WORTH'S "HISTORY OF DEVONSHIRE."
Timm is probably no county in England that offers such varied features of interest as Devonshire. Its prominent share in English history, its distinguished worthies, its traditions and legends, its local associations, its numerous and well-defined family descents, its ancient landmarks, and its lovely sceuery, form a combination of attractions it would be difficult to match in this country or out of it. Its authenticated history stretches so far back into the misty past, that the frontier-line between fact and fiction sometimes becomes obscured. Pala3ologists have satisfied themselves of the presence in Devon of men of Paleolithic times ; yet historians are not able to substantiate the landing of Brutus the Trojan on the " coast " of Totnes. Mr. Worth is Devonian to the core; but his enthusiasm does not carry him beyond bounds. He has already written other books about Devonshire, and was recently selected by the Historical Manuscripts Commissioners to examine and report on the archives of Plymouth ; so he is a recognised authority on all that concerns the county. We do not know if he is the representative of the family of Worth, of Worth ; but the latter is, he states, one of the three places in Devon which still remain the property and residence of families of the same name, the two other examples being Fulford of Fulford, and Kelly of Kelly. These three families have held their seats from the thirteenth century, Richard L's reign, and Henry IL's respec- tively. Indeed Great Fulford has been the seat of the Fulford family from time immemorial, and "when the Conqueror came it was at home." We do not see why Mr. Worth should exclude the Edgcambes of Edgcumbe, for he himself refers to the seat as the original home of that family, and says it has continued in the possession of the elder branch from the reign of Edward ILL, the younger branch having been ennobled as Earls of Mount Edgcumbe. No complete history of Devonshire has been published since the well-known work by the Brothers Lyson, about sixty years ago ; so there was plenty of room for another county history. Voluminous materials that were unknown or inaccessible to them have been examined by the Historical Manu- scripts Commissioners, and the labours of the Record Office have thrown light on much that was before obscure ; whilst the records of places like Exeter, Plymouth, Dartmouth, and Barn- staple have been overhauled and calendared. Mr. Worth has taken special pains to ascertain what is reliable of the early his- tory of Devonshire. Exeter was, of course, a Roman station of importance, but there are only three or four other places in the county that indicate the presence of Roman soldiers. West of Exeter, there are no proofs of Roman occupation worth men- tioning, though there are numerous traces of Roman intercourse ; and this is significant if it be borne in mind that Roman temples, villas, and potteries abound in the neighbouring county of Somerset. When the Romans left Britain, the inhabitants of Devon enjoyed a period of comparative quiet, for it was too distant to be affected by the raids of the Picts and Scots ; and when the Saxons came, they had embraced Christianity, and established themselves rather by colonisation than conquest. Their establishment, however, which began peaceably, ended
* 4 History of Devonshire. By R. N. Worth. PAS. London Elliot Stooks
with the sword, and the county was subdued and annexed between 728 and 800. Mr. Worth is satisfied that its constitu- tion is purely Saxon, from village to shire, for each of its hun- dreds has a Saxon name, and each of its ancient municipalities originated in a Saxon community. When William the Con- queror appeared before the walls of Exeter, the city yielded only on such terms as fairly secured its ancient liberties, and it still remained one of the four chief cities of the realm, holding equal rank with London, York, and Winchester. His reception on that occasion testified to that spirit of independence which in later times Cecil termed "obstinacy," and which has always been a marked trait in the national character. Each race dominant in England has made Exeter a stronghold—Celt, Roman, Saxon, Dane, and Norman—whilst hardly a great party in the State but has ruled there in turn. Forty Royal Charters have been conferred upon the ancient city, and it has frequently entertained its Sovereign,—Edward IV. gave it a sword of State, Henry VII. a cap of maintenance, Henry VIII. made it a county, Edward VI. gave it a manor, and Elizabeth conferred that proud motto, Semper fuielie, which, Mr. Worth remarks, has been chiefly verified by a staunch adherence to the ruling power. Numerous are the links which connect Exeter with the vital national history; but the visit of William of Orange in Novem- ber, 1688, when the fate of James II. was sealed, was the last. Topsham was once an important place, and the chief seat of Exeter commerce ; whilst its seamen so developed the fishing trade with Newfoundland, that during William III.'s reign it had more trade with that country than any other port in the Kingdom except London. Among the ancient mansions of the county, Powderham holds the first place. Nearly six centuries have passed since the Courtenays seated themselves by the Exe, at Powderham, and there, through many vicissitudes, they have continued, the present Earl of Devon being the eighteenth Courtenay, Lord of Powderham.
