A Pageant of the History of Cowick Barton

Pageant type

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Performances

Place: Cowick Barton Priory (Cowick Barton) (Cowick Barton, Devon, England)

Year: 1928

Indoors/outdoors: Outdoors

Number of performances: 2

Notes

21 July 1928

There was one afternoon and one evening performance

Name of pageant master and other named staff

  • Organiser and Hon Secretary [Pageant Master]: Simmons, Mrs C.A.
  • Hon Treasurer: H.N. Steed

Names of executive committee or equivalent

n/a

Names of script-writer(s) and other credited author(s)

Cresswell, Beatrix F.

Names of composers

n/a

Numbers of performers

70

Financial information

Object of any funds raised

In aid of the Exeter District Nursing Association

Linked occasion

n/a

Audience information

  • Grandstand: Not Known
  • Grandstand capacity: n/a
  • Total audience: n/a

Prices of admission and seats: highest–lowest

n/a

Associated events

n/a

Pageant outline

Scene I. AD 1100

William Fitz-Baldwin gives his land at Cowick to the Abbot of Bec in Normandy for the foundation of a Priory. A young boy discovers the first salmon in the river for twenty years, which is taken as a good omen.

Scene II. Burial of Sir Hugh Courtenay: first Earl of Devon. AD 1340

Peasants and tenants carrying garlands await the funeral procession. The Mayor and citizens of Exeter led by monks and Bishop Grandisson enter with it, chanting the Dies Irae. All declare: ‘May he rest in peace’. The poor honour him and are given mourning cloaks and a funeral dole. Bishop Grandisson blesses the funeral bier which is carried away.

Scene III. The Monk and the Maiden, AD 1359

[Adapted from the story of Helen Noble told in Richard Izacke, Remarkable Antiquities of the City of Exeter (1681)]

Humphrey, a young weaver of Exeter sings a doleful hymn. He has been waiting for his love, but she hasn’t come. He attempts to hang himself, but is prevented from doing so by two monks who bundle him into the Priory. Helen, his love, then enters and seeing his suicide note, the dagger and rope, believes Humphrey to be dead. She prepares to kill herself but is rescued by Humphrey. However, the monks tear the two apart. Humphrey is made to dig a pathway as penance but eventually escapes with Helen.

Scene IV. The Cook Goes Mad, AD 1409

Women, mendicants and old folk wait for their daily dole before a gate. The almoner gives to the deserving whilst turning away those who are not deemed worthy of charity. A mad cook enters and all scream. The cook defies anyone to say his soup was burned. The cook rushes at the Prior, attacking him with a knife but is struck on the head and falls unconscious. The Bishop enters and the cook is pronounced dead. The body is carried off and the prior is interviewed. It then transpires that the cook is only stunned. The Prior is pardoned and blessed and the procession goes into the monastery.

Scene V. Lord Russell, Earl of Bedford, Sir Peter and Sir Gawen Carew march to Cowick after the relief of the siege of Exeter, AD 1549

Citizens enter: those from the right are country folk who have sided with the victors; those on the left are terrified townsfolk, who have sided with the rebels. A woman helps a wounded man. Lord Russell and his party enter. The Vicar of St Thomas Church is brought forward as a prisoner and is derided by the crowd (though some give gestures of regret). Russell examines the prisoner accused of writing seditious letters. The Mayor is brought in; he promises to hang the vicar from the church and to build a new steeple on it. The vicar condemns him, and predicts history will judge him harshly. The young Walter Ralegh enters, who has been imprisoned by the rebels. All exit, with Russell predicting further trouble.

Scene VI. Edward VI’s visit to Devon, 1549

A procession enters including a young Francis Drake and the citizens of Exeter. At their head is Myles Coverdale, bishop of Exeter. Princess Elizabeth, the Earls Bedford enter and finally Edward with the Protector Somerset. Edward greets Elizabeth and then various local worthies. Elizabeth greets Francis Drake who promises to bring her jewels someday. She kisses him. There is dancing and various entertainments.

