St Looe--Polperro--Fowey--Mevagissey--and Some Coves
Lovely Cawsand Bay is one of the fairest of havens and a good place in
which to lie in almost all winds save south-east; but with quaint St
Looe ahead and a fair wind one does not stand into the bay, but lays a
course for Pellee Point and thence round Rame Head, with its ruins of
the ancient chapel, and then there is a straight course for Looe Island
and the harbour, which, in the season, is so picturesque with and full
of pilchard boats.
Seen from the pine-tree-clad hill above the town, and looking up the
river to the bridge, St Looe inevitably reminds one of Dinan, just
as the Looe River possesses a marked resemblance to the Rance. The
architecture of the quaint houses, which huddle close together on the
Point and spread upwards to the hillsides, have a distinctly Breton
character, which may or may not be because the port of Morlaix is
straight across the water.
There are, however, two towns which, whatever the differences in far
back times may have been that led to division of strength where one
might have imagined such a course undesirable, are nowadays connected
by the old, weather-stained bridge of eight arches, on which and
against the parapet of which the fishermen ashore lean and contemplate
the river and harbour, and artists take up a vantage ground.
This little port is indeed a delightful place, with a climate so
mild yet withal so bracing that it threatens to turn this “sleepy
hollow,” with its memories of past centuries, into a fashionable
winter resort, and thus destroy it with that modern bane of
picturesqueness--prosperity. A well-known writer has aptly summed up
the delight of its quaint architecture, which, as well as its fisher
types, has drawn painters from all parts to revel in its sheer delight.
He says: “Such houses, never certainly except in some medieval town
abroad, show such startling illustrations of the ideas of the old house
builders, with gables quaint and rugged as Ruskin could have wished, or
Turner desired to paint.”
And there is, indeed, a charm in the narrow devious streets and the
little Cornish courts, in which the fisherfolk sit mending or knitting
nets, or the jerseys which will do as much as wool can do to keep out
the bitter cold of dawn or winter nights.
It is ages since the two Looes (East and West) became one by charter
of Queen Elizabeth; but now, though we have left Devon and are in
Cornwall, we have by no means left behind the memories of the strenuous
life of fighting and piracy of old. And what has been said concerning
many a Devon port and haven is equally true of Looe. It was probably
(although, alas! records of the daring deeds and piratical descents
of St Looe men upon the opposite Breton coast are much wanting) one
of the most actively aggressive Cornish fisher towns. But we are sure
of one thing, that Looe men were not less quick with the sword, flint
lock, and culverin in the past, than with the trimming of sails and the
handling of tiller; and that the harvests of blood, of fire, and of
sword reaped along the French coast, which lay a hundred miles or so
due south, were not less rich or risky of reprisals than those of the
bold men of Dartmouth and Plymouth hard by.
That daring deeds were done more or less “outside the law of nations”
there can be no question; but, save for an almost casual mention of
the doings of the Looe lugger _George_ in the famous though somewhat
traditional fight with “those hereditary enemies, the French,” little
has come down to us concerning these adventurers, and only a memory
has survived from the early years of the nineteenth century of the Looe
privateer of small size but large courage which, whilst cruising off
the mouth of the Channel about thirty miles south-west of the Lizard,
fell in, not with the French merchantman of which she was in search,
but with a famous St-Malo privateer “of much superior force both in
guns and men, which she promptly engaged and forced to surrender after
a running fight lasting well nigh seven hours.” Had the St-Malo lugger
known that more than sixty per cent of the Looe boat’s crew were either
killed or placed _hors de combat_ the result of the engagement might
possibly have been different; but Cornish fisherfolk do not wear their
hearts upon their sleeves, and one can well imagine that the survivors
put on a “brazen front with no timidity shown,” just as one seems to
catch an echo of the rousing cheers with which the striking of the
tricolour was undoubtedly greeted.
Both the Looes did their best to uphold the honour of England during
the long struggle with our French neighbours at the end of the
eighteenth and commencement of the nineteenth century. Possibly it was
the same spirit which made the Looe men amongst the boldest and most
successful of smugglers on the Cornish coast in the first quarter of
the last century, and this although they were remarkably well looked
after by the “preventives.” It is only right to add, however, that
an inspection and study of many records of smuggling along the South
Coast proves conclusively that Cornish “free traders” conducted their
operations in a much less brutal and forceful manner than that which
characterized the doings of the famous smugglers of the Sussex coast,
and which so often led to outrages and scenes of an atrocious character.
A well-known writer upon smuggling says in reference to this point: “As
regards the skill and enterprise displayed by those who conducted the
trade, it is difficult to award the palm to any one county, though,
on the whole, perhaps, and after a careful consideration of all the
circumstances of the case, the writer is inclined to give it to the
Cornishmen. Not that the east countrymen were one whit behind them in
point of courage or activity, but the very fact of having to travel a
far greater distance for their goods exposed them to increased risks,
and to many dangers from which the trade elsewhere was tolerably
exempt, thus giving scope to the highest faculties, and developing
seamanlike qualities of no mean order.”
As an example of the risks which the Cornish smugglers, and doubtless
those of Looe, were willing to run for the sake of the enormous profits
realized when a successful “run” of a cargo was accomplished, it may be
mentioned that frequently these bold and hardy seamen would cross to
the hundred-mile distant French coast in open boats even in the depth
of inclement winters.
Not only would the daring character of the Cornishman seem to have
qualified him especially for engaging in a species of enterprise in
which were incurred such risks and dangers to life and limb, but the
situation of Cornwall, lying as it does at the western extreme limit of
England, and in the early days of the last century almost isolated from
other parts of the kingdom, in itself was well adapted to the secrecy
so necessary for the successful carrying out of smuggling enterprises
on a large scale. No coast line on the south or west of England is
more rugged or better supplied with creeks and harbours than that of
Cornwall, and, indeed, had Nature been concerned with the provision of
an ideal seaboard for the prosecution of contraband trade she could
not have formed one better adapted for the purpose. And “to these
natural advantages the Cornish smuggler brought in his own person an
amount of skill, cunning, and enterprise which was scarcely equalled,
and certainly was unsurpassed, elsewhere.” It was to the various
circumstances to which we have referred that is mainly attributable
the fact of Cornish smuggling having survived for a considerable
period after “free trading” had been successfully put down along other
portions of the south and west coasts.
Roscoff, which, until the edict of the King of France of September 3,
1769, was but a tiny fishing hamlet, became (when made by that edict
a free port) one of the places on the French coast most frequented
by the Cornish smuggling fraternity, and rose to a position of great
commercial importance. The action of the French Government was brought
about by that of the English, who two years previously had passed an
Order with relation to the Channel Islands--till then a smugglers’
paradise with an enormous trade in contraband spirits, lace, tea and
tobacco--with the object of suppressing smuggling. And even during
the French War with Napoleon the contraband trade with the coast of
Brittany continued almost unabated. It should, however, be stated for
the credit of the smugglers that they frequently afforded important
information to the English naval authorities and the Government
regarding the movements of the French fleets and operations of
privateers, and for this reason, probably, the circumstances which led
to such information being obtained were generally not very closely
inquired into.
