King Dungarth and King Alfred: Menheniot: St. Keyne: Looe: A Cage for Scolds: Looe Island and the Smugglers: The Armada: Sheviock: The Eddystone: Mount Edgcumbe: The Tamar: Trematon Castle: Markets: Saltash: Moditonham: Paleologus: Pentillie: Cotehele: Hingston Down: Polyfant: Launceston.
King Dungarth and King Alfred
It is pleasant, after following the footsteps of an English king so foolish that his people out of sheer exasperation presently rose up and slew him, to come upon traces of one whom the nation, from his day even until now, has blessed and called great. To the north of Liskeard lies the big parish of St. Neot, once called Gueryr, and St. Neot, 'tis said, was a near relative of King Alfred, a relative noted for sanctity and of whom many wonderful stories are told. He appears to have been on friendly terms with Dungarth, King of Cornwall, who lived at Liskeard, and at whose palace Alfred stayed in order to hunt the red deer on the surrounding moors. Nor was it only for the hunting that Alfred came to Liskeard. Gueryr, St. Neot's fellow saint, was supposed to have had some medical knowledge, and the King, delicate from boyhood, was in bad health. He went across the moors to pray, and possibly to bathe in the spring of clear water, still known as the well of St. Neot; and as faith in the doctor is half the battle we may hope his ills were alleviated. Dungarth—a fine monarch we must believe or else no friend to Alfred—was drowned in the River Fowey when hunting near Redgate, 875. In the parish of St. Cleer is a fractured granite pillar about 8 ft. high, and in digging near, a second fragment was found, inscribed in Latin, "Doniert (possibly Dungarth) asks you to pray for his soul."
To think that a thousand and odd years ago, Alfred was staying in this little old market town with a friend; that they were planning hunting expeditions; and that Dungarth was recommending his own doctor—"just like any other man." How queer it all is and how little human nature changes.
The corporation at Liskeard has some interesting silver, and in the church is a monument to Joseph Wadham said to have been "the last of that family whose ancestors were the founders of Wadham College, Oxford." This church is unique in Cornwall in having thirteen fifteenth-century consecration crosses cut on the north and south aisles. In the town is Stuart House, where Charles I. stayed for about a week in 1644.
A little south of Liskeard, on the way to Menheniot, is Clicker Tor, a mass of serpentine rock resembling the rocks of the Lizard. That beautiful heath (Erica vagans) that grows on the serpentine is found here.
Menheniot
Until the introduction—at the wish of the Cornish—of the English liturgy during the reign of Henry VIII., the ancient tongue was the language of the county. Dr. Mooreman, Vicar of Menheniot from 1530 to 1554, was the first parson in Cornwall to teach his parishioners the Lord's Prayer, the Belief and the Commandments in English. Nowadays, while it is not uncommon in Wales—which had only the Welsh liturgy—to hear the "Dim Sassenach," which means that some old person is unable or unwilling to speak English, the Cornish equivalent, "Mee a navidra cowza Sawzneck," has been entirely forgotten.
Menheniot (after St. Columb Major) is the most valuable benefice in the county, and the church possesses two interesting flagons of sixteenth-century Lambeth stoneware, with lid and collar of silver dated 1578 and 1581.