FOWEY
Derivation of the name Fowey--The Fowey river--Lostwithiel--A
rotten borough--Old Stannary Court--S. Winnow--His
Settlement in Brittany--Beating the bounds--Golant--S.
Samson--Dol--Tower of Fowey--Place--S. Finbar--The “Lugger
Inn”--Polruan--The Mohun family--Death of Lord Mohun--The
Rashleigh family--Sale of the borough.
Although pronounced Foye, the name of the place is spelled Fowey; it
takes its appellation from the river. Mr. Ferguson, in his _River
Names of Europe_, derives this from the Gaelic _fuair_, sound, _faoi_,
a rising stream, and instances the Foyers in Inverness, and the Gaur
in Perthshire, for _fuair_ takes also the form _gaoir_, signifying
din, and the Foyers is noted as forming one of the finest falls in
Britain. But this won’t do. The Foye is the meekest, quietest, and
most unbrawling of rivers. The name is identical with that of the Fal,
but the _l_ has been dropped, and both derive from _falbh_, running,
waving, flowing.
[Illustration: FOWEY HARBOUR]
[Illustration: LOSTWITHIEL BRIDGE]
The river takes its rise on High Moor under Buttern Hill on the Bodmin
moors, a mile north-west of Fowey Well that is under Brown Willy,
which probably takes its name from being supposed to ebb and flow
with the tide, which, however, it does not. The river has a fall of
nine hundred feet before it reaches the sea. It does not present
anything remarkable till it comes in sight of the highway from Liskeard
to Bodmin, as also of the railway, when at once it turns sharply to
the west, at right angles to its previous course, and runs through a
well-wooded and picturesque valley under the camp of Largin. Then,
after flowing side by side with road and rail till it reaches Bodmin
Road Station, it turns abruptly south, attending the railway to
Lostwithiel, slipping under Restormel Castle.
Lostwithiel is not Lost-wi’in-a-hill as is the popular derivation, but
Les-Gwythiel, the palace in the wood, as Liskeard is that on the rock.
It is charmingly situated.
It is an old rotten borough, once in the hands of the Earls of
Mount Edgcumbe. But before that it was a seat of the Stannary Court
for Cornwall, and here the Dukes of Cornwall had their palace. Of
this considerable remains exist, but it has been meddled with, and
vulgarised by the insertion of quite unsuitable windows.
The church is interesting; it possesses a fine lantern of a character
nowhere else met with in the West. Anciently the tide came up as far as
the town, and the portreeve had rights over the river, for which reason
the town arms are represented with an oar.
Below the town the river to Fowey is full of beauty. It passes S.
Winnow, with fine fifteenth-century glass; the church is beautifully
situated. Here is a chapel of S. Nectan, of Hartland, to which was
attached a college of secular priests endowed by Gytha, wife of Godwin,
Earl of Kent. The priests of this college were married and allowed to
marry, as all Celtic clergy were.
S. Winnow was son of Gildas the historian. Gildas and Finian were
together for some time at S. David’s monastery, and became close
friends. Then Gildas entrusted his son Winnoc, or Winnow, to Finian to
be educated, and Finian took the boy with him to Clonard and educated
him. When Winnoc thought that it was time for him to leave, he returned
to Britain and settled in Cornwall. As he was allied to the royal
family, he received large grants of land, and certainly chose a lovely
spot for his establishment. S. Veep, or Wennapa, was his aunt, and
he served as her spiritual adviser. After a while, for some reason
unknown, but probably on account of a breeze with his kinsman King
Constantine, whom Winnow’s father, Gildas, has abused in the most
uncompromising terms, and Constantine’s mother as well, Winnow left
Cornwall and settled in Brittany. He was accompanied by his brother
Madoc and his sister, whom the Welsh call Dolgar and the Bretons
Tugdonia. He landed in the neighbourhood of Brest, where he was found
by Conmor, Count of Vannes, the usurper, who was killed in 500. Conmor
granted him as much land as he could enclose in a day. The story goes
that Madoc, or Madan, as the Bretons call him,[18] took a pitchfork and
drew it behind him, and it formed a ditch and a bank that enclosed a
bit of land. The fosse and embankment exist to the present day, and
the story means no more than that under Madoc’s supervision the _lis_
or _rath_ was thrown up to enclose the monastic settlement.
