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                         DEVONSHIRE CHARACTERS
                          AND STRANGE EVENTS




                        BY THE SAME AUTHOR

                        YORKSHIRE ODDITIES
                        TRAGEDY OF THE CÆSARS
                        CURIOUS MYTHS
                        LIVES OF THE SAINTS

                        ETC. ETC.




[Illustration:

    _G. Clint, A.R.A., pinxt._      _Thos. Lupton. sculpt._

MARIA FOOTE, AFTERWARDS COUNTESS OF HARRINGTON, AS MARIA DARLINGTON IN
THE FARCE OF “A ROWLAND FOR AN OLIVER” (1824)]




                              DEVONSHIRE
                              CHARACTERS
                          AND STRANGE EVENTS
                       BY S. BARING-GOULD, /M.A./

                    WITH 55 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
                   REPRODUCED FROM OLD PRINTS, ETC.


                                           O Jupiter!
            Hanccine vitam? hoscine mores? hanc dementiam?

                                 /Terence/, _Adelphi_ (Act IV).


                   LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD
                  NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMVIII




         PLYMOUTH: WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LIMITED, PRINTERS




PREFACE


In treating of Devonshire Characters, I have had to put aside the chief
Worthies and those Devonians famous in history, as George Duke of
Albemarle, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Joshua Reynolds,
the Coleridges, Sir Stafford Northcote, first Earl of Iddesleigh, and
many another; and to content myself with those who lie on a lower
plane. So also I have had to set aside several remarkable characters,
whose lives I have given elsewhere, as the Herrings of Langstone (whom
I have called Grym or Grymstone) and Madame Drake, George Spurle the
Post-boy, etc. Also I have had to pretermit several great rascals,
as Thomas Gray and Nicholas Horner. But even so, I find an _embarras
de richesses_, and have had to content myself with such as have had
careers of some general interest. Moreover, it has not been possible to
say all that might have been said relative to these, so as to economize
space, and afford room for others.

So also, with regard to strange incidents, some limitation has been
necessary, and such have been selected as are less generally known.

I have to thank the kind help of many Devonshire friends for the
loan of rare pamphlets, portraits, or for information not otherwise
acquirable--as the Earl of Iddesleigh, Lady Rosamond Christie, Mrs.
Chichester of Hall, Mrs. Ford of Pencarrow, Dr. Linnington Ash, Dr.
Brushfield, Capt. Pentecost, Miss M. P. Willcocks, Mr. Andrew Iredale,
Mr. W. H. K. Wright, Mr. A. B. Collier, Mr. Charles T. Harbeck, Mr.
H. Tapley Soper, Miss Lega-Weekes, who has contributed the article
on Richard Weekes; Mrs. G. Radford, Mr. R. Pearse Chope, Mr. Rennie
Manderson, Mr. M. Bawden, the Rev. J. B. Wollocombe, the Rev. W. H.
Thornton, Mr. A. M. Broadley, Mr. Samuel Gillespie Prout, Mr. S. H.
Slade, Mr. W. Fleming, Mrs. A. H. Wilson, Fleet-Surgeon Lloyd Thomas,
the Rev. W. T. Wellacott, Mr. S. Raby, Mr. Samuel Harper, Mr. John
Avery, Mr. Thomas Wainwright, Mr. A. F. Steuart, Mr. S. T. Whiteford,
and last, but not least, Mr. John Lane, the publisher of this volume,
who has taken the liveliest interest in its production.

Also to Messrs. Macmillan for kindly allowing the use of an engraving
of Newcomen’s steam engine, and to Messrs. Vinton & Co. for allowing
the use of the portrait of the Rev. John Russell that appeared in
_Bailey’s Magazine_.

I am likewise indebted to Miss M. Windeatt Roberts for having
undertaken to prepare the exhaustive Index, and to Mr. J. G. Commin for
placing at my disposal many rare illustrations.

For myself I may say that it has been a labour of love to grope among
the characters and incidents of the past in my own county, and with
Cordatus, in the Introduction to Ben Jonson’s _Every Man out of his
Humour_, I may say that it has been “a work that hath bounteously
pleased me; how it will answer the general expectation, I know not.”

