Barnstaple and John Delbridge

by Lauren Gilbert

A view of Barnstaple and its setting at low tide

Some years ago, I surprised my husband with a fishing trip in northwest Devon. We got off the train in Umberleigh, checked into a delightful hotel (with an equally delightful pub), and discovered...there was no fishing due to an unprecedented heat wave. Nothing daunted, we proceeded to explore the area. At dusk one evening, we witnessed the water rushing into a river at high tide, followed by a family of wild swans. The next day, we hopped back on the train and went on to Barnstaple. It was a fascinating town which we enjoyed exploring. My current work in process includes a gentleman who inherits a small estate in the vicinity of Barnstaple, so I decided to read up on its history.

Afred the Great

Barnstaple is what may be the oldest borough in England. The town was known in the 900’s, a typical Saxon stronghold. Known to the Romans as “Tunge abertawe” and to the Saxons as “Beardenstaple,” it was referred to as “Barum”, the Latin contraction, in documents of the era. It was created a burg (borough) by King Alfred. A mint was established, possibly by King Athelstan who also supposedly granted a charter with rights to hold a market and fair (If there were a charter, it has been lost-a charter dated 930 was proven a forgery and no other has ever been found). The earliest known coin was minted during King Eadwig’s reign (between 955-59). The mint was not a particularly active and ceased production in the 13th century.

King Athelstan I

It fell to the Normans about 1068, and the fall is discussed in the Domesday Book. It is believed that an original castle was built by King Athelstan, and strengthened after the Conquest. This may be the site of the known castle, built in wood in the 11th century by Geoffrey de Mowbray, Bishop of Coutances. Stone walls were erected subsequently, probably by Henry de Tracey. By 1326, castle was a ruin; only the motte remains as a mound. It was the only port in the southwest of England, and by 1290, an important trade center located on River Taw; trading with Europe, Ireland and New World. Imports included tobacco, wine, spices. Barnstaple was licensed to export wool from the 14th century and was a member of the early merchant Guild of St Nicholas. Exports included woolen material and pottery.

Other industries included lace making, fishing, and ship building. Barnstaple was the 3rd richest town in Devon in the 14th century (behind Exeter and Plymouth). Its importance as a port grew during the 14th to 16th centuries, and the city was represented in the Naval Council. There was a petition to Mary I to build a quay and merchants' exchange on the river in 1555. Barnstaple was a “privileged port” as a member of the Spanish Company (authorized to trade in Spain and Portugal) in 1577. There were 12 merchants in Barnstaple listed in the charter.

Trade with America was also very important in the 16th and 17th centuries. Barnstaple had a rather exciting military past as well. In 1588, 3-5 outfitted ships, manned by locals, sailed to join Sir Francis Drake to help defend against Spanish Armada. In 1642, when the English Civil War erupted, Barnstaple was originally pro-Parliamentarian, but changed sides four times. Seriously damaged after the war, the city eventually resumed its normal business and trading activities.

Queen Anne's Walk

Queen Anne’s Walk was built in 1708 (a rebuilding of the original Merchants' Walk built in Tudor times) and completed in 1713, as a merchant exchange on the river with its own quay for loading and unloading ships. A statue of Queen Anne was placed on the colonnade. In the 18th Century, the wool trade ended and Barnstaple began to import Irish wool which was sent on for manufacture. The harbour silted up (a process which began as early as the 17th century) and trade gradually moved to Bideford although there was local shipping (agricultural) until the 20th century. However, the town still maintained its importance as a market town. It has been represented in Parliament continuously since 1295 (it had 2 representatives until 1885 when representation was reduced to one member). It remains an important business and shopping site and the main town in North Devon.

Delbridge Arms

A name that recurred in the history of the town during the 16th century was John Delbridge. Who was John Delbridge? He was born in Barnstaple. His exact date of birth is unknown; however, he was baptized July 9, 1564. John was the 2nd son of Richard Delbridge, a merchant of Barnstaple, and his wife Alice. 

