ECCLESIASTICS AND WARRIORS.

THE ARUNDELLS OF LANHERNE, TRERICE AND TOLVERNE,

'The princely Arundells of yore.'

H. S. Stokes.

On the north-west coast of Cornwall, famous for its magnificent cliff scenery and fine stretches of golden sand, are four lovely valleys

'Looking towards the western wave,'

lying close together, and each watered by a little trout-stream; but, as is the case with Cornish landscape generally, with one exception scantily timbered. Each of these is more or less directly connected with the celebrated family of Arundell. I refer, first, to a valley through which a small stream murmurs, which rose on the northern slope of Denzell Downs, and flows near St. Ervan Church, having for its little tributaries two rivulets which water the foot of the sloping ground on which still stands a farm-place, called Trembleath, and entering the sea at Portcothan Bay; secondly, to the Vale of Lanherne, which extends from St. Columb Major to Mawgan Porth, and includes two churches, so named; next, to the valley with a nameless brook, which flows past Rialton—formerly the residence of the haughty Thomas Vivian, one of the latest Priors of Bodmin, and afterwards a seat of the Godolphins—then by the base of a hill crowned by the lofty tower of St. Columb Minor; and lastly, to the vale of the Gannel, near whose embouchure are the remains of the ancient collegiate establishment of Crantock, now represented by the highly interesting church, which, though nearly complete, is in a very unsatisfactory state of repair.

Each of these valleys has its porth (or port), a circumstance to which they were all probably indebted for the churches which they still possess; for in the days of small shipping, these little ports—smaller now than they formerly were—sufficiently accommodated the tiny craft which brought holy men from Ireland, or from South Wales, and, indeed, at that time probably afforded the chief means of communication with the outer world.

It is the second of these four valleys that we have chiefly to consider now, closely identified as it is with the names of the Arundells—'the great Arundells,' as they were called (on account, says Camden, of their vast riches), and as they called themselves, too; for on one of their tombs in the church of St. Columb Major was inscribed, 'Magnorum sepulchra Arundeliorum.' Parts of the vale are beautifully wooded, and the churches of St. Columb and Mawgan, which retain many features of interest, are both identified with the famous family whose story we are about to consider.[19] And here it should be premised that, besides the Arundells of Lanherne, Trerice, Tolverne, and Wardour, there were the Arundells of Menadarva, who afterwards settled at Trengwainton, near Penzance, descended from a Camborne stock, founded by a 'natural' son of an Arundell of Trerice, who intermarried with Pendarves and St. Aubyn. And again, the Arundells of Trevithick, in St. Columb Major, were a younger branch of the Lanherne family. They settled there circa Edward VI., and became extinct in 1740.

Of the first three branches I propose to treat under the heads of Lanherne, Trerice, and Tolverne; and to conclude my observations with a short reference to one or two minor branches of the family.

There can be no doubt, although Hals, with his usual ingenuity (and it might also be said, I fear, with his usual inaccuracy), has endeavoured to find a Cornish etymology for the name, that the name of Arundell is of French origin. At any rate, such was the belief in the early part of the thirteenth century; for they bore swallows in their escutcheon at least as early as the days of Henry II.; and in the 'Philippeis,' a work composed by Philip le Breton in 1230, there are the following verses descriptive of an encounter between an Arundell and one William de Barr:

'Vidit Hirundelâ velocior alite quæ dat
Hoc Agnomen ei, fert cujus in ægide signum
Se rapit agminibus mediis clypeoque nitenti
Quem sibi Guillelmus lævâ prætenderat ulnâ
Immergit validam præacutæ cuspidis hastam.'

(See p. 207, Camden's 'Remains,' 1637.)

But it is perhaps right to add that Davies Gilbert, P.R.S., a Cornish gentleman, who settled in Sussex, thought the name might have been derived from Arun Dale.

According to Mr. G. Freeth (R. I. C. Journal, September, 1876, pp. 285-93), Trembleth (a name still retained), in the adjoining parish of St. Ervan, was the chief seat of the Arundells before their marriage with the heiress of Lanherne. At any rate, Trembleth (situated in the northernmost of the four valleys mentioned above) was a residence of some of the subsequent members of the family. Hals gives the following interesting account of the place:

'Trembleigh, Trembleth, alias Trembleeth, alias Tremblot (see Tremblethick, in St. Mabyn), synonymous terms, signifies the "wolf's town."

'From this place was denominated an ancient family of gentlemen, surnamed De Trembleth, who, suitable to their name, gave the wolf for their arms; whose sole inheritrix, about Henry II.'s time, was married to John de Arundel, ancestor of the Arundels of Lanherne; who, out of respect and grateful remembrance of the great benefit they had by this match, ever since gave the wolf for their crest, the proper arms of Trembleth.

'In this town they had their domestic chapel and burying-place, now totally gone to decay, since those Arundels removed from hence to Lanherne. This manor was anciently held of the manor of Payton, by the tenure of knight's service. And here John de Arundel held a knight's fee (Morton, 3rd Henry IV.), as I am informed.'

The assumption of their French origin is further borne out by the fact that the early Arundells—especially one, Roger—obtained from the Conqueror considerable grants of land in Dorsetshire and Staffordshire. I have, however, been unable to obtain any clear traces of their connexion with Cornwall earlier than towards the middle of the thirteenth century, when they presented to the churches of St. Columb Major and of Mawgan. Again, a Sir Ralph Arundell was Sheriff of Cornwall in 1260; and, indeed, Hals observes that the Arundells filled the same office twenty times, of which there was no like instance in England. Some member of the family was generally knighted at the accession of a new sovereign to the throne, and one of the early Arundells was Marshal of England.

Amongst the monuments in the church of St. Columb Major is one to a John Arundell, once 'senescallus Dñi Regis et verus patronus hujus ecclesiæ, qui hanc capellam fieri fecit.' He died in the year 1400, and stained glass in the windows also commemorated at this date the family. There are also Arundell brasses at Antony East, Mawgan, and Stratton, and a monument at Newlyn East.

They held Lanherne of the Bishop of Exeter by military service, as appears from folio 102 of Bishop Stapledon's Register: it is therein called 'La Herne,' but it was also known formerly as Lanhadron.

Amongst other indications of their early settlement in the county, and of their importance from the very first, it may be mentioned that:

'Rad., son of Oliver de Arundell, of Lanherne, had £20 a year or more, in land, in 1297; and so had John Arundell, of Efford.

'Rad. D'Arundle held a "parv. feo." in Trekinnen.

'Johannes D'Arundle held military feus in Treawset and in Trenbeith, in 3rd Hen. IV. (1402). Also a "parv. feod." in Trekinnen.'

From the Records preserved at Exeter, the following further information, which bears upon the early connexion of the Arundells with the far West, has been gathered; and it is scarcely to be doubted that still earlier traces of their settlement in Cornwall might at one time have been forthcoming:

'Willus de Arundell, canonicus obiit vi. Kal. Maii, MCCXLVI.'

(Exeter Cathedral Martyrologium.)

But most of their monumental remains which still exist, are of later date, and are met with at various places in Cornwall, chiefly in the eastern parishes.

A Roger Arundell lived opposite the portico of St. Stephen's Church, in the High Street, Exeter, about the middle of the thirteenth century, and a Ralph Arundell, who was rector of St. Columb Major, resigned his benefice in 1353, whereupon the bishop (Grandison) granted him a pension of £20 a year, in consideration of his near relationship to Sir James Arundell, patron of the benefice.

Amongst the documents preserved in Bishop Lacy's Register is the will of Sir John Arundell, dated 18th April, 1433; he was probably that Sir John who is said to have had (temp. Ric. II.) no less than fifty-two complete suits of cloth of gold. This will refers to so much that is of interest, that I have been tempted to set down a few passages from it:—

Sir John leaves his soul to Almighty God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and all the saints; and his body to be buried in the new chapel near the chancel of the church of St. Columb Major. He gives £20 towards the bells of that church, 60 shillings towards the restoration of St. Erme Church, and 20 shillings to the rector of the same. A like sum for the restoration of the church of Maugan de Lanherne, and 20 shillings for the maintenance of divers lights therein, and £10 for the bell-tower, provided the requisite work is done within the following six years.

The rectors of St. Ewe, St. Mawgan juxta Carminow, and St. Wynwole (Gunwalloe) also receive bequests. He gives 13s. 4d. to the light of St. Michael's in the Mount,[20] and the same sum towards the construction of the chancel there. St. Perran Zabuloe also comes in for his bounty, and £13 are to be spent in 3,000 masses, to be celebrated for the benefit of his soul as quickly as possible after his death. To his blood-relation, Isabelle Bevylle, he leaves 4 marks; to John Tresithny, 10; to John Michell, 5;[21] and to others named, similar sums. But perhaps the most singular bequest of all is the following, viz., 'Item, lego ad usum parochie S' ci Pyerani in Zabulo ad claudendum capud S. Pierani honorificè et meliori modo quo sciunt xls.'[22] One is curious to know why the testator took such special interest in this singular relic. Certainly the Arundells were interested in the parish, and, as we shall presently see, one of them married the heiress of its chief manor. He finally leaves sundry vessels of precious metal to his son, 'Renfrido,' etc., and names as his executors, Bishop Lacy, his sons, Thomas (miles) and Renfr—, Otho Tregoney, and others.

