CHAPTER XI

'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 lodgèd 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 lifeSo 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 KnightsThat 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.'

'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 lodgèd 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 lifeSo 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 KnightsThat 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,Snarèd in wealth, as Birds in bush of lime,What cause had thou to beare such wicked spightAgainst 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 beeneUnto 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.'

'O Glanfield! cause of my committed crime,Snarèd in wealth, as Birds in bush of lime,What cause had thou to beare such wicked spightAgainst 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 beeneUnto 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 leavesAt the departure of the sun;So from the honeysuckle sheavesThe 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 canSee from the sea-betroth'd Venetian,Were all of ice, not made to overlastOne 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 setOf 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 theRevenge), 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 hallis 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 washeavy 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.

Brent Tor

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. Thesummits 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.

Bideford

'Hither from my moorland home,Nymph of Torridge, proud I come;Leaving fen and furzy brake,Haunt of eft and spotted snake ...Nursling of the mountain sky,Leaving Dian's choir on high,Down her cataracts laughing loud,Ockment leapt from crag and cloud,Leading many a nymph, who dwellsWhere wild deer drink in ferny dells....Græcia, prize thy parsley crown;Boast thy laurel, Cæsar's town;Moorland myrtle still shall beBadge of Devon's Chivalry!'Kingsley:Westward Ho!

Kingsley:Westward Ho!

'All who have travelled through the delicious scenery of North Devon must needs know the little white town of Bideford, which slopes upwards from its broad tide-river paved with yellow sands, and many-arched old bridge, where salmon wait for autumn floods, toward the pleasant upland in the west. Above the town the hills close in, cushioned with deep oak-woods, through which juts here and there a crag of fern-fringed slate; below they lower and open more and more on softly rounded knolls and fertile squares of red and green, till they sink into the wide expanse of hazy flats, rich salt-marshes, and rolling sand-hills, where Torridge joins her sister Taw, and both together flow quietly toward the broad surges of the bar and the everlasting thunder of the long Atlantic swell.'

It is difficult to imagine that there could be a more fitting description of Bideford than that drawn in the opening words of 'Westward Ho!' Bideford, it has been said, is spoilt by ugly modern houses, but the remark implies a matter-of-fact view,for the ugliness and modernness are only skin-deep, and can easily be ignored. A matter of far greater importance is that there is an old-world essence, a dignity in the whole tone and spirit of the town, that keep it in touch with the glorious past.

Faithful followers of the heroes on the borderland of myth—King Arthur, Charlemagne, Holger Danske—believed that in their country's need these would arise from the shades to lead their people to victory; and at Bideford one feels that, should any 'knight of the sea' return, he would find a town not strange to him, and, if the stress were sharp enough to pierce the thin husk that later civilization has added, a people who would understand and not fail him.

The name comes from By-the-ford, but a ford between East-the-water and the town must have been rather perilous, and only possible at low-tide. In the early part of the fourteenth century some of the chief inhabitants resolved to build a bridge, but several efforts were made in vain, for they were always thwarted by failure to find a firm enough foundation. Then Sir Richard Gurney, priest of the place, was 'admonished by a vision ... to begin that excellent work ... where he should find a stone fixed in the ground.' This dream he thought nothing of, 'until, walking by the river, he espied such a stone or rock there rolled and fixed firmly, which he never remembered to have seen formerly,' and was hereby convinced 'that his dream was no other than an heavenly inspiration.' The whole neighbourhood combined to help, the rich sending money and lending the services of their workmen, and the poor giving such time and labour as they could afford. The bridge, which has since been widened, is a very fine one, of twenty-four arches. Westcote says: 'A bark of 60 tons (without masts) may pass and repass with the tide, which flows near five miles above it.'

Gifts and bequests were made to the bridge, and the funds belonging to it became so large, and the business connected with them so important, that in 1758 a hall was built for the use of the feoffees, and decorated with the royal arms and the arms of the bridge.

St Mary's Church was built about the same date as the bridge, but about forty years ago all but the tower was pulled down and rebuilt. It had suffered considerably from the ravages of the Reformers, whose horror of ritualism reached the point of throwing the font out of doors, whereupon 'one schismatic,' more crazy than the rest, took it, says Watkins, in wrath, 'for the purpose of a trough for his swine to feed out of; and if he had had his deserts, he would have made one of their company.' The font was probably rescued by some pious person, for the one now in the church is a fine Norman one, with cable moulding.

