book 20

William I. 1087, from whence it appears here was a famous endowed rectory church before the Norman Conquest; for vicarage churches, especially in Cornwall, sprung not up till after that time. The first of those appropriations of the advowsons of churches that I find on record in England, is that of William the Conqueror’s, anno Dom. 1070, who by charter granted the patronages or advowsons of the churches of Feversham and Middleton in Kent to the abbey of St. Austin’s in Canterbury, in these words:

“Donatio Domini Regis Willielmi Anglorum de Ecclesiis Feveresham et de Middeltone.

“In nomine sancte et individue Trinitatis, Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen. Ego Willielmus ineffabili Dei providentiâ Rex Anglorum, ex hiis que omnipotens Deus sua gratia mihi largiri est dignatus, quædam concedo ecclesiæ Sancti Augustini Anglorum Apostoli, que sita est in suburbio urbis Cantuarie, pro salute anime mee, et parentum meorum, predecessorum, et successorum hereditario jure.

“Hec sunt Ecclesie et decime duarum mansionum videlicet Faversham et Middeltona, ex omnibus redditibus que mihi redduntur ex hiis mansionibus, et omnibus ibidem appendentibus, terra, silva, pratis, et aqua, exceptis decima mellis et gabbi-denariorum. Hec omnia ex integro concedo sancto Augustino et Abbati et fratribus, ut habeant, teneant, possideant imperpetuum. Si quis autem huic nostræ donationi contraire presumpserit, anathemati subjacebit.

“Facta est hec Donatio in villa que dicitur Wyndesor anno Incarnationis Domini Millesimo septuagesimo. Testibus, Episcopo Golfrydo de Seynt Loth. et Willielmo Tremle Londoniensi, et Hugone de Port, et aliis ejus quamplurimis optimatibus.”

Which grant was afterwards confirmed by Pope Alexander the Third, and ratified by Theobald Archbishop of Canterbury, together with an establishment and ordination of a vicarage by the said archiepiscopal authority in each of the said churches respectively. Afterwards King Edward III. 1349, appropriated to the same Abbey three other church advowsons, viz. Wivelsberge, Stone, and Brockland in Kent, ratified and confirmed by Pope Clement the Fifth’s bull, and by Simon Mepham, then Archbishop of Canterbury, with the establishment of three perpetual vicarages in those churches.

Of these sort of vicarage churches appropriated to Bishops, Deans, and Chapters, Abbots, Colleges, and Priories, there are in England about three thousand eight hundred and forty-five, in Cornwall one hundred and twenty-two; most of them endowed with glebe lands and small tithes, except about fifteen of them wholly impropriate, the vicar subsisting only on a small salary or stipend by custom or subscription.

Wales-bury, i. e. the Wales or Welsh burying, or the place where some Welsh tribe lived and had their burying place or were interred, was another manor or lordship, under which jurisdiction this district was taxed 20 William I. 1087, from whence was denominated an ancient family of gentlemen surnamed de Walesbury, who flourished here in worshipful degree and great affluence of wealth for many generations till the latter end of the reign of King Edward IV.; at which time, the issue male failing, this estate fell amongst daughters, one of which was married to Trevillian, who was no small advancer of the fame and wealth of that family. Of this family Thomas Walesbury was Sheriff of Cornwall 20 Henry VI. when William Wadham was Sheriff of Devon; Thomas Walesbury, his son, was Sheriff of Cornwall 32 Henry VI. when John Cheyney was Sheriff of Devon; his son John Walesbury was Sheriff of Cornwall 37 Henry VI. when Richard Hals, of Kenedon, was Sheriff of Devon. The arms of Walesbury were, Argent, a fess lozengy Gules.

Lang-ford-hill, in this parish, gave name and original to an old family of gentlemen surnamed de Langford; and in particular, Humphrey Langford, Esq. Commissioner for the Peace and Taxes [was] in possession [of Langford Hill] tempore Charles II. and giveth for his arms, in a field ―――― a lion rampant. The which gentleman aforesaid had issue only daughters, one of which was lately married to her kinsman Walter Langford, of Swadle Downes in Devon, Esq. now in possession of this place.

In this parish liveth Alexander Cottle, Gent. who married Hawkey, his father Cosowarth.

TONKIN.

The name Marhamchurch is only an abbreviation of St. Morewen’s Church from St. Morwen, to whom it is dedicated.

It is a rectory valued in the King’s books at 15_l._ 11_s._ having never been appropriated.

Anno 1291, 20th Edward I. this church was valued at 6_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._

The manor, Marwyn Church.――This is in Domesday book named Marone Church, and was one of the manors given by William the Conqueror to Robert Earl of Morton.

In the 3d of Henry IV. Herbert de Pyn held in Marwen Church one knight’s fee.

THE EDITOR.

The church of this parish has the appearance of being very ancient; it contains several monuments to former residents on the principal estates.

Mr. Lysons says, that the manor of Marham Church has been in the families of Pyne, Stafford, and Rolles; from the last it has descended to Trefusis.

That the manor of Walesborough gave name to an ancient family residing there, from whom it went with an heiress to the family of Trevelyan, from whom it was purchased by the late Mr. Justice Buller, and now belongs to his grandson.

Mr. Lysons further states, that the manor of Hilton, also in this parish, was held jointly by the families of Cobham, Carminow, and Botreaux; that it subsequently came into the possession of a Rolle, and now belongs to the Rev. John Kingdon.

Wood-Knowle was formerly the residence of the Rolles, probably of the branch which came possessed of Hilton; it is now the residence of the Rev. Henry Badcock.

The Rev. John Kingdon is Patron of the rectory, and the present incumbent, instituted in 1818.

The whole parish is fertile, variegated by hill and dale, and moreover, notwithstanding its maritime situation, abounds with trees, so that the prospect is every where interesting, and the church, almost inclosed in a grove, presents a very pleasing object.

Marhamchurch measures 2,392 statute acres. Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._ returned to Parliament in 1815 2,485 0 0 Poor Rate in 1831 339 3 0 Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831, { 414 | 448 | 647 | 659 giving an increase of 59 per cent. in 30 years.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

Doctor Boase says of the geology, that the whole rests on massive and schistose varieties of dunstone, a member of the calcareous series, similar to what may be found in the adjoining parishes of Launcells, Bayton, and Kilkhampton.

ST. MARTIN’S, NEAR LOOE.

HALS.

St. Martin’s rectory is situate in the hundred of West, and hath upon the north Morvall by Looe, south and west the British Channel and Looe Haven, east Seaton River and St. Germans.

This parish is denominated from the church thereof, as it is from its tutelar guardian and patron St. Martin, Bishop of Tours in France, which was a famous endowed rectory church before the Norman Conquest, as is testified by the Domesday book in Cornwall 20 William I. 1087, wherein we read, Lant Martin, i. e. Martin’s church, chapel, or temple, now turned to St. Martin.

In the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester into the value of Cornish Benefices 1294, Ecclesia de Sancto Martino in decanatu de West, was valued 9_l._ 6_s._ 8_d._ In Wolsey’s Inquisition 1521, St. Martin juxta Looe 36_l._ The patronage in the Duke of Bolton; the Incumbent Hancock. The Parish rated to the 4_s._ per pound Land Tax 1696, 178_l._ 17_s._ 5_d._; East Looe town, within its precincts, 53_l._ 9_s._; in all 222_l._ 6_s._ 5_d._

Within this parish stands the borough town of East Looe, that is to say, the town that stands on the east side of the River Looe; for as loo, looe, lough, in the old Scots and Irish tongues and the French, signifies a lough, a lake, or pool of water, so it is sometimes used in the same sense in old British. East and West Looe towns, situate in the Looe Haven or harbour thereof, afford opportunities to the inhabitants for foreign and domestic trades and merchandizes to be imported and exported, to their no small advantage. In which town of East Looe there is a chapel or oratory for divine service, wherein the rector of St. Martin’s, or his curate, officiates on Sundays for convenience of its inhabitants. It was of old a privileged manor by prescription, all which was confirmed by a charter from Queen Elizabeth, the 29th year of her reign, whereby it was also incorporated by the name of the Mayor and free Burgesses, consisting of a Mayor and eight chief Burgesses or Council, the two Members of Parliament elected by the majority of them. It is also privileged with administration of justice within the liberties or precincts thereof, as also with a market on Saturday weekly, and fairs on the 2d of February and the 29th of September yearly.

The arms of this town are a gallot (high ship) in the sea, rigged with ropes and yard, bearing three escutcheons, each charged with the arms of De Bodrugan.

The writ to remove an action of law, depending in this Court Leet of East Looe, to a superior; and the precept for election of Members of Parliament from the Sheriff must be thus directed: “Majori et Burgensibus Burgi sui de East Looe, in comitatu Cornubiæ, et eorum cuilibet, salutem.”

The history of Kevorall is by mistake placed under St. Germans, a contiguous parish, only parted by the Lynar or Seaton river, which should be placed here.

TONKIN.

Mr. Tonkin has not any thing relative to this parish or town, but a long quotation from Browne Willis, wholly uninteresting; and a conjecture that the chapel at Looe is dedicated to St. Kenna, usually pronounced St. Kayne, adding as a confirmation, that her festival is kept on the 30th of September, and that on the eve of that day a fair is established in the town.

THE EDITOR.

It will be unnecesary to enter on any details respecting either St. Martin’s parish or Looe, since every thing curious or interesting may be found in a most excellent work: “Topographical and Historical Sketches of the Boroughs of East and West Looe, in the County of Cornwall, with an account of the Natural and Artificial Curiosities, and Picturesque Scenery of the Neighbourhood. By Thomas Bond, Esq. London, printed by and for J. Nichols and Son, 25, Parliament Street.”

Since Mr. Bond’s work was published, both Looes have lost the privilege of sending Members to Parliament; and it is said that a spirit of active exertion has already superseded the listless reliance on patronage which used to characterize small borough towns.

A canal has also been constructed to Leskeard, since the time of Mr. Bond’s publication, promising to diffuse cultivation and fertility over districts previously inaccessible to manure; and now at its commencement the canal transports coal, lime, and other bulky commodities, to such an extent as to amply repay the sums expended on its formation.

Another plan of a great work is in agitation, likely to render this beautiful and romantic neighbourhood the resort of strangers from all parts of the kingdom. Cornwall is stretched out into the sea by an interrupted chain of granite hills, extending from Dartmoor to the Land’s End. The valleys follow a general course on either side, transverse to the granite chain; so that to avoid the perpetual recurrence of steep declivities, the main road has been carried along the middle line, above the formation of the valleys, or, as it is termed, on the backbone of the ridge, over a most uncultivated and dreary tract.

It is now proposed, in consequence of the safe conveyance at all times by steam across the Tamar river from Plymouth, and in humble imitation of the road connecting France and Italy by the maritime Alps, to convey a new line of road along the face of the cliffs, over the debouches of the vallies, and across the Looe and Fowey rivers on lofty bridges, thus to avoid the hills, and to shorten the distance nine miles between Tor Point and St. Austell; but the very large expense may possibly defeat the execution of a plan, which, in addition to the essential advantages already stated, would lead travellers to Falmouth, or to any part of the west of Cornwall, through a district as beautiful, as that which the road now traverses is unsightly and uncouth.

The situation of East Looe is at once singular and pleasing. The two rivers, uniting about half a mile above the bridge, expand into a lake, loch, or low, evidently bestowing its name on the towns, and are then contracted into comparatively a narrow channel by the near approach of two steep hills. A beach has nevertheless been formed on the eastern and least precipitous side, by the meeting of the sea with the descending stream; and on this beach, secured by artificial mounds, and on the slope of the hill, East Looe is built.

Perhaps the only other addition that I can make to Mr. Bond’s work is to state that he himself has been the chief ornament of Looe for many years past, and that his ancestors may be found among the mayors and aldermen of the corporation, up to the period when the charter was given to the town.

Mr. Hals has detailed at great length the history of St. Martin of Tours, the undoubted patron of this parish.

It may be sufficient to state a few particulars of this far-famed personage. He was born in Hungary, of parents elevated in life, and commenced his early career in the Roman army, but afterwards became an ecclesiastic, having obtained celebrity, influence, and power, by adopting the most baneful of all practical heresies, founded on a belief that the favour of the Almighty may be effectually obtained by reversing the order established by his Divine Providence, and bestowing on idleness, profligacy, and vice, the legitimate rewards of industry, frugality, and care; in consequence, he became the favourite of rogues, thieves, vagrants, and impostors, and has continued so in Catholic countries to the present time. A part of his high reputation has however been derived from a more pure source. He supported the orthodox faith against the Arians, who at that period are supposed to have more than numerically divided the Christian Church.

The most absurd and ridiculous legends are related of this Saint by his disciple St. Sulpicius, and by other writers. In one of these it is said that our Saviour himself appeared to him on a cold winter’s night, under the disguise of a half naked wandering beggar; and that Martin, then a soldier, not having any thing else to bestow, divided his cloak with a sword, and gave one portion of it to the supposed mendicant. In another, setting at defiance the precept “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God,” he allowed himself to be fastened with cords, immediately under the inclining trunk of a tree, as workmen were dividing the roots; but just as the tree was about to fall on him, he signed it with the sign of the cross, when instantly the trunk ascended, and reached the ground in an opposite direction. Raising people from the dead, and resisting personal temptations of the devil, appear to have been frequent and ordinary occurrences. He died at Tours, in the odour of sanctity, in the year 397, having held the bishoprick 26 years. The festival in honour of St. Martin is kept on the 11th of November, but parish feasts are not observed in the eastern parts of Cornwall.

The advowson of this living, appurtenant to the manor of Pendrym, came to the family of Paulet, through the same succession as that which brought Ludgvan Lease, including the high lordship of St. Ives; and a peculiar although well-known relationship having continued to exist between the two properties, the learned Mr. Jonathan Toup was translated from the borough town to this rectory in the year 1751, where he died, Jan. 19, 1785. A monument has been erected to Mr. Toup’s memory by the Delegates of the Oxford Press, and he is there related to have been born in Dec. 1713. Mr. Toup has been mentioned under St. Ives, the place of his birth.

There are other monuments:――to Walter Langdon, of Keveril, stated to be the last of his race; to Philip Maiowe, probably ancestor of John Mayo, or Mayow, M.D. Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and afterwards Physician at Bath[3]; also to the Rev. Stephen Midhope, sometime Rector of this parish, who died in the year 1636; but this gentleman, hurried away by the whirl of fanatical opinions, growing out of the Reformation, had resigned his living some years before, on professing himself an Anabaptist.