It would be a fruitless task to endeavour to give details of the genealogy of the earlier Arundells, for it is enveloped in considerable uncertainty; and even so patient and skilled an investigator as Colonel J. L. Vivian, in his 'Annotated Heralds' Visitations of Cornwall,' has discovered such serious discrepancies in the various statements concerning it, that he gives up some portions of it in despair. We have seen that Roger was the Christian name of the Arundell at the time of the Conquest; in 1216, his grandson, William, forfeited his lands by rebellion (a tendency to which offence was, as we shall see, rather characteristic of the family), but the estates were restored to the rebellious William's nephew, Humphry. By the latter's marriage with Joan de Umfraville, he had a son, Sir Renfry de Arundell of Treffry, and by Renfry's marriage with Alice de Lanherne, in the time of Henry III., the name of Arundell became for many a long year associated with that of Lanherne. One of their sons, Sir Ralph, was, as we have seen, Sheriff of Cornwall in the same reign (1260), and from his marriage with a lady who bore the euphonious name of Eva de Rupe, or de la Roche, of Tremodret,[23] in Duloe parish, the main stem of the family seems to have shot forth its boughs and branches. Their younger son, Ralph, was that rector of St. Columb Major, who, as we have seen, resigned his living in 1353, or, according to some other authorities, in 1309. But their eldest son, Sir John of Trembleth, in the time of Edward I., married Joan le Soor, of Tolverne, and thus appears to have originated the connection which so long subsisted between the two branches of the family. Their children, Margaret and Sir John, married, the former with a Beville, and the latter with a Carminow; and now, for the first time, the name of Trerice also appears in the family tree, for this Sir John is said to have had a cousin, Ralph Arundell of that place. I cannot trace his descent, and can only suggest that he may have been a brother instead of a cousin. If I have correctly interpreted the pedigree, the last-named Sir John was a man of mark, and of him we have the following accounts:—

'In the year 1379, an expedition was fitted out by King Richard II., in the second year of his reign, in aid of the Duke of Bretagne, under the command of "Dominus Johannes Arundell," as old Thomas Walsingham, a learned monk of St. Albans, calls him.[24] On their way, after repulsing the French fleet off the coast of Cornwall, and whilst waiting for a favourable wind to cross the Channel, the commander of the expedition besought the hospitality of a certain convent of nuns (according to one account, at Netley), the lady superintendent of which very properly refused it to so rough and ready a band of military as composed Arundell's following. She besought most earnestly, "prostrata," and "conjunctis manibus," that he would find quarters for his men elsewhere, but all in vain. Scenes of a most disgraceful and violent character ensued, as might have been expected; and, not content with doing foul dishonour to the nuns, the soldiery were permitted to spoil the neighbourhood. They even went so far as to carry off from the convent the sacred vessels of its church, and several of the sisterhood as well ("vi vel sponte"), whereupon they were most righteously excommunicated by the priest. A violent tempest pursued them for their misdoings, a diabolical spectre appearing in Arundell's ship, threatening the dire disasters which followed. The unhappy women were flung overboard to lighten the ships, which at length made the coast of Ireland, upon which event Arundell made a speech concluding thus, according to the chronicler:

'"Minus grave est hoc quam in mare totiens ante mortem mori, et tandem mortem dedecorosam evadere nullo modo posse. Aut si inimici sunt qui in hac terra sunt, citius eligo per manus hostiles interfici (forsitan cadaveri sepulturam indulgebunt) quam more pecoris marinis mergi fluctibus, et fieri pelagi monstris cibus."'

But the swashbuckler was doomed not to escape as he had hoped, though finally he was to receive the sort of burial which he so evidently desired. His ship was driven on the rocks, and her ship-master and Sir John Arundell of Treleigh were drowned, together with his esquires and other men of high birth. Many were rescued by the Irish, but twenty-five ships in all were lost, and large numbers of their crews. Three days afterwards many of the bodies were recovered, amongst them those of Arundell, and were buried in a certain abbey in Ireland.[25]

As Froissart's account differs from the foregoing in some particulars, I have appended a translation of it for the convenience of those who may desire to compare the two: it will be noticed that Froissart entirely omits the story of the desecration of the convent.

'The time had now arrived for sending off the promised succour to the Duke of Brittany. Sir John Arundel was appointed to command the expedition, and there accompanied him Sir Hugh Calverley, Sir Thomas Banaster, Sir Thomas Trivet, Sir Walter Pole, Sir John Bourchier, and the Lords Ferrers and Basset. These knights, with their forces, assembled at Southampton,[26] whence they set sail. The first day they were at sea the weather was favourable, but towards evening the wind veered about and became quite the contrary; so strong and tempestuous was it, that it drove them on the coast of Cornwall that night, and as they were afraid to cast anchor, they were forced the next day into the Irish Sea; here three of their ships sank, on board of which were Sir John Arundel, Sir Thomas Banaster, and Sir Hugh Calverley; the two former, with upwards of eighty men, perished, but Sir Hugh fortunately clung to the mast of his vessel and was blown ashore. The rest of the ships, when the storm had abated, returned as well as they could to Southampton. Through this misfortune the expedition was put an end to, and the Duke of Brittany, though sadly oppressed by the French, received all that season no assistance from the English.'—(Froissart's Chronicles, p. 154.)

The unlucky knight's grandson was that Sir John Arundell of Lanherne, who was made a Knight of the Bath at the coronation of King Henry IV. in 1399, and who married a lady, who, if she were as lovely as her lovely name—Annora or Eleanora Lambourne, of Perranzabuloe—must indeed have been 'beautiful exceedingly.' But, indeed, the Arundells seem to have been fond of sweet-sounding Christian names for their womankind. Such names as Sibilla and Emmota occur very early in the family-tree. This Sir John must have been a personage of some valour and consideration; for we find that he was retained by an indenture of King Henry V. to serve at sea with 3 knights, 364 men-at-arms, and 776 archers, in certain vessels which were specified. He was four times Sheriff of Cornwall, and was member for the county in 1422-23, together with another John Arundell, apparently.

The next Arundells who claim our attention will require a little more space to be devoted to the consideration of their exploits. They were grandsons of the last-named Sir John; and one of them, also a Sir John, became Admiral and Sheriff of Cornwall, and a General for King Henry VI., in France; the other, his cousin, also named John, became Bishop of Exeter. To the former of these two, as the senior, let us first turn.

He was born, or at least baptized, in 1421; and, his father dying some two years afterwards, he became a ward of the King, and at length (in the 29th year of the reign of Henry VI.) was the largest free tenant in Cornwall, his estates being of the value of £2,000 per annum.

John, the Bishop, was the son of Sir Rainfred (or Reinfry) Arundell, knight (by Joan Coleshull, his wife, sister and heir of Sir John Coleshull of Tremodret, knight), who was the third son of Sir John Arundel of Lanherne (and not, observes Tonkin, 'Talvern, as Anthony Wood saith'). He is said to have been educated in the neighbouring College of Augustine Monks at St. Columb, to which one of his ancestors is alleged to have been a munificent benefactor,[27] as he also was to the church at that place, building a chapel thereto for himself and family, at the east end of the south aisle; and here he was buried in the year 1400.[28] Educated at Exeter College, Oxford, he became successively a Canon of Windsor, Prebendary of York and Salisbury, Dean of Exeter, and Chancellor of Hereford, and having been consecrated Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, Nov. 6, 1496, was for his piety and learning translated, by Henry VII., to Exeter, June 29, 1502. He died, March 15, 1503, at the house belonging to the Bishop of Exeter (Exeter House), in the parish of St. Clement's Danes, London, in which church he was buried on the south side of the high altar. His will is preserved at Somerset House. Weever gives a copy of a 'maimed' inscription on his tomb. To his Register is prefixed a 'Prologus,' written by his secretary. It recites his noble descent, his sound doctrine, and his great virtues, his constant attendance at divine service, and his bountiful hospitality. By his will he left £20 towards the finishing of St. Mary's Church, Oxford. His portrait is at Wardour Castle.

Hals, in his account of St. Columb Major, writes thus of the Bishop (but see note, p. 51):

'Contiguous with this churchyard was formerly extant a college of Black Monks or Canons Augustine, consisting of three fellows, for instructing youth in the liberal arts and sciences; which college, when or by whom erected and endowed, I know not. However, I take it to be one of those three colleges in this province, named in Speed and Dugdale's Monasticon, whose revenues they do not express (nor the place where they were extant), but tell us that they were dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Lady of Angels, and were black monks of the Augustines.

