The Otter and the Axe
'Dear native brook! Wild streamlet of the West!
How many various fated years have past,
What happy and what mournful hours, since last
I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast,
Numbering its light leaps! yet so deep imprest
Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes
I never shut amid the sunny ray,
But straight with all their tints thy waters rise,
Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey,
And bedded sand, that, veined with various dyes,
Gleamed through thy bright transparence! On my way,
Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled
Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs:
Ah! that once more I were a careless child!'
COLERIDGE: _Sonnet to the River Otter_.
The River Otter rises in Somerset, and runs nearly due south, bearing
slightly westwards till it reaches Honiton. Here it makes a curve still
farther to the west, and from Ottery St Mary runs southwards to the sea.
In Westcote's day, when the derivations of names were taken in a
light-hearted spirit, it was said: 'The river Otter, or river of otters
(water-dogs), taking name from the abundance of these animals (which we
term otters) sometime haunting and using it.' But the more serious
authorities of to-day do not allow that the otters in this river have
anything to do with the matter, and say that the name comes from the
Welsh _y dwr_, the water. It is a rapid and very clear stream, flowing
through green and fertile valleys.
Honiton filled Defoe with admiration when he came to it on his journey
to the West. He describes it as 'a pleasant, good town, that stands in
the best and pleasantest part of the whole country ... and to the
entrance into Honiton the view of the country is the most beautiful
landscape in the world, a mere picture, and I do not remember the like
in any one place in England.' Beyond this pleasantness there is nothing
very remarkable in the town; perhaps its most uncommon feature being a
stream of clear water that runs down the street, with square
dipping-places at intervals.
To the west the town looks over a space of comparatively flat country,
but on the north-west it is overshadowed by St. Cyres Hill, and farther
north is the bold height of Dumpdon. On the top of this hill are the
remains of an oval camp, and a few miles away to the north-west is the
better-known camp called Hembury Fort. The fort stands very high, and
looks south to the sea beyond the Vale of the Otter, and west to Haldon
and the fringes of Dartmoor over Exeter. Three ramparts surround the
fort, which covers a large space of ground, and it is 'divided into two
parts by a double agger.... Several Roman coins, and an iron "lar"
representing a female figure three inches high, have been found here.'
A great Roman road passes by Honiton. The Fosseway ran from Caithness to
Totnes (according to some authorities, on into Cornwall), and crossed
the country between Exeter or Seaton and Lincolnshire. It is thought
that the Romans, in making their famous roads, usually followed the line
of still older British ways.
In coaching days Honiton was well known as a stage for changing horses.
Gay, who was a Devonshire man, a native of Barnstaple, says in his
_Journey to Exeter, 1716, from London_:
'Now from the steep, 'midst scatter'd farms and groves,
Our eye through Honiton's fair valley roves;
Behind us soon the busy town we leave,
Where finest lace industrious lasses weave.'
Here the poet mentions the one characteristic of the town known to
strangers--the lace-making. When or how it was first started is not
exactly known, but there is a theory that certain Flemings, escaping to
England from the persecutions of the Duke of Alva, settled near Honiton
and introduced the art towards the end of the sixteenth century. The
evidence is too slender to prove that this was so, but there is no doubt
that by the beginning of the next century the industry was well
established, for in the Church of St Michael is a memorial brass plate
recording that
JAMES RODGE of Honiton
in ye County of Devonshire (Bonelace Siller)
Hath given unto the Poore of Honinton P'ishe
The Benefytt of L100 for ever.
Who deceased ye 27 of July A'o. Di. 1617. AEtate suae 50.
Remember ye poore.
So it is obvious that before 1617 there must have been enough lace to
dispose of to make the sale of it profitable.
About forty years later Fuller wrote a spirited defence of lace-making
on economic grounds. It was then 'made in and about Honyton, and weekly
returned to London.' He says: 'Though private persons pay for it, it
stands the state in nothing.... Many lame in their limbs and impotent in
their arms, if able in their fingers, gain a livelyhood thereby, not to
say that it saveth some thousand of pounds yearly, formerly sent over
seas to fetch Lace from Flanders.' At this time the lace trade
flourished greatly, although there was always a difficulty in competing
with Belgium, because of the superiority of its silky flax, finer than
any spun in England. Later the workers fell on evil days, for during the
American War there was little money to spend on luxuries; and, besides,
about this time the fashion of wearing much lace came to an end. In 1816
the introduction of 'machine net' supplanted the _vrai reseau_, the
groundwork of the lace made by hand, and this took away work from very
many people, besides lowering prices, so that the workers became
discouraged, and the quality as well as the quantity of the lace
suffered much in consequence. Queen Adelaide tried to stimulate the
dwindling trade by ordering a lace dress, every flower in which was to
be copied from Nature. The initials of the flowers chosen spelt her
name:
Amaranth,
Daphne,
Eglantine,
Lilac,
Auricula,
Ivy,
Dahlia,
Eglantine.
Queen Victoria's wedding-dress was made at Beer, and of later years
there has been a revival of lace-making, especially in the neighbourhood
of Honiton and of Beer; and considerable quantities are made by village
women living at home.