This parish measures 2,719 statute acres. Annual value of the Real Property as £. _s._ _d._ returned to Parliament in 1815: The parish 3469 0 0 East Looe 921 0 0 ――――― ―― ―― £4390 0 0 ――――― ―― ―― Poor Rate in 1831: The parish 231 19 0 East Looe 325 5 0 ――――― ―― ―― £557 4 0

Population, in 1801, in 1811, in 1821, in 1831, The parish 344 343 411 455 East Looe 467 608 770 865 ―――― ―――― ―――― ―――― 811 951 1181 1320 giving an increase on the parish of 32 per cent.⎫ East Looe 42 per cent.⎬ In 30 years. both 39 per cent.⎭

THE GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

This parish entirely resembles St. Germans, to which it is contiguous.

[3] One of the most eminent chemists and natural philosophers of his age.

ST. MARTIN’S IN MENEAGE.

HALS.

St. Martin’s Rectory is situate in the hundred of Kerryer, hath upon the north and east Helford Channel and Constenton, south Manaccan and St. Kevorn, west Mawgan: under what jurisdiction this parish was taxed in the Domesday Book in 1087 I know not. In the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, into the value of Cornish Benefices in Cornwall, 1294, Ecclesia de Sancti Martini in decanatude Kerryer, was valued at £4. 6_s._ 8_d._ At or before the time of Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, it was consolidated into its superior or mother church St. Mawgan, and therefore not mentioned by itself. I take it to have been founded and endowed by the Prior of St. Michael’s Mount, who formerly was patron of both, now Trevillian; the incumbent Trewinard; and the parish rated to the 4_s._ per pound Land Tax, 1696, £105. 15_s._

Tremayne, that is the town of stone, or the stone town, in this parish, is the dwelling of an old family of gentlemen, surnamed Thoms or Tomys, Anglice Thomas; so called after the Cornish-British manner, after the font name of some of their ancestors. Of which family was Robert Thomy, who held by the tenure of knight’s service half a knight’s fee at Bliston, in Trigshire, now Blissland, temp. Henry IV. (Mr. Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, page 42). Also one little knight’s fee at Carnanton, in Pedyr, idem liber, page 43. The present posssessor is ―――― Thoms, and giveth for his arms, in a field Argent, a chevron between three talbots Sable. From this family, as I am informed, by younger brothers sprang, from their dwellings at Carveth and Carnsew in Mabe, and Roscrow in Gluvias, three families, who were transnominated after the names of those places, from Thoms to Carveth, and Roscrow, and Carnsew, who in testimony thereof ever gave their arms as aforesaid as Thoms did.

Mudgan in this parish, is the corruption of Muchan, as I take it, which signifies a short chimney,[4] with a lovour or chimney-hole through the top of the house for the smoke. From whence was denominated a family of gentlemen, surnamed Mugaun, or Mudgan, whose sole inheritrix was married to Chynoweth, of Chynoweth, in St. Earth, temp. Queen Mary, that is new house, so called from a new house, the first of this name, built in that parish, when he parted with his old lands and name of Trevillizik there, (now Tre-liz-ik) which signifies the water gulf, creek, town, as situate upon the sea banks or cliff, which affords a bad passage over the Hayle river, at low water, for passengers on foot or horseback. The last gentleman of this family, viz. Anthony Chynoweth, that married Trevillian, dying without issue, his brother John Chynoweth’s three daughters, by Lannar, succeeded to his estate and became his heirs; who were married to Banfeild, Dunscomb, and Trelevan, lately in possession of Mudgan, and other lands of value; which I hear is by them all spent through luxury and ill-conduct.

The arms of Chynoweth are Sable, on a fess Or, three eagle’s heads erased Gules.

TONKIN.

This parish is so called from the famous St. Martin of Tours. It is a daughter church to Mawgan, and valued in the King’s Books at £5. 10_s._ 8_d._ where the parish is designated St. Martin alias Dedimus.

The patronage in Trevelyan; the incumbent Mr. William Whiting, who succeeded Mr. James Trewinnard.

THE EDITOR.

This parish presents very little worthy of notice except Tremayne, which gave origin to both branches of the honourable and respected family, which flourished at Sydenham in Devonshire, and at Heligan in this county. The place is situated on the southern bank of Helford river. Mr. Lysons states that it passed with an heiress from the family of Tremayne to Reskymer. It has been frequently sold in recent times.

Mr. Hals mentions a Nunnery at a farm in this parish, called Hellnoweth, which Mr. Lysons says did belong to the Monastery of St. Michael’s Mount; but there is not the slightest trace to be found in any authentic work of a separate establishment having ever existed there; although Mr. Hals is so confident of it, as fancifully to derive the word Meneage from Menales, a supposed appellation of the nuns. All the parishes in the Lizard district, bounded by the Helford River and the Looe Pool, are said to be in Meneage, although no such division is recognised for any civil or ecclesiastical purpose. Under a supposition that this parish might be dedicated to St. Martin, pope and martyr, Mr. Hals has given his history at great length, which is omitted as being wholly uninteresting, as well as irrelevant, since the parish feast is kept on the nearest Sunday to Nov. the 11th, the well-known festival of St. Martin of Tours. Some notice is taken of this Pope under Gulval, where he is honoured as the patron Saint. He was not born till about an hundred and fifty years after the death of St. Martin of Tours.

This parish measures 2023 statute acres. Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._ returned to Parliament in 1815 2306 0 0 Poor Rate in 1831 193 11 0 Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831, { 336 | 391 | 504 | 508 giving an increase of 51 per cent. in 30 years.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

The south-western corner of this parish near the Dry Tree, (a mark on Goonhilly Downs) is situated on serpentine; the remainder of the parish belongs to the calcareous series, corresponding with Manaccan, and the other parishes immediately bordering on the Helford river.

[4] From mog, or moge, smoke.

ST. MAWGAN IN MENEAGE.

HALS.

St. Mawgan rectory is situate in the hundred of Kerryer, and hath upon the north Gwendron and Helston, south Cury and St. Martin’s, west Gonwallo. Under what jurisdiction this parish was rated in the Domesday Tax, 1087, I know not, probably under the names of Gwendron, Helleston, Lizard, or Trevery; for the modern names of St. Mawgan, or Maneage, were not then heard of. However, at the time of the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, 1294, into the value of Cornish Benefices, Ecclesia de Sancti Mawgani in decanatu de Kerryer, is valued £10. In Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, Ecclesias de St. Maugani in decanatu de Kerrier, £35. 10_s._ 0½_d._; the patronage formerly in the Prior of St. Michael’s Mount, who as I am informed endowed it, now Trevillian; the incumbent Trewinard; and the parish rated to the 4_s._ per pound Land Tax, 1696, £148. 8_s._

This district of Meneage is a kind of peninsula, formed between the lakes or rivers Looe and Hayle, conjoined at the neck only by a little part of this parish of Mawgan with that of Gwendron and Helleston; from whence further south in length and breadth, the land shooteth in towards the British Ocean, in the several parishes of St. Martin’s, Manaccan, St. Anthony, Kevorne, Ruan Major, Ruan Minor, Landawednack, Grade, Cury, Mullyan, Gonwallo. Which peninsula is further notable for its great fertility between the rocks for corn and grass; for as at St. Kevorne and other parishes, if wheat corn be seasonably tilled and well manured, it will produce commonly in the beginning of July a harvest of twenty bushels Cornish measure, that is to say sixty bushels Winchester to a Cornish acre of land; so in like manner this neck of land, being the most south-west part of this island of Britain, and situate between two seas, will in ten weeks time after the sowing of barley, produce a harvest in many places of much greater increase than that of wheat aforesaid. Moreover, it is also profitable for breeding and feeding bullocks and sheep of all sorts; and

## particularly Gon-hilly Downs, id est the Hunting Downs, is notable for

the breed of an under-statute sort of mares and horses, swift and sure of foot, and of great strength and hardiness for travel and labour. Which Downs consist of many hundred acres of land, all overspread with grey cloos, or a kind of marble stones as aforesaid.

The barton and manor of Carmenow, Car-mynow, Carminou, in this parish, words of one import, is the rockhill or mountain, a name given and taken from the natural circumstances of the place, viz. lands situate upon the rocks and hills abutting upon the sea-cliff of the British channel, and the Looe creek or cove therof. I know, contrary to this etymology, Mr. Carew tells us that Carminow is a little city, p. 55 Surv. Cornwall. But Caer-Vyan, or Caer-Byan, or Vyan-Caer, is a little city in Cornish; Caer-Broas, Bruse, a great, large, or extensive city. Again, page 142, he tells us that the interpretation of Car-mynow is often-loving; from which contradictory or cross etymology of this compound word aforesaid, it is evident he knew very little of the language of our ancestors the Britons, as his successor Mr. Camden did much less.

This local place gave name and original to an old British family of gentlemen surnamed de Carmynow, now extinct, who flourished there for many generations in great fame and riches; in particular here lived Robert de Carmynow, who held £16 per annum by the tenure of knight service, who was summoned by writ, 48 Henry III. to come and take his degree of knighthood. (Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, page 50.) This gentleman, as tradition saith, accompanied King Edward I. in the Holy War in Palestine. He had issue Ralph Carmenow, said to be Chamberlain to King Edward II.; who had issue Ralph Carmenow, Sheriff of Cornwall 2 Richard II. 1379. Betwixt whom and the Lord Richard Scrope, of Bolton Castle, in Richmondshire, Lord Chancellor of England temp. Edward III. (father of William Lord Scrope, Earl of Wiltshire and Lord Treasurer of England 21 Richard II. and Knight of the Garter, beheaded at Bristol for attainder of treason against Henry IV. anno Dom. 1399,) happened a memorable trial in the Court of Chivalry, or Earl Marshal’s Court, about the bearing on their shields, or coat armour, viz. Azure, a bend Or.

In this action the Lord Scrope was plaintiff, who declared that he was lineally descended from one Scrope, a French or Norman soldier, that came over into England under the banner and conduct of William the Conqueror, against King Harold, anno Dom. 1066; and that he gave for his arms, (portoit) d’Azur, à la band d’Or; and that his posterity till that instant (1360) ever gave the same arms, and to corroborate this their bearing, they produced a copy of the record thereof in the Earl Marshal’s Court; therefore Mr. Carmenow’s thus assuming and bearing their proper arms, it was contrary to law, and equity, and arms.

To this declaration the defendant pleaded not guilty, and in justification of the bearing aforesaid, said that his ancestors were Cornish Britons; and lived at Carmenow long before the Norman Conquest; and particularly, that one of them was sent by King Edward the Confessor an ambassador, either to the French King or Duke of Normandy; who gave those arms in and for his device, or shield; and that from that time to the time of King Edward III. aforesaid, which was about three hundred years, his posterity had ever given or borne the same arms, without interruption or alteration.

To this the plaintiff rejoined, that there was then no such public record extant in the Office of Arms, or Marshal’s Court, that appropriated any such bearing to this name or family of Carmenow, neither was the Provincial Herald called Clarencieux, for granting arms and recording the descents of private gentlemen for the south-west part of England, instituted but just before this action; and therefore, if the said Ralph Carmenow, or his ancestors, gave those arms, they were only personal badges or devices that terminated with their lives, and could not be hereditary or descend to posterity. And further it was alleged that in case Carmenow’s ancestor lived at Carmenow before the Norman Conquest, those arms could not be appropriated to him by the name of de Carmenow, for it was not the custom of the Britons till about a hundred years after, to style themselves from local places with the Latin pronoun or particle, De, after the manner of the French. But before were generally distinguished by the names John Mac Richard, Richard Mac Thomas, Robert ap Ralph, &c. that is to say the son of Thomas, Robert, and Ralph, according to their lineal descents.

Whereupon, after a full view and hearing of what could be said and shown on either part, by learned council as to records, manuscripts, deeds and pedigrees, the Earl Marshal, in Westminster Hall, gave judgment for the plaintiff; and the definitive sentence was afterwards made and signed with the public seal of that Court, and read in open audience; and orders given to the Sub-Marshal to put the same in execution; which was, that Carmenow should never more give the arms aforesaid without a label of three points Gules for a distinction; when accordingly the same was first entered of record in Clarencieux, or the Provincial Herald’s books, as the subsequent hereditary coat armour of his family, (and as tradition saith Carmenow paid costs,) which rule was ever after by those gentlemen observed in their bearings.

And though Carmenow’s friends pleased themselves in this distinction of a label, because given by the Emperor of Rome’s son and heir whilst his father was alive; and for that it is the mark or cognizance of the eldest son and heir of a family of the greatest degree; yet it is manifest Carmenow himself was so distasted therewith, that he chose for the motto of this new bearing arms, a Cornish sentence which abundantly expressed his dislike thereof: Cala rag Ger da, id est, a straw for fame, or breath.

William Carmenow, his son and heir, married the sole daughter and heir of Rawleigh, of Smallridge, in Devon, and was Sheriff of that County 14th of Richard II.; he had issue by her Thomas Carmenow, Sheriff of Cornwall 2 Henry VI. He or his son was also Sheriff of Cornwall the 8th of Henry VIII.; who had issue William Carmenow, father of John, whose daughters and heirs were married to Arundell of Lanherne, and Sir John Reskymer, of Reskymer, Knight. This John Carmenow suffered the barton and manor of Carmenow, with other lands, to go in marriage with his two daughters and heirs, married as aforesaid; whilst the greatest part of his ancient estate, by virtue of the entail, after his decease descended to his younger brother, John Carmenow, of Fentongollan, Esq. Sheriff of Cornwall 5 Henry VIII.

In this local place of Carmenow those gentlemen had their ancient domestic chapel and burying place, the walls and windows whereof are still to be seen; in which place also formerly stood the tombs and funeral monuments of divers once notable persons of this family; of which sort, in the beginning of King James the First’s reign, when this chapel was left to run to ruin and decay, the inhabitants of this parish of Mawgan, out of respect to the memory of those gentlemen, brought from thence two funeral monuments in human shape, at full length, made of alabaster, freestone, or marble, man and woman I take it, curiously wrought and cross-legged, with two lions couchant under their feet, and deposited or lodged them in this parish church of St. Mawgan, where they are yet to be seen, though the inscriptions and coat armour thereof are now obliterated and defaced by time. Now, though it was the custom to form the funeral monuments of such as had been in the Holy War temp. Richard I. and Edward I. cross-legged, yet I find that posture of monuments for the dead was much more ancient, and placed on the tombs of such as had never been in the Holy War, in memory of the cross whereon our Blessed Saviour suffered for our redemption and salvation. Lastly, it is further observable of this family of Carmenow, that, notwithstanding their great estate, gentility, and antiquity, they never had any higher title of honour or dignity conferred upon them by our English Kings than that of Knights Bachelors, of which sort two or three of them had been knights. This family was possest of five knight’s fees of land temp. Henry IV.; in Trewint, in Lesnewith, also in Moteland there, also in Hernecoft in Stratton hundred, also in Merthyn and Winenton in Kerrier; by computation four thousand acres of land of this tenure. (See Carew’s Survey of Cornwall.)