John was a Puritan, and was educated at Emmanuel College Cambridge (he enrolled July 3, 1604 as a paying student or commoner, not as a scholar), and later entered the Middle Temple in London May 10, 1606. He was married to Agnes Downe of Barnstable on January 10th, 1585. Agnes was the niece of Bishop Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury. They had five sons and three daughters, but only one son and daughter survived John. He became a successful cloth merchant, importing and exporting goods by 1591. He was involved in the Newfoundland fishing trade and was a member of the East India Company (1611-21), the French Company (1611), the Virginia. Company (from 1612 to at least 1623), the North West Passage Company (1612), and the Somers Island Company (from 1615 to at least 1622). He was also a member of the Council for Virginia (1621). Clearly, he was a man of great influence with fingers in many pies.

John was involved in the American colonies, including providing passage for colonists to Virginia and Bermuda. His ship The Swan took 70 new settlers to Virginia in 1620 and all survived the voyage (he was apparently known for well supplied ships, and few deaths). He was an active trader particularly in imported tobacco. Clearly successful, John acquired property in Virginia as well as in England. He owned a house in Barnstaple and by 1632 had an estate at West Buckland (a manor which included an advowson (right to appoint a clergyman to serve that area)) about eight miles from Barnstaple. He also had an estate at Bishop’s Tawton. John became active in politics. His political career includes: working under Robert Cecil (Elizabeth I’s chief minister) in 1602-1606 (dates approximate); serving as Mayor of Barnstaple three times (1600-1, 1615-16, 1633-4). He was elected Member of Parliament for Barnstaple six times (elections in 1614, 1621, 1624, 1625, 1626 and 1628), in which capacity he served on various committees (with his known expertise in trade matters) and was very vocal on a wide range of bills at least occasionally in open defiance of the king’s wishes. (He served with Pentecost Dodderidge, a fellow merchant, at least three times, and Alexander St. John, Knight as well).

Agnes died in May of 1639, and was buried May 15th of 1639. John made his will on May 27th and died June 24, 1639 at his home at Bishop's Tawton, leaving the bulk of his estate to his surviving son Richard, with bequests to other relatives and to the poor. 

Unrest was brewing, leading to the Civil War which erupted in 1642. The events involving the war and its aftermath left John Delbridge in obscurity. I couldn't help but wonder if his Puritan faith and service in Parliament steered the loyalty of his city to the Parliamentary side of the conflict, at least at the start.

This is not by any means a comprehensive history of Barnstaple or of John Delbridge; it does, however, serve to tickle one's fancy to look further into that fascinating town and its people.

Sources:

Holton, Denise and Hammett, Elizabeth. BARNSTAPLE THROUGH TIME. Stroud: Amberley Publishing, 2013. (Kindle Version); SECRET BARNSTAPLE. Stroud: Amberley Publishing, 2015. (Kindle Version)

The History of Parliament on-line. “Delbridge, John (1564-1639) of Barnstaple and Bishop’s Tawton, Devon.” HERE

GoogleBooks. Willis, Browne. NOTITIA PARLIAMENTARIA: Or A History of the Counties, Cities and Boroughs in England and Wales. 2nd Edition with Annotations. London: Robert Gosling, 1730. HERE ; Tudor and Stuart Devon: The Common Estate and Government : Essays Presented to Joyce Youngs. Edited by Todd Gray, Margery M. Rowe, and Audrey M. Erskine. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1992. HERE

Barnstaple Town Centre on-line. “History.” HERE

A Vision of Britain. “Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for Barnstaple” by John Marious Wilson in IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF ENGLAND AND WALES (1870-72). HERE

