There is also a bull of Pope Adrian, in the year 1155, confirming all their possessions to the Abbat and monks of Mount St. Michael, and among them Saint Michael’s Mount, in Cornwall; which, previously to its subjugation, had been exempted from all episcopal interference by Liuricus Bishop of Exeter, as he states by the exhortation and command of his Lord, Pope Gregory, and in compliance with the wishes of the King, of the Queen, and of all the magnates in the realm. And he also grants a release from a third part of their penances to all such persons as may visit this church of St. Michael with oblations and alms.
The Mount appears never to have received a religious society after its suppression as an alien priory in the reign of King Henry the Fifth. At the period of the general dissolution it must have been let at an annual rent, for in the abstract roll preserved in the Augmentation Office this entry occurs under Syon Abbey: “Cornub.—S. Michael. ad Montem, Firma 26l. 13s. 4d.”
The history of St. Michael’s Mount since its dissolution, as a parcel of Sion Abbey, is very far from being clear. It appears to have been granted at first for terms of years to different gentlemen of the neighbourhood. To Millington, supposed of Pengersick, in Breage; to Harris, of Kenegie, in Gulval; and perhaps jointly with Millington to a Billett or Bennett. A person of that name, half-deranged, who died about the middle of the last century, continued during the whole of his life to shoot rabbits on the Mount one day in the year by way of maintaining a supposed right, which, being utterly groundless, was humanely allowed to pass unobserved.
Queen Elizabeth, or King James I. appears to have granted the whole in fee to Robert Cecil, created Earl of Salisbury May 4, 1605. But the Mount was seised into his own hands by King Charles I. just at the breaking out of the civil war, probably on account of the great military importance of this hold, when William Cecil, son of the former, having subscribed the Declaration made at York, on the 13th of June, 1642, left the party of which the King was at the head, and joined the opposite party in London.
An order was soon after given to Sir Francis Basset, then Sheriff of Cornwall, to place the Mount in a state of defence, and to supply it with ammunition and provisions; and it is not improbable that a grant was made of the castle and Mount to Sir Francis Basset at once, in witness of his zeal displayed in the cause, and as some indemnity for the expenses he had incurred, the royalist party never having had any considerable sum of money at their command.
The Bassets having suffered extremely in their property by efforts made during the war, and by compositions afterwards, it was found convenient to sell St. Michael’s Mount about the year 1660; when it was most fortunately purchased by Sir John St. Aubyn, in whose opulent family, and through five John St. Aubyns, it has descended to the present possessor of that name.
Every individual of this family has proved himself desirous of supporting, of maintaining, and of beautifying one of the most extrordinary spots in the whole world.
Including Dartmoor and the Scilly Islands, granite breaks out into six large but unequal masses, which, like the Appeninnes of Italy, extend a narrow promontory into the sea. St. Michael’s Mount presents a ridge of granite equally distinct with any of these great masses, and rises into a lofty cone, the base being surrounded by the killas, a peculiar schist, the chief metalliferous rock of Cornwall.
And here most of the curious phenomena are found which occur at the junction of these two rocks.
The buildings on the summit are grand and appropriate to the scenery, and venerable from their antiquity. The church, with its tower, completing the pyramidal figure of the whole, are supposed to date so far back as the reign of St. Edward. And a modern addition of two rooms on the eastern part of the building, made by the late Sir John Aubyn about the year 1750, is in complete harmony with the other parts, and adds to the general effect.