to Lostwithiel, we must at least take our boat between the woods and
slopes of Pont Pill, where it is only at the water’s very edge that the
ferns and heather yield to rocks and crimson weed. Landing at Pont, we
may climb the steep hillside to Lanteglos Church among the orchards, and
see the old stone cross beside the porch, and the wonderful bench-ends
within, and the elaborately painted shields that bear so many famous
arms. On this little lonely church, buried among the trees, things of
beauty have been lavished, not only long ago but lately; carvings both
old and new, and magnificent embroideries, and pavings of marble. There
is no other church like this, I think: none, so small and simple and
lonely, that has been so generously treated.
[Illustration: PONT PILL, FOWEY.]
Fowey town is a maze of little streets; but when we have climbed out
of them--with heavier hearts than seems reasonable--we drive away past
the lodge of Menabilly on a very fair road. It will add little to the
journey if we go round by Tywardraeth and see the old church, and the
tombstone of the prior whose monastery has so strangely vanished. A few
carved stones in the churchyard are all that remains of the priory that
was founded by William de Mortain, “a person of a malicious and arrogant
spirit from his childhood.” It was well named Tywardraeth, the house on
the sand, for great was the fall thereof; but why it has disappeared so
utterly, and how, is curiously obscure. Gilbert tells the story of the
last prior’s resignation--an edifying tale. Thomas Cromwell wrote to him
a letter full of compliments, praising his virtues as a man and a prior,
and telling him how deeply the King appreciated his services. These had
been so unremitting, added Cromwell, that his Grace, being mindful of his
age, would allow him to resign his post. To this Prior Collyns answered
briskly that he was most grateful for the King’s kind thought, but as
a matter of fact his health was excellent. So my Lord Privy Seal tried
again. This time the astonished prior was informed that “the savour of
his sins, crimes, and iniquities had ascended before the Lord, and that
unless he immediately relinquished an office he had most grossly abused
a commission would inquire into his misdeeds and punish him accordingly.”
This, Collyns understood. Here is his gravestone in the church, in the
wall of the north transept; a slab of slate with a cross incised on it.
Some old bench-ends have been made into a pulpit, and others inserted in
new seats of pitch-pine; but these are not relics of the priory.
Leaving St. Blazey on the right, we run on through some lovely scenery
to St. Austell, where a church-tower of wonderful splendour and richness
rises from the dull streets of stuccoed and slated houses. Our road to
Truro is wide and has an excellent surface, but one hill succeeds another
with exasperating regularity and promptitude. The scenery varies from
dulness to beauty: the villages seem, to eyes that have lately looked
upon those of Devon, a little uninteresting, for we are in the land of
the Celt. Thatched cottages are rare, but in Probus there are several
of them clustered round the churchyard very prettily. This tower of
Probus is the highest in Cornwall, and very rich in sculptured stones:
within the building are the granite pillars that are common to nearly
all Cornish churches, and a screen whose Latin legend alludes to the two
patron-saints St. Probus and St. Grace.
It is only a little way beyond Probus that we cross the head of the
Falmouth estuary. By the rushy banks of this calm stream a little band
of horsemen once settled weighty matters; for it was here, at Tresilian
Bridge, that the royalist general, driven into a _cul-de-sac_ by Fairfax,
made his final surrender by the mouth of his commissioners. They met
Ireton and Lambert at this spot, and the end of their meeting was the
disbandment of the royal troops. The generals of the Parliament rode back
to Fairfax by this road of ours, beside the banks of grass and rushes,
and the mud-flats and the woods, and down the hill to Truro.
Except the cathedral there is little to see in Truro, and even the
cathedral lacks the glamour of age, for, of the masonry, only the south
aisle is part of the old church of St. Mary: the rest is new. The general
effect of the inside of the building is fine, if a little severe. There
is, however, a very gorgeous baptistery in the south transept, whose
coloured pavements and crimson font are in rather startling contrast to
the prevailing austerity. The roof, I believe, came from the old church,
with a few of the monuments. The tomb on which John Robarts and his wife
are lying in such obvious discomfort must be the one, I think, that was
repaired in the eighteenth century by a mason whose bill included these
items: “To putting one new foot to Mr. John Robarts, mending the other,
putting seven new buttons to his coat, and a new string to his breeches
knees. To two new feet to his wife Phillipa, and mending her eyes.”
