Chapter II (2)

Mr Davies Gilbert, who possessed much property in the parish of Gluvias, was especially interested in the farm of Bohelland, the place which has been rendered for ever notorious, as having been the scene of Lillo’s tragedy of “Fatal Curiosity.”

From a work entitled “The Reign and Death of King James of Great Britain,” Mr Gilbert quotes as follows:—

“He had been blessed with ample possessions and fruitful
issue, unhappy only in a younger son, who, taking liberty
from his father’s bounty, and with a crew of like condition,
that wearied on land, they went roving to sea, and in a small
vessel southward, took boot from all they could master. And
so increasing force and wealth, ventured on a Turk’s man
in the Streights; but by mischance their own powder fired
themselves, and our gallant, trusting to his skilful swimming,
got on shore upon Rhodes; with the best of his jewels about
him; where, offering some to sale to a Jew, who knew them
to be the Governor’s of Algier, he was apprehended, and, as
a pirate, sentenced to the galleys among other Christians,
whose miserable slavery made them all studious of freedom, and
with wit and valour took opportunity and means to murder some
officers, got on board of an English ship, and came safe to
London; where his misery, and some skill, made him servant to
a surgeon, and sudden preferment to the East Indies. There,
by this means, he got money; with which returning back, he
designed himself for his native county, Cornwall. And in a
small ship from London, sailing to the west, was cast away
upon that coast. But his excellent skill in swimming, and
former fate to boot, brought him safe to shore; where, since
his fifteen years’ absence, his father’s former fortunes much
decayed, now retired him not far off to a country habitation,
in debt and danger.

“His sister he finds married to a mercer, a meaner match
than her birth promised. To her, at first, he appears a poor
stranger, but in private reveals himself, and withal what
jewels and gold he had concealed in a bow-case about him;
and concluded that the next day he intended to appear to his
parents, and to keep his disguise till she and her husband
should meet, and make their common joy complete. Being come
to his parents, his humble behaviour, suitable to his suit of
clothes, melted the old couple to so much compassion as to give
him covering from the cold season under their outward roof; and
by degrees his travelling tales, told with passion to the aged
people, made him their guest so long by the kitchen fire, that
the husband took leave and went to bed. And soon after his true
stories working compassion in the weaker vessel, she wept, and
so did he; but compassionate of her tears, he comforted her
with a piece of gold, which gave assurance that he deserved a
lodging, to which she brought him; and being in bed, shewed her
his girdled wealth, which he said was sufficient to relieve
her husband’s wants, and to spare for himself, and being very
weary, fell fast asleep.

“The wife tempted with the golden bait of what she had,
and eager of enjoying all, awakened her husband with this
news, and her contrivance what to do; and though with horrid
apprehensions he oft refused, yet her puling fondness (Eve’s
enchantments) moved him to consent, and rise to be master of
all, and both of them to murder the man, which instantly they
did; covering the corpse under the clothes till opportunity to
convey it out of the way.

“The early morning hastens the sister to her father’s house,
where she, with signs of joy, inquires for a sailor that should
lodge there the last night; the parents slightly denied to have
seen any such, until she told them that he was her brother,
her lost brother; by that assured scar upon his arm, cut with
a sword in his youth, she knew him; and were all resolved this
morning to meet there and be merry.

“The father hastily runs up, finds the mark, and with horrid
regret of this monstrous murder of his own son, with the same
knife cuts his own throat.

“The wife went up to consult with him, where, in a most strange
manner beholding them both in blood, wild and aghast, with the
instrument at hand, readily rips herself up, and perishes on
the same spot.

“The daughter, doubting the delay of their absence, searches
for them all, whom she found out too soon; with the sad sight
of this scene, and being overcome with horror and amaze of
this deluge of destruction, she sank down and died; the fatal
end of that family. The truth of which was frequently known,
and flew to court in this guise; but the imprinted relation
conceals their names, in favour to some neighbour of repute
and kin to that family. The same sense makes me therein silent
also.”—_Gilbert_, vol. ii. p. 100.

