CHAPTER V

THE TOWN OF THE TWO FORDS

An imaginative mind, anxious for exercise, might easily find a worse pretext than the probable appearance of Tiverton at different epochs in its history. Three monstrous fires--in 1598, 1612, and 1731--have reduced the town to ashes, so that, despite its antiquity, it presents, on the whole, an extremely modern aspect, which, as time goes on, tends to become accentuated. Still certain buildings remain--not many, I fear--from which, like Richard Owen in another sphere of palæontology, the lover of the past may gather ideas for his reconstructive task. _Ex pede Herculem._

Every stranger, on arriving at Tiverton, is at once struck by the Greenway almhouses, with their quaint little chapel. These were miraculously preserved in the earlier devastations, when, according to contemporary notices, the fire “invironed those sillie cottages on every side, burning other houses to the grounde which stood about them, and yet had they no hurt at all.”[6] In the third welter of flame the almhouses were less fortunate, and it is a singular fact that the only life lost on this occasion--on the two previous there had been many victims--was that of an inmate who obstinately refused to quit the building, saying, “Who ever heard of an almshouse being burnt?” When, at last, he was convinced of the peril of optimism, and he would fain have made good his escape, it was too late--all egress was barred. Even in this, however, there was something miraculous, for, though the almshouses were burnt and transformed into fiery catacombs, the chapel was inexplicably preserved, and remains to this day, with all its rich ornaments and emblematical figures untouched. The inscriptions, however, or, as Blackmore playfully expresses it, “the souls of John and Joan Greenway” are not “set up in gold letters.” Had the name “Gold Street” anything to do with this idea?

The founder of the almshouses was John Greenway, born about 1460, of whom little is known that is authentic. Apparently of lowly origin, “by ability and industry he acquired an ample income” as a merchant. So says Harding, but it is seldom that ample incomes are acquired by brains and diligence alone. The stroke of luck may almost always be charged as a contributory factor. If legend may be believed, Greenway was positively inspired to wealth-making. A simple weaver, young and without prospects, he dreamed a dream which was thrice repeated. Each time a mysterious voice admonished him to proceed to London town, and there, on London Bridge, to await a cavalier on a white nag, who would have a message for him. The sanguine youth obeyed these supernatural instructions; and, taking his stand on the appointed spot, was accosted by an unknown horseman, by whom he was told to return forthwith to Tiverton and dig in a certain quarter. Again Greenway obeyed, and was rewarded by the discovery of a crock or pot of gold, which, as his initial capital, enabled him to launch out into business, and ultimately to found these almshouses in 1517. There is a notion that amidst the exterior carvings of St Peter’s Church, where Greenway built him a lovely chantry with wagon roof and Renaissance door, is sculptured the crock of plenty, but hitherto--owing perhaps to _embarras de richesse_--it has escaped detection.

Now the embellishments of Greenway’s two chapels deserve close attention, not only on account of their beauty, but for other reasons that will immediately appear. Greenway is represented by his arms (_a chevron between 3 covered cups, on a chief 3 sheep’s heads erased_), his staple-mark, and his cipher, which are figured on shields inserted in the quatrefoil of the cornices of the chapel in Gold Street and its porch; and by the following rhyme inscribed in bold letters under the main cornice:--

“Have grace, ye men, and ever pray For the sowl of John and Jone Grenway.”

These marks of parentage are merely what one would expect, but the walls have other symbolism, some of which demands comment. In two compartments of the upper cornice are to be found the arms of Courtenay and an eagle rising from a bundle of sticks. These devices are repeated on a larger scale over the archway, with the addition of the arms of England. The eagle montant, to borrow a term from falconry, is understood to typify the mythical phœnix, and may be regarded as alluding to the vicissitudes of that illustrious and ever-resurgent family.

