“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.