From John O'Groats to Land's End Part 53

Ho! by my shoul 'tis a Protestant wind: Lilli burlero, bullen a-la.

But see de Tyrconnel is now come ash.o.r.e.

Lilli burlero, bullen a-la-- And we shall have commissions gillore: Lilli burlero, bullen a-la.

And he dat will not go to de ma.s.s, Lilli burlero, bullen a-la-- Shall be turn out and look like an a.s.s: Lilli burlero, bullen a-la.

Now, now de hereticks all go down, Lilli burlero, bullen a-la.

By Chrish and Shaint Patrick, de nation's our own: Lilli burlero, bullen a-la.

Dare was an old Prophecy found in a bog, Lilli burlero, bullen a-la-- "Ireland shall be rul'd by an a.s.s and a dog": Lilli burlero, bullen a-la.

And now dis Prophecy is come to pa.s.s, Lilli burlero, bullen a-la-- For Talbot's de dog, and James is de a.s.s: Lilli burlero, bullen a-la.

_Chorus after each verse_:

Lero lero, lilli burlero, lero lero, bullen a-la, Lero lero, lilli burlero, lero lero, bullen a-la.

Lilliburlero and Bullen a-la were said to have been words of distinction used among the Irish Papists in their ma.s.sacre of the Protestants in 1641--a ma.s.sacre which gave renewed strength to the traditions which made the name of b.l.o.o.d.y Mary so hated in England.

In 1789 George III halted opposite the "Dolphin" to receive the loyal greetings of the townspeople, and on August 3rd, 1833, the Princess Victoria, afterwards Queen, stayed there to change horses; the inn was also the leading rendezvous at the parliamentary elections when Honiton returned two members to Parliament. In the eighteenth century the inn was often the temporary home of Sir William Yonge and Sir George Yonge, his equally famous son, and of Alderman Bra.s.s Crosby, Lord Mayor of London, each of whom was M.P. for Honiton. The family of Yonge predominated, for whom Honiton appeared to have been a pocket borough, and a very expensive one to maintain, as Sir George Yonge, who was first returned in 1754, said in his old age that he inherited 80,000 from his father, that his wife brought him a similar amount, and Government also paid him 80,000, but Honiton had swallowed it all! A rather numerous cla.s.s of voters there were the Potwallers or Potwallopers, whose only qualification was that they had boiled their pots in the parish for six months. Several attempts were made to resist their claim to vote, but they were unsuccessful, and the matter was only terminated by the Reform Bill of 1832; so possibly Sir George had to provide the inducement whereby the Potwallopers gave the family their support during the full term in which he served the free and independent electors of Honiton in Parliament.

A hospital for lepers, founded as early as the fourteenth century, was now used for the deserving poor; and near the old chapel, attached to the hospital cottages, the place was pointed out to us where the local followers of the Duke of Monmouth who were unfortunate enough to come under the judgment of the cruel Judge Jeffreys were boiled in pitch and their limbs exhibited on the shambles and other public places.

We had a comparatively easy walk of sixteen miles to Exeter, as the road was level and good, with only one small hill. For the first four miles we had the company of the small river Otter, which, after pa.s.sing Honiton, turned here under the highway to Ottery St. Mary, on its course towards the sea. The county of Devon is the third largest in England, and having a long line of sea-coast to protect, it was naturally warlike in olden times, and the home of many of our bravest sailors and soldiers. When there was no foreign enemy to fight they, like the Scots, occasionally fought each other, and even the quiet corner known as the Fenny Bridges, where the Otter pa.s.sed under our road, had been the scene of a minor battle, to be followed by a greater at a point where the river Clyst ran under the same road, about four miles from Exeter. In the time of Edward VI after the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII changes were made in religious services, which the West-country people were not prepared to accept. On Whit-Sunday, June 9th, 1549, the new service was read in the church of Sampford Courtenay for the first time. The people objected to it, and compelled the priest to say ma.s.s as before, instead of using the Book of Common Prayer, which had now become law. Many other parishes objected likewise, and a rebellion broke out, of which Humphrey Arundel, the Governor of St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall, took the lead. Their army of 10,000 men marched on to Exeter and besieged it, and they also occupied and fortified Clyst St. Mary and sent up a series of demands to the King. Lord Russell, who had been glutted with the spoils of the monasteries, and was therefore keen in his zeal for the new order, was sent with a small force accompanied by three preachers licensed to preach in such places as Lord Russell should appoint; but he was alarmed at the numbers opposed to him, and waited at Honiton until the arrival of more troops should enable him to march to the relief of Exeter. Being informed that a party of the enemy were on the march to attack him, Russell left the town to meet them, and found some of them occupying Fenny Bridges while the remainder were stationed in the adjoining meadow. He was successful in winning the fight, and returned to Honiton to recruit. He then attacked the rebels on Clyst Heath and defeated them, but it was a hard-fought fight, and "such was the valour of these men that the Lord Grey reported himself that he never, in all the wars he had been in, did know the like." The rebels were mercilessly butchered and the ringleaders executed--the Vicar of St. Thomas' by Exeter, a village we pa.s.sed through the following morning, who was with the rebels, being taken to his church and hanged from the tower, where his body was left to dangle for four years.

