of the Huguenots in Paris and throughout France, and this had been
cordially approved by Pope Gregory XIII, who had had a medal struck to
commemorate what he considered a meritorious deed. There could exist
no doubt that the Papal emissaries in England were encouraged to
assassinate the Queen, though evidence to that effect was not obtained
till later.
On June 8th, 1577, Sir Richard Grenville of Stow, sheriff of Cornwall,
accompanied by some of his justices of peace, arrived at Wolvedon to
search the house for Cuthbert Mayne, a priest who had arrived in
England, and who, it was supposed, was harboured by Mr. Francis Tregian.
A hasty and superficial investigation was made, and no seminary priest
could be found. Then Mr. Tregian invited the whole party in to dine
with him, and when they had been well regaled, and were somewhat
flushed with wine, Tregian foolishly joked with the sheriff for
hunting and finding nothing. Sir Richard started up and vowed he would
make a further inquest, and that more thorough, and, finally,
concealed in a hole under a turret, Cuthbert Mayne was discovered,
drawn forth, and with him Tregian, for having harboured him, was sent
to Launceston gaol, there to await trial.
"In the gaol aforesaid, he was laid in a most loathsome and lousy
dungeon, laden with irons, deprived of the use of writing, and
bereaved of the comfort of reading, neither permitted that any man
might talk with him touching any matter whatsoever, but by special
licence and in presence of the keeper."
The assizes were held at Launceston on the 16th September, 1577, when
indictments were made against Cuthbert Mayne; Francis Tregian, Esq.;
Richard Tremaine, gentleman, of Tregonnan; John Kempe, gentleman, of
Rosteague; Richard Hore, gentleman, of Trenoweth, and others. Cuthbert
Mayne for high treason: the others fell under the Statute of
Præmunire, and later and more specific acts.
The Statute of Præmunire was but one of several that had been enacted
from the time of Edward III, against papal interference with the
affairs of England. The Statute of Præmunire was passed in 1393.
"Whoever procures at Rome or elsewhere, any translations, processes,
excommunications, bulls, instruments, or other things which touch the
King, against him, his crown, and realms, and all persons aiding and
assisting therein, shall be put out of the King's protection, their
lands and goods forfeited to the King's use, and they shall be
attached by their bodies to answer to the King and his Counsel: or
process of _præmunire facias_ shall be made out against them, as in
any other case of prisoners."
The Bull that had been found in the possession of Cuthbert Mayne was one
from Pope Gregory XIII granting plenary absolution from all their sins
to English Papists, as they were unable to attend the Pope's jubilee at
Rome, on condition that they should recite the Rosary fifteen times.
The Bull might very well have been treated with the contempt it
merited, but the fact of the possession of such a document by Cuthbert
Mayne was enough to procure his condemnation, as it was against the laws
of England, and had been so for over one hundred and eighty years.
The other gentlemen were liable either as having received Cuthbert
Mayne into their houses, or as having heard him say Mass, and as
absenting themselves from their parish church.
Here came in the sharpened provisions enacted under Henry VIII and
Elizabeth.
As Judge Marwood said at the trial: "We have not to do with your
papistical use in absolving of sins. You may keep it to yourselves,
and although the date of the Bull was expired and out of force, as you
have alleged, so was it always out of force with us, for we never did,
or never do account any such thing to be of force or worth a straw,
and yet the same is by law of this realm treason, and therefore thou
hast deserved to die."
The main indictment ran as follows:--
"Thou Cuthbert Maine art accused for that thou, the 1st October, in
the eighteenth year of our Sovereign lady the Queen that now is, did
traitorously obtain from the See of Rome a certain instrument printed,
containing a pretended matter of absolution of divers subjects of the
realm. The tenour of the which instrument doth follow in these words:
_Gregorius Episcopus_, _servus servorum Dei_, etc., contrary to the
form of a certain statute in the thirteenth year of our Sovereign lady
the Queen, lately made and published, and contrary to her peace,
crown, and dignity. And that you," meaning the rest, "after the said
instrument obtained as aforesaid, and knowing the said Cuthbert Maine
to have obtained the same from the Apostolic See, the 30th day of
April, in the nineteenth of our said Sovereign the Queen's reign, at
Golden aforesaid, did aid, maintain, and comfort the said Cuthbert
Maine, of purpose and intent to extol and set forth the usurped power
and authority of a foreign Prelate, that is to say, the Bishop of
Rome, teaching and concerning the execution of the premises, contrary
to the said statute and published as aforesaid, and contrary to the
place of our Sovereign lady the Queen, her crown and dignity."
