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A Book of the West. Volume I Devon

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2017
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There are other screens in the neighbourhood; that of Buckland has on it some unexplained paintings.

The Celt was never a builder. His churches were rude to the last degree of rudeness. But what he delighted in was wattle-work, interlacing osiers into the most intricate and beautiful and varied designs. We may conjecture that our Celtic forefathers did not concern themselves much about the stonework of their churches, and concentrated all their efforts on a screen dividing chancel from nave, which with platting and interweaving they made into a miracle of loveliness. And this direction given to decoration hung on in Devon and Cornwall, and resulted in the glorious screens. For them, to contain them, the shells were built. Everything was sacrificed to them, and when they are swept away what remains is nakedness, disproportion, and desolation.

Of the excursions in the neighbourhood of Ashburton to scenes of loveliness I will say but little. Yet let me recommend one of singular beauty – it is called Dr. Blackall's Drive. The Tavistock road is taken till the Dart is passed at New Bridge, then after a steep ascent the highway is abandoned before Pound Gate is reached, and a turf drive runs above the Dart commanding its gorge, the Holne coppice, and Benjie Tor, and the high road is rejoined between Bell Tor and Sharp Tor. This excursion may be combined with a drive through Holne Chase, if taken on a day when the latter is open to the public.

Holne Chase, however, should be seen from both sides of the Dart, as the aspects are very different on the two sides.

Hembury and Holne Chase camps are both fine, and deserve investigation. They commanded and defended the entrance to the moor from this side. Widecombe has been spoken of under the head of Moreton.

Bovey should be visited, with its fine church and screen and painted and gilt stone pulpit, and with the Bovey Heathfield potteries.

Bovey was one of the manors of the De Tracy who was a principal hand in the murder of Thomas à Becket, and it is to this ambitious and turbulent prelate that the church is dedicated. The story goes that William de Tracy built the church at Bovey as penance for his part in the murder; but the church constructed by him was burnt about 1300, and was rebuilt in the Perpendicular style. The story was diligently propagated that De Tracy died on his way to the Holy Land, in a frenzy, tearing his flesh off his bones with his teeth and nails, and shrieking, "Mercy, Thomas, mercy!" But, as a matter of fact, no judgment of God fell on the murderers. Within four years after the murder, De Tracy was justiciary of Normandy. The present Lord Wemyss and Lord Sudeley are his lineal descendants. The pedigree, contrary to all received opinions on the subject of "judgments" on sacrilege, exhibits the very singular instance of an estate descending for upwards of seven hundred years in the male line of the same family. Fitzurse, another of the murderers, went to Ireland, and became the ancestor of the McMahon family.

There are some curious pictures on the Bovey screen which are supposed to have reference to the story of Becket and his quarrels with the king.

Chudleigh is at some distance, but it is worth a visit, partly because of the good screen in the church, but mainly because of the very pretty ravine through which the Kate (Cad, fall) tumbles. The rock here is of limestone, a fine and beautiful marble, and in its face is a cavern supposed to be haunted by the Pixies, with a stalagmite floor that was broken up by Dr. Buckland in 1825, and the soil beneath it examined in the slip-shod, happy-go-lucky style usual with explorers of that period. It deserves to be reinvestigated systematically.

Note. – Books and articles on Ashburton: —

Worthy (C.), Ashburton and its Neighbourhood. Ashburton, 1875.

Amery (P. F. S.), Articles already noticed in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 1876 and 1896.

CHAPTER XV.

TAVISTOCK

Origin of Tavistock – Foundation of the Abbey – S. Rumon – Edgar and Elfrida – Abbot Aylmer – Aldred – The Parish Church – Glanville – The Story of Mrs. Page – John Fitz – The Story of Sir John Fitz – The Story of Lady Howard – Sir Richard Grenville – Early inscribed stones – Statue of Sir Francis Drake – Buckland Abbey – Morwell – Lydford, its castle, ravine, and waterfall – Brent Tor – Endsleigh – Mary and Peter Tavy – Whit Tor.

Certain towns tell you at a glance what was their raison d'être; Tavistock has clustered about its abbey, that lay low near its fish-ponds, whereas Launceston clings about its castle, that stood high to command the country round.