Res-ky-mer, in this parish, was the seat of Rogerus de Reskymer, a military man or officer for conduct of the new levies for France, 15 Edward III. (Survey of Cornwall, page 52.)

Richardus de Reskymer, probably his son, was one of those forty-nine Cornish gentlemen that held lands by the tenure of knight service, or grand sergeanty, by attending the King personally in his wars, with a horse and arms furnished according to his degree. See the writ directed to the Sheriff of Cornwall for that purpose, commanding him to attend him in his wars in France, 25 Edward III. (Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, page 51.) He held by the same tenure above £20 lands per annum.

John Reskymer married Alice, the second daughter and heir of John Densill, Esq. Sergeant-at-Law, about the year 1508, and had issue by her Sir John Reskymer, Knight, that married ―――― one of the coheirs of John Carmenow, of Carmenow, Esq. Sheriff of Cornwall 31 Henry VIII.; who had issue by her, as I am informed, John Reskymer, Esq. Sheriff of Cornwall 3 and 4 of Queen Mary; who married Seyntaubyn, by whom he had issue only four daughters, that became his heirs; married to Trelawney of Poole, Lower of St. Wenow, Vyvyan of Trelowarren, and Courtenay of Trethyrfe; in whose families the name, blood, and estate of those Reskymers are terminated; though now this Reskimer barton is the lands and possessions of Pendarves of Roscrow, as I am informed, and purchased by Mr. Basset, who gave for their arms, in allusion to part of their name, in a field Azure three bars Argent, in chief a wolf or wild dog passant of the First.

Tre-lo-warren, alias Talla-warren. In this place, as appears from Mr. Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, page 42, 3 Henry IV. one Mathew de Trethake held by tenure of knight service half a knight’s fee of land, from whose heir I suppose it came by purchase or marriage to Ferrers; but whether those gentlemen were descended from the Ferrers of Tutbury Castle, in Staffordshire, whose ancestor came out of France, a collateral under William the Conqueror, 1066, (who gave for his arms, sex ferres de cheval de Sable,) or from the Ferrers of Newton Ferrers, in the county of Devon, (who gave for their arms, Argent, a bend Gules, and a chief Vert,) I know not. However, there is yet extant, in the stone wall of the tower of St. Mawgan, cut in chief in the same, the 1st the arms of Carmenow, 2d of Reskymer, 3d Ferrers, 4th Vyvyan; by which arms this family may be distinguished.

Originally the Vyvyans were possessed of Trevederne in Buryan, as they still are; and from thence matched with the daughter and heir of Skyburiow, afterwards with the daughter and heir of Ferrers of Trelowarren; which first brought those lands into the possession of Vyvyan; particularly as I am informed Richard Vyvyan, Esq. Sheriff of Cornwall 9 Henry VII. 1494; Richard Vyvyan, Esq. his son, was Sheriff of Cornwall 20 Henry VIII; Michael Vyvyan, Esq. was Sheriff of Cornwall 22 of Henry VIII.; Hanniball Vyvyan, Esq. was Sheriff of Cornwall 43 of Elizabeth; whose son, Frances Vyvyan, Esq. afterwards knighted, was Sheriff of Cornwall 15 James I. who built the house now extant at Trelowarren, and married one of the coheirs of Vyell, of Trevorder. His son, Richard Vyvyan, Esq. afterwards, 12 February 1644, by King Charles I. was created the 384th Baronet of England, married Bulteel, and had issue by her Sir Vyell Vyvyan, Baronet, afterwards knighted by King Charles II.; who married Thomasin, daughter and heir of James Robins, of Penryn, Gent. Attorney-at-Law, who died without issue; afterwards he married Jane, daughter of Thomas Melhuish, of Penryn, Gent. the relict of Michael Cood, but died without issue that lived. Note that the name Melhuish is local, viz. from the barton or tenement of Melhuish, near Kirton in Devon, which signifies a lark-bird, or larks, as alauda.

After Sir Vyell Vyvyan’s decease, his nephew Sir Richard Vyvyan, Baronet, that succeeded to his estate and honour, son and heir of Charles Vyvyan, Esq. Barrister-at-Law, (younger brother of Sir Vyell aforesaid) by Erisey, married Mary, daughter and heir of Francis Vivian, of Cosowarth, Esq. by Anne, daughter and heir of Henry Mynors, of St. Enedor, Gent. by Bridget, the only surviving child of Sir Samuel Cosowarth, Knight, and sole heir to her brother Nicholas Cosowarth, Esq. that died without issue temp. Charles II. By the which Mary Vyvian, his lady, Sir Richard is now in possession of Cosowarth and Vivian’s lands.

Sir Richard Vyvyan, Bart. first mentioned, had also issue by Bulteel five daughters, married to Robinson, Trewren, &c.

The arms of this family are in a field Argent, a lion rampant Gules.

TONKIN.

Mr. Tonkin has not any thing of the least consequence different from Mr. Hals.

THE EDITOR.

It is curious that this parish should have afforded residences to three families so distinguished as Carminow, Reskymer, and Vyvyan. The two first have been long extinct; Vyvyan still continues one of the first in Cornwall.

Sir Richard Vyvyan, mentioned by Mr. Hals, adhered to what was thought by many in those days to be the good old cause of the Cavaliers and the Restoration of Charles the Second; and in consequence King George the First and his ministry, excusing themselves perhaps by the authority,

Res dura, et regni novitas me talia cogunt Moliri,

not only removed all their suspected opponents from the commission of the peace, and from places of trust, but committed several to prison. Among others Sir Richard Vyvyan, who was seized in his house at Trelowarren, conveyed by water to Pendennis Castle, and removed from thence to the Tower.

A story is related of a king’s messenger having been detained at an inn called Hallworthy, east of Camelford, while an adherent reached Trelowarren, and enabled Sir Richard Vyvyan to destroy many documents, which might have proved his being adverse, as well as many other Cornish gentlemen, to the new government.

As the persons then in power failed of being able to prove any overt acts taken against themselves, they were obliged to discharge this gentleman out of custody; but not till he had a daughter, Ann Vyvyan, born in the Tower, whom the Editor well remembers; and Sir Richard Vyvyan was, as a matter of course, chosen one of the representatives for the county at the next election, which situation he had however held in some former Parliaments.

He married Mary, only daughter and heir of Vyvyan of Cosowarth, in the parish of Little Colan, and left a numerous family.

His eldest son, Vyel Vyvyan, married Mary, daughter and heiress of the Rev. Carew Hoblyn, and left two sons, Richard, who married Jane, daughter of Christopher Hawkins, Esq. of Trewinnard, and of Mary, coheiress of the Hawkinses of Penzance:――they had not any family; and Carew the second son, a clergyman, never married.

Richard, the second son of Sir Richard Vyvyan, married the heiress of the family of Piper, and settled at their seat called Modford, almost in the town of Launceston. Their eldest son Philip, married Mary, the daughter and heiress of Sheldon Walter, Esq. and through her mother heiress of the Medlands, of Tremail, in South Petherwin. Their son, Vyel, succeeded to the family estate, and having married Mary, daughter of Thomas Hutton Rawlinson, of Lancaster, Esq. has been succeeded by his eldest son, Sir Richard Rawlinson Vyvyan, of whom it may be sufficient to say, that, having been very early in life elected member for the county of Cornwall, he so distinguished himself in Parliament as to receive an invitation from all the leading gentlemen of Bristol, to represent their city, when a difference of political opinion severed him from the constituent body of Cornwall, and that he has twice obtained the honour of being elected Member for the second city in England.

Trelowarren alone remains of the seats in this parish, and it amply compensates for the disappearance of the others. No place in the county, excepting perhaps Penhale in Egloskerry, comes into comparison with Trelowarren, as a gentleman’s residence in the style of former times. The house is believed to be more ancient than the time assigned to it by Mr. Hals, and that Mr. Francis Vyvyan only repaired and possibly enlarged a building at the least as old as the possession of the Ferrers. Sir Richard Vyvyan almost entirely reconstructed the interior of the house, soon after the year 1750, and great improvements have been made by the present proprietor, and by his father. Doctor Borlase has given a view of the house, page 86 of his Natural History.

The manor of Carminow continued long in the family of Arundell: it is now by purchase the property of the Rev. John Rogers.

A detailed account of the curious trial before the judges of the Court of Chivalry, and ultimately before the King himself in person, relative to the arms borne by the Carminows, has been given in “Anecdotes of heraldry,” published by a lady about thirty years since. The decision of the King is there stated to be, that each claimant should bear the arms without differences. The motto given by Mr. Hals is literally in Cornish, Cala rag ger da, a straw for a good word.

Mr. Lysons, quoting from “The Scrope and Grosvenor Roll,” another controversy on the same armorial coat, (and which has been recently published by Sir Harris Nicolas) notices that testimony was adduced on behalf of the Carminows, tracing the use of their arms back to the reign of our renowned King Arthur! To such evidence on armorial bearings, as Lysons justly remarks, little credit is due.

The church is large, and contains some ancient monuments, believed to be of the Carminow family, with shields and other decorations.

The advowson of the living belongs to the Trevelyans, of Nettlecombe, in Somersetshire, and one of that family is the incumbent.

The patron saint is St. Martin of Tours; and the parish feast is kept on the nearest Sunday to November the 11th, St. Martin’s day in the Roman Calendar.

This parish measures 2023 statute acres. Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._ returned to Parliament in 1815 2306 0 0 Poor Rate in 1831 193 11 0 Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831, { 363 | 391 | 504 | 508 giving an increase of 40 per cent. in 30 years. The present rector is the Rev. Horatio Mann, instituted in 1816, on the presentation of Sir M. Blakiston, Bart.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

The south-western corner of this parish, near the Dry Tree, is situated on the serpentine of Goonhilly Downs. The remainder of the parish belongs to the calcareous series, and corresponds with Manaccan and the other parishes immediately bordering on the southern banks of the Helford river.

MAWGAN IN PYDER.

HALS.

St. Mawgan Rectory in Pider, hath upon the north the Irish Sea, east St. Evall, west Lower St. Coumb, south St. Columb Major and Colan.

In the Domesday Book, 20 William I. 1087, this district was taxed under the name of Lan-cherit; here was an endowed rectory, chapel or church before that time; and the same endowed by the Prior of the Priory of Plympton (founded by the West Saxon Kings). Afterwards, when this old church was re-edified and enlarged to the mode and bulk it now shows, it was then consecrated or dedicated to the honour of Almighty God, in the name of St. Mawgan aforesaid; and this is evidenced from the Inquisitions of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, 1294, into the value of Benefices, in decanatu de Pidre, Sancti Maugani £6. 13_s._ 4_d._, and the Prior of Plympton received £1. 6_s._ 8_d._ In Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, Mawgan Rectory, without the Saint, is rated £26. 13_s._ 4_d._ After the first Inquisition into the value of the revenues of this church, it follows in that book, Prior de Plymton percipit de Ecclesia Sancti Maugani 26_s._ 8_d._ per annum. The patronage, since the dissolution of that Priory, 26 Henry VIII. in Arundell of Lanherne; the incumbent Tregenna; and the parish rated to the 4_s._ per pound Land Tax, 1696, £178. 9_s._

From this church is denominated the manor and barton house of Lanherne, contiguous therewith; which of old was the lands of Symon Pincerna, id est Butler; so called for that, as tradition saith, he was butler of the cellar, or waited upon the cup, bottle, or glass of King Henry II. and is mentioned from the Records of the Exchequer, in Mr. Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, page 45, to have held by the tenure of knight service in Lanherne, one knight’s fee; which gentleman was also lord of the manor of St. James’s in Middlesex, at Westminster, who exchanged the same with King Henry II. or King Henry III. for the manor of Conerton, in the parish of Gwythian and hundred of Penwith in this county; which deeds of conveyance are yet to be seen at Lanherne.

The issue male of the Pincernas failing, the two daughters and heirs of his family were married, temp. Edward III. to Arundell, of Trembleth in St. Ervan, and Umphravill; hence it is we read in the Rolls of the Exchequer and Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, page 43, Johannes de Umfranvill tenet in decanatu de Pidre, ratione Aliciæ uxoris suæ, unam mag. feod. in Lanherne, 3d Henry IV.

After Arundell’s match with Pincerna’s heir, he removed to Lanherne, which hath ever since been the seat of that famous and flourishing family, who derive their name from John de Arundell, temp. Henry I.; since which time (for about twenty-three descents) they have married with the inheritrixes of Trembleth, Pincerna, Lamburne, Lescor, Lanbaddern, Tresithny, Carmenow, Grey, Denham, and several others; so that by reason of their wealth, or great estates, the country people heretofore entitled them by the name of the Great Arundells, (see Mr. Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, page 144,) though there was a great diminution of their ancient estate at and after the time that John Arundell, temp. Queen Mary, married Anne, the daughter of Sir Henry Gernigan, Knight, Master of the Horse, or Captain of the Guards to that Queen. However, I take it his son or grandson, John Arundell, Esq. married the coheir of Chydiock, and thereby repaired part of that loss, and had by her issue John Arundell, Esq. afterwards knighted, who married Elizabeth Roper, daughter of the Lord Teynham, and by her had issue two sons that died without issue, and Elizabeth, married to Sir Richard Billinge, knight; ―――― married to Sir Robert Bedingfield, knight; and ―――― that was entered into a monastery of Benedictine nuns in France, as I am informed.

Sir John Arundell, knight, (my very kind friend,) after his lady’s decease, took for his second wife ―――― daughter of John Arundell, of Trerice, esq. the relict of John Trevanion, of Caryhayes, esq. by whom he had no issue. Whereupon the said Sir John Arundell, having by fine, proclamation, and recovery, docked his estate tail to bar the remainder, settled the same upon his grandson, Richard Billinge, Esq. by his last will and testament; on condition that he and his posterity for ever should assume the surname of Arundell, in conjunction with that of Billinge, or separate, anno Dom. 1701.

The first gentleman of this family that appears on public record to have served the state or the country, was Sir John Arundell, knight, Sheriff of Cornwall, 6 Henry V. 1418, when Stephen Durneford was Sheriff of Devon. Renfry Arundell, esq. his son, was Sheriff of Cornwall 16 Henry VI. 1443, (when one Thomas Arundell was Sheriff of Devon,) Renfry Arundell, esq. was Sheriff of Cornwall 3 and 4 Edward IV. 1483.