But lace is not the only thing that comes from Honiton. Cider is made
there, and in the reign of George II making it must have been a very
profitable occupation. Defoe notes: 'They tell us they send twenty
thousand hogsheads of cider hence every year to London, and (which is
still worse) that it is most of it bought there by the merchants to mix
with their wines--which, if true, is not much to the reputation of the
London vintners. But that by-the-bye.' As cider-making was then in such
a prosperous condition, it is easy to understand the tremendous outcry
that arose a few years later, when Lord Bute imposed the enormous tax of
ten shillings per hogshead, to be paid by the first buyer. The storm
provoked was so violent, the opposition of country gentlemen of all
shades of politics so unanimous, that the Prime Minister modified the
tax to one of four shillings on each hogshead, to be paid by the grower,
who was thereby rendered liable to the domiciliary visits of excisemen.
This alteration was vehemently protested against, and Pitt championed
the opposition on the grounds that it was an Englishman's pride that
every man's house was his castle, and denounced as intolerable a Bill
that allowed excisemen to invade the house of any gentleman who 'owned a
few fruit-trees and made a little cider.' The City of London sent
petitions to the Commons, the Lords, and the Throne; and the counties of
Devon and Hereford, the cities of Exeter and Worcester, urged their
respective Members to make all possible resistance to the tax. Lord
Bute's personal unpopularity increased enormously, and a shoal of
squibs, caricatures, and pamphlets appeared, in which he was held up to
ridicule and contempt. One caricature represented him as 'hung on the
gallows over a fire, on which a jack-boot fed the flames, and a farmer
was throwing an excised cyder barrel into the conflagration. In rural
districts he was burnt under the effigy of a _jack-boot_, a rural
allusion to his name.'
An amusing story is told of Lord North in connection with this tax. Not
long after it had been imposed, he and Sir Robert Hamilton came to Ashe,
near Axminster, on a visit--Lord North, then a Lord of the Treasury,
distinctly uneasy as to the risk of coming into Devonshire, for the
county was still seething with dissatisfaction against the Government.
'He was one day thrown into great alarm by a large party of reapers,
who, having finished cutting the wheat of the estate, approached the
house with their hooks in their hands, shouting the usual cry, "We
have'n! we have'n!" The portentous words Lord North applied to himself,
and, pale with terror, considered himself a dead man. Sir Robert
Hamilton seized a sword, and was sallying forth to repulse the visitors,
when, meeting a member of the household, an explanation took place, by
which the fears so unconsciously excited were removed.'
It was a most ancient custom in the West--indeed, it is said to be a
remnant of the pagan rite of dedicating the first-fruits to Ceres--to
set aside either the first armful of corn that was cut or else some of
the best ears, and bind them into a little sheaf, called a 'neck'. A
fragment of the vivid description given by Miss O'Neill in 'Devonshire
Idyls' must be quoted: 'The men carried their reaping-hooks; the sheaf
was borne by the old man. Bareheaded he stood in the light of the moon.
Strange shadows flecked the mossy sward on sundown as he held the
first-fruits aloft and waved his arms.
'"We ha'un!" cried he, and the cry was long and wailing. The strange
intimation fell on the ear like an echo from pagan days. One could fancy
the fauns and weird beings of old had taught the cadence to the first
reapers of earth. "We ha'un!" cried he, and all the men in the circle
bowed to the very ground.... "We ha'un!" cried Jonas again, and again
the reapers bowed and waved. Then the old men took up another strain, at
once more jubilant and more resonant, and with an indescribable drawling
utterance sang out "Thee Neck!"--sang it out three times, and twice the
waving circle of bright steel flashed.'
On leaving Honiton, if the river is followed upstream for a short
distance, the traveller will find himself close to ruined Ottery Mohun,
the home of two celebrated families in succession. Unfortunately, it has
been entirely destroyed by fire. A farm now stands among the ruins, and
two fine Perpendicular archways, and a deeply moulded and hooded arch
over the frontdoor, alone bear witness to its former state. In the
spandril above the outer archway is carved, 'amid elegant scroll-work
and foliage, an arm, vested in an ermine maunch, the hand grasping a
golden fleur-de-lys'--the old coat-armour of the Mohuns; and on the
other spandril 'three lions passant in pale,' the bearing of the Carews.
The Mohuns were a Norman family of distinction, but in later days were
notorious rather than famous. The old peerage having died out in the
Middle Ages, a member of a cadet branch, by shameless and persevering
begging, induced Charles I to grant him a barony. This title only
survived a few generations, and the fifth and last bearer of it was
known as 'the wicked' Lord Mohun. His life was short--he was barely over
forty when he died--but eventful, for he was twice tried before his
peers, each time on the charge of being accessory to a murder, and the
story has often been told of the desperate duel in which Lord Mohun was
killed by the Duke of Hamilton, whom he had mortally wounded. Spectators
burst upon the scene to discover the two principals dying on the ground,
and the two seconds fiercely fighting each other.
The history of the Carews is more interesting. Ottery Mohun came to them
towards the end of the thirteenth century, through the heiress of the
elder branch of Mohuns, whom John Carew married. Their names were
eminent in camp, court, and council, in one reign after another; but it
is only possible to speak here of two, Sir Gawen, and his nephew Sir
Peter, on whose death the branch that had been settled at Ottery Mohun
for three centuries became extinct in the direct line. There is not even
space for the career of another of Sir Gawen's nephews, to whom Queen
Elizabeth wrote, with her own hand, in regard to his efforts in subduing
the Irish:
'MY FAITHFUL GEORGE,
'If ever more services of worth were performed in shorter space
than you have done, we are deceived among many witnesses.'
