We can fancy those stirring times in 1558, when Coker tells us that off Portland, in full view of those on shore, was witnessed a great fight with the Invincible Armada, two of whose treasure-ships were brought into Portland Roads. For long years after, during a ground-swell, dollars and “ducky-stones” were picked up on Portland Beach, and were supposed to be a portion of that treasure which was to have been used in subjugating England. En passant, it may be said that the ducky-stone (a piece of solid silver about the size and somewhat the shape of a small saucer) did not derive its name from the ducat, but from the Portland game of “ducky,” which consisted in trying to dislodge a stone poised lightly on the top of a larger stone—a matter eliciting some of that skill in stone-slinging for which the Portlanders (often termed the British Baleares) were once noted.
Again, in 1653, the celebrated running fight between Van Tromp and Blake took place off Portland, memories of which, together with the landing of the Duke of Monmouth “down Lyme way” some thirty odd years later, lingered in the talk of the old people down to our own times. Their memories were also very keen respecting the days of “good” Queen Anne (when certain Portlanders were “touched” for “the Evil”), of “forty-five,” and of the chief battles of Marlborough, Wellington, and Nelson—the victory of the Nile, with its attendant rejoicings, assuming a greater importance than any other, as perhaps was befitting in a coast people who could recognise the value of this French defeat; but most of all were their hearts stirred by tales of the long list of brave ships which had met their doom on the rocks, of hair-breadth escapes and thrilling rescues, and great was the indignation expressed if any allusion were made to the old mainland belief, that the island inhabitants had ever been wreckers.
The Portlanders, ever loyal at heart, probably sided wholly with the King during the contests between Charles and his Parliament; but the place changed hands several times during the struggle. Cromwell must have felt assured of this loyalty, as he appears to have been in vengeful mood towards the old Parsonage House, the “Island Ancient Records” containing the following entry:—
One Personage House in the Villidge of Wakem Demolished and burnt down by the Usurper Oliver Cromwell and hant been rebuilded every since.
The method of quarrying stone is too well known to need comment; but one curious custom which prevailed among the quarrymen until quite recent times may here be cited, known as “jumping the broomstick.” On the marriage of one of their number, the quarrymen all adjourned to the George Inn, where the bachelors were ranged on one side and the married men on the other, a broomstick lying between. Chanting a doggerel couplet, the married men had a tug-of-war with the single men, and, pulling the newly-made bridegroom across the broomstick, he was made to stand “drinks all round.”
The more closely the descent of the Portland people is investigated, the more probable appears the persistent island tradition that three families successively settled in the island amongst the original inhabitants, viz.: the Combens (valley men?), the Pearces from Ireland, and the Whites, “who came from the sea, Dover way.” This corresponds in the main with the Belgic inroads, the Irish incursions in the west during the third and subsequent centuries, and with the Jutish, or mixed Jutish and Frisian settlement at Portland, of which there is considerable proof. Anyway, one strong Frisian characteristic tallied well with the intense independence of the old Portlander, coupled with the occasional phrase, “as free as the air,” and the proudly-repeated assertion, “None over us but the Sovereign; she” (in the case of the late Queen) “is Lady of the Manor.”
The inbred distrust of strangers, called kimberlins (pointing, perhaps, to a comparatively pure-blooded community), coupled with his insularity, gave a certain reserve to the old Portlander; but, once his confidence won, none more communicative or hospitable than he. True alike to his preferences and aversions, full of prejudices, but loyal, brave and manly, proud of his word of honour, he was by no means to be despised either as friend or foe. Quarrelsome he certainly was if his sense of right were in any way disturbed; otherwise he was peaceful and law-abiding, except as regards smuggling; and it was, perhaps, this probable old Frisian love of freedom which made him consider that what came by the sea was free to all, and to resent tax or toll thereon. Not long since an underground passage was unearthed between two old houses, one of which had secret recesses behind two sideboards. This may have been a fair sample of many such houses in the old smuggling days.
The Portlander was also proud of his old Saxon customs, of his Court Leet and his Reeve (Anglo-Saxon, gerefa), of his “share and share alike” system (gavel-kind) regarding division of property, and of his pre-feudal method of conveyance of land, viz.: by church-gift, a method still frequently adhered to.
In a MS. account of Portland Isle (1696) Stowe has left an amusing account of the way in which land was set apart for daughters during the parents’ lifetime. The father, with some of the principal inhabitants, would stand in the church porch after Evening Service, and declare aloud his intention, naming his daughters in full, and specifying the exact boundaries of each piece of land, after which all the congregation would rise up and bless the daughters by name.
