So George Cutteford, son of William, found himself educated at one of Maynard’s charity schools and possibly apprenticed to a prominent attorney in Tavistock. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII, the town was still in disarray. Today, it is a quiet though substantial and successful town in the heart of Dartmoor. In the late sixteenth century, Tavistock was a market and a stannary town, struggling at times, housing workers for the local tin mines, the cloisters of the old Abbey now appropriated into tenements and rough housing for the poor and under-paid.8
THE STANNARY TOWNS OF DEVON
Devon and Cornwall were major mining regions in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Certain towns, called Stannaries – ‘stannary’ derived from the Latin for tin – co-ordinated all mining, smelting, and the assaying and taxation of ingots of tin metal before sale. In Devon, the Stannary towns were Tavistock, Plympton, Ashburton and Chagford, and Stannary Courts were established to administer each tin-working district; to settle any disputes and to put thieves, debtors and fraudsters on trial. Convicted criminals were then locked up in Lydford Castle, which had a terrifying reputation. Over time, the Stannary Courts also gained a fearsome reputation for pronouncing brutal punishments for those stealing tin – one thief, it is said, was made to swallow molten tin, while another was nailed to rocks on the moors and forced to pull the nails out himself or risk dying of exposure. These stories are probably based on myths, circulated widely to deter anyone thinking of stealing valuable ore from the mines.
When there was a need to change the statutes that regulated the tin industry in Devon, a Stannary Parliament or Great Court would be convened, held in the open air at Crockern Tor, located in Dartmoor as a central point between the four stannary towns. The Tor was reputedly named after Old Crockern, an ancient god of the moors, sometimes described as a spectral figure on horseback galloping across the moorland on his skeletal horse, his phantom hounds running alongside.9
* * *
Tavistock’s most prominent families at that time included the Fitz family who, as well as making money as counsellors-at-law, had married into money from tin-mining and had acquired extensive lands – over 4,000 acres, and more than thirty properties in Devon, Cornwall and around London.10 In today’s money, they were billionaires. They built their family home, the manor house of Fitzford, on an extensive estate; it was erected by the old crossing of the river Tavy that runs through Tavistock. All that remains of the old Fitzford manor is the gatehouse, though even this was rebuilt in the nineteenth century. There are the Fitzford cottages nearby, built much later, and some small holdings with chickens and such, and Tavistock College now occupies the land that was the grounds to the manor.
The family built two wells at natural springs – which still exist – on Dartmoor called Fice’s or Fitz’s Wells; the first near Okehampton, the second, which bears the date 1568 and the initials JF, near Princetown.11 The spring that serviced the Fitzford manor, with water sourced from Dartmoor, was located where Boughthayes Road now meets the Callington Road, as the land rises just north west of Tavistock town centre. Sadly, every trace of the house itself is gone, but it seems that Mary Howard has not left her old home just yet – it is from the Fitzford gatehouse that she rides every night in her spirit coach to Okehampton. For Mary Howard was the daughter of the infamous Sir John Fitz.
To the Fitz family of Fitzford was born a son, John. His father was a respected man in the Tavistock community who, following a successful career as a counsellor-at-law, had retired early and devoted his free time at Fitzford to the study of astrology. As John’s mother went into labour, his father cast the baby’s horoscope – and was horrified by the result. It seemed that the positions of the planets promised a great terror to come. The father urged the midwife, in vain, to delay the birth by just one hour if humanly possible; the consequences of the timing of the boy’s birth looked to be dire. But the baby was born on time, and in time the horoscope’s warnings would be realised.
John Fitz was just fourteen when his father died in 1590. His father’s tomb can still be found in Tavistock’s parish church. Too young to take up his position as heir of the estate, John Fitz was placed in the care of the Court of Wards, and from there came under the guardianship of Sir Arthur Gorges, a poet and translator and an associate of the famous privateer Sir Walter Raleigh. It seems that John’s mother, Mary, had been unable to purchase the wardship, so Fitzford was let to strangers and John Fitz’s mother moved to the neighbouring estate of Walreddon (which still bears her initials carved into the stone over the entrance, MF, with the date 1591).12 She eventually re-married, choosing one Sir Christopher Harris, an ally of Sir Francis Drake, and moved to his Radford estate near Plymstock.
