On the accession of Charles II. the intruding Puritan divine James Innes
was quickly ejected. He found refuge for the remainder of his life in
the household of the Earl of Lauderdale. It would seem that at the time
of the ejection of Innes, William Orcharde had become too old and infirm
to resume his office as vicar of Breage, and thus it came about that
James Trewinnard, a member of the ancient family long settled at
Trewinnard, in the Parish of St. Erth, succeeded to the benefice in
1661. He also held the living of Mawgan conjointly with that of Breage,
according to the lax custom of the times. On his death, which took place
at Mawgan, the parish in which he had chosen to reside, he was succeeded
at Breage by Henry Huthnance. Judging by his name Henry Huthnance was of
local origin, and at any rate was a connection of the family of
Robinson, of Nansloe; he lies buried in Breage churchyard at the east
end of the Chancel wall, between his predecessor, the learned and
saintly Francis Harvey, and one of his successors, William Eusticke, of
whom more anon. On the death of Henry Huthnance, in 1720, James
Trewinnard, son of the former incumbent of that name, became vicar; like
his father, he held jointly the two benefices of Breage and Mawgan. He
was a graduate of Pembroke College, Cambridge. He was succeeded in 1722
by Edward Collins, bachelor of laws. This incumbent, like several of his
predecessors, was also dowered with the living of St. Erth. Edward
Collins was the son of the Reverend John Collins, vicar of Redruth, and
was closely connected with many of the local county families. Indeed, it
may be said of practically all the incumbents onwards from the
Reformation to the middle of the last century that weighty local
connections were their chief passport to preferment. A mournful interest
attaches to his successor, Henry Eusticke. He came of the old Cornish
family of Eusticke, of Nancealvan, and had married Mary Borlase,
daughter of the then vicar of Madron. He was a man of undoubted learning
and literary attainments, and an acknowledged authority on the ancient
Cornish language, and did much during his not very long life in
collecting written fragments of the ancient tongue.[43] He also
published after the custom of the times[44] a collection of verses and
epigrams. Unfortunately for Henry Eusticke, he lived in different times
from those of his easy-going predecessors. The age had begun to grow
impatient of easy-going cultured clerical somnolence. John Wesley, like
other great men, seems to have been a symptom rather than the cause of
the deep spiritual ferment associated with his name. The stirrings were
already in the souls of the people; all that was needed was some passing
cause to set these forces in motion. If proof were needed it is only
necessary to realise how incapable John Wesley found himself of guiding
the movement into the rigid mould that he had designed for it. The
reaper can only gather in the harvest when it is ready to his sickle: he
cannot create the harvest.
I give John Wesley's experience at Breage in his own words from his
diary; they do not make pleasant reading because they present the
spectacle of two good men utterly incapable of understanding each
other's position. "I had given no notice of my preaching here, but
seeing the poor flock from every side, I could not send them away empty.
So I preached at a small distance from the house and besought them to
consider our Great High Priest, who is passed into the heavens, and none
opened his mouth, for the lions of Breage are now changed into lambs.
That they were so fierce ten years ago is no wonder, since the wretched
Minister told them from the pulpit, 'Seven years before I resigned my
fellowship John Wesley was expelled from the College for a base child
and had been quite mazed ever since,' that all the Methodists in their
private Societies put out the lights, etc., etc., with abundance more of
the same kind. But a year or two since it was observed he grew
thoughtful and melancholy, and about nine months ago went into his house
and hanged himself."
After reading this indictment of poor Mr. Eusticke, a Fellow of his
College and a learned man, one naturally asks oneself the question, who
were the informants of John Wesley as to this wild tirade from the
pulpit? The writer was once informed in all good faith by an old woman
that a clerical neighbour in a former parish, given to preaching on
Christian evidences, had stated from the pulpit his belief "That there
was no God at all, and that he would never get her to hold such a
belief." The writer is inclined to put these two statements in the same
category, whilst attributing them perhaps to a very different attitude
of mind. With all his saintly enthusiasm, John Wesley seems to have
been, like many other saintly men, of a somewhat credulous disposition;
and his attributing the death of Mr. Eusticke to the fact that he
opposed himself to him, to say the least, suggests a somewhat unbalanced
condition of mind.
