The accounts John Cutteford left behind reveal that his life had been plagued by financial difficulties and disappointments.3 He had been arrested by the Sheriff of Devon for non-payment of debt. He had inherited legacies from his sisters as they passed away, but he was constantly weighed down by money worries. He had once owned land, but the tenants had been unable to pay him and he had had to have them arrested. He had argued with a Halse cousin, and had had to pay him off. He had been charged with contempt by the Court of Chancery and duly fined. He had received no help from the Howards, yet he had kept all his father’s papers, and the letters Mary Howard had lovingly sent George Cutteford. He himself left no children, no wife, just a chest of ageing and decaying documents that implied his resentment at the downward spiral of his fortunes; the bitterness he felt at the thought of the life he might have had, if his father had lived.
John Cutteford’s life was one of disappointment. In the early years, John’s father, born of lowly status, was presented with opportunities and possibilities unheard of in previous generations. Suddenly the elder George Cutteford was a man of rising status. From a charitable school, George Cutteford became an important man, with prestigious connections, and through his own hard work, his own endeavours, albeit with a hint of self-interest and a touch of corruption typical of the times, he had risen to become one of the new affluent middle classes.
The early seventeenth century promised great prosperity for everyone. The Puritan faith promised a bold new future, with developments in education, freedom of thought and religion. For the first time in British history, the working classes felt they could realise their potential and improve the prospects for their children. The bonds of social and economic status that had held them down for so long were just beginning to break – not completely, but there was a hint of something better.
Universal suffrage, even for all men, let alone women, was unheard of, but the idea was planted, that perhaps one day they would all have a say in how the country was governed, affecting and amending those laws and regulations that so often blighted their lives.
Changes that would not occur until the nineteenth century were being passionately discussed in the seventeenth. The opening of the New World, new horizons, brought unheard of prosperity and aspirations to many. Here was a world of new possibilities, where people like the Cuttefords could aspire to own their land and be connected with people outside their limited social sphere.
The Civil War arose from these aspirations, from the rise of the learned advisers contesting the absolute power of the King. Arguments over money, power and religion fractured the country, but still the people believed they could affect a change. Drawn into horrific battles, they often sacrificed their own lives, and the lives of their sons, to make that change happen. They fought over ideas and the processes for change.
Sadly, some of those in charge, like Sir Richard Grenville, felt that the war and the subsequent breakdown in society was an opportunity to make money, and left them unaccountable, exacting personal justice against those who could not defend themselves. Sir Richard destroyed those same protagonists for change – including George Cutteford and his family, who represented everything men like Grenville hated in the burgeoning new society.
Parliament won the war in the end, and many thought that the anticipated changes would arise from that new government. Others, like Sir John Maynard, realised all too quickly that nothing was going to change after all, and those who had sought change had won nothing, their victory stolen from them by the old establishment and a military dictatorship in the form of Oliver Cromwell. The men who took the powers from a King were themselves despotic, intolerant and as unwilling to seek social changes as the King had been.
In 1650, it must have felt like progress had been completely reversed. Suddenly it was more like the fifteenth century than the seventeenth. Land may have changed hands, but it was still only landowners who were permitted to sit in Parliament and govern the country. There was not even a gesture towards universal representation. Those without land were still no better off than they had been 200 years before.
After years of death and destruction, of sacrifice and starvation, it was back to ‘business as usual’, though a business now more rigid in its laws, and the population dominated by Cromwell’s intolerance. And worse was to come. Soon anyone not agreeing with Cromwell was ousted from Parliament, and he ruled the 1650s as Lord Protector, a substitute King, even nominating his son as his hereditary successor.
And John Cutteford was back where it all started, in his father’s old trade, as a customs officer. When King Charles II was crowned in 1660, to John Cutteford and his relations still in Tavistock, it must have been as though the Civil War had never happened. The Radfords and the Halses and the Skirretts kept going, but there was little sign of progress. The contracts, the land deals, the hard work, the New World, the battles, the thousands dead – all of it had achieved absolutely nothing. The struggle for social and economic change had to begin all over again.
So who did the people like John Cutteford blame for all this? London was a distant place, too far away in society as well as in miles. Kings and Lord Protectors were all beyond their sphere of influence; out of sight, out of mind. So they turned their sights on the ostentatiously wealthy local landowner – Mary Howard – and saw a woman who had returned to Fitzford, and had done nothing since for anyone but herself.
Mary Howard spent the years after the war redecorating; she restored, she collected the rent, often from those who could not afford it, and she travelled around the town in a sedan chair, oblivious, it seems, to the suffering of the local people around her. She sat in church in all her finery, watching silently as the Puritan priests were expelled after the restoration of the King; witnessing a generation of people having to start over again with less wealth than their forefathers.
After the death of Richard Grenville, their daughter Elizabeth fell onto hard times. Her husband, Captain Lennard, a Royalist, died, and Elizabeth petitioned King Charles II for support for her child, but received only a single payment of £100. Her baby subsequently died, and Elizabeth, it is said, then visited Fitzford to ask for her mother’s help.
