HELSTON.
HALS.
Is situate in the hundred of Kerryer, and hath upon the east Gwendron, west Sythney and the Loopoole, south Maugan and Gunwallo.
That this was a privileged place, and the voke lands of a manor, with court leet, before the Norman Conquest, I make no doubt, since the whole hundred of Kerryer, in King Alfred’s days, was in chief denominated from it. Besides this testimony, in Domesday Roll 20 William I. 1087, we read that by the name of Henliston, it was then taxed. Moreover, Brooke, York Herald, tells us temp. James I. in the Catalogue of Cornish Earls, that the privileges of this town or manor were concerted into a charter, and incorporated by Richard Plantagenet, Earl of Cornwall, 3d. son of King Henry II. surnamed Cur-lyon, from his lion-like heart, in the name of Helleston, as appeared from the charter, which he had then in his custody, to the seal whereof was affixed a lion rampant. It was also made one of the four coinage towns by King Edward I. in his charter to the Tinners, by the same name (See the charter under Luxilian). As also incorporated into the Duchy of Cornwall, by the same name 1336, when King Edward III. to his son the Black Prince promoted or translated the Earldom of Cornwall into a Duchy or Dukedom.
Whereby this town is also confirmed to be the voke lands of the manors or stanneries of Helston and Kerryer, (id est, Hall, Broad Town, and Lover,) and privileged with a Court Leet, wherein all pleas of debt and damage, between party and party, concerning tin matters, are tried by a jury of six men, before the Vice Warden and Steward of the Stanneries, (under the Lord Warden thereof,) life, land, and limb excepted. It is also privileged with a Court
Leet before the tribunal of the Mayor and Aldermen, and Quarterly Sessions of the Peace, and sending two members to Parliament; markets weekly on Saturday; fairs on August 29, October 28, Saturday before Midlent Sunday, Saturday before Palm Sunday, Whitsun Monday, and two fairs before St. Thomas à Becket’s day. Moreover, these privileges were confirmed and enlarged by charters temp. Queen Elizabeth and King Charles I. by the name of the Mayor and Burgesses, who consist of a Mayor (who is a Justice of the Peace for the Borough, the year succeeding his Mayoralty), and four Aldermen, who elect as many Common Councilmen as make their number twelve. Their Members of Parliament are elected by the majority of the freemen, and returned by the Mayor, to whom the precept on the writ for election must be thus directed, as well as that for removing an action depending in the Leet of Helston to a superior Court:
“Majori et Burgensibus Burgi nostri de Helleston in Comitatu Cornubiæ, salutem.”
Not far from this town stands the ruins of an old camp, or intrenchment, called Castle Werre, or Wera, an old fort or citadel to defend it from its enemies’ invasion. The arms of which town are Argent, a castle, or house, garreted on the top thereof, between two watch-towers, the Archangel St. Michael fighting with a dragon, or the devil.
That King Edward I. frequented this place for delight or pleasure, or designed so to do, upon the death of his uncle Richard Earl of Cornwall, King of the Romans, when the Earldom of Cornwall reverted to himself, in right of his Crown of England, Anno Dom. 1272, is evident from his granting lands by the tenure of grand sergeantry to William de Treville, on condition of bringing a fishhook and a boat and net, at his own proper costs and charges, for the king’s fishing in the lake of Helston, whensoever the King should come to Helston, and as long as he should tarry there. See the copy of this enfeofment deed in Sythney parish.
The chief inhabitants of this coinage town for tin are Mr. Penrose, Mr. Polkinhorne, Mr. Hooker, attorney at law, Mr. Williams, Mr. Rawe, Mr. Burges, Mr. Pinock, and others.
In the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, into the value of Cornish Benefices, 1294, the church of Helston is not named, but passed then under the title of its mother or superior church, Gwendron, into which it was consolidated, 17l. 6s. 8d.; in Wolsey’s Inquisition, by the names of Wendron and Helston, 26l. 19s. 3d.; both endowed, I suppose, by the Master or Governor of St. John’s Hospital at Sythney, who were patrons thereof till the 6th Henry VIII. when it was dissolved, now Jago; the incumbent Jago; and the town or parish of Helston rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1696, 181l. 9s. 4d.
In the year 1727 happened in those parts astonishing claps of thunder and lightning, which in fine broke down and tore in pieces the greatest part of this town’s church and tower, and did it damage to the value of two or three hundred pounds in repair thereof.
TONKIN.
This church is a Vicarage, endowed, and passeth in the presentation with Gwendron.
Mr. Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, tells us that within this town was an hospital, but gives no further account of it; so that it is unknown to me whether it were a spital erected for the relief of pilgrims from abroad, or for the use of sick impoverished people within the town. Most assured I am that near this place there was a priory erected to the name of St. John the Baptist.
THE EDITOR.
I have omitted some paragraphs from Hals and from Tonkin respecting several derivations of the name “Helstone,”
as all the circumstances of the place seem to point at one so decidedly as to exclude all consideration of the others. No doubt this one transgresses an arbitrary rule confining the themes of all derivations to a single language; but the instances in contradiction are so numerous throughout all England, as to render this circumstance of no importance.
The spot long used as a bowling-green is acknowledged on all hands to have been the site of an ancient castle. It must therefore have been the nucleus of the town; and the marsh extending from the Loo Pool along the valley, passes under the scarped rampart of the castle.
Hellas is well known to signify a marsh in the Celtic dialect used in Cornwall, and the termination Ton, the origin of our general word town, signified, in the Saxon,—more especially a walled town, or fortress; Helleston is therefore the fortress on the marsh.
The first charter of incorporation given to Helston, at least from the supreme feudal chief, is said to have been by King John. It is, however, highly probable that privileges of guild may have been bestowed long before by the Princes of Cornwall, vassals from the time of Athelstan. Various other charters were granted, till, in the early part of the reign of George III. the number of corporators became so reduced that the remainder were incapable of performing any corporate act; a new charter was in consequence obtained, and at the next general election the individuals named in it returned two members; but six persons remaining of the former party did the same: and so strong at that period was the feeling for chartered rights, in consequence of the conduct pursued by King Charles II. and his successor, that a committee of the House of Commons determined the right to remain in this fragment, incapable of performing any other civil act. And songs were made on the occasion, comparing these heroes with Eustace de St. Pierre and his companions.
When Edward set down before Calais,
Replete with rage and with malice,
Not the six famous burghers
More courage displayed
Than the six men of Helston.
One, if not two more returns were made in the same manner, till the number being fallen down to two very old men, they were induced to wave their privilege, partly, it is said, from an apprehension entertained that the maxim of Roman law, tres faciunt collegiam, might be effectually urged against them.
A custom had grown up at Helston, from early times, and by no means peculiar to that place, in compliance with which the patron, a well known and definite appellation, paid all the parochial rates; but an opinion may be formed of their small amount at no distant period, from the following statement. The Editor being on a Committee of the House of Commons, to consider and report on the poor laws soon after the conclusion of the late war, laid before the Committee a copy of a poor rate made for a parish in the west of England in the year 1704: it amounted to four pounds and some few shillings, while in the current year it exceeded six hundred pounds.
This practise in Helston became the ground of a petition after the general election of 1812; and, opinions having now changed, the matter was taken up so seriously in the House of Commons, as to induce the passing of a bill for disfranchising the borough. The other branch of the legislature, however, considered the practice, although wrong in itself, yet a delictum sine crimine, in this particular instance, as it most clearly appeared that some leading gentlemen, possessed of such influence as would have enabled them to make great lucrative advantages for themselves other ways, were benefited in so slight a degree by these payments, as to make it quite evident that self-interest had not been the motive of their conduct. The
bill did not pass into a law, and the town became regularly assessed like other places. The well-known connection usual in such cases had long subsisted between this town and the neighbouring family of Godolphin.
At the period of the last heraldic visitation in 1640, the signatures to the return of arms, &c. were,
The mark × of John Roe Moyes.
Thomas Seyntaubyn.
William Robinson.
Thomas James.
John Herbert.
Dated October 9, 1640.
And the members of the corporation are stated to be,
BURGESSES.
John Rowe Moyes.
Thomas St. Aubyn, Gent.
William Robinson.
Alexander Bolytho.
John Harbert.
John Alexander.
Thomas Godolphin, of Godolphin, Esq. Recorder.
Thomas James.
Robert Cock.
William Penhaluwick.
Daniel Bedford.
William Trewin.
Patrick Pesseme.
John Cock.
Thomas Randall, Steward of the said Town and Corporation.
In the Parliament preceding that, the Editor’s great-great-grandfather, William Noye, afterwards Attorney-General, represented Helston; and he himself had the same honour in the Parliament following the Union with Ireland. On the total change of the parliamentary constitution in 1832, the limits of Helston were extended so as to include a large portion of Wendron and the entire parish of Sithney. And the whole was reduced to sending one Member, or, according to a familiar expression, it was placed in Schedule B.
On that occasion a letter was addressed to a gentleman of the town, in return for a present of some delicacies, so
full of wit and humour that the Editor, having been favoured with a copy, is induced to insert it.
“Your very obliging present made its appearance this day, together with your note of the 2d. instant; pray, accept my best thanks for the same, the quality of which will, I have no doubt, on trial fully justify the favourable impression already made by their fragrance.
“Under the melancholy circumstances of affliction in which your town must be plunged by the announcement of the intended spoliation of a moiety of its electoral privileges, it is most pleasing to recognise a disposition in the leading citizens to impart of their good things to others; and although I should at all times have been much delighted by any mark of your friendly remembrance, yet it is doubly gratifying at a period like the present, when public embarrassments might naturally be supposed to absorb every other feeling, and to leave little room for indulging a spirit of individual philanthropy.
“Allow me, however, to express the hope, that as, when Hercules broke off the horn of the river god Achelous, it became the medium through which the golden gifts of the Genius of Plenty were showered down, so the ancient and patriotic borough of Helston, although shorn of a part of its long-enjoyed honours, and mutilated as to one of its protectors, may still flourish with a cornucopia of abundance and of prosperity.
2671. (φυε, φυε, οττοτοι, παπαι, αι, αι) 2671.
“quoth the Population Return for 1821.
“For which slight numerical deficiency, and for no earthly offence imputable to the inhabitants, save that of a practical application of the principle ‘non numero, sed honore valemus,’ the long-standing privileges of loyal men are scandalously invaded, and a body of independent electors declared incapable of exercising more than one half of their prescriptive rights.
“I seem to hear an indignant voter of Helston exclaim, ‘Why this measure of penal severity, accompanied at the same time with an apparent mitigation and leniency?’ Political annihilation had been a milder doom; extermination from the lists of suspected corruption had been far better than thus to suffer mutilation from the pruning knife of reform, beneath the wound inflicted by which the gangrene of dissatisfaction will still lurk and fester for ever.
——Mene Iliacis occumbere campis
Non potuisse!
“Happier were it to have sunk amidst the ruins of Sarum, or to have perished in the plains of Gatton,
Sævus ubi Æacidæ telo jacet Hector, ubi ingens
Sarpedon——
“than to be thus sent adrift, single-masted and disabled, on the doubtful sea of political adventure. They who now fall,
Sumptis apud Ilion armis.
“will meet no inglorious fate; under the banners of Peel, or the shield of Wetherall, it will be honourable to be conquered; and the page of history will supply a never-dying splendour for the illustrious patriots whose destinies were sealed by the Parliament of 1831. But to be denied this noble privilege, to remain a still-enduring monument of the wrongs inflicted, and of the mercies awarded! to be held up as an example of the wisdom of half-measures, and the policy of semi-destruction! to be denied the consolation of despair! and to be snatched from the gulph of ruin to an acuter sensation of helplessness!
Σκληροκαρδιος αρ’ ειῃ
Ὁτῳ ταδ’ ου μελησεἰ.
“The remainder of this classic dirge, or ælinon, no less remarkable for the purity of its diction than for the fine
flow of feeling and tone of patriotism by which it is characterised, is intended to form a part of a great national work, to be printed at the Clarendon press, and to be sent forth into the world,—Iliadum lachrymas inter[5] justasque querelas.
“But I find that I must come to a hasty conclusion; trusting therefore that you will pardon my adventuring to meddle with any thing so sacred as a venerable borough in affliction, and begging you will present my unfeigned condolence to all parties interested to whom I have the honour of being known, I remain, &c.”
The old church is said by Mr. Hals to have been greatly injured by a thunder-storm in 1727. It appears never to have been thoroughly repaired; and in 1763, Lord Godolphin, the patron, built a large church and a lofty tower, nearly on the site of the former. The church is without pillars, and capable of containing a numerous congregation; but the whole is strongly characteristic of the bad taste prevalent at the period when it was erected.
Just over the bridge leading to the westward stood the hospital dedicated to St. John, and founded by a member of the Killegrews. The spot is still marked by a large upright stone near the bridge, bearing the sword with its crosletted hilt, the cognizance of the military order of St. John. Little, however, is known about it. Dugdale states that at the dissolution in the 26th of Henry VIII. the total annual revenue of the house amounted to 14l. 7s. 4d. and the actual receipts to 12l. 16s. 4d.
About the year 1805 the town received a very considerable improvement by the removal of the Coinage Hall from the middle of the principal street leading south-west from
the middle of the town. The Editor at that time represented Helston, and had the good fortune to assist materially in promoting the negociation with the Duchy officers, in consequence of his acquaintance with Mr. Sheridan, and with others whose consent was necessary to be obtained. The Market-house is a venerable monument of former times; yet, if this also could be removed, the improvement would equal that effected by the former.
Helston, in great measure unconnected with trade or with a sea port, little of a thoroughfare before the turnpike road was made, surrounded by the residences of ancient, respectable, and wealthy families, and inhabited by gentlemen of a similar description, has ever been celebrated for the superior quality of its social manners, and at the same time for an easy and familiar intercourse between all the people in their various stations; the inferior experiencing the truth of what all the histories of all nations have confirmed from the earliest periods of Greece to the recent events of our own time,
Αρχαιοπλουτων δεσποτων πολλη χαρις·
Ὁι δ’ ουποτ’ ελπισαντες, ημησαν καλως,
Ωμοι τε δουλοις, παντα και παρα σταθμην.
And the reverse of
Απας δε τραχυς, ὁστις αν νεον κρατῃ.
These circumstances account for the continuance of old manners and of old customs longer here than in other places.