Sir Peter's youth was spent very strangely even for that age of hazards
and chances. As a child he was sent to school in Exeter, where he was so
exceedingly naughty that complaints were made to his father, and Sir
William, who had remarkable ideas of discipline, came to Exeter, 'tied
him on a line and delivered him to one of his servants to be carried
about the town as one of his hounds, and they led him home to Mohun's
Ottery like a dog.' Not long afterwards he was with his father in
London, when, 'walking in Paul's,' they met a French gentleman, an old
acquaintance of Sir William's, who took a sudden fancy to the boy, and
offered to bring him up in France as if he were his own son. The offer
seems to have been accepted offhand, but, unfortunately for the boy, the
sudden fancy drooped almost as quickly as it sprang up, and, after
enjoying life for a brief moment as an indulged page, he was turned out
into the stables, 'there as a mulett to attend his master's mule.' Here
he remained till a Mr Carew, a kinsman, happened to come to the French
Court, and near the Court gate passed 'sundry lackeys and horseboys
playing together, one of whom called to another, "Carew Anglois! Carew
Anglois!"' This attracted Mr Carew's attention. He called the boy and
questioned him, and finding 'Carew Anglois' to be his cousin, Mr Carew
took him under his protection, rebuked the fickle guardian, and trained
up Peter 'for a space ... in the court of France, like a gentleman.'
Peter, still very young, but extremely independent, was present at the
siege of Pavia, and as his patron had just died, and he perceived
'fortune to frown upon the French side,' he went over to the Emperor's
camp, and entered into the service of the Prince of Orange. Five or six
years later he came home, bringing with him letters of highest
commendation to the King, Henry VIII, who received him with great
favour.
Sir Gawen and Sir Peter together took a prominent part in 1549, in
dealing with the insurrection of Devonshire and Cornishmen against the
Reformed religion. Sir Peter, indeed, was afterwards blamed for being
over-zealous, and thereby aggravating the trouble; but he was able to
clear himself, and was 'well allowed and commended for what he had
done.'
In Queen Mary's reign fresh trouble arose, from which he escaped less
easily. Many fervent Protestants were made uneasy by the symptoms of
Romish rule that began to appear, and were still more disturbed by the
news of the Queen's projected marriage with Philip of Spain, which they
felt boded ill for their liberties, spiritual and temporal. The Carews
were in the counsel of Sir Thomas Wyatt, the Duke of Suffolk, and
others, who planned risings to depose the Queen. In a simultaneous
movement, the Carews were to raise the West under the nominal leadership
of Lord Courtenay, Sir Thomas Wyatt was to raise Kent, and the Duke the
Midland counties. But before the preparations were complete, suspicion
fell on the Carews, and a letter was despatched from the Council,
directing the Sheriff of Devon to send Sir Peter and Sir Gawen to
London.
Sir Gawen, who was in Exeter about this time, thought it best to return
quietly to his own home, and because his movements now attracted an
undesirable amount of attention, he one night 'went out over the walles
of the said cytie yn his bowtes.' The account condescends to a touching
detail that should appeal to all. Even the agitation of flying from
arrest on a charge of treason could not keep Sir Gawen from feeling
footsore, and 'for that his bowtes grieved hym he cutt them upon the
waye.' Sir Gawen was arrested a few days later, and suffered a long
imprisonment.
Meanwhile Sir Peter, in answer to the summons to surrender himself, sent
the reply that he had already started for London. But meeting on the way
the bearer of a message which assured him that two of his 'dearest
friends' here failed him, he turned aside and escaped in a little boat
from Weymouth.
Those who interest themselves in dreams and visions may care to hear of
Lady Carew's experience at this moment. The night that Sir Peter sailed,
Lady Carew dreamed very vividly 'that as he was going aboard his bark,
he should fall into the seas and be drowned'; and so great was her
trouble on awaking, that she sent a messenger to the seaside to make
inquiries for Sir Peter. And when the messenger arrived at Weymouth, he
heard the startling news that getting 'out of the boat to enter into
the bark, his [Sir Peter's] foot slided or slipped, and he therewith
fell into the seas, and had been drowned if one standing by had not
taken hold of him.'
Notwithstanding several misfortunes on the way, Sir Peter arrived safely
in France, where he lived an exciting and adventurous life for several
years, and was then treacherously seized and carried to England and the
Tower. Here the much-abused Philip proved himself a real friend, for in
an admirable letter to the Queen he intercedes for 'Pedro Caro' and his
wife, and Sir Peter was eventually forgiven by Queen Mary, and honoured
by Queen Elizabeth.
Between Honiton and Sidmouth is an inn called The Hunter's Lodge (more
recently The Hare and Hounds), and opposite the house is a block of
stone, over which hovers a gruesome mystery. It is said that in the dead
of night the stone used to stir in its place, and roll heavily down into
the valley, to drink at the source of the Sid, and, some say, to try to
wash away its stain. Human blood has given it this power--the blood that
gushed upon it when the witches slew their victims, for it was once a
witches' stone of sacrifice.
Five miles to the south-west of Honiton is Ottery St Mary, a pretty
little town built on very steep slopes, and full of interesting
associations. It lies among 'fair meadows bathed in sunshine; with the
Otter river winding through them ... yonder are the red Devon steers
grazing up to their dewlaps in buttercups: beyond them dusky moors melt
into purple haze.' By making a slight detour one passes the pleasant
lawns and copses of Escot. Once the property of the Alfords, Escot was
bought in 1680 by Sir Walter Yonge (father of George II's unpopular
'Secretary-at-War'), who built a new and large house and lavishly
improved the grounds. But prodigality was the bane of the Yonges, and
not much more than one hundred years later it passed away from Sir
Walter's ruined grandson, and was bought by Sir John Kennaway.
