In 1246 Richard, Earl of Cornwall, King of the Romans, made over the Church of Breage with the Chapelries of Cury, Gunwalloe and Germoe to the Abbey of St. Mary, at Hayles in Worcestershire. The story of this Prince reads more like a romance than a record of sober fact. He was the second son of King John. Born in 1209, Richard was made a Knight and Earl of Cornwall at the early age of sixteen. Before his seventeenth birthday he had shewn himself to be a fearless soldier in the wars of Gascony. Three years later he took the field again against the French King, this time in the North of France. The campaign was barren of all results, but memorable for the terrible slaughter of its battles and the ruin and misery wrought upon the poor peasants of the country in which it was waged, who knew less than nothing at all as to what it was all about. In this terrible campaign Richard lost his friend Gilbert De Clare, Earl of Gloucester. Richard consoled himself for the loss of his friend by marrying his widow, whose beauty and golden tresses the old chronicler delights to dwell upon.
This warlike brother of an unwarlike king bitterly inveighed against the royal favourites who battened upon the wealth of the nation. "England has become a vineyard without a wall, wherein all who pass by pluck off her grapes," he exclaimed.
In 1241 we find Richard at Rome endeavouring to mediate between Pope Gregory IX. and his mighty brother-in-law the Emperor Frederick II., "Stupor Mundi," the most gifted sovereign of his age, if not of any age. The Pope was practically the Emperor's prisoner at Grotto Ferrata, and during the terrible August heat, which was accompanied by pestilence, Richard passed to and fro between Pope and Emperor. At length the negotiations were put an end to by death claiming the aged Pontiff.
His beautiful wife Isabella de Clare died at an early age, and Richard with a sad heart went off to the Crusades, where, by liberal largess, wrung from the serfs of his fiefs no doubt, rather than by the sword, we read he was able to open the gates of Jerusalem and raise the banner of the Cross over Nazareth and Bethlehem.
Returning from the Holy Land, the ship in which he sailed was beset by a terrible storm. In the hour of extreme danger Earl Richard made a vow to the Virgin that, if by the mercy of God the ship was saved from the storm, he would build a great abbey to her honour and richly endow it.
On his return, in obedience to his vow, he set about the founding of Hayles Abbey in Worcestershire on a princely scale, to which we have seen he made over the Church of Breage with its three Chapelries. The Church of this Abbey was of the same dimensions as those of Gloucester Cathedral; it was consecrated in 1251 amidst a scene of the greatest splendour, the King and Queen with the majority of the Bishops and many Barons being present. Now only a heap of grass-grown ruins marks the site of this great foundation.
It was in the days of Earl Richard that the tin mines of Cornwall came to be developed on a large scale, and they became to him a source of immense wealth—in fact, a golden key by which he was able to unlock the doors of attainment both in Palestine and Germany. We gather that this Earl was most kindly disposed towards the Jewish race, which assertion lends colour to the statement of Carew that the tin trade of Cornwall in ancient times was largely in the hands of Jews, who grievously exploited the Cornish Tinners.
In 1257 Richard was chosen King of the Romans after the payment of immense bribes to a number of the electing Princes. He returned to England after two years of fruitless war to maintain his shadowy kingdom. He commanded a wing of the Royal Army at the battles of Lewes; on the rout of the royal forces he hid himself in a windmill, from which he was ignominiously dragged and sent a prisoner to the Tower of London. He was released in 1265, and on his death in 1272 his body was laid in the great Abbey which he had founded.
His son, Edmund, succeeded him as Earl of Cornwall; this Prince presented to the Abbey of Hayles one of the most famous relics of the Middle Ages, a reputed phial of the Blood of Christ. This revered relic was kept in a shrine of great magnificence. A curious and interesting report was made on the nature of this supposed relic by the King's Commissioners at the time of the Reformation.[23]
We have a practically complete list of the Vicars of Breage from the appointment of William, son of Humphrey in succession to William, son of John, in 1219. In the deed already quoted, William, son of Richard, is described as the Parson of Breage; this means he was the Rector of the Parish in the full sense of the word. With the grant of the Church of Breage with its three Chapelries to the Abbey of Hayles the day of the Rectors of Breage was over.