'In this college, temp. Henry VI., was bred up John Arundell, a younger son of Renfry Arundell, of Lanherne, Esquire, sheriff of Cornwall, 3rd Edward IV., where he had the first taste of the liberal arts and sciences, and was afterwards placed at Exon College in Oxford, where he stayed till he took his degree of Master of Arts, and then was presented by his father to John Booth, Bishop of Exeter, to be consecrated priest, and to have collation, institution, and induct, into his rectory of St. Colomb. Which being accordingly performed, and he resided upon, this rectory glebe lands for some time, which gave him opportunity to build the old parsonage house still extant thereon, and moat the same round with rivers and fish-ponds, as Sir John Arundell, Knight, informed me afterwards.'

If we are to accept the authority of Dallaway in his 'History of the See of Chichester,' of the Rev. Prebendary W. R. Stephens in his 'Memorials' of that See, and of M. A. Lower in his 'Sussex Worthies,' there was another member of this branch of the family, also named John Arundell, who attained to the dignity of the episcopal throne; but his place in the pedigree is not easily to be identified, and as the Rev. C. W. Boase truly remarks, it is very difficult to distinguish between the John Arundells of this time. He was one of the Physicians, as well as Confessor and Domestic Chaplain, to Henry VI. He was also Fellow of Exeter College, Oxon, Proctor of University, and held many preferments without cure of souls; and he was sometime Canon of Windsor, Prebendary of Sarum, York and St. Paul's, and Dean of Exeter. The King asked Pope Calixtus III. to make him Bishop of Durham, but he was, instead, made Bishop of Chichester, May, 1458. He died in 1478, and bequeathed lands for the celebration of his anniversary and of a nightly mass throughout the year. Near the entrance into the choir of Chichester Cathedral he erected a large altar tomb of Petworth marble, ornamented with brasses (probably since stolen), and at one time concealed by pews. But a tablet was affixed to a pier near the tomb, which gave some account of him, recording that he left 'Benefield's lands' to found a chantry. Lower also credits him with the erection of the oratory between the nave and choir, and with the 'Arundell' screen in 1477, which was removed during the restorations in 1860.

The warrant for the appointment of himself and colleagues to be the King's Physicians is in the Cotton. MSS. (Vespasian G xiv. p. 415). In it the medicines and other means of cure which the professors of the healing art were (with the concurrence of the Council) to employ are duly specified: they included 'potiones, syrupi, confectiones, clysteria, suppositoria, caputpurgea, gargarismata, balnea, capitis rasura,' etc., etc., and the document affords a curious glimpse of the state of the medical skill and knowledge of the time. It is referred to by Johnson in his 'Life of Linacre.' Unfortunately this Bishop's Register is lost, but his career would seem to have been uneventful.

To resume the story of the descent of the family. The records which I have been able to consult throw little or no light of importance upon most of the immediate descendants of Richard II.'s Admiral; his daughters married men of rank and title, such as the Lords Marney and Daubeny, Sir Henry Strangways, Sir William Capell, and Sir William Courtenay; and one of them, Ellen, secured the affections of Ralph, 'The great Copplestone.' One son only, Thomas, he had (or he may perchance have been a grandson); he, like so many others of his race, was knighted at a coronation, on this occasion the coronation of King Richard III. John, his son, won his knighthood too; but in a different fashion, for he was made knight-banneret for his valour in the field, at the sieges of 'Toronne' (Therouenne, 7 miles south of St. Omer) and Tournay, wherein so many ostentatious deeds of valour were performed on both sides. He died in 1545, and was buried in the church of St. Columb Major, where there is a brass to his memory.

By his second wife, Katharine, daughter of Sir Thomas Grenville, of Stow, Sir John had an erudite daughter, Mary, whose fame is enshrined in the pages of Ballard's 'Celebrated British Ladies.' She is chiefly known by her translations, especially of the 'Sayings and Doings of the Emperor Severus,' which she dedicated to her father, 'pater honoratissimus;' and some of her manuscripts are, I believe, preserved in the Royal Library. She married, first, Robert Radcliff, Earl of Sussex; and secondly, Henry, 17th Earl of Arundell. One of the successors of the learned lady, named Margaret, who died in 1691, was buried in the Trerice Arundell vault in Newlyn Church, at the east end of the south aisle; and according to Davies Gilbert, it was through her that the Trerice estates passed into the hands of their present proprietor, Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, Bart.

Sir John's grandson, of the same name, next claims a short notice. Dodd, in his 'Church History,' says of him:

'Sir John being an "occasional conformist," his conversation with Mr. Cornelius had given him (Cornelius) early impressions in favour of the Catholic religion, which grew stronger in the University, where he met with many of the same dispositions. At length, being weary of a conformity against his conscience, he left Oxford.'

This was that Father Cornelius who, so Foley informs us, was born at Bodmin, of Irish parents, and early attracted Sir John's attention by his studious disposition. Sir John took him by the hand, and always stood his friend. But Cornelius became a Jesuit and a recusant, and was hung, drawn, and quartered at Dorchester, in 1594. He was chaplain to Lady Arundell after her husband's decease, and she having recovered the body, gave it honourable interment.

The favour in which Cornelius and other priests about this time were held by our Sir John Arundell, cost him his liberty. He was summoned to London in 1581, and for nine years was kept a prisoner in Ely Palace, Holborn, only leaving it to go down to Isleworth and die. His body was conveyed to St. Columb with great pomp, and there is a monument there to his memory.

His daughters, Dorothy and Gertrude, entered the Convent of Benedictine nuns at Brussels, in the year 1600, and the former wrote an account of the last days of Father Cornelius, which part of his life she appears to have spent with him.

From the knight-banneret of Tournay and Therouenne descended the Arundells of Wardour; who, on obtaining that estate and castle (whose gallant defence by Lady Blanche Arundell, during the Civil War, is familiar to the reader of romance as well as to the historical student) by intermarriage with the heiress of John, Lord Dinham and ceasing to reside in Cornwall, the story of whose Worthies I am endeavouring to tell, are not strictly speaking included in my scheme; but they evidently remembered with affection their Cornish origin, for on the east front of old Wardour Castle is a Latin inscription, of which the following is an uncouth translation, believed to be by Henry, the eighth Lord Arundell:—

'Here, branch of Arundell Lanhernian race,
Thomas first sat, and he deserved the place:
He sat, and fell: Merit the fatal crime,
And Heav'n, to mark him faultless, bless'd his line.
Matthew his offspring, as the Father, Great,
And happier in his Prince, regain'd the seat.
Confirm'd, enlarg'd; long may its fortune stand!
HIS care who gave, resum'd, restor'd the land.'

The above Matthew had a brother Charles, who left England in 1583, on account of his attachment to the Roman Catholic creed, visited Rome and Spain, and finally died in Paris 9th December, 1587.

And here it may be well to add, that by the marriage of Mary Arundell in 1739 to Henry, seventh Baron Arundell of Wardour, the Lanherne and Wardour branches of the family were, after a separation of more than two centuries, re-united. At Wardour are preserved numerous MSS. relating to the Arundell family; a most interesting as well as extensive series. It includes the Tywardreath Charter with the Laocoön seal, various inventories of furniture, household books, travelling expenses, tailor's bills, etc., etc., to say nothing of court rolls, rentals, surveys, etc., from the reign of Richard II. to that of Henry VIII.

Sir Thomas, a grandson of the friend of Father Cornelius, 'when but a young man, signalized himself so much by his valour against the Turks, in Hungary, that the Emperor Rodolph II. raised him to the dignity of a Count of the Empire in 1595: granting that his children, of both sexes, and their descendants, should for ever enjoy that rank; have a vote in all the diets of the Empire, purchase lands within the dominion of the Empire, raise volunteers, and not be put to any trial, except in the Imperial Chamber. In forcing the water-tower, near Gran (a formerly rich town of Hungary), he took from the Turks their banner, with his own hand; which banner, taken by Sir Thomas, of Wardour, was preserved, as a trophy, in the Vatican at Rome; where it remained till the French revolution. This brave young knight was recommended to the Emperor by Queen Elizabeth, in a Latin letter, written by her own hand, which is still kept at Wardour Castle.' King James I. made him first Baron Arundell of Wardour in 1605. He died at Wardour in 1639, æt. 79.

Another Sir John married his relative, an Arundell of Trerice, namely Anna, the widow of John Trevanyon. It is noteworthy that on this Sir John's tomb in St. Columb churchyard he is styled baronet, but there is no reason to believe that he reached a higher dignity than that of knighthood.

The name was at length assumed by Richard Beling, who married into a family more illustrious than his own. But I believe this branch of the family has now, too, become extinct; and it is said that the last of the Lanherne Arundells died in Cornwall in 1766—a collector of the customs at Falmouth.

