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MEMORIALS
OF
OLD DEVONSHIRE
[Illustration
_From a Drawing by J. M. W. Turner._] [_Engraved by T. Jeavons._
EXETER.
]
MEMORIALS
OF
OLD DEVONSHIRE
EDITED BY
F. J. SNELL, M.A. (OXON)
AUTHOR OF
“_A Book of Exmoor_”
“_Early Associations of Archbishop Temple_”
_&c._
--
WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS
[Illustration
LONDON
BEMROSE AND SONS, LIMITED, 4, SNOW HILL, E.C.
AND DERBY
1904
--
[_All Rights Reserved_]
TO THE
RIGHT HON. VISCOUNT EBRINGTON,
LORD LIEUTENANT OF THE COUNTY OF DEVON,
AND REPRESENTING ONE OF ITS OLDEST
AND MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FAMILIES,
THESE “MEMORIALS” ARE,
BY PERMISSION,
DEDICATED.
[Illustration
PREFACE
The object of the present volume is to present what may be termed a
history of Devon in episode. A comprehensive and, at the same time,
detailed record of the county, dealing more or less fully with the
principal events of every town’s life, would require many volumes as
large as or larger than ours, and yet might fail to impress the reader
with the salient features of county life as a whole. In selecting the
subjects for the various articles comprised in this work, the Editor’s
aim has been to single out such as may be expected, for different
reasons, to appeal to all Devonians, and, perhaps, to some unconnected
with the beautiful shire. The majority of the articles have been written
expressly for the present work, but three have been reproduced, in
shortened form, from the _Transactions of the Devonshire Association_,
in which they were published many years ago, and so were in danger of
being forgotten. The Editor deems he has no need to apologize for thus
enriching the volume with the labours of departed Devonians, whom their
compatriots recall with deep reverence, and whom, were they living, the
Editor would hail as valued collaborators. Of the other articles, two
have already seen print in pamphlet form, in which, after many years,
they had naturally become exceedingly scarce. All the other
contributions are new, and most of the papers, both old and new, have
been embellished with illustrations, some of them curious and rare.
The Editor takes this opportunity of rectifying two omissions in his
preliminary sketch. Owing to some accident, he failed to refer to the
defence of Dartmouth against the attack of Du Chastel in 1404. This
event was memorable on account of the active part taken by the women,
who, Amazon-like, hurled flints and pebbles on the French, and thus
expedited their retirement. The other omission concerns the abortive
Cavalier rising of 1655. Penruddock and Groves, the leaders in the
affair (for which they suffered death at Exeter), were both Wiltshire
men, but it is certainly interesting that an attempt which might have
antedated the Restoration by five years was initiated by the
proclamation of Charles II. at South Molton—a town of the county of
which George Monk, to whom the Merry Monarch owed his crown, was a
native.
It only remains for the Editor to thank his many able contributors for
their generous assistance, and to express the hope that the plan and
execution of the work will prove satisfactory to those who desire a
fuller acquaintance with the families, persons, and places therein
mentioned.
F. J. SNELL.
_Tiverton, October 1st, 1904._
CONTENTS
PAGE
Historic Devonshire By the EDITOR 1
The Myth of Brutus the Trojan By the late R. N. WORTH 20
The Royal Courtenays By H. M. IMBERT-TERRY, 34
F.R.L.S.
Old Inns and Taverns of Exeter By the late R. DYMOND, F.S.A. 63
The Affair of the Crediton By the Rev. Chancellor 77
Barns—A.D. 1549 EDMONDS, B.D.
Gallant Plymouth Hoe By W. H. K. WRIGHT 88
The Grenvilles: a Race of By the Rev. Prebendary 99
Fighters GRANVILLE, M.A.
The Author of _Britannia’s By the Rev. D. P. ALFORD, M.A. 116
Pastorals_ and Tavistock
The Blowing-up of Great By GEORGE M. DOE 132
Torrington Church
Herrick and Dean Prior By F. H. COLSON, M.A. 141
The Landing of the Prince of By the late T. W. WINDEATT 155
Orange at Brixham, 1688
Reynolds’ Birthplace By JAS. HINE, F.R.I.B.A. 176
French Prisoners on Dartmoor By J. D. PRICKMAN 201
Ottery St. Mary and its By the Right Hon. LORD # 210#
Memories COLERIDGE, M.A., K.C.
