Diary of Walter Yonge, Esq. : Justice of the Peace, and M.P. for Honiton, written at Colyton and Axminster, Co. Devon, from 1604 to 1628 / Edited by George Roberts.

  • Yonge, Walter, 1581?-1649.
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Diary of Walter Yonge, Esq. : Justice of the Peace, and M.P. for Honiton, written at Colyton and Axminster, Co. Devon, from 1604 to 1628 / Edited by George Roberts. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Francis Drake, the illustrious cireumnavigator. Meeting the latter within the verge of the court, a quarrel ensued, which duly engaged the attention of Queen Elizabeth. Mr. Drake, both a justice and knight for the county of Devon, received illustrious guests at his house at Ash. Like Sir William Pole, he gave 10/. to a benevolence, when the other justices of south- east Devon gave 4/. only. He was father of Sir John Drake, Kt. whose daughter Elizabeth married Sir Winston Churchill, who was sojourning at Ash during the interregnum, when on Midsummer- day, 1650, his lady gave birth to the great Duke of Marlborough.* Sir John Pole, the sixth Baronet, resided at Ash House during the erection of the present mansion, Shute House; when in 1778, owing to the carelessness of a stable boy, a small part was consumed by fire, and a stud of thirteen coach-horses and hunters perished. Ash House exists as a farm-house. The bedstead upon which the mother of the Duke of Marlborough was delivered is at Shute House. Francis Drake, Esq. of Yardbury, in Colyton, Minister at Munich, who narrowly escaped from the vengeance of Buonaparte, was a descendant of the Drakes of Ash. His grandson, Bernard Wiliam Francis Drake, was Captain of Eton College at the last Eton Montem in 1844. The ER ez family, originally of Somersetshire, was settled at Bin- don House, in the parish of Axmouth, a well-known locality from the circumstance of a part of the estate being included in the famous landslip of Dowlands and Bindon, Decr. 1839. The family bestowed at different times much cost in making a harbour at the mouth of the Axe. See Collinson and Hutchins, the historians of Somerset * Ash House is supposed to have been principally constructed from the materials of Newenham. Abbey, between it and Axminster. It was burnt down during the civil wars.