Chapter II: Part 2

An old inhabitant of Totnes, named John Newland, states that he and
his father removed this stone from a well which they were digging
about sixty years ago, and deposited it in its present position. The
stone is precisely such a boulder as occurs in large numbers in the
deposit left by the Dart on the further margin of the alluvial flat or
“strath” at Totnes, and which is cut through by the tramroad to the
quay, near the railway station. Popular opinion is in favour of the
authenticity of the stone, but it can hardly have been the “rock”
referred to by Prince, already cited, “towards the lower end of the
town”; and for my own part, I am inclined to regard it as the “modern
antique” Newland’s account would make it, to which the old tradition
has been transferred. Moreover, there is yet current a local tradition
that Brutus landed at Warland. If this is not held to dispose of the
present “Brutus stone,” it certainly indicates an important divergence
of authorities.

-----

But, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth himself, Totnes town could not have been intended by him as the scene of the landing of Brutus. It was when Brutus was “holding a solemn festival to the gods, in the port where they had at first landed,” that he and his followers were attacked by Goemagot and his party. There it was that Goemagot and Corinæus had that famous wrestling bout, which ended in Corinæus running with his gigantic foe to the next shore, and throwing him off a rock into the sea. There is no sea at Totnes, no tall craggy cliff; and for Corinæus to have run with his burden from Totnes to the nearest point of Start or Tor Bay would have been a feat worthy even of a Hercules.

We are not surprised to find, therefore, that Totnes has her rivals—Dover, set up by the Kentish folk, and Plymouth,[3] each claiming to be the scene of the combat between Corinæus and Goemagot, and claiming, therefore, incidentally, also to be the port in which Brutus landed. I do not know that we can trace either tradition very far into antiquity. They do not occur in the chronicles, where, indeed, the very name of Plymouth is unknown. The earliest reference to that locality has been generally regarded as the Saxon Tamarworth. I am not at all sure, however, that Plymouth is not intended by Geoffrey’s “Hamo’s Port,” which he assumes to be Southampton. Geoffrey, indeed, says that Southampton obtained the “ham” in its name from a crafty Roman named Hamo, killed there by Arviragus; but if the identification is no better than the etymology, we may dismiss it altogether. On the other hand, the name of the estuary of the Tamar is still the Hamoaze—a curious coincidence, if it goes no further. There is nothing in the story of Hamo itself to indicate Southampton or preclude Plymouth; only a few references to Hamo’s Port occur in Geoffrey. One of these, where Belinas is described as making a highway “over the breadth of the kingdom” from Menevia to Hamo’s Port, may rather seem to point to Southampton; but there is no positive identification, even if we assume the story to be true. Again, “Maximian the senator,” when invited into Britain by Caradoc, Duke of Cornwall, to be King of Britain, lands at Hamo’s Port; and here the inference would rather be that it was on Cornish territory. And so when Hoel sent 15,000 Armoricans to the help of Arthur, it was at Hamo’s Port they landed. It was from Hamo’s Port that Arthur is said to have set sail on his expedition against the Romans—a fabulous story, indeed, but still helping to indicate the commodiousness and importance of the harbour intended. It was at Hamo’s Port that Brian, nephew of Cadwalla, landed on his mission to kill the magician of Edwin the King, who dwelt at York, lest this magician might inform Edwin of Cadwalla’s coming to the relief of the British. After he had killed Pellitus, Brian called the Britons together at Exeter; and it would be fair to infer that the place where he landed was likely to be one where the Britons had some strength. Here, again, whatever we may make of the history, it is Hamo’s Port that is the fitting centre of national life; and it is the Hamoaze that best suits the reference.

-----

Footnote 3:

Bridport also, on the ground of its etymology, Brute-port (!).

-----

This legend of Brute the Trojan was firmly believed in, and associated with these Western shores, by the leading intellects of the Elizabethan day. Spenser refers to it in his:—

That well can witness yet unto this day
The Western Hogh besprinkled with the Gore
Of mighty Goemot.

Drayton verifies the legend in his _Polyolbion_, and tells us how—

Upon that loftie place at Plimmouth, call’d the Hoe,
Those mightie Wrastlers met;

and how that Gogmagog was by Corin—

Pitcht head-long from the hill; as when a man doth throw
An Axtree that with sleight deliurd from the Foe
Roots up the yeelding earth, so that his violent fall,
Strooke Neptune with such strength, as shouldred him withall;
That where the monstrous waues like mountaines late did stand,
They leapt out of the place, and left the bared sand
To gaze vpon wide heauen.

And this article of faith had then long been popular. Carew, in his _Survey of Cornwall_, says: “Moreover, vpon the Hawe at Plymmouth, there is cut out in ground the pourtrayture of two men, the one bigger, the one lesser, with clubbes in their hands (whom they terme Gogmagog), and (as I have learned) it is renewed by order of the Townesmen when cause requireth, which should inferre the same to be a monument of some moment.” Westcote, writing some half a century later, states of the Hoe—“in the side whereof is cut the portraiture of two men of the largest volume, yet the one surpassing the other every way; these they name to be Corinæus and Gogmagog.” And there these figures remained until the Citadel was built in 1671—a remarkable witness of the local belief that Plymouth had played a prominent part in the affairs of Brutus and his fellows.

