Chapter XVII: Part V (7)

This church, in A. D. 1291, the 20th Edward I., is valued at £4. 13_s._ 4_d._ being then appropriated to the Priory of St. Germans; the vicarage at £10.

The vicarage is valued by Wolsey at £18. 12_s._ 4_d._ The patronage in Lord Hobart, as heir to Sir John Maynard.

The manor of Lanrake, as the parish should also be written, is reckoned to be the very best in the county. It was valued in the 1st year of Edward I. at £100, which no other estate came up to but Sheviock and Pawton, which last however was valued at £120.

THE EDITOR.

There seems to be but little of importance connected with this parish. The extensive manor of Lanrake is said by Mr. Lysons to have belonged at an early period to the family of St. Margaret, and in the seventeenth century to have belonged to Sergeant Maynard, from whom it passed by marriage to the family of Hobart, and from that to Edgecumbe. This manor includes the advowson of the vicarage; and the impropriation of the great tithes belonged also to Sergeant Maynard, having been a part of the endowments taken from the Priory of St. Germans.

The church town is rather a large village, and the church and tower are of the form and size common throughout Cornwall. The church contains several monuments.

In this parish is another village, called Wotton Cross, and part of a third called Tidiford, where a small river, navigable for barges, and communicating with the Tamar at Hamoaze, divides Landrake from St. Germans.

The facility of water communication has established some trade at Tidiford, but it is chiefly remarkable by the great quantities of Plymouth limestone burnt there for manure.

The system of using lime in agriculture does not date further back in this district than the early part, or perhaps than the middle, of the last century; and it is supposed at the least to have doubled the value of all the land, and in consequence to have increased the population, improved the country, and largely added to all the sources of honest industry and employment.

Wotton, as a seat of the Courtenays, must have been in former times a place of some consequence. It belonged to the family of Blake, the heiress of which family has married Francis Dogherty, Esq.

ST. ERNEY.

The little parish of St. Erney, being in fact a part of Landrake, except that its church still exists as a chapel supported by a local rate, is not noticed by Mr. Hals under the letter E, and his account of it is therefore lost, with this part of his manuscript.

TONKIN.

St. Erney, St. Erna, or St. Erne, stands in the hundred of East, and hath upon the north Landrake, upon the south St. Germans Creek, upon the west St. Germans, upon the east Botus-Fleming.

San Erna in the Cernawish tongue signifies holy hour, with reference to, I apprehend, the time set apart for the celebration of divine service. In the Saxon and Kernawish combined, San Erna is an holy or sacred eagle; and if so, I take it, the name must be construed as relating to the person that officiates at divine service, who, as an eagle, ascends up to heaven for metaphysical or supernatural mysteries――as St. John the Evangelist, whose similitude is an eagle. In this sense we have Eagle vicarage in Graffo hundred, Lincolnshire.

This is a daughter church to Landrake.

THE EDITOR.

Mr. Lysons notices the manor of Trelugan, of which Wotton in Landrake seems to be the barton; and also the manor of Markwell, which he says belonged to Thomas Earl of Lancaster, attainted in the reign of Edward II. Then to the Bodrugans, and after the attaint of Henry de Bodrugan, in the reign of Henry VII. it was granted to Sir John Paulet, and descended to the late Duke of Bolton.

Mr. Lysons states, that this being a daughter church to Landrake, is entitled to service but once a month; it is probably entitled once in three weeks, which is the general custom or canon.

Landrake measures 2217 } statute acres.
St. Erney 881 }
----
3098
Annual value of the Real Property in both £. _s._ _d._
parishes, as returned to Parliament in 1815 5818 0 0
Poor Rate in both parishes 1831 459 2 0
Population of } in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
both parishes. } 613 | 768 | 841 | 872
giving an increase of 42 per cent. in 30 years.
Rector of Landrake, the Rev. Wymond Cory, presented in 1802 by
the Countess of Mount Edgecombe; of St. Erney, the Rev. H.
Molesworth, presented in 1823 by Lord de Dunstanville.

GEOLOGY, BY DOCTOR BOASE.

St. Erney consists principally of a blue slate or calcareous schist, and it probably also contains limestone, as is the case in St. Germans, the two parishes being separated only by a small creek.

Landrake. This parish is entirely constituted of rocks belonging to the calcareous series, like those of the adjacent parishes, St. Erney and St. Germans.

LANDULPH, OR LANDILIP.

HALS.

The manuscript relating to this parish is lost.

TONKIN.

Landulph is in the hundred of East. To the west of it is Pillaton and Botus-Fleming, to the north St. Dominick, to the east and south the river Tamar.

This signifies the church of Dilp.

It is a rectory, valued in the King’s Books at £20. 3_s._ 6_d._ The Duke of Cornwall patron.

This church was valued in the time of Pope Nicholas at £4, having never been appropriated, the prior of St. Germans receiving out of the rectory a pension of £8; and if I understand the entries rightly, the same did the abbat of Tavistock.

THE EDITOR.

The church of Landulph is situated almost on the margin of the shore, and looks directly down the river. It contains monuments of the Lowers, but it has one monument of extraordinary interest, to the memory of Theodore Paleologus, descended from the last Emperors of Greece, or as they styled themselves in the single city of Constantinople, Emperors of Rome.

A very ample account of all that can be collected with respect to this personage, has been given by the present learned and ingenious rector Mr. Francis Vyvyan Jago Arundell, in a communication to the Society of Antiquaries, in 1815.