Within this defensive work Winnow constituted his establishment, built
a church, and erected a number of beehive cells. Outside he set up
stones to mark the bounds of his _minihi_, or sanctuary, and all who
took refuge in this were allowed to pass under his protection and
become members of his tribe.
One day Winnow went to Quimperlé, where some building was in progress.
He incautiously stood under the scaffolding, and a mason who was above
let fall his hammer on his head. This killed him.
The Welsh call him Gwynnog, and the Bretons Gouzenou. A very funny
story is told of his establishment. It became a custom to beat the
bounds every Ascension Day. The clergy with banners, and preceded by a
cross, led the procession. One day the rain came down in torrents, and
the clergy did not relish being wet to the skin, so they decided not to
beat the bounds. However, cross and banners would not be done out of
their little flirt, and to the astonishment of all, away they trotted,
none bearing them, and made the rounds by themselves. Popular tradition
is prudently silent as to when this took place.
That Winnow should have been forced to leave Cornwall after his
father had addressed the king in such forcible but inelegant terms
as “Tyrannical whelp of the unclean lioness of Dumnonia,” is not
surprising. You could not well stay in the house of a man in whose
face your venerable father has spat--not if you have any self-respect.
A little further down the river is Golant, or S. Samson. This is a
foundation of a man better known than S. Winnow. His story deserves
telling, at least so much of it as pertains to Cornwall.
Samson was son of Amwn the Black, Prince of Bro-Weroc in Brittany, that
is to say, the country about Vannes which had been colonised by British
settlers. There ensued a little family brawl, which obliged Amwn to fly
for his life. He escaped into Wales, where he married Anne, daughter
of the Prince of Glamorgan. Samson was educated by S. Iltyd in Caldey
Isle, and was taught “all the Old and New Testament, and all sorts of
philosophy, to wit, geometry and rhetoric, grammar and arithmetic, and
all the arts known in Britain.”
He devoted himself to the ecclesiastical state, and spent many years in
Wales. He paid a visit to Ireland, inspected the monasteries there, and
then returned to Wales, where he was ordained bishop. After a while he
considered that he might just as well try to get back to Brittany, and
see whether he could recover some of the authority and the lands and
position of which his father had been deprived. Accordingly he crossed
to Cornwall and landed at Padstow, where he dedicated a little chapel,
where now stands Prideaux Place. Here he was visited by S. Petrock on
his arrival, as also by S. Winnow, not the Winnow of the Fowey river,
but another, a brother of S. Winwaloe, who had settled at Lewanick. He
was related to Samson through his mother.
The arrival of Petrock determined Samson to depart. He went on to
Petherwin, where his first cousin, S. Padarn, was settled. He had
brought with him all the sacred vessels and books he could collect, and
had laden with them a waggon, drawn by two horses that he had brought
from Ireland.
He sent forward a messenger to tell Padarn that he was on his way,
and drawing near. The story has been already told how the news
reached Padarn at the time he was dressing. Whilst in the district of
Trigg Samson made the acquaintance of the chieftain, named Gwythiel,
and rendered him some service with his son, who was stunned by a
fall from his horse. Gwythiel seems to have followed him. Later on
he became a disciple of S. Winwaloe, and founded a church in West
Cornwall. Samson went on to Northill, where he remained for some
time, and then proceeded to Golant. His main object in remaining in
Cornwall was to watch affairs in Brittany. He had with him several
companions--disciples from Wales, Austell, and Mewan and Erme. At
Golant Samson continued till the arrival of his cousin, Maglorius, with
tidings from Brittany, whereupon he entrusted his church to a disciple,
crossed over, and settled at Dol. Canno, prince of the blood royal, had
murdered his brother, the reigning prince, in 546, and had usurped the
throne. Judual, the son of the murdered king, had fled to the court
of Childebert, King of the Franks. Samson visited Paris, and used
persuasion to induce the Frank king to interfere and reinstate Judual.
