A book of the west. Volume 1, Devon : $b being an introduction to Devon and CornwallBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
A book of the west. Volume 1, Devon : $b being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Devon (England)
"There are few now left who can say as I can, that they have
heard their fathers and their wives' fathers talking together
of the men who saw the landing of William the Third at Torbay.
I have heard Captain Clements say he, as a boy, heard as many
as seven or eight old men each giving the particulars of what
he saw; then one said a shipload of horses hawled to the Quay,
and the horses walked out all harnessed, and the quickness with
which each man knew his horse and mounted it surprised them.
Another old man said, 'I helped to get on shore the horses
that were thrown overboard, and swam on shore, guided by only
a single rope running from the ship to the shore.' My father
remembered one Gaffer Will Webber, of Staverton, who lived to a
great age, say that he went from Staverton as a boy with his
father, who took a cartload of apples from Staverton to the
highroad from Brixham to Exeter, that the soldiers might help
themselves to them, and to wish them 'God-speed.'
"I merely mention this to show how easily tradition can be
handed down, requiring only three or four individuals for two
centuries."[37]
[37] WINDEATT (T. W.), "The Landing of the Prince of Orange," in
_Transactions of the Devonshire Association_, 1880.
What was done by the country folk was to roll apples down the slopes
from the orchards to the troops as they passed.
The prince spent the second night at Paignton in a house near the
"Crown and Anchor Inn," where his room is still shown.
Next day he with his troops marched to Newton, and he took up his
quarters in Ford House, belonging to Sir William Courtenay, who
prudently decamped so as not to compromise himself. A room there
is called the Orange Room, and is now always papered and hung with
that colour. At Newton the prince's proclamation was read on the
steps of the old market cross, not by the Rev. John Reynell, rector
of Wolborough, as is stated on a stone erected on the spot, but by
a chaplain, no doubt the fussy and pushing Burnet. Reynell had also
made himself scarce. From Newton the prince marched to Exeter.
One can tell pretty well what were the political leanings of squires
and parsons at the period of the Jacobite troubles, for where there
was zeal for the House of Stuart, there Scotch pines were planted;
where, however, the Dutchman was in favour, there lime trees were
set in avenues.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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