an incident of no great apparent importance stirred up a new outbreak on
the Eastern side. The father of Sir Walter Raleigh was riding through
Clyst St. Mary, when he overtook an old woman on her way to church,
telling her beads as she went. Quite needlessly, but also quite after
the fashion of the time, he entered into a polemical discussion, and so
angered the old lady that she rushed into church, and shouted that she
and her religion had been insulted, and that a “gentleman” had
threatened that if they did not give up their beads, their holy bread,
and their holy water, he would burn them out of their homes. This was
enough to set the heather on fire on the eastern side of Exeter.
By this time Exeter was the centre of a district in full revolt, and
amongst the country gentlemen and magistrates there was weakness and
division.
It was at this stage that there arrived from Cornwall and North Devon
the promise of support from men of more mark than the leaders of the
village revolutionists. The barns of Crediton had done their work; the
eyes of all men turned now to the walls of Exeter. The annals of Exeter
are rich in records of worthy conduct. The proud motto, _Semper
fidelis_, has been no inglorious boast. Amongst all her chronicles none
is more to her credit than her behaviour throughout this siege. Around
the walls thousands of men were encamped, or came and went as
opportunity offered or necessity compelled. The Cornishmen brought to
the siege men skilled in “underground” labour, and these dug beneath the
walls and prepared mines. Exeter had also at least one man of skill in
like arts. Setting pans of water over suspected places, he watched till
the vibrations of the water revealed the blows of the pick-axe below. It
was at once deliverance and merry relaxation of the strain upon the mind
to divert all the slop and drainage of the city into the besiegers’
mines. John Newcomb was this man’s name; and like the name of the man
who fired the barn at Crediton, it bears witness to the genuineness of
the narrative.
Meantime, during this five weeks’ siege, strange things had happened.
One of the Carews had been to London to convince the Court of the
reality of the peril, and with blunt directness had driven the
conviction that the case was urgent, home to the minds of the Council.
Troops were promised, Germans chiefly, and though their number was not
great, they were used to discipline—war was their profession, not their
pastime—their arrival soon made a difference. The citizens were cheered
and depressed alternately, as news reached them from the villages, that
Lord Russell and the Carews were coming. The darkest hour, it is said,
is that before the daybreak. It was so in Exeter at the end of July and
the beginning of August. The siege had lasted five weeks, when news
reached the city that the relieving troops had been defeated. Sunday,
the fourth of August, was the darkest day of the siege. While the
citizens were at Church, and, in obedience to the law, were using the
new order of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, news
had reached the ill-affected in the city that the King’s troops had
suffered defeat. A violent mob paraded the streets, hungry and angry,
shouting: “Come out, these heretics and twopenny bookmen! Where be they?
By God’s wounds and blood, we will not be pinned in to serve their
turns. We will go out and have in our neighbours; they be honest, good,
and godly men.” The Mayor drove them back to their dwellings, and then
the most faithful of the defenders entered into a covenant of fidelity
to each other, no matter what might befall the city. Bedford House
should be their citadel, and if and when that ceased to be tenable, they
would go out by the postern gate into Southernhay, and cut their way
through or die together. That very day the reported defeat was turned
into victory. The relieving army, after reverses all but fatal, finally
won the field. Monday inside the city was strangely quiet; before
midnight the invading Cornish, the besieging multitude, had melted away.
When the morning of Tuesday broke, Exeter was free.
Such is the bare outline of the last siege but one of the many which
Exeter has sustained. “The barns of Crediton” raised the country side;
the bridge of Clyst St. Mary pacified it. Between the place where the
fighting began and the place where it ended stood, and still stands, the
ancient city which so often in the past had been a place of defence to
the interests of the country, but never in all the long roll of her
achievements had borne herself more bravely, more nobly, and more
successfully than when she disdained to surrender at the cry of hunger
the _rôle_ of law-abiding fidelity which was the crown and glory of her
mayor and municipality in the July and August of 1549.
Strangely enough, but fitly, too, the struggle closed where it began.
Back through Crediton, past the blackened barn, the Royal troops
marched. At Sampford Courtenay the shattered forces of the insurgents
had collected. Once more they fought, “and never gave over until that
both in the town and in the field, they were all or the most taken and
slain. And so,” says Hooker, “of a traitorous beginning they made a
shameful ending.”
