[46] State Papers.
[47] See "The Life of Sidney Godolphin," by the Hon. Hugh Eliot.
[48] See "The Life of Sidney Godolphin," by the Hon. Hugh Eliot.
[49] See Gilbert's History of Cornwall.
[50] Life of Sidney Godolphin by the Hon. Hugh Eliot.
[The Arundells, de Pengersicks, Militons and Sparnons.]
CHAPTER VII.
At the conclusion of the Norman Conquest all the land in the parish of Breage was in the possession of the Earls of Cornwall, with the exception of the manor of Methleigh, which still continued to be attached to the See of Exeter. Methleigh passed from the Bishops of Exeter[51] to the Dean and Chapter of Exeter about 1160. Soon afterwards it was granted by the Dean and Chapter to the Nansladons, or Lansladons; from this family it passed to the Chamonds, and from them to the Arundells.
In the fifteenth century the Arundells owned the Breage manors of Pengwedna, Methleigh and Treworlas; in fact a very large section of the parish. The ancient home of this family was at Yewton, in Devonshire, where they had been settled since the days of King Stephen. They are said to have been of Norman origin, and that the first form of their name was Hirondelle; at any rate, the swallow figures upon their shields. It is possible, on the other hand, that this device of the swallow may have been merely due to the vogue for canting heraldry, an example of which we have in the Godolphin helmets hanging from the roof in Breage Church, which take the form of sea monsters or dolphins rearing their heads above the waves. A more prosaic but probable origin of the Arundells would connect them with the ancient Sussex town of that name. The pathway of the Arundells to greatness[52] lay not so much by the way of the tented field as along the flowery paths of successful match-making; they moved forward rather to the music of wedding bells than to the brazen blast of the trumpet sounding the charge. It was to the former music that their broad lands in Breage came to them.