Humouring this extravagant language, Elizabeth replied, “I hope I shall hear from you when you are settled in your principality.”
“I will write unto you,” quoth Stucley.
“In what language?” asked the Queen.
“In the style of princes,” returned he; “to our dear sister.”
Fine language, this, to employ to one of those imperious Tudors, whose idea of the most effective repartee was the capital one of the headsman’s axe!
Stucley, however, appears to have been allowed the most extraordinary licence. Instead of colonising Florida and entering the family circle of princes, he roved the seas for two years, occupying his formidable fleet in piracy. Not even in the age of Elizabeth, when the Armada incident was so fresh, could the nation afford to allow piratical attacks upon foreigners to be conducted on this scale. The English Ambassador to the Court of Madrid “hung his head for shame” when the doings of Stucley were brought to his notice, and that irresponsible person was disavowed. A squadron was even fitted out to arrest him, and did so at Cork in 1565; but he was merely, in effect, told not to do it again, and released. Afterwards he was employed by the Government in Ireland; but, with the passion for intrigue and an absolute inability to act in a straightforward manner that possessed him, he became a Roman Catholic, and, resorting to Spain, endeavoured to bring about a Spanish invasion of Ireland. In anticipation of the success of this project, the King of Spain created him Duke of Ireland, but the plan failed. At length, busy in all quarters in seeking trouble, he aided the Portuguese in Morocco, and was slain in the fighting there.
The exploits of this restless person were made much of in a book of his adventures published not long after his death, and in it he appears something of a hero; but a detailed and intimate account of his career shows him to have been as mean and sordid a scoundrel in domestic affairs as he was bold and grasping in adventure.
A spot up the valley, whence a beautiful near view of Hartland Abbey is obtained, is known as Bow Bridge, and from it a road climbs steeply, bringing up at the village of Stoke, dwarfed by the great body and tall massive tower of its church, generally called Hartland church, although that town is situated out of sight, a mile further inland. The church is dedicated to Saint Nectan, who was a very popular saint in the West, as those travelling into Cornwall will find, to this day. A gigantic effigy of Nectan still remains on the eastern wall of the tower, and the high-church bias of the neighbourhood may be readily assumed from the restored churchyard cross, with its Calvary, its sculptured scenes from the life of Nectan and of Gytha, and its inscription, “Nos salva rex cruce xte tua.”
This great church of St. Nectan has often been styled “the Cathedral of North Devon.” Rebuilt in the fourteenth century, it is, of course, wholly in the Perpendicular style, and equally of course, presents a thoroughly well-balanced and symmetrical mass, without any of those additions from time to time, or those changes of plan, that render churches built by degrees throughout the centuries so picturesque. St. Nectan’s exhibits regularity and preciseness to the last degree. The tall tower, over a hundred and forty feet high, was doubtless built especially as a landmark for sailors.
The fine lofty nave is divided from the chancel by a magnificently carved fifteenth-century oaken rood-screen, which, if not actually finer than those of Pilton, Atherington, and Swimbridge, all in North Devon, is at any rate on the same level of craftsmanship. In the chancel remains a stone slab with epitaph of Thomas Docton: