JAMES C.J.PENDERJEL-BRODHURST COUNT DE BOSCOBEE. iL ^zm*~*im&*.mjiz2*£Mi t ti»-^ k> kOw. i ^^Sie^jJl- <\>'v^7A-~i^v^C j> / M , J LAUNCESTON, PAST AND PRESENTjJ Jnsforical axxb descriptive g>&efcl). BY Plpi^ed R Bobbins, i i ( " dunheved" ). Shall we go see the reliques of this town ? I pray you, let us satisfy our eyes With the memorials and the things of fame That do renown this city. —Twelfth Night. LAUNCESTON : PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY WALTER WEIGHELL, CORNISH AND DEVON PRJN'JING WORKS, WESTOATE STREET. MDCCCr.XXXVIII TO EICHAED BOBBINS, THIS, THE STOBY OF HIS NATIVE TOWN, is AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY HIS YOUNGEST SON, The Author. CONTENTS. Preface. I. — From the Earliest Times to the Coming of JEthelstan (B.C. . . . — A.D. 927.) II.— To the First CnoiCE of Members of Parliament (927 — 1294.) III.— To the Building of St. Mary Magdalene's (1294—1524.) IV. — To the Election of Sir John Eliot (1524 — 1623.) V.— To the Death of Sir Bevil Grenvile (1623—1643.) VI. — To the Return of William Harbord (1643 — 1680.) VII. — To the Disfranchisement of Newfort (1680 — 1832.) VIII.— To the Present Time (1832—1883.) Appendix. Index. f&nttxzb at ^tziwntxn' fall; 11111 ^Sss t t S^^LAXr*f^?^^^E#^M^ 113 HB ^>£« Bar VKJ^^a PREFACE, AUNCESTON, or, as it is still called hi official documents. Dunheved, is a borough of whose position in history its inhabitants have a right to be proud. Neither a cathedral city nor the palace of kings, neither the scene of mighty conflict nor the home of widespread manufac- tures, neither the birth-place of world-known genius nor the sepulchre of a nation's hope, Launceston is yet of such ancient celebrity as to deserve more than passing notice. Kings have slept within its precincts and princes have had custody of its walls, Parliament has resounded with the voice of its representatives and England with the fame of its castellans, and from century to century as time has rolled its onward course it has- been known to chronicle, to story, and to song. It is therefore somewhat of a surprise that hitherto the borough has possessed no complete record of its history, though this has not altogether arisen from lack of attention. Tradition states that John Anstis, Garter King at Arms, who represented Launceston in 1713, left in manuscript a history of the town, but all attempts to trace it have been vain. The Rev. F. Jago-Arundell, son of a Launceston solicitor, collected at the beginning of this century materials for the Vlll PREFACE. same purpose but with like paucity of result. Mr. S. R. Pattison, at that time a Launceston lawyer, delivered in 1848 an interesting sketch of local history before thn from the testimony of Diodorus Siculus, who wrote at the beginning of the Era, that the then inhabitants were very fond of strangers, and, owing to their intercourse with foreign merchants, civilized in their mode of life. The flint arrow heads of the earliest dwellers in the district have been described ; of the time at which these dwellers became extinct or were absorbed by invaders from the Continent we know nothing ; but we now come at a stride from the Age of Stone to that of Bronze. An interesting relic of this latter period was discovered in 1857, by a mower of corn on the banks of the Tamar, in a field at Lawhitton, about three miles from Launceston. The scythe struck against what is known as a "celt," an article supposed to have served as a weapon of war to the early British. Many specimens have been found in Cornwall, but Carew's remark concerning them,* that " they make small show of any profitable use," must have been echoed by subsequent inquirers, for it is difficult to judge from their construction the exact service they were designed to render. They bear some distant resemblance to a wedge, and look in some respects like the hatchets and chisels possessed by the South Sea Islanders when first brought into contact with Europeans. The specimen unearthed at Lawhitton weighs slightly over a pound, stands about five inches high, and is entirely composed of bronze. It origin- ally possessed a handle, which seems to have been welded to the body of the celt, and the whole may have served the same purpose as the tomahawk of the North American Indian. The specimen is interesting not only as a British relic, but as indicating an intermediate stage * Survey of Cornwall, \>, 8. 6 LAUNCESTON, between the flint celts of the Stone Age (only one of which has been discovered in Cornwall) and the steel axe of to-day. The wielders of these weapons, the forerunners of present day Launcestonians, were destined to a rude awakening from their custom- ary pursuits. The Romans invaded the land, and, although it was the south-east that was first attacked, the south-west had in turn to face the foreigner. The invasion of Julius Csesar in B.C. 55 resulted in no permanent Roman settlement, but in A.D. 43 Claudius Caesar, deter- mining to conquer Britain, sent Aulus Plautius with an army for the purpose. This general was materially assisted by his lieutenant Vespasian, to whom is due the credit of having subdued the two most powerful peoples of Britain. Who these may have been " we are not told, but they were most likely the Belgae and the Dumnonii, who occupied nearly the whole of the south-west of the island, including the tin districts, which cannot have escaped the attention of the Romans, whose operations here, up to the time of the departure of Plautius, are spoken of as having emphatically made Britain a part of the Roman Empire."* Speculation has built much upon this connection of Vespasian with Cornwall, and one county historianf has adventured the theory that it was this general, who was afterwards himself Emperor, who founded the Castle. But this there is no reason to believe. Some Roman coins, of Vespasian and of Domitian, were certainly a long time since discovered in a Laun- ceston wall of great antiquity, and another inscribed with the letters IVLI (Julius) in the soil upon which St. Mary Magdalene's now stands, while half-a-century ago when the Eastern Road was being made another coin bearing the image and superscription of Csesar was found, and further specimens of Roman money have been discovered in the neighbourhood. Remains of an ancient encampment (supposed by some to be Roman) have also been suspected to have been seen in KestleWood, about two miles from the town, J and traces of a Roman road recognised at Bradririge or Broadridge, between Launceston and Stratton,|| the last-named certainly a Roman station. All these facts establish a connection between the Romans and * Rhys Celtic Britain, p. 79. t Polwhele. J New Parochial History of Cornwall, vol. iv., p. 221. || Borlase. PAST AND PRESENT. 7 the Launceston district, but the attempts to prove that the town was established by our earliest recorded conquerors are only attempts after all. Dr. Borlase * has argued that the very name of Launceston carries with it the proof that it was given by the Romans. He con- tends that it was originally Lancestreton, a name formed like Execestre (the old Exeter) and on the same principle as Lancaster and Lanchester, this being shortened in course of time into that which the borough at present bears. The theory is ingenious but scarcely conclusive ; it merits respect but not reception, at least until we have further evidence than is at present forthcoming of the con- tinued presence of Romans in our midst. That some names in the neighbourhood were known to or given by the Rom.ins is assured ; Exeter was to them Isca Damaoniorum and the Tamar was the not greatly different Tamarus. The river was noted by Ptolemy, a Roman geographer who visited these islands in the second century, and who mentions as being in its vicinity the four towns Voluba, TTxela, Tamare, and Isca. The last-named is the only one now clearly to be identified. Grampound and Falmouth both assume to be Voluba, as well as Lostwithiel, which in default of proving this asks to have its claims weighed with those of Saltash for Uxela ; while .Saltash in its turn has in the estimation of local historians divided with Tainerton and Tavistock the honour of being Tamare. But if the theory that Launceston was a Roman town be accepted, may not its name have been that one akin to the river upon which it stands ? The whole question is at once so full of difficulties and of interest that it merits close attention. Upon the face of it, no violence to the im igination is done by the belief that one of the ways by which the R mians marched into Cornwall was the route so ofti'ii in after times followed as the main road from the capital to the Land's End, and that the hill overlooking the fords of the Tamar, framed by nature for defence, was elaborated by art into a fortification, added to afterwards, and traces of which may re- main to us even now. Some county historians would go even further back than this. Davies Gilbert, for instance,! quotes * Antiquities. t Parochial Survey of Cornwall. b LAUNCESTON, authorities for the opinion that the Castle is of more than Roman antiquity. Kennet agrees* and contends that "the conjecture appears to be fully warranted that its foundation is as remote as the time of the Britons." Carew endeavours to compromise! the question. "Although," he observes, "the origin of Launceston Castle has been attributed to the Britons, it still appears to bear about it some marks of Roman workmanship. The Romans succeeding the Britons in the dominion of the country no doubt took possession of all their strong and fortified places ; and consequently this fortress then fell into their hands. All such alterations as were then deemed necessary were therefore made in the Roman style. Its repairs were finished on the same common principle ; and hence the motley ap- pearance which its parts exhibit even in the present day." Borlase is of the same opinion J : " the buildings which remain of this castle are of different styles, and shew that the several parts of it were built at different times. . . That the Roman? should fortify here is not at all improbable." And, Anally, Lysons remarks || " there seems good reason for Dr. Borlase's opinion that it was a British work, and the chief residence of the Cornu- British Prince: it is supposed, with great probability, to occupy the site of a Roman station.". Of all these theories it can only be said, as has been stated of Borlase's derivation of the name of the town, that they are ingenious but scarcely conclusive. The proof of the existence of a Roman road from Stratton to Launceston would be worth more than a thousand speculations ; for while there were Roman ways to the site of the present Stratton not only from Exeter but from the spot on which Taunton now stands, there is no evidence that there was a road through Launceston from Exeter to the west, and this despite the fact that there is mention many centuries since of a bridge over the Taruar at Poison. It is consequently safe to assume that if the Romans made a way from Stratton to Launceston it was because the latter was already either a British town, as might be conjectured from what has been said, or a Roman station which it was desired to link with the other camps. But against this theory it must be borne in mind that there is no record of the existence of Launceston during * Parochial Antiquities, p. 697. t History of Cornwall, p. 359. J Antiquities II pp. 1387-89. PAST AND PRESENT. 9 the Roman occupation, that no Latin inscriptions have been found in the neighbourhood, as would almost certainly have been the case had there been a camp established here, and that the Castle cannot in these days be assumed to have been of Roman design. We have, therefore, still to struggle in the darkness for the origin of Launceston. It is only with possibilities and at most with proba- bilities that we can deal. Dead and gone historians could revel in Phoenician, in British, and in Roman speculations, manipulating the few facts at their command into as many fantastic shapes as their fancy could dictate ; but even a local chronicle has in these days to be written with due regard to the actual. And hence it is that the relation borne by the Castle not only to Roman times but to the Arthurian Legend has now to be treated in a sceptical spirit. Until a comparatively recent period even sober students of history placed implicit faith in the stoiy, wedded by Tennyson to immortal verse of Arthur and the Table Round. Drew * says " The great antiquity of Tintagel castle is sufficiently proved by its being the birth place of the renowned hero, prince Arthur, about the year 500 ; " adding ' If resemblance in architecture can be admitted as a proof of cor- respondent antiquity, the castles of Launceston and Tintagel may be said to have some claims to British origin." Borlase is equally explicit: " Whether this castle," he writes f concerning Launceston, " though of larger jurisdiction, higher honours, and stronger forti- fications, may be more ancient than that of Tintagel, it is impossible to determine." And Davies Gilbert says J there can be no doubt that the date of Launceston Castle might be co-eval with that of Tintagel. So far the county historians ; on this point, however, we have the testimony of one more famed than any of them. Sir Thomas Malory, in his " Morte d 1 Arthur," compiled from the French and printed by Caxton in 1470, refers || to Gothlois, the " mighty Duke in Cornwall," who, when threatened by Uther Pendragon, " went and furnished two strong castles of his, of the which the one hight Tintagil and the other castle hight Terrabil." The latter can be none • History of Cornwall, pp. 203-810. t Antiquities, i>. 862. i Parochial Survey of Cornwall. || Book I, c. 1. 10 LAUNCESTON, other than that of Launceston, " Castle Terrible " being a name often given to it of old ; aud, therefore, if the author of the " noble and joyous " bcok is to be believed, Arthur, son of Uther, conqueror of Cornwall, one of the Nine Worthies of the World, the praise of whose fame has been sung for centuries, and will continue to be sung as long as the English language stands, was at one time ruler of Laun- ceston Castle. But there is a probability that Arthur, who accord- ing to tradition never died, as a matter of reality never lived. One of our most popular present-day historians * dismisses " the ' dreams of Arthur,' so long cherished by the Celts of Brittany," as the work of a " daring fabulist ; " and " the whirlpool of Arthurian romance " is described by another recent writer f as " a wonderful fabric" based upon pure supposition. It is not without a pang that Arthur is thus sacrificed upon the altar of modern criticism, and one clings to the hope that the romance that enwraps him has grown only like that of Roland of Roncesvalles, and that just as there is a basis in fact for the great "Chanson" so there is for the Arthurian tradition. But the circumstantiality attending it, as stated by Cornish historians, must disappear. It is no longer as safe to give dates upon the point as it was in the days when Carew wrote: " A.D. 525, Vpon the river of Camel, neere to Camelford, was that last dismal battel strooken between the noble king Arthur, and his treacherous nephew Mordred, wherein the one took his death, the other his death's wound. For testimony whereof, the olde folke thereabouts will shew you a stone, bearing Arthur's name, though now depraved to Airy.'' But, for the comfort of those who would still cling to the old story and who would fain believe that Tintagil was the home of the Round Table and Terrabil one of the castles held by Arthur, it is to be noted that Camelford is not alone in its possession of an Attery, for the tributary which flows into the Tamar a little to the south of Launceston bears the same name, saidt to have been derived from a similar tradition. The reason why all the early period of local history is so difficult * J. R. Green, Short History of the English People, p. 115. t George Saintsbury, Primer of French Literature, p. 5. J Mrs. Gibbons, Itinerary of Launceston, p. 14. PAST AND PEESENT. 11 to trace is that the British holders of the two western counties proved like their brethren of Wales hardy foes to the invader. The physical features of these districts had much to do with repelling the in- comer. The forest which occupied that portion of Devonshire abutting upon Cornwall was a barrier which protected the Britons of the west ; and the Eomans, skilled as they were in road-making, avoided it as they avoided other of the great British forests, and did not attempt its penetration. From Exeter, therefore, their road into Cornwall skirted the south of Dartmoor, just as now does the Great Western Bailway, and proceeded in the direction of the Land's End by a not very dissimilar route to that taken at this day by the Corn- wall and West Cornwall lines ; while on the northern side of the moor was the previously referred- to road towards Stratton, at which point it stopped. But the Bomans did not settle in West Wales, as all the west-country on the Launceston side of the Exe came to be called ; no towns of importance sprang up there under their auspices ; the hills and the moors of Cornwall were not to them inviting, and it was for the mineral wealth of the county alone that they came. With their withdrawal from the country, Cornwall is for a period lost sight of. Although the names of Hengest and Horsa are familiar in the Launceston district as those from which Hingston Down, the old Hengestesdun, and Horse, or rather Horsa, Bridge are traditionally derived, we have no record of their appearance in our midst. That the Britons here fought against the Saxon invaders may be gathered from the germs of the Arthurian tales ; but centuries rolled on, and the dwellers in West Wales continued to be independent of Saxon, Jute, or Engle. It is not inconceivable that it is in this dim period that Launces- ton first became the seat of a stronghold. The then British " inhabited low huts clustered around the residence of a petty chieftain, whose arts were those of savage life, whose religion was a degenerate idolatry, whose occupations were the chase and war The political condition of the people was that of division into tribes, each occupy- ing a particular district and united by affinity. Dunheved had the honour of being the seat of some one of these petty monarchs. We may imagine a collection of huts in the opening glades of a wood 12 LAUNCESTON, near Dunbeved Green, the dwelling of the chief more elevated than the rest, and above it still the beacon on Windmill Hill, kept con- stantly watched to discern the approach of the fo«."* That foe and in great strength came at last. The ever aggres- sive West Saxons pushed the boundary of the West Welsh, which originally extended to the Forest of Selwood, first to the Axe,t next to the Tone, J and then to the Exe.§ It was in the reign of Ecgberht that the English, for so they may now be called, seized upon Corn- wall. " Strife between the sprinkling of Englishmen who had re- cently settled in Devon and the Welsh (who still held their ground across the Tamar) grew into a war which in 815 forced Ecgberht to march into the heart of Cornwall. After eight years of fighting, his attack proved successful ; the last fragment of British dominion in the west came to an end, and the whole of Dyvnaint owned the supremacy of the West-Saxon King. The conquest of Cornwall marks a fresh stage in the long warfare between Britons and English- men Ecgberht's campaign brought the struggle to an end by the reduction of the one British state which still remained uncon- quered ; and the Britons of the south-western peninsula, after the successive losses of Somerset and Devon, saw the West Saxons masters of their last strongholds from the Tamar to the Land's End." Was Launceston one of these strongholds ? Though the Castle as it exists to-day may be of Norman build that would not, as occasionally appears to be imagined, preclude the thought that a stronghold of some kind stood upon its site centuries before William landed at Pevensey. The rock (probably volcanic in its origin) upon which it is built is fitted by nature for fortification, a fact that can hardly have escaped the attention of warriors ever on the watch for fresh attacks from the Sax his, and not likely to neglect any points of vantage on the Tamar, their second line of defence and the only one upon which they could rely did the Exe fail them. The import- ance in county history that Launceston assumed immediately upon the Normans subduing Cornwall, must betaken as against the theory that, at command of the Conqueror, the town sprang suddenly from the * S. R. Pattison, Leeture on LaUDCeston (1848.) t cir. 670. J 710. § cir. 823. II J. R. Green, The Making of England. PAST AND PRESENT. 13 earth. And the anomaly, often commented upon while Launceston was still an assize-town, of the capital of Cornwall being only two miles from the border, could not originally have been such if there were a time when it was the centre of a county stretching from the Land's End to the banks of the Exe. We are still, however, in the realm of conjecture, and against all theories must be placed the fact that in no record of earlier date than the Conquest does the name of either Dunheved or Launceston appear. The English Chronicle talks much of Cornwall but nothing of the town which for so long was its capital. The doings of the Danes in our district are, therefore, just as dark to us as the struggles of Briton and Saxon. The few facts which have been preserved concerning the district tempt us to believe that, did we but know more, the mystery of Launceston's origin would be solved : but the chroniclers appear to march all around us ; they tell of the battle of Hengestesdun in 835 between Ecgberht and the united hosts of the West Welsh and the Danes ; of the defeat in 927 of Howel, King of the West Welsh, by iEthelstan ; of the simultaneous expulsion of the British from Exeter and the fixing of the county boundary at the Tamar ; of the pillage of Devon and Cornwall by Swegen and his Danes in 905, of their raids up the Tamar, and of their attack upon Lidford where they " burnt and slew all that they found " : each of these facts the English Chronicle makes clear to us. Launceston is in the centre of all, but upon its share in the struggles the Chronicle is silent. But this is not the only difficulty with which, in dealing with this period, the local historian has to contend ; the British inhabi- tants of the district left behind them even less trace than did the Romans, and we are not much better served in the matter of relics in later times. " In the town," says Drew * " no remains of its Saxon antiquities are extant, except a curious arch or doorway, which now forms the entrance to the White Hart Inn, and which displays some very neat and ornamental carvings." A perforated cross, which is to be seen in the grounds of Trelaske, had probably a Saxon origin ; and the remains of a Danish encampment are still to be traced in tin * History of Cornwall, p. 420. 1 4 LAUNCESTON, woods attached to the same estate. In all this there is something, yet not much, to help us, though in the last-mentioned fact the circle executed by the Danes is drawn considerably nearer the town. But now, for the first time in the history of Launceston, we light upon a definite date, which, however little to be relied on, is some advance upon the previous era of dateless speculation. Carew quotes a certain " M. Hooker," who says "The town was first founded by Eadulphus, brother to Alpsius, Duke of Deuon and Corn- iuall (900) and by his being girded with a wall, argueth in times past to have carried some value." As far as we know, there may have existed an Alpsius, Duke of Cornwall, at about the peiiod named, and there is no inherent reason for disbelieving that he had a brother called Eadulphus ; but, even if that brother did found Launceston as a town, it would by no means follow that the Castle also was erected by him, if, as Borlase argues, " the town was built for the sake of the castle, to be near the residence of the prince, not the castle to guard the town." It may, however, fairly be doubted whether the contention thus stated is as absolutely valid as its author ap- pears to imply. A town, or rather an agglomeration of huts, upon the site of present-day Launceston may well have existed before the Castle from its swelling hill first frowned above the valley of the Tamar. But where is evidence to be looked for when written record is lost ? The only source from which the sought-for knowledge can be drawn is the place-names of the district, and these merit a larger attention than has yet been their lot. We have seen how Dr. Borlase has attempted,* but without certainty of success, to derive Launceston from Lancestreton ; and other etymologists have similarly tried and similarly failed to fit the name to their ideas. Carew, while leaning towards a Cornish derivation which would indicate that Launceston is '' scatteringly erected," favours the theory that the original name was Lanstuphadon, the Church of St. Stephen. Tonkin adopts this unhesitatingly, while Borlase hints a very strong doubt and suggests, in apparent des- pair of proving his case for Lancestreton, that the earliest name * ante p. 7. PAST AND PRESENT. 15 was Lanceston, which " signifies, in mixed British, the church of the castle." We have further the opinion of Herr Muller that Launceston was originally Laundscireton, which, split into sections, would give Laundscire as equivalent to region and ton to town, the whole meaning the town of the region or capital. These etymologists do not disagree much more than etymolo- gists are accustomed to do, but it must be admitted that there is something very disappointing in the result of the speculations. The only one of the theories that attempts to deal with the name as it was ever actually written is that of Borlase. We find the form Lancestona in the foundation deed of the Priory * ; in Domes- day the name is given as Lanscavetone ; in the earlier charters it appears indifferently as Lanzaventon, Lanzaneton, Launcendaniton, and in various other fashions ; but we shall have to look long for either Laundscireton or Lanstuphadon, for the etymologists in their anxiety to explain have only imagined. t We are not in exactly the same difficulty with regard to Dun- heved, but even here the doctors disagree. " Dunheved. the ancient name of Launceston, but more especially of the castle, is supposed to be a Saxon word signifying the head or summit of the hill. "J This is the commonly accepted derivation, but Herr Muller supplies another by taking the second half as originally heafod signifying chief, the whole thus meaning chief of the hills. It may seem rash to add a further suggestion upon the point, but is it so absolutely necessary as appears by local etymologists to be thought, to assume that Dunheved is a Saxon name, the first por- tion of which certainly signifies a hill ? May it not as reasonably be derived from an earlier period, the first syllable being the Gaulish dunon, the Welsh din, and the Irish dun, indicating a town or fortress ? If this theory could be accepted it would push back to a much earlier period than is now likely to be allowed the date of our first fortification. Thus it is that the very science we had called to our aid as assisting in the search for the origin of Launceston fails to give * cir. 1120. t See Appendix, Note A. t New Parochial History of Cornwall, vol. iii, p. so. 16 LAUNCESTON, with any approach to exactitude that which we require, though if we take the names not only of the town but of its surround- ings a nearer guess may be made. We have already seen * that even previous to the days of Ecgberht a sprinkling of Englishmen had made Devonshire their home. The settlements of these descend- ants of the Teutons were very generally named after the family establishing them. " In England, as of old in Sleswick, the village community formed the unit of English society. Each such township was still bounded by its mark of forest, mere, or fen, which divided it from its nearest neighbours. In each lived a single clan, supposed to be of kindred blood and bearing a common name."f Wellington and Faringdon, Warrington and Kennington, Islington and Newing- ton are examples of the appellations of these settlements, and close to Launceston is Werrington (or, as one time frequently written, Warrington), where the family of the Wserings had their home. In Cornwall only two such names are to be found (one of which should undoubtedly be Callington) thus affording another proof of how staunchly the West Welsh held their ground, but in Devon there are as many as twenty-four. The existence of two of these settle- ments so close to Launceston— one two miles off, the other ten — may be taken to show that the clans found homes up to a point just over the Cornish border (fcr, until a little later than the Con- quest, Weriington was, as it geographically should be, considered a portion of Cornwall) and went no farther. But in addition we have other names of undoubtedly Saxon origin close to our walls. The Werrington estate includes a property known as Ham Mill, and on the way from Launceston to the Tamar, and not far from the spot where Poison Bridge marks the old crossing place from Exeter to the west, is Bamham. In each instance the name tells the story of the place : the petty kings of the Saxons " possessed many separate hams or estates in their domain, in each of which food and other material for their use were collected by their serfs. They moved about with their suite from one of these to another, consuming all that had been prepared foi them in each, and then passing on to the next. "J * ante p. 12. t Grant Allen, Anglo-Saxon Britain, p. 42. X Ibid, p. 74. PAST AND PRESENT. 17 Coupling both name and situation the origin of the appellations Bamham and Ham Mill is explained. There is a further point to be noticed in this connection, and that is that these names of undoubted Saxon origin lie upon the English side of Launceston, while upon the western only names of obviously British derivation are to be found. The old saying runs By their Tre, Pol, and Pen Thus shall ye know your Cornishmen, and when we look from Launceston towards the Land's End we speedily see the truth of the description ; a mile brings us to Penny- gillam, another leads us by Trebursye and Tregadillett, and so on- wards to that portion of the county where the prefix Pol is most familiar. Launceston stands on the dividing line between the settle- ments of the "West Saxons and the home of the West Welsh; and to this day its inhabitants are considered by those from a distance to partake in dialect and character more of the men of Devon than of those of Cornwall. It may be that in this there is clue to the mystery sought to be unravelled, and that Launceston is really a West Saxon town. That there was an earlier British settlement is possible and highly probable, but it would be no surprise if future researches showed that Launceston as it now exists, a town with a means of defence and a system of Christian preaching, had its beginning in the days immediately succeeding iEthelstan's march into Cornwall, when a Saxon settlement may well have been required to dominate the direct way from the newly conquered portion of Damnonium to the centre of the still rebellious west. ' II. — From the Coming of iETHELSTAisr to the First Choice of Members of Parliament (927—1295.) >.j*&-5^'-£--<~^ 'P to this time we have been travelling in what is to some extent an undiscovered country Pathways amid the densities of darkness have been attempted but no roads been driven forest- through, and the growth of ages still obscures the light. And though we are rapidly ap- proaching a point where the way will be made more smooth, we have before reaching it to toil yet a little longer in the tanglewood of speculation. For we have to ask, in telling the story of such a town as Launceston, not only when the foundations of its military fame were laid, but also when first a Christian ministry was established in its midst. Where traces of Roman influence, if ever they existed to appreciable extent, have died into nothingness the beginnings of civilisation must be looked for in the earliest services of the Christian Church. Cornwall is so truly British that it is not necessary to wait for the days of Augustine and his monks before thinking of a Christian community within its borders. The early British Church nourished among the clan-cousins of the Cornish, and probably among the Cornish themselves, long before the story Non Angli sed Angel i could have had meaning ; but it is probable that it was not until the Saxon conquest of the county that any foundations were therein laid of the Christian institutions of which we have record or which con- tinue to exist among us. At that period, all that was eminent in learning and in the arts and sciences dwelt in the bosom of religious communities. There only could be found the peace necessary for the LAUNCESTON, PAST AND PRESENT. 19 due pursuit of lettered investigation, for around them roared the tor- rent of scarcely-ceasing strife, the struggles of Christians converted wholesale and at word of command, and little removed from the bar- barism brought by their forefathers from Saxon shores. The conquer- ing English , after being leavened with AugustinianChristianity , showed as they thrust forward their settlements the desire to plant evidences of their belief upon the soil, and religious houses sprang up along their line of march. It was thus in the country west of the Exe : Plympton, Bodmin, and St. Germans, dating the origin of their religious establishments from the time of JEthelstan, claim that king as their founder ; and a hint is thus afforded that it is in this period that the beginning of Christian activity in Launceston must be sought for. The record in Domesday of the existence of a college of secular canons at Lanscavetone, the site of which institution is gathered to be the now St. Stephens, proves that there had been a religious foundation by the earlier settlers in the district. Eegarding the date of this we can be guided only by inference from the history of similar establishments in the county. To Bodmin, at which tra- dition asserts a hermitage to have been founded by St. Petrock in the sixth century, was given by JEthelstan in 926 a priory of Benedictines ; and in 930, according to an old chronicler*, the same king " being in full possession of the English gave to God a house for founding a monastery for monks, and for the canonical brothers of St. German and their servants in Cornwall." In each of these cases, the foundation fell before the Conquest into the hands of secular canons, the property of whom at Bodmin was taken by the Earl of Mortain upon the incoming of the Normans. In the case of St. Germans, Cnut is stated to have endowed it with larger revenues than had been granted by JEthelstan, and in 1020, according to Hals, " turned it, after ninety years con- tinuance in monkery, to a collegiate church of secular canons, which might marry wives." It is not an unfair inference that the canons of St. Stephen came into existence as a body at very much the same date as those at Bodmin and St. Germans. And although * Roger de Hoveden. 20 LAUNCESTON, belief has not been general in the old distich which states that When Launceston was a furzy down St. Stephens was a market town, we know from Domesday that the latter possessed a religious estab- lishment and was the centre of a trading community before we have any authentic record of the existence of the town on the opposite hill. But we are now on the threshold of a period in which Launces- ton becomes the all in all of local history and St. Stephens shrinks into a suburb. At the Norman Conquest, according to the story handed down to us, Condorus, or Cadocus, was chief of the Cornish. " He was," says Drew,* " of royal British blood, and had inherited his light of dominion from his distant ancestors ; and neither the Saxons nor the Danes had presumed to dethrone him." But three years after the Conquest he was deposed for his share in an insurrection against the First "William, and Bobert, Earl of Mortain, half brother of the King, was granted his dominion. Thus arose what Mr. Freeman stylesf " the great Earldom and afterwards Duchy of Corn- wall, which was deemed too powerful to be trusted in the hands of any but men closely akin to the royal house, and the remains of which have for ages formed the appanage of the heir-apparent to the Crown." It is to this period that most modern inquirers assign the erection f\oi Launceston Castle. If Boman camp or British earthwork or Saxon "strength" previously occupied the site, no trace remains; what we have with us appears to be Norman and early Norman, for, as evidencing that no time was lost in the matter, Domesday Book, which was completed in 1086, mentions the Castle as existing, Tre- maton being the only other Cornish fortification similarly named. Of the grounds upon which is based the belief that the Castle is Norman, the chief are naturally architectural. Mr. Pattison, in his exhaustive account of the fortress, holds the general arrangement of the walls to be that of a Norman castle intermediate between the solid square keeps of the year 1100 and the walled quadrangles with * History of Cornwall, p. 552. t E. A. Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest, vol. iv., p. 170. PAST AND PRESENT. 21 less prominent keeps of the Edwardian period: "the cordon, the general character of the mouldings, the portcullis grooves, the low pointed arches, are all post-Norman in style, though they may have been contemporaneous with Norman works elsewhere."* The learned gsntleman does not, however, attempt to bind himself to the theory that the Castle was built at a date subsequently to the accession of Henry the First, and admits that " the fair conclusion from the few documents [that can be] quoted is at variance with this and points to a prior date [These] indicate that the Castle was raised by the Earl of Moreton soon after the Conquest, [and] that it was at once completed and endowed with all the dignities of a complete feudal establishment and residence." Another local inquirer, Mr. C. H. Peter, | "thinks it possible the Castle was commenced by Edward the Confessor, who spent much of his early life in Normandy, and soon after he was made King was threatened with an invasion from Magnus, King of Norway. Earl Godwine advised him to strengthen all his fortresses, pulling down old Saxon castles, and putting up new ones like those he had seen in Normandy. He imported several Norman workmen into England, and they may have oommenced the Castle and left it unfinished until after the Conquest." The true balance, however, appears to be struck by Gwill,{ who gives Launceston Castle as the first example of military Norman architecture for the period stretching from 1070 to 1270, the Castles of Windsor and Carisbrooke, the Tower of London, and other undoubted specimens of Norman design being in the same group. All the presumptions to be drawn from the connection of Robert of Mortain with Launceston aid to the same conclusion. Sir Henry Ellis § points out that " the Conqueror was sensible that the want of fot titled places had greatly facilitated his success. To remedy this defect and to overawe his subjects, he erected numerous castles. . . . His reign was in fact a new era in the history of our castellated structures." After indicating that of forty-nine castles mentioned in Domesday only one, and that one Arundel, is noticed as existing in the time of the Confessor, the same authority remarks: "It is • S. R. Pattison, Launceston Castle (lsr.i). t Leoture on Launceston Castle (1879). t Eucyclopucdiu of Architecture. § Introduction to Domesday Book, vol. i., p. 211. 22 LAXJNCESTON, singular that the ruins which are now remaining of almost all these Castles have preserved one feature of uniformity. They are each distinguished by a Mount and Keep ; marking the peculiar style of architecture introduced into our castellated fortifications by the Normans at their first settlement."* If, in fact, it was not during the earliest days of the Normans' first settlement that Robert began to build, the use in Domesday of the present tense when the Castle is spoken of would be ludicrous. And the Earl, in selecting a site for his principal fortification in the West, was not forgetful of the lines of the " castle on the rock," his Norman dwelling-place. " The Lord of Mortain," says Mr. Freeman,! " had fixed his home in perhaps the most picturesque of all the picturesque sites in which the Norman chiefs seem to have delighted." " The lord of the waterfalls," as he is elsewhere called, erected his Castle at Launceston upon a spot the picturesqueness of which must have recalled some aspects of his Mortain home. As from the hill above the Kensey, Earl Robert saw beneath him the rich pasture-lands which follow the course of the Tamar and around him the tors and the downs, the moorlands and the glens, no deep regret can have oppressed him for his severance from the home he had left in Normandy. But the satisfaction with which the Earl was doubtless filled was not shared by those who dwelt in the town at his feet. " Wherever a Norman castle had been reared, it was the object of the bitterest of all hatred, as the living embodiment of the foreign yoke. . . . When those towers were still newly built, when their square stones were still in their freshness, when the arches of their doors and windows were still sharp and newly cut, they were to our fathers the objects of a horror deeper even than that with which France in the moment of her uprising looked on the Bastille of her ancient Kings. They were the very homes of the Conquest ; within their impregnable walls the foe was sheltered ; from their gates he came forth to spread fear and horror through the streets of the city, or through such surrounding lands as still owned an Englishman for their master. In the eyes of the men of those days the castle was an accursed thing, to be swept away from the earth by the stroke of * Ibid, p. 223. t Norman Conquest, vol. iii., p. 151. PAST AND PRESENT. 23 righteous vengeance as when liberated Syracuse swept away the citadel from which her Tyrants had held her in thraldom."* Under the heading " Land of the Earl of Mortain," Domesday records: "The same Earl holds Dtjnhevet; in the time of King Edward [the Confessor] it was taxed for one virgate of land, but notwithstanding there is one hide : the arable land is ten carucates : in Domain there is one carucate, three bond servants, and one villein, and thirteen borderers, with four ploughs : there are two mills, which return forty shillings, and forty acres of pasture : formerly it was worth 20 pounds (£), now 4 pounds. There is a Castle of the Earl." Beside this is the entry already referred to. " The Canons of St. Stephen hold Lanscavetone : there are four hides of land, which were never taxed : the arable land is 20 caru- cates : there are three ploughs ; and three miles of pasture ; and sixty acres of wood : formerly it was worth 8 pounds (£). now 8 pounds. From this manor the Earl of Mortain has taken away one market, which lay there in the time of King Edward." Else- where it is stated, under " The Land of the King ": " The King holds Panidran From this manor is taken away three Lands, Pennadelitan, and Botconoan, and Botchatuno : there are two hides and a half : the arable land is ten carucates : the Canons of St. Stephen of Lanscavetone hold of the Earl of Mortain : formerly it was worth forty shillings, now it is worth twenty shillings. "f More than one fact of interest, more than one aid to our better understanding of the customs of our forefathers, is to be gleaned from these extracts. And foremost, as affording the most striking contrast to the habits of to-day, stands the exhibition of serfdom as existing in the Launceston of eight centuries since. In Dunhevet there were three bond servants, "who lived in the house of their lord, and laboured in all kinds of work without wages, at the will of their master : they were, of course, fed and clothed, but any thing they received was at the pleasure of their owner ; who, if the land were sold, was at liberty to transfer them with it to the purchaser, together with their wives, their children, and all the little property they might chance to possess. The villein [one of which class is mentioned as being ♦ Ibid, vol. iv., pp. 270-1. t See Appendix, Note B. -i LAUNCESTON, in Dunhevet] was possessed of privileges that were unknown to the bond servant, but their service was nearly the same, and they were liable also to be sold from one master to another; yet custom and perhaps the law, was in favour of their possessing some small pro- perty in their own right ; and in other respects the law afforded them some degree of protection : even the amount of service on which they held their little cottage was in some degree settled beyond the abso- lute will of the master. Borderers, bordarii [thirteen of whom were in Dunhevet] were of a less slave-like condition than either of the two former : their name was obtained from living in a cottage on the borders of the manor ; and they held some land as their own on the condition of supplying the lord with poultry or other articles in kind. But however they might differ in other respects, the persons who were in these respective conditions were so firmly fixed to the land on which they were born, that they were not able by any act of their own to separate themselves from it : they were adscript/ glebce, as much in thought as in person ; and, probably, never thought or wished to change their place"* It is not, however, to be imagined that be- cause it was so detailed in Domesday the system of serfdom was an imposition of the Normans. Of its existence in Cornwall long before the Conquest we have proof in a ninth -century copy of the Gospels, which originally belonged to Bodmin, and upon the blank pages of which, written partly in Saxon and partly in Latin, are forty-six entries of the manumission of slaves before the Bishop of Bodmin between the years 940 and 1020.f From this record we find that the freeing of slaves was a religious duty performed for the benefit of the soul of the owner or his immediate relatives, the Church praying that " whosoever shall infringe this liberty let him be accursed, and whosoever shall defend it may he be blessed." But set over against the serfdom is the high-handed action of the Earl, and although Domesday was compiled by the King's Justiciaries, there is evidenced no hesitation in inserting complaints concerning the Sovereign's half-brother. In depriving St. Stephens of its market, presumably that he might add to the wealth of the town at the base * New Parochial History of Cornwall, Supplementary Papers, p. 30. t Ibid, vol. i., p. 92. PAST AND PRESENT. 25 of his new fortification, Robert of Mortain acted as he did elsewhere in the county on The good old rale, the simple plun, That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can. For the Earl seems to have had a fondness for meddling with other people's markets. The Bishop of Exeter held Matele ; "the market of this manor is possessed by the Earl of Mortain, but the Bishop held it in the time of King Edward." The same Bishop held " a manor which is called the Church of St. German. ... In this manor there is a market on the Lord's Day, but it is reduced to nothing because of the market of the Earl of Mortain that is near it." Not content with the great number of manors given him by the Conqueror, not content even with despoiling others of their markets, the Earl absorbed land not his own with a sublime disregard for vested interests. The Church of St. Michael held Treiwal, attached to which were two hides that were never taxed; " of these the Earl of Mortain took away one hide : it is worth twenty shillings." Several lands " were taken away from St. Petroc [Bodmin Priory] : the Earl of Mortain holds them, and his men hold of him." And so the tale of spoliation runs on. The Canons of St. Pieran who held Lanpiran were deprived by Robert of two acres of land, and " the Earl took away all the money." The clergy of St. Neot held Neotestov ; all this agrarian possession ' ' except one acre of arable land which the Priests hold, was taken away from the church by the Earl." Of the "Land of the Church of Tavestoch," " the Earl of Mortain holds unjustly the four manors, Boietone, Elent, Trebichen, Trewant : the Abbot finds great fault that they were taken away from the Church." Neither did this gigantic spoliator shrink from a petty action. " St. Constantin hath half a hide of land, which was quit from all service in the time of King Edward ; but afterwards the Earl received the land : he returned the tax unjustly as the land of the villeins." The founder of Launceston Castle deserves that his lesser- known achievements should be set by the side of the par- ticular one which concerns us most, so that we may the better judge the man he was. 26 LAUNCESTON, In his " History of the Norman Conquest" Mr. Freeman supplies many details anent Robert of Mortain which fully bear out the evil opinion to be drawn from Domesday alone concerning his dealings with Cornwall. He speaks* of the Earl's "share of the spoils of England" as having been " greater than that of any other one man," andpoints to the fact that besidesRobert "hardly any other landowners appear in Cornwall, except the Crown and ecclesiastical bodies," the spoliation of the western churches "aiding to glut the insatiable appetite of the new Earl."f ElsewhereJ Mr. Freeman mentions " a curious entry [in the Exeter Domesday] of an incidental wrong done to the see of Exeter," in this referring to the previously-named inter- ference by the Earl with the market at St. Germans, § but he goes onto characterise the transfer to Dunhevet of the market of the Lans- cavetone canons as " a more direct wrong of the same kind ;" "com- plaints," he adds, "of the same sort occur throughout the whole record." Altogether, Robert of Mortain appears to have been a spoliator of more than ordinary daring even in days when spoli- ation on the part of the great was a custom honoured in the obser- vance. Domesday proves one point beyond possibility of doubt, and that is that the founder of the Castle was not the founder of the town. " Formerly," says the record, the land of Dunhevet " was worth 20 pounds, now 4 pounds ;" and thus the building of the Castle had evi- dently not brought prosperity in its wake. Although the land of the canons at Lanscavetone had not been diminished in value as a conse- quence of the Conquest, their holding at Panidran had been reduced to half its previous worth, while in Dunhevet land in the days of the First William was of only one-fifth the value of what it was in those of the Confessor. And these were not isolated cases ; again and again in the county the same thing is encountered. Whether it was that the Earl carried fire and sword into the manors he either accepted or seized is not stated, but the fact remains that it is mostly in connection with his property that this extraordinary diminution is to be noted. It may have been that all this devastation was a result of the merci- less manner in which was subdued the rebellion of the towns of the * Norman Conquest, vol. iv., p. 108. t Ibid, p. 169. t Ibid, p. 765. § ante p. 25. PAST AND PRESENT. 27 "West headed by Exeter. The Conqueror pursued the same policy wherever an insurrection occurred, first crushing 1 remorselessly all signs of resistance and then erecting castles to hold in awe the land so lately won. The old story that Othomarus de Knivet, hereditary constable of Launceston, was displaced for having been in arms against the Norman King may be dismissed as improbable ; but the existence of the tradition, with other signs shortly to be noticed, tends to show that in the league of western towns which struggled against the invader Launceston was one. A proof that Dunhevet was a town of size is the Domesday record that it contained two mills. This indicates it as having been then what it is now, the active centre of an agricultural district to which the corn of the surrounding farms was brought to be ground : and it is not rash to speculate that we have among us at this day, in the two on the Kensey (one close to the site of the Priory, the other on the old road from Exeter to the borough), direct represen- tatives of the mills thus mentioned ; Town Mills, although diverted for a time to other uses, points in its name to some antiquity and im- portance, while Ridgegrove Mill figures as Riggrove Mylle in the ancient Priory Pent Polls. Put while Dunhevet possesses its two mills as well as more men and more ploughs than Lanscavetone, the town of the canons had the advantage in arable and pasture land and in the holding of a market ; and the peaceful home of St. Stephen's monks retained its money value despite the turbulence of the times, whilst that of its neighbour on the other hill was much diminished by the change. Put Lanscavetone was punished for remaining quiet as it would have been punished had it stirred ; and Dunhevet, having in all probability been sacked by the Normans for its resistance, was now in a sense rewarded by being made the seat of the Earl of Cornwall and the market town of the district. Robert of Mortain as yet fortified only a little within the Cornish border, the Castles of Launceston and Trematon being the fruit of the activity of himself and his son, William, who succeeded him. And it may be believed that just as the Saxons probably began by fortifying the border of a troublesome county and ended by absorbing it, so did the Normans commence by making secure these two strongholds by the Tamar and conclude by becoming undisputed masters of the shire. 28 LAUXCESTOX, From the time of William's invasion, the history of Laun- ceston is not wholly that of the Castle. We have seen* how, before- the Conquest and probably as a result of the warring of JEthelstan in Cornwall, a college of secular canons was founded at St. Stephens, These canons possessed privileges differing in great degree from those- of ordinary monks ; they might marry wives and hold converse with the world, and were not tied to monastic life. Eut, however valuable might have been these privileges at a time when it was not in every case so much a desire to be entirely devoted to a Christian career as to be enabled to pursue study in peace that led men into religious houses, it is obvious from their very nature that they were open to grievous abuse ; and during the holding of the see of Exeter by Bishop Warlewast in the early years of the twelfth century, more than one of the colleges of secular canons were forced to give place to a house of stricter rule. But it was rather because of their monetary than of their moral shortcomings that the canons of St. Stephens were disestablished and disendowed ; on the ground that the college was inadequately provided forf the Bishop before- mentioned obtained a grant of its property from Henry the First, and refunded it for canons professing the rule of St. Augustine. The Canons Begular of St. Augustine, or Austin Canons, as for the convenience born of greater brevity they were often called, held in the religious world of mediajval days a middle position between monks and secuhir canons, almost resembling a community of parish priests living under rule. They dwelt beneath one roof and had a common dormitory and refectory, and from the colour of the hood that covered their cassock became known by their most common title of Black Canons. As the order did not exist in this country until the reign of Henry the First, their earliest seat having been Colchester in 1105, it is evident that Launceston was no late specimen of the 170 houses which ultimately in England bore their name. Tanner states! that the secular college at St. Stephens was given to the see of Exeter by Henry the First, and that "it was suppressed before A.D., 1126, by Will. Warlewast, Bishop of Exeter, who in lieu of it founded in the * ante, p. 19. t Oliver, Monasticon Diocesis Excniensis, pp. 21-2. % Nctitia Monastica, Nasmith's Edition. PAST A> T D PRESENT. 29 -next suburb under the castle hill, a priory for canons, of the order of St. Austin, which was also dedicated to St. Stephen, to which he gave the best part of the college lands," and Leland says* " took the residew himself." So far it would seem as if no doubt could attach to the connection of Warlewast with the early days of the Priory, "but," is added in a note to the just-quoted extract from Tanner, "inthere- cital of the donors and donations of this priory, made in the charter of King John, there is no mention at all made of this bishop ; but therein Eeginald the son of King Henry I., and Earl of Cornwall seems to make the greatest figure, and he was certainly a considerable benefactor if not founder of this new house, as he is said to be by Camden." But how was it that it was the King and not the Earl of Mor- tain who dealt directly with the Bishop of Exeter concerning the canons, and that Henry's son Eeginald, and not a descendant of William's half-brother held the Earldom of Cornwall ? "William, son and successor of Robert of Mortain, having in 1 104 joined Robert, Duke of Normandy, in an abortive insurrection against Henry the First, was made prisoner, his earldom taken from him, and his property held in demesne for a long period, both earldom and property being then con- ferred upon Reginald de Dunstanvill, natural son of Henry, who held it for thirty-five years. Hals records a story to the effect that this Earl 'endeavoured with all his power and interest with King Stephen to bring back the bishopric of Cornwall transferred or translated to Kirton (Crediton) and Exeter, and fix the bishop's see and cathedral at this place and church of St. Stephen, 1155, and Robert "Warlewast, then Bishop of Exeter, opposed," as was only natural, and the scheme came to naught. But as William (not Robert) Warlewast held the see of Exeter only from 1107 to 1138, and Reginald did not receive the earldom until 1140, the story falls to the ground, despite the added detail of another writer that Warlewast became acquainted with Reginald's design whilst on a visit to his manor of Lawhitton in the neighbourhood. Notwithstanding the previously referred to doubt cast by Tanner, there is no reason to disbelieve the accepted story that, ♦Itinerary, vol. ii.,p. 110. 30 LATJSCESTON. while Reginald was greatly its benefactor, it was Warlewast who es- tablished the Priory. This was probably about the year 1120, and the foundation deed,* in which appear the names of Ralph, deacon of the church of St. Stephen and Launceston (Lancestond), and of "William (Warlewast), bishop of Exeter, was witnessed by the abbot of Tavistock, the prior of Plympton, the archdeacon of Cornwall, and the chaplain of the King. When Reginald became Earl he granted a charter to the Priory, taking the property and persons of the canons under his immediate protection. In this documentt (which bears no date, but which, from the careful and frequently drawn distinction between "Henry King of England" and "King Henry my father," Avould probably be of the time of Henry the Second) Reginald refers to " the church of Lanstone," with all its belongings ecclesiastical and lay, and to the canons of the same place "minister- ing in honour of God and of the blessed protomartyr Stephen." He confirms all the privileges enjoyed by the Priory, and, because of the transfer by the Earl of Mortain of the Sunday market from " the town of St. Stephen of Lansione" to " the new town of the Castle of Dunhevet," orders that on behalf of the burgesses of Laun- ceston the Governor of the Castle, who at that time appears to have been Mordont Sprakelyn, should pay the canons a yearly pension of twenty shillings at Martinmas. It is to be noted as a coincidence worthy to be remembered that among the witnesses to this, the first ecclesiastical document concerning Launceston of which we have record, appears one Jordan de Trekarl, not improbably an ancestor of the Trecarrell who four centuries later left as his legacy to the borough the Church of the Magdalene. To what extent King Stephen aided the Earl in his benefactions to the Priory is now unknown, but that he did so and appreciably is evident from an entry in the re- turn made in 1534 when Henry the Eighth ordered an inquiry into the revenues of the various monasteries throughout the country, wherein we find that the sum of five pounds wa s yearly paid by the Priory to " the celebrating chaplain in the Chapel under the Castle of Downeheved out of the grant of Stephen formerly King of England." Having traced the story of Lanscavetone with its canons, of * Lansdovne MSS., 030 fol., 21 b. t Oliver, Monasticon, p. 23. PAST AND PRESENT. 31 Dunhevet with its castle, and of " St. Stephens in Midelhill," with its priory to the time of Earl Reginald, we have leisure to consider how the immediate district had meanwhile fared. And of the five parishes which now form the parliamentary borough of Launceston, it is with Lawhitton that we earliest become ac- quainted. We are told* that about the year 905, Formosus, the then Pope, having remonstrated by letter with Edward the Elder for suffering the West Saxons to be destitute of bishops for seven years together, the King to fill the void at once created seven prelates, giving to him of Crediton what Carew calls a ' ' town in Cornwall, named Landwhitton." Before the date of Domesday, this manor (which included a portion of South Petherwin, another of the five parishes) had passed into the possession of the Bishops of Exeter, and it is evident from the entry that the property was a valuable one : "The Bishop [of Exeter] himself holds Langtjttetone : in the time of King Edward it was taxed for four hides, but notwithstanding there are eleven hides : the arable land is forty carucates : in Domain there are two carucates : and seven bond servants, and twenty-seven villeins, and twenty borderers, with 29 ploughs, there are eight acres of meadow, and one hundred acres of pasture, and ten acres of small wood : formerly it was worth 8 pounds (£) and now 17 pounds." We have thus had in Domesday the greater part of the land of Launceston accounted for, and when we turn to another side of the borough and examine Werrington, which more than any portion has swayed the town's political fortunes, we find equally early records of existence. The names of Bamham and Werrington have already! been pointed to as proofs of the Saxon origin of those places, and we have now found that Lawhitton, in which parish Bamham is situate, was known under its present appellation a century and a half before the Conquest. Tradition comes to the aid of our etymo- logical theory concerning Werrington just as fact has done re- garding Bamham, and asserts} that it " was the land of Ordulph, that great Duke of Devonshire, which ho gave to the abbey of Tavistock." This Ordulph, famed for his sizo and strength, was the son of Ordgar, Earl of Devon, who in 961 founded the Benedictine • Camden, Magna Britannia. t ante, p. 10. J Risdon, History of Duvou. 32 LAUNCESTON, Abbey of Tavistock and (again according to Eisdon, who wrote about 1630) his " coat-armour [by which some have concluded is meant no more than his coat of arms— if, as is very unlikely, Ordulph possessed one] was to be seen not long since in the church of this parish." In a history of Werrington House,* the late Mr. Northmore Lawrence says : <; Tradition built on this connection of the parish with Ordulph to give to a place in the parish called Lady Cross, the honour of being the birth-place and residence of Elfrida, and a bed is shewn in the old house at "Werrington of some date certainly, as ' Edgar's bed ' ; but it needs a stretch of imagination to believe that Elfrida lived in Werrington, or that the bed of the King who died A.D. 975, is yet in existence." Coming from tradition to fact, we find that about the year 1090 William the Second confirmed to the then abbot of Tavistock the grant of the manor of Werrington (Wleriutun), and in a bull granted to the abbey just a century later by Pope Celes- tine III. the manor is once more mentioned. Meanwhile anotber near neighbour to Launceston was assuming importance, for we find that in 1156, when Henry the Second, desiring to provide fitting dowry for his daughter, levied an aid for that purpose upon the towns and manors he held in demesne, the men of Lifton (Liftona) were included among those in Devon upon whom it was assessed by the Justiciers Itinerant, t There is no notice of Launceston being summoned to contribute to this particular tax, but we find in the records of the same reign an instance of the town being called upon by the Sovereign for monetary assistance. In 1177, Half Fitz-Stephen, Turstin Fitz- Simon, and William Ruffus, Justiciers Itinerant, assessed an aid upon " the Burghs, Towns, and Men in Cornwall."! Towards this Laun- ceston (Lanzaventon) paid four marks,§ the same amount as Helston, while in Devonshire Lifton paid twenty shillings and Lidford as much as four pounds. It may be noted that it was at the Council of North- ampton in the year before this aid was levied that Henry, having previously restored the King's court and the occasional circuits of its justices, rendered the institution permanent by dividing the kingdom into six districts, to each of which were assigned three itinerant * Werrington and its Possessors (published 1882). t Madox, History of the Exchequer, vol. i., p. 588. J Ibid, p. G04. § Equivalent to £2 13s. 4d. PAST AND PRESEXT. 33 justices ; and, from the fact that the circuits thus defined correspond roughly with those which now exist, and that the fourteenth- century burgesses of Launceston claimed that the yearly county assize should always be held in their town as it hitherto with unjustifiable excep- tions had been, it may fairly be presumed that the semi-financial assize of 1177 was the first of that regular series of Launceston judge-visits terminated so lately as the first half of the present century. No one who examines the Castle, ruinous as to-day it is, can fail to be impressed with its strength, and to be drawn to the conclusion that the erection of the whole scheme of Launceston fortification must have been the labour of many years. The completion of the innermost portion may have satisfied the first Earl of Mortain, it being left for subsequent holders to build the gateways to the base-court be- neath (each of which presents a different style of architecture) and the walls of the town, with northern, southern, and western gates. In all likelihood it was not until a century had elapsed from the time of the Normans possessing the place that the whole work of fortifi- cation was done, but the greater portion of that which remains to us was probably the earliest erected. At first glance it might not appear possible that the Castle, with its triple ring and its walls ten feet in thickness, should have been built in the years of Robert of Mortain, but the speed with which a century later* Richard the First erected Chateau Gaillard, a castle which in some respects strikingly resembles that of Launceston, t niay be taken as showing that Norman builders were not necessarily slow, though their work was assuredly strong. Earl Robert's Castle of Mortain on the other side of the Channel was founded on a rock " in perhaps the most picturesque of all the pic- turesque sites in which the Norman chiefs seem to have delighted ;"J and he established in a somewhat similar position his chief fortifica- tion in Cornwall — for that Launceston was of this importance is evi- dent from the fact that while Trematon was held by Reginald de Valla Torta under the Earl,§ our Castle was in the hands of Robert himself. And what is said of Richard with regard to his " Saucy Castle," Chateau Gaillard, may be thought applicable to Robert and • 1197. t See View in Building Newa, March 6, 1874. t Freeman, Norman Con- quest, vol. iii., p. 161. § Exeter Domesday. 34 LAUNCESTON, Launceston : " Even now in its ruin, we can understand the triumph- ant outburst of its builder as he saw it rising against the sky : ' How pretty a child is mine, this child of but one year old.' "* While subsequent holders were completing the ring of forti- fication for which Robert had provided a mighty centre-piece, another building was rising in the valley below. Probably, like most Augus- tinian erections (and Bristol continues to afford us an excellent ex- ample), the Priory at Launceston possessed a nave of great length to accommodate a large congregation, but such is our mis- fortune that we can only conjecture on the point. It stood in a meadow adjacent to the existing Church of St. Thomas, and it has been said that in very dry weather its outline can still be recog- nised stamped upon the soil. But, unlike the Castle which crowned the hill above, the peaceful home of the Augustines has vanished, leaving not a single stone to indicate that it ever had been. We are still in the times of Earl Reginald, benefactor of the Launceston monks, when the name of the first Prior of whom we have record gleams out for us, this being of Geoffrey (Galfridus) who witnessed a deed in 1171, but it is not for another eighty years that we have glimpse of a second Prior of the Black Canons. In the meantime much was being done of moment to the town upon the hill. Reginald died in 1175, leaving a natural son, Henry Fitz-Count, who did not immediately succeed to his father's possessions ; and fourteen years later Eichard, at his accession, conferred both earldom and property upon his brother John, whom he had previously also created Earl of Mortain. Two years passed, and while Richard was at the Crusades John was weaving schemes of treachery in England. From various causes these were not destined to succeed, and John, by an engagement of July 28, 1191, agreed to give up the Castles of Nottingham and Tickhill to be held for the King as well as the other castles of his honours, Wallingford, Bristol, the Peak, Bolsover, Eye, Hereford, Exeter, and Launceston (Lanstaventun), the last two being allotted to the charge of Richard Reuel.f This Castellan did not long hold the position as regards Launceston, Walter Reynell, J "lord * Green, Short History, p. 110. t Roger de Hoveden (Stubbs), vol. iii., r>. 130. J Not improbably a relative of his predecessor, it being a moot point whether that predeces- sor's name was Reuel or Kenel : see Polwhele, History of Cornwall, (.1S03), book ii. p. 80. PAST AND PKESEXT. 35 of the manor of Trebarth,"* being appointed about the year 1 193. He was apparently succeeded by Bichard Flamank (Bicardus Flandren- sis) whom John, now King of England, directed by a commission granted at Orival, in Normandy, on April 15, 1202, to give the Castle of Launceston (castrum de Landscaveton) to Hubert de Burgh. t It is a curious subject for speculation whether this appointment was any part of the reward offered by John to Hubert to secure the murder of the King's nephew, Arthur of Brittany. Tradition runs, and Shakspeare by adopting has rendered it undying, that Hubert was in this the instrument of his monarch. In the scene J where he is tempted to promise the committal of the crime, Hubert is repre- sented as a man to be bought ; and though he refrained from putting out Arthur's eyes, the fact remains that the young prince perished while in his keeping. As the date of Hubert's becoming castellan of Launceston is close to that of Arthur's death, it is no fanciful theory that would assign the award of the Castle as one portion of the payment for the deed. Hubert (who, it may be noted, secured by his marriage a moiety of the manor of Treglasta, in Davidstow § ) held the constableship for no great time, seeing that he became castellan of Wallingford in May of the same year as his appointment to Launceston ; but even if he held both offices at the same time, we find there was soon a change respecting Launceston, the town and castle being de- livered by the King in 1205 to the keeping of John Fitz-Bichard. The changes altogether in this period are many and perplexing. Accord- ing to the Patent Bolls ; || William de Bottreaux (as deputy to the Earl of Cornwall) was commanded on December 15, 1207, to give the Castle to Bichard Fitz-Bichard, the grant being confirmed to the latter by a commission dated at Clarendon, March 19, 1208 ; but Ave find on June 10 of the same year the previously-mentioned John Fitz- Bichard yielding up the Castle to Henry Fitz-Count, who thus re- ceived it thirty -three years after the death of his father, once its possessor.** But there wire still further changes in the constableship * Obviously Trebartha, Northhill; the manor passed in later years to a family which assumed its name: see New Parochial History of Cornwall, vol. iv., p. 9. t Patent Rolls (Hardy), vol. i., part 1, p. 9. J Kim; .l<>u\, Let iii., Scene 8. § New Parochial History oi Cornwall, vol. i., p. 20. || Vol. i., part 1, p. 77. •* ante p. 84. 36 LAUNCESTOX, before the expiration of this reign. On May 30, 1215, a writ issued at Odiham directed John Fit z- Richard to deliver to Robert Kardinan the custody of both castle and county ; on June 21, six days after the signature of Magna Charta, and upon the field of Runnymede itself, there was a confirmation of this grant ; on September 17, a writ issued at Dover directed Kardinan to deliver the Castle to Henry Fitz- Count ; and on the next day a further writ named Geoffrey Monk to hold it in Henry's behalf. It is evident from all these appointments, and especially from that of De Burgh,* that Launceston was at this time of much im- portance. Although the statement of Browne VVillisf that the successors of Robert of Mortain had their chief residence at the Castle may well be doubted, it being little fitted by design for a prince's habitation, the subsequent assertion that between the Conquest and the accession of John the town had increased much inbuildirig and riches may be accepted as certain. The action of Earl Robert in transferring the market from Lanscavetone to Dunhevet, however reprehensible from a moral point, was undoubtedly a main cause of the borough's prosperity. The market was originally held on a Sunday, like that of St. Germans mentioned in Domesday, though Sunday markets had been forbidden by the early laws of the priests, J as well as by those of iEthelred and Cnut ; Matthew Paris, however, informs us that at the opening of the thirteenth century fairs and markets were constantly so held in England and had been from a remote period. But although it was not until 1449 that an enactment was made abolishing these markets, and notwithstanding that even in the reign of Elizabeth the custom continued in Wales, it is evident there had long been growing a public opinion against it. In 1206, the inhabitants of Launceston gave the King live marks for a licence to change the holding of their market from Sunday to Thursday § ; but concerning the date at which this was altered from Thursday to Saturday there appears no record. *A further connecting link between Hubert and the town is afforded by the fact that " Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent, Justicar of England," appears first among the wit- nesses to an inspeximus charter granted to Launceston by Henry the Third, and to be subsequently described. t Notitia Parliamentaria, vol. ii., p. 17. % cir. 950. § Madox, History of the Exchequer, vol. i., p. 407. PAST AND PRESENT. 37 The period with which we are now dealing is fruitful in references to the borough. It was at Launceston that in 1201 was granted by John the first charter to Helston, this ordaining that the inhabitants should have and enjoy all the privileges of the burgessses of Launceston Castle, which privileges, it would appear from what followed, included the liberty of founding a gild merchant, exemption from paying toll in any place except the city of London, and the not being impleaded anywhere except in their own borough. There does not seem to be in existence the original charter of Launceston, but it was probably granted before that of Earl Reginald to the Priory previously quoted*, references being therein made to the liberties of the borough and to certain things to be done by or on behalf of the burgesses. In that charter there is a mention of the governor (prepositus) of the Castle, and in a writ of John of 1207 directed to the "Vicecomes Cornubia?" we find "Hamelin, governor (prepositus) of Lansaweton (? Castle), and Edward, governor of that town " as being liable for a tax of ten marks whilst " Duddeman (? Prior) of Lansaveton " is liable for five, f All this time we have no record of the existence of local self-government in Launceston, but as Bodmin, by a charter of John granted in 1216 (and in which it is recorded that " the town and borough is held of the King, and pays annually to the King's audit at Launceston between five and six pounds per annum rent, beyond the records of time, "J) was privileged with a mayor, town clerk, twelve aldermen and twenty- four councilmen or assistants, it is not rash to presume that in the charter John is stated to have granted to Launceston in 1201 similar privileges were allowed. Of one thing we are certain, and that is that the Priory was not forgotten during this period by the great ones of the land, for on August 22, 1215, John granted to the prior and canons of Launceston (Lanceaveton) the advowson of a moiety of the chapel of the Castle, the name of Roger, formerly chaplain, appearing in the writ. || And in 1216, during the first year of the succeeding reign, an inspeximus charter was granted to the Priory, reciting and confirming a charter of the deceased monarchy •ante p. 80. t Patent Eolls, vol. i., parti, p. 70. J Hals. || Patent Rolls, vol. i., part 1, )>. 153. 38 LAUXCESTON", and speaking of " Himelin, the priest of the chapel of the Castle " and also of " the lordship of our Castle of Launceston," of ''the mill which is under the Castle of Dunheved,"and of the appurtenances and the rights possessed hy the C istle whilst in the possession of Earl Reginald. The records of the reign of Heury the Third are as fruitful in refer- ences to Launceston as those of John. In the Close Rolls we have several of these — -some of no great interest, perhaps, except to professed antiquarians, others valuable as throwing light upon the social life of the time and upon the passage of the town and its castle from hand to hand. On May 9, 1221, Henry, by a deed signed at Westminster, gave the town of ''Lanzanetun"to " Waleramus Teutonicus"* ; on the fifteenth of the same month Henry Fitz-Count appears in a writ as holding the Castle of " Lanzanetun " t ; on October 28, 1222, the Castle was given to "William de PutotJ and on the following January 9 to "Walerandus Teutonicus". § Both in the Close Rolls || and in the Rolls of Fines ** we find record of a suit between a doctor named Ade and his wife, Lucy, on the one hand and Robert Sprakelin on the other as to land in " Wymetun and Lanzavetun " ff held in capite of the King. Mention of this same Robert Sprakelin or Sparkelin is to be found under the date 1202 in the Chancellor's Roll %% linked with the Castle of " Lanzavetun," and it may be the same or his son who ap- pears in the " Rotuli de Oblatis "§§ of 1220 as " Rob' fil Sparkeling " in connection with " Winenton and the Castle of Lancaveston." A further mention of early suitors at Launceston for justice is given in the Annals of Tewkesbury, where is recorded at some length a settle- ment by William of York and his fellow- justices itinerant in Corn- wall of a suit at Launceston (Lardstanetune) between Robert, Abbot of Tewkesbury, and Richard de Grenville.|| || In 1230 Henry the Third granted the earldom of Cornwall and with il the Castle of Launceston to his brother, Richard, King of the * Close Rolls (Hardy) vol. i, p. 450. It may be noted that in a Charter subsequently irranted to Launceston by Richard, King of the Romans, Henricus Teutonicus appears as one of the witnesses, t Ibid, p. 457. % Ibid, p. 517. § Ibid, p. 528. || Ibid, p. 502. ** Excerpta Rotulis Finium in Turn Loudinensi Asservatis : Henrico Tertio Rege, A d 1216-72, p. 85. tt According to the Close Rolls; " Wimetun and Lancevetun" in the Rolls of Fines. tt Rotulis Cancelarii de Anno Tertio Regni Regis Johannis, p. 14, under the heading "Devenesr. De Oblatis." §§ p. 91. || || Annales Monastici (Luard) ■. Annales de Theokesberia, vol., i. p. 107. PAST AND PKE3ENT. 39 Romans, a figure of some note in the civil broils of the period, who during his long holding of Launceston appears to have annoyed the inhabitants as much as he befriended them. In a charter of 1230* h\e made Dunheved a free borough, and, among other liberties, gave the burgesses the right to choose their own bailiff, and granted them a site for a new guildhall (which was to be " held of him and his heirs by a pound of pepper to be paid yearly at Michaelmas for all service and demand whatever,") exemption from certain taxation, and permission to establish a gild merchant. But about 1260 the Earl having his palace at Restorinel removed to Lostwithiel the assizes which had previously been held at Launceston ; and not un- naturally this blotted from the memories of our burgesses much of their gratitude for the charter. They protested energetically against the injustice that had been done them, and to such effect that upon petition Richard consented, on the payment of a fine, that the assizes should be held as had been accustomed. It is interesting to know as indicating that assizes in that day must have been at- tended by even more pomp than in this that those which were held at Launceston in 1 248 were before the Earl of Cornwall, the Bishop of Exeter (Blond}'), and three others, the King's Justices.f At this point ecclesiastical Launceston once again claims our at- tention. After Prior Geoffrey, previously mentioned J as the first of whom we have record, we know of no ruler of the local Augustines before Robert Fissacre, whom we find in September, 1258, to have been excommunicated by Bishop Bronescombe, who had then held the see but a little over a year, because of disobedience and many offences. The Priors of Bodmin and Tywardreath were directed to publish the sentence in Launceston chapter-house ; but, whatever Fissacre's "many offences" may have consisted of, they can scarcely have been of very grievous kind, as it was only a week after his excommunication that he was absolved by the prelate himself at Bodmin. It may have •The charter itself bears no date, but internal evidence shows it to have been grant d in 1 he year mentioned. It is SO dated in Dugdale (Monaslicon Anglicanum, vol. vi., j>. 211). and further in a charter to Liskeard in 1240 the burgesses are allowed all the liberties (riven to Launceston "about ten years before." + [zacke, Memorials of Exeter, pp. 12-13. \ suit by the Mayor and citizens of Exeter against the Dean and Chapter touching the fee and liberties of St. Si dwell 's, in that city, was disposed of at this assize. t ""I 1 -' )>■ 84. 40 LAUNCESTON, been during this prior's tenure of office that in 1 239 a composition was entered into between the convents of Launceston and Glaston- bury respecting the tithes of certain lands near Looe ; and also within his days of rule that in or about 1260 Earl Richard granted a charter by which the property of the monks of St. Michael de Lauimana, a small cell on an island in the parish of Talland, opposite Looe, was given to the Abbot of Glastonbury, the lands being held by a yearly fee of ten shillings sterling, to be paid either " to our seneschal " or to the governor (ballivo) of Cornwall at the Castle of " Lanstavetone " at Michaelmas of each year. It was just at this period that Bishop Bronesconibe appears to have been especially active in regard to Launceston Priory. We find from a letter addressed to Alured, who had just been elected Abbot of Tavistock, that on September 7, 1260, the prelate was at his manor of Lawhitton, and two days later he ordained that the vicar of Strat- ton should pay twenty-five marks yearly to ' the conventual church of St. Stephen of Lancetton " in lieu of tithes. It would seem as if while residing in the district and taking so much interest in the affairs of the priory, the Bishop became impressed with the virtues of one at least of the canons, for in the months immediately ensuing upon those just named he pronounced the election of William de Chagford as Prior of Canonsleigh, in the deanery of Tiverton, to be void, and substituted on December 17, 1260, Henry de Trewinnek, a monk of Launceston. But all was not plain sailing between the Bishop and our priory, for when on September 12 of the next year, Robert Fissacre resignedbecause of old age (being carefully provided for by Bronescombe and the convent during the rest of his days) and the canons chose successively Brother Lawrence and Richard de Uppeton as Prior, the prelate annulled the elections on the grounds of infor- mality and undertook himself to provide a prior, but who was ap- pointed is not known. In thus acting the Bishop did not prove him- self as complaisant to the wishes of the monks of Launceston aa he had to those of Tavistock in the above-mentioned Lawhitton letter, for although the election of Alured was similarly void for informality, the prelate, taking into consideration the monk's meri- torious character, gave him the office. * • The greater portion of the information regarding the Priory is gathered from Oliver's Monasticon ; in cases where it is not, the source is quoted. PAST AND PRESENT. 41 Altogether Bishop Bronescombe ("whose frauds and oppressions," says Prynne,* " you may read in Godwin's Catalogue of Bishops,") appears to have greatly worried many worthy people during his tenure of the see. He was alleged to have used his ecclesiastical powers for purposes of oppression, to have imposed grievous penal- ties, and to have exacted illegal oaths to the peril of the dignity of the Crown and the liberties of the subject. So much was this the case that Edmund, Earl of Cornwall, was at length compelled to complain to the King, then Edward the First, and in 1278 an inquiry was held at Launceston before Roger Loved ay and Walter de Wyn- born into the malpractices charged. f Damages to the amount of ten thousand pounds were cast against Bronescombe, but he continued to pursue his course, and even went so far as to excommunicate all who had lodged complaints against him, until once more the Earl and county had to beseech the King to take this troublesome prelate seriously in hand. J It was about the year 1250 that the hospital for lepers, dedicated to St. Leonard, was founded at Gilmartin. It had before existed at Launceston, it being provided in the previously-mentioned charter of Earl Richard§ that the bailiffs of Launceston should answer the farm of the borough by paying a hundred shillings to himself, sixty- five shillings and tenpence to the Priory, and a further hundred shillings to the lepers of " St. Leonard of Lanston " A charter still preserved among the records of the borough grants hospital and chapel to "the leprous of Gillemartin " by the Convent of " Lancene- tone " with Prior Robert at its head. It is attested by Earl Richard, by the then Bishop of Exeter, || the Archdeacon of Cornwall, the seneschal of the county, and others, including Hamelin Miles, Mayor of the borough, and Oliver Core and John the Dyer, " pre- positi " — aldermen, reeves, or magistrates. In this charter several local names may be noted, both of places and persons, which remain to us even now : the Kensey appears in it as " aqua de Kensi," the Tamar as " fluvium Tambia," the hospital being situated close to the point where the lesser flows into the greater river ; and among * \V. Prynne, Vindication of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of the English Kings, vol. iii., p. 200. t Ibid. J Ibid, p. 209. § ante p. 39. || Richard Blondy, who held the see from 1245 to 1257- 42 LAUNCESTON, the signatures we meet with a Hornicote and a Trelosc (Trelaske), a Bottreaux (Bottrell) and a Wise. The reason for founding a lazar-house has in these days passed away — at least for England. Leprosy, which was so prevalent in the middle ages, and which may have been originally brought from the East by the Crusaders and then fostered by the too ex- tensive fish diet of our ancestors, appears to have especially afflicted Cornwall. There was a lazar-house of St. Mary Magdalene at Lis- keard, but this does not seem to have been either as ancient or as important as those of St. Leonard at Launceston and St. Lawrence at Bodmin. Of the last-named Hals has left us an account which would very probably have served in most particulars for the one on the bnnks of the Kensey. "In this parish," he says of St. Lawrence, " stands a lawres hospital, that is to say a hospital for lepers (loure or lower in British is a leper), which hath good endowment of lands and revenues appertaining thereto, founded by the piety and charity of the well-disposed people of this county in former ages, for the re- lief, support, and maintenance of all such people as should be visited with that sickness called elphanteasy, in Latin lepra or elphantia, in English leprosy, in British lowery ; being a white in- fectious scurf running all over the bodies of such persons as are tainted therewith. The custom of the place was such, that none were to be admitted by the governors of the same for the time being, un- less the person so brought in paid them 5d. a pot for dressing their meat, a purse and a penny in it to receive alms." Whether the hos- pital at Launceston was established like that of Bodmin upon lands and revenue given by " the piety and charity of the well-disposed people of this county," we have no means of knowing ; Mr. Pattison* inclines to this belief, and in this is supported by the fact that in giving one hundred shillings yearly to the lepers of St. Leonards,! Earl Richard expressly declares the sum to be granted " out of our alms." And now is forged a link with the circumstances of to- day which some future Schedule A may break and at no distant date with ruth- less hand. In December, 1264, for the first time, an English * Lecture on Launceston. t ante p. 41. PAST AND PRESENT. 43 Parliament at all resembling the present was summoned by Simon de Montfort, but it was not until thirty years later, the next occasion upon which two burgesses were called "from every city, borough, and leading town," that Launceston returned members. In 1295 five Cornish towns — Launceston, Liskeard, Truro, Bodmin, and Helston — received the privilege of representation, and to the Parliament which was to assemble " at Westminster on'Sunday next after the Feast of St. Martin, 13 Nov. 23 Ed. I.," and which was "prorogued to Sunday next before the Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle, 27 Nov. 24 Ed. I.," the burgesses sent from Launceston were John Gerveys and Stephen Duck. III.— From tiie First Choice of Members of Parliament to tub Building of St. Mary Magdalene's (1295 — 1524.) N the course of the period out of which we have now passed were laid the foundations of the Launceston to-day presented to our view. The Castle was built, the Priory established, Members were returned to Parliament, a Mayor and Corpora- tion were at work, and a Guildhall was become the centre of local life. Six centuries have gone, and although the only buildings of the earlier time remaining to us are the South Gate and the Castle, we can trace to day the outlines of the town as it existed when first a Member for Launceston sat with the Commons. The testimony of the roads may be invoked to prove that the main lines of traffic between the borough and the surrounding districts, superseded now by improved highways but the only ones available as lately as our fathers' days, were in use at the fortifying of the town. The old roads were originally bridle-paths, taken straight over hills not so much to lessen distance as to find ground which would not dissolve into a marsh at every fall of rain or in-setting of thaw. The ancient ways into Launceston seem as if designed to render the approach as difficult as possible to the heavily burdened. It is only in these days that for the convenience of traffic hills have been turned which our forefathers surmounted ; and, as a consequence, tracks which the necessities of centuries broadened from bridle-paths to wheel-roads, and from wheel-roads to turnpike- ways, have drifted into lanes little used save by those living along their length. From Exeter, then the metropolis of the "West, the road of the thirteenth century ran through Okehampton and Lifton over Poison Bridge to LAL'NCESTON, PAST AND PRESENT. 45 St. Leonard's, and thence bj r Colhay Lane to Eidgegrove and Angel Hill, where at the South Gate it met the way from Plymouth which had come by Tavistock and Lawhitton to Page's Cross, and thence down Eace Hill. From the South Gate a road, still known to the elder among us as " Under the Wall," ran by the side of the town's forti- fication to the West Gate, joining on its way a track from Dunheved Green and Windmill Hill, on the latter of which was fixed a beacon of warning and alarm. Issuing from the West Gate was the road by St. John's Chapel and Pennygillam to Southpetherwin and Liskeard on the one hand, and to Trebursye and Bodmin on the other, while from the same exit, and probably in this case also by the side of the wall, the Dockhay ran to the western gate of the Castle. At this point the wall of the town and the Castle Dyke may have lain together as far as the eastern gate of the Castle, the former then proceeding to the borough's North Gate, whence the wall, with no eastern entrance must have swept around to the previously-mentioned junction of the roads from Exeter and Plymouth. The reason for no East Gate hav- ing been built was probably because no road was required from that direction ; Devonshire was reached from the South Gate, Cornwall from the West Gate, St. Stephens and the country beyond from the North Gate ; and though it might have been practicable to have driven a road up the steep slope from the Kensey to the east side of the borough, seeing that a similar difficulty was successfully overcome in Old Hill, leading from St. Thomas through the North Gate to the town, there was no district to be served by such a track and con- sequently no such track was made. And just as the roads themselves thus tell their story of antiquity so do the streets of the town. In the days when bridle-paths were the only highways and wheeled vehicles practically unknown, Broad Street, which does not now impress us with a sense of especial width, deserved its name when compared with Church Street, Castle Street, and High Street, the outlines of which were framed centuries ago, and whose narrowness in parts is a reproach even now We do not know when the three gates were erected, but the process of fortification was probably completed not later than the end of the twelfth or the early portion of the thirteenth century ; 46 LAUNCESTON, and it is certain that ever since the time of the building of tho gates there have existed houses along the streets still leading from the South to the West Gate, from the West Gate to the Church, from the Church to the Cattle, and from the North Gate to the South. Broad Street and High Street, Castle Street and Church Street, Southgate Street and Fore Street are no products of to-day or of yesterday, but of the period when the Black Canons worshipped by St. Thomas Bridge, when the Lepers of St. Leonard's languished in their Gilmartin home, when the Castle was in the plenitude of its power, and when the foundation of our Church was not even laid. It is here to be noted that as yet the only mention we have of religious observance within the borough walls is in connection with a chapel of the Castle*, although in various surveys there is another mentioned, a very small one and probably the private chapel of the Earls. This absence of information as to the town's centre of religious life is the more striking as in each of the other four parishes of the present parliamentary borough there are indications at this period of the ex- istence of a church. Bishop Bronescombe on October 23, 1259, dedicated the parochial church of St. Stephen at Launceston ; in the Inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester into the value of Cornish benefices, taken in 1294, the " chapel of St. Thomas in the deanery of Trigg Major" appears, just as in the Taxation of Pope Nicholas in 1291 does that of Southpetherwin ; while in the rent roll of the See of Exeter, under date 1308, is a mention of ecclesiastical workings at Lawhitton. But it is not until seventy years after even the latest of these dates that we meet with the Church of the Magdalene at Launceston. " The first foundation bearing the Magdalene's name at Laun- ceston, ' says Mr. Pattison,f " is a chantry chapel, a private religious establishment existing here in the days of the Plantagenet Kings. This was altogether of humble origin, and owed its endowment not to the feudal lord of the castle, but to the piety of the grave burghers of the town. The Earl of Moreton had provided two chapels in the castle, both mentioned in a survey of the year 1338, and in other * ante, p. 38. t S. R. Pattison, Some Account of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene (1852). PAST AND PRESENT. 47 documents and charters. In the taxation of Pope Nicholas (1291) we find no mention of Saint Mary Magdalene here, but only of ' capella de castro' which is rated at £1 6s. 8d. per annum. By this time the mayor and commonalty of the increasing borough had obtained a royal charter, sought the attendance of a priest, and some burgesses desired to have, after the fashion of the time, a perpetual succession of prayers for the prosperity of their families whilst living and the re- pose of their souls when dead. Nor were the poor altogether forgotten in their pious endeavours. . . During the progress of recent repair*, the walls have yielded some traces of earlier buildings on the site of the existing structure. Fragments of ancient cut stone have been used as materials for the present fabric ; on these being disinterred, they tell of the pre-existing edifice, and enable us to reconstruct in imagination the small chantry chapel of the middle ages.f The heavy shaft of a pier, with portions of its capital and arch, shew the first building to have been in pure late Norman style. The massive support, the deeply cushioned capital, and round arch, speak of their Lombard ancestry. Traces of colouring are yet discernible, and the contour of all the fragments exhibits the excellent style of the twelfth century." Thus the testimony of the walls comes to our aid in proving the exis- tence of a church on the site of the present edifice long before mention of it is met in written record, just as the testimony of the roads has already afforded us materials for an outline map of the borough centuries anterior to the draughting of any that now we possess. "With this proof of the early origin of Launceston Church, we may take up the thread of our narrative at the first choice of Mem- bers for the town. Of the ancestry of Stephen Duck we know as little as we do of his personal history, and although concerning that of Gerveys somewhat more is to be gathered, the two men are to us - but as dimly outlined shadows projected across the page of local history by the solid fact of our earliest parliamentary representation.! * This was written lit tin.- date of the Church's restoration, t Mr. Pattison adds here as a note. : " ' The essential ODJecl Of an endowed chantry is to sing masses and obits ; another object may often be superadded, in which alms and education are anions the purposes Of the founder.' -Oliver, |>. I7'2." X In the Parliamentary Writs, vol. i., Johannes (lerveys and Stephanus Ie J)uk' are given as the names of Launeeston's first Members, the latter figuring in subsequent documents as Stephanus Duck and Stephanas Dux. 48 LAUNCESTON, Gerveys was of a Cornish family, and though sitting for Launceston in only one Parliament was elected for Heist on to no less than six during the reigns of the first three Edwards. Duck, of whose origin we know nothing, represented Launceston in the Parliament which s it at Westminster in 1295 and in that which met at York in the Whitsuntide of 1298 ; five years later he was "returned for Laun- ceston to a special Convention of Merchants held before th 3 Council in the Exchequpr of York, on the morrow of St. John the Baptist, 25 June, 31 Ed. I.," * and is thus indicated to have been a man of much consequence among the Launcestonians of that day and highly respected by his neighbours. It does not seem, however, that members always attended the Parliaments to which they were elected. In 1298, for instance, Stephen Duck and Roger de Huneford were re- turned for Launceston to the Parliament at York, but in the Par- liamentary Writs f we find that David de Kale \vy stocky acted in their stead. The name dees not appear in the official list of Members because De Kale wystock was never actually elected by the burgesses; unlike Peter Fitz- John who sat for Launceston in several Parliaments from 1304 onwards, and who two years previous to the earlier date had acted on Walter Godman's behalf, and John Fitz- John, returned for Launceston in 1306-7, Avho had ap- peared in place of Bartholomew Keche elected for the borough in 1304-5. § This is but one of the differences between the representative sys- tem of that day and of this. It can readily be understood that when Parliaments were summoned to meet at such diverse points as West- minster in 1295, Berwick as in 1296, and York as in 1298, it was often a matter of extreme difficulty for those elected to pro- ceed to the places named. Thus it was that substitutes were allowed ; and it was for much the same reason that, contrary to the practice of * Parliamentary Writs, vol. i. : this was not, however, a Parliament properly so-called, and, therefore, Duck's name does not appear in this connection in the official list of Members for Launceston. t Vol. i. % Probably Calstock. § In all these cases the name of the individual who thus took a member's place is not to be found as such in the official list, but in the Parliamentary Writs only. There are two other differences concerning this period between these authorities which may here be noted: in the official list John Colyn is friven as sitting for Launceston in 1307, and John Landue in 1309 ; neither of these appears in that capacity in the Parliamentary Writs, but a John Col vn is named in them as acting in 1205 on behalf of Hubert de Colecester, returned for the borough bearing the same name. PAST AND PRESENT. 49 the present day, constituencies paid members for the privilege of electing them. In 1314, Roger de Tavistock* and John Corkf were Launceston's choice, and the Writ de ExpensisJ tested at York on September 28, makes provision for their "attendance at Parliament from the return day (September 9) until Friday next before the Feast of St. Michael (September 27), together with their charges coming and returning." In the next yea.r we find a writ which specifies the exact sum paid to the Members for Launceston ; William Brackyf and William de Landen (or Landeu) were chosen, and there was allowed them '" for attendance at Parliament from the Return Day (January 20) until Sunday next before the Feast of St. Gregory the Pope (March 9) four pounds sixteen shillings each, at the rate of two shil- lings each per diem."§ This appears to have been the regular rate of payment at this time, as may be gathered from instances of later years; in 1326-27 John de Lanhun and Robert de Pen- leu sat for our borough, and the Writ de Expensis || was in this case " directed to the Bailiffs of the Town of Launceston for twelve pounds for sixty days attendance at Parliament, coming and return- ing, at the rate of two shillings each per diem "; in 1329-30 the bailiffs of Launceston were directed to pay their burgesses for their attendance in Parliament, forty-two shillings having to be given to Robert de Ponton for twenty-one days' service** ; while a further writ, dated October 30, 1363, and addressed to " the bailiffs of the town of Dounheudburgh,"ff directs them to pay to Henry Nannam and Robert Wysdom.JJ " burgesses of the aforesaid town to our Parliament at Westminster," the sum of £8 4s. for forty-one days service. §§ It is not, perhaps, a matter for wonder that, when constituencies had to defray the expenses their members incurred by * Rogerua de Stavystok in the Writ de Kxpensis. t Johannes Cork de Donheved in the olliciiil list. { close Rolls, s Edw. II. in. :ji. (1. § Writ de Expensis, tested at West- minster, March it, 1315: Close Rolls, 8 Edw. II. in. 13 d. || Tested at Westminster. February 23 (or perhaps March •.>), i:j-J7 : Close Hulls, i Edw. III., m. 15, d. ** Rolls of Parliament, vol. ii., p. 444. tt This is one of the three instances extant in which this inline is used to describe the town, the others being in an indenture formerly in pos- Bession of the late Mr. Northmore Lawrence, which is stated to have been "given at Dounheuedburgh." on February 6. 1430, and in a charter of pardon to the borouirh of " Dounhevdburph," granted by Henry the Eighth on June 29, 1609. tt Both bad represented Launceston in a Parliament held early in the same year, and had now been re-elected. Stj \V. lYynne, Parliamentary Writs, vol. iv., p. 265,the WTil being quoted in full from the close Bolls, 37 Bdw. ill: this is the latest instance yet iiis. Cjvered of the payment of members for Launceston. 50 LAUNCESTON, representing them, the poorer among the boroughs occasionally raised a protest and prayed to be relieved from the duty of sending mem- bers at all. In later days several of the boroughs that had thus upon their own motion been disfranchised, wished once more to be represented, but they had lost their opportunity and were not again allowed the honour. There are other matters of interest to Launceston in the Rolls and "Writs of Parliament, as these do not alone concern the borough's representation but deal also with questions of knight- service and legal dispute. In the Parliamentary Writs we find that John de Dunheved was summoned in 1301 from the counties of War- wick and Leicester to perform military service in person against the Scots, the muster being at Berwick-upon-Tweed on Midsummer Day* ; and that in 1322, the Abbot of Launcestonf was requested by a writ tested at Gloucester on February 16, to raise as many men-at- arms and foot-soldiers as he could for the purpose of marching against the rebels or adherents of the Earl of Lancaster, his men having to muster at Coventry on the first Sunday in Lent. J In the Parliamentary Polls we are told, in addition to matters to be sub- sequently described, of what is referred to in their index as a "dispute between the Prior of Launceston and the Parson of Liskeard " : and from the account therein given § it appears that in 1314 the tenants of Liskeard, who held land belonging to Launceston Priory, petitioned the then King, Edward the Second, complaining that the Bishop of Exeter had excommunicated them for non-pajonent of the tithe of mills, in lieu of which the vicar had been paid a demi-mark, and the Prior as parson eight shillings yearly, under a composition made in the time of Richard, King of the Romans ; upon this petition a com- mission of inquiry was issued, and the Bishop was commanded mean- time to supersede his sentence. And this directs our attention once more to the affairs of the Priory. It has already been said || that it is not known who the * Parliamentary Writs, vol. i. t This title (Abbas de Launceveton', as it appears in the original writ,) deserves to be noted as showing that Hals was right in a statement, made by him alone among county historians, as to " the abbey or priory of St. Stephen's, whose governor was indifferently called the abbat and prior of St. Stephan's and Launceston." % Parliamentary Writs, vol. ii., division 3. § Rolls of Parliament, vol. i., p. 313. || ante p. 40. PAST AND PRESENT. 51 Prior was that Bishop Bronesconibe appointed in 1261 , but we are told that a certain Richard, whose surname is lost to us, and the date of whose institution cannot be found, died Prior during the vacancy of the see of Exeter caused by the death of Bishop de Button and the accession of Bishop Stapeldon. For the election of a Prior it was now necessary to obtain the license of Edward the Second, and the canons having selected Roger de Horton, their choice was approved by the King, and on May 3, 1308, he was confirmed Richard's successor.* This was probably the "Prior Horeston " who, according to Leland,f " had a fair tutube on the south aisle of the priory church " ; and it may well have been that the special honour was largely due to the sympathy felt for Prior Horton in the affliction of blindness which overtook him, and which caused Bishop Stapeldon on September 29, 1316, to provide him as coadjutor with a canon named Ralph de Huggewarthi. The wealth of the Priory was in the meantime increasing, for about the year 1308 the manor of Boyton became its property. Originally purchased by Suetricius, Abbot of Tavi- stock, it was forcibly retained by Robert of Mortain J ; subsequently it passed through many stages into the hands of Henry Bodrigan, who died in 1301, and it soon afterwards came into possession of Launceston Priory. Another connection between Boyton and Laun- ceston atthisperiod may here be recorded. A writof Edward the First, bearing date April 17, 1297, directed the committal to Launceston Gaol of Paganus, chaplain of Boyton, and several other Cornish clergy- men " for the publication of the letter of the Pope."§ The King was at that time engaged in a fierce struggle with the clergy because of their refusal to surrender half their income towards the royal expen- diture ; they urged that "their aid was due solely to Rome, and pleaded a bull of exemption granted by Pope Boniface VIII. as a ground for refusing to comply with further taxation. Edward met * In the "Account of the Executors of Richard, Bishop of London, 1303, and the Executors of Thomas (de Button). Bishop erf Exeter, 1310," printed for the Camden Society in 1874, among the payments of De Button is the sum of £13 (is. 8d. to Robert de Gossimrton, described as the Bishop's nephew, for " warizona " on taking possession of the Priory of Launceston. Why this payment was made dors no< appear, t Itinerary, vol. ii., fol. 71. J ante p. 25. § Prynne, Vindication oi the Supreme Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of the English Kings, vol. iii., p. 700. 52 LAUNCE8T0N, their refusal by a general outlawry of the whole order. The King's courts were closed, and all justice denied to those who refused the King aid. The clergy had, in fact, put themselves in the wrong, and the outlawry soon forced them to submission."* It appears that thirty-four priests were ordered by writ directed to the Sheriff of Cornwall f to be detained "in our prison of Launceneton," there to be kept " till they made their peace with the King and were released by his special writs," the list including the aforesaid Paganus ohaplain of Boyton, Richard vicar of Morwenstow, Peter chaplain of Kilkhampton, Robert vicar of the church of Stratton, Sampson vicar of Poughill, Robert chaplain of Marhamchurch, Richard chaplain of "Week St. Mary [Wyke], William chaplain of Jacobstowe, Thomas chaplain of Whitstone, Richard chaplain of Tamerton, and "William vicar of the church of St. Gennys. This was the first of a series of religious prisoners incarcerated at Launceston upon the plea of political necessity. This is the first definite mention we have of prisoners at Laun- ceston, but it appears from an inquisition taken at Stokeeliinsland in September, 13314 "before Roger deEikdesburgh, steward of the lord the King's§ lands and tenements, which belonged to Isabella queen of England || . . . concerning prisoners within the borough of Lis- keard taken for felonies, to be conveyed to the gaol of Launceston, from a certain cross which is called Luxycross. . . . Prom the time [1272] of Richard, formerly Earl of Poitou and Cornwall, his tithing men and tithing of Liskeard used to convey all prisoners taken within the borough of Liskeard from a certain cross called Luxycross to the gaol of Launceston, to the keeper of the gaol, there to be delivered over." "What kind of prison this was will soon be seen. The chief rule of the county was at this period undergoing radical change, and the Castle of Launceston did not remain unaf- fected. Edmund, Earl of Cornwall, who had succeeded his father Richard in 1272, and who continued to transfer the assizes to Lost- withiel, died in 1300, and owing to his leaving no issue, the Castle * Green, Short History, p. 199. t Quoted in full by Prynne from Close Rolls, 25 Ed. L, m. 18. t New Parochial History of Cornwall, vol. iii., p. 147. § Edward III. H Queen Isabella, wife of Edward II., had in the previous year been ordered to be con- fined for life in Castle Rising ; hence probably this inquisition as to her property. PAST AND PRESENT. 53 with his other possessions passed once more to the Crown. Seven years later, Piers Gaveston, " gay, genial, thriftless," the favourite whom Edward the Second had recalled from exile immediately upon his accession, was raised to the vacant earldom, but was not destined long to enjoy it. Hated by the baronage, with whom his life in England was one constant struggle, he was executed by his enemies in 1312, and was succeeded in the governorship of Launceston by "Walter de Bottreaux, lord of the manor of Boscastle, and the last holder of the Castle not of princely blood. " From 1312," says Drew,* " the title of Earl of Cornwall con- tinued without any possessor until the year 1328, when it was be- stowed by Edward the Third either on his second brother or younger son, for on this historians have not agreed, whose name was John, and who is generally known by the name of John of Eltham, and with him the title of Earl finally expired. In the year 1329, the King, into whose hands the title and its appendages had again fallen [by the death, young and unmarried, of John of Eltham], gave a new name to the office, and finally created his eldest son, well-known afterwards by the name of Edward the Black Prince, Duke of Corn- wall. A few years after this [1337], he procured an Act of Parlia- ment for settling this new title, together with all the possessions that had been connected with the old one, on the eldest son of the King of England for ever," with whom it still remains. Launceston Castle, even then beginning to fall to decay, thus passed into the hands of the Prince, who years afterwards was the hero of Cressy and Poitiers, and in his last moments, sick unto death, gave his hearty support to the Commons in their struggles for liberty against the oppressions of the baronage and the infamous weakness of the King himself. The Roll of the Seisin, taken on the annexation of the Castle to the Duchy, is full of information as to its then condition and past history. The walls are described as being ruinous, the cellars as re- quiring to be newly roofed, the windows of the chapel as being weak, the doors and windows of the chambers as of no value, " one rile gaol " (by which, however, is simply meant a common prison) * History of Cornwall, vol. i., p. 464. 54 LAUNCESTON, as being badly covered with lead, and "one other prison," much dilapidated. Minuteness was the especial attribute of the inventory, for it records that " there are also in the same Castle an iron chisel, a sledge hammer, iron wedges, a crow-bar for lifting stones, an oaken chest in good preservation for money and rolls, an oaken measure, and some rope." John Moneron (who at this time represented the borough, and who was re-elected upon two subsequent occasions) is named as being constable of the Castle, held for his life under a grant of John of Eltham, confirmed by the King, he having succeeded in the constableship one Peter Burdet. The mayor and burgesses do Dot seem to have very favourably impressed John of "Woodstock and William of Mordon, who took the account : they claimed the assize of bread and ale within their town, they protested against the re- moval of the assizes, they complained that the Prior had without warrant taken the assize of bread and ale of the town of Newport, and they contended that the town of Bodmin was with- in the liberties of their borough ; yet, although they pleaded that they and their predecessors had had these rights from time imme- morial, the commissioners sceptically observed "but no other title can they show." Thirty years afterwards a similar remark could have been retorted by these worthy burgesses concerning the Black Prince himself, who, about the year 1368, laid claim to the patron- age of the Priory, " but no title could he show," and the claim was abandoned. • And, although the commissioners put on one side the burgesses' complaints regarding the assizes being at Lostwithiel, because "they shewed no reason save of prescription," an Act was passed in 1397, in the reign of the son of the Prince whom they had served, enacting that the Cornwall county assizes and sessions should be held at Launceston and not elsewhere. This same Roll of the Seisin gives some interesting information with regard to the feudal tenures then existing. One example of these had been previously recorded in connection with Launceston, in the Pleas of the Crown for 1283, where it is stated that one Robert flurdyn held an acre of land and a bakehouse in the town and Castle of Launceston (Lanceveton), by the serjeantry of being in the Castle * Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian Library. PAST AND PRESENT. 55 of Launceston with an iron helmet and a Danish hatchet or pole- axe for forty days in time of war at his own proper cost, and, after the forty days, if the lord of the Castle chose to detain him there, it should be at the cost of the said lord. In the Roll of 1337 is a list of the Knight's fees held in honour of the Castle, of which this may be taken as example : " John Dynbain, who is under age, holds of our lord the Duke seventy fees in Cornwall and Devon ; whereby in time of war he should send at his own charges for forty days seventy men, well armed, to garrison the Castle of Launceston (Launceve- ton), so that for each fee he should keep one ' kernel ' [opening be- tween battlements] with one man ; and when he dies, his heir under age should be in the Duke's wardship, and when of full age then the Duke of ancient prerogative should take in hand all his lands and goods until the heir should do homage and pay a relief of five marks ; and these are Mortain's fees." A Court of Wayternefe also was held at the gate of the Castle, at which were paid various dues of a somewhat curious sort, three hundred puffins or six-and-eight- pence as their equivalent being required from Scilly, * a bow of laburnum woodf or eightpence from Truro, a measure of lime from the manor of Penfest, and a hare from John Lercedekne, the total dues amounting to twelve pounds thirteen shillings in addition to the puffins, the bow, the lime, and the hare. One other point in the seisin roll deserves notice as supplying what the feudal customs do not — a link with the present time. It is stated that there was a park of a league in circuit, containing fifteen deer, but which was considered to be capable of maintaining forty, and without deer would be worth twenty shillings a year for agistment. Even to this day some property situate immediately beneath the Castle's walls is known as the Deer Park, a name that long since ceased to have a meaning. But the connection of the Black Prince with Launceston did not alone consist in his being seised of the Castle, He was only seven * It also appears from an " Inquisitio post mortem" bearing date 1848 that Sir Ralph de Blanchminster or Whitminster (tie Alho Monasterio), lord of Scilly, held his castle with the islands from the Castle of Launceston, to which Castle or honour the lords of Scilly were hound to render annually a certain Dumber of puffins. The more ancient tenure had been by tin- service of maintaining armed men to keep the peace. This lief of tlic Duchy eventually became vested in the Crowu. t" Arc de aburn." 56 LAUNCESTON, years old when the dukedom was conferred upon him, and sixteen years later, accompanied by the members of his council and of his household, he slept within our gates.* "On the 11th of August, 1353, the Prince was at Chudleigh, 18th August at Launceston, 24th August at Restormel, 1st and 2nd September at Restormel, 5th Sep- tember at Launceston, 10th September at Restormel, 10th and 11th September at Exeter. "Where the Prince was between these datas can only be matter of conjecture. His personal occupations were probably receiving the homage of vassals , of which many instances are recorded, and sporting. It is noticeable that seven days are not accounted for in August between the Prince being at Exeter and his being at Chudleigh ; and that the dates relating to Restormel extend to seventeen days, with the exception of the 5th September, when he was at Launceston. The seven days referred to were probably passed at Exeter, near which was not only the Forest of Dartmoor, part of the Duchy possessions, but also the important Manor of Bradnich, belonging to it, and the residence of the steward of the Duchy. The Prince's Council in attendance on him were, it may be supposed, occupied during the time of the visit in obtaining infor- mation about the extent and state of the Prince's possessions From the tenour of many orders of earlier date, directing his officers to repair his castles, it would appear that in 1353 they were found to be in a dilapidated and ruinous condition, and that even Restormel, the largest and most commodious of them, afforded but indifferent accommodation for the retinue of a court. A commission for an inquisition, dated 30th November, 1354, was issued for the purpose of ascertaining what lands Edmund Earl of Cornwall died possessed of. In the return of the jurors serving in this inquisition they gave the particulars of the Castles of Restormel, Launceston, and town of Lostwithiel, in their respective revenues." It would be interesting to know where the first Duke of Cornwall was lodged during his stay in Dunheved. " At Launceston," to again quote Mr. Boger, "be- sides the Castle, belonging to the Prince, which, from its apparent construction, would not much invite a halt, there was a religious * Deeble Botrer, Visit of Edward the Black Prince to Cornwall (a paper read before the Royal Institution of Cornwall, November, 1874.) PAST AND PRESENT. 57 house, Launceston Priory, and to offer hospitality, especially to the- Prince who was the feudal superior of the Prior, would be his natu- ral and pleasant duty." And as the Priory is reputed to have ob- tained celebrity not only for its benevolent attentions to the poor but also for its hospitality to strangers, it may well have been at this institution that the Black Prince stayed. If this were so, Edward's host was Thomas de Burden who suc- ceeded on July 13, 1346, Adam de Knolle, who himself had been the successor, but at what date is not known, of Prior Horton.* Adam de Knolle had proved himself an unworthy superior, and resigned, probably because he was required to do so, on June 26, 1346 ; what his offences were we do not know. It may have been that his accounts were badly kept, that he was too fond of dogs and not sufficiently fond of books, or that he had fallen in love with the game of chess — all of which misdemeanours had been charged years before upon a brother Augustinian Prior ; f but upon the actual charge history is silent. It was during Prior de Burden's tenure of office that Ogerius Bant, a canon of Launceston, was appointed Prior of Bodmin, this being on March 22, 1349; some years later Bant incurred suspension, but Bishop Grandisson, on his proper submission, restored to him the seal of office on March 20, 1362. This appears, in fact, to have been an age of ecolesiastical troubles, and Launceston had a full connection with them. In 1356, John Hardy, appointed seven years previously to be Prior of St. Michael's Mount, was indicted at Launceston for having sent secret letters in 1354, with a sum in gold and silver amounting to sixty pounds, into Normandy to the King's enemies, and for harbouring two men from that country for two weeks at Treverabo. The alleged treason must have been committed when the war with France, which had arisen in 1339 out of the claim by Edward the Third to the French crown, was renewed, and when the Duke of Cornwall led his army of Freebooters up the Garonne to the plunder of Narbonne. But Prior Hardy proved his innocence of that which was alleged against him and was acquitted. J * ante, p. 51. t Athenaeum, Archbishop Peckham's Register, February 17, 1883. J Patent Rolls, 30 Ed. III., p. 3, m. 22. 58 LAUNCESTON, The accession of Richard the Second in 1377 found Roger Leye Prior of Launceston, he having succeeded de Burden at some unknown time, but probably about 1368, when (presumably in consequence of an election of Prior) the Black Prince laid claim to the patronage,* but certainly before May 29, 1373, a document of which date is in existence bearing his name as head of the canons. Leye in his turn was followed on October 27, 1379, by Stephen Tredydan, a Prior* who might fairly have claimed to be a true representative of the church militant. Leland tells usf that he was " richly tumbed," and this honour he doubtless deserved in the eyes of his fellows if only for the spirit he displayed in asserting what he considered to be the rights and privileges of the Priory. In January, 1399, he marched into Liskeard with an armed force, rescued from arrest its vicar, one Henry Prend, and carried away a book of the value of thirteen- and-fourpence and two towels of the value of six-and- eightpence, the property of the parishioners. A distringas issued, but the Crown granted a pardon and no judgment followed, history being silent as to whether book, towels, or vicar ever again came into the safe keeping of Liskeard. But Prior Tredydan was not satisfied with oppression of a military turn ; he used his ecclesiastical powers to the same end, and, in 1400, the parishioners of Liskeard (in whom probably dwelt the remembrance of the previous year's fray), Lin- kinhorne, and Talland complained to Parliament that this same Prior had obtained a papal bull for the extinction of those vicarages and the complete appropriation of the revenues on the ground of poverty, whereas the convent had an income of one thousand pounds (and here there seems a touch of scorn) which was sufficient to maintain fifteen canons ; the petition added that the Pope had re- voked the bull on discovery of the facts, but that the Prior had sent to Rome large sums of money to get the later bull removed. And Tredydan, according to this petition, had not been content to use influence only at Rome, for he had also besought Parliament to annul the Bull of Revocation, and it was against this that the worthy men of Liskeard, Linkinhorne, and Talland protested so vigorously. % A statute passed in 1402 provided a sufficient remedy for a grievance * ante, p. 54. t Itinerary, vol. ii., p. 71. t Rolls of Parliament, vol. iii., p. 505. PAST AND PRESENT. 59 like this, and in the next year the " turbulent priest" passed away from mortal strife. It was within the first year of Tredydan's rule of the Priory that the " Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene, in the borough or town of Launceston " was made parochial. On June 12, 13S0, the mayor and burgesses obtained a licence from Bishop Brantyngharn to have % service performed in this edifice,* and it is probable that about the same date the old chantry chapel f was extended to accommodate the now increased number of inhabitants of the town. " The building," says Mr. Pattison,J speaking of this period, " was now enlarged. Among the materials extracted from th3 walls, the care of the present builder has detected and preserved some carved stone- work, forming a beautiful large window in the decorated style. This was the first addition to the little Norman church. It long continued to be the principal ecclesiastical edifice in the borough as the castle- chapel soon fell into ruins. "|| And another authority ** observes that "the present Parish-Church was made out of a Chantery-Chapel, en- larged in the time of Henry IV,tt and made big enough to receive the Inhabitants of the Town." The tower which still overlooks St. Mary Magdalene's is certainly the product of an earlier period than the Church itself, and is probably to be assigned to a date very shortly after the burgesses had obtained Bishop Brantyngham's licence. And here may be considered a question concerning Launceston in the reign of Edward the Third which has not hitherto received atten- tion. It appears from a report of the Historical Manuscripts' Com- mission}! that in 1363, on " Monday after the feast of St. Katherine the Virgin," William de Montacute, Earl of Salisbury and Lord of Man, granted by charter " to his beloved nephew and godson, "William, son of Guy de Bryone, the reversion in fee of the manor of * Oliver, Monasticon, p. 22. + ante, p. 46. i The Church of St. Mary Magdalene || Mr. l'att isoii also sa vs : The late disentombing process ["1852] lias brought to tight :i piscina ol early English style, which once stood beside the chantry altar. To the same date belongs the fragment in the churchyard, once constituting the upper portion of a sculptured and limned en ss." This Latter fragment, ii may be assumed, is the one which now surmi unts the grave ol the late Mr. Nbrthmore Lawrence. In the Church also arc at present 1883] lying an ancient carved font and a holy-water basin, dis- covered some tunc Bince m the churchyard, and fairly to be presumed to have belonged to the edifice which preceded the present Church, ••Camden, Magna Britannia et Hibernia, Antiquaet Nova (Edition 1720), vol. i., p. 388. tt 1399-1413. ft Royal Com- mission on Historical Manuscripts, Sea nd Report, Appendix, p. 23, CO LAUSTCESTOX, Dunheved, &c, which Thomas Waryn held for life and for one year after his death." If this be the Dunheved with which we are dealing, and not the Dunheved of Wiltshire (as may at first sight seem prob- able from the local connections of the Earl of Salisbury), the charter named is our first intimation of the connection between the Lord of Man and Launceston. And colour is lent to the supposition that this Dunheved is our Dunheved by the fact that Robert of Mortain, builder of Launceston Castle, was also Lord of Montacute, and that the Waryns were a Launceston family , of whom one member, Robert Waryn, was at a date subsequent to this period elected Prior. The records of Richard the Second, like those of Henry the ♦Second more than a century and a half before, are fiuitful in refer- ences to the town. On May 1, 1383, letters patent were granted by the King touching the liberties of the Prior of Launceston (Lanceve- ton) and the burgesses of Dunheved, confirmatory of a certificate of a finding upon a Quo Warranto before the justices itinerant in 1302. In this document Earl Reginald, the Priory's benefactor, comes before us under the new name of " Reginald de Mortain, formerly Earl of Cornwall," and his arrangement between the Priory and the burgesses is recited and confirmed. The " jurors of the hundred of Est Wyveshire," or, as we should now say, "the Hun- dred of East," also appear in this document as a new body to be noticed. On May 2 of the same year, an inspexhnus was granted, \mder the Great Seal, of the Charter of Earl Richard,* confirming and extending the liberties he had granted. The witnesses to this document included Sir Andrew Cardinan, Sir Reginald Valletort, Sir William Bottreaux, Henry Bodrigan, and Roger de Trelosk — all names intimately connected with the history of Cornwall in general and Launceston in particular.! A number of local names are also to be found in a parchment indenture, formerly possessed by the late Mr. Northmore Lawrence, % which was " given at the borough of Dounheved, on Wednesday next after the Feast of the Translation of Saint Thomas the Martyr, in the eighth year of the reign of King * ante, p. 30. + Both these documents are preserved among the borough records ; the first is to be found in full in Oliver's Monastieon, the second is summarised in the Appendix to the Sixth Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission. | Historical Manu- scripts Commission, Sixth Report, Appendix, p. 525. PAST AND PRESENT. 