Cambridge Alumni Database. “Delbridge, John.” HERE

View of Barnstaple taken by Lauren Gilbert (c) Lauren Gilbert

Images from Wikimedia Commons

Alfred the Great HERE

Athelstan HERE

Queen Anne's Walk HERE

Delbridge Arms HERE

~~~~~~~~~~
Lauren Gilbert, author of HEYERWOOD: A Novel, is working on her second novel set in Regency England, A RATIONAL ATTACHMENT. She lives in Florida with her husband. Please visit her website HERE.

Sir Francis Drake, the Hellburners of Holland, and the Sea of Horses

What defeated the Spanish Armada? Well, the English navy, of course, and Lord Howard, Francis Drake, John Hawkins. They sailed out of Plymouth in their gallant little ships and harried the Spanish galleons all along the Channel from the Lizard to Calais until the Spaniards had had enough. It was a great naval victory.

Well, yes, up to a point. The English ships – many of which were as big or even bigger than the Spanish – did all of that. It was a continuous naval battle lasting – with intervals – over a week. There was lots of cannon fire – particularly from the English, who probably fired about three times as many cannon balls as the Spanish. It was a major naval battle – 150 ships in the Spanish fleet, about the same in the English.

But – here’s a strange thing. Despite all those guns, and all those cannon balls, not a single ship was sunk by enemy fire on either side. Not one. Because naval gunnery simply wasn’t good enough.  And anyway, wooden ships were notoriously difficult to sink. Even in the battle of Trafalgar, when naval cannons were much more powerful, most ships were dismasted and battered into hulks, rather than being actually sunk.

So in 1588, the Armada made it all the way along the English Channel to Calais, battered, but unbeaten. The English ships were a nuisance, but the mighty Spanish fleet was still as much of a threat as it had been a week earlier. More so, in fact, because it was very close to achieving its first objective.

It’s important to understand that the Armada itself wasn’t an invasion fleet. Even though it had lots of soldiers and horses on board (more about those later) the Armada’s job was to act as an escort for another Spanish army, led by the duke of Parma, which was in Holland. Parma’s men (and horses) were supposed to cross the Channel on flat-bottomed barges, while the galleons of the Spanish Armada protected them from the English navy. The same plan that Napoleon and Hitler tried to use later.

So why did it fail?   Well, that’s where the secret weapon comes in - the terrible Hellburners of Holland. These were really scarey – the nuclear weapons of the sixteenth century. They had first appeared in 1585, at the siege of Antwerp. The Spanish army had blocked access to the city with an 800 metre long bridge made of ships tied together across the river. The Dutch needed to break this blockade, or they would starve. So on the night of 4th-5th April 1585 they sent a fleet of 32 fireships floating downstream towards the bridge. The Spanish soldiers laughed. They didn’t think it would work.

But two of these fireships, the Fortuyn and the Hoop, were different. An Italian engineer, Federigo Giambelli, had made them into bombs. Inside each ship he had built an oblong chamber with a brick floor, walls five feet thick, and a roof made of lead with tombstones piled on top. He filled each chamber with 7000 pounds of high quality gunpowder. Then he fitted a delayed action clockwork fuse, and covered the chamber with a wooden deck so the ship looked normal.

The first ship, Fortuyn, ran aground before it reached the bridge, but the Hoop crunched straight into it. Then it exploded. All that gunpowder confined in a chamber produced a COLOSSAL explosion. According to the historian John Lothrop

            ‘The Hoop disappeared, together with the men (Spanish soldiers) who had boarded her, and the blockhouse, against which she had struck, with all its garrison, while a large portion of the bridge, with all the troops stationed on it, had vanished into air. It was the work of a single instant. The Scheldt yawned to its lowest depth, and then cast its waters across the dykes … and far across the land. The earth shook as with the throb of a volcano … Houses were toppled down miles away and not a living thing … could keep its feet. The air was filled with a rain of ploughshares, grave-stones, and marble balls, intermixed with the heads, limbs and bodies of what had been human beings. Slabs of granite, vomited by the flaming ship, were found afterwards at league’s distance, buried deep in the earth. A thousand soldiers were destroyed in a second of time; many of them were torn to shreds, beyond even the semblance of humanity.’