John Arundell, son of the said Renfrye, had his first education in the college of Canons Augustine in St. Columb, partly founded and endowed by his ancestors; from whence he removed to Exeter College, in Oxford, where, after he had taken his degrees of Bachelor and Master of Arts, he was ordained Priest, and presented by his father to the great rectory of St. Columb Major in Cornwall; and accordingly, had institution and induction thereto from the Bishop of Exeter; afterwards he was chosen Dean of Exeter, when Doctor Fox was Bishop thereof, 1490; where after he had sat for some time, upon the translation of William Smith, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, to Lincoln, (the successor of John Hals, who died 1492,) he had bestowed upon him by King Henry VII. that bishoprick, and was consecrated anno Dom. 1496; afterwards, upon the death of Dr. Redman, Bishop of Exeter, 1504, he was translated to that diocese, and was installed Bishop thereof 1504; where, after he had well governed that diocese for about two years space, he died at London, 19 February 1506, and lies buried in St. Clement’s Church without Temple Bar.

From this family, by younger branches, were descended, temp. Richard III. the knightly family of the Arundells late of Tolvorne (from whence the writer of those lines by females is descended); as also the Arundells, late of Trevithick, in St. Columb Major, temp. Edward VI.; as also the Baron Arundells of Wardour in Wiltshire, temp. James I.; as also the Arundells of Gloucestershire, temp. Charles I.

Though this family by the name of Arundell is set forth in Battle Abbey corrupted roll, to have come out of France with the Conqueror, I take it to be denominated from Arundell town and castle in Sussex, (for as Sir John Arundell, the last possessor of Lanherne, told me he could never understand there was any such local place in France as Arundell, though he lived long in that country and made strict inquiry after it,) for Ederick the Saxon was Earl of Arundell town and castle aforesaid, before William the Conqueror landed here, who after the death of King Harold was displaced and disinherited by the Conqueror, and Roger de Montgomery made Earl thereof in his place, to whom his estate was given. However, notwithstanding that this family, out of a supposed allusion to their name, give for their arms, in a field Sable six swallows, in pile three, two, and one, Argent or proper, for that Arond in Gaulish French is a swallow; now corrupted after the Latin to hirundelle; guenol, Tisbicock, guenvoll, British: as (χελιδων, hirundo in Greek) in Armoric guinib is a swallow. Arond in French, Ar-ran-dell, British, is the lake of water division valley.

One Bishop of this parish, in his youth, was, after his school education at Retallock, in St. Columb Major, in the Latin and Greek tongues, under Mr. John Coode, that famous schoolmaster, taken by the cost and care of Sir John Arundell, of Lanherne, from thence, and placed by him in Douay College in Flanders, where he took orders as a Catholic Roman Priest, and afterwards returned into England, and became house chaplain to the said Sir John Arundell, knight; and from thence visited and confirmed the Roman Catholics in those parts for many years, by the pretended surname of Mr. Gifford; he died at Hammersmith, near London, 20 March 1733, aged 99 years, and ordered his body to be opened and his heart to be taken out, and sent to Douay aforesaid, and kept in spirits, and his body to be buried in Pancras church, in London. (London Gazette, 23 March 1733.) He was made Doctor of Divinity by his College aforesaid, and consecrated Bishop of ――――[5] in the Banqueting House at Whitehall, in the last year of King James II.

Car-nan-ton in this parish, id est, the Rock Valley Town, was the voke lands of a considerable manor, taxed in the Domesday Book 1087. As it was then so it is now, a franchise royal, pertaining in chief to the Crown, invested with the jurisdiction of a Court Leet within its precincts, and had lately its steward and bailiff, to attend the public services in trials at law between party and party, on pleas of debt and damage; and here Robert Thomye held the fourth part of a knight’s fee of land, temp. Henry IV. as Mr. Carew informs us.

It was lately the dwelling of William Noye, of Pendrea in Buryan, Esq. farmer thereof; who was first bred a student at law in Lincoln’s Inn; afterwards, having taken his degrees therein, he was chosen Member of Parliament for the town of St. Ives in Cornwall, in which capacity he stood for some Parliaments in the beginning of the reign of King Charles I. and was specially famous for being one of the boldest and stoutest champions of the subject’s liberty in Parliament that the Western parts of England afforded; which being observed by the Court party, King Charles was advised by his Cabinet Council that it would be a prudent course to divert the force and power of Noye’s skill, logic, and rhetoric another way, by giving him some Court preferment; whereupon King Charles made him his Attorney-general, 1631; by which expedient he was soon metamorphosed from the assertor of the subjects’ liberty and property to a most zealous and violent promoter, beyond the laws, of the despotic and arbitrary prerogative or monarchy of his Prince; so that, like the image of Janus at Rome, he looked forward and backward, and by means thereof greatly enriched himself.

Amongst other things he is reflected upon by our chronologers for being the principal contriver of the Ship-money tax, laid by King Charles upon his subjects, for setting forth a navy or fleet of ships at sea, without the consent of Lords or Commons in Parliament; which moneys were raised by writ to the Sheriffs of all counties, and Commissioners for a long time brought into the Exchequer twenty thousand pounds per mensem, to the great distaste of the Parliament, the Laity, and Clergy, who declared against it as an unlawful tax. Nevertheless all the twelve judges after Noye’s death, except Hutton and Crook, gave their opinions and hands to the contrary, in Hampden’s case; viz. Branston, Finch, Davenport, Denham, Jones, Trevor, Vernon, Berkeley, Crawley, and Weston. (See Baker’s Chronicle, printed 1656.) However, out of kindness to the clergy, the King wrote to all the Sheriffs of England, requiring that the clergy, possessed of parsonages or rectories, should not be assessed above a tenth part of the land rate of their several parishes, and that regard should be had to vicars accordingly; by which rule the quanto or sum of this Ship-money Tax by the month may be calculated. But I shall conclude this paragraph of Noye in the words of Hammon Le Strange, Esq. in the Life of King Charles I. viz. “Noye became so servilely addicted to the King’s prerogative, by ferreting up old penal statutes, and devising new exactions, for the small time he enjoyed his power, that he was the most pestilent vexation to the subject that this latter age afforded,” &c. He died on Saturday, August the 9th 1634, and was buried in the church of New Brentford, Middlesex, with an inscription on a stone to this purpose: “Here lyes the body of William Noye, Esq. som tyme Atturney Generall to Kinge Charles I.” This gentleman writ that excellent book of the law called Noye’s Reports; he married ―――― and had issue: Edward Noye, his eldest son, killed in a duel soon after his father’s death; and Humphrey Noye, his second son. He married Hester, daughter of the Lord Sands of Hampshire, and by her had issue two sons, William Noye and Humphrey Noye, that died without issue, and Katherine, married to William Davies, gentleman, of St. Earth; and Bridgman, to John Williams of Rosworthy, Esq. sometime Commissioner for the Peace, temp. Queen Anne, in whose right he is now in possession of this barton of Carnanton, but by her he had no issue; after her decease he married Dorothy, daughter of Peter Day, gentleman, and by her hath issue, and giveth for his arms, in a field Argent a fess checky Gules and Vert, between three griffin’s heads erased Vert, each gorged with a ducal crown Or; the paternal coat armour of the Williams’s, of Dorset or Wiltshire; his grandfather coming from thence a steward to the Arundells of Lanherne.

The arms of Noye are: Argent, three bendlets and a canton Sable, on the canton a cross of the Field; and another, Azure, three crosses botony in bend Argent.

The Attorney-general on a day, having King Charles I. and the principal officers and nobility of his Court, at a dinner at his house in London, at which time the Arch Poet Ben Jonson, and others, being at an inn on the other side the street, and wanting both meat and money for their subsistence, at that exigent resolved to try an expedient to get his dinner from the Attorney-general’s table; in order to which, by his landlord at the inn aforesaid, he sent a white timber plate or trencher to him, when the King was sat down to table, whereon was inscribed these words:

When the world was drowned No deer was found, Because there was noe Park; And here I sitt Without ere a bitt, Cause Noyah hath all in his Arke.

Which plate being presented by the Attorney-general to the King, produced this effect, that Jonson had a good dish of venison sent him back by the bearer, to his great content and satisfaction; on which aforesaid plate, by the King’s direction, Jonson’s rhymes were thus inverted or contradicted:

When the world was drowned There deer was found, Although there was noe park; I send thee a bitt To quicken thy witt, Which comes from Noya’s Arke.

William Noye, anagram, I moyle in Law. He was the blow-coal, incendiary, or stirrer up of the Civil Wars between King Charles and his Parliament, by asserting and setting up the King’s prerogative to the highest pitch, as King James I. had done before, beyond the laws of the land as aforesaid; and as Counsell for the King he prosecuted for King Charles I. the imprisoned Members of the House of Commons, 1628: viz. Sir John Elyot, Mr. Coryton, and others; whom after much cost and trouble he got to be fined two thousand pounds each, the others five hundred pounds, and further to be sentenced, notwithstanding they paid those fines, not to be delivered from prison without submission and acknowledgment of their offences, and security to be put in for their good behaviour for the future.

Den-sill, alias Dyn-sill, in this parish, synonymous words, signifying man-chapel or church, or a man of the church or chapel; otherwise Den-sell is either man-great or great-man; and upon the confines of those lands, on the high and lofty downs, is situate Densill Barrow, that is to say Densill grave or burying place; a notable tumulus, wherein some person of this little barton, after the ancient British manner, was, before or soon after Christianity prevailed, here interred. The rubbish and down-fallen walls of a free chapel, heretofore on this place, prove the truth of this etymology, known now by the name of Chapel Garder; garda, gerder, is a churchyard or field.

From this place was denominated an ancient family of gentlemen, surnamed de Densill, or Densell; and the first of those gentlemen that have come to my knowledge was Thomas Densill, that married Skewish, temp. Henry VI. who had issue by her John, that married the daughter and heir of Trenowith, of St. Colomb Major, temp. Edward IV.; on whose right he annexed the lands of Trenowith to his manor of Densell, as it remains to this day; (those Trenowiths lye interred in the north side of St. Colomb Church, now pertaining to Mr. Vivian;) by Trenowth’s heir the said John had issue, John Densill, esq. barrister at law, who had his education at Lincoln’s Inn, afterwards was made Serjeant at law, 1531, married Mary, daughter of Sir ―――― Lucas, of Warwickshire, by whom he had issue two daughters, that became his heirs; Anne, married to William Hollis, of Houghton, in Nottinghamshire, knight, ancestor of the Earls of Clare, and now Duke of Newcastle; Alice to Mr. Reskymer, father of Sir John Reskymer, of Reskymer, knight, Sheriff of Cornwall 27 Henry VIII. This John Densill, Serjeant at law, died 3 January 1535, and was buried in the church of St. Giles in the Fields.

The name, estate, and blood of those Densills, being thus terminated in Hollis and Reskymer, the Hollis’s have long time made it a font name in their family, to preserve the memory thereof; in particular, there was lately extant Densill Hollis, created Baron Hollis, of Ifield, 2 April 1661, Privy Councillor to King Charles II. Lord High Steward of the honours, manors, and revenues to his Queen Catharine; Extraordinary Ambassador in France 1663, 1664, 1665, 1666; afterwards Ambassador and Plenipotentiary at Breda, 1667; uncle unto John and Gilbert late Earls of Clare.

This little barton and manor of Densill was by the Earl of Clare sold to Buller, temp. Charles II.; from Buller to Vivian, of Truan; and by Vivian to Pendarves, temp. William III. 1700; and from Pendarves to Upton, now in possession thereof, as I am informed.

From the family of Densill, by a younger branch, was descended the Densills of Philley, in Devon; in particular Richard Densill, younger brother to the Serjeant’s father, whose only daughter and heir was married to Martin Fortescue, Esq. who first brought Buckland Filleigh to that family, as I am informed; after his decease she was married to Sir Richard Pomeroye, of Bury Pomeroye, in Devon, Knight of the Bath at the creation of Henry Prince of Wales, afterwards Henry VIII.

Quere whether John de Mawgan Sheriff of Cornwall 12 and 19th of Richard II. were not of this parish or St. Mawgan in Kerryer; as also the Mawgans of Essex, who gave for their arms, Argent, two bars, in chief three mullets Sable.

TONKIN.

The patron of this parish is St. Mawgan, one of the missionaries from Ireland.

It is a rectory, in the patronage of Sir John Arundell, of the Lanhearne, which was the ancient name of the parish; which, says the author of the English Etymological Dictionary, is not unlikely from Lan, a church, and Herwa, to fly, meaning a place of refuge.

I shall begin with the most important place,

THE MANOR OF LANHEARNE.

This place had formerly possessors of the same name, but how long they lived in it is uncertain; for I can meet with but one and the last of them; John de Lanhearne, who by Margaret, the daughter and heir of Richard Fitz John, had only one daughter and heir, Alice, married the 15th Henry III. (A. D. 1231) to Sir R. Arundell, of Trembleth, Knight, ever since which time Lanhearne hath been the principal seat of this illustrious family. I shall not here enter into a detail of the many great men it hath produced, referring myself to their well known pedigrees; and shall only take notice here that the Lord Arundell of Wardour, Arundell of Tolvorne, Trevethick, &c. were descended from younger branches thereof; and insert what Mr. Camden and Mr. Carew say of them. The first hath these words:

“Near which place (St. Colomb), at a little distance from the sea, stands Lanhearon, the seat of the family of the Arundells, knights, who upon account of their vast riches, were not long since called ‘The Great Arundells.’ They are sometimes called in Latin De Hirundine; and appositely enough in my mind, for a swallow in French is Hirondelle, and their arms are, in a field Sable, six swallows Argent. ’Tis certainly an ancient and noble family, as also very numerous: to the arms whereof Brito, a poet, alludes, where he describes a warlike man of this family attacking a Frenchman, about the year 1170.

Swift as the swallows whence his arms device And his own name are took, enraged he flies Through gazing troops, the wonder of the field, And sticks his lance in William’s glittering shield.”

Mr. Carew says of this family:

“Their name is derived from Hirundelle, in French a swallow, and out of France at the Conquest they came, and six swallows they give in arms. The country people entitle them ‘The Great Arundells,’ and greatest for love, living, and respect, in the country heretofore they were.” (See Carew, p. 343, Lord De Dunstanville’s edition.)

THE EDITOR.

The name of Arundell has not, in all probability, any thing to do with swallows. It is on the contrary derived from their Castle in the Arun Dale, Sussex, which like all other British or Saxon names having the slightest resemblance in sound to a French word, has been referred to a Norman origin.

