
 manor to the Champernownes, and they to the Willoughbys, 
 Lords Broke. In the latter half of the fifteenth century 
 one of this family was Lord High Steward of Plymouth, 
 and engaged in sharp controversy with his neighbours the 
 Edgcumbes at Cotehele, concerning which some amusing 
 records are still extant. Curiously enough the Earl of 
 Mount Edgcumbe is now the owner of this property, by 
 descent from the coheiress of the Earls of Buckingham- 
 
Buckland Monachorum. 
 
 199 
 
 shire; they in their turn had it by descent in the female 
 line from Sir John Maynard, who purchased it of the 
 Broke successors. Ley, here, is said to have been the 
 original seat of the Leys, Earls of Marlborough. 
 
 So far back as the reign of Edward I., and probably 
 much earlier, it had been discovered that Beer contained 
 mineral treasures of no little value ; and there are extant 
 records of 1298 which show that Edward I. was then 
 working silver lead-mines in Byr or Birlond on his own 
 account, and that the process of extracting and refining 
 the silver was well understood. The mines have been 
 worked at intervals ever since; and were in extensive 
 operation when the principal workings were drowned out 
 by the Tamar breaking through its bed. 140 ounces of 
 silver have been extracted per ton of lead; and 6,000 ounces 
 of silver are said to have been produced in six weeks. 
 
 It was probably in consequence of mining prosperity that 
 the little town of Beer Alston in Beer Ferrers gradually 
 acquired importance. It had a market granted about 
 1294, and was made a Parliamentary borough by Elizabeth. 
 It returned two members in right of certain burgage 
 tenures until 1832. Risdon derives the distinctive name 
 Alston from Alencon, to whom he says the manor was 
 given by the Conqueror; but as the latter statement is 
 wrong, the former need not trouble us. 
 
 Beer Ferrers Church was rebuilt by William de Ferrers, 
 and contains his monument, with other memorials of the 
 family. He also founded here a collegiate chantry. 
 
 Matthew Tindal, the Deist, was born here in 1657, his 
 father being rector of the parish. 
 
 For something like a century at least Beer Ferrers has 
 been noted for its orchards and fruit-gardens, and it sends 
 away enormous quantities of fruit every season by rail. 
 
 Tamerton Foliott, once a market-town and occasionally 
 called a borough, takes name from the Foliotts, who had 
 
200 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 their residence at Warleigh. The heiress of the Foliotts 
 brought it to the Gorges, and from them it passed, by 
 female heirs, to Bonvile, Coplestone, and Bampfylde. 
 For some century and a half it has been the seat of the 
 Radcliffes. The Coplestone oak, which stood on the green 
 by the church, was the traditional scene of a murder by 
 one of the Coplestones, the ‘ fatal oak’ of Mrs. Bray’s 
 ‘ Warleigh.’ Gilbert Foliott, successively Abbot of 
 Gloucester, Bishop of Hereford (1149), and Bishop of 
 London (1161), was a native of Tamerton. One of the 
 most learned men of his day, he was also a steady opponent 
 of A Becket, and was excommunicated by that primate 
 and the Pope accordingly, but relieved by a synod which 
 he called. He held the See of London twenty years. 
 
 Maristow in this parish, the seat of Sir Massey Lopes, 
 was the site of the ancient chapel of St. Martin (whence 
 the name) belonging to the canons of Plympton. After 
 the Dissolution it came to the Champernownes, who sold 
 it in 1550 to John Slanning of Shaugh. Thence it 
 descended with the rest of the Slanning estates, and was 
 bought by Sir Masseh Manasseh Lopes in 1798. It seems 
 probable that Maristow was the chapel of St. Martin de 
 Blakestane (the next Domesday manor to Tamerton), 
 held by the Priory temp. Henry I., and given by 
 Paganel. It is also said to have been the gift of William 
 de Pin and his daughter Sibella. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 PLYMOUTH, DEVONPORT, AND STONEHOUSE. 
 
 The recorded history of Plymouth cannot be traced much 
 farther than the Norman Conquest. The town finds no 
 mention in the ‘ Saxon Chronicle.’ Risdon, indeed, 
 citing the life of St. Indractus, tells us that by the 
 Saxons it was named Tamarweorth, which is much more 
 likely, if the reference has any historic value, to be the 
 Saxon name of what is now Drake’s Island —‘ the Island 
 of the Tamar.’ Leland also asserts that much of what 
 afterwards came to be called Plymouth was held by the 
 canons of the ancient Saxon college of Plympton, which 
 Bishop Warelwast made the foundation of the famous 
 Plympton Priory. But these statements have no authority ; 
 and the earliest undoubted and distinct mention we have 
 of Plymouth is as the Sutton of ‘ Domesday,’ held by 
 William in succession to the Confessor, an insignificant 
 manor, with an enumerated population of 7 only. It was 
 many a long year after this that the manor was granted 
 by the Crown to the Valletorts, and by them in part to 
 the monks of Plympton ; and that mainly by the fostering 
 care of the prior and his brethren, though largely as the 
 result of independent effort, the foundations of the chief 
 centre of population of the West were laid. 
 
 ‘ Domesday ’ affords the materials for a striking com¬ 
 parison between past and present. The eight manors. 
 
202 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 which included what is now the great triple community of 
 the three towns of Plymouth, Devonport, and Stonehouse, 
 with their suburban area, had in 1086 an enumerated 
 population of 61, and were valued at £7 15s. annually. 
 The population is now 150,000, and the annual value 
 £7,80,000. In eight centuries the population has increased 
 2,500 times, and the value nearly 5,000. This is the most 
 remarkable contrast Devon has to show. 
 
 But the tale of the early days of Plymouth would be 
 incomplete if we stopped here. Plymouth herself may 
 be this mere infant of some eight centuries’ growth; but 
 the magnificent harbour to which she owes her birth had 
 played its part in the national life, such as that was, many 
 a long year before the Norman Conquest; and for the 
 first settlement on its shores we must go back at least to 
 the days of the ancient Keltic civilization, which preceded 
 the coming of the Roman, and in the West was never 
 supplanted by him. The eastern shores of Plymouth 
 Sound, in the neighbourhood of Staddon Heights, have 
 yielded abundant traces of the presence of a com¬ 
 paratively dense and cultured population. Mount Batten 
 has produced examples of the earliest and latest British 
 coinage in gold, silver, and copper; and in an ancient 
 cemetery hard by were found a number of articles of 
 bronze—the final and most finished illustrations of the 
 elder pre-Roman civilization of the land. Here was the 
 Stad'10 Deuentia. of the Ravennat. Nay, the prehistoric 
 dates go farther yet. Not only are worked flints of rude 
 type found on the heights on either side of Plymouth 
 Sound, but there was found beneath an ancient house in one 
 of the oldest streets of Plymouth the remains of a kitchen- 
 midden, and below them a singular example of urn burial. 
 Again, the oldest name of the promontorial district to 
 the east of Plymouth, now called Cattedown, is Hingston, 
 or Hangstone—Stonehenge reversed ; and the rude sketch- 
 map of the coasts, made in the reign of Henry VIII. in 
 
Plymouth , Devonport , and St one house. 203 
 
 connection with his schemes of fortification, depicts 
 what appears intended for a ‘ hanging stone,’ or 
 cromlech. 
 
 There is no evidence of the position of Plymouth in 
 the Roman era. With the exception of a few scattered 
 coins, hardly a score in all, found at various points in the 
 neighbourhood, the Romans have left no traces of their 
 visits here. True, the remains of a Roman galley are 
 said to have been found silted up near Plympton, but the 
 authority for its identification is not clear. There is no 
 means whatever of linking on the Saxon Sutton of 
 * Domesday ’ with the Keltic settlement of Staddon (the 
 direct Saxon continuant of which was probably the once 
 fortified village of Plymstock), unless we are content to 
 fall back upon myth and legend, and these will carry us 
 very much farther afield. 
 
 There seems no reason for questioning the honesty of 
 Geoffrey of Monmouth when he states that he is re¬ 
 producing an ancient record brought from Brittany; and 
 while he did not invent the story of Brutus the Trojan, 
 there must have been some reason for associating the 
 Hoe at Plymouth with the legendary combat of Corinasus 
 and Goemagot, and perpetuating the memory of the 
 association by cutting the ‘ effigies ’ of the two champions 
 in the greensward there, renewed for centuries at the cost 
 of the Corporation. But while either Geoffrey or one 
 of his editors erred seriously in identifying the Hamo’s 
 Port, which finds such frequent mention in his ‘ Chronicle ’ 
 as the chief port of Western Britain, with Southampton, 
 on the single score of the 1 ham ’ common to both, these 
 references do appear to point somewhat definitely to a 
 regular use in the Keltic period of the estuary of the 
 Tamar for British maritime expeditions, seeing that it 
 has descended to us at the present day as the Hamoaze. 
 Hamo’s Port is made the fitting centre by Geoffrey of 
 some of the most stirring scenes in the traditional 
 
204 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 national life, and it is the Hamoaze that best suits the 
 references. 
 
 Plymouth has been treated as one of the ports to 
 which the Phoenicians traded in quest of tin. It may 
 have been so, but there is no proof. It has been suggested 
 further that the many-named little islet in the Sound, 
 probably the true Tamarweorth, subsequently St. 
 Michael’s, Tristram’s, St. Nicholas’s, and now Drake’s 
 Island, was the Ictis of Diodorus Siculus. To that we 
 may give a distinct denial. Thus, all we really know with 
 certainty of the origin of Plymouth—this important factor 
 in the general history of the country—is, that whilst the 
 shores of the Sound have been peopled, perhaps con¬ 
 tinuously, from far-distant prehistoric times, at the date 
 of the Norman Conquest its place was occupied by a 
 tiny hamlet of the name of Sutton. There is, indeed, 
 good evidence that the neighbourhood, if not the actual 
 site, was even then of some importance. Plymouth is 
 the only locality in Devon that has so far yielded traces 
 of the Teutonic ‘ mark’—certain lands within the borough 
 which retained a very complicated ownership until the 
 present day, being noted in ancient deeds as ‘ landscore 
 lands,’ and as held in landscore tenure. Moreover, while 
 the borders of the Sound do not appear to have afforded 
 any special spoil to the Danes when they sailed up the 
 Tamar and Tavy and burnt Tavistock—Wembury, on its 
 eastern shore, at the mouth of the Yealm, seems the 
 most likely scene of the Danish defeat in 851 by the 
 Ealderman of Devon ; though Okenbury on the Erme, 
 and Wickaborough in Berry Pomeroy, are also candidates 
 for identification as the place which has come down to us 
 in the ‘ Saxon Chronicle ’ as Wiganbeorche. 
 
 Why the infant Plymouth was called Sutton = Southtown, 
 has never been clearly made out; but the older part of 
 the borough, which still bears the name of ‘ Old Town,’ 
 preserved in Old Town Street, w r as apparently known by 
 
Plymouth , Devonport, and Stonehouse. 205 
 
 the same title. It was not until the year 1439 that the 
 familiar Plymouth supplanted the older form, though it 
 had been in occasional use at least a century before. The 
 growth of the community was very rapid. Leland states 
 that in the latter part of the twelfth century it was still ‘ a 
 mene thing as an Inhabitation for fischars.’ And an official 
 inquiry made in 1318 by the Sheriff of the county, records 
 that prior to the foundation of the ‘ ville of Sutton,’ there 
 was a place on the shores of the ancient creek, now 
 harbour, of Sutton Pool, where the fishermen used to sell 
 their fish. This must have been long anterior to the 
 present market rights, which date from 1254. Not until 
 the manor passed from the Crown to the Valletorts did 
 the town begin to grow. They made it their occasional 
 residence, and gave freely of their land to the Priory of 
 Plympton. Successive priors then encouraged settle¬ 
 ment, and hence by the side of the original ‘ Old Town,’ 
 distinguished as Sutton Valletort or Vawter, there grew 
 up the new town of Sutton Prior, which speedily dis¬ 
 tanced its elder sister. Rapid was the growth when 
 prosperity fairly set in. 
 
 While the original foundation of the mother church of 
 St. Andrew certainly dates well back in the twelfth 
 century, the Carmelites established themselves in the 
 town in 1313, the Franciscans were not very much later, 
 and the Dominicans were also speedily represented. To 
 the siege of Calais in 1346, Plymouth sent more ships and 
 men than any other town save Dartmouth, Yarmouth, 
 and Fowey. And the latter part of the fourteenth century 
 found Plymouth one of the best known and most thriving 
 ports in England, with a corporation of some kind bear¬ 
 ing rule, and with so large a population that the Subsidy 
 Roll of 1377 records a taxable inhabitancy of 4,837, and 
 thus gives it the rank of the fourth town in the kingdom, 
 London, York, and Bristol alone preceding. In these 
 early days of the national life no town advanced with 
 
206 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 such rapid strides ; in later centuries no provincial com¬ 
 munity has had more important links with the national 
 history. 
 
 But all was not quiet progress. The need of defensive 
 works was recognised at least as early as the reign of 
 Richard II.; and the ‘Town Ligger ’ records that the 
 place was burnt three times by the French and Bretons, 
 in 1377, 1400, and 1403. But these were not the only 
 occasions on which it was assailed; nor need this excite 
 wonder, seeing that the port was made the headquarters 
 of so many hostile armaments in the thirteenth and 
 fourteenth centuries. The first great fleet recorded as 
 sailing from its waters is one of 325 vessels, in 1287, f° r 
 Guienne. The Black Prince made Plymouth the centre 
 of his operations against France, and sailed thence in 
 I 355 on the expedition which was crowned by the victory 
 of Poictiers. Retaliation was therefore natural; and the 
 attempts were even more frequent than the municipal 
 annals record. Thus, in 1339, the French fired the town, 
 but were repulsed by Hugh Courtenay, Earl of Devon ; 
 in 1350 they tried again, but were only able to destroy 
 some ‘ farms and fair places. 1 In 1400, the fleet of James 
 de Bourbon, after doing considerable damage, was 
 assailed and partially destroyed by a violent storm. The 
 worst invasion, and the last, was that of a body of Bretons 
 under the Sieur du Chastel, in 1403. No less than 600 
 houses were then burnt, the greater part of the town 
 sacked, and many of the inhabitants taken prisoners. 
 The chief scene of the ravages of the invaders has been 
 distinguished to this day by the name of Briton Side. 
 
 There is good evidence, although successive fires have 
 destroyed all the earlier records of the town, that after 
 this the prosperity of Plymouth waned. In 1439-40, how¬ 
 ever, the town was formally incorporated by Act of Par¬ 
 liament, and again began to thrive. The incorporation 
 was really the extension of a much older corporation, 
 
Plymouth , Devonport, and Stonehouse. 207 
 
 possibly originating with the Valletorts, for names of 
 prepositi or mayors occur as early as 1310, and the 
 Parliamentary representation commenced in 1298. What 
 the Act did was to relieve the community from its depend¬ 
 ence on the Priory ; and the burgesses thenceforth prided 
 themselves upon belonging to the ‘ Kinge’s towne of 
 Plymothe,’ as their ancient seal testifies. 
 
 While there is no direct proof that the town took any 
 active part in the Wars of the Roses, there is no reason 
 to doubt that its sympathies were Lancastrian ; for here, 
 in 1470, did the Duke of Clarence, with the Earls of 
 Pembroke, Warwick, and Oxford, land to excite the revolt 
 which led to the temporary restoration of Henry VI.; 
 and here, too, in the following year, disembarked Margaret 
 of Anjou, on her ill-starred way to share in the final 
 disaster of Tewkesbury. Nevertheless, Henry VII. could 
 not land at Plymouth in 1483, because of the close guard 
 kept. The attitude of the townsfolk towards the War- 
 beckian insurrection is shown by two or three entries of 
 corporate expenditure, which speak of a party being sent 
 into Cornwall to ‘ dfend Pkyn ’—defend being used in the 
 old and now forgotten sense of opposition. The commerce 
 of Plymouth with France and Spain was so great at the 
 close of this century, that the selection of the town for 
 the disembarkation of Katherine of Aragon, in 1501, was 
 but natural. Right heartily was she welcomed. During 
 her stay she was the guest of a rich merchant prince 
 named Paynter; and the Receiver’s Accounts record, 
 among other matters, how the Corporation gave her six 
 oxen, five-and-twenty sheep, three hogsheads of ‘ Gaston ’ 
 and claret wine, and a pipe of ‘ Meskedellwhile ‘ my 
 lady pryncs ys amner ’ (almoner) had ten shillings to 
 ‘ wryte oure supplicacion yn Spaynysch and in latyn, and 
 to be oure salucyt.’ Thus early did the burghers of 
 Plymouth establish a precedent for the now inevitable 
 address. 
 
208 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 In the opening years of the sixteenth century Plymouth 
 began to fit herself for her leading share in the glories of 
 the reign of Elizabeth ; and the pioneer in this work was 
 one William Hawkins, the first prominent member of the 
 greatest family of merchant seamen and heroes England 
 has known. For his ‘ skill in sea causes ’ this William 
 Hawkins the elder was much esteemed by Henry VIII., 
 and he was the first Englishman who sailed a ship into 
 the Southern Seas. He had two worthy sons. The first, 
 another William Hawkins, was the most influential resi¬ 
 dent of Elizabethan Plymouth—a merchant and a sailor, 
 the holder of a commission under the Prince of Conde, 
 and, like the rest of his kinsfolk, quite as ready to fight as 
 to trade. His son, a third William, was the founder of 
 the East India Company’s first trading-house at Surat, 
 and an ambassador to the Great Mogul at Agra. 
 
 The most famous of the family was the second son of 
 Henry VIII.’s favourite captain—the renowned Sir John 
 Hawkins; the first Englishman to take a ship into the 
 Bay of Mexico; the early friend of his relative, the re¬ 
 doubtable Sir Francis Drake ; converted from an adven¬ 
 turous trader into the heroic scourge of Spain by Spanish 
 treachery at San Juan de Ulloa; for many a long weary 
 year the Treasurer of the Navy and the man to whom 
 is due all the credit of preparing the Royal Fleet to meet 
 the Armada; the first true friend of the British sailor; and 
 not only the ablest captain, but the best shipwright of his 
 time. Probably born in 1532, he died at sea in 1595 
 (while engaged with Drake in the expedition which proved 
 fatal to both these great seamen), worn out by years and 
 toil, and heartbroken by failure and by the captivity of his 
 son, Sir Richard Hawkins—he who gained the honourable 
 epithet of ‘ the complete seaman,’ and who lingered for 
 ten years in a Spanish prison ere he obtained that release 
 which his father had hoped to achieve. 
 
 William Hawkins the elder, both his sons William and 
 
Plymouth, Devonport, and Stonehouse. 209 
 
 John, and his grandson Richard, represented Plymouth 
 in Parliament, besides filling the leading places in the 
 municipality; and while they form the most distinguished 
 family of Elizabethan Devon, Sir John is unmistakably 
 the chief worthy of their native Plymouth. 
 
 Plymouth was attacked, though not besieged, by the 
 Western rebels for the restoration of Roman Catholicism 
 in 1549. The details preserved are but meagre; and from 
 the fact that the assault was made on the 15th of August, 
 ten days after the defeat of the insurgents at St. Mary’s 
 Clyst, it must have been either by an independent body 
 or by a party of the Cornishmen on their retreat. How¬ 
 ever that ma)' be, the town records state that they were 
 driven out of the town on this day, with a loss of 
 eighty prisoners. They did, however, one notable piece 
 of damage—‘ Then was our steeple burnt with all the 
 townes evydence in the same.’ The greater portion, 
 though not the whole, of the borough muniments were 
 thus destroyed. The Plymouth men chased their foes 
 into Cornwall, and brought back an unfortunate wretch 
 with them, called in the accounts ‘ the traytour of Corne- 
 wall,’ who was hung, drawn, and quartered on the Hoe— 
 the central figure of a great public holiday. 
 
 The mere recital of the naval expeditions which had 
 their origin in Plymouth in the reign of Elizabeth, and of 
 their results, would fill a volume. 
 
 It was from Plymouth that Drake sailed in 1572 on his 
 expedition to Nombre de Dios. When he returned one 
 Sunday in August in the following year, the news reached 
 St. Andrew Church while the people were assembled in 
 worship, and straightway the preacher was deserted and 
 the good folks ran to the seaside to welcome their hero 
 home. Still more hearty were the rejoicings when he 
 returned after ‘ ploughing up a furrow round the world,’ 
 his vessel laden with great store of ‘gold and silver in 
 blocks ’—solid facts which were greatly appreciated by 
 
 14 
 
210 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 the business-like Plymouthians. At the earliest opportunity 
 he was made mayor; and a few years later sat in Parlia¬ 
 ment for the town. 
 
 From Plymouth, too, Drake sailed in 1587 to * singe 
 the King of Spain’s beard,’ while in August, 1595, he and 
 Hawkins sailed together on the fatal expedition to the 
 West Indies from which neither returned. Drake is 
 connected with the modern life of Plymouth, by his con¬ 
 struction of the leat or water-course through which the 
 town is still supplied with water from the river Meavy. 
 There was a tradition that he did this at his own cost; 
 but recent discoveries of long-lost documents show that 
 the work was initiated by the Corporation, planned by one 
 Robert Lampen, and carried out at their charges, and 
 that Drake’s relation to the scheme was that of a con¬ 
 tractor, paid partly in cash and partly by a lease for sixty- 
 seven years of mills erected on the line of the new leat 
 or stream. His memory is drank at the annual inspec¬ 
 tion of the waterworks by the Corporation, as that of 
 the man—to adopt the lines under his portrait in the 
 Guildhall— 
 
 ‘Who with fresh streams refresht this Towne that first, 
 Though kist with waters, yet did pine for thirst.’ 
 
 Plymouth—according to Prince a ‘ port so famous that 
 it hath a kind of invitation from the commodiousness 
 thereof to maritime noble actions ’—was the place whence 
 Sir Walter Ralegh sent forth his fleets for the settlement 
 of Virginia, and to which he returned broken-hearted 
 from his last fatal expedition after the golden city of 
 Manoa, and was apprehended by ‘Judas’ Stukely. It 
 was the port, too, whence Sir Humphry' Gilbert sailed on 
 that voyage to Newfoundland from which he never came 
 back; but which has left us the rich legacy of his dying 
 words, ‘ Heaven is as near by sea as by land.’ Hence in 
 1589 set forth the expedition under Drake and Norris, 
 
Plymouth, Dcvonport , and St on chouse. 
 
 2 I I 
 
 intended to place Don Antonio on the throne of Portugal. 
 And hence went the memorable expedition against Cadiz 
 in 1596, of which Howard and Essex were the chief com¬ 
 manders, while the last of the plentiful ‘ Knights of Cales ’ 
 was made in Plymouth streets on the return, ‘ as the Lords 
 General came from the sermon !’ 
 
 But, indeed, in these days there was, to apply the words 
 of Carew, an ‘ infinite swarm ’ of expeditions of one kind 
 and another. Now and again large fleets and powerful 
 squadrons set forth, and single ships almost daily ; so 
 we pass on to the central incident of these stirring times, 
 the defeat of the Armada. 
 
 Twice had Spanish invasion been averted by the astute¬ 
 ness and daring of two Plymouth seamen—for Drake, if 
 Tavistockian by birth, was Plymouthian by adoption. 
 Once Philip’s schemes were counteracted by the pretended 
 treachery of Sir John Hawkins, who applied the money 
 paid him by the Spanish King to bring over his fleet in 
 works of defence. Once again Philip’s preparations were 
 destroyed by Drake harrying one Spanish port after 
 another. And when the time of trial could no longer be 
 delayed, again it was Plymouth, and Plymouth men, that 
 took the foremost place. There are extant some most 
 graphic descriptions by William Hawkins the second, 
 who was mayor in the eventful Armada year, of the 
 repair of vessels by night, torch-lights and cressets flaring 
 fitfully in a gale of wind. His brother John had worked 
 for years to bring the royal navy to efficiency; and the 
 ships which he collected in Plymouth harbour were ‘ in 
 such a condition,’ as Mr. Froude says, ‘ hull, rigging, 
 spars, and running rope, that they had no match in the 
 world.’ They were the nucleus of a much larger gather¬ 
 ing of volunteer craft from many a port throughout the 
 kingdom, but chiefly from the maritime towns of the 
 West and South. Of 190 vessels which waited in 
 Plymouth waters to resist the boastful Spaniard, 34 only 
 
 14—2 
 
212 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 belonged to the Queen. To the volunteer levy, Plymouth 
 supplied seven ships and a fly-boat. Though nominally 
 under the command of Howard of Effingham, the two 
 chief captains were Drake and Hawkins—Drake being 
 vice-admiral, and in charge of the volunteers ; Hawkins 
 rear-admiral, with special relations to the royal squadron. 
 
 There is a much-cherished tradition that when Captain 
 Fleming brought the news of the approach of the 
 Armada, the leading captains were playing bowls, and 
 that Drake insisted on the set being finished, pithily 
 remarking, ‘ There’s time enough to play the game out 
 first, and thrash the Spaniards afterwards.’ No con¬ 
 temporary authority exists for the tradition, and even the 
 site of the bowling-green which Plymouth undoubtedly 
 possessed at that time is disputed; but the story so 
 fathers itself, that we may accept it heartily without too 
 strict an inquiry into pedigree. There was time enough 
 to play the game, and thrash the Spaniards; and this, 
 although contrary winds made it a work of some difficulty 
 to get the ships to sea. 
 
 It was about four o’clock on the afternoon of the 
 19th of July, 1588, that news of the approach of the 
 Armada came; and that night some of the English ships 
 were warped out of harbour. But the Spanish fleet did 
 not appear in sight until noon of the following day; and 
 then began that great battle of nations which was not to 
 end until the pride of Spain was hopelessly crushed. 
 The only man of note who fell on the side of the English 
 was a Plymouth sailor, Captain Cock, who joined the 
 fleet in a vessel of his own, captured a Spaniard, and 
 died in the moment of victory — 1 cock of the game,’ as 
 Fuller calls him. 
 
 The defeat of the Armada was commemorated until 
 within living memory in Plymouth, by the ringing of a 
 merry peal from the bells of the old church of St. 
 Andrew on the Saturday night preceding the 25th of 
 
Plymouth, Devonport, and Stonehouse. 213 
 
 July; and on the Sunday the Corporation used to walk to 
 church in state. 
 
 Charles I. came to Plymouth in September, 1625, for 
 the purpose of inspecting the troops gathered for the 
 abortive expedition to Cadiz. It was an unfortunate 
 business for the town. The fact that the King’s servants 
 received £33 3s. 4d. in fees was a very small matter. 
 The great evil was that the place was crowded with the 
 impressed soldiery to the number of some 10,000, while 
 many had to be billeted in the neighbouring villages. 
 Four hundred men were impressed in Devon—to a large 
 extent the sort of scum that Falstaff so graphically 
 describes; and whether they were good, bad, or in¬ 
 different, were so ill looked after by the authorities, that 
 the greater part were but half clothed, while the want of 
 money made them wholly starving. Most miserable was 
 the condition of soldiery and townsfolk alike ; and right 
 glad were the Plymouthians when the King had reviewed 
 his ‘ ragged regiments,’ and set out on his return; and 
 when the expedition finally set sail. Worse remained 
 behind : overcrowding and filth begat the plague, and a 
 third of the population was swept away. 
 
 Plymouth formed the centre of the operations for the 
 settlement of New England and the foundation of the 
 United States. The ‘ Plymouth Company,’ for the colo¬ 
 nization of North America, had its origin in the patents 
 granted by Elizabeth to Ralegh to settle Virginia. £40,000 
 were spent by him ineffectually; and five times he sent to 
 search for the missing colonists whom he had planted at 
 the ‘ City of Ralegh ’ in 1587, the settlement having been 
 destroyed, and the survivors adopted, according to tradi¬ 
 tion, into the Hatteras tribe. His failures led, however, 
 to other attempts, and eventually to the incorporation by 
 James I. of two companies—the London Company for 
 the colonization of ‘ South Virginia,’ and the Plymouth 
 Company for the colonization of ‘North Virginia’— 
 
214 History of Devonshire. 
 
 Virginia being used as a general term for the North 
 American coast. The London Company settled James¬ 
 town in 1607 ; the attempt of the Plymouth Company to 
 plant a colony at the mouth of the Kennebec failed, and 
 thenceforward its members confined themselves to trading 
 and fishing. In 1620, however, a new charter was granted 
 them, whereby the Duke of Lennox, the Marquis of 
 Buckingham, the Earls of Arundel and Warwick, Sir 
 Ferdinando Gorges, and thirty-four others, were incorpo¬ 
 rated as * the first modern and present Council established 
 at Plymouth, in the county of Devon, for the planting, 
 ruling, and governing of New England in America.’ The 
 grant gave the patentees all property and control over all 
 North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific, between 
 the 40th and 48th degrees of north latitude. The ruling 
 spirit of this second organization was Sir Ferdinando 
 Gorges, long Governor of Plymouth and connected with 
 the Gorges of St. Bude. The monopoly was too huge for 
 realization. The pretensions of the patentees were laughed 
 to scorn and ignored. Their vast designs dwindled into a 
 scramble for individual interests and proprietorships ; and 
 the real settlement of New England was effected with¬ 
 out their knowledge or intervention. The ‘ Council of 
 Plymouth ’ does not therefore fill a very important place 
 in history. The only really notable thing it did was to 
 grant the charter of Massachusetts, which proved so 
 troublesome a child, that in 1635 the Council surrendered 
 their charter, its members first passing particular patents 
 to themselves ‘ of such parts along the sea-coast as might 
 be sufficient for them.’ Gorges interpreted this liberally, 
 for he appropriated what is now Maine; and his comrade, 
 Mason, New Hampshire. The dissolution of the Company 
 was really an incident in the earlier phase of the conflict 
 between Charles and his Parliament—Massachusetts being 
 strongly Puritan and welcoming the Puritanically dis¬ 
 affected ; and the leaders of the Company being Royalists 
 
Plymouth, Devonport, and Stonehouse. 215 
 
 and Episcopalians, absolutists by charter, and above all 
 things mindful of the duty of strictly attending to their 
 own pockets. As Sir Edward Coke told Gorges to his 
 face, ‘ the ends of private gain were concealed under 
 cover of planting a colony.’ 
 
 Before the Plymouth Company had begun its later 
 operation, ‘ on the 6th day of September, 1620, thirteen 
 years after the first colonization of Virginia, two months 
 before the concession of the grand charter of Plymouth, 
 without any warrant from the sovereign of England, 
 without any useful charter from a corporate body, the 
 passengers in the Mayflower set sail from the waters of 
 Plymouth Sound for a new world.’ Bound for the Hudson, 
 in the territory of the London Company, they landed, 
 Nov. g, in the domains of the Plymouth Association, and 
 there founded New Plymouth, the first permanent settle¬ 
 ment in New England. The Huguenots were then at 
 Port Royal or Annapolis (founded 1604), the London 
 Company at Jamestown (1607), the Dutch at New York 
 (1614). It is a singular coincidence, if nothing more, 
 that the spot where the Pilgrims landed is called Plymouth 
 in 1616, in Smith’s map of New England. Probably it 
 had therefore been early frequented by Plymouth ships. 
 Whether the Pilgrims continued the old name or gave it 
 anew cannot now be ascertained. 
 
 A singular error, and one which it seems almost im¬ 
 possible to overtake, has sprung from the departure of the 
 Pilgrim Fathers from Plymouth. It has been again and 
 again either stated or assumed that the little band of the 
 Mayflower were, if not Plymouth people, at least Devonians. 
 There is, however, not the least evidence that any one of 
 them belonged to the West of England, and the amplest 
 proof that the great majority did not. Nevertheless some 
 Plymouth and Devonshire men did play an important part 
 in the work of actual settlement. Gorges had a planta¬ 
 tion on the island of Mohegan in 1621 or 1622, which 
 
2l6 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 was afterwards bought by Abraham Jennings, a Plymouth 
 merchant. Moses Goodyear, son-in-law of Jennings, and 
 Robert Trelawny, afterwards member for the town, two 
 other Plymouth merchants, laid the foundation of the 
 town of Portland ; and of actual Plymouth settlers we 
 have John Winter, long Trelawny’s agent, and George 
 Cleeves, a man of great note in the new country, and as 
 staunch a Republican as Trelawny was a Royalist. 
 
 Massachusetts, moreover, was largely peopled from 
 Devon and Cornwall; and, although originating in Dor¬ 
 chester, had important connections with Plymouth. Thus 
 in 1630 a number of intending emigrants to Massachusetts 
 met in the Hospital of the Poor’s Portion at Plymouth, 
 a recent Puritan foundation, and there formed a Congre¬ 
 gational church under ‘ Master John Warham, a famous 
 preacher of Exeter, and Master John Maverick.’ A ship 
 which sailed from Plymouth in 1622 took over eighty 
 emigrants. In Western Maine and the lower districts of 
 Massachusetts, the population still largely retains the 
 characteristics of the men of Devon, Cornwall, Somerset, 
 and Dorset, and is spoken of as ‘ the pure English race.’ 
 ‘ The importation in the first place was made by English 
 proprietors, who sent the farmers, mechanics, and ad¬ 
 venturers, who lived in and about Devonshire, to cultivate 
 and improve their large and vacant grants.’ Massachusetts 
 generally, however, drew from a wider field. One Roger 
 Clap, of Salcombe, claims notice, as having become captain 
 of Boston Castle. 
 
 Since the siege of Exeter by the Conqueror, there has 
 been no similar event in the West of equal importance 
 to the siege of Plymouth by the Cavaliers. It marks an 
 epoch of the first importance in national as well as local 
 history. It was the longest and fiercest siege of these 
 times, and it was endured successfully to the end. After 
 the surrender of the army of Essex in 1644, Plymouth 
 was the only place that remained true to the Parliament 
 
Plymouth , Devonport, and Stonehouse. 217 
 
 in the entire Western Peninsula ; and had the Royalist 
 soldiery employed in besieging it been set free by its 
 capture, it is certain that the struggle between the two 
 parties would have been greatly protracted. It is even 
 possible it might have had another issue. Plymouth was 
 the key to a good deal more than the fortunes of Devon 
 and Cornwall. 
 
 Although it had elected a staunch Royalist in Robert 
 Trelawny to the Long Parliament, the town declared on 
 the popular side the moment there was a prospect of 
 war. As early as November, 1642, such preparations had 
 been made by the mayor, Philip Francis, that the earthen 
 line, ‘ weak and irregular,’ cast up about the town under 
 his directions, enabled Colonel Ruthen, or Ruthven, to 
 repulse an attack in force by Sir Ralph Hopton. Retiring 
 to Modbury, the Royalists were routed ; and this success 
 led to Ruthven’s marching into Cornwall, to carry the 
 war into the enemy’s country, and to his utter defeat in 
 turn by Hopton at the battle of Bradock Down. This 
 was on the 19th of January. In the following month, 
 Hopton besieged Plymouth again, this time in much 
 greater force; and having with him such distinguished 
 Royalist leaders as Sir Bevil Grenville, Sir Nicholas 
 Slanning, Colonel Trevanion, and Lord Mohun. He was 
 again compelled to retire, however, by a second defeat at 
 Modbury, on which the Parliamentary troops of the 
 county had concentrated; and efforts were made, but 
 unavailingly, to arrange a treaty of peace for Devon and 
 Cornwall, and let the rest of the kingdom fight the 
 quarrel out for themselves. For a while there followed a 
 petty border warfare between Royalist Cornwall and 
 Roundhead Devon, which was brought to a sudden close 
 by the defeat of the Earl of Stamford at Stratton, and 
 by the consequent eastward expedition of the Cornish- 
 men, which ended so fatally for their leaders—Grenville 
 being killed at Lansdowne, Trevanion and Slanning at 
 
2 I 8 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 Bristol, and Sidney Godolphin at Chagford. Plymouth 
 took advantage of this period of comparative peace to 
 strengthen its defences. 
 