It is a pathetic thing to read the Collect for Whitsunday, with its
prayer for a right judgment in all things, and to think that the first
result of ordering it to be said in the mother tongue was the series of
battles, sieges, and executions which make up the terrible history that
began to unroll its woes outside the Barns of Crediton.
W. J. EDMONDS.
GALLANT PLYMOUTH HOE.
BY W. H. K. WRIGHT.
What memories of the past crowd into the mind as we stand upon the
far-famed Plymouth Hoe, and gaze seaward towards the open Channel!
Looking out over Plymouth Sound, crowded with shipping from all parts of
the world, one is apt to lose one’s twentieth-century identity, and to
wander in thought over long-past and well-nigh forgotten days.
For, in truth, there is a glamour and a halo of romance about Plymouth
Hoe which can be found nowhere else; for there, beyond and around us,
spread the blue waters ebbing and flowing as they have ebbed and flowed
for countless ages, and pregnant with mighty secrets and a wondrous
retrospect.
Beneath those waters lie buried many strange tragedies, and of the
shores are told many wonderful legends; but there are many living
stories connected with our national and naval history that are to be
found enshrined in our glorious annals. The Hoe, as regards its position
and outlook, has changed but little since the days of Trojans,
Phœnicians, Romans, Danes, Normans, Bretons, and Spaniards, all of whom
in their turn have brought their ships within the bold headlands to east
and west in quest of spoil or possessions.
The watchers on Plymouth Hoe may have witnessed many novel sights from
their elevated standpoint, and may have joined in the welcome accorded
to many distinguished visitors.
[Illustration
_From a drawing by J. M. W. Turner._] [_Engraved by W. J. Cooke._
PLYMOUTH HOE.
]
From a very early period, Plymouth has occupied a prominent position in
the naval affairs of the kingdom, and on many occasions has been
privileged to supply men, ships, money, and other requisites for the
fitting out of expeditions—some of a warlike character, against our
aggressive neighbours or foreign foes; others of a more peaceable
intent, destined for the discovery of new countries and the exploration
of unknown seas. From its position as one of the most westerly ports,
and possessing, as it does, one of the finest harbours in the world,
Plymouth has naturally been chosen as the starting-point of many of
those daring enterprises which have astonished the world; and doubtless
the Hoe has witnessed many interesting scenes, including the departure
of these diversified expeditions and their triumphant homecoming. It
would seem to us but as a matter of course that our forefathers should
have betaken themselves to this famous place of outlook when anything
unusual was going forward, even as we do at this time under similar
circumstances. But in olden time there were many reasons beside those of
mere idle curiosity to prompt the inhabitants of Plymouth to assemble on
the Hoe. With what eager interest must they have repaired thither in
those early days, when the French, with fire and sword, descended upon
it, and made havoc wherever they went! Small and insignificant as the
town then was, it appeared, nevertheless, to have possessed a peculiar
attraction for our French neighbours, who, upon several occasions, paid
their unwelcome visits. Thus, in 1339, we find it recorded that the
French burnt the greater part of the town; again, in 1377, the same
depredations were committed; in 1399, the French attacked Plymouth, but
were defeated by the people of the town and neighbourhood, under Hugh
Courtenay, Earl of Devon, the enemy losing five hundred men, and flying
in disorder to their ships; in 1403 it was burnt by the French; and
again, in 1405, the Bretons invaded Plymouth, and burnt six hundred
houses. The name Breton or Briton Side, given to a street in the lower
part of the town, and still in evidence, is traceable to a connection
with this event.
But the brave seamen of gallant little Plymouth were on other occasions
amply revenged for these outrages. Thus, in 1346, the battle of Cressy
and siege of Calais are recorded, and it is a matter of historical fact
that the latter town was blockaded by twenty-six ships and over six
hundred men mustered by the town of Plymouth, while Saltash, Millbrook,
and other neighbouring places also sent their quota of help. Again, in
1354, a fleet of three hundred ships sailed from hence, and within sight
of the watchers on Plymouth Hoe, for the invasion of France, under the
command of the King (Edward III.), the Black Prince, and other noted
leaders. The watchers on Plymouth Hoe may have also taken part in the
enthusiastic reception given by the people to the Black Prince, on the
occasion of his landing here, after his memorable victory at Poictiers
in 1356, bringing with him as hostages John, King of France, that
monarch’s youngest son, and some of his principal nobles.