“In the parish church of Landulph, in the eastern extremity of
Cornwall, is a small brass tablet fixed against the wall, with
the following inscription:――

‘Here lyeth the body of Theodore Paleologus, of Pesaro in Italye,
descended from yᵉ Imperyal lyne of yᵉ last Christian emperors of
Greece, being the sonne of Camilio, yᵉ sonne of Prosper, the
sonne of Theodoro, the sonne of John, yᵉ sonne of Thomas, second
brother of Constantine Paleologus, the 8ᵗʰ of that name, and last
of yᵗ lyne yᵗ rayned in Constantinople until subdued by the
Turks, who married wᵗ Mary, yᵉ daughter of William Balls, of
Hadlye in Souffolke, Gent. and had issue 5 children, Theodore,
John, Ferdinando, Maria, and Dorothy; and departed this life at
Clyfton, yᵉ 21ˢᵗ of Janʸ, 1636.’

“Above the inscription are the imperial arms proper, of the
empire of Greece――an eagle displayed with two heads, the two legs
resting upon two gates; the imperial crown over the whole, and
between the gates a crescent for difference as second son.

“The Paleologus dynasty were descended from the imperial race of
the Comneni; and the first of the family was Michael Paleologus
about 1270; to whom succeeded Andronicus the First and Second,
John I., and Emmanuel, who died 1425, leaving six sons. The
eldest, John II., who was associated with his father in the
government during his lifetime, succeeded him. Andronicus, the
second son, had the principality of Thessalonica, and died of a
leprosy soon after the sale of that city to the Venetians. Some
fortunate incidents had restored Peloponnesus, or the Morea, to
the empire; and in his more prosperous days Emmanuel had
fortified the narrow isthmus of six miles with a stone wall and
153 towers. The wall was overthrown upon the first blast of the
Ottomans; the fertile peninsula might have been sufficient for
the four younger brothers, Theodore and Constantine, Demetrius
and Thomas, but they wasted in domestic contests the remains of
their strength, and the least successful of the rivals were
reduced to a life of dependance in the Byzantine palace. On the
death of John II., who survived four years the Hungarian crusade,
the royal family by the death of Andronicus, and the monastic
profession of Isidore (or Theodore), was reduced to three
princes, Constantine, Demetrius, and Thomas. Of these, the first
and last were far distant in the Morea; but Demetrius, who
possessed the domain of Selybria, was in the suburbs at the head
of a party. His ambition was not chilled with the public
distress, and his conspiracy with the Turks and the schismatics
had already disturbed the peace of the country. He would have
supplanted his brother, and ascended the throne, but for his
mother and the great men, who prevented him. His younger brother,
the despot Thomas, also accidentally returning to the capital,
asserted the cause of Constantine, who was crowned emperor.

“Demetrius and Thomas now divided the Morea between them; but,
though they had taken a solemn oath never to violate the
agreement, differences soon arose, and Thomas took up arms to
drive Demetrius out of his possessions; Demetrius hereupon
retired to Asan, his wife’s brother, by whose means he obtained
succours from Amurat, and compelled Thomas to submit the matters
in dispute to the emperor’s (Constantine’s) arbitration. But that
prince refusing to deliver to his brother the territories that
fell to his share, Mohammed ordered Thuraken, his governor in the
Morea, to assist Demetrius, and demolish the wall that shut up
that country. Hereupon Thomas gave him the city of Kalamata, in
lieu of the territory of the Skortians, which he detained.
Immediately on this event, Mohammed besieged and took
Constantinople, in defence of which Constantine was slain.

“The dissensions of the two brothers may be considered a
principal cause of the fall of the Greek empire.

“After the capture of Constantinople, Mohammed makes war on
Demetrius and Thomas, under pretence of recovering the tribute
due to him from them as despots of the Morea; but he is obliged
to retire, and soon after comes to agreement with them. At this
time the Albanians, Thomas’s subjects, revolt, and attack
Pattras, a city of Achaia, where Thomas resided, but are
repulsed; they would have been, however, ultimately successful,
had not Mohammed sent his general Thuraken to their assistance.

“The two brothers again falling out, and endeavouring to supplant
each other, Mohammed takes advantage of it, and in 1458 sends an
order to the despots of the Morea to pay three years’ arrears of
ten thousand ducats tribute, or quit the country. In spring
following, he marched to attack the Morea, and reduced Corinth,
without using force. At the first news of his appearance, Thomas,
one of the despots, retired to Italy with his wife and children;
and Demetrius, the other, submitted of his own accord to the
Soltân, who carried him away to Constantinople.

“Such is the account given in the Universal History from Dukas.
The relation of Khalcondylas in the same work is more particular,
as well as more favourable to the character of Thomas: ‘Prince
Thomas having retired from Pylos, repaired to the island of
Korfu, where he left his family, and set sail for Italy; at the
same time he sent an ambassador to know if Mohammed would give
him a great extent of country along the sea coast in exchange for
the city of Epidamnum. The Soltân, by way of answer, put the
envoy in irons, but soon after sent him back. Thomas arriving at
Rome 1461, was lodged in the Pope’s palace, and had a pension of
three thousand livres for his other expenses.’

“Rycaut, in his History, gives a still higher character of
Thomas: ‘Thomas getting into the castle of Salmenica, defended
the same against the infidels a whole year, when, despairing of
relief, he escaped into Italy, where the Pope allowed him a
pension till the day of his death.’ Of him Mahomet gave this
character: ‘That he had found many slaves, but never a man in the
Grecian province besides Prince Thomas.’

