NEWOUAY
Mr. Austin Treffry--The
sands--Cliff-castles--Castel-an-Dinas--The Gannel--S.
Carantock--Newlyn--Perranzabuloe--Church of S.
Piran--History--Roche--S. Denis--Columb Major and
Minor--S. Agnes--The Cornish rotten boroughs--How they
passed away from the Crown--Mitchell--The town hall--Kit
Hawkins--Trerice--Lanherne--Church--William Noye--S.
Mawgan--The educator of the early missionaries.
Newquay is a very new place; it was projected by Mr. J. T. (Austin)
Treffry, of Place House, Fowey, a very remarkable man, far in advance
of his time, to whom not Fowey only, but Cornwall generally owes a debt
of gratitude. His projects have been worked out since his death with
complete success.
In itself uninteresting to the last degree, it is the key to very fine
coast scenery, and the air is bracing without being cold. It possesses
excellent sands, both at Newquay and Fistral Bays. There is further
a long tract of sand, two and a quarter miles long, to the north of
S. Columb Porth, the Tregurian Beach. The rocks will interest the
geologist as well as form a subject for the artist.
The coast presents examples of several cliff-castles, as at Kelsey,
Trevelgue and Griffith’s Heads, and Redcliff above Bedruthan; but the
finest example of a castle is Castel-an-Dinas, near S. Columb Major.
This fortress comprises about six acres of land, enclosed within
three concentric rings of bank and moat, built up of earth and stone
together, about a pyramidal hill. The innermost enclosure contains
about an acre and a half, and there were at one time indications
of habitations therein, but these have now disappeared. There are,
however, traces of a pit that was a well or tank for rain-water,
as there is no spring on the hill. There are two entrances to this
interesting camp or dinas.
According to legend, King Arthur lived here and hunted the wild deer on
Tregoss Moors.
Near Perranzabuloe are Caer Kieff (_eyf_, perfect) and Caer Dane
(dinas).
To the south of Newquay is the curious creek called the Gannel
(_gan-hael_, the mouth of saltings). A very slight thread of sweet
water descends from the land into a creek of three miles of salt
marsh and sand, filled at high water with the tide. Here it was that
S. Patrick’s companion, adviser, and friend, Carantock, on leaving
Ireland, set up his residence. He was a remarkable man, for he was one
of the three bishops chosen by Laogaire at Tara to revise the laws of
Ireland. When the Irish accepted Christianity it was obvious that the
laws needed modification. King Laogaire was not and never did become a
Christian, but he accepted the situation, and appointed a commission
for the revision of the laws, and on this sat Carantock. The result was
the Senchus Mor, the great code by which the Irish were ruled till
1600. Carantock was an acquaintance of King Arthur, but he met him, not
at Castel-an-Dinas, but on the Severn at Dinedor, and did not get on
well with him.
An odd story is told of his fixing the site for his church at Crantock.
After he had landed in the Gannel he went up on the land, and began to
till a scrap of land granted him; and when not at work on the soil, he
whittled his staff, to make the handle smooth. Then, when he resumed
his mattock, he saw a wood-pigeon fly down, pick up the shavings, and
carry them off. He was curious to know what she did with them, so he
followed, and saw that she dropped them in one spot in a little heap.
“There must be some meaning in this,” said Carantock, and he resolved
to build his church there. Those Celtic saints looked out for some omen
to direct them in all their doings.
Crantock Church was collegiate; it fell into a condition of decay, and
was shockingly mutilated, but is about to be restored carefully and
conservatively.
Another interesting church, one with a fine screen and in good
condition, is Newlyn. This is probably situated on the patrimony of
S. Newlyna--“the white cloud,” as her name signifies. She was of
noble birth, but, like the rest of the Celtic saints, thought she
must travel, so she took ship at Newlyn West, where she has also left
her name, and arrived in Brittany with her foster-mother as chaperon.
There she had an unpleasant experience. She caught the fancy of a local
magnate, who pursued her when she fled from him, and as she stubbornly
repelled his advances, in a fit of fury, struck her with his sword and
killed her. She is commemorated at Noualen, or Noyal-Poutivy, where
the screen was formerly painted with a series of subjects relative to
her story. This was destroyed in 1684 by order of the vicar-general,
because it concealed the new reredos in the debased style of the
period. This tasteless construction has been in turn demolished, and
the paintings that formerly decorated the jubé have been reproduced in
coloured glass in the windows.
