wool he purchased on carts, to convey it to town through Exeter. Deloney
tells an amusing story of how King Henry was riding forth west with one
of his sons and some of his nobility, when "he met with a great number
of waines loaden with cloth coming to London, and seeing them still
drive one after another so many together, demanded whose they were. The
wainemen answered in this sort: Coles of Reading, quoth they. Then, by
and by, the King asked another, saying: Whose cloth is all this? Old
Coles, quoth he. And againe anon after he asked the same questions to
others, and still they answered, Old Coles. And it is to be remembered
that the King met them in such a place so narrow and streight, that hee
with the rest of his traine were faine to stand as close to the hedge,
whilest the carts passed by, the which at that time being in number
above two hundred, was neere hand an hour ere the King could get room to
be gone; so that by his long stay, he began to be displeased, although
the admiration of that sight did much qualify his furie; but breaking
out in discontent, by reason of his stay, he said, I thought Old Cole
had got a commission for all the carts in the country to carry his
cloth. And how if he have (quoth one of the wainemen) doth that grieve
you, good Sir? Yes, good Sir, said our King. What say you to that? The
fellow, seeing the King (in asking the question) to bend his browes,
though he knew not what he was, yet being abasht, he answered thus: Why,
Sir, if you be angry, nobody can hinder you; for possibly, Sir, you have
anger at commandment. The King, seeing him in uttering of his words to
quiver and quake, laughed heartily at him ... and by the time he came
within a mile of Staines, he met another company of waines, in like sort
laden with cloth, whereby the King was driven into a further admiration;
and demanding whose they were, answere was made in this sort: They bee
goodman Sutton's of Salisbury, good Sir. And by that time a score of
them were past; he asked againe, saying, Whose are these? Sutton's of
Salisbury, quoth they, and so still, so often as the King asked that
question, they answered, Sutton's of Salisbury. God send me such more
Suttons, said the King. And thus the further he travelled westward, more
waines and more he met continually: upon which occasion he said to his
nobles, that it would never grieve a King to die for the defence of a
fertile country and faithful subjects. I alwayes thought (quoth he) that
England's valor was more than her wealth, yet now I see her wealth
sufficient to maintaine her valour, which I will seek to cherish in all
I may, and with my sword keepe myselfe in possession of that I have."
Judging by what Deloney says, these clothiers were a merry set, and the
journey to town was one long picnic. They were--or some were--of good
family. Grey, the clothier of Gloucester, was of the noble race of Grey
de Ruthyn, and FitzAllen, of Worcester, came of the Fitzallens, "that
famous family whose patrimony lay about the town of Oswestrie, which
towne his predecessors had inclosed with stately walls of stone."
The most famous wool merchant in the West was Tom Dove, of Exeter,
concerning whom this song was sung:--
Welcome to town, Tom Dove, Tom Dove,
The merriest man alive.
Thy company still we love, we love,
God grant thee well to thrive.
And never will we depart from thee,
For better, for worse, my joy!
For thou shalt still have our good will,
God's blessing on my sweet boy!
In London Thomasine comported herself well, was cheerful and obliging.
How the mercer's wife relished her introduction into the house we are
not informed. But this good lady shortly after sickened and died, and
the widower offered Thomasine his hand and his heart, which she
accepted.
After three years Richard Bunsby, the mercer, died and left all he had
to Thomasine, so that she, who had gone up to town as a serving girl,
was now a rich widow, and withal young and pretty and attractive. She
soon drew suitors about her, and her choice fell on "that worshipful
merchant adventurer, Master John Gall, of S. Lawrence, Milk Street."
He as well was wealthy and uxorious, and he allowed his wife to make
donations for the relief of the poor of her native village, for which
she ever retained a lingering attachment.
After the lapse of five years Thomasine was again a widow, and her
second husband had followed the example of the first in leaving to her
all his possessions.
She had not to wait long before fresh suitors buzzed about her like
flies around a treacle barrel, and now, in the year 1497, she gave her
hand to Sir John Percival, who in the following year became Lord Mayor
of London. In memory of this event, she is traditionally held to have
constructed a good road--as good roads went in those days--from Week
S. Mary down to the coast, probably that over Week ford and through
Poundstock, to either Wansum or Melhuc Mouth.
She long survived her third husband, and is supposed to have returned
to end her days as the Lady Bountiful in her native village. By her
will, made in 1510, she left goodly sums of money to Week S. Mary.