On the other hand, to the latitudinarian and philosophic Henry Eusticke,
John Wesley would no doubt appear as a lawless and erratic High Church
Clergyman, who out of pure self-will, in defiance of the orders of his
Bishop, went about obtruding himself into parishes where he had no
jurisdiction, and generally turning the world upside down. It was
enthusiasm, however, and not cold moralities, coupled with a Dr. Panglos
attitude towards all constituted things, as making for the best of all
possible worlds, that was going to change the hearts of the people. The
pity of it all is that the mutual prejudices between John Wesley and his
brother clergy ended in one more cruel rent in the seamless garb of the
Church--in making the holiest aspirations of the human heart, which
should have been the chiefest strength of the Church, into a source of
discord and division.
In speaking of John Wesley one is naturally reminded of another saintly
character, the tenderest episodes in whose career are closely bound up
with the parish of Breage. John Wesley confined his labours to people of
his own race and language; Henry Martyn sought to become the Apostle of
India and Persia. The connection of Henry Martyn with Breage was due to
Lydia Grenfell, the lady to whom he was engaged, having made her home to
a large extent with her brother-in-law, a Mr. Wylliams, who for many
years acted as curate-in-charge of Breage, for a non-resident pluralist
incumbent. Henry Martyn thus came to pass many happy days in what is now
the old Vicarage at Breage, previous to his departure for India. In his
diary he pathetically tells us how he proposed spending the last Sunday
in England at St. Hilary with Lydia Grenfell, but early in the morning
of that day a messenger arrived from Falmouth with the news that the
troopship in which he was sailing was about to put to sea with all
possible speed. He immediately started from St. Hilary by road, passing
through Breage on his way. There is a touching pathos in the statement
in his diary that he anxiously waited on deck till the ship in which he
sailed passed the Lizard Point, that he might search the twilight coast
for the familiar landmarks linked with the tenderest associations of his
life--one of the most prominent of which would be the old grey tower of
Breage Church, visible on clear days far out to sea--but, alas! as the
ship rounded the Lizard the whole coast lay embedded in thick banks of
cloud, and as the darkness fell and the ship forged out to sea this
lonely pioneer of the faith descended to his cabin, and poured out his
soul in prayer, that in the distant East, to which he was voyaging, he
might win kingdoms for Christ. This first of the great modern English
Missionaries was never fated to see the home of his youth again; his lot
was not to win kingdoms for Christ, but to find a martyr's grave in
Persia. Lydia Grenfell rests at Breage under the shadow of the old grey
Church on the hill overlooking the sea.
With the death of the second Earl of Godolphin in the middle of the
eighteenth century, rank and fashion took leave of the parish of Breage,
and the chief events in its annals became in the future mining
speculations, with occasional wrecks and alarms of invasion.
During the summer months, in the time of Sidney Godolphin, Godolphin
House had been the constant rendezvous of the leading families of the
County, and a great centre of social life. The great Minister whilst in
residence at Godolphin had relays of messengers, who brought on his
despatches from Exeter--as far as that town they seem to have been
entrusted to the ordinary post; in those days, it may be added, no
regular post linked Cornwall with London, Exeter being the extreme
postal limit of the West. To Godolphin House, therefore, during the
short residences of the Lord High Treasurer of England, came men in
search of the crumbs of patronage that fell from the Minister's table,
or to hear news of the outer world, or of what transpired at Court and
who was likely to succeed on the Queen's demise, and how it fared with
Marlborough in the great war, many no doubt of the varied throng having
relatives serving under him.
During the Napoleonic wars a Signalling Station was established on
Tregoning Hill, and anxious watch kept over the seaward horizon for
French Fleets which never hove in sight, whilst tradition says rumours
of invasion from time to time stirred the public mind to fear.
