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The beautiful valley of the Axe lies in south-east Devonshire, about four miles west of Dorset. The red marl and brown and sterile summits of the green sand-hills mark the situation with unmistakable signs. A real Devonshire valley cannot be confounded with any other; nor can its climate. Mild in winter, when southern Italy has frost and snow, and when Greece is not to be traversed from the same causes, its curative influence at length begins to be appreciated.
page ix note * See the Pictorial History of England, vol. III. p. 330, for statements of profits derived from East India voyages of 150 and 200 per cent.
page x note * The mansion at Axminster was on the eastern side of the market-place, and afterwards became an inn, with the sign of the Dolphin. It has been taken down, and several buildings now occupy its site. Yonge's aisle in the church was constructed by that family about the year 1500, when they resided at Axminster. Several members of it lie buried in the vaults beneath.
page xi note * By the following entry in the book of burials of Colyton Church made by the Puritan minister, we not only learn the state of health of this knight, but the practice of keeping Lent during the commonwealth, and the form of licence used when a departure from the custom was rendered necessary.
“Having been certified by two approved physicians of the necessity of Sir John Yonge's eating flesh, upon which having granted him a former licence (so far as in me was), the same distemper still continuing, as is certified by one of the said physicians, and Sir John Yonge's having the same, I do (as much as in me is) give the said Sir John Yonge licence to eat flesh during the said necessity. In witness whereof, I have subscribed my name the 9th of March, 1660.
“Jno. Wilkins, Vicar.
“John yonger sone of John Wilkins, one of ye Churchwardens.”
page xi note † It is a vulgar error that seats in Parliament were not much sought after in the reigns of James I. and Charles I. See a letter of the Earl of Salisbury to Roger Kirkliam. Lodge's Illustrations of History, vol. III. p. 299.
page xiii note * The mansion house in Colyton, a part of which still remains, and is called the “Great House,” was conveyed by the last baronet to Sir John de la Pole, Bart, of Shute House, in exchange for lands in Tallaton.
page xiv note * Constables made such characters the subject of their presentments at the Court Leets. A furious, passionate man ran a risk of being described, like Nicholas Hassard, by the constables as, Periculosum et irregulatum et pronum homines ad eos ledend' et nocend'. These officers were generally pithy in their entries, e. g. “John Chippy killing Henry Seymour,” “Williams killing a soldier,” “John Way drawing blood of a stranger.” Two men had fought respectively “with sword and staff, and intended to prosecute their lewd purpose.”
page xv note * See Grutch's Collectanea Curiosa.
page xvi note * See Grutch's Collectanea Curiosa.
Of double fatal yew against thy state;
Yea distaff women manage rusty hills,—Shakspeare's Richard III.
page xvii note * John Gosse, weaver, an archer, who had no weapon, mustered with one other archer in 1590, having bows and arrows.
page xx note * In 1617, a proclamation strictly commanded all noblemen, knights, and gentlemen who had mansion-houses in the country to depart within twenty days with their wives and families out of the city and suburbs of London, and to return to their several habitations in the country, “to perform the duties and charge of their several places and service; and likewise by housekeeping to be a comfort unto their neighbours, in order to renew and revive the laudable custom of hospitality in their respective countries.” None were to be allowed to remain except those having urgent business, to be signified to and approved by the Privy Council. King James in a speech at the Star Chamber referred to the “swarms of gentry that through the instigation of their wives or to new model and fashion their daughters (who if they ware unmarried, marred their marriages, if married, lost their reputations and robbed their husbands' purses) did neglect their country hospitality, and cumbered the city, a general nuisance to the kingdom, being as the spleen to the body, which as in measure it overgrows the body wastes.”
page xxiii note * Nugse Antique.
page xxvi note * See his Life in the History of Lyme.
page xxviii note * Ash House is supposed to have been principally constructed from the materials of Newenham Abbey, between it and Axminster. It was burnt down during the civil wars.
