Bovey Tracey, Devon: The Cromwell Arms

What's in a name?

Bovey Tracey, "gateway to the moor", i e Dartmoor.  The river Bovey runs through this small town, which has its origins in Saxon times.

Baron William de Tracy was an illegitimate son of King Henry I, the king whose sole legitimate son and heir William Aetheling had drowned in 1120 off the Normandy coast in the disaster of the White Ship.  Baron William was appointed by his father as feudal Baron of Bradninch, a substantial area which included today's Bovey Tracey.

In 1154, not long after the accession of the Plantagenet King Henry II to the English throne, Thomas Becket was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer; seven years later, he was anointed Archbishop of Canterbury and renounced the office of Chancellor.

Very soon a rift developed between King and Archbishop.  Becket defended the jurisdiction of the church in legal areas to which the King also laid claim.  In 1164 Becket was convicted of contempt of royal authority and malfeasance in the Chancellor's office; he immediately fled to France.  There he was given protection by the French King Louis VII. From exile he threatened with excommunication King Henry and the bishops who carried out the King's will.

Becket returned to England in 1170 under a compromise engineered by the Pope.  Trouble immediately flared up when the King's eldest son and heir apparent was crowned at York by three bishops, this being in defiance of Canterbury's exclusive right to perform coronation ceremonies.  Becket immediately excommunicated the three bishops, who fled to Normandy.

Not surprisingly, King Henry was incensed when he heard this news.  It seems that his reaction - traditionally rendered as saying "who will rid me of this turbulent priest? " - was taken by four knights as royal authority to kill him.  They took sail for England, and killed Becket during vespers in Canterbury Cathedral after he had refused to go to Winchester to answer the allegations made against him.

One of the four assassins was William de Tracy, grandson of the first Baron William.  He is likely to have died in the Holy Land, where he and the other three assassins had been sent as a penance by the Pope.


Cromwell Arms

On the evening of 9th 1646 a contingent of parliamentary soldiers ("Roundheads") under Oliver Cromwell caught a Royalist regiment in Bovey Tracey by surprise,  taking prisoners and a substantial number of horses.

On the following day there was a minor battle at nearby Bovey Heath, which was again won by Cromwell's men.

This is not a very common pub name; far more "King's Heads" and "King's Arms" will be found in the UK.