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CORNISH WORTHIES:

SKETCHES OF SOME EMINENT CORNISH MEN AND FAMILIES.

BY

WALTER H. TREGELLAS.

IN TWO VOLUMES.—VOL. I.

'Cornubia fulsit

Tot fœcunda viris.'

Joseph of Exeter (XIIIth century).

LONDON:

ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.

1884.

I Dedicate

THESE SKETCHES OF SOME OF

MY NATIVE COUNTY'S WORTHIES

TO THE WORTHIEST OF WOMEN,—

MY WIFE.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

[PRELUDES.]

For enquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers: (for we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow:) shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter words out of their heart?'—Job viii. 8-10.

'Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us. The Lord hath wrought great glory by them through His great power from the beginning. Such as did bear rule in their kingdoms, men renowned for their power, giving counsel by their understanding, and declaring prophecies: leaders of the people by their counsels, and by their knowledge of learning meet for the people: wise and eloquent in their instructions: such as found out musical tunes, and recited verses in writing: rich men furnished with ability, living peaceably in their habitations: all these were honoured in their generations, and were the glory of their times. There be of them, that have left a name behind them, that their praises might be reported. And some there be, which have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never been; and are become as though they had never been born; and their children after them. But these were merciful men, whose righteousness hath not been forgotten.'—Ecclesiasticus xliv. 1-10.

'Hic manus, ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi:
Quique sacerdotes casti, dum vita manebat:
Quique pii vates et Phœbo digna locuti:
Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes:
Quique sui memores alios fecere merendo:
Omnibus his nivea cinguntur tempora vitta.'

Æneid, vi.

'Patriots who perished for their country's right,
Or nobly triumphed in the field of fight:
There holy priests and sacred poets stood,
Who sung with all the raptures of a god:
Worthies, who life by useful arts refined,
With those who leave a deathless name behind,
Friends of the world, and fathers of mankind.'

Pitt's Translation.

'* * yf I have sayed a misse, I am content that any man amende it, or if I have sayd to lytle, any man that wyl to adde what hym pleaseth to it. My mind is, in profitynge and pleasynge every man, to hurte or displease no man.'

Introduction to Roger Ascham's 'Toxophilus.'

''Tis opportune to look back upon old times, and contemplate our forefathers. Great examples grow thin, and to be fetched from the passed world.'

Sir Thomas Browne to Thomas Le Gros,
in the Epistle Dedicatory to the 'Hydriotaphia.'

'It is a reverend thing to see an ancient castle or building not in decay; or to see a fair timber-tree sound and perfect;—how much more to behold an ancient noble family, which hath stood against the waves and weathers of time?'

Bacon.

'The Lord Bacon's Judgment of a Work of this Nature.'

* * * * *

'I do much admire that these times have so little esteemed the vertues of the times, as that the writing of Lives should be no more frequent. For although there be not many soveraign princes, or absolute commanders, and that states are most collected into monarchies; yet are there many worthy personages that deserve better than dispersed report, or barren elogies; for herein the invention of one of the late poets is proper, and doth well inrich the ancient fiction. For he faineth, that at the end of the thread or web of every man's life, there was a little medal containing the person's name; and that Time waiteth upon the Sheers, and as soon as the thread was cut, caught the medals, and carried them to the river Lethe; and about the bank there were many birds flying up and down, and would get the medals, and carry them in their beak a little while, and then let them fall into the river. Onely there were a few Swans, which if they got a name, would carry it to a temple where it was consecrate.'

In Lloyd's State Worthies, vol. i.

'It is a melancholy reflection to look back on so many great families as have formerly adorned the county of Cornwall, and are now no more: the Grenvilles, the Arundells, Carminows, Champernons, Bodrugans, Mohuns, Killegrews, Bevilles, Trevarions, which had great sway and possessions in these parts. The most lasting families have only their seasons, more or less, of a certain constitutional strength. They have their spring and summer sunshine glare, their wane, decline, and death: they flourish and shine perhaps for ages;—at last they sicken; their light grows pale, and, at a crisis when the off-sets are withered and the old stock is blasted, the whole tribe disappears, and leave the world as they have done Cornwall. There are limits ordained to everything under the sun: man will not abide in honour.'

Dr. Borlase (as quoted by Lysons in 'Magna Britannia,'
vol. iii.—Cornwall, p. clxxiv.).

'Every man in the degree in which he has wit and culture finds his curiosity inflamed concerning the modes of living and thinking of other men.'

Emerson's 'Essay on Intellect.'

'"The biographical part of literature," said Dr. Johnson, "is what I love the best"; and his remark is echoed daily in the hearts, if not in the words, of hundreds of readers: * * * and though for the last half-century pure fiction has been in the ascendant, the popularity of biography, if not relatively, yet absolutely, seems to be continually increasing.'

Quarterly Review, No. 313, January, 1884.

[INTRODUCTION.]

The question has often been asked, 'Why is there for Cornwall no companion-book to Prince's "Worthies of Devon"?' Fuller, it is true, in his 'Worthies,' allots a section to Cornwall; but the notices, though pregnant with shrewd humour, are slight and incomplete; and Fuller, of course, is now out of date: indeed, most of the Cornishmen whose names will be found in the following pages lived since his time. The Rev. R. Polwhele, of Polwhele, one of the historians of his native county, has certainly left us some amusing notices in his 'Biographical Sketches;' but out of the sixty names that he enumerates, 'all-eating Time hath left us but a little morsel (for manners) of their memories;' and some half-dozen only seem to be sufficiently distinguished to require any further perpetuation of their fame than has been already conferred upon them by Polwhele's now scarce little work. Besides which, Polwhele, of course, had not access to the great Libraries and Collections which are now available in London, nor to the Transactions of many metropolitan and local Archæological Societies; he was, moreover, apt to be dazzled by the nearness of the effulgence of some of his characters:—and he, too, is now sixty or seventy years behind the time. Lastly, neither Fuller nor Polwhele had the advantage of the labours of those indefatigable pioneers in Cornish literature—the authors of the 'Bibliotheca Cornubiensis.'[1] Another recent work, invaluable to the would-be biographer of Cornwall's Worthies is the admirable history of Exeter College, Oxford, contained in the Register of the Rectors, Fellows, etc., by my old schoolfellow, the Rev. C. W. Boase, Fellow and Tutor of that College (Oxford, 1879). If it should be said that copious and complete biographies of one or two of my characters have already been written, I would venture to observe in reply, that these are monograph accounts only; in some cases consisting of two or three volumes, and now either out of print, or, from their bulk and cost, not generally accessible. May I allege another and a chief reason for writing this work? It is, that I thought those persons were right who considered the celebrities of my native county had not received the notice which they deserved. And yet, 'class for class,' says a writer in the Times, 28th March, 1882, 'they will beat all England.' Indeed (and I confess it with no little shame) some of those whose lives I have endeavoured to describe in the following pages, I did not myself, at one time, know to have been Cornishmen! And this although, as a Cornishman, I ought not to be altogether without the genius loci of our southernmost and westernmost county: yet—

'Semper honos, nomenque horum, laudesque manebunt.'

As regards the principle on which the lives have been selected of those who, amongst others, have been worthiest 'in arms, in arts, in song,' I may say that I have endeavoured to find such names as would be, in the first place, of sufficient importance to warrant their claims to notice being brought before the public; secondly, to make the selection as varied in character as possible; and, thirdly, to choose such as were likely to prove interesting to the general reader: for even biography itself—said by Librarians to be one of the most popular branches of the belles lettres—must prove uninteresting if dull subjects are dully treated. I earnestly trust that I have not fallen into this fatal error.

It might have been interesting to have said something of many mighty names of the past; even though numbers of them are scarcely more than legendary. Amongst others, of St. Ursula in the fourth century, 'daughter of the Cornish King Dionutus,' and Directress of the celebrated expedition of the 'eleven thousand virgins' to Cologne; of King Arthur himself; of Walter de Constantiis, Chancellor of England, and Chief Justice, in the twelfth century; of Thomas, and St. George, and Richard, and Godfrey, of Cornwall; of Odo de Tregarrick in Roche; of Simon de Thurway; of John de Trevisa,[2] the fourteenth-century scholar and divine, who was supposed to have translated part of the Bible into English; ('a daring work,' as Fuller says, 'for a private person in that age without particular command from Pope or Public Council'); and of that Syr Roger Wallyoborow, of Buryan, who, in the time of Henry VIII., 'miraculously brought home from the Holy Land a piece of the true Cross.' There are, besides, many others of later date, whose names I should have liked, but for the reasons already given, to include; such as the Bonythons;[3] the Carews; Sir John Eliot, the Patriot; Dean Miller; the Molesworths; the Edgcumbes of Mount Edgcumbe; Noy, Charles I.'s Attorney-General; Dean Prideaux; the Rashleighs; the Robarteses; the Trelawnys; the Tremaynes; and the Trevanions;—beside those whose loss to Cornwall Dr. Borlase lamented; and many others.

But there were few reliable materials for the first-named group: authentic accounts of the deeds of the legendary ancients have faded away into the 'dark backward and abysm of time;' and mere legends it was hardly worth while to perpetuate. Nor did it seem desirable to include a bare list of names, or repetitions of lives of a generally similar character; in which case the actors' names would often have been the chief variations in what was intended to be a readable, fireside book. In short, I have aimed at making my list representative rather than exhaustive.

With the object of not wearying the general reader, I have refrained from clouding my pages with minute references to authorities,—except when some special reason seemed to occur for doing so. I trust this will not be considered a defect, when I state that, for some of the lives which follow, the lists of authorities consulted would have occupied nearly one fourth of the space allotted to the lives themselves. As an instance, the number of entries given in the 'Bibliotheca Cornubiensis' for the Killigrews is 450; and one of these entries alone comprises nearly fifty items.

A most pleasing task remains to be discharged; namely, to record my heartfelt obligations to my friends, the Rev. F. C. Hingeston-Randolph, M.A., and Mr. H. Michell Whitley, C.E., for their very valuable assistance in seeing the following pages through the press.

I will only add, in the words of that delightful biographer, Izaak Walton, in his 'Life of George Herbert':

'I have used very great diligence to inform myself, that I might inform my reader of the truth of what follows; and, though I cannot adorn it with eloquence, yet I will do it with sincerity.'

W. H. T.

Morlah Lodge,
16, Tregunter Road,
London, S. W.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Let me say here, once for all, that had that monument of accurate research, and labour of love, the work of Mr. W. P. Courtney and Mr. G. C. Boase, not appeared, the following essays could never have been attempted by me, in the midst of many other and harassing occupations; the 'Bibliotheca,' however, not only rendered such a task comparatively easy, but positively invited the pen, even of one who is no ready scribe. In fact I feel, as Oliver Wendell Holmes well puts it, 'that I have ascended the stream whilst others have tugged at the oar.'

[2] His works are among the earliest printed books in the British Museum: one of them (his translation of 'Bartholomeus de Proprietatibus Rerum') is believed to be the first book printed on paper of English manufacture.

[3] I am informed by Mr. J. Langdon Bonython, of Adelaide, South Australia, that Longfellow, the American poet, was descended from a member of this family—Captain Richard Bonython.

[RALPH ALLEN,]

THE MAN OF BUSINESS AND PHILANTHROPIST.

RALPH ALLEN,

THE MAN OF BUSINESS AND PHILANTHROPIST.