The arms of England present no difficulty. They are to be explained by the marriage of William Courtenay, 10th Earl of Devon, with Katherine, youngest daughter of Edward IV., her elder sister Elizabeth being the consort of Henry VII. Miss Strickland, by the way, records a quaint incident in connection with a tournament held at the wedding of Prince Arthur, when “Lord William Courtenay (brother-in-law of the Queen) made his appearance riding on a red dragon led by a giant with a large tree in his hand.” What time the almshouses were building Katherine de Courtenay was actually resident at Tiverton Castle, and she was buried, in 1527, with immense pomp in the Earl of Devonshire’s chapel, which was destroyed by the Puritans, and is believed to have stood on the north side of the chancel in St Peter’s Church. In her honour was erected that large achievement in the centre of the porch, consisting of Courtenay and Rivers quarterly, impaling quarterly, 1st France and England quarterly, 2nd and 3rd Burgh, 4th Mortimer. It is surmounted with the Courtenay badge before-mentioned, and the supporters are St George and a woman.

It would be incompatible with the limits of this work to enter upon a minute description of all the charming imagery of this beauteous chantry. Much of it speaks for itself, but it may be as well to put the reader on his guard against a false blazoning of one of the coats of arms, which displays what looks suspiciously like a tiara. It may possibly be permissible to use the term, but subject to the understanding that we have here nothing to do with any papal insignia. _The three clouds radiated in base, each surmounted with a triple crown_, are for the Drapers’ Company; just as the _Barry nebulée_; _a chief quarterly, on the 1st and 4th a lion passant guardant, on the 2nd and 3rd two roses_, are for the Merchant Venturers of London. Attention may also be drawn to a series of sermons in stones, or small sculptures illustrating the chief events in the life of our Lord; on account of the height at which they are ranged, they might easily be passed unnoticed.

Viewing the decorations generally, we cannot but observe that the place of honour is assigned to the Courtenays; and, probably on the strength of this fact, Harding speaks of the Marquis of Exeter as Greenway’s great patron. In this he may be mistaken, since, on the death of her husband, the Lady Katherine succeeded to the manor of Tiverton, and doubtless exerted much influence in the town and county during the sixteen years of her widowhood. This brings us to the stately home in which, more than anywhere else, those sorrowful years were spent.

Due north of St Peter’s churchyard, from which only a wall parts them, are the precincts of Tiverton Castle whereof there exist somewhat extensive remains in varying degrees of preservation. This was for several centuries one of the chief residences of the Courtenays, and in the Middle Ages was a strong place of arms. On the west is a precipice, which runs down sixty feet sheer to the River Exe and secured the castle on that side; in other directions it had towers and turrets, and ramparts and moats, and all that military science then knew in the way of elaborate fortification. Two of the towers yet stand--a square and a round, while the ivy-covered ruin, which is detached from the rest of the buildings, at the south-west angle of the castle grounds, is supposed to represent the oratory or chapel. From its position it was evidently distinct from the Earl of Devonshire’s Chapel, mentioned above, and must have been a private sanctuary reserved to the household.

The castle is stated to have been built by Richard de Redvers or Rivers, who was an Earl of Devon in his time--about 1106; it came into the possession of the Courtenays on the extinction of the Redvers family in 1274, when Hugh de Courtenay, great-grandson of Mary de Redvers, succeeded to all their estates. His immediate predecessor was Isabella de Fortibus, born Redvers, who is credited with the gift of an ample stream of water known as the Town Lake, a section of which, enclosed between paved banks, may be observed in Castle Street. She, of course, was _not_ a Courtenay; and it is with these rather than with other possessors of the castle that we are mainly concerned. As, with brief intervals, they were the ruling element in the town for a period of three centuries, it is natural to inquire what manner of men were those great lords, and how it went with the neighbourhood when they were uppermost.