We know when these figures ceased to be. Can we form any idea as to when they originated? Their earliest extant mention occurs in the Receiver’s Accounts of the borough of Plymouth, under date 1494–5:—

It. paid to Cotewyll for y^e renewying of y^e pyctur of Gogmagog a pon
y^e howe. vij^{d.}

Previous to this date there only remain complete accounts of two years—those for 1493–4 and those for 1486—with a few fragmentary entries; and as the Gogmagog did not come to be “renewed” every year, there are no conclusions to be drawn from the absence of earlier notices. The next entry is in 1500–1, when 8_d._ was paid for “makying clene of gogmagog.” In 1514–15, John Lucas, sergeant, had the like sum for “cuttyng of Gogmagog”; and in the following year we read of its “new dyggyng.” In 1526–7, the entry runs: “Itm p^{d.} for Clensying and ryddyng of gogmagog a pon ye howe viij^{d.}”; and about this time it was renewed almost yearly. In 1541–2, the entry is: “Itm p^{d.} to William Hawkyns, baker (evidently to distinguish him from William Hawkyns, father of Sir John), for cuttynge of Gogmagog the pycture of the Gyaunt at hawe viij.” In 1566–7, the price had gone up to twenty pence. Probably this ancient monument had been neglected for some years before the last vestiges disappeared in 1671. It is not likely to have been renewed under the Commonwealth, nor do I think it was revived under the Restoration. It is noteworthy that the official entries apparently refer to one figure only, though we know from Carew and Westcote that there were two. Fourpence a day was about an average wage for labourers at Plymouth in the opening years of the sixteenth century, so that the “pyctur” probably took about two days to cleanse, and therefore must, indeed, have been of gigantic dimensions.

Some years ago I threw out the suggestion that as Geoffrey made no allusion to these figures, “it must be assumed either that he did not know of their existence, or that they did not then exist.” Believing the latter the more reasonable conclusion, I suggested, further, “that they were first cut in the latter half of the twelfth century, soon after Geoffrey’s chronicle became current, or not long subsequently; unless, as is possible, they had a different origin, and were associated with the wrestling story in later days.” Finally, I put forward the hypothesis, “that the legend, in the first place, did refer to something that occurred in the fifth century at or near the Hoe, and with which the Armorican allies, whom Ambrosius called to his aid about the year 438, were associated; that the Armoricans, on their return to Brittany, between the fifth and twelfth centuries, under the mingled influence of half-understood classical history and of religious sentiment working through the romantic mind, it developed into the full-blown myth of Brutus the Trojan; and that when it returned to England, and was made known under the auspices of Geoffrey of Monmouth, the Plymouthians of that day, to perpetuate the memory of what they undoubtedly believed to be sterling fact, cut the figures of the two champions on the greensward of the Hoe.”

I am not inclined now to adopt this hypothesis so broadly as it was then suggested. Probably the story did take shape in Brittany in some such fashion, but I now believe we must look far beyond the fifth century for its origin. There seems, however, little reason to doubt that the “Brutus stone” of Totnes and the Gogmagog of Plymouth originated, like the Gog and Magog of London City, in the popularity of Geoffrey’s book. The name, of course, linked Totnes with the legend, but we have absolutely no knowledge whatever of the reason why Plymouth (any more than Dover) came into the story. Dover, indeed, has no case what-ever—not even a “Gogmagog.”

What, then, are the claims of Totnes?

Now, as to Totnes, it is important, in the first place, to observe that in all the early works, Totnes is generally alluded to as the name of a district, and not of a town. For example, in the story of Brutus, as given by Geoffrey of Monmouth, his hero “set sail with a fair wind towards the promised island, and arrived on the coast of Totnes.” Nennius does not mention any place of debarkation. Geoffrey makes Vespasian arrive at the shore of Totnes, and, in quoting Merlin’s prophecy to Vortigern concerning his own fate, says of the threatened invasion of Aurelius Ambrosius and Uther Pendragon, “to-morrow they will be on the shore of Totnes.” Later in the same chronicle, the Saxons whom Arthur had allowed to depart “tacked about again towards Britain, and went on shore at Totnes.” Though the town seems rather to be indicated here, it is not necessarily so.

However, it is certain that we are to understand the landing to have taken place somewhere upon the south coast, for the invaders made an “utter devastation of the country as far as the Severn sea.” Constantine is said to have landed at the port of Totnes, which again may mean a place so called, or the principal harbour of a district of that name. It is clear, then, all things considered, that we are not dealing in these older chronicles with the present Totnes, great as is its antiquity, though the “Brut Tysilio” does go so far as to specify the place of Constantine’s landing as “Totnais in Loegria.”

Now, Mr. T. Kerslake, of Bristol, who has applied himself with singular acumen to the unravelling of sundry knotty points of our ancient history, is inclined to hold that the Totnes of the chronicles was a distinct place, and he has pointed out that the Welsh chronicles contain “early forms of the names of this favourite British port that has got to be thus confounded with Totnes.” In the “Brut Tysilio,” for example, the place of the landing of Brutus is called “Talnas” (at least, this is the printed form given in the Myvyvian Archæology); “Brut Gr. ab. Arthur” reads “Totonys”; and in a third, the “Hafod Chronicle,” we have “Twtneis.” Mr. Kerslake, therefore, treats “Talnas” as the earliest form of the word, and thereon builds the hypothesis that “the name given by the British writers to their port would resolve itself into ‘’t-aln-as’ and if Christchurch Haven should be conceded to be Ptolemy’s estuary of Alaunus, it would also be the port called by the Britons ‘Aln’ or ‘’t-Aln-as,’ from which Vespasian advanced up to Alauna Sylva, or Caer Pensauelcoit—the City in the Head of the High Wood.”

There can be little doubt, I think, that Mr. Kerslake is right in regarding Penselwood as the site of Caer Pensauelcoit, given as Exeter by Geoffrey of Monmouth, not apparently on the authority of his British original, but, as in other cases, for his own gloss; and thenceforward cherished most fondly as one of the worthiest memories of the “ever-faithful” city by its chief men and antiquaries. If it was at Totnes town, or in Torbay, into which some critics have expanded the idea of the “Totonesium littus,” that Vespasian landed immediately before his siege of “Kairpen-Huelgoit,” then there is considerable force in Geoffrey’s comment, “quæ Exonia vocatur.” If Penselwood, on the borders of Somerset, Dorset, and Wilts, were this “Primæval British Metropolis,” then we must give up the idea that Vespasian landed at Totnes town, or anywhere in its vicinity. However, it by no means follows that there was such a place as Totnes in the Talnas sense, as localised by Mr. Kerslake. Talnas is the single exception, so far as I am aware, to an otherwise general concord of agreement in favour of Totnes, at a date when Totnes town had not yet risen into such prominence as to justify or explain its appropriation of this tradition. The general sense of the language used when Totnes and the Totnes shore are mentioned, lead me, as I have already said, to the conclusion that it was rather the name of a district than of a town or port; and it was evidently understood in this sense by Higden, who in his Chronicle quotes the length of Britain as 800 miles,“a totonesie litore,” rendered by Trevisa, “frome the clyf of Totonesse,” which I take to be only another form of expression for the Land’s End.

My suggestion is that what we may call the Older Totnes is really the ancient name for the south-western promontory of England, and perhaps may once have been a name for Britain itself, in which case we can understand somewhat of the motive which led early etymologists to derive Britain from Brute or Brutus. The myth may be so far true that an elder name was supplanted by that which has survived, and that it lingered latest in this western promontory, perhaps as a name for the district occupied by the Kornu-British kingdom in its more extended form. Whether the modern Totnes is nominally the successor of the ancient title, the narrow area into which this vestige of far antiquity had shrunk, may be doubtful; for the name is as capable of Teutonic derivation as of Keltic. In my _Notes on the Historical Connections of Devonshire Place-names_, I pointed out that a Saxon derivation that “would fit Totnes town quite as well as any other would be from ‘Tot,’ an ‘enclosure,’ and ‘ey,’ an ‘island’—Totaneys, allied to Tottenham, and associated with the island by the bridge, one of the Dart’s most notable features.” For the original Totnes I suggested: “Perhaps instead of ‘ness,’ a ‘headland’ (Scandinavian), we should read ‘enys,’ an ‘island,’ and Tot may be equivalent to the Dod or Dodi, which we have in the Dod of the well-known Cornish headland, the Dodman.... Then we may read Toteneys the ‘projecting or prominent island’; or, if ‘Dod’ is read as ‘rocky,’ the ‘rocky island.’” I am satisfied that it is somewhere in this direction we have to look for the origin of the name, which would seem, however, to be corrupted from its earliest form when we first light upon it, and which may, indeed, be a relic of the giant race whom the followers of Brutus extirpated.

The last sentence may sound somewhat strange, but my enquiries into this curious story have led me to attach more importance to it than at first sight it seemed to deserve. Stripped of the dress in which it was decked out by Geoffrey, improving on his predecessors; deprived of its false lustre of classicism; cleared from the religious associations of a later day—this myth of Brutus the Trojan loses its personality, but becomes the traditionary record of the earliest invasion of this land by an historic people, who, in their assumed superiority, dubbed the less cultivated possessors of the soil whose rights they invaded “giants,” and extirpated them as speedily as they knew how.

Moreover, though Totnes town has to surrender its mythical hero, it preserves a record of an elder name for this England of ours than either the Britain of the later Kelts or the Albion of the Romans; and if that name be indeed a survival from these early times, makes certain what the general aspect of the story renders highly probable—that it was into this corner of Britain the pre-Keltic or Iberic inhabitants of our island first entered, and that it was here their rude predecessors—who to the diminutive Turanians might indeed appear as “giants”—made their final stand, just as in later days the non-Aryan invaders had to fly before the Kelt, and the Kelt in turn before the Saxon, until the corners of the island became the refuge not only of a gallant, but of a mingled race, with one language, one faith, and a common tradition.

Thus much, indeed, I think we may safely infer from the local associations of the story, supported as that inference is by the yet current traditions of the giant enemies of the Cornish folk.

THE ROYAL COURTENAYS.
BY H. M. IMBERT-TERRY, F.R.L.S.

When in that incomparable romance, _Les Trois Mousquetaires_, the source and parent of every historical novel of to-day, the author, Alexandre Dumas, wished to impute to the leader of his trinity of heroes the possession of a high and exalted chivalry, he called him Athos.

Probably the intention was to institute a comparison between the lofty attributes of the character and the altitude of the celebrated Greek mountain. Possibly, however, the talented Frenchman may have bestowed this title on the chief personage of his story because he, the author, conceived that no more fitting designation could be given to the embodiment of distinguished and aristocratic qualities than the actual name borne by the founder of one of the most illustrious families that has adorned the brilliant roll of French nobility, has given Emperors to the East, and subsequently established in this land of Devon a noble house which is inseparably connected with the traditions and history of the county.

In the continuation of Aimon’s _History of France_, an ancient chronicle of the thirteenth century, it is stated that the Châtelain of Chateau Renard had a son, named Athos, who rendered himself famous by his deeds of daring, and, in the reign of King Robert of France—A.D. 1020—fortified the town of Courtenay.

