Merthyr, Murder, vicarage, is situated in the hundred of Powder, and
hath upon the north and east Probus and Tresilian river, south Lamoran
and St. Michael Penkivell, west an arm of Falmouth Harbour, towards
Clemens. As for the name, it refers to the tutelar patron and guardian
saint of the church, who it seems was murdered and slain for the
Christian religion, as a martyr; viz. one St. Cohan, a Briton of this
parish, whose little well, and consecrated chapel annexed thereto, was
lately extant, upon the lands of Egles Merthyr barton, (that is to say
upon the lands of the Martyr’s Church,) though now in a manner
demolished by greedy searchers for money.
This church goes in presentation and consolidation as a daughter to
St. Probus, which vicar is to present the curate, vicar, or chaplain
of Merthyr to the Bishop for licence and confirmation; though the
eight men of the said parish are by ancient custom to choose and name
him, in consideration whereof the vicar of Probus is to receive
annually from them, on the high altar, three shillings and four pence.
However, great controversies have happened in the Bishop’s Consistory
between the vicar of Probus and the inhabitants of this parish, before
and since Henry the Eighth’s days, upon the death, removal, or
translations of the vicar of Probus, concerning the right of the
jurisdiction, presentation, or patronage of this church; whether in
the vicar of Probus, or the eight men of the said parish, the vicar
presenting one clerk or curate to be confirmed by the Bishop, and the
eight men another; but generally it hath passed as a rule in the
Ecclesiastical Court, where this matter, by learned counsel or
proctors, hath been debated, that the right of patronage and
presentation of this church lay in the eight men of the parish, and
not in the vicar of Probus, though the same hath been often
controverted.
There is a Latin deed which I have seen yet extant, between Bar.
Combe, vicar-general to Dr. Peter Courtenay, Lord Bishop of Exeter,
1480, under seal of the diocese, and John Fullford, perpetual vicar of
Probus of the one part, and Thomas Tresithney, John Hallvose, Thomas
Webber, and others of the eight men of the parish of Merthyr on the
other part, wherein those premises are concerted or regulated; and
moreover, therein a confirmation, covenant, or agreement, made and
established between them, according to ancient custom; that in case
the said eight men and their successors should annually pay to the
vicar or curate of the said parish of St. Cohan Martyr, of Merthyr,
for ever annually the full and just sum of twenty marks lawful moneys
of England, that then the lands of the said parish, and every part and
parcel thereof should be exempt and free from the payment of small
tithes in kind, oblations, or obventions to the vicar thereof for
ever. Which privilege hath ever since been kept and enjoyed by the
inhabitants of the said parish accordingly; to the great loss of the
vicar, and greater gain of the inhabitants.
Now, though when this compact was made and confirmed, the vicar had
much the better bargain, not one vicarage church in Cornwall being of
that value in the King’s or Pope’s Books towards Annats in the first
inquisition, 1294, nor many in Wolsey’s Inquisition, 1520; yet now the
inhabitants have great profit thereby, since the plenty or commonness
of money lessens the intrinsic value thereof, whereby much number of
money will buy but little lands, goods, or chattels, whereas in those
days a little quantity of money would purchase much of those things.
(Witness Baker, and other our chronologers, temp. Henry VII. soon
after the compact aforesaid was made, wherein we may read that a
bushel of wheat, Winchester measure, was sold for 6_d._, a bushel of
salt for 3½_d._, a ton of Gascoign wines 40_s._, and all other things
sold after a proportionable price.)
In the Domesday Book, 1087, this district was taxed under the
jurisdiction of Penkivell. Afterwards, upon the setting up the
vicarage of Probus, it was concerted into that parish about the
beginning of King Henry the Third’s days; for in the Inquisition of
the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, into the value of Cornish
Benefices, 1294, its superior or mother church was rated for it, as
also the five chaplains for their salaries, that officiated in Probus,
Cornelly, and Merthyr. It was endowed by the treasurer of the
cathedral church of Exeter, which must be after that dignitary was
first set up there, by William Brewar, Bishop thereof 1224. The
patronage as aforesaid; the incumbent, Monsieur Baudree, a French
Protestant; and the parish rated to the 4_s._ per pound Land Tax,
1696, temp. William III. £83.
