DAVIES GILBERT, (continued 3)

Whereupon they concluded he had leapt into the sea and drowned himself for fear of their discovery and being taken by them, and so left over further quest after him, which gave him opportunity soon after in a small ship to waft over the British Channel to Britany to the Earl of Richmond, with whom afterwards he returned again into England, and was engaged with him in the battle of Bosworth Field in Leicestershire, where King Richard’s army was overthrown and himself slain upon the spot. When soon after the said Mr. Edgcumbe was by King Henry VII. knighted and made one of his Privy Council; and as a further reward of his good services, rewarded with the whole estate and lands of inheritance of Sir Henry Trenoweth, of Bodrigan, Knight, of a very great value, then forfeited by attainder of treason on the part of King Richard III. against King Henry VII.; as also with the Castle and Lordship of Totnes in Devon, with much other lands of John Lord Zouch, then also for the same fact forfeited by attainder of treason against King Henry VII.

This Sir Richard Edgcumbe, Knight, married Tremayne, and had issue Peers, afterwards knighted, that married Durneford’s heir aforesaid, and had issue Richard, afterwards knighted, that married Tregian, of Walveden, 103 who had issue Peter, that married Margaret, daughter of Sir Andrew Luttrell, Knight, in the latter end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, who gave for his arms, Gules, on a bend Ermine between two cottices Or, three boar’s heads couped. Sir Richard Edgcumbe, Knight, Privy Councillor to King Henry VII. as Mr. Carew saith, in the place where he hid himself in Cotehele woods aforesaid, built a chapel to the honour of Almighty God, in testimony of his thankful remembrance of God’s preserving him from the hands of his enemies then at his heels.

Him or his father I take also to be that Edgecumbe which founded at West Conworthy, on the west side of the river Dart, between the towns of Totnes and Dartmouth in Devon, a priory of Benedictine monks, whose revenues out of Zouch’s lands was valued 26 Henry VIII. when dissolved, 63l. 2s. 10d. as the Monasticon Anglicanum informs us.

At which time it was purchased of the Crown by William Harris, Esq. father of Sir Thomas Harris, of Hayne, Knight and Sergeant-at-law, tempore Elizabeth, who made it the place of his residence; but in the third descent it came to be divided between the daughters and heirs of Sir Edward Harris, Knight, the house being now comparatively demolished. Now as from the premises it appears those gentlemen’s estates were greatly augmented by the bounty of King Henry VII. so after a grateful manner they have converted great sums of money towards the service of their prince and country; and to this purpose I find it recorded, that as

Sir Richard Edgcumbe the first was Sheriff of Devon 2d Henry VII. so his son Sir Peers or Peter Edgcumbe aforesaid, was Sheriff of Devon 10th Henry VII. also the 13th; also the 9th of Henry VIII. also the 20th; also Sir Richard Edgcumbe that married Tregian, and built the present house here called Mount Edgcumbe, 36th Henry VIII. also the 1st of Queen Mary; also Peter Edgcumbe his son 9th Elizabeth.

104 And of Cornwall Sir Peter Edgcumbe 14th and 15th of Henry VII. also 21st; also 8th of Henry VIII. also 26th. Sir Richard Edgcumbe 2d and 3d of Queen Mary, also Peter Edgcumbe 11th of Elizabeth, Richard Edgcumbe 8th James I. in all or total sixteen times Sheriff of Cornwall and Devon, from the year 1487 to the year 1640, which is but 150 years; the like instance of Sheriffs not to be given of any other family in England except the Arundels, of Lanhearne, Trerice, and Tolverne, who have been twenty times.

Richard Edgcumbe, Esq. Sheriff of Cornwall 8th of King James I. had issue Richard Edgcumbe, Esq. created one of the Knights of the Bath, at the Coronation of King Charles II. He married the Lady Anne Montagu, daughter of the Right Honourable Edward Earl of Sandwich, and had issue Richard Edgcumbe, Esq.

Finally, Mr. Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, hath written so large a history of this family, the magnificence of the house, and sweetness of the dwelling, that I refer the reader thereto as not being able to make further addition.

