John Arundell, son of the said Renfrye, had his first education in the college of Canons Augustine in St. Columb, partly founded and endowed by his ancestors; from whence he removed to Exeter College, in Oxford, where, after he had taken his degrees of Bachelor and Master of Arts, he was ordained Priest, and presented by his father to the great rectory of St. Columb Major in Cornwall; and accordingly, had institution and induction thereto from the Bishop of Exeter; afterwards he was chosen Dean of Exeter, when Doctor Fox was Bishop thereof, 1490; where after he had sat for some time, upon the translation of William Smith, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, to Lincoln, (the successor of John Hals, who died 1492,) he had bestowed upon him by King Henry VII. that bishoprick, and was consecrated anno Dom. 1496;
afterwards, upon the death of Dr. Redman, Bishop of Exeter, 1504, he was translated to that diocese, and was installed Bishop thereof 1504; where, after he had well governed that diocese for about two years space, he died at London, 19 February 1506, and lies buried in St. Clement’s Church without Temple Bar.
From this family, by younger branches, were descended, temp. Richard III. the knightly family of the Arundells late of Tolvorne (from whence the writer of those lines by females is descended); as also the Arundells, late of Trevithick, in St. Columb Major, temp. Edward VI.; as also the Baron Arundells of Wardour in Wiltshire, temp. James I.; as also the Arundells of Gloucestershire, temp. Charles I.
Though this family by the name of Arundell is set forth in Battle Abbey corrupted roll, to have come out of France with the Conqueror, I take it to be denominated from Arundell town and castle in Sussex, (for as Sir John Arundell, the last possessor of Lanherne, told me he could never understand there was any such local place in France as Arundell, though he lived long in that country and made strict inquiry after it,) for Ederick the Saxon was Earl of Arundell town and castle aforesaid, before William the Conqueror landed here, who after the death of King Harold was displaced and disinherited by the Conqueror, and Roger de Montgomery made Earl thereof in his place, to whom his estate was given. However, notwithstanding that this family, out of a supposed allusion to their name, give for their arms, in a field Sable six swallows, in pile three, two, and one, Argent or proper, for that Arond in Gaulish French is a swallow; now corrupted after the Latin to hirundelle; guenol, Tisbicock, guenvoll, British: as (χελιδων hirundo in Greek) in Armoric guinib is a swallow. Arond in French, Ar-ran-dell, British, is the lake of water division valley.
One Bishop of this parish, in his youth, was, after his school education at Retallock, in St. Columb Major, in the Latin and Greek tongues, under Mr. John Coode, that famous schoolmaster, taken by the cost and care of Sir John Arundell, of Lanherne, from thence, and placed by him in Douay College in Flanders, where he took orders as a Catholic Roman Priest, and afterwards returned into England, and became house chaplain to the said Sir John Arundell, knight; and from thence visited and confirmed the Roman Catholics in those parts for many years, by the pretended surname of Mr. Gifford; he died at Hammersmith, near London, 20 March 1733, aged 99 years, and ordered his body to be opened and his heart to be taken out, and sent to Douay aforesaid, and kept in spirits, and his body to be buried in Pancras church, in London. (London Gazette, 23 March 1733.) He was made Doctor of Divinity by his College aforesaid, and consecrated Bishop of ——[5] in the Banqueting House at Whitehall, in the last year of King James II.
Car-nan-ton in this parish, id est, the Rock Valley Town, was the voke lands of a considerable manor, taxed in the Domesday Book 1087. As it was then so it is now, a franchise royal, pertaining in chief to the Crown, invested with the jurisdiction of a Court Leet within its precincts, and had lately its steward and bailiff, to attend the public services in trials at law between party and party, on pleas of debt and damage; and here Robert Thomye held the fourth part of a knight’s fee of land, temp. Henry IV. as Mr. Carew informs us.
It was lately the dwelling of William Noye, of Pendrea in Buryan, Esq. farmer thereof; who was first bred a student at law in Lincoln’s Inn; afterwards, having taken his degrees therein, he was chosen Member of Parliament for the town of St. Ives in Cornwall, in which capacity he
stood for some Parliaments in the beginning of the reign of King Charles I. and was specially famous for being one of the boldest and stoutest champions of the subject’s liberty in Parliament that the Western parts of England afforded; which being observed by the Court party, King Charles was advised by his Cabinet Council that it would be a prudent course to divert the force and power of Noye’s skill, logic, and rhetoric another way, by giving him some Court preferment; whereupon King Charles made him his Attorney-general, 1631; by which expedient he was soon metamorphosed from the assertor of the subjects’ liberty and property to a most zealous and violent promoter, beyond the laws, of the despotic and arbitrary prerogative or monarchy of his Prince; so that, like the image of Janus at Rome, he looked forward and backward, and by means thereof greatly enriched himself.
Amongst other things he is reflected upon by our chronologers for being the principal contriver of the Ship-money tax, laid by King Charles upon his subjects, for setting forth a navy or fleet of ships at sea, without the consent of Lords or Commons in Parliament; which moneys were raised by writ to the Sheriffs of all counties, and Commissioners for a long time brought into the Exchequer twenty thousand pounds per mensem, to the great distaste of the Parliament, the Laity, and Clergy, who declared against it as an unlawful tax. Nevertheless all the twelve judges after Noye’s death, except Hutton and Crook, gave their opinions and hands to the contrary, in Hampden’s case; viz. Branston, Finch, Davenport, Denham, Jones, Trevor, Vernon, Berkeley, Crawley, and Weston. (See Baker’s Chronicle, printed 1656.) However, out of kindness to the clergy, the King wrote to all the Sheriffs of England, requiring that the clergy, possessed of parsonages or rectories, should not be assessed above a tenth part of the land rate of their several parishes, and that regard should be had to vicars accordingly; by which rule the quanto or sum of this Ship-money Tax by the month may
be calculated. But I shall conclude this paragraph of Noye in the words of Hammon Le Strange, Esq. in the Life of King Charles I. viz. “Noye became so servilely addicted to the King’s prerogative, by ferreting up old penal statutes, and devising new exactions, for the small time he enjoyed his power, that he was the most pestilent vexation to the subject that this latter age afforded,” &c. He died on Saturday, August the 9th 1634, and was buried in the church of New Brentford, Middlesex, with an inscription on a stone to this purpose: “Here lyes the body of William Noye, Esq. som tyme Atturney Generall to Kinge Charles I.” This gentleman writ that excellent book of the law called Noye’s Reports; he married —— and had issue: Edward Noye, his eldest son, killed in a duel soon after his father’s death; and Humphrey Noye, his second son. He married Hester, daughter of the Lord Sands of Hampshire, and by her had issue two sons, William Noye and Humphrey Noye, that died without issue, and Katherine, married to William Davies, gentleman, of St. Earth; and Bridgman, to John Williams of Rosworthy, Esq. sometime Commissioner for the Peace, temp. Queen Anne, in whose right he is now in possession of this barton of Carnanton, but by her he had no issue; after her decease he married Dorothy, daughter of Peter Day, gentleman, and by her hath issue, and giveth for his arms, in a field Argent a fess checky Gules and Vert, between three griffin’s heads erased Vert, each gorged with a ducal crown Or; the paternal coat armour of the Williams’s, of Dorset or Wiltshire; his grandfather coming from thence a steward to the Arundells of Lanherne.