                   *       *       *       *       *

I am desired by my publisher to state that he will be glad to
receive any information as to the whereabouts of pictures by another
“Devonshire Character,” James Gandy, born at Exeter in 1619, and a
pupil of Vandyck. He was retained in the service of the Duke of Ormond,
whom he accompanied to Ireland, where he died in 1689. It is said that
his chief works will be found in that country and the West of England.

Jackson of Exeter, in his volume _The Four Ages_, says: “About the
beginning of the eighteenth century was a painter in Exeter called
Gandy, of whose colouring Sir Joshua Reynolds thought highly. I heard
him say that on his return from Italy, when he was fresh from seeing
the pictures of the Venetian school, he again looked at the works of
Gandy, and that they had lost nothing in his estimation. There are many
pictures of this artist in Exeter and its neighbourhood. The portrait
Sir Joshua seemed most to value is in the Hall belonging to the College
of Vicars in that city, but I have seen some very much superior to it.”

Since then, however, the original picture has been taken from the
College of Vicars, and has been lost; but a copy, I believe, is still
exhibited there, and no one seems to know what has become of the
original.

Not only is Mr. Lane anxious to trace this picture, but any others in
Devon or Ireland, as also letters, documents, or references to this
artist and his work.




CONTENTS

                                                                   PAGE

    /Hugh Stafford and the Royal Wilding/                              1
    /The Alphington Ponies/                                           16
    /Maria Foote/                                                     21
    /Caraboo/                                                         35
    /John Arscott, of Tetcott/                                        47
    /Wife-sales/                                                      58
    /White Witches/                                                   70
    /Manly Peeke/                                                     84
    /Eulalia Page/                                                    95
    /James Wyatt/                                                    107
    /The Rev. W. Davy/                                               123
    /The Grey Woman/                                                 128
    /Robert Lyde and the “Friend’s Adventure”/                       136
    /Joseph Pitts/                                                   152
    /The Demon of Spreyton/                                          170
    /Tom Austin/                                                     175
    /Frances Flood/                                                  177
    /Sir William Hankford/                                           181
    /Sir John Fitz/                                                  185
    /Lady Howard/                                                    194
    /The Bidlakes, of Bidlake/                                       212
    /The Pirates of Lundy/                                           224
    /Tom D’Urfey/                                                    238
    /The Bird of the Oxenhams/                                       248
    /“Lusty” Stucley/                                                262
    /The Bideford Witches/                                           274
    /Sir “Judas” Stukeley/                                           278
    /The Sampford Ghost/                                             286
    /Philippa Cary and Anne Evans/                                   292
    /Jack Rattenbury/                                                301
    /John Barnes, Taverner and Highwayman/                           320
    /Edward Capern/                                                  325
    /George Medyett Goodridge/                                       332
    /John Davy/                                                      351
    /Richard Parker, the Mutineer/                                   355
    /Benjamin Kennicott/, /D.D./                                     369
    /Captain John Avery/                                             375
    /Joanna Southcott/                                               390
    /The Stoke Resurrectionists/                                     405
    /“The Beggars’ Opera” and Gay’s Chair/                           414
    /Bampfylde-Moore Carew/                                          425
    /William Gifford/                                                436
    /Benjamin R. Haydon/                                             457
    /John Cooke/                                                     478
    /Savery and Newcomen, Inventors/                                 487
    /Andrew Brice, Printer/                                          502
    /Devonshire Wrestlers/                                           514
    /Two Hunting Parsons/                                            529
    /Samuel Prout/                                                   564
    /Fontelautus/                                                    581
    /William Lang, of Bradworthy/                                    594
    /William Cookworthy/                                             600
    /William Jackson, Organist/                                      608
    /John Dunning, First Lord Ashburton/                             618
    /Governor Shortland and the Princetown Massacre/                 633
    /Captain John Palk/                                              700
    /Richard Weekes, Gentleman at Arms and Prisoner in the Fleet/    709
    /Steer Nor’-West/                                                718
    /George Peele/                                                   726
    /Peter Pindar/                                                   737
    /Dr. J. W. Budd/                                                 754
    /Rear-Admiral Sir Edward Chichester, Bart./                      772




