continued. There was this excuse for De Marisco, that as the island
grew neither corn nor wine, he was dependent on the mainland or on
merchant vessels for his subsistence. As all those on the mainland were
on the look-out to capture him as the supposed mover of the plot to
kill the King, he was forced to live by piracy. In 1242, William of
Worcester informs us, he was caught: how, he does not say, save that
it was by surprise. “He was thrown into chains, and he and sixteen
accomplices were condemned and sentenced to death. He was executed at
the Tower on a gibbet with special ignominy, his body suspended in a
sack, and when stiff in death, disembowelled, his bowels burnt, and his
body divided into quarters.”
After the execution of Sir William, his father, Geoffrey (or Jordan)
fled to France, and the island was then seized by the King, who
appointed to it governors. But in 1281 Lundy was again granted to a
Marisco, Sir William, son of Jordan, another of the progeny of old
Geoffrey. He died in 1284, and his son John in 1289, leaving Herbert
as his son and heir. But Edward II granted the island to the elder
Despenser, and Herbert was unable to obtain possession of it. He died
in 1327, and from that date no more is heard of the Mariscoes in
connexion with the island.
From their time, however, other pirates obtained a footing on it. In
the days of Henry VIII a gang of French pirates, under their captain,
De Valle, seized Lundy and waylaid the Bristol traders, but the
Clovelly fishermen made an expedition against them, burnt their ship,
and killed or made prisoners of the whole gang.
A few years later, Lord Seymour, High Admiral of England, uncle of
Edward VI, was charged, among other misdemeanours, with trying to get
hold of Lundy, “being aided with shipps and conspiring at all evill
eventes with pirates, (so that) he might at all tymes have a sure and
saufe refuge, if anything for his demerites should have been attempted
against him.” He was executed, having refused to answer the charges
made against him.
In Sir John Maclean’s _Life and Times of Sir Peter Carew, Knt._,
are printed two letters written by Queen Elizabeth in the year 1564,
directing Sir Peter--“forasmuch as that cost of Devonshyre and Cornwall
is by report mucch hanted with pyratts and Rovers ... to cause on or
twoo apt vessells to be made redy with all spede in some portes ther
about.” In the apprehension of such pirates, with her characteristic
economy the Queen bargains that the parties “must take ther benefitt of
y^e spoyle, and be provijded only by us of victell.” She goes a little
further in thriftiness, and suggests that possibly “ye sayd Rovers
might be entyced, with hope of our mercy, to apprehend some of the rest
of ther Company, which practise we have knowen doone good long agoo in
the lyke.”
Although Lundy is not specified in this as the rendezvous of the
pirates, we know that at this time it was so.
In the year 1587 the authorities of Barnstaple appear to have
undertaken on their own account a raid upon the pirates who were
accustomed to shelter themselves under Lundy Island.
Connected with the “setting forth of divers men from this town to
apprehend divers rovers and pirates at Londey,” the following items of
expenditure in the municipal records show that the expedition was not
unsuccessful: “Paid to six watchmen for watching the prisoners that
were taken, 12^s 1^d. Paid for a watch put, and for candlelyght for the
same prisoners, 11^d. Paid for meat and drink for the same prisoners,
2^{sh}.”[8]
Stow tells us that a batch of ten sea-rovers were hanged at once at
Wapping. They distributed among their friends their murrey velvet
doublets with great gold buttons and crimson taffeta, and great
Venetians laid with broad gold lace, “too sumptuous apparel,” Stow
remarks, “which they had worn at the seas.”
In 1608, a commission was issued to the Earl of Bath, who took the
depositions of three persons at Barnstaple, to the effect that the
merchants were daily robbed at sea by pirates who took refuge in Lundy.
In 1610, another commission was issued to the Earl of Nottingham to
authorize the town of Barnstaple to send out ships for the capture of
pirates, and the deposition was taken of one William Young, who had
been made prisoner by Captain Salkeld, who entitled himself “King of
Lundy,” and was a notorious pirate.
On 31 August, 1612, the town of Barnstaple sent out a ship and a
bark--the _John of Braunton_ and the _Mayflower_--to capture pirates
who had robbed a London vessel and also a pinnace of the Isle of
Wight, in the roads of Lundy. It is satisfactory to learn that the
offenders--“as notorious Rogues as any in England”--were caught at
Milford Haven, brought to Barnstaple, and lodged in Exeter Gaol. What
their ultimate fate was is not known.
