Chapter VII: Front Matter (7)

The saint, however, died at Poictiers in the year 368. St. Augustine relates many miracles wrought at his tomb; but the relics are said to have been removed to the Abbey of St. Denis, near Paris; and his festival is kept on the 14th of January, although it is not certain either that he died, or that his relics were translated on that particular day.

HALS.

Hilary is situate in the hundred of Penwith, and hath upon the north St. Earth, west Gulval, [Ludgvan EDITOR,] east Germow, south and west the Mounts Bay and Peranuthno. As for the name Hilary, it is derived from the tutelar guardian and patron of this church, viz. St. Hilary, Bishop of Poictiers in Gaul, the maul and hammer against the Arians, whose fame is eternized in the Roman agonals and festivals, though his memory and day is not celebrated as a martyr, but as one of the principal confessors of the Roman church; that is to say, one of those that suffered great persecution for the name and Gospel of Christ Jesus.

In Domesday book this district, or parish, was taxed under the jurisdiction of Lanmigall, i. e. Michael’s church or temple; now St. Michael’s Mount and Tremarastell, i. e. the market hole or cell, of which more under.

In the Taxation, or value, of Cornish Benefices aforesaid, made by the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester, 1294, Ecclesia de Sancti Hilary in decanatu de Penwith, appropriata Priori Sancti Micaelis, is rated to first fruits lxxiii_s._ iiii_d._ In Wolsey’s Inquisition and Valor Beneficiorum, St. Hilary Vicarage is valued 11_l._ 6_s._ 0_d._ The patronage formerly in the Abbat or Prior of St. Michael’s Mount, who endowed it. After its dissolution, 26th Henry VIII. it fell to the crown, and was sold to Militon, whose six daughters and heirs invested their husbands and purchasers therewith; the patronage now alternately in Erisey, Godolphin, Buller, and others (or Roberts); the garb, or rectory, in possession of Pennock. The parish of St. Hilary was rated to the 4_s._ per pound Land Tax, of 1696, at 120_l._

Tregumbo, also Tregimbo, is the dwelling of Captain John Pinneck, Deputy-Governor of the Island of Scilly, under Sir William Godolphin, Knight, salary about 13_l._ per annum; who married Davies.

Treveneage, in this parish, was formerly the lands of Sir Thomas Arundell, of Tolverne, Knight, who sold this barton and manor to Sir Nicholas Hals, of Fentongallan, knight, whose son and heir, John Hals, sold it to Walker of Exeter; from whose heirs it came by purchase to Sir Joseph Tredinham, Knight, now in possession thereof.

On the confines of this parish is situate the ancient manor and borough of Marazion.(_a_)

In Domesday Roll, 20th William I. 1087, this place was taxed by the name of Tremarastoll; that is to say, the cell, chapel, or hole market-town; situate in a remote corner, vallum, or pit, upon the seashore of St. Michael’s Mount. At which time, no doubt, the Abbat or Prior of St. Michael’s Mount (as they were afterwards till 26th Henry VIII. when that Abbey was dissolved), were lords and high lords thereof; when it was privileged with the jurisdiction of a court leet; as afterwards, temp. Henry II. with sending two of its members to sit in the Commons’ House of Parliament. But, as appears from the Parliament Rolls in the Tower of London, after the dissolution of the Abbey or Priory aforesaid, this town neglected to send its Members, “for that it could not conveniently pay its burgesses their daily wages, propter paupertatem,” which are the words of the record.(_b_) It is also privileged with a fair, or mart, on July 11th, November 30th, Good Friday, and Palm Monday; and a market weekly on Saturdays.

And as a further mark of its ancient grandeur, I take it still to be an incorporate mayor or portreeve town; but more sure I am, that, as some other petty corporations’ names in Cornwall are adjectives merged or fallen in or upon the parishes wherein they are situate, as Camelford, Mitchell, &c. this town is a noun substantive, and stands charged by itself in the Exchequer to the 4_s._ per pound Land Tax, 1696, by the name of the borough of Maraszeyan, 76_l._ 12_s._ 6_d._

In the beginning of the reign of King Henry VIII. (1514) when war had been proclaimed against the French King, a fleet of French men of war, consisting of thirty sail, with some marine regiments of soldiers therein, coasting in our British Channel, at length came into this Mount’s Bay, and there dropped anchor; when soon after they landed a considerable number, or quantity, of seamen and soldiers, and marched in hostile manner towards this town. Which the inhabitants observing, they forsook their houses, and fled to the hill country; whereby the Frenchmen became peaceably possessed thereof, and plundered the same for some days, till they understood that John Carminow, of Fentongollan, Esq. was coming or marching towards them, with his posse comitatus, to give them battle; when instantly they set the town on fire, and the houses on the contiguous part of the country, and burnt the same totally to the ground, to the great loss and damage of the inhabitants, and forthwith fled to their ships for safety and protection; and thereupon their ships hoisted anchors and put forth to sea again. Where they had not long been till Sir Anthony Oughthred, King Henry VIII.’s Admiral at sea, with a squadron of thirty men of war, met and gave them battle, to their great loss of men and some ships of war, whilst the rest of their fleet ran away, and fled into the haven of Brest for safety and protection.

