Henry VIII gave Exeter 'the highest privilege,' says Professor Freeman, 'that can be given to an English city or borough.' He made it a county, 'with all the rights of a county under its own Sheriff.' An Act of Parliament was also passed to undo the harm done by Isabel de Fortibus, representative of the Earls of Devon, when she made a weir about the year 1280--still called Countess Weir--that blocked the free waterway to the sea. As the tide naturally comes up the river a little way beyond Exeter, before the weir was made ships had been able to sail up to the watergate of the city. The first attempts to improve matters after this Act was passed failed, but a canal was constructed with tolerable success in the reign of Elizabeth.
In 1549 came the siege of Exeter that followed the burning of Crediton barns. The Devonshire rebels had been reinforced by a large number of Cornishmen, who resented the new Prayer-Book, and the law obliging them to hear the services in English instead of Latin, more bitterly and with greater reason than the people of Sampford Courtenay. For to them it was more than unwelcome change in the Liturgy; it meant also that their services were read in an alien tongue. 'We,' the Cornish, 'whereof certain of us _understand no English_, utterly refuse the new English,' was their protest. It is curious to think that more than half a century later English was a foreign language in Cornwall. In James I's reign, 'John Norden ... constructing his _Speculum_, his topographical description of this kingdom,' writes: 'Of late the Cornishmen have muche conformed themselves to the use of the English tongue;' and adds that all but 'some obscure people' are able to 'convers with a straunger' in English. The bitterness aroused by the religious question was intensified by a report which was 'blazed abroad,' as Hooker says, 'a Gnat making an Elephant, that the gentlemen were altogether bent to over-run, spoil, or destroy the people.' No one could have acted with greater loyalty and courage than the Mayor, John Blackaller, and his powers were put to a hard trial before the end of the siege. Not only was there an active and vigorous enemy without, but within the walls the majority secretly, and some persons openly, sided with the enemy. The most unceasing vigilance and unfaltering resolution were needed to frustrate all plots and plans. One great danger was averted by a certain John Newcomb, an ex-miner, who, suspicious of a possible peril, watched diligently for its slightest sign. One day an anxious crowd looked at him 'crawling about on the ground with a pan of water in his hand. Every now and again he would listen attentively, with his ear in the dust, and, rising, place the pan on the spot. At last he has it. Like the beating of a pulse, the still water in the pan vibrates in harmony with the stroke of the pickaxe far underneath, and the old miner rises exultant.' A counter-mine was hurriedly made, and through a tiny opening it was seen that barrels of gunpowder and pitch and piles of faggots were heaped beneath the west gate. Fortunately, this gate stood below the steep slope on which the city lies, and on discovering the enemy's alarming preparations, every householder was ordered, at a given signal, to empty a great tub of water into the kennel, and every tap in the city was turned on. 'At which time also, by the Goodness of God, there fell a great Shower, as the like, for the Time, had not been seen many years before.' A tremendous torrent rushed down the streets, and, being concentrated upon the mine, completely flooded it.