In 1625, the Mayor of Bristol reported to the Council that three
Turkish pirate vessels had surprised and taken the island of Lundy, and
had carried off the inhabitants, to sell them as slaves, and that they
were threatening Ilfracombe.
In 1628, it was the headquarters of some French pirates. In June, 1630,
Captain Plumleigh reported that “Egypt was never more infested with
catterpillars than the Channel with Biscayers. On the 23rd instant
there came out of St. Sebastian twenty sail of sloops; some attempted
to land on Lundy, but were repulsed by the inhabitants.”
In 1632, a notorious buccaneer, Captain Robert Nutt, made Lundy one
of his stations, and defied the efforts of several ships of war and
smaller vessels called “whelps” to capture him.
In 1633, Sir Bernard Grenville reported to the Secretary of State that
a great outrage had been committed by a Spanish man-of-war of Biscay,
which had landed eighty men on the island of Lundy, where, after some
small resistance, they had killed one man, called Mark Pollard, and
bound the rest, and surprised and took the island, which they rifled
and cleared of all the best provisions they could find, and then
departed to sea again.
From the depositions of William Skynner, of Kilkhampton, dyer, and
others, it appears that the _Biscayner_ was a vessel of 150 tons
with about 120, under a Captain Meggor, and that these pirates had
previously robbed a French bark, and also a pinnace of George Rendall,
which happened to be at Lundy, taking from him his money and all the
provisions of his pinnace.
Capt. John Pennington, of the _Vanguard_, was commissioned to put down
the pirates, and he appears to have proclaimed martial law on the
island. In the year 1663, a Frenchman, Captain Pressoville, established
himself on Lundy. In consequence of these events one Thomas Bushell was
appointed governor of the island to hold it for the King.
Grose, in his _Antiquities_, gives a curious story of an occurrence
during the reign of William and Mary. “A ship of force pretending to
be a Dutchman, and driven into the roads by mistaking the channel,
sent a boat ashore desiring some milk for their captain who was sick,
which the unsuspecting inhabitants granted for several days. At length
the crew informed them of their captain’s death, and begged leave,
if there were any church or consecrated ground on the island, to
deposit his corpse in it, and also requested the favour of all the
islanders to be present, which was accordingly complied with. After the
corpse was brought in, the islanders were required to quit the chapel
for a few minutes when they should be readmitted to see the corpse
interred. They had not waited long without the walls before the doors
were suddenly thrown open, and a body of armed men furnished from the
feigned receptacle of the dead marched out and made them prisoners.
The poor islanders then discovered the pretended Dutchmen to be their
natural enemies the French. They then seized 50 horses, 300 goats, 500
sheep, and some bullocks, and reserving what they required, hamstringed
the rest of the horses and bullocks, threw the goats and sheep into
the sea, and stripped the inhabitants of every valuable, even to their
clothes, and spoiled and destroyed everything, and then, satiated with
plunder and mischief, they threw the guns over the cliffs, and left the
island in a most desolate and disconsolate condition.”
There is no other evidence that this really occurred, and the same
story is told of the island of Sark, so that it is very doubtful
whether the story be true.
It is, however, certain that for a considerable portion of the reigns
of William and Mary and of Queen Anne, Lundy was a continual resort of
the outcasts of the various parties who betook themselves to piracy as
a means of subsistence, as also that it was for a time in the hands
of the French in the reign of Queen Anne, and that they used it as a
privateering station, and preyed upon the merchant-men who sailed from
Barnstaple and Bideford, and that they made so many prizes that they
termed Barnstaple Bay as “the Golden Bay.”
In 1748, Thomas Benson obtained a lease of the island from Lord Gower.
He was a man of substance, a native of Bideford, and had inherited a
fortune of £40,000. His predecessors had been successful merchants,
carrying on trade with France, Portugal, and the colonies.
In 1749 he aspired to get into Parliament, and was elected for
Barnstaple. He had in 1745 presented to the mayor and corporation a
large silver punch-bowl, which still forms one of their cherished
possessions, and has recently been copied in Barum ware for
presentation to the association of “Barumites in London.”