Mary refused to acknowledge the woman as her daughter. Elizabeth had lived for so many years with her father, in Europe, tending him in his old age, that Mary no longer recognised the woman claiming to be her daughter. Elizabeth pleaded with Mary, tugging on her mother’s skirts as Mary climbed the stairs at Fitzford. At the top of the stairs, Mary turned and violently slammed the door in Elizabeth’s face. Mary did eventually bequeath some money in her will to Elizabeth – but only if the woman could prove she was indeed her daughter. Mary Howard’s final years were filled with contempt and indifference.
THE FINAL VICTORY OF SIR RICHARD GRENVILLE
Sir Richard, in Exeter in 1645, having seen the death of his old enemy George Cutteford, recovered from his wounds, but the King and his Council were still unhappy with Richard’s conduct in Devon, and Richard’s behaviour for the remainder of the war did his career no favours. His troops at Taunton deserted in huge numbers – only 600 of the original 2,000 remained. They hadn’t been paid while Sir Richard was convalescing, so many simply went back home to Cornwall.
While the King’s forces were being sorely defeated by Cromwell’s New Model Army at Naseby, in June 1644, and the Royalists subsequently besieged at Taunton, Richard was of no help. He spent most of his time bickering with Sir John Berkeley in Exeter, and General Goring, leader of the King’s forces.
In a huff, Sir Richard resigned his commission and took himself off to Ottery St Mary, near Exeter, with about 350 men in tow, and set about raising funds there, using the same violent and abusive methods for raising money from the local population as he had done so often before. He did manage to recruit additional forces in defence of Devon and Cornwall, and in October 1645, with 2,500 men at his command, Sir Richard fortified Okehampton in opposition to an imminent attack by Parliamentary forces
heading into the west. The defences failed.
Prince Charles called Sir Richard to meet with him at Launceston, but the bickering continued, and Prince Charles, exasperated by the persistently uncooperative Grenville, had Sir Richard imprisoned at Launceston Gaol for insubordination, and then transferred to St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall. As Parliament’s forces ominously advanced into Cornwall, Sir Richard managed to escape to France, leaving behind his possessions; they were subsequently ransacked by the Parliamentary soldiers.
In the following year, Sir Richard and his son, also named Richard Grenville, made a desperate journey back to England in an attempt it seems to raise money from the Fitz estates.4 Sir Richard travelled in disguise, wearing a long periwig and dying his beard black, in an effort not to be captured by Cromwell’s men. The journey would end in tragedy, however, as the younger Richard Grenville was caught robbing passengers on the highway and Parliament had him executed as a highwayman at Tyburn.5
Sir Richard Grenville died in 1659, exiled in the Netherlands, cared for by his daughter Elizabeth. Impoverished and in ill health in the last years of his life, he still managed to exact some small revenge against his old enemy, the Earl of Suffolk. During the English Civil War, the Earl of Suffolk had sent some expensive tapestries and Turkish carpets, worth £27,000, as payment of a debt to a merchant in Holland. While the carpets were stored in Bruges, Sir Richard had them seized – as repayment, he declared, for monies the Earl of Suffolk’s family still owed him from 1640. Sir Richard travelled to Bruges, broke down the warehouse doors and took the lot.
Sir Richard was of course accused of theft, and the case dragged on for many years. At the time of his death, Sir Richard was still in possession of £27,000 worth of carpets that had once belonged to the Earl of Suffolk. It was a small, petty victory, typical of a man who had stolen so much from so many.6
* * *
All around Fitzford were impoverished tenements and still Mary Howard did nothing. When she died, the ghostly stories of Lady Howard of Tavistock began.
Mary Howard became the urban legend of the white lady, haunting the Dartmoor roads. It is said she also haunts the grounds at Walreddon, but her ride from Tavistock to Okehampton is how she is remembered. But it is a strange haunting, so unlike other stories of ghostly ‘white ladies’ who frequent those places where they have lost lovers or died waiting for their lovers to return. They are often seen in mourning, saddened by actions that should or should not have been taken. They are poignant stories of love and loss.
There is, they say, a ‘white lady’ in the ruins of Radford Park, once home to Mary Howard’s grandmother. This ‘white lady’ drowned in the lake there, having met on a boat with a female friend of a lower class, despite her family’s disapproval. And now she haunts the shores of Radford Lake, seeking out her friend, an expression of yearning and tragic death at such a young age. The traditional ‘white lady’ is an image of how love survives despite the tragedy of separation and death.
Lady Howard’s ride is of a different composition. She does not choose to haunt, nor appears to mourn her loss. She is no self-determined spirit refusing to leave until she has found her lover/ friend/ family. She is not depicted as a mournful lady making epic journeys to save the life of her lover. Instead, she is condemned to ride on a pointless journey night after night, on a never-ending mission, plucking grass from Okehampton Park. Her journey is an exercise in futility. The story could also be seen as symbolic of the seventeenth century itself – an arduous journey of pointless endeavour that takes the traveller back to where she started.