61 Richard, after the Conquest the Second."* This was a grant by " Henry, son of Robert Page.f of Launcetone" to Roger de Lausant of " the hall and kitchen in the vill of Landu, with the whole third part of the land of the same vill to me belonging," the witnesses including Serlo Wysa, Henry de Trecarl, John Langedone, John Page, and Henry Fox. The name of Trecarrell, previously noticed^ as being peculiarly linked with that of Liunoeston, here again ap- pears as that of a prominent townsman, as it had also done in a deed of the reign of Henry the Third or the early part of that of Edward the First in which " Sir William Wysa, of Greyston " had granted to William de Landu " all my right that I had, or could have, to one pair of white gloves, with homage and service, which Thomas son of Richard de Landu, and his heirs or assigns, were wont to pay and to do yearly, unto me and my heirs and assigns at the Feast of St. Michael, for that half acre of land which William Fridey formerly held in the vill of Landu," this document bearing the name of John de Trekarl among the witnesses, as well as those of Robert de Hurdin (now Hurdon) and Roger de Lausant (now Lezaat.) The "pair of white gloves, with homage and service" which Thomas de Landu had to render to Sir William Wise is a reminder of many curious customs of feudal days with which the name of Laun- ceston or of places in its district are mingled — customs which assist us to realise more clearly than any philosophical dissertation the difference between the tenures of the Middle Ages and those of to- day. It is recorded, for instance, that, among the free tenants of the manor of Liskeard, John de Landewarner held of the Duke of Corn- wall two Cornish acres of land, by the service of meeting the Duke at Poison Bridge on his coming at any tiino into Cornwall, and there receiving a grizzled cap from Walter de Carburra, which this same Walter was called upon to render for his tenements to the Duke at the spot named, and Landewarner had further to cany the cap through the county at the expense and in the presence of Cornwall's lord. Poison Bridge is identified with a similar custom in respect to the manor of Pengelly, in the parish of St. Neot, which, and until as late * 13S"). t This name may have been that of the family which gave its present ap- pellation to Page's Cross, which is on the high road from Launceston to Trecarrell, Landue, and Lezant. J ante, \>. 30. 62 LAUNCESTON, as the reign of James the First, was held by the service of providing a grey cloak for theDako of Cornwall whenever he should come into the county, this having to be delivered at Poison Bridge to the lord of the manor of Carbilly, whose office it was to attend the Duke with it during his stay west of the Tamar.* The coming of the Duke into Cornwall was also opportunity for providing another fulfilment of feudal service, which seems to reduce the early mayors of Laun- ceston below the status to which as representative chiefs of a free borough they were entitled. The lord of the manor of Treveniel in Northhill (now the property of Mr. Rodd, of Trebarthi), claimed of the Mayor of Launceston through immemorial custom the service of having his stirrup held by him whenever he should mount his horse upon the occasion of the Duke coming to the town. The same event was further of importance to the bailiff of the manor of Stokeclims- land, who in addition to other services had, when the Duke visited Launceston, to carry as often as the lord desired and at his own ex- pense one load of wood daily from the manor to the town. And, anticipating a record of over two centuries later than the time of which we have been speaking, we find from a warrant, dated February 25, 1616, and addressed to the free tenants of the manors of Swannacott and St. Mary Week, that the same were held of the Castle of Launceston by knight service, and, from an order of 1637, that the steward and bailiff had to appear within goat-skin mantles and account for them before the Duchy court at Launceston. Of such holdings under the Castle as that by the yearly render of a brace of greyhounds, as in the case of the manors of Lanyhorne and Elerky, in the parishes of Ruanlanyhorne and Veryan, mention has already been made in connection with the seisin roll of 1337. t Although Henry the Fourth came to the throne because of civil war, it was soon made apparent to the burgesses of Launceston that they were to suffer no loss from the change, and that though the Second Richard in publicly resigning his crown had confessed his inability to govern, the extended liberties which he had granted to themf were not to be curtailed. In the very first hours of the new * This is a. somewhat similar custom to one recorded in Carew's Survey concerning an acre of land in Lamellyn, which was held in the time of Edward I. by the service of keeping the King's grey coat when he came into C >rawall. t ante, p. 55. J ante, p. CO. PAST AND PRESENT. 63 monarch's reign — eleven days in fact before Richard had formally abdicated — letters patent were granted by Henry, bearing date September 18, 1399, confirming the previous King's charter.* This haste on Henry's part to do service to Launceston is worth noting as an indirect evidence, where direct is wanting, that the burgesses had declared in Bolingbroke's favour in the struggle to overthrow Eichard. When we proceed from the reign of the Fourth to that of the Fifth Henry, we find that Shakspeare's Prince Hal granted on January 25, 1415, a charter of pardon to the mayor, provosts (prepositi), and commonalty of ' ' the borough of Dounheved or town of Launceston," having, on the previous May 12, issued letters patent reciting inspections of several earlier charters, and recognising that assizes had been held in the borough from a period beyond the memory of man. From the point at which were last touched the names of Laun- •ceston's representatives in Parliament,! the town had continued with some unexplained interruptions to return members, most of whom are now to us nothing but names. Irregularities in election were then but little heeded ; it did not appear strange that in some parliaments counties alone should be represented, or that in others no Cornish borough, or at most only one or two, should return members. But in the majority of cases Launceston appears to have enjoyed the privilege of election, and the burgesses do not seem to have too loudly grumbled at having to pay their members' expenses. A ques- tion of some interest is suggested by the fact that a large proportion of the early members for Launceston sat also for Helston at various periods and sometimes even in the same parliament. J What may have been the especial bond of sympathy between the easternmost and westernmost boroughs of the county — a sympathy not similarly * This document is in the borough archives, and both deed and seal arc stated to lie in line preservation. t ante, p. 49. % Robert Mayndy was returned for both Laun- ceston and Helston in the parliament of 1337-88, and was again elected for the latter borough in 1338-39 : John Tremayne, who was member for Launceston in 1344, sat for Helston in three parliaments : and his son, who was elected for Launceston in 1351-62, also sat for Helston. Several other instances could be given as well to exhibit the close electoral connection between Helston and Launceston as to show how it was possible in those times for one man to represent several constituencies in one parlia- ment. The most prominent instance of this is John Hamly, who was returned for Iblslon, Liskeard, LostwithieL. and Truro in 1355, and for Launceston, Helston, Lost- withiel. and Truro in 1357-58 ; John Caeron had been chosen as the second member for Launceston, Bodmin, Lostwithiel, and Truro in the former parliament, 64 LAUNCESTOX, shown in aught like so striking a fashion between Launceston and any other Cornish town — must be matter for conjecture; but the guess may be indulged in that this had to large extent arisen from. a fact apparent from a charter of the time of Henry the Sixth, in which Hugh de Treverbyn granted to the borough of Porthyghan, better known by its later name of West Looe, " all the libertyes and antient customs which other the free Burgesses in Cornwall have, viz.: Helstone and Lanceston" — the fact that these two were the typical free boroughs of Cornwall. In the latter years of the reign of Henry the Fourth Launceston had for one of its members Richard Trelawny, son of Sir John Trelawny, of Trelawne. It is recorded of this Sir John that he not only acquitted himself so well at Agincourt as to increase his repu- tation and gain a pension, but that he so won the favour of Henry the Fifth that that monarch caused to be inscribed over one of Laun- ceston's gates and immediately under the royal arms the distich He that will do aught for mee Let hyrn love well Sir John Tirlawnee. Bond* adds to this that the lines were " under the picture of Hemy the Fifth which stood formerly over the gate at Launceston," but the story is somewhat doubtful. Sir John does not seem to have had any especial connection with Launceston ; he was probably great grand- son of William Trelawny who sat for the town in 132o, his son was- certainly member for the borough, and he himself as county coroner must have paid the place many an official visit ; but all these things, even when coupled with his admitted bravery, afford no reason for the quondam Prince Hal affixing poetry in his praise upon a Launceston gate. The story is told only as something heard and not as anything seen, and had probably its origin in the fact of Sir John's inrluenco at court, which was displayed in various ways not only in the reign of Henry the Fifth but also in that of his successor, the latter grant- ing him in 1424 a fair at Menheniot which continues to beheld to this- day. After the death of Tredydan in 1403,-' Roger Combrigg became Prior of Launceston, but, in great contrast to his predecessor, did * Quoted in New Parochial History of Cornwall, vol. iv\, p. 32. t ante, p. 59. PAST AND PRESENT. G5 -nothing to stamp his name upon local history. He died in office on Wednesday, June 18, 1410, and was succeeded on the fifth of the following month by John Hony land, the principal ecclesiastical event of whose term of office was the erection in 1427 of a chantry within the Priory, dedicated to St. Margaret and St. John of Bridlington, at which one of the community had weekly to officiate : the funds of the Priory were not, however, allowed to suffer by this innovation, as the officiating canon received for his service two marks from the vicarage of Linkinhorne, three marks and a half from Tamerton, and one mark from Werrington. This measure of monetary pradence may have been forced upon the Priory by temporary stress caused by a financial transaction entered into with the Sovereign some time before. In the year that Agincourt was fought Henry the Fifth was in want of money, and from an Issue Roll of Easter, 1415,* it appears that upon the security of the King's jewels, "John Copelston, junior, and divers other persons " came from Devonshire to London with the sum of £573 6s. Sd., borrowed from various ecclesiastical and municipal dignitaries of the two western counties, among whom was the Prior of Launceston. Honyland, who must have been one of the negotiators in this transaction, was Prior until his death on September 28, 1430, and was succeeded by William Shyre, who was, however, owing to some irregularity in his election, not officially declared Prior by Bishop Lacy until August 21 of the next year. In the customarily accepted list of Priors of Launceston there is at this point a gap for a considerable period. When Shyre died, what he did while head of the canons, and who it was that suc- ceeded him — all these points are alike unknown, and it is not until 1507, as will afterwards be shown, that the accepted list is again of service. But a Rental-book of the Priory, possessed by the late Mr. Northmore Lawrence, shows that in 1474 Robert Warynf was Prior. The book is described:}: as " a small folio volume containing about 50 leaves of paper, now inclosed in a handsome modern bind- ing. . . The first entry in the book is, in a clear bold hand, — * Frederick Devon, Issues of the Exchequer from King Henry III. to King Henry VI. inclusive, [p. 841. t ante, p. 60. t Sixth Report of tin; Historical Manuscripts Commission, Appendix, ]>. 025. €6 LAUNCESTOX, * Launceston londe. Pentale ibidem renovatum tempore Roberti Waryne, Prior [sic'] Prioratus Sancti Stephani, Launceston ; anno Domini millesimo quadragesimo septuagesimo quarto ; et anno regni Regis Edwardi Quarti quarto-deciino.' — The names of the properties and tenants of the Priory then follow ; and on the 8th leaf are the names of the burgesses of Neuweport 14 Edward IV. . . . . Further on, the volume contains (tr.): — 'Names of the tenants of the manor of Launcestonlonde, in the 14th year of the reign of King Edward the Fourth.' Copies of deeds and leases, and numerous abstracts of leases, are interspersed in its pages ; for ex- ample, — ' John Syssely has a lease, for 10 years, of Canonhalle/ Some of the tenants, as, for instance, Ralph Carkyke, who holds Carsbroke, are bound to carry salt and lime for the Convent, when forewarned, on penalty of 12 pence for failure as to each cart. The tenants at Carnedon Prior seem, in almost every instance, to pay an addition of 4 pence to their fixed rent, for hens (gallinis) ; such tenants going under the name of ' conventionarii ' (covenanters), as distinguished apparently from the freeholders. The names also are given of certain ' freeholders of Launcestonlonde, who ought to plough and reap there.' " Some glimpses of the inner life of the burgesses are to be ob- tained concerning this period from the borough accounts and ecclesiastical records. In the former, under date 1446, is an entry of " rent paid to John Parkman for a tenement in Castel Strete formerly called Le Dryhows, 4M. " ; the sum of eightpence is allowed for a hundred "de latthis pro Gilda Aul'a,"* and six-and-eightpence "for the keeper of the Clokke and the Sacristan." Four years later, when Cade's rebellion was convulsing the country, the then Laun- cestonians, as appears from entries in the same accounts, strengthened their fortifications so as to be ready for emergency, money being * One of the first mentions of the existence of a Launceston Guildhall is in the Minis- ters' Accounts <>f the Duchy of Cornwall for 1338-9 (these being the earliest Duchy Ac- counts extant) in which John Beyghe, mayor, and Robert Page and Richard Gybbe, provosts, made a return concerning the fee farm of the borough and the escheats, among which is " Leproci de Gylham Martin' redditus de la Gyhall' (Gylhall) " : see Duchy of Cornwall Accounts, abstracted bv Henry Cole, British Museum Additional MSS', tol. 1249S, p. 12. PAST AND PRESENT. 67 likewise paid to certain "sawdyers" who were to work the "gunnys."* Another matter of interest concerning early Launceston is to be found among the Tanner Manuscripts, at present located in the Bodleian Library, in a document bearing the title " Inquiry concern- ing the marriage of T. Morley, of Launceston, 11th May, 1450." These same Tanner Manuscripts establish a link between the affairs of Launceston and those of the great ones of the land, which is worthy of note. It has been saidf that William Shyre, who was chosen head of the canons on the death of John Honyland in 1430, was not officially declared Prior for eleven months after his election. An intrigue appears to have been set on foot against him, and Cardinal Beaufort, then Bishop of Winchester, wrote to Bishop Lacy of Exeter regarding the dispute, J Shyre evidently had reason to be suspicious of the interference of the Cardinal ; and he sent a letter to Humphrey Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester, (who at that moment was at deadly enmity with Beaufort, and was even endeavouring to deprive him of his see) beseeching him to grant a commission to Thomas Bromis to settle the disputed election. || The petition had its effect, for, as has been seen, Shyre was ultimately seated in his office ; and that he continued to regard Gloucester as his patron is shown by his subsequently appealing to the Duke to settle a suit between himself and Lord Botreaux.§ In connection with a record in Oliver** that on June 16, 1440, Bishop Lacy granted an indulgence of forty days to all true penitents who should contribute assistance "to the support of the minstrels of St. Mary Magdalene at Launceston,"tt Mrs. Gibbons suppliesJJ a legend to the effect that Veysey, a later holder of the see of Exeter, on his coming to Launceston to consecrate the burial ground adjoining the old chantry, was met at the South Gate by the band of minstrels, who sang "one of the merry choruses with which, in olden days, they had been used to greet the monks on their return from their hunting excursions :" this was a proceeding sure to arouse the in- dignant horror of the ascetic prelate's pious attendants, as well as of •('. H. Peter, Lecture on the Early History of Dunheved (1882). t ante, p. 65. J Index Oodicum MSS., Thomse Tanneri, p. S27. § Ibid, p. 1112. || Ibid. ••Monasticon, p. 22. ft "Ad Bustentationem mrastrallorum Beate Marie Magdalene, Launceston." Vide Lacy 'a Register, foJ. 213. Jt Itinerary, pp. 4 His tabernacle, and fall low on our knees before His foot-stool." For the purposes of the church a cemetery was required, and to provide this, John Baker, who at some date unknown had succeeded Carlian as Prior, conveyed on August 1, 1521, on behalf of the Convent, the fee of " Le Polholme Gardyn " (which is described as lying between the Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene on the west part, and the town wall and the road leading to " Le Blindhole," and to another garden of the Priory on the east side,) to Eichard Miller, the then mayor, John Chamond and Henry Trecarrell, esquires, and the burgesses of Launceston, in return for which the mayor and cor- poration bound themselves to pay yearly at Michaelmas a consideration of six-and-eight-pence.* Three years later the Church had been so far completed as to admit of its consecration, and Vesey (or Veysey) of Exeter com- missioned to the work his suffragan, Thomas Vyvyan, Prior of Bodmin, and titular Bishop of Msegara. The cemetery purchased in 1521, and which lies on the east of the Church above the Upper Walk, was directed to be consecrated at the same time as the chapel of "St. Mary Magdalene, in the boreugh of Durheved, near to the castle of Launceston,. t " the deed being signed at Crediton, on June 18, 1524. The exact date of the ceremony is unknown ; the popular rejoicings and the ecclesiastical ceremonies attending it can only be imagined; that mayor and corporation, prior and canons, Bishop Vyvyan and Henry Trecarrell, played noted parts in the day's proceedings, we may consider to be certain — and we know no more. But the occasion is one ever to be held in memory as marking the birth-day of modern Launceston. The shadow of impending dis- solution was soon to fall upon the ancient Priory ; the Castle in the course of centuries was to crumble into picturesque ruin ; but the Church of the Magdalene was destined to remain through these three hundred years a monument to Trecarrell's piety, which may last for ages yet. And though the Eoman ritual with which it was conse- crated was soon swept aside, the same Liturgy of the Church of * Vesey's Register, vol. ii., fol. 38. t "Burgum de Downhevede juxta castrum de Lawnceston." The instrument is given in full in Vesey's Register, vol. ii., fol. 1. PAST AND PRESENT. 77 England was being said and sung before its altar, even previous to its builder's death, as is being said and sung to-day, and the worshipper at this present, when once within its walls, is removed as it were but a hand-shake from Trecarrell himself. IV. — From the Building of St. Mary Magdalene's to the Election of Sir John Eliot (1524 — 1G23.) [HE Church of St. Mary Magdalene having just been consecrated, the inhabitants of Launceston L in the early years of the second quarter of the six- teenth century were entitled to believe that little change in the ecclesiastical arrangements of their town was to be expected for a long while to come. The whispers from foreign parts of the doings of a daring monk who, having set Pope and Church at defiance,had brought upon himself literary chastisement from no less a personage than King Henry himself, seemed not to affect the dwellers in the ancient town. But events marched rapidly in those days of religious change ; in the same year that St. Mary Mag- dalene's was consecrated, Wolsey obtained from the Pope a bull for the suppression of monasteries to the amount of three thousand a year for the maintenance of his college ; and although this measure did not touch the religious house at Launceston, even here must some mur- murings have been aroused by an arbitrary course which formed an evil precedent. Four years later commenced the struggle between King and Pope which began in proceedings for a divorce and ended in a reformation of religion ; and in 1531, the separation between England and Rome took place. The clergy met in convo- cation and declared the King's marriage to be void, and as John (Baker) Prior of Launceston, figures in a list of persons summoned to the Convocation of Canterbury in 1529,* thus shewing that our Priors were entitled to a seat in that assembly, it is probable that his successor and our last Prior, John Shere,t participated in this de- cision. •Brewer, Henry VIII., vol. iv., p. 209). tAppointed, according to Dugdale.Junc G, 1531 LAfXCESTON, PAST AND niESENT. 79 But complaisance to tlie King's will in the matter of the divorce was not sufficient to save the clergy and the religious houses from the ruin that was threatening. The former were compelled to acknowledge Henry as supreme head of the Church and were forbidden to appeal to Home, the latter wire daily drawn nearer to destruction. In 1534, Convocation declared its submission to Henry's authority, and the individual clergy followed suit. On August 28, of that year, John Shere and his Launceston brethren signed an acknowledgment of the supremacy. The " Priory of St. Stephen of Launceston" was represented in this document (still extant and with seal unbroken,) by twelve canons. John Shere, as Prior, headed the list, followed by John Morle, Sub-Prior, and then in their order, John Baker, John Hicks, John Fort, John Ham, William Genys, Sir Thomas Webb, Bichard Tozer, Bichard Trewynnick, Stephen George, and John Lawrence.* It indicates the connection of the Launceston of that period with the Launceston of this, that two-thirds of these surnames have lately been, or are still to be, found upon the roll of our burgesses. With what eyes, it may be wondered, did the hich of Launceston look upon these changes ? Of one of them it is not difficult te make guess ; the rest to us are silent. The most casual glance at St. Mary Magdalene's indicates to the onlooker that the tower adjacent was not built contemporaneously with the main edifice. It is, in fact, ■of much older date, a»d from the space which is left between the two erections (a space long filled by dwelling-houses, and now by a vestry-room) and from the absence of carving on the side of the church nearest the tower, it is apparent that it was in contemplation when the former was erected, to worthily complete the work. The most plausible reason for Trecarrell not doing this is lack of inclination rather than want of time, seeing that the church was begun and ended within thirteen years, and that in the two decades which remained of the builder's life, no effort was made towards superseding the old tower as the old chantry had been superseded. It has already! bsen pointed out that it was at a date not far distant from the consecration J Inventory of the Original Acknowledgments of the Royal Supremacy, made by Religion! Houses, 4c., and deposited in the Treasury of the Receipt of the Exchequer, temp. Henry VIII. Seventh Report of the Deputy Keeper of the l'uWlic Records, Appendix p. 2U0. t ante, p, 7(5. 80 LAUNCESTON, that the separatist troubles began ; what more natural than that Tre- carrell, who had proved himself sufficiently devoted to the old faith to' erect a temple for its service, should draw back in distaste fiom giving further out of his abundance to complete that temple for a form of worship not his own ? And that he was devoted to the old faith may bo conjectured from the fact that during the last twelve years of his life, Trecarrell, once so active, does not appear to have been at all employed in the public sen ice. On February 12, 1528, we find him joined in a commission of sewers, headed by the then Bishop of Exeter, " for the water of Tamar and marshes adjoining, from Cargreen to Bamham,* in the palish of Lawhitton, Cornwal^'f and in Apiil, 1532, he is named one of the commissioners of gaol delivery to deliver Launceston Gaol. J This is his last recorded appearance in such official capacity, and this, it may be noted, is the year in which the crisis between England and Rome became acute. But Launceston had not lost him though the State no longer required his help, for in 15-13 he became mayor of the town.§ In the summer of the next year he passed into his rest.|| Two years before Shere signed the acknowledgment of supremacy, and about a twelve-month after he had become Prior of Launceston, he was entangled in a dispute, the details of which are of much interest as throwing light upon the internal arrangements of the Convent in its dying days. A paper in the Record Office§ gives " the answer of John Shere, Piior of Launceston, to the bill of complaint presented to the King by the procurement of William Kendall," with the observations of Bishop Vesey thereon. From this it seems that charges of various kinds were levelled by Kendall against Shere, "because," says the latter, "the Prior denied him the farm of St. Thomas Church, which he desired to have under its value." He had apparently alleged that the Prior had not only cruelly treated bis brethren, but had deposed his predecessor, and had gained his election by malpractice ; and further that he was not fit for his post, and had allowed the Priory to be in debt. Shere strenuously denied these * " Corgrewyn to Bainhain " in the original, t Rot. Pat. 19. Hen. VIII., p. 2, m. 13 d., quoted in Brewer, Henry VIII., vol.iv. J Ibid, vol. v. § ante, p. 74. | He was buried at Lezant on June 1S», 1544. § Brewer, Henry VIII., vol. v., pp 306-8. PAST ASTD PRESENT. 81 accusations, and in return carried the war into the enemy's camp by averring that his opponents (of whom Kendall was but the represen- tative) had wished to elect as Prior one "openly known to be a man of vicious living, without learning to understand the rules of his religion;" and he here appears to have been standing on firm ground, for the Bishop notes that " the complainants have confessed this." Interrogatories were administered by Kendall to various persons regarding the methods by which Shere secured his election, his in- sinuation being that bribery and intimidation had been employed ; and upon this point the Bishop took the evidence of Thomas Hicks, then Mayor of Launceston, whose brother was a canon under Shere,* and who had been especially pointed at by Kenda 11 as unduly helping the new Prior in his monetary concerns. The Bishop, by the remarks appended to each of Shere's answers to the accusations preferred against him, and by the fact that he suffered Shere to remain ; i office, seems to have sided with the Prior. But the whole transaction was not particularly creditable to the parties involved, and the record which remains is proof that all was not meekness and charity and long-suffering in this one at least of the Eng^'sh monasteries in the days immediately preceding its fa 11 . And yet, if ever there were a time when the instinct of self-preser- vation alone should have served to make the Canons of St. Stephen cautious how they exposed their monetary difficulties and partisan battles to the world, that time was now. The adherents of the old order should have stood shoulder to shoulder for danger was veiy r : gh, and it was not long before the presence of one in especial of the prisoners in the Castle above might have pointed a moral to the monks in the Kensey Valley. It was on December G, 1533, that Sir Piers Edgcumbe, wilting from Cothele, reported to Thomas Cromwell that he had examined Friar Gawen, Warden of the Grey Friars at Plymouth, with two of his brethren, and had committed the former to the Castle of Launceston until the King's pleasure should be known ; and had further, in accordance with Cromwell's demands, " punished by pillory and stocks in the market-places such persons as spoke opprobrious words of the Queen. "f Tbis Sir Piers * ante, p. 7'J. t|Anne Boleyn: DomeBtio State Papers, K53S. 82 LAUNCESTOX, Edgcumbe, son of the Sir Eichard of whom mention has been made,* and ancestor of the present Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, was probably at that time still holding the Constableship of Launceston Castle, to which he had been appointed on Jane 22, 1509, f presumably in suc- cession to his father. Friar Gawen's commitment had not long been made out when the religious houses throughout the land received a note of warning which preceded their dissolution by a very few years. In 1534, an inquiry was ordered iuto the ecclesiastical revenues of the various monasteries in the country, and the return concerning "the Priory of Launceston, Deanery of Trigg Major," showed that the total value of all its spiritualities and temporalities was £391 19s. 6|d. and the necessary external expenditure £38 10s. 3d. J ; the latter sum included payments to " the water carrier of the parish of Laun- ceston," and to " the celebrating chaplain in the Chapel under the Castle of Dunheved, out of the grant of Stephen, formerly King of England," in addition to alms " to the poor in the Hospital of St. Leonard," " to the prisoners in the Castle of the lord the King at Launceston," and " to the poor on the anniversary of the death of the founder." Among the payments are also to be noted an itemof 13s. 4d. to the Prior of St. Germans on behalf of St. Mary Magdalene, and another of £2 10s. to the Abbot of Tavistock on behalf of Werrington. We have already seen || that Werrington was attached to Tavistock Abbey long before this period, but both date and occasion are lost at which St. Germans obtained hold upon Launceston Church. The days of the Priory were now numbered. In 1536, an Act was passed which suppressed nearly four hundred of the lesser mon- asteries, and this was followed three years later by a sweeping away of the whole of the religious houses. The preamble to the earlier measure had declared that in the greater monasteries religion was "right well kept and observed," but the later§ did not recognise any such distinction. Those heaels of houses who chose to surrender were pensioned ; opposition to Henry's will was dangerous, as the Abbot of Glastonbury — a house connected of old with that of * ante, p. fi9. t Rot. Pat. 1, Hen. VITI., p. 2., m. 12. t This gives a net revenue of .£353 9s. 3Jd. According to Vesey's Valor Ecclesiasticus, taken two years later, the net revenue was £354 Is. Od. || ante, p. 32. § 31 Henry VIII., cap. 13. PAST AND PRESENT. 83 Launceston* — found to his cost, being for his daring hanged on the hill overlooking his Abbey. John Shere and the Launceston Canons, thinking it well to yield with a good grace, signed their surrender on February 24, 1540. The Prior heads the list, eight of his brethren also subscribing, these being John Ham, John Morle, John Hicks, Thomas Webb, Richard Trewynnick, Stephen George, John Lawrence, and John Fish.f John Baker, John Fort, William Genys, and Richard Tozer, who had subscribed the acknowledgment of supremacy six years before, J are absent from this list ; John Fish we meet for thefirsttime.il Pensions were granted to those who signed, £100 being paid to the Prior, £10 to the Sub-Prior (who now appears to have been Stephen George, though John Morle, who signed both documents, is expressly mentioned in that of 1534 as holding the post), £6 13s. 4d. to John Ham (though for what reason he received more than his brethren is not apparent), and £5 6s. 8d. to each of the other canons. Among our last glimpses of the Priory is one which represents it as in monetary default, this being in connection with the ecclesiastical arrangements of Liskeard, which it had long superintended. Very soon after its foundation the great tithes of that parish were appro- priated to it by Earl Reginald, § and the grant was confirmed by a charter of King John in 1199, and by another of Henry the Third about 1230. That there were disputes between the people of Liskeard and the Priory we have seen,** but the latter kept firm hold upon the former, as is testified in some striking instances. In 1428, a deed was executed between Prior Honyland and the mayor of Liskeard stating that the former (being, in the right of his church of St. Stephen, seised of the impropriation of the parish church of Liskeard, which the prior and convent were entitled to hold to their own use) would * ante, p. 40. t Deeds of Surrender of Abbeys, or other Religious Foundations, pre- served among the Records of Court of Augmentations, &c. Eighth Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, Appendix, p. 290. t ante, p. 79. || The names of the subscribing canons are spelt in various ways, some of the differences probably arising from the difficulty at this date of deciphering them. For instance, the "Hame" who is said to have signed the supremacy, is undoubtedly the same as the "Hains" who is given as signingthesurrender, and the "Hamme" of Browne Willis; the last being in all probability the nearest approach to the real name. Similarly, George appears as " Gurge" and "Gourgc," and Trewynnick as " Trewynnyk," "Trewenyek," and even "Treddenicke," and, as if the last were not sufficiently far from the real name, the New Parochial History (vol. iii., p. 77) gives him as " Trederricke." § ante, p. 30. ** »nte, p. 58. 84 LATJNCESTOX, grant liberty to the commonalty of the borough to build a chapel or aisle adjoining the chancel of their church. Two years later the Prior granted liberty to the same personages to construct the said chapel anew andin a better manner; while, by a third deed in 1477, Prior Waryn empowered them to erect a second chapel or addition on the other side to that previously built.* But, as against the obligations of Liskeard to the Priory, there must be set the obligations of the Priory to Liskeard, and it must be confessed that the monks do not appear to have been too prompt to fulfil their share. That they were always ready to present to the vicarage may be taken for granted, the living occasionally falling to one of themselvesf; but when it came to paying what they owed they drew back. It appears from the Lis- keard records that in 1392 the Prior of Launceston, J as one of the free tenants of the borough, had to be fined a small sum for not ren dering suit of court ; a similar fate overtook Prior Shyre in 1449 ; in 1497 the then Prior had to pay a similar penalty; and in 1536 the fine, which had previously varied from one penny to threepence, was raised to sixpence for the benefit of Prior Shere. || This is the next to the last record of any business transaction of the Priory ; the last is of a grant made in 1539 by Shere to Humphry Prideaux, of Thuberys, Devon, of the tithes of grain of the rectory and church of Liskeard for a term of sixty years, in reversion of a term already granted therein to Richard Miners and John Harris, at the annual rent of £25. § Within a year of this grant being made Shere had lost all power, for in just a month (March 28, 1540) after he had signed the surrender, the King, by presenting a vicar to Liskeard in place of Oliver Baker, who had just died, indicated very clearly the begin- ning of anew order of things. Thirteen years later we find the last mention of the Convent.** Shere had died in the meantime ; George, Ham, Trewynnick, and Webb were all that were left of the canons ; and with this record the history of Launceston Priory ceases to be. Glimpses of its crumbling ruins may later be seen, but even these are * John Allen, History of the Borough of Liskeard and its Vicinity, pp. 38-9. t The first vicar presented by the Priory, was, as far as is known, Martin Pypard on January 14, 12t;:i, and the last Oliver Baker on April 12, 1529 ; Robert Parys, a canon of Launceston, was appointed November 11, 1157 : Ibid, pp. 111-5. J Whose Christian name was Francis, according to Allen, but the Prior at that date was Stephen Tredy- dan: ante, p. £8. II Ibid, jp. 270-1. § ibid, p. 11G. ** " Pensions paid, An. 1553:" Browne Willis, History of Mitred ParliamentaryAbbeys, vol. ii., p. 53. PAST AND PRESENT. 85 now an almost faded memory; and all the remains of the religious house in the valley, famed as the of t-repeated story runs "for its hospitality to strangers and benevolent attentions to the poor," are a few facts, a few figures, a few details of interest to the antiquarian but the importance of which died long ago into nothingness. The probable reason for the ruin into which the Priory buildings speedily fell was that they were not required for parochial functions, the church of St. Thomas supplying all the spiritual wants of the sur- rounding inhabitants. Unlike, therefore, such Abbeys as Bath, Tewkesbury, and St. Albans, which were allowed to stand because of their parochial uses, but in similar case to those of Bolton and Foun- tains, the Priory of Launceston, by reason of possessing monastic functions only, was suffered to drift into disrepair. Present-day Launcestonians could, however, have forgiven this had the ruins been suffered to stand, as have been those of the Abbeys last named, to be an ornament to the landscape and a constant joy to all lovers of the past. But just as half a hundred years since the Launceston builder in search of a good corner-stone made of the Castle walls his quarry, so undoubtedly did his predecessors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with regard to the Priory. The only thing to be said in defence of either is that there were illustrious examples for the practice in the Middle Ages, when Pope vied with Pope in despoiling the Coliseum. In the same year as that in which the Priory was suppressed Henry, by Act of Parliament, severed from the Duchy of Cornwall the castle and honour of "Wallingford— 'to read a history of which Berkshire borough* with its frequent references to Edmund Earl of Cornwall, Richard King of the Bomans, Piers Gaveston, and others dealt with at various points of this narrative, is almost to s,eem to be reading a history of Launceston — and in lieu thereof annexed to the Duchy many manors and estates, including ten which had been part of the property of Launceston Priory. The Priory itself — the building and its appurtenances — was at the same time allotted to Sir Gawen Carew, son of Edmund, Baron Carew,t and b rother of Sir Peter Carew, • e.g. J. K. Hedges, History of Wallingford, vol. i. t Computus Gawini Carewe de terris prioratus de Launceston, temp. Hen.VIII: Sir T. Phillips' MSS. 1399(5. In the first volume of a Calendar to the Rolls of Particulars for Leases in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James I., remaining in the Augmentation Office together with reformers to the Transcripts of such Leases (vide Cole's MS. extracts from the Duchy Records, p. 254) Sir Gawen appears as the lessee of " the scite of ye Priory" as well as of " lands parcel of the Manor," but the date ol the leases is not given. 86 LATJNCESTON, who later did good service in connection with the suppression of the western rebellion.* The first mention of his appointment is contained in a chance reference of Leland.f who, in an account to be presently described of a visit to Launceston in or about 1540, observes that " Gawen Carow hath the custody of the Priory " ; but the possession was not a source of unmingled pleasure to the favoured knight, as Chancery suit after Chancery suit during Elizabeth's reign would prove. The first of these would appear to have been a suit brought by Sir Gawen against John Bewes, the object of which was to obtain a counterpart of the under leases, the premises affected being " land parcel of the manor of Launceston and burgh of Newport, demised to plaintiff by grant from the Crown." J The second suit would seem to have been instituted some years later, Thomas Hicks being now the plaintiff, and the defendants the same John Bewes (or Bewys) as before, his wife Margaret, his daughter Joan, George Glanvyle, and JohnHorwill; the object was to recover the plaintiff's title deeds concerning " the manor of Launceston land and Newporte Borough, granted by the Queen's letters patents to Sir Gawen Carewe, Knight, for a term of years, and by him assigned to the plaintiff." || Very shortly afterwards Hicks brought another suit, the defendant this time being Henry Greston, his object being to set aside claims by leases, the plaintiff's statement declaring that " Queen Elizabeth by her letters patent, demised to Sir Gawen Carew, Knight, and his assigns, her manor of Launceston land and Newporte Borough, which lease was afterwards assigned to the plaintiff; and the defendant and several others claim to hold parcels of the said manor under leases alleged to be granted to them by John Shere, Prior of the dissolved monastery of Launceston. "§ Later it will be seen that even these do not exhaust all the lawsuits given rise to by the dissolution of the Priory and the grant of a portion of its possessions to Sir Gawen *"The Carews of Mohun's Ottery were among the oldest of the Devonshire families :" J. A. Froude, History of England, vol. v., p. 171, note. t Itinerary, vol. ii., p. 110. J Calendars of the Proceedings in Chancery, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, vol. i., p. 196, C.c. 17, No. 15. t Ibid, vol. ii., p. 48, H. h. 16, No. 53. In a Calendar to the Rolls of Particulars of Pee Farm Rents reserved upon Grants from the Crown and re- maining in the Augmentation Office (vide Cole's MS. extracts from the Duchy Records, p. 244) Thomas Hicks is named as one to whom " the'tenth— belonging to St. Mary's Rectory, Launceston," was granted. § Chancery Calendars, vol. ii., p. 54, H. h. 18, No. 8. PAST AND PRESENT. 87 Carew. It is. however, to be remembered to the credit of Henry and Cromwell that it was not intended when the Priory was suppressed to secularise its property, for about the time of its dissolution "Cromwell presented a bill to the Houses of Legislature, of which the preamble was drawn up in the King's own hand -writing, providing for the formation of new bishoprics, among which was to be Cornwall, which latter was to be endowed from the revenues of the suppressed mon- asteries of Launceston, Bodmin, and Tywardreath ; the bill, however, was not passed, owing probably to the opposition of Cranmer."* In this connection it is interesting to note that the first purely epis- copal function, excepting confirmation, performed in the Church of St. Mary Magdalene after its consecration, was an ordination in the autumn of 1871, by Bishop Temple, of Exeter, in whose holding of the see the long talked of revival of the ancient bishopric of Cornwall has taken place. Leland has left in his " Itinerary "f a sketch of the town as it appeared to him when wending his way from New Bridge into New- port and up the hill to Dunheved, by which we can look at Launceston with the eyes of centuries since. Like William of Worcester fifty years before, he was exceeding particular in noting the bridges in the district through which he travelled. Having named several of these — Yeolm Bridge, New Bridge, Poison Bridge, and Greystone Bridge — he thus proceeds: " After that I had enterid a little into the suburbe of Launstoun, I passed over a brooke caullid Aterey % that rennith yn the botom of the stepe hil that Launstoun stondith on. . . . After that I had passed over Aterey, I went up by the hille thorough the long suburbe ontylle I cam to the toun waul and gate, and so passid through the toun, conscending the hill ontylle I cam to the very top of it, wher the marketplace and the paroche chirch of S. Stephane, lately re-edified, be.§ The large and auncient Castelle of Launstun stondith on the knappe of the hill by south a litle from * The Rev. J. J. Wilkinson, Lecture on Launceston (1873). t vol. ii., p. 110. t Obviously the Keneey, but the two names are often confounded in maps mid gazetteers. § St. Mary Magdalene's, the confusion probably arising from Leland's imperfectly dis- tinguishiog between the town church and "the priory of chanons regular dedicate to St. Stephen," which he describes as being "in a vale at the foote of the hil of the saydc town, about ail a row shot fro thecastol northward." It is to be noted, however, that in a Latin account of the execution of Cuthbert Maine, Camden (annals of Queen Eliz- abeth, 1577) refers to " I'anum Stephani (Launston vulgo vocant)" — the Church of St. Stephen (conmionl.v called Launceston) — as being the place of trial. 88 LAUNCESTON, the paroche chirch. Much of this castel yet stondith ; and the moles that the kepe stondith on is large and of a terrible highth, and the arx of it, having 3 severale wardes,* is the strongest but not the biggest that ever I saw in any auucient work in England. Thir is a litle pirle of water that servith the high parte of Lanstoun.f The Priorie of Launstoun stondith in the south-west parte of the suburbe of the toun, under the rote of the hille, by a fair wood side ; and through this wood renneth a pirle of water, \ cummin g out of an hil therby, and servith al the offices of the place. In the chirch I mark'd 2 notable tumbes, one of Prior Horeston, and another of Prior Stephane. One also told me there, that one Mabilia, a Countes, was buried ther in the Chapitre House. . . . There yet standith a Chirch of S. Stephan about half a mile from Launstoun on a hille, wher the Collegiate Chirch § was. Gawen Carow hath the custody of the Priory. There is a Chapelle by the west-north-west, a litle without Launstowne, dedicate to S. Caterine ; it is now prophanid. . . . Ther be within this town iii gates, and a postern || ; also a gate to go owt of the castel ynto the old parke.** Sum gentlemen of Cornewal hold their landes by castel-guard, that ys to say for reparation of this castel and towne ; and withyn this castel ys a chapel, and a hawle for syses and sessions, ft for a commune gayle for al Cornwayle is ynthis castel. Withyn this town is a market, a mayre and burgesses, with a chapel of Mary Magdalen to their uses. . . The wall of Dunevet ys hy, larg, and strong, and defensably set.JJ By the north side of the priory runneth a litle ryver.|| || In Dunevet be ii conduites of derived water."§§ * The third of these has now vanished, though plainly marked in the old plans and pictures. It was merely a low parapet, probably for the protection of the archers ; a few fragments of its foundation are still distinguishable on the northern side. t This may have been at Dunheved Green, where there was in later days, and until the making of the water-works at Lanivet, a reservoir for the supply of the town. t The stream which separates the parish of St. Mary Magdalene from the hamlet of St. Thomas. § Of secular canons before the establishment of the Priory; ante, p. 19. ||One of the gates yet remains and the positions of the others are known; that of the postern is not. **ante, p.55. ft This is an incidental confirmation ot a fact to be frequently found in ancient records (e.g. commission of June 28, 14S4, in Ninth Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, Appendix II., p. 2'.)) that the commissions of gaol delivery were once directed to Launceston Castle, just as they are at this day to York Castle and the Castle of Exeter: "a verie spatious hall wherein the assizes for the whole Shyre ar helde" stood in the base-court of the Castle, (Norden, p. 92) JJThe only traces which remain are close to the South Gate. II II The Kensey. §§ The improvement of the water- works has rendered conduits practically useless; one which was by the Jubilee Inn disappeared in 1870, in the course of the improvements effected at the building of the present Wes- leyan Chapel ; another, however, still stands by the London Inn, but is in ruins; there is a supply reservoir, also of ancient date, and the water in which is not now used for drinking purposes, just by the spot where the West Gate stood ; and there is a second under Broad Street by the Com Market, and just by the site of the old Guildhall : these two may have been the conduits Leland refers to. PAST AND PRESENT. 89 The reference by Leland to the Church of St. Catherine is a reminder that there were formerly within the borough various ecclesi- astical establishments of which in some cases only the name remains, and in others not even so much. Cattern's Lane, as it is familiarly known, marks for us the site of St. Catherine's*; Chappie still serves to tell us where St. John's originally was fixed ; but of St. Sidwell's and St. James', of the once existence of which the borough records afford proof, nothing, not even a name, remains. f In the progress of time other of their traces have disappeared ; St. Leonard's Fair, held on November 17, and marking the time when the Leper Hospital gave it its appellation, vanished as lately as 1865, when the monthly Cattle Markets were established. There also existed until the in- coming of the present century fairs upon the days dedicated to St. John and St. Cafherine,J which carried on the tradition of the time when seven churches supplied the religious wants of the borough. Of one other ecclesiastical establishment, a friary, said by Carew || to have existed here, there is no trace in any records that have yet been published. There is nothing inherently improbable in the statement, but it >acks confirmation. That Launceston was specially distinguished as an ecclesiastical town, that in fact, as Drewsays,§it "was not less celebrated for religion than for war," is evidenced by an Act of Parliament** passed in 1540 " Concerning Sanctuaries." This measure commenced by reciting the abuse to which Sanctuaries had been put, and decreed that they all, except churches and churchyards and places expressly reserved by the Act, should be abolished. The second clause specified these places : "And furthermore the Kinges roiall maiesty of his accustomed goodnes mercy and benignity is pleasid and contentid that it be enacted by auctoritie of this present parlament, that fromhensfurth thies places and territories herafter expressid and declarid that is to say, Wellisft Westminster Manchester Northampton Norwich Yorke • ante, p. 68. tit may be that one of these was the Chapel of the Castle (ante, 1>. 88), the latest reference to which is made by Norden, in whose Topographical De- scription of ( lonrwall, taken in 1'ist, it is stated that " the base courte [of Launceston CastlcJ cuiiiiirisctli a il<'ca,vd chappell" (p. 92, Edition of 1728.) (Nicholas Carlisle, Topographical Dictionary of Kiiiclaml, vol. ii., (lsusj i! Survey, p]>si-ll(i. § History of Cornwall, vol. ii., p. 412, ** 32 Hen. VIII., cap. 12: Statutes of the Realm, vol. iii., p. 750. tt Wells. 90 LAUNCESTON, Derby and Launceston, shall be fromhensfurth admitted allowed and taken to be places of privilege and tuytion for term of lif of and for all and singulier offendours and malefactours, of whatsoever quality kinde or natures all and every their offences be or shalbe for the which their said offences and crymes the paynes and nunysh- ment of death should ensue by the statutes lawes or custumes of this realme." In the year after this Act was passed Sanctuary was taken away from Manchester by special enactment.* The whole privilege was an anomaly as was speedily proved, but the point which affords us the most interest is that the Act indicates very clearly that Laun- ceston must have been regarded as a place of some importance in days when it could be selected as one of only eight towns, and these the largest in the kingdom, to which such a privilege should be granted. It is to be noted that a name which yet attaches to one part of the borough may be a survival of the period when sanctuary existed still ; Earn Alley, which runs out of Fore Street and is at no great distance from the Church, bears the same appellation as a portion of the Sanctuary of Whitefriars, the Alsatia of all romances dealing with mediaeval London. But it was not alone in the particular described that the Parliament sitting in 1540 attempted to benefit Launceston, for the borough was deluded in a statutef " for reedification of Townes westward." It seems to have been a favourite theory at this period that boroughs in a state of decadence could be made prosperous by Act of Parliament. In previous years of the reign measures had been passed with this object, and that of 1540, touching the western towns, set forth that " For Asmuche as in tymes past diverse and many beautifull houses of habitation have been within the walles and liberties of . . . the Bur- roughs and Townes of Lanceston Lyskerd Lestuthiel Bodman Truru and Helston within the Countie of Cornewall," as well as various others in Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Essex, and Warwick, "which nowe are fallen downe decayed and at this tyme remayne unreedified lying as desolate and voide groundis and many of them adioning nighe unto the high stretis replenished with much ordure filth and unclenes with pittes sellers and vaultes lying open and uncovered, to *33 Hen.VIII., cap. 15 : Statutes of the Realm, vol. iii. t32 Hen. VIII., cap. 19 : Ibid. PAST AND PRESENT. 91 the greate perill and daungier of all thinhabitauntis and other the Kinges subjectis passing by the same, and some houses be very weke and feoble redy to fall downe and therefore daungerous to passe by, to the greate decay and hinderaunce of the said Boroughes and Townes," it should be enacted that, if the owners of the lands upon which decayed houses stood did not rebuild the same within three years, the lords of whom the lands were holden might enter and rebuild in the two years ensuing ; in default of this, persons having rent-charges thereon might enter and rebuild within the year following upon the term last-named ; and, if these failed, another three years were allowed for the mayors and governing bodies to do the same ; should all these neglect their duty, the first owners might re-enter as in their former estate. The date of the Act affecting Cornwall has led some county his- torians to the belief that it was the suppression of the religious houses which necessitated the measure, but a comparison of figures will show that this must be groundless. With regard to Launceston, there seems little doubt that it was in mediaeval as in much later times not only a town of military and civil but also of some industrial importance ; and coins and tokens discovered during the restoration of St. Mary Magdalene's and on the site of the destroyed church at Werrington lead to the belief that, in the first half of the sixteenth century, Flemings were either largely trading or manufacturing here*; and the fact that about the year 1535 the number of Flemings in London had increased so largely that by Henry's orders fifteen thousand were ex- pelled at one swoop affords a hint of what may have happened else- where to account for decay. But, whatever the reason for its passing, the measure does not, as far at least as the Cornish towns were con- cerned, appear to have done much good. Norden, writing in 1584, states that in Launceston " the Statute tookelitle affecte," though he adds that " the towne is much repayred in buyldinges and increased in wealth of late yeares;"f he makes very similar remarks regarding the effect of the Act upon Truro and Helston, saying of the former • Itinerary of Launceston, pp. 7S-4 : Appendix by It. Petor. In 1502 (vide Coles MS. estracts from the Duchy Records, p. T2) John Jarpi'nfelt made a return to the Duchy as bailiff of Newport ; the name suirgests a foreign origin, t Topographical Description, P. Dfl. 92 LAUNCESTON, that despite the intention of the measure " it succeded not accor- dinglie," and of the latter that "the success was not aunswerable to the meaning." Some idea of the ecclesiastical arrangements of the borough in Eeformation times is given in the return of the commissioners appointed at the commencement of Edward the Sixth's reign to inquire into the endowments of the various churches throughout the country. That regarding Launceston is dated 1548,* and "affords an interesting instance of the transition form which endowments assumed during the convulsions of the Reformation, and the tendency toward edu- cational efforts at that period. At first the chantry was established by 'Ellys Crocker and Tomasyn hys wyff ' to keep obitsf and distribute alms. Then a priest was pensioned and a schoolmaster added to teach grammar, besides almsgiving and the repair of the church. In the present instance there is also the remarkable anticipation of a free common school for the poor in the salary of 13s. 4d. given to the ' aged man to teache yonge childerne' "J From the same document it appears that the priest of St. Mary Magdalene had a salary of six pounds, in addition to another twelve which was "a pencon out of the possessions of the late monastery of Launceston." A note to the return gives us the earliest mention of the Laun- ceston Grammar School and runs thus : " The pencon of ye prest to be borne by th' inhabitants of ye towne, being ye scolemaster of St. Mary Weke, by there own suite, is removed thither." The foundation at Week St. Mary or St. Mary Wike (the addition distinguishing it from St. Mary Magdalene) was the work of Thomasine Bonaventure, the " Whittington of the West," who, attracting the notice of a London merchant while tending her sheep upon the moors, was first taken into his service and ultimately married by him. Outliving three husbands, the last of whom was Sir John Percival, once London's Lord Mayor, she employed her latter years in the doing of charitable deeds, among which was the foundation at her native villatge of a' chantry and free school. Her will (which included a legacy of twenty * Oliver, Monasticon, p. 489. t The last mention of an obit in connection with Laun" nceston is to be found, perhaps naturally enough, in the reign of Mary : on May 31» 1557, land was granted "for the continuance of one obit in the borough of Launceston for Vincent Calmady," of Wenbury, Devon, who died in 1579 (Harleian MSS., 600, art. 211). J Pattison, St. Mary Magdalene. PAST AND PRESENT. 93 marks towards the building of the church tower of St. Stephens- by-Launceston) was dated 1512, and it is not therefore probable that she lived to see the part frustration of her benevolent schemes when, in the reign of the Eighth Henry, the chantry was suppressed and the school for the sake of convenience removed to Launceston. The whole of the period at present under review was a time of storm and stress, and the Reformation was accompanied by more than one outbreak of rebellion. In April, 1548, William Body, one of the royal commissioners for Cornwall, was stabbed to instantaneous death by William Kylter of St. Keverne, while inspecting the church, at Helston and demolishing some images there. Kylter and his comrades were arrested and to the number of twenty-nine suffered death, the first-named being, in company with his brother and about twenty others, tried by special commission at Launceston on May 28, 1548. A verdict of not guilty was returned with regard to two of the prisoners, one other was found guilty of felony and murder alone, and the remainder were convicted of high treason. The published record* baldly adds : " Judgment as is usual in cases of High Treason. Place of execution not stated." But it is probable that Launceston saw the deaths as it had seen the trials, and Carew has preserved for us a striking little picture of an occurrence during the incarceration here of the prisoners : "For activity," he says, "one Kiltor, com- mitted to Launceston Gayle for the last Cornish commotion, laying there in the castle-greene upon his back, threw a stone of some pounds weight over that Towres top which leadeth into the parke."f The affair of Kylter was but the prelude to a general Cornish in- surrection, headed by Sir Humphrey Arundel, Governor of St. Michael's Mount, which broke out at the Whitsuntide of 1549. The probability is that, as in the rebellions of Flammock and of WarbeckJ the insurgents marched to Bodmin and thence through Launceston to Exeter, which city they besieged. Lord Russell was chosen by the Privy Council to head the resistance, but, as he was unable to immediately set out, Sir Peter and Sir Gawen Carew (the connection of the latter of whom •Second Part of the Inventory and Calendar of the Contents of the Baga de Secretis : Fourth Report of the Deputy Keeper. Appendix EI, ]>i>. 2i7-i». t This tower has now disappeared ; it must have stood to the north of tin- present western Rate of the Castle, and overlooking the New North Road. t ante, p. 71. 94 LAUNCESTON, with Launceston has been noted*) came into the "West with the resolve to promptly and sternly put down the disturbance. The rebels, who had marched ten thousand strong through Launceston, now held the Castle, having probably secured it without the striking of a blow, and to it was conveyed Sir Richard Grenville the elder, who had figured at the head of those named in the special commission for the trial of Kylter and his party in the previous year. He had stoutly defended himself at Trematon, but, being induced to come forth to parley, was treacherously seized and his death threatened if that place were not surrendered ; it was accordingly yielded up, and, to use the words of Carew, Sir Richard "made an exchange from Trematon Castle to that of Launceston, with the gayle to boote." From the hardships he here suffered the unfortunate knight died, leaving the major portion of his estate to his grandson, the hero of the Revenge. Meanwhile, engagements were being fought around Exeter. Lord Russell, who was now in the West, won after great struggle a battle at St. Mary's Clyst, and on August 6, having again defeated the rebels, he raised the siege of the Devonshire capital. The sur- rounding country was given over to pillage, and the ill-treatment of the people served to keep alive a spirit which enabled the Cornish still to make a stand. On August 15, however, Russell marched by way of Crediton to Sampford Courtenay, where two days later a battle was fought which resulted in the complete overthrow of the insurgents. " All this night," said the victor in his despatch to the Council.t " we sate on horseback, and in morning we had word that Arundel was fled to Launceston, who immediately began to practice with the townsmen and keepers of Grenfield and other gentlemen for the murder of them that night. The keepers so much abhorred this cruelty as they immediately set the gentlemen at large, and gave them their aid with the help of the town for the apprehension of Arundel, whom with four or five ringleaders they have imprisoned. I have sent incontinently both Mr. Carews with a good band to keep the town in a stay ; and this morning I haste thither with the rest." What was the exact sequence of events after Arundel was beaten * ant€, p. 86. t Harleian MSS., 523 : Froude, History of England, vol. v., pp. 197-8. PAST AND PRESENT. 95 at Sampford Courtenay is to some extent uncertain ; but that, after great slaughter of the rebels, their leader fell back upon Launceston is clear. We can judge from Lord Russell's despatch that the reception accorded by the townsmen to the beaten Sir Humphrey was cool even to hostility, but it is to be hoped that it was due only to the heated rumours of the moment that Arundel was accused of plotting the deliberate murder of the aged Grenville and other prisoners in the Castle. From the records of the trial it is to be learnt that the process of making Sir Humphrey prisoner was attended with a street struggle in Launceston itself ; for when Arundel was indicted before a special commission in London on the following November 26, John Wynchelade, "late of Tregareke, in the county of Cornwall, gen- tleman," being tried with him, one of the charges was that " they and other traitors, 19 August, 3 Edward 6, at Launceston, with banners displayed etc., slew divers of the King's lieges under the command of Sir John Russell, Knight of the Garter, Lord Russell, Keeper of the Privy Seal, and also being the King's Lieutenant in Cornwall, who had been sent to seize and arrest them ; and that they . . . were on the said 19 August, defeated and captured." Found guilty at the same time as Thomas Bliston (another Cornish- man charged with much the like offences, but with no mention of Launceston in the indictment), Ket the Tanner, and other rebels, Arundel and Wynchelade were sentenced to the death " usual in cases of High Treason," and were executed at Tyburn.* While severities of most grievous soi*t were forming the lot of the unhappy followers of Sir Humphrey and his fellows, and Sir Anthony Kingston, the provost marshal, was, according to the stories handed down to us, anticipating by a century and a half the enormities of Kirke and his " Lambs," Launceston was so far from suffering royal displeasure that it was being granted additional favours, and it may thus be believed that the inhabitants had not taken active part in the rebellion just put down. Since the charter previously mentioned! as granted by Henry the Seventh, there had been a charter of pardon in the first y ear of his successor,! another of inspeximus in 1515 • Second Part of the Inventory and Calendar of tho Contents of the Bap:a do Sccretis : Fourth Report of the Deputy Keeper, Appendix II, p. 222. t ante, p. 1. J Granted to Dounhevdburgh, June 21), 100'J : ante, p. 4t>. 96 LAUNCESTON, confirming previous charters, another in 1543,* and yet another three years later,! at the opening of the reign of Edward the Sixth. And now a greater privilege than any granted by these documents to the borough itself was to be given to the district outside the walls, but which, as having contained the Priory and as having perhaps been the mother- town, had always been intimately linked with the fortunes of the borough. In 1552, at a time when several other Cornish towns, hitherto unrepresented, were striving to secure a footing in the Commons, Newport challenged a right to return members, and upon its exercise the members so sent were admitted ; the precedent was pleaded in after years, and the privilege continued to be enjoyed until the Eeforin Act of 1832. It would seem, in fact, as if just at this period Newport was determined to assert itself. Flushed with its success in obtaining parliamentary representation, it endeavoured to encroach upon the privileges of its neighbour, but here it received a check, for, in 1558, a writ of quo warranto was issued against the newly- enfranchised borough for having held fairs and markets, X the suit probably being undertaken at the instance of the Corporation of Launceston.|| This rebuff, however, had its effect mitigated by a mark of royal favour in this same year when a charter for "the town of Launceston alias Newport, alias Lawnceston" (a designation which although compli- cated was undoubtedly meant for Newport only) was granted to "John Cottell and other worthy men."§ It must not be supposed because it first was given parbiamentary representation and (as far as is known) a royal charter at so late a date, that Newport as a town separate from Launceston had not existed long before. At the com- piling of Domesday it had been considered a part of the demesne of the canons of St. Stephen, whose possessions were subsequently absorbed by the Priory. The earliest mention of the borough by its present name is in the Roll of the Seisin in 1337, in which the • Dated November 15. t October 21, 154(5. J Hil. 3 and 4 Philip and Mary, Ro. 4 : [Court of Exchequer] : vide Cole's MS. extracts from the Duchy Records, p. 284. |1 Ibid, p. 2R3. It may be noted that a dispute arose as lately as 1883 between the Town Council and < ne of its members as to the right of holding a market at Newport. § "Launceston, alias Newport. Carta Johanni Cottell, et aliis probis Hominibus Villa; de Launceston, alias Newport, alias Lawnceston. 4 Pars Original. 3 et 4 Philippi et Maria;, Rotulo 5": Index to Records called the Originalia and Memoranda on the Lord Treasurer's Side of the Exchequer. PAST AND PRESENT. 97 mayor and burgesses of Launceston complained that the prior of St. Stephen had without warrant taken the assize of bread and ale of the town of Newport, which anciently belonged to the Castle. In the Duchy Accounts for the next year " the town of Neuport in Laun- ceton' " is twice referred to,* while a bailiff of Newport is named in the same records for 1502,f and in the Priory Rent Roll of 1474 J a list of the burgesses of " Neuweport " is given. The origin of the name was probably that the North Gate, through which the dwellers in and around the Priory had to reach Launceston, was the latest built of the town entrances ; the Nova Porta remained the New Port to all ages, as Newgate has remained in London, and just as the North Road below the Castle has for two generations been, and for many generations may be, known to the inhabitants as New Road. But Newport's name as a borough fluctuated somewhat during its pariiamentary existence ; in 1552, the Sheriff of Cornwall " sent up Members for Dunheved, abas Newport, and again in the last Parlia- ment of Phibp and Mary, and anno 5 Eliz. Members were return'd for Dunheved as well as for Launceston, and in one of the Indentures it is called Villa Dounheved alias Launceston ; tho' in some of the intermediate ones 'tis nam'd Newport, juxta Launceston, and in others Newport, as at this day."|| It was probably because of its enjoying a separate jurisdiction and being a part of the King's demesne that Newport claimed and secured its own representation. In the same year as that in which Newport was established as a borough , Launceston was represented by one Henry Killigrew, who was subsequently high in the favour of Queen Elizabeth, by whom he was at various times appointed ambassador to the Palatinate, to Scot- land, to France, and to the United Provinces, as well as one of the royal delegates at the assembly of Reformers at Frankfort. But Newport a little later, and only four years after it had been granted parliamentary representation, did itself greater honour even than returning an embryo ambassador by electing Richard Grenville, son i — ' r * Vide Cole's MS. extracts from the Duchy Records, pp. 12-3. t Ibid, p. 72 : ante, p. 91, note. X ante, p. 65. , Browne Willis, Notitia Parliamentarian vol. ii., p. 102. In tho Preface to the same work, vol. i., p. xix, is the following: "Newport, call'd by the Inhabitants St. Stephens, which in the Indenture is stil'd Villa Douneheved, alias Newport ; and in the next Return, Anno 1 Mar. Dunheved, and in others New- port, juxta Laucestou." 98 LAUNCESTON, of the brave old knight killed by imprisonment in the Castle above,* as one of its members, for Sir Eichard will be known to all time as the bero of the Revevge, wherein, though deserted by his own admiral, he fought fifty-three Spanish ships of war from mid-afternoon until daybreak, and sank in his own vessel very speedily after an honourable surrender. But, as in all this story, we have to turn page by page from the pomps of war to the progresses of peace, from the struggle of a Sir Eichard Grenville, verse-celebrated by Tennyson, to the granting of a new charter to Launceston, soberly told by a county historian. On February 14, 1555, f Philip and Mary issued aninspexi- mus charter to the town, still preserved in the borough records, and, with its full-length portraits of the sovereigns, a striking specimen of the illuminator's art. It "recites that this Borough having been by ancient Kings endow'd with many Privileges and great Immunities, and anciently govern'd by a Mayor &c. (which Officer I find it had Temp. Henry IV.) She ordains it should be incorporated by the Name of Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty of the Borough of Dunheved alias Launceston, and by that name to have perpetual succession, and be enabled in Law to purchase Lands, etc., and to plead and be impleaded : That the Mayor and Aldermen should have a common Seal for their Affairs : and that the Borough and Corporation should consist of eight aldermen, besides the Mayor, who should yearly be chosen on the Nativity of our Lady (viz : Sep. 8), which said Mayor and Aldermen should be call'd the Common Council, and have power to elect a Eecorder, who with the Mayor should be Justices of the Peace within the Borough. "J And the provisions of this charter, despite attempts at change to be afterwards described, governed the town until the passing of the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835. A painful page of local history now opens, and religious persecution is the stain which rests upon it. In 1558, during the Marian terror, Agnes Prest, of Northcott, in the parish of Boyton, was indicted at * ante, p.M. t Rot. Put. 2 Ph. and Mar.: in the " Index to Records called the Originalia and Memoranda on the Lord Treasurer's Side of the Exchequer," anions the Memoranda is the following reference to this charter: "Launceston, alias Dun- HBVKD. Carta Coiifirniationis diversnrum Libertatum Majori et Kurjrcnsibus Villse de Launceston, alias Dusthbvbd, 2 Pars Original. 2 and 3 Phil, and Mar. Rotulo 13. X Willis, Nutitia Parliameutaiia, vol. ii., pp. 17-8. PAST AND PEESENT. 99 Launceston, for that she denied the real presence in the sacrament of the altar ; and for saying the same was but a sign and figure of Christ's body ; and that no Christian doth eat the body of Christ carnally, but spiritually." The evidence against her was furnished by her husband and children, from whom she had fled because they would have compelled her by force to attend the celebration of mass. A true bill was returned by the grand jury at Launceston Assizes, and the unhappy woman was tried, found guilty, and handed over to the spiritual arm. The Bishop of Exeter, Turberville, then further examined her, and after some delay, and principally it is said by the efforts of Blackstone, his chancellor, she was condemned by him as a heretic, delivered once more to the secular power, and burnt without the walls of Exeter — the only martyr who suffered death in the diocese for the Protestant religion during Mary's reign.* Although Agnes Prest was the first anti-Catholic martyr con- nected with Launceston in the days succeeding what has been aptly termed the Protestant Revolution, there had, a century and a half previous to the date of her death, been established a link between the town and " the Morning Star of the English Reformation." In 13S2, two years before the death of Wiclif, and when in retirement at Lutterworth he was issuing his translation of the Scriptures, Bishop Brantingham of Exeter published a mandate to the Prior of Laun- ceston (who was then Stephen Tredydanf), the Prior of Bodmin, the Provost of Glasney, and the Vicar of Probus, directed against one Laurence Stevine or Bedeman, apparently a Cornish fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, who had been preaching the Lollardite doctrines in our county. In this document it was set forth that "a certain Laurence Bedeman, who goeth in vestments, having entered our fold secretly with fraud and stealthily under the feigned image of holiness, with foxlike craft endeavours in his public and private discourses to turn aside our sheep and to lead them into the various errors of heresy." The Bishop, therefore, "being desirous to chase away such a fox from our fold lest he worry our sheep," commissioned the Prior of Launceston and the others before-named to " carefully enquire * See Foxe's "Book of Martyrs," where is Riven in great detail an account of tho proceedings at Exeter. t ante, p. 58. 100 LAUNCESTON, where and what things the aforesaid Laurence, whether in church or in other places in Cornwall, and on what feasts, times, or days the aforesaid Laurence may have preached, propounded, said, or proffered to our sons and subjects . . . and also what things and what sort of things the aforesaid false prophet Laurence or any other may have preached against the Catholic faith and the articles thereof." The " false prophet" was easily frightened ; whether it was the Bishop's mandate, the Prior of Launceston's vigilance, or, as some suggest, the Peasants' War which led Stevine to reconsider his course, the fact remains that he afterwards conformed and became Eector of Lifton.* The worthy man was not of the stuff of which martyrs are made. But now comes a very different picture. In the summer of 1577, close upon twenty years after the martyrdom of Agnes Prest, the throne then being filled by Elizabeth, Francis Tregian, of Golden, was arrested with Cuthbert Maine, his chaplain, by Sir Bichard Grenville as Sheriff of Cornwall, and accused of recusancy, or in plainer language of Boman Catholicism. Tregian, after being bound over to appear at the next Launceston Assizes, was taken to London, there to be examined by the Privy Council, but Maine was com- mitted on a charge of high treason to the Castle of Launceston, "where, when he came, he was laid in a most loathsome . . . dungeon, scarce able at high noon to see his arms or his legs."f Tregian mean- while was summoned before the Council, and was absent when his servant was put upon his trial at the Launceston Assizes, which commenced on September 16. " Thither forsooth," says the friendly chronicler, " in pompous manner the Prince of the West [probably the Earl of Bedford] must purposely come with his trumpeters before him, sounding to the slaughter." Maine was charged with having published a papal absolution, with having administered private mass, and with having possessed "a certain vain sign and superstitious thing called an Agnus Dei, made of silver and stone, and hallowed, as it is commonly reported, by the Bishop of Borne in his own person." Another count in the indictment * C. W. Boase, Register of Exeter College, Oxford, preface, pp. xiv-xv. t"A Treatise touching the imprisonment and indictments of Mr. Francis Tregian, Esquire, of Volvedon, now called Golden, in Cornwall [from the manuscript belonging to St. Mary's College, Oscott]": Given in full in The Troubles of our Catholic Fore- fathers, First Series, Edited by John Morris, S. J., pp. 75-140. PAST AND PRESENT. 101 charged " Cuthbert Maine that there standest" with having on " the 14th day of February last past, at Launceston within this county, by express words in teaching maliciously, advisedly, and directly" upheld the ecclesiastical authority of the Pope. The trial would seem to have been a mockery, for the senior of the two presiding judges interrupted the Attorney-General in the very opening of the case to inform the jury that "this fellow here, Cuthbert Maine, is, as you see, a Eome-runner, a secret traitor to the Queen and her realm, and one that goeth about to seduce the people from their obedience both to God and to their Prince, and therefore is to have no favour at all," with much more to the same effect. This may have been considered necessary because of the weakness of the evidence to be produced, one specimen of which was the testimony as to Maine's having at Launceston upheld the papal authority. This rested upon the statements of three witnesses who averred that "being permitted by the keeper of the gaol to have some talk with Cuthbert Maine in the place where he there remained close prisoner, he, amongst many other speeches used unto them, should deny that the Queen was Supreme Head of the Church of England." A conviction was of course obtained and the prisoners were taken back to the gaol. "The next day they were all brought forth again to receive judgment, coupled like dogs, two together with chains of iron, saving Cuthbert Maine, who also with iron fast fettered both hand and foot, went all alone as their captain before them, in which sort they marched on as well as they could, to the great admiration of the people, from the common gaol into the place of judgment." After some disagreement between the two judges who had tried the case, Maine was condemned to be hanged, drawn, and quartered in the Launceston market-place, and the other prisoners to the forfeiture of their goods and perpetual imprisonment. Owing to the difference between the judges two months elapsed before the capital sentence was carried out, but November 29 was at length fixed for the execution. On the day previous a sedulous attempt was made to induce Maine to recant, but he who had simply murmured "God be thanked" when the sentence was passed was not likely to falter now, and he held his ground in disputation from 102 LAUXCESTON, eight in the morning until night, refusing life and liberty rather than change his religion. "Wherefore, according to the judgement he had received, the next day he was uneasily laid on a hurdle, and so spitefully drawn, receiving some knocks on his face and his fingers with a girdle, unto the market-place of the said town, where of purpose there was a very high gibbet erected, and all things else, both fire and knives, set to the show and ready prepared." Mounting the ladder, Maine declared to those assembled that Tregian had no knowledge of the things for which he was condemned. " Then beginning to use some words in way of exhortation, one of the justices, interrupting his talk, commanded the hangman to put the rope about his neck, and then, quoth he, let him preach afterward ; which done, another commanded the ladder to be overturned, so as he had not the leisure to recite the verse, In thy hand O God, to the end. " He was speedily cut down, and as speedily drawn, quartered, and decap- itated, his head being set up on the Castle of Launceston, and his quarters distributed between Bodmin, Barnstaple, Tregony, and Wadeb ridge.* At the same Assizes as those at which Maine had been condemned, Sir John Arundell, Francis Tregian, and a number of other prisoners were charged with not going to church, f but they were removed by special writ to the King's Bench, whence they were returned to Laun- ceston without judgment being pronounced. Tregian for aiding Maine was ultimately sentenced to banishment under pain of forfeiture of goods, but for four months he remained in our gaol, in "a dark dun- geon, a place often, by reason of the dankishness thereof, infested with foul toads and other filthy vermin, where the only outward solace he could receive was to behold at a little loop with the upper face of the * Another version is given in the Memoirs of Missionary Priests, pp. 11-20, published in 1741, which describes Maine as "the first Missionary Priest that suffered in England for religious Matters, and the Proto-Martyr of Doway College, and all the Seminaries." The details are very much the same as in the account already quoted, but it adds a statement of a " great light" which was seen in his cell while engaged in religious exercises a day or two before his death, and avers that " the Hangman who embrew'd his Hands in his innocent Blood, in less than a Month's time became mad, and soon after miserably expired." Stow in his Chronicles simply mentions Maine as having been executed "for preferring Roman Power," while Strype in the second volume of his Annals has an account of the trial. Oliver refers to it in his " Collections illustrating the history of the Catholic Religion in the counties of Cornwall, &c." p. 2., but gives no extra details worth attention. t Brief of the indictments of papists at the assizes at Launceston in Cornwall, Sept. 2.3, 1577 : Tanner MSS., lxxx, 52. PAST AXD PRESENT. 103 earth (not able by reason of the darkness of his den to see again) some soberly talking, nodding their heads; some scornfully laughing, pointing with their fingers ; and some bitterly weeping and wringing their hands."* He was subsequently removed by order of the Council to the King's Bench Prison and afterwards to the Fleet, where he remained for close upon thirty years, being then suffered to betake himself to Spain. There is a touch of strangeness in the fact that, in detailing the persecutions to which Maine and his fellows were subject, we have leaped a score of years beyond a point at which was established in the Parish Register a very direct connection between Elizabethan and Victorian Launceston. It was in 1559 that this record was commenced,! the first baptism being performed on October 17 of that year, the first burial on December 10, and the first marriage on January 29, 1560. J During the first complete year in which the Register was used seven- teen baptisms, three marriages, and seventeen burials were recorded, § and the average of the succeeding ten years was twenty-two, five, and sixteen respectively, this increasing decade by decade until the end of the century, when it was thirty-four, seven, and thirty-six, these figures indicating a rapid growth of population at that period. Those in search of interesting details concerning the social life of our Launceston forefathers can find them in abundance in the Parish Register. Such entries as those of the burial of " a prisoner" unnamed, of the christening of " Phillippe the daughter of a prisoner woman," or of the interment of "John Harris a condemned prisoner" are reminders of the days of the gaol, just as the existence of a military force at the Castle is recalled by records of the funerals of "Walter Thomas a soldyer," of " Piper captaine," and of "Richard Trewin of Hartland souldier." And, continuing to look only at the Register of the latter half of the sixteenth century, there are indications of the * "A Treatise touching . . . Mr. Francis Tregian," p. 119. tThc title-page of the original Register reads as follows: "A true Register of all Marriages Baptisms and Burialls within ye parish of Mary Magdalen in Launceston, from ye yeero of our Lord god 1559 Truely copyed out accordinge to the old Register this present yeere 1601. Written by John Harbert, 1G01." The ink of this page appears almost as black to-day as it could have been when originally employed. J " 1559. October. Imprimis the xvijth day was christened John the sonne of Thomaa Hardye— December. Thexthdaie wag buryed James Adam— January f : f>*J0 N.S.] Imprimis the xxixth daie were maried John lianuiste and Bridget Beunet." § See Appendix, Note C. 104 LAUNCESTON, trades of the townsmen in the accounts of the burial of " Willm sonne of John Pears sniyth," and of the baptisms of " Nicholas sonne of John Kingdon cutler" and " Philipp and Wilmot the sonne and daughter of William Barnerd shoemaker"; while, in default of other sources of information, we learn something of the Launceston clergy from being told of the interment of "Dorothie daughter of Roger Selly curate" and of the christening of ' ' Alice daughter of William Churton clearke." The great ones of the town pass before us as we read of the funerals of "John Trevanion gentleman," of "Mr. John Vigurs Maior," and of "Mr. Sampson Piper gent."*; the smaller ones are to be seen in the recoi'd of burial of " Alice Nowyre of the almes house" and of " a walkinge woman named Margai-et." The interments of " Johan daughter [of] Hugh Mowd a traveler," of "Ellyn the welchwoman," and of "Robert Geritoo a straunger" show that there was traffic with the outside long before railways and even before good roads ; while those who know the social circumstances and prejudices of the time will not need to have their imagination stimulated as to the misery of such records as that of the funeral of "William sonne of Williams ye papist," of the christening of " Nicholas sonne of James Bownia an Egiptia rogue, f" or, perhaps saddest entry of all in its touching incompleteness, of the burial of " Elizabeth a poore woman." The Register is not the only record preserved in our midst of the social state of Launceston in the days of Elizabeth. In the keeping of the Town Council is what, until the chance discovery in October, 1882, of a number of borough records dating from 1340 onwards, was thought to have been the oldest Corporation book extant, this being a somewhat decayed paper folio, containing pleas in Latin in reference to actions of debt, trespass, detainer and such like.} The entries commence in 1566, and one of the earliest plaints is that of William Kendall (who may have been the same who objected to the election of Shere as Prior§) " against •Ancestor of Sir Hugh Pyper ; he was buried on August 2, 1592. He was mayor in 1586 r and his arms are am ns those in the Guildhall window. t This term, now corrupted to "Gipsy," is said to have been introduced in the previous century. J Historical Manuscripts Commission, Sixth Report, Appendix, p. 525. § ante, p. 80. About the year 1570 (vide Domestic State Papers, 1547-80, p. 534) Letters Patent were granted to William Kendall of Launceston, giving him the sole privilege of making alum for twenty years, and at the same time an indenture was entered into between the Queen and Kendall "for the manufacture of alum within the realm of England." PAST AND PRESENT. 105 John Austyne in a plea of detainer of three dishes of silver," Austyne retorting with a plaint " against William Kendall in a plea of debt." The Sergeants at Mace* who are still appointed, though greatly shorn of their ancient prerogatives, appear to have enjoyed extensive powers. In 1566 they presented " Thoma Wadge [and three others] for that they sell vitailles without aprons and use theire fyngers and knyves fylthylye." An equally curious presentment was made four years later by the jurors at a "Session of the Peace and Law Court" against " suche as do not come to Churche to serve God not in long tyme. There excuse is that they be yn dept ; So that by that meanes they displese God more ways than ij or iij. We praye you, Mr. Mayor, to see an order for it, or els to rede the Towne of such persons." The righteous indignation of the Launceston jurors against those who were lax in their religious duties was extended in 1599 to those who were the reverse of lax in their business capacities, " Mr. William Grilles and his man or his servant Thomas Kenver " being presented " for extorcion to be vsed and taken of th'Inhabitantes of this Towne and Country near here aboutes in weighing their Woll and Yarne,"f while higher game was at the same time flown at in the presentment of " Mr. Mayor nowe of this Towne for suffering of such extorcion to be vsed and taken, and for suffering of smale weightes and measures within this Towne without reformacion." The Mayor, in fact, was expected to exercise the utmost vigilance in all matters touching the well-being of the borough, he being on one occasion instructed by the jurors " to see some order for Harrie Bere, because he is betrothed unto Jane Cornishe and dothe not marye her, which is contrary to any good order. "f Much information regarding the Launceston property owners at this period is to be gathered from the Duchy and borough records. In the Duchy accounts of 1556, William Mill, mayor, certified to the * Servientes art Clavam, the form of oath administered to whom in 159!) is written in one of the Court-books. t Tin's is an early mention of the trarto in wool which then and for lonp; afterwards made Launceston prosperous: in the Parish Register a little later than this date are entries touching a weaver and a dyer, showing that the manufacture which extended to the present century was then in existence. Tho earliest reference to the establishment of the woollen trade in this immediate district is probably to be found in an Act of 7 Edward IV, cap. '2 ( 14(57) "to enable tho Inhabitants of the Hundreds of Lifton, Tauestoeke, and Rowburjrh, to mix Flocks in their Woollen Cloths." J C. H. Peter, The Early History of Dunhcvcd (1SS2). 106 LAUNCESTON, various arrears and the fee farms within the borough, while Richard Pallyn, bailiff of the Hundred of East, made a return regarding the town of Newport.* In 1582 a lease was granted by the Crown of "tythes &c. of ye Rectory of St. Mary Magdalen" to Richard Boorde, and three years later of " a wood called Castle Wood parcel of ye Manor," to D. Grenvilef; while about the same time two water mills (perhaps those which existed at the compilation of Domesday^ and which exist now) were leased to Richard Trefusis, and " a park parcel of the Boro' " (probably that which was named centuries before as part of the Duchy property§) to William Killigrew. The " Rent Roll of the Burghe of Dunheved, alias Launceston," collated in 1578 and 1581, contains a schedule of tenements " holden of the same Burghe freely by custome, life, years, and otherwise." In this appears an entry which distinctly refers to the original Madford House (a residence which tradition records to have been the first founded out- side the town wall, and which will afterwards be seen to hold a noteworthy place in the history of the borough), Mr. Sampson PyperU having to pay — in addition to twelvepence for a stable in Westgate, sixteenpence for a barn in White Lane (now Race Hill), and fourpence for a barn and courtlage before the door — the comparatively heavy sum of eight shillings for his dwelling. Bound up with the rent-roll is " The Book of all Surrenders of Messuages " within the town, a considerable portion of the land in which was held by the mayor, aldermen, and burgesses, as Lords of the Borough, by Copy of Court Roll according to custom. It is with something of a pang that present-day Launcestonians see how much property once belonged to the town and how little is possessed by it now. As Mr. Fattison observes** "the Corporation appear to have become poor and insig- nificant among their endowed brethren of other towns by alienating their lands. Very many of the houses in the town were corporate property, and were sold for terms of five hundred and a thousand years in the reigns of the Tudor monarchs, and thus alienated in fact from the municipality. Had the property thus conveyed away been • Cole's MS. extracts from the Duchy Accounts, pp. 40-50. tlbid, pp. 226-32: ante, p. 6. J ante, pp. 9.7. § ante, p. 55. || ante, p. 104. ** Lecture on Launceston (1848). PAST AND PRESENT. 107 leased for lives only or for shorter terms, there would now have been ample means for government, police, and education." The only con- solation to be extracted from the deplorable loss suffered by the borough, owing to the jobbery and bad management of the old Cor- poration, is that by the enfranchisement scheme adopted within the past few years there has been raised from these long leases a large portion of the cost of the new Guildhall. The Launceston Grammar School, just now fallen into sore decay, but up to a very few years since under the energetic mastership of the Rev. S. Childs Clarke* a large and flourishing institution, dates from the period we are now considering. Its original foundation was by Thomasine Bonaventure at Week St. Mary,f but, that place being inconvenient, it was transferred to Launceston in the time of Elizabeth, and by her " endowed with an annual sum of £17 13s. 3^d,J now [1818] payable out of the Land Revenue of the Crown." § The gram- mar schools at Bodmin, Penryn, and Saltash received grants at the same time, grants which with the exception of that to Penryn continue to be paid, but in no case did these reach to one-half of that given to Launceston. From such a record of peaceful times we turn to one of war. The prospects of a Spanish invasion were as eagerly dis- cussed in the reign of Elizabeth as were those of a French one in that of George the Third ; and although the Armada did not sail until 1588 preparations were made in Devon and Cornwall as early as 1575 to meet the Spaniards. Men were raised and a route of march laid down " from St. Burine in Cornwall to London," which would pass through " Bodnain " to " Lanneston " and thence by "Ocointon " to Exeter and on to the metropolis. || Two years later these preparations were interfered with by an outbreak of that scourge of the Middle Ages which has happily disappeared from the England •Perpetual Curate and afterwards Vicar of St. Thomas from 1818 to 1874 ; now Vicar of Thorverton. t ante, p. 92. t Tn the Financial Reform Almanack for 1883, p. 87, under the bead " Ancient and Hereditary Pensions," there is recorded this same grant m having been given by Charles II. and made chargeable upon the Hereditary Land Revenue, the gross amount being as above stated and the net .cm 12s. 3d. Out of forty-four Grammar Schools in this list, only four (Salisbury. Cirencester, Fodringhey, and Kendal) receive more than Launceston. § N. Carlisle, A Concise Description of the Endowed Grammar Schools in England and Wales, vol. i., p. 13'.'. || K. Polwhele, The Civil and Military History of Cornwall, p. 72. 103 LAUNCESTON, of to-day. On September 19, 1577, during the Assizes at which Maine was condemned,* the Commissioners for the County of Corn- wall, writing from Launceston, reported to the Privy Council that they had been obliged to defer taking the musters on account of the Plague. f It is evident from the Parish Register that this outbreak commenced in the town in the previous year. The number of burials, which had been fourteen in 1574 and sixteen in 1575, rose suddenly in the next year to thirty-six. The Plague would appear to have claimed its first ascertainable victim in the January of the last- named year in the person of " Jane daughter of John Monke," her mother " Anne wief of John Monke" following her to the grave six weeks later. In the April " Mowde wief of Degorie Horten" was buried the day before "Jane daughter of Degorie Horten," and again and again in the course of this year and the next the Parish Register affords similar record of more than one bereavement in the same family, the twelvemonth closing with the burials within three weeks of " Willm servant to John Dodge," " John Dodge " himself , and "Margaret Dodge widow." In 1577 the mortality slightly decreased, the number of deaths being thirty-one, and this total fell a further six in 1578, and yet another six in the next year. In 1580 it rose again to twenty-four, and in 1581 to half as many more, the cause of the increase in these years being not, however, so much a renewed outbreak of the Plague as of gaol-fever, one of those contagious disorders which, like its fellow just described, has dis- appeared in England before the advance of sanitary science. J Launceston Gaol appears to have earned at an early period of its existence an evil reputation for filth and discomfort. It has already been pointed out§ that the record in the Poll of the Seisin that the Castle contained " one vile gaol" did not indicate that the prison was a vile one in the present sense of the word, but if it had so indicated it would have only stated the simple truth. To it, from all accounts, could have been applied with exactitude the description given in 1512 of the stannary gaol at Lydford:— "a dongeon and a depe pytte * ante, p. 100. t Domestic State Papers, 1517-80, p. 555. | It appears from the Bodmin Register (Rev. John Wallis, No. 1, p. 15) that in 1576, 1581, and 1590, a great mortality prevailed in that town, and from the New Parochial History (vol. iv., p. 117) that "in 1591 Redruth was visited by the plague, which occasioned the death of 91 of the inhabitants, the population then being about 1000." § ante, p. 53. PAST AND PRESENT. 109 vnder the grounde . . . the whiche prison is one of the moste annoyous contagious and detestablest places within this realme."* The "most loathsome and lousy dungeon" already described as having been the resting place of Cuthbert Mainef must have resembled this one at Lydford, for its terrors appear to have impressed the principal chronicler of his martyrdom so much that he again and again emphasises his disgust at the prison in which the victim was confined. For him no words are too strong in which to describe Maine's dungeon ; it was " a vile place," viler even than the common gaol in which his fellow- sufferers were confined and where " their beds were a bare floor and their pillows hard stones " ; the abode of the condemned prisoners was "a most miserable and horrible dungeon"; Maine's employer and others were "brought again to remain in that place where their adversaries knew by experience they should want no kind of rigour and filthy imprisonment " ; and Tregian himself was " committed unto a dark dungeon, a place often, by reason of the dankishness thereof, infested with foul toads and other filthy vermin," and altogether a " most filthy and solitary den. "J Even if facts to be subsequently narrated did not bear out these strongly-worded descriptions of the Launceston prison, the Parish Register would afford practical confirmation by its proofs of the frequency with which the gaol-fever raged within it. In the December of 1570 one of these outbreaks commenced, the burials of four pris- oners being recorded within the month ; in the January of 1571 there were three others, in February another, and in April one more. Five years later there was a repetition of the mortality, when seven prisoners were interred in six months ; in 1582-3 a further seven were buried within twelve months as well as "Richard Colyn minister (out of ye gayle)," and the dismal tale was repeated in 1587-8 when in the same period there were twelve deaths inside the prison. Before turning to more cheerful subjects, and while considering the gaol, it may be asked whether the local lock-up placed over the South Gate (which was abandoned as lately as 1882, upon the •An Acte cancernynfce Rvchard Strode : 4 Hen. VIII.. crip, viii; vide Bibliotheca Devoniensis i>. 199. t ante, p. 100. J A Treatise touching ... Mr. Francis Tregian, pp. To- HO. 110 LAUNCESTON, substitution of the county for the borough police) does not date from the period of which we are speaking. Even the most casual observer cannot but be struck with the fact that the two storeys of cells which now stand over our only remaining Gate are of later erection than that upon which they are placed. "A dark house and a whip" were, we are told, the Elizabethan formula for the treatment of madness, and it was as "The Dark House" that the Launceston place of detention for crime was generally known,* while its locality was indicated by the fact that when a person was arrested he was said to be "put over the gate." In the Parish Register it is stated that in January, 1582, " the first daie was christened John sonne of John Cramer at ye south gate," the latter being probably the keeper of that entrance to the town, and it is not unlikely that the now disused cells are the oldest dwelling places in the borough, older even than the house which faces the corn-market, and which bears upon it the stamp of being built in the days of Elizabeth.f Norden tells us J that in 1584, when he visited it, Launceston was " a prettie towne, neatly kepte, and well governed by a Mayor and his brethren, that uppn festivalls goe in their scarlet Eoabes." The imagination may dwell with delight upon the picture thus sug- gested as somewhat different to the sober one we see to-day, when at the mayor-choosing§ the aldermen and councillors follow their new chief in procession, and only two are robed and these in no such gay colour as scarlet ||; but Norden's remark is not the only indication that the Launceston Corporation thought much of ceremonial at this period. Nine years before the chronicler's visit, Eobert Cooke Clarencieux Eing of Arms, had declared** that the Mayor and Alder- men and their successors had the right to use the arms of the borough, * Some of the older inhabitants were accustomed to call it " The Clink," a name of mediaeval origin. t There are upon one of the windows of this building the initials T. H. cut in granite ; these may not improbably refer to TRiomas] H[icks] : ante, p. 86. X Topographical Description of Cornwall, p. 95. § It would be interesting to know at what date commenced the practice which has obtained until the present day, of the wife of the newly-chosen mayor presenting half-a-crown to the lad of fleetest foot who readied her from the Council Chamber with the earliest intelligence that her husband had been actually elected chief magistrate. || The present mayoral robe ot violet trimmed with sable was purchased in 1851, upon the occasion of the then civic chief (the late Mr. T. S. Eyre) being invited to the opening of the Great Exhibition ; the gold chain was bought in 1882 by a subscription among past mayors (or their repre- sentatives), raised chiefly bytheefforts of the late Alderman JohnChing. The robe of "the Justice" (as the immediate ex-mayor is locally called) is of fine black cloth. ** The certificate is dated July 24, 1573. PAST AND PRESENT. Ill which of ancient time were gules, a keep or castle, gold, onabordure azure, semey turrets of the second, these being surmounted by a crest, a lion's head, gules, between two plumes, springing from a crown, or, and resting on a gorget. The prominence given to the Castle in these arms is perhaps the best proof of the importance the townsmen attached to their fortifi- cation in the days which are past. But Norden in two distinct parts of his description calls attention to the decay, both moral and material, of the fortress in the period now under review. " The Dukes and Earles in former times," he exclaims, " had castles and howses of residence within the Duchie, namely Dunhevet, an auntient castle nere Launceston, aduaunced vpon a verie steepe mounte, with a parke of fallowe Deare* ; but time and neglecte of reparation hath much decayde the firste, and profitable providence clene ouerthrowne the second ; insteede of a princely habita- tion it is now become the Comon gayle of the whole Prouince, the Custodie whereof is annexed vnto the Canstableship of the Castle, which is graun- ted outbylease"f; and after, in another place , giving an almost iden- tical description of this Castle, which "hath bene in former times of greater importance The Borough Arms. and regard," and which "is now insteede of a princes Courte and honorable resorte " become a prison, he ejaculates: "This triple crowned mounte thowgh abandoned retayneth the forme, but not the fortune and favour of former times ; Tantum ceui longinqua ualet inutare uetustas."J It says a great deal for the original strength of the Castle that it should so long have withstood the time and neglect of which Norden speaks. As early as 1337 it was officially described as being ruinous, § and in 1369 the Duchy found it necessary to spend certain sums upon the Castle and the Park.|| Repairs were, of course, • constantly required, and wc find that two-thirds of the tithes of * ante, pp. 56-106. t Topographical Description of Cornwall, p. _ 1. t [bid, p. 93 : on the same page is the earliest extant picture of the Castle with its triple ring and complete wall, including a wall around the Castle Dyke. § ante, p. 53. 12 Ed. 3, Minister's Account of Payments: Expenses operum Casta el parci de Launceston incipient: Vide Cole's MS. extracts from the Duchy Records, p. 7^. 112 LAUNCESTON, various tenements in St. Neots were anciently appropriated to that purpose* ; and as near as 1562 to the time with which we are dealing, there is an entry in the Duchy Accounts which shows "suche charges as Hewe prust hathe bestowed aboute the Castell and Housinge at Launceston sithen ye feaste of St. Michell tharcangell Anno domini 1562 unto the said feaste in the yere of our Lord God 1563. "f Later we shall see that whatever efforts were put forward, the Castle rapidly fell more and more into disrepair ; but, confining ourselves for the present to the points raised by Norden, it may be noted, in connection with his statement that the Constableship was " graunted out by lease," that about the year 1586 there was a "grant to W. K.J of the offices of Escheator and Feodary of the Crown lands in the Duchy of Cornwall, and Constable of Launceston Castle, vacant by the death of H. C.§ Esq."|| A curious feudal dispute was not improbably settled during " W. K.'s " constableship, for in the State Papers is a document of January, 1592, showing " allegations on the part of Rich. Tresilian, in a question between him and the Queen as to whether the Castle of Launceston, part of the Duchy of Cornwall, is held by knight's service or in soccage," it being decided that it was held by the latter.** Launceston appears from the Parish Register to have been visited with a very severe outbreak of the Plague during the two years immediately succeeding the settlement of this feudal dispute. 1592 had been exceptionally healthy, there having been in it only fifteen deaths, the lowest total since 1586, and the earlier months of 1593 were not marked by any extraordinary mortality. But in November of the latter year there were nine burials, which swelled to fifteen in the next month, making a total of forty-five for the year, as against fifteen in the twelve-month preceding. This time it did not seem as if the gaol was responsible for the calamity, only two prisoners being named as buried in 1593. January of the next year, in which month the number of deaths was usually one or two or three, had no less than nine, February six, March seven, April six, May nine, • New Parochial History, vol. iii., p. 413. t Cole's MS. Extracts, pp. 171-2. J It may be that this was the wTilliamj K[illi(?rew] who about this time received aleaseof the Park : ante, p. 100. § Perhaps H. C[arewJ. || Domestic State Papers, 1581-90. p. 378. •* Ibid. 1591-1, p. 176. PAST AND PRESENT. 113 and then came June with thirteen. The Plague now subsided; the number of deaths in July fell to seven, and there was one in each of the succeeding months, the grim total for the year being sixty-two, or seventeen more than in either 1588 or 1593, the highest of the preceding years during which the Eegister had been kept. Whole families must have been swept away by the visitation, as, for instance, the Pophans, five of whom were carried to their graves in a little over a fortnight at the beginning of the fatal June. The epidemic, more- over, did not entirely die away ; there were thirty-eight deaths in 1595 and thirty-five in 1596, and then there was a sudden leap to nearly double in 1597. It was the gaol which suffered the most in this latest outbreak ; only three prisoners perished in the epidemic of 1594 which so seriously affected the town, while six died in 1595 and three in 1596. But in the next year the gaol must have been almost denuded ; one of its occupants died in January ; February and April were without a victim, but in March there were six deaths of prisoners out of a total of thirteen in the parish, in May six out of nine, and in June fourteen out of seventeen ; not another prisoner then expired until November, but the death total of the year was sixty-eight. We shall close the record, of the sixteenth century with consider- ations of the law. Already there have been given some particulars of Chancery cases affecting Launceston in the reign of Elizabeth* and these did not exhaust the list. John Glanvile and Olyver Collyn sued Eichard Baker, Henry Baker, and others " respecting a grant made by the mayor and commonalty of Dunheved alias Launceston of certain beams and weights there "f; another suit concerned " certain land held of the borough of Dounehevitt alias Launceston "J ; a third had reference to an estate in " Donhevett Borough, Bodashe, and St. Stephens near Launceston "§ ; another was between a Hicks and a Baker (the names of the most frequent local litigants of those days) as to " certain mills called Budgrowe Mills|| and lands thereto belonging, near Launceston"**; a lease granted by Thomas Hicks, ft now deceased, provoked a suit between * ante, p. 80. + Calendar of Chancery Proceedings, vol. i., p. 868, t Ibid, p. 377." § Ibidj vol. ii., p. 61. II ante, p. 27. ** Calendars <>f Chancery Proceedings, vol. ii., p. 07. tt ante, p. 80. 114 LAUNCESTON, Philip King* and two othersf ; while the last recorded suit of the century was touching " the rectory of Julett or St. Julett, formerly parcel of the possessions of the priory of Launceston, and demised by the Queen's letters patent."! A quainter phase of Launceston's connection with the law is here to be studied. Thomas Walmysley, one of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas in the later years of the sixteenth and the earlier of the seventeenth centuries, and who rode the Western Circuit at every autumn and spring assizes from July, 1596, to March, 1601, was careful to keep a full record of the expenses to which he was put on each of his journeys, and his note-book contains an abundance of matter to interest Launceston readers.§ " For the Western Circuit," we are told, " the judges and their officers started on horseback from Holborn, and thence proceeded from town to town. Where the distance between any two places was great they rested at some gentleman's house, or at some intermediate town. . . . The judges usually slept at Mr. Fulford's, or at Mr. Sergeant Glanville's, between Exeter and Launceston ; at Mr. Gale's, at Kirton|| ; at Mr. Monk's, or at Mr. Stuckley's, or at Mr. Jennings', or at Mr. Berry's, on the way between Launceston and Taunton." The expenses the judges had to meet were fees to the servants in those houses at which they stayed and charges for their lodgings and stable-equipment. "An Order in Council in February, 1574, had relieved the sheriffs from the charge of the Judges' diet, yet the sheriff of each county sent large presents of fish, flesh, and fowl for the use of the Judges. . . . In every county some of the mayors of towns and other public bodies, and the principal country gentlemen, also sent presents of like provisions." The account in which appears the first detailed description of the judges' expenses and presents is dated July, 1596, Walmysley being accompanied on circuit by Edward Fenner, of the Queen's Bench. The first entry is of " joynt chardges at Okington, beinge in the waie * This is the first mention of a name and family which afterwards played an important part in the corporate history of Launceston. t Calendars of Chancery Proceedings, vol. ii., p. 115. ' t Ibid, p. 405. § The Expenses of the Judges of Assize Riding the Western and Oxford Circuits, temp. Elizabeth, 1596-1601. Edited from the MS. Account Book of Thomas Walmysley, one of the Justices of the Common Pleas, by William Durant Cooper, F.S.A. Printed for the Camden Society. || Crediton. PAST AND PRESENT. 115 to Launston, where yor. LL. [lordships] did dyne, xxiiij Julij, ao. xxxviij Eliz., total spent there xxs. viijd." Between Okehampton and Launceston two shillings are recorded to have been paid for twelve gallons of beer " in the extreme heat," and then comes an account of the Assizes held "at the Castle of Launceston"* on July 26, the opening item of which is "Presents at Launceston," under which are entered : " Imprimis of Mr. Sheriffe.f one gurnett, one soale, one hadock, one brayme, one buck, two pies, one mutton, one veale, two lambes, two turkies, J one herneshawe, vj chickings, ij ducks, iij guiles, wyne, and a hoggeshead o beare viijs. : Item of Mr. Trelawney, one mutton, one kidd, xij chickings, ij capons, iij turkies ijs. : It. of Mr. Wraie, ij capons, vj chickings, and vj pigeons, the reward xijd. : It. of Mr. Sharock, vj guiles, vj turkies, vj rabetts, the rewarde ijs. : Suma for p'sents ib'm xijs." These viands were not all that the judges required, and they were put to the following expenses for "Provision bought at Launceston": " Imp'mis a qr. of mutton, halfe a veale, a qr. of lambe, and a legge of mutton vijs. vjd. : It. iij lambes p'tenances xijd. : It. iij paire of calves feete vjd. : It. iiij chickings ijs. : It. one capon xviijd. : It. bread and flower xxixs. : It. the grocer's bill vs. xd. : It. salt, vinegar, and herbes ijs. : It. wyne iijs. iijd. : It. firewoode viijs. : It. yor LL. chambers Is. : It. butter and egges vs. iiijd. : It. to the butler iiij s . : It. to the turnespitt xijd. : It. for washinge the lynnen ijs. : It. for suett viijd. : It. for beare vs. : It. for bakinge the veneson xviijd. : It. for candles ijs. : It. to Mr. Maior his s'uant of Saltaishe for oysters xijd. : It. ij coople of rabetts ijs." The total joint expenses at Launceston were, therefore, £7 13s., and in addition to his half- share of these Walmysley's "private chardges" were: "Imp'mis for horsemeate iiij li. ijs. xd. : It. for neates foot oil vjd. : It. to the sadler xijd. : It. o the poore xxd. : It. to the ostler xijd. : It. to Mr. Justice Fenner's cooke for his paynes the whole circuite xxs." The total of joint and private expenditure to which Walmysley was put at Launceston wae, consequently, £9 3s. Gd., in addition to which there was a sum of £2 7s. 9d. " disbursed by me from Launston unto • ante, p. 88. t Sir William Bcvill. } Turkeys were then a rare bird, and they were given to these judges first at Launceston. 116 LAUNCESTON, Bristoll," bringing up the grand total for the circuit to £49 lis. Yd. In the spring of 1597, for some reason not explained, no assizes were held for either Cornwall or Devon, but on July 8 of that year Walmysley was again at Launceston. Mr. Sharrock on this occasion presented the judges a dish of sea fish, Mr. Wray four capons, and Mr. Trelawny a kid, twelve chickens, four young " gannyes " (which are thought to have been gowbills), two gulls, two capons, and three salmon peel. The Sheriff (now Mr. William Wray) gave a sheep, half a calf, two capons, a lamb, and a dish of fish ; Mr. Cory ton half a buck ; Mr. Carew, of Antony, three bass and three mullett ; and Mr. Hender six gulls and six puffins, the latter bird appearing only at Launceston in all these accounts of the Western Circuit. At Walmysley's next visit in March, 1598, about an equal number of presents was made, among them being a hogshead of beer and a tart as well as several varieties of fish from Peter Courtney, the year's sheriff; while to "Lamerton, who brought beer from Mr. Sheriff, and waited all the assizes" was given half-a crown. The next spring, Sir William Bevill being once more sheriff, the presents included an " isle of salmon," a "quartern of razerfish," a quartern of cockles, a piece of conger, a piece of porpoise, and a box of marmalade ; the last-named item was evidently a rarity, being met with only at Exeter in addition to Launceston, while the porpoise (which was supposed to be roasted or cooked like the sturgeon) was even more rare, for it is given at Launceston alone and upon no more than one occasion ; but presents, common or uncommon, did not supply all the wants of their lordships, whose purchases here at this assize included a thornback and oysters. 1599 seems to have been a prolific year for salmon peel, one county gentleman giving two, another ten, and another as many as twenty, and we meet in this list for the first time a dish of artichokes, a lobster, and some "scorched" apples and pears, as well as another "box of marmalett." At the Spring Assizes of 1G00 the Sheriff appears to have been unusually generous, giving, in addition to the customary barrel of ale, a separate series of presents upon each of the three days that the judges sat,* • Carew, in his Survey published two years later (fol. 90) points with some regret to the fact that whereas in former times the Launeeston Assizes was attended by only one judge, they then needed the presence of two. PAST AND PRESENT. 117 their lordships assisting digestion of the viands (which now included teal, sanderlings, plover, heathcock, and quails) with oranges, herbs, and salads, for which they paid eight-pence, while at the Autumn Assizes of the same year they spent half-a-crown upon cheese and strawberries, three shillings upon wine, and exactly eight times as much upon beer ; the latter was in addition to the Sheriff's hogshead, and the extra quantity was probably required because of the unusually large amount of fish presented by the gentlemen of the county on this occasion. One more item concerning Launceston's connection with the law at this period is to be found in Carew's Survey of Cornwall, first published in 1602. The venerable historian, after complimenting certain Cornish lawyers who " testifie the honesty of their carriage by the mediocrity of their estate," expressed the opinion that, if they would give him leave " to report a jest," this verified "an old gentle- man's prophesie, who said, that there stood a man at Polton bridge (the first entrance into Cornwall as you passe towards Launceston, where the assizes are holden) with a blacke bill in his hand, ready to knock downe all the great lawyers, that should offer to plan them- selues in that countie. In earnest, whether it be occasioned through the countries pouerty, or by reason of the far distance thereof from the supremer courts, or for that the multiplicity of petty ones neere at hand, appertaining to the Dutchy, Stannary, and Franchises, doe enable the attourneyes and such like, of small reading, to serue the people's turne, and so curtaill the better studied counsellours profiting : once certayne it is, that few men of law have, either in our time or in that of our forefathers, growne heere to any supereminent height of learning, liuely-hood, or authoritie."* From the assize court to the gaol is but a step, and it is of a noted prisoner we have now to speak. In the summer of 1603, when it was becoming clear to the Romanists that the accession of James the First, contrary to what they had fondly expected, was not likely in the least to benefit their condition, it was reported from Penryn by Thomas St. Aubyn to the Privy Council that a seminary priest, one Roger Gwyn, or Wynn, of Carnarvonshire, had been seized on ♦ Survey, fol. 59-60. 118 LAUNCESTON, board a French ship.* This report was dated June 6, and seventeen days later Sir Francis Godolphin and Christopher Harris,! both men of note in the county, despatched from Launceston a letter to the Council giving details regarding the proceedings taken against the prisoner. They enclosed two papers, the first containing an account of Gwyn's education in Spain and a statement as to the number of Jesuits and Catholics in England, and the second a confession he had made to Captain John Fisher, one of his captors, to the effect that his intention in coming to England was to kill the King and introduce Popery. " The readiness with which he gave this information," says the most noted historian of these times, J "gives cause for a suspicion that he was not in the full possession of his senses. However this may have been, it was, at least, certain that he came from Spain, and the fright which this affair caused the King, predisposed him to listen to Rosny's [the French Ambassador's] stories of Spanish treachery." On June 28, Godolphin and Harris reported to Lord Cecil (who, as early as the tenth of that month, had been in correspondence on the matter) that they had sent their prisoner under custody from Laun- ceston to London. Even if it had not been for Gwyn's own confession (which, as after events proved, was not worth the material upon which it was written) the Act of Elizabeth directed against the seminary priests of Douay was sufficient to justify his detention. The execution of Maine, § which was the first-fruit of the enactment, proved, as Green says,|| that the Act was no idle menace, and " gave a terrible indication of the character of the struggle upon which Elizabeth was about to enter" ; and the struggle was not yet destined to cease as Gwyn himself found. "What occurred to him after his arrival in London from Launceston is not clear, but eleven months subsequent to his journey we find him in the custody of Sir Thomas Vavasour, the * Domestic State Papers, 1003-10, p. 13 and foil. t Christopher Harris, who was after- wards knighted, and who became Sheriff of Cornwall in 1609, was appointed in the gummer of 1606 (together with Sir Ferdinando Gorges, William Strode, Sir Anthony Rous, Richard Oarew the Historian, and the Mayor of Plymouth for the time being) on a commission to enforce the orders of the Privy Council respecting the pilchard-fishery of Devon and Cornwall ; the Commissioners met at Launceston on August 13, and here issued a warrant to the parish constables of the two counties directing them to summon the owners and masters of seines and boats to appear before them at Sal tash three days later (Royal Historical Manuscripts Commission, Ninth Report, Appendix, p. 265: Corporation ot Plymouth's Records.) J S. R. Gardiner, History of England, 1603- 16-12 [edition 1883] vol. i., p. 106. § ante, p. 102. || Short History, p. 401. PAST AND PRESENT. 119 Knight Marsha], vrho was allowed two pounds weekly for his keep ;* and as his rambling story was evidently not believed he was liberated not far later, a warrant to Sir Thomas, undated but probably of this same year 1604, granting an increase of pay upon one of his prisoners and stating that Gwyn had been " long since discharged."! Another abortive prosecution at Launceston in the reign of James, but this time against a Church of England clergyman and on strictly political rather than on semi-religious grounds, may here be noted. The Rev. John Fletcher, M.A., vicar of Fowey, " who is said to have been highly esteemed as a critic, scholar, and an orator," was accused under an Act of Elizabeth with speaking or writing against the King's Government, and was sentenced at Launceston Assizes to abjure the realm, but on appeal to the King's Bench the judgment was reversed, and Fletcher was honourably acquitted. J The Lazar-house at St. Leonards disappears from view about this period as an institution in active work. In the return of Edward the Sixth's Commissioners certain lands in the parish of St. Stephens are stated to be devoted to the payment of " a priest to minister in a spittle house there, "§ and there has been noted an extract from the Parish Register to show that just at this time the "alines house" still contained inmates, || while now in 1607 we find an equally tangible proof of existence in the shape of a receipt given by the Prior of St. Leonards (a title which appears curious half a century after the full accomplishment of the Reformation) to the Mayor of Launceston for the hundred shillings which Richard, King of the Romans, nearly four hundred years before had directed the Corporation to pay to the lepers.** "Beit known vnto all men by these psents," runs the receipt, " that I degoryBand Prior of the hospitall or Lazer howse of Saynt Leonardes als Gylmartyn with the rest of my Bretheren and Systers doe acknowledg our selues to haue receaued of Mr. Arthure Piperft •May 24, 1604: Domestic State Papers, 1003-10. t Ibid. J New Parochial History, vol. ii., p. 32 § Cole's MS. extracts from the Duchy Records, p. 2t!8. || ante, p. 104. •*ante,p.41. tt He was probably the sou of Sampson Pyper (ante, p. 1041 and was distinguished from him in the Parish Register by being described simply as "Arthur Piper" (Register, p. 62) while the other was named "Sampson Piper, gent." (ibid, p. 66). He was the father of a Hugh Pyper, who was baptised mi .June 21, 1674, and who was married on September 2, 1604, t" a lady whose Christian name was Deborah, but whose surname is omitted, and who was buried a little more t li'in six months later (April 2, 1606) ; the family of Pyper was so numerous in Launceston at this period that it is not possible to tell with exactitude whether the Sir Hugh Pyper of later renown was descended directly from this "Hugh Viper, gent." 120 LAUNCESTON, Mayor of the Borough of Dunheved, als Launceston the whole and Intire some of vli. [five pounds] of lawful mony of England due vnto vs at the ffeast of Saynt Michaell tharcaungle now last past being the kings maties ffree gift to wardes the aforesaid hospitall of Saynt Leonardes als Gylmartyu wherefore I the sayd degory Band with the rest of my bretheren and Systers do acknowledge our selues to be thereof Satisffied Contented and payd and we haue caused this our acquitance to be made and haue here vnto fixed our Common Seale of the said howse* the tenth day of October in the Baigne of our Souereigne Lord James By the grace of god of England ffrance and Ireland King defender of the ffayth &c. the ffiveth and of Scotland the one and ffortith 1607."t From this period we see nothing of the working of St. Leonards, a name which, by the way, was given to more than one Lazar-house in the kingdom : as early as the reign of John we find mention of a St. Leonard's hospital for lepers at Bedford and at Northampton, J and in the Chancery Eecords of Elizabeth there is a reference to a " dissolved hospital of St. Lennard in Newport Pond," Essex.§ The ordinary historians of such institutions have devoted so little attention to the one at Gilmartin that it has even, by a stroke of extraordinary fatuity, been described as if it were three. In the latest edition of Dugdale, under the heading "Hospitals of the Order of St. Augustine omitted by Dugdale," || it is first mentioned by the name of "Gild Martyn," and some doubt is expressed as to whether it was situated in Devon or Cornwall; then is noted a hospital at Launceston, dedicated to St. Leonard ; and next is given a hospital at Newport, dedicated to St. Thomas, " which was well endowed and governed in Mr. Carew's time." Part of this confusion is to be attributed to the diverse * " The seal is evidently a mediaeval one. It is vesica-shaped, charged with what seems to be a saint in a Gothic niche. It is impressed on a wafer between two sheets of paper" : Notes and Queries, 3rd Series, vol. xii., (1867) pp. 461-2. + Ibid ; the receipt is in the Augmentation Office, Miscellaneous Books, vol. Ixix : in the same Office is a similar receipt of some six years later, described (Cole's MS. extracts from the Duchy Records, p. 171) as an "Acknowledgment or Acquittance from the Prior of the Hospitall of Seint Leonards alias Gilmartyn for receipt of £5 from Mr. Roberte Hocken Mayor of the borough of Dounheved alias Launceston." % Extracts from the Patent Rolls, vol. i., part 1. § Calendars of the Proceedings in Chancery, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, vol. hi., p. 259. With regard to the name here quoted it may be noted that in the accounts of Launceston Priory, given in the Valor Ecclesiasticus of Henry VI11. (ante, p. 82) figures a fee to "Henry Shere bailiff of the borough o Newport Pounde." || Edition of 1830, vol. vi., part 2, p. 757. PAST AND PRESENT. 