At Tre-saws-an, alias Tre-saus-an, id est, the Saxon town, or
dwelling, a place heretofore pertaining to some Saxon, is the
possession by lease of James Hals, Gent., granted him by his mother in
the time of her widowhood, as parcel of the manor of Fentongollan,
whereon she had power of leasing during her widowhood. He was a
younger son of Sir Nicholas Hals, of Fentongollan, Knight, by Grace
his wife, daughter of Sir John Arundell, of Talverne, Knight; and was
first bred a soldier in Pendenis Castle, whereof his father was
Governor, under King James I. and Charles I. Afterwards he was made
lieutenant of his brother Captain William Hals, in the expedition of
the Duke of Buckingham in the French war, at the Isle of Rhé and
Rochelle. And after that war was over was sent with his said brother
by King Charles I. with a foot company of soldiers to supply or
reinforce the garrisons of the Barbadoes, St. Christopher’s, and
Mountserat Islands in America, where he remained about seven years;
and after his brother’s death, who died returning into England,
Captain Ayleworth was displaced, and the said James Hals made Governor
of Mountserat Island, by King Charles I.
After which, the wars breaking out in England, between that King and
his Parliament, he and divers other officers were commanded to return
back into England for the King’s service; where soon after his arrival
at Plymouth, that stood for the Parliament, then besieged by the
King’s army, he was cajoled out of his allegiance to King Charles I.
by his country gentlemen then in that place in garrison, and engaged
against that King, to become Lieutenant-Colonel to Colonel Nicholas
Boscawen’s troop of horse, then posted there. From whence he was
commanded, with several other troops of horse, to go outside the
lines, under conduct of the Earl of Stamford, then Governor of
Plymouth for the Parliament, and to fight the King’s army that
besieged it under conduct of Sir Ralph Hopton, Knight, and Sir Richard
Grenvill, Knight and Baronet, the King’s Generals in the West; where,
after a sharp engagement and loss of many men between both parties,
the victory fell to the King’s army; and then and there the said James
Hals, and many other gentlemen were taken prisoners of war, and
forthwith sent prisoners to Lidford Castle in Devon, under custody of
Marshall Ellery, of St. Colomb Major.
Where soon after several of his companions, or fellow officers and
soldiers, viz. Mr. Leach, Mr. Morris, Mr. Brabyn, and others, were
executed without trial or judgment, as guilty of high treason. But the
said James Hals had his life spared or given him by the General Sir
Richard Grenville, Knight, upon account of consanguinity, but not
without many frowns and angry threats; (a sure token of his clemency,
as his smiles and embraces were of death and destruction, suitable to
those of King Richard III. and King James I. and Caius Caligula,
Emperor of Rome,) to dissuade him from the Parliament service to that
of the King’s, with promise of greater preferment in his army; all
which proving ineffectual, he was sentenced a straight or close
prisoner to that tremendous castle, in daily expectation of death;
where he remained immured up for about twenty months space, in great
want, durance, and misery, till General Essex came into those parts
with the Parliament army, and set at liberty him and other Lidford
prisoners, by Captain Braydon raised the siege of Plymouth, and sore
distressed Hopton and Grenville in Cornwall.
During the time of this James Hals’ imprisonment in Lidford Castle,
amongst others there came to visit him one Mr. Doctor William Brown,
of Tavistock, who gave him a copy of rambling verses and observations
he had made upon the borough and castle of Lidford, for his diversion;
which verses, for want of the original, I find false and imperfectly
set forth and printed in Mr. Prince’s Worthies of Devon, therefore I
have hereunder set it down verbatim from the Doctor’s own copy, given
Mr. Hals, viz.:
I oft have heard of Lidford Lawe,
How in the morn they hang and draw,
And sit in judgment after;
At first I wondered at it much,
But since I find the matter such,
As it deserves noe laughter.
They have a castle on a hill;
I took it for some old windmill,
The vanes blown off by weather;
To lie therein, one night ’tis gast,
’Twere better to be stoned or pressed,
Or hanged when you come thither.