There were other indictments, as that Cuthbert Mayne and these laymen
had refused to attend service in the parish church, and that the
priest had brought over a number of "vain things," such as an _Agnus
Dei_ in silver or stone, which had been blessed by the Pope and had
been accepted by the laymen.
They all pleaded "Not guilty," but the evidence against them sufficed
for the jury to find that they were guilty, whereupon Cuthbert Mayne
was condemned to death, and the rest to forfeit all their lands and
property and to be imprisoned.
"Whereupon there was a warrant sent unto the Sheriff of Cornwall for
the execution of Cuthbert Maine. The day assigned for the same purpose
was dedicated unto S. Andrew; but on the eve before, all the Justices
of that County, with many preachers of the pretended reformed
religion, being gathered together at Launceston, Cuthbert Maine was
brought before them, his legs being not only laden with mighty irons,
but his hands also fast fettered together (in which miserable case he
had also remained many days before), when he maintained disputation
with them concerning the controversy in religion all this day in
question, from eight of the clock in the morning until it was almost
dark night, continually standing, no doubt in great pain in that
pitiful plight, on his feet."
How that could be a great crime to distribute some trumpery toys of
crystal, and silver medals marked with the _Agnus Dei_, one fails to
see, but it is possible that they may have been regarded as badges,
pledging those who received them to combine in a rebellion against the
State, and perhaps also to unite in an assassination plot. That there
was such a plot appeared afterwards from the confession of Father
Tyrrell. At this time it was suspected, but not proved. That harsh and
cruel treatment was dealt out to these men, we cannot doubt, but, as Mr.
Froude remarks, "were a Brahmin to be found in the quarters of a Sepoy
regiment scattering incendiary addresses, he would be hanged also."
There were in all seven indictments.
At first Francis Tregian had not been committed to gaol, but he was so
shortly after, was brought to trial, and was sentenced to the spoiling
of his goods and to a lifelong imprisonment.
Barbarous as these persecutions and sentences seem to us to-day, there
was some justification for the Queen and Council at the time,
surrounded as they were with dangers.
The Papal Bull of excommunication had encouraged the supporters of Mary,
Queen of Scots, and plots were made on her behalf which were a constant
source of alarm to Elizabeth. One of these plots was managed by an
Italian named Ridolfi; the Duke of Norfolk had a share in it, and was
executed in consequence in 1572. The great fear was lest France or Spain
should take advantage of the situation to invade England, while Mary's
friends raised insurrections at home. Mary's friends were active in all
parts. Numbers of young Popish priests, trained to hostility towards
Elizabeth, were pouring into the country, and conspiracies against her
life were numerous, explaining, though in no degree justifying the
stringent laws against seminary priests and recusants.
To return to Cuthbert Mayne.
"Wherefore, according to the judgment he had received, the next day he
was uneasily laid on a hurdle, and so drawn, receiving some knocks on
his face and his fingers with a girdle, unto the market-place of the
said town, where of purpose there was a very high gibbet erected, and
all things else, both fire and knives, set to the show and ready
prepared.
"At which place of execution, when he came, he was first forced to
mount the ladder backward, and after permitted to use very few words.
Notwithstanding he briefly opened the cause of his condemnation, and
protested, that his master (Mr. Tregian) was never privy with his
having of these things whereupon he was condemned--the Jubilee and the
_Agnus Dei_; then one of the justices, interrupting his talk,
commanded the hangman to put the rope about his neck, and then, quoth
he, let him preach afterward. Which done, another commanded the ladder
to be overturned, so as he had not the leisure to recite _In manus
tuas Domine_ to the end. With speed he was cut down, and with the fall
had almost ended his life, for the gibbet being very high, and he
being yet in the swing when the rope was cut, he fell in such sort, as
his head encountered the scaffold which was there prepared of purpose
to divide the quarters, as the one side of his face was sorely
bruised, and one of his eyes far driven out of his head.
