The South Western Railway has exploited the eastern shore of Exe, and the Great Western runs its main line along the west, and each is characteristic: the South Western peculiarly suburban3, bustling4 and commonplace, the Great Western sweeping5 on in noble curves, with a wayside station, at which trains rarely halt, planted here and there. It skirts the water on one hand, and Powderham Park, seat of the Earls of Devon, on the other.
Romance, as well as beauty, belongs to Powderham,[72] for it has been for over five hundred years the seat of the Courtenays, a younger branch of the family which was settled at Courtenay, fifty-six miles south of Paris, in the ninth century. They married into the royal family of France, and three in succession were Emperors of Constantinople in the last days of Christian6 rule there. It seems a proud thing to have numbered emperors among one’s ancestors, but those imperial Courtenays of old Byzantium were, it must be owned, put to many indignities7 and miserable8 shifts, and the imperial purple was more than a thought moth-eaten. They were reduced to selling and mortgaging their property, to scouring9 half Europe for alms, and in the end the Turks captured their sorry empire. Then the elder Courtenays returned to the rank of French nobles, and although they had an admixture of royal blood, sank gradually throughout the centuries until at length they became simple peasants. The last of them died towards the middle of the eighteenth century.
The English Courtenays appear to derive10 from Reginald de Courtenay, who relinquished11 his French nationality and properties, and in the reign12 of Henry the Second came to England. He acquired honours and manors13, and was the ancestor of Hugh de Courtenay, Baron14 of Okehampton, created Earl of Devon as heir in right of his mother, to the lands and titles of the De Redvers family, who had previously15 held the earldom. Powderham came to the Courtenays with the[73] second earl, to whom it was brought by his wife, Margaret, daughter of the Earl of Hereford. He gave it to his sixth son, Philip, who was the builder of the castle. Here his descendants, members of the younger of the branches into which the English Courtenays spread, have ever since resided, and might have been merely squires16 or knights17 yet, but for the misfortunes that befell the members of the elder branch, who in the wars of rival York and Lancaster took the losing side, with the result that three brothers in succession, the sixth, seventh and eighth earls, sealed with their blood, on scaffold or in stricken field, their devotion to the Red Rose. With those gallant18, but ill-fated partisans19 of a just cause the elder line became extinct, and when the family honours were revived under the Lancastrian Henry the Seventh, they went to the next branch in order of seniority, represented by Sir Edward Courtenay of Haccombe, the first earl of a new creation. To him succeeded his grandson, son of Sir William Courtenay and the Lady Katherine Plantagenet daughter of Edward the Fourth; second earl, and later advanced to be Marquis of Exeter. The fortunes of the Courtenays now seemed to be again improving, but those were the times of Henry the Eighth, when quick changes and dramatic reverses of fortune were the rule. The same king who had created the earl a marquis later capriciously sent him to the block, confiscated20 his property, and annulled21 the family honours. A strange romance sheds a mysterious glamour[74] over the story of his son Edward, who is said to have been loved by Queen Mary and slighted by him for her sister, Elizabeth. The queen made him earl of yet another new creation, but later threw him into prison on an absurd charge of aiding the rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyatt, which he had really been largely instrumental in quelling22. It was ill consorting23 with the Tudors, or even living in their times, for they were tigerish alike in their affections and their hatreds24. This ill-used young earl—“this beautiful youth,” Gibbon calls him—was released, but died mysteriously, it is supposed of poison—at Padua, in 1556. With him that branch of the Courtenays, and it was long supposed the title also, became extinct.
Meanwhile the junior branch, the Courtenays of Powderham, continued unmolested. “He that is low need fear no foe,” says the old proverb; and those plain knights and, later, baronets excited the jealousy25 of no one. So they continued until the era of beheadings and forfeitures26 ended, when Sir William Courtenay was created Viscount Courtenay in 1762. And viscounts they might be yet, only in 1851 an accomplished27 genealogist28, looking over the patent of nobility granted by Queen Mary, discovered the all-important fact that the usual words “de corpore,” limiting the title to direct descendants, were not included. The succession was thus extended to collaterals29, and the curious fact was revealed that for two hundred and seventy-five years the Courtenays of Powderham had been earls unknown to themselves,[75] and had gratefully accepted inferior honours while legally possessed30 of greater.