Ten men less room within this cave
Than five mice in a lanthorn have;
The Keepers they are sly ones;
If any could devise by art
To get it up into a cart,
’Twere fit to carry lions.
When I beheld it! Lord thought I,
What justice, truth, or equity,
Hath Lidford Castle hall;
Where every one that there doth stay,
Must first be hanged out of the way,
’Fore he can have his trial.
Prince Charles a hundred pounds hath sent,
To mend the leads and planchins wrent,
Within this living tomb,
Some forty-five pounds more had paid
The debts of all that shall be laid
There till the day of doom.
One lies there for a seam of malt,
Another for two pecks of salt,
Two sureties for a noble;
If this be true or else false news,
You may go ask of Master Crew’s,
John Vaughan, or John Doble.
Near to those men that lie in lurch,
There’s a direful bridge and little church,
Seven ashes and one oak;
Two houses standing and ten down,
They say the Rector hath a gown,
But I saw ne’er a cloak.
Whereby you may consider well,
What plain simplicity doth dwell
At Lidford without bravery;
Since in that town both young and grave
Do love the naked truth to have,
No cloak to hide their knavery.
This town’s inclosed with desert moors,
Where tiger, wolf, and lion roars,
And nought can live but hogs;
All overturn’d with Noah’s flood;
Of fourscore miles scarce one foot good;
Where hills are wholly bogs.
And near unto the Gubbins Cave,
A people that no knowledge have
Of laws of God or men,
Where Cæsar never yet subdued,
Have lawless lived, of manners rude,
All naked in their den.
By whom, if any pass that way,
He dares not any time to stay,
For presently the howl,
Upon which signal they do muster
Their naked forces in a cluster,
Led forth by Roger Rowle.
The people all within this clime,
Are frozen in the Winter time,
Deprest with cold and pain;
But when the Summer is begun,
They lie like silkworms in the sun,
And gather strength again.
’Twas told me, in King Cæsar’s time
The town was built with stone and lime,
But sure the walls are clay,
For they are all fallen for ought I see:
And since the houses are got free
The town is run away.
O Cæsar, if thou there didst reign,
Whilst one house stands come there again;
(Come quickly whilst there is one)
For if thou stay, but little fit,
But five years more, they will commit
The whole town to a prison.
To see it thus much grieved was I,
The proverb saith ’sorrows be dry,’
So was I at this matter;
When by good luck, I know not how,
There thither came a straying cow,
And we had milk and water.
To nine good stomachs, with a wig,
At last we got a tithen pig;
This diet was our bounds;
And this was, just as if ’twere known,
A pound of butter had been thrown
Among a pack of hounds.
One glass of drink I got by chance,
’Twas Claret when it was in France,
But then from it much wider;
I think a man might make as good
With green crabs boiled in Brazil wood,
And half a pint of cider.
I kissed the Mayor’s hand of the town,
Who though he wears no scarlet gown,
Honours the Rose and Thistle;
A piece of coral to the mace,
Which there I saw to serve in place,
Would make a good child’s whistle.
At six o’clock I came away,
And prayed for those that were to stay
Within that place so arrant;
For my part I’ll come there no more,
Unless it be on better score,
Or forced by Tin Warrant.
This custom of executing malefactors before trial on common fame, was
also an old law amongst the Germans and Swiss Cantons; and if upon
trial, after execution done on the criminal, he or she appeared to be
innocent, a priest was appointed to pray for his soul. (See Glover’s
Somerset, and Duverdier’s History of the Swiss Cantons.)
The same law was in force amongst the people of Carinthia, a country
adjoining to the Alps and Italy on the south, and Styria on the north;
moreover, if upon the trial three days after the offender’s execution,
he appeared to be guilty, his body should be left so long to hang upon
the gibbet, till his members rotted piecemeal from his body. But if
innocent they took it thence and gave it venerable obsequies, with
prayers, oblations, and alms deed for the salvation of his soul.
