The History of the Suburbs of Exeter

With general particulars as to the
Landowners, Lay and Clerical,
from the Conquest to the present time,

and a special notice of the Hamlyn Family.

TOGETHER WITH

"A Digression” on

the Noble Houses of Redver,

and of Courtenay, Earls of Devon.

by

CHARLES WORTHY, Esq.

(Formerly H.M. 82nd Regt.).

Sometime Prin. Assist,

to the late Somerset Herald,

Author of

"Devonshire Parishes,"

"Practical Heraldry," &c.

In one vol; cloth; 8vo. Price 8s.

LONDON:

HENRY GRAY,

47 Leicester Square, W.C.

Exeter: S. DRAYTON & SONS

Plymouth: W. F. WESTCOTT,

14 Frankfort Street

1892

TO THE REVEREND AND RIGHT HONOURABLE

HENRY HUGH COURTENAY,

Of Powderham Castle,

THIRTY-FIRST EARL OF DEVON,

PREBENDARY OF EXETER CATHEDRAL, AND

RECTOR OF POWDERHAM,

THESE PAGES ARE INSCRIBED

BY THE AUTHOR.

Note - this eBook version of

The History of the Suburbs of Exeter is

© 2012 David Cornforth/Exeter Memories

Preface

A preface is almost unnecessary, as my first chapter sufficiently explains the method I have adopted in the compilation of the following pages.

I may mention, however, that this little volume is the partial result of the labours of more than twelve years, during which I have been constantly examining and noting original records of all kinds, both here, and in London, as most of my friends are well aware.

I directed the late Mr. Dymond's attention to the papers, at the Guildhall, in connection with the murder of Mr. Petre, of Whipton, with the result that he soon afterwards included a notice of that unhappy episode, in the history of the Drewe family, in his paper on the "Old Inns and Taverns of Exeter," read before the "Devonshire Association" in 1880. I only mention this to avoid the suspicion of an unacknowledged plagiarism from one of his many valuable contributions to Devonshire history. It may be seen that his account differs from mine, in a somewhat important particular. He says, that these papers give no report "as to the issue" of the sad affair, whereas the coroner's jury actually returned a verdict of "wilful murder" against Drewe, as I have stated in my text.

Dr. Oliver notices the "Font" at Heavitree Church, with which he was "surprised and pleased." I have not referred to the present Font, which is modem, but the old one, which certainly merits much commendation, may still be seen in the grounds of "Hevitre" House, the picturesque residence of Sir Francis Clare Ford. It would be well if it could be restored to its original uses, if not to its natural situation.

C.W.

Heavitree, January 25th, 1892.

Chapter I—Introductory

Since old John Hoker wrote his account of Exeter, which the Isaacs subsequently copied, with scant veracity, many attempts have been made to elucidate the history of our "faithful city."

The greater portion of Hoker’s work is still in manuscript, and, with the permission of the Town Council, which has been readily accorded me, I trust, at no distant day, to be enabled to publish it in its entirety and to annotate it with the result of my own researches amongst the City archives, and amongst other original documents with which I have been conversant for many years. But in the following pages I do not propose to deal with Exeter at all; no previous effort has been made to write the history of its suburbs as a whole, and in those suburbs the most influential of our citizens are now accustomed to reside, and to resort to them day by day, for healthful rest and change, after their business toil is over.

So I believe that the historical records which I have now collated, will not only add something, to what is known already, as to the four parishes which extend immediately outside the ruined walls of "Isca Danmoniorum," but that they will serve also to correct in some instances the careless and superficial statements which have been made by many able writers from time to time, who have unfortunately attempted more than they have been able to perform.

It may be urged that places like Topsham, Stoke Canon, Powderham, Upton Pyne, and numerous other parishes similarly situated should have been included in my present work, but, had I attempted this, I should have erred precisely as those before me have erred : I should have professed too much, and in such case no satisfactory account of a single district could have been written, because the limits of the present volume would not have allowed it.

So that instead of devoting one or two pages each, to incomplete histories of a dozen different parishes and their old inhabitants, as others have done before me (and even then many places and families with equal claims would have been necessarily excluded), I have thought it wiser to limit myself to an account of the ancient villages of Heavitree, St. Leonard's, Pinhoe, Cowick, commonly called St. Thomas, and Alphington, the whole of which are barely outside the limits of the municipal boundaries.

Good old Dr. Oliver has handed down to us many valuable notes as to these parishes, the result of his long labour amongst original local records. All his works possess the greatest possible value, and I should be sorry to depreciate them. We are all liable to make mistakes, and the doctor has been no exception to the general rule. Fortunately he invariably printed the original Latin deeds and charters he has referred to whenever he was able to do so, although in many instances they contradict his assertions, and in others they furnish evidence which in the text of his works he has not supplied or which he has rather curiously admitted that he has been unable to procure.

My late friend Mr. Robert Dymond, F.S.A., published many years ago a small pamphlet which gives a most interesting sketch of the parish of St. Leonard's. His invariable painstaking accuracy characterises it throughout, and it is very pleasantly written, but he has told us nothing whatever as to the early history and origin of the parish, and indeed has given it as his opinion that such particulars "would never be recovered." With these few prefatory observations I may almost leave the following pages to tell their own story; I only trust that they will prove as acceptable, as I believe they will, not only to my own immediate neighbours, but to many Devonshire men resident elsewhere—not to those alone who can claim a birthright in Exeter or its suburbs, but to all those who proudly boast that they belong to Devonshire, to all the many lovers and admirers of the fair Capital of the West, and of our beautiful and charming county as well, —and their name is indeed "legion." If my hopes are realised in these respects it will be easy to extend my plan, and to follow the present work with another upon the "neighbourhood" of Exeter.

Whether previous attempts to write the history of the city proper, have been entirely satisfactory, I leave others to decide; the attempts have been made, and the road therefore has been practically closed to further essays, but not to my projected transcription of the original manuscript of Hoker, and to its annotation from the public records and municipal archives; but, as the general history of the suburbs still remained to be written, I have felt justified in my endeavour to place it before the public in an attractive and readable form, in accordance, I trust, with the requirements of modem literature.

Therefore I have not burthened the text with references. I have carefully read and studied the various records, and the authors who have gone before me, and by collating the various accounts of these with the former, I have been able to correct them in many instances; in others I have been enabled to add much fresh information.

But previous authors have never attempted anything beyond scattered and desultory information. One has said something on one point, another on another. The late Mr. Dymond's effort in connection with St. Leonard's has been the only real attempt at a complete history of any particular suburb or parish, as I have remarked already.

Nor have I thought it necessary to re-print lists of Vicars or Priors, which Dr. Oliver collected and printed. They are to be found either in his "Ecclesiastical Antiquities" or else in his "Monasticon of the Diocese.” But I have verified many of his lists from the Episcopal Registers, and I have specially noticed such clerics as by Introductory, their lives and actions have appeared to me worthy of particular mention, as in the case of Bishop Godwin, of Heavitree, and in other instances.

In conclusion, I have thought it inexpedient to devote any space to modem Heraldry, sepulchral or otherwise, of which there are numerous examples at Heavitree and elsewhere. Many of these are the true bearings of well-known families, and will be at once recognised upon inspection. Others have not the slightest pretensions to represent the people they intend to commemorate. The true bearings will be appreciated without my aid, and it would be perhaps invidious and unpopular to distinguish them from the false in these pages. At all events, I have not attempted such an unpleasant and unpopular task, and have therefore said nothing as to modern Heraldry.

But I offer this caution, that in future "restorations," well-meaning persons may not allow themselves to be over-persuaded, to render themselves ridiculous, through the persuasions of officious and ignorant pseudo-authorities. People have a right to armorials, or they have no such right. In the former case they can easily prove it, or, if they are doubtful, they can acquire it; if they have no right, save that they believe to be conveyed by identity of name, with someone who has a right, which is a very false belief, then it is above all things culpable to place such spurious achievements in God's house. But it will be found that when anything can be gained by describing authorised armorials I have not neglected to afford them the comment to which they are justly entitled.

I should add to what I have said in the text, that handsome modem churches have been provided for the districts of Whipton and South Wonford, but that these ancient manors are still within the Parish of Heavitree, and do not form separate ecclesiastical districts. The ancient extent of this parish will be better understood when I mention that it is still nominally, but not actually, the mother church of St. Sidwell's, St. James’, St. Matthew's, St. David's, and St. Michael's, besides the two dependent chapelries of Whipton and Wonford. The Livery-Dole Chapel, once a chantry, is now merely a domestic chapel, and intended for the convenience of the alms-folk.

Chapter II—The Parish of Heavtree

The pleasant village of Heavitree, with the hamlets of East and South Wonford, and Whipton, may be looked upon as the most important suburb of Exeter, since the parish originally included also the whole of the land to the east and north of the fortifications of the city, and the Churches of St. Sidwell and St. David were merely chapelries dependent on it. It is distant about a mile from the ancient Guildhall, and upon the London road, and belongs to the Deanery of "Christianity," or Exeter.

Lysons says that the Manor of Wonford "anciently gave name to the parish," but such is not the case, and in view of the various discrepancies and inaccuracies, not only contained in the "Magna Britannia," but also in the works of Risdon, Westcote, Jenkins, and other authors, who have included a notice of this parish in their several works, I think that it will be better to state simply the result of my own recent investigations, without any reference to previously printed statements.

The word "Heavitree" is most probably derived from "Ave" or "Avon," water, and "Tre," the British word for a town or settlement, and it is distinctly mentioned in the Domesday Record as the manor of "Hevetruua."

In the reign of Edward the Confessor it was the property of "Wichin" the Saxon, and was held in the year 1087 by Roger, under Ralph de Pomeroy. This Roger was probably the ancestor of the Pycots, who were the owners of Heavitree Manor in the thirteenth century, and in the year 1274 it was held by "John Kelly, under John de Pycot." A little later the Kellys themselves became the chief lords, and John de Kelly was the owner in 1316, as proved by the "Nomina Villarum"He was the father of Thomas Kelly, whose son, Richard, was the grandfather of Oliver Kelly, "Lord of the Manor of Heavitree," whose son John granted a piece of ground for the erection of a Church House, eleventh of September, 1516. Until late in the eighteenth century, the manor of Heavitree descended in the Kelly family, and in 1773 Arthur Kelly sold it to John Baring, of St. Leonard's, who re-sold it in 1816 to his cousin, Sir Thomas Baring. Lord Poltimore is the present Lord of the Manor.

The Manor of South Wonford

The Manor of South Wonford, anciently written “Wenfort," was originally royal demesne, and the property of Queen Edith, wife of the Confessor. William the Conqueror assumed it in his turn, and it remained with the Crown until the reign of Henry I., who gave it to his follower, Geoffry de Mandeville. It was answerable for half a hide of land, which twenty ploughs could work at the period of the Survey.

King Stephen resumed the Manor and gave it to Ralph de Taisson, as shown by the Exchequer Rolls. The Parish of Heavitree, It was subsequently alienated from the latter, in punishment for the rebellion of one of the owners, in the reign of King John, and was restored by that monarch to the Mandeville family, in the person of Robert, son of Roger de Mandeville, some time Castellan of Exeter. With a daughter " of Robert de Mandeville, the Manor of Won ford passed to William Fitz-John, who I think must have been a brother of Matthew Fitz-John, who was appointed Castellan of Exeter by Edward I. in 1287—for life—and who served the office of Sheriff of Devon in the following year. This Matthew Fitz-John had no children. He was the descendant of Herbert Fitz-Herbert, chamberlain to King Stephen, and the grandson of Matthew Fitz-Herbert, to whom King John granted the Manor of Stokenham, near Kingsbridge, and the children of John, second son of the latter Matthew, called themselves Fitz-John.

William Fitz-John seems to have left a daughter, Joan, who married Tirell, usually corrupted into "Tilly.” Henry "Tirell,"and Joan his wife, were the owners of the Manor of South Wonford in 1387, and in their family it seems to have continued for some generations, when it passed, probably by bequest, to the Walronds, who had owned it for "some descents," in Sir William Pole's time. Joan, sister of Henry Walrond of Bradfield, had married William "Tylley," or Tirell, of Cannington, Co. Somerset, late in the fifteenth century, and appears to have died issueless. At some subsequent period, the Kellys, being Lords of Heavitree Manor, added Wonford to their other property, and Arthur Kelly, in 1775, conveyed it to John Baring, who sold it, with Heavitree, to his cousin. Sir Thomas Baring, in 1816.

The Manor of East Wonford

The Manor of East Wonford, written "Wenforde" in Domesday, was in Saxon times the property of "Edmer," and was given by the Conqueror to his trusted follower, Ruald Adobat, under whom it was held by Walter de Osmundvilla. At an early period it belonged to the Spekes, and probably came to them by inheritance through Gervis.

I have come to this conclusion because a portion of the neighbouring estate of Ringswell, which Lysons incorrectly calls a Manor, but which seems to have been merely parcel of one of the Manors of Wonford, was held under Ralph Tolero by John Prudhome in 1274, as shown by the "Hundred Rolls." But previously to this date, Robert de Mandeville had given the "whole of that portion of Ringswell situated on the north side of the road “to Nicholas, son of Walter Gervis, who had been Mayor of Exeter in 1218, and the founder of the first bridge over Exe River.

Nicholas Gervis had a son, Walter, whose daughter, Alice Gervis, brought the whole of her paternal property to her husband. Sir William Speke. The latter conveyed his portion of Ringswell to Sir John Wiger, and the Prudhomes or Pridhams seem ultimately to have acquired the whole through Stapleton, and it at length passed, with the heiress of Pridham, to Whiting, of Wood. Agnes, daughter and co-heir of John Whiting, of Wood, married Henry Walrond, the brother of Joan wife of William Tilley before mentioned.

But the Spekes continued to hold East Wonford Manor for many generations, and thus it obtained the name of Wonford Speke, by which it is now usually known. Sir William Speke, the first of Wonford, was the grandson of Richard L'Espec, the descendant of that Walter L'Espec who was the munificent founder of the great Abbeys of Kirkham, Rivaulx and Warden. Sir Thomas Speke, of White Lackington, was knighted by Henry VIII. and was a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to Edward VI. He sold Wonford Speke to Hurst, of Exeter, and, with Agnes, daughter and heir of William Hurst, it passed in marriage to George Bodley, of Dunscombe, near Crediton, first cousin of John, father of the renowned Sir Thomas Bodley, of Oxford. The Bodleys sold the Manor to Sir George Smith, of whom I shall have occasion to speak presently, and in Sir William Pole's time it belonged to Sir George's great-grandson, then a minor. Subsequently the estates of the Manor became divided. The Manor house was long the residence of a branch of the Pine family, whose arms may still be seen over the entrance. In 1663, William Hutchinson emigrated to New England from Lincolnshire, and became one of the founders of Boston, on the other side of the water. At the time of the American Revolution in 1776, the descendant of this William was the Governor of Massachusetts, and through his fidelity to the Crown of England he lost the whole of his American property. The family then returned to England, and resided for many years at East Wonford House, and are still connected with this County. The present representative lives at Sidmouth.

Sir Moris Ximenes owned Wonford House in 1822. The Manor House of South Wonford was long the property of the Spicers of Weare. The large and imposing mansion near the church, known as Heavitre House, is a converted cottage of some antiquity, but is chiefly a modern erection, and was built by the late Richard Ford, author of the "Handbook to Spain." The gardens and lawns are very attractively laid out, and the house has been fitted with a good deal of ancient carved oak. The present owner, who resides abroad, is Sir Clare Ford, of the Diplomatic Service.

The Manor of Whipton

The Manor of Whipton, at the north-eastern end of the Parish of Heavitree, is written "Wipleton," in Domesday, and was also owned by "Wichin" in Saxon times. At the Conquest it was given to William Capra or Chievre. It has long been subject to the Bampfyldes, and now belongs to Lord Poltimore, but in 1616 it was certainly the residence of a branch of the Petre family, of Tor Brian, the collateral relatives of Lord Petre, Sir George Petre, Kt., of Hayes, in St. Thomas, had certain considerable property in the neighbourhood of Whipton, a portion of which he alienated in 1626.

One January afternoon in 1611 "Master Will Petre," of Whipton House, and two of the Drews, then of Killerton, rode into Exeter together.

They appear to have been drinking at various ale houses all the rest of the day, and towards evening they adjourned together to the Dolphin Inn, then kept by George Northcote, to call upon Sir Edward Seymour, of Berry, who happened to be staying there.

They found Sir Edward engaged at cards, and he borrowed some gold of "Will Petre." The three visitors seem to have been very noisy, but after a little while they departed together, Petre on foot, the two Drews on horseback, and went to the "Bear Inn," where they had some more "drink."

Petre then ordered his horse, mounted, and the three friends started homewards between the hours of seven and eight o'clock, when it was, of course, quite dark. The elder Drew was dressed in white, and had a short sword, the other two wore rapiers.

Edward Drew and Petre seem to have ridden in advance of John Drew, and to have proceeded at a furious pace through the East Gate and up St. Sidwell's.

Presently Edward Drew returned and met his brother John, with the remark that he had "lost Will Petre."

The two brothers then rode on as far as St. Anne's Chapel, where they both noticed a candle in one of the houses, and called there to ask if "Mr. Petre was within," and were told that he was not.

So they rode on to Whipton House, where they found Petre's riderless horse standing at the gate. They knocked up the servants at Whipton, handed over the horse, but professed ignorance as to the fate of its master, and then both went on to Killerton.

The next morning the dead body of William Petre, with a deep cut in the head, was found in the roadway near to St. Anne's Chapel, and the depositions given before the Recorder, William Martyn, and the Coroner, William Tyckell, and dated the twenty-sixth of January, 1611, are still preserved amongst the Exeter municipal archives.

These depositions are very voluminous, and seem to prove clearly that Petre was murdered by Edward Drew.

Motive was shown, in that Drew had borrowed "some money” of a certain old Mr. Halse, of Exeter, to the amount of £5, that Petre had been his security, and had had to pay the money, which his, Edward's mother, had since repaid, but there had evidently been ill blood between the quondam friends, and Edward Drew had been heard to say "he rideth fast, but I will ride faster, and will give him a nick before he gets home." He was also observed to have had his sword drawn when riding after Petre.

In re-examination John Drew gave a detailed account of the murder of Petre by his brother, but denied his statement again the same night.

The verdict of the jury was "Wilful murder against Edward Drew," and John Drew was found to have been an accessory after the fact. Whether Edward Drew got away out of the country, or how this most unfortunate business was settled, there is now no means of ascertaining. Probably the interest of the young men's father was sufficiently powerful to hush the matter up. This was Edward Drew, Serjeant at Law, "the great ornament of his profession," as Prince calls him in the "Worthies of Devon," "who lies buried in Broad-clist Church, with the effigies of his four sons and three daughters kneeling around him." So the "counterfeit presentment" of young Edward Drew, the third son, is still preserved in some sort.

He died unmarried, and was interred at Broadhembury, on the eighth of June, 1636, having survived his father fourteen years. His brother John, also implicated in Petre's murder, probably died before 1620, as his name is omitted in the pedigree recorded by the heralds in that year.

A portion of the Petre property, in St. Thomas, came into the hands of the Berrys, and Bartholomew Berry, whose will was proved on the seventh of February, 1636, was of Lower Barley, in that parish.

He married twice, but died without issue, and his nephews, sons of his brother John Berry, of Chittlehampton—descended from Richard, third son of John Berry, of Berry Narber—succeeded to his property. Of these nephews, John Berry, the eldest, was Vicar of Heavitree and Canon of Exeter, and of him I shall have occasion to speak again; Bartholomew Berry succeeded to Barley, and lived there, and probably also to Whipton Barton.

This Bartholomew Berry, by his wife Margery Hatch, had two daughters, co-heirs, and Margaret, the eldest of them, married William Bankes, who was instituted to the Vicarage of Heavitree on the resignation of his wife's uncle, on the twenty-fifth of February, 1645, having been married at St. Sidwell's Church on the twenty-first of the preceding month. Mr. Bankes has been stated by Walker (“Sufferings of the Clergy") and by Dr. Oliver to have married “a daughter of John Berry, his predecessor at Heavitree," which is an evident 'error, as shown by the St. Sidwell’s Register. Mr. Bankes' son, John Bankes, succeeded to Whipton Barton, and appears to have married a daughter of the well-known Exeter house of Crossing, since the arms of Bankes, a cross engrailed between four fleur-de-lis, and those of Crossing, with the date 1697, are. upon the pillars at the entrance to Whipton House, and, as the Rev., William Bankes was buried at Heavitree on the fourth of August, 1697, the date on these pillars seems to commemorate the accession of his son to the property. The arms of Bankes, as blazoned above, are also to be seen in stained glass in the house. No. 171 Fore Street, Exeter, at present occupied by Messrs. Pearse & Co., drapers, and, sad to say, they now appear on their bill-heads, and have been adopted as a trade-mark by that enterprising firm.

The interesting old dwelling known as Matford House, in Wonford Lane, was built for his own habitation by Sir George Smith, a merchant, and Mayor of Exeter 1586, 1607. It certainly is not identical with the manor mentioned by Risdon as at one time the property of De Bosco, and then of Dinham, nor do I think it was ever a manor at all, and, despite the coincidence of its being exactly opposite the Manor of Matford, in the Parish of Alphington, its name may be accounted for without reference either to the latter property or to the ford in the river below it. Sir George Smith was twice married. By his first wife he had a daughter, Elizabeth, mother of the famous General Monk, Duke of Albemarle; by his second wife, Grace, daughter and co-heir of William Viell, of Madford, near Launceston, he had a daughter, Grace, wife of the equally celebrated Sir Bevil Grenville. Thus Sir George Smith became intimately connected with the principal actors in the matter of the Restoration, for Sir John Grenville and General Monk were, of course, first cousins, and it was through the influence exercised by the former over the latter that Monk was induced to see the error of his ways, and to act as he did in favour of the return of the King.

At a later period, Madford House was the temporary residence of Dr. Joseph Hall, Bishop of Exeter, and in his time the place was known as "Maydeworthie alias Madforde within the Parish of Heavitree." From here, in 1632, on the twenty-second of October, his lordship instituted John Radforde to the Rectory of Thelbridge, and he transacted other episcopal business from this house down to May, 1633.

In 1822, Madford was the property of James Oliver. The royal arms and supporters of Queen Elizabeth may be seen over the doorway of this interesting old mansion, which has been recently thoroughly repaired.

Although the families of Boyes or Dinham were never connected with this property, yet if the name Madford or Maydworthy had been given to it by Sir George Smith, it is singular that Risdon should have confused it, as he evidently has done, with one of the two manors of Madford mentioned in the Survey, and which are almost certainly situated at Alphington and Hemlock, Matford in Exminster having been a barton of the former manor.

Lysons and Jenkins tell us that the Manor of South Wonford was at one time in the "Montacutes, Earls of Salisbury, afterwards in the Courtenays, Earls of Devon." This mis-statement has originated by confusing the manor with the great hundred of the same name. Simon de Montacute, father of the first Earl of Salisbury, was lord of the Hundred of Wonford, and died in 13 15. In the following year, Hugh de Courtenay's name occurs as lord of the hundred, not of the manor, and the Courtenay arms—Or, three torteaux—may still be seen upon the arcading of Heavitree Church, without the label of three points, which was not used by the Courtenays until they had succeeded to the earldom in 1335, as I have more than once explained elsewhere. But the Courtenays were lords of that portion of Exminster Manor which extended into Heavitree Parish, as shown by existing deeds, the two portions of the said manor being connected by the ford over the Exe near Salmon Pool.

The ancient chapel dedicated to St. Eligius, anglicé St. Loye, but now desecrated, is situated in the valley below Heavitree Bridge, and, together with a few acres of land and some alms-houses on the high ground above it, is the property of the Parish of Heavitree.

This structure, roughly built of the local stone consists of a nave forty feet long, and originally, according to Dr. Oliver, twenty-two feet broad. The width, however, has decreased considerably, since portions of the eastern and western walls have entirely disappeared, and the whole of that on the north side is gone altogether, and has been replaced by a thick wall of Devonshire cob. The latter is pierced with two large modem doorways, and there is no vestige of the original entrance.

The chapel is lighted on the south side by three very graceful lancet windows, now partially walled up. They are very much splayed on the inside, and over eight feet high. The western window has been blocked up with stone, but enough of it remains to show that it was a double lancet; the mullion, dividing the lights, has perished, but the remains of featherings prove that the head was pierced with a quatrefoil. The eastern window is a plain quatrefoil opening, and save that the glass is gone it has not been interfered with at all. Both these windows, like the side lights, diverge very considerably on the inside. The tiled roof is of rather high pitch. There is no trace of the crosses on the gables which are figured in an old lithograph, but the stone cross which anciently stood at the western end of the building has been removed to the adjoining field, and may still be seen there.

On entering the once sacred structure I found myself ankle deep in fodder; a rough flooring divides it into two storeys, and there is a rack for forage extending along the south wall, the building 20 The Suburbs of Exeter, having been for many years used as a cattle shed.

Through the broad interstices of the very dilapidated flooring I could see that the roof was anything but water-tight. The piscina on the south side is still very evident, although the aperture has been filled up with rubble, and the mouldings have been removed or are invisible. I could trace the form of the trefoiled head quite distinctly.

The groined ceiling fell down many long years ago.

The width of the side windows on the outside is about a foot, on the inside about four feet; those at the eastern and western ends are of course proportionately broader.

Judging from the style of the eastern and western windows, I should consider that the whole structure is of late Early English date, the latter end of the thirteenth century or commencement of the fourteenth.

The present Vicar of Heavitree, the Rev. S. Berkeley, has interested himself in the preservation of this ancient building, which it is now in contemplation to restore, not before it is time, for it hardly looks as if it could stand another winter without attention.

Jenkins ("History of Exeter," page 438), writing in 1806, says: "From east, the rivulet directs its course to West Wonford through beautiful meadows, and in a serpentine course glides near the Chapel of St. Eligius. This very ancient edifice was a few years since entire, consisting of a nave and chancel, and, from some remains of the Decalogue painted on the eastern end, it appears to have been used for sacred service since the Reformation; it has long been desecrated, and its revenues appropriated to the relief of the poor. The building has been of late years much neglected, and from want of necessary repairs the vaulted roof and one side fell very lately into ruins; the remains are now converted into a stable.”

Near this is a cot-house patched up from old materials, and some part of it appears of age coeval with the chapel; probably it was the habitation of the officiating priest."

There is no defined chancel, and the traces of painting referred to by Jenkins were invisible to my eyes. I do not think the cottage he refers to, now pulled down, was the abode of the officiating priest.

Although the rent of the land in which it is situated is certainly now appropriated to the use of the poor, yet from the character of the foundation it is more than unlikely that it had ever any ecclesiastical endowment.

An anonymous writer in the Western Antiqitary some time since described it as the "Site of the Abbey of St. Layes, or Loyes," of which he said he believed "there were still some remains." But the chapel had no monastic origin. It was merely a domestic chapel, and is first mentioned, in Bishop Brantyngham's "Register," in 1387; although, as I said above, the existing remains are sufficient to prove that it was built at least eighty-seven years before.

The following is a translation of the entry referring to it: "At Clyst, first of April, 1387, the Lord (Bishop) granted a license to Henry Tirell and Joan, his wife, that the Divine offices might be celebrated by a fit Priest in presence of themselves, or either of them, in the Chapel of St. Eligius, within their manor of Woneford, situated in the parish of Hevytre, and especially on the morrow of the Holy Trinity every year, save prejudice to the Mother Church, and during the pleasure of the Bishop." (Brantyngham's "Register," Vol. I., fol. 171.)

It has been assumed that the "cot" referred to by Jenkins was built on the site of the old manor house, and that the chapel was within the manor or mansion house in which Henry Tirell resided. I do not think, however, that the word "mansionem" bears any such construction. Had it been situated within the boundary of the manor house, the word employed would have been mansum or mansum capitale. "Mansio" is always used in Domesday to express a manor, and may be cited in this particular instance. Exeter Domesday, fol. 95 b., Rex habet i manstonem quæ vacatur Wenfort.

St. Loyes was probably built by one of the Fitz-Johns at the end of the thirteenth century, and passed by marriage to Henry Tirell, who must have been an aged man when the bishop licensed it in 1387.

As already seen, the Manor of Wonford was afterwards in the Walronds, and passed subsequently to Kelly. William Baring purchased it of the latter, and sold it to his cousin. Sir Thomas Baring, in 1816.

As for St, Loyes and the ground around it, the property was in fourths in 1588, and on the nineteenth of January in that year, John Lye and William Glanfeylde granted one-fourth to twelve trustees for the use of the poor of Heavitree, in consideration of £38 paid them out of the Parish Stock.

The "Parish Stock," as it is termed in records, appears to have been a consolidation of sums left from time to time by the charitable for the use of the poor; in the generality of ancient wills the testator invariably leaves something, from a shilling upwards, for the benefit of the poor of his parish.

At Heavitree, amongst other donors to this stock, may be mentioned Andrew Geare, who flourished in 1588, John Leighe, or Lye, his contemporary, who gave £6 13s. 4d., William Cove, and others.

Another fourth of St. Loyes was conveyed by John Clement in 1625 for similar purposes, the money consideration being £52.

The moiety (that is, the remaining two-fourths) was conveyed also for similar purposes, by Philip Ducke, on the seventh and eighth of February, 1664, for £125 7s. 3d., to John Izacke and other trustees. This moiety consisted of three messuages and nine acres of land. One of the three messuages was the Chapel of St. Loye; another the cot farmhouse mentioned by Jenkins; the third, a barn at the top of the hill, to the north of the chapel.

In 1689 it was settled that three-fourths of St. Loyes was to remain for the common affairs, benefit, and good of the parish of Heavitree, to be employed at the discretion of the feoffees of the parish lands; the other fourth to the use and behoof of the poor of the parish.

The affairs of St. Loyes from 1588, when the first fourth was purchased, appear to have been managed by two parochial officers, known as "Wardens of St. Loyes," whose election was annual. Their accounts are extant from that year.

From 1625 there seems to have been only one warden, who was distinct from the feoffees. In 1771 his office was abolished, as shown by the accounts of the Rev. J. Simons, a trustee, who says that he had undertaken the office of treasurer and acting trustee, or, "as it had heretofore been called, the office of Warden of St. Loyes."

With the abolition of the office of warden, the chapel doubtless began to fall into decay. With the exception of the Church of St. Pancras, at Exeter, recently restored, it seems to be one of the earliest complete specimens of ecclesiastical architecture in this neighbourhood, and it is much to be desired that the funds necessary for its repair may be forthcoming, and that it will cease to be used as a cowshed any longer.

In 1814, the old barn I have referred to, at the top of the hill, was converted into two cottages, at a cost of £161 4s. 7d. These were inhabited by poor persons, placed there by trustees. Of late years they have been rebuilt, and are now neat and appropriate buildings.

St. Eligius, or St. Loye (in French, St. Eloy), was born at Catelet, near Limoges, about the year 588. He was of good parentage, and was placed in early life with a goldsmith, named Abbo, who was master of the mint at Limoges.

After he had learnt his business he went to Paris, and had a commission from King Clotaire II., to make him a state chair or throne, with gold and gems given him for the purpose. With the materials supplied Loye made two chairs, instead of one, and his honesty so delighted the king that he took him into the household and made him master of the mint at Paris. His name occurs on several gold coins struck at Paris in the reigns of Dagobert I. and his son Clovis II.

He was very religious, and was remarkable for the zeal with which he sang the canonical office twice daily in his own house, with the assistance of his servants and dependents. Hence he was a very suitable saint to become the patron of a domestic chapel.

He was subsequently admitted to the priesthood, and was consecrated Bishop of Noyon in 640, on the Sunday before Rogation week, at Rouen.

He died of fever on the first of December, 659, being over seventy years old. He was buried in the Church of St. Lupus, of Troyes, and his friend St. Owen, who wrote his life thirteen years afterward, tells us that the church was afterwards known as St. Eligius, and that many miracles followed his death.

