[Mr. Hals’s history of St. Catherine is lost. It may, therefore, be sufficient to give the following short statement of her legend.
In the Μηνολογιον, the Menology, (the Monthly Register, synonymous with Martyrology,) of the Emperor Basil, said to be composed by himself, but certainly written under his own inspection, St. Catherine is stated to have sprung from one of the families which in those times obtained a transient possession of the imperial throne.
She was probably born at Alexandria, and suffered martyrdom there under the reign of Maximus the Second, about the year 310.
Her learning, abilities, and zeal were so great, that, having been ordered to dispute with several of the most able philosophers, she confuted them all, and even converted some among them to the Christian faith. These new proselytes are said to have been instantly hurried to the flames, but that the Saint herself was reserved for a still more cruel fate, the persecutors of religion having contrived a wheel set round with hooks and spikes, for the purpose of tearing and lacerating its victim. The legends, however, go on to say that this horrible engine was dashed in pieces by angels, just as the tormentors were about to use it against the Saint, whom they nevertheless decapitated, unawed by the recent miracle, and no longer interrupted by any supernatural interference.
The body of St. Catherine was found five hundred years afterwards, when the Saracens had possession of Egypt, although it is not recorded by whom the discovery was made, nor how the identity was proved. A subsequent great event, however, placed that most important circumstance beyond all doubt; for it having been resolved to translate the body from the immediate power of the Mahometans to a monastery built on Mount Sinai by St. Helena, and augmented by Justinian, a company of angels, probably the very same who destroyed the wheel, conveyed the relics to Mount Sinai through the air.
Some recent martyrologists have endeavoured to explain away the latter miracle, by asserting that angels meant monks, who on account of the purity of their morals, the sanctity of their divine duties, and the eminent utility of their lives, are frequently confounded with the inhabitants of heaven.—It is almost needless to add that St. Catherine’s Wheel has uniformly reference to the intended instrument of her martyrdom, and never to a spinning-wheel, of which the Saint is sometimes supposed in England to have been the inventor. Editor.]
But for the church and tower of Foy, as it now stands, it was built about the year 1466, towards which Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, was a great benefactor; as appears from his badge, or cognizance, viz. ragged staves, yet to be seen cut in many parts of the stones of the said church and tower thereof.
The town of Foys is the voke lands of an ancient lordship by prescription, which the Prior of Tywardreth held of the ancient Earl of Cornwall’s manor of Pow-vallet-coyt, now Lostwithiel, or Restormel Castle, under the rent of ——; from whom also they had their privilege of sending two members to sit in the Commons’ House of Parliament. It was incorporated by Charles the Second, by the name of the Mayor, Recorder, Portreeve, eight Aldermen, and a Town Clerk. Notwithstanding which, by ancient custom, the members of Parliament were elected by the freemen, (viz. scot and lot men, that pay rates and taxes) and the precept from the Sheriff for the writ for election of them must be thus directed: Præposito et Senescallo Burgi de Foy, in Comitatu Cornubiæ, salutem, &c. As also the writ for removing any action at law depending in Foy court-leet to a superior court, must be directed to the Portreeve and Town Clerk or Steward.
The arms of this town are, a ship in full course, with sails expansed, on the waves of the ocean. It is further privileged with a weekly market on Saturdays, and fairs annually, on Shrove Tuesday, May 1st, and September 10th. This town hath also added to its privileges some of the liberties and freedoms of the Cinque Ports, which other towns or harbours have not: what they are, the inhabitants there best know. Those privileges were first granted only to the ports of Hastings, Hythe, Dover, Romney, and Sandwich, in Kent, by Edward the Confessor; afterwards much increased in the days of the three Edwards, the First, Second, and Third: which in this place are too long for me to recite. Mr. Carew tells us, that in Edward the Third’s days sixty tall ships did belong to this harbour; and that the town of
Foys did assist that King with forty-seven sail of men-of-war and transport-ships, anno Dom. 1347, in order to the siege of Calais; whereupon that King granted commissions to the chief commanders of those Foy ships to take French prizes, during his wars with those people, or French nation; so that in few years those Foy men were grown so rich and formidable, by taking French prizes, that by force and arms they would enter many ports of that kingdom, and carry with them all ships they could conquer, and what they could not, would use means to set them on fire in the places where they lay. In fine, when French prizes grew scarce, (I speak upon the authority of Mr. Carew,) they scrupled not to turn sea-robbers, or pirates, taking, plundering, and destroying all ships they could master, of what country soever, not sparing the sailors’ lives. By which means the townsmen grew unspeakably rich and proud and mischievous, which occasioned the Lord Pomier, and other Normans, to petition John, King of France, to grant them a private commission of marque and arms, to be revenged on the pirates and thieves of Foy town, which accordingly they obtained, and carried their design so secretly that a small squadron of ships, and many bands of marine soldiers, were prepared and shipped without the Foymen’s knowledge or notice, who accordingly put to sea out of the river Seine, in the month of July 1457, in 35th Henry VI. and with a fair wind sailed thence across the British Channel, and got sight of Foy harbour, where they lay off at sea till night, when they drew towards the shore and dropped anchor, and in the night landed their marine soldiers and seamen, and at midnight approached the south-west end of Foy-town, where they killed all persons they met with, set fire to the houses, and burned one half thereof to the ground, to the consumption of a great part of the inhabitants’ riches and treasures, a vast deal of which was gotten by their piratical practices; in which massacre and conflagration, the women, children,