St. Stephen’s in Brannel is situate in the hundred of Powder, and hath
upon the north Roach and St. Denis, east St. Mewan, west Probus, south
Creed.
In the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester into the
value of Cornish Benefices 1294, Ecclesia de Sancti Stephani, in
decanatu de Powdre, was rated at £8. 7. 5_d._ In Wolsey’s Inquisition
1221, it was valued to First Fruits, together with St. Denis and
Carhayes, and goes in consolidation and presentation with it, £27.
10_s._ 6½_d._ as a rectory, and for the vicarages of St. Stephen’s and
St. Denis £14.; in all £41. 10_s._ 6½.: all which churches were
endowed by Richard Earl of Cornwall, King of the Romans, who annexed
the patronage thereof to his lordship and manor of Branel aforesaid.
The patronage now in Tanner; the incumbent Tanner: to which rectory of
St. Michael Caryhayes those vicarages are appropriated or
impropriated, and the rectories thereof for life. This parish was
rated to the four shillings per pound Land Tax 1696, £283. 4_s._ 9_d._
But whether those vicarages are obliged to the residence of the said
rector for certain times with cura animarum, or are sinecures, I know
not.
Court in this parish is the chief barton of the manor and lordship of
Brannel, both which appertained to the Earls of Cornwall in right of
that earldom; which King John, who also was Earl of Cornwall, settled
upon his second son Richard, born in the 11th year of his reign, Anno
Dom. 1209, afterwards King of the Romans, who had issue by his
concubine Joan de Valletorta, widow of Sir Alexander Oakeston
aforesaid, a base son named Richard de Cornwall, (and a daughter named
Joan, married to Champernowne) on whom he settled this manor of
Brannel and barton of Court; who had issue Wiliam de Cornwall or
Plantagenet, and Geffery de Cornwall, afterwards knighted by King
Edward I. ancestor of the famous family of the Cornwalls of Burford in
Shropshire, whose posterity had been twenty-two times sheriffs of
those counties and Bedfordshire to the 10th of King James.
Boden-ike aforesaid, was formerly the lands of Pye, who sold it to
Tanner; some of which family afterwards, in the interregnum of
Cromwell, turned decimators and sequestrators with the Sprys, upon the
lands and revenues of the royal laity and clergy of this county, to
that degree of hurt and damage, that it occasioned the making of that
short litany not yet forgotten in Cornwall:
“From the Pyes and the Spryes, good Lord, deliver us.”
The arms of Pye are, Argent, on a fess Azure three escallops of the
Field.
Lastly, in this place, to refresh the tired reader, I will recount a
story of the unfortunate amours of John Tanner aforesaid, with his
lady Madam Windham, to whom he made his first addresses of marriage,
and after some time good liking fell deeply into each other’s
affection; but the conditions of marriage proposed by Mr. Tanner not
being hastily agreed upon by her father Mr. Windham, gave opportunity
to Charles Speccott, esq. a gentleman of much greater estate than Mr.
Tanner had, to make an overture of marriage to the lady aforesaid,
together with a larger settlement in jointure than Mr. Tanner was able
to grant or perform; which proposals were forthwith accepted by Mr.
Windham, so that he soon after constrained his daughter,
notwithstanding what amours had passed between her and Mr. Tanner, to
marry Mr. Speccott.
At the news of which cross accident, Mr. Tanner, her former inamorato,
was so discontented and perplexed in mind, that in order to quiet his
disturbed soul, and obliterate or extinguish the memory of this
beautiful woman (for such she was), he forsook this land and travelled
into France.
In brief, Tanner, having been eighteen months in France,
notwithstanding the variety of faces and company he met with, grew
there also discontented with himself, and a continual impulse lay upon
his spirit which he could not suppress, that he must return back again
into England, for what reason he knew not; whereupon he went on board
a ship, and came safe into the port of London, where he had not
remained scarce ten days before he heard of the news of Mr. Speccott’s
death within that time; upon which intelligence he forthwith posted
from London to Thornbury in Devon, where she then resided in a
mourning state, who received him in such joyful and welcome manner,
that soon after the marriage was concluded betwixt them, by whom he
had a great estate as aforesaid,