Half of Millbrook in this parish and of Mount Edgcumbe lands, are part of the county of Devon, though severed from it by the Tamerworth sea or harbour ever since King Athelstan, anno Dom. 930, separated Devon from Cornwall, and made them several jurisdictions, which before were but one county or regniculum; and the reason in all probability why several parcels of land, not only here in this place, but in divers others on the east and west side of the Tamer river, the Devonshire side lands are annexed to Cornwall, and the Cornwall side lands to Devon, was in all probability by reason the owners of those lands were possessed of lands both in Devonshire and Cornwall; and it could not in any sense consist with justice that the Cornish men should lose their lands in Devon, or the Devonshire men lose their lands in Cornwall, because those counties were divided by the river Tamar, and both people under the dominion of one king.

105 This town of Milbrook, as I am informed, amongst others was once privileged with the jurisdiction of sending of two Members to sit in the Lower House of Parliament, but was divested of that privilege propter paupertatem, tempore Henry VIII. for that the town was not able to pay their Burgesses’ salary of 4s. per diem whilst they sat in Parliament; however, Mr. Carew in his Survey of Cornwall, p. 101, tells us, that within his memory this town had near forty ships and barks at one time pertaining to the inhabitants thereof, that followed trade, merchandize, and fishing; but upon the breaking out of Queen Elizabeth’s wars with Spain, the townsmen neglected their usual honest employments and took up a more compendious though not so honest way of gaining, and began by little and little to reduce those plain dealers to their former undeserved plight, &c. id est, by piracy and privateering at sea.

In this parish standeth Cremble Passage, the common place of transferring passengers by boat or barge over the rapid and dangerous waves of the Tamerworth Harbour or Sea Haven from the Cornish shore to the Plymouth or Devonshire side or lands, wherein many persons heretofore by the violence of the seas and wind in their passage have lost their lives.

TONKIN.

Mr. Tonkin has not noticed this parish.

THE EDITOR.

This parish, forming the western boundary of Plymouth harbour, and extending between Hamoaze and the sea, occupies a situation more beautiful than any other on the whole coast.

The church stands on the summit of the ridge, and its lofty tower was long an object of curiosity on account of 106 the signals displayed on it to indicate the arrival of ships or fleets. From ten to twenty arbitrary signals were made, by means of differently shaped and coloured flags, displayed from a perpendicular staff, and by balls suspended on two others, rising at an inclined angle from the opposite parapets.

The tardy adoption of a method, so simple and universal as that of conveying intelligence through the combination of signals, and of alphabetic writing, may be reckoned among the most curious anomalies of the human mind; when the common mode of what is called talking with the fingers actually does the thing itself, and Polybius, the friend of P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus, and his companion, at the destruction of Carthage, 145 years before our æra, gives a detailed description of a method by which this object may be attained, and dwells on its immense advantages. He admits indeed that difficulties must be expected in the execution; but adds, “In the present age the sciences are advanced to so great a perfection that almost every thing is capable of being taught by method.” See the General History of Polybius, book 10, extract 7, chapter 2. It was, however, reserved for the French, in their Revolutionary War, to practise this art, and for the first time in the spring of 1794, more than nineteen hundred years after the suggestion by Polybius, and notwithstanding repeated recurrences to nearly the same effect by various writers in modern times.

Mr. Hals states, that in the valuation of Pope Nicholas this parish was assessed, the Rectory at 100s. the Vicarage at 53s. 4d.

In the folio edition of the Taxatio Ecclesiastica Angliæ et Walliæ, auctoritate Papæ Nicholai IV. printed by command of King George III. 1802, the entries stand thus:

£. s. d. £. s. d.

Taxatio. Decima.

Eccl’a de Sacre 5 0 0 0 10 0

Non ex’ { Vicar ejusdem 2 13 4 ——

Eccl’ia de Rame 2 6 8 ——

107 The bracket may perhaps be wrongly placed, and Maker may be a corruption of the name here used.

Inceworth appears to have been the principal manor in this parish, and belongs to the family of Trefusis; it includes Milbrook, formerly a town of some consequence. Here were till very lately the brewhouses attached to the great naval establishment of this port; they are now removed to The Point on the Devonshire side, where one of the most extensive and most useful works ever constructed for such purposes has been recently completed. Walls have been laid in deep water, by the use of diving bells, so as to allow of the largest ships coming quite in contact with the wharfs, and there receiving, in the course of a few hours, all the supplies of meat, bread, beer, water, &c. that are requisite for their going to sea.