But both she and Sir John Percival had been already benefactors in
London. Sir John had founded a chantry in S. Mary Woolnoth, and in
1539 is found an entry in the churchwardens' accounts of that parish
recording that Dame Thomasine Percival had left money for the
maintenance of the "beme light" in the church, i.e. the lamp before
the rood. She had also left money to supply candles to burn about the
sepulchre in the church on Easter Day, and he had bequeathed moneys
for the repair of the ornaments of the church, for bell-ringing, for
singers "for keeping the anthem," at his and her obits, and last but
not least, "for a potation to the neighbours at the said obit."
Carew says: "And to show that virtue as well bare a part in the desert,
as fortune in the means of her preferment, she employed the whole
residue of her life and last widowhood to works no less bountiful than
charitable, namely, repairing of highways, building of bridges, endowing
of maidens, relieving of prisoners, feeding and apparelling the poor,
etc. Among the rest, at this S. Mary Wike she founded a chantry and
free-school, together with fair lodgings for the schoolmasters,
scholars, and officers, and added £20 of yearly revenue for supporting
the incident charges: wherein, as the bent of her desire was holy, so
God blessed the same with all wished success; for divers of the best
gentlemen's sons of Devon and Cornwall were there virtuously trained up,
in both kinds of divine and human learning, under one Cholwel, an honest
and religious teacher, which caused the neighbours so much the rather
and the more to rue, that a petty smack only of Popery opened the gap to
the oppression of the whole, by the statute made in Edward VI's reign,
touching the suppression of chantries."
This disaster befell it in 1550, when all colleges, chantries, free
chapels, fraternities, and guilds throughout the kingdom, with their
lands and endowments, were alienated to the King--not because there
was a "petty smack of Popery" in them, but because of the rapacity of
the courtiers who desired to gather the lands and benefactions into
their own soiled hands.
Mr. W. H. Tregellas says: "There are still to be seen in the remote
and quiet little village of Week S. Mary, some five or six miles south
of Bude, in the northern corner of Cornwall, the substantial remains
of the good Thomasine's college and chantry, which she founded for the
instruction of the youth of her native place.
"The buildings lie about a hundred yards east of the church (from the
summit of whose grotesquely ornamented tower six-and-twenty parish
churches may be discerned), and built into the modern wall of a
cottage which stands inside the battlemented enclosure is a large
carved granite stone (evidently one of two which once formed the
tympanum of a doorway), on which the letter T stands out in bold
relief. Probably it is the initial of the Christian name of our
Thomasine; at any rate, it is pleasant to think it may be such."
The church and its stately tower were probably built by Thomasine, or,
at all events, she would have largely contributed towards the
building. That church is now, internally, a ghastly sight. At its
"restoration" it was gutted, and is as bare as a railway station--a
shell, and nothing more. But that it was not so in Dame Thomasine's
time we may be well assured. A gorgeous screen extended across its
nave and aisles, richly sculptured and coloured and gilt, the windows
were filled with stained glass, and the bench ends were of carved oak.
All this has been swept away.
In the Stratton churchwardens' accounts for 1513 we find that on the
day upon which "My Lady Parcyvale's Meneday" came round--i.e. the day
on which her death was called to mind--prayer was to be made for the
repose of her soul, and two shillings and two pence paid to two
priests, and for bread and ale.
THE MURDER OF NEVILL NORWAY
Mr. Nevill Norway was a timber and general merchant, residing at
Wadebridge. He was the second son of William Norway, of Court Place,
Egloshayle, who died in 1819, and Nevill was baptized at Egloshayle
Church on November 5th, 1801.
In the course of his business he travelled about the country and
especially attended markets, and he went to one at Bodmin on the 8th
of February, 1840, on horseback.
About four o'clock in the afternoon he was transacting some little
affair in the market-place, and had his purse in his hand, opened it and
turned out some gold and silver, and from the sum picked out what he
wanted and paid the man with whom he was doing business. Standing close
by and watching him was a young man named William Lightfoot, who lived
at Burlorn, in Egloshayle, and whom he knew well enough by sight.
Mr. Norway did not leave Bodmin till shortly before ten o'clock, and he
had got about nine miles to ride before he would reach his house. The
road was lonely and led past the Dunmeer Woods and that of Pencarrow.
He was riding a grey horse, and he had a companion, who proceeded with
him along the road for three miles and then took his leave and
branched off in another direction.
A farmer returning from market somewhat later to Wadebridge saw a grey
horse in the road, saddled and bridled, but without a rider. He tried at
first to overtake it, but the horse struck into a gallop and he gave up
the chase; his curiosity was, however, excited, and upon meeting some
men on the road, and making inquiry, they told him that they thought
that the grey horse that had just gone by them belonged to Mr. Norway.
This induced him to call at the house of that gentleman, and he found
the grey steed standing at the stable gate. The servants were called
out, and spots of blood were found upon the saddle. A surgeon was
immediately summoned, and two of the domestics sallied forth on the
Bodmin road, in quest of their master. The search was not successful
that night, but later, one of the searchers perceiving something white
in the little stream of water that runs beside the highway and enters
the river Allen at Pendavey Bridge, they examined it, and found the body
of their unfortunate master, lying on his back in the stream, with his
feet towards the road, and what they had seen glimmering in the
uncertain light was his shirt frill. He was quite dead.
The body was at once placed on the horse and conveyed home, where the
surgeon, named Tickell, proceeded to examine it. He found that the
deceased had received injuries about the face and head, produced by
heavy and repeated blows from some blunt instrument, which had
undoubtedly been the cause of death. A wound was discovered under the
chin, into which it appeared as if some powder had been carried; and
the bones of the nose, the forehead, the left side of the head and the
back of the skull were frightfully fractured.
An immediate examination of the spot ensued when the body had been
found, and on the left-hand side of the road was seen a pool of
blood, from which to the rivulet opposite was a track produced by the
drawing of a heavy body across the way, and footsteps were observed as
of more than one person in the mud, and it was further noticed that
the boots of those there impressed must have been heavy. There had
apparently been a desperate scuffle before Mr. Norway had been killed.
[Illustration: NEVILL NORWAY
_From a painting in the possession of Miss A. T. Norway_]
There was further evidence. Two sets of footmarks could be traced of
men pacing up and down behind a hedge in an orchard attached to an
uninhabited house hard by; apparently men on the watch for their
intended victim.
At a short distance from the pool of blood was found the hammer of a
pistol that had been but recently broken off.
Upon the pockets of the deceased being examined, it became obvious
that robbery had been the object of the attack made upon him, for his
purse and a tablet and bunch of keys had been carried off.
Every exertion was made to discover the perpetrators of the crime, and
large rewards were offered for evidence that should tend to point them
out. Jackson, a constable from London, was sent for, and mainly by his
exertions the murderers were tracked down. A man named Harris, a
shoemaker, deposed that he had seen the two brothers, James and
William Lightfoot, of Burlorn, in Egloshayle, loitering about the
deserted cottage late at night after the Bodmin fair; and a man named
Ayres, who lived next door to James Lightfoot, stated that he had
heard his neighbour enter his cottage at a very late hour on the night
in question, and say something to his wife and child, upon which they
began to weep. What he had said he could not hear, though the
partition between the cottages was thin.
This led to an examination of the house of James Lightfoot on February
14th, when a pistol was found, without a lock, concealed in a hole in
a beam that ran across the ceiling. As the manner of Lightfoot was
suspicious, he was taken into custody.
On the 17th his brother William was arrested in consequence of a
remark to a man named Vercoe that he was in it as well as James. He
was examined before a magistrate, and made the following confession:--
"I went to Bodmin last Saturday week, the 8th instant, and on
returning I met my brother James just at the head of Dunmeer Hill. It
was just come dim-like. My brother had been to Burlorn, Egloshayle, to
buy potatoes. Something had been said about meeting; but I was not
certain about that. My brother was not in Bodmin on that day. Mr.
Vercoe overtook us between Mount Charles Turnpike Gate at the top of
Dunmeer Hill and a place called Lane End. We came on the turnpike road
all the way till we came to the house near the spot where the murder
was committed. We did not go into the house, but hid ourselves in a
field. My brother knocked Mr. Norway down; he snapped a pistol at him
twice, and it did not go off. Then he knocked him down with the
pistol. He was struck whilst on horseback. It was on the turnpike road
between Pencarrow Mill and the directing-post towards Wadebridge. I
cannot say at what time of the night it was. We left the body in the
water on the left side of the road coming to Wadebridge. We took money
in a purse, but I do not know how much it was. It was a brownish
purse. There were some papers, which my brother took and pitched away
in a field on the left-hand side of the road, into some browse or
furze. The purse was hid by me in my garden, and afterwards I threw it
over Pendavey Bridge. My brother drew the body across the road to the
water. We did not know whom we stopped till when my brother snapped
the pistol at him. Mr. Norway said, 'I know what you are about. I see
you.' We went home across the fields. We were not disturbed by any
one. The pistol belonged to my brother. I don't know whether it was
broken; I never saw it afterwards; and I do not know what became of
it. I don't know whether it was soiled with blood. I did not see any
blood on my brother's clothes. We returned together, crossing the
river at Pendavey Bridge and the Treraren fields to Burlorn village.
