of California 
 i Regional 
 r Facility
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 CORNISH WORTHIES-. 
 
 SKETCHES OF SOME EMINENT CORNISH MEN 
 AND FAMILIES. 
 
 BY 
 
 WALTER H. TREGELLAS. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES.-VOL. I. 
 
 1 Cornubia fulsit 
 Tot foecunda viris.' 
 
 JOSEPH OF EXETER (XHIth century). 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.G. 
 
 1884.
 
 DA 
 
 v, i 
 
 I BeMtatc 
 
 THESE SKETCHES OF SOME OF ' 
 
 MY NATIVE COUNTY'S WORTHIES 
 
 TO THE WORTHIEST OF WOMEN, 
 MY WIFE. 
 
 656340
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PRELUDES vii 
 
 INTRODUCTION - xi 
 
 RALPH ALLEN ; THE MAN OF BUSINESS AND 
 
 PHILANTHROPIST - i 
 
 JOHN ANSTIS ; THE HERALD 27 
 THE ARUNDELLS OF LANHERNE, TRERICE 
 AND TOLVERNE ; ECCLESIASTICS AND WAR 
 
 RIORS 35 
 
 THE BASSETS OF TEHIDY 107 
 
 ADMIRAL WILLIAM BLIGH, F.R.S. 137 
 THOMASINE BONAVENTURA (DAME THOMA- 
 
 SINE PERCIVAL), LADY MAYORESS OF LONDON - 149 
 HENRY BONE, R.A. ; THE ENAMELIST - 159 
 REV. DR. WILLIAM BORLASE, F.R.S. ; THE AN- 
 TIQUARY - 167 
 THE BOSCAWENS 189 
 DAVY ; THE MAN OF SCIENCE 245 
 ADMIRAL VISCOUNT EXMOUTH 289 
 SAMUEL FOOTE ; WIT AND DRAMATIST - 309 
 THE GODOLPHINS OF GODOLPHIN ; STATES- 
 MEN, JURISTS, AND DIVINES - - 337
 
 PRELUDES. 
 
 OR enquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and 
 prepare thyself to the search of their fathers : 
 (for we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, 
 because our days upon earth are a shadow :) 
 
 shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter words out 
 
 of their heart ?J0i> viii. 8-10. 
 
 ' Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat 
 us. The Lord hath wrought great glory by them through His 
 great power from the beginning. Such as did bear rule in their 
 kingdoms, men renowned for their power, giving counsel by 
 their understanding, and declaring prophecies : leaders of the 
 people by their counsels, and by their knowledge of learning 
 meet for the people : wise and eloquent in their instructions : 
 such as found out musical tunes, and recited verses in writing : 
 rich men furnished with ability, living peaceably in their habi- 
 tations : all these were honoured in their generations, and were 
 the glory of their times. There be of them, that have left a 
 name behind them, that their praises might be reported. And 
 some there be, which have no memorial ; who are perished, as
 
 viii Preludes. 
 
 though they had never been ; and are become as though they 
 had never been born ; and their children after them. But 
 these were merciful men, whose righteousness hath not been 
 forgotten.' Ecclesiasticus xliv. i-io. 
 
 ' Hie manus, ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi : 
 Quique sacerdotes casti, dum vita manebat : 
 Quique pii vates et Phcebo digna locuti : 
 Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes : 
 Quique sui memores alios fecere merendo : 
 Omnibus his nivea cinguntur tempora vitta.' 
 
 JEneid, vi. 
 
 ' Patriots who perished for their country's right, 
 Or nobly triumphed in the field of fight : 
 There holy priests and sacred poets stood, 
 Who sung with all the raptures of a god : 
 Worthies, who life by useful arts refined, 
 With those who leave a deathless name behind, 
 Friends of the world, and fathers of mankind.' 
 
 PITT'S Translation, 
 
 yf I have sayed a misse, I am content that any man 
 amende it, or if I have sayd to lytle, any man that wyl to adde 
 what hym pleaseth to it. My mind is, in profitynge and pleas- 
 ynge every man, to hurte or displease no man.' 
 
 Introduction to ROGER ASCHAM'S ' Toxophilus? 
 
 "Tis opportune to look back upon old times, and contem- 
 plate our forefathers. Great examples grow thin, and to be 
 fetched from the passed world.' 
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE to THOMAS LE GROS, 
 
 in the Epistle Dedicatory to the * Hydriotaphia?
 
 Preludes. ix 
 
 ' It is a reverend thing to see an ancient castle or building 
 not in decay ; or to see a fair timber-tree sound and perfect ; 
 how much more to behold an ancient noble family, which hath 
 stood against the waves and weathers of time ? 
 
 BACON. 
 
 'THE LORD BACON'S JUDGMENT OF A WORK OF THIS 
 NATURE.' 
 
 ' I do much admire that these times have so little esteemed 
 the vertues of the times, as that the writing of Lives should be 
 no more frequent. For although there be not many soveraign 
 princes, or absolute commanders, and that states are most col- 
 lected into monarchies ; yet are there many worthy personages 
 that deserve better than dispersed report, or barren elogies ; for 
 herein the invention of one of the late poets is proper, and 
 doth well inrich the ancient fiction. For he faineth, that at 
 the end of the thread or web of every man's life, there was a 
 little medal containing the person's name ; and that Time 
 waiteth upon the Sheers, and as soon as the thread was cut, 
 caught the medals, and carried them to the river Let he j and 
 about the bank there were many birds flying up and down, and 
 would get the medals, and carry them in their beak a little 
 while, and then let them fall into the river. Onely there were a 
 few Swans, which if they got a name, would carry it to a 
 temple where it was consecrate.' 
 
 In LLOYD'S State Worthies, vol. i. 
 
 ' It is a melancholy reflection to look back on so many great 
 families as have formerly adorned the county of Cornwall, and 
 are now no more : the Grenvilles, the Arundells, Carminows, 
 Champernons, Bodrugans, Mohuns, Killegrews, Bevilles, Tre-
 
 x Preludes. 
 
 vanions, which had great sway and possessions in these parts. 
 The most lasting families have only their seasons, more or less, 
 of a certain constitutional strength. They have their spring 
 and summer sunshine glare, their wane, decline, and death : 
 they flourish and shine perhaps for ages ; at last they sicken ; 
 their light grows pale, and, at a crisis when the off sets are 
 withered and the old stock is blasted, the whole tribe dis- 
 appears, and leave the world as they have done Cornwall. 
 There are limits ordained to everything under the sun : man 
 will not abide in honour? 
 
 DR. BORLASE (as quoted by LYSONS in 'Magna Britannia] 
 voL iii. Cornwall, p. clxxiv.). 
 
 ' Every man in the degree in which he has wit and culture 
 finds his curiosity inflamed concerning the modes of living and 
 thinking of other men.' 
 
 EMERSON'S ' Essay on Intellect! 
 
 ' " The biographical part of literature," said Dr. Johnson, " is 
 what I love the best"; and his remark is echoed daily in the 
 hearts, if not in the words, of hundreds of readers : * * * 
 and though for the last half-century pure fiction has been in 
 the ascendant, the popularity of biography, if not relatively, yet 
 absolutely, seems to be continually increasing.' 
 
 Quarterly Review, No. 313, January , 1884.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 HE question has often been asked, ' Why 
 is there for Cornwall no companion-book to 
 Prince's "Worthies of Devon " ?' Fuller, 
 it is true, in his ' Worthies,' allots a section 
 to Cornwall; but the notices, though pregnant with 
 shrewd humour, are slight and incomplete; and Fuller, 
 of course, is now out of date : indeed, most of the 
 Cornishmen whose names will be found in the following 
 pages lived since his time. The Rev. R. Polwhele, of 
 Polwhele, one of the historians of his native county, 
 has certainly left us some amusing notices in his 
 ' Biographical Sketches ;' but out of the sixty names 
 that he enumerates, ' all-eating Time hath left us 
 but a little morsel (for manners) of their memories ;' 
 and some half-dozen only seem to be sufficiently 
 distinguished to require any further perpetuation of 
 their fame than has been already conferred upon
 
 xii Introduction. 
 
 them by Polwhele's now scarce little work. Besides 
 which, Polwhele, of course, had not access to the great 
 Libraries and Collections which are now available in 
 London, nor to the Transactions of many metropolitan 
 and local Archaeological Societies ; he was, moreover, 
 apt to be dazzled by the nearness of the effulgence 
 of some of his characters : and he, too, is now 
 sixty or seventy years behind the time. Lastly, 
 neither Fuller nor Polwhele had the advantage of 
 the labours of those indefatigable pioneers in Cornish 
 literature the authors of the * Bibliotheca Cornu- 
 biensis.'* Another recent work, invaluable to the 
 would-be biographer of Cornwall's Worthies is the 
 admirable history of Exeter College, Oxford, contained 
 in the Register of the Rectors, Fellows, etc., by my old 
 schoolfellow, the Rev. C. W. Boase, Fellow and Tutor 
 of that College (Oxford, 1879). If it should be said 
 that copious and complete biographies of one or two 
 of my characters have already been written, I would 
 venture to observe in reply, that these are monograph 
 accounts only; in some cases consisting of two or 
 three volumes, and now either out of print, or, from 
 their bulk and cost, not generally accessible. 
 
 * Let me say here, once for all, that had that monument of accurate 
 research, and labour of love, the work of Mr. W. P. Courtney and Mr. 
 G. C. Boase, not appeared, the following essays could never have been 
 attempted by me, in the midst of many other and harassing occupa- 
 tions ; the ' Bibliotheca,' however, not only rendered such a task com- 
 paratively easy, but positively invited the pen, even of one who is no 
 ready scribe. In fact I feel, as Oliver Wendell Holmes well puts it, 
 ' that I have ascended the stream whilst others have tugged at the oar.'
 
 Introduction. xiii 
 
 May I allege another and a chief reason for writing 
 this work ? It is, that I thought those persons 
 were right who considered the celebrities of my 
 native county had not received the notice which 
 they deserved. And yet, ' class for class,' says a 
 writer in the Times, 28th March, 1882, * they will 
 beat all England.' Indeed (and I confess it with no 
 little shame) some of those whose lives I have en- 
 deavoured to describe in the following pages, I did 
 not myself, at one time, know to have been Cornish- 
 men ! And this although, as a Cornishman, I ought 
 not to be altogether without the genius loci of our 
 southernmost and westernmost county : yet 
 
 ' Semper honos, nomenque horum, laudesque manebunt.' 
 
 As regards the principle on which the lives have 
 been selected of those who, amongst others, have been 
 worthiest ' in arms, in arts, in song,' I may say that 
 I have endeavoured to find such names as would be, 
 in the first place, of sufficient importance to warrant 
 their claims to notice being brought before the 
 public ; secondly, to make the selection as varied in 
 character as possible ; and, thirdly, to choose such 
 as were likely to prove interesting to the general 
 reader : for even biography itself said by Librarians 
 to be one of the most popular branches of the belles 
 lettres must prove uninteresting if dull subjects are 
 dully treated. I earnestly trust that I have not fallen 
 into this fatal error. 
 
 It might have been interesting to have said some-
 
 xiv Introduction. 
 
 thing of many mighty names of the past ; even though 
 numbers of them are scarcely more than legendary. 
 Amongst others, of St. Ursula in the fourth century, 
 ' daughter of the Cornish King Dionutus,' and 
 Directress of the celebrated expedition of the 'eleven 
 thousand virgins ' to Cologne ; of King Arthur him- 
 self; of Walter de Constantiis, Chancellor of England, 
 and Chief Justice, in the twelfth century; of Thomas, 
 and St. George, and Richard, and Godfrey, of Corn- 
 wall ; of Odo de Tregarrick in Roche ; of Simon 
 de Thurway ; of John de Trevisa,* the fourteenth- 
 century scholar and divine, who was supposed to 
 have translated part of the Bible into English ; (' a 
 daring work,' as Fuller says, ' for a private person in 
 that age without particular command from Pope or 
 Public Council ') ; and of that Syr Roger Wallyo- 
 borow, of Buryan, who, in the time of Henry VIII., 
 ' miraculously brought home from the Holy Land a 
 piece of the true Cross.' There are, besides, many 
 others of later date, whose names I should have 
 liked, but for the reasons already given, to include ; 
 such as the Bonythons ;t the Carews ; Sir John 
 Eliot, the Patriot ; Dean Miller ; the Molesworths ; 
 the Edgcumbes of Mount Edgcumbe ; Noy, Charles 
 
 * His works are among the earliest printed books in the British 
 Museum : one of them (his translation of ' Bartholomew de Proprieta 
 tibus Rerum ') is believed to be the first book printed on paper of 
 English manufacture. 
 
 f I am informed by Mr. J. Langdon Bonython, of Adelaide, South 
 Australia, that Longfellow, the American poet, was descended from a 
 member of this family Captain Richard Bonython.
 
 Introduction. xv 
 
 I.'s Attorney-General ; Dean Prideaux ; the Rash- 
 leighs ; the Robarteses ; the Trelawnys ; the Tre- 
 maynes ; and the Trevanions ; beside those whose 
 loss to Cornwall Dr. Borlase lamented ; and many 
 others. 
 
 But there were few reliable materials for the first- 
 named group : authentic accounts of the deeds of 
 the legendary ancients have faded away into the 
 ' dark backward and abysm of time ;' and mere 
 legends it was hardly worth while to perpetuate. 
 Nor did it seem desirable to include a bare list of 
 names, or repetitions of lives of a generally similar 
 character; in which case the actors' names would 
 often have been the chief variations in what was 
 intended to be a readable, fireside book. In short, 
 I have aimed at making my list representative rather 
 than exhaustive. 
 
 With the object of not wearying the general 
 reader, I have refrained from clouding my pages 
 with minute references to authorities, except when 
 some special reason seemed to occur for doing so. 
 I trust this will not be considered a defect, when 
 I state that, for some of the lives which follow, the 
 lists of authorities consulted would have occupied 
 nearly one fourth of the space allotted to the lives 
 themselves. As an instance, the number of entries 
 given in the ' Bibliotheca Cornubiensis ' for the Killi- 
 grews is 450 ; and one of these entries alone com- 
 prises nearly fifty items.
 
 xvi Introduction. 
 
 A most pleasing task remains to be discharged ; 
 namely, to record my heartfelt obligations to my 
 friends, the Rev. F. C. Hingeston-Randolph, M.A., 
 and Mr. H. Michell Whitley, C.E., for their very 
 valuable assistance in seeing the following pages 
 through the press. 
 
 I will only add, in the words of that delightful 
 biographer, Izaak Walton, in his ' Life of George 
 Herbert ' : 
 
 ' I have used very great diligence to inform myself, 
 that I might inform my reader of the truth of what 
 follows ; and, though I cannot adorn it with eloquence, 
 yet I will do it with sincerity.' 
 
 W. H. T. 
 
 MORLAH LODGE, 
 
 16, TREGUNTER ROAD, 
 LONDON, S. W.
 
 THE MAN OF BUSINESS AND PHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 ' Let humble* Allen, with an awkward shame, 
 Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.' 
 
 POPE : Epilogue to the Satires of Horace. 
 
 T. BLAZEY HIGHWAY has a clear title 
 to being the birthplace of Ralph Allen ; 
 but his parentage is doubtful, owing to 
 his name not appearing in the baptismal 
 register, and to the obscurity caused by the two 
 following entries in the Register of Marriages : 
 
 1686. 
 
 William All , and Grace , was mar 24th August (entry 
 
 imperfect). 
 
 1687. 
 
 John Allen, of parish of St. Blazey, and Mary Elliott, \ of the 
 parish of St. Austell, were married the loth of February. 
 
 Ralph was born about 1694. His father kept a 
 small inn called ' The Duke William 'sometimes 
 
 * This word originally stood as ' low-born ;' but Pope (himself a 
 linendraper's son, it will be remembered) altered it, as it is said, at 
 Allen's request. Pope had previously asked Allen's leave to insert 
 some such passage (28th April, 1 738). 
 
 t Allen's sister married a Mr. Philip Elliott. 
 
 I 2
 
 Some Cornis/i Worthies. 
 
 ' The Old Duke ' (the site of which is now occupied 
 by three or four dwelling-houses), and he seems to 
 have been a man of good common -sense and sturdy 
 disposition, judging from one or two slight anecdotes 
 of him which have come down to us : doubtless 
 he gave his boy Ralph good advice, if not much 
 literary instruction. But the youngster primarily 
 owed most of his remarkable success in life to the 
 fact of his happening to be staying with his grand- 
 mother, who kept the St. Columb Post-office, when 
 the Government Inspector came his rounds. This 
 officer seems to have at once recognised the shrewd- 
 ness and neat-handedness of the lad ; and an appoint- 
 ment in the Post-office at Bath, to which place young 
 Ralph was brought under the care of Sir John 
 Trevelyan, was, before long, offered to him. Here 
 he soon distinguished himself by detecting a plot to 
 introduce into Bath illegally, in connexion with the 
 Jacobite rising of 1715, a quantity of arms. This 
 discovery he forthwith communicated to General 
 Wade, who thereupon became his friend and patron, 
 and whose natural daughter so Pierce Egan tells us 
 a Miss Earl, became Allen's first wife. His first 
 wife, but not his first love : her he magnanimously 
 portioned, and yielded up to another man, with whom 
 he thought she might be happier; and hence, probably, 
 the reason why the basso-relievo of Scipio's resigna- 
 tion of his captive was selected as one of the 
 principal decorations of the Hall at Prior Park. Far- 
 ington thus refers to Allen's discovery of the Jacobite 
 plot : ' When the rebellion burst out, a numerous
 
 Ralph Allen, ' the Man of Bath' 5 
 
 junto in Bath took most active measures to aid the 
 insurrection in the West of England ; and Mr. Carte, 
 the minister of the Abbey Church, when Allen detected 
 the plot, was glad to escape from the constables by 
 leaping from a window in full canonicals.' 
 
 On his becoming Deputy Postmaster at Bath, the 
 anomalies and inconveniences attendant upon the 
 postal system, as it was then worked, engaged 
 Allen's serious attention. It will scarcely be be- 
 lieved that in those days a letter from Cheltenham 
 or Bath to Worcester or Birmingham was actually 
 sent first to London ! To remedy this state of things 
 Allen by degrees perfected that scheme of cross-posts 
 throughout England and Wales with which his name 
 will always be associated, and for which he was 
 himself the contractor for many years ; viz. from 
 1720 to 1764.* Accounts differ as to the profits 
 which accrued to him under this contract, which was 
 from time to time renewed ; but there is no reason to 
 doubt the story that ultimately he cleared by it no 
 less a sum than half a million sterling. 
 
 In 1644, by a Resolution of the House of Commons, 
 Edmund Prideaux, a Member of the House, was 
 
 * For particulars, see ' Parliamentary Papers,' 1807, 1812, and 1813. 
 The following extract from the London Gazette of i6th April, 1720, 
 fixes the date of the commencement of the scheme : ' General Post 
 Office, London, April 12, 1720. The announcement recites that the 
 Post Office authorities, having granted to Ralph Allen, of Bath, gentle- 
 man, a farm of all the by-way or cross-road letters throughout England 
 and Wales, and being determined to improve postal communication, 
 give notice that "the postage of no by-way or cross-road letters is 
 anywhere to be demanded at the places they are sent from (upon any 
 pretence whatever) unless they are directed on board of a ship," ' 
 etc., etc.
 
 6 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 constituted Master of the Post Messengers and 
 Carriers, and in 1649 he established a weekly convey- 
 ance to every part of the kingdom, in lieu of the 
 former practice under which letters were sent by 
 special messengers whose duty it was to supply re- 
 lays of horses at a certain mileage. In 1658 Cromwell 
 made Prideaux one of his Baronets ; and he acquired 
 great wealth. It is said that his emoluments in 
 connexion with the Post Office were not less than 
 15,000 a year. (Maclean's Trigg Minor, vol. ii. 
 pp. 210-11.) Thus, whilst to one West-countryman, 
 who, if not indeed a Cornishman by birth (for the 
 Prideauxes were lords of Prideaux, close to Allen's 
 birth-place), was at least of Cornish extraction 
 Postmaster-General Edmund Prideaux, Attorney- 
 General we owe in a great measure the regular 
 efficient establishment of the Post Office and its first 
 becoming a source of revenue to another Cornish- 
 man, the subject of these remarks, we are indebted 
 for the important improvements referred to above. 
 
 In the Home Office Papers, 1761 (2nd and 5th 
 December, Post Office PL 5, 385 ' By-way and 
 Cross-road Posts '), will be found ' a narrative of 
 Mr. Allen's transactions with the Government for 
 the better management of the by-way and cross- 
 road posts from the year 1720 to the year 1762, 
 whereby it will be seen how much he has been the 
 instrument of increasing the revenue and encouraging 
 the commerce of this kingdom during the whole of 
 that long interval. Dated 2nd December, 1761.' 
 The narrative shows that in 1710 the country post-
 
 Ralph Allen, ' the Man of Bath: 7 
 
 masters collected quantities of ' by or way letters,' 
 and clandestinely conveyed them. Correspondence 
 was perpetually interrupted. ' The by and way 
 letters were thrown promiscuously together into one 
 large bag, which was to be opened at every stage by 
 the deputy, or any inferior servant of the house, to 
 pick out of the whole heap what might belong to his 
 own delivery, and the rest put back again into this 
 large bag with such by-letters as he should have to 
 send to distant places from his own stage.' Traders 
 resorted to clandestine conveyance for speed. Sur- 
 veyors were, however, appointed to make reports on 
 the Post Office at the beginning of the reign of George 
 I., but their reports did not touch these by-letters. Mr. 
 Allen, having contrived checks which detected con- 
 siderable frauds, next formed the plan for the convey- 
 ance of these letters in 1710. His offer to advance the 
 revenue of the Post Office from 4,000 to 6,000 a 
 year was accepted ; but false and malicious representa- 
 tions were made against his proposal. On an inquiry 
 as to the revenue from these letters, it was found that 
 for seven years it had sunk 900 ayear. He then made 
 another proposal to farm the postage for seven years 
 at the sum which they then yielded, taking any such 
 surplus as he could make them produce, and an ' ex- 
 planatory contract ' was then agreed to. On an 
 examination into the account of the country letters, 
 it had increased 7,835 2s. 7d., which Mr. Allen 
 would have been entitled to if the ' explanatory con- 
 tract ' had only been executed. The country letters 
 increased to 17,464 43. nd. per annum at the end
 
 8 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 of fourteen years. He now appointed surveyors, and 
 stated his plans for suppressing irregularities. Lord 
 Lovell and Mr. Carteret having expressed their ap- 
 proval of these plans, etc., he agreed to another con- 
 tract for seven years, and proposed an extension and 
 quickening of the correspondence in 1741 by an 
 ' every-day post ' to several places ; this contract was 
 renewed in 1748, 1755, and 1760. It details the com- 
 munications by cross-roads, etc. ; and it was found 
 that the revenue, by computation, had increased 
 one and a half millions. 
 
 Some fine quarries on Combe Down, from which 
 most of the best houses in Bath were built, having 
 become his property, Allen invented an ingenious 
 contrivance for conveying the huge blocks of stone from 
 the quarries on the hill down to the canal which runs by 
 the city. In his capacity of quarry-owner he amassed 
 still more wealth, became a large employer of labour, 
 and a man of such influence in Bath, that although 
 he was mayor once only (in 1742), he practically 
 guided the affairs of that city as it pleased him best, 
 a circumstance which gave rise to a caricature, long 
 popular at Bath, entitled ' The One-headed Corpora- 
 tion.' It need hardly be added whose head that was. 
 A bust of him in the Drawing-room or Council 
 Chamber of the Guildhall commemorates the year 
 of his mayoralty, and there is also a portrait of him 
 in the Mayor's Room. 
 
 Probably his energies as a man of business were 
 exerted in many other directions, which it would 
 now be difficult to trace. But, be this as it may,
 
 Ralph Allen, ' the Man of Bath' 9 
 
 he now determined on leaving his old residence in 
 the city, situated between York Street and Liliput 
 Alley, and which, I believe, still stands, though 
 obscured by surrounding buildings. The site he 
 chose for his long-planned new residence is one of 
 the finest in the kingdom. It is three or four miles 
 out of Bath, on the south-east side, and stands near 
 the Combe Down quarries, 400 feet above the sea, 
 commanding fine views over many a mile around. 
 Here at Prior Park, originally the seat of an old 
 monastic establishment, which, Leland says, 'be- 
 longed to the prior of Bathe,'* Ralph Allen deter- 
 mined on building a large and stately mansion, 
 which should enable him to exercise a princely 
 hospitality towards almost every stranger of rank, 
 learning, or distinction who visited ' The Bath.' 
 Hither came, for instance, Thomson and Swift and 
 Gay, Arbuthnot and Pope, Sterne and Smollett, 
 Garrick and Quin ; Graves, the author of the 
 'Spiritual Quixote;' and Charley Yorke, afterwards 
 Solicitor-General all probably known to Allen 
 through meeting him in the literary circles of London, 
 which Allen frequented when he went to town. 
 Nor was he unvisited by royalty : the Princess 
 Amelia stayed there in 1752, and the Duke of York, 
 ' on his own motion,' as Allen is careful to say, on 
 26th December, 1761. Here, too, might often be 
 found reckless, delightful, generous Henry Fielding, 
 
 * Curiously enough, after the lapse of many years, it has again 
 reverted, after a chequered history, to similar uses. It was used 
 as a Roman Catholic seminary in 1820, but did not at first succeed ; and 
 much of the internal part was destroyed by fire in 1836.
 
 io Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 who avowedly not only drew one phase of his muni- 
 ficent friend's portrait as the somewhat too feeble 
 Squire Allworthy in ' Tom Jones,' and described the 
 mansion at Prior Park in the same novel, but also 
 dedicated to him that other story which Dr. Johnson 
 read with such avidity ' Amelia.' No doubt, too, it 
 is to Allen that Fielding refers in the well-known 
 passage in ' Joseph Andrews,' comparing him to the 
 
 ' Man of Ross :' ' One Al Al I forget his name.' 
 
 And Allen's generosity towards Fielding did not end 
 with cheery welcomes to Prior Park and timely loans 
 should we not rather say gifts ? to the jolly novelist 
 when he was in need of them, for Lawrence tells us 
 that he sent Fielding a present of 200 guineas, in 
 admiration of his genius, before they were personally 
 acquainted ; and on Fielding's death Allen took 
 charge of his family, provided for their education, 
 and left 100 a year between them. 
 
 Pope,* whose acquaintance with Allen dated from 
 1736, brought Warburton. Sitting one day at dinner, 
 at Prior Park, the poet had a letter handed to him, 
 which he read apparently with some disappointment 
 on finding that he should probably miss an opportunity 
 of meeting his friend. Allen, however, on hearing the 
 cause of Pope's trouble, with characteristic native 
 politeness begged him to ask Warburton to the house 
 
 * Their friendship seems to have arisen from Allen's great admiration 
 of Pope's letters (notwithstanding their artificiality) and of his poems, 
 of which Allen is said to have offered to print a volume at his own 
 expense. Mr. Leslie Stephen says, 'Pope first attracted Allen's 
 notice by his adroit but dishonest manipulation of the controversy 
 touching the Curil correspondence.'
 
 Ralph Allen, ' the Man of Bath' 1 1 
 
 a pleasant task which Pope, who used to say that his 
 host's friendship was ' one of the chief satisfactions 
 of his life,' performed in the following letter, which I 
 insert as giving us a peep at the sort of life led in 
 those days by Allen and his friends, and also as 
 affording us a glimpse of the house itself: 
 
 ' My third motive of now troubling you is my own 
 proper interest and pleasure. I am here in more 
 leisure than I can possibly enjoy, even in my own 
 house, vacare literis. It is at this place that your 
 exhortations may be most effectual to make me 
 resume the studies I had almost laid aside by per- 
 petual avocations and dissipations. If it were prac- 
 ticable for you to pass a month or six weeks from 
 home, it is here I could wish to be with you ; and if 
 you would attend to the continuation of your own 
 noble work, or unbend to the idle amusement of 
 commenting upon a poet, who has no other merit 
 than that of aiming, by his moral strokes, to merit 
 some regard from such men as advance truth and 
 virtue in a more effectual way; in either case this 
 place and this house would be an inviolable asylum 
 to you from all you would desire to avoid in so public 
 a scene as Bath. The worthy man who is the master 
 of it invites you in the strongest terms, and is one 
 who would treat you with love and veneration, rather 
 than with what the world calls civility and regard. 
 He is sincerer and plainer than almost any man now 
 in this world, antiquis moribus. If the waters of the 
 Bath may be serviceable to your complaints (as I
 
 12 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 believe from what you have told me of them), no 
 opportunity can ever be better. It is just the best 
 season. We are told the Bishop of Salisbury (Dr. 
 Sherlock) is expected here daily, who, I know, is 
 your friend at least, though a bishop, is too much 
 a man of learning to be your enemy. You see, I 
 omit nothing to add weight in the balance, in which, 
 however, I will not think myself light, since I have 
 known your partiality. You will want no servant 
 here. Your room will be next to mine, and one man 
 will serve us. Here is a library, and a gallery ninety 
 feet long to walk in, and a coach whenever you 
 would take the air with me. Mr. Allen tells me you 
 might, on horseback, be here in three days. It is 
 less than 100 miles from Newark, the road through 
 Leicester, Stowe-in-the-Wolds, Gloucestershire, and 
 Cirencester, by Lord Bathurst's. I could engage 
 to carry you to London from hence, and I would 
 accommodate my time and journey to your con- 
 veniency.' 
 
 The long gallery referred to above was a very 
 favourite part of the house with Pope, and here he 
 used to walk up and down in ' a morning dishabille 
 consisting of a dark grey waistcoat, a green dressing- 
 gown, and a blue cap,' as he is represented in the 
 well-known portrait by Hoare. 
 
 A pleasant glance at the friendly terms on which 
 the trio used to live at Prior Park is afforded to us in 
 Kilvert's ' Selections from Warburton,' which has for 
 its frontispiece a lithograph from a picture, formerly
 
 Ralph Allen, ' the Man of Bath' 1 3 
 
 at Prior Park, of Pope, Allen, and Warburton 
 ('Wit, Worth, and Wisdom'), in a room together. 
 Allen is seated in the centre of the group ; on his 
 left is Warburton, bringing into the room a ponderous 
 folio ; and, seated at a table at the opposite side of 
 the picture, the little poet is seen writing; in the 
 background, through a window, is disclosed a view of 
 Bath. It is difficult to understand how Pope, after all 
 this friendly intimacy, could quarrel with Allen, and 
 call Warburton ' a sneaking parson.' 
 
 Kurd also, successively Bishop of Lichfield and 
 Coventry, and of Worcester, was a frequent visitor 
 to Prior Park, and after his friendly host's decease 
 commemorated his worth by an inscription (now 
 effaced) on a look-out tower in the park : 
 
 ' Memorise optimi viri, RADULPHI ALLEN, positum, 
 Qui virtutem veram simplicemque colis, venerare hoc saxura.' 
 
 I do not know whether General Wade was ever 
 entertained here by Allen ; but that the latter did not 
 forget his early patron he showed by erecting the 
 General's statue in front of the house. Pitt, who sat 
 for Bath, certainly came here, and each held the 
 other in the highest regard. Allen left him 1,000 
 by his will, as ' the best of friends as well as the most 
 upright and ablest of Ministers that has adorned our 
 country.' Nor did ' the heaven-born Minister ' fail 
 to appreciate the Cornishman's virtues, or to extend 
 to others, for his sake, friendly offices ; for to Pitt, 
 Warburton (who had married Allen's favourite niece, 
 Gertrude Tucker, a lady to whom he left Prior Park 
 for life) was indebted for his bishopric. At one
 
 14 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 time, indeed, there was a slight coolness between 
 Pitt and Allen, owing to the introduction of the word 
 ' adequate ' into an address from the men of Bath in 
 a memorial to the King, referring to the Peace of 
 1763. Pitt thought the Peace extremely ' inadequate,' 
 and so much resented the use of the word that he 
 refused to join his colleague, Sir John Seabright, in 
 presenting the memorial; and whilst he vowed he 
 would never again stand for Bath, Allen from that 
 time avowed his intention of withdrawing from all 
 public affairs. In the correspondence which ensued, 
 Ralph Allen magnanimously took upon himself the 
 entire responsibility for the insertion of the obnoxious 
 word ; and he adds in a letter to Pitt, which will be 
 found in the Royal Magazine for 1763, that the com- 
 munication of Pitt's unalterable decision in the matter 
 to the Corporation of Bath was ' the most painful 
 commission he ever received.' That this event, 
 however, did not affect the high regard in which 
 the two held each other is evinced, on the one 
 hand, by the manner in which (as we have seen) 
 Allen expressed himself regarding Pitt, in his will; and 
 on the other by a letter which Pitt wrote during the 
 unfortunate controversy, in which he says : 
 
 ' I cannot conclude my letter without expressing 
 my sensible concern at Mr. Allen's uneasiness. No 
 incident can make the least change in the honour 
 and love I bear him, or in the justice my heart does 
 to his humane and benevolent virtues.' 
 
 And Pitt wrote in a similar strain to Mrs. Allen* 
 
 *This lady, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Holden, was 
 Mr. Allen's second wife.
 
 Ralph Allen, ' the Man of Bath' 1 5 
 
 on her husband's death, saying, ' I fear not all the 
 example of his virtues will have power to raise up to 
 the world his like again.' 
 
 That Pitt had good reason thus to write of his 
 deceased friend is abundantly clear from the follow- 
 ing letter, preserved amongst the Egerton MSS. in 
 the British Museum : 
 
 1 St. James's Square, Dec. 16, 1760. 
 
 * DEAR SIR, 
 
 ' The very affecting token of esteem and affec- 
 tion which you put into my hands last night at part- 
 ing, has left impressions on my heart which I can 
 neither express nor conceal. If the approbation of 
 the good and wise be our wish, how must I feel the 
 sanction of applause and friendship accompany'd 
 with such an endearing act of kindness from the best of 
 men ? True Gratitude is ever the justest of Senti- 
 ments, and Pride too, which I indulge on this occa- 
 sion, may, I trust, not be disclaim'd by Virtue. May 
 the gracious Heaven long continue to lend you to 
 mankind, and particularly to the happiness of him 
 who is unceasingly, with the warmest gratitude, 
 respect, and affection, 
 * My dear Sir, 
 
 * Your most faithfull Friend and 
 
 most obliged humble Servant, 
 
 ' W. PITT.' 
 
 Very different from this noble passage in the lives 
 of these two illustrious men was that which, for a 
 while at least, disturbed the friendly feelings of Allen
 
 1 6 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 towards Pope. The equivocal relations which existed 
 between the poet and Martha Blount are well known ; 
 * the fiend, a woman fiend, God help me ! with 
 whom I have spent three or four hours a day these 
 fifteen years.' She seems, nevertheless, to have been 
 tolerated at Allen's house at Bathampton hard by ; 
 but when she demanded the use of Mr. Allen's 
 chariot to attend a Roman Catholic Chapel at Bath, 
 Allen being a staunch Protestant and Hanoverian,* 
 the line was drawn, and a coolness, if not a quarrel, 
 ensued. Pope used to deny the whole story. At 
 any rate the breach was patched up, and intimacy 
 between him and Allen was resumed; but the 
 waspish little man never, in my opinion, either 
 forgot or forgave what happened, and to this the 
 following extract from his will, a will, as Johnson 
 said, 'polluted with female resentment,' suave 
 though the passage reads at first, I think bears 
 witness : 
 
 * I give and advise my library of printed books to 
 Ralph Allen, of Widcombe, Esq., and to the 
 Reverend Mr. William Warburton, or to the survivor 
 of them (when those belonging to Lord Bolingbroke 
 are taken out, and when Mrs. Martha Blount has 
 chosen threescore out of the number). I also give 
 and bequeath to the said Mr. Warburton the pro- 
 perty of all such of my works already printed, as he 
 hath written, or shall write, commentaries or notes 
 
 * In the Rebellion of 1745 he raised and equipped at his own 
 expense a corps of 100 volunteers.
 
 Ralph Allen, 'the Man of Bath: 17 
 
 upon, and which I have not otherwise disposed of, 
 or alienated ; and all the profits which shall arise 
 after my death from such editions as he shall publish 
 without future alterations. 
 
 * Item. In case Ralph Allen, Esq., abovesaid, 
 shall survive me, I order my executors to pay him 
 the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds, being, to 
 the best of my calculation, the account of what I 
 have received from him ; partly for my own, and partly 
 for charitable uses. If he refuses to take this himself, 
 I desire him to employ it in a way, I am persuaded, 
 he will not dislike, to the benefit of the Bath 
 Hospital.' Extract from the Will of Pope (p. clxi., 
 Pope's Works, vol. i., Bell and Daldy's Aldine 
 edition). 
 
 When the passage was read to Ralph Allen, he, of 
 course, ordered that the money should be handed over 
 to the hospital (an institution in which it may be 
 observed he always took a deep interest, providing 
 the stone, and giving 1,000 besides : a ward is 
 named after him, where his portrait* is preserved, 
 and also a bust by William Hoare of Bath, dated 
 1757) ; but he drily added, in allusion to the extent 
 of the obligations which Pope had received from 
 him, ' He forgot to add the other o to the 150,' a 
 quiet, but perhaps as keen a stab as Pope himself 
 had ever dealt with his own malevolent stiletto. And 
 Allen was a man who could afford to say so much, 
 for he used to spend about 1,000 a year in private 
 charities alone. 
 
 * Engraved by Meyer for Polwhele's ' Cornwall.' 
 VOL. I. 2
 
 1 8 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 Many of the letters of Pope to be found among the 
 Egerton MSS. have endorsements by Allen in his own 
 handwriting. On one of them is written ' The last ;' 
 and Pope concludes it evidently, from the change 
 in the handwriting, in great pain thus : * I must 
 just set my hand to my heart.' It is dated * Chelsea 
 College, 7th May, 1741.' The letters also comprise 
 some correspondence from Gertrude Warburton (nee 
 Tucker), Allen's favourite niece ; from Warburton 
 himself; and from many other distinguished per- 
 sons. 
 
