LYME REGIS and the ROYAL FAMILY through the ages.

Lyme Regis has had a somewhat rocky not always positive relationship with many of the monarchs of the day. Edward 1st this great warrior king loved it, especially for it’s ship building.  He ordered an 120 oar galleon to be built in Lyme and a Manor House to be built for his new French Queen, which gave us the ‘Regis.’  At that time a royal residence, even if the Queen never visited, qualified Lyme for this honour. He gave Lyme a very generous charter which included among other things the right to send 2 MPs to parliament, which lasted until the Great Reform Act of 1832! 

Queen Mary, a Catholic queen, described Lyme as ‘a heretic town’ because of the stubborn puritanism of it’s citizens. She refused to give back any of the dues from the Cobb which all previous monarchs had agreed for it’s maintenance and upkeep.

Unsurprisingly, given this Puritan background, when the Civil War broke out in the 1640s Lyme chose the side of Parliament which was puritan against Charles 1st. In 1644 the town resisted a royalist siege conducted by Prince Maurice, the young nephew of the king, who after 8 weeks was obliged to withdraw without success, despite having boasted on the first day he would walk through Lyme before breakfast.  The women of Lyme played a significant role during the siege.  Some fought on the defenses and many more were involved in the refueling of muskets, which proved decisive. Lyme had a very cosy relationship with the Commonwealth government before the Restoration in 1660,when ,of course, they were no longer the flavour of the month.

Worse was to come. In 1685 the King of England was James11 who was catholic leaning, so, of course, not popular in Lyme or indeed most of the West Country. James, however had a nephew, the Duke of Monmouth, the illegitimate son of the previous king Charles 11.  He was in voluntary exile in Holland.  One fine June morning in 1685 Monmouth turned up on the west of the Cobb with three ships and an army and started what became known as the Monmouth rebellion, in which some 30% of Lyme’s male population participated.  It was a disaster.  Monmouth was defeated at Sedgemoor in the last battle on English soil.  The town of Lyme Regis suffered terribly under the repression that followed under the vengeful king’s Lord Chief Justice, Judge Jeffries. Twelve men from Lyme were sent down from the Taunton assizes to be cruelly executed on the beach that Monmouth landed, now of course known as Monmouth Beach. One was just a fisherman from Charmouth who had rowed up to the boats to sell fish, as he did with any large vessels entering the harbour.  He would not have known Monmouth from Adam, but this did not wash with Judge Jeffries.

Fortunately relations have improved since that time.  In 1856 the future Edward V11, a boy of 14 visited the town on the last stage of a walk around the southern sea coast with his tutor and a groom from the Palace.  It was supposed to be incognito but by the time he reached Lyme everybody knew this was the Prince of Wales.  The paparazzi of the day were out in force and the Mayor wanted to hold a reception.  The palace issued a command that a carriage be made available to take him back to London right away.  He spent one night in the Lion Hotel in Broad Street.  In the morning he made a brief visit to the Cobb and departed in the carriage.  The hour that he left the Lion Hotel became the Royal Lion Hotel and now has a magnificent Edward V11 suite to celebrate this even,t in an age when Lyme was successfully rebuilding itself through tourism.