Key historical figures mentioned

  • Russell, John, first earl of Bedford (c.1485–1555) courtier and magnate
  • Carew, George (1497/8–1583) dean of Exeter
  • Edward VI (1537–1553) king of England and Ireland
  • Drake, Sir Francis (1540–1596) pirate, sea captain, and explorer
  • Elizabeth I (1533–1603) queen of England and Ireland
  • Seymour, Edward, duke of Somerset [known as Protector Somerset] (c.1500–1552) soldier and royal servant
  • Coverdale, Miles (1488–1569) Bible translator and bishop of Exeter [also known as Coverdale, Myles]

Musical production

Music during the interval performed by a chamber orchestra

Newspaper coverage of pageant

Express and Echo
Western Morning News
Exeter and Plymouth Gazette

Book of words

n/a

Other primary published materials

n/a

Cresswell, Beatrix F. A Pageant of the History of Cowick Barton, Exeter. Exeter, 1927.

References in secondary literature

n/a

Archival holdings connected to pageant

  • Scrapbook of programme, flyer and newspaper cuttings, etc. in Devon Heritage Centre, Exeter, Reference 219/20/8s

Sources used in preparation of pageant

  • Izacke, Richard, Remarkable Antiquities of the City of Exeter. London, 1681.

Summary

The impetus for the pageant had come from Mrs C.A. Simmons, who lived in the Cowick Barton Priory. She had brought in Beatrix Cresswell, who had been the historical consultant for the Torquay Pageant (1924). Cresswell told the Express and Echo the true meaning of the pageant: ‘The housing question and motor traffic are combining to alter our rural surroundings past recognition. It is impossible not to regret the alterations, however necessary, which have caused a new colony to arise along the land that ran its rustic course from Dunsford hill to Alphington Cross.’1 She added: ‘During the coming summer it is hoped that a little pageant may be acted here, shewing historical scenes both of the priory and Barton. This may encourage local antiquarians to unearth some more definite records than this brief account than can furnish of its past history.’2 Sadly, pageants were often hostages to fortune. The Pageant was initially supposed to have been held in July the previous year, but a summer of near-solid rain led to the pageant being ‘Postponed sine die’ [indefinitely], provoking an anguished poem from Simmons:

The garden, very gay last month
Is over-grown and weedy,
And we have been so over-worked
We’re all run down and seedy.
We cannot act a Pageant
Unless we have fine weather,
So, in spite of all Advertisement
Let’s scrap it altogether.
Since agreement universal when we put it to vote is –
This unparalleled performance is
Postponed till farther notice!3

Fortunately, however, the pageant was rescheduled for the following summer.

The Pageant of Cowick Barton told a number of colourful scenes and legends from the area’s history, including a story of a courting weaver and a maiden who miss their romantic rendezvous. What appears to be a tragedy reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet turns into something of a farce and is given a happy ending. Similarly, the scene with the mad monk cook being nearly killed by the prior (who risks being punished for this), is likewise resolved peacefully. The sixth episode (which we are informed is probably invented) tells of a visit by Edward VI and his half-sister Elizabeth to Devon where the future queen meets and flirts with the young Sir Francis Drake. Only the fifth episode attests to the turbulent religious history of Exeter and its split loyalties and makes a somewhat unsettling juxtaposition in an overwhelmingly pacific and good-natured pageant. Significantly, the pageant omits the dissolution of the priory in the 1530s. In fact, most pageants set in old monastic buildings did reference this seismic event, even if the current owners had directly or indirectly benefited from this the dissolution (see, for example the Welbeck Abbey Pageant (1939)).

The Pageant was a reasonable success, described by the Western Morning News as ‘A charming historical pageant,’ which ‘ended on a gay note of festival merrymaking.’4 Though Devon held relatively few historical pageants, especially after the costly failure of Torquay (1924), Cowick Barton showed that the county was able to put on a show, despite the unpredictable British weather.

Footnotes

  1. ^ The Express and Echo, 26 March 1927, unpaginated. Cutting in Pageant Scrapbook, Devon Heritage Centre, Exeter, Reference 219/20/8s
  2. ^ Ibid.
  3. ^ MS poem in Pageant Scrapbook, in Devon Heritage Centre, Exeter, Reference 219/20/8s
  4. ^ Western Morning News, 23 July 1928, 3; Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 23 July 1928, 2.

How to cite this entry

Angela Bartie, Linda Fleming, Mark Freeman, Tom Hulme, Alex Hutton, Paul Readman, ‘A Pageant of the History of Cowick Barton’, The Redress of the Past, http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/1273/