Page:Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries.djvu/159

 no Devon Notes and Queries, A sculpture of the Mass of St. Gregory forms the eastern- most panel of the Kirkham monument in Paignton church « This was a very favourite theme with the artists and sculptors of the fifteenth century. Some very quaint old glass in the adjoining window at Ashton, representing St» Sidwella, the angel Gabriel, and part of the figure of an armed knight, has been assigned to circa 1485. The Chudleigh monument has now been fixed to the wall in a precisely similar position between the third and fourth windows on the same side of the church. The singular preservation of nearly all the other paintings adorning this interior, through a period of more than 400 years, betokens an inherited sense of reverence and veneration abiding among the inhabitants of Ashton, a spirit rarely met with, and in many places scarcely understood, but with which the present custodians of this remarkable building have shewn themselves to be thoroughly imbued. R.G. 77. Reynell of Exeter Castle. — *• Now I have gone over the baronyes of the county of Devon," says Sir Wm» Pole {Collections. Bk, II, p. 34), **I will in the next place sett downe such personages as held theire lands from the Crown immediately." " King Richard I " (page 40.) " Will. Fitzmartin, Lo. of Dertinton." " Will, de Toriton, Lo. of Toriton.'* The middle item above, unindexed in Pole, appears to have escaped the notice of subsequent Devon historians, who, while evincing an interest in Exeter Castle, pass over this period of its history in silence. Yet the reign of the first Richard was not without local interest in the rebellion of the King's brother John, Earl of Morton, and his attempt to seize the castles of Exeter and Launceston, the keys of the West. The men of Devon and Cornwall of course rose to the occasion, and the usurper retired discomfited. Genealogy, " the handmaid of history,'* has somewhat to say concerning the ruling spirit who led the defences at that eventful time. Sir Richard Reynell, Castellan of Exeter and Launceston, Sh'eriflf of Devon (and Cornwall) 1191, heads the pedigree of his family in the 1620 visitation of the Heralds. John Burke in his Commoners or Landed Gentry (Lond, 1838, vol. iv, p. 446)
 * Will. Renel, Castel of Exceter."