But the real events in the sequestered life of the district, beyond the
mere fluctuations in the prosperity of the tin trade, which stirred the
pulses of public interest were the harvest of shipwrecks which the
winter storms yielded each year to the inhabitants. The merits and
values of the cargoes of the different wrecks were never-failing topics
of interest round the firesides, memories of which still linger in the
minds of the aged. The invention of steam told sadly against the value
of this annual winter harvest: now it is steam and steam trawlers that
ruin the local fishing industry, then it was steam striking a death blow
at the local industry of wrecking. Old men have told the writer a
legend, told to them by men of a still older generation, of one of the
first steamers to appear on the coast. The inhabitants concluded with
regard to it that it was a ship on fire, and consequently followed it in
ever increasing numbers along the coast, anxious to participate in the
good things in the hold of the ship when her crew beaten by the flames
drove her on shore. The establishment of the Wolf Lighthouse within
comparatively recent years, the fitful gleam of whose red eye is clearly
visible from our shores far out to sea, has practically brought to an
end the dismal tale of wrecks and drowned sailors that each year
produced. Until well on into the last century it was the custom to bury
drowned sailors in trenches along the shore; the place where a number of
these unfortunate mariners lie heaped together in one common burial,
without religious rites, is still marked by the broken conformation of
the ground. From the fact that drowned mariners and voyagers received
this unhonoured sepulture, our Church Burial Registers are of no avail
as a guide to the history of the innumerable wrecks on our six miles
strip of coast. Not till after 1850 do we find any record of the burial
of those cast up by the sea in the Churchyard.
The Church Registers for the year 1867 record one of those tragedies of
the sea, shrouded in mystery which can never be unravelled. In the
failing light of the evening of the 7th January of that year, in the
midst of a heavy gale, a large sailing ship was seen off the coast at
Rinsey by several people; the gathering darkness soon shrouded her from
the eyes of the few watchers. She was never seen again, next morning the
shore was strewn with wreckage and with dead, but no fragment bearing
the name of the ill-fated ship was ever found. She had evidently struck
on a reef of rocks a mile or so from the coast, only to slip off them
during the wild, tempestuous night and to disappear in the depths of the
sea. This ship was evidently a foreign one, as most of the drowned were
of dark and swarthy appearance.
After a valued incumbency of nearly forty years, the Reverend Maurice
Pridmore was succeeded in 1889 by the Reverend Jocelyn Barnes, who, with
self-denying generosity, set about the restoration of Breage and Germoe
Churches. The work was taken in hand almost immediately after Mr.
Barnes' arrival, and was carried to its completion by Mr. Barnes at
great personal cost to himself. In this labour of love he was greatly
assisted by the eighth Duke of Leeds, the heir of the ancient House of
Godolphin, and the Right Honourable W. H. Smith, through whose
instrumentality he had been appointed to the living, whilst the
Parishioners and Landowners assisted in the good work according to their
several abilities. Dilapidations in the fabrics of both Churches were
carefully renovated, and the beautifully-carved oak screen and reredos
placed in Breage Church. The reredos was the work of Belgian artists,
and like the screen is composed of oak, whilst the carved figures which
adorn it are of lime wood. The central group of figures represents the
adoration of the Magi; in this group appear the figures of St. Breaca,
St. Germoe and St. Corentine, the patron Saint of Cury, who is said to
have been the first Bishop of Cornwall; the carved figures on either
side of this main group represent St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Anselm and
St. John the Baptist, each with their appropriate emblem; beneath these
figures, each in its separate niche, are the beautifully carved figures
of the four Evangelists, two on either side. On the screen, amongst
numerous emblems of a religious character, occurs the Godolphin crest,
with the Cornish motto of the family, "_Frank ha leal ettoge_," linked
with the motto of the saintly Margaret Godolphin, "_Un Dieu un amy_."
The fragments of ancient glass, which, as previously stated, were found
in the walled-up staircase leading to the rood loft, were once more
placed in the windows after having been carefully pieced together. It
was also during the restoration that the frescos adorning the walls of
the Church were discovered, hidden beneath successive layers of
whitewash that had accumulated upon them during the course of centuries.
