at the summit of high peak is the common of muttersmoor, whence the way goes steeply down into the valley of the river otter, at length reaching the village of otterton, down the sides of whose one quaint street, of a rustic, straw-littered, farm-like untidiness, flow streamlets bridged by little brick and timber spans.
otterton is thoroughly devonian. what it is to be so will, perhaps, not be understood by those unfamiliar with rustic devon; but here is the recipe for such a characteristic place. take an irish, a welsh, a highland, and a breton village, stir them up well in a fine, confused celtic medley, add abundance of flowers, wild and cultivated, and then leave in the sun.
on a rise, above the river and the village street, stands the “fayre howse” built by richard duke, who in 1539 bought the otterton property of sion abbey, and set up for lord of the manor. his shield-of-arms, sculptured over the door, is still visible, but his fair house has come down in the world, and the line of duke of otterton ended[54] in 1775, when the rolles acquired their belongings. the traveller in south east devon very soon has a surfeit of rolles, who seem to be pervading the land and rebuilding the interesting churches, and generally occulting everything. here again the old church has been replaced by a new.
below church and manor-house runs the lovely otter to the sea. the otter is twin brother to the axe, and the exe is the big brother of both. the strath—that is to say the verdant, low-lying meadowland—of the otter is of that quiet, wooded, pastoral beauty which makes the nearness of the sea seem strange. but the speciality of the otter seems to be its pebbles, or “popples,” as the name is, locally. there are more pebbles on the chesil beach; but then, that is one of the two greatest repositories for them in the world, and the popples of the otter and of the seashore at budleigh salterton, where they are not only numerous, but very fine and large as well, are a class to themselves. little beaches of them skirt the course of the river, and the matter of two and a half miles up-stream from otterton is a village, as one may say, dedicated to them, in its name of newton poppleford; and there the popples muster as strongly as ever by the ford, which is now superseded by a bridge.
but now, crossing the otter, we come to east budleigh, by threading the mazes of two or three byways.
east budleigh is a pretty village, with a little stream, clear-running, down one side of its street[55] and a great church on the rise at the end; but, for all that, i should not have come out of the way to see it, were it not that a landmark of more than common interest lies half a mile on the other side. that landmark is hayes barton, the still extant farmstead that was the birthplace of sir walter raleigh.
the first part of the name of hayes barton derives from the anglo-saxon haga, a hedge, or cultivated enclosure from surrounding wastes, and there are, to this day, “hayes,” and “hays,” in abundance in this shire of devon. even in the urban circumstances of exeter we find them, in the enclosed public pleasure-ground of northernhay, and the square of southernhay. “barton” has a variety of meanings, from granary, rickyard, farmyard, and cattle-shed, to a large farm; a[56] small farm being generally, in devon, styled a “living.” in the time of sir walter raleigh’s father, hayes barton was sold to the duke family, of otterton, and from its old name of poerhayes, or power’s heys, it became known as dukesheyes. in the eighteenth century, as we have already seen, it passed to the rolles, whose paws have comprehended so much of the land between seaton and exmouth.
the old farm-house, smartened up with a facing of that stucco which is so beloved by devon folk that it is almost a wonder they don’t make it an article of diet, stands now as ever in a hollow of the hills, remote; for although budleigh salterton has expanded into a townlet, i do not suppose the village of east budleigh has grown appreciably in all these centuries. bating that stucco, and the sixty-year-old brick outhouses, the farm must be much the same, and you may still see the old woodwork and the old stone flags of the lower rooms, and may even, by courtesy, peep into the bedroom—that is the window of it, the upper window in the left-hand gable—where that gallant soul first saw the light of day.
here, in this modest farmstead, that great elizabethan was born, in 1552, son of walter raleigh and his wife katherine, who came of that old devon family, the champernownes of modbury. she had first married otto gilbert, who died leaving her with two sons, themselves to grow up explorers and colonists. she would[57] seem, therefore, to have been a woman of remarkable character.
the raleighs seem to have been gentlefolk of long descent, of many relationships among the storied names of devon—the carews, the grenvilles, gilberts, and others—but of only modest worldly possessions. the raleigh genealogy is fragmentary, and the early history of the family vague, but that they had once been locally rich and powerful, before the famous sir walter’s day, seems evident enough in the names of the two neighbouring parishes of withycombe raleigh and colaton raleigh, which show that in more prosperous times his forbears had been lords of those manors. in common with many of their contemporaries, the raleighs seem to have spelt their name according to individual taste and fancy; nor even did the same individual[58] always select, and adhere to, one method. thus we find the father of the greatest of all raleighs signing himself “ralegh,” his eldest son, carew, affecting “rawlegh,” and the future sir walter, in his first known signature, writing “rauleygh,” and afterwards adopting “ralegh,” and the form “raleigh,” which posterity has finally decided to accept. queen elizabeth herself spelled the name “rawley.”