We now come to a very interesting phase of the family history: I mean the results which followed upon the attachment of this branch of the Arundells to 'the old religion,' as the Roman Catholic faith was called. It was exemplified by two episodes which deserve attention: one was the tragic story of Cuthbert Mayne, a recusant priest who was harboured at Golden near Probus, in the residence of the old Cornish family of Tregian, one of whom married Catherine, daughter of a Sir John Arundell and his wife, Elizabeth Dannet, and whose son Francis was imprisoned for recusancy in the time of Elizabeth. The story of Cuthbert Mayne is fully given in Morris's 'Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers,' Dr. Oliver's 'History of the Catholic Religion in the West of England,'and by Challoner in his 'Memoirs of Missionary Priests,' etc.

The second episode to which I have alluded is the story of Humphry Arundell, the 'leader of the Cornish rebellion'—a rising which was undertaken for a like cause—the defence of 'the old religion.' We are indebted to Mr. Froude for much valuable information on this subject, given in the fifth vol. of his 'History of England, from the fall of Wolsey to the Death of Queen Elizabeth.'

In the summer of 1548 one of Henry VIII.'s Commissioners, a Mr. Body, was murdered by a priest at Helston in Cornwall, whilst the Commissioner was carrying out the King's command in removing certain superstitious objects from the church. Some executions followed, but the Cornishmen were neither conciliated nor terrified thereby, and a rebellion was concocted, Sir Humphry Arundell, of the Mount, and Henry Boyer, Mayor of Bodmin, being the leaders.

The rebellion was inaugurated at Sampford Courtney, on Dartmoor, when the people compelled the priests to say mass, notwithstanding that the English liturgy was commanded to be used, for the first time, on Whitsunday, 1549.

Lord Russell thereupon sends down Sir Peter and Sir Gawen Carew to quell the insurrection, but in June, 1549, 10,000 Cornishmen were in full march on Exeter. England was, in fact, rising in all directions, and the Commons of Devon and Cornwall insisted on the restoration of the mass, and that images should be set up again; the English Bibles were also to be called in, 'for we be informed that otherwise the clergy shall not of long time confound the heretics,' etc., etc.; and they added a petition that Humphrey Arundell and Henry Boyer should have safe access to the King to represent their grievances. Froude sets out the document in full. The Protector insisted upon Bonner's (Bishop of London) preaching a sermon condemning the rebellion, especially so far as Cornwall and Devon were concerned, and recanting his views as to the mass, etc.; and Bonner's imprisonment was the well-known result. Order was at length partially restored; but Exeter, where there was a strong 'Catholic' party, was, in July, actually besieged by the rebels, and they even talked of going on to London with their army, now 20,000 strong; but Exeter held out for six weeks. Whilst Humphry Arundell was advancing upon it, Carew brought the welcome tidings to Lord Russell (at Honiton, the rallying-point) of the advance of Lord Grey. Meanwhile a body of Cornishmen had arrived at Fennington Bridge, three miles from Exeter, where Sir Peter Carew attacked them; and here Sir Gawen, who was with him, was shot through the arm. The Cornishmen were scattered after a severe struggle, leaving 300 dead on the field, and their assailants at least as many; and Grey now came to the rescue of Exeter. At the battle of St Mary's Clyst the King's troops, though at first defeated, ultimately succeeded, and killed 1,000 rebels, besides taking many prisoners, who were afterwards put to the sword. The fight was renewed on the following day, and Grey, who had seen service, exclaimed that 'such was the valour and the stoutness of the men, that he never, in all the wars he had been in, did know the like.' But, as we have said, the rebels were massacred; the siege of Exeter was raised; and on the 6th of August the banner of the red dragon was flying from the city walls.

Yet the Cornish rallied on Dartmoor, at Sampford Courtney, under Humphry Arundell, Pomeroy, Underhill, and others; and here at length, where the fire was first kindled it was at last extinguished on Sunday, 17th August, 1549. The town had been fortified, and when the insurgents were driven back to it, to use Lord Russell's own words: 'While I was yet behind with the residue of the army conducting the carriage, Humphry Arundel with his whole power came on the back of our forewards,' and 'against Arundel was nothing for one hour but shooting of ordnance to and fro.' At length 'the rebels' stomachs so fell from them as without any blow they fled,' and multitudes of the unfortunate wretches were slain. Humphrey Arundel fled to Launceston, when he 'immediately began to practise with the townsmen and the keepers of Greenfield and other gentlemen for the murder of them that night. The keepers so much abhorred this cruelty as they immediately set the gentlemen at large, and gave them their aid, with the help of the town for the apprehension of Arundel, whom, with four or five ringleaders, they have imprisoned.'

The insurgents lost over 4,000 men during this fatal month. Martial law was proclaimed throughout Devon and Cornwall; and Arundell, with three others (Holmes, Winslow, and Berry), was hung at Tyburn. Holmes says that Boyer, the Mayor of Bodmin, was hung at his own door, after the Provost Marshal had dined with him.

Hals's account of the rising is so full and interesting, that it seems worth giving, even at the risk of incurring some little repetition. He says:

'This Priory or Abbey (of St. Michael's Mount) being dissolved by Act of Parliament, and given to the King, 33rd 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 these 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 Kiltor 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 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 the 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 6,000 men, which they looked upon as a good omen of their future success, and the firstfruits 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., a 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 whersoever 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 attorneys, for gain, wrong sense, and judgment—besides, in themselves, they were corrupt and partial in determining cases; others would have no lawyers nor attorneys, 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 and 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.:

'No. 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 these 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 these 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 farther 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 6,000 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.

'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 to 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 Montreuil in France, to be his General for raising soldiers to fight those rebels; who forthwith, pursuant thereto, raised a considerable army and marched them to Honiton; but when he came there he was informed that the enemy consisted of 10,000 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 foreseats 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.'

A contemporary account of Humphrey Arundell's execution in Mr. Richard Howlett's 'Monumenta Franciscana,' vol. ii., 27th January, 1550, states: 'Was drawne from the Tower of London vnto Tyborne iiii persons (Humfre Avrnedelle, Bere Vynch, Chyffe, Homes), and there hangyd and qwarterd, and their qwarteres sette abowte London on euery gatte; thes was of them that dyd ryse in the West cuntre.'

It has already been observed that an attachment to the Roman Catholic faith led many of the Arundells into trouble: as exemplifying this, I have culled a few other instances from the pages of a writer belonging to that Communion.

'The next successor to the property' (a son of John Arundell, the friend of Father Cornelius), 'was indeed a great sufferer for conscience' sake. In a letter before me of F. Richard Blount, dated 7th Nov., 1606, he says that Mr. Arundell, amongst others, had been forced to compound for the possession of his property by paying heavy fines to the Crown. He had been convicted of recusancy, but King James directed by his letters patent (20 Feb., 4 Jac. I., 1607) that none of Mr. Arundell's lands were to be seized so long as he paid £240 a year for not frequenting church,' etc.

'George Arundell was another recusant (20 June, 34 Eliz., 1591), and paid a similar fine.

'From a letter in the State Paper Office, dated 21 Oct., 1642, by a Parliamentarian, I make the following extract:

'"Mr. Arundell hath the greatest forces here, and is able to raise more than half the gentlemen in Cornwall, and he alone was the first that began the rebellion there. There hath lately been landed at some creek in that county ten or more seminary priests, which are newly come out of Flanders, and harboured in Mr. Arundell's house.[29] They are merciless creatures, and there is a great way laid for the apprehension of them."

'This gentleman had to suffer the sequestration of his estates for many years, and it cost him nearly £3,000 to get off at last.'

And the continued attachment of the Arundells to their ancient faith is exemplified in an interesting manner, as we shall see further on, by the conventual establishment still existing at Lanherne.

A few words will perhaps be expected as to the church, and the adjacent former residence of the Arundells of Lanherne. The sylvan beauty of the situation and its surroundings has already been adverted to, and the church and churchyard, at least, are still worthy of their site; but little remains of the once noble old mansion, of which Carew wrote: 'This said house of Lanherne is apportioned with a large scope of land, which, while the owners there lived, was employed to frank hospitality.'

At Mawgan Church the fragments of the screen which separates the nave and south aisle are carved with the arms of Arundell quartering Carminow, and on the south side of the chancel are brass shields on which the same arms are quartered with Archdekne, Arches, Carminow, Denham, Durnford, Grenville, etc. At the east end of the aisle on the screen are seven brass plates, 'chiefly inscribed with English and Latin verses, admonitory to the reader and eulogistic of the Arundells,' e.g.:

'What favour FORTUNE him affords, his landes and livings tell;
Of brethren five, though youngst he were, to lyve yet had he well.
His worthie house him worshipp gave, so famous ys that race;
The familie of ARUNDELLS, well knowne in every place.
And GRACE that woulde not be o'ercome gave him a godlye ende;
A gyft wherebi his soule ys sure to glory to ascende.
Where unto GRACE & GOD he yealds the price and prayse for aye;
What FORTUNE or dame NATURE gave, DEATH having tane away.'

The transept, or Arundell chapel, was once used as a burial-place for the nuns of the adjoining nunnery; it has a hagioscopic communication with the chancel.

