The church is late Perpendicular.[19] The pulpit and reading-desk are made up of old bench-ends, representing apostles, the M of Mary, and the lily of the Annunciation, and instruments of the Passion.
On the tower of S. Austell under niches are representations of S. Samson habited as an archbishop—which he was not—and his disciple S. Austell. The reason of his being represented as an archbishop is curious. In 848 Nominoe, King of Brittany, determined to free his country from being Frenchified, and he not only made it independent of the Frank crown, but he also dismissed the Frank bishops from the Breton sees, and filled their places with native prelates. He also elevated the see of Dol into an archbishopric over all the British-speaking races in Armorica. Now it so happened that there had been a Samson of York, but he was never more than a priest, and he was quite a different man from Samson, son of Amwn the Black, who settled at Dol. However, because York was an archiepiscopal see, and a Samson had once been there, it was supposed that he had been archbishop. Next he was confounded with Samson of Dol, and it was pretended that he had resigned York and come to Dol to set up his archiepiscopal see there. This served quite well enough as an excuse for withdrawing Dol and all the Breton bishoprics from allegiance to the Metropolitan of Tours; and Dol was able to maintain itself as a Breton archbishropic till 1172, that is to say, for over three hundred years.
Near S. Samson, or Golant, is Castle Dor, a very early fortification, that was, in historic times, held by the Crown, and a castle erected on the spot to keep the Cornish in order.
Fowey itself lies near the river-mouth; it much resembles a miniature Dartmouth. Opposite the town opens the creek that runs to Lanteglos. There were and are two castles, as at Dartmouth, commanding the entrance to the harbour, but they are insignificant, and form no feature of the scenery. Fowey is a curious, rambling place—one long street twisting in and out among houses, commanded by Place, the beautiful mansion of the Treffry family, that would have been entirely beautiful but for absurd and tasteless additions. This stands on a rock above the town, which is crowded below it.
The very fine church, with noble tower, is dedicated to, because founded by, S. Finbar, afterwards Bishop of Cork. In 1336 Bishop Grandisson rededicated the church to S. Nicholas. He sought persistently to drive out the local and Celtic saints and substitute for them such as were in the Roman calendar. But he has failed; the Irish patron maintains his place. Finbar was a disciple of S. David. His origin was not very creditable. He was the son of a noble lady by a vulgar intrigue with a smith, for which both were sentenced to be burnt alive, but the sentence was commuted to expulsion from the kingdom of Connaught. Finbar’s real name was Lochan, but he received the other in allusion to his fair hair.
In a gloss by the O’Clearys on the martyrology of Oengus is a funny legend of S. Finbar. One day, as he was walking on the sea, on his way home to Ireland from Cornwall, he met S. Scuthin similarly walking, starting on his pilgrimage to Rome. “Arrah, now!” said Finbar, “how come you to be walkin’ on the salt say?” “Why not?” answered Scuthin; “ain’t I now walking over an illegant meadow?” Then he stooped, plucked a purple flower, and threw it at Finbar. The latter at once bowed, put down his hand, caught a salmon, and threw it flop into S. Scuthin’s face. The O’Clearys got this from popular legend. Finbar died in 623.
The only really picturesque old house in Fowey is the “Lugger Inn,” where Mr. Varcoe, the kindly host, has, more than once, made me very comfortable. A beam in the house bears the date 1633. The “Ship” is older; it was built in 1570, as the date over the chimney-piece records, but the house has been modernised externally. Near the club, on the south side, stands the house of Peter Pindar.
Immediately opposite Fowey is Polruan, the Pool of S. Ruan, who was an Irishman like Finbar. His bones were translated by Ordgar, Earl of Devon, to Tavistock in 960. Thence an excursion can be made to Lanteglos, dedicated to S. Wyllow, a local saint, murdered by a kinsman, Melyn. The church is chiefly interesting as containing monuments of the Mohun family. Indeed, it would seem to have been their principal place after Dunster.
Reginald, a younger son of Baron John Mohun of Dunster (died 1330), married a daughter of John Fitz-William, and settled at Hall, in Lanteglos. From Hall the Mohun family removed to Boconnoc, and a baronetcy was obtained in 1612 for the head of the house. John, son of the first baronet, was a venal adherent of Charles I., and owed his elevation to the peerage mainly to the clamorous importunities of a still more venal placeman, Sir James Bagg. Writing to the Duke of Buckingham, the latter urged, “Mr. Mohun is so your servant, as in life and fortune will be my second. Enable him by honour to be fit for you; so in the Upper House or in the country will he be the more advantageous to your grace.”
Mohun was created Baron of Okehampton in 1628. His great-grandson was Charles, the fifth and last Lord Mohun. This man, possessed of a passionate and vindictive temper, lost his father early; his mother married again, and his education was neglected. When he had scarcely attained the age of twenty he was mixed up in the murder of Mountford, the actor. He was tried before his peers in 1692, and was acquitted; but there can be no doubt that he was associated in the murder. Seven years afterwards, in 1699, he was again tried for his life, along with the Earl of Warwick, for the murder of Captain Coote. He was again acquitted. This second escape sobered him for a while. For long he and the Duke of Hamilton entertained ill-feeling towards each other, occasioned by some money disagreement. This came to a head in 1712, when it ended in a challenge. Which it was, however, who challenged the other was never certainly decided. Colonel Macartney was Lord Mohun’s second, and Colonel Hamilton exercised the same office for the duke. They met in Hyde Park on Saturday morning, the 15th November, and swords were the weapons employed. A furious encounter ensued, the combatants fighting to the death with the savagery of demons, so that when the keepers of the park, hearing the clash of swords, hurried to the spot, they found both the Duke of Hamilton and Lord Mohun weltering in their blood and dying, and the two seconds also engaged in mortal combat. The keepers separated the latter. Then Colonel Hamilton and one keeper lifted the duke; Macartney and the other endeavoured to do the same by Lord Mohun, who, however, expired, and his body was sent home in the coach that had brought him. Swift, writing to Stella at the time, says that, “while the duke was over him, Mohun shortened his sword, and stabbed him in the shoulder to the heart.” According to the evidence of the surgeons who examined the bodies, each had received four frightful wounds, and both appeared to have given each other the mortal thrust at the same instant.