Crediton had for a long time a very important trade in woollen goods, which were made here as early as in the thirteenth century. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth it was one of the principal centres of the manufacture in the county, and, indeed, caused Exeter so much jealousy that weavers, tuckers, and others, petitioned the authorities until it was ordained that the serge-market should be removed from here, and a weekly one set up in Exeter, to the great and natural indignation of Crediton. 'Their market for kersies hath been very great, especially of the finer sort,' says Westcote, 'for the aptness and diligent industry of the inhabitants ... did purchase it a supereminent name above all other towns, whereby grew this common proverb—as fine as Kirton spinning ... which spinning was very fine indeed, which to express, the better to gain your belief, it is very true that 140 threads of woollen yarn spun in that town were drawn together through the eye of a tailor's needle; which needle and threads were, for many years together, to be seen in Watling-street, in London, in the shop of one Mr Dunscombe.'
Crediton was once, for a brief but fateful moment, the focus of a very serious movement. During 1549 discontent showed itself in many parts of England, and very gravely in the West, where a rising of Devonshire and Cornish men brought about the 'Affair of the Crediton Barns,' and culminated in the siege of Exeter. The first definite outbreak was at Sampford Courtenay, on Whit Monday, June 10. On Sunday the Book of Common Prayer was used for the first time, but the people were dissatisfied. They did not care to hear the service in their own tongue instead of in Latin, and they resented all the other changes. And when on Monday the priest was 'preparing himself to say the service as he had done the day before ... they said he should not do so.... In the end, whether it were with his will or against his will, he ravisheth himself in his old Popish attire, and sayeth Mass, and all such services as in Times past accustomed.'
The news of this incident spread; other villages followed suit, and the local magistrates unwillingly recognized that the ferment of rebellion was working, and met together to try and reason the people into a more submissive frame of mind. But the movement was too full of force to be arrested by such gentle methods, and the justices, 'being afraid of their own shadows, ... departed without having done anything at all.' Unfortunately, their reasoning had merely an irritating effect, so that, when a certain gentleman named Helions tried mildly to enforce some of the remonstrances, a man struck him on the neck with a billhook and killed him. This blow seems to have stirred the mob into taking a definite course of action, and they marched on Crediton. News of the disturbance had, meanwhile, reached the King, and Sir Peter and Sir Gawen Carew were sent down in haste to deal with the matter. From Exeter, they and several other gentlemen rode to confer with the people; but the people, having had notice of the arrival of the knights, 'they intrench the highways, and make a mighty rampire at the Town's End, and fortify the same' and 'also the Barns of both sides of the way.' The walls were pierced with 'loops and holes for their shot,' and 'so complenished with men, well appointed with bows and arrows and other weapons, that there was no passage nor entry for them into the town.' Nor would they listen to 'the Gentlemen,' but refused all conference.
The 'Warlike Knights' then tried force, but were driven back with loss, by a heavy volley. 'Whereupon some one strong man of that company,' says Hooker (who must have admired decision), 'unawares of the gentlemen, did set one of the barns on fire, and then the Commoners, seeing that, ran and fled away out of the town.' This ended all the trouble in Crediton, though the smoking barns served as fuel to the growing spirit of revolt, and the 'Barns of Crediton' became a party-cry.
Clarendon mentions briefly that Charles I came here on his way into Cornwall, and reviewed the troops under Prince Maurice.
About one hundred and fifty years later the distant echoes of war sounded faintly in Crediton, for French prisoners of war on parole, Napoleon's soldiers, were allowed to live in this town. Vague rumours of them may still be heard. The sexton remembers that his mother often told about them, and one of the first people he buried was a man named Henry, 'though,' he explained, 'they spell it rather differently.' The melancholy fate of this stranger throws a light on one of the disregarded tragedies in the train of war, for Henri was not a soldier, but the son of a French prisoner. For some reason he never went home, and died in the workhouse.
Amongst the conditions that the prisoners on parole had to sign was: 'Not to withdraw one mile from the boundaries prescribed there without leave for that purpose from the said Commissioners;' and on some roads a stone was put up marking the limits. One of these stones, of grey limestone, and very like a milestone with no inscription, is still to be seen jutting out from the bank of Shobrooke Park, on the Stockleigh Pomeroy road. Another witness to the presence of the French prisoners lies in the name that clings to a bit of road running behind the Vicarage, for it is still sometimes called the Belle Parade, and tradition says that here they used to assemble on Sundays.
Returning along the river, one passes through the property of the late Sir Redvers Buller. Downes is a white house standing amongst green open lawns sloping to the river, and it has a background of great trees and ample shrubberies. The Bullers at one time lived chiefly in Cornwall, and Downes was originally a shooting-box. A hay-loft stood at one end, and when the house was enlarged the archway under which the hay-waggons were driven was left standing, and now forms part of the drawing-room—a room with an unusually high ceiling. A member of the family has been kind enough to send me notes of one or two incidents in the history of the Bullers.
'The whole Buller family was at one time reduced to a single individual, John Francis Buller. He died of the smallpox. His mother insisted on seeing him after death. It was in the days when air was considered highly prejudicial to smallpox patients, who were covered with red cloth, and every window and cranny through which air might enter was carefully closed. To minimize the risk to his mother, who would listen to no dissuasion, all the windows and doors were opened, and a draught of air admitted, with the result that when his mother entered the room the dead man rose from his bed and received her.' Mr Buller lived to marry Rebecca, daughter of the Bishop Trelawney who was one of the seven Bishops sent to the Tower by James II. His arrest created intense indignation in his own county; and he is the Trelawney referred to in the well-known fragment, all that remains of a ballad written at the time to express Cornish feeling:
'And shall they scorn Tre, Pol, and Pen?
And shall Trelawney die?
There's twenty thousand Cornishmen[2]
Will know the reason why.'