The streets of Ottery are steep and sinuous, and both roadway and
footwalk are paved with pebbles and cobble-stones. The Manor of Ottery
was given by Edward the Confessor to the Dean and Chapter of Rouen, and
it continued in their possession during the reigns of nine Kings. Then
the Dean, finding that the task of collecting his rents and dues was
'chargeable, troublesome, and sometimes dangerous ... desired to sell
it, and met with a very fit chapman, John Grandisson, Lord Bishop of
Exon.'
Ottery's greatest treasure is the beautiful church, a miniature of
Exeter Cathedral, and it is to Bishop Grandisson that its great beauty
is due. He did not build the church; indeed, the shadow of a terrible
scandal had fallen upon it forty-five years before his rule began. For
in the year 1282 'that discreet man, Mr Walter de Lechelade,' the
Precentor of Ottery, was waylaid coming from Exeter Cathedral in his
canonical robes, and murdered by 'certain sons of perdition full of
fiendish ferocity.' 'Mr Walter de Lechelade' was probably extremely
unpopular locally, because he had obtained the lease for life of the
Manor and Church of Ottery from the authorities at Rouen, and was
allowed to make all the profit he could out of the revenues. It is
interesting to note the ecclesiastical manner of dealing with such a
difficulty at that date. Out of the twenty-one persons convicted of
being concerned in the murder, no fewer than eleven were clerics! The
Vicar of Ottery St Mary was among the number, and it is sad to say that
suspicion fell even on the Dean of Exeter.
Bishop Grandisson found an early English church. He lengthened the nave,
altered the chancel, added a beautiful Lady Chapel, and raised towers on
the already existing transepts. These transeptal towers are peculiar to
this church and the other on which he spent his enthusiasm, Exeter
Cathedral. On one tower is a steeple--there was one on the
Cathedral--the lead scored by cross-slanted lines. The church is of grey
stone. The nave and towers are battlemented, and at intervals in the
outer walls are niches, now bereft of the figures they held. Very
graceful stone tracery is in many windows, pinnacles and crosses rise
from the roof, and the whole effect is of an impressive building of rich
and elaborate detail. The number of consecration crosses is remarkable,
for there are thirteen without and eight within the walls, and each
marks a spot touched by the Bishop with holy oil. Every one is a square
stone panel, carved with an angel bearing a small cross. Some are much
defaced, but a few are still perfect, and beneath several of them are
the remains of iron supports, showing where a light was burned before
the 'cross' on great festivals.
The arches of the nave are supported by clustered columns with most
delicately carved capitals; and in the nave are two very elaborately
decorated tombs--of the Bishop's brother, Sir Otho de Grandisson, and of
Beatrice, Sir Otho's wife--each under a monumental arch, with hanging
tracery and a crocketed ogee canopy.
The finely carved and pierced minstrels' gallery in the Lady Chapel is
an exquisite piece of work; but amongst all that is to be most admired
is the exceedingly beautiful fan-tracery in the roof of the 'Dorset'
aisle--an aisle built by Cicely, heiress of Lord Bonville, and widow of
the Marquis of Dorset, who died in 1501.
Two short pleached alleys of limes stand within the churchyard wall,
looking down over a little square into which several streets open, and
the old stocks still lie in the shadow of the trees.
Bishop Grandisson obtained a licence to establish here 'a monastery or
collegiate church for a fixed number of secular canons ... governed
mainly by a Warden, a Minister, and Sacrist, and a Chanter or
Precentor,' and he drew up a most comprehensive set of statutes for
their guidance. Occasionally he issued additional 'monitions,' as, for
example, when the Warden had allowed stage-plays to be performed in
church during the Christmas holidays. It is reasonable to suppose,
however, that they were 'mystery plays' or 'moralities.'
Lord Coleridge says: 'The town was dominated by the College. The bridge
by which you entered the town from the West was the bridge of the Holy
Saviour. In one of its recesses the sacred light was ever kept burning,
inviting those who passed to pray.' Henry VI and Henry VII both visited
the College. The Dissolution swept it away, but a part of its endowment
was devoted to founding the King's Grammar School.
Many incidents befell Fairfax and his troops at Ottery. It was chosen
for their winter-quarters in 1645, and they arrived worn-out and
exhausted and in great need of refreshment. Ill-fortune, however,
awaited them, as the Rev. Joshua Sprigg, General Fairfax's chaplain,
tells us in _Anglia Rediviva_, his account of this army's movements. A
mysterious disease broke out, very fatal, so that there were 'dying of
soldiers and inhabitants in the town of Autree, seven, eight, and nine a
day, for several weeks together.' A Colonel Pickering died of it, on
whom the chaplain wrote an elegy. One has heard of blank-verse that is
merely 'prose cut into lengths,' but his lines suggest that they must
have been on the rack to bring them to the right measure. The author
feared that it was the lack of action that had proved fatal.
'Must thou be scaling heaven alone,
For want of other action?
Wouldst thou hadst took that leisure time
To visit some responsal clime!'
But Sprigg's deep affection and respect cannot be disguised even by his
words.
