Many incidents befell Fairfax and his troops at Ottery. It was chosen for their winter-quarters in 1645, and they arrived worn-out and exhausted and in great need of refreshment. Ill-fortune, however, awaited them, as the Rev. Joshua Sprigg, General Fairfax's chaplain, tells us in Anglia Rediviva, his account of this army's movements. A mysterious disease broke out, very fatal, so that there were 'dying of soldiers and inhabitants in the town of Autree, seven, eight, and nine a day, for several weeks together.' A Colonel Pickering died of it, on whom the chaplain wrote an elegy. One has heard of blank-verse that is merely 'prose cut into lengths,' but his lines suggest that they must have been on the rack to bring them to the right measure. The author feared that it was the lack of action that had proved fatal.
'Must thou be scaling heaven alone,
For want of other action?
Wouldst thou hadst took that leisure time
To visit some responsal clime!'
But Sprigg's deep affection and respect cannot be disguised even by his words.
At Ottery, Sir Thomas Fairfax received and entertained two envoys from besieged Exeter, who came with a view to discussing the possible terms of a general peace; but their mission was, of course, unsuccessful. A pleasant event was the presentation to the General of a fair jewel, set with rich diamonds of great value, 'from both Houses of Parliament, as a testimonial to his great services at Naseby.' The jewel was tied with 'a blue ribbon and put about his neck.' Fairfax was staying in the old Chanter's House, now the property of Lord Coleridge, and the ceremony took place in a long panelled room, with deep-set window, then called the Great Parlour. Here also Fairfax held a deeply important conference with the 'Lord Generall Cromwell,' when he came to decide the plan of campaign in the West.
Ottery St Mary is able to pride itself on being the birthplace of the poet Coleridge, whose family had long been connected with the county. The poet's father was Vicar, and Master of the Grammar School. Great as was his genius, Coleridge was not in every respect worthy of his birthplace, for in one of his letters he actually announces that he prefers Somerset to Devon!—evidence which clearly proves the correctness of the popular belief that poets have no judgment. But his real affection for the Otter is shown in his sonnet to the river on whose banks he lived in early years. Another poem, the 'Songs of the Pixies,' was inspired by the Pixies' Parlour, a tiny cave with roots of old trees for a ceiling, that stands halfway up a low cliff overhanging the river, just beyond the town. In this poem are the lines:
'When fades the morn to shadowy-pale,
And scuds the cloud before the gale,
Ere the Morn, all gem-bedight,
Hath streak'd the East with rosy light,
We sip the furze-flower's fragrant dews,
Clad in robes of rainbow hues....
Then with quaint music hymn the parting gleam
By lonely Otter's sleep-persuading stream;
Or where his wave with loud, unquiet song
Dashed o'er the rocky channel froths along;
Or where, his silver waters smoothed to rest,
The tall tree's shadow sleeps upon his breast.'
Ottery has other associations with literature, and it is interesting to remember that Thackeray lived near here in his youth, and that Ottery is the 'Clavering' of Pendennis, which was written while he was staying at Escot Vicarage close by.
A winter traveller in passing through the lanes near here recalls some beliefs of a past generation: 'The faint chimes of St Mary's in distant Ottery are playing their Christmas greeting over many a mile of moorland. We are passing the old "cob" walls and grey-headed barns of a substantial farmstead. The cocks will crow here all the night before Christmas Day, according to the beautiful legend of the county, to bid
'"Each fettered ghost slip to his several grave."
The very oxen at midnight will fall down on their knees before the manger. The next turn brings us to the Otter rushing along some forty feet below with angry stream.' Almost at the mouth of the river is the village of Otterton, and here was a Benedictine Priory, founded in the reign of King John. The Prior of this little monastery had certain privileges. Amongst others, ten marks had to be subscribed among the tenants for 'a palfrey to be presented to a new Prior on his coming to reside in the midst of his flock, and every plough had to plough one acre of land for him annually.' He had the 'right of pre-emption of fish in all his ports, and the choice of the best fish.' Conger-eels were specially mentioned in a marginal note. Besides this, he claimed every porpoise caught in the sea or other neighbouring waters, but paid for it with twelve pence and a loaf of white bread to each sailor, and two to the master of the boat from which it was caught. Lastly, the Prior claimed the half of every dolphin. But no Prior is likely to have had many chances of asserting this right.