The object however which attracts the attention of strangers from all others in this parish, is the place formerly called Vaultershome, and afterwards West Stonehouse, but which Mr. Edgcumbe, who acquired it by a marriage with the heiress of the family of Durneford, its former possessors, chose to name Mount Edgcumbe, a proceeding now sanctioned by time, as are those of the change from Port Prior to Port Eliot, and some others. It would be useless to describe this most beautiful and superb place, considered by many as altogether the finest gentleman’s seat in the West of England. Nor can it be the least necessary to say any thing here of the distinguished family after whom it is called; who have possessed an hereditary seat in Parliament since the year 1741, and for two descents have been Lord Lieutenants of Cornwall.

By a strange absurdity this south-eastern extremity has been, notwithstanding that the whole river is attached to Cornwall, artificially considered as a part of Devonshire; but this and other similar anomalies are in some degree corrected by modern acts of the legislature, the authority of magistrates for any county having been extended over these insulated portions of another, and the right of voting 108 for Members of Parliament is brought back to its natural state by the enactments of 1832.

A small town or village, partly in Maker, but extending into Rame, is distinguished by the double appellation of Kingston and Cawsand; the latter name is applied to the bay formed by a recess of the land at this place, a bay capable of containing the largest ships, and esteemed the least dangerous part of Plymouth Sound.

The Harbour of Plymouth consists of three distinct parts, the Sound, entirely exposed to the violence of south and south-western winds, and two inner harbours, Catwater and Hamoaze; the former adapted only for small vessels; and Hamoaze rendered utterly inaccessible in bad weather by a ridge of rocks extending from Drake’s Island to the western shore, thus restricting the only passage to a narrow and winding channel round that Island under the Hoe, and between Mount Edgcumbe and the Point.

To remedy this most essential defect, by making a safe anchorage in the outer harbour, an immense work was commenced in August 1812, which should be called the Artificial Reef, from its close resemblance to a natural reef, and from its having been avowedly planned in imitation of the coral reefs, abounding near all the Islands in the Pacific Ocean.

The Plymouth reef consists of a middle part a thousand yards long, and lying directly across the entrance of the Sound, and of two wings bending inwards at a small angle, each 350 yards long, making in all 1700 yards, or very nearly a mile. Advantage having been taken of a shoal, the depth under low water averages about 36 feet, and the height above low water is just 20 feet. The slope towards the sea forms an angle of 22° with the horizon, giving an increase of breadth of nearly two feet and a half for each foot of descent; the slope towards the land forms an angle of 33° with the horizon, and increases one foot and a half for each foot of descent: consequently the increase of breadth on the whole is four feet for one of descent. The whole 109 mass is composed of stones blown by the force of gunpowder from limestone rocks on the river side, from whence they are rolled at once on board barges, which sail to the spot and drop them into sea.

The whole weight of the reef is estimated at 2,500,000 tons. It may be curious to compare it with the largest building in the world. The Great Pyramid of Egypt measures 687 feet on each of its four sides, and the perpendicular height is 480 feet; these dimensions, supposing the Pyramid to be solid, give a content of 76,500,000 cubic feet, and a weight exceeding 5,500,000 tons, more than double the weight of the reef, and the materials are large blocks hewn into regular forms, transported from a considerable distance by land carriage, then raised into the air, and finally laid with cement in their exact places.

The artificial reef has cost a million of money; the Pyramid must have required an amount of labour represented at present by perhaps twenty times that sum, a building without use or beauty, while the reef has made Plymouth one of the best harbours in the whole world.

Maker measures 1867 statute acres. If the artificial arrangement were attended to, 967 acres must be deducted.

£. s. d.

Annual value of the Real Property as returned to Parliament in 1815, including the part returned as in Devonshire under the name of Vaultershome 3465 0 0

Poor Rate in 1831 821 16 0

Population,—

in 1801, in 1811, in 1821, in 1831,

Cornwall 1691 3678 1796 1545

Devon 1614 1569 1222 1092

3305 5247 3018 2637

The fluctuations in the number of people are evidently caused by the difference of war and peace, in a parish so much blended with the great naval and military establishments of Plymouth.

Present Vicar, the Rev. Daniel Stephens, presented by the Lord Chancellor in 1796.