'Let humble[4] Allen, with an awkward shame,
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.'
Pope: Epilogue to the Satires of Horace.

St. Blazey Highway has a clear title to being the birthplace of Ralph Allen; but his parentage is doubtful, owing to his name not appearing in the baptismal register, and to the obscurity caused by the two following entries in the Register of Marriages:

1686.

William All——, and Grace ——, was mar—— 24th August (entry
imperfect).

1687.

John Allen, of parish of St. Blazey, and Mary Elliott,[5] of the
parish of St. Austell, were married the 10th of February.

Ralph was born about 1694. His father kept a small inn called 'The Duke William'—sometimes 'The Old Duke'—(the site of which is now occupied by three or four dwelling-houses), and he seems to have been a man of good common-sense and sturdy disposition, judging from one or two slight anecdotes of him which have come down to us: doubtless he gave his boy Ralph good advice, if not much literary instruction. But the youngster primarily owed most of his remarkable success in life to the fact of his happening to be staying with his grandmother, who kept the St. Columb Post-office, when the Government Inspector came his rounds. This officer seems to have at once recognised the shrewdness and neat-handedness of the lad; and an appointment in the Post-office at Bath, to which place young Ralph was brought under the care of Sir John Trevelyan, was, before long, offered to him. Here he soon distinguished himself by detecting a plot to introduce into Bath illegally, in connexion with the Jacobite rising of 1715, a quantity of arms. This discovery he forthwith communicated to General Wade, who thereupon became his friend and patron, and whose natural daughter—so Pierce Egan tells us—a Miss Earl, became Allen's first wife. His first wife, but not his first love: her he magnanimously portioned, and yielded up to another man, with whom he thought she might be happier; and hence, probably, the reason why the basso-relievo of Scipio's resignation of his captive was selected as one of the principal decorations of the Hall at Prior Park. Farington thus refers to Allen's discovery of the Jacobite plot: 'When the rebellion burst out, a numerous junto in Bath took most active measures to aid the insurrection in the West of England; and Mr. Carte, the minister of the Abbey Church, when Allen detected the plot, was glad to escape from the constables by leaping from a window in full canonicals.'

On his becoming Deputy Postmaster at Bath, the anomalies and inconveniences attendant upon the postal system, as it was then worked, engaged Allen's serious attention. It will scarcely be believed that in those days a letter from Cheltenham or Bath to Worcester or Birmingham was actually sent first to London! To remedy this state of things Allen by degrees perfected that scheme of cross-posts throughout England and Wales with which his name will always be associated, and for which he was himself the contractor for many years; viz. from 1720 to 1764.[6] Accounts differ as to the profits which accrued to him under this contract, which was from time to time renewed; but there is no reason to doubt the story that ultimately he cleared by it no less a sum than half a million sterling.

In 1644, by a Resolution of the House of Commons, Edmund Prideaux, a Member of the House, was constituted Master of the Post Messengers and Carriers, and in 1649 he established a weekly conveyance to every part of the kingdom, in lieu of the former practice under which letters were sent by special messengers whose duty it was to supply relays of horses at a certain mileage. In 1658 Cromwell made Prideaux one of his Baronets; and he acquired great wealth. It is said that his emoluments in connexion with the Post Office were not less than £15,000 a year. (Maclean's Trigg Minor, vol. ii. pp. 210-11.) Thus, whilst to one West-countryman, who, if not indeed a Cornishman by birth (for the Prideauxes were lords of Prideaux, close to Allen's birth-place), was at least of Cornish extraction—Postmaster-General Edmund Prideaux, Attorney-General—we owe in a great measure the regular efficient establishment of the Post Office and its first becoming a source of revenue—to another Cornishman, the subject of these remarks, we are indebted for the important improvements referred to above.

In the Home Office Papers, 1761 (2nd and 5th December, Post Office Pl. 5, 385—'By-way and Cross-road Posts'), will be found 'a narrative of Mr. Allen's transactions with the Government for the better management of the by-way and cross-road posts from the year 1720 to the year 1762, whereby it will be seen how much he has been the instrument of increasing the revenue and encouraging the commerce of this kingdom during the whole of that long interval. Dated 2nd December, 1761.' The narrative shows that in 1710 the country postmasters collected quantities of 'by or way letters,' and clandestinely conveyed them. Correspondence was perpetually interrupted. 'The by and way letters were thrown promiscuously together into one large bag, which was to be opened at every stage by the deputy, or any inferior servant of the house, to pick out of the whole heap what might belong to his own delivery, and the rest put back again into this large bag with such by-letters as he should have to send to distant places from his own stage.' Traders resorted to clandestine conveyance for speed. Surveyors were, however, appointed to make reports on the Post Office at the beginning of the reign of George I., but their reports did not touch these by-letters. Mr. Allen, having contrived checks which detected considerable frauds, next formed the plan for the conveyance of these letters in 1710. His offer to advance the revenue of the Post Office from £4,000 to £6,000 a year was accepted; but false and malicious representations were made against his proposal. On an inquiry as to the revenue from these letters, it was found that for seven years it had sunk £900 a year. He then made another proposal to farm the postage for seven years at the sum which they then yielded, taking any such surplus as he could make them produce, and an 'explanatory contract' was then agreed to. On an examination into the account of the country letters, it had increased £7,835 2s. 7d., which Mr. Allen would have been entitled to if the 'explanatory contract' had only been executed. The country letters increased to £17,464 4s. 11d. per annum at the end of fourteen years. He now appointed surveyors, and stated his plans for suppressing irregularities. Lord Lovell and Mr. Carteret having expressed their approval of these plans, etc., he agreed to another contract for seven years, and proposed an extension and quickening of the correspondence in 1741 by an 'every-day post' to several places; this contract was renewed in 1748, 1755, and 1760. It details the communications by cross-roads, etc.; and it was found that the revenue, by computation, had increased one and a half millions.

Some fine quarries on Combe Down, from which most of the best houses in Bath were built, having become his property, Allen invented an ingenious contrivance for conveying the huge blocks of stone from the quarries on the hill down to the canal which runs by the city. In his capacity of quarry-owner he amassed still more wealth, became a large employer of labour, and a man of such influence in Bath, that although he was mayor once only (in 1742), he practically guided the affairs of that city as it pleased him best, a circumstance which gave rise to a caricature, long popular at Bath, entitled 'The One-headed Corporation.' It need hardly be added whose head that was. A bust of him in the Drawing-room or Council Chamber of the Guildhall commemorates the year of his mayoralty, and there is also a portrait of him in the Mayor's Room.

Probably his energies as a man of business were exerted in many other directions, which it would now be difficult to trace. But, be this as it may, he now determined on leaving his old residence in the city, situated between York Street and Liliput Alley, and which, I believe, still stands, though obscured by surrounding buildings. The site he chose for his long-planned new residence is one of the finest in the kingdom. It is three or four miles out of Bath, on the south-east side, and stands near the Combe Down quarries, 400 feet above the sea, commanding fine views over many a mile around. Here at Prior Park, originally the seat of an old monastic establishment, which, Leland says, 'belonged to the prior of Bathe,'[7] Ralph Allen determined on building a large and stately mansion, which should enable him to exercise a princely hospitality towards almost every stranger of rank, learning, or distinction who visited 'The Bath.' Hither came, for instance, Thomson and Swift and Gay, Arbuthnot and Pope, Sterne and Smollett, Garrick and Quin; Graves, the author of the 'Spiritual Quixote'; and Charles Yorke, afterwards Solicitor-General—all probably known to Allen through meeting him in the literary circles of London, which Allen frequented when he went to town. Nor was he unvisited by royalty: the Princess Amelia stayed there in 1752, and the Duke of York, 'on his own motion,' as Allen is careful to say, on 26th December, 1761. Here, too, might often be found reckless, delightful, generous Henry Fielding, who avowedly not only drew one phase of his munificent friend's portrait as the somewhat too feeble Squire Allworthy in 'Tom Jones,' and described the mansion at Prior Park in the same novel, but also dedicated to him that other story which Dr. Johnson read with such avidity—'Amelia.' No doubt, too, it is to Allen that Fielding refers in the well-known passage in 'Joseph Andrews,' comparing him to the 'Man of Ross:' 'One Al—Al—— I forget his name.' And Allen's generosity towards Fielding did not end with cheery welcomes to Prior Park and timely loans—should we not rather say gifts?—to the jolly novelist when he was in need of them, for Lawrence tells us that he sent Fielding a present of 200 guineas, in admiration of his genius, before they were personally acquainted; and on Fielding's death Allen took charge of his family, provided for their education, and left £100 a year between them.

Pope,[8] whose acquaintance with Allen dated from 1736, brought Warburton. Sitting one day at dinner, at Prior Park, the poet had a letter handed to him, which he read apparently with some disappointment on finding that he should probably miss an opportunity of meeting his friend. Allen, however, on hearing the cause of Pope's trouble, with characteristic native politeness begged him to ask Warburton to the house—a pleasant task which Pope, who used to say that his host's friendship was 'one of the chief satisfactions of his life,'performed in the following letter, which I insert as giving us a peep at the sort of life led in those days by Allen and his friends, and also as affording us a glimpse of the house itself:

'My third motive of now troubling you is my own proper interest and pleasure. I am here in more leisure than I can possibly enjoy, even in my own house, vacare Literis. It is at this place that your exhortations may be most effectual to make me resume the studies I had almost laid aside by perpetual avocations and dissipations. If it were practicable for you to pass a month or six weeks from home, it is here I could wish to be with you; and if you would attend to the continuation of your own noble work, or unbend to the idle amusement of commenting upon a poet, who has no other merit than that of aiming, by his moral strokes, to merit some regard from such men as advance truth and virtue in a more effectual way; in either case this place and this house would be an inviolable asylum to you from all you would desire to avoid in so public a scene as Bath. The worthy man who is the master of it invites you in the strongest terms, and is one who would treat you with love and veneration, rather than with what the world calls civility and regard. He is sincerer and plainer than almost any man now in this world, antiquis moribus. If the waters of the Bath may be serviceable to your complaints (as I believe from what you have told me of them), no opportunity can ever be better. It is just the best season. We are told the Bishop of Salisbury (Dr. Sherlock) is expected here daily, who, I know, is your friend—at least, though a bishop, is too much a man of learning to be your enemy. You see, I omit nothing to add weight in the balance, in which, however, I will not think myself light, since I have known your partiality. You will want no servant here. Your room will be next to mine, and one man will serve us. Here is a library, and a gallery ninety feet long to walk in, and a coach whenever you would take the air with me. Mr. Allen tells me you might, on horseback, be here in three days. It is less than 100 miles from Newark, the road through Leicester, Stowe-in-the-Wolds, Gloucestershire, and Cirencester, by Lord Bathurst's. I could engage to carry you to London from hence, and I would accommodate my time and journey to your conveniency.'

The long gallery referred to above was a very favourite part of the house with Pope, and here he used to walk up and down in 'a morning dishabille consisting of a dark grey waistcoat, a green dressing-gown, and a blue cap,' as he is represented in the well-known portrait by Hoare.

A pleasant glance at the friendly terms on which the trio used to live at Prior Park is afforded to us in Kilvert's 'Selections from Warburton,' which has for its frontispiece a lithograph from a picture, formerly at Prior Park, of Pope, Allen, and Warburton ('Wit, Worth, and Wisdom'), in a room together. Allen is seated in the centre of the group; on his left is Warburton, bringing into the room a ponderous folio; and, seated at a table at the opposite side of the picture, the little poet is seen writing; in the background, through a window, is disclosed a view of Bath. It is difficult to understand how Pope, after all this friendly intimacy, could quarrel with Allen, and call Warburton 'a sneaking parson.'

