One little incident may be noted: Richard Coryton, who was murdered, was one of twenty-four children.
John Coryton of Probus got nothing by his application.
SIR JAMES TILLIE, KNT.
High above the Tamar where it is most tortuous, and commanding loop upon loop of this beautiful river, with the blue bank of Dartmoor standing up in the east as a rising thundercloud, stands a red-brick tower upon an elevated platform, that is reached by a flight of stone steps.
On the east side of this tower is a recess in the thickness of the wall, with stone benches, and at the back, high up, is a little window formed of two slits, through which the interior can be seen only by putting one foot on the bench and the other on a projecting corbel in the wall. What is then revealed is an interior open to the sky, and with a statue of a seated man, life size, opposite, in wig and lace steenkirk, one hand resting on his knee and the other on the arm of his chair.
There is no door of admission into the tower; a doorway has been bricked up. Formerly the tower consisted of two storeys, with a floor above the square chamber in which is the statue, and a roof over the upper apartment. But roof and floor have gone.
In the summer of 1907 the walled-up doorway had to be opened, so that a large tree might be cut down that had grown in the midst of the tower and threatened it with injury. No sooner was it bruited about that access to the interior was to be had than crowds of visitors came out from Plymouth and Devonport, expecting to be able to find within some relics of Sir James Tillie, Bart., whose burial-place was the lower chamber, where now is only to be seen his statue.
Hals says, the spelling modernized: "About the year 1712 Sir James Tillie died, and, as I am informed, by his last will and testament obliged his adopted heir, one Woolley, his sister's son, not only to assume his name (having no legitimate issue), but that he should not inter his body after death in the earth, but fasten it in the chair where he died with wire—his hat, wig, rings, gloves, and best apparel on, shoes and stockings, and surround the same with an oak chest, box, or coffin, in which his books and papers should be laid, with pen and ink also—and build for the reception thereof, in a certain field of his lands, a walled vault or grot, to be arched with moorstone, in which repository it should be laid without Christian burial; for that, as he said but an hour before he died, in two years space he would be at Pentillie again; over this vault his heir likewise was obliged to build a fine chamber, and set up therein the picture of him, his lady, and adopted heir, for ever; and at the end of this vault and chamber to erect a spire or lofty monument of stone, from thence for spectators to overlook the contiguous country, Plymouth Sound and Harbour; all which, as I am told, is accordingly performed by his heir, whose successors are obliged to repair the same for ever out of his lands and rents, under penalty of losing both.