Lorna Doone by Richard Doddridge Blackmore was
published in 1869, a romance set in and around the East Lyn Valley area of
Exmoor. The story is so much of a part of the heritage of Devon and Somerset,
there are those who insist that outlaws called Doone actually lived on Exmoor
in the 17th Century long before Blackmore’s novel was known.
Exmoor and Dartmoor were remote and inaccessible
spots in the 17th century, which provided effective hideouts for fugitives and
outlaws. Set between Devon and Somerset, neither authority wished to take
responsibility for the actions of the outlaws who lived there. Survival was as
harsh as the penalties for highway robbery, cattle and sheep stealing etc
necessary for a man to feed his family. Children raised there would grow up
into half wild savages, mistrustful of anyone and thus hostile to strangers.
Blackmore's father, the Reverend John Blackmore,
was the Curate in Charge. Following the death of his wife and sister-in-law
from typhus, he accepted a curacy firstly in Culmstock in 1826 and then
Ashford, Nr. Barnstaple in 1835. Richard’s Grandfather was Rector of Combe Martin
and Oare, his uncle was Rector of Charles, a little village on the fringe of
the Moor, and Richared often stayed with both of them so he probably heard
stories of these 'tribes' from childhood.
In 1865, before he began to write Lorna Doone,
Blackmore came to Lynmouth and stayed at the Rising Sun Inn, using it as a base
of his research, and invented ‘Doone Valley’, which did not exist. However,
since his death, the area around Lank Combe on the west bank of Badgworthy
Water has, by common consent, been dubbed the Doone Valley, and is now
unofficially marked on some maps.
R D Blackmore never claimed his story was based on
historical fact, but he used elements of local stories. One village he was
reputed to have spent a great deal of time in, was Chagford in Devon. Thus it
would not be unreasonable to assume he heard the following tale of a tragic
bride and used it as a plot device for Lorna Doone.
In 1641, a girl named Mary Whiddon of Chagford
jilted her lover for another man. The rejected man brooded in a deep black
sulk, his envy turning to a malicious hatred for his former love and her new
swain. Each day he verbally and openly maligned Mary, until in the end the
village’s sympathy turned to apathy.
On the 11th of October 1641, Mary planned to marry
her new love. On that day, the bride made her way to St Michael’s, a small
moorland church, where the villagers clapped and cheered her arrival. The
ceremony proceeded without a hitch and the couple walked back down the aisle
and onto the church steps.
Suddenly a shot rang out striking Mary, who
crumpled in a heap on the steps, her white wedding dress stained with blood
from a small hole over her heart. Her fiancé gathered her into his arms, but
unlike Lorna Doone, Mary was dead. Everyone knew who had committed the murder,
but legend does not say what happened to him, nor does his name or the name of
her widowed husband survive.
Stories vary as to whether this happened at the altar or outside the
church but the tradition is that any girl married from Whiddon House, as
the Three Crowns used to be known, will meet Mary’s ghost. Mary was buried in the chancel of Chagford Church where the following epitaph is carved on a stone slab set into the floor
that reads:
"Mary Whiddon, daughter of Oliver Whiddon, who
died in 1641
Reader, would'st though know who here is laid,
Behold a matron, yet a maid
A modest look, a pious heart
A Mary for the better part
But dry thine eyes, why wilt thou weep
Such damselles doe not die, but sleep."
Newly-wed brides often lay a flower on Mary’s tomb
after signing the register in St Michael’s Church.
Below is a link to one of the more detailed
alternative history for the Doone Family, written in 1901 for the West Somerset
Free Press. Ida M. Browne (Audrie Doon) claimed to
be a descendant of the Scottish Doones who settled on Exmoor in 1620. It has
it’s detractors, but it’s an engaging story and worth reading
Source: Lymouth Tourism Site