East Budleigh ‘woman of noble wit’ inspires a new novel


 

The Millais tableau, part of Fairlynch Museum's Raleigh 400 exhibition: (back row) Nick Speare, Anthea Downes, Michael Downes, Rosemary Griggs, John Washington, Chris Fry; front row: Ollie Batson & Bailey Rouson

If you happened to be on Budleigh beach during a hot summer day back in 2018, in pre-Covid times, you might have seen this colourful group of people in Tudor costumes posing for the photographer. 

Some of them had been acting out a scene from 1870, when the famous Victorian artist Sir John Everett Millais visited the town to make a start on his painting ‘The Boyhood of Raleigh’.

 



Cllr Tom Wright (Mayor of Budleigh) admires 'The Boyhood of Raleigh' by Sir John Everett Millais at the opening of the Raleigh 400 exhibition on Monday 28 May 2018

It was all about marking the 400th anniversary of the death of East Devon’s most celebrated historical figure. A highlight of the year for Budleigh’s Fairlynch Museum was the display of Millais’ painting as part of the Raleigh 400 exhibition.

Rosemary Griggs, circled in the above group photo, is an author and speaker who gives talks on Devon’s sixteenth century history and particularly on Tudor costume. She leads heritage tours at Dartington Hall, and for many years she has helped the National Trust at Compton Castle, where she has appeared regularly as Lady Katherine née Champernowne, mother of Sir Walter Raleigh. That was when Rosemary started to research the life of this remarkable woman.

‘Like most women of her time her footprint on the historical record is light, but I persevered and dug deeper, searching for clues amongst the dusty documents that do remain to us,’ says Rosemary.

‘I pored over biographies of her famous boys and longed to fill the tantalising gaps in her story, to imagine what it felt like to be her.’

 



And so A Woman of Noble Wit was born last year, when Rosemary completed her first novel, based on Lady Katherine’s life.


 

The bronze plaque on the Exeter Martyrs memorial designed by Harry Hems, depicting the burning of Agnes Prest

The title comes from Foxe’s Book of Martyrs which relates the trial and execution of the Protestant martyr Agnes Prest during the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary.  Burnt at the stake on 15 August 1557 in Southernhay, Exeter, Agnes Prest was visited by Lady Katherine, described by Foxe as ‘a woman of noble wit and godly ways’. Katherine is said to have returned to her home at Hayes Barton, impressed by the martyr’s deeply held faith.

There is every reason to think that the young Walter Raleigh would have been inspired by the episode in his enmity towards Catholicism. As a teenager he gained his first military experience in France, fighting with a force made up of Devon’s Protestant families to support the Huguenots during the French Wars of Religion.   

You can read more about Rosemary and her book on her website at https://rosemarygriggs.co.uk/ 

and on the publisher's website at 

https://www.troubador.co.uk/bookshop/historical/a-woman-of-noble-wit/

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