121 names under which the institution went ; part also has undoubtedly arisen from the disappearance of the hospital by the absorption of its revenues into those of the Launceston Corporation. While thus tracing as far as is possible the course of public affairs in the centre of the existing borough, the parishes immediately around must not be forgotten. Few but ecclesiastical affairs are to be recorded concerning them, but in these there is something of interest. Previous to the Reformation, the rectory of South Petherwin was in the gift of the Prior of St. Germans, who received a mark yearly out of the living. Upon the suppression of the monasteries the advowson passed into the hands of the Crown, and Mary, by Letters Patent, dated May 2, 1553, granted to the University of Oxford the rectory and advowson, the reason assigned for this being the impoverished condition of that seat of learning.* This was not the first connection between South Petherwin and Oxford University, for in the report of Edward the Sixth's Commission the sum of forty shillings is mentioned as being given out of "the stipendarye called Nenweneck, or Menwenecks," " to a scholar at Oxforde for his exhibcyon yerelye xls." Out of the same came also a grant "to fynde a pryste to celebrate masse, dirige, and other dyvine servyce for his sowle [that of the founder ' William Menwenecke, clerke'] in the parish church of Southpederwyn, and he to have for his yerelye stipend cvjs. viijd." The Register for this parish does not, however, commence for a long time as yet, while that of St. Stephens opens in 1566, f only a few years after the Register of St. Mary Magdalene's, and in the Church of St. Thomas are still to be found floor-stones which so far answer the purpose of such a document that they show us that " Darytie Stone the deafter of Mr. John Stone of St. Mynver" died on January • For this information, supplied by Dr. Griffiths, Keeper of the Archives of Oxford (Jnivi srsity, the Author is indebted to the Rev. II. T. May, as he also is for much other material concerning South Petherwin. According to Boase's Exeter College (p. 202) there is a South Petherwin deed in the archives of that institution, dated May 20, 1554 ; its specific contents are not given, but it appears from it that the Rev. John Moreman, & prominent local divine of that period, was then still living, concerning whom it is elsewhere stated thai " this language [the Cornish] was so generally spoken in Horn- wall till the time of Eenry V 111. that Dr. John Moreman, who was vicar of Menhynnet, or Menhinuick, near Launceston, in that reign, was the first who taught his parishioners the Lord's prayer, creed, and commandments in English." (A New Display of the Beauties Of England, .'frd edition [1776] p. 4<)0). + This Register was in such a dilapidated condition that the late Mr. J. K. Lethbridge, Recorder of Launceston in the early part of this century, caused it to be re-bound. 122 LAUNCESTON, 9, 1576, and that " Thomas hecks, the sonne of Degary hecks " was buried on February 22, 1586.* With regard to St. Stephens, there are some further facts of in- terest concerning this period. On July 9, 1575, Elizabeth granted to Sir Gawen Carew and his wife for a term of sixty years the rectory of St. Stephens and the chapel of St. Nicholas of Tresmere, and " all the tithes of sheaf, grain, hay, wool, flax, hemp, lambs, and all the small tithes of every kind belonging to the same rectory and chapel"; and on May 16, 1600, for the consideration of £1738 14s. lOd. the Queen granted a reversion of this property to " Henry Best and Robert Hollande, of London, gentlemen, their heirs, successors, and assigns for ever." About the latter year, William Heddon, rector of St. Stephens, brought a suit in Chancery against one Henry Courter " to compel the performance of a contract made with plaintiff for his serving the cure of St. Stephen's," the statement of particulars setting forth that " Sir Gawin Carewe, Knight, deceased, having presented the plaintiff to the cure of the parish of St. Stephens, Launceston, the defendant and other parishioners, on account of the insufficiency of the stipend, agreed to augment it with 40s. per annum, which agreement they performed for four years, and after- wards was discontinued."! The Rev.WilHam Heddon must have ministered in a building very similar in most respects to that which was seen at St. Stephens up to the time of its restoration just now completed. The original St. Stephens Church, erected probably on the falling into ruin of that of the superseded canons of Lanscavetone, was dedicated in 1259, f and this was not improbably expanded somewhat more than two centuries later, to meet the wants of the growing population, at the same time that the tower was built, towards which, as has been mentioned,§ Thomasine Bonaventure in 1520 gave twenty marks. Portions of the thirteenth century erection were found during the recent process of restoration in the shape of sculptures, one representing Christ in Majesty and another the Virgin and Child, together with the • There cannot be much doubt that this is the same Thomas Hicks who was concerned in the Chancery proceedings touching "the manor of Launceston land and Newporte Borough" (ante, p. 86). t Calendar of the Proceedings in Chancery, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, vol. iii., p. 7., S.s. 2. No. 12. t ante, p. 46. § ante, p. 93. PAST AND PRESENT. 123 foundations of what was eithera sacristy or a lady-chapel. The original churchyard extended far beyond its present limits, and the Rev. E. S. T. Daunt informs the Author that the Northumberland Arms stands upon a portion of it, graves being underneath that building as well as below the roadway which now passes between it and the Church. Before again temporarily leaving affairs ecclesiastical we may turn once more to the Register of St. Mary Magdalene. From this we find that during the first decade of the seventeenth century, the average of births was slightly higher than in any similar period previously recorded ; the average of marriages was much higher, (being, in fact, the highest recorded between 1560 and 1671, save from 1651 to 1660, when for exceptional reasons to be subsequently described the average was greater than usual) ; while that of deaths, though somewhat lower than in the plague period of the previous ten years, was heavier than it had been before that date. As might be imagined, many of the deaths are to be attributed to gaol fever, among the probable victims of this being " Blayth a Scotteshman imprisoned,"* who was buried on July 9, 1603, and whose offence, considering the political condition of the country just then, was not unlikely to have been treason. No average can be struck for the ten years from 1611 to 1620 owing to the Register being imperfect during some of them. It is recorded " that the noates of all such marriages as were from Januarie 1612 [1613 N.S.] until May 1614 are lost," similar entries being made concerning the christenings and the burials ; but before the commencement of another decade the Register was ae;ain rendered perfect, as is shown by the statement "Here followeth a copie of such marriages as have been since May 1614, trans-cribed out of the paper-booke which William Middleton clerke had made of such noats as he found, and continued during his Clarkshippe : By John Saint-hill, Minister of this Towne, this present yeere 1620." From the fact that " Daniel Northwell Minister" was buried (in the "chancill," as the funeral entry states) on January 2, 1620, it may fairly be conjectured that this business of righting the Register was one of the first enrployments of Mr. St. Hill, his successor in the living. • A similar entry of nationality is (jiven on January 19, 1625, when there was baptized " Richard Bonne of a Drench woman." 124 LAUNCESION, William Middleton, it may be remarked, survived the work a full twenty years, he being buried on February 25, 1640, the Kegister describing him as "an old Clarke of ye Church." It is not improbable that the " old Clarke" could have told something of the last days of Launceston as a Sanctuary-town,* for it was in the first year of James (when, from internal evidence afforded by the Register, John Harbertf had been succeeded in the clerkship and probably by Middleton) that an Act was passed which enacted " that so much of all Statutes as concerneth abjured Persons and Sanctuaries, or ordering or governing of Persons abjured or in Sanctuaries, made before the five and thirtieth yeere of the late Queen Elizabeths Reign, shall stand repealed and be voide"J ; and twenty years later another statute provided " that no Sanctuarie or Priviledge of Sanctuary shalbe hereafter admitted or allowed in any case."|| In 1612 a return was made to James the First concerning " the Bailliwick of Launceston," this including " a particuler of the house and site of the Priory of Launceston and the barton or grange of Newhouse with its appurtenances " (a similar return being given on November 12, 1613) and "particulers of the Stewardship of all -mannors nuper Comitis Exon. and of the pryorye of Launceston cone' Richard Billinge."§ On December 21, 1614, James granted to Richard Connocke and his heirs " all the house and site of the late dissolved priory of Launceston, with the rights, members, and appurtenances thereof, the barton and grange of Newhouse, and the two water- mills**," this Richard Connock being presumably the same who on March 12, 1603, examined as auditor the accounts of the seneschal of the lands of the Priories of Launceston and Tywardreath, annexed to the Duchy.ft I Q August, 1615, an investigation was made regarding the tenures which Charles, Prince of Wales (afterwards Charles the First) claimed as Duke of Cornwall, these including " all ymediate Tenures by Knights service as of the Honnors of Launceston or Tremorton";ff the inquiry was held in the early part of the month, the return for the manor of Stokeclimsland being dated as having been taken at Laun- ceston on the second and that for the manor of Rillaton on the fourth. §§ •* ante, p. 89. t ante, p. 103. J 1 Jac. I., cap. 25 : Statutes of the Realm, vol. iv., . . 1051. || 21 Jac. L, cap. 28: Ibid, p. 1237. § Cole's MS. extracts from the Duchy Records, p. 171. ** ante, pp. 27-100. tt Cole's MS. extracts, p. 103. ft Ibid p. 199. §§ Ibid, p. 98. PAST AND PRESENT. 125 Just as the knight-service here recorded was dying into desuetude we find our firct mention of a Launceston literary man. one of a class which, if the promise of the present be fulfilled, is destined to grow rather than to decay. The nearest connection between Launceston and literature which could previously have been established was that there is some probability that John Trevisa (who a little after the time of Wiclif followed the example of that Reformer by translating the Bible into English) was brother of Ealph and Richard Trevisa, who represented the borough in the two Parliaments of 1371. But in the latter years of the sixteenth century there was born (it is thought at Launceston) one John Carpenter who published on his own account. Entering Exeter College, Oxford, ho remained there four years " studying the arts with unwearied industry." - *" He then became rector of Northleigh, Devon, and his first printed effort was "A Sorrowful Song for Sinful Souls, composed upon the strange and wonderful shaking of the earth, 6th April, 15S6," this being issued in London in the year named. Two years later he published a little work entitled " Remember Lot's "Wife; Two Godlie and fruitfull Sermons, very convenient for this our time, on Luke xvii., 32 " ; and in succeeding years he issued six other books, the last of which was in 1607, and was called " The Plaine Man's Spiritual! Plough. Con- taining the Godly and Spirituall Husbandrie wherein every Christian ought to be exercised, for the happie increase of fruite to eternall life," the writer being described as " I. C, Preacher of the Word." The title of this last work (the writer of which died at Northleigh in March, 1620) may be linked with that of a publication of a namesake of the author, intimately connected with Launceston nearly two centuries later, " A Sermon on the Harvest of this Year, 1777, from Acts xiv, verse 17, addressed to the Farmers of this Kingdom; with a serious Hint or two to their Superiors," having been published (in London by G. Robinson and in Launceston by R. Martin) from the pen of the Rev. "William Carpenter, D.D., Vicar of Treneglos and "Warbstow, and afterwards Perpetual Curate of Launceston and Prebendary of Exeter, who died at the last-named place in 1808. * Wood, Atlienae Oxonienais, ii., 2S7. 126 LAUNCESTON, That part of the social history of a town which is to be traced in its taverns is as interesting to the general reader as that which is to be gathered from its literature ; and, in days when the liquor traffic is an important factor in politics and its restriction a battle-ground of parties, the existence of such a letter as that which the Mayor and Justices of Launceston sent on February 14, 1623, to the Council, stating that they had executed the orders for suppressing unnecessary alehouses,* is worth remembering. There is an earlier record of the existence of Launceston taverns in the borough archives, where, under date November 28, 1582, is a list of forty-two persons apparently authorized to keep inns ("pro Tabna. tenend.") within the jurisdiction of the Corporation, each tavern keeper being bound in the sum of five pounds and each of his presumed securities in fifty shillings to keep good rule in the houses. f It is not, therefore, much to be wondered at that out of such a large number of inns, altogether disproportionate to the size of the town, some could have been suppressed with advantage. But it was not only about the taverns that the Laun- ceston authorities wrote in the letter to the Council already quoted. They were concerned also with the supply of corn, and it was with joy that they could report that they found that the bushel of wheat had come down in price from twelve shillings to ten shillings and that the quantity of barley brought to market was doubled. Three months later, Sir John Speccott, then High Sheriff, writing from his seat at Penheale, forwarded to the Council, " the certificates of some of the justices on the orders for preventing dearth of grain." These included a certificate of the justices of the Hundred of Lesnewth, dated at Launceston March 13, declaring that " there is great lack of corn for Botreaux Castle [Boscastle] market; the prices are high and likely to increase, the survey having made known the general want" ; another from the justices of the Hundred of Trigg, dated at Launceston the same day and to the same effect ; and a thirtl from the justices of Penwith and Kerrier, dated April 1 , declaring like the rest that there was great lack of supply, and adding that " prices will rise unless foreign corn comes in. "J * Domestic State Papers, 1619-23, p. 401. t Royal Historical Manuscripts Commission, Sixth Report, Appendix, p. 525. t May 3, 1023 : Domestic State Papers, 1619-23, p. 576. PAST AND PRESENT. 127 It was in this season of stress that one of the greatest patriots whom England has seen was returned for Newport. Sir John Eliot of Port Eliot, " the most illustrious confessor in the cause of liberty whom that time produced," had first entered the House of Commons in 1614, being elected for his native borough of St. Germans in his twenty-third year. In that short-lived Parliament " although he doubted the wisdom of some of the leaders, he was with the party of opposition,"* but this did not prevent him from being knighted in 1618 and being made the next year Vice-Admiral of Devon. He had no seat in the House which was called in 1620, but in 1624 (after having just been in grievous trouble and even in prison because of his capturing anotorious pirate who, in the most literal sense, had "friends at Court") he was elected for Newport. It is not altogether difficult to account for his choice of a constituency, for "in the winter of 1611, Eliot, then only in his twentieth year, married Ehadagund, the only daughter of a Cornish squire of considerable fortune, Richard Gedie, of Trebursey,"f who may well have had interest in the borough which immediately adjoined his seat. The elections took place early in 1624 ; Sir Beville Grenville and William Cory ton, of whom much will afterwards have to be recorded, were returned for the county, Sir Francis Crane and Sir Miles Fleetwood for Launceston, and on January 19 (three days before the election for the sister borough) " Sir John Eliot, Knt., of Port Eliot, county Cornwall, and Eichard Estcott, Esq., of Lincoln's Inn, London," for Newport. All Eliot's " previous parliamentary experience consisted in the silent part he took during his youth in the four months' parliament of 1614 . . . and now, from the first moment of his active public life, his patriotism began. "J * John Forstcr, Biography of Sir John Eliot, vol. i., p. 11. flbid, p. 10. t I»id, p. 64. V. — From: the Election of Sir John Eliot to the Death of Sir Beville Grenville (1624—1643). TTHIN a very short period after Sir John Eliot practic- ally commenced his political career by becoming member for Newport, the inhabitants of tha West of England were distracted from the proceedings of Parliament and even from those attendant upon the change of monarch by two enemies of the public peace dead as far as the England of to-day is concerned — Pirates and the Plague. It is impossible to study the general history of the time without feeling how largely in parts it is coloured by both these in- fluences, and their effect is almost as marked upon our local chronicles. During the reign of James the First Cornwall and Devon had suffered grievously from the ravages of the Sallee rovers — a body remembered by most of us merely because of a chance reference in Robinson Crusoe — and at the accession of Charles the evil had not abated. Frequent petitions to the Council from ports in the West told the dismal tale of rapine, and bore out the truth of the story of " the distressed wives of almost two thousand poor mariners remaining most miserable captives in Sallee in Barbary," who implored the Duke of Buckingham that as their husbands had for a long time continued in most miser- able estate, suffering such unspeakable misery and torture that they were almost forced " to convert from their Christian rehgion," and as the King had not answered a single one of their many peti- tions for relief, his grace would "in his wonted goodness and gracious pity towards poor women and miserable captives " intercede with Charles on their behalf.* * Domestic State Papers, 1025-2G, p. 516. LATJXCESTON, PAST AND PRESENT. 129 In the beginning of 1625, Sir John Eliot presided at an Ad- miralty Sessions at Plymouth for the trial of twenty-three " Turks and renegadoes" for piracy, and twenty of these were hanged. But this sweeping execution did not save the south-western coast from further attacks. In the April the Mayor of Plymouth informed the Council that "certain Turks, Moors, and Dutchmen of Sallee, in Barbary, lie on our coasts, spoiling such as they are able to master ":* and on the same day Sir James Bagg, an admiralty servant, wrote from that town to Buckingham that "a Turkish pirate, who lies upon our coast, has this week taken a Dartmouth ship and three Cornish fisher-boats, even in the mouth of the harbour," and to repel the attacks of the rovers "the press" had been despatched to raise two hundred and fifty men in Devon and two hundred in Cornwall, Bagg adding, with a touch of the malice often subsequently displayed, " Sir John Eliot is displeased that he was not solely employed."! Sir John's constituents soon had an opportunity for judging what the Sallee rovers were like. The town lay too far from the coast to have any fear of the nocturnal incursions which harried those nearer the sea, but its prison afforded a means for becoming acquainted with the foe. As long before as 1611 we find pirates in the gaol, but these appear to have been English, " Eoger Polkinhorn, gentleman," being paid £72 " for his costs and charges in setting out a ship of his own to sea, for apprehending of one Griffin, a pirate, and hi3 company, and having laid them prisoners at Launceston."J But fifteen years later a much larger haul was taken. Writing to Nicholas, the Secretary of the Council, on May 24, 1626, Francis Bassett, Admiral of the North Parts of Cornwall, reported that a " Sallee ship has been brought into St. Ives by Wm, Harrys, of Looe, and other Englishmen, who, having been taken by the Turks and kept as slaves, revolted, slew those on deck, and kept thirty-two under hatches, until they brought them to St. Ives," and he requested " a Commission of Oyer and Terminer for the trial of these villains, and that as soon as possible, he being at near ten shillings a day expense upon them."§ Three weeks later Bassett wrote for further instructions, pointing out • Ibid. t Ibid. % The warrant is dated October 8, 1611, and the payment seems to have been made on October 10 ; Devon, Issues of the Exchequer (James I.), p. 143: Domestic State Papers, 1611-18, p. 79. § Domestic State Papers, 1025-2(5, p. 339. 130 LAUNCESTON, that, although he had received a commission to try his prisoners, "various official persons" had directed him not to put them to death, and he added the natural consequence that " they are a great charge for their diet and a guard."* Nicholas evidently listened to the appeal, for when in the August Bassett wrote to him once more no further request was made regarding the captivas, while in the same month Buckingham moved at the Council that the forty-one Turks at St. Ives (the number having grown since the first estimate) should be transferred to the prison at Launceston.f This was agreed to, but the basis of dissatisfaction was merely changed, not done away with, and, in the following month, one Charles Barrett (who seems to have been a prominent agent in the emancipation of enslaved Englishmen) joined with other inhabitants of Cornwall to petition both Buckingham and the Council to deliver to him the Turkish captives, "to be by him exchanged for English subjects now prisoners in Barbary," thepe- titioners being "grievously burdened with their detention and relief." % This request was not granted, perhaps because of a letter from a Captain John Harrison to the King, accusing Barrett of intending to sell into slavery the Turks he proposed to exchange § ; and in the November John Sorrell, keeper of the gaol at Launceston, com- plained to Barrett that Bassett had sent him fifty Turkish prisoners — the number is constantly growing — without money or clothes, although the Admiral had taken their ship, worth five hundred pounds, and the prisoners had had to be maintained by the writer and " the country," as the county was then often called.|| At this point all trace of the Turks disappears ; and whether they were hanged to save expense, or were transferred to Barrett to be exchanged for English captives, or were indefinitely detained at Launceston to be a continued source of tribulation to Mr. John Sorrell and the ratepayers the State Papers which have told the story thus far afford no clue. Very much the same mystery attaches to some other captives taken at sea and confined in Launceston Gaol four years later. On this occasion Captain Sidrack Gibbon (who appears to have done a great deal in the direction of capture) writing to Nicholas from • June 17, 1G26 ; Ibid, p. 350. t Ibid, p. 418. t Sept. 28 ; Ibid, p. 439. § Date not given, but probably November ; Ibid, p. 529. || November 30 ; Ibid, p. 483. PAST AXD PRESENT. 131 ''aboard the Tenth Whelp in Plymouth Sound" tells him of his having taken a Biscayan ship and landed the crew at St. Michael's Mount with a certificate to travel to London ; he had heard, however, that some country justices (for whom Captain Sidrack may be imagined to have had a hearty contempt) had sent them to Launceston* — a name which the gallant navigator spelt " Lanson," thus adopting a barbarous usage which has extended even to this diy, and which cannot be too strongly reprehended. What was to become of the Biscayans Captain Gibbon did not seem much to care ; all ho was anxious about was that " the Biscayner," as he called their vessel, should be given to him ; and the fate of the men is unrecorded. The Pirates had of necessity to be content with devouring the substance of those near the coast, but the Plague devastated the whole country. In 1625 the visitation was so severe that Parliament had to be prorogued because of it, and an entry in the archives of the Corporation of Plymouth shows how it affected the south-western district. Under the date given it is recorded: "This yeare the greate plague raged in this kingdome, and of itt there dyed in this towne in this yeare about 2000 ; and a publicke faste thorough the kingdome was proclaymed to diuert God's judgment, which was observed solemnly cuery wensdaye, and thereon the plague stayed throughe Ins great merceye."f We have evidence in our local Register that where Plymouth so grievously suffered Launceston did not escape. In the year immediately preceding there had been only twenty-one deaths, an unusually small number, and there was the same total in 162,3, but it is to be observed that by far the most of these were in the second half (there having been only six in the first half) thus showing that the epidemic was doing its work, and in the next year the number rose to thirty-eight, only the month of October passing without a death, and January and February contributing the heaviest totals. Despite all the topics of conversation to be suggested to Laun- ccstonians of this period by the events just narrated, there must have been room in tin- daily talk for consideration of matters, parliamentary • July 26, 1630 ; Domestic State Papers, 1629-31, p. 312. t Royal Historical Manu- scripts Commission, Ninth Itcport, Appendix, p. .ts. 132 LAUNCESTON, and electoral, with which the town was closely concerned. Sir John Eliot was assisted in his efforts in the House of 1624 by Pym, elected for Tavistock, and by Beville Grenville and William Coryton, the two representatives of Cornwall, who both in later Parliaments sat for Launceston and whose history is linked with that of the town. The member for Newport was prominent in his endeavours to rectify abuses, to secure the liberties and privileges of the Commons, and to abolish monopolies — one of which, as we have seen,* was held in Elizabeth's reign by an inhabitant of our borough. The House, under Sir John's guidance, became too bold for James to tolerate ; it was prorogued, and prorogued, and prorogued again until the death of the King brought about its dissolution. James died in March, 1625, and in the next month the writs were issued for a new Parliament. Sir John Eliot was again returned for Newport, having Paul Speccottf (who in the previous House had sat for East Looe) for his fellow- member, his old colleague Escott moving to Launceston, where he and Beville Grenville replaced the two former representatives. It is not known what was the influence which at this election drove the two old members from the county (Coryton finding a place at Liskeard) but they were sup- planted by Charles Trevanion and Sir Robert Killigrew, the former of whom we shall find to be a friend of Eliot in days not long after. Parliament was opened in Juno, in the next month it was adjourned on account of the Plague, J and when it met again at Oxford Coryton showed his patriotic zeal by suggesting in the debate on Supply that the first place should be given to religion, and that the House should " proceed after the old parliamentary way." But all this zeal was stopped by a dissolution within little more than six weeks after the House had assembled at Westminster. Eliot had left London for the West on the day of the adjournment, and, as Vice-Admiral of Devon, was soon busily engaged in dealing with the Pirates. After the dissolution he had private affairs to * ante, p. 104. t Mr. Forster (vol. i., p. 134) calls Sir John's new colleague "Mr. Ralph Specot," but this does not seem to be correct. % It may be noted that the outbreak would appear from the Register to have commenced in Launceston in the August, seven deaths (as large a total as for the previous seven months) being therein recorded. PAST AND PRESEXT. 133 occupy him as well. Charles had issued what were known as "privy seals," directing that those who were able should contiibute to the royal exchequer ; and the deputies for Cornwall showed their dislike for Eliot " by returning his father-in-law, Mr. Gedie, for an exorbitant amount. There was no pretence of dissatisfaction in the case. Mr. Cedie had served only the preceding year as sheriff of Cornwall, and his estate was still suffering from expenses consequent thereon. Yet he was certified for an amount of which the oppressive- ness appears in the fact that it doubled the highest imposed upon some of the richest estates in Yorkshire, t>ir Thomas Wontworth [afterwards the Earl of Strafford] being taxed for twenty and Mr. Gedie for forty pounds."* The influences which were being used to secure the ruin of Eliot's father-in-law were, in the Knight's own estimation, being exercised to prevent the re-election for Newport of himself. The Duke of Buckingham, once his friend, had now good reason for opposing him, and, although it is not fully known, it is suspected that his grace, at the election of January 1626, threw the weight of the Duchy of Cornwall, necessarily powerful in Newport, against Eliot's return. Sir John consequently withdrew from that constituency, and, declining an offer to contest the county, was chosen once more for St. Germans. His colleague, Paul Speccott, was returned for Bos- siney [TintagelJ, and thus, while Grenville and Escott were re-elected for Launceston, there was a complete change in the representation of Newport, and one which was evidently accompanied by much friction, not only between such personages as the Duke of Buckingham and Sir John Eliot but among the inhabitants themselves. There appears to have been a dispute at Newport as to whether the right of returning the members lay in the vianders (officers appointed yearly at the court leet of the lord of the manort) or in the inhabi- tants, it being finally decided in favour of the latter, who, as scot- and-lot voters or potwallopers, enjoyed the privilege until 1832. But at this time the matter was far from settled, and upon it rested the question whether the members returned should represent the * Forster, Sir John Eliot, vol. i., pp. l'7i--j. tThis custom lias been obsolete on] a few vcars. 134 LAUXCTSTON, opinion of Newport or only that of the lord of the manor. At the election of 1625 the dispute does not appear to have come to any active issue, though there were two indentures sent up to certify the return of Sir John Eliot, thus showing that some difficulty in this matter of return was felt. But at the struggle of l'S'JG there was evidently a contest, with the result that three certificates were des- patched to Parliament, Thomas Gewen (auditor of the Duchy, who had represented Bossiney in 1024, and of whom we shall hear in later and more troubled times) being returned by one, Sir Henry Hungate by another, and Thomas Williams, junior, by the third. Immediately the House met the matter was referred to the Committee of Privileges, and the following entry in the Commons Journals* will show how it was then decided: " Sir Jo. Finch reporteth from the Committee for Privilege, for Newport in Cornewall, Mr. Willyams' Case. — Three Indentures of election returned ; One dated ISo. Jan. the other 12o. Jan. The 2d. is by the Inhabitants and Freeholders for Mr. Willyams. He deserted the Cause ; and therefore the Committee of Opinion, that the Indenture for Mr. Willyams should be withdrawn, being with the Clerk of the Crown, and the other Two, viz. . . . Hungayte, and >lr. Gewen, to serve by the Two other Indentures — Upon Question, Ordered." By the seating of the two Court candidates the precedent was thus laid down that the election lay with the vianders, but this was reversed at the next dissolution. There are abundant signs that in the forward action Eliot was now taking against the Court Grenville was his supporter. When in May, 1626, the former was sent to the Tower because of his attacks upon the Duke of Buckingham, the senior member for Launceston, ■writing to his wife, told her of the arrest and added "we are all resolved to have him out again, or will proceed to no business " ; and two days later he was able to tell her that " we have Sir John Eliot at liberty again. The House was never quiet till the King released him."f Within a month of these proceedings Parliament was dis- solved, and before another House of Commons was summoned stirring events took place in Cornwall. Charles determined to raise a forced loan, the county sheriffs being directed to procure from the freeholders » Vol. i., p. 837 : March 17, 1025-6. t Forster, Sir John Eliot, vol. i., p. 312. PAST AND PRESENT. 135 a voluntary levy of what the House "intended to have granted," and this was strongly resisted throughout the kingdom. In our county Eliot, Cory ton, and Grenville were in the forefront of opposition, and Sir James Bag^, as early as September, lG'iS, noted the two first-named as men to be marked down for official destruction, recommending to Buckingham that Eliot should be supers ■dedinthe Vice-Admiralty of Devon, and that Cory ton should be supplanted in the Vice-Wardenship of the Stannaries by a Mi 1 . John Mohun, than whom none except Bernard Grenville (who may have been either the father or brother of Beville) had been so forward to express their loyalty. The advice as to Eliot was soon taken, he being sequestered from his Vice-Admiralty in the October ; and it is not to be doubted from the date of the order that it was issued in revenge for Eliot having evidently inspired the reply of the Cornish justices at the beginning of the month to the King's demand for a loan, this informing his majesty that money was extremely scarce, but that if he would be pleased to summon a Parliament they would be ready, by sale of their goods or what else they had, to give .satisfaction to the royal desires "in such parliament." Cornwall was the last county to refuse, and on the very day its justices wrote from Truro a new proclamation was issued by the King demanding more urgently the raising of a loan. The Cornish remained contumacious, and in February, 1627, Eliot and Coryton were among many others reported to the Council for resistance. The only people in the county who seemed desirous that the loan should be paid were " the billeters of soldiers" who replied, according to a letter of the Cornish Commissioners to the Council, " that in their hearts they are most dutifully ready to subscribe to the loan, so as they may receive a defalcation of the money due to them from his Majesty."* In the April Bagg wrote to Buckingham that "that pattern of ingratitude Eliot, malicious Corrington [Coryton], and a man no less true to his friend, Sir Ferdinando Gorges t" were the "invited familiars " of the Earl of Warwick, and that in Cornwall all lend except Eliot, Coryton, Arundell, and their associates," adding * Feb. 10, 1627 ; Domestic State Papers, 1027-28, p. 57. t ante, p. 118. lo6 LA.TTNCESTOK, that lie "hopes the King will make them examples for times to come." 4 Bagg had not long to wait, for in the next month he could report to the Duke that " Eliot and Cory ton are gone to London, now or never to receive their rewards," and that if the latter were examined about the privy seals his conduct would be found " foul to his ruin."f Eliot was imprisoned at the Gatehouse and Coryton in the Fleet, whence the latter, according to a report from Lord President Manchester to the King, "sent a proud answer" to the charge of refusing the loan, in the course of which he said he had expected that the Lords of the Council would have let him know his offences, and so have given him either punishment or freedom. J In the mean- time, blows continued to be struck in the county itself at other Cornishmen who had refused to pay the loan. Writing on June 27, Buckingham informed Nicholas that Sir Bichard Buller, Ambrose Manaton (of Trecarrell, who afterwards sat for Launceston§), and Nicholas Trefusis (of Landue, who represented Newport in the next Parliament), three Justices of Cornwall, were, inconsequence of their opposition to the loan, to be " outed of their places" before the Launceston Assizes, and that Buller and Trefusis were to be sent for to the Lords, together with Humphrey Nicholls and Francis Courtney "men of ill affections"; and, that there should be no mistake in the matter, his grace wrote underneath, "I pray thee have a special care of this business. "|| On the following day Bagg also wrote to the Secretary, urging him to effect the removal from the commission of the peace of the three justices named, " so that it may be at the assizes at Launceston on Tuesday sennight," adding that the Duke was anxious to have the refusers of the loan sent for to the Council : "his grace is very desirous to have this done, and I know it will tend much to the advantage of his majesty's service in these parts, and make these western people sensible that Eliot and Coryton do not only lie by the heels for my lord's sake."** Buller and Trefusis with three others (not including Manaton) were sent for to the Council as Buckingham had directed, and on July 16 were struck off the * April 20, 1027 ■ Domestic Stale Papers, 1027-28, p. 1-13. + May 23; Ibid, p. 187. t Julv 2s ; Ibid, p. 274. § The Duke spells the name " Manningtcn," as does Bapg in the next letter quoted. || Domestic State Papers, 1627-2S, p. 231. ** Ibid, p. 232. PAST AND PRESENT. 137 commission of the peace, but Buller afterwards paid the loan and in the following November was again placed on a commission by the King. Towards those who unlike Buller remained steadfast to the popular «ause popular honour was soon to be shown. In January, 1628, the King was compelled by force of circumstances to call a new Parliament, and within the next two months the elections t ;ok place. Throughout the country the struggle resulted in favour of the party opposed to the Court, and nowhere was this fact more marked than in Cornwall. For the county, despite the utmost efforts of the sup- porters of Charles, Eliot and Coryton were returned, Grenville (who, with Escott, had been re-elected for Launceston) so heartily assisting them that Bagg wrote to Buckingham suggesting that Eliot, Grenville, and John Arundel (a colleague of the second-named in the represen- tation of the count}' in 1621) should be outlawed and put out of the House, his " excellency's most bounden servant and slave," as Sir James here signed himself, having been shocked at the sight of " Beville Grenville, John Arundel, and Charles Trevanion coming to the election with five hundred men at each of their heels."* The contest at Newport, though necessarily not on as large a scale, was as exciting as that for the county. The old dispute as to the right of electionsf raged more keenly than ever, with the result that, instead of two members, no less than five wei-e returned, these being Nicholas Trefusis (who the previous year had been deprived of his justiceship of the peace}), Piers Edgcumbe, Sir William Killigrew, Sir John Wolstenholme, and John Heme of Lincoln's Inn || The elections then took place in Newport Square, in the centre of which was the block of granite which is now in the "Newport Town Hall," and upon which the newly-returned members stood to declare their thanks. Sir John Eliot was present at this contest, and the voters expressed themselves eager to have him once again as their represen- tative, but he was already safe for the county, and, upon his •March 17, 1028 ; Domestic State Papers, 1628-29, p. 24. t ante, p. 13:5. J ante, p. 186. I It is stated in the Official List of Members of Parliament (1878) that the indentures relating to the last three "were taken oiT the file by order ol the House, 1 t April. 1628," but the Commons Journals do not mention either Wolstenholme or Berne, and agree with a speech of Sir John Eliot, afterwards to be quoted, in naming Killigrew only. 138 LAUNCESTON, recommendation, they chose his friend and fellow-sufferer Trefusis,* with Piers Edgcumbe as his colleague, while the vianders sent up Sir "William Killigrew, who, with Sir Thomas Edmonds, Treasurer of the Household, had been returned two days previously for Penryn.+ It had been intended that John Mohun and Richard Edgcumbe should fight the county against Eliot and Coryton, but their following was so small that it did not justify them in going to the poll, and, as Mohun's administration of the Stannaries had been notoriously corrupt, Bagg endeavoured to get him into the House of Lords as the surest means of saving him from justice. Writing to Nicholas he urged him to keep Buckingham in mind that Mohun " desires to be a baron by the title of John Lord Mohun, baron either of Polrode, Launceston, Bodmin, Lostwithiel, or Boconocke " ; and to the Duke the same day he despatched a request similarly framed. J L\ the next month Mohun (who afterwards denounced Bagg to the Star Chamber as a swindler) was accordingly made a peer, but, to the credit of Launceston, he did not take his title from our town. Parliament had no sooner met than the elections both for Corn- wall and Newport were brought under the notice of the House. In the case of the former, some of those deputy-lieutenants and magistrates who had been most prominent in opposition to the return of Eliot and Coryton were sent for, and on May 8, John Trelawny, Edward Trelawny, Sir William Wrey,§ and Walter Langdon (after- wards castellan of Launceston) were brought to their knees at the bar of the Commons for contempt, the first and last-named being sent a few days later to the Tower, Sir William Wrey and Edward Trelawny remaining in the custody of the Sergeant-at-arms ; and they were all ordered to be detained until they had admitted their offence against the liberty of free election and their contempt of the authority of the House. It was further proposed that they should be compelled publicly to make a similar declaration at the next * Nichi las Trefusis wasa nepbi w of William Coryton, his father, Thomas Trefusis of Landue, having married the latter's sister ; the relationship is referred to liy Bajig in a letter to Nicholas from Plymouth, August 28, lt!27, in which he "urges the punishment <>f Mr. Trefusis. Mr. Coryton's nephew, and Mr. Nicholls, a Commissioner tor the loan, but both defaulters" (Domestic State Papers, LG27-28, p. 320.) t The returns for Newport are dati d March 5, the sc for (he county Maich 10, for Launceston February 24, and for Penryn March 3. J Mai ch 17, 1628; Forster, Sir John Eliot, vol. i'., pp. 42C-7. § ante, p. 11G. PAST AND PRESENT. 139 Launceston Assizes. " This was resisted with such unusual warmth by the council, that many who before had voted with the majority went over to the other side ; but W'entworth flung into the scale against the court his eloquence and impetuosity, and weighed it down.'" The order was made by a majority of 220 to 185, but the Cornishmen refused to obey, and were kept in prison until June 26, the day of the prorogation, when Charles ordered the release of Langdon and John Trelawny, paying all the charges of their detention and creating the latter a baronet with remission of the ordinary fees. The Launceston Autumn Assizes did not see, therefore, the spectacle which the Commons had wished to provide. Meanwhile the Newport election had been dealt with. On March 22, " a Motion [was] made concerning the Election at Newport Medina [sjc]f in Cornewayle. This referred to the Committee of Privileges to be heard according to former Orders. "J Before, however, the question was so referred, Sir John Eliot made a speech upon the matter, strenuously defending the rights of his old constituents. This, it is believed, has never yet appeared in print, even Mr. Forster in his very exhaustive biography dismissing it in a couple of lines. A report of it has lurked all these years in the Harleian Manu- scripts, whence it is now extracted with all apology for the possibilities of mistake afforded by a first transcript from a crabbed note : " Mr. Speaker moued concerning the sending of the Cornish Gent. Ordered yt a messenger be sent for them. — Sir Jo. Eliott. Mr. Speaker, I am to draw youre advise and Resolution concerning our selues in the matter of election. The Burrowe of Newport in Cornewall is to present two Burgesses, And they haue made their election, but with some difference of opinion. Some pretend that the officers which they call [vianders§] and they have the election, and they suppose an auntient custome for it. Others think yt it renounced them and resolue (as a way best agreeable to the libtie of a Subject) that it should be committed to the vote of the greater parte of the inhabitants or ffreeholders there. The officers differ amongst themselues : for one * Forster, Sir John Eliot, vol. ii., p. 126. t This is an error of the entry, Newport, Cornwall, being confounded with Newport, Isle of Wight. + Commons Journals, vol. i., p. 871. § The original transcriber ol the speech 1ms left a blank here as if uot certain how these officers were named. 140 LAUNCESTON, of them finding his ffellow would not ioyne with him in the equall nominacon presumed to name both. I was psent at the Courte and therefor I do propound it. Th'other finding the differaunce and that the power was not in him alone, ioynde with th'mhabitants and [? went] to an election. In that election they were all willing to conferr the first place on mee, having formerly served them, but being otherwise elected I desire them to put it upon a neighbor of myne in the countrie ; and hee for the first place was chosen with the genrall consent of all. For the second place there was in compe- tition Sir Win. Killegrew and Mr. Edgcombe. And for these there is some question. The Sheriff hath onely made Eetorne of Mr. Trefuse, and Sir Win. Kellegrew is obnoxious to question. A Certificat was sent up to that purpose. The Clarke of the Crowne passed not this Certificat made to him, but after, some meanes [?] being made to the Clerke of the Crowne, hee stops the Certificat, so yt wee cannot haue the true Member of the howse. I would know whether the Sheriffs Eetorne bee not a sufficient warrant for us to haue a Member ; Or if it shalbee obnoxious to the Clerke of the Crowne to stoppe this or all other Eetornes at his pleasure. — This was referred to the Comittee of Privileges."* The matter came before the House once more on April 14, when " Mr. Hackwill reporteth from the Committee for Privileges, the Case about the Eeturn at Newport. Four indentures returned. The Opinion of the Committee that Mr. Trefusis and Mr. Edgecombe were well chosen. 1, Upon Question, this not to be re-committed. 21y, Upon Question, Mr. Edgecomb well elected. 31y, Upon Question, a Supersedeas to be awarded to the Clerk of the Crown, for Stay of the Writ, made upon Sir Wm. Killigrew his Eefusal to' serve for that Place. 4ly, The Indentures, which concern not the Election of Mr. Trefusis and Mr. Edgecombe, to be withdrawn."! It will thus be seen that even now the question raised at the election was not settled, for just as Mr. Williams, returned by the freeholders, " deserted the cause " in the previous Parliament, so in this one Sir William Killi- grew, backed by the vianders, did not feel it necessary to contest the point, having already been chosen for Penryn. * Harleian MSS., 0799, 94, fol. 335 b. : Die Sabbati, 22 Martii, 1627-8. t Commons Journals, vol. i., p. 883. PAST AND PRESENT. 141 From politics we turn to more personal details, which yet have some connection with affairs of State. Soon after Charles the First came to the throne, and while still possessed of the Duchy of Cornwall (with the revenues of which, during the twelve years sup- pression of Parliament, he endeavoured in great measure to carry on the business of the Kingdom) he effected the sale of some of its possessions, including the manor of Launceston-land.* According to a petition presented to the House of Lords fifteen years later by Leonard Treise, Recorder of Launceston, on behalf of himself and others of the tenants, " in 1C2G, the King intending to sell the manor caused proclamation of the sale to be made, in order that the tenants might have an opportunity of purchasing their holdings, but Mr. Paul Speccott, bearing ill-will to some of the tenants and seeking his own advantage by underhand ways, prevented the tenants from obtaining a copy of the proclamation, or getting any benefit under it, and having bought the lands himself has distrained for rent, and threatens to turn out many of the tenants, who will have no means of livelihood if they are not allowed to renew their leases, as they have always expected to be able to do upon reasonable terms. "f What answer the House of Lords returned to the prayer for redress which concluded this petition we do not know, but it may be noted that this was not the first occasion upon which official interference was asked in connection with this property, " Degory Honney and Gavin Gater, tenants of Launceston lands, Cornwall" having in the previous reign petitioned Lord Salisbury "to be more moderately rated."! It would appear that it was not only Paul Speccott but his brother Peter who largely purchased at this sale by the Duchy. On July 20, 1627, there was given under the Privy Seal to the latter and Richard Ligon a " grant in reversion upon contract with the Commissioners for sales of Parcels of the manors of Launceston, co. Cornwall, and Bovey Tracy and Ottery St. Mary, co. Devon, with confirmation of assignments thereof by the King's lessees in trust when he was Prince."§ That these two purchasers were most extensive in their * ante, pp. 06-86. t May 27, Kill ; House of Lords Papers: Historical Manuscripts Commission, Fourth Report, Appendix, p. 68. i November 9, 1608 ; Domestic state Papers, 100.'5-lo, p. 10li. jj Forty-third Annual Report of the Deputy Keeper. 142 LAUNCESTON, transactions is shown in the Duchy records, tenements at St. Stephens, Tresmere, Kestle, Trebursye, Tregeare, Trclaske, Tregadillett, Tre- vallett, Laneast, Lewannick, Bodgate, Dutson, and Penh eale, among others, falling into their hands.* Peter Speccott was the eldest and Paul the second son of Sir John Speccott, of Penheale,t the former having been born in 1595, and they were educated at Exeter College, Oxford, at the same time as Beville Grenville, with whom and other Cornishmen they, in 1613, contributed poems to the " Threui Exon- iensium " on Lord Petre, J Grenville being at that time just seventeen. Paul (who sat for Newport in 1625 and again in 1640, besides, as has been mentioned, § being in other Parliaments member for Bossiney and East Looe) died in October, 1644, at Penheale, and a monument to his memory and one to that of his first wife are in Egloskerry Church. Of Ambrose Manaton, of Trecarrell, another near neighbour prominent in Launceston affairs about this time, a more extended notice may here be given than the brief mention of him previously afforded in connection with his refusal to pay the loan.|| At what period the Manatons came into possession of Trecarrell is not known, but that there was a connection of long standing between the family of the builder of St. Mary Magdalene's and that of the future member for the borough is established by the fact that the arms of the former are to be seen in Southill Church upon the tomb of John Manaton, who died in 1508.** Ambrose Manaton was the son of Sampson Manaton of Southill, ft and the first certain mention we find of him in connection with Launcestonis concerning a military duty in 1625. JJ On March 22 of that year there was drawn up a " list of 150 soldiers levied in Cornwall for Ireland, and delivered by the Deputy Lieu- tenants to Jas. Finch and John Duck, Deputies of Capt. Edw. Thynne, * Cole's MS. extracts from the Duchy Records, pp. 210-14. t ante, p. 126. J Boase, Exeter College, p. 228. § ante, pp. 132-3. || ante, p. 136. ** New Parochial History, vol. iii., p. 124. ft Ibid, vol. iv., p. 158. In Koase and Courtney's Bibliotheca Cornubiensis (vol. i., p. 335) the father's name is said to have been Peter Manaton. Opportunity may here be taken to express the Author's indebtedness to this inval- uable work, whose compilers deserve the heartiest thanks for their labours, without which much of the information in this volume could not have been obtained. Jt In the return to the High Sheriff of the justices of the Hundred of Lesnewth (dated Launceston, March 13, 1623; ante, p. 126) one of the signatures is " Manyngton, " the initial of the Christian name being indistinct (Sir John Maclean, History of the Deanery of Trig-g Minor, vol. iii., p. 428.) PAST AXD PRESENT. 143 with conduct money for their march to Barnstaple, and 31. for their stay of one night at Launceston, after they were pressed."* With this or a similar movement of troops Manaton must have been directly connected, for in the Hou?e of Lords manuscripts is a warrant, dated May 26, 1625, " to pay Ambrose M;mington oil. for the press of 300 footmen and their conduct from Cornwall to Barnstaple for service in Ireland."! Save, however, for this and the anti-loan episode of two years later, his history is dark to us until he was returned for Launceston to the Short Parliament of 1640. The ejection of Cory ton from the Vice-Wardenship of the Stan- naries in favour of Mohun had its effect upon Launceston. Under Henry the Seventh's charter to the tinners, X the chief magistrate of our borough was one of the four Cornish mayors who each had, in the words of Sir John Eliot, § " to cause to be elected or returned six discreet and able men of each division, and these to be chosen by the free vote and suffrage of the said mayor and their brethren respec- tively," to decide all stannary disputes. At the Christmas of 1627, Mohun issued the usual summons, but, instead of allowing a free election, named those who were to be chosen, and "the mayors thereupon, not daring to resist him (for the noise of his former practice, as was testified, had struck a terror into them), summoned the men:"|| but the jury proved themselves more independent than the Mayor of Launceston and his three fellows, and after much dispute broke up without doing any business. On June 17 Eliot followed up this exposure by denouncing Mohun to the Lords, but three days later he was forced to abandon the attack by melancholy news from Cornwall, the Commons Journals of the twentieth containing the entry " Sir John Eliot, in respect of the death of his wife, hath leave to go down into the country." Lady Eliot had been failing in health for some time, but the end, which took place at Port Eliot, was sudden. Of her " all that is known to us is the tenderness with which her husband described, as ' a loss never before equalled,' what had befallen him by her death ; and that she was said to have been so devoted to her children as never to have willingly consented to be * Domestic State Papers, Ki'23-25, p. 607^ t Quoted in Bibliotheea Cornubiensis. vol. ni., p. 127*. fante, \>. 71. Speech in the House of Commons, May 27, 1028: Forster, Sir John Eliot, vol. ii., p. 110. || Ibid. 144 LAUNCESTON, absent from them . . . Care for Ills younger children appears to have occupied him at first ; and some were placed with their mother's father, Mr. Gedie, of Trebursey, to whom Eliot is lavish of grateful expression for his service at this time.*" In the next month Eliot, writing from his seat to Sir Robert Cotton in reply to a letter of sympathy, thanked him " for relieving, by his letter, the ignorance of those Cornish parts ; almost as much divided from reason and intelligence as their island from the world."t But he did not occupy much time with complaints, as is evident from an epistle, written at midnight and endorsed "Haste, haste, post- haste, haste, post-haste," from Mohun to Bagg in the October, in which the former stated that Eliot and Cory ton had been incessantly roaming up and down all Cornwall collecting evidence against him, "J and the fruit of this activity was seen in the next session. In the January, after Sir John had returned to his parliamentary duties, Mr. Gedie wrote to him from Trebursye about his children, and complained of the mfrequency of his letters. " Eliot tells him in reply that he had not had opporturnity to write since his coming up ; and though it might seem an omission of his duty, yet he presumed his father-in- law would give it an interpretation of more favours, there being nothing in his desires more than Mr. Gedie's satisfaction . . . 'I hope, he concludes, ' you all retain your health at Trebursey, though I fear the sickness proved mortal to your servant. I shall daily pray for the continuance of your happiness, and will be ever your most affectionate son-in-law, J.E.' "§ In a debate in the same month Eliot referred to Cory ton as "that noble gentleman, my countryman" who had done " many excellent services, "j| but his colleague was very soon to be weighed in the balances and found wanting. Beville Grenville was at that time absent from the House, and Eliot wrote urging him to come to Westminster. The member for Launceston replied that he was much occupied with private affairs, and he begged his friend to procure a letter from the Srjeaker to the judges of the Western Circuit to stop a trial in which he was concerned at the coming assizes — probably those at Launceston, though the place, as Eliot notes in his reply, * Ibid, p. Ii8. t Ibid, p. 11U. % Ibid, p. 185. § Ibid, pp. 202-3. || Ibid, p. 210. PAST AND PRESENT. 145 was not specifically mentioned. Sir John appears to have given the best help he could, but before the trial could have come on Parlia- ment was dissolved,* this being precipitated by the action of certain members of the country party, among whom Coryton was prominent, in holding down the Speaker in his chair while Eliot made a decla- ration regarding " the miserable condition we nre in, both in matter of religion and of policy."! For their share in the scene Eliot and Coryton with several of their colleagues were sent to the Tower, but Coryton had not been long in prison before his courage failed him. According to his own account, he had " a poor estate full of trouble, a great family, and much indebted,"} and we learn from a letter of Sir Allen Apsley, the Lieutenant of the Tower, that he had not been many days in the fortress before " two of the Plunketts, Irishmen, came to see Mr. Corrington about money he oweth them."§ The conse- quence was that "while the other prisoners were being examined before the Star Chamber . . . Coryton fell away from his great colleague . . . and Eliot suffered bitterly by his defection. "|| As a reward for his subservience, but greatly to the disgust of the pro- fessed loyalists of Cornwall, he was again made Vice-Warden of the Stannaries. Eliot meanwhile remained in the Tower, whence, writing in August, 1629, to Mr. Gedie he expressed the happiness he should feel when he had the opportunity of seeing him once again, but a little more than a month afterwards that gentleman died.* * Among the friends who helped Eliot in his time of trouble was Leonard Treise,f t Recor- der of Launceston,} J who with his wife (who is thought to have been a relative of the deceased§§) was most active in settling Mr.Gedie's affairs and attending to Eliot's children. "You see, sir," wrote Eliot to Treise, " how like a flood of trouble I pour myself upon you." " For his children he had written to Mr. Treise's wife, who had been to them so kind a friend. He was indeed so much beholden to thein both that he could hardly judge where the greater obligation lay. * Ibid, pp. 234-6. t February, 1629: Ibid, pp. 239-43. % Letter to Secretary Dorchester, April 26, 1629; Domestic State Papers, L628-29, p. 627. §Forster, Sir John Eli.it, vol. ii., p. 268. il [bid, pp. 272-:$. ** Ibid, i>. 279. tt ante, ]>. 141. 3 He is so described in a Latin inscription on a tablet erected to liis memory in St. liary Magdalene's Church; §§ Vide note by the late Mr, Northmore Lawrence in Porster's Eliot, vol. ii., i>. 283. 146 LATTICES TON, But the several engagements were so strong that they must ever bind him to be of both the most faithful friend. He then turns to Mrs. Treise and closes the letter with some special words to her of earnest thankfulness for her kindness to his little ones."* And Mr. Forster adds, " This worthy pair will not again, or very slightly, appear in the imprisoned patriot's history ; but let their names have honourable and grateful memory for active and kindly service to him in his hour of need."f Treise will demand longer mention later on ; for the time, it may simply be noted that his first appearance in a Launceston record is on May 26, 1615, in a reference to the christening of " "Willin sonne of Leonard Trease," a subsequent entry of February, 1617, giving the name as " Mr. Leond. Treys," the prefix denoting that even then he was a man of influence and position in the borough. J Eliot's connection with our town did not cease with his impris- onment or even with the death of Mr. Gedie. "Writing to Grenville from the Tower on July 10, 1631, he stated he had a lawsuit with Sir Richard Edgcumbe which would come on at the next Launceston Assizes, and asked him to secure that some of his neighbours should be on the jury so that the case might be fairly tried. Beville did as he was requested, and reported from Stowe, early in tbe November, that he sent his neighbours to Launceston, " which did not deceive your trust nor fail my expectation. "§ He offered to do one more favour for Eliot before the latter's death. In January, 1632, he wrote asking whether there was any truth in the rumours that a Parliament was to be called. " If it be so, I wish you would let me have some timely notice, that I might do you service, which I more desire than any earthly thing besides. I presume I have some interest in the affections of the people, and I have taken such course as you shall be sure of the first knight's place whensoever it happen. But I assure you you shall not have your old partner, whosoever be the other."|| * Forster, Sir John Eliot, vol. ii., p. 283. t Ibid. J In Eliot's will, dated December 20, 1630, (and in which two of the four executors named were Beville Grenville and John Hampden) is the following passage: "I will and bequeath unto Leonard Treise, for his care and diligence to be employed in per- formance of this my last will and testament, and the trust reposed in him, and in regard to the special love and affection which I bear unto the said Leonard Treise, beside the annuity of four pounds bequeathed unto him by the will of my said father-in-law r Richard Gedie], one hundred pounds, to be paid so soon as the debts of my said father-in-law and myself, and the other legacies given by the will of my said father-in- law, given and bequeathed or appointed to be paid, shall be satisfied and paid." (Ibid, p. 370.) § Ibid, pp. 392-4. || Ibid, p. 451. PAST AND PRESENT. 147 In his reply, which was the last letter he ever sent to Grenville, Eliot made no reference to the remark respecting Coryton, but hinted that in another Parliament he might not choose to stand again for the county. He never had the chance to choose, for on November 27 of the same year he died in the Tower. Eliot's acquaintance with the Duke of Buckingham has been touched upon, as has also the connection between Newport and his grace, and in the State Papers there is a record of a curious scare concerning the Duke which, originating in Wales and imported into Cornwall, affected also Launceston. On July 13, 1628, it was com- municated by Edward Cosowarth to Nicholas that two seamen, named Ematt and Browne, who had just come from Swansea, had reported " the death of the King slain by the cruel hands of the Duke of Buckingham" ; Cosowarth added that he had concealed the matter as closely as he could until the Launceston Assizes, ' ' fearing the rumour might bring terrible distractions in these parts."* The Privy Council immediately instructed the Justices of Assize for Cornwall to so proceed with the seamen "as their punishment may serve for a fit correction to them and a warning to others," and to apply the severity of the law where in the circuit they met with similar offences, certain Cornish justices being the same day directed to keep the men in Launceston Gaol until the assizes, " and, if the rumour has caused any apprehensions in the minds of the people, to make known that it is false, and the reporters punishable. "f When the justices inquired into the matter, the rumour was found elaborated to the effect that the King had been poisoned by the Duke, and Ematt and Browne were detained at Launceston pending the assizes. { The Lord Chief Baron and Baron Denhani were the judges here on that occasion, § but, though the result is not given, it is not probable the men were heavily punished, since they were able to prove that the report was actually current at Swansea in the July. Perhaps the strangest thing in connection with the whole transaction was that, while the men were still at Launceston awaiting the settlement of their case, the Duke of Buckingham who was hinted at as an assassin, was himself assa ssinated.il * Domestic State Papers, Ki28-2!t, p721(). t July 20, 1B28 ; lliirt, p. 221. t Ibid, p. 2J0. § August 2s ; [bid, p. 272. || August 2:5. 148 LAUJNTCESTON, In the early part of 1631 Sir John Trelawny,* then Sheriff of Cornwall, wrote from Launceston to the Council that the county justices had taken care to see the markets well furnished with corn, with which the shire was well stored, but the price was high (wheat, for instance, being ninepence per gallon), this proceeding from a report of scarcity in other parts of the kingdom. f A missive from Launceston of a more contentious character had occupied the attention of the Council in the previous year. It appears that John Eoberts, the elder, of Lawrick, had procured the excommunication in the Exeter Consistory Court of Eobert Eous, the captain of a foot company then stationed in the county ; he had thus given great offence to the Earl of Pembroke, Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall, who declared that he should suffer a year's imprisonment for the contempt shown of his authority. But though a mittimus was accordingly made out by Sir Beginald Mohun and Sir Bernard Grenville for the committal of Roberts to Launceston Gaol, J John Jeffrey and Thomas Baker, constables of Lawrick, "contemptuously refused to do their duty " and arrest bim. Eous thereupon complained to the Council before whom the disobedient constables were haled, and to whom they presented a petition setting forth the reasons why they did not think themselves justified in conveying Eoberts to Launceston, and they prayed that, having been drawn two hundred miles from their dwellings, they might be admitted to their counsel for their farther defence.§ The petition was even more effective than they could have hoped, for they were released on the day it was presented, while Eoberts was reprimanded, and Rous, although the Bishop of Exeter was entreated to take off the excommunication, was blamed for not attempting to settle the matter in his own county. For some years after this date nothing of interest appears on the records of Launceston history, but suddenly, in 1637, the town had share in a transaction which was the herald of stormy events now very soon to be encountered. Some time previously William Prynne, in after days member for Newport, " a lawyer distinguished for his constitutional knowledge, but the most obstinate and narrow - rninded of men,"|| had published his " Histrio-mastix, " a bitter attack * ante, p. 139. t February 5, 1031 ; Domestic State Papers, 1029-31, pp. 498-9. t August 7, 1629; Ibid, p. 255. § May 12, 1630 ; Ibid. || Green, Short History, p. 512 PAST AND PRESENT. 149 upon stage-players. Two friends of his followed the example of dealing violently with that which they opposed, John Bastwick, a doctor of medicine, declaring in his " Litany " that " Hell was broke loose, and the Devils in surplices, hoods, copes, and rochets, were come among us," while Henry Burton, a London clergyman who had been placed under the ban of the High Commission Court, described the bishops as "robbers of souls, limbs of the Beast, and factors of Antichrist." Archbishop Laud caused the three to be brought before the Star Chamber, and on June 29, 1G37, himself condemned them to lose their ears, to be each fined five thousand pounds, and to be perpetually imprisoned "in three remote places of the Kingdom, namely, the Castles of Carnarvon, Cornwall \_sic], and Lancaster."* The first part of the sentence was carried out on June 30, and, to use the words of Green, "the crowd who filled Palace Yard to witness their punishment groaned at the cutting off of their ears, and ' gave a great shout ' when Prynne urged that the sentence on him was contrary to the law. A hundred thousand Londoners lined the road as they passed on the way to prison ; and the journey of these ' Martyrs,' as the spectators called them, was like a triumphal progress." " On the 26th day of July, 1637," runs the contemporary narra- tive,t "Dr. Bastwick, before his wounds were perfectly cured, was by Mr. Hopkins cheife Warden of the Fleete, and his substitutes, con- veyed from the Gate-House towards the Castle of Launceston ; and so strictly looked unto that his "Wife, who followed him in a Coach, could not for some dayes space bee admitted, so much so as to speake with him, or to lodge in the same Inne where he lodged . . . Dr. Bastwicke arriving at Lanceston the first of August was by force of this Warrant t the next day shut up close Prisoner in the Castle there, part whereof not long before had fallen downe through age, and murthered the Keeper of it, and his Wife in their bed, a little child lying betweene them both escaping without harme.§ His chamber * A new Discovery of the Prelates Tyranny, in their late prosecutions of Mr. William Pryn, an eminent Lawyer; Dr. Iolin Kastwick, a learned Physician; and Mr. Henry Burton, a reTerent Divine [1641], p. 32. t Ibid, pp. 78-81. Jit was dated July 15, and directed that Bastwick should be "carried down to the Castle of Launceston." § In a note it is staled that " Judf?e Finch [the Chief Justice u ho the next year was one of those who decided in Hampden's case that the imposition of 1 50 LAUNCESTON, was so ruinous that every small blast of wind threatened to shatter it down upon his head, yet there, or nowhere must he be lodged." This description of the Castle is confirmed in a petition addressed by Mrs. Bastwick to the House of Lords on October 7, 1644,* wherein she states that her husband was sentenced "to suffer perpetual close imprisonment in Launceston Castle, Cornwall, a place so ruinous that it was formidable to behold," adding that, " before his wounds were healed he was removed thither, and the use of pen, ink, paper, and books denied him ; while petitioner, who had followed him thither, was not allowed to come near him, even to dress his wounds." Despite this statement she was, it would appear, permitted to see her husband on some occasions during his detention at Laun- ceston, Nicholas recording in his notes of Privy Council proceedings that "Bastwick's wife has access, and strangers to him," and he then makes some dim reference to a letter having been conveyed to the prisoner in the haft of a knife. t This was set down on September 3, 1637 ; exactly a fortnight later the Sheriff of Cornwall was directed to remove Bastwick from Launceston " to the Castle in the Isle of Scilly, there to be kept close prisoner.":): "Upon receipt of these Orders and warrants, the high Shriefe of Cornwall cause Doctor Bastwick to be suddenly removed, without any warning, from Lan- ceston to Plimouth, upon the 10 day of October, 1637, "§ whence he was taken to Scilly, and was met there by " many thousands of Robin Redbrests (none of which birds were ever seene in those Islands before or since)," which, having " welcommed him with their melody, within one day or two afterwards tooke their flight from thence, no man knowes whither. "|| The fact that there are three parishes in the county named after St. Stephen** is a hindrance to our knowing whether " John Fathers, ship-money was legal] being informed hereof, said by way of scoffe, That the Dr. by his Faith, and Parayrs, would hold it up from falling." No record appears in the Parish Register of the fatality here referred to, though there is a specilic mention of other cases of fatal accident, as for instance in 1654, "Aprill The 10th was Buried Julian Gliddon who was slaine with a pease of the great clocke," in 1660 [N.S.], "February The 20th day was Buried William Hamblye Drowned," and in 1667 [N.S.], "March The 13th was Buried Cyros Bowden of St. Teth who dyed by a fall at sheapherds well in ye time of ye Assizes." * Historical Manuscripts Commission, Sixth Report, Appendix, p. 30. t Domestic State Papers, 1637, p. 403. J Ibid, p. 422. § A New Discovery, p. 96. || Ibid. ** St. Stephens-by-Launceston, St. Stephens-in-Brannel, and St. Stephens-by-Ash [Saltash]. PAST AND PRESENT. 151 clerk, vicar of St. Stephens, Cornwall," who was complained of to Laud in 1638 for having committed offences punishable by the High Commission Court (an institution as heartily detested by the Puritans as the Star Chamber itself) was directly connected with Launceston. But the prominence this reverend gentleman (whose fate when he came before the court we do not know) gave to Bastvvick's name, pointing out that the Doctor could have escaped all punishment if like himself he had made up his mind to confess when called upon, is perhaps the better understood if he were vicar of a parish adjoining the one in which that sufferer was incarcerated.* Bastwick was not the only Star Chamber victim at Launceston during this period. On January 14, 1G39, Emanuel Langford, "a late defendant in the Star Chamber at the suit of Henry Carey and others," complained to the King that having, in the Michaelmas Term of 1037, been mulcted in a fine which, with the costs, he was in process of paying, he was " then sentenced to stand upon the pillory at the next assizes at Launceston, which plaintiffs then waived, but last Michael- mas Term they moved the court to have the said corporal punishment the next Lent Assizes, which was ordered accordingly." Langford therefore petitioned Charles that, as he was "a gentleman of an ancient family, near fourscore years of age, and a sickly man," his majesty would pardon that part of the sentence "for his innocent posterity's sake." The prayer was answered in the affirmative, and the Attorney-General was directed to prepare a bill granting the petitioner his desire.f We are now upon the threshold of the Civil "War, one of the causes of which was the King's attempt to levy ship-money, a portion of which impost Launceston had to pay. Writing to the Council on. April 19, 1639, Francis Godolphin, then Sheriff of Cornwall, stated that, upon receipt in the previous December of the writ for ship- money, he imposed "a fit proportion" upon every parish and hundred, causing the constables to be the collectors. He was assured that no clergyman had cause to complain of being over-rated, and he had directed that " no poor man should be rated unless he had an estate •Petition of Roper Bickton to Archbishop Laud, March C, 1038; Domestic State Papers, 1637-38, p. 2%. t Ibid, 1G38-3H, p. 311. 132 LAUNCESTON, in lands or tenements worth 20s. or upwards by the year, or goods to the value of £10." But everybody was not satisfied, for the Corpor- ations of Callington, Camelford, and St. Mawes, in particular, " complained much of their poverty and disability, and desired to be relieved by other corporations," and generally Godolphin found " no great willingness in the commonalty to pay," and he expressed a fear lest he might be forced to make good some part of the assessment himself. In another letter of the same date he informs Nicholas that a communication from the latter on the same subject, of March 11, had reached him on March 25 while at the Launceston Assizes, and be had not been able previously to reply because of the difficulties he had had over the ship-money. Although he took credit for himself that Cornwall had been the first county to send an instalment in answer to the writ, it was evident he was ill-satisfied with the success of his efforts, and he complained that only five towns had responded, Launceston with £30, Padstow with £25, Penryn with £18, Helston with £17, and Penzance with £10. He had threatened the other boroughs with pains and penalties if they did not soon pay, and he now asked for an order that any constables who did not recover the full sum assessed on their parishes should be sent for to the Council.* The difficulties thus pictured by Godolphin were repeated and increased throughout the country, and Charles was forced in the spring of 1640 to call what is known in history as "The Short Parliament." The members returned for Launceston were Sir Beville Grenville and Ambrose Manaton,f while for Newport John Maynard and Nicholas TrefusisJ were elected. Of Grenville there is little to be mentioned between the date of Eliot's death and that of his fourth return for Launceston. In 1636 his father, Sir Bernard Grenville, had died at Stowe, Kilkhampton, and in the next year •Ibid, 1639, p. 63. tThis is according to Browne Willis's NotitiaParliamentaria, which gives Nicholas Trefusis alone as member for Newport. The Official List of Members omits Launceston from the list of boroughs returning representatives to the Short Par- liament, but these are only instances of the many errors to be found in that compilation. It may be noted that Browne "Willis names " P. Speccott " for Newport, in addition to Maynard and Trefusis ; it is not improbable that, because of the old dispute between the vianders ami the freeholders, there were again more indentures returned than were necessary. } Nicholas Trefusis was concerned in some measurein the disputes which arose out of the sale of the manor of Launceston (ante, p. 141), he being a defendant in a suit brought by Noy, the Attorney-deneral, in the Exchequer in 1633, touching this property "at the relation of Thomas Lennys, of Minchynnet, his Majesty's farmer or tenant " ; vide Thirty-ninth Report of the Deputy Keeper, Appendix, pp. 3S9-98. PAST AND PRESENT. 153 Beville is to be found with. John Trefusis reporting to the Council that they had endeavoured to settle a municipal dispute at Bodmin but in vain.* In 1638 he raised a troop at his own expense with, which to assist Charles in the expedition against the Scots, f showing in this the first sign of that devotion to the King which was after- wards to be his most distinguishing feature, but which, as exhibited by the tried friend of Eliot, has seemed a paradox not easily to be explained. In the summer of 1639, while still in the North with the King, he was knighted, J and we find him writing from Newcastle in May of that year to William Morice,§ afterwards owner of Werring- ton and member for Newport, a prominent agent in bringing about the Bestoration, and Secretary of State to Charles the Second. Grenville's attachment to the royal cause may be differently looked at, but the most commonly accepted view is that taken by the sympathetic biographer already quoted, " that he saw sooner than most the bad designs that were forming, and apprehended very clearly the pernicious consequences which must follow from them." 1 1 The Short Parliament was summoned to meet at Westminster on April 13, 1640, and was dissolved on May 6, but it was impossible for Charles to govern any longer without legal authority for tax- ation, and the Long Parliament was called. In this Greuville took his seat for the county, while Ambrose Mauaton (described in the Official List of Members as Becorder of the borough) and William. Coryton (who in the Short Parliament had sat for Grampound and who was now re-elected there) were chosen for Launceston, and John Maynard and Bichard Edgcumbe for Newport. Of the four Maynard alone was devoted to the Puritan party, and he sat for New- port only a sufficient time to declare his preference for Totnes, for which place also he had been elected. It is to be noted, however, that there is some confusion among these returns. The Official List of Members, in addition to leaving Launceston altogether out of the boroughs represented in the Short Parliament, names Nicholas Trefusis as the only member for Newport ; while for the Long • April 20, 16S7; Domestic! State Papers, 1637-88, p. 9. tBiographia Britannica, vol.iii. (1760), p. 2291. t Domestic State Papers, 1689, p. 884. § Thurloe .Statu Papers, vol. i., pp. 'Z-'-i. || Biographia Britannica, vol. iii., p. 2291. 154 LAUNCESTON, Parliament it gives for the two boroughs the four mentioned above. But Browne "Willis, whose authority has usually been accepted in these matters, names Grenville and Manaton for Launceston and Trefusis, Maynard, and Paul Speccott for Newport in the Short Parliament, and Manaton and Coryton for Launceston, and Richard Edgcumbe and Sir J. Percival, Knt., for Newport in the Long. At the first glimpse it would seem as if the Commons Journals would settle the point as to Maynard in favour of Browne Willis, for on April 17, 1640, in the Short Parliament, it is stated " Mr. Jo. Maynard chooses to serve for Totness, and waves Newport,"* it appearing unlikely that Maynard would have been twice returned for the both boroughs after the distinct preference he had shown for the one ; but this is upset by an entry of December 8, 1640, that " Mr. Maynard, chosen for Newport and Tothnes, waves Newport, and chooses to serve for Tothnes. "f Although, however, a new writ was issued on the same day, it does not appear to have been acted upon, as on February 9, 1647, an order was again made for a writ for New- port, "in the place of Mr. Maynard, who . . . chose to serve for Totnes."J The feelings of the majority of the Commons towards Coryton had been shown in the Short Parliament by the fact that in their order for a production of the proceedings in the Star Chamber and King's Bench concerning several members of the previous House, with Eliot at their head, his name is not given though six of those implicated are set out at length. § And the Long Parliament had not been in session many days before the vengeance of those who had not forgotten or forgiven his defection from Eliot began to be visited upon him. Acting as mayor of Bossiney he had, it was alleged, unduly inter- fered with the return of members ; the matter came before the Committee of Privileges, with Maynard as chairman, the Commons instructing that inquiry should be made not only into the election at Bossiney but also into " the undue proceedings of the said Mr. * Commons Journals, vol. ii., p. 4. t Ibid, p. 47. % Ibid, vol. v., p. 79. It may be that the reason for this double issue of the same writ arose out of a renewal of the dis- pute concerning the rightful electors of Newport, it being ordered on February 22, 1642, '' that the committee, to which the Election for Newport in Cornewall is referred, be revived, as to that Election" (Commons Journals, vol. ii., p. 41!).) § April 18, 1040 : Commons Journals, vol. ii., p. 6. PAST AND PRESENT. 155 Coryton, as Vice-Warden of the Stannaries, contrary to the Petition of Right."* In the next month it was ordered " that the Committee for Mr. Corriton's Business shall consider also of the Misdemeanours committed by Mr. Corryton, as Steward of the Duchy, and Deputy Lieutenant of the County ;"f and, after a long inquiry, it was resolved on August IS, 1641, " that Mr. Coryton shall not be admitted to sit as a Member in this Parliament," it being furthermore agreed on the same day that a new writ should be issued ' ' for electing of another Burgess to serve for the Town of Dunnevett, instead of Mr. Coryton."l; In his place, though the date of the election is not known, John Harris was returned. The House of Commons at this period had, however, more serious work on its hands than the punishment of Coryton. Strafford was attainted at the end of April, 1641, Sir Beville Grenville opposing the step, and within a fortnight and before the execution, "Great Mul- titudes of People did repair to Westminster, being Full of Fears and Jealousies of Plots and Designs against the Parliament. "§ One outcome of the popular movement was a "protestation," declaring attachment to the reformed religion and to the rights and liberties of the subject. Hundreds of Members signed on May 3, the day on which it was first laid on the table, among them and at the same time as Cromwell being Sir Ealph Hopton, afterwards the Royalist commander in Cornwall ; Piers Edgcumbe, member for Newport in 1627, and Richard Edgcumbe, member for Newport in the existing Parliament, it being doubtful which of these was the "Mr. Edgecomb" denounced by the populace as one of the " Straffordians, Betrayers of their Country " ; and in addition there were John Maynard, member for Newport in 1640, who signed next to Denzil Holies, and Sir Alexander Carew, member for the county, || whom Grenville had vainly besought to vote against the attainder. Signatures were added on several days during the next fortnight, but it was not until nearly every member who cared to affix his name had done so that, on the eighteenth, Ambrose Manaton, member for Launccston, • November 14: [bid, p. 89. t December 7 •. [bid. p. 47. (Ibid, pp. 201-2. § John Rusbwortb, Historical Collections, part 111., vol. i., p. 248. Rid, pp. 214 and roll. 156 LAUNCESTON, followed the example, while Grenville, though not in the previously mentioned list of fifty or sixty Straffordians, did not sign at all. Two months later Parliament ordered that the whole nation should sign, and certificates preserved in the House of Lords show that the clergy, churchwardens, overseers, and constables of the parishes of St. Mary Magdalene, St. Thomas, St. Stephens, Lawhitton, and South Petherwin, as well as those of Tresmere, Trewen, and other places in the neighbourhood of Launceston, did in this matter as the Houses bade them.* The certificates referred to are mainly dated February or March, 1642, and in the January one of the clergymen who could have signed had passed away. The Register records that on January 6, 1642, (N.S.) " was buried Mr. Willm Crompton minr of Lanceston," and it would appear that the reverend gentleman before coming to St. Mary Magdalene's had been " Preacher of the Word of God at Barnstaple, in Devon," as well as at Little Kimble, Buckinghamshire, and Laneast, Cornwall, this information being mainly gathered from the title-pages of sermons he preached and published, principally in an endeavour to prove St. Augustine to have been the first Protestant. It is not probable that he had been long at Launceston when he died , (for "John son of Edward Gubbins minister" was buried here on May 3, 1636) but at all events sufficiently long to merit the honour of a special funeral sermon, preached by the vicar of Tavistock, and, with a dedication to the mayor, recorder, and aldermen of the borough, published in London, a copy being still to be seen in the Bodleian Library, f Five years later, there was admitted to Merchant Taylors' School " William Crompton, eldest son of William Crompton, clerk and Parson of Lanceston, co. Cornub., born at Little Kimble, co. Bucks, 13 Aug., 1633," who afterwards became vicar of Cullompton, publishing some of his sermons as his father had done before him, and dying in 1696. J * Historical Manuscripts Commission, Fifth Report, Appendix, p. 121. + " The Art of Embalming Dead Saints discovered, in a. Sermon preached at the Funerall of Master W. Crompton, the late Reverend and faithful pastor of the Church in Lanceston, Cornwall, Jany. 5th, 1641 [O.S.] by G. Hughes, B.D., Pastor of the Church in Tavistocke. Lond., printed by A. N. for John Rothwell, and are to be sold at his shop, in Paul's Churchyard, at the sign of the Sun, 1642." The pamphlet is a small quarto containing 52 pages. J The Author is indebted for this information to the Rev. C. J. Robinso% whose researches among the records of the Merchant Taylors' Company are well known. PAST AND PRESENT. 157 On May 30, 1642, when both sides id the great constitutional struggle were eagerly preparing for the war which was now felt to be imminent, John Escott, a Launceston woollen draper, was suf- ficiently incautious to condemn the proceedings of the Parliament in the hearing of Henry Willis, a townsman, who on the sixteenth of the next month deposed to the same before Nicholas Gennys, Mayor of Launceston, and Leonard Treise, Justice of the Peace. The affidavit was immediately forwarded to the House of Lords, which on the twenty-third ordered " that John Escott, who hath spoken scandalous words against the Parliament, shall be sent for as a Delinquent."* The unfortunate woollen draper was accused of having stated that " he never knew nor heard of a Parliament that did proceed so basely as this present Parliament now doth ; that many able honest Men of the House were grieved at their Proceedings; and that Mr. Seldon (who was a Man that had more Learning than a Thousand Round-headed Pyms)" had observed to an acquaintance that there was no good to be done in the House of Commons. Escott obeyed the order of the Lords, to whom, on July 11, he presented a petition stating that he had come two hundred miles to answer a false charge, and praying that the matter might be inquired into or that he might be discharged upon bail.* The former portion of his prayer was granted, but in a manner little calculated to give satis- faction to the suppliant, as is evident from another petition he presented on October 9, in which he said that he had undergone part of their lordships' sentence, having stood in the pillory in Cheapside and at Westminster, that he had lain in Newgate, where the sickness had been very hot for more than nine months, by which his health had been impaired, and that his estate had been consumed by excessive fees ; he therefore prayed to have liberty on bail in London and within six miles round.]: Ten days later the Lords, " in regard the Plague is in Newgate, and he aged and sick," granted his request '' for his health's sake," simply stipulating that he should " render himself within three days after notice given him from this House ; " * Lords Journals, vol. v., p. 150; Willis's deposition is given i n full. t Historical Manuscripts Commission, Fifth Report, Appendix, p. :n ■, Jlimso of Lords Papers. J Ibid, p, 54, || October 19, 1012 ; Lords Juurnals, vol. v., p. 400. 158 LAUNCESTON, but it is not known whether he was further persecuted for what would seem to us a legitimate effort of political criticism. What relation, if any, the sufferer was to Richard Escott, colleague of Eliot for Newport and of Grenville for Launceston,* is also uncertain. From the Parish Register it appears that " John sonne of Richard Escotte"f was christened on March 30, 1585, and on August 22, 1614, the baptism of "Richard sone of John Estcott" is recorded, here as in later instances the name of the latter (sometimes given as "John Estcott, gent.") being written unusually large. It may be thought that an individual once described as " gent." could scarcely figure as a " woollen draper " thirty years later, but as a careful distinction is made in the Register between " Mr. John Badcock mercer" or "Mr. Robt Pearse mercer," and such other tradesmen as "John Abbot shopkeeper" or " William Cornish innholder," it is evident that a superior social position was recognised in the case of the business with which the sufferer was connected. While Escott was smarting under the sentence of the Lords, stirring events were occurring in his native town. The struggle between the King and the Houses became acute in the summer of 1642, and it was of the utmost importance to each side to secure the armed forces of the various counties. Cornwall was a doubtful shire, and it was determined by both parties to make a trial of strength at the Launceston Summer Assize.J The Royalists, who were welcomed into Cornwall by Sir Beville Grenville, had chosen Truro as their head-quarters, with Sir Ralph Hopton as their leader, while the Parliamentarians held the eastern part of the county, with Sir Alexander Carew and Sir Richard Buller at their head and Launceston as their rallying point. The former had been invested by the King with a " commission of array," upon the authority of which Hopton was levying troops, while the latter were endeavouring to raise the militia, the dispute concerning which had been the last factor in provoking the struggle. The Parliamentary Committee resolved to * ante, pp. 127-32. t " 1(135 : July. The 25 day was Buryed Richard Estcott Rent." A daughterof Richard Escott, of Launccsto., Gent." was buried at St. Stephens, May 4, 1631, as is recorded on a tablet to her memory in the church there. J Clarendon in his History of the Rebellion (vi.,240) says it was at the quarter sessions, but this is an error. PAST AND PKESENT. 159 put the matter to the test of law, commencing proceedings by delivering to Mr. Justice Foster, the presiding judge at the Launceston Assizes, an order from the Lords and Commons inhibiting the execution of the commission of array, but when they required his performance of the same his lordship simply replied that " he would do his duty." From the presence of the judge the members of the Committee proceeded to the church of St. Mary Magdalene's, only to find the pulpit occupied by " one Mr. Nicholas Hatch," whose assize- sermon was a strong attack upon the policy of the Parliament ; and on their return to the court matters were not much more to their satisfaction, for the judge in charging the grand jury " made a little noise of the commands " of the Houses, and only found "vigour, voice, and rhetoric" when upholding the royal instructions. Despite these discouragements, the Committee caused a presentment to be made " against divers men unknown, who were lately come armed into that county against the peace of the King," but Hopton imme- diately produced in answer a commission to himself, signed by the Marquis of Hertford on Charles' behalf. " After a full and solemn debate " the grand jury acquitted Sir Ralph and his companions, and turned the tables by preferring an indictment against Carew, Buller, and the rest of the Parliamentary Committee " for a rout and unlawful assembly at Launceston, and for riots and misdemeanours committed against many of the King's good subjects in taking their liberties from them." The High Sheriff, John Grylls, was thereupon instructed by the grand jury " to raise the posse comitatus for the dispersing that unlawful assembly at Launceston, and for the apprehension of the rioters," and as he was a Royalist he was nothing loth to obey. All this did not take place without a wrangle in the court. The Parliamentary Committee told Sir Nicholas Slanning, one of Hopton's colleagues and a member of Parliament, that the House required his presence, "but he answered with a politic silence," while the Sheriff replied that he was a servant of the King, and "a sniffling answer" was all that could be obtained from our old acquaintance Cor\ton. After the grand jury had given its decision, both parties appealed to the townspeople. The day following the Aesizes 1 HO LAUNCESTON, Slanning, Grenville, and many companions, together -with the Sheriff and his guard, went to the Launceston market-place and there read the royal proclamations explaining the differences between the King and the Houses, whereat, according to the Royalist account, " the people appeared well pleased." But immediately the Parlia- mentary Committee heard what was being done they in their turn sallied into the market-place, and bade the Sheriff and his friends be silent, but these declined either to do that or to read the House's commands, whereupon the Committee had to request their servant to do the latter, and the strange scene ended in a wordy contest, and not, as might have been expected, in blows. The Royalists straightway went westward to recruit their forces, while the Commons' Com- mittee remained another two days in the town "labouring a right understanding of the power of Parliament and to undeceive the people," and they then reported to the Speaker that their efforts had certainly been " of high advantage."* For the time this did not appear to be the case. Hopton, following up the success he had legally gained, returned to Truro, and, having gathered a force of three thousand men, "advanced towards Laun- ceston, where the committee had fortified, and from thence had sent messages of great contempt." Sir George Chudleigh, a Parliamen- tarian, " being then at Tavistock with five or six full troops of horse," drew to Lifton to assist his friends at Launceston, but his services were not required. " Sir Ralph Hopton marched within two miles of Launceston, where he refreshed his men, intending the next morning early to fall on the town ; but Sir Richard Buller and his confederates, not daring to abide the storm, in great disorder quitted the town that night, and drew into Devonshire, and so towards Plymouth ; so that in the morning Sir Ralph Hopton found the gates of Launceston open, and entered without resistance."! The Royalists next moved towards Saltash, " where was a garrison of two hundred Scots, who, upon the approach of Sir Ralph Hopton, as kindly quit Saltash as the * This account of the assize proceedings is drawn from three independent sources, namely, a long description in Clarendon (vi., 240 and foil.), a letter sent from Launceston by the Parliamentary Committee of the West to Speaker Lenthal (given in full in the Lords Journals, vol, v., p. 275,), and one from Beville Grenville and his companions (dated Launceston, August 5, 1642) to the Earl of Bath (summarised in the Fourth Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, Appendix, p. 307). t Clarendon, vi., 212 : no dates are given, but this probably occurred in the October. PAST AND PRESENT. 161 others had Launceston before."* The Parliamentarian forces were thus entirely driven out of the county, and as the Cornish Eoyalists would not advance beyond the borders of their own shire (a determination which ultimately proved the ruin of the King's cause in these parts) they were disbanded " till a new provocation from the enemy should put fresh vigour into that county, "f Meanwhile the Houses had been taking steps to punish those who had been most prominent in opposing their Committee at the Launceston Assizes. On August 9, 1642, the Lords received from the Commons the letter previously quoted from, J and forthwith agreed to resolutions adopted by the Lower House disabling Slanning from being a member and sending for him as a delinquent, the latter step being also ordered for "Mr. Hatch, the Minister that preached the Sermon," and for the Sheriff of Cornwall, while Beville Grenville and John Arundell of Trerise, both members, were summoned to attend the service of the House.§ In the letter already noted|| from Grenville and his friends it was prayed that they might have the King's warrant not to leave their county except by his majesty's orders. This request was evidently granted, for Grenville and Arundell replied to the order of the Commons that "they were commanded by his Majesty's special Commands to continue in their County, to preserve the peace thereof," and the Sheriff returned the same answer. The Commons thereupon resolved that Grenville should be disabled from continuing a member, and referred the case of the others to a special committee.** The winter which followed was a troubled one. According to journals favourable to the Parliament, the Cornish Cavaliers " like brethren in iniquity " were suffered by Hopton and Slanning to do as they liked, one of their exploits consisting in plundering the residence at Tavistock of John Maynard, the late Puritan member for Newport, for they " toare in pieces his writings, cut his beds in pieces, and cast abroad the feathers, and pulled down part of the roofe of his house."tt Comfort was, however, extracted by the Parliamentarians from a * Ibid, 2-13. + Ibid, t ante, p. 100. § Lords Journals, vol. v., p. 275. || ante, p. ICO. ** September 19, 1612 ; Commons Journals, vol. ii., p. 772. tt Special! Passages and certain Informations from sevcrall places, Collected for the use of all thai desire to be truely Informed. (No. 17, for the week from Nov. 2'J to Dee. . lii. Married Sept. -, 1604 j Buried April 2, 1605. || In the inscription previously noted, " Dame Sibella " is given as wife of sir Hu^h, which throws an additional doubl upon the identity of these two Hugh Pypers. **Mrs. Bray (Warleigh, p. 16) states thai for his services ai Stratton he was appointed Constable of Launceston Castle, and for those a1 Lansdowne knighted. 176 LAUJN'CESTON, Essex evidently did not stay long in Launceston, for when the King joined Prince Maurice at Exeter and marched into Cornwall, " some of his horse and foot entered into Landson [July 31], all Essex his army being gone thence and no resistance."* On that day Charles, who remained on the Devonshire side of the Tamar, received a message from Sir Richard Grenville desiring his majesty to hasten towards the West, and " the King bid the fellow tell him he was coming with all possible speed with an army of 10000 foot, 5000 horse, and 28 piece of cannon." The next day the King and the remainder of his forces crossed Poison Bridge, passed through Launceston, and " marched to Trecarel in the psh of Lysant and lay there at the house of Mr. Manaton in com. Cornubia," while " the whole army lay this night round about this house in the field," the men having been cheered on their way from Poison by the fact that "a fellow that was carrying letters from Essex was taken and hang'd below the rendezvous that all the army might see him as they marched by." The King did not remain at Trecarrell more than one night, pro- ceeding the next morning to Liskeard, whence he advanced towards Lostwithiel, and the greater part of the month was occupied with skirmishing, Essex refusing to treat because he had no authority from the Houses to do so. On August 31, the Parliamentarian horse be- gan to retreat from Cornwall, and " the King supposing they would go through Liskerd and Launceston sent 2 messengers of our troope, Mr. Brooke and Mr. Samuel West, with a letter to Sir Fr. Donington (who hath a 1000 horse in Devon) to stop their march. But the enemy went not near Liskerd this day, but went right to Saltash to ferry their horse over into Devonshire." On the same day, the King gave battle to the Parliamentarian forces at Lostwithiel and com- pletely defeated them, but Essex had fled with the horse, leaving Major-General Skippon to negotiate a surrender. Charles, a few days later, withdrew to Liskeard and thence from Cornwall, not again passing through Launceston, however, but proceeding direct from Liskeard to Tavistock. It was not much wonder, after such a severe reverse to the Parliamentarians, that Cromwell was moved to exclaim * Richard Symonds's Diary. In the Iter Carolinian the journey is thus noted: "Thursday, the 1st [of August] to Trecarrol, Mr. Maninsfton's house in Cornwall, 1 night— S miles." PAST AND PRESENT. 177 *' We do with grief of heart resent the sad condition of our Army in the West, and of affairs there. That business has our hearts with it ; and truly had we wings, we would fly thither ! So soon as ever my Lord [Manchester] and the Foot set me loose, there shall be in me no want to hasten what I can to that service."* But it was eighteen months before his aspiration could be realised, and for twelve of these, as far as Launceston was concerned, there was cessation of active strife. But though there was no fighting in the neighbourhood for this period, political warfare raged keenly within the borough's walls. The majority of the Corporation was Boyalist, but one of the aldermen at least, Thomas Bolitho by name ,was not afraid, even though the town was held by the King's forces, to stand up in beha.lf of the Parlia- ment, and he suffered for his temerity. According to a petition presented by him to the Lords on June 19, 1646, he went to Plymouth two years before " and took up for the service of the Parliament," for which act he was indicted at the Town Court as a rebel, and was on February 3, 1645, deprived by the Corporation of his place as alderman of the borough. As long as the Royalists still triumphed he held his peace, but when they were overthrown he prayed the Lords that he might be restored to his aldermanship and might receive reparation for the wrongs inflicted upon him. And the Lords, im- pressed with rhe justice of his plea, immediately ordered " that the said Bilithoe shall be restored to be a Burgess of the said Town of Launceston, and enjoy his Privilege."! The autumn and winter of 1645 will be ever memorable in the annals of Launceston because of the sojourn of Charles Prince of of Wales in the town. " When the prince," says Clarendon, " came to Launceston from Exeter (which was about the middle of Sep- tember J) after the loss of Bristol, and the motion of the enemy inclined westward, it was then thought fit to draw all the trained bands of Cornwall to Launceston [under the command of Sir Richard Grenvillc;|] . . . The day after the Prince came to Launceston, Sir * T. Carlyle, Oliver Cromwell's Letters and 8] ches, vol. i., pp. 170-71. t Historical Manuscripts Commission, Sixth Report, Appendix, p. 1 22 ; Lords Journals, vol. viii., p. 385. X It should be July, as will later be seen. Clarendon ix., '.>•!. 178 LAUNCESTON, Richard Grecnvil writ a letter to him, wherein he [re] presented the impossibility of keeping that army together, or fighting with it in the condition it was then in."* Dissensions, in fact, filled the royal force ; Lord Goring, the commander of the King's forces, who had been defeated by Sir Thomas Fairfax, thought himself badly served, and Sir Richard Grenville was at variance with several of the other officers as well as with tbe Cornish gentlemen, who through th< ir commissioners (of whom Coryton was one) presented to the Prince " a sharp complaint against him in the name of the whole county, for several exorbitences and strange acts of tyranny exercised upon t!iem."t It was immediately after Goring's rout that the Prince visited Launceston, from which town his royal highness addressed a letter to the defeated general on July 26, regarding the heavy pressure of the military upon Cornwall and Devon. J As soon as the Prince entered Cornwall, his mission w;is so referred to by the Parliamentarians as to show how little they feared he would succeed. "Observe," said one of the Puritan news- papers^ " how they hurry poor Prince Charles from place to place, by his presence to raise the better supplies, and now at last to his Tenants in Cornwal : they will make him spend and adventure all his Interest before they have done with him." The earliest effort the Prince made in the county was evidently at Launceston, where first he stayed, and where without doubt it was that " hee lately made a speech to the Countrey-men, wishing them, That as they had formerly, so they would still continue to stand for their Prince, and that they would raise all the strength they could to oppose the Rebels."|| But the old difficulty** arose once more, for " the Cornish promised, That they would assist him with their lives andfortunes in their owne Countrey, but would not beperswadedto stir out of it."ft " The truth is," sadly observed a Royalist newspaper a fortnight later, " the Cornish men are unwilling to come out of their County, and many of them begin to imbrace an indifferent good opinion of Sir Thomas Fairfax Army."tt Just at the same time as this was •Ibid, 133. t Ibid, 54. t Tunner MSS., 60, art. 116. § The Moderate Intelligencer (No. 21, from July 17 to July 21, 1645, p. 167). II The True Informer (No. 4, for the week ending July 26, p. 110). •• ante, p. 161. ft The True Informer (No. 4, p. 110). JJMercurius Veridicus (No. 17, from Aug. 1 to Aug. 11, p. 133). PAST AND PRESENT. 179 published, " Prince Charles with Hopton, Greenvile and the rest kept his Rendezvouz at Launceston in Cornewall* ; they cannot raise in all above 5000 horse and foot at most . . . The Prince cannot raise above 1500 to bring out of Cornewall the Trained-bands absolutely refusing to stir."f Goring then resolved that the whole of his army (including his foot quartered at Okehampton, his horse at Lidford, and Sir Eichard Grenville's men at Tavistock) should rendezvous at Launceston, preparatory to a march into Devonshire J The result was a disappointment, and the Prince, writing from Launceston on September 1, dwelt upon the small attendance of the trained bands at the day appointed, and adjourned the muster until the 24th of the same month. J The Prince continued to make Launceston his head-quarters, and on October 1 4 sent a letter hence to Col. P[iers] Edgcumbe ordering him to bring up more troops. § But his mission had failed, and although one Parliamentarian newspaper could in this same month positively assert that " The Prince was Munday the 20 instant at Launston,"|| other journals gave most conflicting accounts of his movements, one even inserting a rumour (while the Prince was still in all probability located in Madford House,** the finest dwelling then in Launceston) that he had fled to France. ft Through most of the winter his royal highness remained in the town, endeavouring to heal the differences between Goring and Grenville, but his efforts were in vain, and the latter proved so insubordinate that the Prince had no alternative in the beginning of 164G but to cast him into prison in Launceston Castle. The cause thus divided against itself did not long stand. " The imprisonment of Greenvill hath caused some distractions & mutinies amongst them," we are told in the February, " the Greenvillians who ♦Tuesday, August 5. t Mercurius Civicus (No. llfi, from Aug. 7 to Aug. 14). ±The Parliaments Post (No. 15, from Aug. 12 to Aug. 19, p. 5); The Kingdome's Weekly Intelligencer (No. 118, from Aug. 12 to Aug. lit, p. 906) ; aud The True Informer (No. 17, for the week ending Aug. 16, p. 133): the two last-named contain an almost exactly similar paragraph regarding the rendezvous, which they place at "Leston," while the lint-mentioned gives " Lanceston." J Historical Manuscripts Commission. First Report, Appendix, p. 51 : Sir John Trelawny's Papers. The letter is here stated to have been dated "Lancaster," which is an obvious misprint. § Ibid, Second Report, Appendix, p. 21 : Lord Mount Edgcumbe's Papers. II A Continuation of Certaine Special] and Remarkable Passages (from Oct. 24 to Oct. 81, i>. hj ** ante, l>. 106. ttThe Kingdome's Weekly intelligencer (No. 128, from Oct. 21 to Oct. 28, p. 085). 180 LAUNCESTON, are most mutiners being much displeased at it, and unwilling to be commanded either by the Gorians or Hoptonians."* Launceston was in fact the scene of many Royalist distractions. " From the Enemies Quarters," says a Parliamentarian journal, " we have advertisement by some prisoners who came about Exchange from Lanceston, That many of the Cornish Souldiers which were taken at Dartmouth, f upon their coniming into Cornwal, much boasted of the clemencie of his Excellencie Sir Thomas Fairfax, who had not only spared their lives when he had them at mercy, but also gave them their bberties, and two shillings apeece. These coniming to Lanceston, were questioned by Hopton's forces whether they would serve the Prince or no, which they refusing, about thirty of them were clapt up prisoners. "J Despite these differences, the neighbourhood of Launceston continued to be well guarded against a surprise, as Major Seely, of the Parliamentarians, found when he " was opposed by the Cornish, as he would have gone over Ponstor [Poison] Bridge, whereupon he retreated back to Ley ton [Lifton], where he quarters "§ ; but the Prince discovered, soon after he had imprisoned Grenville, that his position was fast becoming untenable. He had not only to contend with quarrels among his generals but with mutinies among his troops, and now desertions were frequent. In the last days of January he accordingly "retreated further into Cornwall, and his Forces quitting Launceston, carrying what Provisions they could out of that Port of Devon [sic] into Cornwall. "|| Of this movement, Sir Thomas Fairfax gave a striking account in a letter to Speaker Lenthal, written at Chudleigh on February 2. "Tuesday last,"** he says, "divers ploughs a nd horses, all laden, some with provisions, have been sent out of Launceston Westward ; there was also great store of Bread baked, the Bread was brought in flaskets from a Bakehouse in that town, where it was baked by the Princes Baker, and was immediately sent away Westward; six or seven ploughs more were drawn out of Launceston on Wednesday night Westwards, also further into Cornwall, much of their Lading was Musquets, Pikes, and other • The Moderate Messenger (No. 2, from Feb. 3 to Feb. 10, 164(5, p. 11). t Dartmouth was taken by storm by Sir Thomas Fairfax on January 18, 1646. JThe Kingdome's Weekly Intellipencer (No. 138, from Feb. 3 to Feb. 10, pp. 10-11). § Ibid. II The Weekly Account (No. 7. from Feb. 4 to Feb. 11). ** January 27. PAST AND PBESENT. 181 Ammunition ; the rest of the Lading was Victuals, as poudred Beef and Cheese, with them were about fifty horse, laden with Powder, Match, and Bullets, and Lead which they had taken off from the Castle, so that, it is all unleaded ; much of the Ammunition was loaded out of Guild-hall, which is their main Guard ; on Thursday night neer fifty more horse laden with provisions, as Bacon, Pork, and such like, were sent the same way, all reported to be for the Princes Court . . . Thursday also the prisoners in Launceston were turned over from Greenvile's Marshal to the Lord Hopton's Marshal ; fifty Souldiers ran the same day out of one Eegiment ; those that they gather out of the country run away daily : Friday, six ploughs more were drawn into the castle green to be loaded, with them were forty horse, with pack-Saddles, Crooks and Paniards ; these were all reported to be sent after the rest : That day thirty Hogsheads of Syder were brought into Launceston from Merrington [Werrington], which were likewise to be sent Westward for the Prince ; and the Marshal gave order this day, that the prisoners in Launceston should be carried to Truro . . . The Trained-Bands of the town of Laun- ceston get others for money to serve in their rooms ; the Trained- Bands further West will not rise at all. There is now but one Iron Gun in Launceston, which is an Iron piece planted between the Princes Quarters and Guild hal ; the poor people pull down the Works about the town to get away the Wood, none hindring them; the Prince and Hopton were Saturday, Jan. 31, both in Launceston."* The Prince had returned to the town a day before the date mentioned, only to hear that on the Thursday (Jan. 29) there had been " a mutiny in Launceston between some of Hopton's men and some of Greenvills, which made many of the common Souldiers crie home, and accordingly some ran towards Greston [Greystone], some towards Braston [Bradstone], and some to other places."! His royal * Bir Thomas Fairfax's Proceeding about the Storming of Exeter (published as a pam- phlet by authority of the House of Commons, Feb it; it was also printed iii full in the .Merrill-ins Civicus, No. 1 12, from Feb. t to Fell. i-_>, pp. 2056-37). Letters from the Weal (summarised in Perfect Passages of Bach Daves Proc lings in Parliament, No. iss, from Feb. i to Feb. it, p. 538) add to the information (riven by Fairfax thai on January jf "divers of the Princes carriages with goods, and provisions, and Horses with Ammunition, passed by-Tregodock, in the way to Camelford, and all the come that could be irot about Newport. Botadon, Lawheltoii, and the parts adjacent, was fetched in for the Army " ; it is further stated that Launceston was " soundly plundred," and thai the lead upon the Town Hall and the Church " was pulled dowue and carried away." t Perfect Passages (No. 68, pp. 538-39). 182 LAUNCESTON, highness (who was accompanied by Hopton, the Earl of Berkshire, and Sir Edward Hyde, afterwards the Earl of Clarendon) "took much pains " on the Saturday, then as now the Launceston market- day, "to appease the souldiers and the Countrey-people."* The Prince remained with Hopton in the town for some days, and during his stay the Royalists are reported to " have defaced much the Castle of Launceston, by taking away the Lead, and giving the Timber to the people to burn, who pull down the Works. "t His royal highness then proceeded to Hols worthy ,J the head-quarters of Goring's horse (a portion of which lay at North Petherwin), and next by way of Truro to Pendennis and thence to France.§ Before departing, the Prince commanded the trained-bands ' ' to keep guards on the river day and night," and a party of Royalist horse was posted at Lifton|| to cover the way to Poison Bridge and thence through Launceston into Cornwall. Dartmouth had been taken by storm in the middle of January,** and on February 16 Fairfax advanced on Torrington, where he defeated Hopton. The latter, who was wounded in the fight, fled on the night of the battle to Launceston, and, leaving Colonel Bassett to defend the town, went into the West.ft Fairfax remained at Torrington for a week and then, having despatched a force to occupy Stratton, advanced into Cornwall by way of Holsworthy, the towns- men of which "shewed much cheerfulnesse " at sight of the Parliamentarians. }t On the morning of Wednesday, February 25, the Army marched from Holsworthy towards Launceston, " which place was reported to be strong, and to have 1000 in it of mercenaries and Train-men." On the way some fifty prisoners were captured, and "when we came within two miles of Launceston our forces took divers * Ibid. t The Moderate Intelligencer (No. 49, from Feb. 5 to Feb. 12, p. 292). t Ibid (No. 50, from Feb. 12 to Feb. 18, p. 297) § Ibid, p. 301. || A Diary or an Exact Journall (No. 4, from Feb. 12 to Feb. 18, p. 3). ** ante, p. 180. ft The History of the Commons Warre of England, p. 75. J{ Sir Thomas Fairfax His Victorious Proceedings in the Taking of Launceston, with the Magazine and Armes . . . Published by Authority. London ... 4 March 1645 [1046 N.S.] : this is a pamphlet of eight pages containing two letters describing the advance upon and capture of the town, one being " from an officer of Sir Thomas Fairfax his Army," signed " W. C, Launcester, Feb. 25, 1645, at one at night,'' and the other " a letter sent to a Member of the House of Commons," signed " J. R., Launcester, the 26 of Febr. 1645, about nine a clock in the morning." " W. C." was " Master W. Curtis, Messenger to Master Bedford, Scout-master Generall to the Committee of both King- domes," and " J. R." was John Rushworth, then Secretary to Fairfax, and afterwards author of the Historical Collections. PAST AND PRESENT. 183 of the Enemies Scouts, and some straggling Parties, who were most of them drunk; those who were best able to expresse themselves boasted, That Col. Basset was resolved to maintaine the Towne against our Forces ; whereupon our forlorn hopes of Horse and Foot were sent to enforce entrance, the Enemy having shut the [North] Gate, and the Towne very strong, made some opposition, but Sir Thomas Bisset Generall of the Horse, and Col. Blits Governour of the Towne, with Col. Strevaticans* Regiment of Foot, in all about 500 Horse and Foot, having quitted the Towne about an houre before we came, and left it onely to some few of the Trained Bands, they after some resistance retreated; our men entred, tooke some Prisoners, and killed onely two, it being now dark the rest escaped : we seized upon the Armes and Magazine in the Towne, the inhabitants seemed generally to be much revived at our comming, being sensible that they were formerly but deluded with the blandishments of the Kings Party, pretending what they did was in defence of the King, when indeed it was chiefly to the destruction of the Subject. Our Souldiers notwithstanding the opposition they received at the entrance, did not then nor 6ince plunder any one house that I know of, but demeaned themselves very civilly." This is Curtis's narrative of the capture of Launceston, and Rush worth's letter does not add many details, while it corroborates the statements that the Launcestonians were glad at the coming of the Parliamentarian forces and that these latter behaved well after they had taken the town. The only point to be noted in another contemporary account of the fight is that after the Cavaliers had been put to flight in great disorder " by the darknesse of the night, narrownesse and steepnesse of the wayes, most of them escaped."! "The Horse and Foot," wrote Rushworth in a postcript on the morning after the battle, "have been put to hard duty upon the march, and Guards, and going out upon parties, so that I beleeve we shall not heare [? leave] this day." The prediction proved correct, for until the Saturday " the head Quarter continued at Launceston, the Foot being much wearied out with the two dayes martch before."! • These three somewhat mysterious namesshould not improbably rend Bassett, Bolitho, and Trevanion. t Sprite, Amelia Rediviva (1017), Part IV., chap, iii., p. J!W. t Ibid. \Si LAUNCESTON, On the Thursday, Sir Thomas Fairfax (who immediately upon his taking the town the previous night had communicated with the House of Commons*) "viewed the ancient Castle of Launceston, situated upon a Mount, raised very high, but not fortified : the Works- and Mounts on the top of the Hill [? Windmill" the Enemy left standing undemolished. Many Cornish were taken prisoners in the Towne the night before, who being brought before the General this day, had twelve pence apeece given them, and Passes to goe to their homes : The Townes people in Launceston were much affected with such mercifull usage "f — they were, in fact, so impressed by the good behaviour of the Parliamentarians that "they frequented the Markets again as in former time." Fairfax, after visiting the Castle, and after seeing that none of the houses were plundered, "not so much as the Governour's," directed his rear-guard "to quarter along the River Tamar, the better to prevent the breaking through of the Enemies Horse,"* and sent on a company of dragoons " to possesse a House near Camelford, to gaine intelligence, and the more to amuse the Enemy." On the Friday the Plymouth foot regiments were ordered from Tavistock to Launceston, and on the Saturday " the greatest part of the Army marched from Launceston to Low- enrick [Lewannick], but three miles, in regard there could be no conveniency of Quarters between that and Bodman,"§ while " on the Lord's day March 1. the Generall and Lieutenant Generall advanced all the whole army towards Bodman."|| In the House of Commons on the next Saturday morning, Curtis, who had hastened back from the front, "being asked by Master- Speaker (before the House) what he had to say concerning the Army, and where he left them, and when . . . made this Answer. Master Speaker, this Honourable House being already sufficiently informed concerning the proceedings of the Army about Launceston, I shall therefore omit that, and app ly my selfe to acquaint you with what * " A Letter from Sir Thomas Fairfax General, from Launcesdon, of 25" Februarii 1645 [1010. N.S.] was this Day read" : March 5, 1646 Commons Journals, vol. iv., p. 463. The letter appears to have referred to measures necessary for the prevention of foreign forces being landed on the Cornish Coast. + Springe, Part IV., chap, iii., p. 198. {According to further despatches from the district, ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, "the Generall sent a Letter to C iptiine VVeldon, to send all the Horse he could spare, and as many Dragoones he could possible, to advanceup the River asfarre as Lifton, to stay the passage at the fords." § The Late Victorious Proceedings of Sir Thomas Fairfax [bv W. Curtis, published by Authority March 9, 1640], p. 2. II Ibid, p. 3. PAST AND PRESENT. 185 hath been done since. Master Speaker, The Generals Excellencie advanced from Launceston on the last Lords Day, earely in the Morning, part of his Army being gone the night before, and had marched about 4 miles in the way to Bodnian ; On that morning there was a generall Rendezvouz on a Moore by a Village called Atternoone [Altarnun], 6 Miles beyond Launceston, 12 Miles on this side Bodman ; from thence the whole Army marched in Batalia towards Bodman,"* which after some skirmishing was seized on the Monday, t The " Lieutenant Generall " who advanced with Fairfax from Launceston on this eventful Sunday morning, was Oliver Cromwell. From the time when, in September, 1643, he wrote to some friends that " the King is exceeding strong in the West/'t and when, twelve months later, in a letter previously quoted, § he did " with grief of heart resent the sad condition of our Army in the West, and of affairs there," Cromwell had hoped to do something to secure Cornwall to the Parliament, and his opportunity had now come. Being, however, placed second in command to Fairfax, it is more of the General than of the Lieutenant-General that the chroniclers speak, with the result that Cromwell's biographers have dwelt but little upon his share in this western campaign. All that Carlyle can spare on the subject is that " Cromwell returned to Fairfax ; served through the Winter with him in the West, till all ended there "|| ; and Mr. Picton, the latest of the Protector's biographers, is scarcely more detailed in his account of this immediate period.** A local tradition, which was still to be heard a few years since, was to the effect that Cromwell stayed during his rest at Launceston with Col. Bennettft at Hexworthy ; and although there appears no direct evidence upon the point, the fact that that staunch Parliamentarian was, as will later be seen, one of Oliver's trusted advisers in the days of his power gives colour to the story. • Ibid, p. 10. t In Jonah Ricnift's Perfect List of all the Parliamentarian Victories (1646), the 272nd is "by the Renowned Sir Thomas Fairfax. In the month of April [sic] 1046. Launceston taken, and Bodmin quitted by the enemy in the west." Besides the authorities already named, accounts of the capture of Launceston are to be found in A Diary or an Exact Jovrnal (No. 6, from Feb. 25 to March 5, p. 6), The Moderate Intelligencer (No. 52, from Feb. 26 to March 6, p. 324), Perfect Occurrences of Par- liament (No. 10, week ending March IS), and A Continuation of Certain Speciall and Remarkable Passages (No. 21, from Feb. 27 to March 0, pp. 1-2), as well as in letters to the Commons published at the time by the House's authority. t Carlyle, vol. i., p. 146. § ante, p. 177. | Carlyle, vol i., p. 217. •• J. A. Picton, Oliver Crom- well [second edition ] pp. 203-4. It After whose family " Bennett's Arms " is named 18G LAUNCESTON, The Royalist forces in Cornwall were speedily brought to a surrender ; Goring fled to France, Hopton agreed to a treaty by which his troops were disbanded, and on March 21, Fairfax began his return from Truro. Four days later he and Cromwell went on to Plymouth, "whilest the Army martched another way by Launceston "* ; and on the 27th, while the General and Lieutenant-General proceeded by way of Tavistock to Okehampton, the army departed from Launceston for its bivouac five miles from the latter town.f The campaign in Cornwall was thus at an end, and there probably now returned to Launceston one who could scarcely have remained there during the Prince's stay, seeing that for his services to the Puritan cause the Parliament had granted him a pension while the town was still held for the King. On January 12, 1646, upon his "humble petition," the Lower House ordered " That the Committee of Lords and Com- mons for Advance of Money, at Haberdashers Hall, do weekly pay unto Leonard Treise Esquire £ the sum of Forty Shillings per Week for the present Subsistence of him and his Family."§ Ten days later the Lords' concurrence was asked for the grant,|| and on the next day this was given.** Six months previously, Leonard's son John (who was born at Launceston in March, 1613), a captain of foot in the Parliamentary service, had been summoned before a court martial at Plymouth, whence he appealed to the Houses asking for a speedy decision that he might " return to his Command being at present as his Livelihood, "ft It was thus evident that the Treises at this period were not in flourishing circumstances, a conclusion borne out by the fact that the Commons, in addition to voting forty shillings weekly to Leonard, ordered that he should be " recommended to the Com- mittee of the "West, to bestow upon him the Sum of Fifty Pounds for his present Subsistence. "}{ It may be believed that this Committee did as it was desired, for during its sittings at Launceston in this same year it seized upon various estates belonging to adherents of the King and forced their owners to make composition for them.§§ * Sprigge, Part IV., eh:ip. v., p. 232' t Ibid. t ante, p. 145. § Commons Journals, vol. iv., p. 405. || Ibid, p. 414. ** Jan. 23, 1646 : Lords Journals, vol. viii., p. 121; the draft order is still preserved in the House of Lords (see Historical Manuscripts Commission, Sixth Report, Appendix, p. 95). tt July 19, 1645 : Lords Journals, vol. vii., p. 502. tt January 12, 1646 : Commons Journals, vol. iv., p. 405. §§ One nstance of this (the order for which was issued on August 20, 1646, by the Parliamentary Committee sitting at Launceston) is given in Maclean's Trigg Minor, vol. i., pp. 559-60. PAST AND PRESENT. 187 Not long afterwards the House of Commons, apparently satisfied that the Royalist resistance had been crushed, ordered new writs for various constituencies which had years before been deprived of their members for siding with the King. On July 23, 1646, writs were issued for Cornwall in the room of Sir Beville Grenville and Sir Alexander Carew,* on August 12 for Launceston in the place of Ambrose Manaton,t and on February 9, 1647, for Newport in that of Eichard Edgcumbe and John Maynard, J all these members, except the last, having been disabled by order of the House. For Launceston there was returned on January 4, 1647, Thomas Gewen of Bradridge (who in subsequent pages will demand greater attention), and for Newport on May 19 of the same year were chosen Sir Philip Percival and Nicholas Leach.