CAMELFORD
A rotten borough--Without a church or chapel-of-ease--History
of the borough--Contest between the Earl of Darlington and
Lord Yarmouth--Brown Willy and Rough Tor--Helborough--S.
Itha--Slaughter Bridge--King Arthur--The reason for the
creation of the Arthur myth--Geoffrey of Monmouth--The
truth about King Arthur--The story of his birth--Damelioc
and Tintagel--How it is that he appears in so many
places--King Arthur’s Hall--The remains of Tintagel--The
Cornish chough--Crowdy Marsh--Brown Willy and the
beehive cottages on it--Fernworthy--Lord Camelford--His
story--Penvose--S. Tudy--Slate monuments--Basil--S.
Kew--The Carminows--Helland--A telegram.
That this little town of a single street should have been a borough and
have returned two members to Parliament is a surprise. It is a further
surprise to find that it is a town without a church, and that no rector
of Lanteglos, two miles distant, should have deemed it a scandal to
leave it without even a chapel-of-ease is the greatest surprise of all.
Camelford was invested with the dignity of a borough in 1547, when it
was under the control of the Roscarrock family. From them it passed to
the Manatons living at Kilworthy, near Tavistock. Then it fell into
the hands of an attorney named Phillipps. He parted with his interest
to the Duke of Bedford, and he in turn to the Earl of Darlington,
afterwards Duke of Cleveland.
The electors were the free burgesses paying scot and lot. “Scot”
signifies taxes or rates. But the mayor was the returning officer, and
he controlled the election.
In George IV.’s reign there was a warm contest between the Earl of
Darlington and Lord Yarmouth. The latter ran up a great building, into
which he crowded a number of faggot voters. But the Earl of Darlington
possessed rights of search for minerals; so he drove a mine under this
structure, and blew it up with gunpowder. The voters hearing what was
purposed, ran away in time, and consequently Lord Yarmouth lost the
election.
In the election of 1812 each voter received a hundred pounds for his
vote. In the election of 1818 the mayor, Matthew Pope, announced his
intention of giving the majority to Lord Darlington’s nominee, and of
turning out of their freeholds all who opposed. The other party had a
club called “The Bundle of Sticks,” and engaged a chemist named William
Hallett, of S. Mary Axe, to manage the election for them, and put £6000
into his hand to distribute among the electors, £400 apiece.
Hanmer and Stewart got ten votes apiece, Milbrook and Maitland
thirteen. But there was an appeal, and a new election; but this again
led to a petition, and a scandalous story was told of bribery and
corruption of the most barefaced description. The election was declared
void, and many persons, including Hallett, the chemist, were reported.
It was proposed to disfranchise the borough, but George III. died in
1820, and new writs had to be at once issued.
Camelford has no public buildings of interest. It is situate on very
high ground, on a wind-blown waste 700 feet above the sea, exposed to
furious gales from the Atlantic; but it has this advantage, that it
forms headquarters for an excursion to the Bodmin moors, to Brown Willy
(1375 feet), and Rough Tor (1250 feet). These tors, though by no means
so high as those on Dartmoor, are yet deserving of a visit, on account
of their bold outlines, the desolation of the wilderness out of which
they rise, and the numerous relics of antiquity strewn over the moors
about them.
Of these presently.
The parish church of Camelford, two miles off, is Lanteglos. The
dedication is to S. Julitta, but this would seem to have been a
rededication, and the true patroness to have been either Jutwara or
Jutwell, sister of St. Sidwell, or of Ilut, one of King Brythan’s
daughters.
There was a royal deer-park there, as the old castle of Helborough,
though not occupied, was in the possession of the Duke of Cornwall.
This is really a prehistoric camp of Irish construction, and in the
midst of it are the ruins of a chapel to S. Sith or Itha, the Bridget
of Munster. Itha had a number of churches ranging from the Padstow
estuary to Exeter, showing that this portion of Dumnonia received
colonists from the south-west of Ireland. Her name is disguised as
Issey and as Teath. She was a remarkable person, as it was she who sent
her foster-son Brendan with three ships, manned by thirty in each,
on an exploring excursion across the Atlantic to the west, which,
possibly, led to the discovery of Madeira in the sixth century. But the
truth is so disguised by fable that little certainty can be obtained as
to the results of the voyage. Brendan made, in fact, two expeditions;
in the first his ships were of wicker, with three coats of leather over
the basket frame; the second time, by Itha’s advice, he made his boats
of timber.
