ially when it is
surrounded by a shoal of swallows swooping and darting about it in all
directions. The church has been much restored, and altered from the
original building; evidently there were once three altars in it; and a
piscina still remains in the south aisle, close to the west wall of the
transept. A curious monument was erected in 1634 by Martin Blake, the
Vicar, to his son and four children who died very young. A heavy and
elaborate framework surrounds a severe likeness of a melancholy-looking
man, who is resting his head on his hand. On the monument are short
detached sentences, numbered:

'1. He was cut off in the flower of his life.

* * * * *

'10. His heart on fire for the love of God.

'11. Martin Blake, the Father, was taken from the Pulpit, and sent
to Exeter jail for four years.

'12. The Pulpit empty, and the congregation waiting for him.

'13. He wishes to depart this life, and be at peace with his children.

'14. But it is necessary I should remain in the flesh for the good
of my people.

'15. He that shall endure to the end shall have a crown of life.'

Mr Blake suffered much during the Civil War, but I can find no record of
any imprisonment beyond his being in 1657 'a prisoner at large in
_Exeter_ for six weeks.' In 1646 he was petitioned against on account of
his Royalist sympathies, 'by one _Tooker_,' to whom he had shown great
kindness, and who intrigued against him in the most abominable manner.
Though Sir Hardress Waller wrote to the Committee of sequestrations on
his behalf, he was suspended, and as about a year later his suspension
was cancelled, the infamous Tooker very hurriedly concocted a petition,
ostensibly from Barnstaple, praying that the 'Discharge' might be
repealed. Walker comments on the astonishing speed with which Tooker
managed this business. 'The Reader ... will certainly think, as I do,
that he who _walked to and fro in the Earth_, helped them to it; tho'
not in the Quality of a Courier, but in his other Capacity, that of the
_Father of Lies_.' Mr Blake, however, was allowed to return to his
living, but 'not without the cumbrance of a _Factious Lecturer_,' and
was not in full possession till after the Restoration.

Barnstaple asserts that it became a borough at a very early date--in
fact, that it 'obtained divers liberties, freedoms, and immunities from
King Athelstan'; b