Those of us who are intending presently to drive through the country of
the Grenvilles may be glad, when they come to Stratton and Kilkhampton,
to have seen Kneller’s picture of Anthony Payne. It is here in Truro, on
the staircase of the museum in Pydar Street: a burly figure in scarlet,
with a face that tries to be fierce but cannot hide its tenderness and
humour. This is Sir Bevill Grenville’s giant henchman, who fought at his
master’s side at Stratton and Lansdowne, and taught the children to ride
and shoot.
A fine road leads from Truro to Falmouth, through hilly but beautiful
country; by pine-woods, and distant views, and the green flats of the
estuary, and a valley full of trees. Near pretty Perranarworthal we see,
crossing a little gorge upon our right, one of the old wooden viaducts
that have so nearly disappeared. In Penryn we cling closely to the
estuary, following it to Falmouth Harbour. A hundred years ago the main
road to Falmouth from London, as it passed through Penryn, “ran up and
then down through streets so steep and narrow,” says a writer of that
time, “as to make the safe passage of the mail-coach a wonder.” To-day,
however, Penryn is one of the few towns in the West Country out of which
we can drive on level ground.
When Sir Walter Raleigh came to stay with the Killigrews in their fine
new house at Arwenack, he suggested to his host that he should make a
town here, on the shore of this splendid harbour. The Killigrews were
men of action, and the town was built; to the acute annoyance of Penryn,
which petitioned in vain against its upstart rival. We make our slow way
through the narrow, crowded streets of the Killigrews’ town, and find
the last remaining fragment of their house still “standing on the brimme
within Falemuth Haven.” Only a crumbling wall is there, and a window, and
on the hill the avenue by which the vanished Killigrews went in and out;
nothing to show that Arwenack was the very source of Falmouth’s existence
and the very core of her history. For with every concern of Smith-ike and
Pen-y-cwm-wick and Falmouth a Killigrew was connected, from the day when
they settled here in the fourteenth century till the day when the last of
the name set up this pyramid that is beside us--not with the justifiable
object of honouring the Killigrews, but for the astonishing reason that
he thought it beautiful. He called it a darling thing. “Hoping it may
remain,” he wrote, “a beautiful Imbellishment to the Harbour, Long, Long,
after my desireing to be forgott.”[9]
[Illustration: ARWENACK AVENUE, FALMOUTH.]
No Killigrew is likely to be forgot. It was a Killigrew who gave the
land on which Henry VIII.’s castle of Pendennis still stands out there
upon the point; a Killigrew who helped to build it and became its first
governor; a Killigrew who made Falmouth and fostered it; and the eagle
of the Killigrews is borne to this day on the shield of the town. The
Killigrews are not forgotten.
It was the round tower of Pendennis that brought Arwenack low. It is
used as barracks now, and to see the old building we must have an order;
but from the pretty shaded road that circles it we can see nearly all
there is to be seen with the bodily eye. Yet if we pass through the grey
stone gateway there are other things that we may see, perhaps: Henrietta
Maria carried in upon her litter, “the most worne and weak pitifull
creature in ye world,” seeking a boat to take her to France; her son a
year later coming on the same errand: the Duke of Hamilton brought hither
“to prevent his doing further mischief,” by order of the King for whom
he lost his head a little later: Fairfax’s messenger summoning Sir John
Arundel to surrender his castle. “Having taken less than two minutes’
resolution,” answered old John-for-the-King, “I resolve that I will here
bury myself before I deliver up this castle to such as fight against his
Majesty, and that nothing you can threaten is formidable to me in respect
of the loss of loyalty and conscience.”[10] Five months the garrison
held out; and when at last the remnant of them filed through the gate--a
pathetic procession of sick and starving men tottering out with flying
colours and beating drums--they left no food behind them but one pickled
horse.