§ The two members originally elected for Launceston to the Long Parliament, || William Coryton and Ambrose Manaton, were mean- while suffering for their Eoyalist zeal. On February 15, 1647, a report was made to the Commons from the Committee of the "West concerning these and other gentlemen of Cornwall, and it was resolved that they should be " admitted to their several and respective Com- positions, at Two years full Value, for taking off their respective Delinquencies, and the Sequestration of their Estates."** Coryton, it appears from a later entry in the Commons Journals, ft na( l petitioned the House in March, 1646, the month of the Eoyalist collapse in Cornwall ; and it would seem that while he had been intriguing for the King, his daughter, a Mrs. Philippa Coryton, had been helping the other side, for, her claim being supported by Cromwell, she was ordered to receive over eight hundred pounds out of her father's estate " in regard of her extraordinary good Affections and Service to the Parliament, "J J the Committee of the West having previously taken from her, by the way, nearly double that amount. On January 3, 1648, Coryton, having been fined in this sum of £828, was " cleared of his delinquency " and pardoned for " having been in arms against the Parliament"§§ ; and on October 7 of the same year Manaton was similarl y dealt with.|||| With one more mention both • Commons Journals, vol. iv., p. 615. f Ibid, p. 642. t Ibid, vol. v., p. 7U. § Official List of Members, vol. i., p. 488. || ante, p. 153. ** Commons Journals, vol. v., p, 88i ft November B, 1017 : Ibid, p. 353. tt Ibid. §§ Lords Journals, vol. ix., p. 027. Illl Ibid, vol. x., l). 532. 188 LAUNCESTON, disappear from our page ; they died within a month of each other, Coryton being buried at St. Mellion in May, and Manaton at South Petherwin in June, 1651. Of the two men, Manaton, who was probably the less affected in his political principles by personal considerations, had the simpler monument* ; it is characteristic that Coryton should have been described on his tombstone in adulatory terms, f and that sixteen turgid lines should have been placed upon it in order to persuade the reader that " Words may not set his Prayses foorth, Noe Prayses comprehend his Worth." The disturbed state of society in the Civil War period can be seen from a petition of a French doctor, one Peter Le Eoyer, presented to the House of Lords on July 13, 1647. In this Le Eoyer stated that he had been doctor to the King of France, and that about nine years previously he had been sent into England to the then French Ambassador. Going into the West during the Bebellion he was imprisoned by the King's forces for holding correspondence with the Parliament, the Mayor and Minister of Launceston certifying to this fact ; subsequently, when bound for France, he was stopped at Dartmouth, his trunks broken open, and himself obliged to flee for his life ; and, when living in Cornwall by licence from Sir Thomas Fairfax, he was plundered by the mayors of Launceston and Bideford and by the sequestrators for the county ; therefore, as a stranger who had thus lost his small fortune and was without the means of returning home, he prayed the Lords for redress and recompense. J The House thereupon ordered the question to be referred to the Commons with recommendations.§ On March 1, 1648, new writs were issuedMor Newport in the room of Sir Philip Percival and Nicholas Leach, who had been elected only the previous year,|| and both of Twhoni were now deceased. For one of the seats thus vacant (though the fact is^ somewhat characteristically not recorded in the Official List) ^William Prynne, * "Ambrosius Manaton de Trecarrell, Ar [migeri]. Obiit 11 mo. die Junii, An. Dom. 1051." t ' Viri genere etjvirtutibus illustris." t Historical Manuscripts Commission, Sixth Report, p. 18G : House of Lords Papers ; the certificate of the Mayor and Minister of Launceston is dated July 2, 1647, and is still preserved. § July 13, 1647 : Lords Journals, vol. ix., p. 328. || ante, p. 187. PAST AND PRESENT. 189 of the " Histrio-mastix," was returned,* and, according to his own account, freely and unanimously without either his knowledge or seeking, t He took his seat in the House on November 7, and on December 4 he delivered a speech "touching the King's answer to the propositions of both Houses upon the whole treaty, whether they were satisfactory or not satisfactory," which speech he published, and placed upon the title-page the text (singular as coming from this author) "Blessed are the peacemakers." According to Prynne himself it was simply his endeavour, in order faithfully to discharge the trust Newport had reposed in him, " to put a speedy and happy period to our unnaturall long-lasting bloody Wars, and settle a firm well-grounded peace, upon such terms of honor, freedome, safety, and advantage, as no' Subjects under Heaven ever yet enjoyed from the Creation to this present " ; but the General Council of Officers held a different view, and two days later commenced "Pride's Purge," Prynne and forty of his colleagues being seized by the soldiery and marched to a neighbouring tavern, J where, according to Carlyle,§ the member for Newport showed himself "louder than any in the question of Law." Gewen, the member for Lauuceston, shared this fate of exclusion by Col. Pride a few days later; and Prynne, during his seven weeks imprisonment, appealed from "these usurpers . . . unto you alone who elected me, and are best able to know and judge of your owne trust . . . from whom I shall humbly request so much right and justice, upon the perusall of the enclosed Speech and Papers (which I desire may be read openly before all my Electors at the next publique meeting) as to certifie to the world under your hands and seals (which you set to the returne of my Election) your own judg- ments and opinions whether I have betraid or broken the Trust you reposed in me or not." The letter, which is dated " From the Kings Head in the Strand Jan. 26, 1648 [1649 N.S.]," (three days before the remnant of the House decided to exclude him and his colleagues forhavingvotcd the King's concessions a ground for peace) is addressed * In Cunningham's Lives of Eminent Englishmen (vol. ii., p. 4<12) it is stated that Prynne was elected for Newport in 1640, but this has been shown to be an error, t Mr. Prynnes Letter to the Borough of Newport, in Cornwall, forwhieh he serves in Parliament " ; this was included in a pamphlet published in lii-lit, the main portion of which was the summarv of a speech delivered bv I'rynne in the House on December 4, 1048. t Kushwo'rth, Part IV., vol. ii., p. 1353. § Cromwell, vol. ii., p. DO. 190 LAUNCESTON, "To his honoured Friends the Vianders and Free Burgesses of the Borough of Newport in Cornwall" by their " most affectionate Friend and faithful Servant and Burgesse, William Prynne." Whether this letter was discussed at "the next publique meeting" of the electors of Newport is not known, and even if it were, and if the result were according to the member's own request transmitted to him " with all convenient speed," little service was effected. Bather over ten years later, and just before Bichard Cromwell resigned the Protectorate, Prynne (who in the meantime had not been allowed to sit) went down to the Lobby intending to demonstrate to the House that " their New Common Wealth (or Good Old Cause) was originally projected by the Jesuites, and other foreign Popish Enemies," that the Long Parliament was absolutely dissolved by the King's beheading, that the Commons sitting since that date had sat illegally, and that the monarchy ought to be speedily restored. Prynne published " a true and perfect Narrative of what was acted and spoken" in the Lobby on the seventh and ninth of May, 1659, dedicating it to the whole English Nation, but " especially those Yianders and free Burgesses of the Borough of Newport in Cornwall (who without Mr. P. his Privity or liking, unanimously elected him for their Burgesse.")* But Prynne was never again returned for Newport, and with this pamphlet his connection with the borough ceased. To obtain some idea as to what was passing in Launceston itself during the years immediately succeeding the close of the Civil War, it will be needful to turn to the Parish Begister. This record shows that when once the storm had passed the death-rate fell rapidly, but this indication of better times was somewhat neutralised by the lessening number of births and marriages, there being only twenty baptisms in either 1647 or 1649, and only two weddings in 1648. In 1649 there were six marriages, the first of these, between " William White and Mary Corke wid.," being celebrated on January 30, and the contrast between the scene presented on the same morning by the execution at Whitehall and this quiet wedding in St. Mary * This formula is varied in another edition of the pamphlet to "without his Privitie, Solicitation, or good liking." PAST AND PRESENT. 191 Magdalene's cannot escape notice But Launceston, like all other towns of the Kingdom, was soon called upon to realise what this thirtieth of January had brought forth, for, on the very afternoon of the royal execution, the Commons ordered that all Sheriffs and Mayors should notify by sound of trumpet that whosoever proclaimed a new King, either Charles the Second or any other, with- out the authority of Parliament, should suffer death as a traitor;* and to Oswald Kingdon (whose arms as chief magistrate in that year are in the Guildhall window, and representatives of whose family have ceased only within the last few years to be prominent in local affairs) fell the task of making this declaration in the mar- Uet-place of Launceston. The Eegister of St Mary Magdalene's also affords some glimpse of the ecclesiastical controversies of Ihe time. Up to May, 1610, when some of the records were lost,t each child was stated to be " christened," but after the resumption of registration, and when a higher Church doctrine was being preached, although the heading of each page was still " christenings," the word used in all the separate entries was "baptised." This was invariable until 1651-52, in the entries of which years there were various instances of the use of " borne," but these were evidently written in later. In 1653, for the first time, this word was used at the period of entry, though for some months " baptised" was still the regular form. But after July, 1653, the heading was "Birthes" and "borne" was used in each case (except three, two of which are in a later hand), this continuing until March, 1657, when the heading became " Birthes and Baptismes," and after August of that year there was affixed in many cases the date of christening as well as that of birth. It was thus evident that the more strictly Puritan rule was breaking down, and in July. 1660, when Charles the Second had received " his own again," the heading " Birthes and Baptismes " was taken from the page, and the latter word resumed its old monopoly. But it is concerning the marriages of this period that the Register affords perhaps the best indications of ecclesiastical dispute. After the execution of Charles, and when Church affairs were to a great ,* Commons Journals, vol. vi., p. 126. t ante, p. 123. 192 LAUNCESTON, extent in a state of chaos, many marriages which would ordinarily have been solemnised in the country districts had to be celebrated in t iwns, and to Launcestmi flocked couples from South Petherwin and St. Stephens, St. Gennys and Stoke Climsland, St. Minver and Great Torrington, and even (which is difficult to account for) Plymouth and Bodmin. This influx from the outer districts commenced in 1653 and was at its height in 1655 (when, of thirty weddings at St. Mary Magdalene's, sixteen were from outside the borough boundary), there having been passed by the " Barebones Parliament" on August 24 of the former year an Act for solemnizing marriages by justices of the peace. Two months later, " Thomas Eeese being before this tyme duly chosen to bee Parish Eegister within this borrough in obedience and according to the late act of this present Parliament in yt behalfe made & provided was this present day [October 11] approved allowed of and also sworne before mee Richard Grills gentn. maior of this Borrough and one of ye Justices assigned." The St. Mary Magdalene's Register further contains an entry that the same Thomas Eeese was, on November 9, " dulye chosen and sworen Eegister of St. Thomas by Mr. Leanerd Trease." This was almost the last public duty performed by Launceston's then Eecorder, for on March 19, 1654, " was buried Mr. Lenerd Trease Esqre in the Chancell " of St. Mary Magdalene's. It was apparently not for two years after the passing of the Act that justices of the peace were the actual solemnisers of marriage in Launceston. The wedding entries from 1653 onwards to the last days of 1655 are in their customary form, and in the latter year the marriage of John Parker and Anne Glubb "both prisoners" is recorded as if such ill-promising matches were in no way out of the common. But after a marriage of November 27, 1655, and in a blank space left at the bottom of a page so that with a fresh order of things a new leaf might literally be turned, is written in a bold hand, " Hereafter follow marriages by Laymen, according to ye prophanes and giddynes of the times, without precedent or example in any Christian Kingdom or Comonwealth from the Birth of Christ unto this very year 1655." The first of these marriages was celebrated on December 20, when there " were niaried by Mr. Joseph Hull minister PAST AND PRESENT. 193 of this towne in the presents of Mr. Thomas Gewen and John Lampon Esquire and Philippe Pearse gent, and maior of this towne and divers other witnesses Thomas Mill of the psh of St. Gennis and Joan Biam of the same psh having their bannes published Three severall lords dayes in the said psh as aforesaid by a Certificate from John Goutsoe Eegister of the said psh. The said parties afore said were married the same time also by Thomas Gewen Esqre and Justice of the Peace and pronounced by him to be man & wife according to the acte of pliment nowe in force." While the entries of subsequent marriages under this system are not so full, in each case it is stated that the banns were called "without contradiction." In January, 165G, " Phillipp Pearse gentleman and Maior of tliis towne " again officiated, it being noted that the banns had been published "in the Congregation" (the last three words, however, being subsequently struck out), and in the March the banns appear to have been called by his orders "on three severall markett days," but Sundays are named in every other case. This mayor (who, as will subsequently be seen, was a thorn in the side of the Quakers during his holding of office) is specially recorded as having celebrated fifteen marriages, some of which were from Altarnun, Egloshayle, Treneglos, and other out parishes ; and although in the April a wedding was marked as having been performed "by Eob: Bennett Esqr.," a pen was put through the name of the Colonel and that of the mayor was substituted. In October, John Hicks was chosen as the new mayor, and in his year of office he celebrated nine marriages, the banns of only one of which were proclaimed on market days, the others being on Sundays and, as is often mentioned, " in the Church of lanceston." In the next mayoralty, that of Nicholas Comins, who was appointed in October, 1657, seven weddings were celebrated by the chief magistrate, and in one of these again the banns were "published in the markett place of Lanceston Three severall markett days three weekes following without contradiction." In January, lo^s, a couple were married by Comins, and "also by Mr. William Oliver Minister of this Towne" ; and in the next month, for the first time after the new system had come into operation, we find the clergyman acting simultaneously with the justice, the major being 194 LAUNCESTON, in this case assisted by " Thomas Seamor Minister of Luffiugcott in Devon." The lay system then began gradually to disappear ; on March 4, 1658, Colonel Bennett celebrated his only marriage, twelve days later a wedding is entered as having been performed " by Mr. Oliver " no layman being mentioned, and in the next month, when the bride was a " daughter of Nicholas Comins of this Towne gentn. deceased " (and the marriage must have followed hard upon his funeral), no celebrant is named. Richard Grrylls, now for the second time elected as mayor, officiated at only one wedding, and Henry Bennett (not improbably a son of the Colonel), who became chief magistrate in October, 1 659, is not mentioned as having cele- brated any. It was during this period that the South Petherwin Register was commenced. On June 16, 1656, before Colonel Bennett, " Robert Cowling chosen by the householders of this parish of South Petherwin to be their parish Register was approved and sworn," and on the same day the first entry of burial occurs, the first baptism being on August 5, and the first marriage on October 4 (the banns of this couple being noted to have been called on throe previous Sundays).* The minister of Launceston at the time, as has been mentioned in connection with the first of the lay marriages, f was Joseph Hull. If the table of St. Mary Magdalene's incumbents given on the fly-leaf of the Register were chronologically arranged (which it certainly is not) it would indicate that Hull succeeded Crompton in 1642, J but this is by no means certain, the record affording no clue to the holder of the living between Cronipton's death and January 23, 1649, when was baptised " Rubin sonne of Joseph Hull Clarke." After this there are several entries concerning Hull's children ; and, even if there were no other proof that this clergyman was an Independent, it might be guessed from the fact that one of these entries in 1654 is of birth and not of baptism, and that the original name of a son, born in 1651, was partially obliterated, and an insulting epithet substituted, by the same hand which after the Restoration played various tricks with the Puritan references in the Register. But the clearest proof is * As far as the entries in the Register show, there were no civil marriages at South Petherwin. t ante, p. li)2. J ante, p. 156. PAST AND PRESENT. 195 afforded by the circumstance that on October 30, 1655, the Council of State approved "an augmentation of £50 certified by the Trustees for maintenance of Ministers to Jos. Hull, minister of Liunceston, co. Cornwall."* And on December 25 of the same year (for the Puritans rather prided themselves upon working on Christmas Day), a further sum of fifty pounds was granted by the Council on a similar recommendation for the maintenance of the Launceston minister, this it may bo noted being the same amount as wag given to Fowey and to Mylor, but ten pounds more than to Truro and twenty more than to either Bodmin or Padstow, while out of nineteen places assisted in Devon none had so high a grant.f The chronicle of Launceston is curiously mingled with that of religious persecution, and a strange tale has now to be related of the sufferings in the borough of the founder of the Society of Friends. Sewel, in his "History of the People called Quakers," gives a narrative from which it appears that George Fox was arrested at St. Ives, with two of his companions, by a Major Ceely.f who, as justice of the peace, committed them " to the keeper of his highness's gaol at Launceston, or his lawful deputy in that behalf." The first impression of the inhabitants of the town evidently did not prepossess Fox, who describes them in his "Journal" as "dark and hardened." For nine weeks the Friends lay in prison awaiting trial, "and though many were greatly enraged against them, and expected that these prisoners, who thou'd and thee'd all, and did not put off their hats to any man, should at the assizes be condemned to be hanged if they did not pay that respect to the bench ; yet there were many friendly people, out of several parts of the country, that came to visit them ; [and] many were convinced of the truth of the doctrine held forth by them. At the time of the assizes, abundance of people came from far and near, to hear the trial of the Quakers ; who being guarded by the souldiers and the sheriff's men to the court, had much ado to get through the multitude that filled the streets : besides the doors and windows were filled with people looking out upon them. 1 ' • Domestic State Papers, 1(155, p. 402. t Ibid, 16S5-56, p. 72. JOr Seely.a Par- liamentarian Major, and afterwards Governor of St. Michael's Mount, who ten years previously laid prematurely attempted an assault upon Launceston (ante, p. 180), 196 •- LAUNCESTON, The trial resolved itself into a prolonged wrangle between the Chief Justice of England, Glyn, and the accused. Commanded to take off their hats, the prisoners refused, and Fox pleaded not only the Bible but English law to prove that no necessity existed for them to do so. The judge, exasperated at this, cried "Take him away, prevaricator ! I'll ferk him," and the prisoners were accordingly "taken away, and put among the thieves. But presently after the judge called to the gaoler, ' Bring them up again.' This being done, ' Come,' said he, ' where had they hats from Moses to Daniel ? Come, answer me ; I have you fast now.' To this G. Fox replied, ' Thou mayest read in the third of Daniel, that the three children were cast into the fiery furnace, by Nebuchadnezzar's command, with their coats, their hose, and their hats on.' This plain instance stopped him ; so that not having anything else to say, he cried again ' Take them away, gaoler.' Accordingly they were taken away, and being thrust among the thieves, they were kept there a great while," and at length, tired and almost spent, carried again to prison, a multitude of people following them, with whom they discoursed and reasoned at the gaol. In the afternoon they were had up again to the court, their guards having great trouble in getting them through the crowd, and the wrangle was renewed, beginning on the lawfulness of taking an oath, and ending with a demand from Fox, which the judge refused, that their commitment should be read. Fox there- upon asked one of his fellow-prisoners to read it, as he had a copy ; but the judge tried his old remedy. " It shall not be read," he said ; " gaoler, take him away ; I will see whether he or I shall be master." For the third time Fox was removed, and for the third time he was recalled, when he managed once more to defeat the Chief Justice. ' ' He still cried to have the mittimus read ; and the people being eager to hear it, he bid his fellow-prisoner to read it up," which he did according to the copy already mentioned. Major Ceely, having signally broken down in his attempt to prove the charge of treason he had originally brought against the three Quakers, now accused Fox of havi»g in the Castle Green struck him such a blow as he had nevor had in his life. Fox demanded corroborative evidence of a charge which evidently astounded him, but this was not forthcoming, PAST AND PRESENT. 197 Ceely afterwards explaining that the "blow" was simply a rebuff in theological argument; yet the judge once more cried "Take him away, gaoler," " and fined the prisoners twenty marks a piece, for not putting of their hats, and to be kept in prison till they paid the fine : and so they were brought to gaol again." Eef using to pay the gaoler seven shillings a week each for them- selves and as much for their horses, " he grew so very wicked," says Sewel, " that he turned them into a nasty stinking place, where they used to put persons condemned for witchcraft and murder. This place was so noisome, that it was observed few who went into it, did ever come out again in health : . . . and the gaoler would not suffer them to cleanse it, nor let them have beds or straw to lie on . . . And all this could not satisfy the rage of this cruel gaoler, but he railed against them so hideously, and called them such horrible nick- names, that they never heard the like before . . . That this gaoler was so desperately wicked, is not so much to be wondered at, since (as they were informed) he had been a thief, and was on that account burnt both in the hand and on the shoulder ; and the under gaoler in like manner : their wives had also been burnt in the hand. It was not at all strange then, that the Prisoners suffered most grievously from such a wicked crew ; but it was more to be wondered at that Culonel Bennet, a Baptist teacher, having purchased the gaol and lands belonging to the Castle, had there placed this head gaoler. It was much talked of, that spirits haunted this dungeon and walked there, and that many had died in it ; some thinking to terrify the prisoners therewith. But G. Fox told them, that ... he feared no such thing ; for Christ, their priest, would sanctify the walls of the house to them." The suffering Quakers having petitioned the Quarter Sessions at Bodmin, the justices "gave order, that the door of Doomsdale (thus the dungeon was called)* should be opened, and that they should have liberty to cleanse it, and to buy their meat in the town . . . They also sent up a relation of their sufferings to the protector ; who - i * Tradition lias it that Doomsdale was situated at I he eastern (rate of I lie Castle, being an inner chamber of a part of the gateway, of which the, outer portion is still to he seen ; if this be so, Fox's unquiet resting-place is now [lsst] a stable in the occu* pation of Mr. Diriidey. l&S LAtJNCESTOtf, thereupon sent down an order to the governor of Pendennis Castle, to examine the matter." About the same time one of Fox's friends " went to Oliver Cromwell, and offered himself body for body, to lie in Doomsdale prison in his stead, if ho would take him, and let G. Fox go at liberty. But Cromwell said he could not do it, for it was contrary to law ; and turning to those of his council, • which of you,' quoth he, • would do so much for me if I were in the same condition.' " Thus the Friends continued in prison, but not under such severe restrictions as previously. Quakers from all quarters of the kingdom came to Launceston to visit them ; and though Fox tells us that " those parts of the West were very dark countries at that time," he and his companions now had liberty to walk in the Castle Green, where on Sundays they used to preach and hold disputations with professors of other forms of Christianity, "and a great convincement began in the country." Fox mentions that he was often in personal danger because of his preaching, and narrates how once a soldier drew his sword upon him, and how at another time his gaoler allowed into his cell a man who purposed to slay him with a knife. The next year " the wicked gaoler received a recompense of his deeds ; for he was turned out of his place, and for some wicked act was cast into gaol himself ; and there his carriage was so unruly, that he was by the succeeding gaoler put into Doomsdale . . . and so died in prison." Eetribution is not, however, recorded for the perjured Ceely nor for the then Mayor of Launceston,* who " was a fierce persecutor, casting in prison all he could get ; and he did not stick to search substantial grave women, for letters, as supposed." Fox, however, took a somewhat ingenious revenge upon him. " A young man having como to see us, who came not through the town," he says, ',' I drew up all the gross, inhuman, and unchristian acts of the Mayor (for his carriage was more like a heathen than a Christian), to him I gave it, and bid him seal it up, and go out again the back way ; and then come into the town through the gates. He did so ; and the watch took him up, and carried him before the mayor, who presently searched his pockets and found the letter, wherein he saw all his actions characterised. This shamed him so, that from Philip Fearse. tAST AND fllESE&T. 199 that time lie meddled little with the servants of the Lord." It appears, however, that, even after this, the mayor conspired with the gaoler to detain, until it was too late to be of service, a cheese which the wife of one of the Quakers had sent for his use. After remaining in gaol six months (for their commitment was dated January 18, 165G) the Friends were released on July 13, having been much comforted during their detention by the visits of many fellow-believers, one of whom, AnneDownes (who came from London to Launceston at Fox's special request, "to buy and dress their meat" and to assist them in other ways, " for she was a good writer, and could take things in short-hand") was the first woman Quaker who preached publicly in the metropolis. Fox left behind him in Laun- ceston a " little remnant of Friends that had been raised up there while [he was] in prison," whom he visited when he returned to the town a very short time after his liberation. He twice more came into Cornwall— in 1659 and in 1GG3— but he does not appear to have again set foot in our town, though, on his last visit, when he was at Stoke, he held a large meeting which was attended, as he notes, by some Quakers of Launceston. To this account, it may be added, still using Fox as our authority, that the imprisoned Friends were much grieved by the light-hearted- ness of the dwellers in Launceston. They protested, but fruitlessly, against Major-General Dcsborough (who had been sent down by Crom- well to offer them liberty if they would promise to go home and preach no more) playing at bowls in the Castle Green with the justices and others.* Fox subsequently drew up an address "To the Bowlers in the Green," " to all you vain and idle-minded people, who are lovers of sports, pleasures, foolish exercises, and recreations, as you call them," warning them to consider of their ways and repent. Furthermore, observing while he was a prisoner, "how much," to use his own words, " the people (especially they who are called the gentry) were addicted to pleasures and vain recreations," he was * Although bowling lias died out ol the list of Launceston amusements, Fox's warning diil not prevent it from being practised for many years after his time. Tonkin notes in 1781 the bowling-green of Mr. Samuel Line; and the cemetery below the Walk (closed in 1881 by order of the Home Secretary) is spoken of l>y the older inhabitants even now as " The Bowling Green," that being the purpose for which the plot was originally used. 200 tAtrNCESfott, moved before he left the place to issue a solemn warning to tbem not to misspend their time. The whole subject is of such interest that some further details, given by Edward Pyot, one of the sufferers, may be appended, taken from a pamphlet published the year after the occurrences, a portion of the title-page of which runs " The "West answering to the North in the fierce and Crucll Persecution of the manifestation of the Son of God, As appears in the following short Relation Of the unheard of, and inhumane Sufferings of Geo. Fox, Edw. Pyot, and William Salt at Lanceston in the County of Cornwall, and Of Ben. Maynard, lames Mires, Ios. Coale, la. Godfrey, Io. Ellice, and Anne Blacking, iu the same Gaole, Town, and County . . . Also A sober reasoning in the Law with Chief justice Glynne concerning his proceedings against Geo. Fox, E. Pyot, and W. Salt at Lanceston Assizes 25. of the 1. month 1656. in a Letter sent to him by the Prisoners."* After Betting forth the circumstances of the arrest, the pamphlet deals at much length with the charges brought against the prisoners, and proceeds to describe the scene at the Assizes, on the second day of which they were put forward, " multitudes of people being in and about the Court, and in the Town." A letter is then given, written to the judge by Pyot " from the Gaole in Lanceston the 4. day of the 5. month, 1656," protesting against the imprisonment, but the details of the trial itself are lightly passed over. The gaoler is stated to have been anxious that the prisoners should pay their fines forthwith, as they had been " a great curb to the prophane swearing, and drinking, and cursing, and blaspheming, and gaming, used by them who came to drink strong drink in his house, and to use vain pleasure in the prison green " ; but finding they would not do so he treated them in the scandalous fashion described by Fox, and here detailed in terms too strong to admit of quotation. They were joined in prison by one Benjamin Maynard, "who for standing still in Lanceston Steeple-house, and speaking not a word, till violent hands were laid on him, and he haled near the dore, was committed " (by • " London, Printed for Giles Calvert at the West end of Pauls, 1657 " : this is a pam- phlet of 172 pages, the first 165 of which are mainly devoted to the Quakers' sufferings at Launceston. PAST AND PRESENT. 201 Recorder Gewen it is stated in another place), and this sufferer " having put up a paper in the prison green against pleasures, the Gaoler . . . broke forth in great fury against them, and abuses, and by the haire of the head put Benjamin Maynard down into Dooms- dale, amongst the felons, reviling, and reproaching him, and the other prisoners exceedingly." On the evening, not long afterwards, when Fox and his friends were themselves thrust "into a low place in the prison called Domesdale," the gaoler let in upon them " some of his Consorts, viz. Degorie Pearse, Francis Oliver, and William Walsh, wicked and prophane men, to abuse them ... of which [and of being beaten the same night by the gaoler] they complained to the Major [Mayor] of the Town, but he took no notice thereof " — the local chief magistrate, as a matter of fact, having no control over the prison, the gaoler being sufficiently audacious to threaten that "if the Mayor come there, he would put him by the heels." Subsequently " to Thomas Gewen Judge of the Court, was the Eepresentation of the sufferings of the Prisoners by the Gaoler delivered, who grasping it in his hand, and wrumpling it, put it in his pocket, and said he would make Mum of it, and abused the Messenger with slighting language." Gewen was strongly prejudiced against the Quakers, and when a lame girl of the town, who was their servant, was accused before him of breaking into their prison, and Colonel Bennett pointed out the absurdity of the charge, he put aside the Colonel and gave his decision against the girl. It was no wonder that Pyot should exclaim, " In this kinde of persecution the town of Lanceston leads, T. Gewen aforesaid the Eccorder thereof is of Counsell, Philip Page [Pearse] the Mayor begins the execution." As to the latter, one instance of his persecution will suffice : Salt, after his removal from Dooms- dale, was allowed out on bail, but, upon returning from a walk towards Poison Bridge, he was seized and searched by order of the Mayor, who "to the darke house committed him." When General Desborough came to Launceston (staying " at a largo house in the Town"), ho consulted with the Sheriff and the magistrates, and "his just and even carriage " changed the whole aspect of affairs ; the gaoler was dismissed, the justices became civil, and the judges of assizo gave the prisoners good usage, Desborough directing that they should bo 202 LAUNCESTON, immediately discharged upon condition that they repaired to their homes. After the General had left the town, Colonel Bennett had an interview with the Quakers, and finding they would give no promise "he friendly parted from them," and shortly afterwards freed them unconditionally. Suit and Coale (two of the Friends) were soon again in trouble for preaching, and were once more sent " from Constable to Constable to the cruell Gaole at Lanceston." They were tried at the Quarter Sessions at Bodmin, where Bennett, perhaps tired of the Quakers and all their works, did his best to secure their conviction, and " they were remanded to Lanceston Prisoners, being thus returned in the Kalendar : William Salt, and Joseph Coale, for refusing to behave themselves peaceably while they be in the Coun- trey." The relation, without telling us what was their fate, then winds up with a long exhortation to " Poor Colonel Bennet," who is told that all his struggles in favour of liberty had been hollow and unreal, and that he had better set his house in order while yet there was time. Fox and his fellow-prisoners were not the only Friends whom Launeeston Gaol received. Humphrey Lower, of Bodmin ("a grave, sober, old man," says Fox in his Journal, " who had been a justice of the peace,") visited them while in our prison, and became so convinced of the truth of their doctrines, that, in 16jS, for not attending the national worship, and for refusing to enter into a bond to appear at the assizes, he was committed to Launeeston, where he continued until the gaol-delivery, when he was discharged without trial. Two years later, after the Restoration, upon declining to take the oath of supremacy, he was again imprisoned at Launeeston for a shortpcriod; but nothing served to break his spirit, and Fox mentions large and satisfactory meetings held at his house in 1GG3 and 18(38, and says that he continued serviceable until his death, the date of which is not recorded. There was also Nicholas Jose, of whom Fox speaks as "an honest fisherman," who, becoming a Quaker in 1659, "was a great sufferer, both in loss of goods and imprisonment in Launeeston Gaol, Pondennis Castle, and other places ; indeed scarcely a year passed over without his being called on to suffer severely in some way or other for the testimony of a good conscience."* * George Fox, Journal, vol. i., p. 350. PAST AND PRESENT. 203 Of Bennett and Gewen, both of whom were so prominent in connection with these Quaker persecutions, the time has come to speak more at length. Robert Bennett, Colonel in the Parliamentary service and staunch supporter of Cromwell, was the son of Richard Bennett, Counsellor-at-law, of Hexworthy, Lawhitton, and was born at that place in 1601. He was fifteen when his father died, and the earliest indication of his connection with public affairs is given by Clarendon,* who names him as commander in the autumn of 1643 of twelve hundred foot and three hundred horse which attempted to surprise Colonel Digby at Torrington, but were defeated in the effort, the next hint of the side he adopted during the War being the tradition already noted, f to the effect that it was at his residence that Cromwell sojourned during his three days' stay in 1646 in the neigh- bourhood of Launceston. Bennett's thorough sympathy with the most advanced section of the Parliamentarian party was shown in 1649, when at the Quarter Sessions at Truro he justified the trial of the King " by scripture, law, history, and reason" ; and for his services to the cause he was appointed Governor of Pcndennis Castle and St. Michael's Mount. In the next year, when the Duchy property was sold by order of the State (a Parliamentary survey of the whole having previously been taken), Bennett, in addition to other purchases of messuages and manors, bought " the honor with the appurtenances and sundry other premises and fee farm rents " of Launceston Castle, together with the deer-park, and " the reliefs payable by the tenants of sundry lands of the Castle of Knight's service,"! this being, by the way, not the first time that premises had changed hands in L luncestou because of a revolutionary effort, certain rents and tenements in the town having been seized by Henry the Eighth in ld'M upon the attainder and execution of the Marquis of Exeter as a supporter of Cardinal Pole.§ This purchase by Bennett was pointedly referred to by both Fox|| and Pyot,** each expressing surprise that one who pro- fessed Christianity (and Bennett appears to have been a strict Baptist) should have kept in office such a wicked gaoler as he under whose rule they suffered so much. • History of the Rebellion, vii., 104. t ante, p. is.-,. + Cok-'s Ms. extracts from the Duchy Records, p. 218. § ibid, i>. S04. ante, p. W. ♦♦ The West Answer- inir to the North, p. 'is. 204 LAUNCESTON* 111 the same year as that in which he became possessed of Laun- ceston Castle, Bennett was authorised by Parliament to raise a force of a thousand foot in Devon and Cornwall, and the financial difficulties consequent upon this and other military matters caused frequent correspondence between the Colonel and the Council of State, one of his letters, dated from Hexworthy in January, 1651,* being preserved at the Record Office. On April 29, 1653, when there was appointed a temporary Council of State, Bennett was one of the thirteen of whom it was constituted, among his colleagues being Cromwell and Desborough.f Two months later, when the "Barebones Parliament" was named by Cromwell himself, Bennett was nominated one of the four members for Cornwall,! and was about the same time placed upon a more regularly constituted Council of State§ ; but in the December, upon the " Barebones Parliament" yielding up its powers to Cromwell, the Colonel was not included in the new Council. || In the next year another Parliament was called, in the summoning of which Cromwell anticipated the Reform Act of 1832 by disfranchising most of the smaller boroughs (including Newport), by taking away one member from Launceston, and by giving representatives to Leeds and Manchester.** To that House, Bennett (who is described in the return as an alderman of Launceston) was elected for our borough, ft but he had no seat in Cromwell's last Parliament, summoned to meet in September, 1656, and dissolved in February, 1658. J! When Richard Cromwell's Parliament was called in January, 1659, however, and the old system of representation was returned to, "Domestic St;uc Papers, 1651, p. 25 ; sec also the same for 1649-50, 1651-52, and other years during the Commonwealth. tlbid, 1652-53, p. xxiv; David Masson, Life of John Milton, vol. iv., p. 4!)8. } Parliamentary History, vol. iii., p. 1107. § July 9, 1653: ( lommons Journals, vol. vii., p. 283. Out of 212 meetings of the Sixth Council, Bennett was present at only 71, a lower total than that of any other of the thirteen members originally appointed; in August and September out of 75 meetings he attended none, and was' at only eight meetings of the 152 in October, the last month of his holding office. (See Domestic State Papers, 1652-53, p. xxiv and foil.) These figures may not improbably account lor his not being reappointed. || Parliamentary History, vol. iii., p. ] HO. **Ibid, pp. 1418-19 : it is of interest to note that while Cromwell allowed twelve members to Cornwall (eight for the county and one each for Launceston, Truro, Penryn, and Looe), the Reform Act of 1S32 allowed fourteen, and that of 1867 thirteen, as against forty-three in older days. ttAccording to the Official List he was returned for Lobe on July 12, 1654, as well as for Launceston on July I!, while, according to the Parliamentary History (vol. iii., p. 1128), he was elected for Launceston alone, tj The Olfi cia'l List places "no returns found " against the county of Cornwall ; but Bennett is nol named as a member of this House in the list given in the Parliamentary History (vol. iii., p. 1 I7!>), or in "A Perfect List of the Names of the Several Persons returned to serve in this Parliament L65C," published in London in that year, and a copy of which is now in the Grenyille Library, PAST AND PRESENT. 20j Bennett was chosen with Gewen for Launceston, while for Newport, now for several years unrepresented, were elected William Morice and Sir John Grenville.* In the discussions in February, 1659, upon the Bill to recognize Bichard Cromwell as Frotector, Bennett twice took part, on the first occasion urging caution as to how they pro- ceeded,t and on the second advising, under the existing circumstances, the appointment of a Protector supported by two Houses, t In a subsequent debate he advocated a House of Lords with certain reser- vations^ and though, in a later one still, he expressed the opinion that " hereditary legislature has been destructive to the people of the nation," he was sufficient of a practical politician to add "I am for a government with defects rather than for none at all."|| Our last glimpse of Bennett in this Parliament is in connection with his having, contrary to rule, left the assembly during a debate, but upon his pleading that he had only gone out for "the despatch of some private and particular affairs of his own, which required some haste," the Commons " rested satisfied."** Four days after this the House was dissolved at the bidding of the army officers, and of the "Bump," formed of the remnant of those who had continued to sit after the execution of the King, Bennett was one, ft he having in 1G51 been returned to the Long Parliament for West Looe.JJ In the political strife which followed the resignation of Bichard Cromwell, Bennett appears to have been a partisan of Fleetwood, §§ but he was not elected to the Convention which restored Charles the Second ; and, deprived of his constableship of Launceston Castle by the victorious Royalists, he retired to his seat at Hexworthy, where he died, and was buried in Lawhitton Church, on July 0, 1083, in his seventy-ninth year. Thomas Gewen, of Bradridge, in the parish of Boyton, was as sturdy a Presbyterian as Bobert Bennett was an Anabaptist. At a much earlier date than that at which the latter came into public in it ice, the former was an auditor to the Duchy of Corn wall, j|| of which * Official List of Members, vol. i., p. 507, (no members are here given, however, for Xiu p irl i ; Parliamentary History, vol. iii.. p. 1531. t Feb. 8, 1669 : Diary of Thomas Burton, vol. iii., p. 188. JFeb. 14: [bid, p. 265. § Feb. 19: Ibid, p. 359. March 5: [bid, vol. i v., p. 29. ** April 18: [bid, p. U9. tt Parliamentary History. vol. Hi., p. 1547 ; as this was not anew Parliament the Official List contains no re I of lis members. X' Oct, 28, 1651 : Commons Journals, vol. vii., p. 31. >i J mh. -li, i860: [bid, p. 820. Domestic State Papers, 1628-29, pp.7 ana r>7.""> ; there hit entries referring to him (in the former as "Gowen") under date March 5, 1628, and June 12 L629, 206 LAUNCESTON, office he was deprived before the outbreak of the Civil War.* The reason for this may have boen his taking sides against the Court in the political disputes then raging, for when the Rebellion came to a head he was appointed by the Parliament to be a member of the Cornwall Committee which had to see to the speedy raising of money ' ' by taxing such as have not at all contributed or lent or not according to their estates and abilities."! Our next glimpse of Gewen is in June, 1644, when the Commons " referred to the Committee at Ply- mouth to examine the Business concerning Mr. Thomas Gewen of Plymouth,"! and in January, 1647, he was elected member for Laun- ceston. In the July, when by the action of the army eleven of the more prominent Presbyterian members were excluded from the House, and the citizens of London, headed by their Common Councilmen, reinstated them, Gewen "spake modestly in their behalf."§ He had not, however, as he was told by the next who addressed the House, spoken so modestly at a meeting of the Common Council, for, though in Parliament he denied any intent on the part of the City to raise a new war, he had advised the Councilmen to "Up and be doing." After this, Gewen was in frequent encounter with the military party, who did their best to rid themselves of such a determined opponent, || and he was one of those excluded by "Pride's Purge."** Gewen's strong self-will is noted by Pyot, who, when referring to him as the chief Launceston persecutor of the Quakers, observes "This is he (as is said) that was one of the secluded Members of the long Parliament, who after the Kings death being asked, in whose name the Orders of Court should pass, answered in the name of T. Gewen Esquire Recorder of Lanceston, when as the Act of Parliament said, In the name of the Keepers of the Liberties of England, who in disdaine and scorn asked who they were, Who in the last Parliament, was very zealous for a King and a House of Lords. "tt These • This is to he gathered from the Thirty-ninth Report of the Deputy Keeper (Appendix, p. 4f)<;), in an account of a suit of October 13, 1037. t " An Ordinance of the Lords and Commons for the speedy raisin}? of Money. Printed May 11, 1613" ; the list of the Cornwall Committee (in which Gewen is called "Thewen") is on p. 3. J June 1, Kin : Commons Journals, vol. iii., p. 514. § Parliamentary History, vol. iii., p. 907; the account is stated to have been supplied by a member. || Commons Journals' vol. v., pp. 259, 296, 806, &c. ** Ibid, p. 1248 ; Somers' Tracts, vol. vi., p. 38 : in the list (riven in the latter Gewen stands seetnd and Prynne fourteenth of the twenty Cornish members excluded, only four meml ers for Cornwall being left in the House. ' ft The West Answering to the North, p. 67. PAST AXD PRESENT. 207 concluding words, published as they were in 1657, show that Gewen (who was naturally not selected by Cromwell to be in the "Barebones Parliament," but who was chosen one of the eight representatives for Cornwall in 1654 and member for Launceston in 1G50) had advocated a Cromwellian monarchy and a House of Lords at an earlier date than that at which any other record appears of the fact. On the day of the opening of the Parliament of 1654, the Commons being in a difficulty because they had been summoned on a Sunday, and not feel- ing certain whether it was lawful even to adjourn on that day, Gewen had stopped the profitless discussion, and, "standing in his place, and, by general consent of the House, pronounced the adjournment."* He next figures as a petitioner to the Commons, f and in 1658, when member for Launceston, he moved "for a convocation, or as- sembly of divines, which was in all former Parliaments " — his object being to revive the Presbyterian system which at the beginning of the Rebellion had been so powerful; but "this motion stood along time still," and after discussion it was agreed to waive it for the present "J A few days later, he was again on his legs, defending from a charge of corruption the party to which he had belonged in the "Long Parliament," and denouncing the accuser as " a thorough paced Republican. "§ The next week he proved how entirely he meant the taunt by moving " That now we are a free Parliament, we would draw up a Bill to invest His Highness in the title and dignity of King, Providence having cast it upon him "; || but the proposal (which was similar to one carried twelve months before and put aside by the Protector) came to naught, for the very next day Cromwell, weary of the continual talk of the House, dissolved the Commons. In Richard Cromwell's Parliament, Gewen, who again sat for Launceston, affirmed that his "opinion always was, and is, that a well-regulated monarchy is best."** About the same time he argued that the old peerage should hav? restored to it its legislative functions, pointing out that unless this were done the Lords might be induced to " brine * Sept. S, 1054 : Commons Journals, vol vii., p. 80S ; Burton's Diary, Introduction, p. xviii. + November 2, 1864: Commons Journals, vol. vii., pp. 380-1. ' J Jan. 21, L658: Burton's Diary, vol. ii., p. 388. § Jan. 29 : Ibid, p. 802. | b'eb. 3 : p. 424. There is, by the way, no record of such a motion either in the Parliamentary History or the Commons Journals. ** Feb. 0, LOfiO; Burton's Diary, vol. i'ii.. p. 180. 208 LATJNCESTON, in Charles Stuart " ; * and in a subsequent debate be reaffirmed the right of the original peers as a matter of strict law, winding up by- exclaiming, " I know my twenty-four letters as well as the learnedst man."t Later he protested vigorously against members for Scotland and Ireland being allowed to sit in an English Parliament : "it is not for the honour of the English nation," he said on the first occasion, " to have foreigners to come and have a power in the legislature " ; J "it were better both for England and IrelandthattheyhadParliaments of their own," was his utterance on the second. § He made one more speech in that House, this time in defence of the liberties of the subject, declaring he "would not have men sold like bullocks and horses."|| and then came dissolution. He was too firm an opponent of the army to be a member of the "Rump," but when the Convention was chosen in the spring of 1000 he was returned once more for Launceston, and without doubt as a supporter of the Restoration. By the Act of Oblivion he was replaced in his offices under the Duchy,* ' but he did not long enjoy the privilege, for he died in the autumn after the King's return, and his posts were given to Sir William Morice.ff It has been noted} t that to Richard Cromwell's Parliament William Morice, of Werrington, was returned for Newport. He had previously sat in the House, having been elected for Devon in August, 1648,§§ and he was one of those excluded in "Pride's Purge"||i|; to the Parliament of 10 30 he was again chosen for Devon,*** and soon showed himself in opposition to the Cromwellian party which endeavoured to exclude him.+tt Clarendon describes him as "aDevonshire gentleman, of a fair estate and reputation, a person of a retired life, which he spent in study, being learned and of good parts, and [he] had always been looked upon as a man far from any malice towards the King, if he had not good affection for him, which they who knew him best * Feb. 28 : Ibid, p. 5-2!). t Starch 5 : Ibid, vol. iv., p. 22 ; it is hardly necessary to point out that '■tli'' Learnedst man" would now need to know twenty-six letters. J March 11 : Ibid, p. 130. § .March •>:> : Ibid, p. 240. March 30: Ibid, p. 304. ** It is so stated in a petition to Charles II., summarised in Domestic State Papers, 1660-61, p. 805. ++ December, 1660: Ibid, p. t.'i.'S. ft ante, p. 205. §§Official List, vol. i., p. 437. According to Somers' Tracts, vol. vi., p. 38 (being there placed ftrsi nil the list of fifteen Devonshire members excluded), but his name does not occur in the list given in the Parliamentary History, vol. iii., p. 1248. *** A Perfeci List [1656 . t+t Parliamentary History, vol. iii.. pp. 1486-87. PAST AND TKESEiS'T. 209 believed him to have in a good measure."* He had control of Honk's Devonshire estate, and he informed the General that in the West "the King's restoration was so impatiently longed for, that they had made choice [for the Convention, to which he was returned for Newport with Sir Francis Drake] of no members to serve for Cornwall or Devonshire, but such who they were confident would contribute all they could to invite the King to return."! His colleague in the negotiations with Monk was his fellow-member for Newport in 1659 — John Grenville, eldest son of Beville, and afterwards Earl of Bath. Upon the death of his father at Lansdowne, and before he was six- teen, Sir John had put himself at the head of a Cavalier regiment, and in 1644 he was wounded at the second battle of Newbury. He remained faithful to the royal cause through all its vicissitudes ; and in 1660, having become known to Monk through bestowing the living of Kilkhampton upon the General's brother, he was the principal intermediary between Monk and Charles during the negotiations which led to the hitter's restoration.! For their services Grenville was thanked by the House of Commons and created Earl of Bath, and Morice was made a baronet and one of the two Secretaries of State. The elections to the Convention Parliament produced a dispute as far as Launceston was concerned. It was reported to the House of Commons that Thomas Gewen and Edward Elliot had been returned " by the proper onicer,"§ and they were, therefore, allowed to sit until another certificate, bearing the name of Sir John Clobery, had been examined. In the result, Clobery was seated instead of Elliot, || andhavingalso been elected for Hedon (Yorkshire) he chose to repre- sent Launceston.** Morice also had been doubly returned for New- port and Plymouth, and, on his deciding to sit for the latter, a new writ was issued for the former, ft Lawrence Hide being selected to succeed him.} J In the spring of 1661, when a Parliament was called which lasted eighteen years, Richard Edgcumbe, of Cothele, and Sir Charles Harbord, the Surveyor- General, were sent up for Launceston, and Sir Francis Drake and John Speccott, of Penheale, for Newport. * History of the Rebellion, x\ i.. 162. t Ibid, 161. J Biographia Britannica, vol. r. .. pi'. 2817-2342. A full account "i these transactions is given by Clarendon, svi., 162 Mini loll. - May •"'. 16(50 : Conunous Journals, vol. viii., p. 13. June 23 : Ibid, |>. 77. *» Jul\ 6 . Ibid, p. B2. t+.juh L2 : Ibid, p. 88, *4 tag. 20i Official List, vol. i., p. 5i^. 210 launcesioX Harbord, wbu had been chosen also for Hindon (Wilts) and who elected to remain member for Launceston during this "Pension Parliament,"* is described in a publication of the time, attributed to Andrew Marvell, as "first a poor Solicitor, now His Majesty's Sur- veyor-General, and a Commissioner for the sale of the Fee-farm Rents, "t and in another pamphlet (for discovering the author of which a reward of two hundred pounds was offered by proclamation) he is said to have " got £100,000 of the King and Kingdom," and to have been " formerly a solicitor of Staple's Inn, till his lewdness and poverty brought him to court." Edgcumbe was attacked in the former work because he had married a daughter of the Earl of Sand- wich, one of the chief promoters of the Restoration, but both members f i r Newport were left alone. Drake, however, deserves mention here, for it was he who founded Werrington Park, having been granted on April 10, 1631, a licence under the privy seal " to impark lands in the parishes of Warrington (sic) and St. Stephens, near Launceston, with grant of free warren therein, &e."J Sir Francis, according to Sir William Pole,§ " here built himself a faire house," and a stone was still to be seen at Ham Mill|| some years ago bearing the inscription " A.D. 1641, Francis Drake." The then owner of Werrington sided with the Parliament during the Civil War, being one of the Devon Committee in 1643 for the raising of money,** and it is stated by Gilbert! t that he had his lands confiscated by Charles the First, and that these were given to Sir Richard Grenville, being restored to Drake only on the overthrow of the monarchy. To say the least, this is exceedingly doubtful, but it seems probable that the story of Prince}! that Drake sold Werrington to William Morice about 1650 may be true. By his ownership of that property, however, and his subsequent election for Newport he established the connection between the " Werrington influence" and our parliamentary borough which has only recently disappeared ; and, as nephew of the great circum- navigator, he added another link to the chain binding Launceston to some of the most notable of the Elizabethan heroes of the sea, for * M i.v n, 16(51 : Commons Journals, vol. viii., p. 246. t Flagellum Parliamentarian), )>. i. J Forty-third Report of the Deputy Keeper. § Quoted by N. H. P. Lawrence iu Werrington and it>> Possessors. || ante, p. 16. ** "An Ordinance of tlie Lords and Commons," p. 'i. ++ History of Cornwall, p. 521. %% Worthies of Devon, PAST AND PRESENT. 211 Sir Richard Grenville, as has been observad,* had been one of his predecessors in the representation of Newport, and Sir John Hawkins, now perhaps chiefly remembered as the founder of the Virginian slave-trade, was grandson of John Hawkins, of Tavistock, who mariied a daughter of one William Amydas, of Launceston.f In the autumn of 1660, the Convention adopted a measure which indirectly affected our town, in that it abolished the claims of the Crown to reliefs and wardship, and did away with knight-service. The latest record we have of an actual suit in wardship, touching " lands in Cornwall, held by knight's service, as of his Majesty's castle of Launceston," was in October, 1640, not long before the outbreak of the Rebellion.} The " profits of the reliefs of the manors of Trematon and Launceston " appear to have been given about this period to "Walter Langdon,§ a zealot in the Royalist cause, but he complained in 1663 to Charles the Second that " the wars and then the taking away of the Court of Wards deprived him thereof. "|| Bennett, when he purchased the Castle from the Parliament,** became its constable, and was succeeded in that office, at some time unrecord- ed, by Thomas Rosso, of whom all that we know is that in April, 1661, Launceston Park was demised to him for thirty-one years at an annual rent of ten pounds,ft and that on the following July 19 there was made a "grant to Philip Piper, on surrender of Thos. Rosse, of the office of Constable of Launceston Castle. "JJ This grant could only have been given iu recognition of the services of Philip Pyper's father, Sir Hugh, §§ for Philip himself (who afterwards be- came an alderman of the borough and died in the spring of 1678) was only some fifteen years of age when it was made.|||| The Castle, when Philip Pyper became its constable, was prac- tically in ruins. In the Wars it had suffered grievously, not so much from assault as from the manner it which it had been treated by those who were supposed to be its defenders*** ; and the parliamentary survey of 1650tft described it as being much out of repair, the hall and chapel * ante, p. 97. t Prince; Worthies of Devon, p. i:-2. J Domestic state Papers, kho, p. 217. § ante, p. 188. || Dec. 9. 1663 : Domestic State Papers, 1663-64, p. 368. '* ante, p. 208. tt Domestic State Papers, 1660-61, p. 578. it Ibid, 10t;i-<;2, p. 40. §§ ante, p. 175. || ] According to bis memorial in St. Mary Magdalene's. *** ante p. 1*2. ttt Referred to in Cole's MS. extracts from the Duchy Records, p. 20S. 212 LAUNCESTOJJ", being level with the ground, and only one old tower, then a prison, in reasonable repair. It remained, however, even after this as a military centre. In 1653, there was born in Launceston the daughter of " a trumpeter," this being the first time a soldier had been men- tioned in the Register for some years, while there were buried "Major Halfys in the Chancell " in 1657, and "William Homes Late of Lon- don a souldier under the comand of Captaine Engelsby," and " William Baylye of the psh of Oarton in Northampton sheere A Trooper under the comand of Captaine Rogers" in 1658, these being the last soldiers named. And as the Castle and the prison were so closely linked, it may here be noted that "Hugh Wooger The old Exo- cutioner" was interred in our church on March 26, 1660. The year 1662 is one worthy especial remembrance in the history of Launceston, and according to a publication of the time it was memorable not only locally but throughout the country. In this pamphlet, which is a description of " Mirabilis Annus Secundus ; or The Second Year of Prodigies," we have " A time and impartiall Collection of many strange Signes and Apparitions, which have this last Year been seen in the Heavens, and in the Earth, and in the Waters." Among the many wonders " now Published as a Warning to all Men speedily to Eepent, and to prepare to meet the Lord, who gives us these Signs of his Coming," there were some from Launceston. One of these came under the heading "Prodigies in the Heavens," and the account relates that " upon the 16th of February 1661 [1662, N.S.], being the Lord's day, and two dayes before the great Wind, there was seen over St. Stephens near Lanceston in Cornwal, a great Blazing-Star, with a Bow, and an Arrow, and a Dart coming out of it "; while " much about the same time, in an evening, were seen over Lanceston in Cornwal, Two Moons, by some persons of consid- erable quality and credit in that place, who have testified the truth of it " (the St. Stephens star, by the way, having been "seen by above Twenty credible persons, inhabitants of the said place, who do confirm the truth of the Relation to all that make enquiry after it.") Nor did Launceston come behind with " Prodigies in the Earth," for it was here that " an Ewe brought forth a Lamb which had one head and two bodies, and eight legs " ; and " much about the same time PAST AND PRESENT. 213 also, a Woman of St. Ginuis, six miles from Lanceston . . . was delivered of four Children at a Birth, viz. three sons, and one daughter, who dyed presently ; but the three sons lived to be baptized, and were named Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego ; but they are all three since dead," the truth of the former prodigy being guaranteed to "appear to any who have opportunity to enquire after it," and the account of the second having been "received from a person of eminency and honesty, who lives near the place, and hath assured us of the truth of the whole Relation. " But it was not only in such matters as these that 1662, as far as Launceston was concerned, is worth remembering, for it was now that the town contributed another victim to religious persecution. We have had Protestant persecuted by Catholic, Catholic by Protestant, and Quaker by Puritan, and now we have Puritan by Episcopalian. In 1662, the Act of Uniformity enforced the use of the Prayer Book, and the Prayer Book only, in all public worship, an unfeigned consent and assent being demanded from every minister of the Church to all which it contained; and, on St. Bartholomew's Day, the last day allowed for compliance with its requirements, nearly two thousand rectors and vicars, or about one-fifth of the English clergy, were driven from their parishes as Nonconformists, one of this number being William Oliver, pastor of St. Mary Magdalene's. The name first occurs in the Launceston Registers in connection with a marriage of February 3, 1648, between " William Olliver and Alice Midleton," but it is improbable that the bridegroom was the same as he of whom we are now speaking, as the ejected clergyman, who was born at the end of 1627, did not matriculate until December 3, 1648.* He was admitted chaplain of Exeter College by order of the Visitors in January, 1651, a position which he resigned in October, 1653 ; and on November 23, 1655, when he received his degree of Master of Arts, he was described as " formerly of this and of the other University, now a minister of the Gospel in the remoter parts of this nation." Launceston, however, could nothave been these "remoter parts," since Joseph Hull is mentioned as having officiated at a marriage a * Bonse, Exeter College, p. 70. 2 14 LAUNCESTON, month later than this date.* When Hull died is unrecorded, but the first mention of Oliver as " Minister of this Towne " is in connection with a wedding of January 5, 16o8.f In September of the same year, when the birth and baptism of his daughter Honor were separately entered, some words were written after his name, probably describing his pastoral position, which were afterwards completely scratched out ; but the same process (which was very frequently employed in Restoration days upon the entries of this period) was not so successful in the entry of baptism of Oliver's son William in July of the next year, for, despite the combined efforts of knife and pen, " pastor of the Church of this [town] " is still to be distinguished as having been written after the minister's name. According to Baxter,J Oliver's father, " who was a Gentleman of this County, gave him a liberal Education. He was a Critick in the Latin and Greek Tongues . . . He was a good Scholar and an excellent Preacher ; for which he was much valu'd by the Gentry of Cornwal and Devon. Mr. Secretary Morice had a great esteem for him, and gave him a Yearly Pension for the support of his Family, after he was Silenc'd."§ In a later edition of the same work,]| it was added that Oliver " kept a School in this Town, bred many good Scholars, and died a Lay-Conformist." It was while head-master of the Launceston Grammar School that another son was born to the ejected minister,** but the spirit of religious faction was so strong that even now, eighteen months after his expulsion, the word "Clearke" originally appended in the Register to the father's name was elaborately struck out. Oliver made his peace, however, with the dominant Church before his death on July 6, 1681, and a eulogistic Latin inscription on his memorial stone in St. Mary Magdalene's graciously allows him to have once held the office of pastor. * ante, p. Iii2. t ante, p. 193. It may be noted that on May 20, 1658, "was Buried Deborah Oliver the daughter of Samuel 1 Oliver pent., And Pastor of Wells in Somersett." J Edward (Jalamy, An Abridgement of Mr. Baxter's History of his Life and Times [1713], vol. ii., p. 147. § Morice is described by Green (Short History, p. G05) as " a steady Presbyterian." It is recorded by Baxter (vol. ii., pp. 240-1J that "Mr. Morice ... wrote for a promiscuous Admission to the Lord's Table; in Answer to it, Mr. Sanders [incumbent of Holsworthy] wrote an Antiadiattibe, or an Apology for Administering the Lord's Supper to a select company only, 8vo. 1055." || A Continuation of the Account [1727], vol. i., p. 212. See also Samuel Palmer, The Nonconformist's Memorial (based on Calamy) [1777], vol. i., p. 2S0. In both these later editions it is asserted that Oliver's Christian name was John and not William as correctly stated in the original work. ** Baptised, April 20, 1061. PAST AXD PRESENT. 216 The Minister of St. Mary Magdalene's was one of some thirty- nine or forty ejected in Cornwall under the Act of Uniformity, of whom only six conformed after having been silenced.* But this clean sweep of the Puritans did not suffice to satisfy the more intol- erant among those opposed to them, as is evidenced by a letter of the gentlemen of Cornwall, addressed from Launceston to the Earl of Bath on February 7, 1663, which stated that "the King's late clemency has wrought so little on disingenuous spirits that the same destructive principles are lodged within, and will appear it their counsels ripen"; and these zealous defenders of Church and State wound up by asking " whether those who live under the protection of law should not give assurance of loyalty by conforming thereto."! In the same year it was reported to London that seven Quakers had been apprehended in Somersetshire and had been sent thence to Launceston Gaol J ; and there was " "Written in Bridewel,§ near Lanston, in Cornwall, the 11th Moneth. 1664," a violently-entitled pamphlet directed against the Church of Rome, the work of a suffering Quaker named Josiah Coale, who is not, however, to be confounded with the Joseph Coale imprisoned at Launceston nine or ten years before. || Concerning one of the Cornish sufferers under the Act of Uniform- ity, something in the shape of a miracle was performed. Joseph Sherwood, incumbent of St. Hilary, continued after his expulsion to preach at St. Ives, and for one of his sermons was committed, by a local justice named Robinson, to Launceston Gaol. Upon hearing the decision, " Mr. S., looking him full in the face, said ' Sir, if you die the common death of all men, God never spake by me.' He was then committed to gaol ; where he gained so much respect that he was permitted to walk about the town. It was not many days after this transaction, that Mr. Robinson walking in the fields, was met near a gatebyabull, that had been remarkably tame. His maid who had been milking the cows, was then standing before her master. * Calamy, Abridgment, vol. ii., pp. 186-60. t Domestic State Papers, 1663-64, p. 57. t Nov. '.*, 166S ; [bid, p. :;:s.'5. § Tins is the flrsi mention of a Launceston Bridewell ; it wns placed next the workhouse in the i 1 I Exeter-road, and, having in the later virus of its existence been mainly devoted to the punishment of refractory paupers, was abolished when the new Poor Law came into operation. II ante, )>'. 200. Joseph Coale, who die-1 in Reading Gaol in 1670, is believed to have been about 19 when be Buffered at Launceston ; Josiah Coale, who died in 1668, was about 82 when in our prison, 216 LAUNCESTON, The bull pushed her gently aside with his horns, and running upon the magistrate, he instantly tore out his bowels."* In another version cf the story, given in the same work from which the foregoing has been extracted, it is stated that it was while Robinson was on his way for a warrant to send to Launceston Gaol another expelled clergyman, Mr. Tregosse, of Mylor, that this judgment fell upon him. The chronicle of a town of such antiquity could scarcely be con- sidered complete without a ghost- story, and though that with which Launceston was in some way connected was not of an astoundingly remarkable character, it was fortunate, at least, in its historian, who was none other than the author of " The Remarkable Apparition of Mrs. Veal," Daniel Defoe. The latest biographer of the writer of "Robinson Crusoe" gives a description both of the ghost and the publication concerning it which may well be quoted. " On the 18th of June, in the same year [1720] there was published a pamphlet of two and a half sheets, entitled 'Mr. Campbell's Pacquet, for the Entertain- ment of Gentlemen and Ladies. Containing ... an account of a most surprising Apparition sent from Launceston, in Cornwall, Attested by the Rev. Mr. Ruddle, Minister there.' I have only now to do with the third section of this pamphlet, which occupies from pages 20 to 33 inclusive, and is headed ' A Remarkable Passage of an Apparition, 1665.' There can be no more doubt that this was written by Defoe than that he wrote the Apparition of Mrs. Veal . . . The professed relator, Mr. Ruddle, a young clergyman, kept a school in Launceston, and some of his scholars died of a disease that happened in the town. Among them was John Elliott, the eldest son of Edward Elliott, of Treberse, Esq.* At the youth's request Mr. Ruddle preached a sermon at the Funeral, 'which happened on the 20th day of June, 1665.' An Ancient Gentleman in the Church was much affected by the discourse, having a son who, a few months before, had a character like that given of young Elliott ; but had changed greatly to the affliction of his parents. The old man afterwards addressed Mr. Ruddle, and impor- tuned him to visit him at his House. There seems to have been * Calatiiy's Baxter, A Continuation of the Account, p. 213, the story being stated to be " from a pood Hand." t Third son of Sir John Eliot; he was boin in 1619, and was elected member for Launceston in the Convention of 1660, but the return was rejected by the Commons (ante, p. 20!>J. PAST AND PRESENT. 21 Y considerable difficulty in fixing a day convenient to all parties ; but at last, on arriving, he found there a Brother of the Coat, a neigh- bouring Minister, and as soon as an opportunity occurred after dinner, the two clergymen went into the Garden, where Mr. Euddle learnt that this poor Boy had grown melancholy from being, as he stated, haunted with a Ghost. After several conferences with the parents, it was agreed that Mr. Ruddle should talk with the boy alone, before giving his advice. ' He told me,' Mr. Ruddle says, ' with all naked freedom, and a Flood of Tears, that bis Friends were unkind and unjust to him, neither to believe nor pity him, and that if any Man (making a bow to me) would but goe with him to the Place, he might be conviiic'd that the Thing was real,' etc. ' This Woman which appears to me (saith he) lived a Neighbour here to my Father ; and dyed about eight years since, her name Dorothy Dingley, of such a Stature, such Age, and such a Complexion.' She met 'him on his way to and from School, morning and evening, in a Field called the Higher Broom Quartils.' He began to be much alarmed and says ' Then I changed my Way, and went to School the under Horse- Road, and then she always met me in the Narrow Lane, between the Quarry Parke and the Nursery, which was worse.' He goes on to describe his growing horrors : 'Night and Day, Sleeping and Waking, the Shape was ever running in my Mind, and I often did repeat these Peaces of Scripture (with that he takes a small Bible out of his Pocket), Job 7, 14 — Thou scarest me with Dreams, and terrifiest me through Visions ; — and Deut. 28, 67 — In the Morning thou shalt say, would God it were Evening,' &c, &c. At last his misery became unsupportable, and he told his Brother William, who acquainted their Parents. Mr. Ruddle, by arrangement, went next morning with Master Sam to see the Spectrum. He says, ' The Field he led me to, I guessed to be about twenty acres, in an open Country, and about three Furlongs from any House.' Both saw the Ghost, but had no communication with it then, and Mr. Ruddle was compelled to return to Launceston the same evening. He could not go again in consequence of his wife being taken ill, until three weeks afterward, but ho says, ' I studied the Case, resolving by the help of God to see the utmost.' After several visits to the Field, generally alone, all of 218 LAUNCEStOJf, which are described in the most circumstantial manner, he persisted on Thursday, the 28th of July, 1665, in speaking to it 'until it spake again, and gave me Satisfaction. But the Work could not be finish'd at this time ; wherefore the same Evening, an Hour after Sun-set, it met me again near the same Place, and after a few Words on each side it quietly vanished, and neither doth appear since, nor ever will more, to any man's disturbance. The Discourse in the Morning lasted about a quarter of an Hour.' He then solemnly affirms the truth of his narrative, answers the arguments urged by the incredulous, and fortifies himself in a Postscript, by referring to the ancient Fathers of the Church, and quoting from St. Cyprian, and Pamelius's notes on Tertullian. It is observable that he artfully conceals every word of his discourse with the Ghost, intending no doubt to leave that to the individual imagination of the reader, but assigning as his reason, ' I being a Clergyman, and young, and a stranger in these Parts,* do apprehend silence and secrecy to be my best security. In rebus abstrussimus abundans cautela non nocet.' The Account is subscribed with the date, September 4th, 1665. "f The apparition thus described has always locally been known as " The Trebursye Ghost," but some latter-day narrators have placed it much farther down in the county than the immediate neighbour- hood of Launceston. According to Drew,J the Rev. John Puddle showed his powers of exorcism ' ! in a field about half a mile from Botaden or Botathen," in the parish of Little Petherick, between St. Columb and Padstow ; and the Eev. R. S. Hawker, of Morwynstow, in his " Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall, "§ adopts this view in his narrative of "The Botathen Ghost." The Little Petherick theory, however, does not at all fit in with the earliest printed relation — that of Defoe — Little Petherick being somewhat too far from Launceston for an incumbent of St. Mary Magdalene's to have been running thither night and morning. The Rev. F. Jago-Arundell * Ruddle was nt this time about twenty-nine years of age, and had liecn incumbent of Launceston for a little over eighteen months. t William Lee, Life of Daniel Defoe, vol. i., pp. 3'23-4. A very similar narrative is friven, though in greater detail, in C. S. Gilbert's History of Cornwall, vol. i., pp. 115-19., published in 1817, and also in a manuscript account of the tradition, written in the early years of this century by George Farthing, great-uncle of the present Author, and read by Mr. E. Itobbins before the Launceston Working Men's Club in 1864, but now unfortunately missing. % History of Cornwall [1821] vol. ii., pp. 018-51. § 18,70 ; pp. 103-21. PAST AND PRESENT. 219 ( who vouched for the fact that the account given by C. S. Gilbert was discovered by him in the course of his antiquarian researches — which were especially directed towards a history of Launceston — and was in the handwriting of Huddle himself) believed that the apparition made itself visible near Trebursye. His opinion was shared by Mrs. Bray, who made the story the basis of her novel, " Trelawney of Trelawne," and who was so convinced that it was a ghost of the vicinity of our town that she fell into the singular error of imagining that the name " Dorothy Dingley " was a fictitious one, designed to spare the feelings of relatives, because she had "never heard of it in Launceston or the neighbourhood" ; and she argued that it was likely to be Durant (as in some versions*) because she remembered "a tall respectable man of that name in Launceston. "f And not only are these opinions, as well as the detailed description of the locality given by Defoe, in favour of the tradition that the apparition was seen near Trebursye, but there is the convincing fact that the name of the ghost-ridden boy was Bligh, and that the family of Bligh had its home for generations at Botathan, in the parish of South Petherwin.J And, therefore, although when the Eev. F. G. Lee published in 1875 his "Glimpses of the Supernatural," and therein§ unhesitatingly accepted the story as true, his belief was laughed at by such grave journals as the Examiner and the Athenaeum, it is as well, as long as the apparition is spoken of at all,|| that it should be spoken of in its old and correct fashion as " The Trebursye Ghost." John Ruddle, Ruddell, or Rudall, who is mentioned so promi- nently in this narrative, took the degree of Master of Arts at Caius College, Cambridge, in 1G62, and, according to our Register, " began his ministry at Lanceston at ye Feast of our saviours Nativity, 1GG3,"** he then being some twenty-seven years of age ; and there are entries in 1GG4 and 1GGG of the baptism of two of his sons, in 1GG7 of the * It is to be noted that in a deed of 1457 granting his hinds at Landue and Hendra to John Page, .lolm Bligh, of Botathan, is described as "Johannes Blyghe als. Durant :" this document was in the possession of the latu Mr. Northmore Lawrence. (New Parochial History, vol. Lv., p. 66.) t -Mrs. Bray's General Preface to her collected works. % New Parochial History, vol. iv., p. 66. § Vol. i., pp. 58-9. || In the latest ghost book (J. II. Ingram's " Haunted Eomes of Great Britain," pub- lished in 1884) it is accorded a place, while the Rev. .1. M. Neale, in "The Unseen World " 1.1858]. describes it as " one of the mosi remarkable stories" related in his volume uiid as bearing " the very impress of truth " (i>. 115). •• Not 1668, us stated inng me very impress ol trutn" lp. 115). iu the liibliuthucu Comubkusis, vol. ii., p. COG. 220 LATJNCESTOtt, death, of his first wife,* and in 1671 of tho marriage of "Mr. John Huddle Minr. of this town and Mrs. Mary Bolythoe." In 1679 he was appointed vicar of Altarnun,t and in an inscription on the com- munion rails in that church, cut in 1684, he is described as "minister of Lanceston, preh. of Exon., and vicar of this psh.," he having been made prebendary of Exeter in October, 1680. He held all these preferments until his death in January, 1699, when he was buried in our church at the age of sixty- two. J This " fanatical minister of Launceston," as some of his critics have called him,§ is probably responsible for many of the polemical alterations in the Eegister already noted ; and it was during his tenure of the living that the Eegister closed, all the entries for the two or three years after 1670 being struck out with the appended remark " These are entred in ye new Booke."|| Before losing sight of the old Eegister, some of its entries not previously dealt with may be noted. It is stated in it that on August 20, 1653, there was " Collected in ye towne & parrish towards the reparation of ye sad & lamentable loss at Marlborough in Wilts by orde from ye Councill of State ye sum of Fifty fower shillings."** On September 1, 1661, there was " Colected in ye Church of Mary Mag- dalen in Lanceston towards a loss by fire att ye Citty of Oxon lis lid," and " The same day Colected towards ye loss by fire att Fronnington 11. 7d."; while on November 12 of the same year there was "Colected in this Towne toward ye losses of the protestants in Lytuania £2. 3s. 8d." A month later the sum of seven shillings was gathered * There is a monument to her memory (but none to that of the second wife) in St. Mary Magdalene's, with an epitaph of eight lines entitled " The Husband's Valediction." t Huddle had provided himself with a curate for Launceston Ions before, for, according to the Register, "John Byrne was made Deacon of ye chirche of St. Mary Magdalen Lanceston 7bre [September] ye 20th 166S" : " Richard ye son of John Eymc dark" was baptised July 24, 1671. t He was succeeded, according to the fly-leaf of the old Register, by "Mr. Nathanioll Bough ton [who] began his ministry heare ye 25th March h'.'.i'.i." § He was evidently strongly opposed to the Puritan partj, and he sup- plied, much information concerning the Royalist clergy of Cornwall to the Rev. John Walker, for that author's "Account of the numbers and sufferings of the clergy," pub- lished in 1714 (vide Preface, p. xxv.) || There are two other Parish Registers of Launceston in existence, our covering the period from 1071 to 1812, and the other that from 1813 to 1S37. The fly-leaf of the former bears the inscription "A Register of the Parish of St. Mary Magdalen Launceston begun in the year 1671 John Ruddle Minr.": there is no name on the fly-leaf of the latter. For this information and for great kindness concerning the earliest Register the Author is indebted to the Rev. C. 10. Gandy, curate of St. Mary Magdalene's. ** This is signed "Joseph Hull pastor [the name being afterwards partially erased] Francis Glanvill Henry Hickes church. wardens." PAST AND PRESENT. 221 " towards the Reliefe of JBullinbrooke in Lincolnshire," and of nine shillings "towards ye Eeliefe of Bridgnorth in ye County of Sallope"*; while in 1G62 twenty shillings and fourpence was raised in St. Mary Magdalene's " Toward the Kebuilding of ye Church of pontifract," and seventeen and ninepence " towards the churcho for Fakinghara in Northfolke," in 1663 seven shillings "towards the Eepairing of the Church of liniington in the Countyo of Southampton," and in 1664 four and ninepence each "for the Eepairing the Church of Withingham in Sussex," and " the Church and Steeple of Sandwich in the Countyo of Kent," five and elevenpence " towards the Eebuilding the Church of St. Michaels in Scmersett," and seven nnd twopence for the same purpose for "the Church of Basing in Southampton." All these collections for church repair are in the years immediately following the Eestoration, and are a sure indication of the widespread ecclesi- astical destruction which had marked the reign of the Puritans, but which, although Launceston was more than once in their power, never affected the edifice dedicated here to the Magdalene. There has now to be considered the commencement of the attempts to take the county assizes from Launceston, which, beaten back for a time, were again and again repeated until in the early years of the eighteenth century one assize was secured for Bodmin, and fifty years since the other. From the very earliest days of the holding of assizes, those for Cornwall, with but few exceptions, had been held at Laun- ceston. It has been statcd| that it is not improbable that the semi- financial assize of 1177 was the first of the series, and in 1260, when the King of the Eomans removed the assizes to Lostwithiel, the burgesses of Launceston protested with such effect that, upon payment of a fine, they had the assizes again.* Edmund, the next Earl Cornwall, disregarded this arrangement, and regave the assizes to Lostwithiel, but Launceston once more reclaimed them § In 1337, when the Boll of the Seisin was taken, our burgesses complained that Ear] Richard had removed the assizes to Bodmin and Earl Edmund to Lostwithiel, || but although the commissioners dismissed the plaint * John Worsey and Alexander Morlye were now churchwardens. tante, p. S3. t unto, p. 89. § ante, p. 52. || According to Maclean nm- Rfinor.vol. i.. n. 106J assizes had been held at Bodmin in the reiien of Henry I II. as well as in L811 and L881, and at Lostwithiel in kjis. 222 LAUNCESTON, because the townsmen "shewed no reason save of prescription,"* we find only one further instance of the Cornwall assizes being elsewhere than at Launceston, and this in 1393, when, in consequence of the Plague, they were transferred to Saltash.f Four years later all likelihood of dispute was ended by the passing of an Act declaring that they should be held at Launceston and not elsewhere. j As far as can be learnt no attempt was made to alter the settle- ment of 1397 until after the Eestoration. In 16G1, a petition was presented to the House of Commons " of the Gentlemen, Inhabitants of the County of Cornwall, "§ ' ' for removing Assizes f rom Launceston to Bodmin, "|| but it was "laid aside."** This easy method of dealing with the matter did not commend itself to those who wished for change, and, apparently despairing of moving the Commons, they appealed direct to the King. On January 25, 1665, " the Gentlemen of Cornwall now serving in Parliament," presented a petition to Charles " for transfer of the assize courts from Launceston to Bodmin, where is a public hall and all necessaries"; for, they urged, "the former place is in one end of a county eighty miles long, is incon- venient to witnesses, jurors, and suitors, and improper in taking the deputy-lieutenants and other officers so far away from some parts of a county exposed on two sides to the sea." Launceston's reply was presented to the King simultaneously with the challenge, the Mayor and his brethren asking " that the assizes and gaol delivery of the county, held there by ancient charter, and the chief support of the town, may not be removed, as proposed by some gentlemen of the county, to Bodmin, a mean town, lying twenty miles further within the county, and inconvenient for the judges by the badness of the ways." Both petitions were referred to the Attorney-General, tt and there for some years the matter rested. Early in 1671 the attention of Parliament was definitely called to the question, and, on March 10, "a Bill for settling the Assizes in the County of Cornwall " was read a first time in the House of * ante, p. 54. t Rot. Pari. III., 320. % Edward, Prince of Wales, nflcrwards Edward V., granted, however, another charter of assize in 1475. § June? 15, 1(501 : Commons Journals, vol. viii., p. 271. The petition was the first business of the dav, but it was merely " read," not so much as its object beinsr mentioned in the Journals. || Note Book of Sir John Northcote, p. 135. ** Ibid, tt Domestic State Papers, 1664-65, p. 179. PAST AND PRESENT. 223 Commons without a division.* Four days later the second reading was similarly agreed to, and tlic measure was immediately referred to a committee which included "all that serve for Cornwall or Devon. "f On the twenty-fourth the opponents of the Bill asked " that a further Day be given for hearing the Matter," but this was defeated by forty- three votes to twenty, Sir John Cory ton, member for the county, and Sir Charles Harbord, member for Launceston, being the tellers for the minority, and Mr. Ford and Mr. Spryo (representing re- spectively Tiverton ani St. Mawes) thoso for the majority. J After some postponements, the committee reported the Bill with amendments on April 8, and, these being agreed to by the House without a division, the measure was ordered to bo engrossed. § Up to this point there is nothing in the Journals to indicate the intention of the enactment, but, on April 1 1 , it is stated that "the ingrosscd Bill for holding the Summer Assizes for the County of Coinewall at Bodmin, was read a Third time." On the question " That the Bill do pass," the House divided, and it was carried by forty-nine to thirty-one, Sir Jonathan Trelawny (Cornwall) and Mr. Roberts (Bossiney) "telling" for the majority, and Sir John Coryton (Cornwall) and Mr. Vaughan (Hereford) for the losing side. || Sir Jonathan Trelawny immediately carried the Bill up to the Lords, and, on the same day, the Peers, having read it a first time, "after some Consideration had thereof " ordered "That some Person or Persons sufficiently authorized from the Town of Launceston . . . shall appear at the Bar of this House within Ten days after Notice given hereof to the said Town in order to their being heard before the said Bill be read the Second Time in this House."" Things had progressed so pleasantly for Bodmin in the Commons, where no especial thought was taken for the place to be injured by the Bill, that it was not until the Lords directed the "Town of Launcestontobeheardaboutit,"tt that Bodmin conceived the measure to bo in peril. Steps were then taken to avert the danger ; the Mayor of Bodmin bought a "town linro" whereupon "Warden Kessell" * <''>" ns Journals, vol. i\.. p. 216. t [bid, p. 219. J I hid, p. 2ii. §Ibid, p. 232. || Ibid, p. 233. •• April 11, 1071 : Lords Journals, vol. xii., p. 435. ttlbid, in margin, 224 LAUNCESTON, did " ride to London about the assizes," receiving two payments of five pounds each " for labour and paines." In addition, the Mayor records having " paid by myself towards the charges of the carrying on the business of the assizes at London" a similar sum, as likewise did Mr. Humphrey Williams, while "Mr. Kichard Opie disbursed tenne poundes on the same."* Kessoll received his first five pounds on May 10, but on May 16 Parliament wasprorogued without anything farther being done about the Bill, whioh consequently dropped with the termination of the session. On August 24, when the Mayor of Bodmin entered up his various payments, it must have been with sadness of heart for so much money fruitlessly expended, even the " town mare," on which Warden Kessell had had his adventurous ride, selling for much less than it had cost. And although it was apparently only by accident that the Bill had failed, not far short of half a century elapsed before the Cornwall assize question was heard of in Parliament again. While all this was going on, changes were taking place in the parliamentary representation of Launceston and Newport. Sir Francis Drake, member for the latter, died at the end of 1661,t and against the election which followed and at which Piers Edgcumbo the younger was returned, Henry Ford, of Nutwell, Devon, petitioned on March 24, 1G62J ; on the following April 29, the day appointed for hearing the case, " Mr. Edgcomb, who is concerned, being at a great Distance, and depending upon the Adjournment of the House, could not attend, or bring up his Witnesses," and it was ordered that the matter should be adjourned over the recess. § Although the result is unrecorded, it is certain that Edgcumbe was seated, || for on March 25, 1GG7, ho having died, Nicholas Morice was returned in his stead.** On January 28, 1678, a writ was issued for Newport in the room of John Speccott, deceased, tt and for this vacancy was elected Ambrose Manaton, a son of the member for Launceston in the Long Parliament. His return was petitioned * Bodmin Mayor's Accounts: Maclean's Trigg Minor, vol. i., p. 107. t A now writ was issued Jan. 17, 1662: Commons Journals, vol. viii., p. 346. J [bid p. 394. § [bid p. 415. || Ford, during the existence of this same Parliament, had his revenge upon the town Tor his rejection by .Newport, for, having been chosen for Tiverton at a bye-election in April, 1664, he acted as "teller" in 1<;71 for the majority in favour of depriving Launceston of the Summer Assize (ante, p. 223). ** Official List, vol. i. p 520 tt Commons Journals, vol. be., p. 127 : Speccott was buried at Egloskerry, Jan. 10, 1678! PAST AND PRESENT. 226 against by John Coryton* (son of Sir John Coryton, the friend of Launceston on the assize question!) and by Sir Walter Young, \ both petitions being referred to the Committee of Elections and Privileges. As this body apparently did nothing in the matter, Coryton again petitioned three months later,§ and Young once more closely followed suit, || the latter now claiming that he " was duly elected and ought to have been returned." Both petitions were again referred to the Committee of Elections and Privileges, but once more nothing seems to have been done. In no way daunted, Coryton in the autumn handed in another petition, on this occasion alleging that Manaton "was returned but by One of the Vianders of the said Borough ; whereas the Two Vianders make but one Officer ; and that the Petitioner was duly elected, and ought to have been returned " ; and the Commons, for the third time referring the matter to the Elections Committee, added the instruction that it was " in the First place to examine the Merits of the said Return."** Young, again two days behind Coryton, handed in his third petition also, and once more it was sent to the Committee, tt but up to the time that Parliament was dissolved on January 24, 1679, nothing whatever was done to settle the matter. At the general election of February, 1679, Coryton obtained the seat he had so long struggled for, Manaton, his old antagonist, being his colleague, while Sir Charles Harbord was re-elected for Launces- ton, Bernard Grenville, son of Beville and younger brother of the Earl of Bath, \\ taking the place of Bichard Edgcumbe.§§ "John Maurice, Merchant*' petitioned against Coryton's return as an " Injury of the Petitioner who was duly elected, and ought to have been returned, "|| || but the Commons sent the complaint to the Elections Committee, and nothing more was heard of the subject. When this Parliament was dissolved, after sitting only four months, John Coryton, who had now come into the baronetcy, was chosen member for Launceston with Sir Hugh Pyper,*** while his brother and successor in the title, William Coryton, was returned for Newport together with Manaton. +ft Sir John Coryton died the next year, and Charles, Lord Lansdownc, I '■!>. 20, 107S : Coiniihiiis Journals, vol. ix., p. H2. t auto, p. 223. % Full. 23, 1678: Com as Journals, vol. ix., p. in. § May 28: [bid, p. 482. |[ May 26: [bid, p. Kf. *♦ Oct. 28: [bid, p. 618. tt Oct. 26: [bid, p. 621. tt ante, p. 209. §§ Official List, vol. i., i>. 634. liil March 20, KIT'J: Commons Journals, vol. ix., p.671, *•♦ unto, p, no. ttt September, 107U : Official List, vol. i., i>. 640, 226 LAtfNCESTOtt, eldest son of the Earl of Bath, was elected in his stead.* The new member for Launceston was barely of age when chosen, and lie did not remain our representative more than the few months which elapsed before the dissolution. Three years later he achieved dis- tinction for his bravery under John Sobieski, King of Poland, in the decisive victory over the Turks near Vienna, in September, 1683, but his end was a sad one. His father died in London in September, 1701, and, while making preparations to take the body to Kilkhamptonfor interment, Lord Lansdowne accidentally shot himself with a pistol he was examining, and both father and son were buried at their Cornish home on the same day. When the Parliament of 1681, which sat but a week, was called, Ambrose Manaton was re-elected for Newport, having William Morice, son of the Werrington baronet, as his colleague, while with Sir Hugh Pyper there was returned for Launceston a stranger to the district, one William Harbord. * Nov. 19, 1G80 : Ibid. The writ had been issued on October 26 : Commons Journals, vol. ix., p. 639. VII.— From the Return of William Harbord to the Disfranchisement of Newport (1681—1832). E have now touched the high-water mark of local history, and what is left to be considered is a time of gradual decadence. The words which Macaulay applied to the Taunton of 1685 apply with almost literal force to our own borough. Launceston, "like most other towns in the south of England, was in that age more important than at present. Those towns have not indeed declined. On the contrary, they are, with very few exceptions, larger and richer, better built and better peopled, than in the seventeenth century. But though they have positively advanced, they have relatively gone back. They have been far outstripped in wealth and population by the great manufacturing and commercial cities of the north, cities which, in the time of the Stuarts, were but beginning to be known as seats of industry." At that time the town "was an eminently prosperous place. Its markets were plentifully supplied. It was a celebrated seat of the woollen manufacture. The people boasted that they lived in a land flowing with milk and honey. Nor was this language held only by partial natives ; for every stranger who climbed the graceful tower of Saint Mary Magdalene owned that he saw beneath him the most fertile of English valleys. It was a country rich with orchards and green pastures, among which were scattered in gay abundance, manor houses, cottages, and village .spires."* Lord Macaulay, History of England, vol. i., p. 285. 228 LAUNCESTON, PAST AND PRESENT. Within the next century and a half much of this was changed. Details of interest are still to be found : now some noted prisoner is to be tried, now some criminal condemned to death to be petitioned for ; now the inhabitants complain that their letters are not delivered in due course, and now some more than usually renowned member is sent to Parliament ; now a Wesley visits the town on a mission of faith, and now a Howard on an errand of mercy : but the symptoms of decay are abundant. One assize is removed to Bodmin, to be followed in the present century by the other, the borough is deprived of tbree of the four members previously returned for Launceston and Newport, the trade in woollen goods leaves the district, and the population stands still or actually decreases. Of late years there has been a slight revival : the Castle has been to some extent, but to a sadly inadequate one, preserved from immediate fall ; a railway has been opened to bring the town once more into that connection with the rest of the kingdom which was almost broken when the mail coaches from London to Falmouth ceased to run ; houses have sprung up more abundantly than for many previous years ; and the population has once more slightly increased. But the Launceston of later days is not the Launceston of ages ago, and the more romantic study in local history is that of the far past. At the opening of the period with which we have now to deal Launceston was still, as for centuries it had been, the chief in all respects of Cornish towns. Carew had observed at the beginning of the seventeenth century that it exceeded even Truro in its buildings though perhaps not in its riches, and Hals at the end of the century endorsed the remark, while Kneebone, who compiled in 1684 a history of the Hundred of East,* described Launceston as in a " flourishing condition, and the inhabitants, by their industry, very wealthy." And besides the added source of prosperity given to the town in the passing through it for a century and a half of the passengers and mails landed by the packets at Falmouth, and hastening on to London, the contin- ued holding here of the assizes not only twice every year brought much money into the borough, but contributed to the intellectual * This remains unpublished ; a copy was in the possession of the late Mr. Northinorc Lawrence. LAUNCESTON, 229 edification of the inhabitants by the incursion of counsel well versed in the most recent intelligence from the capital, an important con- sideration at a time when newspapers were practically unknown. It is in connection with these assizes that we catch more than one glimpse of the life of the time. In 1666, for instance, Francis Bellott writing to Lord Arlington's secretary fromLaunceston, having "come in thither from Pendennis for the assizes," tells him that "there are great rejoicings for the victory,"* presumably that in the Channel over the Dutch fleet some ten days previously, when twenty of the enemy's ships were destroyed. And the tone of the public life of the period is indicated in the story told by Hals to the effect that a judge who went the Western Circuit for two or three assizes in the reign of Charles the Second, and who endeavoured when at Launceston to discourage the litigious spirit of the Cornish and to shorten the trials, was the subject of a petition to the King from " the attornies and lawyers of the Western Circuit all in confederacy together, as the shrine-makers of Diana at Ephesus against St. Paul," which petition had such effect that " he was never more seen in these parts " ; "since which time," Hals plaintively adds, "the judges that come this circuit are content to hear with great patience the loud, reflective, perplexed arguments of counsel upon trials of small moment and concern, if not to suffer themselves to be at some times imposed upon in point of law and evidence therein, by the importunate arguments of topping serjeants-at-law, according to the magnitude of the fees they receive from their clients ; so that it is become a proverb among those men in this province, it matters not what the case be so the client hath store of money." It was not only in connection with this just judge that Charles the Second had direct dealings with Launceston. There is preserved in the Corporation records the royal grant on September 30, 1670, of a standard bushel for the borough, and on July 22, 1682, the King gave us a new charter. This step was undoubtedly taken because Launceston was at that time aWhigborough, Charles beingdetennined to manipulate the Corporation to his own ends, and one of the means ho adopted was to expressly reserve to the Crown power ipso fado * August 4, 1000 : Domestic State Tapers, 1000-07, p. 18. 230 PAST AND PRESENT. to declare the Recorder to be amoved from his office without further process. * Two years later the Cornish towns ' 'unanimously and with great chearfulness resolved to surrender their Charters and Franchises toHisMajesty," who "waspleased Graciously to accept of thein,and to command his Lordship [the Earl of Bath] to assure the said Corpor- ations, that he very well remembered the Duty and Loyalty of that County in the worst times of Rebellion, and was well pleased with this fresh Demonstration of it by them."f Launceston, it may be gathered, was one of the towns which had "with great chearfulness " yielded up its charters, even though its latest was only two years old, for three months afterwards, and within a few weeks of James the Second succeeding to the throne, a new charter was granted to the borough, in which the older documents were not recognised. Like others of the same reign this was put aside after the Revolution, though in an electoral dispute of a century later, to be noticed in its place, it was argued, but without effect, that this charter had been accepted by the burgesses as superseding that of Philip and Mary. J Among the Cornish boroughs which suffered a similar fate to Launceston, in thus being for political reasons deprived of ancient rights, were Bodmin, Saltash, Looe, Fowey, St. Ives, and Liskeard ; and, as far as can now be gathered, it was only in the case of the last- mentioned that the validity of these proceedings was contested in a court of law ; at Liskeard one party held by the old charter and another by the new, and it was not until it was decided at Launceston Assizes that the former was void that the dispute ceased.§ In the year that James gave the new charter to Launceston, an official return was issued showing that thirty-two Quakers were imprisoned in Cornwall, a good proportion of whom were detained in our gaol. All these were liberated by the Ring, except those confined for non-payment of tithes, and one of the former was John Peters, of St. Minver, who, having joined the Society of Friends in 1G72, had travelled through the South and West of England preaching the Gospel. His first detention was at Bodmin, "after which, he underwent * First Report from Commissioners on Municipal Corporations in England and Wales [1835], Appendix, Part I., p. 517. t London Gazette, No. 1990: from Dec. 11 to Dec. 15, 1081. % ante, p. 98. § Drew, History of Cornwall, vol. i., p. 033. LAUNCESTON, 231 some Years Imprisonment at Lanceston, for refusing to Swear, in obedience to Christ's Command."* While he was in our gaol, he, with other imprisoned Quakers, addressed a letter "for the King's Judges now in Commission to hold the Assizes or General Goal- Delivery at Launceston, for this oar County of Cornwall," protesting that they were detained " for no other Reason or Crime, but for bearing a Faithful Testimony to the God of Heaven and Earth, and for Worshipping, Serving and Obeying of him, according to his Requirings."f The first of the signataries was Nicholas Jose, Fox's " honest fisherman,"J of whom it is mentioned in the letter (which appears to have been written in the autumn of 1680) that formerly he had been " a Prisoner for the same Testimony near Twelve Years in this Goal," and who had now again been put in prison because "he with others called Quakers [had] peacably met together, waiting in Silence upon the Lord." The specific offence of Peters, who signed second, was that he had conscientiously refused to take the oath of allegiance; and the four fishermen and one "poor old man," who also subscribed their names, had committed the crime of worshipping together in Quaker fashion. Whatever may have been the fate of the others, Peters remained in prison, whence we find him in April, 1683, writing to his wife expressing the cheerfulness with which he bore his bonds. § A few weeks afterwards, he sent "from this our County Goal in the Castle of Lanceston " a letter to " Dr. Reynolds and all others, within this Borough of Lanceston, yea both Priest and People, who are concerned in endeavouring to oppose and hinder that blessed Work of the Lord, which he hath begun, and is carrying on by his own everlasting Arm of Power," warning them not to continue their persecutions, " for it's a dangerous thing for any to be found fighters against the Lord and his People. "|| Three other letters were published as having been written by Peters from Launceston, two of these being to his wife (one of which was penned " when under a sore Exercise . . . being confin'd a close Prisoner"), and the third and last, dated May 17, 1684, being "An Epistle to Friends in Devon and Cornwall." * A Briefe Narration of the Life, Service, and Sufferings, of that Faithful Servant of Jesus Christ, .)'>lm Peters I 1709], i>. 7. t [bid, p. 97. t ante, p. 202. § April s, L6S3 : A Briefe Narration, pp. 102-g. || May l : Ibid, pp. 107-10. 232 PAST AND PRESENT. Side by side with this evidence of the persecuting spirit we find traces of the growth of the more enlightened ideas which were destined to cause persecution to cease. Charles the Second had confirmed to Launceston Grammar School the grant of Elizabeth,* and gratitude for the boon may account for the survival, even to the very few years ago when this establishment mysteriously ceased to be, of an extra- ordinary amount of attention given by the boys to Restoration Day ; any one of these who did not sport a sprig of oak on each twenty - ninth of May was vigorously pinched by his colleagues until he had possessed himself of a piece, and every desk was ornamented with the momorial oak-leaves during school-hours. In the year that this King died, George Baron, of Tregeare, bequeathed by his will, dated October 9, 1685, ten pounds yearly to the school, with a power for himself and his successors to nominate ten boys to be educated there free of expense ; a descendant, one Oliver Baron, restricted this number to five.t at which figure it continued to stand as long as the school flourished, and the " Baron Prize," given yearly by the represen- tative of the family (noAv Mr. J. C. Baron Lethbridge), was among the principal distinctions a pupil could win. One of the fruits of the new Launceston charter was witnessed at the general election of April, 1685, which followed the accession of James the Second, William Harbord, a decided Whig, having to give place as member for the borough to John Grenville, a lad scarcely twenty years of age, and, as son of the Earl of Bath, an undoubted Tory. Sir Hugh Pyper, whose claims were local rather than political, was re-elected, as was William Morice, son of the owner of Werrington, for Newport, the place of Ambrose Manaton being taken by John Speccott, of Penheale.J son of John Speccott, member for Newport in the "Pension Parliament,"§ and grandson of Paul Spec- cott, colleague of Sir John Eliot in 1625, || and again member for the borough in the Short Parliament of 1640.** In the rising under ♦ante, p. 107. tCarlisle, Concise Description of Endowed Grammar Schools, vol. i., p. 139. % Speccott, who subsequently sat in three Parliaments lor the comity, and who was buried at Egloskerry on July 20, 1705, left in his will twenty shillings yearly to the labouring poor of every parish in Cornwall and Devon, where his high and rack rents amounted to tlo per annum. The poor of St. Stephens and St. Thomas are stated to have enjoyed this until about 180G, when the charity disappeared in the mysterious manner in which many such have been swallowed up. § ante, pp. 209-224. || ante, p. 133. ** ante, p. 154. LAtJNCESTOfr, 233 Monmouth Cornwall took no part, and Jeffreys and his "Bloody- Assize " left no mark on the history of Launceston. But the growing exhibition of the King's desire to bring the nation once more into the fold of Rome was too much even for loyal Cornwall. In answer to the Earl of Bath, who had offered the most tempting bribes if they would but support the Sovereign, " all the Justices and Deputy- Lieutenants of Devonshire and Cornwall, without a single dissenting voice, declared that they would put life and property in jeopardy for the King, but that the Protestant religion was dearer to them than either life or property."* The next year the imprisonment of Sir Jonathan Trelawny, one of "the seven bishops," roused the country to frenzy ; and when James fled and there was chosen in January, 1689, the Convention which gave the crown to William and Mary, although Newport re-elected its old members, Launceston sent up two Whigs, Edward Bussell and William Harbord.t The latter had been chosen also for Thetford and Scarborough, both of which boroughs he abandoned to sit for Launceston J ; and, within a day or two of his resolution being announced in the House, we find that, on its being proposed that William should be absolutely King and Mary only Queen Consort, "William Harbord, one of the most zealous of the Prince's adherents, was so much exasperated that he sprang out the bed to which ho was confined by gout, and vehemently declared that he never would have drawn a sword in His Highness's cause if he had foreseen that so shameful an arrangement would be made."§ The arrangement against which Harbord thus energetically protested was not carried into effect, and six weeks later the member for Laun- ceston was enabled to do good service to the new sovereigns. A Scotch regiment on its way to Harwich to embark for the Continent mutinied at Ipswich, declared in favour of James, and marched to the north. " A committee of the Privy Council was sitting when the tidings of the mutiny arrived in London. William Harbord, who represented the borough of Launceston, was at the board. His colleagues entreated him to go down instantly to the House of Com- mons, and to rebate what had happened. He went, rose in his place, * Mucauluy, History, vol. i., ]>. 489. t Russell was a brother of Lord William, the colk'iib'uc ot Algernon Sidney (Ibid, p. bl'M. t February 1, 1689 : Commons Journals, vol. x., ]>. 10. § Macaulay, vol. f>, p. mo. 234 PAST AND PRESENT. and told his story. The spirit of the assembly rose to the occasion,"* measures were immediately taken, and the mutiny was put down. The cause which Harbord then supported was that adopted by the county, the capital of which he represented, for on July 24 of this same year an address was adopted to the King and Queen by " the High Sheriff, Justices of the Peace, Grand Jury, and other Gentlemen now met at the Assizes at Launceston," expressing the utmost thank- fulness for their deliverance from "Popery and arbitrary powers," and hailing their majesties as "the Great Kestorers, Preservers, and Defenders of our Keligion, Laws and Liberties. "t In the spring of 1690 the first of William's Parliaments was called, and to this Harbord was again returned for Launceston ar>d Speccott for Newport, while Bernard Grenville (who had sat for the town in the speedily-dissolved Parliament of 1679, J and who had in succeeding Houses represented Plymouth and Saltash) was once more elected for Launceston, and Charles, Lord Cheney,Viscount Newhaven in the peerage of Scotland (Scotch peers being then, though not now, allowed to sit in our House of Commons), was sent up as second mem- ber for Newport. In the November the last-named, who had been elected also for Harwich, decided to sit for that town, and, a new writ being issued for Newport, § John Morice in the next month was returned in his stead. || There was a contest for the seat, Morice's opponent being Narcissus Luttrell, whose diary is an often-quoted authority for the events of this period. It may be that the diarist had local connections, for in the winter of 1661 there was granted to one Francis Luttrell and his heirs a yearly fair at Penheale,** where the Speccotts, members for Newport, had their residence. But Nar- cissus, whatever may have been the influences exercised on his behalf, did not succeed in obtaining the seat. He complained to the House on the subject, and though the petition was withdrawn " by reason the Prayer thereof was conceived to be irregular, "ff he next day presented another " setting forth, That the petitioner was duly elected * Ibid, p. 675. t This was presented at Whitehall on August 7, 1080, to William " who received it very Graciously " : London Gazette, No. 2177, from Aug. 5 to Aug. 8. t ante, p. 225. § Nov. 18, 1090 : Commons Journals, vol. x., p. 475. || Dec. 16 : Official List, vol. i., p. 664. ** November, 1661, according to the Sloanc MSS. (British Museum, 850, art. 37, fol. 10 b.) ; Dec. 27, 1001, according to Domestic State Papers, 1661-62, p. 192. tt December 31, 1690 : Commons Journals, vol. x., p. 531. PAST AND PRESENT. 235 Ly the Majority of the Electors of the Borough of Newport in the County of Cornwall ; and an Indenture sealed by Mr. Mannaton, a Member of this House,* and one of the Vianders of the said Borough, and the Majority of the Burgesses : But that by an Indenture under the Seal of Mr. Horwell the other Viander, and some others, John Morrice, Esquire, is returned in Prejudice of the Petitioner."! The House ordered that the case should be heard at its bar on that day six weeks, but four days later it adjourned until March 31 , and nothing more was heard of the petition. Luttrell, however, did not lose much by this, for, on October 30 of the same year, "Narcissus Luttrell, esq., of Kenterbury, county Devon," was returned for Saltash.J In the interval between the general election and this disputed return for Newport, Charles, Lord Lansdovvne, an old member for Laun- ceston had been winning fresh laurels in the neighbouring county. A French fleet of slave-propelled galleys having made a descent upon Devonshire in the summer of 1G90, '' the beacon on the ridge over- looking Teignmouth was kindled ; the High Tor and Causland made answer; and soon all the hill tops of the West were on fire."§ Teign- mouth was bombarded and sacked by the enemy, and the Cornish, ten thousand of whom had just previously signed an address of loyalty to the Queen, assembled in strength to assist their brethren of Devon. Lansdowno took command of " the tumultuary army which had assembled round the basin of Torbay," but the French retreated with- out further attack. It is not to be doubted that one of the "hill tops of the West " which flamed forth the alarm on this occasion was the Windmill Hill overlooking Launceston. Standing even higher than the Castle top, a watch house in olden times was placed upon its summit, but long before this was built and for many years after it had disappeared a beacon fire signalled to the hills around when danger was near. As lately as the marriage of the Duke of Cornwall in 1863, a bonfire on this site shed a light over many miles, but prob- ably the last occasion upon which an alarm signal was placed there was at the close of the eighteenth century, when an invasion of tho French was continually expected. " A beacon upon the top of a • Ho sal in this Parliament for Camelford. t Jan. l, 1C91: Commons Journals, vol. x., p. 662. 1 Official List, vol. i., p. 665. It may !><■ noted that Luttrell makes do reference in the famous Diary to his Newport experiences^ § Macaulay, vol. ii., i>. 201. 236 LATJNCESTON mountain, an ensign on an hill," such as that of which Isaiah speaks, must have stood upon Windmill from the very first day of the town's existence until a time almost within living memory ; use for it now has gone, the mention in the borough records of the beacon on the hill is all that is left, except the memory of such announcements to a wondering neighbourhood as it made that night when "the beacon blazed upon the roof of Edgecumbe's lofty hall," when "swift to east and swift to west the ghastly war-flame spread," when the Spanish Armada was sighted off the Cornish coast. It is no long step from the Windmill to the Castle, and just about tbe time when the former was playing its part in national history the condition of the latter was being brought under public notice. " The inhabitants of the county" petitioned the King in 1690 as to the obligation of the Crown or Sir Hugh Pyper, constable of the Castle, to repair the prison, the partitions of which were broken down, "so that the men and women comitted to the said gaole are constrained to bee and lye together."* In response to the petition, which was dated January 29, 1690, the Attorney- General was directed to make a report, and thirteen months later action was taken, though apparently not as a direct consequence of the memorial. On March 3, 1691, William Harbord, who held the office of Surveyor- General, informed the Lords of the Treasury that he had considered the petition of one Thomas Howells seeking the reversion for two lives of the constableship of the Castle, granted by Charles the Second to Sir Hugh Pyper and his son and grandson. The petitioner, in further asking for the usual fee of £13 6s. 8d., offered to put the gaol in good repair for £120 and then to keep it so; and Harbord (recalling to the remembrance of the Treasury the statement of the parliamentary survey of 1650 that the Castle at that date was much in decay, having only two rooms standing, which were used for criminal prisoners) suggested that the prayer of the petition should be granted. This was apparently done, for on January 5, 1692, " Mr. Chancellour " was directed to " give an account of this," and a clause wis drawn up " for the patentees to keep the Castle in repair."t In * Domestic Slate Papers, Treasury Series, 155G-1696, vel. vii. t Ibid, vol. xiii. The original three lives for which the constahleship was granted were not disposed of, however, for many years alter this: Sir Hugh Pyper died on July 24, 1687, Philip Pyper on March '21, 1077, and Hugh Pyper, of Tresmarrow, not 'until Oct. 25, 1754. PAST AND PRESENT. 237 the same year the Surveyor- General had done his last work for both town and nation, a new writ being issued on November 4 " for the Borough of Dunhevot alias Lanceston in the room of "Win. Harbord Esquire, deceased."* Eleven days after the writ was ordered Henry, Lord Hyde, eldest son of the Earl of Rochester, a somewhat uncertain adherent of the new regime, was returned for Launceston, and at the general election of October, 1G95, ho was re-chosen, having for his colleague William Cary (as he is termed in the Official Listt) but not improbably William , afterwards Sir William, Carew, who, as brother-in-law ofManaton, Newport's former viander and member, possessed some local connection. For Newport John Morice was re-elected, while the place of John Speccott, now returned for the county, was taken by Viscount Cheney, who left upon the borough more trace of his con- nection than most members by restoring St. Stephens Church, as a tablet standing therein continues to record. He sat for Newport only in this Parliament, and his politics may be gathered from the fact that to the next House William, Viscount Cheney, presumably his son, was elected for Bucks as a Tory, fighting a duel with the leader of the local Whigs as if to celebrate the occasion. J During the existence of this Parliament we gain our first sight of a local bookselh r (though as yet no printer could be boasted by the borough), there being printed in London in 1697 "for W. Major, bookseller in Newport near Launceston in Cornwall," a " History of the horrid and detestable plots and conspiracies contrived and carried on by Papists and other persons for the compassing the death and destruction of King William III.," plots and conspiracies which in the previous year, as William himself told his Parliament, would, but for the protection of Providence, have made him a corpse and secured an invasion by Prance. Our next mention of a Launceston book- seller occurs only three years later, and this time it introduces us to another local institution, which exists to this day, a map of the county, "newly surveyed by J. Gascoyne," being announced in 1700 to be sold " by Charles Blith, at the White Halt, in Launceston." • Commons Journals, vol. x., p. gl>7. t Vol. i., p. 572. tMacaulay, vol ii., p. 7l - 2. 238 LAUNCESTON, It is another seventy years before we meet a Launceston printer, and then, singularly enough, in connection with this same hotel, which deserves note, however, not only in these relations, but because it possesses as a door- way probably the only relic of the Priory now in existence. Lord Hyde and William Cary continued to sit for Launceston without intermission in six Parliaments after the one to which they were first returned, but the representation of Newport was by no means as fixed. At the general election of August, 1698, John Grenville, who had sat for Launceston in 1(385,* was chosen with John Morice as his colleague. Since his previous political connection with the borough the former had seen many vicissitudes. Joining the navy at an early age, he, not improbably with great reluctance, accepted the Eevolution, and was continued by William in the command given him by James, as well as made a Colonel in the Guards. He took part in the naval battle off Beachy Head in the summer of 1690, in which Torrington, the English Admiral, was thought to have acted with culpable neg- ligence, and his fortunes suffered with those of his leader, for he was dismissed his command and allowed to hold no further office under the new King.f In all likelihood, therefore, he was returned for Newport as a decided Tory, the side his family had almost consistently espouse.!, but it is by no means certain to which party Morice, his colleague, may have belonged. The latter at this election had been returned also for Saltash (in company with Speccott), and, choosing to sit for that place, a new writ was issued for Newport. J For the vacant seat there was evidently a lively contest, for although Francis Stratford was declared to be elected, § his opponent, John Prideaux, of Souldon, petitioned the House against his return. Prid- eaux asserted that he " had a Majority of 34 voices duly qualified ; yet the Vianders, who, with the Freeholders and Inhabitants, ought to have made the Return, withdrew themselves from the said Borough without declaring who was duly elected, though demanded thereto by the Petitioner, and his Electors; and, in another County, by themselves alone, signed a Return of Mr. •ante, p. 232. t J. Charnock, JBiegraphia iNavalis (17!)'l), vol. ii., pp. 1G5-8. J Jan. 2, 109i> : Commons Journals, vol. xii., p. 3(J8. § Jan. 27: Official List, vol. i., p. 67l>. PAST AND PRESENT. 239 Stratford, contrary to the ancient Constitution of the said Borough, and in prejudice to the Petitioner's Right."* The petition, as usual, was referred to the Committee of Privileges and Elections, but as a prorogation came and nothing more was heard of it, Prideaux on the opening day of the next session again brought his complaint before the Commons in very much the same terms, and once more the matter was sent to the Committee. f Even now there was shown a strong disinclination to deal with the question. On March 11, 1700, it was decided that the report should be made three days later,;); but when the appointed day came it was resolved by a narrow majority to adjourn the matter for a week.§ On the day now fixed upon, the matter was again put ofF, )| and three subsequent fixtures were sim- ilarly served** ; upon the last of them, after two divisions, a sixth appointment was made, but when the day was reached the report was not mentioned, and after repeated prorogations Parliament was dissolved in the next December without the petition having been disposed of by the House. This was a direct encouragement to the Newport Vianders to continue in the path of illegality, and they gladly took the hint. Ac the general election of January, 1701, the old members, Colonel Grcnville and Francis Stratford, again offered themselves, while Prideaux once more entered the field as well as John Morice, who had already sat for the borough in two Parliaments and had been elected to three. The vianders declared Stratford and Prideaux, the former rivals, to be returned, but against this Grcnville protested. As soon as the House met he presented a petition setting forth that he had been duly elected, " yet the Vianders, being prevailed on by unjustifiable Practices, went from the Place of Election, without declaring the Majority ; and refused a Scrutiny ; and have arbitrarily, and falsly returned Francis Stratford Esquire, having declared their Resolutions so to do, before the Election, if he had but Ten Votes." A motion that the matter of the petition should be heard at the bar of the House was negatived without a division, and it was referred * Peb. l''., 1699 I June in original by copyist's error] : Commons Journtils, vol. xii., i>. .ii:;- t Nov. 16 : [bid, vol. xiii., p. ^. ' t Ibid, p. 277. § Ibid, p. 282. II [bid, p. 289 *• March 26, April 2, and April 5 : Ibid, pp. 298, ail, and 314. 240 LAUNCESTON, to the usual committee,* a similar course being adopted with regard to a petition presented the same day by "the Freeholders and Inhab- itants of the Borough of Newport." This, after setting forth the names of the candidates and the traditional rights of the electors, stated " that Mr. Granville and Mr. Prideaux were duly chosen by a vast Majority ; and that an Indenture, for their Eeturn, was tendered to the Vianders, signed by the Electors; who refused to execute it, as also to take a Scrutiny ; but promised to take a Scrutiny the next Day ; withdrawing, with one Nicholas Morriss Esquire, f into another County : but, late in the Evening, one Richard Blight, a servant to Mr. Nicholas Morris, by whom the Vianders were solely governed, came into the Borough, and with the Tythingman, declared, That the Vianders had returned an Indenture for the said Mr. Francis Stratford, in prejudice to the Eight of Mr. Granville and the Electors. "J Both petitions came to naught, for three months later they were with- drawn by leave of the House§ ; and it is not improbable that this was the result of some private arrangement providing that the sitting members shoulel not again be returned, since, when Parliament was dissolved at the end of this year, the representatives chosen by Newport were William Pole and John Sparke. These, however, sat for an even less time than their immediate predecessors, for the death of the King in the summer of 1702 caused another dissolution, when Sparke was re-elected for Newport, but the place of Pole was taken by Sir Nicholas Moiice, who had distinguished himself as " patron of the borough " in January, 1701. While this Parliament was sitting a postal reform was introduced which directly affected our town. Latu in 1703 the Postmaster-General, in a report to the Lord High Treasurer respecting the establishment of a new post from Exeter to Truro, stated that John Grenville, the old member for Newport (who had this year been made a peer), with other gentlemen of Cornwall had represented that the post road passed along the south coast of the county, with the consequence that several inland towns, including Launceston, were * Feb. 13, 1701 : Ibid, p. 327. t A nephew of the Nicholas Moiice who wns elected for Newport :tt a bye-election in 1007 : ante, p. 224. % Ccnm.uis Journals, vol. xiii., p. 328. § May 7, 1701 : Ibid, p. 515. tAST AND PRESENT. 