Hanmer and Stewart got ten votes apiece, Milbrook and Maitland thirteen. But there was an appeal, and a new election; but this again led to a petition, and a scandalous story was told of bribery and corruption of the most barefaced description. The election was declared void, and many persons, including Hallett, the chemist, were reported. It was proposed to disfranchise the borough, but George III. died in 1820, and new writs had to be at once issued.
Camelford has no public buildings of interest. It is situate on very high ground, on a wind-blown waste 700 feet above the sea, exposed to furious gales from the Atlantic; but it has this advantage, that it forms headquarters for an excursion to the Bodmin moors, to Brown Willy (1375 feet), and Rough Tor (1250 feet). These tors, though by no means so high as those on Dartmoor, are yet deserving of a visit, on account of their bold outlines, the desolation of the wilderness out of which they rise, and the numerous relics of antiquity strewn over the moors about them.
Of these presently.
The parish church of Camelford, two miles off, is Lanteglos. The dedication is to S. Julitta, but this would seem to have been a rededication, and the true patroness to have been either Jutwara or Jutwell, sister of St. Sidwell, or of Ilut, one of King Brythan’s daughters.
There was a royal deer-park there, as the old castle of Helborough, though not occupied, was in the possession of the Duke of Cornwall.
This is really a prehistoric camp of Irish construction, and in the midst of it are the ruins of a chapel to S. Sith or Itha, the Bridget of Munster. Itha had a number of churches ranging from the Padstow estuary to Exeter, showing that this portion of Dumnonia received colonists from the south-west of Ireland. Her name is disguised as Issey and as Teath. She was a remarkable person, as it was she who sent her foster-son Brendan with three ships, manned by thirty in each, on an exploring excursion across the Atlantic to the west, which, possibly, led to the discovery of Madeira in the sixth century. But the truth is so disguised by fable that little certainty can be obtained as to the results of the voyage. Brendan made, in fact, two expeditions; in the first his ships were of wicker, with three coats of leather over the basket frame; the second time, by Itha’s advice, he made his boats of timber.
Itha never was herself in Cornwall, her great foundation was Kill-eedy in Limerick, and she was taken as the tutelary saint or patroness of Hy-Conaill, but there were establishments, daughters of the parent house, what the Irish called daltha (i.e. pupil) churches, enjoying much the same rights as the mother house.
Camelford has by some been supposed to be the Gavulford where the last battle was fought between the West Welsh and Athelstan; but there was no reason for his advancing into Cornwall this way, where all was bleak, and by no old road.
There is, however, a Slaughter Bridge on the Camel, but this is taken to have acquired its name from having been the scene of the fight between King Arthur and his rebellious nephew Mordred, circ. 537.
King Arthur is a personage who has had hard measure dealt out to him. That there was such an individual one can hardly doubt. There is a good deal of evidence towards establishing his existence. He was chief king over all the Britons from Cornwall to Strathclyde (i.e. the region from the Firth of Clyde to Cumberland). He was constantly engaged, first in one part, then in another, against the Saxons; but his principal battles were fought in Scotland. He occurs in the Welsh accounts of the saints, but never as a hero, always as a despot and tyrant. His immediate predecessor, Geraint, in like manner is met with, mainly in Cornwall, but also in Wales, where he had a church, and in Herefordshire. He had to keep the frontier against the Saxons.