Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts Part 3

'Had his death by faithless Frisians slain.'

Eight Bishops lived and died at Crediton, and the ninth demanded that the see should be transferred from Crediton to Exeter. The chief reason put forward was that Exeter was a strong city, and less likely to be ravaged by Irish Danes and other 'barbarian pirates,' but Professor Freeman suggests that Leofric also desired the change because he had been educated on the Continent, where it was never the custom for a Bishop's chief seat to be in a village when a larger town was in his diocese. Anyhow, Leofric obtained his wish, and was led to his throne in St Peter's Church in Exeter by the King on one hand and the Queen on the other, in the presence of two Archbishops and other n.o.bles.

The palace and park at Crediton remained in the possession of the Bishops till the Dissolution.

The beautiful Church of St Cross stands either upon or close to the site of the original cathedral of the Bishops, which, on the removal of the See to Exeter, was made a collegiate church, with precentor, treasurer, dean, eighteen canons and as many vicars, besides singing-men or lay-vicars.

The present church is mainly Perpendicular, though the Lady Chapel is early Decorated, and there are portions of still earlier work. The tower is central, square, and rather low. It is surmounted by four embattled turrets, and battlements run round the roof of the church. The whole building is of a soft rose-red colour, but the walls within were once whitewashed, and are now of a slightly cooler tint. The cl.u.s.tered pillars look as if, over a warm, soft grey, a faint, transparent tinge of rose-colour had pa.s.sed, leaving a very lovely effect; they are tall and graceful, and delicate carving adorns the capitals. The nave is lofty and unusually long. On the south side of the chancel are sedilia, once elaborately decorated and glorious in vermilion and gold; a design resembling a very large but intricate network in gold spreads over the backs of the sedilia, and a little figure, with faint traces of colour and gilding, stands at one end. On the north side of the chancel is the effigy, lying at full length, of William Peryam; and close by is a monument to John Tuckfield, engraved with an epitaph full of praise, in which occur these lines, in peculiar lettering and spelling:

'Why do I live, in Life and Thrall, Of Joy and all Bereaft, Yor Winges were grown, To Heaven are flown, 'Cause I had none am Leaft.'

The Lady Chapel is beautifully decorated. At the south end of the choir is a large tomb, on which lie, side by side, the effigies of a knight in armour and a lady with a wonderful head-dress, large and square. The figures are somewhat mutilated, but the little angels that supported her head can just be distinguished. The tomb is supposed to be that of Sir John Sully and his wife; he, having fought at Crecy and Poictiers, lived to give evidence, at the age of 105, in the great Scrope and Grosvenor controversy.

In the south porch is a bit of early English work, a piscina and holy-water stoup side by side, under one arch, with a very slender detached shaft between. The upper portion of the font is late Norman, and is dark, shallow, and square. Behind the font a small door and tiny staircase lead up to the parvise, where is stored a library that was given for the priest's use. The books include a 'Vinegar' Bible, an _Eikon Basilike_, and other treasures.

There is a curious account of a miracle that took place in this church on August 1, 1315, while Bishop Stapeldon was celebrating Ma.s.s. Thomas Orey, a fuller by trade, of Keynsham, became suddenly blind one day in Easter week for no apparent reason. A vivid dream that, if he should visit the Church of Holy Cross at Crediton, his sight would return, induced him to journey there with his wife, and several witnesses, afterwards called by the Bishop to give evidence, solemnly a.s.serted that when he arrived in the town he was totally blind. Two days he spent in the church, and on the third, he being 'instant at prayer before the altar of St Nicholas, suddenly recovered his sight.'

Crediton had for a long time a very important trade in woollen goods, which were made here as early as in the thirteenth century. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth it was one of the princ.i.p.al centres of the manufacture in the county, and, indeed, caused Exeter so much jealousy that weavers, tuckers, and others, pet.i.tioned the authorities until it was ordained that the serge-market should be removed from here, and a weekly one set up in Exeter, to the great and natural indignation of Crediton. 'Their market for kersies hath been very great, especially of the finer sort,' says Westcote, 'for the aptness and diligent industry of the inhabitants ... did purchase it a supereminent name above all other towns, whereby grew this common proverb--as fine as Kirton spinning ... which spinning was very fine indeed, which to express, the better to gain your belief, it is very true that 140 threads of woollen yarn spun in that town were drawn together through the eye of a tailor's needle; which needle and threads were, for many years together, to be seen in Watling-street, in London, in the shop of one Mr Duns...o...b...'

