Exeter's Myths and Manuscripts of the 1500s

Todd began his talk by showing the covers of four of Mark Stoyle's books and said that they had shared interests and similar outlooks. He asked the question ‘Why does Exeter have so many Elizabethan myths?’

Perhaps the country's most widespread myth concerned Lord Haw Haw who, it was said during the Second World War, had family in many dozens of villages, towns and cities across the country. This was said in Exeter as well but in comparison, the city’s principal myths were of the late 1500s.

He then outlined several of them.

It was claimed in the 1660s that in an earlier letter Queen Elizabeth I gave the motto Semper Fidelis to Exeter. He showed images of the Crown Jewels, the Plymouth Fountain and the Exeter Salt. It was at this time that the Salt was purchased by the city to butter up Charles II. It has towers which can be removed so that salt and other condiments can be added. The Council were prepared to spend up to £600 but in the event cost £700 and Exeter had to mortgage land to pay for it but as a result Exeter got its Charter back. Todd showed an image of Roque’s map with the city motto with its two horses (who were comically renamed Scamper and Phyllis in the 1800s). But was there ever such a letter or was this a fabrication?

In 2005, for an exhibition at the Guildhall, Todd had petitioned Queen Elizabeth II through the Lord Mayor's office to ask for permission to bring the Exeter Salt to Exeter to display at the exhibition. No piece of the Crown Plate or Jewels had ever been lent but the late Queen agreed to the request in a matter of a few weeks. The Exeter Salt was brought to Exeter with ‘disguised’ security for two weeks.

Todd looked at other legends to do with Exeter and why there are so many myths.

One of the most enduring myths concerning the 1500s originated with Karl Cherry who came to Exeter in the early 1900s and invented a story that Francis Drake and others frequented the Ship Inn in Martin’s Lane in 1587. His claim was challenged by Ethel Lega-Weeks who, like everyone else interested in Exeter’s history, had never heard of any written evidence to substantiate this claim. It is now apparent that this claim was a complete fabrication but that hasn’t stopped the myth being perpetuated since then.

Another myth concerns Mol's Coffee House which bears a date of 1596 and was commonly said to have been where that year Sir Frances Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh met to drink coffee to plan the attack on the Armada. The fact that the Armada took place in 1588, that Drake was dead in 1596, Raleigh was in prison and coffee took several generations to arrive in Britain has done nothing to alter the legend which has been perpetuated ever since in newspaper articles. Mol’s was actually the location of Exeter’s first Custom House and Todd showed an image of the leases held at the Cathedral Archives. The tale originated with an owner of the building in the 1800s who suggested that it was possible to imagine this having happened.

Similar Elizabethan myths can be found across Devon. The roof of Blundell's School was once believed to have been made from the timbers of wrecked Armada ships, Boringdon outside Plymouth periodically claims that Elizabeth I knighted Drake in a bedroom and Langdon Court promoted itself as a building once visited by Elizabeth 1 and her father Henry 8, despite neither of them having travelled to Devon. Some 40 years ago a new myth was invented in Totnes when it was claimed that Sir Francis Drake once rolled oranges down Fore Street. Perhaps the silliest myth is that of the colony of Armada cats that in the 1800s were said to have colonised Falmouth – the tale was that they swam to the Cornish shore from wrecked Spanish ships. Another enduring myth is that Cornwall is populated by dark-haired and dark-skinned men and women who survived the wrecking of Armada ships in Cornwall (despite no such ships having crashed onto the Cornish shore).

Perhaps the most famous myth is that Cornwall invented the pasty, despite evidence showing they were being baked in villages and towns across the country hundreds of years before any documentary reference survives for their being made in Cornwall.

We are also fixated on the supposed division about the Devon or Cornish way to cover scones with cream and jam. We argue about which is correct — Cornwall with jam first and cream on top, and Devon with cream first and jam on top. No evidence has been found that there was such a split but what is more relevant to the argument is that scones are a modern introduction and that both counties had small white sweet rolls which had a variety of local names across the region.

Many of our Elizabethan myths originated in the Victorian and Edwardian enthusiasm for the British Empire and because of the part the Sea Dogs played in colonisation. The modern aversion to imperialism has seen a drop of public interest in Sir John Hawkins and Drake. Raleigh is more popular. But what of Drake’s ties to Exeter?

We are fortunate in that Exeter has the most complete civic records outside of London, thanks to John Hooker in the late 1500s. The records were stored upstairs in the Guildhall until the 1980s when they were transferred to the Devon Record Office. In comparison, Plymouth is much poorer for manuscripts and other boroughs have a mixed survival rate.

John Hooker composed a chronicle of Exeter up to the end of the 1500s and he made no mention of Drake visiting the city. No letter from Queen Elizabeth about the motto can be found nor did the city council mention it in any form. We learn much from the records, including the importance of cloth trade and the workings of local government, but there is silence regarding confirmation about the tales of not just the motto but of Mol’s Coffee House and the Ship Inn. Todd read out different entries from The Chronicle of Exeter 1205-1722 where Hooker described events and personalities. He gave us biographies of the city’s leading men; we have sharp assessments of their personalities.

And yet few researchers now work on Exeter's civic records and it is increasingly difficult to research in Devon. There are few full-time archivists in our record offices, most of our curators in the county’s museums are full time and there are few trained librarians in the county library service. Young researchers do not have the advantages that researchers had until austerity happened.

It is harder for them to challenge those myths, which can be more popular than history written from evidence. One of our most popular television programmes has been Bridgerton where black British men and women were depicted as aristocrats and the millions of black men and women in slavery were overlooked. This history is largely unchallenged.

Todd spoke about recent projects in which he confronted myths on looting during the Second War, enslavement in Africa, the impact of imperialism on Exeter and the central place that the golly found in British society. Each is difficult partly because such history asks the reader to consider a different history. There are few younger historians to continue such research.

Todd showed images of books which are banned in parts of America — The Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men — and expressed the hope that this does not come to the UK. He finished by sharing concerns that the ability to challenge historical myths has underpinned British scholarship for generations but the political situation in America suggests freedom of speech and debate may not now be considered a given right.

[With grateful thanks to Todd for turning inadequate notes into a coherent account of his talk. Sue Jackson]