Chapter IV: Part 4

Long after 1549, in King James’ time, when the Great Bible, despised by the Cornish, despised and rejected as an alien thing, had as a translation lost its hold upon the scholars of England, and its successor in public esteem, the Geneva Bible, was in turn to yield place to what we now call the Authorised Version, the celebrated John Norden, with Royal recommendations in his pocket, was making his journeys and constructing his _Speculum_, his topographical description of this kingdom. He never completed it; indeed, it was not printed till long after his time. But it is a vivid and for the most part trustworthy survey of the country generally, and the county of Cornwall is minutely described. Nowhere can a better view be had of the condition of the Western part of the Diocese in the distribution of language. Here are his words; the spelling is Norden’s: “Of late the Cornishmen have muche conformed themselves to the use of the English tongue, and their English is equal to the beste, especially in the Eastern partes; even from Truro eastwarde it is in menner wholy Englische. In the West parte of the Countrye, as in the hundreds of Penwith and Kirrier, the Cornish tongue is most in use amongste the inhabitantes, and yet (which is to be marveyled) though the husband and wife, parentes and children, master and servauntes do mutually communicate in their native language, yet there is none of them in manner but is able to convers with a straunger in the English tongue unless it be some obscure people that seldom confer with the better sorte. But it seemeth that in a few yeares the Cornish language will be by litle and litle abandoned.” That was how the case stood in the beginning of the seventeenth century.

It is no wonder that two generations earlier the leaders of the Cornish rising demanded that they should be allowed to have the services of the Church as they had been accustomed to have them, for that other new Book was to them a foreign thing. “We will not receive,” they said, “the new service, because it is but like a Christmas game.... And we, the Cornish, whereof certain of us understand no English, utterly refuse the new English.”

Whitaker, himself a Cornish clergyman, though not a Cornishman, who published his _History of the Cathedral of Cornwall_ in 1804, and represents the most intelligent criticism of his time, says, in his vigorous way, as if the old blood still ran in his veins: “The English was not desired by the Cornish, but forced upon the Cornish by the tyranny of England, at a time when the English language was as yet unknown in Cornwall.” “This act of tyranny,” he continues, “was at once gross barbarity to the Cornish people, and a death blow to the Cornish language.” “To use the universal tongue,” says Freeman, “whether understood or not, was no grievance; to have English forced on them was.”

Two centuries before the Book of Common Prayer was issued, a Bishop of Exeter, John de Grandisson, one of the most accomplished and travelled of the whole series of mediæval prelates, was describing the Cornish end of his Diocese to the Pope who had “provided” him to his Bishopric. He speaks of it as if it were a foreign land “adjoining England only along its eastern boundary, being surrounded on every other side by the sea, which divides it from Wales and Ireland on the North. On the South, it looks towards Gascony and Brittany; and the Cornish speak the language of those lands.” The barrier of language was breaking down fast in 1549, but these illustrations will show how real a barrier it was.

The Act of Parliament which authorised the use of the Book of Common Prayer and, indeed, commanded it to be used, took effect on Whitsunday in 1549. A cold but competent critic, Mr. Goldwin Smith, has remarked of it that “Cranmer’s singular command of liturgical language enabled him to invest a new ritual at once with a dignity and beauty which gave it a strong hold on the heart of the worshipper, and have made it a main stay of the Anglican Church.” He adds, however, that in the backward parts of the country masses of people willing enough to part with papal supremacy and courts ecclesiastic “clung to the ancient faith and still more to the ancient forms.” Various risings against the new order took place. Two chief struggles stand out from the rest: one, in the East of England, with its centre around Norwich, the other, in the West of England, with its centre round Exeter. It is this last, of course, with which the present chapter is concerned, and in telling the story of this fragment of county history, as much use as possible will be made of Hooker’s own language. It is a strange thing, however it may be accounted for, that this racy narrative lay for years in manuscript in the archives of the City of Exeter, and was not printed till 1765. Even then it was left to private enterprise, and was published by subscription. The title runs: “The Antique Description and Account of the City of Exeter, in three parts, All written purely By John Vowell, alias Hoker, Gent. Chamberlain, and Representative in Parliament of the Same. Exon, now first printed together by Andrew Brice, in North Gate Street. M.DCC.LXV.” It is dedicated to the two representatives of the City in Parliament at the time of its publication, and begs them “Candidly to pardon the Presumptions, and benignly accept this little Oblation, of their most respectful and obsequious humble Servant, Andrew Brice.” In such a modest moment was this precious document given to the world.

“It is apparent and most certain that this rebellion first was raised at a place in _Devon_ named Sampford Courtneie, which lieth Westwards from the City about sixteen miles.” Then Hooker marks the day. It was Monday; it was in Whitsun-week; it fell that year on the tenth of June. It was indeed a memorable day. For, as already has been said, the Book of Common Prayer was ordered to be used on Whitsunday, and was so used in Exeter as elsewhere, and in Exeter “the day passed off quietly.” Hooker says the statute was “with all obedience received in every place, and the common people well enough contented therewith every where, saving in this West Country, and especially at this said Sampford Courtneie.” “For upon the said Monday, the Priest being come to the Parish Church of Sampford, and preparing himself to say the service as he had done the day before, ... they said he should not do so.... The Priest in the end, whether it were with his will, or against his will, he relied (_sic_) to their minds, ... and forthwith ravisheth himself in his old Popish attire, and sayeth mass, and all such services as in Times past accustomed.”