The following inscription on a brass, the chief portion of which is now missing, has also been preserved:

'Here under lyeth buryed Mary Arundell, the daughter of Syr John Arundell, Knight, with the body of Elizabeth, his wyfe, who decessed the 23 day of April, a.d. 1578; and in the fourty-nyne yere of her age. On whose soul God have mercye.

'This virgin wyse, whose lampe with oyle repleat
The bridegroom's call with burninge light attended;
By following him hath won a worthye seate,
And lyves for aye, though death this lyfe hath ended.'
Etc., etc., etc.

Nearly the whole of the older Arundell brasses, which bore the names, dates of death, and ages of the members of that family are not now to be found in the church; one, a sort of palimpsest brass, bore on one side an acrostic to the memory of Jane Arundell, and on the other a representation of the Deity, and two other figures, probably symbolical. This brass is said to have been removed to the nunnery at the beginning of the present century.

LANHERNE HOUSE, formerly the manor-house of the Arundells, a picturesque but gloomy structure, is now a Roman Catholic Carmelite nunnery, 'by time unstricken, yet with ages hoar.' The south part of the house is the most ancient part; it has stone-mullioned windows, and a good doorway of Catacleuse stone.[30] The vane which still surmounts the dome represents a wolf—the crest of the Trembleath Arundells. About eighty years ago the building was assigned to sixteen nuns who fled from the siege of Antwerp by the French during the revolutionary wars; and their successors, now over twenty in number, continue to occupy the buildings.

THE ARUNDELLS OF TRERICE.[31]

As the crow flies, Trerice, anciently Treres, as Carew informs us, is about five miles south of Lanherne and about the same distance from the mouth of the Gannel, one of whose tributary streamlets runs round the slope on whose southern side still stands great part of the handsome and extensive mansion of this branch of the family. It is not the original building, dating as it does only from the year 1573; but its charming and sheltered situation, 'its costly and commodious dwellings,' the rich colours of the time-stained masonry, its huge mullioned windows, and the magnificent proportions of its large and lofty hall, stamp it as one of the few remaining mansions of the Cornish gentry that speak of the wealth and power and hospitality of the 'good old times.'

The county histories are almost silent as to the early seat of this branch of the family; but there is no reason to doubt that its site remains the same; and that Trerice was inhabited by an Arundell at least so far back as the reign of Edward III.—one Ralph being here, whilst his cousin (or perhaps his brother), Sir John, who married Elizabeth Carminow, held sway at Lanherne.[32] Apropos of this marriage into the powerful and wealthy family of Carminow, it is interesting to note that in the Register of Walter de Stapeldon, Bishop of Exeter, and founder of Exeter College, Oxon, we find that, in the year 1316, 'on the Monday before Michaelmas, our lord' (the Bishop) 'offered his niece, Joan Kaignes, as wife to John de Arundell, son and heir of John de Arundell defunct, who refused for the present; William Walle was present.' Were John's affections already pledged to the fair Elizabeth? The incident shows at least that the Bishop was desirous of forming an alliance between one of his own relatives and a house so important as that of Arundell.

Hals says that the Arundells of Trerice bore, at one time, the arms of Lansladron, viz., sable, three chevrons argent; but that at length they adopted the well-known coat of the family: sable, six swallows argent—three, two, and one.

Leland, writing of the Arundells of Trerice, observes: 'This Arundale giveth no part of the arms of the great Arundale of Lanheron, by St. Columbe. But he told me that he thought he cam of the Arundales in base Normandy, that were lordes of Culy Castelle;[33] that now is descended to one Monseir de la Fontaine, a Frenchman, by heir generale. This Arundale is caulid Arundale of Trerise, by a difference from Arundale of Lanheron. Trerise is a lordship of his, a three or four miles from Alein chirch.'

'What Leland means,' observes Tonkin, 'by his first words I cannot imagine. The then owner of Trerise was Sir John Arundell, who could not tell him that his arms were different from Arundells of Lanhearn, since it is most certain that they constantly gave the same, viz., the six swallows, and that without any difference or distinction, as not being well agreed on which was the elder family of the two; only, as it is before observed, Arundell of Trerice, the better to declare of what house he was, did always quarter the arms of Trerice with his own. Nay, further; as appeareth by a very fair pedigree of this family, drawn up by Mr. Camden himself, which was lately in the Lord Arundell's library, where I had the favour to peruse it, the ancestor of the Lanhearn family, which came over with William the Conqueror, left a widow, afterwards married to the ancestor of Arundell of Trerice, that came over at the same time; so that both these families are descended from that same woman. But as she was first married to the ancestor of Arundell of Lanhearne, it is supposed from thence that he was descended from the elder brother, and the other from the younger, as being both of the same stock; which is further confirmed, for that Arundell of Lanhearn had always the greater estate, and made the greater figure in their country, whence they were called the Great Arundells, though this of Trerice was likewise very eminent.'

Carew, who married into the family of the Tolverne Arundells, and who may therefore be assumed to be of some authority in the matter, does not go so far back as this for the rise of the Arundells of Trerice. He says, 'In Edward III.'s reign, Ralph Arundel matched with the heir of this land and name; since which time his issue hath there continued, and increased their livelihood by sundry like inheritors as St. John, Jew, Durant, Thurlebear,' etc. He adds, 'Precisely to rip up the whole pedigree were more tedious than behooveful; and therefore I will only (as by the way) touch some few points which may serve, in part, to show what place and regard they have borne in the commonwealth.'

I venture to think that, so far as modern readers are concerned, it will be well to adopt Carew's view; and that the more especially on account of the many difficulties which beset the case, as already mentioned at the commencement of this chapter. I do not therefore propose to advert to the Sir Oliver de Arundell of Carhayes of the time of Henry III., who married a lady of the same patronymic as himself, and who indeed was probably the true founder of the Trerice branch; but will at once mention, as the first historical representative of this part of the family, a Sir John Arundell of Trerice, Sheriff of Cornwall, who, early in the fifteenth century, viz. in the seventh year of Henry V., accompanied the Earl of Devon on a sea voyage 'in defence of the realm;' no doubt the same knight who was in the following reign addressed by the Earl of Huntingdon—Lieutenant-General to John, Duke of Bedford, Constable and Admiral of England—as 'Vice-Admiral of Cornwall.' I do not, however, feel certain whether it was he or his son (but more probably the latter) whose curious story has been thus narrated by Hals and by Carew.

Hals says, '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 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.'

'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 would be slain on 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.'

The connexion of this family with Stratton and Bude is further indicated by the churchwardens' accounts of Stratton Church, where knells were rung in 1526 for the Arundells; they are also recorded as having presented vestments to this church.

That the Arundells of Trerice long continued in Royal favour is evident from the fact that one of the family—a Sir John, a name to which all branches of the Arundells seem to have been extremely partial—received an autograph letter from the Queen of Henry VII., dated 12th October, 1488, wherein her Majesty informs the knight that she has been safely delivered of a prince.

We now arrive at some Arundells who make a greater figure in history than any of those who preceded them; and who, like their forefathers, seem to have stood well at Court. For in 1520, we find King Henry VIII. writing to Sir John Arundell of Trerice, his Esquire of the body—'Jack of Tilbury'—that he should give his attendance at Canterbury about the entertainment of the Emperor, whose landing on the English coast was then shortly expected.

Three years afterwards the same knight took prisoner Duncan Campbell, a notorious Scottish pirate, in a fight at sea, 'as our chronicle mentioneth;'[34] concerning which, 'I thought it not amiss,' says Carew, 'to insert a letter sent him from Thomas, Duke of Norfolk (to whom he then belonged), that you may see the style of those days.

'"By the Duke of Norfolk.

'"Right wellbeloued, in our hearty wise we commend us unto you, letting you wit, that by your seruant, this bearer, we haue receyued your letters, dated at Truru the 5 day of this moneth of April, by which we perceyue the goodly, valiant and ieopardous enterprise, it hath pleased God of late to send you, by the taking of Duncane Camel, and other Scots, on the sea; of which enterprise we haue made relation vnto the King's Highnesse, who is not a little ioyous and glad, to heare of the same, and hath required vs instantly in his name, to giue you thanks for your said valiant courage, and bolde enterprise in the premises: and by these our letters, for the same your so doing, we doe not onely thanke you in our most effectual wise, but also promise you, that during our life, we will be glad to aduance you to any preferment we can. And ouer this, you shall understand, our said Soueraigne Lord's pleasure is that you shall come and repaire to his Highnes, with diligence in your owne person, bringing with you the said Captiue, and the master of the Scottish ship; at which time, you shall not onely be sure of his especiall thanks by mouth, and to know his further pleasure therein, but also of us to further any your reasonable pursuits vnto his Highnes, or any other, during our life, to the best of our power, accordingly. Written at Lambeth, the 11th day of Aprill aforesaid

'"Superscribed To our right wellbeloved Servant

'"John Arundell of Trerice."'

It is singular that (so far as I am aware) there is so little recorded in history of an action to which so much importance was evidently attributed at the time of its performance.

