ordered to carry the Prince on Shore, with his Guards; and passing
towards the Land, with sundry Lords, the Admiral of Rotterdam gave
divers Guns at his Landing; the Boat was held length-ways until he was
on shore: So after he had set his Fleet on Land, then came all the
Lords and Guards, some going before his Sacred Person, and some coming
after. There are sundry little Houses which belong unto Fishermen,
between the two Hills, at Torbay where we landed. The People of these
Houses came running out at their Doors to see this happy Sight. So the
Prince, with Mareschal Schomberg, and divers Lords, Knights, and
Gentlemen, marched up the Hill, which all the Fleet could see over the
Houses, the Colours flying and flourishing before his Highness, the
Trumpets sounding, the Hoit-boys played, the Drums beat, and the
Lords, Knights, Gentlemen, and Guards shouted; and sundry Huzzas did
now echo in the Fleet, from off the Hill, insomuch that our very
hearts below in the water were even ravished for joy thereof. On this
Hill you could see all the Fleet most perfectly, and the Men of War
sailing up and down the Seas, to clear them of all enemies; the Ships
in the Rear making all the sail and speed they could.
The Navy was like a little City, the masts appearing like so many
Spires. The People were like Bees swarming all over the Bay; and now
all the Schievelingers are set to work to carry the Men and Horses
unto Shore with speed, for as yet they had done nothing. The Officers
and Souldiers crowded the Boats extreamly, many being ready to sink
under the Weight; happy was that Man which would get to Land soonest:
And such was the eagerness of both Officers and Souldiers, that divers
jeoparded their Lives for haste. Sundry Oars were broken in rowing,
because too many laid hands on them, some jump’d up to their Knees in
Water, and one or two were over Head and Ears. Extraordinary pains was
now taken by all sorts of Men to get their necessary things to shore,
every one minding his own concern. The Night was now as the Day for
Labour, and all this was done, lest the Enemy should come before we
were all in readiness to receive them. The Country Harmony was,
ringing of Bells for our arrival.
The Officers and Souldiers were continually marching up the Hill after
the manner of the Guards, with their Colours flying and flourishing,
Hoit-boyes playing, Drums beating, and all shouting and echoing forth
Huzzas.
Whittle does not give many particulars of the landing of the Prince
himself. Probably they did not land at the same time. It is interesting
as to this to refer to the details given by Blewitt in the _Panorama_.
His account is as follows:—
The 4th of November it anchored safely in Torbay. This was the
anniversary of the Prince’s birth and marriage, and he therefore
wished to render it more memorable by landing on the British shore.
The preparations, however, could not be completed that night, but on
the following day, the Prince, attended by his principal officers,
proceeded to raise his standard on Brixham Quay. At this time Brixham
contained but few houses, and the good people, astonished at the
appearance of such an armament, are said to have stood in silent
wonder on the beach. At last William approached the shore and demanded
whether he was welcome, when after some further pause he was asked his
business, and his explanation considered satisfactory, he was, after a
little more parley, informed that he was welcome. “If I am, then,”
said the Prince, “come and carry me ashore,” and immediately a little
man, one of the party, plunged into the water and carried him
triumphantly ashore to the steps of the pier. On his landing the
inhabitants are said to have presented their illustrious visitor with
the following address:
“And please your Majesty King William,
You’re welcome to Brixham Quay
To eat buckhorn and drink bohea,
Along with me,
And please your Majesty King William.”
This story Mr. White very properly calls an absurd one, as the Prince
was not a King, and tea was a fabulous price.
In a note to this account, said to have been communicated by the Rev. H.
F. Lyte, it is stated as follows:—
The subsequent history of the “little man” who carried the King on
shore is rather singular. Having a short ambling pony, which was
commonly used in fish-jolting, he rode bare-headed before the Prince
to Newton and afterwards to Exeter, and so pleased him by his zeal
that he told him to come to him to court, where he should be seated on
the throne, and he would make a great man of him. He also gave him a
line under his hand, which was to be his passport into the royal
presence. In due time accordingly the little man took his course to
London, promising his townsmen that he should come back among them a
Lord at least. When, however, he arrived there some sharpers, who
learnt his errand at the inn where he put up, made our poor little
Brixhamite gloriously drunk, and kept him in that state for several
successive weeks. During this time one of the party, having obtained
the passport, went to court with the little man’s tale in his mouth,
and received a handsome present from the King. Our adventurer,
recovering himself shortly afterwards, went to the Palace without his
card of admission and was repulsed as an impostor, and came back to
Brixham never to hold up his head again.