Then the movement took shape. Leaders were chosen, or chose themselves. “William Underhill or Taylor and one Segar, a labourer,” joined afterwards as “Captains” by Maunder, a shoemaker, and Aishcaredge, a fish-driver. “Like lips, like lettice,” says Hooker, “as is the cause so are the rulers.” These leaders were good enough for the Sampford Courtenay men, but it was otherwise when the prevailing discontent, slowly gathering strength at first, and directed as much against the Lord Protector Somerset and “the gentlemen” who suddenly had become rich at the cost of the poor, as at the alteration in the services of the Church, brought more powerful persons and larger bodies of men upon the scene. Then the dimensions of the rebellion revealed themselves. Devonshire sent knights like Sir Thomas Pomeroie; Cornwall sent squires like Arundell and Winneslade, doomed to end their lives at Tyburn. Arundell’s history is illuminative of the times in which he lived and of the events in which he took part. Ten years before, at the dissolution of the monasteries, he had obtained the revenues of St. Michael’s Mount. It was by his advice that the rebels laid siege to Exeter. If he had marched on, his army would have gathered as it marched. The “ten thousand” who were at his heels at Exeter would have been fifty thousand before he reached London; but Exeter held out stubbornly, and Arundell it was, not Exeter, that surrendered. But this is anticipatory; and it is necessary to return to Sampford Courtenay on Whitsun Monday.

When the news of the disturbance at Sampford had spread through the neighbourhood, the local magistrates met together to endeavour to pacify the people. They temporised and were timid; “they were afraid of their own shadows,” and “departed without having done anything at all.” So things went on till the news reached the King and his Council, who already had enough on their hands elsewhere. Sir Peter Carew and Sir Gawen Carew, Devonshire men, were sent down with commissions to deal with the rising as on consideration and conference with the magistrates might seem best. Lord Russell was to follow. The two knights came with all haste to Exeter, and sent for the Sheriff, “Sir Peter Courtneie,” and the Justices of the Peace, “and understanding that a great Company of the Commons were assembled at Crediton, which is a town distant about seven miles from Exeter, ... it was concluded that the said Sir Peter and Sir Gawen, with others, should ride to Crediton, ... and to use all the good ways and means they might to pacify and appease them.... But the people being by some secret intelligence advertised of the coming of the Gentlemen towards them, and they (being) fully resolved not to yield one jot from their determinations, but to maintain their cause taken in hand, do arm and make themselves strong, with such armors and furnitures as they had, they intrench the highways and make a mighty Rampire at the Town’s End, and fortify the same, as also the Barns next adjoining to the same Rampires with men and munitions, having pierced the walls of the Barns with Loops and Holes for their Shot.”

When “the Gentlemen” reached the “Rampire,” they were surprised to find all conference refused, and Hooker says: “The Sun being in Cancer and the mid-summer moon at full, their minds were imbrued with such follies, and their heads carried with such Vanities, that ... they would hear no man speak but themselves, and thought nothing well said but what came out of their own mouths. The warlike knights, after conference, attempted the barrier, but a volley from the Barns repelled them with a loss of some, and the hurt of many.” But a servant of Sir Hugh Pollard, whose name was Fox, set one of the barns on fire, and the defenders fled. When the magistrates entered the town, they found none in it but old women and children. And so it might seem that the incident was closed, and the rebellion stamped out and quenched. It was not so. Here Hooker’s account must be given without alteration or abridgment:—

“The noise of this Fire and Burning was in Post-haste, and as it were in a moment, carried and blazed abroad throughout the whole Country; and the common people, upon false Reports, and of a Gnat making an Elephant, noised and spread it abroad, that the Gentlemen were altogether bent to over-run, spoil and destroy them. And in their Rage, as it were a Swarm of Wasps, they cluster themselves in great Troops and Multitudes, some in one place and some in another, fortifying and entrenching themselves as though the Enemy were ready to invade and assail them.” Thus “the barns of Crediton,” in themselves of small importance, became, as in our days for a moment “Remember Mitchelstown” was, a war cry in a movement of high and lasting importance.

While the country was in this excited state on the West side of Exeter, an incident of no great apparent importance stirred up a new outbreak on the Eastern side. The father of Sir Walter Raleigh was riding through Clyst St. Mary, when he overtook an old woman on her way to church, telling her beads as she went. Quite needlessly, but also quite after the fashion of the time, he entered into a polemical discussion, and so angered the old lady that she rushed into church, and shouted that she and her religion had been insulted, and that a “gentleman” had threatened that if they did not give up their beads, their holy bread, and their holy water, he would burn them out of their homes. This was enough to set the heather on fire on the eastern side of Exeter.

By this time Exeter was the centre of a district in full revolt, and amongst the country gentlemen and magistrates there was weakness and division.