Mr Harris of Salisbury, in his “Philological Inquiries,” says of Lillo’s tragedy:—

“It is no small praise to this affecting fable that it so much resembles the ‘Œdipus Tyrannus’ of Sophocles. In both tragedies, that which apparently leads to joy, leads in its completion to misery; both tragedies concur in the horror of their discoveries, and both in those great outlines of a truly tragic revolution, (according to the nervous sentiment of Lillo himself,)—

‘the two extremes of life,
The highest happiness the deepest woe,
With all the sharp and bitter aggravations
Of such a vast transition.’”

GOLDSITHNEY FAIR AND THE GLOVE.

On the 5th of August, St James’s day, (old style,) a fair is held here, which was originally held in the Church-town of Sithney, near Helston.

In olden time the good _St Perran the Little_ gave to the wrestlers in his parish a glove as the prize, and the winner of the glove was permitted to collect the market toll on the day of the feast, and to appropriate the money to his own use. The winner of the glove lived in the Church-town of Sithney, and for long long years the right of holding the fair remained undisputed.

At length the miners of Goldsithney resolved to contest the prize, and they won it, since which time the fair has been held in that village, they paying to the poor of the parish of Sithney one shilling as compensation.

Gilbert remarks, “The displaying of a glove at fairs is an ancient and widely-extended custom. Mr Lysons says it is continued at Chester. The editor has seen a large ornamented glove over the guildhall at Exeter during the fairs.”[71]

THE HARLYN PIE.

“Adjoining the Church of Constantine, in the parish of St Merryn, was a cottage which a family of the name of Edwards held for generations, under the proprietors of Harlyn, by the annual render of a pie, made of limpets, raisins, and various herbs, on the eve of the festival in honour of the saint to whom the church was dedicated. The pie, as I have heard from my family, and from more ancient members of the family, and from old servants, was excellent. The Edwards had pursued for centuries the occupation of shepherds on Harlyn and Constantine commons. The last died about forty years ago, and the wreck of their cottage is almost buried in the sand.”[72]

PACKS OF WOOL THE FOUNDATION OF THE BRIDGE OF WADEBRIDGE.

Lovebone was the vicar of Wadebridge, and there was a ferry across the river. It was a frequent custom for the farmers to ride their horses and to drive their cattle across when the tide was low, and frequently men and beasts were lost in the quicksands formed on the rising of the tide. A sad accident of this kind happened, and Lovebone resolved on building a bridge; as Leland says in his “Itinerary,” “Then one Lovebone, vicar of Wadebridge, moved with pitie, began the bridge, and with great paine and studie, good people putting their help thereto, finished it with xvii fair and great uniform arches of stone.”

Great was the labour, and frequent the disappointment. Pier after pier were built, and then they were lost in the sands. A “fair structure” was visible at night, in the morning there was no trace of the work of the masons. Lovebone almost despaired of success, indeed he was about to abandon the work, when he dreamed that an angel came with a flock of sheep, that he sheared them, let the wool fall into the water, and speedily built the bridge upon the wool.

Lovebone awoke with a new idea. He gathered from the farmers around, all the wool they would give him, he put it loosely into packs, placed these thickly upon the sand, and built his piers. The work remains to this day in proof of the engineering skill of the suggesting angel.[73]

Quoting Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Knight of the Burning Pestle,” we find the Citizen saying to the Prologue:—

“Why could you not be content as well as others, with the Legend of Whittington? or the Life and Death of Sir Thomas Gresham, with the building of the Royal Exchange? or the Story of Queen Eleanor, with the rearing of London Bridge upon woolsacks?”

THE LAST WOLF IN ENGLAND.

The extirpation of the wolves, which once existed in every part of these islands, is an oft-told story.

But it is not generally known that the last native wolf lived in the forests of Ludgvan, near Penzance. The last of his race was a gigantic specimen, and terrible was the havoc made by him on the flocks. Tradition tells us that at last he carried off a child. This could not be endured, so the peasantry all turned out, and this famous wolf was captured at Rospeith, the name of a farm still existing in Ludgvan.

CHURCHES BUILT IN PERFORMANCE OF VOWS.

There are several churches which, tradition tells us, owe their origin to vows made by terrified men that they would, if relieved from their dangers, build a temple to God.

