AROUND THE TOWN AND OVER THE POND - 02: ‘THE BOYHOOD OF RALEIGH’
Continued from https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2024/05/around-town-and-over-pond-01-twins-that.html
AROUND THE TOWN AND OVER THE POND
A walk around Budleigh Salterton to interest transatlantic visitors. Every so often there’s a diversion which may inspire you to visit places like East Budleigh, Exeter, Sidmouth, Colyton or even places in the United States and Canada.
The walk is set out in parts. Here’s the second part:
At the Raleigh Wall.
0.2 ‘THE BOYHOOD OF
RALEIGH’
Summary: How a famous Victorian painting depicted ‘a Hero of
American History’.
This is where you find a centuries-old link between Budleigh
Salterton and the US, marked by this modest blue plaque which was set up
by the Otter Valley Association in 1996. The Raleigh Wall is located between
Fore Street and Marine Parade.
It is said to feature in ‘The Boyhood of Raleigh’, this
celebrated painting of 1870 by the famous Pre-Raphaelite artist Sir
John Everett Millais. Of course there has been a bit of rebuilding since that
time.
A blue plaque on a building known as The Octagon, on Fore
Street, confidently claims that Millais stayed here in 1870.
This self-portrait dates from 1881 when the artist was in his 50s.
The Orangery, Bicton Gardens Image credit: www.geograph.org.uk
It is possible that he stayed at Bicton Park, a few miles away, and used The Octagon as a studio. Raleigh’s niche on the 19th century orangery at Bicton, the historic home of the Rolle family near East Budleigh, is inscribed:
A soldier, statesman,
Navigator and historian.
He fell by the arts of those
enemies whom his arms had subdued.
The painting is one of Tate Britain’s treasures and it’s been exhibited on three occasions in Budleigh at Fairlynch Museum, seen above. The first occasion was in 1970 to mark the painting’s centenary. You can imagine the effort required to persuade Tate Britain that such a small museum, pretty though it is, deserved to show this priceless work.
These children from Drake's School in East Budleigh, a few miles away, made a special visit to the museum to see the painting in 2000 when it was being exhibited in Budleigh Salterton for the second time.
The last occasion was in 2018 to mark the 400th anniversary of Sir Walter Raleigh’s death. Here you can see Budleigh’s Town Mayor Cllr Tom Wright admiring the masterpiece.
In the painting we see young Walter Raleigh, in green, and his half-brother Humphrey Gilbert listening to an old sailor’s tales of distant adventures. Walter’s dreamy expression is telling us that he’s already planning voyages across the Atlantic to find cities of gold and build the British Empire.
This illustration by the artist Walter Crane (1845-1915) is entitled 'The Extent of the British Empire in 1886' and was based on statistical information furnished by Captain J.C.R. Colomb MP, with British territories coloured red. Published as a supplement to the Graphic magazine of 24 July 1886
The entire scene is imagined, of course. An exercise in Victorian
propaganda. Here we are in 1870 at the
height of Britain’s imperial power. Various articles about and biographies of Sir
Walter Raleigh had been published throughout the 19th century and
Millais chose a fashionable subject. Historical accuracy was not at the
forefront of his mind.
In the early 1560s, when ‘The Boyhood of Raleigh’ is supposed to be set, the famous wall that you see in the painting would not have been built. In fact not very much had been built on Budleigh’s coastline as shown by this map of the 1540s.
Walter and his half-brother look more or less the same age. In reality, Humphrey Gilbert was born in around 1539, making him some dozen years older than Walter.
This illustration from 'The Story of the Barbary Corsairs' by Stanley Lane-Poole, published in 1890 and based on an engraving of 1637, shows members of the religious order known as Fathers of the Redemption paying Barbary pirates for Christian slaves to be released from captivity
The boys are unlikely to have been on the beach. Coastal areas were vulnerable to attack by pirates or slave traders from North Africa, and Budleigh Salterton would not have had a harbour. The Raleigh family would have been more likely to have set sail from ports along the River Exe.
But the painting is beautifully crafted to tell its story with symbols. The very costumes of the two boys tell a story. Humphrey in black – a colour perhaps more Puritan than Elizabethan, but chosen to contrast with Walter’s.
Engraving from about 1880 ‘The last moments of Sir Humphrey Gilbert’. Image credit: www.tudorsociety.com
Humphrey, who would die at sea more than 30 years before Walter’s death in 1618. A dynamic and visionary Devonian – pictured here in a heroic stance in this Victorian engraving – but viewed by 20th century historian A.L. Rowse as ‘an interesting psychological case’ with a disturbed personality and ‘a nature liable to violence and cruelty’.
Perhaps one can see that in the portrait on display in Fairlynch Museum, brilliantly copied from the original in Compton Castle by Budleigh artist John Washington for the Raleigh 400 celebrations in Budleigh.