I am not aware that any church in this county is dedicated to St. Eligius, but he is sometimes confounded with St. Egidius, or Giles. The late Dr. Oliver, in his list of Devonshire Dedications, Supplement to the Monasticon of the Diocese, page 451, says that Milton Abbot Church is dedicated to St. Eligius and St. Constantine. Mr. Brooking Rowe, F.S.A., Devonshire Association Transactions, 1882, copies Dr. Oliver. Mr. Winslow Jones, Western Antiquary, Vol. VI., page 271, makes the same statement on the authority of Dr. Oliver.

It is not the case, however. Milton Abbot is dedicated, as I have remarked in "Devonshire Parishes," Vol. i., pages 293, 295, to St. Giles and St. Constantine, and the writers I have referred to have unfortunately perpetuated a misprint in the Monasticon, which is given correctly in another portion of the same work. In the confirmation of divers churches to the Monks of Tavistock, Bishop Quivil's "Register," fol. 123, it is thus written, “Ecclesiam SS. Constantini et Egidit de Middelton,” that is, the Church of St. Constantine and St. Giles of Milton.

The alms-houses at Livery Dole, with their ancient chapel, are pleasantly situated on the high ground between Exeter and Heavitree, and are contiguous to the latter village.

In the middle ages it was usual to inflict the punishment of death not only in assize or county towns, but also in those country villages, many in number, whose manorial lords exercised capital jurisdiction within their manors. The gallows, "furcæ," were invariably erected at the intersection of four roads as symbolical of the cross, and the cross-road at Livery Dole being conveniently situated outside the city, but within a mile of Exeter Castle, was from very early times the usual place of execution for county criminals.

The name of Livery Dole, as I have explained in "Practical Heraldry," page 212, is derived from the French word "livrer," to deliver or give; and thus from time to time it has really signified anything given or delivered, and the distribution of food or alms among the poor have been called "liveries." "Dole" is a Saxon word which literally means a part or pittance, thence an alms.

I incline to the opinion that the place received its name, because this chapel was unendowed, and depended for its support upon the gifts or alms of the charitable, who, by their free offerings, thus provided for prayers and masses for the souls of departed criminals.

Jenkins, in his "History of Exeter," gives a different reason, and says that it was so called "because the Magistrates and citizens in their Midsummer watch and other public processions, dressed in their livery gowns, here dispensed their alms to the poor." This explanation, however, is scarcely likely to be correct, if for no other reason, because the spot is outside the limits of the ancient "glacis" of the Exeter fortifications, and therefore beyond the jurisdiction of the city authorities.

The earliest existing mention of Livery Dole occurs in a deed dated Exeter, the first of August, 1279; and in another deed of 2nd Richard II., 1379, some land is said to be bounded by "the highway leading from Lever-dole towards Monkin-lake," and again in 1440 there is record of "the lane called Rygway, which leads from Levery Dole up the highway leading from Exeter to Polslo."

There is no mention of Livery Dole Chapel in a deed preserved at the Guildhall, dated in 141 8, which mentions the Chapels of St. Loye and of St. Clement. Still, the "doles" may have been provided for prayers or masses for the objects I have mentioned, to be said in the Chapel of Exeter Castle, or even in Heavitree Church, and the absence of a chapel at Livery Dole, the place of execution, where the alms of the charitable were collected and given to the priest, would not interfere with my supposed origin of the name.

In the Chapter Roll of 1439 it is duly referred to as "the Chapel of St. Clams without the South Gate, within the parish of Hevetre." The record does not say, as might have been expected from the tenour of similar records, that it was then newly built, but we may fairly assume that the present structure, at all events, was erected between 1418 and 1439. It cannot have superseded an earlier chapel dedicated to St. Clement, because the latter in several deeds is plainly described as "situated near the river Exe."

The chapel, which is built of red Heavitree stone, is supported by strong buttresses. The tracery of the eastern window is a mixture of the late Decorated and Early Perpendicular style, and is probably original. The side windows, which are square, with label weather mouldings, are of late Perpendicular date, and were probably inserted when the chapel was utilised for its present purposes in the sixteenth century. The building consists of a nave, of which the chancel is a continuation; the doorway is at the western end. The interior has been restored and the windows filled with stained glass. There are no visible remains of the piscina.

The chapel was not dedicated to "St. Clara," as stated in Oliver's "Exeter," edit. 1861, but to St. Clams, an English missionary, probably in reference to the manner of his death. He was murdered in Normandy by two ruffians, at the instigation of an unprincipled woman of good position whose unholy advances he had rejected, and thus died a "Martyr to chastity" A.D. 894.

In addition to the ordinary executions by hanging, several persons were burnt to death at Livery Dole, the punishment at one time appointed for witchcraft, heresy, and for several particularly heinous crimes for which the usual method of execution was considered too good.

It appears from the calendar to a psalter in the possession of the Dean and Chapter of Exeter that a certain person called Drew Steyner was burnt here on the seventh of August, 1431.

Thomas Benet, M.A., who came to this city from Oxford, was accused of heresy in 1531. He was a schoolmaster in Exeter, and was a married man with a family. He caused one of his sons to place a paper on the doors of the Cathedral, upon which he had written the following words:— "The Pope is Antichrist, and we ought to worship God only, and no saints."

The son was detected, by a citizen, going to early Mass, who carried him before the Mayor and laid an information against the father, who was the next day brought before Bishop Veysey, who, with the Canons of the Cathedral and City Magistrates, jointly examined him. Every inducement was adopted subsequently to effect his reconciliation with the Church as then established, but he remained firm to his reformed convictions, and a writ of "de commurendo heretico" having been procured from London, Sir Thomas Denys, of Holcombe Burnell, then Recorder of the City and High Sheriff of the County, ordered the stake to be set up on Southernhay.

But the Mayor and Corporation declined to permit the execution within the city limits, and he was handed over to the tender mercies of Sir Thomas, in virtue of his county office, on the fifteenth of January, 1531-32. He was forthwith taken to Liverydole and fastened to the stake, whereupon two well-known gentlemen of the county—Thomas Carew, and John Barnehouse—of Staverton—urged him first with fair words and afterwards with threats, to revoke his errors, to call upon our Lady and the Saints, and to say "Precor S. Mariam et omnes Sanctus Dei." To which he replied, "No, no, it is God only on Whose Name we must call, and we have no other advocate to Him but Jesus Christ, Who died for us." Mr. Barnehouse was so enraged at this answer that he took a furze-bush on a pike, and after setting it on fire thrust it into the sufferer's face, saying, "Heretic, pray to our Lady, or by God's wounds I will make thee do it." But the only reply was, "Alas ! sir, trouble me not," and holding up his hands he said meekly, "O Father, pardon them." Then the wood and furze were kindled, and blazed up around poor Benet, who lifted up his eyes to heaven, and cried out in Latin, "O Lord, receive my spirit," and so continued his prayers until his life was ended.

Upon excavating for the new alms-houses at Livery Dole in 1851, the iron ring which was wont to encircle the victims' bodies, and the chain used to fasten them to the stake, were discovered and dug up by the workmen.

Benet is believed to have been the last person who suffered at Livery Dole. The place of execution was soon afterwards removed to Ringswell.

On the seventeenth of July, 1452, Henry VI. came to this city from Ottery St. Mary, where he had passed the previous two nights. He was met by the Mayor and Corporation at Clist Honiton, but the monastic communities and rural clergy assembled outside the Chapel of St. Clarus, Livery Dole, and attended his Majesty to the South Gate, where they were met by the Priors of St. Nicholas and St. John's Hospital, and by the parochial clergy of the city. The streets were gaily decorated as the procession passed up South Street to the Carfoix, and from thence to Broadgate, where the King dismounted and proceeded on foot to the Cathedral. The service being there concluded, he took up his abode at the Episcopal Palace, where he was dutifully received and entertained by his intimate friend and counsellor. Bishop Lacy.

Two men, indicted for high treason, were tried and condemned on the following day, in the hall of the Palace, by his Majesty's Judges, who were then holding the Summer Assizes, but upon the intercession of the Bishop and Chapter, the King graciously pardoned them in honour of his visit.

Whether the Denys family afterwards felt some compunction for the part they had taken in what we must all of us now consider the judicial, but wicked, murder of Thomas Benet, I cannot say, but certain it is that his son, Sir Robert Denys, who was also Recorder of Exeter from 1576, states in his will, dated the twenty-fifth of July, 1592, and proved on the twenty-second of September in the same year, that he had designed to set aside a plot of ground and erect an alms-house and chapel for a certain number of poor people, with weekly stipends and certain yearly commodities, "as would appear in a devise signed and sealed by him."

His son. Sir Thomas Denys, is appointed sole executor; George Gary (of Cockington), Edward, and Walter Denys, are supervisors and overseers. The latter are directed to carry out his intentions if his son refuses to do so, and he enjoins his said son, Sir Thomas, in consideration of the love he bore him, and that he had not disinherited him, to carry out his intentions in case he did not live to finish the work himself.

The alms-houses for ten poor people, and a double one for the chaplain, were completed by the son. Sir Thomas Denys, in 1594. Nevertheless, the following misleading inscription, which has been printed over and over again, was at some time placed over the entrance to the quadrangle:—

“ These Alms Houses were

founded by Sir Robert Dennis,

Knight, in March, 1591,

and finished by

Sir Thomas Dennis,

his brother, in

1594."

They were rebuilt in 1851, and now stand in line to the westward of the chapel. The chaplain's house is in the centre; over the gateway are the arms and quarterings of Denys; on the other side of the building, those of Rolle, Denys, and Trefusis. There are gardens in front of the houses, and about an acre of garden ground, adjoining, also belongs to the charity, which is endowed from a rent-charge of £45 out of an estate called Whitechurch, in the parish of Winterbourne, Dorset.

The pensioners are appointed by the Hon., Mark Rolle, as representative of the founder, and are not confined to any particular parish.

There are frequent and regular services in the chapel.

After the houses were rebuilt, the then chaplain, the Rev., Francis Courtenay, for a short time, previously to his death, inhabited the centre one. He was also incumbent of St. Sidwell's.

The chaplain's stipend consists of this house, about £9 per annum, and a portion of the acre of garden ground.

With respect to the connection of the present patron with the founder's family, George Rolle, of Stevenstone (will proved on the ninth of February 1552) was married thrice, and had twenty children. Among them were John, son and heir; George, second son; and Henry, fourth son.

John Rolle's grandson. Sir Henry Rolle, Kt., married Ann, daughter and co-heir of Sir Thomas Denys, who finished the Livery Dole alms-houses in 1594. They had issue, Denys Rolle, of Bicton, whose daughter Florence brought Bicton in marriage to her husband, John RoUe, of Stevenstone, grandson of George, younger brother to her ancestor, John Rolle.

The fourth brother of the said John Rolle, Henry Rolle aforesaid, acquired by marriage the estate of Heanton Sachville. His descendant, Robert Rolle, of Heanton Sachville, married Lady Arabella Clinton, daughter of Theophilus, fourth Earl of Lincoln and twelfth Baron Clinton.

The Barony of Clinton, together with Heanton Sachville, descended to the family of Trefusis in right of descent from Bridget, daughter of the said Lady Arabella Rolle.

John Rolle, of Stevenstone, and his wife Florence Rolle, of Bicton, had issue four sons. The eldest of these was the grandfather of Henry Rolle, raised to the peerage as Baron Rolle in 1748, but who died without issue in 1750, when the title became extinct; but it was revived in 1796, in the person of his nephew, John Rolle, only son of his youngest brother, Denys Rolle.

The late Lord Rolle married in 1822 his kinswoman, the Hon., Louisa Trefusis, second daughter of Robert, seventeenth Baron Clinton (in succession to his relative George, third Earl of Orford, who died 1794).

Lord Rolle died without issue in 1842, when, as is generally known, his property was inherited by Lady RoUe's nephew, the Hon., Mark Trefusis, who succeeded to Stevenstone, and also to Bicton after the death of her ladyship.

Mr. Rolle, who assumed this name in 1852, is, it is almost needless to remark, the younger brother of the present Lord Lieutenant of Devon.

The arms of Dennis, as it is now spelt, are carved in stone, and painted in their proper colours, over the northern entrance to the alms-houses. The tinctures have suffered from exposure, but there is a copy of them in the interior of the chapel. They appear as follows:—

1st, Denys—erm. 3 battle axes gu. An old heraldic record says: "Post temp. H. 7, Thomas Dennys de Holcombe portabat insignia dicta cum bordure ingra de rubro, quo tempore idem rex a° 5° fecit eum militem," which may be thus translated: "After the time of Henry 7th Thomas Dennys, of Holcombe Burnell, bore the said arms with a bordure engrailed gules, at which time, in the 5th year of his reign, the said king knighted him."

2nd, Dabemon—Arg. a cross moline Sa. on a chief azure 3 mullets or.

3rd, Gifford—brought in by Dabernon, Sa. 3 fusils in fesse erm.

4th, Brewer—brought in by Gifford, Gu. 2 bends wavy or.

5th, Bockerell—Sa. Bezanté, 2 stags trippant arg.

6th, Christenstowe—Az. a bend indented erm: and or, cotised of the last.

7th, Gobodesley alias Goldesley—brought in by Christenstowe, Sa. a fesse compony or and gu. between 3 crosslets of the 2nd.

8th, Chidenleigh—brought in by Goldesley, Arg. on a chevron between 3 rooks’ heads erased Sa. 3 acorns or.

9th, Donne, alias Downe—Az. crusily of crosslets, an unicorn salient or.

10th, Godolphin—Gu. an eagle displayed with 2 necks, between 3 fleur de lis arg.

On the south side of the building may be seen, besides the arms of Dennis, those of Rolle, viz., or, on a fesse dancettie, between 3 billets az., each charged with a lion ramp, of the field, as many bezants; and Trefusis, arg. a chevron between 3 wharrow spindles sa.

The Manor of Polslo

The Manor of Polslo, in this parish, was the ancient property of Alric, the Saxon noble, and at the Conquest was given to the Canons of St. Mary, at Rouen. The Bishop of Coutance did not hold "another manor" of the same name, as remarked by Dr. Oliver in the "Monasticon of the Diocese," but merely a "ferling" of land in this one, as shown by reference to both the Exchequer and Exeter copies of the Domesday Record; and this furlong in "Polslewe," originally held by Alwin, and valued at four shillings, was in 1087 farmed by Ansger, under the bishop, at a yearly rental of ten shillings.

Baldwin held the Manor of "Polsleuza" or Polslo, as tenant of the Norman chapter, and in the eleventh century the whole property passed into the hands of Lord William Briwere or Brewer, the munificent founder of the Abbeys of Tor and Dunkeswell. Here he founded a convent of Benedictine nuns, in memory of St. Catherine, not long previously to the year 1159.

Dr. Oliver also says that the patronage of Polslo Priory became vested in "William Brewer, Bishop of Exeter, grandson of the founder." But the founder's sons left no issue, and although one of his daughters, Grace Brewer, certainly married her namesake, yet she had no sons, only four daughters.

The founder is expressly stated by Bishop Brewer to have been his uncle, “avunculus noster" a fact casually noticed by Dr. Oliver in another of his publications, so it is all the more singular that he should have made this error in his "Monasticon"; but long study, of the venerable doctor's various and valuable works, has convinced me that he very frequently did not sufficiently inspect the original records he fortunately was ever ready to print, and which, therefore, in many instances absolutely contradict the statements he has made in his text.

The patronage of the priory became vested in the See of Exeter, and Bishop Brewer was a benefactor to the then infant establishment. The endowment consisted of the Manor of Polslo, together with some property in Heavitree, called Dyers-lands, Frog Marsh, and Botham, and a messuage at Clyst, called Cross Park. The Vicars of Heavitree were entitled to an annuity of £2 out of the Polslo Manor.

The net value of the Polslo property was £53 11s per annum in 1535.

The Manor of Tudhays, in the Parish of Colyton, also called Minchencomb, likewise belonged to the priory, and a "charter of privileges” in respect of it was granted to the community in 1228, as shown by the Rot. Cart., 13th Henry III.

They had also the Manor of Coxpitt, in the Parish of Payhembury, valued at £8 15s 11d. per annum, and several scattered tenements and messuages, in all worth £18 3s. The total income from the lands and houses amounted at the dissolution to £92 6s 11d.

They had, moreover, the advowsons of the Rectories of Budleigh, Aylesbeare, and Holebeton, in this diocese, and that of Marston, in Somerset, Diocese of Bath and Wells. The last had been given them in 1197.

They were likewise in receipt of pensions from the Dean and Chapter, and from the Rectories of Ashton and Ashwater.

The total value of their lands and possessions at the dissolution amounted to the then considerable sum of £164 8s. 11¼., and yet the community; which consisted of a prioress, sub-prioress, and twelve nuns, was always considered poor.

It seems, at all events, to have been a sort of "haven of rest" for "young ladies of quality" in the county, and the fact that the name of the daughter of the bailiff of Polslo is to be found amongst the nuns at the dissolution, is alone sufficient to show that it was looked upon as a very desirable home.

In addition to the nun referred to, Isabella Bennett, there were two Carews, a Kelly, a Tylley (Tirrell ?), a "Worthie," a Russell, an Ashley, and a Cooke.

The prioress, Eleanor Sydnam, very shortly after her appointment surrendered her house to Henry VIII., on the nineteenth of February, 1538, and received a pension for life of £30. The sub-prioress, Anne Carew, had £5 6s. 8d., two of the nuns £4 6s. 8d, and the remainder £4 per annum each.

Bishop Bartholomew assigned a pension of £4 6s. 8d. from the episcopal manor at Ashburton to this priory. He subsequently gave the "Church of Ashburton" (i.e. the rectorial tithes and patronage of the vicarage), charged with the payment to Polslo of this pension, to his chapter, about the year 1180.

The chapter, in their turn, instead of deducting this annual gratuity, £4 6s. 8d., from their rectorial tithes of Ashburton, made it a perpetual charge upon the vicarage, to the increased amount of £5 13s. 4d., and, although Polslo Priory was entirely suppressed in 1538, this sum has been ever since claimed and received from Ashburton Vicarage on behalf of the patrons, under the name of "an annual pension."

Whilst speaking of Ashburton, it may be interesting to mention that Alice "Worthie," as her name is written in the pension list at the Record Office, and who was one of the Polslo community at the surrender, was the daughter of Otho "Worthe," of Compton-Pole, in Marldon, who was grandson of Roger, second son of Thomas Worthe, of Worth, in Washfield.

The mother of Alice "Worthie" was Alice Mylleton, of Meavy, whose sister, Cecilia Mylleton, died Prioress of Polslo in 1530.

Alice "Worthie" died in June, 1586, and was the aunt, six times removed, of the late Vicar of Ashburton, the Rev. Charles Worthy, who died in 1879.

John Kelly, by his will, dated November, 1486, gave to Polslo a standing cup of silver, with a gilt cover in the shape of a bell, and also a spoon of silver marked with the letter K.

The nuns of this community were allowed a page to wait upon them. Each nun was always obliged to be accompanied by a "socius" or companion, and if they went into Exeter they had to be attended by the chaplain, or by a "clerk or esquire of good reputation."

Bishop Stapledon, in exercise of his right to choose "confessors" for the convent, appointed, in 1320, John de Whatell, a Franciscan Friar, together with Hugh de la Pole, to that office.

The nuns were granted a cemetery or burial-place for themselves and their community, on the first of March, 1159. The interments were limited to this sisterhood, to other nuns, their visitors, and to priests connected with the priory, who might be buried there without the consent of the Canons of Exeter.

Thomas Bannaster, chaplain to the priory, desired to be buried in the chancel of "St. Katherine of Polslowe." His will is dated October, 1534.

Scipio Squier, the son of the Vicar of Kings Nympton, who was noted for his love of heraldry, and left some valuable MS. behind him—now, I believe, preserved in the library of the Society of Antiquaries, as a portion of the bequest of the late Dean Milles (of Exeter)—appears to have visited the ruins of Polslo in 1607, and to have seen the arms of the community still remaining there, viz.y Sa. a sword erect between two Catherine wheels argent.

In February, 1541, the Crown granted the site of the convent to George Carew and Mary his wife, but only for their lives, at a rental of £29 3s. 1d., per annum, and £2 13s. 4d., the bailiff's salary (George Maynwaring, who had succeeded Robert Bennett in 1538).

In 1549 the property was sold to the Earl of Warwick. Subsequently it formed a portion of the large estates gathered together by Petre of Hayes.

Very soon afterwards Polslo was acquired by Sir Arthur Champenowne, second son of Sir Philip Champenowne, of Modbury, who purchased Dartington Hall, near Totnes, of John Ailworth, of London, and included Polslo as part of the consideration.

Thomas Ailworth, in 1609, granted a lease of Polslo for a hundred and one years to Thomas Isaack, and shortly afterwards granted him a second lease for a thousand years, to commence on the expiration of the former one.

This Thomas Isaack had no apparent connection, as Dr. Oliver and others have supposed, with Samuel Isaack, Town Clerk of Exeter, and father of Richard, the Chamberlain, and plagiarist of Hoker's “History"; nor had either of these Isaacks of Heavitree any visible connection with the "Buryatt" Isaacks. Thomas Isaack, the purchaser of Polslo, was the grandson of Isaack of Ottery St. Mary, and son of John Isaack, of Heavitree, "aged 86” in 1620.

His second son, and ultimate heir, Roger Isaack, born 1592, was the father of Col., Sebastian Isaacke, of Polslo, born 1615, buried at Heavitree on the eighth of November, 1688, and his son, also called Sebastian Isaacke, who died in 1700, is credited with having been the destroyer of the conventional church and other portions of the ancient dwellings.

He was the last of his family who resided there. He had no son, and his three daughters married Yard, Palmer, and Payne. His father had probably suffered in purse during the Civil wars, for the estate was devised to trustees to redeem the mortgage upon it. After considerable litigation, an Act of Parliament was procured for its sale, and in 1726 it came into the hands of the Parkers, of Whiteway, whose eventual heiress married the late Lord Morley, and it has thus descended to its present owners.

The Prioress of Polslo had all the usual liberties within her manor courts, excepting pleas involving capital punishment, as shown by the "Hundred Rolls."

The ancient building, or rather what remains of it, and which is strongly buttressed, is now used as a farm-house. Several arches, a well-preserved late Perpendicular doorway, together with the corbel of an ancient chimney-piece, may be seen without intruding on the occupants. All the rooms still bear marks of great antiquity, notably a small upper chamber which is supposed to have communicated, through a small lobby, with a gallery in the chapel, of which latter, however, there are no vestiges. The roof of this room was vaulted, and two of the corbels are still in situ, but the decayed ceiling had to be removed about thirty years ago.

There are still the remains of a blocked doorway in the recess or lobby referred to, and also of another original doorway. Up in the northern gable a door still exists, now opening on the air, but which, of course, once led to some other portions of the building since destroyed. There are also some traces of an underground passage.

The Priory of St James

The Priory of St James, which the late Col. Harding styles an "abbey," was a cell to the Abbey of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, near Paris.

As "alien," its revenues were frequently seized by the Crown during wars with France, and it was finally suppressed altogether in 1444, and its revenues, then amounting to over £500 per annum, were given to Eton College. Consequently there are no visible remains of this monastic establishment, which was founded between the years 1138 and 1141 by Baldwin de Redvers, second Earl of Devon of that name.

It stood in a marshy situation close to the river, on a site still known as the "Abbey Field." A stone coffin was discovered there some years ago, which is, I believe, the only evidence existing at present of the exact position of the priory, of which I shall treat further in my notice of the Parish of St. Leonard.

The Parish Church of Heavitree, dedicated to St. Michael, stands in a beautiful churchyard commanding extensive views, a little to the south of the village. It originally consisted of chancel, nave—connected with north and south aisles by an arcade of four bays, of Second Pointed date, which has been incorporated in the present structure—a south porch, and a western tower, containing four bells.

The church was probably almost entirely rebuilt at the commencement of the fourteenth century, and considerably altered about a century and a half later, as its general style was Perpendicular or Third Pointed. It was only eighty-two feet long by forty-three feet broad, and was much too small for such an extensive and populous parish. Therefore it was destroyed and rebuilt, with the exception of the tower, in 1844, when it was extended eastward by the addition of two bays and by a prolongation of the old chancel. The latter it is now intended to still further enlarge.

The old tower, which was evidently partially constructed of the materials of a previous church, was taken down in 1888 and was then replaced by the present solid and beautiful campanile, in commemoration of Her Majesty's Jubilee. The old bells, however, have not been re-hung, and a new peal of eight will, it is to be hoped, soon be provided either by private generosity or public subscription.

Some fragments of the parclose screen which anciently separated the eastern end of the north aisle from the chancel, and thus enclosed a chantry chapel, are still preserved, and are now utilised as a tower screen. The remains show that it was of early sixteenth century date, and include ten panels of the lower portion and fragments of several lights and tracery heads, together with a piece of the cornice, rather plainly carved in foliage.

In the panels are figures of saints, which have suffered from well-intended efforts at restoration, and it is now impossible to identify several of them with any degree of certainty. They appear to be, commencing from the south side:—

1.—Aaron, the rod, budding, in his hand.

2.—St. Cecilia, V. and M., with a musical instrument.

3.—St. Dunstan, with a long cross and a pair of pincers, treading on the devil.

4.—St. Michael, the patron saint of the church, in half armour, a coat with scarlet sleeves, and holding a battle-axe.

5.—A female figure, apparently holding three nails—St. Helena, the Empress, who at first identified the true cross by means of the nails which were found near it.

6.—A crowned female figure—the Blessed Virgin, crowned Queen of Martyrs.

7.—St. Genevieve, with a torch (?).

8.—A figure holding a sword in right hand, which may be that identified by Dr. Oliver as St. Catherine of Alexandria. The letters "N.C." (Nomine Catherina ?) are in the upper corner.

9.—A figure holding aloft a boat-shaped object, apparently of basket-work, in left hand a club—St. Jude.

10.—St. Agatha transfixed through the lower part of the neck with a sword.

Dr. Oliver only notices numbers 3, 8, and 10, and calls the whole "a part" of the ancient rood screen, which it is not, although of similar antiquity.

In the old church the late Dr. Oliver noticed ancient inscriptions for John Ford, no date; for John Vener, 17th July, 1527; for Sir John Legh, "Priest,'' and for Hugh Legh, 2nd Aug., 1536; also for Alice and Elizabeth, wives of Uphome, of the city of Exeter. And he surmises that "John Leigh succeeded Thomas Valans as vicar, although his institution is not recorded in the Episcopal Registers." I think this a very improbable conjecture. The memorial inscription ran, "Orate pro anima Johannis Legh Presbyteri" and was probably some years older than the second Legh inscription, which is dated 1536; and Thomas Valans, who was admitted on the second of November, 1507, to the vacant vicarage of Heavitree, was still in possession on the third of November, 1536, as shown by Bishop Veysey's return to the Crown, of that date.

When Dr. Oliver examined the old church he was able "to trace about eight feet of the wall of an earlier structure then blocked up." In this wall he also found a blocked-up Early English window, which would accord with the first mention of the structure in 1152, when it is believed to have been granted by Pope Eugenius III. to the Cathedral of Exeter.

It was not appropriated to the Dean and Chapter until after 1291, as it is not included in the list of "peculiars" set down in the "Taxatio" of that year, but the first recorded Vicar of "Heavitree," John de Christenstowe (John of Christow), had been admitted by Bishop Bronescombe on the sixteenth of April, 1280.

There are several old gravestones still remaining in the church. One at the eastern end of the nave is inscribed to the memory of "Thomas Gorges of Hevitree, Esqʳ and Rose his wife. Hee departed this life 17th Oct. 1670, and Shee the 14th day of April 1671." Some quaint lines, commencing "The louinge turtell," have been printed by Jenkins, so I need not repeat them. The rather singularly arranged shield of arms may be blazoned : Per fesse; in chief, per chevron engrailed or and sable, on three roundels as many fleur-de-lis all counterchanged (Mallock of Cockington). In base, lozengy or and azure, a chevron gules (Gorges of Batcombe, new coat). Impaling azure (?) on a chevron between three talbots' heads erased argent, a crescent, for difference (Alexander).

Rose Alexander married, first, Roger Mallock, of Cockington, who died 1657. On the twenty-third of March in the same year Mrs. Rose Mallock, then the mother of Rawlin Mallock, of Cockington, married Thomas Gorges, of Batcombe, Somerset, then the father of Susanna Gorges.

The said Rawlin Mallock became the husband of the said Susannah Gorges, and on another gravestone, nearer the north aisle, may be seen Mallock impaling Gorges, with an inscription to "Susanna wife of Rawlin Mallacke of Cockington and daughter of Thomas Gorges, died 17th April, 1673."

Rawlin Mallock married, secondly, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Collins.

The memorial to Sebastian Isaacke, of "Polsloe,” already referred to, has his arms : "Sa. a bend or, impaling Barry or and gules" (Berry ?). The name of his wife is not given in the Visitation Pedigree, and the impaled coat points to the conclusion that she was Mary, only daughter of the Vicar of Heavitree, John Berry, who was deprived by the Puritans, and of whom I have spoken previously. He was at one time taken prisoner by the rebels, but was rescued by a party of Royalist cavalry. His sequestration at Heavitree was much alleviated by his successor, William Bankes, who supplanted him in the vicarage almost immediately, and Bankes was regularly instituted as his successor on the twenty-fifth of February, 1645.

Dr. Berry was the principal founder of the old workhouse at the bottom of Paris Street, and his statue was erected over the front gate there in 1681. His picture may still be seen in the boardroom of the present workhouse, and also those of his sons, Arthur Berry, D.D., Canon of Exeter, and John Berry, who was a colonel in the Parliamentary army.

Dr. John Berry held, in addition to the Vicarage of Heavitree, the Rectory of Widworthy and that of St. Mary Majors,, Exeter; he was also a Prebendary and a Canon Residentiary of Exeter Cathedral.

He died on the fifth of July, 1667, aged eighty-seven, and was buried in the Cathedral. Colonel Berry and his brother John were by their father's second wife, Agnes, buried near him in the Cathedral. His first wife, and the mother of Mrs. Isaack, was Elizabeth, daughter of Humphry Moore, of Moorhayes.

In the moulding of one of the arches on the south side of the church, which can be inspected from the gallery, is an ancient shield of the Courtenay arms. This shield was originally in the spandril of the first arch of the north aisle, and gave the idea for the modern abominations which now accompany it—Crabbe, Atherley, and Phillpotts.

The last two shields, intended to commemorate the Vicar and the Bishop, at the period of the rebuilding of the church in 1844, might, of course, justly claim a place in the new fabric, but hardly in the unfortunate position which was then selected for them; besides which their arms are repeated in other portions of the structure.

The late Mr. Crabbe, well known in his generation for his love of antiquities, perhaps suggested these anachronisms, and he may also have had something to do with the erection of a series of modern coats of arms emblazoned on corbel shields, and which entirely surround the church, and profess to be those of the principal benefactors to the present building. Some of these shields were rightly assigned to the individuals they commemorate; others have been adopted from chance similarity of name, and consequently would be out of place anywhere, and are more especially so in a church.

The Courtenay arms, exhibited without the label, prove almost conclusively that the fabric destroyed in 1844 must have been erected between the years 1315 and 1335. The Perpendicular windows were, of course, inserted at some subsequent date, in the fifteenth century, when other alterations must also have been effected.

There are also some tablets, interesting to the genealogist, of the Rhodes family, of Bellair, a well-known residence in this parish. They will be found in the south aisle.

Dr. John Chardon, admitted Vicar of Heavitree on the ninth of August, 1571, was consecrated Bishop of Down and Connor, in Ireland, in 1596. He was succeeded by Francis Goodwin, son of Dr. Thomas Goodwin, the venerable Bishop of Bath and Wells, with whom Queen Elizabeth had a bitter quarrel, because he insisted upon taking a third wife when he was over seventy years of age.

