The Tamar and the Tavy
'Tavy creeps upon
The western vales of fertile Albion;
Here dashes roughly on an aged rock,
That his intended passage doth up-lock;...
Here digs a cave at some high mountain's foot,
There undermines an oak, tears up his root:...
As (woo'd by May's delights) I have been borne
To take the kind air of a wistful morn
Near Tavy's voiceful stream (to whom I owe
More strains than from my pipe can ever flow).
Here have I heard a sweet bird never lin[7]
To chide the river for his clam'rous din;...
So numberless the songsters are that sing
In the sweet groves of that too-careless spring...
Among the rest a shepherd (though but young,
Yet hearten'd to his pipe), with all the skill
His few years could, began to fit his quill.
By Tavy's speedy stream he fed his flock,
Where when he sat to sport him on a rock,
The water-nymphs would often come unto him,
And for a dance with many gay gifts woo him.
Now posies of this flower, and then of that;
Now with fine shells, then with a rushy hat,
With coral or red stones brought from the deep
To make him bracelets, or to mark his sheep.'
W. BROWNE: _Britannia's Pastorals_.
[Footnote 7: Cease.]
Tavistock is a quiet little 'ancient borough,' which at the first glance
from the hill to the north-west suggests the early-Victorian word
'embowered,' for it looks as if the rudiments of the town had arisen in
the midst of a large wood. The town lies chiefly in a hollow, and the
trees that cover the sides surround and encroach upon the streets in the
pleasantest way, and their foliage, the hills on every side, and the
rushing Tavy through the midst, give an un-townlike air that is
charming. But to imagine, from this rustic and very still look, that the
place lacked history, would be to make a great mistake. On the contrary,
its history starts in such very early days that only a few scattered
relics remain to show the wave of human life that passed over the
country.
Between A.D. 240 and the latter half of the sixth century, the Irish
made many invasions, overran the South and West of England, and settled
colonies in parts of Devon and Cornwall, more especially along their
northern coasts. Mr Baring-Gould, in a most interesting paper, sketches
out the various descents and settlements, and traces them by their stone
monuments and by the names of the Irish saints that they left in
churches and villages and holy wells. Some of the invaders established
themselves near Tavistock, and tokens of them have been found in the
neighbourhood in the shape of three stones bearing inscriptions--one in
Ogham characters. The stones are now in the Vicarage garden. 'On one,
which is over seven feet high, occurs a name, probably of a Sept or
tribe in Kerry, where several stones inscribed with the same name are
found. On the third are the words: "Dobunii Fabri fili Enabarri...."
Dobun was a _faber_, or smith. In Celtic organizations every _tuatha_,
or tribe, had its chief smith.... Dobunii ... is the Latin for the
genitive Douvinias, also a Kerry name.... Here, then, we have written
and engraven in stone for our learning the record of an Irish settlement
from Kerry in the neighbourhood of Tavistock.'
Mr Baring-Gould further mentions briefly the different tribes and
peoples that have invaded and possessed themselves of the land, to be in
turn conquered by new-comers, and the eventual, amalgamation of races,
and quotes Professor Sullivan to the discomfiture of those who
rhapsodize over the 'pure Celt' in Great Britain or Ireland--for, after
all, it was Irish colonists and conquerors who 'gave their name to
Scotland, and at one time occupied the coast of Wales and 'West
Domnonia.'
Professor Sullivan writes: 'The Irish tenants of to-day are composed of
the descendants of Firbolgs and other British and Belgic races;
Milesians ... Gauls, Norwegians, Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Normans, and
English.... This is a fact which should be remembered by those who
theorize over the qualities of the "pure Celt," whoever they may be.'
There are many amateurs whose views would be less tedious if they could
be convinced by Professor Sullivan.
The memory of one Irish saint clung for centuries to Tavistock, for the
abbey was dedicated jointly to St Mary the Holy Virgin, and to St Rumon,
an Irish missionary who came over to Cornwall. The abbey has
unfortunately been totally destroyed, and various buildings now stand on
its site. The old chapter-house was pulled down by a certain Saunders,
'of barbarous memory,' 'to make way for a modern house now called the
Bedford Hotel.' The refectory is used as a Unitarian chapel, and still
keeps its fine pinnacled porch. A ruined tower covered with ivy, called
Betsy Grimbal's Tower (a young woman was supposed to have been murdered
in it), stands in grounds close by, and the other chief fragments still
to be seen are the monks' still-house, a little bit of the abbey church
wall, and the remains of a battlemented wall following the line of the
river. The north gateway is the most perfect remnant and that has been
restored. Of the religious houses in the Diocese of Exeter this
monastery was the most important, and it eclipsed them all by 'the
extent, convenience, and magnificence of its buildings.' Orgar, Earl of
Devon, founded it in 961, and Ordulph, his son, completed it on such a
grand scale, that there was room for one thousand inhabitants.
The abbey had only stood for about thirty years, when a frightful blow
fell: the Danes burst upon the country, harrying it with fire and sword.