Childebert would not do this, but finally gave Samson leave to do what
he could off his own bat. Samson then retired to the Channel Islands,
where he enlisted soldiers and drilled them, and then landed on the
Brittany coast, and proclaimed Judual. In the meantime Mewan had acted
as his agent, travelling through the country preparing for a general
revolt. Three bloody battles were fought, and in the third Canno
was killed by the hand of Prince Judual, A.D. 560, whereupon Judual
ascended the throne, and rewarded Samson as liberally as he could have
desired, but the bishop died five years later. Samson must have spent
a good many years in Cornwall if he left Wales in 548 to escape the
yellow plague which was then ravaging the land.
At Golant the saying is that there is to be seen “a tree above the
tower, a well in the porch, and a chimney in the roof.” The tree was
probably once growing out of the stones on the top of the tower; the
well is there still, close to the entrance to the church, under a rude
arch. It is a holy well, and is said to have been a spring elicited by
Samson with his staff.
The church is late Perpendicular.[19] The pulpit and reading-desk are
made up of old bench-ends, representing apostles, the M of Mary, and
the lily of the Annunciation, and instruments of the Passion.
On the tower of S. Austell under niches are representations of S.
Samson habited as an archbishop--which he was not--and his disciple
S. Austell. The reason of his being represented as an archbishop is
curious. In 848 Nominoe, King of Brittany, determined to free his
country from being Frenchified, and he not only made it independent
of the Frank crown, but he also dismissed the Frank bishops from
the Breton sees, and filled their places with native prelates. He
also elevated the see of Dol into an archbishopric over all the
British-speaking races in Armorica. Now it so happened that there had
been a Samson of York, but he was never more than a priest, and he was
quite a different man from Samson, son of Amwn the Black, who settled
at Dol. However, because York was an archiepiscopal see, and a Samson
had once been there, it was supposed that he had been archbishop. Next
he was confounded with Samson of Dol, and it was pretended that he had
resigned York and come to Dol to set up his archiepiscopal see there.
This served quite well enough as an excuse for withdrawing Dol and all
the Breton bishoprics from allegiance to the Metropolitan of Tours; and
Dol was able to maintain itself as a Breton archbishropic till 1172,
that is to say, for over three hundred years.
Near S. Samson, or Golant, is Castle Dor, a very early fortification,
that was, in historic times, held by the Crown, and a castle erected on
the spot to keep the Cornish in order.
Fowey itself lies near the river-mouth; it much resembles a miniature
Dartmouth. Opposite the town opens the creek that runs to Lanteglos.
There were and are two castles, as at Dartmouth, commanding the
entrance to the harbour, but they are insignificant, and form no
feature of the scenery. Fowey is a curious, rambling place--one long
street twisting in and out among houses, commanded by Place, the
beautiful mansion of the Treffry family, that would have been entirely
beautiful but for absurd and tasteless additions. This stands on a rock
above the town, which is crowded below it.
The very fine church, with noble tower, is dedicated to, because
founded by, S. Finbar, afterwards Bishop of Cork. In 1336 Bishop
Grandisson rededicated the church to S. Nicholas. He sought
persistently to drive out the local and Celtic saints and substitute
for them such as were in the Roman calendar. But he has failed; the
Irish patron maintains his place. Finbar was a disciple of S. David.
His origin was not very creditable. He was the son of a noble lady by a
vulgar intrigue with a smith, for which both were sentenced to be burnt
alive, but the sentence was commuted to expulsion from the kingdom of
Connaught. Finbar’s real name was Lochan, but he received the other in
allusion to his fair hair.
In a gloss by the O’Clearys on the martyrology of Oengus is a funny
legend of S. Finbar. One day, as he was walking on the sea, on his way
home to Ireland from Cornwall, he met S. Scuthin similarly walking,
starting on his pilgrimage to Rome. “Arrah, now!” said Finbar, “how
come you to be walkin’ on the salt say?” “Why not?” answered Scuthin;
“ain’t I now walking over an illegant meadow?” Then he stooped, plucked
a purple flower, and threw it at Finbar. The latter at once bowed, put
down his hand, caught a salmon, and threw it flop into S. Scuthin’s
face. The O’Clearys got this from popular legend. Finbar died in 623.
The only really picturesque old house in Fowey is the “Lugger Inn,”
where Mr. Varcoe, the kindly host, has, more than once, made me very
comfortable. A beam in the house bears the date 1633. The “Ship”
is older; it was built in 1570, as the date over the chimney-piece
records, but the house has been modernised externally. Near the club,
on the south side, stands the house of Peter Pindar.