The figures represented in the frescos are St. Christopher, bearing the
infant Christ upon his shoulder, a large figure of our Lord with the
crown of thorns, whilst the drops of blood caused by it are falling upon
the instruments of daily village life and husbandry, thus symbolising
that the business and tasks of our daily lives are blessed and
sanctified by our Lord's sacrifice, and that no human work is too lowly
to be recognised by the Saviour of the world; the two foregoing figures
are in a wonderful state of preservation, whilst the other figures,
which practically cover the walls of the body of the Church, and are
in a more or less faded and obliterated condition, consist of
representations of St. Hilary, St. Ambrose, St. Corentine, St. Michael,
St. Giles, St. Germoe and St. Thomas of Canterbury.
At the time of the restoration, in making certain necessary excavations,
large numbers of human bones in extremely shallow graves were discovered
all over the interior of the Church. One large vault was found in the
nave, a little in front of the site of the present pulpit, quite empty
save for a handful of bones. This vault was about seven feet deep. All
the remains found beneath the flooring of the Church were carefully
buried under the superintendence of Mr. Barnes in this empty vault
beneath a large cross of flowers; the vault was then carefully covered
over with concrete. Amongst the bones deposited in this receptacle were
the six skeletons mentioned in a former chapter, which were found lying
side by side, their skulls perforated with bullet wounds.
In 1910 Mrs. Cornelia Carter, of Philadelphia, U.S.A., placed a clock in
the Church tower to the memory of her husband, Mr. William Thornton
Carter, who, leaving Breage as a comparatively poor lad, rose to a
position of great wealth in America. In his latter years his memory
often turned with affection to the far-off Cornish home of his youth,
and he used to speak fondly of the old village Church with its far
reaching view over the waters of the Atlantic, under the shadow of whose
grey tower he passed as a little lad each morning on his way to school.
At the same time were placed in the Church three windows to different
members of the Carter family.
The gifts of the Carter family to the Church stirred the parishioners to
the putting in order of the huge single bell, the largest in Cornwall,
which had long hung mute in the belfry. The quaint motto "_Complures
populo, suppetit una Deo_," runs round the base of the bell, with the
date of its casting in 1771. This motto may be roughly translated "The
people desire many bells, but one suffices God." This curious motto
supplies a hint at the cause of the casting of this bell; the event
happened during the incumbency of the Reverend Edward Marshall. It seems
that it was the custom of those days for the bell ringers of the
neighbouring village Churches to exchange visits of friendly rivalry. On
these occasions quantities of strong waters found their way into the
belfries, and their fumes into the brains of the ringers, with the
result that the bells
"In the startled ear of night,
Too much horrified to speak
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune:
Leaping, higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavour,
Now, now, to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells,
Of despair!
How they clang and clash and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!"
On one of these uproarious occasions the tenor bell broke away from its
fastenings, and instead of sitting by the pale-faced moon, it came
crashing through the belfry floor on to the flags at the base of the
tower, nearly annihilating in the process some of the exuberant ringers.
The nocturnal clash and roar seems, if tradition speaks true, to have
frequently lasted all through the night. On New Year's Eve especially it
was the custom to continue ringing the bells through the majority of the
hours of darkness that remained after midnight. There being no
regulations as to the hour of closing public houses in those days, on
these occasions of festivity they remained open until all hours of the
morning, and strong waters thus passed freely between the public house
and the belfry, the distance being so short between them. The endless
jangle of the midnight bells, it is said, got on the nerves of the
Reverend Edward Marshall; more possibly his sense of decency and fitness
was stirred by these wild doings. To remedy the evil he took the drastic
action of melting the four mediæval bells down into the present big one
on the fall of the tenor bell from its fastening in the tower, much
against the wishes of his parishioners, as the motto round the base of
the bell more than hints. The process of recasting took place in the
large field on the south side of the Church. This drastic operation only
seems to have made matters worse, as on the following New Year's Eve, a
lusty band of Tinners took possession of the belfry, and the awful
"boom," "boom" of the big bell, in ceaseless iteration, sounded out over
land and sea, banishing sleep through the livelong night from all within
easy distance of Breage Church Tower.