“But Gibbon has a very contemptible account of the ultimate fate
of this unfortunate family. He says, that Demetrius died at
Constantinople in a monastic habit, and abject slavery; that the
misery of Thomas was prolonged by a pension of six thousand
ducats from the Pope and cardinals; that he died leaving two
sons, Andrew and Manuel, who were educated in Italy; that Manuel
the younger returned to Constantinople, where he was maintained
by the Soltân, and died, leaving a son, who was lost in the habit
and religion of a Turkish slave. The elder brother, Andrew,
contemptible to his enemies, and burthensome to his friends, was
degraded by the baseness of his life and marriage, and sold his
title to the empires of Constantinople and Trebizond to Charles
VIII. in 1494, who assumed the purple and title of Augustus. And
in a note he says, from Du Cange, that the Palæologi of
Montferrat were not extinct till the next century, but they had
forgotten their Greek origin and kindred.

“So degrading is the account this historian gives us of the
remains of this celebrated family. It is a grateful task to
endeavour to prove his representation in some respects incorrect
and undeserved; as we shall then be authorised to hesitate upon
what he tells us as to the rest, and to put a more liberal
construction upon the whole.

“From the inscription at Landulph it is clear Thomas had _three
sons_: the third, called _John_, whose family, though we have no
particular mention of them, remained in Italy, at Rome probably,
and Pesaro, till the time of Theodore. From the inscription it is
also certain that this family was not extinct in 1636, and
perhaps some of the descendants are still living in England at
this moment.

“The imputation thrown on the _Montferrat_ Paleologi certainly
does not apply to this branch, that they had forgotten their
Greek origin and kindred; on the contrary, the inscription
proves, from the accuracy of the pedigrees and the arms with the
difference of second brother, that the family of Theodore
Paleologus, had neither forgotten their Greek origin nor high
descent, but still gloried in them, and were scrupulously exact
in perpetuating the same.

“The names of Theodore and John occurring in this pedigree, and
continued in the family of Theodore, are still stronger
evidences. Camillo, Prosper, and Ferdinando, were probably
acquired on their connection with Italian families.

“It would be absurd to make any conjectures as to the history of
Theodore’s predecessors, as we have no documents to warrant any
conjecture. If we hazard any opinion at all, we may suppose, that
when, in 1464, the Venetians under Vetorio Capelli warred against
the Turks and attacked _Pattras_, Thomas’s former residence, he
probably joined them, perhaps fell there; and in the frequent
wars which afterwards occurred between those powers, John,
Theodore, Prosper, and Camillo, were probably not idle
spectators, but joined against the common enemy, as well from a
recollection of former wrongs, as a hope to regain some part of
their ancient possessions. Indeed, their settlement at Pesaro
might have been whilst the duchy of Urbino belonged to the
Venetians, and in consideration of the part they took in those
wars.

“Theodore Paleologus was born, we may infer from the inscription,
at _Pesaro_. Of his mother we know nothing; his father was called
_Camillo_. The time of his birth is also uncertain; though, from
his marriage in 1615, _then a widower_, we may suppose him to be
then about forty, which carries back his birth to 1575.

“Theodore’s removal from Italy, and settlement in England, must
have been either compulsive or voluntary. If the former, it was
probably either on account,

“1. Of his religion; or,

“2. From other causes.

“As to the first, the Paleologus family, from the time of John
II., were reconciled to and in union with the Latin church; and
to this circumstance is probably to be attributed the protection
afterwards afforded to Thomas by the Pope, perhaps through the
interest of Cardinal Isidore, the resident nuncio at
Constantinople. But the Greek church still differed very
materially in many points from the Latin; and though Gregory
XIII. founded a college at Rome for the education of the Greek
children in the sciences and religion, (and here perhaps Theodore
was educated), yet we find him opposing what he called the errors
of the Greeks; and in particular, on his alteration of the
calendar he is much incensed against them for refusing to receive
it. And again, in the pontificate of Clement VIII. we find him
particularly anxious to reform the Greek church, and much enraged
at being imposed on by a pretended embassy from the metropolitan
of Russia, which proved to be a forgery. If Theodore, as is most
probable, was still of the Greek Church, these circumstances
might have induced the Pope to withdraw the protection and
support hitherto afforded to the family.――But if,

“2. To other causes, is to be attributed Theodore’s departure
from Italy, it was perhaps from the rigid decree of _Sixtus_ the
Fifth, (about the year 1585), prohibiting foreigners from living
at Rome, unless they brought a certificate that they were able by
some trade or profession to maintain their families. If
Theodore’s family were then at Rome, and in dependance on the
papacy, perhaps Sixtus might enforce this decree to rid himself
of a family whose high descent he possibly regarded with a
jealous eye, recollecting the meanness of his own origin. Or, the
severe famine, which in 1590 afflicted all the ecclesiastical
state, might oblige Theodore, among others, to emigrate to
another country.

“If, on the other hand, Theodore’s departure from Italy was
voluntary, as is most probable, it might be from having formed
some acquaintance, either with natives of this country, or with
foreigners who were coming hither.

“About the same time that the Greek college was founded at Rome,
(and where we may imagine Theodore to have had his education),
another was founded called the Scotch college, for children of
refugees from Scotland and England. Here we may suppose Theodore
to have had some acquaintance; nor is it unlikely that when the
jubilee in 1601 attracted a vast assemblage of persons from all
countries to Rome, some one of these might have prevailed on
Theodore to return to England with them. In the same year 1601,
the Duke of Braciano, a neighbouring state to Pesaro, came to
England, or rather Scotland, on a visit to the King of the Scots
his relation. Did Theodore accompany him? Again, we may suppose
him to have volunteered in the war against the Turks under
Rodolph II. in whose army were many Englishmen, and in particular
Sir Thomas Arundel, whose namesake, and probably friend, Thomas
Arundel, resided at Clifton, the subsequent residence of
Theodore. Did he come over with him? If not, we may lastly
imagine he came here through Sir Henry Killigrew, ambassador
about this time to the Venetians or Genoese. The connection
between the Arundel, Killigrew, and Lower families, give the most
plausibility to the two last conjectures.