Mr. Lysons says that Sir John Arundell, the last of the Lanhearne branch, or parent stock, who died in 1701, settled his estates on his grandson, Richard Billinge, Esq. with the condition of his taking the name of Arundell. This gentleman had an only daughter and heiress, who carried the property by her marriage to the Lords Arundell of Wardour.

It does not appear that any of the Wardour Arundells have ever resided at Lanhearne; with a sectarian attachment to the ancient faith, they kept up a Catholic establishment at this place, and retained great numbers of the parishioners in communion with the See of Rome, by making it a passport to lucrative employment and to good cheer; but the house having been appropriated to the reception of Nuns from Antwerp, of the order of Carmelites, as reformed by St. Tereza, and the secular establishment broken up, the system of private interpretation has entirely superseded the authority of Popes and Councils, so that not a Catholic can now be found without the walls. The Nuns were received here on their flying from the French Invasion to their native country, for all were English, and their numbers are still maintained by fresh recruits.

Henry Arundell, the 8th Baron Arundell, of Wardour, having built a magnificent house adjacent to the old castle, and feeling little interest about the property in Cornwall, although it is said to have regularly descended through the Dinhams, from a period anterior to the Norman Conquest, sold the whole in parcels, with the exception of Lanhearne, and has thereby several the very ancient connexion of his family with this county.

The church stands near the river, and adjacent to the house of Lanhearne. It is decorated on the inside with a rood loft, very few of which have been suffered to remain, and by monuments to the Arundells, with inscriptions, most of which may be found in Mr. C. S. Gilbert’s History of Cornwall.

There is also another to Humphrey Noye, which, as his descendant and heir, the Editor hopes he may be excused for transcribing:

Here lyeth the Body of Collonell Humphry Noye, Son and Heir of William Noye, of Carnanton, Esq^e, Attorney Generall to Charles The First, of Blessed Memory, King of Great Britaine, France, And Ireland. Who was intered the 12^{th} of December, Annoq^e Dom: 1679.

On the stone are the arms:

Arg. three bends and a canton Sab. on the canton an English cross of the Field.

The crest of Noye is a dove bearing an olive branch, and the motto: Teg yw Hedwch, Lovely in Peace. Evidently an allusion to the names Noye and Noah.

The above words were on a slate stone laid flat on the pavement, so that the letters were beginning to disappear; but Mr. Humphry Willyams, his successor in Carnarton, although not his descendant, has recently preserved the stone and the inscription, by placing this memorial perpendicularly against one of the walls.

The manor of Carnarton belonged to the father, if not to the grandfather, of the Attorney-general. He was born however at Pendrea, in St. Burian, where the family had been settled time out of mind, but understood to be of Norman extraction.

Little is known of Mr. Noye’s early life, till he became a member of Exeter College, in the year 1593. He removed from thence to Lincoln’s Inn, and was chosen Member for Helston to the Parliament which met in January 1620. He afterwards represented St. Ives, and certainly took an active, zealous, and able part in fostering the nascent liberties of his country; but having formed a connexion with Mr. Wentworth, he became a partizan in what was afterwards named the Stafford Faction, was made Attorney-general in 1631, devised the exaction of Ship Money, and conducted himself in a manner very different from the promise of his former days; fortunately for himself, Mr. Noye died in 1634, before the more violent agitations commenced, which terminated in the Civil War. He left three children, Edward his eldest son and heir, Humphrey, and Catharine.

Edward lost his life not long after the Attorney-general’s decease, in a duel with a Captain Byron. Humphrey then inherited the property.

Catharine married John Cartwright, esq. of Aynhoe, in Northamptonshire, whose descendant in the fifth degree, William Ralph Cartwright, is now of that place (1835), and Member for the county.

Mr. Noye’s will is so curious as to be worthy of insertion:

Incerta mortis hora, hodie ventura, suspecta esse debeat Christiano: sensi me gravatum: mens tamen, Deo annuente, sanitate viget (quam nollem in extremis de mundariis cogitare) hinc est quod――

Ego Will’mus Noye die mensis Junii tertio, anno Domini millesimo sexcentesimo trigesimo quarto, rerum mearum dispositionem, per præsens testamentum meum (Dei nomine primitus invocato) ut inferius scriptum est ordinare statui.

Lego animam meam Deo omnipotenti, ejusdem et universi Conditori. In illum credo qui dixit, Ego sum resurrectio et vita; et quia credidi in illum vivam etiam si mortuus fuerim. Corpus meum terræ, unde confectum est, diem novissimum expectaturum, lego. Novi quod Redemptor meus vivit, et in die illa de terra resurrecturus in carne mea videbo salutare illum, quem oculi mei conspecturi sunt. Reposita est hæc spes in sinu meo. Funeralia celebrari nolo.

Pauperibus de Isleworth 100_s._; de St. Burian cum capellis 100_s._; de St. Mawgan in Pyder 150_s._; Will^o Browne 200_s._ et tantum uxori suæ; Roberto Wescombe 100 marcas; Egidio Chubb 300_s._; Will’mo Richards 200_s._ Humfredo filio meo mille marcas do, lego. Et eidem Humfredo lego annualem centum marcarum exeuntem de omnibus tenementis meis in hundredo de Pyder in comitatu Cornubiæ, habendum eidem Humfredo et hæredibus suis, durante vita Johannis fratris mei, et uxoris suæ et superviventis eorum, ad festa Omnium Sanctorum et Philippi et Jacobi, per æquales portiones annuatim solvendum; liceatque eis in omnibus præmissis distringere quoties prædictus redditus fuerit insolutus. Et eidem Humfredo et hæredibus suis do et lego omnia tenementa mea in Warpstowe in comitatu Cornubiæ prædicto.

Reliqua meorum Edwardo filio meo, quem executorem testamenti mei constitui, dissipanda (nec melius speravi) reliqui. In cujus rei testimonium istud testamentum meum manu mea propria scripsi, ac illud sigilli mei appositione, et nominis subscriptione confirmavi.

WM. NOYE. (L. S.)

Probatum fuit testament. suprascriptum apud London. coram judice 5^o Septembris 1634.

Several of Mr. Noye’s works have been printed, and others remain in manuscript.

Noye’s Grounds and Maxims of the English Law, various editions; the last, with additions by Charles Barton, Esq. in 1800.

Noye’s Reports, printed in 1656, 2d edition in fol. 1669.

Noye’s Perfect Conveyancer, London 1655.

Noye’s Complete Lawyer, London 1661, and a second edition in 8vo, 1674.

Noye’s Treatise of the Rights of the Crown, declaring how the King of England may support and increase his Annual Revenues, in 12mo, 1715, but written in the 10th year of Charles the First. The Editor has two MSS. of this work.

The following MSS. are preserved in the British Museum.

Some Notes from Mr. Attorney-general Noye’s Reading in Lincoln’s Inn, Aug. 1632, where he showed that Law Readings are of great antiquity.――Harl. MSS. No. 980, art. 164.

From the same Readings. That every Inn of Court is an University, extolling the Ancient Lawyers for not assuming Lofty Titles, &c.――Ibid. art. 165.

From the same, relative to Officers in the Forest.――Ibid. art. 166.

His Opinion that Espousals in Facie Ecclesiæ are but pro honestate publicanda.――Ibid. art. 174.

Ex Ultima Voluntate sive Testamento Willelmi Noye, Attornati Generalis.――Harl. MSS. 980, art. 226.

Mr. Noye’s Argument on the Earl of Suffolk’s case, 16th April 1628――Harl. MSS. 2305, art. 51.

The Will of Mr. Wm. Noye, (Lat.) June 3d, 1634.――Cotton MSS. Titus B. VIII. 344.

Memoirs of William Noye.――Sir Hans Sloane’s MSS. see Ayscough’s Catalogue, vol. II. p. 736.

Mr. Noye also left in manuscript several collections from the Records in the Tower, especially two large volumes:――

One respecting the King’s prerogative for maintaining the Naval Power according to the practice of his Ancestors.

The other relating to the Privileges and Jurisdiction of Ecclesiastical Courts, to which Doctor Thomas James, the learned Compiler of the Bodleian Catalogue, acknowledges his obligation in a work, entitled “A Manuduction or Introduction into Divinity,” Oxford, 1625, 4to.

Mr. Noye had the honour of receiving the public thanks of his College, under the following circumstances: Sir William Petre, son of John Petre, of Torbryan in Devonshire, well known as Secretary of State in the time of King Henry the Eighth, and successively in the reigns of his three successors, had been a Commoner of Exeter College, and from thence elected a Fellow of All Souls. He afterwards became Principal of Peckwater Hall, one of the Visitors of Religious Houses, and finally Secretary of State. Sir John Petre, by participating in the good fortune of all those who were favourites at Court in this eventful period of our history, appropriated to himself a share of the Confiscated Church Lands, most profusely distributed; and by so doing became the founder of a family still existing, with an hereditary seat in Parliament, and professing the Catholic religion. Wishing perhaps to make some restitution, Sir John Petre founded eight Fellowships at Exeter College, in the Protestant University of Oxford, to all of which, called Petrean Fellowships, he continued to nominate during his life, according to an ancient custom in similar cases; but when his successors attempted to exercise the same right or privilege, they were resisted by the College, and the cause came to be tried in the Court of Common Pleas, under the form of a replevin; they were successfully and gratuitously supported by Mr. Noye, as will appear from the passage in the College Register.

A. D. 1614. Circa idem tempus reclivimus vaccas Edmundi Lord per replevin de Walton Court, ubi hæsit paulisper negotium donec Baro Petreius illud transferri curavit ad Communia Placita, ut ibidem decernatur.

Petimus autem nos per Dominum Chamberlyne, servientem ad Legem, ut, bonâ cum judicum veniâ, in Comitiis Oxoniensibus coram Justitiario Regis hoc transigeretur, sed obnixe obstitit Baro Petreius. Sic convenerunt Rector et Magister Chambers, ex Collegii consensu, ad causam promovendam in Communibus Placitis. Qui adeuntes Dominum Gulielmum Noye, olim hujus Collegii Baccellarium, virum in jure municipali (si quis alius per totam Angliam) perspicacissimum et profundissimum, ab eo semper acceperunt quod esset faciendum.

Perlegit ille, et diligentissime perpendit omnes evidentias nostras et statuta, expendit rationes utriusque partis, conteruit solide compendia sive brevia quibus servientes (nam tales solum audiuntur in Communibus Placitis) informabantur. Ipse (sc. Dominus Gulielmus Noye) eos, relictis propriis negotiis, una cum nobis edit et instauravit; quæ omnia sponte fecit et alacriter, sine omni expectatione præmii, quæ ideo in fastos referenda duximus, ut agnosceret talis viri in Collegium pietatem grata posteritas.

The Editor possesses a picture of Mr. Noye painted on oak, by Cornelius Jansen; and at the desire of Exeter College, he has recently presented to them a copy, which is placed in the Hall.

Mr. Noye was succeeded by his eldest son Edward; but the melancholy forebodings expressed in his will: “I have left all the remainder of my property to my son Edward (whom I have constituted executor of this my will) to be squandered, nor have I ever hoped any better,” were rendered vain by the death of this young man, soon after that of his father, in a duel with a Captain Byron.

Humphrey then succeeded as eldest son, and in the year 1637 allied himself by marriage with the very distinguished family of Sandys, of The Vine, near Basingstoke, in Hampshire.

The Editor has their marriage contract, which may be esteemed a curiosity, as compared with the more lengthened writings of recent times.

“Articles of agreement, indented, had, made, and agreed upon the three and twentieth day of May, in the thirteenth year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord Charles, by the grace of God, of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c. Between Henry Sandys, of the Vine, in the county of Southampton, Esq. and Hester Sandys, one of the daughters of the said Henry Sandys, of the one part, and Humphrey Noye, of Carnanton, in the county of Cornwall, Esq. of the other part, as followeth, viz.:

“Whereas a marriage is intended to be had and solemnized between the said Humphrey Noye, of the one part, and the said Hester Sandys, of the other part, if the laws of God and the Holy Church shall permit the same,

“In consideration of which marriage it is covenanted and agreed, by and between the said parties, as followeth:

“Imprimis, the said Henry Sandys, for himself, his heirs, executors, and administrators, and for every and either of them, doth contract, promise, and grant, to the said Humphrey Noye, his executors, administrators, and assigns, and to and with every and either of them, by these presents, that in consideration of the said marriage, he the said Henry Sandys do and shall give and pay unto the said Humphrey Noye, his executors, administrators, or assigns, the full sum of two thousand pounds current money of England, as a marriage portion for and with the said Hester Sandys his daughter, to be paid unto the said Humphrey Noye, his executors, administrators, and assigns, in manner and form following, viz.: the sum of one thousand pounds current money, parcel of the said two thousand pounds portion, to be paid in hand at the very day of the marriage aforesaid, and the sum of one thousand pounds residue, parcel of the said two thousand pounds portion, to be paid in manner and form following, that is to say, five hundred pounds in and upon the first day of November next ensuing the date hereof, and the other five hundred pounds residue thereof, in and upon the feast day of the Ascension of our Blessed Lord and Saviour, then also next ensuing.

“Item. The said Humphrey Noye, for himself, his heirs, executors, and administrators, and for every and either of them, doth covenant, promise, and grant, to and with the said Henry Sandys, his executors, administrators, and assigns, and to and with every and either of them, by these presents, that he the said Humphrey Noye, in consideration of the said marriage, at or before the feast of All Saints next ensuing, shall and will in due form of law convey, settle, and assure, to and for the use of the said Hester, his intended wife, so much of his lands and tenements as shall be of the clear yearly value of three hundred pounds, by the year, for and during the term of the natural life of her, the said Hester, for and in lieu of her jointure, freed and discharged of and from all and all manner of incumbrances whatsoever, the security thereof to be made in such manner and form as by Counsel learned in the law, of the said Henry Sandys and Humphrey Noye, shall be reasonably devised, advised, or required.

“In witness whereof the parties abovesaid, to these present indentures, interchangeably have set their hands and seals the day and year first above written.”

The seals appended under the signatures Henry Sandys and Hester Sandys, bear the impressions: Argent, a cross raguly Sable; arms of their maternal ancestors, Sandys, of The Vine.