Very possibly the original Saxon stockade was where still some earthworks remain, above the South Western Railway, but the centre of life moved thence on account of the fancy coming into the head of Ordulf, Earl of Devon, to found an abbey by the waterside in the valley beneath him. The legend, as told in a cartulary summarised in Dugdale's Monasticon, is that, in the reign of Edgar, Ordulf was one night praying in the open air, when he saw a pillar of fire brighter than the sun at noon hovering where now anyone, on any day, may see a lowering cloud of smoke. That same night an angel bade him go forth at dawn and explore the spot where he had seen the fire, and then build an oratory to the four evangelists. I think I can explain the vision. The farmer was "swaling." At a certain period a good many pillars of fire may be seen about Tavistock, when either the furze is being burnt, or the farmers are consuming the "stroil" – the weeds from their fields. So I do not reject the story as altogether fabulous, but as "improved." What Ordulf had a mind to do was to establish a monastery for the comfort of his soul, having, I doubt not, bullied and maltreated the poor Britons without compunction. His father had had a mind the same way, but had died without performing what was his intent.

Next day Ordulf went to the spot where he had seen the fire, and there beheld four stakes, marking out the ground, and this fact confirms me in my opinion. For it was the custom of the natives thus to indicate the bounds of their fields. The stakes were called termons. In like manner miners indicated their setts by cutting four turves annually at the limits of their grounds.

Ordulf now set to work and erected an oratory with buildings for an abbot and brethren, and he gave them of his inheritance Tavistock, Milton, Hatherleigh, Burrington, Rumonsleigh, Linkinhorne, Dunethem, and Chuvelin, which I cannot identify. He also bestowed on the monastery his wife's dower.

When the monastic church was built he moved to it the bones of his father, mother, and brother, and after his death was there laid himself.

However, before he graced it with his own relics, he transferred to it the remains of S. Rumon or Ruan (960), who, if we may judge from some place-names, had been there at a considerably earlier period as a missionary; for there is near Meavy a Roman's cross, and between Tavistock and Bere Ferrers is Romansleigh, and on the Tamar Rumleigh.

The saint reposed in the church of Ruan Lanihorne (Llan-ruan) in Cornwall, but Ordulf did not scruple to rob a mere West Welsh church to give honour and glory to one of his own founding.

Rumon was by no means a saint with a name and not a story. He had been a convert of S. Patrick, a Scot of Ireland. As I shall say something concerning him when we come to his field of labours in the Lizard district, I will say no more about them here.

Ordgar, Earl of Devon, was father of the beautiful Elfrida, who accordingly was sister of Ordulf. Her story, though tolerably well known, must not be passed over here.

King Edgar was a little man, but thought a good deal of himself – a merciful dispensation of Providence accorded to little men to make up for their lack of inches. He was of a warm complexion. He once carried off a nun from her convent, and was reprimanded for it by S. Dunstan, who forbade him for this disreputable act to wear his crown for seven years. His first wife was Ethelfleda, called the Duck – Duckie, doubtless, by her husband – and after her death he looked out for another, as is an infirm way that widowers have.

Edgar, hearing that Elfrida, daughter of Ordgar, was the loveliest woman in England, with a true Devonshire complexion of cream and heather-bloom, sent Ethelwald, Earl of the East Angles, to interview her before he committed himself. Ethelwald no sooner saw her than he was a "gone coon," and he asked the hand of Elfrida from her brother. Having received his consent, he hurried back to the king and told him that the lady was much over-rated, that her chief beauty lay in her wealth; as her only brother Ordulf was childless, she had expectations of coming in for his fortune when it should please Providence, and so on.

So, as though looking only to her expectations, Ethelwald asked the king to give him the lady. Edgar yielded his consent, and Ethelwald married Elfrida, and became by her the father of a boy whom he persuaded the king to take as his god-child, and to whom he gave the name of Edgar. Then Ethelwald was glad, for he knew that according to the laws of the Church, they had contracted a spiritual relationship which would prevent the king from ever marrying Elfrida and removing himself, the obstacle which stood in the way should he contemplate an union.

Now the report reached the king that he had been "done," done out of the loveliest woman in Christendom, and the little man ruffled up and became fiery red, and vowed he would a-hunting go, and hunt in the royal chase of Dartmoor. So he sent word to Ethelwald that he purposed visiting him at his Castle of Harewood, and solicited a bed and breakfast.