“But whatever may be our conjectures as to Theodore’s removal
from Italy, we know that in 1615 he was actually in England, at
Hadley in Suffolk, and (then a widower) married Mary, daughter of
William Balls, of that town. No traces of the Balls family remain
at present, either from tradition or otherwise, except the
register of Theodore’s marriage; and even here, Mr. Wilkins, the
minister, who has favoured me with a copy of this register, says
that it is too mutilated and imperfect to decipher accurately the
name of Paleologus.

“The issue of this marriage, as the monument tells us, were five
children, Theodoro, John, Ferdinando, Maria, and Dorothy, all of
whom must have been born before Theodore left the eastern part of
the kingdom; for the register of Landulph, perfect till the year
1629, makes no mention whatever of the name. He could not
therefore have settled at Clifton in Landulph earlier than 1622
or 1623.

“Clifton, a few years before this, in 1600, was the mansion of
the Arundels; but in 1630, Sir Nicholas Lower, a Cornish
gentleman, who married Sir Henry Killigrew’s daughter, was living
at Clifton. Between these two dates Paleologus must have come
here; and what is more particular, he died at Clifton in 1636, at
the very time that Clifton was the residence of Sir Nicholas
Lower.

“I have made repeated inquiries of the old people of the parish,
but not the slightest tradition remains respecting him; and here
again conjecture must supply the place of fact. When Theodore
came to Clifton, he came with his family, for by the register it
appears one of his daughters married in the parish, and the other
died here unmarried. There must then have been some connection
either between the Arundel or Lower families and himself.

“As to the first supposition, if it is probable he came into
England with Sir Thomas Arundel from the battles in Hungary, we
may suppose Sir Thomas recommended him to Landulph, as from its
vicinity to the sea and warmth of climate, more nearly resembling
the climate and situation of Pesaro than any other place in the
kingdom. In this case we may suppose him to have taken Clifton
for a term, and as the house appears to have been originally
divided into two, the subsequent occupier, Sir Nicholas Lower and
Paleologus, might be both living at Clifton at the same time,
unconnected with each other.

“The more probable supposition, however, is, that he settled at
Clifton from the connection that subsisted between Sir Henry
Killigrew (who, I feel strongly inclined to believe, brought him
to England) and Sir Nicholas Lower. Sir Nicholas Lower married
Sir Henry’s daughter, and as they were now advanced in life,
without any family, the society of Paleologus and his children
might be desirable to them; particularly when we recollect that
this was the time when the Greek language was so much in fashion
in England, that even ladies studied it most zealously; that Lady
Killigrew was one of the learned daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke,
celebrated for her literary attainments, and particularly her
knowledge of Greek; and it is reasonable to suppose her daughter,
Lady Lower, wife of Sir Nicholas, was brought up with the same
fondness for the classic languages; and where could she expect to
find so able an instructor as a descendant of the first family in
the Greek empire; or what place could be more suited to classical
pursuits than the retirement of a country mansion, such as
Clifton.

“On the 21st of January 1636, as appears by the monument,
Theodore Paleologus died at Clifton, Sir Nicholas and Lady Lower
being still alive; of whom the latter died in 1638, and Sir
Nicholas in 1655.

“The Landulph register, perfect from 1540 to 1628, has then a
great chasm till the year 1649; and during this interval all the
entries that would have been probably most interesting to our
inquiries were made.

“Some little time since I examined the duplicates of parish
registers, deposited in the room of archives in Exeter cathedral;
and after a laborious search among the registers of two
centuries, thrown promiscuously together without arrangement as
to either parishes or dates, and those for the most part
obliterated by the damp, I had the good fortune to recover the
Landulph register for the year 1636, which had the following
entry:

“‘Theodore Palleologus was buryed the 20th daye of October.’

“By the monument Theodore is said to have died the 21st of
January 1636; from the register it appears he was buried October
20, 1636. It can hardly be supposed the body was kept from
January till October, and the difficulty is increased from the
knowledge, that by the mode of calculation in use at that time,
the year commenced at Lady-day; so that, if he died January 21,
1636, the 20th of October following must have been in 1637.

“The body, if it remained any considerable time uninterred, would
have been inclosed in a lead coffin; but this was not the case,
for about twenty years ago, when the vault was accidentally
opened, the coffin of Paleologus was seen, a single oak coffin;
and curiosity prompting to lift the lid, the body of Paleologus
was discovered, and in so perfect a state as to ascertain him to
have been in stature much above the common height, his
countenance of an oval form, much lengthened, and strongly marked
by an aqueline nose, and a very white beard reaching low on the
breast.

“Of the five children left by him, no traces remain of two sons,
John and Ferdinando. Whether they joined the brothers of Sir
Nicholas Lower, who were distinguished cavaliers on the king’s
side in the unhappy wars that distracted the country soon after
the death of Theodore, and in which Major Lower gallantly fell;
or whether the miserable state of England induced them again to
re-visit Italy, cannot be ascertained.

“Theodore was a sailor, and served on board the Charles II.
Captain Gibson. He died at sea 1693, as appears by a will and
power in the Commons, obligingly communicated to me by Francis
Townsend, Esq. Windsor Herald. This is dated August 1, 1693, and
solely in favour of his wife Martha. If he had any children they
are not named in it. The signature is Theodore Paleologey; and
though described simply as mariner, it should seem he was
possessed of landed estate, as there are four witnesses, Charles
Gibson, commander, J. Wright, John Corneth, Richard Roberts.