I find that this story of the little fisherman carrying the Prince on
shore is still current at Brixham, the reason given for it being that it
was low tide at the time; the ending of the story as given to me being
that the “little man” who journeyed to London to see the Prince, owing
to being in difficulties from having lost his horse, and his boat being
out of repair, did see the King, and received a large sum of money, said
to be £100, with which he built a house in Brixham and lived “happily
for ever after.” His name was Varwell, and one story is that the Prince,
on being carried safely on shore, desired him to ask a favour of him,
upon which the fisherman desired that no press-gang might be sent to
Brixham. The actual spot on which the Prince landed was where the fish
market now stands, and the stone on which the Prince first placed his
foot was long preserved there and pointed out with pride and veneration.
In 1828 William IV., then Duke of Clarence, having come into Torbay,
landed at the New Quay at Brixham, and this stone was removed from the
fish market to this place to have the additional honour of receiving the
second Prince of that name who had dignified Brixham by his presence;
and while the Duke stood on the stone the Rev. H. F. Lyte, on the part
of the inhabitants, presented him with a box of heart of oak eight
hundred years old, a portion of the timber of the old Totnes bridge,
lined with velvet, containing a small portion of the stone, which the
Duke in his reply promised to preserve as a precious relic.
The stone itself was built into a small granite column erected to
commemorate the landing of the two Princes, and was set up in the fish
market; but in consequence of its inconvenient situation it was taken
down and subsequently erected on the Victoria Pier.
Blewitt remarks that the landing of the Prince on the shoulders of the
little fisherman was a very different kind of landing to that which
Northcote has assigned to William in his celebrated picture. An old
Dutch print, at present in my possession, purporting to be a delineation
of the landing, represents on the land a large and imposing castle, into
which the troops as they land are triumphantly marching, the Prince’s
flag flying from the summit.
To return to Whittle’s narrative, we find him giving the following
account of the proceedings subsequent to the landing:—
As soon as the Prince had viewed well the Ground upon the top of the
Hill, and found the most commodious place for all his Army to encamp,
he then gave Orders for everything, and so returned down the Hill unto
the Fishermen’s little Houses: One of which he made his Palace at that
time, instead of those at Loo, Honsterdyke, and the Hague. The Horse
Guards and some Foot were round about him at other Houses, and a
strong Guard but a little below the House wherein his Highness was.
All the Lords were quartered up and down at these Fishermen’s Houses,
whereof these poor Men were glad. Now the camp began to be filled with
Officers and Souldiers; for no Officer must move from his Company or
Post. The Foot Guards belonging to the Prince of Orange did encamp
within an enclosure of plowed Land, about which there was a natural
Fence, good Hedges and little Stone Walls, so that no Horse could
touch them; Count Solms being their Colonel or Commander. Count
Nassau’s Regiment encamp’d in another Craft or Inclosure joyning to
that of the Guards, having the like Fence about it as before. The
Regiment belonging unto Colonel Fagell encamp’d in a Craft or
Inclosure next to that of Count Nassau, and so all the English, Dutch,
French, and Scots encamp’d according to the aforesaid manner. The
Souldiers were marching into the Camp all hours in the Night; and if
any straggled from their Companies, it was no easy matter to find them
in the dark amongst so many thousands; so that continually some or
other were lost and enquiring after their Regiments.
It was a cold, frosty night, and the stars twinkl’d exceedingly;
besides, the Ground was very wet after so much Rain and ill Weather;
the Souldiers were to stand to their Arms the whole Night, at least to
be all in a readiness if anything should happen, or the enemy make an
Assault; and therefore sundry Souldiers were to fetch some old Hedges
and cut down green Wood to burn therewith, to make some Fire. Now one
Regiment beginning all the rest soon followed their Example. Those
that had Provision in their Snap-sacks (as most of the Souldiers had)
did broil it at the Fire, and others went into the villages
thereabouts to buy some fresh Provisions for their Officers, being we
were newly come from Sea; but alas! here was little Provision to be
gotten. There was a little Ale house amongst the Fishermen’s Houses
which was so extremely throng^d and crowded that a Man could not
thrust in his Head, not get Bread or Ale for Mony. It was a happy time
for the Landlord, who strutted about as if indeed he had been a Lord
himself, because he was honoured with Lords’ Company.
The little “ale-house” was probably the Buller’s Arms, which is still in
existence. Report says that the Prince himself slept there, though this
is doubtful, and that he left behind him there, or where he slept, a
ring, which fell into the possession of the landlord, and was preserved
with great care by subsequent possessors, eventually coming into the
possession of one Mary Churchward, who died somewhere about twenty years
ago, from whom the ring was stolen some years before her death by a
thief who entered her bedroom at night and carried it off owing to the
lady being in the habit of sleeping with her window open. Persons now in
Brixham remember the lady bitterly lamenting the loss of the ring on
account of its having belonged to the Prince of Orange.