'And in 35th Henry VIII.,' continues Carew, 'the King wrote to Sir John Arundell of Trerice, touching his discharge from the Admiralty of the fleet, lately committed unto him, and that he should deliver the ship which he sailed in, to Sir Nicholas Poynts. The same year the King wrote to him again, that he should attend him in his wars against the French King, with his servants, tenants, and others, within his rooms and offices, especially horsemen. Other letters from the King there are, whose date is not expressed, neither can I by any means hunt it out. One to his servant, John Arundell of Trerice, Esquire, willing him not to repair with his men, and to wait in the rearward of his army, as he had commanded him, but to keep them in a readiness for some other service. Another to Sir John Arundell of Trerice, praying and desiring him to the Court, the Quindene of St. Hillary next, wheresoever the King shall then be within the realm.

'There are also letters, directed to Sir John Arundell of Trerice, from the King's Counsel; by some of which it appeareth, that (temp. Edward VI.) he was Vice-Admiral of the King's ships in the west seas; and by others that he had the goods and lands of certain rebels given him, for his good service against them.

'Again the Queen, 1st of Mary (1553), wrote to Sir John Arundell of Trerice, praying and requiring him that he, with his friends and neighbours, should see the Prince of Spain most honourably entertained, if he fortuned to land in Cornwall. She also wrote to him (being then Sheriff of Cornwall, 2nd Mary) touching the election of the Knights of the Shire, and the burgesses for the Parliament. She likewise once more wrote to him (2nd and 3rd Philip and Mary) that (notwithstanding the instructions to the justices) he should muster, and furnish with servants, tenants, and others, under his rule and offices, with his friends, for the defence and quieting of the country, withstanding of enemies, and any other employment; as also to certify what force of horse and foot he could arm.

'These few notes,' Carew says, 'I have culled out of many others. Sir John Arundell, last mentioned, by his first wife, the co-heir of Bevill, had issue Roger, who died in his father's lifetime; and Katherine, married to Prideaux. Roger, by his wife Trendenham, left behind him a son called John. Sir John's second wife was daughter to Erisy, and widow to Gourlyn, who bare him John, his succeeder in Trerice, and much other fair revenues, whose due commendation, because another might better deliver than myself, who touch him as nearly as Tacitus did Agricola, I will, therefore, bound the same within his desert, and only say this, which all who knew him, shall testify with me; that, of his enemies, he would take no wrong, nor on them any revenge; and being once reconciled, embraced them, without scruple or remnant of gall. Over his kindred, he held a wary and charey care, which bountifully was expressed, when occasion so required: reputing himself not only principal of the family, but a general father to them all. Private respects ever, with him, gave place to the common good: as for frank, well-ordered, and continual hospitality, he outwent all show of competence: spare, but discreet of speech, better conceiving than delivering; equally stout, and kind, not upon lightness of humour, but soundness of judgment; inclined to commiseration, ready to relieve. Briefly, so accomplished in virtue, that those, who for many years together waited in nearest place about him, and, by his example, learned to hate untruth, have often deeply protested, how no curious observation of theirs could ever descry in him any one notorious vice. By his first foreremembered wife he had four daughters, married to Carew (the writer himself), Summaster, Cosowarth, and Denham: by his latter, the daughter of Sir Robert Denis, two sons and two daughters; the elder, even from his young years, began where his father left, and with so temperate a course, treadeth just in his footsteps, that he inheriteth, as well his love as his living. The younger brother followeth the Netherland wars, with so well-liked a carriage, that he outgoeth his age and time of service in preferment. Their mother equalleth her husband's former children, and generally all his kindred, in kind usage, with her own, and is by them all, again, so acknowledged and respected.'

But here we are anticipating a little, and must return to the hero of the engagement with the Scotch pirate. The victor was at length himself vanquished by the all-conquering one; and Sir John's monument is still to be seen in Stratton Church, in which place he was buried, probably either from his connexion with the Grenvilles [35]—great patrons of that church as well as of all the other churches in the neighbourhood—or else, perhaps on account of his family having resided at Ebbingford (Efford) near Bude Haven, hard by. Indeed, one Raynulfe Arundell was lord of Albaminster and Stratton so early as the days of Henry III.

On Sir John Arundell's tomb in Stratton Church he is represented in brass, lying between his two wives—Mary Beville, of Talland, and Juliana Erisey, of Erisey. Below the feet of his first wife stand the sons, Richard, John, and Roger; under the second are ranged the daughters, 'Margereta, Marie, Jane, Phelipe, Grace, Margeri, and Annes.' The inscription is:

'Here lyeth buryed Sir John Arundell, Treryse, Knyght, who, praysed be God, dyed in the Lorde the xxv daye of November in the yeare of oure Lorde God a MCCCCCLXI., and in the III^xx and VII yeare of his age, whose soule now resteth with the faythfull Chrystians in our Lorde.'

Carew has told us something of 'Jack of Tilbury's' son John, but only makes a short reference to a Sir Thomas Arundell, who I cannot help thinking must have been one of the Trerice family, although some authorities refer him to the Lanherne branch. He was, together with Sir John Tregonwell and others, appointed, in 1535, to be a Commissioner for the suppression of all religious houses 'of the sume of ccc marks and under;' and the rough reception which they met with at the Priory of St. Nicholas, Exeter, may be read in Dr. Oliver's 'Monasticon Diocesis Exoniensis,' p. 116.

He had been one of Wolsey's Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber, was made Knight of the Bath at Anne Boleyn's coronation, and was appointed Receiver-General of the Duchy of Cornwall, 1549.

He and his elder brother, John, were committed to the Tower (1549-50) for implication in the Humphry Arundell rebellion in January, but were released October, 1551. He was, however, re-committed to the Tower in the same month, accused of being concerned in the Duke of Somerset's conspiracy, wherein, Bishop Pouet says, 'Arundell conspired with that ambitious and subtil Alcibiades, the Earl of Warwick, after Duke of Northumberland, to pull down the good Duke of Somerset, King Edward's uncle and protector.' But, as Mr. Doyne Bell points out, in his 'History of the Church of St. Peter ad Vincula, in the Tower,' if this be correct, it is singular that he should have been afterwards re-arrested for conspiring with Somerset against Northumberland.

He was brought to trial with Sir Ralf Vane, and tried on the following day, viz., 29th January, 1551-52, when Machyn records that 'the quest qwytt ym of tresun, and cast hym of felonye, to be hanged.' Mr. Perne (probably the Prior of the Black Friars) 'was allowed to resort to Sir Thomas to instruct hym to dye well.'

We read in Mr. Richard Howlett's 'Monumenta Franciscana,' that, in the 'Chronicon ab anno 1189 ad 1556, ex registro Fratrum Minorum Londoniæ,' under date 26th February, 1552, is recorded that on that day, 'the wyche was Fryday, was hongyd at Towre-hylle sir Myllys Partryge, knyghte, the wyche playd with Kynge Henry the viii^te at dysse for the grett belfery that stode in Powlles churche-yerde; the wyche was callyd the gret belfery; and Sir Raffe Vane, theys too ware hongyd. Also sir Myhylle Stonnappe and sir Thomas Arndelle, theys too ware be-heddyd at that same tyme. And theis iiii. Knyghtes confessyd that the war neuer gylte for soche thynges as was layd vn-to their charge, and dyde in that same oppinioun.' He was buried in the chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula, in the Tower.

The Commission for seizing on the possessions in Cornwall and Devon of Sir Thomas Arundell, 'rebel and traitor,' is preserved amongst the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum (433, art. 1557); and an interesting catalogue of his plate, together with a list of that portion which was returned to his wife, Margaret, on 11th June, 1557, will be found in the Add. MSS. 5751.

I think, but am by no means clear on the point, that this is the Arundell to whom Henry VIII. granted, on 6th June, 1545, Scilly, and the monastery of Tavistock, and to whom, in the same year, the King wrote a remarkable letter concerning the Papists in Cornwall, which is preserved amongst the MSS. at Westminster.

Carew thus refers to his fate: 'Sir Thomas Arundel, a younger brother of Lanhearn House, married the sister to Queen Katharine Howard, and in Edward VI.'s time was made a Privy Counsellor; but cleaving to the Duke of Somerset, he lost his head with him.' But Carew does not mention, to the credit of his elder brother John, how (as we read in T. Wright's 'Queen Elizabeth and Her Times,' i. 507-8) the Earl of Bedford, writing to Lord Burghley from Truro, on 3rd August, 1574, reports that, the Spanish navy being now ready for sea, Sir John Arundell and others met him eight miles from Plymouth, and accompanied him throughout his visit to Cornwall; the object of which seems to have been an inspection of the defences. The Earl reports that he found Sir John 'ready and serviceable in all things.'