“Mary Paleologus died at Landulph unmarried in 1674; and her
sister Dorothy was married in 1656 to William Arundel, the
grandson probably of Alexander Arundel, of Clifton. This marriage
is registered at Landulph and St. Mellion, as solemnised in both
parishes; the entry at the latter is, ‘Dorothea Paleologus de
stirpe Imperatorum.’ Soon after their marriage they settled in
St. Dominick, an adjoining parish, the registers of which having
been accidentally destroyed, it is impossible now to determine if
they had any issue, though it seems highly probable. They were
both buried at Landulph, Dorothy in 1681, and her husband in
1684; and as some years after, a Mary Arundel was married to
Francis Lee, the imperial blood perhaps still flows in the
bargemen of Cargreen!”

The manor of Landulph is traced back to the family of D’Alneto, from whom it passed to the Courtenays, and fell to the Crown on the attainder of Henry Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter, in 1539, soon after which it was annexed to the duchy of Cornwall.

The manor of Glebridge has passed through various families, and is now the property of Mr. Bluett.

But the principal place in this parish was Clifton. Sir John Arundell is said to have built the house about the year 1500. It is believed to have afterwards belonged to the Killigrews, as it passed in succession to Sir Nicholas Lower and Sir Reginald Mahon, who married the daughters of Sir Henry Killigrew. The former died without issue; and it was ultimately sold with the other property of the Mahons to Pitt.

The Lowers had their principal seat at St. Winnow, and were eminent during several successions. Some of this family were distinguished by their proficiency in science, and by their friendships with scientific men. This has been very recently made prominent in a work that cannot receive too much commendation, either for the accuracy, the ability, or for the industry displayed by its author. The Life of Dr. Bradley, by Stephen Peter Rigaud, M.A. Savilian Professor of Astronomy in Oxford, and Director of the Radcliffe Observatory, 1 vol. 4to. 1832.

Landulph measures 1564 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 3596 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 363 0 0
Population, {in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 529 | 590 | 579 | 570
giving an increase of not quite 8 per cent. in 30 years.
Present Rector, the Rev. F. V. Jago, F.S.A. presented
by the Prince of Wales, as Duke of Cornwall in 1805.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

Doctor Boase says of the geology of this parish, that it is situated like the last on the calcareous series, and that its rocks are similar.

LANEAST.

HALS.

The manuscript relating to this parish is lost.

TONKIN.

Laneast is in the hundred of East. To the west of it is St. Clether, to the north Egloskerry, to the east Trewren, to the south Alternun.

This parish taketh its name from its situation to the east of St. Clether.

It is an impropriation, belonging formerly to the Priory of Launceston. The great tithes are at present in the hands of the Earl of Radnor (Robarts); and the small tithes, out of which seven pounds a-year are paid for the supply of the cure, are in the possession of Mr. Arthur Squire and Mr. King.

THE EDITOR.

This parish contains three villages, the Church Town, Badgall, and Trespearn.

The principal or only seat is Tregeare, belonging to the family of Baron.

The late Mr. Jaspar Baron either rebuilt or greatly improved the house. This gentleman was for some time a member of Pembroke College, Oxford, but did not proceed to a degree. He died in early life, leaving a son and a daughter. The son became a member of Wadham College, Oxford. He died unmarried, and still earlier than his father. The sister, heiress of the very considerable property possessed by this family, has married a son of the late Mr. Christopher Lethbridge, of Madford in Launceston.

The great tithes now belong to Mr. George Bennett, and the impropriate vicarage to Mr. Baron and Mr. Cook.

This parish measures 2111 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 851 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 148 19 0
Population, {in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 179 | 149 | 229 | 279
giving an increase of 56 per cent. in 30 years.

THE GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

The geology of this parish is precisely similar to that of the adjacent parish of St. Clether.

The northern part is situated on that range of downs which extends from Launceston to the British Channel. These downs consist principally of varieties of dunstone, which are sometimes felspathic; but in general they are very siliceous, and even quartzoze. They are interesting in an economical point of view, as containing extensive deposits of the ores of manganese. A mine of this substance has been long worked at Letcot in Laneast. The ores occur in a lode or cross course of capel, running north-east and south-west; the lode is about twelve fathoms in width, and is composed of siliceous materials, or rather varieties of compact felspar, in which silex greatly predominates. The ore is arranged throughout the substances of the lode in veins and branches. In the latter form it was originally discovered, not many feet below the surface, and in such abundance that it was obtained at a very trifling cost, for the hardness and tenacity of the capel permitted the ore to be followed in all its ramifications without needing support: and the result of these operations has been to produce a large chasm, with curiously irregular and indented sides.

LANHIDROCK.

HALS.

The manuscript relating to this parish is lost.

TONKIN.

Lanhidrock is in the hundred of Pider; hath to the west Lanivet; to the north Bodmin; to the east Fowey river, between it and St. Winnow; to the south, Lanlivery.

This parish takes its name from St. Hidrock, and is the church of St. Hidrock.

This probably may be the manor that in Domesday is called the Lanredock; and if so, it is one of the manors given by William the Conqueror to Robert Earl of Morton, with the Earldom of Cornwall.

In the year sixteen hundred and ―――― John Lord Robarts, being disgusted on some occasion or other with the town of Truro, left his barony-house there, and new built a large one in this place, quadrangularwise, to which he added afterwards a noble gate-house, and enclosed a very handsome park, well-wooded, and watered by the river Fowey.

