CONEYGORE TOWER, AND ROAD INTO MINEHEAD.
By what feat of arms, then, the traveller naturally enquires, did the Luttrells obtain these lands? By none at all, for, as a matter of fact, they came to the family by purchase, and when the heirs of the vendor sought to prove the sale illegal, it was by an action in a court of law, rather than by gage of battle, that they retained what they had bought. But it is well known that the family now owning the Luttrell lands are only Luttrells on the female side, and bear the name merely by adoption; Henry Fownes having in 1746 married Margaret Luttrell, heiress-general of these manors.
The history of Dunster begins with an entry in Domesday Book. There we learn that “Torre,” as it is styled, was owned by a certain Aluric. Perhaps it were best to style that Saxon landowner uncertain Aluric, for that is all we hear of him. A mere mention by name in Domesday Book is, after all, no great thing. Thereafter it became chief among the properties of William de Mohun, from Moyun in Normandy, one of the Conqueror’s liegemen in the red field of Hastings. The author of the “Roman de Rou” speaks of him as:
Le viel Guillaume de Moion
Ont avec li maint compagnon.
He was not, however, so elderly a warrior, but is thus described in order to distinguish him from his son. He became a very landed man in the West, with sixty-seven other far-flung manors in Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire, and Devonshire, including that of Tor Mohun, Torquay. But he established his headquarters here, and here he built the first castle of Torre, which soon afterwards is found referred to for the first time as “Dunestora,” in the deed by which he, in 1100, gave the advowson of St. George’s, Dunster, the fisheries of Dunster and Carhampton, the village of Alcombe, and the tenth part of his vineyards, ploughlands, markets, and flocks to the monks of St. Peter’s Abbey at Bath.
William de Mohun the Second, son of this well-rewarded henchman of the Conqueror, played a turbulent part in the troubles that beset England during the war between Stephen and Queen Maud. He fought on behalf of Queen Maud; and the Gesta Stephani, which gives an account of these things from the point of view of King Stephen’s adherents, does not fail to draw a highly unflattering portrait of him, in which he appears established, like some robber baron, at Dunster Castle, with a strong force of horse and foot; issuing therefrom to devastate the surrounding country; “sweeping it as with a whirlwind.” The historian of these things proceeds to tell us that he was cruel and violent, firing the homes and pillaging the goods of the community indiscriminately. He appears, indeed, to have been one of those restless men of war, not uncommon in that era, who wanted trouble for its own sake, and when it came, cared little whether it was the property of friends or foes that he destroyed. “He changed a realm of peace and quiet, of joy and merriment, into a scene of strife, rebellion weeping, and lamentation,” says the chronicler.
Queen Maud, on whose behalf he wrought so busily and with such devastation, created him—or he styled himself—“Earl of Somerset.”
The historian continues:
“When these things were after a time reported to the King, he collected his adherents in great numbers and proceeded by forced marches, in order to check the ferocity of William. But when he halted before the entrance to the Castle, and saw the impregnable defences of the place, inaccessible on one side where it was washed by the sea, and very strongly fortified on the other by towers and walls, by a ditch, and outworks, he altogether despaired of pressing on the siege, and, taking wiser counsel, he surrounded the Castle in full sight of the enemy, so that he might the better restrain them, and occupy the neighbouring country in security. He also gave orders to Henry de Tracy, a man skilled in war, and approved in the events of many different fights, that, acting in his stead, as he himself was summoned to other business, he should with all speed and vigour bestir himself against the enemy.”