When, however, the borough authorities received the bowl, they
discovered that they had no ladle, and this they humbly and
respectfully intimated to the donor. So Benson added to his gift a
silver ladle, with the inscription, “He that gave the Bowl gave the
Ladle.”[9]
Soon after he entered into a contract with the Government for the
exportation of convicts to Virginia and Maryland, and gave the usual
bond to the sheriff for so doing. But instead of doing this he shipped
them to Lundy, where he employed them in building walls and other work
in the island. Every night they were locked up in the old keep of the
Mariscoes. He regarded himself as king of Lundy, and ruled with a high
hand.
Presently he got into difficulties through smuggling and piracy. In a
cave he stored his smuggled goods, and a raid was made upon these. He
was exchequered, and fined £5000.
A _fieri facias_ was directed to the Sheriff of Devon to levy the
penalties, under which the officers seized a large quantity of tobacco
and other goods secreted in the caves of Lundy. He excused himself for
not fulfilling his compact to transport the convicts to Virginia and
Maryland by saying that he considered Lundy to be quite as much out of
the world as these colonies. As the _fieri facias_ did not realize the
sum of his fine, an extent was issued in 1753 for £7872 duties, under
which his patrimonial estate of Napp was seized, and retained during
his life by the Government.
“The most villainous transaction, however, in which he was implicated
was the conspiracy to defraud the insurance offices, by lading a vessel
with a valuable cargo of pewter, linen, and salt, which he heavily
insured. The vessel sailed for Maryland, but by a secret arrangement
between the Master and Benson, put back in the night and landed
the greater part of the cargo at Lundy, where Benson had repaired,
concealing it in the caves there; and then the Master, Lancey, put to
sea, and burnt and scuttled his vessel, some leagues to the westward,
the crew being taken off by a homeward-bound vessel. The roguery was,
however, discovered by the confession of one of the crew. Lancey was
apprehended with some of his shipmates, seized and condemned, hung at
Execution Dock and afterwards in chains. Benson escaped to Portugal; he
is said, however, to have returned to Napp incognito for a time, some
years afterwards, when the affair was nearly forgotten, but ultimately
returned to Portugal, and died there.” I quote from a manuscript
journal of a visit to Lundy by a friend of Benson’s some particulars of
the island and of Benson himself at this time.
“In the month of July, 1752, I sailed from Appledore on a Monday
morning with Sir Thomas Gunstone in a little vessel bound to Wales
which dropped us at Lundy road. We came from Benson’s house, of Napp,
who rented the island of the Lords Carteret and Gower for £60. We
landed about two o’clock. Mr. Benson did not accompany us, expecting
letters from the insurance office for the vessel and cargo which was
to have taken us there. The vessel then lay off his quay with convicts
bound for Virginia, but he came to us on Wednesday. The island was at
this time in no state of improvement, the houses miserably bad, one on
each side of the platform, that on the right inhabited by Mr. Benson
and his friends, the other by the servants. The old fort was occupied
by the convicts whom he had sent there some time before, and occupied
in making a wall across the island. They were locked up every night
when they returned from their labour. About a week before we landed
seven or eight of them took the long-boat and made their escape to
Hartland, and were never heard of afterwards. Wild fowl were exceeding
plenty and a vast number of rabbits. The island was overgrown with
ferns and heath, which made it almost impossible to go to the extreme
of the island. Had it not been for the supply of rabbits and young
sea-gulls our tables would have been but poorly furnished, rats being
so plenty that they destroyed every night what was left of our repast
by day. Lobsters were tolerably plenty, and some other fish we caught.
The deer and goats were very wild and difficult to get at. The path to
the house was so narrow and steep that it was scarcely possible for a
horse to ascend it. The inhabitants by the assistance of a rope climbed
up a rock in which were steps cut to place their feet, to a cave or
magazine where Mr. Benson lodged his goods. There happened to come into
the roads one evening near 70 sail of vessels. The colours were hoisted
on the fort, and they all as they passed that island returned the
compliment except one vessel, which provoked Mr. Benson to fire at her
with ball, though we used every argument in our power to prevent him.
He replied that the island was his, and every vessel that passed it and
did not pay him the same compliment as was paid to the King’s forts he
would fire on her. He talked to us about his contract for exportation
of convicts to Virginia, and often said that the sending of convicts to
Lundy was the same as sending them to America; they were transported
from England, it mattered not where it was, so long as they were out of
the kingdom.”[10]
TOM D’URFEY
Tom D’Urfey was born in Exeter in the year 1653. The date usually
given, 1649, is incorrect. He came of a very ancient and well-connected
family. Under Charles VII of France, Pierre d’Ulphé was Grand Master
of the crossbow-men of France. His son, Peter II, changed the spelling
of his name from Ulphé to Urfé. He died in 1508, after having served
with distinction under Charles VIII and Louis XII. Francis, the nephew
of Peter II, Baron d’Oroze, fought along with Bayard in a combat of
thirteen Frenchmen against thirteen Spaniards. The son of Peter II,
Claude, was ambassador of France at the Council of Trent, and governor
of the royal children. He loved letters, had a fine library at his
Château de la Bâtie, near Montbrison. Jacques, his son, was chamberlain
to Henry II; he died in 1574, leaving several sons, of whom two were
Anne and Honoré, both staunch Leaguers, and in their day considered
to be poets. Honoré, however, made his fame by his interminable and
tedious romance of _Astrée_. The _Dictionary of National Biography_
says that Tom’s uncle was this same Honoré; but this is impossible.
Honoré, the fifth son of Jacques I, was born 1572. He had four elder
brothers--Anne, who died without issue; Claude, who died young; Jacques
II, who had one son; Claude Emmanuel, who died in 1685. Christopher
died without issue, and Antoine became a bishop. Consequently it is
not possible to fit Tom D’Urfey into the pedigree. It is possible
enough that the grandfather who quitted La Rochelle before the end of
the siege in 1628 and brought his son with him to England, and who
settled at Exeter, may have been a connexion by blood, possibly enough
illegitimate, as no trace of him can be found in the D’Urfé pedigree.
The grandfather broke away from the traditions of the family entirely
by becoming a Huguenot, for not only were Anne and Honoré Leaguers, but
Anne entered Orders and Antoine became Bishop of Saint Flores.
[Illustration: THOMAS D’URFEY POETA LYRICIIS.
_Whilst D’urfey’s voice his verse do’s raise._}
_When Durfey sings his Tunefull Layes._ }
_Give D’urfeys Lyrick-Muse the Bayes._ }
_E. G._
_E. Gouge pinx._
_G. Vertue sculp._
]
Charles Emmanuel called himself De Lascaris, and was created Marquis
D’Urfé and De Baugé, Count of Sommerive and St. Just, Marshal, and
died in 1685 at the age of eighty-one. His son Louis became Bishop of
Limoges; another, Francis, became Abbé of St. Just, and devoted himself
to missionary work in Canada; he died in 1701. The third son, Claude
Yves, became a priest of the Oratoire; the fourth, Emmanuel, Dean of
Le Puy, died in 1689; the fifth, Charles Maurice, was the only one who
did not enter the ministry, and he died unmarried; thus the family
came to an end, and it is characteristic of it that it was intensely
Catholic. Thus if the grandfather of Tom D’Urfey did belong to the
stock, he was a sport of a different colour. The father of Tom D’Urfey
married Frances of the family of the Marmions, of Huntingdonshire. Tom
certainly claimed kinship with the D’Urfés, of Forez, and was proud of
the fame that attached to his relative Honoré.
The elder of the sons of Jacques I, viz. Anne, had married a splendid
beauty, Diana de Château Morand, who was also an heiress. But the union
was not happy, and it was annulled by the Ecclesiastical Court at Lyons
(1598) at the joint petition of husband and wife. Then Anne, after
trifling with the Muses, took Holy Orders. Thereupon Honoré, having
money to pay for it, bought a dispensation at Rome, and married his
brother’s late wife, not out of love, but for the purpose of retaining
in the family her great estates. He was then aged thirty-two, and she
was in her fortieth year. She was haughty, vain of her beauty, which
had made her famous at one time, and spent her time in trying to
disguise the ravages of time on her face. She lived mainly in her room
surrounded by dogs, “qui répandaient partout, jusque dans son lit, une
saleté insupportable.”
Very different was the life of Tom D’Urfey’s father, and one of the
touching incidents in his character was his devotion and tenderness
towards his wife to her dying day.
Tom had been intended for the law, but, as he said, “My good or ill
stars ordained me to be a knight errant in the fairy fields of poetry.”