All towns appear to have adopted, on one day at least in the year, practices similar to the Roman Saturnalia; in most places, the lines of society having become broad and strongly impressed, their observances descended to the more vulgar, or rather perhaps to the vicious; and changing their character from harmless amusements to practices of
outrage and violence, they have been discontinued or suppressed: but in Helston an ancient observance of this kind, refining with the refinement of the age, still continues in activity.
The origins of all these customs are obscured or totally lost in their remote antiquity. That of Helston corresponded, however, precisely with its name—“a foray,” locally corrupted into furray; the young people rushed out of the town into the country early on the eighth of May, when, entering all houses without leave or ceremony, they appeared to seize whatever they wanted, and from the real nature of the transactions, whatever they wanted was sure of being found; and ultimately they returned to the town in triumph, dancing and decorated with flowers, where the scenes of the morning were, in some degree, repeated. All these practices, however, are less and less persevered in from year to year, so that the whole is rapidly tending towards the single entertainment of a ball; and if the ladies had succeeded in a classical fancy, which, some how or other, got possession of their minds, the very memory of this festival would have been lost.
Not intimately acquainted, one may presume, with the true history of the patroness they had selected to sanction their gaieties, the goddess Flora was made to preside over a foray, instituted, as some assert, before the Norman conquest, and in commemoration of a victory obtained over the Saxons, who had landed at a cove still called Perthsasnac; but the utter absurdity of the substitution, and the popularity given to the word FORAY by Sir Walter Scott’s Poems, have restored the ancient and true appellation.
Causes similar to those which have retained the foray, have also kept up the practice of bowling; so that in Helston alone can one now see the principal gentlemen of the town assembled on the bowling-green, enjoying at once exercise, fresh air, and agreeable intercourse, free from any
spirit of gambling and from the slightest indulgence of a habit more common and less excusable.
The word faddy is used to express the dance, the air, or both, used in celebrating the foray; the origin of this term is quite unknown.
The air is preserved by Edward Jones in his Musical and Poetical Relics of the Welsh Bards. He has also printed some lines which were sung by the dancers; they are, however, so entirely devoid of sense, or even of antiquity, that I shall not transcribe them.
The air is supposed to be a remnant of British music; one very like it, if not identically the same, has been found in Ireland, and according to report in Scotland. It may therefore be justly esteemed a curiosity.
The measurement of Helston is included in Gwendron; and the value of Real Property is not distinguished in the returns to Parliament from the parish.
The Poor Rates and Population have been given under Gwendron (Wendron), but they are here repeated.
Poor Rate in 1831, £889. 17s.
| Population,— | |||
| in 1801, 2248 | in 1811, 2297 | in 1821, 2671 | in 1831, 3293 |
giving an increase of 46½ per cent. in 30 years.
GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.
The northern part of this parish, approaching the granite of Wendron, is composed of felspar and hornblende rocks; the southern so much abounds in some parts with siliceous varieties of rock as to form barren downs, which stretch from Love Bar to the vicinity of Gweek.
[5] “An old scholiast upon this passage proposes to read meritas; but says little in defence of his suggestion, beyond adverting to divers suicidal acts of the ultra Tories, as he calls them, which are said to have been perpetrated by them on various occasions.”
ST. HILARY.
Mr. Hals begins his account of this parish with a long history of the patron saint, including all the controversies or disputed points of doctrine in which he was engaged; all this, extending through many pages, is omitted.
St. Hilary was born at Poictiers, in France, about the end of the third or the beginning of the fourth century.
He was descended from an illustrious family, and received an education suited to his station in life, by which he was initiated into all the secular learning of those times; but finding the Pagan mythology utterly absurd, and the prevalent system of philosophy quite unsatisfactory, he examined the Christian writings, and became a convert. He seems never to have adopted the brutalizing austerities so prevalent in those ages, but to have employed his talents, his acquired eloquence, and his learning, against the Arians and in defence of the Nicene creed. Several of his works are extant, and have gone through many editions. The whole were printed by the Benedictine Monks of Paris, “St. Hilarii Opera omnia per Monachos Benedictinos edita; Gr. et Lat. Parisiis, 1693, Fol.” Erasmus published the works of St. Hilary in 1544, and says in his Preface, “Quicquid ingenio, quicquid eloquentia, quicquid sacrarum literarum cognitione posset;” and his contemporary, St. Jerome, says of him, “Hilarius, meorum Confessor temporum, et Episcopus, duodecim Quintiliani libros et titulo imitatus est et numero;” referring to his twelve books on the Trinity.
In the judgment of modern critics his style at least is not thought worthy of all the praise bestowed on it by St. Jerome; for, although it is stated to be lofty and noble, and moreover beautified with rhetorical ornaments and figures, yet it is too much studied and lengthened in many periods, so as to be obscure and even unintelligible.
The following passage on singleness of heart, has been cited by various authors.
“Christ teaches that only those who become again, as it were, little children, and by the simplicity of that age cut off the inordinate affections of vice, can enter into the kingdom of heaven. Those follow and obey their father, love their mother, are strangers to covetousness, ill-will, hatred, arrogance, lying, and are inclined easily to believe what they hear. This disposition of affection opens the way to heaven. We must therefore return to the simplicity of little children, in which we shall bear some resemblance to our Lord’s humility.” From his commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew.
St. Hilary, previous to his conversion, had married, and his family consisted of one daughter; he immediately separated himself from them; his wife retired into a religious society. And after the saint had been consecrated Bishop of Poictiers in the year 355, he learned with the utmost horror and affright that his daughter was about to take on herself the unholy bonds of matrimony. His prompt and impassioned remonstrances conveyed in a letter which is printed among his works, conjuring her by the God of heaven not to act so unworthy a part, were successful; the marriage was broken off, and he had the gratification of seeing his daughter, a spouse of Christ, expire not long after at his feet.
St. Hilary composed a treatise which might in ordinary times have conciliated him to every sect then in existence. He there maintained that errors on speculative points of abstruse doctrine, were more sinful in the sight of God than any conduct the most atrocious; but controversy ran so high, and St. Hilary had taken a part so violent against the Arians, that even this merit could not save him from banishment, when that equally poised division of the church obtained some temporary preponderance in a synod, or succeeded in acquiring to their party the temporal chief; who, without using the form of words, practically
evinced that he was “over all persons and over all causes, ecclesiastical as well as civil, within those his dominions supreme.”
The saint, however, died at Poictiers in the year 368. St. Augustine relates many miracles wrought at his tomb; but the relics are said to have been removed to the Abbey of St. Denis, near Paris; and his festival is kept on the 14th of January, although it is not certain either that he died, or that his relics were translated on that particular day.
HALS.
Hilary is situate in the hundred of Penwith, and hath upon the north St. Earth, west Gulval, [Ludgvan Editor,] east Germow, south and west the Mounts Bay and Peranuthno. As for the name Hilary, it is derived from the tutelar guardian and patron of this church, viz. St. Hilary, Bishop of Poictiers in Gaul, the maul and hammer against the Arians, whose fame is eternized in the Roman agonals and festivals, though his memory and day is not celebrated as a martyr, but as one of the principal confessors of the Roman church; that is to say, one of those that suffered great persecution for the name and Gospel of Christ Jesus.
In Domesday book this district, or parish, was taxed under the jurisdiction of Lanmigall, i. e. Michael’s church or temple; now St. Michael’s Mount and Tremarastell, i. e. the market hole or cell, of which more under.
In the Taxation, or value, of Cornish Benefices aforesaid, made by the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, 1294, Ecclesia de Sancti Hilary in decanatu de Penwith, appropriata Priori Sancti Micaelis, is rated to first fruits lxxiiis. iiiid. In Wolsey’s Inquisition and Valor Beneficiorum, St. Hilary Vicarage is valued 11l. 6s. 0d. The patronage formerly in the Abbat or Prior of St. Michael’s Mount, who endowed it. After its dissolution, 26th Henry VIII. it fell to the crown, and was sold to Militon, whose six
daughters and heirs invested their husbands and purchasers therewith; the patronage now alternately in Erisey, Godolphin, Buller, and others (or Roberts); the garb, or rectory, in possession of Pennock. The parish of St. Hilary was rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax, of 1696, at 120l.
Tregumbo, also Tregimbo, is the dwelling of Captain John Pinneck, Deputy-Governor of the Island of Scilly, under Sir William Godolphin, Knight, salary about 13l. per annum; who married Davies.
Treveneage, in this parish, was formerly the lands of Sir Thomas Arundell, of Tolverne, Knight, who sold this barton and manor to Sir Nicholas Hals, of Fentongallan, knight, whose son and heir, John Hals, sold it to Walker of Exeter; from whose heirs it came by purchase to Sir Joseph Tredinham, Knight, now in possession thereof.
On the confines of this parish is situate the ancient manor and borough of Marazion.([a])
In Domesday Roll, 20th William I. 1087, this place was taxed by the name of Tremarastoll; that is to say, the cell, chapel, or hole market-town; situate in a remote corner, vallum, or pit, upon the seashore of St. Michael’s Mount. At which time, no doubt, the Abbat or Prior of St. Michael’s Mount (as they were afterwards till 26th Henry VIII. when that Abbey was dissolved), were lords and high lords thereof; when it was privileged with the jurisdiction of a court leet; as afterwards, temp. Henry II. with sending two of its members to sit in the Commons’ House of Parliament. But, as appears from the Parliament Rolls in the Tower of London, after the dissolution of the Abbey or Priory aforesaid, this town neglected to send its Members, “for that it could not conveniently pay its burgesses their daily wages, propter paupertatem,” which are the words of the record.([b]) It is also privileged with a fair, or mart, on July 11th, November 30th, Good Friday, and Palm Monday; and a market weekly on Saturdays.
And as a further mark of its ancient grandeur, I take it still to be an incorporate mayor or portreeve town; but more sure I am, that, as some other petty corporations’ names in Cornwall are adjectives merged or fallen in or upon the parishes wherein they are situate, as Camelford, Mitchell, &c. this town is a noun substantive, and stands charged by itself in the Exchequer to the 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1696, by the name of the borough of Maraszeyan, 76l. 12s. 6d.
In the beginning of the reign of King Henry VIII. (1514) when war had been proclaimed against the French King, a fleet of French men of war, consisting of thirty sail, with some marine regiments of soldiers therein, coasting in our British Channel, at length came into this Mount’s Bay, and there dropped anchor; when soon after they landed a considerable number, or quantity, of seamen and soldiers, and marched in hostile manner towards this town. Which the inhabitants observing, they forsook their houses, and fled to the hill country; whereby the Frenchmen became peaceably possessed thereof, and plundered the same for some days, till they understood that John Carminow, of Fentongollan, Esq. was coming or marching towards them, with his posse comitatus, to give them battle; when instantly they set the town on fire, and the houses on the contiguous part of the country, and burnt the same totally to the ground, to the great loss and damage of the inhabitants, and forthwith fled to their ships for safety and protection; and thereupon their ships hoisted anchors and put forth to sea again. Where they had not long been till Sir Anthony Oughthred, King Henry VIII.’s Admiral at sea, with a squadron of thirty men of war, met and gave them battle, to their great loss of men and some ships of war, whilst the rest of their fleet ran away, and fled into the haven of Brest for safety and protection.
THE HISTORY OF ST. MICHAEL’S MOUNT.—PART I.
So called, for that our ancestors, the Britons, apprehended the appearance of the Archangel St. Michael, about the year of our Lord 495, was in this place, though the Italians say it was upon Mount Garganus, in their country, and the Frenchmen tell us that it was upon their Mount St. Michael, in Normandy; such difference amongst writers is about it; and verily this matter of fact is worth contending for, since the etymology of Michael is “sicut Deus,” i. e. as God, as I have shewn elsewhere under other churches to him dedicated. It appears from the history of the church of Landaff, as Mr. Camden hath observed, that this mount was called Dinsill, and Dinsull, but what those words should signify he could not tell.([c])
Mr. Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, p. 154, tells us, that beside those religious appellations that were given to it, it was called in British, Cara cowz in clouz, which he interprets as the Grey rock in the flood, a corruption of Carra clo gris en an coos; i. e. rock-clo-grey in the wood.([d]) Of this place Mr. Carew, and Mr. Camden that trode in his steps, tells us, that it was the Ocrinum, Οκρινυμ, or Ocrinium of Ptolomy and Atticus, the Greek geographers; and yet Camden, in another place, fixes that name on the Lizard Point.
This Mount is comparatively a pyramidal crag, containing about seven acres of land in compass; at the foot whereof, towards the land, is a level piece of ground covered with grass, where there is a wharf, or key, for landing goods and merchandize from the sea; also some dwelling-houses and fish-cellars, and a cemetery for burying the dead. To this Mount the sea daily makes its flux and reflux, and affords safe riding and anchorage to boats, barks, and barges, with some winds. And that which tends more to the convenience and security of this place, that at low water it is all part of the insular continent of Britain, and
at full sea an island of itself. To which purpose thus speaks Mr. Carew out of the Cornish Wonder Gatherer:
Who knows not Migell’s Mount and chair,
The pilgrim’s holy vaunt;
Both land and island twice a day,
Both fort and port of haunt.
For to this Mount and chapel of St. Michael devout Christians in former ages came as pilgrims from the furthest part of this land, with rich offerings and oblations to St. Michael’s altar, Abbat, or Prior; also tradition tells us that in former ages this mount was parcel of the solid lands of this parish of St. Hilary, and severed or disjointed from it by some earthquake, terrestrial concussion, or inundation of the sea; and to prove this, it is alleged that in the Mount’s Bay, after some great tempests, the bodies and roots of oak-trees have been discovered in the sand, broken up by the surges of the sea; the like observation is made by Camden and Lhuyd on the sea shores of Pembrokeshire, and I myself, and many others, in the moors of Calestock Veor, Calestock Rule, Rheese, and Polgoda in Peransand, have seen and found, deep under ground, far from the sea, in the fens and turf lands, the bodies and roots of several oak trees, the hearts whereof were firm and solid. But whether those seas were formerly dry land, and the fens aforesaid the places where these trees grew (none in those parts being now to be seen there), let others resolve; or rather whether they are not subterraneous trees, that grew or are generated there, as some philosophers hold and teach, under the earth.