We may remark that Edward Marshall was a Fellow of Exeter College,
Oxford, and son of the Reverend William Marshall, of Ashprington,
Devonshire. His wife was a member of the Sandys family, of Lanarth, and
his grandson long represented Taunton in Parliament.
The Germoe bells were purchased by public subscription and placed in
Germoe Church in 1753. The tenor bell, weighing 7 cwt., merely records
the names of Edward Collins, vicar, and Samuel Lemon and Simon Harry,
Churchwardens; the second bell weighs 5-1/2 cwt., and has engraved upon
it "Prosperity to this parish." The treble bell, weighing 4-1/2 cwt.,
records the fact that "Abraham Rudhall caste us all." The Communion
plate both at Breage and Germoe was the gift of Dr. Godolphin, Dean of
St. Paul's; he was the brother of the great Sidney Godolphin. The plate
in all consists of three very large silver-gilt flagons, two cups, one
large silver paten and two small ones; these bear the date 1692. The
entry recording the gift which appears in the Church registers runs as
follows: "The gift of plate to our parish by Dr. Henry Godolphin and the
Communion table railed in, in the year of our Lord Christ, 1693, Richard
Carleen."
The registers date from 1559, but contain a number of breaks, the
largest of which naturally begins with the latter years of the
Protectorate, and for some unexplained reason continues well on into the
reign of Charles II. The registers make it clear that at the time of
their commencement there were still a number of people living in this
remote corner of the West without any surname at all; such entries as
"Wilhelmus servus Wilhelmi Polkynhorne," "Johes servus Stepeni
Treworlis," and "Margareta filia Thoms Robert," are all culled from the
first page of the burial register. Gradually at this period the
Christian names of the fathers were being adopted by the sons as
surnames. The surnames Richards, Edwards, James, Thomas, Johns,
Williams, Stephens were thus evolved; Richards or Williams being in the
first instance mere abbreviations of the possessive form, son of Richard
or son of William; quite ninety per cent. of the surnames in the parish
fall under this head.
The great majority of the surnames in the parish which have not been
formed in the foregoing way were in their original form local place
names. The entry "Johes servus Stepheni Treworlis," given in the
preceding paragraph, gives us an example of the method of their
adoption; the descendants of Stephen Treworlis in succeeding
generations, as the registers show, being grouped under the names of
Stephens or Treworlis, no doubt as chance or fancy had decided.
The following extracts from the registers recording either the marriage
or deaths of the persons mentioned bring out another curious factor in
the formation of local surnames, "Jo Brown, alias Uninformed," "Thomas
Sampson, alias Cunning Boy," "John Arthur, alias Plain Dealing"; these
entries all occur previous to 1696: at later dates we have "Jane the
daughter of Edmund the Tod-stoole," "Thomas, alias Punch of Germoe."
Scattered through the registers we also find the elegant aliases "Two
Suppers," "Stink," "Ginger," "Dissembler," "Onwise." A series of entries
dating from 1713 show us how these nicknames in the course of time
crystallized into actual surnames. In 1713 we have the entry "Nicholas
Cornish, alias Cold Pye," in the following year he is mentioned as
Nicholas Cornish Coldpy, whilst in later years he figures in the
registers simply as Nicholas Colpy. It is interesting to speculate upon
the attempts at derivation that an antiquary or genealogist not knowing
the true facts might devise as an explanation of the surname "Colpy."
A further curious instance of the method of the formation of local
surnames is vouchsafed in our rather common surname "Meagor." The
earliest form of this name in the registers is "Meneager," _e.g._ "Avis
filia Thoms Meneager, 1579," or in plain English, "Avis the daughter of
Thomas of the Meneage District."
The earlier Breage registers contain here and there surnames that are
not of local origin, and which savour of romance and adventure in lives
long since folded in utter oblivion. In 1511 I find the death of Hugh
Grymme de Godolphin recorded, in 1600 the marriage of Edmundus Erasmus,
and a little later on one William Dellaregetto is laid to rest at Breage,
whilst the name of Angus Macdonald appears in the Germoe registers after
the Forty Five.
