CHAPTER XIX.
KINGSBRIDGE
KINGSBRIDGE is a curious town, having a name that is a misnomer, for it possesses no bridge, there being no river. The estuary that runs some five to six miles in, at the head of which Kingsbridge stands, is a creek into which no river discharges, only brooks. It has several lateral branches—to Gerston, Frogmore, and South Pool, and at the mouth is Salcombe, a flourishing place, much in resort on account of the mildness of the climate, surpassing Torquay in this respect, and nearly as warm as Falmouth. The drawback to Salcombe is its distance from a railway.
In Kingsbridge itself there is not much to be seen. The church is interesting, with a central tower and spire, and is curious as having been enlarged at various times, making the interior very inconvenient for the hearing of the preacher.
Kingsbridge is actually in Churchstow. The town has drifted down from the high ground where was the fortified "stoke" to the quay, the "brig." The church in the town is a chapelry, and the erection took place in 1310. It is dedicated to S. Edmund the king and martyr, but why in the world they should have gone to the East Saxons for a patron I am at a loss to know. Churchstow belonged to the Abbey of Buckfast.
One half of Kingsbridge is in the parish of Dodbrooke, where there is a good church with a fine old screen.
There is a local ballad preserved relative to the departure of some troops for America quartered in the place in 1778-80, and there are old men in Kingsbridge who can recall the time when a detachment of military was there. The ballad runs:—
"On the ninth day of November, at the dawning in the sky,
Ere we sailed away to New York, we at anchor here did lie.
O'er the meadows fair of Kingsbridge, there the mist was lying grey;
We were bound against the rebels, in the North America.
"O so mournful was the parting of the soldiers and their wives,
For that none could say for certain, they 'd return home with their lives.
Then the women they were weeping, and they curs'd the cruel day
That we sailed against the rebels in the North America.
"O the little babes were stretching out their arms with saddest cries,
And the bitter tears were falling from their pretty, simple eyes,
That their scarlet-coated daddies must be hurrying away,
For to fight against the rebels in the North America.
"Now God preserve our Monarch, I will finish up my strain;
Be his subjects ever loyal, and his honour all maintain.
May the Lord our voyage prosper, and our arms across the sea,
And put down the wicked rebels in the North America."
There are a good many objects of interest in the neighbourhood. Combe Royal is an old house much modernised, where lemons and oranges are golden in the open air, and the blue hydrangeas lie in masses under the trees.
Fallapit has been entirely rebuilt. It was the seat of the Fortescues, and their monuments crowd the parish church of East Allington. During the civil wars, the castle at Salcombe was held for the king by Sir Edmund Fortescue. After having sustained two sieges, probably of short duration, it was summoned by General Fairfax on January 23rd, 1645, and after a long siege of nearly four months, surrendered on honourable terms to Colonel Weldon, the governor of Plymouth. Sir Edmund was allowed to march out with the garrison, bearing their arms, to Fallapit, and take with him the key of the castle he had so gallantly defended.
When Fallapit was sold, among other things put up by the auctioneer was this very key, and it was knocked down for half a crown.
A charming excursion may be made to the cell of Lee Priory, an almost perfect monastic building. The chapel has been destroyed, but the gateway and refectory and the dormitories remain intact. It is situated in a peaceful, umbrageous dell away from the world among green lawns and pleasant woods, an idyllic spot.
At South Milton in the church is an interesting rood-screen, with paintings of saints on the panels. Screens are, indeed, numerous in this district, some very fine. Crass stupidity has occasioned the destruction of those of Malborough and West Alvington. The clergy should be the guardians, not the ravagers, of their churches, but quis custodiet custodes?
A delightful row down the estuary will take to Salcombe, a modern place. Opposite, up a tremendous scramble, is Portlemouth, a settlement of S. Winwaloe, the great Brittany saint. He is locally called Onolaus or Onslow. Winwaloe was the son of Gwen of the Three Breasts, and her husband, Fragan or Brechan, cousin of Cado, Duke of Cornwall. Although Gwen is represented on monuments in Brittany as a woman with three breasts, yet in Celtic the epithet means no more than that she was twice married, and had children by both husbands. Winwaloe was educated by S. Budoc, and founded Landevenec in Finisterre. At one time, fired with enthusiasm at what he had heard of the achievements of S. Patrick in Ireland, he desired to go there, but was advised to remain and devote himself to the education of his own people. He accordingly gave up his life to ministering to the spiritual necessities of the Britons who came to Armorica, either as a place for expansion, finding Britain too strait for them, or driven there by dynastic revolutions.
Whether Winwaloe ever came into Devon and Cornwall we are not told in his Life, but it is not improbable, as he was closely related to the reigning princes.