It was at this stage that there arrived from Cornwall and North Devon the promise of support from men of more mark than the leaders of the village revolutionists. The barns of Crediton had done their work; the eyes of all men turned now to the walls of Exeter. The annals of Exeter are rich in records of worthy conduct. The proud motto, _Semper fidelis_, has been no inglorious boast. Amongst all her chronicles none is more to her credit than her behaviour throughout this siege. Around the walls thousands of men were encamped, or came and went as opportunity offered or necessity compelled. The Cornishmen brought to the siege men skilled in “underground” labour, and these dug beneath the walls and prepared mines. Exeter had also at least one man of skill in like arts. Setting pans of water over suspected places, he watched till the vibrations of the water revealed the blows of the pick-axe below. It was at once deliverance and merry relaxation of the strain upon the mind to divert all the slop and drainage of the city into the besiegers’ mines. John Newcomb was this man’s name; and like the name of the man who fired the barn at Crediton, it bears witness to the genuineness of the narrative.

Meantime, during this five weeks’ siege, strange things had happened. One of the Carews had been to London to convince the Court of the reality of the peril, and with blunt directness had driven the conviction that the case was urgent, home to the minds of the Council. Troops were promised, Germans chiefly, and though their number was not great, they were used to discipline—war was their profession, not their pastime—their arrival soon made a difference. The citizens were cheered and depressed alternately, as news reached them from the villages, that Lord Russell and the Carews were coming. The darkest hour, it is said, is that before the daybreak. It was so in Exeter at the end of July and the beginning of August. The siege had lasted five weeks, when news reached the city that the relieving troops had been defeated. Sunday, the fourth of August, was the darkest day of the siege. While the citizens were at Church, and, in obedience to the law, were using the new order of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, news had reached the ill-affected in the city that the King’s troops had suffered defeat. A violent mob paraded the streets, hungry and angry, shouting: “Come out, these heretics and twopenny bookmen! Where be they? By God’s wounds and blood, we will not be pinned in to serve their turns. We will go out and have in our neighbours; they be honest, good, and godly men.” The Mayor drove them back to their dwellings, and then the most faithful of the defenders entered into a covenant of fidelity to each other, no matter what might befall the city. Bedford House should be their citadel, and if and when that ceased to be tenable, they would go out by the postern gate into Southernhay, and cut their way through or die together. That very day the reported defeat was turned into victory. The relieving army, after reverses all but fatal, finally won the field. Monday inside the city was strangely quiet; before midnight the invading Cornish, the besieging multitude, had melted away. When the morning of Tuesday broke, Exeter was free.

Such is the bare outline of the last siege but one of the many which Exeter has sustained. “The barns of Crediton” raised the country side; the bridge of Clyst St. Mary pacified it. Between the place where the fighting began and the place where it ended stood, and still stands, the ancient city which so often in the past had been a place of defence to the interests of the country, but never in all the long roll of her achievements had borne herself more bravely, more nobly, and more successfully than when she disdained to surrender at the cry of hunger the _rôle_ of law-abiding fidelity which was the crown and glory of her mayor and municipality in the July and August of 1549.

Strangely enough, but fitly, too, the struggle closed where it began. Back through Crediton, past the blackened barn, the Royal troops marched. At Sampford Courtenay the shattered forces of the insurgents had collected. Once more they fought, “and never gave over until that both in the town and in the field, they were all or the most taken and slain. And so,” says Hooker, “of a traitorous beginning they made a shameful ending.”

It is a pathetic thing to read the Collect for Whitsunday, with its prayer for a right judgment in all things, and to think that the first result of ordering it to be said in the mother tongue was the series of battles, sieges, and executions which make up the terrible history that began to unroll its woes outside the Barns of Crediton.

W. J. EDMONDS.

GALLANT PLYMOUTH HOE.

BY W. H. K. WRIGHT.

What memories of the past crowd into the mind as we stand upon the far-famed Plymouth Hoe, and gaze seaward towards the open Channel! Looking out over Plymouth Sound, crowded with shipping from all parts of the world, one is apt to lose one’s twentieth-century identity, and to wander in thought over long-past and well-nigh forgotten days.

For, in truth, there is a glamour and a halo of romance about Plymouth Hoe which can be found nowhere else; for there, beyond and around us, spread the blue waters ebbing and flowing as they have ebbed and flowed for countless ages, and pregnant with mighty secrets and a wondrous retrospect.

Beneath those waters lie buried many strange tragedies, and of the shores are told many wonderful legends; but there are many living stories connected with our national and naval history that are to be found enshrined in our glorious annals. The Hoe, as regards its position and outlook, has changed but little since the days of Trojans, Phœnicians, Romans, Danes, Normans, Bretons, and Spaniards, all of whom in their turn have brought their ships within the bold headlands to east and west in quest of spoil or possessions.

The watchers on Plymouth Hoe may have witnessed many novel sights from their elevated standpoint, and may have joined in the welcome accorded to many distinguished visitors.

_From a drawing by J. M. W. Turner._] [_Engraved by W. J. Cooke._
PLYMOUTH HOE.

]

From a very early period, Plymouth has occupied a prominent position in the naval affairs of the kingdom, and on many occasions has been privileged to supply men, ships, money, and other requisites for the fitting out of expeditions—some of a warlike character, against our aggressive neighbours or foreign foes; others of a more peaceable intent, destined for the discovery of new countries and the exploration of unknown seas. From its position as one of the most westerly ports, and possessing, as it does, one of the finest harbours in the world, Plymouth has naturally been chosen as the starting-point of many of those daring enterprises which have astonished the world; and doubtless the Hoe has witnessed many interesting scenes, including the departure of these diversified expeditions and their triumphant homecoming. It would seem to us but as a matter of course that our forefathers should have betaken themselves to this famous place of outlook when anything unusual was going forward, even as we do at this time under similar circumstances. But in olden time there were many reasons beside those of mere idle curiosity to prompt the inhabitants of Plymouth to assemble on the Hoe. With what eager interest must they have repaired thither in those early days, when the French, with fire and sword, descended upon it, and made havoc wherever they went! Small and insignificant as the town then was, it appeared, nevertheless, to have possessed a peculiar attraction for our French neighbours, who, upon several occasions, paid their unwelcome visits. Thus, in 1339, we find it recorded that the French burnt the greater part of the town; again, in 1377, the same depredations were committed; in 1399, the French attacked Plymouth, but were defeated by the people of the town and neighbourhood, under Hugh Courtenay, Earl of Devon, the enemy losing five hundred men, and flying in disorder to their ships; in 1403 it was burnt by the French; and again, in 1405, the Bretons invaded Plymouth, and burnt six hundred houses. The name Breton or Briton Side, given to a street in the lower part of the town, and still in evidence, is traceable to a connection with this event.

But the brave seamen of gallant little Plymouth were on other occasions amply revenged for these outrages. Thus, in 1346, the battle of Cressy and siege of Calais are recorded, and it is a matter of historical fact that the latter town was blockaded by twenty-six ships and over six hundred men mustered by the town of Plymouth, while Saltash, Millbrook, and other neighbouring places also sent their quota of help. Again, in 1354, a fleet of three hundred ships sailed from hence, and within sight of the watchers on Plymouth Hoe, for the invasion of France, under the command of the King (Edward III.), the Black Prince, and other noted leaders. The watchers on Plymouth Hoe may have also taken part in the enthusiastic reception given by the people to the Black Prince, on the occasion of his landing here, after his memorable victory at Poictiers in 1356, bringing with him as hostages John, King of France, that monarch’s youngest son, and some of his principal nobles.

It is, however, to the age of Elizabeth that we must turn to find the greatest interest centreing around Plymouth. In that reign, the town attained a degree of importance that it has never since lost; and, as a matter of course, Plymouth Hoe was, as in still earlier times, from its commanding position and extent, the rendezvous for the townsfolk, as well as the muster-ground for troops. Many scenes of intense interest that have been witnessed from this historic spot, rise to the mind’s eye.

“The brave sea-captains it (Plymouth) produced made a glorious history for England in the reign of Elizabeth. Drake, first of England’s vikings, as a sailor, went out with his little fleet of schooners from this port on the 15th of November, 1577, to plough with their small keels a track through all the seas that surround the globe. The birth-roll of Plymouth is rich and illustrious with names of seamen who wrote them on the far-off islands and rough capes of continents they discovered. Drake, Hawkins, Raleigh, Oxenham, and Cook sailed on their memorable expeditions from this port.”[4]

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Footnote 4:

Burritt’s _Walk from London to Land’s End_.

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Many a time and oft did the people of Plymouth his away to the Hoe to bid Drake and his gallant company God-speed on their voyages of discovery and warfare. And it was no empty curiosity that led them to do this, for Drake was their hero, beloved by everybody, and his ship’s company numbered many Plymouth men, the husbands, sons, and brothers of those who looked wistfully and through blinding tears at the little vessels fast disappearing in the distance, out into the great unknown.

And if they thus watched the outgoing, what about the home-coming? That was an anxious time for the watchers on Plymouth Hoe, for no one knew until the ship actually arrived in port how many of their loved ones had succumbed to the rigours of the varying climate, disease, storm, and, worst of all, the dreaded Spaniards, with their horrible Inquisition. It is very evident that the townsfolk did take a very great interest in the events and expeditions of this period, for one old chronicler informs us that “Sir Francis (then Captain) Drake returning from one of his voyages, and arriving at Plymouth on Sunday, August 9th, 1573, in sermon time, and the news of his return being carried into the church, there remained few or no people with the preacher, all running to observe the blessing of God upon the dangerous adventures of the captain.”