The plaque in Newfoundland commemorating Sir Humphrey Gilbert. Image credit: Wikimedia
Gilbert, like his half-brother Walter, is also viewed as one
of the founders of the British Empire with his taking of Newfoundland in August
1583.
But back to the famous painting, showing young Walter in green. Green, the colour of spring and rebirth, suitable for a Renaissance Man.
A Beefeater at the Tower of London admires the Apothecary’s Garden set up in 2018 near Sir Walter Raleigh's cell. Image credit: Historic Royal Palaces
Of nature, appropriate for the discoverer of plants and herbs
which he would use in his Apothecary’s Garden while a prisoner in the Tower of
London, even gaining for himself the reputation of a skilled physician in the
eyes of Queen Ann.
Those feathers in the green hat beside young Walter are balanced by the feathers of the toucan beside the old sailor, but more visibly by those on what looks like an upturned basket but could well be Native American headgear.
The broken and discarded toy ship beside the boy could stand for his rejection of childish things in favour of the pursuit of adult visions, or simply represent the dangers he would encounter on his voyages.
Even the anchor with its sharp points, it has been said by some, is a proleptic image suggesting Walter’s end on the scaffold, beheaded on the orders of King James I.
Buchan in 1935 by Bassano Ltd. Image credit: Wikipedia
The novelist, historian and politician John Buchan revealed
his awareness of Millais’ masterpiece in the first of a collection of eleven
stories based around the life of Sir Walter, published in 1911 as ‘Sir Walter
Raleigh’.
The Lord Tweedsmuir in Native
headdress, photo portrait by Yousuf Karsh, 1937. Image credit: Wikimedia
Also known as Lord Tweedsmuir, Buchan had a transatlantic
connection, being appointed as Governor
General of Canada in 1935, a post which he held for five years until his death.
He is said to have promoted Canadian unity and helped to strengthen the
sovereignty of the country constitutionally and culturally. He received a state
funeral in Ottawa before his ashes were returned to the United Kingdom.
Entitled ‘The Luterano’, Buchan’s story is set on Budleigh beach and, in the manner of Millais’ painting, portrays a band of local boys as they listen to ‘old seafarers telling tales of the great deep’. One of them in particular, described as ‘a Frenchman of the Reformed faith’ – the ‘Luterano’ of the title – makes a deep impression on young Walter. Notable for its echo of ‘The Boyhood’ is Buchan’s portrait in words of ‘Walter Raleigh, sitting with hands clasping knees, his gaze dwelling hungrily on the face of the narrator’.
This military map shows the Battle of Moncontour, fought on 3 October 1569 between the French Catholics, commanded by Henry Duke of Anjou (later Henry III; 19 September 1551-2 August 1589) and the French Huguenot army, commanded by Admiral Gaspard de Coligny (16 February 1519-24 August 1572). It resulted in a Catholic victory. Image credit: Wikipedia
Buchan’s reference in ‘The Luterano’ is to the French Wars of Religion, fought between Catholics and those of ‘the Reformed faith’. The name means 'Lutheran' or follower of the Protestant Martin Luther.
We know from Raleigh’s own account in his ‘History of the World’
that only a few years after the time at which ‘The Boyhood of Raleigh’ painting
is set, the teenaged Walter would be part of the force of Devon noblemen
fighting for the Huguenots, as French Protestants were known. He mentions his involvement in the battle of Moncontour
near Poitiers.
The St Bartholomew's Day Massacre by the Huguenot artist François Dubois. Image credit: Wikimedia
He may even have been in France to witness the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre of August 1572, when thousands of Huguenots were slaughtered across France on the orders of the Catholic regime.
A scene from the Battle of Moncontour. Clearly a partisan view: one side - most likely the Huguenots - are depicted as wolves. Image credit: www.creazilla.com
We learn from Buchan’s story that one of the boys on Budleigh
beach is a Dick Champernoun, ‘the hardest hitter and the lustiest of the band’
who would accompany young Walter to France to fight for the Huguenots. ‘I see yet his yellow tumbled hair, the
steady grey eyes which death glazed five years later on the field of
Moncontour,’ the narrator tells us.
Portrait of J.A. Froude by Sir John Reid. Image credit: Wikipedia
Clearly, Buchan had read of Champernowne, described in the words of the historian James Anthony Froude as ‘one of the most gallant of the whole of them’. In his book ‘English Seaman in the Sixteenth Century’, a work published in 1895 but based on lectures that he had given at Oxford in 1893-4, he states that Champernowne was killed while fighting at the Huguenot leader Admiral Coligny’s side in the Battle of Moncontour.
Froude, incidentally, was born in the village of Dartington in Devon, ancestral home of the Champernowne family. And it was to Oxford, to study at Brasenose College, that Buchan went in 1895 after attending the University of Glasgow.
While Buchan was certainly inspired by Millais’ painting and
had evidently read Froude’s book, he gives his own slant to the portrayal of one
particular story-teller on Budleigh beach. Millais’ bare-footed sailor becomes
in Buchan’s version a mysterious stranger, for ‘no man knew his home or his
history, save that he was of the Reformed religion, and had fallen out with the
French king in the matter of his faith’.