We had been walking in the dark for some hours, but the road was straight, and as we had practically had a non-stop walk from Honiton we were ready on our arrival at Exeter for a good supper and bed at one of the old inns on the Icknield Way, which, with several churches, almost surrounded the Cathedral.

(_Distance walked thirty-eight miles_.)

_Sat.u.r.day, November 11th._

Exeter, formerly known as the "City of the West" and afterwards as the "Ever-Faithful City," was one of the most interesting places we had visited. It had occupied a strong strategical position in days gone by, for it was only ten miles from the open sea, sufficient for it to be protected from sudden attacks, yet the river Exe, on which it is situated, was navigable for the largest ships afloat up to about the time of the Spanish Armada. Situated in the midst of a fine agricultural country, it was one of the stations of the Romans, and the terminus of the ancient Icknield Way, so that an army landed there could easily march into the country beyond. Afterwards it became the capital of the West Saxons, Athelstan building his castle on an ancient earthwork known--from the colour of the earth or rock of which it was composed--as the "Red Mound." His fort, and the town as well, were partially destroyed in the year 1003 by the Danes under Sweyn, King of Denmark.

Soon after the Norman invasion William the Conqueror built his castle on the same site--the "Red Mound"--the name changing into the Norman tongue as Rougemont; and when King Edward IV came to Exeter in 1469, in pursuit of the Lancastrian Earls Clarence and Warwick, who escaped by ship from Dartmouth, he was, according to Shakespeare's _Richard III_, courteously shown the old Castle of Rougemont by the Mayor. We could not requisition the services of his Worship at such an early hour this morning, but we easily found the ruins of Rougemont without his a.s.sistance; though, beyond an old tower with a dungeon beneath it and a small triangular window said to be of Saxon workmanship, very little remained. The ruins had been laid out to the best advantage, and the grounds on the slope of the ancient keep had been formed into terraces and planted with flowers, bushes, and trees. As this work had originally been carried out as far back as the year 1612, the grounds claimed to be the oldest public gardens in England: the avenues of great trees had been planted about fifty years later.

Perkin Warbeck was perhaps one of the most romantic characters who visited Exeter, for he claimed to be Richard, Duke of York, who, he contended, was not murdered in the Tower of London, as generally supposed. As the Duke he claimed to be more ent.i.tled to the Crown of England than Henry VII, who was then on the throne, Perkin Warbeck, on the other hand, was described as the son of a Tournai Jew, but there seemed to be some doubt about this. In any case the d.u.c.h.ess of Burgundy acknowledged him as "her dear nephew," and his claim was supported by Charles VIII of France and James IV of Scotland; from the former he received a pension, and from the latter the hand of his relative Lady Catherine Gordon in marriage.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ATHELSTAN'S TOWER.]

He arrived at Exeter on September 27th, 1497, with 7,000 men, and after burning the North Gate he forced his way through the city towards the Castle, but was defeated there by Sir Richard Courtenay, the Earl of Devon, and taken prisoner. For some mysterious reason it was not until November 3rd, 1499, more than two years after the battle, that he was hanged for treason, at Tyburn. Another strange incident was that when King Henry VII came to Exeter after the battle, and the followers of Perkin Warbeck were brought before him with halters round their necks and bare-headed, to plead for mercy, he generously pardoned them and set them at liberty.

The fighting in the district we had pa.s.sed through last night occurred in 1549, the second year of the reign of King Edward VI. A pleasing story was related of this King, to the effect that when he was a boy and wanted something from a shelf he could not quite reach, his little playfellow, seeing the difficulty, carried him a big book to stand upon, that would just have enabled him to get what he wanted; but when Edward saw what book it was that he had brought he would not stand upon it because it was the "Holy Bible."