Immediately opposite Fowey is Polruan, the Pool of S. Ruan, who
was an Irishman like Finbar. His bones were translated by Ordgar,
Earl of Devon, to Tavistock in 960. Thence an excursion can be made
to Lanteglos, dedicated to S. Wyllow, a local saint, murdered by
a kinsman, Melyn. The church is chiefly interesting as containing
monuments of the Mohun family. Indeed, it would seem to have been their
principal place after Dunster.
Reginald, a younger son of Baron John Mohun of Dunster (died 1330),
married a daughter of John Fitz-William, and settled at Hall, in
Lanteglos. From Hall the Mohun family removed to Boconnoc, and a
baronetcy was obtained in 1612 for the head of the house. John, son
of the first baronet, was a venal adherent of Charles I., and owed
his elevation to the peerage mainly to the clamorous importunities of
a still more venal placeman, Sir James Bagg. Writing to the Duke of
Buckingham, the latter urged, “Mr. Mohun is so your servant, as in
life and fortune will be my second. Enable him by honour to be fit
for you; so in the Upper House or in the country will he be the more
advantageous to your grace.”
Mohun was created Baron of Okehampton in 1628. His great-grandson
was Charles, the fifth and last Lord Mohun. This man, possessed of a
passionate and vindictive temper, lost his father early; his mother
married again, and his education was neglected. When he had scarcely
attained the age of twenty he was mixed up in the murder of Mountford,
the actor. He was tried before his peers in 1692, and was acquitted;
but there can be no doubt that he was associated in the murder. Seven
years afterwards, in 1699, he was again tried for his life, along with
the Earl of Warwick, for the murder of Captain Coote. He was again
acquitted. This second escape sobered him for a while. For long he
and the Duke of Hamilton entertained ill-feeling towards each other,
occasioned by some money disagreement. This came to a head in 1712,
when it ended in a challenge. Which it was, however, who challenged
the other was never certainly decided. Colonel Macartney was Lord
Mohun’s second, and Colonel Hamilton exercised the same office for the
duke. They met in Hyde Park on Saturday morning, the 15th November,
and swords were the weapons employed. A furious encounter ensued, the
combatants fighting to the death with the savagery of demons, so that
when the keepers of the park, hearing the clash of swords, hurried to
the spot, they found both the Duke of Hamilton and Lord Mohun weltering
in their blood and dying, and the two seconds also engaged in mortal
combat. The keepers separated the latter. Then Colonel Hamilton and
one keeper lifted the duke; Macartney and the other endeavoured to do
the same by Lord Mohun, who, however, expired, and his body was sent
home in the coach that had brought him. Swift, writing to Stella at
the time, says that, “while the duke was over him, Mohun shortened his
sword, and stabbed him in the shoulder to the heart.” According to the
evidence of the surgeons who examined the bodies, each had received
four frightful wounds, and both appeared to have given each other the
mortal thrust at the same instant.
Fowey has for long been a nursery of Treffrys and Rashleighs, though
the latter really issue from a place called by the same name near
Eggesford, in Devon, where is an interesting old house, their mansion,
with beautiful Elizabethan plaster-work, and their very peculiar
arms--a cross or between, in the dexter chief quarter a Cornish chough
arg., beaked and legged gu., in the sinister chief quarter a text T,
and in base two crescents, all arg. A coat, this, that suggests that
some story must be connected with its origin, but what that story was
is now forgotten. The history of Fowey is interwoven with that of the
Rashleighs and the Treffrys.
Fowey was one of the rotten boroughs that were disfranchised. It was
created by Elizabeth in 1571. In 1813 the borough manor of Fowey,
formerly the property of the Duchy, passed from the control of the
Rashleighs to Lucy of Charlescot, in Warwickshire; it was sold for
£20,000 and an expenditure of £60,000 to acquire whole influence over
voters. The Lucys opposed Lord Valletort, who had represented the
borough since 1790--a long time for a Cornish borough--and desperate
contests ensued, with varying success. When disfranchisement came they
found they had laid out vast sums, and had nothing to show for it.