y on the
smaller estates, the lord dwelt in patriarchal intercourse with his
tenants, with that freedom of speech and right of judgment, which, in
"Ivanhoe," Scott draws in the household and retinue of Cedric; and the
eviction was bitter, and the rule of the new lord oppressive and
hateful.

Domesday Book was compiled in 1086, twenty years after the landing of
William, so that a new generation was already growing up, and the old
scars were beginning to heal. Here is a translation of the entry on
Lynton:

"William has a manor called Lintona, which Ailward Touchstone held on
the day on which King Edward was alive and dead, and with this manor
was added formerly another called Incrintona, which Algar held. These
are held by William for one manor, and they rendered geld for one hide.
. . . Lintona is worth four pounds and Incrintona three pounds. When
William received them Lintona was worth 20 shillings and Incrintona 15.
. . ."

It is interesting to note how all property throughout England had
advanced in value since "the day that King Edward was alive and dead";
in the old English, "on pam timan pe Eadward cing was cucu and
dead"--_i.e._, on the fifth of January 1066--which is a clear
intimation that the firm rule of the Conqueror had increased the
material prosperity of the country in one generation.

After the Conquest there was peace in Devonshire for many years, though
Exeter was besieged by Stephen for three months in 1137, when he and
Matilda, the mother of Henry II, rent England with a war of succession;
but the young Henry came to the throne in 1152, and ruled wisely and
strongly for thirty-five years. Under him Devon prospered, as did all
England, and the cloth-making industry, which in Westcote's time, in
the seventeenth century, was so notable a part of the wealth of Devon,
probably had its first considerable beginnings in this reign.

But Henry II is remembered less for his wise laws and far-sighted
government than for the murder of Thomas a Becket, which clouded his
latter years and brought his enemies--his wife and his son among
them--swarming about his ears. This northern coast of Devon is linked
with that dark crypt in Canterbury where Becket fell in the sacerdotal
robes of High Mass; for it was a Tracy who was one of the four knights
who spurred from London to rid Henry "of this turbulent priest," and
the Tracys owned Lynton, Countisbury, and Morthoe. It is to Morthoe
that Tracy is supposed