The belief that the little room above the gate was used by Henrietta
Maria is probably due to what might be called the law of local tradition;
the law that masonry attracts picturesque associations in direct
proportion to its own picturesqueness, and in inverse proportion to the
quantity of building that survives. If one room only of an old castle
remains, it is that room, according to local tradition, that was the
scene of every event that ever took place in the castle. A gatehouse is
an improbable shelter for a queen in time of war. As for Prince Charles,
there was once a tiny room in which he was reputed to have hidden. Here
we have another invariable rule. Charles II. never occupied any place
larger than a cupboard; and even in a fortress garrisoned by royalists he
systematically “hid.” In this case even his reputed hiding-place is gone,
and the legend has not as yet been transferred to the gatehouse; but if
we enter the fort itself beneath the sculptured arms of Henry VIII., and
mount the long staircase to the leads, we shall see below us on the shore
the little blockhouse from which he escaped to France. On our left lies
the crowded harbour with St. Mawe’s beyond it, and the round grey tower
that was built at the same time as Pendennis: on our right is the bay
of Gyllyng Vase, named William’s Grave in memory of the prince who was
drowned in the White Ship. Headland stretches beyond headland; and far
away on the horizon the Manacles show their cruel teeth.
During the siege John-for-the-King set fire to Arwenack lest the
Parliament-men should make a battery of it. It is a common saying that
the Killigrews, in their loyalty, put a light to it themselves. But
strangely enough the owner at this time was “ye infamous Lady Jane,”
who had been divorced by Sir John Killigrew but kept possession of his
house for her life--a curious state of things that definitely settles the
question of the firing of Arwenack. It was this Lady Jane who gave the
famous chalice to the town of Penryn, “when they received mee that was
in great miserie.” It was not this lady, however--as is often said--but
Dame Mary of Elizabethan days, who boarded the Spanish ship in a true
Elizabethan spirit and took her cargo home to Arwenack.[11]
[Illustration: KING HARRY’S FERRY.]
Although this harbour “ys a havyng very notable and famose,” it lacks the
charm of Fowey and Dartmouth; and it is only in the upper reaches that
the Fal has the beauty of the Dart. It is wisest to start from Falmouth.
The hills at first are low and the estuary wide; but when Carrick Roads
have narrowed into King Harry’s Reach and the river sweeps past us
between the rolling woods, we remember Hawker singing of his native
Cornwall and “her streams that march in music to the sea.” We take our
winding way past the ferry to which King Harry never came, past many
alluring creeks, past Tregothnan--the home but not the house of Admiral
Boscawen--and round the green banks of Woodbury, till we see Truro’s
white cathedral against the sky.
When we finally drive away from Falmouth our most prudent course is to
go out of the town past the recreation-ground, and take the road that
leads to the Lizard by Constantine; for though the longer road by Helston
is by far the better of the two, there are dark whispers heard in this
neighbourhood, sometimes, of measured distances and other perils. We
see on the left the by-road to Penjerrick, where Caroline Fox wrote
her delightful journal and charmed so many men of mark; pass through
Constantine, a village of solid stone houses, and thatch, and gardens,
and run down into Gweek. It was here that Hereward the Wake twice rescued
the Cornish princess from unpleasant suitors. The high green walls of
oak and ash that Hereward saw are further down the river, but this is
the head of the tide where King Alef’s palace stood, and the champion
of England slew the giant, and where now a brisk trade is carried on in
bone-manure. Whatever may be the truth about Hereward, the last fact
admits of no doubt.
The miles that lead to Lizard Town are of the sort that one remembers
ever after with a thrill. It is rather a complex thrill, with
contributions from the past and from the future and from the exhilarating
present. The Marconi towers, slim fingers pointing skyward, are not
without their influence on our pulses, with their hints of future
conquests, and their message that the fairy-tale of to-day is the science
of to-morrow. The road is broad and smooth and level, and lies between
low hedges, and has the straightness that the motorist loves; beyond the
waving tamarisks a flat land of green and purple stretches away to the
horizon; for the first time in many days the car speeds over the plain
at the pace she loves best; and the sea-wind rushes to meet us with its
story of the Spanish Armada.
[Illustration: THE LIZARD.]