This lady’s grandfather, Sir Edwin Sandys, nephew of Edwin Sandys, Archbishop of York, whose family originated from St. Bees, in Cumberland, bearing for their arms, Or, a fess dancette between three crosses crosslet fitchy Gules; married Elizabeth, daughter and sole heiress of William Baron Sandys, of The Vine, by tenure in fee, under a writ of summons issued by King Henry VIII. on the 3d of November 1529, in the 21st year of his reign. Their son Henry Sandys, party to the above marriage settlement, married his first cousin Margaret, daughter of Sir William Sandys, of Hedbury, in the County of Worcester, and lost his life in one of the battles of the Civil War, in 1644. They had several children, of whom William, Henry, and Edwin, were in succession summoned to Parliament on the right deduced from their grandmother, and with the last of these the barony fell again into abeyance. Hester, their eldest sister, married Colonel Humphrey Noye, and their daughter, Catharine, on the 21st of July 1679, married William Davies, of St. Erth. John Davies, their son and ultimate heir, married Elizabeth Phillips, of Tredrea; and their daughter and heiress married the Rev. Edward Giddy, whose only son is the Editor of this work.

Another daughter of Colonel Humphrey Noye and Hester Sandys, christened Bridgman, in remembrance of Sir Orlando Bridgman, an early friend and patron of the Attorney-general, married Mr. John Willyams of Roseworthy, in Gwiniar, and, dying without issue, left him Carnanton, which had fallen to her share. Mr. Willyams married secondly Dorothy, daughter of Mr. John Day, by whom he had two sons.

John, the elder, married the daughter and heiress of Mr. Oliver, a gentleman of Falmouth. They had a son, Mr. John Oliver Willyams, for many years Colonel of the Cornwall Militia; and a daughter Ann, married to Mr. William Lemon, jun. only son of the great Mr. Lemon. The younger son was James; whose son James Willyams succeeded to Carnanton, under the will of his first cousin John Oliver Willyams, in the year 1809; and his son, Humphrey Willyams, Esq. now resides there, having so much altered and improved the house and gardens, as to place Carnanton among the gentlemen’s residences of the first class in Cornwall.

Thomas Willyams, a Captain in the Navy (brother of Mr. John Willyams, who married Miss Bridgman Noye,) married ―――― Fox, of Deal; they left a son John Willyams, also a Captain in the Navy, who married Anne Goodyere, and their son, the Reverend Cooper Willyams, Rector of Kingston, near Canterbury, is known to the world by various publications:

A History of Sudeley Castle.

A Campaign in the West Indies, with the reduction of the Island of Martinique, &c.

A Voyage up the Mediterranean, with description of the Battle of the Nile; and some others.

He married Elizabeth Snell, of Whitby.

Mr. Cooper Willyams died July the 17th, 1816, leaving two sons and two daughters.

The late Mr. John Oliver Willyams related to me an anecdote, illustrative of the contingencies which are incident to human life, and of the concatenation between public and private events.

His grandfather, Mr. John Willyams, had undertaken a journey to Oxford in the year 1685, but was stopped at Exeter by the Duke of Monmouth’s invasion; he returned in company with a gentleman of St. Columb, and remained there a few days, where at some public exhibition he met with Miss Bridgman Noye, who soon afterwards became his wife.

Mr. Hals devotes some pages to the virulent abuse of Colonel Humphrey Noye, against whom it is obvious that he must have entertained a personal animosity; but the Editor, having omitted various similar effusions, hopes that he shall not be accused of any partial favour towards his own ancestors, by omitting this also, which does not carry with it the semblance of truth.

Mawgan in Pider measures 6078 statute acres. Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._ returned to Parliament in 1815 4016 0 0 Poor Rate in 1831 360 6 0 Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831, { 543 | 622 | 580[6] | 745 giving an increase of 37 per cent. in 30 years. Present Rector, the Rev. Philip Carlyon, instituted on his own presentation in 1806. Net income in 1831, 585_l._

GEOLOGY, BY DOCTOR BOASE.

This parish is situated entirely within the calcareous series, and its rocks are the same as those of the adjoining parishes, St. Colomb Major and St. Evall.

The parish feast is celebrated on the nearest Sunday to St. James’s Day, July the 25th.

[5] Probably a Bishop in Partibus Infidelium.

[6] Perhaps 680.

ST. MELLION, OR ST. MELLYN.

HALS.

St. Mellyn Rectory is situate in the hundred of East, and hath upon the north Kellaton, east St. Dominick, south Pillaton, west Quethiock.

In the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, 1294, into the value of Cornish benefices, Ecclesia Sanctæ Meliani in decanatu de East £4. In Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, £11. 12_s._ 6_d._ The patronage in Coryton; the incumbent ――――; and the parish rated to the 4_s._ per pound Land Tax, 1696, for one year, £96. 13_s._

Niew-tone, now Newton, synonymous words, signifying after the English Saxon a new town, was another district or voke lands of a manor taxed in the Domesday Book, 1087; which lordship for many ages hath been the seat of that ancient British family surnamed de Coryton.

William Coryton, Esq. Member of Parliament for Killaton, was one of those imprisoned Members of Parliament, temp. Charles I. 1628, who asserted the prerogative of Parliament, the liberty and property of the subject, against the despotic and arbitrary power of the Monarch, set up by Noye, his Attorney-general; for which he was fined five hundred pounds, and could not be delivered from prison till he had paid that sum, but forced to make a submission and acknowledgment of his offence, and put in security for his good behaviour.

He was the father of Sir John Coryton, of this place, who, the 27th February 13 Charles II. 1661, was by his letters patent of that date, created the 605th Baronet of England. He married Mills of Exeter, and had issue by her Sir John Coryton, Bart. his eldest son; who married one of the heirs of Mr. Richard Chiverton, Knight, bred a Skinner in London, and was Lord Mayor of that city 9 Charles II. 1657, by whom he had issue two daughters. He was Sheriff of Cornwall, 1682.

After his decease his younger brother, William Coryton, Esq. Barrister-at-law, succeeded to his honour and estate; who married the daughter of Sir Theophilus Biddulph, of Westcomb, in Kent, the 744th Baronet of England, by letters patent, bearing date 2 November 16 Charles II.; by whom he had issue Sir John Coryton, Bart. now extant.

After Sir William’s first wife’s death, he married the widow and relict of Thomas Williams, Gent. a goldsmith or banker of Lombard Street, in London; by whom, though a very aged woman, to recompence that defect he had much riches or wealth. After his death she married Sir Nicholas Trevanion, of St. Germans, who followed in marriage the Delphic Oracle’s direction, and Dion’s,

Refuse noe woman nere soe old, Whose marriage bringeth store of gold.

His sisters, Anne was married to John Peter, of Porthcuthan, Esq. and Catherine to Clarke and Dobbins, and ―――― to Goodall, of Fowey, Esq.

The arms of Coryton are Argent, a cross saltier Sable.

Croca-don, or Croucadon, Cruco-don, words of one signification, signifying bank, hillock or tumulus, hill or town; a place notable for barrows, wherein human creatures were heretofore interred, before and after the Roman Invasion. (See Tacitus in the life of Agricola.) This place was the dwelling of Charles Trevisa, Gent. that married with Fortescue; who giveth for his arms, Gules, a garb Or. Denominated, I suppose from Trevisa, or Tre-wisa, in St. Enedor, and originally descended from John Trevisa, born in Gloucestershire (as Baker saith), who being for some time bred in Oxford, afterwards took orders, and became a secular priest, that might marry; and then became domestic chaplain to Thomas Lord Berkeley, by whom he was afterwards made Vicar of Berkeley in Gloucestershire; where, at that Lord’s request, he translated the Sacred Bible into the English tongue, though the same was done by John Wickliff fifty years before, but not with that perfection of language that Trevisa did it; although Trevisa’s translation is altogether as far short of Tyndall’s in Henry the Eighth’s days, by reason the English tongue was still improving to a higher perfection; and yet Tyndall’s translation was far inferior to that of King James I. notwithstanding they all agree in the original substance, sense, and meaning of words in those translations; wherein Wickliff, Trevisa, and Tyndall, made use of infinite Cornish-British words to express the same. Neither is the last translation of King James I. altogether void of them.

Mr. Trevisa also translated Bartholomew de Proprietatibus Rerum; the Poly-chronicon of Ralph Higden; a treatise of all the Acts of King Arthur; and divers other things. Lastly, this learned and painful priest died about the year 1470, aged about eighty-six years.

Westcot, in this parish, was another district taxed in the Domesday Book, 1087; it is now the dwelling, as I take it, of Mr. William Brendon, Gent.

In this parish is Pentyley, or Pillaton, a house and church built and so named by Mr. James Tillie, afterwards knighted, and married the widow of Sir John Coryton.

Since the writing of the above premises, about the year 1712, Sir James Tillie died, and as I am informed, by his last will and testament, obliged his adopted heir, one Woolley his sister’s son, not only to assume his name, (having no legitimate issue) but that he should not inter his body after death in the earth, but fasten it in the chair where he died with iron, his hat, wig, rings, gloves, and best apparel on, shoes and stockings, and surround the same with an oak chest, box, or coffin, in which his books and papers should be laid, with pen and ink also; and build for reception thereof, in a certain field of his lands, a walled vault or grot, to be arched with moorstone; in which repository it should be laid without Christian burial; for that as he said but an hour before he died, in two years space he would be at Pentillie again; over this vault his heir likewise was obliged to build a fine chamber, and set up therein the picture of him, his lady, and adopted heir for ever; and at the end of this vault and chamber to erect a spire or lofty monument of stone, from thence for spectators to overlook the contiguous country, Plymouth Sound and Harbour; all which as I am told is accordingly performed by his heir, whose successors are obliged to repair the same for ever out of his lands and rents, under penalty of losing both.

However I hear lately, notwithstanding this his promise of returning in two years space to Pentiley, that Sir James’s body is eaten out with worms, and his bones or skeleton fallen down to the ground from the chair wherein it was seated, about four years after it was set up; his wig, books, wearing apparel, also rotten in the box or chair where it was first laid.

TONKIN.

I take this parish, as well as Mullion in Kerrier, to take its name from its tutelar saint, Melania. The church is a rectory; the patronage in Sir John Coryton.

The principal manor and seat in this parish is West Newton Ferrers, so called from its relative situation to another Newton, and from its ancient lords the Ferrers. As for the name Newton, it signifies no other than the plain meaning of the word, a new town or house. In the valuation made by Edward the First this manor is called Newton, without any addition, as is the case at present in common speech.

William de Ferrers was Knight of this shire with Thomas Sereod, Knight, 8 Edward II.

THE EDITOR.

Mr. Hals has given a long history of St. Melania, the supposed patron of this church, containing, however, little more than the usual details of effects produced by the ascetic fanaticism popular in those days. Personal sufferings and privations were then endured, under a persuasion that bodily pain, mental stupidity, and a course of life utterly useless to the human race, could alone ensure the divine favour, in opposition to the sentiments,

Hic manus ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi; Quique sacerdotes casti, dum vita manebat; Quique pii vates et Phœbo digna locuti; Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes; Quique sui memores alios fecere merendo.

Newton came into the family of Coryton, by a marriage with the heiress of Ferrers, and continued till that family became extinct in the male line, on the decease of Sir John Coryton in 1739, who gave the property to his widow Rachael, a daughter of Weston Helyar, Esq. of East Coker in Somersetshire; and it has continued with her relations nearly to the present time, under an entail, which carried Newton from Mr. Weston Helyar, probably a great-grandson of the gentleman above mentioned, to several other younger brothers; till the failure of heirs male in all these brought it back to the son or grandson of the elder brother, who, wishing to concentrate his property in Somersetshire, has parted with the whole Cornish estate to Edward Collins, Esq. of Truthan.

Although Sir John Coryton alienated his principal seat and manor by this bequest to his widow, he devised a large share of the family property to the descendants of his eldest sister Elizabeth, who married William Goodall, of Fowey; and their grandson, on succeeding to the estate, assumed the name of Coryton. The present representative of this ancient family, John Tillie Coryton, Esq. has built a magnificent house or castle at Pentilly in a most beautiful situation, on the Tamar river, so that he need not regret the loss of Newton.

Sir John Coryton had two other sisters, one of whom, Johanna, married John Peter, of Harlyn, Esq. The third sister married a gentleman of the name of Vaughan.

In addition to the tales relative to Sir James Tillie’s funeral direction, Mr. Hals has added several others, all to this gentleman’s disadvantage, but not in any way illustrative of the times in which he lived, or of the general manners prevalent in the country: they are therefore omitted, with the exception of one respecting armorial bearings.

It is certain that Mr. Tillie was one of those persons, most justly esteemed, who advance themselves in the world without being beholden in any considerable degree to their ancestors. Mr. Tillie was knighted by King James II. and then not finding himself provided with a coat of arms, he assumed, as Mr. Hals states, the blazon of Count Tillie, a German Prince, which coming to the knowledge of King James, an inquisition was ordered, the fact was established, and a fine imposed on the knight, in addition to the demolition of the assumed arms, with some acts of indignity.

It is moreover proper to add, that although Sir James Tillie did without all question express some absurd fancies in respect to his mortal remains, which were in part executed, yet they are far from bearing the colour of impiety cast on them by Mr. Hals, and still less are they chargeable with the blasphemies imputed to them by Mr. Gilpin.

The church and tower are plain on the outside, but within are several handsome monuments to the Corytons.

It seems much more probable that this church is dedicated to Mellitus, the first Bishop of London, and third Archbishop of Canterbury, than to an obscure African lady.

Bede has given various particulars of this eminent person, and his life may be found in Capgrave’s Aurea Legenda. He led a second body of missionaries in aid of the great St. Austin, and the conversion of a Pagan temple into a Christian church, since expanded into St. Paul’s Cathedral, and also the foundation of Westminster Abbey, are imputed to him. He departed this life on the 24th of April, in the year 624.

St. Mellion measures 2410 statute acres. Annual value of the Real Property as £. _s._ _d._ returned to Parliament in 1815 1928 0 0 Poor Rate in 1831 163 8 0 Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831, { 284 | 326 | 321 | 330 giving an increase of 16 per cent. in 30 years. The Rev. George Fortescue died Rector of St. Mellion in 1835.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

The Geology of this parish is precisely the same as that of St. Dominick.

MENHENIOT.

HALS.

Men-hyn-yet, Men-hin-iet vicarage, is situate in the hundred of East, and hath upon the north Linkinhorne, east Quethiock, south St. Germans, west Leskeard. For the modern name of this parish, it is taken from the manor of Men-hin-iet within the same; which is compounded or conjugated of Cornish and Saxon, and signifies old or ancient stone gate; for the terminative particle yet, jet, in Saxon signifies a gate (as porth in British). This manor is one of the franchises of Cornwall, privileged with the jurisdiction and freedom of a court leet, for plea of debt or damage between party and party, within the precincts thereof, by the Kings of England or Earls of Cornwall; and hath its steward and bailiff to attend the public services thereof, as the hundred of East hath.

