Devonshire Characters and Strange Events

The spiteful remark about Peter Ebsworthy being of no descent and parentage was intended to wound the feelings of the rector, who had married one of his daughters to Peter Ebsworthy. The ancients said that doves were without gall.

“Next for his wief abusing of my wief in goinge to the Communion, by blowes and afterwards with disgracefull words.” Also, “Paule Ebsworthy for layinge of violent handes upon my wief in the Church yard: and his wiefs scouldinge, Katheren Ebsworthy using these wordes before the Parson unto her sister, Peter’s wief, that her sister might be ashamed to suffer such to goe before her as my wief was.”

It seems that Agnes Bidlake, the wife of William, sought assistance of her uncle, Sir Edward Giles, to bring these complaints before the Bishop. He replied to this by writing to William Bidlake: —

“I would intreat you and my niece your wife at the time of hearinge of these differences before his Lordshipp to be very temperate in your utterances. You know it is an old sayinge, A good matter may be marred in the handlinge; and I know if passion doe not overcome you all, it will be to my Lord’s good likeinge.”

Mr. Bidlake went up about the matter and interviewed the Bishop, who agreed to hear the case at Okehampton on the following Thursday.

The Bishop wrote to Parson Germyn: “Being credibly informed that Mr. Bidlake and his wief were latlie by your sonne Peter Ebsworthy and his wief verie disgracefully wronged at a Communion … as alsoe for your scandalous and indiscreete doctrine which you usually teach I may not att any hande suffer,” he summoned him to appear before him at his approaching visitation at Okehampton.

On 13 May, 1613, the Bishop of Exeter summoned plaintiffs and defendants and witnesses before him for the following Friday at Okehampton.

The Rev. Gilbert Germyn indignantly denied that he had ever preached scandalous and indiscreet doctrine; but what was the result of the suit before the Bishop does not transpire.

Old John Bidlake, the father of William, mightily disapproved of this contention. He wrote to his son: “Commend me heartily to your wief whom I pray God to give patience and charitie unto in all these troubles, and that yourselfe forgett not that which I said I lately dreamed of 2 snakes whereof the one seemed to me to ate up the other before me. And that which I formerly dreamed of the Man that firstlie riding from me said, Commend me to my friends that are like to be lost if they repent not er time be past. Good sonne, seeke peace and ensue it in what you may, for to live peaceably with all men maketh a man and woman long to seme younge. And if you knewe the hindrances and losses besides heartburnings, weariness of bodye and unquietness innumerable that suits of Lawe doe bring, as well as I, you would rather goe with your wief even unto all such as have donne you offence and openly imbrace them as brethren and sisters and fully forgive them and desier them to accept of your lives ever hereafter; as honest quyet neighbours should doe, rather than vex your neighbours by suits of laws therein, whereof are as variable as the turnings of a weathercock.”

This was dated 10 April, 1613.

William died before his father.

Old John was a fine and loyal man; the date of his death is not known. The estates devolved on Henry Bidlake, the son of William, born in 1606 or 1607.

After Henry Bidlake came of age, he married Philippa, daughter of William Kelly, of Kelly; whereupon his mother, the quarrelsome Agnes, retired to the south of Devon, there indulged in some costly lawsuits, and died in 1651.

Henry, while yet young, joined the army of King Charles, and in 1643 was made a captain of horse under Colonel Sir Thomas Hele, Baronet. In 1645 he was one of the defenders of Pendennis Castle; a copy of the articles for its surrender is preserved among the Bidlake Papers. These articles were signed on 18 August, and the besieged went forth. From that time misfortune after misfortune befell Henry Bidlake. On 18 January, 1646, the Standing Committee of Devon “ordered upon Perusall of the inventory of the goods of Mr. Henry Bidlake amounting to Thirtie pounds that upon payment of fower and Twentie pounds unto the Treasurer or his Deputie by Mr. William Kelley, the sequestration of the said goods shall be removed and taken off, and the other six pounds is to be allowed to Mrs. Bidlake for her sixth part.”

Several stories are told of Henry hiding from Cromwell’s soldiers, who were sent to surround Bidlake in order to take him prisoner. He was warned, and dressed himself in rags in order to pass them. Some soldiers met him and asked him if he had seen Squire Bidlake. “Aye, sure,” he replied, “her was a-standin’ on ’is awn doorstep a foo minutes agoo.” So they went on to search Bidlake House while he escaped to the house of a tenant of his named Veale in Burleigh Wood. The troopers went there also, and Mrs. Veale made him slip into the clock-case; they hunted high and low, but could not find him. One of the soldiers looking up at the dial and seeing the hand at the hour said, “What, doant he strike?” “Aye, aye, mister,” replied Mrs. Veale, “there be a hand here as can strike, I tell ’ee.”