They landed in Cornwall, and here Egbert hastened with his army and
defeated them at Hingston Down; but a great horde broke away, and
crossing the border descended on Tavistock, where the inhabitants in a
body rose to meet them and a terrible battle was fought. Its deadly
nature is summed up with great directness in an old jingle:
'The blood which flowed down West Street
Would heave a stone a pound weight.'
The abbey was robbed and then burned to the ground. No time, however,
can have been lost in rebuilding it, for about thirty years later
Livingus, the Abbot, was made Bishop of Devonshire, and was specially
chosen by King Canute to accompany him on his pilgrimage to Rome.
Tavistock was a Benedictine monastery, over which forty abbots ruled in
succession. Some of the later ones were noted for their lack of
discipline--even to the point of allowing the monks 'to affect the
fashionable costume of the times, adopting the secular buttoned hoods
and beaked boots'; but the earlier abbots were both pious and learned,
and one of the earliest printing-presses set up in England was owned by
the abbey. The first statutes of the stannaries that ever were printed
were printed here: a 'Confirmation of the Charter perteynynge to all the
tynners wythyn the co[=u]ty of Devonshyre wyth their Statutes also made
at Crockeryntorre by the whole ass[=e]t and c[=o]set of al the sayd
tynners'--of the date 1510. In very early days the abbots were 'lessees
of the Devonshire stannaries ... and controllers of the issues of royal
mines in Devon and part of Cornwall,' says Dr. Oliver.
At the Dissolution the King presented the abbey and most of its estates
to the Earl of Bedford. The first trace of this great family in
Devonshire that I have been able to find is a lawsuit in regard to
certain lands, between John Russell and Rohesia his wife and Henry de
Pomeroy, which took place in the reign of King John. But there was a
much closer connection with the county in later days. Unfortunately,
space makes it impossible to touch on more than a few of the most
striking events in the career of John Russell, first Earl of Bedford, to
whom the Abbey was granted.
On January 11, 1506, the Archduke Philip of Austria was driven by a
violent storm to take shelter at Weymouth, where Sir Thomas Trenchard,
Governor of the Coast, hurried to receive him, and to offer such
entertainment as he could provide. It so happened that there was staying
with Sir Thomas a young cousin lately returned from his travels, who
combined great 'skill in foreign languages ... with his sprightly
conversation and polite address.' The Archduke was enchanted to find
someone better acquainted with his speech and customs than the
stay-at-home squires who surrounded him, and when he set out for Windsor
he would not leave Mr Russell behind. To the King the Archduke praised
his protege in glowing words, and he was given a small post at Court.
Nature had favoured him at the start, for he is said to have been of 'a
moving beauty that ... exacted a liking if not a love from all that saw
him' and to this valuable gift was added that of a 'learned discourse
and generous deportment.'
On the accession of Henry VIII, he won the good-will of the young King
by the zeal with which he threw himself into 'the dance, the Masque, the
pagent, the tourney,' in which Henry himself delighted; and he soon had
a chance for distinguishing himself in serious matters. In 1513 he
accompanied the King in his campaign in France, and on the march an
unusually large cannon was 'overturned in a lagoon.... Impatient to
signalise himself by some intrepid exploit, Mr Russell had the boldness
to attempt its recovery, in the face of ten thousand French,' and 'with
but two hundred and fifty adventurers under him as resolute as himself,
he succeeded in the effort.'
In 1517 Mr Russell was appointed Deputy-Governor of Tournay; in 1532 he
was knighted after taking part in a descent on the coast of Brittany,
and in later years he rose to positions of great and greater importance.
When Henry was supporting the Constable de Bourbon against his
Sovereign, Francis I, Sir John was entrusted with the dangerous mission
of conveying a huge sum of money through a country where many were well
affected to the French King.
One of his first steps was to leave his company at a town on the
frontier with orders to spread the news that he was ill, whilst he
hastened without escort and with the money--Henry had promised the Duke
de Bourbon 100,000 crowns a month--to Geneva. Here he heard the
comforting news that the Swiss and Frenchmen were so certain of robbing
him that they had already 'lotted every of the captains his portion of
the said money.' With great speed and secrecy he caused it to be 'packed
in bales, trussed with baggage, as oats or old clothes, to make it
bulky, and nicked with a merchant's mark.' As a further precaution he
begged the help of the Duke of Savoy, who eventually allowed muleteers
in his service to hire mules as if for his own use to take it across the
mountains, and 'so bruit it to be carried as his stuff unto the Duchess
his wife.' Arrived at Chambery, the secret of the bales was allowed to
leak a very little, and Sir John, knowing that there were 'divers
ambushes and enterprises set for to attrap me,' set out again with his
bales towards Geneva. Out of sight of the town he altered his course for
Mont Cenis. And this expedient was in itself a blind, for two or three
days before Sir John's departure the treasure had been sent very
secretly on other mules to Turin, where it arrived safely. He finishes
his account with conscious simplicity: 'Which ways was occasion, as I
think the said enterprises to fail of their purpose.'