But this home-coming of Drake’s, and the reception then given him, was as nothing compared to that accorded him when he returned from his voyage of circumnavigation. As stated before, he left Plymouth on the 15th of November, 1577, and returned on the 11th September, 1580. In this voyage he had completely surrounded the globe—a feat which, it is alleged, no commander-in-chief had accomplished before. He had five vessels at starting, the aggregate tonnage of which did not reach three hundred tons, and a company of men, gentlemen, and sailors, all told, amounting to one hundred and sixty-four. Before this voyage was half done, Drake had parted company with several of his ships, and returned from that voyage with only one ship, _The Golden Hind_, otherwise known as _The Pelican_. But, alas! there came a time when the watchers on Plymouth Hoe looked in vain for their hero; for both he and his companion, Hawkins (of a noted Plymouth family), died at sea, and were buried in the ocean, within a few weeks of each other. It was said of Drake—

The waves became his winding-sheet, the waters were his tomb,
But for his fame the ocean-sea was not sufficient room.

But we have anticipated matters a little. It must not be forgotten that Drake and Hawkins, with many another Plymouth captain of renown, fought the Armada of Philip the Second in 1588. All other events in the annals of Plymouth and Plymouth Hoe pale into insignificance beside that culminating event in the history of the time—that grandest of all England’s triumphs—described by Camden as “the only miraculous victory of that age.” For out there, well within sight of the watchers on Plymouth Hoe, was assembled the English fleet of a hundred and twenty sail, which was destined, by the Providence of God, to cause the destruction of that magnificent armament, “whose descent upon our shores had lighted up the beacon fires of British defiance from the Lizard to the Hoe, and roused the spirit of our loyal tars to drive the proud invaders from the seas.”

Let us, for a moment, imagine ourselves thrown back to that eventful summer’s evening in 1588, so graphically described by Macaulay, when—

There came a gallant merchant ship full sail to Plymouth bay,

bringing the important and alarming news that the Spaniards were within sight of our shores. We take up our position on the Hoe, then, as now, the favourite resort of the townsfolk, and find much to interest us. Near the Hoe is “The Pelican” Inn, with its terrace bowling green, and there we find a noble company assembled. “Chatting in groups, or lounging over a low wall which commands a view of the shipping far below, are gathered almost every notable man of the Plymouth fleet—that fleet which will to-morrow begin the greatest sea fight the world has ever seen.”

There we see Lord Charles Howard of Effingham, Lord High Admiral of England, Sir John Hawkins, Admiral of the Port of Plymouth, Sir Francis Drake, Lord Sheffield, Sir Richard Grenville, the hero of the great fight with the Spaniards a few years later, Sir Robert Southwell, Martin Frobisher, John Davis, and possibly Sir Walter Raleigh.

These and many others were on the Hoe at Plymouth that summer’s evening the day before the coming of the Armada. Some were enjoying a game of bowls, and tradition says that in the midst of the game intelligence was brought that the Armada were in the offing. Howard called upon the captains to lay aside their toys, and prepare to shoot in another and more serious game; but Drake, with that coolness which was one of his most marked characteristics, respectfully answered his chief: “There is time enough to finish our game, and to fight the Spaniards afterwards.” So the game was fought to its finish, and then there was hurry and bustle on land and sea, men thronging to the shore to gain their ships, sails being spread, all sorts of commands being given, and then came a waiting time, till the darkness of night fell, till—

The beacons blazed upon the roof of Edgcumbe’s lofty hall,

and the warning radiance spread from hill-top to hill-top, from cape to cape, until in a few short hours the whole land was told that the dreaded and much-vaunted Armada was at last in the English Channel. There is no need to follow the story further, as the scene is shifted from Plymouth Hoe, and the doings of Howard, Drake, Hawkins, and their brave companions have passed beyond our ken.

A few years later, in 1620, a little bark lay out there on the waters of the Sound having on board her the seeds of a mighty empire; for in the little _Mayflower_ were the pilgrims who alienated themselves from home and friends for religion’s sake, and sought in a new clime a haven of rest and peace. They found it after many days and the endurance of much hardship. Elihu Burritt, an American writer, giving his reminiscences of Plymouth Hoe and the Pilgrim Fathers, says:—

As Noah took in with him all that was worth preserving of the old
world before the Flood, not only of animal, but of mental and moral,
life, so that little ruddered ark, with its sky-lights looking upward
to the face of God by night and day, and filled with the ascending
voice of prayer by those who trusted in His guidance, bore across the
wide world of waters the life-germs of all that was worth planting in
the New World, or that could grow in its soil.

How these seeds of Empire have borne fruit may be seen in the marvellous growth of the United States of America, which has now a population exceeding eighty millions.

A few years later, viz., in 1625, all Plymouth flocked on to the Hoe, attracted thither by the presence of the King, Charles I., who there reviewed 10,000 troops from the counties of Devon and Cornwall. Twenty years after, the Royalist forces were encamped on Staddon Heights over yonder, holding the rebel town under close siege, and the people who ventured on Plymouth Hoe noted the white tents of the opposing forces with a feeling somewhat akin to dismay, for they did not know what a day might bring forth. But Plymouth remained staunch to the Parliamentary cause, and withstood Charles and his armies throughout the whole period during which the Civil War lasted.

Then, in 1652, a mournful procession landed under the Hoe with the body of Admiral Blake, who had succumbed to wounds received in a sharp fight with the Dutch. His heart was buried in St. Andrew’s Church; his body received honourable interment in Westminster Abbey.

