Ruan Minor is also situate in the hundred of Kerryer, and hath upon
the north Ruan Major, east St. Kevorne, west Grade, south the British
Ocean or Channel. In the Domesday Book it was taxed under the
jurisdiction of Lizard; and at the time of the first inquisition into
the value of Cornish Benefices 1294, it was not endowed if extant. In
Wolsey’s Inquisition 1521, it was valued at £4. 4_s._ 5_d._; the
patronage formerly in the master of St. John’s Hospital at Sythney, or
Carmenow of Carmenow, who endowed it, now Robinson; the incumbent
――――; and the parish rated to the four shillings per pound Land Tax
1696, temp. William III. at £17. 11_s._ 2_d._
In this parish at Cadgwith, i. e. war-tree, so called in memory of
some war or battle heretofore fought near some tree then extant in
this place, is the dwelling of George Robinson, esq. that married
three wives, Trevillian’s widow, Tregose, and Penhallow; his father
Thomas Robinson, esq. a Commissioner for the Peace in the interregnum
of Cromwell, that lived at Helston, was there, as he was walking in
the fields where his cows depastured, casually assaulted with his
bull, who, though at other times was a creature very gentle and quiet
by nature, at that time put on an unusual ferocity, without any
provocation or distaste given him from his master, that he instantly
left his fellow creatures, and ran towards Mr. Robinson, and gave him
many dangerous wounds in his body by pushing at him with his horns,
and at length cast him up into the air, from thence whereby he fell to
the ground several times to his greater hurt, till at length by those
violent tossings of his body, his hat flew from his head on the
ground, and was driven thence by the force of the wind to the surface
of the earth, to some distance, which the enraged bull observing,
pursued after it, and tossed the same into the air with his horns
several times after, which gave Mr. Robinson, then comparatively dead
on the ground, opportunity to get to the stile of the field, and to
crawl over it into another close, by which means, and the help of
others, he got alive to his house, in order to cure his wounds, but
maugre all endeavours of physicians and chirurgeons, his wounds and
bruises were so deep and mortal, that in three or four days after he
died.
Various were the sentiments of the neighbours upon this sad accident.
But I shall shut up this history in the words of our Saviour, on other
such sad accidents amongst the Jews: saying, “Think ye that those
sixteen on whom the tower of Siloham fell, or those whose blood Pilate
mixed with their sacrifices, were sinners above all men? I tell you
nay, but except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish, for secret
things belong only to God.”
The arms of Robinson are, in a field Vert three bucks in full course,
armed and attired Or.
Note further, that all those twelve parishes commonly called Meneage,
the outmost south-west part or point of Cornwall, in the Domesday Book
of William the Conqueror, are all comprehended or taxed under the name
of Liz-ard, which signifies in British the lofty or dangerous gulf or
flux of waters, as the same is, and over a strag or promontory of
ragged rocks running for about half a mile out into the sea from the
land, visible at low water, but not at full sea or half flood, which
hath occasioned the destruction or wrecking of many ships, and loss of
many men’s lives and goods, who either in the night storms, or through
ignorance, have chanced to sail over it, and are wrecked between the
strait of those rocks, and the furious meeting or flashing of the
waves of the sea.
Hence also from the word liz, which signifies a hazardous gulph of
water between two lands, rivers, or arms of the sea, we have
Tre-liz-ike, St. Earth, and Padstow harbour, Lelizike, mills in
Probus, on the Tresilian river. Liz or Lisburne, a town in Portugal,
and many more.