The name of Arundell has not, in all probability, any thing to do with
swallows. It is on the contrary derived from their Castle in the Arun
Dale, Sussex, which like all other British or Saxon names having the
slightest resemblance in sound to a French word, has been referred to
a Norman origin.
Mr. Lysons says that Sir John Arundell, the last of the Lanhearne
branch, or parent stock, who died in 1701, settled his estates on his
grandson, Richard Billinge, Esq. with the condition of his taking the
name of Arundell. This gentleman had an only daughter and heiress, who
carried the property by her marriage to the Lords Arundell of Wardour.
It does not appear that any of the Wardour Arundells have ever resided
at Lanhearne; with a sectarian attachment to the ancient faith, they
kept up a Catholic establishment at this place, and retained great
numbers of the parishioners in communion with the See of Rome, by
making it a passport to lucrative employment and to good cheer; but
the house having been appropriated to the reception of Nuns from
Antwerp, of the order of Carmelites, as reformed by St. Tereza, and
the secular establishment broken up, the system of private
interpretation has entirely superseded the authority of Popes and
Councils, so that not a Catholic can now be found without the walls.
The Nuns were received here on their flying from the French Invasion
to their native country, for all were English, and their numbers are
still maintained by fresh recruits.
Henry Arundell, the 8th Baron Arundell, of Wardour, having built a
magnificent house adjacent to the old castle, and feeling little
interest about the property in Cornwall, although it is said to have
regularly descended through the Dinhams, from a period anterior to the
Norman Conquest, sold the whole in parcels, with the exception of
Lanhearne, and has thereby several the very ancient connexion of his
family with this county.
The church stands near the river, and adjacent to the house of
Lanhearne. It is decorated on the inside with a rood loft, very few of
which have been suffered to remain, and by monuments to the Arundells,
with inscriptions, most of which may be found in Mr. C. S. Gilbert’s
History of Cornwall.
There is also another to Humphrey Noye, which, as his descendant and
heir, the Editor hopes he may be excused for transcribing:
Here lyeth the Body of
Collonell Humphry Noye,
Son and Heir of William
Noye, of Carnanton, Esq^e,
Attorney Generall to Charles
The First, of Blessed Memory,
King of Great Britaine, France,
And Ireland. Who was intered
the 12^{th} of December,
Annoq^e Dom: 1679.
On the stone are the arms:
Arg. three bends and a canton Sab. on the canton an English cross of
the Field.
The crest of Noye is a dove bearing an olive branch, and the motto:
Teg yw Hedwch, Lovely in Peace. Evidently an allusion to the names
Noye and Noah.
The above words were on a slate stone laid flat on the pavement, so
that the letters were beginning to disappear; but Mr. Humphry
Willyams, his successor in Carnarton, although not his descendant, has
recently preserved the stone and the inscription, by placing this
memorial perpendicularly against one of the walls.
The manor of Carnarton belonged to the father, if not to the
grandfather, of the Attorney-general. He was born however at Pendrea,
in St. Burian, where the family had been settled time out of mind, but
understood to be of Norman extraction.
Little is known of Mr. Noye’s early life, till he became a member of
Exeter College, in the year 1593. He removed from thence to Lincoln’s
Inn, and was chosen Member for Helston to the Parliament which met in
January 1620. He afterwards represented St. Ives, and certainly took
an active, zealous, and able part in fostering the nascent liberties
of his country; but having formed a connexion with Mr. Wentworth, he
became a partizan in what was afterwards named the Stafford Faction,
was made Attorney-general in 1631, devised the exaction of Ship Money,
and conducted himself in a manner very different from the promise of
his former days; fortunately for himself, Mr. Noye died in 1634,
before the more violent agitations commenced, which terminated in the
Civil War. He left three children, Edward his eldest son and heir,
Humphrey, and Catharine.
Edward lost his life not long after the Attorney-general’s decease, in
a duel with a Captain Byron. Humphrey then inherited the property.
Catharine married John Cartwright, esq. of Aynhoe, in Northamptonshire,
whose descendant in the fifth degree, William Ralph Cartwright, is now
of that place (1835), and Member for the county.
Mr. Noye’s will is so curious as to be worthy of insertion:
Incerta mortis hora, hodie ventura, suspecta esse debeat
Christiano: sensi me gravatum: mens tamen, Deo annuente,
sanitate viget (quam nollem in extremis de mundariis
cogitare) hinc est quod――
Ego Will’mus Noye die mensis Junii tertio, anno Domini
millesimo sexcentesimo trigesimo quarto, rerum mearum
dispositionem, per præsens testamentum meum (Dei nomine
primitus invocato) ut inferius scriptum est ordinare statui.
Lego animam meam Deo omnipotenti, ejusdem et universi
Conditori. In illum credo qui dixit, Ego sum resurrectio et
vita; et quia credidi in illum vivam etiam si mortuus
fuerim. Corpus meum terræ, unde confectum est, diem
novissimum expectaturum, lego. Novi quod Redemptor meus
vivit, et in die illa de terra resurrecturus in carne mea
videbo salutare illum, quem oculi mei conspecturi sunt.
Reposita est hæc spes in sinu meo. Funeralia celebrari nolo.
Pauperibus de Isleworth 100_s._; de St. Burian cum capellis
100_s._; de St. Mawgan in Pyder 150_s._; Will^o Browne
200_s._ et tantum uxori suæ; Roberto Wescombe 100 marcas;
Egidio Chubb 300_s._; Will’mo Richards 200_s._ Humfredo
filio meo mille marcas do, lego. Et eidem Humfredo lego
annualem centum marcarum exeuntem de omnibus tenementis meis
in hundredo de Pyder in comitatu Cornubiæ, habendum eidem
Humfredo et hæredibus suis, durante vita Johannis fratris
mei, et uxoris suæ et superviventis eorum, ad festa Omnium
Sanctorum et Philippi et Jacobi, per æquales portiones
annuatim solvendum; liceatque eis in omnibus præmissis
distringere quoties prædictus redditus fuerit insolutus. Et
eidem Humfredo et hæredibus suis do et lego omnia tenementa
mea in Warpstowe in comitatu Cornubiæ prædicto.
Reliqua meorum Edwardo filio meo, quem executorem testamenti
mei constitui, dissipanda (nec melius speravi) reliqui. In
cujus rei testimonium istud testamentum meum manu mea
propria scripsi, ac illud sigilli mei appositione, et
nominis subscriptione confirmavi.