My brother then went to his house and I to mine. I think it was handy
about eleven o'clock. I saw my brother again on the Sunday morning. He
came to my house. There was nobody there but my own family. He said,
'Dear me, Mr. Norway is killed.' I did not make any reply."
The prisoner upon this was remanded to Bodmin gaol, where his brother
was already confined, and on the way he pointed out the furze bush in
which the tablet and the keys of the deceased were to be found. James
Lightfoot, in the meantime, had also made a confession, in which he
threw the guilt of the murder upon his brother William.
This latter, when in prison, admitted that his confession had not been
altogether true. He and his brother had met by appointment, with full
purpose to rob the Rev. W. Molesworth, of S. Breock, returning from
Bodmin market, and when James had snapped his pistol twice at Mr.
Norway, he, William, had struck him with a stick on the back of his
head and felled him from his horse, whereupon James had battered his
head and face with the pistol.
The two wretched men were tried at Bodmin on March 30th, 1840, before
Mr. Justice Coltman, and the jury returned a verdict of "Guilty";
they were accordingly both sentenced to death, and received the
sentence with great stolidity.
Up to this time the brothers had been allowed no opportunity for
communication, and the discrepancy in their stories distinctly enough
showed that the object of each was to screen himself and to secure the
conviction of the other.
After the passing of the sentence on them, they were conveyed to the
same cell, and were now, for the first time, allowed to approach each
other. They had scarcely met before, in the most hardened manner, they
broke out into mutual recrimination, using the most horrible and
abusive language of each other, and, not content with this, they flew
at each other's throat, so that the gaolers were obliged to interfere
and separate them and confine them in separate apartments.
On April 7th their families were admitted to bid them farewell, and
the scene was most distressing. On Monday morning, April 13th, they
were both executed, and it was said that upwards of ten thousand
persons had assembled to witness their end.
As Mr. Norway's family was left in most straitened circumstances, a
collection was made for them in Cornwall, and the sum of £3500 was
raised on their behalf.
William Lightfoot was aged thirty-six and James thirty-three when
hanged at Bodmin.
There is a monument to the memory of Mr. Norway in Egloshayle Church.
In the _Cornwall Gazette_, 17th April, 1840, the portraits of the
murderers were given. Mention is made of the tragedy in C. Carlyon's
_Early Years_, 1843. He gives the following story. At the time of the
murder, Edmund Norway, the brother of Nevill, was in command of a
merchant vessel, the _Orient_, on his voyage from Manilla to Cadiz.
He wrote on the same day as the murder:--
"Ship _Orient_, from Manilla to Cadiz,
"_Feb._ 8th, 1840.
"About 7.30 p.m. the island of S. Helena, N.N.W., distant about
seven miles, shortened sail and rounded to, with the ship's head
to the eastward; at eight, set the watch and went below--wrote a
letter to my brother, Nevell Norway. About twenty minutes or a
quarter before ten o'clock went to bed--fell asleep, and dreamt I
saw two men attack my brother and murder him. One caught the horse
by the bridle and snapped a pistol twice, but I heard no report;
he then struck him a blow, and he fell off the horse. They struck
him several blows, and dragged him by the shoulders across the
road and left him. In my dream there was a house on the left-hand
side of the road. At five o'clock I was called, and went on deck
to take charge of the ship. I told the second officer, Mr. Henry
Wren, that I had had a dreadful dream, and dreamt that my brother
Nevell was murdered by two men on the road from S. Columb to
Wadebridge; but I was sure it could not be there, as the house
there would have been on the right-hand side of the road, but it
must have been somewhere else. He replied, 'Don't think anything
about it; you West-country people are superstitious; you will make
yourself miserable the remainder of the passage. He then left the
general orders and went below. It was one continued dream from the
time I fell asleep until I was called, at five o'clock in the
morning.
"EDMUND NORWAY,
"Chief Officer, Ship _Orient_."
There are some difficulties about this account. It is dated, as may
be seen, February 8th, but it must have been written on February 9th,
after Mr. Norway had had the dream, and the date must refer to the
letter written to his brother and to the dream, and not to the time
when the account was penned.
