Page:A book of the west; being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall.djvu/374

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296
TORQUAY

from Staverton as a boy with his father, who took a cart-load of apples from Staverton to the highroad from Brixham to Exeter, that the soldiers might help themselves to them, and to wish them 'God-speed.'

"I merely mention this to show how easily tradition can be handed down, requiring only three or four individuals for two centuries."[1]

What was done by the country folk was to roll apples down the slopes from the orchards to the troops as they passed.

The prince spent the second night at Paignton in a house near the "Crown and Anchor Inn," where his room is still shown.

Next day he with his troops marched to Newton, and he took up his quarters in Ford House, belonging to Sir William Courtenay, who prudently decamped so as not to compromise himself. A room there is called the Orange Room, and is now always papered and hung with that colour. At Newton the prince's proclamation was read on the steps of the old market cross, not by the Rev. John Reynell, rector of Wolborough, as is stated on a stone erected on the spot, but by a chaplain, no doubt the fussy and pushing Burnet. Reynell had also made himself scarce. From Newton the prince marched to Exeter.

One can tell pretty well what were the political leanings of squires and parsons at the period of the Jacobite troubles, for where there was zeal for the House of Stuart, there Scotch pines were planted;

  1. Windeatt (T. W.), "The Landing of the Prince of Orange," in Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 1880.