Devon Notes and Queries. 235 Bampfield,, son of Sir Coplestone Bampfield, whose marriage may have been the occasion of the gift of the two flagons to the churchy and who, forty years afterwards, gave ten pounds
- to ye use of the poor of Kings Teignton.**
These Kings Teignton records are sufficient to supply a basis for corrections of one or two well known books. A new issue of Spelman's History of Sacrilege, written in the 17th century, and published in 1846, with introductory essay and notes, arrived at a second edition in 1853. My criticism refers to a note on page 285 of the second edition, where it is stated that "the heir male of this stock (Coplestone) lately djring issueless, left his lands unto his two sisters, married into the families of Bampfylde and Elford." "From the former stock came Colonel Hugh Bampfylde, who, riding swiftly down a hill, his horse tripped and threw him with such violence that he fractured his skull. ' Before which fatal end,' says Prince,
- there were observed some unusual foreboding circum-
stances.' " " His son. Sir Coplestone, making a visit to his son's relict, said, as soon as he entered the house that he should never more go thence alive, which accordingly happened." The three passages are printed in Spelman's book as quotations from Polwhele's Devon, pp. 35 and 125. Part of what follows might be rendered unnecessary if I were able to refer to Polwhele. But in any case the passages as they stand in this edition of Spelman convey the suggestions that, (i) Col. Hugh Bampfylde's son took the name of Coplestone as a surname; that (2) this son of Col. Hugh B. had a son who died before him ; that (3) Sir Coplestone, son of Col. Hugh B., paid a visit to his son's widow. These suggestions are all erroneous. The mural tablet mentions Sir Coplestone Bampfield as the father of Colonel Hugh. If we may read ** His father. Sir Copleston " instead of "His son. Sir Coplestone" we shall correct the three mistakes. For Col. Hugh B's son, Sir Coplestone Warwick B., is stated {Burke's Peerage) to have died in 1727, leaving an only son who married in 1742 and died in 1776. There is, then, an error in the Spelman note, and the first conjecture may perhaps be that the name of Colonel Hugh B's elder son, Copleston, has been substituted for that of his