Itha never was herself in Cornwall, her great foundation was Kill-eedy
in Limerick, and she was taken as the tutelary saint or patroness of
Hy-Conaill, but there were establishments, daughters of the parent
house, what the Irish called daltha (_i.e._ pupil) churches, enjoying
much the same rights as the mother house.
Camelford has by some been supposed to be the Gavulford where the last
battle was fought between the West Welsh and Athelstan; but there was
no reason for his advancing into Cornwall this way, where all was
bleak, and by no old road.
There is, however, a Slaughter Bridge on the Camel, but this is taken
to have acquired its name from having been the scene of the fight
between King Arthur and his rebellious nephew Mordred, _circ._ 537.
King Arthur is a personage who has had hard measure dealt out to him.
That there was such an individual one can hardly doubt. There is a
good deal of evidence towards establishing his existence. He was
chief king over all the Britons from Cornwall to Strathclyde (_i.e._
the region from the Firth of Clyde to Cumberland). He was constantly
engaged, first in one part, then in another, against the Saxons; but
his principal battles were fought in Scotland. He occurs in the Welsh
accounts of the saints, but never as a hero, always as a despot and
tyrant. His immediate predecessor, Geraint, in like manner is met with,
mainly in Cornwall, but also in Wales, where he had a church, and in
Herefordshire. He had to keep the frontier against the Saxons.
What played the mischief with Arthur was that Geoffrey of Monmouth, who
became bishop of S. Asaph in 1152, published, about 1140, his fabulous
_History of the Britons_, which elevated Arthur into a hero. Geoffrey
had an object in view when he wrote this wonderful romance. The period
was one in which the Welsh had been horribly maltreated, dispossessed
of their lands, their churches taken from them and given to Normans,
who neither understood their language nor regarded their traditions.
The foreigners had castles planted over the country filled with Norman
soldiery, tormenting, plundering, insulting the natives. Poor Wales
wept tears of blood. Now Henry I. had received the beautiful Nest,
daughter of Rhys, king of South Wales, as a hostage when her father had
fallen in battle, and, instead of respecting his trust, he had wronged
her in her defenceless condition in a cruel manner, and had by her a
son, Robert, who was raised by him to be Duke of Gloucester. To this
Robert, half Welsh, Geoffrey dedicated his book, a glorification of the
British kings, a book that surrounded the past history of the Welsh
with a halo of glory. The book at once seized on the imagination of
English and Normans, and a change took place in the way in which the
Welsh were regarded. The triumph of the Saxon over the Briton came to
be viewed in an entirely new light, as that of brutality over heroic
virtue.
[Illustration: KING ARTHUR]
Geoffrey succeeded in his object, but he produced bewilderment among
chroniclers and historians, and seriously influenced them when they
began to write on the history of England.
Now, although all the early portion of Geoffrey’s work is a _tour de
force_ of pure imagination, yet he was cautious enough as he drew
near to historic times, of which records were still extant, to use
historic facts and work them into his narrative, so that in the latter
portion all is not unadulterated fable; it is a hotch-potch of fact and
fiction, with a preponderance of the latter, indeed, but not without
some genuine history mixed up with it. The difficulty his book presents
now is to discriminate between the false and the true.
As far as can be judged, it is true that Arthur was son of Uthr, who
was Pendragon, or chief king of the Britons, and of Igerna, wife of the
Duke of Cornwall, whom Geoffrey calls Gorlois, but who is otherwise
unknown. Uthr saw Igerna at a court feast, and “continually served her
with tit-bits, and sent her golden cups, and bestowed on her all his
smiles, and to her addressed his whole discourse.” Gorlois naturally
objected, and removed his wife into Cornwall, and refused to attend the
king when summoned to do so. Uthr now marched against him. The Duke
placed Igerna in the cliff-castle of Tintagel, but himself retreated
into Damelioc, a strong caer, that remains almost intact, in the parish
of S. Kew. Uthr invested Damelioc, and whilst Gorlois was thus hemmed
in he went to Tintagel and obtained admission by an artifice. Gorlois
was killed in a sally, Damelioc was taken and plundered, and Uthr made
Igerna his wife. It was the old story over again of David and the wife
of Uriah the Hittite.
The result of this union was a son, Arthur, and a daughter, Ann, who
eventually became the wife of Lot, king of Lothian, and mother of
Modred.