Whittle continues:—
On the morrow after we landed, when all the Souldiers were encamp’d,
the Prince with sundry Noblemen rode and viewed each Regiment, and
then return’d to Dinner at this little House. The number of his
Highness’s Regiments landed here at this Bay was about six and twenty,
the number of Officers about one thousand, the number of Field
Officers about seventy-eight. The number of all his Forces and
Souldiers about fifteen thousand four hundred and odd men. You might
have seen several hundred Fires all at once in this Encampment, which
must needs signify to the Country round about that we were landed. The
Prince here was pleased to accept of Peoples Good-Will for the Deed,
because things were not here to be bought for Mony, no Market-Town
being near. Many People from all the adjacent places came flocking to
see the Prince of Orange. The Horses were landed with all the speed
that might be, and truly were much out of order, and sorely bruised,
not able to find their Legs for some days: Everything that was of
present use was posted to shoar, but the Artillery, Magazine, and all
sorts of Baggage and cumbersome things were left on Shipboard, and
order’d to meet us at Exeter.
Whittles reference to the fact that many people from the adjacent places
came flocking to see the Prince is confirmed by other writers.
Local tradition in my own family, handed down from parent to child with
no little pride, says that among those who flocked to see the Prince
from here were two Windeatts, Samuel and Thomas—father and son, and a
lady whose great niece subsequently intermarried with the Windeatts. At
the time of the Prince’s landing, Samuel Windeatt, a man about forty,
and a strict Nonconformist, was living in Bridgetown, where the family
had been settled for some years. Hearing the joyful news that the
Protestant Prince of Orange was in Torbay, he immediately set off to
“Broxholme” on horseback, taking his little son Thomas, then about eight
years old, in front of him, to see the Deliverer of England and his
troops. They narrated the fact on their return that the country people
around brought quantities of apples and rolled them down the hill to the
soldiers; and the truth of this incident was curiously confirmed some
years since. A member of my family having mentioned this to a gentleman
who in his early days farmed in this part of the country, he gave me the
following interesting account of the stories handed down to him:—
There are few now left who can say as I can that they have heard their
father and their wife’s father talking together of the men who saw the
landing of William the Third at Torbay. I have heard Capt. Clements
say he as a boy heard as many as seven or eight old men each giving
the particulars of what he saw then. One said a ship load of horses
hauled up to the Quay and the horses walked out all harnessed, and the
quickness with which each man knew his horse and mounted it surprised
them. Another old man said, “I helped to get on shore the horses that
were thrown overboard and swam on shore, guided by only a single rope
running from the ship to the shore”; and another would describe the
difference in the rigging and build of the ships, but all appeared to
welcome them as friends.
My father remembered only one “Gaffer Will Webber,” of Staverton, who
served his apprenticeship with one of his ancestors, and who lived to
a great age, say, that he went from Staverton as a boy, with his
father, who took a cart-load of apples from Staverton to the high-road
from Brixham to Exeter, that the soldiers might help themselves to
them, and to wish them “God-speed.”
I merely mention this to show how easily _tradition_ can be handed down,
requiring only three or four individuals, for two centuries.
The lady I referred to as one of those who flocked to see the Prince was
a Miss Juliana Babbage, from a brother of whom the late Charles Babbage,
the famous mathematician, was descended. She came, when a girl of
twelve, from Barbadoes, and was also a decided Nonconformist. On the 5th
November, 1688, she was attending the old meeting-house in Totnes, at a
thanksgiving service for the discovery of the gunpowder plot, and while
there was told that the Prince of Orange was in Torbay landing his
troops. She also hailed the news with joy, and as soon as service was
over set off to walk to Brixham, accompanied by an old lady of her
acquaintance, and making their way to the Prince, they boldly welcomed
him to England. He shook hands with them, and gave them some of his
proclamations to distribute, which they did so industriously that not
one was left in the family as a memorial. A crimson velvet and gold
purse, a pincushion, and a gold chain, which she is said to have worn on
the occasion, as well as a curious gold locket with hair belonging to
her, are still in the possession of our family.
These stories come to me from a relative who has attained an honoured
old age, who, owing to the early death of her mother, passed her
childhood and girlhood in an old family circle, and heard from the lips
of those elderly relatives tales of old times, which they had received
in like manner from their relatives. This lady says her grandmother told
her she well recollected her father joking her mother as to what might
have happened if the Prince had not succeeded, saying, “Oh! mistress,
your aunt might have swung for it!”
The terror infused into the minds of the men of the West by the bitter
persecution which followed the unsuccessful rising on behalf of the Duke
of Monmouth, was doubtless sufficient to deter the leading men from
openly espousing the Prince’s cause at this moment.
