O yes! The Fair is begun,
And no man dare to be arrested
Until the Fair is done,
while on the Friday evening he again went round the town ringing his bell, to show that the fair was over. The origin of this custom appeared to be shrouded in mystery, as we could get no satisfactory explanation, but we thought that those three days' grace must have served as an invitation to evil-doers to visit the town.
The church contained the tomb of Thomas Marwood, who, according to an inscription thereon, "practised Physick and Chirurgery above seventy-five years, and being aged above 105 years, departed in ye Catholic Faith September ye 18th Anno Domini 1617." Marwood became famous in consequence of his having—possibly, it was suggested, by pure accident—cured the Earl of Essex of a complaint that afflicted him, for which service he was presented with an estate in the neighbourhood of Honiton by Queen Elizabeth.
The "Dolphin Inn" at Honiton was where we made our first practical acquaintance with the delectable Devonshire clotted cream, renewed afterwards on every possible occasion. The inn was formerly the private mansion of the Courtenay family, and its sign was one of the family crests, "a Dolphin embowed" or bent like a bow. This inn had been associated with all the chief events of the town and neighbourhood during the past three centuries, and occupied a prominent position near the market cross on the main road. In January 1688 the inn had been willed to Richard Minify, and after his death to his daughter Ann Minify, and it was in that year that William, Prince of Orange, set sail for England, and landed at Torbay in Devonshire. The advanced guard of his army reached Honiton on October 19th, and the commander, Colonel Tollemache, and his staff occupied the "Dolphin." William was very coldly received by the county families in Devonshire, as they remained strongly attached to the Jacobite cause, and to demonstrate their adhesion to the House of Stuart they planted Scotch fir trees near their mansions. On the other hand, many of the clergy sympathised with the rebellion, and to show their loyalty to the cause they planted avenues of lime trees from the churchyard gate to the church porch. James II, whom William came to replace, wrote in his memoirs that the events that happened at Honiton were the turning-point of his fortunes, and it was at the "Dolphin" that these events culminated, leading to the desertion of the King's soldiers in favour of William. It seemed strange that a popular song set to a popular tune could influence a whole army, and incidentally depose a monarch from his throne. Yet such was the case here.
EXAMPLES OF HONITON LACE.
From specimens kindly lent by Mrs. Fowler, of Honiton. The lower example is a corner of a handkerchief specially made for Queen Mary.
Lieutenant-General Richard Talbot, who was in Ireland in 1685, had recommended himself to his bigoted master, James II, by his arbitrary treatment of the Protestants in that country, and in the following year he was created Earl of Tyrconnel, and, being a furious Papist, was nominated by the King to the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland. In 1688 he was going to Ireland on a second expedition at the time that the advanced guard of William of Orange reached Honiton, and when the advanced guard of King James's English army was at Salisbury. It was at this critical period that Lord Wharton, who has been described as "a political weathercock, a bad spendthrift, and a poet of some pretensions," joined the Prince of Orange in the Revolution, and published this famous song. He seems to have been a dissolute man, and ended badly, although he was a visitor at the "Dolphin" at that time, with many distinguished personages. In the third edition of the small pamphlet in which the song was first published Lord Wharton was described "as a Late Viceroy of Ireland who has so often boasted himself upon his talent for mischief, invention, and lying, and for making a certain 'Lilliburlero' song with which, if you will believe himself, he sung a deluded Prince out of three kingdoms." It was said that the music of the song was composed by Henry Purcell, the organist of Westminster Abbey, and contributed not a little to the success of the Revolution. Be this as it may, Burnet, then Bishop of Salisbury, wrote:
It made an impression on the King's army that cannot be imagined.... The whole army, and at last the people, both in city and country, were singing it perpetually ... never had so slight a thing so great an effect.