The next memorable scene was the building of the Citadel—that huge fortification to the east of the Hoe proper—which served the double purpose of repelling invaders and of menacing the rebellious townsfolk, the memory of whose disaffection still rankled in the minds of Charles II. and his advisers. This was in 1670.

Another notable scene was doubtless witnessed by the watchers on the Hoe on the 14th of November, 1698, when Henry Winstanley completed and lighted the first lighthouse on the Eddystone reef. The story is well told by Jean Ingelow in a graphic poem, for which we have only space for a few lines:—

Till up the stair Winstanley went
To fire the wick afar,
And Plymouth in the silent night
Looked out and saw her star.

Winstanley set his foot ashore;
Said he, "My work is done;
I hold it strong to last as long
As aught beneath the sun.

"But if it fail, as fail it may,
Borne down with ruin and rout,
Another than I shall rear it high,
And brace the girders stout.

“A better than I shall rear it high,
For now the way is plain;
And though I were dead,” Winstanley said,
“The light would rise again.”
. . . . . . .
With that Winstanley went his way,
And left the rock renowned,
And summer and winter his pilot star
Hung bright o’er Plymouth Sound.

The sequel to this episode is a sad one, for it is recorded that the tower was destroyed on the 26th of November, 1703, and its public-spirited and confident designer perished with it.

And men looked south to the harbour mouth,
The lighthouse tower was down.

Other scenes rise up before us as the centuries roll on. We see the good citizens of Plymouth crowd on to the Hoe to witness the departure of Captain Cook on his various voyages of exploration in the South Seas; we note the pregnant comings and goings attending the great war with France, stately vessels sailing from the Sound in all their warlike glory, anon coming back crippled and wounded, with half their men killed or maimed. Then, later, we see the arch-cause of all this bloodshed—the great Napoleon—a prisoner on board the _Bellerophon_ in Plymouth Sound, while the waters below us teem with the boats and craft of all descriptions of the curious sightseers.

The years slip by. This time we are at war with Russia, with France as our ally, and we stand on the Hoe to watch the stately troopships sailing off with the flower of our army to court death in the Black Sea or in the Baltic. History tells the tale.

At another time we watch the first shipload of emigrants bound for the Antipodes to plant New Englands in Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere; and so it goes on through the centuries—the Plymouth Hoe beautified by the hands of men, and surrounded by stately buildings, and within sound of a teeming population, but in its general character and appearance little changed since the days of which we have spoken; and Plymouth men of to-day congregate on the Hoe, and watch the huge liners and leviathan battleships coming and going, even as their far-away ancestors noted the coming and going of Drake and his fighting ships that bore over the blue waters of the Sound those pioneers of empire—the sea-dogs of Devon.

W. H. K. WRIGHT.

=A SONG OF EMPIRE.=

(Occasioned by the visit of the King and Queen to Devonshire, March,
1902.)

A song, a song of Empire, of Britain, and her fame; Of sons who fought and fell for her, and gained a deathless name; Of men who on the trackless deep, or on the battle-field, Maintained her old supremacy, who died, but scorned to yield.

They sowed the seeds of Empire in far lands o’er the sea; They made the name of England the watchword of the free. And by their deeds of daring, on land or on the main, O’erthrew the pride of Philip, and crushed the power of Spain.

’Twas Drake and his brave seamen who boldly led the van; ’Twas Hawkins, Grenville, Raleigh, and many a Devon man Who taught the boastful Spaniard how dogged they could be— That British pluck was e’er a match for old-world chivalry.

Through many an age on history’s page their fame shines clear and fair, From sire to son the message passed boldly to do and dare; And whereso’er Old England’s flag is seen the world around, Shoulder to shoulder, rank on rank, Devonia’s sons are found.

But Britain’s Empire grows apace; and whereso’er they be, Britannia’s sons still wave aloft the banner of the free. No narrow jealousies can stay—no obstacles affright: Their motto is “Right forward, for Britain, Crown, and Right.”

And when the war-note soundeth, as late it sounded shrill, How nobly rose her sons to arms, obedient to her will! And as they came to Afric’s shores from many a distant clime, So will they come for her loved sake, e’en to the end of time.

Nor race, nor people, clime nor zone her march can stay or bound; In every land beneath the sun the British bugles sound; Her warships ride on every sea, her flag flies far and near, Mother of nations is she still, to all her children dear.

. . . . . . .

“God Save the King,” the people cry, and ’tis no empty sound— He’s loved and honoured for his worth the whole wide world around. Despotic power he’ll never wield, but with benignant sway Rule o’er a people myriad-tongued, who gladly homage pay.

And to his Consort, now a Queen—the Queen we all adore— We raise our greetings loyally and all our love outpour; Long life be hers and happiness, and may no cares of State E’er cast a shadow o’er her crown or love or joy abate.

Let Britons all with pride unite in welcome leal and true, To Edward, King and Emperor, we’ll raise our shouts anew. And may our mighty Empire still flourish and increase— May War and Anarchy give place to Unity and Peace.