The great towans, or sand dunes, of Penhale extend three miles in
length, and almost two in parts inland. They are held in check to the
north and north-east by the little stream that finds its way into
Holywell Bay. In these sands was found S. Piran’s Chapel, of the eighth
or ninth century, in 1835, exactly resembling similar structures of the
same date in Ireland. It was cleared out by Mr. William Mitchell, of
Comprigney, near Truro, and he thus describes it:--
“The church, which is built nearly east and west, inclining
only 4° north of west, is of but small dimensions, the
length without the walls being 30 feet and within the walls
25 feet; the width within 13 feet in the chancel and 12
feet in the nave, and the height about 13 feet. There is a
very neat arched doorway in a good state of preservation
at the date of the work, viz. the day when I removed the
sand from it, 7 ft. 4 in. by 2 ft. 4 in., ornamented with
Saxon tracery [this is inaccurate, no Saxon about it], the
arch itself having on its keystone the head of a tiger,
and the points of its curve (_i.e._ label-terminations)
the head of a man and that of a woman, rudely sculptured
in stone, in the centre of the nave on the south wall; and
another doorway in the north-east corner, near the altar,
of similar dimensions and style, if we may judge from the
remains of its arch lying near it, and which may be assumed
to be that intended for the priest himself, leading into
the chancel. The chancel is exactly 9½ feet long, and shows
in the north and south walls the precise spots where the
railing (screen) separating it from the nave was fixed.
Attached to the eastern wall of the church is an altar
nearly equidistant between the north and south walls, 5 ft.
3 in. long by 2 ft. 3 in. wide, and 4 feet high, built of
stone and neatly plastered with lime. Eight inches above
this altar is a recess or niche about 12 inches high by 8
inches wide, in which, undoubtedly, was once S. Piran’s
shrine.... There is only one small aperture or window, 12
inches high by 10 inches wide, about 10 feet above the
floor, in the south wall of the chancel.... A stone seat,
raised 14 inches above the level of the floor, and 12
inches wide, covered with lime-plaster, runs all round the
walls except the east and south walls of the chancel. The
nave is exactly 15½ feet long, its floor, together with
the floor of the chancel, being composed of lime and sand,
apparently as perfect as when first laid down. Each door
has two low steps to descend into the church. The church
itself is plastered with beautiful white lime. The masonry
of the entire building is of the rudest kind, and evidently
of very remote antiquity. There is not the slightest
attempt at regular courses, but the stones, consisting
of granite, quartz, sandstone, porphyry, etc., appear to
have been thrown together almost at random--horizontally,
perpendicularly, and at every angle of inclination--just
as the hand, not the eye, of the workman happened to
direct him. To render the church as perfect as when it
was originally erected, nothing seemed wanting but its
doors and roof. Not an atom of wood, except a piece of
about 8 inches long by 2 inches wide, and an inch thick,
was found within the walls. That there were many bodies
interred both in the chancel and nave of the church is
an unquestionable fact. Several skeletons have been
found deposited about 2 feet below the floor. Three were
discovered with their feet lying under the altar, one of
them of gigantic dimensions, measuring about 7 ft. 6 in....
Their heads, which appeared to be almost cemented together,
lay between the knees of the skeleton deposited nearest to
the south wall.
“On the southern and western sides of this venerable
ruin is the ancient burying-ground, strewed over tens of
thousands of human bones and teeth as white as snow; and,
strange as it may seem, the showers of sand which fall all
around hardly ever remain on these melancholy relics of
mortality.”[20]
Unhappily nothing was done to preserve this little church after it had
been excavated from the sand. The three heads from the doorway were
carried off for Truro Museum; visitors pulled out stones, boys tore
down the walls, and now little more than a gable remains. But to this
was added the mischievous meddlesomeness of the curate-in-charge, the
Rev. William Haslam, who turned the altar-stones about, as he had got
a theory into his head that they had formed a tomb, and rebuilt them
in this fashion, pointing east and west, and cut upon the altar-slab
the words “S. Piranus.” It is purposed to undo Mr. Haslam’s work, and
replace the altar as originally found. More should be done. Cement
should be run along the top of such wall as remains to save it from
falling.
The Rev. C. Collins Trelawny, soon after the discovery, wrote an
account in a book entitled _Perranzabulo, the Lost Church Found_, which
went through seven editions (1837-72).
In 1844 Mr. Haslam published another book on the subject, and again
another in 1888, _From Death unto Life_, in which he assumed to himself
the credit of Mr. Mitchell’s discovery. The church has not the extreme
antiquity attributed to it. The fact of there being a chancel is
sufficient evidence that it does not belong to the sixth century, as
none of the earliest Irish churches possess this feature.[21] It is
about two centuries later, though doubtless a reconstruction of the old
materials, and perhaps on the old lines. Judging from Irish examples,
in one point only is Mr. Haslam more correct than Mr. Mitchell. He
considered the niche over the altar to have been a walled-up window,
and in this was right.
