Part 5 (1/2)

Down a small meadow below the church, to the rill we crossed on entering the hamlet, and our path inclines along its banks up the valley through which it flows, and a right pleasant vale it is, flanked on the left by extensive plantations of almost every species of useful conifer, which stretch down, exhibiting great luxuriance of growth, their different habits finely contrasting, and adding the great charm of variety; while the opposite ascent is also picturesquely wooded with ordinary foliage. So we leisurely continue a full mile or more, when the valley somewhat expands. Here some fine trees are scattered park-like in appearance around, with a small modern mansion in their midst, and this brings us to our present destination.

Who would imagine, viewing the peace and retirement of this delightful rural solitude, so far removed from the ken and the movements of busy, anxious, restless, ambitious man, and where only the voice of the thrush, the flicker of the b.u.t.terfly, the hum of the bee, the rustle of the coney, the song of the lark, the bleating of the flock, or the low of the kine, is seen or heard, that a story of wondrous historic interest and significance ”take hys begynnyng” from this spot? Yet an apt symbol of how small and comparatively unknown beginnings, at times end in being engrafted into the largest results, lies close beside us.

Who shall predict the ultimate destiny of the humble ripple of water that sparkles along at our feet? Down through this valley it hastens to the Coly, then on to join the larger Axe, thence to mingle with the salt tide and be merged in the blue expanse of the Channel, and finally be found adding its tiny tribute to the grandeur of the great Atlantic.

As of the stream, so of the story that has origin here on its banks, and from him who was one of the earliest settlers thereon, back in the twilight of the days of the early Plantagenets, when a country gentleman with no recorded pretension to influence or fame, beyond the inalienable witness of Norman descent, betrayed by his name, to this place found his way and fixed his abode. After sundry generations the descendants of his race, although still holding their original home here, travelled far afield, away from the quietude and peace of these sylvan scenes, lured into the dangerous path of ambition, and became prominent actors in the great, stirring, troublous drama of mediaeval English history, as active and devoted partizans in the contending factions, fighting to the death amid the strife of its kings, and shedding their blood unstintedly in the conflict. Then followed the great but dangerous honour of kins.h.i.+p with royalty and its fatal glamour, culminating at last in their aspiration to the possession of the crown itself, with the result, finally, of laying one of their last and most guileless representatives, headless on the steps of the throne to which they laid claim. A relation of real incidents that needs no garnis.h.i.+ng of romance to enhance its extraordinary interest.

Wis...o...b..,--Wes...o...b.., probably originally West-combe, is the name given to these historic precincts. The very earliest mention of its owners.h.i.+p a.s.signs it as among the possessions of the Abbey of St.

Michael de Monte, _in periculo maris_, in Normandy, and was at the beginning of the thirteenth century held of its Abbot by Roger de Daldich, of the family of Daldich of East-Budleigh. After awhile came a change of owners.h.i.+p, and then we get the first mention of the name of the family, the outline of whose succeeding generations we propose to attempt, albeit imperfectly, to chronicle. A story, nevertheless, of surpa.s.sing interest, even among the crowd of great traditions that form the historic heritage of the famed county of Devon.

This was, according to Pole, its grant, or sale, with the reservation of twenty s.h.i.+llings yearly rent, ”about ye middest of the raigne of kinge Henry III.,” by the aforesaid Abbot and Roger de Daldich to Nicholas de Bonville, evidently a gentleman of that era, and whose name--_de bonne ville_--'of the fair or good village'--unmistakably pointed to the original birthplace of his family, as being found in the land immediately beyond the southern sea, from which his ancestor doubtless also migrated in the train of the Conqueror.

All we know of the life of this Nicholas de Bonville, presumably the first of his name as possessor of Wis...o...b.., is that he married a lady named Amicia, and it was probably he, who in accordance with the religious custom of the age, was the donor of a rent-charge at 'Tuddesheye,' now Studhayes, in Kilmington, to the Abbey of Newenham, in the adjoining valley of the Axe, and in its Conventual church was buried, as described by Mr. Davidson, ”lastly against the north wall of the choir, lay Sir Nicholas Bonville, a benefactor to the abbey who died in 1266.”[11] He left a son named William.

[11] _History of Newenham Abbey._

But according to another account of the early generations of Bonville, the first recorded was Nicholas Bonville who was living in 1199. To him his son William Bonville (not Nicholas), who married Amicia, did homage for lands in Somerset, 6 Feb., 1265, and was succeeded by his son William, who married Joan, a widow.[12]

[12] Vivian's _Visitations of Devon_.

William Bonville wedded a lady named Joan,--in a list of the Guild Merchants of the antient borough of Totnes, dated 1260, and still preserved, the third name that occurs is _Will's de Boneuille_, but whether to be identified with an owner of Wis...o...b.. of that name, may not be determined, but the era accords. Of him we learn nothing further beyond the date of his death 2 Edward I., 1273; and that he was succeeded by his son Nicholas.

Nicholas de Bonville was styled also ”of Shute,” by right of his wife Elizabeth de Pyne, of whom and her dower a few words.