THE HISTORY OF ST. MICHAEL’S MOUNT.――PART I.

So called, for that our ancestors, the Britons, apprehended the appearance of the Archangel St. Michael, about the year of our Lord 495, was in this place, though the Italians say it was upon Mount Garganus, in their country, and the Frenchmen tell us that it was upon their Mount St. Michael, in Normandy; such difference amongst writers is about it; and verily this matter of fact is worth contending for, since the etymology of Michael is “sicut Deus,” i. e. as God, as I have shewn elsewhere under other churches to him dedicated. It appears from the history of the church of Landaff, as Mr. Camden hath observed, that this mount was called Dinsill, and Dinsull, but what those words should signify he could not tell.(_c_)

Mr. Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, p. 154, tells us, that beside those religious appellations that were given to it, it was called in British, Cara cowz in clouz, which he interprets as the Grey rock in the flood, a corruption of Carra clo gris en an coos; i. e. rock-clo-grey in the wood.(_d_) Of this place Mr. Carew, and Mr. Camden that trode in his steps, tells us, that it was the Ocrinum, Οκρινυμ, or Ocrinium of Ptolomy and Atticus, the Greek geographers; and yet Camden, in another place, fixes that name on the Lizard Point.

This Mount is comparatively a pyramidal crag, containing about seven acres of land in compass; at the foot whereof, towards the land, is a level piece of ground covered with grass, where there is a wharf, or key, for landing goods and merchandize from the sea; also some dwelling-houses and fish-cellars, and a cemetery for burying the dead. To this Mount the sea daily makes its flux and reflux, and affords safe riding and anchorage to boats, barks, and barges, with some winds. And that which tends more to the convenience and security of this place, that at low water it is all part of the insular continent of Britain, and at full sea an island of itself. To which purpose thus speaks Mr. Carew out of the Cornish Wonder Gatherer:

Who knows not Migell’s Mount and chair,
The pilgrim’s holy vaunt;
Both land and island twice a day,
Both fort and port of haunt.

For to this Mount and chapel of St. Michael devout Christians in former ages came as pilgrims from the furthest part of this land, with rich offerings and oblations to St. Michael’s altar, Abbat, or Prior; also tradition tells us that in former ages this mount was parcel of the solid lands of this parish of St. Hilary, and severed or disjointed from it by some earthquake, terrestrial concussion, or inundation of the sea; and to prove this, it is alleged that in the Mount’s Bay, after some great tempests, the bodies and roots of oak-trees have been discovered in the sand, broken up by the surges of the sea; the like observation is made by Camden and Lhuyd on the sea shores of Pembrokeshire, and I myself, and many others, in the moors of Calestock Veor, Calestock Rule, Rheese, and Polgoda in Peransand, have seen and found, deep under ground, far from the sea, in the fens and turf lands, the bodies and roots of several oak trees, the hearts whereof were firm and solid. But whether those seas were formerly dry land, and the fens aforesaid the places where these trees grew (none in those parts being now to be seen there), let others resolve; or rather whether they are not subterraneous trees, that grew or are generated there, as some philosophers hold and teach, under the earth.

From the foot of Mount St. Michael you ascend the hill or rock through a narrow, crooked, craggy path to the outer portal or gate; a considerable height on the one side, by the way in the rock, is a small spring of water, that falls into pits made in the stones to lodge the same, for the lower or bottom inhabitants’ use; which water never intermits its currrent. Above the second gate there is another spring of water issuing out of the rocks, that makes a pretty confluence for six or seven winter months, and then intermits, which renders the portage of it upwards much the easier for the inhabitants’ use in that season. After you pass through this second gate, betwixt a winding and crooked path, artificially cut in the rocks on the north side thereof, and follow the same, you arrive to the top of this Mount, where towards the north-west is a kind of level plain, about four or six land-yards, which gives a full prospect of the Mount’s Bay, the British Ocean, Penzance town, Newlyn, Moushole, Gulvall, Maddarn, Paul, and other parishes, over a downright precipice of rocks towards the sea, at least twenty fathoms high. From this little square or plain, there is an artificial kind of ascent also going towards the east, which offers you a full sight of the outer walls of the castle, and brings you to Porth-Horne, (i. e. the Iron Gate) part of which is yet to be seen. This little fortress comprehendeth sufficient rooms and lodgings for the captain or governor and his soldiers to reside in, to which adjoining are several other houses or cells, heretofore pertaining to the monks that dwelt here; all admirable for their strength, buildings, and contrivance, on the top of a rock naturally fortified: so that a small number of soldiers, having provision and ammunition, might defend themselves against the greatest armies in former ages, though I confess now, since the art of war is grown to greater perfection in mischief and destruction, a few cannon or bombs from the opposite hills would soon shatter it to pieces.