At Ottery, Sir Thomas Fairfax received and entertained two envoys from
besieged Exeter, who came with a view to discussing the possible terms
of a general peace; but their mission was, of course, unsuccessful. A
pleasant event was the presentation to the General of a fair jewel, set
with rich diamonds of great value, 'from both Houses of Parliament, as a
testimonial to his great services at Naseby.' The jewel was tied with 'a
blue ribbon and put about his neck.' Fairfax was staying in the old
Chanter's House, now the property of Lord Coleridge, and the ceremony
took place in a long panelled room, with deep-set window, then called
the Great Parlour. Here also Fairfax held a deeply important conference
with the 'Lord Generall Cromwell,' when he came to decide the plan of
campaign in the West.
Ottery St Mary is able to pride itself on being the birthplace of the
poet Coleridge, whose family had long been connected with the county.
The poet's father was Vicar, and Master of the Grammar School. Great as
was his genius, Coleridge was not in every respect worthy of his
birthplace, for in one of his letters he actually announces that he
prefers Somerset to Devon!--evidence which clearly proves the
correctness of the popular belief that poets have no judgment. But his
real affection for the Otter is shown in his sonnet to the river on
whose banks he lived in early years. Another poem, the 'Songs of the
Pixies,' was inspired by the Pixies' Parlour, a tiny cave with roots of
old trees for a ceiling, that stands halfway up a low cliff overhanging
the river, just beyond the town. In this poem are the lines:
'When fades the morn to shadowy-pale,
And scuds the cloud before the gale,
Ere the Morn, all gem-bedight,
Hath streak'd the East with rosy light,
We sip the furze-flower's fragrant dews,
Clad in robes of rainbow hues....
Then with quaint music hymn the parting gleam
By lonely Otter's sleep-persuading stream;
Or where his wave with loud, unquiet song
Dashed o'er the rocky channel froths along;
Or where, his silver waters smoothed to rest,
The tall tree's shadow sleeps upon his breast.'
Ottery has other associations with literature, and it is interesting to
remember that Thackeray lived near here in his youth, and that Ottery is
the 'Clavering' of _Pendennis_, which was written while he was staying
at Escot Vicarage close by.
A winter traveller in passing through the lanes near here recalls some
beliefs of a past generation: 'The faint chimes of St Mary's in distant
Ottery are playing their Christmas greeting over many a mile of
moorland. We are passing the old "cob" walls and grey-headed barns of a
substantial farmstead. The cocks will crow here all the night before
Christmas Day, according to the beautiful legend of the county, to bid
'"Each fettered ghost slip to his several grave."
The very oxen at midnight will fall down on their knees before the
manger. The next turn brings us to the Otter rushing along some forty
feet below with angry stream.' Almost at the mouth of the river is the
village of Otterton, and here was a Benedictine Priory, founded in the
reign of King John. The Prior of this little monastery had certain
privileges. Amongst others, ten marks had to be subscribed among the
tenants for 'a palfrey to be presented to a new Prior on his coming to
reside in the midst of his flock, and every plough had to plough one
acre of land for him annually.' He had the 'right of pre-emption of fish
in all his ports, and the choice of the best fish.' Conger-eels were
specially mentioned in a marginal note. Besides this, he claimed every
porpoise caught in the sea or other neighbouring waters, but paid for it
with twelve pence and a loaf of white bread to each sailor, and two to
the master of the boat from which it was caught. Lastly, the Prior
claimed the half of every dolphin. But no Prior is likely to have had
many chances of asserting this right.
The river runs into the sea by the charming little town of Budleigh
Salterton; but it is more interesting to cross the water at Otterton,
and passing through the village of East Budleigh, nearly opposite, to go
towards Hayes Barton, the house where Sir Walter Raleigh was born.
Fardell, near Ivybridge, was the ancestral home of the Raleighs, but Sir
Walter's father settled at Budleigh. In front of the garden a swirling
stream crosses a strip of green; and in the garden, at the right time,
one may see the bees busy among golden-powdered clusters of candytuft,
and dark-red gillyflowers, and a few flame-rose-coloured tulips, proud
and erect. The house is very picturesque; it has cob walls and a
thatched roof, and is built in the shape of the letter E; a wing
projects at either end, and in the middle the porch juts out slightly.
The two wings are gabled; there is a small gable over the porch and two
dormer ones over the windows at each side of it, the windows having
lattice lights and narrow mullions. Dark carved beams above them show up
well against the cream-coloured walls. The heavy door is closely studded
with nails, and over it fall the delicate sprays and lilac 'butterfly'
blossoms of a wistaria. The house has been little altered, and its
outward appearance was probably almost the same in Sir Walter's boyhood
as it is to-day.
In front of Hayes Barton is a hill covered with oak-woods, and to the
west the ground begins to slope upwards to the high moorland of Woodbury
Common. Sir Walter had a great affection for his boyhood's home, and
later, in trying to buy it back, he wrote to the then owner: 'I will
most willingly give you whatsoever in your conscience you shall deem it
worth; ... for ye naturall disposition I have to that place, being borne
in that house, I had rather seat myself there, than anywhere else.'
To realize Sir Walter at all adequately, he must be contemplated as
soldier, sailor, statesman, courtier, explorer, poet, historian,
Governor of colonies abroad and of very important offices at home--most
of all as a seer, for his eyes discerned a light that did not dawn on
his contemporaries. He and his half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert,
foresaw 'that colonization, trade, and the enlargement of empire, were
all more important for the welfare of England than the discovery of
gold.' Major Hume, who is by no means over-prejudiced in Raleigh's
favour, has said in his 'Life of Sir Walter Raleigh': 'To him is due the
undying glory of having made the great northern continent of America an
English-speaking country. With him it was no accident. The plan sprang
fully formed from his great brain. He was greedy of gain, but he spent
his money like water in this great project. He knew full well that there
was no gold to reward him; that the profit, if any, must be slow, and
must accrue mainly to the nation, and not to an individual; and yet he
laboured on for thirty years in the face of defeat, disaster, contumely,
and disgrace, in full faith and confidence that the great continent was
by God's providence reserved for England.'