Perhaps the most interesting member of the family is the man who now appears upon the scene, the grandson of 'Jack of Tilbury,' and son of the foregoing Sir John. I mean 'John for the King,' the valiant hero who held Pendennis Castle so stoutly for Charles I. He was the son of John Arundell of Trerice, by his second wife, Gertrude Dennys, of Holcombe; and Richard Carew, the historian of Cornwall, married his half-sister, Julian.

Unless I am much mistaken, he was present—or if not he, it must have been his son Richard, who was also at Edgehill and at Lansdowne—with most of the Cornish gentry, including Sir Bevil Grenville, Trevanion, and others, at the victory obtained by the King's forces over the army of the Parliament, in 1623, on Braddock Downs—a fight which I have endeavoured to describe in the chapter on the Grenvilles.

At any rate, twenty years later, Colonel John Arundell, of Trerice, in Newlyn,[36] was appointed Governor of Pendennis Castle, in succession to Sir Nicholas Slanning, who fell at the siege of Bristol. According to some accounts he was then sixty-seven years of age, according to others eighty-seven; but the former is no doubt correct. Here, in the following year, he harboured for a night or two the unfortunate Queen Henrietta Maria, on her flight into France from Exeter (where she had just been confined of a prince) before the army of the Earl of Essex. The then Sheriff of Cornwall thus writes to his wife, Lady Francis Basset,[37] on the occasion:

'This thyrd of July, 1644.

'Deare Wiffe,

'Here is the woefullest spectacle my eyes yet ever look'd on; the most worne and weak pitifull creature in ye world, the poore Queene shifting for one hour's liffe longer.'

And here John Arundell also received the Prince, afterwards Charles II., in February, 1646. A room in the castle still retains the name of the King's Room.

The story of the siege has been admirably detailed by Captain Oliver, R.A., in his 'Pendennis and St. Mawes: an Historical Sketch of Two Cornish Castles.' On the 17th March, 1646, Fairfax took up his quarters at Arwenack House, the ancient seat of the Killigrews, as we shall see in the account of that family; the Killigrews themselves were within the castle walls. To Fairfax's summons to deliver up Pendennis, the gallant old Arundell gave, as might have been expected, 'a peremptory denyall,' saying (according to a contemporary, and not a friendly, account) that 'hee was 70 yeares old, and could not have many days to live, and therefore would not in his old yeares blemish his honour in surrendering thereof, and would rather be found buried in the ruines thereof, than commit so vilde a treason.' And so, with his brave garrison, 'all desperate persons and good soldiers ... many very considerable men ... and the violentest enemies that the Parliament hathe in this kingdom,' Arundell prepared to withstand the siege. Fairfax's haughty summons demanded a reply within two hours, and this was the answer he got—(it is preserved among the Clarendon State Papers):—

'Colonel John Arundell to Sir Thomas Fairfax.

'Sir,

'The Castle was committed to my Government by his Majesty, who by our Laws hath the command of the Castles and Forts of this Kingdom; and my age of seventy summons me hence shortly. Yet I shall desire no other testimony to follow my departure than my conscience to God and loyalty to his Majesty, whereto I am bound by all the obligations of nature, duty, and oath. I wonder you demand the Castle without authority from his Majesty; which, if I should render, I brand myself and my posterity with the indelible character of treason. And, having taken less than two minutes resolution, I resolve that I will here bury myself before I deliver up this Castle to such as fight against his Majesty, and that nothing you can threaten is formidable to me in respect of the loss of loyalty and conscience.

'Your Servant,

'John Arundell

'of Trerise.

'18 March, 1646.'

The story of the five months' siege, and how Pendennis was the last fortress but one (Raglan) to surrender to the Parliament, are matters of history; the besieged felt that the eyes of England were upon them, and did not flinch from the terrible privations which they were about to suffer. Two other summonses to surrender were made in the following month, with the same result as before. But at length, after many of the horses had been killed 'for beefe,' the garrison was reduced to the last extremity, and honourable articles of surrender were at length agreed to on the 16th August, 1646. Then the brave little band marched out 'with their Horses, compleat Arms, and other Equipages, according to their present or past Commands or Qualities, with flying Colours, Trumpets sounding, Drums beating, Matches lighted at both ends, Bullets in their Mouths,' and so on;—every man of them, starved and ragged as they all were, like their veteran leader, 'game to the toes.'[38]

Clarendon too (book x., par. 73) tells how they 'refused all summons, nor admitted any treaty till all their provisions were so near consumed that they had not victual left for four and twenty hours; and then they treated, and carried themselves in the treaty with that resolution and unconcernedness that the enemy concluded they were in no straits, and so gave them the conditions they proposed, which were as good as any garrison in England had accepted. This castle,' the historian goes on to say, 'was defended by the Governor thereof, John Arundel, of Trerice, in Cornwall, an old gentleman of near four score years of age, and one of the best estates and interest in that country, who, with the assistance of his son Richard Arundel (who was then a colonel in the army, and a stout and diligent officer, and was by the King, after his return, made a baron,[39] Lord Arundel of Trerice, in memory of his father's services, and his own eminent behaviour throughout the war), maintained and defended the same to the last extremity.' The estates of Richard Arundell, which had been confiscated, were restored to him on his being created a baron.

A letter from the King, in the possession of Mr. Rashleigh, of Menabilly (quoted by Captain Oliver), still further illustrates the high place which the Arundells held in the esteem of the first Charles. Writing to Sir William Killigrew, who had solicited the King that the reversion of the Government of Pendennis Castle should be promised to the above-mentioned Richard Arundell, Charles says:

'Will. Killigrew,

'Your suite unto me that I would conferre upon Mr. Arundell of Trerise Eldest sonne the reversion after his father of the government of Pendennis Castle which I had formerly bestowed upon you,[40] is so great a testimonye of your affection to my service, and of your preferring the good of that before any Interest of your Owne that I have thought fitt to lette you knowe in this particular way, how well I take it, and that my conferring that place according to your desire shall bee an earnest unto you of my intentions to recompence and reward you in a better (kind?).

'resting

'Your assured friend,

'Charles R.'

'Oxford the 12th
'Jan. 1643.'

And accordingly in 1662 Richard Arundell, who was present at the siege of Pendennis, and whom, by the way, Clarendon used to address as his 'dear Dick,' succeeded Sir Peter Killigrew in the governorship of the Castle, doubtless discharging the office with ability; but I do not find anything noteworthy during his tenure of the office, except, perhaps, that when the oath of supremacy was administered in 1666 (after the great fire of London) to Pendennis, as well as to many other garrisons, one man alone in that castle, and he, one of Lord Arundell's own servants, and a Roman Catholic, refused to take it.

Some authorities have stated that Richard Lord Arundell was succeeded in the governorship by his son, Lord John; but this is, to say the least, doubtful.

Pity, as it now seems to us, that gallant old John Arundell did not live long enough to see the King 'enjoy his own again,' and to receive the honours which, however, as we have seen, were ultimately conferred upon his son and successor. The capture of Pendennis and the final loss of the King's cause nearly ruined old John Arundell also; and it is said that he was even reduced to crave assistance from Cromwell himself, urging that the Trerice Arundells 'had once the honour to stand in some friendship, or even kinship, with your noble family.' The old hero was buried at Duloe, where, until lately, his monument might have been seen. Well would he have deserved a promised barony or any honours that might have been bestowed upon him, for he and his family served their King to the utmost of their means, four of his sons took up arms in the royal cause, and the two elder were King's men in the House of Commons. The eldest was killed at the head of his troop, whilst charging and driving back a sally at Plymouth in 1643; and Richard, the second son, the first Baron Arundell of Trerice, probably was at Edgehill and at Lansdowne, as well as at Pendennis.

The Arundells of Trerice became an extinct family by the death of the fourth baron, John, who died in 1768, when the estates passed to William Wentworth, his wife's nephew, who re-settled them, and they eventually became the property of their present possessor, Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, Bart., M.P.

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1829 (xcix. pt. 2, p. 215) observed that at that time the legal representatives of the Lords Arundell of Trerice were Mr. I. T. P. Bettesworth Trevanion, of Carhayes in Cornwall, and the Honble. Ada Byron, daughter of the poet—'Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart'—they being the descendants of the body of Anne, or Agnes, the only sister of Richard, the first Baron Arundell, that left issue. Yet it should perhaps also be recorded how another Arundell, descended from the Trerice stock, served his country in a useful, if not in so distinguished a capacity as did some of his ancestors; for the Honble. Richard Arundell, an uncle of the last baron, was M.P. for Knaresborough, was Clerk of the Pipe, Surveyor of Works, and Master and Warden of the Mint, and a Commissioner of the Treasury. He married the Lady Frances Manners, a daughter of the Duke of Rutland, and died, sine prole, in 1759. Walpole tells how Lady Arundell, during the earthquake panic of 1750, was one of those ladies who fled out of town (to avoid it) some ten miles off, where they were to play brag till five in the morning, and then came back to town, 'I suppose' (says Walpole) 'to look for the bones of their husbands and families under the rubbish.' 'Earthquake-gowns' were worn by ladies during this panic—i.e., gowns made of some warm materials in which they could sit up all night out of doors.