What has this got to do with the Armada? Well, three years later, when the Spanish Armada was anchored off Calais, waiting for the Duke of Parma’s army, the English admiral, Lord Howard, sent a fleet of 8 fireships floating towards them. This was a fairly desperate measure, after a week of inconclusive bombardment. Probably he hoped to set some Spanish ships on fire. But if he did, he was about to be disappointed.

Disappointed, because not a single Spanish ship was set on fire. The English fireships drifted harmlessly through the Spanish fleet, and burnt themselves out on the shore. All of them. So Howard had just wasted 8 of his own ships.

But he probably didn’t care – in fact he must have been delighted with the result. Because what the fireships did cause was chaos, and total, utter panic. The Spanish captains cut their cables, sailed into each other, crashed their ships on the shore, or fled out to sea. The next day there was a major battle off Gravelines, which scattered them further. Despite all the Spanish admiral’s appeals, the Armada never assembled as a disciplined force again. They gave up the idea of waiting for the Duke of Parma’s invasion force, and fled into the North Sea, losing touch with each other, and each surviving ship began its long desperate journey north, around Scotland and Ireland to their Spanish home. Lord Howard had finally won the victory which had eluded him for so long.

But what caused it? Why did the Spanish captains – all experienced seamen – panic like that? Why not just dodge the fireships and laugh at the English for wasting their own ships? Well, the answer lies in the Hellburners. Everyone had heard the horror story of the Siege of Antwerp, and the Italian engineer, Giambelli, was known to be working for Queen Elizabeth. So when the Spanish sailors saw those fireships bearing down on them, they thought they were looking at weapons of mass destruction. They were about to be vaporized.

It was a mistake, because none of the fireships were hellburners. The English navy had almost run out of gunpowder; they couldn’t have made one even if they’d wanted. But the Spanish didn’t know that. So they panicked and fled.

And the sea of horses? That’s a really sad story. Many of the Spanish ships didn’t just have men on board, they had horses too, for their officers to ride when they landed in England. But on the long journey home, they didn’t need the horses. Everyone on board was starving, and short of water. So …

A week or two after this battle, the skipper of a Hansa merchant vessel reported a strange, terrible sight. He’d sailed through an empty sea, he said, but everywhere he looked, it was alive with horses and mules, swimming desperately for their lives.

Tim Vicary writes historical novels and legal thrillers. You can read about them on his website and blog.

All images from Wikimedia commons

'El Camino Real' - A Path Worn Through Time

by Jenny Barden

This picture sums up what is left of el Camino Real: stones disappearing into the undergrowth, lost in darkness, veiled by forest mist. Very little remains, but what does conjures up the shadows of the pack trains that used to traverse this vital road across Panama, bringing bullion from the mines of South America from the Pacific side of the isthmus to the Caribbean by the quickest overland route. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, el Camino Real, 'the Royal Road', bore the riches that helped sustain the might of the Spanish Empire and its domination in Europe. It stretched from the city of Panama in the south, across mountains and through rainforest, to Nombre de Dios in the north. Over the stones once laid by some 4000 native slaves under the command of Gaspar de Espinosa in 1517-9, pack trains in convoys, often of two or three together totalling some 200 mules or more, would walk, plod, climb and struggle over this path until their hooves wore hollows that can still be seen in places today.

The road was never easy. It was only just over sixty miles in length, yet it passed through thick forest and vegetation that proliferated so rapidly the road was in constant need of repair. In the rainy season it became impassable because of the many rivers that had to be forded which turned into torrents once swollen by tropical storms, and even without rain (as I know only too well from experience) the high humidity would soon leave the clothes of any traveller completely saturated. Those who took the Royal Road had to contend with mosquitoes that carried malaria and yellow fever, and up in the mountains, where drops were precipitous, when a mule lost its footing it would be gone for ever. There were other dangers too: the risk of ambush by Cimaroons - bands of runaway African slaves - and towards the end of the sixteenth century there was the very real threat of pirate attack.