Sir John met with many very exciting adventures, of which perhaps the
most interesting is one that happened to him at Bologna, for here he was
very skilfully rescued from an unpleasant position by the great Thomas
Cromwell, then a practically unknown soldier. Sir John was passing
through the town, when he was very treacherously stopped and surrounded
in his hotel by the municipal authorities. Cromwell managed to persuade
them that he was a Neapolitan acquaintance of Sir John, and that if he
might speak to him he would be able to induce the knight to surrender
himself into their hands. But what he actually did was to suggest to Sir
John that he should change clothes with a servant that Cromwell had
brought with him, and in this disguise he helped him to escape from the
town.
When Cromwell came to England, it was Sir John who first commended him
to Wolsey's notice.
In the reign of Charles I, William, Lord Russell (afterwards Earl of
Bedford), and Pym, the great commoner, were returned together as
co-members for Tavistock; and when war was declared the Earl of Bedford
sided with the Parliament and was appointed to raise the Devonshire
Militia for them. He was not personally hostile to the King but thought,
like others, that if Charles saw the Parliament in arms against him, he
would realize that the nation was resolute in defence of its liberty.
The Earl of Bedford, at the head of his recruits, engaged the enemy near
Sherborne Castle, and was victorious; and at the battle of Edge Hill he
'was reported by Lord Wharton to have done extraordinary service.' Later
he was among those most anxious for a treaty of peace, but he suffered
from holding too moderate views. In taking up arms against the King he
had offended the Queen too bitterly to be well received when he, in
company with some other peers, went to the Court at Oxford, and his
sympathy with the King alienated him from the Parliament. Sincerely
anxious for peace, he soon saw the hopelessness of all efforts in that
direction, and long before the struggle was over he practically withdrew
from public affairs.
Tavistock's greatest glory, Sir Francis Drake, has already been spoken
of; but among the lesser lights is a Captain fully worthy to have sailed
in the company of Queen Elizabeth's illustrious Captains, though he
lived in the less triumphant days of Charles I. Captain Richard Peeke,
or Peke, or Pike (he signs himself Peeke in his pamphlet, but in a
private letter Dr. Meddus, a contemporary, refers to him as Pike), has
left no account of his career, only that of his great adventure in
Spain.
A local schoolmaster hails him with these flamboyant lines:
'Search whither can be found again the like
For noble prowess to our Tav'stock Pike,--
In whose renowned, never-dying name
Live England's honour and the Spaniard's shame.'
In 1625 Peeke joined the force that King Charles and Queen Henrietta
helped to start from Plymouth. Sir Edward Cecil was in command, and, as
a result of this expedition, earned for himself the nickname of
Sit-Still. Peeke's account is excellent, although he begins by saying
that he knows not 'the fine Phrases of Silken Courtiers'; but 'a good
Shippe I know and a poore Cabbin and the language of a Cannon ... as my
Breeding has bin Rough (scorning Delicacy) so must my Writings be.'
The first attack was made on 'Cales' (Cadiz), and Peeke gives a vivid
description of the hot and stubborn fight that took place before the
fort of Puntal surrendered. The whole army was then landed, but Peeke
did not go with them; 'for I was no Land Soldier, and therefore all that
while kept aboard.' As the fate of the expedition has nothing to do with
his story, it is enough to say that the men got very much out of hand,
the Commander, in great alarm, hurriedly retreated, and, without
attempting to follow up his victory on land, set sail in pursuit of a
Spanish fleet that he never came up with, and three weeks later returned
in disgrace to England.
To return to Richard Peeke. After the army had all landed he thought
that 'the late storms had beaten all the Spaniards in' for a time, and
that he would go on shore for a little diversion. Meeting some
Englishmen coming back to the ships, laden with 'Oranges and Lymons'
which they had taken from some gardens not far off, he set off to find
some fruit for himself, the men assuring him that there was no danger.
Less than a mile away, however, he came, '(for all their talking of no
danger), on Three Englishmen starke dead, being slayne, lying in the
way,' and another 'not fully dead.... I then resolved (and was about it)
for Christian Charities sake, and for Countries sake, to have carried
him on my back to our Shippes, farre off though they lay.... But my good
intents were prevented; for, on a sodaine, came rushing in vpon me a
Spanish Horseman, whose name as afterwards I was informed was Don Juan
of Cales, a Knight.... Five or sixe Skirmishes wee had, and for a pretty
while fought off and on.' As the fight went on Peeke got the better of
Don Juan, who 'fell on his knees and crying out in French to me,
_Pardone moy, je vous pree. Je suie un buon Chrestien_.... Having a
Soldier's minde to Rifle him, I searched for jewels, but found only five
Pieces of Eight about him.' Here Fortune turned, for 'fourteen Spanish
Muskateers, spying me so busy about one of their Countreymen,' came to
his rescue, and Peeke was forced to yield himself prisoner. 'True Valour
(I see) goes not aluaies in good Cloathes, for Don Juan (when my hands
were in a manner bound behind me) ... wounded me through the Face, from
Eare to Eare, and had there killed me, had not the fourteen Muskateers
rescued me from his Rage.'