 They were soon needed. In August, 1643, the town 
 was thoroughly blockaded by Colonel Digby, who did his 
 work so well that no provisions could be brought in. 
 Moreover, Sir Alexander Carew, who held command of 
 the fort and island, the chief defences of the port, was 
 detected in treaty for their surrender, sent to London, 
 and subsequently executed. Prince Maurice took Exeter 
 on the 4th of September, and marched on to reduce 
 Plymouth. Stopping on his road to take Dartmouth, 
 after the method of old-fashioned warfare, the Parliament 
 found time to throw some 500 soldiers into Plymouth, 
 under Colonel Wardlaw, who proved a commander of 
 decision, and against whom Maurice, when he did arrive, 
 found it hopeless to contend. The only advantage the 
 Cavaliers gained was the capture, after three weeks’ in¬ 
 dependent leaguer, of an outlying and, as it proved, useless 
 work called ‘ Mount Stamford.’ Maurice was incessant 
 in his efforts to reduce the obstinate town, for well-nigh 
 two months making almost daily assaults; and on 
 Sunday, the 3rd of December, all but succeeded. The 
 stoutness of the defence, however, was too much for him. 
 The Cavaliers, some of whom had pushed on to within 
 pistol-shot of the walls, were routed to the cry of ‘ God 
 with us !’ Hence for many a long year the bells of St. 
 Andrew rang in memory of the ‘ Sabbath-day fight;’ and 
 sermons were preached, on the foundation of a pious 
 Puritan widow, to hold the deliverance in lasting remem¬ 
 brance. The town motto, * Turris fortissima est nomen 
 Jehova !’ of which Plymouth is as proud as Exeter of its 
 ‘ Semper fidelis ’—dates from this period. 
 
 Maurice raised the siege on Christmas Day, prompted 
 thereto partly by the appearance among his troops of the 
 fatal ‘ camp disease ;’ but Digby continued the blockade, 
 
Plymouth, Dcvonport , and Stonehou.se. 219 
 
 until placed hors dc combat by a rapier-wound in the eye. 
 He was succeeded by Sir Richard Grenville. In like 
 manner, Colonel Wardlaw, worn out, was followed for a 
 short time in command of the garrison by Colonel Gould. 
 The latter died early in 1644 ; and then came Colonel 
 Martin, a most energetic officer, who again was followed, 
 on his death in harness, by Colonel Kerr. 
 
 The march of Essex into the West caused the siege to 
 be raised; but four days after the surrender of his forces 
 at Boconnoc, the King himself summoned Plymouth, 
 and on the 10th of September sat down before the town 
 with a gallant armament 15,000 strong. Lord Robartes, 
 who had escaped with Essex and a few others in a boat 
 from Fowey to Plymouth, was appointed Governor on the 
 following day, on which the royal troops made a desperate 
 but unavailing assault. Neither by persuasion, threats, 
 nor force could Charles win his way within the stubborn 
 town, and accordingly he and Maurice speedily marched 
 off, leaving the conduct of the blockade once more in the 
 hands of Grenville. There was not much fighting at 
 Plymouth itself during the remainder of 1644; but 1645 
 was a very active year, and there is a valuable con¬ 
 temporary record of its proceedings, so far as they have 
 a financial bearing, in the accounts of the Committee of 
 Defence, yet in the possession of the Plymouth Corpora¬ 
 tion. This committee held the governorship in commis¬ 
 sion when Robartes was removed by the Self-Denying 
 Ordinance, Colonel Kerr having chief military command. 
 
 The most desperate attempt made by Grenville was in 
 January, 1645. He appears at first to have captured 
 three of the great outworks, and to have made his footing 
 good for a while in one. His attack was in force along 
 the line ; but when he had been repulsed at all points, 
 save the scene of his temporary success, the captured 
 work was stormed from every quarter by the Plymouth 
 men and taken, and all who were within killed or made 
 
220 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 prisoners. Probably nearly a fourth of Grenville’s whole 
 force of 6,000 men was killed, wounded, or captured. 
 Another fight at Fort Stamford, where the garrison also 
 had the advantage, brought the siege practically to an 
 end. True, it continued in name, after Grenville’s defeat, 
 first under Sir John Berkeley, and then under General 
 Digby; but towards the close of the year we find the 
 garrison assuming the offensive, taking St. Budeaux 
 Church, which had been turned into a Cavalier garrison, 
 after an hour and a half’s hard fighting, in December; 
 surprising Kinterbury; and storming Saltash and Buck- 
 land Abbey. On the 28th of January, 1646, the Royalists 
 decamped in such a hurry at the advance of Fairfax, that 
 they left guns, arms, and ammunition behind. The last 
 Cavalier garrisons in the neighbourhood were Mount 
 Edgcumbe, which had been held most gallantly by 
 Colonel Edgcumbe against repeated attacks, and which, 
 only when all hope was lost, surrendered to Colonel 
 Hammond ; and Ince House, which resisted until the 
 29th of March. Then the ‘ scorn ’ was taken out of the 
 Cavaliers who held it, by the planting in position of some 
 big guns. 
 
 The siege cost the town dear, though the battle had 
 been won. During the three years that it lasted the 
 parish registers record the deaths of about 1,000 soldiers, 
 and of 2,000 of the townsfolk beyond the death-rate 
 of that time. These figures do not, however, include the 
 losses to the garrison of those who were buried where 
 they fell; nor those of the besiegers, whether in the field 
 or by the still more fatal ‘ camp disease.’ There were many 
 occasions when more than too fell in an assault ; one, at 
 least, when the loss was over 300. The population of 
 Plymouth at this date did not exceed 7,000; the deaths 
 due to the siege approximated at least 8,000. In three 
 years, therefore, a number greater than the population of 
 the town was swept away. The whole history of the 
 
Plymouth, Devonport, and Stonehouse. 221 
 
 Civil War fails to supply a parallel. Moreover, the trade 
 of the town was ruined, and scores of families reduced to 
 the greatest distress and misery. As a partial relief the 
 Plymouth duties were for a while taken off. 
 
 It was the undaunted spirit the town had shown that 
 led Charles II. to prepare for possible eventualities by 
 erecting the citadel—one of the finest specimens of 
 seventeenth-century fortification now extant in England 
 —upon Plymouth Hoe. And it was the merest irony of 
 Fate that led to the revival of the old temper under 
 James, and that caused Plymouth to be the first munici¬ 
 pality in the kingdom to declare for William of Orange, 
 and this very citadel to be the first stronghold put into 
 his hands by its Governor, the Earl of Bath. 
 
 For something like 200 years—ever since, in fact, the 
 waters of the Tamar were chosen as the site of a royal 
 arsenal—Plymouth has mingled the characteristics of war 
 and trade, though at times one has predominated and 
 then the other. It was chiefly in consequence of the 
 trading importance of the port that first Winstanley’s 
 (1696), then Rudyerd’s (1706), Smeaton’s (1756), and 
 lastly, Douglass’s (1882) lighthouses were erected in turn 
 upon the Eddystone Reef, which lies a few miles off the 
 entrance of Plymouth Sound. The construction of the 
 great breakwater (1812-41) which stretches for a mile 
 across the roadstead between the opposite heights of 
 Maker and of Staddon, was, however, carried out for the 
 express purpose of protecting the vessels of the fleet. 
 And the forts which line the shores of the harbour, and 
 form a cincture round the whole of the three towns, also 
 bore reference to the public works, and not to any private 
 interests. So absorbed, however, did the town become in 
 privateering in the days of the great French war, that for 
 the time almost all legitimate trade died out, and it 
 required years of untiring energy to recover lost ground. 
 One of the first steps taken was the formation of what is 
 
222 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 now the oldest Chamber of Commerce in the kingdom; and 
 since then wharves and piers have been formed and docks 
 built, and in addition to a good foreign and large coasting 
 trade, Plymouth has become one of the chief mail ports 
 in the kingdom. The growth of the town in the present 
 century has been very rapid. The population is more 
 than five times what it was in 1801; and in the last forty 
 years it has considerably more than doubled. Growth has 
 been accompanied by reconstruction, and there is very little 
 left to mark the age of the community save the fine old 
 mother church of St. Andrew, close by which now stands 
 the noblest pile of municipal buildings in the West of 
 England. The windows of the great hall are filled with 
 stained glass illustrating the richly storied past of the 
 old town; and among the prized possessions of the Cor¬ 
 poration is an old portrait of Drake, placed in the ancient 
 Guildhall not many years after his death. Many local 
 antiquities of interest are preserved in the Museum of the 
 Plymouth Institution, including those of Keltic date. 
 
 Plymouth has been very rich in worthies. The 
 Hawkinses have been already named. Sir Thomas 
 Edmonds, son of the ‘ customer ’ at Plymouth (1562-1639) 
 became the ambassador for James I. to Brussels and 
 Paris, and subsequently Comptroller of the Household. 
 John Quick, a celebrated Puritan divine (died 1706), and 
 Joseph Glanvill, Prebendary of Worcester, author of 
 * Saducismus Triumphatus ’ (already noted), were born at 
 Plymouth in 1636. It was likewise the birthplace 
 of Dr. James Yonge (1647-1721), an early member of the 
 Royal Society; of Bryant the Mythologist (1715-1804), 
 and of Kitto (1804-1854), the deaf author. 
 
 William Elford Leach, Curator of the British Museum, 
 the greatest zoologist Devonshire has produced, was born 
 at Plymouth in 1790, and died in 1836. A year later was 
 born Sir William Snow Harris (died 1867), the inventor 
 of the system of applying lightning-conductors to ships ; 
 
Plymouth , Devonport , and Stonehouse. 223 
 
 and another Plymouth electrician, Jonathan Hearder 
 (1810-76), was blind nearly all through his scientific career. 
 
 But it is in connection with Art that the chief personal 
 excellence of modern Plymouth has been reached. Here 
 was born (1746-1831) James Northcote, R.A., pupil and 
 biographer of Reynolds, himself a native of what is now a 
 Plymouth suburb. Here Samuel Prout (1783-1852), the 
 most distinguished water-colour artist of the West, and 
 in his peculiar gifts unrivalled in the kingdom. Here the 
 unfortunate Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786-1846), the 
 true founder of Schools of Art; here Samuel Hart, R.A. 
 (1806-1881), Professor of Painting, and Librarian of the 
 Royal Academy. And here also first saw the light Sir 
 Charles Lock Eastlake (1793-1866), President of the 
 Royal Academy, and at the time of his death Director of 
 the National Gallery. His first great work was a painting 
 of Buonaparte at the gangway of the Bellerophon in 
 Plymouth Sound, now in the possession of Lord Clinton. 
 
 The joint history of the triple community of Plymouth, 
 Devonport, and Stonehouse, has some curious features. 
 In name Stonehouse, the smallest of the * three towns ’ 
 is the oldest. Devonport is the youngest, but under its 
 earliest designation of Stoke was by far the most im¬ 
 portant member of the triad, as it first appears in history 
 in the pages of ‘ Domesday.’ It was then the property of 
 Robert of Albemarle, whose name is still preserved in the 
 title of the parish—Stoke Damerel—and had a population 
 of twenty-five against the seven of Sutton and the one 
 villein who occupied Stanehvs under Robert the Bastard. 
 While hamlets were developing into the ville of Sutton, 
 and that into the burgh of Plymouth, and while the 
 building of * stane and lime ’ which named the ancient 
 manor of Stonehouse was growing into a walled town, 
 Stoke Damerel continued a mere village. It passed from 
 Damerells to Courtenays, Kemiells, Branscombes, and 
 
224 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 Britts, until it came to the Wises, and Sir Thomas Wise 
 signalized his ownership by building a stately mansion on 
 the craggy headland opposite the domain of the Edgcumbes, 
 and calling it, with that imitation which is the sincerest 
 flattery, ‘ Mount Wise.’ All but the name has long passed 
 into oblivion, and cannon frown and soldiers dwell where 
 the manor-house once stood. In 1667 Stoke was bought 
 by Sir William Morice, Secretary of State to Charles II., 
 and some time member for Plymouth ; and early in the 
 last century passed to its present owners, the St. Aubyns, 
 by the marriage of Sir John St. Aubyn to Catherine, 
 coheiress of the Morice family. As the whole town and 
 parish, with a few unimportant exceptions, belongs to the 
 St. Aubyns, it is now by far the most valuable manor in 
 the West of England. 
 
 Devonport, as a town, dates only from the reign of 
 William III. Though Plymouth had so long been a naval 
 port of resort of the first rank, it had few Government 
 establishments and no dockyard. Woolwich, Deptford, 
 and Portsmouth yards go back to the reign of Henry VIII.; 
 and Chatham was founded under Elizabeth. Charles II. 
 established Sheerness, and is credited with the intention 
 of creating a dockyard at Devonport, the advantages 
 of the harbour there having been recognised among 
 others by Ralegh. Until 1690, however, the royal ships 
 at Plymouth were wholly dependent upon the accom¬ 
 modation of private yards. William of Orange saw the 
 need of remedying this state of things soon after he came 
 to the throne, for plans for a ‘ dock in the Hamoaze’ were 
 prepared in 1689 ; and in the following year a little creek 
 was utilized in the construction of the first basin and 
 dock. This was the germ from which has grown the 
 great naval arsenal of the West, the works of which now 
 all but monopolize, in one form or another, the water¬ 
 side for miles along the eastern shores of the Tamar 
 estuary. 
 
Plymouth , Devonport, and Stonehouse. 225 
 
 Plymouth Dock was the original name of the new town ; 
 and at first officers and artisans alike were accustomed to 
 live in Plymouth and go to and fro their work daily. The 
 first dockyard was completed in 1693; but it was not 
 until 1700 that the first private house of the new town 
 was erected, a rough wooden structure at the landing- 
 place at North Corner, which became the principal centre 
 whence the houses spread. There are still in this locality 
 a few of the original dwellings left—buildings curiously 
 compounded to all appearance of the cottage and the 
 cabin, the self-instructed architects being at times 
 singularly successful in transferring to the shore some of 
 the leading characteristics of the stern quarters of the old 
 Dutch-built men-of-war. 
 
 As war followed war, so the dockyard extended; and as 
 the dockyard extended, so the town grew; until, about 
 the middle of the last century, ‘ the Dock’ was enclosed by 
 ditch and rampart, long since improved out of existence 
 in favour of more massive works, in their turn so out¬ 
 grown as to be practically useless. The earliest return of 
 the population is for the year 1733, when it was 3,361, 
 about half that of Plymouth. Fifty years later it was 
 equal to that of the elder town ; and by the beginning of 
 the century was largely in advance, having a population 
 of 23,747 to the 16,040 of Plymouth and the 3,407 of 
 Stonehouse. While war lasted Devonport grew more 
 rapidly than Plymouth, the natural trade of which was 
 almost wholly destroyed or given up for privateer¬ 
 ing. But at length commerce asserted its superiority; 
 and the census of 1841 showed Plymouth once more in 
 advance, with a preponderance which it has since in¬ 
 creasingly maintained, active as the development of the 
 Government works has from time to time been. 
 
 Devonport was one of the large centres of population 
 enfranchised by the Reform Bill of 1832, when it and Stone¬ 
 house were thrown together to make one constituency. It 
 
 15 
 
226 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 was incorporated as a municipality in 1837, having been 
 previously governed by a body of Commissioners operating 
 under a local Act. The name was changed from Plymouth 
 Dock to Devonport in 1824. 
 
 Devonport now consists of the old town ‘within the 
 lines of the ancient village of Stoke, which has developed 
 into a very handsome residential suburb—the tower of 
 the mother church being the one antiquity the place can 
 boast; and of the great and growing annexe of Morice 
 Town or New Passage, which has enormously developed 
 since the commencement of the Keyham Steamyard in 
 1844. Keyham was the original ‘ manor-place ’ of the 
 Wises and their predecessors. Beyond the Keyham Yard 
 are now Seamen’s Barracks; and farther up the river 
 towards Saltash the Bull Point and Kinterbury Powder 
 Works and Magazines. The villages of Millbrook and 
 Torpoint, and to a certain extent the town of Saltash 
 also, on the Cornish side of the Tamar, are so far suburbs 
 of Devonport that they are partially inhabited by men 
 employed in the Government establishments. 
 
 Of the few notable points in the local history, the 
 blowing up in 1796 of the Amphion in harbour, when 
 200 lives were lost, is one of the most memorable; and in 
 1840 occurred the great fire in the dockyard, when the 
 Talavcra and Minden were burnt, and large quantities of 
 valuable stores and naval antiquities. 
 
 Stonehouse has a history, though never yet thoroughly 
 worked out. The township in legal documents is called 
 East Stonehouse, by way of distinction from a hamlet on 
 the opposite side of Hamoaze at Mount Edgcumbe, named 
 West Stonehouse, said to have been burnt by the French 
 in one of their raids. Carew, writing at the end of the 
 sixteenth century, notes that ‘ certaine old ruines, yet 
 remaining, confirme the neighbours’ report.’ It stood 
 near the edge of the water at what is now called Cremyll. 
 
Plymouth, Devonport, and Stonehouse. 227 
 
 There is no evidence to show whether West Stonehouse 
 was included in the manor of Stonehouse held by Robert 
 the Bastard at the date of the compilation of ‘ Domesday.’ 
 Probably it was not, and East Stonehouse was really the 
 elder town; but Devon then, and until recently, included 
 Mount Edgcumbe and adjacent lands west of the Tamar. 
 After the Bastards the manor came to a family named 
 thence of Stonehouse, and from them it passed by 
 marriage to the Durnfords, whose heiress in turn carried 
 it to its present possessors, the Edgcumbes. Apart from 
 the building whose solid character gave the manor its 
 name, there is little evidence, until Stonehouse came into 
 the hands of the Durnfords, that it consisted of more 
 than the castellated mansion of its lords, with some build¬ 
 ings of a monastic character, doubtfully connected with 
 the great Priory of Plympton. The Durnfords, however, 
 did their best to foster their infant town; and James 
 Durnford, as noted, brought down upon him the Abbot of 
 Buckland, as lord of the hundred of Roborough, by setting 
 up a pillory and tumbrel at ‘ Estonhouse ’ and holding 
 courts there, wherefore, 26th Henry VI., it was ordered 
 that the pillory and tumbrel should be ‘ deposed, de¬ 
 stroyed, and removed,’ that no courts should be held by 
 Durnford which interfered with the abbot’s view of frank¬ 
 pledge, and no hindrance put to the execution of the 
 abbot’s precepts or the action of his bailiffs, etc., in the 
 manor. At this time, and long afterwards, Stonehouse 
 to some extent came under the jurisdiction of Plymouth. 
 It formed part of the very extensive ancient parish of St. 
 Andrew (to which it is yet appendant by patronage), and 
 there are records of inquests being held there by a Plymouth 
 coroner, though it never fell within the municipal boundary. 
 
 Stonehouse was little more than a fishing village from 
 the time of the Durnfords until the reign of Henry VIII., 
 when it grew more rapidly ; so that early in the seventeenth 
 century, Sir William Pole describes it as a ‘ convenient 
 
 15—2 
 
228 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 big town, well inhabited.’ The first trace of any corporate 
 authority known to exist is in a deed of the 36th of 
 Elizabeth, which refers to the government of the town 
 being in the hands of the lord, Peter Edgcumbe, Esquire, 
 under rules and directions made with ‘ the consent & 
 ffrancke agremt of xij. discrete & able psons of & 
 w f hin the said Towne and liberties.’ This would be 
 something in the nature of a select vestry; and the 
 government of the township continued strictly parochial 
 until the establishment of a Local Board of Health, 
 although it has a population of some 15,000. 
 
 The ecclesiastical connection of Stonehouse with 
 Plymouth probably originated with the extensive rights 
 exercised by the Plympton Priory, which was not only 
 liberally endowed by the Valletorts, but received from 
 ‘John de Stanhurst ’ a grant of free fishery ‘per totam 
 terram meam.’ Though this deed is not dated, it cannot 
 be later than Henry I.; for in the latter part of the 
 twelfth century the fishery is mentioned in a Valletort 
 grant as an ancient right. A Joel of Stonehouse was 
 living there in the reign of Henry III. 
 
 The present parish church, dedicated to St. George, 
 replaced in the last century an ancient chapel dedicated 
 to St. Lawrence, the existence of which it is said can be 
 followed back to 1472. St. George, however, appears to 
 have a good claim to the dedication; for a deed, dated 
 12th Henry VII., mentions John Melett and Laurence 
 Serle as ‘ custod capell sci georgii martii de Est Stone¬ 
 house ;’ and there is no trace of more than one ancient 
 chapel in the town. Stonehouse became the settlement 
 of a body of Huguenot refugees after the Revocation of 
 the Edict of Nantes; and for several years the chapel 
 was used jointly by the French and English inhabitants. 
 Eventually the former obtained a meeting-place of their 
 own, and continued to meet there until 1810, when they 
 became finally absorbed, as the Huguenots of Plymouth 
 
Plymouth , Devonport, and Stonehouse. 229 
 
 had been three years earlier, in the native population. 
 One of the refugees—Duval—has left his name to the 
 headland of Devil's Point. 
 
 There is good proof that Stonehouse was a place of 
 some importance in the closing years of the sixteenth 
 century, from the fact that an Act of Parliament was 
 obtained to bring into the town a supply of fresh water, 
 the needs of the shipping being alleged as a leading 
 cause. A leat, or water-course, was accordingly made, 
 though it did not answer the end designed. There appears 
 then to have been some falling off. Stonehouse had a 
 Royalist lord in Colonel Edgcumbe, and a tolerably 
 numerous Roundhead population. Its interest was there¬ 
 fore very equally divided ; and it took no active part in 
 the great struggle. On one side lay Plymouth, garrisoned 
 for the Parliament—its exterior lines of defence, indeed, 
 included Stonehouse ; on the other was Mount Edgcumbe, 
 held for the King. Stonehouse must have had walls of 
 some kind, for it had barrier-gates until 1770; but it was 
 not a place of any strength, and held wisely neutral. 
 Hence, doubtless, its choice in 1643 as the place of 
 meeting of the negociants of the fruitless treaty of peace 
 between Devon and Cornwall. 
 
 Like Devonport, Stonehouse has been to a large extent 
 absorbed by the action of the Government, which in one 
 form or another occupies the larger proportion of its 
 water-side. Here the Naval Hospital, fronting the 
 Military Hospital at Devonport on the other side of a 
 creek; there the Royal William Victualling Office, the 
 finest pile of buildings devoted to victualling purposes in 
 the country; and there again forts and barracks, the 
 latter the headquarters of a division of Royal Marines. 
 What shipping-trade continues is carried on in Stone¬ 
 house Pool, on the western shores of which Devonport is 
 attempting to utilize for commercial purposes the only 
 available piece of foreshore that the Government estab¬ 
 lishments have left free. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 PLYMPTON. 
 
 Plympton has all the marks of a very ancient settlement. 
 When it was founded the waters of what is now known 
 as the Laira stretched up the valley to its site, and im¬ 
 mediately above the farthest tidal reach were reared the 
 earthworks which now bear the ruins of the fortress of 
 the Redverses, but which were certainly held by the Kelt, 
 possibly adopted by the Roman, and in turn extended 
 and strengthened by the Saxon, ere the Norman made it 
 the centre of his power in the wide district around. 
 Traces of this history may yet be read in the castle and 
 its surroundings. 
 
 In all probability Plympton takes name from its ancient 
 position at the head of the estuary of what is now known 
 as the Plym, or, as these estuarine creeks are commonly 
 called in the locality, lake —pen lin in the Western Keltic 
 tongue, contracted, as in other instances in Cornwall, into 
 plin, the form which the first syllable takes in its earliest 
 occurrence in ‘ Domesday ’—Plintona. Plymouth, at the 
 lower end of the estuary, did not assume that appellation 
 until the original meaning of the word had long been lost; 
 and the consequence appears to have been a curious trans¬ 
 ference of names. The modern Plym is made up of two 
 rivers, the Mew or Meavy, and what in later days has 
 been called the Cad, but through the Middle Ages was 
 known as the Plym. The old form of Meavy is Mewi, 
 
Plympton. 
 
 231 
 
 and this in the Kornu-Keltic would mean * greater water.’ 
 There is no reasonable doubt that Laira—formerly Lary 
 —the name now applied to the estuary, which means the 
 ‘ lesser water ’—is the original name of the second 
 tributary, and that the estuary and the river—the Plym 
 and the Lary—have somehow exchanged titles. There is 
 a bridge over the Plym called Cadover, a corruption of coed 
 weorthig —the ‘ farm-place in the wood,’ and the second 
 change of name from Plym to Cad arose from the ‘ over ’ 
 being held to imply that the bridge crossed the Cad. 
 The Plym is now commonly understood of the rivers 
 between their junction and the estuary. 
 
 Failing such an explanation, many are the hypotheses 
 that have been advanced to account for the fact that the 
 ‘ ton ’ of the Plym is not, and never was, upon the river 
 now known by that name, and is, indeed, nearly two miles 
 distant, though quite as great a distance from the estuary. 
 It is, however, well within historic times that the tide 
 flowed up to the walls of the castle, and that Plympton 
 stood literally, as well as nominally, at the ‘ head of the 
 lake.’ Moreover, throughout the Middle Ages the chief 
 traffic between Plymouth and the great Priory of Plympton 
 was by boat. This was the route adopted by the Black 
 Prince at his visits to the West, when the Priory afforded 
 him entertainment. A record of acts done by him as 
 Duke of Cornwall at Plymouth and Plympton, in 1362, is 
 still in the possession of the Earl of Mount Edgcumbe; 
 and the house seems to have become somewhat im¬ 
 poverished by the many claims on its hospitality caused 
 by its contiguity to the port of Plymouth. 
 
 At the compilation of ‘ Domesday ’ Plintona was the 
 chief centre of population for many miles. There is, 
 therefore, much show of reason for the appearance here 
 also of the ubiquitous couplet: 
 
 ‘ Plympton was a borough town 
 When Plymouth was a furzy down.’ 
 
232 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 William held it in succession to the Confessor, and had 
 an enumerated population of twenty-three within his 
 demesne ; while there were twelve villeins in the portion 
 held by the canons. Though all was included in one 
 entry, the germs of the division thus already existed 
 which in later years made the territory of the Priory the 
 parish of Plympton St. Mary, and the lands of the secular 
 lord the Borough of Plympton Erie (from its owners), or 
 Plympton St. Maurice, from the early patron saint of its 
 church, in later years assigned to St. Thomas of Canter¬ 
 bury. 
 
 The remains of Plympton Castle consist of a mound 
 surmounted by the ruins of a shell keep, which rises at 
 the eastern end of a rectangular enclosure or base court. 
 The earthworks are in excellent preservation, and there 
 are traces of exterior defences. The Norman masonry is 
 simple, and with no special features of interest save the 
 occurrence of the cavities in the walls, which show the 
 original places of the beams inserted to strengthen and 
 support the stonework upon the doubtful foundation of 
 the mound. It is probable that the Norman castle was, 
 in great part, if not wholly, built by Richard de Redvers, 
 Earl of Devon, to whom Henry I. granted the honour 
 and castle. It was practically demolished in the ensuing 
 reign under his son, Baldwin, who had espoused the 
 cause of Matilda against Stephen, but whose garrison at 
 Plympton surrendered without striking a blow. This was 
 the only occasion on which Plympton Castle has figured 
 in history, and from that day to this as a fortalice it has 
 been a mere ruin ; though Plympton was a station of the 
 Cavaliers at the siege of Plymouth. The honour of 
 Plympton—of which were held 120 knights’ fees—followed 
 the fortunes of the great house to which it belonged. 
 It passed from the Redverses to the Courtenays, and 
 continued in the latter, with the exception of the 
 intervals when that powerful family lay under royal dis- 
 
Plympton. 
 
 233 
 
 pleasure, until the death of Lord Edward Courtenay, in 
 1566. The property was then scattered among various 
 families, but was subsequently to a large extent brought 
 together again by purchase by the Earls of Morley; and 
 in them the lordship of the castle and manor is now 
 vested. 
 
 The Parkers, originally of North Molton, acquired by 
 their marriage with the heiress of Mayhew, temp. Eliza¬ 
 beth, the manor of Boringdon, and thenceforward made 
 it their chief residence, until in 1712 they purchased 
 Saltram, once the seat and residence of Sir James Bagge, 
 the creature of Buckingham, and the ‘ bottomless bagge ’ 
 of the patriot Eliot. The Parkers were raised to the 
 peerage in 1774, as Barons Boringdon ; and in 1815 ad¬ 
 vanced to be Viscounts Boringdon and Earls of Morley. 
 Saltram House was rebuilt by them early in the last 
 century, and was long reported the largest mansion in 
 the county. 
 
 Plympton Priory was one of the most ancient and 
 notable religious houses in Devon. The canons who held 
 two hides of the Plintona manor under William, were the 
 successors of men who had been seated there in all 
 probability for a longer period than any other religious in 
 Devon outside Exeter. There is yet extant a copy of a 
 Saxon document of reasonable authenticity, dated 904, 
 which records a grant by Eadweard the Elder to Asser, 
 Bishop of Sherborne, and the convent there, of twelve 
 manors, by way of exchange for the monastery which in 
 the Saxon tongue is called ‘ Plymentun.’ The college 
 consisted of a dean and four canons; and when they 
 refused to give up their wives, or, as Leland said, ‘ wold 
 not leve their concubines,’ it was suppressed by Bishop 
 Warelwast, nephew of the Conqueror, in 1121. In its 
 stead he founded what afterwards became the great 
 Augustinian Priory of St. Peter and St. Paul, which was 
 so enriched with liberal gifts by the Redverses and 
 
History of Devonshire. 
 
 234 
 
 Valletorts and other benefactors, that at the Dissolution 
 it was the wealthiest house in the West, with revenues 
 valued at £912 12s. 8d. The magnificent Priory Church, 
 where Warehvast and some of the Courtenays were 
 buried, adjoined the parish church of St. Mary ; and a 
 few traces yet remain. Of the domestic buildings all 
 that is left is the refectory, converted into a dwelling 
 which has a Norman crypt. 
 
 The priors, as already stated, were lords of a portion of 
 Plymouth in its infancy, and their part of the ancient 
 manor of Sutton was then called Sutton Prior. Before 
 that town could be incorporated, their consent had to be 
 obtained; and the terms were finally settled at an in¬ 
 quisition held in the nave of the Priory Church in 1441, a 
 fee farm rent of £41 being then deemed an adequate 
 compensation. The Priory had two appendant cells—one, 
 Marisco, near Exeter; and the other at St. Anthony in 
 Roseland, Cornwall. The site has been in the Champer- 
 nownes, Strodes, and Fowneses. 
 
 Plympton Erie was chartered by its feudal lords. 
 Baldwin de Redvers made it a borough town, and granted 
 the burgesses its market and fairs in March, 1241. These 
 were confirmed in 1284. Municipal functions were re¬ 
 tained until 1859, when, in consequence of the charter 
 conferring no exclusive jurisdiction as against the county, 
 it was allowed to lapse. As a Parliamentary borough 
 Plympton dated from 23rd Edward I., and it was con¬ 
 tinuously represented until the fatal 1832. Few towns in 
 Devon have had more distinguished representatives. 
 Serjeant Hele sat for the borough under Elizabeth. 
 Many of the Strode family, whose ancestral seat of 
 Newnham is close by, were returned at various times; 
 and among them that William Strode who was one of 
 the famous ‘ five members.’ Strange that a town of such 
 marked Puritan proclivities should also have chosen such 
 a staunch Royalist as Sir Nicholas Slanning. Sir George 
 
Plympton. 
 
 235 
 
 Treby, the judge, and Sir John Maynard, were other 
 notable members; and, most notable of all, in 1685, Sir 
 Christopher Wren became a ‘ burgess ’ of Plympton. In 
 later days, the most prominent representative was Lord 
 Castlereagh. When he sat, however, Plympton had 
 long been a purely nomination borough; one half of the 
 representation belonging to the Trebys, and the other 
 half to the Edgcumbes. 
 
 Quaint as many of the surroundings of Plympton Erie 
 still are, chief interest centres in the comparatively 
 modern and modernized Grammar School. Founded 
 from the bequest of the great educational benefactor of 
 Devon, Elize, or Elizeus, Hele, and erected in 1644, here 
 was born, July 16, 1723, while his father, the Rev. Samuel 
 Reynolds, was head-master, the greatest English portrait- 
 painter, Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A. The old dwelling 
 has given place to a modern edifice ; but the school and 
 its quaint cloister still remain—the school in which not 
 only Reynolds, but Northcote was educated, which was 
 the first school, moreover, of another President of the 
 Royal Academy, Sir C. L. Eastlake, and of which 
 Benjamin Robert Haydon was ‘head-boy’ in 1801. No 
 school in England holds such a relation to Art, therefore, 
 as the ancient Grammar School of Plympton. Sir Joshua 
 never forgot his native town, and to the last kept up 
 kindly relations. Nor was he by any means without 
 honour in his own country. His townsmen were proud 
 of him, and did him what respect lay in their power, 
 electing him in 1773 their mayor! On this occasion he 
 gave the town his portrait, painted by himself; and it 
 hung in the Guildhall until 1832, when the thrifty Cor¬ 
 poration, to their lasting disgrace, sold it to the Earl of 
 Egremont for £150. 
 
 Of the families connected with Plympton and its neigh¬ 
 bourhood, the Parkers have already been noted. The 
 Strodes of Newnham, lately extinct in the male line, 
 
236 History of Devonshire. 
 
 were seated at Strode, in Ermington, as early as the 
 reign of Henry III. Newnham was acquired by 
 marriage with a coheiress of the Newnhams, temp. 
 Henry IV. Richard and William Strode, the two most 
 notable members of the family, have been already 
 mentioned. Dr. William Strode, poet and divine, died in 
 1644. 
 
 The Woollcombes, who have been seated at Hemerdon 
 for several generations, in the reign of Elizabeth lived on 
 the adjoining estate of Challonsleigh. Chaddlewood was 
 long in the extinct family of Snelling (now in Soltau 
 Symons), and Beechwood is the seat of Lord Seaton. 
 
 The adjacent parish of Brixton is associated with such 
 old family names as Brixton, Calmady, Coplestone, 
 Fortescue, Maynard, Drake, Pollexfen, and Hele; but its 
 chief claim to notice here is as the residence of that 
 most worthy member of the wide-spreading family of 
 Hele—Elize Hele, of Wollaton, who bequeathed in 1635 
 the manor of Brixton Reigny and all his estates to 
 charitable uses, and thus became the great school 
 founder of his native county. 
 
 It is a question whether the Heles really sprung from 
 Hele near Bradninch, or Hele in Cornwood, where they 
 can certainly be traced to the reign of Richard II.; but 
 the latter is probably a younger branch. Cornwood, 
 noted in ‘ Domesday ’ as possessing three wild horses— 
 ancestors, no doubt, of the native breed of Dartmoor 
 ponies—is connected with several distinguished families. 
 Chief among these was that of Ralegh, which obtained 
 Fardell by marriage with the heiress of Newton. At this 
 ancient mansion, now a farm-house, Wymond Ralegh, 
 grandfather of Sir Walter Ralegh, lived ; and here no 
 doubt Walter, the father, was born. There is a baseless 
 tradition that it was also the birthplace of the great Sir 
 Walter himself. That, however, was at East Hayes. 
 
Plympton. 
 
 237 
 
 Slade, with its fine hall, once the seat of the family of 
 that name, has long been the residence of the Spurrells, 
 and their descendants, the Podes. Blachford is the seat 
 of Lord Blachford, whose ancestors were sometime lead¬ 
 ing merchants in Plymouth, and for many years filled 
 chief places in the Corporation. Their original settlement 
 in Cornwood was Wisdome, of which place John Rogers 
 was created baronet in 1698. The present is the first 
 Lord Blachford, and was the eighth baronet. 
 
 Plymstock Manor was part of the possessions of the 
 Abbey of Tavistock under the Confessor, though not 
 a portion of the original endowment, and a tradition 
 attaches to its connection with that house which falls into 
 place more appropriately in the section on Dartmoor. In 
 Plymstock parish are the great limestone quarries of 
 Oreston, out of which the material for the Plymouth 
 breakwater was hewn, and in which were found the 
 first bone-caves that formed the subject of scientific 
 investigation and marked a new departure in geological 
 discovery. There was much fighting here from time to 
 time in connection with the siege of Plymouth, and traces 
 of earthworks are yet visible. Here, too, was the site of 
 the ancient Keltic settlement at Staddon referred to under 
 Plymouth. Staddiscombe was the birthplace (1717) of 
 the learned Nathaniel Foster, translator of Plato. It is 
 also the reputed birthplace of Walter Britte, an able and 
 active disciple of Wiclif. 
 