Francis Goodwin, who also held the prebendal stall of St. Decuman in his father s cathedral, was Canon and Sub-Dean of Exeter, and married a daughter of the then Bishop of Exeter, Dr. Woolton. He succeeded to Heavitree Vicarage on the resignation of his predecessor, Dr. Chardon, on the sixth of October, 1595. He was the author of the learned and useful work, "De Præsulibus Angliæ," the lives of English bishops, which has ever since been the standard authority on this subject, and which was written during the period of his residence at Heavitree, which benefice he resigned upon his promotion to the See of Llandaff in 1601. In 1617 he was translated to Hereford, and died in 1633, and was buried in the chancel of Whitbom Church, in the neighbourhood of Hereford.

From the time of Dr. Goodwin, down to 1820, all the Vicars of Heavitree belonged to the Chapter of Exeter Cathedral, save in one instance, that of the Rev., Francis Bradsell, 1619-1626. This intermittent connection with the mother church of the Diocese during the last seventy years is too well known to merit more than passing reference.

In 1536 the Vicarage of "Hevytree," with "the Chapels of St. Sidwell and St. David annexed to the same vicarage," was valued at £37 10s. 2 ½ d, per annum. Thomas Valans was then the vicar.

The parish registers commence—baptisms, 1653; burials, 1653; marriages, 1653-4.

The Chapel of St. Anne, situated at the head of St. Sidwell Street, had been only recently built in 1418. This chapel always belonged to the St. Sidwell's fee, and the Manor of St. Sidwell has from a very early, but uncertain, period belonged to the Dean and Chapter of Exeter. Probably it was included in the appropriation of Heavitree Church to the See of Exeter by Pope Eugenius, already referred to.

As lords of the manor, and therefore owners of the Chapel of St. Anne, the capitular body indicted for trespass one William Cudmore in the year 1698. He appears to have broken into the grounds of the chapel over the garden wall, and to have thrown down the chapel bell.

In the first and second year of Queen Elizabeth, Oliver Manwaring and George Manwaring, his brother, restored "the house of St. Anne's Chapel"—which had originally been an hermitage, or dwelling for a single recluse—and made out of it an alms-house for poor people, which Ralph Duckenfield subsequently endowed with a house in Preston Street, the rent of which was to be applied to the maintenance of the inmates. This endowment has been lost. The rent of a meadow bequeathed to this charity by Anne, relict of Dr. Francis Debina, and, subsequently, wife of Christopher Manwaring, was long withheld from it, but was ultimately recovered and applied to its proper uses by order of the Court of Chancery, in the year 1665.

It is unnecessary to speak at length of the Churches of St. Sidwell and St. David, since they are both included in the accounts of the City Churches to be found in the pages of works which treat exclusively of the history of the City of Exeter.

St. Sidwell's was rebuilt in 1659, but the ancient arcading is a portion of the earlier structure.

St. David's Church is first mentioned by Bishop Marshal between the years 1194 and 1206. It was rebuilt in 1541, upon the ground to the north of the present entrance to the churchyard from St. David's Hill, and just inside the gateway. Of the present ugly, uninteresting, and unecclesiastical structure, the less said the better. It is to be hoped that it will soon be replaced, in its turn, by an edifice more in consonance with the prevalent ideas as to English church architecture.

The Chapel of St. Clement's, by the river, stood under St. David's Church, and close to the Exe. It is mentioned as early as the year 1223, and was disused in 1536. The ground on which it stood has been long alienated from Heavitree, and now belongs to the feoffees of St. Petrock's.

The chapel is said to have been dismantled in 1572, but portions of it were still standing late in the seventeenth century. The long and steep lane which led to it from St. David's Hill is known as “Chapel Lane."

Until very recent years the Vicar of Heavitree always appointed the perpetual curates of these two daughter churches. St. Sidwell's is now styled a rectory, and is in the patronage of the Bishop, and the Dean and Chapter alternately. St. David's, in the gift of the Dean and Chapter, is a titular vicarage.

Manor of Duryard

The large Manor of Duryard is in the latter parish, and in Saxon times, under the name of "Dochorde," was the property of Alfleta, or Alfhilla, the mother of Earl Morcar. At the period of the Domesday Survey it was held, with East Wonford, by Walter de Osmundville, as sub-tenant to Ruald Adobat.

It was afterwards in the Chiseldon family, probably by purchase from Speke, and passed with the co-heirs of John Chiseldon to Bluett and Wadham.

Roger Bluett, of Holcombe Rogus, and John Wadham, of Merifield, co. Somerset, are shown by an original lease of property within the manor, now in my possession, to have been the joint owners of Duryard Manor on the thirteenth of July, 1554.

The property was afterwards acquired by a successful Exeter citizen, Thomas Jefford, who was knighted by James II. "for his ingenuity in dyeing a piece of cloth scarlet on one side and blue on the other, and which he presented to the King." So says Jenkins, but Sir Thomas Jefford probably received his honours for a very different reason. By order of Council, dated Whitehall, twenty-eighth November, 1687, John Snell was removed from the mayoralty (together with other municipal officials), and "our trusty and well-beloved Thomas Jefford, Esq." was placed in his room, and the usual oath was dispensed with. Immediately afterwards Jefford received the honour of knighthood.

Sir Thomas was evidently of King James's way of thinking in the matter of his religious convictions, and hence his advancement. He built the present picturesque mansion known as Great Duryard, and died in 1703.

Great Duryard was afterwards the property and residence of the Cross family. Francis Cross owned it in 1822, and after the death of Mr. Coplestone Cross, about the year 1 852, the property was divided, laid out for building leases, and is now known as the "Duryard Estate."

Whilst treating of Livery Dole, I have remarked that the place of execution for the county was removed, in or about the year 1532, to Ringswell. This spot was used for the infliction of capital punishment for more than two centuries afterwards, and was situated at the north-eastern end of the Parish of Heavitree. It included a graveyard, which was given by the then Mayor of Exeter, John Petre, in 1557, and which was inclosed with a wall by Joan, widow of John Tuckfield, Mayor in 1549.

The spot was consecrated on the eighth of March, 1557, by Bishop Turbeville, of Exeter. It was allowed to be desecrated and built over in 1827. The gallows stood on a waste piece of ground between the western hedge of the field, still called "The Gallows," and the eastern wall of the burial-ground. The boundary hedge was thrown down by the owner of the adjoining property, the late Lord Graves, who extended his field up to the boundary wall; so that it is now difficult to identify the place at all.

The first person who suffered here was John Waltheman, for treason, in 1532, he having been convicted of prophesying evil of the King.

Here also were hanged William Horsington, Thomas Hylleard, Thomas Poulton, Richard Reeves, Edward Davy (Davies in the Register), Edward Willis (Willies in the Register), and John Giles (alias Hobbes in the Register). They were all buried in St. Sidwell's churchyard on the seventh of May, 1655, "having been executed at Heavitree." John Haynes had also been left for execution, but I have no entry of his burial at St. Sidwell's.

These unfortunate gentlemen had been condemned at Exeter for participation in the rising of 1654-5. They were taken prisoners, or rather surrendered under promise of safety, at South Molton, having just previously proclaimed Charles II, at Salisbury, and insulted the judges there.

Two of the principal leaders, Capt. Hugh Grove and Col. John Penruddock, were sentenced to be hanged, but the punishment was afterwards changed to decapitation. They were both beheaded in the Castle Yard on the sixteenth of May, 1655. Grove was buried in "St. Sidwell’s Chancell," where a brass to his memory may still be seen, in the north aisle. On the following day Penruddock was interred in the Church of St. Laurence, in High Street.

Richard Wilkins, executed for witchcraft, at Ringswell, July, 16 10, was also buried at St. Sidwell's.

Griffith Ameredith, Sheriff of Exeter, 1555, by his will, dated January, 1556, left lands at Sidbury, Sidford, and Salcombe, the rents to be applied in buying shrouds for prisoners, either of the City or County, who might be condemned to suffer death, and also towards the maintenance of the wall of the burial-ground, and towards the repair of the chapel, if any should be ever built at Ringswell. Shrouds were always subsequently provided out of this fund, at an expense of three-and-sixpence each, until the use of the place for executions was finally abandoned, when the money was amalgamated with other trust funds under the management of the Chamber of Exeter. In 1704 the rental of the property amounted to £1 18s. per annum.

By indenture dated the eleventh of September, 1516, John Kelly, Esq., lord of the Manor of Heavitree, granted to Thomas Valans, Clerk, vicar of the parish, and others their heirs, etc., a parcel of land sixty-six feet by twenty-six, bounded by the King's highway leading from Exeter to Wonford on the south, as a site for a house to be called the Church House—to pray for the souls of the said John, his father, and his ancestors.

This property fell into the hands of the Crown, but was subsequently re-purchased, and it was, by deed of the twentieth of January, 1573, conveyed by John Lee and another to John Isacke and others, under the name of the Parish House, to be employed "for the benefit, profit, and commodity" of the parishioners of Heavitree.

Ducke’s Alms-House

Ducke's Alms-Houses were originally founded by Richard Ducke, on the twenty-fifth of November, 1603, for "old or poor people not able to get their living by labour, and who had spent most of their lives in husbandry labour within the parish of Heavitree"; no child to be admitted to participation in the charity, and no single woman under the age of fifty to be appointed, and any widow under the age of fifty to vacate her rooms within twelve days of her husband's death. Provision was also made for appointments, on a vacancy, to be made in twelve days, failing which the right of presentation lapsed from the "heirs of Ducke" to the churchwardens and sidesmen, and, failing these, to the mayor, bailiffs, and commonalty of Exeter.

The endowment consisted of a yearly rent-charge of twenty-six shillings, issuing out of Clist Marsh, in the Parish of Clist St. Mary. Out of this the alms-people were only entitled to a quarterly payment of one shilling each.

New trustees were appointed for this charity in 1655, and again in 1686.

The churchwardens of Heavitree now fill the vacancies in the alms-houses as they occur.

The trustees of the parish lands pay to the alms-people the sum of eight shillings a year amongst them, being the interest of five pounds, the gift of Walter Skinner, 1615.

The rent of the "parish field," contiguous to the highway between Exeter and Topsham, and containing about one and a half acres of land, is applicable to the poor of Ducke's alms-houses.

The poor are entitled to the interest of fifty pounds, under the will of Wenman Nut, dated the twenty-fourth of December, 1800.

Ann Searle, by her will, dated the twenty-ninth of December, 1810, gave all her property to Ann Wolland, in trust, to pay her debts and funeral expenses, and to give the surplus to such poor people of the Parish of Heavitree, in such sums and at such times, as she, the said Ann Wolland, should think fitting. The gross amount of the estate amounted to £868 17s. 4d.

The gift of part of this estate, which consisted of land in Cornwall and seven deed polls in the Honiton Turnpike Trust, which realised £599 7s. 4d., was void by the Statute of Mortmain.

The debts, funeral expenses, and other costs in connection with winding up the estate, amounted to £610 13s. 6d. leaving a balance of £258 3s. 10d.

There was a question as to items in the account in respect of payments made to a certain Mrs. Mitchell, a friend of the testatrix, who had claimed and received in all £440 18s. 5d., for an alleged debt for maintenance, clothes, etc., supplied to deceased, and in respect of dilapidations on property of which she had purchased the reversion in deceased's lifetime. Litigation ensued, and the trust was, I believe, placed in Chancery.

The poor have now the interest of about £131 18d. 10d., derived from the original bequest. They have also the interest of Spicer's gift of £427 11s. 5d., and half of the dividends of Collingwood's gift of £217 1s. 11d, the total income being over twenty-one pounds a year.

The income of the charity land duly vested in trustees is now about fifty pounds a year. An addition to Heavitree Churchyard, of the land lying on its south side, was consecrated by the Bishop of Exeter, August the first, 1891.

Chapter III—The Parish of St Leonard

The Parish of St. Leonard is situated close to—the City of Exeter, and adjoins Heavitree. It includes only 173 acres of land, and is in the Deanery of Christianity, or Exeter.

Like the Parish of St. Thomas, on the other side of the Exe, this parish also takes its name from its church, which is dedicated to the memory of a saint who was, in early youth, a French nobleman and a courtier at the court of King Clovis I. Towards the close of his life he devoted himself to the cloister, was famed for his deeds of charity, founded an abbey, to which he gave his name, at Limoges, and died in the odour of sanctity on the sixth of November, 559, after which he was duly canonised.

The Church of St. Leonard was originally a parochial chapelry, formed for the convenience of the inhabitants of that portion of the Manor of Exminster situated on the eastern side of the River Exe, and was connected with the rest of the property by the ford, known as Matford, to which I have already alluded.

The church, or rather chapel, was evidently built either by Richard de Redvers, first Earl of Devon of his name, or by Baldwin, the second earl, his son, most probably by the latter.

Baldwin de Redvers succeeded to the earldom of Devon in 1107, and probably between the years 1138 and 1141, certainly before 1143, he founded the Priory of St. James, as previously stated. The site of this priory was nearly on the banks of the river, close to the ford over it, and separated only by one field or close of land from the south-eastern extremity of the Parish of St. Leonard.

That St. Leonard was a parish at the time the priory was founded is sufficiently evident from the first of the foundation deeds of the latter, of which there are three extant. In this deed, Baldwin, the earl, states that he has founded the monastery of St. James "for the safety of his soul, and for those of his sons and daughters, his parents, and all his friends"—through the hand of Robert, Bishop of Exeter, on the day that he dedicated the cemetery of the monastery. Bishop Robert Chichester occupied the See of Exeter from 1138, and Robert, Abbot of Tavistock, who witnesses one of the three deeds, died in 1145, which is ample evidence in itself as to the date of St. James's Priory.

Baldwin endows the priory with certain lands, "with the same liberty and free customs with which I held and hold my Manor of Exeministre"; and he adds, by the gift, and at the request of Avis of St. Leonard's, I have confirmed to them "two acres of land in which their mill leat has been made, and the use of the water flowing over the land of Avis herself."

To this gift, Stephen of St. Leonard's, son of the said Avis, added six acres more, lying between the mill leat and the King's highway—the Topsham Road—for the safety of his soul, and that of his wife Christine, of his mother Avis, his father Nigel, and Adam, his son and heir. He, with his said wife Christine, and son and heir Adam, confirmed this gift by placing it—that is, the "writing" of it—on St. James's altar, and upon the Book of the Holy Evangelists. Witness, "Augustine," who was third Prior of St. James's not long after 1157.

The mention of "Avis of St. Leonard's," by the Earl of Devon, proves that the latter had been formed into a distinct parish previously to the establishment of St. James's Priory. The deed of Baldwin was witnessed by his sons Henry and William, and was executed with the consent of his eldest son Richard.

The younger son, William, has always hitherto been identified with William de Vernon, sixth Earl of Devon, whose daughter Mary married Robert Courtenay—a manifest anachronism, occasioned by similarity of name, and founded probably upon the known fact that "William de Vernon" was a younger son of "Baldwin the Earl." But Baldwin was succeeded by his eldest son, Richard, as third earl, whose son Baldwin, fourth earl, by Alice, daughter and heir of Ralph de Dol, of Berry, usually asserted to have had no issue, had two sons—Richard, fifth earl, who died childless, and was succeeded by his brother William de Vernon, as sixth earl.

Had the latter been "son of Baldwin, second Earl," as hitherto universally stated, then he must have married a lady who lived two generations after him—Mabel de Mellent—and their daughter Mary must have flourished two generations previously to her husband, Robert Courtenay; besides which, the Courtenay’s would have had no claim to the "blue lion on a golden field" which has always been quartered by them in right of Dol.

Through the marriage of Mary de Redvers, daughter of William de Vernon, sixth earl, with Robert Courtenay, the whole of the Redvers property eventually came into the hands of the latter family, after the death of Isabella de Fortibus in 1191, and they thus became patrons of St. James's Priory and had also the advowson and right of presentation to the Church of St. Leonard's, as representatives of the original founder, and their right to this patronage was fully established on the eleventh of June, 1348, upon an enquiry directed by Bishop Grandisson; consequently Hugh de Courtenay, Earl of Devon, presented Walter Power to St. Leonard's Rectory on the second of July in that year.

After this, save when the Crown interfered during minority of the true patron, the Courtenays continued to present until the property of the earldom became divided, through the death of Edward, Earl of Devon, at Padua in 1556.

The Crown presented the following year, then the advowson of St. Leonard's was sold to George Hull, who presented in 1596, after which the Duckes acquired the patronage. Nicholas Ducke presented in 1671; Elizabeth Ducke, widow, in 1708.

John Baring, of Larkbeare, purchased the advowson of the assignees of Andrew Lavington, who had acquired it from Ducke in July, 1727, for £90. It had previously changed hands for £30, and in 1825 it was purchased by Samuel Parr, of Dawlish, for £3,500.

St. Leonard's was one of the twenty-eight chapels to which Peter de Palema, by his will dated A.D. 1200, bequeathed an annuity of a penny a year. In the "Taxatio" of Pope Nicholas, 1291, its poverty is referred to, and its value is set down at 6s. 8d., per annum.

In 1536, Charles Pytford, who had been presented in 1523, by Henry Courtenay, Earl of Devon and Marquess of Exeter, beheaded by Henry VIII., was still the Rector, and his preferment was valued at £4 19s. 5d.

In 1742 an estate in the parish of Crediton, of about twenty-five acres, was bought of the Rev. John Carwithen for £415, to augment the living. Of the purchase money, £200 was subscribed in the parish and neighbourhood, £200 came from the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty, and the remainder was given by the then Rector, the Rev., John Weston, who had already subscribed £17 15d. to the general fund.

The tithe-rent charge, as commuted, now stands at £164 a year, and there are two and a quarter acres of glebe. £51 a year has been added to the Rectory "from other sources," according to the Diocesan Calendar.

The old church of St. Leonard's, which was taken down in 1831, consisted of chancel and nave, and, originally, of a western tower, as shown by the remains of the newel staircase which anciently led to it. The drawings of it, which have been preserved, show that it retained many Early English characteristics, and it had an open and high-pitched roof until 1732.

It had evidently been very much altered by the introduction of larger windows, during the thirteenth century, and is said to have been rebuilt in the fifteenth, when, however, it can only have been extensively repaired: probably the tower was then removed, but the window, probably re-inserted in the new west wall, was, apparently, of about the middle of the thirteenth century, and merely consisted of two lights divided by a single mullion without tracery of any kind. There was a south. Perpendicular doorway, and the chancel was supported by plain Early English buttresses.

This interesting old edifice, which had been much knocked about and modernised from time to time, was altogether removed at the period mentioned above, in virtue of a faculty dated the twenty-eighth of April, 1831, and a tasteless and incongruous modern structure was then erected which has happily perished in its turn, and the present handsome church succeeded it in 1883. The tower, with its beautiful spire, is a still later addition.

An ancient house, of which there are no existing remains, but which is shown by Bishop Stafford's Register to have stood in the "Churchyard of St. Leonard's," was the abode of a recluse or anchorite. In this hermitage a certain woman called "Alice" obtained permission to reside, on the eighteenth of May, 1397. Again, in 1447, it became the retreat and refuge of a canoness of the Augustine Priory of Kildare, called Christina Holby, Kildare Priory having been then lately destroyed by the wild Irish, "through the misfortune of war."

These recluses are occasionally mentioned in old wills preserved at Exeter, amongst the Episcopal Registers.

Larkbeare

Larkbeare, in this parish, which stood at the bottom of Holloway Street, and on the right-hand side of the road going towards Exeter, has been recently removed. It was a very ancient and interesting residence, but it must not be confounded, as it has been, with the Manor of "Laurochesbeare" mentioned in Domesday, and which is situated in the Parish of Tallaton.

Larkbeare in St. Leonard's, sometimes written Leverbeare, Leverkebere, and Lavrockbeare, may have derived its name from some early owner who had migrated from the Tallaton manor; it is mentioned in a document amongst the municipal records as early as the first half of the thirteenth century, when it was "the land of Richard de Leverbeare," from whom it probably descended to Adam de Leverkbere, whose name occurs a few years later as a benefactor to the "Maudlyn Hospital."

John de Lerkebeare is mentioned in the will of Peter Sott, his kinsman, dated 1327.

From the Larkbeares this property passed to the Bowdens, since Nicholas Bowden had a license from Bishop Stafford in 1416 to have Divine offices performed within his mansion of Lerkebeare, within the Parish of St. Leonard's.

The Hull family probably succeeded the Bowdens, and held the property for many descents. John Hull of Larkbeare was Recorder of Exeter, with a salary of three pounds per annum, from 1379-1404. The arms of his descendant, Henry Hull of Larkbeare, Mayor of Exeter 1605, are tricked in a MS. belonging to the Chapter of Exeter, No. 3532 : "Sable, a chevron between three talbots' heads erased argent."

The Heralds' Visitation of 1564 gives six descents of this family, and a coat of arms with six quarterings, viz., Marney, Talbott of Exeter, Halwell, and D'Albertona (both brought in by Talbott), St. Clere, and Collyn of Cornwall.

Matthew Hull of Larkbeare, aged 26 in 1550, was the last of his name at Larkbeare. His son George sold the property to Sir Nicholas Smith, and migrated to Dorsetshire, having married Margaret, daughter of Walter Ralegh of Fardel, and widow of his neighbour Laurence Radford.

The Hulls are now extinct in the male line. Katherine, aunt of George Hull, married Thomas Pomfrett of Exeter, and had three sons and a daughter.

Sir Nicholas Smith was the son and heir of Sir George Smith, of Madford House, who has been already mentioned in connection with Heavitree. Larkbeare passed into the hands of the Eastchurch family, some time after the death of the son of Sir Nicholas Smith. It was afterwards in the Lavingtons, and Andrew Lavington owned it in 1714. Two years afterwards he advertised a portion of the old house to be let unfurnished. He ultimately became bankrupt, and then the property was sold to John Baring, of Palace Street, in 1737.

John Baring, and his brother Francis, were the two sons of Dr. Franz Baring, the Lutheran minister at Bremen. John Baring married Miss Vowler, the daughter of an opulent Exeter grocer, and had five sons and a daughter.

Two of their sons, John and Francis Baring, laid the foundation of the wonderful fortunes of the Baring family, when, in extension of the woollen manufactory at Larkbeare, they started a business in London as wool-importers, in connection with the Exeter business.

Francis Baring, as is tolerably well known, became a baronet, and was the ancestor of the Baring baronets and of the Baring peers.

His brother John soon returned to Exeter, where he acquired a good deal of property at Heavitree, as already noticed, and he was also the owner of the greater portion of St. Leonard's. He established a firm known as the Plymouth Bank, and, later on, the Devonshire Bank, which suspended payment in 1820, four years after his death. He married Anne, daughter of Francis Parker and cousin of Lord Boringdon, but both his sons died unmarried. His brother Charles was the ancestor of the Baring-Goulds.

Three years before the failure of the bank. Sir Thomas Baring bought the St. Leonard's and Heavitree property from his cousin John, who probably foresaw the clouds which were then lowering over the fortunes of the elder branch of the house of Baring, and thus endeavoured to provide for them

Lower Larkbeare, as it is now called, was originally rented from the Barings by Charles Bowring, who carried on there the business of a master tucker, and in 1822 he purchased the property from Sir Thomas Baring. His son, the late Sir John Bowring, was born in the old house at Larkbeare in 1792. The present mansion, now used as the Judges' lodgings, is of course a very modem erection.

Mount Radford House

Mount Radford House, which now gives its name to a very considerable suburban district, stands on the high ground opposite St. Leonard's Church.

In the time of Edward III. the place was known as "St. Leonard's Mount," and the level grounds stretching away from the house towards Topsham and Heavitree were called "St. Leonard's Down."

In 1773 there was not a single dwelling between Mount Radford House and the residence now known as Penrose Villa, nor south-west of the latter to Madford House, which is just within the limits of the Parish of Heavitree.

The permanent gallows, where the City prisoners were wont to be executed, stood on the left side of Magdalen Road, a little above the present turning to College Road, and is the only object marked on the old map of the property, of the date referred to.

Three pieces of cannon were placed in position on Mount Radford for the bombardment of Exeter, when Sir Thomas Fairfax invested the City in 1643.

Mount Radford House was originally built by Laurence Radford, whose name is not included in the Heralds' Visitation of 1620, but who was, without any manner of doubt, a younger son of the Radfords of Rockbeare, since he is entered in the Inner Temple lists as "Laurence Radford of Rockbeare."

Having purchased St. Leonard's Mount of the Hulls, he built thereon a "fayre house and called it Mount Radford," as Sir "William Pole tells us, and to this “fayre house," his son Arthur Radford succeeded in 1595, his mother having been Margaret, sister of the great Sir Walter Ralegh, who became, as I have already noticed, the second wife of her neighbour's son, George Hull.

Arthur Radford sold his property to the Clerk of the Assizes, Edward Hancock, of Combmartin, who married Dorothy, daughter of Amyas Bampfylde, of Poltimore, and left her the property.

She married secondly Sir John Doddridge, the Judge, who resided a great deal at Mount Radford until his wife died, in 1614, when her life-interest in Mount Radford expired, and the place had to be sold. Lady Doddridge and her husband are both buried in Exeter Cathedral, under a grand monument in one of the chantries on the north side of the Lady Chapel. The Judge died in Surrey in 1620.

Nicholas Duck, Recorder of Exeter, purchased Mount Radford in 1614. Although he matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford, as "the son of a plebeian," he carefully entered the name of the said "plebeian," Richard Duck of Heavitree, and of Philip Duck, father of the said Richard, in the Heralds' Visitation of 1620.

His brother, Arthur Duck, born in 1580 at Heavitree, was "Fellow of All Souls," Chancellor of the Dioceses of London and of Bath and Wells, and M.P. for Minehead. He also lent King Charles I. £6,000 to carry on the "War.

The portrait of that very worthy man, Nicholas Duck, of Mount Radford, may still be seen in the Exeter Guildhall. He died in 1628, and was succeeded by his son Richard, who, living as he did in the suburbs of Exeter, must have had rather a bad time of it during the Rebellion, for his house and grounds appear usually to have been occupied, for offensive purposes, by one party or the other.

Richard Duck, by the way, matriculated at Wadham College as "the son of an esquire." Nicholas Duck, before he purchased Mount Radford, probably resided in the Parish of St. Mary Arches, since Richard, his son, was baptised there on the fifth of May, 1603.

The latter's grandson, Richard Duck, died in 1695 without issue. His wife Elizabeth, daughter and co-heir of John Acland, Mayor of Exeter, survived until 1722-3, and she presented to the Rectory of St. Leonard's in 1708.

After her death the house at Mount Radford was tenanted by an Exeter merchant called Hansford. It was subsequently purchased by an eminent Quaker, and merchant, John Colsworthy, who became bankrupt.

In 1755 the property passed into the hands of John Baring for the sum of £2,100. The property now built over, and known as Mount Radford, was then turned into a park, and a carriage-drive was made through it, which emerged into the Magdalen Road just above the Barnfield.

For a short time subsequently to the death of John Baring, the second, in 1816, Mount Radford House was let furnished. After Sir Thomas Baring became the owner, the furniture was sold by auction in 1825; and in 1832, the Hoopers, who were builders, of Exeter, and others, purchased the park for the utilisation of their bricks and mortar, and thence originated the long terraces of attractive and comfortable suburban residences which we see to-day.

Mount Radford House was purchased by a proprietary college company in 1826, but the scheme did not answer. Ultimately it became a private school, which was conducted for many years successfully by the late Rev. R. Roper, who was succeeded by his son-in-law, the Rev., J. Ingle.

Shorn of much of its ancient fame, the old dwelling is now once again a private residence, and the grounds around it are still considerable and attractive.

I have previously had occasion to remark elsewhere that "the custom of giving names to wells and fountains is of the most remote antiquity." In pre-Reformation times, if a well had a remarkable situation, if its waters were bright and clear, or if it was considered to possess a medicinal quality, then some pious or charitable individual invariably went to the expense of enclosing the spring, which thereafter was known by the benefactor's name, or, more usually, by the appellation of some saint to whom the completed work had been dedicated.

An ancient well of this kind exists on the righthand side of the Wonford Lane, just beyond the turning from the Topsham Road, and is within the Parish of St. Leonard. It is known as "Parker's Well,'' and its waters have always been celebrated as a certain cure for persons afflicted with sore eyes.

The residence above it, long known as Parker's Well House, was probably erected by Thomas "Collyns," fourth in descent from John Collings, a younger son, by his second marriage with Alice Eveleigh, of Thomas Collings, of Ottery St. Mary, whose pedigree is recorded in the Devonshire Visitation of 1620.

Thomas "Collyns," of Parker’s Well House, was buried at St. Leonard's on the tenth of March, 1752. His son, Edward Collyns, of Parker's Well, survived until 1774.

Parker's Well is chiefly famous as having been the property and residence of the first Lord Gifford, who was the youngest son of an Exeter linen-draper, a Presbyterian, by his second wife, Dorothy Wearman.

Robert Gifford, as an articled clerk in the office of Mr. John Jones, an Exeter solicitor, from 1795, attracted the notice of Mr. John Baring, who befriended him, with the result that he was entered as a student at the Middle Temple in the first year of this century, and was called to the bar in 1808.

As Attorney-General, he was leader of the prosecution in the disgraceful trial of Queen Caroline for alleged adultery, and for his services on that occasion was raised to the peerage as Baron Gifford, of Parker's Well, in the Parish of St. Leonard, having previously been elevated to the bench as Chief Justice of the Common Pleas.

He at length became Master of the Rolls, and died at the early age of forty-seven, having married a daughter of the Rev., Edward Drewe, Vicar of Broadhembury, and thus allied himself with one of our county families.

Lady Gifford, whose husband had died at Dover, rather unexpectedly, continued to reside at Parker's Well House until her own death in 1828, when it became the residence of Mr. Wearman Gifford, the deceased peer's brother.

The present Lord Gifford, who is the grandson of the first lord, was born in 1849, served for some time in the army, with a commission in the 5th Regiment, and earned the Victoria Cross for his conspicuous gallantry in the Ashantee Campaign.

The earlier registers of the Parish of St. Leonard have been lost; those that remain commence—baptisms, 1713; marriages, 1708; burials, 1710. They are none of them originals.

Chapter IV—The Earldom of Devon

A Digression on the Families of Redvers and Courtenay

The fable as to the "Imperial Origin," Greek or Latin, of the Devonshire house of Courtenay, cannot even claim a traditional foundation, but it has been so frequently asserted of late years, that it has almost assumed the character of an established fact.

The monks of Ford Abbey have stated in their chartulary, which was compiled about the middle of the fourteenth century, and which has been preserved, that Reginald of Courtenay, the first of the name in England, was the "son of Prince Florus," and therefore the grandson of Louis le Gros, King of France from 1108-1137. But this descent has been long repudiated even by the Courtenays themselves.

It is a well-known fact, however, that Prince Peter of France, a brother of the said Prince Florus, married a certain Elizabeth Courtenay, and assumed his wife's name, and that their son, Peter Courtenay, took to wife Yolande, sister of Baldwin and Henry, Counts of Flanders, and the first Latin Emperors of Constantinople.

Henry died at Thessalonica, in 1217, when his race became extinct in the male line, and therefore his brother-in-law, Peter Courtenay, together with his wife the Princess Yolande, were invited to ascend the vacant throne.

Two of their sons, Robert and Baldwin Courtenay, subsequently reigned at Constantinople, from 1221 until the latter was ejected by Michael Palæologus in the year 1261. But these circumstances do not make our Devonshire Courtenays the descendants either of the "Latin Emperors" of their name, or of their deadly enemy, the Greek "Emperor Palæologus," as recently asserted more than once by writers who can have had but scant knowledge of mediaeval history.

The fabulous descent from Florus, has been most unfortunately perpetuated by Camden and Dugdale, whilst the modern pedigrees of Courtenay probably owe most of their discrepancies, and manifest inaccuracies, to the statements and suggestions of Ezra Cleveland, who had been tutor to Sir William Courtenay, of Powderham, and whose genealogical history of the family consequently appeared with some show of authority in 1735; since which, the old errors, usually associated with fresh ones, have been repeated over and over again in local histories and periodicals, and even in the columns of daily papers. So that, with but passing reference to other authors, it will be better to proceed here with what is actually known as to the origin of the Courtenays of Devonshire, and to deduce from this knowledge the possible connection between the latter family and the Emperors of Constantinople.