On this Mount, King Edward the Confessor, anno Dom. 1044, founded and endowed an Abbey or Priory of Benedictine Monks, that is to say Augustines reformed, with a little chapel yet standing, and dedicated the same to the Archangel St. Michael, part whereof is now converted to a dwelling house, in which there is yet to be seen cut in stone three or four coats of arms, one of which was, as I remember, a Chevron between three fleurs-de-lis.

That it had at that time considerable revenues belonging to it I make no question, since in the Domesday Book, 20 William I. 1087, Lan-migell was then taxed, that is to say Michael’s church or Temple, as aforesaid. But that which renders this place most famous is the present church or chapel and tower, cemetery, and cells cut in the rocks for hermetical monks of the order aforesaid; built and further endowed by William Earl of Morton and Cornwall, yet extant and kept in good repair, with pews; to whose father, Robert Earl of Morton, King William the Conqueror had given the lands of many rebels in those parts, and in particular this Mount, with its appurtenances, (dedicated as aforesaid) and created him Earl of Cornwall, whose successors held the same by tenure of Knight Service till temp. Charles II. Of which sort of tenures there were lately extant, in the hundred of Penwith, thirteen knight’s fees.――Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, p. 39. And in other hundreds three hundred more in Cornwall.

Upon the tower of this church or chapel, for it is bigger than many other Cornish parish churches, is that celebrated place called Kader Migell, i. e. Michael’s Chair, viz. a kind of seat artificially made or cut in the stones on the top of its tower, very dangerous in the access and tremendous to behold.

Contrary to this description, Mr. Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, p. 154, tells us that St. Michael’s Chair is a bad seat, in a craggy place without the castle, dangerous for the access and therefore holy for the adventure; so that I conceive he had this report by hearsay, not ocular demonstration. In this chapel are yet to be seen the tombstones of several persons there interred, in the rocks, (with a small quantity of earth, though without the chapel there is a bank of earth, brought there by art for burying the dead,) but the inscriptions on those tombstones are so obliterated with dust and time, that I had not leisure much to examine them. The roof and timber of this temple is yet so firm and uniformly kept in repair, that no decay, moth, or spider’s web are to be seen in the roof thereof, which gives occasion to a conjecture that the same was all built of Irish oak, which drives that poisonous creature the spider from it. Certes, this fabrick is not only an evident proof of the great skill which former ages, in William the Conqueror’s days, had in the art of architecture, but that many other such of much later erection can hardly equal the same, though it has stood firm above six hundred years.

This abbey or priory of Benedictine Monks of St. Michael, after the donation thereof by the Conqueror to his nephew Robert Earl of Morton aforesaid, was by him annexed and made subject for religious matters to the Abbey of Mount St. Michael in Normandy, under which circumstance it stood till the French wars, temp. Henry V. 1414, when the Statute, made 1380, in the reign of King Richard II. was put in force, for suppressing alien priories (who secretly communicated the state affairs to foreigners). King Henry V. or VI. then gave this Alien Priory of St. Michael to Sion Abbey in Middlesex, under which rule and jurisdiction it remained till 26 Henry VIII., 1533, when it was dissolved; when, I take it, it passed in value with Sion, since the Monasticon Anglicanum does not mention it separate.

The Mount is now in possession of Sir John Saintaubyn, (formerly Bassett) who for melancholy retirement dwelleth here. It is still privileged with royalties over the Mount’s Bay, as far north as Long Bridge in the manor of Lanesely, with wrecks, anchorage of ships, quayage or wharfage of goods, and with keeping annual fairs on the sea shore near it, September 29, Monday after Midlent Sunday. Round this Mount, for two leagues space, is an indifferent safe road for anchorage of ships, when the wind is proper for it; and here, as Froissart saith, landed Sir Robert Knollys, a valiant commander of the Black Prince’s in the French wars temp. Edward III. (who drew the traitor Sir Perducas D’Albert from the French to the English army, to which afterwards he returned again most perfidiously,) where he had been highly instrumental in taking the forts of Froyns, Roach, Vandower, Ville Franck, and other places for the English; from hence he went to London by land, was graciously received and plentifully rewarded for his good services by King Edward III.