The story of S. Piran, or Kieran, as he is called in Ireland, is of
sufficient interest to be given.
He was born in Clear Island, in the county of Cork, the extreme south
point of Ireland. He established a monastery at Saighir, in the extreme
north of Munster. The legend is that his first disciples were a boar,
a fox, a badger, a wolf, and a doe. And in this we have an instance of
the manner in which simple facts assume a fabulous character in the
hands of late writers. The district was that of the clan of Hy Sinnach,
_i.e._ the foxes; an adjoining tribe was that of the Hy Broc, or the
badgers; an Ossorian disciple was regarded as _Os_, _i.e._ a doe; and
his wolf was no other than one of the Hy Faeladh, which has a double
meaning of “hospitable” or “wolfish;” another disciple was S. Torc, and
the name means “boar.”
Kieran, as his name is in Irish, invoked the assistance of his mother,
Liadhain, and induced her to start a school for girls at Kellyon, not
far from Saighir. The arrangement was not happy, as at least one of his
disciples carried on a lively flirtation with Liadhain’s damsels.
How Kieran placed Buriena the Slender with Liadhain, and how a chief
ran away with her, and how Kieran got her back, shall be told when we
come to Land’s End. It was possibly on account of this unpleasantness
that he withdrew to Cornwall, and brought with him both his nurse,
Cocca, and Buriena. But there were other reasons. Kieran belonged
to the royal race of Ossory, and in his time Ossory was overrun
by Cucraidh, who massacred all he could lay hands on of the royal
race of the O’Bairrche, to which Kieran belonged. Most of Kieran’s
clan migrated to the north of Ossory, where they maintained their
independence till 642. It was not likely that Kieran cared to remain
in the country under an usurper whose hands were steeped in the blood
of his brethren. Cucraidh tried to make terms with the saint, and
his granddaughter was either put under his rule, or else voluntarily
entrusted herself to him. But even if Cucraidh invited Kieran to
remain, he was but under-king to Aengus, King of Munster, and Kieran
quarrelled with the latter and denounced him to death. In fact, Aengus
was killed in battle in 489. There was consequently very good reason
why the saint should leave Ireland.
Kieran’s monastery at Saighir was on a princely scale. “Numerous were
his cattle; there were ten doors to the shed of his kine, and ten
stalls at every door, and ten calves for every stall, and ten cows with
every calf.... Moreover, there were fifty tame horses with Kieran for
tilling and ploughing the ground. And this was his dinner every night:
a little bit of barley bread and two roots, and water of a spring.
Skins of fawns were his raiment, and a haircloth over these. He always
slept on a pillow of stone.” Carantock was his scribe, and some of
the books written by Carantock were long preserved at Saighir. One of
Kieran’s disciples was Carthag, who, although a saint, was a somewhat
loose fish, and gave the abbot not a little trouble. S. Itha put one of
his escapades in as delicate a way as might be when she said--
“A son will be born to Carthag,
And Carthag will not be thought better of accordingly.”
On account of his disreputable conduct, Kieran kicked him out, and bade
him go to Rome, hoping that he might sow his wild oats in that chaste
and holy place.
One day Kieran of Clonmacneis and the two Brendans came to visit him.
The steward approached him in dismay. “There is nothing to offer these
distinguished guests except some scraps of rusty bacon and water.”
“Then serve up the bacon and the water.”
Now there was at table a lay brother, and when the bacon was set before
him he thrust his platter contemptuously from him, for he was tired
of bacon, and when out visiting, by dad! he expected to be fed like a
gintleman.
“Hah!” said Kieran turning angry, “you are dainty, son of Comgal; it is
just such as you who would not scruple to eat ass’s flesh in Lent.”
Across the backbone of Cornwall is Ladock, and if I am not mistaken,
Kieran planted there his old nurse, Cocca, who also became head of a
religious house for women.
It is said that every Christmas night, after divine service at his own
monastery, Kieran started off walking, and arrived at early morning to
perform divine worship for his old nurse, and gave her the compliments
of the season. The date of his death is not known, but it is thought to
have been about 550.
A friend writes to me:--
“It may be foolishness, but to me such a place as the
ruined church of Peranzabulo appeals most powerfully. I
determined to find it unaided, and when found I spent hours
there, sometimes at dark, trying as best I might to recall
the place as it once was, and to revivify the bones which
were lying in several little heaps where the workmen, who
had been railing about the ruin, had collected them.