“Peter Pindar”: the Thersites By the Rev. W. T. ADEY 218
of Kingsbridge
Honiton Lace By Miss ALICE DRYDEN 238
The “Bloody Eleventh”; with By Lt.-Col. P. F. S. AMERY 250
Notes on County Defence
Jack Rattenbury, the Rob Roy By MAXWELL ADAMS 264
of the West
Barnstaple Fair By THOMAS WAINWRIGHT 276
Tiverton as a Pocket Borough By the EDITOR 284
Index 297
[Illustration
INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS
Exeter _Frontispiece_
(_From a Drawing by J. M. W. Turner. Engraved by T. Jeavons_)
_Facing Page_
Rougemont Castle, Exeter (_From a Photograph by Frith & Co._) 8
Okehampton Castle, 1734 (_From an Engraving by S. and N. 34
Buck_)
Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire 54
(_From the original portrait by Sir Antonio_
_More, at Woburn. Engraved by T. Chambars_)
Doorway of King John’s Tavern, Exeter 62
(_From a Drawing by F. Wilkinson. Engraved by J. Mills, 1836_)
High Street, Exeter (_From a Photograph by Frith & Co._) 76
Plymouth Hoe 88
(_From a Drawing by J. M. W. Turner. Engraved by W. J. Cooke_)
Sir Bevill Grenville (_From an Oil Painting_) 104
West View of Tavistock Abbey, 1734 116
(_From an Engraving by S. and N. Buck_)
Great Torrington Church (Old and New) 132
The Landing of William III. at Torbay 154
(_From a Painting by T. Stothard, R.A. Engraved by George Noble_)
The Cloisters, Plympton Grammar School 176
(_From an Engraving by J. E. Wood_)
Norman Doorway, Plympton Priory 176
(_From an Engraving by J. E. Wood_)
The “War Prison” on Dartmoor, 1807 200
(_From a Drawing by S. Prout, Jun. Engraved by Neele_)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (_From the Portrait by Peter Vandyck_) 214
Dr. Wolcot (“Peter Pindar”) 218
(_From a Painting by Opie. Engraved by C. H. Hodges_)
Honiton Lace (_From a Photograph by Miss Alice 238
Dryden_)
“Jack” Rattenbury (_From a Lithograph by W. Bevan_) 264
Queen Anne’s Walk and the Quay, Barnstaple 276
(_From a Lithograph by J. Powell_)
St. Peter’s Church, (_From a Lithograph by W. Spreat, 284
Tiverton Jun._)
HISTORIC DEVONSHIRE.
BY THE EDITOR.
No county of England is richer in historic associations and romantic
memories than Devonshire, whose sons have proved themselves on many a
stubborn day as brave as its daughters are proverbially fair. We may go
further, and say that no English shire is richer, and only a few as
rich, in those pre-historic remains which will always exercise a weird
fascination over cultivated minds that would hold it sin to be incurious
as to the beginnings, or, rather, the age-long development, of man upon
the earth. The great mausoleum of these remains is Dartmoor, with its
menhirs, its logans, its cromlechs (or dolmens), its circles and
avenues, and its famous clapper-bridge; but all over the county are
specimens of the typical round barrow, encrusted with hoar legends, and
possessing, in addition, their strict scientific interest. The legends
attach themselves to the individual barrows; the scientific problem is
concerned with the almost unvarying form and type. Briefly, it may be
stated that the Devonshire round barrow is a late variety of the cairn;
the long barrow, which is numerously represented in the neighbouring
county of Dorset, being older and corresponding to the long-headed race
which preceded the round-headed Kelts in the occupation of Britain. The
difference is between the Stone Age and the Bronze Age, to which the
round barrows belong and bear witness. To the Stone Age are assigned the
chambered round barrows, the so-called giants’ graves, and the stone
kists of Lundy Island.
Roughly contemporary with the typical round barrows are those mysterious
remains in the great central waste, to which allusion has already been
made. Just as false systems of astrology were elaborated before the dawn
of clear scientific knowledge, so during the eighteenth century a
complete hagiology was constructed respecting these remains, which has
become untenable in view of more rigorous historical, philological, and
anthropological investigation. In other words, the accepted
interpretation of these moorland wonders connected them more or less
definitely with Druidism. The prism of imagination presented those
hierarchs in crimson hues. If their functions included inhuman
sacrifices, they themselves were far from being deficient in dignity.
What says Southey in _Caradoc_?
Within the stones of federation there
On the green turf, and under the blue sky,
A noble band—the bards of Britain—stood,
Their heads in rev’rence bow’d, and bare of foot,
A deathless brotherhood.
But whether as priests or mere medicine men, the existence of Druids in
Devon has yet to be proved. Drewsteignton derives its initial syllable,
not from them, but from Drogo; Wistman’s Wood comes, not from _wissen_,
but is more probably _uisg-maen-coed_ disguised in modern garb. And, as
for those basins on the summits of the Dartmoor tors, they are purely
natural. So the whole delightful edifice which Polwhele was at such
pains to build up, and which Mrs. Bray described to the sympathetic
Southey, topples down, or, rather, vanishes into thin air, leaving not a
wrack behind.
While the Druids, both locally and generally, belong rather to the
region of myth than of solid history, the Romans are an indisputable
fact in both senses. Still, their advent in the West Country is not free
from obscurity. One thing seems fairly certain, namely, that they did
not establish themselves in Devonshire by their usual method of
conquest. Exeter, however, was a thoroughly Roman city, and traces of
the Imperial race are to be found in local names, such as Chester Moor,
near North Lew, and in the ruins of Roman villas, as at Seaton and
Hartland. The siege of Exeter by Vespasian is one of those fictitious
events which, by dint of constant reiteration, work themselves into the
brain as substantial verities. The place that Vespasian attacked was not
Exeter, but Pensaulcoit (Penselwood), on the borders of Somerset and
Wilts. Probably the Romans were content with a protectorate, under which
the Britons were suffered to retain their nationality and their native
princes.
The Saxons, though known as “wolves,” certainly appeared as sheep or in
sheep’s clothing in their earliest attempts to settle in the county.