The first Courtenay on record was "Atho," a French Knight, universally admitted to have been of nameless origin, who built a castle at Courtenay, a small town in the Gatenois, sixty miles from Paris, early in the eleventh century, and took his name from his residence. His elder grandson, Milo, was certainly Lord of Courtenay Castle, whilst Josceline, the first Count of Edessa, whose territory extended on both sides of the Euphrates river, was, as certainly, a younger brother of the said Milo.

In the year 1152, one Reginald de Courtenay, a widower with two adult sons, came to this country in the train of Queen Eleanor, and he was the indisputable ancestor of the English Courtenays.

The usually accepted accounts as to the origin and history of this Reginald de Courtenay are merely traditional. He is said "to have been the son of the aforesaid Milo, grandson of Atho, to have married at an early age, Matilda, the sister of Guy de Donjon, and by her to have been the father of Elizabeth de Courtenay, the wife of Prince Peter of France, and therefore the grandfather of the first, Courtenay, Emperor of Constantinople. "He is. also said "to have given his said daughter the Castle of Courtenay, and the rest of his French possessions, as a marriage portion."

Such being the case, he must have disinherited his two sons in order to provide for his daughter; and, even then, it was not from these sons, but from the daughter, who remained in France, that the Courtenays of Constantinople descended.

And it must not be forgotten, that Eleanor of Guienne, then the wife of Henry of Anjou, subsequently our Henry II., was the divorced and disgraced wife of Louis VII. of France, the eldest brother of Prince Peter. Is it therefore at all probable that the near relatives of the latter could have been thus associated with her ?

Still, it is unnecessary to question the tradition more closely, since it only leads to the known facts —that one Reginald de Courtenay, a widower, accompanied by two sons, came to England, to seek his fortune, nearly a century after this country had been settled by the Normans, and that they were of sufficient importance, at all events, to at once secure royal protection and patronage, as all three of them contracted advantageous matrimonial alliances immediately after the accession of Henry II., as shown by the Exchequer Rolls, and other contemporary documents, by means of which the Courtenay history from that period has been ascertained step by step.

Robert de Courtenay, younger son of Reginald, who has been usually confounded with his nephew of the same name, married Alice de Romelé, daughter of the north country lord of Skipton, was Sheriff of Cumberland, and in the year 1209, the said Alice, as his widow, paid a fine to the Crown for recovery of her dowry.

Reginald and his elder son William, married two half-sisters, who were wards of the Crown, and great Devonshire heiresses, although in recent pedigrees of the family each has been given the wife who properly belonged to the other.

Reginald, whose second wife's name is still preserved in an existing deed, married Matilda, younger daughter of Maud, Baroness of Okehampton in her own right, by her second marriage with Robert Fitz-Ede, a natural son of King Henry I.

William de Courtenay, as shown by the Exchequer Rolls, became the husband of his stepmother's elder half-sister. Avis, whose father, Robert D'Aincourt, had been the first husband of the Baroness of Okehampton.

William de Courtenay and Avis his wife had issue Robert, their son and heir, who has been usually confounded with his uncle Robert, as stated above.

Avis de Courtenay, being then "widow" of William de Courtenay, died in the year 1209, on the thirty-first of July, and at her death, Robert de Courtenay, her son, inherited the Barony of Okehampton. She had previously succeeded to her half-sister's moiety of the said barony, whose husband, Reginald de Courtenay, grandfather of the said Robert, had died on the twenty-seventh of September, 1194, and thus she was enabled to leave the whole barony to her said son.

Robert at once executed a deed in favour of the Okehampton burgesses, which ig still extant, and by which their privileges are duly confirmed as they had them in the time of "Richard son of Baldwin" (De Brion), "Robert son of Reginald" (D'Aincourt), "and Maude de Abrincis his wife," and "Avis of Courtenay my mother."

This deed is witnessed by his uncle, Robert de Courtenay, Sheriff of Cumberland, who must have died very soon after.

One great point in previous efforts to establish the connection between the French and English Courtenays has always been the similarity of their armorial bearings, which were apparently, but not really, identical.

The former commemorated in their arms the current money of old Byzantium (Constantinople), for very obvious reasons, and bore "Gules, 3 bezants"; whilst the English family have invariably borne "Or, 3 torteaux," a coat which will be shown to have been derived at a much later date from Redvers, and which is exactly the reverse of the Byzantine coat, and constitutes a perfectly different bearing, although when carved in stone and uncoloured it would appear to be precisely similar.

The Earldom of Devon was given by Henry I., immediately after his accession to the throne, to his "trusty friend and counsellor," Richard Fitz-Gilbert, brother to that Baldwin de Brion, who had married Albreda, niece of William the Conqueror, and had received from his successful master the rich Barony of Okehampton, and the hereditary shrievalty of Devon.

This Baldwin was the great great grandfather of Avis and Maude, ultimately his co-heirs, and the respective wives of William and Reginald Courtenay.

Richard Fitz-Gilbert and his brother Baldwin, who were both at Hastings, were the sons of Gilbert, Earl of Brion, in Normandy, whose father, Godfrey, Earl of Owe, was an illegitimate son of Richard Le Bon, Duke of Normandy, and first cousin of Richard Fitz-Gilbert, son of Gilbert, officiary Earl of Owe, a natural son of the first duke, Richard, "Sans Peur," and this latter Richard Fitz-Gilbert was the ancestor of the House of Clare.

Richard Fitz-Gilbert, first Earl of Devon, who has been more than once previously confounded with his father's kinsman, Richard Fitz-Gilbert of Clare, was one of the earliest Norman settlers in this country, and although he did not receive at first such a large share of the plundered property of the Saxons, as fell to the lot of his brother Baldwin de Brion, yet he held six manors, as sub-tenant to the latter, five under the Earl of Mortaigne, uterine brother to King William; two, under William the Porter and Ralph de Pomeroy, respectively, besides the Manor of Levaton in that part of the parish of Ipplepen (now Woodland), which was his own demesne in the year 1087.

He assumed the name of Richard de Ripariis, afterwards anglicized into Redvers, or less commonly, Rivers, and, as I have said, King Henry I. created him Earl of Devon, conferred upon him the lordship of Tiverton, which continued to be the principal seat of his descendants until the reign of Queen Mary, and also gave him the great barony of Plympton.

He married Adeliza or Alice, daughter and coheir of William Fitz-Osborn, Earl of Hereford, and through this marriage he acquired the lordship of the Isle of Wight, and his successors were known as "Earls of Devon and Lords of the Isle" until the Countess Isabella sold the latter lordship to the Crown, shortly before her death in 1293.

Richard, first Earl of Devon, died in the year 1107; he was succeeded by his eldest son Baldwin "de Redvers," as second earl.

The latter, whose wife was also called Adeliza or Alice, founded several monasteries, notably those of Quarr, in the Isle of Wight, and the Priory of St. James, at Exeter. To the latter he gave, with other property, the Manor of Cotleigh, which his father had held under the Earl of Mortaigne at the time of the Domesday Survey.

He had several children, and one of them, a daughter Maud, married Ralph de Avenel, whose claim to the Barony of Okehampton was upset upon a writ of ejectment.

This Ralph de Avenel, who has been hitherto given a perfectly erroneous descent, was the son of William Fitz-Baldwin, son of Baldwin de Brion. The latter had three sons and two daughters; but of these, one son and two daughters only, proved to have a right to the Barony of Okehampton, and it is therefore more than probable that the Conqueror settled that property upon his niece Albreda and her heirs, and that William Fitz-Baldwin, the founder of Cowick Priory, and his brother Robert Fitz-Baldwin, Governor of Brion, in Normandy, were the sons of Baldwin de Brion, by a second marriage, which he has been always said to have contracted, although his second wife's name is still a mystery.

One of the younger sons of Baldwin de Redvers, second Earl of Devon, was known as "William de Vernon," so called because he was born at Vernon Castle, in Normandy, the seat of his grandfather, prior to his arrival in England, and who had died in 1107. He witnesses, as "William son of the Earl," his fathers deeds in favour of St. James' Priory as early as 1143, and has been invariably confounded with "William de Vernon" sixth Earl of Devon, who died in 1217, and whose daughter Mary, married Robert Courtenay. This is manifestly absurd for several reasons, chief amongst them, that the first William de Vernon lived three generations previously to the said Robert Courtenay, and it is hardly likely that the latter took to wife a lady who was contemporary with his grandmother, and if, for any special reasons, he had been induced to do so, he would have naturally expected a speedy release from his matrimonial entanglement. But Sir Robert Courtenay lived until 1242, whilst his wife survived him many years, is believed to have married again, and it is certain that in her widowhood she at length took the veil and retired to the cloister.

Baldwin de Redvers, second Earl of Devon, died on the fourth of June, 1155, at Quarr, in the Isle of Wight, and was buried there.

He was succeeded by his eldest son, Richard de Redvers, whose wife is called "Dionisia," in a deed dated 1157, transcribed by Dugdale, and copied by Oliver. This is probably a mistake of the scribe for Hawisia, or Avis, since she bore the latter name, and was the daughter of Reginald, Earl of Cornwall, natural son of Henry I. By this lady he had a son and two daughters—Maud, who married William de Romara, Earl of Lincoln, and Avis, wife of Sir Hugh Worthe, of Worth, in the parish of Washfield.

Amongst the Normans who settled in this county immediately after the Conquest, were three brothers, Ralph, Reginald, and Robert, who, in all probability, first came here with the Conqueror, on his march westward in the autumn of 1067, and in the immediate train of his trusted follower, William de Pollei.

The Domesday Record shows that, at the period of the Survey, 1080-1086, Ralph and Reginald were settled at Witheridge, the latter being lord of that manor, under Robert, Earl of Mortaigne, whilst Ralph was also lord of the manor of Worth in Washfield.

"Worde," "Weorth," or Worthe, commonly written Worth, is an Anglo-Saxon term, which signifies an enclosed estate.

Both Reginald and Robert also acquired property in Plymstock, and the greater portion of the lands of the three brothers was alike held under De Pollei, who had thus alienated, to sub-tenants, eight, of the twenty-one Devonshire manors, his royal master had given him out of the spoil of the conquered Saxons.

Reginald succeeded his brother Ralph at Worth. His eldest son, and successor there, was called after his other uncle, Robert, of Plymstock, and his posterity, at first "De Worthe," or "De la Worthe," in reference to their habitation, ultimately became known as "Worthe" without the prefix. The said Reginald de Worthe received the honour of knighthood, and Sir Hugh Worthe of Worth, Kt., was fourth in descent from him.

Richard, third Earl of Devon, died in 1162, and was succeeded by his son, Baldwin de Redvers, as fourth earl.

This Baldwin de Redvers married Adeliza or Alice, daughter and ultimate heir of Ralph de Doles, sometimes written Dale, of Berry, whose arms were, "Or, a lion rampant azure."

It has been invariably asserted, for some unaccountable reason, that he had "no issue by her, and that he was succeeded in the title by his brother Richard, who also died childless, and thus the earldom came to their uncle, William of Vernon"; but, in addition to the anachronism I have already explained, the existing armorial evidence assists to refute these statements. It seems perfectly clear, upon examination, that the fourth earl, who died almost immediately after his accession to the title, left two sons, Richard and William, and the latter, having been born at Vernon, was known as William de Vernon.

The mention by the latter, in a deed relating to Quarr Abbey, of "the Earl Baldwin my father, Adeliza my mother, and my senior brother Richard" has of course assisted the confusion as to his identity, since the William "de Vernon" who witnessed the St. James' charter in 1143 (two generations previously) was also the son of an Earl Baldwin, whose wife was Adeliza or Alice, and he also had a senior brother Richard.

So Richard de Redvers, whose widowed mother married secondly Andrew de Chauvens, and died between 1199-16 (at Egg Buckland, without issue, when her Manor of King's Carswell, granted her upon her second marriage, reverted to the Crown), succeeded his father (not brother) Baldwin as fifth earl, but only enjoyed his dignity for a short period. He died, childless, in 1166, although he had married Emma de Ponte Arche, and, perhaps, subsequently, Margaret Bissett; therefore his younger brother (not uncle), William de Vernon, came to the title as sixth earl.

This William de Vernon executed a deed, as earl, in favour of his cousin Robert, son of his aunt "Avis Worthe," and this deed is sealed with a seal of arms precisely similar to that subsequently adopted by the Courtenay Earls of Devon, viz., three roundels, surmounted by a label of three points, which have since been invariably blazoned "Or, three torteaux, a label of three points azure."

William de Vernon, sixth earl, married Mabel, daughter of the Earl of Mellent, and died on the tenth of September, 1217. He had three children—Baldwin, who predeceased him on the first of September, 1216; Joan, who married William Brewer, of Tor-Brewer, and died without issue; and Mary, the wife of Robert Courtenay.

Baldwin de Redvers, son of a father of the same name, by his wife Margaret Fitz-Gerald of Harewood, succeeded William de Vernon, his grandfather, as seventh earl. He married Amicia, daughter of Gilbert, Earl of Gloster, and died in 1245.

His son, also called Baldwin, then inherited the title, and became the eighth earl of his name. By his wife, Avis of Savoy, he had an only child, John de Redvers, who predeceased him, and the eighth earl departed this life in the year 1261.

His only sister, Isabella de Redvers, had been the second wife of William de Fortz (commonly called De Fortibus), eighth earl of Albemarle, who had died in 1256, leaving issue by her, Thomas de Fortibus, his successor, who died unmarried before 1269; Avice, wife of Ingelram de Percy, who died a childless widow in her brothers lifetime; and Avelina, wife of Edmund Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster, who had no family either, and died in 1274.

At the death of Baldwin, the eighth earl, his sister the Countess of Albemarle, became Countess of Devon in her own right, and Lady of the Isle of Wight.

The latter lordship she is said to have ultimately sold to the Crown, and its purchase from her, by Edward I. was declared to Parliament in 1301. The alleged amount of the purchase money was six thousand marks, but the claim was not set up until after the death of the countess, and there have always been strong suspicions that no such sale really took place, and that the Crown became possessed of this island, which had been the heritage of the Redvers family, in succession to the Fitz-Osborns, since the time of the second earl, by fraudulent means.

The Countess Isabella survived her offspring, and as these had all died without children, she was the last of the Redvers line who held possession of the Earldom of Devon. She departed this life in the year 1293.

The Redvers family did not entirely become extinct with the death of Isabella de Fortibus. One branch of the Avenels, the descendants of Maud de Redvers, daughter of the second earl, flourished at Loxbeare, in the male line, until the reign of Henry VI. The posterity of Maud, wife of the Earl of Lincoln, failed in or about 1195, but that of Avis, the other daughter of the third earl, by her husband, Sir Hugh Worthe, of Worth, in Washfield, held that same property, in the elder male line, until the death, without issue, of the late Rev. Reginald Worth, of Worth, on the twelfth of March, 1880, and she still has direct male representatives, descended from the Worthes of Compton Pole, in the Parish of Marldon, an estate acquired by marriage with a co-heir of Sir John Doddescombe, about 1347, and which, with land at Barnstaple, derived from Willington, likewise descended from Baldwin, second earl, was settled upon a second son, already referred to on a previous page. It is shown by family evidences and other records, that the final "e" was abandoned by the elder line in the time of Anthony "Worth" of Worth, 1517. It was continued by the second house, of Compton Pole, until long after their migration to Crediton, and was ultimately changed into "y" by John, son of George Worthe, in the first half of the seventeenth century. This John "Worthy" was a Puritan, and one of the Parliamentary Commissioners for the County of Devon in 1647.

The Courtenays, as descendants of Mary de Redvers, daughter of the sixth earl, naturally laid claim to the earldom of Devon, and the whole of the Redvers property, upon the death of Countess Isabella.

Fierce opposition, however, was made to their claim. The Bishop of Exeter, Walter Stapledon, proved himself their bitter opponent, and for the long space of forty-three years the Courtenays were not permitted to assume the title, which remained dormant, until at last, by a peremptory order from the Crown, they obtained possession of it, on February the twenty-second, 1335.

It is difficult to understand why the Courtenay pretensions should have been so long opposed. Since a female had held the earldom, in the person of Isabella de Fortibus, the descendants of another female would naturally claim to succeed her; but had William de Vernon been the person genealogists have hitherto made him, and had the third earl left, as asserted hitherto, two issueless sons, then Lady Avis Worthe, or her son, Robert, would have succeeded the last of these, and William de Vernon and his posterity would never have inherited at all.

It was not until the latter portion of the reign of Henry III. that heraldry became reduced to a science, and prior to this, although armorial ensigns were frequently assumed and used, and appear upon seals of early date, yet they were generally so assumed arbitrarily, and were not of necessity hereditary.

In after ages, however, the charges upon old seals were very often taken as evidence of ancient coat armour, and these charges were attributed, as real armorials, to people who had been long dead, and the use of them as hereditary armorials was confirmed by the heralds to their descendants.

It is certain, from seals still in existence, that the Earls of Devon, from the time of Baldwin de Redvers, the second earl, down to William de Vernon, the sixth earl, possessed and used a seal which bore the device of a griffin trampling upon a small animal, like a dog; and the arms, therefore, which were in after years attributed to these earls, were founded upon this seal, and have since been blazoned "Gules, a griffin segreant or."

That William de Vernon, Earl of Devon, had a seal of his own, with a device similar to the arms now borne by the Courtenays, "Or, three torteaux, a label of three points azure," is also quite certain, as explained above.

There is no evidence that either of the seals I have described were used by their owners for any other purpose than to confirm their deeds and charters; but we are told by one old historian that Richard de Redvers, the fifth earl, took for arms "the blue lion," which was clearly derived from "Doles" or “Dale," and, as it is sufficiently evident now that his mother was "Alice, daughter and heir of Ralph de Doles," he very probably may have adopted her badge or cognisance, although, according to prevalent heraldic laws, he had no real right to do so in his said mother's lifetime.

According to the "Pedigrees of Nobility" (MS. Harl. 1441), Richard's great-grandson, who survived until 1261, first assumed this coat of Doles, "Or, a lion rampant azure "; and this is very probable, because during the latter portion of this earl's lifetime the science of armory was much studied, and such ensigns had then become, or were fast becoming, hereditary.

It is possible that William de Vernon adopted the seal, similar to the present Courtenay arms, to denote his affinity to Geoffry de Bouillon (for which reason. Gibbon suggests, the Courtenays themselves adopted them), who is said to have borne these arms in the Crusade in which he was famous. As for the "label," it has been invariably used to distinguish the eldest son, or elder line, since the fourteenth century, but labels constantly appear, as in the case of William de Vernon's seal, early in the thirteenth, and in the earliest examples they were not intended as a mark of cadency. The label is simply a representation of the iron prongs, or feet, "lambels," which were attached to the crosses carried by pilgrims, that they might erect them in the ground without any difficulty at their various halting places; and therefore it was naturally adopted by the Crusaders as a cognizance, on account of its association with the great emblem of the faith.

From the time of William de Vernon, 1217, we hear nothing more of the label on his seal until the year 1335.

Robert Courtenay, grandson of Reginald de Courtenay, succeeded, as I have said, to the Barony of Okehampton at the death of his mother. Avis, widow of William Courtenay, on the thirty-first of July, 1209. He used a seal of arms, as shown by his charter to the burgesses of Okehampton, already referred to, precisely similar to those now borne by the municipality of Okehampton, and which have been assigned to Baldwin de Brion, the first Baron of Okehampton and the great-great-grandfather of the said Robert's mother, Avis—"Chequy or and azure, over all two bars arg."

Robert married, as I have said, Mary, youngest daughter of William de Redvers, of Vernon, sixth Earl of Devon, and the arms of his mother's family—his assumption of which clearly shows that in 1209 he had no knowledge of any armorials to which he was entitled on his father's side, that is, in right of Courtenay—are on the right, or dexter side of the seal, space being left on the sinister side for his wife's arms, the marshalling of which should at that period have been effected by "dimidiation." But the sinister side of the shield on this seal is left perfectly blank, which proves further, that his wife, Mary, had not then adopted any device, heraldic or otherwise, although a seal of her mother-in-law, Avis de Courtenay, exhibits the figure of a woman standing, which, however, has no armorial significance.

Robert Courtenay had two brothers, William and Reginald. He served the office of Sheriff of Devon in 1232, and was also Sheriff of Oxford. He died at his Manor of Iwerne Courtenay, County Dorset, on the twenty-sixth of July, 1242, and his body was brought to Devonshire and was interred at Ford Abbey.

His widow, who ultimately inherited the property of her sister, Joan de Briwere, is said to have married a second husband, Peter Prous, Lord of Gidleigh, but there is no absolute evidence of this. It is certain, however, that she was for many years a widow, professed as a nun, and became Abbess of Quarr, in the Isle of Wight, which had, at first, a nunnery adjacent to the abbey. She was subsequently Abbess of Pratelles, in Normandy, with which her mother's family, the Mellents, were connected.

Sir Robert Courtenay left very little personal property. By Mary, his wife, he had two sons and a daughter; the latter, called Avis, after her grandmother, was married to John Neville. He was succeeded in the Barony of Okehampton by his eldest son, John Courtenay, who married Isabella, daughter of Hugh de Vere, Earl of Oxford, died in 1273, and was buried at Ford Abbey.

Sir Hugh Courtenay, Knight, their son and heir, born 1250, took to wife Eleanor, daughter of Hugh De Spencer. She died in1238 and her husband was laid by her side in the conventual church of Cowick, February, 1291, just previously to the death of Isabella de Fortibus, Countess of Devon and Albemarle.

Hugh de Courtenay, his eldest son, had been born in 1275, and duly succeeded to the Barony of Okehampton, and, immediately upon the death of the said Isabella de Fortibus, he took possession of Tiverton Castle and of the rest of the Redvers property, as heir of his great-grandmother, Mary, he being then, through her, the representative of William Redvers, of Vernon, sixth Earl of Devon; and he also laid claim to the earldom.

But, as I have said already, his claim to this dignity met with much opposition, and the authorities, both in this county and elsewhere, distinctly declined either to pay him the "dues," or to recognize the title of Earl of Devon, which he had ventured to assume, so the dignity was virtually dormant for more than forty years.

By his wife Agnes, daughter of Lord St. John, he had four sons and two daughters, and the second of his sons, Sir Hugh Courtenay, married Margaret de Bohun, daughter of Humphry, Earl of Hereford, and granddaughter, through her mother Elizabeth Plantagenet, of King Edward I.

This marriage naturally increased the Courtenay influence at Court, so on the twenty-second of February, 1335, the aforesaid Hugh Courtenay, Baron of Okehampton, became Earl of Devon, by virtue of a peremptory order from the King, Edward III., and which was addressed to the Sheriff" of Devon, from the Court then at Newcastle upon-Tyne. He died in 1340.

His eldest son John Courtenay had been admitted into Holy Orders at Crediton, on the twenty-third of March, 1313, although his reasons for having adopted the clerical profession have always been incomprehensible. He had become Abbot of Tavistock in 1334, but he is described as having been throughout his career, "very vain and much addicted to dress," and to some other more reprehensible "pomps and vanities of this wicked world."

He permitted "feasting and revelry "in the private chambers of the Abbey, and, as shown by our Episcopal Registers, he was more than once censured by the Bishop of Exeter, for riotous living, and he involved the community over which he presided, to the extent of over £1,300, an enormous amount in those days.

He survived until 1349, and upon his father's death, he succeeded, nominally, to the Barony of Okehampton, but he was passed over in the succession to the Earldom, which was conferred upon his brother Hugh, whose wife, Lady Elizabeth Bohun, was the king's cousin.

This illustrious Peer, one of the original Knights of the Garter, had a large family.

His sixth son. Sir Philip Courtenay, was seated at Powderham, which estate had been his mother's dowry. He built the castle there, early in the reign of Richard II.

Another of the sons, William, became Archbishop of Canterbury. Another, Sir Peter, was Constable of Windsor, grand standard bearer, and chamberlain. He died in 1405, and lies buried in Exeter Cathedral.

The Earl's eldest son, Sir Hugh Courtenay, born1327, was summoned to Parliament, as Baron Courtenay, in 1371. He left a son Hugh, who married Matilda, daughter of Joan Plantagenet, daughter of Edmund, Earl of Kent, by her second husband, Thomas Holland. Her third husband was the Black Prince.

But both Lord Courtenay, and his only son, predeceased the earl, who, in consequence of the failure of his grandson's issue, was succeeded at his death, in 1377, by another grandson, Edward Courtenay, elder brother of Sir Hugh Courtenay, of Haccombe and Boconnoc, and son of Edward Courtenay, of Godlington, who had also died in his father's lifetime.

This Edward, born in 1357, was Admiral of the King's Fleet, and some time Earl Marshal of England. He subsequently had the misfortune to lose his eyesight, and is known in history as the "blind earl."

Genealogists have held divided opinions as to the mother of his children, since Mills has stated that his wife was Eleanor, daughter of the Earl of March; and Brooke, York Herald (than whom there cannot be a more untrustworthy authority, since he would have said or written anything that first occurred to him in opposition to Vincent or Camden), agrees with Mills.

But the Roll of Parliament, first Edward IV., shows conclusively that "Eleanor, second daughter of Roger Mortimer, died childless," and other evidence, of equal value, goes to prove that she was never the wife of the earl, who was two generations her senior, but of his young son Edward, who predeceased him.

There was once armorial evidence at Tiverton, which confirmed the marriage of the earl, as set down in most of the pedigrees of his family, to Matilda, daughter of Thomas Lord Camoys, but she can hardly have been the mother of his children, since the eldest of these, Edward, was knighted in 1399, and the second of them, Hugh, who succeeded to the earldom, was "aged thirty at his father's death," and must therefore have been born in 1389.

Matilda Camoys, without any doubt a second wife, and very much her husband's junior, survived the earl forty-eight years, and died in 1467, as proved by the "Inquisition" taken after her decease—seventh Edward IV., No. 4.

The second son of the "blind earl," Hugh Courtenay, succeeded his father on the fifth of December, 1419. He was also a distinguished naval officer, and Lord High Steward of England. He married a daughter of the Lord Talbot, and was followed by his son, Thomas, in 1422, who married Margaret Beaufort.

Up to this time, through all the long period of two hundred and seventy years, the English Courtenays had been uniformly fortunate, whilst those of their name in France had been equally notorious for their miseries and troubles.

Peter of Courtenay had, as we have seen, ascended the throne of Constantinople in 1217, but two years later he had died in captivity, and during the succeeding years, and until their final expulsion in 1261, his sons had certainly done nothing to redeem the prestige of their family.

The short reign of Robert de Courtenay, the eldest of these, was little but a record of calamity and disgrace.

His brother Baldwin, associated during his minority with John of Brienne, ruled alone after the year 1237, and then immediately commenced that "remarkable series of mendicant progresses" which have rendered his name memorable. He came to England on two occasions, but on his first visit he was stopped at Dover, and received a present of seven hundred marks, on condition of his immediate departure from these shores.

During the whole of the twenty-five years of his reign he was reduced to the direst extremities for want of money. He dissipated the whole of the residue of his grandmother's dowry, which had come into his hands, until he had literally nothing left but the Marquisate of Nâmur, and the Lordship of Courtenay, both of which he endeavoured to alienate.

But Louis IX. objected very strongly to the sale of Courtenay Castle, and it was ultimately annexed to the royal demesne. Baldwin, however, contrived to obtain a considerable sum from his royal kinsman, which he frittered away in useless expeditions.

When in his palace at Constantinople, he tore down neighbouring houses, in order that he might use their materials for winter-fuel; and he stripped the lead from the roofs of the churches, in order to provide for his daily expenses.

He at length raised some small loans, at usurious interest, from the Italian merchants, and at that time "pledged'' his son and heir Philip, who was left at Venice as security for the debt.

Constantinople was rich in "relics," and, after one or two previous redemptions, the "Holy Crown of Thorns" was finally sent to Paris in exchange for a sum of ten thousand silver marks.

"A large and authentic portion of the true Cross; the baby-linen of the Son of God; the lance, sponge, and other instruments of the Passion; the rod of Moses, and a portion of the skull of St. John the Baptist," soon rejoined their ancient companion, the "Crown of Thorns," in its new resting-place in the Gallic capital; and the money received for them was unfortunately quickly spent.

Such a state of things could not last for ever: the Latins were encompassed on every side, and in 1261 Michael Palæologus marched into Constantinople, and the Emperor Baldwin de Courtenay fled to Italy, where he died in 1274.

The line of the Counts of Edessa had failed with that Joscelin de Courtenay, who had "vanished" in the fall of Jerusalem, and his name, as Gibbon tells us, had been lost by the marriages of his two daughters "with a French and a German baron."

As for the many younger descendants of Prince Peter and Elizabeth Courtenay, his wife, they all sank lower and lower in the social scale, and after the death of Robert, Great Butler of France, they passed, from princes, to barons.

The next generations were amalgamated with the simple gentry of Tanlay and of Champignelles. Some were soldiers, and some, those of the branch of Dreux, were merely of the condition of husband men or paupers.

They kept up their traditions, however, in one or other of their branches, and on the accession of the Bourbons these strenuously asserted the royalty of their descent, and, one of them having been accused of murder, in 1616, claimed to be tried as a "prince of the blood."

All their petitions, however, were scornfully rejected, one after the other, by the French government, and their "hopeless pursuit of modem honours" was terminated by the decease of the last male of their name, Charles Roger de Courtenay, in 1730; and the title of "Princess of the Blood Royal," which had been assumed by Heléne de Courtenay, Marchioness de Beaufremont, was suppressed by an edict of the Parliament of Paris, on the seventh of February, 1737.

And these reverses of the French Courtenays had long -cast a sort of melancholy halo around their name, when Thomas, Earl of Devon, succeeded his father at Tiverton in 1422, and with him began a succession of misfortunes for the English house, which may indeed be said to have lingered with it ever since, and which supports the prevalent idea as to the repetition of history.

This Thomas, Earl of Devon, being allied to the family of Beaufort, was naturally devoted to the interests of the house of Lancaster. He died at the Abbey of Abingdon, from the effects, as it is believed, of poison, whilst in attendance on Henry VI. on the third of February, 1458, at a meeting which had been arranged in the vain hope of effecting a reconciliation between the adverse parties.

His eldest son, also called Thomas, held the earldom but three years. He was taken prisoner at the bloody battle of Towton, and was immediately afterwards attainted and executed, his head being set over the gates of York.

His brother, Henry, never succeeded to the title, as the attainder was not removed, yet Edward IV. permitted him to enjoy a portion of the family property, as a means of procuring his adherence to the Yorkist cause. But Henry retained the principles of his father and brother, engaged in a conspiracy against the King, and was beheaded at Salisbury, on the fourth of March, 1466.

Then Tiverton Castle was given to Humphry Stafford, of Southwick, who was created Earl of Devon on the seventeenth of May, 1470, but he was beheaded by his own party for desertion, three months subsequently.

John Courtenay, youngest brother of Henry, regained possession of the earldom, and estates pertaining to it, during the temporary restoration of the Lancastrians, but he fell, sword in hand, at Tewkesbury, together with his kinsman, the second Courtenay of Boconnoc, on the fourteenth of May, 1471. Thus the three brothers and their cousin sealed their fidelity to the Red Rose, and thus expired the line of Edward Courtenay, "the Blind Earl"

Immediately after the Battle of Bosworth, Henry VII. restored the estates to Edward, grandson of Sir Hugh Courtenay, of Haccombe and Boconnoc, brother of the blind earl, and who was therefore heir-at-law. He was created Earl of Devon by patent, "to him and the heirs male of his body,” on the twenty-sixth of October, 1485.

This earl married his cousin, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Philip Courtenay, of Molland, and was the father of Sir William Courtenay, created a Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Henry VII.

This Sir William Courtenay took to wife Katherine Plantagenet, daughter of King Edward IV. and youngest sister of Elizabeth, King Henry's queen. It was a most unfortunate marriage; Henry VII. soon became jealous of his brother-in-law, and shut him up in the Tower, "to keep him out of harm's way," and in the Tower he, and his son and grandson, practically resided, as prisoners.

