An old and respectable farmer, residing at Morthoe, informed me that about fifty or sixty years ago “a gentleman from London” came down to take an account of the tomb, and carried away with him the skull and one of the thigh bones of de Tracy. He opened and examined the vault with the connivance of a negligent and eccentric minister, then resident in the parish, who has left behind him a fame by no means to be envied.
The gentleman alluded to by the worthy yeoman was no doubt the celebrated antiquary Gough, who, in his “Sepulchral Monuments in Great Britain,” has given a long account of the life and burialplace of Tracy. In his introduction to that laborious and very valuable work, page ciii. he says:—“The instances of figures cut in the slab, and not inlaid with metal, nor always blacked, are not uncommon.” Among the instances which he cites to illustrate this remark, he mentions the slab on the vault of “William de Tracy, Rector of Morthoe, Devon, 1322.”—Here we find the gigantic knight dwindled to a parson; and the man whose name should be for ever remembered with gratitude by his countrymen, the hero who happily achieved a far more arduous enterprise, a work of greater glory than did the renowned but fabled saint, over the devouring dragon—forgotten beneath the robe of an obscure village rector! The parish of Morthoe is, however, not a rectory, but what is called a “perpetual curacy,” and the living is at present not worth much more than seventy pounds per annum.
Since I have, by the merest accident, got hold of Gough, I will extract what he records of the forgotten Tracy, as it may not be unentertaining to the lover of history to peruse a detail of the ultimate fate of one of the glorious four, who delivered their country from perhaps the greatest pest that was ever sent to scourge it.
“William de Tracy, one of the murderers of Becket, has been generally supposed, on the authority of Mr. Risdon, (p. 116.) to have built an aisle in the church of Morthoe, Devon; and to have therein an altar-tomb about 2 feet high, with his figure engraven on a grey slab of Purbeck marble, 7 feet by 3, and 7 inches thick, and this inscription, [in Saxon capitals,]
“SYRE [Guillau] ME DE TRACY [gist icy, Diu de son al] ME EYT MERCY.
“On the upper end of this tomb is carved in relief the crucifixion, with the virgin and St. John, and on the north side some Gothic arches, and these three coats; I. Az. 3 lions passant guardant, Arg. 2. Arg. 3. two bars, G. Az. a saltire, Or.——The first of these is the coat of William Camville, formerly patron of this church: the second, that of the Martins, formerly lords of Barnstaple, who had lands in this neighbourhood: the third, that of the Saint Albins, who had also estates in the adjoining parish of Georgeham.
“The figure on the slab is plainly that of a priest in his sacerdotal habit, holding a chalice between his hands, as if in the act of consecration.——Bishop Stapledon’s register, though it does not contain the year of his institution, fixes the date of his death in the following terms, ‘Anno, 1322, 16 Decr. Thomas Robertus præsentat. ad eccles. de Morthoe vacantem per mortem Wilhelmi de Traci, die dominic. primo post nativ. Virginis per mortem Will. de Campvill.’
“The era of the priest is therefore 140 years later than that of the knight. It does not appear by the episcopal registers that the Tracies were ever patrons of Morthoe, except in the following instances:—
“Anno, 1257, Cal. Junii, John Allworthy, presented by Henry de Traci, guardian of the lands and heirs of Ralph de Brag. Anno, 1275. Thomas Capellanus was presented to this rectory by Philip de Weston. In 1330, Feb. 5, Henry de la Mace was presented to this rectory by William de Camville. In 1381, Richard Hopkins was presented by the dean and chapter of Exeter, who are still patrons.
“It is probable that the stone with the inscription to William de Tracy did not originally belong to the altar-tomb on which it now lies; but by the arms seems rather to have been erected for the patron William de Camville, it being unusual in those days to raise so handsome a monument for a priest, especially as the altar-tomb and slab are of very different materials, and the benefice itself is of very inconsiderable value. It is also probable the monument of Traci lay on the ground, and that when this monument was broken open, according to Risdon, in the last century, this purbeck slab was placed upon the altar-tomb though it did not at first belong to it.