We have no means of checking this story and saying how much of it
is fact and how much false. But it is worth pointing out that in
Geoffrey’s account there is one significant thing mentioned that looks
much like truth. He says that when Uthr was marching against him,
Gorlois at once appealed for help from Ireland. Now, considering that
all this district was colonised by Irish and half-Irish, this is just
what a chieftain of the country would have done, but Geoffrey almost
certainly knew nothing of this colonisation. Moreover, he had something
to go upon with regard to Damelioc and Tintagel, unless, which is
hardly likely, he had lived some time in North-eastern Cornwall, and
had seen the earthworks of the former and the fortified headland of the
latter, and so was able to use them up in his fabulous tale.
Damelioc is but five or six miles from Tintagel, and in Geoffrey’s
story they are represented as at no great distance apart. Had Geoffrey
been in this part of Cornwall and invented the whole story, he would
have been more likely to make Gorlois take refuge in the far stronger
and more commanding Helbury, occupying a conical height 700 feet above
the sea, than Damelioc, 500 feet, only, on an extensive plateau.
King Arthur has been so laid hold of by the romancers, and his story
has been so embellished with astounding flourishes of the imagination,
that we are inclined to doubt whether he ever existed, and all the
more so because we find legend attached to him and associated with
localities alike in Cornwall, Wales, and Scotland. Mr. Skene has shown
very good cause for identifying the sites of some of his battles with
remains of fortifications in Scotland.[9] How, then, can we account
for his presence in Cornwall and Wales? As a matter of fact, this
is perfectly explicable. The Saxons held possession of the whole
east of Britain as far as the ridge which runs between Yorkshire and
Lancashire; as also the region about Leeds, which latter constituted
the kingdom of Elmet. Needwood and Arden forests lay between the
rival people. Strathclyde, Cumberland, Rheged, now Lancashire, all
Wales, with Powis occupying Shropshire and Cheshire, Gloucester,
Bath, and Dumnonia, extending through Cornwall, Devon, and Somerset,
formed one great confederation of Britons under a head king. Geraint
had previously been head of the confederacy, and we find traces of
him accordingly in Cornwall, Somerset, Wales, and at Hereford. The
Pendragon, or chief king, had to be at every post along the frontier
that was menaced. So with Arthur; he was in Cornwall, indeed, but he
was also in Wales, where he is spoken of in the lives of some of the
saints, as we have seen, always as a bully. And he was in Scotland
opposing the advance of the Bernicians. His father, Uthr, had been head
king before him, but Geraint had been chosen as Pendragon on the death
of Uthr; Geraint fell in 522, and it is held that Arthur perished in
537. There are several reminiscences of King Arthur in the district.
At Slaughter Bridge he is thought to have fallen. Above Camelford rise
Dinnevor (Dinnas-vawr), the Great Castle, and King Arthur’s Downs, with
a singular oblong rectangular structure on it called King Arthur’s
Hall, the purport of which has not been discovered. At Tintagel are his
cups and saucers, hollows in the rock, and his spirit is said to haunt
the height as a monstrous white gull wailing over the past glories of
Britain. At Killmar is his bed. Near Tintagel is Porth-iern, which is
either the Iron Port or that of Igerna, Arthur’s mother; at Boscastle
is Pentargon (Arthur’s Head). The Christian name of Gwenivere, his
faithless wife, is still by no means rare, as Genefer.
Tintagel is but a fragment. There was anciently a rift with a bridge
over it between one court of the castle and the other; but the rift
has expanded to a gaping mouth, and rock and wall have fallen to form
a mound of _débris_ that now connects the mainland with what, but for
this heap, would be an islet.
[Illustration: TINTAGEL]
Tintagel, properly Dun-diogl, the “Safe Castle,” has been built of the
black slate rock, with shells burnt for lime. A few fragments of wall
remain on the mainland, and a few more on the island, where is also
the ruin of a little chapel, with its stone altar still _in situ_. The
situation is superb, and were the ruins less ruinous, the scene from
the little bay that commands the headland would be hardly surpassed.
On Barras Head, opposite, a company are erecting a fashionable modern
hotel.
About the cliffs may still be seen the Cornish chough, with its scarlet
legs, but the bird is becoming scarce. The south coast of Cornwall is
now entirely deserted by the choughs, and the only remaining colonies
are found at intervals on the side facing the Atlantic. Unhappily
visitors are doing their utmost to get them exterminated by buying the
young birds that are caught and offered for sale. But the jackdaws are
also driving them, and probably in-and-in breeding is leading to their
diminution. The choughs not being migratory birds, and sticking much to
the same localities, those who desire to obtain their eggs or rob the
nests of the young know exactly which are their haunts year by year.
