Honiton filled Defoe with admiration when he came to it on his journey to the West. He describes it as "a pleasant, good town, that stands in the best and pleasantest part of the whole country ... and to the entrance into Honiton the view of the country is the most beautiful landscape in the world, a mere picture, and I do not remember the like in any one place in England." Beyond this pleasantness there is nothing very remarkable in the town; perhaps its most uncommon feature being a stream of clear water that runs down the street, with square dipping-places at intervals.
To the west the town looks over a s.p.a.ce of comparatively flat country, but on the north-west it is overshadowed by St. Cyres Hill, and farther north is the bold height of Dumpdon. On the top of this hill are the remains of an oval camp, and a few miles away to the north-west is the better-known camp called Hembury Fort. The fort stands very high, and looks south to the sea beyond the Vale of the Otter, and west to Haldon and the fringes of Dartmoor over Exeter. Three ramparts surround the fort, which covers a large s.p.a.ce of ground, and it is "divided into two parts by a double agger.... Several Roman coins, and an iron "lar"
representing a female figure three inches high, have been found here."
A great Roman road pa.s.ses by Honiton. The Fosseway ran from Caithness to Totnes (according to some authorities, on into Cornwall), and crossed the country between Exeter or Seaton and Lincolnshire. It is thought that the Romans, in making their famous roads, usually followed the line of still older British ways.
In coaching days Honiton was well known as a stage for changing horses.
Gay, who was a Devonshire man, a native of Barnstaple, says in his _Journey to Exeter, 1716, from London_:
"Now from the steep, "midst scatter"d farms and groves, Our eye through Honiton"s fair valley roves; Behind us soon the busy town we leave, Where finest lace industrious la.s.ses weave."
Here the poet mentions the one characteristic of the town known to strangers--the lace-making. When or how it was first started is not exactly known, but there is a theory that certain Flemings, escaping to England from the persecutions of the Duke of Alva, settled near Honiton and introduced the art towards the end of the sixteenth century. The evidence is too slender to prove that this was so, but there is no doubt that by the beginning of the next century the industry was well established, for in the Church of St Michael is a memorial bra.s.s plate recording that
JAMES RODGE of Honiton in ye County of Devonshire (Bonelace Siller) Hath given unto the Poore of Honinton P"ishe The Benefytt of 100 for ever.
Who deceased ye 27 of July A"o. Di. 1617. aetate suae 50.
Remember ye poore.
So it is obvious that before 1617 there must have been enough lace to dispose of to make the sale of it profitable.
About forty years later Fuller wrote a spirited defence of lace-making on economic grounds. It was then "made in and about Honyton, and weekly returned to London." He says: "Though private persons pay for it, it stands the state in nothing.... Many lame in their limbs and impotent in their arms, if able in their fingers, gain a livelyhood thereby, not to say that it saveth some thousand of pounds yearly, formerly sent over seas to fetch Lace from Flanders." At this time the lace trade flourished greatly, although there was always a difficulty in competing with Belgium, because of the superiority of its silky flax, finer than any spun in England. Later the workers fell on evil days, for during the American War there was little money to spend on luxuries; and, besides, about this time the fashion of wearing much lace came to an end. In 1816 the introduction of "machine net" supplanted the _vrai reseau_, the groundwork of the lace made by hand, and this took away work from very many people, besides lowering prices, so that the workers became discouraged, and the quality as well as the quant.i.ty of the lace suffered much in consequence. Queen Adelaide tried to stimulate the dwindling trade by ordering a lace dress, every flower in which was to be copied from Nature. The initials of the flowers chosen spelt her name:
Amaranth, Daphne, Eglantine, Lilac, Auricula, Ivy, Dahlia, Eglantine.
Queen Victoria"s wedding-dress was made at Beer, and of later years there has been a revival of lace-making, especially in the neighbourhood of Honiton and of Beer; and considerable quant.i.ties are made by village women living at home.
But lace is not the only thing that comes from Honiton. Cider is made there, and in the reign of George II making it must have been a very profitable occupation. Defoe notes: "They tell us they send twenty thousand hogsheads of cider hence every year to London, and (which is still worse) that it is most of it bought there by the merchants to mix with their wines--which, if true, is not much to the reputation of the London vintners. But that by-the-bye." As cider-making was then in such a prosperous condition, it is easy to understand the tremendous outcry that arose a few years later, when Lord Bute imposed the enormous tax of ten shillings per hogshead, to be paid by the first buyer. The storm provoked was so violent, the opposition of country gentlemen of all shades of politics so unanimous, that the Prime Minister modified the tax to one of four shillings on each hogshead, to be paid by the grower, who was thereby rendered liable to the domiciliary visits of excis.e.m.e.n.