 Wembury has already been mentioned as the probable 
 site of the battle of Wicganbeorge. Its name has been 
 interpreted to mean the ‘Viking’s bury’ or fort; while 
 a kindred origin has been sought for the name of the 
 adjoining parish of Revelstoke, the ‘ revel ’ representing 
 reafcrc, a ‘rover, robber,’ and reafful— rapacious. More¬ 
 over the situation of the respective churches close to ihe 
 water’s edge seems to have in it something of a com¬ 
 memorative character. Wembury Church is dedicated 
 
History of Devonshire. 
 
 238 
 
 to St. Werburga, and thus falls into place as one of the 
 proofs of Mercian influence in Devon, advanced by Mr. 
 T. Kerslake. Wembury, which belonged to Plympton 
 Priory, does not appear in ‘ Domesday,’ though some of 
 its manors do. The manor of Wembury was acquired in 
 1592 by Sir John Hele, the well-known serjeant-at-law, 
 who erected what was regarded as the most magnificent 
 mansion in the county. It was held for awhile by the 
 Pollexfens; and early in the present century the house 
 was pulled down by the then owner, Mr. Lockyer. 
 Langdon was for several generations till recently the 
 seat of the Calmadys. 
 
 Radford, in Plymstock, has been a seat of the Harris 
 family for nearly 500 years. Here Ralegh is said to have 
 been kept in ward on his return in 1618, and here at times 
 Drake stored much of his treasure. 
 
 The last parish to be noted in connection with this 
 group is Yealmpton. Risdon records a tradition that 
 JEftelwold had a palace here, and that here also his 
 ‘ lieutenant,’ Lipsius, was interred ; and with Risdon the 
 statement begins and ends. Under the name of Yealmpton 
 the manor does not appear in ‘ Domesday ’; but it can 
 hardly be other than the Elintone entered among the 
 royal manors next to Plintona, ranking next to it also in 
 importance, and having one hide held by the clergy of 
 the ville—described in the Exon book as of St. Mary of 
 Alentona—in alms. The use of E or A for Y in ‘ Domesday ’ 
 is usual; and there are many reasons which combine to 
 make this identification all but certain. 
 
 In the churchyard at Yealmpton stands one of the 
 ancient inscribed stones already noted under Tavistock, 
 bearing one word only, but that variously read. The 
 common rendering is torevs, and that is the reading 
 current in the neighbourhood, where it is looked upon 
 with some little interest, and traditionally regarded as 
 commemorating some ancient chieftain or king. The 
 
Plympton. 
 
 239 
 
 other reading is gorevs, but the point can hardly be 
 regarded as definitely settled, and it may not be amiss to 
 note that the ancient village of Tor is within a mile, and 
 that the name, as it stands, is closely allied to that of the 
 little river Torry at Plympton some five miles north, 
 which, moreover, appears in £ Domesday’ as Torix. 
 
 Kitley is now the chief seat of the ancient family of 
 Bastard, which claim descent from the Robert Bastard 
 who appears in ‘ Domesday’ as the holder of nine manors. 
 They obtained Kitley by marriage with the heiress of the 
 Pollexfens, Edmund Pollexfen, the last male of the family, 
 dying in 1710. Since then they have acquired several 
 adjoining estates, including Bowdon, once the seat of a 
 family of that name, Coffleet, and Lyneham. 
 
 Lyneham, for nearly four centuries, was the seat of the 
 great Devonshire family of Crocker, referred to in the 
 already-quoted rhyme, who are now represented by the 
 Bulteels. In Yealmpton Church is one of the finest 
 brasses in the county, to Sir John Crocker of Lyneham, 
 cupbearer to Edward IV. 
 
 Windsor here was the seat of Richard Fortescue, from 
 whom, according to Sir W. Pole, are descended the 
 Fortescues of the east of England. Pitton was the 
 residence of the North Devon Woollcombes before their 
 removal to Ashbury. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 MODBURY. 
 
 Modbury is one of the oldest market-towns in the county, 
 and returned representatives to Parliament in the reign 
 of Edward I. We know nothing of it until ‘ Domesday,’ 
 when one Richard was the tenant under the Earl of 
 Moreton, who held it ‘ unjustly.’ The parish comprises 
 several ancient manors. Orcherton, at the time of the 
 Survey, was held from the Earl by Reginald de Valletort. 
 The Valletorts soon became the dominant race, and from 
 them Modbury came to the Champernownes, who held it 
 as the seat of the family from the reign of Edward II. 
 until 1700. There were several distinguished members of 
 this race, and one of them, Arthur Champernowne, was 
 knighted in 1599 for his eminent services under the Earl 
 of Essex in Ireland. There is a curious story that Queen 
 Elizabeth was so exasperated by the refusal of the 
 Champernowne of her time to lend her a fine band of 
 musicians, that she found occasion to compel him to part 
 with nineteen manors. 
 
 A Priory was founded at Modbury, in the reign of 
 Stephen, by an ancestor of the Champernownes, as a cell 
 to the Abbey of St. Peter sur Dive, Normandy. When 
 the alien houses were suppressed, this passed at first to 
 Tavistock Abbey, but afterwards to Eton College. 
 
 Wimpston, as noted heretofore, is the ancestral home 
 
Modbury. 
 
 241 
 
 of the wide-branching Fortescues, who ceased to reside 
 therein, however, in the reign of Elizabeth. 
 
 Brownston was granted by Adam de Morville to the 
 Abbey of Buckfastleigh. 
 
 Among other families connected with Modbury are the 
 Prideauxes and Heles of Orcherton; the Saverys of 
 Shilston ; the Edmerstons and Rouses of Edmerston ; the 
 Challons of Leigh; and the Traynes and Swetes of 
 Trayne. It was a Savery of Shilston, Thomas, who about 
 1697 invented the first practical steam-pumping apparatus. 
 
 Old Port, a very remarkable fortification of unknown 
 antiquity, on the Erme, gave name to the De la Ports, 
 and is suggested by Mr. R. J. King as of older date than 
 Saxon times. ‘ It may have been the work of the 
 Romans before their withdrawal .... or it may have 
 been raised by some British King of Damnonia, working 
 and building under Roman traditions, for defence against 
 the Saxon host.’ 
 
 Modbury was the scene of the opening passage in the 
 great drama of the Civil War, so far as Devonshire is 
 concerned. All the chief towns had declared on the side 
 of the Parliament, when, in 1642, Sir Ralph Hopton 
 persuaded Sir Edmund Fortescue, of Fallapit, then High 
 Sheriff, to call out the posse comitatus. Hopton and 
 Slanning with a force of between two and three thousand 
 captured Tavistock, and then Plympton, whence they 
 marched to Modbury, which had been appointed for the 
 rendezvous with Fortescue. Here some thousand trained 
 soldiers and volunteers speedily collected ; and an attack 
 in force upon Plymouth would not long have been delayed, 
 had not Colonel Ruthen, in command there, taken the initia¬ 
 tive. Very early in the morning he despatched about 
 500 horse and dragoons, as if an attack on Tavistock were 
 intended. Speedily wheeling southward, however, they 
 came round through Ivybridge, and fell upon Modbury 
 quite unexpectedly, about nine in the morning, after a 
 
 16 
 
242 
 
 History of Devonshire . 
 
 five hours’ march. The day was won at once. The 
 trained bands, crying out ‘ The troopers are come !’ ran 
 away, leaving their arms behind them; the unarmed posse , 
 who were mostly at Modbury sorely against their will, were 
 no whit slow in following the example. Resistance there 
 was none, save on the part of Sir Edmund Fortescue and 
 his friends, who garrisoned the castellated house of Mr. 
 Champernowne, and made a stout defence until it was 
 fired and further resistance was hopeless. With the loss 
 of one man the Roundheads thus not only dispersed an 
 embryo army, but took a number of important prisoners 
 —the High Sheriff; John Fortescue, his predecessor in 
 that office; Sir Edward Seymour; Edward Seymour, M.P., 
 his eldest son ; Colonel Henry Champernowne ; Arthur 
 Basset; Thomas Shipcote, the Clerk of the Peace—alto¬ 
 gether about a score of prominent Royalists, who were 
 straightway shipped from Dartmouth to London. 
 
 Modbury is probably the last place in the West of 
 England where the old adage, ‘ Good wine needs no bush,’ 
 had an association in custom. The great fair at Modbury 
 —known as St. George’s Fair, and held for nine days—is 
 still proclaimed by the manor portreeve and borough jury 
 in ancient form upon the spot where once stood the market 
 cross, and within the last fifty years it was the custom in 
 the town to hang out a holly bush from private houses where 
 drink was being sold during fair-time, as an indication of 
 the fact. The bush did duty for an Excise license in the 
 old days, and the custom appears to have lingered on at 
 Modbury long after it had ceased to be legal. The fair 
 was one of the most important in the district. Within 
 living memory it afforded the only opportunity for the 
 purchase of cloth in the town; and travelling braziers 
 were accustomed to ply their avocation only on these 
 occasions. 
 
 Ermington was a market-town under a grant made in 
 1294. The manor and hundred had been given by 
 
Modbury. 
 
 243 
 
 Henry I. to Matilda Peverell. Strachleigh was the seat 
 of a family of that name for ten descents from the reign 
 of Henry III. The last of the name died in 1583 ; and 
 the Strachleigh brass is one of the features of the church. 
 Another is the fact that the altar continued from the 
 Reformation to be set tablewise, and enclosed by a balus¬ 
 trade. The church belonged to the Priory of Montacute. 
 Strode has already been mentioned as the original seat of 
 the Strodes. Ivybridge in like manner gave name to its 
 owners, thence passing to the Bonviles. Woodland is 
 noteworthy for the fact that the last male of that ilk, Sir 
 Walter de Woodland, was a follower and attendant of the 
 Black Prince. The tradition is yet current in the parish, 
 of the fall, near Strachleigh, in 1623, of a meteoric stone 
 weighing 23 lb. 
 
 Harford has a place in history as the native parish of 
 John Prideaux, Bishop of Worcester (1578-1650), whose 
 success in life, singularly enough, dated from a disappoint¬ 
 ment that at the time cut him to the heart—his rejection 
 for the post of parish clerk of the adjoining parish of 
 Ugborough. By the kindly help of the mother of Sir 
 Edmund Fowel (a family long settled at Fowelscombe), 
 he found his way to Oxford, and rose from the kitchen of 
 Exeter College in the short space of sixteen years to its 
 rectorship; thence passing in 1641 to the see of Worcester. 
 Ejected when the Puritan party obtained the upper hand 
 —a fate that was certain to so decided and ardent a 
 politician and theologian—he bore his reverses with un¬ 
 ruffled equanimity, and died cheerfully in pious poverty ; 
 a singular contrast to his miserable depression when he 
 failed in his clerkship candidature. He had learnt better 
 what failure really was. ‘ If I had been chosen clerk of 
 Ugborough I had never been Bishop of Worcester.’ In 
 Harford Church is a monument erected by Prideaux to 
 his father and mother, and one to Thomas Williams, 
 Speaker of the House of Commons in 1602. 
 
 16—2 
 
244 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 Ugborough was one of the manors of the Briweres, and 
 passed to the Mohuns. Fowelscombe, in this parish, was 
 the original seat of the Fowel family, created baronets 
 in 1661. At Widcombe here was born, in 1620, Admiral 
 Sir John Kempthorne, who first showed his mettle by 
 engaging in the frigate Mary Rose a squadron of seven 
 Turkish men-of-war, and sinking or capturing the whole. 
 He was made Admiral for his distinguished services in 
 1665, under the Duke of York, and took part in several 
 engagements with the Dutch, as well as that at Solebay. 
 Subsequently one of the Commissioners of the Navy, he 
 died at Portsmouth in 1679. 
 
 Holbeton tithes were appropriated to the Priory of 
 Polsloe, and the manor of Battisborough belonged to the 
 Abbey of Buckfastleigh. The manor of Holbeton passed, 
 with that of Ermington, to Matilda Peverell. Flete, the 
 most important estate in the parish, continued in the 
 Damerells from the Conquest till the reign of Edward III. 
 It was the chief seat of the Heles, and came to the Bulteel 
 family by entail. The house has been recently rebuilt by 
 its present owner, Mr. Mildmay, a connection of the 
 Bulteel family; and Membland, long the residence of the 
 Hillersdons, whom the Bulteels represent, now belongs to 
 Mr. Baring, another connection, and one of the old 
 Devonshire Baring stock. Pamflete is now the seat of 
 the representative of the Bulteels, Mr. John Crocker 
 Bulteel. 
 
 Kingston, which was included in the Peverell grant, 
 was afterwards in the Martyns, Audleys, Bourchiers, and 
 Wreys. Wonwell gave name to a family long extinct. 
 
 Bigbury was held by lords of that name as early as the 
 reign of John ; and after nine descents was brought by a 
 coheiress to one of the Champernownes of Beer Ferrers, 
 from whom it descended through the Willoughbys to the 
 Paulets. There is a fifteenth-century Bigbury brass in 
 the church. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 KINGSBRIDGE AND SALCOMBE. 
 
 The well-built and thriving little town of Kingsbridge, 
 though left out in the cold by abortive railway schemes, 
 and dependent for communication upon coaches after the 
 olden fashion, has long distanced Modbury in the race for 
 the honour and profit of being the chief town of the 
 South Hams. This, of course, is largely due to its 
 position at the head of the long many-branched estuarine 
 creek which divides the great southern promontory of 
 Devon, with its bold headlands—the Bolt Head and Tail, 
 Prawle Point, and the Start — into two nearly equal 
 portions. Of this district it forms not only the natural, 
 but the topographical centre; and the wonder perhaps 
 rather is that it has not developed still more important 
 results. 
 
 The manors of Kingsbridge and Churchstow were, in 
 the thirteenth century, the property of the Abbey of 
 Buckfast. Originally Kingsbridge had been a part of 
 Churchstow ; but the growth of a little centre of popula¬ 
 tion at the head of the ‘ Kingsbridge River ’ made special 
 provision for its spiritual wants necessary. A chapel was 
 accordingly erected, and dedicated to St. Edmund, king 
 and martyr. This served its purpose for the time, but 
 burials had still to be performed at Churchstow; and as 
 the daughter village grew, this burden became too heavy 
 
246 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 to be borne. In 1414 (Aug. 26), therefore, probably at 
 the instance of Abbot Slade, Bishop Stafford consecrated 
 the Chapel of St. Edmund a parish church, and blessed 
 its cemetery. The further growth of the community is 
 shown by the fact that some half-century later the Abbey 
 obtained a grant for their town of Kingsbridge of a weekly 
 market, and a three-days’ fair, though the market, at 
 least, was of far older date. 
 
 The earliest allusion to Kingsbridge as a borough occurs 
 in the Hundred Rolls. When the Abbot of Buckfast was 
 summoned, in 1276, to answer for the rights claimed by 
 him in the manor of Churchstow, the jury found that 
 within that manor there was a new borough, which 
 answered for itself by six jurors, and had a market on 
 Friday, with a separate assize of bread and ale. This, 
 then, was Kingsbridge, though it is about fifty years later 
 that the word is first found. As in the case of Bridgewater, 
 the bridge in the name is a corruption, and the true title 
 Kingsburg, though what the King had to do with it is by 
 no means clear. 
 
 Up to the time of the Dissolution, Churchstow and 
 Kingsbridge remained appendant to the Abbey of Buck- 
 fast. They were then granted to Sir William Petre, and 
 in his descendants they remained until 1793, when they 
 were purchased by the Scobells. Kingsbridge Manor is 
 now the property of Mr. Hurrell. 
 
 Though the distinction is commonly sunken, Kings¬ 
 bridge really consists of two little towns—long since one 
 in fact, though not de jure —Kingsbridge and Dodbrooke. 
 Of these the latter is by far the older member of the twin 
 community. Probably named from a Saxon owner, 
 Dodda the thegn, at £ Domesday ’ we find it one of the 
 few Devonshire manors in female hands, its lady being 
 Godeva, widow of Brictric the Sheriff. That it early 
 assumed some importance is proven by the grant of a 
 weekly market and annual fair, in 1256. For a long 
 
Kingsbridge and Salcombc. 
 
 247 
 
 period the manor was in the Champernownes, the most 
 interesting point in its personal history. A large woollen 
 trade was carried on here well on into the present century. 
 
 The southern district of Devon, which is known in the 
 county as the South Hams, produces a beverage of archseo- 
 logical interest—‘ white ale,’ chiefly brewed now in the 
 neighbourhood of Kingsbridge, where it was tithable 
 from time immemorial, and commonly held to be of 
 purely local origin. It is made of malt wort, wheaten 
 flour, and eggs, and is fermented with a material called 
 ‘grout,’ the preparation of which is kept a secret. Not 
 many years ago this ‘ white ale ’ was the common drink 
 of the district; but its use is rapidly dying out with its 
 old friends. Mr. P. Karkeek, who has made the beverage 
 a study, has come to the interesting conclusion that it is 
 really the old English ale, described by all contemporary 
 authorities as a thicker drink than beer, which is dis¬ 
 tinguished from ale by the addition of hops—in short, 
 that ‘ the white ale of the South Hams is a survival in 
 some form of the ale once drunk by our forefathers all 
 over England.’ 
 
 Kingsbridge Church contains a monument to George 
 Hughes, the leader in the middle of the seventeenth 
 century of the Puritan clergy of Devonshire, who, when 
 ejected from Plymouth, retired to this little place to 
 end his days. The inscription is by his son-in-law, John 
 Howe. 
 
 The town has its full share of worthies. Thomas 
 Crispin, in 1670, was the founder of the Grammar School, 
 further endowed with exhibitions by William Duncombe, 
 who, under his will, in 1698, established a lectureship. 
 Here also lived at Knowle for many years, and here died 
 in 1815, the celebrated ornithologist, Colonel Montagu. 
 The most worthy native was William Cookworthy, 
 chemist and potter, the discoverer of china clay and 
 china stone in Cornwall, and the founder of the Plymouth 
 
248 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 China Works, where the first true porcelain made in 
 England was produced, and the productions of which are 
 now most highly valued. Born at Kingsbridge in 1705, 
 and left when quite a lad by the death of his father, who 
 was a weaver, in very poor circumstances, he walked to 
 London to enter on his duties as an apprentice with a 
 firm of chemists, named Bevan. By their aid, he sub¬ 
 sequently established a drug business in Plymouth, and 
 lived in that town until his death, in 1780. He made his 
 great discovery of the existence of the materials for the 
 production of porcelain between the years 1745-50; and, 
 after long experimenting, reached such perfection in their 
 use, that he obtained a patent in 1768, and manufactured 
 large quantities of china at Plymouth in the next few 
 years, after which the factory was removed to Bristol. 
 Cookworthy was a singular mixture of Quaker and 
 Swedenborgian, and a firm believer in the divining-rod. 
 
 A more widely known, though personally a far inferior, 
 worthy was the notorious Dr. Wolcot, whose writings 
 are familiar under the name of ‘ Peter Pindar.’ He was 
 born at Dodbrooke (1738-1819), and was the most power¬ 
 ful master of forceful satire of a rough-and-ready type in 
 the English tongue—our greatest caricaturist in rhyme. 
 Most unpleasant in character, he claims praise less for 
 his abilities than for his sturdy independence, and for the 
 manner in which he discovered and encouraged the 
 genius of John Opie, R.A. 
 
 Fallapit, in East Allington, or Alvington, was until 
 recently the seat for several centuries of one of the 
 branches of the Fortescues, coming to them by marriage 
 with the heiress of the Fallapits. Garston, in West 
 Alvington, is an ancient seat of the Bastards, whence 
 they removed to Kitley. Almost the whole of the Kings¬ 
 bridge promontory is celebrated for the mildness of its 
 climate ; and at Garston, as at Combe Royal and at 
 
Kingsbridge and Salcombe. 
 
 249 
 
 Salcombe, orange and lemon trees flourish in the open 
 air to an extent unknown elsewhere in England. As 
 Malborough, South Milton, and South Huish are daughter 
 churches to West Alvington, this happy mildness may 
 be regarded as the peculiar prerogative of that parish. 
 Bowringsleigh, here, was the property and residence of 
 the ancient family of Bowring. 
 
 Thurlestone, which lies near the mouth of the Avon, 
 takes its name from a remarkable natural arch on the 
 coast, known as Thurlestone Rock = the stone that is 
 pierced or ‘thirled.’ The arch is of red Triassic con¬ 
 glomerate, resting uncomformably upon Devonian clay 
 slate. The parish figures in ‘ Domesday ’ as Torlestan, held 
 in demesne by Judhel of Totnes, with a soldier as under 
 tenant, and the large enumerated population of thirty- 
 five. 
 
 Ilton, in Malborough, once belonged to the Bozuns, 
 then to the Chiverstons, and finally came to the Courtenays. 
 Sir John Chiverston built the fortified mansion, afterwards 
 known as Ilton Castle, in 1335. In right of their estates 
 in Malborough the Courtenays exercise important rights 
 of wreckage along the coast; and used to hold Courts of 
 Admiralty at the various maritime villages within the 
 manors of their royalty. Such courts were usually con¬ 
 vened by the manor steward on the occasion of any 
 wreck, and stringent codes of laws were enforced. 
 
 A small district near the Bolt Head, known as the 
 ‘ Sewers ’ from the frequent occurrence of that name in 
 East, West, Middle, and Lower Sewers, has been suggested 
 as marking the site of an early Saxon settlement—reading 
 sewer as s<z-ware = ‘ sea-dwellers.’ 
 
 Salcombe, in the parish of Malborough, is the chief 
 port of the Kingsbridge district, lying on the western side 
 of the estuary near its mouth, and has of late risen into 
 some favour as a seaside and invalid resort. For this it 
 is excellently adapted by the beauty and grandeur of the 
 
250 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 scenery in the neighbourhood, and by the mildness of its 
 climate. On the opposite side of the water is Portlemouth, 
 which seems to derive its name from its position, and 
 which appears in some of the records of the early Middle 
 Ages as the name of the harbour generally. 
 
 Salcombe Castle was the last place in Devon which 
 adhered to the cause of Charles I. The ruins still stand 
 on a semi-insular rock in the Salcombe estuary, a position 
 of great strength and of considerable importance. The 
 Castle dates from the reign of Henry VIII., and was 
 one of the numerous little strengths built by him on the 
 Western coasts to defend the principal ports from sudden 
 forays. When the war between Charles and his Parlia¬ 
 ment broke out it had long fallen into decay, and was 
 commonly known as the ‘ Old Bullworke.’ Sir Edmund 
 Fortescue of Fallapit, the Royalist High Sheriff of Devon 
 in 1642, and for many months a prisoner at Winchester 
 House and Windsor Castle, on his release undertook to 
 refortify and man the ancient walls. Prince Maurice 
 gave him a commission for this purpose in December, 
 1643, while he was engaged in the siege of Plymouth; and 
 Fortescue evidently carried out his work thoroughly. 
 
 Fittle is known of the history of Fort Charles, as 
 Fortescue named the Castle, except in its last stage. On 
 January 16, 1646, Fairfax captured Dartmouth, and im¬ 
 mediately set forces to watch Fort Charles, under Colonel 
 Inglesby. It was then garrisoned by sixty-six men, Sir 
 Edmund being Governor; and there were plenty of pro¬ 
 visions and munitions of war. As it was impregnable to 
 ordinary attack, a regular siege had to be made. This 
 was conducted by Colonel Weldon, Parliamentary Governor 
 at Plymouth, the blockade of which had been raised by 
 Fairfax. Weldon brought a train of siege artillery with 
 him from Plymouth, and the battery commenced on the 
 last week in January. Very little damage was done by 
 the firing on either side ; and if a memorandum left by 
 
Kingsbridge and Salcombe. 251 
 
 Sir Edmund is to be accepted as a complete return, only 
 one of the garrison was killed and two wounded, while, 
 on the other hand, only one of the besiegers is recorded 
 to have been slain. 
 
 The siege lasted nearly four months, and the surrender 
 was probably due to the hopelessness of continuing the 
 struggle. The Royalist cause was utterly lost, and nothing 
 was to be gained by holding out. Moreover the blockade 
 was strictly kept; and provisions no doubt were beginning 
 to run short, when, on the 7th of May, the articles of 
 surrender were agreed upon. They were most honourable 
 to the defenders. The garrison marched to Fallapit, with 
 drums beating, colours flying, muskets and bandaliers; nor 
 did they deliver up their guns until they had fired three 
 volleys. All the officers kept their arms, all the officers 
 and men their private property; and all had leave to 
 depart to their houses, and three months in which to 
 make their peace with Parliament or leave the kingdom. 
 As to the fort itself, it was provided that it was never to 
 be known by any other name than that of Fort Charles, 
 and that neither it nor any coat of arms belonging to it 
 was to be defaced. The key of the Castle is still in the 
 possession of Sir Edmund’s representative. 
 
 There is a curious local tradition attaching to a little 
 corner of land—some acre in extent—at Splatt Cove, in 
 Salcombe Harbour. It belongs to the Bastard family, 
 and the legend is that their Norman ancestor had com¬ 
 mand of one of the vessels of the Conqueror’s fleet, which 
 was driven by a gale into Salcombe, and that it was 
 upon this very spot the leader and his men landed. The 
 retention of the land by the Bastards is ascribed by the 
 country folk to this historical connection. Mr. Karkeek, 
 however, has shown not only that the legend has no 
 pedigree, but that it is inconsistent with known facts. 
 The name of Robert the Bastard does not occur in the 
 Battle Abbey Roll, and though he is mentioned in 
 
252 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 ‘ Domesday,’ neither of his Devonshire manors can be 
 connected with Splatt Cove. 
 
 Hope Cove has its connection with the great Armada 
 drama. The St. Peter the Great, one of the Spanish 
 hospital ships, had escaped with the remnant of the fleet, 
 rounded Scotland, and was on her way homeward, when 
 by stress of weather she was driven upon the rocks on 
 this inhospitable coast, much to the advantage of the 
 country folk, who made liberal spoil. Out of 190 persons 
 on board, about 150 were saved. An effort was made to 
 recover the stores, and special inquiry had to that end by 
 Anthony Ashley, but it was not very productive. 
 
 Portlemouth, already noted, contains the manor of 
 West Prawle, one of the estates with which Blundell 
 endowed his school at Tiverton. Scobbahull, in the 
 adjacent parish of South Pool, gave name to the family 
 of Scobell. 
 
 Stokenham is connected with several families of note. 
 Given by John to Matthew Fitzherbert, it continued for 
 several generations in his descendants, and the last of the 
 family, Matthew Fitzjohn, was summoned to Parliament 
 by Edward I. as a baron. Dying without an heir, the 
 manor passed to the King, and Edward gave it to Ralph 
 de Monthermer to be held of the Crown. As it had been 
 held under the Courtenays of the honour of Plympton, 
 the Earl of Devon petitioned Parliament for the redress 
 of this grievance, which he obtained. The manor 
 descended through the Montacutes and Pooles to Hastings, 
 Earl of Huntingdon, and was by him sold to the 
 Amerediths. Stokenham Church once belonged to the 
 Priory of Bisham, in Somerset. The church of the ad¬ 
 joining parish of Sherford is a daughter to Stokenham, 
 but Sherford Manor was part of the estates of St. Nicholas 
 Priory, Exeter. Kennedon, in this parish, in the fifteenth 
 century became a seat of the family of Hals. Here lived 
 John Hals, Justice of the Common Pleas in 1423, and 
 
Kingsbridge and Salcombe. 
 
 253 
 
 here was born his son, of the same name, who, in 1450, 
 was made Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry. 
 
 Slapton has several claims to notice. It belonged to 
 the ancient family of De Brian as early as the reign of 
 Henry II., and descended to the Percy Earls of Northum¬ 
 berland, as the representative of Sir Guy de Brian the 
 younger, through the sole heiress. The St. Maurs 
 claimed it ineffectually by descent from Guy’s sister. The 
 Percys sold the manor to the Arundells of Wardour. 
 Guy de Brian, one of the first Knights of the Garter, 
 founded a collegiate chantry at Slapton in 1373, and the 
 remains of his house are known as Poole Priory. Here 
 lived for several years, on his return from captivity in 
 Spain, Sir Richard Hawkins, son of Sir John, from whom 
 the Hawkinses of Kingsbridge were descended. Slapton 
 Lea is a long lake stocked with fresh-water fish in pro¬ 
 fusion, separated from the sea simply by a bar of sand 
 and gravel. Stockleigh, a seat of the Newman family, 
 whose principal residence is at Mamhead, is close by; 
 and not far distant is the quaint fishing village of Torcross. 
 These, however, are in Stokenham. The Courtenays 
 held Slapton of the Bishops of Exeter by stewartry of the 
 Installation Feasts, as detailed under Crediton. 
 
 The Barton of Hach Arundell, in Loddiswell parish, 
 has a double family name, having at one time belonged to 
 the Haches, and at another to the Arundells. License 
 was granted, about 1463, to Thomas Gyll, junr., to 
 castellate his mansion at Hach Arundell, and enclose a 
 park. As Hcche was the holder of the manor T.R.E., 
 after which it passed to Judhel of Totnes, it seems no 
 way improbable that Hach may in the first place have 
 been named from him. The Avon is a good salmon river 
 now, and Judhel’s fishery at Loddiswell returned thirty 
 salmon yearly. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 TOTNES. 
 
 Totnes is the first link in the legendary history of 
 England. Brutus, the Trojan, according to early Welsh 
 and Breton tradition, landed * on the coast of Totnes 
 and in the pages of Geoffrey of Monmouth one may read 
 the full-blown myth, ending in the destruction of the last 
 of the aboriginal giants—Goemagot—by Corinseus, after¬ 
 wards Duke of Cornwall. There was a time when all 
 this was deemed purely historical. Totnes, claiming to 
 be the landing-place of Brutus, has yet a traditional 
 * Brutus Stone,’ on which the Trojan hero is said to have 
 stepped when he landed—a boulder of no great dimensions, 
 well up the main street. Plymouth cherished the belief 
 that the combat between Corinseus and Goemagot took 
 place upon her Hoe ; and so far back as the fifteenth 
 century there were graven in the sward of that eminence 
 two huge figures, popularly supposed to represent the 
 combatants, renewed as need was, and of unknown 
 antiquity. It is quite possible, indeed, that both the 
 ‘Brutus Stone’ of Totnes and the ‘Gogmagog’ of 
 Plymouth originated (with the Gog and Magog of 
 London City) in the popularity of Geoffrey’s story. 
 Historically they cannot be carried back so far. 
 
 A careful examination of the passages in the older 
 
Tot lies. 
 
 255 
 
 Chronicles wherein Totnes is noticed shows, however, 
 that this was not the modern town. Geoffrey of Mon¬ 
 mouth speaks of the ‘coast’ of Totnes, and the ‘shore’ 
 of Totnes, and the ‘ port ’ of Totnes, and always with 
 some such qualification. The inference, therefore, is that 
 the name was used by ancient writers as that of a district. 
 It was evidently so employed by Higden in his ‘ Poly- 
 chronicon,’ in quoting the length of Britain as 800 miles, 
 a ‘ Totonesio litore,’ rendered by Trevisa ‘ from the clyf 
 of Totonesse,’ which is really only another name for the 
 Land’s End. Totnes thus seems to be in truth the 
 ancient name for the south-western promontory of 
 England, perhaps a name for Britain itself, in which 
 case we can understand somewhat of the motive that led 
 early etymologists to derive Britain from Brute, or 
 Brutus. The myth may be so far true that an elder 
 name was supplanted, and that it lingered longest in the 
 western promontory. Whether the modern Totnes is 
 nominally the successor of the ancient title, the narrow 
 area into which this vestige of far antiquity has shrunk, 
 may be doubtful, for the word is as capable of a Teutonic 
 derivation as of a Keltic. The last syllable may be the 
 Northern ness, but it may as well be the Keltic enys= 
 ‘ island.’ And so while Tot may be an ‘ enclosure,’ it may 
 equally be the Dod which still exists on the west coast in 
 the name of the Dodman headland — the ‘prominent 
 rock’ (man = 7/wc«, a stone). Totnes, therefore, can be 
 read ‘ the projecting or prominent island.’ The specula¬ 
 tion may be pardoned in dealing with a point of such 
 singular interest. In any case, it seems probable that 
 this story of Brutus the Trojan is not absolute fable, but 
 the traditionary record of the earliest invasion of the land 
 by an historic people. 
 
 The most amusing derivation for the name of the town 
 is that quoted by Westcote and Risdon —Tout al' disc = 
 
 ‘ all at ease ’! presumed to represent the feelings of Brutus 
 
256 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 when he stepped on shore, and exclaimed in the words of 
 a traditional couplet : 
 
 ‘ Here I stand, and here I rest, 
 
 And this place shall be called Totnes.’ 
 
 But the ‘ authorities ’ on this head are very sceptical 
 here concerning the extent of the French education which 
 Brutus had received when— 
 
 ‘ The Frenche of Parys was to alle unknowne.’ 
 
 This same line of argument disposes also of the idea 
 that Vespasian landed at Totnes town instead of simply 
 on the ‘Totnes shore,’ which again has led to Exeter 
 being mistakenly identified as Caer Pensauelcoit, as in 
 Geoffrey’s gloss, ‘ quae Exonia vocatur.’ Mr. T. Kerslake 
 has pointed out that in all probability the oldest name for 
 the place at which Vespasian landed is Talnas, as given 
 in the ‘Brut Tysilio.’ This, he argues, would resolve itself 
 into ’t-Aln-as, and suggests that the landing really took 
 place in Ptolemy’s estuary of the Alaunas, or Christchurch 
 Haven; and that Pensauelcoit is to be found at Pensel- 
 wood, in the Somerset, Dorset, and Wilts border-land, in 
 which, indeed, the old name is still visibly extant. 
 
 Totnes has been claimed as a Roman station, but 
 without adequate authority. An ancient paved way lead¬ 
 ing towards Berry Pomeroy may mark the line of a 
 Roman road, but all that can definitely be said is that the 
 town does stand on the line of one of the ancient British 
 trackways. The idea that it was connected with the 
 Fosseway is corrected elsewhere. 
 
 Totnes was an Anglo-Saxon mint, and continued to 
 issue coins for some time after the Conquest; but only 
 twenty-six varieties of pennies are known to have been 
 struck here, and the probability is that the number was 
 considerably greater. The extant series commences with 
 iESelred II., who began his reign in 979, and continues 
 under Cnut. Then, however, there is a gap, and nothing 
 
Tot nes. 
 
 25 7 
 
 more is known of Totnes mintage, save a penny of Rufus. 
 Probably further research by numismatologists in this 
 direction would be rewarded. It can very well be under¬ 
 stood that the mint would cease its operations when the 
 Norman lord of the town fell under the displeasure of 
 Rufus, but intermission of the nature suggested is not so 
 easily accounted for. 
 
 The definite history of Totnes prior to the Conquest is 
 scanty; but its position at the time of the compilation of 
 ‘ Domesday’ shows not only that it was then a town of con¬ 
 siderable importance, but that it must have been of great 
 antiquity to have attained such a position. One of the 
 four burghs of Devon, it had a larger population than 
 either of its rivals, save Exeter, having ninety-five burgesses 
 within the burgh and fifteen without tilling the land. This 
 would give the community a total population of 500 or 600, 
 while Exeter in all probability had some 2,500 to 3,000. 
 
 Before the Conquest Totnes formed part of the demesne 
 of the Confessor. William gave it with 107 manors in 
 Devon to his follower, Judhel or Joel, who made Totnes 
 his chief residence, and was thereafter named Judhel of 
 Totnes. An active and liberal man, Judhel found time, 
 before he was banished by Rufus, to leave his mark upon 
 the head of his barony. Totnes Castle is doubtfully said 
 to have been built by him. The keep, which remains in 
 fine preservation, seems of later date; and probably re¬ 
 placed the ‘ strength ’ which he undoubtedly reared upon 
 the mound that still marks the site of the ancient British 
 fortalice. The walls of the town are far later than his 
 time ; and the most important of the two gates which 
 continue is not earlier than the sixteenth century. The 
 present circumvallation dates in all probability from 1265, 
 when Henry III. gave the burgesses liberty to enclose 
 the town with a wall, and to collect ‘ murage ’ for that 
 object. 
 
 But Judhel undoubtedly founded the Priory of St. Mary, 
 
 ty 
 
25B 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 portions of which are now used as the Guildhall, prisons, 
 and sexton’s house; he also granted the Church of St. 
 Mary of Totnes to the great Benedictine monastery of 
 Sts. Sergius and Bacchus at Angers. 
 