From the foot of Mount St. Michael you ascend the hill or rock through a narrow, crooked, craggy path to the outer portal or gate; a considerable height on the one side, by the way in the rock, is a small spring of water, that falls into pits made in the stones to lodge the same, for the lower or bottom inhabitants’ use; which water never intermits its currrent. Above the second gate there is another
spring of water issuing out of the rocks, that makes a pretty confluence for six or seven winter months, and then intermits, which renders the portage of it upwards much the easier for the inhabitants’ use in that season. After you pass through this second gate, betwixt a winding and crooked path, artificially cut in the rocks on the north side thereof, and follow the same, you arrive to the top of this Mount, where towards the north-west is a kind of level plain, about four or six land-yards, which gives a full prospect of the Mount’s Bay, the British Ocean, Penzance town, Newlyn, Moushole, Gulvall, Maddarn, Paul, and other parishes, over a downright precipice of rocks towards the sea, at least twenty fathoms high. From this little square or plain, there is an artificial kind of ascent also going towards the east, which offers you a full sight of the outer walls of the castle, and brings you to Porth-Horne, (i. e. the Iron Gate) part of which is yet to be seen. This little fortress comprehendeth sufficient rooms and lodgings for the captain or governor and his soldiers to reside in, to which adjoining are several other houses or cells, heretofore pertaining to the monks that dwelt here; all admirable for their strength, buildings, and contrivance, on the top of a rock naturally fortified: so that a small number of soldiers, having provision and ammunition, might defend themselves against the greatest armies in former ages, though I confess now, since the art of war is grown to greater perfection in mischief and destruction, a few cannon or bombs from the opposite hills would soon shatter it to pieces.
On this Mount, King Edward the Confessor, anno Dom. 1044, founded and endowed an Abbey or Priory of Benedictine Monks, that is to say Augustines reformed, with a little chapel yet standing, and dedicated the same to the Archangel St. Michael, part whereof is now converted to a dwelling house, in which there is yet to be seen cut in stone three or four coats of arms, one of which was, as I remember, a Chevron between three fleurs-de-lis.
That it had at that time considerable revenues belonging to it I make no question, since in the Domesday Book, 20 William I. 1087, Lan-migell was then taxed, that is to say Michael’s church or Temple, as aforesaid. But that which renders this place most famous is the present church or chapel and tower, cemetery, and cells cut in the rocks for hermetical monks of the order aforesaid; built and further endowed by William Earl of Morton and Cornwall, yet extant and kept in good repair, with pews; to whose father, Robert Earl of Morton, King William the Conqueror had given the lands of many rebels in those parts, and in particular this Mount, with its appurtenances, (dedicated as aforesaid) and created him Earl of Cornwall, whose successors held the same by tenure of Knight Service till temp. Charles II. Of which sort of tenures there were lately extant, in the hundred of Penwith, thirteen knight’s fees.—Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, p. 39. And in other hundreds three hundred more in Cornwall.
Upon the tower of this church or chapel, for it is bigger than many other Cornish parish churches, is that celebrated place called Kader Migell, i. e. Michael’s Chair, viz. a kind of seat artificially made or cut in the stones on the top of its tower, very dangerous in the access and tremendous to behold.
Contrary to this description, Mr. Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, p. 154, tells us that St. Michael’s Chair is a bad seat, in a craggy place without the castle, dangerous for the access and therefore holy for the adventure; so that I conceive he had this report by hearsay, not ocular demonstration. In this chapel are yet to be seen the tombstones of several persons there interred, in the rocks, (with a small quantity of earth, though without the chapel there is a bank of earth, brought there by art for burying the dead,) but the inscriptions on those tombstones are so obliterated with dust and time, that I had not leisure much to examine them. The roof and timber of this temple is yet so firm and uniformly kept in repair, that no decay,
moth, or spider’s web are to be seen in the roof thereof, which gives occasion to a conjecture that the same was all built of Irish oak, which drives that poisonous creature the spider from it. Certes, this fabrick is not only an evident proof of the great skill which former ages, in William the Conqueror’s days, had in the art of architecture, but that many other such of much later erection can hardly equal the same, though it has stood firm above six hundred years.
This abbey or priory of Benedictine Monks of St. Michael, after the donation thereof by the Conqueror to his nephew Robert Earl of Morton aforesaid, was by him annexed and made subject for religious matters to the Abbey of Mount St. Michael in Normandy, under which circumstance it stood till the French wars, temp. Henry V. 1414, when the Statute, made 1380, in the reign of King Richard II. was put in force, for suppressing alien priories (who secretly communicated the state affairs to foreigners). King Henry V. or VI. then gave this Alien Priory of St. Michael to Sion Abbey in Middlesex, under which rule and jurisdiction it remained till 26 Henry VIII., 1533, when it was dissolved; when, I take it, it passed in value with Sion, since the Monasticon Anglicanum does not mention it separate.
The Mount is now in possession of Sir John Saintaubyn, (formerly Bassett) who for melancholy retirement dwelleth here. It is still privileged with royalties over the Mount’s Bay, as far north as Long Bridge in the manor of Lanesely, with wrecks, anchorage of ships, quayage or wharfage of goods, and with keeping annual fairs on the sea shore near it, September 29, Monday after Midlent Sunday. Round this Mount, for two leagues space, is an indifferent safe road for anchorage of ships, when the wind is proper for it; and here, as Froissart saith, landed Sir Robert Knollys, a valiant commander of the Black Prince’s in the French wars temp. Edward III. (who drew the traitor Sir Perducas D’Albert from the French to the English army, to
which afterwards he returned again most perfidiously,) where he had been highly instrumental in taking the forts of Froyns, Roach, Vandower, Ville Franck, and other places for the English; from hence he went to London by land, was graciously received and plentifully rewarded for his good services by King Edward III.
PART II.
This Mount, from the time of King Edward the Confessor to the middle of the reign of King Richard I. for the space of 150 years, was a sacred nursery of religion; but then, notwithstanding the sanctity thereof, and the guardianship of St. Michael, it was seized by one Henry de la Pomeray, Lord of Berry-Pomeray in Devon, and Tregony Pomeray in this county, being distasted at the government of King Richard I. as many others were, by reason of the Pope’s request he engaged in the Holy War, and forsook his kingdom, leaving for his vicegerent William Longchamp, a Norman Bishop of Ely; who had extorted great sums of money from the people in his absence, without a Parliament; and moreover so insulted over the nobility and gentry of this kingdom in his office, that he discontented the greatest part of them; and to countenance his grandeur he seldom rode abroad with less than a thousand attendants. Those and others his exorbitances gave occasion to John Earl of Cornwall and others to fall into treasonable practices, and of this number it seems this Sir Pomeray was one, who not only informed the King beyond the seas of these topping, magisterial, and illegal practices of Longchamp at home, but that by reason thereof King Philip of France, in those distractions, took occasion with a great army of soldiers to invade Normandy, and had taken the town of Guisors and many other places by force and arms, and would reduce the whole province in short while (if not resisted) to his dominion. Whereupon the King, in answer, by his letters patent, deposed Longchamp from his
authority, and placed the Archbishop of Rouen in his place, when soon after Longchamp, in women’s apparel, made his escape into his own country, but was detected and shrewdly beaten with rods before his departure out of England, by the women there.
Longchamp, as tradition saith, having notice that de la Pomeray was in confederacy with Earl John, who under pretence of opposing his vice-government, designed the usurpation of King Richard’s Crown, (though he had told him that in case his brother should die, before he returned into his kingdom, without issue, that the right of succession was in Arthur Duke of Britany, his elder brother’s son, not him,) sent a sergeant at arms to the castle of Berry Pomeray in Devon, where he then resided, in order to arrest and take him into custody, which he no sooner did but Pomeray stabbed him to the heart, of which wound he instantly died. Upon which tragical accident the murderer fled into Cornwall, where he had great possessions in lands, and besides twelve lordships held by the tenure of knight service. And there cast himself upon his amicus, John Earl of that province, who as tradition saith secretly supplied him with divers men at arms to secure his person against his enemy the Viceroy, which accordingly they did till Longchamp was displaced.
Afterwards, notice being given that King Richard was taken prisoner coming from the Holy War, 1194, by Leopold, Archduke of Austria in Germany, and cast into his prison called Trivalis, in which no man before was known to be put that escaped with life, this news prompted Pomeray from the sin of murder to that of rebellion; resolving to reduce this Mount of St. Michael to Earl John’s dominion, and to place himself therein for better safety. In order to which he found out this expedient, to go with his guard of armed men that daily attended him in disguise to that place, under pretence of visiting a sister that he had amongst the religious people there;([e]) who upon discovering who he was, and the occasion of his coming, had the gates
opened, where he entered with his followers, who soon after discovered under their clothes their weapons of war, and declared their design was for reducing the Mount to the dominion and use of John Earl of Cornwall, and that if any person opposed them therein, they would revenge it upon him to the loss of their lives; whereupon, he commanded the Prior and his monks to deliver him the keys of the gates, and possession of the houses thereof for common uses, though therein they much discommoded the monks with their soldiers. Nevertheless, for fear of greater damage, they patiently submitted to his pleasure; who thereupon with his soldiers fortified the place, and so made it comparatively impregnable, and so there lived in great pomp and triumph for some time, not expecting ever to hear that King Richard was in the land of the living, or delivered from prison, it being for some time reported he was dead. But, alas! many times common fame is a common liar, and all men are apt to believe such matters and things as they would willingly have come to pass, or stand well affected to.
But contrary to the expectation of Pomeray and his confederates, King Richard, after fifteen months’ durance in prison, was ransomed for one hundred thousand pounds, and returned safe to London; when he found his brother John formidable, and making way to his crown, having got possession of the castles of Lancaster, Marlborough, Nottingham, St. Michael’s Mount, and other fortresses, into which he had placed governors and soldiers. Whereupon, in order to reduce those places, King Richard raised a considerable army; at the news whereof Earl John fled into France, and was by his brother deprived of all his possessions in England: notwithstanding which, the garrisons aforesaid stood firm to Earl John’s interest, till at the siege of Vernoil in Normandy, he fled from the French army to that of his brother, threw down his arms and submitted to his mercy; whereupon he was restored to all his lands and dignities, both in Normandy and England.
But notwithstanding this concord and agreement between King Richard and his brother John, the castles aforesaid stood out, and would not surrender for some time after, especially this Mount, which Pomeray commanded. Whereupon King Richard commanded Richard Revell, then sheriff of Cornwall, with his posse comitatus, to assist Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, Chief Justice and Lord Chancellor of England, whom he had sent as his general into Cornwall to besiege St. Michael’s Mount, and reduce Pomeray to his duty and allegiance; which army of men, and bands of soldiers, no sooner approached the same (as Hoveden saith) and gave him summons, but the sight of the numerous army he was to contend with so affrighted Pomeray and his confederates, that forthwith, without resistance, he surrendered the garrison on mercy to the said Walter, for the use of King Richard, 1194, at the consideration of which and his other facts, through trouble of mind he soon after died, as despairing of pardon.
Mr. Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, tells us, by report of some of his posterity, that he made his will and bequeathed part of his lands to the monks of St. Michael’s Mount, others to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, to pray for his soul; the remainder descended to his heir (which we have no reason to doubt of, since Henry de la Pomeray, one of his posterity, 3 Henry IV. at Tregony, held twelve knights’ fees of land in Cornwall, id. Mr. Carew); having so done, he caused himself to be blooded to death, to make his bequests good and valid in law; after his death King Richard restored the prior and his monks to the full possession of their cells, revenues, and chapel; and in de la Pomeray’s fort, he placed a small garrison of soldiers, to defend the same against sudden invasion of enemies; and in this condition St. Michael’s Mount remained from the year 1196 to the year 1471, 275 years, manned out with carnal and spiritual soldiers.([f])
PART III.
Richard de Vere, the eleventh Earl of Oxford, married Alice, one of the daughters and coheirs of Sir Richard Sergeaulx, knight, Lord of Collquite and Killygarth, widow of Guy Seyntaubyn, Sheriff of Cornwall 22 Richard II. 1399; but she passed her lands from her son by her first husband, to her second husband the Earl of Oxford, who had issue by her John de Vere, the 12th Earl of Oxford, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Howard Knight; the which John, the 12th Earl, was the chief of those barons that opposed the precedence in parliament of the Lords Spiritual, temp. Henry VI. the which Parliament roll in the Tower of London, is thus endorsed:
Memorandum.—The Lords Spiritual alleged that, forasmuch as they were spiritual Barons, they ought to have the right of precedence of the Lords Temporal, for it was well known how far things spiritual exceeded carnal or temporal. To which this Earl of Oxford replied on behalf of the Lords Temporal, that whatsoever right or privilege they had or could challenge, [see Brooke on Oxford, Earl,] it came from them and their ancestors, and their almsdeeds, who had been the worthy founders and benefactors of the Lords Spiritual; and further said it was an unseemly thing for masters to be inferior to their servants, who were descended of regal, honourable, and noble families, which most of the Spiritual Barons were not; which matter being fully understood, and indifferently heard, the Lords Temporal, by means of the logic and rhetoric of this Earl, had then the precedence of place in Parliament given them. But, alas! this bold demand, question, and argument of his, at that time, was a project rather pitied than admired by his best friends, for though it succeeded well in one Parliament, it got him many enemies in another. So that in the Parliament, held 2d. November, 1462, tempore Edward
IV., this Earl, and his son Aubrey, were attainted of treason against that King, on the behalf of Henry VI., and both beheaded without trial or answer.—(Baker’s Chronicle, page 204.)
Whereupon John, his second son, succeeded, and was the 13th Earl of Oxford, who married Margaret daughter of Richard Nevill, Earl of Salisbury, who, as his father had done before, adhered to the interest of King Henry VI., against Edward IV., and was at the battle of Barnet Heath 1471, and had, with the Marquess Montacute, the command of the right wing of King Henry’s horse, under Richard Earl of Warwick, general of his army; and when in the battle, it appeared the vanward of King Henry’s horse had somewhat worsted King Edward’s party, by the valour of the Earl of Oxford, the news presently fled to London that Warwick had obtained the victory; but, alas! Fama est mendax; for immediately after a strange misfortune befel the Earl of Oxford and his men in the latter part of this encounter. They having a star with streams on their liveries, as King Edward’s soldiers had the sun, the General Warwick’s men, by reason of a great mist, (raised as was thought by the magic art of Friar Bungey) mistaking the badges, shot at the Earl of Oxford’s men, which were of their own party, to their great hurt and destruction; whereupon the Earl, seeing how matters went, cried out treason, and forthwith fled with 800 men, whose departure gave King Edward opportunity to obtain a total victory over his enemies.