How extensive the smuggling trade was about this period and even a
little later may be gathered from the fact that more than a hundred
large vessels (luggers and cutters chiefly) were engaged in it upon
the south and south-west coasts alone. They varied in tonnage from
about 80 to 150 tons, and were not infrequently supplied with means
for armed resistance. They were built chiefly at Cornish ports,
Polperro, Falmouth, Mevagissey amongst the number, the boats of the
last-named port being especially noted for their speed. So much so that
they were frequently bought by the Sussex and east coast smugglers,
notwithstanding the fact that both Hastings and Shoreham enjoyed some
considerable reputation for the building of smuggling craft. Not a
few, too, of the larger luggers were during the French Wars fitted out
as privateers either by their smuggling owners, or merchants who had
purchased them for the purpose.
The carrying capacity of the vessels engaged in the trade may be
somewhat gauged from the fact that on June 10, 1823, a cutter of
twenty-five tons of East Looe took in a cargo of “within a few tubs of
700” of spirits at St Brelade’s Bay, Jersey, for transhipment to the
Cornish coast.
An interesting light is thrown, by the following recorded incident,
upon the life of the revenue men of the district, and the rivalry
which existed between them in the period which immediately preceded
the decline of the smuggling industry. During February, 1827, “the
commander of the _Lion_, revenue cutter, was reprimanded for allowing
his boat’s crew to take by force part of a ‘seizure’ made by the
coastguard boats of the Looe and Polperro stations.” The _Lion’s_ men,
either for gain or glory, the historian does not state definitely
which, upon coming up with the Polperro revenue boat, which was towing
a string of tubs, set to work to detach some of the latter from the
sinking rope. This attempt of the _Lion’s_ men to take possession of
spoil belonging by right of capture to the Polperro “preventives”
was stoutly resisted, and during the struggle the knives used by
the aggressors to sever the tubs came in contact with the fingers
of the commander of the Polperro boat, who appears to have suffered
considerably in consequence.
In the records of the coastguard service are many entries which show
how busy a part the “two Looes” played in the hazardous enterprises of
voyages to and from Roscoff, or Rusco as most smugglers called it, in
those distant times. In August, 1833, there were taken “One hundred and
fifteen tubs belonging to the _Dove_ (a rather favourite name, by the
way, amongst smugglers) by the Looe coastguard.” Then in the following
month there is an entry which conjures up visions of an only partially
successful “run,” for we find “Five tubs washed ashore at Looe, and a
boat marked _Fox_ (a much more suitable name than _Dove_ for smuggling
craft one would think) of Plymouth found on the beach a mile or so
west, and another tub in the cliff hard by.”
Then in the same month the _Elizabeth_, forced to drop some of her
cargo overboard when pressed by a revenue cutter off Seaton, just
across the bay, lost fifty-seven of her tubs to the Looe boat, which
fished up the line to which they were attached.
And a year or so later one reads of “the Looe lugger, _Morning Star_,
being chased off the Lizard by the Plymouth revenue cutter and lost
sight of in a fog.... Next day being again sighted and boarded but
found empty.” What a world of romance is to be found hidden in that
entry? A vision of an exciting chase, with the smugglers aboard the
_Morning Star_ doing all they knew (and that was much one may rest
assured) to give the cutter the slip. Perhaps even seeing to the
priming of pistols and muskets lest their attempt to escape should not
prove successful. And then the coming on of the merciful fog, the dark
night off Looe, the lowering of the boats, loading of the tubs, the
cautious rowing ashore towards the signal lights of those who waited
anxiously to assist at the run. Then the putting again to sea, the
falling in with the revenue cutter, and the innocent and doubtless
conciliatory interview when the _Morning Star_, after heaving to, was
boarded and searched and found--empty!
Looe must have been a busy place in those days, and many prosperous
folk, who though nominally fishermen seldom shot a net, there
undoubtedly were. It was no uncommon thing for a £1,000 cargo to be
brought safely across from Roscoff, and on a suitable night (a winter’s
night for choice with not much moon) landed and dispersed through the
usual channels on the shore a few miles east or west of Looe.
Those were rough times, too, ashore, when occasionally a coastguard
would disappear if found too successful or energetic in frustrating
the smugglers’ doings; but although tradition speaks of several such
disappearances details are wanting, and one can only hope for the
credit of the Cornish smuggler--who generally seems to have taken rough
luck with the smooth without the exercise of undue violence--that these
traditions have little foundation upon fact.
Looe, like Plymouth and other west country ports and places, in the
olden times possessed “instruments in the shape of a cage and ducking
stool or chair for the proper subjugation of women addicted to overmuch
exercise of their tongues,” and that these somewhat barbarous methods
were at least occasionally put into practice and to good and even
humorous account the following anecdote will show:
Bessy Niles and Hannah White, two women of East Looe, “having
quarrelled and exerted all their powers of oratory on each other,”
at last decided to appeal to the Mayor, a Mr John Chubb, for the
settlement of their dispute.
Each naturally wished to be first in the field, and thus lay her
case before his worship without interruption, and make the most
favourable impression. The first to arrive, however, was not long left
in possession of the mayoral ear, and so incensed was the other on
her arrival that she commenced to abuse the first comer with all the
eloquence of an unbridled tongue. His worship called the town constable
in self-defence, and when the latter arrived ordered him promptly to
“Take these two women to the cage, and there keep them till they have
settled their dispute.”
A decision, we think, that would have done credit to Solomon himself.
We are told by Mr Bond, the historian of this exciting event in the
history of East Looe, “They were immediately conveyed thither, and
after a few hours’ confinement became as quiet and inoffensive beings
as ever breathed!” If the “cage” of East Looe was anything like those
of other places we know of we can well believe that peace reigned after
but a short incarceration.
The Napoleonic invasion scare, which was renewed after the short-lived
treaty of Amiens, affected Looe as it did most towns on the south and
south-west coasts. “The country,” says Jonathan Couch, “from end to
end bristled with volunteers. Even those persons who were not actually
enrolled had some specific duty assigned to them in case of invasion,”
such as the exciting work of driving off the cattle inland, setting
fire to the corn, ricks, and other stores which could not be removed to
a place of safety. Many honest, though timid-hearted, individuals lived
in continual fear, dreading to go to bed, lest they should awake to the
call of French trumpets, in midst of the invaders’ troops, or perhaps
be foully murdered by “Boney’s” myrmidons whilst asleep. “A fear,”
says another historian of this period, “not altogether unreasonable
was entertained that a diversion would be made by sending an army into
Cornwall to draw hither the troops whilst the main efforts of the
invaders were directed against London.”