The story of Hugh Grymme or Graeme is not difficult to piece together in
its main outlines without being too fanciful. The wanderings of this
northern Ulysses from the home of his clan on the shores of the Solway
would make an interesting Odyssey, could they be distilled from the
mists of the past. One sees the vague outline of it all fitfully. His
fellow Borderers at this time,--the Armstrongs, the Elliots, the Ridleys
and a hundred others--were sadly realizing that times had changed since
Flodden Field, that ceaseless Border strife was coming to an end, that
law was beginning to grow stronger in its grasp, and that raids and
forays and cattle-lifting expeditions were each year becoming
accompanied more and more with such unpleasant and undignified incidents
as hangings at Jedburgh and Carlisle. For such roystering blades it was
impossible to hang spear, sword, helmet and breastplate for ever to rust
upon the wall, and to sink down into the life of dull tillers of the
soil. There was nothing else for them to do than to troop off to the
Irish wars, where they could raid and harry and slaughter the Irish to
their hearts' content, all in the name of good Queen Bess, and not in
defiance of her Wardens of the Marches. Many of these riders of the
Borders founded families in Ireland, and came to own broad acres, and
many no doubt found nameless graves. Hugh Graeme, it would seem
probable, was one of these Border adventurers who found neither wealth
nor a grave in Ireland, but service with Sir William Godolphin, who had
spent his youth fighting under Essex in Ireland. No doubt Hugh Graeme
had ridden behind Sir William in his campaigns, often with death on his
saddle bow, and when fighting days were over came with his master to
Godolphin, where Death, who had passed him by in the wars, found him and
claimed him.
The name Erasmus twice occurs in the Breage registers, and in the next
generation makes its appearance in the guise of "Rasmus." In 1660 the
marriage of Edmundus Erasmus is recorded with Johanna Caraver. I cannot
think that in this case Erasmus is a mere second Christian name, because
shortly after we have the baptism entry "Thomas Erasmus," and in 1687 we
have the marriage entry "Joisea Rasmus." Nor do I think it probable that
the surname Erasmus, as it occurs in the Breage registers, grew out of a
Christian name given in the first instance on account of its popularity
with Reformers, because in this case the registers would have shewn some
trace of Erasmus used as a Christian name, which they do not.
The appearance of this name in the registers tallies with the great
activity of Sir Francis Godolphin in developing the tin mines upon his
estates. Under the circumstances it seems probable that Edmundus Erasmus
was one of the Continental experts whom we know that he employed in
improving the local methods of mining; this conclusion, however, in no
way elucidates the mystery that clings round the name. The great
humanist namesake of Edmundus, who died in 1536, was, like many of the
Cornish tinners, born without a surname, his father only possessing the
Christian name of Gerhard, of which Erasmus is meant to be the Greek
rendering. We may therefore very well conclude that no other surname of
Erasmus existed in the world, save that of the great humanist, and that
it must have begun and ended with him, because as a priest he could have
had no legitimate issue. On the other hand, I cannot think that anyone
would adopt Erasmus as a surname having absolutely no connection in
blood with the great Dutch scholar. Here we have one of those strange
and often fascinating mysteries with which the registers of our parishes
abound. Their yellow pages so often, like withered rose leaves, suggest
the joy, the youth, the sunlight and the tragedy of forgotten summers.
