Uneven weather again, indecisively gliding between fraiche and misty, but invigorating in any case. Here we are in "Roots" territory, Mayflower style, contemplating dour American ancestors in their quest to build a new Eden across the Atlantic. Little did we know that were it not for shoddy shipbuilding, there would have been two Pilgrim vessels -- imagine the "descendents of the Speedwell" or the "Speedwell Madam"!
As a nice corrective to heroic history, our guide on the walking tour (despite his own ancestry) informs us of the fine line between "respectable" merchant seamen plying the Devon-to-Continent trade and the privateers of more dubious repute. Ah, for the romantic days when piracy was patriotic. Theft as virtue, greed as good!
The town of Dartmouth traces its documentable roots back to the eleventh century, priding itself on a harbor entrance so tight and well hidden that only those in the know could find it. For those who did know yet were deemed undesirable (for reasons of privateering for the wrong side, making war, or smuggling), there was always the massive chain that could be drawn across the opening, allowing the guns of the portal fortress to blast the enemy at their leisure. Were the interlopers wily enough to pass such obstacles, the fortress built further in by Henry VIII could make short work of them, all the better if they were the caravels of the Catholic King of Castile.
Winding along the narrow streets at the base of the east-facing hillside upon which the town sits, one stumbles across the modestly understated local Anglican church. By way of its intricately carved altar screen (replete with effaced saints' visages), stone pulpit (with English Civil War-era inserts), merchant-owned private pews, and row of the coats of arms of local notables, this piece of local materialized memory attests to centuries of change in the town. Finally, lest one believe that salvation was elusive at the dawn of this cynical Modern Age, it need be noted that the sanctuary ring remains attached to the south door of the church, installed in 1632. Thanks to this device, putative culprits being pursued by the forces of order could enjoy legal sanctuary even during the hours the church was closed. As W.H. Auden said of the Spanish Civil War, this church and the town it serves offer "an x-ray of an era."