They lived side by side with the Britons, notably at Exeter, where the
dedications of the ancient parishes testify to the juxtaposition of
British and Saxon. Here, also, it was that the West Saxon apostle of
Germany, St. Boniface, was educated in a West Saxon school. But this
state of things was not to last. In 710, Ine, the King of the West
Saxons, vanquished Geraint, prince of Devon, in a pitched battle; and
although there is no reason to think that he extended his borders much
to the west of Taunton, the work of subjugation thus begun was continued
by Ine’s successors, primarily by Cynewulf (755–784); and since, in 823,
the men of Devon were marshalled against their kinsmen, the Cornish, at
Gafulford, on the Tamar, the Saxon conquest must by that time have been
complete. Still the victors were not satisfied. In 926, as we learn from
William of Malmesbury, Athelstan drove the Britons out of Exeter, and,
constituting the Tamar the limit of his jurisdiction, converted Devon
into a purely Saxon province. The immense preponderance of Saxon names
in all parts of the county proves how thoroughly this expropriation of
the Kelts was carried into effect. The theory held by Sir Francis
Palgrave, amongst others, that the conquest of Devon was accomplished by
halves, the Exe being for some time the boundary, rests upon no adequate
grounds, neither evidence nor probability supporting it. In due course,
the whole county was mapped out into tithings and hundreds, in
accordance with the Saxon methods of administration, and the executive
official was the portreeve.
Parallel with the record of Saxon conquest runs the story of Danish
endeavours, stubborn, long-protracted, but, on the whole, less
successful, to secure a footing and affirm the superiority. In the first
half of the ninth century, the Vikings, in alliance with the Cornish,
were routed by Egbert in a decisive engagement at Hingston Down, when,
according to a Tavistock rhyme—
The blood that flowed down West Street
Would heave a stone a pound weight.
During the latter half of the same century, the Danes were again active,
and in 877 made Exeter their headquarters. Seventeen years later they
besieged the city, which was relieved by Alfred the Great, who confided
the direction of church affairs in the city and county to the learned
Asser, author of the _Saxon Chronicle_. In 1001, the Danes, having
landed at Exmouth, made an attempt on Exeter, when the Saxons of Devon
and Somerset, hastening to the rescue, were overthrown in a severe
encounter at Pinhoe, and the piratical invaders returned to their ships,
laden with spoil. The following year was marked by a general massacre of
the Danes at the behest of Ethelred, and, to avenge this treacherous
slaughter, Sweyn (or Swegen) swooped, like a vulture, on the land, and,
through the perfidy of Norman Hugh, the reeve, was admitted within the
gates of Exeter. As usual on such occasions, red ruin was the grim
sequel; but in after days, when the Danish dynasty was in secure
possession of the throne, Canute (or Cnut) cherished no malice by reason
of the tragic horror inflicted on his race, but conferred on Exeter’s
chief monastery the dignity of a cathedral.
In a secular as well as in a religious sense, far the most romantic
episodes of Saxon rule in Devon centre around the old Abbey of St.
Rumon, Tavistock, the largest and most splendid of all the conventual
institutions in the fair county. Ordulf, the reputed founder, was no
ordinary mortal. He looms through the mist of ages as a being of
gigantic stature, whose delight it was, with one stroke of his
hunting-knife, to cleave from their bodies the heads of animals taken in
the chase, and whose thigh-bone, it is said, is yet preserved in
Tavistock Church. But if he had something in common with Goliath and
John Ridd, Ordulf was likewise, and very plainly, cousin german to Saint
Hubert, for having been bidden in a vision, he built Tavistock Abbey, to
whose site his wife was conducted by an angel. An alternative version
associates with him in this pious work his father, Orgar. However that
may be, the edifice was destroyed by the Danes in the course of a
predatory expedition up the Tamar to Lydford. This was in 997. It was
re-built on a still grander scale, and bore the assaults of time until
the days of the sacrilegious Hal, when it was suppressed and given to
William, Lord Russell.
So much for the Abbey. Now for the secular romance, which yields a
striking illustration of Shakespeare’s warning:—
Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love:
Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues,
Let ev’ry eye negotiate for itself
And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch
Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.
Orgar, the father of Ordulf, had a daughter named Elfrida, the fame of
whose loveliness came to the ears of the King. Edgar, being unwedded,
despatched Earl Ethelwold to Tavistock on a mission of observation, and
the courtier was empowered, if report erred not, to demand her in
marriage for his royal master. Ethelwold came, and saw, and was
conquered. Although much older than the fair lady, he fell in love with
her, and gained her assent and that of her father to their union. This
he could do only by concealing from them the more advantageous offer of
a royal alliance. With equal duplicity he kept from the King not only
the knowledge of his bride’s surpassing beauty, but the bride herself,
being assured that her appearance at court would be fatal. However, in
no long time the truth leaked out, and Edgar set out for Dartmoor,
ostensibly to hunt. Ethelwold, in desperation, now made full confession
to his wife, whom he charged to disguise her charms, but the vain and
ambitious woman, angered at his deceit, displayed them the more, and the
King, resolved on Ethelwold’s death, actually slew him at Wilverley or
Warlwood in the Forest.
After the departure of the Romans and before the final absorption of
Devon by the Saxons, there are signs that the Kelts of South-West
Britain were in intimate touch with their brethren on the other side of
St. George’s Channel. At any rate, the Ogham inscriptions found in the
neighbourhood of Tavistock testify to the missionary enterprise of the
Island of Saints during the latter part of the fifth and the beginning
of the sixth centuries after Christ. For most purposes, the centre of
county life has from the first been Exeter, but to this rule there was
at one time an important exception, which was not Tavistock, but the
little town of Crediton, situated on a tributary of the Exe. An old
rhyme has it—
Kirton was a market town,
When Exeter was a fuzzy down.
