Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts Part 12

The early chroniclers go back gloriously into the dim mists of antiquity for the origin of Totnes, and when no carping critics insisted on a.n.a.lyzing popular history and distilling all the romance out of it, the story of the town was very fine indeed. The founder of Totnes, then, was Brutus of Troy, who after long wanderings arrived in this charming bit of country, and on this hill made the great announcement:

'Here I stand, and here I rest, And this place shall be called Totnes.'

Moreover, the stone that he stepped ash.o.r.e upon is still here, and the Mayor stands on it whenever it is his duty to proclaim a new Sovereign.

The claims of Totnes have been set forth with no undue modesty. 'It hath flourished, and felt also the storms of affliction, under Britons, Romans, Saxons, and Normans. To speak somewhat of the antiquity thereof, I hope I shall take no great pains to prove it (and that without opposition) the prime town of Great Britain.' Its history is taken in grand strides. Having explained that the coming of Brutus was held by some to be contemporary with the rule of Eli as high-priest in Israel, the writer continues: 'The first conqueror Brutus gave this town and the two provinces, Devon and Cornwall, then but one, to his cousin and great a.s.sistant, Corinoeus, as is well known; whereof the western part is (as they say) called Cornwall; who peopled it with his own regiment; and being an excellent wrestler, as you have heard, trained his following in the same exercises; whereof it comes that the western men in that sport win the mastery and game wheresoever they come.... The second conqueror, William of Normandy, bestowed this town, together with Dartmouth and Barnstaple, on a worthy man named Judaeel.'

The s.p.a.ce of time between the first and second 'conquerors' does not seem to strike the historian as a rather wide gap, and the doings of the one and the other are related with almost equal confidence and with the same air of authority.

Judhael de Totnes is supposed to have built the castle, and although only the walls of the round keep now remain, the trouble of the long climb up to it is well repaid by the lovely view that is gained from the ruin. Fertility and abundance seem to be the characteristics of the land, and the ridiculous suggestion that the town's name has been corrupted from _Toute-a-l'aise_ is one shade less absurd, because that t.i.tle would be so very appropriate. Here and there a silver gleam shows where the river runs between heavily wooded banks. To the east a green and smiling country of gentle hills and valleys leads to that shade of past splendour, the Castle of Berry Pomeroy; and far away to the north-west, it is possible to see the high, sharp tors on Dartmoor.

Looking straight down, the uneven roofs seem tumbled over one another in a way that suggests that different ages have casually showered them into the little town.

Totnes received its first charter from King John, and there are few older boroughs in the country. Originally a walled town, Fore Street is still crossed by the East Gate, which has been rebuilt in comparatively modern times. Within is a room decorated by an early Renaissance frieze and 'linen-pattern' panelling. The upper stories of some of the old houses project over the lower ones, and in the High Street they jut quite across the pavements, and rest upon columns, making piazzas or covered ways along the street. Such piazzas are very uncommon in England, but there is a short one, called the b.u.t.ter Walk, at Dartmouth.

The church is a very fine Perpendicular building, of a warm rose colour, and it has a high battlemented tower from which three figures look out of their niches. Some very grotesque gargoyles peer down from the roof at intervals. The great treasure of the church is its screen, carved so finely that the pattern seems like lacework, and it is difficult to realize that it can be of stone. The main lines of the carving curve and spread upwards almost like the lines of palm-leaves, and the screen is coloured and gilded. There is another beautiful and delicate, though less elaborate, bit of carving which divides a little chapel from the south side of the chancel. Under the tower arch is a curious monument to Christopher Blackhall, who died in 1635, and his four wives, who are kneeling one behind the other. The dates of their deaths are very clearly marked by the different fashions of their dresses--a compact and upstanding ruff adds to the stiff precision of the first wife's appearance; while the sloping lines of a 'Vand.y.k.e' collar embellish the dress of the fourth.

On the north side of the church stands the old Guildhall, and in front of it another tiny piazza, bordered by granite pillars. Inside 'linen-pattern' panelling lines the walls; there are carved seats all round the upper end, and in the council-chamber beyond are some fragments of fine moulding.