Mr. Bidlake suffered from a chronic cough, and just at that moment it began, but he had the art to dip his head, let the weight down behind his back, and the clock struck the hour and drowned the cough in the case.

According to another version of the story, his cough was heard, the clock-case was opened, and he taken. But I doubt this. An old man, William Pengelly, who had been with my grandfather, and father, and myself, told me that Henry Bidlake was concealed by the Veales in Burleigh Wood – that is, the wood over the promontory where are the camps – and they supplied him with blankets and food for some weeks till it was safe for him to reappear. Their farm is now completely ruined, but I can recall when it was occupied. According to Pengelly’s story, later on, Henry Bidlake granted that farm to the Veale family to be held in perpetuity on a tenure of half a crown per annum, so long as there remained a male Veale in the family. Pengelly informed me that the last Veale had died when the Rev. John Stafford Wollocombe held the estate, 1829–66, and that the tenure had remained the same till then. The Rev. J. H. Bidlake Wollocombe, present owner of the Bidlake estate, tells me that he can find no evidence of the grant to the Veales among the deeds, and that he never heard of the story save from me.

If Henry Bidlake had been secured on this occasion, it would certainly have been recorded. We have a narrative of the visit of a troop of horse sent to Bridestowe by the Earl of Stamford in 1647. In the Mercurius Rusticus of that year is an account of this expedition, but not a word about the capture of Henry Bidlake. There is, however, one of a barbarous act committed in the cottage of a husbandman in Bridestowe, whose name, however, is not given, but possibly enough it may have been Veale. This man having openly adhered to the King’s party, the Earl of Stamford sent a troop of horse to apprehend him in his cottage or farm. “When they came thither, they found not the good man at home, but a sonne of his, about ten or twelve years old, they ask him where his Father was, the childe replyed that he was not at home, they threaten him, and use all arts to make him discover where his Father had hid himselfe, the childe being ignorant where his father was, still persisted in the same answer, that he knew not where he was; hereupon they threaten to hang him, neither doth that prevail; at last they take the poore innocent childe and hang him up, either because he would not betray his Father, had he been able to satisfie their doubt, or for not having the spirit of Prophecy, not being able to reveale what by an ordinary way of knowledge he did not know; having let him hang a while, they cut him downe, not intending to hang him unto death, but being cut downe they could perceive nothing discovering life in him, hereupon in a barbarous way of experiment, they pricke him with their swords in the back and thighs, using the means leading to death to find out life; at last after some long stay, some small symptoms of life did appear; yet so weake, that they left him nearer the confines of death than life; and whether the child did ever recover, is more than my informer can assure me.”

In 1651 a fine of £300 was put upon Henry Bidlake, and his estates were sequestrated to the Commonwealth until it should be paid. He had to borrow money from his friends in order to pay his fine. Money was lent him by Nicholas Rowe, of Lamerton, by Daniel Hawkins, of Sydenham, by David Hore, of Coryton, by Prudence Lile, of Lifton, by Richard Edgecombe, of Milton Abbot, by John Baron, of Lawhitton, and by John Cloberry, of Bradstone. His mother-in-law, Philippa Kelly, of Kelly, seems to have repaid these friends, or paid the interest due to them. As security, Henry Bidlake alienated and sold to her his goods and chattels, only reserving his wearing apparel. He got back his property in 1654, but his account with the Parliament seems never to have been settled, and he was liable to repeated vexations. As late as December, 1658, he received a summons along with his wife, from Richard, Lord Protector, to appear before the Chancery Court at Exeter. But next year he died, too early to see – what would have gladdened his heart – the Restoration, and to have learned by painful experience the ready forgetfulness by kings of services rendered in the past.

Bidlake House is a very interesting example of a simple mansion such as suited the small squires of Devon in the seventeenth century. It is Elizabethan, and has a quaint old garden at the back. Like so many old houses, the aspect was not considered, and the sun pours into the kitchen, but hardly a gleam can reach the hall and parlour.

But our ancestors had their reasons for burying their mansions at the foot of hills, and turning their backs against the sun. The great enemy was the south-west wind which they could not exclude. It drove through the walls. Therefore by preference they planted their houses under the lee of a bank of hill that intervened between them and the south, and turned their backs like horses against the driving rain.

THE PIRATES OF LUNDY

In the Bristol Channel,” says Mr. Chanter, “twenty miles from Barnstaple Bar, and nearly equidistant from the two headlands of the bay, lies the island of Lundy, sometimes invisible from the shore, but generally looming dim and mysterious and more or less shrouded in mists, or capped with cloud-reefs; occasionally standing out lofty, clear, and distinct, bright with varied hues of rock, fern, and heather, its granite cliffs glittering as they reflect the rays of the morning sun, and the graceful lighthouse tower and buildings plainly defined; or at night traceable by its strange intermittent light – either suddenly shining out as a star and as suddenly vanishing, or gradually rising and fading according to the atmospheric conditions; but in all its aspects, varying much from day to day. And to those who know how to read them aright, the changing aspects of Lundy are the surest indications of approaching changes of weather – of winds, storms, or settled sunshine.