We slow down at last in Lizard Town, where the squalid little houses are
smothered in flowers fit for a palace, blazing draperies of scarlet and
rose--the climbing geraniums that in Cornwall grow, not as a favour, but
because they enjoy it. Here it is perhaps best to leave the car, though
it is perfectly possible to drive to the foot of the lighthouse, where
there is room to turn. The first lighthouse that stood on this spot was
built by one of the Killigrews of Arwenack, to the great displeasure
of the people. He was robbing them of God’s grace, they naïvely
complained--meaning the spoils of the wrecked.
Beyond the lighthouse are grassy slopes where it is good to sit alone
among the sea-pinks. To right and left are long headlands and curving
bays; on every side are masses of grey rock crowned with golden lichen;
and beyond them the sea comes laughing from the South. And on a sudden
we see the mighty crescent of the Armada, seven miles wide, sweep up the
Channel to its doom, with the smoke of many guns flying before the gale,
and with every man upon his knees.
It is a disappointment to learn that the track to Kynance Cove is too
sandy for motors; but only a few miles further along the coast is the
cove of Mullion, which is easily reached on quite a good road. Those
who know Kynance declare it is more attractive than Mullion, but I
think there must be some mistake about this, because it is not possible
to be more attractive than Mullion. From the tiny harbour with its
two sheltering piers a natural tunnel--passable only when the tide is
low--leads through the rock to the sands of a little bay. Here the cliffs
are high and wild, and masses of black rock rise sheer from the ripples
of a blue-green sea, and in the caves the “serpentine” stones are red and
green and pink and full of sparkles, like the stones of Aladdin’s cave.
One can see at a glance that the superstition about Kynance Cove is quite
without foundation.
[Illustration: MULLION COVE.]
From Mullion village we may either return to the Helston road at once,
or drop down into Poldhu Cove, close under the Marconi towers. Hence we
must climb on a good surface the very steep hill to Cury; for Gunwalloe
is a place to avoid, although much treasure, they say, lies hidden under
the sands there, buried by long dead buccaneers. It is an unfortunate
circumstance that the road is liable to be buried under the sands too.
The fine, wide road to Helston passes through dull country, but the
little town itself, with its steep hill and many trees, must wear a brave
air on every eighth of May, when the townsfolk are “up as soon as any
day, O!” and dance off into the fields
“For to fetch the summer home,
The summer and the may, O!”
This Furry Day has been corrupted into Flora Day; but Gilbert derives it
very plausibly from _foray_, and declares that it celebrates a defeat of
the Saxons, who attempted a raid on this coast. The original ceremonial
included a foray on the neighbours’ houses.
From Kenneggy Downs we may turn aside on a very bad lane to see
the curving sands of Prah and the grey tower of Pengerswick, the
hiding-place, in Henry VIII.’s time, of a certain homicidal Mr.
Milliton. Some say he built it, but this seems an improbably risky
thing to do. It is more likely that he occupied his enforced leisure in
painting the elaborate pictures and moral verses that are now defaced.
Few travellers will turn away from the fine high-road across Kenneggy
Downs to attempt the deciphering of Mr. Milliton’s reflections; but
it will not delay us to remember that John Wesley, exasperated by the
“huge approbation and absolute unconcern” of the people in these parts,
preached a sermon on the Downs, with a rare touch of humour, on the
resurrection of the dry bones. In a few minutes we run into Marazion,
and from the top of the hill first see, through a gap in the hedge, “the
great vision of the guarded Mount.”
In starting forth upon a tour in Cornwall there are two things, I think,
that one especially sets out to see; and in looking back it is the same
two things that one especially remembers to have seen. One is Tintagel;
but the spell of Tintagel is largely a matter of the imagination. The
other is St. Michael’s Mount; and here, though the imagination has much
to feed upon in calmer moments, it is chiefly as a delight to the eye
that it appeals to one in those first moments that are so far from calm.