 Besides Prior Park, Allen had a house in Lon- 
 don ; and another at Weymouth a place where he 
 often resided for three months annually, and whose 
 decaying fortunes he took a chief share in reviv- 
 ing, about the year 1763* and I rather think he 
 had another house at Maidenhead, near the west 
 end of the bridge, to which house he added a 
 room with a bow-window, and another room over 
 it. 
 
 He certainly had a pleasant little retreat at Bath- 
 ampton ; for in a characteristic letter from Pope to 
 Arbuthnot (the roughly humorous physician, strong 
 Tory, and High Churchman), dated 23rd July, 1793, 
 Pope explains how Allen would not let the two 
 friends stay at his villa at Bathampton, but insisted 
 upon having them both up at Prior Park ; because, 
 Pope observes, ' I suspect that he has an apprehension 
 in his head that if he lends that house to us, others 
 
 * The local guide-books to Weymouth state that Allen, whilst here, 
 invented an ingenious form of bathing-machine for his own use.
 
 Ralph Allen, ' the Man of Bath' 19 
 
 hereabouts may try to borrow it, which would be dis- 
 agreeable to him, he making it a kind of villa to 
 change to, and pass now and then a day at it, in 
 private.' 
 
 But Prior Park was Ralph Allen's historic abode ; 
 and one object which he had in view in building it 
 was to demonstrate the excellent quality of the stone* 
 in his Combe Down Quarries. The whole building, 
 which is in the Corinthian style, with its wings and 
 arcades and fine hexastyle portico has a frontage of 
 1,250 feet ; the house itself being 150 feet. We have 
 seen from Pope's letter to Warburton what spacious 
 corridors it contained, admirably adapted for literary 
 disquisitions on a wet day. The mansion also com- 
 prised its chapel, in which was kept the Bible given to 
 Pope by Atterbury when the Bishop went into exile. 
 Everything was built in the most solid style. Even 
 the pigeon-houses were of stone throughout ; and. 
 strange as it may seem, roofs were composed 
 of the same material. The house was commenced 
 in 1736 and finished in 1743 ; nor did Allen forget to 
 add to the charms of the demesne by judiciously 
 arranged plantations. 
 
 Building, indeed, seems to have been, naturally 
 enough with such magnificent quarries at his disposal, 
 a favourite occupation of Allen's. He even crowned 
 the hill which looks down upon the city of Bath from 
 the south-east with a large and somewhat picturesque 
 
 f Amongst other buildings, he cased the exterior of St. Bartholomew's 
 Hospital, in London, with Bath stone, provided at his own expense ; 
 and furnished the same material for his nephew's, Thomas Daniell's 
 house in Prince's Street, Truro. 
 
 22
 
 2O Some Cormsh Worthies. 
 
 structure, a mere shell, now known as ' Sham 
 Castle;' but which, especially when lit up by the 
 setting sun, is a not unwelcome addition to the 
 panoramic view of the hills as seen from the east end 
 of Pulteney Street. A short time ago, whilst walking 
 along this street, I asked a man, lounging there, who 
 built the castle on the hill? and (alas ! such is fame!) 
 he told me that it was ' a Mr. Nash, a gentleman 
 that had done a power of good to the city.' And 
 here it may conveniently be observed that Beau Nash, 
 to whom Dr. Oliver says Ralph Allen was 'very 
 generous ' (as he was, indeed, to everyone who had the 
 slightest claim upon his notice), generally superin- 
 tended the amusements within the walls of Prior 
 Park. On the occasion of one of these entertain- 
 ments a masked ball the solemn Warburton, who 
 thought it beneath the dignity of his cloth to wear a 
 mask, was nevertheless dressed up in a military 
 uniform by his sprightly wife, and was introduced to 
 the company as ' Brigadier-General Moses!' in allu- 
 sion, I suppose, to Warburton's authorship of the 
 * Divine Legation.' 
 
 The following local tradition respecting the build- 
 ing of Prior Park was communicated to Mr. Kilvert 
 by the late Mr. H. V. Lansdown, of Bath, the well- 
 known artist, a gentleman who had accumulated a 
 large collection of reminiscences of Bath, and its 
 Worthies of the olden time : 
 
 'When Mr. Allen had determined to build the 
 present mansion at Prior Park, he sent for John
 
 Ralph Allen, ' the Man of Bath' 2 1 
 
 Wood, the architect,* who waited upon him at the 
 old post-office in Liliput Alley, where Allen then 
 resided. 
 
 ' " I want you," said Allen, " to build me a country 
 house on the Prior's estate at Widcombe." 
 
 ' Allen then described the sort of place he wished 
 erected ; but when he entered into the details, and 
 talked about a private chapel, with a tribune for the 
 family ; a portico of gigantic dimensions ; a grand 
 entrance-hall, and wings of offices for coach-houses, 
 stables, etc., the astonished architect began to think 
 the postmaster had taken leave of his senses. 
 
 ' " Have you, sir, sat down and counted the cost 
 of building such a place ?" 
 
 ' " I have," replied Allen ; " and for some time 
 past have been laying by money for the purpose." 
 
 ' " But," said Wood, " the place you are talking 
 about would be a palace, and not a house ; you have 
 not the least idea of the money 'twould take to com- 
 plete it." 
 
 ' "Well," rejoined Allen, "come this way." 
 
 ' He then took Wood into the next room, and, 
 opening a closet-door, showed him a strong box. 
 
 ' " That box is full of guineas !" 
 
 * The architect shook his head. Allen opened 
 another closet, and pointed to a second and a third. 
 Wood still hesitated. 
 
 ' " Well," said Allen, " come into this room." 
 
 * Wood was author of three architectural treatises : one of them 
 descriptive of Bath ; and another entitled ' The Origin of Building ; on 
 the Plagiarism of the Heathens Detected, 1741.' The former work 
 contains an elaborate, illustrated account of the mansion at Prior Park.
 
 22 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 ' A fourth and fifth are discovered. The architect 
 now began to open his eyes with wonder. 
 
 ' " If we have not money enough here, come into 
 this bedroom." 
 
 ' A sixth, a seventh, and lo ! an eighth appears. 
 John Wood might well have exclaimed : 
 
 ' " III see no more. 
 For perhaps, like Banquo's ghosts, you'll show a score." 
 
 * Chuckling in his turn at the astonishment of the 
 architect, Allen now inquired if the house could be 
 built. 
 
 ' " I'll begin the plans immediately," replied 
 Wood. " I see there is money enough to erect 
 even a palace, and I'll build you a palace that shall 
 be the admiration of all beholders." ' 
 
 But we must hasten to a close ; a close to which 
 the next allusion to the building propensities of the 
 generous subject of this memoir naturally leads us. 
 In 1754, Ralph Allen rebuilt the south aisle of 
 Bathampton Church, and ' beautified the whole 
 structure.' Appropriately enough, in that aisle has 
 been placed an oval mural tablet, of white and Sienna 
 marble, to his memory ; and his son Philip, who 
 became Comptroller of the ' Bye-letter ' department 
 in the London Post Office, was, I believe, actually 
 buried there. 
 
 But the remains of Ralph Allen were interred in 
 the neighbouring quiet and lovely little churchyard at 
 Claverton. He was on his way to London, but feel- 
 ing ill, probably from asthma, a complaint which
 
 Ralph Allen, ' the Man of Bath' 23 
 
 often troubled him, halted at Maidenhead, and was 
 induced to return thence to Bath, where he expired 
 at a good old age, which the pyramidal monument 
 erected at Claverton to his memory thus records : 
 
 ' Beneath this monument lieth entombed the body 
 of Ralph Allen, Esq., of Prior Park, who departed 
 this life the 2gth day of June, 1764, in the yist year 
 of his age ; in full hopes of everlasting happiness 
 in another state, through the infinite merit and 
 mediation of our blessed Redeemer, Jesus Christ.' 
 
 Derrick has thus described Allen's personal appear- 
 ance shortly before his death : 'He is a very grave, 
 well-looking man, plain in his dress, resembling that 
 of a Quaker, and courteous in his behaviour. I 
 suppose he cannot be much under seventy. His 
 wife is low, with grey hair, and of a very pleasing 
 address.' Kilvert says that he was rather above the 
 middle size, and stoutly built ; and that he was not 
 altogether averse to a little state, as he often used to 
 drive into Bath in a coach-and-four. His hand- 
 writing was very curious ; he evidently wrote quickly 
 and fluently, but it is so overloaded with curls and 
 flourishes as to be sometimes scarcely legible. 
 
 The lack of all show about his garb seems to have 
 somewhat annoyed Philip Thicknesse, the well- 
 known author of one of the Bath Guides ; for he 
 speaks of Allen's ' plain linen shirt-sleeves, with only 
 a chitterling up the slit.' Ralph Allen's claims to a 
 niche in our Cornish Valhalla do not, however,
 
 24 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 depend upon costume, but upon his talents and his 
 philanthropy. 
 
 Writing to Dr. Doddridge on I4th February, 
 1742-43, Warburton thus refers to his genial host : 
 
 ' I got home a little before Christmas, after a 
 charming philosophical retirement in a palace with 
 Mr. Pope and Mr. Allen for two or three months. 
 The gentleman I last mentioned is, I verily believe, 
 the greatest private character in any age of the 
 world. You see his munificence to the Bath Hos- 
 pital. This is but a small part of his charities, and 
 charity but a small part of his virtues. I have 
 studied his character even maliciously, to find where 
 his weakness lies, but have studied in vain. When I 
 know it, the world shall know it too, for the conso- 
 lation of the envious ; especially as I suspect it will 
 prove to be only a partiality he has entertained for 
 me. In a word, I firmly believe him to have been 
 sent by Providence into the world to teach men what 
 blessings they might expect from heaven, would they 
 study to deserve them.' 
 
 In Bishop Kurd's ' Life of Warburton,' the fol- 
 lowing passage occurs, and upon this ' the Man of 
 Bath's ' fame might securely rest : 
 
 ' Mr. Allen was of that generous composition, that 
 his mind enlarged with his fortune ; and the wealth 
 he so honourably acquired he spent in a splendid 
 hospitality and the most extensive charities. His 
 house, in so public a scene as that of Bath, was open 
 to all men of rank and worth, and especially to men 
 of distinguished parts and learning, whom he honoured
 
 Ralph Allen, ' the Man of Bath: 25 
 
 and encouraged, and whose respective merits he was 
 enabled to appreciate by a natural discernment and 
 superior good sense rather than by any acquired use 
 and knowledge of letters. His domestic virtues 
 were beyond all praise ; and with these qualities he 
 drew to himself an universal respect.' 
 
 It would be easy, if necessary, to multiply pas- 
 sages of this sort, but one more shall suffice, 
 as illustrating the almost universal recognition of 
 what Mr. Leslie Stephen has well termed Allen's 
 ' princely benevolence and sterling worth.' Mrs. 
 Delany (iii. 608), writing from Bath, 2nd Novem- 
 ber, 1760, mentions that the house on the South 
 Parade where she was then lodging had been 
 bought by Ralph Allen, furniture and all, in order 
 that he might settle it on Mrs. Davis, a poor clergy- 
 man's widow. ' How well does that man,' she adds, 
 'deserve the prosperous fortune he has met with !' 
 And behind all this there doubtless remained, in the 
 case of our modest hero : 
 
 * That best portion of a good man's life, 
 His lit lie, nameless, tinremtmbered acts 
 Of kindness and of love.' 
 
 A notice of this remarkable man would be incom- 
 plete without some reference to two of his connexions, 
 whose names are still honoured and remembered in 
 the West country : Thomas Daniell, who married 
 Ralph Allen's niece, Elizabeth Elliott ; and Ralph 
 Allen Daniell, Thomas's son. Of the last-named, it 
 may be shortly stated that he inherited a full share 
 of his grand-uncle's and namesake's good qualities ;
 
 26 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 was a prosperous merchant ; and that he became, in 
 1800, the possessor of Trelissick estate, and the 
 builder of the exquisitely situated mansion of that 
 name, which overlooks the placid waters of Falmouth 
 Haven. Here Davies Gilbert, P.R.S., resided ; and 
 it is now the country seat of his son's widow, the 
 Honourable Mrs. Gilbert. 
 
 The Thomas Daniell mentioned above appears to 
 have started in life as a clerk to Mr. Lemon, who 
 then lived at the Quay, Truro, in the house now 
 known as the Britannia Inn. Here, too, once lived 
 Dr. Wolcot, better known as ' Peter Pindar ;' and, in 
 the middle of the present century, the writer's father, 
 John Tabois Tregellas, well-known throughout the 
 county as a writer on the Cornish dialect. Mr. 
 Daniell succeeded to Mr. Lemon's business as a 
 merchant, and to his residence. He was also 
 associated with the well-known old Cornish family 
 of Michell,* in the Calenick Smelting Works, near 
 Truro, which are still in active operation. Thomas 
 Daniell was a great and successful adventurer in 
 mines, and was at one time M.P. for Looe. He left 
 his mark upon the little Cornish metropolis by 
 building, as already mentioned, in Prince's Street, 
 the handsomest mansion which the city contains, 
 the front of which is an excellent specimen of the 
 famous Bath stone. t 
 
 * A member of this family a Truro man, it is l>elieved accom- 
 panied Sir Francis Drake in his famous voyage round the world. 
 
 t It may not be out of place to remark that an article on Ralph Allen 
 in the Family Economist, and another (apparently by the same 
 writer) in Chambers 's Journal, entitled ' The Bath Post Boy,' arc 
 mere romances, with only a slight sprinkling of facts.
 
 JOHN ANSTIS, 
 THE HERALD
 
 JOHN ANSTIS, 
 
 THE HERALD. 
 
 ' But coronets we owe to crowns, 
 
 And favour to a court's affection : 
 By nature we are Adam's sons, 
 And sons of Anstis by election.' 
 
 PRIOR. 
 
 than 
 
 HERE were three Cornishmen in succes- 
 sion, more or less known, who bore 
 the above name. The grandfather, of 
 whom little more is now ascertainable 
 that he was Registrar of the Archdeacon 
 
 of Cornwall's Court (then held at St. Neot's),* that 
 his wife's name was Mary Smith, and that he died 
 in 1692 ; his son, the subject of this notice ; and his 
 grandson, who, like the second John Anstis, was also 
 Garter King of Arms, and who died a bachelor at 
 a comparatively early age. In Montagu Burrows' 
 * Worthies of All Souls,' it is stated that the second 
 
 *The Anstis family removed from St. Neot's to Duloe, in which 
 parish they acquired their residence of Tremoderet (the ancient seat of 
 the Colshills, Sheriffs of Cornwall), and Westnorth, purchased from 
 Sir William Bastard, Kt.: the latter place was their principal seat.
 
 30 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 Anstis was of founder's kin ; yet he failed to secure his 
 election, notwithstanding a lawsuit instituted for that 
 purpose. 
 
 Of the first and the third John Anstis little need 
 be added, but the second merits a longer notice ; for 
 'in him,' it is said, 'were joined the learning of Camden 
 and the industry, without the inaccuracy, of Dugdale.' 
 Born at Luna, on 28th September, 1669, in the 
 parish of St. Neot's, near Liskeard, about one mile 
 south-west of its interesting church, he became a 
 member of Exeter College, Oxford, in 1685 ; and, 
 having entered at the Middle Temple in 1688, and 
 been appointed Deputy-General to the Auditors of 
 the Imprest in 1703, and a Principal Commissioner 
 of Prizes in 1704, was elected, when about thirty years 
 of age, a member of the first Parliament of Queen 
 Anne, for St. Germans, and was one of those who 
 opposed the Occasional Conformity Bill; then, in 
 1711, member for St. Mawes ; and finally member 
 for Launceston in the first Parliament of George I. 
 (1714-22). His first printed work on Heraldry seems 
 to have been his (privately printed) ' Curia Militaris,' 
 or ' Treatise of the Court of Chivalry,' which was 
 published in 1702, and dedicated to Sir Jonathan 
 Trelawny, the well-known non-juring Bishop of 
 Exeter. In 1718 John Anstis was created Garter 
 King of Arms, and six years afterwards he published 
 his ' Annotated Register of the Most Noble Order of 
 the Garter :' the copy which belonged to Dean 
 Milles, who was born at Duloe, of which parish he 
 was rector for forty-two years, is in the London
 
 John Anstis, the Herald. 
 
 Library.* Able and indefatigable both in and out of 
 office, a voluminous correspondence with Sidney 
 Godolphin, Sir Hans Sloane, Thomas Hearne the 
 antiquary, and other distinguished men of the period, 
 as well as similar treatises to the foregoing, followed 
 from his pen, including his ' Aspilogia,' or ' A Dis- 
 course on Seals in England,' and fragments of a 
 ' History of Cornwall,' etc., as to which copious 
 information is afforded in the ' Bibliotheca Cornu- 
 biensis.' 
 
 Many of his MSS. are preserved in the Addi- 
 tional, Lansdowne, Harleian, Sloane, Birch, and 
 Hargrave Collections at the British Museum ; his 
 proposals for publishing a history of the Order of the 
 Garter are preserved in the Bodleian, whilst others of 
 his numerous writings are in the libraries of All Souls' 
 and Worcester Colleges, Oxford. He also wrote a 
 MS. 'History of Launceston,' which, as well as 
 others of his works, is now believed to be lost ; and 
 it may be added that he was intimately connected 
 with the production of Rymer's ' Fcedera.' 
 
 Perhaps the most stirring event of his life was his 
 imprisonment on the suspicion of a design to restore 
 the Stuart dynasty, the story of which is as follows. 
 He was a member of the High Church party, and, as 
 such, opposed what was called the Whig interest, 
 voting, as mentioned above, against the Occasional 
 
 * The learned Dr. Jeremiah Milles, Dean of Exeter, an accomplished 
 antiquary, was buried in the church of St. Edmund, the King and 
 Martyr, Lombard Street, where his ' elegant monument, by Bacon,' 
 was placed.
 
 32 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 Conformity Bill ; but, on the information of one Colonel 
 Paul, he, as well as five or six other members of Parlia- 
 ment, fell under the suspicion of the Government, 
 and Anstis was actually in prison at the very time 
 that the office of Garter (which had been promised to 
 him by Queen Anne) fell vacant. It was with the 
 utmost difficulty that he cleared himself of these 
 suspicions, and not until three years afterwards did 
 he obtain the appointment, which had meanwhile 
 been held by Sir John Vanbrugh, ' Clarenceux.' One 
 of his fellow-suspects, Edward Harvey, Esq., stabbed 
 himself with his garden pruning-knife, on a certain 
 paper in his own handwriting being shown to him. 
 John Anstis is described in the scarce tract which 
 narrates this affair as being ' Hereditary High 
 Steward of the Tinners of Cornwall,' and it is pro- 
 bable that in this capacity he may have been sus- 
 pected of being concerned in some supposed 
 insurrection in the county. But imprisonment in 
 those days for like causes was sometimes, if the 
 truth were told, somewhat of the nature of a 
 political manoeuvre. 
 
 John Anstis, F.S.A., the subject of this notice, 
 died at his seat at Mortlake, Surrey, on 4th March, 
 1744, at a good old age, and his remains were laid in 
 the family vault at Duloe, near Looe, some three 
 weeks afterwards. His son at once succeeded (by a 
 reversionary patent) to his father's post in the 
 Heralds' College ; and his remains followed his 
 father's to their last resting-place in the same 
 quiet churchyard on the 3Oth December, 1754.
 
 John Anstis, the Herald. 33 
 
 There is a portrait of the more celebrated Herald 
 in the picture gallery at Oxford, and another at the 
 College of Arms; and an engraved likeness is pre- 
 fixed to the Rev. Mark Noble's history of that insti- 
 tution. There is another engraved portrait of him, 
 in his tabard, in Nichols' ' Literary Illustrations,' 
 vol. iv. p. 139. He married Elizabeth, the heiress 
 of Richard Cudlipp, Esq., of Tavistock, and left 
 three sons and three daughters. I believe that, as 
 in the case of many another distinguished Cornish- 
 man, there is no monument to the memory of even 
 the most celebrated member of the family. Yet, as 
 a Christian name, the name of Anstis still lingers in 
 the neighbourhood, and is borne by members of the 
 family of Bewes, the present representatives through 
 the female line. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 THE ARUNDELLS, 
 ECCLESIASTICS AND WARRIORS. 
 
 32
 
 THE ARUNDELLS OF LANHERNE, 
 TRERICE AND TO LV ERNE, 
 
 ECCLESIASTICS AND WARRIORS. 
 
 ' The princely Arundells of yore.' 
 
 H. S. STOKES. 
 
 N the north-west coast of Cornwall, famous 
 for its magnificent cliff scenery and fine 
 stretches of golden sand, are four lovely 
 valleys 
 
 ' Looking towards the western wave,' 
 
 lying close together, and each watered by a little 
 trout-stream ; but, as is the case with Cornish land- 
 scape generally, with one exception scantily tim- 
 bered. Each of these is more or less directly 
 connected with the celebrated family of Arundell. I 
 refer, first, to a valley through which a small stream 
 murmurs, which rose on the northern slope of 
 Denzell Downs, and flows near St. Ervan Church, 
 having for its little tributaries two rivulets which 
 water the foot of the sloping ground on which still 
 stands a farm-place, called Trembleath, and entering
 
 38 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 the sea at Portcothan Bay ; secondly, to the Vale of 
 Lanherne, which extends from St. Columb Major to 
 Mawgan Forth, and includes two churches, so named ; 
 next, to the valley with a nameless brook, which 
 flows past Rialton formerly the residence of the 
 haughty Thomas Vivian, one of the latest Priors of 
 Bodmin, and afterwards a seat of the Godolphins 
 then by the base of a hill crowned by the lofty tower 
 of St. Columb Minor ; and lastly, to the vale of the 
 Gannel, near whose embouchure are the remains of 
 the ancient collegiate establishment of Crantock, now 
 represented by the highly interesting church, which, 
 though nearly complete, is in a very unsatisfactory 
 state of repair. 
 
 Each of these valleys has its porth (or port), 
 a circumstance to which they were all probably 
 indebted for the churches which they still possess ; 
 for in the days of small shipping, these little ports 
 smaller now than they formerly were sufficiently 
 accommodated the tiny craft which brought holy 
 men from Ireland, or from South Wales, and, in- 
 deed, at that time probably afforded the chief means 
 of communication with the outer world. 
 
 It is the second of these four valleys that we have 
 chiefly to consider now, closely identified as it is with 
 the names of the Arundells ' the great Arundells,' as 
 they were called (on account, says Camden, of their 
 vast riches), and as they called themselves, too ; for 
 on one of their tombs in the church of St. 
 Columb Major was inscribed, ' Magnorum sepulchra 
 Arundeliorum.' Parts of the vale are beautifully
 
 The Arundells. 39 
 
 wooded, and the churches of St. Columb and 
 Mawgan, which retain many features of interest, 
 are both identified with the famous family whose 
 story we are about to consider.* And here it 
 should be premised that, besides the Arundells of 
 Lanherne, Trerice, Tolverne, and Wardour, there 
 were the Arundells of Menadarva, who afterwards 
 settled at Trengwainton, near Penzance, descended 
 from a Camborne stock, founded by a ' natural ' son 
 of an Arundell of Trerice, who intermarried with 
 Pendarves and St. Aubyn. And again, the Arundells 
 of Trevithick, in St. Columb Major, were a younger 
 branch of the Lanherne family. They settled 
 there circa Edward VI., and became extinct in 
 1740. 
 
 Of the first three branches I propose to treat 
 under the heads of Lanherne, Trerice, and Tolverne ; 
 and to conclude my observations with a short 
 reference to one or two minor branches of the 
 family. 
 
 There can be no doubt, although Hals, with his 
 usual ingenuity (and it might also be said, I fear, 
 with his usual inaccuracy), has endeavoured to 
 find a Cornish etymology for the name, that the 
 name of Arundell is of French origin. At any rate, 
 such was the belief in the early part of the thir- 
 teenth century ; for they bore swallows in their 
 escutcheon at least as early as the days of Henry II. ; 
 
 * Mr. H. S. Stokes has written a pleasant descriptive poem on 
 ' The Vale of Lanherne,' illustrated by numerous excellent litho- 
 graphic views after one of our best Cornish landscape-painters, 
 J. G. Philp.
 
 4O Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 and in the ' Philippeis,' a work composed by Philip 
 le Breton in 1230, there are the following verses 
 descriptive of an encounter between an Arundell and 
 one William de Barr : 
 
 ' Vidit Hirundela velocior alite quse dat 
 Hoc Agnomen ei, fert cujus in segide signum 
 Se rapit agminibus mediis clypeoque nitenti 
 Quern sibi Guillelmus Iseva prsetenderat ulna 
 Immergit validam praeacutae cuspid is hastam.' 
 
 (See p. 207, Camden's ' Remains,' 1637.) 
 
 But it is perhaps right to add that Davies Gilbert, 
 P.R.S., a Cornish gentleman, who settled in Sussex, 
 thought the name might have been derived from 
 Arun Dale. 
 
 According to Mr. G. Freeth (R. I. C. Journal, 
 September, 1876, pp. 285-93), Trembleth (a name 
 still retained), in the adjoining parish of St. Ervan, 
 was the chief seat of the Arundells before their 
 marriage with the heiress of Lanherne. At any rate, 
 Trembleth (situated in the northernmost of the four 
 valleys mentioned above) was a residence of some of 
 the subsequent members of the family. Hals gives 
 the following interesting account of the place : 
 
 ' Trembleigh, Trembleth, alias Trembleeth, alias 
 Tremblot (see Tremblethick, in St. Mabyn), synony- 
 mous terms, signifies the " wolfs town." 
 
 * From this place was denominated an ancient 
 family of gentlemen, surnamed De Trembleth, who, 
 suitable to their name, gave the wolf for their arms ; 
 whose sole inheritrix, about Henry II. 's time, 
 was married to John de Arundel, ancestor of the
 
 The Arundells. 41 
 
 Arundels of Lanherne ; who, out of respect and 
 grateful remembrance of the great benefit they had 
 by this match, ever since gave the wolf for their 
 crest, the proper arms of Trembleth. 
 
 ' In this town they had their domestic chapel and 
 burying-place, now totally gone to decay, since those 
 Arundels removed from hence to Lanherne. This 
 manor was anciently held of the manor of Payton, 
 by the tenure of knight's service. And here John de 
 Arundel held a knight's fee (Morton, 3rd Henry IV.), 
 as I am informed.' 
 
 The assumption of their French origin is further 
 borne out by the fact that the early Arundells 
 especially one, Roger obtained from the Conqueror 
 considerable grants of land in Dorsetshire and 
 Staffordshire. I have, however, been unable to 
 obtain any clear traces of their connexion with 
 Cornwall earlier than towards the middle of the 
 thirteenth century, when they presented to the 
 churches of St. Columb Major and of Mawgan. 
 Again, a Sir Ralph Arundell was Sheriff of Cornwall 
 in 1260 ; and, indeed, Hals observes that the Arun- 
 dells filled the same office twenty times, of which there 
 was no like instance in England. Some member of 
 the family was generally knighted at the accession 
 of a new sovereign to the throne, and one of the 
 early Arundells was Marshal of England. 
 
 Amongst the monuments in the church of St. 
 Columb Major is one to a John Arundell, once 
 'senescallus Dfii Regis et verus patronus hujus 
 ecclesise, qui hanc capellam fieri fecit.' He died in
 
 42 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 the year 1400, and stained glass in the windows also 
 commemorated at this date the family. There are 
 also Arundell brasses at Antony East, Mawgan, and 
 Stratton, and a monument at Newlyn East. 
 
 They held Lanherne of the Bishop of Exeter by 
 military service, as appears from folio 102 of Bishop 
 Stapledon's Register : it is therein called ' La 
 Herne,' but it was also known formerly as Lan- 
 hadron. 
 
 Amongst other indications of their early settlement 
 in the county, and of their importance from the very 
 first, it may be mentioned that : 
 
 ' Rad., son of Oliver de Arundell, of Lanherne, 
 
 had "20 a year or more, in land, in 1297 ; 
 
 and so had John Arundell, of Efford. 
 ' Rad. D'Arundle held a " parv. feo." in Tre- 
 
 kinnen. 
 'Johannes D'Arundle held military feus in 
 
 Treawset and in Trenbeith, in 3rd Hen. IV. 
 
 (1402). Also a " parv. feod." in Tre- 
 
 kinnen.' 
 
 From the Records preserved at Exeter, the follow- 
 ing further information, which bears upon the early 
 connexion of the Arundells with the far West, has 
 been gathered ; and it is scarcely to be doubted that 
 still earlier traces of their settlement in Cornwall 
 might at one time have been forthcoming : 
 
 ' Willus de Arundell, canonicus obiit vi. Kal. 
 Mali, MCCXLVI.' 
 
 (Exeter Cathedral Martyrologium.)
 
 The Amndells. 43 
 
 But most of their monumental remains which 
 still exist, are of later date, and are met with at 
 various places in Cornwall, chiefly in the eastern 
 parishes. 
 
 A Roger Arundell lived opposite the portico of St. 
 Stephen's Church, in the High Street, Exeter, about 
 the middle of the thirteenth century, and a Ralph 
 Arundell, who was rector of St. Columb Major, 
 resigned his benefice in 1353, whereupon the bishop 
 (Grandison) granted him a pension of 20 a year, 
 in consideration of his near relationship to Sir James 
 Arundell, patron of the benefice. 
 
 Amongst the documents preserved in Bishop 
 Lacy's Register is the will of Sir John Arundell, 
 dated i8th April, 1433 ; he was probably that Sir 
 John who is said to have had (temp. Ric. II.) no 
 less than fifty-two complete suits of cloth of gold. 
 This will refers to so much that is of interest, that I 
 have been tempted to set down a few passages 
 from it : 
 
 Sir John leaves his soul to Almighty God, the 
 Blessed Virgin Mary, and all the saints ; and his 
 body to be buried in the new chapel near the chancel 
 of the church of St. Columb Major. He gives 20 
 towards the bells of that church, 60 shillings towards 
 the restoration of St. Erme Church, and 20 shillings 
 to the rector of the same. A like sum for the 
 restoration of the church of Maugan de Lanherne, 
 and 20 shillings for the maintenance of divers lights 
 therein, and 10 for the bell-tower, provided the 
 requisite work is done within the following six years.
 
 44 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 The rectors of St. Ewe, St. Mawgan juxta Carminow, 
 and St. Wynwole (Gunwalloe) also receive bequests. 
 He gives 135. 46. to the light of St. Michael's in the 
 Mount,* and the same sum towards the construc- 
 tion of the chancel there. St. Perran Zabuloe also 
 comes in for his bounty, and 13 are to be spent in 
 3,000 masses, to be celebrated for the benefit of his 
 soul as quickly as possible after his death. To his 
 blood-relation, Isabelle Bevylle, he leaves 4 marks ; 
 to John Tresithny, 10 ; to John Michell, 5 ;t and to 
 others named, similar sums. But perhaps the most 
 singular bequest of all is the following, viz., * Item, 
 lego ad usum parochie S' ci Pyerani in Zabulo ad 
 claudendum capud S. Pierani honorifice et meliori 
 modo quo sciunt xls.'t One is curious to know why 
 the testator took such special interest in this singular 
 relic. Certainly the Arundells were interested in the 
 parish, and, as we shall presently see, one of them 
 married the heiress of its chief manor. He finally 
 leaves sundry vessels of precious metal to his son, 
 ' Renfrido,' etc., and names as his executors, Bishop 
 Lacy, his sons, Thomas (miles) and Renfr , Otho 
 Tregoney, and others. 
 
 It would be a fruitless task to endeavour to give 
 details of the genealogy of the earlier Arundells, for 
 
 * Little thinking, perhaps, that in the next reign its rays would shine 
 upon the grave of one of his descendants, who was destined to fall in 
 arms at the foot of the self-same mount. 
 
 t There was a John Michell, Dean of Crantock, in 145$ : he may 
 have been the man. 
 
 % The story runs that when the remains of St. Piran were discovered 
 under the altar of his little chapel in the Sands, they were found to be 
 headless.
 
 The Arundells. 45 
 
 it is enveloped in considerable uncertainty ; and even 
 so patient and skilled an investigator as Colonel 
 J. L. Vivian, in his ' Annotated Heralds' Visitations 
 of Cornwall,' has discovered such serious discre- 
 pancies in the various statements concerning it, that 
 he gives up some portions of it in despair. We have 
 seen that Roger was the Christian name of the 
 Arundell at the time of the Conquest ; in 1216, his 
 grandson, William, forfeited his lands by rebellion (a 
 tendency to which offence was, as we shall see, 
 rather characteristic of the family), but the estates 
 were restored to the rebellious William's nephew, 
 Humphry. By the latter's marriage with Joan de 
 Umfraville, he had a son, Sir Renfry de Arundell of 
 Treffry, and by Renfry's marriage with Alice de 
 Lanherne, in the time of Henry III., the name of 
 Arundell became for many a long year associated 
 with that of Lanherne. One of their sons, Sir 
 Ralph, was, as we have seen, Sheriff of Cornwall in 
 the same reign (1260), and from his marriage with a 
 lady who bore the euphonious name of Eva de Rupe, 
 or de la Roche, of Tremodret,* in Duloe parish, the 
 
 * Tremodret, or Tremodart, formerly belonged to the Hewis family, 
 then to the Coleshills, one of whom married Sir Renfry Arundell. On 
 the death of Sir Renfry's grandson, Sir Edmund Arundell, the 
 Arundells sold it, in 1711, to Sir John Anstis, Garter King of Arms. 
 The Arundells se^n, however, to have long kept up their connection 
 with Tremodret, as we find from the pages of gossip-loving Hals, who 
 tells us how ' One Forbes, or Forbhas, was presented rector of this 
 parish in the latter end of Cromwell's usurpation, and lived here on this 
 fat benefice, without spending or lending any money, many years, 
 always pretending want thereof ; at length he died suddenly intestate, 
 about the year 1681, having neither wife nor legitimate child, nor any 
 relation of his blood in this kingdom ; upon news of whose death Mr. 
 Arundell, his patron, opened his trunks, and found about .3,000 in
 
 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 main stem of the family seems to have shot forth its 
 boughs and branches. Their younger son, Ralph, 
 was that rector of St. Columb Major, who, as we 
 have seen, resigned his living in 1353, or, according 
 to some other authorities, in 1309. But their eldest 
 son, Sir John of Trembleth, in the time of Edward I., 
 married Joan le Soor, of Tolverne, and thus appears 
 to have originated the connection which so long sub- 
 sisted between the two branches of the family. Their 
 children, Margaret and Sir John, married, the former 
 with a Seville, and the latter with a Carminow ; and 
 now, for the first time, the name of Trerice also ap- 
 pears in the family tree, for this Sir John is said to 
 have had a cousin, Ralph Arundell of that place. I 
 cannot trace his descent, and can only suggest that 
 he may have been a brother instead of a cousin. If 
 I have correctly interpreted the pedigree, the last- 
 named Sir John was a man of mark, and of him we 
 have the following accounts : 
 
 gold and silver, and carried it thence to his own house. The fame and 
 envy of which fact flew suddenly abroad, so that Mr. Buller, of Morval, 
 had notice thereof, who claimed a part or share in this treasure upon 
 pretence of a nuncupative will, wherein Forbes, some days before his 
 death, had made him his executor, and the same was concerted into 
 writing, whereupon he demanded the ^3,000 of Mr. Arundell. But he 
 refusing to deliver the same, Mr. Buller filed a bill in Chancery against 
 him, the said Mr. Arundell, praying relief in the premise, and that the 
 said money might be brought or deposited in the said Court, which at 
 length was accordingly done ; where, after long discussing this matter 
 between the lawyers and clerks in that Court, in fine, as I was informed, 
 the Court, the plaintiff, and the defendant shared the money amongst 
 them, without the least thanks to or remembrance of the deceased 
 wretch, Forbes, for the same ; abundantly verifying that saying in the 
 Sacred Writings, " Man layeth up riches, but knows not who shall 
 gather them." '
 
 The Arundells. 47 
 
 ' In the year 1379, an expedition was fitted out by 
 King Richard II., in the second year of his reign, in 
 aid of the Duke of Bretagne, under the command of 
 " Dominus Johannes Arundell," as old Thomas 
 Walsingham, a learned monk of St. Albans, calls 
 him.* On their way, after repulsing the French fleet 
 off the coast of Cornwall, and whilst waiting for a 
 favourable wind to cross the Channel, the com- 
 mander of the expedition besought the hospitality of 
 a certain convent of nuns (according to one account, 
 at Netley), the lady superintendent of which very 
 properly refused it to so rough and ready a band of 
 military as composed ArundelPs following. She 
 besought most earnestly, " prostrata," and " conjunc- 
 tis manibus," that he would find quarters for his men 
 elsewhere, but all in vain. Scenes of a most dis- 
 graceful and violent character ensued, as might have 
 been expected ; and, not content with doing foul 
 dishonour to the nuns, the soldiery were permitted to 
 spoil the neighbourhood. They even went so far as 
 to carry off from the convent the sacred vessels of its 
 church, and several of the sisterhood as well (" vi vel 
 sponte"), whereupon they were most righteously ex- 
 communicated by the priest. A violent tempest pur- 
 sued them for their misdoings, a diabolical spectre 
 appearing in Arundell's ship, threatening the dire 
 disasters which followed. The unhappy women were 
 flung overboard to lighten the ships, which at length 
 made the coast of Ireland, upon which event Arundell 
 
 * Mr. Froude appears to thoroughly credit Walsingham's narration, 
 but there is to my mind an air of improbability in parts of it, as of 
 course is often the case in chronicles of the period.
 
 48 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 made a speech concluding thus, according to the 
 chronicler : 
 
 ' " Minus grave est hoc quam in mare totiens ante 
 mortem mori, et tandem mortem dedecorosam eva- 
 dere nullo modo posse. Aut si inimici sunt qui in 
 hac terra sunt, citius eligo per manus hostiles inter- 
 fici (forsitan cadaveri sepulturam indulgebunt) quam 
 more pecoris marinis mergi fluctibus, et fieri pelagi 
 monstris cibus." 
 