Peeke was again severely wounded while being led through the streets of
Cadiz, but met with better treatment in prison, though his forebodings
were gloomy. And when he was soon afterwards sent for by the Governor to
Xeres, he went 'wondrous unwilling ... because I feared I should ther be
put to Tortures.' On the day of trial he was brought before a great
assembly of nobles, 'my sword lying before them on the table. It was
reached to me; I tooke it and embraced it in mine arms, and with teares
in my eyes kist the Pommel of it. He [the Duke of Medina] then demanded
how many men I had kild with that Weapon? I told him, if I had kild one,
I had not bene there now before that Princely Assembly, for when I had
him at my foote, begging for mercy, I gave him Life, yet he then very
poorely did me a mischiefe. Then they asked Don John (my Prisoner) what
Woundes I gave him; He sayd, None: Upon this he was rebuked and told,
that if upon our first Encounter, he had run me through, it had been a
faire and Noble Triumph; but so to wound me, being in the hands of
others, they held it Base.' Peake was now questioned as to the name of
his ship, the Captain, and the number of cannon on board. 'I sayd, forty
Peices. But the Lords, looking all this while on a Paper which they held
in their hands, Duke Medyna sayd, In their note there was but
thirty-eight.' He afterwards found that in that paper they had every
detail about 'our Shippes, their Burden, Men ... as perfect as wee
ourselves had them in England. Of what strength (quoth another Duke) is
the Fort of Plymouth? I answered, very Strong. What Ordnance in it?
Fifty, sayd I. That is not so, sayd he, there is but seuenteene. How
many Soldiers are in the Fort? I answered, Two hundred: That is not so
(quoth a Conde), there is but twenty.
'Marquesse Alquenezes asked me, of what strength the little Island was
before Plymouth. I told him, I know not; Then (quoth he), wee doe.
'Is Plymouth a Walled Towne? Yes, my Lords. And a good Wall? Yes, say I,
a very good Wall: True, sayd a Duke, to leape ouer with a Staffe. And
hath the Towne, sayd the Duke of Medyna, strong Gates? Yes. But, quoth
he, there were neither Wood nor Iron to those Gates, but two dayes
before your Fleete came away.' Among many other questions, they asked
why 'in all this Brauery of the Fleete the English had not taken Cales
as well as Puntal?' To which Peeke, who must have often asked this
question of himself, replied boldly that 'the Lord Generall ... was
loath to rob an Almeshouse, hauing a better Market to goe to. Cales, I
told them, was held Poore, unmanned, unmunitioned. What better market?
sayd Medyna. I told him Genoa or Lisbon.'
All around stood the 'Common People,' who made the ordeal still harder
by 'many jeerings, mockings, scornes, and bitter jests' against the
English, 'which I must not so much as bite my lippe against, but with an
inforced patient care stood still.... Amongst many other raproches and
spightfull Names, one of the _Spaniards_ called _English_ Men _Gallinas_
(Hennes).' This amused the 'Great Lords,' and one of them asked the
prisoner if the Spaniards, when they came to England (in war), would
prove such hens as the English. To which Peeke answered, 'somewhat
emboldned by his merry countenance,' that they would prove chickens.
'Darst thou then (quoth Duke of Medyna, with a browe half angry) fight
with one of these Spanish Pullets? O my Lord! sayd I, I am a Prisoner,
and my life at stake, and therefore dare not be so bold as to adventure
upon any such Action, ... Yet ... with all told him, he was unworthy of
the Name of an English Man, that should refuse to fight with one Man of
any Nation whatsoever. Hereupon my Shackells were knockt off and my Iron
Ring and Chayne taken from my Neck.'
The first challenger was quickly disposed of. 'I was then demanded, If I
durst Fight against an other? I told them my heart was good to
adventure; but I humbly requested them to giue me pardon if I refused.
For to my selfe I too well knew that the Spaniard is Haughty, Impatient
of the least affront: And when he received but a touch of any Dishonour,
Disgrace or Blemish (especially in his owne Countrey, and from an
English man) his Revenge is implacable, mortall and bloudy.
'Yet being by the Noblemen pressed agen and agen to try my Fortune with
an other, I (seeing my Life was in the Lyon's paw, to struggle with
whome for safety there was no way but one, and being afrayd to displease
them) sayd: That if their Graces and Greatnesses would giue me leave to
play at mine owne Countrey Weapon called the Quarter Staffe, I was then
ready there an Oposite, against any Commer.' When a 'hansome and well
Spirited Spaniard steps foorth, with his Rapier and Poniard,' Peeke
explained that he 'made little account of that One to play with, and
should shew them no Sport.