THE COURT OF WARDS
In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Sir Edmund Coke presided over the Court of Wards, established by King Henry VIII at a time when many wealthy landowners were dying in his wars, leaving under-age heirs at the mercy of corrupt relations. Henry VIII intended that a Court of Wards should care for these wealthy children, with suitable guardians often out-bidding each other for the role and the King pocketing the fee. On coming of age, the wards themselves would then be required to pay a large fee to the King to be released from their wardship.
For the King’s coffers, it was a wonderful arrangement, but it was not so beneficial for the children concerned. The system designed to provide better care for these children quickly gave way to corruption and was heavily criticised for separating families, but the Court of Wards remained a fixture of wealthy society for much of the seventeenth century.
In the 1640s, George Cutteford’s family friend Sir John Maynard would stand in the House of Commons advocating the abolition of the Court of Wards and Liveries (as it became) and all feudal wardships, but the wardships system was not formally abolished until 27 November 1656. On the Court’s demise, all its papers were packed up and stored in a fish yard by Westminster Hall, an ancient building within the current precinct of the Houses of Parliament. In the seventeenth century, shops and stalls were located in and around Westminster Hall, offering supplies to the lawyers and politicians. Sadly the bizarre location for the storage of the Court’s papers has left many of the historic documents in a very poor state, frequently unreadable. They were rescued in the early 1700s, but didn’t enter the Public Record Office until the mid-1800s.13
* * *
John Fitz appears to have had a pleasant upbringing, despite the circumstances. At twenty, he was described as a handsome fellow, though there were early signs of boisterous behaviour and a quick temper; quite the romantic hero, though still too young to come into his fortune. By 1596, John Fitz had married Bridget Courtenay and their first and only child, Mary, was born. John was then twenty; Bridget was about twenty-three, which was an unusual alliance at the time.14
Bridget was the second daughter of Sir William Courtenay of Powderham Castle in Exmouth, so it is surprising that she had not been married off at a younger age to other wealthy or more influential suitors. John Fitz was still under twenty-one, and so had not yet come into his inheritance. The arrangement therefore suggests hurried necessity – with the spinster Bridget, perhaps, falling for the young man’s charms, and becoming pregnant. It also suggests that the marriage was arranged deliberately before John Fitz was twenty-one. John’s guardian, probably with the help of Sir Walter Raleigh, could easily have been coerced into helping the Courtenays obtain a claim to the vast Fitz estates.
Whatever reasons for the marriage, when his daughter moved into Fitzford manor, Sir William made certain she would be cared for, and placed one of his associates nearby, residing with John Fitz’s mother at Walreddon to keep a close eye on the ‘happy couple’. There are certainly signs that Sir William did not trust his new son-in-law, and he was right to be wary. From the day of her birth to all the way through to her modern legend, Mary’s name would be associated with calamity and death.
Mary’s name would also be af
filiated with money. Her father was a rich man, and her mother, Bridget, was from a powerful family; Mary’s grandfather was Deputy Lord Warden of the Stannaries. Queen Elizabeth appointed Sir Walter Raleigh as Lord Warden from 1585 to 1603, with his friend Sir William Courtenay as his Deputy.15 This essentially put them in charge of the Royal Mint. Those controlling the Stannaries, like Raleigh and Courtenay, were very powerful men indeed.
As a Stannary Town, Tavistock attracted wealthy men like John Fitz, and attorneys like George Cutteford, who seems to have arrived in Tavistock at about the time of the birth of John Fitz’s daughter. Anyone casting a horoscope for Mary at her birth would not have been pleased with its ominous portents.