This noble lord was afterwards, in 1662, made Lord Privy Seal, in the place of William Lord Say, deceased. In Sept. 1669 he was made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, but continued there no longer than the May following; and about this time he received the honour of being made Custos Rotulorum of Cornwall. In 1679, July 20, he was created Earl of Falmouth and Viscount Bodmin, but he kept the title of Falmouth only six days, when he got it changed to that of Radnor. In October of the same year he was made Lord President of the Council, in the room of Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury. He was twice married, 1st. to the Lady Lucy Rich, daughter of Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick, by whom he had issue Robert Lord Viscount Bodmin. He married, secondly, a daughter of John Smith, Esq. of Kent, a lady of great beauty, who, it is said, was to have married his eldest son the Lord Bodmin; for which reason there was never a good understanding between the father and son. By her he had several children, the eldest of which was Francis Robarts, a very ingenious man, and a great mathematician, author of several small works. He was twice married, first to Penelope, daughter of Sir Courtenay Pole, of Devonshire, by whom he had no issue; secondly, to the Lady Ann Fitzgerald, daughter of the Earl of Kildare, and widow of Mr. William Boscawen, of Tregothnan. The said John Robarts, Earl of Radnor, died at his house in Chelsea, very aged, July 17, 1685, and was brought to Lanhidrock, where he had constructed a vault for himself and family, and was succeeded by his grandson Charles Bodville Robarts.

Robert Robarts, Lord Bodmin, his father, was much esteemed by King Charles the Second, for his bright, lively parts and ready wit. He was sent Ambassador to the King of Denmark in July 1679-80, but died soon after his return. Charles Bodville Robarts, second Earl of Radnor, married Mary, the daughter and heir of Sir John Cutler, by whom he acquired a great accession of fortune, but no issue. He succeeded the Earl of Bath as Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall, and he was also Lord Warden of the Stanneries. He was succeeded by his nephew Mr. Henry Robarts.

Trefry, that is, the house on the hill, (for bre, bray, vre, fray, are synonymous terms, indicating a hill or a mountain,) adjoins Lanhidrock, and was formerly a barton belonging to the Trefrys of Fowey; although they took not their name from this place, but from Trefry in Linkinhorne. It now belongs to the Earl of Radnor, who keeps it as a domain to Lanhidrock. The Earl of Radnor’s arms are, Azure, three estoiles, and a chief wavy Or; the crest, a lion rampant Or, holding a flaming sword Proper, the pommel Or; supporters, two goats Argent, with a ducal coronet round their necks Or; the motto, “QUÆ SUPRA;” which coat was thus given by John Robarts Earl of Radnor, but for what reason I cannot tell, since the arms of the family granted to Sir Richard Robarts, afterwards Baron Truro, by the celebrated William Camden, Clarencieux King-at-Arms, were, Azure, on a chevron Argent three mullets Sable, as may be seen in their house at Truro, and also in the church.

THE EDITOR.

Henry Robarts, the third Earl of Radnor, in possession of the property when Mr. Tonkin wrote, was succeeded by his cousin John Robarts, son of Francis Robarts, youngest son of John Robarts, the first Earl of Radnor; and with him, who died in 1764, the family became extinct in the male line; and the estate reverted to a sister’s son of Henry Robarts, who had married Thomas Hunt, Esq. of Mellington in Cheshire.

Mr. George Hunt, the eldest son of this marriage, resided occasionally at Lanhidrock, and represented Bodmin in several Parliaments. This gentleman never married, and he was succeeded by his brother’s daughter, Anna Maria, now (1834) the widow of the Hon. Charles Bagnal Agar: left with an only son, who has assumed the name of Robarts.

It is obvious that all families, to whatever degrees of elevation they may afterwards ascend, must at some period or another have emerged from the ordinary fortunes of mankind. At the time of the Norman Conquest, hundreds started forth at once by successful warfare and confiscation; others have risen or fallen by the chances of civil war, favouritism, marriages, adventures, or speculation in foreign countries, by professions, or commerce; these last have recently been more efficacious for ordinary individuals and families than force of arms.

The family of Robarts, illustrious as it has since been, derives its origin entirely from trade, and that too conducted in the town of Truro, now indeed, and for a century past, a place of opulence, and connected with a productive mining district, where several ample fortunes have been acquired; but in the reign of the Tudors it could have been no more than an obscure place in a remote province.

There is nothing known of any particularly fortunate occurrence which might have heaped wealth on this family; they probably accumulated patiently through several generations from father to son, when the rate of interest on all capital gave a facility to the increase of wealth unknown at the present day. That the family made their progress in the world after this manner, is evinced by the nature of the possessions transmitted to their heirs. Extensive on the whole, but instead of being made up of large masses, like those acquired in feudal times, it mainly consists of small pieces of land scattered over the country, on which the successful merchant or dealer lent his superfluous money on mortgage, and afterwards entered into possession or foreclosed.

The first Lord Robarts, created a Baron through the influence of George Villiers Duke of Buckingham, with King James the First,[9] who emerged from Truro, and built or improved the house at Lanhidrock, and planted in all probability the magnificent avenues, must have been a man worthy of his high fortune.

The editor remembers the house, a complete square, with a superb barbican in front, united to the house, or rather castle, by two lofty walls.