'Then a second (Arm'd as before) presents himselfe; I demanded if there
would come no more? The Dukes asked, how many I desired? I told them,
any number under sixe. Which resolution of mine, they smiling at, in a
kind of scorne, held it not Manly ... to worry one Man with a Multitude.
'Now Gentlemen, if here you condemne me for plucking (with mine owne
hands) such an assured danger upon mine head: Accept of these Reasons
for excuse.
'To dye, I thought it most certaine, but to dye basely, I would not: For
Three to kill One had bin to mee no Dishonour; To them (Weapons
considered) no Glory: An Honourable Subjection I esteemed better, than
an Ignoble conquest.... Only Heaven I had in mine eye, the Honor of my
Country in my heart, my Fame at the Stake, my Life on a narrow Bridge,
and death before and behind me.'
With a supreme effort Peeke succeeded in killing one of his opponents
and disabling the other two. Then for a moment he feared the threatening
anger of the crowd, but the nobles showed great generosity in their
admiration of his pluck, whether they felt mortified or not, and he was
treated with extreme kindness, both then and afterwards. He 'was kept
in the Marquesse Alquenezes House, who one day ... desired I would sing.
I willing to obey him (whose goodnesse I had tasted), did so, and sung
this Psalme: _When as we sate in Babylon, etc._ The meaning of which
being told he saide to me, _English_ Man, comfort thyself, for thou art
in no Captivity.'
Peeke was then sent to the King of Spain, who tried to keep him in his
service, but with a becoming gratitude for the favours shown to him,
Peeke begged to be allowed to return home, 'being a Subject onely to the
King of England.' Whereupon the King very magnanimously gave 'one
hundred Pistoletts to beare my charges.'
A play has been written called 'Dick of Devonshire,' in which the
adventures of 'Dick Pike' are set in the midst of a Spanish
tragi-comedy.
Nothing is known of Peeke's life after he came back to his own country,
but there are strong reasons for believing that he returned to
Tavistock. And if it was himself, and not a namesake, who flourished
there, in 1638, our hero might be seen in an entirely new role, for that
year Richard Peeke filled the peaceful office of people's churchwarden!
Tavistock's fine church is dedicated to St Eustachius, and it has a high
battlemented tower crowned with slender pinnacles. The tower is 'pierced
with arches in all four sides, so that it stands on piers. It is thus a
true campanile, and was never joined to the church.' There are monuments
to several families in the nave and chancel, and stories and memories
crowd especially round two of them. One is the tomb of John Fitz of
Fitz-ford and his wife, at the back of which their son Sir John kneels
at a desk with a book before him.
Fitzford House is close to Tavistock, and with the property came to Sir
John's daughter, Lady Howard, round whose name many tales have gathered.
In Mrs Bray's time Lady Howard was regarded as 'a female Bluebeard,' but
a later verdict is more charitable, and it is now thought that the
unhappy lady has been much maligned. Being a great heiress, her hand was
disposed of when she was only twelve years old, and she was married to
Sir Alan Percy, who died three years afterwards. There is a proverb--
'Winter-time for shoeing,
Peascod-time for wooing;'
but Lady Howard must have been wooed at all seasons. One month after her
husband's death she escaped from her chaperon, and secretly married Lord
Darcy's son, who only survived a few months. When she was hardly
sixteen, she found a third husband in Sir Charles Howard, by whose name
she is always known, although after his death she married Sir Richard
Grenville. Her last 'venture,' as Prince calls it, was a very wretched
one; Sir Richard treated her abominably, and she retaliated to the worst
of her power. After her death, Mrs Bray says (in that delightful
storehouse of local traditions, 'The Borders of the Tamar and the
Tavy'), there arose a belief that she was 'doomed to run in the shape of
a hound from the gateway of Fitzford to Okehampton Park, between the
hours of midnight and cock-crowing, and to return with a single blade of
grass in her mouth whence she started; and this she was to do till every
blade was picked, when the world would be at an end.'
'Dr Jago, the clergyman of Milton Abbot, however, told me that
occasionally she was said to ride in a coach of bones up the West Street
towards the Moor.... My husband can remember that, when a boy, it was a
common saying with the gentry at a party, "It is growing late; let us be
gone, or we shall meet Lady Howard as she starts from Fitzford."'
A still more conspicuous monument in the church is connected with the
other tragedy. The family of Glanvills had long been settled near
Tavistock, and the figure is of Judge Glanvill in his robes. At his feet
kneels a life-size figure of his wife. 'Her buckram waist, like armour,
sleeves, ruff, and farthingale are all monstrous; and her double-linked
gold chains are grand enough for the Lord Mayor. On the whole she looks
so very formidable, that thus seen stationed before the Judge, she might
be considered as representing Justice herself, but it would be in her
severest mood.'