 But the swashbuckler was doomed not to escape 
 as he had hoped, though finally he was to receive the 
 sort of burial which he so evidently desired. His 
 ship was driven on the rocks, and her ship-master 
 and Sir John Arundell of Treleigh were drowned, to- 
 gether with his esquires and other men of high birth. 
 Many were rescued by the Irish, but twenty-five 
 ships in all were lost, and large numbers of their 
 crews. Three days afterwards many of the bodies 
 were recovered, amongst them those of Arundell, 
 and were buried in a certain abbey in Ireland.* 
 
 As Froissart's account differs from the foregoing 
 in some particulars, I have appended a translation of 
 it for the convenience of those who may desire to 
 compare the two : it will be noticed that Froissart 
 entirely omits the story of the desecration of the 
 convent. 
 
 ' The time had now arrived for sending off the 
 promised succour to the Duke of Brittany. Sir John 
 Arundel was appointed to command the expedition, 
 
 * According to some writers near Scariff, according to others off 
 Cape Clear.
 
 The Arundells. 49 
 
 and there accompanied him Sir Hugh Calverley, Sir 
 Thomas Banaster, Sir Thomas Trivet, Sir Walter 
 Pole, Sir John Bourchier, and the Lords Ferrers 
 and Basset. These knights, with their forces, as- 
 sembled at Southampton,* whence they set sail. The 
 first day they were at sea the weather was favour- 
 able, but towards evening the wind veered about and 
 became quite the contrary ; so strong and tempestu- 
 ous was it, that it drove them on the coast of 
 Cornwall that night, and as they were afraid to cast 
 anchor, they were forced the next day into the Irish 
 Sea ; here three of their ships sank, on board of 
 which were Sir John Arundel, Sir Thomas Banaster, 
 and Sir Hugh Calverley; the two former, with 
 upwards of eighty men, perished, but Sir Hugh 
 fortunately clung to the mast of his vessel and was 
 blown ashore. The rest of the ships, when the storm 
 had abated, returned as well as they could to South- 
 ampton. Through this misfortune the expedition 
 was put an end to, and the Duke of Brittany, though 
 sadly oppressed by the French, received all that 
 season no assistance from the English.' (Froissarfs 
 Chronicles, p. 154.) 
 
 The unlucky knight's grandson was that Sir John 
 Arundell of Lanherne, who was made a Knight of 
 the Bath at the coronation of King Henry IV. in 
 
 * A Sir John Arundell rescued the inhabitants of Southampton after 
 they had been surprised by a French fleet under Pierre Bahuchet, temp. 
 Edward III. Sir John slew 500 of the enemy on the spot, amongst 
 them a son of the King of Sicily, who had been promised by King 
 Philip all the lands he could conquer in England. Can this story refer 
 to the same Sir John Arundell ? Saunders" 'Voyage on the Solent.' 
 
 VOL. I. 4
 
 5O Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 1399, and who married a lady, who, if she were as 
 lovely as her lovely name Annora or Eleanora 
 Lambourne, of Perranzabuloe must indeed have 
 been 'beautiful exceedingly.' But, indeed, the 
 Arundells seem to have been fond of sweet-sounding 
 Christian names for their womankind. Such names 
 as Sibilla and Emmota occur very early in the 
 family-tree. This Sir John must have been a per- 
 sonage of some valour and consideration; for we 
 find that he was retained by an indenture of King 
 Henry V. to serve at sea with 3 knights, 364 
 men-at-arms, and 776 archers, in certain vessels 
 which were specified. He was four times Sheriff of 
 Cornwall, and was member for the county in 1422-23, 
 together with another John Arundell, apparently. 
 
 The next Arundells who claim our attention will 
 require a little more space to be devoted to the con- 
 sideration of their exploits. They were grandsons 
 of the last-named Sir John ; and one of them, also a 
 Sir John, became Admiral and Sheriff of Cornwall, 
 and a General for King Henry VI., in France ; the 
 other, his cousin, also named John, became Bishop 
 of Exeter. To the former of these two, as the senior, 
 let us first turn. 
 
 He was born, or at least baptized, in 1421 ; and, 
 his father dying some two years afterwards, he 
 became a ward of the King, and at length (in the 
 2gth year of the reign of Henry VI.) was the 
 largest free tenant in Cornwall, his estates being of 
 the value of 2,000 per annum. 
 
 John, the Bishop, was the son of Sir Rainfred (or
 
 The Arundells. 51 
 
 Reinfry) Arundell, knight (by Joan Coleshull, his 
 wife, sister and heir of Sir John Coleshull of Tremo- 
 dret, knight), who was the third son of Sir John 
 Arundel of Lanherne (and not, observes Tonkin, 
 'Talvern, as Anthony Wood saith'). He is said to 
 have been educated in the neighbouring College of 
 Augustine Monks at St. Columb, to which one of his 
 ancestors is alleged to have been a munificent bene- 
 factor,* as he also was to the church at that place, 
 building a chapel thereto for himself and family, at 
 the east end of the south aisle ; and here he was 
 buried in the year 1400. t Educated at Exeter College, 
 Oxford, he became successively a Canon of Windsor, 
 Prebendary of York and Salisbury, Dean of Exeter, 
 and Chancellor of Hereford, and having been con- 
 secrated Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, Nov. 
 6, 1496, was for his piety and learning translated, 
 by Henry VII., to Exeter, June 29, 1502. He 
 died, March 15, 1503, at the house belonging to 
 the Bishop of Exeter (Exeter House), in the parish 
 of St. Clement's Danes, London, in which church 
 he was buried on the south side of the high 
 altar. His will is preserved at Somerset House. 
 Weever gives a copy of a ' maimed ' inscription on 
 his tomb. To his Register is prefixed a * Prologus,' 
 written by his secretary. It recites his noble descent, 
 his sound doctrine, and his great virtues, his con- 
 
 * Dr. Oliver lias thrown grave doubts on the existence of this 
 College ; and may, in fact, be said to have disposed of it altogether. 
 
 t Hals says that the Arundells endowed St. Columb Church, and 
 that there was a brass there inscribed to this effect, ' Here lieth the 
 body of Renfry Arundell, a patron of this Church and founder of this 
 Chapel, who departed this life the Anno Dom. 1340.' 
 
 42
 
 52 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 stant attendance at divine service, and his bountiful 
 hospitality. By his will he left 20 towards the 
 finishing of St. Mary's Church, Oxford. His portrait 
 is at Wardour Castle. 
 
 Hals, in his account of St. Columb Major, writes 
 thus of the Bishop (but see note, p. 51) : 
 
 ' Contiguous with this churchyard was formerly 
 extant a college of Black Monks or Canons Augus- 
 tine, consisting of three fellows, for instructing 
 youth in the liberal arts and sciences ; which college, 
 when or by whom erected and endowed, I know not. 
 However, I take it to be one of those three colleges 
 in this province, 'named in Speed and Dugdale's 
 Monasticon, whose revenues they do not express (nor 
 the place where they were extant), but tell us that they 
 were dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Lady 
 of Angels, and were black monks of the Augustines. 
 
 ' In this college, temp. Henry VI., was bred up 
 John Arundell, a younger son of Renfry Arundell, of 
 Lanherne, Esquire, sheriff of Cornwall, 3rd Edward 
 IV., where he had the first taste of the liberal arts 
 and sciences, and was afterwards placed at Exon 
 College in Oxford, where he stayed till he took his 
 degree of Master of Arts, and then was presented 
 by his father to John Booth, Bishop of Exeter, to be 
 consecrated priest, and to have collation, institution, 
 and induct, into his rectory of St. Colomb. Which 
 being accordingly performed, and he resided upon, 
 this rectory glebe lands for some time, which gave 
 him opportunity to build the old parsonage house 
 still extant thereon, and moat the same round with
 
 The Arundells. 53 
 
 rivers and fish-ponds, as Sir John Arundell, Knight, 
 informed me afterwards.' 
 
 If we are to accept the authority of Dallaway in 
 his ' History of the See of Chichester,' of the Rev. 
 Prebendary W. R. Stephens in his * Memorials ' 
 of that See, and of M. A. Lower in his ' Sussex 
 Worthies,' there was another member of this 
 branch of the family, also named John Arundell, 
 who attained to the dignity of the episcopal throne ; 
 but his place in the pedigree is not easily to be identi- 
 fied, and as the Rev. C. W. Boase truly remarks, it is 
 very difficult to distinguish between the John Arundells 
 of this time. He was one of the Physicians, as well 
 as Confessor and Domestic Chaplain, to Henry VI. 
 He was also Fellow of Exeter College, Oxon, 
 Proctor of University, and held many preferments 
 without cure of souls; and he was sometime Canon of 
 Windsor, Prebendary of Sarum, York and St. Paul's, 
 and Dean of Exeter. The King asked Pope 
 Calixtus III. to make him Bishop of Durham, but he 
 was, instead, made Bishop of Chichester, May, 1458. 
 He died in 1478, and bequeathed lands for the celebra- 
 tion of his anniversary and of a nightly mass through- 
 out the year. Near the entrance into the choir of 
 Chichester Cathedral he erected a large altar tomb 
 of Petworth marble, ornamented with brasses 
 (probably since stolen), and at one time concealed 
 by pews. But a tablet was affixed to a pier near 
 the tomb, which gave some account of him, re- 
 cording that he left ' Benefield's lands ' to found a 
 chantry. Lower also credits him with the erection
 
 54 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 of the oratory between the nave and choir, and with 
 the ' Arundell ' screen in 1477, which was removed 
 during the restorations in 1860. 
 
 The warrant for the appointment of himself and 
 colleagues to be the King's Physicians is in the 
 Cotton. MSS. (Vespasian G xiv. p. 415). In it 
 the medicines and other means of cure which the 
 professors of the healing art were (with the concur- 
 rence of the Council) to employ are duly specified : 
 they included *potiones,syrupi,confectiones, clysteria, 
 suppositoria, caputpurgea, gargarismata, balnea, 
 capitis rasura,' etc., etc., and the document affords a 
 curious glimpse of the state of the medical skill and 
 knowledge of the time. It is referred to by Johnson 
 in his ' Life of Linacre.' Unfortunately this Bishop's 
 Register is lost, but his career would seem to have 
 been uneventful. 
 
 To resume the story of the descent of the family. 
 The records which I have been able to consult 
 throw little or no light of importance upon most of the 
 immediate descendants of Richard II. 's Admiral; his 
 daughters married men of rank and title, such as the 
 Lords Marney and Daubeny, Sir Henry Strangways, 
 Sir William Capell, and Sir William Courtenay; and 
 one of them, Ellen, secured the affections of Ralph, 
 ' The great Copplestone.' One son only, Thomas, 
 he had (or he may perchance have been a grandson) ; 
 he, like so many others of his race, was knighted at 
 a coronation, on this occasion the coronation of King 
 Richard III. John, his son, won his knighthood 
 too ; but in a different fashion, for he was made knight-
 
 The Arimdells. 55 
 
 banneret for his valour in the field, at the sieges of 
 'Toronne' (Therouenne, 7 miles south of St. Omer) 
 and Tournay, wherein so many ostentatious deeds of 
 valour were performed on both sides. He died in 
 1545, and was buried in the church of St. Columb 
 Major, where there is a brass to his memory. 
 
 By his second wife, Katharine, daughter of Sir 
 Thomas Grenville, of Stow, Sir John had an 
 erudite daughter, Mary, whose fame is enshrined in 
 the pages of Ballard's ' Celebrated British Ladies.' 
 She is chiefly known by her translations, especially 
 of the ' Sayings and Doings of the Emperor Severus,' 
 which she dedicated to her father, ' pater honor- 
 atissimus ;' and some of her manuscripts are, I 
 believe, preserved in the Royal Library. She 
 married, first, Robert Radcliff, Earl of Sussex ; and 
 secondly, Henry, iyth Earl of Arundell. One of the 
 successors of the learned lady, named Margaret, who 
 died in 1691, was buried in the Trerice Arundell vault 
 in Newlyn Church, at the east end of the south aisle; 
 and according to Davies Gilbert, it was through her 
 that the Trerice estates passed into the hands of their 
 present proprietor, Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, Bart. 
 
 Sir John's grandson, of the same name, next 
 claims a short notice. Dodd, in his ' Church History,' 
 says of him : 
 
 ' Sir John being an " occasional conformist," his 
 conversation with Mr. Cornelius had given him 
 (Cornelius) early impressions in favour of the 
 Catholic religion, which grew stronger in the Univer- 
 sity, where he met with many of the same dis-
 
 56 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 positions. At length, being weary of a conformity 
 against his conscience, he left Oxford.' 
 
 This was that Father Cornelius who, so Foley 
 informs us, was born at Bodmin, of Irish parents, 
 and early attracted Sir John's attention by his 
 studious disposition. Sir John took him by the hand, 
 and always stood his friend. But Cornelius became 
 a Jesuit and a recusant, and was hung, drawn, and 
 quartered at Dorchester, in 1594. He was chaplain 
 to Lady Arundell after her husband's decease, and 
 she having recovered the body, gave it honourable 
 interment. 
 
 The favour in which Cornelius and other priests 
 about this time were held by our Sir John Arundell, 
 cost him his liberty. He was summoned to London 
 in 1581, and for nine years was kept a prisoner in 
 Ely Palace, Holborn, only leaving it to go down to 
 Isleworth and die. His body was conveyed to St. 
 Columb with great pomp, and there is a monument 
 there to his memory. 
 
 His daughters, Dorothy and Gertrude, entered the 
 Convent of Benedictine nuns at Brussels, in the year 
 1600, and the former wrote an account of the last 
 days of Father Cornelius, which part of his life 
 she appears to have spent with him. 
 
 From the knight-banneret of Tournay and 
 Therouenne descended the Arundells of Wardour; 
 who, on obtaining that estate and castle (whose 
 gallant defence by Lady Blanche Arundell, during 
 the Civil War, is familiar to the reader of romance 
 as well as to the historical student) by intermarriage
 
 The Arimdells. 57 
 
 with the heiress of John, Lord Dinham and ceasing 
 to reside in Cornwall, the story of whose Worthies 
 I am endeavouring to tell, are not strictly speaking 
 included in my scheme ; but they evidently remem- 
 bered with affection their Cornish origin, for on the 
 east front of old Wardour Castle is a Latin in- 
 scription, of which the following is an uncouth 
 translation, believed to be by Henry, the eighth 
 Lord Arundell : 
 
 ' Here, branch of Arundell Lanhernian race, 
 Thomas first sat, and he deserved the place : 
 He sat, and fell : Merit the fatal crime, 
 And Heav'n, to mark him faultless, bless'd his line. 
 Matthew his offspring, as the Father, Great, 
 And happier in his Prince, regain'd the seat. 
 Confirm'd, enlarg'd ; long may its fortune stand ! 
 HIS care who gave, resum'd, restor'd the land.' 
 
 The above Matthew had a brother Charles, who 
 left England in 1583, on account of his attachment 
 to the Roman Catholic creed, visited Rome and 
 Spain, and finally died in Paris gth December, 1587. 
 
 And here it may be well to add, that by the marriage 
 of Mary Arundell in 1739 to Henry, seventh Baron 
 Arundell of Wardour, the Lanherne and Wardour 
 branches of the family were, after a separation of 
 more than two centuries, re-united. At Wardour 
 are preserved numerous MSS. relating to the Arundell 
 family; a most interesting as well as extensive 
 series. It includes the Tywardreath Charter with 
 the Laocoon seal, various inventories of furniture, 
 household books, travelling expenses, tailor's bills, 
 etc., etc., to say nothing of court rolls, rentals, 
 surveys, etc., from the reign of Richard II. to that 
 of Henry VIII.
 
 58 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 Sir Thomas, a grandson of the friend of Father 
 Cornelius, ' when but a young man, signalized 
 himself so much by his valour against the Turks, in 
 Hungary, that the Emperor Rodolph II. raised 
 him to the dignity of a Count of the Empire in 
 1595 : granting that his children, of both sexes, 
 and their descendants, should for ever enjoy that 
 rank ; have a vote in all the diets of the Empire, 
 purchase lands within the dominion of the Empire, 
 raise volunteers, and not be put to any trial, 
 except in the Imperial Chamber. In forcing the 
 water-tower, near Gran (a formerly rich town of 
 Hungary), he took from the Turks their banner, with 
 his own hand ; which banner, taken by Sir Thomas, 
 of Wardour, was preserved, as a trophy, in the 
 Vatican at Rome ; where it remained till the French 
 revolution. This brave young knight was recom- 
 mended to the Emperor by Queen Elizabeth, in a 
 Latin letter, written by her own hand, which is still 
 kept at Wardour Castle.' King James I. made him 
 first Baron Arundell of Wardour in 1605. He died 
 at Wardour in 1639, ^t. 79. 
 
 Another Sir John married his relative, an Arundell 
 of Trerice, namely Anna, the widow of John Tre- 
 vanyon. It is noteworthy that on this Sir John's 
 tomb in St. Columb churchyard he is styled baronet, 
 but there is no reason to believe that he reached 
 a higher dignity than that of knighthood. 
 
 The name was at length assumed by Richard 
 Beling, who married into a family more illustrious 
 than his own. But I believe this branch of the family
 
 The Amndells. 59 
 
 has now, too, become extinct ; and it is said that the 
 last of the Lanherne Arundells died in Cornwall in 
 1766 a collector of the customs at Falmouth. 
 
 We now come to a very interesting phase of the 
 family history : I mean the results which followed 
 upon the attachment of this branch of the Arundells 
 to ' the old religion,' as the Roman Catholic faith 
 was called. It was exemplified by two episodes 
 which deserve attention : one was the tragic story of 
 Cuthbert Mayne, a recusant priest who was harboured 
 at Golden near Probus, in the residence of the old 
 Cornish family of Tregian, one of whom married 
 Catherine, daughter of a Sir John Arundell and his 
 wife, Elizabeth Dannet, and whose son Francis was 
 imprisoned for recusancy in the time of Elizabeth. 
 The story of Cuthbert Mayne is fully given in 
 Morris's ' Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers,' Dr. 
 Oliver's ' History of the Catholic Religion in the 
 West of England, 'and by Challoner in his 'Memoirs 
 of Missionary Priests,' etc. 
 
 The second episode to which I have alluded is the 
 story of Humphry Arundell, the * leader of the 
 Cornish rebellion ' a rising which was undertaken 
 for a like cause the defence of ' the old religion.' 
 We are indebted to Mr. Froude for much valuable 
 information on this subject, given in the fifth vol. 
 of his ' History of England, from the fall of Wolsey 
 to the Death of Queen Elizabeth.' 
 
 In the summer of 1548 one of Henry VIII. 's Com- 
 missioners, a Mr, Body, was murdered by a priest at 
 Helston in Cornwall, whilst the Commissioner was
 
 60 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 carrying out the King's command in removing certain 
 superstitious objects from the church. Some ex- 
 ecutions followed, but the Cornishmen were neither 
 conciliated nor terrified thereby, and a rebellion was 
 concocted, Sir Humphry Arundell, of the Mount, 
 and Henry Boyer, Mayor of Bodmin, being the 
 leaders. 
 
 The rebellion was inaugurated at Sampford 
 Courtney, on Dartmoor, when the people compelled 
 the priests to say mass, notwithstanding that the 
 English liturgy was commanded to be used, for the 
 first time, on Whitsunday, 1549. 
 
 Lord Russell thereupon sends down Sir Peter and 
 Sir Gawen Carew to quell the insurrection, but in 
 June, 1549, 10,000 Cornishmen were in full march 
 on Exeter. England was, in fact, rising in all 
 directions, and the Commons of Devon and Cornwall 
 insisted on the restoration of the mass, and that 
 images should be set up again ; the English Bibles 
 were also to be called in, ' for we be informed that 
 othenvise the clergy shall not of long time confound 
 the heretics,' etc., etc. ; and they added a petition 
 that Humphrey Arundell and Henry Boyer should 
 have safe access to the King to represent their griev- 
 ances. Froude sets out the document in full. The 
 Protector insisted upon Bonner's (Bishop of London) 
 preaching a sermon condemning the rebellion, 
 especially so far as Cornwall and Devon were con- 
 cerned, and recanting his views as to the mass, etc. ; 
 and Bonner's imprisonment was the well-known result. 
 Order was at length partially restored ; but Exeter,
 
 The Arundells. 61 
 
 where there was a strong ' Catholic ' party, was, in 
 July, actually besieged by the rebels, and they even 
 talked of going on to London with their army, 
 now 20,000 strong; but Exeter held out for six 
 weeks. Whilst Humphry Arundell was advancing 
 upon it, Carew brought the welcome tidings to Lord 
 Russell (at Honiton, the rallying-point) of the 
 advance of Lord Grey. Meanwhile a body of 
 Cornishmen had arrived at Fennington Bridge, 
 three miles from Exeter, where Sir Peter Carew 
 attacked them ; and here Sir Gawen, who was with 
 him, was shot through the arm. The Cornishmen 
 were scattered after a severe struggle, leaving 300 
 dead on the field, and their assailants at least as 
 many ; and Grey now came to the rescue of Exeter. 
 At the battle of St Mary's Clyst the King's troops, 
 though at first defeated, ultimately succeeded, and 
 killed 1,000 rebels, besides taking many prisoners, 
 who were afterwards put to the sword. The fight 
 was renewed on the following day, and Grey, who 
 had seen service, exclaimed that ' such was the 
 valour and the stoutness of the men, that he never, in 
 all the wars he had been in, did know the like.' But, 
 as we have said, the rebels were massacred ; the siege 
 of Exeter was raised ; and on the 6th of August the 
 banner of the red dragon was flying from the city walls. 
 Yet the Cornish rallied on Dartmoor, at Sampford 
 Courtney, under Humphry Arundell, Pomeroy, 
 Underbill, and others ; and here at length, where the 
 fire was first kindled it was at last extinguished on 
 Sunday, i7th August, 1549. The town had been
 
 62 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 fortified, and when the insurgents were driven back 
 to it, to use Lord Russell's own words : * While I 
 was yet behind with the residue of the army con- 
 ducting the carriage, Humphry Arundel with his 
 whole power came on the back of our forewards,' 
 and ' against Arundel was nothing for one hour but 
 shooting of ordnance to and fro.' At length ' the 
 rebels' stomachs so fell from them as without any 
 blow they fled,' and multitudes of the unfortunate 
 wretches were slain. Humphrey Arundel fled to 
 Launceston, when he 'immediately began to practise 
 with the townsmen and the keepers of Greenfield 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.' 
 
 The insurgents lost over 4,000 men during this 
 fatal month. Martial law was proclaimed through- 
 out Devon and Cornwall ; and Arundell, with three 
 others (Holmes, Winslow, and Berry), was hung at 
 Tyburn. Holmes says that Boyer, the Mayor of 
 Bodmin, was hung at his own door, after the 
 Provost Marshal had dined with him. 
 
 Hals's account of the rising is so full and interest- 
 ing, that it seems worth giving, even at the risk of 
 incurring some little repetition. He says : 
 
 ' This Priory or Abbey (of St. Michael's Mount) 
 being dissolved by Act of Parliament, and given to 
 the King, 33rd Henry VIII., 1542, he gave the
 
 The Arundells. 63 
 
 revenues and government of the place to Humphry 
 Arundell, Esq., of the Lanherne family, who enjoyed 
 the same till the first year of King Edward VI., 
 1549 > at which time that King set forth several in- 
 junctions about religion ; amongst others, this was 
 one, viz. : That all images found in churches, for 
 divine worship or otherwise, should be pulled down 
 and cast forth out of those churches ; and that all 
 preachers should perswade the people from praying 
 to saints, or for the dead, and from the use of beads, 
 ashes, processions, masses, dirges, and praying to 
 God publicly in an unknown tongue; and, least there 
 should be a defect of preachers as to these points, 
 homilies were made and ordered to be read in all 
 churches. Pursuant to this injunction, one Mr. 
 Body, a commissioner for pulling down images in 
 the churches of Cornwall, going to do his duty in 
 Helston Church, a priest, in company with Kiltor 
 of Kevorne, and others, at unawares stabbed him 
 in the body with a knife ; of which wound he 
 instantly fell dead in that place. And though the 
 murderer was taken, and sent up to London, tried, 
 found guilty of murder in Westminster Hall, and 
 executed in Smithfield, yet the Cornish people 
 flocked together in a tumultuous and rebellious 
 manner, by the instigation of their priests in diverse 
 parts of the shire or county, and committed many 
 barbarities and outrages in the same ; and though 
 the justices of the peace apprehended several of 
 them, and sent them to jail, yet they could not, with 
 all their power, suppress the growth of their insur-
 
 64 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 rection ; for soon after Humphry Arundell, afore- 
 said, governor of this Mount, sided with those 
 mutineers, and broke out into actual rebellion 
 against his and their prince. The mutineers chose 
 him for the General of their army, and for inferior 
 officers as Captains, Majors, and Colonels, John Roso- 
 gan, James Rosogan, Will. Winslade of Tregarrick 
 or St. Agnes at Mithian, John Payne of St. Ives, 
 Robert Bochym of Bochym, and his brother, 
 Thomas Underbill, John Salmon, William Segar, 
 together with several priests, rectors, vicars, and 
 curates of churches, as John Thompson, Roger 
 Barret, John Woolcock, William Asa, James 
 Mourton, John Barrow, Richard Bennet, and 
 others, who mustered their soldiers according to the 
 rules of the military discipline at Bodmin, where the 
 general rendezvous was appointed. But no sooner 
 was the General Arundell departed from St. Michael's 
 Mount to exert his power in the camp and field 
 aforesaid, but diverse gentlemen, with their wives 
 and families, in his absence possessed themselves 
 thereof ; whereupon he dispatched a party of horse 
 and foot to reduce his old garrison, which quickly 
 they effected, by reason the besieged wanted pro- 
 vision and ammunition, and were distracted with 
 the women and children's fears and cries; and so 
 they yielded the possession to their enemies on con- 
 dition of free liberty of departing forthwith from 
 thence with life, though not without being plundered. 
 ' The retaking of St. Michael's Mount by the 
 General Arundell proved much to the content and
 
 The Arundells. 
 
 satisfaction of his army at Bodmin, consisting of 
 about 6,000 men, which they looked upon as a 
 good omen of their future success, and the first- 
 fruits of the valour and conduct of their General. 
 Whereupon the confederates daily increased his 
 army with great numbers of men from all parts, 
 who listed themselves under his banner, which 
 was not only pourtrayed, but by a cart brought into 
 the field for their encouragement, viz., a pyx under 
 its canopy ; that is to say, the vessel containing the 
 Roman host, or sacramental sacrifice, or body of 
 Christ, together with crosses, banners, candlesticks, 
 holy bread and water, to defend them from devils 
 and the adverse power (see " Fox's Martyrology," 
 p. 669), which was carried whersoever the camp re- 
 moved, which camp grew so tremendously formidable 
 at Bodmin, that Job Militon Esq., then Sheriff of 
 Cornwall, with all the power of his bailiwick, durst 
 not encounter with it during the time of the General's 
 stay in that place, which gave him and his rebels 
 opportunity to consult together for the good of their 
 public interest, and to make out a declaration, or 
 manifesto, of the justice of their cause and grounds 
 of taking up arms ; but the army, in general 
 consisting of a mixed multitude of men of diverse 
 professions, trades, and employments, could not 
 easily agree upon the subject matter, and form 
 thereof. Some would have no justice of the peace ; 
 for that generally they were ignorant of the laws, and 
 could not construe or English a Latin bill of indict- 
 ment without the clerk of the peace's assistance, 
 VOL. i. 5
 
 66 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 who imposed upon them, with other attorneys, for 
 gain, wrong sense, and judgment besides, in them- 
 selves, they were corrupt and partial in determining 
 cases ; others would have no lawyers nor attorneys, 
 for that the one cheated the people in wrong advice 
 or counsel, and the other of their money by extrava- 
 gant bills of costs ; others would have no court leets, 
 or court-barons, for that the cost and expense in 
 prosecuting an action at law therein was many times 
 greater than the debt or profit. But generally it was 
 agreed upon amongst them that no inclosure should 
 be left standing, but that all lands should be held in 
 common ; yet what expedients should be found out 
 and placed in the room of those several orders and 
 degrees of men and officers none could prescribe. 
 
 * However, the priests, rectors, vicars, and curates, 
 the priors and monks, friars and other dissolved 
 collegiates, hammered out seven articles of address 
 for the King's Majesty, upon grant of which they 
 declared their bodies, arms, and goods should all be 
 at his disposal, viz. : 
 
 ' No. i. That curates should administer baptism at 
 all times of need, as well week days as holy days. 
 
 ' 2. That their children might be confirmed by the 
 Bishop. 
 
 ' 3. That mass might be celebrated, no man com- 
 municating with the priest. 
 
 ' 4. That they might have reservation of the Lord's 
 body in churches. 
 
 ' 5. That they might have holy bread and water 
 in remembrance of Christ's body and blood.
 
 The Arundells. 67 
 
 ' 6. That priests might not be married. 
 
 * 7. That the six articles set forth by King Henry 
 VIII. might be continued at least till the King came 
 of age. 
 
 ' Now these six articles were invented by Stephen 
 Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester (who was the 
 bastard son of Lionel Woodvill, Bishop of Salis- 
 bury, by his concubine, Elizabeth Gardiner; the 
 which Lionel was fifth son of Richard Woodvill, Earl 
 Rivers, 1470), and therefore called his creed, viz. : 
 
 ' i. That the body of Christ is really present in 
 the sacrament after consecration. 
 
 ' 2. That the sacrament cannot truly be admin- 
 istered under both kinds. 
 
 ' 3. That priests entered into holy orders might 
 not marry. 
 
 '4. That vows of chastity entered into upon 
 mature deliberation, were to be kept. 
 
 ' 5. That private masses were not to be omitted. 
 
 ' 6. That auricular confession was necessary in the 
 Church of God. 
 
 ' To these demands of the Cornish rebels the King 
 so far condescended as to send an answer in writing 
 to every article, and also a general pardon to every 
 one of them, if they would lay down arms. (See 
 Fox's "Acts and Monuments, " Book IX. p. 668) . But, 
 alas! those overtures of the King were not only 
 rejected by the rebels, but made them the more bold 
 and desperate ; especially finding themselves unable 
 longer to subsist upon their own estates and money, 
 or the bounty of the country, which hitherto they 
 
 52
 
 68 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 had done. The General therefore resolved, as the 
 fox who seldom chucks at home, to prey upon other 
 men's goods and estates farther off for his army's 
 better subsistence. Whereupon he dislodged from 
 Bodmin, and marched with his soldiers into Devon, 
 where Sir Peter Carew, Knight, was ready to obstruct 
 their passage with his posse comitatus. But when 
 they saw the order and discipline of the rebels, and 
 that their army consisted of above 6,000 fighting- 
 men, desperate, well armed, and prepared for battle, 
 the Sheriff and his troops permitted them quietly to 
 pass through the heart of that country to Exeter, 
 where the citizens, upon notice of their approaches 
 (as formerly done), shut the gates, and put themselves 
 in a posture of defence. 
 
 'Things being in this posture, the General, Arundell, 
 summoned the citizens to deliver their town and 
 castle to his dominion ; but they sent him a flat 
 denial. Whereupon, forthwith he ordered his men 
 to fire the gates of the city, which accordingly they 
 did ; but the citizens on the inside supplied those 
 fires with such quantities of combustible matter, so 
 long till they had cast up a half-moon on the inside 
 thereof, upon which, when the rebels attempted to 
 enter, they were shot to death or cut to pieces. 
 Their entrance being thus obstructed at the gates, 
 they put in practice other expedients, viz., either to 
 undermine the walls or blow them up with barrels of 
 gunpowder, which they had placed in the same ,* 
 but the citizens also prevented this their design, by 
 countermining their mines and casting so much
 
 The Arundells. 69 
 
 water on the places where their powder-barrels were 
 lodged, that the powder would not take fire. Thus 
 stratagems of war were daily practised between the 
 besieged and besiegers to the great hurt and damage 
 of each other. 
 
 ' King Edward being informed by his council of 
 this siege, and that there was little or no dependance 
 upon the valour and conduct of the Sheriff of Devon 
 and his bailiwick to suppress this rebellion or raise 
 the siege of Exeter, granted his commission to John 
 Lord Russell, created Baron Russell of Tavistock by 
 King Henry, and Lord High Admiral and Lord 
 Privy Seal, an old experienced soldier who had lost 
 an eye at the Siege of Montreuil in France, to be 
 his General for raising soldiers to fight those rebels ; 
 who forthwith, pursuant thereto, raised a consider- 
 able army and marched them to Honiton ; but when 
 he came there he was informed that the enemy con- 
 sisted of 10,000 able fighting-men armed ; which 
 occasioned his halting there longer than he intended, 
 expecting greater supplies of men, that were coming 
 to his aid under conduct of the Lord Grey ; which 
 at length arrived and joined his forces, whereupon 
 he dislodged from thence and marched towards 
 Exeter; where, on the way, he had several sharp 
 conflicts with the rebels with various success, some- 
 times the better and sometimes the worse ; though 
 at length after much fatigue of war, maugre all oppo- 
 sition and resistance of the rebels, he forced them to 
 raise their siege, and entered the city of Exeter with 
 relief, 6th August, 1549, after thirty-two days' siege,
 
 7o Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 wherein the inhabitants had valiantly defended them- 
 selves, though in that extremity they were neces- 
 sitated by famine to eat horses, moulded cloth, and 
 bread made of bran ; in reward of whose loyalty 
 King Edward gave to the city for ever the Manor of 
 Evyland, since sold by the city for making the river 
 Exe navigable. 
 
 ' After raising the siege, as aforesaid, the General, 
 Arundell, rallied his routed forces of rebels, and gave 
 battle to the Lord Russell and the King's army with 
 that inveterate courage, animosity, and resolution, 
 that the greatest part of his men were slain upon the 
 spot, others threw down their arms on mercy, the 
 remainder fled, and were afterwards many of them 
 taken and executed. Sir Anthony Kingston, Knight, 
 a Gloucestershire man, after this rebellion, was made 
 Provost-Marshal for executing such western rebels as 
 could be taken, or were made prisoners in Cornwall 
 and Devon, together with all such who had been 
 aiders or assisters of them in that rebellion ; upon 
 whom, according to his power and office, he executed 
 martial law with sport and justice (as Mr. Carew 
 and other historians tell us) ; and the principal 
 persons that have come to my knowledge, over whose 
 misery he triumphed, was Boyer, the Mayor of 
 Bodmin ; Mayow of Clevyan, in St. Colomb Major, 
 whom he hanged at the tavern sign-post in that 
 town, of whom tradition saith his crime was not 
 capital ; and, therefore, his wife was advised by her 
 friends to hasten to the town after the Marshal and 
 his men, who had him in custody, and beg his life.
 
 The Arundells. 71 
 
 Which, accordingly, she prepared to do, and to 
 render herself the more amiable petitioner before the 
 Marshal's eye.s, this dame spent so much time in 
 attiring herself and putting on her French hood, then 
 in fashion, that her husband was put to death before 
 her arrival. In like manner the Marshal hanged one 
 John Payne, the Mayor, or Portreeve of St. Ives, 
 on a gallows erected in the middle of that 
 town, whose arms are still to be seen in one of 
 the foreseats in that church, viz. in a plain field 
 three pine-apples. Besides those he executed many 
 more in other places in Cornwall, that had been 
 actors, assisters, or promoters of this rebellion. 
 Lastly, it is further memorable of this Sir Anthony 
 Kingston, that in Sir John Heywood's chronicle he 
 is taxed of extreme cruelty in doing his Marshal's 
 office aforesaid. Of whom Fuller, in Gloucester- 
 shire, gives us this further account of him ; that 
 afterwards, in the reign of Queen Mary, being 
 detected, with several others, of a design to rob her 
 exchequer, though he made his escape and fled into 
 his own country, yet there he was apprehended and 
 taken into custody by a messenger, who was bringing 
 him up to London in order to have justice done 
 upon him for his crime ; but he being conscious of his 
 guilt, and despairing of pardon, so effectually poisoned 
 himself that he died on the way, without having the 
 due reward of his desert. 
 
 ' After the death of Humphrey Arundell, Governor 
 of St. Michael's Mount, executed for treason as 
 aforesaid, King Edward VI. sold or gave the govern-
 
 72 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 ment and revenues thereof to Job Militon, Esq., 
 aforesaid, then Sheriff of Cornwall, during his life ; 
 but his son, dying without issue male, the govern- 
 ment, by what title I know not, devolved upon 
 the Bassets of Tihidy, from some of whom, as I am 
 informed, it came by purchase to Sir John St. 
 Aubyn, Bart., now in possession thereof.' 
 
 A contemporary account of Humphrey Arundell's 
 execution in Mr. Richard Hewlett's ' Monumenta 
 Franciscana,' vol.ii., 27th January, 1550, states: 'Was 
 drawne from the Tower of London vnto Tyborne 
 iiii persons (Humfre Avrnedelle, Bere Vynch, Chyffe, 
 Homes), and there hangyd and qwarterd, and 
 their qwarteres sette abowte London on euery 
 gatte ; thes was of them that dyd ryse in the West 
 cuntre.' 
 
 It has already been observed that an attachment 
 to the Roman Catholic faith led many of the 
 Arundells into trouble : as exemplifying this, I have 
 culled a few other instances from the pages of a 
 writer belonging to that Communion. 
 
 'The next successor to the property' (a son of 
 John Arundell, the friend of Father Cornelius), 'was 
 indeed a great sufferer for conscience' sake. In a 
 letter before me of F. Richard Blount, dated 7th 
 Nov., 1606, he says that Mr. Arundell, amongst 
 others, had been forced to compound for the posses- 
 sion of his property by paying heavy fines to the 
 Crown. He had been convicted of recusancy, but 
 King James directed by his letters patent (20 Feb.,
 
 The Arundells. 73 
 
 4 Jac. I., 1607) that none of Mr. Arundell's lands 
 were to be seized so long as he paid 240 a year 
 for not frequenting church,' etc. 
 
 * George Arundell was another recusant (20 June, 
 34 Eliz., 1591), and paid a similar fine. 
 
 ' From a letter in the State Paper Office, dated 21 
 Oct., 1642, by a Parliamentarian, I make the follow- 
 ing extract : 
 
 ' " Mr. Arundell hath the greatest forces here, and 
 is able to raise more than half the gentlemen in 
 Cornwall, and he alone was the first that began the 
 rebellion there. There hath lately been landed at 
 some creek in that county ten or more seminary 
 priests, which are newly come out of Flanders, and 
 harboured in Mr. Arundell's house.* They are 
 merciless creatures, and there is a great way laid for 
 the apprehension of them." 
 
