The Devon Carys

family of that ilk, and died on "Sunday, the feast of S. Tecla the Virgin," 1437,1 leaving a son and heir who was to achieve the second attainder

in the family.

"William Drygman, aet. 45, &c., for that his daughter Margaret was married to John Hesill the same day.

"John More, Junior, aet. 43, saw Joan Ermute, the godmother, give 6s. 8d., &c.

"William Seller, aet. 50, that there was a heavy storm of wind that day and that the people of Lodford had much injury done to their houses thereby.

"Henry Buryman, aet. 44, carried basin with lavacrum from Lodford manor to the church that day.

"Thomas Lylbere, aet. 42, that his wife was asked to be wet nurse to the said Cristina.

"Hugh Buryman, aet. 60, remembers, &c., for that in that year many men died.

"William Lake, aet. 49, remembers, &c., for that on that day his wife brought forth a son Robert, who immediately after his baptism on that day died.

"Richard Bury professed on that day in the order of friars in the conventual house of friars at Exeter.

"Richard Rowden, aet. 46, fell from his horse and broke his right arm, &c.

"John Wothuel, aet. 40, a great tempest at sea on that day, when his ship, the Katherine, sunk, and all was lost except the men."

We have a final glimpse of Cristina Cary living at Cockington as a widow in October, 1437. (Inq. p.m., 16 Hen. VI (1437), c. 53.) According to the Visitation of 1620, she married one James Portman for her second husband. For the various branches of the Orchard family see Collinson, Somerset, iii, 274, 488.

1 Ing. p.m., 16 Hen. VI, c. 53. In the Visitation of 1620 he is entered as "Sir Philip Cary, Knight," but this is not borne out by the record of the inquisition on his death, which describes him simply as armiger.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE LIEGEMAN OF THE RED ROSE

SIR WILLIAM CARY of Cockington (1437-1471), son of Philip Cary, is the first of his family who has left exact evidence of the date of his birth, and for good measure there are three proofs that he was born on August 12, 1437.1 The next surviving records of him are among the Tor Abbey muniments in the account rolls, from Michaelmas 26 to Michaelmas 28, Henry VI (14471449), of Thomas Glanvyle, bailiff "durante minore etate," of William Cary's manors of Northlew and Halghewile. On September 20, 1457, the year before he comes of age, he charged an annuity of 20 shillings upon East Holway.

At some time prior to his majority he married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Paulet of Hinton St. George, co. Somerset, and there at his maternal grandfather's house his eldest son was born. His wife may have died in childbirth, but at all events she was dead in 1458, when it

1 Ing. p.m., 16 Hen. VI (1438), c. 53, on the death of his father; 27 Hen. VI (1448), c. 23, on the death of his grandfather's widow; and 35 Hen. VI (1458), c. 30, when he himself came of age.

appears that William Cary had already married his second wife Alice,1 daughter of Sir Baldwin

1 Sir William Cary's two marriages. There is no positive evidence of the dates of these marriages. There is extant a deed (Cal. Tor Abbey Mun., H. & G., v, 16) dated October 20, 1458, by which William Cary, within three months after coming of age, grants his manor of Cary and certain other lands to Sir William Paulet and others, followed by a re-grant to William Cary and Alice, his wife. This re-grant is witnessed by Sir Baldwin Fulford, who was Alice's father, and was doubtless a marriage settlement. Because of the fact that William Cary, later, on July 16, 1464, enfeoffed Sir William Paulet and eight other trustees with all his Devonshire and Cornish property (Cal. Tor Abbey Mun., H. & G., v, 16), it has been claimed that Alice Fulford was William Cary's first wife and Elizabeth Paulet his second: the argument being that the deed of July 16, 1464, must have been Elizabeth's marriage settlement. On the other hand, the Visitation of 1620 and that of 1564 both clearly assert that Elizabeth Paulet was the first wife. The question has a certain interest even in the twentieth century, as the Carys of Tor Abbey and Follaton are descended from Elizabeth Paulet, and the Carys, Lords Falkland, are descended from Alice Fulford: which is the head or "principal branch" of Cary of Devon depends upon the order of marriage of William Cary's two wives. In 1907 the question was submitted to Mr. Ashworth P. Burke, the editor of Peerage, who held: "After reading the evidence cited, I confess I agree with the accepted version that Anne (sic) Paulet was the first wife and Alice Fulford the second, as given in the Visitation of Devon 1564 and elsewhere. . In disproof of the statement as to the date of marriage of Elizabeth Paulet (claimed to be 1464) I would point out that Alice was the wife of William Cary 20th November, 1458, according to the deed of that date, was still his wife on 12th October, 1466, at the date of the inquisition taken after his attainder, and, according to the claim of John Anthony, was alive in 1488 long after his death in 1471. This would make it impossible that Sir William married Elizabeth Paulet in 1464, or, indeed, after 20th November 1458. It is true that he was only 21 in 1458, for his birth (12th August 1437) is amply proved by the Inq. p.m. of his father Philip in that year. However, early marriages were the rule in those days, and it is by no means impossible that he was married to Elizabeth Paulet in his minority and had a son and heir by her, Robert, who obtained the reversal of his attainder in after years. It seems to me that the very full pedigree of the Cary family entered in the Visitation of 1620 ought to be made the basis of all research into the history of the family before that year."