sentimentalists have united to draw a wholly imaginary picture of the boy, walter raleigh, ranging from the inland valley in which his birthplace stands, climbing the intermediate woody hill, and straying down to the margin of the sea at budleigh saltern, as budleigh salterton was then styled. they have drawn fanciful pictures of him among the amazing pebbles of that beach, listening wide-eyed, to the yarns of sailor-folk telling of strange histories from the spanish main; and they have pictured him exploring away down to exmouth, which was in those times a port of considerable commerce. i have no doubt he did all these things, and for my part can readily envisage them; can see, too, the little, crisp-haired, ruddy-cheeked walter, in russet doublet and stockings of the same, being taken to church on sundays at east budleigh, half a mile away, where you may still see the family pew with the heraldic “fusils” of raleigh impaling the “rests” of grenville, boldly sculptured in heart of oak on a massive bench-end.
but while we can picture all these things,[59] with sufficient readiness, it yet remains certain that we know nothing of the hero’s earlier years, and but vaguely gather that from oxford, whither he was sent, he went to the wars on the continent, between the protestants and the catholics, and then, by some occult family influence, became attached to the brilliant court of our own astounding virginal gloriana. they were a coruscating renaissance group, who circled round elizabeth, and were gifted in a singular variety of ways. they were noblemen and gentlemen who could, and did, turn their hands to anything, from captaining some desperate enterprise, negotiating treaties, steering frail flotillas through unknown seas into unheard-of lands, buccaneering, and filibustering, down to duelling, intriguing and backbiting among each other; practising literature and the liberal art of sonneteering, and dallying in the dangerous pastime of flirting with that too towardly queen herself. one thing only they could not do; they could not be commonplace. none may say how much of truth, or how much legend there may be in the famous story of how raleigh first attracted the queen’s notice by flinging down his velvet cloak over a muddy place, so that she might pass, clean-footed; but the story was current, in the time of those contemporary with both, and being possible at all, shows us the spirit of the time and of the queen’s surroundings.
raleigh’s excellent early services in ireland, where he broke down the rebellion in the south,[60] recommended him to the queen, his youthfulness interested her middle-aged sentimentalism, and his dark, florid manhood enslaved her. for this was a very hero in look, as in deed; standing six feet high, with black hair, full-bearded, ruddy-cheeked, like the apples of his native shire; and elizabeth loaded him with gifts and grants. meanwhile he had begun the colonising schemes and the exploratory enterprises by which his name is largely known. he equipped, and was at the cost of, the expedition which in 1584 discovered that shore of north america he christened, in honour of the “eternal maiden queen,” “virginia.” at the close of that year a knighthood rewarded his flattery.
already he was become a man of vast wealth, the holder of highly remunerative grants and monopolies, and was keenly desirous of refounding the house of raleigh in visible form in devon. to this end he wrote in july, 1584, to mr. duke of otterton, into whose possession this farm of hayes barton had by some unexplained means come, desiring to repurchase it. the letter is still in existence, and runs:
“mr. duke,
“i wrote to mr. prideux to move yow for the purchase of hayes a farme som tyme in my fathers prossession. i will most willingly give yow what so: ever in your conscience yow shall deeme it worthe, and if yow shall att any tyme have occasion to vse mee yow shall find mee a thanckfull frind[61] to yow and youres. i have dealt wᵗʰ mʳ. sprint for suche things as he hathe att colliton and ther abouts and he hath pmised mee to dept wᵗʰ ye moety of otertowne vnto yow in consideration of hayes accordinge to ye valew and yow shall not find mee an ill neighbore vnto yow here after. i am resolved if i cannot intreat yow to build at colliton but for the naturall dispositio’ i have to that place being borne in that howse i had rather seat my sealf ther than any wher els this leving the mattr att large vnto mr. sprint i take my leve resting redy to countervaile all your courteses to ye uttermost of my power.
“court the xxvj of july 1584
“your very willing frinde
“in all i shall be able”
“w. ralegh.”
it is surely no unamiable trait in a man, that he should wish to purchase the house in which he was born; but mr. duke, “from that jealous disposition which can bear no brother near the throne,” did not choose to sell or to have so great a man for so near a neighbour, and so the raleighs never again entered into possession of hayes barton.