 When Judhel was banished the barony was given to 
 Roger de Novant. Under John it was divided, Henry 
 de Novant holding one moiety and William de Bruce, a 
 grandson of Judhel, the other. The Novant half passed 
 to the Valletorts, and then to the Cantelupes, who also 
 acquired the remaining portion. The heiress of Cantelupe 
 brought the barony to Lord Zouch, and in that family it 
 remained until, on the attainder of John Lord Zouch in 
 i486 for siding with Richard III., Henry VII. gave the 
 castle and lordship to Sir Richard Edgcumbe of Cotehele. 
 Sir Piers Edgcumbe, in 1559, sold the manor to the Cor¬ 
 poration ; and the barony was bought by Lord Edward 
 Seymour of Berry. It subsequently went out of the 
 Seymour family, but was again acquired by them, and 
 has descended to the Duke of Somerset. 
 
 The earliest known charter of the borough was granted 
 in 1215 by John, who authorized the foundation of a Guild 
 Merchant; and extant documents relating to this Guild 
 date back very nearly to this period. Thus there is still 
 preserved on the back of an old roll of the members a 
 memorandum of an agreement between the burgesses of 
 Totnes and the Abbot and Convent of Buckfast in 1236, 
 that the abbot and monks had been received into the 
 Guild to buy, but not to sell. Two years later, when 
 William de Cantelupe, as lord of the manor, exempted 
 the Abbot and Convent of Torre from payment of tolls, 
 the Guild were able to exact from the fraternity an annual 
 acknowledgment of two shillings for this concession, so 
 that independent municipal rights certainly existed. A 
 curious feature of the rolls of the Guildry, which continue 
 down to 1377, is that on the admission of each new 
 member, his or her seat, in order of precedence, is care- 
 
Totnes. 
 
 2.59 
 
 fully defined. A still more interesting point is the well- 
 marked development of the Guild Merchant into the 
 Municipal Corporation. This is clearly shown: the rolls 
 continue the proceedings of the Common Court of the 
 Guild into the Court of the Borough of Totnes, which 
 merges in the Court of the Mayor. The first record of 
 the election of a mayor is in 1377, and from that date to 
 the present day, the list of mayors of Totnes is complete 
 and uninterrupted. 
 
 The town first sent members of Parliament in 1295, 
 and survived the fatal 1832, but acquired so evil a reputa¬ 
 tion that it was disfranchised in 1867. 
 
 The Priory was dissolved in 1542, and the site granted 
 to Katherine Champernowne and others. During the 
 reign of Edward VI. the appropriation of a portion for 
 educational purposes originated the Grammar School, 
 still held in the original building adjoining the Guildhall. 
 The Guildhall itself, which also formed part of the Priory, 
 was granted to the Corporation by Elizabeth. 
 
 Totnes men have played a conspicuous part in the 
 national history ; but the town itself —pace Brutus—has 
 not been the scene of many notable events. Its annals 
 are mainly those of a thrifty, energetic, prosperous manu¬ 
 facturing and trading community, concerned in its own 
 affairs. Important so far back as the twelfth and thirteenth 
 centuries, its woollen manufacture flourished for some 
 five hundred years. Its commerce, too, was considerable, 
 especially with France. But the Totnes folk were not 
 oblivious of outside duties. A Totnes man, Sir Edmund 
 Lye, ranks among the boldest seamen of Elizabethan 
 days, and as one of the heroes who bore his part in the 
 defeat of the Invincible Armada. Totnes contributed 
 largely towards the fitting out of the Crescent and the 
 Hart, two vessels sent from Dartmouth to join the Anti- 
 Armada fleet. 
 
 It was under the Stuarts, however, that Totnes made 
 
 17—2 
 
26 o 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 itself most conspicuous in national affairs. When in 
 1625 Charles I. passed through the town on his way to 
 review his expedition at Plymouth, he had a most hearty 
 and loyal reception, accompanied with a gift of £200 in 
 * a faire purse.’ Perhaps he bore this in mind when, in 
 the following year, he created George Carew, Elizabeth’s 
 Lord President of Munster, Earl of Totnes. It is certain 
 that the Totnes folk set their loyalty on one side when 
 ship-money was levied, for one of the foremost remonstrants 
 against this impost was a Totnes man, the chosen repre¬ 
 sentative of the borough, Sir Edward Giles of Bowden. 
 Moreover, when the levy was made, many of the inhabi¬ 
 tants refused to pay. They would be the less disposed to 
 do so, no doubt, because they had been great sufferers by 
 the ravages of the Turkish and Sallee pirates on the coast 
 of Devon, which the royal ships were utterly unable to 
 suppress. And the mind of the burgesses was abundantly 
 evident when they sent to the Long Parliament men of 
 such note as Oliver St. John, Hampden’s counsel, and 
 Serjeant Maynard. 
 
 It seems somewhat strange that, with this marked 
 Parliamentary sympathy, Totnes was not the scene of any 
 fighting, but was occupied without conflict by the soldiers 
 of each side in turn. Naturally, however, it had its share 
 of the burdens of war. Goring’s soldiers were of very bad 
 repute, and it was agreed that £150 should be given him 
 ‘ for the preservation and more safetye ’ of the town. 
 Prince Charles (afterwards Charles II.) had £100, and his 
 officers demanded £\o more ; while £42 13s. 4d. was 
 required by the King’s friends at Exeter; and £7 was 
 actually paid to keep Goring’s horse out of the town. 
 When Goring left Totnes in January, 1646, Fairfax 
 marched in. His troops were no way objectionable, but 
 it cost the inhabitants over £170 to supply them with 
 clothing. To the Roundheads succeeded a third visitor, 
 the worst of the series. The plague, which in 1590 had 
 
Totnes. 
 
 261 
 
 carried off 258 persons, reappeared, and this time had 276 
 victims. The place was almost deserted, and the grass 
 grew in the streets. 
 
 Like nearly all the boroughs of the West, Totnes mani¬ 
 fested the national reaction of feeling at the Restoration, 
 and indeed in rather exaggerated form. The King was 
 reminded that the burgesses had joined in the demand for 
 a free Parliament; the present made him when Goring’s 
 men were bribed to behave themselves was called to his 
 mind ; and then was left to him the settlement of all 
 matters in Church and State. One of the members 
 chosen to Charles’s first Parliament was Thomas Clifford, 
 the ‘ C ’ of the Cabal. Charles was not ungrateful. His 
 father’s Earl of Totnes had held the title but three years ; 
 he gave a Totnes viscountcy in 1675 to his natural son, 
 Charles FitzCharles, Baron Dartmouth and Earl of Ply¬ 
 mouth ; and this lasted five years. What was more to the 
 purpose, however, was his grant of a charter, in 1684, 
 under which a wool-market was established. 
 
 By the time James succeeded, Totnes had very nearly 
 returned to its old Puritan mind. Some, at least, of the 
 inhabitants were among the followers of Monmouth ; and 
 it was with reason, therefore, that Jeffries selected the 
 town for the display of the mangled remains of some of 
 his unfortunate victims. The spirit of the Corporation 
 was more clearly manifested when, in 1687, they were 
 called upon to admit Sir John Southcote, a Roman 
 Catholic, without the administration of the oaths, to the 
 place of Recorder, from which Sir Edward Seymour, the 
 well-known leader of the country party, had been removed. 
 They refused, and their charter was taken away; to be 
 restored, however, in the following October, when the 
 movements of the Prince of Orange were understood. 
 When the old charter was seized, the old corporation 
 were displaced, and among the new corporation South¬ 
 cote of course found room. 
 
262 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 Under the Revolution regime Totnes became loyal once 
 more; and its loyalty was shown most conspicuously 
 when, in 1725, it was proposed to levy a land-tax of four 
 shillings in the pound for warlike purposes. The Cor¬ 
 poration petitioned in favour of the tax, and expressed 
 themselves willing to pay the other sixteen shillings rather 
 than submit to a foreign yoke ! 
 
 Totnes, on the score of its ancient ‘ rows,’ often termed 
 piazzas, has been appropriately called ‘ the Chester of 
 Devon.’ Portions of these piazzas are extremely ancient. 
 There is an arch of the twelfth century, and several pillars 
 of the fifteenth, carrying one back to the palmy days of 
 the old town, when it was one of the chief clothing marts 
 of the kingdom—as the phrase ‘ the hose of fine Totnes,’ 
 celebrated throughout the land, plainly indicates. There 
 are still also a few perfect Elizabethan fa9ades of con¬ 
 siderable interest, and some rich ceilings of the time of 
 Charles II. Yet more noteworthy is the fine Renais¬ 
 sance carving in a room of the time of Henry VIII., 
 which forms the upper chamber of the East Gate; and 
 which bears testimony, not only to the taste, but to the 
 loyalty of the authorities in the earlier half of the sixteenth 
 century, since the central features of the composition are 
 heads of Henry and of Anne Boleyn. 
 
 Totnes has distinguished itself in connection with 
 literature and art. Setting aside the fact that John 
 Prince, the author of the well-known ‘ Worthies of Devon,’ 
 was vicar of Totnes before he became vicar of Berry 
 Pomeroy adjoining, and wrote his delightful work, it is 
 something for one little community to be able to claim 
 such men as Edward Lye (1694-1767), the learned Anglo- 
 Saxon scholar and the author of the ‘ Dictionarium Saxonico 
 et Gothico-Latinum,’ great-grandson of Sir Edmund Lye ; 
 as Benjamin Kennicott (1718-1783), the distinguished 
 Hebraist, son of the parish clerk of Totnes—himself 
 master of its charity school ere he went to college and 
 
Totnes. 
 
 263 
 
 acquired that learning which resulted in the production 
 (1776-80) of his great work on the text of the Hebrew 
 Scriptures; and as William Brockedon, painter, writer, 
 and inventor (1787-1854). Some of his works may be 
 seen in the Assize Court at Exeter, Totnes Guildhall, and 
 the Churches of St. Saviour, Dartmouth, Dartington, 
 and Cornworthy. He was a watchmaker by trade, like 
 his father; and one of his inventions was the method of 
 compressing plumbago used in the manufacture of black- 
 lead pencils. 
 
 Charles Babbage (1792-1871), astronomer and mathe¬ 
 matician, is erroneously regarded as a Totnes man. How¬ 
 ever, he was Devonian by descent; and eventually became 
 Mathematical Professor at his College at Cambridge— 
 Trinity. He is best known to the general public by his 
 marvellous calculating machine, or ‘ Difference Engine,’ 
 which enabled him to construct his tables of the logarithms 
 of the natural numbers from 1 to 108,000. As a writer, 
 his best known work is the ninth ‘ Bridgewater Treatise.’ 
 
 On the other side of the Dart, but forming part of the 
 borough of Totnes, is Bridgetown, in the parish of Berry 
 Pomeroy, the property of the Duke of Somerset. 
 
 The Castle of Berry Pomeroy, shrouded in dense woods 
 on a bold bluff above a feeder of the little river Hems, is 
 the finest ruin left in Devon. The Berry naturally indi¬ 
 cates the presence of some defensive works in early times ; 
 and perhaps Alric, its last Saxon owner, had his chief 
 * strength ’ here, seeing that Ralph de Pomeroy, to whom 
 it was given with fifty-eight other lordships by the Con¬ 
 queror, built a castle at Berry, and made it the seat of his 
 barony. A great family, and of wide-reaching influence, 
 did the Pomeroys become; and for nearly five centuries 
 they continued in the front rank of Devonshire landowners, 
 though they ceased to be summoned to Parliament in the 
 closing years of the reign of Henry III. A few vicissitudes 
 
264 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 they had, but still they retained their estates, and no badge 
 in Devon was held in greater honour than the Pomeroy lion, 
 until the fatal day when Sir Thomas Pomeroy, the last 
 Pomeroy lord of Berry, placed himself at the head of the 
 Western Rebellion in the reign of Edward VI.; and with 
 the failure of the movement lost all his estates, though 
 he saved his life. Berry then passed to the Seymours, 
 in whom it still remains, probably by purchase. 
 
 Of the fortalice of the Pomeroys there are sundry im¬ 
 portant fragments, including the gateway and its towers. 
 Lord Edward Seymour, son of the Protector Duke of 
 Somerset, was the first of this name who lived at Berry. 
 His son, Sir Edward, built within the walls of the ancient 
 castle a stately home, which was destroyed, it is said, by 
 fire about a century later, and has never been rebuilt: 
 thus the ruins at Berry are of two very distinct periods 
 and characters. The last Seymour who occupied the 
 mansion was the haughty Sir Edward, who replied to the 
 question of William III., ‘ I believe you are of the family 
 of the Duke of Somerset ?’—‘ Pardon me, Sir ; the Duke 
 of Somerset is of my family.’ 
 
 Dartington, under the name of Derentun, is the first 
 known Saxon settlement in Devon ; since the register of 
 Shaftesbury Abbey records, under date 833, that a Dorset¬ 
 shire lady, named Beornwyn, had relinquished her share 
 of a patrimonial estate near Aimer, in Dorset, to take up 
 her abode on another hereditary property at ‘ Derentun 
 homm in Domnonia.’ She may well have been the 
 ancestress of Alwin, who, at the Conquest, had to yield 
 it with other manors to William of Falaise, some of 
 whose most important possessions lay in this immediate 
 district. It is a noteworthy fact that among the 
 ‘Domesday’ under-tenants in Dene and Rattery, English¬ 
 men are mentioned. Dartington was the seat of the 
 barony of William of Falaise, and passed in succession 
 to the Martyns and the Audleys. Richard II. gave it to 
 
Totnes. 
 
 265 
 
 his half-brother John Holland, Duke of Exeter; and he 
 erected the great hall and its associated quadrangle, if, 
 indeed, a portion of the latter is not somewhat earlier. 
 The part of the mansion now inhabited was rebuilt in the 
 time of Elizabeth. Margaret, Countess of Richmond, 
 had a grant of the manor in 1487 for life. It came to the 
 Champernownes in the sixteenth century; according to 
 Pole by an exchange for the site of the Abbey of Polsloe. 
 The first Champernowne of Dartington was Sir Arthur; 
 and when the male line failed in 1774, it passed to the 
 female side in the Haringtons, who took the ancient name. 
 From a mistaken idea that the Templars had to do with 
 this manor, it is occasionally called Dartington Temple. 
 
 Harberton, adjoining, now chiefly entitled to notice 
 from the screen of its church, was the seat of the barony 
 of the Valletorts, but the manor of Englebourne belonged 
 to Buckfastleigh. It seems remarkable that the seats of 
 four baronies like those of Totnes, Berry, Dartington, and 
 Harberton, should have been planted so closely together, 
 within a radius of less than three miles. 
 
 Dean Prior takes its name as part of the endowments 
 of the wealthy Priory of Plympton, to which it was given 
 by William Fitz Stephen in the reign of Henry II. It 
 was purchased at the Dissolution from Henry VIII. by 
 William Giles of Bowden, near Totnes, and in the 
 mansion which the Gileses built there long resided Sir 
 Edward Giles, born at Totnes about 1580, one of Prince’s 
 * Worthies,’ and a prominent Devonian throughout a 
 long career. A soldier in the Low Countries, under 
 Elizabeth ; a courtier, knighted by James I. at his corona¬ 
 tion ; constantly chosen one of the representatives of 
 Totnes during the reigns of James and Charles—he 
 proved himself not only a statesman, but a patriot, by 
 remonstrating against ship-money in 1634. Five of the 
 remonstrants were sent for to Court, including Sir 
 Edward, who excused himself on the score of ill-health, 
 
266 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 and died in 1637. His sister Christian married George 
 Yarde, whose heiress, in 1789, married Frances Buller, 
 and the family is now represented by Lord Churston. 
 
 The epitaph on Sir Edward Giles and his wife, placed 
 beneath their handsome monument in Dean Prior Church, 
 was written by Robert Herrick, who was for many years 
 Vicar of Dean. Ejected under the Commonwealth, he 
 recovered his living at the Restoration, and there he died, 
 in advanced age, in 1674. Dean does not seem to have 
 been to his taste, if we may judge from sundry passages 
 in his poems, by the style in which he speaks of its 
 ‘ warty incivility,’ and the dislike he expresses for ‘ this 
 dull Devonshire.’ Yet he continued to enjoy life in his 
 way; nor could his ‘ Hesperides ’ have flourished as they 
 did in a soil really uncongenial to his spirit. He is re¬ 
 membered by a handsome modern brass. 
 
 Rattery is only noteworthy for two things—that it was 
 given by Robert Fitzmartin, temp. Henry I., to the 
 Abbey of St. Dogmaels, in Pembrokeshire; and that it 
 contains Marley House, one of the seats of the Devon¬ 
 shire Carews. 
 
 In Ashprington is the domain of Sharpham, which is 
 one of the few places in the West where a heronry is to 
 be found. The rookery is reputedly the largest in the 
 kingdom, but that is a point on which it would hardly be 
 wise to express an opinion. 
 
 Cornworthy, adjoining, contained a house of Austin 
 nuns, which was founded in all probability by the Norman 
 lords of Totnes. The manor belonged to Judhel, and 
 was both populous and flourishing ; for it had a recorded 
 inhabitancy of 33, a mill, and a fishery rendering 30 
 salmon a year. The Dart even then enjoyed a reputation 
 which it has never lost, for it remains the best salmon 
 river in the county. There is only a gate left of the 
 Priory, which was one of the smaller houses. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 DARTMOUTH. 
 
 Although of considerable antiquity, Dartmouth yields 
 precedence to Totnes, to which it was formerly sub¬ 
 servient. Towns at the mouths of rivers are almost 
 invariably less ancient than ports higher up their course. 
 The reason is obvious. The borough of old had com¬ 
 monly a castle for its nucleus, and gathered under the 
 protection of the owner of the stronghold. The feudal 
 lord reared his 4 strength ’ as a rule conveniently central 
 to his territories; and if a site near the coast was chosen, 
 some inaccessible fastness was commonly selected, where 
 no town could rise. And when trade sprang up, and 
 trading communities increased in wealth and importance, 
 similar causes continued at work. Defective roads made 
 the employment of water-carriage a necessity wherever 
 possible. The unsettled state of the times rendered it 
 essential that infant commerce should be conducted in 
 places which were not exposed to surprise, and could offer 
 sustained defence against attack. But trade progressed, 
 and traffic grew; and by-and-by the advantages of ready 
 access from the highway of nations counterbalanced the 
 disadvantages. Then were founded such places as 
 Dartmouth, guarded by castles and chains in a manner 
 that in an earlier age would have been impossible. 
 
 Dartmouth is not a large place now, but in its infant 
 
268 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 days three villages occupied its site, and their memory is 
 preserved in the official name of the borough—‘ Clifton- 
 Dartmouth-Hardness.’ The origins of the Clifton and 
 the Dartmouth are clear enough. Hardness seems to 
 indicate a Scandinavian origin — ‘By the headland,’ or 
 ‘ The headland landing-place.’ There are several instances 
 of the ‘ ness ’ on the south coast of Devon. The earliest 
 historical reference to Dartmouth deals rather with the 
 harbour than the town; its mention as the place where 
 Swegen, son of Godwin, slew his cousin Beorn. 
 
 However this may be, it is certain Dartmouth was the 
 port whence Rufus sailed to Normandy in the last year of 
 the eleventh century; and that eight hundred years ago 
 at least the national importance of its magnificent land¬ 
 locked deep-water harbour had been recognised. In 
 ugo Dartmouth was selected as the rendezvous for the 
 fleet, or a portion of the Crusading fleet, of Richard the 
 lion-hearted. But whether ten ships sailed from Dart¬ 
 mouth on this occasion, or 164, the numbers cited by rival 
 authorities, it is idle to attempt to decide. 
 
 There is the usual obscurity in the early stages of the 
 corporate history of the town. John paid it two visits, 
 one in June, 1205, when he came from and returned to 
 Dorchester; the other in October, 1214, when he came 
 by sea from Rochelle and went on to Dorchester; and 
 while, according to Leland, he ‘ gave privilege of Mairaltie’ 
 to Dartmouth, at an inquisition in 1319 the burgesses 
 claimed to have been a free borough in the reign of 
 Henry I. Both these points are questionable. 
 
 For example, there is no doubt that Totnes is the older 
 town and long held superiority over Dartmouth; yet 
 Totnes goes no farther than John for its earliest known 
 charter; and Dartmouth was not freed from the control 
 of the lord of Totnes until William la Zouch, owner of 
 the barony, granted his rights therein to Nicholas of 
 Tewkesbury. There may have been some confusion 
 
Dartmouth. 
 
 269 
 
 between the town of Dartmouth and the port of Dart¬ 
 mouth, which with its water - rights became a royal 
 appanage, and has continued to the present day a member 
 of the Duchy of Cornwall. Yet La Zouche granted to 
 Tewkesbury not only the usual manorial rights, but the 
 toll and custom of the port and of the river up to Blakston 
 next Cornworthy, reserving free passage from Totnes to 
 the sea, without any malicious impediment. 
 
 But there must have been a charter of some kind before 
 the reign of Henry III., for by him it was confirmed; and 
 the fact that the oldest extant seal of the borough (temp. 
 Edward I.) represents a king in a ship, with John’s badges 
 of the crescent and star, certainly indicates an ancient 
 claim to some connection with that monarch, whatever 
 its precise character may have been. There was a market 
 as early as 1226. 
 
 During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Dart¬ 
 mouth rivalled the Cinque Ports in importance and fame, 
 and was for awhile the foremost seaport in the provinces. 
 It was frequently made the rendezvous at which vessels 
 from other ports assembled before departing upon some 
 great expedition. Perhaps the importance it assumed in 
 the reign of Edward III. had something to do with the 
 fact that in 1327 Nicholas of Tewkesbury transferred his 
 rights to the King, who, ten years later, granted the town 
 another charter. That ancient landmark in maritime 
 history, the siege of Calais, ranks Dartmouth the third 
 port in the kingdom. Fowey found 47 ships and 770 men; 
 Yarmouth 43 ships and 1,905 men; Dartmouth 31 ships 
 and 757 men, and Plymouth 26 ships and 603 men. Yet 
 in 1310 Dartmouth had pleaded its inability to maintain 
 one ship for the King’s service without exterior aid, which 
 was supplied by Totnes, Brixham, Portlemouth, and Kings- 
 bridge. Edward III. provided in his charter that two 
 should be found. Probably the prosperity of the little 
 town was greatly stimulated by the privilege of piracy 
 
270 History of Devonshire. 
 
 given to it by this monarch, who is described in ‘ The 
 Libel of English Policy ’ as selecting 
 
 1 Dartmouth, Plymouth, the third it is Fowey, 
 
 And gave them help and notable puissance 
 Upon pety Bretayne for to werre.’ 
 
 But the sailors of the Cinque Ports were little better, and 
 fought and plundered among themselves; and Fowey was 
 so deeply imbued with this spirit that when Edward IV. 
 made peace with France its seamen continued war in his 
 despite on their own account, and had to be set in order 
 by the aid of the Dartmouth men, who took away the 
 chain of the harbour, its chief defence. The fame of 
 Dartmouth at this time is further attested by the fact 
 that Chaucer chose it as the probable residence of his 
 ‘ shippeman.’ 
 
 ‘ For ought I woot he was of Dertemouthe.’ 
 
 A man of experience and trust— 
 
 ‘ Ther was non swiche from Hull to Cartage. 
 
 Hardy he was, and wys to undertake ; 
 
 With many a tempest had his berd been schake, 
 
 He knew wel alle the havenes, as they were 
 From Gootland to the Cape of Fynystere, 
 
 And every cryke in Bretayne and in Spayne.’ 
 
 Dartmouth must have had many such men ; and of this 
 stamp must have been its chief worthy, John Hawley, 
 whose effigies in armour, between those of his two wives, 
 are to be seen on the Hawley brass in St. Saviour Church. 
 Chaucer no doubt had visited Dartmouth and heard of 
 Hawley, the seven-times mayor, the great merchant who 
 had so many vessels and traded to so many parts, that 
 the old rhyme is still remembered : 
 
 ‘ Blow the wind high, blow the wind low, 
 
 It bloweth fair to Hawley’s Hoe.’ 
 
 And there is good evidence that Hawley was something 
 more than a ‘ mere merchant,’ and perchance fairly an- 
 
Dartmouth. 
 
 271 
 
 swered to that part of the shipman’s character, wherein 
 it is said: 
 
 ‘ Of nyce conscience took he no keep. 
 
 If that he faughte and hadde the higher hand, 
 
 By water he sente hem home to every land.’ 
 
 On one occasion Hawley attacked and took thirty-two 
 wine vessels; but whenever he felt aggrieved, whether 
 with his own countrymen or with foreigners, he always 
 kept the law, because he made it himself to suit the 
 occasion. There was no maxim, indeed, of the truth of 
 which the Dartmouth folk of the Middle Ages were more 
 thoroughly convinced, than that ‘ Heaven helped those 
 who helped themselves.’ Hence not only their incessant 
 warfare with the French, but their repeated disputes with 
 other ports. A memorable instance of agreement is, 
 however, the fact recorded by Walsingham, that when, in 
 1385, the English Admiral was afraid to attack the 
 French fleet because of the jealousies within his own, the 
 Portsmouth and Dartmouth men, on their own account, 
 made great havoc among the French vessels in the 
 Seine. 
 
 Of course so very busy and aggravating a port had to 
 take as well as give. How frequently Dartmouth was 
 assailed in its turn, it is hard to tell. It is said to have 
 been burnt in 1377 ; and an attack was certainly made in 
 1404. According to the French Chronicles, Du Chastel, 
 the Breton, was the leader, and the attack was repulsed 
 by a force of 6,000 men, and with heavy loss. Du Chastel 
 was killed, but a month later his brethren avenged his 
 death by making an unexpected attack and consigning the 
 town to the flames. So far the French historians. The 
 English chroniclers do not mention any second descent; 
 of which, indeed, there is no trace to be found—and aver 
 that Du Chastel and his men were beaten by the plain 
 country people, ‘ at which time the women (like Amazons), 
 by hurling flints and pebbles and such-like artillery, did 
 
272 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 greatly advance their husbands’ and kinsfolks’ victory.’ 
 Patriotism and gallantry alike, therefore, compel us to 
 accept this version of the affair, especially as the names 
 of several of the captured Breton knights are preserved. 
 
 An important fact in the status of Dartmouth at this 
 period was its appointment in 1390 the sole port for the 
 exportation of tin. To this time particularly date back 
 the ancient fortifications of the town, now, for the most 
 part, either fallen into ruin or modernised: the two 
 castles at the harbour-mouth, Dartmouth and Kingswear, 
 between which of yore a strong chain was hauled up each 
 night, and in special time of peril; and the inner guard of 
 Bearscove and Gomerock ; while the wealth and liberality 
 and taste of the age are seen in the noble church of St. 
 Saviour, with its magnificent oak screen—the chancel of 
 which is the work of Hawley. 
 
 Special need of defence is shown in the license granted 
 to John Corp to embattle his house at the entrance of the 
 harbour ; and it is a point worth noting that in the adjoin¬ 
 ing church of Stoke Fleming, the oldest brasses in the 
 county are to John Corp (1361), and to Elyenore, presum¬ 
 ably a Corp also (1381). 
 
 It was inevitable that Dartmouth should take a promi¬ 
 nent position in Elizabethan times, though it had been 
 distanced in the race by Plymouth. Two great names at 
 least of the Elizabethan galaxy of Devonian worthies 
 belong to Dartmouth. One, ‘lovable John Davis,’ born at 
 Sandridge in the adjoining parish of Stoke Gabriel, who 
 commenced the career of Arctic voyaging which led to 
 the discovery of Davis’s Straits in 1585 ; and who made 
 several voyages to the South Seas and East Indies, meeting 
 his death in 1605 at the hands of pirates in the Malaccas. 
 
 Near Dartmouth is Greenway, the seat of the famous 
 Gilberts. The family was settled here in the reign of 
 Edward II.; and here were born—their father being Otho 
 Gilbert and their mother Katherine Champernowne— 
 
Dartmouth. 
 
 2 73 
 
 Humphry and Adrian Gilbert, the famous half-brothers 
 of the still more famous Sir Walter Ralegh. 
 
 It was in consequence of its connection with the 
 Gilberts that Dartmouth obtained the honour of being 
 the first port in Devon to send out an American colonizing 
 expedition. Having written a discourse to prove a 
 passage by the North-West to Cathay and the East 
 Indies, Humphry obtained a patent from Elizabeth, 
 empowering him to discover and settle in North America 
 any savage lands. His first voyage in 1579 was un¬ 
 successful. In his second, in 1583, he took possession of 
 Newfoundland, which had long been a fishing station for 
 various nations ; but was drowned on his return voyage 
 before he could turn this formality to any practical 
 account. Few are unfamiliar with the brave way in 
 which he met his death : 
 
 ‘ He sat upon the deck, 
 
 The book was in his hand ; 
 
 “ Do not fear, Heaven is as near 
 By water as by land.” ’ 
 
 It was in all probability this same earnest-minded devout 
 man who boldly proposed to Elizabeth to strike once for 
 all a blow at the maritime power of her adversaries, by 
 destroying without warning the foreign fishing fleets at 
 Newfoundland; offering himself to the work, even if 
 repudiated directly it was done, in the confident belief 
 that it would be to the glory of God and for the safety of 
 the kingdom. After Humphry’s death, Adrian, a man of 
 advanced scientific knowledge for the times, solicited a 
 patent for the search and discovery of the North-West 
 passage. Though the Gilberts did not succeed in their 
 aim, they yet secured for Dartmouth a very liberal— 
 indeed, at first a preponderant—share of the Newfound¬ 
 land trade, which the ports of Devon so long enjoyed. 
 
 Dartmouth had its part in the victory over the Armada. 
 Two ships, the Crescent and the Hart, were fitted out by the 
 
 18 
 
History of Devonshire. 
 
 274 
 
 town and neighbourhood, manned by 100 men, to join the 
 fleet which assembled in Plymouth Sound. Beside these 
 were five volunteers: Sir Walter Ralegh’s Roebuck, Sir John 
 Gilbert’s Gabriel, Sir Adrian Gilbert’s Elizabeth, Gawen 
 Champernowne’s Phoenix, and the Samaritan —the latter 
 surely one of the oddest of odd names for a man-of-war. 
 
 Dartmouth is associated, too, with a melancholy 
 incident in the life of Ralegh. Hither was taken the 
 great carrack, the Madre de Dios ; and hither was brought 
 Ralegh in disgrace, the ‘ Queen’s poor prisoner,’ to see to 
 the safety of her stores and treasure, a work in which, as 
 Cecil reported, he * toiled terribly.’ Cecil himself was 
 disgusted with Devon. ‘ Fouler ways, desperate weather, 
 nor more obstinate people, did I never meet with.’ No one 
 will agree with Cecil now, and Dartmouth itself remains 
 the most quaint and picturesque old town in the West. 
 
 The Corporation of Dartmouth must have been tolerably 
 wealthy in the early part of the seventeenth century ; for 
 in 1642 they authorized the advance, by the hands of 
 their representatives in the Long Parliament, of 
 £2,668 7s. 6d., to help in reducing the Irish rebels, the 
 same to be recouped out of their lands. The money 
 appears to have been paid, and the Corporation were so 
 fortunate as to secure a map of their property; but 
 somehow or other matters stopped there. It is hardly 
 necessary to indicate the proclivities of Dartmouth at 
 this period. It fell, nevertheless, into the hands of Prince 
 Maurice after a siege of one month and four days, and 
 remained a Cavalier stronghold until the end of the war, 
 the most zealous Roundheads of the town having joined 
 the garrison at Plymouth. It was taken by assault by 
 Fairfax in January, 1646. Dartmouth was stormed at 
 three points by Colonels Pride, Hammond, and Fortescue; 
 Kingswear Fort, on the other side of the river, which was 
 held by Sir Henry Cary, then came to terms ; finally, the 
 Governor, Sir Hugh Pollard, who had taken refuge in the 
 
Dartmouth. 
 
 275 
 
 castle, surrendered. Thus, with comparatively little loss, 
 the last town in the district that held out for Charles was 
 taken, and with it 1,000 troops, 120 guns, and 2 ships. 
 
 This is the last event which connects the town with the 
 general history of the country; but its most important 
 personal association has yet to be named. Somewhere 
 about the year 1670, there was born in Dartmouth a man 
 who did more to lay the foundations of the present 
 manufacturing greatness of the kingdom, and to advance 
 the progress of industrial operations throughout the world, 
 than any other who can be named. This was Thomas 
 Newcomin, the inventor of the first practical working 
 steam-engine, upon which, after it had been many years 
 in useful operation, the work of James Watt was based. 
 Newcomin, with whom was associated another Dartmouth 
 man, named Cawley, perfected his engine in 1705. Hardly 
 anything is known of him except that he was a locksmith 
 and ironmonger, and that he died in 1729. The date of 
 his birth is quite uncertain, but no doubt has ever been 
 thrown upon his being a Dartmouth worthy. The house 
 in which he lived was pulled down a few years since, and 
 the materials worked into a house called ‘ Newcomin 
 Cottage.’ West-Countrymen are proud of the fact that 
 to Newcomin the world owes the stationary steam-engine, 
 and to Trevithick, of Hayle, in Cornwall, the locomotive. 
 Newcomin’s engine was a perfectly new machine, though 
 it had to a certain extent a predecessor in the ingenious 
 device of Savery of Shilston; and Trevithick’s engine 
 was the first that proved the practicability of steam loco¬ 
 motion on railroads. 
 
 Dartmouth first sent members to Parliament 26th 
 Edward I., but the returns are not continuous from that 
 date. In 1832 it lost one member, and in 1867 it was 
 disfranchised. It had long attained, like its neighbour 
 Totnes, an unpleasant reputation, and on one occasion, it 
 is said, £400 was given to a voter to induce him to abstain 
 
 18—2 
 
276 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 from voting. For a long time the members of the Holds- 
 worth family had considerable sway in the Corporation. 
 They held the post of Governor of Dartmouth Castle in 
 something like hereditary succession, the office gradually 
 dropping into a sinecure, and at last becoming a mere 
 title, and disappearing with the death of the last ‘ Governor 
 Holdsworth,’ who was one of the representatives of the 
 borough before the Reform Bill of 1832. 
 
 Dartmouth has a prominent link with the elder Non¬ 
 conformity. Its Independent congregation was founded 
 by the celebrated Puritan preacher and divine, Flavel, 
 who was ejected in 1662 from St. Saviour, and died in 
 1691, at the age of sixty-one. It is rather a remarkable fact 
 that a brass was erected to his memory at the time of his 
 decease in St. Saviour, but removed by order of the 
 Corporation in 1709. It now occupies a prominent place 
 in the Independent Chapel, and concludes with the 
 words: 
 
 ‘ Covld Grace or Learning from the Grave set free, 
 Flavell, Thov had’st not seen Mortality ; 
 
 Thovgh here Thy dusty part Death’s Victim lies, 
 
 Thov by thy WORKS thyself dost Eternize, 
 
 Which Death nor Rust of Time shall Overthrow ; 
 
 While Thov dost Reign above, These Live Below.’ 
 
 A number of French gold coins found on the beach at 
 Blackpool Sands, about half-way between Dartmouth and 
 Slapton, have been, with good reason, treated as relics of 
 the landing of the Earl of Warwick at Dartmouth, on the 
 13th of September, 1470. Ships, money, and men for 
 this expedition were supplied by the French King. The 
 coins included ecus d’or of Louis XI. and Charles VII. of 
 France, with other coins of Charles V. and Charles VI. ; 
 and gold nobles of Edward III. and V. and Henry V. are 
 also stated to have been discovered at the same place. 
 Most of the coins certainly found at Blackpool were, 
 however, French, and their dates show that they were 
 probably lost between 1465 and 1483. 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 ASHBURTON AND BUCKFASTLEIGH. 
 