These walls were first taken down, and then the front, by Mr. George Hunt, which he replaced by green palisades. This gentleman had the reputation of being a classical scholar, and he travelled into the south of Europe, where Taste once fixed her abode, and where she still lingers or loves often to return; but according to all the opinions now entertained, he never met her in his walks, nor profited by the contemplation of her works. Perhaps in his youth the prejudice had not disappeared which confined all the elegance and beauty of architecture to upright pillars with horizontal cornices, and esteemed the word Gothic as of the same import with barbarous, and inviting destruction wherever it was applied.

This parish was heretofore a complete impropriation to the priory at Bodmin, in respect to small tithes as well as the great; and being situated so near the monastery, it was probably served from thence, and considered as exempt from the canon enjoining the residence of some spiritual person on all benefices, and it has continued a donative to the present time. Mr. Tonkin conjectures that the parish is dedicated to a Saint Hydrock, or Hidrock. No such name is to be found; but it may belong to the list of missionaries.

The Editor remembers to have heard as facts, from an old lady of Bodmin, who died many years before the words ‘political economy,’ were pronounced in England, that the last Lord Radnor kept house at Lanhidrock in the style of ancient baronial magnificence; that a bullock was killed every week, and a sheep every day; and that whatever remained over-night of meat, of broken bread, or of certain allowed quantities of beer, were on the morning distributed at the gate; and that in consequence the whole neighbourhood became idle, depraved, and vicious, to such a degree as to force itself on the notice of every one, and to produce a full conviction of the utter destruction that must ensue if it were possible that such mistaken liberality could be common.

The manor of Lanhidrock belonged in former times to the Glynns, of Glynn. Mr. Lysons says that it passed from them as a marriage portion to the family of Lyttleton, and from them by a heiress to Trenance; and that in the year 1620 Lyttleton Trenance, Esq. sold it to Sir Richard Roberts, afterwards created Lord Truro. Mr. Tonkin has stated that this gentleman built the house; but the whole place has the appearance of much greater antiquity: that he improved and decorated the building, and perhaps added the barbican and the connecting walls, is very probable.

Lanhidrock measures 1659 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 1213 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 137 6 0
Population, {in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 187 | 235 | 251 | 239
giving an increase of 28 per cent. in 30 years.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

The south-western corner of this parish touches on the granite; the rest is composed of rocks belonging to the porphyritic series, being principally varieties of compact and schistose felspar rocks, containing mica or horneblende, or a mineral of an intermediate nature, not easily discriminated.

[9] See Nichols’s Progresses, &c. of King James, iii, 230.

LANIVET.

HALS.

The manuscript relating to this parish is lost.

TONKIN.

Lanivet, in the hundred of Pider, hath to the west Withiel, to the north and east Bodmin and Lanhydrock, to the south St. Roach, Luxilian, and Lanlivery.

This parish is a rectory, valued in the King’s books at 24_l._ The patronage in Kelland Courtenay, Esq. and the heirs of Anthony Nicholl, Esq. of Penrose, _alternis vicibus_. The incumbent Mr. Vasnoom.

A. D. 1291, 20th Edward the First (the valuation of Pope Nicholas) this Church is rated at 8_l._ having never been appropriated.

In treating of the estates of this parish, I shall begin with Tremere, the great town, called in Domesday book Tremer, being one of the numerous manors in this county given by William the Conqueror to his half brother, Robert Earl of Morton, with the Earldom of Cornwall. Mr. Carew calls it Tremore.

It had formerly owners of the same name, who, I suppose, held it in vassalage under the Earls of Cornwall; they gave for their arms, Argent, three reap-hooks conjoined in the blades Sable. The last of whom was John Tremere, Esq. of this place, who left two daughters and heirs; Alice, married to Geoffrey St. Aubyn, of Clowance, Esq. which Alice, as appears by the inscription on her husband’s tomb-stone in Crowan church, died the 1st of May 1400.

And …

This place hath been for several generations the seat of the Courtenays, whom I take to be a younger branch of those of Trethurfe, to whom they have at length been heirs; for the present owner’s grandfather, Humphry Courtenay, Esq. during many years, and up to his decease, Representative in Parliament for the borough of Michell, married the daughter of Sir Peter Courtenay, of Trethurfe, and eventually sole heiress to her brother William Courtenay.

Their son, William Courtenay, married the daughter of ―――― Kelland, of Peynsford in Devonshire, and their son Kelland Courtenay, Esq. is the present possessor, 1734; Member of Parliament for Truro; he has two daughters, both as yet unmarried.

THE EDITOR.

On the decease of Mr. Charles Courtenay, son of the last-mentioned Kelland Courtenay in 1761, all the property devolved on his two sisters; one of whom married William Poyntz, Esq. of Berkshire, and the other Edmund Boyle, Earl of Cork.

Tremere, with much of the other property, has been sold; and Mr. William Stephen Poyntz has acquired the Boyle share of what remains.

This extensive parish contains several villages. The Church Town, Bodwanick, Bokiddick, Lamorick, St. Inganger, Trebell, Tregullan, Tremoore, and Woodly, with a part of St. Lawrence, the locality of an ancient incorporated lazar-house.

The church and tower may be considered as handsome models of western ecclesiastic architecture, where all are superior to the average of other districts. This tower, as well as the adjoining one of Roach, are without the usual ornament of pinnacles.

In the church are some monuments; one to the memory of Mr. Richard Courtenay and Thomasin his wife, dated in 1632, is remarkable for its simplicity and quaintness of its inscription:

They lived and died both in Tremere,
God hath their souls, their bones lie here;
Richard with Thomsen his loved wife,
Lived sixty-one years――then ended life.

The advowson of this parish was purchased about the middle of the last century by Mr. Phillipps, a substantial yeoman of Roach; and the Editor has heard for a thousand pounds. It now belongs to his great-grandson, the Reverend William Phillipps, who is the Rector.