The first recorded owners of Shute, and from whom it received its name, were Sir Lucas and Sir Robert de Schete, who held it early in the reign of Henry III. From them it pa.s.sed to Sir Robert and Sir Thomas de Pyne, of the ”antient progeny” of Pyne in east Devon. Sir Thomas who was Sheriff of Devon 56 Henry III., and successively 6, 9, and 10 Edward I., at his death left two daughters coheiresses. One of these distaffs, Matilda (otherwise Hawise), wedded Nicholas de Bonville of Wis...o...b.., to whom she brought Shute as her portion. ”In this place (Shute) the famylye of Bonvill,” says Pole, ”made their princ.i.p.all dwellinge, which had (longe before this Nicholas had the mansion howse, and mannor of Shute) divers lands within Shute, namely Sir Nicholas Bonvill (his grandfather) had Leggeshayes, and other lands their, his dwellinge beinge at yt tyme at Wis...o...b...” The policy of this marriage is therefore apparent. Himself and wife appear to have both died the same year, 23 Edward I., 1295. They left a son and heir named Nicholas, and another son John, who married Joan, daughter of Waryn Hampton of Musbury, and she married secondly John Sachville, and thirdly John Faringdon of Faringdon.

Sir Nicholas Bonville of Shute and Wis...o...b.., married Johanna, daughter of Sir Henry Champernon of Clyst-Champernon (who died in 1320), by his wife Johanna daughter of Henry Bodrugan. He was two years old only at his father's death, but the date of his own decease does not appear.

There were four children, of whom Sir William was the eldest son and successor.

Alexander, the second son, married Hawise, daughter of Henry de la Forde in Musbury, and had a son Nicholas, styled ”of Forde,” whose daughter Edith, married Richard Okebeare, through whose descendant, Pole, afterward of Shute, was the representative, before he purchased the Bonville's forfeited inheritance, and through whom they quarter the arms of de la Forde; _Sable, a poppy with roots and fruit or_, and Bonville.

Isabel, who married Sir Roger de Nonant of Broad-Clyst, and last of that name; they left two daughters, Alice who married John Beauchamp of Ryme, and Eleanor. The beautiful monument with effigy in Broad-Clyst church is supposed to represent this knight, who reclines in a recess on the south side of the chancel, and is clad in plate armour with bascinet, mail-gorget, surcoat, and ornamented baudrick.

The feet rest on a lion, the head on a tilting helmet, and angels are at the shoulders. A richly foliated canopy of screen-like character fronts the figure on the side toward the church.

Anne, the second daughter became a nun at Wherwell.

Sir William Bonville, of Shute, ”a very sweet and n.o.ble seat, adorned in those days (as it still is) with a fair park and large demesnes,”

the first prominent representative of this family, and who added greatly to its social status, was a wealthy and munificent man. He married first Margaret, daughter and coheiress of Sir William d'Aumarle of Woodbury, Devon, who died 15 Nov., 1361, by his wife Agnes de Meriet, daughter of George de Meriet, of Merriot, Somerset.

By her he had four sons, and two daughters. She died 13 May, 1399.

Early in the succeeding century Sir William married secondly Alice (whose surname has not been recovered), widow of Sir John Rodney, who died 19 Dec, 1400. Sir William Bonville was her _fifth_ spouse, for she had wedded three husbands previous to Sir John Rodney. Firstly, John Fitz-Roger, lord of the manor of Chewton-Mendip, Somerset; by whom she had a daughter, Elizabeth, who married John Bonville, her last husband's eldest son by his first wife; secondly, she married Sir Edmond de Clyvedon, of Clyvedon, Somerset, who died 13 Jany., 1375-6; and thirdly, as his second wife, Sir Ralph Carminow of Menheniot, Cornwall, who deceased 9 Oct., 1386. Sir Ralph who is said to have been ”by a brase of Greyhounds pulled over a Cliff and died,” was buried in Menheniot church, where there is a small bra.s.s,--probably the earliest remaining in Cornwall--to his memory, thus inscribed,--

=Orate pro anima domini Radulphi Carmynow militis, cuius anime propicietur deus Amen.=

Lady Alice Bonville survived all her husbands nearly twenty years, and died 27 March, 1426.

A glance at the numerous ventures of this much-married lady will give the uninitiated in the study of genealogy some idea of the difficulties which beset it, in sifting, tracing, and separating the tangle of relations.h.i.+p that wove together the leading families of the west during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. It was the custom to marry very early in life, often at fifteen or sixteen, and that short widowhoods and remarriage almost invariably followed decease on either side, and not uncommonly resulting further also, in the children of the previous marriages matching together, a ”matter of mere attorneys.h.i.+p,” probably in many cases entered into to consolidate the family estates.

Beside his ”mansion howse” at Shute, which was his princ.i.p.al residence, Sir William, as was usual, had a town house or hotel, in the parish of the Holy Trinity, Exeter. On 17 April, 1404, Bishop Stafford licensed John Govys rector of Holy Trinity, as the parish church was being rebuilt at the time, ”_ut in aula infra mansum domini Willelmi Bonevyle, militis, infra parochiam dicte ecclesie Sancte Trinitatis situatum, divina possis celebrare, ac per presbiteros ydoneos facere celebrari, necnon parochianis tuis quibusc.u.mque Sacramenta et Sacramentalia conferre et ministrare valeas_.”