The story has of course been embellished over the years, now with a black devil dog and a headless driver, and hideous skulls decorating the coach. The most recent addition is peculiar to the twenty-first century. One witness said they saw a spectral figure in the coach with Mary: a pale, faceless phantom combing Mary’s hair. Perhaps this is her daughter, Elizabeth, finally reconciled. Perhaps this is just the wishful thinking of a new generation, hoping no one will have to make such a terrible journey alone.
Mary Howard, in fact, never rode from Tavistock to Okehampton in a coach – the Devon roads of the seventeenth century were too treacherous for coaches, and she never even owned such a vehicle. But still the legend persists.
In time, a rhyme was written, and recorded in the works of Sabine Baring-Gould, with verses added over the centuries. It is a rhyme full of bitterness. It has the tone of a jilted lover condemning the cause of his ruination to perpetual suffering. The pain is in the repetition, the cycle repeated over and over.
My ladye hath a sable coach,
And horses two and four;
My ladye hath a black blood-hound
That runneth on before.
My ladye’s coach hath nodding plumes,
The driver hath no head;
My ladye is an ashen white,
As one that long is dead.
‘Now pray step in!’ my ladye saith,
‘Now pray step in and ride.’
I thank thee, I had rather walk
Than gather to thy side.
The wheels go round without a sound,
Or tramp of turn of wheels;
As cloud at night, in pale moonlight,
Along the carriage steals.
‘Now pray step in!’ my ladye saith,
‘Now prithee come to me.’
She takes the baby from the crib,
She sits it on her knee.
‘Now pray step in!’ my ladye saith,
‘Now pray step in and ride.’
Then deadly pale, in waving veil,
She takes to her the bride.
‘Now pray step in!’ my ladye saith,
‘There’s room I wot for you.’
She wav’d her hand, the coach did stand,
The Squire within she drew.
‘Now pray step in!’ my ladye saith,
‘Why shouldst thou trudge afoot?’
She took the gaffer in by her,
His crutches in the boot.
I’d rather walk a hundred miles,
And run by night and day,
Than have that carriage halt for me
And hear my ladye say –
‘Now pray step in, and make no din,
Step in with me to ride;
There’s room, I trow, by me for you,
And all the world beside.’7
A gatehouse still stands where Mary Howard once lived. The big house is gone. Now it’s all cottages with chickens and such, and schoolrooms on the other side of the brook. If you go by the Plymouth road to Tavistock, you’ll see it, that gatehouse, hidden in plain sight. Wait there until midnight, and the lady herself will appear, pale as sour milk in her fine silk. Four times the bride, dead heart inside. Then comes her coach, which Satan himself has made for her – according to the legend – from the skin and bones of her last husband’s victims, crowned with their fiery skulls to light her way. Along the dark and winding road she rides, screaming past the old gaol at Lydford, then out across the moors to the blood-soaked walls of Okehampton Castle. Again and again, she makes that journey. Night after long night, while the ghosts of hanging men wait for her at Lydford gaol. Perhaps George Cutteford is still trapped there with them, still seeking justice, and waiting in the cold and dark for Mary Howard to come and find him and take him home.
If you see the white lady, beware she does not see you lingering on the road. For she will stop, the coach door fly open, and her withered hand reach out and beckon you to join her. ‘There’s room, I trow, by me for you, And all the world beside.’
Notes
1 Radford, 1890.
2 I have not endeavoured to research the Radford family tree, but it is interesting to note that George Cutteford’s daughter had two sons George and Robert Radford, and there are still Radfords, it seems, living in Whitchurch today.
3 Add Ms 18008-826, undated though circa 1660, held at West Sussex Record Office.
4 Radford, 1890, p 101, and Miller, 1979, p145 and 146. Miller gives quite a detailed account of Sir Richard’s journey to and through England, though no-one seems to be able to identify his reasons for the visit.
5 Miller, 1979, p. 145.
6 Miller, 1979, p. 159. Elizabeth, Sir Richard’s daughter, was caring for her father at the time of his death. After his death, she had the carpets and tapestries returned to their rightful owner. Sir Richard died on 22 October 1659, just as his nephew, Sir John Grenville, was negotiating for the return of the monarchy.
7 This version reproduced from Baring-Gould, 1908. There are many other excellent versions, including a traditional song.
Timeline
1538
Okehampton Castle destroyed by King Henry VIII, and Henry Courtenay beheaded for treason
1558
Queen Elizabeth I ascends to the throne
1576
Sir John Fitz, father to Mary, born
1582
William Cutteford writes his will
1588
King Philip II of Spain sends the Spanish Armada to invade England, only to be defeated by the English Navy under Sir Francis Drake
1590
Sir John Fitz’s father dies, and Sir Arthur Gorges becomes his guardian.
1595
John Fitz marries Bridget Courtenay and they move to Fitzford. Meanwhile, Richard Halse, agent to Bridget’s grandfather, Sir William Courtenay, moves into nearby Walreddon with his family
The Devil Comes to Dartmoor Page 18