Amongst these may be named Brent Tor, thus spoken of by Mr Bray:—

“The church of Brent Tor is dedicated to St Michael. And there is a tradition among the vulgar that its foundation was originally laid at the foot of the hill; but that the enemy of all angels, the Prince of Darkness, removed the stones by night from the base to the summit,—probably to be nearer his own dominion, the air,—but that, immediately on the church’s being dedicated to St Michael, the patron of the edifice hurled upon the devil such an enormous mass of rock, that he never afterwards ventured to approach it. Others tell us that it was erected by a wealthy merchant, who vowed, in the midst of a tremendous storm at sea, (possibly addressing himself to his patron, St Michael,) that if he escaped, he would build a church on the first land he descried.”[74]

Brent Tor is a very remarkable hill, and can be seen far off at sea. This may possibly lend some support to the latter tradition.

St Anthony, in Kerrier, is likewise stated to be the consequence of a vow. Soon after the Conquest, as some persons of rank and fortune were coming to England from Normandy, they were overtaken by a violent storm, from which they expected immediate destruction. In the midst of their distress, they directed their prayers to St Anthony, and laid themselves under a solemn vow to erect a church to his memory, if he would save them from shipwreck; and that this church should be erected on the very spot where they should first get on shore. Driven by the tempest, they were conducted, by a power fully equal to that which St Anthony might be supposed to possess, into St Mawes’ harbour, and happily landed on that very spot where the church now stands. And it appears that the materials with which the tower is built, and the situation which the church and tower occupy, are calculated to give sanction to this tradition.

BOLAIT, THE FIELD OF BLOOD.

Tradition asserts that it was on the spot, so called in the parish of Burian, that the last battle was fought between the Cornish Britons and Athelstan. This is in some measure confirmed by the discovery of flint arrow-heads, in considerable quantities, from time to time, in and near this “field of slaughter.”

We have little beyond the evidence of tradition to guide us in regard to any of the triumphs of Athelstan in Cornwall. It appears tolerably certain that this Saxon king confined the Cornish Britons to the western side of the Tamar; thus breaking up the division known as Danmonium, and limiting the territory over which the kings of the west ruled.

Scattered over Cornwall, we have the evidence, in the names of places, of Saxon possession. In all probability these were the resting-places of portions of the Saxon army, or the district in which fortified camps were placed by Athelstan, to restrain a turbulent people. Be this as it may, the battle at Bolait is said to have raged from morning until night, and then, overpowered by numbers, the Cornish who still survived fled to the hills, and thus left Athelstan the conqueror.

It was after this fight that Athelstan, seeing the Islands of Scilly illumined by the setting sun, determined, if possible, to achieve their conquest. He then recorded his vow, that he would, if he returned victorious, build a church, which should be dedicated to St Buryana. Of this church Hals writes as follows:—

“BURIAN.

“This church was founded and endowed by King Athelstan, about the year 930, after such time as he had conquered the Scilly Islands, as also the county of Devon, and made Cornwall tributary to his sceptre. To which church he gave lands and tithes of a considerable value for ever, himself becoming the first patron thereof, as his successors the kings of England have been ever since; for which reason it is still called the royal rectory, or regal rectory, and the royal or regal peculiar; signifying thereby that this is the church or chapel pertaining to the king, or immediately under the jurisdiction of him, as the supreme ordinary from whom there is no appeal; whereas other peculiars, though exempt from the visitation or jurisdiction of the diocesan bishop within whose see they stand, yet are always subject to the provincial Archbishops of Canterbury and York, or other persons.

“This church or college consisted of canons, Augustines or regular priests, and three prebendaries, who enjoyed the revenues thereof in common, but might not marry; and the lord chancellors of England of old visited this peculiar—which extended only over the parishes of Burian, Sennen, and St Levan—for the king.

“One of the Popes of Rome, about the time of Edward III., obtruded upon this church, the canons and prebends thereof, a dean to be an inspector and overseer over them,—whom he nominated to be the Bishop of Exon for the time being,—who for some time visited this church as its governor, as the lord chancellor did before; which encroachment of the Pope being observed by Edward III., as appears from the register of the writs, folio 40 and 41, 8 Edward III., rot. 97, this usurpation of the Pope was taken away.”