It is, however, to the age of Elizabeth that we must turn to find the
greatest interest centreing around Plymouth. In that reign, the town
attained a degree of importance that it has never since lost; and, as a
matter of course, Plymouth Hoe was, as in still earlier times, from its
commanding position and extent, the rendezvous for the townsfolk, as
well as the muster-ground for troops. Many scenes of intense interest
that have been witnessed from this historic spot, rise to the mind’s
eye.
“The brave sea-captains it (Plymouth) produced made a glorious history
for England in the reign of Elizabeth. Drake, first of England’s
vikings, as a sailor, went out with his little fleet of schooners from
this port on the 15th of November, 1577, to plough with their small
keels a track through all the seas that surround the globe. The
birth-roll of Plymouth is rich and illustrious with names of seamen who
wrote them on the far-off islands and rough capes of continents they
discovered. Drake, Hawkins, Raleigh, Oxenham, and Cook sailed on their
memorable expeditions from this port.”[4]
-----
Footnote 4:
Burritt’s _Walk from London to Land’s End_.
-----
Many a time and oft did the people of Plymouth his away to the Hoe to
bid Drake and his gallant company God-speed on their voyages of
discovery and warfare. And it was no empty curiosity that led them to do
this, for Drake was their hero, beloved by everybody, and his ship’s
company numbered many Plymouth men, the husbands, sons, and brothers of
those who looked wistfully and through blinding tears at the little
vessels fast disappearing in the distance, out into the great unknown.
And if they thus watched the outgoing, what about the home-coming? That
was an anxious time for the watchers on Plymouth Hoe, for no one knew
until the ship actually arrived in port how many of their loved ones had
succumbed to the rigours of the varying climate, disease, storm, and,
worst of all, the dreaded Spaniards, with their horrible Inquisition. It
is very evident that the townsfolk did take a very great interest in the
events and expeditions of this period, for one old chronicler informs us
that “Sir Francis (then Captain) Drake returning from one of his
voyages, and arriving at Plymouth on Sunday, August 9th, 1573, in sermon
time, and the news of his return being carried into the church, there
remained few or no people with the preacher, all running to observe the
blessing of God upon the dangerous adventures of the captain.”
But this home-coming of Drake’s, and the reception then given him, was
as nothing compared to that accorded him when he returned from his
voyage of circumnavigation. As stated before, he left Plymouth on the
15th of November, 1577, and returned on the 11th September, 1580. In
this voyage he had completely surrounded the globe—a feat which, it is
alleged, no commander-in-chief had accomplished before. He had five
vessels at starting, the aggregate tonnage of which did not reach three
hundred tons, and a company of men, gentlemen, and sailors, all told,
amounting to one hundred and sixty-four. Before this voyage was half
done, Drake had parted company with several of his ships, and returned
from that voyage with only one ship, _The Golden Hind_, otherwise known
as _The Pelican_. But, alas! there came a time when the watchers on
Plymouth Hoe looked in vain for their hero; for both he and his
companion, Hawkins (of a noted Plymouth family), died at sea, and were
buried in the ocean, within a few weeks of each other. It was said of
Drake—
The waves became his winding-sheet, the waters were his tomb,
But for his fame the ocean-sea was not sufficient room.
But we have anticipated matters a little. It must not be forgotten that
Drake and Hawkins, with many another Plymouth captain of renown, fought
the Armada of Philip the Second in 1588. All other events in the annals
of Plymouth and Plymouth Hoe pale into insignificance beside that
culminating event in the history of the time—that grandest of all
England’s triumphs—described by Camden as “the only miraculous victory
of that age.” For out there, well within sight of the watchers on
Plymouth Hoe, was assembled the English fleet of a hundred and twenty
sail, which was destined, by the Providence of God, to cause the
destruction of that magnificent armament, “whose descent upon our shores
had lighted up the beacon fires of British defiance from the Lizard to
the Hoe, and roused the spirit of our loyal tars to drive the proud
invaders from the seas.”
Let us, for a moment, imagine ourselves thrown back to that eventful
summer’s evening in 1588, so graphically described by Macaulay, when—
There came a gallant merchant ship full sail to Plymouth bay,
bringing the important and alarming news that the Spaniards were within
sight of our shores. We take up our position on the Hoe, then, as now,
the favourite resort of the townsfolk, and find much to interest us.
