Even at this distance of time, it is delightful to think that she left a wicked world and age before a single spot had dimmed the lustre of her widely admired, but unsullied, fame:
'Wearing the white flower of a blameless life.'
FOOTNOTES:
[51] This monument was originally placed on a site which overlooked on the one hand the remains of the family mansion, and on the other the little lake—formerly an arm of the sea, and known in Leland's time as 'Levine Prisklo,'—which was once the well-filled swannery of the Killigrews. It was moved in 1836 to make way for the houses now known as 'Grove Place;' and again in 1871, to its present appropriate site opposite the Arwenack Manor-office.
[52] The town arms of Falmouth, modified of course, are derived from those of Killigrew. The arms of the Devonshire Killigrews are gules, three mascles on. This latter coat appears on some woodwork in St. Budock Church, and on the brass of Thomas Killigrew, to which reference will presently be made.
[53] I am somewhat inclined to think that this may be the Thomas Killigrew who died at Biscay, in Aragon. He married twice—Johanna Herry and Jane Darrell; possibly there may be some mistake in the Christian name of the latter lady. Perhaps the same Thomas who is mentioned in the Journals of Roger Machado, of an embassy to Spain and Portugal, in 1488, as having entertained the traveller, whom stress of weather drove into Falmouth harbour; and as having bequeathed, in the year 1500, one hundred marks for the rebuilding of St. Budock Church. In the autumn of 1882, whilst restoring St. Gluvias Church, the workmen came upon some leaden coffins in good preservation, which were supposed to contain the remains of members of the Killigrew family. The coffins were not opened.
[54] Since doing this I have had the advantage of consulting Colonel J. L. Vivian's elaborate pedigree in his recent annotated edition of the 'Herald's Visitations to the County of Cornwall.'
[55] This lady seems to have been the real heroine of an exploit accredited by Hals to Dame Jane Killigrew, one of her successors (see post). Mr. H. Michell Whitley has drawn attention to Hals's mistake, or confusion, in the Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, 1883. But in those high-handed days there may have been more than one culprit, and more than one misdemeanour—and Hals is curiously circumstantial.
[56] Cf. Mr. Howard Fox's article on the 'Lizard Lighthouses,' Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, No. XXII., March, 1880, p. 319. Sir William Killigrew vainly endeavoured to obtain a renewal of the patent in 1631.
[57] Dame Mary Killigrew seems to have been the true heroine of this story. See ante.