For although the Princess Katherine, or, as princesses were called in those days, the Lady Katherine, was the youngest sister, yet, as the intermediate sisters had no children, the Courtenays came very near to the succession to the Crown. So in the Tower Sir William remained, all through the reign of the first Tudor monarch.

Henry VIII. released his uncle from captivity, and intended to restore him to the earldom, which he had forfeited by his attainder. The letters patent were made out for this purpose on the tenth of May, 1511, but he was never "invested," and he died at Greenwich, of pleurisy, within a month of that date.

By the express commands of the King, he was buried with the honours of an earl, to which dignity his son Henry, the King's first cousin, succeeded, and the latter was further elevated to the Marquessate of Exeter, on the eighteenth of June, 1525. Fourteen years afterwards he was attainted, imprisoned in the Tower, and beheaded on the ninth of June, 1539.

His mother, the Princess Katherine, usually resided either at Colcombe Castle, in the Parish of Colyton, or else at Tiverton Castle, often in great poverty. There are still traditions in Devonshire as to the "quiet, proud, gentle lady," who used to walk about Tiverton with her little daughter Margaret, who, folks say, was choked by a fishbone in 1512, and lies buried at Colyton.

This tradition is supported by an inscription on the tomb at Colyton, of much later date, which sets forth that the said "Margaret was the daughter of William Courtenay, Earl of Devon, and the Princess Katherine, and that she died at Colcombe, choked by a fishbone, A.D. 1512.

But Margaret Courtenay is mentioned in the will of her grandfather, which was proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury on the eleventh of July, 1509, and this lady is also mentioned by her mother in a document dated 1511 (3rd Henry VIII.), and signed "Kath. Devonshire," in which she states that Margaret, her daughter, is now above thirteen years of age, and that she proposes "to procure for her a fitting marriage."

This was found for her, in the person of Henry, Lord Herbert, eldest son of Charles Somerset, Earl of Worcester; and she was living at Richmond, in attendance on the infant Princess Mary, on the second of July, 1520. She died before her husband, who married, secondly, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Anthony Browne.

So we can only conclude that the inscription at Colyton is a mendacious inscription, and was invented to support the tradition about "little choke bone," as the "natives" call her, and which, like many other traditions about the Courtenays, can have had no foundation in fact.

Edward Courtenay, the only surviving son of the Marquess of Exeter, by his second wife, Gertrude Blount, daughter of the Lord Mountjoy, was only twelve years old at the time of his father’s execution. The King kept him in the Tower, a close The Earldom of Devon, 103 prisoner, during the remainder of his reign, and there he continued all through that of Edward VI.

When Mary came to the throne she was at once attracted by the personal appearance of her young kinsman, then twenty-six years old. The portraits of him still extant show that he must have been of tall and slight figure, with a typical Courtenay face, and that he had a very plentiful supply of natural light brown hair.

During the whole of his unhappy life, he had scarcely enjoyed two years of liberty, until the Queen first saw, and loved him; but Mary was eleven years his senior, whilst her sister, who came with her to the Tower, was then only twenty years of age; it can scarcely be wondered at that Courtenay, whilst paying, as in duty bound, the greatest deference to the Queen, secretly preferred Elizabeth.

So that, although Mary at once restored him to his estates and created him Earl of Devon, "to him and his heirs male for ever," on the third of September, 1553, he seems to have carried on a private flirtation with Elizabeth, and to have actually pledged his faith to her.

Mary was indeed angry when she heard of this intrigue with her sister : had she not been, she could scarcely have been her father's daughter; and her indignation was increased by the rising of the Carews in Devonshire, and by the accusations of Sir Thomas Wyat.

So Courtenay and Elizabeth were both committed to the Tower, and the earl saved himself by repudiating any idea of serious intentions towards the princess'.

Mary never disgraced him, but she declined to see him again; and Elizabeth detested the very name of Courtenay ever afterwards.

The unfortunate youth asked permission to travel, and this was accorded him by the Queen. He went through France to Italy, and ultimately arrived at Padua, where he died, on the fourth of October, 1556. It has been always believed that he was poisoned on suspicion of being a Lutheran.

At his death, the estates at Tiverton, Okehampton, and elsewhere, were divided amongst the representatives of the four daughters of Sir Hugh Courtenay, of Haccombe and Boconnoc, the nieces of Edward, the “Blind Earl."

By an Inq. P.M., 3rd and 4th Philip and Mary, these were found to be "Reginald Mohun, Alexander Arundell, John Vivian the younger, Margaret, wife of Richard Buller, and John Trelawny."

"Reginald Mohun" was great-great-grandson of William Mohun, of Hall, and of his wife, Isabell Courtenay. In the partition of property he acquired Okehampton Castle, and two-fourths of its manor. He was created a baronet in 1612, and his son, Sir John Mohun, was raised to the peerage, as Baron Mohun of Okehampton, on the fifteenth of April, 1628.

The fifth Lord Mohun was killed in a duel with the Duke of Hamilton, in 1712. He left an only daughter, Mary, who married the second Lord Doneraile, and was ancestress of the present peer.

"Alexander Arundell," of Talverne, was great-grandson of Sir John Arundell, and of Maud Courtenay. His grandson, Sir Thomas Arundell, married Bridget, niece of the aforesaid Sir Reginald Mohun, Bart., and their great-grandson, Robert Arundell, was the last male of this branch of the Arundell family. His representative, Elizabeth Lydia, wife of Mr. W. H. Shippard, declared herself to be the "senior co-heir of the line of Edward, Earl of Devon."

"John Vivian the younger" was the son of John Vivian and of Elizabeth, eldest daughter and co-heir of Thomas Tretherffe, who was the grandson of John Tretherffe and of his wife, Elizabeth Courtenay. The latter is called, in a pedigree entered, at Heralds' College, 1531, "first daughter of Hugh Courtenay." John Vivian was the ancestor of Sir V. D. Vyvian, Bart., of Trelowarren.

"Margaret, wife of Richard Buller," was younger sister of Elizabeth Vivian, and therefore the other co-heir of Thomas Tretherffe. She married, first, Edward Courtenay, of Wotton, by whom she had a son Peter, ancestor of the Courtenays long of Landrake. Through her second marriage with "Richard Buller," of Tregarrick, she became the ancestress of the Bullers of Shillingham and Downes; and General Sir Redvers H. Buller, v.C, K.C.B., of Downes, is tenth in direct descent from her.

"John Trelawny'' was the great-grandson of a Trelawny of the same name, by his wife Florence Courtenay; their marriage settlement is dated 1468 (8th Edward IV) of Exeter. from Florence Courtenay, and is now the only direct male heir of either of the four daughters of Sir Hugh Courtenay, of Boconnoc, the grandson of an elder brother of Sir Philip Courtenay.

But the male descendants of that Sir Philip Courtenay, of Powderham and Moreton Hampstead, sixth son of Hugh, Earl of Devon, and Lady Margaret Bohun, the first King Edward's grand-daughter, were still flourishing in the riverside home of their ancestors in 1556.

During the preceding one hundred and sixty-five years they had preserved their estates and local position. They had intermarried with the Hungerfords, the Bonvilles, the Edgcumbes, and the Pouletts, and with many of the most popular West Country families besides.

They had given sheriffs to Devonshire, knights to the Wars and to Parliament, bishops to Exeter and Norwich, and still occupied the social position to which their ancestry entitled them; their connection, moreover, with the elder line had been always remembered, and there had been constant intercourse between them and their kinsfolk at Tiverton; and when the news of the Earl's death came home from Italy, Sir William Courtenay, of Powderham, was "heir male" to Edward, his far away kinsman, and the rightfull inheritor of the earldom.

But Sir William was killed at the siege of St Quentin in the following year, 1557, and his son and successor, also called William, was at that time only four years old.

He grew up to man's estate, was High Sheriff of Devon, and he it was who is said to have drawn his sword upon the judge at Exeter, and to have threatened to "make his Lordship's body as red as his scarlet gown."

His first wife, and the mother of his family, was Elizabeth, daughter of Henry, Earl of Rutland; and he lived all through the reigns of Elizabeth and James, and far into that of Charles I.

For a good many years of his life he resided in Ireland, as one of the "undertakers" for the settlement of that country. He obtained a grant of Newcastle, with a large quantity of the confiscated land of the Earl of Desmond, and thus laid the foundation of the great Limerick property which has since been enjoyed by his descendants.

He died in 1630, and never made any attempt to recover the earldom. It is not clear that he knew anything about his right to it. The estates, which had descended with it from the commencement of the twelfth century, had been dispersed, as I have shown, amongst Mohuns, Arundells, Tretherffes, and Trelawnys, and their descendants; and Elizabeth had a rancorous hatred for the memory of the last earl.

It is true that the Powderham property and its dependencies would have amply supported the dignity of the ancient title, had Powderham's lord acquired it; but this he failed to do, and James I., upon his accession, made Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, Earl of Devon, by patent, on the twenty-first of July, 1603. This creation, however, fortunately became extinct again in 1606.

Sir William's son, Francis, predeceased him. His grandson, Sir William Courtenay, was created a baronet in 1644, but is reported to have "disdained the title"; at all events, he never assumed it. He married Margaret, daughter of Sir William Waller, the Parliamentary general, by his wife, the heiress of Reynell of Ford; and thus acquired the Wolborough estates, which have since been developed into the extremely valuable property at Newton Abbot.

His grandson, however, styled himself "second baronet"; he was also Member of Parliament for Devon. By his wife, Lady Ann Bertie, he had two surviving sons, William, and Henry Reginald.

The first of these became Viscount Courtenay ten days only before his death, by patent dated the sixth of May, 1762.

The viscounty expired with his grandson, who never married, but whose claim to the Earldom of Devon, created by Queen Mary, was admitted by the House of Lords on the fifteenth of March, 1831, and it was found then that all his predecessors, from the time of Sir William, the hero of St. Quentin, had been really Earls of Devon, although the title had been dormant for the long period of two hundred and seventy-five years.

The earl died in May, 1835, when, although the viscounty became extinct, the greater honour, together with the baronetcy, passed to William Courtenay, his second cousin, son of Henry Reginald Courtenay, Bishop of Exeter, and grandson of Henry Reginald Courtenay, M.P., brother of the first viscount.

And thus this ancient earldom has fallen into The Earldom of Devon, 109 the possession of its present owners; and nothing can be more singular than have been the vicissitudes of the Courtenay race, in its three lines of Edessa, of Constantinople, and of England. Whether the latter branch has any real connection with the two former, matters little now; the English Courtenays do not require the proof of such a connection to add lustre to their name, which long since became identified with the history of England, first as Barons of Okehampton, then as Earls of Devon, and as soldiers, as statesmen, as Royal councillors, as prelates, and as mates for the daughters of our proudest English nobles and for Royalty as well.

The fortunes and misfortunes of the English Courtenays are equalled only by those of their French namesakes; but, unlike the latter, the former have always been enabled to stem the tide of adversity, and to keep themselves on the surface of the most troubled waters. Often indeed have they been made to realise the signification of their famous motto, “Ubi lapsus quid feci?” but their falls have hitherto been invariably the precursors of fresh splendour, and, like Phoenix, they have "revived from their ashes" to continue the nobility of their illustrious name.

And they have always been popular with their fellow-men, always easy and light-hearted under the most depressing conditions of their varied fortunes; ever given, each in his generation, to hospitality and to acts of neighbourly kindness. "Truest friend and noblest foe.

"To their most recent troubles it is unnecessary to do more than refer. The causes of them are well known and widely regretted, and they sadly embittered the lives of the last two peers. Let us hope that brighter days are in store for their successors, and that Powderham Castle, the ancient dowry of a king’s grand-daughter, will long continue to be the home of a Courtenay Earl of Devon.

The arms of the Courtenays, as at present borne by them, should be thus blazoned: "Quarterly 1st and 4th Or, 3 torteaux," assumed to be for Courtenay; "2nd and 3rd Or, a lion rampant azure," assumed to be for Redvers.

A few further remarks as to these arms appear to be absolutely necessary.

The primitive bearing of the Courtenays is known to have been "Gules, 3 bezants," and these were evidently borne by the Courtenay emperors in virtue of their connection with old Byzantium, afterwards known as Constantinople.

But it has, I think, been conclusively shown that the English Courtenays could not have inherited arms from their French namesakes, even if Elizabeth Courtenay was really the daughter of Reginald, as she is supposed to have been, because it was Elizabeth Courtenay's son who was the first Courtenay Emperor of Constantinople,, and assumed these arms as Emperor, and the Devonshire Courtenays are certainly not descended from Elizabeth Courtenay's son.

Moreover, we have seen that Robert Courtenay, the husband of Mary Redvers, was ignorant of his claim to any arms of this description, and that he sealed with armorials which have been ascribed invariably to his mother's ancestor, Baldwin of Brion.

And we have also seen that William de Vernon, sixth Earl of Devon, was the son of the lady who brought in the "blue lion," and that he sealed with a seal of arms precisely similar in appearance to the arms of the French Courtenays, save for the label, although in reality it was quite dissimilar; but in those days no means had been invented to express tinctures otherwise than by the use of actual colours, and the latter could not be shown upon a seal.

Moreover, the seal of William de Vernon, which he used as Earl of Devon, had, in addition to the three roundels, a label of three points.

So that the seal of William de Vernon may be blazoned, as the arms of the Devonshire Courtenays were afterwards emblazoned.

William de Vernon's elder brother, Richard, is said to have been the first to use the "blue lion." According to modern heraldic ideas, he had no right to do so, without special license, and merely because his mother was an heiress, since he predeceased her. William de Vernon himself only survived his mother about twelve months, and his eldest son predeceased him.

But if the seventh earl had inherited, or adopted, his grandfather's seal, he would, according to modem usage, have borne, "Quarterly 1 and 4, Or, 3 torteaux, a label of three points azure—Redvers; 2 and 3, Or, a lion ramp, azure—Doles.

The griffin, long used by the Redvers family on their seals, was merely a device, and it was abandoned entirely about the end of the reign of King John; and although the griffin seal may have passed from father to son, yet it disappeared so soon, that it is improbable that it was ever looked upon as an hereditary armorial ensign. The statement of the heralds of a much later date, that it was so used, was merely an heraldic assertion, founded upon the device on the seals which are still extant; and similar assertions, as to the arms borne by Edward the Confessor, and other illustrious people who flourished at a very much earlier period than he did, and at a later period also, may most of them be traced to a similar origin.

It is very improbable that Robert de Courtenay or his immediate posterity ever used the arms now borne by his descendants; and his wife was not an heiress, but merely what is known to genealogists as an "eventual heir."

The high tomb in Exeter Cathedral has a series of coats of arms, which surround its base, and which exemplify the usually received account of the descent of the English Courtenays from the French knight, Atho. This tomb, however, is quite valueless for all purposes of real evidence, as it was not erected until after the death of Hugh Courtenay, the second earl of his name, and was dedicated in 1381. His wife, Margaret (De Bohun), died at Powderham, on the sixteenth of December, 1391.

The tomb originally stood in the nave, but has now been removed to the south transept. The row of shields commences on the north side, and runs from east to west. The first ten shields alike bear "Or, 3 torteaux” for Courtenay tinctured in the proper colours.

First—Atho, the French knight, founder, and seneschal, of Courtenay Castle, impaling a blank shield.

Second—Josceline, son of Atho, impaling Montgomery.

Third—Milo de Courtenay, son of Josceline, impaling Nevers.

Fourth—Reginald de Courtenay, the asserted son of Milo, impaling a blank shield for Donjon, his first wife.

Fifth—The same Reginald de Courtenay, impaling Arg. five chevronels gules (D'Abrincis), for his second wife, Matilda Fitz-Ede, daughter and co-heir of Maud D'Abrincis.

Sixth—France, within a bordure engrailed gules, impaling Elizabeth Courtenay, asserted daughter of Reginald. As they now appear, the arms of Peter of France are emblazoned. Azure, 3 fleurs de lys or, a bordure engrailed gules.

These, the bordure excepted, are the modern arms of France, which were not used by the French monarchs, prior to the second half of the fourteenth century, when Charles V. thus limited the number of the lilies. Their limit in the present instance, however, may have been intended as a mark of cadency, which was occasionally effected by a similar suppression, although, more usually, by an addition, of charges. The bordure is an undoubted indication of cadency, but the tincture, gules, with the field azure, is unusual, although the rule that interdicted "colour upon colour," was not invariably followed by foreign heralds; but on the whole I think that Prince Peters shield has suffered considerably from more than one "restoration."

Seventh—William Courtenay, son of Reginald, impaling three (should be five) chevronels gules, for Avis, daughter and co-heir of Maud D'Abrincis and half-sister to the aforesaid Matilda Fitz-Ede.

Eighth—Robert Courtenay, impaling "Or, a lion ramp, azure," in supposed right of Redvers.

Ninth—John Courtenay, son of Robert, quartering the blue lion, and impaling Vere. John Courtenay died in 1273, and, to say nothing of the fact, that the system of "quartering," was unknown in his time, he had no right to quarter his mother’s coat, for she was not "ultimate heir" to the Redvers property in her own lifetime, or until twenty years after his death, and this shield is alone sufficient to cast a fair amount of suspicion upon the authenticity of the whole series.

Tenth—Sir Hugh Courtenay, son of John, again incorrectly quartering the blue lion, and impaling Despenser.

Eleventh—Or, 3 torteaux, a label of 3 points azure, quartering the blue lion, and impaling St. John—Hugh Courtenay, son of Hugh. This Hugh Courtenay inherited the estates of the Redvers earls in 1293, and was created Earl of Devon in 1335. With him the label re-appears for the very first time since the death of William de Vernon in 1217, and the arms are now borne exactly as they appear on William de Vernon's seal.

The inference is, I think, plain. When Hugh Courtenay succeeded to the Redvers heritage, at the death of Isabella de Fortibus, he assumed the Redvers arms, just as anyone might assume inherited arms, by royal license, at the present day; and the arms thus assumed were, "Or, 3 torteaux, a label of 3 points azure," for Redvers sixth Earl of Devon, and "Or, a lion ramp, azure," for Doles, brought in by Redvers.

The armorials on the tomb, shown previously to his, were, perhaps, originally "Gules, 3 bezants." If so, they were the arms of Courtenay of Constantinople, and are now wrongly tinctured, and although it is most improbable that they ever rightly belonged to Reginald Courtenay and to his male descendants, yet they support assertions, evidently founded upon the untrustworthy monastic chronicle, which was probably devised to give the Courtenays a more than customary illustrious origin, that Reginald de Courtenay "must have stood high in his own estimation and in that of the world, since he could impose on the son of a King the obligation of adopting for himself, and all his children, the name and arms of his daughter."

The twelfth shield on the tomb is that of Bohun, impaling the royal arms of Edward I.

The thirteenth, that of Hugh, second Earl of Devon, similar to that of his father, and impaling Bohun.

The fourteenth, that of Hugh de Courtenay, eldest son and heir-apparent (who, with his son and heir, died in the earl's lifetime), impaling Brion.

The fifteenth displays the arms of Sir Edward Courtenay, the earl's second son, whose posterity carried on the line and impales Dawney. Sir Edward's arms are differenced with a bend arg., which should be, a bend compony arg. and azure. These arms, differenced in accordance with one of the then prevailing methods, by the omission of one charge, the label, and by the insertion of a bend, in place thereof, and tinctured, "arg. and azure," were in stained glass in a window of the south aisle of the Cathedral nave, which stood opposite the original position of the tomb, and was contemporary with it. They were seen and "tricked" by Richard Symonds, on the twentieth of September, 1644, and his manuscript, in which they occur, is preserved amongst the Harleian MSS., No. 939, fo. 25D.

The sixteenth shield is on the south side of the foot of the tomb, and shows Canterbury impaling Courtenay. It commemorates William Courtenay, Archbishop of Canterbury, who, as Bishop of London, consecrated this, his father's resting-place, in 1381. He was overseer of his mother's will.

The seventeenth shield is that of his brother, Sir Philip Courtenay, and impales Wake. The Powderham estate was settled upon this Sir Philip and his heirs, and he was the direct ancestor of the present Earl of Devon, and executor of his mother's will.

The eighteenth, and last, shield contains the arms of Sir Peter Courtenay, Kt., brother to Hugh, Edward, William, and Philip, and the other executor of his mother's will. He died unmarried. Archbishop Courtenay and his brothers, Philip and Peter, all difference the label with nine plates, three on each point.

It will be seen that Hugh de Courtenay, the first of his name who was Earl of Devon, was the first of the Courtenays who used the exact device which is found on the seal of the sixth earl, William Redvers de Vernon; and it is perfectly certain, I think, that the former assumed these arms with the Redvers title and estates and that the label was not taken as a distinctive mark of cadency, but as an essential part of the arms.

The earls of Devon continued to use the label down to the death of Queen Mary's earl at Padua, in 1556. The younger branches of the family, at Powderham, Haccombe, and Boconnoc, also continued to use it, and duly differenced it to show their cadency, but, in process of time, the label was so universally looked upon, by people generally, as a distinct indication of the elder son, and to be borne only during the father s lifetime, that the younger Courtenays ultimately discarded it altogether, and the Powderham branch have long ceased to use it, but their abandonment of it was very ill advised, for the reasons I have adduced, and it is just as much a portion of their arms, as are the three torteaux. Each individual Courtenay who can show a descent from Robert, and his wife Mary Redvers, is entitled to use the label, of course duly marked for cadency.

Lord Courtenay, during his fathers lifetime, might surmount it with another, a smaller, label of metal (arg. or or.)

The earl's second son should charge it with a crescent, of metal, but in the latter case the crescent would become an inherent part of the arms of the second house, and would be itself charged with a label, of colour, by the eldest son, of the said second son, as long as his father was alive.

Or, to sum up the matter shortly, the Courtenay label should at once be restored to its proper place . in the Courtenay arms, and should simply be duly differenced, by the various members of the family, in accordance with the customary laws of arms.

Chapter V—The Parish of Pinhoe

Pinhoe, which includes the hamlets, or bartons, of Monkaton, Pinpound, Langerton, Herrington, and Wotton, is in the Deanery of Aylesbeare, and about two and a half miles distant from Exeter, with which it is connected by rail. In 1881 it possessed only one hundred and twenty houses, scattered over seventeen hundred and thirty-five acres of land, with a population of five hundred and ten inhabitants.

During the last decade, however, many convenient and handsome residences have been erected at Pinhoe, more especially upon the commanding acclivity above the Church, and it is now, as it deserves to be, one of the most popular suburbs of the "ever-faithful city.''

But despite its natural advantages of situation, Pinhoe possesses an unusually attractive history, since this little village has been rendered memorable, in all succeeding ages, by the great battle fought within its limits nearly nine hundred years ago, and sixty-five years before the Norman Conquest.

It was in the days of Ethelred the second, whose dilatory disposition has handed him down to posterity as "the unready," and in the year of Grace 1001, that the Vikings' ships, which had periodically invaded and ravaged the country for more than two hundred years, returned again to this neighbourhood, where they had more than once experienced disastrous repulses at the hands of the men of Devon.

At one time the "Dubhgalls,” the dark strangers, otherwise the Danes, contracted an alliance with the Comu-Britons, landed in Cornwall, and made inroads into Devonshire, in 806, but King Egbert himself then met them, and totally defeated their savage hordes; still they combined to keep our Saxon forefathers in a constant state of anxiety, and the land of the West was never safe from their incursions, and consequently never at rest.

In 851, they were again defeated in Devonshire and driven back to their ships, which were subsequently dispersed at Sandwich by King Athelstan in person, and again twenty-five years later, these Northern pirates wasted Northumbria, and made their way from thence to our coast, and in defiance of their solemn oath, to observe the treaty of peace they had made with King Alfred, and in violation of their promise to leave the country, they descended treacherously upon Exeter and took possession of the city, but they left it again at "harvest time" in the following year, and in 878, Hubba, the brother of Halfdane, landed in Devonshire, and was defeated and killed. And then was taken the Danish ensign, known as the raven, and to which magical powers were ascribed, and this celebrated flag must have been of a somewhat similar nature to subsequent heraldic achievements, for it is said to have been "a small triangular banner, fringed, bearing a black raven on a blood red field."

It is almost certain that the scene of most of the early fights to which I have briefly referred may be discerned from the high ground which surmounts and surrounds Pinhoe Churchyard. Thence may be seen Woodbury Common, and the white houses of the seaport of "Pratteshide," now Exmouth, with the surf breaking over Exmouth bar; the dark ridge of Haldon forming a sombre background to the extensive panorama, the scene of King Athelstan's victory in 851; and all around the spot on which we stand was fought the great fight of the first year of the eleventh century, to which I must now return.

Sweyn, Swegen, surnamed "Tveskjoeg" or the "forked beard," was the father of Cnut, who subsequently dominated the whole of England, and reigned as King Canute. Sweyn has been generally believed to have led the army which arrived in Devonshire in 1001, and which burnt Teignton and the villages in that neighbourhood, landed at "Pratteshide," and marched to besiege Exeter.

According to recent authorities, however, the real commander appears to have been Pallig, Sweyn's brother-in-law, who had actually embraced Christianity, but had turned traitor to his vows.

The city of Exeter was successfully defended from this onslaught, but the country around suffered very considerably. Cola, the English general, and Edsy, the sheriff, with the men of Devon and Somerset, followed up the invaders, who retreated upon Pinhoe. There a desperate battle was fought, which raged from "early morning until eventide," and, although the hardy sons of the Western shires, engaged the enemy with determined valour, yet they had to succumb to the skilled tactics of the veteran barbarians; they were defeated with great loss, Pinhoe, Broadclist, and the hamlets and cottages in the immediate neighbourhood were looted and burnt, the simple country folk were put to the sword, and their wives and daughters were insulted and violated.

Laden with spoil, the Danes abandoned for the time any further attempt on Exeter, and, content with their devastation of its suburbs, retired to their ships at "Pratteshide," from whence they sailed to the Isle of Wight.

There were reprisals, naturally, as soon as the opportunity for them occurred. By order of Ethelred, a massacre of all the Danes in England was commenced upon St. Brice's day (November 13th 1002); then neither age nor sex was spared, and Pallig and his children were butchered before the face of his wife, Gunhilda, sister of King Sweyn, who was herself also put to death. But the King returned the next year to revenge his sister's death, and this massacre led up to the intermittent rule of our Danish kings, from 1013 to 1042.

A small sum of sixteen shillings per annum which the Vicar of Pinhoe receives, as of ancient custom, probably originated in a provision for perpetual masses to be said by the parish priest for the souls of the victims of the battle of Pinhoe. Chapple, in his "Collections," mentions an untrustworthy but interesting tradition, that it was settled for ever upon the then parish priest and his successors, to commemorate his military services upon that memorable occasion; for, the gallant Churchman, is said to have saddled his ass, and to have kept his countrymen supplied with "sheaves of arrows" from Exeter, at a critical period of the fight. Traces of the "barrows," under which the dead were buried, may yet be found on the high ground above the village, and the actual scene of the action may still be ascertained from these.

Amongst those who distinguished themselves for their fidelity to King Cnut was a certain Godwin, whose military services to that monarch were of the highest value, and who consequently treated him with the utmost regard and confidence.

Hume says that he "bestowed his daughter upon him in marriage," but it is well known that Gunhilda, King Cnut's daughter, was the wife of the Emperor Henry III. of Germany. Godwin's wife—he is said to have married her secondly—was Githa, sister of King Sweyn, and therefore an aunt of Cnut's. This powerful personage, generally known in history as Earl of Kent, and who has left his name to that dangerous part of the coast known as "the Goodwyn Sands," ruled the whole of the south and west of England, and was Earl of Devon, Dorset, Sussex, Hampshire, and Cornwall in the time of Edward the Confessor, who, for political reasons, married his daughter Editha.

Other children of Godwyn were the Earls Harold, who succeeded his brother-in-law Edward as King of England, Sweyn, Tosti, and Leofwin; and the last, at the death of King Edward, was the owner of the soil of Pinhoe. This is conclusively proved by the entry in the Exeter Domesday, which states that the King has a manor called Pinnoc (in the Exchequer record it is written "Pinnoch," and is a word of Keltic derivation, descriptive of an elevated situation), which Earl Leofwine held on the day on which King Edward died. It was taxed at two hides, less one virgate of land, and could be worked with ten ploughs. King William held three virgates of this estate in demesne, and upon the residue of the property there were resident eight villeins, six bordarii, or cottagers, and one serf. The wood there extended to one hundred acres, with a similar amount of pasture land, and twenty acres of meadow. In 1086 it rendered yearly £6 by weight.

The same authority tells us that "the Abbot of Battle holds the Church of this Manor, and there is annexed to it one virgate of the aforesaid land, which is worth yearly five shillings."

King William having thus wrested the Manor of Pinhoe from the brother of the unfortunate Harold, the Crown continued to hold it until the reign of Henry III., when it was given, we are rather carelessly told by Lysons, "Magna Britannia," vol. ii., p. 390, "to Robert de Vallibus, or De Vaux, whose heiress brought it to Sir Robert Multon."

In the time of the Conqueror, the north country Barony of Gillesland was conveyed by Randolph de Meschines to a certain individual called "Hubert."

“Gill," in the Cumbrian dialect, signifies a dale or valley, and, from the period of his acquisition of this property, Hubert and his descendants adopted the Norman name of Vaulx or Vaux in Latin, "De Vallibus."

This Hubert de Vaux had a son, Robert, who married Ada D'Engaine, widow of Simon de Morville, and had two sons, Robert and Ralph.

Failing the issue of his elder brother, Ralph de Vaux succeeded to the property in Cumberland, and had a son Robert, a powerful nobleman, and one of the barons in arms against the tyranny of King John.

But, this Robert de Vaux of Gillesland, was much in favour with Henry III., who gave him great addition to his original inheritance out of the Crown manors, and amongst these manors he seems to have included the Devonshire one of Pinhoe.

And this Robert, had a son Hubert, and it was the daughter of the latter, instead of the former, Maud de Vaux, who carried the Pinhoe property and the rest of her estates to her kinsman and husband, Thomas de Molton, or Multon, son of Thomas de Molton by his second wife Ada, daughter and co-heir of, the archiepiscopal assassin, Hugh de Morville.

From a note appended to the Heralds' Visitation of this county, 1564, it appears that "in the time of Henry III., ‘Robert de Vallibus' was the chief Lord of the Manor of Pinhawe, otherwise Pynhoe, and that ‘Edward de Pinhoe' a copy-holder (‘Chartilarius sive liber tenens') lived there. In the time of Edward II., Sir Thomas Molton was the Lord of Pinhoe, and lived there."

It is certain that John de Molton, as Lysons says, inherited the Manor of Pinhoe. He is stated, in the Visitation record referred to above, to have been a Knight, a son of Sir Thomas Molton, Lord of Pinhoe, temp. Edward II.

But Sir Thomas Molton, great grandson of Maud de Vallibus, of Pinhoe, who probably died soon after the year 13 13, since he received no summons to Parliament subsequently to the seventh of Edward II., could have left no male legitimate issue, because his daughter Margery, by his wife, also called "Margery," was his heir, and carried the Barony of Gillesland to her husband Ralph Dacre; and her descendant, in the fourth generation, Humphry Dacre, was declared by Edward IV. to be, by right of inheritance, Baron Dacre of Gillesland.

This Humphry Dacre, third son of Thomas, Lord Dacre, had become possessed of Gillesland, and other manors, by virtue of a "fine," levied by his father, who had died in 1457.

So that we can only suppose that Sir Thomas Molton, whose wife, "Margery," was the daughter and co-heir of Sir Edward Hereward, must have left the Pinhoe property to his natural son, Sir John de Molton.

This Sir John de Molton, whose wife's name is uncertain, left an only daughter, Maud, who married Sir John Stretche.

Sir John Stretche had an only son, Thomas, who died without issue, and two daughters, co-heirs to their brother, viz., Elizabeth, who married Thomas Beauchamp, and Cecilia, or Cicely, who took the Pinhoe property for her portion, and whose second husband, William Cheney, was Lord of Pinhoe in her right, 14th Richard II., 1390.

