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The Lost Chronicle of Barnstaple 1586-1611 TODD GRAY THE LOST CHRONICLE OF BARNSTAPLE 1586—1611 Frontispiece. The first page of Adam Wyatt’s chronicle copied by Jonathan Hanmer, mid 17th century. THE LOST CHRONICLE OF BARNSTAPLE 1586—1611 EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY TODD GRAY BA, PhD, FRHistS 1998 © 1998 Todd Gray and the Devonshire Association The editor asserts his right to be identified as editor of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patent Act 1988. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright holders. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry of this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 0 85214 063 0 Designed and typeset for the Association by Colin Bakke Typesetting, Exeter and printed and bound for the Association by Short Run Press Ltd, Exeter United Kingdom FOR THE PEOPLE OF BARNSTAPLE CONTENTS Frontispiece (Title page of Adam Wyatt’s Chronicle)......................... ii List of Maps and Illustrations...............................................................viii Acknowledgements..................................................................................... xi FOREWORD..................................................................................... xiii INTRODUCTION............................................................................. i Editorial Conventions........................................................................ 56 THE CHRONICLE.................................................................................57 APPENDICES I. The Spirit of The North Devon Journals........................ 103 II. The Chronicle of Richard Wood and Mr Frayne, 1533–1678............................................................................. 108 INDEX................................................................................................. 113 List of Subscribers............................................................................. 116 LIST OF MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS Maps 1. Devon................................................................................................. 2 2. North Devon..................................................................................... 3 3. Barnstaple and its immediate area........................................................4 4. River front of Barnstaple, 1584 (North Devon Athenaeum).. 5 5. Detail of Christopher Saxton’s map of Devon, 1579 (University of Exeter Main Library)......................................................................... 6 6. Sixteenth-century Barnstaple (Bruce Oliver, 1910)...................... 7 Illustrations 1. Entry of the burial of Adam Wyatt in Barnstaple parish register, 10 October 1611 (North Devon Record Office)... 9 2. ‘Cattle in the market’ by Miranda Hill, Year 8, Park Community School, Barnstaple, 1998............................................ 15 3. Flood pamphlet, 1607 (Somerset Record Office) ........................16 4. The tomb stone, Queen Anne’s Walk, early seventeenth century................................................................................................. 18 5. ‘The White Hart at Ilfracombe’ by Christopher David, Year 7, Park Community School, Barnstaple, 1998 ................ 19 6. ‘The hanging of candles and lanterns’ by Steven Ashford, Year 8, Park Community School, Barnstaple, 1998 ................ 20 LIST OF MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS 7. Burial of Peter Mingus, ‘negor’ servant, in Barnstaple parish register, 1596 (North Devon Record Office)................................22 8. Detail from coat of arms of John Hawkins, 1566 (North Devon Record Office)........................................................................ 23 9. Detail of Dodderidge overmantel, early seventeenth century, now in Barnstaple Guildhall............................................................ 23 10. Plaster ceiling in the home of an unknown merchant, 62 Boutport Street, drawn by H. H. Sharland................................24 Detail of the decorative piasterwork, 62 Boutport Street, featuring a pair of elephants, early seventeenth century.............................................................................................24 Detail of the decorative piasterwork, 62 Boutport Street, featuring a heron, early seventeenth century............................25 Arms of the Spanish Company, dissolved in 1606, in the decorative piasterwork, 62 Boutport Street, early seventeenth century........................................................................ 25 Detail of the decorative piasterwork, 62 Boutport Street, featuring Barnstaple Town Arms, early seventeenth century.............................................................................................25 11. The Barnstaple ballot pots (Museum of North Devon).... 26 12. An early seventeenth-century clerk (after a woodcut from The Constancy of Susanna, a ballad printed as a pamphlet in 1605).................................................................................................27 13. Signatures of Adam Wyatt (North Devon Record Office, B1/51).....................................................................................................27 14. Standing wall-monument of William Bourchier, third earl of Bath, 1623 (Tawstock parish church) ............................................30 15. Detail of monument to William Bourchier, 1623 (Tawstock parish church).................................................................................... 31 16. Wall monument of Thomas Hinson, 1614 (Tawstock parish church)............................................................ 31 17. The Old Guildhall (lith. by and after E.H. Buckler, pub. c.1850) .........................................................................................33 ix THE LOST CHRONICLE OF BARNSTAPLE 18. Detail of the old guildhall woodwork (Museum of North Devon)......................................................................... 34/35 19. ‘Punishment at the Exeter assizes’ by Mathew Burtnyk, Year 7, Park Community School, Barnstaple, 1998 ................ 35 20. ‘The execution of eighteen prisoners on the Castle Green’ by Jack Steadman, Year 8, Park Community School, Barnstaple, 1998................................................................................ 36 21. ‘Punishment of three women at High Cross’ by Emma Westcott, Year 8, Park Community School, Barnstaple, 1998................................................................................ 36 22. Church of SS Peter and Mary Magdalene, Barnstaple.... 39 23. St Anne’s Chapel, Barnstaple............................................................ 39 24. Sketch by G.L. Abbot of the Quay, 1852, showing the West Gate and the Quay Hall (Museum of North Devon).. 47 25. Six-poster monument of Frances, Lady Fitzwarren, 1589 in Tawstock parish church................................................................ 51 26. Detail of six-poster monument of Frances, Lady Fitzwarren 51 x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am greatly indebted to the staff in the Somerset Record Office, in particular Tom Mayberry, Robin Harcourt Williams and the staff of the North Devon Record Office, North Devon Athenaeum and Devon Record Office for their help in providing documents. I would like to thank Dr Jonathan Barry, Dr Alison Grant, Dr Tom Greeves, Dr Alexandra Walsham, Tim Wormleighton and Professor Joyce Youings for their assistance and comments on the Introduction and Professor Patrick Collinson for his support. I am also grateful to Eileen Cox and Jacqueline Brooks who typed Palmer’s copy of the Chronicle and thereby saved me many hours of work. I am grateful to Professor Youings for supplying illustration 18, James Coulter for 10, 13, 17, 25 & 26, and Alison Mills for 11 & 24. For permission to publish the texts and illustrations I would like to thank the Marquess of Salisbury, Somerset Record Office, North Devon Record Office, Museum of North Devon, University of Exeter and the Trustees of the North Devon Athenaeum. I would also like to thank Andrew Taggart of Park Community School, Barnstaple, who coordinated the drawing com­ petition and whose students’ work is in this book, and of course the students themselves. Many other individuals gave their time and among them I would like to particularly thank Norman Annett and James Coulter and the members of the North Devon Branch of the Devon­ shire Association. Finally, I would like to thank the trustees of Barnstaple Bridge Trust and Barnstaple Town Council, in particular Bill Forward and Mike Taylor, for their financial help and general support which has made this book possible. FOREWORD BY EMERITUS PROFESSOR JOYCE YOUINGS PhD, Hon. DLitt., FRHistS Historians have long dreamed of finding the original manuscript of the journal kept by the late-Elizabethan and early-Stuart Town Clerk of Barnstaple, the text of which has been known until now only from an incomplete and somewhat unreliable eighteenth-century copy printed well over a century ago and available only to those who knew where to find it. It is unlikely that the original ever will be found, but we now have, in an attractive printed version accessible to all, the next best thing. It took, not the Internet, but the eagle eyes of Dr Todd Gray, to recognize, not a hundred miles from Barnstaple, in the Somerset Record Office at Taunton, a much earlier and considerably fuller copy of

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