ILLUSTRATIONS


    /Maria Foote, afterwards Countess of
    Harrington/                                           _Frontispiece_

    From an engraving by Thomas Lupton, after a picture by
    G. Clint, /A.R.A./
                                                            to face page

    /Hugh Stafford/                                                    2

    From the original painting in the collection of the
    Earl of Iddesleigh

    /The Roasted Exciseman, or the Jack Boot’s Exit/                   4

    From an old print

    /The Tyburn Interview: a New Song/                                 8

    By a Cyder Merchant, of South-Ham, Devonshire.
    Dedicated to Jack Ketch

    /The Misses Durnford. The Alphington Ponies/                      16

    From a lithograph

    /The Misses Durnford. The Alphington Ponies/
    (Back View)                                                       18

    Lithographed by P. Gauci. Pub. Ed. Cockrem

    /Maria Foote, afterwards Countess of Harrington/                  22

    From an engraved portrait in the collection of A. M.
    Broadley, Esq.

    /Caraboo, Princess of Javasu,/ _alias_ /Mary Baker/               36

    From an engraving by Henry Meyer, after a picture by E.
    Bird

    /Mary Wilcocks, of Witheridge, Devonshire,/ _alias_
    /Caraboo/                                                         44

    Drawn and engraved by N. Branwhite

    /Arscott of Tetcott/                                              48

    From the picture by J. Northcote, /R.A./

    /Old Tetcott House/                                               54

    /Mariann Voaden, Bratton/                                         74

    /Mariann Voaden’s Cottage, Bratton/                               74

    /A Village “Wise Man”/                                            78

    /Manly Peeke in his Encounter with Three Adversaries
    Armed with Rapiers and Poignards/                                 90

    /James Wyat/, /ÆTAT./ 40                                         108

    Reproduced from the frontispiece to _The Life and
    Surprizing Adventures of James Wyatt, Written by
    Himself_, 1755

    /Rev. W. Davy/                                                   124

    From an engraving by R. Cooper, after a picture by Wm.
    Sharland

    /Slanning’s Oak/                                                 188

    From an oil painting by A. B. Collier, 1855

    /Frontispiece to “The Bloudie Booke; or the Tragical
    End of Sir John Fitz”/                                           192

    /Lady Howard/                                                    194

    /Bidlake/                                                        212

    /Thomas D’Urfey/                                                 238

    From an engraving by G. Virtue, after a picture by E.
    Gouge

    /Frontispiece to “A True Relation of an Apparition,”
    etc., by James Oxenham/                                          248

    /John Rattenbury, of Beer, Devonshire, “The Rob Roy of
    the West”/                                                       302

    From a lithograph

    /Edward Capern, the Postman-Poet of Devonshire/                  326

    From a painting by William Widgery, in the Free
    Library, Bideford

    /Charles Medyett Goodridge in his Seal-skin Dress/               332

    /Richard Parker/                                                 356

    From a drawing by Bailey

    /B. Kennicott/, /S.T.P./                                         370

    From the portrait at Exeter College, Oxford

    /Captain Avery and his Crew taking one of the Great
    Mogul’s Ships/                                                   376

    From a drawing by Wm. Jeit

    /Joanna Southcott/                                               390

    Drawn from life by Wm. Sharp

    /Silver Pap-boat prepared for the Coming of Shiloh,
    presented to Joanna Southcott in June, 1814/                     402

    From the original in the collection of A. M. Broadley,
    Esq.

    /Crib presented to Joanna Southcott in anticipation
    of the Birth of the Shiloh by Believers in her Divine
    Mission as “A Goodwill Offering by Faith to the
    Promised Seed”/                                                  402

    Reproduced from the original print in the collection of
    A. M. Broadley, Esq.

