Transcript

of

An Armada Relic

Trans. Devon Assoc., vol. 52, (1920), illus., pp. 155-157.

by

Edward Windeatt Esq. , J.P., C.A.

Prepared by Michael Steer

The paper was read at its July 21st, 1920 Totnes meeting. Its author was Mayor of Totnes and died in 1921, shortly after the paper was presented. As President of the Devonshire Association, he had received the Prince of Wales when the Prince visited Ralegh's birthplace at Hayes Barton during his Devonshire tour. Mr Windeatt had also been a County Alderman. In 1588, one of two hospital ships of the Spanish Armada, St. Peter the Great, came ashore in Hope Cove. The crew were taken prisoners, and the ship plundered by villagers before the authorities could secure the prize in the name of the queen. Its cargo of drugs to the value of 6,000 ducats was mostly spoiled by the water. The paper, from a copy of a rare and much sought-after journal can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.

Some few years since I was fortunate enough to obtain a very interesting Armada relic. It was dug up about fifty years ago out of the sand near Hope Cove, Salcombe, and there is a print of it from a photograph on the opposite page.
It is of teak, 19J inches high, 10 inches broad, and 2£ inches thick, is rounded at the top and is bound round the edge or thickness with a band of brass similar to ship's brass. After being dug up it remained in a cellar for many years and then I obtained it. On it is carved a man's head, and it was said to be a representation of St. Peter and to have come from the wreck of one of the hospital ships of the Spanish Armada which ran on the rocks in Hope Cove, November, 1588.
"Notes and Gleanings, Devon and Cornwall, 1888," contained articles entitled " Records of the Armada in Devon," and as a sequel to those articles printed a communication obtained from the late Mr. Robert Dymond, F.S.A., of Exeter, being a letter from Mr. George Cary, deputy-lieutenant for Devon, from his seat at Cockington, to the Lords of the Privy Council, which letter is preserved at the Record Office. The letter gives an account of the wreck upon the rocks near Hope Cove of one of the vessels of the Armada which came ashore in the November gales of 1588.
It was one of the two hospital ships attached to the Spanish Armada Fleet, and was laden with drugs and medical stores, and a ship of considerable burden for those days, about 500 tons. On leaving Spain she had 30 mariners, 100 soldiers, and 50 persons attached to the hospital on board. She was named Peter the Great, and must have gone right up to the north of Scotland and back through the seas on the west of Great Britain into the English Channel, going on the rocks at Hope Cove, where many a good vessel has come to an untimely end.
Mr. Cary's letter to the Council gives a very interesting account of the news reaching him when at Plymouth and of his going to the scene of the wreck, that the hull was full of water and it shortly after broke up, and that the inhabitants of the villages near had secured all the plate and treasure, and that the drugs and "potecary stuff" of the value of 6000 ducats were nearly all spoiled by the sea water, the ordnance, however, was saved. The crew were secured as prisoners; some were sent to Kingsbridge, the apothecary and surgeon taken charge of by Mr. Cary himself at Cockington, others being sent to Sir William Courtenay at Ilton Castle.
At first it was proposed to kill the prisoners, but that was not carried out.
Anthony Ashley, Clerk of the Council, came down to Ilton Castle and took charge of the prisoners, and on 12th November made a report to the Council, and in it writes of the prisoners: "x or xii of the best sorte are placed in a toune called Kingsbridge, where order is taken for provision of their wants, and accompt kept of their expense. The rest until your Lpps further pleasure knowen are remaining together in one house whither they were first committed, where they are safe kept, and provided of necessarie food."
In his letter he adds:
"By late examinations taken of the Spaniardes, I find that certain besar stones and other simples was purloyned out of the shippe, of which besar stones I hope to recover the most of them."
Sir George Cary's letter to the Council was dated 5 November, 1588, and the report of Mr. Ashley only a week after, so it would appear that he had notice of the wreck before the receipt of Mr. Cary's letter. Mr. Dymond added a note as to Sir George Cary.
"This gentleman was an ancestor of the Cary family of Torre Abbey, Torquay, and occupied a conspicuous place in the brilliant Court of his kinswoman Queen Elizabeth. He had already done the State good service in the measures taken for the defence of the coast at Dover, as well as in his own County, and in later years was knighted and became successively Lord Treasurer and Lord Deputy or Viceroy of Ireland."
As to the relic, soon after I obtained it, it was suggested to me that as it was teak it could not be a relic of the Armada, as teak was not imported into Spain from India till after 1588.
It appears, however, that a kind of teak very similar to the Indian teak was produced in the Philippines and it was the particular industry of the Spanish monks to carve images of the saints in those islands. Philip II made Manilla the base of his Pacific Fleet about 1566, or more than twenty years before the despatch of the Armada, so that the fact of the figure being carved out of teak is really in favour of its having been connected with the Armada.
As to its representing St. Peter that idea may have arisen from the vessel being called the St. Peter. It does not appear to be a representation of St. Peter the Apostle, but I understand there are no less than four other St. Peters venerated by the Roman Church. St. Peter Alcantura was a Spaniard who is said to have flourished from 1499 to 1562.
Teak is preserved for a very long time if kept moist, and buried in the sand of the seashore for even between two and three hundred years it would be so preserved.
I am not aware whether any other portion of the wreck has ever come to light in recent years and been preserved in the neighbourhood.
This relic may represent the patron saint of the hospital ship or one of them.