241 under grout disadvantages in their correspondence, and had to pay twopence each letter beyond the postage because they were served only by a bye-post, Exeter, Plymouth, and Launceston had been consulted on the matter and a scheme had been proposed ; and although it wasdoubted whether the charge would be met by the sending of more letters, especially when the number of franks was considered, "they found by experience in other places that, where they had made the corres- pondence more easy and cheap, the number of letters had thereby much increased." The Treasury approved the scheme, only directing that at the end of twelve months it should be represented "how farr it answers ye charge " * ; and it may be presumed that this was the beginning of the passing through Launceston of the mails from the West to London which continued until about forty years since. A very few years later another link with our own times was forged. Although there is little doubt that Nonconformity existed in Laun- ceston when Puritanism was supreme, and Bennett was holder of the Castle, Gewen recorder of the town, and Oliver minister of St. Mary Magdalene's, we have no definite mention of its settlement here until early in the eighteenth century. In 1707, Edward Bennett, of Hexworthy, conveyed a piece of land and the sum of £120 bequeathed by his father, William Bennett, a worthy descendant of the Parliamentarian Colonel, to six trustees (of whom only one, Samuel White, is described as being a townsman) to found " a Presbyterian Meeting House in or near Launceston." Castle Street was chosen as the site, and the building, erected in 1712, was conveyed in trust by a deed dated September -~> of that year to John Facy, of Coleman, Devonshire (one of the original tix trustees), the Eev. Michael Martin, who was ordained on August 21, 1694, appearing to have been the first minister. Some years later he removed to Lyinpstone, and was succeeded at Castle Street by the liev. William Tucker, but on the hitter's departure for St. Tves about 172S, Martin returned to Launceston, and remained here exercising his ministry until August 10, 1745, when he died, having fifty pounds to the Castle Street meeting-house and another ten to a similar institution at Hatherleigh.f * Nov. 22, 1703 : Domestic State Papers, Treasury Scries, vol. lxxxvii., p, 205. t Early History of the Castle Sti i [ndcpendenl Chapel, Launceston, < [ornwall, copied from the Statistical View of Dissenters in England and Wales: Congregational Magazine, 242 LAUNCESTON, To the first Parliament of Great Britain, elected in May, 1705, the old members both for Launceston and Newport were returned, but upon the death of Sparke, Sir John Pole, who had sat for East Looe in 1702, was chosen,* and with the exception of the fact that his place was taken by Sir William Pole (member for Newport in 1701 and sent up for Camelford to the two succeeding Parliaments), the next dissolution, that of 1708, made no difference in the representation of the sister boroughs. Towards the end of this Parliament (which was dissolved in September, 1710, when the storm raised by the prosecution of Sacheverell had scarcely subsided and tbe Whig Ministry had just been overthrown) Launceston was evidently inclined to the winning side. On August an "humble address of the mayor, recorder, deputy recorder, aldermen, town clerk, common council, free burgesses and other inhabitants of Dunheved alias Launceston" was presented to Queen Anne at Kensington " by the lord Hyde and William Cary Esq. their representatives and the honourable George Granville Esq. their recorder," tins "declaring their detestation of republican principles. "f Two days later several of the Whig Ministers were replaced by Tories, anil on September 21 Parliament was dissolved. The presentation of the address was Cary's last public appearance as member for Launceston, for at the general election iD October, when Hyde was for the eighth time returned, Cary's place was taken by Francis Scobell, who was as certainly a Tory as was George Courtenay, chosen for Newport in the place of Sir William Pole as colleague of Sir Nicholas Morice, both these new members being soon afterwards appointed to offices in the Tory Government. George Grenville, who figured in the presentation of the address as Recorder of Launceston, was the last of the name with whom the borough had intimate relations, and, if only from a literary point of view, the connection is one of which we may be proud. He was the son of Bernard Grenville, who sat for Launceston in 1678 and 1690J(and who,bythe way, was described in tbe "Flagellum Parliamen- tarium"§ as having "had £3000 given him to fetch him out of prison.") Prevented by his father on account of his youth from taking part in * Jan. 21, 1707 : Ollicial List, vol. ii., p. 1. t A Collection of Addresses, No. 6. [1710]- i ante, pp. 225-231. § p. I. A RELIC OF THE PRIORY PAST AND PRESENT. 243 the suppression of the Monmouth rising, he was eager in 1 688 to oppose William of Orange. During the latter's reign Grenville lived in retirement, employing his leisure in writing poetry and in fitting Shakspeare to the exigencies of the contemporary stage. "When Anne ascended the throne he became active in politics, and, having sat for Fowey in the first three Parliaments of her reign (during which time apparently he was by the royal favour appointed Eecorder of Laun- ceston), he was returned for the county in 1710 at the general election which swept into power the party whose battle-cry in Cornwall was Grenville and Trevanion as sound as a bell, For the Queen, the Church, and Sacheverell. Neither the Eecorder of Launceston nor the members for the two boroughs had any reason to complain of the principle that " to the victors belong the spoils " not being fully applied. Grenville had the post from which had been ousted Eobert Walpole, and was soon afterwards created a peer as Lord Lansdowne, while Hyde was appointed Joint Vice-Treasurer of Ireland; a little over a year later Courtenay (who, returned for both Newport and Ash- burton at the general election, chose to sit for the former*) was given a Commissionership of the Victualling Office;! and not long elapsed before Scobell was made receiver and paymaster of the tin-farms in Cornwall and Devon j Even this did not exhaust the connection between Launceston and the Ministry of Harley and Bolingbroke, for in May, 1711, when Hyde succeeded to the Earldom of Eochester, his place as member for the town was taken by a Lord of the Admiralty, George Clarke. § But at the general election of 1713, both Launceston and Newport appear to have turned from strangers and office-holders, and to have again sought to be represented by men of local claims. Scobell|| and Clarke lost their seats for Launceston * March 19, 1711 : Commons Journals, vol. xvi., p. 563. t A new writ for Newport whs issued Dec. L2, 17U (Commons Journals, vol. xvii., p. 7), and Courtenay was re- elected on Dec. 27 (Official List, vol. ii., p. 19). t A new writ for Launceston was issued March t, 1712 (Commons Journals, vol. xvii., p. 124), and Scobell was re-elected on March 15 (Official last, vol. ii., p. 19). § May 29, I'll : Official List, vol. ii., p. l'X The writ had been issued on May 16 1 Commons Journals, vol. sn„ p. 639. II Scobell, who is described in the British Parliamentary Befrister L17M1 as of "Meniftuins, Com.," sat for Qrampound in the Parliament of 17<>6 and for St. Germans in that of 1708, and, ujiou Leaving Launceston, was elected for St. Mawea in 1713. 244 lAtJNCESTON, and in their place wore sent to Westmiuster John Anstis, son of a late Registrar of the Archdeaconry of Cornwall, and Edward Herle, of Landue, great-grandson of Nicholas Trefusis, to whose political exertions reference has been made.* Courtenay likewise disappeared from the representation of Newport, and Sir Nicholas Morice's new colleague was Humphry Morice, his cousin. The politics of the last- named might be guessed from the fact that he was a Governor of the Bank of England (at that time regarded almost in the light of a Whig institution), but a clearer indication is his presence with Robert Walpole in the minority which in 1714 voted against the expulsion from the House of Commons of Addison's friend, Steele, for his published attacks upon the Tory Ministry.! It the dissolution of January, 1716, caused by the death of the Queen, both Launceston and Newport re -elected their members. Two of these (Anstis and Sir Nicholas Morice) were Tories, and one (Humphry Morice) was as certainly a Whig, but of the politics of Herle we know nothing. Three divisions of such importance as to have the list of those partici- pating in them preserved:): were taken in this Parliament, and in not one of them did Herle vote. In 17 1G, Humphry Morice supported and his cousin opposed the Septennial Bill, Anstis not voting§ ; in 1719, all three were in the lobby with Walpole agaiust a bill " for strengthening the Protestant interest" || ; and in the same year Anstis and Humphry Morice voted with Sir Robert against a measure designed to restrict the creation of peers, while Sir Nicholas Morice was absent.** Upon those votes it would be difficult to assert that Anstis was a Tory, but his arrest and imprisonment in the first year of the new reign on suspicion of a design to restore the Stuarts, in addition to his receiving from the Tory Ministry in the last days of Anne the reversion of the post of Garter King of Arms, is sufEci3it evidence of his leaning in politics. There is not much doubt that his views were shared by many of his Launceston constituents, as well as by others connected with the town. Lord Lansdowne, the * ante, pp. ISO and full. t March 18, 171 1 : Parliamentary History, vol. vi., p. 1-283. Only a list of the minority is here wen, and in this three out of the four members for the boroughs do not appear. J It was not until less than half a century since that the House of Commons itself published the division lists. § Parliamentary History, vol. vij., pp. 307-71. || Ibid, pp. 585-38. ** Ibjd, pp. 021-27. PAST AND PRESENT. 245 borough's Recorder, had shortly before the Hanoverian succession been put upon his trial for Jacobitism, but the charge fell through and ho continued in his office, though, as has been noted, the Crown had power to remove him without process.* And the sympathies of many in the county may bo gathered from the relation by Hals that, when one James Paynter, " too warmly espousing the politics then most popular in Cornwall, took an active part in proclaiming King James on the death of Queen Anne," and he was indicted for the offence at Launceston, he was, upon his acquittal, "welcomed by bonfire and by ball from thence to the Land's End." Anstis and Herle had not been unopposed at the general election of 1715, and their opponents, Sir William Fendarves and Charles Statham, petitioned on the ground tliat they " had a Majority of leg d Votes ; notwithstanding which, Thomas Bennet, Mayor of the said Borough, by illegal and unwarrantable Practices, hath returned Edward Herle and Joshua [sic~] Anstis Esquires." The petition was referred to the usual committee, t which, in customary fashion, took an extraordinarily longtime in considering it, and eleven months later it was withdrawn. | Six weeks afterwards a writ for Launceston was moved for because of Anstis having become Garter King of Arms , but the matter was postponed for the production of his patent§ ; this was to hand the next day, and the issue of the writ was again pro- posed, but the object of the majority was evidently delay and the debate was adjourned for ten days by 153 votes to 45, Humphry Morice acting as one of the tellers for the minority || The postpone- ment proved to be for a much longer time than that appointed, and it was not until the end of the following year that the writ was ordered;** Anstis was immediately re- elected, ft and ho continued to sit for the borough until the close of this Parliament. He deserves especial remembrance because, as far as can be gathered, he was the town's earliest historian. It has been asserted in more than one county compilation that he " left in MS. a history of Launceston and other treatises not now to be found," and an ( ffort made by the Rev. F. Jago-Arundell to call the readers of the Oeuth man's Magaziiu (o * unto, p. 230. t March 30, 1715: Commons Journals, vol. xviii., p. 'A2. % Feb. 15, 1710 : Ibid, p. 870. | March 27 : Ibid, p. 414. March 28 : Ibid, p. 415. •* Dec. <;, 1717 : Ibid, p. 656. tt Dec. 16 ; Official Li*:, vol. ii„ p. 88. 246 LAUNCESTON, his aid in tracing the missing document was fruitless.* That it had an existence is shown by an entry in a book on British topography published thirty years before Mr. Jago-Arundell's appeal, a "History and antiquities of Launceston" being described as "MS. Anstis's Catalogue, No. 621 ; "t but the Earl of Ashburnham, whose manuscripts included Anstis's heraldic collections, informed the present author, npon their dispersal in 1883, that this particular treatise was not among them. Hope, however, need not be abandoned, and hidden in the many collections yet unsifted this history will very probably yet be found. While Anstis was waiting the pleasure of the House of Commons as to the new writ for Launceston,| a matter of great moment to the town was occupying the attention of the legislature. For forty-five years the assize question as far as Parliament was concerned had been allowed to slumber, but with the in-coming of the Hanoverian dynasty (locally marked, as it probably was, by the adoption of the White Horse as the sign of the inn facing the polling place for Newport) another attempt was made to deprive Launceston of at least one of the assizes and this time successfully. In April, 1716, there was pre- sented to the House of Commons " a Petition of the High Sheriff, Deputy Lieutenants, Justices of the Peace, and other Gentlemen and Freeholders of the County of Cornwall " setting forth the assize- grievance in not dissimilar fashion to that adopted in the previous century, § and praying that the assizes should be held at Bodmin, "wherein is a publick Hall, and all other Accommodations and Con- veniences." The petition having been read, it was immediately moved and resolved by 136 to 78 that a bill should be brought in according to its prayer, Sir Nicholas Morice acting as a teller for the minority, andMr. James Craggs, member for Tregony (who afterwards "died of terror at the investigation" into his share in the South Sea Bubble) as one for the majority. || The Launceston authorities were evidently pre- pared for this rebuff, and on the following day it was ordered that their charters, "whereby they claim the Privilege of having the Assizes for the County of Cornwall, held at the said Borough, be laid before this * Gentleman's Magazine, Aug. 1810; vol. lxxx., part 2., p. 103. t Gondii's British Topography [1780], vol. i.. p. 270. J ante, p. 215. § ante, p. 222. || April 11, 1710: Commons Journals, vol. xviii., p. 418. PAST AND PRESENT. 24.7 House."* On April 16, the bill was read a first lime without a divi- sion, and it was ordered for second reading on that day week t On the day fixed for this important stage, the Mayor of Laun- ceston attended at the bar and presented two charters of assize, one granted by Edward, Duke of Cornwall, in 1475} and the other by Henry the Eighth in 1515, § "acquainting the House, That he Lad other Charters also, if there was Occasion for them." Upon his with- drawal, there was read "a Petition of divers Gentlemen of the County of Cornwall and Parts adjacent, as well as of the Mayor, Deputy Recorder, Aldermen and others, of the borough of Launceston . . . and other Boroughs in the said County," which set forth that, although they could not " doubt of the preservation of the Eights and Privi- leges of all his Majesty's Subjects by this House, after the happy Dissipation and Silencing the unnatural Rebellion that lately infested these Realms," they felt bound to furnish some reasons why their town should not be deprived of its "most ancient and undoubted Franchises." Launceston, it was urged, "hath been very anciently the chief Castle and Residence of the Earls and Dukes of this County," while Bodmin " was only the Town of the Prior of that Place; " the assize buildings and the judges' lodgings had lately been improved, while there was not a single house at Bodmin fit for their lordships' accommodation ; the badness of the roads to the latter town would extend the length of the circuit by at least three days ; moreover, the common gaol of the county being at Launceston, not only would great risk of escape attend the periodical removal of the prisoners to Bodmin, but there was no place provided there for their safe- keeping ; and those confined at Launceston being " maintained partly by the Donations of former Inhabitants there, and partly by the Bounty of the present," it could not be expected that Bodmin would furnish similar advantages. Tho petitioners, therefore, prayed that they might be heard by counsel against the Bill, and the second reading was deferred for two days to allow of this being done.|| Upon April 27 (the second reading having been postponed for a • Apnl 12 : Ibid, p. 419. t Ibid, p. 122, t ante, p. 222. § This was dated March 16, 1516, and was a charter of inspexituus in confirmation of preceding charters; it was the second of three granted to Launcebton by Henry 7111., the others being in i. r »ou lliul 1643. II April 23, 1 7 1 < 1 ; Commons Journals, vol. xviii., J). 1J7. 248 LAUNCESTON 1 , further two days*) counsel were heard on Launceston' s behalf but without effect, the measure, by a majority of 148 to G7, being or- dered to be committed, Mr. Trefusis and Mr. Chetwynd (who sat for Penryn and St. Mawes respectively) being the tellers for the winning side and Sir "William Carew (who now represented Cornwall*) and Humphry Morice for the losers. J The Bill was sent to a committee of the whole House, which considered it on May 1, and made some amendments the effect of which is not stated. § On the next day the House agreed to all these except one, and added another on its own account, the one with which it disagreed appear- ing to have provided that both assizes could be removed from Launceston if the Lord Chancellor should so desire. || Two days later the Bill was read a third time without a division, and it was immedia- tely sent up to the Lords.** On May 7 it was by them read a first time, any who wished to be heard upon it being directed to be present at the second reading ;tt and on the next day the Mayor of Launceston claimed the privilege of being heard by counsel at the bar.} J This was granted, and on May 11 counsel appealed both fur and against the bill, which was then read a second time an I committed without a division. §§ In this assembly also it was a committee of the whole House which considered the measure, and this body in its turn made some amendm.mti-illl which were agreed to by the Peers,*** and which, recognising that the constant holding of the assizes at Launceston had been ''oftentimes found inconvenient," provided that they should " not be confined to the said Town," but the wishes of those who sought to deprive the borough of both assizes (and which seem to have been embodied in the original draft of the measure) were set at naught. The Bill was read a third time in the Lords on May 18,ttt the Commons agreed to the amendments without a division on May 30, J]:} and on June 26 the Royal Assent was given by George the First in person. §§§ * April 25 : Ibid, p. 430. t This may be taken as an incidental continuation of the theory (ante, p. 237) that William Cary, M.P. for Launceston in six Parliaments, was Sir William Carew, who, not being re-elected for Launceston in 1710, was returned for Saltash at a bye-election in January, 1711, and for the county at the general election of 1713, anil who Continued to sit for Cornwall without intermission until his death in 1744. J Commons Journals, vol. xviii., p. 132. § [bid, p. 434. || [bid, p. 4"<>. ** [bid, p. 137. tt Lords Journals, vol. xx., p. 851. U Ibid, p. 352. §§ [bid, I). 355. May 11: Ibid, p. 359. *** .May 15: [bid, p. 360. ttt [bid, p. 362. Kt Commons Journals, vol. xviii., p. 452. §§$ Lords Journals, vol. xx., p. 396. past And present. 249 On the day the measure became law it was intimated from London to the civic authorities at Bodmin that the judges would hold the next assize at that place, and they were called upon to level the roads and ways from Launceston thither, and to cut the trees and hedges fit for travelling with coaches. These instructions, it is to be pre- sumed, were attended to, and the Corporation of Bodmin, being determined that everything should pass off pleasantly at their first assize, gave ten shillings " to John Alford for rideing to Pulson Bridge against the judges to show the way,"t which lay through Launceston and Camelford. The Bodmin authorities were so satisfied with the result that they wrote to the Earl of Eadnor, Lord Lieutenant of the county, and one of the principal promoters of their aims, assuring him, amid their thanks, of the happy way in which all concerned (perhaps because none of them belonged to Launceston) had been satisfied at the first assize; and the Earl replied with an assurance that, as long as he held the lieutenancy, the summer assize should continue to be held in their town.t ■ In the year that the assize question had temporarily been settled to the detriment of Launceston, "John Horwell, of the city of Dublin," whom it is not difficult to identify with the Newport Viander prominent in the electoral dispute of 1690, J did something to raise the spirits of the townsmen by making a will, which be- queathed all his money " for the purpose of maintaining, clothing, and educating six poor boys of the parish in which he was born ; three of the boys to be elected by his nearest of kin and three by tho feoffees of the parish ; he allows £30 per annum for the maintenance of the boys ; £6 per annum for their clothes, which was to be uniform ; £3 per annum to a schoolmaster; and £o per annum to a poor widow to look after them : the boys to be admitted at seven years of age, and apprenticed at fourteen. "§ Tho benevolent intentions of Hor- well (who was probably a descendant of the Christopher Horwell, of Lawhitton, buried at St. Stephens in 1628) were not destined to do much service to his native parish for many years, his cstato * July 25, ITU!: Bodmin Corporation Accounts quoted in Maclean's Trigg Minor, vol. i., p.107, t May 81, 1718 : Bodmin Register, p. 90. X ante, p, 286. § Lysons, Magna Britannia, vul. iii., i>. 303. 250 LAtJNCfcSTON, being thrown into Chancery upon his death and an endeavour made to dispute the will. The Grammar School consequently remained the only educational establishment of note in the town, and, at this very period, one of its pupils, Bartholomew Vigors, born at Bishop's Tawton in 1645, was Bishop of Ossory, Ferns, and Leighlin in the Established Church of Ireland, a see he held from 1691 until his death thirty years later. The mention of a bishop naturally leads to a remembrance of the church. It had been stated in the petition presented by our Mayor to the House of Commons in 1716 upon the assize question* that several houses in Launceston " had not long since been rebuilt, al- tered, and improved by the Members of the Borough, and others, at their own Charge," and this process of renovation was extended to the Church of St. Mary Magdalene. Lord Lansdowne, having emer- ged from the cloud of Jacobitism under which he had for a time been obscured, threw himself into the work with great zeal, and a letter is in existence written by him to Lord Gower on February 6, 1719, asking that nobleman for aid towards repairing the school and the church at Launceston, of which town, as he mentioned, he was the Recorder, and he added that most of the Cornish gentlemen had subscribed. f What was the precise nature of the restoration then effected cannot now be learnt, but that whitewash and plaster were abundantly employed, in the approved style of an age which believed the Gothic to be bar- barous, was unfortunately only too evident to later eyes. Upon one point, however, there is no doubt : five of the six bells in the tower bear the date 1720, when the restoration was probably completed, these being cast by Abraham Rudhall, of Gloucester, (who was the founder of many bells in Cornwall about this time) and each orna- mented with a somewhat trite motto, wishing well to Church, State, and Town ; but although there is no earlier mention of the existence of bells in the Launceston Tower, this does not prove that it had stood empty and silent for over three centuries. J The incumbent of St. Mary Magdalene's who saw these changes effected was the Rev. * ante, p. 2t7. t Royal Historical Manuscripts Commission, Fifth Report, Appendix, p. 190: Dukeof Sutherland's Papers. % Dunkin in his Church Bells of Cornwall gives several instances of the earlier existence of bells in other parishes ; by diligent search similar mention of the original Launceston bells will probably yet be found. t>AsT and Present. 231 William Bedford, who had become incumbent in 1714* not improb- ably in succession to Nathaniel Boughton.f a son of whom, George by name, matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford, in 1715.]: While Launceston was rebuilding its church, one of the local members was distinguishing himself by coming into the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms. On December 7, 1719, the House was "called," a practice which has become obsolete, and among the absentees was Sir Nicholas Morice. Two days later, " his excuse not being allowed of,"he was, without a division, ordered intothckeepingof the Sergeant- at-Arins although his cousin, Humphry Morice, was a teller for the majority which excused Sir William Pole, the old member for Newport, § and soon again to be returned for that borough. || Fifteen in all were sent into custody, but most of them were soon released, Sir Nicholas being let off on December 12 upon payment of the fees.** Sixteen months later there was a change in the representation of Launceston, caused by the death of Edward Herle, and, a new writ being issued on April 24, 1 721 , ft Alexander Pendarves (who, in previous Parliaments, had sat for Saltash, Pcnryn, and Helston) was returned on May 11 4f At the general election of April, 1722, Sir Nicholas Morice was re- chosen for Newport with Sir William Pole as his colleague, Hum- phry Morice being sent up for Grampound together with the then Marquis of Hartiugton,§§ and, as Pole was Master of the Household to Anne under the Tory Ministry in 1712, this evidently meant tho loss of a seat to the Whigs in Newport.|||| At Launceston, where there was a severe contest, the Whigs for the time did not fare very much better. Anstis did not again offer himself, but in addition to Pendar- ves three candidates came forward — Dr. John Friend (or Freind), Mr. Thomas Smith, and Mr. John Willes. The Mayor, Nicholas Herle, returned Pendarves and Friend, and against this a petition was presented, purporting to be signed by Smith and Willes, but which, * It is recorded on a memorial in tho church that William Bedford . 7:t, ** Parliamentary History, vol. ix., p. 618, 256 LATJNCESTON, Caleb Jenkins, who acted as Mayor of the said Borough, and by other illegal and unwarrantable Practices, the said Mr. King is returned." Irby claimed to have received a majority of legal votes, but Wynd- ham, who handed in a petition on the same day, only averred that he had an equal number to King; he added, however, that "several Persons were admitted to Vote who gave their Votes against the Petitioner, who, as the Petitioner apprehends, had no Eight to Vote at the said Election," and he charged the returning officer with various illegal practices. The petitions were at once referred to the usual committee,* but five weeks later Wyndham's was withdrawn.! On March 24, it was decided by 109 to 67 to receive the committee's report as to Irby's complaint, from which document it appears that the petitioner's counsel claimed that, under the charter of Philip and Mary, J the power of election rested with the mayor and aldermen together with " such of the more discreet, prudent, and quiet Men and Inhabitants " whom they might choose as freemen. The com- mittee pronounced in favour of this contention, basing their decision upon that of the committee of 1724. § and evidence was then taken concerning the circumstances of the election. The return of the mayor was handed in, giving thirty votes to King and twenty- nine to Irby, and the latter's counsel undertook to show that Hugh Pyper, of Plymouth ; John Eoberts, who at one time and another had been curate of Northhill, "hackney writer to Mr. Lyne, an Attorney," and usher to a school ; Edmund Cheney, who " was supported and lived by the Charity of his Father-in-law"; Arthur Lawrence, who had " served as a Clerk with Mr. Lyne aforesaid " ; and two other voters were not qualified as freemen. Of these, the two first had voted for the Tory candidates in 1722, and had been objected to before the election committee of 1724|| upon much the same grounds as now. The committee, no counsel appearing for King (for the sufficient reason that he had now succeeded to the peerage as Lord King) allowed the objection to all six, the House adopted without a division their conclusion that Irby was duly elected,** and the next * Fob. 1 , 1 733 : Commons Journals, vol. xxii., p. 343. t March 10: Ibid, p. 406. % ante, p. OS. § ante, p. 203. || ante, p. 252. **Mareh 24, 1735 : Commons Journals, vol. xxii., p. 428. PAST AND PRESENT. 2o7 day the Deputy Clerk of the Crown amended the return accordingly.* During several years at this period the intention of the Act of 1716 with regard to the Cornwall Assizes was being steadily ignored. For some reason, now difficult to trace, Launceston in 1727 once more became the sole assize-town for Cornwall, and for eleven years the situation was undisturbed. But at the beginning of 1738, "the Justices of the Peace, Gentlemen Freeholders and others, of the County of Cornwall " were again to the fore with the usual petition, in which the facts of the county being "near Ninety Miles in Length," of Launceston being at one end and of Bodmin being in the centre, and of the inconveniences to which "several ancient and infirm Witnesses and other Persons " had consequently been put, were once more set forth ; and the Commons were asked to pass a bill amending the Act of 1716 in order that there might be no doubt of Launceston being deprived of at least one assize. Such a measure was immedia- tely ordered to be introduced, f it was brought in the next day,} read a second time and committed three weeks after§ (as it would have been before but for the illness of the Speaker which necessitated the adjournment of the House), passed through committee with amend- ments a few days later, || the amendments agreed to by the House twenty-four hours afterwards,** the bill read a third time and sent up to the Lords within another two days,tt an; i a U without a single division. But the Upper House once more came to Launceston's rescue. In the Commons no resistance appears to have been offered by our local authorities, but immediately the measure reached the Lords the mayor, aldermen, and freemen petitioned that they might be heard by counsel against it, and their request was granted.}} A few days afterwards the judges were ordered to attend the House at the second reading, §§ aud, when the day fixed for this arrived, the proceedings commenced with the reading of a " Petition of the High Sheriff ,|| || Grand Jury, Justices of the Peace, Gentlemen and other Freeholders, assembled at the Assizes held at Launceston in and for the County of Cornwall, the 15th Day of this Instant March," praying i [bid p. t.:>. t Feb. 7, 1738 : Commons Journals, vol. xxiii., p; 24. JFeb. 8: Ibid, p. 25. § .March '2: [bid, p. 49. II .March 6: Ibid, p. CI. ** .March 7 : Ibid, ]>, 84. ft March!): Lords Journals, vol. xxv., p. 1st. Jt .March 10 : Ibid, p. 186. §§ March 10 : Ibid, p. 1W. I, I Julia liuuy, ol Trcuaul, iu Muihcuiut. 258 LAtlNCESTOtt, that the Act of 1716 might " still continue in Force, in the Form it is at present." When the second reading had been formally agreed to, counsel were heard on behalf of Launceston, these presenting the charter of Philip and Mary " reciting an Inspexitnus of a former Charter of Richard the Second, whereby the Justices of Assize were appointed to hold their Session for the said County at the said Borough, and no where else."* Evidence was then taken, a Mr. Piccard testifying to the "Fitness of the Town of Launceston for holding the Assizes for the County of Cornwal ; and of the Unfitness of the Town of Bodmin, in the said County, for that Purpose :" while a Mr. Lukcf on behalf of Bodmin contended that that town was a fitting assize place ,: with respect to the Cheapness and Goodness of Provisions, and to the Roads thereabouts." But the former evidence was thought the weightier, and it was ordered without a division " That the Bill be rejected."! Yet, although Parliament thus refused to interfere, the summer assize was restored to Bodmin, and the half- and-half system continued for exactly a century. Towards the close of the Parliament which had had this assize- matter in hand, Thomas Herbert, member for Newport, died, and his brother, Nicholas Herbert, a Whig like himself ,§ was returned in his stead. j| At the general election of May, 174 1 , the latter was re-chosen, and, the Moriee influence being now chiefly devoted to family uses, he was given as his colleague " Thomas Bury, Esq. of Colleton, county Devon," who seems to have been a brother of the " Miss Ann Bury of a Devonshire family," whom Sir William Moriee married after he had secured a divorce from his first wife.** Sir John Molesworth, thus deprived of his seat for Newport, was sent up for the county at a bye-election three years and a half later on the death of Sir John St. Aubyn, the Werrington baronet's brother in-law, tt while Morico himself and Sir William Irby were re-elected for Launceston. * ante, p. GO. t Query, Lake. t Maroh 21 ; Lords Journals, vol. xxv., p. 19G. § In a division on December 10, 1742, upon tin' question of the Hanoverian troops being t iken into British pay, Herbert voted with the Whig majority and Bury with the Tory minority, while Moriee, though absent, is mentioned as an opponent; Irby is not named (Parliamentary History, vol. -\ii.. p. 1054). || Jan. 22, 1740: Official List, vol. ii., p:73. The writ had been issued on Jan. K: Commons Journals, vol. xxiii., p. 411. ** "An Aet to dissolve the Marriage of Sir William Moriee, Baronet, with Lady Lucy WhartoL, and to enable him to mairy again, and lor other purposes therein mentioned," was passed in 173S, tt ante, p. 203. past and present. 259 Morice had lately been employed in effecting alterations at Werriiig- ton. In 1710, he obtained an Act to enable him to grant to the incum- bent of the parish a piece of ground on which a new church might be built. The old one, which was now much out of repair, had stood almost in front of the mansion, and it was removed in order to give space for the existing dwelling, which w r as placed partly in the first Werrington churchyard, the tombstones being imbedded into the park walls and the yew trees left standing to this day. The new church was consecrated on September 7, 1743,* but the whisperings of the parishioners that the family which had desecrated the original edifice would never flourish were not silenced, and at no distant date the estate, which meanwhile had passed from the childless Sir "William to a second cousin, was in the hands of strangers, f It is to this Sir William Morice, who had travelled much in his youth, that the park owes some of its pseudo- antiquities, of the type of which the eighteenth century was fond, such as an imitation of the tomb of the Horatii and Cuiratii in St. Malcolm's Copse, f of a Roman temple on the terrace, and of a triumphal arch on the hill nearest Launceston ; the last-named, which, according to tradition, was erected to commemorate an electoral victory, was destroyed in 1883 by the present owner of Werrington (Mr. J. C. Williams). Sir William appears to have determined upon showing to what a high degree could be carried the " Werrington influence " in the two boroughs, for, at the general election of July, 1747, not only did he once more return himself for Launceston, and his family connections, Nicholas Herbert and Thomas Bury,§ for Newport, but he caused SirWilliam Irby to go to Bodmin for a seat and filled the Launceston vacancy with his nephew, Sir John St. Aubyn (the previous baronet, son-in-law of Sir Nicholas Morice and member for the county, || having died in the winter of 1744**). And when Sir William himself departed this life, he was succeeded as member for Launceston, as well as in his entailed estates, by his second cousin, • A Sermon preached in the Parish Church ol Werrington, Devon, at the I lonsecration ol thai Church on Wednesday, Sep. r, 1743. By William Bole, M.A., Fellow of Exeter ( tollege iii ( Oxford, and Chaplain t" the Lord Bishop ol Exeter. Published by Order of his Lordship and at the desire "i Borne Gentlemen who were present. Oxford, 1748, t N. 11. 1'. Lawrence, Werrington and its Possessors. J Small acorn be < lopse, as it is commonly culled. Locally the tomb is known us " The Rujcar-loaves." § ante, p. 858, || ante, p. 2o:j. ♦* OUicial List, vol. ii., p. OS. 2 GO LAUNCESTON, Humphry Morice,* a London merchant, son of the member for the borough in days gone by.t This period is, however, to be marked in Launceston's history not because of its electoral but of its religious interest, for it was during its course that John Wesley first preached to the town. Mr. "Wesley's earliest visit was paid on September 21, 1743, when he rode hither from St. Ives on his way to Exeter, and his next was on April 2, 1744, when he records that the ground was covered with snow as in the depth of winter. On each occasion he appears to have simply passed through without preaching, but on August 29, 1747, he held a noon-day service on St. Stephens Down, having on the previous Sunday occupied the pulpits of the parish churches of Tamerton, Week St. Mary, and St. Gennys, visiting those of Tresmere and Laneast within the next two days. On August 28, 1750, he again preached on St. Stephens Down, this time at eight in the morning, having officiated at Tamerton and Laneast the previous day; and when, on September 21 of the next year, he re-visited Launceston, a room was provided for his accommodation, which is believed to have been in a house in " Samford Tiinewell's Lane," on the site now occupied by the residence of Mr. John Symons, in Church Street. He had ridden with his wife from Tiverton, + and they were received by a mob (probably the larger because it was market-day) which, in addition to attending them to the room, made a great noise and threw missiles at the assembly as it dispersed, but no one was hurt. On the next morning, it being Sunday, he preached at eight o'clock in the main street to what he describes as a large congregation of serious persons, but " soon after a mob of boys and gentlemen gathered on the other side of the street ; they grew more and more noisy, till finding I could not be heard there, I went to the room and quietly finished my discourse," preaching again after morning service and then " hasting to Tresmere," with the incumbent of which (Mr. Bennet) he was on friendly terms. It was at Laun- ceston on July 23, 1753, that Mr. Wesley first met the Stewards for *'i'he election took place on Feb. 2, 1750 (Official List, vol. ii., p. !)9, where the date is wrongly given as 1749). t ante, pp. 244-251 : he died in 1731. J Not impossibly pillion- f.isliion. Attached to more than one of the older Launceston inns is the stone " heppen-stock " from which wives used to join their husbands on the pillion, but the number of these relics has greatly decreased within the last dozen years. PAST AND PRESENT. 261 Eastern Cornwall, and he preached in the town once more on August 13 of the same year. Thirteen months later — on September 3, 1754 — he rode hither from Tiverton, arriving in time to preach at six o'clock and to meet "the society" afterwards. The next morning in the Town Hall he addressed a "wild yet civil congregation," in the afternoon he met the Cornish Stewards, and in the evening he held another service, concerning which he says that, for the sake of that hour only, he would have thought all the labour of his journey well-bestowed.* Before Wesley again visited Launceslon a great change had come over the political complexion of the two boroughs. At the dissolution of April, 1754, Humphry Morico was the only one of the four old members re-elected,! while he was given as his colleague the Right Hon. Sir George Lee, Dean of the Arches, Judge of the Pre- rogative Court of the Province of Canterbury, and Treasurer to the Princess Dowager of Wales, J it being probable from the last-named appointment that the Duchy influence was exercised in his favour. For Newport there was a contest, the first for many years, the suc- cessful candidates being John Lee, of Albemarle Street, London, and Edward Bacon, of Erleham, near Norwich, § who polled 145 and 144 votes respectively, and the unsuccessful Jcffery French and Richard Rigby, the former securing 60 and the latter 59 votes. || The contest was evidently an attempt of John, Duke of Bedford, leader of what was politically known as "the Bloomsbury gang," to exercise influence upon Newport, for French and Rigby were at this same dissolution returned for Tavistock, his pocket-borough,** and the latter was notoriously his creature. From whatever causes it may have arisen, one of the brightest points in Newport's electoral history is this rejection of the man of whose " blunt, or if I may call it, aukvvard integrity" Junius sarcastica lly wrote, ft and whom Macaulay * The Author is indebted to Mr. Dingley for this account of the beginnings of Wesley- anism in Launceston, and for what will be subsequently given on the same subject. t Official List, vol. ii., p. 110. J Parliamentary History, vol. w.. p. 298. § Bacon had been chosen for Callington at a bye-election in April, 1748 (Official List, vol. ii., p. 98), and his family may be conjectured to have had some influence in | 'urn wall, Beemg thai Waller Bacon (member for Norwich in six Parliaments, and not improbably Edward's father) was doubly returned for Norwich and St. Germans at the general election of 1715. || II. S. Smith, The Parliaments of England, vol. ii.. p. 17. ** There may have been a personal element on the Duke's part in his opposition to John Lee, who is described in the official return for Newport to the next Parliament as of " Eisely, county Bedford " (Official List, vol. ii., p. 124), in which shire his grace had sonic severe political buttles to fight. tt Letter of IMiilo- Junius, June 22, 1769. 262 LAUNCESTON, coupled with the infamous Sandwich to describe as "able de- baters, pleasant boon companions,* dexterous intriguers, masters of all the arts of jobbing and electioneering, and, both in public and private life, shamelessly immoral. "f The problem of providing for the poor of the town was now for the first time attempted systematically to be dealt with, as Laun- ceston was beginning to show signs of the commercial decay which in later times more completely overtook it, and the number of the indigent was yearly increasing. Accordingly, on January 15, 1755, a petition of " the Mayor and Commonalty" was presented to the Commons, " alleging, That if a Workhouse was erected within the said Borough and Parish, for maintaining and employing the Poor thereof, it would save many of them from Ruin, and make them useful to the Public ; and setting forth, That the Mayor and Com- monalty of the said Borough are possessed of an uncultivated Common, called Scarne, which they are desirous may be let or sold ; and that the Eents and Profits thereof may be applied for the Main- tenance of their Poor, if a Workhouse is erected for the Purposes aforesaid."| The petition asked that a Bill might be introduced to meet these points, and the question was referred to a committee, which included Morice, Sir George Lee, John Loe, and Sir William Irby§ (now sitting for Bodmin), but not Bacon. || Nearly three weeks later Morice presented the committee's report, which stated that " to prove the Allegations of the said Petition, Mr. Joshua Thomas and Mr. RichardWelsh,** being severally examined, said, That the Number of poor People has of late Years very much increased within the Borough of Launceston," that the erection of a workhouse would be highly desirable, and that it might well be paid for out of the proceeds of Scarne, which was "in its present Situation of very little Advantage to them." The committee thereupon recommended that the asked-for Bill should be introduced, and Morice and Sir George Lee were * " Mr. Rigby was introduced into political life by the Duke of Bedford, to whom he had chiefly recommended himself by his convivial talents " (Editor of The Letters of Junius). t Lord Macaulay, Second Essay on the Karl of Chatham. t The petition further asserted that the two general sessions of the borough, held under the Charters of Philip and Mary and Charles the Second, had been "found insufficient for the Management and Government of the said Corporation," but nothing appears to have been specially done by Parliament upon this point. § ante, pp. 255-58. || Commons Journals, vol. xxvii., p. 87. ** Joshua Thomas and Philip Welsh were aldermen of the borough; not improbably the latter was the witness referred to. PAST AND PRESENT. 263 directed to prepare it.* The Bill "for the better Relief and Em- ployment of the Poor of the Borough of Danheved " was accordingly brought in a week later and at once read a first tiuie.f the second reading following in another three days. J Some amendments were made in committee, § and the measure passed on February 27, when Sir George Lee was directed to " carry the Bill to the Lords, and desire their concurrence. ",1 This duty the member for Launceston fulfilled on March 3,** the Bill was read a first time by the peers the next day, a second time and committed the day following, reported without amendment on the day after that, and was passed on the day succeeding, ft George the Second giving his assent in person on March 20. The Act provided for the creation of a body of Local Guardians, to consist of the mayor and aldermen with five other persons "to be elected out of the ablest and discreetest inhabitants " ; and the first meeting for the purpose of choosing these was held " this Thirtieth Day of June 1755 at the Comon Councill Room of the said Borough." There were present " Edmund Cheyne, Esqr. Mayor, Joshua Thomas gent John Carpenter gent Philip Welsh gent Joseph Carpenter gent and Charles Lawrence gent Aldermen of the said Borough," Cheyne being elected Treasurer, and Thomas Darke, Solomon Spettigue, George Mann, Richard Kingdon, and Anthony King the first Local Guardians, and the minutes were signed by the Mayor and the five other aldermen in attendance. \\ Edmund Cheyne, who here figures as chief magistrate of the town, was hero of a love romance which, it is believed, has not hitherto found its way into print. In the earlier years of the century, Samuel Lyne, attorney, and one of the most zealous of Launceston Tories, §5 occupied the large house opposite the old Town Hall, which was the birthplace and for many years the residence of the late Alderman John Cbing. His only child was a daughter, and when Edmund ♦ Peb. 8, 1755 : Commons Journals, vol. xxvii., p. 185. t Feb. 10: [bid, p. 147. i I'd). L3 : Ibi 1 p. ICO. : Peb. 24: [bid, p. L74. | [bid, p. 180. ** I- nils Journals, vol. xwiii., p. 340. +t [bid, pp, 352-4-5-8. %t There are two minute books in existence of the elections ol Local Guardians from 1755 .'nil of Local Guardians and Overseers from 1.781. §§ It' .'iinl his clerks took an active pari in the contests of 1722 and 1734 (ante, pp. 251-55). Thai he was a man of substance is shown by Tonkin's reference, in the ire nil of his visit to Launceston in 1731, to " the Mil on which .Mr. Samuel tun' has built ins pleasure house and end sod a bowling-green," 264 LAUNCESTON, Cheyne, a young man in his own profession, came to the town as a stranger it was with Joanna Lyne that he foil in love. The father so strongly disapproved the match that an elopement followed, and Lyne vowed that his daughter should never darken his doors again. Later he relented, but, determined nut to break his word, he erected at the back of his residence a place now used as a warehouse, but originally well fitted up. In this the young couple were lodged, and, as if to remind them of their adventure, there was suspended from the ceiling of the chief room a figure of Cupid, drawn-bow in hand and with finger on arrow ready to shoot.* It may be taken that the builder of "Cupid's room," as it long was called, more completely for- gave the offence as time rolled on, for, although his daughter died in 1724, nearly thirteen years before himself, we find incidental confir- mation of the story— of the poor estate of Cheyne and of the help ho received from Lyne— in the proof before the Parliamentary Committee in 1735 that one of those who in the previous year had voted for the Tory candidates at Launceston without being duly qualified as a freeman was Edmund Chevne,t who "was supported and lived by the Charity of his Father- in- law. "J At no long interval from the date at which a new Launceston institution was being founded an old Launceston family was being extinguished. Hugh Pyper, of Tresmarrow, the second of the two lives for which the reversion of the constableship of the Castle had been granted a century before, § died on October 25, 1754, his brother, Granville Pyper (to whom he was heir-at-law and to whose memory the finest monument in Launceston Church is dedicated) having pre-deceased him by twenty-eight jears. On February 26, 1755, the constableship was given by George the Second to John Bolt, he being succeeded in the office on February 6, 1760, by George Knill, whose commission was confirmed on July 14, 1761, by George the Third. The last-named deed of appointment granted to Knill, in addition to the constableship, "the care and custody of the gaol, and * This information is gathered from the MS. left by the late Alderman Chinst of a lecture he intended locally delivering upon fifty years' recollections of Launceston, a project the execution of which was prevented by his death on March 12, 1883. t In the Commons Journals called Cheney. J ante. p. 25(i. There is a monument in St. Mary Magdalene's to the memory of Lyne, his daughter and son-in-law, and their three children. § ante, p. 230. PAST AND P&ESENT. 265 all and singular the houses, structures, and edifices within the said Castle," provided that he should at his own charge keep the buildings in repair, his yearly allowance being £13 6s. 8d. out of the Duchy Eevenues and such fees as had customarily attached to the office. According to the unpublished Duchy records, from which this infor- mation has been drawn,* the constableship was transferred on November 29, 1763, to John Mules, but there is some confusion here, Mules being really the deputy-constable or gaoler, Coryudon Carpenter holding the higher office. This is evident from the fact that " the upper part down as far as the arches " of the house over the northern gateway of the Green, " wherein formerly in 1650 lived John Sorrell ye Constable of the Castlet. . . was all taken down by the orders of Mr. Coryndon Carpenter in the month of July 1764"} ; and it is con- firmed by John Howard, who, in describing his visit to our prison in 1775, gives as gaoler " John Mules, Deputy, under Coryndon Carpenter Esq. Constable of the Castle. "§ Though Launceston and Newport were usually and rightly regarded as " close boroughs," under the influence at this period of the Morice family, contests were not as infrequent as in later days. But for a few years after the electoral battle of 1754,|| there seemed little disposition to fight, and, upon Bacon vacating his seat for New- port in 1 756 in order to stand for Norwich,** Richard Bull, of Chipping Ongar, Essex (a connection of the Morices, and one of whose family was remembered in Humphry's will) was returned, and, as far as is known, without opposition ;ff while in the next year Humphry Morice, on his appointment as one of the Clerks Comptrollers of the Household, was similarly served as to re-election.}}: But when Sir George Lee died, in the winter of 1758, there was a severe contest at Launceston. The writ was issued on • By permission of Mr. George Wilmshurst, Secretary to the Duchy of Cornwall. t John Sorrell was keeper ol bhe gaol in 1626 (ante, p. ISO). t This statement is from " Mr. Leach's Plan of Launceston Castle and Parks," made (it is believed) in August, 1761, and now in the possession of Mr. C. L. Cowlard, to whom the Author owes much information concerning the Pyper family and Madford House. § John Howard, The State of the Prisons in England and Wales (1st edition, 1777), p. 381. ii ante, p. 201. ** The writ for Newport was issued on June IS (Commons Journals, vol. xxvii., p. (il!t), and Paeon was elected for Norwich on June 26 (Official List, vol. ii., p. IIP. He was in 1760 appointed a Commissioner for Trade and Planta- tions, and he continued to sit for .Norwich until the dissolution of 1784, when he did not again olTer himself. t+ The election took place on Juno H't (Official List, vol. ii., p. 110). tt The election was held on May 10, 1757 (Ibid). 266 LAuxcESTOiir, December 20,* and the election took place ten days later, Sir John St. Aubyn, who had sat for the borough in the previous Parliament, t being declared to be returned.}: But on the opening day of the next session (the House having risen on the day the writ was ordered), a petition was presented by Peter Burrell, the other candidate, declaring that he was duly elected, " but that Joshua Thomas, § the Mayor of the said Borough, who acted as returning Officer at the said Election, behaved in a very partial and arbitrary manner, in Favour of the said Sir John St. Aubyn, and refused or disallowed several Votes which were tendered for the Petitioner ; and that many other undue, unwarrantable, and illegal Practices were made use of in Relation to the said Election." Instead of the case being referred to a committee, it was immediately ordered to be heard at the bar of the House, || and this was done on February 21, the day appointed. Counsel for Burrell appear to have had an easy task, for, after it had been proved by evidence that the votes of four freemen wishing to support Burrell had been illegally refused, and that these, added to the petitioner's poll, would have given him a majority, the House resolved nemine contradiceide (as it is expressly recorded) that Sir John St. Aubyn had not been duly elected, and that Burrell's name should be inserted in the return.** The new member for Launceston was by no means fresh to Parliamentary life, he having sat for Haslemere (Surrey) from 1722 to 1754, and, on his defeat; at that borough in the last-mentioned year, he vainly petitioned against the successful candidates. ft The very day after the Launceston return was formally amended he was placed upon a special committee,}} and he was soon to do good service to his new constituents. On January 24, 1760, a petition was presented to the Commons from the principal inhabitants of our district setting forth that the roads around Launceston — whether towards "a certain Place called Pennigillam Pool," Trekellearn Bridge, Greston Bridge, Page's Cross, or Hard on Water — "are become so ruinous, that the same cannot, by the ordinary course appointed by Law, be sufficiently widened, enlarged, and amended," and a Bill was prayed for to deal * Commons Journals, vol. xxviii., p. 350. t ante, p. 259. JOliicial List, vol. ii., p. 110. § ante, pp. 262-63. || Jan. 10, 1750 : Commons Journals, vol. xxviii., p. 350. ** Ibid, p. 437. tt Ibid, vol. xxvii., pp. 20 and foil. # Feb. 23, 1750 : Ibid, vol. xxviii., p. 439. PAST AND PRESENT. 267 with the matter. The question was at once referred to a large com- mittee, upon which Burrell's name stood first,* and which reported four days later that " Mr. John Luxmore [who appears to have been a prominent local road surveyor] being examined, said, That the several Roads mentioned in the said Petition are in a very ruinous Condition, and, in many Parts, very narrow and incommodious ; and that the same cannot be sufficiently amended, widened, and repaired, by the Laws in being." Burrell being directed to bring in the required Bill,t it was read a first time on February 18, J the second reading taking place four days later,§ and it was then referred to a specially- appointed committee, of which Burrell, Bull, and Bacon were members, as well as such well-known men as General Cornwallis and Lord North. Before it reported, "several Gentlemen and others of the County of Cornwall" petitioned "that the several high Roads leading towards the North " from Launceston should be provided for in the Bill, and the point was referred to the committee, || which, upon the evidence of a Mr. William Webb, advised the House to grant the prayer.** This was done, and on March 28 the measure passed, Burrell being directed to carry it to the Lords. ft It was disposed of very rapidly by that Chamber. Bead a first time on March 31, tt it went through its next stage on April 2, §§ and, an attempt to amend it in committee having failed, |||| it passed on April 25,*** the royal assent being given by commission during the next month. ttt At this time are to be noticed two links connecting the town with the stage. The proprietor of the Plymouth Theatre, in a play-bill of 1759, announced to his patrons that he had " been over to Laun- ceston to engage some of the best performers belonging to the company there"; ttt an( l during the same year was born a daughter of a Laun- ceston banker, named Harvey, who, as Mrs. Davenport, was to prove tho finest actress of old women the English stage has seen. Appearing at Covent Garden for the first time on September 24, 1794, she re- mained there thirty-six years, for " she loved her business, and • Jan. 24, 1760: Commons Journals, vol. sxviii., p. 721. t.T:m. 28: Ibid, i>. 734. t Ibid, p. 772. § Ibid, p. 788. March 7 : Ibid, p. 806. •* March 11 : Ibid, p. 810. tt Ibid, p. 844. "tt Lords Journals, vol. nix., i>. 681. §§ Ibid, p. 636. || II April 24; Ibid, p. 001. •** Ibid, p. 668. ttt May 22 : Ibid, p. 701. ttt R. N. Worth, History of Plymouth, p. 233. 268 LAtJNCESTON, did it well and cheerfully. "* She seems to hind us to the last century, seeing that she did not die until the age of eighty-four, and within the memory of many now living who would hesitate to call themselves old. At the general election of March, 1761, all four members for Launceston and Newport were re-chosen, Sir John St. Aubyn, Burrell's old opponent, finding a seat for the county.f There was, however, a change in the representation before the year expired, a writ being issued for Newport on November 28, "in the Eoom of John Lee Esquire, deceased :"{ William De Grey, a rising barrister, was returned on December 7, and he was re-elected two years after- ward^ on becoming Solicitor-General, and again three years later|| on being raised to the Attorney- Generalship. Meanwhile Humphry Morice had been re-chosen for Launceston after appointment as Comptroller of the Household. This was on January 3, 1763,** and in another three months he succeeded James, Earl Waldegravc, as Lord Warden of the Stannaries. tf The question was raised in the House, at Morice's own suggestion, whether by accepting this office he vacated his seat, but, two Acts on the point having been read, a motion that the seat was vacant was negatived without a division. %% A striking instance of Morice's efforts to strengthen his popularity among his constituents has only recently come to light. At the summer assizes of 1767, held at Bodmin, two men, William Pearce and Richard Williams, were condemned to death for wrecking. The sympathy of the county was strongly aroused on their behalf, and, though they were remitted to Launceston for execution, the carrying- out of the sentence was delayed until the Government could be petitioned on the matter. Morice took up the case, and, writing from Werrington on August 31 to Lord Shelburne, then a Secretary of State,§§ (who had already received more than one communication on the subject) he besought the pardon of the criminals, adding that he could not in any way avoid interceding for them as both Launceston, which he represented, and Ne wport, where he chose the members, * lioaden, quoted in W. Clark Russell's Representative Actors, p. 265. t Official List vol. ii., p. 124. X Commons Journals, vol. xxix., p. 52. § December 27, 1763. II November 18, 1766. ** Official List, vol. ii., p. 124. tt Beatson's Political Index [1806] vol. ii. p. 386. Jt April 19, 1763: Commons Journals, vol. xxix., p. 646. §§ No addressee is named, but the letter is believed to have been sent to Shelburne' PAST AND PRESENT. 269 interested themselves that the men should be saved ; if, however, it should be improper to grant this request, he asked " the favour of an ostensible letter."* On September 4, he again wrote to the Secretary, thanking him for respiting the prisoners, who remained in our gaol, and mentioning that Williams had been reprieved by the judge since his previous letter, "and the people of this neighbourhood are now more anxious than ever to have the other saved." He feels that he " need not explain to his Lordship the situation one is in with voters of boroughs just before a general election, and bow apt they are to fancy one has not done one's utmost if one fails of success in a point that they have set their hearts upon"; and he concludes by stating how material it is for him " that this William Pearco, who is above fourscore years, and condemned for stealing rope from the wreck of a ship, should have the same mercy from bis Majesty that the other convict has had from the Judge. "t But his efforts were unavailing. Lord Shelburne replied on September 30 that, though the sentence on Williams had been commuted to transportation for life, " the circumstances of William Pearce's case were so abundantly worse " that the same mercy could not be extended to him, for 11 the inhumanity of plundering the distressed and increasing the calamities of the unfortunate" could not to disregarded.! Pearce was accordingly executed at Launceston on October 12, as is stated on the title-page of a pamphlet issued at the time, containing " A Dialogue between a Captain of a Merchant Ship and a Farmer, concerning the pernicious practice of wrecking ; as exemplified in the unhappy fate of one William Pearce of St. Gcnnis . . . shewing also how the Captain was converted to a life of much seriousness and consideration. "§ The general election, to the proximity of which Morice had referred, was held in March of the next year, when the members for both boroughs were re-chosen, with the exception of Burrell, who was returned for Totnes,|| his place at Launceston being filled by * Home Office Papers. 17G(J-(W, p. 18-1. t Ibid. t H>id, P- 1«7. § Uililiotliecii Britannica, vol. L, p. 829. No copy of the pamphlet is in the British Museum, and tl loir.' 1 1 the particulars oi several executions in tliis year are given in Hie contemporary Gentleman's Magazine and Annual Register, this one is not noticed. || Burrell, who was a director of the South Sea Company as well as of Greenwich Hospital, was appointed Surveyor-General of the Land Revenue in 1769, hut was defeated upon seeking re-election at Tollies in 177 i. 270 LATTNCESTON, William Amherst, of Troublefield, Hants., an aide-de-camp to George the Third and groom of the bedchamber to the Duke of Gloucester, this being a gain of a seat to the Tories.* Nearly two years later, De Grey (who meanwhile had earned a somewhat grudging tribute to his legal ability from Junius, against whose publisher, Woodfall, he had proceeded!) resigned his seat for Newport in order to stand for Cambridge University in place of Charles Yorke, the new Lord Chancellor (who committed suicide within three days of his appointment.) He was returned, but he represented this constituency only a twelvemonth, when he was made Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. Eleven days after his election for the University and seven after the writ had been issued for Newport, the vacancy he had caused was filled by Eichard Henry Alexander Bennett, of Beckenham, Kent.+ It is not clear at what date the Werrington estate passed from the hands of Humphry Morice into those of Hugh, first Duke of Northumberland^ but it was probably not until after the general election of October, 1774, at which Humphry Morice, as if determined on this last occasion to show of what strength his influence was, had himself returned for both Launceston and Newport, supplanting Bennett at the latter place, and having John Buller, of Morval, as his colleague at the former. Bull also was put in nomination for Laun- ceston as well as a certain John Arscott, of whom this fact is all that is known, and at the poll (which, for reasons later to be explained, was much smaller than at the previous contests of which we have record) Morice secured seventeen votes, Buller twelve, Bull eight, and Arscott one.|| Bull lost nothing, however, by this defeat, for on the next day he was re-elected for Newport, and the place of * Burrell had voted with Pitt in the minority in the debate concerning general warrants and the seizure of papers on Feb. 17, 1763 (Parliamentary History, vol. xv., p. 1403). t Preface by Junius to the collecte 1 Letters. In a letter of Philo-Junius, of June 22. 176!), while De Grey still represented Newport, there is, however, a sneer at him as ex-officio the guardian of liberty." J De Grey, who held the Chief Justiceship nine years and who was then created Baron Walsingham, was elected for Cambridge University Feb. 1, 1770 (Official List, vol. ii., p. 137) and Bennett for New- port on Feb. 12 (Ibid, p. 138), the writ for the latter having been issued on Feb. 5 (Commons Journals, vol. xxxii., p. 616). § Mr. Northmore Lawrence (Werrington and its Possessors) gives it as " about the year 1763," but we have it under Humphry's own hand (ante, p. 268) that four years after that date the Morice influence in the two boroughs was intact, and there is no trace of that of the Percy family being exer- cised until 1780. || H. S. Smith, The Parliaments of England, vol. i., p. 42. PAST AND PRESENT. 271 Morice, who chose to sit for Launceston, was taken by John Frederick, of Burwood Park, Surrey,* son of a baronet of the same name.f We may now again turn to the more purely domestic aspects of the town, and note that it was in 1765 that the Tradesmen's Friendly Society, which still exists, was founded. This was an evidence of the growth of a more organised social feeling among the inhabitants, and it is only one of several such signs which present themselves about this period. Although Wesley at his first coming was disturbed at his services by an unruly crowd, J he soon began to win upon the townsfolk, and on September 18, 1755, he was enabled to record that he " preached in a gentleman's dining room capable of containing some hundreds of people." Two years later he was again in the place, but in the three years which elapsed before his next visit several of his adherents fell away. Writing to a Truro friend in 175S, he couples the parish clergymen of Launceston§ and Plymouth Dock as men who " neither know, nor live, nor teach the Gospel " ; and on September 3, 17G0, when he once more preached at Launceston, it was to the remains of a dead and scattered society, which had " scarce any discipline and only one sermon a fortnight." Just two years later he still found the Launceston society very dead, but from this time the record as a rule is more cheerful. By 176(3, a room had been provided, but this was not sufficiently large to contain the congregation Wesley had drawn together, and which was much affected by his teaching ; by 1768 things were even better, he being much impressed by the largeness and seriousness of his auditory ; and he visited the town in twelve out of the next seventeen years, only expressing regret upon one occasion, and that in 1776, when he found that the work had gained no ground, mainly, as he thought, because the preachers had not adhered to the peculiar Methodist docfrinc of " perfection." Meanwhile another Nonconformist body was securing a foot-hold in the town. After the death in 1745 of the Rev. Michael Martin. || the Presbyterian cause in Launceston had somewhat languished. The Rev. Mr. Castle, a Dissenting minister of Ilatherleigh, preached here * Deo. 30, 1771 •. Official List, vol. ii., i>. 160. t Parliamentary History, vol. xviii., p. I. % unto, p. 260, § The Rev. Charles Bedford (ante, i>. 201). || ante, i>. 841. 272 LAUNCESTON, occasionally for a few years, but at length the meeting-house was closed, and was sold to Thomas Parson, jun., a local clothier, to be turned into a dwelling. This, however, was averted, and the cause was revived, mainly by the efforts of two brothers, John and William Saltern (both of whom were subsequently Independent ministers) and the Rev. John Eyre, of Hackney. It was at a room in the house of William Sheeres, at Newport, that the first-named commenced operations, and, being soon joined by his brother, the increase of hearers speedily forced them into more extensive quarters, a large kitchen being first hired near Newport Square, and then a move made to the " Great House," the property of Mr. Joshua Thomas,* at the foot of St. Thomas Hill, where for years the work was pursued with vigour and success. Launceston was still the gaol-centre of the county, and its prison, miserable as it has been shown to have been in earlier days,f had not improved with years. Dr. Borlase, writing about this time, described it as a narrow wretched place for human creatures to be confined in, all supposed innocent till convicted, "but here the innocent and the guilty must be contented to remain till their fate is determined or a better one is built." This testimony was borne out by John Howard, who visited Launceston in 1775, when John Mules was gaoler, the Rev. Charles Lethbi idge chaplain, and Mr. Bennet surgeon. The gaol he describes as very small, and all its dungeons very offensive. " No chimney : no drains : no water : damp earth floors : no Infirmary . . . Their [the prisoners'] provision is put down to them through a hole in the floor of the room above (used as a Chapel) ; and those who serve them there, often catch the fatal fever. At my first visit I found the Keeper, his Assistant, and all the Prisoners but one, sick of it : and heard that a few years before, many Prisoners had died of it ; and the Keeper and his wife in one night." As for food, the allowance to felons was "a three-penny loaf each in two days ; white or brown at their option," while " the Mayor sends the Prisoners weekly one shilling's worth of bread," the outcome of an old legacy of which more will be heard. And it is gratifying to know that, despite the scantiness of their fare and the * ante, pp. 202-03. t ante, p. 108. PAST AND PRESENT. 2*73 scandalousness of the accommodation, " the Prisoners respect the Chaplain, and were very attentive."* Side by side with this exhibition of the darker side of Launceston life at the period under notice is to be placed one of the lighter. To us it may seem strange that a theatre should have contrived to exist in so small a town, but as Launceston was then in a much greater degree the centre of county society than it is now or is ever likely to be again, it had long enjoyed privileges in this direction which much larger places were only just seeking to obtain. t In 1874 an inhabi- tant of the town found pasted on the inside of an old box several playbills of just a century before, which showed that the fame of the Launceston Theatre:): had not yet died away. These announced that " the Exeter Comedians " would appear on various dates in May and June, 1772, " at the New Theatre at the White Hart, in Launceston," tickets (" Pit, Is. 6d., First Gallery, Is., Second Gallery, 6d.,") being obtainable at that hotel and the King's Arms, which latter still stands just inside the South Gate as one of the two principal local hotels. A varied programme was offered : on one night was presented " An Historical Play, call'd King Henry IV., with the Humours of Sir John Fahtaff," to which was added " The English Burletta, call'd Midias" (sic) ; on another " A celebrated Tragedy, call'd The Orphan, or, The Unhappy Marriage" with "A Farce, call'd The Jubilee"; and on "positively the last night but one" a comedy, "written by the Author of The West Indian, and never acted here, call'd The Brothers" especial attractions being offered in this last case by the addition at the end of the second act of " a favourite Song, from the New Opera of Cym.cn, call'd ' Sweet Passion of Love,' " and at the " End of the Play a Facetious Dialogue on the Times, between Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguccheek." The building in which these perform- ances were given stood at the back of the "White Hart Hotel, abutting on Madford Wall, where there is now an extensive range of stabling, and was doubtless used as an assembly room when not occupied as a • John Howard, The State of the Prisons in England and Wales (isi edition, 1777K p. 882. t "A Hill to enable His Majesty to license a Playhouse, in the Town or Place commonly called or known by the Name of Dock Town" (the present Devonport). was before Parliament iu 1770 (Commons Journals, vol. xxxii., ppj 017 and foil.) X ante, p. ^07. 27l LAUNCESTON, theatre.* The playbills were "Printed by J. Collins, at Mr. Pen- warden's at Star-Cross, + where Printing is performed in all its Branches"; and although it may be doubted whether Collins was the first to use the press in Launceston (for much printed matter must have been required in an assize town for which it would not have been convenient to have had always to send to Exeter or Plymouth) there is no proof of any earlier, and, until these bills had been discovered it had been thought that a Mr. Bray, who commenced business in 1789, was our first local printer.^ In the year 1778 the Tradesmen's Friendly Society, " held at the Exeter Inn, in Launceston, for the mutual support of each other in sickness, casualties, and death," began to keep a record of its pro- ceedings. It had been founded in 1765,§ by George Wevill, Thomas Eogers, Thomas Geake, John Mules,|| and others, but the first written intimation of its existence is the entry in February, 1778, of a resolution " that Richard Smith be fined for not attending with his key, and not giving the same to his deputy." Many instances of fines are on the minutes during the early years of the Society's life, several of them for contravention of a rule which provided that " No Members shall presume to curse, swear, profane the Lord's most Holy Name, quarrel, fight, talk indecently or enter the Society Boom disguised in liquor."** On September 3, 1780, John Bounsall was "fined one shilling for calling T. Down 'Fool,' " and on November G of the same year Thomas Saunders was fined a like sum "for ridiculing, threatening, and defaming the character of Mr. Carter." The first President who appears to have been elected was George Fardinff on November 8, 1781, and he, during his term of office, was seriously complained of for having accused a member, who happened to be a clock-maker, of the somewhat mysterious offence of " boiling * In the beginning of the present century what was known as a theatre existed on the "Walk, hut it was only used by amateurs for Christinas mummings. t Starcross was the name applied to that portion of the town, near the Assize Courts and close to the White Hart, where several roads met, and as an appellation it did not disappear before tin' middle of the present century. % W. L. Powell, Lecture on Printing in Laun- ceston (1881). § ante, p. 271. || ante, pp. 265-72. ** The rule goes on to prohibit members from " raising any dispute touching Church or State ; defaming the Society or any of its Members in any other Company; upbraiding any Member or his friends for any benefit lie may have received from the box ; or in any manner interrupting the Clerk or Stewards in the execution of their duty." This is taken from the book of rules issued in 1833, which is believed to have been the earliest printed, and it is doubtless in the same form as it was originally drawn. ft A name afterwards corrupted to Farthing (ante, p. 218). PAST ANl) PRESENT. 275 the clock." There is no record of a fine for violating the rule " that no Member shall practise cudgelling or wrestling either on the Stage or King," but a well-merited penalty was imposed on August 5, 1782, upon Eichard Frost, who, according to a special report of the Presi- dent himself, had had the hardihood, with deliberate defiance of grammar, to say that " not five men in the Society did not know their right hand from their left."* The condition of Launceston Gaol deservedly occupied the attention of Parliament in 1778, early in which year a petition, adopted at the Quarter Sessions held at Bodmin on the previous October 9, was presented " setting forth, That the Common Gaol of the said County, for Criminals, is within the Castle of Launceston, and is at present in a very bad Condition . . . and that the said Gaol, and the Town of Launceston, being situated near the Eastern Extremity of the said County, the Ease and Convenience of the Public would be best suited by an additional Gaol for Criminals being provided nearer the Centre of the said County," and suggesting that such prison should be built at Bodmin. t The Bill passed the Commons without opposition, and was equally successful in the Lords, the King's assent to the measure, as far as it affected the Duchy of Cornwall, being signified during its progress. Up to that time the Duchy had had to bear the cost of repairing the prison, it not being the property of the county but really "the King's Gaol at Launceston," as it was termed as far back as 1524 in a " Testimonial of the Town of Bodmin against the Prior "+ ; and George the Third now gave two thousand pounds towards the building of the prison at Bodmin and five hundred towards the enlarging of that at Launceston, on condition that the Duchy should be absolved from future liability for either. In the year afterwards, out of the five hundred pounds of the King's bounty appropriated to Launceston, four new cells for men were built, while the older portion of the prison was reserved for women§; but although the physical comfort of the inmates wa3 now more attended to by the erection of a pump in the men's court and the * The minute-book from which this information is taken covers the period from 1778 to 1810. t J:»n. 2!», 1778 : Commons Journals, vol. xx.wi., p. i>:i7. t Bodmin Regis- ter, p. 301. § John Howard, The State of the Prisons in England ami Wales (4th edition, 1792), pp. Wl-Vl. 276 LAUNCESTON, better looking after of the drains, divine service on Sundays was dispensed with,* despite the fact that Howard in 1775+ had been " edified by the serious behaviour of the Chaplain at Prayers." At the general election of September, 1780, a clean sweep was made of the members for Launceston and Newport, the "patronage" of the boroughs having passed from Humphry Morice to the Duke of Northumberland, and, of the four thus displaced, only Buller succeeded in gaining a seat elsewhere, he being returned for West Looe. For Launceston there were elected James, Viscount Cran- borne, eldest son of the Sixth Earl of Salisbury, and Thomas Bowlby, Commissary General, and brother-in-law of the Duke of Montagu ; while for Newport were chosen James, Viscount Maitland, eldest son of the Seventh Earl of Lauderdale, § and John Coghill, who was created a baronet six months later.|| Of these, the one of most interest to us is the first-named, he being grandfather of the present Conservative leader in the House of Lords. He had sat for Great Bedwin (Wilts) in the previous Parliament, and at this dissolution was returned for both Launceston andPlympton, but which seat he would have chosen is unknown, for he came to the earldom on the death of his father before he was called upon to select. In 1789 he was created one of George the Third's many Marquises, and, dying in 1823, was followed by his son, who was himself succeeded in 1868 by the present Marquis of Salisbury. His place as member for Launceston was taken on November 28, 1780, by the Hon. Charles George Perceval,** and very shortly after thelatter's election, a petition was presented to the Commons by the Trustees of the Launceston Boads setting out that the term granted by the Act of 1760ft required to be extended as "several Boads therein mentioned are still greatly out of Bepair."JJ Five weeks later the necessary Bill was ordered to be brought in by * An Account of the Prisons and Houses of Correction in the Western Circuit (1789), p. 3t 1 ante p 272. § He was elected for Mahnesbury in 1784, succeeded to the earldom in 1789, was made an English peer in 1800, and died in 1830. || Parliamentary History, vol. xxi., pp. 771-73. ** Official List, vol. ii., p. 103. Perceval, who became Lord Arden in June, 1784, on the death of his mother (Baroness Arden in her own right) was a son of the second Earl of Egmont (the present holder of which title is likewise called Charles George Perceval) and was elder brother of Spencer Perceval, whose assassination in 1811, when Prime Minister, is the basis of a well-known Cornish dream story. ft ante, p. 206. XX J»u- 20, 1781 : Commons Journals, vol. SXZTIU., p. 135. PAST AND PRESENT. 277 Bowlby and Perceval, the evidence of a Mr. Langueville Hales being held to prove its necessity,* and it was speedily run through both Houses. This question of the roads had greatly troubled the district for many years, for a list is in existence, dated August 2, 1756, of " Subscriptions for making a good Wheel Road over the Moors, from Bodmyn to Launceston, and for erecting Mile Stones from Truro to Launceston;"f and thirteen years later the Mayor and Corporaticn of Bodmin petitioned Parliament concerning the "very bad and ruinous condition" of most of the roads in their district, including " the Highways leading from Kennard's House, in the Parish of South Petherwin, over Hickes's Mill Bridge, and through the Parishes of Lawannick and Alternon,"+ with the result that an Act was passed which may be hoped to have had some good effect. On Bowlby's acceptance of the Chiltern Hundreds, there was chosen on January 31, 17S3, Sir John Jervis, Knight of the Bath, who, fourteen years later, for his famous naval victory over the Spaniards was created Earl St. Vincent. This election appears to have caused some stir in Launceston, for eight days previous to the return, a petition of " the principal inhabitants and freeholders" had been presented to the Commons, which, in protesting against the choice of members being in the hands of a small body, gave an interesting chapter of local history. It stated that for two hundred years after the Philip and Mary charter there existed in the town not only aldermen and freemen but an intermediate body acting as a Common Council, this consisting of eight members elected by the former from among the latter, and each aldermanic vacancy being supplied from the ranks of the Common Councillors, " keeping up the Number of Freemen to preserve the Independency of the Borough. "§ The petition went on to say that " the Custom of supplying the Upper Bench from the Lower, and keeping up the Number of Freemen was observed for more than Two Centuries," but that from the election of 1734 1| " the Body of Common Council lost its Influence, as the Aldermanick Body was supplied sometimes from the Common Council, but more * Harob 7 : Ibid, i>. 270. t Bodmin Register, p. 3.35. t Commons Journals, vol. xxxii., pp. 119 ana foil. $ The number of freemen voting at the election of 1722 is stated in this petition to have been over 60, and 44 at that of 1734, exclusive iu each case of mayor, aldermen, and Common Council, \\ ante, p. 2S6. 27S LAUNCESTON, frequently from the Freemen at large ; that, about Twenty years ago, the Body of Common Council was annihilated, and within these Fourteen Years no Freemen have been elected but partially to supply the Aldermanick Body ; that the present Freemen are only Ten, Two of which at least are under the Influence of the Mayor and Aldermen"; and that Parliament ought " to restore a more equal Right of Rep- resentation to the Inhabitants."* The petition was put aside after a protest by Perceval against its having been presented, and a solemn warning by Edmund Burke against any attempt to tamper with the constitution as at that moment existing t Upon the formation of the Pitt Ministry in December of the same year, Perceval was made a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty, and was immediately re-chosen for Launceston.J one of his first duties after re-election being to assist his constituents in a matter which had troubled them thirty years before and which troubled them still. The Scarne transaction, authorized by the Act of 1755, § had not proved a success, which was perhaps not to be wondered at under all the circumstances. An indenture had been made on May 2, 1757, between the mayor (then Humphry Lawrence) and aldermen on the one part and John Pearse, a local innkeeper, on the other, granting Scarne Common (except all timber then growing or which might thereafter grow||) for the term of five hundred years at the yearly rent of £25, a sum scarcely large enough to pay the expenses which it was hoped when the Act was passed that Scarne would meet. Inconsequence, on February 16, 1784, "a Petition of the Governor and Guardians of the Poor . . . and also, of the Mayor, Alder- men, Burgesses, and others," was presented to the Commons, "Setting forth, That the said Governor and Guardians have proceeded in the execution of the said Act, but the Money authorized to be raised hath been found insufficient for the Purposes thereby intended, and a considerable Debt ha th been * Commons Journals, vol.xxxix., p. 81. t Gentleman's Magazine, vol. liii., parti, p. lot). I The election was held on January 3, 1784 (Official List, vol. ii., p. 163.) § ante p "62 II In 1800 the Local Guardians sold for £5 li)s. all timber then growing, and for another £10 all that might thereafter grow during the remainder of the term. It is of a piece with this whole transaction, by which a valuable property was alienated from the borough for five centuries for a miserably inadequate sum, that, on the title-deeds being ordered by the Local Guardians in 1830 to be produced by their Clerk (John Darke) they were taken m Darke's pocket to the King's Arms, where, by some unexplained means, they were removed from his possession and have not been heard of since. T.VST AND PRESENT. 279 incurred for the necessary Purposes of carrying the said Act into Execution, which now remains due ; and that the said Act hath been found, in many other Respects, ineffectual for the Purposes intended ; And therefore praying, That Leave may be given to bring in a Bill for altering and amending the said Act, in such Manner as to the House shall seem meet." The petition was immediately referred to " Mr. Perceval, Sir John Jervis, &c." to consider,* but the House was too much concerned with weightier matters to attend to the wants of Launceston. The Whig majority which was harassing Pitt and his Ministry day by day and hour by hour was not particularly desirous of obliging the Tory members for a Tory borough, and a dissolution came before the question was again referred to. At the general election of April, 1784, Perceval was once more returned for Launceston and Coghill for Newport, but Jervis gave jdace to " George Rose, Esq. now or late of Duke-street in the city of Westminster" (who, on the formation of the Tory Administration in the previous December, had been appointed Joint Secretary to the Treasury, and whose son, as first Baron Strathnairn, is even at tins day a member of the House of Lords) and Viscount Maitland to Sir John Miller, bart., of Bath Easton Villa, Somerset. Immediately Parliament assembled the question of the Launceston poor was again thrust to the front, and this time with success. "The Governor and Guardians of the Poor" presented, on June 11, another petition to the Commons, showing, but in more detail than before, how they had failed in executing the Act of 175.3, and alleg- ing that the aftermath of the " several Common Lands, called Great Pennygillam, Little Pennygillam, Hay, Windmill, and Longland," which had "of ancient Right and Custom, been enjoyed by the Mayor, Aldermen, and Free Burgesses, and the Widows of Free Burgesses" was of little benefit to those entitled thereto, "and it would be advantageous to the Petitioners, if the same was to be sold, or let, for the best Price or Rent which coidd be had for the same, and the Money arising thereby applied towards repairing the Church, repairing and lighting the Streets, or any other Purpose, for the Ornament of the said * Commons Journals, vol. xxxix., p. W9, 280 LAUNCESTON, Town, or the Convenience of the Inhabitants."* Rose and Lord Maitland (for the latter, though now representing Halinesbury, had not forgotten his old constituents) were appointed on the committee to examine the petition, and they, upon the evidence of Thomas Jago, advised that an amending Bill should bo introduced, and this was done by Hose and Perceval (now Lord Ardenf). The measure encountered no opposition in either House ; it was run rapidly through each, and it re- ceived the royal assentj within seven weeks of the petition being presented. Under its provisions overseers were first appointed, the earliest of these being William Moffett and Richaid Derrent, while at the same time Thomas Jago (perhaps for his services in assisting to obtain the Act) was chosen Clerk and " John Derry and his Wife to be Master and Mistress of the House," this being the first mention in the minutes of either of these functionaries. The system of election of overseers and local guardians laid down by this Act was followed for exactly a century (though the powers of the latter had practically been rendered obsolete by the New Poor Law) when the Board, which the Act of 1755 had declared should "continue forever," disappeared in the midst of a political difference over a five-pound noto.§ In the year after this poor law question had temporarily been settled " the Principal Inhabitants and Freeholders within the Borough of Launccston," nothing daunted by their ill-success of two years before, || presented a petition to Parliament, showing that, though " sensible of the Original Excellence of the Constitution of this Country, and mr st ardently wishing to have it maintained upon the genuine Principles on which it was founded," they were of opinion that " the House should take into their most serious Consid- eration the present inadequate State of the Representation of the People in Parliament, and apply such Remedies to this great Consti- tutional Evil, as to the House may seem meet." The Commons were in no humour to agree with such an outspoken complaint ; they were ♦ Commons Journals, vol. xl., p. 110. t June 28, 1784: Ibid, p. 2(54. t July 30 : Lords Journals, vol. xxivii., p. 140. § The last meeting was held on January 18, 1884. The then members were Messrs. John Hawkins, John Grylls Millman, William Proekter, Henry Short, James Treleaven, and Georpe Graham White, jun. (appointed by the Town Council of members of its own body) and Messrs. William Cater, George Ellicott, Richard Dennis Gillbard, James Ham, John Nicolls, William Philp, Philip John Raddall, Thomas White, and William Wise (appointed by the ratepayers at the annual statutory meeting in 1883). || ante, p. 277. PAST ANT) PRESENT. 281 in a few weeks to reject Pitt's plan of parliamentary reform, and they ordered the document to lie upon the table.* But although similar treatment was accorded to a petition from the Mayor and Commonalty of Launceston the same session, praying for severe measure to be accorded to hawkers, whose existence was highly offensive to the "resident Traders, who are well-known, and whose characters are at stake for carrying on their Trades upon fair and reasonable Terms, "t the House evidently sympathised with it more than with the other, for in this year it passed a Bill dealing with the hawkers much in the manner that Launceston and other towns had asked. X On the death of Sir John Coghill in 17S<3, William Mitford, of Ecbury, Hants, was returned for Newport.§ Mitford, who was de- scended from a Northumbrian family, || and whose younger brother, John, (afterwards Solicitor-General, Speaker of the House of Com- mons, and first Baron Kedesdale) sat for many years as the Percy nominee for Beeralston, is best remembered as a friend of Edward Gibbon (who was a major in the Hampshire Militia when Mitford was a captain, and who himself sat for a Cornish borough) upon whose advice it was that he wrote a " History of Greece," which, for its hatred of democracy, is described in a modern publi- cation as " a pugnacious, opinionative, one-sided, and even fanatical production,"** and the first volume of which was issued the year be- fore he was chosen for Newport. He represented the borough only in this Parliament, but in later years the friendship of the Percy family returned him with his brother for Beeralston. ft A few months after the election of Mitford for Newport, the death of the first Duke of Northumberland and the succession of Hugh, Second Duke, (who had for ten years already held the Barony of Percy through his mother) changed the whole aspect of politi- cal affairs in the two boroughs. The new owner of Werrington, who ill later days was on the Council of the Duke of Cornwall (afterwards * March 4, 1786 : Commons Journals, vol. xl„ i>. 07!'. t July 4: Ibid, p. 1120. X Bee debate upon the measure in Gentleman's Magazine, vol. lv., imrt 2, p. 068. § Dec. 18, 1 7sr» .- Official List, vol. ii., p. I7ti. || Joshua Wilson, Biographical Index to the present House of Commons (1806), p. 884. ••Chambers's Enoyclopoadia (Edition of 1883, vol. vi., p. 103). tt He sat for that borough in the Parliaments of 1796 and 1802, and died on February 8, 1827, two days before completing his eighty-third year. 282 LAtWCESTOtf, George the Fourth and himself in constant opposition to the Tory Ministry) among the other members being such well-known Whigs as Erskine, Sheridan, and Jekyll,* soon caused it to be felt that he shared their political opinions. George Rose, one of the members for Launceston,! was the first victim, for when, in June, 1788, he was made Clerk of the Parliaments, he " was refused his re-election," by direction of the Duke,t Sir John Edward Swinburne (of Capheaton, Northumberland, and thus probably an old acquaintance of his grace) being returned in his place, § and Eose having to seek election for Lymington, where Harry Burrard at the desired moment had accepted the Chiltern Hundreds. j| The ducal power was even more fully shown at the dissolution of 1790, when a complete alteration was effected in the representation of the boroughs, the Hon. Captain John Rodney, of Armsworth, Hants., (son of the famous Admiral, first Baron Bodney) and Sir Henry Clinton, Knight of the Bath, of Portland Place, London, being chosen for Launceston, while Robert, Viscount Peilding, eldest son of the Sixth Earl of Denbigh** (who had sat for Beeralston in the two previous Parliaments), and Lieutenant- General Charles Rainsford, Gov- ernor of Chester (who had been returned for Maldon at a bye- election in 1773, and at another for Beeralston in 1787) were sent up for Newport. tf The religious revival in the town was meanwhile making great headway. The Presbyterians or Calvinists (for in practice they savoured much of the former and in precept of the latter|J) having made good their footing at St. Thomas§§ moved up the hill, and * Beatson's Political Index (I8i)(i), vol. ii., pp. 388-89. t ante, p. 279. t T. H. B. Oldfleld, An Entire and Complete History, Political and Personal, of the Boroughs in Great Britain [2nd edition, 1794], vol. i., p. 113. § June 18, 1788: Official List, vol. ii., p. 176. It was rumoured in the beginning of 1884, though apparently without authority, that the present Sir John Swinburne, great-grandson of the baronet here named, would become a candidate for Launceston in the Liberal interest at the next dissolution. || Rose was returned for Lymington on July 1 : Ibid, p. 181. ** He died before his father, who expired in 1800. tt Official List, vol. ii., p. 188. Of the old members, Lord Arden was the only one who again came prominently forward in politics ; he was elected for Totncs in the Parliament of 1796, and was made Master of the Mint on the formation of the Addington Ministry in February, 1801. tt The Presbyterian practice of sitting during the singing and standing during the prayers continued until 1865, when the Rev. John Horsey, at the end of a long ministry, protested against and succeeded in abolishing it ; and among the older inhabitants the attendants at the Congregational Chapel are still spoken of as " the Calvinists." §§ ante, p. 272. 'PAST AND PRESENT. 283 "William. Saltern, who had carried on the work since his brother's entrance to the ministry (supporting himself in part by the Society and partly by help from other places) purchased in 1788 the plot of ground in Castle Street on which a previous dissenting meeting-house had stood.* At a cost of £380 a building was there erected which was opened for worship on September 18, 1788; and a church was then formed, for the guidance of which rules were drawn up signed by thirty- four persons as members, William Saltern being ordained minister on June 9, 1790. He died on April 18, 1795, greatly regretted as the Society's minutes testify, and Jonas Lewis, after a twelve- month's probation, was ordained his successor on October 12, 1793. The local Wesleyans were not less strenuous. Between the visit of their founder in September, 1785, and another he paid in the same month of 1789, a piece of ground was bought in Back Lane upon which was erected a new " room," the trustees being James Palmer, John Bray, Henry Essery, John Clode Hender, Richard Williams, William Pearse, and John Paul, the last-named being parish clerk, master of the workhouse, and Methodist local preacher in one. When this building was opened is not on record, but Wesley preached in it on September 28, 1789, and found it too small for the congregation which was exceedingly lively. In 1794, Launceston became the head of a circuit, which embraced the present ten circuits of Launceston, NorthhilJ, Kilkhampton, Holsworthy, Okehampton, Callington, Tavistock, Gunnislake, Liskeard, and Looe ; and two years later the local chapel had to be enlarged, a new piece of ground being bought adjoining the old, the trustees of the purchase, in addition to those above-named, being Jeremiah Davey and Nicholas Burt. The site is now occupied by cottages, but many even of the comparatively young can remember the building as the old school- room, it standing whore is now the third house on the right from the bottom of Back Lane. It may be that these various efforts had something to do with lessening the superstition which then prevailed in the district. Dr. Rowe, of Launceston, in 1790 informed Brand, the author of "Obser- vations on Popular Antiquities," that some rites with fern-seed (the * ante, p. 211. 284 LAUNCESTON, possession of which, gathered with specified ceremonies at midnight on tho eve of St. John the Baptist, was supposed to render one invisible) were still observed here* ; and a dweller " on the edge of St. Stephens Down" assured the inquirer only a few days later that he had seen his cows kneel in their stalls and had heard them " moan like Chris- tians " on Christmas Eve, " walking off in a pettish humour " when he noticed that his tale was received with incredulity.! Howard had noted on his visit to the Launceston prison in 1775J that there was no memorial in the gaol of the legacy under which the Mayor sent the inmates a weekly shilling's-worth of bread, and a return made to Parliament a dozen years later§ stated that the donor was unknown as well as the date of the gift, all that was asserted being that it was a rent-charge providing a clear annual revenue of £2 12s., and that it was vested in the Mayor and Corporation " for bread to the prisoners in Launceston Gaol." It does not seem im- probable that this was really the same charity as was given by the Priory to "the prisoners in the Castle of the lord the King at Launceston, "|| seeing that the alms to " the poor in the Hospital of St. Leonard " and to " the poor on the anniversary of the death of the founder," similarly given by the Priory, may be taken to be accounted for in this return by a money possession yielding £3 18s. yearly which in trust of the Corporation was "for bread to the poor," and one in land of the annual value of £10, the proceeds of which were distributed by the Mayor " to the poor," the donors and the date of both of which were unknown, but the latter "supposed to have been granted by the Crown ; originally for poor people afflicted with leprosy." Our last previous glimpse of the Leper Hospital was in the early years of the seventeenth century when two separate sums of £5 were recorded as having been paid to it by Launceston's mayor,** and it seems to have mysteriously passed away, building and lepers and all, in the intervening years. It has left its name on the farm Avhich occupies its site, but the only conceivable relics of the old edifice are the granite gateway-tops which are still to be seen at the * Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities, vol. i., p. 180. tlbid, p. 250. Jante, p. 272. § This return, though taken in 178G-88 was not printed until 1810; The facts relating to Launceston and the surrounding; parishes are to be found in Part I., pp. 100-7. 11 ante, p. 82. ** ante, pp. 110-20. PAST AND PRESENT. 285 entrance of St. Leonards, and the record in gilded letters on the front of St. Mary Magdalene's gallery touching "St. Leonard's Hospital Lands, fields called the Lazar Ground, lying in the parish of St. Stephens by Launceston, containing 17 acres, now (1840) rented by W. Mitchell at Twenty Pounds per anm. Belong to the poor of this parish and of the ancient Borough of Dunheved." This was not the only Launceston charity which contrived to vanish in the lapse of years. In a description of the town published in 1776, it was stated that there then existed here " a free school and two charity schools ; the free school was founded by Queen Elizabeth, and the charity schools are supported by private contribution. They are for the benefit of both sexes ; and the girls besides reading, are taught to knit, sew, and make bone-lace, and are allowed what they earn."* The girls' charity school (which has altogether disappeared) was probably assisted by the legacy of Eichard Welsh, f who in 17G5 bequeathed £50 " for placing out Poor Girls of this Parish (between the age of 12 and 14 years, whose parents should receive no Parish Pay) to some trade or business." The money, which was secured by a deed poll on the Launceston turnpike tolls, was still being paid fifty years later, and there is reason to believe it is being paid to-day. Stirring events agitated Launceston at the end of the eighteenth century. In 1794, when a French invasion was daily expected, corps of volunteers were raised throughout the country, and in Cornwall Launceston was the first to move. Edward Archer, of Trelaske, great- uncle of the present squire, was then High Sheriff, and his brother, Samuel Archer (who had retired as Lieutenant-Colonel from the 3rd Foot Guards, and was then residing atTremeale) was placed as Major Commandant at the head of two companies of infantry of fifty men each, one from Lewannick, Northhill, South Petherwin, and Lezant, and the other from Launceston. A troop of volunteer cavalry also was raised, the muster-roll of which is dated June 4, 1794, and fifty-one out of whose fifty-five members resided in Launceston or St. Stephens. John Cudlipp was the captain * A New Display of lhc Beauties of England [3rd edition, 1770], vol, ii., p. 382. t ante, p. 202. 286 LAtTNCESTON, of the latter, his subalterns probably being Coryndon'Rowe and John Martyn, jun., while Captain Spettigue acted for the infantry under Colonel Archer, whose commission as Major Commandant was dated June 9, 1794. Official record of the work is to be found in the minutes of a county meeting held at Lostwithiel on July 18 of the same year, the High Sheriff presiding, which resolved "That it appearing to this meeting the gentlemen of Launceston have raised a complete troop of cavalry and also of infantry, it is ordered that a further sum of £50 be immediately paid to the captain of the said troop of horse."* Colonel Archer's "green linnets," as they were popularly known from the hue of their clothes, were twelve months later, on June 4, 1795 (the King's birthday), presented with colours, the gift of the Duchess of Northumberland, the occasion being celebrated by a sermon of the Rev. William Carpenter, D.D.,t vicar of Lcvvannick, perpetual curate of St. Mary Magdalene, and son of Joseph Carpenter, a Launceston Alderman of forty years before. J Added to the fears of foreign war there was just now in Laun- ceston the turmoil of domestic strife. George Rose had not forgiven the Duke of Northumberland for having refused him re-election in 1788,§ and he had lain in wait for revenge. The electoral body for Launceston at this time consisted of twenty-three members — eight aldermen and fifteen freemen — and in January, 1795, when a vacancy was caused by the appointment of Sir Henry Clinton to the Governor- ship of Gibraltar, the Duke " recommended the Hon. John Rawdon to supply his place, but it was then discovered that Mr. Rose had attached a majority of these grateful electors to the interest of the treasury, and Mr. Garthshore, private secretary to Mr. Dundas, was elected in opposition to Mr. Rawdon by a majority of sixteen to five."|| This was a rebuff with which the Duke was not likely patiently to put up. His grace for years had been endeavouring to strengthen the influence of which he was now temporarily deprived, and, probably * The Author is indebted for this information to Colonel Archer, of Trelaske. in whose possession are the original muster rolls of these early Launceston Volunteers, t The sermon was published, it being "printed [in London as the title-pafrc states] for Robert .Martin, Launceston." Martin appears to have been simply a bookseller, he ba\ inu- published (but not printed) a previous sermon for Mr. Carpenter (ante, p. 125). t ante, p. 263. § ante, p. 282. || T. II. B. Oldlield, History of the Original Consti- tution of Parliaments . . . to which is added . . . an impartial Account of the several Contests which took place at the last Election [1707], pp. 268-60. l'AST AND PRESENT. 287 to ingratiate himself with the townspeople, had secured from the Duke of Cornwall the Const ableship of the Castle, to which in 1770, on the death of Coryndon Carpenter,* John Anthony Roe, had succeeded! ; and he had also been appointed by the Crown to bo Recorder of the borough, j: When the election was decided against his nominee, he obtained a rule against some of the freemen who had supported Garthshore, to cause them to show by what right they had voted, but he failed in attempting to get it made absolute. The next year he tried again, but this time through Mr. Tyeth, a Launceston wine merchant, § whose financial position was seriously impugned during the hearing. This second case was argued before the King's Bench in 1796, and it was urged on behalf of the Duke's opponents that it was practically the same as had been disposed of in the previous year, that Tyeth was not a freeman but only "an acciden- tal inhabitant," and that it was evident who was the real prosecutor because the Deputy Recorder (Christopher Lethbridge) had declared that he must sign the affidavit or disoblige the Duke. It was further argued that as " the inhabitants of Launceston do not appear to have any immediate and subsisting interest as they do in many Corporations of the Kingdom," and as Tyeth was merely a dweller in the town and not a freeman, " there is not the least foun- dation for saying he has any more connexion with this borough as an existing borough at this moment than any other man in the Kingdom," this being the extreme length to which the old "borough-mongering" theory could be pushed. Erskine, afterwards Lord Chancellor in the " Ministry of All the Talents," was the leading counsel for Tyeth, or, lather, for the Duke, and he argued that "if the Charter of rhilip and Mary is the Charter under which this place is to be governed we are wrong — if the Charter of James the Second has not been accepted we are wrong. But there is evidence that it has been accepted." He added that he was no friend to the charters of "that same King Janu s 1 ante, p. 265. + Carpenter died on April 23, 177<>, and the Constablesbipwasgranted i" Hoc by < leorge the Third on November 8 of the same year, it being confirmed to him by the Duke of Cornwall on Nov. m, 1768. The date of the Duke of Northumberland's appointment is uncertain, but Roe would appear to have still been Constable in iti'o (Howard's Prisons, Ith edition, 1702, p. 391). X One of the Duke's pred< cessors in this oilier during the eightei nth century was diehard V.\ vyan, of Tresmarrow, who died in 1771. § T,\ the in the original .MS., in whicli there are sucli mis-spellings as "Forest" for " Frost " and ''Ledbridge" fur " Lethbridge." 288 LAUNCESTON, the Second," but if this one was the existing law of the place it would have to be obeyed. Is to the interest of the Duke, he exclaimed, "When impositions and jobs are talked of, I can say for one that I shall be glad to see that day arrive when no duke or other great man of the realm could have any interest whatever in an information in the nature of quo warranto about mayors, officers, and burgesses of the lowest description." The famous Whig lawyer, who did not live to see his hopes fulfilled by the Act of 1832, was followed by another counsel on the same side, who contended that the Duke, as being Eecorder and as having a seat in the neighbourhood, had a peculiar right to interfere in the electious for " this great town " ; but the four judges decided against his grace, mainly on the ground that this was a similar case to that which had been before disposed of.* The Duke of Northumberland, however, soon had his revenge. Both sides made the most active preparations for the struggle at the dissolution, and the Launceston election of May, 179G, was perhaps the most exciting the borough has witnessed. The Duke's can- didates were John Eawdon, of Bolney Court, Oxford (his former nominee), and James Brogden, of Clapham, Surrey (who is described as havingbeen "a respectable Eussia Merchant, "t and who was in later years Chairman of Committees of the House), these being opposed on behalf of the Treasury by William Garthshore and the Earl of Dalkeith (father of the Duke of Buccleuch who died in 1884), the connection between whom was not only that they had been travelling companions on a continental tour,} but that Dalkeith was the brother- in-law of the Hon. J. T. Townshend (afterwards second Viscount Sydney), a Lord of the Treasury, under the auspices of which de- partment Garthshore had before been returned. The contest was the closest possible, Eawdon and Brogden each securing twelve supporters while Garthshore and Dalkeith had eleven,§ but the Duke's victory was regarded as so complete that he had not to withstand another contest at Launceston until after the Eeform Act. To provide, however, the Author in tnke them. t Joshua Wilson, Biographical Index to the Present House of Commons (1S0G). 1 Ibid. § Oldlield, History of the Original Constitution of Parliaments (1797), p. 209. PAST AND PRESENT. 289 against thopossibility of danger again arising from there being as many as twenty-three electors to purchase or persuade, the Duke caused the number of aldermen and freemen to bo reduced as occasion served first to twenty and then to sixteen. While Launceston was thus electorally agitated, Newport was tranquil. The voting power, though nominally household suffrage, was in the hands of the Duke of Northumberland and Sir Jonathan Phillips, of Newport House, who between them held all the burgage tenures upon which votes could be obtained. The worthy knight (who bequeathed a hundred pounds to the poor of St. Stephens) had himself sat in Parliament for a few months in 1784, being returned for Camelford at the general election, in company with James Mac- pherson, of Ossianic fame ; he resigned, however, the same summer, and Pitt gave him his reward two years later by causing him to be knighted, when, as Mayor of Camelford, he presented an address to George the Third, congratulating him upon escaping the knife of Margaret Nicholson. At the dissolution of 175G, two Whigs, nominees of the Duke (his being by far the stronger influence), were returned for Newport, one being William Northey, of Box, Wiltshire, " com- mander of the Box volunteer infantry,"* and the other Joseph Richardson, a Northumbrian by birth, a barrister by profession, and a dramatist by practice, " whose literary talents, political principles, and private virtues, eminently qualified him for the most distinguished situation "+ ; and with the record of their election the local chronicle of the eighteenth century comes to an end. The nineteenth century opened for Launceston with the continu- ance of useful social and religious work. The Rev. Jonas Lewis, the Independent minister appointed to Castle Street in 179b",{ resigned his charge in 1799, owing to apersonal difficulty with the congregation; and, after the pulpit had been vacant over a twelvemonth, his place was filled by the Rev. Richard Cope, LL.D , then a senior student of Iloxton Academy. Dr. Cope preached his first sermon hero on June '29, 1800, and was ordained minister on October 21, 1801. In September of the same year he was enabled to found the Wilson, Biographical Index ( l socj . tOldfleld, History of the Original Constitution of Parliaments (1797), p. :):«. t ante, p. 283. 290 LAUXCESTOX, C istle Street Union of Sunday Schools (extending to Langore, Dutson, Polypbant, and Grest>n Bridge") the first institution of the kind in Cornwall ; and his zeal as a social as well as a religious reformer may be gathered from a published sermon, preached by him at Launceston on May 1, 1807, in favour of the abolition of the slave trade. t So great was the success of Dr. Cope's ministry that a gallery had to be erected in the chapel in 1803, and when at the next Christ- mastidea violent storm stripped the roof from the building, the towns- people, irrespective of party or creed, subsciibed to repair the damage. It was not Launceston alone that proved itself generous in time of need, for in ISO", upon a fire of extraordinary destructiveness occurring at Chudleigh, the parish of St. Stephens, following in the wake of St. Mary Magdalene's in similar cases a century and a half before, J gave nine pounds towards the subscription raised to relieve the sufferers. § And these were not the only channels into which money was being well diverted at this time. The Independents, because of growing numbers, erected a second gallery in 1801 and lengthened the building in 1809, and in 1810 the Wesleyans, finding their congregation to have greatly increased, determined upon a new chapel, this occupying the site of the present one, its second suc- cessor.H Despite these signs of progress there were still black spots on the town's reputation, and James Neild, who may be said to have been Howard's direct successor in the work of prison reform, has left a doleful picture of the state of the various Launceston places of detention in the earliest years of our century. The workhouse, which was. to have done so much for the local poor,** presented to him in October, 1803, "a scene of filth, rags, and wretchedness scarcely exceeded in the Tolbooth at Glasgow." Whole families, men, women, and children, " pigged together," and the stench caused the visitor such serious indisposition that he was prevented from visiting the * Launceston, Langore, and "Dutson now (isst) form the Castle Street Union. + Earl Percy, who, as will later In- seen, sat for Launceston in this same year, was an advocate of the suppression of slavery (Wilson, Biozraphical Index, isos, p. 444. t ante, )>. -2-Jo. § Royal Cornwall Gazette, Sept. 19, 1*07. || The trustees were William Pearse, George Pearse, Thomas Davey, William Littleton, William rtrilp, John Browning, Samuel Hocken, Richard Williams, John Aubridge, William Pulton, and John Grigg. ** ante, p, 2ti2. PAST AND PRESENT. 291 magistrates on the matter. Of the county gaol Neilcl spoke more fa- vourably, there being an excellent supply of water, besides clean straw and good ventilation ; but the town prison (known to us as the Dark House, and then used for debtors and petty offenders) was in a "very filthy and ruinous state," while the Bridewell also, which was in the workhouse yard and which possessed no water, was " very dirty."* Three years later, when Neild was again in Launceston, he had not a much brighter tale to tell, t On this occasion he does not seem to have been as well pleased as before with the county gaol, parts of which he found, though clean, to be very damp, and he particularly objected to the practice of keeping ducks and fowls in the prison, which " occasions dirt and negligence," at the same time protesting against a frequent omission to read divine service on the part of the Rev. John Eowe, perpetual curate of St. Mary Magdalene's, who had succeeded the Rev. John LethbridgeJ as Chaplain. The Dark House was now in a " most filthy and dilapidated state," one of Launceston's mayors being of opinion (so a Town Sergeant told Neild) that " the blacker it is the better — it has more the appearance of a gaol," and the Bridewell, as before, was " very dirty. "§ But even if Neild and Howard were virtuous, it did not follow to the people of Launceston that there should be no more cakes and ale-- the latter especially, " a hogshead of strong beer being drunk in the Broad Street by the populace " when, in 1806, the bounds of the borough were beaten with great ceremony. " At ten o'clock on Monday, Sep. 8, the Mayor [John Spettigue] and most of the cor- poration with the principal inhabitants preceded by the Volunteer Fifes and Drums|| and the Town Mace Bearers and Constables" went the rounds, whipping various boys at the halting-places, each lad receiving half-a-crown as compensation for his pains. Many points of interest which might otherwise have faded from remembrance are embalmed in the accounts of the proceeding, both prose and verse, • Gentleman's Magazine, vol. lxxiv., part 2. pp. fiOS-U (July, 1804) i Letter VIII on Prisons ; the communication from Neud is dated phelsea, Nov. 5, 1803, t From tin: work next to be quoted it would appear that this visit was paid in September, 1806. X ante, p. 278, where tin' Christian name l>,y a misprint is given as Charles. § James Neild, gtate of the Prisons in England, Scotland, and Wales (1812), pp. 330-31. || Prom which, and from a line in the poetic version of the day's proceedings, it niny he concluded that the volunteer corps formed twelve years previously (ante, p. 285), still existed. 292 LAUNCEStOtt, which have been handed down to us. We learn, for instance, from the prose description that " a cross was formerly erected" atBrandize Park,andthat < 'St.John'sChai)ple,""ConventGarden,""thePriories," " the Hospital of Gilmartin," and " the Lazar Grounds "* were still familiar names to the townspeople, though not one of them except the first (and that shortened to "Chappie") is now to be heard. And the rhymed account, in acquainting us that The parish gossip's cucking stool, Down here, right by St. Thomas' pool, Held scolds and shrews in stocks, affords the only mention of the local existence of the "cucking stool," though, as to the stocks, two men for drunkenness were placed in them as lately as 1859, when, the St. Mary Mag- dalene's pair having disappeared, those of St. Stephens were borrowed for the occasion and placed in Broad Street, but a bonfire in Castle Dyke the same night made an end of this particular ancient institution. A.t the beginning of this century, Polwhele, desirous as he was of re- cording every county notability then living, had to content himself re- garding Launceston by "offering his respects" to aDr. Cutcliffe/'than whom few are more active in the cause of science and humanity," but whose activity has left no permanent mark, and to Mr. Ching, a local apothecary who had patented certain worm-lozenges, which had se- cured him " a large fortune, perpetual fame, and a very sensible well- informed wife."f Further than these he had only to mention that " in 1804, Samuel Mortimer, of Launceston (father of Mr. Mortimer, gun-maker to his Majesty,) performed a pedestrian feat, scarcely ex- ceeded, if equalled, by a person of his age," walking from Launceston to Stratton when eighty-eight years old, in less than five hours. \ Launceston Grammar School for a short time at this period was under the care of the Rev. John Wood, of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, who, being appointed to a college-tutorship in 1805, was the next year succeeded by the Rev. W. Cowlard, Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. There were at that time eleven boarders, besides day-boys, * The St. Mary Magdalene's Sunday School was accustomed fifty years since to hold its annual festival in these grounds — a survival of the days when they were devoted to semi-ecclesiastical uses. t Polwhele, vol. v., p. 180. J Ibid, vol. vii., p. 37. PAST AND PRESENT. 293 "and the bounty was increased from twenty-six to forty pounds; independent of the annual sum for tuition."* In 1811, the Corpor- ation erected a new school-house, " upon the site of an old one, at an expense of £1000," but, "from the badness of its construction, this building very soon fell into decay, "f Even worse things were in store for the institution. Mr. Cowlard was followed in the master- ship by the Rev. J. H. Hutton, " who," said Carlisle in 1818, "has an excellent House and delightfully situate ; but it is unfortunately in a neighbourhood of no affluence to furnish many Scholars. "J This gentleman, as will later be seen, was not best calculated to make the institution prosperous, and in 1821 the Lauuceston Grammar School temporarily ceased to be.§ But almost simultaneously with this eclipse of the old school a new one arose. The will of John Horwell,|| though the testator had died in 1726, had never yet been allowed to bear fruit. A chancery suit was instituted as soon as possible to set it aside, but though it failed the legacy appears to have been lost sight of until about 1750, when fie sum bequeathed was recovered with interest. It still.however, was put to no purpose, for the parliamentary return of 1786,** which stated that the gross amount of the endowment was £1705 15s. 2d., added that it was vested in tie Accountant General, the money beii g "in the Funds, but depending in Chancery." A suit concerning it was set down to be heard on July 7, 1792, the Attorney General taking action at the instance of the Rev. Charles Lethbridgo (son of the incumbent of St. Stephens, and himself appointed the previous year perpetual curate of St. Thomastt) and Martin Miller, on behalf of themselves and the other parishioners of St. Stephens, against the Second Duke of Northumberland, Sir Jonathan Phillips, the Eev. *lt. Polwhele, The Language, Literature, and Literary Characters of Cornwall (1806), p. 57. t Thirty-second Report (Pari I) of tin- Commissioners on Charities ( i s:t7 ) , \t. 404. t Carlisle, Concise Description of the Endowed Grammar Schools, vol. i., p. 189. It is here stated that " the School has never exceeded Twelve or Fourteen boys of late years," and thai in addition to the Baron payment (ante, ]>. ~2:V2) there was at this time (isiv) on annua] endowment of £15 by the Duke of Northumberland. § Chaiitv Com- missioner's Report, p. 104. |] auto, p. l'I'.i. *• ante, p. -st. tt He was born in I7i;:t, was incumbent of Landulph from 17S7 to 1806, of Stokeclimsland from 1805 to 1840, of St. Stephens from 1818 to 1840, and of St. Thomas from i7:n to 1840, dying Mt St. Stephenson Deo. 16 of the last-mentioned year. Mr. Lethbridge received the living of Stoke from the Duke of Cornwall (afterwards George IV.), to whom he bad been introduced on a visit to London, and whoso favour he had won, according to the local gossip of the time, by the ringing of a good song. 294 LAUNCESTON, John Lethbridge, Sir W. Burrell, Eichard Bennett Coffin,* John Eoe, and nine others ; and it was ordered that the parties should lay a scheme before one of the Masters in Chancery for carrying the charity into execution. A second cause came before the court on July 2, 1819, when the Eev. Charles Lethbridge and Martin Miller again complained through the Attorney General, and the defendants (now nine in number) included the Third Duke of Northumberland, Christopher Lethbridge, and John King Lethbridge. The Master of the Eolls ordered that the decree of 1792 should be carried on, and that it should be ascertained what sum would be required for building a school. t The effect of this was that feoffees were appointed and a school built in 1823; and, in addition to that for the original six boys, provision was made for giving to others a sound commercial education. Mr. William May was chosen in 1825 to be the first master, and, upon his death in the spring of 18G5, he was succeeded by Mr. Richard Eeed, the present master, under whose management Hor well's Endowed School has attained a degree of excellence never before secured, and a popularity undreamt of previous to his appointment. J The electoral peace of the two boroughs was in no way disturbed for several years at the beginning of the century, though the Duke of Northumberland gradually severed himself from the Whigs. At the general election of July, 1802, Brogden for Launceston and Eichardson and Northey for Newport were re-chosen, while Eawdon's place was filled by Eichard Henry Alexander Bennet (now de- scribed as being a captain in the Eoyal Navy) who had sat for the borough in 1770. § Upon the death of Eichardson in the next year, Edward Morris, a barrister, son-in-law of Erskine (who had pleaded in the Duke's interest in 1796||), and a dramatist like his predecessor, was elected for Newport,** and he, like the other members for the two boroughs, was to be found in the Whig minority whenever there was a critical party division in this Parliament. ft I n ♦OfHexworthy, grandson of Colonel Robert Bennett, of the CivilWarperiod(ante, p. 203). t For an account in great detail of these transactions see Thirty-Second Report (Part I) of the Commissioners on Charities (1837), pp. 40it and foil. According to local re- membrances, lmu-h of the credit for forcing this matter into public notice was due to Mr. Nicholas Burt and Mr. Yaughan Ridgman. J The Charity Commissioners laid down a new scheme for the school in 1878, varying its regulations but better fullilling the purposes of its founder. § ante, p. 270. II ante, p. 287. ** June 20, 1803 : Official List, vol. ii., p. 21(5. t+ Joshua Wilson, A Biographical Index to the present House of Parliament (1800), PAST AND PRESENT. 295 November, 1806, Brogden was once more chosen for Launceston and Northey and Morris for Newport, but Bonnet gave place to Earl Percy, the Duke's eldest son, Launceston being the third constituency that nobleman had represented within three months. In August, when he had not long attained his majority, he was sent up at a bye-election for Buckingham, but in October, on the death of Fox, ho exchanged that seat for Westminster, " and it was supposed that ho would be of course returned again at the general election, but he was brought in for Launceston."* He was re-chosen here (as well as the three other members) at the general election which followed in May, 1807, but, having been seated also for Northumberland, he decided to represent that constituency, and Captain Bonnet (who to the short-lived Parliament of 1S06 had been returned at a bye-election for Enniskillen, and who had unsuccessfully contested Ipswich at the dissolution of 1807) was sent up in his stead, f In 1812, he was called by the Tory Ministry to the Upper House in his father's barony of Percy, and this visible sign of the return of his family to Tory prin- ciples was speedily followed by the resignation of Bonnet, whose place was filled by Jonathan Raine,}: auditor to the Duke of Northumber- land's estates, who, beginning political life as a Whig, had followed his patron in becoming a Tory. Raine, who was a special pleader of some distinction, had been a member of the Parliaments of 1802 and 1S06, but had lost his seat at the general election of 1S07. At the dissolution of 1812 Brogden and Northey were again re- elected for Launceston and Newport respectively, but Raine, displacing Morris, moved from the one borough to the other, and his seat at Launceston was taken by Pownall Bastard Pellcw, a captain in the navy and son of the celebrated admiral, whom he succeeded as Viscount Exmouth in 1833, dying the same year. This state of the represen- tation continued unchanged at the general elections of June, 1818, and March, 1820, Raine having been re- chosen in March, 1816, upon his appointment as a King's Counsel. But this does not signify that there was no opposition to the Duke's nominees, for though all chance of any being displayed at Launceston had been destroyed by the ♦ Ibid, Edition of 1808, p. tit. t July 17, ls<>7 : Official List, vol. ii., i>. 