This church goes in presentation and consolidation as a daughter to St. Probus, which vicar is to present the curate, vicar, or chaplain of Merthyr to the Bishop for licence and confirmation; though the eight men of the said parish are by ancient custom to choose and name him, in
consideration whereof the vicar of Probus is to receive annually from them, on the high altar, three shillings and four pence.
However, great controversies have happened in the Bishop’s Consistory between the vicar of Probus and the inhabitants of this parish, before and since Henry the Eighth’s days, upon the death, removal, or translations of the vicar of Probus, concerning the right of the jurisdiction, presentation, or patronage of this church; whether in the vicar of Probus, or the eight men of the said parish, the vicar presenting one clerk or curate to be confirmed by the Bishop, and the eight men another; but generally it hath passed as a rule in the Ecclesiastical Court, where this matter, by learned counsel or proctors, hath been debated, that the right of patronage and presentation of this church lay in the eight men of the parish, and not in the vicar of Probus, though the same hath been often controverted.
There is a Latin deed which I have seen yet extant, between Bar. Combe, vicar-general to Dr. Peter Courtenay, Lord Bishop of Exeter, 1480, under seal of the diocese, and John Fullford, perpetual vicar of Probus of the one part, and Thomas Tresithney, John Hallvose, Thomas Webber, and others of the eight men of the parish of Merthyr on the other part, wherein those premises are concerted or regulated; and moreover, therein a confirmation, covenant, or agreement, made and established between them, according to ancient custom; that in case the said eight men and their successors should annually pay to the vicar or curate of the said parish of St. Cohan Martyr, of Merthyr, for ever annually the full and just sum of twenty marks lawful moneys of England, that then the lands of the said parish, and every part and parcel thereof should be exempt and free from the payment of small tithes in kind, oblations, or obventions to the vicar thereof for ever. Which privilege hath ever since been kept and enjoyed by the inhabitants of the said parish accordingly; to the great loss of the vicar, and greater gain of the inhabitants.
Now, though when this compact was made and confirmed, the vicar had much the better bargain, not one vicarage church in Cornwall being of that value in the King’s or Pope’s Books towards Annats in the first inquisition, 1294, nor many in Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1520; yet now the inhabitants have great profit thereby, since the plenty or commonness of money lessens the intrinsic value thereof, whereby much number of money will buy but little lands, goods, or chattels, whereas in those days a little quantity of money would purchase much of those things. (Witness Baker, and other our chronologers, temp. Henry VII. soon after the compact aforesaid was made, wherein we may read that a bushel of wheat, Winchester measure, was sold for 6d., a bushel of salt for 3½d., a ton of Gascoign wines 40s., and all other things sold after a proportionable price.)
In the Domesday Book, 1087, this district was taxed under the jurisdiction of Penkivell. Afterwards, upon the setting up the vicarage of Probus, it was concerted into that parish about the beginning of King Henry the Third’s days; for in the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, into the value of Cornish Benefices, 1294, its superior or mother church was rated for it, as also the five chaplains for their salaries, that officiated in Probus, Cornelly, and Merthyr. It was endowed by the treasurer of the cathedral church of Exeter, which must be after that dignitary was first set up there, by William Brewar, Bishop thereof 1224. The patronage as aforesaid; the incumbent, Monsieur Baudree, a French Protestant; and the parish rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax, 1696, temp. William III. £83.
At Tre-saws-an, alias Tre-saus-an, id est, the Saxon town, or dwelling, a place heretofore pertaining to some Saxon, is the possession by lease of James Hals, Gent., granted him by his mother in the time of her widowhood, as parcel of the manor of Fentongollan, whereon she had power of leasing during her widowhood. He was a younger
son of Sir Nicholas Hals, of Fentongollan, Knight, by Grace his wife, daughter of Sir John Arundell, of Talverne, Knight; and was first bred a soldier in Pendenis Castle, whereof his father was Governor, under King James I. and Charles I. Afterwards he was made lieutenant of his brother Captain William Hals, in the expedition of the Duke of Buckingham in the French war, at the Isle of Rhé and Rochelle. And after that war was over was sent with his said brother by King Charles I. with a foot company of soldiers to supply or reinforce the garrisons of the Barbadoes, St. Christopher’s, and Mountserat Islands in America, where he remained about seven years; and after his brother’s death, who died returning into England, Captain Ayleworth was displaced, and the said James Hals made Governor of Mountserat Island, by King Charles I.
After which, the wars breaking out in England, between that King and his Parliament, he and divers other officers were commanded to return back into England for the King’s service; where soon after his arrival at Plymouth, that stood for the Parliament, then besieged by the King’s army, he was cajoled out of his allegiance to King Charles I. by his country gentlemen then in that place in garrison, and engaged against that King, to become Lieutenant-Colonel to Colonel Nicholas Boscawen’s troop of horse, then posted there. From whence he was commanded, with several other troops of horse, to go outside the lines, under conduct of the Earl of Stamford, then Governor of Plymouth for the Parliament, and to fight the King’s army that besieged it under conduct of Sir Ralph Hopton, Knight, and Sir Richard Grenvill, Knight and Baronet, the King’s Generals in the West; where, after a sharp engagement and loss of many men between both parties, the victory fell to the King’s army; and then and there the said James Hals, and many other gentlemen were taken prisoners of war, and forthwith sent prisoners to Lidford
Castle in Devon, under custody of Marshall Ellery, of St. Colomb Major.