The Cheney family continued to reside at Pinhoe until the death of John Cheney, who was Sheriff of Devon, 32nd Henry VI., and in 2nd, 3rd, and 13th of Edward IV., he is called "Joseph Chidley," in Risdon's list. His father. Sir John Cheney, of Pinhoe, who married Elizabeth, daughter and eventual heir of John Hill, of Spaxton, had filled the same office in 1443.

A more detailed account of this family will be found in my "Devonshire Parishes," Vol. ii., pp. 59-61, so I need not repeat what I have said of them there in connection with other property they held at Littlehempston in this county.

Lysons says, that Pinhoe Manor "passed by successive marriages to Cheney and Walgrave. The latter statement, however, is hardly correct. The last John Cheney, who, as I have said above, was thrice Sheriff of Devon, left four daughters, co-heirs; the sons of the three eldest of these, Thomas, son of Anne Hussey; William, son of Elizabeth and William Clopton; and John, son of Isabella and Edward Walgrave, together with their aunt, Ellen, wife of George Babington, divided the Pinhoe property in the reign of Henry VIII., as shown by an inquisition dated 1531, which explains the statement of Sir William Pole, also quoted by Lysons, that "the Manor had lately been sold piecemeal."

Lysons adds that "In 1655 the Barton belonged to William Kirkham, Esq., was afterwards a seat of the Elwills, Baronets, and is now, 1822, the property of Mrs. Freemantle, daughter of the last Baronet of that family."

The Barton of Pinhoe belonged to the Kirkhams long before 1655, since it was the property and residence of Richard Kirkham, second son of Sir John Kirkham, Kt., Sheriff of Devon, 1523.

His son. Sir William Kirkham, of Blackdon and Pinhoe, married into the Hampshire family of Tichborne, and had eight sons and four daughters.

The eldest of these, Richard Kirkham, "aged 30" in 1620, died without issue, and was succeeded by his next brother, Francis, who married Elizabeth, one of the daughters and co-heirs of Edward Roope, of Bidwell. This "Francis Kirkham, of Pinhoe, Esq.," and Elizabeth his wife, were presented as "Recusants," eleventh of April, 1639, but they had previously obtained letters of dispensation from Charles I., under the great seal, dated the twenty-first of April, 1638, which protected them from the pains and penalties then attached to those who declined to attend the Parish Church and to communicate at regular periods.

This Francis Kirkham had an eldest son William, who must have been the "William Kirkham, Esq." referred to by Lysons, as dying possessed of Pinhoe in 1659. He was "aged 3 years" in 1620, and appears to have been subsequently knighted. The Lysons' remark (vol. i., page 203), that they are unable to "carry the descent lower than this William," so, it may as well be added, that the latter had a son Francis, whose son and heir Francis, resided at Bidwell, in the parish of Newton St. Cyres, an estate derived from his great grand-mother, Elizabeth Roope.

Sir John Elwill, of Exeter, Knight, created a baronet in 1709, probably purchased Pinhoe from the latter; it could not have descended to him by inheritance. He resided at Pincourt. His mother was of the family of Pole of Exeter, and heir to her father.

The second Sir John Elwill, although he retained the Pinhoe property, acquired the Langley estate, in the county of Kent, by marriage with "Style," and settled there.

He died without issue, and was succeeded in the baronetcy by his younger brother Edmund, whose son. Sir John Elwill, fourth baronet, died in 1778, when the title became extinct. He left, however, an only daughter, who married, first, Mr. Felton Harvey, and secondly, Mr. William Freemantle, and she was therefore the Mrs. Freemantle who, as stated by Lysons, owned the property in 1822.

Lord Poltimore now owns the Manor of Pinhoe.

The entry in Domesday Book conclusively proves that Pinhoe possessed a church twenty-one years after the Norman Conquest, and we may safely assume that this church had then existed for some years, and on its present site, although there are no visible remains of the original fabric.

The font is certainly Norman, but a late example of that style, which prevailed from the reign of Edward the Confessor, some think even earlier, down to the close of the twelfth century. It is possible, and even probable, that this font may have been provided for a new church built after the Battle of Pinhoe, when the original structure was very probably burnt or destroyed, but the existence of a church here prior to the Norman Conquest can only be a matter of conjecture, supported merely by the improbable tradition of the services rendered by the parish priest on the occasion of the memorable contest with the Danes.

The present structure is of rather early Perpendicular date, and appears to have been either completely rebuilt, or else so altered as to destroy every trace of the preceding edifice, at the end of the fourteenth or commencement of the fifteenth century.

It consists of chancel and nave, opening into a north aisle beneath four arches supported upon third pointed columns; a south porch; and a western tower, containing four bells.

The church is seventy feet long by about twenty-eight broad. It was restored in 1880, at an expense of £1600, and will accommodate about two hundred people.

The screen, a more than usually perfect example of Perpendicular carving, with the projection of the rood loft remaining, has a rich cornice of vine leaves and grapes; the pulpit is of the same character, and both appear to be of early fifteenth century date and coeval with the present structure.

One or two ancient benches, of the same period, remain, and are still utilised; others have disappeared within the memory of the present generation.

The nodi and bosses in the roof—some of them are "grotesques"—are also of fifteenth century date, and have been well restored. The first bell is ancient, the second is dated 1691, the third 1695, and the tenor bell has the inscription, "Pres [prais] not thyself."

The old alms-box at the south-western end of the building is surmounted by a curious statuette, about twenty-four inches high, representing an "alms-man" in the costume of Queen Anne's days, and can hardly be of earlier date than 1700. It is carved in elm. I do not know of a similar instance of such a figure in this diocese, and they are extremely rare in any part of the country.

The alms-box itself has the inscription, "Remember Ye Poor." Both box and figure were carefully restored eleven years ago by Mr. Hems, of Exeter.

The ancient lock of the south door is also interesting, contained, as it is, in a case of rough oak.

The churchyard cross of granite, and of mediaeval date, is on the south side of the church. It was long buried in the ground, probably to prevent desecration, but was discovered some years since, disinterred, and re-erected in its present position. Near it is a memorial to Edward Wease, yeoman, who died "last of Decbr 1584."

We have seen that Norman William gave the “Church of the Manor of Pinhoe," together with a virgate of land, to the "Church of Battle," and this virgate of land is still represented by the acre and a half of glebe which belongs to the vicar.

Battle Abbey, as most people know, was the stately ecclesiastical foundation established by the Conqueror to commemorate his victory at Senlac, and the Priory or "Cell” of St. Nicholas at Exeter was appendant to that abbey, since it was formed and endowed out of the Devonshire property which the founder had given to the Sussex house.

Consequently the Church of Pinhoe was soon transferred to St. Nicholas Priory, and was confirmed to it by the authority of Hubert, Primate of Canterbury, and John, Bishop of Exeter, in the reign of Richard Cœur de Lion.

The archiepiscopal confirmation must have been later than that by the Bishop of Exeter, since Bishop John died in 1191, and Hubert did not succeed to the See of Canterbury until 1193.

The payment of the annual pension to the Vicar of Pinhoe of sixteen shillings, already referred to, is shown by the rent-roll of St. Nicholas Priory, and amongst the entries of quarterly payments from Pinhoe to the priory, in the year 1476, occur the items, "from Johanne Elyot of Pynne 7/6"; likewise "from William Legh two shillings, and Joan Page two shillings," which the monks had not received, "because it had been paid to the Vicar."

The "Leghs" (or Lees), must have been long resident at Pinhoe, since there is a memorial in the chancel in memory of "William and Jane Lee, the Sonne and daughter of William Lee, Gentleman, who departed this life 1651."

The annuity of sixteen shillings (anciently, as I have shown, paid quarterly by the priory) is still received by the Vicar of Pinhoe. In August, 1269, Bishop Bronescombe assigned to the Vicarage the sum of five marks from the tithes, and the remainder of the profits were given to the rectors, that is, to the convent, as rectors and patrons of the living.

In the "Taxatio" of 1291, the Church of "Pynho" is valued at £3 10s. per annum, and the tenths amounted to seven shillings. The first recorded vicar is Richard de Bollegh, admitted on the third of December, 1313, to the vicarage, which had been then void from the Monday after St. Luke's Festival. It is singular to note that, according to the Episcopal Registers, the Prior and Convent of St. Nicholas, who had presented Richard de Bollegh, continued to present until sixteen months after their actual suppression, since Michael Reynolds was admitted upon their nomination to the vicarage, "vacant by the resignation of the last incumbent," on the sixteenth of December, 1537. The last Prior of St. Nicholas was William of Cullompton, who surrendered his house to the king, on September the eighteenth, 1536.

The "Valor Ecclesiasticus" compiled by order of King Henry VIIL, dated the third of November, 1536, shows that "Thomas Reynolds" was then the Vicar of Pinhoe, and that his vicarage was valued at £14 13s. 4d, per annum.

In 1734, on the eighteenth of December, the Rev. Charles Strong being then vicar, the Bishop of Exeter, Stephen Weston, granted a license, or faculty, for a seat or pew in Pinhoe Church, to Mr. Charles Webber, gentleman, as the possessor of an estate in the said parish, "called Stone Barton." I presume that Monkeston Barton, otherwise Monkaton, is meant.

Pinhoe Church is dedicated to St. Michael, and the usual tradition relative to churches on high ground, and dedicated to this particular saint, is current in respect of it, viz, that efforts were at first made to erect the church in the valley, but that his Satanic majesty removed every night the stones which had been placed in position during the day. At last, in despair, the Lord of the Manor sanctioned the erection on the present site on the hill, and the labourers were then left to finish their work in peace.

The church is certainly somewhat unfortunately situated for the majority of the parishioners, but our earliest ancestors frequently preferred to place their churches in similar positions as being nearer to heaven. Not so the Monks, who usually courted the shelter of secluded valleys.

A funeral "hatchment" is, or was, in the church, with the arms of the Rev., Joseph Hayne, who succeeded George Reynell as vicar of Pinhoe, on the first of March, 1662-3. The date of death, as noted by Dr. Oliver, is incorrect; he was buried on the twentieth of February, 1691-2, aged eighty. He had resigned the living seven years previously.

The rectorial tithes of Pinhoe are appropriated to the Dean and Chapter, and are leased, but the patronage is with the Bishop of Exeter, by grant from the Crown, and appears to have been conferred on Bishop Turbeville, by Queen Mary, with whom he was a favourite. He collated Philip Pawe to the vicarage, on the eleventh of July, 1556, on the cession of Michael Reynolds.

Bishop Hall granted—that is, sold—the presentation for one turn to John Hayne, merchant, of Exeter, who duly presented Roger Jennings, on the sixth of August, 1640.

Edward Grove is said to have succeeded Richard Breerclyffe as vicar, in 1643, and to have been deprived, but as he is not mentioned by Walker, in the "Sufferings of the Clergy," who had special knowledge of this neighbourhood, and died Rector of the neighbouring parish of Upton Pyne, I am disposed to doubt whether Mr. Grove was ever properly instituted.

After his disappearance there was no fresh collation until the twenty-fifth of November, 1662, when George Reynell succeeded.

Ezekiel, son of John Hopkins, was baptized at Pinhoe, on the fourteenth of December, 1634. He took orders, and was Rector of St. Mary Arches, Exeter, on the fifteenth of January, 1665-6, and was consecrated Bishop of Raphoe in 1674, and subsequently translated to Deny. He died in the parish of St. Mary Aldermanbury, City of London, on the nineteenth of June, 1690.

The parish registers commence—burials, twenty-fourth of June; baptisms, twenty-seventh of August; weddings, twenty-third of November, 1561. The earliest are copies of those of his predecessors, made by the Rev., Jerome Cheriton, vicar between 1578 and 1640.

A license was granted by Bishop Stafford, on the twenty-seventh of January, 1400, to Sir William Cheney and Cecilia his wife, to have divine service performed in the chapel within their manor of Pynho. "Episcopal Registers, Stafford," vol. i., fol. 54,

The Rev., Thomas Reynolds, S.T.P., Vicar of Pinhoe from 1530 to 1537, was a Canon of Exeter, Warden of Merton College, Oxford, and held other important preferments. He was Dean of Bristol in 1553, and resigned it for the Deanery of Exeter, on the ninth of February, 1554. Queen Mary nominated him in 1558 to the See of Hereford, but the nomination was cancelled by Queen Elizabeth, and Dr. Reynolds was never consecrated. He refused to submit to the change of religion, and was committed to the Marshalsea, where he died, on the twenty-fourth of November, 1559.

I may mention that King Henry VIII. presented him to the Rectory of "Pitt Portion," in Tiverton Church, on the ninth of April, 1541, but his name is not included in the list of rectors printed in the late Col. Harding's "History of Tiverton." He was a son of Richard Reynolds or Rainolds, of Pinhoe, whose ancestors had long resided in the parish.

Dr. Reynolds had resigned Pinhoe in favour of the Rev. "Michael Reynolds," who I presume was a brother, in 1537, when the living had been charged in his favour with an annuity of £4 per annum.

The dean's undoubted younger brother, Richard Reynolds, was "a substantial farmer" of Pinhoe, where his six sons were born.

Hierom, the eldest of them, was Fellow and Tutor of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

William, the second, was educated at Winchester, and was subsequently Fellow of New College.

Of John, the third, I shall speak presently.

Edmund, the fourth, was also a Fellow of Corpus, but retired to Gloucester Hall, on account of his religious convictions, where he was some time tutor.

James, the fifth son, was a Fellow of Exeter College; whilst Nicholas, the youngest son, remained at Pinhoe and farmed the land he lived on, as his ancestors had done.

His son William, however, left this county, and settled at Cassington, near Woodstock, where I find him described as a "gentleman." He probably inherited the money of his unmarried University uncles. Of these, Edmund is especially mentioned as having died a wealthy man.

John Reynolds, third son of Richard, and nephew of the Dean of Exeter, was born at Pinhoe in 1549. He was entered at Merton in 1562, aged thirteen, and obtained a scholarship at Corpus in the following year. In 1598 he became Dean of Lincoln, which he subsequently resigned to become President of Corpus. Queen Elizabeth offered him a bishopric, which he declined.

He was at first ardently devoted to the Romish doctrine, whilst his brother William was as great a Reformer, and the two argued the differences between them so strenuously that the position was completely changed. Some say that the argument was not with William, but with Edmund Reynolds, who resigned his fellowship at Corpus in consequence of his change of views.

Anyway, it is certain that Dr. John Reynolds abandoned his early views and became one of the leading Puritans of his time. Some consider that he was for years the actual leader of the "Puritan party."

He distinguished himself greatly at the Hampton Court Conference in 1603, where he suggested the necessity of the new translation of the Bible, in which he was afterwards actively engaged. He died on the twenty-first of May, 1603, and was buried in the inner chapel of Corpus, where a monument, surmounted by his bust, was erected to his memory.

The Rev. John Conybeare became Vicar of Pinhoe on the seventeenth of November, 1684, and held the living until his death, on the twenty-ninth of November, 1706. Dr. Oliver notes (Ecc. Antiq., ii., 128) that "A tomb-stone in the churchyard informs us that Revd John Conybeare was Chaplain to the Earl of Essex and died in 1740, aged 72." He wonders if this "can be his son ?"

It is rather extraordinary that the learned doctor, should have overlooked the career of the vicar's undoubted son John, as it is clear he must have done, when he asked such a question. For even supposing that the Vicar of Pinhoe had two sons who were both called John—a by no means unusual occurrence—it is singular that Dr. Oliver did not remark upon the fact that one of these sons was a bishop.

I do not pretend to say who the "Chaplain to the Earl of Essex" may have been—possibly a nephew of the vicar's, whose son John was born at Pinhoe on the thirty-first of January, 1691-2, and was educated at Tiverton. He was subsequently Rector of Exeter College, which he resigned for the Dean of Christchurch on the twenty-ninth of January, 1732-3. Previously to this he had been Rector of St. Clement's, Oxford, and one of His Majesty's preachers at Whitehall. In 1750, upon the translation of Dr. Butler to Durham, he became Bishop of Bristol. Whilst at Oxford he was tutor to Thomas Seeker, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. He died on the thirteenth of July, 1755, a poor man, for his elevation to the Episcopate of Bristol had injured rather than improved his position.

Two volumes of his sermons were published after his death, and 4,600 copies were subscribed for by his friends, as an attempted provision for his family.

The Parish of Pinhoe has participation in the gift of Grace Bamfield, who, by her will, dated the twenty-seventh of February, 1652, gave £120. To this bequest William Lee added £20. and James Taylor another £20, which was further augmented by the contributions of William Lee, deceased, £10, Richard Lee, £5, and by a sum of £5 added by the parish.

With this money an estate in the Parish of Broadclist was purchased, the rents of which, according to the will of the donor, were to be expended in clothing, to be distributed, five-ninths to the poor of Pinhoe, and the remainder, in equal portions, to the poor of Stoke Canon and Thorverton.

Grace Bamfield was, I believe, a daughter of William Lee, of Pinhoe, whose daughter Jane was buried there in 1651. She was the widow of Edward Bamfield, of Stoke Canon, whose will was proved at Exeter on the eighteenth of April, 1645, and he was the fifth son of Richard Bamfield, of Poltimore, whose name is frequently thus written.

Humphry Wilcocks, by will dated the third of January, 1686, gave to the feoffees of the above lands two fields in Pinhoe, which he had purchased of Dorothy and Peter Bigglestone, the rents to be distributed yearly amongst poor people of sixty years of age or upwards.

John Sanders, by will dated in 1729, gave to the feoffees of the above lands thirty shillings a year, payable out of "The Downs," to be distributed in bread on the first Sunday in every month, to six poor people having no parochial relief.

Sir John Elwill, Bart., gave forty shillings a year, to issue from his estates in Pinhoe, for teaching eight poor children of the parish to read.

John Land, innkeeper, of Exeter, by his will dated the eighth of January, 1817, gave £200 to the vicar and churchwardens, to be laid out in the purchase of stock, the interest to be divided annually amongst the poor generally, at the discretion of the vicar and churchwardens.

In conclusion, I may add a few words as to the funeral of this popular and venerable Exeter citizen, who had been the landlord of the London Inn at Exeter for more than half a century. He was buried at Pinhoe but a few days after he had dated his will, in 1817.

His inn had been long the rendezvous of the several coaches which then formed the only means of communication between London and Plymouth. The funeral procession of the old landlord was nearly a quarter of a mile in length, and included eight stage-coaches, fully horsed and equipped, over twenty post-chaises, and some two hundred mourners, who followed on horseback.

Probably the inhabitants of this usually quiet village had never had such an excitement, as this funeral afforded them, since the date of that memorable incident with which I commenced my account of their pleasant little parish, when—

"All day long the tide of battle rolled."

Chapter VI—The Parish of St Thomas

THE Parish of St. Thomas the Apostle, as it is usually but incorrectly designated, the Church having been dedicated in memory of St. Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, ought more properly to be known as the Parish of Cowick.

It is situated in the ancient Deanery of Kenne, but was transferred by the last Bishop of Exeter (now Bishop of London), to that of "Christianity," for the sake of convenience.

It included the villages of Exwick and Oldridge, but the first has of late years been separated from it, and forms a distinct parish.

St. Thomas is so close to Exeter, from which it is only divided by Exe Bridge, that it seems to form a portion of the city, but it is, and always has been, quite outside the city government, is strictly a suburban parish, and a portion of the County of Devon. It now includes two thousand nine hundred and twenty one acres of land, and had, in 1881, five thousand five hundred and forty-one parishioners.

When Edward the Confessor ruled over England, the manor of "Coic" was the property of the Saxon Ailmar. At the Conquest, it passed into the hands of Baldwin, Sheriff of Devon, and brother of Richard de Redvers, first Earl of Devon under Norman rule.

I have so fully referred previously to these powerful personages, that I need not repeat any particulars as to their descent or history. It will be sufficient for me to say that when Baldwin became the owner of "Coic" or Cowick, it paid tax for one hide of land.

Of this, Baldwin had half a hide in demesne, and two ploughs, and the villeins had another half hide, and six ploughs.

There were resident on the manor, eight villeins, three cottagers, and two serfs; and the lord had there one pack-horse, three beasts, and forty sheep.

There was a mill which rendered ten shillings yearly, three acres of wood, and three acres of meadow, and it was worth annually forty shillings (in the Exchequer Domesday, thirty shillings), and in 1066, the property appears to have been worth only twenty shillings.

The above description of the property is, of course, from Domesday, but it is shown by another record that in the reign of Edward II., two centuries later, the Manor of Cowick included seventy acres of arable land, twelve of meadow, and six of wood, two of garden, and two mills, one of the latter being at Exwick.

The rent roll from this property at the Reformation, as shown by the "Valor" of 1534, amounted to £39 5s. 8d. a year.

The Manors of Cowick and "Essoic" (Exwick)—the latter had been in Saxon times owned by Eurenacre, and had been taxed for one hide of land, three acres of meadow, three acres of coppice, fifty acres of pasture, and a mill, in all worth thirty shillings per annum—were given by Baldwin, the Sheriff, to his son William.

Nothing can be more complicated or contradictory than the hitherto published statements as to this William. By some, under the name of William of Avenel, he has been made the husband of his own sister, Emma; by others, his son Ralph, has been declared to have been married to Alice, daughter of another of his sisters, Adelicia, who, it has been conclusively ascertained, never had a daughter at all.

A reference to the pedigrees as put forth by Dugdale and his copyist, and which had their origin in the mendacious records of the Monks of Ford, will explain the discrepancies in the descent. I can only submit the facts I have myself ascertained, and which, I believe, I can clearly substantiate.

This William, "son of Baldwin," at one time filled the office of Sheriff of Devon, probably only in an acting capacity (since his brother Richard and his sister Adeliza, both held it successively, as of hereditary right), in the reign of William Rufus.

This is shown by a deed of that monarch in connection with the Church of St. Olave, Exeter, addressed to "William, the Sheriff, son of Baldwin, and to all his barons, servants, etc., in Devenescire, greeting," etc.

That William Fitz-Baldwin was identical with the William of Avenel, who has been said over and over again to have married Emma, youngest daughter of Baldwin, the sheriff, and that he was the father of Ralph Avenel, is abundantly proved by the deed of his grandson William Avenel, executed between the years 1142 and 1155, and to which I shall have to refer more particularly in my account of the parish of Alphington.

He there mentions certain land which had been given by "Ralph his father," and by "Adeliza" "his fathers aunt on the father's side” The said Adeliza having been elder sister of Emma, and also sister of the said William Fitz-Baldwin de Avenel.

There was naturally litigation before these Avenels submitted quietly to the descent of the Barony of Okehampton in the family of Abrincis, but the various accounts and explanations of that litigation, hitherto, have been ridiculously fabulous.

William Fitz-Baldwin de Avenel gave his manors of Cowick and Exwick, probably between the years 1087 and 1100, to the Abbot and Convent of Bee, in Normandy, which had been founded by Herlouin, the son of Ansgot and Heloysa his wife, upon his own estate, near the little rivers Bee and La Rive, eighteen miles south-west of Rouen.

The gift of this Devonshire property to the Norman abbey is proved by the confirmation of it to them by King Henry II.: "In England Cuwic and Exewic by gift of William Fitz-Baldwin."

The first Abbot of Bee, who was the founder himself, died in August, 1073. His Prior had been Lanfranc, subsequently Abbot of St. Stephen's, Caen, and who was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury 1070.

Herlouin was succeeded in the Abbey of Bee by (St.) Anselme, who was also in later times the English Primate at Canterbury, and occupied the archiepiscopal throne from 1093 to 1109.

So we need not go far for a reason, to account for the erection of Cowick Priory, which was simply a dependency of the Norman Abbey of Bee, “a separate, but subordinate" foundation.

Cowick Priory occupied the ground between the river and Okehampton Street, and stood directly opposite the Bonhay, on about two acres of land. A portion of the boundary wall is still standing, close to the river.

Many misleading statements have been put forward in print, especially in recent years, as to the exact situation of this venerable establishment. Jenkins, I fear, is originally responsible for most of them, since he states positively (" History of Exeter," p. 430) that the priory stood "south-west from Bowhill," by which he evidently means Cowick Barton, as he goes on to describe the property.

The situation of the priory (which by an inquisition as to its extents, dated Tuesday after the Feast of the Epiphany, 1324-5, is shown "to have stood in the sanctuary of its church, and to have extended beyond the church'' is abundantly proved by a brief of King Henry VI., addressed to the Bishop of Exeter, Edmund Lacy, and dated Reading Abbey, January the twentieth, 1439-40, in which it is stated that "a large portion of the possessions of the priory is close to a certain great river called Exe, and has been inundated by the heavy floods which have come down of late years, and the Church and Cloister of the Priory and the greater part of the dwellings are so weak and damp that most of them will very likely fall, unless immediate action is taken to repair them."

The priory had then been seized by the Crown as alien, and the prior, William Donnebant, whose revenues had been suspended, had been charged with neglect, "by permitting the priory church, the chancel, the cloisters, the principal chamber, the kitchen, the great gateway, the grange, and the bakehouse, to go to decay."

His predecessor had been similarly accused of "waste" in his priory, by permitting a certain chamber called "ye Erles Chamber" to be ruinous; and at Exwick, "parcel of the same priory," he had allowed a chamber, a grange, and a mill, to go to decay through defective roofs.

The Crown so constantly assumed and leased the property during wars with France, that the priors of Cowick had very frequently no income whatever with which to execute necessary repairs to their extensive buildings, not only on the banks of the Exe, but also at Exwick and Cowick, where their "Barton house" stood, as its successor does now.

King Henry VI., however, was pleased to restore the income, to prevent the ruin of the monastic buildings, but two years afterwards, on Palm Sunday, 1442, a disastrous fire occurred, which destroyed buildings and furniture to the extent of over £177 a very large sum in those days.

From this last blow Cowick Priory appears never to have recovered. The community struggled on for a year or two, but in 1451, the then Prior, Robert de Rouen, apparently in despair of witnessing "better times," surrendered his house to the same King, Henry VI., who at once left the buildings to their fate, and appropriated the revenues towards the maintenance of his new foundation at Eton. It is therefore not at all wonderful that but very few and unsatisfactory vestiges of Cowick Priory are to be found to-day.

A list of the Priors of Cowick, from Walter, who occurs in the time of Bishop John (the Chaunter) of Exeter, 1186-1191, may be found in .Oliver's "Monasticon of the Diocese."

That the Courtenays for many generations were patrons and benefactors of Cowick Priory is quite certain; indeed, the lands were actually held from them in alms, as parcel of the Barony of Okehampton, as shown by the "Hundred Roll." That they had accommodation within its walls seems also to be proved by the reference to "ye Erles Chamber," which had been permitted at one time "to go to decay."

They were not, however, descendants of the original founder, but of his sister Emma, through her marriage with William de Abrincis. Adeliza, "Lady of Okehampton," is said to have nominated "her nephew," Ralph Avenel, to succeed her in that barony. This is more than probable, but he was not her nephew through her sister Emma, but through her brother William, as I have explained above.

He seems, however, to have been turned out of the Okehampton property upon a writ of ejectment, and thus that barony came to the house of Abrincis; but the Avenels long flourished at Sheepwash, and latterly at Loxbeare, where the name did not finally become extinct until the reign of Henry VI., when a daughter brought the Manor of Loxbeare to Trowbridge.

Emma, sister of William Fitz-Baldwin, de Avenel (founder of Cowick Priory), was the great-grandmother of Avis D'Aincourt, wife of William, son of Reginald Courtenay by his first wife, Matilda de Donjon.

William and Avis were the father and mother of Robert Courtenay, who of late years, as I have already stated, has been erroneously considered to have been the son, instead of grandson, of Reginald Courtenay.

But Avis DAincourt is actually mentioned in the Exchequer Rolls as "widow of William Courtenay," and Robert Courtenay refers to his mother "Avis" in his deed to the burgesses of Okehampton, dated in 1209.

A "lying" inscription by the careless or unscrupulous monks of "Ford" may have originated this extraordinary blunder, which seems to have been too readily adopted by Ezra Cleaveland, and has been universally followed since his time.

Robert Courtenay was Lord of Okehampton in right of his mother Avis, and he married Mary, daughter of William de Vernon, sixth Earl of Devon of the Redvers family, who, by the way, according to the generally received but untrustworthy pedigree of Redvers, would have lived two generations before him.

When it is remembered how very easily anachronisms of this nature may be exposed and refuted by a little careful examination of dates or contemporary records, it seems wonderful that such errors should have prevailed so long, or that they should have been ever perpetrated at all. Sir William Dugdale was a very celebrated man in his day, but, like many others, he attempted too mucky and is consequently responsible for many errors which he was never able to rectify, and to which his copyists, and their plagiarists, have added many more.

Robert Courtenay's grandson. Sir Hugh de Courtenay, was buried in the priory church. He resided at Colcombe Castle, but, having quarrelled with the monks of Ford, chose Cowick for his place of interment.

His death occurred on the twenty-eighth of February, 1291, and his actual burial is proved by the fact that an indulgence of forty days was granted. by Bishop Bitton of Exeter, by his deed dated at Clist, fourth of the Kalends of November, 1300 (twenty-ninth of October), for prayers recited "for the soul of Sir Hugh Courtenay, formerly Knight, whose body is buried in the priory of Cowick, and for his children John, Alice, and Robert, who are interred at Colyton."

Sir Hugh Courtenay's widow, Alianore, daughter of Hugh, Lord Despenser, died in London on the twenty-sixth of September, 1328, and her body is said to have been brought down to Exeter and placed by that of her husband.

Agnes, daughter of Lord St. John of Basing, and first Countess of Devon of the Courtenay line, was buried "near" her husband's relatives. She died at Tiverton, on the eleventh of June, 1340.

Her husband only survived her for the short space of six months. The long litigation, which, since the death of Isabella de Fortibus, in 1283, had been maintained by the other kinsfolk of the Redvers family as to the right of succession to the title, had been terminated in his favour on the twenty-second of February, 1335, by virtue of a peremptory order from the Crown, he having claimed the Earldom as right heir of line of William de Vernon de Redvers, sixth Earl, whose daughter and co-heir, Mary de Redvers, had been his great-grandmother.

His lordship died at Tiverton Castle on December the twenty-third, 1340, and was buried on the following fifth of February. The corpse was lodged in Exeter Cathedral the night previously, where a service was first performed, and, after mass on the following morning, the long procession wended its way through Fore Street, and the west quarter, and emerging through the western gate of the city, crossed Exe river, and proceeded to the old Priory, on its further bank.

There the deceased nobleman was laid, by his wife Agnes, and by his father, and, possibly, by his mother, “In the Choir of the Conventual Church," and Bishop Grandisson said the funeral service, and preached from the text. First Book of Chronicles, xxix. 28—"He died in a good old age, full of riches and honour." He was the last of the Courtenays who was buried at Cowick.

As we read in the "Monasticon of the Diocese"—"Until October the fifteenth, 1261, the inhabitants of Cowick had no parish priest to officiate for them, but used to attend Divine service in the nave of the Conventual Church of St. Andrew."

On the date mentioned by Dr. Oliver, the Prior of Cowick appears to have presented a certain priest, called "Henry," for institution by Bishop Bronescombe, because the rapidly increasing population then required constant and special clerical supervision.

The chapel in which the new parish priest was to officiate was then completed, but it is certain that its construction had been undertaken at least two years previously, because in a deed dated February the fourteenth, 1259, there is mention of "a light for the Blessed Mary in the Chapel of St. Thomas, the Martyr," which is described, in another document of the same date, as being situated at the end of Exe Bridge.

In this chapel, Henry, and his successors, continued to minister for the long period of one hundred and fifty-one years, all parochial privileges being attached to it, excepting the right of burial, which the situation of the chapel, on the bridge, the surrounding ground being quite close to the river, rendered impossible.

Burials were to take place, as heretofore, in the cemetery attached to the Chapel of St. Michael, situated without the boundaries of the Priory.