THE ARUNDELLS OF TOLVERNE.

Whilst I write the following lines, there lies before me an extremely rare, if not unique, MS. chart of Falmouth Haven and its tributary waters. It was made by one Baptista Boazio in 1597, and on it is marked, 'Tolverne Place, Mr. John Arondell.' The chart is of peculiar interest, inasmuch as, in addition to the ordinary information contained in documents of this nature, it gives the names of the occupants of the principal houses at the time. Thus we find a 'Buscowen' at Tregothnan (then called Buscowen House), a 'Carminow' at Vintangollan, a 'Bonithon' at Cariklew (Carclew), a 'Trefusis' at Trefusis, and so on. King Harry's (or rather Henry's) Passage (so named on the chart) and the Tolverne Ferry are also shown on this map; far more important passages of course in those days, when one of the main thoroughfares from the eastern to the western parts of Cornwall, through Tregony, Ruan-lani-horne and Philleigh, crossed the Fal at this point.

Tolverne is shown on the map as a place of some importance, as it doubtless was in those days; for here (if anywhere in Cornwall) Henry VIII. had, more than fifty years before the date of the map, probably stayed on his visit of inspection to the two castles of Pendennis and St. Mawes at the mouth of the haven, hard by, which that monarch (as Leland's inscriptions on the masonry record) was deeply interested in making secure against a foreign enemy.

Tolverne is now merely a substantial farmhouse. We are indebted to Carew for the following picture of the place, contemporary with the map, as it stood in his time nearly three hundred years ago: 'Amongst all of the houses upon that side the river, Talverne, for pleasant prospect, large scope, and other housekeeping commodities, challengeth the pre-eminence. It was given to a younger brother of Lanhearne, for some six or seven descents past, and hath bred gentlemen of good worth and calling; amongst whom I may not forget the late kind and valiant Sir John Arundell, who matched with Godolphin, nor John, his vertuous and hopeful succeeding son, who married with Carew.' It will be remembered also that Richard Carew himself married an Arundell.

Philleigh was their church, as Mawgan was that of the Lanherne Arundells, and Newlyn East that of the Arundells of Trerice; and the transept of Philleigh is still called the Tolverne or Falmouth Aisle; but no traces of Arundell monuments are now to be found there;—although C. S. Gilbert, in his history of Cornwall, states that in one of the windows there was a shield bearing the arms of the family. Yet, so early as 1383, the connexion of the family with Church affairs in the parish is shown by the fact that, in that year, Ralph Soor, or Le Sore, obtained a license from the Bishop of Exeter for saying mass in his chapel in his manor-house of Tolferne; and that a Sir John Arundell of Trembleth [41] married Joane le Soore of Tolverne, in the reign of Edward I., two or three generations before this.[42]

The Arundells do not, however, seem to have regularly established themselves at Tolverne until a son of Sir John of Lanherne and his wife Annora Lambourne—Sir Thomas Arundell of Tolverne—settled here with his wife, Margery Lerchdekne. They had no children, and, on the lady's death, Sir Thomas took unto himself a second wife, Elizabeth Paulton, from whom the Tolverne Arundells may be said to have descended. Sir Thomas himself died in 1443; but I do not know where he was buried; probably at Philleigh.

Of the lives of the Tolverne Arundells, whose current seems to have been as tranquil as that of the sylvan Fal, which ebbed and flowed round their domain, I find little to record, except that they intermarried with many of the old Cornish families—with the Courtneys of Boconnoc, with Reskymer, Trelawny, Carminow, St. Aubyn, their neighbour Trefusis, Chamond, Godolphin, and, as we have seen, Carew. We have traces of the will of Thomas Arundell, Esq., of Talverne, dated 22nd May, 1552, which shows that he possessed tenements in Truro borough and elsewhere, also the passage and passage-boat of Talverne. The inventory of his property was sworn at £224 5s. 9d. There is also extant the will of John Arundell, 7th February, 1598, but it contains little of interest, except that he bequeaths to his mother his 'little guilt sack-cup with a cover,' and that his executors were Richard Carew of Antony, and Richard Trevanion of St. Gerrans.

One of the sons of the latter Arundell, namely Thomas, who was knighted by James I., sold Tolverne; having seriously impaired his fortune, it is said, by endeavouring to discover an imaginary island in America, called 'Old Brazil;' he afterwards lived at Truthall in the parish of Sithney. One of the Truthall Arundells, John, was Colonel of Horse for Charles II., and a Deputy-Governor of Pendennis Castle under his relative Richard, Lord Arundell of Trerice. He was buried at Sithney on 25th May, 1671; but I have hitherto been unable to trace anything further of interest of his history, or of that of his descendants. One of the latest members of this branch married William Jago, of Wendron, whose children took the name and arms of Arundell in 1815; and it may be added that Hals the historian descended from the Arundells by the female line.

THE MINOR ARUNDELLS.

The story of the Arundells of Cornwall is nearly told. There were, as I intimated at the commencement of this chapter, some minor branches, who perhaps deserve a passing notice: the most noteworthy of whom appears to be the branch that settled at the manor [43] and barton of Menadarva (== the hill by the water), in the parish of Illogan, near the sea-coast, and about three miles north-west of Camborne. This branch seems to have been founded by Robert, a natural son of that Sir John Arundell of Trerice, Vice-Admiral of Cornwall, 'Jack of Tilbury,' who died in the third year of Elizabeth's reign. Robert took to wife Elizabeth Clapton, and they had numerous descendants.

I must once more be indebted to Hals, for the following bit of gossip about the Arundells of Menadarva: 'The last gentleman of this family dying without issue male, his sisters married to Tresahar and others, became for a time, possessed of this lordship; but it happened that a brother of theirs also, who was a merchant-factor in Spain, who married an innkeeper's widow there, in Malaga or Seville, of English extraction, was said to be dead without issue; but it seems, before his death, had issue by her an infant son, who was bred up in Spain till he came of age, without knowledge of his relations aforesaid; who being brought into England with his mother, temp. William III., delivered ejectments upon the barton and manor of Menadarva and the occupants thereof, as heir-at-law to Arundell, and brought down a trial upon the same at Lanceston, in this county, where, upon the issue, it appeared, upon the oaths of Mr. Delliff, and other Spanish merchants of London, that the said heir was the legitimate son of Mr. Arundell, aforesaid, of Spain, and born under coverture or marriage. He obtained a verdict and judgment thereon for the same, and is now in possession thereof. He married Tremanheer of Penzance, and hath issue. The arms of this family are the same as those of the Arundells of Trerice, with due distinction.'

An offshoot, as I take him to be, of the Menadarva Arundells, one Francis, who was born about the year 1620, is said to have settled at Trengwainton, near Penzance, where they lived for some generations; and one of them, Francis Arundell, served with some distinction on the side of the Parliament during the Civil War, ranking as captain. I fancy it must be his son who mourned in Latin verse, after the fashion of the time, the deaths of two Queens of England, while, as a Commoner of Trinity College, Cambridge, he was under the tuition of Isaac Barrow.

Yet another minor branch of the Arundells remains to be noticed, viz. a younger branch of the Arundells of Lanherne, descended from that Sir John Arundell who married Elizabeth Danet, of Danet's Hall. They had their seat at Trevithick, some two miles west of the town of St. Columb Major, and not much farther from Lanherne itself. The representative of the family who was alive at the time of the Herald's Visitation in 1620, was named Thomas, who married Rachel, the daughter of Sir Giles Montpesson, Knight, and who, Hals tell us, died 'without issue, but not without wasting a great part of his estate.'

Now, to adopt a metaphor of Sir Humphry Davy's, at length the great stream of the Arundells of Cornwall, like some mighty river losing itself among the sands as it approaches the ocean shore, becomes so divided that we can no longer easily trace its course. After the names and dates to which we have been referring, no Arundell of distinction seems to have arisen in Cornwall; and their places soon 'knew them no more.' They became scattered throughout the county,[44] and by the help of the Bishop of Exeter's transcripts, and the Parish Registers of Camborne, St. Erme, St. Ewe, Falmouth, Fowey, Gulval, Mawnan, Menheniot, Mevagissey, Sheviock, and Sithney, we find that down to the year 1725 there were still indeed Arundells in Cornwall being christened, dying, marrying,—but no longer 'great Arundells' as of yore: in fact, the entry in the year 1725, in the St. Erme Register, merely records the baptism of Charles, the son of Richard Arundell, 'a day labourer.'

Yet, by a strange freak of fortune, not only did the female line continue, but one of the Arundells—William by name—married nearly two and a quarter centuries ago, Dorothy, a daughter of that Theodore Palæologus [45] who was buried in Landulph Church in 1636. She is described in the Parish Register as being 'ex stirpe Imperatorum.' So that there probably flows in the veins of many a rustic of the neighbourhood of Callington and Saltash the mingled blood of those Arundells who came over to England with the Conqueror, and that of the Byzantine Emperors of the East.