He wrote plays that were well received for the most part, but all were
tainted with intolerable grossness. But at this period of revulsion
from Puritanism, licentiousness of intrigue, indelicacy of wit, most
strongly appealed to the popular taste, at least in London, and among
the hangers-on of a profligate court. In 1676, he produced _The Siege
of Memphis_ and _The Fond Husband; or, The Plotting Sisters_. In
1677, _Madame Pickle_. In all, down to his death, thirty-two dramatic
pieces. But that which obtained for D’Urfey his greatest reputation
was a peculiarly happy knack that he possessed in writing satires and
songs. In the latter style of composition he knew how to start with a
telling line. There was in his composition a vein of genuine poetry,
but the trail of the serpent was over it all: he could not leave his
best pieces without something foul to spoil it. Many of his songs were
set to music by his friends Henry Purcell, Thomas Farmer, and Dr. John
Blow; but a good many were adapted to folk airs. In 1683, he brought
out his _New Collection of Songs and Poems_, in which was “The Night
her Blackest Sables Wore,” which was afterwards claimed for Francis
Semple, of Beltrees. D’Urfey wrote a good many songs in fancy Scottish
dialect, as a taste for North-country songs came in after James, Duke
of York, afterwards James II, was sent to govern Scotland in 1679 and
1680. Although there can be no doubt whatever as to the authorship of
“The Night her Blackest Sables Wore,” about fifty years after its first
publication the song and tune in a corrupt form appear in Thomson’s
_Orpheus Caledonicus_ (1733), with some change in the words so as to
make it appear to be Scottish, as “She rose and let me in,” altered to
“She raise and loot me in.” Mr. Chappell says: “It is a common error to
suppose that England was inundated with Scotch tunes at the union of
the two Crowns. The first effect was directly the reverse.” In fact, a
stream of English popular melodies flowed into Scotland, and this in a
flood in the reign of Charles II, carrying with them the English words,
which Scottish compilers adapted and appropriated, and these have come
back to us as “made in Scotland,” whereas they are genuine English
songs, words and music and all.
Tom Brown, venomous and scurrilous as Tom D’Urfey was not, lampooned
the latter, and called him “Thou cur, half French, half English breed,”
and mocked him regarding a duel at Epsom, in 1689, with one Bell, a
musician.
I sing of a Duel, in Epsom befell
’Twixt Fa-so-la D’Urfey and Sol-la-mi Bell.
Tom took it in good part. It was only by Jeremy Collier that he could
be prevailed to reply, and even then it was chiefly in a song.
Jeremy Collier had published in 1697 his famous _Short View of
the Profaneness and Immorality of the English Stage_, which dealt
a terrible blow at what little prosperity the theatres enjoyed,
and aroused a wholesome spirit of resentment against the outrages
committed on the stage against Christian virtue and common decency. The
castigation was well deserved, for the licentiousness of the stage both
before and behind the curtain had become a monstrous evil.
The sensation created by the book was enormous, scores of pamphlets
refuting or defending its views were written, and the falling off
in the audiences plainly showed that its remonstrances had struck
home. D’Urfey was one of those hardest hit; he winced, cried out,
but did not mend. D’Urfey was a good, witty, and genial companion,
and this obtained him favour with a great many persons of all ranks
and conditions. The Duke of Albemarle, son of General Monk, had him
frequently at his table to divert the company; of which he was not a
little vain, as we may gather from part of a song made upon him at that
time:--
He prates like a parrot;
He sups with the Duke,
And he lies in a garret.
Crowned heads condescended to admit him to their presence, and were not
a little diverted by him. It is not surprising to hear this of so merry
a monarch as Charles II; but even King William, so glum and reserved
in temper, and so little appreciative of music, or of any amusements
of that kind, must needs have D’Urfey one night to him; and D’Urfey
extorted a hearty laugh even from him, and departed with a present.
D’Urfey had inherited his grandfather’s Huguenot prejudices; he was a
staunch Protestant in his feelings if not a Christian in his morals,
and he wrote satirical songs against the Roman Catholics, so that
William III felt it well to show him favour.
One of his anti-papal songs, and one that was very popular among the
Whigs, was “Dear Catholic Brother,” and this he set to a very fine
ancient tune, to which to this day “The Hunting of Arscott of Tetcott”
is sung in Devon. But D’Urfey did not take the complete tune, as he did
not need it for his piece of verse, and his incomplete version of the
tune travelled into Wales and Scotland as well as throughout England.
It is an early, genuine English melody in the Dorian mode.
Charles II had leaned familiarly on D’Urfey’s shoulder, holding a
corner of the same sheet of music from which the poet was singing his
burlesque song, “Remember, ye Whigs, what was formerly done.”