The mournful story is that of another member of the family, Eulalia
Glanvill, who was forced against her will to marry an old man named
Page, when she was in love with a young man, George Strangwich. After
much misery, she and Strangwich agreed to murder Page, and the story is
told in several ballads, in one of which there is a ring of sincerity
which makes the 'verses sound better to the brain than to the ear.' It
is now thought that the ballad was written by Delaney, but in the early
editions the ballad was attributed to Mrs Page herself, and a copy in
the Roxburghe Ballads is headed: 'Written with her owne hand, a little
before her death.' 'The Lamentation of Master Page's Wife' was sung to
the tune of 'Fortune my Foe':
'Unhappy she whom Fortune hath forlorne:
Despis'd of grace, that proffered grace did scorne!
My lawlesse love hath lucklesse wrought my woe;
My discontent content did ov'rthrow.
'In blooming yeares my father's greedy mind,
Against my will, a match for me did find;
Great wealth there was, yea, gold and silver store;
And yet my heart had chosen long before.
'On knees I prayde they would not me constraine,
With teares I cride, their purpose to refraine;
With sighs and sobs I did them often move.
I might not wed, whereas I could not love.
'But all in vaine my speeches still I spent.
My Father's will my wishes did prevent;
Though wealthy Page possest my outward part,
George Strangwidge still was lodged in my heart.
* * * * *
'Lo! here began my downfall and decay!
In mind I mus'd to make him straight away,
I, that became his discontented wife,
Contented was he should be rid of life.
* * * * *
'Well could I wish that Page enjoy'd his life
So that he had some other to his wife;
But never could I wish, of low or hie,
A longer life, and see sweet Strangwidge die.
'You Parents fond that greedy-minded be,
And seek to graffe upon the golden tree,
Consider well, and rightfull Judges be,
And give your doome 'twixt Parents' love and me.
'I was their child, and bound for to obey,
Yet not to wed where I no love could lay;
I married was to much and endless strife,
But faith before had made me Strangwidge wife.
'You Denshire Dames and courteous Cornwall Knights
That here are come to visit woefull wights,
Regard my griefe, and marke my wofull end,
And to your children be a better friend.
'And then, my deare, which for my fault must dye,
Be not afraid the sting of death to try;
Like as we liv'd and lov'd together true,
So both at once, we'll bid the world adue.'
'The Lamentation of George Strangwidge' many times lapses into bathos,
but as in a way it answers the other ballad, I will quote a few verses:
'O Glanfield! cause of my committed crime,
Snared in wealth, as Birds in bush of lime,
What cause had thou to beare such wicked spight
Against my Love, and eke my hart's delight?
'I would to God thy wisdome had been more,
Or that I had not ent'red at the door;
Or that thou hadst a kinder Father beene
Unto thy Childe, whose yeares are yet but greene.
'Ulalia faire, more bright than summer's sunne,
Whose beauty had my heart for ever won,
My soule more sobs to thinke of thy disgrace,
Than to behold my owne untimely race.
'The deed late done in heart I doe lament,
But that I lov'd, I cannot it repent;
Thy seemely sight was ever sweet to me.
Would God my death could thy excuser be.'
Kilworthy House, which in those days belonged to the Glanvills, is now
the property of the Duke of Bedford.
Tavistock seems to have maintained an open mind, or perhaps was forced
into keeping open house, during the Civil War; but Fitzford House, then
belonging to Sir Richard Grenville, held out resolutely for the King,
until overpowered by Lord Essex. The people seem to have been rather
indifferent to the cause of the war, and very sensible of its hardships,
for it was here suggested that a treaty might be made, 'whereby the
peace of those two counties of Cornwall and Devon might be settled and
the war removed into other parts.' It was a really excellent method of
shifting an unpleasant burden on to other shoulders, but in actual
warfare, unfortunately, impracticable, although the treaty was drawn up
and for a short time a truce was observed.
At the end of this year (1645) Prince Charles paid a visit to the town,
and was so much 'annoyed by wet weather, that ever after, if anybody
remarked it was a fine day, he was wont to declare that, however fine it
might be elsewhere, he felt quite sure it must be raining at Tavistock.'
One cannot help wondering if his courtiers kept to English tradition of
perpetually speaking of the weather.
To walk away from Tavistock along the Tavy's bank is to follow the
footsteps of that river's special poet, William Browne. His poems are
not so well known as they might be, and his most celebrated lines are
nearly always attributed to Ben Jonson--I mean the fine epitaph on
'Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother'--though any doubt as to the author
of the lines is cleared up by a manuscript in the library of Trinity
College, Dublin. Not very many details of his life are known, but he had
the happiness of being better appreciated by his contemporaries than by
posterity, and Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton wrote complimentary
verses, as a sort of introduction to volumes of his poems when they were
published. Browne's work is very uneven, many of his poems are charming,
some diffuse and rather poor; but he had a sincere feeling for Nature,
and his nymphs and swains revelled in posies and garlands in the shade
of groves full of singing birds.
In the third book of his long poem, 'Britannia's Pastorals,' there is a
quaint and pretty song, of which one verse runs:
'So shuts the marigold her leaves
At the departure of the sun;
So from the honeysuckle sheaves
The bee goes when the day is done;
So sits the turtle when she is but one,
And so all woe, as I, since she is gone.'