248. X May 8, 1812; Ibid, 296 LATJNCESTON, policy the Corporation had steadily pursued since 1796, of very strictly limiting the number of voters,* at Newport there was more material for fight. At the general election of 1818 the Duke of Northumberland (the Earl Percy, member for Launceston, of twelve years beforef) " met with an unexpected opposition from Mr. Phillips, of Newport House. This gentleman, who owns a minority of the turgage-holds, proposed Sir John Kennaway.J and Ealph Franco, Esq., in opposition to the Duke of Northumberland's nomination of Jonathan Eaine, Esq., and William Northey, Esq. At the close of the poll the numbers were : For Jonathan Baine, Esq. ... 43 William Northey, Esq. 43 Sir John Kennaway ... ... ... 15 Ralph Franco, Esq. 15 Upon which the Duke of Northumberland's nominees were declared duly elected. "§ At the dissolution caused by George the Third's death in 1820, Eaine and Northey were again unsuccessfully opposed, this time by a Mr. John Sympson Jessopp, but the numbers polled are unmentioned.j| A record of burials in the parish of St. Mary Magdalene from 1815 to 1840, kept by the then sexton, John Frain, is of peculiar interest in considering this period because of its references to any special incident occurring at the interment. Such entries deal with widely differing affairs ; in two cases it is noted that a person " dropt in something for an Evil"; in another it is stated that a youth, one of a well-known family, was buried by torch-light, the church being "Crowded with Spectator's, Some Very Disorderly" ; in several instances there is an assertion that " the Clergyman repri- manded some Young Men for their 111 Behaviour During the Burial," or words to a similar effect ; and in many it is noted that " Scores attended," " hundreds attended," or, as in one instance, " very few attended." In connection with the burial of an infant in 1817 it is * ante, p. 289. t ante, p. 295. He had succeeded to the title in 1S17. t Grandfather of the present member for East Devon. He had won his baronetcy by his services in India, having been n| pointed in 1788 Resident at the Court of the Nizam, anil having in that capacitv done good work in connection with the war against Tippoo Sultan. § T. H. 15. Oldfield, A Key to the House of Commons (18H>), p, 21. || Smith, Parliaments of England, vol. ii., p. 18. East ANb fkesexT. 2!)? stated that "the Clo— n* Read to the Burial what Could not Be found in the Book, from a state of Intost— n"; and questions of deportment appear particularly to have interested the sexton, he recording on two occasions iu 1822 that the son of the deceased " Keept His Hat On During the Burial " ; while, in the same year, at the interment of a young woman, " the Bell Tol'd 56 Minutes and Her Father at the Grave Side Never shed a Tear." On one occasion " No Parents Attended" ; on another " the Clergyman Lectured them for Coining two Late " ; and on a third, the corpse was " Carried by ye Trade in White Aprons." It is carefully set down at what funerals the minute bell was tolled and at which the bells were chimed and the "dead peal " or the "dumb peal" rung; while it is often noted that " Job's Anthem," " "Vital Spark," or " the 90th Psalm " was sung, the first- named being the evident favourite. The state of the weather also is a frequent subject of remark : once there was " Heavy Rain during the Burial as Ever was Known," then there were " Rain and Hail's," and another time it was " Wet, dyrty, and Cold with Snow." In several instances the cause of death, when at all exceptional, is given, but only twice is any heed taken of national events, namely in 1821, when it is mentioned that there was a funeral on "the Day after the Coronation of George 4th " (possibly noted because, in celebration of the ceremony, a popular feast had been held the previous day on the Walk, immediately adjoining the scene of the sexton's labours) ; and in 1837, when a body was interred on May 24, "Princess Victoria B'day " — just four weeks before her present Majesty came to the throne. Beyond these there are in this book several entries of interest as affecting the clergymen of the district. The incumbent of St. Mary Magdalene's! naturally figures the most prominently, and when "old Parson Rowe," a sporting clergyman of a type now almost extinct, died at the age of od, and was buried on March 14, 1837, it is recorded that he had been " Minister 32 Years," and that his popularity was so great that hundreds attended the funeral and that all the shops * Tin' ttev, J. II. Mutton (ante, p. 2W5). Tliis reverend gentleman is recorded to have officiated at several funerals at St." Mary Magdalene's in 1816 and the two following years, the last entry of his name l»in* of a burial on September 16, 1S17. t The Rev, John Rowe (ante, p. 291), 2§8 LAtfttCESTON, wore shut " except Castine and Printer 1'hilp." The reverend gentleman's successor, it may be noted, was the Rev. George Buckmaster Gibbons, who became perpetual curate of St. Mary Magdalene's on March '60, 1837, at the age of twenty-nine, the sexton recording that " The First Duty with Mr. Gibbons" was on May 7 of the same year, the new incumbent having to "lecture ye Assembly" (presumably for their ill behaviour) at two interments in the following month.* The only other of the many clergymen mentioned in the book who need be referred to here is the Rev. Francis Vyvyan Jago- Arundell, son of Thomas Jago.t who, born at Launceston in 17S0, and appointed rector of Landulph in 1805 (a preferment he held until his death in 1846), was greatly interested in local history, and planned but never published a work on the subject. J Of the other entries in the book only a very few can be noticed. One (in the chief magistrate's own handwriting) dated 1826 and signed "J. Roe Esqr. Mayor of Launceston " states that it was " Order'd January 4th Any More Vaults to be Made None to Be But two Coffins wide But as Deep as ye Like," and it is noted at the end of the volume that on September 15, 1840, was brought " The New Engien from Plymouth." A few of the addresses given of those interred have already passed out of memory, for Starcross,§ Back Street, the Fish Market, and the Butter Market are no longer recog- nised as places of abode. || As to the curious entry of a torchlight burial, referred to above, it may be noted that it was of Christopher Morshead Lawrence (brother of the late Mr. Northmore Lawrence) who died at the age of sixteen, and was interred at eight o'clock in the evening on March 2, 1816. His father, Humphry Lawrence, who died at Whitely, Lifton Down, on April 2, 1811,** had received a similar funeral, the remains being met at the head of Race Hill at half-past eleven at night by the mayor, corporation, and tradesmen * Mr. Gibbons, who was born in London on Jan. 2, 1808, was curate of Dartmouth from L835 to 1837, perpetual curate of Launceston from 1S37 to I860, vicar of Laneast from 1*66 to 1869, and vicarof Werrington from 1869 to 1878, when he Rave up his clerical duties ami retired to Manor House, Camelford, where he died on April 17, 1884. t ante, p. 280. % He is mentioned in 1818 under his original name of Jago but in the next year as Jago-Arundell. § ante, p. 271. || Hack Street was that portion of High Street (as it is now styled throughout) which was at the rear of the old Guildhall ; the Fish Market, the Butter Market, and the Butchers' Market were in the streets, and the parts where they were held were called after their respective names. ** He was a sou of ' Humphry Lawrence, mayor of Launceston in 1707 (ante, p. 278). PAST AND PRESENT. 299 of the town, and, amid muffled peals, escorted by torch-light to St. Mary Magdalene's, where they arrived exactly at midnight and were buried in the family vault. Humphry Lawrence, another son of the Humphry here referred to, who died at Exeter in 1840, was brought to Launceston to be buried in the same vault, and was the ]ast person interred within the church. A scarcely less interesting recoid of some aspects of Launceston life in the earlier part of the present century is afforded in the only existing minute-book of the proceedings of the Local Board of Guardians, which opens with a report of the resolutions taken " at a court held at the Workhouse, Monday, 0th of January, 1817, Mr. Pearce,* chairman." Among the orders is one which directs that " The Methodists are not allowed to preach or pray in this house," a rather different state of things to that which must have prevailed when the workhouse-master was a Methodist local preacher as well.f But a month afterwards the Guardians seem to have repented a little of their curt directions, for they now resolved " That in case of sickness, and then only, such person in such state shall be at liberty to apply if they wish to the Master to send either for a clergyman of the Established Church of England or of (sic) any Dissenting Minister for their mental comfort, and that elderly persons of moral habits, on application to the Master, be allowed to go to either meeting until the Master has proof of their making an improper use of their permission." From the minutes of three months later it would appear that inoculation was still practised here, it being ordered on May 3 " that the surgeon of the Workhouse be desired to vaccinate the poor and be allowed 2s Gd per head for the same, and that such persons as may refuse to have their children vaccinated must themselves pay for inoculation " ; and among the other resolutions of interest passed the same year was one unanimously agreed to on July 7, "That having this day proceeded to the election of a surgeon upon the principle of rotation, we earnestly recommend the adoption of the same plan by our successors in office." Two further points may bo noted as exhibiting phases of poor relief now extinct, * Mr. Thomas Pcarse, a solicitor, who was afterwards ]>romiueiit iu the local Reform agitation, t ante, i>. 283. 300 1AUNCESTON, it being resolved on October 5, 1818, " That John Scawn have 7s. Gd. to take biui to Bideford to procure himself work," and there being several orders in both these years to issue summonses upon tradesmen of the town to bind parish apprentices. Various influences were at work at Launceston in the earlier portion of the century to break up the spirit of exclusiveness which had long characterised the town. Some of these were social, others material, and perhaps still more religious. The detention here of several French prisoners of war during the prolonged struggle with Napoleon* could not fail to introduce an element of broader infor- mation into the households in which they were domiciled on parole, and to the younger members of which they taught the language, while improved communications by coach led to greater movement to the large towns and even to the metropolis. And although the leading inhabitants were still attached members of the Church of England (the Corporation assembling every Sunday in the Council Chamber preparatory to attending St. Mary Magdalene's in a body), dissent was making striking headway. A noteworthy instance of this is afforded by the fact that William O'Bryan, the founder of the Bible Christian connexion, convened here on August 17, 1819, the first conference of that body,f the second being held at Badash, near the town, just twelve months later. O'Bryan was at the time last-men- tioned living at Badash, whither he had come with his family from Kilkkampton on February 11, 1819, and where he remained until Oc- tober 6, 1820, when he took up his residence at Bace Hill, Launceston, J removing thence four years afterwards to Mill Pleasant, Devonport.§ The society struck root in the town, and at the chapel in Tower Street is continued the work commenced by O'Bryan nearly seventy years since. The material changes meanwhile were mainly in the direction of improvement. In the early part of the century the Walk was laid out by the Corporation, and the churchyard (which in 1765 had been added to by purchase, and which was further enlarged in * One of these continued to live in the town even after peace was concluded, and ended his daj s as care-taker of the Wesleyan Chapel. + S. L. Thornc, William O'Bryan, the Man and his Work, p. 118. % Ibid, p. 28. § Ibid, p. 110. PAST AND PRESENT. 301 1809*) was cut in two by a path leading from Church Stile to the Higher Walk, and passing over the vaults of some of the oldest families in the town. About the same time a piece of land near the chancel door, on which had stood two houses, was added to the church area, and a window compartment, previously blocked by these dwel- lings, was opened to view, thus completing the fabric in its present state. f Some years later the Duke of Northumberland removed a couple of houses which occupied the space between the church and the tower, % replacing them by a building designed to be both Council Chamber and Vestry Eoom, a double function which ceased only in 1881, when, on the opening of the new Guildhall, the Town Council had no further occasion for its use. And these were not all the im- provements, (though the value of some to be named may be considered doubtful), effected at this period. In the first year of the century an Act was passed in continuation and amendment of the measure of 1781 dealing with the Launceston roads, § and extending its powers ' ' to the road from the "West Gate under Madf ord in Launceston by Docacre, to the North Gate in Launceston, "|| and this in its turn was amended fourteen years later.** Under the provisions of these Acts, the North Eoad, the Exeter Road, and the Tavistock Road were made, but, in the making, several relics of the town's former station were swept away. The West Gate was the first to disappeartt and much of the outer wall of the Castle followed in its wake when the North Road was made. But the worst result of the latter improve- ment was an unintentional one. The town had resolved to spare the Witches' Tower (which stood fifty or sixty feet high at the corner of Castle Dyke facing the White Hart, and by which the road had to pass) but the work weakened the foundations, and, in an unusually severe storm one night in 1834, the tower was blown into the road. In the same year the North, the second of the three old gates of the town, was deliberately demolished, on the ground that it interfered with the traffic— a pretence disposed of by the fact that the traffic by that time had been diverted to the North Road. But * Pattison, St. Mary Magdalene. The lower burying ground (formerly the Bowling Green) was consecrated about 1843. tlbid. {ante, p. 79. § ante, p. 276. ii Geo. III., cap. z. ** 65 Geo. III., cap. liii. tt Mr. Pattison in his Lecture on Launceston gives the date of this demolition as isl2. 302 LAUNCESTON, the third gate, the South, is now safe from the spoiler, the Town Council having resolved in 1884 that it should be devoted to the purposes of a local museum, and having voted funds for its repair accordingly.* This last-named gate continued at the early part of the century to be what for ages it had been — at once a house of detention, a gaol for petty offenders, and a prison for debtors. The top-storey was devoted to the last class, of whom there was no great number, partly for a reason supplied by Mr. J. K. Lethbridge in a parliamentary return of 1835 — that the place was in so scandalous a condition that tradesmen preferred their debtors to go free than confine them in such a dungeon. The lower room, used for criminals, like the other, was "in a most filthy and dilapidated state,"t while no fire was allowed, water had to be brought in as it suited the keeper, and sanitary conveniences were unknown. This condition of things culminated in 1827. Five suspected burglars had been committed to the Borough Court, then held quarterly, for trial, and, being refused bail, had to remain in the Dark House, with one bed between them and neither ventilation nor comfort of any kind. The attention of the then Home Secretary was called to the matter, not by any official but by a working townsman,! and an order was immediately issued that the men should be liberated on bail and the prison ventilated and better fitted up. This was of necessity attended to, while the men, upon trial before Mr. J. K. Lethbridge (then Deputy Eecorder), wore acquitted. But it was not only the town prison which was attracting public attention at this time. The county gaol, despite the improvements effected because of the royal grant of 1778,§ was of the old pattern and afforded a striking contrast to the new prison at Bodmin, built on the lines laid down by Howard. It was acknowledged, however, to be a great deal better than it had been when, as Drew observes, \\ " for filth, gloom, and unwholesomeness, it was rendered proverbial throughout the county," and when, as he goes on to state, "a finished description of the wretchedness of any situation . . . frequently *It is pleasing to record that this resolution was adopted unanimously, upon the motion of Mr. C. h. Cowlard, a prominent Conservative, seconded by Mr. It. Robbing, an equally active Liberal. t Neild, State of the Prisons, p. 331. $ George Farthing (ante, p. 218). § ante, p. 275. || History of Cornwall, vol. i., p. 577. PAST AND PKESENT. 303 terminates in this : 'It is almost asbadasLauncestonGaol.' " The ten- acity of tradition is shown by the fact that, eve n as lately as the summer of 1883, an acquaintance of the pres n f author overh.' ard, in the course of a dispute at a St. Blazey inn, one of the combatants attempt to crush the other by the verbal criticism, "You've got a face like a Launceston Gaoler." A parliamentary return compiled in 181 S reported the prison to be capable of containing twenty-five persons, and to possess two yards and two day-rooms. No labour was done by the inmates, each of whom was allowed two pounds of bread daily and a quarter- pound of beef on Sundays, with sixpence a week for "necessaries," clothing, when required, being provided at the county expense ; and such prisoners as were taken to the Dark House received the same allowance.* Two years later another parliamentary paper stated that, although since the previous return four sleeping cells had been fitted up for males, the gaol was now capable of containing only twenty-one prisoners, f and this despite the fact that the return of 1818 had stated that twenty-five were confined there at one time in that year. The earlier document had observed that, to class the pris- oners as the law directed, it would " be necessary to build additional apartments on the outside of the present walls, the expense of which would probably amount to the sum of £1,000"; and that of 1820 confirmed this in the statement that there was " not room within the mound walls for further classification." But it was now become increasingly evident that two county prisons were one too many for Cornwall, and it might have been taken for granted that the more central would not be regarded as the superfluous one to be swept away. The regular series of gaol returns for 1823 and a few subsequent years show that the number of prisoners at Launceston was gradually being reduced while at Bodmin it was being enlarged, the former now requiring the services only of the gaoler and a single turnkey. The labour done was that the "males at times work in Gaoler's gardens; females make, mend, and wash clothes," * An Account of all the Gaols, Houses of CoitccI ion, or Penitentiaries in England and Wales (ordered to be printed March 16, 1819), p. 1. t Returns from all the Gaols, Houses of Correction, or Penitentiaries in Kiifdand (ordered to be printed April 13, 1821). 304 LAUNCESTON, all the time occupied being " a few hours in a day at work," and even ihen there was " not employ for all the prisoners." Everything was so comfortable under this system that no punishment had been recently inflicted and no irons were in use, while the Chaplain prayed and preached once every Sunday, and Bibles and other books were allowed. But from the point of view of the Government Official, it must have seriously detracted from the Arcadian happiness of the whole to find that no answer had been given to a searching question regarding the " amount of earnings and how applied."* The returns of the visiting justices for 1823 and 1824 showed that the gaol was kept cleaner than in older days, and that of 1825 that some alterations had lately been made for the better accommo- dation of the female convicts ; but a significant addendum to the last was made by the Clerk of the Peace (then Mr. Edward Coode) — "And I further certify that an addition to the gaol at Bodmin is in consider- able forwardness." This was completed in 1828, and in 1829 the gaol establishment at Launceston was broken up. Christopher Mules, who had followed his father, John Mules, f as gaoler, did not live to see what to him would havebeen a rueful day, for he died in November, 1826, and was buried in the presence of a "large assembly of people." His eldest son, called Christopher like himself, succeeded him in the office, and, upon the great change, was appointed warder in the prison at Bodmin. The last execution which took place at Launceston was in 1821, when two men named Thomson and Barnicott were hanged in the Castle Green for the murder of a farmer near Probus, the scaffold being erected on a slight mound in the centre of the Green, known from this circumstance as Gallows Hill until it was levelled some twenty years since. The previous execution to this was in 1818, when William Rowe, of Stokeclimsland, suffered the death penalty for sheep-stealing. \ In his previously-quoted recollections, § Mr. * Reports to Parliament under tin' Gaol Act for 1821 and following years (among the Parliamentary Returns). t ante, pp. 2G5-72-74. % The following, supplied by a lady of Bodmin, is a list of the latest executions at Launceston .• — 1793, William Tre'varris, murder; lsor>, Jann s Joice and John Williams, burglary at the Launceston PostOffice: 1810, Lawrence Roach, murder ; 1812, William wyatt, murder of a Jew; 1813, Elizabeth Osborne, murder; 1814, "William Baines, murder ; 1815, John Syms, forgery; 1818, William Rowe, sheep-stealing; and 1821, Earnicott and Thomson, murder. § ante, p. 264. PAST AND PRESENT. 305 Ching states "the unfortunate from Stoke, after hanging the usual • time, was cut down, and I well remember seeing his own father in the West Gate Inn waiting for his son's body, which he afterwards took away in an open cart, followed by a crowd of onlookers." The executioner was an Exeter man, who used to come to the town at each assize, and for whom a special rope was always manufactured by Eichard Heath, a Launceston roper, who exhibited it on his stall on the previous market-day, and after it was used, says Mr. Ching, "it was eagerly sought after and disposed of by persons afflicted with scrofula and other diseases."* The only condemnation for murder at Launceston after that of the two men above-mentioned was of one, named Henwood, at the spring assizes of 1835. The un- fortunate man had killed his father without apparent provocation, and all the circumstances seemed to point to his insanity, but he was sentenced to death. As soon as the assizes were over, he was taken in an open van to Bodmin with several other prisoners, who joked him upon his awful position the whole way down, he being executed, in accordance with the then regulations, within a few hours of his arrival at the new county town. This subject leads to the consideration of other punishments for crime practised in Launceston in the early part of this century. The pillory, which we know to have stood in the town in former years, f though not yet abolished by Act of Parliament, had disappeared from Launceston life, like the cucking stool for scolds, X before the opening of the nineteenth century, but some of the old and barbarous punishments remained in use. The stocks§ were in frequent requis- ition for drunkards and petty offenders, and there was also the process of flogging at the cart's tail for larceny. This was got rid of in 1826, the last to suffer the infliction being a man for stealing silver spoons. The penalty of twenty-five lashes on the bare back was laid on by the town scavenger, the wretched cavalcade starting from the * The Author is informed by (he Rev. W. S. .!• ihns, vicar of St. Thomas that accord- ing to the churchwardens' accounts (which date from the end of the fifteenth century) thai parish used to have the providing of the ropes for executions at Launceston and the buosi qu< nl disposal of the bodies. It may nave been for this reason thai Thomson and Banucott were buried in St. Thomas churchyard, on the right-hand side aboul half-way up the path, where the marks of the graves are still visible on a foggy morning. t ante, p, 151. J ante, p. 292. § Ibid, 306 LAtfNdESTON, Pig Market at Starcross,* and proceeding down High Street, turning around by the old Butchers' Markett into Church Street, and then back by Broad Street into the Pig Market again. Other floggings took place at the old pump in Broad Street, close to the assize courts, the scavenger still officiating, and a couple of men were flogged in the town on two successive days in 1826. f The last who suffered punishment at the pump was a man in 1831 for stealing tarts, but the last flogging which took place in Launceston was in the autumn of 1834, when, under a sentence pronounced at the Borough Court by Mr. J. K. Lethbridge, a young man was tied to a tree which stood in the centre of the old Workhouse yard, and there given twenty-five lashes as a preliminary to three months in Bridewell for assault. Within the next two or three years Bridewell, and Law Court, and flogging, had all disappeared from the borough of Launceston. Among other disappearances at this period must be noted a custom which had probably lived for centuries. On the first Monday in each September, the day on which the Corporation chose the Mayor, the roughs of the town selected a man after their own heart, made him drunk with beer, and then took him to Starcross, where they proclaimed him " Mayor of the Pig Market" for the ensuing year. They then powdered his head with flour, tied a frying-pan to his hair at the back, and led him through the streets, continuing to cast flour upon the miserable being and jeering loudly at him as he stumbled along. The last exhibition of this sort was in 1827, in which year a more rational amusement was provided for the people of the town in the shape of cricket. The first club which was formed in this district was at Tregillis, in South Petherwin, and it owed its origin to a Mr. William Crowhurst, who came from the Midlands to superintend the erection of Trebursye House for Mr. Eliot. He and his sons were good cricketers, as were also two gentlemen named Morgan, living at Treguddick, in the same parish, and these being * This was removed to Southgate when the market houses were built in 1840. f Where Mr. Hayman's shops now stand. {April 14 and 15, the eulprit in the former case being said to have been " tied to the Launceston Pump," and, in the latter, " flopped round the town." This information lias been supplied the Author by Mr. Jolin Chegwyn from a book in which his father used to make occasional entries of notable local events, and which, it may be noted, under date " Sat. May 3, 1817 " records that potatoes were 6d. per gallon, meat C|d. per pound, and wheat 20s. to 80s. per bushel. H X H O w H PAST AND PRESEXT. 307 joined by many from Launceston (including Mr. Thomas Clung, Mr. John Clung, Mr. Aaron Eyre, and Mr. William Thorne) a club was formed which met weekly at Tregillis, and which proved an attractive novelty in the district, especially as cock-fighting (which was then frequently practised on the second ring of the Castle, though in a field under Windmill when the judges happened to be in the town, and upon which much betting used to take place) was just beginning to pass out of fashion. Nor was the cricket club the only new form of recreation pro- vided for the better class of Lauucestonians about this date, for in 1829 was founded a Philosophic Society, of which Dr. Patch, Dr. Pethick, and Messrs. Collins, T. S. Eyre, John Darke,* William May.f E. K. Frost, Charles Gurney, and Edward Cope were the committee of management. It possessed, we are told, a library and " a good apparatus,"! while lectures were given during the winter in the upper portion of the old Grammar School which stood on the Walk, and which, according to the authority just quoted, was "also occasionally used for concerts, plays, etc." ; but the society died of inanition in a few years as such are apt to do in so small a town § But another institution of social importance — the Launceston Savings Bank — established eleven years before, still exists and is in a flourishing state. It was founded in 1818, a year prolific in the birth of such establishments in Cornwall. Falmouth had set the example the previous year which was now followed by Launceston, Helston, Liskeard, Penzance, Eedruth, and Truro, the three other savings banks in the county, Bodmin (since closed), Wadebridge, and Camborne, being of much later date.|| Religious growth, meanwhile, was no less marked than social. "A handsome Methodist meeting-house " is noted as among the • nnte, p. '27s. t Mite, p. 304. * Samuel Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of England (1831), vol. iii., p. 84. § The " Literary and Philosophic Society " is men- tioned sis still existing in The Parliamentary Gazetteer ol England mid Wales (1848), vol. iii., p. tn, imt it had died out some years before the date given. |] Parliamentary Return on Savings Hunks (ordered to he printed July 24, lsst), p. 78. The Launceston Savings Bank, as it appears From this, hears favourable comparison, for the economy and efficiency of its management, with other such institutions either in the county or the country generally. The present officers are Mr. J. L. Cowlard, lion, treasurer, Mr. James Grigg, actuary, and Mr. Thomas c. Lamrdon, auditor. In ■emi-oonnection with this institution wns founded in October, 1866, by the Rev. S. Chillis Clarke, a Penny Bank, which existed several years. 303 LAUNCESTON, possessions of the town at this period,* and the Wesleyans continued to make progress, though the number of resident ministers — two at the formation of the circuit in 1794, f and increased to three in 1808 and four in 1809, because of the many stations to be served — was reduced to two again when Tavistock (including Okehampton) and Liskeard (including Callington and Looe) were taken from Launces- ton and formed into separate circuits, the size of the original being further reduced in 1815 by the severance from it of Holsworthy and Kilkhampton. The Independents also were pushing ahead, and when Dr. Copej left the town in June, 1820, to take the position of tutor of the Irish Evangelical College, Dublin, § there remained a body so flourishing that in 1815 it had had to erect yet another gallery behind the pulpit to accommodate the ever-growing congre- gation, while for the use of members of the church a library of seven hundred volumes had been formed. Dr. Cope was succeeded in March, 1821, by the Rev. Alexander Good, of London, whose ministry in Launceston was a comparatively short one, his place being taken in 1824 by the Eev. J. Barfett, who, two years later, saw the erection of the present chapel. || Before leaving this desultory sketch of the social events of interest to Launceston during the first thirty years of the century, a glance may be given at the crimes committed in the town during the same period, which were more than a nine-day wonder to the inhabitants. The burglary at the Launceston Post Office, for which two men were hanged in 1805,** caused a great local sensation, and much credit was given to the three borough constables (by name Atkins, Short, and Watts) for, according to the saying of the time, having found the culprits out "like Narraway (or Norway) rats." There is a tradition that the men were taken in an open cart, rope around neck, from our gaol to Gallows' Hill on St. Stephens Down, followed by a large crowd, and that on their way to execution the landlady whose house they had frequented got up into the cart and kissed *~John Gorton and G. N. Wright, A Topographical Dictionary of Great Britain and Ireland (1833), vol. ii., p. 527. t ante, p. 283. % ante, p. 289. § While in Launceston Dr. Cope was head of a school at Belle Vue. After his labours in Dublin he became minister of the Congregational Churches at Wakefield and Pen- ryn respectively, and died at the last-named town on October 26, 1850, aged eighty, having been born in London on August 23, 1776. || For information regarding the later history of Castle Street Chapel the Author has to thank Mr. William Cater. ** ante, p. 304. PAST AND PRESENT. 309 them* ; but one is bound to accept the legend with caution in the absence of proof that this transport to St. Stephens was ever portion of a Launceston execution. In connection with the condemnation here of a Fowey innkeeper, named Wyatt, in 1812, for the muider of a Jew,t it is told that when the judges had left the town after sen- tencing him, it was discovered that the date fixed for the execution was Good Friday, and, as the man could not legally be hanged on that day, he was kept alive until the May following. But even in the times when folks were hanged for forgery, and sheep-stealing, and a myriad of other offences, it was not every one who deserved the death penalty, according even to the theory of this milder period, that received it. A woman of Launceston, who died but a few years since, was indicted in the old days for child murder, of her commission of which ho one entertained a doubt, but, owing to her having been described in the indictment with the omission of one of her Christian names, she was acquitted. A still more striking instance of the ease with which those guilty of murder escaped the gallows, while a mul- titude of lesser offenders were hurried into eternity, was afforded in 1814. An execution for rent had been "put in" at Higher Bamham, and the sheriff's officers went on a Saturday to levy distress. They found the door to be locked, and, having waited until the next day and still gained no admittance, they called upon the borough constables (then chosen annually from among the inhabitants) to assist them to break open the door. The constables (Samuel Jory, a Broad Street tradesman. Joshua Farthing, a sergeant of militia, and William Tapson, keeper of the Plymouth Dock, now the Devonporf, Inn) went to Bamham on the Sunday accordingly, and were preparing to force an entrance, the farmer and his two sons being within, when Jory was shot dead through the doorway. Nothing daunted, the remaining constables made their way in and arrested the three, who were com- mitted to the assizes at Bodmin charged with the murder, but they were acquitted on the ground that no witness saw the fatal shot fired. Jory was buried in Launceston Churchyard, with an inscription on his tombstone setting forth that he had been murdered in the execution of his duty, but the monument has now in some unexplained manner * Cornish and Devon Post, Jan. 13 and 20, 1333. tanU', p. 30 i. 31C TiAUNCESTOX, disapjeaTpd. One other criminal incident regarding Bamham is sufficient!} curious to be mentioned. A few years after the event just narrated a burglary was committed there on a Saturday night, and the next ncrning, when the matter was investigated, a hat was found which was traced to a man living at Launceston ; he was at once arrested with another conjectured to be an accomplice, and, though tie day was Sunday, no time was lost in haling them before the Mayoi for public examination during the time of evening service. We must now betake ourselves once more to political matters, for it is with them that this portion of our history closes. In 1823, Jonathan Eaine was re-elected for Newport after appointment as "First Justice of the counties of Merioneth, Carnarvon, and Anglesey, in the Principality of Wales,"* and three years later, on the death of William Northey, who had sat for Newport without intermission for thirty years, Charles Greathead Bertie Percy, of Guy's Cliffe, Warwick, was chosen,! there being no opposition in either case. But at the dissolution of June, 1826, electoral affairs at Newport were not so quiet. At Launceston, Brogden and Pellew were once more re-elected without trouble of any kind, but in the sister- borough a contest was arranged, and arranged in a curious fashion. There dwelt in New- port many restless spirits who, though accustomed to vote with the Duke when the poll was taken, were determined to extract as much excitement as possible from their possession of the suffrage. One such was Mr. James Snell, a tanner of St. Stephens Hill, and he, knowing that Mr. Nicholas Burt, Mr. Vaughan Bidgman4 Mr. Samuel Holman, and other independent electors were longing for an opportunity to oppose the Duke's nominees, essayed a somewhat perilous adventure in order to secure a contest. At the end of 1824, having heard that a London banker, named Stevenson, was desirous of fighting a borough upon Whig principles, he wrote to that gentle- man in the name of Nicholas Burt, the leader of the anti-Percy section, telling him there was a good chance at Newport. Acting upon the implied invitation, Stevenson sent to the borough an agent, who waited on Burt, by whom the letter was at once * March 21, 1823 : Official List, vol. ii., p, 285. t Feb. 8, 1826 : Ibid. % ante, p. 294. PAST AND PKESENT. 311 denounced as a forgery. Despite this, Burt entered into negotiations with the banker, and, when Parliament was dissolved in 1826, Stevenson intimated to him that he should at once leave London for Newport, and appointed Lifton Down as the spot where he would like to be met by his supporters. A procession of men on horseback, to the number of thirty or forty, was accordingly formed at Newport, and this (accompanied by hundreds of pedestrians, all wearing laurel leaves and shouting " Stevenson for ever," with Burt and Pddginan at the head) marched through Launceston to Lifton Down, where, while waiting outside the local inn, beer was freely given to the horses to drink. In about half-an-hour, and amid loud cheers, a carriage-and-four drove up with the candidate himself, and the pro- cession marched back to Newport. Burt (who was a currier) had cleared out his drying-loft (which stood upon the site of the "temple of the winds," built two or three years later, and known as the <( Newport Town Hall"*), and there Stevenson addressed the electors, who, in the fashion of the time, were afterwards regaled with several hogsheads of beer, inhabitants of St. Thomas and St. Stephens hasten- ing to the spot with pitchers so that they might share in the feast. On the following day another procession was formed under Burt's directions in Newport Square, and this, consisting of representatives of all ages and both sexes — the men leading, followed by the youths, and then by the women and children — wended its way at great length up St. Thomas Hill, and through the North Gate to the King's Arms, where Stevenson and his friends were dining, and from the windows of which was thrown, in order to amuse the crowd, a quantity of silver and copper coin, previously raised nearly to red heat in a frying- pan. One of Stevenson's most ardent adherents was Thomas John Phillips (grand-nephew of Sir Jonathan Phillips,! and whose " unexpected opposition " to the Duke eight years before has been noted J) whose hospitality at Newport House was unbounded through- out the contest, and at Brimble Park, a portion of his property, was given a fdc to keep up the excitement. Beer was again distributed in plenty, prizes were offered for cricketing, running,§ grinning * ante, p. 187. t ante, p. 289. J ante, p. 29G. § There remain in 1884 three survivors of the lads who competed for the running prizes, namely, Mr. David Lavis, Mr. Peter Bray, and Mr. Richard Bobbins, to the last-named of whom is due this account of 312 LAUNCESTON, through a horse- collar, eating penny loaves and treacle, races between women for dresses, and other amusements. But when the poll came to be taken Stevenson's supporters melted away, and the last contest for Newport resulted in the overwhelming defeat of the Whig can- didate, and the re-election of Eaine and Percy. It may have been in disappointment at this that Mr. Phillips* shortly afterwards sold his Newport property to the Duke of Northumberland, who was now more than ever master of the borough. His grace's lordship over both boroughs was strikingly exempli- fied a little later, though he held the position at no very dear [rice, the four members being returned at far less expense to the patron than at Helston, for instance, where the Duke of Leeds defrayed the whole of the town rates for the privilege of choosing the two represen- tatives. Just at this period, however, the owner of Werrin^ton was spending a great deal of money in the boroughs. In a speech delivered by Sir Henry Hardinge in the House of Commons in 1833 (the reason for which will later be explained), the then member for Launceston stated that " the Duke of Northumberland, in the year 1822, sub- scribed to the public charities, Sunday-schools, and to the poor of the parish £213, and towards the improvement and repairs of the town £334 . . . and, during the six years between 1825 and 1831, the noble Duke subscribed £o,233."t Probably this large sum included a Dortion of the cost of the Launceston water- works erected at this time. In 1817, St. Stephens had been supplied with water from Gallows' Hillf at the Duke's expense, and ten years later, for the benefit of Launceston, a storage reservoir was formed at Dunheved Green, § at a cost to his grace oi over £2000. In November, 1825, during its construction, Mr. John Burt (father of Mr. William Burt, builder, Newport), and a man, named Thomas Warne. were killed and some others injured by the falling in of the works, which were completed in 182G. The reservoir, which held 252,000 the contest (who heard of knoll's share in it from that gentleman himself) as well as much other information regarding the history of Launceston during the past sixty years. * Mr. Phillips had purchased Landue (an (state connected centuries before with the history of Launcesti n) about, the year 1820, and it descended to his son, Col. Paul Phillips, who si Id it in 1S<>7 to Mr. J. S. Tregening, wh< se son is the present proprietor, t House of Commons, April 29, 1833 : Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, 3rd series, vol. xvii., p. 72C. J ante. p. 308. The spring there is known as Holy Well. § ante, p. 12. PAST AND PRESENT. 313 gallons, and which stood at a sufficient elevation to supply the town proper, was fed by springs, aided by the drainage from the Windmill Hill* above; but, as will subsequently be seen, it failed to answer •expectation. For these favours the inhabitants were grateful even to the verge of straining their conscience. If there had been one point more than another upon which the Tory majority both in Launceston and Newport felt strongly, it was thatnorelief should begivento the Eoman Catholics, and yet each, at the bidding of the Duke, returned a member in favour of Emancipation in 1829. This was owing to the fact that his grace had been appointed in January of that year to the Viceroyalty of Ireland, in succession to the Marquis of Anglesey, who was recalled by the Wellington Ministry because by a very few months he had anticipated their promise to grant Emancipation. The new Viceroy found that he could do no other than follow in the foot- steps of the old, and, in the accustomed fashion of a borough-patron, required the members he returned to change their votes as he directed. Captain Pellew, one of the representatives of Launceston,! declined so to do, and resigned rather than support the Relief Bill ; and the Launceston Corporation, greatly to their chagrin (the members having frequently and publicly vowed that they would never return a suppor- ter of the Catholic claims) had to choose as his successor the Quarter- master-General of the Forces, Lieutenant- General Sir James Will- oughby Gordon, bart., G.C.B., of Niton, Isle of Wight, whose son, the second and last baronet, bore the name of Percy, the family which placed the father in Parliament. This return took place on March 17,f on the evening of which the second reading of the Emancipation Bill was to be taken in the Commons, and three days later there was an election also for Newport, Percy, the junior member,§ having been appointed Comptroller of the Household to his relative, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and his grace filled the vacancy with Mr. William Fitzgerald Vesey Fitzgerald, President of the Board of Trade and Treasurer to the Navy.|| This • ante, pp. 12-2:15. t ante, p. 295. t Official List, vol. ii.. p. 301. § Percy, who wag a son of the first Earl of Beverley, and brother of the tiftli ami uncle of the sixth (the present) Duke of Northumberland, was raised to the rank of a Duke's sou by royal warrant in 1866, and died in 1870. || Official List, vol. ii., p. 301. 314 LAUNCESTON, gentleman played a part in the history of his time which is not to be forgotten. He had sat for Ennis from 1808 to 1818 and for eounty Clare from 1818 to 1828, and in the summer of the last-named year (when, owing to the resignation of Huskisson, all " the Canningites "" left the Wellington Administration) he was appointed President of the Board of Trade, and had to seek re-election. " He was in favour of the Catholic claims ; and neither he, nor any one else in England, doubted his being returned, as a matter of course, with the hearty good-will of the Catholics."* Even so thorough a Nationalist as John Mitchel admits that Fitzgerald, whom he describes as "a highly honourable and liberal gentleman," had good reason for the belief,! but the Catholics were determined to make this a test election, and Daniel O'Connell was nominated as their candidate, his proposer being the O'Gorman Mahon, a member of this present Parliament in 18S4. The contest proceeded with the utmost excitement; "Mr. Fitzgerald reasoned," says Miss Martineau, but it was to no effect. The voting commenced on June 30, and after six days polling Fitz- gerald, finding he had no chance, withdrew. "Though deeply mortified, betook his defeat with a gentlemanlike calmness,"! and in another few months found a more complacent constituency. But the Tory majority at Newport could not show themselves very hearty in support of their new member, and an eye-witness of the scene at the return in Newport Square relates that, while no applause was heard from those whose choice Mr. Fitzgerald presumably was, cheer after cheer burst from the assembled Whigs, whose opinions on Catholic Emancipation were now represented in Parliament as they could never have hoped them to be. Fitzgerald did not sit for Newport for a longer period than the then existing Parliament, on the dissolution of which in July, 1830, upon the death of George the Fourth, he was elected for Lostwithiel.§- Brogden and Gordon were re-chosen for Launceston, and Raine was given as his colleague for Newport another Hibernian acquaintance of theDuke.John Doherty, of Ely Place, Dublin, the Solicitor Generalfor • Harriot Martineau, History of the Peace, vol. ii., p. 183. t John Mitchel, History of Ireland, vol. ii., p. 308. J Ibid, p. 813. § He sat for Lostwithiel until December, 1830, when he resigned, and at the general election of 1831 he was returned once more for Eunis, being created Baron Fitzgerald and Vesey in the beginning of 1832. PAST AND PRESENT. 315 Ireland.* In the December, upon the appointment of the last- named to the Escheatorship of Munster,t he was succeeded by Major- General Sir Henry Hardinge, K.C.B.J This gallant gentleman, who was the third son of a Durham rector, was born in March, 1785, and was gazetted as ensign before he was fifteen. He served in the Peninsula with distinction, and, when Napoleon escaped from Elba, he was appointed by Wellington to be commissioner at the Prussian head-quarters. Owing to the loss of his hand at the battle of Ligny he was unable to fight at Waterloo, and at the dissolution of 1820 he entered Parliament as Tory member for Durham, where he was re- elected in April, 1823, on becoming Clerk of the Ordnance, and again at the dissolution of 1826. A.t the formation of the Wellington Ad- ministration, early in 1828, he was re-appointed to this office, and, upon the defection of " the Canningites " a few months later, he succeeded Lord Palmerston as Secretary-at-War, and subsequently became Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, thus being brought into close relationship with the Duke of North- umberland with important results. He did not offer himself again at Durham at the dissolution of 1830, but was returned for St. Germans, which seat he resigned to become member for Newport. It was while Chief Secretary that Sir Henry tried a fall with O'Connell, and, unlike a predecessor in the representation of Newport, Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, § he had the best of it, for, although O'Connell publicly described him as a " paltry, contemptible, little English soldier," and the administration to which he belonged as " base, bloody, and brutal," the member for Clare refused to fight his one-handed oppo- nent, though called upon to do so by Sir Henry's challenge and the moral code of the time.|| The agitation for parliamentary reform, which so soon swept out of existence three-fourths of the representation of the two boroughs, grew rapidly to a head very shortly after the first return • Official List, vol. ii., p. 310. t He was afterwards Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas, and O'Connell, in the course of an attack in the House of Commons on July (5, 1833, upon the Irish Judges, though declaring that " Mr. Doherty never had fifteen briefs in any one term during his life," admitted that " lie had a great deal of common sense, and that he managed himself upon the Bench with only one or two exceptions, much better than any of his brother judges." (M. P* Cusack, The Speeches and Public Letters of the Liberator, vol. i., p. 273.) j Dec' 17* 1830 : Official List, vol. ii., p. 31C. § ante, p. 314. || Martineau, History of'the Peace, vol. ii., pp. 388-90. 316 LAUNCESTON, of Sir Henry Hardinge for Newport, and it did not leave Launceston untouched. Many of the inhabitants felt, as had their fathers close upon fifty years before,* that " the House should take into their most serious consideration the present inadequate state of the representation of the people in Parliament " ; and a requisition in the earliest days of 1831 was presented to the Mayor, signed by 53 persons, asking him to convene a town's meeting on the subject. This the chief magistrate declined to do, "from a sense of public duty," as he explained ; and thereupon eleven of the leading "inhabitant householders "t called a meeting " to be held at the Long Room, at the King's Arms Inn" at noon on January 27, "to consider the propriety of Petitioning Parliament for a Reform in the present System of Electing Members to the House of Commons." Within a little over two months of this meeting, and a month after Lord John Russell had introduced his scheme disfranchising New- port, Sir Willoughby Gordon resigned his seat for Launceston, and in his place was chosen Major-General Sir John Malcolm, G.C.B.j: Sir John, who was born in 1769, was a native of Dumfriesshire, and commenced active service at the age of fourteen as a cadet in the Madras Army. He distinguished himself at the siege of Seringapatam in 1792, and eight years later was sent as ambassador to Persia. Subsequently he became President of Mysore, Political Agent in the Deccan, and Governor of Bombay, finally leaving India in 1830. He was the author of several historical works upon the country with which he had had so much to do, and having, as will be stated, been re-elected for Launceston to the last unreformed Parliament, he found no place in the re-organised House of Commons, and died of paralysis at Windsor in May, 1833. Thirteen days after Malcolm's return, William the Fourth dissolved Parliament amid a scene of excitement in both Houses unexampled in our later history. Sir Richard Rawlinson Vyvyan, the Tory member for Cornwall, was interrupted in a speech against the Reform Bill by the booming of the Tower guns which announced that * ante, p. 280. t Thomas Pearse (ante, p. 299), James Prockter, W. E. Nicolls, R. Dingley, H. Greenway, Thomas Geake, John Doidge, Wm. Thome, Thomas Eyre, sen., Robert Parkyn, and Nath. Spry, as their names appeared on the handbill convening the meeting;. t April 9, 1831 : Oflicial List, vol. ii., p. 316. PAST AND PRESENT. 317 the King was on his way to Westminster ; and above the din, and above the frenzied attempts of Sir Robert Peel and Lord Althorp, Lord John Russell and Sir Francis Burdett to gain a hearing, the voice of Sir Henry Hardinge could be heard threatening the Reformers that " the next time they heard those guns they would be shotted," for the junior member for Newport shared the belief of his party that revolution was very near. The last full election for that borough took place on May 2 and for Launceston a day later, and in each case the old members were re- chosen* ; but Sir Richard Vyvyan lost his seat for Cornwall, though a great number of Launceston Tories went to Lostwithiel (then the only polling place for the county) to support him. On the Sunday before the contest eighty horses and twelve four-horse coaches passed through Launceston on their way to Lostwithiel, for the purpose of bearing supporters of Sir Richard to the poll, and on the next day a Tory contingent followed from our town. They did not return until the Saturday night, by which time Mr. Pendarves, the old Whig member, and his colleague, Sir Charles Lemon, had been elected by more than two to one over Sir Richard Vyvyan and Lord Valletort, their defeat costing the Tory candidates more than thirty thousand pounds. Two months later Jonathan Raine died, and there was chosen in his place for Newport Viscount Grimston, the present Earl of Verulam, who had been returned for St. Albans at the head of the poll at the dissolution of 1830, but who had found himself at the bottom at that of 1831. No special incident marked this last election for the sister- borough, the date of which was July 12, 1831, and the new member himself has summarised his parliamentary connection with our locality in a very few words addressed to the present author: "I only sat for Newport in the last Parliament of its existence as a borough upon the death of Mr. Raine. I had lost my election at St. Albans owing to my vote against the Reform Bill. There was no contest." Lord Grimston, like the other members for the two boroughs, opposed the First Reform Bill as he has lived to oppose more than half-a-century afterwards what for convenience sake may be called the Thirdf; but * Ibid, l>. •''>'-".». t The Earl of Verulam was in the Conservative majority in the House of Lords against the second reading of the Franchise Bill on July '.', lS8t, 318 LAUNCESTON, the doom of Newport was sealed, although, according to the statements of the time, the Duke of Northumberland, in an endeavour to save his various pocket -boroughs, subscribed a hundred thousand pounds towards his party's expenses at the general election which preceded the passing of theBill. Itiscurious, however, to think that,on the principles Lord John Eussellhimself applied in drafting his measure, *Launceston and Newport, had they originally been the one borough they were now made, would have continued to return the two members to which they would havebeen entitled; but,beingdivided, Newport had less than the two thousand inhabitants which would have still secured it one member, and Launceston less than the four thousand which would have still secured it two. They were accordingly deprived of three out of their four representatives, and on June 7, 1832, when the royal assent was given to the Bill, Newport ceased to retain the privilege it had held from the time of the Tudors of sending members to the Commons House of Parliament. and against the compromise proposed by Lord Wemyss on July 17. After leaving Newport, he sat for Hertfordshire from 1832 to 1845, when he succeeded to the earldom. * Earl Russell, Essay on the English Government and Constitution (Edition of 1865), p. 226. VIII. — From the Disfranchisement of Newport to the Present Time (1832—1884). HE closing yeai-s of Launceston's chronicle as far as time has yet progressed have now to be considered, and although they contain nothing of romance they include much that is important. Three of the mem- bers for the two boroughs had been taken away, the gaol establishment had just been abolished, the re- moval of the assizes had been practically decided upon, and the woollen trade was passing into nothingness, all at the opening of the period under notice. For thirty years the town continued to sink until the grass seemed almost growing in its streets, but, at the end of that time, by exertions yet to be described, railway com- munication was secured with the outer world, the population ceased to lessen, the rapidly-dwindling trade took a turn for the better, and improvements were commenced which in benefiting have beautified the town. And now, half-a-century after Launceston looked as if the beginning of its end had come, and at the very time that the loss of its only remaining representative in Parliament appears inevitable, it is not only being made the centre of a railway system which cannot but restore much of its ancient prosperity, but a spirit is being aroused amon^ its sons which must retain to it most of its ancient renown. For a description of the commercial and industrial state of the town and its immediate neighbourhood at the beginning of this period, an extract may bo taken from a lecture delivered before the Launceston Mechanics' and General Institute on November 3, 1856, 320 LAUNCESTON, by Mr. Richard Bobbins. Recapitulating his remembrances of from twenty to thirty years before, the lecturer observed: "There were the manganese mines of St. Stephens, paying wages to the amount of £500 per month, or £6,000 per year.and the Lifton, Stowford, Syd- enham, and Dippertown mines paying monthly £1,400 or £16,800 a year. We had the spinning jenny manufactures at New Mills, Town Mills, Ridgegrove, Wooda Road, and the island at St. Thomas bridge, these hives of industry employing hundreds of people, and paying wages at the rate of £250 per month or £3,000 per year, the greater part of which found its way into the tills of our shopkeepers, and adult females and girls and boys of eight years of age could then earn their own living. We had a thriving building trade, in which there were scores, if not hundreds, of hands as masons, carpen- ters, painters, and labourers. There was also a wholesale malting trade, carried on by Messrs. Perkyn, Greenway, and Daniel Shilson, which necessarily engaged several persons. The hatting, tailoring, shoemaking, and smithy businesses were in a prosperous condition. There were the woollen, skin, and combing trades conducted by Messrs. James Langdon, John Langdon, Walter Clease, Thomas Eyre, sen., Moses Symons, John Geake, William Hender, Edward Marshall, and last, though not least, William andThomasPearse, of Newport,which caused a large amount of money to be circulated in the town and district ; and we can form some idea of the quantity of business in the three trades mentioned from the fact that there were three wool wash-houses on the higher side of the Town Mill leat, one below St. Thomas bridge, and another by St. Thomas Churchyard, in addition to several other extensive woollen and combing establishments at St. Thomas, Castle Dyke, and Fore Street, as well as the serge factory at Town Mills. There was also a good trade with Bude and Boscastle, waggons plying to and from every day ; and we had further a large flour business carried on by Mr. Bailey at Ridgegrove, Mr. Uglow at Town Mills, and Mr. Jury at Yeolmbridge, it being supposed that these three sent to Plymouth upwards of two hundred sacks of flour weekly. To this long and healthy list must be added the garden and nursery business of Mr. Spry, which employed about fifteen hands, who received not less than £15 PAST AND PRESENT. 321 weekly in wages. We were the centre of the great London Road, which created an immense traffic, the packets at that time coming and going through this place to London and Falmouth daily, and expresses continually riding from London to the west of Cornwall. Gentlemen's four-horse and other carriages were almost daily visiting the town, and, of course, benefiting some by their presence. There were two large waggon establishments on the London Road, those of Russell and Davis. The Spring Assizes were held here, which were the means of circulating hundreds, if notthousands,of pounds annually, and we had also the privilege, with Newport, of returning four members to Parliament, winch caused a large amount of money to be spent, and in addition there were extensive gentlemen's establish- ments kept up in the neighbourhood. The local taxation of the town was small compared with later years, and the shopkeepers and others had the power to erect stalls outside their houses, and in some instances they let them at from £3 to £10 annually ; while another and a true indication of prosperity was seen in the fact that it was a very rare occurrence for houses to have the significant window sign ' To be Let.' Our markets also were extensive and largely supplied by the district around, so that the draper, the grocer, the druggist, and other tradesmen were busy from morning till night, customers being sometimes obliged, on account of the rush, to wait more than half-an- hour to be served. To give fresh impulse to trade the Tavistock, Western, and New North Roads were made, and, the prosperity of the town thus progressing, builders and others speculated in the erection of houses, and the necessary conveniences sprang up numerously and with great rapidity, causing the expenditure of many thousands of pounds in labour and materials." The Lecturer then described in detail the new buildings which had been erected at this thriving period, including the Central and the Western Subscription Rooms, the Tamar Terrace, the Independent Chapel, the Bible Christian Chapel, the Gas Works, the new King's Arms, the National School, the Union Workhouse, and most of the best houses and shops now standing in the town ; and he proceeded to say : " Matters went on prosperously in the various departments of industry. Labour was plentiful, rates and taxes moderate, provisions cheap (corn selling in 322 LAUNCESTOX, 1835 and the following year at nine shillings per bag), contentment and plenty were residents of the cottage as well as of the mansion, and there was no complaining in our streets. The commercial affairs of the town continued to improve until 1837, from which time it may be safely said our declension commenced." So much for the industrial state of the borough in the early years of this latest period. As for the social, there is abundant evidence that the time of prosperity in business concerns was a time of much cordiality in private affairs. Mr. Ching, in his recollections of fifty years since , observes concerning the Launceston of that date that " there was a great amount of hospitality shown. The custom of giving dinner parties was frequent, the cost of the entertainment being considerably increased by the demand on the wine cellar ; a bottle per man was a moderate computation, and some in Launceston even now can testify that this was often exceeded. The ladies fre- quently had tea parties at six in the evening, and as this was before the days of gas and the street oil-lamps shed an imperfect light, the family lanthorn of considerable size was used to light the ladies to their homes soon after ten. Needlework, knitting, and such-like occupied the evening, the elders indulging in a rubber at whist, Pope Joan, etc. In those days I have myself seen the four members for Launceston and Newport dining at the White Hart with their con- stituents after a general election, when the scenes of noise, confusion, and strife were discreditable to a civilized community. Beer was drawn into the open space outside the Town Hall in hogsheads, and given away in jugs to any who did not mind the struggle in getting it. The sin of drunkenness was then thought lightly of : there was no such word as ' teetotalism,' and no temperance societies to show a good example to those who were over indulgent with liquor. On the evening of the quarterly Law Court there was a public dinner held, when all who pleased might join. The Corporation, the Deputy Recorder, the Grand Jury (composed of the principal tradesmen of the town) the attorneys, and others came, and this was a most pleasant meeting and brought all parties together in amity and friendship, many improvements being suggested and carried out as the result of these gatherings. The religious bodies were the members PAST AXD PRESENT. 323 of the Cluircli of England, the Wesleyans, and the Congregationalists. The services for the first -named were morning and afternoon only, but both the Nonconformists' Chapels had, in addition to morning and afternoon, an evening service, to which several church families went. The Church was not opened for regular service during the week, except on saints' days, and until 1837 there had not been an evening service in it." In returning to a more connected chronicle of the town's history, 1 he first event to be considered is the election of December, 1832. The enthusiasm for parliamentary reform, which had filled the country in the days immediately preceding the Act being passed, did not die away until a Parliament had been returned in which oidy 170 Conservatives sat upon the benches of the Opposition, and of this number Sir Henry Hardinge, the late member for Newport,* was one as representing Launceston. But he had not been elected without a struggle, the history of which has yet to be written. In this case, as in that of most of the modern events which have interested the borough, room is not here left for full description ; but it may be hoped that the spirit of inquiry into lec il history, which has of late been strongly apparent in the town, will not evaporate until, from the recollections of those of lo-.iger years who yet remain to us, a full account of modern Launceston is s 'cured for all time. The Liberals, deciding to try their strength at the first open election in the borough, chose D.ivid Howell, of Trebursye, as their champion. The contest raged for months, two newspapers were called into existence to chronicle the progress of the campaign,! and, though the Werrington influence was used to the full on behalf of Sir Henry Hardinge, the issue to the last remained doubtful. The polling occupied two December days, at the end of the first of which Mr. Howell was ahead, but by the utmost exertions Sir Henry Hardinge was placed just in front on the second day, and when the poll closed it showed that the Conservative candidate had secured 1 1.3 and the Liberal 108, a Tory majority of seven after every available vote * ante, p. SIS. 1 "The Reformer" was published by Mr, Thomas Eyre, si n., and "The Guardian" ii.v Messrs. Thomas and VVillinm Roe Bray. Only three sets two complete undone incomplete— of these i eriod cals are Kn iwn to be in existence. 324 LAUNCESTON, had been recorded.* A little over two years later, when the next general election took place, the same candidates entered the field, but the reform wave had receded, and the defeat of Mr. Howell by 1G3 votes to 84f was regarded by the Liberals as so decisive that, although upon more than one occasion opposition was threatened, not another contest took place for thirty-nine years, Launceston thus remaining under the open system a longer period without a contest than it had, as far as can be traced, while it was more distinctly a pocket borough. Very shortly after the first Reformed . Parliament assembled, the attention of the House of Commons was called to the circumstances of the Launceston election. On April 17, 1833, Sir William Moles- worth (then representing East Cornwall) presented a petition to the House from inhabitants of the town, "complaining of corporate abuses, and of the want of respectability in the persons composing the body of Aldermen in the borough, and praying an inquiry into the subject. "J Sir William contended that, through the influence of the Duke of Northumberland upon the Corporation, Launceston was as much a nomination borough as it was before the passing of the Reform Bill, but this was denied by Sir Henry Hardinge, who asserted that the petition had been " got up to serve electioneering purposes by Mr. Pearse,§ who had . . . formerly been a Tory, but changed his politics on the passing of the Catholic Relief Bill, and had bt?en disappointed in his wishes to obtain the Aldermanic gown for himself." Mr. Charles B idler, the member for Liskeard, defended Mr. Pearse, " the only charge against whom was that he had once been a Tory, but that stain he had wiped away by two or three years' constant opposition to that party"; while as to the Launces- ton Corporation, he observed that it was " the worst in Conrwall as to general character, and that there had been more complaints made * Of the 223 who exorcised their suffrages at this contest, five remain fifty-two years after the fight :— Mr. John Geake and Mr. Joseph Beard Geake, who supported Mr. Howell, and Mr. Jonas Copp, Mr. John Lethbridge Cowlard, and Mr. Charles Gurney, who favoured Sir Henry Bardinse. t In Acland's Imperial Poll Hook (1869) as well as in McOalmont's (1880), which, in fact, is based upon it, the figures are given as Hardinge 103, Howell 84 ; the mistake arose because in an earlier edition of the former, followed by both, the figure 6 had been damaged and looked somewhat akin to 0. X Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, 3rd Series, vol. xvii., pp. 201-2. § ante, pp. 2l J, J-31G. Mr. Pearse's name was the first on the petition (Hansard, p. 202). PAST AND PRESENT. 325 against its honesty than against any other in the same district" ; and, despite another protest from Sir Henry Hardinge, the petition, as proposed by Sir William Molesworth, was referred to the Committee on Municipal Corporations.* Twelve days later Mr. Buller presented a further petition! from electors of Launceston, "complaining that bribery had been used at the last election for that borough, and that they were only prevented from proving it before the House by the enormous expense which attended the taking of evidence before Election Committees." Tbe honourable member made a strong speech in support of the petition, but Sir Henry Hardinge " most distinctly denied on behalf of himself, his agents, or his friends, that there was one single instance of bribery or corruption at his election." Both Mr. Buller and Sir William Molesworth, who next spoke, disclaimed any idea of accusing Sir Henry personally, but Sir William contended that the Duke of Northumberland was "the arch-criminal." Sir Henry thereupon exclaimed " It is false," an expression which the Speaker called upon him to withdraw, but, as Sir William Molesworth adhered to his accusation, the member for Launceston would only consent to slightly modify his retort, and, after a little further verbal conflict, the petition was ordered to be laid upon the table. % The Corporation of Launceston, which was thus attacked in- dividually in the House, had not for very many years been regarded as satisfactory by a large portion of the inhabitants. The protest, fifty years before, against its political action has already been men- tioned^ and it will have been seen from the debates just referred to that in this respect it was still open to criticism. But in the general management of local affairs it was equally the subject of censure. Mr. Ching mentions in his recollections that "the Borough Bents were never sufficient to meet the expenditure," and this is confirmed by a return made to Parliament on February 23, 1833, signed by Mr. John King Lethbridge, then Town Clerk, which stated that " the annual certain expenditure exceeds the receipts, without the slightest reference to the repairs of the buildings and other works. "|| In other * [bid. t Tli" ftrsl signature on this petition was that of Mr. Eowell, mid thesei I that of Mr. Pearse (Ibid, p. 724). r Ibid, p. 727. § ante, p. 280. Reports ivhitinu" i,. CiH-pui-Mtp oiiircs ami Charitable Funds (Session of is:ii), p. :ti7. 326 T-ATJNCISTON, ways the local administration was far from satisfactory. Mr. Loth- bridge's return showed that more than one of the charities was allowed to be in arrear, and that one of 1611, providing a sum out of the small tithes of Boyton for distribution "among the poor felons in the county gaol at Launceston," had actually been allowed to lapse within the previous few years. It must, however, be set against this, on the testimony of Sir Henry Hardinge in the speech previously quoted,* that " in the year 1831, when complaints were made in this respect [of the misapplication of corporate funds] to the Corporation, that body submitted to a full inquiry for any period that the parties thought proper. That inquiry was gone into by Mr. Pearse and another gentleman ; and though they went back into the accounts for a period of upwards of twenty years, the result was that not a single instance of misapplication or abuse could be found. "t But, whatever the individual merits of the Launceston Corporation, it was reformed like 177 others in England and Wales by the Municipal Corporations Act of 1S3j, and a body of twelve councillors and four aldermen placed in its stead, J with the consequence that the first local municipal election was held on December 28, 1835, and the first meet- ing of the Launceston Town Council on January 1, 1836. § Another local institution was being brought into line with modern requirements at this period, the New Poor Law of 1834 effecting a revolution in the system of dealing with our paupers. Those who then dwelt in the Launceston Workhouse were allowed to do pretty much what they chose. They could go out when they liked, they could sell their meals if they pleased, and they had no regular work. Those who received out-door pay were not required to be really poor, a tradesman of the town, who made his own goods and brought them to market every Saturday, being regarded as a fair claimant for relief, but the Act of 1834 changed all this, with at first the inevitable result of much friction. The parishes around Launceston were formed into a union having this town for a centre, and the hist * ante, p. S24. t Hansard, 3rd Series, vol. xvii., p. 202. i It was provided bj (he Act that all officers of the old Corporation should receive compensation according to their deserts, and the last to be so dealt with was Mr. Thomas Peter Hamlin, organist of St. Mary Magdalene's, who, as lately as ls<;s, was paid a lump sum by tin- Town Council on his resignation of office. § For the names of the last members of the Coiporatii n and the first of the Town Council, see Appendix. PAST AND PRESENT. 327 meeting of the Board of Guardians was held on February 3, 1S37, when Mr. Thomas John Phillips* was elected Chairman. On the following tenth of April, the Launceston Local Guardians agreed to let the Workhouset to the Union Guardians until the new building at Page's Cross should be completed, and from that time the history of the Union Board has been as uneventful as it has been full of use. The first Chairman died in 1855, and on June 1G, Mr. John King Leth- bridge was chosen his successor in office, so remaining until a few weeks before his death on May 28, 1861. The Bev. Henry Addington Simcoe was selected on April 20 of the latter year, and continued in the chair until 1869, the year of his death, when the Bev. Charles Bodd was chosen. On that gentleman's retirement in May, 1871, Mr. Reginald Kelly succeeded him, and was Chairman until 1873, upon No- vember 18 of which year the present holder of the office, Mr. John Christopher Baron Lethbridge,{ son of Mr. John King Leth bridge, was elected, the vice-chairmen now being Mr. B. K. Braddon and Mr. P. F. Simcoe § It is in the matter of change in kocal institutions that the early portion of the present period is prolific. A move- ment had been going on for many years to take away the second assize from our town, and on December 21, 1821, Mr. Beginald Pole Carew, of Antony, foreman of the Grand Jury, had addressed a letter to the principal inhabitants of the county, stating that the judges having complained at the previous summer assizes at I'odmin of the state of the courts there, they had been unanimously assured by the Grand Jury that the county would do all the necessary improvement if both assizes were held in that town ; the twelve judgi s, be added, bad since signified tin irconcurrenceinthe measure, and signa- tures were asked to a memorial to the Chancellor (then Lord Eldon)re- questing his sanction. || The memorial set forth the stuck arguments against the Launceston Assize in very much the same fashion as of old, but no immediate result followed, Lord Eldon being as averse to change in this matter as in everything else. In 1832, however, a proposition was made at Quarter Sessions to recommend Parliament • antf, pp. •I'mwm I. t The [asi master of the old Workhouse was Mr! William Hayne ; the llrst of the new one Mr. Gruzelier. J ante, p. 232. J To Mr. (i. Graham White, jun., Hi" present < llerk to the Guardians, tins information is py of the royal arms, which ornamented the gallery facing the judge in the Crown Court, being still to be seen supporting the counter of one of the largest local shops. With the removal of fhe assizes there came not only the destruction of the Guildhall but of the old Gaol. The latter building stood not far from the western gate of the Green and very close to the existing lodge, and its position may best be judged from the well which was in the female portion of the prison, and which was re-opened in 1SS3 by Sir Hardinge Giffard, the present Constable of the Castle. The widow of Christopher Mules, the elder,* was in possession of the old buildings until the end, and, as the Castle and its belongings are extra-parochial, the difficulty which had always been found in securing the payment of rates from this property, extended to the process of evicting the last occupier. This, however, was at length effected, and in 1842 Launceston Gaol disappeared from the scene. This was only a portion of a larger scheme. The condition into which the Castle had been allowed to fall was a disgrace to all who had its management. Pigsties were abundant on its slopes, cabbage gardens occupied the space between " Sting-nettle Lane " (which bounded the bottom of the mount) and the Castle Green, and a skittle-alley, appropriated to the customers of the Exeter Inn, stood within the boundaries and not very far from the Gaol. Cock-fighting, as has been mentioned, t was common on the second ring, this amuse- ment hieing varied by pitch-and-toss and such-like games. No steps led to the Keep, which was inaccessible to any but speculative builders in want of good corner stones, and these were accustomed, crow-bar in hand, to use the Castle as their quarry, one result of which is especially obvious at the Green's western gate, where the whole of the Polyphant stone forming the inner portion of the arch has been stripped away. Tradition asserts that public attention was at * uiite, p. SUA. t auto, p. 307. PAST AND PRESENT. 331 length called in a somewhat curious fashion to this condition of things. The story runs that the Queen of Portugal, travelling incognito, was passing through the town on her way to London very soon after our present sovereign ascended the throne, and while here visited the Castle ruins. She was so astonished at the state in which they were allowed to be that she informed Mr. James Eckley Prockter (the proprietor of the White Hart Hotel, at which she was staying) that site should report the matter to Queen Victoria when she reached London. The Portuguese monarch was as good as her word, and our Queen called the attention of the Duke of Northum- berland, as Constable of the Castle, to the matter. The result was most gratifying, for his grace directed the enclosure of the entire area, and had the grounds hud out in theirpresent fashioninthe years from 1840 to 1842, at a cost to himself of some thousands of pounds. The improvements which were thus being effected within the borough were enhanced by some outside the boundaries, one of the most important of which was the building of a new Poison or Polston Bridge.* The old one (erected at the public expense, according to William of Worcester! ) was " a large fair stone fabric, "J and was very similar to the existing Greston or Greystone Bridge, lower down the Tamar, built, as has been seen, at the beginning of the fifteenth century. § The reason for the change was because of no weakness on the part of the bridge itself, for it was as solid a piece of granite as could well have been seen, but of its insufficiency in width to ac- co7)imodate the ever-growing traffic on the main road from London through Exeter to Falmouth, then the most important packet station of the kingdom. An accident, which occurred in the winter of 1828, illustrated the danger of the old structure, a pair-horse coach, the property of Mr. W. H. Smith, of the King's Arms, returning from Okehampton, being driven during a flood into the Tamar owing to the narrowness of the entrance to the bridge, the horses being drowned but the driver saved. The new erection was built at the joint • polston appears to !><• the preferable spelling, the original name (as it appears in the Roll of the Soisin of 1337, and also in an Assession Roll "f L488) being Poulstonel Kridro (Maclean's Triitg Minor, vol. ii.,pp. 889-40). t"Per patriam ediflcatus.' 1 A New Displaj of the Beauties of England (3rd Edition) 1776), vol. ii., p. 377. | ante, p. 80. 332 LAUNCESTON, expense of Cornwall and Devon, a curious mishap taking place in 1835 during the progress of the work : the mail coach from London, due in Launceston a quarter after eleven at night, drew up one evening, as usual, at the Arundell Arms, Lifton, and driver, guard, and passen- gers, also as usual, dismounted, Mr. "Wilson, the agent of the Duke of Northumberland,* being the only one left in the vehicle. The horses, the near-leader of which was blind, suddenly bolted and galloped towards Launceston, and, having crossed without accident the tem- porary wooden bridge at the foot of the hill at Polston, halted driverless and breathless at the White Hart Hotel, their accustomed stopping-place, closely followed by the guard, one Cornelius Crow- hurst, who had thrown himself on horseback immediately he had discovered their flight, and who was rejoiced to see that all was well. It was at the "White Hart that most of the coaches at that period running through Launceston had their head- quarters, here also where the county assemblies were held at assize-time, and here further where public events of striking character were to be expected. One such was witnessed in the early days of 1835, when the body of the last Lord de Dunstanville (a Bassett of Tehidy), who had died in London, was brought to Launceston on its way to the family teat. It was taken to the White Hart and there lay in state for twenty- four hours, the public being admitted by the front door and leaving at the back, the coffin then proceeding towards the "West with its ' 'out- riders and ten pages on horseback."! In later years, and up to the time of the opening of the railway, this hotel was the news-centre of the borough, and particularly from 1860 to 1865, during the American Civil War, when the pavement was crowded every dinner-hour to await the arrival of the Emerald coach from Tavistock with the morning papers from Plymouth, the fall of Sumter, the death of "Stonewall" Jackson, the assassination of Lincoln, and all the most stirring events of a stirr- ing period (including the last of the great prizx-- fights, such as those between Sayers and Heenan, or King and Mace) being first made known to Launceston by the " boots " at the hotel, who, securing * Old field, m The Representative History of Great Britain (vol. hi., p. 217), states that " the Duke of .V irthumberland's steward, Mr. Richard Wilson, of Lincoln's Inn, attorney-at-law, is recorder of Launceston and manager of Newport" ; the former post was certainly allotted to him in error. t W. H. Tregellas, Some Cornish Worthies, vol. i., p. 136. PAST AND PRESENT. 333 the earliest copy, declaimed to the eager crowd the leading items of the day's new.-;. And close upon twenty years before this, Launcoston, in common with many towns throughout the country, had been thrown into a state of great excitement by the passing through it in March, 184(5, of one of the four-horse coaches chartered by the Times to bear to all parts of the kingdom the momentous intelligence that Sir Robert Peel's resolutions for the repeal of the Corn Laws had passed their first reading by a majority of 97. Fifty years ago coaches afforded the principal source of daily excitement to the town. Until the opening of the South Devon Railway, in 1849, there were four four-horse coaches travelling between Falmouth and Exeter and passing through Launcoston, one each way by night and the same by day. " The Falmouth packets." fays Mr. Ching, " were at this period in full working, and as the Continent of Europe supplied most of the correspondence of those days, whenever any disturbances occurred and the Government were anxious for the earliest information, the important despatches were sent on by horseback, the bearer taking his ' time table ' to the post office* to have the hour recorded ; whilst this was being done the next boy and fresh horse were ready to get on. On one occasion (I don't know the why) twenty of these despatches passed through in one day." In 1834 a competing coach was started from Launceston to Exeter, running on alternate days, this continuing for some six years ; about the year 1 838 there was a four-horse coach put on the road from Plymouth to Bideford, passing through Launceston and Holsworthy, but this did not remain long in existence; while five ycurs subsequently Mr. Prockter, of the White Hart.t started a two-horse coach to Plymouth, carrying the mails, leaving in the morning and returning at night. The Vivid ran to Exeter in later times, and did so until the South Western Railway pushed its system beyond that point and towards Lydford, it then running first to North Tawton, next to Sampford Courtenay, and then to Okehampton, as the lino was made to each of these places, ceasing its work in 1 NT I , when connection was established by narrow-guage between Exeter and Lydford. The Emerald and the Royal Mail coaches ran daily ♦ The Posl I >fllce was then situated in Broad street. t ante, i>. 831. 334 I.A.XJNCESTON, from Launceston and Tavistock, in connection with the branch opened in 1859 from the latter place to Plymouth, until it was extended to our town in 186-5, while a coach has run for many years, and is still running on alternate days during the summer, between Launceston and Bude ; and the North Cornwall Coach Company has had its Pioneer on the road from Launceston to Camelford and Wadebridge for nearly a decade, and will keep it thei-e until the narrow-guago is carried through our town to those two places. In addition to the coaches which were on the main road fifty years since, there were the goods- wagons belonging to the firms of Russell and Davis. Every Sunday morning one of Russell's wagons arrived in Launceston from Falmouth with six, eight, or ten horses, according to the load, bearing gold, both bars and dust, to the Mint, protected by a guard on each side, dressed in white fustian and carrying a blunderbuss. The wagon remained here during the after- noon and pi-oceeded in the evening for the metropolis, the departure being always watched by a small crowd; while the return journey, which commenced in London on a Monday morning, finished in Falmouth the next Saturday afternoon, this system continuing until 1837. Davis's conveyances ran between Launceston and Exeter, a heavy wagon leaving here on the Monday morning and starting on its way back on the following Thursday, and a light wagon, which departed hence on [the Wednesday, arriving in Exeter at four o'clock the Thursday afternoon, and returning hither (he next Saturday after- noon, these wagons having a connection also with Camelford and Wadebridge. Persons who could not afford to travel to Exeter by coach went by way of Davis's heavy wagons, starting at eight in the morning, sleeping at Sticklepath , and reaching the Devonshire capital at two the next afternoon, while, if they wished to go to Truro, they left here at nine a.m., passed the night at Bodmin, and arrived at their journey's end the afternoon afterwards. Resuming the more regular chronicle of events, political affairs claim our first attention. At the dissolution of 1837, caused by the death of William the Fourth, Sir Henry Hardinge was re-elected for Launceston without the semblance of opposition, but at that of 1811, consequent upon the defeat of the Melbourne Ministry, there was the PAST AND PRESENT. 335 promise of a contest, Mr. (now Sir) Eobert Porrett Collier tendering his services in the Liberal interest. " I happened to be staying with Lord-Vivian — the first Lord Vivian — during the election of 1841," writes Sir Robert to the present author, " when it suddenly occurred to him to suggest my standing for Launceston ; he offered me intro- ductions, said he thought I had a good chance, and started me cff. I issued (in address offering to 'emancipate' the borough, made an active canvass, called public meetings, made speeches, and was extremely well received — so well that I thought at one time my election very probable. Sir Henry Hurdinge, on hearing of all this, hastened from London ; he did not venture to call a public meeting . . . but he employed his time with great success in a house-to-house canvass . . . Many who had promised me turned round, and I found that I was beaten and that it would be useless to go to the poll . . . I had, therefore, no alternative but to retire, after publishing an address in which I denounced the nomination system in somewhat strong terms."* Sir Henry was, therefore, again returned unopposed, and Mr. Collier, who, when he visited Launceston was 24 years of age, was rewarded in 1852 by being elected for Plymouth, for which borough he sat until 1871, when he became, as he still is, a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. When Sir Robert Peel formed an Administration on the resignation of the Whig Cabinet, he appointed as Secretary-at-War the member for Launceston, to whom in his short-lived Ministry of 1834 (of which as of the later one Mr. Gladstone was a member) he had given his old post of Chief Secretary for Ireland. t He was re-chosen for Launceston in the September of 1841 , only severing his connection with the botougb when he closed his career in the House of Commons by ac- cepting the Viceroyalty of India, in which position, as in the subse- quent one of Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, Sir Henry (afterwards Viscount) Hardinge assisted to "make history," and gained for himself the golden opinions of his contemporaries. His successor in the representation of Launceston was Rear-Admiral * in D d'a Parliamentary Companion, as Ion* as Sir Robert Collier the House of Commons, ll was stated thai he " unsuccessfully contested Launceston, 1841," and the same taterrnml is still to lie found in Debrett's House of Commons and ii M . .1 1 11 1 if m I llcnoh. It is, however, scarcely an accurate representation of the facts, seeing thai he did a il i to thi i",ll on the occasion referred in. t ante, p. 816. 336 LAUNCESTON, William Howies, a naval friend of Lord Algernon Percy, hinis If an admiral, wlio shortly afterwards became fourth Duke of Northumber- land in succession to his brother.* Admiral Bowles was a jovial personage, whose speech from the hustings at his return in May, 1844. was received with much good-humoured applause. " Mr. John King Lethbridge was proposed and seconded, but being present at or-ce declined," says a solemn chronicler of the election, t not aware that this was a part of the jocular character of the whole proceeding, Mr. William Morgan, a local solicitor, being the leader in the trans- action. Twelve years before, Mr. Lethbridge, then known to his political opponents, by an easy transposition of his Christian names, as '' King John," had been seriously put forward as a possible Tory candidate for the borough, but the Duke placed his veto upon the idea, and Mr. Lethbridge never entered Parliament. His son, Mr. J. C. Baron Lethbridge, was similarly named as a possible Conservative candidate for Launceston, a little over thirty years after the father had been formally proposed, but the notion, if ever entertained, was for some reason put on one side. Concerning Admiral Bowles, all that is to be added as to his parliamentary career is that he was once more elected at the dissolution of 1847, and that he made way at that of 18o2 for the Hon. Josceline William Percy, second son of the fifth Duke of Northumberland, and brother of the sixth (the present) holder of the title. This gentleman, who was again chosen at the general election of 1857, though he did not visit the town during its progress, and who retired from Parliamentary life in 1859, was raised to the rank of a Duke's son six years later, and died in 1881 at the age of seventy. While Admiral Bowles was still sitting for the town, the Laun- ceston Mechanics' and General Institute was founded in connection with the Society of Arts, the date of its birth being April 5, 1847, J but the success with which it met caused it to become a more exten- sive institution than had at first been contemplated. In the following * ante, p. 21)5. t H. S. Smith, The Parliaments of England, vol. i., p. 257. J The earliest committee was composed of Messrs. E. K. Philp (treasurer), Richard Robbing (curator , Richard Hayne (secretary), John Prior, Michael Studdon, and John Brooming, and for two months the meetings were held in the Coffee Rooms of Mr. William Davies in Westgate Street, the lirst lecture being delivered by Mr. 11. K. Philp and the second by Mr. John Prior. PAST aXd p-rese^t. 33* year an opportunity arrived for strengthening its basis. Algernon, fourth Duke of Northumberland,* who had succeeded to the title in l'S47, arrived with the Duchess at Werrington on July 1, 1848, and a deputation from the committee of the Institute (consisting of Messrs. Studdon, Hayne, and Robbins) waited on his grace at Werrington House to ask his help to their undertaking. They were kindly received, were given some good advice, and were promised a donation which enabled the Institute to occupy wider grouud. In its new home at the Central Subscription Room, it had for its first President Mr. Samuel Howies Pattison (whose great services to the cause of local history may here be gratefully acknowledged), and for several years success attended its efforts. When Mr. Pattison exchanged his home at Launceston for one in London, he was succeeded in the chair by Mr. Richard Kingdon Frost, who, in turn, upon his resignation, was followed by a third local solicitor, Mr. George Graham White, sen., who held the office until the Institute died of inanition at the end of 1881.T Another institution founded in Launceston a little before the snme period has proved more lasting. About the year 1837 or 1838 (for precise details are difficult to obtain upon the point), some local members of the Wesleyan Methodist Connexion, dissatisfied with the attitude of their ministers on various points of church gov- ernment, seceded from the parent body, and met for worship in a private house, shortly afterwards engaging the Western Subscription Room for preaching services. Their numbers so increased that in 1840 the erection of a chapel was commenced in the North Road, the money being raised by shares, which were afterwards sold and given up, the building being settled on a trust in conformity with the rules of the Wesl eyan Methodist Associat ion. In 1850 and 18<52 further secessions took place from the original body, additionally strengthening the locd forces of the Association, which joined with the Wesleyan Reformers in 18.;7 to form the United Methodist Free Churches, * ante, p. 33G. t The last officers of the Institute were Messrs. <;. <;. White, sen., (President), E. Pethybridxe, R. Reed, and J. Ching (Vice-Presidents), \. Praaer. II. Bayman. 0. I'. Wise, T. II. Nicolls, G. M. Gifford, \V. Wise, A. Prust, ». G. White, run.. B. Balkwill, and <;. Ellicqtt (Committee), .1. B. Geake (Treasurer), and J. Robbing (Secretary) : the successive secretaries had been Messrs. 11. Short, W. Cater, T. Dunn, W. 11. (Jury, and J. Bobbins. 338 LAUNCESTON, though the name of " Association Chapel" did not die out for many years. At first Launceston had been a portion of the Camelford Circuit, but about 1846 it was made the head of the Launceston and Stratton Circuit, which was in its turn divided in 18S3, six churches forming the Stratton and Bude Circuit and five the Launceston. The minister's house attached to the chapel was rebuilt in 1876, while the chapel itself was re-seated and otherwise improved five years later.* Such controversy as attended upon the foundation of a new sect was naturally limited to a minority of the people of the town, but in 1849 a discussion arose as to the formation of a new institution which absorbed the interest of the whole borough. The cholera epidemic of 1832 had left Launceston untouched, while that of 1848 and the following year claimed only one victim, and that one a commercial traveller, named John Hardy, of Worcester, who, arriving at the White Hart Hotel on the evening of September lo, 1849, died the next morning from the terrible complaint : he was buried in a remote corner of "The Bowling Green, "f where his lonely grave, railed off from the rest, can still be marked ; and the Commercial Body, in erecting a tablet to his memory in Launceston Church, chose as a fitting text, " He brought down my strength on my journey and shortened my days." But although our town had thus been singularly free from the epidemic (the more to be wondered at because Plymouth , Tavistock, and other places not far distant had been affected) there was much uneasiness caused, especially as the water supply provided a score of years beforej had proved to be inadequate. A memorial to the General Board of Health was accordingly drawn up and signed by many of the inhabitants, asking for an inquiry into the sanitary state of the borough, and Mr. George T. Clark, one of the superintending inspectors of the Board, who was directed to make it, held public sittings in the Central Subscription Boom, on March lo and 16, 1849, at which much evidence was taken. "It is difficult in words," said Mr. Clark in his report, § "to convey an adequate idea of the state of things which I witnessed, * For this information tin; Author has to express his thanks to Mr. T. H. Nieolls. t ante, p. 301. % ante, p. :512. § Report to the General Board of Health, on a Pre- liminary [nquiry into the sewerage, drainage, and supply of water, and the sanitary condition of the inhabitants of the borough of Launceston, by George T. Clark, Superintending Inspector (London: Printed by W. Clowes and Sons. 1850), pp. S-'J. PAST AND PRESENT. 339 and of which these persons complain . . . Having been originally crowded up for defence, and, I presume in later times retained so for electioneering purposes, the houses are built back to back, quite close, either without any back yards at all, or with them of only about 6 feet square; and being, in addition, undrained and very ill supplied with water, the whole is in as bad a condition as the worst parts of any crowded city. Happily though the population is dense, the area is small, and the position high and uncommonly healthy. Nature has done much, but everything tending to give health or comfort has been neglected by man." The supply of water, which was always inadequate, usually failed in August or September, while the public drains were " on the whole the greatest nuisance in the town." To provide a proper amount of water it would be necessary to recast the whole of the existing arrangements, but this, Mr. Clark thought, would not be unduly expensive, as " few towns are in a position to secure a more efficient or a more economical supply," while "the sewerage will be equally simple and equally economical with the water supply." He, therefore, recommended that a part of the par- ishes of St. Thomas and St. Stephens should be joined with Laun- ceston as an administrative area under the Public Health Act, the Local Board to consist of nine members with the Mayor ex-officio, of whom six, exclusive of the chief magistrate, should be selected by the Town Council and three by the owners and ratepayers in the non-corporate parts ; and he considered thatan improved water-supply could be executed at a cost of £2500 and a new system of sewerage for another £2000. To this expenditure the practically unanimous consent of the inhabitants was given, but very speedily it was inti- mated by the authorities in London that a fresh survey was necessary, and, when this was made by another gentleman, it was computed that the total expenditure might be expected to amount to about £7000. This was more than Launceston was prepared to meet, and public opinion was most unhesitatingly against it. The Mayor (Mr. David Thompson, sen.) refused, however, to comply with a requisition to call a town's meeting to discuss the subject, and the requisitionists turned to the overseers (Mr. It. ltobbins and Mr. John Powell), who yielded to the wish, and at tho gathering (the first and last ever called 340 LAUNCE8TON, by the overseers in their official capacity) the scheme was unanimously condemned. But the Town Council favoured it, and on July 31, 1850, a provisional order was issued by the General Board of Health establishing the Local Board as had been suggested by Mr. Clark just twelve months before.* The first meeting was held on the following September 27, there being present Messrs. Thomas Symes Eyre (ex officio as Mayor), William Eichard Derry (appointed Chairmant), John Ching, Henry Pethick, William Prockter, sen., John Huxham, and Northmore Herle Pierce Lawrence (chosen by the Town Council), and William Stert Brendon, William Spettigue, and Henry Badcock (selected by the non-corporate parts), Mr. Charles Gurney being appointed Clerk and Mr. Eichard Dingley Treasurer.}; The new body soon started its career by erecting water-works at Trethorne (according to the suggestions of the second surveyor) at a cost of nearly £9000, but these proved little more a success than the old at Dunheved Green which Mr. Clark would have utilised, but which were now aban- doned (as well as several ancient sources of supply), and the reservoir was filled up on the making of the Dunheved Eoad in 1869. Before this last date, however, the water question had again become pressing, and in 1866 the indignation of the ratepayers at the ever-decreasing supply found vent at a crowded meeting. When the Trethorne works were made it was anticipated that they would yield fourteen gallons daily per head for a population of four thousand inhabitants, but this was speedily found to be a mistake, and in 1867 Mr. Edward Appleton, C.E. was called in by the Local Board to report upon the matter. He recommended, as Mr. Clark had done before him, the formation of a storage reservoir, but the advice was neglected, though an attempt was made to furnish a suffici- ent supply to the town by bringing in water from an adit at Trebursye in addition to that from Trethorne, this necessitating an extra * His report was dated July 25, 1849. The Provisional Order was confirmed by 13 and 14 Vict., cap. 108. t The subsequent chairmen have been Mr. John Ching and Mr. John Dingley. t The members of the Board for 1884 are Messrs. John Dingley (Chairman), James Treleaven (ex officio as Mayor), John Hawkins, Thomas Brooks Hender. Richard Robbins, Thomas Shearm, and Thomas White (chosen by the Town Council) and George Burt, Edmund Pearse Nicolls, and John Mortimer Strong (selected by the non-corporate parts) with Mr. Christopher Lethbridge Cowlard as Clerk (having succeeded, upon his resignation in 1884, his father, Mr. John Lethbridge Cowlard, who had himself followed Mr. Gurney) and Mr. Edward Pethybridge as Treasurer. PAST AND PRE8ENT. 341 expenditure of about £1200. But although the yield from Trebursye is double as much as that from Trethorne (the latter giving in September, 1884, only two and a half gallons daily per head) the supply has proved to be still far from adequate, and in 1881 a rate- payers' committee was formed to agitate the Local Board concerning it. After much discussion, that body has again in 1884 called Mr. Appleton to its aid, and, at the time of this work passing through the press, that gentleman was engaged upon a scheme for the formation of a storage reservoir, such as had been recommended in 1849 and in 1867, but put upon one side in each instance. The question of water often runs parallel in the public mind with that of gas, and Mr. Clark, in the report before quoted, observed, after dealing with the one matter, that concerning the other "the gas arrangements in this borough form a very legitimate cause of complaint among the rate-payers."* Gas had been introduced into Launceston in the autumn of 1834, the town having previously been favoured with a few scattered oil lamps, probably not a dozen in all, and these not regularly lighted ; a female then seldom went out by night without a lantern, and on a dark Sunday evening, when much walking was done, scores of hand-lanterns might have been counted in the streets and roads. A private company erected the gas-works at St. Thomas (in the excavations for which some remains of the Priory were found, f the meadow in which it stood being at the rear) and for a long time had things all its own way, charging fourteen shillings per thousand feet at the time of Mr. Clark's visit, while the price of coal delivered was at the same period only about twenty- three shillings per ton. In his report to the General Board of Health, Mr. Clark suggested " that a provision enabling the Local Board to establish gas-works, or to contract with parties for lightingthe district, and to levy a lighting rate, be secured under the applied Act " ; but this power was never put in force, though popular dissatisfaction with the public lighting arrangements grew to such a head in 1874, that the Local Board reverted for a time to the system of oil-lamps, and continued it for several months. Tho head-quarters of the original * Mr. Clark's Report, p. 11. t One of these, the top of a window still lies in the gas- jard, exposed to tho weather and attracting little heed. 342 LATJNCESTON, proprietors were at Plymouth, but their property was transferred in 1874 to a local company, of which Mr. John Chingwas chairman and Mr. James Treleaven managing secretary.* The effect has been beneficial, the price of gas now being five shillings and threepence per thousand feet, and the complaints of the inhabitants far fewer than of old. The effect of the cholera outbreak of 1848 in leading to the estab- lishment of the Local Board has been described, but another, and, perhaps to the historian, a more interesting one was, curiously enough, the restoration of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene. On November 15, 1849, the day of public thanksgiving for exemption from cholera, the Eev. G. B. Gibbons, then Perpetual Curate.f preached from the text " Neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing,"! and advocated a restor- ation of the church as the most fitting offering Launceston could render. The reverend gentleman had not spoken before it was time. Owing to the constant making of new vaults and opening of old ones,§ the building had in previous years been so much undermined that the pillars of the middle aisle had commenced to sink, and, leaning on the one side towards the graveyard and on the other towards the street, had had to be braced up by two heavy bars of iron stretching across the central aisle, these rendering the interior as ugly as it was dangerous. Something, however, had to be done, when one rather short shaft, for instance, was as much as seventeen inches out of the perpendicular, and, as a consequence of the old neglect, the whole fabric, though perfectly sound, leans a little even now. The woodwork also at the time Mr. Gibbons spoke was worn and unsightly, and the roof sadly out of repair, and when the question had once been raised, there remained no option for the townsfolk but to take the restoration in hand. A working committee was formed for the purpose of obtaining * Mr. Treleaven continues to hold his post, and Mr. China's place is occupied by Dr. Thompson. t ante, p. 298 : the incumbent now is a vicar. J II Samuel, xxiv., 24. § The last buried in the Church was Mr. Humphry Lawrence in 1840 (ante, p. 299). There are several references in the old Register to such interments, the earliest instance being that of the Rev. Daniel Northwell in 1020, he having been buried in the "chancill (ante, p- 123), and the others being Mrs. Mary Dinfont "in the church'' in 1645, Leonard Treise "in the Chancell" in 1654 (ante, p. 192), and " the Ladye Emblmge Speccott in the Chancill" and "Thomas Hickes Alderman in the Church' m 1660. PAST AND PRESENT. 343 subscriptions, and the Duke of Northumberland and others contributed largely. There was a grant of £600 from the Aftermath Fund,* and a ladies' bazaar in 1851 brought in about £200, so that the total cost (which was about £2000) was soon within measurable distance of being reached. The church was closed for restoration from the first to the last month of 1852, the Mayoralty Room being used for services, while the neighbouring churches accommodated part of the congregation ; and on December 28 of the year just named the building was re-opened. In the course of the works the vaults beneath the building were filled in or (as in the case of that belonging to the Lawrence family) bricked over and cemented down, new bench seats were placed throughout, and an oak reredos (the gift of Mr. John Ching) was erected where previously had stood painted copies of the Ten Commandments, and a couple of antique pictures representing Moses and Aaron, now hanging in the Vestry Eoom. Very shortly afterwards the windows were begun to be filled with 6tained glass, mainly of representations of Biblical scenes ; these were erected by members of the principal families in the town in memory of departed relatives, the only exceptions being that to Henry Ching, a midshipman in the royal navy, who died of yellow fever in Jamaica in 1 863, and to whom thewindow was "dedicated by the officers and crew of H.M.S. Shannon, as a tribute of their esteem and a parting token of their regard,"! and that to Henry Trecarrell, the product in 1883]: of a subscription organ- ized by Mr. G. M. Gifford among those who had been baptised in the church. § Mr. Gibbons, to whom so many thanks are due for his share in the restoration, remained incumbent of Launceston until 1866, when he became vicar of Laneast,|| and he was succeeded by the Rev. Wickham Montgomery Birch, M.A. (of Trinity College, Oxford) who, having commenced his clerical career in 1854 by being for three years curate of Abbenhall (in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol), * ante, p. 27'J. t He was the youngest son of Mr. John ChinK, and to the memory of his mother, who died ill the previous year, another pietorial window hail been erected, while there is also in the church a tablet in commemoration of the youngest son of Ins grandfather " who in the month of August, ix:u, after having been wrecked in the ship ' Charles Eaton' on a voyage to China, Buffered a more cruel fate at the hands ol ignorant savages, bs whom the orew was decoyed and murdered in the Island of Bovdang, in Tones straits." t ante, p. 71. § For the major portion of this infor- mation the Author baa to express his obligations to the late ltev. G, U. Gibbons and Mrs. Gibbous. || ante, p. 298. 344 LAUNCESTON, was in a similar position at Long Ashton (in the diocese of Bath and Wells) from 1857 to 1862, was vicar of Boy ton for the next four years, and held the living of St. Mary Magdalene (the patronage of which then lay with the owner of Werrington*) from 1866 until 1880. In the last-mentioned year Mr. Birch (who had married a daughter of the late Mr. Northmore Lawrence, and who had been a member of the Launceston School Board from its foundation) was presented by the Dean and Chapter of Exeter to the vicarage of Ashburton, and he was succeeded at St. Mary Magdalene's by the Eev. Samuel William Elderfield Bird, M.A. (of St. Mary Hall, Oxford), who had been assistant-master in the Felstead Grammar School, Essex, from 1861 to 1864, curate of St. James-the-Less, Plymouth, from the latter year to 1872, vicar of All Saints, Plymouth, from 1875 to 1878, and Diocesan Inspector for the diocese of Exeter in 1879. Mr. Bird was electeda member of the Launceston School Board in 1883, andimmedi- ately appointed chairman, but in the same year he was presented by the D ean and Chapter of Exeter to the living of Veryan, and his successor at Launceston was the Eev. John Benson Sidgwick, M.A. (of Trinity College, Cambridge). The present vicar of St. Mary Magdalene's, who was ordained deacon by the Archbishop of York in 1859 and priest in the next year by the Bishop of Worcester, was curate of Alvechurch (in the diocese of Worcester) from 1859 to 1861, of St. Thomas, Huddersfleld, in 1861 and 1862, and of Copley, Yorkshire, for the next three years, perpetual curate of the last-named for the following nine, and rector of Huntshaw, near Bideford, from 1874 to the time of his coming to Launceston, where he was inducted to the living on November 9, 1883. t From the clergymen themselves to the pulpit in which they have preached is no far cry, and, concerning the latter, the story runs that it originally came from North Petherwin, a carpenter, engaged in its repair when in that church, having informed those concerned that it * it is now in the hands of the Bishop of Truro. t Among recent curates of St. Mary Magdalene's have been the Rev. William Hart Smith, M.A., from 1849 to 1851 (now rector of St. Peter's, Bedford), the Rev. Benn Wilkes Jones Trevaldwyn, from 1855 to 1858 (now rector of Nether-Whitacre, in the diocese of Worcester), the Rev. William Watkins (at that time Second Master of the Launceston Grammar School) in 1865-66 (now curate-in-cha-rge of Bridgetown, Totnes), the Rev. Edward King, B.A., from 1871 to 1879 (now vicar of Werrington), theRev. Edward H. Marshall from 1874 to 1878, the Rev. J. G. Ourry, B.A., from 1878 to 1881 (now curate of St. Mark's, Kennington), and the Rev. Charles Edward Gandy, appointed in 1882 and still holding the position. PAST AND PRESENT, 345 was an old thing not worth mending, and that he would make them a new one of imitation mahogany for less than the other would cost to put in order, and having then removed it to Langore, whence it found its way to Launceston. The Rev. T. B. Trentham, the present vicar of North Petherwin, writing on the subject, says : " There is a tradition that the Launceston pulpit once belonged to this place, but it is very vague, and I do not think there is any record of such a transfer. I think that the ' tabernacle work,' or carved canopies to the panels of the Launceston pulpib, is of earlier date than the rest, which appears to be Jacobean, so that it is not unlikely that when some ancient pulpit of late perpendicular work was broken up, being thought not worth mending, some one may have got hold of the tabernacle work and attached it to the Launceston pulpit, and this may have come from North Petherwin." Our last glimpse of the Grammar School as an institution was in 1821, when for a time it ceased to be.* Reporting sixteen years later the Commissioners on Charities observed : [' ' The building, to- gether with the site, was sold, in 1835, to the Duke of Northumberland for £280. In the same year, another dwelling-house, situate in Thomas Hill (sic), was purchased of Mr. [Thomas] Ching, the Mayor of the borough, for £650, for the purpose of being converted into a new school room. The purchase was effected by means of the £280 received for the old school-house, and a sum taken from the proceeds of the sale of the aftermath . . . No master has yet been appointed, although several applications have been made . . . No payment has been made by the Duchy since 1821, there having been no master since that period . . . No payment [of the Baron endowment*] has been made since 1821, as there has been no schoolmaster to receive the money. His grace the Duke of Northumberland formerly allowed the master £15 per annum, and it was stated that in case the school should be re-established, the payment would probably be resumed. "{ The first head-master after the interregnum was the Rev. John Henry Kendall, son of the Rev. Charles Kendall, vicar of Tulland, and younger brother of Mr. Nicholas Kendall, who sat for East Cornwall * aute, p. 203. + ante, p. 232. t Thirty-second Report (1'artU) of the Commissioners on Charities (1837), p. Wl. 346 LAUNCESTON, in the Conservative interest from 1852 to 1868. On April 16, 1841, this reverend gentleman had been chosen by the inhabitants of St. Thomas to be their perpetual curate, in succession to the Eev. Charles Lethbridge,* and he held the office until his removal to Warbstowe in 1848 : in 1857 he became vicar of Treneglos (while continuing vicar of Warbstowe), and he died there on August 29, 1862, aged fifty-seven, t The Eev. Samuel Childs Clarke, M.A., who succeeded Mr. Kendall at St. Thomas, was appointed by the Town Council on January 5, 1849, to succeed him also as Head Master of the Grammar School. The number of pupils was then very small, and the duties of the school were carried on in an inconvenient and contracted room at the back of the school-house in St. Thomas Hill. Mr. Clarke, on the number of the boys increasing, determined to build a suitable room for such an institution, and for this purpose he surrendered as a site his kitchen garden, and applied to the Charity Commissioners to beallowed to use the principal of an investment made in Turnpike Deeds Poll, which yielded about £7 per annum to the master, this money having accumulated during the time the school had been in abeyance. The other part of the endowment was derived from the Inland Eevenue.J the contribution of the Duke of Northumberland to the master's income§ having been withdrawn on Mr. Clarke's appointment. Plans were pre- pared by a competent architect, and were approved by the Charity Commissioners and stamped March 28, 1861. A very handsome build- ing, consisting of the school-room, a class-room, || and convenient offices.was erected, the foundation stone being laid by Mr. T. C. Hali- burton, M.P,, in 1861, the Duke of Northumberland contributing one- fifth of the cost. It was opened on June 17, 1862," in the mayoralty of Mr. W. E. Derry, and was used by Mr. Clarke for many public pur- poses, entertainments of various kinds, and for a Working Man's Club, which he assisted in starting in 1864, and of which he acted as secretary. In the fourth year of its existence Mr. Clarke was pre- sented with an address and a purse of sovereigns by the membe rs * ante, p. 293. t Gentleman's Magazine (1862) vol. xiii., p. 504. J ante, p. 107. § ante, p. 345. || The school-room measures 43 feet by 23 feet, and the class-room 15 feet inches by 12 feet- ** The Grammar School having, for some unexplained reason, been allowed to die a natural death soon after the departure of Mr. Clarke (although the Rev. W. S. Johns, the new vicar of St. Thomas, was appointed to succeed him as head master) the premises are now used for a Girls' High School. Pas? and Present. 347 past and present, and in the former was ascribed to him the commence- ment of the Penny Bank,* Library, and Penny Readings. The pupils of the school were much encouraged by their master in dramatic recitation. Their first efforts in the old school- room were so popular that they were obliged to use the National School, and thence migrated to the Central Subscription Boom, where for many years they enjoyed a wide- spread reputation for his- trionic talent. By means of their Christmas recitations the building fund of the school was largely increased, and many were the testimonies sent to Mr. Clarke by former pupils to the great utility as well as en- joyment which these performances had been the means of promoting. When first started, so evil was thought the tendency of such dramatic representations that prayer was offered in one place of worship to counteract the harm the head-master was supposed to be doing, but so completely did he disarm prejudice that several sons of prominent Dissenters were among his best performers. After twenty-seven years work in Launceston, Mr. Clarke was presented to the living of Thorverton, Devon, by the Dean and Chapter of Exeter ; and on his removal the proscenium which had adorned the stage in the Central Boom for so many years was purchased by the master of the Plympton Grammar School, and was by him re-sold to the Bev. E. Peacock, curate of Thorverton, whoestablishedanourishingschoolin thatparish, and who still as Christmas comes round maintains the associations attaching to the old proscenium of the Liunceston Grammar School, the frame- work of which has done duty in the acting of many a clever drama and been the scene of many a prize-presentation to the best boy of the oldest Launceston School. f The declining trade of the borough in the years immediately succeeding the removal of the second assize J; may have made especially welcome to local men of business an Act of 1811 " for the more easy and sDeedy Recovery of Small Debts within the Town and Borough of Lauiircston and other Places in Cornwall and Devon. ''§ Tlie old process for recovering debts had been exceedingly unsatisfactory, even * mii I c. 1 1. .'(117. t For this information the Author is indebted to the Bev. S. Child's Clarkei { mile, p. 3*23. 1 4 and 5 \ i«St,i cap. 7'1. "AnActfor the lieoo very of Small Debts witlwh tile TuWn of Totncs ana other Platen in Dovoir' Was passed iu the same year" (laud 5 Vict., cab. 80), 348 LAUNCESTON, with the possibility of imprisoning the debtor thrown in,* but, what- ever advantages the new Act may have possessed, it was repealed in lS46,f when the county courts were placed very much upon their present basis ; and four years later, upon the regular system of county court circuits being established, Launceston formed part of the Fifty- eighth Circuit, which included the principal towns of Devonshire. The first judge was Mr. William Carpenter Eowe, followed in 1S54 by Mr. Praed, who was succeeded in October, 1857, by Mr. Matthew Fortescue ; but in June, 1872, when Mr. Montague Bere, Q.C., was appointed judge of the Fifty-ninth (or Cornwall) Circuit, Launceston was taken out of Mr. Fortescue's jurisdiction and attached to Mr. Bere's, where it remains + But even an improved method of recovering debts did not con- tribute greatly to the profit of the local tradesmen. The population, which at every census from 1801 to 1841 had shown a steady rise, slightly decreased between 1841 and 1851, § and in the period imme- diately succeeding the last-named year it became obvious that the diminution was largely increasing. The thoughts of some in the town thereupon turned to a railway as the method by which this rapid wane in the prosperity of the borough could best be stayed. The necessity of improved communication with the outer world had long before been recognised. As far back as 1774 an Act had been passed "for making acanal from Bude to the river Tamar in Calstock parish,"|| which would have affected this district, and a scheme was put forward twenty-one years later " for making a navigation from Morwelham Quay in Tavistock parish to Tamer ton-brio go in Cornwall, and also a collateral cut from Poulston-bridge in Lifton parish, Devon, to Bichgrove (sic) Mill in St. Stephen's parish, Cornwall."** Both projects failed, but as the result of an Act of 1819ft there was con- structed thcBudeCanal, terminating atDruxton Wharf, four miles from Launceston (being prevented from being brought nearer the town by * The last person imprisoned for debt in Launcjston was a certain purser'? steward) named William Davies, in 1828. t By !> andml Vict., cap. 85. j Had Launceston Continued a portion of Circuit 58, it would now bo in the jurisdiction of Mr- J- W- Do Longueville Giffard, the borough member's eldest brother- § For detailed popu- lation tables, see Appendix 11. ' il 1-1 Geo. 111., cap. 5a. ** 30 Geo. 111., cap. 07- tt O'J Geo. III., cap. Iv, PAST AND PRESENT. 349 the influence of tho Duke of Northumberland), this being for many years the chief coal-carrying agency of the district.* The bringing of a canal to a spot miles from the town did not, how- ever, satisfy the wishes of the inhabitants, and in 1836 the first railway scheme in connection with the place was projected. An Act was obtained in that year " for making and maintaining an harbour and breakwater at Tremoutha Haven, St. Gonnys, and making a railway from thence to Launceston,"t and the plans were on the most extensive scale. A new town was to be founded at Tremoutha, to be called Victoria! ( a very early instance of the use of our present Queen's name as that of a town), and it was intended " to construct a safe and commodious harbour with breakwaters, to which vessels might run at all times of the tide, and, in connexion with the harbour to form a railway to Launceston, to be called tho Launc3ston and Vic- toria Bailway."§ But the Duke of Cornwall's Harbour and Launceston and Victoria Railway Company — as it was magnificently called — failed to answer expectations, though there was a great stir locally in its favour, j | The next project was one of Mr. (afterwards Sir) Goldsworthy Gurney, inventor of tho " Bude Light," who in 1841 started a scheme for a railway from Launceston to Plymouth en the atmospheric principle (tried by Brunei on the South Devon line between Newton Abbot and Exeter and ultimately abandoned). A company was formed, of which Mr. Charles Gurney, of Trebursye, Town Clerk,** and Mr. John Ching were the chief promoters, but, though many shares were taken up in the town and neighbourhood, much opposition was shown to the scheme. Mr. William Arundell Harris Arundell, of Lifton Tark.tt who was the foremost opponent, called a meeting • The canal having for some years failed to pay its expenses, il has been resolved in lx-^i to aban Ion it. t 6 and 7 Will. IV., cup. exxiv. I The Parliamentary Gazetteer .,i I uglond Mini Wales 1 1843). vol. Hi., p. is. § [bid, vol. iv., i>. 855. The late Mr. Jul i u Ching « :i^ among t he supporters of the scheme, much in ion mil inn concerning ; is to i»' Found m Hyde Clarke's Railway Register (1840), vol. iv v pp. 170-85. ** He was appointed by the Corporation in succession to Mr. .1. K. Lethbridge in 1 8 8 18, when the latter became Deputy-Recorder, and was continued in office by the Town Council. He was succeeded upon his resignation in 1867 by his partner, Mr. .1. I.. Cowlard, who himself resigned in 1874, and was followed by Mr, Ltichard Peter, the present holder of the office. tt Mr. Arundell (who assumed thai name in 1822 in addition to his patronymic, Harris) published in i s ">"> and I860 through Mr. T. W. Maddox, of Launceston, various poems on ourrenl events and ii comedy, entitled " The CVin tested Election," one of the former being suggested by the wreck oi the emi- grant ship " John " on tho Manacle Hocks, on May - 1855, in which perished among iii:in\ others Mr, Michael Studaon (ante, p. 830 . 350 LAUNCESTON, in the Central Subscription Eoom, which proved to be one of the most heated known to have been held in the town, finally degener- ating into the bandying of personalities ; but the discussion had the effect of causing this project also to collapse. Mr. Arundell's main objection to it had been that its adoption would be a block to a central line from Exeter through Launceston to the West, and three years later, when the Kev. Edward Rudall (of Boyton) proposed with others the making of a line from Launceston to Doublebois, Mr. Gurney strongly opposed it on the ground his old antagonist had taken against the atmospheric scheme, and carried his audience with him when a meeting was held in the Central Room on the subject, with the consequence of this collapsing also. For several years after these disheartening failures the subject slumbered and trade and population continued to decrease. At length the time appeared appropriate for again bringing the matter to the test of public discussion, and on November 3, 1856, Mr. R. Robbins, in his lecture previously quoted from* on "The Past, Present, and Future of the Town of Launceston," put the question " What can be done to remedy the decline?" and answered it by saying " Something may be done and that something is a Railway," the line he advocated being one from Launceston to Plymouth. "Let not this matter be delayed," he concluded by observing,' 'but let us go at it at once and see if we cannot keep up good old Dunheved, and make her more prosperous than ever the oldest of us can remember. If not, if we do not rally in this matter, we shall become little other than a Deserted Village, a theme for some future Goldsmith to im- mortalize." The discussion, in which most of the leading men of the town took part, was generally favourable to the idea that something ought to be done, but Mr. Gurney was faithful to the central scheme, and contended that " the traffic from Plymouth will not sustain a railway ; but, if we have one from Exeter, we shall be able to throw our traffic over a much more extensive district. "f In proof of the sincerity of Mr. Gurney in the advocacy of the central scheme, it is to be noted that in 1800 he advocated a project for the formation of a narrow-guage line to Copplestone, there to join the North * ante, \>. 819. t Launceston Weekly News, Nov. 8, 185G. PAST AND TiESEXT. 