In this church was baptized 'Raleigh,' the Indian brought back by Sir Richard Grenville from Carolina, and called after the great Sir Walter, who was doing much for that country. Sir Richard kept 'Raleigh' in his own house, and the dark stranger must have caused great chattering and excitement among the children and some of their elders in the town, but he did not survive transplantation, and a year later was buried in Bideford Churchyard. In the register he is described as a native of Wynganditoia.

On the south side of the church is the tomb of Thomas Grenville, who lies in armour, with a dog—not, as on most monuments, at his feet, but by his side. On the tomb are various coats of arms, and over it rises an arch ornamented with high stone tracery. A curious screen between the tower and the church has been made from the old carved bench-ends. Most of the subjects are grotesque, and on some of the panels are gnome-like heads, with long beards, big hats, and impudent, leering expressions.

In the churchyard is a tombstone with this epitaph:

'Here lies the body of Mary Sexton,Who pleased many a man, but never vex'd one,Not like the woman who lies under the next stone.'

Nowadays there is not much foreign trade, although a few vessels with outlandish names may be seen lying stranded at low-water alongside the quay. But Bideford had a full share of the prosperity that Devonshire ports enjoyed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The merchants were encouraged by SirRichard Grenville, who, fired by the 'gallant and ingenious' Sir Walter Raleigh, ventured first fortune and then himself in commanding an expedition planned by his friend and kinsman. The expedition did not meet with great success in its main object, which was to establish a colony for the settlers, who, finding insurmountable hardships and difficulties, were all brought home later by Sir Francis Drake; but a Spanish treasure-ship of immense wealth was captured on the way back. It was said that in different ventures 'Bideford, in consequence of its lord, had some share, but chiefly with respect to its mariners.' So, after Sir Richard had fought his splendid last fight, and when his immediate influence was gone, independent merchants and mariners went on to fresh enterprises, and commerce continued to increase. Trading with Spain for wool soon became an important branch, but of still greater consequence was the trade with Newfoundland. When William and Mary reigned, Bideford was sending more ships there than any other port in the kingdom but London and—strange to say—Topsham. In the next reign the merchants suffered immense losses from French privateers, who, making the island of Lundy their headquarters, spied almost every ship that passed up and down the Bristol Channel. To them, Bideford or Barnstaple Bay was 'emphatically the Golden Bay, from the great number of valuable prizes which they captured on it.' Traffic with America had, however, greatly declined, before it was killed by the War of Independence.

In the history of Bideford the name of Grenville shines on many occasions. Both Devon and Cornwall claim this eminent family, their 'chiefest habitation' of Stow being in Cornwall, while, according to some authorities, their first dwelling-place in this part of the world was at Bideford.

Richard de Grenville, near the end of the fourteenth century, for his valour and courage in the Welsh wars was awarded the town and county of Neath, in Glamorgan. Being pious as well as brave, he devoted all this wealth to the Church, building and endowing a monastery for Cistercian monks. A quaint 'prophecy' regarding this family was said to have been found manyyears later in the Abbey of Neeth, where it was kept 'in a most curious box of jett, written in the year 1400.'

It begins:

'Amongst the trayne of valiant knightsThat with King William came,Grenvile is great, a Norman borne,Renowned by his fame;His helmet ras'd and first unlac'dUpon the Cambrian shore,Where he in honour of his GodThe Abbey did decoreWith costly buildings, ornaments,And gave us spatious lands,As the first-fruits which victoryDid give into his hands.'

Watkins refrains from any comment as to the genuineness of the 'prophecy' (of which I have only quoted a small portion), but perhaps the critical would gather from the whole tone, and especially from the closing lines, which have a flattering reference to the reign of a King Charles, that it was written about the date of its discovery.

The dignity and authority, the commanding presence of Sir Richard as a country gentleman, a neighbour, a Justice of the Peace, are admirably suggested in 'Westward Ho!' Apart from warfare on land or sea, he interested himself in a host of affairs at home, and was both member of parliament and High Sheriff for Cornwall. He was also called to serve on Commissions for making inquiries about pirates and strengthening the defences of the coast; and notes show that within six months he was occupied with places as far east and west as Dover and Tintagel.