"After he was cut down, the hangman first spoiled him of his clothes,
and then in butcherly manner, opening his belly, he rent up his
bowels, and after tore out his heart, which he held up aloft in his
hand, showing it unto the people. Lastly, his head was cut off, and
his body divided into four quarters, which afterwards were dispersed
and set up on the Castle of Launceston; one quarter sent unto Bodmin;
another to Barnstaple; the third to Tregony, not a mile distant from
Mr. Tregian's house; the fourth to Wadebridge."
Not only was Francis Tregian adjudged to forfeit his goods, but he was
also prosecuted by a goldsmith, who claimed a debt of £70.
Accordingly he was sent up to London to the King's Bench prison,
"strongly guarded by a ruffianly sort of bloody blue-coats, with bows,
bills, and guns"; and the arms of Tregian were pinioned behind his
back with cords. With him were associated the other Papists; and they
met with insult and harsh treatment all the way to London. There he
was again tried and cast into prison.
We are gravely informed that before these calamities befell Francis
Tregian, a premonition of coming woes had been given to his wife.
"Mr. Tregian, her husband, not many days after they were first married,
enforced for ten months to follow the Lords of the Council, his wife
always in the mean season lying with a very virtuous maid, a sister of
her husband's, it chanced that one night looking for fleas, as the
manner of women is, she espied in her smock sundry spots, the which she
perceived to carry the shape of sundry crosses. Whereat she, much
marvelling, besought her sister to behold the same; whereupon, when both
had long looked and wondered, at length endeavouring to number them,
they found contained in the same smock no less than one hundred and
twenty-five crosses, and after, upon more curious search, they likewise
found sundry other, both on her pillow and in her sheets."
This omen of coming evil was now verified, but not by flea-bites.
Francis Tregian remained in prison cruelly treated, and when he
attempted to make his escape, manacled and fettered in a loathsome
dungeon. From his cell he wrote in verse to his wife, but did not
display much brilliancy of poetic art.
My wont is not to write in verse,
You know, good wife, I wis.
Wherefore you well may bear with me,
Though now I write amiss;
For lack of ink the candle coal,
For pen a pin I use,
The which also I may allege
In part of my excuse.
For said it is of many men
And such as are no fools,
A workman is but little worth
If he do want his tools;
Though tools I have wherewith in sort
My mind I may disclose,
They are, in truth, more fit to paint
A nettle than a rose.
And so on, never rising to a higher level.
But his wife was allowed to visit him, and indeed reside with him in
prison. "And although through the rigour of authority they have been
often separated, sometimes two months, sometimes seven, sometimes
more, she hath borne him, notwithstanding, eleven children since he
was first imprisoned. Some are dead, but the most part are alive."
Francis Tregian was first committed to prison in the twenty-eighth
year of his age, and in the year 1595, when he had been about sixteen
years in prison, some notes were drawn up concerning him, from which
some quotations may be made.
In all the sixteen years' space he had never been permitted to enjoy
the benefit of the open air otherwise than when being removed from one
prison to another. He was first imprisoned at Launceston, then was
removed to Windsor Castle; thence removed to the Marshalsea, and then
again carried back to Launceston Castle. Then he was conveyed to the
King's Bench prison, and lastly to the Fleet.
For seven or eight years together he enjoyed good health; "but in the
end, through cares, studies, filthy diet, most stinking air, and want
of exercise, he became very sickly, and so continued by the space of
six or seven years; notwithstanding at this present the state of his
body is much mended, and is like to recover his perfect health."
His mother was the eldest sister of Sir John Arundell, Knight, of
Lanherne. His great-grandmother was one of the daughters of Thomas
Grey, Marquis of Dorchester, half-brother to Queen Elizabeth, the wife
of King Henry VII, and daughter of Edward IV. He married the eldest
sister of Lord Stourton. His wife's mother was eldest sister of the
Earl of Derby. Francis Tregian remained in prison eighteen years, and
was finally released by order of Queen Elizabeth in or about 1597,
after which he lived in London on the bounty of his friends.
His son, Francis, managed to repossess himself, by the assistance of
some of his friends and relatives, by purchase of some portion of the
ancestral property, but in January, 1608, owing to the hostility
provoked by the Gunpowder Plot against the Papists, the family was
again plundered of the estates, and when the Heralds' Visitation of
Cornwall was taken in 1620, the family had disappeared from the list
of the landed and heraldic gentry.