Harewood is situated on a tongue of land about which the Tamar makes a great loop – at one time assuredly a very strong camp; then it became a gentleman's place, now it is a ruin.

Ethelwald felt uneasy. He told his wife the story of the deception he had practised, which shows how soft and incapable of dealing with women he was. Then he went on to ask of her the impossible – to disguise her beauty. As if any woman would do that!

But when Elfrida knew the story she also ruffled up, not a little, and made a point of dressing herself in her most costly array, braiding her lovely hair with jewels, and washing her pretty face in milk and eau de– elder-flowers. Edgar became madly enamoured, and to boot furious with the man who had deceived him.

As they were together one day hunting, and were alone, the king smote Ethelwald with a javelin so that he died, and he took Elfrida to be his wife; and to expiate his peccadillo, erected a convent in the Harewood forest.

Edgar died in 975, and he was but thirty-two years old when he died.

Now, is there any truth in this story?

The tale comes to us from Geoffrey Gaimar and from William of Malmesbury, and their accounts do not quite tally, for Gaimar makes the king send off the obnoxious husband to the wars, to fall by the hand of the rebels in Yorkshire, and this looks like a cooking-up of the story of David and Uriah. On the other hand, William of Malmesbury's tale smells somewhat of an English version of the story in the Nibelungenlied of Sigurd and Kriemhild.

Both historians certainly drew from ballads, but these ballads were the vehicle through which history in early times was preserved. It has been supposed that the Harewood in question was Harewood near Leeds, in Yorkshire, but surely Elfrida would be on her inheritance in the West. Another difficulty is that there was no convent of nuns near the place. But this may have been thrown in as a sort of moral to the tale – if kings or other men do naughty things, they will have to pay for it.

Tavistock Abbey had some men of rare ability to rule over it. One was Aylmer, chosen in 981, who lived in difficult times, when the Vikings came and harried the coasts, ran up the rivers, and plundered and burned wherever they went. When the Danes were spoiling the land, driving off the cattle and burning the farms, he gave out of the revenues of the abbey a double danegeld or contribution for the relief of those in distress. But presently his own abbey was surrounded, pillaged, and burnt. This was in 997, by a horde that had first landed at Watchet, and then returned round the Land's End, and had run up the Tamar. They went as far as Lydford, and burnt and slew everything and every person they could lay hands on.

But a far abler man was Lyfing, afterwards Bishop of Worcester, and at the same time of Devon and Cornwall.

Another admirable man was Aldred, who succeeded Lyfing in the see of Worcester in 1046, after having been Abbot of Tavistock fourteen years; and he was made Archbishop of York in 1060, and died in 1069, broken-hearted at the misery that came in the wake of the Conquest. The lives of both these men, showing how to steer a difficult course in a troubled sea among many rocks, are worth a study, and for that I refer the reader to Mr. Alford's Abbots of Tavistock. (Plymouth, 1891.)

The Abbey Church of Tavistock was second only to Exeter for size and dignity in the West. It has completely disappeared, and the road in front of the Bedford Hotel now runs over what was the nave of the great church.

Where now stands the hotel was in ancient days the Saxon school; it was pulled down in 1736, when the inn, then the house of the Dukes of Bedford, was erected on its site and out of its materials.

The parish church is large, in the Perpendicular style, and somewhat uninteresting. But it must be remembered that the Devon and Cornish churches were built with intent to have their chancels and side chapels cut off by a very rich screen. Such a screen did once exist at Tavistock, and were it in place and complete, the church would at once appear well proportioned. It looks now unfurnished, like a railway station. It was repaired in 1845, and for the period the work was really marvellously well done. The carved oak benches were faithful copies of those in Bere Ferrers Church, and there was no scamping in the material. The new glass in the windows ranges from very good to execrably bad. Some objects of interest connected with the history of the church, among these the reputed thigh-bones of Ordgar and Ordulf, are preserved.

There is a fine monument to John Fitz, who died in 1590. Opposite it is one of Judge Glanville, Serjeant-at-Law in 1589 and Justice of Common Pleas in 1598. He died July 27th, 1600. He had by his wife a fair family. Now here comes in a question of some interest.

The current tradition is that one of Glanville's daughters, Eulalia by name, was married to a John Page, whom she murdered, and for the crime she was sentenced to be burned alive; which sentence was carried into effect in 1590 at Barnstaple.

