For a long time the vicars of Bideford had a herriot, that is, a right to the second best horse or cow of any parishioner who died. In 1529 this led to a scene. Sir William Coffin was passing one day by the churchyard, when, seeing a crowd collected, he asked the occasion, and learned that a corpse had been brought there to be interred, but that the vicar refused to read the burial service unless the dead man's cow were surrendered. But as the deceased had left no other property whatever, the heirs demurred. On hearing this Sir William sent for the priest, and reasoned with him on the impropriety of his conduct; however, the vicar was obstinate and would not give way.
"Very well, then," said the knight, "stick me in the grave, and cover me up instead of the corpse, and you shall have my second best cow."
He was proceeding to get into the grave, when the vicar thought prudent to yield. I suppose that the matter became notorious by the complaint of the parson, for Sir William was actually summoned before Parliament on a charge of violating the rights and privileges of the Church. But partly through his favour at court, and partly by his being able to represent the mischievous consequences of the arbitrary demand for "mortuaries," Parliament passed an act which put a stop to them, or, at all events, in favour of the poor, limited the extent of these claims.
Bideford was not a place of much importance till the reign of Queen Elizabeth; it started into significance through the Newfoundland cod-fisheries, which were almost entirely in the hands of the Barnstaple, Bideford, and Bristol men as far as England was concerned.
As early as 1504 the Portuguese had begun to catch fish on those coasts. In 1578 England had fifty vessels, Portugal as many, and France and Spain together, a hundred and fifty, occupied in reaping the harvest of the sea in the North Atlantic. From 1698 to 1700 Bideford had twenty-eight vessels engaged in the fishery, whilst Barnstaple had only seven or eight; London sent out seventy-one, and Topsham thirty-four.
But the raising of Bideford into a port of importance was due mainly to the enterprise of the famous Elizabethan admiral, Sir Richard Grenville.
"Sir Richard was born most probably at Stowe, the Cornish seat of the family, in the parish of Kilkhampton, in the year 1546. His father, Roger, was a captain in the navy, and met with a watery grave at Portsmouth, in a ship called the Mary Rose, a vessel of 600 tons, and one of the finest in the navy, commanded by Sir George Carew. She sank with all on board, July 19th, 1545, from a similar accident to that which happened to the Royal George near the same place, June 28th, 1782. Being at anchor in calm weather with all ports open, a sudden breeze caused the ship to heel over, when the water entered through the lower ports and sank her. Some guns recovered many years after are preserved in Woolwich Arsenal. Richard Granville was early distinguished among his companions for his enthusiastic love of active exercises, and at the age of sixteen he, in company with several other chivalrous scions of our nobility, obtained a licence from Queen Elizabeth to enter into the service of the Emperor of Hungary against the Turks."[15]
He was engaged in the battle of Lepanto, in which Don Juan of Austria, with the combined fleets of Christendom, destroyed the Turkish galleys. One can but wish that a combined fleet would once more try conclusions with the Turk.
Then Richard Granville in 1569 was made Sheriff of Cork, but he remained in Ireland two years only. By his interest with Queen Elizabeth he obtained for Bideford a charter of incorporation, 1574. He was High Sheriff of Cornwall in 1578, and was then knighted. But the bias of his mind was towards adventure at sea, and he united with his relative, Sir Walter Raleigh, in the exploration which led to the discovery of Virginia and Carolina in 1584.