With their emblems around us, and with the odour of sanctity investing the places where those emblems appear, there is a palpable danger of attributing to the Courtenays a larger measure of piety than is at all their due. Of him who is called sometimes the Good, sometimes the Blind Earl, no word of censure may be spoken; and as for the husband and descendants of Katherine--William, Henry, Edward--their tragic fates evoke that infinite compassion for which the blood of the innocent cries always, and never in vain. Even the guilty Courtenays were not devoid of redeeming qualities; they were stout warriors, and loyal to their king. Yet two of the race, father and son, both of them named Thomas, were the authors of a felon deed--a deed as black as any that soils the pages of history, or swells the calendar of crime. To all appearance the plot was hatched in Tiverton, and Tiverton yeomen were the willing, or unwilling, instruments of the scandalous theft, the inhuman murder. The whole may not be told here; let what follows suffice.

On Thursday, October 23, 1455, Nicholas Radford, sometime “steward” of the Earl of Devon, now an old man and a justice, was dwelling in God’s peace and the king’s in his own place at Upcott, in the parish of Cheriton Fitzpaine. The same day and year came Sir Thomas Courtenay, eldest son of the earl, with a body of retainers to the number of ninety-four, armed with jacks, sallets, bows, arrows, swords, bucklers, etc., who beset the house at midnight, and with a great shout fired the gates. Naturally at that hour Radford, his wife, and his servants, were in bed, but awakened by the sudden commotion, the good old man opened his window, and demanded whether there were among them any gentlemen.

“Here is Sir Thomas Courtenay,” answered one of the yeoman; and almost at the same moment the knight called out to him, “Come down and speak with me.”

The old man, however, would not comply, until Courtenay swore as a true knight and gentleman, that neither his person nor his property should be molested. Relying on this promise Radford descended with a lighted torch and ordered the gates to be thrown open, whereupon, much to his alarm, the rabble of followers began to stream in. The knight reassured him, and standing by his cupboard, condescended to drink of his wine. Whilst Courtenay held the master of the house with tales, his men plundered the mansion of its treasures. Money and bedding, and furs, and books, the ornaments of his chapel and the like--they carried them all away on Radford’s own horse, and did not spare even his sick wife, but rolling her out of bed, took away the sheets she was lying in.

Sir Thomas now said to the justice, “Have done, Radford, for thou must need go with me to my lord my father.” The old man expressed his readiness, and bade his servant saddle a horse, only to receive the reply that his horse had been removed and laden with his own goods. Hearing this, Radford said to his visitor,

“Sir, I am aged, and may not well go upon my feet, and therefore I pray you that I may ride.”

“No force (odds), Radford,” was the answer, “thou shalt ride enough anon, and therefore come on with me.”

Accordingly they went on together about a stone’s throw, when Sir Thomas, having secretly conferred with three of his men--two of them Tiverton yeomen--set spurs to his horse and rode on his way, exclaiming, “Farewell Radford!”

In a trice Nicholas Philip slashed the old justice across the face with his sword, and as he lay on the ground, dealt him another stroke, which caused the brain to drop out from the back of his head. His brother, Thomas Philip, cut the victim’s throat with a knife, while the third man, with surely supererogatory caution, pierced him through the back with a long dagger. Thus was Nicholas Radford feloniously and horribly slain and murdered.

As an aggravation of the crime, on the following Tuesday the old man’s godson, Henry Courtenay, with certain of the ruffians, arrived at Upcott, where the body of Radford lay in his chapel, and opened a mock inquest. One of them, Richard Bertelot, sat as coroner, and the murderers were summoned by strange names. They answered, “scornfully appearing,” made what presentment they chose, and gave out that they should accuse Radford of his own death. They then compelled his servants to carry the body to the church of Cheriton Fitzpaine, John Brymoor, _alias_ Robyns, a singer, leading the way with derisive songs and catches, as it was borne along.

Gaining the churchyard, they took the murdered man out of his coffin, rolled him out of his winding-sheet, and cast him all naked into the grave, where they threw upon his head and body sundry stones that Radford had provided for the making of his tomb, crushing them. They had no more pity or compassion for him than for a Jew or a Saracen.