It is interesting to know the total number of Cornish folk who flocked
to the defence of their country in this crisis. In the year 1806 there
were enrolled in Cornwall no less than 8,362 men and 149 officers,
whilst the total effective force of the volunteer army in Great
Britain at the same period was 370,860, divided as follows: cavalry,
31,771; artillery, 10,133; infantry, 328,956. The Looe artillery
numbered seventy men. At Polperro, close by, there was a large force
of “sea-fencibles,” as they were called, armed with pikes; as well as
heavy artillery under the command of a naval captain. Details of the
uniform worn by the East and West Looe Artillery, which was commanded
by a Captain Bond, have been fortunately handed down to us. It was,
we are told, “blue with red facings, like the regular artillery (what
glory!), but with plain buttons. The men,” we are further told, “were
practised in the infantry exercise when not engaged with cannon. The
latter were naval eighteen pounders, fixed in the Church-end battery at
East Looe. The men were provided with clothes and had pay on those days
when they were paraded, but the officers had no pay and provided their
clothes at their own cost.”
Such is a fairly vivid picture of the times when Looe was a bustling
place.
But nowadays it has no such exciting incidents to disturb or stir
up the “sleepy hollow” character of its existence, although at one
time the place was engaged not only in contraband trade on a truly
magnificent scale, but enjoyed quite a large legitimate trade with the
ports of Eastern Europe. Except for its fishing fleet, which ventures
as far afield as the Irish coast on occasion, and the coming and
going of a trading brig or tramp steamer, the pretty harbour, which
lies as it were in a cleft between the hills, whose midway slopes are
tree-clad, preserves little indication of the bustling life of former
times; but, all the same, it is a spot in which to linger, and a snug
harbourage in almost all weathers.
Polperro is but a short six sea miles from Looe, and is too delightsome
a place to be passed by without threading its narrow entrance of less
than sixty feet between the piers, which makes it a veritable “needle’s
eye” not easily to be passed through save in a moderate and fair wind.
[Illustration: LOOE]
The name is said to be derived from Pol or Pool, and Perro supposed to
be a corruption of Peter, thus meaning Peter’s Pool, or perhaps Peter’s
Port. Old Leland describes it as “a fischer towne with a peere,” but
after a visit to it most people will agree that the description does
the place but scant justice, for indeed Polperro is a very charming
old-world spot.
The entrance is through a gap between two ledges of rock, and once
safely inside, the little town, which blocks the way up the narrow
valley in which it is situated, is straight before one, with the
fishermen’s dwellings picturesquely huddled together in the hollow
and climbing--with a few houses of greater size and importance--the
gorse-clad hillsides. It is a place enjoying some reputation with
holiday folk as well as artists and writers.
But sheltered as is this tiny Cornish village, lying with its feet in
the sea and its head often veiled in the blue-grey smoke which hangs
like a cloud of incense over the weather-worn roofs on still days, in
south-westerly, southerly and south-easterly gales the sea runs in
dangerously high, so much so, indeed, that in former times a boom used
to be strung across the harbour entrance to break the force of the
waves. Those who have by any chance heard the “organ note” of a gale
from either quarter we have named as it roars in at the entrance and
sweeps up the little funnel-like valley will not soon forget it. Then
with the fisherfolk it is a case of _sauve qui peut_ as regards the
boats.
The well-known antiquarian and naturalist, Jonathan Couch, who dwelt
many years in the village, and, amongst other things, left behind him a
history of the place descriptive of it and its many curious customs far
above the average of such local works, both from the points of literary
merit and interest, paints a picture of storm and stress at Polperro,
which we make no excuse for quoting at some length, as it is not only
vivid, but also typical of similar scenes to be witnessed “when the
stormy winds do blow” in many another haven on the Cornish coast. On
these occasions he says, “All who can render assistance are out of
their beds helping the sailors and fishermen, lifting the boats out of
reach of the sea, or taking the furniture out of the ground floors to
a place of safety.... When the first streak of morning light comes,
bringing no cessation of the storm, but only serving to show the
devastation it has made, the effect is still more dismal. The wild fury
of the waves is a sight of no mean grandeur as it dashes over the peak
and falls on its jagged summit, from whence it streams down the sides
in a thousand waterfalls and foams at its base. The infuriated sea
sweeps over the piers and striking against the rocks and houses on the
warren side rebounds towards the strand, and washes fragments of houses
and boats into the streets, where the receding tide leaves them strewn
in sad confusion.”
The truth of this description will easily be recognized by all who have
witnessed a storm and its effects upon the rock-bound Cornish coast.
Then there gather upon the points or bluffs above the harbour mouths,
or on the sea-swept piers and quays groups of frightened women and
children, and men with anxious faces gazing out over the wild expanse
of foam-flecked seas to watch for the return of the boats, or, maybe,
the manœuvres of some brave ship which has suddenly found herself on a
lee shore. Those are times when the heart-strings of men are taut, and
when the tears of women are in their eyes. Few sights are more sad,
either to sailor or to landsman, than the break up of a fine vessel
upon a rocky coast, when the heavy seas pound the strongest works of
men into matchwood, and the fabric of the ship seems indeed to dissolve
before one’s eyes.
Old Polperro folk--mostly women, it must be admitted--still talk with
bated breath of the uncanny doings of a certain John Stevens, who
dealt in occult arts in the middle part of the last century; and of
another “witch,” who dwelt in an outlying hut near the quaint village
of Crumplehorn, just a short distance up the valley. In the days, which
some of the old people yet remember, none would go near her hut after
dusk, and at least one old lady survived till comparatively recent
times who had seen (so she told us) “the devil or the witch flying up
out of the chimney on a broomstick.” But these were sights seen in days
when the little harbour was seldom entered except by the fishing craft
of the place itself, and strangers but once or so in a generation found
their way down by the steep hill road to the place where the sea meets
the land, and the murk of storm in winter days is so often, by reason
of the death and devastation wrought, a firmer limned memory than the
glorious clarity of Cornish sunshine and the azure tint of a summer sea.
Just as was the case at Looe the chief pursuits of Polperro men in the
period from about 1750 to 1835 were only somewhat remotely connected
with fishing, smuggling and privateering being much more to the taste
of these hardy and reckless seafarers; and, as Mr Couch points out,
the place was made for the enterprise. How universal the pursuit of
smuggling was at Polperro may be gathered from the following extracts:
“The smith left his forge, and the husbandman his plough; even the
women and children turned out to assist in the unlawful traffic,
and received their share of the proceeds.” The men, at all events,
generally fell into two classes--“tub carriers,” who carried the
“tubs” up the beach to the “cache,” or inland, as the case might be,
slung back and front by the “tails”[F] provided for the purpose on
the other side of the Channel; and the “batmen.” The former were paid
five shillings and upwards a night according to the number of “tubs”
they succeeded in carrying, and the latter, who gained their name from
the “bat” or bludgeon which they carried and on occasion used for the
protection of the carriers, were paid from fifteen shillings to a pound.