“The free wild temperament of choughs,” writes Mr. A. H.
Malan, “will not brook any confinement, but must have
absolute liberty and full exercise for their wings. If this
is not the case, they generally get an attack of asthma,
which usually proves fatal, in their first year.
“Everyone has seen a chough, if only in a museum; and
therefore knows the beautiful glossy black of the adult
plumage, the long wings crossed over the back and extending
beyond the squared tail, the long, slender red legs, and
the brilliant red curved bill. But only those who have
kept them know their marvellous docility. You may train
a falcon to sit on your wrist and come down to the lure,
with infinite labour; but to a chough brought up from the
nest it comes quite natural to be at one moment flying in
high air--it may be hotly pursued by a party of rooks, and
leading them a merry dance, since, being long-winged birds,
choughs hold the rooks, crows, and jackdaws very cheap,
inasmuch as these baser creatures can never come near
enough to injure them--and the next to come in at the open
window, alight on the table, or jump on one’s knee and sit
there any length of time, absolutely still, while the head
and back are stroked with the hand or a pen, combining the
complete confidence of a cat or a dog with the wild freedom
of the swallow. No other bird with which I am acquainted
thus unites the perfection of tameness with the limitless
impetuosity of unreclaimed nature.”[10]
Brown Willy and Rough Tor are fine hills rising out of really ghastly
bogs, Crowdy and Stannon and Rough Tor marshes, worse than anything
of the sort on Dartmoor, places to which you hardly desire to consign
your worst enemies, always excepting promoters of certain companies. I
really should enjoy seeing them flounder there.
Brown Willy (_bryn geled_ = conspicuous hill) has five heads, and these
are crowned with cairns.
Owing mainly to the remoteness of this mountain from the habitations
of men, and from the mischievous activity of stone quarriers for
buildings, there are scattered about this stately five-pointed tor
some very interesting relics of antiquity, of an antiquity that goes
back to prehistoric times. Among these most interesting of all are the
beehive huts that cluster about the granite rocks like the mud nests of
swallows.
The whole of the Cornish moors, like Dartmoor, are strewn with
prehistoric villages and towns of circular houses, sometimes within
rings of rude walling that served as a protection to the settlement,
and connected with enclosures for the cattle against wolves. But though
in many cases the doorways remain, of upright jambs with a rude lintel
of granite thrown across, complete examples roofed in are rare, and
those to which we direct attention now are known to very few persons
indeed. The huts in question measure internally from six to eight
feet in diameter; the walls are composed of moorstones rudely laid in
courses, without having been touched by any tool or bedded in mortar.
The walls are some two to three feet thick. Sometimes they are formed
of two concentric rings of stones set upright in the ground, filled in
between with smaller stones, but such huts were never stone-roofed.
Beehive-roofed they were, but with their dome formed of oak boughs
brought together in the centre, the ends resting on these walls, and
the whole thatched with straw or heather or fern. But the stone-built
and roofed huts have walls of granite blocks laid in courses, and after
five feet they are brought to dome over by the overlapping of the
coverers, in the primitive fashion that preceded the invention of the
arch.
The roof was thus gathered in about a smoke-hole, which was itself
finally closed with a wide, thin granite slab, and thus the whole roof
and sides were buried in turf, so that the structure resembled a huge
ant-hill. Most of this encasing flesh and skin has gone, and the bone
beneath is exposed. Nevertheless; it does remain in some cases, and
has been the means of preserving these curious structures. One such,
very perfect, is on the river Erme, above Piles Wood, on Dartmoor. Into
this it is quite possible to crawl and take refuge from a shower. It is
completely watertight, but it is not easy to find, as it is overgrown
with dense masses of heather. Another is close to the farmhouse of
Fernaker, between Brown Willy and Rough Tor, and it has been spared
because the farmer thought it might serve his purpose as a pig-sty or
a butter-house. This Fernaker hut is rudely quadrangular, and one side
is formed by a great block of granite rising out of the ground five
feet and nine feet long. On this basis the house has been built and
roofed in the usual manner by five courses of overlapping stones. The
highest peak of Brown Willy is occupied by a huge cairn that has never
been explored, owing to the expense and labour of working into it. It
probably covers some old Cornish king. Immediately below it, some forty
feet, are two beehive huts, in very fair condition, one eight feet in
diameter, with a second, much smaller, only four feet six inches in
diameter, close to it, opposite the door, with an entrance so small
that it probably served as a store-chamber. One huge slab of granite,
some twelve feet long and six feet wide, forms half the roof of the
larger hut; the remainder has fallen in.