Hurd also, successively Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, and of Worcester, was a frequent visitor to Prior Park, and after his friendly host's decease commemorated his worth by an inscription (now effaced) on a look-out tower in the park:

'Memoriæ optimi viri, Radulphi Allen, positum,
Qui virtutem veram simplicemque colis, venerare hoc saxum.'

I do not know whether General Wade was ever entertained here by Allen; but that the latter did not forget his early patron he showed by erecting the General's statue in front of the house. Pitt, who sat for Bath, certainly came here, and each held the other in the highest regard. Allen left him £1,000 by his will, as 'the best of friends as well as the most upright and ablest of Ministers that has adorned our country.' Nor did 'the heaven-born Minister' fail to appreciate the Cornishman's virtues, or to extend to others, for his sake, friendly offices; for to Pitt, Warburton (who had married Allen's favourite niece, Gertrude Tucker, a lady to whom he left Prior Park for life) was indebted for his bishopric. At one time, indeed, there was a slight coolness between Pitt and Allen, owing to the introduction of the word 'adequate' into an address from the men of Bath in a memorial to the King, referring to the Peace of 1763. Pitt thought the Peace extremely 'inadequate,' and so much resented the use of the word that he refused to join his colleague, Sir John Seabright, in presenting the memorial; and whilst he vowed he would never again stand for Bath, Allen from that time avowed his intention of withdrawing from all public affairs. In the correspondence which ensued, Ralph Allen magnanimously took upon himself the entire responsibility for the insertion of the obnoxious word; and he adds in a letter to Pitt, which will be found in the Royal Magazine for 1763, that the communication of Pitt's unalterable decision in the matter to the Corporation of Bath was 'the most painful commission he ever received.' That this event, however, did not affect the high regard in which the two held each other is evinced, on the one hand, by the manner in which (as we have seen) Allen expressed himself regarding Pitt, in his will; and on the other by a letter which Pitt wrote during the unfortunate controversy, in which he says:

'I cannot conclude my letter without expressing my sensible concern at Mr. Allen's uneasiness. No incident can make the least change in the honour and love I bear him, or in the justice my heart does to his humane and benevolent virtues.'

And Pitt wrote in a similar strain to Mrs. Allen[9] on her husband's death, saying, 'I fear not all the example of his virtues will have power to raise up to the world his like again.'

That Pitt had good reason thus to write of his deceased friend is abundantly clear from the following letter, preserved amongst the Egerton MSS. in the British Museum:

'St. James's Square, Dec. 16, 1760.

'Dear Sir,

'The very affecting token of esteem and affection which you put into my hands last night at parting, has left impressions on my heart which I can neither express nor conceal. If the approbation of the good and wise be our wish, how must I feel the sanction of applause and friendship accompany'd with such an endearing act of kindness from the best of men? True Gratitude is ever the justest of Sentiments, and Pride too, which I indulge on this occasion, may, I trust, not be disclaim'd by Virtue. May the gracious Heaven long continue to lend you to mankind, and particularly to the happiness of him who is unceasingly, with the warmest gratitude, respect, and affection,

'My dear Sir,

'Your most faithfull Friend and

most obliged humble Servant,

'W. Pitt.'

Very different from this noble passage in the lives of these two illustrious men was that which, for a while at least, disturbed the friendly feelings of Allen towards Pope. The equivocal relations which existed between the poet and Martha Blount are well known;—'the fiend, a woman fiend, God help me! with whom I have spent three or four hours a day these fifteen years.' She seems, nevertheless, to have been tolerated at Allen's house at Bathampton hard by; but when she demanded the use of Mr. Allen's chariot to attend a Roman Catholic Chapel at Bath, Allen being a staunch Protestant and Hanoverian,[10] the line was drawn, and a coolness, if not a quarrel, ensued. Pope used to deny the whole story. At any rate the breach was patched up, and intimacy between him and Allen was resumed; but the waspish little man never, in my opinion, either forgot or forgave what happened, and to this the following extract from his will,—a will, as Johnson said, 'polluted with female resentment,'—suave though the passage reads at first, I think bears witness:

'I give and advise my library of printed books to Ralph Allen, of Widcombe, Esq., and to the Reverend Mr. William Warburton, or to the survivor of them (when those belonging to Lord Bolingbroke are taken out, and when Mrs. Martha Blount has chosen threescore out of the number). I also give and bequeath to the said Mr. Warburton the property of all such of my works already printed, as he hath written, or shall write, commentaries or notes upon, and which I have not otherwise disposed of, or alienated; and all the profits which shall arise after my death from such editions as he shall publish without future alterations.

'Item.—In case Ralph Allen, Esq., abovesaid, shall survive me, I order my executors to pay him the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds, being, to the best of my calculation, the account of what I have received from him; partly for my own, and partly for charitable uses. If he refuses to take this himself, I desire him to employ it in a way, I am persuaded, he will not dislike, to the benefit of the Bath Hospital.'—Extract from the Will of Pope (p. clxi., Pope's Works, vol. i., Bell and Daldy's Aldine edition).

When the passage was read to Ralph Allen, he, of course, ordered that the money should be handed over to the hospital (an institution in which it may be observed he always took a deep interest, providing the stone, and giving £1,000 besides: a ward is named after him, where his portrait[11] is preserved, and also a bust by William Hoare of Bath, dated 1757); but he drily added, in allusion to the extent of the obligations which Pope had received from him, 'He forgot to add the other 0 to the £150,'—a quiet, but perhaps as keen a stab as Pope himself had ever dealt with his own malevolent stiletto. And Allen was a man who could afford to say so much, for he used to spend about £1,000 a year in private charities alone.

Many of the letters of Pope to be found among the Egerton MSS. have endorsements by Allen in his own handwriting. On one of them is written 'The last;' and Pope concludes it—evidently, from the change in the handwriting, in great pain—thus: 'I must just set my hand to my heart.' It is dated 'Chelsea College, 7th May, 1741.' The letters also comprise some correspondence from Gertrude Warburton (née Tucker), Allen's favourite niece; from Warburton himself; and from many other distinguished persons.

Besides Prior Park, Allen had a house in London; and another at Weymouth—a place where he often resided for three months annually, and whose decaying fortunes he took a chief share in reviving, about the year 1763[12]—and I rather think he had another house at Maidenhead, near the west end of the bridge, to which house he added a room with a bow-window, and another room over it.

He certainly had a pleasant little retreat at Bathampton; for in a characteristic letter from Pope to Arbuthnot (the roughly humorous physician, strong Tory, and High Churchman), dated 23rd July, 1793, Pope explains how Allen would not let the two friends stay at his villa at Bathampton, but insisted upon having them both up at Prior Park; because, Pope observes, 'I suspect that he has an apprehension in his head that if he lends that house to us, others hereabouts may try to borrow it, which would be disagreeable to him, he making it a kind of villa to change to, and pass now and then a day at it, in private.'

But Prior Park was Ralph Allen's historic abode; and one object which he had in view in building it was to demonstrate the excellent quality of the stone[13] in his Combe Down Quarries. The whole building, which is in the Corinthian style, with its wings and arcades and fine hexastyle portico has a frontage of 1,250 feet; the house itself being 150 feet. We have seen from Pope's letter to Warburton what spacious corridors it contained, admirably adapted for literary disquisitions on a wet day. The mansion also comprised its chapel, in which was kept the Bible given to Pope by Atterbury when the Bishop went into exile. Everything was built in the most solid style. Even the pigeon-houses were of stone throughout; and, strange as it may seem, roofs were composed of the same material. The house was commenced in 1736 and finished in 1743; nor did Allen forget to add to the charms of the demesne by judiciously arranged plantations.

Building, indeed, seems to have been, naturally enough with such magnificent quarries at his disposal, a favourite occupation of Allen's. He even crowned the hill which looks down upon the city of Bath from the south-east with a large and somewhat picturesque structure,—a mere shell, now known as 'Sham Castle;' but which, especially when lit up by the setting sun, is a not unwelcome addition to the panoramic view of the hills as seen from the east end of Pulteney Street. A short time ago, whilst walking along this street, I asked a man, lounging there, who built the castle on the hill? and (alas! such is fame!) he told me that it was 'a Mr. Nash, a gentleman that had done a power of good to the city.' And here it may conveniently be observed that Beau Nash, to whom Dr. Oliver says Ralph Allen was 'very generous' (as he was, indeed, to everyone who had the slightest claim upon his notice), generally superintended the amusements within the walls of Prior Park. On the occasion of one of these entertainments—a masked ball—the solemn Warburton, who thought it beneath the dignity of his cloth to wear a mask, was nevertheless dressed up in a military uniform by his sprightly wife, and was introduced to the company as 'Brigadier-General Moses!' in allusion, I suppose, to Warburton's authorship of the 'Divine Legation.'

The following local tradition respecting the building of Prior Park was communicated to Mr. Kilvert by the late Mr. H. V. Lansdown, of Bath, the well-known artist, a gentleman who had accumulated a large collection of reminiscences of Bath, and its Worthies of the olden time:

'When Mr. Allen had determined to build the present mansion at Prior Park, he sent for John Wood, the architect,[14] who waited upon him at the old post-office in Liliput Alley, where Allen then resided.

'"I want you," said Allen, "to build me a country house on the Prior's estate at Widcombe."

'Allen then described the sort of place he wished erected; but when he entered into the details, and talked about a private chapel, with a tribune for the family; a portico of gigantic dimensions; a grand entrance-hall, and wings of offices for coach-houses, stables, etc., the astonished architect began to think the postmaster had taken leave of his senses.

'"Have you, sir, sat down and counted the cost of building such a place?"

'"I have," replied Allen; "and for some time past have been laying by money for the purpose."

'"But," said Wood, "the place you are talking about would be a palace, and not a house; you have not the least idea of the money 'twould take to complete it."

'"Well," rejoined Allen, "come this way."

'He then took Wood into the next room, and, opening a closet-door, showed him a strong box.

'"That box is full of guineas!"

'The architect shook his head. Allen opened another closet, and pointed to a second and a third. Wood still hesitated.

'"Well," said Allen, "come into this room." 'A fourth and fifth are discovered. The architect now began to open his eyes with wonder.

'"If we have not money enough—here, come into this bedroom."

'A sixth, a seventh, and lo! an eighth appears. John Wood might well have exclaimed:

'"I'll see no more.
For perhaps, like Banquo's ghosts, you'll show a score."

'Chuckling in his turn at the astonishment of the architect, Allen now inquired if the house could be built.

'"I'll begin the plans immediately," replied Wood. "I see there is money enough to erect even a palace, and I'll build you a palace that shall be the admiration of all beholders."'

But we must hasten to a close; a close to which the next allusion to the building propensities of the generous subject of this memoir naturally leads us. In 1754, Ralph Allen rebuilt the south aisle of Bathampton Church, and 'beautified the whole structure.' Appropriately enough, in that aisle has been placed an oval mural tablet, of white and Sienna marble, to his memory; and his son Philip, who became Comptroller of the 'Bye-letter' department in the London Post Office, was, I believe, actually buried there.