 ' This gentleman had to suffer the sequestration of 
 his estates for many years, and it cost him nearly 
 3,000 to get off at last.' 
 
 And the continued attachment of the Arundells to 
 their ancient faith is exemplified in an interesting 
 manner, as we shall see further on, by the con- 
 ventual establishment still existing at Lanherne. 
 
 A few words will perhaps be expected as to the 
 church, and the adjacent former residence of the 
 Arundells of Lanherne. The sylvan beauty of the 
 
 * There is an hereditary tradition at Lanherne that the Mass has 
 always been celebrated there ever since the Reformation.
 
 74 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 situation and its surroundings has already been 
 adverted to, and the church and churchyard, at 
 least, are still worthy of their site ; but little remains 
 of the once noble old mansion, of which Carew 
 wrote : ' This said house of Lanherne is appor- 
 tioned with a large scope of land, which, while 
 the owners there lived, was employed to frank 
 hospitality.' 
 
 At MAWGAN CHURCH the fragments of the screen 
 which separates the nave and south aisle are carved 
 with the arms of Arundell quartering Carminow, 
 and on the south side of the chancel are brass shields 
 on which the same arms are quartered with Arch- 
 dekne,. Arches, Carminow, Denham, Durnford, Gren- 
 ville, etc. At the east end of the aisle on the screen 
 are seven brass plates, * chiefly inscribed with 
 English and Latin verses, admonitory to the reader 
 and eulogistic of the Arundells,' e.g. : 
 
 ' What favour FORTUNE him affords, his landes and livings tell ; 
 Of brethren five, though youngst he were, to ly ve yet had he well. 
 His worthie house him worshipp gave, so famous ys that race ; 
 The familie of ARUNDELLS, well knowne in every place. 
 And GRACE that woulde not be o'ercome gave him a godlye ende ; 
 A gyft wherebi his soule ys sure to glory to ascende. 
 Where unto GRACE & GOD he yealds the price and prayse for aye ; 
 What FORTUNE or dame NATURE gave, DEATH having tane 
 away.' 
 
 The transept, or Arundell chapel, was once used as 
 a burial-place for the nuns of the adjoining nunnery; 
 it has a hagioscopic communication with the chancel. 
 
 The following inscription on a brass, the chief 
 portion of which is now missing, has also been 
 preserved :
 
 The Arundells. 75 
 
 ' Here under lyeth buryed Mary Arundell, the 
 daughter of Syr John Arundell, Knight, with the 
 body of Elizabeth, his wyfe, who decessed the 23 
 day of April, A.D. 1578 ; and in the fourty-nyne yere 
 of her age. On whose soul God have mercye. 
 
 ' This virgin wyse, whose lampe with oyle repleat 
 
 The bridegroom's call with burninge light attended ; 
 By following him hath won a worthye seate, 
 
 And lyves for aye, though death this lyfe hath ended.' 
 Etc., etc., etc. 
 
 Nearly the whole of the older Arundell brasses, 
 which bore the names, dates of death, and ages of the 
 members of that family are not now to be found in the 
 church ; one, a sort of palimpsest brass, bore on one 
 side an acrostic to the memory of Jane Arundell, and 
 on the other a representation of the Deity, and two 
 other figures, probably symbolical. This brass is 
 said to have been removed to the nunnery at the 
 beginning of the present century. 
 
 LANHERNE HO USE, formerly the manor-house 
 of the Arundells, a picturesque but gloomy structure, is 
 now a Roman Catholic Carmelite nunnery, ' by time 
 unstricken, yet with ages hoar.' The south part of 
 the house is the most ancient part ; it has stone- 
 mullioned windows, and a good doorway of Catacleuse 
 stone.* The vane which still surmounts the dome 
 represents a wolf the crest of the Trembleath 
 Arundells. About eighty years ago the building was 
 assigned to sixteen nuns who fled from the siege of 
 
 * A sort of green-stone, so called from its being found at Calaclew 
 Point, near Trevose Head, Padsiow.
 
 76 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 Antwerp by the French during the revolutionary 
 wars; and their successors, now over twenty in 
 number, continue to occupy the buildings. 
 
 THE A RUN DELLS OF TRERICE* 
 
 As the crow flies, Trerice, anciently Treres, as Carew 
 informs us, is about five miles south of Lanherne and 
 about the same distance from the mouth of the Gan- 
 nel, one of whose tributary streamlets runs round the 
 slope on whose southern side still stands great part 
 of the handsome and extensive mansion of this 
 branch of the family. It is not the original building, 
 dating as it does only from the year 1573 ; but its 
 charming and sheltered situation, ' its costly and 
 commodious dwellings,' the rich colours of the time- 
 stained masonry, its huge mullioned windows, and 
 the magnificent proportions of its large and lofty 
 hall, stamp it as one of the few remaining mansions 
 of the Cornish gentry that speak of the wealth and 
 power and hospitality of the ' good old times.' 
 
 The county histories are almost silent as to the 
 early seat of this branch of the family ; but there is 
 no reason to doubt that its site remains the same ; 
 and that Trerice was inhabited by an Arundell at 
 
 * Tonkin says : ' Trerice in this parish (St. Allen) belonged to a 
 younger branch oftheArundells of Trerice in Newlyn ; from whom it is 
 said to have been wrested, not very fairly, by an attorney, Mr. John Coke. 
 The estate now belongs to Lord Falmouth.' There are four or five places 
 m Cornwall called Trerice, which signifies ' the place on the fleeting 
 ground ;' but the Trerice is in the parish of Newlyn.'
 
 The Arundells. 77 
 
 least so far back as the reign of Edward III. one 
 Ralph being here, whilst his cousin (or perhaps his 
 brother), Sir John, who married Elizabeth Car- 
 minow, held sway at Lanherne.* Apropos of this 
 marriage into the powerful and wealthy family of 
 Carminow, it is interesting to note that in the 
 Register of Walter de Stapeldon, Bishop of Exeter, 
 and founder of Exeter College, Oxon, we find that, 
 in the year 1316, 'on the Monday before Michaelmas, 
 our lord ' (the Bishop) ' offered his niece, Joan Kaignes, 
 as wife to John de Arundell, son and heir of John 
 de Arundell defunct, who refused for the present ; 
 William Walle was present.' Were John's affections 
 already pledged to the fair Elizabeth ? The inci- 
 dent shows at least that the Bishop was desirous of 
 forming an alliance between one of his own relatives 
 and a house so important as that of Arundell. 
 
 Hals says that the Arundells of Trerice bore, at 
 one time, the arms of Lansladron, viz., sable, three 
 chevrons argent ; but that at length they adopted the 
 well-known coat of the family : sable, six swallows 
 argent three, two, and one. 
 
 Leland, writing of the Arundells of Trerice, 
 observes : ' This Arundale giveth no part of the 
 arms of the great Arundale of Lanheron, by St. 
 Columbe. But he told me that he thought he cam 
 of the Arundales in base Normandy, that were lordes 
 
 * In Notes and Queries, 5th S., vii. 389 (1877), Fredk. Hancock says 
 the Arundells of Trerice frequently resided on their estate at Allerford, 
 in West Somerset, and that they were probably connected by marriage 
 with the Wentworths one of whom was Governor of Jamaica, circa 
 1690.
 
 78 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 of Culy Castelle;* that now is descended to one 
 Monseir de la Fontaine, a Frenchman, by heir 
 generale. This Arundale is caulid Arundale of 
 Trerise, by a difference from Arundale of Lanheron. 
 Trerise is a lordship of his, a three or four miles 
 from Alein chirch.' 
 
 ' What Leland means,' observes Tonkin, ' by his 
 first words I cannot imagine. The then owner of 
 Trerise was Sir John Arundell, who could not tell 
 him that his arms were different from Arundells of 
 Lanhearn, since it is most certain that they con- 
 stantly gave the same, viz., the six swallows, and 
 that without any difference or distinction, as not 
 being well agreed on which was the elder family of 
 the two ; only, as it is before observed, Arundell of 
 Trerice, the better to declare of what house he was, 
 did always quarter the arms of Trerice with his own. 
 Nay, further ; as appeareth by a very fair pedigree 
 of this family, drawn up by Mr. Camden himself, 
 which was lately in the Lord Arundell's library, 
 where I had the favour to peruse it, the ancestor 
 of the Lanhearn family, which came over with 
 William the Conqueror, left a widow, afterwards 
 married to the ancestor of Arundell of Trerice, that 
 came over at the same time ; so that both these 
 
 * Possibly Cuille", in the Department of Mayenne, Canton of Cosse- 
 le-Vivier, twenty-five miles N.W. of Chateau-Goutier. From this spot, 
 therefore, or from a place of like name near St. Amand des Boix, twelve 
 miles N. of Angouleme, perhaps all our Cornish Arundells first came. 
 It is interesting to notice how many names in this part of Normandy are 
 familiar to Cornish ears, either as names of persons or of places.
 
 The Arundells. 79 
 
 families are descended from that same woman. But 
 as she was first married to the ancestor of Arundell 
 of Lanhearne, it is supposed from thence that he 
 was descended from the elder brother, and the other 
 from the younger, as being both of the same stock ; 
 which is further confirmed, for that Arundell of 
 Lanhearn had always the greater estate, and made 
 the greater figure in their country, whence they 
 were called the Great Arundells, though this of 
 Trerice was likewise very eminent.' 
 
 Carew, who married into the family of the 
 Tolverne Arundells, and who may therefore be 
 assumed to be of some authority in the matter, does 
 not go so far back as this for the rise of the Arun- 
 dells of Trerice. He says, ' In Edward III.'s 
 reign, Ralph Arundel matched with the heir of this 
 land and name ; since which time his issue hath 
 there continued, and increased their livelihood by 
 sundry like inheritors as St. John, Jew, Durant, Thur- 
 lebear,' etc. He adds, ' Precisely to rip up the whole 
 pedigree were more tedious than behooveful ; and 
 therefore I will only (as by the way) touch some few 
 points which may serve, in part, to show what place 
 and regard they have borne in the commonwealth.' 
 
 I venture to think that, so far as modern readers 
 are concerned, it will be well to adopt Carew's view; 
 and that the more especially on account of the 
 many difficulties which beset the case, as already 
 mentioned at the commencement of this chapter. I
 
 80 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 do not therefore propose to advert to the Sir Oliver 
 de Arundell of Carhayes of the time of Henry III., 
 who married a lady of the same patronymic as him- 
 self, and who indeed was probably the true founder 
 of the Trerice branch ; but will at once mention, as 
 the first historical representative of this part of the 
 family, a Sir John Arundell of Trerice, Sheriff of 
 Cornwall, who, early in the fifteenth century, viz. 
 in the seventh year of Henry V., accompanied the 
 Earl of Devon on a sea voyage ' in defence of the 
 realm ;' no doubt the same knight who was in the 
 following reign addressed by the Earl of Huntingdon 
 Lieutenant-General to John, Duke of Bedford, 
 Constable and Admiral of England as ' Vice- 
 Admiral of Cornwall.' I do not, however, feel 
 certain whether it was he or his son (but more 
 probably the latter) whose curious story has been 
 thus narrated by Hals and by Carew. 
 
 Hals says, ' As soon as King Edward IV. heard 
 of the surprise of St. Michael's Mount by the Earl 
 of Oxford, he issued forth his proclamation, pro- 
 claiming him, and all his adherents, traitors, and 
 then consulted how to regain both to his obedience ; 
 and in order thereto, he forthwith sent Sir John 
 Arundell of Trerice, Knight, then Sheriff of Cornwall, 
 to reduce and besiege the same by his posse comitatus; 
 which gentleman, pursuant to his orders and by 
 virtue of his office, soon rose a considerable army of 
 men and soldiers within his bailiwick, and marched 
 with them towards St. Michael's Mount, where,
 
 The Arundells. 81 
 
 being arrived, he sent a trumpeter to the Earl with 
 a summons of surrender of that garrison to him for 
 King Edward, upon mercy; especially for that in 
 so doing, in all probability he would prevent the 
 effusion of much Christian blood. To this summons 
 of the trumpeter the Earl sent a flat denial ; saying 
 further that, rather than he would yield the fort on 
 those terms, himself and those with him were all 
 resolved to lose their lives in defence thereof. 
 Whereupon the Sheriff commanded his soldiers, 
 being very numerous on all parts, to storm the 
 Mount and reduce it by force ; but alas, maugre all 
 their attempts (of this kind), the besieged so well 
 defended every part of this rocky mountain, that in 
 all places the Sheriff's men were repulsed with some 
 loss ; and the besieged issued forth from the outer 
 gate and pursued them with such violence that the 
 said Sir John Arundell and some others were slain 
 upon the sands at the foot of the Mount, to the great 
 discouragement of the new-raised soldiers, who 
 quickly departed thence, having lost their leader, 
 leaving the besieged in better heart than they 
 found them, as much elevated at their good success 
 as themselves were dismayed at their bad fortune.' 
 ' Sir John Arundell,' as Mr. Carew, in his ' Survey 
 of Cornwall,' tells us, p. 119, 'had long before been 
 told, by some fortune-teller, that he would be slain 
 on the sands ; wherefore, to avoid that destiny, he 
 removed from Efford, near Stratton, on the sands, 
 where he dwelt, to Trerice, far off from the sea- 
 VOL. i. 6
 
 82 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 sands ; yet by this misfortune fulfilled the prediction 
 in another place.' 
 
 The connexion of this family with Stratton and 
 Bude is further indicated by the churchwardens' 
 accounts of Stratton Church, where knells were rung 
 in 1526 for the Arundells ; they are also recorded as 
 having presented vestments to this church. 
 
 That the Arundells of Trerice long continued in 
 Royal favour is evident from the fact that one of the 
 family a Sir John, a name to which all branches of 
 the Arundells seem to have been extremely partial 
 received an autograph letter from the Queen of 
 Henry VII., dated I2th October, 1488, wherein her 
 Majesty informs the knight that she has been safely 
 delivered of a prince. 
 
 We now arrive at some Arundells who make a 
 greater figure in history than any of those who 
 preceded them ; and who, like their forefathers, seem 
 to have stood well at Court. For in 1520, we find 
 King Henry VIII. writing to Sir John Arundell of 
 Trerice, his Esquire of the body 'Jack of Tilbury' 
 that he should give his attendance at Canterbury 
 about the entertainment of the Emperor, whose landing 
 on the English coast was then shortly expected. 
 
 Three years afterwards the same knight took 
 prisoner Duncan Campbell, a notorious Scottish 
 pirate, in a fight at sea, ' as our chronicle mentioneth ;'* 
 
 * In the year 1523, ' Duncan Campbell, a Scottish rouer, after long 
 fight, was ta ken on the sea by John Arundell, an esquier of Cornwall) 
 who presented him to the King.' Holinshed. 

 
 The Arundells. 8 
 
 concerning which, * I thought it not amiss,' says Carew, 
 ' to insert a letter sent him from Thomas, Duke of 
 Norfolk (to whom he then belonged), that you may 
 see the style of those days. 
 
 "'By THE DUKE OF NORFOLK. 
 
 '"Right wellbeloued, in our hearty wise we 
 commend us unto you, letting you wit, that by your 
 seruant, this bearer, we haue receyued your letters, 
 dated at Truru the 5 day of this moneth of April, by 
 which we perceyue the goodly, valiant and ieopardous 
 enterprise, it hath pleased God of late to send you, 
 by the taking of Duncane Camel, and other Scots, 
 on the sea; of which enterprise we haue made 
 relation vnto the King's Highnesse, who is not a 
 little ioyous and glad, to heare of the same, and hath 
 required vs instantly in his name, to giue you thanks 
 for your said valiant courage, and bolde enterprise in 
 the premises : and by these our letters, for the same 
 your so doing, we doe not onely thanke you in our 
 most effectual wise, but also promise you, that 
 during our life, we will be glad to aduance you to 
 any preferment we can. And ouer this, you shall 
 understand, our said Soueraigne Lord's pleasure is 
 that you shall come and repaire to his Highnes, 
 with diligence in your owne person, bringing with 
 you the said Captiue, and the master of the Scottish 
 ship ; at which time, you shall not onely be sure of 
 his especiall thanks by mouth, and to know his 
 further pleasure therein, but also of us to further 
 any your reasonable pursuits vnto his Highnes, or 
 
 62
 
 84 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 any other, during our life, to the best of our power, 
 accordingly. Written at Lambeth, the nth day of 
 Aprill aforesaid 
 
 '"Superscribed To our right wellbeloved Servant 
 '"JOHN ARUNDELL OF TRERICE." 
 
 It is singular that (so far as I am aware) there is 
 so little recorded in history of an action to which so 
 much importance was evidently attributed at the time 
 of its performance. 
 
 'And in 35th Henry VIII.,' continues Carew, 'the 
 King wrote to Sir John Arundell of Trerice, touching 
 his discharge from the Admiralty of the fleet, lately 
 committed unto him, and that he should deliver the 
 ship which he sailed in, to Sir Nicholas Poynts. The 
 same year the King wrote to him again, that he 
 should attend him in his wars against the French 
 King, with his servants, tenants, and others, within 
 his rooms and offices, especially horsemen. Other 
 letters from the King there are, whose date is not 
 expressed, neither can I by any means hunt it out. 
 One to his servant, John Arundell of Trerice, Esquire, 
 willing him not to repair with his men, and to wait in 
 the rearward of his army, as he had commanded 
 him, but to keep them in a readiness for some other 
 service. Another to Sir John Arundell of Trerice, 
 praying and desiring him to the Court, the Quindene 
 of St. Hillary next, wheresoever the King shall then 
 be within the realm. 
 
 * There are also letters, directed to Sir John Arundell 
 of Trerice, from the King's Counsel ; by some of
 
 The Arundells. 85 
 
 which it appeareth, that (temp. Edward VI.) he was 
 Vice-Admiral of the King's ships in the west seas ; 
 and by others that he had the goods and lands of 
 certain rebels given him, for his good service against 
 them. 
 
 'Again the Queen, ist of Mary (1553), wrote 
 to Sir John Arundell of Trerice, praying and 
 requiring him that he, with his friends and neigh- 
 bours, should see the Prince of Spain most 
 honourably entertained, if he fortuned to land in 
 Cornwall. She also wrote to him (being then 
 Sheriff of Cornwall, 2nd Mary) touching the 
 election of the Knights of the Shire, and the 
 burgesses for the Parliament. She likewise once 
 more wrote to him (2nd and 3rd Philip and 
 Mary) that (notwithstanding the instructions to the 
 justices) he should muster, and furnish with servants, 
 tenants, and others, under his rule and offices, with 
 his friends, for the defence and quieting of the 
 country, withstanding of enemies, and any other 
 employment ; as also to certify what force of horse 
 and foot he could arm. 
 
 * These few notes,' Carew says, * I have culled 
 out of many others. Sir John Arundell, last 
 mentioned, by his first wife, the co-heir of Bevill, 
 had issue Roger, who died in his father's lifetime ; 
 and Katherine, married to Prideaux. Roger, by 
 his wife Trendenham, left behind him a son called 
 John. Sir John's second wife was daughter to 
 Erisy, and widow to Gourlyn, who bare him 
 John, his succeeder in Trerice, and much other
 
 86 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 fair revenues, whose due commendation, because 
 another might better deliver than myself, who 
 touch him as nearly as Tacitus did Agricola, I 
 will, therefore, bound the same within his desert, 
 and only say this, which all who knew him, shall 
 testify with me; that, of his enemies, he would 
 take no wrong, nor on them any revenge ; and 
 being once reconciled, embraced them, without 
 scruple or remnant of gall. Over his kindred, he 
 held a wary and charey care, which bountifully was 
 expressed, when occasion so required : reputing him- 
 self not only principal of the family, but a general 
 father to them all. Private respects ever, with him, 
 gave place to the common good : as for frank, well- 
 ordered, and continual hospitality, he outwent all 
 show of competence : spare, but discreet of speech, 
 better conceiving than delivering ; equally stout, and 
 kind, not upon lightness of humour, but soundness 
 of judgment ; inclined to commiseration, ready to 
 relieve. Briefly, so accomplished in virtue, that 
 those, who for many years together waited in nearest 
 place about him, and, by his example, learned to 
 hate untruth, have often deeply protested, how no 
 curious observation of theirs could ever descry in 
 him any one notorious vice. By his first foreremem- 
 bered wife he had four daughters, married to Carew 
 (the writer himself), Summaster, Cosowarth, and 
 Denham : by his latter, the daughter of Sir Robert 
 Denis, two sons and two daughters ; the elder, even 
 from his young years, began where his father left, and 
 with so temperate a course, treadeth just in his foot-
 
 The Arundells. 87 
 
 steps, that he inheriteth, as well his love as his 
 living. The younger brother followeth the Nether- 
 land wars, with so well-liked a carriage, that he out- 
 goeth his age and time of service in preferment. 
 Their mother equalleth her husband's former 
 children, and generally all his kindred, in kind usage, 
 with her own, and is by them all, again, so acknow- 
 ledged and respected.' 
 
 But here we are anticipating a little, and must 
 return to the hero of the engagement with the Scotch 
 pirate. The victor was at length himself vanquished 
 by the all-conquering one ; and Sir John's monu- 
 ment is still to be seen in Stratton Church, in which 
 place he was buried, probably either from his con- 
 nexion with the Grenvilles* great patrons of that 
 church as well as of all the other churches in the 
 neighbourhood or else, perhaps on account of his 
 family having resided at Ebbingford (Efford) near 
 Bude Haven, hard by. Indeed, one Raynulfe Arun- 
 dell was lord of Albaminster and Stratton so early 
 as the days of Henry III. 
 
 On Sir John Arundell's tomb in Stratton Church 
 he is represented in brass, lying between his two 
 wives Mary Beville, of Talland, and Juliana Erisey, 
 of Erisey. Below the feet of his first wife stand the 
 sons, Richard, John, and Roger ; under the second 
 are ranged the daughters, ' Margereta, Marie, Jane, 
 Phelipe, Grace, Margeri, and Annes.' The inscrip- 
 tion is : 
 
 * The Grenvilles and the Arundells intermarried frequently about 
 this period.
 
 88 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 1 Here lyeth buryed Sir John Arundell, Treryse, Knyght, who, 
 praysed be God, dyed in the Lorde the xxv daye of November in the 
 yeare of cure Lorde God a MCCCCCLXI., and in the III" and VII 
 yeare of his age, whose soule now resteth with the faythfull Chrystians 
 in our Lorde.' 
 
 Carew has told us something of ' Jack of Tilbury's ' 
 son John, but only makes a short reference to a 
 Sir Thomas Arundell, who I cannot help thinking 
 must have been one of the Trerice family, although 
 some authorities refer him to the Lanherne branch. 
 He was, together with Sir John Tregonwell and 
 others, appointed, in 1535, to be a Commissioner for 
 the suppression of all religious houses ' of the sume 
 of ccc marks and under ;' and the rough reception 
 which they met with at the Priory of St. Nicholas, 
 Exeter, may be read in Dr. Oliver's ' Monasticon 
 Diocesis Exoniensis,' p. 116. 
 
 He had been one of Wolsey's Gentlemen of the 
 Privy Chamber, was made Knight of the Bath at 
 Anne Boleyn's coronation, and was appointed Re- 
 ceiver-General of the Duchy of Cornwall, 1549. 
 
 He and his elder brother, John, were com- 
 mitted to the Tower (1549-50) for implication in 
 the Humphry Arundell rebellion in January, but 
 were released October, 1551. He was, however, 
 re-committed to the Tower in the same month, 
 accused of being concerned in the Duke of 
 Somerset's conspiracy, wherein, Bishop Pouet says, 
 ' Arundell conspired with that ambitious and subtil 
 Alcibiades, the Earl of Warwick, after Duke of 
 Northumberland, to pull down the good Duke of 
 Somerset, King Edward's uncle and protector.'
 
 The Arundells. 89 
 
 But, as Mr. Doyne Bell points out, in his * History 
 of the Church of St. Peter ad Vincula, in the Tower,' 
 if this be correct, it is singular that he should have 
 been afterwards re-arrested for conspiring with 
 Somerset against Northumberland. 
 
 He was brought to trial with Sir Ralf Vane, and 
 tried on the following day, viz., 2Qth January, 1551-52, 
 when Machyn records that * the quest qwytt ym of 
 tresun, and cast hym of felonye, to be hanged.' 
 Mr. Perne (probably the Prior of the Black Friars) 
 * was allowed to resort to Sir Thomas to instruct 
 hym to dye well.' 
 
 We read in Mr. Richard Hewlett's ' Monumenta 
 Franciscana,' that, in the ' Chronicon ab anno 1189 
 ad 1556, ex registro Fratrum Minorum Londonise,' 
 under date 26th February, 1552, is recorded that on 
 that day, ' the wyche was Fryday, was hongyd at 
 Towre-hylle sir Myllys Partryge, knyghte, the wyche 
 playd with Kynge Henry the viii te at dysse for the 
 grett belfery that stode in Powlles churche-yerde ; 
 4ho wycho was callyd tho grot bclfcry ; and Sir 
 Raffe Vane, theys too ware hongyd. Also sir 
 Myhylle Stonnappe and sir Thomas Arndelle, 
 theys too ware be-heddyd at that same tyme. And 
 theis iiii. Knyghtes confessyd that the war neuer 
 gylte for soche thynges as was layd vn-to their 
 charge, and dyde in that same oppinioun.' He was 
 buried in the chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula, in the 
 Tower. 
 
 The Commission for seizing on the possessions in 
 Cornwall and Devon of Sir Thomas Arundell, ' rebel
 
 9O Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 and traitor,' is preserved amongst the Harleian MSS. 
 in the British Museum (433, art. 1557) ; and an in- 
 teresting catalogue of his plate, together with a list 
 of that portion which was returned to his wife, 
 Margaret, on nth June, 1557, will be found in the 
 Add. MSS. 5751. 
 
 I think, but am by no means clear on the point, 
 that this is the Arundell to whom Henry VIII. 
 granted, on 6th June, 1545, Scilly, and the monastery 
 of Tavistock, and to whom, in the same year, the 
 King wrote a remarkable letter concerning the Papists 
 in Cornwall, which is preserved amongst the MSS, 
 at Westminster. 
 
 Carew thus refers to his fate : ' Sir Thomas 
 Arundel, a younger brother of Lahhearn House, 
 married the sister to Queen Katharine Howard, 
 and in Edward VI. 's time was made a Privy 
 Counsellor ; but cleaving to the Duke of Somer- 
 set, he lost his head with him.' But Carew 
 does not mention, to the credit of his elder 
 brother John, how (as we read in T. Wright's 
 ' Queen Elizabeth and Her Times,' i. 507-8) the 
 Earl of Bedford, writing to Lord Burghley from 
 Truro, on 3rd August, 1574, reports that, the 
 Spanish navy being now ready for sea, Sir John 
 Arundell and others met him eight miles from 
 Plymouth, and accompanied him throughout his 
 visit to Cornwall; the object of which seems to 
 have been an inspection of the defences. The Earl 
 reports that he found Sir John ' ready and service- 
 able in all things.'
 
 The Arundells. 91 
 
 Perhaps the most interesting member of the family 
 is the man who now appears upon the scene, the 
 grandson of ' Jack of Tilbury,' and son of the fore- 
 going Sir John. I mean * John for the King,' the 
 valiant hero who held Pendennis Castle so stoutly 
 for Charles I. He was the son of John Arundell 
 of Trerice, by his second wife, Gertrude Dennys, of 
 Holcombe ; and Richard Carew, the historian of 
 Cornwall, married his half-sister, Julian. 
 
 Unless I am much mistaken, he was present or 
 if not he, it must have been his son Richard, who 
 was also at Edgehill and at Lansdowne with most 
 of the Cornish gentry, including Sir Bevil Grenville, 
 Trevanion, and others, at the victory obtained by 
 the King's forces over the army of the Parliament, in 
 1623, on Braddock Downs a fight which I have 
 endeavoured to describe in the chapter on the Gren- 
 villes. 
 
 At any rate, twenty years later, Colonel John 
 Arundell, of Trerice, in Newlyn,* was appointed 
 Governor of Pendennis Castle, in succession to 
 Sir Nicholas Slanning, who fell at the siege of 
 
 * He was M.P. for Cornwall, Bodmin, Tregony, and Michell. The 
 small and now disfranchised borough of Michell was, as might be 
 expected from its proximity to Trerice, a place in which the Arundells 
 took much interest. They were Lords of the Manor of Medeshole 
 (Michell), at least as early as the time of Edward I. Indeed, Browne 
 Willis, in his ' Notitia Parliamentaria,' observes : ' The Manor of 
 Michell (not Michael) is still ( 1 726) in possession of the ancient family 
 of Arundel of Lanhern, whose ancestor, Ralph de Arundel, purchased 
 the same, temp. Hen. III., by whose interest, I presume, with Richard 
 Earl of Cornwall, King of the Almains (for whom he executed the 
 Sheriff's office for the County of Cornwall, anno 44 Henry III.), this 
 town obtained its privileges.'
 
 92 Some Cornish. Worthies. 
 
 Bristol. According to some accounts he was then 
 sixty-seven years of age, according to others eighty- 
 seven ; but the former is no doubt correct. Here, in 
 the following year, he harboured for a night or two 
 the unfortunate Queen Henrietta Maria, on her 
 flight into France from Exeter (where she had just 
 been confined of a prince) before the army of the Earl 
 of Essex. The then Sheriff of Cornwall thus writes 
 to his wife, Lady Francis Basset,* on the occasion : 
 
 'This thyrd of July, 1644. 
 
 ' DEARE WIFFE, 
 
 ' Here is the woefullest spectacle my eyes yet 
 ever look'd on ; the most worne and weak pitifull 
 creature in ye world, the poore Queene shifting for 
 one hour's liffe longer.' 
 
 And here John Arundell also received the Prince, 
 afterwards Charles II., in February, 1646. A room 
 in the castle still retains the name of the King's 
 Room. 
 
 The story of the siege has been admirably detailed 
 by Captain Oliver, R.A., in his * Pendennis and 
 St. Mawes : an Historical Sketch of Two Cornish 
 Castles.' On the iyth March, 1646, Fairfax took up 
 his quarters at Arwenack House, the ancient seat of 
 the Killigrews, as we shall see in the account of that 
 family ; the Killigrews themselves were within the 
 castle walls. To Fairfax's summons to deliver up Pen- 
 
 * See the account of the Basset family, post.
 
 The Arundells. 93 
 
 dennis, the gallant old Arundell gave, as might have 
 been expected, ' a peremptory denyall,' saying (ac- 
 cording to a contemporary, and not a friendly, account) 
 that * hee was 70 yeares old, and could not have 
 many days to live, and therefore would not in his 
 old yeares blemish his honour in surrendering thereof, 
 and would rather be found buried in the ruines 
 thereof, than commit so vilde a treason.' And so, 
 with his brave garrison, ' all desperate persons and 
 good soldiers . . . many very considerable men 
 . . . and the violentest enemies that the Parliament 
 hathe in this kingdom,' Arundell prepared to with- 
 stand the siege. Fairfax's haughty summons de- 
 manded a reply within two hours, and this was the 
 answer he got (it is preserved among the Clarendon 
 State Papers) : 
 
 ' Colonel John Arundell to Sir Thomas Fairfax. 
 
 'SIR, 
 
 'The Castle was committed to my Govern- 
 ment by his Majesty, who by our Laws hath the 
 command of the Castles and Forts of this Kingdom ; 
 and my age of seventy summons me hence shortly. 
 Yet I shall desire no other testimony to follow my 
 departure than my conscience to God and loyalty to 
 his Majesty, whereto I am bound by all the obliga- 
 tions of nature, duty, and oath. I wonder you 
 demand the Castle without authority from his 
 Majesty ; which, if I should render, I brand myself 
 and my posterity with the indelible character of 
 treason. And, having taken less than two minutes
 
 94 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 resolution, I resolve that I will here bury myself 
 before I deliver up this Castle to such as fight against 
 his Majesty, and that nothing you can threaten is 
 formidable to me in respect of the loss of loyalty and 
 conscience. 
 
 ' Your Servant, 
 
 'JOHN ARUNDELL 
 
 ' of Trerise. 
 
 ' 18 March, 1646.' 
 
 The story of the five months' siege, and how 
 Pendennis was the last fortress but one (Raglan) to 
 surrender to the Parliament, are matters of history ; 
 the besieged felt that the eyes of England were 
 upon them, and did not flinch from the terrible pri- 
 vations which they were about to suffer. Two other 
 summonses to surrender were made in the following 
 month, with the same result as before. But at 
 length, after many of the horses had been killed ' for 
 beefe,' the garrison was reduced to the last extremity, 
 and honourable articles of surrender were at length 
 agreed to on the i6th August, 1646. Then the brave 
 little band marched out 'with their Horses, com- 
 pleat Arms, and other Equipages, according to their 
 present or past Commands or Qualities, with flying 
 Colours, Trumpets sounding, Drums beating, 
 Matches lighted at both ends, Bullets in their 
 Mouths,' and so on ; every man of them, starved 
 and ragged as they all were, like their veteran leader, 
 ' game to the toes.'* 
 
 * The original 'Articles of Surrender,' are in the British Museum, 
 Egerton MSS., 1048, fo. 86.
 
 The Arundclls. 95 
 
 Clarendon too (book x., par. 73) tells how they ' re- 
 fused all summons, nor admitted any treaty till all their 
 provisions were so near consumed that they had not 
 victual left for four and twenty hours ; and then they 
 treated, and carried themselves in the treaty with 
 that resolution and unconcernedness that the enemy 
 concluded they were in no straits, and so gave them 
 the conditions they proposed, which were as good as 
 any garrison in England had accepted. This castle,' 
 the historian goes on to say, ' was defended by the 
 Governor thereof, John Arundel, of Trerice, in Corn- 
 wall, an old gentleman of near four score years of 
 age, and one of the best estates and interest in that 
 country, who, with the assistance of his son Richard 
 Arundel (who was then a colonel in the army, and a 
 stout and diligent officer, and was by the King, after 
 his return, made a baron,* Lord Arundel of Trerice, 
 in memory of his father's services, and his own 
 eminent behaviour throughout the war), maintained 
 and defended the same to the last extremity.' The 
 estates of Richard Arundell, which had been confis- 
 cated, were restored to him on his being created a 
 baron. 
 
 A letter from the King, in the possession of Mr. 
 Rashleigh, of Menabilly (quoted by Captain Oliver), 
 still further illustrates the high place which the 
 Arundells held in the esteem of the first Charles. 
 Writing to Sir William Killigrew, who had solicited 
 the King that the reversion of the Government of 
 
 * l6Car. II., 23 March, 1664.
 
 96 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 Pendennis Castle should be promised to the above- 
 mentioned Richard Arundell, Charles says : 
 
 ' WILL. KILLIGREW, 
 
 ' Your suite unto me that I would conferre 
 upon Mr. Arundell of Trerise Eldest sonne the re- 
 version after his father of the government of 
 Pendennis Castle which I had formerly bestowed 
 upon you,* is so great a testimonye of your affection 
 to my service, and of your preferring the good of 
 that before any Interest of your Owne that I have 
 thought fitt to lette you knowe in this particular way, 
 how well I take it, and that my conferring that place 
 according to your desire shall bee an earnest unto 
 you of my intentions to recompence and reward you 
 in a better (kind?). 
 
 ' resting 
 
 ' Your assured friend, 
 
 ' CHARLES R.' 
 
 ' Oxford the 1 2th 
 Jan. 1643.' 
 
 And accordingly in 1662 Richard Arundell, who was 
 present at the siege of Pendennis, and whom, by the 
 way, Clarendon used to address as his ' dear Dick,' 
 succeeded Sir Peter Killigrew in the governorship of 
 the Castle, doubtless discharging the office with 
 ability ; but I do not find anything noteworthy during 
 his tenure of the office, except, perhaps, that when 
 the oath of supremacy was administered in 1666 
 
 * Sir Win. Killigrew resigned the Government in 1635.
 
 The Arundells. 97 
 
 (after the great fire of London) to Pendennis, as well 
 as to many other garrisons, one man alone in that 
 castle, and he, one of Lord Arundell's own servants, 
 and a Roman Catholic, refused to take it. 
 
 Some authorities have stated that Richard Lord 
 Amndell was succeeded in the governorship by his 
 son, Lord John ; but this is, to say the least, doubtful. 
 
 Pity, as it now seems to us, that gallant old John 
 Arundell did not live long enough to see the King 
 ' enjoy his own again,' and to receive the honours 
 which, however, as we have seen, were ultimately 
 conferred upon his son and successor. The capture 
 of Pendennis and the final loss of the King's cause 
 nearly ruined old John Arundell also ; and it is said 
 that he was even reduced to crave assistance from 
 Cromwell himself, urging that the Trerice Arundells 
 * had once the honour to stand in some friendship, or 
 even kinship, with your noble family.' The old hero 
 was buried at Duloe, where, until lately, his monu- 
 ment might have been seen. Well would he have 
 deserved a promised barony or any honours that 
 might have been bestowed upon him, for he and his 
 family served their King to the utmost of their means, 
 four of his sons took up arms in the royal cause, and 
 the two elder were King's men in the House of 
 Commons. The eldest was killed at the head of his 
 troop, whilst charging and driving back a sally at 
 Plymouth in 1643 ; and Richard, the second son,, 
 the first Baron Arundell of Trerice, probably was at 
 Edgehill and at Lansdowne, as well as at Pendennis. 
 
 The Arundells of Trerice became an extinct family 
 
 VOL. i. 7
 
 98 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 by the death of the fourth baron, John, who died in 
 1768, when the estates passed to William Wentworth, 
 his wife's nephew, who re-settled them, and they 
 eventually became the property of their present 
 possessor, Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, Bart., M.P. 
 