[Illustration: BEEHIVE HUT
(_By kind permission of “The Daily Graphic”_)]
On the other side of Brown Willy, the west side, at no great distance
from the source of the river Fowey, is another beehive hut, not
absolutely perfect, but nearly so; one course and the smoke-hole
coverer have fallen in on one side. The doors to these hovels are
so low that he who enters one must crawl on hands and knees. In the
beehive hut last mentioned the height in the middle is but three feet
six inches, so that those who tenanted it could not stand upright
inside. On Rough Tor, divided from Brown Willy by a valley, are three
or four more of these huts, and the flanks of the mountains are
covered with others, hundreds of them, in a more or less dilapidated
condition. Some of these were originally stone-roofed; others were not.
In connection with these remains of habitations are numerous relics
of interments at some distance from them, for our primeval population
always buried their dead away from the living. These consist of cairns,
covering stone coffins or kistvaens that have been for the most part
rifled by treasure-seekers. One has a somewhat pathetic interest,
for beside the large stone chest just outside the ring of upright
stones that encloses it is a child’s cist, formed of four blocks of
granite two feet seven inches long, the covering-stone removed, and
the contents scattered to the winds. Near at hand also is the largest
circle of upright stones in Cornwall. The stones themselves are not
tall, and are much sunk in the boggy soil, but it is very perfect,
consisting of fifty-five stones, and 140 feet in diameter. On the
neighbouring height of Leudon is a logan rock that still oscillates
easily. The question naturally arises, Do these beehive huts actually
date back to prehistoric times? That is not a question we can answer
with certainty, for we know that the same methods of construction were
observed to a comparatively late period, and that in the Isles of
Lewis and Harris, in the Hebrides, precisely similar huts are even now
inhabited, and are certainly in many cases of recent construction. But
what is extremely interesting to find is the existence in Cornwall of
these beehive habitations of man exactly like those found in Scotland;
and in Cornwall, as in Scotland, associated with rude stone monuments
of pre-Christian times. In the Hebrides the beehive huts still occupied
are not stone-roofed. The roof is of straw, and is renewed every year
because of the value as manure of the peat smoke that saturates it. But
there remain earlier beehive huts in Lewis of exactly the same nature
as those in Cornwall. It is therefore by no means unlikely that both
belong to the primitive race that first colonised our isles.
Camelford has given a title, and that to a remarkable man, Lord
Camelford, the duellist. He was the great-grandson of Governor Pitt,
who acquired an ample fortune in India. He was born in 1775, and even
when a boy was violent and unmanageable. He was put in the navy, but
owing to his refractory conduct was treated with severity by his
captain, Vancouver, and on his return home, meeting Vancouver in Bond
Street, was only prevented from striking his captain by his brother
throwing himself in the way.
In town he was incessantly embroiled. On the night of April 2nd, 1799,
during a disturbance at Drury Lane Theatre, he savagely attacked
and wounded a gentleman, and was fined for so doing the sum of £500
by the Court of Queen’s Bench. He attacked watchmen, insulted anyone
who crossed his humour in the least degree, committed all kinds of
violence, till his name became a terror, and he was involved in first
one quarrel and then in another. His irritable and ungovernable
temper at length brought about fatal consequences to himself. He had
been acquainted with a Mrs. Simmons. He was told that a Captain Best
had reported to her a bit of scandal relative to himself. This so
incensed his lordship, that on March 6th, 1804, meeting with Best at a
coffee-house, he went up to him, and in the hearing of everyone called
him “a scoundrel, a liar, and a ruffian.” A challenge followed, and the
meeting was fixed for the next morning. The seconds having ascertained
the occasion of Lord Camelford’s wrath, Best declared himself ready
to apologise, and to retract any words that had given offence which
he had used to Mrs. Simmons, but his lordship refused to accept such
an apology. Agreeably to an appointment made by the seconds, Lord
Camelford and the captain met early next morning at a coffee-house in
Oxford Street, where Captain Best made another effort to prevail on
Lord Camelford to make up the quarrel and to withdraw the expressions
he had addressed to him in public. To all remonstrance he replied, “Let
it go on.”