Whereupon the Duke of Somerset and this Earl of Oxford fled to Jasper Earl of Pembroke, in Wales, for safety and protection; from whence Oxford, and a convenient number of men of arms, shipped themselves from Milfordhaven, and with a fair wind sailed down St. George’s Channel, turned the Land’s End, and came safely at anchor in this Mount’s Bay. Where, as soon as the Earl and his men had disguised themselves in pilgrims’ and friars’ apparel, under which all had lodged a small sword
and a dagger, they went on shore, pretending that they were pilgrims that had come a long pilgrimage from the remotest part of this kingdom, to perform the penance imposed upon them by their father confessors, and to perform their vows, make orisons and oblations to the altar of St. Michael, who presided there; upon which pious pretext the monks and inhabitants opened their gates and let them into the castle, where they were no sooner entered, but, as de la Pomeray had done before, they shewed their weapons, discovered their impious fraud, and made known who they were, and their designs to kill all persons that made resistance or opposed King Henry VI. for whom the Earl of Oxford was come to take possession of this Mount, and would keep it to his use; whereupon, the monks and the small garrison were necessitated to comply with their demands, and yield them a quiet possession thereof; which forthwith the Earl put in better repair, and by the interest of King Henry and the Earl’s friends and relations in those parts, his grandmother as aforesaid being Sir Guy St. Aubyn’s widow and Sergeaulx’s coheir, he soon got ammunition, provision, and soldiers sufficient for their defence.
As soon as King Edward IV. heard of the surprise of St. Michael’s Mount by the Earl of Oxford, he issued forth his proclamation, proclaiming him and all his adherents traitors, and then consulted how to regain both to his obedience; and in order thereto he forthwith sent to Sir John Arundell of Trerice, Knight, then Sheriff of Cornwall, to reduce and besiege the same by his posse comitatus; which gentleman, pursuant to his orders, and by virtue of his office, soon rose a considerable army of men and soldiers within his bailiwick, and marched with them towards St. Michael’s Mount, where being arrived he sent a trumpeter to the Earl with a summons of surrender of that garrison to him for King Edward upon mercy; especially for that in so doing, in all probability, he would prevent the effusion of much Christian blood.
To this summons of the trumpeter the Earl sent a flat
denial; saying further, that rather than he would yield the fort on those terms, himself and those with him were all resolved to lose their lives in defence thereof. Whereupon the Sheriff commanded his soldiers, being very numerous on all parts, to storm the Mount, and reduce it by force; but, alas! maugre all their attempts (of this kind) the besieged so well defended every part of this rocky mountain that in all places the Sheriff’s men were repulsed with some loss; and the besieged issued forth from the outer gate and pursued them with such violence, that the said Sir John Arundell and some others were slain upon the sands at the foot of the Mount, to the great discouragement of the new-raised soldiers, who quickly departed thence, having lost their leader; leaving the besieged in better heart than they found them, as much elevated at their good success as themselves were dismayed at their bad fortune. This Sir John Arundell, as Mr. Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, tells us, p. 119, had long before been told by some fortune-teller that he should be slain in the sands; wherefore, to avoid that destiny, he removed from Efford, near Stratton on the sands, where he dwelt, to Trerice, far off from the sea-sands, yet by this misfortune fulfilled the prediction in another place.
King Edward, upon news of this tragical accident, forthwith ordered letters patent to be drawn for making John Fortescue, Esq. Sheriff of Cornwall, in the place of Sir John Arundell, slain as aforesaid; who being accordingly sworn in that office, received the same commands, and took the same measures for reducing the Mount as the former Sheriff had done, by summons and assault, but was always, and in all places, repulsed with dishonour and loss, the same being as stoutly defended within as it was assaulted without; the fort thus appearing invincible. All which circumstances being transmitted to King Edward by Mr. Fortescue, the Sheriff, the King, for prevention of further bloodshed, ordered him to have a parley with the said Earl of Oxford, and know what his designs and expectations
were; who thereupon sent a messenger to him for that purpose; from whom he received this resolute and desperate answer,—that, if the King would pardon the offences of him and his adherents, and grant them their lives, liberties, and estates, that then he would yield up the fort to his use; otherwise they would fight it out to the last man. Which answer being sent up to the King, he granted their request; and forthwith ordered a proclamation of free pardon to be made unto them, under the broad seal of England; which, with all convenient speed was sent down, and by Mr. Sheriff Fortescue delivered to the Earl, to the great quiet and content of all parties. Whereupon the fort was yielded to him for the King’s use; and the Earl of Oxford was soon after sent prisoner to the castle of Hamms, in Normandy, where he was continued a prisoner till the first year of King Henry VII. 1485, with whom he came into England, and led the vanward of his army at Bosworth Field against King Richard III. where he was slain. After the death of this Earl’s first wife, he married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Richard Scrope, Knight, widow of William Lord Beaumont, by whom he had no issue; so that, he dying the 4th Henry VIII. left John, the son of George Vere his brother, his heir and successor, and the fourteenth Earl of Oxford, who gave for his arms, Gules, escartellé de Or, le premier brisé d’un molette de Argent.
King Edward attributed this ineffectual long siege of St. Michael’s Mount either to the cowardice or disloyalty of the Sheriffs and country people of Cornwall; but there was no just cause for this conjecture, since Sir John Arundell and several of his men lost their lives about it: at other times, he would say the inhabitants were more affected to the house of Lancaster than that of York; whereupon, when the said Mr. Fortescue went out of his office after four years’ service, he made his brother Richard Duke of Gloucester Sheriff of Cornwall during life; for that he was often heard to say he looked upon Cornwall only as the
back-door of rebellion; so that those several persons set down in the catalogue of Sheriffs of Cornwall after Fortescue, were not absolute Sheriffs, but Deputies under the said Duke, viz. Daubeny, Carnesew, Willoughby, Nanfon, Grenvill, Fullford, Treffry, Terrill, and Houghton, who stiled themselves Vicecomes, and their under Sheriffs Sub-Vicecomes.
PART IV.
About the year of our Lord 1496, when James IV. King of Scotland, upon a truce with King Henry VII. of England, had expulsed from Scotland that counterfeit sham Prince, Perkin Warbeck (the pretended Richard of Shrewsbury, youngest son of King Edward IV. who had before been murdered in the Tower), to whom he had given in marriage his near kinswoman the Lady Katherine Gordon; he, together with his wife and family, sailed from thence over into Ireland, to seek friendship there of the rebels and all others well affected to the House of York; where being arrived, and fortune favouring him according to his expectation, news was brought him there that the Cornish rebels were ready to renew their former hostility, and venture their lives in battle upon the title of the house of York against that of Lancaster, had they a valiant and able General to lead them, notwithstanding Flammock and his confederates under the same engagement were defeated and executed in 1495.
These tidings were very acceptable to Perkin; who thereupon consulted his privy councillors, Hearn, Astley, and Skelton, a mercer, a tailor, and a scrivener, all bankrupts; these all agree, nemine contradicente, that his four ships of war should forthwith be rigged and manned for an expedition into Cornwall; which accordingly being prepared, himself with his lady, and 120 soldiers, embarked thereon, and being favoured with a fair wind, took his leave of his Irish friends, and in the month of September, 1499, 15th Henry VII. (Carew’s Survey of Cornwall,
p. 98,) came safely to anchor in St. Michael’s Mount’s Bay; where soon after he landed, and went up to the Mount, and made himself known to the monks and other inhabitants, publishing himself to be the true and real Richard of Shrewsbury aforesaid, the true heir of the House of York; which the monks, greatly affected to that title, were so very ready to believe, that they yielded the Mount and garrison without resistance into his hands; who presently renewed the old fortifications, and put the same into a better posture of defence.
Which having done, himself with a band of soldiers marched from thence to Bodmin (where the rendezvous of Flammock’s rebels in those parts formerly was,) in which place, by false words and promises, he so prevailed with the discontented rebels of that town and contiguous country, that he soon got together, without money or reward, at least three thousand men that could bear arms; these he divided into companies, and bands, and regiments, under Captains, Majors, and Colonels expert in war to instruct them in military discipline, till at length his army grew to six thousand well-armed soldiers. Whereupon King Henry VII. having notice of Perkin’s landing and formidableness in these parts, ordered Sir Peter Edgecombe, Knight, then Sheriff of Cornwall (whose father, Sir Richard Edgecombe, Knight, was one of that King’s Privy Councillors, and had comparatively been raised to his great estate by his boon and favour), that he should forthwith, by virtue of his office, raise the country, and give battle to this counterfeit Richard of Shrewsbury and his confederate rebels. Whereupon, the Sheriff did as he was commanded, and raised an army of twenty thousand men, as tradition saith, and led them towards Bodmin; but when they approached near, and saw Perkin entrenched at Castle Keynock, on the east hill of Bodmin Downs, with the body of his army, and divers troops of horse and bands of foot placed towards Lanhydrock and the roads from Cardenham, in order to resist and oppose the Sheriff, his men resolved to
march no further, but to return from whence they came without giving battle. Which accordingly they did (notwithstanding the Sheriff’s threats and commands to the contrary), in great terror and confusion and astonishment; but whether this fear proceeded from the cowardice of the Sheriff and his men, or their disaffection to the Lancastrian dominion of King Henry, is uncertain, for the like fact was committed two years before by the posse comitatus of John Basset, of Tehidy, then Sheriff, which he had raised to suppress Flammock’s rebellion.
Upon news of this flight and disbanding of the Sheriff’s men, Perkin was saluted by his soldiers and confederates as King of England: and soon after, not only in his camp, but in divers places of Bodmin town, was proclaimed by a trumpeter and others, King of England and France, and Lord of Ireland, with great shouts and acclamations of the people, and bonefires, by the name of Richard IV. And it is reported he assumed majesty with such a boon grace and affable deportment, that immediately he won the affections and admiration of all who made addresses unto him; in which art of kingship he had long before been educated and instructed by his pretended aunt, Margaret Duchess of Burgundy, sister to King Edward IV. which he had also acted to the good liking of all that saw him in Burgundian, Irish, Scots, and French courts. And, moreover, besides his magisterial port and mien, being an incomparable counterfeit, natural crafty, liar and dissembler, “Qui nescit dissimulare, nescit regnare,” as the old proverb saith; so that in short time he grew to be so popular and formidable about Bodmin that no power durst oppose him there. But, alas! this Cornish regniculum gave him not content, for his pride and ambition put him upon further expedients, viz. to get possession of the whole kingdom of England, and reduce it also to his obedience; in order to which, with a well-prepared army of four thousand men and two thousand of other sorts, he marched out of Cornwall into Devon, where met him also great numbers
of volunteers of that county and Somerset, that joined with his forces; the dread whereof so terrified James Chudleigh, Esq. then Sheriff of Devon, and the power of his bailiwick raised to stop his march to Exeter, that they durst not give him battle or obstruct his passage till he came before that city, pitched his camp, and laid siege thereto.
Upon whose approaches the citizens shut their gates and prepared to defend themselves; when soon after he sent a message or summons to them in the name of Richard IV. King of England, commanding them to surrender the same to him upon their allegiance: but the citizens so ridiculed his pretended title, and slighted his summons, that by his own messenger they gave him defiance; at which time Dr. Richard Redman was Lord Bishop of Exeter; William Burgoigne, Esq. Recorder; William Frost, Mayor; Francis Gilbert, Sword-bearer; John Bucknam, William Wilkinson, John Doncaster, and Richard Howse, were Stewards, or Bailiffs; John Clodworthy, John Bonifant, Philip Bullock, John Wilkin, Nicholas Auburne, John Atwell, William York, Thomas Lanwordaby, Philip Binks, John Slugg, Thomas Andrews, Thomas Oliver, and others, Aldermen. See Isaack’s Memorials of Exeter, 1499.
Soon after this defiance given, Perkin and his soldiers surrounded the city walls, and attempted to scale the same in several places daily for some time, but always were repulsed with considerable loss by the valour of the citizens. During which siege they sent to King Henry for his aid and assistance in this great distress; whereupon the Lord Daubeny was ordered to raise forces and march towards Exeter therewith, in order to remove the siege thereof; but before he came, Edward Courtenay, sixteenth Earl of Devon, and the Lord William his son, accompanied with Sir Edmund Carew, Sir Thomas Fulford, Sir William Courtenay, Sir John Halwell, Sir John Croker, Walter Courtenay, Peter Edgecombe, William St. Maur, Richard Whiteleigh of Efford (Sheriff of Devon the year after),
Richard Hals of Kenedon, John Fortescue of Vallapit, James Chudleigh aforesaid, and other gentlemen of those parts, had raised a considerable army of soldiers, with which they marched towards the rebels. At the sight of whose approach Perkin and his host were as much dispirited then as they were elevated before; whereupon he called a council of war, in which it was unanimously agreed upon, that it was not advisable to give them battle, being at least ten thousand fighting men, but to dislodge from their trenches, and leave the siege of that place, and forthwith to march into Somersetshire, a country better affected to King Perkin, where he might raise more soldiers. Accordingly, this order of council was observed and put in practice, so that the night after Perkin and all his army marched towards Taunton; where he mustered his men as if he intended to give battle; but when, by the muster-roll, he saw what numbers of men had deserted him in his nightly march from Exeter, falling then much short of six thousand, and further, notice being brought him that King Henry was in pursuit of him with a much greater army, he foresaw the worst, and doubted that fortune would favour him no longer in his military and regal practices; and therefore contrived, for the preservation of himself, with sixty horse troopers, to forsake his army by night, and fly to the Abbey of Beauley, in Southampton, as resting upon the name and privilege of the place, where he took sanctuary. As soon as King Henry understood Perkin had deserted his soldiers and had taken sanctuary at Beauley, he forthwith ordered a band of soldiers to guard and surround that Abbey to prevent his escape beyond the seas (from whence it appears that at that time the privilege of sanctuary was allowed to traitors). So that Perkin, despairing of getting thence, submitted to the King’s mercy, and was committed prisoner to the Tower of London; from whence he made an escape, and fled to the Priory of Sheen, at Richmond; where, on condition of making a true confession who he was, in a pair of stocks set before Westminster Hall door, and true answer
make to such questions as should be demanded of him, the Prior got the King’s pardon for him. And accordingly, he sat in the stocks a whole day before Westminster Hall door, afterwards on a scaffold in Cheapside, openly reading, declaring, and giving manuscripts under his own hand, wherein he told his parentage, the place of his birth, the passages of his life; that he was a cheat, an impostor, and by what ways and means he was drawn into those treasonable and bloody attempts and practices, &c. After which he was again committed to the Tower of London, where endeavouring to make an escape, he was afterwards, with others, executed at Tyburn.
