Church (Harleian MSS., No. 545) simply states that on the 28th March, 1327, the body was solemnly interred—“ solemni traditur sepulture"-without specifying where. In a letter of Henry Gower, Bishop of St. David's, dated 16th August, 1328, and in possession of the dean and chapter, he recommends the bishop's soul to the prayers of the faithful, and mentions his interment in Exeter Cathedral "Cujus corpus in ecclesia Cathedrali Exoniensi est humatum;" and in the Newenham register, fol. 117, a contemporary, after mentioning his decapitation on Tuesday, 15th October, 1326, concludes with these words: "Pro magnâ fidelitate suâ est sepultus apud Exon." These two distinct assertions would almost seem to set the matter at rest were it not for Bishop Grandisson's letter contained in his Register, vol. ii. fol. 1336, and addressed to Robert de Lanton, a canon of Exeter, and one of Stapledon's executors, in which he commends his intention of founding a perpetual chantry, and of erecting a tomb and chapel "in suburbio London," where the body "primitus quiescit humatum." There are, moreover, no charges in the accounts of the executors for the removal of the dead bishop from London.

The question might perhaps be determined if the dean and chapter would consent to examine his supposed grave, which might easily be done now whilst the work of restoration in the cathedral is still in progress. If the altar tomb is only a cenotaph, it probably owes its situation to the circumstance of the monument opposite in the north choir aisle being attributed to Sir Richard Stapledon, on the authority of Leland. It may be so; but there is no truth in the assertion that he fell a victim, with his episcopal brother, to the fury of the mob, as it is proved by an existing deed that he was alive on the 2nd April, 1330. His obit, moreover, was kept in the cathedral on the 10th of March, and that of the bishop on the 15th of October. We cannot therefore pay attention to Prince's statement, "that a certain cripple, as Sir Richard was riding into London with his brother, lying at the gate, laid hold of one of his horse's fore legs, and by crossing of it, threw horse and rider to the ground, by which means he was soon slain, and from that occasion the place obtained the name of Cripplegate, which it retains to this day." Brantynghame's Register, vol. ii. fol. 6, states that Bishop Stapledon not only complied with the ancient custom of his predecessors in leaving a hundred oxen to the see to work the farms in Devon and Cornwall, but added another hundred, with directions that at his anniversary or obit one hundred poor should then

be fed in the hall of Exeter Palace, or at its outer gate. There were large numbers of cattle remaining after his death upon his farms at Ashburton, Chudleigh, Crediton, &c.; and I find from the inventory of his effects that a draught-horse was then valued at £5, an ox or bull at 6s. 8d., a cow at 5s. 6d., a heifer at 2s., a calf at 1s. 6d., a sheep or ewe at 1s., a ram at 1s. 2d., and lambs varied in price from 6d. to 8d.

I cannot do better than sum up my poor account of this beneficent prelate in the words employed by the late Dr. Oliver in his careful and valuable work entitled The Lives of the Bishops of Exeter. He says, at page 61, "Those who do not pronounce on events merely from their success, who attend to the springs and principles of actions, must award the tribute of praise and admiration to this high-minded bishop and minister; they will appreciate his zeal and energy to sustain the declining fortunes of his royal master, and venerate him for his disregard of self, and for his incorruptible honour and loyalty under every discouragement."

The issue male of Sir Richard Stapledon, the bishop's brother, continued two or three generations, and then expired. The heiress, Thomasin Stapledon, married Sir Richard Hankford. Their son Sir Richard was twice married; by his first wife, sister and heiress to Fulk, Lord Fitz-Warren, he had issue a daughter, Thomasin, wife of William Bourchier, Lord Fitz-Warren, and ancestress of the Earls of Bath, now represented by Sir Bourchier Palk Wrey, Bart., of Tawstock and of Holne Chace, in this neighbourhood, who therefore also represents the Stapledons. By his second wife he had two daughters; the youngest married Sir Thomas Boleyn, and her granddaughter was Queen Elizabeth, so that, as Prince says, "that illustrious queen had her origin from the county

of Devon."

The arms of Bishop Grandisson may still be seen in the neighbouring church of Ilsington, and those of Bishop Oldham were retained here until long within the memory of the present generation; but I have never discovered a single example of the armorial bearings of Stapledon in this district, but his shield argent, with its two bends wavy sable, occurs frequently in Exeter Cathedral.

THE CHANGES OF EXMOUTH WARREN.

PART II.

BY J. M. MARTIN, C.E., F.M.S., ETC.

(Read at Ashburton, July, 1876.)

Ar the meeting of this Association at Exeter, in 1872, I had the honour of submitting various plans of the Exmouth Warren, reaching from 1787 down to a survey made by myself in June, 1872, and of reading a paper in connection therewith.