Little can be said for this view on general historic grounds, but from
the standpoint of ecclesiastical Anglo-Saxondom, Crediton had a decided
claim to the preference, for was it not the birthplace of Winfrid (St.
Boniface), and the seat of the Anglo-Saxon bishops from the year 909
until 1050, when Leofric, for fear of the Danes, transferred the see to
Exeter? This prelate was installed by Edward the Confessor and Queen
Edith, who, holding him by the hands, invoked God’s blessing on future
benefactors.
If the Ogham stones of Dartmoor attest the zeal of Keltic Christianity,
Coplestone Cross, a richly-carved monument near Crediton, is a reminder
of the early days of Saxon piety, when such crosses were erected as
shrines for the churchless ceorls. Coplestone, also, was the name of a
powerful race known as the Great Coplestones, or Coplestones of the
White Spur, who claimed, but apparently without reason, to have been
thanes in Saxon times. In the West Country, no distich is more popular
or more widely diffused than the odd little couplet—
Croker, Cruwys, and Coplestone,
When the Conqueror came, were all at home.
The invincible William knocked at the gates of the Western capital in
1066, and was at first refused admission. If it be true, as Sir Francis
Palgrave held, that Exeter was a free republic before Athelstan
engirdled it with massive walls, the _genius loci_ asserted itself with
dramatic effect when the Conqueror demanded submission, and, in the
words of Freeman, “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.” Dissatisfied with this response,
William besieged the city, which held out for eighteen days, and then
surrendered on conditions. Exeter, it may be observed, was at this time
one of the four principal cities of the realm, the other members of the
quartette being London, Winchester, and York.
The capitulation was followed by the building of Rougemont Castle, not a
moment too soon, for ere it could well have been completed, the sons of
Harold led an assault on Exeter. This was repulsed without much
difficulty by the Norman garrison, but the Saxons showed themselves
still restless in the West. The army of Godwin and Edmund fought with
fruitless valour on the banks of the Tavy until, three years after the
opening of the struggle, Sithric, the last Saxon abbot of Tavistock,
betook himself to the Camp of Refuge at Ely, to be under the protection
of the noble Hereward.
Exeter, to which one always returns, stands out prominently among
English towns on account of its many sieges. Old Isaacke, happily a much
better chronicler than poet, testifies as follows:—
In midst of Devon Exeter city seated,
Hath with ten sieges grievously been straitned.
This is sure proof of the immense value attached to the possession of
the place in troublous times, and prepares us for the conspicuous part
taken by both county and city in the centuries that succeeded the
establishment of Norman rule. The first Norman governor was Baldwin de
Redvers, whose grandson, another Baldwin, declared for Matilda when
civil war broke out between her party and Stephen’s. The citizens, on
the other hand, espoused the cause of the King, and were subjected to
all sorts of barbarities, until the approach of a vanguard of two
hundred horse compelled the retreat of the garrison into the castle.
After a three months’ siege, water failed, and the doughty defenders
were forced to yield.
[Illustration
_From a Photograph_] [_by Frith & Co._
ROUGEMONT CASTLE, EXETER.
]
Edward I. held a parliament at Exeter, and his great-grandson, the
famous Black Prince, must have been well acquainted with the city, as he
passed through it more than once _en route_ to Plymouth, whence he
sailed to France on the glorious expedition which ended at Poictiers.
Its relations with the Black Prince reveal to us how much the county has
receded in practical importance since medieval times. Plymouth, indeed,
maintains her place: she is as great now, perhaps greater, than she was
then; and Dartmouth, charming Dartmouth, is still far from obscure.
Nevertheless, it is idle to claim for the ports of Devon as a class the
relative standing they once enjoyed, when, according to the _Libel of
English Policy_, Edward III., bent on suppressing the pirates of St.
Malo—
did dewise
Of English towns three, that is to say,
Dartmouth, Plymouth, the third it is Fowey;
And gave them help and notable puissance
Upon pety Bretayne for to werre.
And when Chaucer has to depict a typical mariner, he begins with the
words—
A schipman was ther, wonyng far by weste;
For ought I woot, he was of Dertemouth.
—obviously because of Dartmouth’s national reputation. Topsham, formerly
the port of Exeter, is a truly startling instance of decline, since as
late as the reign of William III. London alone exceeded it in the amount
of its trade with Newfoundland. On the other hand, Bideford never
possessed all the importance that Kingsley attributes to it, though
relatively of much greater consequence in ancient days than at present.
It is a curious fact that Ilfracombe, that popular watering-place, sent
six ships to the siege of Calais, as compared with Liverpool’s one,
Dartmouth contributing thirty-one, and Plymouth twenty-six.
