Soli gloria tibi, Domine, qui natus es de Virgine.
Now though this Order of St. Francis, after convents were erected and endowed, for the most part lived in convents under these rules as aforesaid, without alms or begging, yet a particular sort of them went abroad to preach the Gospel in parochial churches and free chapels, where the rector, vicar, curate, or chaplain was no preacher, and administered the sacraments as occasion required; having, moreover, committed to their charge or jurisdiction, by the Pope, the commutation of penance for sins committed; and, because by their rule they were not to take money, they took the same in corn, wool, fruits, fields, goods, and chattels, for their Superior. Those kind of missionaries were called Friars Observants, and went at large as supervisors, who pretended to a stricter observation of their rule than the master conventuals that went not abroad. What revenues this stately church of St. Francis at Bodmin had at its dissolution I know not, neither doth the Monasticon Anglicanum inform me; besides five quarterly pence, and
twenty penee by the year out of every family or dwelling-house in Cornwall, that was not excused propter paupertatem. Supplication of Beggars to Henry the Eighth, p. 2.
Those Franciscan friars, Mendicant or Minors, came not into England till Henry the Third’s days (since which time this church at Bodmin must be erected) in all but nine in number, who landed at Dover; five of which went to Canterbury, where, by the King’s leave, they built the first convent in England of their order; four went to London, and had a place given them in St. Nicholas Shambles, anno Dom. 1260, to erect another convent or monastery, by John Jewyn, merchant. However, let it be remembered that the Black Friars Mendicant, or Augustines, were founded by William de Paris, and first brought into England in the time of William the Conqueror, to whom Robert Kilwarby, Archbishop of Canterbury tempore William I. at the west end of London, on the bank of the Thames, founded and endowed there a monastery to them. For White Friars, or Cistersians, see Kilkhampton; for Dominicans, St. Dominick. Carmelite Friars were founded at Carmellus, a town in Syria; as also a latter order of those discalceated friars were founded by St. Mary de Theresa, of Jesus, of the blessed Lady of Mount Carmel, 1540. She was a native of Castile, and died 4th October, 1582, in the 68th year of her age, and 47th of being religious. She was canonized by Pope Gregory XV. 12th March 1622. The Friars of St. Francis of Paula, in Italy, were founded by him 1414; little different from those others. Finally of these friars: Bishop Usher, in his Discourse of the Primitive Church, fully demonstrates that, before the Reformation of religion, besides monks there were in this land, of the five orders, above thirty thousand begging friars.
At Lan-car, in this parish, (rest-rock, or rock-temple, if ever any church or chapel was extant here, otherwise,
by the rock may be signified some notable stone-quarry found in those lands,) was the dwelling of John Mountstephens, Esq. sometime member of parliament for West Looe, who purchased the same from Mr. Bullock. He was the son of Mounts or Stephens, alias Mountstephen, of St. Mabyn, and had his first education under Mr. Stephens, sometime schoolmaster of Bodmin, to whom at length he became usher; afterwards was clerk or servitor to William Lilly, Esq. and so became an undergraduate in Oxford; and, being recommended by him to the notice of the Earl of Sunderland, Lord President of the Council temp. James II. he made him one of his clerks or secretaries, which circumstance further brought him to the knowledge of Jonathan Lord Bishop of Bristol, by whose interest he obtained a burgess-ship at West Looe for the parliament, and was afterwards made one of the Commissioners for the King’s Tin-farm in those parts; by which ways and means he got himself considerable wealth and reputation.
But, notwithstanding all those his prosperous successes of fortune, in the month of December, or beginning of January, 1706, aged about 60 years, when he was at London, a member of parliament as aforesaid, and in his own house till eleven of the clock, one day upon some discontent went from his company, and so into a more retired apartment, where he took a razor and cut his own throat, and instantly fell dead on the spot, the razor by his side all bloody, to the great terror and amazement of his domestics, who found him in that posture.
Various were the reports and sayings of people upon occasion of this sad accident; some said it was for that he made addresses of marriage to a gentlewoman above his degree, who rejected his amours, upon account of some concubine, or bedfellow, he kept at Truro; others, with more probability, gave out that he was detected by the Earl of Sunderland (who raised him) for eighteen years’ space to have been a French pensioner, and to have
received a great sum of money annually for communicating the secrets of the Queen and Parliament to the Secretary of the French King, which as soon as he understood, by a letter shown him under his own hand, he instantly went home to his lodgings, burnt all his papers, and committed the felo-de-se aforesaid.
Bo-carne,[16] in this parish, id est, cows, kine, cattle, and white spar-stones, comparatively rocks, is the dwelling of William Flammock, Gent. that married Reynolds, and giveth for his arms, out of a supposed allusion to their name, Argent, a chevron between three estoiles Sable, (that is, in a wavy or flaming posture,) for flammock, after the Cornish-British, must be interpreted a flame and smoke; since the Latin words flamma, or flame, or bright burning fire-sparkle, and flammans, burning, flaming, are both derived from the British word flam; for exæstuo is the proper and native word, to burn, or flame.