Fulford,' of Fulford Magna, and Elizabeth Bosun, his wife. He was knighted also soon after his majority, for there still exists a lease In support of Mr. Burke's opinion it may be argued from its date that the trust deed of July 16, 1464, was not a marriage settlement at all but a palpable and, as it proved, an unsuccessful attempt on the part of Sir William Cary to avoid the consequences to his family of the fatal politics in which he was already involved. Sir William Paulet was a party to it on behalf of his grandson, not his daughter.

The device of an enfeoffment to one's own use, or that of one's heirs, was introduced into England by the civilians, temp. Edward III. "During the civil commotions between the houses of York and Lancaster," says Blackstone (ii, 20), "uses grew almost universal, through the desire that men had (when their lives were continually in hazard) of . . . securing their estates from forfeiture, when each of the contending parties as they became uppermost alternatively attainted the other." In the state of the law at the time the device was often proof against attainder, provided the enfeoffment was made before the overt act of treason. Sir William Cary's case he apparently acted too late.

1 The Fulfords of Fulford Magna, Devon, have the distinction of having been seated not only in the same county but on the same land for more than eight hundred years. (See Burke, Landed Gentry, 1914.) Sir William Cary's father-in-law, Sir Baldwin Fulford (1400?-1461), was a picturesque worthy of Devon. In his youth he went to sea and seems to have reached Jerusalem, where he became a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre: there he vanquished a Saracen in a manner to have won a place in Tasso's page. It was not, indeed, he who sang:

“A giant I, Earl Ordulf men me call,

'Gainst Paynim foes Devonia's champion tall;

In single fight six thousand Turks I slew,
Pulled off a lion's head, and ate it too,"

but Prince certifies, with one of his most delightful sallies, that Sir Baldwin's Saracen "for bulk and bigness [made it] an unequal match, as the representation of his act in the wainscot in Fulford Hall doth plainly show." The evidence persists. Describing Fulford House in the nineteenth century, Mr. Baring-Gould (A Book of the West, i, 77) says, "In the hall is some superb carved panelling, early Tudor."

Sir Baldwin was a stout Lancastrian, attached particularly to the interest of Queen Margaret. To her he proposed, according to Stow's Chronicle, that he should make away with Warwick in

dated October 2, 1462, in which he is described as "Sir William Cary, Knight," and so he appears henceforth in all documents in which he is named.1

single combat: there was, indeed, preserved in the Bristol Museum what purported to be (doubtless it was one of Chatterton's forgeries) a bond which he gave to Henry VI to accomplish this project or forfeit his own head. (Barrett, History of Bristol, 1789, 220.) He was arrested for treason by Edward IV, who at Bristol on September 9, 1461 (Rot. Parl., 8 Edw. IV), exacted the penalty of the bond on his own account. In Chatterton's Rowley's Poems there is a spirited ballad on Sir Baldwin's fate, called The Bristowe Tragedie. Sir Baldwin is there represented to have suffered, undaunted, with noble sentiments of loyalty to his king and resignation to death. The dramatic moment is when the king "att the grete mynsterr wyndowe sat" to gloat over the victim as, in the midst of a procession of minstrels, priests, archers and citizens, he was drawn by to his execution. Whereupon Sir Baldwin "dydd stande uppe