The Black Prince was the first Duke of Cornwall, and the stannaries or
tin-bearing districts of Devon and Cornwall, which in Saxon and Norman
times had been a royal demesne, passed to this valiant prince and his
successors. The old Crockern Tor Parliament would furnish material for a
fascinating chapter in the romance of history, but the present sketch is
necessarily too brief to admit of much discussion. Its regulations
certainly did not err on the side of leniency. “The punishment,” says
Mrs. Bray, “for him who in days of old brought bad tin to the market was
to have a certain quantity of it poured down his throat in a melted
state.” The most important event in the annals of Chagford, one of the
stannary towns, is the falling in of the market-house on Mr. Eveleigh,
the steward, and nine other persons, all of whom were killed. This sad
disaster, which occurred “presently after dinner,” is the subject of a
rare black-letter tract, entitled, _True Relation of the Accident at
Chagford in Devonshire_.
Going back to the Wars of the Roses, the West of England for the most
part supported the Lancastrian cause. In 1469, Exeter was besieged for
twelve days by Sir William Courtenay, in the interest of Edward IV.; and
in the following year, Clarence and Warwick repaired to the city prior
to embarking at Dartmouth for Calais. When, however, Edward IV., seated
firmly on the throne, appeared in Exeter as _de facto_ sovereign of the
realm, the citizens, forgetting past grudges, provided such a welcome
for the monarch, his consort, and his infant son, that he presented the
Corporation with the sword of state still borne before the Mayor. The
city had given him a hundred nobles. Just twice that sum was the loyal
offering to Richard III. when, in 1483, he arrived at Exeter soon after
the Marquis of Dorset had proclaimed the Earl of Richmond King. A
gruesome incident marked his visit, for Richard, that best-hated of
English rulers, caused his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas St. Leger, to be
beheaded in the court-yard of the Castle. The name, Rougemont, jarred on
his superstitious nature, the reason being its similarity to Richmond.
The point is referred to by Shakespeare in the well-known play:—
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 1497, that bold adventurer, Perkin Warbeck, claimed admission within
the walls, which, so far as the citizens were concerned, would have been
readily granted. The Earl of Devon and his son were less accommodating,
and, after Warbeck had set fire to the gates, succeeded in beating off
his attack. The pretender’s next appearance in the city, where the King
had taken up his quarters, was in the character of a prisoner. Henry’s
conduct towards his rebellious subjects was worthy of a great prince,
and affords a marked contrast to the brutality that characterized the
suppression of the next revolt and the still more notorious savagery of
“Kirke’s Lambs.” When brought before him, “bareheaded, in their shirts,
and halters round their necks,” he “graciously pardoned them, choosing
rather to wash his hands in milk by forgiving than in blood by
destroying them.”
As is well known, the Reformation was not the popular event in England
that it was in Scotland, and the introduction of the Book of Common
Prayer in lieu of the Mass was the torch which, in 1549, set the western
shires—Cornwall, and Somerset, and Devon—in a blaze. The opposition,
started at Sampford Courtenay by a pair of simple villagers, soon came
to include leaders of the stamp of Sir Thomas Pomeroy and Sir Humphry
Arundel, who barricaded Crediton, the rendezvous of their party. The
interests of the Crown were befriended by Sir Peter and Sir Gawen Carew,
who, though utterly unscrupulous and barbarous in their methods of
warfare, failed to arrest the insurrection. Presently no fewer than ten
thousand rebels commenced the investment of Exeter. At this serious
juncture, the Lord Lieutenant of the county (Lord Russell) took the helm
of affairs, and ultimately raised the siege, the city in the meantime
being reduced to terrible straits through famine. But the rebels
suffered, too. In all, four thousand peasants fell in the Western
Rising. A dramatic episode was the execution of the Vicar of St. Thomas,
who was hanged in full canonicals on his church, where his corpse
remained suspended till the reign of Edward’s successor, when the Roman
Catholics regained, for a season, the upper hand.
The geographical position of Devonshire suggests, what is also the fact,
that the county had a considerable share in the colonization of the
Western Hemisphere. The first port in Devon to send out ships to America
for the purpose of establishing settlements was Dartmouth. In this
enterprise, Humphry and Adrian Gilbert, who were half-brothers of Sir
Walter Raleigh, and whose seat, Greenway, was close to Dartmouth, took
the lead. The pioneer expedition, which took place in 1579, was
productive of no result; but in 1583, Humphry Gilbert seized
Newfoundland, the present inhabitants of which are largely of Devon
ancestry. This navigator, though brave and skilful, rests under an ugly
imputation which we must all hope is baseless. According to some, he
proposed to Queen Elizabeth the perfidious destruction of the foreign
fishing fleets which had long made the island their station. During his
homeward voyage Humphry was drowned, and the manner of his death is
depicted in an old ballad:—
He sat upon the deck;
The book was in his hand.
“Do not fear; Heaven is as near
By water as by land.”
Adrian Gilbert interested himself in the discovery of the North-West
Passage, but neither of the brothers did much more than secure for
Dartmouth a principal share in the Newfoundland trade, for many and many
a year one of the chief props of Devon commerce.
Of far greater practical significance, as a centre of maritime
adventure, was Plymouth. Hence sprang William Hawkins, the first of his
nation to sail a ship in the Southern Seas. Hence sprang his more famous
son, Sir John Hawkins, the first Englishman that ever entered the Bay of
Mexico, and who spent the bribes of Philip of Spain in defensive
preparations against that tyrant’s fleet. Here was organized the
Plymouth Company founded for the colonization of North Virginia after
the failure of Sir Walter Raleigh (who, like Sir Humphry Gilbert, had
made Plymouth his base) to form a settlement. The efforts of the
Plymouth Company were at first not very felicitous, but in 1620 it
received a new charter, and although its schemes were absurdly
ambitious, and fell ludicrously short of realization, and although it
was administered for private ends rather than in a large spirit of
enlightened patriotism, still the mere existence of the company must
have tended to promote the flow of men and money to the new plantations
beyond the seas.