[F] Pieces of rope secured round each end of the “tub”
for this purpose and also for use should it be
necessary to sling the “tubs” overboard to avoid
capture.--_Smuggling Days and Smuggling Ways._
Of the speed and seaworthiness of the craft built at Polperro there
have been left several testimonies. Here is one from the _History of
Polperro_: “Fine craft too they turned out--clippers which, when manned
by skilful and intrepid sailors, would scud away from the fastest of
the Government cruisers and offer them a tow rope in derision.”
One famous craft, the _Unity_, is said to have made five hundred
successful trips, and have served on privateering expeditions without
having met with a single serious misadventure. Such boats were,
doubtless, also the notorious smuggling craft, the _Hope_, _Cruizer_,
_Exchange_, and _Happy Brothers_, all of Polperro, and constantly
engaged in trips to Roscoff in the first decade of the last century.
Several of them were heavily armed as well as strongly manned, and
there is little wonder that the “preventives” in this part of the west
country were sometimes lax in the exercise of their duty, and lived for
the most part on pretty good terms with the fisherfolk who were engaged
in the contraband trade.
It is improbable that the Polperro or indeed Cornish smugglers
generally recognized smuggling as in any way dishonest, or if they did
so, they certainly regarded it as a very trifling offence. And when one
remembers that the better-class people and even the gentry frequently
bought what spirits, tea and lace they required of the smugglers, and
that the “preventive” officers and men not seldom connived at the
running of cargoes, and were not above profiting from their laxness,
it is not to be wondered at that these bold fishermen, in whose veins
ran the blood of adventurers, and pirates of old, should engage in a
calling to which their hereditary character would be most naturally
adapted.
Sometimes, however, as was the case of Robert Marks, a noted Polperro
smuggler, who was killed in an affray with the revenue men on January
24, 1802, and whose epitaph expresses such Christian forbearance
towards his slayer, and hope of being rewarded “with everlasting
bliss,” serious encounters took place, and in the course of years
“much good blood and spirits were spilt along the coast.” But however
outwardly friendly the two opposing interests were, the _History of
Polperro_ records the fact that “though active opposition on the part
of the smugglers was not politic, the people determined, one and all,
to offer as much passive resistance as was safe. No one would let a
coastguardman a house to live in at any price, so the whole force was
obliged to make a dwelling and guard house of the hull of a vessel
which was moored to the old quay.”
So lucrative and attractive was “the trade” at Polperro, and so
uncomfortable and risky the “preventive” service, that there is a
record of at least three men who “verted” from the revenue service
and entered the ranks of active smugglers, one James Rowat, boatman
coastguard, having been dismissed the service in 1827 for purchasing a
boat “intended to be employed in smuggling.”
The fate which overtook boats taken _in flagrante delicto_ and
condemned was usually that of being sawn asunder in three pieces
and broken up; and many a fine lugger and cutter shared this unkind
fate, though occasionally very handy and swift sailers were not thus
destroyed but were taken into the revenue service, sometimes to be
repurchased later on by the smugglers for further illicit use.
But although smuggling loomed so large in the lives and occupations of
Polperro folk during the later years of the eighteenth and early years
of the nineteenth century it by no means formed the sum total of their
seagoing activities. The Polperro privateers were quite as famous in
their way as the smugglers. As was perfectly natural the stern training
which was necessary to fit men for the hazardous calling of smugglers,
the resource, good seamanship, weather lore, courage, and daring
proved equally of service when they were brought face to face with the
enemies of their country, whether between the decks of a frigate or
line-of-battle ship to which they had been drafted as a punishment for
some smuggling exploit, or aboard the swift-sailing Polperro luggers
turned for the nonce into free lances as privateers. There were quite a
number of stories of privateering days current amongst the older folk
a couple of decades ago. One or two are worth quotation, as they come
from the lips of active participants or descendants of those who took
part in the exploits narrated.
There was the case of the _Eagle_, “a heavily armed lugger of some 135
tons, which, finding itself becalmed some sixty miles south-east of
Land’s End one August morning in the year 1809, was somewhat dismayed
to discover a frigate, of undeniably French cut, coming up with the
wind, and accompanied by what appeared to be a large _chasse-marée_, or
privateer, probably hailing from the port of Brest.... The _Eagle_ was
perforce compelled to await the coming of the enemy, who, when about
three and a half miles off, ‘broke out’ the tricolour. Fortunately
the wind preceded the frigate’s coming by some two miles or more, and
although the privateer had advanced to within a mile or so of the
English boat, through sailing a shorter course and closer to the wind
than the frigate, and began to open fire, the _Eagle_ was able to trim
sails and head for Penzance.”
Then followed a running fight with the frigate’s bow chasers, throwing
shot short but continuously, and the shot of the _chasse-marée_
occasionally passing through the _Eagle’s_ sails or falling aboard.
As was often the case, “the English and French privateers gradually
outdistanced the larger and heavier vessel, as the breeze was light,
and by six in the afternoon had dropped her hull down.... An hour
later those aboard the _Eagle_ were relieved to see the frigate give
up the chase, and stand away for the French coast.... All these hours
the two smaller craft had scarcely changed the positions they occupied
when first they got within range of the long gun each apparently
carried.... And so the fight went on until almost dusk, when a lucky
shot from the bow chaser of the Frenchman brought the mainsail of the
_Eagle_ down on deck with a run.... Three of her crew had been killed
or seriously injured, and half a dozen more were hurt. Now overtaking
the English boat hand over hand the Frenchman (who afterwards proved
to be the _Belle Etoile_ of Brest) came alongside, and, after pouring
in a broadside of six guns, crashed into the _Eagle_. Luckily for the
Polperro men, the mainsail proved a barrier for a moment or two to the
advance of the Frenchmen, who swarmed over the after bulwarks, and
in the delay pistols were used to such effect as well as cutlasses
that half a score of Frenchmen were put out of action. Inch by inch,
however, the superior numbers of the _Belle Etoile’s_ crew gained
possession of the _Eagle’s_ deck, and drove the crew into the waist;
but by good luck one of the latter had thoughtfully (!) loaded one of
the smaller guns with pistol bullets, and he and two companions had
managed to get the piece inboard and had trained it on the Frenchmen,
who were pressing the Polperro men from the fore part of the ship....
There was an explosion, which lit up the vessel and the smoke-grimed
and bloody faces of the combatants, and a whole row of Frenchmen fell
riddled with balls, which but for the close range would have spread
more happily (!) and swept away the whole lot.”