Before leaving the town, a curious custom practised in the eighteenth century must be mentioned--that of taking dogs to help in catching salmon. Defoe came here in his travels in the West, and saw the fish being caught. The fish, he says, in the flowing tide swim into a 'cut, or channel,' which has a 'grating of wood, the cross-bars of which ...

stand pointing inward towards one another.... We were carried thither at low water, where we saw about fifty or sixty small salmon, about seventeen to twenty inches long, which the country people call salmon-peel,' caught by putting in a net at the end of a pole. 'The net being fixed at one end of the place, they put in a dog (who was taught his trade beforehand) at the other end of the place, and he drives all the fish into the net, so that, only holding the net still in its place, the man took up two or three and thirty salmon-peel at the first time.'

He finishes the story by saying that they bought some for dinner at twopence apiece. 'And for such fish, not at all bigger, and not so fresh, I have seen six and sixpence each given at a London fish-market.'

The river leaves Totnes in broad, sweeping curves between the hills, and rolls on past the lovely woods of Sharpham, and on its course to Dartmouth pa.s.ses the early homes of two men who each played a part in English history. At Sandridge, close to the river, lived Captain John Davies, or Davis, whose name is familiar as the discoverer of Davis's Straits. Prince, who himself lived not far away, takes the fascination of Dartmouth, and the longing for the sea that Dartmouth seemed to inspire, as quite natural, and says casually that, living so near this town, 'Mr Davis had ... a kind of invitation, to put himself early to sea.'

These were in the days when the Merchant Adventurers were at the height of their importance and prosperity, and it was in the hope of opening up a trade for the woollen goods of the West-country with India and China that Captain Davis set out to look for the North-West Pa.s.sage.

To face all the hazards of this journey, so very far away from civilization, and the perils and shocks that might await him in the frozen North, he fitted out a little fleet which consisted of the 'Barke _Sunneshine_, of London, fifty tunnes, and the _Moonshine_, of Dartmouth, thirty-five tunnes, the ship _Mermayd_, of a hundred and twenty tunnes, and a pinesse of tenne tunnes named the _North Starre_.'[5] But in spite of this name of good augury the little pinnace never came home again, and one can only admire with awe the daring that ventured to sail a boat of ten tons across the boisterous Atlantic into the unknown Arctic Seas. Traces of Davis's wanderings along the coasts of North America may still be found in the names he bestowed on different points. 'On sighting first the land, he named the bay which he entered after his friend, Gilbert Sound; we find also Exeter Sound, Totnes Roads, Mount Raleigh, and other familiar t.i.tles. A few years later John Davis found the right course to India and China, and introduced the trade from this country which exists to the present time.'

[Footnote 5: 'An Elizabethan Guild of the City of Exeter,' by William Cotton.]

A greater man than Davis lived farther down the river at Greenaway, opposite the pretty village of Dittisham, which, with its strip of beach and ferry, looks as if it had been 'made for a picture.' Sir Humphrey Gilbert, stepbrother to Sir Walter Raleigh, was a great man to whom Fortune was not overkind, but his 'virtues and pious intentions may be read ... shining too gloriously to be dusked by misfortune.' His aims were higher than the hopes that stirred most of his contemporaries, and of his 'n.o.ble enterprizes the great design ... was to discover the remote countries of America, and to bring off those savages from their diabolical superst.i.tions, to the embracing the gospel.' He made two efforts to graft a colony with little success, but his third effort was rather happier; and having left Devonshire in June, 1583, he 'sailed to Newfoundland and the great river of St Laurence in Canada; which he took possession of, and seized the same to the crown of England, and invested the Queen in an estate for two hundred leagues in length by cutting a turf and rod after the antient custom of England.' From the developments of that great country that are now taking place, it cannot but be interesting to look back along the vista of years to this very simple ceremony.

Later this group of emigrants lost heart, and nearly all returned to England, and possibly Sir Humphrey may have wondered whether this venture also would have but a flickering existence, and would leave no lasting result of the work on which he had spent his years and his strength and his riches. Or it may be that no doubts troubled him, for he had a 'n.o.ble and gallant spirit,' and his dauntless motto was 'Quid non?' The story of his death makes an appropriate ending to his life. He was with his colony in Newfoundland when 'necessaries began to fail,'

and he was urged to return home. He started in the _Squirrel_, a ship of ten tons. When they were far out at sea a violent tempest blew up, and those in the _Golden Hind_ (a larger ship accompanying them) saw with horror the imminent danger that their friends were in. But Sir Humphrey was quite composed, and those in the _Golden Hind_ were near enough to hear him cry 'aloud to his company, in these words: "We are so near to heaven here at sea as at land."' In the height of the storm the little boat was swallowed up by the waves, and all on board perished.