The chapel on Exe Bridge was at last swept away by a flood, and, as shewn by Bishop Stafford's Register, was entirely destroyed, so then by the joint efforts of the Prior of Cowick, and of such notable parishioners as Holland, Floyer, and others, together with the vicar, John Alkebarwe, a fresh site was procured from the monks, called "Pyryhay," ''far distant from the river and its inundations," and there a new church was erected in honour of God, and in memory of the same saint to which its predecessor had been dedicated, St. Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, and it was consecrated on the fourteenth of October, 1412.

A burial-ground was attached to the new church, and by the covenant with the bishop, the parishioners in future were to be interred in it, or else, for special reasons, within the church, unless any, from time to time particularly desired to be buried in the ancient cemetery of St. Michael, where their ancestors had been laid from time immemorial, and the parishioners were enjoined to keep up the graves, ditches, and walls of the old chapel and graveyard.

The church built in Pyryhay, and consecrated, as we have seen, in 1412, originally appears to have consisted of chancel, nave, aisle, and western tower. It was practically rebuilt in 1656, when, from its situation so close to the city, it had naturally become dilapidated during the great rebellion, since it had more than once accommodated the troops of either side; but it was at last almost completely ruined by fire. At the commencement of this century it consisted of chancel, nave, north and south aisles, and the tower was crowned with a spire and contained six bells, all cast in 1789 out of a former peal of five.

The church was again enlarged and repaired between the years 1821-29, and was re-seated and restored internally some twenty years ago.

After the siege of Exeter in 1549, consequent upon the rebellion of that year in connection with the change of ritual, Lord Russell, the King's general, and patron of St. Thomas, hanged the Rev. John Welsh, the Vicar, upon the tower of his church. The execution was entrusted to Bernard Duffield, Lord Russell's steward. The vicar, having been brought to the foot of the tower, was drawn to the top by a rope, and there hanged in chains upon a gallows which had been erected on its summit. He was arrayed in his vestments, and a holy-water bucket, a sprinkle, a sacring bell, and a pair of beads, were suspended around him. According to the barbarous custom of those days,, the body was tarred over, and remained suspended from the gallows during the remainder of the reign of Edward VI., and until the accession of Queen Mary.

This vicar seems to have taken a very active part in the rebellion, although his worst enemies admit that he was possessed of many amiable qualities, and seems to have used his influence with the rebels to prevent the burning of the city, which they wished much to attempt; however, he seems to have assented to the execution of a Protestant called Kingwell, who was hanged upon a tree in Exe Island, and the vicar, therefore, was put to death in retaliation.

The Barton of Cowick, which was the farm of the priory, was and is situated at the top of the fields still known as Cowick Fields, and on high ground overlooking the city. It is close to the lane which leads from Alphington Cross to the head of Cowick Street; and the "easements" or paths which lead from Cowick Street through the fields to this property are more than once mentioned in ancient records, and until a comparatively recent period were known as "The Monks' Walk.”

The "barton" itself is referred to in the "Valor Ecclesiasticus" of Henry VIII., and the then value of this estate was £39 5s. 8d. per annum, a very considerable sum, but, as may still be seen by anyone acquainted with the character of the property, the ground must have always commanded a high rental.

Eastward of the present house stood the ancient chapel of St. Michael, and below this chapel, on the ground sloping towards Exeter, was the old cemetery attached to this chapel, in which the inhabitants of the parish had been buried from "time immemorial" up to the dedication of the new church and churchyard in Pyryhay, in 1412.

I have been the more particular as to this description, because it has been recently suggested that the priory itself stood here—an evident impossibility, in the face of the existing original records I have referred to above, and which prove conclusively that the latter was "close to the river."

The existence of a large graveyard at Cowick Barton—all traditions as to the origin of which had been long lost—was amply proved many years ago; numbers of bones and skeletons were then turned up there, and although various theories were adduced to account for these remains, all were very wide of the mark. It was at length admitted that they indicated the existence of a cemetery there at a period "anterior, at all events, to the reign of Charles II."

But all reasonable doubts were set at rest in 1887, when, at the top of this cemetery, the foundations of the old Chapel of St. Michael, on the hill—as chapels dedicated to this saint usually stood—were discovered and laid open. On the ninth of August, 1887, some workmen were taking a drain, from Cowick Barton House, across the field, when they lighted upon a stone coffin, the cover coped and ornamented with an early type of cross, known in heraldry as a cross recercelée, extending the whole length of it. Upon being opened it was found to contain a skeleton, the general form of which disappeared upon exposure to the air, leaving only a few bones.

The architect engaged in the operations which led to the discovery, and with whom I at once placed myself in communication, Mr. Fellowes Prynne, at once caused a careful examination to be made of the surrounding ground, when he found that his labourers had actually come upon the site of a small ancient ecclesiastical building, and that they had lighted upon a spot which must have been almost the centre of the sanctuary, the floor of which was discovered two feet two inches below the present surface.

The architect considers the date of the coffin to be of the second half of the thirteenth century. Directly eastward of the walled grave which contained this coffin was another walled grave, with similar vaults on either side; all three of these contained skeletons, and in the grave on the south side a chalice was found. There were also the remains of graves, with bones in them, on the north and south western sides of the stone coffin, which therefore appears, as I have said, to have been laid in the centre of the chancel.

So that, in all, six graves were opened, one of these contained a coffin inscribed with a cross, another a chalice. The Priors of Cowick, would have been buried in their conventual church, as it is known their patrons, the Courtenays, were, consequently it may be assumed that these graves were the last resting places of the ancient priests of the Chapel of St. Thomas on the bridge, in which, as we have seen, it was not only impossible, but illegal, to bury, and the parochial clergy were usually buried in their chancels.

I may say, that in addition to the old cemetery, which extends around this curiously discovered site, the excavators proved that the building could not have been a church of any importance, since there were no traces of arcading, or of any elaborate details, save the rich tiled flooring, of which many fragments have been preserved. The only piece of stone moulding that was unearthed, was a small piece of string course a few inches long. The tiles, although very fragmentary, had been once excessively handsome; on one of these are the five chevronels, similar to those on the Courtenay tomb in Exeter Cathedral, and which indicate the second marriage of Reginald de Courtenay, with Matilda Fitz-Ede, otherwise Abrincis.

Then there are the Three Lions of England on another, which refer to the marriage of Hugh de Courtenay, son of the Earl buried at Cowick, with Margaret de Bohun. This marriage took place on the last day of August, 1325, and the Earl died in 1377. The existence of these arms, and the piece of string course, which is of the fourteenth century type, would point to the conclusion that the Chapel of St. Michael was "re-edified" by the second Earl of Devon, perhaps in memory of his father and mother.

Upon the surrender of Cowick Priory to Henry VI., that King appropriated the revenues, as I have said, to Eton College. A few years afterwards Edward IV. cancelled this donation, and gave all the property to the Abbey of Tavistock, and with that wealthy community it remained until the dissolution.

Subsequently to its union with Tavistock, Cowick Priory ceased to be of any importance in a monastic sense. Dr. Oliver considers that a few religious men may have resided amidst its ruins, but there were no further admissions of any Priors, as proved by the silence, about such, of the Episcopal Registers. The Abbot of Tavistock may, however, have appointed "Superiors" from time to time, removable at his will, and Browne Willis says that "John Carter was the last Prior of Cowick, a cell to Tavistock."

After the dissolution, Henry VIII. included the whole of the Cowick property in his very liberal grant to Lord Russell. "Cowick, with its members, Exwyck, Barley, Olderiggs, Cobelynche, Whympell (which had been the gift to Co wick of the Courtenays) and Woodemarston, then produced an inclusive rental of £78 16s. 7¼d. per annum.

The present house at Cowick Barton, which is a typical Tudor residence, appears to have been erected by Lord Russell, who was the fourth of the sixteen guardians of Edward VI., during his minority. The house must have been erected between the years 1539 and 1547. That is to say, between the time Lord Russell became the owner of the property, and the death of Henry VIII. , because the Arms of Edward VI. as Prince of Wales—the ostrich feather, badge, and the initial letters "E. P."—still remain there in stained glass.

Cowick remained in the Russell family for some generations, until, in 1630, Francis, Earl of Bedford, became the principal undertaker in the work of draining the Fen lands in Northampton, and the adjoining counties, usually known as "The Bedford Levels," and, perhaps to raise money for this expensive work, the St. Thomas, or Cowick, property was sold in or about 1641, when Barley and Franklyn changed hands.

The Pate family seem to have become the owners of Cowick Barton, with its interesting archaeological remains, above referred to. Robert Pate was certainly its owner on February the eighth, 1677, when he made his will. He left a son, Robert Pate, of the Middle Temple, Barrister-at-law, Susannah, and Mary, who married Mr. Brooking.

Robert Pate, the younger, describes himself as of "Cowick House" in his own will, the sixteenth of May, 1687. He gives his messuages, lands, and tenements to his sisters, above mentioned, in equal proportions.

The whole subsequently passed to Mrs. Prideaux, the daughter of Mary Brooking, who left it to her daughter, Mrs. Speke, and her daughter devised it to Mr. James White, who was the owner in 1830, and from him it has descended to the present owner, Mr. White-Abbott, of Exmouth, who has recently had this interesting old Barton, or rather. Manor, house carefully repaired and restored. It extends around three sides of a quadrangle, and, from its arrangement and general appearance, it was doubtless an occasional residence of the first Lord Russell, as it was evidently erected with that object.

The Manor of Cowick

The Manor of Cowick was purchased of the Earl of Bedford, in 1639, by William Gould, grandson of Edward Gould, of Staverton, in this county. This William Gould was baptized in the parish church of St. Thomas, on the fourteenth of September, 1615. He was a Colonel of Horse during the Civil War, and Governor of Plymouth, where he was buried on the ninth of July, 1644.

His great-grandson, William Gould, of Downes, in the parish of Crediton, left two daughters, co-heirs, and the eldest of these, Elizabeth, brought the Manor of Cowick into the family of Buller by her marriage with James Buller, of Morval.

Sir Redvers Buller, V.C, K.C.B., is now Lord of the Manor of Cowick, and patron of the Vicarage of St. Thomas.

The Ancient Manor of St Mary de Marisco

The Ancient Priory of St. Mary De Marisco, situated partly in St. Thomas, will be noticed subsequently in the history of the parish of Alphington.

Hayes Barton

Hayes Barton was purchased by John Petre, Collector of Customs, of Exeter, second son of John Petre, of Tor-Bryan, and the brother of Sir William Petre, "Principal Secretary of State," he ancestor of Lord Petre.

John Petre left this property to his son, William Petre, who devised it to his son. Sir George Petre, of Tor Newton, in the said parish of Tor Bryan, Kt., by whom it was sold in the reign of James I., to William Gould, son and heir of Edward Gould, of Staverton, already mentioned, and from him it descended, with Cowick, to the Bullers.

Floyer Hayes

Floyer Hayes, the ancient residence of the family of Floyer, is referred to in a Latin note to the Heralds' Visitation of Devon of 1564, preserved at the College of Arms: "The Manor of Hayes lies on the west side of the River Exe, and is held from the Earl of Devon by service, that whenever the Earl may come to Exe Island to fish, or otherwise enjoy himself, then the lord, or proprietor, of this manor, in decent habit or apparel, should attend him, with a mantle upon his shoulders, and a silver cup filled with wine in his hands, and should offer the same to the said Earl to drink."

This ancient mansion, long since destroyed, is shown in the old map of the City of Exeter, reproduced in Lysons' "Magna Britannia," Vol. ii., p. 178. It stood nearly in a line with "Snayle Tower," and on the west side of the river, and must have been very near the ancient priory of Cowick, but a little to the south-west of it.

The house appears as a building of very considerable size, and is surrounded by a strong wall, entered beneath a massive circular arched gateway.

The first of the Floyers, mentioned in their pedigrees, is Richard, who was lord of this manor, temp. Henry II.

From him, the line is continued to "Anthony Floyer, of Floyer Hayes," who died on the twenty-eighth of November, 1608. His son and heir, Anthony Floyer, shown by the Inquisition after his father’s death, to have been then twelve years old, sold "Floyer Hayes" to Henry Gould, brother of the aforesaid Edward Gould, of Staverton, and who afterwards purchased Lew Trenchard.

The Floyers then removed into Dorsetshire, the said Anthony having acquired property there in right of his mother, Anne, daughter and co-heir of Nicholas Martyn of Athelhampton.

Anthony's descendant, William Floyer, of Athelhampton, Dorsetshire, baptized at Trusham, in this county, in 1726, was the father of John Gould Floyer, of Kelsby, Lincolnshire, who died in 1841, and the latter was the grandfather of Augustus Wadhara Floyer, of Martyn Hall, county Lincoln, whose children are Eric, George, and Sydenham Floyer, the last born in 1864. So that this ancient family still flourishes.

The original grant of the Manor of Floyer Hayes, which was parcel of the Barony of Okehampton, was confirmed by Robert Fitz-Ede, natural son of Henry I., and second husband of Matilda D' Aincourt, née Abrincis, Baroness of Okehampton in her own right, to Richard, the son of Nicholas Floyer, whose grandfather, "Richard, the son of Floier," had held it long before, by knight's service, and by the above recited obligation.

It is of course well known that the Barony of Okehampton came to the Courtenays, Earls of Devon, in right of descent from Matilda D' Abrincis.

Prince, in the "Worthies of Devon," has given us an account of William Floyer, of Floyer Hayes, the fourteenth in the pedigree, who went to France in the retinue of the Duke of Clarence, in 1474—having agreed to serve for one whole year, "with three archers, he to have twelve pence a day, and the archers sixpence each." The agreement is dated the fourteenth of December, 14th Edward IV.

The Goulds ultimately sold this property to the Templars, who divided it, and destroyed the ancient house.

The Manor of Bowhill at one time belonged to the Hollands, and passed to John Carew, of Anthony, by marriage with Thomasine Holland, daughter of Roger Holland, Sheriff of Devon, 1494, and became forfeited by the attainder of John Carew, whose signature is attached to the death warrant of King Charles I.

However, King Charles II, graciously restored the property, together with Higher Barley, to Thomas Carew, and with a co-heir of Carew, these estates went to the Sawles, and ultimately became the property of Elizabeth Sawle, the wife of Admiral Graves, and hence the family of "Graves-Sawle."

There was an ancient domestic chapel at Bowhill, long used as a barn.

Barley House was garrisoned by Sir Thomas Fairfax in February, 1646.

Cleave House was purchased by the Northmores, of South Tawton, in the reign of Charles II., and was long a seat of that family; in 1822 it was the residence of Thomas Northmore, and still belongs to his descendant, Mr. Northmore, of Ceylon.

Franklands belonged to the Seales, of Mount Boone. Anna Maria, daughter of John Seale, married Mr. Charles Fanshawe; their son sold it to the late John Jones, the antiquarian friend of the late Dr. Oliver, who long resided there.

It now belongs to the Snows. Simon Snow, a benefactor to the City of Exeter, was Mayor of the city in 1653. His mother was Grace, sister of Dr. Vilvayne, the founder of the exhibition at Exeter School which bears his name, and who was in other ways eminent as a philanthropist.

They were the children of Peter, son of Stephen, son of John Vilvayne. The will of Peter Vilvayne, who resided in the parish of Allhallows, Goldsmith Street, was proved in 1602.

The Old Bridewell of the County of Devon (which stood nearly opposite the Sheriffs Ward, now converted into "Artisans' Dwellings"), is said to have been an ancient residence of the Hollands, Dukes of Exeter, by whom it was originally erected. It was very strong and massive in its character, and was converted into a house of detention in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

The Manor of Exwick

The Manor of Exwick passed from the Russells to the family of Oliver, who long resided there. Sir Benjamin Oliver, Mayor of Exeter, 1670-71, was knighted by King, Charles II. during his visit to Exeter in the latter year. He resided on Fore Street Hill, but his country house was at Exwick. He was an Exeter merchant. At this time Alexander and Francis Worth, two of the younger sons of Henry Worth, then head of the ancient house of Worth in Washfield, settled in Exeter as merchants. Their mother was Dorothy, daughter of John Bampfylde, of Poltimore. It was probably due to the intimacy of these young men with the Olivers that Benjamin, son of Sir Benjamin Oliver, married their fifth sister, Elizabeth Worth, who is mentioned as his wife in her father's will, proved on the nineteenth of May, 1680.

Benjamin Oliver and his wife Elizabeth appear to have had four children, viz., Benjamin, who died in 1668, aged six and a half years; Francis, called after his uncle, Francis Worth, and his great uncle, Francis Bampfylde; Jane, who died in infancy, 1667; and Joseph. Francis Oliver, who was deputy-registrar of the Consistory Court at Exeter, is said to have "owned Cleave," and to have left it, in 1725, to his grandson, Francis Oliver. But he can only have had a leasehold interest in the property, and the said grandson must have died without issue, as Elizabeth, widow of William Williams, M.D., and daughter of Joseph Oliver, the brother of Francis Oliver the elder, is described in her memorial inscription as "the last of that respectable family." She died on the twenty-fifth of June, 1776, aged 77.

Thomas Northmore, the purchaser of Cleave, who was M.P. for Okehampton, had no son, and settled Cleave upon two nephews. The elder of these, William Northmore, married his cousin Anne, the said Thomas Northmore's only daughter. She died in 1717.

Cleave passed, under the entail, to the younger nephew, John, son of Jeffery Northmore, the ancestor of the present owner.

The "heirs of Williams” sold Exwick House, with the barton, to Edmund Granger and Samuel Banfill, the then owners of the woollen manufactory which took the place of the ancient Exwick mill. Sir Redvers Buller is now the lord of the manor.

Exwick was formed into an ecclesiastical district in 1872. A chapel-of-ease to St. Thomas, dedicated to St. Andrew, had been erected there in 1841, and this was enlarged in 1873, at the expense of Mr. William Gibbs, of Tyntesfield, who endowed it with a yearly income of £200. It is now a vicarage, of the yearly value of £277 with residence, and in the patronage of Mr. Gibbs.

In the Church of St. Thomas there is a very handsome canopied tomb, with a recumbent statue, by Bacon, of the late Mrs. Medley, wife of the venerable Metropolitan of Canada, who was for some years the vicar of the parish.

Oldridge

Oldridge, which is distant about six miles from St. Thomas, and is in the neighbourhood of Crediton, has been identified as the "Olperige" of Domesday, which, at the period of the Survey, was held by Rainald, under the Earl of Mortain.

Robert, Earl of Mortain, was the Conqueror's uterine brother, and the larger portion of his possessions, together with the Earldom of Cornwall, ultimately passed into the hands of Reginald de Dunstanville, an illegitimate son of King Henry I.

The daughter of this Reginald, Avis, was the wife of Richard de Redvers, third Earl of Devon, so that Oldridge may probably have passed through the latter family into the hands of the Courtenays, and may have been one of their several gifts to Cowick Priory ,v subsequently to the death of Isabella de Fortibus.

This theory is supported by the fact, that there is no mention of Oldridge in the earliest records of the Priory, nor is the chapel referred to in the "Taxatio" of 1291.

At the dissolution it had passed with Cowick into the hands of the Abbot of Tavistock, and it is included with the rest of the possessions of Tavistock Abbey in the "Valor" of 1535.

There were anciently five separate estates in Oldridge, which extended, in all, to about four hundred and fifty acres of land. The ancient chapel, which had been maintained from time immemorial for the use of the inhabitants, was conveyed to John Lord Russell, with the rest of the property, and remained for some time in the Russell family, until it was at length purchased by the Trowbridges' of Trowbridge.

George Trowbridge pulled down the old chapel, and used the stones to repair a portion of his own residence (the communion table was long used as a part of the fiirniture of the village ale-house), and, it is said, that prosperity deserted his family and himself from that period, and that "all those concerned in the desecration, especially one, who appropriated the chapel bell for his trouble, died miserably."

Trowbridge House was soon in the market, and was purchased by Samuel Strode, who sold it, together with Oldridge, to Giles, son of Gilbert Yarde, of Bradley.

Mr. Giles Yarde gave the timber for a new chapel, which was erected at the expense of Mr. James Buller, the patron, in 1789. In 1791 the executors of Mr. Yarde sold the lands in parcels. Oldridge is still a chapel ry, dependent upon the Vicarage of St. Thomas.

Eustace Budgell, one of the contributors to the Spectator, is said to have been born in the parish of St. Thomas, in 1685, although his name does not occur in the parochial registers, which commence, baptisms, 1541, burials, 1554, and marriages, 1576. Chapel says that "Budgell was bom in Exeter about 1680."

By indenture, on the twentieth of November, 1564, William Harris and John Jake granted to William Floyer, and others, a messuage and a garden in "Cowick Street," lately the property of Walter Battyn, formerly vicar of the parish, in trust for the repairs and maintenance of the parish church. The deed recites that the said property was the gift of the said deceased vicar.

These premises were demolished during the Civil War, but were re-built by the parishioners prior to the year 1672, in which year it was agreed that the then vicar. Rev. John Reynolds, should inhabit this house during his tenure of the Vicarage, subject to a yearly rent of ten shillings, to be employed by the churchwardens in accordance with the intentions of the original donor.

The succeeding Vicars of St. Thomas continued to reside in this house until 1781, when the then Vicar, the Rev., J. B. Coplestone, agitated for a new dwelling, upon the plea, that the old one "was exposed to floods." It was therefore determined that the premises should be leased for the largest fine that could be obtained, subject to an annual rent of ten shillings, reserved by the lessors.

The tenement was let, on the fourth of December, 1806, for ninety-nine years, determinable on three lives, at the above-mentioned rent, which does not seem to have been subsequently enforced, and in consideration of a fine of £280.

The latter sum, together with £105 raised by a rate, was paid to Mr. Coplestone in aid of the expense of building a new vicarage upon a small piece of glebe-land near the church, and this house w^as built at an expense of £1,000.

The poor of the parish participate in the "bread charities" of Lawrence Seldon and Sir John Acland.

Bartholomew Berry, of Barley, gave by deed on the second of July, 1635, a plot of land "lying near the pound," out of the profits of which a sum of twenty shillings per annum was to be paid to the “minister" for preaching sermons on Good Friday and Ascension Day, and the remainder was to be distributed to the poor "for ever."

William Floyer was one of the original trustees. Mr. Berry seems really to have given instead of a specified sum, "all his orchards, houses, and gardens in Cowick Street," and the houses were demolished in the Civil War. The premises, subsequently rebuilt, were used as the parish poorhouse.

Two houses adjoining the churchyard represent the ancient "church house," and it is shown by a lease, on the thirtieth of April, 1674, from Thomas Reynell and others, executors of the will of William Gould, to Sir Thomas Carew, that the "church of St. Thomas had been burned during the Civil War," and that the chest containing the parish deeds and writings had been then also destroyed, and that nothing of the house was remaining, at the above date, but "old ruinous walls."

The present houses were therefore built by the parishioners, and were long kept in repair out of the rates, and occupied, rent free, by paupers. They were demised by Gould's executors to Sir Thomas Carew and others, parishioners, for two hundred years, subject to a yearly rental of one shilling. The lease expired on the thirtieth of April, 1874.

William Gould, in 1637, gave a rent-charge of eight pounds per annum, to which his son, William Gould, added two pounds in 1642, for the purposes of a parish school. Robert Pate, of Cowick Barton, gave thirty pounds in 1687, the interest to be employed for the instruction of the children of poor people in reading and writing.

Robert Pate, sen., in 1677 gave an annuity of twenty shillings out of Cowick; John Peter, in 1570, twenty shillings per annum out of the sheaf of Cornworthy; Nicholas Evans, twenty shillings a year for ever, in 1618; and Elizabeth Painter, in 1812, the interest of one hundred pounds, these gifts to be devoted to the relief of the poor of the parish.

Finally, William Gould, sen., by will, on the twentieth of May, 1632, gave four pounds yearly, to issue out of Hayes, at least twenty days before Christmas, and to be spent by the vicar, churchwardens, and overseers "in grey frieze, or watchet blue cloth, to make jerkins and hose, for men and boys, and gowns for women and maids," to be given to those in "most need."

He also left £20, "to be lent out gratis, on bond, to such men as would set the wandering poor on work, and that for a year or more "; and by codicil he gave an additional eight pounds, "yearly for ever," "to be disposed of at the discretion of his heirs and the minister of the parish for the time being, to the use of the poor."

Chapter VII—The Parish of Alphington

Alphington, in the Deanery of Kenne, is about two miles distant from Exeter, on the road to Plymouth.

This village takes its name from the little streamlet called the Alphin, anciently the "Alfrain," which flows through the village. The short account of this parish given by the Lysons' "Magna Britannia," Vol. 2, pp. 8-9, is very incorrect and misleading.

These authors appear to have confounded the manor with that of East AUington, and the Matford property, partially, with the estate of the same name, situated in the Parish of Heavitree.

Alphington formed a portion of the great Barony of Okehampton, and belonged to Baldwin de Brion, Sheriff of Devon. Almar held it under the name of "Alfreincombe," in the reign of Edward the Confessor. It paid tax for one hide, which could be worked by nine ploughs.

At the period of the Survey, "Robert" held it under Baldwin, and had in demesne one virgate, and two ploughs. There were then upon the manor twelve villeins, twelve bordarii, or cottagers, five serfs, one pack horse, five head of cattle, fifteen swine, one hundred and thirty-three sheep, five acres of meadow, and a hundred acres of pasture,, and it was worth yearly £4, and had not increased in value since Saxon times.

This "Robert," the sub-tenant under Baldwin, was probably one of the two younger sons of the latter, and, presumably, died without issue; he was for some time Governor of Brion, in Normandy, of which town his grandfather, Gilbert, had been Earl.

Robert had a brother, William of Avenel, usually stated to have been the husband of his own sister Emma, as already noticed in the account of Cowick Priory, and this William, or his son, Ralph, would appear to have succeeded ultimately to the Alphington property, since by deed, executed, as shown by internal evidence, after 1142, and before March, 1155, William Avenel, son of Ralph, son of William, brother to "Adeliza," Baroness of Okehampton,. and therefore to the other children of Baldwin de Brion, viz., Richard and Emma, gave to the Monks of Plympton, "The Chapel of Exeter Castle, and the four Prebends, the Churches of St. Michael, Alphington, and St. Andrew of Kenne (Chen), which Ranulphus, my father, and Adeliza, his aunt, on the father's side (‘ ejus amita' ) 'gave them' originally."

It will be seen by reference to my notice of William of Avenel, in connection with Cowick, what very valuable evidence this document affords, the original of which is preserved in the College of Arms.

Possibly by gift on the part of William of Avenel, the younger, or of his father, Ralph, the next owner of the Manor of Alphington was Anianus, alias Eneon, Archdeacon of Anglesey, and Bishop of Bangor, from 1267 to 1306, and after him it was owned by Sir John de Neville.

The Priory of Plympton do not seem to have long retained the patronage of the Church, since Bishop Bronescombe collated Hugh de Staneway, Dean of Exeter, to the Rectory, in July, 1263, and, his successor, "John of Excester," afterwards Treasurer of the Cathedral, was presented by Sir John de Neville on the twenty-ninth of June, 1278.

The Nevilles seem to have obtained the manor in exchange with the diocese of Bangor. It was their property until 1349, when Sir Hugh de Neville presented. Soon after it became the property of Hugh de Segrave, probably by purchase.

Sir John de Neville was a Church benefactor, and founded a religious establishment at Stoke Courcy, in Somerset; but I have found no evidence of any marriage with the Segraves, which would account for the descent of the Alphington property. However, James de Cobham exchanged Alphington Rectory for Sampford Courtenay, with the consent of his patron, Hugh de Segrave, in 1361-2, and shortly after the year 1382, Hugh de Segrave exchanged the Manor of Alphington for that of Newenham Courcy, in Oxfordshire, with Sir Philip Courtenay, of Powderham. The advowson of the Rectory soon after, however, became the property of the Earl of Devon.

The Manors of Nuneham Iweme, Co. Dorset, and Nuneham Courcy, in Oxfordshire, were Redvers property, and seem to have passed in marriage with Mary de Redvers to Robert Courtenay, who was at one time Sheriff of Oxfordshire, and died whilst staying at his Manor House at Nuneham Iwerne, then written "Ywren," in 1242.

Nuneham Courcy, afterwards known as Nuneham Courtenay, had been, immediately after the Conquest, the property of Richard, son of Robert de Courcy, who was the brother of Richard de Neville, ancestor of that noble family, and this recollection may have had something to do with the exchange of the Manor of Alphington for that of Nuneham, although, as I have already remarked, I have not found any evidence that the Nevilles and Segraves were in any way related to each other.

The first Patron of Alphington after the Courtenays became the owners, was Sir Peter Courtenay, who presented his nephew, Richard, eldest son of Sir Philip Courtenay, by his wife, Ann Wake, to the Rectory, on the sixth of April, 1403. This Rector became Bishop of Norwich on September the twenty-seventh, 1413, but died two years subsequently.

The Bishop only held Alphington a few months, since Sir Peter presented his successor, John Plaistowe, on the twenty-eighth of December, 1403.

In 1419, Sir Peter, who had died unmarried, in 1405, was succeeded in the patronage of this living by his nephew, and heir, Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devon.

The Courtenay Earls continued to present to Alphington until the division of the property amongst the co-heirs of Edward, Earl of Devon, who died at Padua, in 1556. The last Courtenay who exercised the right of patronage was the said Earl Edward's father, Henry, Marquess of Exeter, Earl of Devon, and Lord of Okehampton, who was beheaded by Henry VIII., in 1539.

William Oldreve "occurs as Rector" in 1536. He was the incumbent of the living at the time of the Ecclesiastical Survey in that year, when his benefice was valued at £34 6s. 8d. per annum. By his will, dated August the eleventh, 1558, he desires a requiem mass for the repose of his soul. He gives forty shillings for the repair of the fabric.

Four poor women were to attend the "requiem "with tapers in their hands, and to have five pence each for their trouble; twenty of the poorest inhabitants were to receive twenty pence each. The will was proved at the Principal Registry, Exeter, on the tenth of June, 1559.

Upon the death of Edward Courtenay, at Padua, in 1556, the estates belonging to the Earldom were divided amongst the representatives of his great great aunts, the four daughters of the second Sir Hugh Courtenay, of Bocconoc and Haccombe.

The "Inquisition," taken after the death of the Earl (who in consequence of his father s attainder, had been so created by Queen Mary, in 1553, with remainder to his heirs male, for ever), proved that the descendants of these ladies were Reginald Mohun, Alexander Arundell, John Vivian, the younger, Margaret, wife of Richard Buller, and John Trelawny. The Manor of Alphington, had always descended in the Powderham branch of the Courtenays, and with them it has since remained, and the then owner was Sir William Courtenay, of Powderham, who, de jure succeeded to the earldom, although he died without claiming it, soon after the decease of his kinsman. He met his death at the siege of St. Quentin, on the twenty-sixth of September, 1557.

But a great deal of the property belonging to the elder branch of the Courtenays, was dispersed by the co-heirs, for the purposes of division, and the advowson of the Rectory of Alphington, became the property of John Bourchier, Earl of Bath.

William, third Earl of Bath, sold several presentations, and Bartholomew Parr, Rector of Clist St. Mary, presented on the tenth of February, 1637-38, the right having been assigned to him by the then late Rector of Alphington, John Doughty, who had acquired it from Lord Bath.

Rachel, Countess of Bath, presented to Alphington, as late as 1677. She was the widow of Sir Henry Bourchier, who had succeeded his nephew as fifth Earl of Bath, in 1636.

With the death of the fifth Earl, the title of Bath, in the Bourchier family, became extinct, and the advowson of Alphington was again sold, and the purchasers were the Pitman family. The first of them is described as "John Pitman, of Kenton, Yeoman."

Three of the Pitmans held this Rectory between the years 17 12 and 1768, with an interval of a year or two, between September, 1739, and March, 1742, and the presentation remained with their family for several years subsequently, until it passed into the hands of the EUicombes. The patronage is now with the Rector, the Rev. E. J. G. Dupuis.