Okehampton Castle, 1734.</sc>
(_From an Engraving by S. and N. Buck_)
]

Transcription: _This Castle, was built by Baldwin de Bronys, & was at first call’d Ochementon; it descended to Rich. de Rivers or Riparus, & from him to his Sister Adeliza, who marrying one of the Courtenays, it came into that Noble family, & so continued til K.E.IV. seized it, for their adherence to the Hous^e of Lancaster. K.H. VII. restord it to the Courtenays, but K.H.VIII. again alienated it & dismantled the Castle & Park, yet Ed. Courtenay in Q. Marys Reign obtain’d a Restoration, but he dying without Issue Male, it came by a female into the Mohuns Barons of Mohun & Oakhampton, & by the like failure of y^e male it came by marriage to Christopher Harris of Heynes Esq^r._

_S. & N. Buck, delinm et Sculp. 1734._

From this castle, situated on a hill in the rich and wooded country which stretches over that district anciently called L’Isle de France, the descendants of Athos took their title. The name of his wife, the mother of the race, is nowhere recorded, although Bouchet, the historian of the French branch of the Courtenay family, states that she was “une dame de condition”; and the truth of this statement is verified by the fact that in those days, when the prerogatives of birth were universally acknowledged, her progeny were considered fitting mates for the noblest in the kingdom.

Jocelyn de Courtenay, the son of Athos and his unnamed wife, married twice: first, in the year 1060, Hildegarde, daughter of Geoffrey de Ferole, Comte de Gastinois; second, Elizabeth, daughter of Guy, Seigneur de Montlehery, by whom he had three sons—Milo, Jocelyn, and Geoffry.

At this period of history, the countries of Europe were undergoing one of those strange religious convulsions which frequently occurred in the Middle Ages. The passionate pilgrimage of Peter the Hermit drew motley crowds of so-called Christians to the Holy Land. Wherever the small, mean monk of Picardy, seated on his ass, “pusillus, persona contemptibilis et sponte fluens ei non deerat eloquium,” as William of Tyre describes him, preached the holiness of the Cause and the shame to Christendom that the Sepulchre of the Saviour should remain in infidel hands, his earnestness and enthusiasm, if not his eloquence, made thousands of fervid converts.

In those days of lawlessness and violence, few men of rank but had the stain of blood-guiltiness upon their souls. The richer hoped to buy salvation and release from their wrongdoings by founding abbeys and bestowing, out of their abundance, generous grants of land to maintain the same; the poorer went pilgrimages, and purchased the promise of as much future happiness as their possessions would afford.

But to the fighting noble of the day, whatever means he may already have taken to obtain the pardon of the Church, the call to arms by Pope Urban for the defence of the Holy Land, proclaimed, as it was, with all the authority of the Head of Christendom, endowed with all the plenitude of Papal indulgence, necessarily possessed a special attraction, for it promised him not only remission of his sins, but also the hope that the remission would be gained by exercising those very same deeds of violence and rapine, the commission of which in his daily life had probably brought him to believe that eternal punishment was his just doom.

Small wonder, therefore, that knights and nobles in large numbers endeavoured thus to gain everlasting advantages. Among the French nobility who passed over to La Terre Sainte, Jocelyn II. de Courtenay is numbered.

The principality of Edessa, a province so situated as not only to be divided by the Euphrates, but by its position specially exposed to enemies who surrounded it on all sides, was then held by Baldwin de Bruges, a renowned knight, cousin to Godfrey de Bouillon. Baldwin’s mother and the wife of Jocelyn, son of Athos, were sisters, their children consequently being cousins.

According to the Archbishop of Tyre, the elder warrior gladly welcomed his young kinsman, yielding to his charge those territories which lay farthest from the enemy, but retaining under his personal supervision the frontier, on which largely depended the safety of the Christian dominions.

Blessed with all the advantages a good administration can bestow, and protected from an unwearying enemy, to a certain extent, by the river, the country ruled by Jocelyn de Courtenay acquired such prosperity and opulence as to excite the envy of the neighbouring Christian Princes. Indeed, as all chroniclers show, when the overpowering personality of Godfrey de Bouillon was withdrawn, the promiscuous host which he led, rent by great diversity of interests, composed of many nations, lost the little cohesion it had once possessed, and rapidly fell apart.

Baldwin succeeding to the throne of Jerusalem, his cousin held undivided sway over the whole province. For thirty years did the gallant Frenchman defend his domains against the ever-returning infidel hordes, with varying success—at times a conqueror, at times a captive, dying in a manner befitting his life, for in his old age, weak with sickness, broken with wounds, he caused himself to be carried before his troops as he led them to succour their fellow-countrymen besieged by the Sultan of Iconium.

On his advance, the terror his prowess inspired sufficed to force the enemy to retire, news of which reaching the ears of the dying warrior, he gave thanks to God that the last moments of his life should be illumined with victory, and then immediately expired.

He was succeeded by Jocelyn, third of the name, the only son of his first wife, a sister of Levon, an Armenian notable.

It is to be suspected that the wisdom, energy, and endurance which so strongly characterized the father, and by which the little state, threatened with innumerable enemies, could alone be preserved, were, to some extent, deficient in the son, the deterioration probably being caused by the mixture of Asiatic blood in his veins.

In all contemporary records, the Pullani or Poulaines, progeny of Frank Crusaders and Syrian mothers, are spoken of with contempt and disdain, and although no lack of valour or even military qualities can be attributed to Jocelyn II., yet it is plain that the Eastern strain in his descent rendered him unduly disposed towards the seductions of a luxurious life; leading him to prefer the pleasures and ease of residence in the agreeable city of Turbessel to the constant care and hardships inseparable from an habitation in his fortified capital, Edessa.

This lack of vigilance on his own part naturally re-acted on his subordinates, and led, as a logical consequence, to a serious diminution in the military spirit and power of the country. In addition, an embittered feud with Raynald, Prince of Antioch, deprived him of the only ally who could, if well disposed, afford prompt and efficient aid.

