In the reign of Edward III the mines yielded the King 'great profits towards carrying on the French war,' and Henry V 'made good use of them,' but after that they were neglected for a long while. In Queen Elizabeth's reign, Adrian Gilbert, Sir Humphrey's brother, began to work them again, and Sir Beavis Bulmer followed with considerable success, 'by whose mineral skill great quantity of silver was landed and refined.'
The Queen presented the Earl of Bath with a rich and fair silver cup made here, bearing this inscription:
'In Martin's-Comb long lay I hid,
Obscure, depress'd with grosser soil;
Debased much with mixed lead,
Till Bulmer came, whose skill and toil
Refined me so pure and clean
As richer nowhere else is seen.
'And adding yet a farther grace,
By fashion he did enable
Me worthy for to take a place
To serve at any prince's table.
Comb-Martin gave the ore alone,
Bulmer fining and fashion.'
The mines have been worked at intervals since, and as late as 1845 a smelting-house was built in the valley.
The church is of rose-coloured stone, and has a high battlemented tower, in which are niches with figures in them. There is a good screen, with paintings of the Apostles on the panels. In the south aisle is a monument to the wife of William Hancock, 'an effigy the size of life, exquisitely and elaborately sculptured in white marble. It bears the date 1634. Dame Hancock is represented in the dress of that time, covered with point lace and looped with knots of riband; she has a pearl necklace round her throat and her hair in curls, and bears some resemblance to the portraits of Henrietta Maria, queen of Charles I.'
From Combe Martin the road to Lynton turns inland and makes a deep curve to the south, and two or three miles from its most southerly point, and about ten miles from Ilfracombe, is Arlington Court, the home of one of the many branches of that great North Devon family, the Chichesters. The first of this name were settled at Chichester in Sussex, but by marriage with the daughter and heiress of John de Raleigh, about the middle of the fourteenth century, John Chichester came into the possession of several manors in North Devon. About a hundred and fifty years later, Youlston, with other manors, was granted to 'John Chichester and Margaret his wife and their heirs for ever, at the annual rent of a rose, at the feast of St John the Baptist.'
Sir John Chichester was among the most zealous Protestants in suppressing the rising that broke out in the West in 1549. After the insurrection was crushed, 'it was declared that the rebels used the church bells in every parish to excite the people. The bells were taken down, and all the clappers were made a present to Sir John Chichester, as a reward for having assisted against the rebels. Strype says: "No question he made good benefit thereof."'
Sir John had reason to be proud of his seven sons, for four 'were knights, one created a baron, and one a viscount.' Ireland was the special field of their triumphs, and it is a curious coincidence that four hundred years before one of their ancestors, 'Master Robert de Cicester, ... being a discreet person,' had been specially chosen to go on the King's business to that country.
Prince calls Sir Arthur Chichester, the second son, 'one of the chiefest ornaments of our country.' He received his baptism of fire in France, under the command of Henri IV, and 'for some notable exploit done by him ... was by that puissant prince honoured with knighthood.' He fought in the Armada, and the next year sailed as one of Drake's captains, and then became lieutenant-colonel of a regiment in the West Indies. Fuller speaks of his career in Ireland in the sympathetic tone of his day towards that unhappy country. 'By his valour he was effectually assistant, first to plough and break up that barbarous Nation by Conquest, and then to sow it with seeds of civility when by King James made Lord Deputy of Ireland.' The 'good laws and Provisions' made by former Governors were 'like good lessons set for a Lute out of tune, useless untill the Instrument was fitted for them.' Sir Arthur established new and wider circuits for Justices of Assize, with the most excellent results, for, 'like good Planets in their several spheres, they carried the influence of Justice round about the Kingdom.' And, if Fuller is right, although he governed with a very firm and sometimes heavy hand, he contrived to avoid the unpopularity which it would be imagined must have fallen to his share amongst an oppressed and rebellious people. Indeed, not only did the Irish under his authority seem, for a time, resigned to English rule, but they even showed a passing desire to imitate their fashions; for, 'in conformity to the English Custome, many Irish began to cut their mantles into cloaks.'