There is a very complete extinguisher here, addressed to a relative of mine, the husband of my mother’s eldest sister. “Stratfield saye Nov. 27 1838 The Duke of Wellington presents his Compliments to Mr. Drummond and has received his Letter. The Duke begs leave to inform Mr. Drummond that he is not the Commander in Chief of the Army or in political office; he has no Patronage Power or Influence, & he has no means whatever at his disposal of forwarding Mr. Drummond’s views in any manner.” It is the old Duke’s writing, not dictated.
I have always envied the Drummonds their pedigree, a thoroughgoing Scottish pedigree, showing their descent from Attila, King of the Huns. But I am still more envious of my Urquhart cousins. They have a pedigree showing their descent from Alcibiades, whose son (being incensed at the Athenians’ unjust treatment of his father) migrated out of Athens into Ireland.
Among my family papers I found a document of 19 June 13 Elizabeth (1571) quoting one of 24 March in the preceding year—“Symon Knyghte of the Cittie of Exceter, marchaunte, hathe graunted unto Richard Wannell of Moreton Hampsteede, gent, one annuytye or yearly rente of twenty poundes during the naturall lyef of the said Richard and after his deathe unto Katheryne, his wief, duringe the terme of fouerscore yeares yf she so longe lyve.” Knight now lends Wannell £110 on bargain and sale of this annuity as security for repayment, such bargain and sale to be utterly frustrated and void, “yf yt shall happen the said Richard Wannell to contente and paye unto the said Symon Knyghte in the now mansion house of the said Symon in the citty aforesaid in the xxiiijth daye of Auguste nexte ensuing the date of these presents betweene the houers of one and fower of the clock in the afternoone of the said daye thirtie eight poundes eleven shillings and fouer pence of lawfull Englishe money at one enteere paymente withoute fraude or delaye and in the firste daye of Nouember nexte ensuinge in the said house and betweene the said howers the full some of other thirty eighte poundes eleven shillings and fower pence and also yf the said Richard Wannell in the seconde daye of Auguste next ensuinge the date hereof doo delyver or cause to bee delivred unto the said Symon Knyghte fyfteene hundreds of coyned white tynne good and marchantable without the letter H every hundred wayinge sixscore poundes at and accordinge to the Queenes Maiesties beame at Chagford.”
This letter H is mentioned in a document of 3 April 10 Henry VII (1495) by which the Duke of Cornwall—Prince Arthur, elder brother of Henry VIII—confirmed a set of by-laws: printed in Rowe’s Perambulation of Dartmoor, appendix XV. “Also that no man from hensforth make no synder tynne after that it is wartered, be it allayed with oder tynne or not allaide, or eny oder manner of harde tynne without it be marked with this letter H as well as with the markes of the owners and blowing howses.” (Blowing houses were blast furnaces for smelting tin.) “Also that th’owners of everye blowing howse shal bryng a certen marke of his blowing howse to the court of the Stayniery within the precinct wher the said blowing howse is sett, to the entent that al suche markes may be drawen in a boke.... Also that every owner of tynne that shal bring tynne into ony blowing howse to be blowen and fyned shal bryng a certen marke in to the said court, ther to be put in a boke.” (Tin was ‘coined’ by stamping these marks on it, so that the owners and blowers could be identified.) “And if it shal happen from hensforth ony marchaunt to bye eny false tynne and so to be disseyved,” the warden shall compel the owners and the blowers of it “to satisfye the marchaunt of al suche hurte and damage as he hath take by such false tynne.”
These by-laws had been “enacted and establysshed by the hole body of the Stayniery in the high court of Crockerntorr” on 11 September. This court was composed of the Duchy officials for Devon with twenty-four jurors from each of the four Stannary towns in Devon; and it held its sittings in the open air on Crockerntor, a Dartmoor hill about midway between the towns, say, nine miles from Tavistock, ten from Chagford, ten from Ashburton, and thirteen from Plympton. And besides this high court (magna curia) there was a court in each of these four towns for its own quarter of the Stannaries. In his Survey of Devon Risdon says of Chagford, “This place is priviledged with many immunities which tinners enjoy, and here is holden one of the courts for Stannery causes”; and he mentions a catastrophe that happened in his time. The court-house stood on pillars; and on 6 March 1618 these pillars gave way at a crowded sitting of the court, the building ‘rent in sunder’ and the walls fell in, killing ten people and injuring many more.
The old courts and their jurisdiction sank slowly into insignificance as the amount of tin grew less. Mine after mine was given up, and very little tin is raised in Devon now—it can be got more easily by mining in Nevada. But all round Dartmoor there are remains of the old works, showing what a scene of industry it must have been. There was a blowing house near here: it was in Lustleigh parish and was known as Caseleigh blowing house. Caseleigh mine was for micaceous iron, which has only little bunches of tin ore in it; but tin may have been brought from the Peck Pits a couple of miles away.
A small Venetian coin was dug up at Lustleigh in the spring of 1922 in a garden about fifty yards west of the church tower; and this may be connected with the trade in tin. It is a silver ‘soldino’ of Leonardo Loredano, whose features are well known in England from Bellini’s portrait of him in the National Gallery. He was Doge from 1501 to 1521, and the moneyer’s initials (P.C. for Piero Cocco) show that the coin was struck between the summer of 1501 and the summer of 1502. At that period a squadron of armed gallies made a voyage from Venice to England almost every year; and they brought merchandise for sale here, and took back other merchandise, including tin. Their usual port was Southampton; but in Sanuto’s Diary, 9 March 1504, there is a note of their going to Falmouth, and they probably went to other ports as well. The coin may have come over in the gallies, and then found its way to Lustleigh in the course of trade.
On the Close Rolls there is an entry of a writ, 26 June 1414, stating that the merchants of Venice who came over in their galleys, used to bring their own money of Venice, called galley halfpence; and directing the Mayor of London to enjoin them not to circulate this money here—they must take it to the Mint to be converted into English coin. There were many prohibitions of these ‘galey halpenys’, from Proclamations in 1399 and 1400 to an Act of Parliament in 1519; and these repeated prohibitions show that there were many such coins about.
Gold moidores from Portugal were afterwards in circulation here at 27s. apiece or thereabouts. For a century or so the Courtenay family received a moidore, in addition to the market price, on granting a new lease of any copyhold in Moreton Manor; thus, on 27 October 1739 a new tenant paid £70 “and one moyder of gold.” This manor did not include the whole of Moreton: there were parts of other manors in the parish; and in one of these, “the mannour or lordship of Moretonhampstead and North Bovie,” the custom was pretty much the same. Richard Knight, the lord of the manor, granted a new lease there on 30 September 1689 for £28 “and a broad peece of gould,” and another on 1 June 1693 for £12 “and a gennye of gould.”
My father told me that one day in Exeter he was walking along a street in which a trench was being dug for laying pipes, and a coin of Constantine rolled out from a shovelful of earth that was thrown up as he passed: he gave the workmen sixpence and took the Roman coin. One of his notebooks gives the date, 6 December 1836; and for several years before then Roman coins were dug up almost every day, as gas and water mains were being laid and there was much rebuilding.