While the Druids, both locally and generally, belong rather to the region of myth than of solid history, the Romans are an indisputable fact in both senses. Still, their advent in the West Country is not free from obscurity. One thing seems fairly certain, namely, that they did not establish themselves in Devonshire by their usual method of conquest. Exeter, however, was a thoroughly Roman city, and traces of the Imperial race are to be found in local names, such as Chester Moor, near North Lew, and in the ruins of Roman villas, as at Seaton and Hartland. The siege of Exeter by Vespasian is one of those fictitious events which, by dint of constant reiteration, work themselves into the brain as substantial verities. The place that Vespasian attacked was not Exeter, but Pensaulcoit (Penselwood), on the borders of Somerset and Wilts. Probably the Romans were content with a protectorate, under which the Britons were suffered to retain their nationality and their native princes.
The Saxons, though known as “wolves,” certainly appeared as sheep or in sheep’s clothing in their earliest attempts to settle in the county. They lived side by side with the Britons, notably at Exeter, where the dedications of the ancient parishes testify to the juxtaposition of British and Saxon. Here, also, it was that the West Saxon apostle of Germany, St. Boniface, was educated in a West Saxon school. But this state of things was not to last. In 710, Ine, the King of the West Saxons, vanquished Geraint, prince of Devon, in a pitched battle; and although there is no reason to think that he extended his borders much to the west of Taunton, the work of subjugation thus begun was continued by Ine’s successors, primarily by Cynewulf (755–784); and since, in 823, the men of Devon were marshalled against their kinsmen, the Cornish, at Gafulford, on the Tamar, the Saxon conquest must by that time have been complete. Still the victors were not satisfied. In 926, as we learn from William of Malmesbury, Athelstan drove the Britons out of Exeter, and, constituting the Tamar the limit of his jurisdiction, converted Devon into a purely Saxon province. The immense preponderance of Saxon names in all parts of the county proves how thoroughly this expropriation of the Kelts was carried into effect. The theory held by Sir Francis Palgrave, amongst others, that the conquest of Devon was accomplished by halves, the Exe being for some time the boundary, rests upon no adequate grounds, neither evidence nor probability supporting it. In due course, the whole county was mapped out into tithings and hundreds, in accordance with the Saxon methods of administration, and the executive official was the portreeve.
Parallel with the record of Saxon conquest runs the story of Danish endeavours, stubborn, long-protracted, but, on the whole, less successful, to secure a footing and affirm the superiority. In the first half of the ninth century, the Vikings, in alliance with the Cornish, were routed by Egbert in a decisive engagement at Hingston Down, when, according to a Tavistock rhyme—
The blood that flowed down West Street
Would heave a stone a pound weight.
During the latter half of the same century, the Danes were again active, and in 877 made Exeter their headquarters. Seventeen years later they besieged the city, which was relieved by Alfred the Great, who confided the direction of church affairs in the city and county to the learned Asser, author of the Saxon Chronicle. In 1001, the Danes, having landed at Exmouth, made an attempt on Exeter, when the Saxons of Devon and Somerset, hastening to the rescue, were overthrown in a severe encounter at Pinhoe, and the piratical invaders returned to their ships, laden with spoil. The following year was marked by a general massacre of the Danes at the behest of Ethelred, and, to avenge this treacherous slaughter, Sweyn (or Swegen) swooped, like a vulture, on the land, and, through the perfidy of Norman Hugh, the reeve, was admitted within the gates of Exeter. As usual on such occasions, red ruin was the grim sequel; but in after days, when the Danish dynasty was in secure possession of the throne, Canute (or Cnut) cherished no malice by reason of the tragic horror inflicted on his race, but conferred on Exeter’s chief monastery the dignity of a cathedral.
In a secular as well as in a religious sense, far the most romantic episodes of Saxon rule in Devon centre around the old Abbey of St. Rumon, Tavistock, the largest and most splendid of all the conventual institutions in the fair county. Ordulf, the reputed founder, was no ordinary mortal. He looms through the mist of ages as a being of gigantic stature, whose delight it was, with one stroke of his hunting-knife, to cleave from their bodies the heads of animals taken in the chase, and whose thigh-bone, it is said, is yet preserved in Tavistock Church. But if he had something in common with Goliath and John Ridd, Ordulf was likewise, and very plainly, cousin german to Saint Hubert, for having been bidden in a vision, he built Tavistock Abbey, to whose site his wife was conducted by an angel. An alternative version associates with him in this pious work his father, Orgar. However that may be, the edifice was destroyed by the Danes in the course of a predatory expedition up the Tamar to Lydford. This was in 997. It was re-built on a still grander scale, and bore the assaults of time until the days of the sacrilegious Hal, when it was suppressed and given to William, Lord Russell.
So much for the Abbey. Now for the secular romance, which yields a striking illustration of Shakespeare’s warning:—
Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love: