The castle at St. Mawes was undoubtedly built by King Henry VIII. but a tradition universally believed in Cornwall is much less certain.
It is said that the King came to view the situation of his two projected castles of St. Mawes and Pendennis; that he passed two nights at Tolvorn, then a seat of the Arundells; and that he crossed the river from thence to Feock, at a passage that has ever since gone by his name. There is not, however, any trace of this journey to be found in histories of the times, nor in any public document.
The privilege of sending Members to Parliament was given to this village by Queen Elizabeth, in pursuance, probably, of the Tudor policy noticed under Michell; and if the creation of a close borough were the object really intended, it proved invariably successful up to the general disfranchisement of 1832.
This right of sending Members to Parliament, accompanied by the pageantry of maces and sergeants-at-arms, and combined with various personal advantages, could not fail of exciting feelings of envy and ridicule. In this instance the village of St. Mawes, extending in a single line of houses in the direction of the beach, has readily presented a topic, which was, to inquire whether the new mayor lived on the same side of the street as his predecessor.
Corrack Road, the best anchorage for large vessels in all Falmouth harbour, lies off this parish, called by Mr. Hals King Road, but the popular appellation is St. Just, or Sainteast, Pool.
Mr. Lysons gives the following inscriptions, said to have been written by Leland, and cut in the castle walls.
“Henricus, Octavus Rex Angliæ, Franciæ, et Hiberniæ invictissimus, me posuit præsidium reipublicæ, terrorem hostibus.
Imperio Henrici naves submittite vela,
Semper honos, Henrice, tuus laudesque manebunt;
Edwardus famâ referat factisque parentem,