After Perkin took sanctuary at Beauley, his soldiers from about Taunton and elsewhere, were all brought to Exeter; where King Henry, in St. Peter’s church-yard, pardoned them all, on their promise of being good subjects afterwards. But some of them were not so good as their word. King Henry also then sent the Lord Daubeny to St. Michael’s Mount for Perkin’s wife, the Lady Katherine Gordon, whom he brought to King Henry; who commiserating her youth, birth, and beauty, bestowed a competent maintenance upon her, which she enjoyed during that King’s life and long after, to her dying day.
PART V.
This Priory, or Abbey, being dissolved by act of Parliament, and given to the King, 33d Henry VIII. 1542, he gave the revenues and government of the place to Humphry Arundell, Esq. of the Lanherne family, who enjoyed the same till the first year of King Edward VI. 1549; at which time that King set forth several injunctions about religion: amongst others, this was one, viz. that all images found in churches, for divine worship or otherwise, should be pulled down and cast forth out of those churches; and that all preachers should perswade the people from praying to saints or for the dead; and from the use of beads, ashes,
processions, masses, dirges, and praying to God publicly in an unknown tongue; and least there should be a defect of preachers as to those points, homilies were made and ordered to be read in all churches. Pursuant to this injunction one Mr. Body, a commissioner for pulling down images in the churches of Cornwall, going to do his duty in Helston church, a priest, in company with Killtor of Kevorne and others, at unawares stabbed him in the body with a knife; of which wound he instantly fell dead in that place. And though the murderer was taken and sent up to London, tried, found guilty of wilful murder in Westminster Hall, and executed in Smithfield, yet the Cornish people flocked together in a tumultuous and rebellious manner by the instigation of their priests in diverse parts of the shire or county, and committed many barbarities and outrages in the same; and though the justices of the peace apprehended several of them, and sent them to jail, yet they could not with all their power suppress the growth of their insurrection; for soon after Humphry Arundell aforesaid, Governor of this Mount, sided with those mutineers, and broke out into actual rebellion against his and their Prince. The mutineers chose him for the General of their army, and for inferior officers as Captains, Majors, and Colonels,—John Rosogan, James Rosogan, Will. Winslade of Tregarrick or St. Agnes at Mithian, John Payne of St. Ives, Robert Bochym of Bochym, and his brother, Thomas Underhill, John Salmon, William Segar; together with several priests, rectors, vicars, and curates of churches, as John Thompson, Roger Barret, John Woolcock, William Asa, James Mourton, John Barrow, Richard Bennet, and others, who mustered their soldiers according to the rules of military discipline at Bodmin, where the general rendezvous was appointed. But no sooner was the General Arundell departed from St. Michael’s Mount to exert his power in the camp and field aforesaid, but diverse gentlemen, with their wives and families, in his absence possessed themselves thereof; whereupon he dispatched a party of
horse and foot to reduce his old garrison; which quickly they effected, by reason the besieged wanted provision and ammunition, and were distracted with the women and children’s fears and cries, and so they yielded the possession to their enemies on condition of free liberty of departing forthwith from thence with life, though not without being plundered.
The retaking of St. Michael’s Mount by the general Arundell proved much to the content and satisfaction of his army at Bodmin, consisting of about six thousand men, which they looked upon as a good omen of their future success, and the first-fruits of the valour and conduct of their general. Whereupon the confederates daily increased his army with great numbers of men from all parts, who listed themselves under his banner, which was not only pourtrayed, but by a cart brought into the field for their encouragement, viz. the pyx under its canopy, that is to say, the vessel containing the Roman host, or sacramental sacrifice, or body of Christ, together with crosses, banners, candlesticks, holy bread and water, to defend them from devils and the adverse power; (see Fox’s Martyrology, p. 669,) which was carried wheresoever the camp removed; which camp grew so tremendously formidable at Bodmin, that Job Militon, Esq. then Sheriff of Cornwall, with all the power of his bailiwick, durst not encounter with it during the time of the general’s stay in that place, which gave him and his rebels opportunity to consult together for the good of their public interest, and to make out a declaration, or manifesto, of the justice of their cause, and grounds of taking up arms; but the army, in general, consisting of a mixed multitude of men of diverse professions, trades, and employments, could not easily agree upon the subject matter and form thereof. Some would have no justice of the peace, for that generally they were ignorant of the laws, and could not construe or English a Latin bill of indictment without the clerk of the peace’s assistance, who imposed upon them, with other
attornies, for gain, wrong sense, and judgment; besides, in themselves, they were corrupt and partial in determining cases; others would have no lawyers nor attornies, for that the one cheated the people in wrong advice or counsel, and the other of their money by extravagant bills of costs; others would have no court leets, or court barons, for that the cost and expense in prosecuting an action at law therein was many times greater than the debt or profit. But generally it was agreed upon amongst them, that no inclosure should be left standing, but that all lands should be held in common; yet what expedients should be found out and placed in the room of those several orders and degrees of men and officers, none could prescribe.
However, the priests, rectors, vicars, and curates, the priors, monks, friars, and other dissolved collegiates, hammered out seven articles of address for the King’s majesty; upon grant of which they declared their bodies, arms, and goods should all be at his disposal, viz.
1. That curates should administer baptism at all times of need, as well week days as holy days.
2. That their children might be confirmed by the Bishop.
3. That mass might be celebrated, no man communicating with the priest.
4. That they might have reservation of the Lord’s body in churches.
5. That they might have holy bread and water in remembrance of Christ’s body and blood.
6. That priests might not be married.
7. That the six articles set forth by King Henry VIII. might be continued at least till the King came of age.
Now those six articles were invented by Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester (who was the bastard son of Lionel Woodvill, Bishop of Salisbury, by his concubine, Elizabeth Gardiner; the which Lionel was fifth son of Richard Woodvill, Earl Rivers, 1470), and therefore called his creed, viz.
1. That the body of Christ is really present in the sacrament after consecration.
2. That the sacrament cannot truly be administered under both kinds.
3. That priests entered into holy orders might not marry.
4. That vows of chastity entered into upon mature deliberation, were to be kept.
5. That private masses were not to be omitted.
6. That auricular confession was necessary in the church of God.
To those demands of the Cornish rebels the King so far condescended as to send an answer in writing to every article, and also a general pardon to every one of them if they would lay down arms. (See Fox’s Acts and Monuments, Book ix. p. 668.) But, alas! those overtures of the King were not only rejected by the rebels, but made them the more bold and desperate; especially finding themselves unable longer to subsist upon their own estates and money, or the bounty of the country, which hitherto they had done. The general therefore resolved, as the fox who seldom chucks at home, to prey upon other men’s goods and estates further off, for his army’s better subsistence. Whereupon he dislodged from Bodmin, and marched with his soldiers into Devon, where Sir Peter Carew, Knight, was ready to obstruct their passage with his posse comitatus. But when they saw the order and discipline of the rebels, and that their army consisted of above six thousand fighting men, desperate, well-armed, and prepared for battle, the Sheriff and his troops permitted them quietly to pass through the heart of that country to Exeter; where the citizens, upon notice of their approaches (as formerly done), shut the gates, and put themselves in a posture of defence. At which time Dr. John Voysey was Bishop of Exeter, viz. 10th July, 1549, John Blacaler was Mayor, William Tothill was Sheriff, Lewis Pollard, Recorder, William Beaumont, Sword-bearer; John Drake, Geffery Arundell, Henry Maunder, and John
Tooker, were Bailiffs or Stewards; Thomas Prestwood, John Maynard, John Webb, William Hals, Hugh Pope, William Hurst, Nicholas Limmet, Robert Midwinter, Henry Booth, John Berry, John Britnall, John Tuckfield, John Stawell, Edward Bridgman, Thomas Grigg, John Drake, Thomas Skidmore, John Bodley, and others (all which had before that time been Mayors), Stewards or Bailiffs of the city.—See Isaack’s Memorials of Exeter, p. 122.
Things being in this posture, the general Arundell summoned the citizens to deliver their town and castle to his dominion; but they sent him a flat denial. Whereupon, forthwith he ordered his men to fire the gates of the city, which accordingly they did; but the citizens on the inside supplied those fires with such quantities of combustible matter, so long till they had cast up a half-moon on the inside thereof, upon which, when the rebels attempted to enter, they were shot to death or cut in pieces. Their entrance being thus obstructed at the gates, they put in practice other expedients, viz. either to undermine the walls or blow them up with barrels of gunpowder, which they had placed in the same; but the citizens also prevented this their design, by countermining their mines and casting so much water on the places where their powder barrels were lodged, that the powder would not take fire. Thus stratagems of war were daily practised between the besieged and besiegers, to the great hurt and damage of each other.
King Edward being informed by his council of this siege, and that there was little or no dependance upon the valour and conduct of the Sheriff of Devon, and his bailiwick, to suppress this rebellion or raise the siege of Exeter, granted his commission to John Lord Russell, created Baron Russell of Tavistock by King Henry, and Lord High Admiral and Lord Privy Seal, an old experienced soldier who had lost an eye at the siege of Montrueil in France, to be his general for raising soldiers to fight those
rebels; who forthwith, pursuant thereto, raised a considerable army and marched with them to Honiton; but when he came there he was informed that the enemy consisted of ten thousand able fighting men armed; which occasioned his halting there longer than he intended, expecting greater supplies of men, that were coming to his aid under conduct of the Lord Grey; which at length arrived and joined his forces, whereupon he dislodged from thence and marched towards Exeter; where on the way he had several sharp conflicts with the rebels with various success, sometimes the better and sometimes the worse; though at length, after much fatigue of war, maugre all opposition and resistance of the rebels, he forced them to raise their siege, and entered the city of Exeter with relief, 6th August, 1549, after thirty-two days’ siege; wherein the inhabitants had valiantly defended themselves, though in that extremity they were necessitated by famine to eat horses, moulded cloth, and bread made of bran; in reward of whose loyalty King Edward gave to the city for ever the manor of Evyland, since sold by the city for making the river Exe navigable.
After raising the siege as aforesaid, the general Arundell rallied his routed forces of rebels, and gave battle to the Lord Russell and the King’s army, with that inveterate courage, animosity, and resolution, that the greatest part of his men were slain upon the spot, others threw down their arms on mercy, the remainder fled, and were afterwards many of them taken and executed. Sir Anthony Kingston, Knight, a Gloucestershire man, after this rebellion was made Provost Marshal for executing such western rebels as could be taken, or were made prisoners in Cornwall and Devon, together with all such who had been aiders or assisters of them in that rebellion; upon whom, according to his power and office, he executed martial law with sport and justice (as Mr. Carew and other historians tell us); and the principal persons that have come to my knowledge, over whose misery he triumphed, was Boyer
the Mayor of Bodmin; Mayow of Clevyan, in St. Colomb Major, whom he hanged at the tavern sign-post in that town, of whom tradition saith his crime was not capital; and therefore his wife was advised by her friends to hasten to the town after the Marshal and his men, who had him in custody, and beg his life. Which accordingly she prepared to do, and to render herself the more amiable petitioner before the Marshal’s eyes, this dame spent so much time in attiring herself and putting on her French hood then in fashion, that her husband was put to death before her arrival. In like manner the Marshal hanged one John Payne, the Mayor, or Portreeve of St. Ives, on a gallows erected in the middle of that town, whose arms are still to be seen in one of the fore-seats in that church, viz. in a plain field three pine apples. Besides those he executed many more in other places in Cornwall, that had been actors, assisters, or promoters of this rebellion. Lastly, it is further memorable of this Sir Anthony Kingston, that in Sir John Heywood’s Chronicle he is taxed of extreme cruelty in doing his Marshal’s office aforesaid. Of whom Fuller, in Gloucestershire, gives us this further account of him: that afterwards, in the reign of Queen Mary, being detected, with several others, of a design to rob her exchequer, though he made his escape and fled into his own country, yet there he was apprehended and taken into custody by a messenger, who was bringing him up to London in order to have justice done upon him for his crime, but he being conscious of his guilt, and despairing of pardon, so effectually poisoned himself that he died on the way, without having the due reward of his desert.
After the death of Humphrey Arundell, Governor of St. Michael’s Mount, executed for treason as aforesaid, King Edward VI. sold or gave the government and revenues thereof to Job Militon, Esq. aforesaid, then Sheriff of Cornwall, during his life; but his son dying without issue male, the government, by what title I know not, devolved upon
the Bassets of Tihidy, from some of whom, as I am informed, it came by purchase to Sir John St. Aubyn, Bart. now in possession thereof.
In the month of July, 1676, at St. Michael’s Mount, about four of the clock in the afternoon, came from the British ocean, or sea, a ball of fire, seen by the inhabitants and fishermen at sea, which struck against the south moorstone wall of this Mount’s church or chapel; where, meeting resistance from the wall, it glanced through the stones thereof with some rebounds, making a path, or strake, through the same, in some places about four inches broad and two inches deep, from one end of the long side wall almost to the other; and from thence, by another rebound, it struck the strong oak durns of the dwelling-house entry, and broke the same in two or three pieces, and so flew into the hall, where it fell to the ground, having spent its force and strength as aforesaid, and then brake asunder in pieces, by the side of Mrs. Catherine St. Aubyn, without doing her any manner of hurt, leaving a sulphurous smoke behind it in the room; which ball of fire then appeared to consist of a black-blue metally matter, congealed or melted by fire like as coal and cinders may be, as Sir John St. Aubyn, the elder, and other spectators told me.
TONKIN.
Mr. Tonkin has not any thing in addition to Mr. Hals, except an uninteresting dissertation to prove that St. Michael’s Mount is not the Ocrinum of Ptolemy.
WHITAKER.
Mr. Whitaker has given several notes and comments on the narrative of Mr. Hals, which will here be placed, together with references to the passages to which they relate.
p. 170. ([a]) The name is Mara-zion, or zien, on the sea, I
believe, and Market-Jew is merely a similar appellation in English. A Jew, in Cornish language, is Ethow, and Edheuon, Ethchan, are Jews.
p. 170. ([b]) This corrects Mr. Willis, in ii. 3, who there says of the Market-Jew, and other towns expressly, “none of them ever sent Members to Parliament, or were ever summoned so to do.” Yet it coincides exactly with what Dr. Brady remarks in his very valuable treatise on Boroughs, p. 57, 59, and adds one more to his few returns, and instances of very many more which might have been produced “if needful,” p. 59.
p. 172. ([c]) Sel, sil, or sul is merely a view, or prospect, from the Welsh sylly, to look or behold, and the Armorick sell, a look or sight; and din-sil, or din-sul, means only the hill of prospect.