Crediton was once, for a brief but fateful moment, the focus of a very serious movement. During 1549 discontent showed itself in many parts of England, and very gravely in the West, where a rising of Devonshire and Cornish men brought about the 'Affair of the Crediton Barns,' and culminated in the siege of Exeter. The first definite outbreak was at Sampford Courtenay, on Whit Monday, June 10. On Sunday the Book of Common Prayer was used for the first time, but the people were dissatisfied. They did not care to hear the service in their own tongue instead of in Latin, and they resented all the other changes. And when on Monday the priest was 'preparing himself to say the service as he had done the day before ... they said he should not do so.... In the end, whether it were with his will or against his will, he ravisheth himself in his old Popish attire, and sayeth Ma.s.s, and all such services as in Times past accustomed.'

The news of this incident spread; other villages followed suit, and the local magistrates unwillingly recognized that the ferment of rebellion was working, and met together to try and reason the people into a more submissive frame of mind. But the movement was too full of force to be arrested by such gentle methods, and the justices, 'being afraid of their own shadows, ... departed without having done anything at all.'

Unfortunately, their reasoning had merely an irritating effect, so that, when a certain gentleman named Helions tried mildly to enforce some of the remonstrances, a man struck him on the neck with a billhook and killed him. This blow seems to have stirred the mob into taking a definite course of action, and they marched on Crediton. News of the disturbance had, meanwhile, reached the King, and Sir Peter and Sir Gawen Carew were sent down in haste to deal with the matter. From Exeter, they and several other gentlemen rode to confer with the people; but the people, having had notice of the arrival of the knights, 'they intrench the highways, and make a mighty rampire at the Town's End, and fortify the same' and 'also the Barns of both sides of the way.' The walls were pierced with 'loops and holes for their shot,' and 'so complenished with men, well appointed with bows and arrows and other weapons, that there was no pa.s.sage nor entry for them into the town.'

Nor would they listen to 'the Gentlemen,' but refused all conference.

The 'Warlike Knights' then tried force, but were driven back with loss, by a heavy volley. 'Whereupon some one strong man of that company,' says Hooker (who must have admired decision), 'unawares of the gentlemen, did set one of the barns on fire, and then the Commoners, seeing that, ran and fled away out of the town.' This ended all the trouble in Crediton, though the smoking barns served as fuel to the growing spirit of revolt, and the 'Barns of Crediton' became a party-cry.

Clarendon mentions briefly that Charles I came here on his way into Cornwall, and reviewed the troops under Prince Maurice.

About one hundred and fifty years later the distant echoes of war sounded faintly in Crediton, for French prisoners of war on parole, Napoleon's soldiers, were allowed to live in this town. Vague rumours of them may still be heard. The s.e.xton remembers that his mother often told about them, and one of the first people he buried was a man named Henry, 'though,' he explained, 'they spell it rather differently.' The melancholy fate of this stranger throws a light on one of the disregarded tragedies in the train of war, for Henri was not a soldier, but the son of a French prisoner. For some reason he never went home, and died in the workhouse.

Amongst the conditions that the prisoners on parole had to sign was: 'Not to withdraw one mile from the boundaries prescribed there without leave for that purpose from the said Commissioners;' and on some roads a stone was put up marking the limits. One of these stones, of grey limestone, and very like a milestone with no inscription, is still to be seen jutting out from the bank of Shobrooke Park, on the Stockleigh Pomeroy road. Another witness to the presence of the French prisoners lies in the name that clings to a bit of road running behind the Vicarage, for it is still sometimes called the Belle Parade, and tradition says that here they used to a.s.semble on Sundays.

