To the south of Treganyan is the church town and rectory house, and near to them is Tregothnan, which signifies the old town in the valley, a name suitable to the situation of the old house, although not of the new one. This place was anciently the seat of a family of the same name, till Johanna, the daughter and heir of John Tregothnan, by her marriage in the 8th year of Edward the Third,
1334, with John Boscawen, of Boscawen Rose, in the parish of St. Burian, brought Tregothnan to this family, whose principal seat it hath been ever since, now just upon four hundred years; who have greatly enriched themselves, as well as ennobled their blood, since that time, by marriages with the heiresses of Albalanda, Trenoweth, &c. and by matching themselves into the most eminent families of the county.
By a bill indented, bearing date the 4th of July 20th of Henry the Seventh, Thomas Hobbs, clerk, witnesseth to have received for the king’s use, of Richard Boscawen, esq. five pounds of lawful money, in full of his fine to be released from the dignity of Knight of the Bath, at the creation of Prince Henry.
Sir John Arundell, of Trerice, knight, late Sheriff, acknowledges to have received of Hugh Boscawen, esq. four marks of lawful money of England to their Majesties’ use, for that he repaired not to the Queen’s coronation to receive the honour of knighthood, dated January the 18th, the 1st and 2d of Philip and Mary. This is the gentleman said in “the Bayliff of Blackmore,” to have been a wise man, learned in the laws of the realm, who yet was outwitted, or rather cheated, by a family of Truro, of which he tells a long story.
Hugh Boscawen, esq. was Sheriff of Cornwall the 10th of King Charles the First, and was grandson to the above Hugh Boscawen, through his eldest surviving son Nicholas Boscawen and Alice his wife, one of the daughters and coheirs of John Trevanion, of Trevoster.
THE EDITOR.
Mr. Hals has very naturally been induced to give the history of this parish, particularly of Fentongollan, and of every one connected with it, at great length; but he has done this in a manner so diffuse and incoherent, that the Editor has thought it expedient to omit nearly the whole,
and to substitute a short abridgment made by Mr. Lysons from Hals and Tonkin, although this will include some repetition from the latter.
LYSONS.
The manor and barton of Penkevil belonged in the reign of Edward the First to the family of De Wen, from whom Hals supposes it passed in marriage to the Penkevils; it is however quite as probable that the property remained in the same family, they assuming a new name from the place of their abode. This family, says Hals, flourished for several descents in a genteel degree, till the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when Penkevil was given or sold to George Courtenay, gent. whose great-grandson alienated it to Hender Molesworth, esq. by whom it was conveyed to Hugh Boscawen, esq.