([d]) The real name of St. Michael’s Mount in Cornish is this, Carreg luz en kuz, a hoary rock in a wood. Borlase’s Scilly Isles, p. 94.
p. 178. ([e]) This notice, unobserved by the noticer himself, lets us into a part of the history of this Mount, which has never been unfolded yet. There was plainly a nunnery here, as well as a monastery. Accordingly we find before what this circumstance alone explains, that there were two chapels upon the Mount. One is described before as “a little chapel yet standing, and dedicated to the Archangel St. Michael, part whereof is now converted to a dwelling-house.” The other is thus, as “that which renders this place most famous, the present church or chapel, yet extant, and kept in good repair with pews; upon the tower of this church or chapel, for it is bigger than many other Cornish parish churches, is that celebrated place called Kader-Migell, i. e. Michael’s chair.” So distinct are these chapels! The monastery I apprehend to have been, “where, towards the north-west, is a kind of level plain about four or six landyards,” with “a downright precipice of rocks towards the sea, at least twenty fathoms high.” And where, about the greater chapel, are “cells cut in the
rocks for hermitical monks of the aforesaid order.” And the nunnery I suppose to have been where, “from this little square, or plain, there is an artificial kind of ascent going towards the east, which offers you a full sight of the outer walls of the castle, and brings you to Porth Horne (Hourn), part of which is yet to be seen.”
Thus do we get a glimpse of a nunnery that is invisible from every other point. Tanner, that witness for all other authors upon monastic notices, gives us no intimation from any of them concerning this nunnery. Yet Leland confirms what I have observed in Mr. Hals before, the existence of two churches, or chapels, upon the summit of the Mount. “The way to the church,” he says, concerning the ascent to the top, “entereth at the north side from half ebb to half flood, to the foot of the Mount, and so ascendeth by steps and grices westward, and thence returneth eastward to the utterward of the church,” or Mount. Within the said ward is a court strongly walled, “wherein on the south side is the Chapel of St. Michael, and in the east side a chapel of our Lady. The Captain and priest’s lodgings be in the south side of St. Michael’s Chapel.” (Itin. VII. 118.) When this Captain was fixed there with a garrison, as we shall soon see when he was, the nuns were obliged to relinquish their cells to him and them. For this reason we have not a hint in all the ages afterwards of a nunnery here. Only the chapel was continued for the use of the garrison, while the church itself was still left to the monks. Such an union as this, of a monastery and a nunnery upon the summit of a pyramidal hill, and amid the sequestrations of solitude, carries a strange appearance with it to our Protestant suspiciousness; yet it was not very uncommon in the reign of popery. It seems to have been peculiarly calculated for that purpose for which both monastery and nunnery were generally calculated, to shew the triumph of faith over the impulses of sense, and to shew that triumph more conspicuously, by the association of monks and nuns in monastic vicinity
to each other. “This little fortress,” as Mr. Hals has told us before, “comprehendeth sufficient rooms and lodgings for the Captain, or Governor, and his soldiers to reside in,” which I have supposed above “to have been the original habitations of the nuns and their Abbess; to which adjoining are several other houses, or cells, heretofore pertaining to the monks that dwell here, all admirable for their strength, buildings, and contrivance,” and all probably therefore contemporary or nearly so.
p. 180. ([f]) This account of St. Michael’s Mount is in a strain of intelligence and judiciousness much superior to the general tenor of Mr. Hals’s writings. To it I wish to add some useful notices, in accompaniment of some that I have given before.
Upon the very crown and summit of this pyramidal hill, stands proudly eminent the church, stretching from east to west, and having a tower in the middle. It was built by Edward the Confessor, who was the first to consecrate the Mount to religion, and erected the church on the little plain at the top of it. Having done this, and erected habitations for the clergy attending it, he gave them, by charter still existing in recital, the whole of the Mount, and many lands beside. “Ego Edwardus, Dei gracia Anglorum Rex, dare volans pretium redemptionis animæ meæ vel parentum meorum, sub consensu et testimonio bonorum virorum, tradidi Sancto Michaeli Archangelo, in usum fratrum Deo servientium in eodem loco, Sanctum Michaelem,” the church, “qui est juxta mare.” He also gives them “totam terram de Venefire;” and proceeds “portum addere qui vocatur Ruminella.” Romney, in Kent. Then came Robert Earl of Mortaigne, the falsely reputed founder, merely to associate this church with another of the same appellation in Normandy, and to enlarge its endowments. In a new charter, equally as the old without a date, he, “habens in bello Sancti Michaelis vexillum,” says, “do et concedo Montem Sancti Michaelis de Cornubiâ Deo et monachis ecclesiæ Sancti Michaelis de Periculo
Maris servientibus, cum dimidiâ terræ hidâ.” But, as he adds, “postea autem ut certissime comperi, Beati Michaelis meritis monachorumque suffragiis michi a Deo ex propriâ conjuge mea filio concesso, auxi donum ipsi beato militiæ celestis principi, dedi et dono in Amaneth (Quere, where?) tres acras terræ, Travalaboth videlicet, Lismanoch, Trequaners, Carmailoc,” &c. 2. And, finally, comes the Bishop of Exeter, in a charter dated expressly 1085, to free “ecclesiam Beati Michaelis Archangeli de Cornubiâ,” from all episcopal jurisdiction. 3. Thus erected and thus privileged, the church remained till the day of William of Worcester, and he thus notes the dimensions of it: “Memorandum, longitudo ecclesiæ Montis Sancti Michaelis continet 30 steppys, latitudo continet 12 steppys.” 4. Carew also speaks of it as “a chapel for devotion, builded by William Earl of Morton,” (Carew so speaking with the multitude, when he ought to have given the building to the Confessor,) “and greatly haunted while folk endured (endeared) their merits by farre travailing.” 5. Carew thus refers obscurely, perhaps unconsciously, to a particular privilege annexed to the church, which was given by one decree from Pope Gregory, and confirmed by another from Bishop Leofric. “Universis Sanctæ Matris ecclesiæ presentes literas inspecturis vel audituris salutem,” cries the former, “noverit universitas vestra quod sanctissimus Papa Gregorius, anno ab incarnatione Domini millesimo septuagesimo,” the very year, therefore, in which Earl Montaign gave this church to the other in Normandy, “ad ecclesiam Montis Sancti Michaelis, in comitatu Cornubiæ, gerens eximiæ devocionis affectum, piè concessit ecclesiæ predictæ, [et] omnibus fidelibus, qui illam cum suis beneficiis et elemosinis,” (with alms and oblations, so that “folke endeared their merits,” not merely “by farre travailing,” but by a tax upon their purse,) “exepecierint seu visitaverint, tertiam partem penetenciarum suarum eis condonari,” a third of all those acts
being remitted, which penitents were enjoined to perform, in order to prove the sincerity of their penitence to God, and to themselves. The same privilege is repeated by the Bishop of Exeter in 1085, thus: “omnibus illis, qui illum ecclesiam suis cum beneficiis et elemosinis expetierint et visitaverint, tertiam partem penitentiarum condonamus.” Yet, what is surprising, the privilege became nearly as much unknown afterwards as it is at present, and was therefore promulgated by the clergy of the church at the beginning of the fifteenth century: “Tota verba,” adds the reciter, “in antiquis registris de novo,” a little before William’s visit, “in hâc ecclesiâ repertis, inventa,” being then unknown to the very clergy themselves, and only discovered by the discovery of some registers equally unknown, “prout his in valvis ecclesiæ publicè ponuntur,” were exhibited to public view by being posted upon the folding-doors of the church. “Et quia pluribus istud est incognitum, ideo nos, in Christo Dei famuli et ministri hujus ecclesiæ, universitatem vestram qui regimen animarum possidetis,” all the rectors and vicars of the kingdom, “ob mutuæ vicissitudinis obtentum requirimus et rogamus, quatenus ista publicetis in ecclesiis vestris, ut vestri subditi et subjecti ad majorem exoracionem devocionis attentius animentur, et locum istum gloriosius peregrinando frequentent ad dona et indulgencias predicta graciosè consequenda.” From this republication of the privilege, undoubtedly, did the numerous resort of pilgrims to the church begin. Then too was formed assuredly that seat on the tower, which is so ridiculously described by Carew, as “a little without the castle—a bad seat in a craggy place—somewhat dangerous for access;” when it is only a chair, composed of stones, projecting from the two sides of the tower battlements, and uniting into a seat without the south-western angle, but elevated above the battlements on each side. It thus appears somewhat dangerous from the elevation or projection only, is an evident addition to the tower, and was assuredly
made at this period for the pilgrims, that they might complete their devotions at the Mount by sitting in this St. Michael’s Chair, as denominated, and by showing themselves as pilgrims to the country round. Hence, in an author[6] who alludes to customs without feeling the force of his allusion, we read this intimation:
Who knowes not Michael’s Mount and Chaire,
The pilgrim’s holy vaunt?
We thus find a reason for the construction of such a chair, that comports with all the purposes of the church on the tower of which it is constructed, and that shows it ministered equally with this to the uses of religion then predominant; making it not, as Carew most extravagantly makes it, “somewhat dangerous for access, and therefore holy for the adventure,” but holy in itself, as on the church-tower, holy in its purposes, as the seat of the pilgrims, and doubly holy as the seat of accomplishment to all their vows, as the seat of invitation to all the country. And the whole church remains to this day, beaten by the rains and buffeted by the winds, yet a venerable monument of Saxon architecture.
This Mount appears decisively, from the charter of the Confessor, to have been in his time not surrounded with the sea during all the flood tide, and not accessible by land only during some hours of the ebb-tide, as it is at present. It was then not surrounded at all. It was only near the sea then. Thus the Confessor describes it expressly, as “Sanctum Michaelem qui est juxta mare.” But as Worcestre adds, with a range back into the past that is very striking, yet is in general confirmed by the charter above, “the space of ground upon Mount St. Michael is two hundred cubits, surrounded with the ocean,” at flood tide; “the place aforesaid was originally inclosed with a very thick wood, distant from the ocean six miles, affording the finest shelter for wild beasts.”
THE EDITOR.
Nothing is known with any certainty respecting the ancient state of St. Michael’s Mount.
It may have been the seat of a Celtic superstition somewhat similar to that imagined and described by Dr. William Borlase. Sir Christopher Hawkins has adduced many arguments for proving this semi-island to have been the Ictis of Diodorus Siculus; and its situation, united to its sea-port, may well have recommended such a place for a factory to the merchants of any civilized nation engaged in commercial transactions with people so rude as were the Britons of those remote times. The universal practice in our days, is to establish fortified stations under similar circumstances, since neither person or property can be effectually protected in any other way.
The earliest definite tradition of a Christian establishment dates with the pilgrimage of St. Kenna, in consequence of the appearance of the Arch-angel at that place. No particular circumstances are ever related of this extraordinary vision, neither as to the occasion nor as to the persons so eminently favoured as to behold the celestial glory, nor as to the time, nor of the exact spot, since it could not have taken place on the top of the tower, that building having been constructed in honour of the vision itself.
It may be remarked that lofty and elevated situations throughout Europe are dedicated to St. Michael, probably on account of the Archangel being uniformly painted with wings, and therefore tacitly imagined to have habits similar to birds; and perhaps the dedication of the largest of our domestic fowls to the celebration of his festival, may owe its origin to a similar analogy.
Saint Kenna is believed to have imparted the same identical virtue to the chair which overhangs the tower, as she
bestowed on the celebrated well near Liskeard, and since no one obtains a seat in this chair without much resolution and steadiness of head, one may be inclined to anticipate the supposed effect with greater certainty from the achievement of sitting in St. Michael’s chair, than from drinking water from St. Kenna’s well. The time of St. Kenna’s visitation is not accurately known. She is supposed to be the same St. Keyna, daughter of a prince of Brecknockshire, who lived a recluse life for many years near a town situated midway between Bristol and Bath, since called Cainsbarn, after her name, where she founded a monastery in the beginning of the sixth century, and cleaned the neighbourhood from snakes and vipers by converting them all into Cornua Ammonis, which have abounded there ever since, in testimony of her sanctity and of the fervour of her prayers.
The supposed ancient site of St. Michael’s Mount, its being the hoary monk in a wood surrounded by forests, is deduced from arguments very similar to those which prove the miraculous power of St. Kenna in converting serpents into stones.
Trees have been found buried under the sand and silt in the Mount’s Bay, as they are frequently found in every similar inlet of the sea on the southern coast of England. And the tradition, if a term so respectable may be applied to such vague conjectures, applies equally to Mount St. Michael; or they may have been derived from a common origin. See Le Grand Dictionaire Historique, par M. Moreri, Paris edition of 1188, with the Supplement of 1735. In the 5th folio volume of the Dictionary, p. 193, and in the 2d. folio volume of the Supplement, p. 261, will be found these passages:
“Saint Michel ou Mont Saint Michel, en Latin Mons Sancti Michaelis in periculo Maris. Bourg de France en Normandie, avec une Abbaie celebre et un chateau. Sa situation est assez particuliere, sur un rocher qui s’etend au milieu d’une grand greve, que la mer couvre de son reflux.
On dit qu’ Augustin, evêque d’Avranches, qui vivait au commencement du huitieme siecle, y suit des chanoines apres une apparition de l’Archange Seint Michel.
“Ce mont s’appelloit le Mont de Tombe à cause de sa figure. On pretend qu’une foret occupoit autrefois sont le terrain depuis le mont jusques aux Paroisses de Tanis et d’Ardevon; que la mer a detruit cette foret, et qu’elle en a pris la place; et c’est de la, dit on, que le Mont Saint Michel est surnomme, ‘Au peril de la mer,’ Mons in periculo Maris.”
The first authentic document relative to St. Michael’s Mount is the charter of Saint Edward the Confessor, the original of which remained among the archives of Mount St. Michael.
In the recent edition of Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. vii. p. 988:
Priory of St. Michael’s Mount, in Cornwall.—A priory of Benedictine monks was placed here by King Edward the Confessor. Before A.D. 1085, however, it was annexed by Robert Earl of Moreton and Cornwall, to the Abbey of St. Michael in Periculo Maris, in Normandy.