Chris Haslam noted some of the hazards in his article 'The World's Wildest Walk' for the Sunday Times*: 'Some 300ft below, the Nombre de Dios river roars through unseen cataracts, a constant reminder of where you end up if you fall. And falling is a constant possibility. The problem is that if you slip, you need to grab something to stop you falling, and if you grab something it will either bite you, spike you or try to tear your hand off. Scorpions, tarantulas and lethal bullet ants lurk in the leaf litter. Deadly eyelash vipers and enormous fer-de-lances lie disguised as branches and roots, and even the flora threatens armed response. Thorns, hooks and barbs shred clothes and skin, causing wounds that go septic in hours, and peaceful looking leaves cause cruel and unusual burns. It's hard enough hauling a rucksack around here: imagine driving a stolen mule train.'

Francis Drake was the first Englishman to realise the vulnerability of the Spanish bullion supply while it was in transit over the Royal Road, and after several raids along the coast and attacks on shipping for little gain, many setbacks and a thwarted attempt to ambush the 'Silver Train' (as the bullion pack trains were called), he finally achieved a remarkable victory in April 1573 by capturing a convoy carrying almost 30 tons in silver and over half a ton in gold.**

This was Drake's first great enterprise: the triumph that began his meteoric rise to fame, fortune and a place in English history books.

After that attack, the Spanish began to store their treasure at Puerto Bello to the west of Nombre de Dios. (Drake later died of dysentery near Puerto Bello after a failed expedition to raid the City of Panama; he is buried at sea in the bay)
                                                                       
                                                                                 

The Camino Real and its offshoot connecting the Chagres river with the City of Panama: el Camino a Cruces (part of which still survives as Las Cruces Trail) continued to be used to carry bullion north and merchandise south for another two hundred years. In 1671 the buccaneer Henry Morgan used Las Cruces trail to reach the old city of Panama which he then looted and burned to the ground, and in the nineteenth century prospectors used the trail to cross the isthmus on their way to join the gold rush in California. The trail finally came to an end with the construction of the Panama Railroad in 1855. The railway reduced the time needed to cross the isthmus from a minimum of three days, and sometimes several weeks, to only an hour.

With the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 most of the old road was lost forever, flooded by the damming of the Chagres to form Lake Gatun and by the Madden Dam behind which Lake Alajuela now covers a large part of the old trail. The development of Panama City as a metropolis has obliterated much more, and the forest and rivers have swallowed up the rest. There are only a few traces left of the highway that once played such an important part in the history of world affairs, but here is one: the Puente del Matadero in Panama la Vieja - the bridge over which Camino a Cruces began.

If you look under this bridge, you can see the channels worn in the stones by the rush of the tide over nearly five hundred years.


There's a very good website about the Camino Real here: http://www.bruceruiz.net/PanamaHistory/el_camino_real.htm

Michael Turner of the Drake Exploration Society describes the route Drake took to reach both the failed ambush and his successful attack near Nombre de Dios in his book In Drake's Wake: the early Voyages. I gather he's planning another route march across the isthmus this coming February...

My debut novel, Mistress of the Sea, is set against the backdrop of Drake's attack on the Silver Train along the Camino Real. The book will be published by Ebury Press and launched this Thursday, 30 August 2012. It will be released first in hardback with the paperback to follow.

The book is available for pre-order here: http://amzn.to/PUavyS


** There's a piece about how Drake and his men got away with the haul on the EHFA site here: 'Carrying Away the Booty' - Drake's attack on the Spanish 'Silver Train'


* Chris Haslam's article appeared in the Sunday Times 03.09.2006

All pictures taken by the author. Map drawn by the author. ©JennyBarden

'Carrying Away the Booty' - Drake's attack on the Spanish 'Silver Train'

by Jenny Barden

In April 1573 Francis Drake attacked the Spanish 'Silver Train' near Nombre de Dios in Panama; this was the mule train loaded with bullion from Peru en route to King Philip II's treasury in Spain. The attack was a success, a triumph after almost a year of failed attempts in an enterprise that had been beset by disease and misfortune, including the loss of Drake's two younger brothers and over a third of his crew. With the exception of the fatal wounding of Drake's ally, the Huguenot Captain Le Testu, Drake suffered very few casualties and the Spanish put up little resistance. Effectively they ran away, leaving Drake and his motley band of pirates, black runaway slaves (the Cimaroons), and French privateers in possession of the equivalent in gold and silver of about a fifth of Elizabeth I's annual revenue.(*1)