Therefore, when Zenghi, or Sanguine, as the name has been corrupted by the Latin writers, leader of the Atabeks, with a vast host invaded the city of Edessa, it fell into his hands before either the ruler or the neighbouring Christian Princes were prepared to march to its assistance.

Defeated so often as to be without the means of efficient resistance to the powerful invader, Jocelyn himself before long became the prisoner of some wandering hordes. Carried a captive to Aleppo, he soon died, crushed by the misery of his position and the unwholesomeness of his surroundings, leaving one son, called by the same name as himself, and two daughters.

Beatrice, his widow, for a while, with ability and courage, defended Turbessel against the attacks of Zenghi’s successor, Noureddin, but receiving inadequate support from the King of Jerusalem, she yielded the task of holding the country to the effeminate Greeks, and they proving incapable of the effort, the whole province, which from the time of the Apostles had been the home and refuge of Christianity in the East, was irretrievably overrun by the infidel.

Jocelyn III., with his mother and sister, took refuge in Jerusalem, where, for more than twenty years, he led the existence inseparable from the lot of those who supported the waning dominion of the Christians—one constant struggle, not for supremacy, but for life. His fate is unknown: history has no record of him after the siege of Jerusalem, so it may well be surmised that he shared the fate of the slain when the Holy City fell to the assault of the great Sultan Saladin.

Two daughters were the sole descendants of Jocelyn; consequently, with him ended the House of the Courtenays of Edessa.

But while one branch of the parent stem had thus died off in less than ninety years, the family tree itself flourished exceedingly, giving great promise of that luxuriance which, in after generations, blossomed into Royal magnificence.

The fall of Edessa, the bulwark of Christianity in the East, caused the Second Crusade. Again in the roll of those who took the Cross is to be found the name of Courtenay, for among the followers of King Louis le Jeune were numbered William and Reginald of that name, and also Peter de France, the King’s brother.

When Jocelyn of Edessa, together with his younger brother, Geoffrey Courtenay, surnamed de Chapalu, sailed, in the year 1101, for La Terre Sainte, the eldest son of the house, Milo de Courtenay, remained in France, succeeding, on the death of his father, to the family domains. He married Ermengarde, daughter of Renaud, Comte de Nevers, and by her had three sons—William, Reginald, and Jocelyn. Of the last, nothing is known but the name. William, who as aforesaid took part in the Crusade, died in the Holy Land, leaving, on the extinction of the Counts of Edessa and the death of Geoffrey de Chapalu, his uncle, Reginald, his younger brother, sole heir to the name and possessions of his forefathers.

In those days, when transit was difficult and the social barriers between the noble and the roturier almost insurmountable, it was the custom, well known to all who plunge into the intricacies of French genealogy, and reasonable enough, considering the circumstances of the times, for the males of a family of rank to marry, hardly without exception, the daughters of their neighbours of like degree.

Life was a very precarious commodity to a man of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. He lived in an atmosphere of continuous warfare, and if by nature, mental or physical, he was disinclined for this turbulent existence, the only refuge open to him lay in the celibate seclusion of the cloister. It frequently occurred, therefore, that females inherited paternal estates.

To this cause may well be attributed the fact that the possessions of the Courtenays had become largely augmented, for Reginald is described as Seigneur of Montargis, Chateau Renard, Champignelle, Tanlay, Charny, Chantecoq, and several other seigneuries, all situated in the Pays de Gastinois and the country round Sens, many of which, in the time of his progenitors, were unmistakably the property of neighbouring families.

The possession of great wealth, at all periods of the world’s history, has been held as a claim to consideration; and when such opulence is combined with high rank and birth, the fortunate owner may well cherish lofty ambitions.

In the early part of what we call the Middle Ages, the coat armour borne by a warrior surely denoted his lineage and descent, for, unless assumed for purposes of disguise, heraldic insignia were used as a means of showing to which family an individual belonged—not, as now-a-days, to which family an individual wishes the world to think he belongs.

In addition to those claims to nobility which are known to be possessed by Athos, the fact is also acknowledged that he and his descendants used the arms attributed to the ancient counts of Boulogne—three torteaux or, on a field gules—arms which were undoubtedly borne by Eustace de Bouillon, when he and his illustrious brother Godfrey journeyed on the Crusade.

It may, therefore, well be believed that the ancestors of the Courtenays came from the same stock as the even more ancient house of Boulogne; and it is easy to understand that the only daughter and heir female of Reginald de Courtenay was considered a fitting mate for Peter de France, seventh son of King Louis le Gros.

Indeed, the relations between the Crown and the great nobles of the kingdom rested far more on a basis of equality than the pretensions of the monarch cared to allow.

Sismondi declares that the real domains of Louis VI. consisted only of five towns, including Paris and Orleans, together with estates, probably large, in the immediate vicinity; the remainder of the country being divided among the great nobles, some of whom possessed equal, if not more, extensive territories than their titular Sovereigns.

The young Prince Peter having but little estate left him by his father, and no title—for he is always styled the “King’s son” or “the King’s brother”—took to himself the name of Courtenay, and from him and his wife, Elizabeth, sprung that branch of the family which flourished in France for more than six hundred years. Five sons and six daughters issued from this union, the eldest daughter, Alix, marrying, as her second husband, Aimar, Comte d’Angouleme, by whom she had one daughter, Elizabeth, who, in her turn, became the wife of John, and the mother of Henry III., both Kings of England.

That portion of the Eastern Empire which, having been conquered by the Latin knights errant remained in their power, for twelve years had been ruled by Baldwin of Flanders and his brother, Henry, a wise and politic prince, upon whose death, in 1217, the male line of the House of Flanders became extinct.