GEOLOGY.110

The geology of Maker is not noticed by Doctor Boase; but it is obviously the same as that of the adjacent parish, Rame, which Doctor Boase says is composed in great measure of red and greenish grey slate, enclosing two and three beds of compact quartzse rock. They are all similar to the formations in St. Anthony, and in the cliffs under Mount Edgcumbe and at Saltash; but whether they belong to the calcareous series or to a more recent one, associated with the fossiliferous limestone of Plymouth, remains to be ascertained.

MANACCAN.

HALS.

Manack-an, Manuc-an Rectory, is situate in the hundred of Kerryer, and hath upon the north St. Martin’s, east Haylford harbour, south St. Anthony, west Mawgan, and Cury. For the modern name it signifies Monk the, or the Monk, so called in memory perhaps of some religious monk or monks that had a convent or abbey in this place.

In the Domesday Book, 1087, this district is not named, neither can I tell under what jurisdiction it was then taxed, unless Lizart, or Leschell, which latter may be a corruption of Kestell; neither is the name Manackan Church of any great antiquity, for in the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, into the value of Cornish Benefices, 1294, Ecclesia de Minster, in decanatu de Kerryer, (which is now called Manackan) is rated £4, but in Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, it is called Manackan, and valued £4. 16s. 0½d. The patronage in the Bishop of Exon; the incumbent Archer; the rectory in possession of —— and the parish rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax for the year 1696, £98. 13s.

111 However to the 15th of the Clergy, 24 Henry 6, it was rated, then by the name of Minster Church, £1. 4s. 6d. afterwards abated by the name of Minster 6s. (Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, page 95.) And lastly Manacan, as aforesaid; by both which names it is evident that heretofore there was some abbey or religious house of monks in this place or parish, wherein God was served with a minister; viz. vocal or instrumental music in time of divine service, as that appellation in British implies. And of this place we further read, (Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, page 46,) the 12th Edward I. its revenues was rated for twelve Cornish acres of land, that is to say, seven hundred and twenty statute acres; in that book, page 44, that the Bishop of Exeter held by tenure of knight service, in Minster in Kerrier, half a knight’s fee of land, 3 Henry IV.; probably this Minster was some alien monastery or priory, subjected to some abbey beyond the seas, as many others were in this land, all dissolved by Act of Parliament, temp. Richard II. and Henry V. for transmitting the secrets of the State to their superior house aforesaid, in the French Wars; for which reason perhaps it is not mentioned in the Monasticon Anglicanum, 26 Henry VIII. when other religious houses were dissolved; neither for the like reasons are St. Neot’s, Lancells, or St. Benet’s in Lanyvet, which I take to be those three abbeys or priories mentioned by Dugdale and Speed to have been dissolved in Cornwall, the value of whose revenues they do not set down, but saith they were Black Monks of the Angells, for Black Monks of the Augustines.

Moreover, let it be remembered that Manack is also a glove in British, and Manackan signifies the glove.

Kes-tell, id est, a castle, probably the Reschell in the Domesday Book aforesaid, in this parish, so called from some British camp, intrenchment, or fortification, formerly upon the lands thereof, or contiguous therewith, on the sea-coast, gave name and original to an old family of gentlemen now in possession thereof, surnamed de Kestell; 112 and in particular John Kestell, Esq. sometime Commissioner of the Peace and Taxes, that married Gregor of Tredenick; and giveth for his arms in a field Or three castles Gules. Since the writing hereof the male line of this tribe is quite extinct; and those lands, much incumbered with debt, fallen between the two daughters of the said Mr. Kestell, married to Penrose and Trevinard, as I am informed.

TONKIN.

The ancient name of this parish was Minster, which every one knows doth signify in Saxon a monastery, and from thence most commonly a church, and so it is called in the Taxatio Beneficiorum 20 Edward I.

THE EDITOR.

The ancient name of this parish, Minster, and the more recent one Manac-an, conspire to point it out as the locality of some religious establishment, since Manack is the Cornish word identical with Monk, and evidently from the same root, while an is the article, but although adjectives in all the Celtic dialects are placed after the substantive, yet the article regularly precedes it, and this inversion throws some doubt on the meaning of the compound word, more especially as not the slightest trace exists of any monastic institution within this parish in any authentic record, nor does tradition point out a spot where the foundation of a building can be perceived.

There is not any thing worth remarking about the church; it is pleasantly situated, and surrounded by a neat church town. The vicarage house is good; it was honoured by the residence, during some years, of our distinguished poet, historian, and divine, the Rev. Richard Polwhele, till he resigned it for Newlyn, a better living, 113 most properly bestowed on him by Dr. Carey, then Bishop of Exeter.