‘Master Laurens they called him,’ Buchan’s narrator tells us, ‘and all Budleigh paid him respect, for he had an eye that commanded it.’ Only at the end of the story do we discover that he is ‘The Luterano’, otherwise known as Pierre Laurens of Le Havre. The nickname had been given to him by the Spanish Catholic sailors whom he had terrorised for many years.
The Quest for El Dorado by Scottish artist Ronnie Heeps
‘Old and worn’ now as he is, this former French corsair on
Budleigh beach, telling his tales of El Dorado and the river called the
Orinooko, ‘a river as wide as our Narrow Seas’, inspires the young Walter
Raleigh to seek ‘the Golden City’ and present it, in his words, to ‘our
gracious lady, the Queen of England’.
‘I think there is that in your brow, lad, and in your eyes which spells fortune,’ Master Laurens tells him. ‘It may be good or ill, but ‘twill be a high fortune. I think you will win to the Indies and make much ado there; and if you do not win to El Dorado, you will seek it all your days and leave the quest only at death.’
Had Millais lived to read John Buchan’s story he would surely have enjoyed this bit of fantasy. If you can't get hold of the book you can read it online at
https://archive.org/details/sirwalterraleigh00buchuoft/page/n13/mode/2up
A Huguenot on St Bartholomew’s Day (1852) Image credit: Wikipedia
Millais chose the subject of Huguenots and the French Wars of Religion in two of his paintings. In ‘A Huguenot, on St. Bartholomew's Day,’ he depicts a Catholic woman attempting to convince her Protestant lover to safeguard himself from danger. The wearing of the white armband would declare his allegiance to Roman Catholicism; but being a Protestant, he refuses to wear the insignia.
Image credit: www.tate.org.uk
In 'Mercy: St Bartholomew’s Day, 1572', completed in 1886, a
Catholic man wearing a white arm-band, rosary beads around his neck, a crucifix
fixed upon the brim of his hat and with his sword unsheathed, prepares himself
for bloodshed. A nun begs for mercy on behalf of the hapless Protestants, but
the man pulls her arm away and moves to follow the call to arms indicated by
the friar who beckons from the open doorway.
Given our knowledge of young Walter’s involvement in the French Wars of Religion one might even be tempted to imagine a Huguenot theme in ‘The Boyhood of Raleigh’, to consider the possibility that the sailor’s arm is pointing to France rather than westwards to America, to think that he may have been inspiring the boys to become crusaders for the ‘True Religion’ in order to avenge the horrible persecution endured by their fellow-Protestants over the water.
Still in the world of fantasy, let’s imagine young Walter being befriended by a Huguenot family called Caunieres during his time in Western France. Perhaps he told them before he set out on the journey home back to Devon: ‘If any of your family are ever in trouble in the future, come and seek refuge in England and look us up in my village of East Budleigh.’
A Protestant engraving dated 1686 in the collection of the Musée internationale de la Réforme protestante, Geneva showing the ‘les dragonnades’. A Huguenot at the point of a gun is being forced to sign a declaration that he has become a Catholic. Image credit: Wikipedia
And thus it was, just over a century later, that a certain Frenchman called Daniel Caunieres fled to England with his family following a new era of persecution of the Huguenots during the reign of the Catholic King Louis XIV.
A French government policy was the billeting of ill-disciplined troops of dragoons on Protestant households to force them into becoming Catholics. The policy became known as ‘les dragonnades’.
A tragic moment in the history of France was the
withdrawal in 1685 of the right of freedom of worship for Huguenots, and the
passing of the law known as the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
Four years later, on 24 May 1689, Daniel Caunieres
was appointed vicar of East Budleigh. In 1702 he left the village to move to
North Devon, where he became personal chaplain to Lord Clinton at Castle Hill,
in the village of Fillegh. He died on 10
February 1739, aged 78, and was interred in Filleigh Churchyard. His gravestone, seen above, bears this inscription:
‘Here lyeth the body of Daniel Caunieres late Minister of this Parish whose extraordinary Piety & eminent Vertues will render his memory for ever valuable to all posterity’.
Image credit: www.sothebys.com
It’s a great painting, used by cartoonists such as Sir David Low.
This parody, published
in 1928, shows the diminutive Colonial Secretary, Leo Amery sharing ‘Tales of
the Dominions’ with a trio consisting of F. E. Smith, the Earl of Birkenhead and
Secretary of State for India, the Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin
and Winston Churchill, Chancellor of the Exchequer. The first Colonial
Secretary to tour all the Dominions of the British Empire, Amery began to
develop a definite policy to stimulate Empire trade in 1928.
Nowadays, thanks to Photoshop, it’s easy to take short cuts
in parody. Here’s a Christmas card that I produced some years ago.
Click on the link to continue in Part 3 at
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