This James Hals married Anne, one of the coheirs of John Martin, of
Hurston, Gent. attorney-at-law, (lineally descended from the Martins
of Pittle Town, in Dorset,) by Anne his wife, daughter of John Mundy,
of Rialton, Esq. by Jane his wife, daughter of Walter Kendall, of
Pellyn, Esq.; by whom he had issue James Hals, his eldest son and
heir, that married Martha, daughter and heir of Thomas Penrose, of
Lefeock, Gent. commander of the Bristol, Maidstone, and Monck
frigates, during the several Dutch wars of Oliver Cromwell and King
Charles II. with the States of Holland; by whom he hath issue James
Hals, his eldest son, of Hungerford Park in Berkshire, and Thomas
Hals, bred a gentleman volunteer, upon King William the Third’s ship
the Sunderland, Captain Tudor Trevor, Commander; but being from thence
transferred to the Kingfisher, Captain Tallat, Commander, in order to
go to St. Helena, with other men of war, to convoy home the East India
fleet, the air on the south part of Africa, near the Cape of Good
Hope, not agreeing with his constitution of body, he sickened there of
a consumption and died 1702.
James Hals aforesaid, father of those young men, proved a man of ill
conduct, and wasted all his lands and leases, of a very considerable
value.
James Hals first above-mentioned had also issue William Hals, the
author of these lines, who married three wives, Evans of Landrini
family in Wales, Carveth of Peransand, and Courtney of Tremeer, but
had issue by none of them.
He had also issue Thomas Hals, of the City of London, first bred a
merchant, who married Jane, daughter of Captain Richard Bourchier, of
that city, and hath been a merchant, factor, and traveller in France,
Spain, Portugal, Italy, Venice, Greece, Smyrna, Egypt, Constantinople,
and Alexandria, in which last places he was a factor for several
years; afterwards as merchant he went in an East India ship into
Africa, Persia, Arabia, India, and China, where he died about the year
1710, without issue.
As also Nicholas Hals, bred a scholar, who died at Leskeard, and lies
buried in the minister’s chancel of that church, 1682.
As also Grenvill Hals, that married Martha, daughter of Reginald
Hawkey, Gent. attorney-at-law, of Trevego, but died also without
issue, 1718, and lies buried in Fentongollan Isle, in St. Michael
Penkivell church, near his father and mother’s graves.
As also Henry Hals, bred a merchant, who for several years was a
factor at Constantinople and Alexandria. But coming back into England
to marry the only daughter and heir of one Doctor Cooke, at London, to
whom long before he had been contracted, he sickened of the small-pox,
died there, and lies buried at Stepney or Whitechapel, 1689.
Anne, married first to William Roscorla, of Roscorla in St. Austell;
and after his death to Thomas Penrose, of Nance, in St. Martin’s in
Kerryer, but hath issue by neither. She died in the year ――――, and
lies buried in the north isle or chapel of St. Wenn church, in
Cornwall.
At Trewortha Vean, in this parish, that is the little higher town, by
lease, is the dwelling of Joseph Halsey, clerk, Master of Arts, and
some time Fellow of Trinity College in Cambridge, and rector of St.
Michael Penkivell church, in this county; lineally descended from the
Halseys of Huntingdonshire, whose arms are Argent, a pile between
three griffons’ heads erased Sable, out of a supposed allusion to
their name, derived from Alce and Sey. He married Mary, daughter of
Henry Vincent, of Tresimple, Gent. attorney-at-law, by whom he had
issue Joseph Halsey, practitioner in physic, who took the degree of
Doctor beyond the seas, at Leyden in Holland I take it. He now
resideth at London, where he married ――――, and hath got himself
considerable wealth and reputation in his profession. He had also
issue Nathaniel Halsey, bred a merchant, and is now a factor for the
East India Company, at Bombay or Bengal in India; also Edward Halsey,
of the same occupation, now a factor for the said Company at Surat, or
some other part of India; also a daughter, married to Bromley, of
Lefeock, a Presbyterian priest.
This Mr. Joseph Halsey being ordained priest, was made rector of the
parish aforesaid, in the interregnum of Oliver and Richard Cromwell,
after the discipline of Calvin, or Geneva.