Near the Hoe is “The Pelican” Inn, with its terrace bowling green, and
there we find a noble company assembled. “Chatting in groups, or
lounging over a low wall which commands a view of the shipping far
below, are gathered almost every notable man of the Plymouth fleet—that
fleet which will to-morrow begin the greatest sea fight the world has
ever seen.”
There we see Lord Charles Howard of Effingham, Lord High Admiral of
England, Sir John Hawkins, Admiral of the Port of Plymouth, Sir Francis
Drake, Lord Sheffield, Sir Richard Grenville, the hero of the great
fight with the Spaniards a few years later, Sir Robert Southwell, Martin
Frobisher, John Davis, and possibly Sir Walter Raleigh.
These and many others were on the Hoe at Plymouth that summer’s evening
the day before the coming of the Armada. Some were enjoying a game of
bowls, and tradition says that in the midst of the game intelligence was
brought that the Armada were in the offing. Howard called upon the
captains to lay aside their toys, and prepare to shoot in another and
more serious game; but Drake, with that coolness which was one of his
most marked characteristics, respectfully answered his chief: “There is
time enough to finish our game, and to fight the Spaniards afterwards.”
So the game was fought to its finish, and then there was hurry and
bustle on land and sea, men thronging to the shore to gain their ships,
sails being spread, all sorts of commands being given, and then came a
waiting time, till the darkness of night fell, till—
The beacons blazed upon the roof of Edgcumbe’s lofty hall,
and the warning radiance spread from hill-top to hill-top, from cape to
cape, until in a few short hours the whole land was told that the
dreaded and much-vaunted Armada was at last in the English Channel.
There is no need to follow the story further, as the scene is shifted
from Plymouth Hoe, and the doings of Howard, Drake, Hawkins, and their
brave companions have passed beyond our ken.
A few years later, in 1620, a little bark lay out there on the waters of
the Sound having on board her the seeds of a mighty empire; for in the
little _Mayflower_ were the pilgrims who alienated themselves from home
and friends for religion’s sake, and sought in a new clime a haven of
rest and peace. They found it after many days and the endurance of much
hardship. Elihu Burritt, an American writer, giving his reminiscences of
Plymouth Hoe and the Pilgrim Fathers, says:—
As Noah took in with him all that was worth preserving of the old
world before the Flood, not only of animal, but of mental and moral,
life, so that little ruddered ark, with its sky-lights looking upward
to the face of God by night and day, and filled with the ascending
voice of prayer by those who trusted in His guidance, bore across the
wide world of waters the life-germs of all that was worth planting in
the New World, or that could grow in its soil.
How these seeds of Empire have borne fruit may be seen in the marvellous
growth of the United States of America, which has now a population
exceeding eighty millions.
A few years later, viz., in 1625, all Plymouth flocked on to the Hoe,
attracted thither by the presence of the King, Charles I., who there
reviewed 10,000 troops from the counties of Devon and Cornwall. Twenty
years after, the Royalist forces were encamped on Staddon Heights over
yonder, holding the rebel town under close siege, and the people who
ventured on Plymouth Hoe noted the white tents of the opposing forces
with a feeling somewhat akin to dismay, for they did not know what a day
might bring forth. But Plymouth remained staunch to the Parliamentary
cause, and withstood Charles and his armies throughout the whole period
during which the Civil War lasted.
Then, in 1652, a mournful procession landed under the Hoe with the body
of Admiral Blake, who had succumbed to wounds received in a sharp fight
with the Dutch. His heart was buried in St. Andrew’s Church; his body
received honourable interment in Westminster Abbey.
The next memorable scene was the building of the Citadel—that huge
fortification to the east of the Hoe proper—which served the double
purpose of repelling invaders and of menacing the rebellious townsfolk,
the memory of whose disaffection still rankled in the minds of Charles
II. and his advisers. This was in 1670.
Another notable scene was doubtless witnessed by the watchers on the Hoe
on the 14th of November, 1698, when Henry Winstanley completed and
lighted the first lighthouse on the Eddystone reef. The story is well
told by Jean Ingelow in a graphic poem, for which we have only space for
a few lines:—
Till up the stair Winstanley went
To fire the wick afar,
And Plymouth in the silent night
Looked out and saw her star.