His biographer gives us a somewhat minute account of his personal appearance and habits. He was of a moderate height, with a bright, smiling countenance; he was very patient with the perverse, and gentle in his dealings with all men. He was usually clothed in a goat's skin. He never seated himself in church, but always stood or knelt.
He died about 532. In Portlemouth Church, which has been barbarously "restored," he is represented on the screen holding the church in his hand. He is the third figure from the north. The first is partly effaced; the second is probably his sister, Creirwy; the sixth is Sir John Schorne, a Buckinghamshire rector, who died in 1308, and was supposed to have conjured the devil into a boot. He was venerated greatly as a patron against ague and the gout. There is a jingle relative to him:—
"To Maister John Schorne, that blessed man born, For the ague to him we apply,
Which judgeth with a bote; I beshrew his heart's rote
That will trust him, and it be I."
His shrine was at North Marston in Bucks, and was a great resort up to the time of the Reformation. At one time the monks of Windsor contrived to get his body removed to their church, but though they advertised him well he did not "take on" in that quarter, and they returned the body to North Marston. There are representations of him on the screens of Wolborough and Alphington, and one or two in Norfolk. The screen at Portlemouth is of a richer and better design than is general in the county. In the "restoration" of the church the level of the chancel has been raised to an excessive height, so as to give a ludicrous appearance to those occupying the stalls. But altogether the restoration has been a piece of wanton barbarity. The carving of the screen is of a high quality. At South Huish was another beautiful little screen. This has been saved from the hand of desecration by being removed to the Chapel of Bowringslea, a grand old Tudor mansion that has been carefully and conscientiously restored by Mr. Ilbert, the proprietor.
At South Pool is a screen with arabesques on it, well restored; also an Easter sepulchre.
Stokenham Church stands up boldly above a spring that gushes forth and forms a pool below the churchyard wall. This, there can be little doubt, must have at one time been regarded as a holy well. The church within is stately, and contains a good screen with paintings of saints on it, and a stone pulpit absurdly painted with Freemason symbols. What stained glass there is, is mediocre. Sherford, attached as a benefice to Stokenham, has another good screen, with apostles painted on it. Slapton has a very fine screen, but without paintings. The church was originally attached to a college founded in 1350 by Sir Guy de Brian, standard-bearer to Edward III.; the gate tower alone remains.
Some fine rocky headlands and pleasant coves are to be visited, notably Bolt Head and Bolt Tail, ad Prawle Point, with the sweet nooks where the brooks descend to the sea, or the cliffs give way to form a sunny, sleepy lap, lined with sand. At Bolt Tail is a prehistoric cliff castle. At mouth may be traced the entrenchments cast up by the Parliamentarians in the siege of Salcombe Castle.
The river Avon, that runs down from Dartmoor, is followed by the branch line of the Great Western Railway to Kingsbridge. A station is at Gara Bridge (Garw, Celtic for rough). The river passes under Loddiswell (Lady's Well), and then, unable to reach the Kingsbridge estuary on account of an intervening hill 370 feet high, turns sulkily to the right and enters Bigbury Bay far away to the west. Clearly Kingsbridge Harbour was made to receive it, but the river, like the life of many a man, has taken a twist and gone astray. But where the river went not, there goes the train by a tunnel.
The Avon enters the sea under Thirlstone, a parish that takes its name from a rock that has been "thirled" or drilled by the waves, on the beach. The church contains a few fragments of the screen worked up to form an altar.
An interesting expedition may be made from Kingsbridge to the mouth of the Erme. Above where the river debouches into the sea is Oldaport, the remains, supposed to be Roman, of a harbour commanded by two towers. One of the latter has of late years been destroyed.
The ancient port occupying two creeks remains silted up. There is absolutely no record of its having been used in mediaeval times, and this leads to the supposition that it is considerably earlier. It is a very interesting relic; but the two towers have been destroyed, and all that remains is a wall that cut off the spit of land, and a deep moat.
Modbury, a little market town, was a great seat of the Champernowne family. It has always been a musical centre. In the reign of Henry VIII. Sir Philip Champernowne, of Modbury, went up to Windsor, taking with him his company of musicians on rote and tabor and psaltery and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, and they performed before King Henry, to that huge monarch's huge content. So pleased was he with their "consort of fine musicke," that he bade Sir Philip remain with his company at Windsor, to play to him whenever the evil spirit was on him; but forgot to say that this was to be at royal charges. The entertaining of his band of musicians at court by Sir Philip during many months proved so great an expense that when he returned to Modbury he was a wiser and a much poorer man, and had to sell a manor or two to meet his liabilities.