The religious disturbances we have already recorded were not confined to the neighbourhood of Exeter, but extended all over England, and were the result of an Act of Parliament for which the people were not prepared, and which was apparently of too sweeping a character, for by it all private Ma.s.ses were abolished, all images removed from churches, and the Book of Common Prayer introduced. It was the agitation against this Act that caused the 10,000 Cornish and Devonian men, who were described as rebels, incited also by their priests, to besiege the city of Exeter, and to summon the Mayor and Council to capitulate. This the "Ever-Faithful City" refused to do, and held out for thirty-six days, until Lord Russell and Lord Grey appeared on the scene with the Royal army and raised the siege.

In 1643, during the Civil War, Exeter surrendered to Prince Maurice, the nephew of Charles I, and three years later capitulated to the Army of the Parliament on condition that the garrison should march out with all the honours of war.

The unhappy wife of Charles I arrived at Exeter in 1644, having a few days previously bidden her husband "Good-bye" for the last time, a sorrowful parting which we had heard about at Abingdon, where it had taken place, and whither Charles had accompanied her from Oxford. She stayed at Bedford House in Exeter, where she was delivered of a daughter, who was named Henrietta, being baptized in the cathedral in a magnificent new font erected especially for the occasion. The Queen left the city on July 14th, and sailed from Falmouth to France, where she stayed at the Court of Louis XIV. Twelve days later the King reached Exeter, and called to see his infant daughter, and he again stayed at Bedford House on his return from Cornwall on September 17th, 1645.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EXETER CATHEDRAL, WEST FRONT.]

In 1671 Charles II, his son, also pa.s.sed through Exeter, and stayed to accept a gift of 500 from the city as a testimony of its loyalty and grat.i.tude for his restoration and return; and the "Merrie Monarch"

afterwards sent the city a portrait of his sister, the unfortunate Henrietta, to whom he was pa.s.sionately attached. As d.u.c.h.ess of Orleans she had an unhappy life, and her somewhat sudden death was attributed to poison. Her portrait, painted by Lely, was still hanging in the Guildhall, and was highly prized as one of the greatest treasures of the city.

We went to see the Cathedral, but were rather disappointed with its external appearance, which seemed dark and dismal compared with that of Salisbury. A restoration was in progress, and repairs were being carried out with some light-coloured and clean-looking stone, not of a very durable nature, which looked quite beautiful when new, but after being exposed to the weather for a few years would become as dull and dark-looking as the other. The interior of the cathedral, however, was very fine, and we were sorry we had not time to explore it thoroughly.

Some very old books were preserved in it--the most valuable being a Saxon ma.n.u.script called _Codex Exoniensis_, dating from the ninth century, and also the _Exeter Domesday_, said to be the exact transcript of the original returns made by the Commissioners appointed by William the Conqueror at the time of the Survey, from which the great Domesday was completed.

The minstrel gallery dated from the year 1354, and many musical instruments used in the fourteenth century were represented by carvings on the front, as being played by twelve angels. The following were the names of the instruments: cittern, bagpipe, clarion, rebec, psaltery, syrinx, sackbut, regals, gittern, shalm, timbral, and cymbals!

Some of these names, my brother remarked, were not known to modern musicians, and they would be difficult to harmonise if all the instruments had to be played at the same time; his appreciation of the bagpipe was doubtless enhanced, seeing that it occupied the second position.

The cathedral also possessed a marvellous and quaint-looking clock some hundreds of years old, said to have been the production of that famous monk of Glas...o...b..ry who made the wonderful clock in Wells Cathedral, which on striking the hour sets in motion two armoured figures of knights on horseback, armed with spears, who move towards each other in a circle high above the central arches, as if engaged in a tournament.

The clock at Exeter showed the hour of the day and the age of the moon, and upon the face or dial were two circles, one marked from 1 to 30 for the days of the month, and the other figured I to XII twice over for the hours. In the centre was a semi-globe representing the earth, round which was a smaller ball, the moon, painted half gold and half black, which revolved during each month, and in turning upon its axis showed the various phases of the luminary that it represented. Between the two circles was a third ball representing the sun, with a fleur-de-lys which pointed to the hours as the sun, according to the ancient theory, daily revolved round the earth; underneath was an inscription relating to the hours:

PEREUNT ET IMPUTANTUR (They pa.s.s, and are placed to our account.)