Accordingly both mounted their horses and took the road to Kensington,
followed by their seconds in a post-chaise. On their arrival at the
“Horse and Groom” they dismounted, and entered the fields behind
Holland House. The seconds measured the ground, and took their stations
at the distance of thirty paces. Lord Camelford fired first, but
without effect. An interval ensued, and those who looked on from a
distance believed that Best was again urging his lordship to come to
amicable terms. But Lord Camelford shook his head; then Best fired,
and his lordship fell at full length. The seconds, together with the
captain, at once ran to his assistance, when he seized his antagonist
by the hand and said, “Best, I am a dead man; you have killed me, but
I freely forgive you.” The report of the pistols had attracted the
attention of some of Lord Holland’s gardeners and servants, who ran to
the spot and endeavoured to arrest Captain Best and his second, who
were making off. Lord Camelford asked “why they endeavoured to detain
the gentlemen; he himself was the aggressor, and he frankly forgave the
gentleman who had shot him, and he hoped that God would forgive him as
well.”
A chair was procured, and Lord Camelford was carried into Little
Holland House, where he expired after three days of suffering.
On the morning after his decease an inquest was held on the body, and a
verdict of wilful murder was returned against “some person or persons
unknown.” A bill of indictment was, however, preferred against Captain
Best and his second, but was ignored by the grand jury, who were
sensible that Lord Camelford had brought his death on himself.
In the neighbourhood of Camelford are several very charming old
mansions of Cornish families, small but eminently picturesque, all
now converted into farmhouses. In next generation they will not be
considered good enough for labourers. One of these is Penvose in S.
Tudy, another Trewane, hard by the station of Port Isaac Road. Both
these belonged to the Nicholls family, to two brothers it is said, and
the magnificent carved slate monuments of the family are to be seen
in S. Tudy Church. The slate in this district was sculptured in a way
really marvellous, and there are numerous examples in the churches
round. In S. Endellion are Treshunger, the seat of the Matthews family,
and Rosecarrock--a fragment only. Basil, previously mentioned, is in S.
Clether. It belonged to the Trevillians. One day a party of Roundheads
came to Basil to seize on the squire. Trevillian looked out of the
window. “If you come on,” said he, “I will send out my spearmen against
you.” As they _did_ come on, he threw a beehive among them, and away
they fled, every man. Near Slaughter Bridge is Worthyvale, the seat of
a family of the same name.
The churches of this district are planted, some on the top of hills,
and with high towers, to serve as waymarks over land that was all
formerly waste, or else nestle into sweet dells surrounded by Cornish
elms--warm, sunny nooks where the primrose comes out early and the
grass is emerald-green all the winter. Of the former description are S.
Tudy and S. Mabyn. Of the latter S. Kew, a church on no account to be
passed over, as it is not only singularly beautiful and well restored,
but also contains superb old glass, moved from Bodmin Priory at its
dissolution. One window represents the Passion, and is perfect; another
once contained a Jesse tree, but is much broken and defective.
S. Kew is really Docwin, otherwise called Cyngar, the founder of
Congresbury, in Somersetshire. He was a son of Gildas the historian,
that sour creature who threw all the dirt he could at the princes,
people, and clergy of his own blood and tongue, and told us the least
possible about their history, filling his pages with pious scurrility.
In S. Teath (S. Itha) is a very fine churchyard cross. Here may be
noticed the arms of the Carminow family, once perhaps the most powerful
in Cornwall, now gone--without a living representative remaining of
the name. A junior branch was settled at Trehannick, in S. Teath,
at which place William Carminow died in 1646, the last male heir of
this ancient family, which was at home when the Conqueror came. Their
arms are simplicity itself--azure, a bend or--the same as those of
Scrope and of Grosvenor. In the reign of Richard II. there was a
great heraldic dispute over these arms, and it was carried before the
Earl of Northampton, who was king of arms, and was then in France.
As the Carminows could show that they had borne this coat from time
immemorial, certainly as long as any Scropes and Grosvenors, it was
allowed.
If there be churches dedicated to odd and out-of-the-way saints in this
region, there be also parishes with odd and out-of-this-world names, as
Helland and Blisland. Of the former a tale circulates.
The vicar was going to town, and hoped that the Archdeacon of Cornwall
could be induced to take his service on the Sunday following, and
he left it to his neighbour at Blisland to negotiate this little
arrangement for him. All went well, and the latter gave in a telegram
at the nearest office:--
“The Archdeacon of Cornwall is going to Helland; you need
not return.”
But when it was delivered in London it was thus divided:--
“The Archdeacon of Cornwall is going to Hell; and you need
not return.”