This diversion decided the day or rather night, and we are told that,
“rallying with lusty cheers, the Polperro men not only drove the
Frenchmen overboard and back on to their own deck, but followed them
up, and after twenty minutes’ bloody work, which caused the deck of the
_Belle Etoile_ to run red, succeeded in gaining the mastery.... After
the mainmast had been ‘fished’ and a fresh yard hoisted, the _Eagle_
and her prize, the crew of which was twenty men stronger, and of four
more and heavier guns, laid a course for Falmouth, which was reached
next day in safety, after speaking one of His Majesty’s cruisers.”
From the _History of Polperro_ we take the second account of the
doings of its privateering fisherfolk. The story tells how when the
_Unity_, a hired armed lugger, was cruising in the Channel off Ushant,
with one Richard Rowett of Polperro in command, he discovered at
dawn one morning the presence of two French frigates, “one on either
side, who hoisted English colours, but from their build and rig he
(Richard Rowett) had his suspicions as to their nationality. All
doubts, however, were dispelled when a shot was fired across his bows
to bring him to, and both immediately displayed the French flag. The
nearest hailed him, and, considering the _Unity_ to be their prize,
ordered him to lie to while they boarded her. This order Captain Rowett
feigned to obey, and for the moment shortened sail; but when under the
lee of the enemy, who were both lying to, quite contentedly lowering
their boats with the sails aback, he suddenly spread all sail, passing
ahead of both frigates, took the helm himself, ordered the crew to lie
flat on the deck to escape the perfect shower of balls rained from
the bow chasers and muskets of the enemy, which, in their anger and
disappointment at so unexpectedly losing their prey, were fired on
them.” Such smart seamanship and daring well deserved the success with
which it met, and it is satisfactory to find that the “_Unity_ soon
escaped out of range without anyone being hurt, and with only very
slight damage being done to the sails and rigging.”
Very little trace of the stirring times of old is discoverable in the
peaceful life and law-abiding inhabitants of Polperro of these prosaic
twentieth-century days. It is just a charming little haven with the
quaintness which seems inseparable from all Cornish fishing villages,
redolent of many memories of gallant and daring deeds accomplished
by the ancestors of the contemplative fisherfolk who lounge in the
sunshine on the quay--still smoking, maybe, tobacco on which duty has
never been paid--when they are not engaged upon fishing expeditions or
in saving their boats and belongings during the gales which turn the
little haven into a roaring cavern of the winds.
Fowey, but seven miles further west, is a much more sophisticated
though perhaps not less charming place. For one thing, it has the
railway, and another it has, somehow or other, preserved a measure of
the importance and prosperity which belonged to it in the days when
it, too, owed much to contraband trade, privateering, and hazardous
enterprises.
As one enters the Fowey River between the headlands, one truly (in
the quaint words of old Carew) “lighteth on a fair and commodious
haven, where the tide daily presenteth his double service of flowing
and ebbing, to carry and recarry whatsoever the inhabitants shall be
pleased to charge him withal, and his creeks, like a young wanton
lover, fold about the land with many embracing arms.”
Amongst the famous folk who of recent years have come to dwell in
Fowey none has sung its praises more lustily than that engaging writer
who signs himself so modestly “Q,” but whose real name is A. T.
Quiller-Couch. In his novels he has put on record something at least
of the town’s social life and history. “Q” states that Fowey “has a
history, and carries marks of it.” And he also tells us: “The visitor,
if he be at all of my mind, will find a charm in Fowey over and above
its natural beauty, and what I may call its holiday conveniences for
the yachtsman, for the sea-fisherman, or for one content to idle in
peaceful waters.” And although he appears to lament that it no longer
has a Mayor and Corporation of its own (some may not deem this any
disadvantage or discredit) he hastens to assert that “it is as capable
of managing its affairs as any town of its size in Cornwall.”
No one who knows Fowey and its substantial charms will care to dispute
the justness of the eulogies of either of the writers we have quoted.
Fowey harbour is indeed a convenient and picturesque inlet, which
provides, after the headlands which guard the entrance are passed, a
good and pleasant anchorage for all the yachts (and they are many)
which come to it during the summer months, and to many other craft
besides. The creek, and afterwards the river, extends to quaint
Lostwithiel, six miles up, although the depth of water after the first
mile or so is not considerable. It is not merely a pleasure harbour,
either, for there is a considerable coasting trade, and huge vessels of
two or three thousand tons come into Fowey at times to load up with the
famous china clay of Cornwall for far distant countries of the world,
some of it, so it is asserted, to return again from China and Japan
transformed from amorphous masses into the delicate vases and egg-shell
pottery of the East, and coloured with designs the equal of which for
simplicity with effect only those lands can show.
In the town itself the salt sea breeze comes softened with that of
the wind from off the flower-clad heights above it, and from the
gardens of many of the cottages on the hill-slopes and upper portion
of the little town. In these gardens are many blossoms which find a
counterpart across the water on the coast of Brittany. The stocks,
roses, hollyhocks, crimson valerian, and wild yellow wall-flowers, and
“dragon’s tongue” flourish here in the gardens, and in the crevices of
the crumbling grey walls, as they do in Breton Morlaix; perhaps a link
with the past when Fowey, Cornwall, and Brittany were ever at warfare.
[Illustration: FOWEY]
Of these stirring days there are many traditions, and it is right that
there should be. Once Fowey was as noted as any port in the kingdom,
let alone the west country, for her seamen, seamanship, and her ships.
And when the third Edward, of daring enterprise, sought to gather
together a fleet for the attack and siege of Calais in the autumn
of 1346, Fowey’s contribution is the best indication of the town’s
importance in those days. To the king’s fleet the town sent no less
than forty-seven vessels, manned by nearly eight hundred men. London’s
quota was scarcely more than half as great as regards either ships or
seamen, and no other place in the kingdom, save Yarmouth with four
ships less, even approached the magnificent provision of Fowey.
The town of to-day is in some respects not unlike Dartmouth. It is
more open, one must admit, but there is the same close clinging of the
houses to the hillside, the narrow entrance, and the river flowing down
from Lostwithiel as does the Dart from Totnes. The streets are not
less picturesque than that of what may not improperly be considered as
the rival town, nor are they less steeply inclined; and there is just
the same air of peaceful antiquity in many of its winding alleys. The
long straggling street which leads from the railway station is narrow
enough to please the artistic eye, if not wide enough for present-day
convenience.
Fowey, however, shows some trace of modesty (for which, remembering its
stirring history and swashbuckling of old, one might not be prepared
to give it credit) when it merely calls its main thoroughfare Passage
Street, and not Fore Street or High Street as do many other less
important towns.