The notes telling the hours were struck upon the rich-toned bell named "Great Peter," which was placed above, the curfew or _couvre-feu_ ("cover-fire") being also rung upon the same bell.

The curfew bell was formerly sounded at sunset, to give notice that all fires and lights must be extinguished. It was inst.i.tuted by William the Conqueror and continued during the reign of William Rufus, but was abolished as a "police regulation" in the reign of Henry I. The custom was still observed in many places, and we often heard the sound of the curfew bell, which was almost invariably rung at eight o'clock in the evening. The poet Gray commences his "Elegy written in a Country Churchyard" with--

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day;

and one of the most popular dramatic pieces in the English language, written by an American schoolgirl born in 1850, was ent.i.tled "The Curfew Bell." She described how, in Cromwell's time, a young Englishwoman, whose sweetheart was doomed to die that night at the tolling of the curfew bell, after vainly trying to persuade the old s.e.xton not to ring it, prevented it by finding her way up the tower to the belfry and holding on to the tongue of the great bell. Meanwhile the old s.e.xton who had told her "the curfew bell _must_ ring tonight" was pulling the bell-rope below, causing her to sway backwards and forwards in danger of losing her life while murmuring the words "Curfew shall _not_ ring to-night":

O'er the distant hills comes Cromwell. Bessie sees him; and her brow, Lately white with sickening horror, has no anxious traces now.

At his feet she tells her story, shows her hands all bruised and torn; And her sweet young face, still haggard with the anguish it had worn, Touched his heart with sudden pity, lit his eyes with misty light.

"Go! Your lover lives!" cried Cromwell. "Curfew shall not ring to-night!"

Wide they flung the ma.s.sive portals, led the prisoner forth to die, All his bright young life before him. 'Neath the darkening English sky Bessie came, with flying footsteps, eyes aglow with love-light sweet; Kneeling on the turf beside him, laid his pardon at his feet.

In his brave, strong arms he clasped her, kissed the face upturned and white, Whispered: "Darling, you have saved me; curfew will not ring to-night!"

The "Great Peter" bell was presented to Exeter Cathedral in the fifteenth century by Bishop Peter Courtenay, and when re-cast in 1676 weighed 14,000 lb., being then considered the second largest bell in England. The curfew was tolled on "Great Peter" every night at eight o'clock, and after that hour had been sounded and followed by a short pause, the same bell tolled the number of strokes correspending with the day of the month. This was followed by another short pause, and then eight deliberate strokes were tolled.

Ever since the time of William the Conqueror there appeared to have been too many churches in Exeter, for it was said that thirty-two were known to have existed at the time of the Conquest, and that in the year 1222 the Bishop reduced the number to nineteen, of which sixteen still remained at the time of our visit, while the sites of the remaining three could be located. A further effort to reduce the number was made in the time of the Commonwealth, when an Act was pa.s.sed to reduce them to four, but the accession of King Charles II prevented this from being carried out.

One of the old churches stood at the top of a small elevation known as Stepcote Hill, approached by a very narrow street, one half of which was paved and the other formed into steps leading to the "Church of St.

Mary's Steps," the tower of which displayed a sixteenth-century clock.

On the dial appeared the seated figure of King Henry VIII guarded by two soldiers, one on each side, who strike the hours; they are commonly known as "Matthew the Miller and his two sons."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GUILDHALL, EXETER. "We thought the old Guildhall even more interesting than the Cathedral."]

Matthew was a miller who lived in the neighbourhood, and was so regular in his goings out and comings in that the neighbours set their time by him; but there was no doubt that the figure represented "Old King Hal,"

and it seemed strange that the same king should have been a.s.sociated by one of the poets with a miller who had a mill in our county town of Chester:

There dwelt a Miller hale and bold Beside the river Dee, He work'd and sang from morn till night, No lark more blithe than he; And this the burden of his song For ever used to be-- "I envy n.o.body, no, not I, And n.o.body envies me!"

"Thou'rt wrong, my friend," cried Old King Hal "Thou'rt wrong as wrong can be; For could my heart be light as thine I'd gladly change with thee.

And tell me now what makes thee sing With voice so loud and free, While I am sad though I'm the King, Beside the river Dee!"