In the Great Civil War, the towns generally were in favour of the
Parliament, but Exeter, on which city Elizabeth had conferred the proud
motto _Semper fidelis_, appears to have been Royalist in sympathy. As,
however, the Earl of Bedford, the Lord Lieutenant, held it for the
opposite party, it was besieged by Prince Maurice, to whom it
surrendered in September, 1643. In April, 1646, it was recovered by the
Roundheads, but ere this many interesting events had come to pass. In
May, 1644, Queen Henrietta Maria had arrived in the city, and there, on
June 16th, was born the Princess Henrietta Anne, afterwards Duchess of
Orleans. Just at this moment, the Earl of Essex made his appearance, and
the Queen was fain to escape alone, leaving her infant in the charge of
Lady Moreton and Sir John Berkeley, who arranged for her christening in
the font of Exeter Cathedral. Her portrait by Sir Peter Lely, which
adorns the Guildhall, was the gift of Charles II., who, in 1671, thus
testified his appreciation of the city’s good services. The donor
himself had been the guest of the Corporation in July, 1644, when his
royal father had received from the civic authorities a present of five
hundred pounds.
Looking further afield, Devonshire was the theatre of many stirring
events in that fratricidal struggle. It was in 1642 that the High
Sheriff, Sir Edmund Fortescue, of Fallapit, at the instigation of Sir
Ralph Hopton, called out the _posse comitatus_, and so precipitated a
conflict. Sir Ralph himself, with the aid of Sir Nicholas Slanning,
assembled a force of some two or three thousand men, with which he
captured first Tavistock, and then Plympton, afterwards joining
Fortescue at Modbury, where a mixed army of trained bands and levies was
soon in being. The next proceeding was to have been an attack on
Plymouth, but Colonel Ruthven, the commandant of that town, sent out
five hundred horse, which, after a feint at Tavistock, dashed through
Ivybridge, and delivered a sudden assault on Modbury. In a moment all
was over. Exclaiming, “The troopers are come!” the trained bands fled in
confusion, while the rest of the army, who knew nothing about soldiering
and had no love for the cause, went after them, save for a few friends
of the Sheriff, who helped him to defend the mansion of Mr.
Champernowne. When this was fired, the movement collapsed, and the
Roundheads, who had lost but one man, effected a good haul of county
notabilities, including the High Sheriff, John Fortescue, Sir Edmund
Seymour, and his eldest son, Edmund Seymour, M.P., Colonel Henry
Champernowne, Arthur Basset, and Thomas Shipcote, the Clerk of the
Peace. About a score of these worthies of Devon were placed on board
ship at Dartmouth, and transported to London.
This initial success of the Roundheads was soon qualified by reverses.
Ruthven, having marched into Cornwall, was encountered by Hopton at
Braddock Down, and sustained a crushing defeat. In February, 1643,
Hopton laid siege to Plymouth, but Fortune again veered, and the
Royalists were forced to retire in consequence of a second defeat at
Modbury. Attempts were made to bring about a _pax occidentalis_, by
which both parties were to forswear further participation in the
unnatural strife, but they proved abortive. Encouraged by the defeat of
the Earl of Stamford at Stratton, a Cornish army advanced northwards on
the disastrous march which resulted in the overthrow at Lansdown, near
Bath, and involved the loss of four leading Royalists—Sir Bevil
Grenville, Trevanion, Slanning, and Sidney Godolphin—the last of whom
fell in a miserable skirmish at Chagford.
Later in the year, Prince Maurice exerted himself to reduce Plymouth,
but, although the Cavaliers fought well, the garrison, equally brave and
perhaps more pious, drove them back to the cry of “God with us!” Among
the besiegers was King Charles himself, but not even the presence of
royalty could alter the situation, and he and Maurice presently withdrew
from the scene of operations. The siege was not ended till the spring of
1645, in the January of which year Roundheads and Cavaliers occupied the
same relative positions as Britons and Boers in the memorable fight at
Wagon Hill. Even after this terrible repulse, the Cavaliers did not
quite abandon hope, and several small actions took place; but the advent
of Fairfax in 1646 led to a precipitate retreat, and the Cavalier
strongholds—Mount Edgecumbe and Ince House—gallantly defended
throughout, had to be given up.
The last place in Devon to be held for King Charles was Salcombe Castle,
and the person who held it was the very Sir Edmund Fortescue who was
High Sheriff, in 1642, and, in that capacity, threw down the glove to
his opponents. The “Old Bulwarke” was not a promising fort, but it stood
a siege of four months, when the garrison were allowed to march out with
the honours of war. Among other articles of surrender, it was stipulated
that John Snell, Vicar of Thurlestone, who had acted as chaplain to the
garrison, should be allowed quiet possession of his parsonage. This
condition was not observed. However, Parson Snell was not forgotten
after the Reformation, as he was appointed Canon Residentiary of Exeter,
in which position he was succeeded by his sons. By the 7th of May, the
date of the surrender, the cause of King Charles was _in extremis_; and,
accordingly, Fort Charles, as Sir Edmund had re-named the castle, was
fully justified in capitulating. The key of the castle is said to be
still the treasured heirloom of the hero’s representative.