Francis Tregian, the elder, at last retired to Lisbon, where he died
on the 25th September, 1608. He was allowed by the King of Portugal
sixty crowns a month. On his tombstone it was stated, falsely, that
he had endured twenty-eight years of imprisonment in England. As a
specimen of the malignant lies that were spread abroad relative to
Queen Elizabeth, is this--given in a life of Francis Tregian by
Francis Plunket, son of one of his daughters:--
"Aulam Elizabethæ adit ... Regina per pedissequam illum invitat ad
cubiculum, intempesta nocte; recusantem adit, lectoque assistens ad
impudica provocat; rennentem increpat. Castitati suæ cusam gerens ex
Aula se proripuit, insalutata Regina; quæ idcirco furit, et in
carcerem detrudi jubet."
Such words fill one with disgust and indignation against the pack from
Rheims and Rome, who, unable to reach the Queen with their daggers,
bespattered her with foul words.
The _Life of Francis Tregian_ was published in Portuguese, at Lisbon,
by Francis Plunket, in 1655. The narrative of his imprisonment,
written in 1593, is published _in extenso_ by J. Morris, _The Troubles
of our Catholic Forefathers_, 1st series, London, 1872, from the
original MS. in S. Mary's College, Oscott.
A summary is in C. S. Gilbert's _Historical Survey of Cornwall_, 1817.
ANN GLANVILLE
Saltash was formerly a very much more important place than it is
to-day. Now the tubular bridge of Brunel connects Cornwall and Devon,
and railway trains slip along it, making communication with Plymouth
from Cornwall easy and speedy. It was not so in former times. Then
travellers from the West on their way to Plymouth or to London, if
they did not go by coach by the great highway from Falmouth, by Bodmin
and Launceston, were brought up by the strip of blue water that formed
the estuary of the Tamar and Tavy, called the Hamoaze, and there,
after halting at Saltash they were forced to cross in the ferry or by
boat. Saltash signifies the Saltwater--ash = _usk_, and Hamoaze is the
Border water, oaze = _usk_ as well.
The Saltash boatmen plied a good trade, conveying over the passengers
from Cornwall to Devon. Moreover, houses were cheap at Saltash, and
old salts lived there, where they could smell the sea air, and every
now and then crossed into Plymouth to do their shopping. From time
immemorial there had been boat-races in the Hamoaze, and the women of
Saltash were not behind the men at plying the oar.
Mr. Whitfeld in his _Three Towns' History_ says:--
"The Saltash festival was by no means wholly intended for the
encouragement of the males, for the 'ladies' feathered their oars with
such dexterity that few of the opposite sex would enter the lists
against them. Before the races for these damsels of uncertain age
were started, blue favours were tied round their white caps by members
of the committee. The fair rowers were attired in short white bedgowns
and blue cap-guards, and their gigs shot around the course of five
miles 'like so many birds.' From a sporting point of view the feature
of the first regatta was a life or death competition between Jacky
Gould and the Glanvilles. If Jacky's boat, _Miller's Daughter_, was
the crack, _Alarm_ was scarcely inferior, and _Paul Pry_ was a
first-class craft. Crash! went the starting-gun, and the competitors
dashed away with a flood tide and a breeze from the northward. When
they left on their ten-mile course one vast shout went up, the boats
flew as instinct with life, every nerve on the stretch. The first five
miles were covered in thirty minutes, and as the boats turned the
committee vessel there were deafening shouts of 'Bravo, Jacky.' 'Well
done, Glanville!' Then these hearts-of-oak flashed on their second
round, and excitement intensified as the telescope reported progress.
When the boats reappeared the suspense broke into a feverish roar, and
calls to the rivals were tossed like corks on a sea of voices. Swiftly
they drew near, the boats in a line, the interest increased to painful
intensity as the race was neck-and-neck. The judge stood by, red-hot
poker in hand, and as the bow of the _Alarm_, pulled by the
Glanvilles, first touched the hawsers of the committee vessel, Bang!
went the signal gun; 'See the Conquering Hero' burst from the band,
and hundreds clustered round to congratulate the victors, and condole
with Jacky Gould, who was only five seconds behind, though the boat
was two feet shorter, and one of his crew had broken an oar."
The Glanvilles were amphibious--or rather lived almost wholly on the
water during the day, only returning to the land for sleep at night.