“Q” speaks of Fowey’s open-armed hospitality. This, too, is
demonstrated by the neighbourly way in which the houses lean up against
one another, and the manner in which the tortuous streets and by-lanes
intersect, and merge one into the other as though the chief aim they
had in view was self-effacement and the general puzzlement of the
stranger.
“The beginnings of Fowey,” one writer has told us, “are lost in the
mazes of antiquity. It is possible that Saxon pirates had a settlement
here which afterwards passed into the possession of others in whose
veins the rich blood of corsair ancestors had not been thinned by
enervating land pursuits or cessation from struggle with the elemental
forces of nature upon the narrow seas and, maybe, wider ones.” But
whatever those beginnings were, the situation of the place was such
as to commend itself irresistibly to the men who were its first
inhabitants. “Many have called them pirates,” says another writer, for
whom the character of the men of Fowey in past times seems of some
concern, “but what were pirates? Were they not the very men who built
up the greatness of England in the days when greatness upon the seas
was not of less importance than to-day, and was only obtainable by
irregular means?”
With which contention it is not easy for the student of history to
disagree. Those were days when _letters of marque_ were not required,
only a swift-sailing vessel, a good crew of daring men, and the much
adventuring spirit which distinguished most of the Cornish seaports at
a time even antecedent to what Hals refers to as “the warlike reigns of
our two valiant Edwards,” when, as he goes on to assert, “the Foyens
(not, however, without some inkling, we venture to deduce, of private
and personal gain) addicted themselves to backe their princes’ quarrels
by coping with the enemy at sea, and made return of many prizes, which
purchases (plunder) having advanced them to a good estate of wealth,
the same was heedfully and diligently employed and bettered by the more
civil trade of merchandize.”
Thus one gathers that the foundation of much of Fowey’s past greatness
was of questionable or “uncivil” origin, and that it was only when
Foyens had well-lined their nests that the more legitimate and peaceful
callings made any great appeal to them. So greatly did the piratical
enterprises prosper that Hals goes on to say, “It is reported sixty
tall ships (ships of size) did at one time belong to the harbour.”
Unfortunately, however, the bold men of Fowey did not confine their
energies to the backing of “their princes’ quarrels by coping with the
enemy at sea,” but sometimes fell foul of their fellow countrymen, as
was the case with the men of Winchelsea and Rye, to whom they refused,
when sailing near those ports, to “vaile their bonnets at the summons
of those towns,” with a result that the seamen of Winchelsea and Rye,
burning with indignation at the Foyens’ contempt, “made out with might
and maine against them, howbeit (as Hals goes on to tell us) with so
more hardy onset than happy issue, for the Foy men gave them so rough
entertainment as their welcome that they were glad to depart without
bidding farewell.”
In a ballad (too long for us to quote in full) the exploit of Nicol,
a widow’s son of Fowey, in capturing the celebrated Italian corsair
Giovanni Doria (known as John Dory), of the famous Genoese family of
the Dorias, who had been hired by the King of France to prey upon the
English during the wars of Edward III, is preserved, and testifies to
the old-time prowess of Fowey folk.
After Nicol had roamed the seas he sighted the vessel of the
redoubtable Giovanni, and with his “goodly bark with fifty good oars of
a side” promptly sought to engage the enemy. We are told in somewhat
rugged verse, in which there dwells not only a fine fighting spirit but
also some poetic licence:
The roaring cannons then were plied,
And dub-a-dub went the drum-a;
The braying trumpets loud they cried,
To courage both all and some-a.
The grappling hooks were brought at length,
The brown bill and the sword-a;
John Dory, at length, for all his strength,
Was clapt fast under board-a.
It seems, however, more than doubtful whether the cannons did roar at
the period at which the fight took place. It is more probable that this
was a touch of “local colour.”
When such successes attended Fowey arms--however unauthorized--it is
little wonder that the Foyens sent their ships not only scouring the
Channel in search of the French, but also along the Breton coast, “in
search of plunder and sometimes of women.”
The author of _The Complete History of Cornwall_ seems to have had
little real love for Fowey folk, whose deeds he recounts, however,
somewhat fully and with a suspicion of gusto. He tells us that the
pirates of Fowey became unconscionably rich, wicked, and bloodthirsty,
and that though, while enriching themselves, they must have assuredly
done the nation at large and the west country much service, they
were deserving of a fate not much less severe in character than that
which overtook the Cities of the Plain. So he tells us, with some
elation, how at length, tired of the Cornishmen’s depredations, some
Norman lords gained from Louis XI “a commission of mart and arms to
be revenged upon the pirates of Fowey town, and carried the design so
secret that a small squadron of ships and many bands of marine soldiers
was prepared and shipped without the Fowey men’s knowledge.”
This expedition set sail from Le Havre in the summer of 1457, and
ran down Channel with a fair wind along the French coast, and then,
striking across, in due time came in sight of Fowey, “where they lay
off at sea till night, when they drew in towards the shore and dropt
anchor, and landed their marine soldiers and seamen, who at midnight
approached the south-west end of Fowey town, where they killed all
persons they met with, set fire to the houses, and burnt one-half
thereof to the ground, to the consumption of a great part of the
inhabitants’ riches and treasures, a vast deal of which were gotten by
their pyratical practices.”
It is not difficult for the student of local histories, and of the
existing records of these troublous days, to conjure up from even the
scant details furnished by Hals the sad case of the terror-stricken
inhabitants of the little port as their enemies poured down into the
town by the path across the headland. Hals reproduces for us the scene
of sudden and fierce attack, the hasty gathering together of what men
there were in the town (for many must surely have been absent), the
fight in the dimly or unlit streets, the ruthless striking down of
women and children, and of the aged, the _sauve qui peut_, followed
by a mad rush across the harbour to the Polruan side in search of
safety on the further hills, and then the dawn, when the true amount
of the devastation wrought could be seen by the survivors. Much--nay,
the greater part--of the little town lay a heap of smoking ruins,
whilst in the narrow streets, or what had been such, lay many corpses,
some hacked beyond recognition and marking the stout resistance that
the individual had made to the onslaught of the Breton and Norman
marauders, whilst some lay charring amid the smouldering heaps of what
once had been homes.
It was with bursting, though, possibly, also thankful, hearts that
the survivors of this terrible night saw their enemies depart with
whatsoever booty they had saved from the flames and could easily bear.
“The news,” Hals tells us, “of the French invasion in the morning flew
far into the country, and the people of the contiguous parts as quickly
put themselves in arms, and in great multitudes gathered together in
order to raise the siege of Fowey, which the Frenchmen observing and
fearing the consequence of their longer stay, having gotten sufficient
treasure to defray the charge of their expedition, as hastily ran to
their ships as they had deliberately entered the town, with small
honour and less profit.”