Raleigh's biographers have wondered at his immense knowledge of naval
matters, and particularly of naval warfare, for the _Ark Raleigh_, which
he had built after his own plans, was admitted to be the best ship in
the fleet at the time of the Armada. Perhaps his genius for absorbing
information developed very early, and Sir John Millais's picture of the
two little boys, fascinated by the words of the sailor speaking to them
of the breathless adventures he had fought through, the gorgeous sights
that he had seen in the lands overseas, helps to explain it. Most
West-Countrymen can tell a tale dramatically, as the sailor is telling
it--the picture was painted at Budleigh Salterton--and it may be that,
with Raleigh's amazing faculty for gathering knowledge, he learned
enough of seamanship as he grew up to enable him to grasp and hoard in
his memory every detail of the subject as it came before him in later
life.
It is impossible to judge any character of a past century without trying
to realize in many questions of conduct the gulf that lies between the
former point of view and our own, and whatever Sir Walter's faults were,
his genius was incomparably greater. His failings were those of his age,
and were more than surpassed by the shortcomings of several of Queen
Elizabeth's very eminent statesmen. Raleigh left Oxford when he was only
seventeen, and joined Mr Henry Champernowne's band of gentlemen
volunteers who were fighting for the Protestant Princes in France. After
six years' fighting he left the army and betook himself to the Middle
Temple, where possibly he spent more time over lyrics than over the law,
for a biographer, describing this period of his life, passes over his
legal acquirements, but says that 'his vein for ditty and amorous ode
was esteemed most lofty, insolent, and passionate.' He and Spenser were
very congenial companions, and later Spenser, speaking of their great
friendship, said: 'He pip'd, I sang, and when he sang, I pip'd.'
Sir Walter left the Temple for the sea, then went to fight in Ireland,
and at the time of the Armada he was Lord Warden of the Stannaries, and
responsible for the companies of tinners, who had turned to soldiering.
He planned one expedition after another to the New World, and sent them
out mainly at his own expense, giving careful instructions to those in
charge to observe carefully any plants or produce of any kind that might
profit this country, whereas usually explorers searched eagerly for
precious metals alone. It was due to these instructions that the potato
was brought to England. Rumour for long maintained that Sir Walter
actually brought back the plant himself, but, as a matter of fact, the
credit of this is due to Heriot, a man of science employed by Raleigh.
He showed it with the other 'commodities' he had collected to Sir
Walter, who took the potatoes with him to Ireland, and planted them in
his new estate of Youghal.
And though it was most probably Sir John Hawkins who introduced tobacco
into England, it certainly was Sir Walter who brought smoking into
fashion. In parenthesis, a warning may be given that anyone who wanders
from east to west along the south coast of Devon will be wearied beyond
measure by the numbers of rooms, banks, porches, and gardens, shown as
the identical spot 'where Sir Walter smoked his first pipe.' Dr
Brushfield, in an exhaustive article on 'Raleghana,' counts only six
places, but _they_ reach from Penzance to Islington, and one is in
Ireland.
After the last dreary voyage, rendered fruitless by the contemptible
double-dealing of James I, and during his trial, Sir Walter's
self-possession and courage showed at their best. 'From eight in the
morning till nearly midnight he fronted his enemies with unshaken
courage. The bluster of Attorney-General Coke roared around him without
effect. "I want words," stormed the great prosecutor, "to express thy
viperous treason."
'"True," said Raleigh, "for you have spoken the same thing half a dozen
times over already."'
It was characteristic of his grand views of life that within the four
walls of a prison he should undertake no less a work than the History of
the World. The unfinished history shows a depth of learning and dignity
of style, very wonderful in the writings of a man who spent his life in
incessant and absorbing action. It must have been the vast number of the
chances and changes of life he had seen around him, and himself
experienced, that inspired him to write that splendid apostrophe: 'O
eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast
persuaded; what none have dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world
have flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised; thou
hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride,
cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two
narrow words, _Hic jacet_.'
Not only in his visions of colonies was Raleigh far in advance of his
time. Major Hume quotes his ideas on trade and commerce, the
statesmanship displayed in his _Prerogative of Parliaments_, and his
writings on the construction of ships and naval tactics, to show that in
each subject he had arrived at conclusions now generally accepted, but
only discovered by the public long after his death. This biographer ends
by describing him as 'perhaps the most universally capable Englishman
that ever lived.'
Sir Walter's last lines were written a few hours before his death, in
his Bible:
'Even such is Time, that takes on trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have.
And pays us but with age and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days.
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
The Lord shall raise me up, I trust!'
Following the coast, 'running eastward with many winding and waving
creeks,' Sidmouth is soon reached. Westcote is philosophical over both
Sidmouth and Seaton: 'In former times, very famous ports (and every
place and man hath but his time).' Sidmouth was an important fishing
town several hundred years ago; it is now a popular watering-place, set
among high red cliffs, amidst very pretty scenery, and favoured with a
great deal of sunshine. Leading inland are very high and steep hills,
different in shape from most of the hills in the neighbourhood, for they
are neither rounded, pointed, nor sloping, but have a curious square,
rather flat-topped look, and scarped sides.