A portrait of Sir Humphrey hung in his grand-nephew's house at Compton, where Prince saw it. 'The one hand holdeth a general's truncheon, and the other is laid on the globe of the world, Virginia is written over; on his breast hangs the golden anchor, with the pearl at the peak; and underneath are these verses, which, tho' none of the best, may here supply the place of an epitaph:

'"Here you may see the portrait of his face, Who for his country's honor oft did trace Along the deep; and made a n.o.ble way Unto the growing fame, Virginia.

The picture of his mind, if ye do crave it, Look upon Virtue's picture, and ye have it."'

The 'golden anchor' was a jewel which the Queen had given him as a special mark of favour, for she looked on him very graciously, in spite of the fact that his efforts did not then seem as if they would be crowned with success. A song was made about the year 1581, in which he and Sir Francis Drake divide the honours.

'_Sir Francis, Sir Francis, Sir Francis_ is come, _Sir William_, and eke _Sir Robert_, his son, And eke the good Earl of _Southampton_ Marcht on his way most gallantly on;

Then came my Lord Chamberlain, with his white staff, And all the people begun for to laugh.

And then the Queen begun to speak, "You're welcome home, Sir Francis Drake!"

'THE QUEEN'S SPEECH.

'"Gallants all of British blood, Why do ye not sail in th' ocean flood?

I protest ye are not all worth a Philberd Compared with Sir Humphrey _Gilberd_."

'THE QUEEN'S REASON.

[_Probably added in 1584-85._]

'For he walkt forth a rainy day, To the _Now-Found-land_ he took his way, With many a gallant fresh and green.

He never came home again, G.o.d bless the Queen!'

Notes to this song explain: 'We understand as the three-fold holders of the name, "Sir Francis," three persons; Sir Francis Drake, Knighted by the Queen after his return from circ.u.mnavigating the world in 1580: Sir Francis Walsingham, and Sir Francis Vere. Sir William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, and his son, Sir Robert.... The Lord Chamberlain probably meant the despicable Sir James Crofts, who hated and calumniated Drake.'

The song probably reflects the temper of the time.

'They never came back agen.

G.o.d bless the Queen.'

The lines are very characteristic of the spirit of the age that was bound to conquer. There was sorrow for those who were gone, but no complaint, no grudging those who had perished where the fame or power of the Queen could be furthered. Gloriana's subjects found no price too great, no sacrifice worth counting; a leader might fall, but the great scheme must go on, her rule spread farther and wider, and the hazards and failures overstepped.

Although upon all parts of the South Hams there hovers a spell that is inexplicable, perhaps it is felt more in Dartmouth than in any other place one can think of. Possibly it is the loveliness of sea and land, flowers in the crevices of the cliffs hanging low towards the water's edge, the round tower rising out of the sea, the picturesqueness of the town, with its thronging a.s.sociations, or just the intangible influences of bygone days. But there is something of enchantment about the tower, especially when it is contemplated from the water. And to fully appreciate the whole, one should slip out of the harbour past the Mew Stone, where the sea-gulls rise like a drift of snowflakes on a sudden gust, into the midst of sliding walls of transparent green water beyond, where--if there is wind enough--gla.s.sy hillocks all round, at moments, hide everything else from sight. Besides the fascination of watching waves towering above the boat, and following it as if they would fall over and bury it in their depths, and climbing them, with the sudden plunge into the hollow beyond, it may be, especially if shoals of mackerel are near, that one may have the pleasure of coming upon a flock of gulls, swimming, swooping, flapping about, and all busy fishing. Or perhaps there will be a group of brown divers, floating placidly on the waves, and then suddenly disappearing, one or two at a time or several in a moment. And possibly a great black creature may appear a little way off, tossing and seeming to turn somersaults in the water, and another and another, and one may find oneself among a school of porpoises, and hear the curious puffing sounds they make that are not quite like anything else. From a little distance out, looking back across the changing lights that glance over the water, one gets a quite fresh view of the harbour's mouth, shut in by its high cliffs, half veiled by soft ma.s.ses of green.

Dartmouth had a great stake in the country's welfare in early days, and was a port of much stir and traffic. From here sailed many of the ships that Richard I gathered together to take the English who were going with him on the Third Crusade. William Rufus started once from this harbour when there was trouble in Normandy, and King John paid the town two visits. In Edward III's time Dartmouth had already become renowned for her shipping and sent six ships for the King's service in a fight in which engaged the combined French, Flemish, and Genoese fleets; and she sent two more a few years later to help in his war against Scotland.