In 1558 good Queen Bess mounted her father's throne; and one day bethought her of the Modbury orchestra. So with her royal hand she wrote down to Henry Champernowne, grandson of Sir Philip, to bid him bring up to court his "consort of fine musicke," for that she desired greatly to hear it. Henry was tactless, and he replied that the visit to Windsor previously had cost his grandfather two of his best manors, and that he really could not afford it. Queen Bess was highly incensed, and found occasion against Henry Champernowne to mulct him of four or five fine manors, as a lesson to him not to return such an answer to a royal mistress again. This marked the beginning of the decline of the Champernowne family at Modbury. The manor passed from them in 1700. But although the Champernownes are gone, the band is still there. It has never ceased to renew itself, and Modbury prides itself as of old on its "consort of fine musicke."
Bigbury takes its name from some great camp or bury that has disappeared under the plough. In the church is a very fine carved oak pulpit, like that of Holne, given by Bishop Oldham to Ashburton Church in or about 15 10. At the same time he presented an owl as lectern to Ashburton Church, the owl being his badge. In 1777 the wiseacres of Ashburton sold pulpit and owl to Bigbury for eleven guineas. When the Bigbury folk saw that they had got an owl instead of an eagle, they were disgusted, sawed off the head and sent it to Plymouth, with an order for an eagle's head of the same dimensions. Accordingly, now the lessons are read in the church from a lectern that has an owl's body with an eagle's head. But really—as in the puzzle pictures—one is disposed to ask, "Where is the owl?" and to look for it first among the Ashburton folk who sold their bird, and secondly among the Bigbury folk who objected because he was an owl. There are some brasses in the church to the Burton family, into which married the De Bigburys.
At S. Anne's there are an old chapel and a holy well. S. Anne did not come into fashion as a saint till the fifteenth century, and there are no early representations of her, or dedications to her. But Anne was the mother of the gods among the Celts, and the name was given to several notable women, as the mother of S. Samson, and the daughter of Vortimer, king of the Britons, mother of S. Wenn, who married Solomon, king of the Dumnonii; and a suppressed cult of the old goddess went on under the plea of being directed to these historic women, till the great explosion of devotion to Anne, mother of the Blessed Virgin—known to us only through the apocryphal gospels.
Ane or Anne was the mythical mother of the Tuatha de Danan, the race found in our peninsula, in Scotland from the Clyde to the Firth of Forth, and throughout Ireland, called by the classic writers Dumnonii. They were subdued in Ireland by the Gaels or Scots. Undoubtedly throughout Devon and Cornwall there must have been a cult of the great ancestress. She has given her name to the Paps of Ane in Kerry and to S. Anne's (Agnes') Head in Cornwall, and as surely the holy wells now attributed to S. Anne were formerly regarded as sacred fountains of the great mother of the race, whose first fathers were gods.
There is a rock at sea, reached at low tide, called Borough Island, on which is a little inn. It was formerly, judging by the name, a cliff fortress.
Ringmore, the adjoining parish to Bigbury, has a church and village nestling into a pleasant, wooded combe. The church has a small spire, and the basement serves as a porch. Anent this tower is a tale.
During the civil wars, a Mr. Lane was rector, as also incumbent of the adjoining parish of Aveton Gifford. He mustered the able-bodied men of his parish, drilled them, obtained some cannon, and formed a battery manned by his fellows, to command the bridge below Loddiswell, by which Parliamentary troops were marching to the siege of Salcombe Castle, and caused them such annoyance that during the siege of Plymouth by the Parliamentary forces, several boats full of armed men were despatched from Plymouth to capture and shoot the sturdy rector. Forewarned, Mr. Lane took refuge in a small chamber, provided with a fireplace, in the tower of the church, and there he remained in concealment for three months, secretly nourished by his parishioners. His most painful experience at the time was on the Sundays, when the minister intruded by the Parliament harangued from the pulpit in terms audible in his secret chamber. Then Mr. Lane could hardly contain himself from bursting forth to refute his heresies and denounce his disloyalty.
The soldiers are said to have landed at Ayrmer Cove and proceeded to the rectory, which they thoroughly ransacked, but although they searched the neighbourhood, they were unable to find the man they were sent to capture.
The old historic parsonage has been demolished, and its site is marked by a walled garden, but the secret chamber in the tower remains.
At Aveton Gifford is a fine screen, carefully restored. Walter de Stapledon was rector of this parish, and was raised thence to be Bishop of Exeter in 1307, and in 1314 he was the founder of Exeter College, Oxford. He was for several years High Treasurer to Edward II. His story is really worth giving in short. On the vacancy of the see, the king sent down congé d'élire on October 6th, 1307. The chapter sat. Of twenty-three canons fifteen chose Stapledon, three selected the Dean, three the Arch-deacon of Totnes, and two voted for the Dean of Wells. When the result of the counting was announced, then another voting was proceeded with, and Stapledon was elected unanimously.