El Camino Real - the Royal Road 

But what to do with so much bullion? This is where the story of Drake's first great enterprise becomes particularly fascinating because he was left with so great a weight in treasure that he and his men could not carry it all away. Historians continue to debate over exactly how much was involved. In Sir Francis Drake Revived, the best English account of the raid (one which Drake presented to Queen Elizabeth in 1593), the weight of silver seized is stated to have been 'near thirty tons'. There were 190 mules in total each carrying the standard load of 300 pounds. But the mules were also carrying much more valuable gold which the Spanish, smarting from the humiliation of the raid and no doubt wishing to play down the loss, put at 'more than 100,000 pesos' including 18,363 pesos of fine gold from Popayan 'consigned to your majesty.'(*2) This weight in gold alone would have been close to half a ton and most of it would have been in the form of unminted gold discs or 'quoits'.

Spanish gold 'quoit'

Drake had fifteen men with him on the raid, including twenty French corsairs and maybe forty Cimaroons. They had attacked the Silver Train about two miles from Nombre de Dios along the Camino Real - the 'Royal Road' by which Spanish bullion was carried from the Pacific to the Caribbean - and their boats had been left 'seven leagues' away at the Rio Francisco (probably the modern-day Rio Cuango twelve miles to the east). Michael Turner of the Drake Exploration Society has done some excellent research in retracing the route they would probably have taken and calculates that the most they could have carried was sixty pounds each.(*3) So of the thirty tons of treasure, Drake's men could only have taken away just over two tons - and they had to march through a storm that night. Imagine what those men must have gone through, burdened with as much as they could possibly carry, sure that the Spanish soldiers from Nombre de Dios would be in hot pursuit, scrambling along a difficult trail, through thick rainforest known only to the Cimaroons, in the dark, lashed by a tropical storm and without any sleep. Then when they arrived back at the Rio Francisco they discovered that the boats which should have been waiting to take them to safety were nowhere to be seen.

San Blas island shore

With typical undaunted panache, Drake improvised a raft out of driftwood left by the storm, with a biscuit sack for a sail, and set off by sea for his ships moored at a hideout in the Cativas (the modern-day San Blas islands), only to come across the pinnaces intended for the getaway at the mainland point (Punta San Blas). The boats had been driven back by the storm, but that night they returned for the rest of Drake's men and the bulk of the booty. What happened to most of the silver which they had been unable to carry? In desperate haste, in the immediate aftermath of the raid, all the treasure that could not be carried had been buried under fallen trees, in the sand and gravel of the shallow islands of the Rio Nombre de Dios, and in the burrows of giant land crabs. A vast number of silver bars, each weighing between 35 and 40 pounds, were simply popped into crab holes. A few days later, a small party of Drake's men returned to the scene of the ambush intent on retrieving this treasure, but they only recovered thirteen bars of silver and a few quoits of gold. The Spanish had found and decapitated Captain Le Testu then tortured one of the two Frenchmen left with him into revealing where the bullion had been hidden. According to the Spanish, all the buried treasure was recovered, but plainly Drake's men were able to find some that they had missed. Perhaps there is more still waiting to be unearthed...


The story of Drake's first great enterprise forms the backdrop to Mistress of the Sea due to be released on 30 August in hardback with the paperback to follow

The book is available for pre-order here: http://amzn.to/PUavyS

'Beautifully written and researched, this tale of desire, revenge, piracy and valour is so evocative we can taste salt on our skin and hear the swoop of sails overhead as we're swept up into a high-stakes adventure unlike any we've read before.' - C.W. Gortner, author of The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

 
References:
*1 John Sugden Sir Francis Drake Pimlico (2006) Ch 6 p 73
*2 Report of the Royal Officials of Panama to the Crown 9 May 1573
*3 Michael Turner In Drake's Wake Paul Mould (2005) Ch5 p150