After an abeyance of two hundred and seventy-five years, the lord of the Manor of Alphington, the third Viscount Courtenay of Powderham, established his claim to the Earldom of Devon on the fifteenth of March, 1831, and then succeeded as the ninth earl of the creation of 1553. He died unmarried, on the twenty-sixth of May, 1835, when the baronetcy, and the earldom, with its property, including the Manor of Alphington, passed to his second cousin, William Courtenay (son of Dr. H. R Courtenay, Lord Bishop of Exeter), father of the present earl.

Sir William Courtenay, of Powderham, born 1553, and who should have been third Earl of Devon, of Queen Mary's creation, was, as previously stated, one of the undertakers for the Settlement of Ireland, and "laid the foundation of that vast property in Limerick, which has since been enjoyed by his descendants."

The following copy of a letter written by his grandson. Sir William Courtenay, during a sojourn in Ireland, and addressed to Mr. Gilbert Yarde, of Bradley, is still preserved at Powderham. Sir William died on the twenty-eighth of July, 1702. The copy is undated.

"Sir,—I have so reall and entire affection for yrselfe and family, yt neither distance of place, seas, rockes, mountains, nor boggis, could hinder me from sending you my faithfull service, and wish both you and yrs all happinisse imaginable. Sr since my landing in this kingdom, I have traveled some hundreds of miles, but a richer soyle (for the generallity), never eyes beheld, and I find nothing so ill heere as ye natives, wch are ye worst generation of people ye world affords. I shall onle instance one thing as to ye excellence of ye land, because ye messenger's haste will permit me no longer time. I have here about my old castle, some 5 or 6 and thirty thousand acres of land, most of wch are as good as any land in my mannor of Alphington and better naturally, yet I am forct to sett ym for lesse at twelve pence an acre, wch goes to ye heart of mee, yet it cannot be helped. If ever God Almighty punish Ireland again, 'twill be for their excesse in eating and' drinking, which far exceeds England, though I thought in those vertues we could not be outdone, till I had experimented it here. Pardon this hasty incoherent scribble, and a better and perfecte account of this kingdome shall be given you in my next, by. Sir,
Your faithful Servant,
William Courtenay."

Alphington Church is dedicated in memory of St. Michael, and comprehends chancel, nave, north and south aisles, a western tower, and a south porch. The church is about ninety feet long, inclusive of the tower, which is over seventy feet high. The breadth of the nave and aisles, which latter open into the nave under an arcade of five bays, is over forty feet.

There is an aspersorium, or holy water stoup, in the porch, and the font is of Norman date and peculiarly rich in style. It is of circular form, and round the top is a representation of the combat of St. Michael with the Great Dragon, who is thrusting his lance into the monster's mouth; behind the Saint is the figure of his dog. The sculpture is in bold relief, so also is the ornamentation of the lower part, which consists of a Norman arcading, the points of the arches intersecting one another, a style which is considered to have heralded the introduction of the pointed arch, which commenced to supersede the circular towards the end of the twelfth century.

One of the piers which support the arcading between the nave and aisles, had a double capital, a rather unusual feature; the lower one, however, was cut away in 1827, as noted by Dr. Oliver. The remains of piscinæ at the east ends of the aisles denote the site of chantry altars.

The church generally is of perpendicular, or third pointed date, and was probably extensively altered and added to in the fourteenth century, in common with most of our Devonshire churches. It is certain, as shown by inequalities in the masonry, that the original structure was, at some time, considerably lengthened.

The church was extensively restored in 1878 at an expense of about £3,000, and the ancient rood screen was then repaired at the cost of the Earl of Devon, brother of the present Earl.

The Prior and Convent of St. Nicholas, at Exeter, had an annual pension from the church of two shillings, and proved their right to it in 1330. On one or two occasions the Prior presented to the rectory, in 1310, and again in 1390, probably by concession of the true patrons.

The tower and church suffered from a severe thunderstorm in 1826. On this occasion four of the ringers were struck by lightning, and the sexton's son, George Coles, was killed. There are eight bells in the tower.

The rectory was valued at £8 per annum in 1291.

Judging from the font, it is probable that this church was built by Ralph Avenel, with the consent of his aunt Adeliza, Lady of Okehampton, and that they immediately handed it over to Plympton Priory. This must have been previously to 1142, as Adeliza died in that year.

Richard succeeded his father, Baldwin, in the Barony of Okehampton, and died in 1137, when he was followed by his sister, Adeliza, these two being the children of Baldwin de Brion, by Albreda, niece of William the Conqueror. Robert de Brion, William Fitz-Baldwin de Avenel, and, it has also been believed, Emma, were children of Baldwin de Brion by a second marriage, and therefore the barony was inherited by Adeliza instead of by her two half-brothers.

But from the ultimate judicial exclusion of the Avenels from the succession to the barony, in favour of the descendants of "Emma," it would appear almost certain that this lady, the wife of William de Abrincis, must have been the issue of Baldwin de Brion's first marriage, and whole, instead of half-sister to Adeliza.

It will give some idea, as to the difference in the relative value of money, to remark that Alphington Rectory, which was worth £8 per annum in 1291, had increased in value to the amount of £34 6s. 8d. in 1536. The tithe rent charge is now £794 per annum, and there are twenty-six acres of glebe.

The parish registers commence alike in 1663 : the earlier ones have been lost.

The ancient cross may be seen on the high road, near the entrance to the village.

There were fairs at Alphington on the first Wednesday after the twentieth of June, and in the week after Michaelmas, but they have been discontinued since 1870. It is unlikely that they were of any great age, as they are not mentioned in the Hundred Rolls. The entry in these of a market and fair for Alphington, at Michaelmas, evidently refers to West Alvington, as noted by Lysons.

Risdon tells us of a man who died at Alphington in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, aged 120; he was called Stone, and held office in the Chapel Royal.

Westcote, by the way, furnishes a touching story about a lady, of the parish of St. Thomas, who had a dog which was so much affected by its mistress's death, that it afterwards declined food, escaped to the churchyard, and died on the good lady's grave.

The father of the late Charles Dickens resided for some time at Alphington, but the great novelist was born at Portsmouth, in 1812.

Matford, in this parish, was an ancient seat of the Dinham family, and was thence known as Matford Dinham. It was subsequently the property of a younger branch of the Northleigh family, who ultimately acquired Peamore by marriage with the heiress of Tothill.

Robert Northleigh, of Matford Dinham, was buried at Alphington, in 1639.

The last of the Northleighs, Stephen, married a co-heiress of Davey, and died in 1713.

His heiress married Hippisley Coxe, and Henry H. Coxe sold Matford to Sir Laurence Vaughan Palk, Baronet, the ancestor of Lord Haldon.

Almost immediately opposite to this estate, but on the other side of the river, is another property also called Matford, but situated in the parish of Heavitree, to which I have referred previously. Lysons has confused the two Matfords, as I have already noticed, and has seated "Sir George Smith" in Alphington instead of Heavitree. Between the two estates, however, there is a ford across the river which forms the continuation of a road between Alphington and Heavitree; it crosses the water just below "Salmon Pool.''

This road must have afforded a very short cut between the London road at Heavitree, and the Plymouth road at Alphington, and the two Matfords doubtless took name from the ford, which was probably artificial, and therefore known as "Maad-ford," i,e,. Made-ford, or "Mad-ford."

It has been suggested recently that the names bear reference to the ford, but that they are derived from "Mate or Mætan Ford, that is, the beaten track across the stream." This would be, I think, a plausible interpretation, if any such signification could be found for the Anglo-Saxon word "Mætan," which is usually translated "Somniare," to dream. Gower applies this word to the effects of drunkenness, and it is written by Douglas, "Mait" and "Mate." Dr. Richardson gives the meaning of the word, "to be, or cause to be, insensate."

The other Anglo-Saxon verb, "Metan," from which "Mate," that is, one of a pair, is derived, signifies to meet, whilst "beaten" comes from the Anglo-Saxon, Beatan, not Mætan.

There is another place in this county known as "Matford," in the parish of Hemlock, and which probably owes its name to a similar ford across the Culm.

The ancient Priory of "St. Mary de Marisco," long known as Marsh Barton, which was a cell to Plympton Priory, is chiefly situated in the parish of Alphington, although it extends into that of St. Thomas, as previously noticed.

According to Dr. Oliver, Marsh Barton is mentioned in a letter of Ralph Avenel's, addressed to Robert Warelwast, Bishop of Exeter, between the years 1155 and 1160. But this letter was of earlier date than he supposed, and was really addressed to Bishop Chichester, 1138-1155, instead of Bishop Warelwast.

Because Ralph Avenel was dead when his son confirmed" his father s previous gift of the Church of Alphington, and this confirmation must have been in, or previously, to the year 1155, since it is addressed to Robert, Bishop of Exeter, to Baldwin the Earl, and to Richard, son of the Earl. Bishop Robert Chichester died in March, 1155; Baldwin, Earl of Devon, on the fourth of June, the same year; and Bishop Robert Warelwast was not consecrated until the day after the Earl's death, viz., on the fifth of June, 1155.

Marsh Barton seems to have been a very small foundation, and only the names of four Superiors, or "Custodes," have been recovered.

Of the first of these, Thomas Cryer, the following anecdote has been preserved. The cook of the priory assaulted him with a drawn dagger, and Cryer knocked him down with a stick, and inflicted a severe wound on his head, from the effects of which he died three days afterwards.

Bishop Stafford on September fifth, 1409, pronounced Cryer free from censure in this matter, and permitted him to resume the exercise of his office, and his priestly duties.

The Cell of St. Mary de Marisco had a considerable amount of property in Exeter, and the suburbs, viz., land and tenements in the parishes of St. Sidwell, St. Stephen, Allhallows, Goldsmith Street, St. Paul, St. Pancras, St. Martin, St. Petrock (two tenements and four shops in High Street), St. Kerrian (two tenements, a stable and garden), St. Olave (two tenements and four shops), St. Mary Arches, "Coke Rew," St. Mary Major, Holy Trinity, St. George, and St. Mary Steps.

The houses, shops, and small pieces of land in these parishes, and in "Coke Rew," near the Conduit, produced an annual income of £23 12s, 7d.

In Alphington the monks had about seventeen acres of land, land beyond Exminster, and several houses and gardens, worth, inclusively, £1 8s, 4d. a year.

In Heavitree they had four acres of land, near the road, towards the village, "between the Granary of Henry Hule and that of the Prior of St. James', near the Marsh."

And, in the immediate neighbourhood of the last, they had another four acres. The total rental of "Marescombe, nigh the city of Exeter," was, according to the Valor Ecclesiasticus, £28 8s. 11d. clear of all deductions.

In 1546, King Henry VIII. granted the site of Marsh Barton Cell to James Coffin and Thomas Godwin.

Coffin seems to have built a "mansion" there, or else he converted the priory into a residence; in 1562, he sold to John Hoker, the City Chamberlain, all the trees, oak, ash, elm, &c., &c., standing, in the grove at the south side of "Marsh mansion house," between the running water on the south, and the open pasture, adjoining the said mansion, on the north, the great pool on the west, and a ditch on the east. For these, and some other oak trees, standing on the south-east of the mansion, Hoker paid £27.

James Coffin, of Marsh Barton, was the third son of Richard Coffin, of Portledge; he died in 1566, and was buried at Monkleigh. He left four daughters, co-heirs; three of them married Wye, Gere, and Mallett.

So that James Coffin was not, as Lysons says, the ancestor of Mr. Richard Pyne-Coffin, of Portledge, who was, however, the owner of Marsh Barton in 1822.

James Coffin was married on the fifth of February, 1559-60, to Elizabeth Ede, at Ashton under Haldon.

"St. Mary's Acre," at Marsh Barton, was tithe free, but none, save the immediate residents of the inner court of the priory, were discharged from attendance at Alphingfon Church.

The old inn, known as the "Admiral Vernon,” at Alphington, was the ancient Church House, built on land given in 1499 by Sir William Courtenay, of Powderham, great great grandson of the first Sir Philip Courtenay, and of his wife, Anne Wake.

The house was leased on the third of May, 1784, for ninety-nine years, determinable on three lives, for a fine of £100, and a yearly rental of £5.

The income which arose from the fine, was applied to the repair and new seating of the church, and the annual rent, together with another £5 the interest of a bequest under the will of Edward Leach (April the twenty-fourth, 1688), was distributed at Christmas, in bread to the poor.

Under the grant of Sir William Courtenay, the rents and profits of this house were intended to be used for the reparation of the parish church, and the Charity Commissioners did not consider that any portion of them should be applied to the relief of the poor. When they made their report, the "Admiral Vernon" was considered to be worth an annual rent of at least £30.

The Hamlyn Family

Certain lands in Holcombe Burnell were purchased with money given for the purpose by Roger Hamlyn, John Bliss, Roger and Ann Lambshead, and Fidelis Stoyle, between the years 1628 and 1673; the said lands to be "for the use of the parish for ever." At one time the rent of these lands seems to have been devoted to the repair of the Church, but the Commissioners were of opinion that they should be applied for the benefit of the poor.

A branch of the Hamlyn family were long resident in this parish, and also in the neighbouring ones of St. Thomas and St. Leonard; in the latter, they were settled at Larkbeare from a very early date.

James Hamlyn, of Alphington, died in 1625, and, three years later, Roger Hamlyn, as shown above, was a benefactor to the poor of his parish. They were cadets of the ancient house of Hamlyn, the history of which is coeval with all that is actually authentic in the history of this county, and the earliest documentary evidence in existence bears record to the high social position of the Hamlyns, not only in Devonshire, but in many other English counties as well, although it is possible, and very probable, that the only connection between the Hamlyns of the West and those of other parts of England consisted in identity of name.

This, like many other English surnames, was evidently derived from their habitation in a watered valley, "ham" and "lynna" being both Saxon terms, expressive of the home by the pool, or water; and thus we get the German "Hamelin," the town on the river Hamel.

It has been thought that the earliest record of “Hamelin" in this county occurs in a "Saxon deed,'' quoted by Risdon; but, from the occurrence in it of such names as "Veteripont" and "Launcels," this deed was evidently executed after the Norman Conquest, and there can be no doubt as to the identity of the particular "Hamelin" who witnessed it, as I shall be able presently to show.

The name of "Hamelin" occurs in several copies of the "Battle Abbey Roll," and so does that of "Baylon" or "Balun," and it is well known that the Conqueror's army was made up of Continental adventurers, and was by no means restricted to his Norman subjects. Amongst his followers were many Germans, and it would seem certain, therefore, that the Hamelins themselves were of the latter race and were nourished upon the banks of the river Hamel, and were subsequently known as "The Hamelins," just as we should speak now of "The Scotch" and "The Irish" in reference to the constituent parts of a modern army.

The town of Hamelin, in Lower Saxony, is seated at the confluence of the Hamel and Weser, and is twenty-two miles distant from Hanover; and it is only thus that the numerous Hamlins or Hamlyns, who settled in England and became simultaneously possessed of land immediately after the Conquest, in this and other counties, can be supposed to have originated.

We find them settled at very early dates in Leicestershire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, and Rutland; and that they founded families, henceforth known as "Hamlyn," and transmitted to them their lands and houses, through long succeeding ages, is abundantly evident from our public records, an enormous mass of which have been carefully examined for the purposes of this short history of the Hamlyn family. Thus, in 1274, William Hamlyn was appointed to the custody of Leicester and Warwick. John Hamlyn was paymaster and leader of the levies in Shropshire and at Stafford, in 1314. Soon afterwards Geoffry Hamlyn had a commission to protect the Prince of Wales (the Black Prince), in Gascony.

The two most important Hamlyns of the eleventh century, were the two whose names are mentioned in the Battle Abbey Roll, who were quite possibly brothers, and were known respectively as "Hameline,'' and "Hameline de Balun." The latter, known usually as "The Sire de Bayloun," had doubtless been a man of some importance in the diocese of Mons, where the French town of Ballan is situated, and had most probably migrated there from Germany at some period anterior to the Conquest. King William gave him the territory of Ober-Went, in Monmouthshire, and he built the Castle of Bergavenny by his royal master's orders.

He lived until the latter end of the reign of William Rufus, but died childless. He left the whole of his property to his nephew Brian, son of his sister Lucy, whose two sons were lepers. Therefore this Brian settled his lands upon his cousin, "Walter of Gloucester," then High Constable of England.

The son of the latter was created Earl of Hereford, but his male line failed, and one of his three daughters became the wife of Sir William Braose. Their descendant, Eva Braose, married William de Cantilupe, who had then succeeded the other "Hamelin," mentioned in the Battle Abbey Roll, in the Lordship of Broadhempston, which is a rather singular coincidence.

And it is now time to return to this "other Hamelin," for with his namesakes elsewhere we have really nothing whatever to do, although it has seemed to me necessary to refer to them, in order to account for the frequent recurrence of the name in ancient records.

“Hamelin" of Devonshire and Cornwall, called in Domesday "Hamelinus,'' was the ancestor of our Devonshire Hamlyns. He most probably came to Cornwall in the immediate train of Robert, Earl of Mortaigne, the half-brother of William I. This Robert was created Earl of Cornwall, and it was in Cornwall that by far the greater portion of Hamelin's property was situated.

In that county, either under the king or under the earl, he held twenty-two important manors in 1086. Some of his posterity remained in Cornwall, whilst others settled in Devonshire. Of the former it will be enough to say that, like their Devonshire kinsmen, they always occupied good social positions, as shown by patent and subsidy rolls, parliamentary writs, and similar undeniable evidences. Thus, Hamelin was Reeve of Launceston in 1207. Albert and Richard Hamelyn both occur more than a hundred years later in Cornish records.

But I must still confine myself to Devonshire. In this county, "Hamelinus" is shown by "Domesday" to have held his land entirely under the Earl of Mortaigne, and it consisted of the Manors of Broadhempston and of Alwington, which latter is the property referred to in the "Saxon deed" I have cited above.

The entry in the Exchequer copy of the Survey proves that "Hamelinus" held Broadhempston—"Hamistone," as it was then called, "under the Earl” and that it was taxed for two hides of land, which could be worked by ten ploughs, and that he himself farmed sufficient for two ploughs.

He had on this property three serfs, ten villeins or small farmers, nine cottagers. The manor consisted of four acres of meadow, ten of pasture, and twelve of wood. In the reign of Edward the Confessor, when Ordulf the Saxon owned it, it was worth forty shillings per annum; it had increased in value, under Norman rule, to sixty-shillings.

Upon the Manor of Alwington, Hamelin had ten serfs, fifteen villeins, and fifteen cottagers. This latter estate, however, soon passed to the Coffins, whose representatives, in the female line, are still settled at Portledge.

But although the Hamlyns (I shall henceforth adopt the modern spelling of their name) soon disappeared from both their original settlements in this county, yet they simultaneously acquired other possessions in the immediate neighbourhood; and that this was effected by exchange of land is certain, from the fact that, in their fresh acquisitions, they continued to hold under the same lord paramount.

Thus the Hamlyns of Widecombe, who may be considered the heads of the family, obtained their first property in that parish by barter with Richard, the son of Turold, who held the Widecombe Manor of Natsworthy under the earl, as did Erchenbold the Manor of Bratton, near Alwington, which, at about the same period (1187-1200), also passed to Hamlyn.

The descendants of the first Hamlyn of Widecombe and Bratton were very numerous, and spread consequently into numerous branches. One of the most important of these settled in the hundred of Wonford, and the fifth in descent from "Hamelinus" of Domesday was Richard Hamlyn of Wonford, who flourished between the years 1 1 66-1 2 1 6. He was the father of "Hamlyn of Wonford," who resided at Larkbeare, as shown by the "Fines," 3rd Henry III, and also of Hamlyn, surnamed" the Harper," of Hill, in the Parish of Holne.

Hamlyn of Larkbeare was the ancestor of the Hamlyns of Exeter, St. Thomas, and Alphington. Those of Exeter, in the course of years, prospered in mercantile pursuits, and gave mayors to that city, and filled other municipal offices, and from them is descended the present "Squire" of Paschoe, in Colebrook, and of Lee Wood, in the Parish of Bridestowe. It is shown by the subsidy rolls of 14th Henry VIII. that Henry Hamlyn of Exeter, Thomas Hamlyn of Totnes, and Richard Hamlyn of Widecombe, all held lands at that time of over £40 per annum rental.

Hamlyn, surnamed the "Harper," is shown to have been the son of Richard Hamlyn, of Wonford, by the Fine rolls; and Hill, the estate upon which he was settled, remained in the hands of his descendants until a few years ago, when it was sold by the father of Mrs. William Hamlyn, of Buckfastleigh, the present owner of Littlecombe. He was the grandfather of Sir William "Hamlyn de Deandon," called by Pole the son of "William" [Hamlyn] "de Deandon," who was certainly his heir, and also of Walter Hamlyn, of Widecombe, who, with Alice his wife, is mentioned in a legal agreement of the 32nd Henry III.

Sir William Hamlyn de Deandon, an estate in Widecombe, which had been purchased of the Pomeroys, was also the owner of Bratton. He was one of the knights appointed to make a return of the great assize for Devon, 34th Henry III. He had no male issue, but his brother, Walter Hamlyn, already mentioned, carried on the line, and was the father of William Hamlyn, of Dunstone (Assize Rolls, 34th Edward I.; of John Hamlyn, of Chittleford (Coinage Rolls, 31st Edward I.); of Hugh Hamlyn and Roger Hamlyn, both of Corndon, all estates in Widecombe Parish; and of Robert Hamlyn, M.P. for Totnes in 1311. Sir William Hamlyn of Deandon had another brother, who was ancestor of the Hennock branch of the family.

I should here remark that Hamlyn of Larkbeare, brother of Hamlyn the "Harper," of Holne, was the father of Sir John Hamlyn, whose son, Sir Osbert Hamlyn, Knight, of Larkbeare, married Matilda, daughter and co-heir of Sir William Pipard, of Blakedon, Pipard, in Widecombe Parish, and who was attainted for high treason in 1370.

William Hamlyn, of Dunstone, failed to answer the plea of Jeffry Pomeroy in 1305, whose ancestor, William de Pomeroy, had held Dunstone at the period of the Domesday Survey.

He left a son, John Hamlyn, also of Dunstone, whose descendant, also called John of Dunstone, is mentioned in the "Coinage Rolls" of 1412, and was the grandfather of John Hamlyn, mentioned in the same rolls in 1442. His son Robert, of Dunstone, 6th Henry VII., was the father of Richard Hamlyn, of Dunstone, who succeeded to his inheritance in 1506 and died in 1522.

He had four sons, Robert, Richard, Thomas, and John.

Of these, Richard Hamlyn was the ancestor of those of his name, long settled at Southcombe, in Widecombe.

Thomas was of Spitchwick, in Widecombe and of Littlecombe, in Holne. He was buried at Widecombe in 1574, and from him descended the Hamlyns of Higher Ash, Lower Ash, and Lake. To him I shall have to refer again.

Robert Hamlyn was eldest son and heir of Richard. He "recovered" Dunstone in 1522, 14th Henry VIIL, on his father's death, and is shown by the Inquisition, taken after his own death, 3rd and 4th Philip and Mary, to have owned Chittleford, Scobetor, Venton, and Dunstone, in Widecombe; Dawnton, in Buckfastleigh, as well as land in Doddiscombleigh. He died on the sixth of April, 1556.

His third son, Richard, settled at Dawnton, in Buckfastleigh. His grandson, Walter Hamlyn, of Buckfastleigh, was the direct ancestor of Walter Hamlyn, of Wooder, in Widecombe, whose will, proved 1760, is sealed with the ancient arms of the Hamlyn family.

Robert Hamlyn, of Chittleford, eldest son and heir of Robert, was ancestor of William, posthumous son of William Hamlyn, of Dunstone, who died in 1736. He sold that ancient family property, and died in 1782.

His uncle, Hugh Hamlyn, was settled on the Manor of Blackslade. The second son of Hugh, John Hamlyn, born at Widecombe, 1738, sold his property in that parish, and removed to Brent. His son, Joseph Hamlyn, purchased land in Buckfastleigh, and died in 1866.

He founded the woollen manufactory there, afterwards carried on by his sons, Joseph, John and William, and which has since developed into the great firm known as Hamlyn Brothers, the affairs of which are now conducted by James, Joseph, and William Hamlyn.

These gentlemen, with their brothers, John, Thomas, and Hugh, are the sons of the aforesaid William Hamlyn, by his marriage with Mary, daughter of his kinsman, James Hamlyn, of Shuttaford. Hill and Littlecombe, in the parish of Holne, and the direct descendant of Thomas Hamlyn, son of Richard, who died in 1522, and brother of Robert Hamlyn, of Dunstone.

It will be seen that from the period of the Norman Conquest to the present time, the main branch of the Hamlyn family have always been large landowners in this district, and that it is moreover in a great degree due to their energy, that the woollen trade, the old staple industry of the county, and especially of the City of Exeter, and which was originally introduced and fostered by the Cistercian monks, still flourishes in the valley of the Dart.

Of their ancient property at Widecombe, Lower Ash yet belongs to the family, although it has very recently passed to an heir female. Littlecombe is still the property of Mrs. Wm. Hamlyn, the elder, as I have remarked already.

Sir John Hamlyn, of Larkbeare, father of Sir Osbert, was at Bouroughbridge in 1322, and his arms are duly recorded upon the roll of the Knights present at that historic contest: "Gules, a lion rampant ermine, crowned or."

This short sketch of the Hamlyns would be incomplete without some reference to the branch of the family which long flourished in much repute at Woolfardisworthy. They seem to have been descended from John, fourth son of Richard Hamlyn, of Widecombe, and brother to Robert and Thomas, paternal and maternal ancestors of the present family of Buckfastleigh.

The first Hamlyn of this parish, William Hamlyn, was of Mershwell, and his arms as previously blazoned, were on two shields in painted glass in one of the windows at Mershwell, with the date 1540. William Hamlyn was born 1540, and buried at Woolfardisworthy in 1597. By his wife, Agnes Yeo, of Stratton, he had a son William, whose son William, of Mershwell, was baptized at Woolfardisworthy, on the twenty-first day of October, 1579. His son, William Hamlyn, married Gertrude Cary, and was buried in 1708. He had issue by her fourteen children, and at his death his son Zachary Hamlyn, of whom there was a fine painting by Highmore, engraved by Ardell, succeeded to Mershwell.

He was admitted a member of Lincolns Inn, but never married. Before his death he had realised a large fortune, and he purchased the Clovelly Estate of the Gary family in 1729. This, with other property, he settled by will in 1758, on his grandnephew, James Hammett, eldest son of his nephew, Richard Hammett, whose mother had been his sister, Thomazin Hamlyn. The picture of Zachary Hamlyn was destroyed in a fire at Clovelly House in 1789. He recorded his pedigree at Heralds College, but did not carry it back further than the William Hamlyn I have mentioned as buried at Woolfardisworthy in 1597.

Richard Hammett's eldest son, James Hammett, upon whom the property was settled, took the name of Hamlyn, by Act of Parliament, in 1760, and was created a Baronet in 1795. He died in 1811. He had married Arabella, daughter and heir of Thomas Williams, of London, and had issue, James, who in 1798 assumed the additional surname of Williams. He was succeeded in 1829, by his son, James Hamlyn-Williams, as third Baronet, who married Lady Mary, fourth daughter of Hugh, first Earl Fortescue.

They had no male issue, and the eldest daughter, Susan Hester, succeeded to the Clovelly property. She married Lieut. -Col. Fane, who took the additional name of Hamlyn, and had one son, Neville Batson Hamlyn-Fane, born 1858, and three daughters.

As might naturally be expected, there are frequent mention of the Hamlyns in old parochial and municipal records, apart from the public documents, which I have already said have been very thoroughly examined for the purposes of this history. I may add that William Hamlyn was M.P. for Totnes, as far back as 1260; and that the ancient family of Monk, anciently Le Moyne, of Potheridge, quartered the Hamlyn arms in right of marriage of their ancestor, Adam le Moyne, with the daughter and heir of Hamlyn, of Cockington. Adam le Moyne was the great grandson of Hugh le Moyne, of Potheridge, temp. Henry I. The great grandson of Adam, also called Hugh, lived 3rd Edward I., and was the direct ancestor of General Monk, born at Potheridge on the sixth of December, 1608, and subsequently Duke of Albemarle.

The pedigree of Hamlyn, of Widecombe and Buckfastleigh, from the Richard Hamlyn who died, 1522, appears in Colonel Vivian's edition of the Heralds' Visitations of Devon.

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Six poor labourers of the parish of Alphington are entitled to participation in the gifts of Francis and Daniel Vinicombe, the latter having charged his land at Matford, in Exminster, now the property of Colonel Trood, with thirty shillings a year for this purpose.

The poor also benefit from the charitable bequests of Richard Hayne, who left £30, in 1696, Samuel Walkey, £10, in 1721, and John Pitman, £5 in 1732.

It is possible that the "Almshouses" in Alphington, purchased of John Tregoe for the sum of £45, in 1675, were procured through the donations of the Lambsheads, and of Fidelis Stoyle, mentioned above, and that the latter had no share in the purchase of the Holcombe Burnell property. The dates on the tablet in the church, which records these benefactions, are posterior to the acquisition of the Holcombe Burnell property by the parishioners of Alphington.

Additional Notes

Page 16—John Bankes married at St. Mary Arches, Exeter, in 1660, Rebecca, daughter and co-heir of Richard Crossing, by Elizabeth, his wife, sister of Sir John Dodderidge.

The Crossing Shield at Whipton (on a chevron, between three crosslets fitche6, three roundels), has beneath it the letters "R.B."; that of Bankes, the letters "J.B.," and the date "1697."

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Synopsis of the Earldom of Devon

Created by writ of ist Henry L, A.D. iioi, in favour of Richard Fitz-Gilbert, Sire de Redvers.

Extinct 1293, on death of Isabella de Fortibus, Additional Notes. 201 widow of the Earl of Albemarle, and sister and heir of Baldwin de Redvers, eighth Earl.—Total, eight earls and one countess.

Revived, by peremptory crown mandate, A.D. 1335, in favour of Hugh Courtenay, then heir-at law (through Lady Mary, his daughter) of William de Redvers, of Vernon, sixth Earl.

Forfeited by attainder of Thomas Courtenay, 1462.—Six earls.

N.B.—John Courtenay, brother of Thomas Courtenay, did not "recover the Earldom" as stated in the text, only portions of the estates belonging to it.

Humphrey Stafford, of Southwick, created Earl of Devon, by patent, 1470, died same year.—Ext.

Revived, by patent of creation, 1485, in favour of Edward Courtenay, then heir-at-law to the aforesaid attainted Earl, Thomas Courtenay. Forfeited by attainder, as to succession, 1502. Restored to son, William, by reversal of attainder, 1511; he died before the completion of the forms necessary, but was buried as an Earl, and his widow was recognized as Countess of Devon.

Forfeited, by attainder of Henry Courtenay, first and last Marquess of Exeter of his name, 1539.—Three earls.

Restored, by patent of creation, 1553, to Edward, son and heir of the Marquess, "to him and his heirs male;" became dormant at his death, S.P. 1556—One earl.

Charles Blount, created Earl of Devon, by patent, 1603, died 1606.—Ext.

William Cavendish, created Earl of Devonshire, 202 Additional Notes, by patent, 1618. "To him and the heirs male of his body." Earldom still existing.

Dormant in the "heirs male" of the earl of the creation of 1553, during the lives of seven of them, successive owners of Powderham Castle, who were de jure Earls of Devon.

Title recovered, in virtue of said patent of 1553, by William, Viscount Courtenay, of Powderham, 1831.

From his lordship, five earls to present date, January, 1892.

Total holders of the dignity of the Earldom of Devon, in the houses of Redvers and Courtenay, from A.D. 1101 to A.D. 1892.—[de facto and de jure)—Thirty earls and one countess.

One earl of the house of Stafford.

One earl of the house of Blount.

Eleven earls of the house of Cavendish.

Present earl of the latter race, Spencer, eighth Duke, and eleventh earl of Devonshire, January, 1892.

The words "Devon," or "Devonshire," as employed in the several patents, although considered by many to be a distinction, are entirely without difference.