Among the manuscripts at the House of Lords there are some returns that have not been used sufficiently in books on local history. In May 1641 a Protestation against all Popery, etc., was taken by the Lords and Commons, and in August it was circulated in the country. At the beginning of the following year returns were required from every parish, giving the names of those who had taken the Protestation; and many of these returns are at the House of Lords. I obtained copies of the returns for this parish and seven adjoining parishes, made an index to the names, and had my index printed in 1913 for private circulation. The return for Moreton parish does not say if anyone refused to take the Protestation, but the returns for the other seven parishes say that nobody refused: so these returns give a complete list of all the male inhabitants over eighteen years of age, that being the limit of age for taking the Protestation.
There were 411 in Moreton, 53 in Lustleigh, 150 in Hennock, 345 in Bovey, 139 in North Bovey, 77 in Manaton, 179 in Ilsington and 255 in Widdicombe. None of these people had more than one Christian name, and many had the same surname. In Widdicombe there were five-and-twenty men called Hamlin or Hamlyn, and six of them were Richard, four were Thomas and three were John. In Moreton there were twenty men called Bowdon, and four of them were John, three were William and three were George. They could easily have been distinguished by saying where they lived; but in only three cases was this done. In Hennock one of the two John Potters is ‘of Kelly,’ and one of the five John Wreafords is ‘of Nepton’; and in North Bovey one of the three John Nosworthies is ‘de Kindon.’
On the Court Rolls of Wreyland Manor one John Wills is distinguished from another as ‘of Eastawray’ in 1710 and ‘de Eastawray’ in 1714. In 1718 Jane Clampitt of Yeo is called Jane Yeo; and, going a long way back, a man is twice called John atte Yeo and three times called John Yeo at the same sitting of the Court, 30 April 1438. In course of time the ‘atte’ or ‘de’ dropped out, and a man was known by the name of the place where he was living, or the place whence he had come. That explains why these returns have so many surnames that are names of places not far off, or corruptions of such names. The surname Bunckum (in Bovey) is a corruption of Boncombe or Buncombe, the parent hamlet of that home of eloquence, Bunkum, in North Carolina.
Among the Christian names there is Hanniball in Ilsington and Bovey, and Methusalem in Moreton; but most of them are commonplace. Out of these 1609 men 342 are John—that is, roughly, two men out of every nine—while 173 are William, 152 are Richard and 147 are Thomas; so that half the total number had one of these four names. It must have been confusing; and, having only one name each, they could not be distinguished by combinations of initials, as is usual now when people have two Christian names or more. Second names were not quite unknown then—there was Henry Frederick Thynne, a Royalist in the Civil War—but the new fashion had not yet extended to these rustic parishes.
These returns do not support the view that parents had a habit of naming children after the patron saint of the parish. The patron saint is Andrew at Moreton, and Pancras at Widdicombe; but Moreton has only twelve Andrews, whereas Widdicombe has eighteen Andrews and only one Pancras. Pancras is a pleasant name that parents might use oftener: it drops so nicely into Panny, like Pontius into Ponty. But parents are strange folk. Pontius is equivalent to Quintus, and I urged a friend of mine to call his fifth son Pontius; but he went and chose a less historic name. A great-great-uncle of mine gave one of his sons the name of Ghibelline, which is historic but not often given at the font. I imagine he was feeling very anti-Guelph just then.
A child named Flood was christened Noah; and in after years his house was known to everyone in Bovey as the Ark. Quite recently a Wreyland child was christened Cesca. I asked the mother where she got the name, and she said she got it off the washing. She took in washing, and one of her families had a daughter named Francesca, who was usually called ‘Cesca and had her linen marked that way. And really you cannot object to Cesca unless you also object to Betty and other shortened names.
The Protestation of 1642 was soon followed by the Civil War, and at Christmas 1645 there was a Royalist force at Bovey and a Parliamentary force at Tiverton. Fairfax marched from Tiverton to Moreton, while Cromwell marched from Tiverton to Bovey by another road, and surprised and beat the Royalists there, 9 January. They lost 12 men killed and 60 taken prisoners besides about 350 horses. “It was almost supper time with them when our men entered the town, most of them at that instant were playing at cards, but our souldiers took up the stakes for many of their principal officers, who (being together in one room) threw their stakes of mony out at the window, which whilst our souldiers were scrambling for, they escaped out at a back-door over the river, and saved their best stakes.” That is what Sprigge says in his Anglia Rediviva or England’s Recovery, published in 1647. The story has been doubted, as it is told of other places; but it probably is true of Bovey. Sprigge was chaplain to Fairfax during this campaign, and thus could get at facts; and the story is also in a letter to Edmund Prideaux, M.P., written on 11 January, and printed and published on 15 January by order of the House of Commons, that is, within a week of the event. The letter says that the money thrown out of window was about £10 of silver.
Next day, 10 January, “the weather still extream bitter cold,” the forces at Moreton and Bovey “had a rendezvouz near Bovey,” and went on to Ashburton, whither the Royalists had retired. That is what Sprigge says; but one wonders why the rendezvous should be ‘near’ Bovey and not at Bovey itself, Bovey being on the road to Ashburton. It would not be between Moreton and Bovey, as there is no cross-road between, and one force or the other would have to go back the way it came. If it was the other side of Bovey, the Moreton force would merely follow the Bovey force along the road, and join it later on instead of joining it at Bovey. In that weather, “much snow upon the ground,” the open country would be barred: so I imagine that Fairfax and his troops came down the valley by the usual road to Bovey, passing through the end of Wreyland Manor at Kelly.
Wreyland never was disturbed. One sitting of the Manor Court is in the first year of Edward V and the next in the first year of Richard III: another is in the second year of Richard III and the next in the first year of Henry VII. The business of the Court goes quietly on, regardless of the murders in the Tower or the carnage upon Bosworth Field. John Merdon is amerced a penny under Richard III because he has not yet repaired his buildings that are tumbling down, and he is again amerced a penny under Henry VII because he has not yet repaired, etc.
However, Bosworth Field had its effect at Wreycombe, three miles further up the valley, the Manor of Wreycombe being restored to Robert Cary, son and heir of Sir William Cary, who had forfeited it on attainder for high treason twenty years before, 1 July 1465. He had quitted England to join Queen Margaret in waging war on Edward IV, and he was killed at the battle of Tewkesbury in 1471. The same thing had happened to Wreycombe once before. Sir John Cary was one of the judges who were attainted of high treason for declaring the Commission of Regency to be unlawful, and he forfeited his property, 1 August 1387. He died in 1395, and next year Wreycombe and other lands were granted to his widow. She was one of the Holways of Holway, and this was Holway property that she had brought to him on marriage.