W. H. K. WRIGHT.

THE GRENVILLES: A RACE OF
FIGHTERS.

BY THE REV. PREBENDARY GRANVILLE, M.A.

The family of Grenville claimed descent from Rollo the Sea-King, and they did not belie their fierce and adventurous ancestor. They were fighters to the core. Rightly they had for their bearing three horseman’s rests, in which the lance or tilting spear was fixed. Some, of course, through the long centuries, were senators, magistrates, ecclesiastics; but as a rule they were men of the sword, serving their country by land and sea.

The first Sir Richard de Grenville, “near kinsman to the Conqueror,” sheathing his sword after the Conquest of South Wales, settled on the borders of Devon and Cornwall beside the Severn Sea. Concerning any feats of arms achieved by his immediate descendants the chronicles are silent. We have only their frequent summonses “to go with the King beyond the seas for their honour and preservation and profit of the Kingdom”; but another Sir Richard was Marshal of Calais under Henry VIII., and in the quaint language of Carew, “enterlaced his home magistracy with martial employments abroad”; whilst his son, Sir Roger, a sea captain, and the father of the future hero of the _Revenge_, after fighting the French off the Isle of Wight in 1545, went down in the _Mary Rose_ off Portsmouth, when that ill-fated vessel, like the _Royal George_, two centuries later, capsized and sank with all on board.

His son, Richard, was then but two years old. The story of his boyhood has yet to be discovered, but he first gave vent to his fierce fighting spirit when, a stripling of some eighteen summers, he took service under the Emperor Maximilian against the Turks, obtaining therein the commendation of foreign historians for his intrepidity and early knowledge of the art of war. Next we find him taking part in suppressing the Irish rebellion, and though after this he settled for a while on his English estates, his restless spirit and natural thirst for distinction led him to participate in the perils and glories of the brilliant engagement at Lepanto in 1572, when Don John of Austria, with the combined squadrons of Christendom, defeated the Ottoman fleet. On his return to England he was knighted.

One of the features of the Elizabethan era was the zeal for colonization which pervaded the West of England. In common with Gilbert, Raleigh, and many others, Grenville petitioned the Queen to allow an enterprise for the discovery of “sundry ritche and unknowen landes.” Their request was granted, and in 1584 two ships, provided by Raleigh and Grenville, discovered Virginia; and the following spring, Sir Richard took command of seven ships fitted with the first colonists of that country. On his return journey he sighted a Spanish vessel of 300 tons, and his ship, the _Tiger_ (which was but 140 tons), out-sailing the rest of his little squadron, had nearly overhauled the chase, when the wind suddenly dropped, and the little _Tiger_ and her big quarry lay becalmed. Sir Richard’s boats had all been carried away in a gale of wind, but, determined not to lose his prize, he “boarded her,” says Hakluyt, “with a boat made with the boards of chests, which fell asunder and sank at the ship’s side as soon as ever he and his men were out of it.” The Spaniard proved richly laden, and Grenville’s dare-devilry won him £50,000 in prize money.

But his δαιμονίη ἀρετὴ (as Froude calls it) was soon to be exemplified in a still more striking manner in that last great service for his Queen and country, in which he so nobly sacrificed his life, and which has been told by Raleigh and Tennyson in “Letters of Gold.” To his great mortification, he had been prevented from sharing in the glories of the defeat of the Armada, having received the Queen’s special commands not to quit Cornwall during the peril; but in the summer of 1591 he was appointed Vice-Admiral, under Lord Thomas Howard, and despatched to the Azores to intercept an unusually rich treasure fleet, which was lying at Havannah ready for the homeward voyage. Grenville’s ship was the _Revenge_, a second-class galleon, carrying twenty-two heavy guns, twelve light ones, and twelve small pieces used for repelling boarders. She had carried Drake’s flag against the Armada three years before, and was considered one of the best types of a fighting ship.

On the 31st of August, Lord Thomas Howard’s squadron, consisting of six men of war and nine or ten victuallers and pinnaces, was riding at anchor in the bay of Flores; many of the crews were ashore digging for ballast, filling water casks, and obtaining fresh provisions and fruit for the sick, who numbered nearly half the strength of the fleet, for fever and scurvy had made havoc among the ships’ companies. Suddenly an English pinnace, the _Moonshine_, swept round a headland into the bay with the alarming intelligence that an armada of twenty Spanish men-of-war and over thirty transports and smaller craft were close at hand, despatched by Philip II. to protect his treasure ships.

Howard at once determined that he was in no condition to fight a force so superior, and accordingly made signal to weigh anchor instantly. All obeyed but the _Revenge_, Grenville being delayed, according to Raleigh, in getting his sick men brought on board from the shore; and when at last she got under way, she had lost the wind, and was unable to follow the other vessels as they ran past the Spanish fleet to windward. A second line of retreat was still open to him: by cutting his mainsail, he could run before the wind, pass the Spaniards to leeward, and rejoin the flag in the open sea. But to pass an enemy to leeward was a confession of inferiority to which Grenville would not stoop, and, though urged to this course by his officers and crew, he scornfully and passionately refused, and, sword in hand, drove his men to their posts, swearing that he would hew his way single-handed through the whole Spanish fleet, or perish in the attempt.