The first gentleman of any position to do so, and this he probably did
at Brixham, as he lived in the neighbourhood, was Mr. Nicholas Roope,
who was appropriately rewarded for his adhesion to the Prince by being
appointed, within a short time of the Prince reaching St. James’,
Governor of Dartmouth Castle, in the room of Sir Edward Seymour the
elder, who had then recently died.
In an interesting letter from the last Governor of Dartmouth Castle
(Governor Holdsworth) to Sir H. P. Seale, Bart., dated May 1st, 1857,
the warrant for his appointment is set out in full. It runs in the name
of William Henry, Prince of Orange, and is dated 7th of January, 1688–9,
and this was followed, on the 18th July of the same year (1689), by a
regular commission, when the Prince had become King of England.
The authority for the statement that Mr. Roope was the first to join the
King is contained in a letter from Mr. Roope to the Earl of Nottingham
in reply to one from his Lordship containing a complaint against him.
These letters are set out in full in Governor Holdsworth’s letter.
At Berry Pomeroy, some few miles distant from the scene of the Prince’s
landing, was then living Sir Edward Seymour the younger, sometime
Speaker of the House of Commons, son of the Seymour who was Roope’s
predecessor in the Governorship of Dartmouth Castle, and one of the most
influential men of his time, whose birth, says Macaulay, put him on a
level with the noblest subjects in Europe, and who, in political
influence and in Parliamentary abilities was beyond comparison the
foremost among the Tory gentlemen of England. He openly joined the
Prince at Exeter, and he it was who contributed greatly to the success
of the Prince’s cause by suggesting that an association should be
founded, and that all the English adherents of the Prince should put
their hands to an instrument binding them to be true to their leader and
to each other. He doubtless was well informed of what was now going on
at Brixham, and we can hardly imagine him to have been a passive
spectator of the great enterprise. Tradition says that the Prince had a
secret interview with him at a house, now a cluster of labourers’
cottages, still known as Parliament House, situate on the confines of
Berry parish on the road from Berry House to Brixham, and that there he
agreed to come out for the Prince at Exeter, for which city he was
member. Another account gives the place of meeting at Marldon, at a spot
now called Parliament Hill. The present Duke of Somerset, with whom I
have communicated on this point, has been good enough to inform me that
he believes the building called Parliament House to have been the place
where the country gentlemen assembled and agreed to support the Prince,
and that the latter probably had some interview with Seymour at that
time, as it was by his inducement that the country gentlemen, when they
met at Exeter, signed their names to the paper I have been referred to,
promising to support the Prince, and that for this probably the Prince
appointed him Governor of Exeter.
His Grace also informs me that the late Duke, who had the family papers
examined, said that all documents relating to these transactions
appeared to have been carefully destroyed, and that this precaution was
natural after the recent failure of Monmouth’s landing in the West of
England, though it deprives us, as he says, of many incidents that would
now be very interesting.
There is little information to be gained from the parish records of
Brixham on the subject of this paper, but from them it appears that at
least one poor nameless foreigner was left behind at Brixham when the
Prince’s army began its march to Exeter, and probably succumbed to the
effects of the voyage, which, from Whittle’s narrative, appears to have
been fatal to five hundred horses; for in the Register of Burials for
the parish for the year 1688 there appears the following entry:—
Nov. 21, a fforeigner belonging to the Prenz of Oringe.
In another book, containing an account of those buried in woollen, in
accordance with the law passed to encourage that trade, the entry is as
follows:—
November 21, a Dutchman cujus nomen ignotum.
There is a steep lane leading from the outer harbour up the hill to
where the station now stands, which the present vicar of Brixham
considers derives its name, Overgang, apparently a Dutch word, from
“Obergang,” or Gang-ober or “over,” and that it arose from the fact of
troops after the landing being repeatedly ordered to gang over this
hill. This may be so; but as I find that the word “gang,” meaning to go
or to walk, was in use in England in the time of Spenser, it is not
improbable that this lane gained its name before the advent of the
Prince of Orange.
The Prince’s army marched from Brixham on its way to Newton on the 6th
or 7th November, passing along the narrow lanes of Churston, Paignton,
Cockington, and Kingskerswell, taking apparently a part of two days on
the march, the roads being so bad as to make locomotion slow and
tedious.
Report says that at a place called Collins’ Grave, near the higher lodge
at Churston, where there is high ground overlooking the river, the army
encamped one night; also that the Prince himself stayed at a house in
Paignton, now the Crown and Anchor Inn. A room there is still shown as
the “Prince’s room.”
In a Protestant sense it is interesting that William landed within sight
of the Bible Tower at Paignton, where Coverdale, the translator of the
Bible, undoubtedly dwelt, and where he is said to have been probably
engaged on his translation; and doubtless this tradition was not lost
sight of by those about the Prince on his sleeping at the “Crown and
Anchor,” just outside the palace wall.
The following is Whittle’s graphic account of the march to Newton:—