About two hours before he died Sir James said, “In a couple of years I shall be back again, and unless Woolley has done what I have required, I will resume all again.”
Mr. Woolley accordingly erected the tower that still stands above Sir James’ vault. But the knight did not return. He crumbled away; moth and worm attacked his feathers and velvets; and after some years nothing was left of him but a mass of bone and dust that had fallen out of the chair.
CHAPTER VIII.
CAMELFORD
A rotten borough—Without a church or chapel-of-ease—History of the borough—Contest between the Earl of Darlington and Lord Yarmouth—Brown Willy and Rough Tor—Helborough—S. Itha—Slaughter Bridge—King Arthur—The reason for the creation of the Arthur myth—Geoffrey of Monmouth—The truth about King Arthur—The story of his birth—Damelioc and Tintagel—How it is that he appears in so many places—King Arthur’s Hall—The remains of Tintagel—The Cornish chough—Crowdy Marsh—Brown Willy and the beehive cottages on it—Fernworthy—Lord Camelford—His story—Penvose—S. Tudy—Slate monuments—Basil—S. Kew—The Carminows—Helland—A telegram.
That this little town of a single street should have been a borough and have returned two members to Parliament is a surprise. It is a further surprise to find that it is a town without a church, and that no rector of Lanteglos, two miles distant, should have deemed it a scandal to leave it without even a chapel-of-ease is the greatest surprise of all.
Camelford was invested with the dignity of a borough in 1547, when it was under the control of the Roscarrock family. From them it passed to the Manatons living at Kilworthy, near Tavistock. Then it fell into the hands of an attorney named Phillipps. He parted with his interest to the Duke of Bedford, and he in turn to the Earl of Darlington, afterwards Duke of Cleveland.
The electors were the free burgesses paying scot and lot. “Scot” signifies taxes or rates. But the mayor was the returning officer, and he controlled the election.
In George IV.’s reign there was a warm contest between the Earl of Darlington and Lord Yarmouth. The latter ran up a great building, into which he crowded a number of faggot voters. But the Earl of Darlington possessed rights of search for minerals; so he drove a mine under this structure, and blew it up with gunpowder. The voters hearing what was purposed, ran away in time, and consequently Lord Yarmouth lost the election.
In the election of 1812 each voter received a hundred pounds for his vote. In the election of 1818 the mayor, Matthew Pope, announced his intention of giving the majority to Lord Darlington’s nominee, and of turning out of their freeholds all who opposed. The other party had a club called “The Bundle of Sticks,” and engaged a chemist named William Hallett, of S. Mary Axe, to manage the election for them, and put £6000 into his hand to distribute among the electors, £400 apiece.