The only other village of consequence in this parish is Helford, where is a passage across the river, of greater breadth than any other in Cornwall, and various branches of trade are conducted at this place.

Kestell was formerly the seat of a family giving or deriving their name from this place; their arms, Or, three castles Gules, may still be seen over the entrance to the house. The property now belongs to Lemon of Carclew.

Halvose was for many years the summer residence of Mr. Thomas Hawkins, of Helston; it belongs at present to the family of Grylls.

This parish measures 1371 statute acres.

£. s. d.

Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 2711 0 0

Poor Rate in 1831 213 7 0

Population,—

in 1801, 498 in 1811, 506 in 1821, 591 in 1831, 654

giving an increase of 31 per cent. in 30 years.

The parish feast is kept on the nearest Sunday to the 14th of October.

The Rev. Richard Polwhele was collated to the rectory of Manaccan by Bishop Buller in 1794.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

The rocks of this parish are similar to those of the adjacent parish of St. Anthony, both being contained within the calcareous series. This little parish is however mineralogically celebrated for its streams containing a dark ferruginous sand, in which the metal titanium was discovered by the Rev. William Gregor, and, under the supposition of its being a new substance, received from him the name of Manaccanite.

114

MARHAMCHURCH.

HALS.

Marham Church rectory, called Marwyn Church, Marwon Church, in some old books and manuscripts, is situate in the hundred of Stratton, and hath upon the north Stratton parish, east Bridgerule and the Tamer river, south St. Mary Wick, west Poundstock. For the name, it signifies without doubt the house, home, habitation, or church-dwelling (for so the words Mar and Ham do signify in the British, Armorican, and Scottish tongues); and by the name of Mar-om-cerch it was taxed in the Domesday 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 115 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 116 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 15l. 11s. having never been appropriated.

Anno 1291, 20th Edward I. this church was valued at 6l. 13s. 4d.

The manor, Marwyn Church.—This is in Domesday 117 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.

£. s. d. 118

Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 2,485 0 0

Poor Rate in 1831 339 3 0

Population,—

in 1801, 414 in 1811, 448 in 1821, 647 in 1831, 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 9l. 6s. 8d. In Wolsey’s Inquisition 1521, St. Martin juxta Looe 36l. The patronage in the Duke of Bolton; 119 the Incumbent Hancock. The Parish rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax 1696, 178l. 17s. 5d.; East Looe town, within its precincts, 53l. 9s.; in all 222l. 6s. 5d.

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. 120

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. 121 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.

122 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 123 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 returned to Parliament in 1815: £. s. d.

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 5 0

124

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. } In 30 years.

East Looe 42 per cent.

both 39 per cent.

THE GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

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

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. 6s. 8d. 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 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1696, £105. 15s.

Tremayne, that is the town of stone, or the stone town, in this parish, is the dwelling of an old family of 125 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 126 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. 10s. 8d. 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, 127 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.

£. s. d.

Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 2306 0 0

Poor Rate in 1831 193 11 0

Population,—

in 1801, 336 in 1811, 391 in 1821, 504 in 1831, 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.

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, 128 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. 10s. 0½d.; 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 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1696, £148. 8s.

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, 129 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 130 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 131 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, 132 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.; 133 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, 134 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 135 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 136 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. 137 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 138 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.

£. s. d.

Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 2306 0 0

Poor Rate in 1831 193 11 0

Population,—

in 1801, 363 in 1811, 391 in 1821, 504 in 1831, 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.

139

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. 13s. 4d., and the Prior of Plympton received £1. 6s. 8d. In Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1521, Mawgan Rectory, without the Saint, is rated £26. 13s. 4d. 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 26s. 8d. 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 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1696, £178. 9s.

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 140 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, 141 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; 142 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.

143 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 144 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 145 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 146 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:

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:

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, 147 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 148 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 149 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.

Mr. Carew says of this family:

“Their name is derived from Hirundelle, in French a 150 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, 151 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:

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 152 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 153 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 100s.; de St. Burian cum capellis 100s.; de St. Mawgan in Pyder 150s.; Will^o Browne 200s. et tantum uxori suæ; Roberto Wescombe 100 marcas; Egidio Chubb 300s.; Will’mo Richards 200s. 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.