A deliciously whimsical touch marks his description of a feast of
Oberon:
'The glasses, pure and thinner than we can
See from the sea-betroth'd Venetian,
Were all of ice, not made to overlast
One supper, and betwixt two cowslips cast.
A prettier hath not yet been told,
So neat the glass was, and so feat the mould.
A little spruce elf then (just of the set
Of the French dancer or such marionette),
Clad in a suit of rush, woven like a mat,
A monkshood flow'r then serving for a hat;
Under a cloak made of the Spider's loom:
This fairy (with them, held a lusty groom)
Brought in his bottles; neater were there none;
And every bottle was a cherry-stone,
To each a seed pearl served for a screw,
And most of them were fill'd with early dew.'
Now and again in his verses there peeps out a joyful pride in his
county, and his love of the Tavy is deep to his heart's core.
Some way below Tavistock is Buckland Abbey, founded by Amicia, Countess
of Devon, in 1278, and for long years the home of Cistercians. At the
Dissolution the Abbey was granted for a small sum to Sir Richard
Grenville (grandfather of the hero of the _Revenge_), who altered it
into a dwelling-house. Sir Richard, his grandson, sold it to John Hele
and Christopher Harrys, who were probably acting for Sir Francis Drake,
and he formally bought it of them ten months later. The house was built
in the body of the church, and it is still easy to trace its
ecclesiastical origin from some of the windows and architecture. In the
hall is a fine frieze, with raised figures in high relief and an
elaborate background, the subject a knight turned hermit. The knight,
wearing a hermit's robe, is sitting beneath spreading boughs, and a
skull is lodged in a hollow of the tree-trunk. His charger and his
discarded armour lie near him. In the same hall rests the famous drum
that went round the world with Drake, the drum referred to in the
traditional promise that Mr Newbolt has put into verse:
'Take my drum to England, hang it by the shore;
Strike it when the powder's running low;
If the Dons sight Devon, I'll quit the port of Heaven,
An' drum them up the Channel, as we drummed them long ago.'
A short distance below the Abbey, the Tavy, now broadened into a wide
but still shallow stream, ripples and hurries over the pebbles in a deep
valley between wooded hills. Returning to Tavistock and going up the
river, one arrives at the pretty and very remote village of Peter Tavy.
The houses are scattered about in an irregular group, a stream runs
through them to join the Tavy, and just above the wide bridge the brook
divides, flowing each side of a diamond-shaped patch, green with long
grass and cabbages. A steep slope leads up to the little church, which
stands back, and a tiny avenue of limes leads up to it from the
lichgate. The tower is battlemented, and the church must have been
partly rebuilt, for parts of it are early English and the rest late
Perpendicular. Within are slender clustered columns, supporting wide
arches, and different designs are sculptured on the sides of the granite
font.
Close by is a glen, which Mrs Bray says, 'I have ventured to name the
Valley of Waterfalls, on account of the vast number of small but
exquisitely beautiful falls seen there.' A narrow lane with high hedges
leads round the shoulder of the hill to the steep little valley, where
the Tavy jostles against obstructive boulders, and a high, narrow,
unstable-looking bridge of tarred timber (sometimes called a 'clam'
bridge) crosses the stream. Climbing up on the farther side, the road
soon reaches the village of Mary Tavy. In reference to these villages a
very old joke is told of a Judge unacquainted with these parts who, in
trying a case, not unnaturally confused the names with those of
witnesses, and ordered that Peter and Mary Tavy be brought into court.
Mary Tavy has not the unusual attractiveness of Peter Tavy. It looks
barer, and is overshadowed by that peculiarly comfortless air always
given by chimneys or machinery of mines. The church stands above the
road, and beside it a large old tree, whose lower branches are so
abundantly covered with polypody that the fronds hang like long fringes
from either side of each branch. The porch has a white groined ceiling,
crossed with fragments of the old timber roof, on which are bosses
carved in different designs.
From Mary Tavy a road runs nearly parallel to the river. Beyond Horndon
the houses are fewer and more scattered, and somehow there is a
suggestion that one is coming nearer and nearer to the verge of
civilization. The few houses look nice in themselves, with the exception
of a farm, so cheerless and neglected-looking, that it was a surprise to
find it inhabited; and not far beyond this house the road reaches
another and very different farm, looking full of comfort--and goes no
farther. This farm has the significant name of Lane End, and one
realizes from its solitary, exposed position that the high and
substantial wall surrounding it was built for sound reasons. It stands
on the moor, and the cultivation is of the roughest kind; the fields,
such as they are, being plentifully sprinkled with huge boulders. In
winter, when there is much fear of snow, these fields serve as an
enclosure for the ponies that are driven-in off the moor--looking like
wild animals in their long, hanging, furry coats. The river is heard
dashing over the rocks below, and about a mile farther on is Tavy
Cleave.