    /Mr. Gay/                                                        414

    From an old print

    /The Grammar School, Barnstaple, where Gay was
    Educated/                                                        416

    /Gay’s Chair/                                                    422

    /Bampfylde Moore Carew, “King of the Beggars”/                   426

    From an engraving by Maddocks

    /W. Gifford/                                                     436

    From an engraving by R. H. Cromek, after a picture by
    I. Hoppner, /R.A./

    /B. R. Haydon/                                                   458

    From a drawing by David Wilkie

    /Captain Cooke, 1824, aged 58/                                   478

    Drawn, from nature, on the stone by N. Whittock

    /The Noted John Cooke of Exeter, Captain of the
    Sheriff’s Troop at Seventy-four Assizes for the County
    of Devon/                                                        482

    From a lithograph by Geo. Rowe

    /Thomas Savery/                                                  488

    /Sketch of Newcomen’s House, Lower Street, Dartmouth,
    before it was demolished/                                        494

    /The Chimney-piece at which Newcomen sat when he
    Invented the Steam Engine/                                       494

    /The Steam Engine, near Dudley Castle./ Invented by
    Capt. Savery and Mr. Newcomen. Erected by y^e later,
    1712                                                             496

    From a drawing by Barney. Reproduced by kind permission
    of Messrs. Macmillan & Co.

    /Andrew Brice, Printer/                                          502

    Reproduced by kind permission from a print in the
    possession of Dr. Brushfield

    /The Wrestling Champion of England, Abraham Cann/                518

    From a drawing

    /Rev. John Russell/                                              530

    Reproduced by permission of the Editor of _Bailey’s
    Magazine_

    /The Rev. John Russell’s Port-wine Glass, Chamberlain
    Worcester Breakfast Service, and Barometer/                      558

    Purchased at the sale of his effects in 1883 by Mrs.
    Arnull and presented by her to Mr. John Lane, in whose
    possession they now are

    /Samuel Prout/                                                   564

    From a drawing in the possession of Samuel Gillespie
    Prout, Esq.

    /William Cookworthy of Plymouth/                                 600

    From the original portrait by Opie in the possession of
    Edward Harrison, Esq., of Watford

    /Mr. Jackson, the Celebrated Composer/                           608

    From an engraving after J. Walker

    /Lord Ashburton/                                                 618

    From an engraving by F. Bartolozzi, after a picture by
    Sir Joshua Reynolds

    /Horrid Massacre at Dartmoor Prison, England/                    648

    From an old print

    /Plan of Dartmoor Prison/                                        650

    /North Wyke/                                                     710

    /Dr. Wolcot/                                                     738

    /Dr. John W. Budd/                                               754

    From a photograph by his brother Dr. Richard Budd, of
    Barnstaple

    /Rear-Admiral Sir Edward Chichester, Bart./                      772




DEVONSHIRE CHARACTERS AND STRANGE EVENTS




HUGH STAFFORD AND THE ROYAL WILDING


Hugh Stafford, Esq., of Pynes, born 1674, was the last of the Staffords
of Pynes. His daughter, Bridget Maria, carried the estate to her
husband, Sir Henry Northcote, Bart., from whom is descended the present
Earl of Iddesleigh. Hugh Stafford died in 1734. He is noted as an
enthusiastic apple-grower and lover of cyder.

He wrote a “Dissertation on Cyder and Cyder-Fruit” in a letter to a
friend in 1727, but this was not published till 1753, and a second
edition in 1769. The family of Stafford was originally Stowford, of
Stowford, in the parish of Dolton. The name changed to Stoford and
then to Stafford. One branch married into the family of Wollocombe,
of Wollocombe. But the name of Stowford or Stafford was not the most
ancient designation of the family, which was Kelloway, and bore as its
arms four pears. The last Stafford turned from pears to apples, to
which he devoted his attention and became a connoisseur not in apples
only, but in the qualities of cyder as already intimated.

To a branch of this family belonged Sir John Stowford, Lord Chief Baron
in the reign of Edward III, who built Pilton Bridge over the little
stream of the Yeo or Yaw, up which the tide flows, and over which the
passage was occasionally dangerous. The story goes that the judge one
day saw a poor market woman with her child on a mudbank in the stream
crying for aid, which none could afford her, caught and drowned by the
rising flood, whereupon he vowed to build the bridge to prevent further
accident. The rhyme ran:--

    Yet Barnstaple, graced though thou be by brackish Taw,
    In all thy glory see that thou not forget the little Yaw.

Camden asserts that Judge Stowford also constructed the long bridge
over the Taw consisting of sixteen piers. Tradition will have it,
however, that towards the building of this latter two spinster ladies
(sisters) contributed by the profits of their distaffs and the pennies
they earned by keeping a little school.