In 1587 he was appointed by the Queen to review the 'trained bands' in Devon and Cornwall, that nothing of their equipment might be lacking when the expected enemy arrived; and when the shattered remnants of the Armada were straggling down the Irish Channel, Sir Richard had special orders to 'stay all shipping upon the north coast of Devon and Cornwall.' The catalogue alone of the tasks allotted to him shows how greatly the Queen confided in his powers and judgment; yet all the tale of hislife is completely overshadowed by the magnificence of his death:

'And he sailed away from Flores till the Spaniard came in sight,With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather-bow."Shall we fight or shall we fly?Good Sir Richard, tell us now,For to fight is but to die!There'll be little of us left by the time this sun be set."And Sir Richard said again: "We be all good Englishmen;Let us bang those dogs of Seville, the children of the devil,For I never turned my back upon Don or devil yet."Sir Richard spoke and he laughed, and we roared a hurrah, and soThe little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the foe,With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick below;For half of their fleet to the right and half on the left were seen,And the littleRevengeran on through the long sea-lane between.. . . . .And the sun went down and the stars came out far over the summer sea,But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three.Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came,Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame;Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and hershame.'

. . . . .

And the sun went down and the stars came out far over the summer sea,But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three.Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came,Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame;Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and hershame.'

When the day dawned, 'all the powder of theRevengeto the last barrell was now spent, all her pikes broken, fortie of her best men slaine, and the most part of the rest hurt.' Then Sir Richard 'commanded the maister Gunner, whom he knew to be a most resolute man, to split and sinke the ship; that thereby nothing might remaine of glorious victorie to the Spaniards; seeing in so manie houres fighte with so great a Navie they were not able to take her, having had fifteene houres time, fifteene thousand men, and fifty and three suite of menne of warre to perform it withall.'

The Captain and most of the crew felt that this supreme sacrifice was not required of them, and offered to treat with the Spaniards, who, filled with generous admiration for the amazing courage that had been shown by their adversaries, offered honourable terms of surrender. Sir Richard, who hadreceived several wounds, and who was at the point of death, was carried on board the Spanish Admiral's ship, where his life ebbed away within a few days. 'Here die I, Richard Grenville, with a joyful and quiet mind, for that I have ended my life as a true soldier ought to do that hath fought for his country, Queen, religion, and honour: My soul willingly departing from this body, being behind the lasting fame of having behaved as every valiant soldier is in his duty bound to do.'

Sir Richard's famous grandson, Sir Bevil Grenville, was a brave soldier, but less awe-inspiring; 'the most generally beloved man in Cornwall,' according to Clarendon; and he adds that 'a brighter courage and a gentler disposition were never married together.' When war was declared, volunteers flocked to his standard, and in his first engagement, near Liskeard, he inflicted defeat on the Parliamentary troops, and took twelve hundred soldiers and all the guns.

At Stratton his achievements were even more brilliant, for his troops began at a serious disadvantage. The enemy, with ample supplies and ammunition, were encamped on the top of a hill; 'the Royalist troops, less than half their number, short of ammunition, and so destitute of provisions that the best officers had but a biscuit a day, lay at Launceston.' Undaunted by these discouraging conditions, they determined to attack, and having marched twenty miles, the soldiers arrived at the foot of the hill, weary, footsore, and exhausted from want of food. From dawn till late afternoon the storming-parties were again and again repulsed, till their powder was almost gone; then they scaled the hill in the face of cannon and muskets, to take the position by the force of swords and pikes. Grenville's party was the first to struggle up to the top, and it was almost immediately joined by the other columns, when the enemy broke in confusion and fled.

Sir Bevil met his death at Lansdowne, when, with grim doggedness, the Royalists were again climbing the heights in the face of the enemy's fire. Very many fell, and he among them. 'Young John Grenville, a lad of sixteen, sprang, it is said, into his father's saddle, and led the charge, and the Cornishmen followed with theirswords drawn and with tears in their eyes, swearing they would kill a rebel for every hair of Sir Bevil's head.'

It is not possible to follow the careers of others of his family, but a saying in the West Country ran: 'That a Godolphin was never known to want wit, a Trelawney courage, or a Grenville loyalty.' Their love of adventure perhaps descended from an earlier Sir Richard Grenville, who puts forward his views in a poem called

[Also entitled 'In Praise of Seafaring Men in Hope of Good Fortune, and describing Evil Fortune.']

Who seeks the way to win renown,Or flies with wings of high desert,Who seeks to wear the laurel crown,Or hath the mind that would aspire—Let him his native soil eschew,Let him go range and seek a new.Each haughty heart is well contentWith every chance that shall betide—No hap can hinder his intent;He steadfast stands, though fortune slide.The sun, quoth he, doth shine as wellAbroad as erst where I did dwell.

Each haughty heart is well contentWith every chance that shall betide—No hap can hinder his intent;He steadfast stands, though fortune slide.The sun, quoth he, doth shine as wellAbroad as erst where I did dwell.

To pass the seas some think a toil;Some think it strange abroad to roam;Some think it grief to leave their soil,Their parents, kinsfolk, and their home.Think so who list, I take it not;I must abroad to try my lot.