Soon the Fowey men were afloat again, and “in their fresh gale of
fortune began to skim the seas with their often piracies,” making
descents upon the Breton and Norman coast and exacting a terrible
retribution for the ruthless doings of the Lord of Pomier and his men.
If one may accept without question the historian, they were not easily
satisfied, but many a Norman and Breton village and townlet on the
opposite coasts was burned and sacked ere the “slate was wiped clean.”
So considerable, indeed, was the damage done that no less a personage
than the King of France himself, Charles VIII, known as the Affable,
took the matter up and lodged a complaint with Edward IV. It was often
a case of rough justice, or rather injustice, in those days. Indeed,
justice unalloyed was not easily obtained, as the men of Fowey were
speedily to find, for when the king appointed a commission of inquiry
to sit at Lostwithiel, some at least of the commissioners appear
to have remembered that Fowey men were quick to avenge themselves.
That, indeed, on occasion, they had been no respecters of authority
(having but a short time before docked a king’s herald of his ears),
and so they did not come straight to the point with the men who had
transgressed, but entrapped them, and in this manner. The commissioners
having let it be known that they were come into those parts because
the king required men and ships for a new expedition, the Fowey men
were induced to ascend the river to Lostwithiel, and promptly (for
their loyalty was unquestionable, though their obedience at times left
something to be wished for) placed their lives and ships at their
Sovereign’s disposal.
But the appeal to their loyalty was but a ruse of the commissioners,
who, “when the chief men of Fowey were come, promptly seized upon them,
took their goods, and without any delay hung their leader.” But this
was not all, nor the worst, that could happen, for their rivals, the
men of the Dart, were allowed to come to Fowey, to seize the vessels
in harbour, and remove the chain which (like the one that guarded
approach to Dartmouth) was stretched across the mouth of the haven to
bar the entrance against their enemies.
What the feelings of the Fowey men may have been at this severe and
somewhat unjust punishment (for, after all, they were not worse pirates
than the men of other Devon and Cornish ports) history does not tell
us, but certain it is that the town never entirely recovered from the
blow, and that its later prosperity was but a poor shadow of its old
wealth and reputation.
No longer did the men of Fowey range the Channel, making strenuous
and successful warfare upon the king’s enemies, and thus for full two
centuries the town played no great part in the history of the west
country. Indeed, it is not until the reign of Charles II and the year
of the Great Fire that the veil which hides the doings of Fowey lifts
for a moment, and shows us that the ancient daring and the sturdy
spirit of the inhabitants still survived. After the action in the
Channel between the Dutch and English fleets in June, 1666, the latter
chased the Virginia fleet, which took refuge in the Fowey estuary and
river, and, as Hals puts it, “sailed up the branches thereof as far as
they could and grounded themselves on the mud lands thereof.”
Upon the Dutch fleet appearing off Fowey and becoming aware of this, a
doubly-manned frigate was detached from the main body, which remained
cruising off the harbour mouth, with the mission of entering the haven
and destroying the English ships. There were, however, two forts, one
on either side of the entrance, and as soon as the Dutch ship “came
within cannon shot of those forts she fired her guns upon the two
blockhouses with great rage and violence, and these made a quick return
of the like compliment. In fine, the fight continued for about two
hours’ time, in which were spent some thousands of cannon shot on both
sides, to the great hurt of the Dutch ship in plank, rigging, sails,
and men, chiefly because the wind slacked or turned so adverse that
she could not pass quick enough between the two forts up the river.”
In the end the attempt to destroy the fleet had to be abandoned,
although one cannot quite comprehend why a general bombardment was not
undertaken of “Fowey’s little castles,” to the credit of which and to
Fowey gunners the repulse of the Dutch was due.
Never again, so far as we have been able to discover, did the Fowey
forts play so gallant a part in defence of England and of English
ships. Possibly they were made ready to do so when the shadow of
Napoleonic invasion rested so heavily on the towns and seaports of our
southern coasts. Who can tell? But we have found no record of even the
fringe of the fighting, which made the Channel an almost ceaseless
naval battleground during the long French War, having touched the town
of Fowey itself. The coming and going of privateers alone, and the
enterprises of the daring smugglers who made the town notorious in the
annals of contraband trade may be said to have kept the place in touch
with the stirring events of the last years of the eighteenth and early
ones of the nineteenth centuries.
Jonathan Couch, in his _History of Polperro_, has something to say
concerning the bold smugglers of Fowey. And his account of one of many
lawless incidents gives one a very vivid idea of the state of things
which existed in the district towards the close of the eighteenth
century.
“On one occasion,” he writes, “intelligence had been received at Fowey
that a ‘run of goods’ had been effected at Polperro during the previous
night, and several men of a cutter’s crew were accordingly sent as
scouts to get all the information they could. At Landaviddy they met
with a farm labourer, who, it was suspected, had been engaged in this
particular transaction; they tried to extract information from him by
stratagem, but finding that he was not to be entrapped they tried the
opposite plan, and threatened him with immediate impressment into the
king’s service if he did not tell them where the goods were hidden.
They succeeded in frightening him, and he informed them that a large
number of kegs were hidden in a certain cellar above Yellow Rock, which
he promised to point out by placing a chalk mark on the door.
“Having from the opposite hill seen this done, a portion of the crew
returned to Fowey to get a reinforcement. Headed by the Custom House
officers they soon returned, and proceeded in the direction of the
cellar. The arrival of the force and their object was discovered,
and a band of desperate smugglers, armed with cutlasses and pistols,
assembled on New Quay Head, which place commanded an open view of
the cellars which contained the kegs. A large gun was drawn down,
and loaded and pointed, while a man with a match stood by, waiting
the command of the skipper to fire. The revenue men were then defied
and threatened in a loud and determined voice. They consulted their
prudence, and resolved to send for a still stronger force. In a few
hours a well-armed band arrived and rushed into the cellar, but found,
to their great disappointment, that, although the place had been
watched from the outside, the kegs, which had really been there, had
been removed they knew not whither.”
In the twenties and thirties of the last century Fowey carried on a
brisk smuggling trade with Roscoff, and in November of the year 1832
we read the following: “The _Rose_ sailed from Roscoff for Fowey with
100 tubs of brandy,” and a little later on in the same month the fact
is recorded that the _Eagle_, thirty-five tons, and _Rose_, eleven
tons, both of Fowey, left Roscoff, bound for the Cornish port. Another
famous smuggling craft of Fowey, which made many trips across Channel,
and was remarkably successful with her runs, and in eluding and also
deluding the revenue authorities and cutters, was the _Dove_. This boat
was commanded by one of the Dunstans, members of a famous smuggling
family, of whom one was living till about twenty years ago, full of
romantic stories of the daring deeds of the old “free trading” days.
Enough has, however, been said to give some idea of Fowey of the past.