“As seen nearer the island shows itself a lofty table-headed granite rock, rising to the height of 500 feet, surrounded by steep and occasionally perpendicular cliffs, storm-beaten, riven, and scarred over with grisly seams and clefts, and hollowed out here and there along the shore into fantastic coves and grottoes, with huge piles of granite thrown in wild disorder. The cliffs and adjacent sea are alive with sea-birds, every ledge and jutting rock being dotted with them, or they are whirling round in clouds, filling the air with their discordant screams.

“This island, so little known, so little visited, so wild and mysterious in aspect, possesses an interest in its remote history, its antiquities, its physical features and peculiarities, and in its natural history, almost unrivalled.”[7 - Mr. J. R. Chanter, “A History of Lundy Island,” in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 1871. Reprinted in Lundy Island, 1877.]

Lundy is an outcrop of the granite that heaved up Exmoor on its back, but there never broke through. Here the superincumbent carboniferous rocks have been cleared away by the action of the sea, and Lundy stands forth a naked shaft of granite. It possesses but a single harbour, at the southern extremity of the island.

Lundy takes its name from the puffins, in Scandinavian Lund, that at all times frequented it; but it had an earlier Celtic name, Caer Sidi, and is spoken of as a mysterious abode in the Welsh Mabinogion.

From an early period, its peculiar position, commanding the entrance to the Bristol Channel, its inaccessibility, its remoteness, rendered it a resort of pirates. Thomas Wyke, Canon of Oseney, in 1238, speaks of it as the haunt of a notable pirate, William de Marisco. This William had a son Jordan, who held the island in defiance of the King, and descended from it to make raids on the adjoining coasts. The island had been granted by Henry II to the Templars, but they had been unable to dislodge the De Mariscoes and obtain possession of it. A special tax was levied on the counties of Devon and Cornwall for the siege of Lundy and the defence of their maritime ports, but it does not seem that Sir William was ever dispossessed. Marisco was one of the prisoners captured from the French in a sea fight in 1217, and was afterwards reinstated in his island, along with his wife and children, who had also been taken. In 1222 he removed to Lundy some guns he had taken from his lordship of Camley in Somerset, and, turbulent to the end, he was, in 1233, amerced in a fine of 300 marks to the King for his ransom.

His younger son, Sir William, was outlawed in 1235 for slaying in London an Irish messenger. His elder brother Jordan, or Geoffrey, had made a descent on Ireland and was killed at Kilkenny in 1234.

Sir William got into further trouble on an accusation of an attempt to assassinate Henry III, and this led to the breaking up of the robbers’ nest, and its being wrested from the Marisco family for many years.

But before telling the story, it will be well to say a few words about the castle erected by this turbulent family, of which some remains may still be seen. It was probably originally erected by the first Sir Jordan, in the reign of Henry II.

The keep is all that now remains, and it is turned into cottages. The basement wall is nine feet thick, and the lines of bastion and fosse may still be traced. Two engravings and a plan of the castle, as it was in 1775, appear in Grose’s Antiquities. He thus describes it: —

“The castle stood on two acres of ground, and was surrounded by a stone wall, with a ditch, except towards the sea, where the rock is almost perpendicular. The ditch is very visible, and part of the wall. The walls of the citadel (i.e. keep) are very perfect, of a square form. It is converted into cottages, the turrets, of which there are four, one at each angle, serving as chimneys. The S. W. wall is 51 feet, the N. W. wall 38 feet, in length. In front of the house five guns were placed. The garrison was supplied with water from a spring, which rises above the (mansion) house. It was conveyed from thence by earthen pipes. At the extremity of the rock, within the fortification, is a cave, supposed to be cut out of the rock for a store-room, or magazine, for the garrison.”

We come now to the attempted assassination. Matthew Paris tells the story under the date 1238, in the reign of Henry III.