Devon men took an active part in the Monmouth Rebellion; and, in common
with its neighbours, the county experienced the judicial atrocities of
the notorious Jeffreys. A “bloody assize” was opened at Exeter on
September 14th, 1685, when twenty-one rebels were sentenced, thirteen of
whom were executed. Thirteen more were fined and whipped, and one was
reprieved. A feature in this assize was the publication of 342 names,
all belonging to persons who were at large when the business closed.
These comparatively fortunate yeomen had escaped the search of the civil
and military powers, and were tenants of the open country, living in
copses and haystacks as best they might.
However, vengeance was not long delayed. In 1688, the Prince of Orange
landed at Brixham, and marched to Exeter by way of Chudleigh. The
account of an eye-witness printed in the Harleian Miscellany gives the
impression that his entry into the city, as a spectacle, was somewhat
barbaric. The pageant included two hundred blacks from the plantations
of the Netherlands in America, with embroidered caps lined with white
fur, and crested with plumes of white feathers; and two hundred
Finlanders or Laplanders in bear-skins taken from the beasts they had
slain, with black armour and broad, flaming swords. The troops were
received with loud acclamations by the people at the west gate, and
their conduct was excellent. Meanwhile, the position of the authorities
was far from enviable. In vulgar parlance, they were in a “tight place,”
not knowing which way the wind would blow, and being desirous of
maintaining the reputation of the city for unswerving loyalty. The
Bishop and the Dean adopted the safe, if not too heroic, method of
flight, while the Mayor, with more dignity, commanded the west gate to
be closed, and declined to receive the Prince. The poor priest-vicars,
no less faithful at heart, were intimidated into omitting the prayer for
the Prince of Wales, and employing only one prayer for the King. On the
ninth, notice was sent to the canons, vicars-choral, and singing lads,
that the Prince would attend the service in the Cathedral at noon, and
they were ordered by Dr. Burnet to chant the _Te Deum_ when His Highness
entered the choir. This they did. The Prince occupied the Bishop’s
throne, surrounded by his great officers, and after the _Te Deum_, Dr.
Burnet, from a seat under the pulpit, read aloud His Highness’s
declaration. The party then returned to the Deanery, where William had
taken up his quarters.
The Prince of Orange was in Exeter for three days before any of the
county gentry appeared in his support, and naturally the members of his
suite began to feel disconcerted. Presently, however, the gentlemen of
Devon rallied to his standard, and in compliance with a proposal of Sir
Edward Seymour, formed a general association for promoting his interest.
A notable arrival was Mr. Hugh Speke, who, it is said, had been
personally offered by King James the return of a fine of £5,000 if he
would atone for his support of Monmouth by acting as spy on the Prince
of Orange, and had bravely refused. The Mayor and Aldermen now thought
it high time to recognise the change in the situation and observe a
greater measure of respect towards one who, it seemed likely, would soon
be their lawful sovereign. The Dean, too, hastened home to give in his
adhesion to the Prince; and William left Exeter with the assurance that
the West Country, which could not forgive the Jacobite massacre, was
heart and soul with him, and that elsewhere the power of his despotic
father-in-law was rapidly crumbling.
In a second letter, reproduced in the Harleian Miscellany, we are
informed that there had been “lately driven into Dartmouth, and since
taken, a French vessel loaded altogether with images and knives of a
very large proportion, in length nineteen inches, and in breadth two
inches and an half; what they were designed for, God only knows.”
Possibly for a purpose not wholly unlike that which inspired the
unpleasant visit of some of the same nation to Teignmouth in 1690, when
they fired the town. It appears that the county force had been drafted
to Torquay with the object of resisting a threatened landing from the
French fleet, which was anchored in the bay. Certain French galleys,
availing themselves of the opportunity thus afforded them, stole round
to Teignmouth, threw about two hundred great shot into the town, and
disembarked 1,700 men, who wrought immense damage in the place, already
deserted by its inhabitants. For three hours there was pillage, and then
over a hundred houses were burnt. A contemporary named Jordan,
recounting the circumstances, cannot restrain his righteous indignation.
“Moreover,” says he, “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, overthrew the Communion tables, together also with many
other marks of a barbarous and enraged cruelty; and such goods and
merchandize as they could not or dare not stay to carry away, they
spoiled and destroyed, killing very many cattle and hogs, which they
left dead behind them in the streets.” This, the last, invasion of
Devonshire, cost the county £11,030, the amount at which the damage was
assessed, and which was raised by collections in the churches after the
reading of a brief. French Street, Teignmouth, conserves by its name the
memory of this heavy, but happily transient, disaster.
With the seventeenth century ends the heroic period of Devonian history.
From that time it figures merely as a province sharing in the triumphs
and distresses of the country of which it forms part, but having no
special or distinctive record. The most exciting era was, without doubt,
the Napoleonic age, when the dread of a new French invasion was
terminated only by the glorious victory of Trafalgar.
In conclusion, it may be mentioned that Sidmouth was the early home of
her late Majesty Queen Victoria. Her father, the Duke of Kent, died
there in 1820, and the west window of the church was erected as a
memorial of this son of George III., whose visit to Exeter in the
preceding century gave such delight to the county.
THE EDITOR.
THE MYTH OF BRUTUS THE TROJAN.