This alteration was vehemently protested against, and Pitt championed the opposition on the grounds that it was an Englishman"s pride that every man"s house was his castle, and denounced as intolerable a Bill that allowed excis.e.m.e.n to invade the house of any gentleman who "owned a few fruit-trees and made a little cider." The City of London sent pet.i.tions to the Commons, the Lords, and the Throne; and the counties of Devon and Hereford, the cities of Exeter and Worcester, urged their respective Members to make all possible resistance to the tax. Lord Bute"s personal unpopularity increased enormously, and a shoal of squibs, caricatures, and pamphlets appeared, in which he was held up to ridicule and contempt. One caricature represented him as "hung on the gallows over a fire, on which a jack-boot fed the flames, and a farmer was throwing an excised cyder barrel into the conflagration. In rural districts he was burnt under the effigy of a _jack-boot_, a rural allusion to his name."
An amusing story is told of Lord North in connection with this tax. Not long after it had been imposed, he and Sir Robert Hamilton came to Ashe, near Axminster, on a visit--Lord North, then a Lord of the Treasury, distinctly uneasy as to the risk of coming into Devonshire, for the county was still seething with dissatisfaction against the Government.
"He was one day thrown into great alarm by a large party of reapers, who, having finished cutting the wheat of the estate, approached the house with their hooks in their hands, shouting the usual cry, "We have"n! we have"n!" The portentous words Lord North applied to himself, and, pale with terror, considered himself a dead man. Sir Robert Hamilton seized a sword, and was sallying forth to repulse the visitors, when, meeting a member of the household, an explanation took place, by which the fears so unconsciously excited were removed."
It was a most ancient custom in the West--indeed, it is said to be a remnant of the pagan rite of dedicating the first-fruits to Ceres--to set aside either the first armful of corn that was cut or else some of the best ears, and bind them into a little sheaf, called a "neck". A fragment of the vivid description given by Miss O"Neill in "Devonshire Idyls" must be quoted: "The men carried their reaping-hooks; the sheaf was borne by the old man. Bareheaded he stood in the light of the moon.
Strange shadows flecked the mossy sward on sundown as he held the first-fruits aloft and waved his arms.
""We ha"un!" cried he, and the cry was long and wailing. The strange intimation fell on the ear like an echo from pagan days. One could fancy the fauns and weird beings of old had taught the cadence to the first reapers of earth. "We ha"un!" cried he, and all the men in the circle bowed to the very ground.... "We ha"un!" cried Jonas again, and again the reapers bowed and waved. Then the old men took up another strain, at once more jubilant and more resonant, and with an indescribable drawling utterance sang out "Thee Neck!"--sang it out three times, and twice the waving circle of bright steel flashed."
On leaving Honiton, if the river is followed upstream for a short distance, the traveller will find himself close to ruined Ottery Mohun, the home of two celebrated families in succession. Unfortunately, it has been entirely destroyed by fire. A farm now stands among the ruins, and two fine Perpendicular archways, and a deeply moulded and hooded arch over the frontdoor, alone bear witness to its former state. In the spandril above the outer archway is carved, "amid elegant scroll-work and foliage, an arm, vested in an ermine maunch, the hand grasping a golden fleur-de-lys"--the old coat-armour of the Mohuns; and on the other spandril "three lions pa.s.sant in pale," the bearing of the Carews.
The Mohuns were a Norman family of distinction, but in later days were notorious rather than famous. The old peerage having died out in the Middle Ages, a member of a cadet branch, by shameless and persevering begging, induced Charles I to grant him a barony. This t.i.tle only survived a few generations, and the fifth and last bearer of it was known as "the wicked" Lord Mohun. His life was short--he was barely over forty when he died--but eventful, for he was twice tried before his peers, each time on the charge of being accessory to a murder, and the story has often been told of the desperate duel in which Lord Mohun was killed by the Duke of Hamilton, whom he had mortally wounded. Spectators burst upon the scene to discover the two princ.i.p.als dying on the ground, and the two seconds fiercely fighting each other.
