JOHN PRINCE, 355 
existing between the borough of Totnes and Sir Edward, who 
was recorder. He was succeeded in the vicarage of Totnes by 
Robert Burscough, who seems to have hailed from the North, his 
being a Lancashire name. 
Prince in the Worthies speaks of him as his ‘‘ very kind and 
friendly neighbour the reverend and learned Mr. Robert Burscough, 
Vicar of Totnes, my immediate successor in that charge.’? I am 
inclined to think that it is not improbable but that to this change 
from the busy town to the quiet village, with its small population, 
we owe the Worthies ; for here Prince must have found far less 
to engross his time and attention, and whilst not neglecting his 
pastoral work, could employ his spare time in perfecting the idea, 
which had many times run through his brain, of printing for the | 
good of his county a collection of many things of good note 
respecting the men of Devon. 
The parish of Berry Pomeroy, then as now, was almost entirely 
the property of the noble family of Seymour; and its name carries 
us back to still earlier days, when the ‘“ Castle of Berry’? was the 
stronghold of the Pomeroys, one of whom, Sir Henry Pomerai, 
Lord of Biry, is immortalized in the Worthies, while the Seymours 
have no place in the list of illustrious Devonians. 
Of the castle, still sought out by tourists and antiquaries, it 
will be well to transcribe Prince’s account. He says: ‘‘ It may 
not be ungrateful to give a brief account of their [the Pomeroys’ | 
antient habitation. It was a castle standing a mile distant toward 
the east from the parish church of Biry aforesaid. What it was in 
its antique form can hardly be calculated from what at present 
remains standing, which is only the front, facing the south in the 
direct line of sixty cloth yards in length. The gate standeth 
toward the west end of the front, over which, carved in moor- 
stone, is yet remaining Pomeroys arms. It had heretofore a 
double portcullis, whose entrance is about twelve foot in height, 
and thirty foot in length, which gate is turreted and embattled, as 
are the walls yet standing home to the east end thereof, where 
answereth yet in being a tower called St. Margaret’s, from which 
several gentlemen of this county anciently held their lands. 
Within this is a large quadrangle, at the north and east side 
whereof the honourable family of Seymour (whose possession now 
it is) built a magnificent structure, at the charges, as fame relates 
it, upward of £20,000, but never brought it to perfection; for the 