“It seems to me that one loses a great deal in stifling and
choking the imagination.
“In the dusk of evening, with the swallows in vast
quantities gathered for their flight to the south, and the
white bones lying before me, the wind sighing and piping
in the grass, and the sea moaning in the distance, the
scene was one that deeply impressed me, and will never be
forgotten.”
Although the ruin is that of an early church, it is a mistake to
suppose that it is contemporary with the founder. It is probably two
centuries later.
The rock and hermitage of Roche, standing up in a district that has
been turned over and undermined for tin, and is strewn with ruined
engine-houses, deserve to be seen. The rock is a prong shooting up
boldly, and a chapel and the cell of an ancient hermit have been
constructed on it.
S. Denis is a conical hill with an earthwork round it; in fact, it was
an old _Dinas_, or palace of a chief. The church within was called
Lan-dinas. The bishops of Exeter, not understanding the real meaning,
concluded that it was the church of S. Denis, and dedicated it to
the Bishop-martyr of Paris, a somewhat apocryphal personage. So two
fortified headlands were each Lan-an-dinas,[22] and they were converted
into churches of S. Anthony.
S. Columb Major has a fine church, which unhappily suffered from an
explosion of gunpowder in 1676, when three boys carelessly set fire
to a barrel of this explosive, which had been placed in the rood-loft
staircase. The windows and roof were blown away, and the pillars
thrown out of the perpendicular. Happily the fine carved benches were
unhurt; they are curious. Apparently a travelling show of wild beasts
passed through the town when they were being carved, and the workmen
reproduced on them the strange beasts they saw.
There is an interesting and picturesque old slated house at the
entrance to the churchyard.
The old custom of hurling is still observed at S. Columb on the feast,
which is in November, and the silver ball is thrown in the market-place.
S. Columb Minor bench-ends, according to Hals, were of black oak, and
bore the date 1525, and it had a fine rood-screen with loft, “a most
curious and costly piece of workmanship, carved, and painted with gold,
silver, vermillion, and bice, and is the masterpiece of art in those
parts of that kind.” This has all disappeared now.
S. Agnes’ Head, pronounced S. Anne’s, presumedly takes its name from
Ann, the mother of the gods among the Irish Celts, and probably also
among the Cymri. She gives her name to the Two Paps of Ana, in the
county of Kerry. The parish was constituted late. There was no such
parish at the time of the Conquest, and the present church was built
and consecrated in 1484.
A story is told of a house in S. Agnes. When Wesley visited this part
of Cornwall preaching, he was refused shelter elsewhere than in an
ancient mansion that was unoccupied because haunted by ghosts.
Wesley went to the house, and sat up reading by candlelight. At
midnight he heard a noise in the hall, and on issuing from his room
saw that a banquet was spread, and that richly-apparelled ladies and
gentlemen were about the board.
Then one cavalier, with dark, piercing eyes and a pointed black beard,
wearing a red feather in his cap, said: “We invite you to eat and to
drink with us,” and pointed to an empty chair.
Wesley at once took the place indicated, but before he put in his
mouth a bite of food or drank a drop, said: “It is my custom to ask a
blessing; stand all!” Then the spectres rose.
Wesley began his accustomed grace, “The name of God, high over all----”
when suddenly the room darkened, and all the apparitions vanished.
The story of the creation, subsequent history, and extinction of those
English boroughs which were swept away by the Reform Bill of 1832, and
which were commonly designated as pocket or rotten boroughs, is too
curious an episode in Parliamentary history to be allowed to remain
in the limbo of Parliamentary reports--a charnel-house of the bones
of facts--unclothed with the personal reminiscences and local details
which invest these dry bones with flesh, and give to them a living
interest.
In a very few years there will not be a man alive who can recall the
last election for them. Their story is this: They were creations of the
Crown when its tenure of power was insecure, and the object aimed at
was to pack the House of Commons with members who were mere creatures
of the Crown. The shock of the Reformation had upset men’s minds. What
had been held sacred for ages was sacred no longer, and the men who had
been encouraged to profane the altar were ready enough to turn their
hands against the throne. The revolt of the Parliament under Charles
I. was long in brewing; its possibility was seen, and the creation of
pocket boroughs was devised as an expedient to prevent it.