But the remains of Ralph Allen were interred in the neighbouring quiet and lovely little churchyard at Claverton. He was on his way to London, but feeling ill, probably from asthma, a complaint which often troubled him, halted at Maidenhead, and was induced to return thence to Bath, where he expired at a good old age, which the pyramidal monument erected at Claverton to his memory thus records:

'Beneath this monument lieth entombed the body of Ralph Allen, Esq., of Prior Park, who departed this life the 29th day of June, 1764, in the 71st year of his age; in full hopes of everlasting happiness in another state, through the infinite merit and mediation of our blessed Redeemer, Jesus Christ.'

Derrick has thus described Allen's personal appearance shortly before his death: 'He is a very grave, well-looking man, plain in his dress, resembling that of a Quaker, and courteous in his behaviour. I suppose he cannot be much under seventy. His wife is low, with grey hair, and of a very pleasing address.' Kilvert says that he was rather above the middle size, and stoutly built; and that he was not altogether averse to a little state, as he often used to drive into Bath in a coach-and-four. His handwriting was very curious; he evidently wrote quickly and fluently, but it is so overloaded with curls and flourishes as to be sometimes scarcely legible.

The lack of all show about his garb seems to have somewhat annoyed Philip Thicknesse, the well-known author of one of the Bath Guides; for he speaks of Allen's 'plain linen shirt-sleeves, with only a chitterling up the slit.' Ralph Allen's claims to a niche in our Cornish Valhalla do not, however, depend upon costume, but upon his talents and his philanthropy.

Writing to Dr. Doddridge on 14th February, 1742-43, Warburton thus refers to his genial host:

'I got home a little before Christmas, after a charming philosophical retirement in a palace with Mr. Pope and Mr. Allen for two or three months. The gentleman I last mentioned is, I verily believe, the greatest private character in any age of the world. You see his munificence to the Bath Hospital. This is but a small part of his charities, and charity but a small part of his virtues. I have studied his character even maliciously, to find where his weakness lies, but have studied in vain. When I know it, the world shall know it too, for the consolation of the envious; especially as I suspect it will prove to be only a partiality he has entertained for me. In a word, I firmly believe him to have been sent by Providence into the world to teach men what blessings they might expect from heaven, would they study to deserve them.'

In Bishop Hurd's 'Life of Warburton,' the following passage occurs, and upon this 'the Man of Bath's' fame might securely rest:

'Mr. Allen was of that generous composition, that his mind enlarged with his fortune; and the wealth he so honourably acquired he spent in a splendid hospitality and the most extensive charities. His house, in so public a scene as that of Bath, was open to all men of rank and worth, and especially to men of distinguished parts and learning, whom he honoured and encouraged, and whose respective merits he was enabled to appreciate by a natural discernment and superior good sense rather than by any acquired use and knowledge of letters. His domestic virtues were beyond all praise; and with these qualities he drew to himself an universal respect.'

It would be easy, if necessary, to multiply passages of this sort, but one more shall suffice, as illustrating the almost universal recognition of what Mr. Leslie Stephen has well termed Allen's 'princely benevolence and sterling worth.' Mrs. Delany (iii. 608), writing from Bath, 2nd November, 1760, mentions that the house on the South Parade where she was then lodging had been bought by Ralph Allen, furniture and all, in order that he might settle it on Mrs. Davis, a poor clergyman's widow. 'How well does that man,' she adds, 'deserve the prosperous fortune he has met with!' And behind all this there doubtless remained, in the case of our modest hero:

'That best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love.'

A notice of this remarkable man would be incomplete without some reference to two of his connexions, whose names are still honoured and remembered in the West country: Thomas Daniell, who married Ralph Allen's niece, Elizabeth Elliott; and Ralph Allen Daniell, Thomas's son. Of the last-named, it may be shortly stated that he inherited a full share of his grand-uncle's and namesake's good qualities; was a prosperous merchant; and that he became, in 1800, the possessor of Trelissick estate, and the builder of the exquisitely situated mansion of that name, which overlooks the placid waters of Falmouth Haven. Here Davies Gilbert, P.R.S., resided; and it is now the country seat of his son's widow, the Honourable Mrs. Gilbert.

The Thomas Daniell mentioned above appears to have started in life as a clerk to Mr. Lemon, who then lived at the Quay, Truro, in the house now known as the Britannia Inn. Here, too, once lived Dr. Wolcot, better known as 'Peter Pindar;' and, in the middle of the present century, the writer's father, John Tabois Tregellas, well-known throughout the county as a writer on the Cornish dialect. Mr. Daniell succeeded to Mr. Lemon's business as a merchant, and to his residence. He was also associated with the well-known old Cornish family of Michell,[15] in the Calenick Smelting Works, near Truro, which are still in active operation. Thomas Daniell was a great and successful adventurer in mines, and was at one time M.P. for Looe. He left his mark upon the little Cornish metropolis by building, as already mentioned, in Prince's Street, the handsomest mansion which the city contains, the front of which is an excellent specimen of the famous Bath stone.[16]

FOOTNOTES:

[4] This word originally stood as 'low-born;' but Pope (himself a linendraper's son, it will be remembered) altered it, as it is said, at Allen's request. Pope had previously asked Allen's leave to insert some such passage (28th April, 1738).

[5] Allen's sister married a Mr. Philip Elliott.

[6] For particulars, see 'Parliamentary Papers,' 1807, 1812, and 1813. The following extract from the London Gazette of 16th April, 1720, fixes the date of the commencement of the scheme: 'General Post Office, London, April 12, 1720. The announcement recites that the Post Office authorities, having granted to Ralph Allen, of Bath, gentleman, a farm of all the by-way or cross-road letters throughout England and Wales, and being determined to improve postal communication, give notice that "the postage of no by-way or cross-road letters is anywhere to be demanded at the places they are sent from (upon any pretence whatever) unless they are directed on board of a ship,"' etc., etc.

[7] Curiously enough, after the lapse of many years, it has again reverted, after a chequered history, to similar uses. It was used as a Roman Catholic seminary in 1820, but did not at first succeed; and much of the internal part was destroyed by fire in 1836.

[8] Their friendship seems to have arisen from Allen's great admiration of Pope's letters (notwithstanding their artificiality) and of his poems, of which Allen is said to have offered to print a volume at his own expense. Mr. Leslie Stephen says, 'Pope first attracted Allen's notice by his adroit but dishonest manipulation of the controversy touching the Curil correspondence.'

[9] This lady, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Holden, was Mr. Allen's second wife.

[10] In the Rebellion of 1745 he raised and equipped at his own expense a corps of 100 volunteers.

[11] Engraved by Meyer for Polwhele's 'Cornwall.'

[12] The local guide-books to Weymouth state that Allen, whilst here, invented an ingenious form of bathing-machine for his own use.

[13] Amongst other buildings, he cased the exterior of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, in London, with Bath stone, provided at his own expense; and furnished the same material for his nephew's, Thomas Daniell's house in Prince's Street, Truro.

[14] Wood was author of three architectural treatises: one of them descriptive of Bath; and another entitled 'The Origin of Building; or, the Plagiarism of the Heathens Detected, 1741.' The former work contains an elaborate, illustrated account of the mansion at Prior Park.

[15] A member of this family—a Truro man, it is believed—accompanied Sir Francis Drake in his famous voyage round the world.

[16] It may not be out of place to remark that an article on Ralph Allen in the Family Economist, and another (apparently by the same writer) in Chambers's Journal, entitled 'The Bath Post Boy,' are mere romances, with only a slight sprinkling of facts.

[JOHN ANSTIS,]

THE HERALD

JOHN ANSTIS,

THE HERALD.

'But coronets we owe to crowns,
And favour to a court's affection;
By nature we are Adam's sons,
And sons of Anstis by election.'
Prior.

There were three Cornishmen in succession, more or less known, who bore the above name. The grandfather, of whom little more is now ascertainable than that he was Registrar of the Archdeacon of Cornwall's Court (then held at St. Neot's),[17] that his wife's name was Mary Smith, and that he died in 1692; his son, the subject of this notice; and his grandson, who, like the second John Anstis, was also Garter King of Arms, and who died a bachelor at a comparatively early age. In Montagu Burrows' 'Worthies of All Souls,' it is stated that the second Anstis was of founder's kin; yet he failed to secure his election, notwithstanding a lawsuit instituted for that purpose.

Of the first and the third John Anstis little need be added, but the second merits a longer notice; for 'in him,' it is said, 'were joined the learning of Camden and the industry, without the inaccuracy, of Dugdale.' Born at Luna, on 28th September, 1669, in the parish of St. Neot's, near Liskeard, about one mile south-west of its interesting church, he became a member of Exeter College, Oxford, in 1685; and, having entered at the Middle Temple in 1688, and been appointed Deputy-General to the Auditors of the Imprest in 1703, and a Principal Commissioner of Prizes in 1704, was elected, when about thirty years of age, a member of the first Parliament of Queen Anne, for St. Germans, and was one of those who opposed the Occasional Conformity Bill; then, in 1711, member for St. Mawes; and finally member for Launceston in the first Parliament of George I. (1714-22). His first printed work on Heraldry seems to have been his (privately printed) 'Curia Militaris,' or 'Treatise of the Court of Chivalry,' which was published in 1702, and dedicated to Sir Jonathan Trelawny, the well-known non-juring Bishop of Exeter. In 1718 John Anstis was created Garter King of Arms, and six years afterwards he published his 'Annotated Register of the Most Noble Order of the Garter:' the copy which belonged to Dean Milles, who was born at Duloe, of which parish he was rector for forty-two years, is in the London Library.[18] Able and indefatigable both in and out of office, a voluminous correspondence with Sidney Godolphin, Sir Hans Sloane, Thomas Hearne the antiquary, and other distinguished men of the period, as well as similar treatises to the foregoing, followed from his pen, including his 'Aspilogia,' or 'A Discourse on Seals in England,' and fragments of a 'History of Cornwall,' etc., as to which copious information is afforded in the 'Bibliotheca Cornubiensis.'

Many of his MSS. are preserved in the Additional, Lansdowne, Harleian, Sloane, Birch, and Hargrave Collections at the British Museum; his proposals for publishing a history of the Order of the Garter are preserved in the Bodleian, whilst others of his numerous writings are in the libraries of All Souls' and Worcester Colleges, Oxford. He also wrote a MS. 'History of Launceston,' which, as well as others of his works, is now believed to be lost; and it may be added that he was intimately connected with the production of Rymer's 'Fœdera.'

Perhaps the most stirring event of his life was his imprisonment on the suspicion of a design to restore the Stuart dynasty, the story of which is as follows. He was a member of the High Church party, and, as such, opposed what was called the Whig interest, voting, as mentioned above, against the Occasional Conformity Bill; but, on the information of one Colonel Paul, he, as well as five or six other members of Parliament, fell under the suspicion of the Government, and Anstis was actually in prison at the very time that the office of Garter (which had been promised to him by Queen Anne) fell vacant. It was with the utmost difficulty that he cleared himself of these suspicions, and not until three years afterwards did he obtain the appointment, which had meanwhile been held by Sir John Vanbrugh, 'Clarenceux.' One of his fellow-suspects, Edward Harvey, Esq., stabbed himself with his garden pruning-knife, on a certain paper in his own handwriting being shown to him. John Anstis is described in the scarce tract which narrates this affair as being 'Hereditary High Steward of the Tinners of Cornwall,' and it is probable that in this capacity he may have been suspected of being concerned in some supposed insurrection in the county. But imprisonment in those days for like causes was sometimes, if the truth were told, somewhat of the nature of a political manœuvre.