The history of the Carews is more interesting. Ottery Mohun came to them towards the end of the thirteenth century, through the heiress of the elder branch of Mohuns, whom John Carew married. Their names were eminent in camp, court, and council, in one reign after another; but it is only possible to speak here of two, Sir Gawen, and his nephew Sir Peter, on whose death the branch that had been settled at Ottery Mohun for three centuries became extinct in the direct line. There is not even s.p.a.ce for the career of another of Sir Gawen"s nephews, to whom Queen Elizabeth wrote, with her own hand, in regard to his efforts in subduing the Irish:
"MY FAITHFUL GEORGE,
"If ever more services of worth were performed in shorter s.p.a.ce than you have done, we are deceived among many witnesses."
Sir Peter"s youth was spent very strangely even for that age of hazards and chances. As a child he was sent to school in Exeter, where he was so exceedingly naughty that complaints were made to his father, and Sir William, who had remarkable ideas of discipline, came to Exeter, "tied him on a line and delivered him to one of his servants to be carried about the town as one of his hounds, and they led him home to Mohun"s Ottery like a dog." Not long afterwards he was with his father in London, when, "walking in Paul"s," they met a French gentleman, an old acquaintance of Sir William"s, who took a sudden fancy to the boy, and offered to bring him up in France as if he were his own son. The offer seems to have been accepted offhand, but, unfortunately for the boy, the sudden fancy drooped almost as quickly as it sprang up, and, after enjoying life for a brief moment as an indulged page, he was turned out into the stables, "there as a mulett to attend his master"s mule." Here he remained till a Mr Carew, a kinsman, happened to come to the French Court, and near the Court gate pa.s.sed "sundry lackeys and horseboys playing together, one of whom called to another, "Carew Anglois! Carew Anglois!"" This attracted Mr Carew"s attention. He called the boy and questioned him, and finding "Carew Anglois" to be his cousin, Mr Carew took him under his protection, rebuked the fickle guardian, and trained up Peter "for a s.p.a.ce ... in the court of France, like a gentleman."
Peter, still very young, but extremely independent, was present at the siege of Pavia, and as his patron had just died, and he perceived "fortune to frown upon the French side," he went over to the Emperor"s camp, and entered into the service of the Prince of Orange. Five or six years later he came home, bringing with him letters of highest commendation to the King, Henry VIII, who received him with great favour.
Sir Gawen and Sir Peter together took a prominent part in 1549, in dealing with the insurrection of Devonshire and Cornishmen against the Reformed religion. Sir Peter, indeed, was afterwards blamed for being over-zealous, and thereby aggravating the trouble; but he was able to clear himself, and was "well allowed and commended for what he had done."
In Queen Mary"s reign fresh trouble arose, from which he escaped less easily. Many fervent Protestants were made uneasy by the symptoms of Romish rule that began to appear, and were still more disturbed by the news of the Queen"s projected marriage with Philip of Spain, which they felt boded ill for their liberties, spiritual and temporal. The Carews were in the counsel of Sir Thomas Wyatt, the Duke of Suffolk, and others, who planned risings to depose the Queen. In a simultaneous movement, the Carews were to raise the West under the nominal leadership of Lord Courtenay, Sir Thomas Wyatt was to raise Kent, and the Duke the Midland counties. But before the preparations were complete, suspicion fell on the Carews, and a letter was despatched from the Council, directing the Sheriff of Devon to send Sir Peter and Sir Gawen to London.
Sir Gawen, who was in Exeter about this time, thought it best to return quietly to his own home, and because his movements now attracted an undesirable amount of attention, he one night "went out over the walles of the said cytie yn his bowtes." The account condescends to a touching detail that should appeal to all. Even the agitation of flying from arrest on a charge of treason could not keep Sir Gawen from feeling footsore, and "for that his bowtes grieved hym he cutt them upon the waye." Sir Gawen was arrested a few days later, and suffered a long imprisonment.
Meanwhile Sir Peter, in answer to the summons to surrender himself, sent the reply that he had already started for London. But meeting on the way the bearer of a message which a.s.sured him that two of his "dearest friends" here failed him, he turned aside and escaped in a little boat from Weymouth.
Those who interest themselves in dreams and visions may care to hear of Lady Carew"s experience at this moment. The night that Sir Peter sailed, Lady Carew dreamed very vividly "that as he was going aboard his bark, he should fall into the seas and be drowned"; and so great was her trouble on awaking, that she sent a messenger to the seaside to make inquiries for Sir Peter. And when the messenger arrived at Weymouth, he heard the startling news that getting "out of the boat to enter into the bark, his [Sir Peter"s] foot slided or slipped, and he therewith fell into the seas, and had been drowned if one standing by had not taken hold of him."