“On the day after the Nativity of St. Mary, a certain learned esquire came to the King’s Court at Woodstock pretending that he was insane, and said to the King, ‘Resign thy kingdom to me’; he also added, that he bore the sign of royalty on his shoulder. The King’s attendants wanted to beat him, and drive him away from the royal presence, but the King interfered, saying, ‘Let the madman rave – such people’s words have not the force of truth.’ In the middle of the night, however, the same man entered the King’s bedchamber window, carrying an open knife, and approached the King’s couch, but was confused at not finding him there. The King was, by God’s providence, then sleeping with the Queen. But one of the queen’s maids, Margaret Bisett, was by chance awake, and was singing psalms by the light of a candle (for she was a holy maid and one devoted to God), and when she saw this madman searching all the private places to kill the King, she was greatly alarmed, and began to utter repeated cries. At her cry the King’s attendants awoke, and leaped from their beds with all speed, and running to the spot, broke open the door, which this robber had firmly secured with a bolt, and seized him, and notwithstanding his resistance, bound him fast. He, after a while, confessed that he had been sent to kill the King by William de Marisco, son of Geoffrey (or Jordan) de Marisco, and he stated that others had conspired to commit the same crime. On learning this, the King ordered him to be torn limb from limb by horses, at Coventry.”

The evidence incriminating William de Marisco was clearly worthless. If the would-be assassin had not been insane he would not have asserted a claim to the crown and drawn attention to himself before making the murderous attempt. De Marisco had nothing to gain by the King’s death, and he may certainly be acquitted of participation.

William fled to Lundy, “impregnable from the nature of the place, and having attached to himself many outlaws and malefactors, subsisted by piracies, taking more especially wine and provisions, and making frequent sudden descents on the adjacent lands, spoiling and injuring the realm by land and by sea, and native as well as foreign merchants. Many English nobles, having learnt how that the said William and his followers could not be surprised save by stratagem, apprised the King that the securing of this malefactor must be effected not by violence, but by craft. The King therefore ordered his faithful subjects to exert themselves strenuously in order to capture him and relieve their country.”

Nothing, however, was done for four years, during which the piracies continued. There was this excuse for De Marisco, that as the island grew neither corn nor wine, he was dependent on the mainland or on merchant vessels for his subsistence. As all those on the mainland were on the look-out to capture him as the supposed mover of the plot to kill the King, he was forced to live by piracy. In 1242, William of Worcester informs us, he was caught: how, he does not say, save that it was by surprise. “He was thrown into chains, and he and sixteen accomplices were condemned and sentenced to death. He was executed at the Tower on a gibbet with special ignominy, his body suspended in a sack, and when stiff in death, disembowelled, his bowels burnt, and his body divided into quarters.”

After the execution of Sir William, his father, Geoffrey (or Jordan) fled to France, and the island was then seized by the King, who appointed to it governors. But in 1281 Lundy was again granted to a Marisco, Sir William, son of Jordan, another of the progeny of old Geoffrey. He died in 1284, and his son John in 1289, leaving Herbert as his son and heir. But Edward II granted the island to the elder Despenser, and Herbert was unable to obtain possession of it. He died in 1327, and from that date no more is heard of the Mariscoes in connexion with the island.

From their time, however, other pirates obtained a footing on it. In the days of Henry VIII a gang of French pirates, under their captain, De Valle, seized Lundy and waylaid the Bristol traders, but the Clovelly fishermen made an expedition against them, burnt their ship, and killed or made prisoners of the whole gang.

A few years later, Lord Seymour, High Admiral of England, uncle of Edward VI, was charged, among other misdemeanours, with trying to get hold of Lundy, “being aided with shipps and conspiring at all evill eventes with pirates, (so that) he might at all tymes have a sure and saufe refuge, if anything for his demerites should have been attempted against him.” He was executed, having refused to answer the charges made against him.

In Sir John Maclean’s Life and Times of Sir Peter Carew, Knt., are printed two letters written by Queen Elizabeth in the year 1564, directing Sir Peter – “forasmuch as that cost of Devonshyre and Cornwall is by report mucch hanted with pyratts and Rovers … to cause on or twoo apt vessells to be made redy with all spede in some portes ther about.” In the apprehension of such pirates, with her characteristic economy the Queen bargains that the parties “must take ther benefitt of y

spoyle, and be provijded only by us of victell.” She goes a little further in thriftiness, and suggests that possibly “ye sayd Rovers might be entyced, with hope of our mercy, to apprehend some of the rest of ther Company, which practise we have knowen doone good long agoo in the lyke.”

Although Lundy is not specified in this as the rendezvous of the pirates, we know that at this time it was so.

In the year 1587 the authorities of Barnstaple appear to have undertaken on their own account a raid upon the pirates who were accustomed to shelter themselves under Lundy Island.

Connected with the “setting forth of divers men from this town to apprehend divers rovers and pirates at Londey,” the following items of expenditure in the municipal records show that the expedition was not unsuccessful: “Paid to six watchmen for watching the prisoners that were taken, 12

1

. Paid for a watch put, and for candlelyght for the same prisoners, 11

. Paid for meat and drink for the same prisoners, 2

.”[8 - W. Cotton, “An Expedition against Pirates,” in Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 1886.]