From the Cape of Good Hope to S. Helena the course would be about
N.N.W., and with a fair wind the ship would cover about eighty or
ninety miles in eight hours. So that at noon of the day February 8th
she would be about one hundred miles S.S.E. of S. Helena, i.e. in
about 5° W. longitude, as nearly as possible. The ship's clock would
then be set, and they would keep that time for letter-writing
purposes, meals, ship routine, etc.
Ship, long. 5° 0' 0" W.
Bodmin " 4° 40' 0" W.
---------
Difference 20' 0"
The difference would be twenty minutes of longitude, and the
difference in time between the two places one degree apart is four
minutes. Reduce this to seconds:--
4 × 60 × 20
----------- = 80 sec., i.e. 1 min. 20 sec.
60
Therefore, if the murder was committed, say, at 10h. 30m. p.m. Bodmin
time, the time on the ship's clock would be 10h. 28m. 40s. p.m. An
inconsiderable difference.
The log-book of Edmund Norway is said to be still in existence.
One very remarkable point deserves notice. In his dream Mr. Edmund
Norway saw the house on the right hand of the road, and as he
remembered, on waking, that the cottage was on the left hand, he
consoled himself with the thought that if the dream was incorrect in
one point it might be in the whole. But he was unaware that during
his absence from England the road from Bodmin to Wadebridge had been
altered, and that it had been carried so that the position of the
house was precisely as he saw it in his dream, and the reverse of what
he had remembered it to be.
Another point to be mentioned is that one of the murderers wore on
that occasion a coat which Mr. Norway had given him a few weeks
before, out of charity.
Both brothers protested that they had not purposed the murder of Mr.
Norway but of the Rev. Mr. Molesworth, parson of S. Breock, who they
supposed was returning with tithe in his pocket. This, however, did
not agree with the evidence that William Lightfoot had watched him
counting his money at Bodmin, and then had made off.
On the occasion of the discovery of the murder, Sir William Molesworth
sent his bloodhounds to track the murderers, but because they ran in a
direction opposed to that which the constables supposed was the right
one they were recalled. The hounds were right, the constables wrong.
SIR WILLIAM LOWER, KNT.
Sir William Lower was the only son of John Lower, and was born at
Tremere, in S. Tudy, about the year 1600.
The Lowers were a very ancient family in Cornwall, seated in S. Winnow
parish, and at Clifton, in Landulph, at which latter place lived Sir
Nicholas Lower, the brother of John, whilst the eldest brother, Sir
William, settled at Treventy, in Carmarthen, having married the
daughter and co-heiress of Sir Thomas Pescott, of that place. John had
two other brothers knights, Sir Francis and Sir Thomas.
William was not educated at Oxford, but, as Wood says, "spent some
time in Oxon, in the condition of _hospes_, for the sake of the public
library and scholastical company." He exhibited a "gay fancy," and a
mighty aversion from the dry and crabbed studies of logic and
philosophy.
Leaving Oxford, he spent some time in France, where he became a master
of the French tongue, and acquired a great admiration for the dramatic
compositions of Corneille, Quirault, and Ceriziers, and in after years
amused himself with translating some of their plays.
When the troubles broke out in England he took the King's side, and in
1640 was a lieutenant in Sir Jacob Ashley's regiment in Northumberland's
army against the Scotch Covenanters, and was then appointed captain, but
lost his company, that proved mutinous and deserted. "It was a
marvellous thing," says a writer of the time, "to observe the
averseness of the common soldiers to this war. Though commanders and
gentlemen of great quality, in pure obedience to the King, seemed not at
all to dispute the cause or consequence of this war, the common soldiers
would not be satisfied, questioning, in a mutinous manner, whether their
captains were papists or not, and in many places were not appeased till
they saw them receive the sacrament; laying violent hands on divers of
their commanders, and killing some, uttering in bold speeches their
distaste of the cause, to the astonishment of many, that common people
should be sensible of public interest and religion, when lords and
gentlemen seemed not to be."
[Illustration: S^r W^m Lower--
Pub May 21 1800 by W Richardson N^o 31 Strond]
In June, 1644, being a lieutenant-colonel in Thomas Blague's regiment
and lieutenant-governor of Wallingford, Lower received orders from the
King to raise £50 a week from the town of Reading. Lower at once laid
hands on the mayor and carried him to Wallingford as a hostage; he
then plied the corporation with demands for the money, without which
their head would not be restored to them. The corporation, however,
did not value their mayor so highly that they were disposed to pay £50
per week for the privilege of having him restored to them. Lower was
taken prisoner by the garrison of Abingdon on 19th January, 1645-6,
and Charles rewarded him for his zeal by conferring on him knighthood.