I will give the story as contained in a letter by Mr. Daniel Lysons, author of the Magna Britannia, in 1827: —

"The Judge's daughter was attached to George Stanwich, a young man of Tavistock, lieutenant of a man-of-war, whose letters, the father disapproving of the attachment, were intercepted. An old miser of Plymouth, of the name of Page, wishing to have an heir to disappoint his relatives, who perhaps were too confident in calculating upon sharing his wealth, availed himself of this apparent neglect of the young sailor, and settling on her a good jointure, obtained her hand. She took with her a maidservant from Tavistock, but her husband was so penurious that he dismissed all the other servants, and caused his wife and her maid to do all the work themselves. On an interview subsequently taking place between her and Stanwich, she accused him of neglecting to write to her, and then discovered that his letters had been intercepted. The maid advised them to get rid of the old gentleman, and Stanwich at length, with great reluctance, consented to their putting an end to him. Page lived in what was afterwards the Mayoralty House (at Plymouth), and a woman who lived opposite hearing at night some sand thrown against a window, thinking it was her own, arose, and looking out, saw a young gentleman near Page's window, and heard him say, 'For God's sake stay your hand!' A female replied, ''Tis too late; the deed is done.' On the following morning it was given out that Page had died suddenly in the night, and as soon as possible he was buried. On the testimony, however, of his neighbour, the body was taken up again, and it appearing that he had been strangled, his wife, Stanwich, and the maid were tried and executed. It is current among the common people here that Judge Glanville, her own father, pronounced the sentence."

That sentence would be one for petty treason, burning alive. It was not till 1790 that the law requiring women to be burnt alive for putting to death their husbands or their masters was repealed. A woman was so burnt in 1789. A poor girl of fifteen was burnt at Heavitree, near Exeter, on July 29th, 1782, for poisoning her master. Eulalia Page and her servant were actually executed at Barnstaple and George Stanwich was hanged. All that is certain. But the question about which a difficulty arises is – Was Eulalia a daughter of Judge Glanville?

There is a contemporary tract that contains an account of the transaction, which was reprinted by Payne Collier.[31 - Bibliographical Catalogue of Early English Literature, 1865, ii. pp. 83-6.] From this we learn that Mrs. Page having failed in an attempt to poison her husband, prevailed on one of her servants, named Robert Priddis (Prideaux), to assist her, and on the other side Strangwich (Standwich) hired one Tom Stone to assist in the murder.

The deed was accomplished about ten o'clock on the night of February 11th, 1591, and all four were tried at Barnstaple, whither the assizes had been moved from Exeter because the plague was raging in the latter city, and were executed on March 20th following. Philip Wyot, town clerk of Barnstaple, kept a diary at the time, extracts from which have been printed. He gives some particulars: – "The gibbet was sat up on the Castle Green and xviij prisoners hanged, whereof iiij of Plimouth for a murder." These four were the murderers of Page. How it was that Ulalia was hanged instead of being burnt, in contravention of the law, does not appear, and we may doubt the statement. Three of those hanged were buried in the churchyard at Barnstaple, but Ulalia Page was laid in that of Bishops Tawton. Now as to the statement that Judge Glanville sentenced his own daughter.

In the first place, was she his daughter? It appears not; for from the tract already referred to, "in the town of Testock (Tavistock) … there dwelled one Mr. Glandfield (Glanville), a man of good wealth and account as any occupier in that cuntrie," whose daughter Eulalia was; and she set her affections on George Strangwich, who was in her father's employ. Mr. Glanville, of Tavistock, almost certainly was a near relative of the judge. The Glanvilles were tanners of Whitchurch, in trade, but the family was respectable. They have been given a fanciful pedigree from a Norman Lord of Glanville near Caen, but it is deficient in proof. What is clear is that the family occupied a respectable position near Tavistock in the reign of Elizabeth; they had their tan pits, and they went into trade without scruple. In fact, John Glanville, father of the judge, was himself a merchant, i. e., shopkeeper in Tavistock. That Eulalia was a sister of the judge is possible enough. That her name was not inserted in the pedigree as recorded in the Herald's Visitation may easily be understood.[32 - Glandfeelde is the same as Glanville; so in the Tavistock register, Grenville is entered as Greenfeelde.]
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