Lyneham was,[2] after Hele[3] the second earliest known home of the Crocker family, one of the most ancient in Devon according to the traditional rhyme quoted by Prince himself which he called "that old saw often used among us in discourse":[4] Crocker, Cruwys,[5] and Coplestone,[6] When the Conqueror came were at home John Prince had a family connection to his great contemporary John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough (1650–1722).
While at Berry Pomeroy, Prince worked on his magnum opus: a biography of his home county's many notable figures, which he probably finished in 1697.
A work, wherein the lives and fortunes of the most famous divines, statesmen, swordsmen, physicians, writers, and other eminent persons, natives of that most noble province from before the Norman Conquest, down to the present age, are memorised, in an alphabetical order out of the most approved authors, both in print and manuscript.
In which an account is given, not only of divers very deserving persons, (many of which were never hitherto made publick) but of several antient and noble families; their seats and habitations; the distance they bear to the next great towns; their coats of arms fairly cut; with other things, no less profitable, than pleasant and delightful.
[10]The Dumnonii, Danmonii or Dumnones were a British Celtic tribe which inhabited Dumnonia, the peninsula now containing in its west the county of Cornwall and in its east Devon.
The alphabetical entries from A to H fill half the book, while L to Z are squeezed into the final quarter, as money problems took their toll on his inclusions.
A second volume, detailing 115 entries chosen by Prince to redress the balance, was never published, though a manuscript exists in the Devon Record Office.
In April 1699, Prince arranged a meeting with a local woman, Mary Southcote, in the back room of an inn.
In 2005 the book was adapted as a play, The Tale of John Prince, which was performed by the South Devon Players theatre company in 2006,[16] at two venues relevant to the story: The Seven Sisters Hotel in Totnes (next door to the former site of Angel's inn); and also in Berry Pomeroy Church.