 It has been commonly assumed that Ashburton is the 
 * Aisbertone ’ recorded in ‘ Domesday ’ as being held by 
 Matilda in succession to Brictric, and under her by 
 Judhel of Totnes ; and that when he was banished it 
 became the property of the Bishops of Exeter. ‘ Aisber¬ 
 tone, ’ however, possessed not only fisheries, but a salt- 
 work, and was therefore adjacent to the sea ; and the 
 true Ashburton of ‘ Domesday ’ is the ‘ Essebretone ’ which 
 the Bishops of Exeter held before the Conquest, and to 
 which ‘ Domesday ’ gives a population of sixty. The 
 little stream which at the time Ashburton was founded 
 was named the Ashburn, has long been called the Yeo, 
 which is simply the Saxon ea = water. Whether the 
 Ashburn was so called by the early settlers from the ash- 
 trees in its valley, or whether the * ash ’ is merely the 
 Keltic uisg { = water) which occurs in Devon as exe, axe, 
 vg, and ock, it would hardly be safe to say. The northern 
 termination ‘ burn ’ is, however, interesting as a trace of 
 that peculiar system of district nomenclature almost con¬ 
 fined in Devon to the Dartmoor area, and appearing to 
 indicate the settlement of various river basins by isolated 
 bands of Teutonic colonists of differing origin. 
 
 The Bishops of Exeter held Ashburton until it was 
 assumed by the Crown under James I., and subsequently 
 
278 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 sold in moieties to Sir Robert Parkhurst and the Earl of 
 Feversham. The first portion, passing through the 
 families of Stawell and Tuckfield, came by the heiress 
 of Roger Tuckfield to Samuel Rolle, descended to the 
 Trefusis family, and is now the property of Lord Clinton. 
 The other moiety has been in Duke, Palk, Mathieson, and 
 others, and was at length purchased by Mr. Robert 
 Jardine, who was the last member for the now disfranchised 
 borough. The annual court-leet and court-baron of these 
 lords is held alternately by their stewards in the chapel of 
 St. Lawrence, in ancient form. At this court a portreeve 
 and a bailiff are elected, and the various minor manorial 
 officials, the bailiff being the summoning officer, while the 
 portreeve of one year is almost always the bailiff of the 
 preceding. 
 
 The most notable of the ecclesiastical lords of Ash¬ 
 burton in his connection with that town, was Bishop 
 Stapledon, who held the See of Exeter from 1308 to 1327. 
 He was partial to the little burgh on the verge of the 
 Dartmoor highlands, and frequently resided in its manor- 
 house. Two years after his accession he procured the 
 grant of a market and fair; and four years later still 
 founded the Guild or Fraternity of St. Lawrence, giving it 
 a chapel which he had erected within the precincts of his 
 court. The present edifice, therefore, very closely marks 
 the site of the episcopal palace. The Guild had to find a 
 priest to pray for his soul after death, and for the souls of 
 the other holders of the see. Moreover, the priest was 
 to keep a free school; and whatever overplus there might 
 be on the endowment was to be spent in the ‘ reparacion 
 and maintenance of ledes for the conduction of pure and 
 holesome water to the town of Aysheperton, and upon the 
 relief and sustentacion of such people as are infected 
 when the plage is in the towne, that they being from all 
 company may not infect the whole.’ Though the charter 
 of St. Lawrence was surrendered to the Crown, together 
 
Ashburton and Buck fas tie igh . 279 
 
 with the chantry, in 1535, and though of the ancient 
 fabric the tower only remains, Bishop Stapledon’s 
 foundation retains in effect its ancient educational uses. 
 Up to the suppression of the Guild the free school was 
 carried on as directed; and when the chantry fell into the 
 hands of the King there were found burgesses of Ash¬ 
 burton far-seeing and liberal enough to buy the chapel 
 and the ground round about. For a time the school was 
 supported by voluntary contributions, but by-and-by 
 endowments began to come in, and the free school 
 developed into the Grammar School, which, with this 
 record of five centuries and a half, continues to the 
 present day. 
 
 The school has made its mark in the reputation 
 achieved by three of its pupils—John Dunning, first Lord 
 Ashburton; Dr. Ireland, Dean of Westminster, and 
 William Gifford. Dunning (1731-1783), the son of an 
 attorney practising in Ashburton, by dint of the most 
 untiring perseverance, and after enduring many a hard¬ 
 ship, rose to the first rank in his profession as a lawyer, 
 acquired an immense fortune, was elevated to the peerage, 
 and died at the early age of fifty-one. His title has been 
 revived in the family of his wife, Elizabeth Baring. 
 Devon has produced many eminent lawyers, but none 
 more eminent than John Dunning. William Gifford 
 (1776-1826), the distinguished critic and translator, born 
 five years before the death of Dunning, had one of the 
 hardest fights in his early days recorded of any Devon¬ 
 shire worthy. An orphan at thirteen, with no friend in 
 the world, no relative save a younger brother, an apprentice 
 to a hard master, slaking his thirst for learning by beating 
 out pieces of leather smooth, and working algebraic 
 problems upon them with a blunt awl—most forlorn was 
 his lot until a surgeon of Ashburton, named Cookesley, 
 obtained the cancelling of his indentures, and with the 
 help of other friends had him sent to school. Two years 
 
28 o 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 only qualified Gifford to enter as Bible clerk at Exeter 
 College, and thence his career was one of continued 
 success. First editor of the Quarterly, he resigned 
 that post only two years before his death; and the 
 quondam shoemaker’s apprentice found a grave in West¬ 
 minster Abbey, of which his old schoolfellow, Ireland, 
 became dean. Five years younger than Gifford (1782- 
 1842), the son of a butcher, Ireland went from the Ash¬ 
 burton school to a Bible clerkship at Oriel, and speedily 
 won preferment and fame. Like Gifford a ready and 
 ripe scholar, Ireland was most munificent in his gifts for 
 the promotion of learning. £10,000 was given by him to 
 establish a professorship at Oxford for the exegesis of 
 Scripture ; and the Ireland scholarship, founded by him 
 in 1825, has become the chief honour of its kind Oxford 
 has to bestow. 
 
 Ashburton was first called upon to send representatives 
 to Parliament in 1298; but does not appear to have exer¬ 
 cised that duty again until 1407. From this date until 
 1640 it returned one member only, and then was required 
 to send two, which has been held to indicate that the 
 town leant to the popular side. This was unquestionably 
 the case, but it is not quite clear that the fact could have 
 helped it to greater weight in the legislature. In 1S32 
 the borough was once more restricted to one member, 
 and in 1867 was finally disfranchised after some exceed¬ 
 ingly close contests, which did not altogether increase its 
 reputation. 
 
 Ashburton has never been prominent in the national 
 history; and one of the few facts noted is its occupation 
 by Fairfax in January, 1646, apparently unopposed. 
 
 The church is remarkable for the discovery, during a 
 restoration in 1840, of a number of long earthen jars 
 built into the wall of the chancel, the purpose of which 
 has been much controverted. They are commonly held 
 to have been acoustic vases; but since, when found, their 
 
Ashburton and Buckfastleigh. 
 
 281 
 
 mouths were covered with pieces of slate, this explanation 
 seems doubtful; and it is averred, on the other hand, 
 that they had in them certain hard substances, thought 
 to be ‘ dried hearts.’ The church is supposed to have been 
 founded about the year 1137 by Ethelward de Pomeroy, 
 the wrongly reputed refoundex of the Abbey of Buckfast; 
 but the chancel would date some two centuries later. 
 Again, the church has been regarded by some authorities 
 as collegiate, by others as having been a dependency of 
 Buckfast Abbey. There is no evidence for either suppo¬ 
 sition, but some connection between the Abbe)^ and Ash¬ 
 burton may be presumed. 
 
 The Abbey of Buckfast, Buckfastleigh, or, as in * Domes¬ 
 day,’ Bucfestre, is a foundation of great age, one of the 
 very few religious houses in Devon which had existence 
 before the Conquest. The early history of Buckfast is 
 lost in remote antiquity; but the monks claimed, in the 
 reign of Edward I., to hold the manor of Zele Monachorum 
 by the gift of Cnut; and ‘ Domesday ’ shows the Abbey a 
 flourishing institution with considerable possessions. It 
 has been said that this original house was dissolved by 
 the Conqueror, its estates confiscated and given to the 
 Pomeroys, and that it was refounded by Ethelward de 
 Pomeroy, son of William. This rests, however, solely 
 upon a single sentence of Leland, and the whole weight 
 of evidence is in favour of the unbroken descent of the 
 house from Saxon times. Ethelward de Pomeroy was no 
 doubt a benefactor, and hence the tradition. ‘ Domesday ’ 
 gives Bucfestre as the head of the Abbey, and notes the 
 fact that it had a smith. 
 
 Originally, so far as can be ascertained, Benedictine, 
 Buckfast became a daughter-house of Savigny, united to 
 the Cistercian Order in 1148. There is no certain proof 
 when Buckfast changed to the Cistercian rule, but this 
 would in all probability be in the latter half of the twelfth 
 
282 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 century. The Abbey flourished under the care of the 
 farmer monks, who in 1236 were admitted into the Guild 
 Merchant of Totnes. In April, 1297, Edward I. visited 
 the Abbey; and in 1340 Abbot Philip obtained a grant of 
 a weekly market at Buckfastleigh, and of a yearly fair at 
 Brent. Under his successor, Robert Simons, a case was 
 decided in 1358 which has an important bearing on the 
 constitutional and social history of the kingdom. One 
 Richard Avery, of Trusham, complained that the abbot— 
 vi et annis —had carried off property to the value of £100. 
 The abbot’s rejoinder was that, Avery being a villein of 
 his manor of Trusham, he ought not to be called upon to 
 answer. Avery declared that he was a free man and not 
 a villein; but the jury decided that he was nativus, and 
 the abbot had judgment. Hence, even in the latter half 
 of the fourteenth century the villein had no rights, at 
 least against the lord of the soil. His position is also 
 indicated by another lawsuit later in the same abbacy 
 (1384), when Simon charged Walter Rosere and William 
 Buriman with carrying off his villeins, Christina Barry 
 and John Barry, of Down St. Mary, whereby he was 
 injured to the extent of £20. It would not be safe, how¬ 
 ever, to infer from this special instance the nominal value 
 attached to villeins in those days, though they formed a dis¬ 
 tinct element in the appreciation of estates. Simon appears 
 to have had a taste for litigation, and engaged in sundry 
 actions of an important character concerning fishery rights. 
 
 None of the abbots was a man of mark, unless we except 
 William Slade, a Devonshire man, who became head in 
 1413. ‘ He was not only a scholar and a theologian, but 
 
 an artist,’ and zealous in the discharge of his duties. He 
 was a student and an author, and some of his works are 
 mentioned in a list of the Abbey library given by Leland. 
 The last abbot was Gabriel Doune or Downe, who was 
 appointed in 1535, and surrendered in February, 1538. 
 He was probably ‘ the author of the plan which resulted 
 
Ashburton and Buckfastleigh. 283 
 
 in the capture, imprisonment, and death of Tyndale 
 and Mr. J. Brooking Rowe thinks that he was foisted 
 upon the monks of Buckfast better to carry out the 
 designs of the King. This at least is certain : he received 
 a pension of £120, and was appointed rector of Stepney, 
 prebendary of St. Paul’s, and finally, upon Bonner’s depri¬ 
 vation, was constituted by Cranmer residentiary. 
 
 The gross income of the Abbey at the Dissolution was 
 £499 I3S- iofd. 
 
 The Abbey and the adjacent lands were granted to Sir 
 Thomas Dennis, and descended in his family. A century 
 later they were the property of Sir Richard Baker, the 
 historian. Eventually they were sold in parcels, and the 
 remains of the Abbey, with the modern house built upon 
 the site and in part with its materials, are now once more 
 the home of monks of the Benedictine order, who are 
 successfully engaged in its reconstruction upon the ancient 
 lines. 
 
 A century since the old monastic buildings were of 
 great extent. At present the manufacturing prosperity 
 of Buckfastleigh is the brotherhood’s chiefest monument. 
 The great wool-traders of their age and district, the 
 founders of the mills which in process of time became 
 converted to the purposes of the woollen manufacture, the 
 Cistercians of Buckfastleigh were in no very remote sense 
 the originators of the trade of the locality. Buckfastleigh 
 and Ashburton, by the steady adoption of new processes 
 and improved machinery, have maintained their reputation 
 for high-class woollen goods, and thus unite with North 
 Tawton in proving that it was less through necessity than 
 by bad management that this great staple industry of 
 Devon was driven to the North. 
 
 Ashburton, as one of the original Stannary towns of the 
 county, was associated with mining enterprise, histori¬ 
 cally at least, as far back as the twelfth century ; and it 
 continued that association, though more in name than in 
 
284 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 fact, until * tin coinage ’ was abolished in 1838. Buck- 
 fastleigh, however, remains the centre of a mineral district, 
 which has been from time to time worked for copper with 
 more or less success. 
 
 An interesting relic of the past of Buckfastleigh is an 
 ancient path across the neighbouring moor, still called the 
 ‘ Abbot’s Way.’ This was the road used by the monks 
 of Buckfast, Buckland Monachorum, and Tavistock, to 
 communicate with each other, and it is the shortest path 
 between these places across the moorland. Save in the 
 enclosed country, the Abbot’s Way is distinctly marked, 
 and in parts is still well worn. At a place called Broad 
 Rock the road from Buckfast forks, one portion leading 
 to Tavistock, and the other to Buckland. 
 
 It is probably due to its association with Buckfast that 
 Brent had a little cruciform Norman church, the central 
 tower of which was found, in the course of recent restora¬ 
 tion, to have been retained as the western tower of the 
 later fabric. 
 
 Holne Chase is one of the finest examples of the ancient 
 chase left in the kingdom, and the only chase in Devon 
 retaining aught of its ancient aspect. The woods, with 
 those of Buckland-in-the-Moor, known as the Buckland 
 Drives, extend for many a mile along the valley of the 
 Dart. The most picturesque part of the course of that 
 river is known as the ‘ Lover’s Leap,’ from the customary 
 legend ‘ made and provided,’ where a precipitous rock 
 affords it a locus in quo. Holne, under that name—so that 
 it must even then have been noted for its hollies—was one 
 of the ‘ Domesday ’ manors of Baldwin the Sheriff, and 
 from the entry, ‘ formerly waste,’ seems to have been 
 recently taken out of the Dartmoor border-land. It was 
 part of the barony of Barnstaple, and has passed with 
 Tawstockto the Audleys, Bourchiers, and Wreys. Estates 
 here were given to Buckfast by Valletort and Bauzon, and 
 
Ashburton and Buckfastleigh. 285 
 
 the church belonged to that Abbey. Here, while his father 
 was serving the vicarage, Canon Kingsley (1819-75) was 
 born. Buckland was once in a family of that name, sub¬ 
 sequently in the Arcedeknes, and afterwards came to its 
 present owners, the Bastards. 
 
 There are several £ camps ’ in the neighbourhood, the 
 most important of the series being Hembury, near Buck¬ 
 fastleigh. To this a curious tradition attaches, firmly 
 believed in the locality. A party of marauding Danes are 
 said to have found their way up the Dart, and seized upon 
 this stronghold; and to have carried thither the women 
 of the district at their pleasure. Eventually ‘ a lot of 
 women determined, as the men could not get rid of them, 
 to allow themselves to be taken in a body by the Danes 
 to the castle, and in the night each cut the throat of the 
 man who lay by her.’ The Saxon men made an attack 
 at the same time, and the Northmen were annihilated. 
 
 Devon has been famous for cider for many a century. 
 In fact, it claims to have had at Plympton the first 
 orchard planted in England. Be that as it may, there is 
 no part of the county more noted for cider now than the 
 valley of the Dart, nor a parish which has a higher repu¬ 
 tation than Staverton. 
 
 Widecombe Church is sometimes called the ‘ Cathedral 
 of the Moor,’ although, previous to a recent restoration, 
 nothing could be more ludicrously appropriate than the 
 text blazoned in the south porch of the edifice, without 
 the least suspicion of a double application : ‘ How dread¬ 
 ful is this place !’ The fabric gives historic interest to its 
 rugged moorland parish. Dedicated to one of the most 
 famous British saints—St. Pancras—its foundation would 
 seem to be very remote; and the probability is that the 
 romantic, bowl-shaped valley in which it stands—the 
 ‘ wide combe ’ truly—is the seat of one of the oldest of 
 the continuing moorland settlements. 
 
286 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 1 Domesday ’ shows by its references to the five manors 
 which are included within the parish of Widecombe-in-the- 
 Moor that it was fairly settled, considering the period 
 and character of the country; but at a much later date, 
 when the tin streams of the district came to be vigorously 
 worked, it must have been really populous, as population 
 went. The tradition runs that the magnificent western 
 tower—which is of much later date than the body of the 
 church, and which for sharpness and finish of detail is not 
 only the glory of the Moor, but the finest among the 
 granite towers of the West—was built by a body of neigh¬ 
 bouring tinners, who cared not for cost. It has also been 
 noted that the bosses of the nave roof appear to indicate 
 a connection with alchemy, if not with ordinary metal¬ 
 lurgy. One of the devices is that of Basil Valentine’s 
 ‘ Hunt of Venus’—three rabbits, each with a single ear, 
 which join in the centre. 
 
 The ‘ Widecombe thunder-storm’ has found a niche alike 
 in history and folk-lore. On Sunday, 21st October, 1638, 
 while the congregation were assembled, a terrible dark¬ 
 ness overspread the face of day, and ‘ suddenly, in a fearful 
 and lamentable manner, a weighty thundering was heard, 
 the rattling whereof did answer much like unto the sound 
 and report of many great cannons, and terrible strange 
 lightening therewith, greatly amazing those that heard 
 and saw it, the darkness increasing yet more, so that they 
 could not see one another; the extraordinary lightening 
 came into the church so flaming, that the whole church 
 was presently filled with fire and smoke . . . which 
 
 so affrighted the whole congregation, that the most part 
 of them fell down into their seats, and some upon their 
 knees, some on their faces, and some one upon another, 
 with a great cry of burning and scalding, they all giving 
 themselves up for dead, supposing the last judgment day 
 was come, and that they had been in the very flames of 
 hell.’ They had good reason for their fright, if not for their 
 
Ashburton and Buckfastleigh. 
 
 287 
 
 conclusion. A fiery ball zigzagged through the church, 
 cleaving the skull of one man into three pieces; dashing 
 the head of another against the wall so violently that he 
 died that night; firing the clothes and tearing the flesh 
 of others of the congregation; overturning pews and 
 shattering walls and windows. When the blast was over 
 there was dead silence, until one Master Rowse ex¬ 
 claimed, ‘Neighbours, in the name of God shall we 
 venture out of the church ?’ Whereto Master George 
 Lyde, the minister, evidently believing that it was indeed 
 the end of the world, rejoined, ‘ It is best to make an 
 end of prayers, for it were better to die here than in 
 another place.’ 
 
 Of course the storm was set down to the special malice 
 and device of the devil, and there were not wanting after 
 the event those who could tell how his satanic majesty 
 had called at an inn on the road to Widecombe for a 
 drink, which hissed down his throat as if it were poured 
 on hot iron. The visitation is one of the stock legends of 
 the country-side, and the supernatural element is by no 
 means banished from the popular mind. The story goes 
 that when a modern teacher asked a child in an adjoining 
 parish, ‘What do you know of your ghostly enemy?’ she 
 had the utterly unexpected answer, illustrating the fatal 
 tendency of an evil reputation to grow, ‘ Please, ma’am, 
 he lives to Widecombe.’ 
 
 The parish still retains much of its old-world character, 
 and is remarkable even on the Dartmoor border-land for 
 the number of its old farmhouses, yet in the hands of 
 the ancient yeomanry of the county, a race which has 
 almost wholly disappeared in the lowlands. Such old 
 farmsteads are for the most part associated with clumps 
 of ashes—the old Scandinavian tree of life, round which 
 clusters a notable portion of the local folk-lore. The 
 clumps are no doubt survivals of the influence of the 
 Norse faith. 
 
288 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 Widecombe is associated with a few great names. The 
 manor of Spitchwick was the property of Harold before 
 the Conquest; and was once held by the Fitzwarines 
 and the Hankfords, and for some time by John Dunning, 
 the first Lord Ashburton, who acquired a leasehold 
 interest. The manor of Widecombe was long in the Fitz 
 Ralphs, or Shillingfords. Blackaton Manor, once probably 
 held by Judhel of Totnes, took name of Blagdon Pipard 
 from the Pipards, as early as King John. Deandon was 
 for some centuries in the Malets, who acquired it by 
 descent in the female line from the Deandons ; but since 
 1600 has been owned by the Mallocks of Cockington. 
 Notsworthy, presumably held by the Earls of Moreton, 
 was, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in 
 the Fords of Bagtor, the most distinguished of whom 
 was Sir Henry Ford of Nutwell, Secretary of State for 
 Ireland to Charles II., who died in 1684. Dunstone, for 
 two centuries at least after the Conquest, was the property 
 of the Pomeroys. 
 
 Ilsington has a claim to notice, little and upland parish 
 though it is, in the fame of its one distinguished son, 
 John Ford, the dramatist, born at Bagtor, then the seat 
 of his family, in 1586. The lines are very familiar : 
 
 ‘ Deep in a dump John Ford alone was got, 
 
 With folded arms and melancholy hat.’ 
 
 The greatest of the dramatists of Devon, he is all but 
 forgotten now; nor has Gifford’s masterly edition of his 
 works rescued him from oblivion. He was but twenty 
 when he first ventured into print with his * Fame’s 
 Memoriall on the Erie of Devonshire.’ His first play 
 was produced in 1613, his last in 1639 ; but nothing is 
 known of the date and place of his death. Sir Henry 
 Ford, already named, is supposed to have been his 
 grandson. Though much modernized, the old manor- 
 house where Ford was born is still standing. 
 
Ashburton and Buckfastleigh . 
 
 289 
 
 Tor Brian is linked with several names of note, the 
 most famous of its early lords being one of the foremost 
 of Devon’s worthies. Sir Guy de Brian, standard-bearer 
 to Edward III., did such service at Calais that he had a 
 grant of 200 marks yearly out of the Exchequer. In 
 1354 he went to Rome with Henry, Duke of Lancaster, 
 to procure a ratification of the league between England 
 and France from the Pope. In 1370 he again served in 
 France, and in the same year illustrated his many-sided 
 character still further by becoming Admiral of the king’s 
 fleet. Edward showed his esteem for Sir Guy by 
 choosing him one of the Knights of the Garter. De 
 Brian served Richard II. with equal success in France 
 and in Ireland, by land and by sea, in the camp and in 
 the court. He founded and endowed a collegiate church 
 in his manor of Slapton, already noted, and died at an 
 advanced age in 1391, leaving two granddaughters only. 
 
 In later years Tor Brian became the cradle of the noble 
 house of Petre. Tor Newton was the birthplace of the 
 celebrated Sir William Petre, the most eminent of a dis¬ 
 tinguished band of brothers. First brought to Court by 
 Cromwell, he speedily became a favourite with Henry VIII., 
 and was one of the visitors of the religious houses. The 
 wealth thus acquired he had wit enough to keep, obtain¬ 
 ing under Mary, from Pope Paul IV., a confirmation of 
 the grants of Church property made by Henry. One of 
 the means used to this end was the promise to employ 
 the money in a way the Church would approve ; and one 
 of the ways adopted by him was the foundation of eight 
 fellowships at Exeter College. He must have been a 
 man of wonderful tact; for he held the office of Secretary 
 of State and enjoyed equal favour under Henry, Edward, 
 Mary, and Elizabeth. Under Henry he ‘ observed his 
 humour;’ in Edward's time ‘ kept the law ;’ in Mary's 
 ‘ intended wholly State affairs;’ and in Elizabeth’s was 
 ‘ religious.’ 
 
 Two parishes in the Ashburton district still keep up the 
 
 19 
 
290 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 ancient dedication feast with much of the old-fashioned 
 heartiness, and without any pretence of business. With 
 them the ‘ revel ’ has never developed into the fair. At 
 Ideford the sports last three days, and open house is 
 commonly kept. The date is fixed by the Nativity of the 
 Virgin—the 8th of September. The first day is spent in 
 hare-hunting on Haldon ; the next in coursing on more 
 enclosed lands ; the evenings being devoted to parties. 
 The third day is generally appropriated to excursions. 
 
 The * revel ’ at Holne on Old Midsummer Day is 
 evidently of far higher antiquity. Its chief incident is the 
 roasting of a lamb whole in the ‘ Play Park’ by the church. 
 The inhabitants claim the right of taking the first ram 
 they find on entering the Moor ; but in these prosaic days 
 they think it best to make a purchase. When roasted, the 
 lamb is carried in procession, preceded by a fiddler, to an 
 inn, cut up and distributed; after which sports commence, 
 and dancing winds up the day. ‘ OM people who have 
 made it a point to get a slice every year,’ Mr. Fabyan 
 Amery says, ‘assure me “that a slice of revel lamb beats 
 every other sort of roast meat in flavour and richness.” ’ 
 
 The most remarkable district fair was that at Denbury, 
 which came to a close by operation of the rinderpest in 
 1S66, after continuing from 1285, when it was granted 
 to the Abbot of Tavistock. It was held on the 19th of 
 September, and was attended by all classes. The carriages 
 of the county families of the district were to be seen there; 
 it became the fixed day for the payment of rents; and it 
 was in many ways the pivot on which the business and 
 pleasure of the twelve months turned. Strangely, how¬ 
 ever, Denbury Fair, under the old name, kept in the old 
 way, yet thrives in Labrador, established there generations 
 since by Devonshire settlers, and still dear to their 
 descendants, though these are quite ignorant whether 
 Denbury be the name of man, woman, place, or thing. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 TORQUAY, PAIGNTON, AND BRIXHAM. 
 
 Torquay in name dates back some two hundred years ; 
 but in fact was barely more than a name—a little pier 
 or quay, and half a dozen fishermen’s huts—until the 
 early part of the present century, when the need of ac¬ 
 commodation for the families of the officers of the fleets 
 which made Torbay their rendezvous was felt. 
 
 If, however, the name is set aside, and traces of ancient 
 life alone considered, no place in the kingdom has more 
 distinguished claims to antiquity; for at Torquay is 
 Kent’s Cavern, the exploration of which has carried back 
 the history of man in this country not merely to Palaeo¬ 
 lithic days, but to interglacial, perchance to preglacial 
 times; while across the bay at Brixham is the Windmill 
 Hill Cave, the exploration of which finally settled, with 
 scientific investigators, the contemporaneity of man and 
 the extinct mammalia, and the high antiquity of the 
 human race. Discoveries of flint and bone weapons and 
 implements, pointing in the same direction, have also 
 been made in the submerged forest beds of Torbay. 
 Taking Torquay in its representative sense, we may fairly 
 say, therefore, that while it is almost the youngest town 
 in Devon, it is far and away the oldest settlement; and that 
 its age is not to be measured by common standards of 
 chronology, but by the expression in geological terms of 
 
 19—2 
 
292 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 the work done by natural forces since the appearance of 
 the first traces of man. The latest expression of opinion 
 by Mr. Pengelly, F.R.S .—the authority on this special 
 subject—is the probability of the inference that the 
 hyaena did not reach the South of England until its last 
 continental period, and that the men who made the 
 Palaeolithic nodule-tools found in the oldest known deposit 
 in Kent’s Cavern arrived either during the previous great 
 submergence, or what is more probable, unless they were 
 navigators, during the first continental period. 
 
 We cannot pretend to fill the gap that yawns between 
 us and the era of even the later Palaeolithic men; but 
 the shores of Torbay afford evidence of continued occupa¬ 
 tion from the dawn of the historic period. Not many 
 years ago extensive earthworks could be traced on the 
 uplands between Babbacombe and Anstis Coves, which 
 have been deemed, upon slight grounds, to be of Roman 
 character, but were probably Keltic, and the Apaunaris— 
 continuing in name in the modern ‘ Hope’s Nose ’—of the 
 Ravennat. We have the ‘ Apa ’ also in ‘ Babba,’ no doubt 
 of Norse origin. A large camp at Berry Head, the oppo¬ 
 site horn of Torbay, was undoubtedly occupied by the 
 Romans. Still the situation is not one they would have 
 chosen in the first instance, and it resembles too closely 
 the ancient cliff castles of Cornwall, the chief defence 
 consisting of a rampart cutting off the extreme point of 
 the promontory and protecting it against attack from the 
 land side, not to suggest an earlier date than the Roman 
 occupation. The character of Torbay is such as to invite 
 the landing either of friends or foes, for commerce or for 
 war ; and it has indeed been suggested as the ‘ Totnes 
 shore,’ whither the fabled Brutus found his way. 
 
 The neighbourhood was popular with the Saxons. The 
 place-names in the vicinity are almost exclusively of 
 Teutonic character, and it affords two of the rare local 
 instances of the proven existence of a church before the 
 
Torquay, Paignton , and Brixham. 
 
 293 
 
 Conquest. * See Marie cerce ’ appears in ‘ Domesday’ as 
 belonging to the Earl of Moreton, and as having been 
 held by Ordulf ‘T.R.E.’ The enumerated population 
 being sixteen only, in all likelihood the manor was the 
 ancient ecclesiastical centre of the district. The Saxon 
 font is still in existence, preserved through the church¬ 
 warden period by being partially buried, reversed, in the 
 floor. It is ornamented with rude and very quaint 
 carvings of figures of men and animals. The most notable 
 exception to the prevailing Saxon nomenclature is Cock- 
 ington, the first syllable in which is the Keltic cock — red, 
 referring, no doubt, to the red Triassic cliffs of that part 
 of Torbay. 
 
 Next in importance to St. Mary Church, as a prede¬ 
 cessor of Torquay, and the actual germ out of which the 
 modern town has grown, is the manor of Torre, held 
 by William Hostiarius at the time of the Great Survey in 
 succession to Alric, and possessing in 1086 an enumerated 
 population of thirty-two; while that of the adjacent 
 manor of Ilsham, which had fallen into the hands of this 
 same * servant of the King,’ is set down at half-a-dozen. 
 Such are the first definite facts in the history of what is 
 now proudly called (not without reason or rivalry) the 
 ‘ Queen of Watering-places.’ 
 
 The first real step in advance was taken when, in 1196, 
 William de Briwere founded the great Abbey of Torre. 
 De Briwere was a man of mark. There is a tradition 
 that he was born on the shores of Torbay; there is 
 another that he was found exposed on a heath, as an 
 infant, and thence acquired his surname. Prince makes 
 him out to be the descendant of Richard Bruer, a com¬ 
 panion of the Conqueror. Whatever his origin, he won 
 wealth and fame. In some way not clear he succeeded 
 to the manor of Torre ; and he held prominent positions 
 in the Courts of Henry II., Richard I., John, and 
 Henry III.—a statesman of ability and trust. His family 
 
294 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 influence was greatly extended by the marriage of 
 Reginald de Mohun, given him in ward by Henry III., 
 with his fifth daughter, Alicia. This marriage carried 
 Torre to the Mohuns, and the manor of Torre Briwere 
 became the manor of Torre Mohun, in modern parlance 
 Tormoham. Although one of the most powerful nobles 
 of the West, De Briwere in the conflict between John and 
 his barons took the side of the King, and orders were 
 sent by that monarch in 1216 to Robert de Courtenay, 
 Viscount of Devon and Governor of Exeter, to admit De 
 Briwere and his forces into the city, if the garrison was 
 not sufficiently strong. 
 
 Torre Abbey was founded upon a pre-existing church, 
 which, like that of the adjoining parish of Paignton, was 
 seemingly of Norman origin. It was dedicated to the 
 Holy Saviour, the Holy Trinity, and the Virgin ; and was 
 first settled by an abbot and six monks in 1196. Norbertine 
 or Premonstratensian, it became at length the richest 
 house of the Order in the kingdom. De Briwere had 
 himself been liberal of his gifts; and eight years had not 
 elapsed from its foundation before William Fitz Stephen 
 gave it the church of Townstal, which brought Dartmouth 
 within the abbatal jurisdiction. Among its other properties 
 were the manor and church of Wolborough; the manors 
 of Ilsham, Collaton, Kingswear ; lands at Buckland and 
 Woodbury; the tithes of St. Mary Church ; and several 
 good livings. 
 
 The monks, moreover, were business men, and became 
 members of the Totnes Guild Merchant. An amusing 
 though unpleasant episode occurred in the abbacy of 
 William Norton, who was charged, in 1390, with having 
 abused his powers as lord of the manor by cutting off the 
 head of a canon named Hastings. The canon was pro¬ 
 duced in the flesh to satisfy Bishop Brantyngham that he 
 was not dead ; and the Bishop took him at his word. 
 Other people, however, were not so easily satisfied; and 
 
Torquay, Paignton , and Brixham. 
 
 295 
 
 therefore to this day the headless ghost of Simon 
 Hastings makes hideous the dull November nights by 
 galloping a spectral horse through Torre avenues. At 
 the Dissolution in 1539, the annual revenues of the Abbey 
 were set forth at £396 os. nd. 
 
 The Abbey lands changed hands very rapidly. John 
 St. Leger, to whom the site was granted, sold it to Sir 
 Hugh Pollard. Pollard’s grandson conveyed it to Sir 
 Edmund Seymour, and he sold it to Thomas Ridgway, 
 ancestor of the Earls of Londonderry, the lord of the 
 manor of Torre Mohun, which John Ridgway and John 
 Petre had bought of Edward VI. By the Ridgways the 
 whole property was held until 1653. Torre Abbey was 
 then sold to John Stowell, from whom nine years later it 
 was purchased by Sir George Cary, of Cockington. Torre 
 Mohun passed by the marriage of Lucy Ridgway, in 1716, 
 to the Earls of Donegal; and in 1768 was purchased by 
 Sir Robert Palk. It now belongs to Lord Haldon, his 
 descendant ; and Torre Abbey to Sir George Cary’s repre¬ 
 sentative, Mr. R. S. S. Cary. The Carys claim special 
 notice among the notable houses of Devonshire. 
 
 The * Domesday ’ manor of Kari, in the parish of St. 
 Giles-in-the-Heath, was the first recorded seat of the 
 Cary family ; and one branch continued to reside there 
 so late as the reign of Elizabeth. As early, however, as 
 the reign of Richard II. it ceased to be their principal 
 home. Sir William Cary then settled at Clovelly, and his 
 brother Sir John, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, 
 acquired, with many other manors, that of Cockington, 
 only to lose them all by deciding for Richard against the 
 Commissioners. His attainder was reversed in favour of 
 his son Robert, who gained the favour of Henry V. by 
 vanquishing an Aragonese knight in Smithfield. Two 
 generations later the family were again in difficulty. Sir 
 William Cary, grandson of Robert, was an ardent 
 
296 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 Lancastrian; and one of those who, after the fatal battle 
 of Tewkesbury, took refuge in the Abbey Church. Two 
 days later the refugees were treacherously beheaded. 
 The usual forfeiture followed ; but Sir William’s eldest 
 son, Robert, obtained restoration from Henry VII. He 
 was the ancestor of the present stock of Devonshire 
 Carys. From his half-brother spring the ennobled Carys, 
 represented by Lord Falkland. 
 
 The most notable Cary of Cockington was Sir George, 
 born about 1540, who took a leading part in the land 
 arrangements for the defence of the country against the 
 Spanish Armada. In conjunction with Sir John Gilbert 
 of Compton, he had the charge of a large number of 
 prisoners, taken in the Capitana, flag-ship of Don Pedro 
 de Valdez, captured by Drake in the Revenge, after she 
 had been well battered by Hawkins in the Victory, and 
 Frobisher in the Triumph. Captain Whiddon brought 
 the Capitana into the bay, and her crew were lodged for a 
 while in the great barn at Torre Abbey, hence to this day 
 called the ‘ Spanish Barn.’ Cary’s general services during 
 this eventful period were zealous and great. His chief 
 claim to rank as a worthy of Devon is based upon his 
 official career in Ireland. Appointed by Elizabeth herself 
 Treasurer of Ireland in March, 1599, he entered at once 
 upon his duties. They had a mournful commencement ; 
 for in the September following, his only son George was 
 killed, while serving under the Earl of Essex against 
 O’Neill. A few days later, Essex left for England ; and, 
 in addition to his Treasurership, Cary became Lord 
 Justice. In Ireland, with one brief interval, he continued 
 to serve until the death of Elizabeth; and when James 
 succeeded, to his other posts was added that of Lord- 
 Deputy. In October, 1604, his repeated solicitations 
 procured his relief from the cares of State, and Sir 
 Arthur Chichester was appointed in his stead. On his 
 death in 1617, his estates passed to his nephews. The 
 
Torquay, Paignton, and Brixham. 
 