The following entry relating to the property of St. Michael’s Priory, in Cornwall, occurs in the Domesday Survey:
“Terra Sancti Michaelis.—Ecclesia S. Michaelis tenet Treiwal, Brismar tenebat tempore regis Edwardi. Ibi sunt ii hidæ quæ numquam geldaverunt. Terra est viii car. Ibi est i. car. cum uno villano, et ii. bord. et x. acr. pasturæ. Val. xx. solid. De hiis ii. hid. abstulit Comes Moriton i. hidam. Val. xx. sol.”
In Hampshire, Domesday, tom. i. fol. 43, there is another entry concerning St. Michael’s Priory:
In Basingstoches Hund.—Ecclesia S. Michaelis de Monte tenet de lege unam ecclesiam cum i. hida et decima M. de Basingestoches. Ibi est presbyter et ii. villani et iiii.
bord. cum i. car. et molin. de xx. sol. et ii. acr. prati. Tot. val. iiii. lib. et v. sol.
Oliver, in his Historic Collections relating to the monasteries of Devon, p. 147, gives the following list of Priors of St. Michael’s Mount:—
| Ralph de Carteret, | admitted Dec. 21, 1260. |
| Richard Perer, | April 11, 1275. |
| Geoffrey de Gernon, | July 8, 1283. |
| Peter de Cara Villa, | Sept. 12, 1316. |
| John Hardy, | Oct. 3, 1349. |
| John de Volant, | April 24, 1362. |
| Richard Auncell, | Dec. 7, 1385. |
| William Lambert, | Oct. 1, 1410. |
As the alien priories were suppressed by Henry V. who began his reign in 1413, William Lambert was probably the last Prior.
Bishop Tanner says, in his Notitia Monastica:—After the suppression of the alien priories, this was first given by King Henry VI. to King’s College, Cambridge, and afterwards by King Edward IV. to the nunnery of Sion, in Middlesex. At the first seizure by King Edward III. the farm was rated but at 10l. per annum, but at the general dissolution by Henry VIII. the lands belonging to this house, as parcel of Sion Abbey, were valued at 110l. 12s. per annum.
The charter of Saint Edward may be thus translated:
“In the name of the holy and indivisible Trinity. I Edward, by the grace of God King of the English, willing to give the price of the redemption of my own soul, or of the souls of my parents, with the consent and attestation of good men, have delivered to St. Michael the Archangel, for the use of the brethren serving God in that place, Saint Michael, which is near the sea, with all its appendages, that is to say, with its towns, castles, lands, and other appurtenances. I have added, moreover, all the land of Vennefire, with its towns, villages, fields, meadows, and grounds, cultivated or uncultivated, with their proceeds.
And I have joined, as an addition to the things already given, the harbour called Ruminella, with all things belonging to it, that is, with mills and establishments for fisheries and with their proceeds.
“But if any one shall endeavour to interpose subtile impediments against these gifts, let him be made an anathema, and incur the perpetual anger of God.
“And that the authority of our donation may be held the more truly and firmly hereafter, I have, in confirming it, underwritten with my own hand, which many also of the witnesses have done.
Signum Regis Edwardi ✠
Roberti Archiepiscopi Rothomagensis ✠
Herberti Episcopi Lexoviensis ✠
Roberti Episcopi Constantiensis ✠
Radulphi ✠
Vinfredi ✠ Nigelli Vicecomitis.
Anschitelli Choschet. Turstini.
The next charter:
“In the name of the holy and indivisible Trinity, I Robert, by the grace of God Earl of Moriton, influenced with the fire of divine love, supporting in battle the standard of St. Michael, do make known to all the sons of our holy mother church, that for the salvation of the souls of myself and of my wife, also for the salvation, the prosperity, and safety of the most glorious King William, and for obtaining the reward of eternal life, do give and grant Mount Saint Michael, of Cornwall, to God and to the monks serving (God) of the church of Saint Michael in danger of the sea; with half a hide of land, so unbound, and peaceable and free from all customs, complaints, and suits, as I hold them. And I appoint, the King my Lord consenting, that they may hold a market on every Friday. Lastly, as I have most certainly ascertained that a son has been given me from God by my wife, through the merits of the blessed Michael, by the prayers of the monks, I have increased the gift to him the blessed chief of the heavenly host. I have given
and do give in Amaneth three acres of land; that is to say, Trevelaboth, Lismanoch, Trequaners, Carmailoc, my most pious Lord King William assenting, together with the Queen Mathilde, and their noble sons the Earl Robert, William Rufus, and Henry yet a boy, to be quiet and free from all pleas, complaints, and forfeits, so that the monks shall not answer in any matter to the King’s justice, homicide alone excepted.
“And I Robert Earl of Moriton have made this donation, which William the glorious King of the English, and the Queen, and their children, have permitted and testified.
Signum Willielmi Regis ✠
Reginæ Mathildis ✠
Roberti Comitis ✠
Willielmi Rufi filii Regis ✠
Henrici Pueri ✠
Roberti Comitis Moritoni ✠
Matildis Comitissæ ✠
Willielmi filii eorum ✠
This charter is ratified and confirmed in the year one thousand and eighty-five from the Incarnation of our Lord.
Signum Liurici Essecestriæ Episcopi ✠”
Among several other charters there is one from Richard King of the Romans, granting to the Prior three annual fairs, to be holden near their Grange, now the Long Barn.
“Richard by the grace of God King of the Romans, and always Augustus, to the Bishops, Abbats, Priors, Earls, Barons, and to all holding free tenures, and to others his lieges in the county of Cornwall, health, and every good. May you all know that we, by this our present confirmation, have granted and confirmed to the Prior of the blessed Michael, in Cornwall, and to his successors, that they may have and hold, and for ever possess, the three fairs and three markets on their own proper ground in Marchadyon, near their Barn; which three fairs and three markets they have hitherto held by the concession of our predecessors Kings of England, in Marghasbigan, on ground belonging to others; that is to say, on the middle day in Lent, and on the following day; and on the eve of the blessed Michael, and on the following day; and on the
eve of the blessed Michael in monte tumbæ, and on the following day, provided that these fairs and markets may not cause any damage or injury to other fairs or markets, in conformity with the laws and customs of this kingdom of England.
“In witness of all which things we have thought fit to certify this present confirmation with our royal seal.”
There is also a bull of Pope Adrian, in the year 1155, confirming all their possessions to the Abbat and monks of Mount St. Michael, and among them Saint Michael’s Mount, in Cornwall; which, previously to its subjugation, had been exempted from all episcopal interference by Liuricus Bishop of Exeter, as he states by the exhortation and command of his Lord, Pope Gregory, and in compliance with the wishes of the King, of the Queen, and of all the magnates in the realm. And he also grants a release from a third part of their penances to all such persons as may visit this church of St. Michael with oblations and alms.
The Mount appears never to have received a religious society after its suppression as an alien priory in the reign of King Henry the Fifth. At the period of the general dissolution it must have been let at an annual rent, for in the abstract roll preserved in the Augmentation Office this entry occurs under Syon Abbey: “Cornub.—S. Michael. ad Montem, Firma 26l. 13s. 4d.”
The history of St. Michael’s Mount since its dissolution, as a parcel of Sion Abbey, is very far from being clear. It appears to have been granted at first for terms of years to different gentlemen of the neighbourhood. To Millington, supposed of Pengersick, in Breage; to Harris, of Kenegie, in Gulval; and perhaps jointly with Millington to a Billett or Bennett. A person of that name, half-deranged, who died about the middle of the last century, continued during the whole of his life to shoot rabbits on the Mount one day in the year by way of maintaining a supposed right, which, being utterly groundless, was humanely allowed to pass unobserved.
Queen Elizabeth, or King James I. appears to have granted the whole in fee to Robert Cecil, created Earl of Salisbury May 4, 1605. But the Mount was seised into his own hands by King Charles I. just at the breaking out of the civil war, probably on account of the great military importance of this hold, when William Cecil, son of the former, having subscribed the Declaration made at York, on the 13th of June, 1642, left the party of which the King was at the head, and joined the opposite party in London.
An order was soon after given to Sir Francis Basset, then Sheriff of Cornwall, to place the Mount in a state of defence, and to supply it with ammunition and provisions; and it is not improbable that a grant was made of the castle and Mount to Sir Francis Basset at once, in witness of his zeal displayed in the cause, and as some indemnity for the expenses he had incurred, the royalist party never having had any considerable sum of money at their command.
The Bassets having suffered extremely in their property by efforts made during the war, and by compositions afterwards, it was found convenient to sell St. Michael’s Mount about the year 1660; when it was most fortunately purchased by Sir John St. Aubyn, in whose opulent family, and through five John St. Aubyns, it has descended to the present possessor of that name.
Every individual of this family has proved himself desirous of supporting, of maintaining, and of beautifying one of the most extrordinary spots in the whole world.
Including Dartmoor and the Scilly Islands, granite breaks out into six large but unequal masses, which, like the Appeninnes of Italy, extend a narrow promontory into the sea. St. Michael’s Mount presents a ridge of granite equally distinct with any of these great masses, and rises into a lofty cone, the base being surrounded by the killas, a peculiar schist, the chief metalliferous rock of Cornwall.
And here most of the curious phenomena are found which occur at the junction of these two rocks.
The buildings on the summit are grand and appropriate to the scenery, and venerable from their antiquity. The church, with its tower, completing the pyramidal figure of the whole, are supposed to date so far back as the reign of St. Edward. And a modern addition of two rooms on the eastern part of the building, made by the late Sir John Aubyn about the year 1750, is in complete harmony with the other parts, and adds to the general effect.
The inside of the castle, or priory, has been much decorated within a few years, and florid gothic ornaments have been added to the exterior; but opinions are much divided as to the accordance of these new parts with buildings to which Sir Walter Scott’s line may be applied,
In Saxon strength the Abbey frown’d.
At the foot of the Mount a small pier existed from a time probably anterior to the Monastery itself, but in the early part of the last century a lease on lives was granted to Mr. George Blewett, the early associate and in some degree rival of the great Mr. Lemon. This gentleman rebuilt the pier on a very enlarged scale, and concentrated here almost the whole commerce of Penwith hundred, which has since his time gone to Penzance and Hayle.
St. Michael’s Mount is said to be selected as the scene of many strange adventures, in Italian romances; while Cornwall is supposed to abound with enchanters, goblins, and other supernatural beings.
An English romance, once popular with the old and with the young, but now banished even from our nurseries, begins thus:
“In the days of King Arthur the Mount of Cornwall was kept by a monstrous giant.” ma
Tasca Argo i Mini, e tascia Artu qui’ suoi
Erronti, che di sogni empion le carte.
Marazion has certainly to boast of very great antiquity.
It may have existed in the earliest times, if the Mount really afforded protection to the Eastern merchants, who sought the shores of Cornwall for its tin.
And the names Marazion and Marketjew cannot but excite an inclination to believe that in the Middle Ages this place may have been the resort of the most extraordinary people, who at all times have manifested a peculiar inclination for dealing in metals; it is moreover worthy of remark that all remains of places where tin has heretofore been smelted in the most simple manner, are invariably denominated Jew’s Houses. Marazion must also have afforded shelter and entertainment to the crowds of pilgrims assembling at particular periods to adore the Shrine of St. Michael, and to participate in the indulgence granted by Liuricus Bishop of Exeter, on the exhortation of his Lord the Pope.
Marazion received a charter of incorporation from Queen Elizabeth, but the town, although beautifully situated, has not kept pace in the career of improvement with many others, and especially not with Penzance.
About the middle of the last century, which was the great epoch for the establishment of turnpike roads, as the beginning of this century will be considered for their improvement on principles of science and of general accommodation, a turnpike road was laid out from Falmouth, through Penryn and Helston, to the western of Marazion, by which a new entrance was opened from Penzance; and about the year 1775 a large castellated house was built at the western extremity of the town, by Mr. John Blewett, son of Mr. George Blewett, the very considerable merchant noticed above, in imitation of the house at Tregenna, near St. Ive’s, built by Mr. Samuel Stephens a few years before, under the direction of Mr. Wood, an architect from Bath, who had constructed most of the splendid works in that city.
Mr. George Blewett, rising from the lowest origin, is said to have accumulated a hundred thousand pounds. On
the death of his only son the property went to a nephew, and the whole has been dissipated.
The house was some time afterwards purchased by another Mr. Blewett, wholly unconnected with the former, who acquired a considerable fortune in the war: that has also entirely disappeared, and the house has passed into other hands.
Mr. Pascoe Grenfell, Commissary to the States of Holland, resided here during a long life, although he was originally of Penzance; and here was born his son Mr. Pascoe Grenfell, junior, well known throughout England as an active Member of Parliament, as a man of talent and of great liberality, commensurate to his almost unexampled success in commerce.
From Marazion also have sprung the family of Cole.
Captain Francis Cole would have risen to the most elevated station in the Navy if he had not been cut off by an early death.
Captain Christopher Cole most justly acquired the highest military reputation by his capture of Banda in the East Indies, with a force several times less numerous than the garrison which he overcame; and, having taken the place with such an union of courage, determined resolution, and of prudence, as would rival the exploits of chivalry, he acquired still greater glory by extending a truly heroic courtesy to the vanquished, protecting them in their persons, in their properties, and in the exercise of their religious and of their civil rights. Having settled, in consequence of his marriage, in Glamorganshire, he has had the honour of representing that county in Parliament.
The Reverend John Cole, D.D. attained the high situation of Rector of Exeter College, Oxford.
And the younger brother, Dr. Samuel Cole, is now Chaplain-general to the Navy.
The principal inhabitant at present is Mr. William Cornish, a very respectable merchant and a magistrate for the
county; he married a daughter of the elder Captain Cole, and has a numerous family.
Treveneage seems to have been the principal seat in this parish. A branch of the Godolphins resided here, having acquired the property by a marriage with the heiress of an ancient family denominated Goverigon or Gavrigan, whose principal residence was in St. Colomb.
Katherine Godolphin, daughter and heiress of Francis Godolphin, Esq. of Treveneage, married John St. Aubyn, of Clowance, Esq. and was buried at St. Hilary, on the 13th of March 1662, as appears from an inscription on a monument to her memory in the church.
The barton of Treveneage was however sold, and after passing through Robinson, it was purchased, about the year 1665, by the family of Tredenham, of Tredenham, or Tredinham, in Probus.
