Court in this parish is the chief barton of the manor and lordship of Brannel, both which appertained to the Earls of Cornwall in right of that earldom; which King John, who also was Earl of Cornwall, settled upon his second son Richard, born in the 11th year of his reign, Anno Dom. 1209, afterwards King of the Romans, who had issue by his concubine Joan de Valletorta, widow of Sir Alexander Oakeston aforesaid, a base son named Richard de Cornwall, (and a daughter named Joan, married to Champernowne) on whom he settled this manor of Brannel and barton of Court; who
had issue Wiliam de Cornwall or Plantagenet, and Geffery de Cornwall, afterwards knighted by King Edward I. ancestor of the famous family of the Cornwalls of Burford in Shropshire, whose posterity had been twenty-two times sheriffs of those counties and Bedfordshire to the 10th of King James.
Boden-ike aforesaid, was formerly the lands of Pye, who sold it to Tanner; some of which family afterwards, in the interregnum of Cromwell, turned decimators and sequestrators with the Sprys, upon the lands and revenues of the royal laity and clergy of this county, to that degree of hurt and damage, that it occasioned the making of that short litany not yet forgotten in Cornwall:
“From the Pyes and the Spryes, good Lord, deliver us.”
The arms of Pye are, Argent, on a fess Azure three escallops of the Field.
Lastly, in this place, to refresh the tired reader, I will recount a story of the unfortunate amours of John Tanner aforesaid, with his lady Madam Windham, to whom he made his first addresses of marriage, and after some time good liking fell deeply into each other’s affection; but the conditions of marriage proposed by Mr. Tanner not being hastily agreed upon by her father Mr. Windham, gave opportunity to Charles Speccott, esq. a gentleman of much greater estate than Mr. Tanner had, to make an overture of marriage to the lady aforesaid, together with a larger settlement in jointure than Mr. Tanner was able to grant or perform; which proposals were forthwith accepted by Mr. Windham, so that he soon after constrained his daughter, notwithstanding what amours had passed between her and Mr. Tanner, to marry Mr. Speccott.
At the news of which cross accident, Mr. Tanner, her former inamorato, was so discontented and perplexed in mind, that in order to quiet his disturbed soul, and obliterate or extinguish the memory of this beautiful woman (for such she was), he forsook this land and travelled into France.
In brief, Tanner, having been eighteen months in France, notwithstanding the variety of faces and company he met with, grew there also discontented with himself, and a continual impulse lay upon his spirit which he could not suppress, that he must return back again into England, for what reason he knew not; whereupon he went on board a ship, and came safe into the port of London, where he had not remained scarce ten days before he heard of the news of Mr. Speccott’s death within that time; upon which intelligence he forthwith posted from London to Thornbury in Devon, where she then resided in a mourning state, who received him in such joyful and welcome manner, that soon after the marriage was concluded betwixt them, by whom he had a great estate as aforesaid,
TONKIN.
St. Stephen’s in Brannel is in the hundred of Powder, and hath to the west Ladock, to the north St. Dennis and Roche, to the east St. Austell and St. Mewan, to the south St. Probus and Creed. This church and the two following ones are dedicated to the famous protomartyr St. Stephen, and have their different adjuncts, to distinguish them the one from the other.