From respect to the laws of succession, the crown was thereupon offered to Peter de Courtenay, son of Elizabeth de Courtenay and Peter of France, who had married Yolande, daughter of the Count of Hainault, and sister to both the late Emperors, Baldwin and Henry. The proffered honour, doubtless, was great, yet the accession to the Imperial purple proved the precursor of heavy calamities to the unfortunate Emperor and his descendants. Peter de Courtenay, it is true, bore the reputation of a valorous knight and a courageous warrior. He served with distinction in the Crusade against the Albigenses, prompted, perhaps, by a desire to merit the forgiveness of the Church, whose servants in his own domain he had, if the chroniclers are to be believed, treated with the haughty intolerance characteristic of the arrogant seigneur of the period.

But at that critical time in the history of the Eastern Empire, the wearer of the Imperial Crown required not only courage, but talents and diplomacy of the highest degree, such as Peter neither possessed nor found opportunity of acquiring.

Arriving at Rome in company with his wife, Yolande, and his children, Pope Honorius, after some pressure, was induced to crown him and his consort; but, as Gibbon hints, performed the ceremony in the Church of St. Lawrence, without the walls, lest by the act itself any right of sovereignty over the ancient city should be bestowed or implied.

In pursuance of a promise to the Venetians, the Emperor Peter, having first sent his wife and children by sea to Constantinople, directed his forces against the Kingdom of Epirus, then under the rule of Theodore Comnenus. Failing in his object, he fell, either by force or fraud, into the hands of the Greek despot, and died, by assassination or in prison, without having entered his Imperial dominions.

With a discretion rare, indeed, in those days, Philip, his eldest son, refused the honour of the purple, contenting himself with the Marquisate of Namur, his paternal fief; whereupon Robert, the younger brother, accepted the burden of the crown, and having, with due precaution, journeyed to Constantinople, was there crowned by the Patriarch Matthew, with all pomp and circumstance, in the Cathedral of Saint Sophia.

But in the grandeur of his coronation consisted the only splendour of his reign. All historians combine in representing Robert as deficient in every quality requisite for the high station he occupied and the necessity of the realm he had been chosen to rule; even Bouchet, self-appointed laureate to La Maison Royale de Courtenay, after describing the death of the Emperor on his return journey from Rome, whither he had gone to solicit against his own rebellious subjects the thunders of the Pope, is constrained to admit that to the weakness of this ruler may justly be attributed the disgraces which occurred in the reign of his successor.

Robert dying childless, the crown descended to his brother, Baldwin, the infant son of Yolande, born during his father’s captivity. The impossibility of an empire in the throes of dissolution being governed by a child of seven years, compelled the barons of the realm to invite John of Brienne, the old King of Jerusalem, to bring his wisdom and experience to their aid; but the seeds of disintegration had too long been sown. Notwithstanding a two-fold victory against the invader, on the death of the veteran in 1237, the Latin supremacy in the East well nigh vanished.

The youthful Baldwin de Courtenay, during the life of John of Brienne, visited many European courts in the vain hope of obtaining aid, military or pecuniary, for the defence of his forlorn dominions, and in the subsequent five and twenty years of his reign these visits were more than once repeated, each time with less result, and though, in fruitless efforts to raise men and money, he alienated his own patrimony of Namur and Courtenay, although in desperation he sold the sacred treasures of his capital—the Crown of Thorns and other relics reputed equally holy—yet his utmost efforts could in no wise avert the doom which threatened the Empire, but only availed to postpone for a while the final catastrophe.

At last the determination of Michael Palæologus brought the struggle to an end. Constantinople was invested and taken by the Greeks, the last remnant of Latin sway, in the person of the Emperor Baldwin and his family, taking refuge on board the Venetian fleet, which lay anchored in the Bosphorous.

With Baldwin and his son Philip, titular Emperor of Constantinople, ended the elder branch of the Courtenay family, for the latter left one daughter only, who married Charles of Valois, a prince aptly described as “son of a King, brother of a King, uncle to a King, and father to a King, but yet himself no King.”

The elevation of three of its members to the Imperial throne undoubtedly conferred great honour on the House of Courtenay, but the after results most adversely affected the surviving members. While other families connected with the French monarchy increased in wealth and influence, the severe struggles made by three generations to maintain their Imperial dignity so impoverished the ancestral domains that the successive holders, though undeniably of Royal descent and near relationship to the reigning dynasty, were not esteemed, and could not obtain recognition of their claims to be considered as Princes of the Blood Royal. It is true, however, that much doubt exists as to whether in the early days of the French nobility, kinship with the King implied any superiority of rank over others nobly born.

Le Comte Boulainvilliers, to whose family the Seigneurie of Courtenay, after its alienation, had been given as a royal fief, declares, in his “Dissertation sur la Noblesse de France”: “The French knew nothing of Princes among themselves; consanguinity (_parenté_) to Kings gave no rank the same as if descended in the male line. This is evident by the examples of the Houses of Dreux, of Courtenay, and the junior branches of the House of Bourbon.”

Indeed, it is quite apparent to all who read early French history that the King exercised merely nominal authority over the nobility, and was considered but as a chief and leader among those of equal birth and descent, though differing in degree. It cost King Louis VI. a vast deal of trouble to reduce the pretensions of the Seigneurs of Montlehery, who, allied by marriage to the houses of Flanders and Courtenay, conceived themselves in all essentials to be equal to and independent of their titular monarch, while even more cogent testimony to the same effect, redolent also to a great degree of the atmosphere of the times, is borne by the subjoined letter from Thibaut, Comte de Champagne, to the Abbot of St Denis, Governor of the Realm in the absence of the King:—“This is to let you know that Renaud de Courtenay hath done great injury to the King, ... for he hath seized on certain merchants that are the King’s subjects, who have discharged their toll at Orleans and Sens, and hath stripped them of all their goods. It is, therefore, necessary, to order him in the King’s name, they be set at liberty and all that belongs to them restored. In case he refuse ... and you be desirous to march an army against him, ... let me know, and I will send you aid.”