 A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1829 
 (xcix. pt. 2, p. 215) observed that at that time the 
 legal representatives of the Lords Arundell of Trerice 
 were Mr. I. T. P. Bettesworth Trevanion,of Carhayes 
 in Cornwall, and the Honble. Ada Byron, daughter 
 of the poet ' Ada ! sole daughter of my house and 
 heart ' they being the descendants of the body of 
 Anne, or Agnes, the only sister of Richard, the first 
 Baron Arundell, that left issue. Yet it should 
 perhaps also be recorded how another Arundell, 
 descended from the Trerice stock, served his country 
 in a useful, if not in so distinguished a capacity as 
 did some of his ancestors ; for the Honble. Richard 
 Arundell, an uncle of the last baron, was M.P. for 
 Knaresborough, was Clerk of the Pipe, Surveyor of 
 Works, and Master and Warden of the Mint, and a 
 Commissioner of the Treasury. He married the 
 Lady Frances Manners, a daughter of the Duke of 
 Rutland, and died, sine prole, in 1759. Walpole tells 
 how Lady Arundell, during the earthquake panic 
 of 1750, was one of those ladies who fled out of 
 town (to avoid it) some ten miles off, where they 
 were to play brag till five in the morning, and then 
 came back to town, ' I suppose ' (says Walpole) * to 
 look for the bones of their husbands and families 
 under the rubbish.' 'Earthquake-gowns' were worn
 
 The Arundells. 99 
 
 by ladies during this panic i.e., gowns made of 
 some warm materials in which they could sit up all 
 night out of doors. 
 
 THE ARUNDELLS OF TOLVERNE. 
 
 WHILST I write the following lines, there lies 
 before me an extremely rare, if not unique, MS. 
 chart of Falmouth Haven and its tributary waters. 
 It was made by one Baptista Boazio in 1597, 
 and on it is marked, ' Tolverne Place, Mr. 
 John Arondell.' The chart is of peculiar interest, 
 inasmuch as, in addition to the ordinary information 
 contained in documents of this nature, it gives the 
 names of the occupants of the principal houses 
 at the time. Thus we find a ' Buscowen ' at 
 Tregothnan (then called Buscowen House), a 
 ' Carminow' at Vintangollan, a ' Bonithon ' at 
 Cariklew (^Carclew), a 'Trefusis' at Trefusis, and so 
 on. King Harry's (or rather Henry's) Passage (so 
 named on the chart) and the Tolverne Ferry are 
 also shown on this map ; far more important 
 passages of course in those days, when one of the 
 main thoroughfares from the eastern to the western 
 parts of Cornwall, through Tregony, Ruan-lani- 
 horne and Philleigh, crossed the Fal at this point. 
 
 Tolverne is shown on the map as a place of some 
 importance, as it doubtless was in those days ; for 
 here (if anywhere in Cornwall) Henry VIII. had, 
 more than fifty years before the date of the map, 
 
 72
 
 ioo Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 probably stayed on his visit of inspection to the 
 two castles of Pendennis and St. Mawes at the 
 mouth of the haven, hard by, which that monarch 
 (as Leland's inscriptions on the masonry record) was 
 deeply interested in making secure against a foreign 
 enemy. 
 
 Tolverne is now merely a substantial farmhouse. 
 We are indebted to Carew for the following picture 
 of the place, contemporary with the map, as it 
 stood in his time nearly three hundred years ago : 
 ' Amongst all of the houses upon that side the river, 
 Talverne, for pleasant prospect, large scope, and 
 other housekeeping commodities, challengeth the 
 pre-eminence. It was given to a younger brother of 
 Lanhearne, for some six or seven descents past, and 
 hath bred gentlemen of good worth and calling ; 
 amongst whom I may not forget the late kind and 
 valiant Sir John Arundell, who matched with Godol- 
 phin, nor John, his vertuous and hopeful succeeding 
 son, who married with Carew.' It will be remem- 
 bered also that Richard Carew himself married an 
 Arundell. 
 
 Philleigh was their church, as Mawgan was that 
 of the Lanherne Arundells, and Newlyn East that 
 of the Arundells of Trerice ; and the transept of 
 Philleigh is still called the Tolverne or Falmouth 
 Aisle ; but no traces of Arundell monuments are 
 now to be found there; although C. S. Gilbert, in 
 his history of Cornwall, states that in one of the 
 windows there was a shield bearing the arms of 
 the family. Yet, so early as 1383, the connexion
 
 The Arundells. 101 
 
 of the family with Church affairs in the parish is 
 shown by the fact that, in that year, Ralph Soor, 
 or Le Sore, obtained a license from the Bishop of 
 Exeter for saying mass, in his chapel in his 
 manor-house of Tolferne ; and that a Sir John 
 Arundell of Trembleth* married Joane le Score of 
 Tolverne, in the reign of Edward I., two or three 
 generations before this.t 
 
 The Arundells do not, however, seem to have 
 regularly established themselves at Tolverne until a 
 son of Sir John of Lanherne and his wife Annora 
 Lambourne Sir Thomas Arundell of Tolverne 
 settled here with his wife, Margery Lerchdekne. 
 They had no children, and, on the lady's death, Sir 
 Thomas took unto himself a second wife, Elizabeth 
 Paulton, from whom the Tolverne Arundells may be 
 said to have descended. Sir Thomas himself died 
 in 1443 ; but I do not know where he was buried ; 
 probably at Philleigh. 
 
 Of the lives of the Tolverne Arundells, whose 
 current seems to have been as tranquil as that of 
 the sylvan Fal, which ebbed and flowed round their 
 domain, I find little to record, except that they 
 intermarried with many of the old Cornish families 
 with the Courtneys of Boconnoc, with Reskymer, 
 Trelawny, Carminow, St. Aubyn, their neighbour 
 
 * A grandson of Sir Renfry de Arundell, of Treffry, who in the days 
 of Henry III. obtained Lanherne by his marriage with Alice, the 
 heiress of that house. 
 
 t Osbertus le Sor was at Tolverne in 1297, and was one of those who 
 had 20 a year in land at that date. John le Soor, or Sore, was at 
 Tolverne in 1324, and a John Soor was Dean of Canterbury at the end 
 of the fourteenth or the beginning of the fifteenth century.
 
 IO2 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 Trefusis, Chamond, Godolphin, and, as we have 
 seen, Carew. We have traces of the will of Thomas 
 Arundell, Esq., of Talverne, dated 22nd May, 1552, 
 which shows that he possessed tenements in Truro 
 borough and elsewhere, also the passage and passage- 
 boat of Talverne. The inventory of his property 
 was sworn at 224 55. gd. There is also extant 
 the will of John Arundell, yth February, 1598, but 
 it contains little of interest, except that he bequeaths 
 to his mother his ' little guilt sack-cup with a cover,' 
 and that his executors were Richard Carew of 
 Antony, and Richard Trevanion of St. Gerrans. 
 
 One of the sons of the latter Arundell, namely 
 Thomas, who was knighted by James I., sold Tol- 
 verne ; having seriously impaired his fortune, it is 
 said, by endeavouring to discover an imaginary island 
 in America, called ' Old Brazil ;' he afterwards lived 
 at Truthall in the parish of Sithney. One of the 
 Truthall Arundells, John, was Colonel of Horse 
 for Charles II., and a Deputy-Governor of Pendennis 
 Castle under his relative Richard, Lord Arundell of 
 Trerice. He was buried at Sithney on 25th May, 
 1671 ; but I have hitherto been unable to trace any- 
 thing further of interest of his history, or of that of 
 his descendants. One of the latest members of this 
 branch married William Jago, of Wendron, whose 
 children took the name and arms of Arundell in 
 1815 ; and it may be added that Hals the historian 
 descended from the Arundells by the female line.
 
 The Arundells. 103 
 
 . THE MINOR ARUNDELLS. 
 
 THE story of the Arundells of Cornwall is nearly 
 told. There were, as I intimated at the com- 
 mencement of this chapter, some minor branches, 
 who perhaps deserve a passing notice : the most 
 noteworthy of whom appears to be the branch 
 that settled at the manor* and barton of Menadarva 
 (= the hill by the water), in the parish of Illogan, 
 near the sea-coast, and about three miles north-west 
 of Camborne. This branch seems to have been 
 founded by Robert, a natural son of that Sir John 
 Arundell of Trerice, Vice-Admiral of Cornwall, 
 ' Jack of Tilbury,' who died in the third year of 
 Elizabeth's reign. Robert took to wife Elizabeth 
 Clapton, and they had numerous descendants. 
 
 I must once more be indebted to Hals, for the 
 following bit of gossip about the Arundells of Mena- 
 darva : ' The last gentleman of this family dying 
 without issue male, his sisters married to Tresahar 
 and others, became for a time, possessed of this lord- 
 ship ; but it happened that a brother of theirs also, 
 who was a merchant-factor in Spain, who married 
 an innkeeper's widow there, in Malaga or Seville, 
 of English extraction, was said to be dead without 
 issue ; but it seems, before his death, had issue by 
 her an infant son, who was bred up in Spain till 
 he came of age, without knowledge of his relations 
 
 * It is probably incorrectly described as a ' manor ;' and I believe 
 the Bassets bought the property from the Arundells in 1755.
 
 IO4 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 aforesaid ; who being brought into England with 
 his mother, temp. William III., delivered ejectments 
 upon the barton and manor of Menadarva and the 
 occupants thereof, as heir-at-law to Arundell, and 
 brought down a trial upon the same at Lanceston, 
 in this county, where, upon the issue, it appeared, 
 upon the oaths of Mr. Delliff, and other Spanish 
 merchants of London, that the said heir was the 
 legitimate son of Mr. Arundell, aforesaid, of Spain, 
 and born under coverture or marriage. He obtained 
 a verdict and judgment thereon for the same, and is 
 now in possession thereof. He married Tremanheer 
 of Penzance, and hath issue. The arms of this 
 family are the same as those of the Arundells qf 
 Trerice, with due distinction.' 
 
 An offshoot, as I take him to be, of the Menadarva 
 Arundells, one Francis, who was born about the 
 year 1620, is said to have settled at Trengwainton, 
 near Penzance, where they lived for some generations ; 
 and one of them, Francis Arundell, served with some 
 distinction on the side of the . Parliament during 
 the Civil War, ranking as captain. I fancy it must be 
 his son who mourned in Latin verse, after the 
 fashion of the time, the deaths of two Queens of 
 England, while, as a Commoner of Trinity College, 
 Cambridge, he was under the tuition of Isaac 
 Barrow. 
 
 Yet another minor branch of the Arundells remains 
 to be noticed, viz. a younger branch of the Arundells 
 of Lanherne, descended from that Sir John Arun- 
 dell who married Elizabeth Danet, of Danet's Hall.
 
 The Arundells. 105 
 
 They had their seat at Trevithick, some two miles 
 west of the town of St. Columb Major, and not much 
 farther from Lanherne itself. The representative 
 of the family who was alive at the time of the 
 Herald's Visitation in 1620, was named Thomas, who 
 married Rachel, the daughter of Sir Giles Mont- 
 pesson, Knight, and who, Hals tell us, died 'without 
 issue, but not without wasting a great part of his 
 estate.' 
 
 Now, to adopt a metaphor of Sir Humphry 
 Davy's, at length the great stream of the Arundells 
 of Cornwall, like some mighty river losing itself 
 among the sands as it approaches the ocean shore, 
 becomes so divided that we can no longer easily 
 trace its course. After the names and dates to 
 which we have been referring, no Arundell of dis- 
 tinction seems to have arisen in Cornwall ; and their 
 places soon ' knew them no more.' They became 
 scattered throughout the county,* and by the help of 
 the Bishop of Exeter's transcripts, and the Parish 
 Registers of Camborne, St. Erme, St. Ewe, Falmouth, 
 Fowey, Gulval, Mawnan, Menheniot, Mevagissey, 
 Sheviock, and Sithney, we find that down to the year 
 1725 there were still indeed Arundells in Cornwall 
 being christened, dying, marrying, but no longer 
 ' great Arundells ' as of yore : in fact, the entry 
 in the year 1725, in the St. Erme Register, merely 
 
 * Polwhele says that Norden (temp. Jas. I.) catalogues several 
 Arundells west of Tamar, viz., at Clifton, Carminow, Trythall, 
 Gwarnick, Lanhadron, Tolvern, Lanherne, Trevissic (? Trevithick), 
 Trebejew, Trerice, Efford and Thirlebec.
 
 io6 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 records the baptism of Charles, the son of Richard 
 Arundell, ' a day labourer.' 
 
 Yet, by a strange freak of fortune, not only did the 
 female line continue, but one of the Arundells 
 William by name married nearly two and a quarter 
 centuries ago, Dorothy, a daughter of that Theo- 
 dore Palaeologus* who was buried in Landulph 
 Church in 1636. She is described in the Parish 
 Register as being ' ex stirpe Imperatorum.' So that 
 there probably flows in the veins of many a rustic of 
 the neighbourhood of Callington and Saltash the 
 mingled blood of those Arundells who came over to 
 England with the Conqueror, and that of the Byzan- 
 tine Emperors of the East. 
 
 * For an account of the Palaeologi, see Notes and Queries, 4th Series, 
 vols. iii. and iv.
 
 THE BASSETS OF TEHIDY.
 
 THE BASSETS OF TEHIDY. 
 
 ' Pro Rege et Populo.' 
 
 (The Family Motto.') 
 
 NYONE who examines the one-inch 
 ordnance map of that part of Cornwall 
 which lies between Redruth and Cam- 
 borne, cannot fail to be struck with the 
 strange lines and markings that appear upon it. 
 Long-dotted lines, and straight markings, showing 
 the directions of the metallic lodes, of the ' faults,' 
 and the ' cross-courses ;' and arrow-heads, indicating 
 the ever-varying dip of the strata, intermingled with 
 those cabalistic symbols which are usually employed 
 to denote the planets, (but in this case to explain the 
 metals for which the innumerable mines are worked), 
 crowd the surface of the map to such an extent as to 
 make it almost illegible. These markings indicate 
 the existence, in abundance, in this part of the county 
 of that mineral wealth for which Cornwall has so long 
 been famous, and which, until lately, has contributed 
 no less to the general welfare of her inhabitants than 
 to the enrichment of some of her more illustrious
 
 no Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 families in a remarkable degree to that whose story 
 we are about to consider. Nor should we omit to 
 notice here that the lords of the soil notably the 
 houses of Basset and Pendarves have in their turn 
 striven to ameliorate the condition of the miner by 
 their endeavouring, by the use of machinery and 
 by many other means to lessen his arduous and 
 perilous labour, and to promote his social, domestic, 
 and moral welfare. We shall also see that the 
 Bassets have been no less distinguished in old times 
 for their attachment to the Crown an attachment 
 which at one period cost them the loss of nearly all 
 their estates and that they have therefore fully 
 justified the adoption of their family motto, which I 
 have used as the motto for this chapter. 
 
 The actual surface of the ground between 
 Camborne and Redruth, in the district referred 
 to above, is even more disfigured than the appear- 
 ance of the map suggests. The earth seems 
 to have been turned inside out : grass is scarcely 
 anywhere to be seen, but instead of it vast heaps of 
 * attle,' or refuse, from the subterranean excavations; 
 the streams are discoloured by the red mine-rubbish, 
 and look like rivers of blood ; whilst the air is filled 
 with discordant shrieks of the ill-greased, out-of-door 
 machinery, and the booming thuds of steam pumping- 
 engines. But, close to the northern confines of this 
 scene of haggard ugliness, and between it and the 
 Bristol Channel, their lies a fair large park of a 
 thousand acres, beautifully timbered, and evidencing 
 the care and attention which have been bestowed
 
 The Bassets of Tehidy. 1 1 1 
 
 upon it for centuries by the ancient family* who 
 have so long been its owners the Bassets of Tehidy. 
 
 That they were not originally of Cornish ex- 
 traction their name sufficiently proclaims. Like the 
 Grenvilles and the St. Aubyns, they ' came over 
 with the Conqueror ;' as likewise did the De 
 Dunstanvilles, who were also seated here at a very 
 early date.t 
 
 According to Lysons (who during the present cen- 
 tury enjoyed peculiar advantages for learning the 
 story of the family, from being the personal friend 
 of Sir Francis Basset, Lord de Dunstanville), the 
 Bassets of Cornwall and Devon for the members 
 of this family seem to have very early settled not 
 only in the two westernmost counties, but also in 
 other parts of England are descended from Osmund 
 Basset, a younger son of Sir Ralph Basset, the 
 Justiciary of King Henry I. 
 
 I am aware that Hals says that one of the family 
 held a military post in this part of Cornwall, under 
 Robert, Earl of Morton ; and that another writer 
 (in Lake's * Parochial History of Cornwall ') states 
 that they are descended from one Thurstan Basset, 
 who held six hides of land in Drayton, Staffordshire, 
 and who was probably a son of that Osmund Basset 
 
 * Major Glynn (who stammered), at one of the county meetings at 
 which Lord de Dunstanville had spoken with laudable pride of his 
 ancestors having come over with the Conqueror, is reported to have 
 said, ' We-ell-ell-ell, and, and wha-at of that, my lord ? . M-m-mine 
 were here c-c-c-centuries before the C-c-c-conqueror was born.' 
 
 t They quarter the arms of Plantagenet (or at least formerly did so) ; 
 and Davies Gilbert calls De Dunstanville ' a nominal barony of Planta- 
 genet blood.'
 
 112 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 who came over from his native France with William 
 I. : we shall, however, probably be safer in follow- 
 ing Lysons.* 
 
 The earliest mention of the name that I have been 
 able to discover is that of Osmund Basset probably 
 the before named Norman Knight who was a wit- 
 ness in 1050 to an agreement respecting the Abbey 
 of St. Ebrulf, at Utica. 
 
 But, to come to the connection of the Bassets 
 with Tehidy, or rather in the first place to its posses- 
 sion by the De Dunstanvilles : it seems that Alan, 
 of the latter patronymic, was lord of the manor of 
 Tehidy in the year noo; and here seems to be a 
 fitting place to mention the nature of the connexion 
 between the two names which appears in the titles 
 of the Sir Francis Basset mentioned above. It 
 arose thus : Thomas Basset, a descendant probably 
 
 * Playfair says that the first of this family of De Dunstanville, one 
 Thurston Basset, whom we find on the Roll of Battle Abbey, came over 
 with the Conqueror. From him sprang many families favoured by our 
 kings, most of them now extinct. There is a grant of lands from King 
 John to Wm. Bassett, and Cecilia his wife. In the ' History of the 
 Manor of Castle Combe, in Wilts, with Memoirs of the Dunstanvilles, ' 
 etc., by Geo. P. Scrope, M.P. (privately printed by J. B. Nichols and 
 Sons, in 1852), it is stated that Reginald de Dunstanville, Earl of Corn- 
 wall, was first Baron of Castle Combe. There appear to have been 
 more than one of that name living in the twelfth century ; one of them, 
 perhaps the earliest, was also sometimes named Reginald Fitz-Roy, who 
 was the son of Henry I. by Adeliza de Insula. Reginald, according to 
 Mr. Scrope's pedigree of the De Dunstanvilles, married Havisia (or 
 Beatrix), daughter of Caudor, the second Earl of Cornwall, 'ex 
 Regio sanguine Britannorum.' Adeliza, the sister of Cecilia de Dunstan- 
 ville, married another Basset, viz. Thomas, Baron Basset of Hedendon, 
 loth Henry II. This work contains much minute information about the 
 early De Dunstanvilles.
 
 The Bassets of Tehidy. 113 
 
 a great grandson of King Henry I.'s Justiciary, 
 and himself holding a like post in the days of Henry 
 III., married one Alice de Dunstanville,* and most 
 of their descendants seem to have settled mainly in 
 Oxfordshire and the midland counties. 
 
 There was, however, according to Lysons, another 
 Basset named William, of Ipsden, also an Oxford- 
 shire man, who, in the days of Richard I. pro- 
 bably about the close of his reign married Cecilia, 
 the daughter of Alan de Dunstanville, and had with 
 her ' Menalida ' in Cornwall, which property, Play- 
 fair says, 'her father acquired by marriage with a 
 daughter of Reginald Fitz-Henry ; ' Menalida so 
 our author thinks being an ancient name of 
 Tehidy.t 
 
 The marriage of this William Basset with Cecilia de 
 Dunstanville probably began, or at least confirmed, 
 the connexion which still subsists between the 
 Bassets and Tehidy. Here they settled ; and, as 
 the centuries rolled on, their blood has intermingled 
 with the old Cornish stocks by marriages with the 
 
 * One of their sons, Gilbert, founded Bicester Abbey, in Oxford- 
 shire. 
 
 t The name was also written Tydy, Tihidi, Tyhudy, Tehedie, etc. 
 It is perhaps right to add here (although this is a sketch of the Basset 
 family, rather than of the De Dunstanvilles) the following notes, which I 
 have gathered from Carew : ' Walter de Dunstanvil appears to have had 
 to furnish one knight in respect of his Cornish possessions. See 
 "Evidentioe Extractse de Rubro Libro de Scaccario," 143. Cornub. 
 And Alan de Dunstanvill's name occurs in the "Nomina Baron: et 
 militum et rotulis de feodis militum, vel de scutagio solutis regi Richardo 
 Primo : in libro rubro scaccarii." Cornubia (A.D. 1189 to 1199). 
 There was, moreover, a Reginald de Dunstanville, a baron of the realm, 
 temp. Hen. I., who is mentioned in the Testa de Nevill. 
 
 VOL. I. 8
 
 114 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 families of Rashleigh, Carveth, Godolphin, Prideaux, 
 Courtenay, Grenville, Trenouth, Trengove, Trelawny 
 of Trelawny, Harrys of Marry s (near Bude), and 
 Enys of Enys. And their bones lie in Cornish soil ; 
 for the most part in the adjacent parish church 
 of Illogan. 
 
 Amongst other early fragmentary notices of them 
 that I have found, are the following : 
 
 In the list of knights summoned from Cornwall, 
 A.D. 1277, to attend King Edward I. at Worcester, 
 on service against Llewellyn ap Griffith, the name of 
 Ralph Basset occurs. 
 
 In 1324, William Basset's name occurs amongst 
 the ' nomina hominum ad Arma in com. Cornubiae.' 
 In the reign of Edward III., he obtained a patent 
 from that King for two markets weekly, and two 
 fairs every year for Redruth. There was another 
 William Basset who held a military feu at Tehidy 
 and Trevalga, in 3rd Henry IV. 
 
 They were Sheriffs of the County during the 
 reigns of three Henries the 6th, the 7th, and the 
 8th ; and also in some subsequent reigns : and one 
 of the family* occupied, in the reign of Edward IV., 
 that Castle of Carnbrea which stands on the granite 
 hill of that name, within the manor of Tehidy, 
 commanding a view of both the English and St. 
 
 * William of Worcester writes in 1478 : ' Turris Castelli Kambree, 
 Sir John Basset, chevalier stat.' Hals says (but I cannot conceive 
 upon what authority) that this castle was built by the Brays, who came 
 over with the Conqueror (and who certainly intermarried with the 
 Bassets), and hence the name. But Cam Brea is the appropriate 
 Cornish form of 'rock-crowned hill.' Parker attributes the Castle to 
 Robert Fitz Hugh de Dunstanville temp. Will. I.
 
 The Bassets of Tehidy. 115 
 
 George's Channels, and down whose slopes groves of 
 old oaks in those days flourished all the way from 
 the summit of the hill to Portreath, or Basset's Cove. 
 Most of these were cut down in the time of the 
 Civil Wars probably in order to raise money for 
 the King the remainder (if Hals is to be trusted) 
 by the old Lady Basset, 'who had the estate in 
 jointure.' Well might Leland say that theirs was 
 ' a right goodly lordship,' extending as it did over 
 large portions of the three parishes of Illogan, Red- 
 ruth, and Camborne, the advowsons of which be- 
 long to the manor of Tehidy. In illustration of 
 the latter statement, and further, as showing the early 
 connexion of the Bassets with this neighbourhood, 
 a writer in Lake's ' Parochial History of Cornwall ' 
 says, that * n March, 1277, Sir Lawrence Basset, 
 Knight, presented one Michael to the Church of St. 
 Euinus, Redruth ; and William Basset, Knight, 
 presented Thomas Cotteford to Illogan in 1382 ; 
 Alexander Trembras by J. Basset, of Tehidy, 1435,' 
 and so on. Sometimes a member of the Basset 
 family held one or other of the three livings. 
 
 Of the early members of the family I know of little 
 further that seems worthy of record ; but perhaps 
 we should not pass altogether unnoticed, the fact that 
 the William Basset who obtained the patent for the 
 Redruth markets, obtained a license to embattle his 
 manor-house of Tehidy, in the year 1330-31 (Rot. 
 Pat. 4th Edward III., Memb. 10) ; and that at 
 this time the Bassets also had seats at Umber- 
 leigh, White Chappel, and Heanton Court, in 
 
 82
 
 1 1 6 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 Devon. This William appears to be he who was 
 Knight of the Shire for Cornwall, 6th Edward II., 
 and again in 6th and 8th Edward III. ; a position 
 which probably assisted in procuring for him the 
 above-mentioned permission to fortify his house. 
 
 No representation of the original house at Tehidy, 
 so far as I know, exists. We may be quite sure that 
 it was a very different structure from that which now 
 occupies its place, and which was built for John 
 Pendarves Basset* by Thomas Edwards, about the 
 year 1734. Dr. Borlase figures it in his ' Natural 
 History.' Edwards was a London architect, and, 
 as I was informed by the late Mr. Thomas Ferris 
 of Rosewyn, Truro, was employed in the erection of 
 some of the best modern Cornish mansions as 
 Nanswhydden, destroyed by fire early in this century ; 
 and the handsome house of Mr. William Lemon, in 
 Prince's Street, Truro. Mr. Edwards was also the 
 architect of the steeple and west front of St. Mary's 
 Church, Truro, recently removed to give place to 
 the new cathedral. The present mansion of Tehidy 
 has been much enlarged, and contains some excel- 
 lent pictures by Vandyck, Lely, Kneller, Rubens, 
 and Reynolds ; and the Print-Room of the British 
 Museum contains interesting engravings of portraits 
 o f some members of the family. 
 
 Not even any remains exist of the ancient struc- 
 
 * There is a monument to this Basset, amongst others, in the church 
 at Illogan ; on it is recorded that he died ' 19 Sept., 1739, set. 25, 
 descended from a Race of Virtuous, Loyal, and well-Allied ancestors, 
 who for more than four hundred years have lived at their Manor of 
 Tyhydy, in this Parish, in great honour and esteem.'
 
 TJie Bassets of Tehidy. 117 
 
 ture ; yet portions at least must have been standing 
 in comparatively modern times ; for Leland speaks 
 of a castelet or pile (of Basset's), and a park wall, 
 both of which Tonkin says were to be seen in his 
 time : and he died about the year 1750. 
 
 For more than a century after the date of the 
 Basset who fortified Tehidy, the family appears to 
 have made little mark in history, unless we may 
 mention one John Basset (then Sheriff, as so many 
 of his race were before and after him) whose posse 
 comitatus was so weak that he dared not encounter the 
 Cornish insurgents at the Flammock (or Flamank) 
 rebellion ; and thus allowed the rebels, whose object 
 was to depose King Henry VII., on account of his 
 exactions for the expenses of the Scotch war, to march 
 on to Bodmin and Launceston ; and so into Devon. 
 But, despite their daring, the bills and bows of the 
 Cornish, though their arrows were (says Lord Bacon) 
 * the length of a tailor's yard so strong and mighty 
 a bow were they said to draw ' were no match for 
 the King's artillery, which completed their defeat at 
 Blackheath, in 1496. 
 
 About the middle of the sixteenth century, the family 
 appears to have divided into two branches. The 
 Devonshire branch, descended from John, the elder 
 son of John Basset of Umberleigh and his wife 
 Honora Grenville, became extinct in 1796, by the 
 death of Francis Basset; the Cornish branch was 
 continued by George, the younger son of the above 
 Sir John and the Lady Honora. Of this George 
 there is little further to say, except that his wife bore
 
 1 1 8 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 the odd name of Jaquet Coffin, and that he himself 
 was member of Parliament for Launceston, in which 
 neighbourhood the Bassets formerly held a consider- 
 able amount of land, which they disposed of a few 
 years ago. The children of George and Jaquet do 
 not seem to have distinguished themselves : the two 
 girls married, respectively, a Gary and a Newman ; 
 the son and heir, who has a brass at Illogan record- 
 ing that he died in 1603, aged 43, married Jane, a 
 daughter of Sir Francis Godolphin. 
 
 Possibly the intermixture of the blood of the more 
 warlike Godolphins may have contributed to the 
 result, but this at least is certain that their eldest 
 son Francis, whom we shall have to notice more 
 fully, was one of the most distinguished members of 
 the family. 
 
 The Bassets, like most of the Cornish gentry, as 
 we shall see, were, with perhaps one exception, of 
 whom more hereafter, stout Royalists ; and at the 
 outbreak of the Civil War, Francis, then head of the 
 family, was Sheriff and Vice-Admiral of Cornwall (a 
 command subsequently divided into two north and 
 south) and Governor of St. Michael's Mount,* which 
 was his own inheritance. He was ' a staunch friend 
 to Church and King ; and a devoted lover of 
 game-cocks,' says a writer who was not much dis- 
 posed to magnify Francis Basset's good points. I 
 hardly know whether or not it is worth recording, as 
 
 * In this latter post his brother, Sir Arthur, succeeded him. Sir 
 Thomas, another brother, was General of the Ordnance to Prince 
 Maurice; a major-general for the King ; and commanded a division at 
 the battle of Stratton ; he was knighted in 1644.
 
 The Bassets of Tehidy. 119 
 
 showing the Vice-Admiral's love of sport ; but Hals 
 tells the story how he ' let fly his goshawk or tassel 
 to a heath-polt, or heath-cock,' and both were lost to 
 sight ; but were both sent back to Tehidy the next 
 day by the Mayor of Camelford, the heath-cock 
 killed by the hawk, but the latter alive and well. By 
 a comparison of time it was shown that in half an 
 hour the birds had flown thirty-two miles. Sir 
 Francis was, moreover, Recorder of St. Ives, repre- 
 sented that borough in Parliament, procured its 
 first Charter, and presented the burgesses with a 
 loving-cup, bearing this genial, though uncouth, in- 
 scription : 
 
 ' If any discord 'twixt my friends arise 
 Within the borough of belov'd St. Ives, 
 It is desired this my cup of loue 
 To euerie one a peace-maker may proue. 
 Then am I blest to have giuen a legacie, 
 So like my harte, unto posterite.' 
 
 FRANCIS BASSET, A. 1640. 
 
 In 1640 he also contested the Cornish borough of 
 Michael, or Michell, for which, however, he did not 
 sit, owing to a double return. 
 
 Francis Basset took to wife Ann, daughter of Sir 
 Jonathan Trelawny. They were married at Pelynt 
 in 1620 ; and, that time had not dulled their affection, 
 the two following letters, written nearly a quarter of 
 a century after the wedding-day, will show. 
 
 But it should be premised, that whilst Sir Bevil 
 Grenville, aided by Major-General Thomas Basset, 
 was defeating the forces of the Parliament at Stam- 
 ford Hill, near Stratton in North Cornwall, Francis
 
 I2O Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 Basset in the West was busily engaged in raising 
 money for the King, and in bringing together and 
 drilling what forces he could in his own part of the 
 county. It was also his function, in co-operation 
 with Lord Goring, to intercept the supplies furnished 
 from West Cornwall to the Earl of Essex, and thus 
 to precipitate the engagements which ended so dis- 
 astrously for the cause of the Parliamentary troops 
 in the West of England. 
 
 The good news from Stamford Hill seems to have 
 reached the Sheriff at Truro, whereupon he writes, 
 with an overflowing heart, this letter : 
 
 Francis Basset to his Wife, after the News of the Victory 
 of Stratton. 
 
 ' Truro, this 1 8th May, 1643. 
 
 6 o'clock, ready to march. 
 
 * DEAREST SOULE, 
 
 ' Oh, deare Soule, prayse God everlastingly. 
 Reade this enclosed, ring out the bells, rayse bon- 
 fyres, publish these joy full ty dings. Believe these 
 truths, excuse my writing larger,* I have no tyme ; 
 wee march on to meete our victorious friends, and to 
 seaze all the rebells left, if wee canfinde such livinge. 
 Your dutyous prayers God hass heard. Bless us ac- 
 cordingly, pray everlastingly, and Jane, and Betty, 
 and all you owne. Thy owne 
 
 ' FRS. BASSET.' 
 
 ' Pray let my cousin Harry know these joyful 
 blessings. Send word to the ports south and north, 
 
 * At greater length.
 
 The Bassets of Tehidy. 121 
 
 to searche narrowly for all strangers travellinge for 
 passage, and cause the keepinge them close and safe. 
 ' To my dearest, dearest friend Mrs. Basset att the 
 Mount. Speede this, haste, haste.' 
 
 The foregoing letter appears to me to be interesting, 
 not only as showing the loving terms on which the 
 wife and husband were, but also as indicating the 
 tension of feeling which existed in Cornwall at this 
 critical period in Charles's affairs. We may be sure 
 that Francis Basset and his men pushed forward 
 rapidly on the receipt of this good news, and that he 
 determined not to lose the chance of being present 
 at the next engagement when the banners of King 
 and Parliament were again to float in defiance 
 against each other. Accordingly we find him on the 
 field of Braddock soon after,* and again, after the 
 fight, chronicling another victory in the following 
 impassioned terms to his wife. Notice that he was 
 now knighted, and the change of style in which he 
 addresses * my lady ' at ' her Tehidy :' 
 
 ' Thanks to our Jesus. 
 ' DEAREST HARTT. 
 
 ' L is the happy messenger to the West 
 
 of Cornwall. Peace, and I hope perpetual. Sadd 
 houses I have seen many, but a joyfuller pleasanter 
 day never than this. Sende the money, as much 
 and as soon as you can. Sende to all our ffriends at 
 home, especially, this good news. I write this on my 
 
 * If not on the field of battle itself, he was certainly on the way to 
 it at Lostwithiel hard by.
 
 122 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 saddle. Every friend will pardon the illness of it, 
 and you chiefly, my perfect joy. 
 
 ' F. BASSET. 
 
 ' The Kinge and army march presently for Plymouth. 
 Jesus give the Kinge it and all. 
 
 ' The King, in the hearing of thousands, as soon as 
 he saw me in the morning, cryed to mee " Deare 
 Mr. Sheriffe, I leave Cornwall to you safe and 
 sound." 
 
 'To my lady Basset, at her Tehidy, joyfull.' 
 
 But Sir Francis, though he did not live to see the 
 days of the Commonwealth (for he died igth Sep- 
 tember, 1645), lived long enough to see the reverse 
 of such joyful pictures as the foregoing. 
 
 Upon his son and heir, John, fell the full 
 vengeance of Cromwell's government. He was im- 
 prisoned for his father's 'delinquency' though he 
 had never himself been in arms was compelled to 
 compound for his estates, and, saddest blow of all, 
 in 1660 to sell St. Michael's Mount, which from that 
 date has been held continuously by the family of 
 St. Aubyn. Other hardships too he suffered, which, 
 the county historians tell us, reduced his estate and 
 the family very low. Up to this date the Bassets had 
 undoubtedly vindicated their claim to the first half of 
 the family motto ' Pro Rege.' 
 
 But three good matches brought more money into 
 the impoverished Tehidy coffers ; and great profits
 
 The Bassets of Tehidy. 123 
 
 from tin again restored the Bassets to wealth and 
 prosperity. 
 
 The Vice-Admiral had a second son Francis 
 also a Colonel in the army. But in later life he 
 became a Baptist, and resided at Taunton ; one of 
 that class who, imbued with stern and self-denying 
 views of religion, caused Erasmus to ejaculate, ' O, 
 sit anima mea cum Puritanis Anglicanis.' 
 
 The Colonel was accused in 1661 of a conspiracy 
 against Charles II., and there is a Star Chamber 
 complaint to this effect ; but ultimately the letter 
 pretending to have been written by Francis Basset 
 was demonstrated to be a forgery. Indeed the whole 
 family seems to have been so thoroughly attached to 
 the Stuarts, that, on the accession of the house of 
 Hanover in 1714, one is not very much surprised to 
 find that Mr. Basset of Tehidy would have been 
 arrested by Mr. Boscawen (then Sheriff of Cornwall) 
 as a Jacobite, had not Mr. Basset made a timely 
 flight from his house. Unless I am mistaken, this 
 was the same Francis Basset who was himself Sheriff 
 of Cornwall in 1708. 
 
 The connexion between the families of Basset 
 and Pendarves is amusingly illustrated by the record 
 of a marriage which took place at St. Stephen's in 
 Branwell, on I2th April, 1737, the scribe who entered 
 the event in the Parish Register describing the 
 bridegroom as ' a Squar,' that being the nearest 
 approach which the parish clerk's acquaintance with 
 orthography enabled him to make towards writing 
 the happy man down an Esquire.
 
 124 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 We now come to what I cannot help considering 
 a very interesting period in the family history inter- 
 esting not so much from the importance of the 
 incidents chronicled (though they give us a curious 
 peep into the interior of a Cornish gentleman's house- 
 hold early in the last century), as from their having 
 been recorded by the pen of the beautiful and accom- 
 plished Mary Grenville, a descendant of the old 
 Cornish family of Stow, better known to us nowadays 
 as the Mrs. Delany to whom Ballard dedicated his 
 ' Celebrated British Ladies,' and whose autobiography, 
 edited by one of her descendants, Lady Llanover, 
 is, notwithstanding its portentous length, one of the 
 most entertaining books of modern times. 
 
 When only sixteen or seventeen years of age, 
 Mary Grenville married her first husband, Alexander 
 Pendarves, of Roscrow near Penryn, he being then 
 sixty years old. She describes with much vivacity 
 her first acquaintance with her Cornish home, and 
 her grumpy old husband whom she styles in her 
 diary * Gromio.' The old man had quarrelled with 
 Francis Basset for marrying, as his second wife, 
 Gromio's niece, Mary, daughter and heiress of his 
 younger brother, the Rev. John Pendarves of 
 Drewsteignton, and for refusing his offer to settle 
 upon Francis Basset his whole estate if he would 
 take the name of Pendarves after his, Alexander's, 
 death. This, Basset, justly proud of his oWn 
 family name, declined to do ; and hence no doubt 
 the reason of Alexander's marriage with the young 
 Mary Grenville. Their marriage life lasted only
 
 The Bassets of TeJiidy, 125 
 
 about seven years, and was not a particularly 
 happy one. Soon after her husband's death Mrs. 
 Pendarves married Dr. Delany, Dean of Down, 
 to whom she seems to have been fondly attached ; 
 though he too was much her senior. 
 
