Part 4 (1/2)

Honiton filled Defoe with admiration when he came to it on his journey to the West. He describes it as 'a pleasant, good town, that stands in the best and pleasantest part of the whole country ... and to the entrance into Honiton the view of the country is the most beautiful landscape in the world, a mere picture, and I do not remember the like in any one place in England.' Beyond this pleasantness there is nothing very remarkable in the town; perhaps its most uncommon feature being a stream of clear water that runs down the street, with square dipping-places at intervals.

To the west the town looks over a s.p.a.ce of comparatively flat country, but on the north-west it is overshadowed by St. Cyres Hill, and farther north is the bold height of Dumpdon. On the top of this hill are the remains of an oval camp, and a few miles away to the north-west is the better-known camp called Hembury Fort. The fort stands very high, and looks south to the sea beyond the Vale of the Otter, and west to Haldon and the fringes of Dartmoor over Exeter. Three ramparts surround the fort, which covers a large s.p.a.ce of ground, and it is 'divided into two parts by a double agger.... Several Roman coins, and an iron ”lar”

representing a female figure three inches high, have been found here.'

A great Roman road pa.s.ses by Honiton. The Fosseway ran from Caithness to Totnes (according to some authorities, on into Cornwall), and crossed the country between Exeter or Seaton and Lincolns.h.i.+re. It is thought that the Romans, in making their famous roads, usually followed the line of still older British ways.

In coaching days Honiton was well known as a stage for changing horses.

Gay, who was a Devons.h.i.+re man, a native of Barnstaple, says in his _Journey to Exeter, 1716, from London_:

'Now from the steep, 'midst scatter'd farms and groves, Our eye through Honiton's fair valley roves; Behind us soon the busy town we leave, Where finest lace industrious la.s.ses weave.'

Here the poet mentions the one characteristic of the town known to strangers--the lace-making. When or how it was first started is not exactly known, but there is a theory that certain Flemings, escaping to England from the persecutions of the Duke of Alva, settled near Honiton and introduced the art towards the end of the sixteenth century. The evidence is too slender to prove that this was so, but there is no doubt that by the beginning of the next century the industry was well established, for in the Church of St Michael is a memorial bra.s.s plate recording that

JAMES RODGE of Honiton in ye County of Devons.h.i.+re (Bonelace Siller) Hath given unto the Poore of Honinton P'ishe The Benefytt of 100 for ever.

Who deceased ye 27 of July A'o. Di. 1617. aetate suae 50.

Remember ye poore.

So it is obvious that before 1617 there must have been enough lace to dispose of to make the sale of it profitable.

About forty years later Fuller wrote a spirited defence of lace-making on economic grounds. It was then 'made in and about Honyton, and weekly returned to London.' He says: 'Though private persons pay for it, it stands the state in nothing.... Many lame in their limbs and impotent in their arms, if able in their fingers, gain a livelyhood thereby, not to say that it saveth some thousand of pounds yearly, formerly sent over seas to fetch Lace from Flanders.' At this time the lace trade flourished greatly, although there was always a difficulty in competing with Belgium, because of the superiority of its silky flax, finer than any spun in England. Later the workers fell on evil days, for during the American War there was little money to spend on luxuries; and, besides, about this time the fas.h.i.+on of wearing much lace came to an end. In 1816 the introduction of 'machine net' supplanted the _vrai reseau_, the groundwork of the lace made by hand, and this took away work from very many people, besides lowering prices, so that the workers became discouraged, and the quality as well as the quant.i.ty of the lace suffered much in consequence. Queen Adelaide tried to stimulate the dwindling trade by ordering a lace dress, every flower in which was to be copied from Nature. The initials of the flowers chosen spelt her name:

Amaranth, Daphne, Eglantine, Lilac, Auricula, Ivy, Dahlia, Eglantine.

Queen Victoria's wedding-dress was made at Beer, and of later years there has been a revival of lace-making, especially in the neighbourhood of Honiton and of Beer; and considerable quant.i.ties are made by village women living at home.

But lace is not the only thing that comes from Honiton. Cider is made there, and in the reign of George II making it must have been a very profitable occupation. Defoe notes: 'They tell us they send twenty thousand hogsheads of cider hence every year to London, and (which is still worse) that it is most of it bought there by the merchants to mix with their wines--which, if true, is not much to the reputation of the London vintners. But that by-the-bye.' As cider-making was then in such a prosperous condition, it is easy to understand the tremendous outcry that arose a few years later, when Lord Bute imposed the enormous tax of ten s.h.i.+llings per hogshead, to be paid by the first buyer. The storm provoked was so violent, the opposition of country gentlemen of all shades of politics so unanimous, that the Prime Minister modified the tax to one of four s.h.i.+llings on each hogshead, to be paid by the grower, who was thereby rendered liable to the domiciliary visits of excis.e.m.e.n.

This alteration was vehemently protested against, and Pitt championed the opposition on the grounds that it was an Englishman's pride that every man's house was his castle, and denounced as intolerable a Bill that allowed excis.e.m.e.n to invade the house of any gentleman who 'owned a few fruit-trees and made a little cider.' The City of London sent pet.i.tions to the Commons, the Lords, and the Throne; and the counties of Devon and Hereford, the cities of Exeter and Worcester, urged their respective Members to make all possible resistance to the tax. Lord Bute's personal unpopularity increased enormously, and a shoal of squibs, caricatures, and pamphlets appeared, in which he was held up to ridicule and contempt. One caricature represented him as 'hung on the gallows over a fire, on which a jack-boot fed the flames, and a farmer was throwing an excised cyder barrel into the conflagration. In rural districts he was burnt under the effigy of a _jack-boot_, a rural allusion to his name.'

