Boyton is situate in the hundred of Stratton, and hath upon the east
the Tamer River, south Warrington, north Tamerton, west North
Pedyrwyn, and as a mark of its antiquity and grandeur it was taxed in
the Domesday Roll 1067 or 1087, by the present name. In the
Inquisition of the Bishop of Lincoln and Winchester before-mentioned,
Capella de Boyeton, in Decanatu de Stratone, was rated xxx_s._ but
whether rectory or vicarage I am ignorant; the same not being
mentioned either in Wolsey’s Inquisition or Valor Beneficiorum. The
patronage in ――――. The incumbent ――――. This parish rated to the
4_s._ per pound Land Tax, 1696, £89. 14_s._
Most probable it seems to me, that this place was denominated Boyton
in memory of a colony of the Boii Gauls, that out of that country of
Gaul first planted themselves here; who were a people on the further
side of the Rhine, that with the Helvetians first invaded Gaul, as
Cæsar informs us, and placed themselves amongst the Hedui, a people of
Gallia Celtica, near the Loire River, and possessed a great part of
Burgundy; Cæsar also makes Boia in Gaul the name of a town.
Bradridge in this parish, the broad ridge or farrow of land (Saxon),
is the dwelling of John Hoblyn, Esq. barrister at law, son of Mr.
Hoblyn, attorney at law, of Bodmin; which place came to this gentleman
by marriage with the sole daughter and heir of William Symons, Gent.
attorney at law, as it did to him by marriage with the daughter and
heir of Heale.
The Heales’ arms are, Party per fess Argent and Sable, a pole
counterchanged with three trefoils, one on each side the pole in
chief, and the other thereon, in base counterchanged.
At Northcott, in this parish, temp. Queen Mary, lived Agnes Prest, but
where born, or what her maiden name was, is to me unknown, whose merit
challengeth to be recorded in this place, as being the only martyr
that suffered death for the Protestant religion in the diocese of Exon
during the said Queen’s reign. She is described by Holinshed, Howell,
alias Hooker, and by Fuller from them, to be a contemptible woman in
respect of her person, (as St. Paul was for a man,) little, and short
of stature, and of a brownish complexion. She was indicted, as Mr.
Vowell says, at Launceston, in this county, upon Monday the fourth
week in Lent, the 2d and 3d of Philip and Mary, before the Grand Jury
there assembled. The matter suggested in the Bill was: “For that she
denied the Real Presence in the sacrament of the altar; and for saying
the same was but a sign and figure of Christ’s body; and that no
Christian doth eat the body of Christ carnally, but spiritually.” The
evidence against her were her own husband and children; from whom she
fled, for that they would compel her, by force, to be present at the
celebration of mass. Notwithstanding, upon their testimonies the bill
was found, and indorsed, “Billa vera.” Whereupon she came to her trial
before William Starford, then Justice of Assize, (probably he that
wrote the Pleas of the Crown,) where, upon a full hearing of the case,
the Petty Jury also found her guilty, on the testimony aforesaid;
after which she was presented to James Turbervill, Bishop of Exeter,
for further examination on the premises, but she persisting in her
former opinion, was by him condemned as a heretic.
After her condemnation, she refused to receive any money from
well-disposed people, that formerly relieved her, saying, she was
going to that City where money had no mastery. Soon after she was
delivered over to the secular power to be burnt, to Robert Cary, of
Cockington, Esq. then Sheriff of Devonshire, or to his Under Sheriff,
who saw her executed at Southernhay, without the walls of Exon, in the
54th year of her age, and in the month of November, 1558. This was the
only person in whose persecution Bishop Turbervill did appear, in
matters of religion, during the time he sat in that see, (consecrated
Sept. 8, 1555, deprived in January 1560,) and, as Dr. Fuller saith,
her death was procured more by the violence of Blackston, the
Chancellor, than by any persecution of the Bishop.
And here it may not be impertinent to show, that our ancestors the
Britons of Cornwall received and took the blessed Sacrament in the
same sense as this martyr Agnes Prest did receive it; that is by faith
only, contrary to the doctrine of Transubstantiation: as is evident
from Mount Calvary, a manuscript in verse in the Cornish tongue,
written about five hundred years since, a copy of which is now in my
own custody, which containeth the history of the Incarnation and
Passion of Christ, according to St. John’s Gospel; wherein, amongst
others, verse the 79th containeth these words:[19]
Du benegas an bara, therag ay ys abestlye,
An gorfe ay ma, eshenna, ynmeth Chrest, sur rag rye why
Kemeras a berth, en bysma, dispersys henna nos avyth
Dybbery tho gans cregyans, thu da gober teck hag gevyth
Hay gwynsa wor an foys, ef a ranas in tretha
Yn meth Chrest, henna ys goyse ow, evough why pur Cherity.
Which sounds thus in English:
God blessed the bread in presence (or among) his Apostles (or
Disciples);
The body of me in this, saith Christ, certainly given for you;
Taken secretly, and in this world despised, this night shall be.
Eat it with faith, thy good, fair reward, and remission.
And the wine on the wall he divided amongst them:
Says Christ, this is my blood; drink you in pure charity.
Anno Dom. 1050, Berengarius, a deacon of Angiers in France, disproved
and refuted the doctrine of Transubstantiation in a large manuscript,
which he sent with letters to Lanfrank, then Abbat of Caen in
Normandy, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury from 1070 to 1089, which
letters and reasons, in the absence of Lanfrank, being opened by some
of his clergy, the same were transmitted to Pope Leo IX. whereupon
calling a council at Rome, and the letters and reasons of Berengarius
being read, he was condemned for an heretic in 1051. In France also
the same year, Pope Leo IX. assembled another council at Versailles
against Berengarius, which likewise condemned him for a heretic. The
like did Victor II. successor of Pope Leo IX. in 1055, in which
council Berengarius answered personally for himself; That, as to the
doctrine he taught concerning the Sacrament, he adhered to no
particular opinion of his own, but to that which was the ancient and
common doctrine of the universal Church.
After Pope Victor II. his successor Pope Nicholas II. assembled at
Rome a council of a hundred and thirteen Bishops against Berengarius’
doctrine; who thereupon submitted the same to the Pope and his
councils’ correction, who prescribed him a form of recantation. But
afterwards he published a refutation of that recantation, and of the
doctrines therein contained, anno 1059. Notwithstanding which, the
fourth council of Lateran, under Pope Innocent III. in 1160,
(Frederick II. being then Emperor), consisting of four hundred bishops
and holy fathers, established the Roman doctrine of Transubstantiantion,
which was afterwards further confirmed by another council at Lateran,
in Rome, under Pope Innocent V. an. Dom. 1215.