Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts | Page 6

vigorous enemy without, but within the walls
the majority secretly, and some persons openly, sided with the enemy.
The most unceasing vigilance and unfaltering resolution were needed to
frustrate all plots and plans. One great danger was averted by a certain
John Newcomb, an ex-miner, who, suspicious of a possible peril,
watched diligently for its slightest sign. One day an anxious crowd
looked at him 'crawling about on the ground with a pan of water in his
hand. Every now and again he would listen attentively, with his ear in
the dust, and, rising, place the pan on the spot. At last he has it. Like
the beating of a pulse, the still water in the pan vibrates in harmony
with the stroke of the pickaxe far underneath, and the old miner rises
exultant.' A counter-mine was hurriedly made, and through a tiny
opening it was seen that barrels of gunpowder and pitch and piles of
faggots were heaped beneath the west gate. Fortunately, this gate stood
below the steep slope on which the city lies, and on discovering the
enemy's alarming preparations, every householder was ordered, at a
given signal, to empty a great tub of water into the kennel, and every
tap in the city was turned on. 'At which time also, by the Goodness of
God, there fell a great Shower, as the like, for the Time, had not been
seen many years before.' A tremendous torrent rushed down the streets,
and, being concentrated upon the mine, completely flooded it.
There is no place here to speak of the straits to which the citizens were
put before a sufficient number of troops reached Lord Russell to enable
him to march to the relief of the besieged. Nor is there room for an
account of the splendid resistance made by the rebels to the great force
pitted against them, which included a regiment of seasoned German
Lanzknechts and three hundred Italian musketeers, besides English
cavalry. 'Valiantly and stoutly they stood to their Tackle, and would not
give over as long as Life and Limb lasted ... and few or none were left
alive.... Such was the Valour and stoutness of these men that the Lord
Greie reported himself, that he never, in all the Wars that he had been
in, did know the like.'
In recognition of the loyalty shown by the citizens under this great trial,
Queen Elizabeth 'complimented the city with an augmentation of arms,'

and 'of her own free will added the well-known motto, Semper Fidelis.'
Encouraged by the Queen's protection, commerce increased and
prospered. Guilds had long flourished in Exeter, and it is recorded that
as early as 1477 there was a quarrel between the Mayor and citizens
and the Company of Taylors. A Guildhall existed even before there was
a Mayor of Exeter, but the present building dates from 1464. It has a
fine common hall, with a lofty, vaulted roof and much panelling, and
the panels are set with little shields, the arms of the Mayors, of various
companies, and certain benefactors to the city. Later was added the
cinque-cento front that projects over the footway, and has become so
essential a characteristic in the eyes of those who care for Exeter. This
front was built in 1593, and 'in its confusion of styles--English
windows between Italian columns--it has all the impress of that
transitional age.'
Many of the trades that throve in Exeter formed guilds, and in looking
casually at the names of a few of them, one finds that the bakers had
already a Master and Company in 1428-29, and that some years later
the charter of the Glovers and Skinners was renewed. In 1452 there was
a dispute as to whether the Cordwainers or Tuckers should take
precedence in the Mayor's procession, and later again the Guild of
Weavers, Sheremen, and Tuckers came still more prominently before
the public.
'Trafiquing' in wool and woollen goods was the most important trade,
and though its zenith was passed in the seventeenth century, it
continued to do well till the later half of the eighteenth. Defoe speaks of
the 'serge manufacture of Devonshire' as 'a trade too great to be
described in miniature,' and says he is told that at the weekly market
'sixty to seventy to eighty, and sometimes a hundred, thousand pounds'
value in serges is sometimes sold.' Probably the account given him was
a little exaggerated, but Lysons quotes the statement that in the most
prosperous days £50,000 or £60,000 worth of woollen goods had been
sold in a week. Many were the petitions sent up to Parliament in the
reign of William and Mary, begging protection for the local wool-trade,
and that competition from unhappy Ireland might be discouraged. The
great hall of the New Inn was used as