The last time I saw it a vague threat hung over everything, adding a
cold fascination to the moor. The hills showed tints of faint green and
palest brown, and patches of bracken gave a consoling shade of russet.
Hare Tor rose beyond, silent and impressive, covered with snow. The Tavy
had a new beauty, for it was almost frozen over, and the dark water, and
along whirling scraps of foam, showed between the blocks of ice and
snow, and the boulders were each bordered with shining white. The sky
was heavy with snow-clouds, and beneath them and in the rifts were
stormy red sunset tints, while a cold blue-grey mist was creeping up the
valley.
There are some places--the Castle of Elsinore, for instance--that seem
to have an amazing and incomprehensible gift of resisting civilization.
They may be brought up to date, and trimmed, and filled with
inappropriate people, and everything else done that should spoil them,
but in spite of it all they do not for a moment look as if any modern
extraneous objects had a meaning for them. They belong to their own day
and its manner, and to no other.
The same sort of feeling hovers about Tavy Cleave, and a great sense of
the mystery that here more, there less, broods over the moor. But there
is no suggestion as to who it is that the moor has most truly and
absolutely belonged to, nor even the region of time: only the feeling
that the valley is, in a finer than the usual sense, haunted.
As a valley Tavy Cleave is very beautiful, with its steep sides and
clear rushing stream and red granite rocks, half in and half out of the
river, that have a charm they entirely lose when once away from the
water. Mr Widgery shows how admirable they are in their proper place,
with their reflections quivering beneath them. Sometimes a kind of black
moss grows upon them, and tiny bits of white lichen, giving together a
curious tortoiseshell look. Above, the hill-sides are covered with
heather and broom and whortleberries among masses of loose rocks, and
now and again there is the vivid green of a patch of bog. The great
masses of rocks crowning the separate points on the hill-side, like
ruined rock-castles, add to the air of mystery.
Looking to the west from above the Cleave, one sees--as from any
distance round one sees--the most characteristic height of Brent Tor,
with the tiny church on the top. It is not that the tor is so very high,
but in some astonishing way it always seems to appear as a landmark,
north, south, east, or west, when one imagines it to be absolutely out
of range. The sides are steep and rocky, and the church stands 'full
bleak and weather-beaten, all-alone as it were, forsaken, whose
churchyard doth hardly afford depth of earth to bury the dead; yet
doubtless they rest there as securely as in sumptuous St Peter's until
the day of Doom.'
The story told of the church is that a man once almost gave himself up
for lost--some say in a storm, others in an impenetrable, unending
fog--in the Channel, and vowed that, if he ever came safe to shore, he
would build a church on the first bit of land he saw. As Brent Tor is
far inland, the fog story sounds the more probable, for there is no
saying how mist wreaths may drift. The church is dedicated to St Michael
de la Rupe, and here another tradition comes in, for it is popularly
supposed that, when the building of the church was begun, the devil
pulled away all the day's work in the night. At last St Michael came to
the rescue, and hurled such an enormous mass of rock upon the devil that
he fled away and hindered no more. The building is very tiny, and a
countryman told me that as a child he used to be puzzled by the cryptic
warning: 'If you get into the second aisle of Brent Tor Church, you will
never get out again.' Of course--there is no second aisle.
The beauty of many of the places on the banks of the Tamar is
celebrated. Among the exquisite woods and lawns of Endsleigh--through
which one Duke of Bedford cut no less than forty miles in rides--the
river twists and winds for a long distance at one point, and curves
round almost into a ring. A little farther south are Morwell Rocks,
which Mr Norway had the good fortune to see in the spring. 'The trees
stretch far away along the river, dense and close to the water's edge, a
mountain of gold and sunny green, broken in the midst by a high grey
crag, which stands up sheer and grey amid the mass of gorgeous colour.
This is the first peak of a great range of limestone cliffs, which for
the most part, as the hill sweeps round above the village of Morwellham,
are hidden in the woods. But when that tiny cluster of cottages and
wharves is left behind, the stream creeps closer to the hill, and it is
as if the buried rock stirred and flung the coppice off its shoulders,
for the limestone precipices rise vertically out of the water to a vast
height. The summits are weathered into most fantastic shapes, pinnacles
and towers break the skyline, and wherever a crevice in the rock has
allowed the lodging of a little earth, some oak-tree roots itself, or a
wild tangle of greenery drops down the scarred surface of the cliff.'
A little farther down, the Tamar and the Tavy join, and with the Cornish
Lynher form the Hamoaze--a view of land and water that is very
admirable. It is not a scene whose dimly realized charm grows gradually
stronger, but one whose triumphant beauty is beyond dispute. The
innumerable creeks and inlets, the rich abundance of foliage and
pasture, and the sweeping sense of spaciousness from the open sea that
comes off Plymouth Sound, help to make the grand effect; and the
feelings of few can be quite unstirred by the battleships, or perhaps
black sinister destroyers, and the multitude of other shipping lying at
anchor in that famous haven, and by the thought of all that they mean to
us.