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More interesting are the remains of old Shute House, which lies
inland some six or seven miles. This was a far more extensive
mansion, as will be seen by the imposing embattled gateway and a
remaining wing, which rather remind one of a bit of Haddon. Here
during the Monmouth Rebellion the Royalist commander Christopher,
second Duke of Albemarle, encamped on June 18, 1685, the same
day that the other duke, the boon companion of his wilder days,
entered Taunton. The house belonged then, as it does still, to the De
la Poles.
Most of the old houses hereabouts are associated in some sort of
way with the rebellion. Close upon the county border to the north-east
stands Coaxden, a much modernised old farm, where stories are told
of fugitives from Sedgemoor. How its occupant, Richard Cogan,
being suspected as a Monmouth adherent, fled from his house to
Axminster, where in the "Old Green Dragon Inn" the landlord's
daughter secreted him between a feather-bed and the sacking of a
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bedstead. Kirke's "lambs" traced him to the house, but failed to hit upon his hiding-place. The story ends as all such stories should, the
girl who preserved his life became his wife. The house is further
interesting as the birthplace in 1602 of Sir Symonds D'Ewes the
historian.