 297 
 
 Carys were staunch Royalists, and lost Cockington 
 through the Civil Wars, when it became the property of 
 its present owners, the Mallocks; but Sir George Cary, 
 great-nephew of the Lord - Deputy, purchased Torre 
 Abbey in 1662, and the family are thus still settled in the 
 locality where they attained their highest eminence. 
 
 Several curious traditions are connected with the 
 ‘ Spanish Barn,’ all originating, of course, in its use as a 
 temporary prison. One is that large numbers of the 
 prisoners were starved to death, grafted upon which is 
 the further detail that a farmer, who secretly gave them 
 food, was hung by the country-folk, whose hatred to the 
 foreigners was most bitter. Then it is said that a body 
 of Spaniards, who had landed with the intention of 
 plundering the Abbey, were kept on shore by an English 
 fleet*; and, flying for refuge to the barn, perished from 
 starvation. Another tradition, quite irreconcilable with 
 its associates, is that the blood of the Spaniards ran like 
 water down * Cole’s Lane,’ which, as Mr. White suggests, 
 may have a foundation in fact if the prisoners, on their 
 road to Exeter, tried to escape. But all the legends 
 agree in this—that the spirits of the Spaniards still haunt 
 the spot where they spent their last days. 
 
 There is very little of the original structure of the Abbey 
 itself left. Of the church there are a few fragments, in¬ 
 cluding portions of the tower and chancel and the entrance 
 to the chapter-house. The domestic buildings are in better 
 preservation, and a fine gateway remains fairly intact, with 
 the tower. During the progress of the latest restorations 
 a very handsome crypt was opened out. 
 
 Another Torquay antiquity, and almost the only com¬ 
 panion of the Abbey, since the ancient mansion of Torwood 
 Grange was removed, is a building known as St. Michael’s 
 Chapel, on the hill above the Torre railway station. 
 There is no account of its origin, but it probably dates from 
 
298 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 the twelfth century, and its religious character seems 
 clear. Beyond this there is only the old Grange at Ilsham, 
 once appendant, like Torwood, to the Abbey. 
 
 In the early part of the seventeenth century Torquay 
 seems to have been a place of some little importance 
 under the name of Fleete (the Saxon name of the brook 
 that formerly fell into the bay of the present harbour), 
 which survives now only in Fleet Street; and it is rather 
 remarkable that so distinctive an appellation should 
 have been lost. A lease, granted in May, 1678, gives 
 capital evidence of the existence of a centenarian among 
 the inhabitants. It was on the lives of John Goodman, 
 Philippa his wife, and Mary his daughter, for ninety-nine 
 years, and an endorsement testifies that Mary surrendered it 
 in person in June, 1777. Torre Mohun has exceptional 
 interest for students of tenures in its custom of free bench. 
 The widow of a customary tenant had her free bench, 
 save in case of incontinency, but that could be cured by 
 the performance of the conditions set forth in BudgelPs 
 well-known Spectator article. ‘ The custom of the Manor 
 of Torre ’ figures prominently in some of the caricatures 
 directed against Queen Caroline. 
 
 The history of Torbay is chiefly associated with naval 
 expeditions. In early times its villages were included 
 under the port of Dartmouth, and contributed to enhance 
 the maritime fame of that historic port. Then we 
 find it the seat of a steadily growing independent fishing- 
 trade with Newfoundland, developed from the local 
 fisheries which gave prosperity and prominence to 
 Brixham. The first great fleet that used these waters 
 was that which brought over William of Orange. Two 
 years later Torbay was occupied by the French fleet 
 which harassed the coast for the restoration of James, 
 and a party from which burnt Teignmouth, finding that 
 at Torbay the whole strength of Devon was drawn up 
 to oppose them. Next, in 1703, Sir Cloudesley Shovel made 
 
Torquay , Paignton , and Brixham. 
 
 299 
 
 Torbay the rendezvous of the combined English and 
 Dutch squadron under his command, destined for the 
 Mediterranean. From that time onward its many ad¬ 
 vantages appear to have been continuously recognised ; 
 and it was a chief station of the British fleet during the 
 great French wars. Torre Abbey was a favourite residence 
 of Earl St. Vincent; and it was only natural that not 
 Torquay only, but Paignton and Brixham also, the other 
 members of the Torbay town triad, should profit by the 
 presence of the relatives of the officers, who were in the 
 habit of visiting them, and who in many cases found it 
 convenient to take up their residence in the houses that 
 were speedily built for their accommodation. This was 
 the real commencement of Torquay as a watering-place. 
 
 The importance of Torbay at this period, in a national 
 sense, had its drawbacks as well as its advantages. In 
 November, 1803, it was confidently anticipated that 
 Napoleon had chosen it as the scene of his descent on 
 England. One reads with amusement now of the arrange¬ 
 ments made at a very‘respectable and numerous meeting’ 
 for the assembly of the infirm and children, who were 
 unable to walk ten miles in one day, in three divisions, 
 to be removed inland by horse and cart, while the able- 
 bodied who were not employed on particular service were 
 to meet the clergyman at the church to consider how 
 they could render the greatest assistance to their neigh¬ 
 bours and country. Twelve years later Napoleon did 
 make his appearance at Torbay, but as a prisoner on 
 board the Bellerophon. He remained in Torbay from the 
 24th July to the nth August, 1815, with the exception of 
 four days during which the Bellerophon proceeded to Ply¬ 
 mouth ; and on the nth he sailed for St. Helena in the 
 Northumberland. Both in Torbay and Plymouth Sound 
 there was an immense concourse of people in boats to see 
 the fallen monarch; and the Torquay folk still recall 
 with pride Napoleon’s testimony to the charms of their 
 
History of Devonshire. 
 
 300 
 
 surroundings: ‘What a beautiful country; how much 
 it resembles the Porto Ferrajo in Elba!’ 
 
 It used to be said of Torbay, in consequence of its un¬ 
 sheltered condition, and of the manner in which it was 
 employed as a naval rendezvous, that it would one day be 
 the grave of the British fleet. Happily, the prediction 
 has not been realized, and the construction of the break¬ 
 water at Plymouth having caused Torbay to be abandoned 
 as a naval station, the danger may be held to have disap¬ 
 peared. That such fears were not groundless was amply 
 proved in January, 1866, when, of a large number of 
 vessels which were lying in the bay windbound, fifty were 
 wrecked and nearly 100 of their crews drowned. The 
 actual loss was never accurately ascertained. Many 
 vessels were stranded, and several sank at their anchors. 
 This led to a proposal to construct a breakwater; but 
 nothing was done until the late Lord Haldon, at his own 
 expense, formed a new harbour at Torquay, which has 
 largely developed its yachting interest. 
 
 The manor of Paignton belonged to the See of Exeter 
 before the Conquest. With the single exception of 
 Crediton, it was the most valuable possession of the See 
 when the Survey was taken, the returns having been raised 
 from thirteen pounds to fifty. It had 36 serfs, 52 villeins, 
 and 40 bordars, with 5 swineherds, and a salt-work. 
 Hence we are not surprised to find in the tower doorway 
 of its church evidence that it once possessed an important 
 Norman fane. Paignton became a market-town in 1294 ; 
 and at a very early date was selected by the bishops as an 
 occasional residence. They held the manor until Bishop 
 Veysey, by the royal requisition, conveyed it to William 
 Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. Blagdon was the ancient 
 seat of the Kirkhams, whose richly decorated Late Per¬ 
 pendicular chantry is the most notable feature of the 
 church interior. 
 
Torquay, Paignton , and Brixham. 
 
 3 QI 
 
 Additional interest attaches to the ruins of the old 
 palace from the fact that its last episcopal occupant was 
 the famous Myles Coverdale, eminent as a prelate, but 
 still more eminent for his translation of the Bible. Pro¬ 
 bably a Yorkshireman, little is certainly known about him 
 until the appearance of his version of the Scriptures in 
 1535. His first visit to Devon was as a kind of army 
 chaplain to Lord Russell, while engaged in quelling the 
 Western Rebellion in 1549. Two years later he was ap¬ 
 pointed coadjutor Bishop of Exeter, and then it was he 
 occupied the Paignton palace. As his Bible had at this 
 time been in print some sixteen years, the baselessness of 
 the local tradition, that it was translated at Paignton, 
 is apparent. The accession of Mary led to his banish¬ 
 ment, but it does not seem that on his return to England, 
 when Elizabeth brought safer times, he again visited 
 Devon. 
 
 A note in the MS. autobiography of Dr. James Yonge, 
 circa 1670-80, says, probably on the authority of current 
 report at that date, ‘ Paynton was anciently a Borrough 
 town, and, as Is sayd, held her charter by a whitepot 
 (whence Devonshire men are soe called), which was to 
 be 7 yeares making, 7 baking, and 7 eating.’ 
 
 In the adjoining parish of Marldon is the fine old 
 fortified house known as Compton Castle. Once the seat 
 of a family of that name, it came to the Gilberts of Green¬ 
 way by marriage with a coheiress. Though long a farm¬ 
 house the ‘ castle ’ is in very fair preservation. The 
 gateway and chapel preserve their ancient character 
 tolerably intact; and the whole pile has a remarkably 
 picturesque appearance. The elaborate machicolation is 
 the most distinctive feature. 
 
 Brixham, for centuries a fishing-port of note, has long 
 been the chief fishing-town in Devon; and its fishing- 
 boats are unsurpassed in excellence. It is the ‘ Briseham ’ 
 
302 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 which Judhel of Totnes held in succession to Ulf, with its 
 neighbour Cercetone, now Churston Ferrers. Brixham 
 has in ‘ Domesday ’ a population of 39; Churston of 
 25 only, including 3 cotars ; but we have no other clue 
 to their ancient history beyond that implied in the fact 
 that the latter parish was a Saxon * church town ’ on 
 the south side of Torbay, precisely as St. Mary Church 
 on the north. Brixham passed to the Novants and Valle- 
 torts, and was some time held by the Bonviles. It is 
 now very curiously owned. A division of the manor into 
 quarters was followed by the purchase of the portion 
 which came to the Gilberts by a dozen fishermen ; and 
 their shares have again been divided and subdivided 
 among fisher-folk, who are commonly known as the ‘ quay 
 lords,’ though there are some ‘ ladies.’ Thus there are 
 more ‘ lords and ladies of the manor ’ at Brixham, from 
 the representatives of the Duke of Bolton downward, 
 than in any other town in England. 
 
 Nethway at one time belonged to Sir John Hody, Chief 
 Justice of the King’s Bench 1440, and the family con¬ 
 tinued to live there until 1696. Sir William Hody was 
 Lord Chief Baron in 1487. Lupton, once in the Peniles, 
 Uptons, and Haynes, has been for nearly a century the 
 seat of a branch of the Buller family of Crediton, descended 
 from Sir Francis Buller (1746-1800), Justice of the King’s 
 Bench, and raised to the peerage by the title of Baron 
 Churston in 1858. Churston was long held by the Yardes 
 in succession to the family of Ferrers, and came to the 
 Bullers by the marriage of the heiress of the Yardes with 
 Sir Francis Buller, the judge. The Churston Bullers 
 have since used Yarde as an additional surname. 
 
 But the historical relations of Brixham are far more 
 than personal. The old village, commonly called Higher 
 Brixham, is about a mile from Brixham' town, or Lower 
 Brixham, anciently known as Brixham Quay. At this quay 
 it was that there landed, on the 5th of November, 1688, 
 
Torquay, Paignton , and Brixham. 303 
 
 William of Orange, on his way to the English throne. 
 Upon the pier, though removed from the original site, is 
 a simple memorial, the inscription whereon sets forth, 
 * On this stone and near this spot, William, Prince of 
 Orange, first set foot.’ The event has happily suggested 
 the device for the seal of the Local Board, which repre¬ 
 sents the landing of the Prince, with the words of his 
 motto, ‘1 will maintain.’ 
 
 A very full and detailed contemporary account of the 
 landing of the Prince and his followers is contained in a 
 pamphlet published by a chaplain called Whittle, who 
 was on board the fleet. When the people who crowded 
 the cliffs to see the ships understood who had come, 
 great, he says, was the shouting and delight. Great was 
 the delight also at Torre Abbey, where Te Deum was 
 sung under the impression that the vessels belonged to 
 France ! The local traditions of the circumstances of the 
 landing are curious, and undoubtedly embody sundry 
 facts. William is said to have approached the shore and 
 asked if he was welcome. Having explained his purpose 
 he was told that he was. ‘ If I am, then come and carry 
 me on shore,’ said he, and immediately a ‘ stuggy [thick¬ 
 set] little man ’ jumped into the water and did so. This 
 seems to be fairly historical, for it has been a constant 
 tradition in the Varwell family that one of their ancestors 
 not only assisted the Prince to land in the manner de¬ 
 scribed, it being low water at the time, but gave him his 
 first night’s lodging in his house in Middle Street. Whittle, 
 indeed, states definitely that William made his palace of 
 one of the fishermen’s little houses; and his leading 
 followers were quartered in the houses around, while the 
 troops camped out. 
 
 The unhistorical part of the tradition comes in with an 
 amusing rhymed address, which the inhabitants are said 
 to have presented to their illustrious visitor: 
 
3°4 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 ‘ And please your Majesty King William, 
 
 You be welcome to Brixham Quay, 
 
 To eat buckhom and drink bohea 
 Along with we. 
 
 And please your Majesty King William.’ 
 
 No doubt need attach, however, to the fact of the preser¬ 
 vation of the stone on which William first stepped on 
 landing. 
 
 Among other local traditions are some stating that the 
 country-folk took quantities of apples to Brixham and 
 other points on the line of march to give to the troops. 
 The Nonconformists of the district were especially hearty 
 in their greeting; but, as a rule, men of position were 
 slow to give in their adhesion. The first to do so was 
 Mr. Nicholas Roope, a member of an ancient family living 
 at Dartmouth. There is some reason, however, to believe 
 that the Prince had a secret interview with Sir Edward 
 Seymour of Berry (who openly joined him at Exeter) at a 
 house since called Parliament House, between Berry and 
 Brixham. It is probable also that other influential persons 
 were present. The muniments of the Seymour family 
 yield no information upon the point, for all the documents 
 relating to those transactions appear to have been care¬ 
 fully destroyed. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 NEWTON. 
 
 Newton lies at the junction of the two parishes of High- 
 week and Wolborough, and has been formed by the fusion 
 of a couple of adjacent villages, which sprang up re¬ 
 spectively under the patronage of lords of adjoining 
 manors, the choice of site being clearly dictated by a 
 position which was anciently at the head of the Teign 
 estuary, but has long been separated therefrom, first by 
 marshy, and afterwards by reclaimed land. Of these two 
 towns or villages, one was called Newton Abbot, from the 
 fact that Wolborough, in which it stood, formed part of 
 De Briwere’s endowment of Torre Abbey ; the other was 
 named Newton Bushell, from the Bushells, its possessors 
 in the latter half of the thirteenth century. Both names 
 still exist, but Newton Abbot has developed so rapidly 
 under the influence mainly of the railway system, of which 
 it forms an important local junction, that the name of 
 Newton Bushell is rarely heard, and even Newton Abbot 
 is giving place to the simpler Newton. 
 
 We can hardly venture to identify positively either of 
 the ‘ Wiches ’ of ‘ Domesday’ with the modern Highweek. 
 Wolborough is probably the Vlgeberge which Alured the 
 Briton held in succession to Alwin ; though the Vlveberie 
 held by Ralph under Baldwin the Sheriff is almost as 
 close. Highweek first appears, however, as part of the 
 
History of Devonshire. 
 
 306 
 
 manor of Teignweek, given by Henry II. with Newton 
 and Bradley to John, son of Lucas, his butler. As the 
 name Bradley finds place more than once in ‘ Domesday,’ 
 it is possible that Newton Bushell may be one of its 
 Niwetons, and thus have the respectable antiquity of 
 some nine centuries. The manor of Teignweek has 
 always carried with it a moiety of the hundred of Teign- 
 bridge; and the occurrence of that name in * Domesday ’ 
 proves the existence of a bridge there in Saxon times. 
 Teignbridge is on the line of an old British trackway, 
 and when the present structure was built in 1815, four 
 previous bridges were found represented on the site; 
 it is suggested that in the oldest of these we have Roman 
 workmanship. Teignweek was given in 1246 to Theo¬ 
 bald de Englishville, and by him to his foster-child and 
 kinsman, Robert Bushell. The Bushells continued until 
 Richard II., when their heiress brought it to the Yardes. 
 In the Yardes it remained until 1751, when it was sold to 
 Thomas Veale, and from him came to the Lanes. Bradley 
 has long been the seat of the lords of Newton Bushell, 
 and although much mutilated, still remains an interesting 
 example in many of its details of a fortified mansion of 
 the fourteenth century. 
 
 Newton Bushell became a market-town by grant in 
 1246 to De Englishville, but the market was allowed to 
 lapse in favour of that of Newton Abbot, which was in 
 existence in the reign of Edward I., if not earlier, and was 
 acquired by the Yardes in the reign of Philip and Mary, 
 and descended, with the estates, to the Lanes. The 
 respective rights of the lord of the manor, and of the 
 burgesses, are said to have been settled by deed in the 
 reign of Edward II. 
 
 Wolborough continued part of the possessions of Torre 
 Abbey until the Dissolution. In the reign of James I. it 
 was bought by Sir Richard Reynell, the younger son of 
 a family which had been settled in the adjacent parishes 
 
Newton. 
 
 307 
 
 of the Ogwells as early as the fourteenth century. His 
 heiress married Sir William Waller, the Parliamentary 
 general; and Waller’s daughter, in turn, Sir William 
 Courtenay; from him it has descended to its present 
 owner, the Earl of Devon, by whom the growth of the 
 new town between the old town and the railway station 
 has been judiciously guided and liberally developed. 
 
 Manorial jurisdiction still continued in full sway at 
 Newton until the present generation, and forty years since 
 the portreeves elected for each moiety of the ancient 
 * Newton ’ both had seals of office. It is now governed by 
 a Local Board whose seal is a curious compound. The 
 central device is the tower which represents the old 
 chapel of ease of St. Leonard, and stands at the ‘ four 
 waysthen there are a mitre and pastoral staves to recall 
 the Abbots of Torre, and a fleece to typify the ancient 
 woollen trade. 
 
 At Lord House Charles I. was twice entertained at his 
 first visit to Devon, in September, 1625. Lord was then 
 the seat of its builder, Sir Richard Reynell, and it was in 
 partial recognition of the liberal hospitality shown that 
 Charles knighted Reynell’s two nephews—Richard Reynell 
 of Ogwell, and his brother Thomas, who was the King’s 
 server. Charles was on his way to Plymouth to inspect 
 the expedition designed for Cadiz, and on his return again 
 made a halt at Lord, attending service at Wolborough 
 Church, and touching a child for the evil. The bills of 
 fare for the two entertainments have been carefully pre¬ 
 served, so that we know that the first cost £28 13s. 5d., 
 and the second £55 5s. Waller lived for a while at Lord 
 during the Protectorate ; and it was the first house of 
 note that received William of Orange. 
 
 On what was once the pedestal of the ancient market- 
 cross of Newton is a modern inscription, setting forth, 
 ‘The first declaration of William III., Prince of Orange, 
 the glorious defender of the liberties of England, was read 
 
 20—2 
 
3°8 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 on this pedestal by the Rev. John Reynell, rector of this 
 parish, 5th November, 1688.’ It is very doubtful how far 
 this may be regarded as an authority for anything more 
 than the statement that the declaration was read from 
 the spot. The date given is that of the landing, and the 
 army did not reach Newton until the 7th. William 
 appears to have reached Ford House on the 8th, leaving 
 on the gth ; and it was while he was there, according to 
 Whittle, the army chaplain, that the declaration was read 
 by ‘ a certain divine ’ who ‘ went before the army,’ and 
 not by the ‘ minister of the parish.’ If not Whittle him¬ 
 self, it is probable that the reader of the declaration was 
 Dr. (afterwards Bishop) Burnet. 
 
 A hospital house was founded here by Lucy, Lady 
 Reynell, in 1638, for the widows of clergymen. She set 
 forth her idea of their need in the couplet: 
 
 ‘ Is’t strange a prophet’s widowe poore should be ? 
 
 Yf strange, then is the Scripture strange to thee.’ 
 
 Wolborough was the burial—probably the birth—place 
 of a Devonian worthy—John Lethbridge, whose death is 
 thus recorded in the parish register, * Dec. 11, 1759. 
 Buried Mr. John Lethbridge, inventor of a most famous 
 diving-engine, by which he recovered from the bottom of 
 the sea, in different parts of the globe, almost £100,000 
 for the English and Dutch merchants, which had been 
 lost by shipwreck.’ Lethbridge appears to have been the 
 first who succeeded in turning diving-apparatus to any 
 practical account; and there is still extant a silver 
 tankard, on which is engraven a map of Porto Santo, 
 where some of his chief exploits were done, and an 
 illustration of the diving-apparatus at work. He dived 
 on at least sixteen wrecks, some with good success. 
 
 Newton has long developed an important trade in 
 potting-clays, which are found largely in the immediate 
 neighbourhood, and worked by pits. Most of the clay 
 
Newton . 
 
 309 
 
 raised is sent to Staffordshire ; but of late there has been 
 a rapidly increasing development of local potteries, and 
 the town is now the centre of a group of works, dotted 
 at intervals from Bovey Tracey—where a pottery has 
 existed considerably over a century—to Torquay, which 
 produces the finest English terra-cotta. This local 
 industry now includes the utilization alike of the most 
 refractory and the finest clays of the district, and has 
 developed to its present proportions within the past 
 twenty years. In connection with clay-pits at Zitherixon, 
 there was found, about 1866, a singular wooden image, 
 which appears to have been associated with an ancient 
 phallic cult, practised in the district centuries before the 
 Christian era. In 1881, a canoe was found in the clay- 
 beds of the same Bovey basin, which Mr. Pengelly regards 
 as at least of glacial age. 
 
 Haccombe is the most interesting parish in the vicinity 
 of Newton, and one of the most singular in Devon. Of 
 old time it was an extra-parochial chapelry; and as it 
 was made an arch-presbytery by Sir John L’Ercedekne 
 about the year 1341, so the rector of Haccombe is ‘ arch¬ 
 priest ’ still. The college originally consisted of the arch¬ 
 priest and five associates, who lived in community; but 
 only the head now remains. As the seat of an arch¬ 
 priest, Haccombe naturally used to claim exemption from 
 the authority of an archdeacon ; and Haccombe itself 
 was regarded as beyond the jurisdiction of any officers, 
 civil or military, and as being free, by royal grant, from 
 any taxes. Probably fewer changes as to population 
 have taken place here than in any other manor in Devon 
 which has developed into a parish. When Stephen held 
 it under Baldwin the Sheriff, it had a recorded population 
 of 15. It now contains simply the manor-house, rectory, 
 and farm; and the population is largely dependent upon 
 the residence of the family at the time of the census. 
 Normally, it is below 20; and at one enumeration it was 
 
310 History of Devonshire. 
 
 but 13. Stephen took name from his manor, and the 
 heiress of his family brought it to the Ercedeknes. By 
 marriage it then came through the Courtenays to its 
 present owners, the Carews. The church dates from the 
 thirteenth century, and contains some fine effigies of the 
 Haccombes, with brasses of the Carews, and a high 
 tomb which probably commemorates the Courtenay 
 owners—Hugh and Philippa, his wife. On the door of 
 the church were formerly four horse-shoes, relics, accord¬ 
 ing to the legend, of a wager made between a Carew and 
 a Champernowne, as to who would swim on horseback 
 the farthest to sea. Carew won the wager, and with it a 
 manor, and nailed the shoes of his horse to the church 
 door in ‘ everlasting remembrance.’ 
 
 Kings and Abbots Kerswill are so named from the 
 former being originally in the Crown, while the latter was 
 part of the estates of the Abbey of Torre. Coffinswell 
 adjoining, though named from the family of Coffin, was 
 also in part the property of the Abbey. Daccombe, here, 
 was the inheritance of a family of that name, and was 
 given by Jordan de Daccombe to the same house. At 
 Ivingsteignton are the principal clay-pits of the neigh¬ 
 bourhood. Like Teignweek, this manor carried with it a 
 moiety of the hundred of Teignbridge. Early in the 
 sixteenth century it came to the ancestors of the present 
 owner, Lord Clifford. Two sons of vicars of this parish 
 have gained some note—Theophilus Gale, a Noncon¬ 
 formist divine, born in 1628 ; and De Beeke, Dean of 
 Bristol, whose father held the vicarage for sixty-one years. 
 De Beeke was the discoverer of the Beekites in the local 
 Trias, thence named. Teigngrace takes name from the 
 Grace or Graas family, who succeeded the Briweres, after 
 whom it had been previously named Teign Briwere. 
 Stover is the Devonshire seat of the Dukes of Somerset. 
 Teigngrace Canal was made by the Templars, former 
 lords of the manor, for carriage of pipe-clay and granite. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 TEIGNMOUTH AND DAWLISH. 
 
 Teignmouth was evidently a place of resort in Saxon 
 times ; and the older annalists claim it as the scene of the 
 first landing of the Danes. But that took place near 
 Weymouth in the year 787; and it is many a long year 
 after this date ere any mention can be found of Teign¬ 
 mouth. The first distinct reference to the locality appears 
 to be the statement that in 1001 the Danes ‘ burned 
 Tegntun and also many other good hams, . . . and peace 
 was afterwards made there with them.’ This Tegntun 
 was not Teignmouth but Kingsteignton ; still there is fair 
 presumptive evidence that the germs, or something more 
 than the germs, of this pleasant little seaport then existed. 
 Thus much at least is clear, from a grant made by Ead¬ 
 weard the Confessor of certain lands which included what 
 is now East Teignmouth, that in the year 1044 there stood 
 at Teignmouth a church dedicated to St. Michael, while on 
 the bank of the estuary there were certain sheds used for 
 the manufacture of salt, called ‘ salterns/ St. Michael 
 stood in what was commonly recognised as the older part 
 of Teignmouth in the time of Leland. The old fabric 
 was destroyed in 1821. Its very peculiar architectural 
 arrangement, especially the singularly defensive character 
 and venerable appearance of its towers, favour the idea 
 that part at least of the ancient structure had remained 
 
3 12 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 from Saxon times; and that the fortress was quite as 
 prominent in the minds of its constructors as the church. 
 
 There have long been two Teignmouths in the one 
 town—East and West—and both for many centuries 
 belonged, the one to the See of Exeter and the other to 
 the Dean and Chapter. West Teignmonth was alienated 
 in 1549 by Bishop Veysey, and was for a time in the Cecils, 
 but has long been the property of the Cliffords. East 
 Teignmouth was sold early in the present century by the 
 Dean and Chapter, and is now the property of the Earl 
 of Devon, whose ancestors are said to have acquired the 
 manor of Teignmouth Courtenay temp. Edward III. 
 
 Teignmouth—speaking of the twin portions jointly— 
 was anciently regarded as a borough, and sent represen¬ 
 tatives to a shipping council under Edward I. The 
 market grant dates from 1253. The silver staff of the 
 portreeve has engraven thereon for arms, azure a saltire 
 gules between four fleur-de-lis converging. The Local 
 Board use a seal with the same device, and the legend: 
 ‘ SIGILL BURGHI TEIGNEMUTHIENSIS, 1002;’ possibly the 
 date refers to the descent of the Danes. 
 
 Teignmouth was one of the sufferers from the forays of 
 the French during the Middle Ages. Stowe declares that 
 it was ‘ burnt up ’ by them in 1340 ; but it is not quite 
 clear how that can have been, when we find it in 1347 
 sending seven ships and 120 sailors to the expedition 
 against Calais. For some centuries thereafter Teign¬ 
 mouth appears to have had an uneventful but a prosperous 
 career; depending largely, indeed mainly, upon fishing. 
 The salt with which the fish were cured continued to be 
 manufactured upon the spot so late as the year 1692, 
 operations having in all likelihood been carried on without 
 a break from Saxon times. 
 
 It was in 1690 that the most memorable event in the 
 history of Teignmouth happened. The French fleet were 
 lying in Torbay, where the forces of the county were 
 
Teignmouth and Dawlish. 
 
 3i3 
 
 drawn up to oppose their landing. Taking advantage of 
 this, certain of the galleys battered Teignmouth, follow¬ 
 ing up a bombardment of ‘ near two hundred great shot’ 
 by landing 1,700 men. The inhabitants, with that dis¬ 
 cretion which is so very much the better part of valour, 
 fled when the attack began, so that the invaders had an 
 easy victory. For three hours the town was ransacked 
 and plundered, and then fired, 116 houses being burnt, with 
 eleven vessels lying in the harbour. * Moreover,’ says a 
 MS. record of the disaster, written by Mr. Jordan, ‘to 
 add sacrilege to their robbery and violence, they in a 
 barbarous manner entered the two churches in the said 
 town, and in a most unchristian manner tore the Bibles 
 and Common Prayer Books in pieces, scattering the leaves 
 thereof about the streets, broke down the pulpits, over¬ 
 threw the communion-tables, together also with many 
 other marks of a barbarous and enraged cruelty; and 
 such goods and merchandise as they could not or dare 
 not stay to carry away for fear of our forces, which were 
 marching to oppose them, they spoiled and destroyed, 
 killing very many cattle and hogs, which they left dead 
 behind them in the streets.’ Something like a third of 
 the town was destroyed in this last invasion of Devon¬ 
 shire, and the loss sustained was computed at £11,030 
 6s. iod. A brief for the collection of this sum was read 
 in all the churches throughout the country, and the money 
 raised. The event is commemorated by the name French 
 Street, given to a part of the town destroyed and rebuilt. 
 
 Flowever, recovery was speedy. In 1744 the inhabi¬ 
 tants, by permission of Sir William Courtenay, built a 
 battery on the ‘ Den ’ at East Teignmouth ; and the port 
 is then said to have had a population of 4,000, and to fit 
 out twenty vessels for the Newfoundland trade. This 
 Den (= dune) is now a public lawn adjoining the beach. 
 
 Shaldon, a transfluvial suburb of Teignmouth, is partly 
 in Stokeinteignhead, and partly in Ringmore or St. 
 
3 T 4 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 Nicholas; but has no separate history of importance. 
 At Stokeinteignhead Church is one of the oldest brasses 
 in the county—to a priest, circa 1375. 
 
 At Radway, in Bishopsteignton, are the ruins of the 
 palace and chapel of the Bishops of Exeter, with whom 
 the ‘ Bishop’s-town-on-Teign ’ was for ages a favourite 
 retreat. This ‘ fair house ’ was built by Bishop Gr-andisson 
 in the early part of the fourteenth century. There is little 
 left now to indicate the character of what the bishop him¬ 
 self, in a letter to Pope John XXII., called a beautiful 
 structure, and described in his will as convenient and 
 costly buildings. The few remains form part of a farm¬ 
 house. Comparing Bishops with Kingsteignton — the 
 ‘ King’s-town-on-the-Teign ’— it has been wittily observed 
 that the preference shown by the prelates for the more 
 beautiful spot of the two, shows how superior the older 
 bishops were in discernment. However, Bishop Veysey 
 had to alienate it, like West Teignmouth, in favour of 
 Sir Andrew Dudley, so that royalty got the upper hand 
 after all. 
 
 The history of Dawlish begins in the reign of Eadweard 
 the Confessor, with the grant in 1044 by that King of 
 seven manses of land to his ‘ worthy chaplain ’ Leofric, 
 afterwards the first Bishop of Exeter. The grant was at 
 ‘ Doflisc,’ which Mr. J. B. Davidson, to whom we are 
 indebted for the full identification of the localities, read 
 as ‘ devil waterand it comprised not only Dawlish 
 but what is now the present parish of East Teignmouth 
 in addition, with almost absolute exactness. Two years 
 later Leofric succeeded Lyfing as Bishop of Crediton, 
 and four years later still removed to Exeter. After the 
 Conquest Leofric gave these lands to St. Peter’s Minster 
 as part of the endowments of his See. Becoming the 
 property of the Dean and Chapter, Dawlish was sold by 
 them, like East Teignmouth, early in the present century. 
 
Tcignmouth and Dawlish. 
 
 315 
 
 Hardly any town in Devon has so uneventful a history 
 as Dawlish. A village it remained all through the centuries, 
 with a fitful fishing and smuggling life, until something 
 like a hundred years ago its advantages as a bathing-place 
 gave a new direction to energies which, after all, only 
 needed to be encouraged. The one event in the history 
 of Dawlish is connected with this development. A number 
 of houses had been built by the side of the Dawlish Water, 
 which flows down the centre of the pleasant combe to the 
 sea, and several ‘ improvements ’ had been made, when, 
 on the night of November 9th, 1810, a sudden torrent 
 descending the valley from Haldon washed everything 
 away. This is ‘ the Flood ’ at Dawlish. Since then 
 Dawlish has enjoyed steady and substantial progress, and 
 has been made one of the most charming spots on the 
 coast. Luscombe, the seat of a branch of the Hoares 
 of Stourhead, a lovely domain, has a private chapel of 
 great richness and beauty, erected from the designs of Sir 
 Gilbert Scott. 
 
 Two chapels formerly existed in this parish, ruins of 
 which remain and to which certain traditions attach. 
 That at Cofton was in existence as early as 1376. Lidwell, 
 or Lithwyll, was dedicated to St. Mary. 
 
 In the adjoining parish of Mamhead is the seat of Sir 
 R. Newman. The manor passed through the Pomeroys, 
 Peverells, and Carews, to the Balles. Sir Peter Balle, 
 Recorder of Exeter and Attorney-General to Henrietta 
 Maria, rebuilt the house, and planted many trees. The 
 last member of that family erected an obelisk on Mamhead 
 Point in 1742, and added greatly to the beauty of the 
 place by his plantations. Mamhead is famed for its trees; 
 and here, it is said, the ilex oak was first grown in England 
 from acorns. Sir Peter Balle garrisoned his house for the 
 King, and, as his epitaph states, ‘suffered the usual fate 
 of loyalty.’ The present house was in great part rebuilt 
 by Wilmot, Earl of Lisburne. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 CHUDLEIGH AND BOVEY TRACEY. 
 
 Proeably Chudleigh is one of the numerous Leges of 
 ‘ Domesday,’ and therefore not to be certainly identified, 
 though it may be one of the two Chiderlies of the Count 
 of Moreton. We first find it an appendage to the See of 
 Exeter, saddled with the duty of providing twelve wood¬ 
 cocks, or in lieu thereof twelve pence, for the bishop’s 
 election dinner; and Bishop Stapledon in 1309 obtained 
 the grant of a market. There was an episcopal palace, 
 of which a few fragments yet exist, and here it was that 
 Bishop Lacy died in 1455. The church had been dedi¬ 
 cated by Bronescombe in 1259. The manor was alienated 
 by Veysey in 1550, and came to its owners, the Cliffords, 
 then of their present seat of Ugbrooke, in 1695. 
 
 Ugbrooke is said to have been attached to the precentor- 
 ship of Exeter Cathedral until, in the sixteenth century, 
 it passed to Sir Peter Courtenay, by whose daughter and 
 coheiress, Anne, it was brought to her husband, Anthony 
 Clifford of Borscombe, Wilts, a younger branch of the 
 famous Cliffords of Cumberland. He was the ancestor of 
 the Ugbrooke house, the first distinguished member of 
 which was the celebrated Lord Treasurer, Clifford of the 
 Cabal (1630-1673), whom Charles in 1672 created Baron 
 Clifford of Chudleigh. 
 
 Chudleigh supplied quarters to Fairfax in January, 
 
Chudleigh and Bovey Tracey. 
 
 3i7 
 
 1646; and the only incidents of local note in its history 
 have been its fires. The most disastrous of these occurred 
 May 22, 1807, when 166 houses, nearly half the total 
 number, were destroyed, and damage done to the extent 
 of £60,000. An Act of Parliament was passed in the 
 following year for the more easy rebuilding of the town 
 and determining differences, and £21,000 was subscribed 
 for the relief of the poorer inhabitants. 
 
 The scenery of Ugbrooke has been justly characterized 
 as an epitome of that of the county; and not far from 
 Chudleigh is a bold crag of limestone, called Chudleigh 
 Rock, in which are a couple of caverns. One of these is 
 associated with the folk-lore of the district as the Pixie’s 
 Hole, and with science by having yielded remains of the 
 (locally) extinct cave mammalia. 
 