Returning along the river, one pa.s.ses through the property of the late Sir Redvers Buller. Downes is a white house standing amongst green open lawns sloping to the river, and it has a background of great trees and ample shrubberies. The Bullers at one time lived chiefly in Cornwall, and Downes was originally a shooting-box. A hay-loft stood at one end, and when the house was enlarged the archway under which the hay-waggons were driven was left standing, and now forms part of the drawing-room--a room with an unusually high ceiling. A member of the family has been kind enough to send me notes of one or two incidents in the history of the Bullers.

'The whole Buller family was at one time reduced to a single individual, John Francis Buller. He died of the smallpox. His mother insisted on seeing him after death. It was in the days when air was considered highly prejudicial to smallpox patients, who were covered with red cloth, and every window and cranny through which air might enter was carefully closed. To minimize the risk to his mother, who would listen to no dissuasion, all the windows and doors were opened, and a draught of air admitted, with the result that when his mother entered the room the dead man rose from his bed and received her.' Mr Buller lived to marry Rebecca, daughter of the Bishop Trelawney who was one of the seven Bishops sent to the Tower by James II. His arrest created intense indignation in his own county; and he is the Trelawney referred to in the well-known fragment, all that remains of a ballad written at the time to express Cornish feeling:

'And shall they scorn Tre, Pol, and Pen?

And shall Trelawney die?

There's twenty thousand Cornishmen[2]

Will know the reason why.'

[Footnote 2: In another version 'underground'--_i.e._, miners.]

A later Mr Buller of Downes had a brief but unpleasant experience of the feeling of the mob in regard to the Reform Bill.

'I recollect hearing that at the time of the first Reform Bill (1830) the members of the House of Commons were threatened with dire consequences if they could not give what the mob considered satisfactory answers to their questions.

'Mr Buller of Downes was on his way to the House in his own carriage, when a crowd stopped him, demanding to know how he meant to vote. He took no notice of their request, but remained quietly seated, when some of the men opened the carriage door with cries of, "Pull him out! Pull him out!" and were proceeding to carry out their threat, when his servant, who was standing behind the carriage, sprang up to the roof, and, waving his hat, shouted: "What! don't you know my master, Squire Buller? Why, he's always for the people!" Whereupon the door was closed again with a bang, the coachman told to drive on, and "Squire Buller"

reached the House without further molestation.'

Two miles farther on the river pa.s.ses the village of Newton St Cyres, or Syriak Newton, as some of the older writers called it. The church has several interesting features, and escaped the ruthless 'restoration'

that so many village churches suffered from at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Alders and willows overhang the stream, which winds its way to the south-west, and about two miles farther on one arrives again at Cowley Bridge. The Valley of the Exe gets ever wider and flatter, and after Exeter has been pa.s.sed the flatness on either side of the banks increases as the river draws near the estuary.

Topsham stands at the head of the estuary, and is a pleasant little town, whose great days are gone by. It is difficult to believe that in the reign of William III Topsham had more trade with Newfoundland than any other port in the country excepting London. Presumably it was at this time that certain Dutch merchants came to live here, and built themselves quaint narrow houses of small Dutch bricks, painted the colour of bath-bricks. Rounded gable-ends are a feature of these houses, which may still be seen along the Strand. In many cases the clerk's house, a smaller, humbler dwelling of exactly the same design, stands close to the merchant's, separated by their respective gardens.

Till wooden ships were superseded, frigates for the navy were built here, but now, although some of the largest ships stop and unload their cargoes for Exeter, there is little of the stir and bustle that the town must once have rejoiced in.

Miss Celia Fiennes, who rode through England about 1695, mentions Topsham in her diary as 'a little market place and a very good Key; hither they convey on horses their serges and soe load their shipps w^h comes to this place, all for London.' She also speaks of Starcross, on the farther side of the river, 'where the Great shipps ride, and there they build some shipps.'

