THE EDITOR.
It appears that the vicarage of Wendron, and perhaps the endowed portion of the great tithes, belonged to Rewley Abbey, near Oxford, founded by Edmund Earl of Cornwall, in compliance with an injunction of his father Richard Earl of Cornwall; although Richard himself seems to have commenced the foundation, for a manuscript history in the Cotton Library says,
“Frater enim hujus regis (Henrici tertii) Ricardus primus Comes Cornubiæ, post Rex Alemaniæ et Semper Augustus, fundavit Abbatias monachorum Cisterciensis ordinis de Royal alias Rewley Oxoniæ, et de Hayles in Comitatu Gloucestriæ, ubi honorifice est sepultus. Cor tamen suum Oxoniæ in choro fratrum minorum, sub sumptuosa et mirandi operis pyramide humatum est.”
The Charter of his son Edmund begins,
“Sciant præsentes et futuri, quod nos Edmundus, claræ memoriæ Domini Ricardi regis Alemannii filius, et Comes Cornubiæ, dedimus concessimus et hac præsenti carta nostra confirmavimus Deo, et ecclesiæ beatæ Mariæ de Regali Loco in North Oseney juxta Oxon, et abbati inibi commoranti et quindecim monachis capellanis ordinis Cisterciensis ibi professis, pro anima Ricardi quondam regis Alemanniæ patris nostri, divino celebrantibus, et eorum successoribus ibidem commorantibus Deo servientibus et in perpetuum servituris, omnes terras et tenementa quæ habuimus in North Oseneye prope Oxon et (inter alia) unam acram terræ, secundum Angliæ consuetudinem mensuratam, de dominico nostro in terra de Bel juxta Roslyn, cum advocatione ecclesiæ de Sancta Wendrova, et aliis pertinentiis suis in hundredo de Kerier in Cornubia.”
And in the schedule returned to King Henry VIII. after the dissolution of property belonging to Rewley Abbey,
Com. Cornub.
Wendromo et Stadyon, firma Rector’ … £.22.
This advowson had passed through various hands till it was assigned by Mr. Matthew Wills, of Helston, on whose decease, in 1782, it came to his son, Mr. Thomas Wills. This gentleman, although not intended for the church, had received his education at Winchester and Oxford, and the living happening to become vacant just at the period of his father’s death, Mr. Wills was induced to take holy orders, and he is now (1834) the Incumbent; but the advowson has been transferred to Queen’s College, Oxford, for its Michell or new foundation; thus returning almost to the very spot where it was bestowed almost six hundred years before.
The barton of Trenethick is traced back to the family of Seneschalls, from whom it came by a marriage to the Hills; the last of whom, Mr. John Hill, gave it by will, about seventy years since, to a family long seated in Constantine, of the same name, but, from their bearing different arms, probably not related.