Notwithstanding several misfortunes on the way, Sir Peter arrived safely in France, where he lived an exciting and adventurous life for several years, and was then treacherously seized and carried to England and the Tower. Here the much-abused Philip proved himself a real friend, for in an admirable letter to the Queen he intercedes for "Pedro Caro" and his wife, and Sir Peter was eventually forgiven by Queen Mary, and honoured by Queen Elizabeth.
Between Honiton and Sidmouth is an inn called The Hunter"s Lodge (more recently The Hare and Hounds), and opposite the house is a block of stone, over which hovers a gruesome mystery. It is said that in the dead of night the stone used to stir in its place, and roll heavily down into the valley, to drink at the source of the Sid, and, some say, to try to wash away its stain. Human blood has given it this power--the blood that gushed upon it when the witches slew their victims, for it was once a witches" stone of sacrifice.
Five miles to the south-west of Honiton is Ottery St Mary, a pretty little town built on very steep slopes, and full of interesting a.s.sociations. It lies among "fair meadows bathed in sunshine; with the Otter river winding through them ... yonder are the red Devon steers grazing up to their dewlaps in b.u.t.tercups: beyond them dusky moors melt into purple haze." By making a slight detour one pa.s.ses the pleasant lawns and copses of Escot. Once the property of the Alfords, Escot was bought in 1680 by Sir Walter Yonge (father of George II"s unpopular "Secretary-at-War"), who built a new and large house and lavishly improved the grounds. But prodigality was the bane of the Yonges, and not much more than one hundred years later it pa.s.sed away from Sir Walter"s ruined grandson, and was bought by Sir John Kennaway.
The streets of Ottery are steep and sinuous, and both roadway and footwalk are paved with pebbles and cobble-stones. The Manor of Ottery was given by Edward the Confessor to the Dean and Chapter of Rouen, and it continued in their possession during the reigns of nine Kings. Then the Dean, finding that the task of collecting his rents and dues was "chargeable, troublesome, and sometimes dangerous ... desired to sell it, and met with a very fit chapman, John Grandisson, Lord Bishop of Exon."
Ottery"s greatest treasure is the beautiful church, a miniature of Exeter Cathedral, and it is to Bishop Grandisson that its great beauty is due. He did not build the church; indeed, the shadow of a terrible scandal had fallen upon it forty-five years before his rule began. For in the year 1282 "that discreet man, Mr Walter de Lechelade," the Precentor of Ottery, was waylaid coming from Exeter Cathedral in his canonical robes, and murdered by "certain sons of perdition full of fiendish ferocity." "Mr Walter de Lechelade" was probably extremely unpopular locally, because he had obtained the lease for life of the Manor and Church of Ottery from the authorities at Rouen, and was allowed to make all the profit he could out of the revenues. It is interesting to note the ecclesiastical manner of dealing with such a difficulty at that date. Out of the twenty-one persons convicted of being concerned in the murder, no fewer than eleven were clerics! The Vicar of Ottery St Mary was among the number, and it is sad to say that suspicion fell even on the Dean of Exeter.
Bishop Grandisson found an early English church. He lengthened the nave, altered the chancel, added a beautiful Lady Chapel, and raised towers on the already existing transepts. These transeptal towers are peculiar to this church and the other on which he spent his enthusiasm, Exeter Cathedral. On one tower is a steeple--there was one on the Cathedral--the lead scored by cross-slanted lines. The church is of grey stone. The nave and towers are battlemented, and at intervals in the outer walls are niches, now bereft of the figures they held. Very graceful stone tracery is in many windows, pinnacles and crosses rise from the roof, and the whole effect is of an impressive building of rich and elaborate detail. The number of consecration crosses is remarkable, for there are thirteen without and eight within the walls, and each marks a spot touched by the Bishop with holy oil. Every one is a square stone panel, carved with an angel bearing a small cross. Some are much defaced, but a few are still perfect, and beneath several of them are the remains of iron supports, showing where a light was burned before the "cross" on great festivals.
The arches of the nave are supported by cl.u.s.tered columns with most delicately carved capitals; and in the nave are two very elaborately decorated tombs--of the Bishop"s brother, Sir Otho de Grandisson, and of Beatrice, Sir Otho"s wife--each under a monumental arch, with hanging tracery and a crocketed ogee canopy.