In the end of the seventeenth century there sprang from Topsham a man of great resoluteness, pluck, and the spirit to fight against tremendous odds in cold blood. Robert Lyde, mate of the _Friend's Adventure_, himself wrote an account of his fortunes on board that vessel. Lyde's great bitterness against the French is explained by the fact that he had already suffered intensely at their hands. Two years before he had been captured at sea by a French privateer, and imprisoned at St Malo, 'where we were used with such inhumanity and cruelty that if we had been taken by the Turks we could not have been used worse.' The prisoners were almost starved, and their condition was wretched in every respect.

'These and their other barbarities made so great an impression on me that I did resolve never to go a prisoner there again, and this resolution I did ever since continue in.' But when he was for the second time made prisoner--this time on board the _Friend's Adventure_--there seemed no escape from this evil fate. The crew were all removed from the ship, excepting Lyde and one boy, who, under a prize-master and six men, were to help in sailing her to St Malo. The idea of returning to the identical prison where he had endured such misery made Lyde desperate, and, finding no easier expedient, he determined to pit himself against the seven as soon as he could persuade the boy to join him. The boy, not unnaturally, hung back from such a venture, and before he could screw his courage to the sticking-place they had arrived off a small harbour near Brest, and the French had fired a 'patteroe' for a pilot.

'Whereupon, considering the inhuman usage I formerly had in France, and how near I was to it again, struck me with such terror that I went down between decks and prayed G.o.d for a southerly wind, to prevent her from going into that harbour, which G.o.d was most graciously pleased to grant me, for which I returned my unfeigned thanks.'

Lyde's anxiety to attack the French was now redoubled, and when they invited him to their breakfast, he was so 'ready to faint with eagerness to encounter them' that he could not stay in the same cabin. He went up 'betwixt decks' to the boy, 'and did earnestly entreat him to go up presently to the cabin and stand behind me, and knock down but one man, in case two laid on me, and I would kill and command all the rest presently.' The boy, however, was timid, and when Lyde, to spur him into resistance, told all the horrible details of his former captivity, he calmly replied: 'If I do find it as hard as you say when I am in France, I will go along with them in a privateer.' 'These words,' writes Lyde, 'struck me to the heart, which made me say: "You dog! What! will you go with them against your King and Country, and Father and Mother? Sirrah!

I was a prisoner in France four months, and my tongue cannot express what I endured there, yet I would not turn Papist and go with them. If I should take my brother in a French privateer, after he had sailed willingly with them, I would hang him immediately."' Perhaps at this point the boy began to fear opposing Lyde as much as attacking all the Frenchmen, for he now consented to help, and was told that if he would knock down the man at the helm, all the others should be Lyde's affair.

The _sang-froid_ of the ensuing conversation is remarkable. 'Saith the boy, "If you be sure to overcome them, how many do you count to kill?" I answered that I intended to kill three of them. Then the boy replied, "Why three, and no more?" I answered that I would kill three for three of our men that died in Prison when I was there.' Lyde went on to express a hope that some day a 'Man-of-War or Fireship' will try to avenge 'the Death of those four hundred men that died in the same Prison of Dinan.' But the boy's fears found the present scheme too merciful, and he protested, 'Four alive would be too many for us.'

The attack was made when two Frenchmen were asleep in the cabin. 'I went softly aft into the cabin, and put my back against the bulkhead, and took the iron crow and held it with both my hands in the middle of it, and put my legs to shorten myself, because the cabin was very low. But he that being nighest to me, hearing me, opened his eyes, and perceiving my intent and upon what account I was coming, he endeavoured to rise to make resistance against me, but I prevented him by a blow upon his forehead which mortally wounded him.' The other man received a heavy blow as he was rising, 'very fiercely endeavouring to come against me.... The master, lying in his cabin on my right hand, rose and sat in his cabin, and seeing what I had done, he called me by most insulting names.' But 'having his eyes every way,' Lyde turned on him with a blow which made him 'lie as still as if he had been dead.'