East Devon has all the marks of a populous and troubled borderland of vast antiquity. Taking Honiton as a centre, Mr. Worth is satisfied that there are, without counting minor earthworks, certainly a dozen castles, all of them entrench- ments without masonry ; whilst within a radius of six miles from Sidmouth, there are yet existing ninety-three tumuli, many of them of notable size and considerable antiquarian interest. Moreover, the unnatural boundary-line between Devon and Dorset gives evidence of hard and continual fight- ing. There are also numerous indications that East Devon was the first district of the county which the Saxons occupied in force. Axminster claims attention as one of a group of minsters the like of which is not to be found elsewhere ; whilst two miles off is Ashe, the birthplace of the great Duke of Marlborough. Axminster has also given its name to the carpet, first manufac- tured there in 1755 by Thomas Whitty, who later on produced some of the finest carpets ever made in England. His family carried on the business until 1835, when the looms were removed to Wilton. Farther south, we approach Torquay, the "queen of watering-places," which two hundred years ago consisted of a little quay and a few fishermen's huts. At the beginning of this century, accommodation was required for the families of the officers of the fleet anchoring in Torbay, and a rapid growth set in, until it is now the most picturesque town on the South Coast. Though almost the youngest town in Devon, it is far and away the oldest settlement, and no other has more distinguished claims to antiquity, for here is Kent's Cavern, "the exploration of which," Mr. Worth tells us, "has carried back the history of man in this country not merely to Pala3olithic days, but to inter-glacial, perchance to pre-glacial times ; while across the bay, at Brixham, is the Windmill Hill Cave the exploration of which finally settled, with scientific investigators, the contemporaneity of man and the extinct mammalia, and the high antiquity of the human race. Dis- coveries of flint and bone weapons and implements, pointing in the same direction, have also been made in the submerged forest beds of Torbay." The neighbourhood also affords two of the rare instances of the proven existence of a church before the Conquest, viz., St. Mary Church and Torre Abbey.
A few miles further along the coast lies Brixham, the chief fishing-town in Devon, but perhaps better known as the landing. place of William of Orange on his way to the English throne. And next we come to the quaint old town of Dartmouth. Eight hundred years ago the importance of its magnificent land-locked deep-water harbour was fully recognised, for it was the rendez- vous of the fleet starting for the Crusades ; and daring the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries it rivalled the Cinque Ports in fame and importance. During the siege of Calais, it ranked as the third port in the Kingdom, furnishing 31 ships and 757 men, as against Fowey, with 47 and 770, and Yarmouth, with 43 and 1,905. Mr. Worth contends that Dartmouth must have had a charter of some kind before the reign of Henry III., because the oldest extant seal of the borough (temp. Edward L) represents a king in a ship, with John's badges of the crescent and star, thereby indicating some connection with that monarch. But we think the connection may be still earlier, since the crescent and star appear on the Great Seal of Richard I., while they do not on that of John (though they do an some of the coins of his reign), and Bontell, in his Heraldry, gives them as the badges of both Sovereigns. To the ordinary visitor, St. Saviour's Church offers several interesting details in its fine oak screen, its coloured stone pulpit, and the quaint iron devices on the west door. Ten miles from its mouth stands Totnes, the first link in the legendary history of England. According to early Welsh and Breton tradition, Brutus, the Trojan hero, landed here, and the stone on which he stepped may still be seen in the main street of the town. Mr. Worth considers it likely enough that he and his landing are not absolute fable, but the traditional record of the earliest invasion of the land by a historic people ; but whether the landing was near the site of the present town of Totnes, or whether it was on the coast of Totnes (that being the ancient name for the South-Western promontory of England), cannot be determined with any certainty.
In writing a county history of the kind required for this series, Mr. Worth has had to prepare an authentic as well as a readable book, and his chief labour has been in the selection of materials. He has, in his own words, treated the places of chief historical interest in their respective localities as centres, and grouped around them their more immediate territorial associations. Except that the general points of county history are treated under the heads of Exeter and Plymouth, other places are dealt with as they come, East, North, West, and South, ending with the great central waste of Dartmoor. A book like this is necessarily disconnected, and cannot be any- thing but a succession of chapters on localities which have nothing in common but geographical kinship ; but we think Mr. Worth has done his work as well as such work could be done. Many of his readers will be inhabitants of the county, and the strong light of local criticism will be brought to bear on particular districts. Some, no doubt, will fancy that insufficient space has been allotted to their ancestors and their doughty deeds, and others will condemn that modern spirit of research which tends to upset cherished family traditions. Such criticisms may yield fresh revelations ; but Mr. Worth could gauge their value only when the personal element had been removed. In a book, how- ever, that is intended for general reading, both family traditions and local associations must be absorbed, like the ingredients of a Devonshire junket, so as to produce a compound pleasing to
the community, and in this Mr. Worth has succeeded. He has shown Devonshire's right to take a foremost place among the counties of England, and his book will certainly reverse the
verdict of Queen Elizabeth's Minister, who, after a visit to the county, said —" Fouler ways, desperate weather, nor more
obstinate people did I never meet with !" He must have been in a vicious frame of mind when he uttered those words, for none knew better than he how valuable to his country the obstinacy of the great sea-captains of the century had proved, whilst the proverbial fickleness of the English climate is not worse in Devonshire than in other parts of England. Nor has the county degenerated in the production of worthy men since Prince wrote his famous work, The Worthies of Devon; so that if Mr. Worth should ever think of compiling a sequel to that book, he will have no difficulty in finding a succession of distinguished representative men for this century.
Previous page