331 Devon system from Exeter to Barnstaple. A company was formed, and a bill presented to Parliament in the session of 1861, but it was thrown out, mainly owing to the opposition of Mr. Woollcombo, chairman of the South Devon Company, who, however, practically gave a pledge before a Committee of the House of Commons that, if this scheme were rejected, the South Devon Company would not leave Launceston in the cold. Matters were not destined to remain long in this condition. On October 29, 1860, Mr. Bobbins had again lectured before the Mechanics' Institute, taking this time for his subject "The advantages of a railway to Launceston," and had once more received the enthu- siastic support of a crowded audience when he advocated the formation of a line. " The crisis is come," he said, " the magnitude of which it is difficult to over-estimate . . . And my last appeal to you is 'Get a Railway.' " By this dale the branch from Plymouth to Tavis- tock had been opened, and the advocates of the central scheme had to face the difficulties of supporting a project which would have entailed the making of over forty miles of line against one which involved the making of only eighteen. In the autumn of 1861, after the Copplestone scheme had been rejected, a meeting was held at Plymouth, presided over by the Mayor of that borough, at which the late Sir Lawrence Palk (afterwards Lord Haldon) and other influential gentlemen connected with the South of Devon, put forward a plan to unite Exeter with Launceston and Tavistock, the line passing through a portion of South Devon, branching off at Newton, and extending to Lydford, whence a branch would be cut on the one side to Launceston and on the other to Tavistock ; and though this plan did not seem likely to find ready acceptance, owing to the fact that the line would be about, forty-two miles in length, and would cost from £700,000 to £1,000,000, its production had the effect of stirring up the South Devon Company to a sense of the danger to itself of delaying a settlement of the question. Accordingly, on the invi- tation of Mr. Woollcombe, six of the leading townsmen visited Plymouth on September 24, 1861 (a historic date in connection with this matter), and had an interview with the South Devon directors ; and on that day the first practical step towards gaining the lonjj- wished-for railway was taken. 352 LAUNCESTOST, The South Devon authorities intimated that, if Launceston proved itself ready to assist, a plan for cutting a line from Tavistock should have their support, and the Mayor (Mr. John Doidge) called a meeting for October 2 of the subscribers to the old Mid-Devon and Cornwall scheme, to discuss the suggestion. Owing to the action of some more adventurous spirit the meeting was turned into a public one, and a proposition, made by Mr. Daniel Shilson and seconded by Mr. "William Eichard Derry, was unanimously carried by the crowded assembly in support of a line from Launceston to Tavistock. A dep- utation, of which Mr. liichard Dingley was a leading member, was at once appointed to further confer with the South Devon directors, and the result was so satisfactory that before November 3C, the statutory limit, a measure was deposited in the Private Bill Office " for making a railway in Devon and Cornwall, to be called tho Launceston and South Devon Railway." It is difficult for those whose memories cannot carry them back as far as 18G2 to realise the excitement which pervaded the town while " the Bill" (for no longer title was ever given to it in Laun- ceston) was before Parliament.* The great difficulty it had to en- counter was the active opposition of Mr. John Tremayne, of Sydenham, and Mr. Henry Bradshaw, of Lifton Park (through whose estates the line was to run), and the passive objection of the Duke of Northum- berland, a lesser being supplied by the fact that the "War Office was against the scheme, because it wished to see an independent railway constructed from Exeter to Plymouth. The measure first came before a select committee of the House of Commons, of which Lord Stanley (the present Earl of Derby) was chairman, and, while it was under consideration, a petition to the Duke of Northumberland, signed by over seven hundred inhabitants within twenty-four hours, had tho effect not only of inducing his grace to withdraw his opposition but to subscribe .£5000 towards the scheme. This was an omen of victory which was speedily confirmed, for, although Sir George Cornewall * Mr.Woollcombe told tlie Committee of the House of Commons that the excitement in Launceston in favour of the scheme was such that a higher pitch of enthusiasm could not have been reached by the Allied Armies when they won Waterloo; "We are already on the plains of Waterloo, and the Last struggle is at hand," exclaimed a local pape ■ carrying out the same idea, " we well remember the trial of Queen Caroline, and luC agitation that prevailed on the passing of the Reform Bill, as well as the capture of Sebastopol, but on these occasions there was not the liundn dt'u part felt l>y the Lauu- ceston people as at present," (East Cornwall Thins, March 15, 1S02). TAST AND PRESENT, 353 Lewis (then Secretary for War), sent a letter to the committee against the scheme, and Lord Palmerston (then Prime Minister) was called as a witness on the same side, the committee unanimously decided on March 17, 1862, that the preamble was proved. The news was telegraphed to Tavistock, and thence brought to Launceston by mounted messenger, who, though his horse threw a shoe as he galloped through the South Gate, never halted until he reached the White Hart where he announced the glad tidings. Bells were rung, bands played, cannon were fired, tar-barrels blazed, and business was suspended; the night was given up to rejoicing, and the next day a whole holiday was granted to the school children, many of the shops were shut, and a procession was formed which met at Pennygillam Colonel (then Major) Archer, chairman of the Launceston and South Devon Railway Company, and escorted him to the Castle Green, where a great public meeting Avas held. Even then the rejoicings did not cease ; a torchlight procession went at night to Page's Cross to escort into the town the witnesses in favour of the Bill, and the next day bells and band welcomed home Mr. John Dingley, the honorary secretary of the Company. But danger to the scheme was not even yet at an end, and on April 23 " one of the largest meetings ever held in the town of Launceston assembled in the Western Subscription Room, which is as large a public hall as any in the county, convened by the Mayor (Mr. W. 11. Derry*) on receipt of a most numerously signed requisition, for the purpose of considering the propriety of adopting a petition to the House of Lords in favour of the Launceston and South Devon Rail- way" ; t but although an amendment was moved it found no favour, the proposed petition, supported by Major Archer and Mr. WooIIcoiiiIm', being enthusiastically accepted.^ Success continued to attend the promoters when the Bill reached the Lords. Mr. Tremayne * Per a list of Mayors Bincft 1836, see Vppendix E. t Western Morning News Vpril 25. 1802. ; The band-bill summoning tins ossembly.whicb was posted by hundreds over the town and even upon ever.v tree on the Walk, will show (lie state of teeliug then cvisiin-': ' Our Railway. Come to the meeting to-night ! ! Citizens : Tho enemy is hi the Held. Arouse ye I Arouse ye I and do battle to the ene sol your sacred rights. Having pledged yourselves ul two public meetings i<> support the Launceston and South Devon Railway, now, in the hour of trial, Btand rorth as :i Samson to crush tyranny and despotism. Now or never !! I Hut be a united band, and not on the Cornish, motto— ■ a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether' and the victory will be yours I I I Dated April 23rd, ISO*" ' 3o4 LAUNCESTON, withdrew his opposition on May 12, and three days later a petition, twenty yards long and signed by two thousand inhabitants of the district, was despatched to the Upper House in favour of the measure. On May 30 the Lords passed the Bill, and there was another outburst of what were long known as "the railway rejoicings," which culmin- ated on the next morning, when the favouring witnesses were received at Twinaways on the Tavistock road, and drawn by hand into the gaily- decorated town. On June 9 an open-air concert was held on the Walk to celebrate the victory, and when, on the last day of the month, the royal assent was given to the measure* a railway to Launceston was secured. The engineers chosen by the Company (Mr. John Fowler and Mr. P. J. Margary) soon had their plans ready, and a contract was entered into with Mr. York on April 29, 18(53, to construct the works, which were speedily put in hand. As the line crept nearer Launceston the townsfolk made frequent excursions to Lydford, and then to Coryton, and next to Lifton to mark its progress ; the throwing of the girders across the Tamar at Polston was regarded as a public event ; the first engine which travelled on the uncompleted work as far as Lifton Down was welcomed by thou- sands ; and when Colonel Yolland made his inspection on behalf of the Board of Trade, the Walk was crowded with spectators eager to see the train steam for the first time up the valleys of the Tamar and the Kensey.t The opening was at length fixed fur May 30, I860, and then postponed until June 1, on which day the formal ceremony took place. J The Tuesday had been marked by fine weather ; the Thurs- day witnessed one of the severest downpours within memory ; trades' procession in the morning, open-air luncheon in the afternoon, and torchlight display in the evening were alike spoilt by the pitiless rain ; aud for many years an exceptionally wet day continued to be spoken of as being " almost as ba d as railway-opening." * 25 and 26 Vict., cap. cxi. Throe other Acts affecting this line were subsequently passed, one in ]Si« lor making a deviation, etc. [26 and 27 Vict., cap. cv.), another in 1866 giving further powers in relation to capital, etc. (29 and 30 Vict., cap. cxlvn ), and the third in 1869 for enlargement of powers for raising money and for vesting the under" taking in the South Devon Company (32 and 33 Viet., cap. xli). The concern is now vested in the Great Western Railway Company. + Many of these spectators eould doubtless remember when a sedan-chair was the best-known method of progression Within the town, for there still lives, in the person of Mr. William Cudlipp (who for many years has been Town Crier), a bearer in one of these vehicles (the property Of tt Mr.' John Grigi*) of hundreds of ladies visiting their friends in by-gone years, J The opeuing for traffic did not take place until Saturday, July 1, PA31 AXt) PltESE^T. 355 During the four years in which the line was possessed by an in- dependent company, its success, especially with goods traffic, exceeded the hopes of its most sanguine promoters, and had the effect of stimu- lating the adherents of a central scheme to renewed activity instead of to the eternal defeat which some might have imagined awaited them. Various projects to connect Launceston with the narrow guage have been put forward ; an Act of 1S64 authorised the incor- poration of a Launceston, Bodmin, and Wadebridge Junction Railway Company, with power to make arrangements with the Oke- hampton Company ;* in the next year another Act changed the name to the Central Cornwall Railway Company, and allowed it to extend itself to Truro ;f while a third Act in 1867 gave it still further pow- ers}, which have never been executed. Undeterred by this, a Devon and Cornwall Railway Company was incorporated, which in 1873 secured an Act for an extension to Holsworlhy and Camelford, and to the Launceston and South Devon Railway, § but this also fell through ; and a prominent townsman, who had whimsically vowed never to take milk in his tea until a central line should be made, died without his hope having been accomplished. In despair of any inde- pendent line being constructed, application was made by Launceston to the Railway Commissioners to constrain the Great Western Com- pany to convert the section between Launceston and Lydford Junc- tion into a mixed guage, but although Mr. Frederick Peel, Tino of the Commissioners, held a public inquiry with that object in tho Western Subscription Room in 1877, and the town was practically unanimous in its support, the vis inertia pi evented by the Great Western Company frustrated the scheme. But in 1882 success at length smiled upon a practical effort to bring the narrow gang3 to L uinccston, an Act being jiassed to make a line forty-nine miles in length from the South Western system at Ilahvill through Launces- ton to Delabole, Wadebridge, and Padstow ; and the North Cornwall Railway Company having raised sufficient money to undertake the • -j 7 .- 1 i i 1 1 ■>"•. Yi<-: ., cap. ci-l\\\i\. + 28 and 29 Vict., cap. rclxxiv. In the game session Was passed an Acl " for incorporating the JJude Canal and Launceston Junction Rail' way " (88 anil 2t) Vict., cap. eclxiii), but some yearn later the Board ol Trade issued a « Arrant authorising the aband niuienl of this scheme i Parliamentary Papers ( ls7°, vol, lixj, t 80 and 31 Victii cap, OxOiXi § 3U and 37 Vict., dtp. cxii. 356 T.AUXCESTOIf, section from Halwill to Launceston, the first sod was cut on June 30, 18S4. And as, in this same year, the Liskeard and Caradon Railway Company has obtained power from Parliament to carry its line through Altarnun to Launceston, our town seems likely soon to be the centre of a large system of railway communication. That which it has already gained has given fresh life to the borough. The population has shown an increase at each census since the opening, houses have sprung up where no dwellings had before been seen, and business premises have been enlarged or re-built in a fashion un- known for many previous years. And the increased accommodation now bemg provided should do still more to raise the once flagging fortunes of the town. The discussion of the South Devon scheme in 1862 had the effect of introducing a new element into the Launceston Town Council. Previous to that time the Conservatives had held abnost undisputed power upon that body ; there had never been more than two or three Liberal Councillors, and these seemed to exist by sufferance ; and though more than one fierce contest had taken place, the result had been disastrous to the Liberal candidates. The railway agitation changed all this, for although many Conservatives strongly supported the South Devon project, its principal opponents were the leaders of their party, and, as the Liberals in a body were in its favour, such rjolitical advantage as accrued from it was gained by the latter. The first breach in the Conservative stronghold was made in 1862, when Mr. Richard Peter (the present Town Clerk), a Liberal, ran as a "rail- way candidate," and was returned. The success was followed up, and year after year the Liberal minority was strengthened until it became a majority.* At the election of 1866 the excitement and anger caused by the annual contests culminated in a formal protest handed in by the Conservatives against the candidature of the retiring mayor (Mr. G. G. White, sen.,) and, after an abortive attempt to secure a hearing of the case at the Bodmin Spring Assizes of 1867, the writ of quo warranto was carried to the Superior Courts, where a decision was given in favour of Mr. White. After this defeat the Conservatives * The returng of thy contests since 1862 (for which the author has to thank Mr, John Briiuinell) are piven in Appendix Gi PAST AXD PRESENT. 35" did not for some years offer any opposition to the Liberal candidates, but in 1871 contests again commenced and have continued ever j-ince with but slight intermission. The Liberals more than once have had to contend with the same spirit of division in their own ranks which, when displayed by their opponents, gave them their first chance of success; and, though they still possess a slight majority on the Council, parties now appear more evenly balanced than ever before. Whatever some may say as to the wisdom of introducing politics into municipal contests, it has had the effect in Launceston, as in many other boroughs, of securing the presence upon the Council of the most active men from both sides which the town possesses. As may be imagined a great part in these contests has been played by the Press. Times have singularly changed within this century with regard to the circulation of news. Previous to the Peninsular War there was no regular receipt in Launceston of the news of the day, but at that period, when matters full of interest to every Englishman were forthcoming in rapid succession, the Duke of Northumberland agreed to send daily to the mayor of the borough a copy of the Times. "Upon its arrival, and immediately after glancing through it on his own account, the chief magistrate was accustomed to send it around to the Aldermen in succession by a special messenger, whose duty it was to leave it at each house a certain number of hours and then carry it to the next.* In times of special excitement a more effective method was taken of circulating the latest intelligence, as, for instance, when the result of Waterloo reached the town, several days after the battle was fought, and the Mayer (then Alderman Roe) proceeded to different parts of the borough and there proclaimed the victory. The contrast between this state of things, or even that existing during the American Civil War, t and that of later days could scarcely have been more strikingly shown than in the course of the Franco-German War in 1870, when, by a subscription among the leading townsmen, telegrams concerning the most important events were daily received and posted in front of the Corn Market. A - has been noted] the contestof 1S32 brought forth two newspapers * This custom obtained until 1836, when the direct relationship between the Duke and the Corporation waa broken. t auto, p, ya2. X ant' 1 , p. 383, 338 LAUNCESTON, The Reformer first appearing on July 21, with " Vox Populi, Vox Dei" as its motto, and The Ouirdian a week later, with "Truth" as its watchword. These papers, which were very small, were mainly devoted to the events of the contest, and were filled with personalities of the most astounding kind. " The entire contents from week to week," says Mr. Ching, " were the upholding the faults and short- comings of the other party, and at last the personalities became so great that the leading men of each side signed a requisition to the Editors to suppress further issues, and they ceased their publication." Our first newspaper, pure and simple, was the Launceston Weekly Neivs, which appeared on April 19, 1856, under the editorship of the proprietor, Mr. John Brimmell, who still occupies both positions. In March of the next year, at the time of the dissolution by Lord Pal- merston, consequent upon the vote of the Commons condemnatory of his Chinese policy, Mr. William Philp,* who had commenced business in the town as a printer nearly a quarter of a century before, published a sheet called the "Supplement to the Cornish Times" (which paper was published at Liskeard by his brother, Mr. John Philp), containing local items of intelligence ; and this developed at the next dissolution in May, 1859, into an independent paper as the East Cornivall Times. The latter (which was the Liberal organ just as its elder rival was the Conservative) issued its last number in December, 1877, on the first day of which month a company had started the Cornish and Devon Post, under the editorship of Mr. "William Lydra Powell, who is now its proprietor, and this continues the Liberal tradition of the paper which it now absorbed. Before the railway agitation rose to its height, and while munici- pal contests were still undreamt of, the present Launceston Volunteer force sprang into being. The existence here of train-bands during the Civil War (whose characteristic, according to Sir Thomas Fairfax, was " to get others for money to serve in their rooms''t)> ar >d of a body of volunteers during the threatened French invasion in 1794,]: has been referred to ; and in 1859, when Napoleon the Third's colonels breathed threatenings towards England, and Tennyson's cry " Rifle- men, form," was taken up with enthusiasm throughout the country, * unte^. 2nry Campbell, a Manchester cotton merchant, who speedily intimated his intention of standing for the borough, and, though a M'\ John Cooke issued an address to the electors in the Libera] interest, no real opposition took place at the dissolution of 1S(3j, and the new owner of Werrington was duly returned. Mr. Campbell, however, was unfortunate in some very heavy cotton speculations, and in the early part of 18G8 he sold the property to Mr. William Wentworth Fitz William Dick, of Hume Wood, Baltin- glass, Wicklow, for which county he sat from 1852 to 1880. Being already in Parliament for an apparently safe seat, Mr. Dick did not require to represent Launceston, and on the resignation of Mr. Campbell in April, 1868, he put forward Mr. Henry Charles Lopes for the vacancy. Mr. Lopes had won the confidence of Mr. Dick (then Mr. Hume) some four years previously as counsel for him in a case of some deli- cacy, but he had in addition a claim upon the consideration of the * Chambers's Encyclopaedia (editiou of 1888) vol. v,, p, l'J7. t ante, p, 331. $aute, p. 302, PAST AND PRESENT. 363 electors of Launceston which, as far as recollection can serve, has not hitherto been noted. His name originally was Franco, for he was the third son of Mr. Ralph Franco, who unsuccessfully con- tested Newport in the Whig interest in 1818,* and who changed his patronymic when he succeeded to the baronetcy of Lopes in 1831 on the death of his maternal uncle, the first baronet, Sir Manasseh.f Mr. Henry Charles Lopes (who was born in 1827, and was educated at Winchester and at Balliol College, Oxford) was called to the bar at the Inner Temple, in 1S52, and travelled the Western Circuit, being ap- pointed Recorder of Exeter in May, 186". At the general election of November, 1S68, he was for the second time returned for Launceston, and in the next June was raised to the dignity of a Queen's Counsel. In August, 1871, Mr. Dick, who had never really liked Werrington, sold the property to Mr. James Henry Deakin, of Manchester, an honorary lieutenant-colonel in the Lancashire volunteers, who, some twelve months later, communicated to Mr. Lopes that he intended at the next election to represent Launceston, " either by myself or my nominee." The sitting member so resented the notice to quit that he subsequently published the whole correspondence in the Standard, but he profited by it so far as to offer himself as Conservative candi- date for Frome, for which borough he was elected at the dissolution of 1874, and in November, 1876, he was appointed a Judge of the High Court of Justice, which position he still holds. In September, 1873, Colonel Deakin issued an address to the electors of Launceston announcing his intention of contesting the borough when a vacancy should arise, and the dissolution of the next January gave him the opportunity he sought. The fact that Parlia- ment was to be dissolved was made known on Saturday, January 24, and for a day or two it seemed as if the first election for Launceston under the Ballot Act would pass as quietly as had all its open-voting predecessors since 18334 But a change was soon apparent: on the Tuesday, Mr. William Derry, of Plymouth, intimated his willing- ness to come forward if the Liberals wished, while Mr. Henry Clark, Recorder of Tiverton, and brother-in-law of Mr. Lopes, was talked * ante, i>. 2iH5. + Sir Manasseli for Mas sell i Lopes « as o m icted al Launceston Assizes in 1818 tor bribery al Gratnpouna, and was subsequently sentenced to a heavy line uud u term of imprisonment (Oklficld's Key, p, 18.) ; ante, i>. B24i 3G-i LATJNCESTON, of in the same interest. On the Wednesday it was seen that a contest was inevitable, for three would-be Liberal candidates put in an appearance before the electors — Mr. Herbert Charles Drinkwater, of Manchester, Mr. John Freeman Norris, barrister, of Bristol (and now a judge of the Indian High Court), and Mr. John William Batten, barrister, of London, who was professionally connected with the South Western Railway. These agreed to allow a public meeting to decide on their claims, and this being held in the Western Subscription. Room the same afternoon, the choice fell upon Mr. Drinkwater, Mr. Norris being second favourite. A vigorous contest was at once undertaken ; Colonel Deakin hastened from Manchester, where he had stayed to assist the Conservatives of his own city, and when he readied Launceston on the Thursday found that the extensive preservation of rabbits on his estate was being used as a political weapon to weaken his hold on the tenantry. On the Friday the nomination took place, and the same evening, at a meeting at the Northumberland Arms, the Colotiel announced that each tenant was at liberty to des- troy the rabbits on his farm. The Liberal candidate at once denounced this as an act of bribery, and on Monday, February 2, when the polling was held, he served on every one voting a formal notice that, if defeated, he should claim the seat on that ground. The poll showed that 453 had supported Colonel Deakin and 216 Mr. Drink- water,* and within the statutory month the latter filed a petition against the return. The trial took place in the Western Subscription Boom on Mayo and 0, before Sir John Mellor, then a Justiceof the Court of Queen's Bench, Mr. Leresche and Mr. Bompas appearing for the petitioner, and Serjeant Parry and Mr. Edwards for the respon- dent ; and on the afternoon of the second day the judge unseated Colonel Deakin, holding that the rabbit concession under the circum- stances was an act of personal bribery, but reserving the question of Mr. Drink water's claim to the seat. This was argued the next month in the Common Pleas, before Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, Mr. Justice Brett (now Master of the Bolls), and Mr. Justice Denman, and judgment, at first reserved, was given against the petitioner and declaring the seat vacant. ♦IhetsiFare the numbers as officially announced ; those given in most of the usual books ol reference are erroueous. PAST AND TRESEKT. 365 Tho Launccston Conservatives, in addition to presenting an address of sympathy to Colonel Deakin, took a practical method of showing their appreciation of him by signing a requisition to his eldest son, Mr. James Henry Deakin, jun., asking him to come for- ward. The Liberals immediately brought out Mr. John Dingley,* but at the same time nominated Mr. Hardinge Stanley Giffard, a promi- nent Conservative barrister who was just then seeking a seat, and offered to allow him to be returned unopposed if the other side would withdraw Mr. Deakin. To this the Conservatives declined to agree, and Mr. Giffard, having visited the town and learnt the state of affairs, issued an address counselling all Conservatives to support their chosen candidate. This apparently they did not do, for at the poll on July 3 thirty-six fewer voted for him than had for his father in the February and seventeen more for Mr. Dingley than for the previous Liberal candidate, while one solitary elector recorded his suffrage for Mr. Giffard. From that time rumours were frequent that Mr. Deakin intended to resign, and Launceston electoral matters were kept before the public by the abortive attempt of the late Mr. Wykeham Martin, Liberal member for Rochester, to carry a bill in the session of 1875 for the remission of the disabilities entailed upon Colonel Deakin by the decision of the judge. In February, 1877, Mr. Deakin resigned, Sir Hardinge Giffard (as by this time he had become) immediately issued an address, and Mr. Robert Collier (a young barrister, and eldest son of Sir Robert Collier, who had embarked on a similarly hopeless contest thirty-six years before)t entered the lists on behalf of the Liberals. The polling took place on Saturday, March 3, when the Conservative majority, which had dwindled from 237 in February, 1874, to 184 in the following July, was now lowered to 118, Sir Hardinge Giffard securing 392 and Mr. Collier 274. The new member for Launceston, who still occupies the seat, is a son of the late Stanley Lees Giffard, LL.D., his mother being the eldest daughter of Mr. Frank Moran, an Irish magistrate, residing at Downhill, county Mayo. He was born in 1825, and was educated at Mi i ten College, Oxford, where he graduated Bachelor of Arts in 18 52 and Master of Arts three years later. In January, 1800, he was * ante, pp, 863-60. t ante, \>. 336. 366 LAUNCESTON called to the bar at the Inner Temple, and joined the South Wales Circuit, marrying in 1852 his first wife, Caroline Louisa, daughter of the late Mr. William Conn Humphreys, of "Wood Green, Middle- sex. He became a Queen's Counsel in 1865, and three years after- Avards made his first attempt to enter Parliament by contesting Car- diff in the C onservative interest against Mr. J. Crichton- Stuart who had been returned from 1857 and always without a struggle. He was beaten by 446 votes, a majority which, against the same opponent, he succeeded in reducing to nine at the general election of 1874. In the same year he married his second wife (the pre- sent Lady Giffard) Lynie, daughter of Mr. Henry "Woodfall, of Riverside, Twickenham, and was appointed Chairman of the Car- marthenshire Quarter Sessions. In November, 1S75, though with- out a seat in Parliament, he was given the Solicitor- Generalship by Mr. Disraeli, in succession to Sir John Holker, a post he held until the fall of the Conservative Ministry in April, 1880, and he became a knight bachelor very soon after his appointment. In 1876, he again tried to enter the House of Commons, this time for Hors- ham, but was once more defeated, the poll being 478 for his opponent as against 424 for himself ; and on March 3, 1877, he was first elected for Launceston as stated above.* At the dissolution of March, 1850, Mr. Collier again offered him- self in opposition to Sir Hardinge Giffard, but had only the satisfaction of very slightly reducing the Conservative majority, it now standing at 105, Sir Hardinge polling 439 and Mr. Collier 334 ;t and the latter has since severed his connection with the borough by ac- cepting the Liberal candidature for Chatham. The member for Launceston was appointed Treasurer of the Inner Temple for 1881, and on January 19, 1883, was given by the Duke of Cornwall the Constableship of Launceston CastleJ (the last previous holder of which office had been Algernon, Duke of Northumberland^ who died * The biographical information regarding Sir Hardinge Giffard is mainly gathered from Debrett's House of Commons, supplemented by Dod's Parliamentary Companion. It is singular to note that in the latter, as well as in Dod's Peerage, Paronetage, and Knightage, no mention is given of the member for Launceston's parentage, date of birth, or place of education. t The apparent contradiction in a Conservative con- stituency returning a Liberal Town Council is accounted for by the fact that the parlia- mentary borough includes the parishes of St. Stephens, South Petherwin.and Lawhitton, in addition to the municipal borough. J London Gazette, January IS), 1SS3, p. 328, § ante, pp. 330-37-52-62. PAST AND PRESENT. 3G7 in February, 18G5) and he has built a house in the borough, for- which he appears likely to sit until its disfranchisement. Its representation had not been touched by the Reform Act of 1867, though, in intro- ducing the abortive Redistribution of Seats Rill the previous year, one of the objects of which was " to group as many of these [small} boroughs as can be joined together with geographical convenience," Mr. Gladstone had named as the second of sixteen groups Rodmin, Liskeard, and Launceston to return two members;* but the redistribution which is likely to be undertaken very shortly after these lines have passed through the press, will in every probability deal much more harshly with Launceston's existence as a parliamentary borough than this. One thing connected with the history of local politics it is curious to note : for two centuries the " Werrington influence" has played, as has been seen, an important part in the representation of the town, but after the death of Mr. J. H. Deakint in 188-1 (his father, Colonel Deakin, having pre-deceased him in 1879) the family deter- mined to sell the property, the northern portion of which was pur- chased in June, 1882, by Mr. John Charles Williams, of Caerhays Castle, second son of the late Mr. John Michael Williams, who, save for the destruction of Morice's Arch,+ lias been doing much to restore the park to its old splendour. Rut although of a Liberal family, Mr. Williams exhibits no wish to interfere in parliamentary concerns, and as the remainder of the estate has been broken up and sold in lots to a number of purchasers, Werrington as a political influence has died in the dying days of the independent parliamentary existence of Launceston. With this change in the lordship of the manor, a venerable insti- tution in the shape of the viander.ship of Newport disappeared. The importance of the office had gone with the disfranchisement of the bor- ough, but the ceremony of choosing the in-viander and the out-viand<>r§ * Speech in the House of Commons, May 7, 1806. + ante, i> :»;."). t ante, p. 259. § A curious relic of the viandership was found in October, 1884, by Mr. George Burt, while investigating some old papers of his father, the late .Mi-. Charles Nations Hun, this being a parchment signed by the R truly and fairly as they shall come to your hands according to the best of your skill and judgment." The last ceremony of the kind was in 18? 1, when Mr. Henry Burt was ap- pointed foreman of the jury, and Captain Langdon and Mr. William Burt the last of a long line of vianders of Newport. * But while some institutions were disappearing others were com- ing into existence. Educational accommodation, especially of an elementary kind, was v<-ry limited in Launceston as elsewhere early in the century, and in 1840, mainly by the help of the Duke of Northumberland, a National School was erected. This was followed by a British School, but the latter was closed in 1870, when the Education Act came into operation. A town's meeting in December of that year decided upon the formation of a School Board, and the first election for this took place on Ft-bruary 27, 1871, with the result that three Nonconformists— Mr. John Dingley (Wesleyan), Mr. J. B. Geake(Congregationalist), and Mr. John Nicolls.sen. (United Metho- dist Free Church) — and two Churchmen (the Bevs. \V. M. Birch and S. Childs Clarke) were chosen after a contest in which Mr. John Ching (Independent Churchman) was defeated. The old British School was enlarged and formed into a Board School, and the work has since gone on uninterruptedly, though in 1883, for the first time, the Liberal Nonconformists found themselves in a minority, f A School Board for St. Stephens was formed in the spring of 1875, the first * It is probable, seeing that an assize of broad and ale is known to have existed at New- port Ioiik previous to 1337 (ante, p. 54), that vianders had been chosen for Newport for at least six hundred years. The members of the last jury were Messrs. Robert Badcock, Thomas Box, Georire^urt, Lambert Burt, Charles Conyidon, John Dew, William Good- man, Thomas Ham, sen., Thomas Hrooks Hender, David La vis, Henry Lillicrap, Robert 1). Maddever, Joseph Mitchell, William Mitchell, Henry Short, and John Mortimer Strong- Mr- J. (I. Williams is now lord of the manor, and the court rolls are in his possession. For much of this information the Author has to thank Mr. J. L- Cowlard. t The present members of the Hoard are Mr. Edward Barrett (Churchman), the Rev. S.W. E. Bird (Churchman), Mr. William Pater (Congregationalist), Mr. John Dingley (Liberal Werleyan), and Mr. Edward Marshall (Conservative Wesleyan). Mr. Dingley was chairman from 1871 to 1883, when Mr. Bird was appointed, Mr. Mar- shall being vice-chairman: Mr. Richard Peter (Town Clerk), has been the clerk from the commencement. fcAsf And PRESENT. 3($ meeting of members taking place on April 8, and a scbool-house situated opposite the church testifies to its labours." In another direction St. Stephens has shown agns of awakening. The \Vcsleyans have for some time had a thought of planting a district chapel there, and the adherents of the Established Church are doing their best to provide against rivalry by restoring their edifice. The work was commenced in January, 1883, by Mr. Wiliiam Burt, under the direction of Messrs. Iline and Odgers, of Plymouth, and during its progress some interesting antiquarian discoveries have been made, f Eleven years before this had been undertaken St. Thomas Church had been restored on the plans of Mr. J. Piers St. Aubyn, and mainly owing to the exertions of the Uev. S. Childs Clarke, J who also secured the erection of a mission church at Tregadillett, at the extreme end of the parish, about the same period. The Dissenting bodies meanwhile were far from idle. Owing to the secessions previously noted§ the Wesleyan body had in "the Fifties " become comparatively weak, and at the commencement of " the Sixties " a determined effbi t was made to strengthen it. In May, 1862, the chapel, which had been rebuilt but unfortunately on the old foundation, was re-opened, but in seven years it had to be rased to the ground to prevent it falling. Messrs. Norman and Hine, of Plymouth, prepared the plans for a new one on a much larger scale, the foundation stone of which was laid on November 17, 1869, the builder being Mr. Blatcl.ford, of Tavistock. The congre- gation worshipped in the Western Subscription Boom while the chapel was being erected, and it was opened on November 4, 1870, the success which has attended the society since that date justifying the enlarged building which had been undertaken. || Within three * The present members of the Board are Messrs. George Kurt, John Edgecumbe, John K. Bundle, Richard Sampson, and Henry Short. t The present vicar is tho ]{r»v. Edward Synge Townshend Daunt, who entered upon the living in isr»;5, in suc- cession to the Eev. E- Polwhele, who had himself been appointed on May 21, 1845. * Mr. ( llarke was one of the first clergy in the undivided diocese of Exeter to commence n weekly offertory, this being begun on September 17, l*a-i, the resulting amount rising in a tew years from £i\ to over £i(iii per annum, though the church was small and the congregation poor. On Mr. Clarke becoming vicar <>f Thorverton, the Uev. William Stabback Johns was in May, 1875, elected by the parishioners to be his successor, after a contest m which he defeated the Rev. .Nicholas Lower Gedye (now vicar of Fleet, Weymouth) by n fewvotes. § ante. p. 387. || In 1867 the membership was only l2o,' while m issHi was nearly .'inn. In other portions of the parliamentary borouirh the cause is spreading also, a new Wesleyan Chapel having been opened nt South I'e'liciwiu on. May 2s, 1572, and another at Tregadillett the next year, 370 LAUJtCfcStOtf, months, the Congregationalists had determined upon restoring the interior of their chapel in Castle Street, erected in 1S2G, in the min- istry of the Eev. J. Barfett,* who was succeeded in July, 1836, by the Eev. John Horsey. This reverend gentleman announced his resignation in March, 18G5, but subsequently withdrew it, and, after some painful discussions, the major portion of the congregation seceded and worshipped at the Western Subscription Room until the latter end of 1866, being ministered to mainly by students from the Western College, Plymouth. When Mr. Horsey definitely resigned, the Eev. Thomas Edward Minit Edwards became the pastor of a united congregation in January, 1867, and, on his accepting a similar position at Staines at the end of 1S69, the pulpit was vacant until September, 1870, when the Eev. Thomas Jackson entered upon his ministry at Castle Street. The chapel was restored during the summer of the next year, the Western Eoom being again called into use, and in the September it was re-opened. Just twelve months later, Mr. Jackson, owing to differences on points of doctrine with some leading members, tendered his resignation, but this the congregation em- phatically refused to accept. For another year Mr. Jackson held the ministry, but, though Dr. Allon and Professor Charlton — names ven- erated by the Congregational body — testified to the soundness of his orthodoxy, differences again developed themselves, and the reverend gentleman, despite the strongly expressed wish of the large major- ity of the congregation, determined upon withdrawing, and preached his last sermon at the end of December, 1873.t In September, 1874, the Eev. Jesse Bamford took the pastorate, which he still retains, and the vitality of the congregation is shown in the fact that during his ministry the rooms above and adjoining the chapel, in which the Sunday School}: is held, and which were enlarged in the early Sixties, have been found too small, and a new building has been erected in Northgate Street opposite the chapel to accommodate the children, the foundation stone of which was Laid in November 6, 1883, the opening taking place on June 26, 1884. •ante, p. 308. t Mr. Jnckson abandoned the ministry rather than again pass through a similar ordeal, and, adopting medicine as a profession, settled at Croydon, being elected at the head of the poll for his ward on the formation of the first Town Council there in 18S3. % ante, p. 200, PAST AND PKESENT. 371 In connection with the existence of Nonconformity in Launceston, it may here be recorded that on November 27, 1874, theEev. Samuel Naish (at that time Superintendent Wesleyan Minister for the Laun- ceston Circuit) addressed, as chairman of the annual meeting of the United Association of Nonconformist Ministers of the district, repre- senting forty-eight congregations, a letter to Mr. Gladstone stating that the Association desired to thank him for his pamphlet on " The Vatican Decrees," and " fervently beseeching God to guide, protect, and bless you, and finally to crown your useful life by the gift of Heaven's glory." To this Mr. Gladstone personally replied (in, it was stated at the time, the only communication he addressed on the subject to a public body) from Hawarden Castle on December 2, thanking the Launceston ministers for their expression of confidence, and assuring them "that, within the limits of the arguments and expostulation which I have endeavoured to mark out, I shall firmly abide by the propositions set forth in my pamphlet."* Another fruit of Nonconformity is to be seen in the establishment oftheDunheved College, which was founded in February, 1873, tempor- ary buildings being opened at Westgate Street while plans were being prepared.f The founders were Messrs. John Dingley, E. P. Nicolls, Edward Pethybridge, Eichard Gubbin, and Benjamin Ealph, who were afterwards joined by Messrs. John S. Pethybridge (Bodmin), T. B. Hender (Launceston), William Sims (Tavistock), T. P. Trood (Launceston), and others ; and the new buildings at Dunheved Green were opened in September, 1874, by the Eev. Luke Wiseman, M.A. The motto of the college is Bene orasse Bene Studuisse, and the spirit of the education is set forth by the phrase. J From the first there have been two departments, the second providing education for girls, and many of the most distinguished pupils have come from the latter department. The numbers have gone up progressively with bnt little variation from six, with which the College opened, to seventy- eight, the present total. The College, which prepares for professional life, business, and matriculation at the Universities, has had since the * The Correspondence isl-iwii in full in tin- Times of 1 ><•<•. l-J, 1*71. t 'I'll" nrehitiTt was Mr. Bine, of Plymouth, formerly of Hi" Arm of Norman and Hine, who designed the present wesleyan Chapel and other prominent buildings in tli" town. J A char* acteriatdo feature of the establishment is that every boarder has a private room, except in the case of brothers. 372 LAUNCESTOtt, foundation, for its Principal and Headmaster, Mr. Benjamin Ralph, B.A., LL.D. (Dublin). The educational arrangements were completed in 1884 by the opening of a Kindergarten with a Junior School, to unite the most elementary teaching with the course pur- sued in the College classes : for the convenience of young pupils, the Junior School is at present located in the Odd Fellows' Hall, and it now numbers thirty-two pupils, making a total of one hundred and ten, whose ages vary from three to eighteen years, who receive instruction from Dunheved College.* The social institutions of a town are almost of as much importance as the educational, and of these the friendly societies play an impor- tant part. The Tradesmen's, which still flourishes, has been dealt with,f but beyond that and some small local clubs— male, female, and "death" — there is nothing in this direction to note until the establishment on May 16, 1859, of Lodge Dunheved (789) of the Freemasons. Mr. Charles Thomas Pearce was the first Master, J Mr. Michael Frost the Senior Warden, and Mr. W. Derry Pearse the Junior Warden, the earliest meetings being held at the King's Arms, and there continuing until the Freemason's Hall in the Tavistock Road (of which Mr. Hine was the architect) was opened in July, 1877. § The Loyal Unity Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (Manchester Unity) was founded at the Bell Inn on July 10, 1860, Mr. George Mountstephen being the first Noble Grand : it held its meetings at the same place until 1874, when it moved to the Western Subscription Room, and in 1880, it entered a hall of its own in the Western Road.|| On February 22, 1862, Court Northumberland of the Ancient Order of Foresters was inaugurated at the London Inn, where it continues to meet, Mr. Henry Reynolds being the first Chief Ranger. And eleven years later a lodge of the Independent Order of Good Templars was opened at the Western Subscription Room, * The Author's thanks are due to Dr. Ralph for this information. t ante, pp. ^71-74. t The following is a list of the Past Masters : Messrs. C. T. Pearce, M. Frost, W. D. Pearse, J. Hawkins, A. Metherell, P. Couch, W. T. Parsons, P. D. Maddox, D. Thomp- son, J. Harris, W. R. Bray. F. Thome, E. Sargent, D. H. W. florlock, 0. G. Archer, P. F. Simcoe, <4. Ross, T. P. Trood, C. Parsons, E. Trood, J. Kittow, H. M. Harvey, and W. Andrew. The present Master is Mr. Richard Sampson, Mr. R. Reed being Senior Warden, Mr. Thomas White Junior Warden. Mr. William Pyke Senior Deacon, and Mr. T. Sherston Junior Deacon. § Sergeant Pidler (ante, p. 859) has been care- taker of the hall since its opening. || The hall is used on Sundays for Baptist services ; the old Baptist Chapel stood in Southgate, and the body afterwards met in a room in Luke's Lane, but for souie years up to a recent date, there were no regular services. PAST AND PRESENT. 3^3 which is not now in existence. The oid Launceston and Werrington Cricket Club, which flourished for several years, died in the Sixties, but there is now a flourishing Launceston Club, of which Mr. G. G. White, jun., is captain, and clubs attached to Dunheved College and Horwell's School, as well as some especially intended for boys not connected with either of those institutions. A Bicycle Club also was formed in 1S75 to provide for the wants of young Launceston in that direction. For the protection of the town in various ways there exist more than one force. " Fifty years ago," says Mr. Ching, "the police arrangements were of a very simple character. Four master me- chanics were sworn in as special constables, a shoemaker, roper, blacksmith, and carpenter.* They were never on duty and I think were paid a trifling sum annually, and, I believe, received the fees chargeable on any case heard by the borough magistrates." This system, as may be imagined, was not particularly effective, and in the winter of 1831 so many burglaries and other robberies were committed in the town that six watchmen were specially appointed to be on duty on alternate nights, but this only lasted the one winter. The first regular policeman was John Brooming, appointed in 1846, he being succeeded by John Holman and William Caddy, and they in turn by Edward Barrett, who held the position from 1860 until 1883. Although assistance was given by two special constables, complaints were frequent as to the inadequacy of the police establishment, and these culminated at the latter end of 1882, when the Town Council resolved with practical unanimity upon employing the county force. Accord- ingly, as the official government report says, " on the 5th February 1883 the police force of this borough was consolidated with that of the county of Cornwall, and the only regular officer of the local force was pensioned for life. Tie had been 23 years in the service, and was above 60 years of age."f A Volunteer Fire Brigade, talked of for many years (a scheme having been put forward by Mr. John Dingley, for instance, in 1865), was established in 1S72, and has done useftd service; its first captain was the late Mr. John Ching, the present holder of the office being Mr. G. G. White, jun., and his lieutenants * This can apply only to some special year :is the constables were frequently changed. t Parliamentary Hcturuon Police Forces, dated March -5, 1884, p. 12, 374 LAUNCESTON, are Mr. C. H. Hayman and Mr. F. Downing. In semi-connection with this body was founded in 1879 a Salvage Corps, of which Mr. T. P. Trood has been captain since its formation, his lieutenants being Mr. Claude H. Peter and Mr. Charles Parsons. To these institutions for the preservation of life and property must be added one for the saving of life and limb and the curing of disease. The Rowe Dispensary was founded early in the Sixties upon a bequest of £400 given by the will of the late Sir William Carpenter Rowe, and for some years it occupied temporary premises at Southgate. But, the want of an infirmary being keenly felt, members of the Rowe family added to the legacy by subscribing a sufficient sum to purchase a freehold site in the Western Road, on which was built in 1871 a hospital, which was handed over to the managers of the Dis- pensary to be supported by voluntary subscriptions. The many advantages of such an institution have again and again been proved, and its honorary secretary, Mr. C. L. Cowlard, in organising the first annual Hospital Sunday collection known to this district, has been able to add to them. The income of the old Lazar Ground at St. Leonards is now, by authority from the Charity Commissioners, applied to the benefit of the institution, under an arrangement whereby tickets of recommendation for the poor in the municipal borough are dis- tributed; and it is one of the most pleasing instances of historical continuity which Launceston can show that a charity established as early as 1230,* even if not before, still furnishes aid in time of need to the sick and afflicted of the town.f In drawing the story of Launceston to a conclusion, a few words may be allotted to a subject which admits of no direct chronicle. The town's connection with literature is not as extensive as might be wished. Many sermons preached in its places of worship have been published, the verses of a few local poets have been given to the world, and some of its sons have attained a prominent position upon the Press ; but in the regions of pure literature it has done little, though it has furnished the scene in more than one popular tale. Sir * ante, p. 41. t The present trustees are Messrs. C. Gurney, H. M. Harvey, and F. C. C. Rowe, and they possess an endowment fund of £1650 in addition to the infirmary buildings. The information concerning this institution has been supplied to the Author by Mr. V. L. Cowlard. PAST AND PRE3ENT, 3(0 Hugh Pyper* and his faithful Garnet Davy, who figure largoy in Mrs. Brajf's " Warleigh," " both lie buried in Launceston Church"t ; and the same author made the story of the Trebursye Ghostf the basis of her " Trelawney of Trelawne." At the end of the eighteenth century, an unknown author published a forgotten tale, " The British Knight Errant," the scene of which was laid at Launceston Castle§ ; and in the present day some of the most popular novelists have dealt with the town. Mrs. Lynn Linton's Joshua Davidson walks through it from his home at Boscastle when on his way to London, to there try, in these degenerate days, to emulate the fight Christ fought in Jerusalem eighteen centuries ago.|| Mr. "William Black, in his " Three Feathers " (a title bearing obvious allusion to the arms of the Duke of Cornwall), the scene of which is Eglosilyan, located close also to Boscastle, has many references to Launceston, where his chief characters, while waiting for luncheon to be prepared at what was evidently the White Hart Hotel, " went for a stroll up to the magnificent old castle," knowledge of the physical geography of the place being shown by the statement that ' ' they walked from the hotel doicn to the station," at which usually un- romantic spot an important scone took place.** In "Over the Sea with the Sailor," Messrs. Besant and Bice make more than one men- tion of the town.tt an d Miss Braddon in " Mount Eoyal" gives a glowing description of the ride from the station up the N~orth Boad under the Castle ramparts ; while Mr. Francis Charles Burnand, the editor of Punch, in a volume of sketches published first in that peri- odical some thirteen years since, makes distinct mention of having visited Launceston, though, even if he had not, his account of a sojourn with Mr. Pendell, of Penwiffle, who lived four miles from the Cornish station at which he arrived from Exeter, who read the " Ingoldsby Legends " to his guest, and at whose dinner party were to be met the * ante, p. 175. tMrs. Bray, Warleigh (edition of 1884), p. 344. t ante, pp. 216 andfoll. § "The British Knight Errant. A tale in two volumes. Lund, printed for w. Lane, Lead- enhall street. 1790. L2mo. pp. ISSand 154. Note.— The scene is laid at Launceston Castle": Bibliotheca Cornubiensis, vol. iii., p. !W>. No copy of the tale appears to be in the British Museum. ||p. 46. ••Chapterxv. Launceston is mentioned in sevi-ral other parts of the book. tt Similar references in contemporary novelists could doubtless be found; the latest certainly is that in Sir. H. 10. Prancillon's "Ropes of Band," now (November, 1884) running in " The Illustrated London News," where it is observed (chapter xxvi) that "foreign travel, even thcuf/h no further than Exeter or Launceston, meant a great ileal to the Stoke Juliot mind," 376 LAUNCESTON, Tregonies and the Bodds* and other local families, the names of which are equally thinly veiled, would have set both place and people beyond doubt. It is interesting also to know that it was while staying in Launceston in June, 1870, that John Forster, biographer of Eliot, of Goldsmith, and of Dickens, received the intelligence of the death of the last-named, his dearest friendf ; and it may here be mentioned that in 1852, the late Mortimer Collins lived for awhile in our town as a schoolmaster, an experience, however, which he remembered with no great pleasure in his later life. It may be regarded as a semi-ccnnection of the town with literature that it should have furnished the surname of a chief character in one story and the Christian name of another published within the last few years — Marion Launceston figuring in a three- volume novel issued in 1880+ and Launceston Latham in a "Queer Story " in Truth in 1883, § while in a racing chronicle of the latter year the name is also to be found as that of a race-horse of somewhat indifferentperformance.|| But a far greater honour has been done the place by its name having been taken for that of the second town in Tasmania.** Tradition asserts that the reason for this was that the antipodean town was founded by settlers from our district, and the fact that the counties of Devon and Cornwall in Van Diemen's Land lie side by side as in the old country, parted there as here only by the Tamar, and that standing near to the river in the southern as in the northern world is the town of Launceston, gives colour to the tale. If so, our own borough should be proud of its child, in which, we are told, " there are innumerable free schools for the poor, to which the only passport is poverty," and (herein much resembling the old town) "the Dissenting element is strong, and the crown of ecclesiastical structures is the Wesleyan Chapel.''tf * F. C. Burnand, My Health, pp. 28!) and foil, t John Forster, Life of Charles Dickens, vol. ii., p. 510. X "Mary Browne" by L. E. Wilton. § July 4, 1883. || Launceston, aged, bay gelding, by Viscount Melbourne, dam by Lord Lyon— Sadie : M'Call's Racing Chron- icle for 1883, p. >v. Details as to the running of this animal are to be found on pp. 17-254 of the same work. ** It may be noted that the residence in Queensland of Mr. John Ching, third son of the late Alderman John Ching, is at " Dunheved Island." tt Tasmania and its Resources (1876— published at Launceston, Tasmania), p. 5. In the History of the Island of Van Dirmeu's Land, from the year 1824 to 1835 inclusive (1835) it is stated (p. 3G) that in 1825, "Launceston was just then showing si?ns of a flourishing port," und on page 14 is giyon an account of a meeting of " the inhabitants of the County of Cornwall, Van Diemen's Land, assembled at the Court House at Laun- ceston, 15th Nov. 1823," in which Mr. Thomas Archei, J. P. took a prominent part. This seems togive a Cornish clue, but Colonel Archer, of Trelaske, informs the Author that, though he believrs he can account for every member of his family for very many generations, there is none whom he could identify as the Thomas Archer in question. PAST AND PKESENT. 37 1 And with tlio record of what should be our Launceston's thri- ving offspring, this account of the history of the town may amid pleasing recollections be brought to a close. In its compilation there has been ever before the Author the fear that in the multitude of details may have been confusion. But, if it be asked of what use is such an attempt to ravel the tangled skein of local history, he would reply that there is no borough in the whole West of England which more than Launceston deserves its tale to be told. From the period when the first stone of the castle was placed in position, there has been growing, and ever growing, a story worthy of being so record- ed as to be handed on undiminished to those who will be proud of the name of Launceston when all now living are in eternal sleep. We look back through the long avenue of time and see the castle in the glory of its strength and in the beauty of its decay ; in the valley beneath comes to the gaze the ancient priory, with its monks chanting a never-ending strain to the Creator they had bound them- selves to serve ; we cast our eyes around and the church, cathedral-like in its grandeur, embraces in its memories the soul's outpourings of many generations; and, as we stand upon the castle ramparts, and observe that, though our greatness has departed, the emblems of peace and progress, of happiness andprosperitylie thickly about us, we cannot but feel confident that, in the days which are yet hidden, Launceston will prove as worthy of her heritage as when kings and princes slept within her gates, and tlie war of freedom surged and broke around her venerable walls. And it is in the belief that, by encouraging the feeling of reverence for the past, something may be done to elevate our hope for the future, that there has been compiled, in however incomplete a form, a record of events of which every chi]d of old Dunhevcd has great good reason to be proud. APPENDIX (A.) The Name of Launceston (page 15). TT7HE local historians are much at variance as to the derivation of the name. wj© Carew says, "Those buildings commonly knowne by the name of Launston, and written Lanceston, are by the Cornishmen called Lesteeuan (Lez in Cornish signifieth broad, and those are scatteringly erected) and were anciently termed Lanstuphadon, by interpretation S. Stephens Church : they consist of two boroughs, Downeut and Newport : that (perhaps so called) of downe yeelding, as hauing a steep hill." Tonkin dismisses Carew's theory with some appearance of contempt : " As for what Mr. Carew says, that the Cornish men called it Lesteeven, that is no other than an ab- breviation of Lanstephan " ; and he speaks with an air of positiveness when he tells us that "it is well known that this town and parish took their name from an ancient prion,- and church here, now demolished, dedicated to S. Stephan, Vicing called by the Cornish Lan Stuphadon, the church of Stephan." Borlase in leading up to his contention for Lancestreton writes : "The common opinion is that Lanceston is derived from Lanstuphadon ; Lanscavetone, as inDomes- day ; or Lostephan, as in Leland. that is the church of Stephen ; whereas they seem to me the names of two different places " : he then contends that the proper name is Launceston or Lanceston, which "signifies in mixed British, the church of the castle . . . Lanceston may also be a contraction of Lancesterton ; and 'tis not improbable that the most ancient name of the castle should have been Lancestre, and the town thence called Lancestreton, but by contraction Lane-stun." Air. John Dingley, in a communication to the Author, considers that all probability is in favour of the original name having been " Lanceveston," literally " Lan cac ves ton." Cornish words signifying the enclosure at the boundary or fence of the meadow land, and that Dunheved is derived from "Dunneffyt," the Cornish for "Castle in the sky." To these diversities of opinion it may be added that the theory as to Lestephan or Lanstuphadon having been the original name finds no justification in any form of spelling preserved in the oldest records, though these vary greatly; for instance, in the first part of the first volume of Hardy's Extracts from the Patent Rolls, the name is variously given as Laceventon', Lancaventon', Lanctaveton', Lanczaventon', Landscaveton', Landzaveton', and Landzaventon'. In addition it figures three times in the first volume of Hardy's Extracts from the Close Rolls as Lanzavetun', and in other documents as Lanzancton, Lanstaneton, Lancenenton, Launzaneton. Lancendaniton, Landzanenton, and Launceton, but, making due allowance for the imperfect orthography of the time, these variations are not so great as at first they seem. (B.) The Measures Used in Domesday (page 23.) " A carucate of land is as much as might be tilled with one plough and the beasts belonging to one plough in a year ... A hide is in general to be understood as containing 120 acres of the common English measure ... A virgate of land in Cornwall amounted to forty acres." (New Parochial History i I ornwall : Supplementary Papers, pp. 2). APPENDIX. (C.) Vital Statistics of St. Mary Magdalene's During the Period embraced in the earliest Register (page 103). BAPTISMS. MARRIAGES. BURIALS. Decennial Annual Decennial Annual Decennial Annual Total. Average. Total. Average. Total. Average. 1561—70 223 22 49 •• 5 157 16 1571 — 80 291 29 70 .. 7 226 • 23 1581—90 344 34 78 .. 8 261 26 1591 — 1600 340 34 75 •• 7 368 . • 36 1601— 10 354 35 115 .. 11 316 • 32 1611 — 14 Regis ter imperfect. 161 5 — 20 238 . 40 52 •• 9 H3 • 24 1621 — 30 338 • 34 88 .. 9 284 28 1631—40 369 37 71 .. 7 329 • 33 1641—50 301 30 70 .. 7 7 — 1 3/0 • 37 1 65 1 — 60 306 3i 114 . . 11 256 26 1661 — 70 327 33 62 .. 6 341 ■ 34 Note the last -in j^uu, mtr m^i cuiupicic }cai timing wmi-n mt- aw^ui^i »» c/) pq c/) V) u ^ucjcoO C/3 CJ> g > m ? bf^3 « s * « h -s 0) W QJ h «.?, as it 'H „ bf T2 CO :, hJ ?3 — bi tf W^— * . 4) §. 5*^ ID ° — 4^> T* C, 3 £ - O c: +-*-^ ^ « cc C3 cc H ac 1— 3 v x ^- cc x S C 1 ! ■- 1 - r . g ^l-H O S — *>1 ^~ O S rg *■ ^ « s« N t §23 V9 o> ^< ^J |o . St3 "S si £ S3 ■A V "7" & s *-> Oh a O -t-^ H O S >*5 L- =« -^ T3 D a Pi 2 * — s » c im X ■s — +j - 0) £ a OH APPENDIX. 283 O OooriO--^-^DOOO O loi^—ooOONOtI-O m ulu-lO WO OO roO -d d rt o - O CO -t- 11 M o LT) CO ►J <£ o u by. £ S o s W pi U H HI Q W X w • 1) ' u d : I H *« • a U S.S 0) H T3 (3 rt w ti 3 72 71 o n d o » 6 » U O M o 7) d o a, x W d o d u |« o +j S d Ph i a M cL b c Ui ■% rt a >» <0 . P V fcjO ll a ,d u i- 42 71 HI 4* u o Q u rd CX 3 o o *-> -d d o U Ph 75 P< O Ph PP M t ote— Those to whose names an asterisk (*) is attached were the Councillors who. reti- ring by rotation.offered themselves for re-election, while those whose names are in Italics were the unsuccessful candidates. In cases where a candidate is described as Indepen- dent, it is signified that he was not supported by the organised strength of his party. O H go W u Y, P < O A O 1— 1 H < A P Ph o Ph X r* O Ci 'O 9£ CO -O CM >o co . CM CM a: C •* x £ o o 'O co <— 1 00 c-i 01 1- o ^ M ffi O) ■# X CM g O W I- >0 !D 00 k; 1- od n 1- " O DO ac f 00 CM £ _! -fi -f CO -t< qo Ci CO O CO I- ri o a o 'O o CM i-H ?i CO 1^ 00 >o -f 00 00 1— C S3 — ' ~ — 1 Ci CO f Ci CM 5 00 CD Ci 00 CO 2 'O 05 10 co co ^ l~ 00 1< W I- o 00 CO o 10 CD c o CO 7 O 00 >o 1^. 1— 1^ CO CO CM CO 01 CO ^ T ^-1 T cc 1—1 CN 1—* 1-1 CO <— 1 — -f CO 'O 00 TtH / *^> 00 01 00 00 ,— ( iH Ol CM 1-H 00 ~r Ci CO 1-H co 00 •O Ci Ci -f ' r CO •O 00 Ci CO m -n 1^- CO CN CO •0 CO W , B " W fe H •— ' < |S a pi DC W *> k; r-, w GO |Zi Eh -H ^ - O W >< « Hi w H H Ph — < H — 1—1 M 2 C/J H ► H P H H e-i H p o Ph O Ph o te ■* so CM CM o Ci I- CM CO CD CO 3 . O 173 O cu -rt *^ tS ..h CO _Q ■— ' ^ g m Ph e >c c^ I- 00 r— CO r— >o Tt on U. CO 00 c ■>*< • rH ,— •0 w .— ■ c c oc CM 1H Ph , — •O O Ph >* Ph «1 H B W g Ph tc d n: ,r ? -*- % rC ' 3 ^ ct 1— p. — . CO CO CO 1-1 00 H CO CO I- CO fj >0 O Ci CM < CO Ci -ti 'O w . . « : : : o 00 t— CM O CO CM 1 Ci Ci CO i-H i-i CM CO -t< > O CO I- CO 00 00 CO 00 00 oc* 00 00 CQ OQ OD H CC co 1 — 1 O / w ^ ( j H cu q H W fe ERRORS AND ADDITIONS Page 18. — Undiscovered should read unexplored. Page 36, note. — Justicar should read Justiciar. Page 57.— It appears from the Assize Rolls (Maclean's Trigg Minor, vol. iii., p. 410) that "an assize of view of recognizance " was held at Launceston m 1343 "to inquire if Adam [de Knolle], Prior of Launceston, Brother Auger [Ogerius] de Bant, Canon of the same Priory, and other Canons of the House, had disseized John de Skewys of one corody which he had in the said Priory of Launceston : viz., of having for himself for every day throughout the whole year eatables and drinkables at the table of the Esquire's of the Priory, like as the Esquires of the Prior have there, and of receiving yearly at the feast of the Nativity from the said Prior one robe, cut after the fashion of the Esquires of the Priory, of the price of 20s.. or instead 20s. ; and for his shoeing yearly, at the same feast 10s. ; and for his boy daily throughout the whole vear meat and drink at the table of the said Priory, as the boys of the Priory have, and to receive yearly for his boy at the same'feast, one robe of the cut of the boys of the Prior of the price of 6s. 8d., or instead 6s. 8d. ; and of having easement in any suitable chamber of the same Priory for the whole vear for himself, and easement for his horse in any stable within the said Priory, of having each night for the whole year at h'is chamber, one half flagon of beer of the best quality out of the cellar of the said Prior, and two candles of tallow called ' parish candles ' from the chamber of the said Prior there, and of having and using nightly from the Feast of All Saints to the feast of Invention of Holy Cross one fagot of wood for his chamber, and for his horse nightly for the whole year in the same Priory, one half-bushel of oats, and hay sufficient for the same horse as one Esquire of the Prior receives for his horse in the same Priory, &c, &c. And the Prior came, and the others came not, but a certain William de Trelouny answered for them as their attorney, and said for them that they had done no injury or disseizin to the said John de Skewys, and upon this they place themselves upon the assize, and John de Skewys likewise. And the aforesaid Prior says that John de Skewys by his plea intends to burden the Church and Priory aforesaid, and prays that the said John may shew cause, if he has any, wherefore the said Priory ought to be burdened by the aforesaid corody, &c." Pleas and couuter-pleas followed, the Prior disputing the whole claim, and the document concludes thus: "A day was given in Easter term to try the case, but John de Skewys did not appear, and judgment went by default, the Prior was discharged sine die, and John de Skewys and his pledges were in mercy." Page 66, note.— In the Duchy Accounts are also to be found mention of several names connected with the history of Launceston. Jo- hannes de Moneroun (see page 54) appears in the Ministers' Accounts of I 33 I_ 39 as Receiver of the Duchy B.evenues, he rendering an account at Launceston in September, 1338. In similar accounts of 1352-53, Serlo Wisa (see page 61) is named as Bailiff of the Hundred of East ; and in those of 1361-62 Robertus Wysdom (see page 49) is mentioned as holding certain knight's fee. ERRORS AND ADDITIONS. 389 Page IO". — A large portion of the cost of the new Guildhall should read A large sum towards paying off the market debentures. [The Guildhall, it may be noted, was built entirely by private subscription.] Page no, note.— The late Mr. T. S. Eyre should read The late Mr. Northmore Lawrence. Page 121. — Darytie Stone should read Chary tie Stone. Page 121, note. — Mr. f. A'. Lethbridge, Recorder of Launceston, should read Mr. y. A". Lethbridge, Deputy-Recorder of Launceston. Page 122. — The Rev. S. Childs Clarke has furnished the author with an extract from the "Ministers' Accounts co. Cornwall, 30-31 Henry 8. No. 90," showing the possessions of the rectory of " Sancti Thome juxta Launston," William Piper and his wife Elizabeth then holding these from Gawen Carew ; and with a copy of a grant dated 3 Edward VI., of the rectory and tithes of St. Thomas to Giles Keyhvay, of Stroud, soldier, and William Leonard, of Taunton, merchant. Page 152, note. — This is according to Browne Willis's Notitia Parlia- mentaria should read This is according to the Official List of Members. Page 198. — The following extract from the latest published volume of the Calendar of Domestic State Papers (1656 — 57, p. 262) shows that Cromwell was not disposed to push matters to an extremity with the Friends: "Council. Day's Proceedings. Feb. 3, 1657. Whereas at Launceston assizes on 24 Nov. 1 '.55. Edw. Pyott, George Fox, and Wm. Salt [Quakers] were indicted and convicted for several contempts and misdemeanours, and were fined for the same ; Rich. Faireman and Geo. Bayly the same at Dorchester assizes, 24 July [656; Thos. Boylstone, Priscilla Cotton, and 11 others, at Exeter, 2 Aug. [656 ; and John Ellis, and 3 others, at Launceston, 9 Aug. 1656 ; order that the clerks of assize for the western circuit forbear to estreat the ( Quakers for anv of the said fines until further order. Approved by the Pro- tector 7 Feb. [I. 77 pp. 665—674]." Page 223. — Since this page passed through the press, a copy of the meas- ure a- presented to the Lords has for the first time been published. It runs as follows : — "Whereas the assize for the County of Cornwall has for many years been held at Launceston. which is very inconveniently situate for the rest ' of the said county, being not above a mile from the boundary, and the said county being 70 miles in length, the remote inhabitants are not only exposed to great labour and expense hut also sutler in their matters of right as well for want of their aged witnesses and their own attendance at trials there, as also l>v undue verdicts, the causes for the most part being there tried by mercenary tales-men, the able and honest freeholders choosing rather to be fined than attend at so expensive a distance, whereby the common justice of the said county is very much eluded," the Bill enacts that, from and after 1st May, 1671, the summer assizes shall be held at Bodmin, and the Lent Assizes at Laun- ceston (Ninth Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, Part II., Appendix, p. [6.) Page 253.- Sir John St. Aubyn, son-in-law of Sir Nicholas Moricc, was Mayoi ''i Launceston in [ 739, and his arms are among those in the Guildhall Window. A youthful adventure of his at Launceston with the daughter of an innkeeper is detailed by Dr. Borlase, his companion on the journey, who 390 ERRORS AND ADDITIONS. states that it occurred "as we were passing through that fatal town," the reason for this uncomplimentary appellation not being given. {Quarterly Review, vol. exxxix.) Page 262, note. — Was the witness referred to should read was brother of the witness referred to. Page 285. — The statements regarding the Leper Hospital must be read in connection with the information regarding the Rowe Dispensary (page 374.) Page 298. — Whitely, Lifton Down should read Whitely, Lifton. Page 301.- — The Vestry Room now existing was built in 1850 by the Duke of Northumberland, taking the place of the one erected early in the century. Page 305, note. — The Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Thomas date from 148 1, and the Parish Register from 1676. Page 307. — The Author has been favoured by Mr. Grigg with the follow- ing information regarding the Launceston Savings' Bank : — The original minute book is lost, but it appears that the institution was established on January 28, 18 18. The Patron was Hugh, Third Duke of Northum- berland, who also acted as the first President, with the Hon. William Eliot (then of Trebursye, and afterwards Second Earl of St. Germans), as Vice-President. The first Trustees and Managers were the Hon. William Eliot, Sir William Pratt Call, bart., Mr. Francis Hearle Rodd, Mr. John Tillie Coryton, Mr. Edmund Prideaux, Mr. William Arundel Harris, Mr. George Call, Mr. George Harward, Mr. William Baron, the Mayor of Laun- ceston for the time being, the Rev. Samuel Hart, the Rev. Charles Leth- bridge, and the Rev. John Rowe, while the Managers were Mr. F. H. Rodd, Mr. William Hicks Horndon, Mr. John Roe, Mr. George Call, the Rev. George Plummer, the Rev. John Davies, Mr. J. K. Lethbridge, Mr. Coryndon Rowe, Mr. Thomas Pearse, Mr. P. C. Hockin, Mr. J. K. Lethbridge, the Rev. Charles Orchard, the Rev. James Coffin, Mr. Richard Penwarden, Mr. John Darke, Dr. Bignell, the Rev. Richard Cope, Mr. William Harvey, Mr. Thomas Ching, Mr. James Prockter, Mr. William Deny, Mr. William Pearse, Mr. Richard Kingdon, and Mr. Henry Pethick. Mr. J. K. Leth- bridge was the first Treasurer, and he continued in that office until 1833, when 'Mr. J. L. Cowlard succeeded him and has held the post for more than fifty years. Mr. William Dymond was the original Actuary, and continued to be so until his death in 1877, although, for several years previously, the active duties of the office had been undertaken by Mr. Grigg, who now has the appointment. The successive Presidents have been the Third Duke of Northumberland, Mr. F. H. Rodd, Mr. J. K. Lethbridge, Mr. F. R. Rodd, and Mr. Charles Gurney, the last-named of whom is the present holder of the office, and who states that the credit of founding the institution is to be given to Mr. F. H. Rodd and Mr. J. K. Lethbridge. Page 369. — A Wesleyan Mission Chapel, situated on the main road, and the site of which was given by Mr. Edward Pethybridge, was opened at St. Stephens on November 13, 1884. The architects were Messrs. Wise and Wise, of Launceston, and the builder Mr. William Burt, of Newport, the estimated cost being about ,£340. INDEX ABBREVIATIONS. C. — Cornwall. Cas. — Castle. Mem. — Member. N. — Newport. Py.— Prion-. R.— Royalists. St. S. — St. Stephens. Abbenhall, W. M. Birch curate of, 343. Abbot, John, of L., shopkeeper, 158. of I-., 50 ; see Prior. Abbott, John, an eighteenth century L. Ton-, 253. Adam, James, first burial recorded in St. M. M.'s Register, 103. Address voted at L. to William and Maty, 234; from Cornishmen to Mary, 235 ; from L. to Anne, 242. vEthelstan conquers Cornwall, 13; founds Bodmin, St. Germans, and Plympton Priories, 19. Aftermath Fund, legislative dealings with, 279; grant towards restoration of Ch.,343. Aldermen of L., Oliver Core, 41 ; John the Dyer, lb ; Thomas Bo- litho, 177; Robert Bennett, 204 ; Philip Pyper, 211 ; Joshua Thomas, 202 ; Philip Welsh, U>. ; Edmund Cheyne, 363 ; John Carpenter, lb. ; Joseph Carpenter, lb. ; Charles Lawrence, lb. ; Thomas Hicks, 342m Ale-houses at L., suppression of un- necessary, 126. Alford, John, shows the judges the way from L. to Bodmin, 249. Allon, Dr., testifies to T. Jackson's orthodoxy, 370. Alms-house, burials from, 104. Altarnun, Parliamentarian forces march through, 185 ; couples mar- ried at L. during Commonwealth, 193 ; John Ruddle appointed vicar, 220; roads at, 277 ; proposed rail- way communication with L., 356. Alured, Abbot of Tavistock, 40. Alvcchurch, J. B. Sidgwick curate of, 344- Ch. — Church. L. — Launceston. P. — Parliamentarians. Pr. — Prior. St. M. M.— St. Mary Magdalene. St. T.— St. Thomas. Amherst, William, mem. for L., 270. Amydas, William, of L., great grand- father of Sir John Hawkins, 211. Andrew, William, Freemason at L., 372n. Anne, Queen, presented with address by L., 242. Anstis, John, member for L., 244 ; arrested for Jacobitism, lb. ; made Garter King of Arms, lb. ; difficul- ties concerning post, 245 ; re-elected for L., lb. ; stated to have written history of L., 246. Appleton, Edward, reports upon L. water supply, 340-41. Archer, Charles Gordon, Freemason at L., 372n. — Edward, of Trelaske, High Sheriff of C, 285. Edward, his son, supports L. on assize question, 328. Edward, his grandson, chair- man of L. and S. Devon Railway, 353 ; supports petition in favour of Bill, lb. ; captain of L. volunteers, 359 ; becomes Major and Colonel, 360. -Samuel, of Tremeale, appointed major of local volunteer corps, 285. - Thomas, magistrate at L., Tasmania, 376m Arden, Lord, see Perceval. Arms of Borough, no. Arrowheads at Dozmary Pool, 2. Arscott, John, contests L., 270. Arthurian traditions, see King Arthur. Arundel, Sir Humphrey, leader of Cornish rebellion, 93 ; defeated at Sampford Courtenay, 94 ; and L., 95; tried and executed, lb. 392 INDEX. Arundel, Sir John, indicted at L. for not attending church, 102. Ensign John, buried at L., 1 73. John, of Trerise, chosen for Cornwall, 137 ; supporter of Eliot, lb.; sides with the Royalists at L. Assizes, 161 ; is summoned before the Parliament, lb. ; de- clines to obey, lb. ; and is ex- pelled the House, lb. Arundell, William Arundell Harris, opposes atmospheric railway, 349 ; publishes various works at L., 349n; advocates Central Scheme, 350. Ashburton elects George Courtenay, 243 ; W. M. Birch vicar of, 344. Assizes at L., probable earliest, 33 ; removed to Lostwithiel, 39 ; cen- tinued there by Earl Edmund, 52 ; protest of L., 54 ; settled at L. by Act of Parliament, lb. ; exis- tence recognised by charter, 63 ; expenditure of Judges at L., 114; struggle between Parliamentarians and Royalists, 158 ; held occasion- ally at Bodmin and Saltash in early times, 221-222 ; sought to be re- moved from L. to Bodmin, 222; but unsuccessfully, 224 ; litigious pro- ceedings at in the seventeenth cen- tury, 229 ; renewed attempt to re- move them to Bodmin, 246 ; strongly opposed by L., 247 ; but partially successful, 248 ; the Act tempor- arilyignored, 257; butagain enforced, 258 ; question of transferring second assize to Bodmin again raised, 327 ; and this time successfully, 328. Assize of bread and ale at N., 54. Hall, mentioned by Leland, 88 ; and Norden, 88n ; in ruins at Res- toration, 212. Atkins, Charles, constable of L., 308. Atmospheric Railway projected from L. to Plymouth, 349. Attery River, name probably derived from King Arthur, 10 ; mentioned by Leland, 87. Aubridge, John, early Wesley an trustee at L., agon. Augustine Canons, see Canons. Austyne, John, sues and is sued by William Kendall at L., 105. Autumn Manoeuvres, L. volunteers join in, 360. Back Lane, see Tower Street. Street, now High Street, 29811 ; originally known as Pillory Lane, 32 9 n. Bacon, Edward, member for N., 261; Callington, 26m; and Norwich, 265. Badash, chancery suit concerning, 1 13; Bible Christian Conference held at, 300; temporary residence of Will- iam O'Bryan, lb. Badcock, John, a L. mercer, 158. Henry, on fust Board ef Health, 340. Robert, juryman of X., 368n. Bagg, Sir James, jealousy of Sir John Eliot, 129; opposition to the anti- loan champions, 135. Bailey, — , trader at L., 320. Bailiffs of L., first named, 39. of N., John Jarpenfelt, 91 ; and Henry Shere, I20n. - of Hundred of East, John Pallyn, 106. Baines, William, executed at L., 30411. Baker, John, Prior, 76 ; and L. cemetery, lb. ; summoned to Con- vocation of Canterbury, 78. John, canon of L., acknow- ledges royal supremacy, 79. — ■ Henry, concerned in local chancery suit, 1 13. Oliver, last vicar of Liskeard presented by L. Py\, 84. — Richard, concerned in local chancery suit, 113. ■ — Thomas, constable of Law- rick, refuses to take John Roberts to L. gaol, 148 ; and is brought be- fore the Privy Council, lb. Balkwill, Benjamin, on last committee of L. Mechanics' Institute, 337n. Bamford, Jesse, present Independent minister at L., 370. Bamham, possibly of Saxon origin, 16; btrange murder at, 309 ; burglary at, 310. Band, Digory, Pr., of St. Leonard's Hospital, 119. Banniste, John, first marriage re- corded in St. M. M. Register, 193. INDEX. 593 Bant, Ogerius, canon of L., appointed Pr. of Bodmin, 57 : connected with a Py. dispute, 338 ; and Appendix. Baptisms at L., ecclesiastical differ- ences concerning, 191. Baptists in L., 372n. Barfett, J., Independent minister at L., 308; resigns, 370. Baring-Gould, E., first captain of pre- sent L. Volunteer Corps, 359. Barnerd, William, a L. shoemaker, 104. Philip and Wilraot, baptised at L., 104. Barnicott, — , executed at L., 3C>4n ; buried in St. T. churchyard, 30511. Barnstaple, Cuthbert Maine's quarter displayed at, 102. Baron, George, of Tregeare, benefits L. Grammar School, 232. Oliver, and L. Grammar School, 232. Barrett, Charles, action regarding im- prisoned pirates at L., 130. Edward, on L. School Board, 368n; last borough policemanat L., 373- ...... _ Barristers, principal visiting L., 328. Basing (Hants), collection at L. in aid of, 221. Bassett, Francis, imprisons pirates at L. U I2Q. . , Sir Francis, writes letter from L., 174. Colonel, defends L. against Fairfax, 182-83. Captain James, buried at L., 173- Bastwick, John, a fellow-sufferer with Prynne and Burton, 149 ; imprison- ed in Cas., lb. ; his treatment there, 150 ; removed to Scilly, II). Selina, his wife, accompanies him to L., 149 ; her description of Cas., 150. Bath, Earl of, son returned for L., 232 ; tries to persuade Cornish to support James II., 233 ; and see Grenvillc, Sir John. Batten, John William, offers to con- test L., 364. Baylyc, William, soldier buried at L., 212. Beaufort, Cardinal, intrigues against Pr. Shyre, 67. Becket, Thomas, St. T. Ch. originally dedicated to, 72. Bedeman, Laurence, or Stevine Lau- rence, a Cornish Lollard, 99 ; after- wards rector of Lifton, 100. Bedford, William, incumbent of St. M. M., 251. Charles, incumbent of St. M. M., 25111 ; condemned by Wesley, 271. ■ John, incumbent of St. M. M. 25111. ■ John, Duke of, interferes inX. election, 261. W. H. Smith, rector of St. Peter's at, 344m Beeralston elects William Mitford, 281; Viscount Fielding, 282 ; and Gene- ral Rainsford, lb.. Bellamy, John, a rebellious Liskeard mercer, 69. Bell Inn, first meeting place of L. Oddfellows, 372. Belle Vue, Dr. Cope's school at, 3o8n. Bells of L., cast by Rudhall, 250. Bennet, Bridget, first marriage re- corded in St. M. M. register, 103. — Richard Henry Alexander, mem. for N., 270 ; for L., 294- 95 ; and for Enniskillen, 295 ; con- tests Ipswich, lb. Mr., surgeon of L. gaol, 272. Bennett, Colonel Robert, of Hex- worthy, Parliamentarian officer, 185 ; tradition that Cromwell stayed with, Hi. ; celebrates a civil marriage at L., 194 ; swears in Parish Registrar of Southpetherwin, lb. ; connected with the Quaker persecutions, 197- 201 ; his history, 203-5 ; purchases the Cas., lb.; appointed mem. of Council of State, 204; elected for West Looe, C, and L., 204-5 ! ms proceedings in Parliament, 205 ; de- prived of constableship of Cas., II). ; and dies, lb. Edward, assists foundation of Castle Street Chapel, 241. Henry, mayor of L., 1 94. William, bequeaths money (<> found Presbyterian chapel at L., 241. 394 INDEX. Bennett, Thomas, mayor of L., 245 ; accused of illegal electoral practices, lb. Bennett's Arms Inn, named after Col- onel Bennett's family, 185. Bere, Harry, an early promise-of-mar- riage breaker at L., 105. Montagu, judge of L. County Court, 348. Berkshire, Earl of, accompanies Charles Prince of Wales to L., 182. Besant and Rice, mention L. in novel 375- Bewes, John, lawsuit with Sir Gawen Carew, 86 ; and with Thomas Hicks, lb. ■ Margaret, his wife, and Joan his daughter, lawsuit with Thomas Hicks, 86. Beyghe, John, mayor of L., 66. Biam, Joan, of St. Gennys, married at L., 193. Bible Christian Chapel founded at L., 300; built, 321. — ■ Connexion founded by "William O'Bryan, 300; first conference held at L., and second at Badash, lb. Bicycling in L., 373. Bideford, mayor of, complained of to Parliament for ill-using Peter Le Rover, 188 ; coach communication with L., 333. Billing, Richard, connected with pos- sessions of dissolved Py., 124. Birch, Wickham Montgomery, vicar of St. M. M., 343 ; curate of Ab- benhall, lb. ; and Long Ashton, 344; vicar of Boyton and of Ashburton, lb. ; on L. School Board, 368. Bird, Samuel William Elderfield, vicar of St. M. M., 344 ; becomes vicar of Veryan, lb. ; Chairman of L. School Board, 368m Biscayan prisoners detained at L., 131. Bissett (rBassett) Sir Thomas, Royalist officer at L., 183. Black Canons, see Canons Augustine. Prince, see Edward. ■ William, mentions L, in novel, 375- Blackheath, Cornish rebels defeated, 71. Blacking, Anne, a fellow sufferer at L. with Fox, 200. Blatchford, Mr., builds L. Wesleyan chapel, 369. Blavth, a Scotchman, dies in L. gaol, 123- Bligh, Samuel, sees the Trebursye Ghost, 219. Blight, Richard, interferes in N. elec- tion, 240. Blindholc, mentioned in sixteenth century deed, 76. Bliston, Thomas, one of Arundel's followers, executed, 9^. Blith, Charles, publishes Cornish map at L., 237. Blondy, Bishop, witnesses grant to Leper Hospital, 41. Board of Guardians founded atL.,327. of Health, suggested formation of at L., 339; public opinion on, lb. ; established, 340 ; subsequent oper- ations, 340-41. School established at L., 368 ; at St. S., 369. Bodgate, tenements at, sold by Duchy, 142. Bodmin granted a charter, 37 ; leper hospital at, 42; first returned mem- bers, 43; L.'s contention regarding, 54 ; visited by William of Worces- ter, 68 ; Flammock's rebels at, 71 ; Warbeck's rebels at, lb. ; directed to be rebuilt, 90 ; grammar school endowed, 107; preparations to meet the Spanish invasion, lb. ; munici- pal dispute at, 153 ; seized by Fair- fax, 185; couples married at L. during Commonwealth, 192; minis- ter's salary augmented by Council of State, 195 ; Quakers tried at, 202 ; assizes held at in early times, 221; strives to regain them, 222 ; but unsuccessfully, 224 ; charter altered by James II, 230 ; Quaker im- prisoned, lb. ; renews attempt to regain assizes, 246 ; partially suc- ceeds, 248 ; first regular assize held at, 249 ; temporarily loses assizes, 257; but regains them, 258; elects Sir William Irby, 259; gaol erected, 275; new road made to L. 277; corporation petition Parliament INDEX. 395 regardinglocal roads, lb. ; gaol estab- lishment removed from L. to, 304 ; savings' bank founded, 307 ; secures second assize, 328 ; waggon com- munication with L., 334 ; proposed railway communication with L., 355; L. municipal case tried at, 356 ; pro- posed to be grouped with L. and Liskeard, 367. Priory, founded by ^Ethel- stan, 19 ; Ogerius Bant, a L. monk appointed Pr., 57 ; Pr. Vyvyan consecrates L. Ch., 76 ; revenues proposed to be devoted to revived bishopric of C, 87. Prior of, excommunicates Pr. Fissacre, 39. Bodrigan, Henry, early holder of Boy- ton manor, 51. Henry, witness to a L. charter, 60. Boleyn, Queen Anne, Cornish mur- murs against, 81. Bolingbroke (Lincolnshire) collection at L. in aid of, 221. Bolitho, Thomas, alderman of L., ex- pelled the Corporation for support- ing the Parliament, 177; but is re-instated by the Lords, lb. Colonel, Royalist Governor of L., 183. Mrs. Alary, married to John Ruddle at L., 220. Bolt, John, constable of Cas., 264. Bompas, Serjeant, attends L. assizes, 328. Mr., counsel on L. election petition, 364. Bonaventure, Thomasine, founds L. Grammar School, 92 ; bequeaths money towards St. S. tower, 93. Booksellers, earliest at N., 237 ; and L., lb. Boorde, Richard, leases tithes of St, M. M., 106. Borough arms, 1 1 1 . bounds beaten, 291. police abolished at L., 373. rent roll, 106. Boscastle, scarcity of corn in seven- teenth century, 126; trade with L., 320. Bossiney (Tintagel) Paul Speccott elected for, 133; Thomas Gewen chosen member, 134 ; William Coryton as mayor unduly interferes with election, 154 ; represented by Mr. Roberts, 223. Botathen, corn seized by R., 18m. ; scene of Trebursye Ghost, 218. Bottreaux, see De Bottreaux. Lord, suit with Pr. Shyre, 67. Sir William, witnesses a L. charter, 60. Bottrell, see De Bottreaux. Boughton, Nathaniel, incumbent of St. M. M., 220. George, of L., matriculated at Oxford, 251. Bounsall, John, early member of L. Tradesmen's Friendly Society, 274. Bovey Tracey, manor sold by Duchy, 141. Bowden, Cyrus, killed at Shepherd's Well, I49n. Bowlby, Thomas, member for L., 276; assists L. on road question, 277 ; resigns seat, lb. Bowles, William, member for L., 336. Bowling in L. practised in Common- wealth times, 199. Green, the, 199ns added to churchyard, 30m. Bownia, James, a gipsy at L., 104. Bowring, Moses, churchwarden of St. M. M., 367. Box, Thomas, juryman of N., 368m Boyton, chaplain of, see Paganus ; tithes devoted to charity at L, 326 ; W, M. Birch vicar of, 344 ; Edward Rudall vicar of, 350. manor taken from Tavistock Abbey by Robert of Mortain, 25 ; becomes property of Py., 51. Brackyf, William, member forL., 49. Braddon, Miss, mentions L. in novel, 375- R. K., vice-chairman of L. Board of Guardians, 327. Bradridge, supposed Roman road, 6 ; residence of Thomas Gewen, 187. Bradshaw, Henry, opposes L. railway, 35 2 - Bradstone, some of R. desert to, 181. Brandize Park, cross at, 292. 396 INDEX. Brantyngham, Bishop, licenses St. M. M., 59 ; directs inquiry into Lollardite proceedings, 99. Bray, John, early Wesleyan trustee, 283. Mr. early L. printer, 274. Airs., mentions L. in novel, 375- , ., „ Peter, connected with Steven- son's contest at N., 31m. -Thomas, publishes The Guar- dian, 323m William Roe, publishes The Guardian, 323m William Roe, his son, Free- mason at L., 372m Brendon, William Stert, on first Board of Health, 340. Brett, Sir William Baliol, judge on L. election dispute, 364. Bridewell atL., earliest mention of, 2 15; condition at beginning of nineteenth century, 291 ; latest mention, 306. Bridge, Greston, Greyston, or Grey- stone, see Greston. New, see New Bridge. Polston, Poison, or Poul- stonel, see Polston. Yeolm, see Yeolm Bridge. Bridgerule occupied by R., 166. Bridgnorth, collection at L. in aid of, 221. Bridgetown (Totnes), W. Watkins curate of, 344. Brimble Park, connected with Steven- son's contest at N., 311. Brimmell, John, editor of L. Weekly News, 358. British School, founded at L., 368 ; turned into board school, lb. Britons said to have built Cas., 8 ; probable first inhabitants of Dun- heved, 1 1 . Broad Street, itsprobable antiquity,45; stocks placed in, 292 ; public flog- gings in, 306; site of old post office, 333n; troops drilled in, 361. Brogden, James, mem. for L., 288 ; chairman of committees, lb. Bromis, Thomas, asked to settle dis- puted Py. election, 67. Bronescombe, Bishop, excommuni- cates Pr. Fissacre, 39 ; resident at Lawhitton, 40 ; difficulties with Py. lb. ; condemned at L. foroppres- sion, 41 ; dedicates St. S. ch., 46. Brooming, John, assists to found L. Mechanics' Institute, 33611. ; first regular policeman at L., 373. Browne, a seaman accused at L. of stating Duke of Buckingham had poisoned Charles I., 147. Browning, John, early Wesleyan trustee, 29011. Buckingham, Duke of, action re- garding imprisoned pirates at L., 130 ; electoral influence at N., 133 ; andCornish opposition to loan, 136 ; rumour at L. that he had poisoned Charles I., 147 ; assassinated, lb. elects Earl Percy, 295. Bude, trade with L., 320 ; coach com- munication with L., 334. canal, earliest project for, 348 ; constructed, lb. ; abandoned, 349n ; and L. Junction Railway incorpo- rated, 355n; abandoned, lb. Bull, Richard, mem. for N., 265 ; contests L. 270; re-elected for N., lb. Buller, Charles, member for Liskeard, 324 ; attacks L. Corporation in Parlia- ment, lb. ; presents petition com- plaining of bribery at L., 325. John, of Morval, mem. for L. 270. Sir Richard, deprived of jus- ticeship for Cornwall for refusing loan, 136; afterwards reinstated 137 ; a Parliamentarian leader in Corn- wall, 158 ; charged at L. with riot- ous proceedings, 159 ; holds L. 160; retreats at Hopton's approach, lb. Burdet, Peter, constable of Cas., 54. Burgesses of L., earliest privileges, 37-9 ; similar given to Helston, 37 ; and Liskeard, 39 ; protest concern- ing divers grievances, 54 ; petition for St. M. M. to be made paro- chial, 59. Burglaries, at L. Post office, 304-8 ; at Bamham, 310. Burke, Edmund, protests against re- ception of petition from L., 278. Burials at L., earliest recorded, 103 ; of a walking-woman, a stranger, a Papist's son, and a poor woman, 104; INDEX. 39; 296 by Chancel, mentions 266 ; pe- recorded by John Frain. torchlight, 299 ; in the 3 4 2n. Bumand, Francis Charles, L. in sketches, 375. Burrell, Peter, contests L., titions successfully against Sir John St. Aubyn, lb. ; mem. for Haslemere, lb. ; acts for L. on roads question, 267 ; elected for Totnes, 269. Sir W., concerned in Horwell charity dispute, 294. Burt, George, on Board of Health, 34on ; juryman of N., 36811 ; on St. S. School Board, 369m Henry, foreman of last N. jury, 368. ■ John,killed at Dunheved Green 312. Lambert, juryman of N., 368n. Nicholas, early Wesleyan trus- tee, 283 ; concerned in Horwell charity dispute, 29411 ; supports Stevenson for N., 310; witnesses document at L., 367m William, builds assize halls at Bodmin, 328. William, his nephew, last vian- der of N., 368 ; contractor for restoration of St. S. ch., 369. Burton, Henry, a fellow-sufferer with Prynne and Bastwick, 149. Bury, Thomas, member for N., 258. Anne, married Sir William Morice, 258. Bushel, standard granted to L. by Charles II., 229. Butchers' market held in streets, 29811. Cade's rebellion, and L., 66. Caddy, William, policeman at L.,373. Cadocus, legendary Cornish chief, 20. Caesar, Julius, coins of found at L., 6. Caeron, John, mem. for L., 63. Calmady, Vincent, continues obit at L., 92m Lieutenant-Colonel, a P. offi- cer, engaged in fighting before L., 164. Callington, probable Saxon derivation of name, 16; objects to pay ship- money, 152 ; elects Edward Bacon, 26m ; originally included in L. Wesleyan circuit, 2S3 ; separated therefrom, 308. Calvinism in L., 282. Camborne savings' bank founded, 307. Cambridge University, elects William de Grey, 270. Duke of, compliments L. volun- teers, 360. Camelford objects to pay ship money, 152; R. retreat to, 18 in; occupied by P., 184; electsAmbroseManatonthe younger, 235n ; elects Sir William Pole, 242 ; elects Sir Jonathan Phillips and James Macpherson, 289 ; communication with L. by coach and waggon, 334 ; originally head of United Methodist Circuit in- cluding L., 338 ; proposed railway to, 355- Campbell, Alexander Henry, buys Werrington, 362 ; elected for L., lb. ; retires and sells Werrington, lb. Canal, early projects, 348 ; constructed constructed from Bude to Druxton, lb. ; closed 34911. Canonhalle, property of Py., 66. Canons Augustine, founded at St. T.. 28; their regulations, lb.; see Priory. Secular, founded at St. S. 19; mentioned in Domesday, 23; deprived of their market, 24 ; their property transferred to Py., 28. Canonsleigh, a monk of L., appointed Pr., 40.' Canterbury, Convocation of, Pr. of L. summoned to, 78. Captains of present L. volunteer cor] >s, E. Baring-Gould, 359; E. Archer, lb. ; |. Dinglev, 360; P. F. Simcoc, lb. ; A. B. Collier, lb. ; and T. C. Langdon, lb. Cardinan, Robert, governor of Cas., 3 6 - Sir Andrew, witnesses a L. charter, 60. Carew, Sir Alexander, mem. for Ci T 55 ; signs the Protestation, lb. ; a P. leader in C, 158 ; charged at L. with riotous proceedings, 159. Sir Gawen, granted site, &c, of Py., 85 ; brings suit concerning it against John Bewes, 80 ; services 39^ INDFX. in Arundel's rebellion, 93-4; granted rectory of St. S. and chapelry at Tresmere, 122. William, member for L., 237 ; seven times elected, 242 ; assists in presentation of L. address to Anne, lb. Sir Peter, services in Arundel's rebellion, 93-4. - Reginald Pole, acts against L. on assize question, 327. Sir William, assists L. on assize question, 248. Carey, Henry, prosecutes Emanuel Langford in Star Chamber, 151. Carkyke, Ralph, leaseholder under Py., 66. Carlian, John, Pr., 73 ; sued for debt by Henry VIII., lb. Carnarvon, Earl of, joins the Cornish R., 167. Camedon prior, property of Py., 66. Carpenter, Coryndon, constable of Cas., 265. John, earliest recorded L. author, 125. — ■ John, aldeiman of L., 263. Joseph, alderman of L., 263. . — William, incumbent of L., 125. William, incumbent of St. M. M., 286 ; and vicar of Lewannick, lb. ; preaches sermon to L. volun- teers, lb. ; witnesses document at L., 367n. Carsbroke, property of Py., 66. Cart's tail, Hogging at in L., 305. Carter, Mr., early member of Trades- men's Friendly Society, 274. Castellans of L., see Governors of Castle. Castle Launceston, date of foundation doubtful, 3 ; attributed to the Dan- monii, lb. ; to Vespasian, 6 ; to the Britons, 8 ; to King Arthur, 10 ; and to Edward the Confessor, 21 ; built by Robert of Mortain, lb. ; mention- ed in Domesday, 23 ; probable time occupied in erection, 33 ; described in Roll of the Seisin, 53-54 ; knight's fees held of, 54 ; described by Leland, 87 ; held by insurgents during Arundel's rebellion, 94 ; consequent death of Sir Richard Grenville, lb.; described by Norden, ill; earliest ancient picture of 1 1 in; various repairs, 112; fatal accident owing to its ruinous state, 149; Sir Richard Grenville imprisoned in, 179 ; stripped by R., .181-2 ; visited by Fairfax, 184; purchased by Colonel Bennett, 203 ; ruinous condition at Restoration, 211 ; and at revolution, 236 ; dispute between constable and county as to its re- pair, lb. ; portion of outer wall de- stroyed, 301 ; cock-fighting prac- tised on, 307 ; disgraceful condition of fifty years since, 330 ; grounds laid out by Duke of Northumber- land, 331 ; tale concerning, 375. Dyke, woollen industry at, 320; stocks destroyed in, 292. Green, bones discovered in, 173; R. proceedings in. 181; Fox preaches in, 198 ; Major-General Desborough plays bowls in, 199 ; altera tionsat northern gateway, 265; executions in, 304; levelled, 361. Street, itsprobable antiquity, 45; tenement in, 66. Street Chapel founded, 241 closed and sold, 272 ; new building erected, 283 290. injured and repaired, Terrible, one of King Arthur's legendary castles, 9 ; a name given to that of L., 10. Wood, see Kestle. Cater, William, one of last Local Guardians, 28011 ; Secretary of L. Mechanics' Institute, 337n ; on L. School Board, 368n. Catholic Emancipation supported by L. and N., 313. Cavalry volunteers at L., 285. Cecil, Lord, and a L. prisoner, 118. Ceely, Major, see Seely. Celt, bronze, found at Lawhitton, 5. Cemeteiy consecrated at St. T., 71 ; and at L., 76. Central Cornwall Railway Company formed, 355. Scheme of Railway from L. to Exeter first advocated, 350. diamond, John, and L. cemetery, 76. INDEX. 399 Central Subscription Room built, 321; meeting place of L. Mechanics' In- stitute, 337. Chairmen of Board of Health, William Richard Derry, 340 ; John Ching, 34cm ; and John Dingley, lb. ■ of L. Board of Guardians, Thomas John Phillips, 327 ; John King Lethbridge, lb. ; Henry Ad- dington Simcoe, lb. ; Charles Rodd, lb. ; Reginald Kelly, lb. ; and John Christopher Baron Lethbridge, lb. of L. School Board, J. Ding- ley, 3&8n ; and S. W. E. Bird, lb. Chancel, burials in, 342m Chancery suits affecting L., 86, 1 13. Chantry Chapel at L., probable traces of, 59 ; one founded in Py., 65. founded at L., 92. Chapelof the Cas., 37, 3.8, 46, 47 ; men- tioned by Leland, 88 ; and by Nor- den, 89; in ruinsat Restoration, 212. ChaDels in L., Castle Street, 241,283; Wesleyan, 283, 290, 369; Bible Christian, 300 ; United Methodist, 337; Baptist, 372m Chaplains of Cas., Roger 37; Hamelin, 33. — of Gaol, John Lethbridge, 272 ; John Rowe, 291. Chappie, see St. John's Chapel. ( hapter House at L., 39 ; Countess Mabilia buried there, 88. Charity Commissioners and Howell's School, 29411; and Grammar School, 346; and L. infirmary, 374. Schools at L., 285. Charles the First, rumour at L. that lie had been poisoned by Duke of Buckingham, 147 ; sends letter of thanks to the Cornish, 172; marches through L. into C, 176; and defeats Essex, lb. ' — the Second, visits L. when Prince of "Wales, 177 ; makes it his headquarters, 178; his disappoint- ments in the county, 179; imprisons Sir Richard Grenville for insubordi- nation, lb. ; endeavours to appease R. differences inL., 182 ; which he evacuates, lb. ; and proceeds to Holsworthy and Truro and escapes to France, lb.; hisrestorationassisted by William Morice and Sir John Grenville, 209 ; dismisses judge be- cause of good conduct at L. assizes, 229 ; grants standard bushel to L., lb. ; and new charter, lb. ; confirms grant to L. Grammar School, 232. Charlton, Professor, testifies to T. Jackson's orthodoxy, 370. Charters granted to Py., 30, 37; and to L-> 37, 39; b y Richard II., 60; Henry IV., 63; Henry V., lb.; Henry VII., 71 ; Henry VIII., 95 ; Edward VI., 96 ; Philip and Mary, 98 ; Charles II., 229 ; James II., 130; last declared invalid, lb. Charities, John Speccott's for St. S. and St. T., 232n ; Parliamentary returns concerning, 284, 326; myste- rious disappearance of some, 284, 285, 326. Chegwyn, John, 306m Cheney, Lord (Viscount Newhaven), returned for N. and Harwich, 234 ; sits for latter, lb. ; again chosen for N., 237 ; restores St. S. Ch., lb. Cheyne, Edmund, concerned in L. election, 256 ; alderman and mayor of L., 263 ; first treasurer of Local Guardians, lb. ; hero of love ro- mance, lb. Child murder at L.-, 309. Ching, John, assists local cricket club, 307 ; describes social state of L. fifty years since, 322 ; gives il- luminated clock to town, 329n; vice-president of L. Mechanic's-' Institute, 337n ; on first Board of Health, 340 ; subsequently Chair- man, 34011 ; Chairman of Gas Com- pany, 342 ; presents reredos to Ch. 343 ; supports Tremoutha railway project, 34911 ; and atmospheric scheme, 349 ; ensign and lieutenant of L. Volunteer corps, 359 ; stands for L. School Board, 368 ; first cap- tain of L. Fire Brigade, 373. - Henry, memorial window in Ch., 343. Thomas, supports election of Pendarves and Friend for L., 253. Thomas, assists earliest local cricket club, 307. Mr., apothecary of L., 292. 400 INDEX. Cholera, only case in L., 338. Christianity in C, Christmas Eve superstitions at L., 284. recitations at L., 348. Chudleigh, great fire at, 290 ; aided by St. S., lb. Sir George, a Parliamentarian leader, proceeds from Tavistock to Lifton to assist Buller at L., 160 ; marches on Bodmin, 165. James, his son, defeats R. at Poison Bridge, 163 ; but is himself defeated at £., 164; and retires to Okehampton, lb. ; falsely claims a victon, 7 , lb. ; and asserts he had been miraculously helped, 165 ; ac- cused of treachery at battle of Stratton, lb. ; and joins the R. 16511. Church, Launceston, first mention, 46; traces of earliest fabric, 47 ; made parochial, 59 ; present building erec- ted by Henry Trecarrell, 74 ; des- cription, 75 ; consecrated by Bishop Vyvyan, 76; ordination at, 87; mentioned by Leland, lb. ; plun- dered by Royalists, 18m; Quaker disturbance in, 200 ; collections in, 220-21 ; restored in eighteenth cen- tury, 250 ; concerned in Aftermath Fund, 279; again restored in pre- sent century, 342 ; memorial win- dows in, 343 ; legend concerning pulpit, 344. persons charged at L. with non-attendance at, 102 ; certain in- habitants prosecuted at Town Court for similar offence, 105. -Street,itsprobableantiquity,45. Churches, see St. Stephens, St. Thomas South Petherwin, and Lawhitton. Churchwardens' accounts of St. T., 3°5 n - of St. M. M., Francis Glan- vill, 22on ; Henry Hicks, lb. ; John Worsey, 22m; Alexander Morlye, lb. ; Richard Edgecombe, 3&7n ; Moses Bowring, lb. Churchyard, at L., earliest mention of, 76 ; added to, 300 ; further enlarged 301. Churton, William, a L. clergyman, 104. Alice, baptised at L., 104. Civil War, see Great Rebellion. — marriagesinL.duringCommon- wealth, 192-94. Clare, Vesey Fitzgerald defeated at, 3H- . Clarencieux King of Arms (Robert Cooke) certifies arms of L., no. Clarendon, Earl of (as Sir Edward Hyde), accompanies Charles Prince of Wales to L., 182. Clark, George T., holds official in- quiry into sanitary state of L., 338 ; suggests formation of Board of Health, 339. Henry, named as candidate for L., 363. Clarke, George, member for L., 243. ■ • Samuel Childs, founds L. Penny Bank, 30711 ; incumbent of St. T., 346 ; headmaster of Gram- mar School, lb. ; assists to build new school house, lb. ; and to found Working Man's Club, lb. ; becomes vicar of Thorverton, 347 ; on L. School Board, 368 ; assists to re- store St. T. Ch., 369 ; and to build mission chapel at Tregadillett, lb. Clease, Walter, trader at L., 320. Clergymen of L., Roger Selly, 104 ; William Churton, lb. ; Daniel Northwell, 123; John St. Hill, lb.; Edward Gubbins, 156; William Crompton, lb. ; Joseph Hull, 192 ; William Oliver, 193 ; John Ruddle, 216 ; John Eyme, 220n ; Nathaniel Boughton, lb. ; William Bedford, 251; Charles Bedford, 25m ; John Bedford, lb. ; William Carpenter, 286; John Rowe, 291; George Buckmaster Gibbons, 298 ; Wickham Montgomery Birch, 343 ; Samuel William Elderfield Bird, 344 ; John Benson Sidgwick, lb. ; William Hart Smith, 34411 ; Benn Wilkes Jones Trevaldwyn, lb. ; William Watkins, lb ; Edward King, lb. ; Edward H. Marshall, lb; J. G. Curry, lb. ; and Charles Edward Gandy, lb. Clerks of Board of Health, Charles Gurney, 340; John Lethbridge Cowlard, 34on ; Christopher Leth- bridge Cowlard, lb. INDEX. 401 Clink, see South Gate. Clinton, Sir Henry, mem. for L., 282 ; appointed Governor of Gibral- tar, 2S6. Clobery, Sir John, mem. for L., 209 ; returned also for Hedon, lb. [died 1687, aged 03.] Clock, allowance to keeper of, 66 ; Julian Gliddon killed by, 14911 ; modern improvements of, 32gn. Coaches, to and from L., 332-333. Coale, Joseph, a fellow- sufferer at L., with Fox, 200 ; re-arrested and again committed to L., 202 ; dies at Read- ing, 21511. Josiah, a Quaker imprisoned in L. Bridewell, 215. Cockburn, (Sir) Alexander, attends L. assizes, 328 ; anecdote concern- ing, lb. Cock-fighting in L., 307. Coffin, Richard Bennett, concerned in Horwell Charity dispute, 294. Coghill, Sir John, mem. for L., 276 ; dies, 281. Coins, Roman, found in L., 6 ; Flem- ish, discovered at L. and Werring- ton, 91. Coleridge. Lord Chief Justice, decides on L. election dispute, 364. Collections in L. Church, 220-221. Collier, Arthur Bevan, captain of L. Volunteers, 360; becomes major, lb. (Sir) Robert Porrett, offers himself for L., 335 ; but withdraws before poll, lb. Robert, twice contests L., 365. 366. Collins, J., earliest known L. printer, 274. Mortimer, resides at L., 376. Mr., assists to found local Philosophic Society, 307. Colyn, John, member for L., 48. Richard, a minister stricken with gaol-fever at L., 109. Collyn, Oliver, concerned in local chancery suit, 113. Combrigg, Roger, Pr. of L., 65. Comins, Nicholas, mayor of L., 193. Commercial Travellers erect monu- ment to cholera victim at L., 338. Common Council of L. join in address to Queen Anne, 242 ; gradual des- truction of, 277. Commons belonging to L. Corpora- tion, 262-279. Commonwealth proclaimed at L., 191. Condorus, see Cadocus. Congdon, Charles, juryman of N., 368m Congregationalism in L., see Indepen- dents. Connock, Richard, granted portion of possessions of dissolved Py., 124. Conservative contests at L., 356. Constables of Cas., see Governors. of L., Atkins, Short, and Watts, 308 ; Jory, Farthing, and Tapson, 309 ; J. Brooming, 373 ; J. Holman, lb. ; W. Caddy, lb. ; E. Barrett, lb. Hereditary, see De Knivet. Constableship of Cas. granted on lease, 112. Contested Elections at L. — Gewen, Eliot, and Clobery, 209 ; Anstis, Herle, Pendants, and Statham, 245; Pendarves, Friend, Smith, and Willes, 251 ; Morice, King, Wynd- ham, and Irby, 255 ; St. Aubyn and Burrell, 266 ; Morice, Buller, Bull, and Arscott, 270 ; Garthshore and Rawdon, 286 ; Rawdon, Brog- den, Garthshore, and Dalkeith, 288; Hardinge and Howell (twice) 323, 324 ; Deakin and Drinkwater, 364 ; Deakin and Dingley, 365 ; Giffard and Collier (twice), 365, 366. at N., Gewen, Hungate, and Williams, 134 ; Trefusis, Edgcumbe, andKilligrew, 137; Edgcumbe and Ford, 224 ; Manaton, Coryton, and Young, 225; Cory-ton and Morice, lb. ; Morice and Luttrell, 234 ; Stratford andPrideaux, 238; Grenville, Strat- ford, Prideaux, and Morice, 239 ; Raine, Northey, Kennaway, and Franco, 296 ; Raine, Northey and Jessopp, lb. ; Raine, Percy, and Stevenson, 310. for C, Pendarves, Lemon, Vyvyan, and Valletort, 317 Convent Garden at L., 292. 402 INDEX. Convocation of Canterbury, attended by Pr. of L., 78. Coode, Edward, reports upon L. gaol, 334- Cooke, John, proposes to contest L., 362. Robert, see Clarencieux. Cope, Richard, LL.D., Independent minister at L., 289 ; founds first Sunday School in C, 290 ; supports abolition of slave trade, lb. ; leaves L., 308 ; dies, 3o8n. Edward, assists to found local Philosophic Society, 307. Copelston, John, junior, negotiates loan between Henry V. and Pr., 65. Copley (Yorkshire), J. B. Sidgwick incumbent of, 344. Copp, Jonas, supports Hardinge for L., 324n. Copplestone, proposed railway to L., 350; bill thrown out, 351. Core, Oliver, one of the first recorded L. aldermen, 41. Cork, John, mem. for L., 49. —Mary, married at L., 190. Corn Law Repeal, news brought to L. by special coach, 333. market erected, 329 ; formerly site of hustings, 330. price of at L. in seventeenth century, 126, 148 Cornish, Jane, early victim of breach of promise of marriage at L., 105. clergymen, thirty-four com- mitted to L. gaol, 51-2 ; ejected by Act of Uniformity, 215. - Militia mustered at L., 361. William, a L. inn-holder, 158 Cornish Times, supplement published at L., 358. Cornish and Devon Post founded at L-> 358. Cornwall, earliest inhabitants^; Rom- an invasion, 6 ; Saxon conquest under Ecgberht 12, and under iEthelstan 13 ; Danish invasion, lb. ; early con- version to Christianity, 18 ; resist- ance to William the Conqueror, 51; its attitude towards Richard III., and the rebellions of Flammockand Warbeck, 7 1 ; preparations to meet Spanish invasion, 107 ; scarcity of corn in, 126; troubled by pirates, 128-9 ! resistance to the loan, 135 ; struggles between P. and R. 158- 1C0; former driven out of county, 161; fighting renewed, 163-5; dis- posal of the R. forces in, 166 ; at- tacked by the Devonshire P., 171 ; who are repulsed, 172 ; specially thanked by Charles I., lb. ; Essex advances into, 174; is followed by King Charles, 176 ; and is defeated lb. ; Cromwell deplores condition of affairs, 177; visited by Charles, Prince of Wales, lb. ; train-bands ordered to assemble at L., lb.; they refuse to leave county, 178-9; ad- vance of Fairfax into, 182 ; com- plete defeat of R. in, 186 ; gentle- men of county petition Earl of Bath against Puritans, 215 ; and Charles II. to remove assizes from L. to Bodmin, 222 ; the towns surrender Charters to Charles II., 230; de- clines to support James II., 233 ; address voted to William and Mary, 234 ; loyal address presented to Queen Mary, 235 ; map of county published at L., 237 ; Jacobitism in, 245 ; gentlemen of county petition Parliament to remove assizes to Bodmin, 246; volunteering in during French war, 285 ; Sunday schools first founded, 290 ; savings' banks established in, 307 ; name of county in Tasmania, 376. • Archdeacon of, witnesses grant to Leper Hospital, 41. Bishopric of, proposed resus- citation, 87. — Duchy of, origin, 20 ; created, 53 ; feudal customs connected with, 61 ; and with visit of Duke to L. 62 ; appropriates ten manors of Py., 85 ; sells manor of Launceston- land, 141; property sold during Commonwealth, 203 ; compounds for repairs of L. gaol, 275. Dukes of, Edward the Black Prince, 53; Arthur, 71; Charles, 124; George (afterwards Prince Regent), 281; Albert Edward (presentPrince of Wales) 366. INDEX. 40 3 Cornwall, Earldom of, granted to Robert of Mortain, 20; made into a Duchy, 53. Earls of, Robert 20; William 29 ; Reginald, lb. ; John, 34 ; Hi nry, 35 ; B '"chard, 38 ; Edmund. 41. 52 ; Piers Gaveston, 53; and John of Eltham, lb. Corporation of L., constitution of, 98 ; manipulated by Charles II., J29 ; gradually suppress Common Con ncil, 277; erect Grammar School house, 293 ; regularly attend Ch., 300 ; lay out the Walk, ib. ; destroy West and North Gates, 301 ; attacked in Parliament, 321 ; financial stn'e of, 325 ; defended by Hardinge, 326 ; reformed, lb. records, accidental discovery of, 104. Cory, William Henry, secretary of L. Mechanics' Institute, 337m Coryton, William, elected for Corn- ' wall, 127 ; and Liskeard, 132 ; his patriotic zeal, Ib. ; reported to the | Council for refusing the loan, 135 ; . and imprisoned, 136 ; again chosen | for Cornwall, 137 ; acts against 1 Mohun, 144 ; is complimented by I Eliot, Ib. ; assists to hold down I Speaker Finch, 145 ; is sent to the I Tower, Ib. ; but abandons the cause, and is rewarded by the Court, Ib. ; returned for Launces- ton, 153 ; unduly interferes with election at Bossiney, 154 ; and for that and other offences refused leave to sit in Parliament, 155 ; his atti- tude towards the Parliamentary Committee at Launceston assizes, 159; as a R. Commissioner for C. complain-, against Sir Richard Grenville, 178; is iinea by Parlia- ment, 187 ; is pardoned, lb. ; and dies, 188. Philippa, his daughter, sup- ports the Parliament, 187; which grants her re.lrcss out of her father's estate, lb. Sir John, member for C, 223 ; sides with L. on assize question, lb. John, candidate for N., 225 ; unsuccessfully petitions against re- turn, Ib. ; is ultimately elected, Ib. ; and subsequently for L., Ib. ; his death, Ib. William, the younger, mem. fcr L., 225. Cottell, John, granted a charter for N., 96. Couch, Frederick, Freemason at L., 372n. Council Chamber erected, 301. County Courts granted to L., 72 ; es- tablished in modern f orm at L., 348. — police established at L., 373. ■of Stiie, grants augmentation of salary to ministers of L., Bodmin, Fcwey, Mylor, Padstow, and Truro, 195 ; Colonel Bennett appointed a mem., 204 ; orders collection at L. Ch., 2?o. Court leet at N. abolished, 368. -Northumberland of Foresters, 372. ro"s of N., 368m Courtenay, George, mem. for N., 242 ; and Ashburton, 243 ; appoint- ed to office, Ib. Courter, Henry, concerned in local chancery suit, 122. Courtney, Francis, a Cornish oppon- ent of the loan, 136. Cowlard, Chiistopher Lethbridge, assists movement to preserve South Gate, 302n ; clerk of Board of Health, 34on ; honoraiy secretaiy of Rowe Dispensary, 374. John Lethbridge, treasurer of L. Savings' Lank, 307n ; supports Hardinge for L., 324n ; clerk of Board of Health, 340n ; town clerk of L., 349n ; [died January 10, 1885, aged 73.] W., master of L. Grammar School, 292. Cowling, Robert, Parish Registrar of South Petherwin, 194. Craggs, James, mem. for Tregony, 246 ; opposes L. on assize question, lb. Cramer, John, probable keeper of the South Gate, no. Cranborne, Viscount, mem. for L., Great Bcdwin, and Plympton, 276. Crane, Sir Francis, mem. for L., 127. 4 o 4 INDEX. Cranmer, Archbishop, and the pro- posed revival of the Cornish bishop- ric, 87. Henry, possible constable of Cas., 112. Crediton, consecration deed of L. Ch. signed at, 76. Cricket club, earliest established in neighbourhood, 306 ; L. and Wer- rington club, 373 ; present club, lb. Crocker, Ellis and Thomasine, found chantry at L., 92. Crompton, William, incumbent of L. 156 ; author of several sermons, lb.; sermon preached at his funeral, 156m William, his son, vicar of Cullompton, 156. Cromwell, Oliver, deplores condition of affairs in West, 177 ; with Fair- fax at L., 184; tradition that he stayed at Hexworthy, 185 ; advances into Cornwall, lb. ; and leaves by way of Plymouth, Tavistock, and Okehampton, 186; supportsPhilippa Coryton's claim, 187 ; connection with Fox's imprisonment at L., 198 ; one of Colonel Bennett's col- leagues on Council of State, 204. Thomas, and prisoners at L., 81. Crowder, R. Budden, attends L. as- sizes, 328. Crowhurst, Cornelius, guard of mail coach, 332. —5 William, establishes earliest local cricket club, 306. Cucking Stool at St. T., 292. Cudlip, John, captain of L. volunteer cavalry, 285. Cudlipp, William, town crier of L., 354 n - Curry, J. G., curate of St. M. M., 344n ; and St. Mark's, Kensington, lb. Curtis, William, describes taking of L. by Fairfax, 18211; and subsequent P. proceedings there, 184. Cutcliffe, Dr., of L., 292. Dalkeith, Earl of, contests L., 288. Danes, plunder Devon and Cornwall, 13 ; bum Lidford, lb.; remains of at Trelaske, lb. Danmonii, suggested founders of Cas- tle, 3- Dark House, William Salt confined there, 201 ; condition at beginning of nineteenth century, 291 ; im- proved by order of Home Secretary, 302 ; debtors confined in, lb. ; and see South Gate. Darke, John, concerned in Scarne transactions, 278 ; assists to found local Philosophic Society, 307. Thomas, one of earliest local guardians, 263. Dartmouth, ship taken by pirates, 129; captured by Fairfax, 180; G. B. Gibbons curate of, 298m Daunt, Edward Synge Tpwnshend, vicar of St. S., 36911. Davenport, Mrs., famous actress, born at L., 267. Davey, Jeremiah, early Wesleyan trustee, 283. ■ Thomas, early Wesleyan trus- tee, 29011. Davies' Coffee Rooms, first meeting place of L. Mechanics Institute, 336n . — William, last prisoner for debt at L., 34811. Davis's wagons ply between Exeter and Truro through L., 334. De Blanchminster, Sir Ralph, holder of Knight's fee under L. Cas, 55m De Bottreaux, Walter, castellan, 53. ■ — ■ William, castellan, 35 ; name of witness to early L. charter, 42. De Bryone, William, granted manor of Dunheved, 59. De Burden, Thomas, Pr. of L., 57. De Burgh, Hubert, castellan, 35 ; wit- ness to early L. charter, 36. De Button, Bishop, connection with L. Py., 5m. De Dunheved, John, ordered to per- form military service, 50. De Dunstanville Lord lies in state at White Hart, 332. De Grey, William, mem. for N., 268; appointed Solicitor and Attorney- General, lb.; elected for Cambridge University, 270; becomes Lord Chief Justice, lb. ; and Baron Wal- singham, 270 n. INDEX. 405 De Gossington, Robert, connected with Py., 51 n. De Horton, Pr. of L., 51; tomb men- tioned by Leland, 88. De Huggewarthi, Ralph, appointed coadjutor prior at L., 51. De Huneford, Roger, mem.. for L., 48. De Kalewystock, represented L. in Parlianient, 48. De Knivet, Othomarus, alleged hered- itary constable of L.., 27. De Knolle, Adam, Pr. of L., 57. De Landeu, "William, mem. for L., 49. De Lanhun, John, mem. for L., 49. DePenleu, Robert, mem. forL., 49. De Ponton, Robert, mem. for L., 49. De Putot, William, castellan, 38. De Tavistock, Roger, mem. for L., 49. De Trecarl, see Trecarrel. De Trelosk, Roger, witnesses a L. charter, 60. De Uppeton, Richard, Pr. of L., 40. De Whitminster, see De Blanchmin- ster. Deakin, James Henry, sen., aids- L. volunteers, 360: purchases Werring- ton, 363 ; mem. for L., 364 ; un- seated on petition, lb. ; dies, 367. James Henry, jun., mem. for L., 365 ; retires, lb. ; dies, 367. Debtors confined in Dark House, 302. Debts in L., Act for recovery of, 347. Deer Park, see Park. Defoe, Daniel, relates story of Tre- bursye Ghost, 216. Delabole, proposed railway communi- cation with L., 355. Denham, Sir John, writes A Western Wonder to celebrate R. victory at Stratton, 166. Denman, Lord, presides at last L. assize, 328. Mr. Justice, decides on L. election dispute, 364. Deputy-Recorders of L., Christopher Lethbridge, 287 ; John King Leth- bridge, 302. Derby, a sanctuary town, 90. (present) Eail of, Chairman of Committee on L. Railway Bill, 352. Derrent, Richard, earliest overseer for L., 280. Deny, John, master of L. workhouse, 280. William, offers to contest L., 363- William Richard, first Chair- man of Board of Health, 340 ; mayor of L., 346 ; supports line to Tavistock, 352 ; convenes meeting in favour ot railway bill, 353. Desborough, Major-General, sent by Cromwell to L. to liberate the Quakers, 199, 201 ; plays at bowls in Cas. Green, 199 ; one of Colonel Bennett's colleagues on Council of State, 204. Devon, plundered by the Danes, 13 ; attitude towards Richard III., 71 ; troubled by pirates, 128-9; an d crv i' war, 160 and foil. ; ministers' salaries augmented by Council of State, 195; William Morice elected for, 208 ; declines to support James II., 233 ; attacked by the French, 235 ; name of county in Tasmania, 376. and Cornwall Railway Com- pany formed, 355. Devonport (formerly Plymouth Dock) Inn, 309. Wesley condemns its clergy- man, 271 ; proposed theatre at, 273n. Dew, John, jurvman of N., 368m Dick, William WentworthFitz William buys Werrington, 362 ; sells it, 363. Dickens, Charles, news of death re- ceived by John Forster at L.. 376. Dinfont, Mary, buried in Ch., 342m Dingley, Dorothy, the Trebursye ghost, 217. John, Chairman of Board of Health, 34on ; honorary secretary of L. and S. Devon Railway, 353 ; first ensign of present L. Volunteer corps, 359 ; subsequently captain, 360 ; resigns, lb. ; contests L., 365 ; Chairman of L. School Board, 3fa8n; assists to found Dunheved College, 371 ; suggests formation of Fire- Brigade, 373. Richard, supports Parliament- ary reform, 3i6n ; first treasurer of Board of Health, 340; favours line to Tavistock, 352. 406 INDEX. Dispensary, see Rowe. Dodge family stricken by Plague, io&. Doherty, John, mem. for N., 314; made Irish Judge, 315 ; O'Connell's opinion of, 315 n. Doidge, John, supports Parliamentary Reform, 3i6n; mayor of L., 352; favours line to Tavistock, lb. Domesday Book mentions L. and St. S, 23 ; and Lawhitton, 31. Domitian, coins found at L., 6. Doomsdale, the prison at L. in which Fox and his fellow Quakers were confined, 197. Doublebois, proposed railway to L., 35°- Dounheudburgh, Dounheuedburgh, and Dounhevdburgh, see Dunheved. Down, T., early member of Trades- men's Friendly Society, 274. Downes, Anne, a Quakeress and visi- tor to Fox in L. gaol, 199. Downing, F., lieutenant of L. Fire Brigade, 374. Dowry, singular, of Miss Morice, 253. Dozmary Pool, arrowheads found, 2. Dragoons at L., 361. Drake, Sir Francis, of Werrington, mem. for N., 209 ; granted licence to impark Werrington, 210 ; where he builds house, lb. ; sells property to William Morice, lb.; his death, 224 Drinkwater, Herbert Charles, contests L., 364 ; successfully petitions against J. H. Deakin, sen., lb. Druxton Wharf, Bude Canal con- structed to, 348. Duchy of Cornwall, see C. Duchy of. Duck, Stephen, one of first two mem- bers for L., 43-7-8. Duke of Cornwall's Harbour and L. and Victoria Railway Company, 349. Duke's Lane, former meeting place of L. Baptists, 372m Dunheved, probably first inhabited by Britons, 1 1 ; suggested derivation of name, 15; mentioned in Domes- day, 23 ; given a market by Robert of Mortain, lb. ; serfs in, lb. ; des- cribed as a new town, 30 ; made a free borough, 39 ; deed executed at, 60. [Dunheved now merges defin- itely into Launceston, which see]. Dunheved College established, 371. — Green, suggested site of British camp, 12 ; reservoir formed at, 312; and fi"ed up, 349 ; College built at, 371. Island, Queensland, 376m Manor, granted to William de Bryone, 59. Road made, 340. Dunn, Thomas, secretary of L. Me- chanics' Institute, 337m Durant, Dorothy, theoretic name of the Trebursye Ghost, 219. Durham elects SirHenryHardinge,3i5 Dutson, tenements at sold by Duchy, 142 ; Sunday School founded, 290. Dyer, John the, one of the first recor- ded aldermen of L., 41. Eadulphus said to have founded L., 14. Earldom of C, see C. Earldom of. Earls of C, see C. Earls of. East Cornwall Times founded at L., 358. East, Hundred of, earliest mention, 60 ; bailiff of, 106. Looe elects Sir J. Pole, 242. Ecbatana.cas. of compared with L., 3. Edgcumbe, Piers, mem. for N., 137 ; signs the Protestation, 155 ; active for the R. in C, 163 ; expelled the House for Royalisip, 173; sits in the Parliament at 0> f ord, 1 74 ; and is made D.C.L., lb. ; ordered to bring troops to L., 179. Piers, the younger, mem. for N., 224 ; unsuccessfully petitioned against, lb. ; and death, lb. Sir Piers, commits Friar Gawen to L. Cas., 81 ; of which he was castellan, 82. • Richard, castellan, 69 ; rebels against Richard III., lb. R'chard, opponent of Sir John El'ot, 138 ; at law with him, 146 ; returned for N., 153 ; signs the Pro- testation, 155 ; expelled the House for Royalism, 173; elected for L. 206; denounced by the Puritans, 210. Edgecumbe, John, on St. S. School Board, 369m Richard, churchwarden of St. M. M., 367. INDEX. 4° 7 Edmund, Earl of C, prosecutes Bishop Bronescombe at L., 41 ; continues transference of assizes to Lostwith- iel,52. Education in L., first mentioned, 92 ; subsequent developments, 2S5, 368, 3/1- Edward the Black Prince, first Duke of C, 53 ; claims patronage of Py., 54 ; visits L., 56. the Sixth, confirms L. charters, 96. the Confessor suggested founder of Cas., 21. Edwards, Mr., counsel on L. Election petition, 364. Thomas Edward Minit, In- dependent minister at L., 370. Egloshayle, couples married at L. during Commonwealth, 193. Egloskerry, John Speccott buried at, 232m Elections Contested, see Contested Elections. Petitions, see Petitions. Eldon, Lord, declines to act against L. on assize question, 327. Eliot, Edward, ofTrebursye, 209, 2 i6n; returned for L., 209 ; but unseated, lb. John, dies young, 216 ; funeral sermon preached by John Ruddle, lb. Eliot, Sir John, chosen for St. Ger- mans, 127 ; and Newport, lb. ; dealings with pirates, 127-28; po- litical efforts, 132; again elected for St. Germans, 133 ; firct imprisoned in the Tower, 134; deprived of Vice Admiralty of Devon, 135; reported to the Council for refusing the loan, lb. ; and imprisoned, 136 ; returned for C, 137 ; present at a N. con- test, lb. ; defends electoral rights of N., 139-40; denounces Mohun to the Lords, 143 ; death of LadyjEliot, lb. ; his children placed at Trebursye, 1 44 ; correspondence with Gedie and Be- ville Grenville, lb. ; and with Leonard Treise, 145 ; is sent to the Tower with Coryton, lb. ; asks Grenville to help him in law-suits at L., 144, 146; his will, 146; and death, 147. Rhadagund, his wife, daugh- ter of Richard Gedie, of Trebursye, 127 ; her death, 143. Ellice, John, a fellow sufferer at L., with Fox, 200. Ellicott, George, one of last Local Guardians, 28on; on last Committee of L. Mechanics' Institute, 337n. Eltham, John of, Earl of C, 53. Ematt, a seaman, accused at L. of stating Duke of Buckingham had poisoned Charles L, 147. Emerald Coach between Tavistock and L., 332. Engelsby, Captain, stationed at L., 212. Ennis elects Vesey Fitzgerald, 314. Enniskillen elects R. H. A. Beunet, 295- Erie (Lord Chief Justice), attends L. assizes, 328. Erskine, Thomas (Lord Erskine) coun- sel in L. election dispute, 287. Escott, John, a L. woollen draper ac- cused of speaking ill of the Parlia- ment, 157 ; condemned and pilloried lb. ; probable relationships, 158. Richard, mem. for N., 127 ; and for L., 132-33; buried at L. 15811; daughter burisd at St. S.,Ib, Essery, Plenry, early Wesleyan trustee. 283. Essex, Earl of, P. General advances into C, 174 ; defeats Sir Richard Grenville at New Bridge, lb. ; and captures L., lb. ; which he evacu- ates, 176; is defeated by Charles I., lb. ; and flees, lb. Estcott, Captain, a R. officer stationed at L., 166. Evans, J., first drill sergeant of pre- sent L. volunteer corps, 359. Ewen, Doctor, William of Worcester's host at L., 69. Executioner at L., Hugh Wooger, 212 ; the latest example, 305. Executions at L., William Kylter, 93 ; Cuthbert Maine, 102 ; William Pearce, 269 ; list of latest, 304m ; Exeter heads Western rebellion against William I., 27 ; city dispute settled at L., 39n ; St. T. composition signed at, 72; besieged by Arundel's K 408 INDEX. rebels, 93 ; Agnes Prest burnt at, 99 ; preparations to meet the Span- ish invasion, 107 ; besieged by the Cornish Cavaliers, 171; impressed men from Lifton imprisoned at, 174; Henrietta Maria's troubles at, 174-5; Charles, Prince of Wales at, 177; John Ruddle appointed Prebendary, 220 ; post to Truro established through L., 240; communication with L. by coach, 333 ; and waggon, 334; proposed railway to L., 350. — — Comedians appear at L., 273. Inn, home of Tradesmen's Friendly Society, 274. Marquis of, property at L. confiscated by Henry VIII., 203. Road made, 301. Expenses of its members of Parliament paid by L., 63. Eyme, John, curateof St. M.M., 22on. Richard, baptised at L., 22on. Daniel, an eighteenth century L. Whig, 253. Eyre, Aaron, assists earliest local cricket club, 307. John (Rev.), assists to revive Independency at L., 272. Thomas, supports Parliament- ary Reform, 3i6n ; trader at L., 320; publishes The Reformer, ^2yx ; Thomas Symes, assists to found local Philosophic Society, 307; mayor of L.,340; presides at first meeting of Board of Health, lb. Facey, John, original trustee of Castle Street Chapel, 241. Fairfax, Sir Thomas, P. General takes Dartmouth, 1 8on ; exercises clemency towards the Cornish soldiers, 180; describes evacuation of L. by Char- les, Prince of Wales, lb. ; defeats Hopton at Torrington, 182; and advances on L., lb. ; which he cap- tures, 183 ; writes to the Commons fromL., 184; visits the Cas.,Ib.; and advances into C, lb.; and leaves by way of Plymouth, Tavistock, and Okehampton, 186. Fairs at L., 89. Fair at Penheale, granted to Francis Luttrell, 234. Fakenham (Norfolk) collection at L. in aid of, 221. Falmouth, possible Roman station, 7 ; Savings' Bank founded at, 307 ; communication with L. by coach, 333 ; and wagon, 334. Farden, George, first president of Tradesmen's Friendly Society, 274. Farthing, George, and the Trebursye Ghost, 2i8n; secures improvement of Darkhouse, 302. — Joshua, a constable of L., 309. Fathers, John, vicar of St. S., com- plained of to Laud, 150. Feilding, Viscount, mem. for N., 282; and Beeralston, lb. Fenner, Edward, Justice of Queen's Bench, visits L., 114. Feudal Tenures, see Tenures. Fidler, James, present drill sergeant of L. volunteer corps, 35911 ; caretaker of Freemasons' Hall, 372n. Finch, Judge, remarks on ruinous state of L. Cas., I49n. Speaker, held down in his chair by Coryton and others, 145. Fire Brigade, formation suggested by J. Dingley, 373 ; established, lb. Fish, John, canon of L. signs the surrender, 83. Market, held in streets, 298n. Fishery Commissioners, meet at L. and Saltash, 118. Fissacre, Pr., excommunicated, 39 ; resigned, 40; witnesses grant to Leper Hospital, 41. Fitch, Sergeant-Major, defends Pol- son Bridge against R., 164. Fithams, Lieutenant James, buried at L., 173. Fitzgerald, William FitzgeraldVesey, mem. for N., 313 ; for Ennis and Clare, 314; defeated by O'Connell in latter, lb. ; chosen for Lostwithiel, lb. FitzCount, Henry, castellan, 35, 38. Fitz-John, John, mem. for L., 48. Peter, mem. for L., 48. Fitz-Richard, John, castellan, 35. Richard, castellan, 35. Flamank, Richard, castellan, 35. Flammock, Thomas, leader of a Corn- ish rebellion, 71. INDEX. 