 To this charming and talented lady we are in- 
 debted for the following glance at the interior of 
 Tehidy nearly 150 years ago, and for a portrait of 
 the Basset of the period Francis, grandfather of 
 the first Lord de Dunstanville : 
 
 ' About a month after we had been at home (i.e., 
 at Roscrow), and had received the compliments of the 
 chief of our neighbourhood, Gromio proposed that 
 we should make a visit to Bassanio (Mr. F. Basset), 
 who had married his niece. I made no objection, 
 but was rather pleased to leave my own house for 
 some time. Bassanio had been in his youth a man 
 of gallantry ; his figure despicable enough, but his 
 wit and cheerfulness made amends, though at this 
 time both were a good deal impaired by an ill state 
 of health and a very dull wife, who, with a very 
 inferior understanding to his, was the chief agent. 
 He seemed only to act with her permission, which 
 was most astonishing. We were received at first, I 
 thought, very coolly. Gromio's marrying was a great 
 disappointment to Bassanio and Fulvia (Mrs. Basset). 
 They expected his estate, and were both avaricious. 
 Bassanio liked to take wine, but not to excess. 
 When his spirits were a little raised, he was very gay 
 and entertaining ; and till then I had not laughed, or
 
 126 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 shown the least sign of mirth. After having spent a 
 fortnight at this place, Gromio grew thoughtful, and 
 would often retire to his chamber, and at supper and 
 dinner sat gloomy and discontented. When I was 
 alone with him, he would sigh and groan as if his 
 heart would break. I thought him ill, and asked him 
 several times if he was not, to which he always 
 answered with great sullenness "he was well enough." 
 I began then to examine my own behaviour to him ; 
 I was sure he could resent nothing in that more than 
 he had reason for before, and that I was not so grave, 
 but (in appearance) happier than at first. After 
 enduring great anxiety of mind for a week, I could 
 not forbear taking notice to him of the change I 
 found in his temper ; for though he never made him- 
 self agreeable to me, it had not been for want of 
 kindness and civility in his behaviour ; but now he 
 had laid aside both, and I own I was greatly per- 
 plexed to find out the cause. 'Tis certain that fond- 
 ness from a person distasteful to one is tormenting, and 
 what can so much hurt a generous heart that can 
 make no return for it ? On the other hand, it is very 
 disagreeable to be treated with gloomy looks which 
 show an inward discontent, and not to be able to 
 account for it. 
 
 ' At last the mighty distress broke out in these 
 words: "Oh, Aspasia !" ' (Mrs. Delany's assumed 
 name), '"take care of Bassanio; he is a cunning, 
 treacherous man, and has been the ruin of one woman 
 already, who was wife to his bosom friend !" and 
 then he burst into tears. I was so struck with
 
 The Bassets of Tehidy. 127 
 
 this caution, and his behaviour, that I could not 
 for some time speak ; at last I said, " I am 
 miserable indeed, if you can be jealous of this 
 ugly man. What am I for the future to expect?" 
 I was so much surprised and vexed, that it threw me 
 into an agony of tears. He assured me all the time 
 that he had nothing to charge me with ; that my 
 behaviour was just what he wished it to be, but he 
 could not help seeing how much Bassanio was 
 charmed with everything I said or did, and he knew 
 him to be a man not to be trusted. By this time I 
 was a little recovered, and entreated him to return 
 to Averno (Roscrow) ; but he said, " No ; to con- 
 vince me he had no doubt of my conduct, he would 
 not go before the time he had first proposed." : 
 
 And so it seems the party did not break up for a 
 week or ten days; Gromio grumbling; Bassanio 
 vainly trying to make himself extremely agreeable 
 during their walks and drives in that * very romantic 
 part of the country,' as Mrs. Delany well calls it ; 
 Fulvia as dull as ever ; and Aspasia untouched by 
 the flattery and gallantries of her would-be lover. 
 At length she had to write ' that Bassanio was too 
 quick-sighted not to perceive Gromio's suspicions 
 and my great dislike of his behaviour ; and, as it was 
 his interest to keep in favour with his uncle, he was 
 upon his guard, and never gave either of us reason 
 to be offended with him any more. Soon after (in 
 1721) he was seized with terrible fits, that ended his 
 life a year and half after I married.'* 
 
 * The Pendarves property ultimately passed to F. Basset's relict, as 
 old Alexander died without signing his will.
 
 128 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 There is yet another entry in Mrs. Delany's diary 
 which refers to the Tehidy family. In June, 1756, 
 she writes : ' I am going into mourning for my 
 great-great-nephew Basset, who died last week. I 
 pity his unhappy mother extremely. She has gone 
 through much care and anxiety on his account.' 
 
 John Basset, the son of the Rev. John Basset, 
 rector of Illogan and Camborne, now claims a 
 passing notice before we come to the last and 
 perhaps most illustrious member of this family. 
 He was born on iyth November, 1791, and was 
 elected member of Parliament for Helston in 1840, 
 failing, however, to retain his seat at the election in 
 the following year ; but he chiefly distinguished him- 
 self by the zealous interest which he took in the 
 welfare of Cornish mining and the Cornish miner. 
 In 1836 he published some treatises on the ' Mining 
 Courts of the Duchy of Cornwall,' and, in the same 
 year, ' Thoughts on the ' (then) ' New Stannary Bill.' 
 Three years afterwards appeared the ' Origin and 
 History of the Bounding Act;' and, after another 
 similar interval, in 1842 the year before his death 
 at Boppart, on the Rhine his ' Observations on 
 Cornish Mining.' 
 
 But perhaps his most valuable contribution to 
 Cornish literature was a treatise published in 1840, 
 having for its humane object the amelioration of the 
 physical condition of the miner viz., ' Observations 
 on the Machinery used for Raising Miners in the 
 Hartz.' There can be little doubt that this work
 
 The Bassets of Tehidy. 129 
 
 tended in no small degree to direct public attention 
 to the great and avoidable exhaustion caused to the 
 miner by his having to ascend many fathoms of 
 ladders after long and laborious work in the heated 
 and vitiated atmosphere of many of our deep mines. 
 The result was the invention of an ingenious machine 
 known as the steam man-engine, by means of which 
 two huge vertical poles, with foot-rests at intervals, 
 are set in motion side by side the whole depth of the 
 mine-shaft. As one pole ascends, the other descends, 
 and thus, by changing from one to the other by help 
 of the foot-rests, the miner is enabled to ascend from 
 his work, or descend to it, with the minimum ex- 
 penditure of his own strength. If he who makes 
 an oak grow where none grew before is to be con- 
 sidered a benefactor to his race, surely anyone who 
 contributes in greater or less degree to so benevolent 
 and beneficial an object as this steam man-engine has 
 proved to be, has a good claim to be ranked among 
 the philanthropic benefactors of his race. There is, of 
 course, some little risk in performing this feat in the 
 dark, damp and slippery mine-shafts, lit, perhaps, by a 
 solitary candle stuck into a lump of clay and attached 
 to the front of the miner's hat ; and it is scarcely 
 necessary to add that the use of the man-engine is 
 most strictly forbidden to all except those by whom 
 it is really required. Is it necessary to say that the 
 man-engine, therefore, became a great attraction to 
 all schoolboys who chanced to be within easy dis- 
 tance of one ? at an yrate the writer, then a schoolboy, 
 used to spend parts of many a half-holiday in practi- 
 VOL. i. 9
 
 130 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 cally investigating the merits of the machine, by 
 descending by its means into the depths of the 
 earth, until the utter darkness made the descent too 
 dangerous even for a schoolboy. 
 
 John Basset's eldest son, John Francis Basset, of 
 Stratton, brother of the present owner of the estates 
 (Gustavus Lambert Basset, who served in the Crimea 
 as lieutenant in the 72nd Highlanders), was a bar- 
 rister, and was Sheriff of Cornwall in 1861. He suc- 
 ceeded to the Tehidy property on the death of his 
 aunt, Frances, Baroness Basset, in 1855, and died at 
 the family mansion in 1869. His chief mining in- 
 terests (which were immense) were in the Bassets, 
 South Frances, and Dolcoath mines. His landed 
 property lay chiefly in Illogan, Camborne, Redruth, 
 and St. Agnes, besides other estates which he owned 
 in Meneage, Gluvias, Falmouth, Tywardreath, etc. 
 
 But we must now speak of one whom Davies 
 Gilbert, P.R.S., described as, in every sense, the 
 first man in the county I mean that Francis 
 Basset, D.C.L., Baron de Dunstanville of Tehidy, 
 and Baron Basset of Stratton,* whose monument 
 forms so conspicuous an object on the summit of the 
 historic hill of Carn Brea, and which was erected to 
 his memory by the county of Cornwall in i836.t 
 He was the grandson of Mrs. Delany's Francis 
 
 * He was created a baronet, 24th Nov. 1779 ; Baron de Dunstan- 
 ville, by Pitt, 1 7th June, 1796 ; and Baron Basset, 3Oth Oct., 1797. 
 
 t A fine portrait of him, seated, is preserved in the Museum of the 
 Royal Institution of Cornwall, at Truro. Sir John St. Aubyn has 
 another portrait of him at the age of nineteen, in a ' Vandyck ' dress, 
 painted by Opie, after Sir Joshua Reynolds.
 
 The Bassets of Tehidy. 131 
 
 Basset, and son of the Francis Basset who repre- 
 sented Penryn in Parliament from 1766 to 1769. 
 His mother was Margaret St. Aubyn.* Born at 
 Walcot, in Oxfordshire, on gth August, 1757, he was 
 educated at Harrow, Eton, and lastly at King's Col- 
 lege, Cambridge, where he took his degree of M.A. 
 when twenty-nine years of age. When Lord de 
 Dunstanville's father died, the boy wrote to Dr. 
 Bathurst afterwards Bishop of Norwich this 
 characteristic little note : 
 
 ' DEAR SIR, 
 
 ' Knowing the regard my papa had for you, I 
 wish you would be my tutor. 
 
 * Yours, 
 
 ' FRANK BASSET.' 
 
 A tour on the Continent in company with the 
 Rev. William Sandys, the son of a former steward 
 of the family, a gentleman who had been specially 
 trained to perform the pleasant but arduous duties 
 of cicerone, completed his education, and thus he 
 started in life with every advantage that a youth of 
 talents and position could desire ; nor did he fail to 
 employ them. 
 
 On his return home he at once threw himself into 
 the arena of public life; and from time to time 
 published sundry political and agricultural treatises. 
 Amongst the former may be mentioned, ' Thoughts 
 on Equal Representation ' (1783), ' Observations on 
 a Treaty of Commerce between England and France' 
 
 * His first wife was Frances Susannah Coxe, to whom Penwarne 
 dedicated his volume of Cornish poems. 
 
 92
 
 132 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 (1787), 'The Theory and Practice of the French 
 Constitution' (1794), 'The Crimes of Democracy* 
 (1798), and a speech which he delivered at a county 
 meeting at Bodmin in 1809. 
 
 That he considered the foregoing productions not 
 unworthy of his genius may be judged from the fact 
 that he had them handsomely bound together, and 
 presented them to his ' dearest friend, Miss (Harriet) 
 Lemon,' the daughter of Sir William Lemon, of 
 Carclew, Bart., M.P., a lady who ultimately became 
 his second wife : the volume is preserved in the 
 Royal Institution of Cornwall. His agricultural 
 tracts ' Experiments in Agriculture ' (1794), ' A Fat 
 Ox' (1799), 'Crops and Prices' (1800), 'Crops in 
 Cornwall ' (1801), ' Mildew ' (1805) mostly appeared 
 in Young's ' Annals of Agriculture ;' and, like his 
 political treatises, evince much acumen and practical 
 common sense. 
 
 He was chosen Recorder for Penryn, and repre- 
 sented that borough in Parliament in 1780. On his 
 entrance into political life he joined Lord North's 
 party, and was hurried into the fatal coalition ; 
 though the outbreak of the French Revolution con- 
 siderably modified his political views, which ulti- 
 mately became what we should now call Conserva- 
 tive.* As illustrative of his electioneering activity, 
 the following will be interesting, at least to my 
 Cornish readers : 
 
 * It is perhaps worth while to notice here that a Private Act was- 
 passed (47Geo. III. sess. i, c. 3, 1807), to relieve him from certain pains 
 and penalties for taking his seat in the House of Peers before making 
 the oaths and declarations, etc., required by law.
 
 The Bassets of Tehidy. 133 
 
 Extracts from Letters from the Hon. Mrs. Boscawen to 
 Mrs. Delany. 
 
 'June, 1784. 
 
 ' . . . Your turbulent nephew Sir Francis Basset 
 has failed in his first petition, and our friend Mr. 
 Christopher Hawkins of Trewithan is declar'd duly 
 elected for Mitchell, in preference to Mr. Roger 
 Wilbraham, one of Sir Francis's moveable candidates, 
 for he set him up at Truro too, and has presented a 
 petition there too, and another at Tregony, where our 
 friends had a majority of 21 ! I hope Sir Francis 
 will continue to have the same success as he had 
 in this first attempt, which was decided in Parliament 
 last night. . . .' 
 
 ' 18 Oct., 1784. 
 
 ' . . . My son (George Evelyn, 3rd Viscount Fal- 
 mouth) and his sposa are very cheerfull in Cornwall, 
 giving balls to their neighbours ; while your nephew 
 Basset is waging most inveterate war and hostilities at 
 Truro. My son has all the lore (they say), but then 
 he (S r F.) has all the money la partie n'est pas 
 egale !' 
 
 Possibly personal pique had something to do 
 with Sir Francis's desertion of his original political 
 allies ; for I find amongst the Additional MSS. in 
 the British Museum, a letter in his hand to the 
 Duke of Portland, on the 2Oth November, 1783, 
 relinquishing all connexion with that nobleman's 
 Government, on account of their having superseded 
 Sir Francis's nephew, Mr. Morice, as Warden of the
 
 134 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 Stannaries. * Ill-usage to myself ' (wrote he) ' I 
 could better have brooked than to my friends.' 
 
 In the year 1779, it will be remembered, Plymouth 
 was threatened by the combined French and Spanish 
 fleet, and Francis Basset distinguished himself on 
 the occasion by marching to that town a large 
 body of the miners' militia, who, under his directions, 
 rapidly threw up such additional earthworks as were 
 deemed necessary for the security of that port. This 
 prompt action on his part gained for him his first title 
 his baronetcy. Indeed, he seems to have had quite 
 a talent for fortification, for to him also are due the 
 works of defence of which traces are still to be seen 
 at Basset's Cove, now better known as Portreath, 
 and which formerly consisted of one battery of four 
 i2-pounders, and another of two 6-pounders. 
 
 Sir Francis evidently took great interest in the affairs 
 of Rodney, and on 7th June, 1783, moved an address 
 to the King that a ' lasting provision ' might be made 
 for the gallant Admiral ; but, on the Government's 
 undertaking to see after it, he withdrew his motion. 
 
 He opposed the Peace, and argued ' with energy * 
 against it ; but, as the report from which I quote 
 merely * preserves the substance of the argument 
 without the declamation? we are unfortunately de- 
 prived of this specimen of the Baronet's eloquence. 
 In November of the same year he seconded the 
 Address in reply to the King's speech, declaring his 
 confidence in the Administration, his desire to 
 alleviate the burdens of the people, his abhorrence 
 of smuggling, as to which he said he spoke with 
 some authority, living as he did in a maritime
 
 The Bassets of Tehidy. 135 
 
 county ; and, having spoken with tenderness of the 
 natives of India, whose grievances the Government 
 had promised to redress, he concluded with a warm 
 eulogy of the unparalleled successes of Lord Rodney. 
 
 Nor did he neglect the arts of peace ; deriving as 
 he did an almost princely income from the mines 
 which lay within sight of his mansion, he was ever 
 on the watch for opportunities for developing mining 
 prosperity, and promoting the moral and social 
 welfare of the miner. He was deeply interested, too, 
 in improving the means of locomotion in the county, 
 and in 1809 laid the first rail of the iron tramway 
 designed to connect Portreath on the northern shore 
 of Cornwall with the Gwennap mines. 
 
 Moreover, he was a liberal patron of the fine arts,* 
 and his edition of Carew's ' Survey of Cornwall,' 
 enriched with Tonkin's notes, aud published in 1811, 
 is one amongst many instances of his public spirit, 
 and his interest in the affairs of his county. 
 
 He lived to the good old age of seventy-seven, but 
 the end came at last ; and on his way to London, to 
 attend in his place in the House of Peers, he was 
 seized with paralysis at Exeter. He managed to reach 
 town, but died at his residence, Stratheden House, 
 South Place, Knightsbridge, nearly opposite the Hyde 
 Park Cavalry Barracks, on the 5th February, 1835. 
 
 * Forty-one of his surplus pictures were offered for sale at Christie's 
 on 8th May, 1824, when six of them were bought in, and the remainder 
 sold for ^703 135. He was an early friend of Opie, and attended the 
 great Cornish artist's funeral in 1807 ; and it may be added that he 
 placed in a chapel, which he built at his own expense, in Cornwall, 
 an altar-piece by that eccentric artist, Lane, which was exhibited in 
 the Royal Academy, 1808.
 
 136 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 These were the days before railways, and the 
 tale is still told in the west country of the magni- 
 ficent procession, with its ' outriders and ten pages 
 on horseback,' which wended its way at a walking- 
 pace from London to Tehidy, a distance of 300 odd 
 miles, accomplished in twelve days. 
 
 His monument, adorned with a portrait by West- 
 macott, stands in Illogan Church ; and an epitaph 
 that does not flatter records that ' his open heart, 
 his generosity, and universal benevolence, won him 
 the esteem of all classes, and the affection of those 
 who intimately knew him. A sincere Christian, an 
 elegant scholar, the patron of merit, and a munificent 
 contributor to charitable institutions throughout the 
 Empire, he proved himself the friend of his country 
 and of mankind. But, with a laudable partiality, he 
 especially devoted the chief energies of his mind, and 
 directed the influence of rank and talents to advance 
 the moral welfare and to promote the prosperity of 
 Cornwall, his native county.' 
 
 The entailed estates devolved, upon his death, on 
 his nephew, the before-named John Francis Basset, 
 from whom they have passed to their present owner, 
 Gustavus Lambert Basset, Esq., of Tehidy. 
 
 The first Baron de Dunstanville left only one 
 daughter, Frances, who, on her father's decease be- 
 came Baroness Basset of Stratton. Noted for her 
 diligence in charity and all good works, she died at 
 Tehidy, on 22nd January, 1855, in her seventy-fourth 
 year, last of her race in the direct line ; and in her 
 the revived, but short-lived, peerage became extinct.
 
 ADMIRAL WILLIAM BLIGH, F.R.S.
 
 ADMIRAL WILLIAM BLIGH, F.R.S. 
 
 1 His name is added to the glorious roll 
 Of those who search the storm-surrounded Pole.' 
 
 BYRON. 
 
 HE name of Admiral Bligh will always be 
 associated with that painful episode in 
 the history of the British Navy the 
 Mutiny of the Bounty and the settlement 
 of the mutineers on Pitcairn and other of the South 
 Sea Islands ; whence we still occasionally obtain 
 news of their happy and flourishing descendants 
 happier far than their progenitors.* He is another 
 example of a Cornish circumnavigator of the globe ; 
 the first being a Michell of Truro, who went round 
 the world with Sir Francis Drake. Captain Samuel 
 Wallis, R.N., of Lanteglos juxta Camelford, also 
 sailed round the world in the Dolphin in 1766-68. 
 
 The Admiral was born, in all probability (though 
 there has been some uncertainty on the subject) on 
 
 * When some Pitcairn Islanders came on board the Clio, during a 
 violent storm, in an open boat, in 1874, they declined all offers of food, 
 medicine, or anything of that sort ; but they added, ' There is one thing 
 we should like have you a copy of " Lothair" ?'
 
 140 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 the Duchy Manor of Tinten,* in the parish of St. Tudy, 
 about half a mile south of the 'Church Town,' about 
 the year 1753, the son of Charles and Margaret 
 Bligh ; although I am aware that, according to another 
 account, he is said to have been the son of John Bligh, 
 of Tretawne, in the adjoining parish of St. Kew. The 
 earliest connexion which I have been able to trace 
 between this family and the parish of St. Tudy is, that 
 they acquired some property here of the Westlakes, in 
 1680-81 ; but there was a John Bligh, or Blygh, at 
 Bodmin, who acted as an assistant to the Commis- 
 sioners for the Suppression of Monasteries, temp. 
 Henry VIII. To this ancient town a branch of the 
 Bligh family contributed four mayors between the 
 years 1505 and 1588 indeed, the Cornish Blighs may 
 be traced back as early as the reign of Henry IV. I 
 am not sure whether or not Admiral Sir Richard 
 Rodney Bligh, G.C.B. (who died in 1821), was a 
 member of this family ; but he was a Cornishman, 
 as were some other naval officers of the same name. 
 Young Bligh often called ' Bread-fruit Bligh,' from 
 his having accompanied Captain Cook,t as sailing- 
 master in the Resolution, on his second voyage round 
 the world, in 1772-74, (in the course of which the fruit 
 associated with his name was first discovered at 
 Otaheite) became a lieutenant in the Royal Navy ; 
 and, having obtained a high reputation as a skilful 
 
 * Tynten or Tinten was the seat of an ancient Cornish family of that 
 name, dating from at least the time of Edward I. It afterwards passed 
 by marriage to the Carminows and the Courtenays. 
 
 f At the United Service Institution Museum, in Whitehall, are relics 
 of Captain Cook, including his chronometer, taken out again by Captain 
 Bligh, in 1 787, and carried by the mutineers of the Bounty to Pitcairn 
 Island.
 
 Admiral William Bligh, F.R.S. 141 
 
 navigator, was appointed by George III. to command 
 the Bounty, of 250 tons, on a voyage to Otaheite, in 
 December 1787. After one or two ineffectual attempts 
 to round Cape Horn, she arrived at her destination 
 ten months after leaving England, and remained 
 there for five or six months, the crew revelling in the 
 natural beauty of the place, and enjoying an inter- 
 course (which appears unfortunately to have been 
 totally unrestricted) with the soft savages, its in- 
 teresting inhabitants. On the homeward voyage, 
 however, laden with plants and specimens of the 
 bread-fruit, which it had been the object of the 
 voyage to secure, with a view to its acclimatization 
 in the British West India Islands, Bligh who had 
 made himself, by his irascible and overbearing dis- 
 position, obnoxious to many of those who sailed with 
 him was secured and bound by the majority of his 
 crew; and, together with eighteen luckless sailors, 
 was cast adrift on the 28th April, 1789, in an open 
 boat only twenty-three feet long, and deeply laden 
 within ' eight inches of the water's edge,' in which 
 small, frail craft they sailed 3,618 miles. They had 
 on board 32 Ibs. of pork, 150 Ibs. of bread, some wine, 
 some spirits, and some water but NO CHART : 
 
 ' The tender nautilus, who steers his prow, 
 The sea-born sailor of his shell canoe, 
 The ocean Mab, the fairy of the sea, 
 Seemed far less fragile, and, alas ! more free.' 
 
 Not until nearly twelve months afterwards, did they 
 reach England ; after having touched at one or two 
 islands, where they got a few shell-fish and some fruit, 
 and at the Dutch settlement of Timor, to the east of 
 Java, which they reached on i-jth June, 1789, and
 
 142 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 where they obtained a schooner. Bligh arrived home 
 on the I4th March, 1790, with twelve of his com- 
 panions ; the remainder having died on their weary, 
 miserable passage.* To Bligh's skill, resource, and 
 courage, were due the lives of all who were saved. 
 
 So astounding a voyage was, of course, the theme 
 of conversation throughout the country ; Bligh was 
 immediately promoted to the rank of Commander, 
 and soon afterwards to that of Post-Captain ; shortly 
 after which he got appointed, in 1791, to the com- 
 mand of another ship, the Providence, which was sent 
 on a similar expedition to the Society Islands. On 
 this occasion fortune was more favourable to the 
 brave ; he did not linger so long amongst the luxuri- 
 ous islets of the Pacific ; and having entirely suc- 
 ceeded in the object which he had in view, on his 
 safe return to England received the gold medal of 
 the Society of Arts in 1794. The practical result of 
 this voyage was, however, a failure ; the quick-growing 
 plantain being preferred by the West Indians to 
 the somewhat insipid bread-fruit. As regards the 
 mutineers, the Pandora was sent out to punish the 
 ringleaders, some of whom her captain brought back 
 to Portsmouth (notwithstanding having lost his ship 
 on the return voyage near the north point of Australia) ; 
 and at Portsmouth three of them were executed. 
 Many of the mutineers, however, hid in the islands, 
 
 * An account of this voyage was published in London, in 1792, and 
 contains Bligh's portrait. The details are also well given in David 
 Herbert's ' Great Historical Mutinies.' It appears from the minutes of 
 the court-martial that the rising of the crew against Bligh was not the 
 result of any long-hatched conspiracy, but that it was both planned and 
 executed between four and eight in the morning of the 28th April.
 
 Admiral William Bligh, F.R.S. 143 
 
 whose charms, in the beauty of its scenery, climate, 
 and ' gushing fruits,' and in the hospitable offers of 
 its chiefs, and still more in the winning ways of 
 the fairer sex, ' Nature and Nature's goddess 
 woman,' had proved too attractive to insure their 
 allegiance to their duty. Byron's poem of ' The Island ' 
 is based partly upon the sailors' adventures, and 
 partly on ' Mariner's Account of the Tonga Islands.' 
 
 Bligh also displayed great courage at the mutiny 
 at the Nore, in 1797; on which occasion he was 
 deputed to negotiate with the rebellious seamen, and 
 is said to have performed that dangerous duty with 
 singular intrepidity and address. 
 
 He was present at the memorable battle off the 
 Dogger Bank, 5th August, 1781 ; fought under Lord 
 Howe at Gibraltar in 1782 ; commanded off Ushant 
 in 1794, the Warrior, of 74 guns ; at Camperdown, 
 1797, when he was captain of the 64-gun ship 
 Director; and also at Copenhagen, on 2ist May, 
 1801, when he commanded the Glatton, of 54 guns (a 
 ship's name still perpetuated in the British navy) 
 
 ' When to battle fierce came forth 
 All the might of Denmark's crown.' 
 
 At the close of this fight Nelson sent for our 
 Cornish hero, and personally thanked him for the 
 gallant part which he had taken in that glorious 
 engagement. In the same year, in consideration of 
 his distinguished services in navigation, botany, etc., 
 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. 
 
 In 1805 he was appointed Captain-General and 
 Governor of New South Wales, and took up
 
 144 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 office in the following year ; but his very arbitrary 
 disposition and harsh notions of discipline, im- 
 bibed on the quarter-deck, and which, indeed, 
 distinguished his character throughout life, were 
 strongly resented by many of his subordinate 
 officials, both civil and military ; and, notwithstand- 
 ing that his efforts (which were approved by Lord 
 Castlereagh) seem to have been mainly directed 
 towards preventing the unlimited importation of 
 ardent spirits into the colony, on the 26th January, 
 1808, Bligh was deposed from his authority by 
 Major George Johnston, of the loand Regiment, 
 and those who served under him, and was im- 
 prisoned by them until March, 1810.* In that 
 year he returned to England in H.M.S. Porpoise, as 
 to the command of which he had a painful squabble 
 with her captain Kent. He obtained on 3ist July, 
 1811, his flag as Rear- Admiral of the Blue; proceed- 
 ing by the usual steps of promotion until he became 
 Vice-Admiral of the Blue, in June, 1814. This 
 dignity, however, he did not long enjoy at his 
 quiet rural retreat at Farningham, in Kent, as he 
 died in Bond Street, London, on the yth December, 
 1817, and was buried (by the side of his wife a Miss 
 Elizabeth Betham, of the Isle of Man) at Lambeth, 
 in the east part of the ground enclosing the church, 
 and abutting on the Tradescant tomb. Mrs. Bligh was 
 a woman of superior attainments ; and her father is 
 described as being the son of the Principal of some 
 (unnamed) university, and himself a literary man, 
 
 * See Wentworth's 'New South Wales,' p. 200; and Bonwick's 
 'Curious Facts of Old Colonial Days.'
 
 Admiral William Bligh, F.R.S. 145 
 
 the friend of Hume, Black, Adam Smith, and 
 Robertson. Bligh left six daughters and three sons, 
 William, Henry, and Richard (the latter a barrister- 
 at-law and author of several legal works) who sold 
 the Tinten property, and thus terminated the con- 
 nexion of this family with the county of Cornwall. 
 
 Admiral Bligh's epitaph records that ' he was that 
 celebrated navigator who first transplanted the 
 bread-fruit tree from Otaheite to the West Indies; 
 bravely fought the battles of his country ; and died 
 beloved, respected, and lamented.' 
 
 He seems to have been a lenient and benevolent 
 despot in his dealings towards the poor, of which 
 many instances are recorded by J. D. Lang, Jas. 
 Bonwick, R. Therry, and other colonial writers ; and 
 a good sign he was very fond of little children. 
 
 Dr. Alfred Gatty, tells us how, when he went as a 
 boy to Farningham, Admiral Bligh used to take him 
 on his knee, and let him play with a bullet that hung 
 on a blue ribbon round his neck the same bullet 
 which he used as a weight for doling out the daily 
 portion of bread to his crew and to himself during 
 their long boat-voyage of nearly 4,000 miles. 
 
 The Admiral's hasty temper, his room full of 
 books, and his sea curiosities, of course attracted the 
 boy's attention, and more especially a scar on his 
 cheek, about which the old gentleman told him the 
 following story. When George III. at a leve"e asked 
 him in what action he had been wounded, Bligh 
 was obliged to acknowledge, with some confusion, 
 that it was not a battle-wound ; but that his father, 
 VOL. i. 10
 
 146 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 in throwing a hatchet to turn a horse which they were 
 both trying to catch in an orchard, accidentally 
 struck him on the cheek. 
 
 As regards his family, the following additional 
 remarks may prove not unacceptable : 
 
 Lady O'Connell, one of Bligh's daughters, seems 
 to have inherited some of her father's spirit, for she 
 is said to have defended him on one occasion with a 
 pistol ' against rebels,' in Van Diemen's Land. 
 Frances and Jane were twins. Ann was a beauty, but 
 mentally afflicted. On one occasion the young ladies 
 were followed home from Farningham Church by a 
 stranger, who was the subject of a little hoax played 
 upon him by the Misses Bligh. He had advertised 
 for a wife, and they replied to the advertisement by 
 requesting him to appear, blowing his nose demon- 
 stratively, in the aisle of the church ; by which pro- 
 cess he was to be recognised. But so were also 
 Frances and Jane Bligh ; for they found it impossible 
 to conceal their laughter at the would-be Benedict's 
 performance, and their dupe accordingly followed 
 them home after the service. Here, however, he 
 was received by the Admiral himself with such 
 emphatic broadsides that the wooer very quickly 
 ' hauled off.' 
 
 Bligh's House at Farningham was, and is still 
 known as the Manor House ; and having heard that it 
 still contained a picture of one of the Admiral's sea- 
 fights, I asked my obliging correspondent, Mr. H. G. 
 Hewlett (then living at Mount Pleasant, Farningham), 
 to ascertain the facts for me, with the following result :
 
 Admiral William Bligh> F.R.S. 147 
 
 * I sent over to the Manor House yesterday to ob- 
 tain a report upon the picture ; but, unfortunately, it 
 is hung in the chamber of a maiden lady, who de- 
 murred to admitting visitors. They could only learn 
 that it is a naval battle-piece, in which several men-of- 
 war take part ; that the scene is off the coast, and that 
 several figures are wading to shore. Its size is about 
 3 ft. by 2 ft. ; the carving round the picture, which is let 
 into the wall, is said to be fine. The room is called 
 Admiral Bligh's, and is supposed to be haunted by his 
 ghost, which stumps about on a wooden leg ! Miss 
 
 K , however, is not superstitious, it appears, and 
 
 has not heard or seen the ghost !' 
 
 10 2
 
 THOMASINE BONAVENTURA. 
 (DAME THOMASINE PERCIVAL, LADY MAYORESS OF LONDON.)
 
 THOMASINE BON A VENTURA. 
 
 (DAME THOMASINE PERCIVAL, LADY MAYORESS OF LONDON.) 
 
 'A violet by a mossy stone, 
 Half-hidden from the eye. ' 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 N the Churchwardens' Accounts for the 
 parish of St. Mary Woolnoth, in the City 
 of London, are the following entries, 
 the first of which (and one of the earliest 
 in the book) makes mention of a Sir John Percyvall, 
 who had a chantry in that church. He was Sheriff in 
 1486, and Lord Mayor in 1498 ; received the honour 
 of knighthood from Henry VII., and died circa 1504. 
 The second, dated 1539, runs as follows : ' It'm 
 receyved of the Maister and Wardens of the Mer- 
 chynt Taillors for the beme light of this Churche 
 according to the devise of Dame Thomasyn Percy- 
 vail, widow, late wyf of Sir John Percyvall, knight, 
 decessed, xxvj s viii d .' 
 
 A third runs : ' It'm receyved more of the Maister 
 and Wardens of the Merchant-taillours for ij tapers, 
 th'oon of xv Ib. and the other of v Ib. to burne about
 
 152 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 the sepulchure in this Chirch at Ester Sunday, and 
 for the Churchwardens labor of this Churche to 
 gyve attendance at the obit of S r John Percyvall 
 and of his wyfe according to the devyse of the said 
 Dame Thomasyn Percyvall his wyf iiij 1 , vi s iiij d .' 
 
 And the last : ' It'm receyved of the said Maister 
 and Wardenns of Merchant-taillours for the repara- 
 cions of the ornaments of this Chirche according to 
 the will of the said S r John Percyvall vj s .' 
 
 Herbert, in his ' History of the Livery Companies 
 of London,' gives the following particulars of the 
 estates out of the proceeds of which the above funds 
 were paid, viz. : ' So far as S r John was concerned, 
 the annual sum of i6s. 4d. and 13 6s. 8d., issuing 
 from certain messuages of the Company ; and (as 
 regards Dame Thomazine) the sums of 535. 4d., 
 2 is. 4d., and 135. iod., and 203. yearly, all of 
 the premises being situate in the parishes of St. 
 Mary Wolnoth, St. Michael Cornhill, St. Martin 
 Vintry, and St. Dionysius (or Denis) Back-Church, 
 in Fenchurch Street.' He also gives an account of 
 the manner in which the said funds were disposed 
 of : as, good round sums to priests * for singing 
 for Sir John ;' to priests and clerks for ringing of 
 bells at the obits ; for wax to burn on those occa- 
 sions ; sundry sums for the poor, etc. ; for the 
 ' conduct for keeping the anthem ;' and, amongst 
 other disbursements, ten shillings ' for a potation 
 to the neighbours at the said obit.' 
 
 The charities left by this benevolent couple are 
 also set out at p. 502 of the same work.
 
 Thomasine Bonaventura. 153 
 
 And lastly, the Stratton Churchwardens' Accounts 
 for 1513, show that on the day on which ' my lady 
 parcyvale's meneday' came round (i.e. the day on 
 which her death was to be had in mind), prayer was 
 to be made for the repose of her soul, and two shill- 
 ings and twopence paid to two priests, and for bread 
 and ale. 
 
 This, I believe, is nearly all that exists in the 
 shape of documentary evidence to bear record of 
 the existence of the Cornish girl who forms the sub- 
 ject of this notice. There are, however, still to be 
 seen in the remote and quiet little village of Week 
 St. Mary, some five or six miles south of Bude, in 
 the northern corner of Cornwall, the substantial 
 remains of the good Thomasine's College and 
 Chantry, which she founded for the instruction of 
 the youth of her native place. 
 
 The buildings lie about a hundred yards east of 
 the church (from the summit of whose grotesquely 
 ornamented tower six-and-twenty parish churches 
 may be discerned) ; and, built into the modern wall 
 of a cottage which stands inside the battlemented 
 enclosure, is a large, carved granite stone (evidently 
 one of two which once formed the tympanum of a 
 doorway) on which the letter T stands out in bold 
 relief. Probably it is the initial of the Christian 
 name of our Thomasine ; at any rate it is pleasant 
 to think it may be such. 
 
 The traditions, however, concerning her are not 
 only still numerous in the neighbourhood, but are as 
 implicitly believed as if they were recorded by the
 
 154 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 most unimpeachable of chroniclers. They have 
 been embodied, not without considerable imaginative 
 embellishment, by the late Rev. R. S. Hawker of 
 Morwenstow, in a pleasant chapter in his charming 
 ' Footprints of Men of Former Times in Cornwall,' 
 and they are somewhat as follows : 
 
 Thomasine Bonaventura was a poor shepherd 
 maiden, and tended her sheep ' the long-forgotten 
 Cornish knott'* on the wild moorlands of North 
 Cornwall, in days when more attention was paid 
 than in later times to the produce of the flocks, and 
 less was devoted, at least in this part of the county, 
 to the mineral resources which lie hid in its bosom. 
 Even the wealthy merchants of London came down 
 so far into the west country to buy wool; and it 
 was probably about the middle of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury when one * Richard Bunsby,' a citizen of the 
 metropolis, made his appearance on the scene, 
 which opens on the banks of one of the many little 
 moorland streams that run down from Greena Moor 
 in Week St. Mary, sweeping round Marham Church 
 
 * According to Dr. Borlase, 'the sheep in Cornwall in ancient times 
 were remarkably small, and their fleeces so coarse that their wool bare 
 no better title than that of Cornish hair, and under that name the cloth 
 made of that wool was allowed to be exported without being subject to 
 the customary duty paid for woollen cloth. When cultivation began to 
 take place, and the cattle to improve in size and goodness, the Cornish 
 had the same privilege confirmed to them by grant from Edward the 
 Black Prince (first Duke of Cornwall after the Norman Conquest), in 
 consideration of their paying four shillings for every hundredweight of 
 white tin coined. The same privilege of exporting cloth of Cornish 
 manufacture, duty-free, was confirmed to them by the twenty-first of 
 Elizabeth.'
 