This parish possesses the curious and interesting remains of a convent or female monastery, dedicated to St. Bennet.

Very little is known of its history. The remote, and in former times almost inaccessible, situation of Cornwall, and perhaps the frequent insurrections during the reign of Henry the Seventh and of Edward the Sixth, have involved the history of its religious institution in a greater obscurity than what hangs over any other part of England.

This nunnery is believed to have been a cell to some foreign convent; and it is not certainly known whether it was entirely suppressed by Henry the Fifth, or whether, as some have conjectured, it became attached to the priory of Bodmin, and remained a parcel of that house till the general dissolution.

It belonged for a considerable period to the Courtenays of Tremere, and in a state of repair, for there is a tradition of its having made some defence in the great Civil War, till cannon were used against it.

It was sold in the year 1710; and about ten years afterwards became the property of Mr. Grose, a farmer of the parish. His son or grandson, about the year 1775, built a new house on the farm, when some remains of a beautiful cloister, which the Editor faintly remembers, afforded a ready supply of materials. It is said, that Mr. George Hunt, of Lanhidrock, more impressed by the elegance of these ruins than by the splendour of his own house, interfered to the extent of remonstrance for their preservation; but when the proprietor replied that he would willingly spare them, if the difference of expense for getting stone from a neighbouring quarry were paid him, nothing further was done.

The mere site of the building has been purchased within twenty years by the Rev. Francis Vyvyan Jago Arundell, Rector of Landulph; and in the present year this sequestered spot――scarcely visible in any direction at the distance of half a mile, inclosed in a deep vale, and surrounded by trees more lofty than its half-ruined tower; the appropriate retreat of those who choose their lot――

The world forgetting, by the world forgot,
Where round some mould’ring tow’r pale ivy creeps,
And low-brow’d rocks hang nodding o’er the deeps;

――is by the progress of recent improvement laid open to public view, and above all to the inspection of strangers. A hill so steep as to be dangerous for carriages, and extending to a mile in length, has been avoided, by conducting the London road through this valley, which, after an interval, perhaps, of a thousand years from the time when it was devoted to superstitious observances, directly opposed to the benevolence inseparable from the Author of all Good, and congenial only to the demon of evil, has at last become subservient to general utility.

This parish is possessed of certain lands, some within its own limits, but others at considerable distances in other parishes. These are held by twelve feoffees, called the twelve men of the parish, a species of select vestry, which existed in all large parishes in Cornwall down to the early part of the last century, till it was tacitly done away by those improvident or insane acts of the legislature, made no doubt in conformity with the existing prejudices of the times, which have generated a rapidly increasing tribe of lazzaroni, threatening, if their progress cannot now be checked, most infallibly to reduce this once flourishing country, the favoured seat of arts, of science, of morals, and of legitimate refinement, to a state of vice and of degradation, worse than that of savages in their primeval condition of wandering hunters.

The rents are applied to the support of a school, and to some specific charities, and the surplus given in aid of the poor rate.

Mr. Lysons says, that these lands belonged to Credys in Padstow, a cell to St. Bennet’s. This does not, however, seem to be very probable, considering the nature of St. Bennet’s foundation. It is more likely that the lands were the immediate possession of this convent; and no such place as Credys is noticed by Tanner.

The history of Lanivet would here close, but the Editor hopes that he may be allowed to bestow a few lines on the Reverend John Lake, Rector of this parish more than thirty years; possessed of learning, piety, and benevolence,

In wit a man, simplicity a child.

He was educated in Truro, according to a custom evidently derived from Catholic times, in the acquirement of some classical knowledge, and then placed in an inferior line of business at Leskeard, where at that period resided Mr. Heydon as schoolmaster, an ornament to his country by every species of learning and of acquirement. Here Mr. Lake, forgetful of his having married early in life, and of a growing family, devoted his time to assisting Mr. Heydon, and in obtaining knowledge from his conversation, till on a sudden he found himself deprived of his wife, left with two daughters, and his business failed.

Thus circumstanced, Mr. Lake placed the two daughters with his father; and having collected a hundred and thirty pounds, he proceeded to Oxford, became a member of Magdalen Hall, and contrived, on this scanty supply, to keep terms and to obtain orders. He then returned into Cornwall, served the curacy of Roach, and there married the daughter or sister of Mr. Phillipps, who had purchased the advowson of Lanivet; and a vacancy occurring in the course of a few years, he obtained the rectory.

Here he again became a widower, and married a third time Miss Bridget Hoblin, of Bodmin, by whom he had two sons. The eldest became a Fellow of Wadham, and the other of Exeter College. Both his daughters were dead; and in May 1805, Mr. Lake departed this life, having completed his 76th year, in peace with all men, having been pious without fanaticism, and to the utmost of his power, a practiser of the good doctrines which he taught.

His widow was left with a competence; and his sons were advanced by their merits and their talents into situations at once honourable and lucrative; but permanent happiness in this world was not to be their lot. William went to sea, and was lost with Admiral Reynolds in a first rate ship of the line; and the second, after struggling with a consumption, expired in his mother’s arms.

Lanivet measures 4690 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 4086 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 375 12 0
Population, {in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 513 | 687 | 803 | 922
giving an increase of 80 per cent. in 30 years.

GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.

The southern part of the parish reposes on granite; and proceeding northward, the next portion is composed of rocks of the porphyritic series, which are again succeeded by those of the calcareous series. The middle portion is by far the most extensive, the other two occupying only a narrow part, on the extreme southern and northern parts of the parish. The middle, or porphyritic series, presents the most interesting phenomena.