The claim being proved before the House of Lords, the third viscount in this manner, became the tenth earl. It was he who, regaining31 the title, plunged32 the Courtenays again into embarrassments33 and alienated34 much of the family property, and it was Viscount Courtenay, son of the venerable eleventh earl, who still further wrecked35 their fortunes by his losses upon the Turf, which were partly liquidated36 during his short tenure37 of the title. The thirteenth earl, who died in 1904, ninety-three years of age, was uncle of the twelfth, and rector of Powderham. He resided at the rectory; for, of the 50,000 acres and the yearly rent-roll of £40,000, mentioned in the New Domesday Book, only an inconsiderable residue38 is left. Gibbon says of the French Courtenays and their old home: “The Castle of Courtenay was profaned39 by a plebeian40 owner,” and here we see the strange spectacle of the seat of the English Courtenays being let to a stranger, and the titled owner of it, a clergyman, living obscurely on the fringe of his own encumbered41 domain42. The reverses of fortune experienced by this ancient race may well seem to render their old motto, adopted in the sixteenth century, still applicable: Ubi lapsus? Quid feci? = “Where have I fallen? What have I done?” It is, at any rate, better than their sentiment of later years: Quod verum tutum = “What is true is safe.” That is indeed a hard saying.
[76]
There is no other family so constantly met with in Devon. Villages—like Sampford Courtenay—bear their name: their monuments are in Exeter Cathedral, and in many a town and village church, and in the majority of ancient Devon churches you will at least see their easily distinguished43 arms sculptured somewhere—the three golden torteaux, roundels, or bezants, supposed by some to have originated in the family association with the Byzantine crown, or flippantly thought by others to typify their last three sovereigns.
The old church of Powderham, built of the rich, red sandstone, stands quite close to the railway, amid the trees of the noble deer-haunted park. The railway then, following the shore along a low sea-wall, comes to the wooden station of Starcross, through which most of the trains rush without stopping. From its crazy timber platforms, standing44 with their feet in the water, you look across nearly two miles of salt water to Exmouth, transfigured by distance; its dreadful make-believe Gothic church, built in the architectural dark ages of the opening years of the nineteenth century, bulking like a cathedral. A steam launch plies45 between Starcross and Exmouth in these days, instead of the row-boat that once gave such tremendous rowing to get across; so the sundered46 shores of Exe are become less foreign and speculative47 to one another than they were of old. But, as the reader will have already perceived, these increased facilities have destroyed illusions. Exmouth we have already revealed[77] for what it is, rather than what it seems, across the shining water, and Lympstone, yonder, looks better from Starcross than close at hand:
To those given to grotesque48 phonetic49 affinities50, Lympstone suggests cripples; for myself, looking here across the pale blue and opalesque estuary51, where the seagulls ride the still waters, waiting for the tide to ebb52 and the small sprats and the cockles to become revealed as meals, Lympstone suggests a limpid53 stream and refreshing54 breezes. There it nestles; a little strand55 with little houses and a little church, set down in the opening between two little cliffs of red, red sandstone; but when you arrive there Lympstone is modern, the church has been rebuilt, with the exception of the tower, and an ornate clock-tower, Jubilee56 or other, flaunts57 it insolently58.
Starcross itself has been described as “a melancholy59 attempt at a watering-place,”—probably by some person who regards Exmouth as a cheerful and successful effort in that direction; but “There’s no accounting60 for tastes,” as the old woman said when she kissed her cow. As sheer matter of fact, Starcross never attempted anything in that way, but just—like Topsy—“grew,” and so became what it is; a large village of one long, single-sided street, looking once uninterruptedly upon the shore and the water, but since the railway came, commanding first-class views of expresses, locals, and goods-trains; and more or less identified by strangers with a singular Italianate tall red tower, sole relic61 of the atmospheric62 system with[78] which the then South Devon Railway was opened in 1846. This survival of one of the old engine-houses completes a conspicuously63 beautiful view along the Exe, raised thereby64 to the likeness65 of an Italian lake. The one other remarkable66 feature of Starcross is the curious little steamship67, modelled like a swan, that for some fifty or more years past has been moored68 off Starcross jetty; to the huge amazement69 of travellers coming this way for the first time.
For the rest, Starcross is merely a more or less modern development of a very ancient little fisher hamlet of the inland parish of Kenton, close upon two miles inland, and is said to have been originally “Stair-cross”; a crossing, or passage, to Exmouth. Maps, showing how the road from Exeter only approaches the coast at this point and then immediately turns away again, support this view.