In order that the Crown might have a strong body of obedient henchmen
in the House, a number of villages or mere insignificant hamlets were
accorded the franchise, villages and hamlets on land belonging to the
Duchy of Cornwall that went with the royal family as an appanage of
the Prince of Wales, or were under the control of pliant courtiers. As
the country was in a ferment of religious passion, many, if not most,
of these new boroughs were specially chosen because far removed from
ecclesiastical influence, either because they lay at the junction of
several parishes, or because they were places remote from churches.
In Cornwall in the reign of Edward VI. eight petty places were given
the privilege of returning two members apiece. These were Bossiney, a
mound in a field, with a farmhouse adjoining, West Looe, Grampound,
Penryn, Newport, Camelford, and Mitchell.
Queen Mary followed by raising S. Ives to the position of a borough;
Elizabeth proceeded to confer the same privileges on S. Germans, S.
Mawes, Tregony, East Looe, Fowey, and Callington. Those called into
existence by Edward were all under Duchy influence with the exception
of Mitchell, “the meanest hamlet within or without Cornwall,” which was
under the control of the Arundels of Lanherne.
Four of the new boroughs had been places belonging to monastic
establishments, but since the suppression of the religious houses they
had passed under the domination of the Crown. S. Ives, which had been
constituted a borough by Philip and Mary, was in the hands of Paulet,
Marquis of Winchester, who could be relied upon. For the same reason
Callington was given two members in 1584, as this also was held by
the Paulets. The fear of ecclesiastical influence is conspicuous in
numerous instances. Camelford is two miles distant from a church, and
the only chapel in it was confiscated and demolished. Saltash was
another churchless place; it belonged to the parish of S. Stephen’s,
two miles distant, and had in it no other place of worship than a
municipal chapel. Grampound was at a like distance from its parish
church, S. Creed; Tregony was planted at the junction of several
parishes; Mitchell divided between two equidistant churches two miles
away. Another remarkable feature in these boroughs is that they rapidly
slipped away from the influence of the Crown, and fell under the
control of great landlords. Founded for the servile support of the
Throne, they became a prey, not even to Duchy tenants, but to private
owners, and resolved into saleable commodities, that passed rapidly
from hand to hand. In 1783 it was noticed that seven peers directed or
influenced the return of twenty members; eleven commoners controlled
the election of twenty-one; and the people one only, that of S. Ives.
It was a recognised thing that the man who held six boroughs in his
hand, that is to say, who could return twelve members to support the
Ministry, could demand and obtain a peerage. Even a foreign Jew who,
at a pinch, could assist the Ministry by means of three boroughs which
he had bought, could exact a baronetage in part payment.
Cornwall returned forty members, as many, excepting one, as the entire
kingdom of Scotland; more by two than Durham, Northumberland, and
Yorkshire together; and along with Wiltshire, where was another nest of
pocket boroughs, more than Yorkshire, Lancashire, Middlesex, Warwick,
Worcester, and Somersetshire.
Another interesting feature in the pocket boroughs was the various
methods of voting. In some it was close and secret; in others open
and democratic. In some the electors were nominated by the patron; in
others they maintained a measure of independence, and disposed of their
votes to the highest bidder.
One of the most notorious of the rotten boroughs was Mitchell,
Modishole, or, as it was sometimes called in error, S. Michael. It is a
wretched hamlet on a bleak portion of the great backbone of Cornwall,
exposed to every blast from the Atlantic, without trade, without
manufacture, almost without agriculture, so poor and unremunerative
is the soil. It owed its origin solely to the fact that it was a
convenient centre for the distribution of contraband goods that had
been run ashore in the bays between Crantock and Newquay. When raised
into a borough it existed, without thriving, on the two demoralising
businesses of smuggling and elections. In Parliamentary lists it
figures as S. Michael’s, but the archangel has never had anything to do
with it, never had even a chapel there. The place belongs in part to
the parish of S. Enoder, in part to that of S. Newlyn.
The name of Mitchell given it was surely given in satire, for in
Cornish this word signifies greatness.
The place consists at present of nineteen houses. At the time of its
disfranchisement it had 180 inhabitants, but only three of these were
qualified to vote, whose names were Retallack, Vincent, and Parker, and
these three returned the two last members who sat for Mitchell.
A few sycamore and ash and thorn trees brave the gales that sweep the
desolate slope on which the old borough stands. It has a handsome old
inn with granite porch, some quaint old houses, one with the date 1683
on the parvise, and a diminutive town hall.
Whether the borough ever had a seal is uncertain: no impressions are
known to exist. The town hall has gone through a series of uses since
the place ceased to be a borough. For a while after 1832 it was a
dame’s school, then was converted into a Wesleyan chapel, then into
one of the Church of England, next into a manure store, then into a
carpenter’s shop, and now it is a beer brewery, in a hamlet made up
almost wholly of total abstainers.