Fifty years later this loan was entirely eclipsed by the magnificence of contributing no fewer than thirty-one ships to the siege of Calais.

Chaucer's words have often been quoted:

'A schipman was ther; wonyng far by weste, For ought I woot, he was of Dertemouth.'

As if it were more likely that a typical seaman would come from Dartmouth than anywhere else! In no harbour could that great training-ship the _Britannia_ have been more appropriately moored, nor could a more fitting place be chosen for the long range of buildings on the hill above, the Naval College that has superseded it. Risdon tells us that the town has been 'sundry times subject to the attacks of foreigners,' and particularly mentions one occasion in the reign of Henry III, when the French made such a furious onslaught, that the women turned out by the side of their menkind and hurled flints at the enemy.

These found themselves 'courageously resisted by the towns-men and-women, Amazonian-like.'

In 1470 Dartmouth was a step in the retreat of Warwick, 'the King-maker,' when Edward IV pursued him as far as Exeter. Warwick embarked here for France, and his arrival in those unsettled times must have created much bustle and excitement amongst all the gossips of the place. The Earl was 'in danger of being surprized, whereupon leisurely (for his great spirit disdained anything that should look like a Flight) he retired to _Exeter_, where having dismissed the Remainder of the troops that attended him, he went to _Dartmouth_, and there, with many ladies in his company and a large Retinue, he took ship and sailed directly to Calais.'

Amongst the celebrities of Dartmouth is a certain John Hawley, a great merchant of immense wealth. A couplet ran of him:

'Blow the wind high, or blow the wind low, It bloweth still to Hawley's hawe'

--that is, to his house. Prince interprets this by saying that Hawley had so many ships all over the world that any wind that blew was of advantage to some of them.

When Leland came here, he remarked on the great ruins of 'Hawley's Haul ... a rich merchant and a n.o.ble warrior against the _French_ Men.'

Hawley is buried in the beautiful church of St Saviour's, and a large bra.s.s represents him as lying between his two wives.

In this church is a most delicately carved screen, and leaves, sprays, and grapes are conspicuous amongst the details of its graceful design.

The groined cornice is decorated by exquisite fan-tracery, and various saints and 'doctors of the church' are painted on the panels of the lower part. In the high carved stone pulpit are tabernacled recesses, once enclosing figures, but now containing 'royal badges and devices'; and both screen and pulpit were coloured and gilded, and are rather dimmed by time. The church has many very interesting features, and in the south porch is a most curious wrought-iron door, showing a tree with long, drooping branches and large diamond-shaped leaves, and two wonderful heraldic lions impaled on it.

The Castle was built in the time of Henry VII, on the site of an older one; for when Edward IV reigned, the men of Dartmouth built themselves a castle at the desire of the King, who promised that if they would by this means protect the town--and, further, would guard the harbour by putting a chain across the mouth--they should have 30 yearly from the customs of Dartmouth and Exeter. The chain stretched across to Kingswear, and a hollow in the rock by the ruins of an old guard-house shows where it once pa.s.sed. The little square castle of Kingswear stands close by, and from certain points of view both Kingswear and the beautiful round tower of Dartmouth Castle seem to be rising straight out of the waves.

In 1685 an agreement very much like the earlier one was made. James II had some cause for uneasiness and for looking closely to his defences, and, as it happened, three years later there landed, only a few miles away, the man who, superseding him, was hailed by the majority as England's Deliverer. But when James came to the throne he had already seen Dartmouth conquered by an enemy's troops; for, although Prince Maurice had secured it in the earlier stages of the war, Fairfax had taken it later. Among the Duke of Somerset's papers are some orders given by a Council of War, at which 'Colonel Edward Seymour, Governor of Dartmouth town and garrison,' was present, providing very minutely for the defence of the town and for the supplies of the garrison. Stories of the Parliamentary troops quartering themselves in churches are sometimes told, with the unfair implication that they alone were guilty of such desecration; for where need was urgent the Royalists took the same course. Here we find orders: 'Captain Haughton ... with forty men shall lie in Townstall church, for the fortifying thereof against the enemy, and that the said captain, his officers and company, shall have their victuals from Mount Boone.' Also that a 'month's provision of victuals be laid into St Petrox church for five hundred men, and the said Major Torner and his select officers shall be keepers thereof.' The Church of St Clement at Townstall was fortified with ten cannon.