[Illustration: ANN GLANVILLE]
The name is old. The first Glanvilles of whom we know anything
authentic were located at Whitchurch, near Tavistock, where they were
tanners, but a Judge Glanville raised the family to a higher position,
in the reign of Elizabeth. Some, however, remained in a modest
position, as did these boatmen of Saltash, and as did a huntsman to
the late Mr. Kelly, of Kelly.
There occurred a terrible tragedy in the family, when Eulalia
Glanville, niece of the Judge, murdered her husband, old John Page, a
merchant of Plymouth, and was burnt alive for the crime, as one of
petty treason, at Barnstaple, in 1591.
In 1824 at the regatta was offered a prize of £8 for a four-oared race
for women, but no Glanville was in that. Ten years later, in 1834, at
the regatta £20 was offered for boats sculled by women, and in this
pulled a Mary Glanville. But the queen of women scullers of the
Glanville stock was Ann, and she only entered it by marriage, by birth
a Warring.[39] Mr. P. E. B. Porter, in his _Around and About Saltash_,
1905, thus describes her:--
"Ann Glanville was undoubtedly a remarkable woman for many reasons.
Only such a place as Saltash, in such a naval port as this, could have
produced a character like it. Only such a country as England could
have produced such a woman. She was a genuine representative of
Saltash in its great nautical days, when it was alive with business.
The British tar was to her the ideal of a man and the very highest
type of a hero. Into whatever trouble Jack got when ashore, however he
might have been forsaken by all else in his reckless frivolity, he
never wanted for a backer if Ann Glanville was near. And there was not
a ship in the navy, in those days, that had not some story to tell of
Ann's life and energy, and in which her name was not cherished as only
a British sailor can cherish the memory of a friend. In a perfectly
true sense, Ann Glanville was a mother to the British tar
indiscriminately; she was known as Mother, and called Mother, by all."
Ann was born at Saltash in 1796, and was the daughter of a man named
Warring or Werring. She married a man several years her junior in years,
and by him became the mother of fourteen children. He was a waterman,
she a waterwoman, and their children, every boy and girl, water-babies.
He had his boat, and when he was otherwise engaged--nursing the
children, for instance, or merry-making in the tavern--she rowed
across to Devonport.
Not passengers only, but goods were conveyed to and from Plymouth by the
boats. Corn, crockery, drapery, everything except live cattle went in
them. These latter by the ferry. Sometimes she rowed out officers to
their ships, sometimes conveyed play-actors over from Plymouth into
Cornwall, and on the great event of the elections at Saltash,
candidates, electors, pot-boilers, political orators. Meat and
vegetables went over in these boats to Plymouth market: a gentleman
remembers Ann bringing round as many as seventy or eighty bags of corn
in her boat from South Pool, pulling the great cargo alone, conveying it
from Sutton Pool to Butt's Head Mill, a point two miles above Saltash.
Ann's husband fell ill and was long confined to bed, and the house and
then the whole burden of supporting the family fell to her. But she
had strong arms and a stouter heart, and managed not only to keep the
wolf from the door, but the doctor as well.
"Have you got a doctor here, or have you to send over to Plymouth for
one?" she was asked.
"Well, I believe there may be one here, but, thank God, here us most
commonly dies a natural death."
Ann's fame as a rower at regattas spread throughout England. Some sixty
or seventy years ago the crew of Saltash women was one of the most
important features, not only in the Hamoaze, but all over the county
wherever aquatic sports were given. She always rowed stroke. It was very
rarely that Ann and her crew were beaten in a match--never by other
women. The strength and endurance of these women, and their daring in
accepting challenges and in the contests on the water, attracted
universal attention. They competed for prizes at Hull, Liverpool,
Portsmouth, Dartmouth, etc., and it must not be supposed that a male
crew yielded the palm to them out of masculine courtesy, for the men did
not at all relish being beaten by a "parcel o' females," as they were
sure to have the fact thrown in their teeth afterwards.
Mrs. Harriet Screech, a daughter of Ann Glanville, rowed along with her
mother in some of these contests, pulling the bow-oar, the least arduous
post, assigned to her as the youngest of the crew. When engaged in a
match at Fleetwood before the Queen, they gave the men so sound a
beating that Her Majesty requested to have Ann presented to her.
But the most famous event of her life took place in 1850, when Captain
Russell, of H.M.S. _Brunswick_, suggested to her that she and her crew
should go over to Havre to the regatta there and challenge the Johnny
Crapauds. She was quite prepared, and started under the escort of
Captain Russell.