Sir William Courtenay, however, would have been delighted at Mary’s birth. Though not a son, she would still inherit all the Fitz properties and fortune, an impressive list which included Fitzford, Walreddon and its estates; Rushey Green manor, with extensive grounds in Lewisham (then located in the county of Kent, though now part of London); and, most importantly, Okehampton Park and its castle, which had not been in the Courtenay family for some time. Mary also inherited Woolsgrove and Meldon manors, properties at Milemead, Paswell, Bolthouse, Roundwood, Langham Wood, Burchwood, Crelake, Dowermeadow, Whitchurch, Bere Ferris, Crediton, Spreyton, Inwardleigh, Brentor, Lamerton, Milton Abbot, Kilworthy, Sampford Spiney, Walkhampton, Hayes End at Tamerton Foliot (now part of Plymouth), Withecombe, Boyton, and Calstock, Hornacott in Cornwall, and St Saviour in Southwark, on the south bank of the Thames nearly opposite the Tower (then part of Surrey, but now part of London). In short, she had 4,000 acres in four counties, with an income exceeding £1,000 a year.
THE COURTENAYS OF OKEHAMPTON CASTLE16
Within months of the arrival of William the Conqueror in 1066, William sent his cousins and brothers-in-law to build a chain of mound forts along the spine of England’s south west peninsula, including Okehampton Castle. With Viking tenacity and versed in Latin scriptures, these Normans – the name a variant on Norsemen – took absolute control of the region, precious for its production of tin, copper and wool.
The Norman Sheriff, Baldwin de Brionne, had married into William’s family, and in around 1068 established Okehampton, on the banks of the river Okement, as the administrative centre of his Devon lands. For the castle, he chose a shale spur on a wooded hillside, and built a mound to support a Norman fort. Brionne’s heirs – a long line of women – would continue to run the family estates, including Hawisia de Ancourt who married Reginald Courtenay in 1173. At that time, the castle was not much more than a simple motte, a functional stone fort, but Reginald Courtenay had grander plans for his new estate.
In France, Reginald Courtenay was born into a prominent family, but he himself had no land. He accompanied Eleanor of Aquitaine to Britain where she became Queen of England by her marriage to the Norman King Henry II. Reginald was granted lands in what is now Sutton Courtenay, and established a small manor there, but marriage to Hawisia brought greater fortunes in Devon, and he chose Okehampton Castle to be his stately home. Of course, a simple motte was not nearly impressive enough for a man of his new stature, and he set about building a luxurious castle, with high towers, and many bedrooms, and a vast dining hall for entertaining his many friends. For their entertainment, he developed the forests around into a deer park, still known as Okehampton Park. Reginald was renowned for his sumptuous banquets and hunting parties. There would soon be no landowner in Devon to rival the Courtenays, and they held Okehampton for 350 years.
Religious divisions would eventually destroy their fortunes. In the 1500s, Reginald’s descendant Henry Courtenay was in a very powerful position. Now Earl of Devon and Marquess of Exeter, he was a cousin and boyhood friend to King Henry VIII, and had a legitimate claim to the throne. From Okehampton, he administered the west of England and was due to claim vast lands with Henry VIII’s plans for the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife, was jealous of the Courtenays’ influence on the monarchy, and set about destroying them. The Courtenays were Catholics, and had maintained an alliance with Henry VIII’s first wife, Katherine of Aragon, a Spanish Catholic, now humiliated by the divorce. The Courtenays remained steadfast in their loyalty to the King, but rumours reached King Henry that disgruntled Catholics in the south west were plotting to put Henry Courtenay on the throne. There was probably some truth in this; the divorce and subsequent split with the Catholic Church were very unpopular.
King Henry’s reaction was brutal. He had Henry Courtenay, his wife, their young son, Edward, and their Catholic allies arrested, imprisoned and brought to trial for treason. The King destroyed Okehampton Castle, with orders for it never to be rebuilt, as a warning to all who might threaten the throne.
The Courtenays’ son and heir Edward, just twelve years old, would remain in prison for the next sixteen years, watching first his father dragged from the cell and beheaded in 1538, and then witnessing his mother and her friends going insane in the horrific prison conditions. Edward’s mother was released in time but she was forced to leave her son behind, now alone in a decrepit cell.