The finely carved and pierced minstrels" gallery in the Lady Chapel is an exquisite piece of work; but amongst all that is to be most admired is the exceedingly beautiful fan-tracery in the roof of the "Dorset"
aisle--an aisle built by Cicely, heiress of Lord Bonville, and widow of the Marquis of Dorset, who died in 1501.
Two short pleached alleys of limes stand within the churchyard wall, looking down over a little square into which several streets open, and the old stocks still lie in the shadow of the trees.
Bishop Grandisson obtained a licence to establish here "a monastery or collegiate church for a fixed number of secular canons ... governed mainly by a Warden, a Minister, and Sacrist, and a Chanter or Precentor," and he drew up a most comprehensive set of statutes for their guidance. Occasionally he issued additional "monitions," as, for example, when the Warden had allowed stage-plays to be performed in church during the Christmas holidays. It is reasonable to suppose, however, that they were "mystery plays" or "moralities."
Lord Coleridge says: "The town was dominated by the College. The bridge by which you entered the town from the West was the bridge of the Holy Saviour. In one of its recesses the sacred light was ever kept burning, inviting those who pa.s.sed to pray." Henry VI and Henry VII both visited the College. The Dissolution swept it away, but a part of its endowment was devoted to founding the King"s Grammar School.
Many incidents befell Fairfax and his troops at Ottery. It was chosen for their winter-quarters in 1645, and they arrived worn-out and exhausted and in great need of refreshment. Ill-fortune, however, awaited them, as the Rev. Joshua Sprigg, General Fairfax"s chaplain, tells us in _Anglia Rediviva_, his account of this army"s movements. A mysterious disease broke out, very fatal, so that there were "dying of soldiers and inhabitants in the town of Autree, seven, eight, and nine a day, for several weeks together." A Colonel Pickering died of it, on whom the chaplain wrote an elegy. One has heard of blank-verse that is merely "prose cut into lengths," but his lines suggest that they must have been on the rack to bring them to the right measure. The author feared that it was the lack of action that had proved fatal.
"Must thou be scaling heaven alone, For want of other action?
Wouldst thou hadst took that leisure time To visit some responsal clime!"
But Sprigg"s deep affection and respect cannot be disguised even by his words.
At Ottery, Sir Thomas Fairfax received and entertained two envoys from besieged Exeter, who came with a view to discussing the possible terms of a general peace; but their mission was, of course, unsuccessful. A pleasant event was the presentation to the General of a fair jewel, set with rich diamonds of great value, "from both Houses of Parliament, as a testimonial to his great services at Naseby." The jewel was tied with "a blue ribbon and put about his neck." Fairfax was staying in the old Chanter"s House, now the property of Lord Coleridge, and the ceremony took place in a long panelled room, with deep-set window, then called the Great Parlour. Here also Fairfax held a deeply important conference with the "Lord Generall Cromwell," when he came to decide the plan of campaign in the West.
Ottery St Mary is able to pride itself on being the birthplace of the poet Coleridge, whose family had long been connected with the county.
The poet"s father was Vicar, and Master of the Grammar School. Great as was his genius, Coleridge was not in every respect worthy of his birthplace, for in one of his letters he actually announces that he prefers Somerset to Devon!--evidence which clearly proves the correctness of the popular belief that poets have no judgment. But his real affection for the Otter is shown in his sonnet to the river on whose banks he lived in early years. Another poem, the "Songs of the Pixies," was inspired by the Pixies" Parlour, a tiny cave with roots of old trees for a ceiling, that stands halfway up a low cliff overhanging the river, just beyond the town. In this poem are the lines:
"When fades the morn to shadowy-pale, And scuds the cloud before the gale, Ere the Morn, all gem-bedight, Hath streak"d the East with rosy light, We sip the furze-flower"s fragrant dews, Clad in robes of rainbow hues....
Then with quaint music hymn the parting gleam By lonely Otter"s sleep-persuading stream; Or where his wave with loud, unquiet song Dashed o"er the rocky channel froths along; Or where, his silver waters smoothed to rest, The tall tree"s shadow sleeps upon his breast."
Ottery has other a.s.sociations with literature, and it is interesting to remember that Thackeray lived near here in his youth, and that Ottery is the "Clavering" of _Pendennis_, which was written while he was staying at Escot Vicarage close by.