I was travelling on the South Devon line some years ago after there
had been a Church Congress at Plymouth, and in the same carriage with
me were some London reporters. Said one of these gentry to another:
“Did you ever see anything like Devonshire parsons and pious ladies?
They were munching apples all the time that the speeches were being
made. Honour was being done to the admirable fruit by these worthy
Devonians. I was dotting down my notes during an eloquent harangue on
‘How to Bring Religion to Bear upon the People’ when chump, chump went
a parson on my left; and the snapping of jaws on apples, rending off
shreds for mastication, punctuated the periods of a bishop who spoke
next. At an ensuing meeting on the ‘Deepening of Personal Religion’
my neighbour was munching a Cornish gilliflower, which he informed me
in taste and aroma surpassed every other apple. I asked in a low tone
whether Devonshire people did not peel their fruit before eating. He
answered _leni susurro_ that the flavour was in the rind.”

[Illustration: HUGH STAFFORD

_From the original painting in the collection of the Earl of
Iddesleigh_]

Cyder was anciently the main drink of the country people in the West of
England. Every old farmhouse had its granite trough (circular) in which
rolled a stone wheel that pounded the fruit to a “pummice,” and the
juice flowed away through a lip into a keeve. Now, neglected and cast
aside, may be seen the huge masses of stone with an iron crook fastened
in them, which in the earliest stage of cyder-making were employed for
pressing the fruit into pummice. But these weights were superseded by
the screw-press that extracted more of the juice.

In 1763 Lord Bute, the Prime Minister, imposed a tax of 10s. per
hogshead on cyder and perry, to be paid by the first buyer. The
country gentlemen, without reference to party, were violent in their
opposition, and Bute then condescended to reduce the sum and the mode
of levying it, proposing 4s. per hogshead, to be paid, not by the first
buyer, but by the grower, who was to be made liable to the regulations
of the excise and the domiciliary visits of excisemen. Pitt thundered
against this cyder Bill, inveighing against the intrusion of excise
officers into private dwellings, quoting the old proud maxim, that
every Englishman’s house was his castle, and showing the hardship
of rendering every country gentleman, every individual that owned a
few fruit trees and made a little cyder, liable to have his premises
invaded by officers. The City of London petitioned the Commons, the
Lords, the throne, against the Bill; in the House of Lords forty-nine
peers divided against the Minister; the cities of Exeter and Worcester,
the counties of Devonshire and Herefordshire, more nearly concerned in
the question about cyder than the City of London, followed the example
of the capital, and implored their representatives to resist the tax
to the utmost; and an indignant and general threat was made that the
apples should be suffered to fall and rot under the trees rather than
be made into cyder, subject to such a duty and such annoyances. No
fiscal question had raised such a tempest since Sir Robert Walpole’s
Excise Bill in 1733. But Walpole, in the plenitude of his power and
abilities, and with wondrous resources at command, was constrained to
bow to the storm he had roused, and to shelve his scheme. Bute, on
the other hand, with a power that lasted but a day, with a position
already undermined, with slender abilities and no resources, but with
Scotch stubbornness, was resolved that his Bill should pass. And it
passed, with all its imperfections; and although there were different
sorts of cyder, varying in price from 5s. to 50s. per hogshead, they
were all taxed alike--the poor man having thus to pay as heavy a duty
for his thin beverage as the affluent man paid for the choicest kind.
The agitation against Lord Bute grew. In some rural districts he was
burnt under the effigy of a _jack-boot_, a rustic allusion to his name
(Bute); and on more than one occasion when he walked the streets he was
accused of being surrounded by prize-fighters to protect him against
the violence of the mob. Numerous squibs, caricatures, and pamphlets
appeared. He was represented as hung on the gallows above a fire, in
which a jack-boot fed the flames and a farmer was throwing an excised
cyder-barrel into the conflagration, whilst a Scotchman, in Highland
costume, in the background, commented, “It’s aw over with us now, and
aw our aspiring hopes are gone”; whilst an English mob advanced waving
the banners of Magna Charta, and “Liberty, Property, and No Excise.”

[Illustration: The ROASTED EXCISEMAN