Eventually Edward was released, much to the delight of the daughter of Katherine of Aragon, now Queen Mary. Mary took a fancy to the handsome Edward. Both Catholics, there was talk of marriage, but (as in most relationships) there was a misunderstanding – Edward thought Mary was no longer interested, with rumours of her marriage to King Philip of Spain, and Edward tried instead to woo the favour of her younger sister, Elizabeth. This was not a good move. Mary, in jealous fury, had Edward imprisoned again, then exiled to Europe, where – in Padua, they say – he was poisoned in 1566. It was a sad end to the Courtenay line.
Another branch of the Courtenay family would eventually lay claim to the ruins of Okehampton Castle and its park, when in 1596 Bridget Courtenay married Sir John Fitz, but it would be many years before the Courtenays could call Okehampton Park their own.
* * *
Sir William Courtenay had recently found himself in some financial embarrassment. In the late 1500s, he had been awarded Powderham Castle by Queen Elizabeth for his services in Ireland. He had commanded a force of 3,000 men in Devon and the defences of Dorset, and continued to advise the Crown on appropriate measures to defend the coast against pirates. On marrying the widow of Sir Francis Drake, he also inherited her estates, including Buckland Abbey. However, his fortunes suffered considerably when his plantations in Ireland were destroyed by the Irish Rebellion. The prospect of acquiring the lands and wealth of the Fitz family therefore was certainly attractive, but the behaviour of his son-in-law would soon prove to be a danger to his family’s future.
THE MUNSTER PLANTATIONS
Under Queen Elizabeth I, Sir William Courtenay had become one of the ‘undertakers’ or primary investors for the English Munster plantations, involving the forced appropriation of Irish lands by English Lords. Sir William was contracted to ‘undertake’ the planting of vast acres of Irish lands, introducing English settlers and Protestant tenants, establishing new towns, and fortifying the settlements and farms against attack; 500,000 acres of Irish land were confiscated and planted by English farmers, but the English population never rose much above 5,000 and the settlements were scattered and difficult to defend. The Irish, not unsurprisingly, rebelled against English rule. When the Irish rebels reached Munster, the outnumbered English settlers ran away without much opposition. Sir William and his sons took up the fight, and his son George remained settled in Ireland to defend their lands. The rebellion was eventually put down by brutal force in 1601-1603 and the plantations re-established, but the finances of the original undertakers like Sir William Courtenay suffered terribly. Instead of owning extensive lands in Ireland with thousands of tenants, Sir William found himself at the mercy of the money-lenders. Sir William’s eldest son and heir died in 1603 after returning from the battles in Ireland, leaving his second eldest son, Frances, eventually to inherit the struggling Powderham estat
es.
* * *
John Fitz’s marriage to Bridget became fractious from the day of Mary’s birth. Her parents argued constantly and John Fitz, in a furious temper, eventually threw baby Mary and her mother out of Fitzford. Mother and child fled in terror to the place of Mary’s birth, the neighbouring estate of Walreddon, which was occupied at that time by Sir William Courtenay’s associate Richard Halse.17 It is very likely that George Cutteford was also living at Walreddon at the time.
To organise the customs officers and the operations of the local court, Sir William appointed an Under-Sheriff, a man called Halse whose family’s own success had brought them Kenedon Manor near Powderham. This Mr Halse was not a man to be crossed. He had even successfully prosecuted one of the younger Courtenays for theft and other misdemeanours.18
At Sir William’s request, Mr Halse sent his eldest son Richard to secure Bridget Courtenay’s interests in Tavistock and the Fitz estate. Young Richard Halse had just completed his studies at the Inner Temple, one of the Inns of Court in London, and was now qualified as an attorney.19 Sometime around 1598, Richard moved into Walreddon Manor, taking with him his wife Ann and their two sons.20 But John Fitz proved to be a very violent man, and Richard Halse soon realised he needed some help.
Meanwhile, in 1599, a Devon attorney called John Pearse had issues with Richard Halse’s cousin, Nicholas.21 Nicholas Halse was the collector of customs and subsidies for the ports of Plymouth and Fowey, and had recently given his daughter Grace a house in Plympton as part of her marriage settlement to one of his customs officers, George Cutteford.22
The Devil Comes to Dartmoor Page 2