He then went to 'attack the two men who were at the pump, where they continued pumping without hearing or knowing what I had done;' but one of the wounded men crawled out of the cabin, and when the men at the pump 'saw his blood running out of the hole in his forehead, they came running aft to me, grinding their teeth as if they would have eaten me; but I met them as they came within the steeridge door, and struck at them; but the steeridge not being above four foot high, I could not have a full blow at them, whereupon they fended off the blows, took hold of the crow with both their hands close to mine, striving to haul it from me; then the boy might have knocked them down with much ease, but that his heart failed him.' The master was by this time so far recovered that he was able to join the other two, so that Lyde fought for his life against the three. The boy at one moment, thinking him overborne, 'cried out for fear. Then I said, "Do you cry, you villain, now I am in such a condition? Come quickly and knock this man on the head that hath hold of my left arm." The boy took some courage, but struck so faintly that he missed his blow, which greatly enraged me; and I, feeling the Frenchman about my middle hang very heavy, said to the boy, "Go round the binikle and knock down that man that hangeth on my back"; so the boy did strike him one blow on the head, and he went out on deck staggering to and fro.' After a further tremendous effort, Lyde killed one of the three struggling with him, and the two others then begged for quarter; and at last he set sail for Topsham, with five living prisoners under hatches.

But his troubles were not yet all pa.s.sed. Exhausted as he was, he dared not rest, and suffered from want of sleep, bad weather, and, when he reached home, a cold welcome. Arrived at Topsham Bar, he had no English colours to run up, and the pilot he signalled feared to come out. Lyde did not dare to bring in the ship by himself at night, and was blown off the coast, so that he had the further labour of getting close to the bar a second time. In the end he did succeed in getting safely home.

Just beyond Topsham the little river Clyst joins the Exe. It has given names to a surprising number of villages and manors, considering the shortness of its course--Clyst St Mary, Clyst St Laurence, Honiton Clyst, and so on. At Clyst St George a small estate used to be held on the curious tenure of 'the annual tender of an ivory bow.' About two miles east of the river the land begins to slope upwards to the moorland of Woodbury Common, and on one part of the heath are the remains of an ancient entrenchment called Woodbury Castle. 'No castle at all, built with little cost,' says Westcote, 'without either lime or hewn stone: only a hasty fortification made of mother-earth for the present to serve a turn for need, with plain ditches, the Saxons' usual structure, who commonly lay _sub dio_, with no other shelter or coverture than the starry canopy.'

Woodbury and Lympstone--a village on the edge of the estuary--were once owned by the family of De Albemarle, which name was gradually transformed into Damarel, and in this guise is not uncommon in the West to-day.

Two and a half miles farther on is Exmouth--a town fortunate in the delightful views on every side. The sea stretches away to the south; on the north-east the hills rise towards Woodbury Common; on the west lie the broad, shining reaches of the river, and beyond them the beautiful heights of Haldon. Here 'Ex taketh his last tribute with a wider channel and curled waves, shedding itself into the sea.'

Exmouth has a rather curious history. In the early part of the eighteenth century it was little more than a hamlet, chiefly consisting of fishermen's cottages; but soon afterwards it became a fashionable watering-place--according to report, because one of the judges on circuit was charmed with the sea-bathing here. The town continues to flourish and is greatly patronized by visitors. The strangeness of the history lies in the fact that Exmouth should ever have been reduced to such a humble condition, for it inherited great traditions. When the Danes descended on it in 1001, they found there a town and a castle, and being 'valiantly repelled by the guardians' of the latter, they revenged themselves by burning the town.

In the reign of King John, Exmouth was a port of some consequence, and when Edward III was at war with France it was able to contribute no fewer than ten ships for an attack on Calais. Risdon says there was 'sometime a castle, but now the place hath no defence than a barred haven and the inhabitants' valour.' It is a little puzzling that both he and Westcote, writing about the beginning of the seventeenth century, should imply that the old fortress had no successor, for a very few years later Exmouth was garrisoned for the King. Either a fort must have been erected in the short interval, or some building turned into a tolerable subst.i.tute, for in the spring of 1646 'Fort Exmouth' was blockaded by Colonel Shapcote, and defended with great courage by Colonel Arundell. It capitulated less than a month before the surrender of Exeter.

CHAPTER III

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.