The place, as already said, consists of nineteen houses. There is
not a shop there. The dame’s school has been transferred from the
town hall to a one-roomed cottage, that crouches under a bank, and is
overshadowed by sycamores.
The privileges it possessed proved to it a curse, for if there were
voters in it sufficiently independent to think differently from the
patron, he tore down their dwellings. After the last election but one
Sir Christopher Hawkins swept away numerous cottages from his land, so
as to reduce the number of voters, not because they were recalcitrant,
but because all demanded payment for their votes; and to diminish the
voters, as he did, from eighty to three meant a corresponding reduction
in election expenses. At the election of 1831 there was no voting at
all. The steward invited some two dozen individuals to dine with him in
the inn; of these three only were nominated to vote. A worm-eaten chair
was thrust on the balcony of the inn, and the nominee of the patron was
declared chosen and chaired.
Immediately after this election the same patron, Sir Christopher
Hawkins, pulled down twelve more houses; amongst these a handsome
mansion opposite the town hall, that had been erected by Lord Falmouth
in 1780, when he was dominant in the borough, and all the stonework
was carried away for the construction of Lord Falmouth’s new house at
Tregothnan.
In the penultimate election there were but thirteen electors, who were
nominated by the patron. But even these were not altogether submissive.
A stranger came amongst them, and by large promises induced most of
them to agree to vote for him as second representative. Dread of their
patron, however, in the end proved too strong, and they returned both
his nominees. The stranger, however, assured them that he would send
them presents all round, and on a certain day the carrier arrived
with a large chest addressed to the free and independent electors of
Mitchell. On opening it, the chest was found to be full of stones, and
to have thirteen halters on the top properly addressed to the several
electors, among whom, by the way, were three parsons.
The unfortunate borough during the later years of its existence was
a battleground of many combatants. It was never certain who had the
right to vote. This question was left in ambiguity till 1700, and every
successive election gave rise to a petition and Parliamentary inquiry.
In 1639, when Courtenay and Chadwell were elected, a petition was sent
up to the House appealing against it, and the plea set up was that the
members had got in by the aid of voters who were not qualified.
Between this date and 1705 the borough came before the Election
Committee no less than fifteen times, and the right of voting was
altered from time to time.
In 1660 the question arose whether the right of voting lay in the
commonalty at large or in two functionaries called Eligers, nominated
by the lord of the manor, and in twenty-two free men of their
appointment. The Committee of the House considered that it rested
with these nominees, and that the householders of Mitchell had no
electoral rights whatever. But in 1689 the Committee decided that
“the right of election lay with the lords of the borough, who were
liable to be chosen portreeves, and in the householders of the same not
receiving alms.” Here was a fundamental change. All at once universal
suffrage was introduced. Next year (1690) Rowe, for the second place,
got in by thirty-one votes against twenty given for Courtenay. Upon
investigation, it was proved that Rowe had bribed a dozen voters with
£5 or £6 apiece.
In 1695 another election took place, when four members were returned,
two by a deputy-portreeve, and two by the actual portreeve, a certain
Timothy Gully, who was an outlaw, and lived in White Friars.
The struggles of Anthony Rowe and Humphrey Courtenay occupy and almost
proverbialise this epoch. About 1698 it was noted that “the cost of
these struggles had been enormous, and William Courtenay, son and heir
of Humphrey, was forced to petition the House to be allowed to sell his
entailed estates to defray them.”
Rowe was pronounced elected in 1696, but was unseated as speedily on
appeal from the defeated side.
In 1707 “the traditional contest takes place at Mitchell between Rowe
and two others. Rowe, who was elected, was soon confronted with the
inevitable petition.”
The right of voting for this distracted borough had already been
changed from one of nominees of the patron to one purely democratic,
and now, in 1701, it was again changed. This time it was invested in
the portreeve, and in the inhabitants paying scot and lot.
For nearly half a century no election petition came up from Mitchell,
but in 1754 the scandals became more flagrant than before, and the
interest of the political world was drawn to this obscure and ragged
hamlet. Lord Sandwich had squared the returning officer, and his
candidate was elected by thirty against twenty-five. The Duke of
Newcastle now disputed this election. There were, at that period, two
taverns at Mitchell, each with its picturesque projecting porch on
granite pillars. Each of these became the centre of party cabal and
caucus, and this continued for ten months, during which ale and wine
flowed and money circulated, and the electors ate and drank at the
expense of the Earl of Sandwich and the Duke of Newcastle, and devoted
all their energies to swell their several factions at the expense of
the other. At last the duke’s candidates, Luttrell and Hussey, were
returned _vice_ Clive (a cousin of the Indian Clive) and Stephenson,
who were sustained by the earl.