The result was announced to the king and he gave his assent on December 6th. But meanwhile a troublesome fellow, Richard Plymstoke, Rector of Exminster, had sent an appeal to the Pope against nine of the canons, whom he pronounced to be disqualified for election, and one of these was Stapledon. Here was an unpleasant intervention, only too sure to be eagerly seized on by the Roman curia for the sake of extorting money. To make matters worse, the Pope had suspended the Archbishop of Canterbury, and he had gone to France, to Poitiers, to meet the Pope and solicit, and buy, his relief. On January 18th the Archbishop, who had been restored and empowered to investigate the complaint of Plymstoke, issued his commission; and on March 10th poor Stapledon wrote a bitter letter to the Cardinal, Thomas Joce, to complain of the condition of poverty into which he had been reduced. "It is hard on me; at the present moment I am destitute even to nakedness."
To make matters worse, the queen, Isabella, wrote to him requiring him to find a prebendal stall and a revenue for her chaplain—a foreigner with an outlandish name—Jargono. He replied that he could not give a canonry to this stranger, and as to finding him an income, he said that he was overwhelmed with debt, on account of the intolerable burden of costs incurred by the appeal to Rome, and in preparing for his consecration.
And it was not till October 13th, 1308, nearly a year after his election, that he was consecrated. His registers, carefully preserved at Exeter, prove him to have been a hard-working, high-principled, and altogether estimable prelate. He it was who erected that masterpiece of woodwork, the bishop's throne, in Exeter Cathedral.
Stapledon was one of the foremost statesmen of his day, and he was the trusted friend and adviser of King Edward II. Hence his frequent and prolonged sojourns in the Metropolis, and his occasional absences from England on missions of importance.
In 1323 the troubles with the Despensers, the king's favourites, began.
Charles IV., king of France, seized the Agenois and threatened Guienne. Edward sent his queen, Isabella, to Paris to negotiate with her brother. The treaty which she made was so humiliating for England that the king's council refused to discuss it. Another suggestion was then made from the French court, that if Edward would bestow Guienne on his eldest son, the king himself would not be required to do homage to the Crown of France. The Despensers urged Edward to accept this. The queen now refused to return to England; she had made a favourite and paramour of Lord Mortimer, and, out of spite against the king, favoured the Lancastrian party. Charles IV. was at last obliged to send her out of his dominions. She retired to the court of Hainault, where, under the direction of Mortimer, she prepared for the invasion of England. At the close of 1326 Isabella landed at Orwell in Suffolk, with a small but well-appointed army of Hainaulters and exiles. The Lancastrians immediately hastened to her standard. It was generally supposed that her object was simply, the removal of the Despensers. After a vain attempt to rouse the Londoners in his cause, Edward fled with the two Despensers to the Welsh marches.
The king's flight and the successful advance of the queen's forces towards London encouraged the citizens to break out into open rebellion against the Government. Before leaving, Edward had made Stapledon guardian of the city. Walsingham, in his History, says:—
"Continuing their rage, the citizens made a rush for the house of the Bishop of Exeter, and, setting fire to the gates, quickly forced an entrance. Not finding the bishop they carried off his jewels, plate, and furniture. It happened, however, that in an evil hour the bishop returned from the country, who, although he had been forewarned, felt no manner of dread of the citizens. So he rode on with all boldness, till he reached the north door of St. Paul's, where he was forthwith seized by the raging people, who struck at and wounded him, and finally, having dragged him from his horse, hurried him away to the place of execution. Now the bishop wore a kind of armour, which we commonly calle aketone; and having stripped him of that, and of all his other garments, they cut off his head. Two others, members of his household, suffered the same fate. Having perpetrated this sacrilegious deed, they fixed the bishop's head on a stake. As to the corpse, they flung it into a small pit in a disused cemetery."
Another chronicler says:—
"The naked body, with only a rag given by charity of a woman, was laid on a spot called le lawks chirche, and, without any grave, lay there, with those of his two esquires."
"Those," says Dr. Oliver, "who attend to the springs and principles of actions must award the tribute of praise and admiration to this high-minded bishop and minister; they will appreciate his zeal and energy to sustain the declining fortunes of his royal master, and venerate him for his disregard of self, and for his incorruptible honour and loyalty under every discouragement."
His body was finally brought to Exeter, where it lies in the Cathedral under a beautiful canopied tomb in the north-east bay of the choir, close to the high altar.
And now, one word to the angler.
What streams these are that flow through the South Hams! What pools under deep banks, in which the trout lurk! To him who can obtain permission to fish the Erme, the Avon, can be assured days to be never forgotten, of excellent sport in lovely scenery.