Part 17 (1/2)

For to my selfe I too well knew that the Spaniard is Haughty, Impatient of the least affront: And when he received but a touch of any Dishonour, Disgrace or Blemish (especially in his owne Countrey, and from an English man) his Revenge is implacable, mortall and bloudy.

'Yet being by the n.o.blemen pressed agen and agen to try my Fortune with an other, I (seeing my Life was in the Lyon's paw, to struggle with whome for safety there was no way but one, and being afrayd to displease them) sayd: That if their Graces and Greatnesses would giue me leave to play at mine owne Countrey Weapon called the Quarter Staffe, I was then ready there an Oposite, against any Commer.' When a 'hansome and well Spirited Spaniard steps foorth, with his Rapier and Poniard,' Peeke explained that he 'made little account of that One to play with, and should shew them no Sport.

'Then a second (Arm'd as before) presents himselfe; I demanded if there would come no more? The Dukes asked, how many I desired? I told them, any number under sixe. Which resolution of mine, they smiling at, in a kind of scorne, held it not Manly ... to worry one Man with a Mult.i.tude.

'Now Gentlemen, if here you condemne me for plucking (with mine owne hands) such an a.s.sured danger upon mine head: Accept of these Reasons for excuse.

'To dye, I thought it most certaine, but to dye basely, I would not: For Three to kill One had bin to mee no Dishonour; To them (Weapons considered) no Glory: An Honourable Subjection I esteemed better, than an Ign.o.ble conquest.... Only Heaven I had in mine eye, the Honor of my Country in my heart, my Fame at the Stake, my Life on a narrow Bridge, and death before and behind me.'

With a supreme effort Peeke succeeded in killing one of his opponents and disabling the other two. Then for a moment he feared the threatening anger of the crowd, but the n.o.bles showed great generosity in their admiration of his pluck, whether they felt mortified or not, and he was treated with extreme kindness, both then and afterwards. He 'was kept in the Marquesse Alquenezes House, who one day ... desired I would sing.

I willing to obey him (whose goodnesse I had tasted), did so, and sung this Psalme: _When as we sate in Babylon, etc._ The meaning of which being told he saide to me, _English_ Man, comfort thyself, for thou art in no Captivity.'

Peeke was then sent to the King of Spain, who tried to keep him in his service, but with a becoming grat.i.tude for the favours shown to him, Peeke begged to be allowed to return home, 'being a Subject onely to the King of England.' Whereupon the King very magnanimously gave 'one hundred Pistoletts to beare my charges.'

A play has been written called 'd.i.c.k of Devons.h.i.+re,' in which the adventures of 'd.i.c.k Pike' are set in the midst of a Spanish tragi-comedy.

Nothing is known of Peeke's life after he came back to his own country, but there are strong reasons for believing that he returned to Tavistock. And if it was himself, and not a namesake, who flourished there, in 1638, our hero might be seen in an entirely new role, for that year Richard Peeke filled the peaceful office of people's churchwarden!

Tavistock's fine church is dedicated to St Eustachius, and it has a high battlemented tower crowned with slender pinnacles. The tower is 'pierced with arches in all four sides, so that it stands on piers. It is thus a true campanile, and was never joined to the church.' There are monuments to several families in the nave and chancel, and stories and memories crowd especially round two of them. One is the tomb of John Fitz of Fitz-ford and his wife, at the back of which their son Sir John kneels at a desk with a book before him.

Fitzford House is close to Tavistock, and with the property came to Sir John's daughter, Lady Howard, round whose name many tales have gathered.

In Mrs Bray's time Lady Howard was regarded as 'a female Bluebeard,' but a later verdict is more charitable, and it is now thought that the unhappy lady has been much maligned. Being a great heiress, her hand was disposed of when she was only twelve years old, and she was married to Sir Alan Percy, who died three years afterwards. There is a proverb--

'Winter-time for shoeing, Peascod-time for wooing;'

but Lady Howard must have been wooed at all seasons. One month after her husband's death she escaped from her chaperon, and secretly married Lord Darcy's son, who only survived a few months. When she was hardly sixteen, she found a third husband in Sir Charles Howard, by whose name she is always known, although after his death she married Sir Richard Grenville. Her last 'venture,' as Prince calls it, was a very wretched one; Sir Richard treated her abominably, and she retaliated to the worst of her power. After her death, Mrs Bray says (in that delightful storehouse of local traditions, 'The Borders of the Tamar and the Tavy'), there arose a belief that she was 'doomed to run in the shape of a hound from the gateway of Fitzford to Okehampton Park, between the hours of midnight and c.o.c.k-crowing, and to return with a single blade of gra.s.s in her mouth whence she started; and this she was to do till every blade was picked, when the world would be at an end.'

'Dr Jago, the clergyman of Milton Abbot, however, told me that occasionally she was said to ride in a coach of bones up the West Street towards the Moor.... My husband can remember that, when a boy, it was a common saying with the gentry at a party, ”It is growing late; let us be gone, or we shall meet Lady Howard as she starts from Fitzford.”'

A still more conspicuous monument in the church is connected with the other tragedy. The family of Glanvills had long been settled near Tavistock, and the figure is of Judge Glanvill in his robes. At his feet kneels a life-size figure of his wife. 'Her buckram waist, like armour, sleeves, ruff, and farthingale are all monstrous; and her double-linked gold chains are grand enough for the Lord Mayor. On the whole she looks so very formidable, that thus seen stationed before the Judge, she might be considered as representing Justice herself, but it would be in her severest mood.'

The mournful story is that of another member of the family, Eulalia Glanvill, who was forced against her will to marry an old man named Page, when she was in love with a young man, George Strangwich. After much misery, she and Strangwich agreed to murder Page, and the story is told in several ballads, in one of which there is a ring of sincerity which makes the 'verses sound better to the brain than to the ear.' It is now thought that the ballad was written by Delaney, but in the early editions the ballad was attributed to Mrs Page herself, and a copy in the Roxburghe Ballads is headed: 'Written with her owne hand, a little before her death.' 'The Lamentation of Master Page's Wife' was sung to the tune of 'Fortune my Foe':

'Unhappy she whom Fortune hath forlorne: Despis'd of grace, that proffered grace did scorne!

My lawlesse love hath lucklesse wrought my woe; My discontent content did ov'rthrow.

'In blooming yeares my father's greedy mind, Against my will, a match for me did find; Great wealth there was, yea, gold and silver store; And yet my heart had chosen long before.

'On knees I prayde they would not me constraine, With teares I cride, their purpose to refraine; With sighs and sobs I did them often move.

I might not wed, whereas I could not love.

'But all in vaine my speeches still I spent.

My Father's will my wishes did prevent; Though wealthy Page possest my outward part, George Strangwidge still was lodged in my heart.

'Lo! here began my downfall and decay!

In mind I mus'd to make him straight away, I, that became his discontented wife, Contented was he should be rid of life.

'Well could I wish that Page enjoy'd his life So that he had some other to his wife; But never could I wish, of low or hie, A longer life, and see sweet Strangwidge die.