 Ashton was for over four centuries the residence of the 
 Chudleigh family, who lived at Place. The manor was 
 given by the Conqueror to Hervey de Helion, and held at 
 ‘ Domesday ’ by his wife. It came to the Chudleighs 
 about 1320. Sir George Chudleigh, the first baronet, 
 sided with the Parliament when the Civil War broke out, 
 and took part in the battle of Stratton. Not long after 
 he changed sides, and had his house garrisoned in the 
 Royalist interest. It was taken by a party of Fairfax’s 
 army in December, 1645; and Colonel James Chudleigh, 
 Sir George’s eldest son, was killed at the storming of 
 Dartmouth in the following month, when Place was a 
 garrison for the Parliament. The Chudleigh baronetcy 
 ended in 1745, when Sir James Chudleigh was killed at 
 the siege of Ostend. 
 
 Another notable Cavalier garrison in this locality was 
 Canonteign, or Christow ; and it, too, was stormed and 
 taken by Fairfax’s troops in December, 1645. The 
 Roundhead Governor was Colonel Okey, executed at the 
 Restoration as a regicide. Christow belonged to the 
 Abbey of Bee. On the seizure of the property of the 
 
History of Devonshire. 
 
 318 
 
 alien priories it passed to the Abbey of Tavistock ; and at 
 the Dissolution came, with other possessions of that 
 house, to Lord Russell. Canonteign belonged to another 
 alien house—that of De la Valle ; but was granted by the 
 fraternity, circa 1268, to Merton, Surrey. At the Dis¬ 
 solution this also came to Lord Russell. Another estate 
 in the parish—Pope House—belonged to the Priory of 
 Cowick. The manors of Christow and Canonteign, after 
 passing through various hands, came to the Helyars; and 
 were purchased, in 1812, by Sir Edward Pellew, after¬ 
 wards created Viscount Exmouth. 
 
 Hennock Church was given to the Abbey of Torre in 
 the reign of Richard I. by Philip de Salmonville. Bottor 
 Rock, on ‘ the authority of the peasantry,’ was a seat of 
 ‘ Druidical worship.’ With better grounds it is to be 
 regarded as a genuine hill-fort of great age. At Lustleigh 
 church-door is, however, an antiquity of much greater 
 interest—a threshold-stone of Romano-British date, in¬ 
 scribed catvidoc conrino. The Prouzes, sometime 
 lords of Lustleigh, are commemorated by a cross-legged 
 effigy of Sir Wm. Prouz, temp. Edward II. ; and there 
 are a couple of figures ascribed to Sir John Dynham and 
 his wife Emma. 
 
 Bovey Tracey has a history which, could it be fully 
 worked out, would in all probability throw considerable 
 light upon early village life in the county. The * Domes¬ 
 day ’ entry is notable ; for there can be no doubt that 
 this is the * Bovi ’ held by Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances, 
 in succession to Edric, with its 32 serfs, villeins, and 
 bordars, its mill, and its added lands of 15 thanes, who 
 retained between them two hides and half a virgate, 
 paying therefore four pounds and thirty pence. The 
 manor came to the Tracys, whence its distinctive name, 
 as part of the barony of Barnstaple ; and Henry Tracy 
 obtained grant of market and fair in 1259. This was one 
 
Chudleigh and Bovey Tracey. 
 
 3*9 
 
 of the Devonshire manors held by Margaret of Richmond, 
 and has been in the Courtenays since 1747. 
 
 Bovey Heathfield is remarkable, geologically and 
 economically, for its deposits of clay and lignite, or wood- 
 coal. These are of Lower Miocene age, and fill the bed 
 of an ancient lake. The association of clay and coal led 
 to the establishment in 1772 of a pottery at Indiho (the 
 house is traditionally said to be of monastic origin), which 
 has been continued to the present time, though the lignite 
 is no longer used for firing. 
 
 Bovey had a ‘ mayor,’ and a customary mayor’s show, 
 though this officer was really the portreeve. At each annual 
 manor court a bailiff and portreeve were elected, and the 
 bailiff of one year was the portreeve of the next. The set 
 day for the ‘mayor’s riding’ was the Monday after the 
 3rd of May, called ‘ Roodmas Dayand to properly 
 discharge the duties of his office, the portreeve had the 
 profits of a field called ‘ Portreeve’s Park.’ 
 
 One of the few incidents of note connected with 
 Cromwell’s visit in 1646 with Fairfax to the West of 
 England, occurred at Bovey Tracey. He had marched 
 from Tiverton through Crediton, and by the Teign valley 
 towards Chudleigh, and suddenly fell upon one of Lord 
 Wentworth’s brigades at Bovey. The Royalists were all 
 unaware of danger, and the officers were playing cards 
 to pass the time, instead of keeping a sharp look-out; 
 when suddenly, without warning, just as night had fallen 
 in, Cromwell’s troopers came upon the scene. The officers 
 are credited with great presence of mind. Defence was 
 out of the question ; so they opened the windows, threw 
 the stakes for which they were playing among the 
 Roundheads, and, during the scramble for the silver, 
 escaped by the back-door. Not so their men, some 80 
 of whom were captured, besides 400 horse and several 
 colours. There was an end, thenceforward, of all hope 
 of successful resistance in the field. 
 
CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 MORETONHAMPSTEAD AND CHAGFORD. 
 
 Until Moretonhampstead was made a railway station, 
 and Chagford had developed into a favourite moorland 
 health-resort, no two country towns in Devon had a more 
 thoroughly old-world character. It was within the 
 memory, indeed, of the late Sir John Bowring that the 
 only wheeled vehicle ever seen in Moretonhampstead was 
 a wheelbarrow, and its communications with the outer 
 world were either by foot, pack-horse, or pillion. The 
 pillion lingered on much later, and seeing that the lady, 
 riding behind the gentleman, had to clasp him closely for 
 security at any rough part of the road, it is a wonder that 
 with all its inconveniences it has not survived. The 
 custom supplied a pleasant comment for an old Devon¬ 
 shire vicar, on the text of the man who had married a wife 
 and could not attend the feast, ‘ A vain excuse, my friends 
 —a vain excuse ! he could have brought her behind him 
 on a pillion !’ 
 
 There is extant an amusing but utterly absurd tradition 
 of the foundation of Moreton, as it is now commonly 
 called for brevity, by a party of Flemings in three sections, 
 consisting of the ‘ Moortown,’ the ‘ ham,’ and the ‘stead.’ 
 It has just thus much of truth, that the place once pos¬ 
 sessed a considerable serge manufacture, in which pro¬ 
 bably Flemings had some interest. Moreton, however, is 
 
Muretonhampstead and Chagford. 321 
 
 far older than the woollen trade, for it appears in 
 ‘ Domesday ’ as a royal manor, which had belonged to 
 Harold, to which pertained the third penny of the 
 hundred of Teignbridge, and which had a population of 
 twenty-eight. Under Edward I. the Earl of Ulster held 
 it by the render of a sparrow-hawk, but for several 
 centuries it has belonged to the Courtenays. Hugh de 
 Courtenay obtained a market grant in 1335. According 
 to the Lysonses, the manor of Daccombe, belonging to the 
 Dean and Chapter of Canterbury, had the custom of free 
 bench, and the lord was obliged to keep a cucking-stool 
 for the use of scolding women. An ancient Baptist 
 (Unitarian) Society here is traditionally said to have 
 existed since the reign of Mary, and to have furnished 
 members of the roll of martyrs. This would make it the 
 oldest Nonconformist congregation in the county ; but 
 the oldest of which the origin is certainly known is the 
 Baptist church at Tiverton, which dates from 1600. The 
 woollen manufacture and the intercourse with the Low 
 Countries consequent thereon, led easily to the introduc¬ 
 tion of Reformed views of religion into Devon. 
 
 A notable old poorhouse (1637) still remains at Moreton; 
 and a field near the church is called the Sentry, quasi- 
 Sanctuary. 
 
 Though the documentary evidence for the early history 
 of Chagford is very slight, there are sufficient proofs in 
 the rude-stone monuments of the locality to give it high 
 antiquity; and in the traces of ancient mining to show 
 that its selection as a stannary town had been preceded 
 by long centuries of enterprise. Tin mining, indeed, was 
 so prominent an occupation that the tinners were tithed, 
 and each ‘ spallier,’ or spade labourer, paid annually his 
 ‘ shovell penny.’ For many a long year Chagford seems 
 to have steadily thriven, and to have developed a sturdy 
 independence of character that its comparative isolation 
 on the borders of Dartmoor greatly helped to maintain. 
 
 21 
 
322 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 Within a very few years it was the quaintest of all the 
 moorland centres ; but its greater accessibility as a summer 
 resort has hopelessly modernized its leading features. 
 Nor is this to be wondered at. So delightful are its sur¬ 
 roundings in the summer-time, and so proud are the 
 natives of its attractions, common rumour avers that 
 if a Chagford man is then asked where he lives, his sharp 
 retort is, ‘Chagford, and what do you think?’ Butin 
 winter, so depressed is he by the change of conditions, 
 the rejoinder will be * Chaggyford, good Lord !’ The 
 joke is an old one, but an apt illustration of the sharply 
 contrasted conditions of the moorland climate. 
 
 A scarce black-letter tract tells the ‘ True Relation of 
 the Accident at Chagford in Devonshire.’ The market- 
 house fell in ‘ presently after dinner,’ upon a ‘ tin court 
 daie,’ and Mr. Eveleigh, the steward, with nine others, 
 died. This is the chief event in the purely local history-, 
 and Chagford has only one link of importance with 
 matters of national concern. It lay too much out of the 
 ordinary course of traffic to be greatly moved even when 
 ‘ civil dudgeon ’ grew most high ; and yet it was at a 
 skirmish here, in 1642, that Sidney Godolphin fell. 
 
 Of the families connected with Chagford, the most im¬ 
 portant are the Prouzes and the Whyddons. The Cople- 
 stones at one time held the manor, and by Master Cople- 
 stone the markets were sold to the town in 1564. The 
 Gorges, too, must have had an interest in the parish, from 
 the frequent occurrence of their arms on the roof-bosses 
 in the parish church, which was originally dedicated in 
 1261. Chagford was then held by Thomas de Chagford, 
 and he, in 1299, sold it to Simon de Wibbery, whose 
 descendants held it for nigh two centuries. Of the 
 Whyddons the most notable was the eminent judge, Sir 
 John, Serjeant-at-Law under Edward VI., and Judge of 
 the Queen’s Bench in the first year of Mary. He died 
 January 27, 1575, and his monument forms one of the 
 
Moretonhampstead and Chag ford. 
 
 323 
 
 leading features of Chagford Church. Whyddon Park is 
 a stretch of broken shaggy moorland hillside descending 
 to the Teign. 
 
 That Gidleigh gave name to the family of Gidley is 
 certain, but whether it came to them by a grant from 
 ‘ one Martine Duke and Earl of Cornwall ’ to ‘ his nephew, 
 Giles de Gidleigh,’ as Westcote affirms, may be doubted, 
 and certainly cannot now be proved. The family of Prouz, 
 who were associated with the manor and built a castle 
 here in early Edwardian times, of which the shell yet 
 remains, are said to have acquired it by marriage with 
 the heiress of Giles de Gidleigh ; and, as one of the 
 Prouzes is stated to have been steward to Richard, King 
 of the Romans, it is not difficult to see how Westcote’s 
 story may have arisen. After the line of Prouz and 
 their successors had long passed away, a Gidley, if not 
 the Gidley family, came back again, and for awhile the 
 manor was once more in the old name. Bartholomew 
 Gidley (died 1686) was a local Royalist leader of note. 
 
 The district is one of the chief centres of the Druid- 
 ical superstition of last-century antiquaries and their 
 followers. Holy Street, in Gidleigh, giving title to the 
 mill first painted by Creswick, and since his day by 
 hundreds of artists, has been regarded as a Druidical 
 via sacra purely on the score of its name, which in all 
 probability indicates simply an ancient ‘ hollow ’ road. 
 But this via sacra is very mild etymology when com¬ 
 pared with the arguments used by Polwhele to prove 
 Drewsteignton a Druidical ‘capital,’ by reading it ‘ Druid’s- 
 town-on-Teign.’ Drewsteignton, as such, is not to be 
 found in ‘ Domesday;’ but from the extent of woodland 
 is probably the Taintone held by Baldwin the Sheriff, in 
 succession to Offers. The prefix unquestionably comes 
 from Drogo or Drewe, who held the manor in the 
 reigns of Henry II. and Richard I. 
 
 The place has, however, substantial claims to anti¬ 
 quarian celebrity. Here stands, on a farm called Shil- 
 
 21—2 
 
324 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 stone, the only cromlech left in Devon, which once formed 
 the central feature of a group of stone circles and avenues. 
 It fell in January, 1862, and was ‘restored’ in the same 
 year. Though the ‘ quoit ’ is two feet thick, fifteen in 
 length, and ten in breadth, a builder and a carpenter of 
 Chagford, by the aid of pulleys and a screw-jack, re¬ 
 placed it at a cost of £20 ; and thus very much reduced 
 the vague wonder that commonly attaches to the erection 
 of such structures. The village tradition is that the 
 ‘ Spinster’s Rock,’ as it is called, was erected by three 
 spinsters one morning before breakfast; and these have 
 been suggested as the Valkyriur. Bradford Pool close by, 
 with the cromlech, and with a logan stone in the bed of 
 the Teign, at Whyddon Park, have all been ‘ prayed in aid ’ 
 of the Druidical hypothesis: but the pool is only a col¬ 
 lection of water in an old mining excavation, and the 
 logan, like scores of others on the adjacent moors, is of 
 purely natural origin. It is quite possible that Shilstone 
 estate took name from the cromlech as ‘ Shelfstone;’ and 
 there was a Selvestan held by Osbern de Salceid in suc¬ 
 cession to Edric, which would suit the locality, and which 
 is moreover remarkable for having adjacent a virgate of 
 land that nobody— nemo —held T.R.E. 
 
 There is other evidence in the fine hill-forts of Cran 
 brook and Prestonbury, which command the gorge of 
 the Teign at Fingle Bridge, that the neighbourhood was 
 an important one in Keltic times. 
 
 Great Fulford, in the parish of Dunsford, has been the 
 seat of the notable family of Fulford, literally from ‘ time 
 immemorial;’ and of no other house in Devon can it be 
 suggested with so much probability that 
 
 “When the Conqueror came it was at home.” 
 
 Direct history, at least, takes us back to the reign of 
 Richard I.; and ‘ Domesday ’ shows a connection with 
 the manor of Bovi, already cited as being held by Geoffrey, 
 Bishop of Coutances, and as having attached thereto the 
 
Moretonhampstecid and Chag ford. 
 
 325 
 
 lands of fifteen thanes. One of the estates held by these 
 thanes is Filauefford ; so that there is good evidence in 
 1086 that the Saxon owners of Great Fulford had not been 
 dispossessed ; while the parent stock of Fulfords were 
 certainly there within a century. The other Folcford of 
 
 * Domesday,’ held by Motbert under Baldwin the Sheriff, 
 was a small manor, identifiable with Little Fulford in 
 Shobrooke. Be all this as it may, among the most dis¬ 
 tinguished Crusaders of the West were Sir William, Sir 
 Baldwin, and Sir Amias de Fulford. In the Wars of the 
 Roses the Fulfords took the Lancastrian side; and Sir 
 Baldwin, who fought at Towton, was beheaded at Hexham, 
 in 1461. But the family remained true, and his son, Sir 
 Thomas, was attainted for espousing the cause of the 
 Earl of Richmond, in 1483. He also took part in the 
 relief of Exeter, when it was besieged by Perkin Warbeck, 
 in 1497. The forfeiture only lasted a couple of years. 
 
 In the Wars of the Commonwealth, as was to be ex¬ 
 pected, the Fulfords were staunch Royalists; and Colonel, 
 subsequently Sir Francis, Fulford made Fulford a royal 
 garrison. His son Thomas was killed in the service ; and 
 in December, 1645, the house was taken by Fairfax, and 
 placed under the command of Colonel Okey. The mansion 
 is, in the main, Elizabethan, and contains a royal recog¬ 
 nition of the family loyalty in a portrait of Charles I. 
 
 Near the village of Manaton is a curious pile of rocks, 
 called ‘ Bowerman’s Nose,’ the natural effect of weather¬ 
 ing upon cubical-jointed granite. This has been deemed 
 a rock idol, and held to have taken name from a certain 
 Bowerman, who, according to a supposed ‘ Domesday ’ 
 entry that no one has been able to find since it was first 
 
 * discovered ’ half a century since, held the manor. But 
 Bowerman is only the Keltic Veor ( maur ) maen = the 
 
 * great rock,’ as Manaton is Maen y dun — the ‘rocky hill.’ 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 DARTMOOR. 
 
 The great central waste of Devon, itself as large as many 
 a county, has a history of its own. Its features are now 
 so marked that we are apt to regard it as having always 
 borne its distinctive character ; and much error has arisen 
 by reasoning from this false premise. Gaunt and bare 
 the higher regions of Dartmoor were throughout the 
 Stone and Bronze periods, and so are still; but its 
 valleys and outskirts, in the days of its most ancient 
 dwellers, were indistinguishable in natural characteristics 
 from the county at large. Woods and heaths, broken 
 only in their gloomy monotony by strips of water-made 
 meadow skirting the wider river-courses, were the lead¬ 
 ing features, not of Dartmoor and its borders only, but of 
 all Devonia ; and the scanty population was scattered in¬ 
 differently through its wilds. Dartmoor is simply the last 
 refuge of the traces of these ancient days—a prehistoric 
 island, girdled and wasted by the encroaching waves of 
 an aggressive civilization. The very name is a proof of 
 later differentiation. Dunmonia, Deuffnynt, the ‘ Land 
 of Hills,’ or the ‘ Land of Deep Valleys,’ whichever may 
 be accepted as the parent of the modern ‘ Devon,’ are but 
 two modes of expressing the same physical features, the 
 ancient names of Dartmoor and the shire alike. Only 
 when clearing and enclosure had given an artificial 
 
Dartmoor. 
 
 3 2 7 
 
 character to the lowlands did the upland country receive 
 its distinctive name. The fact that the Saxons called the 
 north of Devon the North Hams (Jiam = dwelling), and the 
 south the South Hams, is a proof of the unpeopled 
 character of Dartmoor in the Saxon period ; and it is at 
 least possible, indeed very probable, that the majority 
 of the British settlements on Dartmoor, the traces of 
 which still exist, were formed by the Kelts as they were 
 pushed back by the encroachments of the Saxon colonists. 
 Moreover, Dartmoor is a name that must have been given 
 by men who were more familiar with the Dart than with 
 any other of the numerous rivers that descend from its 
 plateau on all sides. The early history of Dartmoor is 
 very far as yet from having been fully traced. Passed 
 over in ‘ Domesday,’ not afforested with certainty until 
 the twelfth century, there appears good evidence that it is 
 the remnant of an extended area of national or folk-land. 
 A peculiar right of commonage continues known as 
 Venville tenure—which is accompanied also by feudal 
 service—enjoyed by residents in the parishes skirting the 
 Moor. And this in all likelihood dates from Saxon times 
 {wang = field in Saxon, and Wangefield is an early form of 
 Venville), and represents the rights of common which the 
 Saxon dwellers in the border district had enjoyed over 
 the moorland waste, and which, maintained after the 
 Conquest, have descended to the present day. 
 
 But we are here dealing with a comparatively modern 
 period in the history of Dartmoor. This great waste has 
 been pronounced by Mr. Lukis unrivalled in this country 
 in the extent and character of its rude-stone monuments 
 —its menhirs, lines, circles, huts, trackways, pounds. No 
 doubt, like the barrows, with which these remains are in 
 part contemporary, the construction of these primitive 
 structures did continue even beyond the dawn of historic 
 times ; but they too, like the barrows, stretch back into a 
 grey antiquity, the dimness of which we cannot penetrate. 
 
328 
 
 History of Devonsiiire. 
 
 The * hut-rings ’ are small circular heaps of stones 
 which formed the foundations of rude dwellings; the 
 ‘ pounds ’ are much larger enclosures, which commonly 
 surround or are associated with the rings. Both are found 
 in considerable numbers in almost every part of the Moor. 
 We have here dwellings and fortified or protected villages, 
 but with little to date them by. Hovels as rude, and 
 erected much upon the same plan, may be seen on the Moor 
 now. These traces of ancient habitation are very frequent 
 on the slopes overlooking the Dartmoor rivers, the beds 
 of which have been * streamed,’ as it is called, for tin, and 
 here represent the settlements of the ancient tinners, 
 stretching in some cases with little interval for miles along 
 the valleys. But if the hut-rings merge into the rude moor¬ 
 land dwellings of our own day in one direction, on the 
 other they are linked with relics of which no tradition 
 preserves the purpose—with * menhirs ’ and ‘ lines,’ or 
 ‘ avenues,’ with the so-called ‘ sacred circles,’ and the 
 ‘ cromlechs,’ all or nearly all of which appear to be con¬ 
 nected with, or to mark, interments. 
 
 One of the most notable groups of these remains is at 
 Merrivale Bridge, where there are large numbers of hut 
 and other rings, associated with stone avenues, or ‘ paral- 
 lelitha,’ and upright stones, or ‘ menhirs.’ The series is 
 commonly known by the name of the Plague Market, from 
 a tradition that they were used as a market when Tavi¬ 
 stock was attacked by the plague. The stones of these 
 * avenues ’ are small, and this is the case with most of the 
 others, which are commonly associated with well-defined 
 and accepted sepulchral monuments. Too much impor¬ 
 tance, however, has been attached to this special class 
 of remains ; there are ancient stone-faced hedges on Dart¬ 
 moor, which, when the earth is removed, present ‘ avenues ’ 
 precisely identical with those of Merrivale, and ‘ track¬ 
 lines or boundary banks,’ primitive fences, are common 
 wherever there are traces of ancient habitation. 
 
Dartmoor. 
 
 329 
 
 On Torhill, near the great central ‘trackway’—the 
 ancient Fosseway, traversing the Moor from east to west 
 —are traces of an extensive settlement, possibly the 
 Ravennat’s Termonin. 
 
 The finest ‘ pound ’ on the Moor is the enclosed and 
 fortified village of Grimspound, on the flank of Hamildon, 
 which gives the structural relics of an ancient settlement 
 in an almost perfect state. The only cromlech in the 
 county is that at Drewsteignton, already described. The 
 word ‘ cromlech,’ by the way, has always been applied in 
 the West of England to what is more generally known to 
 archaeologists as a ‘ dolmen.’ Of the ordinary cromlechs, 
 or ‘ circles ’ of detached stones, Dartmoor supplies several 
 examples. The largest is the Grey Wethers, near Sit- 
 taford Tor. Commonly called sacred circles, and frequently 
 classed with the rude-stone monuments generally as 
 * Druidical,’ the fact yet remains that they are always 
 either definitely associated with interments, or presumably 
 so; while neither Devonshire nor the West of England, 
 except in the active imaginations of the antiquaries of 
 the last century and their followers, has ever yielded a 
 scrap of evidence to connect them with the supposed 
 Druidical priesthood, whose existence in Britain depends 
 upon the hearsay report of Caesar. The really historic 
 Druids of the Kelts were simple ‘ medicine-men;’ or, as 
 Mr. W. C. Borlase defines them, ‘magicians and white 
 witchesand neither history, tradition, nor folk-lore 
 yields any trace of their existence in the West. 
 
 The commonest form of presumed Druidical memorial 
 on Dartmoor is the ‘ rock basin.’ The granite crests of 
 the hills of the moorland, known as ‘ tors,’ are dotted 
 with hollows of various sizes, which were held to have 
 been hewn out by the Druids, either to catch the blood of 
 their victims sacrificed on imaginary altar stones, or to 
 collect the pure waters from heaven for their religious or 
 magical rites. Unluckily the geologist has decided that 
 
330 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 these basins—and some are of very remarkable dimen¬ 
 sions—are of natural origin ; and the Druids have never 
 recovered from the shock. It is the same with the 
 rocking or ‘ logan ’ stones. These are simply masses of 
 weathered granite, nicely poised by the cunning hand of 
 nature. Of many such upon Dartmoor, perhaps the best 
 example is the ‘ Nutcrackers ’ at Lustleigh Cleave. 
 
 The geology of Dartmoor, indeed, has had a very 
 marked influence upon its archaeology. In the main it is 
 a great granitic plateau, broken by numerous valleys, and 
 dotted with the rocky peaks of the * tors.’ The granite is 
 jointed, often with considerable regularity, and weathers 
 into masses and piles irresistibly suggestive of Cyclopean 
 masonry; while the hillsides are bestrewn for miles with 
 huge boulders and blocks. These supplied the material 
 of the ancient hut-circles and pounds, and they supply the 
 material also of modern dwellings and boundaries, which 
 have thence a rude and massive character. So with the 
 moorland churches. Built almost wholly of granite— 
 wall and mullion, tracery and pillar, crocket and arch— 
 they have a style peculiarly their own, based upon the 
 rugged and intractable stone of which they are reared. 
 
 Some of the most remarkable features in the history of 
 Dartmoor are associated with its mining enterprise. Tin¬ 
 mining in Devon and in Cornwall not only dates from a 
 period of very remote antiquity, beyond the dawn of history, 
 but the earliest records present it in the light of an orga¬ 
 nized industry carried on by men who formed a kind of 
 corporation, bound to certain duties, and endowed with 
 certain privileges. Originally the whole of the tin-miners 
 of Devon and of Cornwall formed one body, and met for 
 the regulation of their affairs upon Hingston Down. 
 Later the two counties were divided, and the tinners of 
 Devon had their own ‘ parliament ’—as it was called— 
 meeting in the open-air on Crockern Tor, which rises in 
 the heart of the ancient mining district, immediately 
 
Dartmoor. 
 
 33i 
 
 above Two Bridges. So far as history extends, the tin¬ 
 mining areas of the West of England—the Stannaries— 
 have always been an appanage of the Crown, passing to 
 the Duchy of Cornwall upon its creation; but this 
 gathering upon ‘ deserted Crockern ’ carries us back long 
 before the Conquest, to the primitive assemblies at least 
 of our Saxon forefathers. Toll of tin used to be paid to 
 the Crown or to the Duchy, and for the collection of this 
 toll it was enacted that all tin should be weighed and 
 ‘coined’ at certain Stannary towns. The coinage con¬ 
 sisted simply in striking off a corner (Fr. coin) of each 
 block to ascertain its character, and in stamping it with 
 the royal or Duchy arms in token that the quality was 
 right and the dues paid. The earliest Stannary record 
 dates in 1197, when some such system had evidently been 
 long in operation. Chagford, Ashburton, and Tavistock, 
 the oldest-named coinage towns, are mentioned as such 
 two years later. John granted the tinners a charter in 
 1201 ; and in 1305 Edward I. recognised the separation 
 of the tinners of Devon and Cornwall as two distinct 
 bodies, and appointed Lydford as the Stannary prison for 
 Devon. Not long after this Plympton became one of the 
 coinage towns. The system of tin coinage continued in 
 force with little variation until abolished by Act of 
 Parliament in 1838. Under the old Stannary laws the 
 tinners had very remarkable powers, extending so far in 
 Devon as the right to dig for tin in any man’s land, 
 without tribute or satisfaction ; and it is probable that 
 the Crockern Tor Parliament was quite as much con¬ 
 cerned in the assertion of these rights against the public 
 as in regulating internal concerns. There was one rather 
 serious provision against adulteration of tin, but with 
 that exception the tinners had matters well-nigh their 
 own way. The adulterator had a certain number of 
 spoonfuls of the melted metal poured down his throat! 
 
 The Parliament which sat on Crockern Tor consisted of 
 
332 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 twenty-four * Stannators ’ from each of the four Stannaries 
 of the county, elected in the court of that Stannary, It met 
 when summoned by the Lord Warden, and was generally 
 presided over by the Vice-Warden. Seats were wrought 
 in the living granite (unhappily almost every vestige is 
 now destroyed), and here under the open canopy of 
 heaven the ancient court for centuries did its work. In 
 later days luxury crept in, and it was held sufficient to 
 open commission and swear-in the jurors upon the bleak 
 hill-crest, and then adjournment was made to one of the 
 Stannary towns. These Parliaments ceased to be held 
 early in the last century, though the local Stannary courts 
 survived. At that time—and probably there had been no 
 deviation from the ancient practice—the election of the 
 jurats was by universal Stannary' suffrage, all tinners, tin- 
 bounders, owners of tin and works, and adventurers in 
 the same, and all spalyers or labourers, and other persons 
 concerned in tin or tin works, being summoned to be 
 personally present and take part in the election. The 
 Stannary Court (reformed) is now held at Truro, dealing 
 with mines generally within the old Stannary district, and 
 not simply with those of tin. The judge is the Vice- 
 Warden. We have here, then, an example of the 
 continuance of an ancient local law court from times 
 bey'ond record. It is quite possible that the court of the 
 Stannaries is the oldest extant jurisdiction in the kingdom. 
 
 The forest of Dartmoor has always been appendant, 
 from the earliest record, to the royal manor of Lydford ; 
 and long continued wholly' within Ly'dford parish. There 
 are records of the perambulations of the forest, and of 
 the forest boundaries, as early as 1240. All lands in 
 Devonshire, except Dartmoor and Exmoor, had been 
 disafforested by John in 1203 or 1204 ; but Dartmoor was 
 rigidly preserved, and there appears to be good incidental 
 evidence of the rigorous manner in which the savage forest 
 laws were enforced in the old saying anent ‘ Lydford law,’ 
 already noted. The term ‘ forest ’ must be understood 
 
Dartmoor. 
 
 333 
 
 strictly in the legal sense. Dartmoor at present contains 
 one patch of ancient woodland—Wistman’s Wood, near 
 Two Bridges—a wild, weird grove of stunted oaks of vast 
 antiquity springing among granite blocks; but though 
 evidently once much more wooded than now, the greater 
 part of the moorland area must always have been rocky 
 and barren. Wistman’s Wood has been read ‘the Wood 
 of Wisemen,’ i.e., Druids. There is little doubt it is the 
 Keltic uisg-maen-coed = ‘ the rocky wood by the water.’ 
 
 The most important step in the history of the Moor 
 was taken when, early in the present century, Prince 
 Town, the moorland capital, was founded, at the sug¬ 
 gestion of Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt, Lord Warden, by the 
 erection of a prison for the accommodation of the French 
 prisoners of war, then crowding the hulks at Plymouth 
 Dock. While the war lasted, Prince Town—named from 
 the Prince Regent—throve and grew; when the war 
 ceased, the prison and the houses which had sprung up 
 around it were deserted, and the little town fell into ruin. 
 At one time an attempt was made to utilize the prison 
 for manufacturing purposes, by adapting it to the distilla¬ 
 tion of naphtha from the peat; but this did not prove 
 commercially successful, and the place was again aban¬ 
 doned, until the present convict establishment was formed 
 in 1855. The prison farm shows of what Dartmoor is 
 really capable. Not far distant is a good example of what 
 is called on the Moor a * clapper bridge,’ of unknown 
 antiquity, slabs of granite on piled piers of granite blocks. 
 
 A cross upon a pedestal raised on a basement of three 
 steps, which stood on the Moor near Fox Tor, popularly 
 bore the name of Childe’s Tomb; and was said to have 
 been erected in memory of a luckless hunter of that name, 
 who perished in a snow-storm at or near the spot. The 
 structure was perfect seventy years since. The legend 
 is a very curious one, and while it cannot be accepted as 
 historic fact, does seem to embody some traces of Teutonic 
 
334 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 myth. Risdon mentions Childe’s Tomb as one of the 
 three wonders of the Moor (Crockern Tor and Wistman’s 
 Wood are the others) ; and the story, as commonly ac¬ 
 cepted, is that Childe lived at Plymstock ; that being over¬ 
 taken by a snow-storm, he killed and disembowelled his 
 horse, and crept into the cavity for warmth ; and finally 
 wrote the following couplet in blood and died : 
 
 ‘ The fyrste that fyndes and brings me to my grave, 
 
 The lands of Plymstoke they shal have.’ * 
 
 And then it is told how the monks of Tavistock and 
 the people of Plymstock both heard of the sad event; 
 how the monks obtained the body, and were bringing 
 it to their Abbey, when they heard that the Plymstock 
 men were lying in ambush to take it from them at a ford 
 on the Tavy ; and how they had a bridge built out of 
 the usual track and so evaded their rivals, whence the 
 bridge was called ‘ Guile Bridge.’ And thus, it is said, 
 the Abbey of Tavistock obtained the rich Manor of Plym¬ 
 stock. The baselessness of the whole ingenious fabric is 
 proved by the fact that the Manor of Plymstock belonged 
 to the Abbey of Tavistock before the Conquest, some 
 centuries before the date assigned to Childe ; but apart 
 from this, the story as it stands is inconsistent and im¬ 
 possible. The delay that must have taken place in the 
 removal to enable the Plymstock people to learn of the 
 death in time to intercept the monks ; the fact that Guile 
 Bridge really replaced a ford to the Abbey, on the direct 
 road to the Abbey Church ; the inadequacy of the time 
 at disposal for building such a structure, and its unneces¬ 
 sary character, seeing that the river could be forded— 
 each of these points in itself is sufficient to show the 
 unhistoric character of the legend. The ‘ Guile ’ is 
 manifestly a corruption. 
 
 6 Or : ‘ He that finds and brings me to my tomb, 
 
 The Land of Plemstock shall be his doom.’ 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 DIALECT AND FOLK-LORE. 
 
 West-Country English has a very peculiar interest in its 
 historical relations. It was not merely in the spirit of 
 enthusiasm that Charles Kingsley, himself by accident of 
 birth a Devonshire man, exclaimed, ‘Glorious West- 
 Country ! you must not despise their accent, for it is the 
 remains of a nobler and purer dialect than our own.’ 
 Devonshire speech, in fact—as one of its greatest living 
 masters, Mr. F. T. Elworthy, has shown—is ‘ the true 
 classic English.’ ‘ We all know that the English of 
 Alfred’s time, or, as it is called, the Anglo-Saxon, is the 
 groundwork upon which our modern English has been 
 built up. But Alfred’s own variety was in his day the 
 polite, the courtly, the only recognised literary—in fact, 
 the standard form of speech ; and Alfred was, as we all 
 know, a West-Country man, speaking in West-Country, 
 most likely Devonshire style.’ Caedmon and Beda had 
 long passed away, and until the year noo the language of 
 Alfred remained the only written English. 
 
 From about noo to the beginning of the fourteenth 
 century Southern English still held a prominent position 
 in the vernacular literature of the country, though several 
 writers in the Midland dialect from time to time arose. In 
 the fourteenth century, however, a change came. Wycliffe 
 and Chaucer, writing in their own Midland dialect, not 
 
336 History of Devonshire. 
 
 only reasserted ‘ the dignity of the despised language of 
 the common people,’ but made the form of English in 
 which they wrote ‘ the recognised model of the English 
 language.’ There was no writer of Southern English to 
 assert its claims to recognition at this critical period. 
 The book language, which they modelled and partially 
 created by the help of the printing press, quickly sup¬ 
 planted all the other forms. ‘ From that time forward 
 the language of our great Saxon King was only repre¬ 
 sented by the spoken words of our West-Country fore¬ 
 fathers. . . . Thus . . . the modern courtly dialect, now 
 considered to be the correct English, is the descendant 
 of what, in Alfred’s time, was, by the then educated 
 classes, held as much below the recognised standard, 
 as our West-Country talk is now reckoned by dwellers 
 in Park Lane and Belgravia.’ Only once since those days 
 has the good broad Saxon dialect of Devon been held 
 in court favour: and that was in the reign of Queen 
 Elizabeth, whose greatest heroes spake with the tongue 
 of their fathers, and were not ashamed ; and who made 
 its rugged sounds dear to all who valued stoutness of 
 heart and unquenchable courage of soul, and specially to 
 the ‘ Great Eliza ’ herself. Even then, however, the 
 dialect had its share of ridicule, as the vain efforts of 
 Shakspere and his fellow-dramatists to reproduce it on 
 the stage show. It is amusing to note how they thus— 
 Shakspere and Jonson more especially—created a false 
 rustic dialect which has continued to the present day upon 
 the stage, but is known nowhere else. 
 