WOEFUL MOOR, AND BODRIGAN’S LEAP.

The Bodrigans, from a very early period, were connected with the borough of Looe. Otto, or Otho de Bodrigan, was lord of the manor of Pendrim and Looe in the reign of Edward II. Another Otho de Bodrigan was Sheriff of Cornwall in the 3d of Richard II., A.D. 1400.

Sir Henry Bodrigan was “attaynted for taking part with King Richard III. against Henry VII.; and, after flying into Ireland, Sir Richard Egecombe, father of Sir Pears Egecombe, had Bodrigan, and other parcels of Bodrigan’s lands; and Trevanion had part of Bodrigan’s lands, as Restronget and Newham, both in Falmouth Haven.”

On the Barton of Bodrigan there exists what are evidently the remains of ancient fortifications, and near them a piece of waste land known as the _Woeful Moor_.

Here Sir Henry Edgecombe and Trevanion defeated the great Bodrigan. He fled, and tradition preserves, on the side of the cliff, the spot known as Bodrigan’s leap, from which he leapt into the sea, and swam to a ship which kept near the shore. As he leapt the precipice, he bequeathed, with a curse, “his extravagance to the Trevanions, and his folly to the Edgecombes.”

These families divided between them an estate said to be worth, in those days, £10,000 per annum.

“At that period in our history when the law of the strongest was the rule, three families in Cornwall were engaged in a series of domestic wars; these were Bodrigan, Trevanion, and Edgecumbe. And when Richard the Third obtained sovereign power, on the division which then took place in the York faction, Bodrigan endeavoured to seize the property of Edgecumbe, with little respect, as it would seem, for the life of the possessor; but in the final struggle at Bosworth Field, where Henry Tudor put an entire end to this contest for power under the guise of property, by seizing the whole to himself, Trevanion and Edgecumbe had the good fortune to appear on the winning side, and subsequently availed themselves to the utmost of belligerent rights against Bodrigan, as he had attempted to do before against them. The last of that family was driven from his home, and seems to have perished in exile. His property was divided between the two families opposed to him, and, after the lapse of three hundred and fifty years, continues to form a large portion of their respective possessions.”—_Gilbert_, vol. iii., p. 204.

William de Bodrigan was lord of the manor of Restronget, in the 12th of Henry IV. The family possessed it till the beginning of the reign of Henry VII., when, on the attainder of Bodrigan, it was given to William Trevanion.[75]

PENGERSWICK CASTLE.

This castellated building—for it does not now admit of being called a castle, notwithstanding its embattled turrets and its machicolated gate—is situated in a hollow running down to Pengerswick Cove, in the Mount’s Bay, where there never could have been anything to defend; and certainly there is nothing to induce any one to incur the cost of such a building.

Mr Milliton, in the reign of Henry VIII., slew in the streets of London a man in a drunken brawl. He fled, and went to sea. It is not known to what part of the world he went, but we are told that he became excessively rich; so rich, indeed, that “when he loaded his ass with his gold, the weight was so great as to break the poor animal’s back.” Returning to his country, and not daring to appear in any of the large towns, he bought the manor of Pengerswick, and built this castle, to defend himself, in the event of his being approached by any of the officers of the law.

A miserable man, Milliton is said to have lived in a secret chamber in this tower, and to have been visited only by his most trusted friends. Deeply deploring the crime that had condemned him to seclusion from the world, he spent his dreary hours in ornamenting his dwelling. His own story is supposed to be told in the painting of an overladen ass in one room, with a black-letter legend, importing that a miser is like an ass loaded with riches, who, without attending to his golden burden, feeds on thistles. There is also a carving of water wearing a hollow in a stone, and under it the word “Perseverance.” Of the death of Milliton we have no account.

There is very little doubt but that Pengerswick Castle is very much older than the time of Milliton; indeed tradition informs us that he purchased the place. The legends previously given, and others in my possession, refer to a much earlier period. This castle was, it is said, surrounded by trees; but John Hals, who inherited the property, had all the timber cut down and sold.

THE CLERKS OF CORNWALL.