If Jason of that mind had been,The Grecians, when they came to Troy,Had never so the Trojans fooled,Nor ne'er put them to such annoy;Wherefore, who list to live at home,To purchase fame I will go roam.

Directly, Bideford suffered very little from the Civil War. In the early days the town was for the Parliament, and two forts were built, one on each side of the river; but after a defeat near Torrington, in the autumn of 1643, the citizens surrendered to the royal army. 'Their spirit for rebellion was considerably reduced,' says their special historian; 'they remained perfectly neutral to the dreadful end of that unhappy war.'

Unfortunately, it is not possible here to dwell upon the delightful minor annals of Bideford, such as the history of that stalwart pamphleteer, Dr Shebbeare, who, for his repeated attacks on the Ministry, was condemned to stand in the pillory at Charing Cross. The sentence was carried out, but not exactly in the usual manner, for 'Mr Beardmore, the under-sheriff, being a friend of the Doctor's, permitted him to stand unconfined on the platform of the pillory, attended by a servant in livery holding an umbrella over him.' It is lamentable that the authorities were sufficiently vindictive and small-minded to visit this act of friendly tolerance on Mr Beardmore with a fine of £50 and two months' imprisonment. Dr. Shebbeare was also imprisoned; but later in life the tide turned, and the King was persuaded to pension him with £200. As Dr Johnson was pensioned about the same time, with the same sum, the joke ran that the King had shown benevolence to a He Bear and a She Bear.

It is also impossible to do more than touch on the tragic episode of 1682—the trial of three unhappy women, Susanna Edwards, Temperance Lloyd, and Mary Trembles, who were accused of having practised witchcraft. Here are a few fragments of the evidence given at the trial. A witness said that, while nursing a sick woman, a magpie fluttered once against the window, and that Temperance admitted that this 'was the black man in the shape of a bird.' Another time 'a grey or braget cat' of rather mysterious movements was an object of suspicion, and Temperance was reported to have confessed that 'she believed it to be the Devil.' The evidence of a dead woman was brought forward, she having 'deposed that the said Temperance had appeared to her in the shape of a red pig.' Susanna Edwards, under strictexamination, 'confesseth that the Devil hath appeared to her in the shape of a Lyon, as she supposed.'

Some of the questions put to the wretched 'witches' were simply grotesque, and reflect, as Watkins caustically observes, on the intelligence of the examiner. Temperance was asked:

'Temperance, how did you come in to hurt Mrs Grace Thomas? Did you pass through the key-hole of the door, or was the door open?...

'H. [the examiner]. Did you know any Marriners, that you or your Associates destroyed, by overturning of ships or boats?

'Temperance. No! I never hurt any ship, bark, or boat in my life.

'H. You say you never hurt ships nor boats; did you never ride over an arm of the sea on a Cow?'

To the north of Bideford is a little peninsula formed by the mouth of the Torridge on the east, the far wider estuary of the Taw on the north, and the open sea on the west. The whole course of the Torridge is very capricious. The source is within four miles of the sea, not far south of Hartland, and, at once turning inland, the stream takes a south-easterly direction till it reaches the first slopes that, rising out of the fertile country, mount gradually as they stretch towards the borders of Dartmoor. At this check the Torridge runs due east till, within a few miles of Okehampton, it turns in a great rounded loop, and flows north and slightly west to the north coast again.

The Taw's course is far more direct. It rises in Dartmoor, and, occasionally bending slightly to east or west, it makes a fairly straight way towards the north till Barnstaple is reached, and then, turning almost at a right angle, runs westward to the sea.

Following the strip of land along the west bank of the Torridge from Bideford, the road passes Northam, and on the north-eastern point, at the meeting of the rivers, stands Appledore. Before reaching Northam, by diverging a little to the west, one arrives at the remains of an ancient castle, Kenwith Castle, known for a long time as Hennaborough or Henny Hill, where about A.D. 877 theDanes were valiantly driven back, after a furious battle, by King Alfred and his son. Hubba, the leader of the Danes, fell, and their magical banner, Reafan—the Raven—was taken. According to one tradition, it was 'wrought in needlework by the daughters of Lothbroc, the Dane, and, as they conceived, it made them invincible.' Another account rather contradicts this, as it declares that the wonderful standard bore a stuffed raven, who 'hung quiet when defeat was at hand, but clapped his wings before victory.' All the legends, however, point to the faith of the Danes in the magical powers of the banner, and their chagrin on losing it must have been very great.

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