John Anstis, F.S.A., the subject of this notice, died at his seat at Mortlake, Surrey, on 4th March, 1744, at a good old age, and his remains were laid in the family vault at Duloe, near Looe, some three weeks afterwards. His son at once succeeded (by a reversionary patent) to his father's post in the Heralds' College; and his remains followed his father's to their last resting-place in the same quiet churchyard on the 30th December, 1754. There is a portrait of the more celebrated Herald in the picture gallery at Oxford, and another at the College of Arms; and an engraved likeness is prefixed to the Rev. Mark Noble's history of that institution. There is another engraved portrait of him, in his tabard, in Nichols' 'Literary Illustrations,' vol. iv. p. 139. He married Elizabeth, the heiress of Richard Cudlipp, Esq., of Tavistock, and left three sons and three daughters. I believe that, as in the case of many another distinguished Cornishman, there is no monument to the memory of even the most celebrated member of the family. Yet, as a Christian name, the name of Anstis still lingers in the neighbourhood, and is borne by members of the family of Bewes, the present representatives through the female line.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] The Anstis family removed from St. Neot's to Duloe, in which parish they acquired their residence of Tremoderet (the ancient seat of the Colshills, Sheriffs of Cornwall), and Westnorth, purchased from Sir William Bastard, Kt.; the latter place was their principal seat.

[18] The learned Dr. Jeremiah Milles, Dean of Exeter, an accomplished antiquary, was buried in the church of St. Edmund, the King and Martyr, Lombard Street, where his 'elegant monument, by Bacon,' was placed.

[THE ARUNDELLS,]

ECCLESIASTICS AND WARRIORS.

THE ARUNDELLS OF LANHERNE, TRERICE AND TOLVERNE,

ECCLESIASTICS AND WARRIORS.

'The princely Arundells of yore.'

H. S. Stokes.

On the north-west coast of Cornwall, famous for its magnificent cliff scenery and fine stretches of golden sand, are four lovely valleys

'Looking towards the western wave,'

lying close together, and each watered by a little trout-stream; but, as is the case with Cornish landscape generally, with one exception scantily timbered. Each of these is more or less directly connected with the celebrated family of Arundell. I refer, first, to a valley through which a small stream murmurs, which rose on the northern slope of Denzell Downs, and flows near St. Ervan Church, having for its little tributaries two rivulets which water the foot of the sloping ground on which still stands a farm-place, called Trembleath, and entering the sea at Portcothan Bay; secondly, to the Vale of Lanherne, which extends from St. Columb Major to Mawgan Porth, and includes two churches, so named; next, to the valley with a nameless brook, which flows past Rialton—formerly the residence of the haughty Thomas Vivian, one of the latest Priors of Bodmin, and afterwards a seat of the Godolphins—then by the base of a hill crowned by the lofty tower of St. Columb Minor; and lastly, to the vale of the Gannel, near whose embouchure are the remains of the ancient collegiate establishment of Crantock, now represented by the highly interesting church, which, though nearly complete, is in a very unsatisfactory state of repair.

Each of these valleys has its porth (or port), a circumstance to which they were all probably indebted for the churches which they still possess; for in the days of small shipping, these little ports—smaller now than they formerly were—sufficiently accommodated the tiny craft which brought holy men from Ireland, or from South Wales, and, indeed, at that time probably afforded the chief means of communication with the outer world.

It is the second of these four valleys that we have chiefly to consider now, closely identified as it is with the names of the Arundells—'the great Arundells,' as they were called (on account, says Camden, of their vast riches), and as they called themselves, too; for on one of their tombs in the church of St. Columb Major was inscribed, 'Magnorum sepulchra Arundeliorum.' Parts of the vale are beautifully wooded, and the churches of St. Columb and Mawgan, which retain many features of interest, are both identified with the famous family whose story we are about to consider.[19] And here it should be premised that, besides the Arundells of Lanherne, Trerice, Tolverne, and Wardour, there were the Arundells of Menadarva, who afterwards settled at Trengwainton, near Penzance, descended from a Camborne stock, founded by a 'natural' son of an Arundell of Trerice, who intermarried with Pendarves and St. Aubyn. And again, the Arundells of Trevithick, in St. Columb Major, were a younger branch of the Lanherne family. They settled there circa Edward VI., and became extinct in 1740.

Of the first three branches I propose to treat under the heads of Lanherne, Trerice, and Tolverne; and to conclude my observations with a short reference to one or two minor branches of the family.

There can be no doubt, although Hals, with his usual ingenuity (and it might also be said, I fear, with his usual inaccuracy), has endeavoured to find a Cornish etymology for the name, that the name of Arundell is of French origin. At any rate, such was the belief in the early part of the thirteenth century; for they bore swallows in their escutcheon at least as early as the days of Henry II.; and in the 'Philippeis,' a work composed by Philip le Breton in 1230, there are the following verses descriptive of an encounter between an Arundell and one William de Barr:

'Vidit Hirundelâ velocior alite quæ dat
Hoc Agnomen ei, fert cujus in ægide signum
Se rapit agminibus mediis clypeoque nitenti
Quem sibi Guillelmus lævâ prætenderat ulnâ
Immergit validam præacutæ cuspidis hastam.'

(See p. 207, Camden's 'Remains,' 1637.)

But it is perhaps right to add that Davies Gilbert, P.R.S., a Cornish gentleman, who settled in Sussex, thought the name might have been derived from Arun Dale.

According to Mr. G. Freeth (R. I. C. Journal, September, 1876, pp. 285-93), Trembleth (a name still retained), in the adjoining parish of St. Ervan, was the chief seat of the Arundells before their marriage with the heiress of Lanherne. At any rate, Trembleth (situated in the northernmost of the four valleys mentioned above) was a residence of some of the subsequent members of the family. Hals gives the following interesting account of the place:

'Trembleigh, Trembleth, alias Trembleeth, alias Tremblot (see Tremblethick, in St. Mabyn), synonymous terms, signifies the "wolf's town."

'From this place was denominated an ancient family of gentlemen, surnamed De Trembleth, who, suitable to their name, gave the wolf for their arms; whose sole inheritrix, about Henry II.'s time, was married to John de Arundel, ancestor of the Arundels of Lanherne; who, out of respect and grateful remembrance of the great benefit they had by this match, ever since gave the wolf for their crest, the proper arms of Trembleth.

'In this town they had their domestic chapel and burying-place, now totally gone to decay, since those Arundels removed from hence to Lanherne. This manor was anciently held of the manor of Payton, by the tenure of knight's service. And here John de Arundel held a knight's fee (Morton, 3rd Henry IV.), as I am informed.'

The assumption of their French origin is further borne out by the fact that the early Arundells—especially one, Roger—obtained from the Conqueror considerable grants of land in Dorsetshire and Staffordshire. I have, however, been unable to obtain any clear traces of their connexion with Cornwall earlier than towards the middle of the thirteenth century, when they presented to the churches of St. Columb Major and of Mawgan. Again, a Sir Ralph Arundell was Sheriff of Cornwall in 1260; and, indeed, Hals observes that the Arundells filled the same office twenty times, of which there was no like instance in England. Some member of the family was generally knighted at the accession of a new sovereign to the throne, and one of the early Arundells was Marshal of England.

Amongst the monuments in the church of St. Columb Major is one to a John Arundell, once 'senescallus Dñi Regis et verus patronus hujus ecclesiæ, qui hanc capellam fieri fecit.' He died in the year 1400, and stained glass in the windows also commemorated at this date the family. There are also Arundell brasses at Antony East, Mawgan, and Stratton, and a monument at Newlyn East.

They held Lanherne of the Bishop of Exeter by military service, as appears from folio 102 of Bishop Stapledon's Register: it is therein called 'La Herne,' but it was also known formerly as Lanhadron.

Amongst other indications of their early settlement in the county, and of their importance from the very first, it may be mentioned that:

'Rad., son of Oliver de Arundell, of Lanherne, had £20 a year or more, in land, in 1297; and so had John Arundell, of Efford.

'Rad. D'Arundle held a "parv. feo." in Trekinnen.

'Johannes D'Arundle held military feus in Treawset and in Trenbeith, in 3rd Hen. IV. (1402). Also a "parv. feod." in Trekinnen.'

From the Records preserved at Exeter, the following further information, which bears upon the early connexion of the Arundells with the far West, has been gathered; and it is scarcely to be doubted that still earlier traces of their settlement in Cornwall might at one time have been forthcoming:

'Willus de Arundell, canonicus obiit vi. Kal. Maii, MCCXLVI.'

(Exeter Cathedral Martyrologium.)

But most of their monumental remains which still exist, are of later date, and are met with at various places in Cornwall, chiefly in the eastern parishes.

A Roger Arundell lived opposite the portico of St. Stephen's Church, in the High Street, Exeter, about the middle of the thirteenth century, and a Ralph Arundell, who was rector of St. Columb Major, resigned his benefice in 1353, whereupon the bishop (Grandison) granted him a pension of £20 a year, in consideration of his near relationship to Sir James Arundell, patron of the benefice.

Amongst the documents preserved in Bishop Lacy's Register is the will of Sir John Arundell, dated 18th April, 1433; he was probably that Sir John who is said to have had (temp. Ric. II.) no less than fifty-two complete suits of cloth of gold. This will refers to so much that is of interest, that I have been tempted to set down a few passages from it:—

Sir John leaves his soul to Almighty God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and all the saints; and his body to be buried in the new chapel near the chancel of the church of St. Columb Major. He gives £20 towards the bells of that church, 60 shillings towards the restoration of St. Erme Church, and 20 shillings to the rector of the same. A like sum for the restoration of the church of Maugan de Lanherne, and 20 shillings for the maintenance of divers lights therein, and £10 for the bell-tower, provided the requisite work is done within the following six years.

The rectors of St. Ewe, St. Mawgan juxta Carminow, and St. Wynwole (Gunwalloe) also receive bequests. He gives 13s. 4d. to the light of St. Michael's in the Mount,[20] and the same sum towards the construction of the chancel there. St. Perran Zabuloe also comes in for his bounty, and £13 are to be spent in 3,000 masses, to be celebrated for the benefit of his soul as quickly as possible after his death. To his blood-relation, Isabelle Bevylle, he leaves 4 marks; to John Tresithny, 10; to John Michell, 5;[21] and to others named, similar sums. But perhaps the most singular bequest of all is the following, viz., 'Item, lego ad usum parochie S' ci Pyerani in Zabulo ad claudendum capud S. Pierani honorificè et meliori modo quo sciunt xls.'[22] One is curious to know why the testator took such special interest in this singular relic. Certainly the Arundells were interested in the parish, and, as we shall presently see, one of them married the heiress of its chief manor. He finally leaves sundry vessels of precious metal to his son, 'Renfrido,' etc., and names as his executors, Bishop Lacy, his sons, Thomas (miles) and Renfr—, Otho Tregoney, and others.

