Mrs. Ann Hamlyn was buried on September 7th, 1800, after which date the farm became the property of Mrs. Coppinger. Coppinger spent what he could, but apparently became bankrupt, for in October, 1802, he was a prisoner in the King’s Bench, in company with a Richard Copinger, who is stated to have been a merchant in the island of Martinique. What became of him afterwards does not seem to be known, but it is said that he lived for many years at Barnstaple, in receipt of an allowance from his wife. She herself went there to live out her days, and died there on August 31st, 1833, at the age of eighty-two. She was buried in the chancel of Hartland Church, in the grave of her friend, Alice Western, and by the side of her mother. Coppinger’s name can still be seen, inscribed in bold characters “D. H. Copinger” on a window-pane at Galsham. Galsham is now the property of Major Kirkwood of Yeo Vale.
Writing to his brother-in-law, Mr. J. Sommers James, in September, 1866, Mr. Hawker asks him, “Do you remember Bold Coppinger the Marsland Pirate? He died eighty-seven (?) years ago. I am collecting materials for his Life for All the Year Round;” and again in November of the same year, “Hadn’t you an Aunt called Coppinger?”
It is interesting to note that Coppinger has “entered fiction” through the pages of Mr. Baring-Gould’s “In the Roar of the Sea.”
APPENDIX G (p. [139])
THOMASINE BONAVENTURE
By R. PEARSE CHOPE
The tale of the shepherdess who became Lady Mayoress was told by Carew in his “Survey of Cornwall,” and her biography has since been sketched by many different authors, such as Lysons in “Magna Britannia,” W. H. Tregellas in “Cornish Worthies,” and in the “Dictionary of National Biography,” and G. C. Boase in “Collectanea Cornubiensia.” An account appears also in the “Parochial History of Cornwall;” and a book by E. Nicolls, entitled “Thomazine Bonaventure; or, the Maid of Week St. Mary,” was published at Callington in 1865, only two years before Mr. Hawker’s article appeared in All the Year Round. The Churchwardens’ Accounts of St. Mary Woolnoth, from which extracts were given in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1854 (vol. xlii. p. 41), and in the “Transcript of the Registers of the United Parishes of St. Mary Woolnoth and St. Mary Woolnoth Haw,” by J. M. S. Brooke and A. W. C. Hallen (1886, p. xvi.), contain the following entries:—
“1539.—Item receyved of the Master and Wardens of the Merchint Tayllours for the beame light of this church according to the devyse of Dame Thomasyn Percyvall widow late wyf of Sir John Percyvall Knight deceased
xxvjs. viijd.
Item receyved more of the Master and Wardens of Merchint Tayllors for ij tapers thoon of vij lb. and the other of v lb. to brenne about the Sepulture in this Church at Ester ijs. iiijd. and for the churchwardens labor of this church to gyve attendance at the obit of Sir John Percyvall and otherwyse according to the devyse of Dame Thomasyn Percyvall his wyf