For a while he prevailed, compelling several of the foremost to give way, who sprang their luff and fell under the lee of the _Revenge_. But his success was short-lived; the _Revenge_, coming under the lee of the great _San Philip_, of 1,500 tons, was becalmed. This was about three o’clock in the afternoon; and while the _Revenge_ was hotly engaged with this gigantic adversary, four more Spanish ships-of-war ranged alongside, and, after a furious cannonade, attempted to board her, but in vain; and the _San Philip_, after receiving from the lower tier of guns of the _Revenge_ an especially deadly salvo, “discharged with cross-bar shot, shifted herself with all diligence from her sides, utterly misliking her first entertainment.” But her place was at once taken by another Spaniard, and, indeed, through the twelve or fifteen hours during which the battle lasted, Grenville’s ship was constantly fighting against overwhelming odds. All through the August night the fight continued under the quiet stars, ship after ship washing up on the _Revenge_ like clamouring waves upon a rock, only to fall back foiled and shattered amidst the roar of artillery:—

Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came, Ship after ship, the whole night long, with their battle-thunder and flame, Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her shame, For some were sunk, and some were shattered, and some would fight no more; God of battles! was ever a battle like this in the world before?

Though wounded early in the day, Grenville was able to fight his ship from the upper deck till an hour before midnight, when he was again wounded, this time in the body, with a musket ball. The sailors carried him below, and as his wounds were being dressed, a shot crashed through the _Revenge_, stretched the doctor lifeless, and inflicted an injury to Sir Richard’s head from which, in two or three days, he died.

And still the battle raged; and still ship after ship drew out of action, utterly defeated by the splendid gunnery and desperate courage of Grenville’s men. Gradually the fire slackened; before daylight it ceased altogether, for the Spaniards abandoned their attempts to sink the _Revenge_ or carry her by board. Yet fifteen out of their twenty men-of-war had been hotly engaged with her: two of them she had sunk outright; a third was so damaged that her crew ran her on shore to save their lives; a fourth was in a sinking condition. Dawn found the enemy’s immense fleet encircling the one English ship like wolves round a dying lion, and wary of approaching him in his last agony. When the sun rose, the survivors of the crew began to realise their desperate plight. Sir Richard commanded the master-gunner to split and sink the ship, that thereby nothing might remain of glory or victory to the Spaniards, and endeavoured to persuade the crew “to yield themselves to God and to the mercy of none else, but as they had, like valiant resolute men, repulsed so many enemies, they should not now shorten the honour of their nation by prolonging their own lives by a few hours or a few days.”

The chief gunner and a few others consented; but the rest having dared quite enough for mortal men, refused to blow up the ship, and surrendered to the enemy. Grenville was carried in a dying condition to the ship of the Spanish Admiral, and as he lay upon his couch on the deck, the captains of the fleet crowded round to see the expiring hero, who, feeling his end approaching, showed not any sign of faintness, but spake these words in Spanish, and said: “Here die I, Richard Grenville, with a joyful and quiet mind, for that I have ended my life as a true soldier ought to do, that hath fought for his country, Queen, religion and honour. Wherefore my soul most joyfully departeth out of this body, and shall always leave behind it an everlasting fame of a valiant and true soldier that hath done his duty as he was bound to do.”

Such was the fight at Flores in that August of 1591—“a fight memorable even beyond credit and to the height of some heroic fable.” It has been called “England’s naval Thermopylæ.” It was from the first as hopeless a battle as that of the Spartans under the brave Leonidas, and its moral effects at the time were hardly less than that of Thermopylæ. Froude tells us it struck a deeper terror, though it was but the action of a single ship, into the hearts of the Spanish people—it dealt a more deadly blow upon their fame and moral strength than even the destruction of the Armada itself, and in the direct results which arose from it it was scarcely less disastrous to them. Men may blame Sir Richard Grenville for his obstinacy, and what they deem his false notion of honour in scorning to turn his back upon the foe when the odds were so overwhelmingly against him, but at least it must be conceded that his courage and that of his crew have immortalised his name.

SIR BEVILL GRENVILLE.
(_From an Oil Painting._)
]

Passing over Sir Richard’s son, John, who followed Drake and was drowned in the ocean, “which became his bedde of honour,” and also another son, Sir Bernard, we come to the latter’s famous son, Sir Bevill—a man no whit inferior in loyalty and courage to his illustrious grandsire, and whom men called the English Bayard. When Charles I., in 1639, raised an army against the Scots, Bevill Grenville joined the Royal Standard at the head of a troop of horse at York. “I cannot contain myself within my doors,” he wrote, “when the King of England’s standard waves in the field upon so just an occasion, the cause being such as must make all those that die in it little inferior to martyrs. And for my own part, I desire to acquire an honest name or an honourable grave. I never loved my life or ease so much as to shun such an occasion, which if I should, I were unworthy of the profession I have held, or to succeed those ancestors of mine who have so many of them in several ages sacrificed their lives for their country.”