It would be a fruitless task to endeavour to give details of the genealogy of the earlier Arundells, for it is enveloped in considerable uncertainty; and even so patient and skilled an investigator as Colonel J. L. Vivian, in his 'Annotated Heralds' Visitations of Cornwall,' has discovered such serious discrepancies in the various statements concerning it, that he gives up some portions of it in despair. We have seen that Roger was the Christian name of the Arundell at the time of the Conquest; in 1216, his grandson, William, forfeited his lands by rebellion (a tendency to which offence was, as we shall see, rather characteristic of the family), but the estates were restored to the rebellious William's nephew, Humphry. By the latter's marriage with Joan de Umfraville, he had a son, Sir Renfry de Arundell of Treffry, and by Renfry's marriage with Alice de Lanherne, in the time of Henry III., the name of Arundell became for many a long year associated with that of Lanherne. One of their sons, Sir Ralph, was, as we have seen, Sheriff of Cornwall in the same reign (1260), and from his marriage with a lady who bore the euphonious name of Eva de Rupe, or de la Roche, of Tremodret,[23] in Duloe parish, the main stem of the family seems to have shot forth its boughs and branches. Their younger son, Ralph, was that rector of St. Columb Major, who, as we have seen, resigned his living in 1353, or, according to some other authorities, in 1309. But their eldest son, Sir John of Trembleth, in the time of Edward I., married Joan le Soor, of Tolverne, and thus appears to have originated the connection which so long subsisted between the two branches of the family. Their children, Margaret and Sir John, married, the former with a Beville, and the latter with a Carminow; and now, for the first time, the name of Trerice also appears in the family tree, for this Sir John is said to have had a cousin, Ralph Arundell of that place. I cannot trace his descent, and can only suggest that he may have been a brother instead of a cousin. If I have correctly interpreted the pedigree, the last-named Sir John was a man of mark, and of him we have the following accounts:—

'In the year 1379, an expedition was fitted out by King Richard II., in the second year of his reign, in aid of the Duke of Bretagne, under the command of "Dominus Johannes Arundell," as old Thomas Walsingham, a learned monk of St. Albans, calls him.[24] On their way, after repulsing the French fleet off the coast of Cornwall, and whilst waiting for a favourable wind to cross the Channel, the commander of the expedition besought the hospitality of a certain convent of nuns (according to one account, at Netley), the lady superintendent of which very properly refused it to so rough and ready a band of military as composed Arundell's following. She besought most earnestly, "prostrata," and "conjunctis manibus," that he would find quarters for his men elsewhere, but all in vain. Scenes of a most disgraceful and violent character ensued, as might have been expected; and, not content with doing foul dishonour to the nuns, the soldiery were permitted to spoil the neighbourhood. They even went so far as to carry off from the convent the sacred vessels of its church, and several of the sisterhood as well ("vi vel sponte"), whereupon they were most righteously excommunicated by the priest. A violent tempest pursued them for their misdoings, a diabolical spectre appearing in Arundell's ship, threatening the dire disasters which followed. The unhappy women were flung overboard to lighten the ships, which at length made the coast of Ireland, upon which event Arundell made a speech concluding thus, according to the chronicler:

'"Minus grave est hoc quam in mare totiens ante mortem mori, et tandem mortem dedecorosam evadere nullo modo posse. Aut si inimici sunt qui in hac terra sunt, citius eligo per manus hostiles interfici (forsitan cadaveri sepulturam indulgebunt) quam more pecoris marinis mergi fluctibus, et fieri pelagi monstris cibus."'

But the swashbuckler was doomed not to escape as he had hoped, though finally he was to receive the sort of burial which he so evidently desired. His ship was driven on the rocks, and her ship-master and Sir John Arundell of Treleigh were drowned, together with his esquires and other men of high birth. Many were rescued by the Irish, but twenty-five ships in all were lost, and large numbers of their crews. Three days afterwards many of the bodies were recovered, amongst them those of Arundell, and were buried in a certain abbey in Ireland.[25]

As Froissart's account differs from the foregoing in some particulars, I have appended a translation of it for the convenience of those who may desire to compare the two: it will be noticed that Froissart entirely omits the story of the desecration of the convent.

'The time had now arrived for sending off the promised succour to the Duke of Brittany. Sir John Arundel was appointed to command the expedition, and there accompanied him Sir Hugh Calverley, Sir Thomas Banaster, Sir Thomas Trivet, Sir Walter Pole, Sir John Bourchier, and the Lords Ferrers and Basset. These knights, with their forces, assembled at Southampton,[26] whence they set sail. The first day they were at sea the weather was favourable, but towards evening the wind veered about and became quite the contrary; so strong and tempestuous was it, that it drove them on the coast of Cornwall that night, and as they were afraid to cast anchor, they were forced the next day into the Irish Sea; here three of their ships sank, on board of which were Sir John Arundel, Sir Thomas Banaster, and Sir Hugh Calverley; the two former, with upwards of eighty men, perished, but Sir Hugh fortunately clung to the mast of his vessel and was blown ashore. The rest of the ships, when the storm had abated, returned as well as they could to Southampton. Through this misfortune the expedition was put an end to, and the Duke of Brittany, though sadly oppressed by the French, received all that season no assistance from the English.'—(Froissart's Chronicles, p. 154.)

The unlucky knight's grandson was that Sir John Arundell of Lanherne, who was made a Knight of the Bath at the coronation of King Henry IV. in 1399, and who married a lady, who, if she were as lovely as her lovely name—Annora or Eleanora Lambourne, of Perranzabuloe—must indeed have been 'beautiful exceedingly.' But, indeed, the Arundells seem to have been fond of sweet-sounding Christian names for their womankind. Such names as Sibilla and Emmota occur very early in the family-tree. This Sir John must have been a personage of some valour and consideration; for we find that he was retained by an indenture of King Henry V. to serve at sea with 3 knights, 364 men-at-arms, and 776 archers, in certain vessels which were specified. He was four times Sheriff of Cornwall, and was member for the county in 1422-23, together with another John Arundell, apparently.

The next Arundells who claim our attention will require a little more space to be devoted to the consideration of their exploits. They were grandsons of the last-named Sir John; and one of them, also a Sir John, became Admiral and Sheriff of Cornwall, and a General for King Henry VI., in France; the other, his cousin, also named John, became Bishop of Exeter. To the former of these two, as the senior, let us first turn.

He was born, or at least baptized, in 1421; and, his father dying some two years afterwards, he became a ward of the King, and at length (in the 29th year of the reign of Henry VI.) was the largest free tenant in Cornwall, his estates being of the value of £2,000 per annum.

John, the Bishop, was the son of Sir Rainfred (or Reinfry) Arundell, knight (by Joan Coleshull, his wife, sister and heir of Sir John Coleshull of Tremodret, knight), who was the third son of Sir John Arundel of Lanherne (and not, observes Tonkin, 'Talvern, as Anthony Wood saith'). He is said to have been educated in the neighbouring College of Augustine Monks at St. Columb, to which one of his ancestors is alleged to have been a munificent benefactor,[27] as he also was to the church at that place, building a chapel thereto for himself and family, at the east end of the south aisle; and here he was buried in the year 1400.[28] Educated at Exeter College, Oxford, he became successively a Canon of Windsor, Prebendary of York and Salisbury, Dean of Exeter, and Chancellor of Hereford, and having been consecrated Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, Nov. 6, 1496, was for his piety and learning translated, by Henry VII., to Exeter, June 29, 1502. He died, March 15, 1503, at the house belonging to the Bishop of Exeter (Exeter House), in the parish of St. Clement's Danes, London, in which church he was buried on the south side of the high altar. His will is preserved at Somerset House. Weever gives a copy of a 'maimed' inscription on his tomb. To his Register is prefixed a 'Prologus,' written by his secretary. It recites his noble descent, his sound doctrine, and his great virtues, his constant attendance at divine service, and his bountiful hospitality. By his will he left £20 towards the finishing of St. Mary's Church, Oxford. His portrait is at Wardour Castle.

Hals, in his account of St. Columb Major, writes thus of the Bishop (but see note, p. 51):

'Contiguous with this churchyard was formerly extant a college of Black Monks or Canons Augustine, consisting of three fellows, for instructing youth in the liberal arts and sciences; which college, when or by whom erected and endowed, I know not. However, I take it to be one of those three colleges in this province, named in Speed and Dugdale's Monasticon, whose revenues they do not express (nor the place where they were extant), but tell us that they were dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Lady of Angels, and were black monks of the Augustines.

'In this college, temp. Henry VI., was bred up John Arundell, a younger son of Renfry Arundell, of Lanherne, Esquire, sheriff of Cornwall, 3rd Edward IV., where he had the first taste of the liberal arts and sciences, and was afterwards placed at Exon College in Oxford, where he stayed till he took his degree of Master of Arts, and then was presented by his father to John Booth, Bishop of Exeter, to be consecrated priest, and to have collation, institution, and induct, into his rectory of St. Colomb. Which being accordingly performed, and he resided upon, this rectory glebe lands for some time, which gave him opportunity to build the old parsonage house still extant thereon, and moat the same round with rivers and fish-ponds, as Sir John Arundell, Knight, informed me afterwards.'

If we are to accept the authority of Dallaway in his 'History of the See of Chichester,' of the Rev. Prebendary W. R. Stephens in his 'Memorials' of that See, and of M. A. Lower in his 'Sussex Worthies,' there was another member of this branch of the family, also named John Arundell, who attained to the dignity of the episcopal throne; but his place in the pedigree is not easily to be identified, and as the Rev. C. W. Boase truly remarks, it is very difficult to distinguish between the John Arundells of this time. He was one of the Physicians, as well as Confessor and Domestic Chaplain, to Henry VI. He was also Fellow of Exeter College, Oxon, Proctor of University, and held many preferments without cure of souls; and he was sometime Canon of Windsor, Prebendary of Sarum, York and St. Paul's, and Dean of Exeter. The King asked Pope Calixtus III. to make him Bishop of Durham, but he was, instead, made Bishop of Chichester, May, 1458. He died in 1478, and bequeathed lands for the celebration of his anniversary and of a nightly mass throughout the year. Near the entrance into the choir of Chichester Cathedral he erected a large altar tomb of Petworth marble, ornamented with brasses (probably since stolen), and at one time concealed by pews. But a tablet was affixed to a pier near the tomb, which gave some account of him, recording that he left 'Benefield's lands' to found a chantry. Lower also credits him with the erection of the oratory between the nave and choir, and with the 'Arundell' screen in 1477, which was removed during the restorations in 1860.

The warrant for the appointment of himself and colleagues to be the King's Physicians is in the Cotton. MSS. (Vespasian G xiv. p. 415). In it the medicines and other means of cure which the professors of the healing art were (with the concurrence of the Council) to employ are duly specified: they included 'potiones, syrupi, confectiones, clysteria, suppositoria, caputpurgea, gargarismata, balnea, capitis rasura,' etc., etc., and the document affords a curious glimpse of the state of the medical skill and knowledge of the time. It is referred to by Johnson in his 'Life of Linacre.' Unfortunately this Bishop's Register is lost, but his career would seem to have been uneventful.

To resume the story of the descent of the family. The records which I have been able to consult throw little or no light of importance upon most of the immediate descendants of Richard II.'s Admiral; his daughters married men of rank and title, such as the Lords Marney and Daubeny, Sir Henry Strangways, Sir William Capell, and Sir William Courtenay; and one of them, Ellen, secured the affections of Ralph, 'The great Copplestone.' One son only, Thomas, he had (or he may perchance have been a grandson); he, like so many others of his race, was knighted at a coronation, on this occasion the coronation of King Richard III. John, his son, won his knighthood too; but in a different fashion, for he was made knight-banneret for his valour in the field, at the sieges of 'Toronne' (Therouenne, 7 miles south of St. Omer) and Tournay, wherein so many ostentatious deeds of valour were performed on both sides. He died in 1545, and was buried in the church of St. Columb Major, where there is a brass to his memory.