The high road, leaving Starcross, winds around Cockwood Creek70, and passing for a while over level ground ascends71, steep and narrow and between high banks, past the old-time smugglers’ haunt, “Mount Pleasant Inn,” and so over the cliff top to Dawlish. Hut the coastwise path by the Warren, and so over the railway to Langston Cliff and the sea-wall, is the only way for beauty. Over the cliffs, by the high road, you come dispirited into Dawlish, with the latest greedy proceedings72 of speculative builders very much in evidence before the town itself is seen. Such a manner of approach is highly injurious. It is[79] as though a guest bidden to a country house were admitted through the back door. One had rather enter Dawlish by train, for the railway runs along a sea-wall under the cliffs, and the station is built on the edge of the sands.
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1
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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perversely
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| adv. 倔强地 | |
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suburban
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| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
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bustling
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| adj.喧闹的 | |
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sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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7
indignities
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| n.侮辱，轻蔑( indignity的名词复数 ) | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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scouring
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| 擦[洗]净，冲刷，洗涤 | |
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10
derive
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| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
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11
relinquished
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| 交出，让给( relinquish的过去式和过去分词 )； 放弃 | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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13
manors
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| n.庄园（manor的复数形式） | |
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baron
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| n.男爵；(商业界等)巨头，大王 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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squires
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| n.地主，乡绅( squire的名词复数 ) | |
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17
knights
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| 骑士； （中古时代的）武士( knight的名词复数 )； 骑士； 爵士； （国际象棋中）马 | |
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18
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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19
partisans
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| 游击队员( partisan的名词复数 )； 党人； 党羽； 帮伙 | |
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20
confiscated
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| 没收，充公( confiscate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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21
annulled
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| v.宣告无效( annul的过去式和过去分词 )；取消；使消失；抹去 | |
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22
quelling
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| v.（用武力）制止，结束，镇压( quell的现在分词 ) | |
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23
consorting
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| v.结伴( consort的现在分词 )；交往；相称；调和 | |
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24
hatreds
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| n.仇恨，憎恶( hatred的名词复数 )；厌恶的事 | |
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25
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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26
forfeitures
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| n.（财产等的）没收，（权利、名誉等的）丧失( forfeiture的名词复数 ) | |
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27
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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genealogist
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| 系谱学者 | |
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collaterals
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| n.附属担保品( collateral的名词复数 ) | |
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30
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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31
regaining
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| 复得( regain的现在分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地 | |
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32
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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33
embarrassments
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| n.尴尬( embarrassment的名词复数 )；难堪；局促不安；令人难堪或耻辱的事 | |
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34
alienated
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| adj.感到孤独的，不合群的v.使疏远( alienate的过去式和过去分词 )；使不友好；转让；让渡（财产等） | |
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35
wrecked
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| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
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36
liquidated
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| v.清算( liquidate的过去式和过去分词 )；清除（某人）；清偿；变卖 | |
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37
tenure
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| n.终身职位；任期；(土地)保有权，保有期 | |
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38
residue
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| n.残余，剩余，残渣 | |
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39
profaned
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| v.不敬( profane的过去式和过去分词 )；亵渎，玷污 | |
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40
plebeian
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| adj.粗俗的；平民的；n.平民；庶民 | |
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41
encumbered
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| v.妨碍，阻碍，拖累( encumber的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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42
domain
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| n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围 | |
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43
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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44
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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45
plies
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| v.使用（工具）( ply的第三人称单数 )；经常供应（食物、饮料）；固定往来；经营生意 | |
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46
sundered
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| v.隔开，分开( sunder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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47
speculative
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| adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的 | |
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48
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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49
phonetic
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| adj.语言的，语言上的，表示语音的 | |
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50
affinities
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| n.密切关系( affinity的名词复数 )；亲近；（生性）喜爱；类同 | |
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51
estuary
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| n.河口，江口 | |
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52
ebb
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| vi.衰退，减退；n.处于低潮，处于衰退状态 | |
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53
limpid
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| adj.清澈的，透明的 | |
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54
refreshing
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| adj.使精神振作的，使人清爽的，使人喜欢的 | |
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55
strand
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| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
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56
jubilee
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| n.周年纪念；欢乐 | |
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57
flaunts
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| v.炫耀，夸耀( flaunt的第三人称单数 )；有什么能耐就施展出来 | |
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58
insolently
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| adv.自豪地，自傲地 | |
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59
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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60
accounting
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| n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表 | |
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61
relic
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| n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物 | |
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62
atmospheric
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| adj.大气的，空气的；大气层的；大气所引起的 | |
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63
conspicuously
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| ad.明显地，惹人注目地 | |
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64
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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65
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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66
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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67
steamship
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| n.汽船，轮船 | |
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68
moored
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| adj. 系泊的 动词moor的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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69
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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70
creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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71
ascends
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的第三人称单数 ) | |
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proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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