In 1686 we find the marriage entry of William Dellaregetto, and in 1730
the entry of the marriage of Zenobia Dellaregetto. The name Dellaregetto
certainly suggests the sunny skies of Italy, whilst Angus Macdonald
conjures up a vision of the Scottish Highlands. Possibly the first
Dellaregetto may have been some Italian sailor cast away upon our
shores. From a descendant of Angus Macdonald, still living in the
parish, I have been able to obtain a fleeting glimpse of the story of
this man. He arrived (I imagine on board some smuggling craft) about one
hundred and fifty years ago, and settled for a year or two at Rinsey and
went through the ceremony of marriage with a Breage woman, after having
been a resident at Rinsey for some little time. Tradition says that he
was a person with plenty of money, and a man of high station in his own
country, and that at the close of the wars a price was set upon his head
by the Government. If tradition speaks true it seems probable,
considering the date of his coming, that this Macdonald was a man of
some importance, who had been out in the Forty Five,--possibly some
minor chief of the clan Macdonald. He disappeared as suddenly as he
came, whether to his native land on having made his peace with the
Government, or, as is more probable, to join his exiled compatriots in
France or Spain, where life was less dull, who can say? At any rate, his
Cornish wife and children saw and heard of him no more. His descendants
are still living in the parish.
Perhaps the following curious entry from the registers may be of
interest to the reader: "Thomas Epsley, senior, of Chilchampton, parish
of Bath and Wells, Summersitsheers; he was the man who brought here the
rare invention of shooting the rocks, which came here in June, 1689, and
he died at the Bal and was buried at Breag, the 16th day of December, in
the yeare of Our Lord Christ, 1689." Subsequent entries in the burial
register make it clear that "the rare invention of shooting the rocks"
_i.e._ blasting, was anything but an unmixed blessing to those who had
to apply it to the rocks.
I find in the registers the record of a great snowstorm in December,
1630, in which four persons perished, and another at the end of January
and the beginning of February, 1692. To these great snowstorms may well
be added that of March, 1891, which not only isolated the parish from
the rest of the world, but the householders from each other, save in the
village and hamlets, for several days. This terrible storm also levied
from the parish its toll of human life.
The following grim entry from the burial register, bearing date 2nd
February, 1693, illustrates the methods and views of a former age, which
seem strangely out of touch with our own: "Samuel Rogers, of Crava,
being excommunicate, was laid in the earth in the Church at night."
I find in the registers the records of but few briefs. At Germoe in 1682
five shillings was collected for the "distressed Protestants of
France," and in the same year ten shillings for the sufferers in the
great fire at the town of Cullompton in Devonshire. At Breage I only
find records of briefs in the year 1712: they were for the restoration
of Battle Bridge, West Tilbury and St. Clement's Church, presumably of
this diocese.
It is to be regretted that the churchwardens' accounts have long since,
through damp and neglect, passed beyond the stage when it is possible to
examine them. The Parish Councils Act with all its benefits committed a
terrible mistake in consigning the ancient records of the Church
Vestries, in many cases going back for hundreds of years, to the custody
of simple, well-meaning but unlettered men, with no realisation of the
value of ancient documents. Too often they have been jumbled into an old
wooden box in a damp vestry room, and left to grow green with mould and
disintegrate into an evil-smelling paste; at least such is an instance
in the writer's experience. In another case, the fountain of village
wisdom informed a learned antiquary that he could not be allowed to
inspect their documents; whilst in a third case the clerk to a Parish
Council parted with an ancient document, that had come down through the
generations with the Church Vestry papers, to an old gentleman who was
in the habit of shewing it to his friends as a curiosity. On the death
of the old gentleman in question a friend of the writer, in the hope
that the document might prove of interest, and that he might be able to
return it to the vicar of the parish from whence it had been originally
taken, endeavoured to purchase it from the heir, when it transpired that
the document had been burnt as waste paper.
The following items from the Breage churchwardens' accounts I have been
able to cull from a note-book of the Reverend Jocelyn Barnes. Whilst of
no paramount importance, they serve as vivid illustrations of the
dead-and-gone life of the village.
1774--Mr. John Hood and Company for Oilcloth Umbrella for the
Parson at funerals, £1 0s. 6d.
1772--For the charge of prosecuting against the Kitows for the
murder of Henry Thomas, junior, as per bill of particulars, £18 4s.
2d.
1797--Feb. 2nd, to a new white sheet for William Fischer to do
penance, 6d.; ditto, to the expense of the occasion, one shilling.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[43] See Jenner's "Handbook of the Cornish Language."
[44] See Bouse's "Collectanea."
THE GODOLPHINS.