By his second wife, Katharine, daughter of Sir Thomas Grenville, of Stow, Sir John had an erudite daughter, Mary, whose fame is enshrined in the pages of Ballard's 'Celebrated British Ladies.' She is chiefly known by her translations, especially of the 'Sayings and Doings of the Emperor Severus,' which she dedicated to her father, 'pater honoratissimus;' and some of her manuscripts are, I believe, preserved in the Royal Library. She married, first, Robert Radcliff, Earl of Sussex; and secondly, Henry, 17th Earl of Arundell. One of the successors of the learned lady, named Margaret, who died in 1691, was buried in the Trerice Arundell vault in Newlyn Church, at the east end of the south aisle; and according to Davies Gilbert, it was through her that the Trerice estates passed into the hands of their present proprietor, Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, Bart.

Sir John's grandson, of the same name, next claims a short notice. Dodd, in his 'Church History,' says of him:

'Sir John being an "occasional conformist," his conversation with Mr. Cornelius had given him (Cornelius) early impressions in favour of the Catholic religion, which grew stronger in the University, where he met with many of the same dispositions. At length, being weary of a conformity against his conscience, he left Oxford.'

This was that Father Cornelius who, so Foley informs us, was born at Bodmin, of Irish parents, and early attracted Sir John's attention by his studious disposition. Sir John took him by the hand, and always stood his friend. But Cornelius became a Jesuit and a recusant, and was hung, drawn, and quartered at Dorchester, in 1594. He was chaplain to Lady Arundell after her husband's decease, and she having recovered the body, gave it honourable interment.

The favour in which Cornelius and other priests about this time were held by our Sir John Arundell, cost him his liberty. He was summoned to London in 1581, and for nine years was kept a prisoner in Ely Palace, Holborn, only leaving it to go down to Isleworth and die. His body was conveyed to St. Columb with great pomp, and there is a monument there to his memory.

His daughters, Dorothy and Gertrude, entered the Convent of Benedictine nuns at Brussels, in the year 1600, and the former wrote an account of the last days of Father Cornelius, which part of his life she appears to have spent with him.

From the knight-banneret of Tournay and Therouenne descended the Arundells of Wardour; who, on obtaining that estate and castle (whose gallant defence by Lady Blanche Arundell, during the Civil War, is familiar to the reader of romance as well as to the historical student) by intermarriage with the heiress of John, Lord Dinham and ceasing to reside in Cornwall, the story of whose Worthies I am endeavouring to tell, are not strictly speaking included in my scheme; but they evidently remembered with affection their Cornish origin, for on the east front of old Wardour Castle is a Latin inscription, of which the following is an uncouth translation, believed to be by Henry, the eighth Lord Arundell:—

'Here, branch of Arundell Lanhernian race,
Thomas first sat, and he deserved the place:
He sat, and fell: Merit the fatal crime,
And Heav'n, to mark him faultless, bless'd his line.
Matthew his offspring, as the Father, Great,
And happier in his Prince, regain'd the seat.
Confirm'd, enlarg'd; long may its fortune stand!
HIS care who gave, resum'd, restor'd the land.'

The above Matthew had a brother Charles, who left England in 1583, on account of his attachment to the Roman Catholic creed, visited Rome and Spain, and finally died in Paris 9th December, 1587.

And here it may be well to add, that by the marriage of Mary Arundell in 1739 to Henry, seventh Baron Arundell of Wardour, the Lanherne and Wardour branches of the family were, after a separation of more than two centuries, re-united. At Wardour are preserved numerous MSS. relating to the Arundell family; a most interesting as well as extensive series. It includes the Tywardreath Charter with the Laocoön seal, various inventories of furniture, household books, travelling expenses, tailor's bills, etc., etc., to say nothing of court rolls, rentals, surveys, etc., from the reign of Richard II. to that of Henry VIII.

Sir Thomas, a grandson of the friend of Father Cornelius, 'when but a young man, signalized himself so much by his valour against the Turks, in Hungary, that the Emperor Rodolph II. raised him to the dignity of a Count of the Empire in 1595: granting that his children, of both sexes, and their descendants, should for ever enjoy that rank; have a vote in all the diets of the Empire, purchase lands within the dominion of the Empire, raise volunteers, and not be put to any trial, except in the Imperial Chamber. In forcing the water-tower, near Gran (a formerly rich town of Hungary), he took from the Turks their banner, with his own hand; which banner, taken by Sir Thomas, of Wardour, was preserved, as a trophy, in the Vatican at Rome; where it remained till the French revolution. This brave young knight was recommended to the Emperor by Queen Elizabeth, in a Latin letter, written by her own hand, which is still kept at Wardour Castle.' King James I. made him first Baron Arundell of Wardour in 1605. He died at Wardour in 1639, æt. 79.

Another Sir John married his relative, an Arundell of Trerice, namely Anna, the widow of John Trevanyon. It is noteworthy that on this Sir John's tomb in St. Columb churchyard he is styled baronet, but there is no reason to believe that he reached a higher dignity than that of knighthood.

The name was at length assumed by Richard Beling, who married into a family more illustrious than his own. But I believe this branch of the family has now, too, become extinct; and it is said that the last of the Lanherne Arundells died in Cornwall in 1766—a collector of the customs at Falmouth.

We now come to a very interesting phase of the family history: I mean the results which followed upon the attachment of this branch of the Arundells to 'the old religion,' as the Roman Catholic faith was called. It was exemplified by two episodes which deserve attention: one was the tragic story of Cuthbert Mayne, a recusant priest who was harboured at Golden near Probus, in the residence of the old Cornish family of Tregian, one of whom married Catherine, daughter of a Sir John Arundell and his wife, Elizabeth Dannet, and whose son Francis was imprisoned for recusancy in the time of Elizabeth. The story of Cuthbert Mayne is fully given in Morris's 'Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers,' Dr. Oliver's 'History of the Catholic Religion in the West of England,'and by Challoner in his 'Memoirs of Missionary Priests,' etc.

The second episode to which I have alluded is the story of Humphry Arundell, the 'leader of the Cornish rebellion'—a rising which was undertaken for a like cause—the defence of 'the old religion.' We are indebted to Mr. Froude for much valuable information on this subject, given in the fifth vol. of his 'History of England, from the fall of Wolsey to the Death of Queen Elizabeth.'

In the summer of 1548 one of Henry VIII.'s Commissioners, a Mr. Body, was murdered by a priest at Helston in Cornwall, whilst the Commissioner was carrying out the King's command in removing certain superstitious objects from the church. Some executions followed, but the Cornishmen were neither conciliated nor terrified thereby, and a rebellion was concocted, Sir Humphry Arundell, of the Mount, and Henry Boyer, Mayor of Bodmin, being the leaders.

The rebellion was inaugurated at Sampford Courtney, on Dartmoor, when the people compelled the priests to say mass, notwithstanding that the English liturgy was commanded to be used, for the first time, on Whitsunday, 1549.

Lord Russell thereupon sends down Sir Peter and Sir Gawen Carew to quell the insurrection, but in June, 1549, 10,000 Cornishmen were in full march on Exeter. England was, in fact, rising in all directions, and the Commons of Devon and Cornwall insisted on the restoration of the mass, and that images should be set up again; the English Bibles were also to be called in, 'for we be informed that otherwise the clergy shall not of long time confound the heretics,' etc., etc.; and they added a petition that Humphrey Arundell and Henry Boyer should have safe access to the King to represent their grievances. Froude sets out the document in full. The Protector insisted upon Bonner's (Bishop of London) preaching a sermon condemning the rebellion, especially so far as Cornwall and Devon were concerned, and recanting his views as to the mass, etc.; and Bonner's imprisonment was the well-known result. Order was at length partially restored; but Exeter, where there was a strong 'Catholic' party, was, in July, actually besieged by the rebels, and they even talked of going on to London with their army, now 20,000 strong; but Exeter held out for six weeks. Whilst Humphry Arundell was advancing upon it, Carew brought the welcome tidings to Lord Russell (at Honiton, the rallying-point) of the advance of Lord Grey. Meanwhile a body of Cornishmen had arrived at Fennington Bridge, three miles from Exeter, where Sir Peter Carew attacked them; and here Sir Gawen, who was with him, was shot through the arm. The Cornishmen were scattered after a severe struggle, leaving 300 dead on the field, and their assailants at least as many; and Grey now came to the rescue of Exeter. At the battle of St Mary's Clyst the King's troops, though at first defeated, ultimately succeeded, and killed 1,000 rebels, besides taking many prisoners, who were afterwards put to the sword. The fight was renewed on the following day, and Grey, who had seen service, exclaimed that 'such was the valour and the stoutness of the men, that he never, in all the wars he had been in, did know the like.' But, as we have said, the rebels were massacred; the siege of Exeter was raised; and on the 6th of August the banner of the red dragon was flying from the city walls.

Yet the Cornish rallied on Dartmoor, at Sampford Courtney, under Humphry Arundell, Pomeroy, Underhill, and others; and here at length, where the fire was first kindled it was at last extinguished on Sunday, 17th August, 1549. The town had been fortified, and when the insurgents were driven back to it, to use Lord Russell's own words: 'While I was yet behind with the residue of the army conducting the carriage, Humphry Arundel with his whole power came on the back of our forewards,' and 'against Arundel was nothing for one hour but shooting of ordnance to and fro.' At length 'the rebels' stomachs so fell from them as without any blow they fled,' and multitudes of the unfortunate wretches were slain. Humphrey Arundel fled to Launceston, when he 'immediately began to practise with the townsmen and the keepers of Greenfield and other gentlemen for the murder of them that night. The keepers so much abhorred this cruelty as they immediately set the gentlemen at large, and gave them their aid, with the help of the town for the apprehension of Arundel, whom, with four or five ringleaders, they have imprisoned.'

The insurgents lost over 4,000 men during this fatal month. Martial law was proclaimed throughout Devon and Cornwall; and Arundell, with three others (Holmes, Winslow, and Berry), was hung at Tyburn. Holmes says that Boyer, the Mayor of Bodmin, was hung at his own door, after the Provost Marshal had dined with him.

