Roger’s wife was the daughter of William le Pruz. He died at Holbeton in 1316, and was buried in the church there, instead of Lustleigh church, as directed in his will; and she got a licence from bishop Grandisson, 19 October 1329, to bring her father’s body here. That procession here from Holbeton would make a striking scene, should there ever be a Lustleigh pageant.
Risdon says, “In an aisle of this church is a tomb, with the statue of a knight cut thereon cross-legged in stone, on whose shield are three lions; as also in that window under which he is interred, are three lions between six cross croslets, by which I conceive it was one of the family of the Prouze.” There is nothing to be seen upon the shield now; and the window has an Ascension in stained glass suggesting that, if hell is paved with good intentions, the floor of heaven is covered with linoleum.
There are only three old coats of arms remaining, and these were not there in Risdon’s time. They are Carew, Kirkham and Southcote, and probably date from 1589. Thomas Southcote married the daughter and heiress of Thomas Kirkham, who married the daughter and heiress of William Carew; and, as William’s grandmother was a sister and co-heiress of lord Dynham, they are not inappropriate in a window near the Dynham effigies. I put them there in 1903. Till then they were at Barnehouse, otherwise Barne Court or Barne, a place that Thomas Southcote got by marrying Grace Barnehouse, his first wife. In talking of the house, a man remarked to me, “That be a proper ancient place—there be rampin’ lions in the kitchen window.” I went up to see, and found they were the lions rampant of the Kirkhams, but had then been put into a cupboard for security. The owner let me have them for the church.
When I was young, the church bells said Crock, Kettle and Pan. My grandfather told me that this was what they said; and he writes to my father on 10 June 1849:—“When I was a little boy, they told me the Lustleigh bells said Crock, Kettle and Pan.” There are more bells now, and they say something else—all swear-words, I believe.
He writes him on 26 May 1850:—“The farmers set the church bells ringing, when *****’s man left on Friday.” The man had made himself obnoxious, and they were thankful to be rid of him. Church bells were not very ecclesiastical in those days. My father told me that they rang at every church in Exeter, when Latimer was acquitted, 27 March 1848.
Latimer was the proprietor of the Western Times, and it called the Bishop a consecrated “perverter of facts.” He was indicted for libel, and tried at the assizes. Cockburn—afterwards Chief Justice—was a friend of his, and came down (without fee) to defend him; and the Bishop had a very bad time in cross-examination. The judge told the jury plainly that, if they acquitted Latimer, they would brand their bishop as a liar. And they branded him.
There was another case of which I heard a good deal from my father—a murder by highwaymen about six miles from here. The facts are noted in his diary. On 16 July 1835:—“Mr Jonathan May murdered at Jacobs Well near Moreton at half past ten in the evening: he dined at my father’s that day.” On 28 July 1836, at Exeter during the assizes:—“Buckingham Joe (Oliver) and Turpin (Galley) tried for the murder of Mr Jonathan May, found guilty and sentenced to be hung.” On 12 August 1836:—“Saw Buckingham Joe hung.”
He doubted if they hanged the right man after all, but felt it did not really matter, as the man should have been hanged for other things, if not for that. I fancy his attention may have wandered from the trial, for after “sentenced to be hung” his diary goes on:—“Bought the models of the Elgin Marbles of Field.” This was W. V. Field, afterwards a Judge and finally a Law Lord; and it was a set of Henning’s models of the frieze of the Parthenon. I have them here.
Duelling did not quite cease in England until just before my time; and I used to hear the older men lamenting its cessation. They complained of being deprived of their redress for an affront. And that is practically what happened, for these affronts were mostly of the sort for which a jury gives a farthing damages.
My mother used to tell me what a shock it was to her, at the age of ten, when she was told one afternoon that an old friend of the family had been killed that morning in a duel—shot dead at twelve paces. It was a quarrel of two retired officers over facts which they could easily have verified. They had both got the facts wrong, and each was right in disbelieving what the other said; but neither of them would allow his veracity to be impugned, and they settled the matter in this fashion at five o’clock next morning.