After this “stranger succeeded stranger in the representation of
Mitchell.” In 1784 the two patrons were Lord Falmouth and Francis
Basset, Esq. No sooner was the election declared than a petition
against the return was sent up to the House, and the Committee found
that the evidence of bribery and corruption by one of the returned
members was so gross that he was forthwith unseated.
Sir Christopher Hawkins of Trewithen, Bart., was sole owner of the
borough between 1784 and 1796, and he held it with an iron grasp. By
means of pulling down houses, this crafty baronet thinned down the
electors to sixteen, and finally further reduced the number to three.
Sir Christopher held Grampound and Tregony as well in his fist, and
had runners at his several boroughs to keep him informed how election
proceedings went on in each place. His high-handed proceedings and his
closeness in everything not connected with elections made him vastly
unpopular. One morning a paper was found affixed to the gates of
Trewithen.
“A large house, and no cheer,
A large park, and no deer,
A large cellar, and no beer.
Sir Christopher Hawkins lives here.”
Sir Kit died in 1829, unmarried, when the title became extinct, but his
memory continues green, if not sweet, in the minds of Cornishmen of the
parts where he ruled.
In 1806 one of the representatives of the borough was Arthur Wellesley,
the subsequent Duke of Wellington.
During eleven years, 1807-1818, there were _nine_ elections at
Mitchell. No event of importance occurred after 1818, except the
extraordinary and significant revelation made at the contested election
of 1831, when Hawkins, the nephew of Sir Christopher, got two votes;
Kenyon, a Tory, five; and Bent three. In the following year the five
electors of Mitchell found their borough disfranchised.
There were, when I visited Mitchell in 1893, two old men, brothers, of
the name of Manhire, one aged ninety-four, who could recollect the last
election, and could tell some good stories about it.
Trerice, the ancient seat of the Arundells, is near Mitchell, which,
it may be remembered, was made into a borough because completely under
their control. But their influence rapidly declined, and they lost all
power over the voters. The old house is converted into a farm, and
is no longer in the possession of the Arundells. Its fine carved oak
furniture was scattered.
More charmingly idyllic than Trerice is Lanherne, another seat of the
Arundells. Roger de Arundell was at home when the Conqueror came to
England. William Arundell had his lands forfeited for rebellion in the
reign of King John, but they passed to his nephew, Humphrey Arundell,
in 1216. His son, Sir Renfrey Arundell of Treffry, married the daughter
and heiress of Sir John de Lanherne in the reign of Henry III., and
since then Lanherne became one of the favourite family seats of a house
that acquired the baronies of Wardour and Trerice.
Lanherne lies in the loveliest vale in Cornwall, shut in and screened
from the blasts that sweep from the Atlantic. The old house was
abandoned in 1794 to the nuns of Mount Carmel, who fled to England
for refuge from the storms of the French Revolution. The front of the
mansion is of the date 1580, and is eminently picturesque. A modern
range of buildings has been added for the accommodation of the nuns,
but it is not unsightly. The lovely pinnacled tower of the church of
S. Mawgan rises beside the ancient mansion, at a considerably lower
level, and the interior is rich with sculptured oak, and with monuments
of the Arundells.
Alas! the mighty family that once dominated in Cornwall, second in
power only to the Princes of Wales, royal dukes of that duchy, is now
represented in Cornwall by empty mansions, alienated to other holders,
and by tombs.
The motto of the family is “Deo data--Given by God.” It might be
properly supplemented, If the Lord gave, the Lord hath also taken away.
Lanherne is in the parish of S. Mawgan. The church has been coldly and
unsympathetically renovated by Mr. Butterfield. It contains very fine
carved bench-ends and a screen that deserve inspection. The tower of
the church is peculiarly beautiful, and the church rises above a grove
of the true Cornish elm, growing like poplars, small-leaved.
Carnanton was formerly the dwelling of William Noye, a farmer of
Buryan, who was bred as student-at-law in Lincoln’s Inn, and afterwards
became M. P. for S. Ives in Cornwall, in which capacity he stood for
several Parliaments in the beginning of the reign of Charles I.,
and was one of the boldest and stoutest champions of the rights of
Parliament against absolute monarchy. Charles I. then made him his
attorney-general, 1631, whereupon his views underwent a complete
change, “so that,” as Halls says, “like the image of Janus at Rome,
he looked forward and backward, and by means thereof greatly enriched
himself.” He it was who contrived the ship-money tax, which was so
obnoxious, and was a principal occasion of the Rebellion.