Mr. Joseph Tredinham was Sheriff of Cornwall in 1665, and was knighted. One of his daughters, and eventually his coheiress, married Scobell of Menigwins, in St. Austell; and from a coheiress of Scobell this barton, together with an extensive manor, descended to the Hawkins’s of Pennance, and from them to the late Sir Christopher Hawkins, of Trewithan in Probus, and of Trewinnard in St. Erth.
Tregembo, or Tregember, bears an appearance of considerable antiquity. Mr. Lysons says that it belonged to the family of Grosse, and that it passed by sales, through King to Penneck, in the year 1684.
The Pennecks were originally of Trescow in Breage, and advanced themselves in the world by the stewardship and patronage of the Godolphins. One of this family, the Reverend John Penneck, who died in 1724, was Chancellor of Exeter, and would probably have been advanced much higher in the church if the Marlborough and Godolphin administration had remained longer in the possession of power.
On this gentleman’s decease, without children, his property
devolved on the Reverend John Penneck, vicar of Gulval, who married —— Wroughton, and left two sons and two daughters; John, who succeeded him in the living of Gulval, and Charles, bred to the law, but who quitted that profession for the militia during the American War.
Mr. John Penneck died in 1789, and his brother in 1801; they were succeeded by their two sisters, who were, Catherine, married to the Reverend William Borlase, son and eventually sole heir of the Reverend Walter Borlase, LL.D. of Castlehorneck; and Ann, married to John Bingham Borlase, M.D. who had the honour of bestowing his early medical education on Sir Humphrey Davy. Each of these sisters left an only daughter. Ann, daughter of the eldest, married to the Reverend Mr. Peters; and Ann, daughter of the second, married to Captain Pascoe.
The manor of Tregurtha also belonged to the Pennecks, having been purchased in the early part of the last century; but this manor, together with a large portion of their other possessions, were sold by the two last brothers. This manor was bought jointly by Mr. Carne, of Penzance, and the late Mr. Thomas Grylls, of Helston. Tregembo still belongs to the two ladies.
Ennis, usually called Ninnis, was for some time a gentleman’s seat, although it is now become a mere farm. Mr. Humphrey Millett, the last resident gentleman, had been a member of Exeter College. He married Mary, daughter of Mr. Sandys, of Helston, and dying early in life left two daughters his coheiresses. The eldest daughter, Mary, married Thomas Grylls, Esq. and the second daughter, Grace, married Charles Short, Esq. of Devonshire, Clerk of the Rules in the Court of King’s Bench, and both have families. The widow married secondly George Trework, Esq. of Penzance.
Trevarthen has the appearance of a place respectable in former times. The freehold belongs to the Duke of Leeds, as heir of the Godolphins; but it was held for a long
period of years on a lease for lives by one of the numerous branches of the family of Davies, now all extinct.
This parish has abounded in mines, especially in the manors of Treveneage and Tregurtha; but the most remarkable in its consequences was a mine called Whele Fortune, on Trowall or Truthwell, belonging to Lord Godolphin, as it enabled Mr. Lemon to move on the great scale which afterwards so eminently distinguished him; as it laid the foundation of Mr. Blewett’s large fortune; and brought forward Captain Dewen, whose fortune descended on two daughters, one married to the Rev. George Borlase, Fellow of All Souls, and son of the historian; the other married to Mr. Keir, a gentleman in the profession of medicine.
The church is situated on a commanding elevation, and would be an imposing object throughout the whole neighbourhood, if it were not disfigured by an insignificant spire.
The church and churchyard contain several monuments to the Godolphins, Pennecks, Milletts, Blewetts, &c.
On a stone, now made the floor of a seat in the south- east corner of St. Hilary church, is the following curious inscription to one of the Godolphins.
Aquila quæ volucres cœli supereminet omnes,
Et Caper e summis qui carpit montibus herbam,
Quique tuum referens Godolphin nomen in undis
Delphinus, piscesque regit, cursuque fatigat;
Hæc bene te natum proavis insignia monstrant
Per cœlum, et terras, et vasta per æquora claris,
Et tua te virtus cunctis majoribus æquat.
Sic transit Gloria Mundi!
Et quæ modo candida Nix est,
Phœbo splendente, liquescit.
Et quæ modo florida vigent
Per amœnos Lilia campos,
Citius quam dicere possis,
Aspectu Solis eoi
Marcescunt; sic violentis
Fatorum legibus omnes
Cedunt, juvenesque senesque,
Sic qui modo floruit inter
Primos, generosus, et inter
Claros; quos vexit honoris
Summi ad fastigia virtus;
Nulli pietate secundus,
Godolphin morte peremptus,
Fatis succumbit iniquis.
Humana hinc discite quàm
Vita incerta et brevis!
Sic transit Gloria Mundi!
In connection with the church, one of those casual coincidences may be noticed, which continued to be remembered and cited for more than a century in this parish, and to obtain belief or discredit, as an interposition of Providence, according to the religious or the political opinions of those who heard or related it.
It seems that a Mr. Palmer held this living previously to the Restoration of King Charles II. and that he was one among the two thousand, who in obedience to the dictates of their consciences, from the fear of disgrace, or from political motives, refused, “In the church, chapel, or place of public worship belonging to their benefices or promotions, upon some Lord’s Day before the Feast of St. Bartholomew, which should be in the year of our Lord God one thousand six hundred and sixty-two, openly, publickly, and solemnly to read the morning and evening prayer, appointed to be read by and according to the Book of Common Prayer, at the times thereby appointed, and after such reading thereof, and openly and publickly before the congregation there assembled, to declare their unfeigned assent to the use of all things in the said book contained and prescribed.” See the Act of Uniformity, anno decimo tertio et quarto Caroli II. ch. 4.
In consequence of this refusal the two thousand incumbents were ejected without any provision or allowance whatever, so that many of them perished from actual want. Several thus ejected without doubt continued the exercise
of their sacred functions among such as were desirous or willing to assist at them; and for this offence Mr. Palmer was called before magistrates appointed by the new government, who ordered his commitment to prison, when the ejected vicar is said to have addressed Mr. Robinson, of Treveneage, one of the magistrates, in the words of Micaiah, “If thou return at all in peace, the Lord hath not spoken by me.”
Within a short time after this vaticination Mr. Robinson met his death by the goring of his own bull.
It would be inexcusable in me if I were to leave this parish without noticing the late Vicar, from whose kindness I received information whenever it was asked, in those sciences which have afforded me uninterrupted entertainment and delight throughout the whole continuance of a protracted life.
The Reverend Malachy Hitchins was born in the parish of Gwenap, about the year 1740; possessed of hereditary claims to mathematical attainments as the nephew of Mr. Thomas Martyn, well known by his excellent map of Cornwall published about that time; a map then equalling if not surpassing the best county maps of England, and still almost unrivalled for minute and accurate topography, including the boundaries of parishes—the work of fifteen years labour.
I have not succeeded in acquiring any information respecting Mr. Hitchins in his early years, with the exception of a general report of his being then distinguished by the ability, accuracy, and diligence conspicuous in his future years.
These qualities, and probably his near connection with Mr. Martyn, recommended Mr. Hitchins as an assistant to Mr. Benjamin Donne in constructing a map of Devonshire, an occupation decisive of his future life, for at Bideford he became acquainted with Miss Hockin, whom he married, and acquiring with her an accession of fortune, he proceeded to Oxford, and became a member of Exeter College, with the view of obtaining
orders. But Mr. Hitchins possessed talents and acquirements that could not admit of his remaining undistinguished at a place of learning. He was soon noticed by the mathematicians, and recommended to the Reverend Nevil Maskelyne, Astronomer Royal, to assist him at the Royal Observatory; and when Doctor Maskelyne went to St. Helena, in the year 1761, to observe the transit of Venus, and to ascertain, if it were possible, the parallax of Sirius, Mr. Hitchins had the whole care of the Observatory entrusted to his hands.
Another object of Doctor Maskelyne’s voyage, and one eventually of by far the greatest importance, was to prove from actual experience that Longitudes at sea might be derived from observations on the moon. Tables founded on the theory of gravitation and of inertia, as laid down by Sir Isaac Newton, had then been constructed by Tobias Mayer, of Gottingen, and communicated to Dr. Maskelyne in manuscript, representing the moon’s place at all times in the heavens, within narrow limits; and the admirable instrument invented by Mr. John Hadley, by rendering the apparent contact of two objects, independent of all agitations of the instrument itself, enabled observers to ascertain the distance of the moon from the sun, or from a star, almost as accurately on board a ship as on the solid land. With these assistances the determination of a ship’s longitude became an easy problem. The moon is converted into the hand of a clock, indicating by its distance from a particular star, the time at Greenwich Observatory made the first meridian. This distance is ascertained by Hadley’s sextant, and after applying certain corrections for parallax and refraction, the time at Greenwich becomes known. The actual time at the place of observation is then determined from the altitude of some celestial body, and thus differences in the longitude required.
Doctor Maskelyne having fully verified the complete practicability of this method, procured through the Board of Longitude the publication of Mayer’s tables, accompanied
by a reward or premium, under an Act of Parliament, to his widow, of three thousand pounds; and soon afterwards the same eminent and patriotic astronomer devised and executed a work absolutely necessary for enabling ordinary persons to avail themselves of this important discovery, namely the Nautical Almanac, in which the sun’s place is accurately given for the noon of each day, the place of the moon for noon and midnight of each day, and the true angular distance of the moon from the sun, and from certain stars for every third hour of the day and of the night throughout the year, together with the equation of time, the places of the planets, &c.: thus saving to observers perhaps ninety-nine parts out of a hundred of the calculations that were previously indispensible.
The labour of such a work must obviously require many hands, especially as without great care in constructing the original calculation, and in correcting the press, it would prove worse than useless. To ensure this accuracy, the most important parts were performed in duplicate by different persons, and the whole carefully collated and verified by the superior officer, called the Comparer, under the ultimate superintendence of the Astronomer Royal himself.
In constructing the first Nautical Almanac that appeared, for 1767, Mr. Hitchins performed the office of a computer; but for all the others, up to the period of his decease in 1809, he most advantageously, not only for this country but for the whole world, executed the office of comparer.
The Lunar tables are now carried to a degree of perfection far exceeding those of Mayer, and the Nautical Almanac has been enlarged and improved; but the glory of devising the work remains with Doctor Maskelyne, and perhaps scarcely a less degree of glory with Mr. Hitchins, for having conducted it with unrivalled accuracy for a period extending through so great a number of years.
During his residence at Greenwich Mr. Hitchins had received holy orders; and, as the office of comparer did
not confine him to any particular place, he removed to Exeter, and soon obtained the vicarage of Hennock, to hold for a minor. He did not fail however of attracting attention from the clergy of the Cathedral, and about the year 1774 Bishop Keppell collated him to St. Hilary, which had lapsed in consequence of a dispute between two of the numerous patrons claiming unsettled turns to the presentation. Here Mr. Hitchins resided respected and admired till the close of his life, on the 28th of March 1809; having been distinguished by the succeeding Bishop of Exeter, Dr. John Ross, who conferred on him the adjoining vicarage of Gwinear.
Mr. Hitchins had four sons and one daughter.
The eldest, Richard, was a Fellow of Exeter College, and died unmarried on a college living.
The second, Thomas, also a clergyman, married Miss Emma Grenfell, of Marazion; he served for many years a church near Plymouth, and has left several children.
The third, Malachy, inherited his father’s genius with his name. He filled the office for some time that his father had occupied in the Royal Observatory; but ultimately preferring the law, he settled at Marazion, where he died at an early age in December 1802.
The fourth son, Fortescue, was also in the law, and settled at St. Ive’s. He distinguished himself as a poet and as a writer, having taken a considerable share in compiling a History of Cornwall; but his life was also restricted to a narrow space.
The only daughter, Josepha, married William Millett, Esq. originally of Gurlin in St. Erth, and is now a widow with several sons.
Mr. Hitchins had his time too much occupied to allow of his composing any considerable work. He made one communication however to the Royal Society, and another to the Society of Antiquaries; besides these there are various minor publications, some bearing his name, and others the signature of Vatum Ultimus, alluding to his
which is not uncommon in Cornwall, is probably derived not immediately from the Hebrew Prophet, but from St. Malachy, Archbishop of Armagh, who is said to have died in the arms of St. Bernard in the year 1148.
Mr. Hitchins was succeeded by the Reverend Thomas Pascoe, the present vicar.
The Parish Feast is celebrated on the Sunday nearest to the 13th of January, the day of the patron Saint.
St. Hilary measures 3228 statute acres.
And here it is right to state that all the measurements of parishes were made by Mr. Hitchins, from the boundaries laid down in his uncle’s map, and that they are copied from a manuscript which he had the kindness to give me in Oct. 1805.
| £. | s. | d. | |
| Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 | 3322 | 0 | 0 |
| Poor Rate in 1831 | 676 | 16 | 0 |
| Population,— | |||
| in 1801, 990 | in 1811, 1248 | in 1821, 1558 | in 1831, 1728 |
giving an increase of 74½ per cent. in 30 years.
THE GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.
This parish is similarly constituted to the adjacent parishes of St. Erth and Gwinear, being all situated on a line running north-east and south-west, between the large masses of granite of the Land’s End and of Cambrea.
St. Michael’s Mount, adjoining the shore of this parish, is an object of great attention to the geologist as well as to the tourist. It is composed almost entirely of granite, having only two small patches of slate, one on the western and the other on the eastern side; at these two places, and more particularly at the latter, the junction of the granite and of the slate may be seen, the slate being intersected with numerous granite veins. The granite of the Mount is not so large-grained as that of the Land’s End; but the structure of the rock is no where better displayed than at
this place on the southern side; where the whole mass is distinctly divided into large quadrangular blocks, and is traversed in a direction parallel to the divisions, by quartz veins, which contain crystals of mica, of apatite, and of topaz, and also the ores of tin, copper, and wolfram, the latter of which is the most abundant.
One most important geological fact is here beautifully exhibited. That the mineral composition of granite is altered in the vicinity of quartz veins, whether they are metalliferous or otherwise; approaching these veins the granite becomes more and more siliceous, until at length it gradually passes into the quartz, which forms the body (or matrix as it is called) of the veins. A fact difficult to reconcile with the generally received opinion, which assumes all veins to have been originally fissures, subsequently filled up from above or beneath.
[6] William of Worcester.