After the extinction of the elder branch in the persons of the Emperor Baldwin and his son, the House of Courtenay became so divided that, in the many ramifications of descent and consequent division of goods, the Seigneurs de Champignelles, de Tanlay, d’Arrablay, de Ferté Loupiere, etc., lost their pride of place, and were undistinguishable from the remainder of the nobility, direct evidence of which is furnished by the fact that Bouchet, who certainly loses no opportunity of enhancing the grandeur of the race, places over the arms of the Lord of D’Illier the nine-pointed coronet of a seigneur, and not, as on other occasions, the crown, embellished with fleur-de-lys, which designated the Royal House of France.

Yet the right of the Courtenays to be considered of Royal blood is incontrovertible, testimony to it being borne by many deeds of partition and contracts of marriage to which members of the reigning family affixed their signatures, in each case describing themselves as relations and cousins.

Moreover, even in the nineteenth century, the head of the House of Courtenay received a summons to the funeral of Henri Dieudonné, Comte de Chambord, Henri Cinq de France, as “notre parent et cousin.”

Fifteen years after the surviving members had lodged a final petition for the restoration of their rights of blood, “by the eternal doom of Fate’s decree,” the death of Charles Roger de Courtenay, the last male of the line, the controversy was closed; and thus what Gibbon calls the plaintive motto of the House: “Ubi lapsus, quid feci?” for the second time in history received the endorsement of truth.

But while two branches of the race grew, flourished, and fell, a third division rose to rank and fortune in this island, becoming closely allied by links of property and title with Devon, the fairest shire in the English land—links which the space of 750 years has strengthened, the glamour of an historic name, the charm of many a noble nature, have rendered unbreakable.

In olden times, a nation made it a point of honour to claim descent from ancestors who had participated in the siege of Troy. Fashions change. In the twentieth century, if an individual rises to such eminence that he is elevated to the peerage, the world knows he must have had a father, and presumes he had a grandfather. When the presumption can be carried back for a generation or two, the basis of an ancient descent is so firmly laid that a visit to the Heralds’ College will inevitably result in the discovery of a progenitor among those who fought with Norman William at the battle of Senlac, undoubtedly, judging from their reputed descendants, the most prolific band of warriors that ever peopled a conquered country.

In this, as in some other attributes, the Courtenays differ from the modern aristocracy.

The first mention of a Courtenay in English history occurs in the reign of Henry II., and although Bouchet, with true prophetic instinct, considers it necessary to allege that a certain Guillaume de Courtenay crossed over with the army of William of Normandy, the Battle Abbey roll of William Tailleur does not contain the name; but a “Cortney” may be found in the probably inaccurate transcriptions of the same, which have been inserted in the Chronicles of Stowe and Holinshed. A certain degree of doubt, however, exists as to the identity of the first Courtenay mentioned in English records.

Dugdale, copying the register of the monks of Forde Abbey—a foundation which benefited largely by the munificence of the family, and, as long as the spring flowed, lost no opportunity of gratifying their ancestral pride—declares that the founder of the name in this country was Reginald, a son of Florus, younger son of Lewis le Gross, King of France, who assumed the name of Courtenay from his mother, the heir female of that family.

History is silent as to whether Peter, seventh son of Louis le Gros, ever bore the designation of Florus; but it is undoubtedly proved by Bouchet and others that the said Peter married a daughter of Reginald de Courtenay, and enjoying her possessions, called himself by the title of her seigneurie. It is also fairly assured that the offspring of this noble couple did not number among them any son of the name of Reginald, and the preponderance of authority seems to show that the Reginald, friend of Queen Alienore of Aquitaine, who, being divorced from King Louis, afterwards married Henry of England, was probably the father of that Elizabeth de Courtenay who became allied with the Royal family of France.

On many occasions a de Courtenay is mentioned as accompanying Henry on his travels; and in the year 1167, Roger de Hoveden records that “Reginald de Curteney” witnessed a treaty of peace between Henry II. of England and Roderick, King of Connaught.

For services rendered to the State, Henry, in exercise of his prerogative, gave as wards to Reginald de Courtenay, probably the one aforesaid, the two daughters of Matilda, herself daughter of Randolph Avenel.

Reginald immediately married the elder, Hawise, and bestowed her half-sister, Maude, on a William de Courtenay, possibly his son, probably, as Cleveland thinks, his brother.

Hawise, as sole heiress to her father, Robert d’Abrincis, and descended from Baldwin de Brionis, a valorous Norman knight, inherited large estates in the West of England—the Barony of Okehampton, the Shrievalty of Devonshire, the custody of the Castle of Exeter, and the title of Vicecomes or Viscount; both dignities and land, as was the custom in those days, being enjoyed, “jure uxoris,” by her husband, Reginald de Courtenay, passed to the child of their marriage, Robert, who still further augmented the position of the family by marrying in his turn Mary, younger daughter of William de Redvers or Rivers, sixth Earl of Devon, through whom the House of Courtenay finally obtained the title which they retain to this day.

The policy of Henry III. deprived Robert de Courtenay of the Viscounty of Devon and the custody of Exeter Castle, but the Barony of Okehampton still remained in the line, being successively held by John and Henry, son and grandson of the said Robert.