 Thomasine Bonaventura. 155 
 
 Hill, and so into Bude Haven. Struck with the 
 shepherdess's bright looks and intelligent remarks, 
 he proposed that she should return to London with 
 him, and become a domestic servant in his house ; 
 and Thomasine's parents having given their consent 
 to so brilliant a proposal, as it seemed to them, to 
 London she went, and received on her arrival a 
 hearty welcome from her new mistress. In course 
 of time she became a great favourite with all in the 
 house, the manager of its concerns, and, on the 
 death of Dame Bunsby, the old merchant married 
 his Cornish housekeeper, in compliance with the 
 express wish of his late wife. Three years after- 
 wards, Richard Bunsby, too, died, leaving all his 
 property to Thomasine ; and thus she became a 
 wealthy widow. Yet did she not forget her husband's 
 memory, to which she caused to be erected (so it is 
 said) a substantial bridge ; a structure (or perhaps I 
 should say its modern representative), which may still 
 be seen, as it was by myself in the autumn of 1880, 
 at Week Ford. 
 
 One so ' sweet and serviceable,' and withal so 
 rich, was not long, we may be sure, without suitors ; 
 and so, after a while, we find Thomasine again 
 married ; this time to ' that worshipful merchant 
 adventurer, Master John Gall, of St. Lawrence, 
 Milk Street.' He, too, was wealthy and uxorious ; 
 and enabled his wife to confer many benefits on the 
 poor of her native place, for which she seems to have 
 always entertained a lingering fondness a trait as 
 characteristic of the Cornish as of the Swiss them-
 
 156 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 selves. After the lapse, however, of five years, 
 Thomasine found herself once more alone in the 
 world ; and again her husband had left her all his 
 property. 
 
 She had not to wait long before many fresh lovers 
 were at the feet of the ' Golden Widow ;' and on 
 this occasion, in the year 1497, she bestowed her hand 
 upon Sir John Percyvall, who was, the year after their 
 marriage, elected to the honourable post of Lord 
 Mayor of London. In memory of this event, she is 
 reported to have constructed a good new road down 
 to the coast, which I am bound to say I have not 
 succeeded in identifying, though it may be that 
 which runs from Week St. Mary, over Week Ford 
 and through Poundstock, to either Wansum or 
 Melhuc Mouth. 
 
 She long survived even her third husband ; and 
 retiring, as it is believed, to Week St. Mary, by her 
 will, made in 1510, left goodly sums of money to the 
 home of her childhood. She directed that the 
 'chauntry with cloisters' (to which reference has 
 already been made) should be built there ; and that 
 a school should be founded for the children of the 
 poor.* 
 
 If Mr. Hawker's testimony is to be accepted, she 
 also left, by a codicil to her will, and in memory of 
 an early love affair, to the priest of the church, 
 
 * Dame Thomasine Percival's chantry and college at Week St. Mary 
 were, according to the Church Commissioners, in 1545, a great comfort 
 to all the county, from children being sent there to board and to be 
 taught ; but two years after the schoolhouse was in ruins, owing (so it 
 was stated) to its being in a desolate place ; and removal to Launceston 
 was suggested.
 
 Thomasine Bonaventura. 157 
 
 where she knew her cousin John Dineham would serve 
 and sing, ' the silver chalice gilt, which good Master 
 Maskelyne had devised for her behoof, with a little 
 blue flower which they do call a " forget-me-not," 
 wrought in Turkess at the bottom of the bowl.' 
 But Mr. Hawker's mind was always full of grace- 
 ful fancies ; and he has in this case undoubtedly 
 drawn upon his imagination for his facts. 
 
 Carew is a more reliable if less poetic authority. He 
 says : * And to show that virtue as well bare a part in 
 the desert, as fortune in the means of her preferment, 
 she employed the whole residue of her life and 
 last widowhood to works no less bountiful than 
 charitable ; namely, repairing of highways, building 
 of bridges, endowing of maidens, relieving of 
 prisoners, feeding and apparelling the poor, etc. 
 Among the rest, at this St. Mary Wike she founded 
 a chantry and free-school, together with fair lodgings 
 for the schoolmasters, scholars, and officers, and 
 added 20 of yearly revenue for supporting the in- 
 cident charges : wherein, as the bent of her desire 
 was holy, so God blessed the same with all wished 
 success ; for divers of the best gentlemen's sons of 
 Devon and Cornwall were there virtuously trained 
 up, in both kinds of divine and human learning, 
 under one Cholwel, an honest and religious teacher, 
 which caused the neighbours so much the rather, 
 and the more to rue, that a petty smack only of 
 popery opened the gap to the oppression of the 
 whole, by the statute made in Edward VI. 's reign, 
 touching the suppression of chanteries.'
 
 HENRY BONE, R.A., 
 
 THE ENAMELIST.
 
 HENRY BONE, R.A., 
 
 THE ENAMELIST. 
 
 MONGST the worthies of Truro who have 
 left 'footprints on the sands of time,' 
 there are few more deserving of remem- 
 brance than Henry Bone, the only Royal 
 Academician that his native place ever produced. 
 He was born on February the 6th, 1755, and was 
 the son of a cabinet-maker and carver, who is said 
 to have been a clever workman, and to have carved 
 the old pulpit of St. Mary's Church, Truro. One of 
 the same name, and perhaps of the same family, 
 a Walter Bone, was Mayor of Truro in 1708. In 
 1767 the family removed to Plymouth, and in 1771 
 Bone, showing artistic tastes, was apprenticed to 
 the ingenious William Cookworthy, a druggist there, 
 who discovered the secret of making hard-paste 
 porcelain, in England, out of Cornish granite and 
 clay, and who thereupon established the Plymouth 
 China Works. In 1772 Bone's master removed to 
 Bristol, where, in conjunction with the Champions, 
 
 VOL. I. II
 
 1 62 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 to whom he had become related by marriage, Cook- 
 worthy established the equally celebrated Bristol 
 Porcelain Works. Bone accompanied him ; and 
 here he remained until 1778, working from six in the 
 morning to six in the evening in the factory, and 
 after that improving himself in the art of drawing. 
 It is considered that the best painting executed at 
 the Bristol Works was by Bone, and he is believed 
 to have used the figure i in addition to the factory- 
 mark + . Bristol pieces so marked are now very rare. 
 
 On the failure in business of his new master, 
 Champion, in 1778, Bone, in the following year, 
 came to London, with one guinea of his own in his 
 pocket, and 5 lent to him by his friend, Morris, 
 a cooper. At first he found employment in enamel- 
 ing watches, etc.; but this work failing him, owing 
 to a change of the fashion, he commenced miniature- 
 painting in water-colours on ivory, and also in 
 enamel. Here it may be noted that he was em- 
 ployed first on enamel-painting, etc., by Randle and 
 Co., Paternoster Row ; and also on painting fans for 
 Crowder and Co., Foster Lane. His distinguishing 
 excellence is said to have been that he used enamel 
 paints just as other colours, instead of, according to 
 the feeble practice of the day, first mixing on the 
 palette every colour to be used. His predecessor in 
 this art was Horace Hone ; but the latter's work was, 
 in many respects, very inferior to that of the Cornish 
 artist. 
 
 Dr. Wolcot (Peter Pindar) early recognised his 
 merit, as he also did that of Opie, and recommended
 
 Henry Bone, R.A., the Enamelist. 163 
 
 Bone to make annual painting tours into Cornwall ; 
 but increasing work in town compelled him at length 
 to give up these congenial trips. On the 24th 
 January, 1780, he married Elizabeth Vandermeulen, 
 a descendant of Philip Vandermeulen, battle-painter 
 to William III. ; and Bone's first picture, exhibited at 
 the Royal Academy in the same year, was an enamel 
 painting of his newly-married wife. This enamel 
 was of the then unusual size of two and a half inches 
 in height, and Bone's complete success on this occa- 
 sion led him now to determine on setting up on his 
 own account instead of working for others. In 1782 
 his own portrait followed. These works brought 
 him into prominent notice, and numerous patrons 
 came to his studio. Giving his entire attention now 
 to enamel-painting, which has been well called 
 ' painting for eternity,' he completed, in 1789, ' A 
 Muse and Cupid,' from his own design, of a greater 
 size than had ever before been executed by this 
 process.* 
 
 In 1794 we find him exhibiting ' The Sleeping 
 Girl,' after Sir Joshua Reynolds ; and in 1797 a por- 
 trait of Lord Eglinton, which attracted the attention 
 of the Prince of Wales, who appointed him, in 1800, 
 his enamel-painter, and became a generous patron to 
 him afterwards. In the following year he was 
 elected Associate of the Royal Academy, and enamel- 
 painter to George III. ; and he occupied the same 
 post under George IV. and William IV. He sub- 
 
 * His ' H. B.' signature was similar to Doyle's (' H. B.') and most of 
 his works are, fortunately for collectors, so signed. 
 
 II 2
 
 164 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 sequently executed several fine enamels, mostly after 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, and also a fine piece after 
 Leonardo da Vinci. On I5th April, 1811, he was 
 elected Royal Academician, and shortly after pro- 
 duced the largest enamel which had ever been 
 painted up to that time, viz., a copy of the ' Bacchus 
 and Ariadne ' in the National Gallery, after Titian, 
 eighteen by sixteen inches. This picture was con- 
 sidered so marvellous a production that more than 
 4,000 persons went to inspect it at Bone's house ; 
 and it was at length sold to Mr. G. Bowles, of 
 Cavendish Square and Wanstead, for 2,200 guineas. 
 The story goes, on the authority of Mr. George Bone, 
 of Blackheath, that this sum was paid in the form of 
 a cheque drawn on Fauntleroy's Bank. Bone cashed 
 it on his way home, in order to have the pleasure of 
 showing to his wife so huge a sum in coin. The 
 following day the notorious forgeries and frauds were 
 discovered, and the firm was bankrupt. But accord- 
 ing to a writer in the 'Annual Biography' for 1836, who 
 seems to have been well acquainted with Bone, the 
 amount was paid partly in cash and partly by a draft. 
 Bone next undertook, in addition to enamel 
 portraits and copies from the ancient masters, a 
 series of historical portraits, mostly of the time of 
 Elizabeth. They were of great merit, but un- 
 successful financially. These were exhibited at his 
 house, 15 Berners Street, near that of his friend 
 Opie, No. 8, who painted Bone's portrait.* There 
 
 * Bone's various residences in London were as follows, in chrono- 
 logical order : Spa Fields; 195, High Holborn ; Little Russell Street;
 
 Henry Bone, R.A. the Enamelist. 165 
 
 were also portraits of the Cavaliers distinguished in 
 the Civil War, painted for J. P. Old ; as well as por- 
 traits of the Russell family, from the reign of Henry 
 VII., for the Duke of Bedford. A catalogue of the 
 last-named was privately printed in 1825, an d there 
 is a copy of it in the South Kensington Museum. 
 
 In 1831 failing eyesight compelled him to retire to 
 Somers Town, and reluctantly to receive the Academy 
 pension ; but owing to the expensive professions 
 adopted by his sons, there was no alternative. Here 
 he died of paralysis on December iyth, 1834. Some 
 time before his death Bone offered his works, which 
 were valued at 10,000, to the nation for 4,000. 
 This offer was declined, and some time afterwards, 
 viz., 22nd April, 1836, they were sold by auction at 
 Christie and Manson's, realizing about 2,000 guineas, 
 and so were scattered far and wide. Other im- 
 portant sales of Bone's enamels took place on the 
 following dates, viz. : ist May, 1846 ; 25th April, 
 1850; loth May, 1854; and I3th and I4th March, 
 1856. 
 
 Bone had a large family twelve, it is believed ; of 
 whom ten survived. His eldest son, Henry Pierce 
 Bone, born November 6th, 1779, first exhibited at the 
 Academy in 1799. He commenced enamel-painting 
 in 1833, was appointed enamel-painter to Queen 
 Adelaide, and afterwards to her present Majesty and 
 the Prince Consort ; and in the course of fifty-six 
 years he exhibited 210 miniatures and enamels. He 
 
 Hanover Street, Hanover Square; and in 1801, Iterners Street; thence 
 he moved to Clarendon Square, Somers Town.
 
 1 66 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 died in London, October 2ist, 1855. Bone's grand- 
 sons (W. Bone and C. K. Bone) are also enamelers. 
 
 Robert Trewick Bone, the third son, born Sep- 
 tember 24th, 1790, was a subject-painter of some 
 ability. He died from the effects of a hurt, May 5th, 
 1840. One son, Thomas, a midshipman, was wrecked 
 and drowned, in the Racehorse, sloop, off the Isle of 
 Man. Another, Peter, a lieutenant in the 36th 
 Regiment, was wounded at the battle of Toulouse, 
 and died soon after his return to England; and 
 another of Bone's sons was called to the bar. 
 
 Of Henry Bone's private character, it was truly 
 said, by one who knew him well, that ' unaffected 
 modesty, generosity, friendship, and undeviating in- 
 tegrity adorned his private life;' and as to his artistic 
 merits, it is no exaggeration to say that he was ' un- 
 equalled in Europe for the perfect truth and enduring 
 brilliancy of his productions.' 
 
 A voluminous list, prepared by the late Mr. J. 
 Jope Rogers, of the works of art produced by the 
 various members of the Bone family, will be found in 
 the ' Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall,' 
 No. XXII., for March, 1880. It shows a total of 
 1,063 recorded works by this gifted family, nearly 
 half of which were painted by the principal subject 
 of this brief memoir. 
 
 Chantrey executed a fine bust of Henry Bone, 
 which has been well engraved by Thomson ; and 
 there is another portrait of him, as an elderly man, 
 which was painted by Harlow, and engraved by F. 
 C. Lewis in 1824.
 
 REV. DR. WILLIAM BORLASE, F.R.S., 
 THE ANTIQUARY.
 
 REV. DR. WILLIAM BORLASE, F.R.S., 
 
 THE ANTIQUARY. 
 
 ' In the shade, but shining.' 
 
 POPE to Borlase. 
 
 HE little parish of Ludgvan* (or as it is 
 sometimes called, Ludgvan- Lees), on the 
 north shore of the Mount's Bay, can 
 boast of having contributed at least its 
 share to the list of illustrious Cornishmen. Small, 
 remote, and obscure as it is, Ludgvan is one of the 
 places mentioned as the birthplace of Sir Humphry 
 Davy ; it was for more than half a century the re- 
 sidence of the subject of this article ; and here, too, 
 at Tremenheere, was born one of the most illustrious 
 professors of the healing art that the county has ever 
 produced himself the friend and medical attendant 
 of Borlase and of Pope I refer to Dr. William 
 Oliver, of Bath. 
 
 That the pursuits of a keen inquirer, endowed with 
 no ordinary powers of observation and considerable 
 
 * At Rospeith, in this parish, according to Davies Gilbert, P.R.S., 
 the last native wolf in England was seen.
 
 170 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 artistic talent, should, in such an out-of-the-way 
 corner of England as Ludgvan still is, have been 
 directed towards natural history, and to the mega- 
 lithic remains of antiquity with which the neigh- 
 bourhood once abounded, and of which there are 
 still numerous examples, is not to be wondered at. 
 And it cannot be denied that the study of those 
 sciences, both in Cornwall and elsewhere, was 
 materially benefited by the numerous and careful 
 drawings and descriptions of the stone monuments 
 of a mysterious and almost unknown race of men, 
 which it was one of the main objects of Dr. Borlase's 
 learned leisure to investigate and record. Many of 
 these ancient remains have altogether disappeared 
 since his time, and many others have been mutilated 
 or altered ; but in the Doctor's volumes such minute 
 descriptions of them have been preserved that the 
 loss of the monuments themselves has been rendered 
 of much less serious importance than would have 
 been the case but for his careful and elaborate 
 records. Of the deductions and suggestions which 
 are appended to those descriptions something will be 
 said hereafter. 
 
 But, in accordance with the method adopted in 
 the case of the other Worthies of Cornwall, it is well 
 first to say something of the stock from which Dr. 
 Borlase sprang. A Norman origin is claimed for the 
 family they are said to have descended from one 
 Taillefer : presumably some connexion of him who is 
 reported to have struck the first blow at the Battle 
 of Hastings. Coming into Cornwall, as, by the way,
 
 Dr. William Borlase, F.R.S. 171 
 
 very few other followers of the Norman Conqueror 
 did, the Borlases seem to have adopted a custom 
 which has always more or less prevailed in the county 
 of merging their own name into that of their place of 
 residence; and here it may be observed that the name 
 of Borlase, supposed by some to mean ' the high green 
 summit,' is still attached to two or three little home- 
 steads in the parish of St. Wenn, three or four miles 
 north-east of St. Columb-Major.* The direct male 
 line became extinct in the time of Elizabeth, when 
 the coheiresses married a Tonkin and a Bray ; and 
 the family does not appear to have risen to any 
 distinction until they moved farther westward, and 
 about the middle of the seventeenth century took 
 up their abode (which is still in the possession of a 
 member of the family) at Pendeen, in the parish of 
 St. Just. 
 
 The early Pendeen Borlases seem to have been 
 staunch Royalists, for it seems that one of them 
 assisted his cousin, Colonel Nicholas Borlase, in 
 raising a troop of horse for the King. Of this troop 
 a writer in the Quarterly Review for 1875, quotes the 
 following story : 
 
 * Being on one occasion much pressed by the 
 Puritan forces, and making a running fight, he set 
 fire to a large brake of furze in the night, which the 
 enemy taking for the fires made on the approach of 
 the King's army, immediately fled with great pre- 
 
 * The Manor of Borlase-Burgess, formerly the seat of the Borlase 
 family in St. Wenn, ' is said to have been given by William Rufus to a 
 certain Norman who was Lord of Talfer in that country, and whose 
 posterity assumed the name of Borlase.' (Borlase's MSS.)
 
 172 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 cipitation, and left him both bag and baggage, which 
 he seized the next morning.' 
 
 By way of comment on these proceedings, Fairfax 
 quartered some of his troopers at Pendeen, doubtless 
 to the intense annoyance of the owner thereof ; and 
 as regards Colonel Nicholas, a letter from Cromwell 
 to Lenthall tells all that I have been able to gather 
 as to that hero's career. It is dated Edinburgh, 
 I3th June, 1651, and asks the Speaker to hasten the 
 hearing of Borlase's case, which seems to have been 
 involved in the conditions of the hurried treaty of 
 Truro, when Hopton surrendered to Fairfax, and 
 terminated the supremacy of the Royal cause in the 
 West country. 
 
 The Borlases were not, however, without some sort 
 of barren reward for their faithfulness to the Stuart 
 cause ; for Humphry, who was Sheriff of Cornwall 
 during the last two years of the reign of James II., 
 was created a peer by that monarch after his abdica- 
 tion. Under these circumstances he, of course, never 
 enjoyed the title. He sometimes resided at Truthan, 
 in the parish of St. Erme, near Truro, and left his 
 estates to the Borlases of Pendeen. 
 
 Dr. Borlase was born at Pendeen, on 2nd February, 
 1695, the second son of his father, 'John of Pendeen, 
 twice Member of Parliament for St. Ives in Cornwall 
 in the reign of Queen Anne, and Lydia Harris, of 
 Hayne, county Devon, his wife, 1 a lady descended, so 
 the writer in the Quarterly Review informs us, through 
 the Nevilles and Bouchiers, from Edward III. But 
 the Borlases had also plenty of good Cornish blood
 
 Rev. Dr. William Borlase, F.R.S. 173 
 
 in their veins ; and amongst other old families of the 
 soil with whom they intermarried may be named their 
 not very distant neighbours, the Godolphins. 
 
 With a member of the last-named family John 
 Borlase seems to have had an altercation one day in 
 church, the particulars of which are set forth in his 
 victim's petition to Parliament as follows, viz. : 
 
 ' HONOURED SIRS, 
 
 ' Life, the precious tenet of mankind, 
 forceth me to inform your honours that Sunday, the 
 26th February, 1709, in full view of most of the con- 
 gregation of Maddern, John Borlase, one of Her 
 Majesty's Justices of the Peace, did wilfully break 
 the peace by striking me almost to the ground with 
 his staff, and if not timely prevented by one Paul 
 Tonkin, he would have been striking me again. He 
 did at the same time highly threaten me, with Chrit r . 
 Harris, Esq., Jane his wife, and John his son. Mr. 
 Harris ordered his servant to beat me. Of the truth 
 of the above information I am ready to give my 
 corroboration. Humbly craving the Honble. Speaker 
 and House of Commons not to skreene such daring 
 offenders, but to give me leave to prosecute them 
 as the law directs, is the humble prayer of, Hond. 
 Sirs, 
 
 * Your in all humility and duty, 
 
 ' FFRANCES GODOLPHIN.' 
 
 What this poor gentleman had done to deserve the 
 'Justice's justice' thus summarily inflicted on him, 
 observes the writer in the Quarterly Review, from
 
 174 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 whom I quote this letter, there and then, in the midst 
 as it seems of divine service, and by the occupant 
 of the next pew, we are left to conjecture. 
 
 Pendeen* is a house of unusual interest in this part 
 of Cornwall, where, indeed, primaeval remains abound, 
 but where are few examples save small and (with 
 one or two exceptions) not particularly interesting 
 churches of mediaeval and later architecture. It is 
 now occupied as a farmhouse, but was formerly a 
 place of much more importance. Substantially built 
 of native granite,the structure was evidently designed 
 for the occupation of some prosperous man ; and its 
 ground-plot indicates that it was so traced as to be 
 capable of some sort of defence against marauders. 
 In one of the bedrooms most probably that in 
 which William Borlase first saw the light are some 
 curious figures on the wall, of which a sketch is 
 preserved by the writer. 
 
 But it is not so much to the house itself as to its 
 surroundings that we must look for what were pro- 
 bably the determining circumstances of Borlase's 
 career. He was in the very heart of the cromlehs, 
 the cliff-castles, the weird stone-circles, and the huge 
 monoliths of a forgotten race ; and, close to the house, 
 there was a long and mysterious double cave a vau 
 or ogou which, we can but believe, must have 
 
 * At Pendeen lived, in the time of Henry VII., one Richard Pendyne, 
 'one of the rebels who, under Lord Audley, Flammock, and Joseph,' 
 dismantled Tehidy, the residence of John Basset, then Sheriff of the 
 County, and did much other mischief in the West an offence which he 
 expiated by losing his estates.
 
 Rev. Dr. William Borlase, F.R.S. 175 
 
 excited an inquiring child's awe-struck interest. We 
 are indebted chiefly to himself for the little that we 
 know of his early days; and this information is 
 derived from a modest autobiographical sketch which 
 he drew up in 1772, when seventy-seven years old, for 
 his friend Huddesford, the Curator of the Ashmolean 
 Museum, at Oxford, an institution to which Borlase 
 contributed nearly the whole of his collections of 
 natural history and antiquities. 
 
 His first school seems to have been at the nearest 
 town, Penzance ; and of him his master said what so 
 many a master has said of many another apt but 
 dreamy and indolent scholar, who was nevertheless 
 destined afterwards to distinguish himself, that ' he 
 could learn, but would not.' Thence he went, in 
 1709, under the tuition of the Rev. Mr. Bedford, at 
 Plymouth, where he seems to have profited more by 
 the instruction which he received. It has also been 
 supposed that he was educated partly at Tiverton 
 School. In March, 1712-13 he was entered, Cornish 
 fashion, at Exeter College, Oxford, and here he took 
 his B.A. and M.A. degrees in due course ; was in 
 1719 ordained deacon ; and in 1720, priest. 
 
 Dr. Borlase gives the following picture of the 
 Oxford of his days : 
 
 ' When I was at Oxford in the year 1715, we I 
 mean pupils, tutors, barbers, shoe-cleaners, and bed- 
 makers minded nothing but Politics; the Muse 
 stood neglected; nay meat and drink, balls and 
 ladies, had all reason to complain in their turns that 
 we minded Scotland and Preston more than the
 
 176 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 humane, softer, and more delicate entertainments of 
 Genius and Philosophy. This was a most unhappy 
 time, and I have often lamented it.' And he con- 
 cludes with the strong Conservative opinion : ' If I 
 can see anything in our English history, 'tis that the 
 poor nation is always the worse for alterations, 
 tho' particular persons may be the better, that is, 
 the richer or more powerful.' 
 
 His amusing description of a journey home from 
 the University with Sir John St. Aubyn, in 1722, is 
 given hereafter in the chapter on that family. 
 
 Two years after he was ordained priest, and (his 
 father having bought for him the next presentation) he 
 was presented to the living of Ludgvan, by Charles, 
 first Duke of Bolton, through the influence, as Nichols 
 inaccurately tells us, of Sir William Morice, of Wer- 
 rington a family with whom the St. Aubyns inter- 
 married. This living he held for fifty-two years.* 
 
 When Borlase settled in his Rectory, the retired 
 situation of the place did not altogether prevent his 
 indulging in the mild social dissipations of the neigh- 
 bourhood ; notably there was a bowling-green club, 
 formed in 1719, which proved an agreeable means of 
 meeting with his friends, and afforded Mr. Gwavas 
 one of the latest writers in the old Cornish language, 
 and a member of the party an opportunity of com- 
 posing a set of verses in Cornish in honour of the 
 foundation of the club. 
 
 There can be little doubt, from what we know of 
 
 * According to Kippis, it was the St. Just living which was subse- 
 quently procured through this interest.
 
 Rev. Dr. William Borlase, F.R.S. 177 
 
 his surroundings and proclivities, that Borlase was 
 already making notes of the neighbouring antiquities, 
 and dipping into his favourite authorities the best of 
 the day for information, which he was afterwards to 
 apply in a somewhat too speculative manner, to his 
 pet subject the Druids. He seems to have relied 
 mainly for this purpose upon several passages in 
 Julius Caesar, Pliny, Elias Schedius de Diis Ger- 
 manis, Smith's ' Syntagma de Druidis ;' a collection 
 of the French and German writers in Frickius de 
 Druidis, Sheringham, Sammes, Montfaucon, Mons. 
 Martin's ' Religion of the Ancient Gauls,' Toland's 
 ' History of the Druids,' Rowland's ' Mona Illustrata,' 
 Dr. Stukeley in his ' Stonehenge and Abury,' and 
 Keysler in his ' Antiquities.'* 
 
 His method was to examine, and especially to survey 
 and to draw carefully the old weather-beaten stone 
 structures of Cornwall ; being convinced, as he says, 
 ' of the necessity of copying the original monuments/ 
 and ' offering something to the public which their 
 undeniable properties suggested.' We shall, however, 
 I think, presently see that, in endeavouring to carry 
 out this method, the worthy antiquary was rather 
 prone to do that which so many other investigators 
 have done namely, to see that which he wished to 
 see. 
 
 Fortunately for him, and for the records of the 
 ' Cornish Antiquities,' when he married (as he did in 
 1724) Anne Smith, the daughter of the then Rector 
 of Camborne and Illogan 'peramatae, amanti, 
 
 * Second book of the ' Antiquities of Cornwall.' 
 VOL. I. 12
 
 178 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 amabili,' as he wrote for her epitaph he found a 
 partner who (again to use his own words) took ' more 
 than her part of the domestic cares,' in order that 
 he might the better prosecute his antiquarian re- 
 searches. The marriage ceremony was performed 
 by his elder brother the Rev. Walter Borlase, LL.D., 
 of Castle Horneck (the seat of the family on their 
 removing from Pendeen, about a century and a half 
 ago), afterwards Vice- Warden of the Stannaries from 
 1761 to 1776. 
 
 Although he lived to a very ripe old age, his health 
 seems to have somewhat failed him for a time in 
 1730 ; and he accordingly repaired to Bath, as the 
 waters were then in high repute for maladies such 
 as his, in order to be under the care of his friend 
 Dr. Oliver, who happily cured him, and gave him 
 * a new lease of life.' There can be little doubt 
 that this excursion was also of great importance 
 in another way; for it was here, and at this 
 time, that he made the acquaintance of Pope,* 
 of Ralph Allen, and of many other well-known 
 characters in the literary and scientific world, who 
 afterwards became his correspondents. His clever 
 pencil was also employed during his sojourn at Bath 
 in designing the obelisk in Orange Grove so named 
 after the Prince of Orange another of those persons 
 
 * Borlase was a bounteous contributor of minerals for the adornment 
 of Pope's grotto, in which the poet fixed his Cornish friend's name in 
 capital letters, formed of crystals ; gracefully saying that he had placed 
 them where they would remind him of the donor ' in the shade, but 
 shining.'
 
 Rev. Dr. William Borlase, F.R.S. 179 
 
 who credited the renowned Bath waters with the 
 power of renewing their youth. 
 
 In 1732 Dr. Borlase's elder brother, Walter, died ; 
 and thereupon the subject of this memoir had the 
 Vicarage of St. Just added to his previous prefer- 
 ment. This second living he held for the long period 
 of forty years. The two places were not so far apart 
 (only about twelve miles) as to preclude his giving 
 attention to both cures; and indeed those bio- 
 graphers who have written of Borlase (notably 
 Chalmers), state that his performance of his clerical 
 duties was highly praiseworthy, being marked with 
 ' the most rigid punctuality and exemplary dignity.' 
 At St. Just, a populous mining parish, his congre- 
 gation often consisted of 1,000 persons on a Sunday 
 morning, and 500 in the afternoon. This, too, it 
 must be remembered, was at a time when Church- 
 manship generally was at a very low ebb in Cornwall, 
 and needed Wesley's trumpet-call to arouse it.* 
 
 Notwithstanding his increased responsibilities, 
 Borlase did not neglect his antiquarian and scientific 
 studies, nor his out-of-door pursuits of gardening and 
 
 * The Doctor was one of the old-fashioned Churchmen who dreaded 
 trap de z<ile, and, probably without much reluctance, issued in his magis- 
 terial capacity a warrant to 'apprehend all such able-bodied men as had 
 no lawful calling or sufficient maintenance ;' in fact, he was afraid of riots 
 amongst his excitable parishioners. The squabble is recorded in the 
 great Revivalist's journals for the summers of 1784 and 1785. But the 
 end of the affair was that Wesley, having on the first occasion appeared 
 before the Bench at St. Michael's Mount, and on the second having 
 called upon Dr. Borlase himself, at St. Just, in response to the warrant, 
 on the latter occasion found that the Doctor had gone to church and 
 so the matter ended. 
 
 12 2
 
 180 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 planting, for which the mild air of Ludgvan was 
 highly favourable. In fact, at this period he seems 
 to have ' entered upon the study of Druid learning' 
 with renewed fervour. His chief companions were 
 Sir John St. Aubyn of St. Michael's Mount hard by, 
 and the Rev. Edward Collins of St. Erth, the latter 
 of whom appears to have joined in nearly all his 
 rambles, and not to have failed to administer occa- 
 sionally 'the salutary censure of a friend;' for, as 
 Borlase himself tells us, he found Mr. Collins a use- 
 ful ' check in some disquisitions.' 
 
 Thus tranquilly passed away some fifteen years of 
 this quiet and uneventful, but busy life,* until cir- 
 cumstances again brought him into contact with that 
 outer world of larger and more learned minds which 
 ' do mostly congregate in cities.' In 1748 he went to 
 Exeter, to be present at the ordination of his eldest 
 son. Here he was introduced to the Dean of Exeter, 
 the Rev. Dr. Charles Lyttelton, afterwards Bishop 
 of Carlisle, and the first President of the Society of 
 Antiquaries. And it is not a little curious to note, 
 by the way, that Dr. Lyttelton's successor as Dean 
 of Exeter, Jeremiah Milles, of Duloe in Cornwall, 
 also succeeded his predecessor in the Deanery in the 
 distinguished post of President of the Antiquaries. 
 It can readily be believed that new sources of in- 
 tellectual enjoyment opened up with an acquaint- 
 ance with such men as these. They forthwith 
 became correspondents; and to their names were 
 added, either about this time or at other periods of 
 
 * It was his habit to rise at five, and go to bed at nine.
 
 Rev. Dr. William Borlase, F.R.S. 181 
 
 Borlase's life, those of Linnaeus, Gronov of Leyden, 
 Stukeley, Atterbury (Bishop of Rochester), Browne 
 Willis, Pococke (Bishop of Ossory), Thomas Pennant, 
 and Ellis, the author of the * Corallines.' The library 
 at Castle Horneck contains upwards of forty volumes 
 in MS. of Borlase's Correspondence and Notes. 
 
 One of the fruits of Borlase's visit to Exeter was the 
 production of his first essay (or ' Exercise ' as it was 
 termed) for the * Philosophical Transactions.' This 
 appeared in 1749. It was the first scientific account 
 of any of the Cornish minerals; and was entitled 
 ' Spar, and Sparry Productions, called Cornish Dia- 
 monds.' This was considered of sufficient merit to 
 secure his election as Fellow of the Royal Society, 
 an honour which was conferred upon him on his 
 visit to London in the following year. Many other 
 contributions followed, nineteen in all ; chiefly on 
 subjects connected with meteorology and natural 
 phenomena, and one paper of an antiquarian cha- 
 racter. They are catalogued in the ' Biographia 
 Britannica,' vol. ii., p. 425. 
 
 But the time had now arrived when Borlase felt 
 himself strong enough to invite the attention of the 
 world to more considerable works from his pen and 
 pencil. And first he turned his attention to group- 
 ing and arranging the results of his archaeological 
 researches, the publication of which, by subscription, 
 he set about accomplishing. It was not, however, 
 until 1753 that he saw his way clear to taking 
 the MSS. of his 'Cornish Antiquities' with him to
 
 1 82 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 Oxford preferring that city to London for two 
 reasons, the first of which we can easily understand, 
 viz., its greater retirement ; but the second is one 
 which sounds strange to modern ears, because of 
 the ' more ready access to books.' So great was his 
 diligence, and that of his engravers, that the work, 
 in folio, with its numerous illustrations, was published 
 at Oxford in February of the following year, 1754 ;* 
 and the indefatigable author at once returned to 
 Cornwall in order to arrange the materials for 
 his next great work, the ' Natural History' of his 
 native county. Meanwhile, in 1756, appeared his 
 account of the Scilly Islands, an enlargement of one 
 of his papers in the * Philosophical Transactions.' 
 and a work of which Dr. Johnson wrote in the 
 Literary Review that ' This is one of the most pleas- 
 ing and elegant pieces of local inquiry that our 
 country has produced.' 
 
 On this occasion, too, he seems to have proceeded 
 with his usual despatch ; for in October, 1757, we 
 find him once more at Oxford, for the purpose of 
 printing the last-named work. And again, by the 
 spring of the following year, 1758, this too was ready 
 for the public eye. 
 
 Having now secured in print the results of so 
 many years' labours, the happy idea occurred to him 
 of presenting to his beloved University the collec- 
 tions of antiquities, natural history, etc., upon which 
 his works were based, and he accordingly deposited 
 them forthwith in the Ashmolean Museum, con- 
 
 * A second edition was published in London in 1 769.
 
 Rev. Dr. William Borlase, F.R.S. 183 
 
 tinuing to send thither from time to time any similar 
 rarities which he discovered. It is scarcely neces- 
 sary to add that for this generous gift he received 
 the thanks of the University ; which, in token of the 
 high appreciation in which they held his talents and 
 his liberality, on the 23rd March, 1766, conferred on 
 him, by diploma, the degree of Doctor of Laws, the 
 highest academical honour which it was in the power 
 of the University to bestow. 
 
 But Borlase was now getting an old man, being over 
 seventy years of age. The friends of his youth were 
 dying off ; and he was unable to undertake the long 
 antiquarian rambles which had been the delight of 
 his stalwart days. His outdoor amusements began to 
 be restricted to the superintendence (which he seems 
 to have thoroughly enjoyed) of the improvement of 
 the numerous roads which ran through his parish ; 
 one of which, it may be mentioned, was the high- 
 road to Penzance, until that which now skirts the 
 shore of the Mount's Bay was substituted for it. 
 His literary labours consisted partly in writing his 
 ' Sacrae Exercitationes,' which were chiefly para- 
 phrases of Ecclesiastes, the Canticles of Solomon, 
 and the Lamentations of Jeremiah rather for his 
 own pleasure than with any view to publication ; and 
 his home recreations were the ' Belles Lettres ' and 
 drawing and painting. He did not, however, neglect 
 entirely his old pursuits ; for he prepared for the press 
 the new and enlarged edition of his 'Antiquities,' 
 which, as we have seen, was published in 1769 ; 
 and he busily engaged himself in a similar office
 
 184 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 for his ' Natural History,' which he did not live to 
 complete. The emendations, however (or rather 
 the principal of them), appeared in the Journal of 
 the Royal Institution of Cornwall for 1875. And 
 during this latter part of his life, as well as during 
 the previous years, he was occupied in collecting 
 materials for a Parochial History of the County, 
 which never saw the light. 
 
 His last literary labour was a treatise on the 
 ' Creation and the Deluge,' which contains some 
 ingenious speculations on the nature of earthquakes 
 and submarine upheavals. The beginning of this 
 little work he had actually sent to the press ; but a 
 sudden and violent illness in 1771 warned him that 
 he was overtaxing his strength, and he resolved not 
 to go on with the publication. Within two or three 
 months of his death he drew up a short memoir of 
 his life, written in the third person, for his friend 
 Huddesford, which closes in the following happy 
 strain : 
 
 ' Being now in his seventy-seventh year, very little 
 more can be hoped for by himself or expected by 
 others. 
 
 ' Having been long accustomed to the confinement 
 of his study, retirement and old age incessantly call 
 upon him with the less terrour ; and resignation to 
 his increasing infirmities becomes every day easier 
 and less irksome, till at last he now accounts it 
 among the blessings of long life that it has quieted 
 and extinguished every spark of ambition, and that
 
 Rev. Dr. William Borlase, F.R.S. 185 
 
 it enables him to withdraw more and more with some 
 decency from the world ; precluding the perhaps 
 well-intended, though rather too frequent visits of 
 civility, in which there is generally more dissipation 
 at all stages of life than real compensation for the 
 waste of time, especially in the days of age. 
 
 ' In hopes, however, of being not entirely useless 
 as yet, whilst it pleases God to grant him life, most 
 of his present time (as not the least of his pleasures) 
 he allots to the instruction of a dutiful and appre- 
 hensive youth, the present companion of his retire- 
 ment.' 
 