It seems that in January of this year the justice had sold a good deal of land, including the manors of Calverleigh, Poughill, and Ford, for £400, and this large sum in cash is believed to have been the incentive of the murder. The Earl of Devon, who was no doubt accessory before the fact, speedily prepared an expedition to Exeter in order to obtain possession of such goods and chattels as Radford had lodged with the Dean and Chapter; and in November, he and his son Thomas assembled an armed retinue of a thousand or more at Tiverton, and marched to the city. We need not follow their proceedings there--they were outrageous--and, as signalising the barbarous character of the age, be content to note that neither the Earl nor his son received the penalty they deserved. Providence, however, suffered neither of them to escape. The Earl was poisoned at Abingdon, and his son and successor beheaded at York, after being taken prisoner at the battle of Wakefield, 1461.

The subsequent history of the castle must be traced briefly. After passing through various hands, it was purchased by Roger Giffard, fifth son of Sir Roger Giffard, of Brightleigh, in the parish of Chittlehampton, who pulled down the greater part of the buildings, and named it “Giffard’s Court.” Nevertheless, it was in a condition to repel an attack by the Parliamentarian forces under Massey in October 1645, though two days later it was stormed by Sir Thomas Fairfax at the head of an army outnumbering the somewhat disaffected garrison by thirty to one. The owner of the castle was then Roger Giffard, grandson of the first-named Roger, and despite the fact that the defence of the place was entrusted to Sir Gilbert Talbot, as military governor, there is no reason to suppose that Giffard was an absentee. Like his more famous kinsman, Colonel John Giffard, of Brightleigh, Roger was a devoted Royalist, and is mentioned among those persons who were fined for their loyalty. Blackmore’s reference to bales of wool used in the defence is strictly historical (see _Lorna Doone_, chapter xi.).

The modern house was built in 1700 for Peter West, who came of an old Tiverton mercantile stock connected with the Blundells. In 1594 John West had married Edy, daughter of James Blundell, and niece of Peter Blundell and his sister Elinor, wife of John Chilcott, of Fairby, and mother of Robert Chilcott, the founder of Chilcott’s School, which stands at the lower end of St Peter Street, and, with its mullioned and transomed windows, its handsome archway, and solid, iron-studded, black oak door, forms an interesting specimen of Jacobean architecture. Peter West’s daughter Dorothy took for her bridegroom Sir Thomas Carew, of Haccombe, and thus manor and castle passed into the possession of the distinguished family which still owns them.

We have enjoyed many opportunities of estimating the wealth and importance of the “woollen” merchants of Tiverton; but, if anything yet lack, the reader may station himself before the great House of St George, nearly opposite Chilcott’s School, and consider it at his leisure. This seemly residence, with its garden close, was built apparently by George Skinner, merchant, whose initials were formerly to be seen on the northern termination of the hood-mould. On the southern termination is the date 1612--the date of the second great fire. As the house is thoroughly Jacobean in style, it is natural to conclude that it is in all essentials the identical structure erected in that memorable year, but the confused account in Harding’s _History of Tiverton_ contains documentary evidence showing that it was “demolished and consumed by reason of the late unhappy wars” (_i.e._, the Civil War), and suggests that the “messuage” was rebuilt at various periods, from 1541 onwards. I shall not attempt to unravel the mystery, but content myself with observing that, beyond any question, the building has been altered, and that within living memory. Once, and for long, it rejoiced in another storey, but modern wisdom having determined that the edifice was “top-heavy,” the upper portion was removed.

About the year 1740 the manufacture of serges, druggets, drapeens, and the like began to decline, and, later, the effects of the American Revolution were severely felt in the town. In 1790, however, there were still a thousand looms and two hundred woolcombers in the neighbourhood. Then came the great war with France, which almost paralysed the local firms; and on its cessation the Tiverton manufacturers vainly endeavoured to restore old connections with the Continent. It was plain that the ancient trade

in wool, on which so many depended, was in its last throes. The end was sudden and dramatic. One morning, when the workpeople were at breakfast, the inhabitants of Westexe were startled by the loud report of a gun, and the news soon spread that Mr Armitage, the manager of a large mill, which had been built in 1790, and in which, as in a last refuge, the remains of the staple industry were concentrated, had shot himself in the counting-house.

