Lynton and Lynmouth: A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland. John Presland

Bossington Hill from Porlock Hill

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      The grave of Hubba lies under the sea, like King Arthur's lost country of Lyonesse, where the fisher-folk say they can hear the bells ring from the drowned churches as they sail over them on still summer mornings; but near Porlock the sea has yielded the strip of land it has stolen from Bideford, and the Danish long-ships rode what are now the green fields around Porlock.

      That it was so the very name Porlock shows, for Port-locan means an enclosed place for ships, under which name it is mentioned twice in the Saxon Chronicle. So the sea has retreated a mile and a half since the Danish raid of A.D. 918, when they entered the Severn, harried Wales, and landed at Porlock, only to be beaten back to their ships again by the Saxons.

      Harold, the great English Harold who was slain at the Battle of Hastings, made a raid from Ireland in 1052. He ran into Porlock with nine ships, landed and went several miles inland, killing and looting, and returned in safety. But this filibustering expedition, so greatly to his discredit, and so unworthy to find a place among all his other acts, was almost certainly done in anger and dictated by personal revenge. For Porlock, which was plainly an important harbour and one of the seats of the Saxon Kings—at least, it is mentioned as having a "King's house" there—was the property of Algar, the son of Leofric, Earl of Mercia. But Harold was the son of Godwin, Earl of Kent, and Kent and Mercia were old and bitter enemies, and it was due to the intrigues of Mercia that Earl Godwin was banished, and Harold went with him to Ireland. Then, fourteen years later, William came to an England weakened by internal strife, and Harold was slain at Hastings and the Saxon lords dispossessed of their lands and goods, which were given to the foreigner. Here the Domesday Book, with its plain bare statements, gives us a grim record of the Conquest. All, or almost all, the Saxon names of the overlords disappear, and the Norman take their place, continuing down to our own day. This same Porlock was taken from Algar, son of Leofric, and given to Baldwin Redvers. Countisbury was taken from Ailmer, and held by William himself. Lynton was taken from Ailward Touchstone—it is interesting to find the name of Shakespeare's fool in Domesday Book—and held by William. Combe Martin (then called "Comba") was taken from Aluric and held by Jubel. Bideford and Clovelly were taken from Brihtric and given to Queen Matilda.

      There is a curious and romantic story about this Brihtric, son of Aelfgar. He was one of the most powerful of the Saxon Thanes, and seems to have owned lands not only in Devon, but in Dorset, Somerset, and even in Gloucester, though the latter entries in Domesday may refer to another Brihtric, who was not the son of Aelfgar. When he was a young man, and before the marriage of Matilda to William of Normandy, Brihtric was sent by King Edward on a diplomatic mission to the Count of Flanders, Matilda's father, and there he met Matilda, who fell in love with him and offered herself in marriage. He refused her, and she married William; but later, when the cycle of events put her old lover in the power of her husband, she sued for and obtained the grant of many of his lands. Brihtric himself was seized at his house at Hanley, in Worcestershire, on the very day that Wulfstan had hallowed his chapel, and sent to Winchester, where he died in prison.

      This story, which would have made a stirring theme for Sir Walter Scott, is found in the chronicles of Tewkesbury, in the Anglo-Norman chronicles, and in Wace, the old rhyming historian of the twelfth century. Here are a few lines of the old French version:

      "Laquele jadsi, quant fu pucele,

       Ama un conte dangleterre,

       Brictrich Mau le oi nomer

       Apres le rois ki fu riche ber;

       A lui la pucele enuera messager

       Pur sa amour a lui procurer;

       Meis Brictrich Maude refusa,

       Dune ele m'lt se coruca,

       Hastivement mer passa

       E a Willam bastard se maria.

      which we may put into English so:

      "Who formerly, as a maiden,

       Loved an English count,

       Brihtric Maude heard him named;

       And who, save the King, than he was richer?

       To him the maiden sent a messenger

       To obtain his love;

       But Brihtric refused Matilda,

       Whereat she waxed very angry,

       Hastily passed over the sea

       And married William the bastard."

      But if this is one of the stories which is preserved to us, with its fierce love, and its fierce hate, and its unsparing revenge, and all the human hopes and acts and motives of which it gives but a bare hint—the pride of Brihtric perhaps, or perhaps his love for another woman, for an alliance with the Count of Flanders might satisfy an ambitious man—how many tragic dramas, how many stories of cruelty and oppression and exile and mourning, lie behind the bare short records of the Domesday Book? All these sunny towns of North Devon and Somerset—Lynton, Crinton, Porlock, Countisbury, Paracombe, Challacombe, and north to Dunster, and south to Barnstaple and Bideford—all these wooded or wind-swept spots, which look as if they could have had no history, save of market-days and fairs, had their individual drama in that fierce annexation.

      Sometimes, perhaps, they suffered hardly at all. Their Saxon lord lived elsewhere; he was slain or banished, and they came imperceptibly under the Norman rule. But more often, I imagine, particularly on the smaller estates, the lord dwelt in patriarchal intercourse with his tenants, with that freedom of speech and right of judgment, which, in "Ivanhoe," Scott draws in the household and retinue of Cedric; and the eviction was bitter, and the rule of the new lord oppressive and hateful.

      Domesday Book was compiled in 1086, twenty years after the landing of William, so that a new generation was already growing up, and the old scars were beginning to heal. Here is a translation of the entry on Lynton:

      "William has a manor called Lintona, which Ailward Touchstone held on the day on which King Edward was alive and dead, and with this manor was added formerly another called Incrintona, which Algar held. These are held by William for one manor, and they rendered geld for one hide. … Lintona is worth four pounds and Incrintona three pounds. When William received them Lintona was worth 20 shillings and Incrintona 15. … "

      It is interesting to note how all property throughout England had advanced in value since "the day that King Edward was alive and dead"; in the old English, "on pam timan pe Eadward cing was cucu and dead"—i.e., on the fifth of January 1066—which is a clear intimation that the firm rule of the Conqueror had increased the material prosperity of the country in one generation.

      After the Conquest there was peace in Devonshire for many years, though Exeter was besieged by Stephen for three months in 1137, when he and Matilda, the mother of Henry II, rent England with a war of succession; but the young Henry came to the throne in 1152, and ruled wisely and strongly for thirty-five years. Under him Devon prospered, as did all England, and the cloth-making industry, which in Westcote's time, in the seventeenth century, was so notable a part of the wealth of Devon, probably had its first considerable beginnings in this reign.

      But Henry II is remembered less for his wise laws and far-sighted government than for the murder of Thomas à Becket, which clouded his latter years