Little we care for Edward the Confessor and his monastery, or for any
tale of battle and conspiracy, or for any legend of archangels, while the
Mount shows as a blur of blue upon the pale, hot sky and in the mirror of
the wet sands, and Penzance is veiled in a cloud of gold-dust save for
the tall church-tower that rises from the mist, and the hills beyond the
bay melt one into the other, and the rocks lie in a long red line across
the foreground with a streak of piercing green at their feet. Yet it is
hard to choose a moment and a point of view, and say, “This is the best.”
At high tide or at low, in sunshine or at dusk, from near or far, from
Marazion or from Newlyn, or framed between the red stems of the pines
upon the hill, the Mount is always stately, mysterious, strong--always
the Mount of the Archangel.
[Illustration: ST. MICHAEL’S MOUNT.]
It is reached from Marazion by boat at high-water, or on foot by the
causeway when the tide is low. From the little harbour we climb, on a
winding cobbled path among the trees and hydrangeas, the steep hill that
so many have climbed on sterner errands: Henry de la Pomeroi, serving
Prince John while the Lion was still safely caged; Lord Oxford and his
men, disguised as pilgrims, entering the monastery with the help of
pious words and seizing it with the swords they wore under their habits;
the angry adherents of the Old Faith, charging up the hill with great
trusses of hay borne before them, “to blench the defendants’ sight
and deaden their shot.” Unfortunately there have been modern visitors
nearly as turbulent as these; for which reason there is not much that
we are allowed to see here to-day. We may go into the chapel where the
monks once worshipped, and we may stand on the little paved terrace and
look out over the parapet towards the shore, thinking of Lady Katherine
Gordon, who surely stood here sometimes while her husband Perkin Warbeck
was on his mad adventure. What were her thoughts of him as she stood
here? Did she know him to be an impostor? Did she think he was the King?
Or did she only dream, and dream again, of that quick wooing up in
Scotland by the boy of “visage beautiful”? “Lady,” he had said, “… what
I am now you see, and there is no boasting in distress; what I may be, I
must put it to the trial.… If you dare now adventure on the adversity I
swear to make you partaker of the prosperity; yea, lay my crown at your
feet.” To which the lady had made answer: “My Lord, … I think you, for
your gentleness and fair demeanour, worthy of any creature or thing you
could desire.… Therefore, noble Sir, repair, I say, to the master of the
family.”
It was here at St. Michael’s Mount that they found her, when Perkin’s
little fight was over and her own little bubble had burst.
A wide and level road takes us round the bay into Penzance, and up
the hill whence Sir Humphry Davy looks down upon the street where he
was born, and past the spot--now covered by the market-house--where
Sir Francis Godolphin once tried in vain to make a stand against the
Spaniards, and on, beside the sea, to Newlyn. This is a name that is
known wherever pictures are painted or beloved; and no wonder, for there
is nothing in this harbour that an artist might not turn to good account.
Here are fishing-boats reflected in the ripples, and piers hung with
dripping seaweed, and lobster-creels and nets upon the shore; and beyond
them is the high sea-wall with flowers in every cranny, and the steep
street curving round the harbour, and the people whom so many painters
have taught us to know. For all its charm and fame it has changed little
since the sixteenth century. It is still a place with a business in life;
still, as then, mainly a “fischar towne,” with “a key for shippes and
bootes.”
[Illustration: NEWLYN HARBOUR.]
Rejoining the main road to Land’s End, we pass through some pretty but
very hilly country to Lower Hendra. Those who wish to see the Logan Rock
must turn to the left here, and run down to the sea through St. Buryan,
and finally walk for some distance across fields. Most people, I think,
will keep to the high-road; but lovers of old churches will wish to turn
aside to the sanctuary of that “holy woman of Irelond,” St. Buriana.
From this high ground, where the tall tower stands as a landmark visible
for many miles, King Athelstane saw the distant Scilly Isles, and here
he vowed to build a college if he should return safely after making the
islands his own. This Perpendicular building dates, of course, from a far
later century than his; but it was the church of the college he founded,
and there were parts of the college itself still standing in Cromwell’s
day.
St. Buryan is only four miles from Land’s End. They are rather dreary
miles, by undulating fields and stone walls and the intensely melancholy
little town of Sennan; but they end, all the more dramatically for their
dulness, in the granite walls that guard our utmost shore. There is no
dulness here.