At the time of the Norman Conquest this district was taxed under the jurisdiction of Trehavock, now Trehawke, of which more under. In the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, into the value of Cornish benefices, 1294, Ecclesia de Manyhynyet, (id est, English Saxon, and Cornish, many ancient or old gate,) in decanatu de Est, is rated £8. In Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, £21. 15_s._ 4_d._ The patronage in Exeter College, in Oxford; none but Fellows admittable to the cure; the incumbent Snell; and the parish rated to the 4_s._ per pound Land Tax, 1696, temp. William III. £332. 6_s._ by the name of Men-hyn-iet, as aforesaid.

Men is the common contraction of meyn, mein, main, a stone; and hyn, him, the corruption of hen, heyn, hain, old, ancient. See Floyd upon Lapis.

This manor of Men-hyn-yet, as I remember, was formerly the lands of one Carmenow, a soldier or military man; by whose daughter and heir it came first in marriage to Trelawny, in Edward the Fourth’s days. Within the precincts of which lordship is situate the house and barton of Poole, so called after the English from the natural circumstances of the place; where, by reason of the level or evenness of the town place, in winter season many lakes and pools of water stand. Of which place thus speaks Mr. Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall: “Poole, for its lowe and moyst seate, is not unaptly named, houseth Sir Jonathan Trelawny, far beneath his worth and callinge. He marryed Sir Henry Killigrew’s daughter, his father the coheir of Reskimer, his grandfather Lamellyn’s inheritrix. His arms are Argent, a chevron Sable, between three oak leaves Vert.”

There is a public fair held yearly in this church town, on June 11.

Ten-creek, Den-creek, in this parish, was formerly the lands and possessions of Richard Earl of Cornwall, King of the Romans, second son of King John; who probably at some time lived at it (as also at his castle of Leskeard), for in the old dilapidated houses of this once famous fabric, I saw the ruins of a moorstone oven, about fourteen foot diameter, in testimony of the hospitality once kept here. And moreover, in the front of the castlewise moorstone gate, or portal, I beheld his arms cut in stone; viz. within a bordure bezantée, a lion rampant crowned, whose arms in colours I think ought to be thus blazoned: ill port ung lyon rampant de Gowles, en Argent, bordure de Sable, talentée.

Here groweth a sort of tree, bearing a strange sort of leaves and fruit, or berries, not seen in any other part of Cornwall, and therefore without name given it by me or others.

Tre-havock, in this parish, Cornish Saxon, id est, the hawk town, was taxed in the Domesday Book, 1087, as the voke lands of a parish or manor which now is suitably called after the Cornish English Tre-hauke; for that it seems heretofore it was a place notable for keeping, mewing, or breeding hawks (or for that those lands were held by the tenure of paying hawks to its lord); from which place was denominated an old family of gentlemen surnamed de Tre-hauke, who gave for their arms, in a field Sable, a chevron between three hawks. It is now in the possession of Peter Keckwich, Esq. descended from the Keckwiches of Catch-French, as they were from the Keckwiches of Essex; who give for their arms, Argent, two lions in bend passant Sable, cottised Gules.

Cur-tuth-oll, lands as I am informed heretofore pertaining to the nuns or nunnery of Clares, at Leskeard, according to the name thereof; after whose dissolution, 32 Henry VIII. it came to Becket, who gave for his arms, in a field Sable, a fess between three boar’s heads couped, and six cross-crosslets fitchee Or; in memory of the Archbishop.

From Becket this place came by sale to Harris; from Harris to Hamlyn; from Hamlyn to Cole, now in possession thereof, who was steward to Francis Roberts, Esq. and got riches in the service of the Earl of Radnor.

Tre-wint, in this parish, id est, the spring or well town, is the dwelling of Thomas Kelly, Gent.

Dr. John Moorman, Vicar of this church, was the first minister in Cornwall that said or taught the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Creed in the English tongue. (See Feock and Creed.) He also catechised the children therein; which I judge was in the latter end of King Henry the Eighth’s, or the beginning of King Edward the Sixth’s reign, 1549; for then by proclamation were called in all books of the Latin service for churches; and the Bishops commanded in their several dioceses that forthwith should be warned, all prebendaries of their cathedral churches, all parsons, vicars, curates, and the churchwardens of every parish within their dioceses, to bring in and deliver up particularly.

In this parish was formerly extant a hospital for lepers, that had competent lands and revenues.

TONKIN.

Pool, adjoining to the church town, was the seat of the Trelawnys, and their chief dwelling for many generations, till they fixed at their present one of Trelawen, in the parish of Pelynt. The chief manor in this parish is called Menheniot, or Tregelly.

THE EDITOR.

The church of this large and opulent parish is of size proportioned to it, having three large aisles. The tower is low and surmounted by a spire. In the church are some monuments, but not of much antiquity.

Archbishop Courtenay appears to have settled the right of presentation to this parish, by giving it to the Chapter of Exeter, with the limitation of their always bestowing it on some one who is at the time, or has been, a Fellow of Exeter College. The vicarage is endowed with the great tithes, on a payment of £20 a year to Exeter College, and it is therefore considered as a rectory. Mr. Carew observes (p. 277, Lord de Dunstanville’s edition) that this parish has been successively graced with three well born and well educated incumbents, Doctor Tremayne, Master Billett, and Master Dennis; and it is believed that William of Wykeham held this preferment for some time previously to Archbishop Courtenay’s endowment.

The late incumbent, the Reverend William Holwell, may be noticed for his taste and skill in the fine arts. He was the son of a medical practitioner at Exeter, and nephew of William Holwell, student and tutor of Christ Church soon after the middle of the last century, and then Vicar of Thornbury, in Gloucestershire, where he died in 1798, having distinguished himself by the following, among other works:

The Beauties of Homer, selected from the Iliad, 8vo.

Extracts from Pope’s Translations of Homer compared with the Beauties of the Original. 8vo.

A Mythological, Etymological, and Historical Dictionary. 8vo.

Mr. William Holwell, the nephew, was of course a Fellow of Exeter College. He travelled through France and Italy about the year 1780, where he began forming a collection of pictures, bequeathed on his decease to the National Gallery. He is said to have taken Orders with some reluctance, for the purpose of accepting this valuable living. But the most important event in this gentleman’s life was his marrying Charlotte, daughter and heiress of James Carr, Earl of Erroll. He in consequence assumed the name of Carr. He died in the year 1830, having survived his wife nearly twenty years, who has a monument to her memory in Menheniot church.

In the valuation of Pope Nicholas, the name of this parish is written Manyhinyhet, or Saihinet, proofs of the small reliance that can be placed on mere phonic etymologies.

Cartuther, noticed by Mr. Hals, became the property and the residence of the Morsheads, but having been sold, with all the other possessions of that family, it was purchased by Mr. Kekewich.

Mr. Lysons gives a detail of other manors and bartons of little interest.

This parish has the reputation of being the most fertile of corn, especially of wheat, in the whole county. The aspect of the church town gives a strong impression of monastic remains, but there is not any tradition on record of a religious establishment in the place.

Menheniot measures 6047 statute acres. Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._ returned to Parliament in 1815 10599 0 0 Poor Rate in 1831 1422 11 0 Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831, { 918 | 1024 | 1170 | 1253 giving an increase of 36½ per cent. in thirty years.

GEOLOGY, BY DOCTOR BOASE.

The southern part of this parish is bounded by the hill of Clicker Tor, which is entirely composed of a dark compact serpentine, abounding in steatite, asbestos, tremolite, and other magnesian minerals. The occurrence of this large mass of serpentine, amidst an extensive tract of rocks belonging to the calcareous series, imparts no little geological interest to this parish, which deserves therefore to be more minutely examined; for the cursory observations hitherto published have not satisfactorily developed the connection of this serpentine with the adjoining rocks. In crossing the parish from north to south, the rocks are first seen to consist of compact felspar and hornblend, resembling those at Rosecradock in St. Clear; next they become more schistose, and the hornblend forms only the colouring material, as it does on the north of Leskeard town; at Pengover the hornblend again abounds, and is intermixed with calcareous spar, as in the vicinity of St. Ives. Approaching the church of Menheniot, the rocks again put on the appearance of a true hornblend schist, and this is succeeded by the serpentine of Clicker Tor.

THE EDITOR.

Not only is the serpentine of the Lizard found at Clicker Tor, but the plant also indicative of that formation, the great ornament of our southern promontory, the ERRICA VAGANS, the multiflora of Hudson and Ray, and the didyma of Withering. Nothing seems to be more extraordinary, nor what, independently of experience, would be more unexpected, than the existence of the same rare plants at distant and unconnected places, where the peculiarities of soil and climate happen to agree; but to increase the wonder still further, even this diffusion has its limits. The southern hemisphere is said not to be decorated by a single wild rose, the Ανασσα Ανθων of the northern world. And the whole continent of America is believed not to produce a single heath.

Our preconceptions of what would be fitting for intelligences superior to our own, and _a fortiori_ as to what might be expected from infinite wisdom and power, have been established beyond the shadow of a doubt by SIR ISAAC NEWTON, in respect to the great bodies moving in our universe. They perform all their revolutions in obedience to the simple and general laws of gravity and inertia; and the rapidly progressive discoveries of each succeeding year, establish the same principle respecting causes acting conformably to general laws in the internal construction, preservation, and renovation of our planet; and we are moreover induced to believe that a like system must prevail in the moral world, not from analogy alone, but from a deep conviction that such a plan, and no other, can reconcile the existence of partial evil with universal good: and thus conciliate the actual state of things with the attributes of unlimited goodness, wisdom, and power; but in respect to animal and vegetable life, although an arrangement as plain and as demonstrative of infinite wisdom may exist, it is, in the actual state of our knowledge, utterly hidden from our view. Thousands of distinct species or genera have ceased to exist, and their remains, varying from the most gigantic skeletons to objects suited for a microscope, are daily brought under our view――animals and plants have succeeded each other in the various geological periods, tending in succession towards more elaborate construction and greater general perfection; but not a trace is laid before us of the plan by which this beautiful system is arranged; our ignorance compels us therefore to suppose the immediate agency of THE DIVINITY itself, when a plant indigenous to an old formation appears on one more recently elevated to the surface; or when any of the innumerable changes take place in an organized inhabitant of this or of some other plant.

ST. MERRAN, MERIN, OR MER-YN.

HALS.

Mer-in or Mer-yn, is situated in the hundred of Pedyr, and hath upon the north the Irish sea, west St. Evall, south St. Ervyn, north-east Padstow.

In the Domesday Book this district was taxed by the name of Trevoes or Trevose, id est, the maid or virgin’s town; then and now the voke lands of a manor annexed to Pawton, or Polton, (parcel of the lands of the Prior of Bodman and Bishop of Exon before the Norman Conquest,) on the confines of which, towards the sea, is yet extant the ruins of an old church, chapel, and cemetery pertaining thereto, dedicated to St. Constantine, the first Christian Emperor of Rome: which, upon the encroachment of the sea-sand on the marsh beneath, which surrounded and overwhelmed the same, was discontinued, and thereby gave occasion to the inhabitants to build their now church of Merin in a more secure place, further up in the country from the sea and sand, and moor or marsh ground; the church of St. Constantine being in part converted now to a dwelling house for poor people.

Near this church is yet extant St. Constantine’s Well, strong built of stone and arched over; on the inner part hereof are places or seats for people to sit and wash themselves in the streams thereof; the consequence of which facts, if the inhabitants may be credited, is not only very refreshing and salubrious, but, if it be dry weather, immediately showers of rain will follow.

The barton of Trevose is now, by lease, in possession of Gregory Peter, Esq. and Lawrence Growden, that well-known Quaker, the reversionary fee pertaining to Sir Nicholas Morice, Baronet, as parcel of his manor of Pawton; and is a large lofty promontory of land, shooting out far into the Irish sea, beyond all other lands there, yet notable for its production of sheep, barley, and rabbits, and not altogether unprofitable for bullocks in winter season; and as fatal and unfortunate for wrecking ships, that happen by night or stormy weather to fall on the rocks thereof, at that or any other time.

Arel-yn, alias Har-lyn, in this parish. This barton is the dwelling of my very kind friend and brother-in-law, Gregory Peter, Esq. Sheriff of Cornwall part of the last year of William III. and first of Queen Anne, 1701; he married Elizabeth, daughter of Gove of Devon, the relict of William Wadland, merchant, by whom he had issue two sons, William and John; William died without issue, and John that married Anne, the daughter of Sir John Coryton, of Newton, Baronet, by whom he hath a numerous issue of children of both sexes. After the death of the said Elizabeth, he married the daughter of Anthony Carveth, of Peransand, Gent. his cousin-german removed, and hath issue by her Francis Peter.

Gregory Peter aforesaid was the son of Thomas Peter, of Treater, in Padstow, Gent. who married the daughter and heir of Mitchell, lord of Harlyn; the which Thomas Peter was the son of John Peter, of Trenaran, in Padstow, Gent. that married Toms, as John Peter was the son of John Peter of Trenaran, that married Kestell.

Whether this surname of Peter be derived from the Christian or font name of some of their ancestors, or from their being ancient inhabitants of Pedyrstowe, id est, Peter’s dwelling, now Padstow, I cannot resolve. Their arms are in a field Gules, on a bend between two escallops Argent, two Cornish dawes Proper; much resembling the arms of the Lord Petre of Exeter, now of Essex.

If this church of Merin, or Meran, were extant, it was not endowed with any revenues at the time of the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, into the value of Cornish Benefices, 1294, since it is not named therein. And the five churches of Peran-sand, St. Agnes, St. Colomb Minor, St. Breock, Lanhidrock, were then under the same circumstances.

The tutelar guardian of this new church of Merin is St. Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, whose festival is duly celebrated by the inhabitants of this parish of Meran on July the 7th, being commonly called his day, a hundred and twenty-two years after his death made a calendered Saint, who was slain at the altar in his cathedral church of Canterbury, the 30th of December 1172.

In Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, this vicarage of Merin was valued for its revenues £15. 16_s._ 8_d._ The patronage in the Bishop of Exeter, or the Dean and Chapter, who endowed it; the incumbent Gurney; the rectory or sheaf in possession of Francis Peter aforesaid; and the parish rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax for one year, 1696, £241.

One Margaret Tregoweth, of Crantock, temp. Henry VII. gave lands in Harlyn, viz. a dwelling-house and garden, with commons there, towards the repair of blessed St. Meran and St. Thomas Becket’s church, of about £12 per annum for ever. [But who this Sanctus Meranus, or St. Meran, was I know not.]

