There are few memorials of county history even in Devonshire at once as authentic, as interesting and as important, as that of which the title of this chapter recalls a single incident. And not only is it authentic and interesting, but the story comes to us at first hand. It is written by one who was an eye-witness of most of the scenes which he describes, who bore an honoured name, and held an honourable office in the City of Exeter in the days of Henry VIII., Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth. He was uncle of a man yet more celebrated and gifted than himself—the famous Richard Hooker. His own name was John; his surname is sometimes written with one “o,” sometimes with two, and sometimes it is written as if he had another name altogether—Vowell. Uncle and nephew belonged, as Sir FitzJames Stephen says, to the party of progress in the greatest crisis which the world had seen for many centuries—a greater crisis, in some respects, than any which has followed it.

Moreover, he was brought into contact with two men who in importance are part of the history of their times—Dr. Moreman, the great Cornish schoolmaster, whose influence was immense amongst the West Country rebels who fought at Crediton; and Myles Coverdale, afterwards Bishop of Exeter, who held a service of thanksgiving a little while afterwards among the bodies of the slain Cornishmen, “as, with stiffening limbs, they lay with their faces to the stars.”

It is strange that the burning of the barns at Crediton should be a catchword to recall the struggle that for the moment seemed to involve the fate of Exeter and even the religion of England. But the barns at Crediton were like the barns of Hougoumont at the Battle of Waterloo. The fight was critical, and it had decisive consequences.

The Diocese of Exeter appears to have shared in the indifference which throughout the country marked public opinion in the matter of the Pope’s authority. The words of the Act of Henry VIII., “in restraint of appeals” (to Rome), expresses the mind of most men at that time, “by divers sundry old authentic histories and chronicles, it is manifestly declared and expressed that this realm of England is an Empire.” It is tolerably certain that if the changes brought about in England at the Reformation had been restricted to the abolition of the authority of Rome, there would have been no rising such as that which is here described in opposition to it. But it was otherwise when the changes extended to the order and nature of the services by which the religious life of the time was guided. Then the love which is felt for things familiar came into play. The old order changed, and yielded place to new. But the break of the new day was not cloudless nor serene.

It is so natural to us to think of ourselves in England as a people of one language, and that a very noble language, whatever the pure, not to say pedantic, grammarian may say, that it is hard to think that in this West Country the English tongue was not universal even as late as the beginning of the seventeenth century. Devonshire and Cornwall, which from 1042 to 1877 formed a single diocese, were in some respects for many centuries like countries foreign to each other. The Book of Common Prayer in the mother tongue of the English made no appeal, in the sixteenth century, to the hearts of the common people in Cornwall. This most interesting matter does not appear to have attracted the notice which it deserves. If Cranmer and his colleagues could have made these admirable offices speak to the ears of the Cornish, as they speak to the ears of the English, Sampford Courtenay might have been left to fight its own battles, and the Crediton barns would have lacked at the critical moment their most eager defenders.

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.