Farther eastward, one comes to Branscombe, a straggling village in a
broad hollow where three valleys meet. A stream flows down each combe,
and eventually all three join and run together into the sea at
Branscombe Mouth. There is a great deal to admire in the steep sides and
irregular curves, softened by the spreading woods in these valleys, and
close to the shore a hill rises almost precipitously for six hundred
feet.
A very short distance further on, the white cliffs of the tiny cove of
Beer come into view. Beer is an exceptionally delightful village,
because of its strong individuality. At the top of the inlet the houses
are clustered irregularly in little offshoots, but the main street runs
down a deep cleft narrowing towards the sea between white gleaming chalk
cliffs such as are rare in this county. A rapid stream races down the
side of the street, and, dashing over a rock at the edge of the beach,
buries itself in the shingle. Beer Head and the cliff that separates the
village from Seaton run out into the sea, so that it is completely shut
in, and from the water's edge it is impossible to see past those massive
walls standing against the sea and sky on either side. The cove is so
small that one wonders it counts as a harbour at all, but the beach is
covered with many small boats and several heavily-built trawlers. As I
saw it, the water was a clear blue-grey, and some sea-gulls were
placidly floating a few yards from land, rising and falling as the waves
rolled in, and looking as if they must be buried by each one. From Beer
Head there is a splendid view of the coast; to the east, beyond Seaton,
the landslip, and Lyme Regis, the line stretches grey and dim in the
distance towards Portland; westwards, beyond Sidmouth's red cliffs, one
sees how the land bends southward to Budleigh Salterton, and still
further south towards Exmouth.
The little inobtrusive haven of Beer was in every way convenient for
smugglers, and was naturally much beloved by them. Not more than seventy
or eighty years ago, all the people in the village were supposed to take
a share in the perils and joys of the ventures whenever they got the
chance. The greatest of their number was a certain Jack Rattenbury, who
began his life at sea when he was nine years old. Five years later he
had already decided, 'I wished to make a figure on the stage of life,'
and joined a privateering expedition. The ship was captured by the
French, and Rattenbury taken prisoner. He escaped from prison, but not
from Bordeaux, where for more than a year he was forced to stay, and he
then sailed on his own account to America, and back to Havre,
Copenhagen, and Guernsey. By the time he reached home again he was only
sixteen! His life was an unceasing turmoil: smuggling, privateering,
being impressed for the navy, and devising wiles for slipping away
again, with the variation of being taken prisoner by French or
Spaniards.
A steep road runs through lovely scenery from Ottery to Seaton. At
intervals it passes through woods, or looks down into the misty, green,
undulating country northwards; then, climbing a ridge, the sea, framed
in woods, is seen over little hollows in the distant cliffs to the
south. The road crosses a common with a few knots of wind-swept
fir-trees, and runs steeply down to Seaton. On the west side of the bay
the cliffs are a creamy white; eastwards, the shades are chiefly buff
and pale brown. The variety of their strata make the cliffs interesting
to geologists, for here are found layers of different kinds of chalk,
limestone, greensand, marls, chert, and interspersed lines of flints.
Seaton is a pleasant little town without any remarkable feature. In the
church is this curious epitaph with the date 1633 A.D.:
JOHN STARRE
. . . . . .
Starr on hie!
Where should a starr be
But on Hie?
On the east side of Seaton is the flat wide Valley of the Axe. The river
is broad and rather important-looking, but it makes a most inglorious
exit into the sea, for a huge pebble ridge rises as an impassable
barrier, and the river has to twist away farther east and run out
obliquely through a narrow channel. Axmouth, on the farther side, is a
pretty old-fashioned little village, the thatched whitewashed cottages
forming a street that curves round almost into a loop, while a
chattering stream runs between the houses. In the church is the figure
of a tonsured priest, with chasuble, stole, and alb, supposed to be one
of the early Vicars of Axmouth. At his feet lies a dog, and the legend
goes that this was not merely the customary image of a dog seen on
tombs, but the effigy of his own favourite, whom he desired to be buried
at his feet; and as an indemnity for this order he left a piece of
ground to be devoted to charitable purposes, called Dog Acre Orchard. Mr
Rogers, in his 'Memorials of the West,' tells us that the name remains
till to-day.
A very short distance beyond is the great landslip which fell in 1839,
when about fifty acres of the cliff slid more than a hundred feet to the
shore beneath, but in such a way that part of an orchard descended with
its growing trees, and they continued to flourish at their new level.
More wonderful still, two cottages settled down on to the shore, without
falling in pieces. The ground began to slide on the night of Christmas
Eve, and by the evening of December 26 the great mass had fallen. To the
west is a great chasm, and the cliff rises high on the seaward side.
Farther east, no cliff rises beyond the chasm, but little hillocks and
sand-dunes slope unevenly to the beach. The undercliff has not in the
least the barren look of an ordinary bit of waste ground touching the
shore, but is covered with grass and thick undergrowth, oaks and
hawthorns, and masses of ivy, and beneath them the long spear-like
leaves and scarlet-berried pods of the wild-iris.
If one returns to the Axe and begins to follow up its innumerable bends,
one arrives opposite the little town of Colyton, which is not quite on
the river. Mr Rogers says that the name comes from the British _Collh y
tun_, and has the pretty meaning of 'the town where the hazels grow.'