TONKIN.

Mr. Tonkin does not add any thing to the history of this parish except the following assertion.

This parish takes its name from a female patroness, Sancta Merina, so that the name should be written Merin.

THE EDITOR.

Mr. Tonkin has not given any information respecting St Merina, nor is any such name to be found.

The barton of Harlyn, or Arlyn, belonged to the family of Tregewe; from that family it passed by a marriage to the family of Michell, and with the heiress of Michell to Peter. Perthcothen, which belonged to the family of Trevethen, is now the seat of another Mr. Peter.

The manor of Trevose having formed a part of the very extensive property acquired by the Roberts’s, was purchased from them by the Morices of Werington, and in the division of property between the coheiresses of that family, it fell to the share of Molesworth of Pencanow; one part of it is held on lease by Mr. Peter, of Harlyn, and another belonged to the late Mr. Rawlings, of Padstow.

There is not any thing remarkable about the church. The stone in that immediate neighbourhood, at a place called Catacluse, is very favourable for building, and for ornamental work, as may be seen in the fonts at this church and at Padstow, and also in the ruins of the old church, dedicated to Constantine.

The Editor has been favoured with the following communication respecting this ancient building, by William Peter, Esq. of Harlyn.

“Constantine church is now in ruins, and the parish (if it ever was one) has been long merged in that of St. Merryn. The festival of Constantine is still celebrated by an annual hurling match, on which occasion the owner of Harlyn supplies, and has (according to parish tradition) from time immemorial supplied, the silver ball.

“Adjoining the church of Constantine was a cottage which a family of the name of Edwards held for generations, under the proprietors of Harlyn, by the annual render of a pie, made of limpets, raisins, and various herbs, on the eve of the festival. This pie, as I have heard from my father and from more ancient members of the family, and from old servants, was excellent. The Edwards’s had pursued for centuries the occupation of shepherds on Harlyn and Constantine commons. The last died about forty years ago, and the wreck of their cottage is almost buried in sand.”

The font and the pillars of Constantine church are handsomely carved out of Catacluse stone, and Mr. Peter adds, that the font was transferred by his great-grandfather to St. Merryn Church, when it underwent a thorough repair.

Under Catacluse Cliffs is a small pier, constructed by the late Mr. Peter for the shelter of coasting vessels and boats.

The feast of Constantine is kept on the nearest Sunday to the 10th of March.

The feast in honour of the comparatively modern Saint to whom St. Merryn Church is dedicated, is celebrated on the nearest Sunday to July the 7th, the Translation of St. Thomas of Canterbury (Becket).

The great tithes belong to the Chapter of Exeter, and the Bishop collates to the vicarage. It has been remarked that three successive gentlemen of the name of Gurney held the living for above a century.

The diversion of hurling, mentioned by Mr. Peter as taking place on the festival in honour of Constantine, is now wholly discontinued, or kept up on this particular occasion as a mere remembrance of former times, when the manners of society were more adapted to such rude exertions of activity and strength. For an account of hurling see Carew, p. 195, Lord Dunstanville’s edition.

St. Merran measures 3,644 statute acres. Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._ returned to Parliament in 1815 4,084 0 0 Poor Rate in 1831 428 18 0 Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831, { 425 | 458 | 537 | 576 giving an increase of 35½ per cent. in 30 years. The Rev. John Bayley, the present Vicar of St. Merryn, was collated in 1803 by the Bishop of Exeter.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

The rocks of the southern part of this parish resemble those of St. Ervan, but near the church a lamelar blue slate prevails, like that of Endellion, and like it also abounding in veins of the sulphurets of lead and of antimony.

The western part of the parish, which extends into the sea, forming a promontory called Trevose Head, is composed of crystalline rocks, which are massive, and differ from all the rocks that are interposed between it and the granite of St. Dennis. Both the composition and the relative situation of these rocks are very interesting. They appear to be the equivalents of the masses of serpentine of Clicker Tor, and of the Lizard district; of the felspathic rocks which form the downs between Launceston and Davidstow; and of that curious mass of rock at King Arthur’s Castle, in Tintagel. Geologists have yet to learn the precise relation of these crystalline masses with the calcareous series in which they are situated.

MERTHYR.

HALS.

Merthyr, Murder, vicarage, is situated in the hundred of Powder, and hath upon the north and east Probus and Tresilian river, south Lamoran and St. Michael Penkivell, west an arm of Falmouth Harbour, towards Clemens. As for the name, it refers to the tutelar patron and guardian saint of the church, who it seems was murdered and slain for the Christian religion, as a martyr; viz. one St. Cohan, a Briton of this parish, whose little well, and consecrated chapel annexed thereto, was lately extant, upon the lands of Egles Merthyr barton, (that is to say upon the lands of the Martyr’s Church,) though now in a manner demolished by greedy searchers for money.

This church goes in presentation and consolidation as a daughter to St. Probus, which vicar is to present the curate, vicar, or chaplain of Merthyr to the Bishop for licence and confirmation; though the eight men of the said parish are by ancient custom to choose and name him, in consideration whereof the vicar of Probus is to receive annually from them, on the high altar, three shillings and four pence.

However, great controversies have happened in the Bishop’s Consistory between the vicar of Probus and the inhabitants of this parish, before and since Henry the Eighth’s days, upon the death, removal, or translations of the vicar of Probus, concerning the right of the jurisdiction, presentation, or patronage of this church; whether in the vicar of Probus, or the eight men of the said parish, the vicar presenting one clerk or curate to be confirmed by the Bishop, and the eight men another; but generally it hath passed as a rule in the Ecclesiastical Court, where this matter, by learned counsel or proctors, hath been debated, that the right of patronage and presentation of this church lay in the eight men of the parish, and not in the vicar of Probus, though the same hath been often controverted.

There is a Latin deed which I have seen yet extant, between Bar. Combe, vicar-general to Dr. Peter Courtenay, Lord Bishop of Exeter, 1480, under seal of the diocese, and John Fullford, perpetual vicar of Probus of the one part, and Thomas Tresithney, John Hallvose, Thomas Webber, and others of the eight men of the parish of Merthyr on the other part, wherein those premises are concerted or regulated; and moreover, therein a confirmation, covenant, or agreement, made and established between them, according to ancient custom; that in case the said eight men and their successors should annually pay to the vicar or curate of the said parish of St. Cohan Martyr, of Merthyr, for ever annually the full and just sum of twenty marks lawful moneys of England, that then the lands of the said parish, and every part and parcel thereof should be exempt and free from the payment of small tithes in kind, oblations, or obventions to the vicar thereof for ever. Which privilege hath ever since been kept and enjoyed by the inhabitants of the said parish accordingly; to the great loss of the vicar, and greater gain of the inhabitants.

Now, though when this compact was made and confirmed, the vicar had much the better bargain, not one vicarage church in Cornwall being of that value in the King’s or Pope’s Books towards Annats in the first inquisition, 1294, nor many in Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1520; yet now the inhabitants have great profit thereby, since the plenty or commonness of money lessens the intrinsic value thereof, whereby much number of money will buy but little lands, goods, or chattels, whereas in those days a little quantity of money would purchase much of those things. (Witness Baker, and other our chronologers, temp. Henry VII. soon after the compact aforesaid was made, wherein we may read that a bushel of wheat, Winchester measure, was sold for 6_d._, a bushel of salt for 3½_d._, a ton of Gascoign wines 40_s._, and all other things sold after a proportionable price.)

In the Domesday Book, 1087, this district was taxed under the jurisdiction of Penkivell. Afterwards, upon the setting up the vicarage of Probus, it was concerted into that parish about the beginning of King Henry the Third’s days; for in the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, into the value of Cornish Benefices, 1294, its superior or mother church was rated for it, as also the five chaplains for their salaries, that officiated in Probus, Cornelly, and Merthyr. It was endowed by the treasurer of the cathedral church of Exeter, which must be after that dignitary was first set up there, by William Brewar, Bishop thereof 1224. The patronage as aforesaid; the incumbent, Monsieur Baudree, a French Protestant; and the parish rated to the 4_s._ per pound Land Tax, 1696, temp. William III. £83.

At Tre-saws-an, alias Tre-saus-an, id est, the Saxon town, or dwelling, a place heretofore pertaining to some Saxon, is the possession by lease of James Hals, Gent., granted him by his mother in the time of her widowhood, as parcel of the manor of Fentongollan, whereon she had power of leasing during her widowhood. He was a younger son of Sir Nicholas Hals, of Fentongollan, Knight, by Grace his wife, daughter of Sir John Arundell, of Talverne, Knight; and was first bred a soldier in Pendenis Castle, whereof his father was Governor, under King James I. and Charles I. Afterwards he was made lieutenant of his brother Captain William Hals, in the expedition of the Duke of Buckingham in the French war, at the Isle of Rhé and Rochelle. And after that war was over was sent with his said brother by King Charles I. with a foot company of soldiers to supply or reinforce the garrisons of the Barbadoes, St. Christopher’s, and Mountserat Islands in America, where he remained about seven years; and after his brother’s death, who died returning into England, Captain Ayleworth was displaced, and the said James Hals made Governor of Mountserat Island, by King Charles I.

After which, the wars breaking out in England, between that King and his Parliament, he and divers other officers were commanded to return back into England for the King’s service; where soon after his arrival at Plymouth, that stood for the Parliament, then besieged by the King’s army, he was cajoled out of his allegiance to King Charles I. by his country gentlemen then in that place in garrison, and engaged against that King, to become Lieutenant-Colonel to Colonel Nicholas Boscawen’s troop of horse, then posted there. From whence he was commanded, with several other troops of horse, to go outside the lines, under conduct of the Earl of Stamford, then Governor of Plymouth for the Parliament, and to fight the King’s army that besieged it under conduct of Sir Ralph Hopton, Knight, and Sir Richard Grenvill, Knight and Baronet, the King’s Generals in the West; where, after a sharp engagement and loss of many men between both parties, the victory fell to the King’s army; and then and there the said James Hals, and many other gentlemen were taken prisoners of war, and forthwith sent prisoners to Lidford Castle in Devon, under custody of Marshall Ellery, of St. Colomb Major.

Where soon after several of his companions, or fellow officers and soldiers, viz. Mr. Leach, Mr. Morris, Mr. Brabyn, and others, were executed without trial or judgment, as guilty of high treason. But the said James Hals had his life spared or given him by the General Sir Richard Grenville, Knight, upon account of consanguinity, but not without many frowns and angry threats; (a sure token of his clemency, as his smiles and embraces were of death and destruction, suitable to those of King Richard III. and King James I. and Caius Caligula, Emperor of Rome,) to dissuade him from the Parliament service to that of the King’s, with promise of greater preferment in his army; all which proving ineffectual, he was sentenced a straight or close prisoner to that tremendous castle, in daily expectation of death; where he remained immured up for about twenty months space, in great want, durance, and misery, till General Essex came into those parts with the Parliament army, and set at liberty him and other Lidford prisoners, by Captain Braydon raised the siege of Plymouth, and sore distressed Hopton and Grenville in Cornwall.

During the time of this James Hals’ imprisonment in Lidford Castle, amongst others there came to visit him one Mr. Doctor William Brown, of Tavistock, who gave him a copy of rambling verses and observations he had made upon the borough and castle of Lidford, for his diversion; which verses, for want of the original, I find false and imperfectly set forth and printed in Mr. Prince’s Worthies of Devon, therefore I have hereunder set it down verbatim from the Doctor’s own copy, given Mr. Hals, viz.:

I oft have heard of Lidford Lawe, How in the morn they hang and draw, And sit in judgment after; At first I wondered at it much, But since I find the matter such, As it deserves noe laughter.

They have a castle on a hill; I took it for some old windmill, The vanes blown off by weather; To lie therein, one night ’tis gast, ’Twere better to be stoned or pressed, Or hanged when you come thither.

Ten men less room within this cave Than five mice in a lanthorn have; The Keepers they are sly ones; If any could devise by art To get it up into a cart, ’Twere fit to carry lions.

When I beheld it! Lord thought I, What justice, truth, or equity, Hath Lidford Castle hall; Where every one that there doth stay, Must first be hanged out of the way, ’Fore he can have his trial.

Prince Charles a hundred pounds hath sent, To mend the leads and planchins wrent, Within this living tomb, Some forty-five pounds more had paid The debts of all that shall be laid There till the day of doom.

One lies there for a seam of malt, Another for two pecks of salt, Two sureties for a noble; If this be true or else false news, You may go ask of Master Crew’s, John Vaughan, or John Doble.

Near to those men that lie in lurch, There’s a direful bridge and little church, Seven ashes and one oak; Two houses standing and ten down, They say the Rector hath a gown, But I saw ne’er a cloak.

Whereby you may consider well, What plain simplicity doth dwell At Lidford without bravery; Since in that town both young and grave Do love the naked truth to have, No cloak to hide their knavery.

This town’s inclosed with desert moors, Where tiger, wolf, and lion roars, And nought can live but hogs; All overturn’d with Noah’s flood; Of fourscore miles scarce one foot good; Where hills are wholly bogs.

And near unto the Gubbins Cave, A people that no knowledge have Of laws of God or men, Where Cæsar never yet subdued, Have lawless lived, of manners rude, All naked in their den.

By whom, if any pass that way, He dares not any time to stay, For presently the howl, Upon which signal they do muster Their naked forces in a cluster, Led forth by Roger Rowle.

The people all within this clime, Are frozen in the Winter time, Deprest with cold and pain; But when the Summer is begun, They lie like silkworms in the sun, And gather strength again.

’Twas told me, in King Cæsar’s time The town was built with stone and lime, But sure the walls are clay, For they are all fallen for ought I see: And since the houses are got free The town is run away.

O Cæsar, if thou there didst reign, Whilst one house stands come there again; (Come quickly whilst there is one) For if thou stay, but little fit, But five years more, they will commit The whole town to a prison.

To see it thus much grieved was I, The proverb saith ’sorrows be dry,’ So was I at this matter; When by good luck, I know not how, There thither came a straying cow, And we had milk and water.

To nine good stomachs, with a wig, At last we got a tithen pig; This diet was our bounds; And this was, just as if ’twere known, A pound of butter had been thrown Among a pack of hounds.

One glass of drink I got by chance, ’Twas Claret when it was in France, But then from it much wider; I think a man might make as good With green crabs boiled in Brazil wood, And half a pint of cider.

I kissed the Mayor’s hand of the town, Who though he wears no scarlet gown, Honours the Rose and Thistle; A piece of coral to the mace, Which there I saw to serve in place, Would make a good child’s whistle.

At six o’clock I came away, And prayed for those that were to stay Within that place so arrant; For my