Hals's account of the rising is so full and interesting, that it seems worth giving, even at the risk of incurring some little repetition. He says:

'This Priory or Abbey (of St. Michael's Mount) being dissolved by Act of Parliament, and given to the King, 33rd Henry VIII., 1542, he gave the revenues and government of the place to Humphry Arundell, Esq., of the Lanherne family, who enjoyed the same till the first year of King Edward VI., 1549; at which time that King set forth several injunctions about religion; amongst others, this was one, viz.: That all images found in churches, for divine worship or otherwise, should be pulled down and cast forth out of those churches; and that all preachers should perswade the people from praying to saints, or for the dead, and from the use of beads, ashes, processions, masses, dirges, and praying to God publicly in an unknown tongue; and, least there should be a defect of preachers as to these points, homilies were made and ordered to be read in all churches. Pursuant to this injunction, one Mr. Body, a commissioner for pulling down images in the churches of Cornwall, going to do his duty in Helston Church, a priest, in company with Kiltor of Kevorne, and others, at unawares stabbed him in the body with a knife; of which wound he instantly fell dead in that place. And though the murderer was taken, and sent up to London, tried, found guilty of murder in Westminster Hall, and executed in Smithfield, yet the Cornish people flocked together in a tumultuous and rebellious manner, by the instigation of their priests in diverse parts of the shire or county, and committed many barbarities and outrages in the same; and though the justices of the peace apprehended several of them, and sent them to jail, yet they could not, with all their power, suppress the growth of their insurrection; for soon after Humphry Arundell, aforesaid, governor of this Mount, sided with those mutineers, and broke out into actual rebellion against his and their prince. The mutineers chose him for the General of their army, and for inferior officers as Captains, Majors, and Colonels, John Rosogan, James Rosogan, Will. Winslade of Tregarrick or St. Agnes at Mithian, John Payne of St. Ives, Robert Bochym of Bochym, and his brother, Thomas Underhill, John Salmon, William Segar, together with several priests, rectors, vicars, and curates of churches, as John Thompson, Roger Barret, John Woolcock, William Asa, James Mourton, John Barrow, Richard Bennet, and others, who mustered their soldiers according to the rules of the military discipline at Bodmin, where the general rendezvous was appointed. But no sooner was the General Arundell departed from St. Michael's Mount to exert his power in the camp and field aforesaid, but diverse gentlemen, with their wives and families, in his absence possessed themselves thereof; whereupon he dispatched a party of horse and foot to reduce his old garrison, which quickly they effected, by reason the besieged wanted provision and ammunition, and were distracted with the women and children's fears and cries; and so they yielded the possession to their enemies on condition of free liberty of departing forthwith from thence with life, though not without being plundered.

'The retaking of St. Michael's Mount by the General Arundell proved much to the content and satisfaction of his army at Bodmin, consisting of about 6,000 men, which they looked upon as a good omen of their future success, and the firstfruits of the valour and conduct of their General. Whereupon the confederates daily increased his army with great numbers of men from all parts, who listed themselves under his banner, which was not only pourtrayed, but by a cart brought into the field for their encouragement, viz., a pyx under its canopy; that is to say, the vessel containing the Roman host, or sacramental sacrifice, or body of Christ, together with crosses, banners, candlesticks, holy bread and water, to defend them from devils and the adverse power (see "Fox's Martyrology," p. 669), which was carried whersoever the camp removed, which camp grew so tremendously formidable at Bodmin, that Job Militon Esq., then Sheriff of Cornwall, with all the power of his bailiwick, durst not encounter with it during the time of the General's stay in that place, which gave him and his rebels opportunity to consult together for the good of their public interest, and to make out a declaration, or manifesto, of the justice of their cause and grounds of taking up arms; but the army, in general consisting of a mixed multitude of men of diverse professions, trades, and employments, could not easily agree upon the subject matter, and form thereof. Some would have no justice of the peace; for that generally they were ignorant of the laws, and could not construe or English a Latin bill of indictment without the clerk of the peace's assistance, who imposed upon them, with other attorneys, for gain, wrong sense, and judgment—besides, in themselves, they were corrupt and partial in determining cases; others would have no lawyers nor attorneys, for that the one cheated the people in wrong advice or counsel, and the other of their money by extravagant bills of costs; others would have no court leets, or court-barons, for that the cost and expense in prosecuting an action at law therein was many times greater than the debt or profit. But generally it was agreed upon amongst them that no inclosure should be left standing, but that all lands should be held in common; yet what expedients should be found out and placed in the room of those several orders and degrees of men and officers none could prescribe.

'However, the priests, rectors, vicars, and curates, the priors and monks, friars and other dissolved collegiates, hammered out seven articles of address for the King's Majesty, upon grant of which they declared their bodies, arms, and goods should all be at his disposal, viz.:

'No. 1. That curates should administer baptism at all times of need, as well week days as holy days.

'2. That their children might be confirmed by the Bishop.

'3. That mass might be celebrated, no man communicating with the priest.

'4. That they might have reservation of the Lord's body in churches.

'5. That they might have holy bread and water in remembrance of Christ's body and blood.

'6. That priests might not be married.

'7. That the six articles set forth by King Henry VIII. might be continued at least till the King came of age.

'Now these six articles were invented by Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester (who was the bastard son of Lionel Woodvill, Bishop of Salisbury, by his concubine, Elizabeth Gardiner; the which Lionel was fifth son of Richard Woodvill, Earl Rivers, 1470), and therefore called his creed, viz.:

'1. That the body of Christ is really present in the sacrament after consecration.

'2. That the sacrament cannot truly be administered under both kinds.

'3. That priests entered into holy orders might not marry.

'4. That vows of chastity entered into upon mature deliberation, were to be kept.

'5. That private masses were not to be omitted.

'6. That auricular confession was necessary in the Church of God.

'To these demands of the Cornish rebels the King so far condescended as to send an answer in writing to every article, and also a general pardon to every one of them, if they would lay down arms. (See Fox's "Acts and Monuments," Book IX. p. 668). But, alas! those overtures of the King were not only rejected by the rebels, but made them the more bold and desperate; especially finding themselves unable longer to subsist upon their own estates and money, or the bounty of the country, which hitherto they had done. The General therefore resolved, as the fox who seldom chucks at home, to prey upon other men's goods and estates farther off for his army's better subsistence. Whereupon he dislodged from Bodmin, and marched with his soldiers into Devon, where Sir Peter Carew, Knight, was ready to obstruct their passage with his posse comitatus. But when they saw the order and discipline of the rebels, and that their army consisted of above 6,000 fighting-men, desperate, well armed, and prepared for battle, the Sheriff and his troops permitted them quietly to pass through the heart of that country to Exeter, where the citizens, upon notice of their approaches (as formerly done), shut the gates, and put themselves in a posture of defence.

'Things being in this posture, the General, Arundell, summoned the citizens to deliver their town and castle to his dominion; but they sent him a flat denial. Whereupon, forthwith he ordered his men to fire the gates of the city, which accordingly they did; but the citizens on the inside supplied those fires with such quantities of combustible matter, so long till they had cast up a half-moon on the inside thereof, upon which, when the rebels attempted to enter, they were shot to death or cut to pieces. Their entrance being thus obstructed at the gates, they put in practice other expedients, viz., either to undermine the walls or blow them up with barrels of gunpowder, which they had placed in the same; but the citizens also prevented this their design, by countermining their mines and casting so much water on the places where their powder-barrels were lodged, that the powder would not take fire. Thus stratagems of war were daily practised between the besieged and besiegers to the great hurt and damage of each other.

'King Edward being informed by his council of this siege, and that there was little or no dependance upon the valour and conduct of the Sheriff of Devon and his bailiwick to suppress this rebellion or raise the siege of Exeter, granted his commission to John Lord Russell, created Baron Russell of Tavistock by King Henry, and Lord High Admiral and Lord Privy Seal, an old experienced soldier who had lost an eye at the Siege of Montreuil in France, to be his General for raising soldiers to fight those rebels; who forthwith, pursuant thereto, raised a considerable army and marched them to Honiton; but when he came there he was informed that the enemy consisted of 10,000 able fighting-men armed; which occasioned his halting there longer than he intended, expecting greater supplies of men, that were coming to his aid under conduct of the Lord Grey; which at length arrived and joined his forces, whereupon he dislodged from thence and marched towards Exeter; where, on the way, he had several sharp conflicts with the rebels with various success, sometimes the better and sometimes the worse; though at length after much fatigue of war, maugre all opposition and resistance of the rebels, he forced them to raise their siege, and entered the city of Exeter with relief, 6th August, 1549, after thirty-two days' siege, wherein the inhabitants had valiantly defended themselves, though in that extremity they were necessitated by famine to eat horses, moulded cloth, and bread made of bran; in reward of whose loyalty King Edward gave to the city for ever the Manor of Evyland, since sold by the city for making the river Exe navigable.

'After raising the siege, as aforesaid, the General, Arundell, rallied his routed forces of rebels, and gave battle to the Lord Russell and the King's army with that inveterate courage, animosity, and resolution, that the greatest part of his men were slain upon the spot, others threw down their arms on mercy, the remainder fled, and were afterwards many of them taken and executed. Sir Anthony Kingston, Knight, a Gloucestershire man, after this rebellion, was made Provost-Marshal for executing such western rebels as could be taken, or were made prisoners in Cornwall and Devon, together with all such who had been aiders or assisters of them in that rebellion; upon whom, according to his power and office, he executed martial law with sport and justice (as Mr. Carew and other historians tell us); and the principal persons that have come to my knowledge, over whose misery he triumphed, was Boyer, the Mayor of Bodmin; Mayow of Clevyan, in St. Colomb Major, whom he hanged at the tavern sign-post in that town, of whom tradition saith his crime was not capital; and, therefore, his wife was advised by her friends to hasten to the town after the Marshal and his men, who had him in custody, and beg his life. Which, accordingly, she prepared to do, and to render herself the more amiable petitioner before the Marshal's eyes, this dame spent so much time in attiring herself and putting on her French hood, then in fashion, that her husband was put to death before her arrival. In like manner the Marshal hanged one John Payne, the Mayor, or Portreeve of St. Ives, on a gallows erected in the middle of that town, whose arms are still to be seen in one of the foreseats in that church, viz. in a plain field three pine-apples. Besides those he executed many more in other places in Cornwall, that had been actors, assisters, or promoters of this rebellion. Lastly, it is further memorable of this Sir Anthony Kingston, that in Sir John Heywood's chronicle he is taxed of extreme cruelty in doing his Marshal's office aforesaid. Of whom Fuller, in Gloucestershire, gives us this further account of him; that afterwards, in the reign of Queen Mary, being detected, with several others, of a design to rob her exchequer, though he made his escape and fled into his own country, yet there he was apprehended and taken into custody by a messenger, who was bringing him up to London in order to have justice done upon him for his crime; but he being conscious of his guilt, and despairing of pardon, so effectually poisoned himself that he died on the way, without having the due reward of his desert.

'After the death of Humphrey Arundell, Governor of St. Michael's Mount, executed for treason as aforesaid, King Edward VI. sold or gave the government and revenues thereof to Job Militon, Esq., aforesaid, then Sheriff of Cornwall, during his life; but his son, dying without issue male, the government, by what title I know not, devolved upon the Bassets of Tihidy, from some of whom, as I am informed, it came by purchase to Sir John St. Aubyn, Bart., now in possession thereof.'

A contemporary account of Humphrey Arundell's execution in Mr. Richard Howlett's 'Monumenta Franciscana,' vol. ii., 27th January, 1550, states: 'Was drawne from the Tower of London vnto Tyborne iiii persons (Humfre Avrnedelle, Bere Vynch, Chyffe, Homes), and there hangyd and qwarterd, and their qwarteres sette abowte London on euery gatte; thes was of them that dyd ryse in the West cuntre.'

It has already been observed that an attachment to the Roman Catholic faith led many of the Arundells into trouble: as exemplifying this, I have culled a few other instances from the pages of a writer belonging to that Communion.

'The next successor to the property' (a son of John Arundell, the friend of Father Cornelius), 'was indeed a great sufferer for conscience' sake. In a letter before me of F. Richard Blount, dated 7th Nov., 1606, he says that Mr. Arundell, amongst others, had been forced to compound for the possession of his property by paying heavy fines to the Crown. He had been convicted of recusancy, but King James directed by his letters patent (20 Feb., 4 Jac. I., 1607) that none of Mr. Arundell's lands were to be seized so long as he paid £240 a year for not frequenting church,' etc.