The tendency of both plans and paper was to show that considerable changes had taken place in the outline and extent of the seaward portion of the Warren, each change assisting to decrease the area of dry land, and to deflect the sea face of the eastern portion of the Warren to the northward or up-stream; that of the present paper, with the accompanying plans, will be to show that these changes are still going on in a very persistent manner, and that considerable loss has been occasioned to the south-eastern extremity of the Warren, the other portions remaining very nearly as they were at the period of my survey in 1872.

Besides the earliest of the maps to which I referred in the paper of that date, I have two other plans of far more ancient origin; viz., one of 1611, and another of 1637. As the antiquity of these plans might reasonably be expected to preclude the element of accuracy which was necessary to demonstrate the actual degradation, they were not referred to in my previous paper; but as in the course of the discussion thereon the very interesting question of the position of the main river channel in old times was raised, some considering there is sufficient evidence to show that even in comparatively recent times the river had its embouchure under Langstone Cliff, I have thought it worth while to allude to them here.

The first of these plans, dated 1611, shows a spit running

out easterly from the Langstone side, and opposite the end thereof is the word "Checkstons," the only channel being on the Exmouth side of the estuary. The second shows an island nearly in the centre of the mouth of the estuary, opposite which also occurs the word "Checkstons," so that if this can be taken as evidence at all, there would be two channels, one under Exmouth, and another under Langstone Cliff. I find also in my notes that a map in the museum, bearing date 1651, shows the mouth of the channel on the Exmouth side of the estuary.

So much for these ancient maps, the balance of whose testimony, although apocryphal, goes to show that two centuries and a half ago the river found its way into the sea pretty much in the track it now follows; for I do not imagine that in the short period between 1611 and 1637 a channel would have been opened under the Langstone to become closed in 1651, and remain sealed ever since.

There may very possibly have been a temporary gap made through the Warren at about the middle of its face, and if so, I should place the date thereof at a more recent period than that at which Captain Peacock, by oral tradition, fixes it; viz., in the early part of the eighteenth century, and for this reason the earliest authentic map, that of 1787, shows a continuous seafront nowhere less than eleven chains, or about 250 yards in width, and having behind it a comparatively narrow channel or creek, at high-water about 80 or 90 yards wide, running parallel to the sea's face, and discharging at a point between Exmouth Passage and the Bight. Behind this is the inner Warren, which at the point opposite the narrowest portion of the outer Warren is shown to be nearly 500 yards in width. On the river-face of the inner Warren, and at a distance of nearly half-a-mile from the highland on the Mount Pleasant side, is marked the site of what was then known as "Old Salt Works." The channel, or rather creek, mentioned above had its western extremity about 120 yards from the same highlands, and was, near its end, about 160 yards in width at its widest part. It is this creek which has expanded into the present lake, and which forms so conspicuous a feature in the map of 1809, and from that date to the present day. It is noteworthy that at the isthmus connecting the inner Warren with the mainland, which where narrowest is only 200 yards wide, there is an irregular rectangular enclosure described as the Great Intake, which I read to mean an intake from the flooded estuarine lands by embanking. If this be so, it is evident that that isthmus must

have had a comparatively low elevation above meantide, and that at no long anterior period there might have been a highwater channel between the inner Warren and the neighbouring shore, leaving the inner Warren either an island or a peninsula stretching out to the westward from the Exmouth promontory. There is no evidence on the face of the map of the outer Warren consisting otherwise than now of a considerable width of sand-dunes of greater or less elevation, and having a width at the upper end of the creek of about 380 yards. All communication therefore between the Exe Bight, or that ramification of it known as Shutterton Lake, and the sea would be through the creek between the two Warrens to the inner end of the Exmouth passage, and thence by the present channel. Whether this course would be navigable or not it is from this evidence quite impossible to judge; but it may from further researches become demonstrable that the condition of the inner Warren, either as a peninsula stretching from the Exmouth shore, or as an island, may tend to reconcile the conflicting testimony of the contemporaneous existence of channels on each shore; and the enquiry is worth following up.

I have been thus prolix in deciphering this map, because it is the first authentic one to which I have had access, if not the oldest authoritative one in existence. It is a map of the manor of Kenton, and now in the possession of the Earl of Devon.

It does not, unfortunately, show the Exmouth side of the river, and so no opportunity is given on the face of it for a comparison of the then entrance to the Bight with more recent maps; but being, as the delineated portions testify, extremely accurate, it is quite possible by measurements therefrom to fix the position of the Exmouth shore with respect to it, if it should ever be desirable to do so.

The map of 1809 shows some remarkable changes effected since the date of the previous survey. It is an enlargement from the ordnance survey of 1809 to eight times the scale of that map. This is a prima facie objection to its being received as evidence; but as the extreme accuracy of the surveyors engaged on the ordnance survey is undoubted, as I took the greatest care in personally enlarging the same, and as, moreover, it is so thoroughly corroborated in the matter of these changes by the next map in the series, I have every confidence that this enlarged plan truthfully represents the surface of the Warren at the date of its delineation.

The changes most directly apparent are these: The outer