Winstanley set his foot ashore;
Said he, "My work is done;
I hold it strong to last as long
As aught beneath the sun.
"But if it fail, as fail it may,
Borne down with ruin and rout,
Another than I shall rear it high,
And brace the girders stout.
“A better than I shall rear it high,
For now the way is plain;
And though I were dead,” Winstanley said,
“The light would rise again.”
. . . . . . .
With that Winstanley went his way,
And left the rock renowned,
And summer and winter his pilot star
Hung bright o’er Plymouth Sound.
The sequel to this episode is a sad one, for it is recorded that the
tower was destroyed on the 26th of November, 1703, and its
public-spirited and confident designer perished with it.
And men looked south to the harbour mouth,
The lighthouse tower was down.
Other scenes rise up before us as the centuries roll on. We see the good
citizens of Plymouth crowd on to the Hoe to witness the departure of
Captain Cook on his various voyages of exploration in the South Seas; we
note the pregnant comings and goings attending the great war with
France, stately vessels sailing from the Sound in all their warlike
glory, anon coming back crippled and wounded, with half their men killed
or maimed. Then, later, we see the arch-cause of all this bloodshed—the
great Napoleon—a prisoner on board the _Bellerophon_ in Plymouth Sound,
while the waters below us teem with the boats and craft of all
descriptions of the curious sightseers.
The years slip by. This time we are at war with Russia, with France as
our ally, and we stand on the Hoe to watch the stately troopships
sailing off with the flower of our army to court death in the Black Sea
or in the Baltic. History tells the tale.
At another time we watch the first shipload of emigrants bound for the
Antipodes to plant New Englands in Australia, New Zealand, and
elsewhere; and so it goes on through the centuries—the Plymouth Hoe
beautified by the hands of men, and surrounded by stately buildings, and
within sound of a teeming population, but in its general character and
appearance little changed since the days of which we have spoken; and
Plymouth men of to-day congregate on the Hoe, and watch the huge liners
and leviathan battleships coming and going, even as their far-away
ancestors noted the coming and going of Drake and his fighting ships
that bore over the blue waters of the Sound those pioneers of empire—the
sea-dogs of Devon.
W. H. K. WRIGHT.
[Illustration: leaf]
=A SONG OF EMPIRE.=
(Occasioned by the visit of the King and Queen to Devonshire, March,
1902.)
A song, a song of Empire, of Britain, and her fame;
Of sons who fought and fell for her, and gained a deathless name;
Of men who on the trackless deep, or on the battle-field,
Maintained her old supremacy, who died, but scorned to yield.
They sowed the seeds of Empire in far lands o’er the sea;
They made the name of England the watchword of the free.
And by their deeds of daring, on land or on the main,
O’erthrew the pride of Philip, and crushed the power of Spain.
’Twas Drake and his brave seamen who boldly led the van;
’Twas Hawkins, Grenville, Raleigh, and many a Devon man
Who taught the boastful Spaniard how dogged they could be—
That British pluck was e’er a match for old-world chivalry.
Through many an age on history’s page their fame shines clear and fair,
From sire to son the message passed boldly to do and dare;
And whereso’er Old England’s flag is seen the world around,
Shoulder to shoulder, rank on rank, Devonia’s sons are found.
But Britain’s Empire grows apace; and whereso’er they be,
Britannia’s sons still wave aloft the banner of the free.
No narrow jealousies can stay—no obstacles affright:
Their motto is “Right forward, for Britain, Crown, and Right.”
And when the war-note soundeth, as late it sounded shrill,
How nobly rose her sons to arms, obedient to her will!
And as they came to Afric’s shores from many a distant clime,
So will they come for her loved sake, e’en to the end of time.
Nor race, nor people, clime nor zone her march can stay or bound;
In every land beneath the sun the British bugles sound;
Her warships ride on every sea, her flag flies far and near,
Mother of nations is she still, to all her children dear.
. . . . . . .
“God Save the King,” the people cry, and ’tis no empty sound—
He’s loved and honoured for his worth the whole wide world around.
Despotic power he’ll never wield, but with benignant sway
Rule o’er a people myriad-tongued, who gladly homage pay.
And to his Consort, now a Queen—the Queen we all adore—
We raise our greetings loyally and all our love outpour;
Long life be hers and happiness, and may no cares of State
E’er cast a shadow o’er her crown or love or joy abate.