known by the curious name of
'Little Choak-a-bone.' The old story said that the lady was the daughter
of Lord Devon and his wife, Princess Katherine, daughter of Edward IV,
and that she died because a fish-bone choked her. Now this has been
corrected, and it is believed that the monument is of the wife of the
fifth Earl of Devon, who lived nearly one hundred years earlier. But no
disproof has been brought against the fish-bone!

Close to Colyton are the ruins of an old house of the Courtenays,
Colcombe, which has been partly converted into a farmhouse. Here
Princess Katherine occasionally lived during her widowhood. Colcombe
suffered much in the Civil War, for it was garrisoned by Prince Maurice,
who led his troops into several skirmishes with the enemy, and during
one of these affairs (it is supposed) the Castle was burned down.

The poor people living near Colcombe must have had a very bad time, with
energetic Royalist and Parliamentary troops on either hand. Some sad
little entries at this time are quoted from the diary of a serge-maker
of Colyton, in which he counts up what he lost in cloth through the
inroads of the 'Lyme Men' (Parliamentarians), and the 'wostard woole'
and 'sarge' torn from him by 'Percy's men' (Royalists).

Unluckily, it is not possible to pause among the throng of interesting
memories that are called up by almost every step of the way. One may not
sketch the career of Dr Marwood, who journeyed to London from these
parts and cured 'a certain noble Lord,' a favourite of Queen Elizabeth,
but returned home because, 'finding himselfe much envyed by the Court
physitians, he thought he was not safe there!'--a naive reflection on
the doctors that reminds one of their contemporary Catherine de'
Medici's creature, Rene of Milan, who was popularly known as
_l'empoisonneur de la reine_.

It is only possible to make a brief reference to a manor, nowadays a
farm--Ashe, where the great Duke of Marlborough was born. Marlborough
can hardly be called a son, but perhaps a grandson, of the county, for
though Sir Winston Churchill was of Dorsetshire, the Churchills were an
old Devonshire family, of whom one branch had migrated to the next
county. Ashe was the home of the Duke's mother, Elizabeth, daughter of
Sir John Drake, and here she returned when the Civil War was just ended,
and the triumphant Parliamentarians were making themselves very
objectionable, especially to such a fervent Royalist as her husband. Si