The attorney-general one day was entertaining King Charles I. and the
nobility of the court at dinner in his house in London. Ben Jonson and
other choice spirits were at the same time in a tavern on the opposite
side of the street, very much out of pocket, and with their stomachs
equally empty.
Ben, knowing what was going on opposite, wrote this little metrical
epistle and sent it to the attorney-general on a white wood trencher:--
“When the World was drown’d
No deer was found,
Because there was noe Park;
And here I sitt
Without een a bitt,
’Cause Noyah hath all in his Arke.”
The presentation of this billet caused great amusement, and Noyes sent
back a dish of venison with the rhymes recast, at the dictation of the
king, in this fashion:--
“When the World was drown’d
There deer was found,
Althoe there was noe Park;
I send thee a bitt
To quicken thy witt,
Which comes from Noya’s Arke.”
Halls says:--
“William Noye was blow-coal, incendiary, and stirrer up
of the Civil Wars by assisting and setting up the King’s
prerogative to the highest pitch, as King James I. had
done before, beyond the laws of the land. As counsell for
the King he prosecuted for King Charles I. the imprisoned
members of the House of Commons, 1628; viz., Sir John
Elyot, Mr. Coryton, and others; whom after much cost and
trouble he got to be fined two thousand pounds each, the
others five hundred pounds.”
A portrait of William Noye, by Cornelius Jansen, is at Enys, the
property of D. G. Enys, Esq.
S. Mawgan, the founder of the church, as also of that in Kerrier, was a
man of extraordinary importance to the early Celtic Church in Ireland,
Wales, Scotland, and Cornwall. He was the great educator of the saints,
and perhaps the first head of a college in Britain. He had under him
S. David, Paulinus, and the ill-conditioned Gildas; and he is probably
the same as Maucan, “the master,” entrusted by S. Patrick with the
education of the clergy for the Irish mission. S. Euny and S. Torney
were disciples of his, and it was he who gave to Brig, or Breaca, the
rules by which a religious community of women should be governed.
His great educational establishment was at Ty Gwyn, or the White House.
This was planted on the slope of Carn Llidy, a purple, heather-clothed
crag close to S. David’s Head in Pembrokeshire, whence in the evening
the sun can be seen setting behind the mountains of Wexford.
Here remains of a rude old chapel can be traced, and around it are
countless very early interments in unhewn stone graves, pointing east
and west. In fact, this is the necropolis of the great missionary home
whence streamed the first Christian teachers into Ireland, and whence
Scotland, Cornwall, and Wales were supplied with evangelists.[23]
His establishment was a double one, of female disciples as well as of
males, and the consequences were not always satisfactory.
A British king named Drust (523-28) sent his daughter to Ty Gwyn to
be educated. In the college were at the time Finnian, afterwards of
Clonard, and two other Irishmen, Rioc and Talmage. Rioc fell in love
with the girl, and bribed Finnian to be his go-between and get her for
him as wife by the promise of a copy of all Mawgan’s books that he
undertook to make. Finnian agreed, but by treachery, or as a joke, did
the courting for Talmage in place of Rioc. When the circumstances came
to the ears of Mawgan he was very angry, and he gave his boy a hatchet,
and told him to hide behind the chapel, and when Finnian came to matins
to hew at him from behind. But instead of Finnian, the first to arrive
was Mawgan himself, and he received the blow destined for Finnian.
Happily, either because the boy missed his aim in the dark, or more
probably because the order had been given to beat Finnian and not kill
him, Mawgan was not mortally wounded.
Non, the mother of S. David, was brought up in the same house, and was
there when it was visited by Gildas the historian, whose works we have.
It does not at all appear that the rule of celibacy was required of
clergy, even of abbots, in the early Celtic Church, for this same
Gildas was father of two founders of churches in Cornwall--S. Eval and
S. Filius, of Philleigh; and S. Kenneth, the crippled Abbot of Gower,
was the father of S. Enoder.
S. Patrick in Ireland did not require his bishops to be unmarried; all
he demanded of them was that they should follow the apostolic rule,
and that each should be the husband of one wife. The same regulation
continued in force in Wales till the Norman invasion in the twelfth
century.
S. Patrick was no doubt mainly guided in making his rule by what was
ordered in Scripture, but he was also doubtless satisfied that on
practical grounds it was the best course, for he had a difficult team
of missionaries to drive. This comes out clearly enough in the “Lives”
extant.