Of Fowey of the present very little more need be added to what we have
already set down. Although there are many quaint nooks, there are
but two historically important buildings surviving from the days of
old. One is the fine parish church of St Fin Barre of Cork, standing
a little way up the hillside. This church was rebuilt in about 1336,
and was appropriately rededicated to St Nicholas, the patron saint of
sailors. The interior is of very fine proportions, and there are quite
a number of interesting monuments, notably one in alabaster to John
Rashleigh. Although the building has at various times been altered and
restored, the work has, on the whole, been judicious, and has in no
way destroyed the effect of its beautiful and impressive proportions.
The exquisite choir screen, though modern and dating only from 1896,
is in the style of one of the fine fifteenth-century Devonian screens.
The oak pulpit will have a romantic interest for many, inasmuch as it
is traditionally supposed to have been made out of the timbers of a
Spanish galleon, a prize of Fowey men in the fifteenth or sixteenth
century.
The other building of note is Place House, which stands, with its
castellated tower showing above the trees and surrounding houses, quite
close to the church. It has been for many centuries the family mansion
of the Treffry family, and in it is a wonderful porphyry hall, but it
is, after all, the romantic element of the building rather than the
place itself which has most appeal.
It was in this house that a few men of Fowey, with some women and
children, gathered and took refuge on the disastrous night in 1457,
when the French, under the Lord of Pomier, landed and sacked the town.
Hals writes of the incident thus: “The stoutest men, under conduct of
John Treffy, Esquire, fortified themselves as well as they could in his
then new-built house of Place, yet standing, where they stoutly opposed
the assaults of the enemies, while the French soldiers plundered that
part of the town which was unburnt without opposition in the dark.”
One is happy to know that Place was not taken and sacked, like the rest
of the town, on that night of long ago, when the streets ran blood, and
women and children were ruthlessly massacred, but stands very much as
it was in Hals’s day. At various times the house has been restored and
practically rebuilt, but it contains many fine and unique relics of
Tudor times, including the chair in which Queen Elizabeth sat when on a
visit to the then Bishop of Exeter.
One leaves Fowey and its calm, still harbour and environing hills,
upon which the houses with their red and grey roofs are grouped so
quaintly, with regret. A savour of the past seems to hang about the
place, bringing to mind some sad reflections of a bygone greatness; but
it is, nevertheless, a charming spot, to which one returns again and
again with delightful memories of previous visits to induce equally
delightful anticipations of pleasure.
Round Gribben Head and then, without putting into St Austell Bay, we
come to quaint little Mevagissey, eight sea miles or so distant from
Fowey. The harbour is good, and the fishing industry makes the place
both busy and picturesque. The church, dedicated to St Mewa and St
Ida, is a fine one, but lacks the tower which in former times was so
prominent a feature of the little town.
Heavy seas run at Mevagissey, at times so high, indeed, that the
lighthouse at the end of the south outer breakwater cannot be used.
Mevagissey, however, is worth putting into, for it is an interesting
little place, and a typical Cornish fisher port. Quite close to the
town is all that now remains of the once fine mansion of the famous
Cornish family, the Bodrigans of Gorran and Restronguet, which latter
name has as much a Breton flavour as many others hereabouts, notably
Lannion, and the two Penpouls or Paimpols, which one finds also on the
opposite coast.
These Bodrigans were a fighting stock, but, unhappily, in the reign of
the third or fourth Edward the male line became extinct; but on one of
the heiresses of the family marrying a Henry Trenowith, their son was
afterwards knighted by Edward IV as Sir Henry Bodrigan, thus reviving
the ancient and honourable house.
A romantic, and somewhat apocryphal, legend is connected with this
Sir Henry and a rock under Chapel Point, to the south of Mevagissey
Bay. The Bodrigans, as was natural, espoused the cause of York during
the Wars of the Roses, and in consequence lived at variance with most
of their neighbours, who were Lancastrians. Amongst these were the
Trevanions of St Michael Carhayes, the Edgecombes, and the Haleps of
Lammoran.
Ultimately, of course, Sir Henry--who appears to have been somewhat
of a quarrelsome nature and unneighbourly beyond the needs of the
times--found himself on the losing side, and after the disastrous
defeat of the Yorkists at Bosworth Field on August 22, 1485, he fled to
his Cornish home, and went into hiding. His enemies, however, and those
who had any grudge against him for over-bearing ways in the past, soon
heard of his presence in the district and forthwith set out, led by Sir
Richard Edgecombe, to capture him and either hand him over to Henry VI,
or perhaps execute rough justice upon him themselves.
Hearing of the approach of his enemies in time Sir Henry was just able
to escape from the house and make straight for the sea. Hotly pursued,
he reached Chapel Point. With nothing but the sea in front of him
there was, apparently, after all, no escape, and his enemies (who had
by this time sighted the fugitive) shouted with exultation. Their joy
was, however, somewhat premature, for Sir Henry, arrived at the edge of
the cliff, which was here about 100 feet high, promptly jumped over!
When Sir Richard Edgecombe reached the spot with his followers, and
peered down below expecting to see his enemy’s mangled and lifeless
body, he was astounded and filled with impotent rage to see Sir Henry
escaping in a small boat to a vessel which was standing by just a
little way from the shore. The fugitive reached France in safety, but
his estates were forfeited to the Crown, and granted to the Edgecombes,
who had, doubtless, had in view some such reward for their loyalty when
they chased Sir Henry over Chapel Point and caused him to take a dive
which would have taxed the nerve of a Webb, considering the rocks which
lay beneath.
Gorran Haven, another quaint and pretty spot, lies midway between
Chapel Point and the Dodman. It takes its name from the Cornish prince,
Geraint, whose name has been preserved in that and many other places.
Geraint was buried, so ’tis said, on Carn Beacon, which rises some 400
feet high on the other side of Penare Head. Tradition had it for many
ages that with Geraint’s body was buried much treasure in the shape
of gold ornaments and vessels. Until 1855, however, he was allowed to
rest in peace. Then came disturbers, who dug up the old Cornish ruler’s
bones, but found no treasure to reward the sacrilege. So Geraint was
re-interred, and rests as of yore in sight of the lovely panorama of
headland and sea upon which in life he must have often gazed.
All this land is full of legend as engrossing as the _Morte D’Arthur_
itself, just as it is full of rare, wild beauty of coastline, and
lovely indentations; but we must on to Falmouth. Past the stern, bold
Dodman, which impresses most seafarers as being finer and more abiding
than either the Start or Lizard, and past lovely Veryan Bay, with its
sheer cliffs scored by many picturesque ravines, and charming coves,
and also past Gerrans Bay.
And so to Zose Point, between which and the beautiful headland
opposite, upon which Pendennis Castle stands, is the entrance to
Falmouth and its wonderful haven, in the roads of which a battle fleet
can float.