Here is a fine church, chiefly Perpendicular, well known, among other
reasons, for a richly carved tomb, on which is the effigy of a very
small lady, a coronet on her head and a dog at her feet, with coats of
arms hanging above. The figure was always known by the curious name of
'Little Choak-a-bone.' The old story said that the lady was the daughter
of Lord Devon and his wife, Princess Katherine, daughter of Edward IV,
and that she died because a fish-bone choked her. Now this has been
corrected, and it is believed that the monument is of the wife of the
fifth Earl of Devon, who lived nearly one hundred years earlier. But no
disproof has been brought against the fish-bone!
Close to Colyton are the ruins of an old house of the Courtenays,
Colcombe, which has been partly converted into a farmhouse. Here
Princess Katherine occasionally lived during her widowhood. Colcombe
suffered much in the Civil War, for it was garrisoned by Prince Maurice,
who led his troops into several skirmishes with the enemy, and during
one of these affairs (it is supposed) the Castle was burned down.
The poor people living near Colcombe must have had a very bad time, with
energetic Royalist and Parliamentary troops on either hand. Some sad
little entries at this time are quoted from the diary of a serge-maker
of Colyton, in which he counts up what he lost in cloth through the
inroads of the 'Lyme Men' (Parliamentarians), and the 'wostard woole'
and 'sarge' torn from him by 'Percy's men' (Royalists).
Unluckily, it is not possible to pause among the throng of interesting
memories that are called up by almost every step of the way. One may not
sketch the career of Dr Marwood, who journeyed to London from these
parts and cured 'a certain noble Lord,' a favourite of Queen Elizabeth,
but returned home because, 'finding himselfe much envyed by the Court
physitians, he thought he was not safe there!'--a naive reflection on
the doctors that reminds one of their contemporary Catherine de'
Medici's creature, Rene of Milan, who was popularly known as
_l'empoisonneur de la reine_.
It is only possible to make a brief reference to a manor, nowadays a
farm--Ashe, where the great Duke of Marlborough was born. Marlborough
can hardly be called a son, but perhaps a grandson, of the county, for
though Sir Winston Churchill was of Dorsetshire, the Churchills were an
old Devonshire family, of whom one branch had migrated to the next
county. Ashe was the home of the Duke's mother, Elizabeth, daughter of
Sir John Drake, and here she returned when the Civil War was just ended,
and the triumphant Parliamentarians were making themselves very
objectionable, especially to such a fervent Royalist as her husband. Sir
Winston was eventually forced to compound for so large a sum that it was
convenient for them to live for some years with Lady Churchill's
father.
There is, unfortunately, no space to look at the very interesting
history of the Bonvilles, the ruins of whose old house, Shute, in its
beautiful park, among deer and woods and magnificent cedars, is close to
Ashe. The title became extinct in the Wars of the Roses, for the family
suffered beyond recovery, and the last Lord Bonville had the
overwhelming grief of losing his only son and grandson in the Battle of
Wakefield. The great estates passed to his little great-granddaughter,
Cicely Bonville, who, more than forty years later, built the Dorset
aisle in the church at Ottery St Mary.
The fine building, Newenham Abbey, stood close to the outskirts of the
park, and Sir Nicholas Bonville was a great benefactor to the Abbey, but
it was founded by two brothers, Sir William and Sir Reginald Mohun. The
Abbey Church alone was three hundred feet in length and one hundred and
fifty feet in breadth, and now of all the buildings, there remain but a
few fragments of walls and the stonework of a chapel window.
Axminster, not a mile away, was in Leland's day 'a pratie quik Market
Town.' It was the scene of one very interesting event, for here the Duke
of Monmouth's followers first met the royal troops under the renowned
General Monk, then Duke of Albemarle, and caused them to fly before
their inferior undisciplined numbers. Albemarle dared not risk a battle,
as he became alarmed by the temper of his troops, and feared lest they
might go over to Monmouth if they did but catch sight of their beloved
hero; for the General's troops belonged to the Devonshire militia, and
Monmouth was adored by all the country-people in the West. The General
ordered a hurried retreat, without attempting any engagement, and
Monmouth marched triumphantly to Taunton. The callous brutality of
Sedgmoor, and the atrocious barbarities of the Bloody Assizes following
it, are too intolerable to think of. A ballad has been written called
'The Sorrowful Lamentation of the Widdows of the West', and one wonders
whether its obsequious tone is due to the author being a partisan of
James II, who expressed what he thought they ought to feel, or whether
the verse-maker was one in their midst, who saw that there was indeed
no spirit left in them. I quote a few of the verses:
'Alas! we Widdowes of the West, whose Husbands did rebell,
Of Comfort we are dispossest, our sorrows did excell.
Here for their Crimes they lost their lives, Rebellion was the cause,
And we confess, that was their wives, they did oppose the Laws.
When _Monmouth_ came ashore at _Lime_, it was a Fatal Day;
To carry on that base design, which did their lives betray;
And many daily did presume to come unto his aid,
_Bridge-water_, _Taunton_, _Dean_, and _Frome_, the Nation to invade.
We said it was a horrid thing, and pray'd them to forbear
To take up arms against their king, who was the Lawful Heir,
Yet like distracted men they run to cast their lives away,
And we their Widdowes are undone; this is a dismal day.
Alas! we had no cause at all, our Laws was still the same,
That we should to confusion fall, and hundreds thus be slain.
They knew not what they went about; confusion did attend,
The Heavens would not bear them out, since they did thus offend.'