There was also under an
arch a very old monument, said to be that of the famous Isabella
de-Fortibus, Countess of Devon, who died in 1293. She was the sister of
the last Earl Baldwin de Redvers, and married William de-Fortibus, Earl
of Albemarle, in 1282. Her feet rested on a dog, while on either side
her head were two small child-angels, the dog and children being
supposed to point to her as the heroine of a story recorded in a very
old history of Exeter:
An inhabitant of the city being a very poor man and having many
children, thought himself blessed too much in that kind, wherefore to
avoid the charge that was likely to grow upon him in that way
absented himself seven years together from his wife. But then
returning, she within the space of a year afterwards was delivered of
seven male children at a birth, which made the poor man to think
himself utterly undone, and thereby despairing put them all in a
basket with full intent to have drowned them: but Divine Providence
following him, occasioned a lady then within the said city coming at
this instant of time in his way to demand of him what he carried in
that basket, who replied that he had there whelps, which she desired
to see, who, after view perceiving that they were children, compelled
the poor man to acquaint her with the whole circumstances, whom, when
she had sharply rebuked for such his humanity, presently commanded
them all to be taken from him and put to nurse, then to school, and
so to the university, and in process of time, being attained to man's
estate and well qualified in learning, made means and procured
benefices for every one of them.
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