409 Fleetwood, Sir Miles, mem. for L., 127. Flemings, supposed settlers at L. and Werrington, 91. Fletcher, John, vicar of Fowey, tried at L. for recusancy, 119. Flogging at cart's tail and town pump, inflicted at L., 305-6. Font at St. T., probable age, 72n. Fore St., woollen industry in, 320. Forestry at L., 372. Forster, John, hears at L. of Dickens death, 376. Fort, John, canon of L., acknowled- ges royal supremacy, 79. Fortescue, Matthew, judge of L. County Court, 348. Forty-second Regiment at L., 361. Ford, Henry, mem. for Tiverton, acts against L. on assize question, 223 ; had previously contested N., 224; and unsuccessfully petitioned against the return, lb. Foster, Mr. Justice, presides at L. Assizes at beginning of Civil War, 159- Fowey, vicar of, see Fletcher ; plun- dered by R., 162 ; minister's salary augmented by Council of State, 195. Charter altered by James II., 230 ; elects George Grenville, 243 ; local innkeeper executed at L,, 309. Fowler, John, engineer of L. railway, 354- Fox, George, founder of Quakers ar- rested at Si. Ives, 195 ; and sent to L. Gaol, lb. ; his opinion of inhabi- tants, lb. ; his trial, 196 ; and sufferings in prison, 197-98; com- plains to Cromwell, 197 ; preaches in Cas. Green, 198 ; ultimately re- leased, 199 ; and again visits town, lb. ; protests against bowling in the Green, lb. ; visits Stokeclims- land, lb. Henry, witnesses deed at L., 61. Frain, John, sexton of St. M. M., 296 ; preserves record of burials, lb. Francillon, R. E., mentions L. in novel, 375m Franco, Ralph, contests N., 296 ; his son (H. C. Lopes) sits for L. 363. Fraser, Alexander, on last committee of Mechanics' Institute, 337m Frederick, John, mem. for N., 271. Prince of Wales, created Viscount L., 254. Free School at L., 285. Freemasons' Hall, erected at L., 372. Freemasonry at L., 372. Freemen of L., number gradually lessened by Corporation, 277, 289. French, Jeffrey, contests N., 261; mem. for Tavistock, lb. Prisoners of war detained at L., 300. Frend, Henry, vicar of Liskeard, res- cued by Pr. Tredydan, 58. Friary, stated to have existed at L., 89. Fridey, William, holder of a tenure at Landue, 61. Friends, Society of, see Quakers. Friend, John, returned for L., 251 ; petitioned against lb. ; unseated 252 ; committed to the Tower for Jacobitism, lb. ; re-elected for L., 2 54- Friendly Societies in L., the Trades- men's, 271 ; Freemasons, 372 ; Odd Fellows, lb. ; Foresters, lb. Frome elects H. C. Lopes, 363. Fronnington, collections at L. in aid of, 220. Frost, Michael, first Senior Warden of L. Freemason's, 372. Richard, early mem. of Trades- men's Friendly Society, 275. Richard Kingdon, assists to found local Philosophic Society, 307 ; second president of L. Mechan- ics' Institute, 337. Gallows' Hill, portion of Cas. Green, 304 ; name applied to part of St. S. Down, 308 ; tradition concerning, lb. ; latter supplies water to St. S., 312. Gandy, Charles Edward, curate of St. M. M., 344m Gaol, L., thirty-four Cornish clergy- men committed thither, 5 1 -2 ; diff- erence with Liskeard concerning, 52; mentioned by Leland, 88 ; its con- dition in Elizabeth's reign, [02, 109; 4io INDEX. ravaged by gaol-fever, 109, 113; conditionof in Commonwealth times, 197 ; description of in eighteenth century, 272; John Howard's visit lb. ; repairs provided for by Act of Parliament, 275 ; charities concern- ing, 284 ; condition at beginning of nineteenth century, 291, 302 ; offi- cial returns concerning, 303-4 ; es- tablishment broken up, 304 ; build- ing destroyed, 330. Gaol fever out-breaks at L., 109, "3. I2 3- keepers of the, John Sorrell, 130; John Mules, 265 ; Christopher Mules, sen., 304 ; Christopher Mules, jun., lb. Garter King of Arms, John Anstis, 244-45. Garthshore, "William, mem. forL., 286. Gas, introduced into L., 341 ; works erected, lb. ; concern transferred to local company, 342. Gascoyne, J., a surveyor of C, 237. Gater, Gavin, a tenant of Launceston- land, 141. Gate, North, defended by R. against Fairfax, 183 ; destroyed, 301. South, connection with the Min- strels' tradition, 67 ; the lock-up at, 109. Gate, West, destroyed, 301. Gates of L., probable period of erection, 33 ; one said to have been ornamented with picture of Henry V., 64 ; three mentioned by Leland, 88. Gaveston, Piers, Earl of C, 53. Gawen, Friar, Warder of the Grey Friars at Plymouth, committed to L. Cas., 81. Geake, John, trader at L., 320. John, supports Howell forL., 324n. Joseph Beard, supports Howell for L., 324n ; last treasurer of L. Mechanics' Institute, 337n ; on L. School Board, 368. Thomas, one of founders of Tradesmen's Friendly Society, 274 ; supports Parliamentary Reform, 3i6n. Gedie, Richard, of Trebursye, Sir John Eliot's father-in-law, 127; oppressed by the Court, 133; is- guardian of Eliot's children, 144 ; correspondence with Eliot, lb. ; his death, 145 ; bequeaths annuity to Leonard Treise, 1 4611. Gedye, Nicholas Lower, contests living of St. T., 369^ General Board of Health asked to inquire into sanitary state of L., 338. Genys, William, canon of L., acknow- ledges royal supremacy, 79. Gennys, Nicholas, mayor of L., 157; his action in John Escott's case, lb. Geoffrey, first recorded Pr. of L., 34. George the Third, becomes Viscount L., 254. the Fourth becomes \ iscount L., 254. -Stephen, canon of L., acknow- royal supremacy 79 ; signs the sur- render as Sub-Prior; and is pension- ed, lb. Geritoo, Robert, buried at L., 104. Gerveys, John, one of first two mem- bers for L., 43-7-8. Gewen, Thomas, auditor of the Duchy, 134 ; chosen for Bossiney, lb. ; for N., lb. ; and for L., 187 ; invol- ved in Pride's Purge, 189; officiates at a civil marriage at L., 193 ; as Recorder of L., persecutes the Quakers, 201 ; again elected for L., 205-6-8; his history, 205-8; described by Pyot, 206; his proceed- ings in Parliament, 206-8 ; proposes to give Cromwell the Crown, 207 ; regains his offices at Restoration, 208 ; and dies, lb. ; his latest return for L. unsuccessfully contested, 209. Shadrack, an eighteenth cen- tury L. Whig, 253. Ghost, see Trebursye. Gibbon, Captain Sidrack, and prison- ers of war at L., 131. Gibbons, George Buckmaster, incum- bent of St. M. M., 298 ; curate of Dartmouth, 2g8n ; vicar of Laneast and Werrington, lb. ; suggests restoration of Ch., 342. Giffard, Sir Hardinge Stanley, nomi- nated for L., 365 ; mem. for L., lb. ; appointed constable of Cas., 366. INDEX. 4 II Gifford, George Mortimer, on last committee of L. .Mechanics' Insti- tute. 33711; promotes memorial to Henry Trecarrell, 343; first secretary of present L. volunteer corps, 36 m. Gillbard, Richard Dennis, one of last Local Guardians, 2Son. Gilmartin, official return concerning, 66 ; and see Leper Hospital. Gipsies, earliest record of at L., 104. (tjiIs' High School at L., 346m (iladstone, William Ewart, proposes to group L. with Bodmin and Lis- keard, 367 : correspondence with L. concerning Vatican decrees, 371. Glanvile or Glanvyle, see Glanville. Glanville, George, law-suit with T. Hicks, 86. Francis, churchwarden of St. M. M., 22on. John, concerned in local chan- cery suit, 1 13 Glasgow Tolbooth, compared with L. workhouse, 290. Glastonbury Abbey, agreement with L. Py., 40; execution of Abbot, 83. Gliddon, Julian, killed by L. clock, 14911. Gloucester, Humphrey Plantagenet, Duke of, connection with Py., 67 ; appealed to by Pr. Shyre, lb. Glubb, Anne, prisoner at L., 192. Glyn, Chief Justice, presides over Fox's trial at L., 196; Pyot pro- tests against his proceedings, 200. Glynn, Joslin, murder of in C., 68. Godfrey, James, a fellow-sufferer at L. with Fox, 200. Godman, Walter, mem. for L., 48. Godolphin, Francis, levies ship-money in C, 151. Good, Alexander, Independent minis- ter at L., 308. Good Templary in L., 372. Goodman, William, juryman of N., 368m Gordon Hill, first rifle range of L. volunteers. 360. Gordon, Sir James Willoughby, mem. for L., 313 ; resigns, 316. Gorges, Sir Ferdinando, a mem. of pOchard-nsherj commission, n8n; friend of Sir John Eliot, 135. Goring, Lord, R. commander in C, 178 ; his differences at L. with Sir Richard Grenville, 179 ; defeated by Fairfax, 186 ; and flees from C. to France, lb. Gould, Job, drill sergeant of L. volun- teer corps, 359. Goutsoe, John, Parish Registrar of St. Gennys, 193. Governors of L. Castle : — Mordont Sprakelyn, 30 ; Richard Reuel, 34 ; Walter Reynell, lb. ; Richard Fla- niank, 35 ; Hubert de Burgh, lb. ; John FitzRichard, lb. ; Richard FitzRichard, lb. ; William de Bot- treaux, lb. ; Henry FitzCount, 35-6-8 ; Robert Cardinan, 36 ; Geoffrey Monk, lb. ; Hamelin, 37 ; WaleramusTeutonicus, 38 ; William de Putot, lb. ; Piers Gaveston, 53 ; Walter de Bottreaux, lb. ; John Moneron, 54, 3^8 ; Peter Burdet, 54 ; Halvatheus Maulever, 70 ; Richard Edgcumbe, lb. ; Sir Piers Edgcumbe, 82 ; Henry Carew (?) 112; William Killigrew (?) lb.; Sir Hugh Pyper, 175, 236 ; Colonel Bennett, 203 ; Thomas Rosse, 211 ; PhilipPypcr,2i 1,23611; Hugh Pyper, 23611, 264 ; John Bold, lb. ; George Knill,Ib.; CoryndonCarpenter, 265; John Sorrell, lb. ; John Anthony- Roe, 287 ; Hugh, Second Duke of Northumberland, lb. ; Hugh, Third Duke of Northumberland, 331; Al- gernon, Fourth Duke of North- umberland, 366 ; and Sir Hardinge Giffard, lb. Gower, Lord, asked to subscribe to- wards repair of L. Ch., 250. Grammar School, founded at Week St. Mary, 92 ; removed to L., 107 ; its endowments, lb. ; government grant confirmed by Charles II., 2 }2 ; receives the Baron endowment, lb. ; Bishop Vigors educated at, 250 ; condition at beginning of nine- teenth century, 292 ; new school- house built, 293; temporarily ceases to exist, lb. ; meeting place of Philosophic Society, 307 ; revival of institution, 5^ ; erection of second 4 I2 JNDEX. new school-house, 346; again allow- ed to die, 346n. Grampound, possible Roman station, 7 ; elects Francis Scobell, 243n ; and Humphry Morice, 251 ; bribery at. 36311. Grandisson, Bishop, consecrates cemetery at St. X., 72. Great Bedwin (Wilts) elects Viscount Cranborne, 276. Rebellion, see Coryton, Gewen, Grenville, Hopton, Maynard, Slan- ning, as well as Cornwall, Launces- ton, Parliamentarians and Royalists. Western Railway Company owns L. line, 354n ; opposes mixed guage between L. and Lydford, 355. Green, The, see Castle Green. Greenway, H., supports Parliamentary Reform at L., 316m trader at L., 320. Grenvile, see Grenville. Grenville, Bernard, mem. for L., 225 ; re-elected, 234. Sir Bernard, and the anti-loan movement, 135; signs warrant com- mitting John Roberts to L. Gaol, 148 ; dies, 152. Sir Beville, elected for C, 127-37 ; and L., 132-33 ; his friend- ship for Eliot, 134; contributes poem on death of LordPetre, 142 ; interests himself at L. Assizes on Eliot's behalf, 144; is one of Ids executors, I46n ; tries to settle municipal dispute at Bodmin, 153; raises a troop for the King, lb. ; knighted by Charles I., lb. ; corres- ponds with William Morice, lb. ; again elected for L., 152 ; and for C., 153; opposes attainder of Straff- ord, 155 ; declines to sign the Pro- testation, lb. ; welcomes the R. into C, 158; appeals to people of L., 1G0; summoned before the Par- liament, 161 ; declines to obey, lb.; and is expelled the House, lb. ; rights at Bradock Down, 1C2; news of which he communicates to his wife, lb. ; assists to defend L. against James Chudleigh, 163 ; marches to Stratton and helps to defeat Stamford, 165 ; advances into Somersetshire, 167 ; and is killed at Lansdowne, lb. - Ladv Grace, his wife, his letters to, 134-62. - D., leases Kestle Wood, 106. George (Viscount Lansdowne) recorder of L., 242 ; his history, lb.; elected for Fowey, 243 ; and C, lb.; appointed to oflice. lb. ; and made a peer, lb.; arrested for Jacobitism, 245 ; assists restoration of L. Ch., 250 ; asks Lord Gower for sub- scription, lb. John, mem. for L., 232 ; and for N., 238 ; his history, lb. ; re- jected at N., 239 ; unsuccessfully petitions against Stratford, lb. ; made a peer, 240 ; secures better postal arrangement for L., lb. Sir John, elected for N., 205 ; his history, 209 ; assists the Res- toration lb. ; is created Earl of Bath, lb. ; petitioned by gentlemen of C. ajjainst Puritans, 215 ; his death, 226. Sir Richard, dies in L. Cas.,94. Sir Richard, the younger, mem. for N., 96 ; hero of the "Re- venge," 97 ; arrests Tregian and Maine, 100. Sir Richard, defeated by Earl of Essex, at Newbridge, 1 74 ; his character, i/4n; desires Charles the First to hasten into C, 176 ; com- mands the Cornish trainbands, 177; complained of by the Cornish for tyranny, 178 ; is insubordinate, 179 ; and is imprisoned in Cas., lb. ; his partisans mutiny, 180; said to have been given Sir Francis Drake's lands, 210. Greston, residence of Sir William Wysa, 60 ; some of R. desert to, 181. Bridge, mentioned by William of Worcester, 69 ; built by John Palmer, 6gn ; Sunday school foun- ded at, 290. Henry, law-suit with Thomas- Hicks of L., 86. Grey Friars, Warden of, see Gawen. Greyston or Greystone Bridge, see Greston. INDEX. 413 ■Griffin, a pirate, imprisoned at L., 129. Grigg. James, actuary of L. Savings' Bank, 307m John, owner of Sedan chair at L., 35^. John, early Wesleyan trustee, 29011. Grilles, William, presented at Town Court for mal-practices, 105. Grimston, Viscount (present Earl of Verulam) rnem. for N., 317 ; St. Albans, lb. ; and Hertfordshire, 31811 ; opposes Reform Bill, 317. Gruzelier, Francis P., first Master of Union Workhouse, 32 7n. Grylls, John, Sheriff of C., charged to disperse the P. at L., 159; appeals to people of town, 1O0; summoned before the Parliament, 161. Richard, mayor of L., 192-94. Guardian The, newspaper at L. 323n. Gubbin, Richard, assists to found Dunheved College, 371. Gudding, John, an eighteenth century L. Whig, 253. Guildhall, L., authorised to be built, 39 ; earliest mentions of, 66; main- guard of the R., 181 ; plundered by the R., 18m; description of old building, 329 ; destroyed, lb. Gunnislake, originally included in L. Wesleyan circuit, 283. Gurney, Charles, assists to found local Philosophic Society, 307 ; supports Hardinge for L,., 32411; first Clerk of Board of Health, 340; Town Clerk of L., 349 ; promotes atmos- pheric railway scheme, lb.; opposes Doublebois project, 350 ; and advo- cates Central Scheme and line to Copplestone, lb. ; trustee of L. in- firmary, 37411. (Sir) Goldsworthy, promotes atmospheric railway scheme, 349. Gwyn, Roger, a priest, imprisoned at L., 117. Oybbe, Richard, provost of L., 66n. Gylham Martyn, early form of Gil- martin, 66n. Haine, William, last master of old Workhouse, 32 7m Hales, Langueville, assists L. on roads question, 277. Halfys, Major, buried at L., 212. Haliburton, Thomas Chandler (Sam Slick) lays foundation of new Grammar School, 346; mem. for L., 361 ; retires, 362 ; dies, lb. Halwill, line commenced to L., 356. Ham, James, one of last Local Guar- dians, 28on. — John, canon of L., acknowled- ges Royal supremacy, 79 ; signs the surrender, 83 ; is pensioned, lb. Thomas, juryman of X., 368m Mill possibly of Saxon origin, 165 relic of Sir Francis Drake at, 210. Hamblye, William, drownedatL., 150. Hamelin, castellan, 37. chaplain of Cas., 38. Hamlin, Thomas Peter, organist at St. M. M., 326n. Hamly, John, mem. for L., 63. Hampden, John, one of Eliot's execu- tors, 14611 ; killed at Chalgrove Field, 167. Hanson, William Day, earliest lieu- tenant of L. volunteer corps, 359. Harbert, John, first keeper of St. M. M. Register, 103. Harbord, Sir Charles, mem. for L., 209; chosen also for Hindon, 210; denounced by the Puritans, lb.; acts' lor L. on assize question, 223 ; re- elected for L., 225. ■ William, mem. forL., 226, 233 ; returned for Thetford and Sca*»- borough, 233 ; but elects to sit for L., lb. ; strongly supports William and Mary, lb. ; re-elected for L., 234 ; reports to government upon constableship of Cas., 236; dies,237. Hardinge, Sir Henry, describes Third Duke of Northumberland's bene- factions to L., 312 ; mem. for Dur- ham, St. Germans, and N., 315; challenges O'Connell to a duel, lb.; opposes Reform Bill, 317; returned for L., 323 ; defends Corporation in Parliament, 324; denies charge of corruption at his election, 325 ; per- sonal altercation with Molesworth, lb. ; opposition threatened by R. P. Collier, 335 ; is appointed Viceroy 414 INDEX. of India, lb. ; and becomes a peer, lb. Hardy, John, Pr. of St. Michael's Mount, tried at L. for treason, 57. John, only victim of cholera at L., 338. Hardye, John, first baptism recorded in St. M. M. Register, 103. Harris, John. mem. for L., 155 ; ex- pelled the House for Royalism, 173. John, a condeirned prisoner buried at L., 103. -John, holder of Liskeard tithes, 71 ; directed to be re-built, 90; ef- fect of order, 91 ; Kylter's rebel- lion commenced at, 93 ; pavs ship money, 152; elects Alexander Pen- darves, 251 ; Savings' Bank founded at, 307 ; price paid by the borough patron, 312. Hender, John Clode, early Wesleyan trustee, 283. — : Thomas Brooks, on Board of Plealth, 340n; juryman of N., 36811; assists to found Dunheved College, 84. J., Freemason at L., 37211. Harrison, Captain John, action regard- ing imprisoned pirates at L., 130. Harvey, Henry M., Freemason at L., 37211 ; trustee of L. infirmary, 374m Miss, see Davenport. Harwich, represented by Lord Cheney, 234- Haslemere (Surrey) elects Peter Bur- rell, 266. Hatch, Nicholas, preaches a R. ser- mon in St. M. M., 159 ; summoned before the Parliament, 161. Hawkers, petitioned against by L., 281. Hawkins, Sir John, of L. descent, 211. John, one of last Local Guardians, 28011 ; on Board of Health, 34011; Freemason at L., 37211. Hay Common, property of Corpora- tion, 279. Havman, Charles Henry, lieutenant of L. Fire Brigade, 374. Henry, on last committee of L. Mechanics' Institute, 337m Hayne, Richard, first secretary of L. Mechanics' Institute, 336n. Heath, Richard, manufacturer of L. executioner's rope, 305. Heddon, William, rector of St. S., 122; involved in Chancery suit, lb. Hedon (Yorkshire) elects Sir John Clobery, 209. Helston, granted same privileges as L., 37 ; first returned mem. to Par- liament, 43 ; intimate connection between its representatives and those of L., 63; a Stannary town i 371- William, trader at L., 320. Hengest, see Hingston Down. Hengestesdun, see Hingston Down. Henrietta Maria, Queen, at Exeter, 1 74 ; assisted by Sir Hugh Pyper, 1 75 ; escapes through Cornwall to- France, lb. Henry the Third and L., 38 ; and C, 124. — the Fourth, confirms previous charter to L., 63. - the Fifth, grants charter to town, 63 ; picture said to have stood over a L. Gate, 64 ; borrows from Py., 65. the Sixth and Py., 73. the Seventh, rebelled against by the Cornish, 71 ; interferes with the Stannaries, lb.; confirms local char- ters, lb.; grants eight annual courts to L., 72. the Eighth sues Py. for debt, 73 ; proposes to re-establish Cornish bishopric, 87 ; confirms L. charters, 95- Henwood, — condemned at L. for murder,305; executedat Bodmin,Ib. Heppen-stocks at L., 260m Herbert, Thomas, mem. for N., 254 ; dies, 258. ■ Nicholas, mem. for N., 258. Herle, Edward, of Landue, mem. for L., 244 ; dies, 251. Nicholas, mayor of L., accused of illegal electoral practices, 252 [died August 4, 1728.] Heine, John, contests N., 137. Hertford, Marquis of, signs Sir Ralph Hopton's commission, 159; joins the Cornish R., 167. INDEX. 415 Hertfordshire, elects Lord Grimston, 3 i8n. Hexworthy, residence of Colonel Bennett, 1S5 ; tradition that Crom- well visited there, lb. Hicks, Henry, churchwarden of St. M. M., 22on. John, canon of L., acknow- ledges Royal supremacy, 79 ; signs the surrender, 83. John, mayor of L., 193. Thomas, mayor of L, 81 ; in- volved in Py. dispute, lb. ; law-suit with Bewes, Glanvyle, and Horwill, 86 ; and with Henry Greston, lb. ; holder of a tenth of St. M. M., 86n; probable builder of oldest house still standing, 1 10 ; a lease of his disputed, 113; probably buried at St. T., 122. Thomas, alderman of L., 342n ; buried in ch., lb. Mill, roads at, 277. Hide, see Hyde. Higgs, John, barber at L., 329. High Commission Court, victim of in C, 150. Street, its probable antiquity, 45. Hindon (Wilts) elects Sir Charles Harbord, 210. Hine, James, architect of Dunheved College, 37m; and Freemasons Hall, 372. and Odgers, architects for res- toration of St. S. ch., 369. Hingston Down, name derived from Hengest, 1 1 ; battle of, 13. Hinton, Sir John, describes death of Sir Beville Grenville, 167. Hocken, Robert, mayor of L., i2on. Samuel, early Wesleyan trustee, 290n. Hole, William, preaches opening ser- mon at Werrington ch., 259m Holman, John, policeman at L., 373. Samuel, supports Stevenson for N., 310. Holsworthy, Charles Prince of Wales at, 182 ; Fairfax advances through towards L., lb. ; originally included inL.Weslcyan circuit, 283; separated therefrom, 308 ; coach communica- tion with L., 333; proposed railway to, 355- Holy Well, at Gallows' Hill, 31211. Homes, William, soldier buried at L., 212. Honiton, elects Sir William Pole, 251. Honney, Digory, a tenant of Laun- cestonland, 141. Honyland, John, Pr., 65; lends money to Henry V., lb. ; his arrangement with Liskeard, 83. Hopkyn, William, Pr., 73. Hopton, Sir Ralph, signs the Pro- testation, 155; leader of the Cor- nish R., 158 ; charged at L. assizes with disorderly proceedings, 159; acquitted by grand jury, lb. ; re- turns to Truro and gathers troops, 160 ; marches on and seizes L., Id.; proceeds to Saltash, lb. ; clears C. of P., 161 ; false rumours of his death, 162, 165 ; besieges Exeter. 162 ; but retreats to L., lb. ; which he abandons at Stamford's approach, lb. ; defeats Ruthven at Bradock Down, lb. ; and Saltash, 163 ; and concludes treaty with P., lb. ; de- fends L. against James Chudleigh, lb. ; marches to Stratton and de- feats Stamford, 165; is with Charles, Prince of Wales, at L.,. 178, 182 ; defeated and wounded at Torring- ton, 182 ; and retreats through L. to the West, lb. ; again defeated, 186 ; and concludes treaty with Fairfax, lb. Horeston, or Horton, see De Horton. Horlock, Darrel H. W., Freemason at L., 37211. Hornicote, name of witness to early charter, 42. Horse Bridge, name derived from Horsa, 11. Horsey, John, independent minister at L., 2§2n, 370 ; protests against Presbyterian practices, 282m Horten family stricken by the Plague, 108. Horwcll, Christopher, of Lawhitton, buried at St. S., 249. John, viander of N., 235 ; supports Jolin Morice's candidature, lb.; bequeaths money to found school 416 INDEX. at St. S., 249 ; estate thrown into Chancery, 250 ; charity not rescued for nearly a century, 293. HorwelPsEndowedSchool, foundation money bequeathed, 249 ; chancery suits concerning, 293, 294 ; school house built, 294 ; subsequent suc- cess, lb. Horwill, John, law-suit with Thomas Hicks, 86. Hospital Sunday collection at L., 374. Howard, John, visits L. gaol, 272. Howell, David, contests L., 323 ; signs petition complaining of corruption at L., 325n; supports L. on assize question, 328. Howells, Thomas, seeks reversion of constableship of Cas., 236. Huddersfield, J. B. Sidgwick curate at, 344. Hughes, C, incumbent of Tavistock, I56n ; preaches sermon at William Crompton's funeral at L., lb. Hull, Joseph, incumbent of St. M. M., 192; assists to celebrate a civil mar- riage, 193 ; granted augmentation of salary by Council of State, 19511. Hundred of East, see East. Hungate, Sir Henry, mem. fprN., 134. Huntshaw (Devon) J. B. Sidgwick rector of, 344. Hurdin, Robert de, witnesses local deed, 61. Hurdyn, Robert, holder of a knight's fee in L., 55. Hustings at L., site of, 330. Hutton, J. H., master of L. grammar school, 293 ; singular conduct at a burial, 297. Huxham, John, on first Board of Health, 340. Hyde, Sir Edward, see Clarendon. Lawrence, mem. for N., 209. (Henry) Lord, mem. for L., 237 ; eight times elected, 242 ; as- sists at presentation of L. address to Anne lb. ; appointed to office, 243 ; succeeds to Earldom ot Roch- ester, lb. Incumbents of St. M. M., see Clergy- men of L. Incumbents of St. S., William Heddon, 122 ; John Lethbridge, 293; Charles Lethbridge, 293n ; E. Polwhele, 369n ; and E. S. T. Daunt, lb. of St. T., Charles Lethbridge, 293n; J. H. Kendall, 346; S. C. Clarke, lb. ; and W. S. Johns, 346m Independency in L., earliest definite mention of, 241 ; languishing state, 271 ; subsequent revival, 272 ; and progress, 282 ; church formed, 283 ; continued success, 308, 370 ; chapel restored and new school rooms built, 370. Indulgences granted in support of minstrels of St. M. M., 67 ; and of chapel of St. Catherine, 68. Infirmary, founded at L., 374. Inns at L., order to suppress unneces- sary, 126; earlrest official mention of, lb. ; White Hart, 237, 273 ; White Horse, 246 ; King's Arms, 2 73> 3 21 ; Exeter, 274; Westgate, 305 ; Plymouth Dock (now Devon- port) 309 ; Northumberland Arms, 364 ; Bell, 372 ; and London, lb. Inoculation, practised at L., 299. Ipswich, contested by R. H. A. Bennet, 295. Irby, Sir William, contests L., 255 ; unsuccesfully petitions against King, 255-56 ; re-elected for L., 258 ; chosen for Bodmin, 259. Jacobitism, in C, 245 ; and at L., lb. Jacobstowe, chaplain of, see Williapi. Jackson, Thomas, independent minis- ter at L., 370. Jago-Aruncrell, Francis Vyvyan, born at L., 298; rector of Landulph, lb. ; interested in local history, lb. Jago, Thomas, assists L. on poor ques- tion, 289 ; appointed clerk of Local Guardians, lb. James the First, grants part of pos- sessions of Py. to Richard Connock, 124. the Second, deprives several C. towns of their liberties, 230. Jarpenfelt, John, bailiff of N., 9m. Jeffrey, John, constable of Lawrick, refuses to take John Roberts to L. INDEX. 4«7 Gaol, 148 ; and is brought before Privy Council, lb. Jenkins, Caleb, mayor of L., 255 ; accused of illegal electoral practices, lb. Jervis, Sir John (Earl St. Vincent) mem. for L., 277; assists L. on poor question, 279. Jessopp, John Sympson, contests N., 29O. John of Eltham, see Eltham. the Dyer, see Dyer, John the. King, an d L. Cas., 34; benefits Py., 37 ; nickname given to J. K. Lethbridge, 336. Johns, William Stabback, vicar of St. T., 346n ; head master of Grammar School, lb. Joice, James, executed at L., 304n. Jonas, Richard, a soldier buried at L., i/3- Jory, Samuel, constable of L., 309 ; killed in execution of his duty, lb. Jose, Nicholas, a Quaker, imprisoned at L., 202 ; again imprisoned atL., 2 3l- Joseph, Michael, a rebellious C. black- smith, 71. Judges of L. County Court, W. C. Rowe, 348 ; — Praed, lb. ; M. Fortescue, lb. ; and M. Bere, lb. Junius (of the "Letters") and Rigby, 261 ; de Grey, 270. Jury, — trader at Yeolmbridge, 320. Kardinan, see Cardinan. Keche, Bartholomew, mem. for L., 48. Keeper of the Clock, see Clock. of the Gaol, see Gaol. Kelly. Reginald, Chairman of L. Board of Guardians, 327. Kendall, William, complains against Pr. Shere, 80; sues John Austync in Town Court, 104 ; is granted a monopoly of the alum manufacture, 104m John Henrj', head master of Grammar School, 345; incumbent of St. T., 346 ; vicar of Warbstowe and Trcneglos, lb. Kennard's House, roads at, 277. Kennaway, Sir John, contests N., 296. Kennington, J. G. Curry, curate at, ,344". Kensey, River, mentioned in charter to Leper Hospital, 41 ; probably referred to by Leland, 87. Kenver, Thomas, presented at Town Court for mal-practices, 105. Kessell, Warden, agent for Bodmin on assize question, 233. Kestle Wood, supposed Roman en- campment at, 6 ; leased to D. Gren- viile, 106 ; tenements at, sold by Duchy, 142. Kilkhampton, originally included in L. Wesleyan circuit, 283 ; and separated therefrom, 308. Kilhgrew, Henry, mem. for town, 97. Sir Robert, elected for C, 132. Sir William, contests N., 137 ; returned for Penryn, 138. -William, leases L. Park, 106 ; probable castellan, H2n. Kiltor, see Kylter. Kindergarten School, at L., 372. King Arthur and L. Cas., 9; river Attery called after, 10. Anthony, one of earliest Local Guardians, 263. Edward, curate of St. M. M., 34411 ; vicar of Werrington, lb. — John (Lord King) mem. for L., 255 ; unduly re-elected, lb. ; succeeds to peerage, 256 [died Feb- ruary 10, 1740]. Philip, involved in local chan- cery suit, 113. Richard the Second, grants charter to town, 60. Stephen, benefits Py., 30, 82. King-of-Arms, see Clarencieux and Garter. Kingdon, John, a L. cutler, 104. Nicholas, baptised at L., 104. Oswald, mayor of L., 19 1 ; proclaims Commonwealth, lb. Richard, one of earliest Local Guardians, 263. King's Aims Hotel, earliest mention of, 273 ; curious transaction a^t, 278n ; electoral incident at, 311"; reform meeting at, 316; present building erected, 321 ; first meeting place of L. Freemasons, 372. 4i8 INDEX. Kittow, J., Freemason at L., 372n. Knights' fees, held of L. Cas., 55. service, various forms in C, 61; question regarding" Cas„ 112; investigation by Charles, Duke of C, 124; abolished by Parliament, 211 ; last instances of at L., lb. Knill, George, castellan, 264. Kylter, William, leader of C. rebel- lion, 93; tried with his brother at L., and executed, lb.; his conduct while in L. gaol, lb. Lacy, Bishop, connection with Py., 67 ; grants indulgence in supportof minstrels of St. M. M., lb. ; and of Chapel of St. Catherine, 68. Lake, Mr., assists Bodmin on assize question, 258. Lampon, John, justice of L., assists at a civil marriage, 193. Lancestreton, 7 ; Lanstuphadon, 14; Laundscireton, 15 ; Lancestona, lb.; Lanscaveton, lb.; Lanzaventon, lb.; Lanzaneton, lb. ; Launcendaniton, lb., ancient or suggested names of L. Landu, Thomas de, and William de, holders of tenure, 61. Landue, tenure granted at, 61 ; resi- dence of Nicholas Trefusis, 136; of Edward Herle, 244 ; of T. J. and P. Phillips, 3i2n; and of J. S. Tregoning, lb. John, mem. for L., 48m Laneast, tenements at sold by Duchy, 142 ; Wesley preaches at, 260 ; G. B. Gibbons vicar of, 298m Langdon, James and John, traders at L., 320. Walter, a Cornish supporter of the loan, 138 ; imprisoned in the Tower, lb'. ; receives profits of manors of L. and Trematon, 211. Langedone, John, witnesses a deed at L., 61. Langford, Emanuel, punished at L. by Star Chamber, 151. Langore Sunday School founded, 290. Lanscavetone, manor of St. S. canons, described in Domesday, 23 ; de- prived of its market by Robert of Mortain, lb. ; serfdom at, lb. Lansdowne, battle of, Sir Beville Grenville killed at, 167. Charles (Lord) mem. for L., 226 ; defends Devonshire against the French, 235. Viscount, see Grenville. Latham, Launceston, character in story, 376. Laud, Archbishop, and Prynne, Bast- wick, and Burton, 149 ; and vicar of St. S., 150. Launceston, its foundation unknown, I ; Roman coins discovered, 6 ; possibly first a British stronghold, I I ; said to have been founded by Eadulphus, 1 4 ; suggested derivations of name, 7, 14, 15 ; probably a West Saxon town, 17 ; Cas. built, 22 ; described in Domesday, 23 ; Py. founded, 28 ; earliest taxation, 32 ; original charter, 37 ; first returned members to Parliament, 43 ; question with Liskeard concerning prisoners, 52 ; and with Lostwithiel regarding assizes, 54 ; visited by the Black Prince, 56 ; receives charter from Richard the Second, 60 ; feudal customs connected with Duke of Cornwall's visits, 62 ; charters con- firmed by Henry the Fourth, 63 ; intimate connection between its rep- resentatives and those of Helston, 63 ; affected by Cade's rebellion, 67 ; visited by William of Worcester, 68 ; Flammock's rebels at, 71 ; Warbeck's rebels at, lb. ; a stannary town, lb. ; charters confirmed by Henry VII., lb. ; and VIII., 95 ; and Edward VI., 96 ; visited by Leland, 87 ; a sanctuary town, 89 ; directed to be rebuilt, 90 ; effect of order, 91 ; supposed Flemish settlers, lb. ; grammar school established, 92 ; occupied by insurgents during Arun- dell's rebellion, 94 ; market dispute with N., 96 ; granted new charter by Philip and Mary, 98 ; Agnes Prest tried for Protestantism at, 99 ; the Pr. commissioned to pursue a Lollard, 99 ; Tregian and Maine imprisoned for Roman Catholicism, 100; the latter tried and condemned, 101 ; and executed in L. market INDEX. 419 place, 102 ; parish register com- menced, 103 ; ancient borough re- cords discovered, 104 ; working of Town Court, 104-5 ; wool trade at, 105 ; borough rent-roll, 106 ; Gram- mar School transferred from Week St. Mar) 7 to, 107 ; preparations to meet the Spanish invasion, lb. ; ravages of the Plague, 108 ; horrible condition cf Gaol, 108-9; prevalence of gaol-fever, 109, 1 13; visited by Norden, 1 10 ; mayor-choosing cus- toms at, II). ; receives certificate of arms, lb. ; local chancer}' cases dur- ing reign of Elizabeth, 113; expenses of Elizabethan judges at, 1 14-7; pilchard fishery commissioners meet at, n8n ; prosecutions of Roman Catholics at, 1 18-9 ; last active days of Leper Hospital, 119-20; vital statistics at opening of seventeenth century, 123 ; right of sanctuary abolished, 124; return concerning the bailliwick, lb. ; its earliest con- nection with literature, 125 ; un- necessary alehouses suppressed, 126; price of corn at, 126-48; pirates imprisoned, 129-30; dealings at assizes with refusers of forced loan, 136; John Mohun wishes to take his title from town, 138 ; sale of Duchy property at, 141 ; march of impressed soldiers through, 143 ; connection with the stannary dispute, lb. ; Eliot concerned in cases at assizes, 144-6; seamen imprisoned for circulating false rumours about Duke of Buckingham, 147 ; Dr. Bastwick imprisoned in Cas., 149 ; portion of Cas. falls and kills keeper and his wife, lb. ; fatal accidents at, iSon; Star Chamber victims at, 151 ; ship-money paid by, 152 ; clergy, &c. sign the Protestation, 156; alocallinen-draperpunishcdfor insulting the Parliament, 1 57; various traders at, 158 : rallying point of the Cornish Parliamentarians, lb. ; scene of legal struggle between P. and R., 159 ; appealed to by both parties, 160; fortified by P., lb.; but evacuated at Hopton's approach, lb.; plundered by R., 162; who retreat before Stamford, lb. ; who in turn retreats before Hopton after Bradock Down, 163 ; unsuccessfully attacked by P., 163-4; loca l surgeons attend wounded R., 165 ; descrip- tion in Civil War times, 168-69; rise of death-rate during Rebellion, 172- 73; captured by Essex, 174; but soon evacuated, 1 76 ; Charles the Eirst passes through, lb. ; R. majority in Corporation, 177; C. train- bands assemble at, lb. ; head quar- ters of Charles, Prince of Wales, 1 78 ; Sir Richard Grenville impri- soned at, 179; the Prince evacuates town, 180-2; after R. had plundered it, 18 in ; attacked and captured by Eairfax, 182-83 '< visited by Crom- well, 185 ; P. forces march from C. through, 1 86 ; mayor complained of to Parliament for ill-using Peter Le Royer, 188 ; civil marriages during Commonwealth, 193 ; minister granted augmentation of salary by Council of State, 195 ; persecutions of the Quakers, 195, 202 ; Cas. and Park sold to Colonel Bennett, 203 ; last instance of Knight-service at, 211; prodigies at, 212; collections in aid of various distressed places, 220, 221 ; unsuccessful attempts to remove assizes to Bodmin, 222-24 ' its prosperity in seventeenth century, 228 ; rejoicings because of victory over Dutch, 229 ; Whig influence in, lb. ; receives new charter from James II., 230; which is declared invalid at Revolution, lb. ; renewed prosecutions of Quakers, 230-31 ; people of town warned against con- tinued persecution, lb. ; county ad- dress to William and Mary voted at, 234 ; earliest booksellers, 237; Jaco- bites at, 245 ; partially successful attempt to remove assizes to Bodmin, 246-48 ; houses rebuilt and Ch. repaired, 250; qualifications of par- liamentary voters settled by Com- mons, 253 ; gives title to Prince of Wales, 254 ; temporarily regains second assize, 257 ; but again loses it, 258 ; Wesley's visits to, 260-61 ; first legislative provision for the 420 INDEX. poor, 262 ; legislation affecting the roads, 267, 277 ; connection with the stage, 267, 273 ; people desirous to save Pearce the wrecker, 268 ; John Howard's visit, 272 ; gaol im- proved, 275; new road made to Bodmin, 277 ; milestones erected to Truro, lb. ; legislative dealings with Aftermath Fund, 279 ; inhabitants petition for P. reform, 280; Corpora- tion petitions against hawkers, 281 ; progress of Nonconformity, 282-83 ; superstition in, 283 ; parliamentary return concerning charities, 284 ; volunteering at during French war, 285 ; first Sunday Schools founded, 290 ; borough bounds beaten, 291 ; condition of Grammar and Horwell Schools at beginning of nineteenth century, 293 ; social aspects at same penod, 296-99 ; first Bible Christian Conference held at, 300 ; improve- ments early in present century, 301 ; latest executions at, 304 ; social amusements of, 306-7 ; Savings' Bank established, 307 ; waterworks provided by Third Duke of Nor- thumberland, 312; concerned in Reform struggle, 316; deprived of one mem., 318; trade and manu- factures fifty years ago, 320 ; social state at same period, 322 ; twice contested after passing of Reform Act, 323, 324; Corporation attacked in Parliament, 324 ; Town Council founded, 326 ; alterations effected by New Poor Law, lb. ; loses second Assize, 328 ; old Guildhall and Gaol destroyed, 329, 330 ; market-houses built, 329 ; visited by Queen of Por- tugal, 331 ; Cas. grounds laid out lb. ; coach and wagon communica- tions, 332, 334 ; Mechanics' Insti- tute founded, 336 ; dies, 337 ; rise of United Methodists, 337 ; one cholera case at, 338 ; official inquiry into sanitary condition, lb. ; Board of Health formed, 340 ; new water supply, lb. ; introduction of gas, 341 ; restoration of Ch., 342 ; latest clergymen, 344 ; close of Grammar School's history, 346 ; new regula- tions concerning recovery of debts, 347 ; earliest canal and railway schemes, 348 and foil. ; line opened to Tavistock, 354 ; another com- menced to Halwill, 356 ; municipal contests, lb. ; present newspapers founded, 358 ; volunteer corps established, 359 ; militia mustered at, 361 ; latest parliamentary con- tests, 364, 366 ; proposed to be grouped with Bodmin and Liskeard, 367 ; school board formed, 368 ; progress of Nonconformity, 369 ; Friendly Societies at, 372 ; new police arrangements, 373 ; Fire Bri- gade established, lb. ; infirmary founded, 374 ; connection with lite- rature, lb. ; name given to second town of Tasmania, 376. -Bodmin and Wadebridge Junc- tion Railway Company formed, 355 ; absorbed in Central Cornwall Com- pany, lb. Castle, see Castle. Church, see Church. Marion, character in novel, 376. Members for, see Members. name of race horse, 376. — Priory, see Priory. Tasmania, said to have been founded by local settlers, 376. Weekly News founded, 358. and South Devon Railway company formed, 352 ; bill passed, 354 ; line made, lb. ; concern ves- ted in South Devon, and ultimately in Great Western Company, 354m Launcestonland manor, tenants in time of Edward IV., 66 ; law-suit concerning, 86 ; sold by the Duchy, 141 ; two tenants ask to be more moderately rented, lb. Langdon, Thomas Ching, auditor of L. Savings' Bank, 307n ; captain ot L. Volunteers, 360; last viander of N., 368. Lausant, Roger de, granted a tenure at Landue, 61 ; witnesses local deed, lb. Lavis, David, connected with Steven- son's contest at N., 31m ; juryman of N., 368m Lawhitton, bronze celt discovered at, 5 ; manor of the Bishop of Exeter, INDEX. 421 29, 31 ; mentioned in Domesday, 31; Bishop Bronescombe at, 40; Ch. first mentioned; 46 ; clergy, &c., sign the Protestation, 156 ; corn seized by R. at, 18m. Lawrence, Arthur, concerned in L. election, 256. Brother, chosen Pr., 40. Charles, alderman of L., 263. Christopher Morshead, buried by torchlight at L., 298. Humphry, mayor of L., 278 ; concerned in Scarne transaction, lb. Humphry, his son, buried by torchlight at L., 298 -Humphry, his grandson, buried at L., 299, John, canon of L., acknow- ledges royal supremacy, 79 ; signs the surrender, 83. Northmore Herle Pierce, on first Board of Health, 340. Lazar Ground, rented to W. Mitchell, 285 ; income devoted to L. infir- mary, 374. Leach, Nicholas, mem. for N., 187-88. Le Royer, Peter, complains to Par- liament of ill-usage at L., 188. Lee, John, mem. for N., 261 ; dies, 268. Sir George, mem. for L., 261 ; acts on committee on poor bill, 262 ; dies, 265. Leeds, Duke of, patron of Helston, 312. Leland visits L., 87; describes it, 87-8. Lemon, Sir Charles, mem. for C, 317. Lenne, John, a rebellious L. mercer, 69 ; a subsidy commissioner, 70. William, a subsidy-commis- sioner, 70. Leper Hospital of St. Leonard (or Lazar House) founded at Gilmartin, 41 ; alms granted to, 82 ; latest in- stances of activity, 119; its seal, l2on; last glimpses of, 284. Lercedekne, John, holder of knight's fee irom L. Cas., 55. Leresche, Mr., counsel on L. election petition, 364. Lethbridge, Charles, incumbent of St. T., 293 ; agitates concerning Hor- well charity, 293, 294 ; vicar of St. S., 293n ; rector of Landulph, lb. ; and incumbent of Stokeclimsland, lb. ; dies at St. S., lb. Christopher, deputy recorder of L., 287 ; concerned in election dispute, lb. ; concerned in Horwell charity dispute, 294. John Christopher Baron, pre- sent representative of Baron family, 232; chairman of L. Board of Guard- ians, 327 ; named as possible can- didate for L., 336 ; [died, Jan. 9, 1885.] John, chaplain of L. gaol, 272; incumbent of St. S., 293; concerned in Horwell charity dispute, 294. John King, concerned in Hor- well charity dispute, 294 ; deputy- recorder of L., 302 ; and Town Clerk, 325 ; Chairman of L. Board of Guaidians, 327 ; supports L. on assize question, 328 ; proposed as mem. for L., 336. Letter of Thanks, sent by Charles the First to the Cornish, 172; copy preserved at L., lb. Lewannick, tenements at sold by Duchy, 142 ; P. march through, 184 ; roads at, 277 ; volunteering at, during French war, 285 ; William Carpenter vicar of, 2S6. Lewis, Sir George Cornewall, as Sec- retary for War, opposes L. Railway Bill, 353- Jonas, Independent minister at L., 283 ; resigns charge, 289. Leye, Roger, Pr., 58. Lezant, volunteering at during French war, 285. Liberal contests at L., 356. Lidford burnt by the Danes, 13 ; shocking condition of its gaol, 108; imprisonment of Richard Strode at, iogn ; R. horse quartered at, 179 ; South Western Railway opened to, 333 ; first railway scheme affecting, 351- Lifton, first taxed, 32 ; Laurence Ste- vine or Bedeman rector of, 100; wool trade at, iosn ; occupied by the P., 160, 164; men impressed by R., 174 ; P. retreat to, 180; R. 422 INDEX. horse posted at, 182 ; again occupied by P., 18411 ; mines at, 320. Lifton Down, connected with Steven- son's contest at N., 311. Ligon, Richard, purchases manors from Duchy, 141. Lillicrap, Henry, juryman of N., 368m Linkinhorne, dispute with Py, 58 ; contributes towards chantry in Py., . 6 5- Linton, Mrs. Lynn, mentions L. in tale, 375. Liskeard granted same privileges as Launceston, 39 ; leper hospital at, 4*2 ; first returned members to Par- liament, 43 ; parson's dispute with L. Py., 50 ; tenants' dispute with same, lb. ; question with L. con- cerning prisoners, 52; disputes with the Py., 58, 83 ; vicars appointed by Py., 84 ; tithes granted to Hum- phry Prideaux, lb. ; vicar appointed by sovereign, lb. ; directed to be rebuilt, 90 ; represented by William Coryton, 132 ; occupied byR., 166; Charles I. passes through, 176; charter altered by James II., 230 ; validity of action contested at L. assizes, lb. ; originally included in L. Weslcyan circuit, 283 ; Savings' Bank founded, 307; separated from L. Wesleyan circuit, 308 ; elects Charles Buller, 324 ; projected rail- way communication with L., 336; proposed to be grouped with L. and Bodmin, 367. and Caradon Railway, com- munication with L., 356. Literature, L.'s connection with, 374. Lithuanian Protestants, collections at L. in aid of, 220. Littleton, William, early Wesleyan trustee, 2gon. Loan demanded by Charles I. resisted inC, 135, 138. Local Board, see Board of Health. Local Guardians for L., first consti- tuted, 263 ; petition to have powers enlarged, 278; new act passed, 280; extinction of body, lb. ; latest members, 28cm ; proceedings in early part of nineteenth century, 299 ; restrict preachings of Metho- dists in Workhouse, lb. Lock-up, see South Gate. Lodge Dunheved, of L. Freemasons, 372. Lollardism in Cornwall, 99. Long Ashton, W. M. Birch curate of, 344- Longland Common, property of Cor- poration, 279. London Inn, first meeting place of L. Foresters, 372. Looe (see East and West). Lopes, Henry Charles, mem. for L., 3 r >2 ; son of Ralph Franco, 363; re- turned for Frome, lb. ; becomes judge, lb. Sir Manasseh, convicted at L. of bribery, 363m Lords, House of, assists L. on assize question, 223, 258. Lostwithiel, 7 ; assizes temporarily removed to, 39 ; assizes continued there by Earl Edmund, 52 ; re- moved to L. by Act of Parliament, 54 ; a stannary town, 71 ; directed to be rebuilt, 90 ; centre of fighting between Charles I. and Earl of Essex, 176; elects Vesey Fitz- gerald, 314; polling place for C, 317- Lower, Humphrey, a Quaker imprison- ed at L., 202. Loyal Unity Lodge of Oddfellows at L., 372. Luke, see Lake. Luttrell, Francis, granted yearly fair at Penheale, 234. Narcissus, contests N., 234 ; petitions against John Morice's re- turn, 234; petition drops, 235; returned for Saltash, lb. Luxmore, John, assists L. on roads question, 267. Luxycross and L. Prisoners, 52. Lymington, collection at L. in aid of, 220 ; elects George Rose, 282. Lyne, Samuel, possesses bowling green at L., 1 99n ; concerned in L. election, 256 ; and in a love romance, 263. Joanna, marries Edmund Cheyne, 264. INDEX. 423 Mabilia, Countess, buried in L. chap- ter house, 88. Macpherson, James (" Ossian") sits for Camelford, 289. Maddever, Robert D., juryman of N., 368m Maddox, Philip Doddridge, Freemason at L., 372n. T. W., Printer at L., 349n. Madford House, earliest mention, 106; probable residence of Charles Prince of Wales while in L., 179. Maine, Cuthbert, Roman Catholic priest, arrested in C, 100; impri- soned and tried at L., lb. ; executed, 102. Maitland, Viscount, mem. for N., 276; and Malmesbury, 280 ; assists L. on poor question, lb. Major, W., earliest local bookseller, 237- Malcolm, Sir John, mem. forL., 316. Maldon elects General Rainsford, 282. Malivery, Maulever, or Mauleverer, see Malyverer. Malmesbuiy, elects LordMaitland,28o. Malyverer, Halnatheus, castellan, 69. Manaton, Ambrose, of Trecarrell, de- prived of justiceship for Cornwall for refusing loan, 136 ; his early history, 142 ; returned for Laun- ceston 152-53; recorder of L., 153; signs the Protestation, 155 ; ex- pelled the House for Royalism, 173; sits in the Parliament at Oxford, 174 ; and is made D.C.L., lb.; Charles I. stays at his house, 176; is fined by Parliament, 187 ; is par- doned, lb. ; and dies, 188. ■ Ambrose, the younger, mem. for N., 225; unsuccessfully petition- ed against, lb. ; re-elected, lb. ; viander of N., 235 ; supports Lutt- rell's candidature for N., lb. ; and sits for Camelford, 235m Manchester, a sanctuary town, 89 ; deprived of privilege, 90. Manganese mines at St. S., 320. Mann, George, one of earliest Local Guardians, 263. Mannington or Manyngton, perver- sions of Manaton, I36n, I42n. Captain and Sergeant, Royal- ist officers stationed at L., 166. Manufactures at L., 320. Margary, P. J., engineer of L. rail- way, 354. Marhamchurch, vicar of, see Robert. Marlborough, collection at L. in aid of, 220. Market, L., originally at St. S., 20 ; removed to L. by Robert of Mor- tain, 23 ; held in streets, 2g8n. Day, L., on Sunday, 36 ; on Thursday, lb. ; on Saturday, lb. Houses erected, 329. place, L., mentioned by Le- land, 87 ; Cuthbert Maine executed therein, 102 ; scene of dispute be- tween P. and R., 160; and of pro- clamation of Commonwealth, 191. disputesbetweenL. and N., 96. tolls, allowance from towards incumbent of St. M. M., 330. Marriages at L., civilly celebrated during Commonwealth, 192. Marsack, Edward Lethbridge, lieu- tenant of L. volunteers, 360. Marshall, Edward, trader at L., 320. Edward, jun., vice-chairman of L. School Board, 368m Edward H., curate of St. M. M., 344m Martin, Michael, first known Indepen- dent minister in L., 241 ; leaves money towards Cas. St. Chapel, lb. Robert, bookseller at ^L., 125, 286n. Wykeham, attempts to relieve Mr. Deakin from electoral disabili- ties, 365. Martyn, John, junior officer in L. volunteer cavalry, 286. Mary, Queen (William and Mary) presented with Cornish address, 235. Masters of L. Grammar School, William Oliver, 214 ; John Ruddle, 216 ; John Wood, 292 ; W. Cow- lard, lb. ; J. H. Hutton, 293; John Henry Kendall, 345; Samuel Childs Clarke, 346 ; W. S. Johns, 346n ; William Watkins (2nd) 344n. of Horwell's Endowed School, William May, 294 ; Richard Reed, lb. 424 INDEX. Masters of Workhouse, John Derry, 280 ; John Paul, 283 ; William Hayne, 32"n; Francis P. Gruzelier, lb. Maurice, Prince, joins the Cornish R., 166 ; marches into C. with Charles the First, 176. May, William, earliest master of Hor- wells' Endowed School, 294; assists to found L. Philosophic Society, 307. Maynard, Benjamin, a fellow-sufferer at L. with Fox, 200 ; causes dis- turbance in L. Ch., lb. Serjeant John, returned for N., 152-53 ; and Totnes, lb. ; prefers to sit for latter, 154; sits in judgment on Coryton, lb. ; signs the Pro- testation, 155 ; his residence at Tavistock plundered by the Cava- liers, 161. Mayndy, Robert, mem. for L., 63. Mayors of L., Hamelin Miles, 41 ; John Beyghe, 66 ; Oliver Wise, 6cm; Richard Miller, 76; Henry Trecarrell, 80 ; Thomas Hicks, 81 ; John Vigurs, 104 ; Sampson Pyper, I04n ; William Mill, 105 ; Arthur Pyper, 119 ; Robert Hocken, i2on; Nicholas Gennys, 157 ; Oswald Kingdon, 191 ; Richard Grylls,i92, 194 ; Philip Pearse, 193, 198 ; John Hicks, lb. ; Nicholas Comins, lb. ; Henry Bennett, 194 ; Thomas Ben- nett, 245 ; Nicholas Herle, 251 ; Caleb Jenkins, 255; Edmund Cheyne, 263 ; Joshua Thomas, 266; Humphry Lawrence, 278 ; John Spettigue, 291 ; David Thompson, sen., 339 ; Thomas Symes Eyre, 340 ; James Treleaven, 340n ; W. R. Derry, 346 ; John Doidge, 352 ; G. G. White, sen., 356 ; Alderman Roe, 357. feudal custom connected with, 62. of the pig market, 306. Mechanics' Institute founded, 336 ; assisted by Fourth Duke of Nor- thumberland, 337 ; dies of inanition lb. Mellor, Sir John, decides on L. election petition, 364. Members for Cornwall : — Sir Beville Grenville, 127, 152; William Cory- ton, 127, 137; Charles Trevanion, 132 ; Sir Robert Killigrew, lb. ; John Arundel, 137 ; Sir John Eliot, lb. ; Sir Alexander Carew, 155 ; Robert Bennett, 204 ; Sir John Coryton, 223 ; Sir Jonathan Tre- lawny, lb. ; John Speccott, 23211 ; George Grenville, 243 ; John Tre- vanion, lb. ; Sir William Carew, 248 ; Sir John St. Aubyn, 253, 268 ; Sir John Molesworth, 258 ; Sir Richard Rawlinson Vyvyan, 316; E. W. W. Pendarves, 317; Sir Charles Lemon, lb. ; Sir William Molesworth (East) 324. -forL. : — John Gerveys, 41-7-8 ; Stephen Duck, lb. ; Roger de Hune- ford, 48 ; Peter Fitzjohn, lb. ; Walter Godman, lb. ; John Fitz- john, lb. ; Bartholomew Keche, lb. ; John Colyn, lb. ; John Landue, lb. ; Roger de Tavistock, 49 ; John Cork, lb. ; William Brackyf, lb. ; William de Landue, lb. ; John de Lanhun, lb. ; Robert de Penleu, lb. ; Robert de Ponton, lb. ; Henry Nannam, lb. ; Robert Wysdom, lb. ; John Moneron, 54 ; Robert Mayndy, 63 ; John Tremayne, lb. ; John Tremayne the younger, lb. ; John Hamly, lb. ; John Caeron, lb. ; Richard Trelawny, 64 ; John Palmer, 69 ; Oliver Wise, 6gn ; Henry Killigrew, 97 ; Ralph Tre- visa, 125 ; Richard Trevisa, lb. ; Sir Francis Crane, 127 ; Sir Miles Fleetwood, lb. ; Sir Beville Gren- ville, 132-33-52 ; Richard Escott, 132 ; Ambrose Manaton, 152-53 ; William Coryton, 153; John Harris, 155 ; Thomas Gewen, 187, 205-6-8 ; Robert Bennett, 205 ; Edward Eliot, 209 ; Sir John Clobery, lb. ; Richard Edgcumbe, lb. ; Sir Charles Har- bord, 209, 225 ; Bernard Grenville, 225, 234 ; John Coryton, lb. ; Sir Hugh Pyper, 225, 232 ; Charles Lord Lansdowne, 226 ; William Harbord, 226, 233, 234 ; John Grenville, 232 ; Edward Russell, 233 ; Lord Hyde, 237 ; William INDEX. 425 Car}', lb. ; Francis Scobell, 242 ; George Clarke, 243 ; John Anstis, 244 ; Edward Herle, lb. ; Alexander Pendarves, 251 ; John Friend, 251, 254 ; John Willes, 253 ; Henry Vane, 254; John King, 255; Arthur Tremavne, lb. ; Sir William Morice, lb. ; Sir William Irby, 256 ; Sir John St. Aubyn, 259 ; Humphry Morice, 260-61-70; SirGeorge Lee, 261; Peter Burrell, 266 ; William Amherst, 270; John Buller, lb.; Viscount Cranborne, 276; Thomas Bowlby, lb. ; Charles George Per- ceval, lb. ; Sir John Jervis, 277 ; George Rose, 279 ; SirJohnEdward Swinburne, 282 ; John Rodney, lb. ; Sir Henry Clinton, lb. ; William Garthshore, 286 ; John Rawdon, 288 ; James Brogden, lb. ; Richard Henry Alexander Bennet, 294-95 > Earl Percy, 295 ; Jonathan Raine, lb. ; Pownall Bastard Pel- lew, lb. ; Sir James Willoughby Gordon, 313 ; Sir John Malcolm, 316; Sir Henry Hardinge, 323; William Bowles, 336 ; Josceline William Percy, lb.; T. C. Halibur- ton, 361; A. H. Campbell, 362; H. C. Lopes, lb. ; J. H. Deakin, sen., 364 ; J. H. Deakin, jun., 365 ; and Sir Hardinge Giffard, lb. for N. : Sir Richard Grenville, 97; Sir John Eliot, 127; Richard Escott, lb. ; Paul Speccott, 132, 142, I52n, 154; Thomas Gewen, 134 ; Sir Henry Hungate, lb. ; Nicholas Trefusis, 137, 152 ; Piers Edgcumbe, 137 ; John Maynard, I 5 2 > r 53; Richard Edgcumbe, 153; Sir J. Percival, 154; Sir Philip Per- cival, 187 ; Nicholas Leach, lb. ; William Prynne, 189 ; Sir William Morice, 205, 209 ; Sir John Grenville, 205 ; Sir Francis Drake, 209 ; Law- rence Hyde, lb. ; John Speccott, lb. ; Nicholas Morice, 224; Ambrose Manaton the younger, lb. ; John Coryton, 225 ; William Coryton the younger, lb. ; William Morice, 226, 232, 233 ; John Speccott the youn- ger, 232, 233 ; Lord Cheney, 234, 237 ; John Morice, 234, 237, 238, 25m ; John Grenville, 238 ; Francis Stratford, lb. ; John Prideaux, 239 ; William Pole, 240, 251; John Sparke, lb. ; Sir Nicholas Morice, 240, 244, 251 ; Sir John Pole, 242 ; George Courtenay, lb. ; Humphry Morice, 244 ; Thomas Herbert, 254, 255 ; Sir William Morice, 255 ; Sir John Molesworth, 255 ; Nicholas Herbert, 258 ; Thomas Bury, lb. ; Sir John St. Aubyn, 259 ; John Lee, 261 ; Edward Bacon, lb. ; Richard Bull, 265, 270 ; William de Grey, 268 ; Richard Henry Alex- ander Bennet, 270; John Frederick, 271 ; Viscount Maitland, 276 ; Sir John Coghill, lb. ; Sir John Miller, 279; William Mitford, 281; Vis- count Feilding, 282 ; Charles Rains- ford, lb. ; William Northey, 289 ; Joseph Richardson, lb. ; Edward Morris, 294 ; Jonathan Raine, 295 ; Charles Greathead Bertie Percy, 310; William Fitzgerald Vesey Fitzgerald, 313 ; John Doherty, 314 ; Sir Henry Hardinge, 315 ; and Viscount Grimston, 317. Memorial windows erected in Ch., 343. Menheniot, fair granted to Sir John Trelawny, 64. Menweneck, William, clergyman of South Petherwin, 121. Merick, Colonel, a P. officer engaged in fighting before L., 164. Metherell, Abraham, Freemason atL., 372n. Midleton, Alice, married at L., 213. Middleton, W T illiam, parish clerk of L., 123. Miles, Hamelin, the first-recorded mayor of L., 41. Milestones erected from L. to Truro, 277. Military stationed at L., 212. Militia at L., 361. Mill, William, mayor of L., 105. Thomas, of St. Gennys, mar- ried at L., 193. Miller, Sir John, mem. for N., 279. Martin, concerned in Horwell charity dispute, 293-94. Richard, mayor of L., 76. 426 INDEX. Millman, John Grylls, one of last Local Guardians, 28on. Millott, Lieutenant John, buried atL., Mills, L., mentioned in Domesday, 27 ; in a Py. charter, 38. Miners, Richard, holder of Liskeard tithes, 84. Mines in L. district, 320. Minstrels of St. M. M., indulgence granted in support, 67 ; legend con- cerning, lb. ; remembered by Henry Trecarrell, 75. Miracle, alleged to have happened near Okehampton, 165 ; and at St. Ives, 215. Mires, James, a fellow-sufferer at L. with Fox, 200. Mitchell, Joseph, juryman of N., 368m William, juryman of N., 368m "VV., rents Lazar Ground, 285. Mitford, William (historian of Greece) mem. for N., 281 ; and Beeralston, lb. Moffet, William, earliest overseer for L., 280. Mohun, John, a Cornish ally of Sir James Bagg, 135 ; opponent of Sir John Eliot, 138; desired to be made Baron Mohun of L., or some other place, lb. ; denounced by Eliot for undue influence in stannary affairs, 143- Sir Reginald, signs warrant committing John Roberts to L. gaol, 148. Molesworth, Sir John, mem. for N. 255 ; and for C, 258. ■ ■ Sir William, mem. for East C, 324 ; presents petition from L., lb. ; attacks Duke of North- umberland in Parliament 325 ; personal altercation with Hardinge, lb. Moneron, John, mem. for L., 54 ; castellan, lb. Monk, Geoffrey, castellan, 36. General, relations with William Morice and Sir John Grenville, 209. Monke, family stricken by the Plague, at L., 108. Monopoly of alum manufacture granted to William Kendall of L., 104m Montacute, William de, see Salisbury. Moreman, Dr. John, a Cornish Refor- ming vicar, 12 in. Morgan, William, proposes J. K. Lethbridge as mem. for L., 336. Morice, John, candidate for N., 225 ; unsuccessfully petitions against re- turn, lb. ; elected for N., 234, 238 ; chosen for Saltash, 238 ; unsuccess- fully contests N., 239 ; again elected for N., 25 m. ■ Humphry, mem. for N., 244; assists L. on assize question, 248 ; chosen for Grampound, 251 ; dies, 26011. Humphry, his son, owner of Werrington, 259 ; mem. for L., 260, 261 ; acts on committee upon L. Poor Bill, 262 ; receives official appointments, 265, 268 ; endeavours to secure reprieve for two wreckers, 268 ; sells Werrington, 270 ; elected for both L. and N., lb. ; sits for L., 271 ; disposes of patronage of L. and N., 276. - Nicholas, mem. for N., 224. Sir Nicholas, interferes in N. election, 240 ; elected for N., lb. ; assists L; on assize question, 246 ; imprisoned by Serjeant - at - arms, 251 ; re-elected for N., lb. ; sup- ports Pendarves and Friend for L., 253 ; father-in-law of Sir John St. Aubyn, lb. ; dies, lb. Sir William, of Werrington, corresponds with Sir Beville Gren- ville, 153 ; receives Gewen's offices, 208 ; elected for N., 205 ; " and Devon, 208 ; excluded by Pride's Purge, lb.; described by Clarendon, lb.; assists Monk to restore Charles II., 209 ; and is rewarded by the King, lb. ; returned for N. and Plymouth, lb. ; chooses to sit for latter, lb.; buys Werrington, 210; supports William Oliver after his ex- pulsion, 214; his literary efforts, 214m Sir William, son of Sir Nicho- las, mem. for N. f 255 ; success- fully contests L., lb. ; re-elected INDEX. 427 for L., '258, 259; divorced from first wife, 25811 ; effects improve- ments at Werrington, 259 ; builds new mansion and Ch. there, lb. ; dies, lb. Morle or Morlye, see Morley. Morley, Alexander, churchwarden of St. M. M., 22m. John, acknowledges royal supremacy as sub-prior, 79 ; signs the surrender, 83. T., of L., inquiry regarding his marriage, 67. Morris, Edward, mem. for N., 294. Mortain, Robert, Earl of, granted Earldom of C, 20 ; builds Cas., 22 ; removes St. S. market to L., 23 ; despoils C, 25. William, Earl of, his son, 29. Mortimer, Samuel, of L., performs pedestrian feat, 292. Monvellham Quay, proposed navi- gation to Tamerton Bridge, 348. Morwenstow, chaplain of, see Richard. Mountstephen, George, first Noble Grand of L. Oddfellows, 372. Mowd, Johan, buried at L., 104. Mules, Christopher, sen., keeper of L. gaol, 304; dies, lb. Christopher, jun., keeper of L. gaol, 304 ; appointed warder at Bodmin, lb. John, keeper of L. gaol, 265, 272 ; one of founders of Trades- men's Friendly Society, 274. Municipal contests at L., 356. Mylor, minister's salary augmented by Council of State, 195 ; incumbent committed to L. Gaol, 216. Mvnanl, Lieutenant Henry, buried at L., 173. Naish, Samuel, Wesleyan minister at L., 371 ; writes Mr. Gladstone con- cerning Vatican Decrees, lb. N;irne of Launceston, suggested Ro- man derivation, 7 ; and Cornish, 14; various derivations, 15 ; see also Appendix andLancestretonin Index of Dunheved, variously de- rived, 15 ; sec also Appendix. Nannam, J Icnry, mem. for L., 49. National School, founded at L., 368. Neild, James, visits L. places of deten- tion, 290, 291. Nether- Whitacre, B. W. J., Trevald- • wyn rector of, 34411. Newport, assize of bread and ale, 54 ; relations with Py., lb. ; its bur- gesses, 66; law-suits concerning, 86; John Jarpenfelt bailiff of, 9m; first returns members, 96 ; market dis- putes with L., lb. ; origin of name, 97 ; return made by bailiff of Hun- dred of East, 106 ; electoral diffi- culties at, 133-37 ! lts parliamentary rights defended by Sir John Eliot 139-40 ; its corn seized by the R., 1S111 ; frequent electoral disputes at, 224 and foil. ; people desirous to save Pearce the wrecker, 268 ; progress of Independency at, 272 ; electoral influence divided between Duke of Northumberland and Sir Jonathan Phillips, 289 ; Town Hall built, 31 1; scene at Fitzgerald's election, 314; deprived of parlia- mentary representation, 318; court leet abolished, 36S. Square, scene of elections, 137. Town Hall erected, 311. New Bridge, mentioned by Leland, 87 ; R. defeated at, 162, 174. Mills, woollen manufacture at, 320. North Road, made, 321 ; site of United Methodist Chapel, 337. Newhaven, Viscount, see Cheney. Newhouse, barton of, part of possess- ions of Py., 124. News, old methods of circulating in L-, 33 2 . 357- Newspapers at L., The Reformer, 323n ; The Guardian, lb. ; L. V .V, ws, 358 ; East Cornwall Times, lb. ; Cornish and Devon Post, lb. Nicholas, Secretary, correspondence concerning imprisonment of pirates at L., 129; and Cornish opposition to loan, 136; his connection with Bastwick's detention at L., 150. Nicholls, Humphry, a Cornish op- ponent of the loan, 136. Nicolls, Edmund Pearse, on Board of Health, 340; assists to found Dunheved College, 371. 428 INDEX. Nicolls, John, jun., one of last Local i Guardians, 28on. John, sen., on L. School Board, 368. W. E., supports Parliamen- tary Reform, 3i6n. Nonconformist ministers in L. : — Pres- byterian, Calvinistand Independent, Michael Martin, 241 ; William Tucker, lb. ; Mr. Castle, 271 ; William Saltern, 283 ; Jonas Lewis, lb. ; Richard Cope, 289 ; Alexan- der Good, 308 ; J. Barfett, lb. ; J. Horsey, 370 ; T. E. M. Edwards, lb. ; T. Jackson, lb. ; and J. Bam- ford, lb. : Wesleyan, S. Naish, 371. Ministers, United Association of, at L., 371 ; correspond with Mr. Gladtone, lb. Nonconformity in L. in Civil War period, 241 ; beginnings of Inde- pendency, lb. ; of Wesleyanism, 260 ; of Bible Christians, 300 ; of United Methodist Free Churches, 337- Norman and Hine, architects of L. Wesleyan Chapel, 369. Norris, John Freeman, offers to contest L., 364. North Cornwall Coach Company, 334- Cornwall Railway Company formed, 355 ; works commenced, 356- Gate, scene of encounter between R. and P., 183 ; destroyed by Corporation, 301. Petherwin, occupied by R. horse, 182 ; alleged transfer of pulpit to L., 344. - Road made, 301. Tawton, coach communication with L., 333 Northampton, a sanctuaiy town, 89. Northcote, Colonel, a P. officer en- gaged in fighting before L., 164. Northey, William, mem. for N., 289 ; frequently re-elected, 294 and foil. ; suffers two contests, 296 ; dies, 310. Northgate St., site of New Indepen- dent Sunday School rooms, 370. Northhill, curate of, see Roberts ; originally included in L. Wesleyan circuit, 283; voluntceiing at during French war, 285. Northumberland Arms, election meet- ing at, 364; court leet for N. held at, 368. county of, elects Earl Percy, 295- Hugh, first Duke of, purchases Werringion, 270; gains patronage of L. and N., 276. Hugh, second Duke of, mem- ber of Duchy Council, 2S1 ; op- poses re-election of Rose for L„ C82 ; his influence at L. successfully challenged, 286; but re-established. 288 ; appointed castellan, 287 ; and recorder of L., lb. ; electoral in- fluence at N. divided with Sir Jona- than Phillips, 289 ; benefits L. Grammar School, 29311 ; concerned in Horwell Charity dispute, 293 : builds vestry room, 301 ; sends Times daily to L, 357. Hugh, third Duke of, concerned in Horwell charity dispute, 294 ; sits for L. as Earl Percy, 295 ; called to Lords, lb. ; benefactions to L., 312; builds waterworks at St. S. and L., lb. ; appointed Viceroy of Ireland, 313 ; supports Catholic Emancipation, lb. ; strongly opposes Reform Bill, 318; his influence at L. complained of to Parliament, 324 ; and there accused of corrup- tion, 325 ; attacked locally in verse, 329 ; castellan, 331 ; lays out Castle grounds, lb. ; opposes Bude Canal reaching L., 349 ; assists to found National School at L., 368. Algernon, fourth Duke of, friend of William Bowles, 336 ; visits Werrington, 337; assists Mechanics' Institute, lb. ; subscribes towards restoration of Ch., 343 ; and towards new Grammar School, 346 ; first opposes but ultimately support L. Railway, 352 ; levels Cas. Green, 361 ; sells Werrington, 362 ; cas- tellan, 366. Duchess of, (wife of Second Duke) presents colours to L. Volun- teers, 286. INDEX. 429 Northwell, Daniel, incumbent of St. M. M., 123 ; buried in Ch., 342n. Norwich, a sanctuary town, 89 ; elects Edward Bacon, 265 Novels connected with L., 375. Nowyre, Alice, buried at L., 104. Obit continued at L., 92. O'Bryan, William, founds Bible Chris- tian Connexion, 300 ; convenes first conference at L., lb. ; and second at Badasb, lb. ; temporarily resides at Badash and L... lb. O'Connell, Daniel, defeats Vesev Fitz- gerald at Clare, 314 ; his opinion of John Doherty, 3i5n; refuses to tight Sir Henry Hardinge, 315. Oddfellowship at L.. 372. Oil-lamps, L. lighted by, 341. Okehampton. preparations to meet the Spanish invasion, 107 ; base of J.unes Chudleigh's operations, 1(14; alleged miracle near, 165 ; R. foot quartered at, 179; visited by Fair- fax and Cromwell, 186 ; P. forces from L. bivouacked near, lb.; originally included in L. Wesleyan circuit, 283 ; separated therefrom, 308 ; coach communicationwith L., 333- Oldam, Bishop, grants licence to Pv., 73- Oliver, Deborah, daughter of pastor of Wells, buried at L., 21411. Francis, persecutes Quakers at L., 201. William, incumbent of St. M. M., 193; assists at civil marriages in L., 213; expelled by Act of Uniformity, lb. ; is supported by Sir William Morice, 214 ; is master of L. Grammar School, lb. ; and dies, lb. Opie, Richard, assists Bodmin on assize question, 224. ( isliorne, E., executed at L., 304n. Ottery St. Mary, manor sold by Duchy, 141. Overseers first appointed at L., 280. Oxford, collection at L. in aid of, 220. Padstow, pays ship money, 152 ; min- ister's salary augmented by Council of State, 195 ; railway communica- tion with L., 355. Paganus, chaplain of Boyton, com- mitted to L. gaol, 51-2. Page, Henry, grants a tenure at Lan- due, 61. John,witnesses a deed atL.,61. — Robert, provost of L., 66. Page's Cross, possible derivation of name, 6 in ; Union Workhouse built at, 327. Palk, Sir Lawrence (Lord Haldon) prop oses railway scheme from Exeter to L. via Lydford. 351. Palbn. John, bailiff of Hundred of early Wesleyan trus- East, ic6 Palmer, James tee, 283. John, mem. for L., 6gn ; stated to have built Greston Bridge, lb. Palmers'.cn, Lord, as Prime Minister opposes L. Railway Bill, 353. Papist, Williams the, see Williams. Parish Clerks of L., John Harbert, io3n; William Middleton, 123; John Paul, 283. Register commenced at St. M. M., 103; St. S., 121 ; and South Petherwin, 194. Registrar of St. M. M., Thos. Reese, 192 ; of St. Thomas ditto, lb. ; of St. Gennys, John Goutsoe, 193 ; of South Petherwin, Robert Cowling, 194. Park, Deer, at L., earliest notice, 55 ; mentioned by Leland, 88 ; and by Norden, in; leased to William Killigrew, 106 ; purchased by Col. Bennett, 203 ; demised to Thomas Rosse, 211. Parker, John, prisoner at L., 192. Parkman, John, owner of tenement in Castle Street, 66. Parkyn, Robert, supports Parliamen- tary Reform at L., 3i6n. Parliament and William Coryton, 155; and John Escott, 157; andNicholas Hatch, 161 ; and Leonard Treise, 186. Parliamentarians struggle with R. at L. assizes, 158; and in market- place, 160; driven out of C, 161 . 43° INDKX. encounters in C. with R., 162, 163; with whom they conclude treaty, 163 ; seize Polston Bridge, lb. ; but are defeated at L., 104; Stratton, 165 ; and Lansdowne, 167; ad- vance intoC, 171 ; but are repulsed, 172 ; again advance into C. under Essex, 174 ; are followed by Charles I. and defeated, 176; take Dart- mouth, 180 ; are beaten at Polston Bridge, lb. ; defeat Hopton at Tor- rington, 182 ; and Bolitho at L., 183 ; and are completely victorious in C, 186. Parliamentary Committee, action at L. assizes, 159; charged by grand jury with riotous proceedings, lb.; appeal to the people of L., 160; fortify the town, lb. ; and after- wards evacuate it, lb. ; again sit at L., 186. Reform, petitioned for from L., 280 ; meeting at L. in support of, 316. Parry, Serjeant, counsel on L. election petition, 364. Parson, Thomas, buys Castle Street Chapel, 272. Parsons, Charles, Freemason at L., 372n; lieutenant in L. salvage corps, 374- A\ illiam Thomas, Freemason at L., 372n. Parys, Robert, a L. canon presented to vicarage of Liskeard, 84n. Patch, Dr., assists foundation of local Philosophic Society, 307. Pattison, Samuel Rowles, first presi- dent of L. Mechanics' Institute, 337. Paul, John, early Wesleyan trustee, 283 ; parish clerk and master of workhouse, lb. Payment of Members of Parliament by L., 49. Paynter, James, tried for Jacobitism at L., 245. Pearce, Charles Thomas, first Master of L. Freemasons, 372. William, condemned at Bod- min for wrecking, 268 ; hanged at L., 269. Pears, John, a L. smith, 104. William, buried at L., 140. Pearse, Digory, persecutes Quakers a L., 201. George, early Wesleyan trus- tee, 290m John, leases Scarne, 278. Philip, mayor of L., 193 ; per- secutes the Quakers, 198, 201. Robert, a L. mercer, 158. Thomas, Chairman of Local Guardians. 299 ; supports Parlia- mentary Reform, 31611 ; his political action discussed in Parliament, 324. Thomas, of N., trader at L., 320. William Deny, first Junior Warden of L. Freemasons, 372. - William, trader at L., 320. William, early Wesleyan trus- tee, 283, 29on. Peel, Sir Frederick, holds official rail- way inquiry at L., 355. Pellew, Pownall Bastard, mem. for L., 295; resigns rather than support Catholic Emancipation, 313. Pembroke, Earl of, commits John Roberts to L. gaol for contempt, 148. Pendarves, Alexander, mem. for L., 251 ; Saltash, Penryn, and Helston, lb. ; re-elected for L., lb. ; unsuc- cessfully petitioned against, 252 ; dies, 254. E, W. W., mem. for C, 317. Sir William, contests L., 245 ; unsuccessfully petitions against An- stis and Herle. lb. Pendennis, Charles Prince of Wales escapes hence to France, 182 ; governor ordered 1o inquire into Quakers' sufferings at L., 198 ; Quaker imprisoned at, 202 ; Colonel Bennett appointed governor, 203. Penfest, manor held of L. Cas., 55. Penheale, residence of the Speccotts, 126; tenements at sold by Duchy, 142 ; fair granted to Francis Lutt- rell, 234. Penny Bank founded at L., 307n. Readings at L., 347. Pennygillam, Great and Little, pro- perty of Corporation, 279. Pensions to the L. canons, 8^. INDEX. 431 Penryn, visited by William of "Wor- cester, 68 ; Grammar School en- dowed, 107 ; represented by Sir William Killigrew, 138 ; pays ship- money, darves, !5- ; 5i- elects Alexander Pen- Penwarden, Mr., connected with early L. printing, 274. Penzance, pays ship - money, 152 ; Savings' Bank founded, 307. Perceval, Charles George (Lord Arden) mem. for L., 276; assists L. on roads question, 277 ; protests against reception of petition from inhabi- tants, 2 78 ; appointed to office, lb. ; and re-elected, lb. ; assists L. on poor question, 279, 280 ; elected for Totnes, 28211. Percival, Sir J., mem. for X., 154. Sir Philip, mem. for N., 187-8. Percy, Charles Greathead Bertie, mem. for N., 310; suffers contest, lb." 1 ; appointed to office, 313. Earl, mem. for L., 295 ; Buck- ingham, Westminster, and North- umberland, lb. ; called to Upper House, lb. ; and see Third Duke of Northumberland. Lord' Algernon, see Fourth Duke of Northumberland. Josceline W., mem. forL., 33G. I'erkvn, — ■ trader at L., 320. Peter, Richard, Town Clerk of L., 34'jn ; first returned to Town Coun- cil, ?,^>; clerk of L. School Board, 36811 [resigned Town Clerkship, Feb. i'.. 1885.] — Claude Hurst, his son, lieute- nant of L. volunteers, 300; and of L. salvage corps, ^7.] [appointed Town Clerk, Feb. 1'.. 1885.] chaplain of Kilkhampton, com- mitted to L. gaol, 52. Peters, John, Quaker imprisoned at Bodmin, 230; and 1.., 23 r ; warns people of L. not to continue perse- cution-, [b. Petherick, Little, alleged scene of the Trebm ■ t, 218. Pethick, Dr. 1 lenry, assists foundation of Philosophic S01 Let} . 507; on first Board of Health, 540 j died Aug. 1, 1 S3]. Pethybridge, Edward, Vice-President of L. Mechanics' Institute, 33711 ; treasurer of L. Board of Health, 34cm ; assists to found Dunheved College, 371. John L., assists to found Dun- heved College, 371. Petitions (election) against return of Piers Edgcumbe the younger for N., 224 ; Ambrose Manaton the younger for N., 225 ; William Coryton the younger for N., lb. ; John Morice for N., 234 ; Francis Stratford for N., 238 ; against the same, 239 ; Anstis and Herle for L., 245 ; Pen- darves and Friend for L., 251 ; John King for L., 255 ; Sir John St. Aubyn for L., 266 ; James Henry Deakin, sen., for L., 3(14. of inhabitants of L. against Corporation, 277 ; of Local Guard- ians for increased powers, 278, 279; of inhabitants for Parliamentary Reform, 280; of Corporation against hawkers, 281 ; of inhabitants against Corporation, 324 ; of electors com- plaining of bribery, 325 ; of inhabi- tants in support of Railway Bill, 354- Phillips, Sir Jonathan, of N. House, electoral influence at N., 289 ; mem. forCamelford, lb. ; bequeathes legacy to St. S. poor, lb. ; concern- ed in Horwell charity dispute, 293. Paul, owner of Landue, 31211. Thomas John, opposes the ducal influence at N., 296, 311; sells property at N., 312; and buys Landue, 3i2n ; earliest chairman oi L. Board of Guardians, 327 ; sup- ports L. on assize question, 328. Philosophic Society, founded at L., 307 ; dies of inanition, lb. Philip and .Mary grant charter toL., 98. Philp, R. K.., first treasurer of L. Mechanics' Institute, 336n. •William, early Wesleyan trustee, 29on. William, one of last Local Guardians, 28011 ; printer at L., 298; editor of East Cornwall Times, 358. 43= INDEX. Phoenicians, alleged probable builders of L. Cas., 3 ; their presence in C. doubtful, lb. Pickard, Mr., assists L. on assize question, 258. Pig Market, public floggings in, 306 ; choosing of mayor of the market, lb. Pillory in use atL., 151. — Lane, see Back Street. Pioneer Coach, plies between L. and Wadebridge, 334. Piper, see Pyper. Pirates infest the western coasts, 128; twenty hanged at Plymouth, 129; some imprisoned at L., lb. ; nego- tiations concerning, 130. Plague, The, ravages of in C, 108 ; at L., 108, 112, 113, 131 ; Bodmin and Redruth, io8n; Plymouth, 131. Plymouth, Warden of Grey Friars committed to L. Cas., 81 ; troubled by pirates, 129; and the Plague, 131 ; besieged by R. 174; visited by Fairfax and Cromwell, 186 ; couples married at L. during Com- monwealth, 192; Sir William Mor- ice elected for, 209 ; assists postal reform, 241 ; some L. actors en- gaged for theatre, 267 ; coach com- munication with L., 333 ; cholera at, 338 ; S. W. E. Bird, curate of St. James-the-Less, 344 ; and vicar of All Saints, lb. ; railway opened to Tavistock, 350; and to L., 354. Dock, trade with L., 320 ; and see Devonport, Plympton Priory, founded by iEthel- stan, 19. elects Viscount Cranborne, 276. Pole, Sir John, mem. for N., 242 ; and East Looe, lb. William, mem. for N., 240, 242; and for Camelford, 242; threatened with imprisonment by Serjeant-at- Arms, 251 ; again elected for N., lb.; and forHor.iton, 25m ; chooses to sit for latter, lb. Polholme Garden, The, made into L., cemetery, 76. Police arrangements at L., 373. Polkinhorn, Roger, paid for imprison- ing pirates at L., 129, Polstonnell Bridge, see Polston. Polston Bridge, feudal custom con- nected with, 64 ; mentioned by William of Worcester, 69 ; tradition concerning, 117; skirmishes between P. and R. at, 163, 180; Charles I. enters C. by, 176; R. horse posted at, 182 ; curious accident at, 331 ; new bridge built, lb.; mishap during progress of work, 332 ; proposed canal to Ridgegrove Mill, 348. Polwhele, E., vicar of St. S., 369^ Polyphant Sunday-School founded 293. Pontefract, collection at L. in aid of, 221. Poor of L., earliest legislation for, 262 ; amending Act twice peti- tioned for, 278, 279 ; ami passed, 280 ; New Poor Taw enacted, 326. Pope, The, and Pr. Tredydan, 58. Pop nan family stricken by Plague, 113. Porthyghan, see West Looe. Post Oince at L., burglary at, 304n, 308 ; formerly situated in Broad St., 332. established from Exeter to Truro through L., 240. Postern at L. mentioned by Leland, 88 Potato market held in streets, 329m Poughill, vicar of, see Sampson. Powell, John, opposes as overseer formation of Board of Health, 339. ■ William Lydra, editor of Cornish and Devon Post, 358. Praed, Mr., judge of L. County Court, 343- Presbyterianism in L., 241 ; meeting house founded in Castle Street, lb.; subsequent developments, 271,282^ Presentments at Town Court, see Bere, Grilles, Kenver, and Wadge. Presidents of L. Mechanics' Institute, Samuel Rowles Pattison, 337 ; Richard Kingdon Frost, lb. ; George Graham White, sen., lb. Prest, Agnes, tried at L. for heresy, 99 ; burnt at Exeter, lb. Prideaux, Humphry, granted tithes of Liskeard by Prior Shere, 84. John, contests N., 238 ; un- successfully petitions against Strat- ford, lb. INDEX. 433 Pride's Purge, local members affected by, 189, 208. Priest of St. M. M., his allowances, 92. Prince of Wales becomes Viscount L., 254. Printing in L., earliest known example of, 274. Printers inL., J. Collins, 274; — Bray, lb. ; W. Philp, 298; T.Evre, 32311; T. Bray, lb. ; W. R. Bray, lb. ; T. W. Maddox, 349n ; J. Brimmdl, 353- Prior, John, ass-sts to found L. Me- chanics' Institute. 33611. of St. Leonard's Hospital, lie. Priors of L., Geoffrey, 34 ; Robert Fissacre, 39 ; Richard, 5 1 ; Roger de Horton, lb. ; Ralph de Hugge- warthi (coadjutor) lb. ; Adam de Knolle, 57; Thomas de Burden, lb.; Roger Leye, 58; Stephen Tredydan. lb. ; Roger Combrigg, 64 ; John Honyland. 64; William Shyre. lb.; Robert Waryn, lb. ; William Hop- k/n, 73 ; John Carlian, lb. ; John Baker, 76 ; and John Shere, 78. Priory of L. founded by Warlewast, 28 ; first charter, 30 ; benefited by Earl Reginald, 29, 30 ; by King Stephen, 30 ; and by King John, 37 ; probable size and site, 34 ; agreement with Glastonbury Abbey, 4>: composition with Stratton, lb.; or lered to raise soldiers, 50 ; dis- pute with Parson of Liskeard, lb. ; and with tenants of same, lb. ; be- comes possessed of manor of Boy- ton, 51 ; dispute with burgesses, 54; patronage claimed by the Black Prince, lb. ; probable sojourn of that Prince at, 57 ; disputes with Liskeard, 58, 83 ; and with Linkinhorne and Talland, 58 ; lends money to Henry V., 65 ; its rental book, lb. ; disputed election of Pr., 69; contest with parishioners of St. T., 72 ; monetary difficulty with Henry VI., 73 ; sued for debt by Henry VIII., lb. ; canons sign royal supremacy, 79 ; disputed elec- tion of 1'r. Shere, 80 ; value of its possessions, ^2 ; is dissolved. 83, 54 ; and disappears, 85 ; manors given to Duchy of C, lb. ; falls into ruin and building and appurtenances granted to Sir Gawen Carew, lb. ; revenues proposed to be devoted to revived bishopric of C, 87 ; re- mains found, 341. Prison of L., see Gaol. Prisoners of War, see French prisoners. Prockter, James Eckley, proprietor of White Hart, 3 :i ; has interview with Queen of Portugal, lb. ; runs coach to Plymouth, 333. James, supports Parliamentary Reform at L., 316m William, sen., on first Board of Health, 340. William, jun., one of last Local Guardians, 28on. Prodigies at L., St. S., and St. Genms, 212, 213. Protestants of Lithuania aided by L., 220. Protestation, The, signed by several Cornish members, 155; and by rep- resentatives of the L. district, 156. Provosts of L., Robert Page, 66 ; Richard Gybbe, lb. Prust, Albert, on last committee of L. Mechanics' Institute, 337m Hugh, repairs Castle, 112. Prynne, William, condemned by Laud, 149; returned forN., 189; involved in Piide's Purge, lb.; addresses letters to electors of N., 189, 190. Pulpit of St. M. M., legend concern- ing- 344- Pulton, William, early Wesleyan trus- tee, 29011. Pump, Town, flogging at in L., 306. Puritans petitioned against by gentle- men of C, 215. Pvke, William, Freemason at L., '37211. Pym, John, elected for Tavistock, 132. Pyot, Edward, a fellow-sufferer at L. with Fox, 200; protests against Chief Justice Glyn's proceedings, lb. ; liberated by Desborough, 202. Pypard, Martin, first vicar of Liskeard presented by L. Py., 84m Pyper, Arthur, mayor of L., 119. Arthur, baptised and buried at L., 175- 434 INDFX. Pyper, Captain, buried at L., 103. Captain (two) R. officers sta- tioned at L., 166. • Dame Sibella, wife of Sir Hugh Pyper, 175m Granville, monument in L. Ch. 264. Hugh, son of Arthur, baptised at L., 1 1911. Hugh, married and buried at L., 175- Hugh, living at L. in Civil War times, 175 ; possible identifica- tion with Sir Hugh, lb. -Hugh, of Tresmarrcw, castellan, 23611, 264; interferes in L. election, 256 ; dies, 264. Sir Hugh, assists Henrietta Maria, 175 ; of L. descent, lb. ; ren- ders good service to R. cause, lb. ; and is knighted and made castellan, 175; chosen for L., 225; and re- elected, 226, 232 ; dispute with county as to repairing Castle, 236 ; dies, 23611. Mary, wife of Hugh Pyper, buried at L., 175. Philip, Alderman of L., 211 ; and castellan, lb. ; dies, 236n, Sampson, mayor of L., I04n ; buried, lb. ; his property, 106. Quakers, their persecutions at L., see Fox, Pyot, and Salt; and 215; imprisoned at L. in reign of James II., 230 ; majority liberated by that monarch, lb. Queen of Portugal visits L., 331 ; informs Queen Victoria of condition of Cas., lb. Rabbit Question at L., 364. Race Hill, Sampson Pyper's bam at, ic6. Raddall, Philip John, one of last Local Guardians, 28on. Radnor Earl of, assists Bodmin on assize question, 249. Railway Companies concerning L. : — Launceston and South Devon 352 ; L., Bodmin and Wadebridge, 355 ; Central Cornwall, 11). ; Devon and Cornwall, lb.; North Cornwall, lb.; Bude Canal and L. Junction, 35511; Liskeard and Caradon, 356. Railway projects affecting L. : — to Tremoutha, 349 ; to Plymouth (at- mospheric scheme) lb. ; to Exeter, 350 ; to Doublebois, lb. ; to Ply- mouth, lb. ; to Copplestone, lb. ; to Tavistock, 351 ; to Halwill, 355; and to Altarmm, 356. Raine, Jonathan, mem. for L., 295 ; and N., lb. ; appointed King's Counsel, lb. ; suffers contests at N., 296, 310; appointed to office, 310; dies, 317. Rainsford, Charles, mem. forN., 282; Maldon and Beeralston, lb. Ralph, Benjamin, assists to found Dunheved College, 371 ; first head master, 372. Ram Alley, an old L. lane, 90. Rawdon, John, contests L., 2S6 ; re- turned, 288. Reading Gaol, death of Joseph Coale in, 215m Rebellion, Cade's and L., 66 ; of the Cornish against Henry VIII. , 71 ; and against the Reformation, 93 ; and see Great Rebellion. Recorders of L., Leonard Treise, 141 ; Ambrose Manaton, 153 ; Thomas Gewen, 201 ; George Grenville, Viscount Lansdowne, 242 ; Richard Vyvyan, 28711; Hugh Second Duke of Northumberland, 287. Recusants in C, 100; tried at L., 102-19. Redruth Savings' Bank founded, 307. Reed, Richard, present master of Horwell's Endowed School, 294 ; vice-president ■ of L. Mechanics' Institute, 33711 ; Freemason at L., 372n. Reese, Thomas, appointed Parish Registrar of St. M. M., 192; and St. T., lb. Reeves of Launceston, sec Provosts. Reform Act, the First, opposed by members for L. and N., 317. Reformer, The, newspaper at L., 323n- Reg.nald, Earl, of C, benefits Py., 29, 30. INDEX. 435 Register of St. M. M., first kept, 103 ; description, 10311; some missingfacts, 123 ; its illustration of ecclesiastical differences, 191-92; the later Regis- ters, 220n. of South Pethenvin, commen- ced, 194. of St S., first kept, 121. Rent of Borough of L., 106. Roll of L. Py., 65. Reredos in L. Ch., 343. Reservoirs, at Dunheved Green, 312 ; Trethorne, 340 ; and Trebursye, lb. Restorations of Ch. at L. in eighteenth century, 250; and in nineteenth, 342; at St. S., 237. 369; and at St. T., 369. Restoration, The, much assisted by William Morice and Sir John Gren- ville, 209. Reuel, Richard, castellan, 34. Reynell, Walter, castellan, 34. Reynolds, Dr., of L., connected with Quaker persecutions, 231. Henry, First Chief Ranger of L. Foresters, 372. Richardson, Joseph, mem. for N., 289 ; dies, 294. Richard, King of the Romans, Earl of C, grants charter to L., 39 ; removes assizes to Lostwithiel, lb. ; makes grant to Py., 41 ; and to Leper Hospital, lb. Prior of L., 51. vicar of Morwenstow, Richard chaplain of Week St. Mary, and Richard chaplain of Tamerton, committed to L. Gaol, 52. the Second, grants charter to L., 60. the Third, attitude of C. and Devon towards, 71. Ridgegrove Mill, 27 ; chancery suit concerning, 113; woollen manufac- ture at, 320 ; proposed canal from Polston Bridge, 348. Ridgman, Vaughan, concerned in Horwell charity dispute, 294n ; supports Stevenson for N., 310. Rigby, Richard, contests N., 261 ; mem. for Tavistock, lb. ; his politi- cal character, lb. Roach, Lawrence, executed at L., 3<>4n. Roads to L., earliest known, 44-5 ; Acts regarding, 266, 267, 277, 301 ; new road from L. to Bodmin, 277. Robbins, Richard, assists movement to preserve South Gate, 302n ; con- nected with Stevenson's contest at N., 311 ; describes L. as it was fifty years ago, 320 ; first curator of L. Mechanics' Institute, 336n ; opposes as overseer formation of Board of Health, 339 ; becomes member of that body, 340n ; advo- cates railway to Plymouth, 350. • -John, last secretary of Mechan- ics' Institute, 337m Robert, Earl of Mortain, see Mortain, Robert, Earl of. chaplain of Marhamchurch, and Robert vicar of Stratton, commited to L. Gaol, 52. Roberts, John the elder, concerned in ecclesiastical dispute, 148; commit- ted to L. Gaol, lb. John, curate of Northhill, interferes in L. election, 256. Mr., mem. for Bossiney, acts against L. on assize question, 223. Robinson, Mr., a Cornish Justice, killed in strange manner, 215. Roborough, wool trade at, I05n ; false rumour of Hopton's death at, 165. Rodd, Charles, Chairman of L. Board of Guardians, 327 [died Jan. 16, 1885.] Francis, of Trebartha, supports L. on assize question, 328. Rodney, John, mem. for L., 282. Roe, John Anthony, castellan, 287. John, concerned in Horwell Charity dispute, 294 ; mayor of L., 298 ; formulates regulation concern- ing new vaults, lb. ; proclaims vic- tory of Waterloo, 357. Roger, chaplain of Cas., 37. Rogers, Captain, stationed atL., 212. Thomas, one of founders of Tradesmen's Friendly Society, 274. Rolfe, Sir R. Monsey, attends L. assizes, 328. Roll of the Seisin, see Seisin. Roman Catholicism in L., 104. H 436 INDEX. Roman coins found at L., 6 ; camp, supposed, at Kestle, lb. ; road, supposed, at Bradridge, lb. Romans invade C, 6 ; suggested founders of L. Cas., 8 ; Richard, King of the Romans, 39. Rose, George, mem. for L., 279; assists L. on poor question, 280 ; refused re-election on appointment to office, 282 ; returned for Lyming- ton, lb. ; interferes in later L. elections, 286. Ross, G. O., Freemason at L., 372m Rosse, Thomas, holder of L. Park, 211 ; and castellan, lb. Rous, Robert, ecclesiastical dispute with John Roberts, 148. Rowe, Coryndon, officer in L. volun- teer cavalry, 286. Dr., observations on super- stitions at L., 283. D. F. C. C, Trustee of Rowe dispensary, 374m Dispensary, founded at L., 374- -John, incumbent of St. M. M., 291 ; and chaplain of L. gaol, lb. ; record of burial, 297. Sir William Carpenter, first County Court judge at L., 348 ; leaves money to found dispensary at L., 374. -William, executed at L., 3Q4n; body lies at Westgate Inn, 305. Royal supremacy acknowledged by L. Canons, 79. Mail coaches between Exeter and Falmouth, through L., 333 ; and between L. and Tavistock, 334. Royalists, struggle with P. at L. Assizes, 158; and in market-place, 160; drive P. out of C, 161 ; plun- der John Maynard's house at Tavi- stock, lb. ; encounters in C. with P., 162-63 ; with whom they conclude treaty, 163 ; beaten at Polston Bridge, lb. ; but successfully defend L., 164 ; and defeat Stamford at Stratton, 165 ; and Waller at Lans- downe, 167; besiege Exeter, 171; and Plymouth, 1 74 ; defeat Essex in C, 176; evacuate L., 180; after plundering town and district, 18m; defeated at Torrington, 182 ; and L., 183 ; completely defeated inC, 186; and conclude treaty with P., lb. Rudall, Edward, vicar of Boyton, proposes railway from L. to Double- bois, 350. Ruddle, John, incumbent of St. M. M., 216; lays the Trebursye Ghost, 216-18; his history, 219; marries Mrs. Bolitho at L., 220 ; appointed vicar of Altamun, lb. ; and preben- dary of Exeter, lb. ; dies, lb. Rudhall, Abraham, of Gloucester, founds L. bells, 250. Rundle, John K., on St. S. school board, 369m Rushworth, John, describes taking of L. by Fairfax, 182m Russell, Edward, mem. for L., 233. Lord, vanquishes Arundel's rebels, 94; defeats Arundel at L., 95. Russell's Waggons, ply between Lon- don and Falmouth through L., 334. Ruthven, — P. Governor of Ply- mouth, defeats R. at New Bridge, 162 ; occupies L., lb. ; is defeated by Hopton at Bradock Down, lb. ; and flees to Saltash, 163 ; where he is again beaten, lb. Sacristan of L., allowance to, 66. Salisbury, Earl of (William de Mon- tacute) grants manor of Dunheved to William de Bryone, 59. Marquis of (present), grandson of a mem. for L., 276. Sallee Rovers, see Pirates. Salt, William, a fellow-sufferer at L. with Fox, 200 ; imprisoned in Dark- house,20i ; liberated by Desborough,. 202 ; but re-arrested and again committed to L. Gaol, lb. Saltash, probable Roman station, 6 ; Grammar School endowed, 107 ; pilchard-fishery commissioners meet at, 118; held by P., 160; but evacuated at Hopton's approach, lb. ; scene of Ruthven's second defeat, 163; occupied by R., 166; P. horse escape into Devonshire by, 176 ; assizes held at in early times, 222 ; charter altered by James II., INDEX. 437 230; elects Narcissus Luttrell, 235; John Morice and John Speccott, 238; and Alexander Pendarves, 251. Saltern r or Saltren], John, assists to revive Independency in L., 272. William, assists to revive In- dependency in L., 272 ; ordained to Castle Street Chapel. 283 ; dies, lb. Salvage Corps, founded at L., 374. Sam Slick, see Haliburton. Sampford Courtenay, defeat of Arun- del's rebels at, 94 ; coach com- munication with L., 333. Sampson, Richard, on St. S. school board, 36911; Freemason at L., 372n. vicar of Poughill, committed to L. gaol, 51. Sanctuary, right of at L., 89 ; abol- ished, 124. Sandwich, collection at L. in aid of, 221. Sargent, E., Freemason atL., 372m Saunders, Thomas, early member of Tradesmen's Friendly Society, 274. Savings' Bank, founded at L., 307 ; and other towns in C, lb. .Saxon Chronicle and L., 13. Saxons in C, 11 ; remains at Trelaske, 13; probable settlements atWerring- ton, Bamham, and Ham Mill, 16. Scarborough, represented by William Harbord, 233. Scarne Common, property of L. Cor- poration, 262 ; proposed to be sold, lb. ; Corporation's dealings with, 278 ; title deeds stolen, 278m School Board, founded at L., 368 ; and St. S., lb. Stilly, knight's fee held of L. Cas., 55; Dr. Bastwick removed thither from L., 150. Scobell, Francis, mem. for L., 242 : for Grampound, St. Germans, and St. Mawes, 243n ; appointed to ollice, 243. Secretaries of L. Mechanics' Institute: Richard Hayne, 33611 ; Henry Short, 337n ; William Cater, lb. ; Thomas Dunn, [b. j William Henry Cory, Il>. ; and John Robbins, lb. Secular Canons, see Canons Secular. Sedan Chair at L., 354m Seely, Major, P. officer repulsed at Polston Bridge, 180; and retreats to Lifton, lb. ; arrests George Fox, 195- Seisin, Roll of the, describes Castle and town, 53-4. Selly, Dorothy, buried at L., 104. Roger, a L. clergyman, 104. Serfdom in L. and St. St., 23. Serge manufactory at L., 320. Sergeants-at-Mace, earliest mention of, 105. Sha?inon, H. M. S., crew erect memorial window in L. Church to Henry Ching, 343. Shearm, Thomas, on Board of Health, 34011. Shelburne, Lord, refuses to reprieve Pearce the wrecker, 269. Sherston, Thomas, Freemason at L., 372m Sherwood, Joseph, incumbent of St. Hilar}', imprisoned at L., 215. Shepherd'sWell, fatal accident at, I49n Shere, Henry, bailiff of N., i2on. John, last Pr. of L., 78 ; signs acknowledgment of royal supremacy 79 ; complained against by William Kendall, 80 ; signs the surrender, 83 ; and is pensioned, lb. ; fined for not rendering suit at Liskeard, 84 ; grants tithes of Liskeard to Hum- phry Prideaux, lb. ; dies, lb. ; his leases disputed, 86. Sheeres, William, assists to revive Independency in L., 272. Shilson, Daniel, sen., trader at L., 320. — Daniel, jun., supports railway from L. to Tavistock, 352. Ship-money, resistance to in C, 151 ; specially objected to by Callington, Camelford, and St. Mawes, 152 ; paid by L., Padstow, Penryn, Hel- ston, and Penzance, lb. Short, Henry, one of last Local Guardians, 28on ; secretary of L. Mechanics' Institute, 33 7n; jury- man of N., 368 ; on St. S. school board, 369m Short, W., constable of L, 308. Shyrc, W., Pr. of L., 65 ; disputccon- cerning his election, 67 ; suit with 433 INDEX. Lord Bottreaux, lb. ; monetary difficulty with Henry VI., 73. Sidgwick, John Benson, vicar of St. M. M., 344 ; curate of Alvechurch and of St. Thomas, Huddersfield, lb. ; incumbent of Copley, lb. ; and rector of Huntshaw, lb.' Simcoe, Henry Addington, Chairman of L. Board of Guardians, 327. Philip Francis, Vice-chairman of L. Board of Guardians, 327 ; captain of L. Volunteers, 360 ; Freemason at L., 372m Sims, William, assists to found Dun- heved College, 371. Skippon, Major-General, surrenders to Charles I. at Lostwithiel, 177. Slanning, Sir Nicholas, attitude to- wards Parliamentary Committee at L. assizes, 159 ; appeals to the people of L., 160 ; expelled the House of Commons, 161. Slave Trade, 'abolition supported at L., 290. Smallacombe, (St. Malcolm's) Copse, 259- Smith, Thomas, contests L., 251 ; petitions against Pendarves and Friend, lb. W. H., proprietor of King's Arms, 331. William Hart, curate of St. M. M., 344n; rector of St. Peter's, Bedford, lb. Snell, James, concerned in contest at , N., 310. Soccage, question regarding Cas., 112. Somersetshire Quakers imprisoned at L., 215. Sorrell, John, castellan and keeper of L. gaol, 130, 265 ; action regarding imprisoned pirates, 130. Southgate Street, former site of potato market, 329 ; site of old Baptist Chapel, 372m South Gate, used as prison for debtors and petty offenders, 302 ; turned into local museum, lb. — Devon Railway Companyrela- tions with the L. line, 35 1-52-5 in. Pethenvin, Church first men- tioned, 46 ; rectory in gift of St. Germans Priory, 121 ; presentation granted to Oxford University, lb. ; Clergy, &c, sign the Protestation, 156; couples married at L. during Commonwealth, 192; Parish Regis- ter commenced, 194; roads at, 277; volunteering at during French War, 285; new Wesleyan Chapel at, 369m Spanish Armada, Cornish preparations to meet, 107. Sparke, John, mem. for N., 240-42 ; dies, 242. Speccott, Sir John, of Penheale, re- ports upon price of com, 126. John, mem. for N., 209 ; dies, 224. John, the younger, mem. for N., and Saltash, 232, 234, 238 ; benefits poor of St. S. and St. T., 232n ; mem. for C, lb.; buried at Egloskerry, lb. Lady Embling, buried in L. Ch., 342m Paul, elected 132; N., 132, 142, Bossiney, 133 ; purchases Laun- cestonland from Duchy, 141 ; dis- satisfaction of tenants, lb. ; con- tributes poem on death of Lord Petre, 142; is buried at Egloskerry, lb. Peter, purchases manors from Duchy, 141 ; contributes poem on death of Lord Petre, 142. Spettigue, Captain, commands L. Volunteer Infantry, 286. ■ John, mayor of L., 291 ; beats borough bounds, lb. -Solomon, one of earliest Local for East Looe, I52n, 154 ; and Guardians, 263. William, on first Board of Health, 340. Spinning jennies in L., 320. Spra7elin, Robert, property dispute at L., 38. Sprakelyn, Mordont, earliest recorded castellan, 30. Spry, Nathaniel, supports Parliamen- tary Reform at L., 31611. trader at L., 320. Sprye, Mr., mem. for St. Mawes, acts against L. on assize question, 223. Squire, Robert, an eighteenth cen- tury L. Tory, 253. INDEX. 439 St. Albans, elects Lord Grimston, 3 I 7- St. Aubyn, Sir John, officer of militki at L., 361. Sir John, mem. for C, 253 ; son-in-law of Sir Nicholas Morice, lb. Sir John, son of above, mem. for L., 259; again contests borough, 266 ; declared returned, lb. ; but unseated on petition, lb. ; elected for C, 268. J. Piers, architect for restora- tion of St. T. Ch., 369. St. Burine, preparations to meet the Spanish invasion, 107. St. Catherine's Chapel at L., granted indulgence, 68 ; mentioned by Le- its site, 89 ; see William ; during Com- prodigies at, land as profaned, 8! fair dedicated to, lb. St. Gennys, vicar of, couples married at L monwealth, 192-93 ; 213; Wesley preaches at, 260; abode of Pearce the wrecker, 269. St. Germans, represented by Sir John Eliot, 127, 133 ; elects Francis Scobell, 24311 ; and Sir Henry Hardinge, 315. Prion-, founded by iEthel- stan, 39; connected with St. M. M., 82 ; and South Petherwin, 121. St. Hilary, incumbent of, see Sherwood. St. Hill, John, incumbent of St. M. M., 123. St. Ives, pirates detained at, 129 ; George Fox arrested at, 195; alleged miracle at, 215 ; charter altered by James II., 230 ; William Tucker Independent minister at, 241. St. James' Chapel, L., 89. St. John's Chape] at L., its site, 89; fair dedicated in. lb. Eve, superstition at L., 284. St. Juliot, rectory part of possessions of I.. I'y., 1 1 4. St. Leonards, see I. '-per Hospital. Fair, its disappearance, 89. St. Mary .Magdalene's Church, sec Church. Minstrels, sec Minstrels. Si. Mawes obje< ts to pay ship-money, 152 ; represented by Mr. Sprye, 223; elects Francis Scobell, 24311 ; and Henry Vane, 25511. St. Michael's Mount, Pr. of, see Hardy ; visited by William of Wor- cester, 68; Warbeck lands, 71 ; Col- onel Bennett appointed Governor, 20 3- (Somerset) collection in aid of at L., 221. St. Minver, couples married at L. during Commonwealth, 192. St. Neots, tenements in appropriated to repair of Cas., 1 12. St. Sidwell's Chapel at L., 89. St. Stephens, college of secular canons founded at, 19; mentioned in Domesday, 23 ; deprived of its mar- ket, 24 ; described as a town, 30 ; Churchdedicatedby Bishop Brones- combe, 46 ; and the St. T. dispute, 72 ; Ch. mentioned by Leland, 88 : Thomasine Bonaventure assists to- wards building tower, 93 ; Register commenced, 121; rectory granted to SirGawenCarew, 122; chancery suit concerning, lb. ; probable early res- toration of Ch., lb. ; tenements at sold by Duchy, 142 ; (probable) vicar of complained of to Laud, 150; clergy, &c, sign the Protes- tation, 156; couples married at L. during Commonwealth, 192 ; pro- digies at, 212 ; poor benefited by John Speccott, 232n ; Ch. restored by Lord Cheney, 237 ; volunteering at during French War, 285 ; poor benefited by Sir Jonathan Phillips, 289 ; subscribes towards relief of Chudleigh, 290 ; stocks at, 292 ; parishioners move concerning Hor- well Charity, 293; manganese mines at, 320 ; School Board formed, 368 ; Wesleyanism at, 369 ; Ch. again re- stored in present day, lb. Down, Wesley preaches on, 260; extraordinary behaviour of cows at Christmas, 284 ; tradition concerning, 308 ; waterworks pro- vided by Third Duke of Northum- berland, 312. St. Thomas, Py. established at, 28; Church fust mentioned, 4!) ; 440 INDEX. cemetery consecrated, 72; parishion- ers dispute withPy., lb.; character of its font, 7211 ; dispute concerning the farm, 80 ; earliest recorded burials at, 121 ; clergy, &c, sign the Protestation, 156; poor bene- fited by John Speccott, 232n ; pro- gress of Independency at, 272 ; cucking stool at, 292; provides ropes for L. executions, 305n ; Church- wardens' accounts, lb. ; woollen manufacture at, 320 ; gas works erected at, 341 ; Ch. restored, 369. St. Vincent, Earl, see Jervis. Stamford, Earl of, P. General advances into C, 162 ; occupies L., lb. ; but retires to Tavistock, 163 ; and con- cludes treaty with R., lb. ; again marches into C, 165 ; and is de- feated at Stratton, lb. Stanley, Lord, see Derby. Stannaries seized by Henry VII., 71 ; dispute concerning, J 43 ; Humphry Morice becomes Lord Warden, 268. Stannary towns, see Launceston,Lost- withiel, Truro, and Helston. Star Chamber victims at L., 149, 151. Starcross, obsolete name of part of L., 2 74n ; earliest known printer established at, 274. Statham, Charles, contests L., 245 ; unsuccessfully petitions against An- stis and Herle, lb. Stavystock, Rogerus de, see Roger de Tavistock. Stephen, King, benefits Py., 30, 82. Sterling, Colonel, officer of militia at L., 361. Stevenson, Mr., contests N., 310. Stevine, Laurence, see Bedeman. Sticklepath, waggon communication with L., 334. Sting-nettle Lane, 330. Stocks at L. and St. S., 292 ; last use and destruction of, lb. StokeclimslandandL. gaol, 52; feudal custom connected with manor, 62 ; couples married at L. during Com- monwealth, 192 ; visited by George Fox, 199 ; Charles Lethbridge in- cumbent of, 293m Stone, Charity, buried at St. T., 121. Stowford, mines at, 320. Strafford, Earl of, attainder opposed by Sir Beville Grenville, 155. Stratford, Francis, mem. for X., 238 ; twice unsuccessfully petitioned against, 238-39. Strathnairn, Lord (present), son of a mem. for L., 279. Stratton, a Roman station, 6, 8 ; vicar ordered to pay to L. Py., 40 ; vicar of, see Robert ; battle of, 165 ; celebrated by Sir John Denham in A Western Wonder, 166; occu- pied by P., 183 ; United Methodist Circuit parted from L., 338. Streets of L., the most ancient, 45 ; concerned in Aftermath Fund, 279. Strode, Richard, imprisoned at Lyd- ford, 10911. Strong, John Mortimer, on Board of Health, 34on ; juryman of N., 368n. Studdon, Michael, assists to found L. Mechanics' Institute, 336n ; drowned, 349m Sub-Prior of L., John Morle, 79. Subscription Rooms, Central and Western, built, 321. Sunday Market at L., 36. Schools in L. and district, first founded, 290 ; Castle St. Union of, lb. ; St. M. M., 29211. Superstition in L., 283. Swannacott manor, feudal custom con- nected with, 62. Swansea, circulators of rumour arising there brought to L. for trial, 147. Swinburne, Sir John Edward, mem. for L., 282. Sir John, rumoured Liberal candidate for L., 282m Sydenham, mines at, 320 ; residence of John Tremayne, 352. Symons, Moses, trader at L., 320. Syms, John, executed at L,, 304n. Syssely, J., leaseholder under Py., 66. Talland, dispute with L. Py., 58. Tamar River, noted by Ptolemy, 7 ; the Cornish boundary, 13; men- tioned in charter to Leper Hospital, 41 ; fords occupied by P., 184; navigation projects affecting, 348 ; name of river in Tasmania, 376. Terrace built, 321. INDEX. 44 * Tamerton, possible Roman station, 7 ; contributes towards chantry in L. Py., 65 ; Wesley preaches at, 260. - — Bridge, proposed navigation to Morwelham Quay, 348. chaplain of, see "William. Tapson, William, constable of L., 309. Tasmania and L., 376. Taunton compared with L., 227. Tavistock Abbey, deprived of manors by Robert of Mortain, 25 ; relations with Werrington, 32, 82; difficulties concerning new abbot, 40. -district inhabited very early, 4; possible Roman station, 7 ; wool trade at, iosn ; represented by John Pym, 132 ; held by P., 160; residence of John Maynard, 161 ; which is plundered by R., lb. ; visited by Charles I., 176 ; R. quar- tered at, 179 ; P. force ordered thence to L., 184 ; visited by Fair- faxand Cromwell, 186 ; elects French and Rigby, 261; originally included in L. Wesleyan Circuit, 283 ; separa- ted therefrom, 308 ; coach com- munication with L., 332 ; railway opened to Plymouth, 334 ; cholera at, 338 ; line opened to L., 354. Road made, 301 ; site of Free- mason's Hall, 372 Teignmouth, bombarded by French, 2 35- Temple, Bishop, holds ordination at U 87. Tenures, Feudal, at L., 54 ; at Lan- due, 61 ; and in various parts of C, lb. Test Act, working of at L., 36711. Teutonicus, Waleramus, castellan, 38. Henricus, witnesses L. char- ter, 38m Tewkesbury dispute settled at L., 38. Theatre existing at L., 267 ; playbills of discovered, 273. Thetford, represented by William Harbord, 233. Thomas, chaplain of Whitstonc, com- mitted to L. gaol, 52. Joshua, alderman of L., 262 ; gives evidence on L. Poor Bill, lb.; accused of illegal electoral prac- tices as mayor, 266 ; assists progress of Independency in L., 272. Thomas, Walter, a soldier buried at L., 103. Thompson David, sen., mayor of L., 339 ; supports formation of Board of Health, lb. -David, jun., chairman of L. Gas Company, 34211 ; Freemason at L., 372n. • executed at L., 30411 ; buried at St. T. Churchyard, 305n. Thorne, William, assists earliest local Cricket Club, 307 ; supports Parlia- mentary Reform at L., 316m F.j Freemason at L., 372m Thorverton (Devon), S. Childs Clarke vicar of, 347. Tingcomb, Carew, an eighteenth cen- tury L. Whig, 253. Tintagel Castle compared with L., 9. Tithes of St. M. M. leased to Rich- ard Boorde, 106. Tombs in Py. mentioned by Leland, 88. Torchlight burials at L., 298. Torrington, R. defeated at, 182 ; couples married at L. during Com- monwealth, 192. Toser, John, a rebellious Exilond dyer, 69. Totnes, represented by John Maynard, 154 ; elects Peter Burrell, 269 ; and Lord Arden, 282n ; Act for recov- ering small debts at, 34711. Tower, L., older than Ch., 79 ; pro- bable reason for this, lb. Street (Back Lane) Wesleyan meeting house erected, 283. - St. S., building assisted by Thomasine Bonaventure, 93. Town Clerks of L : — John King Lcth- bridge, 325 ; C. Gumey, 349n ; J. L. Cowlard, lb. ; R. Peter, lb. ; [C.H.Peter, 431.] Council adopt resolution pre- serving Southgate, 30211 ; founded by Municipal Coiporations Act, 326 ; supports formation of Board of Health, 340; party struggles at elections for, 356 ; resolves to cm- ploy County Police, 373. 442 INDEX. Town Court of L., early suits in, 105 ; and presentments at, lb. Hall at L., see Guildhall. Mill, 27 ; woollen manufacture at, 320. -Hall at N. built, 311. Tozer, Richard, canon of L., acknow- ledges royal supremacy, 79. Trade in L. fifty years ago, 320. Traders in L. in Elizabeth's reign, 104. Tradesmen's Friendly Society, estab- lished at L., 271 ; early history, 274. Train-bands, Cornish, ordered to as- semble at L., 177; refuse to leave county, 1 79 ; those of L. procure substitutes, 181 ; defend L. against Fairfax, 183. Treasury interference in L. elections, 286, 288. Treaties between P. andR., 163, 186. Trebursye, residence of Richard Gedie, 127 ; tenements at sold by Duchy, 142 ; waterworks at, 340. Ghost, laid by John Ruddle, 216-18. Trecarrell, early local connection of family, 30. Henry (de Trecarl) witnesses deed at L., 61. (Sir)Henry, builds L.Ch., 74, 76; tradition concerning, lb. ; his public services, 73, 74, 80; and L. cemetery, 76 ; his probable attitude towards the Reformation, 79; mayor of L., 80. John (de Trekarl) witnesses returned for N., 137, 152 ; property disputes, 15211. Richard, leases L. water mills, local deed, 61 Jordan (de Trekarl) witnesses charter to L. Py., 30. memorial window erected in Ch., 343. residence of Ambrose Mana- ton, 136; Charles I. stays there, 176. Tredydan, Stephen, Pr., 58 ; disputes with Liskeard, Linkinhorne, and Talland, lb. ; fined for not render- ing suit at Liskeard, 84n ; tomb mentioned by Leland, 88; instructed to proceed against a Lollard, 99. Trefusis, John, colleague of Sir Beville Grenville, 153. Nicholas, deprived of justice- ship for C. for refusing loan, 136; 106. Tregadillett, tenements at sold by Duchy, 142 ; erection of mission church, 369 ; and Wesleyan Chapel, 36911. Tregeare, tenements at sold by Duchy,. 142 ; residence of Baron and Leth- bridge families, 232. Tregian, Francis, prosecuted at L. as a recusant, 100 ; his sufferings in L. gaol, 102 ; and banishment, 103. Tregillis, earliest local Cricket Club established at, 306. Tregoning, J. S., owner of Landue, 31211. Tregony, Cuthbert Maine's quarter displayed at, 102 ; elects James Craggs, 256. Tregosse, Mr., Incumbent of Mylor, committed to L. gaol, 216. Treguddick, R. march through, iSin. Treise, Leonard, of Tresmere, Re- corder of L., 141, 145; protests against Paul Speccott's dealings with Launcestonland, 141 ; befriends Eliot and his children, 145 ; is one of his executors, I46n; legatee of Gedie, lb. ; his action in John Es- cott'scase, 157 ; granted pension by Parliament, 186; his last public ser- vice, 192; and death, lb.; buried in Ch., 34211. ■ John, his son, a P. officer, 186,- court-martialled at Plymouth, lb. William, baptised at L., 146. Trekarl, see Trecarrell. Trelaske, Saxon and Danish remains, 13 ; name of witness to early char- ter, 42; tenements at sold by Duchy, 142; residence of the Archer fam- ily, 285. Trelawny, Edward, a Cornish sup- porter of the loan, 138; imprisoned by the Sergeant-at-Arms, lb. Harry Reginald, officer of militia at L., 361. Sir John, a Cornish supporter of the loan, 138 ; imprisoned in the Tower, lb. ; created a baronet for his resistance to the Commons, 139 ; Index. 44: writes from L. concerning price of corn, 148. Trelawny, Sir John, the present, officer of militia at L., 361. ■ Sir John, connected with L., 64; granted a fair at Menheniot, lb. ■ Sir Jonathan, one of the Seven Bishops, 233. Richard, mem. for L., 64. Treleaven, James, one of last Local Guardians, 2.Son; mayor of L. 34011; on Board of Health, lb. ; managing secretary of Gas Company, 342. Trelosc, see Trelaske. Trematon Castle, mentioned inDomes- day, 20 ; seized by Arundel's rebels, 94. Tremayne, Arthur, mem. for L., 255. John, mem. for L., 63. John, the younger, mem. for L., 63. John, of Sydenham, opposes L. Railway, 352 ; withdraws his oppo- sition, 354. Tremeale, residenceof S. Archer, 285. Trcmoutha, proposed railway to L., 349- Treneglos, couples married at L. during Commonwealth, 193; J. II. Kendall vi< [6. Tresilian, Richard, dispute regarding tenure of L. Castle, 112. Tresmarrow, residence of Hugh Pyper, 23' n. Tresmere, residence of Leonard Treise, 141; tenements at sold by Duchy, 142 ; clergy, Sec, sign the Protes- tation, 156; Wesley preaches at, 2(10. Trethorne, waterworks erected at, 340. Trevaldwyn, Benn Wilkes Jones, curate of St. M. M., 34411; rector of Nether- Whitacre, I b. Trevallett, tenements at sold by Duchy 142. Trevanion, Charles, elected for C, 1 32; supporter of Eliot and* < »i t( m, 137. Colonel, R. officer .11 I.., 183. John, buried at L., [04. M., a K. officer, Ins regiment quartered at I.., 166. John, mem. for C, 243. Trevarris, W., executed at L., 304n. Treveniel, manor, feudal custom con- nected with, 62. Trevisa, Ralph, mem. for L., 125. Richard, mem. for L., 125. Trewen, clergy, &c, sign the Pro- testation, 156. Trewin, Richard, of Hartland,a soldier buried at L., 103. Trewinnek, Henry de, a L. monk ap- pointed Prior of Canonsleigh, 40. Trewinnick, Richard, canon of L. acknowledges royal supremacy, 79 ; signs the surrender, 83. Trials at L., 38, 39, 41 ; Prior Hardy, of St. Michael's Mount, 57 ; of Glynn's murderers removed from L. to London, 68 ; Kylter and his comrades, 93 ; Agnes Prest, 99 ; Cuthbcrt Maine, 100; Francis Tre- gian and other recusants, 102 ; Ematt and Browne, 147 ; George Fox, 196 ; James Paynter, 245 ; Sir Manassey Lopes, 36311 ; L. election petition, 3(14. Trivery, Jeremiah, bewails R. excesses in C, 162; describes condition of Cornish R., 166. Trood, E., Freemason at L., 372m ■ Thomas Pomeroy, assists to found Dunheved College, 371 ; Freemason at L., 37211; captain of L. Salvage Corps, 374. Truro, first returns members to Par- liament, 43 ; knight's fee held of L. Castle, 55; a stannary town, 71; directed to be rebuilt, 90; effect of order, 91 ; R. head-quarters, 158; R. prisoners moved from L. to, 18 1 ; minister's salary augmented by Council of State, 195; Col. Bennett defends Charles L's trial at, 203; com- pared with L., 228; post to Exeter established through L., 240 ; mile stones erected to L., 277 ; Savings' Bank founded, 307 ; waggon com- munication with L., 331 ; proposed railway connection wiih L., 355. Tucker, William, second minister of Castle Street Chapel, 241 ; removes to St. rves, lb. Turberville, Bishop, condemns Agnes Prest, 99. 444 INDEX. Turks imprisoned at L., 129, 130. Tyeth, Mr., concerned in an election for L., 287. Tywardreath, Prior of, excommuni- cates Prior Fissacre, 39 ; revenues proposed to be devoted to revived bishopric of C, 87. Uglow, ■ — trader at L., 320. Uniformity, Act of, William Oliver expelled by, 213 ; many other Cor- nish Clergymen suffer under, 215. Union, Poor Law, founded atL., 326. Workhouse at L. built, 327. United Association of L. Noncon- formist ministers, 371 ; corresponds with Mr. Gladstone, lb. Methodist Free Church, adhe- rents at L., 337 ; L. made head of a circuit, 338. Vaccination, earliest mention of at L. 299. Valla Torta, see Valletort. Valletort, Reginald, holds Trematon Castle, 33. Sir Reginald, -witnesses a L. charter, 60. Viscount, contests C, 317. Vane, Henry, mem. for L., 254 ; and St. Mawes, 25 51:. Vaughan, Mr., mem. for Hereford, acts for L. on assize question, 223. Vaults in L. Ch., regulations concern- ing, 298 ; latest burials in, 299 ; closed, 343. Veryan, S. W. E. Bird vicar of, 344. Vesey, Bishop, connection with the Minstrels' tradition, 67 ; commis- sions Bishop Vyvyan to consecrate L. Ch., 76 ; decides on a Py. dis- pute, 80. Vespasian, alleged founder of Castle, 6 ; coins found at L., lb. Vestry Room at L. erected, 301. Veysey, see Vesey. Vianders of N. : — Ambrose Manaton the younger, 235 ; John Horwell, lb. ; John Braddon, 36711 ; T. C. Langdon, 368 ; and W. Burt, lb. Viandership of N., disputes as to the duties, 133, 225 ; letters addressed to the Vianders by William Prynne, 190; probable origin of office, 3GC11 ; abolished, 368. Victoria, name of proposed harbour at Tremoutha, 349. Queen, calls Duke of North- umberland's attention to condition of L. Cas., 331. Vigors, Bartholomew, Irish Bishop, educated at L. Grammar School, 250. Vigurs, John, Mayor of L., 104; buried, lb. Villenage, see Serfdom. Viscount Launceston, title given to Prince of Wales, 25^. Vital statistics of L., 103, 123, 380. Vivid Coach plies between Exeter and L -> 333- Volunteering in L. and district during French War, 285, 29m; present corps formed, 359. Vyvyan, Bishop, Pr. of Bodmin, con- secrates L. Ch., 76. Sir Richard, active for the R. in C, 163. ■ Richard, recorder of L., 28711. Sir Richard Rawlinson, mem. forC, 316. opposes Reform Bill, 317; de- feated at poll, lb. Wadebridge, Cuthbert Maine's quar- ter displayed at, 102; Savings' Bank founded, 307 ; communication with L. by coach and waggon, 334 ; proposed railway communication with L.. 355. Wadge, Thomas, presented at Town Court for malpractices, 105. Waggons of Russell and Davis, 334. Wakeham, James, an eighteenth cen- tury L. Tory, 253. Walk, The, amateur theatricals at, 274n; laid out by Corporation, 300; site of old Grammar School, 307. Waller, Sir William, P. General, marches to the West, 166 ; and is defeated at Lansdowne, 167. Wallingford Castle, separated from Duchy of C, 85 ; history closely resembles that of L., lb. Walls of L., probable period of erec- tion, ^ > mentioned by Leland, 88. INDEX. 445 Walmysley, Thomas, justice of Com- mon Pleas, visits L., 114. "Walsh, William, persecutes Quakers at L., 201. Walsingham, Lord, see de Grey. "War Office, opposes L. Railway, 352. Warbeck, Perkin, raises an insurrec- tion in C, Jl. Warbstowe, J. H. Kendall vicar of, 34 6 - Warlewast, Bishop, founds Py., 28. Warne, Thomas, killed at Dunheved Green, 312. Warwick, Earl of, friend of Sir John Eliot, 135. Waryn, Thomas, holds manor of Dun- heved, 60. Robert, Pr. of L., 65 ; his ar- rangements with Liskeard, 84 Watchmen at L., 3:3. Water supply of L., described by Leland, 88 ; and see Waterworks. mills at L., leased to Richard Trefusis, 106. Waterloo, news of victory proclaimed at L., 357. Waterworks, provided at St. S. and L., 312 ; found inadequate, 338 ; new ones erected, 340. Watkins, William, curate of St. M. M., 34411; second master of L. Grammar School, lb.; curate of Bridgetown, lb. "Watts, — constable at L., 308. Wayternefe, Court of, held at L., 55. Webb, Sir Thomas, canon of L., ack- nowledges royal supremacy, 79 ; US the surrender, 83. William, assists L. on roads question, 267. Week St. Mary, chaplain of, see Richard ; Wesley preaches at, 260. manor, feudal custom con- ed with, _;hts, unjust at L., 105 ; dispute ring, 1 13. Wei Inn, Captain, a I rdered 01 upj Lifton 8 ;n. Will,, a sanctuary town, 89; daugh- ' >■■ buried at L., 21 pi. Welsh, Philip, alderman of ].., 2 . Richard, gives evidence on Poor Bill, 262 ; bequeathes legacy to poor girls, 285. Werrington, possible Saxon settle- ment, 16 ; traditions concerning, 31-2; granted to Tavistock Abbey, 32,82 ; contributes towards chantry in Py., 65 ; supposed Flemish sett- lers, 91; cider for R. sent from, 181; imparked by Sir Francis Drake, 210; sold to William Morice, lb. ; im- provements effected at, 259 ; new mansion and church built, lb. ; purchased by Duke of Northumber- land, 270 ; G. B. Gibbons vicar of, 29Sn ; visited by Fourth Duke of Northumberland, 337 ; E. King vicar of, 34411 ; estate sold to Mr. Campbell, 362 ; to Mr. Dick, lb. ; to Mr. Deakin, 363 ; and to Mr. Williams, 367 ; political influence ceases, lb. Arch, built, 259 ; destroyed, lb. Park, founded by Sir Francis Drake, 210. Wesley, John, visits L. on several occasions, 260-61-71 ; founds society in L., 271: condemns local clergy- man, lb. ; again visits L., 283. Wesleyan Methodist Association, ad- herents at L., 337. Reformers, see United Metho- dist. \\\ sleyanism in L., its beginnings, 2C0 ; and progress, 271 ; first meeting-house built, 2S3 ; and en- larged, lb. ; original dimensions of L. circuit, lb. ; new chapel erected, 290 ; restricted in preaching at workhouse, 299 ; continued progress, 307 ; circuit reduced in size, 308 ; el, in body and seces- sions from. 337 ; efforts at St. S., I ; new chapels at L., lb. Western Circuit, expenses of in seven- teenth century, 114; conduct of cou:i • 1 1 a, 229. Road made, 321; site of Oddfellows' Hall, 372; and L. infirmary, 374. Subscription Room built, 321 ; first meeting place of seceding 446 INDEX. Methodists, 337 ; election petition tried at, 364. "Western Wonder, A, poem written to celebrate R. victory atStratton, 166. West Gate, Sampson Pyper's property at, 106 ; destroyed by Corporation, 301. ■ Inn, curious occurrence at, Street, original site of Dun- heved College, 371. W r est Looe, granted same privileges asL., 64 ; Colonel Bennett returned for, 205 ; elects John Willes, 254. Westminster, a sanctuary town, 89 ; elects Earl Percy in succession to Fox, 295. Wevill, George, one of founders of Tradesmen's Friendly Society, 274. Weymouth, elects John Willes, 254. White, George Graham, sen., last President of L. Mechanics' Institute, 337; mayor of L., 356; election to Town Council protested against, lb. ; issue tried, lb. George Graham, jun., one of last Local Guardians, 28cm ; 011 last committee of L. Mechanics' Insti- tute, 337n ; present captain of L. Cricket Club and Fire Brigade, 373. ■ Hart, doorway suggested to be Saxon, 13; earliest mention of hotel, 237; doorway probable relic of Py., 238; theatre existing at, 273; visited by Queen of Portugal, 331 ; head quarters of local coaches, 332 ; Lord de Dunstanville lies in state at, lb. Horse Inn at N., probably founded at Hanoverian accession^ 246. Lane, original name of Race Hill, iof». Nicholas, an eighteenth cen- tury L. Whig, 253 _ Samuel, original trustee of Castle St. Chapel, 241. Thomas, one of last Local Guardians, 28011 ; on Board of Health, 34cm ; Freemason at L., 37211. William, married at L., 190. Whitstone, chaplain of, see Thomas W'ilde, Serjeant, attends assizes at L. 328. Willes, John, contests L., 251 ; sue cessfully petitions against Friend 252 ; is promoted, 254 ; sits for Weymouth and W r est Looe, lb and becomes judge, lb. William and Mary strongly supported by William Harbord, 233 ; voted address by grand jury at L., 234 ; pamphlet concerning the King pub- lished at N., 237. Earl of Mortain, see Mor- tain, William Earl of. chaplain of Jacobstowe, and William, vicar of St. Gennys, com- mitted to L. gaol, 52. of Worcester, visits L., 68. Williams, John Charles, destroys Wellington Arch, 259 ; owner of Werriugton, 367 ; Lord of the Manor of N., 36811. ■ Humphrey, assists L. on as- size question, 224. John, executed at L., 304m Richard, condemned at Bodmin for wrecking, 268; reprieved at L., 269. Richard, early Wesleyan trus- tee, 283, 29011. Thomas, jun., contests N., 134. the Papist, burial of his son at Wharton, Lady Lucy, divorced wife of Sir William Morice, 258. L., 104. Willis, Henry, takes action against JohnEscott, 157. Wilson, Richard, steward of Duke of Northumberland, 332 ; concerned in curious coach mishap, lb. Winchborow, Alexander, a soldier buried at L., 173. Winchester, Bishop of, see Beaufort. Windmill Hill, suggested site of British beacon, 12 ; lighting around in Great Rebellion, 164 ; beacon light fixed upon, 235 ; cock-fighting practised under, 307 ; supplies water to L., 313. Common, property of L. Cor- poration, 279. Wisa, see Wysa. Wise, name of witness to early L. charter, 42. INDEK. 447 Wise, Charles Pearse, on last com- mittee of L. Mechanics' Institute, 337n. Oliver, mem. for L., 69 ; and mayor, lb. William, one of last Local Guardians, 2Son ; on last committee of L. Mechanics' Institute, 337m Wiseman, Luke, opens Duuheved College, 371. Witches' Tower, destruction of, 301. Withingham (Sussex) collection in aid of at L., 221. Wolsey, Cardinal, concerned in action against L. Py., 73. Wolstenholme, Sir John, contests N., 137- Woollcomhe, Thomas, Chairman of South Devon Railway Company, opposes Copplestone scheme, lb. ; favours Line from Tavistock to L., 352n ; supports petition in favour of Railway Bill, 353. Wood, John, master of L. Grammar School, 292. Wooda Road, woollen manufacture at, 320. Wooger, Hugh, executioner at L., 212. Wool trade at L., 105, 320; and Lifton, Tavistock, and Roborough, 10511. Worcester, William of, see William. Workhouse at L., earliest proposal for, 262 ; scandalous state of, 290 ; ceases to exist, 327. Working Men's Club at L., 346. Worsey, John, churchwarden of St. M. M., 22 in. Wrecking in C, see Pearse and Williams. Wrey, Sir William, a Cornish supporter of the loan, 138; imprisoned by the Sergeant-at-Arms, lb. Wyatt, William, executed at L., 304n; curious story concerning, 309. YVvnchelade, John, one of Arundel's followers executed, 95. Wyndham, Charles, contests L., 255 ; petitions against John Ring, 256 ; withdraws petition, lb. Wynn, see Gwyn. Wysa, Serlo, witnesses deed at L., 61; Bailiff of the Hundred of East, 388. Sir William, grants a tenure at Landue, 61. Wysdom, Robert, mem. for L., 49. Yeolm Bridge, mentioned by Leland, 87 ; flour trade at, 320. Yolland, Colonel, inspects L. railway, 354- York, a sanctuary town, 89. Mr., contractor for L. railwav, 354- Young, Sir Walter, candidate for N., 225 ; unsuccessfully petitions against return, lb. Supplementary Notes and Additions. Contents.— Some of the dates in this Table are wrong ; those at the heads of the respective chapters are to be relied upon. Page x. — The Preface should be dated February, 1885. Page 31.— In a valuation of the estates of the Bishoprics oi England and Wales, taken by order of Parliament in 1647, Lawhitton appears as a portion of the temporalities of the see of Exeter, the "present rents and p'htts p'an." being set down at £dz 4s., and the "improvements above p'ann." at _£l68 is. (Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica, vol. iii., p. 41.) Page 79.— The full text of the deed of surrender is to be found in Rvmer's Focdera (1712), vol. xiv., pp. 493, 520, it being given at the Chapter- House "(" datum in Domo nostra Capitulari") by the "Prior Domus sive Prioratus Sancti Stephani de Launceston et ejusdem Loci Conventus," and it is added that the seal is of red wax. See also Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of Henry VIII., vol. vii., p. 329, from which it appears that, with the exception of Plympton, the surrender was more numerously signed at Launceston than at any other of the religious houses of the diocese of Exeter. Page 97. — Son should read grandson. Page 127.— "Rich. Escote of Lincoln's Inn" possessed according to Dugdale, one of the cartularies of the dissolved Priory of Launceston. Page i^.—Aftertvards castellan of Launceston should be omitted after Walter Langdon. Page 195.— On February 18, 1658, the Council of State approved a grant of ^20 to the " Schoolmaster of Launceston, Cornwall," as "advised by the Trustees for Maintenance of Ministers" (Domestic State Papers, 1657-58, p. 294). As William Oliver was residing in Launceston at this time, and is known to have acted as Master of the Grammar School (see p. 214), it is most probably to him that this grant was made. Page 220.— The great fire at Marlborough occurred on April 28, 1653, and the matter was laid before the Council of State on May 18 (Domestic State Papers, 1652-53, p. 336, and also 1653, p. 40.) Pages 237-248n.— Mr. W. P. Courtney (one of the compilers of the BibliothecaCovnubiensis) has given the Author good grounds for believing that the identity of William Cary with Sir William Carew cannot be established. Page 245. — Shortly before the Hanoverian succession should read' shortly after. In a letter of Pope to the Earl of Burlington, dated August, 1714, (and quoted as a note in Thackeray's " English Humourists ") occurs the following reference to this episode : " ' Now, Sir,' continued Mr. Lintot_ [the publisher], ' in return for the frankness I have shown pray tell me, is it the opinion of your friends at court that my Lord Lansdowne will be brought to the bar or not ? ' I told him I heard he would not, and I hoped it, my lord being one I had particular obligations to.—' That may be; replied Mr. Lintot; ' but by G— if he is not, I shall lose the printing of a very good trial.' ' index. 449 Page 250. — Bishop of Ossoty, Ferns, and Leighlin, should read Bishop of Ferns and Leighlin. Page 251. — The Norwich Mercury of Saturday, August 10, 1728, contained the following paragraph: " On Sunday last [August 4] died at Hampstead Nicholas Herle, of Launceston, iiv Cornwall, Esq. ; a gentleman of good character and great estate, who not long since, when he was High Sheriff of that county, had the misfortune accidentally to shoot his lady." According to some notes made by the late Mr. Northmore Lawrence, Nicho- las Herle, who was a posthumous child, "was a barrister and resided at Dockacre in the borough of Launceston. He was many times mayor, and married Elizabeth Acland, daughter of the Rector of Northcote. He died without issue in 1 734 or 1 735 (?) and is believed to have been buried at Lezant." The uncertainty displayed by Mr. Lawrence concerning the date of death and place of burial is only a portion of the mystery which attaches to Nicholas Herle. A ^tradition remembered by Mr. Lawrence is that Herle brought about the death of his wife (who, according to a monument in St. Mary Magdalene's, " depard. ys life ye 25th of December, 1 714") by starvation or other unlawful means ; and it is perhaps not placing too severe a strain upon the imagination to fancy that in this is the germ of the ghost-story connected with Dockacre, referred to in "John Herring." Page 255. — John King (who was son of Lord Chancellor King) was returned also for Exeter at this election. Page 270. — Amherst (who was a brother of Lord Amherst) had sat for Hythe from November, 1 766, until the General Election at which he was returned for Launceston ; he later became Adjutant General of the Forces and Governor of St. John's, Newfoundland, and died May 13, 1781 (Foster's Collectanea Genealogica, vol. i., p. 41, and Gentleman 's Magazine, vol. li., p. 3240 Page 270. — Bennett should read Bennet. Page 271. — The only local contemporaneous reference to Wesley's visits to Launceston is to be found in a diary (for the loan of which the Author has to thank Mr. Albert Prust) kept during 17S5 by Robert Pearse, jun., of Newport, who under date of Wednesday, August 31, recorded "Mr. Wesley preacht at Lanson — a Mixture of Stuff." Mr. Pearse, who, it should benoted, was a staunch Calvinist and sturdy believer in William Saltren, goes on to ob- serve " Mr. Saltren met the People after" — obviously considering it a case of banc and antidote. Page 272. — In the Gentleman'' 's Magazine for 1793 (vol.lxiii, part 1, p. 576) is recorded the death on May 30, of "Mr. Rob. Bennett, coroner of Laun- ceston." Page 273. — Although this is the first discovered mention of the King's Arms under its present name, it may be taken that this hotel is the lineal ad ant of the Queen's Arms, mentioned in evidence on the petition of 1724 (see p. 252) as a place where public business had been transacted. Pa - .".— Tn connection with Coryndon Carpenter it may be noted that his heir, William Fountleroy Carpenter, fell in a duel at the age of 21 on August 22, 179O; the story is told at Length in the Gentleman 's Magazine (vol. l.wi., part 2, p. 709.) 45° INDEX. Page 294. — Wlio had sat for the borough should read who had sat for Launceston. Page 302. — Air. J. K. Lethbridge should read Mr. Christopher Lcthhridge. Page 304. — The picture facing this page is printed from the block which, in the days when executions took place at Launceston, was placed by a local printer at the head ot the "last dying speech and confession," the hawking of which always followed a hanging : on the gallows was allowed space for the representation of three suspended culprits, the number being reduced ac- cording to requirement. Page 309. — The "proof that this transport to St. Stephens was ever portion of a Launceston execution " has been afforded since this page was printed. In Robert Pearse's Diary, under date March 23, 1785, is the entry " a Chimney Sweeper executed at St. Stephens for the Murder of his Appren- tice being fully proved at Lanson Assizes ;" while on the opposite page under the same date, as if to put the question beyond the reach of argument, is "at Meeting a most Excellent Sermon very striking on acct. of a Chimney Sweepers being Executed at St. Stephens." Page 367. — By the Redistribution Bill, now (April, 1885) passing through Parliament, Launceston is constituted the head of one of the six Divisions of Cornwall, each returning one member. The name of the town will continue, therefore, to appear on the Roll of Parliament, as it has done since 1295. Page 374. — Owing to a much-regretted oversight, the Rev. S. Baring- Gould's novel, "John Herring," is not noticed in relation to Launceston's connection with literature, for the scene of the work is in great part laid in the town, and much of the action passes at "Dolbeare," easily to be recognised as Dockacre. It is further deserving of mention that Rawdon Crawley, immor- talised in " Vanity Fair," is expressly stated by Thackeray (edition of 1878, vol. i., p. 67) to have been named " from the Prince of Wales's friend, whom his Majesty George IV., forgot so completely," and whom there is not much difficulty in identifying with the Hon. John Rawdon, member for Launceston from 1796 until 1802. Page 384. — Please read — TOWN CLERKS SINCE 1836. 1836 — 67 Charles Gurney.* 1867 — 74 John Lethbridge Cowlard. 1874—85 Richard Peter. 1885— Claude Hurst Peter. * Continued in office from the old Corporation. Note. — Mr. Cowlard died January 9, 1885 ; both Mr. Gurney and Mr. Richard Peter are still living. Page 384. — Pearse, William Derry, 1864 to 1881 should read 1864' to 1879. NOTE BY THE AUTHOR, The Author will be greatly obliged by the forwarding to him through his publishers of any hints or corrections bearing upon this work ; he will be even more gratified by the loan of any letters, diaries, or other documents bearing upon the past life of the borough which may be known to be in existence or which may in the future be found. It is only by such aid that the gaps still left in Launceston's history can be hoped to be filled. London, March 31, 1885. % V 127 1 University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. A A 000 240 370 7