In 1262, by the failure of heirs male, Isabella, daughter of Baldwin, seventh Earl, and his wife, Amicia, became Countess of Devonshire. This masterful lady married William de Fortibus, Earl of Albemarle, and, surviving her husband and children for more than thirty years, exercised despotic sway over the wide domains belonging to her. She erected a weir across the River Exe, even now called Countess Weir, for the benefit, as she declared, of her mills situated on both banks, though the citizens of Exeter were of different opinion, and on their oaths did aver that the Countess had “made a great Purpresture or Nusance ... to the Annoyance, Hurt and Damage of the said City.”

At her death, in 1292, the Earldom of Devon reverted to Sir Hugh Courtenay, second of the name, Baron of Okehampton, through his great-grandmother, Mary de Rivers, daughter of William de Ripariis, Redvers or Rivers, sixth Earl.

Some forty years after the death of his predecessor, Sir Hugh was summoned by writ, without any further creation, to take his seat as Earl, but before then he participated in many Parliaments as a Baron, both Stowe and Holinshed alleging that he was one of the two Lords of that rank who carried a solemn message to King Edward II., demanding from him the abdication of the throne.

Chiefly by means of judicious matrimonial alliances, the first members of the English Courtenays added largely to their rank and possessions.

Following the good example, Hugh, third of the name and second Earl, wedded, in 1325, Margaret, daughter of Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, Lord High Constable of England, by her obtaining that appanage associated so intimately with the Courtenay name as known in their own county, the beautiful castle and demesne of Powderham. Earl Hugh assigned this residence and estate to his younger son, Philip, from whom is descended the present branch of the family.

High in rank, possessed of great territory, honoured in the council, foremost in the fray, for a hundred and fifty years the Courtenays of Devon occupied a great place in English history. They took part in the battles of Halidon Hill, Creçy, the siege of Rouen, the triumphal entry into Paris; as Admirals of the West, repelled invasion; as Governors of the County, exercised extensive jurisdiction; and in their just pride of station, contended with the Earls of Arundel as to who should take precedence as premier Peer in the degree which they held.

Their functions, when acting as rulers of the county, were varied, for it is stated that in 1383 a command was issued to them by the King, ordering the punishment of “certain malefactors and troublers of our peace ... come lately to Topsham and by force of arms have taken Peter Hill, a certain messenger of the Venerable Father, William, Archbishop of Canterbury, and with no small cruelty and threatening compelled him to eat the wax of a certain seal of the said Archbishop.”

This William, son of Hugh, second Earl, at first Bishop of London, afterwards raised to the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury, possessed so fully the hereditary courage of his opinions that he not only resolutely opposed the weighty influence of the Duke of Lancaster and Lord Percy of Northumberland, when exercised by them in favour of John Wicliffe, but also as Adam, Archdeacon of Usk, pathetically declares: “Eciam a facie istius regis Ricardi, ille vir perfectissimus Willelmus Cantuariensis Archiepiscopus quia hujus modi taxe resistere volens.” The strength of the superlative epithet is justified by the said tax having been levied solely against the clergy.

But the prosperity of the Courtenays, as of most other noble families in England, was rudely disturbed by the outbreak of civil strife—the Wars of the Roses. Supporting strongly the House of Lancaster, they shared in undue proportions the calamities which befel that party, three successive Earls of Devon, the sons of Thomas, fifth in title, giving their lives for the cause they supported. Thomas, the elder of the three, taken at Towton, was soon after executed, as historians say, to appease the ghost of the Duke of York. A few years later, Henry, his brother, met the same fate; while John, the youngest, fell in the disastrous battle of Tewkesbury, the great estates of the family being escheated by the King.

Yet once more, with the triumph of Henry VII., the fortunes of the ancient house revived. The King annulled the attainder and restored the ancestral domains to the faithful noble who had followed him into exile and fought by his side at Bosworth Field, subsequently sanctioning also the marriage of the eldest son, Sir William Courtenay, with Katherine, the younger daughter of the late King Edward IV.; though this royal alliance, as was often the case in such connections, only led to suspicion on the part of the reigning monarch and calamity to the aspiring bridegroom.

In the succeeding reign, Henry, the child of this marriage, stood high in the favour of the monarch. As the boon companion of his cousin the King, he tilted with him at Greenwich; as his brother-in-arms, he fought at the Battle of the Spurs; in the office of Lord High Steward, he presided over the trial of those persons who had fallen under the Royal displeasure; and finally the honour of a Marquisate was bestowed, and Henry, seventh Earl of Devon, became the first Marquis of Exeter.

But the friendship of Henry VIII. was almost as deadly as his enmity. Accused of treason, neither personal virtues nor high connections availed anything, and so the Marquis of Exeter was arrested, tried, and executed. Hume, in this connection, remarks: “We know little concerning the justice or iniquity of the sentence pronounced against these men: we only know that the condemnation of a man who was at that time prosecuted by the court forms no presumption of his guilt”; but with characteristic ambiguity he continues: “Though ... we may presume that sufficient evidence was produced against the Marquis of Exeter and his associates.”

In the light of present knowledge, it is not difficult to conjecture the causes of this unfortunate nobleman’s downfall. There were two actions Henry VIII. never forgave: Failure to obey his wishes, tantamount to disobedience to his commands; and friendship, or even tolerance, towards those whom he chose to consider his enemies.

There is little doubt that Henry Courtenay committed the former as well as the latter form of “lèse majesté.” A letter from Sir Thomas More to Cardinal Wolsey is still extant, in which he writes:—“And as touching the ouverture made by my Lord Shevers for the marriage of my Lord of Devonshire the King is well content and as me seemyth very glad of the motion, wherein he requireth your Grace that it may lyke you to call my Lord of Devonshire to your Grace and to advise him secretly to forbere any further treate of marriage with my Lord Mountjoy.”