The Protestation of 1642 was soon followed by the Civil War, and at Christmas 1645 there was a Royalist force at Bovey and a Parliamentary force at Tiverton. Fairfax marched from Tiverton to Moreton, while Cromwell marched from Tiverton to Bovey by another road, and surprised and beat the Royalists there, 9 January. They lost 12 men killed and 60 taken prisoners besides about 350 horses. “It was almost supper time with them when our men entered the town, most of them at that instant were playing at cards, but our souldiers took up the stakes for many of their principal officers, who (being together in one room) threw their stakes of mony out at the window, which whilst our souldiers were scrambling for, they escaped out at a back-door over the river, and saved their best stakes.” That is what Sprigge says in his _Anglia Rediviva or England’s Recovery_, published in 1647. The story has been doubted, as it is told of other places; but it probably is true of Bovey. Sprigge was chaplain to Fairfax during this campaign, and thus could get at facts; and the story is also in a letter to Edmund Prideaux, M.P., written on 11 January, and printed and published on 15 January by order of the House of Commons, that is, within a week of the event. The letter says that the money thrown out of window was about £10 of silver.
Next day, 10 January, “the weather still extream bitter cold,” the forces at Moreton and Bovey “had a rendezvouz near Bovey,” and went on to Ashburton, whither the Royalists had retired. That is what Sprigge says; but one wonders why the rendezvous should be ‘near’ Bovey and not at Bovey itself, Bovey being on the road to Ashburton. It would not be between Moreton and Bovey, as there is no cross-road between, and one force or the other would have to go back the way it came. If it was the other side of Bovey, the Moreton force would merely follow the Bovey force along the road, and join it later on instead of joining it at Bovey. In that weather, “much snow upon the ground,” the open country would be barred: so I imagine that Fairfax and his troops came down the valley by the usual road to Bovey, passing through the end of Wreyland Manor at Kelly.
Wreyland never was disturbed. One sitting of the Manor Court is in the first year of Edward V and the next in the first year of Richard III: another is in the second year of Richard III and the next in the first year of Henry VII. The business of the Court goes quietly on, regardless of the murders in the Tower or the carnage upon Bosworth Field. John Merdon is amerced a penny under Richard III because he has not yet repaired his buildings that are tumbling down, and he is again amerced a penny under Henry VII because he has not yet repaired, etc.