BY THE LATE R. N. WORTH, F.G.S., ETC.
Brutus, son of Sylvius, grandson of Æneas the Trojan, killed his father
while hunting, was expelled from Italy, and settled in Greece. Here the
scattered Trojans, to the number of seven thousand, besides women and
children, placed themselves under his command, and, led by him, defeated
the Grecian King Pandrasus. The terms of peace were hard. Pandrasus gave
Brutus his daughter, Ignoge, to wife, and provided 324 ships, laden with
all kinds of provisions, in which the Trojan host sailed away to seek
their fortune. An oracle of Diana directed them to an island in the
Western Sea, beyond Gaul, “by giants once possessed.” Voyaging amidst
perils, upon the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea they found four nations of
Trojan descent, under the rule of Corinæus, who afterwards became the
Cornish folk. Uniting their forces, the Trojans sailed to the Loire,
where they defeated the Gauls and ravaged Aquitaine with fire and sword.
Then Brutus
“... Repaired to the fleet, and loading it with the riches and spoils
he had taken, set sail with a fair wind towards the promised island,
and arrived on the coast of Totnes. This island was then called
Albion, and was inhabited by none but a few giants. Notwithstanding
this, the pleasant situation of the places, the plenty of rivers
abounding with fish, and the engaging prospect of its woods, made
Brutus and his company very desirous to fix their habitation in it.
They therefore passed through all the provinces, forced the giants to
fly into the caves of the mountains, and divided the country among
them, according to the directions of their commander. After this they
began to till the ground and build houses, so that in a little time
the country looked like a place that had been long inhabited. At last
Brutus called the island after his own name, Britain, and his
companions Britons; for by these means he desired to perpetuate the
memory of his name; from whence afterwards the language of the nation,
which at first bore the name of Trojan or rough Greek, was called
British. But Corinæus, in imitation of his leader, called that part of
the island which fell to his share Corina, and his people Corineans,
after his name; and though he had his choice of the provinces before
all the rest, yet he preferred this county, which is now called in
Latin Cornubia, either from its being in the shape of a horn (in Latin
_Cornu_), or from the corruption of the same name. For it was a
diversion to him to encounter the said giants, which were in greater
numbers there than in all the other provinces that fell to the share
of his companions. Among the rest was one detestable monster called
Goemagot, in stature twelve cubits, and of such prodigious strength
that at one stroke he pulled up an oak as if it had been a hazel wand.
On a certain day, when Brutus was holding a solemn festival to the
gods in the port where they at first landed, this giant, with twenty
more of his companions, came in upon the Britons, among whom he made a
dreadful slaughter. But the Britons at last, assembling together in a
body, put them to the rout, and killed them every one, except
Goemagot. Brutus had given orders to have him preserved alive, out of
a desire to see a combat between him and Corinæus, who took a great
pleasure in such encounters. Corinæus, overjoyed at this, prepared
himself, and, throwing aside his arms, challenged him to wrestle with
him. At the beginning of the encounter, Corinæus and the giant,
standing front to front, held each other strongly in their arms, and
panted aloud for breath; but Goemagot presently grasping Corinæus with
all his might, broke three of his ribs, two on his right side and one
on his left; at which Corinæus, highly enraged, roused up his whole
strength, and snatching him upon his shoulder, ran with him, as fast
as the weight would allow him, to the next shore, and there getting
upon the top of a high rock, hurled down the savage monster into the
sea, where, falling on the sides of craggy rocks, he was torn to
pieces, and coloured the waves with his blood. The place where he
fell, taking its name from the giant’s fall, is called Lam Goemagot,
that is, Goemagot’s Leap, to this day.”[1]
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Footnote 1:
_Geoffrey of Monmouth_, Giles’ Translation.
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Such, in its complete form, is the myth of Brutus the Trojan, as told by
Geoffrey of Monmouth, sometime Bishop of St. Asaph, who professed, and
probably with truth, to translate the British history of which it forms
a part from “a very ancient book in the British tongue,” given to him by
Walter Mapes, by whom it had been brought from Brittany. Geoffrey wrote
in the earlier part of the twelfth century, and he does not indicate
with more precision than the use of the term “very ancient” the date of
his original.
If, however, we are to accept the writings of Nennius as they have been
handed down as substantially of the date assigned to them by the
author—the middle of the ninth century—the legend of Brutus, though not
in the full dimensions of the Geoffreian myth, was current at least a
thousand years ago; and in two forms. In one account, Nennius states
that our island derives its name from Brutus, a Roman consul, grandson
of Æneas, who shot his father with an arrow, and, being expelled from
Italy, after sundry wanderings settled in Britain—a statement that
agrees fairly well with that of Geoffrey. In the other account, which
Nennius says he had learned from the ancient books of his ancestors,
Brutus, though still through Rhea Silvia, his great-grandmother, of
Trojan descent, was grandson of Alanus, the first man who dwelt in
Europe, twelfth in descent from Japhet in his Trojan genealogy, and
twentieth on the side of his great-grandfather, Fethuir. Alanus is a
kind of European Noah, with three sons—Hisicion, Armenon, and Neugio;
and all his grandsons are reputed to have founded nations—Francus,
Romanus, Alamanus, Brutus, Gothus, Valagothus, Cibidus, Burgundus,
Longobardus, Vandalus, Saxo, Boganus. He is wholly mythical.