 There is a very interesting monument of the old 
 Devonshire speech of the fourteenth century, in the 
 English translation of ‘ Sir Ferumbras,’ printed by the 
 Early English Text Society in 1879. This poem was 
 undoubtedly written by a Devonshire man in his own 
 native tongue, though, in some way or other, he had 
 become well acquainted with the use of Northern forms. 
 
Dialect and Folk-Lore. 
 
 337 
 
 Throughout the work there are found the marks which 
 still ‘ bewray the speech ’ of the true Devonian, whose 
 language has not been reduced to the dull dead-level of 
 the village school, with its artificial and unhistoric pro¬ 
 prieties. Mr. Elworthy amusingly points out that ‘ Sir 
 Ferumbras’ shows it to have been as true five centuries 
 ago as now, in popular proverbial parlance, that in Devon 
 ‘ Everything is he except a Tom-cat, and that’s a she.’ 
 
 In a scientific point of view the chief feature of ‘ Sir 
 Ferumbras’ is, however, the manner in which it has 
 enabled Dr. Murray to solve the vexed problem of the 
 Devonshire ‘ min or mun = them,’ which is one of the most 
 notable peculiarities of the dialect, and which, while 
 thoroughly familiar in Devon, is unknown, except in the 
 mouth of Devonshire folk, beyond its borders. This 
 * min ’ is really derived from a word which appears in the 
 poem as hymen, hymyn, hemen, a third person plural dative 
 and accusative, specialized from the singular by an added 
 ‘ en.’ The need of this arose from the fact that while 
 in the Northern and Midland dialects in the fourteenth 
 century the dative and accusative singular was hem, 
 as now, and the plural hem and heom, in the West hem stood 
 for both numbers, and was pluralized by the ‘ en,’ as in 
 German added to ihr to form a plural accusative. 
 
 The true native dialect is most marked at the present 
 day in the Dartmoor district, in the remoter localities of 
 the North and West, and in the heart of the South 
 Hams. The dialect of the East of the county is not so 
 distinctive, from the more frequent admixture of Somerset 
 and Dorset variations, though these counties generally 
 share with Devon the possession of the old West Saxon 
 speech. Along the line of the Tamar Cornish influence 
 is manifest. This is most marked in Plymouth and 
 Devonport, which are sometimes called the ‘ Cornish- 
 man’s London,’ and which have drawn large numbers, 
 chiefly of the working classes, from that county. Here 
 
338 History of Devonshire. 
 
 also the existence of an Irish quarter has had some effect. 
 The popular speech of Exeter is almost purely Devonian, 
 and there are many parishes in which the customary talk 
 of the villagers would be nearly, if not quite, unintelligible 
 to those who are only familiar with modern and polite, 
 but are ignorant of ancient and historic, English. 
 
 The Keltic element is seen in the nomenclature of the 
 county, but not in any special sense in common speech. 
 It occurs chiefly in the names of the rivers, which supply 
 indications also of the existence of different Keltic dialects. 
 All the larger rivers have Keltic names ; so have those of 
 the middle class; and it is only when we come to the 
 smaller streams that the Saxon can be traced. Minor 
 affluents had no distinctive name in early Keltic times, 
 nor would they receive any until the county was more 
 thickly populated. The most remarkable river group is 
 that which contains the Tamar, Tavy, Taw, Torridge, 
 and Teign—all unquestionably related and all based upon 
 one root-word for water, ta or tau, with varying suffixes 
 for the purpose of definition. Thus Tamar is Ta-maur, 
 the ‘ big water Tavy, Ta-vean, the ‘ little water.’ In the 
 Exe and the Axe we have the Gaelic uisg, again * water ’; 
 and in Avon, afon, one of the commonest Kymric words 
 for a river. Dart is the same name as Derwent, derivable 
 from the old Kornu-Keltic Dwr-gwyn, the ‘white river ’ or 
 water. Dwr also appears in the Derle and the Deer, 
 and probably in Otter, as ydwr = ‘ the water.’ These are 
 merely suggestive hints, for the subject is far too wide to 
 be treated in detail here. A few Saxon names may, how¬ 
 ever, be mentioned. Lyn = hlynn, a ‘stream.’ In Lyd 
 we have hlyd — ‘ loud.’ Yeo is the Saxon ea — ( water.’ A 
 point of considerable importance as indicative of the 
 varied character and origin of the Teutonic immigration, 
 is the fact of the grouping of such common names for 
 small streams, as brook, burn, beck, bourn, lake, water, 
 and fleet. This is seen remarkably, as Mr. C. Spence 
 
Dialect and Folk-Lore. 
 
 339 
 
 Bate has shown, in connection with the Dartmoor river 
 basins, distinguishing those of adjoining streams from 
 each other in a singularly definite and constant manner. 
 
 The folk-lore of Devon would take a volume to itself. 
 With one exception it is thoroughly Teutonic. This 
 exception is the Devonshire Pixy, who is not quite 
 the northern Elf, but still less the southern Fairy. 
 Cornish tradition is peculiar in its tales of giants, but 
 these are unknown in Devon save through modern 
 importation, while the Pixies are in large part common 
 property. They are now said to be the souls of un¬ 
 baptized children, but seem to represent the defeated 
 Kelts, in some vague fashion. Similar stories are told of 
 them as are current of the Brownie and the Elf; so that 
 while the foundation is probably Keltic, the superstructure 
 is Saxon—as with many of the local weather and other 
 rhymes—and of the widest national type. One of the 
 most prevalent phases of the ‘ Pixy cult ’ still extant is 
 the practice of turning garments inside out as a remedy 
 against being ‘ Pixy-led ’ after nightfall. 
 
 The ‘ Wish Hounds ’ of Dartmoor, and the ‘ Yeth 
 Hounds’ of North Devon, are the ‘ Gabriel Hounds’ of 
 Durham and Yorkshire ; ‘the ‘Wild Hunt ’ of Germany; 
 the ‘ Yule Host ’ of Iceland ; the ‘ Hunt Macabe ’ in parts 
 of France ; while there is evidence of the later importation 
 of this wild fancy into Cornwall in the form it assumes 
 about Polperro, of the ‘ Devil and his Dandy Dogs.’ 
 
 Whately’s statement that ‘ the vulgar in most parts of 
 Christendom are continually serving the gods of their 
 heathen ancestors,’ is literally true in the West. Living 
 animals have been burnt alive in sacrifice within memory 
 to avert the loss of other stock. The burial of three 
 puppies ‘ brandise-wise ’ in a field is supposed to rid 
 it of weeds. Throughout the rural districts of Devon 
 witchcraft is an article of current faith, and the toad is 
 thrown into the flames as an emissary of the evil one. 
 
 22—2 
 
340 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 There are still to be found those who believe that the 
 sun dances on Easter morning; those who, when they 
 see the new moon, half in jest and half in earnest, wish 
 and courtesy, and turn the money in their pockets; and 
 those, too, who would not dare to insult the moon by 
 pointing at her, for fear of some terrible revenge on the 
 part of the offended luminary. The ship-carrying in 
 honour of the crescent moon, adapted from paganism into 
 Christian custom, which formed the central feature of the 
 Corpus Christi pageant in mediaeval Plymouth, has con¬ 
 tinued to the present day as a May-day ‘ garland.’ A 
 tradition that the mines on Dartmoor were worked when 
 wolves and winged serpents dwelt in the valleys, may be 
 connected with serpent worship, or may allude to the 
 inroads of Norsemen in their ‘ sea-snakes.’ To a Teutonic 
 origin are to be traced a number of superstitions con¬ 
 nected with the ash, the most vital of which is the passage 
 of a ruptured child through a split ash sapling, the parts 
 of which are then brought together again. 
 
 A very curious illustration of the growth of compara¬ 
 tively modern folk-lore is supplied by the remarkable set of 
 legends which have been associated with the name of Sir 
 Francis Drake. It is said that he brought the Plymouth 
 Leat into that town by ‘ art magic,’ compelling a Dartmoor 
 spring to-follow his horse’s tail as he galloped ahead ; that 
 he made fire-ships for the destruction of the Armada by 
 throwing chips of wood from Plymouth Hoe into Plymouth 
 Sound; that he ‘ shot the gulf’ which divided this upper 
 world from the antipodes by a pistol; that he threw a 
 boy overboard because cleverer than himself; that he 
 fired a cannon ball through the earth to prevent his wife 
 committing bigamy; that he rises to his revels if you 
 beat his old drum ; and that he offered to make Tavistock 
 a magical seaport! 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abbot’s Way, 284 
 Abbotsham, 150 
 Acland family, 46 
 Acland, Sir T. D., 46’ 
 
 Act of Uniformity, 33 
 
 Afdelstan’s expulsion of the Britons, 9 1 
 
 Albemarle, Duke of, 160 
 
 Ailfryth, 181 
 
 Alvington, 248 
 
 Apaunaris, 292 
 
 Appledore, 148 
 
 Artavia, 116 
 
 Ashburton, 277 ; Guild of St. Lawrence, 
 278 ; discovery in church, 280 
 Ashburton, Lord, 279 
 Ashbury, 164 
 Ash-tree folk-lore, 287 
 Ashton, 317 
 Ashe, 65 
 Atherington, 113 
 Audley, Lord, 124 
 Axminster, 60 ; carpets, 63 
 Axmouth, 70 
 Ayshford, 100 
 
 Babbage, Charles, 263 
 Bagge, Sir James, 233 
 Baldwin, Archbishop, 40 
 Balle, Sir Peter, 315 
 Bampfylde family, 46 
 Bampton, 98 
 Bampton, John de, 99 
 Baring family, 43 
 Barlynch Abbey, 99 
 
 Barnstaple, 116; priory, 117; bridge, 
 117; guilds, 119; Huguenots, 121 ; 
 pottery, 122 
 
 Barrows and barrow-builders, 2 
 Basset, Col. Arthur, 127 
 Bastard family, 239 
 Bath, Sir Henry, 170 
 Bath barton folk-lore, 171 
 
 Beeke, Dean, 310 
 
 Beer, 73 ; freestone, 73 
 
 Beer Alston, 199 
 
 Beer Ferrers, 198 ; mines, 199 
 
 Benson, Thomas, 140 
 
 Berry, Sir John, 99 
 
 Berry Narbor, 131 
 
 Berry Pomeroy Castle, 263 
 
 Bickleigh, 198 
 
 Bicton, 76 
 
 Bideford, 141 ; bridge, 143 ; witchcraft, 
 146 
 
 Bigbury, 244 
 Bishops Clyst, 53 
 Bishops Tawton, 123 
 Bishopsteignton, 314 
 Blachford, 237 
 
 Bloody Assize, 45, 62,69, 261 
 Bluett, Col. F., 100 
 Blundell, Peter, 94 
 Bodley family, 40 
 Bodley, Sir Thomas, 41 
 Boniface, St., 108 
 Bonvile family, 67 
 Bonvile, Lord, 67 
 Borough, Steven, 148 
 Borough English, 127 
 Bottor Rock, 318 
 Bourchier family, 126 
 Bovey Tracey, 318 
 Bovey basin, discoveries in, 309 
 Bovey lignite, 319 
 Bowerman's Nose, 325 
 Bowring, Sir John, 42 
 Bracton, Henry de, 164 
 Bradfield House, 88 
 Bradley, 306 
 Bradmere Pool, 324 
 Bradninch, 89 
 Brampford Speke, 44 
 Brannock, legend of St., 126 
 Branscombe, 77 
 
342 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 Braunton, 126 
 
 Breakwater at Plymouth, 221 
 
 Brent, 284 
 
 Brent Tor, 191 
 
 Brian, Sir Guy de, 289 
 
 Bridestotve, 169 
 
 Britte, Walter, 237 
 
 Briwere, Wm. de, 293 
 
 Brixham, 301 ; lords and ladies, 302 ; 
 
 landing of William of Orange, 302 
 Brixton, 236 
 Broad Clyst, 53 
 Broadhembury, 82 
 Brockedon, Wm., 263 
 Broke, de, 198 
 Bronze Period, 3 
 Browne, Wm., 189 
 Brutus the Trojan, 254 
 Brutus Stone, 254 
 Bryant, the mythologist, 222 
 Buckfastleigh, 283 
 Buckfastleigh Abbey, 281 
 Buckland-in-the-Moor, 284 
 Buckland, West, 104 
 Buckland Monachorum, 194 
 Buckland Abbey, 194 
 Budleigh, East, 51 
 Budleigh Salterton, 51 
 Budleigh pebbles, 51 
 Buller family, 302 
 Bulmer, Sir Bevis, 131 
 Bulteel family, 244 
 Burlescombe, 101 
 
 Cadbury Castle, 96 
 Cadover, 230 
 Canonleigh Nunnery, 100 
 Canonteign, 317 
 Carew family, 83 
 Carew, John, Lord Deputy, 83 
 Carew, Thomas, 83 
 Carew, Bampfylde Moore, 96 
 Cary family, 295 
 Cary, Chief Baron, 295 
 Cary, Sir George, 296 
 Carys of Clovelly, 151 
 Castle Hill, 103 
 
 Cavalier rising at South Molton, 25 
 
 Chagford, 321 
 
 Champemowne family, 240 
 
 Chichester family, 125 
 
 Childe the hunter, 333 
 
 Christow, 317 
 
 Chittlehampton, 113 
 
 Chudleigh, 316 
 
 Chudleigh family, 317 
 
 Chudleigh, Sir George, 317 
 
 Chulmleigh, 112 ; prebend myth, 112 
 
 Churchstow, 245 
 
 Cider, 285 
 
 Clayhanger, 99 
 
 Clifford family, 316 
 
 Clifford, Lord Treasurer, 316 
 
 I Clovelly, 151 
 Clovelly Dikes, 150 
 Clyst Valley, 53 
 Clysthydon, 53 
 Clyst, St. George, 53 
 Cockington, 293 
 ‘ Codex Exoniensis,' 31 
 Coffin family, 150 
 Coffin, Sir William, 150 
 Cogan, Sir Milo, 99 
 Colcombe, 68 
 Coleridge family, 85 
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 83 
 Colyford, 70 
 Colyton, 68 
 
 Combe Martin, 131 ; silver lead-mines, 
 131 ; curious custom, 132 
 Compton Castle, 301 
 Cookworthy, Wm., 247 
 Coplestone Oak, 200 
 Coplestone Cross, no 
 Coplestone family, in 
 Corinaeus and Goemagot, 204 
 Cornwood, 236 
 Comworthy Priory, 266 
 Corp brasses, 272 
 Cosway, Richard, 95 
 Countesbury, 133 
 Countess Weir, 37 
 Courtenay family, 56 
 Courtenay, Lord Edward, 37 
 Coverdale, Myles, 301 
 Cowick Priory, 44 
 Cowley, Hannah, 95 
 Cranch, John, 43 
 Cranmore Castle, 96 
 Crediton, 21, 103 ; bishopric of, 103 ; 
 
 cathedral, 106 
 Crediton, barns of, 21 
 Crispin, Thomas, 247 
 Crocker family, 239 
 Crockern Tor, 330 
 Cross, John, 96 
 Crosse, Richard, 96 
 Croyde ‘ flint factory,' 127 
 Cruwys family, in 
 Cullompton, 87 
 Culmstock, 88 
 Cutcliffe, John, 130 
 Cyneheard, 60 
 
 Cynewulf, conquest of Devon, 8 
 Dartington, 264 
 
 Dartmoor, 326 ; Venville tenure, 327; 
 rude stone monuments, 327 ; track¬ 
 ways, 329 ; hut circles, 328 ; pounds, 
 329 ; rock basins, 329; geology, 330 ; 
 mining, 330 ; forest laws, 332 ; tradi¬ 
 tions, 333 
 
 i Dartmouth, 267 ; ‘ shippeman,’ 270 ; 
 invasion, 271 ; sieges, 274; worthies, 
 272, 273 
 
 | Davey, Rev. Wm., 166 
 
Index. 
 
 343 
 
 Davis, John, 272 
 Dawlisn, 314 ; ‘ flood,’ 315 
 Dean Prior, 265 
 Dedication feasts, 290 
 Denbury Fair, 290 
 Devonport, 224 ; dockyard, 224 
 Devonshire, ‘ Good Earl' of, 93 
 Dialect, 335; Keltic and Teutonic 
 elements in place-names, 338 
 Dinant family, 152 
 Dodbrooke, 246 
 Doddridge, Sir John, 124 
 Dolbury Hill, 96 
 Domesday Hundreds, 11 
 Doones of Badgery, 134 
 Drakes of Ashe, 65 
 Drakes of Nutwell, 53 
 Drakes of Prattshide, 48 
 Drake, Sir Francis, 187 
 Drake myths, 340 
 Drewsteignton, 323 
 Drewsteignton cromlech, 324 
 ‘Druidical’ monuments, 32; supersti¬ 
 tions, 323-329 
 Duckworth, Sir T., 52 
 Dundonald, Lord, 80 
 Dunkeswell Abbey, 89 
 Dunmonii, 5 
 Duntze family, 43 
 D’Urfey, Tom, 42 
 Durnford family, 227 
 
 Eadulph, first Saxon Bishop of Devon, 
 
 105 
 
 Early history, 1 
 Earthworks in East Devon, 59 
 East Budleigh, 57 
 Eastlake, Sir C. L., 223 
 Ecclesiastical history, 27 
 Ecgberht’s conquest of Devon, 8 
 Eddystone lighthouses, 221 
 Edgcumbe family, 193 
 Edmonds, Sir Thomas, 222 
 Eggesford, 113 
 Elford family, 197 
 F-lfrida, 181 
 
 Ercedekne, Sir John, 309 
 Erie, Sir Walter, 71 
 Ermington, 242 
 Exanmutha, 47 
 Exeter Assembly, 34 
 Exeter, 12 ; Roman, 13 ; Witenagemot; 
 13 ; Swegen at, 15 ; opposition to the 
 Conqueror, 16 ; siege by Saxons, 17 ; 
 Parliament, 18 ; siege by Stephen, 18 ; 
 dukes of, 19 ; Lancastrian, 19 ; Rich¬ 
 ard III. at, 19 ; Perkin Warbeck, 20 ; 
 siege by Western Rebels, 20 ; Cava¬ 
 liers and Puritans, 24 ; William of 
 Orange at, 25; zEdalstan’s monas¬ 
 tery, 27; Eadweard the Confessor, 
 
 27 ; foundation of see, 27 ; cathedral, 
 
 28 ; religious houses, 27,30 ; bishops, 
 
 30; Puritan era, 33; mints, 33 ; 
 guilds, 36, 38 ; merchant adventurers, 
 39 ; worthies, 40 
 Exminster, 54 
 Exmouth, 47 
 Exmouth Warren, 49 
 Exon Domesday, 31 
 
 Fardel], 236 
 Ferrers family, 198 
 Foliott, Gilbert, 200 
 Filleigh, 103 
 Fitz of Fitzford, 185 
 Flavel, John, 276 
 Flitton oak, 102 
 Floyer Hayes, 44 
 Ford Abbey, 64 
 Ford House, 307 
 Ford, John, 288 
 Ford, Sir Henry, 288 
 Ford, Thomas, 32 
 Folk-lore, 339 
 Follett, Sir W., 42 
 Fort Charles, 250 
 Fortescue family, 103 
 Fortescue, Sir John, 103 
 Fortescue, Sir Henry, 103 
 Fortescue, Sir Faithful, 104 
 Fortescue, Sir Edmund, 250 
 Fosseway, 5 
 Foster, Nathaniel, 237 
 Fremington, r25 
 Frithelstock Priory, 158 
 Fulford family, 324 
 Fulford, Great, 324 
 
 Gandy, James, 41 
 Gafulford, 8 
 Gale, Theophilus, 310 
 Garston, 248 
 Gates, Sir Thomas, 70 
 Gay, John, 124 
 Gereint, 7 
 
 Gibbs, Sir Vicary, 42 
 Gidleigh, 323 
 Gidley family, 323 
 Giffard family, 114 
 Gifford, Lord, 42 
 Gifford, William, 279 
 Gilbert family, 272 
 Gilbert, Sir Humphry, 273 
 Gilbert, Sir Adrian, 273 
 Giles, Sir Edward, 265 
 Gittisham, 81 
 Glanville family, 189 
 Glanville, Sir John, 189 
 Glanville, Setjeant, 189 
 Glanvilie, Joseph, 222 
 Godolphin, Sidney, 322 
 Gorges, Sir Ferdinando, 214 
 Great Fulford, 324 
 Greenway, 272 
 Greenway, John, 94 
 
344 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 Grenville family, 141 
 Grenville, Sir Richard, 141 
 Grenville, Sir Bevil, 142 
 Grenville, Sir Richard, 186 
 Grimspound, 329 
 Gubbinses, the, 177 
 
 Haccombe, 309 
 
 Hach Arundell, 253 
 
 Halberton, 97 
 
 Hals family, 252 
 
 Haldon, 58 
 
 Haldon House, 55 
 
 Hamo's Port, 203 
 
 Hankford, Sir William, 158 
 
 Hannaditches, Roman villa at, 72 
 
 Harberton, 265 
 
 Harding, Thomas, 130 
 
 Harford, 243 
 
 Harris family, 238 
 
 Harris, Sir W. S., 222 
 
 Hart, S., 223 
 
 Hartland, 152; Abbey, 152 
 Hatherleigh, 162 
 Hawkins family, 208 
 Hawkins, Sir John, 208 
 Hawkins, Sir Richard, 208 
 Hawkins, William, 208 
 Hawley, John, 270 
 Haydon, B. R., 223 
 Hayman, Francis, 42 
 Heanton Punchardon, 127 
 Heanton Satchville, 165 
 Hearder, Jonathan, 223 
 Heavitree, 43 
 Hele, Elize, 236 
 Hele, Sir John, 238 
 Hemyock, 88 
 
 Hembury, tradition touching, 285 
 
 Hembury Fort, 82 
 
 Hennock, 318 
 
 Herle, Sir Wm., 130 
 
 Herrick, Robert, 266 
 
 Hieritha, St., 104, 113 
 
 Highweek, 305 
 
 Hilliard, Nicholas, 41 
 
 Hingston Down, 185 
 
 Hody, Sir John, 302 
 
 Hoker, John, 40 
 
 Holbeton, 244 
 
 Holcombe Rogus, 100 
 
 Holdsworth family, 276 
 
 Holne, 290 
 
 Holne Chase, 284 
 
 Holsworthy, 163 
 
 Holy Street mill, 323 
 
 Honeychurch, rfxj. 
 
 Honiton, 79; corporate seal, 80; lace, 80 
 
 Hooker, Richard, 40 
 
 Hope Cove, Armada wreck in, 252 
 
 Horwood, 149 
 
 Howard, Lady, 186 
 
 Hubbastow, 147 
 
 Hudson, Thomas, 42 
 Hughes, George, 247 
 Huguenots at Exeter, 42 
 Huguenots at Barnstaple, i2r 
 Huguenots at Plymouth and Stone- 
 house, 228 
 Humphry, Ozias, 81 
 Hunter's Lodge, folk-lore, 78 
 
 Iddesleigh, 164 
 I deford, 290 
 
 Ilfracombe, 128 ; St. Nicholas Chapel, 
 128 ; attempted invasion, 129 
 Ilton, 249 
 Ilsington, 288 
 
 Inscribed Stones, 179, 238, 318 
 Instow, 148 
 Ireland, Dean, 279 
 Isabella de Fortibus, 37, 92 
 Isca Dunmoniorum, 13 
 Iscanus, Josephus, 40 
 Ivybridge, 243 
 
 Jackson, Wm., 42 
 Jacobstow, 165 
 Jewel, Bishop, 130 
 Joseph, Michael, 149 
 Judhel of Totnes, 257 
 
 Kelly, 193 
 
 Kempthorne, Sir John, 244 
 Kenn, 54 
 
 Kennaway family, 43 
 Kennicott, Benjamin, 262 
 Kent’s Hole, 2, 291 
 Kerswill, Kings and Abbots, 310 
 Killerton, 46 
 
 King, Lord Chancellor, 42 
 Kingsbridge, 245; climate, 248 
 Kingsley, Canon, 285 
 Kingsteignton, 310 
 Kirton spinning, 107 
 Kitley, 239 
 Kitto, John, 222 
 Knowstone, 99 
 
 Landkey, 125 
 
 Landscore, 10 
 
 Lane, John, 88 
 
 Langton, Archbishop, 40 
 
 Leach, W. E., 222 
 
 Leofric, first Bishop of Exeter, 27 
 
 Lethbridge, John, 308 
 
 Lifton, 192 
 
 ‘ Little Choky Bone,' 69 
 Littleham, 47 
 
 Lundy Island, 137 ; antiquities, 137 ; 
 
 piracies, 138 
 Lustleigh, 318 
 
 Lydford, 172 ; mint, 174 ; law, 176 
 prison, 177 
 Lye, Sir E., 259 
 Lye, Edward, 262 
 
Index. 
 
 345 
 
 Lyfing, Bishop, 182 
 Lyneham, 239 
 Lynmouth, 134 
 Lynton, 133 
 
 Malborough, 249 
 
 Mamhead, 313 
 
 Manaton, 325 
 
 Maristow, 200 
 
 Marwood, Thomas, 81 
 
 Marisco family, 137 
 
 Marlborough, Duke of, 66 
 
 Alayflower , the, 213 
 
 Maynard, Sir John, 190 
 
 Mayne, John, 163 
 
 Merton, 161 
 
 Meavy, 197 
 
 Merivale Bridge, 328 
 
 Merivale, J. H., 42 
 
 Mining antiquity of, 3 
 
 Modbury, 240 ; Priory, 240 ; fair, 242 
 
 Mohuns Ottery, 83 
 
 Molland Bottreaux, 102 
 
 Molton, North, 102 
 
 Molton, South, 101 
 
 Monkleigh, 158 
 
 Monk, General, 160 
 
 Monmouth, Duke of, 62, 69 
 
 Montagu, Col., 247 
 
 Morebath, 99 
 
 Moreman, Dr., 133 
 
 Moretonhampstead, 320 
 
 Morice, Sir Wm., 41 
 
 Moridunum, 71 
 
 Morthoe, 134 
 
 Morte Stone, 133 
 
 Netherton, 82 
 
 Newcomin, Thomas, 273 
 
 Newlands, 125 
 
 Newenham Abbey, 61 
 
 Newport Episcopi, 124 
 
 Newton, 303 
 
 Newton, clays, 308 
 
 Newton Poppleford, 52 
 
 Newton St. Cyres, 109 
 
 Norman Conquest, 17 
 
 Northam, 147 
 
 Nortbam Burrows, 148 
 
 Northcote family, 45 
 
 Northcote, Sir John, 45 
 
 Northcote, James, 223 
 
 North Devon, ancient roads in, 115 
 
 North Devon, Armada fleet, 143 
 
 North Lew, 162 
 
 North Molton, 102 
 
 North Tawton, 170 
 
 Nutwell, S3 
 
 Nymets, the, 114 
 
 Ockley, Simon, 42 
 Ogham inscriptions, 179 
 Okehampton, 167 ; castle, 168 
 
 Old Port, 241 
 
 Orange, landing of William of, 302 
 
 Ordulf, 181 
 
 Oreston caves, 237 
 
 Otterton Priory, 76 
 
 Otterton cartulary, 74 
 
 Ottery St. Mary, 84 ; college, 8 j. ; 
 
 church, 83 ; school, 86 
 Oxenham family, 172 
 Oxenham, John, 172 
 Oxenham Omen, the, 171 
 
 Packhorses, 116 
 Page of Plymouth, 189 
 Paignton, 300 
 Palk family, 33 
 Palaeolithic Man, 1, 60, 291 
 Pancrasweek, 165 
 Parkers, Earls of Morley,'233 
 Parliament House, 304 
 Parliaments, Tinners', 330 
 Peamore, 34 
 
 Peryam, Lord Chief Baron, 41 
 Peter Pindar, 248 
 Petre, Sir William, 289 
 Petrockstow, 163 
 Pilgrim Fathers, the, 213 
 Pilton Priory, 120 
 Pinhoe, curious tradition, 13 
 Pixies, 339 
 
 Plymouth, 201 ; prehistoric relics, 202 ; 
 development out of the Suttons, 204 ; 
 the Black Prince, 206 ; invasions, 
 206 ; Katherine of Aragon, 207 ; in 
 the days of Elizabeth, 209; the 
 Armada, 211 ; the colonization of 
 New England, 213 ; siege of, 216 ; 
 worthies of, 222 
 Plymouth Company, 213 
 Plymouth China Works, 247 
 Plymouth Dock, old name of Devon- 
 port, 225 
 
 Plympton, 230 ; Black Prince at, 231; 
 
 Castle, 232 ; Priory, 233 
 Plymstock, 237 
 Plymtree screen, 90 
 Pole, Sir Wm., 68 
 Pollard family, 149 
 Poltimore, 46 
 Polsloe Priory, 44 
 Pomeroy family, 263 
 Pomeroy, Sir Thomas, 264 
 Poole Priory, 233 
 Portlemouth, 232 
 Potheridge, 160 
 Powderham Castle, 35 
 Pre-Roman civilization in Devon, 4 
 Prideaux family, 82 
 Prideaux, Bishop, 243 
 Prince Town, 333 
 Princess Henrietta Anne, 24 
 Prout, Samuel, 223 
 Prouz family, 318 
 
346 
 
 History of Devonshire. 
 
 Pullein, Cardinal, 40 
 Puritanism, 31 
 Pynes, 45 
 
 Quick, John, 222 
 
 Radford, murder of Nicholas, 67 
 Radford, 238 
 Ralegh family, 49 
 Ralegh, Sir Walter, 50 
 Ralegh, Bishop, 125 
 Rattenbury, Jack, 73 
 Rattery, 266 
 Red deer, 102 
 Redvers, Baldwin de, 167 
 Religious Houses, 27, 30, 44, 61, 64, 76, 
 83, 89, 99, 100, 117, 120, 152, 158, 
 179, 184, 205, 233, 240, 251, 253, 257, 
 266, 294 
 Revelstoke, 237 
 Reynell family, 306 
 Reynolds, John, 40 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 235 
 Ring-in-the-Mire, 82 
 Risdon, the chorographer, 160 
 Rogers family, 237 
 Romansleigh, 103 
 Roman intercourse, 5 
 Rougemont, 17 
 Russell, Lord, 22 
 
 Salcombe, 249 
 
 Salter, William, 81 
 
 Saltram, 233 
 
 Sampford Courtenay, 21 
 
 Sampford Peverell, 97 
 
 Sampford Spiney, 197 
 
 Sativola, St., 27 
 
 Savery, Thomas, 241 
 
 Saxon colonization and conquest, 7 
 
 Saxon place-names, 10 
 
 Seaton, 72 
 
 Sewers, the, 249 
 
 Seymour, Sir Edward, 264 
 
 Shaldon, 313 
 
 Sharpham heronry, 266 
 
 Shaugh, 197 
 
 Shebbear, 165 
 
 Sheepstor, 197 
 
 Shillingford, 54 
 
 Shobrooke, 109 
 
 Shower, Sir B., 41 
 
 Shute, 67 
 
 Shute, John, 41 
 
 Sidbury, 78 
 
 Sidmouth, 74 ; residence of the Queen, 
 75 
 
 Sidwell, St,, 27 
 Silverton, 90 
 Sir Ferumbras, 336 
 Sithric of Tavistock, 17 
 Slade, Abbot, 282 
 Slanning, Sir Nicholas, 198 
 
 Slapton, 253 
 
 Sokespitch family, 53 
 
 Southcott, Johanna, 81 
 
 South Molton, 101 
 
 South Molton, Cavalier rising, 101 
 
 South Tawton, 171 
 
 South Zeal, 171 
 
 Spanish Barn, the, 297 
 
 Spinster’s Rock, 324 
 
 Speke family, 45 
 
 Splatt Cove, legend of, 251 
 
 St. Aubyn family, 224 
 
 St. Giles-in-the-Wood, 159 
 
 St. Leonards, 43 
 
 St. Mary Clyst, 53 
 
 St. Mary Clyst, battle at, 23 
 
 St. Mary's Church, 293 
 
 St. Mary de Marisco, 44 
 
 St. Thomas, 23, 44 
 
 Stadio Deventia, 202 
 
 Staddiscombe, 237 
 
 Stapledon, Bishop, 278 
 
 Starcross, 58 
 
 Stephens, E. B., 42 
 
 Stevenstone, 159 
 
 Stockleigh, English and Pomeroy, 109 
 Stoke Canon, 44 
 Stoke Damerel, 223 
 Stokenham, 252 
 Stoke St. Nectan, 153 
 Stonehouse, 226 
 Stone, Nicholas, 41 
 Stone Period, 3 
 Strachleigh, 243 
 Strodes of Newnham, 235 
 Strode, Richard, 177 
 Strode, William, 234 
 Stukely family, 153 
 Stukely, Thomas, 153 
 Stukely, Sir Lewis, 153 
 Sully, Sir John, 164 
 Sutton, old name for Plymouth, 204 
 Sydenham, 192 
 Swymbridge, 104 
 • 
 
 Tamarweorth, 200, 204 
 Tamerton Foliott, 199 
 Tavistock, 179; Abbey, 181 ; press, 
 183 ; mines, 185 
 Tawton, South, 171 
 Tawton, North, 170 
 Tawstock, 125 
 Teignbridge, 306 
 Teignweek, 306 
 Teigngrace, 310 
 
 Teignmouth, 311; burnt by French, 312 
 Tenures, peculiar, 44, 49, 53, 76, 109, 
 165. 253 
 Termolus, 103 
 Teutonic mark, 10 
 Teutonic words, 338 
 Teutonic folk-lore, 340 
 Thorverton, 45 
 
Index. 
 
 347 
 
 Thurleston, 249 
 Tindal, Matthew, 199 
 Tiverton, 91 ; fires, 95 ; school, 94 
 Topsham, 52 
 Torbay, 292 
 Torquay, 291 
 Tor Brian, 289 
 Torre, 293 
 Torre Abbey, 294 
 Torre Mohun free bench, 298 
 Torrington, 154 ; Margaret of Rich¬ 
 mond at, 155 ; defeat of Hopton by 
 Cromwell and Fairfax, 155 ; common 
 rights, 157 
 
 Totnes, 254; legendary history, 254 ; 
 mint, 256 ; Castle, 257 ; Priory, 257 ; 
 guild merchant, 258 ; worthies, 259 ; 
 ‘ rows ’, 262 ; 
 
 Totnes shore, 255 
 Tracy tomb at Morthoe, 135 
 Trelawny, Bishop, 30 
 Tremayne family, 192 
 
 Uffculme, 88 
 Ugborough, 244 
 Ugbrooke, 316 
 Umberleigh, 113 
 Underhill, Wm., 21 
 Upton Pyne, 45 
 
 Valley of Rocks, 133 
 Villenage in the 14th century, 282 
 
 Wadham, Nicholas and Dorothy, 77 
 Walchentone, 194 
 Walkhampton, 194 
 
 Walker's ‘ Sufferings of the Clergy,' 33 
 Walrond family, 88 
 Warelwast, Bishop, 28 
 Weare, 52 
 
 WearGiffard, 159 
 Wembury, 237 
 Westcote, Thomas, 109 
 Western Rebellion, 21 
 Westward Ho, 148 
 Whitbourne, Richard, 48 
 Whitchurch, 193 
 White ale, 247 
 Whiddon, Sir John, 322 
 Widecombe, 285 
 Widecombe thunder storm, 286 
 Wiganbeorche, 204 
 Wiger, Sir John, 45 
 Williams, Thomas, 243 
 Winscott, 150 
 Winkleigh, 165 
 Wise family, 192 
 Wise, Sir Thomas, 224 
 Wistman's Wood, 333 
 Withycombe Ralegh, 49 
 Wolborough, 305 
 Wolcott, Dr., 248 
 Wonford, 43 
 Woodbury, 53 
 Woodland, 243 
 Woollcombe family, 236, 239 
 Woollen manufacture, 36 
 Worth, 96 
 
 Wrey, Sir Bourchier, practical engineer¬ 
 ing, 118 
 Wynfrid, 108 
 
 Yealmpton, 238 
 Yewe, 109 
 Yonge family, 69 
 Yonge, James, 222 
 
 Zeal Monachorum, 172 
 Zeal, South, 171 
 
 Elliot Stock, Paternoster Row, London. 
 
NEW SERIES 
 
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 COUNTY HISTORIES. 
 
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