An amusing story is told of Lord North in connection with this tax. Not long after it had been imposed, he and Sir Robert Hamilton came to Ashe, near Axminster, on a visit--Lord North, then a Lord of the Treasury, distinctly uneasy as to the risk of coming into Devons.h.i.+re, for the county was still seething with dissatisfaction against the Government.

'He was one day thrown into great alarm by a large party of reapers, who, having finished cutting the wheat of the estate, approached the house with their hooks in their hands, shouting the usual cry, ”We have'n! we have'n!” The portentous words Lord North applied to himself, and, pale with terror, considered himself a dead man. Sir Robert Hamilton seized a sword, and was sallying forth to repulse the visitors, when, meeting a member of the household, an explanation took place, by which the fears so unconsciously excited were removed.'

It was a most ancient custom in the West--indeed, it is said to be a remnant of the pagan rite of dedicating the first-fruits to Ceres--to set aside either the first armful of corn that was cut or else some of the best ears, and bind them into a little sheaf, called a 'neck'. A fragment of the vivid description given by Miss O'Neill in 'Devons.h.i.+re Idyls' must be quoted: 'The men carried their reaping-hooks; the sheaf was borne by the old man. Bareheaded he stood in the light of the moon.

Strange shadows flecked the mossy sward on sundown as he held the first-fruits aloft and waved his arms.

'”We ha'un!” cried he, and the cry was long and wailing. The strange intimation fell on the ear like an echo from pagan days. One could fancy the fauns and weird beings of old had taught the cadence to the first reapers of earth. ”We ha'un!” cried he, and all the men in the circle bowed to the very ground.... ”We ha'un!” cried Jonas again, and again the reapers bowed and waved. Then the old men took up another strain, at once more jubilant and more resonant, and with an indescribable drawling utterance sang out ”Thee Neck!”--sang it out three times, and twice the waving circle of bright steel flashed.'

On leaving Honiton, if the river is followed upstream for a short distance, the traveller will find himself close to ruined Ottery Mohun, the home of two celebrated families in succession. Unfortunately, it has been entirely destroyed by fire. A farm now stands among the ruins, and two fine Perpendicular archways, and a deeply moulded and hooded arch over the frontdoor, alone bear witness to its former state. In the spandril above the outer archway is carved, 'amid elegant scroll-work and foliage, an arm, vested in an ermine maunch, the hand grasping a golden fleur-de-lys'--the old coat-armour of the Mohuns; and on the other spandril 'three lions pa.s.sant in pale,' the bearing of the Carews.

The Mohuns were a Norman family of distinction, but in later days were notorious rather than famous. The old peerage having died out in the Middle Ages, a member of a cadet branch, by shameless and persevering begging, induced Charles I to grant him a barony. This t.i.tle only survived a few generations, and the fifth and last bearer of it was known as 'the wicked' Lord Mohun. His life was short--he was barely over forty when he died--but eventful, for he was twice tried before his peers, each time on the charge of being accessory to a murder, and the story has often been told of the desperate duel in which Lord Mohun was killed by the Duke of Hamilton, whom he had mortally wounded. Spectators burst upon the scene to discover the two princ.i.p.als dying on the ground, and the two seconds fiercely fighting each other.

The history of the Carews is more interesting. Ottery Mohun came to them towards the end of the thirteenth century, through the heiress of the elder branch of Mohuns, whom John Carew married. Their names were eminent in camp, court, and council, in one reign after another; but it is only possible to speak here of two, Sir Gawen, and his nephew Sir Peter, on whose death the branch that had been settled at Ottery Mohun for three centuries became extinct in the direct line. There is not even s.p.a.ce for the career of another of Sir Gawen's nephews, to whom Queen Elizabeth wrote, with her own hand, in regard to his efforts in subduing the Irish:

'MY FAITHFUL GEORGE,

'If ever more services of worth were performed in shorter s.p.a.ce than you have done, we are deceived among many witnesses.'

Sir Peter's youth was spent very strangely even for that age of hazards and chances. As a child he was sent to school in Exeter, where he was so exceedingly naughty that complaints were made to his father, and Sir William, who had remarkable ideas of discipline, came to Exeter, 'tied him on a line and delivered him to one of his servants to be carried about the town as one of his hounds, and they led him home to Mohun's Ottery like a dog.' Not long afterwards he was with his father in London, when, 'walking in Paul's,' they met a French gentleman, an old acquaintance of Sir William's, who took a sudden fancy to the boy, and offered to bring him up in France as if he were his own son. The offer seems to have been accepted offhand, but, unfortunately for the boy, the sudden fancy drooped almost as quickly as it sprang up, and, after enjoying life for a brief moment as an indulged page, he was turned out into the stables, 'there as a mulett to attend his master's mule.' Here he remained till a Mr Carew, a kinsman, happened to come to the French Court, and near the Court gate pa.s.sed 'sundry lackeys and horseboys playing together, one of whom called to another, ”Carew Anglois! Carew Anglois!”' This attracted Mr Carew's attention. He called the boy and questioned him, and finding 'Carew Anglois' to be his cousin, Mr Carew took him under his protection, rebuked the fickle guardian, and trained up Peter 'for a s.p.a.ce ... in the court of France, like a gentleman.'

Peter, still very young, but extremely independent, was present at the siege of Pavia, and as his patron had just died, and he perceived 'fortune to frown upon the French side,' he went over to the Emperor's camp, and entered into the service of the Prince of Orange. Five or six years later he came home, bringing with him letters of highest commendation to the King, Henry VIII, who received him with great favour.