The ruin of the place now seemed certain. Happily, however, the following year (1815), Messrs Heathcoat, Boden, and Oliver purchased the mill, and by extensive additions, converted it into an immense lace factory. In 1809 they had obtained a fourteen years’ patent for a greatly improved bobbin-net machine, of which Mr Heathcoat was the inventor, and erected a factory at Loughborough. The firm removed to Tiverton in consequence of the injury done to the machines by the Luddites, and thither a number of their men accompanied them. Some of the Leicestershire “hands,” about the year 1820, had a dispute with Mr Heathcoat, who had become sole proprietor of the factory, and, this having ended in their discharge or voluntary retirement from his service, they determined to set up an opposition concern. It is believed that the artisans had machines of their own brought down along with those of Mr Heathcoat and installed in the mill under some arrangement with him. Anyhow, they resolved to start lace-making on their own account.

Money, of course, had to be provided, and this to a limited amount--very limited for such a venture--was found them by a physician of the town named Houston, whilst premises were secured behind, or near what is now the Golden Lion Inn, Westexe. Here the quixotic scheme was launched, and here it came to an inglorious end, after a futile imitation of the frog in the fable. The credulous doctor, who lived in a house, now a saddler’s shop, next the “White Ball,” and whose backyard abutted on the infant factory, lost what he had lent, and no doubt learnt a lesson.

Hardly more felicitous was Mr George Cosway’s attempt to resuscitate the woollen industry. Mr Cosway “took up arms against a sea of troubles”; his capital was none too large, and in the face of powerful competition in other parts of the country, his factory in Broadlane was never a conspicuous success. On his death it was closed, and that finally. Mr Cosway belonged to the same family as the famous miniaturist, one of whose larger paintings, designed for an altar-piece, hangs on the north wall of St Peter’s Church. The subject is “St Peter delivered by an Angel,” and the picture was Richard Cosway’s gift to the town of which he was a native. The larger painting on the other side of the vestry door, the subject of which is “The Adoration of the Magi,” is a very fine work by Gaspar de Crayer, and an almost exact reproduction of a picture by Rubens in the Antwerp gallery.

It would be improper, I suppose, to refer to Tiverton without mentioning Lord Palmerston, whose Parliamentary connection with the borough extended from 1835 to 1865--just thirty years. As an Irishman, the popular statesman must have been perfectly at home in the town, which is always lively at election times, and during his early acquaintance with it, had an unenviable reputation as a rival to Donnybrook Fair. Most of the inhabitants had their chosen inn, the tradesmen being accommodated in the parlour, the artisans in the bar, and the labourers in the kitchen; and the consumption of beer and spirits almost exceeds belief. One would make ten glasses of grog his nightly quantum, another was not content with fewer than eighteen, while a third drank gin and water by the bucketful. Every now and then women would have a fight in the streets. A ring would be formed, whereupon the trulls grappled with each other, and with their long hair streaming down their backs, and blood down their faces, presented a pitiful and degrading spectacle. Things are better now.

Speaking of the Tiverton inns reminds me that John Ridd and Fry lodged, on the eve of their departure, at the “White Horse,” in Gold Street. This tavern is still in existence, and as it is not specially picturesque, the reader may be at a loss to conceive why Blackmore should have selected this particular house of entertainment. The novelist, however, knew what he was about. In the seventeenth century it may have been the most important inn in the town. On the entry of the Royalists into the town in the month of August, 1643, they were stoned by the mob, many of whom were killed or wounded by the fire of the soldiers; “and,” says Harding, in recounting the circumstance, “the effect produced was a dispersion of the remainder, when one, John Lock, a miller, was taken and executed at the sign of the White Horse, on the north side of Gold Street” (_History of Tiverton_, vol. i., p. 58).