 So lived, and so, on the 3ist August, 1772, 
 peacefully died, at Ludgvan, Cornwall's ' Nourice of 
 Antiquity,' Dr. William Borlase. He was buried 
 by the side of his wife, near the east end of his own 
 church, on the north side of the altar ; and his 
 executor inscribed on his unpretending monument 
 the words : 
 
 ' Perurbani, perhumani, perquam pii, 
 hujusce parochiae per annos LII. . 
 
 rectoris desideratissimi, 
 
 in republica necnon literaria versatissimi. 
 
 Loquuntur scripta, 
 
 testantur poster!.' 
 
 He had six sons, only two of whom survived him, 
 the Rev. John Borlase and the Rev. George Borlase, 
 Casuistical Professor and Registrar of the University 
 of Cambridge. His son Christopher, a sailor, died 
 of a fever on the coast of Guinea in 1749, and 
 appears to have inherited some of his father's artistic 
 skill.
 
 1 86 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 As an illustration of Borlase's ' method,' and of 
 his perfervid imagination when he got amongst his 
 native granite rocks, I have thought it would be 
 interesting to cull the following few notes from his 
 'Stilly Isles': 
 
 ' On a Carn adjoining the Giant's Castle,' he 
 observes, 'the floor, consisting only of one Rock, 
 must convince us that this Circle, was intended for 
 a place of Worship, for it could not serve for a 
 Sepulchre; but why the Quoits were hollowed out into 
 Basons (as they are placed in a Religious Circle] must 
 have been in some sort or other subservient to the 
 purposes of the Druid Superstition." As regards the 
 ' Rock Basons,' he goes on to say, ' My opinion con- 
 cerning the use of them you do not want to be 
 informed of ; I have always thought that they were 
 designed to receive in their utmost purity the waters 
 of the Heavens for holy uses ; but in such doubtful 
 cases let every man think for himself.' A little 
 further on, however, the worthy Doctor's theory as 
 to the extreme purity of the water is somewhat dis- 
 turbed by his finding some of them inconveniently 
 near the sea ; but he is equal to the occasion. 
 ' Though,' he says, ' the spray of the sea so near 
 them on every hand might well be supposed to fill 
 these Basons with salt water, yet I found the water 
 in them to be quite fresh.' Some of these were 
 actually under the sea-level ! 
 
 In another place, writing of tolmens, the Doctor 
 observes that, though their Cornish name, appro- 
 priately enough, signifies a holed stone, yet that was
 
 Rev. Dr. William Borlase, F.R.S. 187 
 
 not 'the true Druid name .... for the Druids 
 probably call'd it by the name of one of their Deities 
 as soon as it was ritually consecrated, and most 
 likely by that of Saturn.' 
 
 He is in doubt whether the furrows which he 
 noticed on certain rocks were channels on the sites 
 of the holy fires of the Druids, made in order to 
 enable the priests the better to collect the sacred 
 embers, or whether they were designed to collect the 
 blood of sacrificed victims for the purposes of divina- 
 tion. But he admits ' 'tis all mere conjecture.' 
 
 And again a ' canopy rock ' with a row of rude 
 stone pillars before it is a ' Druid Seat of Judgment ; 
 in fact, on Borlase's theory, the whole of the 
 Scilly Isles must have been thickly peopled with 
 Druids. 
 
 But as the writer in the Quarterly truly observes, 
 'The Druids have of late years been somewhat 
 rudely dismissed from the shade of their accustomed 
 oaks, and the rock-basons have been proved to be 
 simply the result of the weathering of the granite.'
 
 THE BOSCAWENS.
 
 THE BOSCAWENS. 
 
 NOVEL feature presents itself in this 
 case to the would-be historian which 
 does not appear, at least to so great an 
 extent, in the cases of certain other 
 distinguished Cornish families. The Killigrews, the 
 Arundells, the Godolphins, and the Grenvilles, for 
 instance, all yielded more than one man of mark 
 deserving of special notice; but this can hardly be 
 said of the family of Boscawen : the interest centres 
 in Admiral the Honourable Edward Boscawen, 
 almost to the exclusion of all his ancestors, and of 
 all his descendants. And he affords another instance, 
 like Opie, of being doubly secure of a niche in the 
 temple of Fame, from his own distinguished career, 
 as well as through the wit and distinguished social 
 qualities of his wife ; who, the writer regrets to add, 
 was not as the majority of her husband's ances- 
 tresses, and as those of most distinguished Cornish- 
 men were a Cornish-woman.
 
 192 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 It would probably be of little use now to speculate 
 upon the causes why the Boscawens, for at least 
 five centuries, continued to hold a well-recognised 
 position in the county, acquiring by their judicious 
 marriages into wealthy families vast landed interests 
 in various parts of Cornwall, but chiefly in the 
 vicinities of Buryan and Tregothnan and in the 
 north-western part of the county, doubtless holding 
 their own amongst their fellows, and doing what the 
 world would call their 'duty;' and yet contributing, 
 so far as I can ascertain, scarcely one person whose 
 name is to be found in the usual records of English 
 history until we reach the eighteenth century. 
 
 Yet it must be noted that the Boscawens are of 
 very old standing in Cornwall. Hals indeed tells us 
 that the first Boscawen who settled in Cornwall was 
 an Irish gentleman ; and Hals may be right ; for he 
 had peculiar facilities for learning the early traditions 
 of the family from the neighbourhood of Fenton- 
 gollan (the seat of the Halses) to Tregothnan, the 
 seat of the Boscawens ; and also from the fact that 
 one member of the family ' Hugh Boscawen, Gent., 
 Master of Arts,' as a labour of love, taught young 
 Hals, and many other youngsters, all that they 
 knew of Latin and Greek in an old school-house 
 in St. Michael Penkivel Church.* Nor was the 
 
 * It is somewhat singular that, notwithstanding the early and'close con- 
 nexion of the Boscawen family with this church, which is one of unusual 
 interest containing an oratory with a stone altar in the tower though 
 the Boscawen monuments here are numerous, yet there is no earlier 
 example than one to Hugh, who married a lady of the Carminow family, 
 and who died in 1559.
 
 The Boscawens. 193 
 
 Master of Arts the only member of the family who 
 dispensed information free of charge ; for Hals tells 
 us of a Charles Boscawen of Nansavallan who was 
 a barrister-at-law, 'and who made noe further use 
 thereof in his elder years then to councill and assist 
 his friends in all their lawe concerns gratis.' He 
 died in London, without issue ; and was Member of 
 Parliament for Truro, an ancient borough, with 
 which, as we shall see, the Boscawens were inti- 
 mately connected. 
 
 At Boscawen Rose, in the parish of St. Buryan, 
 within a few miles of the Land's End, where the 
 name is still found attached to places in the parish, 
 the first Boscawen is said to have exchanged his 
 Irish patronymic for that of the place where he 
 took up his abode, and which was probably well 
 enough described by its Cornish name, which signi- 
 fies the Valley of Elder-trees. It is interesting to 
 notice how many of these trees (much esteemed by 
 the old Cornish folk), and almost these alone, still 
 are to be found near the wind-whipped shores of the 
 Land's End.* 
 
 I find no record of the marriages of the first two or 
 three generations; but in the reign of Edward I. 
 (about 1292), Henry de Boscawen married Hawise 
 Trewoof ; and some half century later (1335) John 
 
 * Dr. Borlase mentions the high esteem in which the elder-tree was 
 held by the Cornu-Britons, and states, with reference to the height to 
 which it will reach under favourable circumstances, that Mr. Tonkin 
 was informed that one of these trees, nearly fifty feet high, was blown 
 down in Carhayes Park during a gale, about the year 1720. 
 
 VOL. I. 13
 
 194 Some Cornish. Worthies. 
 
 de Boscawen married an heiress, Joan de Tre- 
 gothnan,* thus establishing a connexion between 
 those two names, which has ever since been main- 
 tained ; for Tregothnan, ' the place of well-wooded 
 valleys,' is still the family seat : it is now the Cor- 
 nish residence of Evelyn Boscawen, sixth Viscount 
 Falmouth. The present house, a handsome struc- 
 ture, was built by the architect, W. Wilkins, jun., 
 about the year 1815, replacing a more picturesque 
 but smaller and less commodious building. 
 
 Intimate relations with the exquisitely wooded 
 banks of the Fal were still further established by 
 the marriage of the son of the aforesaid John 
 Boscawen of Tregothnan with another heiress, 
 named Joan, like his mother, who brought her 
 husband the wealth of the family of Albalanda or 
 Blanchland, in the parish of Kea, on the opposite 
 side of the river to Tregothnan ; a place where, 
 according to Lysons, copper was first successfully 
 worked in Cornwall. And, while on this subject, it 
 seems not unworthy of remark that the alliances 
 of the Boscawens and the Albalandas with the 
 families who resided on the Fal and its tributaries 
 were numerous. Rose Albalanda married a William 
 
 * According to Hals, the Buryan Boscawens also transplanted their 
 dwelling-places to Tregameer in St. Columb Major, and Trevallock in 
 Creed, or St. Stephen's, and from thence, by marriage with the 
 daughter and heir of Tregothnan, by Lawrence Boscawen, gentleman, 
 attorney-at-law, temp. Henry VII., who died 1567, and lies buried in 
 the north transept of St. Michael Penkivel Church, as is testified by a 
 brass inscription on his gravestone, there lately extant, upon which, on a 
 lead escutcheon, was engraved his paternal coat armour. He it was 
 who built the towers of old Tregothnan House.
 
 The Boscawens. 195 
 
 Dangrous of Carclew, in the fifth year of Edward 
 III. ; and the heiress of Trenowith, who married 
 Hugh Boscawen, a great grandson of the first- 
 named John, was herself the descendant of ancestors 
 called after Tolverne, Trewarthenick and Tregarrick 
 names which still belong to places on the shores 
 of the river, or hard by. Nor did the Boscawens 
 neglect to cultivate acquaintance and to intermarry 
 with other Cornish families who made more noise 
 in the world than those to whom we have been 
 referring ; for they and the Albalandas also married 
 with Arundell, Bassett, St. Aubyn, Lower, Godolphin, 
 Carminow, and Trevanion. 
 
 He who married Elizabeth St. Aubyn for his first 
 wife was one Richard Boscawen, who paid a fine of 
 five pounds rather than undergo the expensive cere- 
 mony of being made a Knight of the Bath at the 
 coronation of Henry VII., possibly because he was 
 an old man, and dreaded a long journey to the 
 metropolis, for he died four years afterwards, in 1489. 
 His grandson, Hugh, who by the way married 
 Phelip, a daughter of the fine old Cornish family of 
 Carminow, now extinct, paid a similar fine of four 
 marks at the coronation of Queen Mary ; for what 
 reason I know not. In the ' Bayliff of Blackmore ' 
 there is a long story of his being outwitted by a 
 family in Truro ; but the course pursued by these 
 Boscawens, as narrated in that curious MS., was not 
 unusual in those days. With the great-grandson 
 of the last-named Hugh, himself bearing the same 
 Christian name, commences, so far as I am aware, 
 
 132
 
 196 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 a more particular connexion of the family with the 
 ancient borough, now the city, of Truro, where the 
 principal street (formerly two streets, then bearing 
 other names, but now thrown into one) is still called 
 after them, ' Boscawen.' He was chosen Knight of 
 the Shire for Cornwall in 1626 ; and Edward, his fifth 
 son, who represented Tregony in Parliament, was one 
 of the leading members of the House of Commons, 
 temp. Charles II. This Hugh, who was ' Chief of 
 the Coat Armour' at the Heralds' Visitation of Corn- 
 wall in 1620, was likewise in that year Recorder of 
 the Borough. He had three sons: Hugh,* of whom 
 nothing seems to be known except that he married 
 a Clinton ; Edward, a rich Turkey merchant, who 
 was a Member of Parliament, temp. Charles II., 
 and died at Trefusis, a lovely place overlooking the 
 waters of Falmouth Harbour; and Nicholas, who 
 joined the Parliamentary army (a rare thing, by the 
 way, for a Cornish gentleman to do) with a troop 
 raised from among his own tenantry. But the 
 military career of Nicholas Boscawen (how termi- 
 nated I have not been able to ascertain) must have 
 been a short one ; for, when only twenty-two years of 
 age and unmarried, he was buried in Westminster 
 Abbey, whence his remains were removed some fifteen 
 years afterwards, at the Restoration, to be flung into 
 a common pit in St. Margaret's churchyard. 
 
 We now approach that part of the family history 
 
 * He must have been a wealthy man, for Davies Gilbert says that on 
 Hugh Boscawen's daughter Bridget's marriage with Hugh Fortescue 
 he gave her ^"100,000.
 
 The Boscawens. 197 
 
 when the individual members cannot be quite so 
 rapidly dismissed from notice. 
 
 The only son of Edward Boscawen (the Turkey 
 merchant) and Jael Godolphin was another Hugh; 
 who, like his father and uncles, seems to have been no 
 friend to the Stuarts, and to have assisted in bringing 
 to England William III. This no doubt explains his 
 being made Captain of St. Mawes Castle, Warden 
 of the Stannaries, Steward of the Duchy of Cornwall 
 in the room of Francis Godolphin, Viscount Rialton ; 
 Comptroller of the Household ; a Privy Councillor ; 
 and finally, in 1720, his being ennobled by the titles of 
 Baron Boscawen Rose and Viscount Falmouth. He 
 was also Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, a post which he 
 resigned the year of his death. He several times, 
 before gaining his title, sat for Cornwall in Parlia- 
 ment ; but gave up all his appointments except that of 
 Warden of the Stannaries, on the defeat of the 
 Excise Scheme. 
 
 Hugh Boscawen seems to have been quite carried 
 away by his political zeal, for he was foremost in 
 arresting, or trying to arrest, any, even of his old 
 friends, who were suspected of holding high monarch- 
 ical principles ; amongst whom may be named Sir 
 Richard Vyvyan, of Trelowarren, and, as we have 
 already seen,* Mr. Basset, of Tehidy. He died of an 
 apoplexy, at Trefusis, in 1734, having married, in 
 1700, Charlotte Godfrey, a niece of the great Duke of 
 Marlborough, by whom he had eighteen children, 
 eight sons and ten daughters. 
 
 * Sub. Basset.
 
 198 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 The second Viscount of the same name seems, 
 though of a kind and gentle disposition, not to have 
 possessed a very brilliant intellect. Davies Gilbert 
 tells the story of him that he is said to have mistaken 
 the phrase, ' Optat ephippia Bos,' for the Latin of 
 his own name ; and that he always confounded 
 Horace Walpole with the Roman poet whose name 
 is so familiar to us. Probably a somewhat unat- 
 tractive sort of man, for his wife often threatened, so 
 Mrs. Delany says, that she 'wou'd part with my lord.' 
 
 Yet he was not without shrewdness, and had 
 some political influence. Votes which overthrew Sir 
 Robert Walpole were carried against the Minister 
 by his losing the majority of the Scotch and Cornish 
 boroughs ; the latter of which were managed by 
 Lord Falmouth and Thomas Pitt. Indeed, the 
 second Viscount Falmouth, like so many others of 
 his contemporaries, was a great dealer in boroughs. 
 It is of him that Dodington tells the story, that he 
 went to the Minister to ask him a favour, which 
 the latter seemed unwilling to grant ; upon which 
 Lord Falmouth said, * Remember, sir, we are seven /' 
 And Dover says that Lord Cowper resigned the 
 Bedchamber on the ' Beefeaters ' being given to Lord 
 Falmouth : ' The latter, who is powerful in elections, 
 insisted on having it ; the other had nothing but a 
 promise from the King, which the Ministry had 
 already twice forced him to break.' 
 
 He was also Yeoman of the Guard to George II., 
 and in 1745, according to Chauncey, raised a regi- 
 ment at his own expense to serve against the Scotch
 
 The Boscawens. 199 
 
 rebels ; and he had such influence in Cornwall that 
 6,387 persons joined an association, the members 
 of which bound themselves to appear armed in 
 the best manner they could, under his command, 
 to defend the King and the Government. Mrs. 
 Thomson, in her * Memoirs of Viscountess Sandon,' 
 tells us how the second Viscount's wife, H. C. M. 
 Russell, nee Smith, was in desperate straits to get 
 herself appointed a Lady of the Bedchamber, and 
 wrote the most pressing letters to Mrs. Clayton on 
 the subject. In one she says that she could not sleep 
 a wink all night for thinking of it ! 
 
 His brother Nicholas went to Corpus Christi 
 College, Cambridge, took holy orders, and on the 
 Duke of Newcastle's visit to the University, as Chan- 
 cellor, was created a D.D. He was appointed a 
 King's Chaplain, and ' Dean ' of Buryan in 1756, 
 Rector of St. Mabyn and of St. Michael Penkivel in 
 1774, and a Prebendary of Westminster in 1777. The 
 only remarkable thing about him seems to have been 
 his appointment as ' Dean ' of Buryan, the exact 
 significance of which dignity it is difficult to discover, 
 though it is said that this 'Deanery' had jurisdiction 
 over three parishes, and the probate of wills therein, 
 and that there were three prebends attached to it ; it 
 is not uninteresting to note this tendency in a member 
 of the Boscawen family to ' hark back ' to their early 
 St. Buryan haunts.* His wife, Mrs. Hatton, was, I 
 believe, the widow of a linendraper in Newgate Street. 
 
 * According to Lysons, the Deanery of the royal chapel of St. Burian 
 was a dignity held immediately under the Crown, and in a Cartulary,
 
 2OO Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 There was another brother, John a Major-General 
 in the army; and the 4th son of the second Viscount, 
 the Hon. George Boscawen, was another military 
 member of the family ; he was present at the battles 
 of Dettingen and Fontenoy, and represented Truro 
 in Parliament from 1761 to 1764. His daughter, 
 Mary, maid-of-honour to the Princess Charlotte, 
 wrote a memoir of the Princess. 
 
 William Boscawen, younger son of the above 
 General George Boscawen, was educated at Eton, 
 where he became a great favourite of Dr. Barnard. 
 He became a Gentleman Commoner of Exeter Col- 
 lege, and on settling in London studied law under a 
 Cornish lawyer, Mr. Justice Buller, about 1770, and 
 went the Western Circuit. William Boscawen does 
 not appear to have taken his degree at Oxford ; but 
 Wordsworth, in his ' Scholae Academicae,' points 
 out that it was not unusual during the last century, 
 and at the commencement of the present, for gentle- 
 men intending for the law to leave the University 
 without taking a degree. He published two or three 
 law treatises, was a Commissioner in Bankruptcy, 
 
 2Oth Edw. I., the incumbent is called Dean of the King's Free Chapel 
 of St. Burian. He used to exercise an independent jurisdiction in all ec- 
 clesiastical matters within the parish and its immediate dependencies. 
 The three prebends belonging to the church of St. Burian were Pre- 
 benda Parva, Prebenda de Respermel and Prebenda de Tirthney; though 
 there may have possibly been a fourth, called Trethyn, a place in this 
 parish where there was once a chapel. The first-named Prebend was 
 in the gift of the Bishop ; the two others were annexed to the Deanery 
 of St. Burian. The ' Deanery ' has, however, ceased to be ; the three 
 parishes are separated, and there are now simply Rectors of St. Buryan, 
 St. Levan, and St. Sennen. (Cf. a paper on ' The Cornish Chantries ' 
 by Mr. H. Michell Whitley, in the Truro Diocesan Kalendar for 1882.)
 
 The Boscaivens. 201 
 
 and in 1785 he was made a Commissioner of the 
 Victualling Office. By his marriage with Charlotte 
 Ibbetson he had five daughters. He was much 
 attached to literary pursuits, and translated, first 
 the ' Odes,' * Epodes,' and ' Carmen Seculare ' of 
 Horace, then the ' Satires,' * Epistles,' and ' Art of 
 Poetiy ;' and in many respects his translation was 
 considered superior to Francis's. He was much in- 
 debted for his ' notes ' to Dr. Foster, of Eton College- 
 In 1801, he published some original poems and other 
 works. A friend who met him in the Strand a few 
 days before his death noticed that he was looking very 
 ill ; and on the 8th May, 1811, he died of asthma, at 
 Little Chelsea. He was of an affectionate and bene- 
 volent disposition ; and the Literary Fund he con- 
 sidered almost as his own child, writing the annual 
 verses for it till within five years of his death. 
 
 A contemporary critic says of his literary produc- 
 tions, that if in them ' he does not take a lead among 
 his contemporaries, he at least discovers an elegant 
 taste, a poetical mind, and a correct versification.' 
 ' Could his character be truly drawn, it would exhibit 
 a consummate picture of everything that is amiable 
 and estimable in human nature.' ' Incapable of being 
 an enemy, it was never known that he had one ; and 
 his friends were as numerous as his virtues.' 
 
 As a specimen of his powers as a translator, his 
 rendering of the well-known fifth ode of the ist Book 
 of Horace, will, I venture to think, compare, not 
 altogether unfavourably, with the productions of his 
 mightier predecessors in the task Milton and Cowley.
 
 202 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 ' What youth bedew'd with moist perfume 
 Courts thee, O Pyrrha ! graceful maid, 
 With neat simplicity array'd 
 In the sweet bower where roses bloom ? 
 
 ' For whom dost thou in ringlets form 
 Thy golden locks? Oft shall he wail 
 Thy truth, swift changing as the gale, 
 View the wild waves, and shudder at the storm. 
 
 ' Who now, all credulous and gay, 
 
 Enjoys thy smile ? on whose vain pride 
 Thy fickle favour shines untry'd, 
 . And soft, deceitful breezes play ? 
 
 My fate the pictur'd wreck displays ; 
 The dripping garments that remain 
 In mighty Neptune's sacred fane 
 Record my glad escape, my grateful praise.' 
 
 But a third brother of the second Viscount 
 Edward, the Admiral was destined to live in the 
 pages of history ; and of him I propose to treat more 
 at length at the conclusion of .this brief sketch of the 
 family generally, which now draws rapidly to a close. 
 
 George Evelyn, the Admiral's youngest son, was 
 the third Viscount, issue having failed through his 
 tw r o uncles, and George Evelyn's brothers having 
 died before the death .of their uncle, the second 
 Viscount. Of these brothers it may be observed, 
 that Edward Hugh,* the eldest, who was M.P. 
 for Truro, died abroad in 1774 ; and that William 
 Glanville, a youth of great promise, and an officer in 
 the navy, was drowned when eighteen years of age, 
 in 1769, whilst bathing at Port Royal, Jamaica. In 
 
 * His medallion portrait on his monument at St. Michael Penkivel, 
 was designed by his mother, and was sculptured by Nollekens.
 
 The Boscawens. 203 
 
 him, said Mrs. Delany, ' his father's (the Admiral's) 
 merit revived,' and he was 'the delight and glory of 
 the lives of his mother and sisters.' I hardly know 
 whether the following lines on his. death are from 
 Mrs. Delany's pen, or from his mother's : 
 
 ' Ah, William ! till thy hapless hour 
 
 Shall fade on mein'ry's pensive eye 
 The muse on Fate shall curses shower, 
 That doomed a youth like thee to die. 
 
 ' Though lost, alas ! thy lovely name 
 
 With incense shall the skies perfume ; 
 And ev'ry flower of fairest fame 
 
 Shall wish where William sleeps, to bloom. 
 
 ' Till Virtue seek her native sphere, 
 Till honour cease below to shine, 
 For thee shall Virtue drop the tear, 
 And Honour's envied praise be thine.' 
 
 There can, however, be little doubt that it was a 
 mother's pen which described him, on his cenotaph, 
 as that ' most lovely, most beloved youth.' 
 
 But to return to the surviving and youngest 
 brother, George Evelyn, who was destined to per- 
 petuate the title. He is said to have been very like 
 his mother, who describes herself as ' a little per- 
 sonage ;' and he must have inherited the talents of 
 both his parents, for he did remarkably well at 
 Winchester, and very early showed a determination 
 to follow in his illustrious father's footsteps by fight- 
 ing against the enemies of his country, notwith- 
 standing the wishes of his family to the contrary. 
 For the sum of 400 his mother at last unwillingly 
 procured for her ' poor little soldier,' as she termed
 
 204 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 him, an ensigncy in the 4th or King's. Own Regiment 
 of Foot ; and he, proceeding forthwith to America, 
 was soon after present at the battle of Lexington. 
 When Prince William Henry, afterwards William IV., 
 came into Falmouth harbour in the Hebe in 1785, he 
 was entertained at Tregothnan, and thence, under 
 Viscount Falmouth's guidance, visited all the Cornish 
 * lions.' On 25th October, 1787, Mrs. Boscawen 
 writes thus to Mrs. Delany : ' My son has been a 
 peacemaker in Cornwall, and was happy enough to 
 pacify near a thousand angry miners, who were 
 marching into Truro to pull their houses about their 
 ears ;' and here it may be noted that one of his 
 ancestors had performed a similar valuable public 
 service when the Hon. Hugh Boscawen, Lord- 
 Warden of the Stannaries of Cornwall and Devon, 
 presided over the Convocation of the twenty-four 
 Stannators, 20th February to 2Oth April, 1710, held in 
 the Coinage Hall, Truro; on which occasion, by a 
 judicious speech, he dispersed a mob of some 5,000 
 or 6,000 men, tinners and others, led by one Charles 
 Tregea, who had assembled to intimidate the Convo- 
 cation, and ' force them to a farm.' The object of 
 this Convocation was ' to keep up the price of tin, 
 and to confirm the laws, customs, and constitutions 
 of the Stannaries ;' but it led to no satisfactory result. 
 The third Viscount's two sisters married well 
 one, Frances, gained for her husband the Hon. John 
 Leveson Gower, Secretary to the Admiralty ; and the 
 other, Elizabeth, secured Henry, fifth Duke of 
 Beaufort an affair which does not seem to have
 
 The Boscawens. 205 
 
 altogether satisfied that family. Her mother writes 
 to Mrs. Delany, that the Beauforts were not par- 
 ticularly well pleased with the match ; * And yet, 
 my dear madam,' says the sprightly Admiral's 
 widow, 'does not Admiral Boscawen's daughter, 
 with "10,000 now, and at least 5 (i.e. "5,000) more 
 by-and-by, with many excellent wife-like qualities, 
 and no faults that ever they heard of, deserve some 
 gentler welcome, especially as nobody asks anything of 
 them ?' The Duke seems to have made the Cornish 
 lassie a most devoted and affectionate husband. 
 
 George Evelyn Boscawen was succeeded in the title 
 by his son, Edward, fourth Viscount and first Earl 
 of Falmouth. He was an officer in the Coldstream 
 Guards, and, like so many other members of his family, 
 Recorder of Truro the last who filled that office. 
 He was the second of Lord Winchelsea in his 
 famous duel with the Duke of Wellington, fought 
 on Wimbledon Common in March, 1829, when the 
 Duke fired and missed, and Lord Winchelsea then 
 fired in the air and apologized. This nobleman re- 
 built Tregothnan House, near the site of an older and 
 picturesque mansion, in which might have been seen 
 many carved stones from the old tower and chapel 
 at Fentongollan ; and he made the famous drive to it 
 from Tresilian Bridge, an undertaking the result of 
 which he is said to have always contemplated with 
 much satisfaction. His son, George Henry, fifth 
 Viscount, and second and last Earl, died unmarried in 
 1852, fourteen years after his father. He was a 
 man of considerable ability, taking, in 1832, a first-
 
 206 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 class at Oxford ; and he was one of the best amateur 
 violinists of his day. As we have said, with him 
 the earldom lapsed. His 'cousin Evelyn succeeded 
 him as sixth Viscount, and has been one of the 
 most distinguished patrons of the turf, as well as a 
 most fortunate owner of race-horses, having, as I 
 am informed, won the Derby, the St. Leger, and the 
 Two Thousand Guineas twice, and the Oaks and the 
 One Thousand Guineas four times each ; besides 
 other important races. 
 
 ADMIRAL THE RIGHT HON. EDWARD 
 BOSCAWEN. 
 
 f My lov'd Boscawen dead ! 'tis all a lye 
 Fame's trumpet sounds " He cannot, shall not die 
 At Lagos still triumphant he survives, 
 And still at Louisbourg immortal lives." ' 
 
 Gentleman's Magazine, Jan., 1761. 
 
 ' A great Admiral." 
 
 PITT. 
 
 THE foregoing sketch of the history of the Bos- 
 cawens seemed desirable in order to give the reader 
 some idea of the sources from which Pitt's ' great 
 Admiral' sprang, and to serve as a background to 
 the family picture in which his figure is the most 
 prominent. We have seen that the Boscawens 
 were an ancient, wealthy, and not altogether un- 
 distinguished group of Cornishmen ; and have noted 
 that their seat had for ages been on the banks of that 
 sylvan river which empties its waters into the once
 
 Admiral Boscawen. 207 
 
 renowned Falmouth Haven. Here Edward Bos- 
 cawen, third son of the first Viscount, was born on 
 the igth August, 1711 ; and, notwithstanding the 
 absence (so far as I am aware) of any published 
 details concerning the childhood and youth of the 
 illustrious sailor, except the fact of his quaint humour 
 in imitating the gestures of an old servant till he 
 himself contracted a constant habit of carrying his 
 head slightly on one side* there can be little doubt, 
 I think, that a good deal of the young sea-dog's 
 leisure was spent on, or in, the Fal, which washes 
 the shores of his ancestral woods and glades. 
 We know, indeed, that he entered the navy whilst 
 very young (when only twelve years old, so Campbell 
 says), and this suggests the idea that the future 'old 
 Dreadnought ' may have found the limits of the 
 sequestered Tregothnan estate and the quiet life led 
 there incompatible with the high spirits which a lad 
 of his quality must undoubtedly have possessed. In 
 other words, we can but believe that he was a born 
 sailor, and that he merited, from the first, another of 
 his sobriquets, derived from the heroic contempt of 
 danger which he manifested throughout his life 
 ' the brave Boscawen.' He no doubt expected that, 
 in accordance with the practice of a century and a 
 half ago, through family interest he would very 
 shortly obtain his lieutenancy, when an order was 
 suddenly and unexpectedly issued, subjecting all 
 
 * He is so depicted in his portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds in our 
 National Portrait Gallery. There are numerous engraved portraits of 
 him in the Print Room of the British Museum.
 
 208 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 midshipmen to at least six years' service. * To this 
 order,' Boscawen used to say, ' I owe all my know- 
 ledge of seamanship.' At any rate, the new regula- 
 tion did not change his views, nor prevent many 
 other Cornish youngsters from entering the navy 
 and serving under an officer who was as fond of 
 having them about him as they were of sailing under 
 his command. Amongst such may be named the 
 Hon. George Edgcumbe,* afterwards Admiral of 
 the White, who commanded the Lancaster of seventy 
 guns at the famous siege of Louisbourg (of which 
 we shall hear more by-and-by); and Admiral Sir 
 Richard Spry, who commanded a similar ship, the 
 Oxford, on that occasion. 
 
 And here it should be remembered how different 
 in many respects is the position of the modern 
 British sailor true Briton as he still is, and is 
 proving himself to be at Alexandria even whilst I 
 write these lines from the traditional sailor of 
 Boscawen's days. Now, most of the sailors' work 
 in our steam iron-clads is done on deck or below; 
 but, at the period of which we are about to consider 
 some episodes, the larger proportion certainly the 
 more difficult was performed aloft. In weather of 
 all sorts ' there were dead-eyes to turn in, there were 
 chafing gear to look after, reef-points to knot, masts to 
 stay, studding-sail gear to reeve, and the like.' Then 
 the wild excitement of going aloft to shorten sail in 
 stormy weather ! The old songs at the reef-tackles, 
 the flapping of the canvas, the springing into the 
 
 * Edgcumbe took home the Admiral's despatches in the Shannon.
 
 Admiral Boscawen. 209 
 
 shrouds, and the helter-skelter race for the weather- 
 earing unless, indeed, the iron-hard pressure of the 
 gale pinned you against the shrouds as if you had 
 been a spread-eagle. In work of this sort the 
 English tars were always pre-eminent, and one 
 can easily believe that the Admiral accordingly had 
 a thoroughly hearty contempt for the unsailor-like 
 character of the French crews. Of one he said 
 he ' never saw so bad a crew on salt water before ; 
 there were not twenty men on board who could go 
 aloft.'* Those, too, were days not only of rough 
 work, but also of rough-and-ready fighting; and 
 Boscawen's motto, like that of Hawke,t his illus- 
 trious contemporary and rival, was always, ' Strike.* 
 One night Boscawen's lieutenant came to him, and 
 awoke him, saying that they had fallen in with 
 three ships of the enemy. ' What shall we do ? ' 
 * Why, fight 'em, to be sure !' said Boscawen ; and, 
 dashing up on deck in his night shirt, he soon com- 
 
 * Yet the French ships were in many respects better than the 
 English; Professor Montagu Burrows (Captain R.N.) considers that an 
 English yo-gun ship of the line was then not more than equal to a 
 French 52. Many of the vessels were absolutely rotten, and the 
 provisioning was grossly mismanaged. The officers too, it is said, were 
 often found combining prudence with valour in somewhat un-English 
 proportions. 
 
 f ' Hawke's grandfather (says Professor Burrows), a London merchant, 
 had, like his ancestors for many generations, been settled at Treriven or 
 Treraven (? Raven on the one-inch ordnance map, near the interesting 
 old house of Trebasil), in the parish of St. Cleather, in Cornwall, about 
 half-way between Launceston and Tintagel Head. Cornwall thus has 
 the honour of having produced the two greatest admirals of the period, 
 Hawke and Boscawen.' I did not myself venture to claim Hawke as a 
 Cornishman, inasmuch as his father, a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, settled 
 at Bocking in Norfolk. 
 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 2io Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 pelled the enemy to sheer off. It was from this 
 action that he is said to have acquired the name of 
 Old Dreadnought. On another occasion he took 
 off his wig, and with it stopped a leak in his boat, 
 which was rapidly sinking. 
 
 As we have seen, he was the third son of the first 
 Viscount Falmouth, and was called Edward after his 
 grandfather. His grandmother, Jael, was of the fine 
 old Cornish stock of Godolphin, and his mother 
 was Charlotte Godfrey, a niece of the great Duke of 
 Marlborough, not a natural daughter (as Hals says) 
 of James II., by Arabella Churchill, but her eldest 
 daughter, by Colonel Charles Godfrey, Master of 
 the Jewel Office, whom she had subsequently mar- 
 ried; so that he seems to have had royal as well -as 
 good fighting blood in his veins, some of which he 
 was destined to shed for his country. I do not 
 know at what date he received his lieutenant's com- 
 mission ; probably it was on being appointed to 
 the Hector in 1732 ; but on the I2th March, 1737, 
 when not quite twenty-six years old, he was ap- 
 pointed captain 'of the Leopard, a fourth-rate of 
 fifty guns. On the outbreak of the war with Spain, 
 he was transferred to the Shoreham of twenty guns, 
 and was sent to cruise off Jamaica. Unfortunately, 
 when Admiral Vernon determined, in November, 
 1740, on attacking Porto Bello (a place which 
 Columbus had discovered and named in 1562, and 
 which had once before succumbed to a British 
 Admiral, Sir Francis Drake, in 1596), the Shoreham 
 was found to be unfit for action ; but Boscawen
 
 Admiral Boscawen. 211 
 
 would not be deprived of this chance of seeing 
 some active service, so he sailed as a volunteer, and 
 so far distinguished himself at the easy capture of 
 the place for the garrison was on a peace footing, 
 and the British lost only seven men that he was 
 entrusted with the duty of superintending the demoli- 
 tion of the fortifications. 
 
 Rejoining the Shoreham, which had now been 
 thoroughly overhauled, we next hear of him, in 
 March, 1740-41, at the siege of Carthagena, the 
 chief port in New Granada, again under Admiral 
 Vernon, who is described as a man of fair abilities, 
 but of harsh overbearing temper; one of those 
 naval heroes of whom Byron sourly says in his ' Don 
 Juan :' 
 
 ' They filled their sign -posts then like Wellesley now.' 
 
 Here again he gathered laurels, and attracted con- 
 siderable notice by what Campbell describes as his 
 ' quick-sighted judgment and intrepid valour,' com- 
 manding a detachment of 300 sailors and 200 soldiers, 
 and storming a fascine battery on Boca Chica, which 
 had much galled General Wentworth, and held our 
 forces in check. 
 
 Campbell thus describes Boscawen's part in the 
 affair, which reminds us of the recent gallant rush on 
 Tel-el- Kebir :* 
 
 * Pushing forward with a strength equal to their 
 
 * It is extremely gratifying to record that on that glorious morning 
 scions of distinguished Cornish families were present a Boscawen and 
 a St. Aubyn viz., the eldest son of the present Viscount Faltnouth, and 
 the second son of the present Sir John St. Aubyn, Bart. 
 
 142
 
 212 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 animation, they soon climbed the entrenchments, 
 and entering the embrasures in the face of a con- 
 tinued fire, and on the very muzzles of the guns, 
 they drove the enemy from the works with consider- 
 able slaughter ; and after spiking the cannon and 
 burning the platforms, together with the gun- 
 carriages, guard-house, and magazine, Boscawen 
 led off his detachment in order, and returned to the 
 fleet with six wounded prisoners. The Spaniards, 
 fully sensible of the support which this battery had 
 afforded them, were indefatigable in their endeavours 
 to repair it; and having in a few days so far suc- 
 ceeded as to be able to bring six guns to bear upon 
 the English fleet, Boscawen was again ordered to 
 reduce it, but in a manner which exposed him less to 
 personal danger than in the service in which it was 
 before deemed expedient to employ him. He was 
 directed to proceed with his own ship, the Shoreham, 
 together with the Princess Amelia and the Lichfield, 
 as close inshore as the depth of the water would 
 admit them (a dangerous enterprise in consequence 
 of the difficulties of the navigation here), to anchor 
 abreast of the battery, and to bring the ships' broad- 
 sides to bear upon it ; whilst, on the other hand, 
 a detachment of seamen, under the command of 
 Captains Watson, Cotes, and Dennis, were at the 
 same time to storm it. These measures, taken with 
 so much skill and prudence, would in all probability 
 have ensured the success of the attack ; but the 
 Spaniards, intimidated by the formidable appearance
 
 Admiral Boscawen. 213 
 
 of the assailants, abandoned the battery without firing a 
 shot.' 
 
 But the place was too strongly fortified ; and the 
 siege of Carthagena was soon after raised (a circum- 
 stance which, by the way, tended to hasten the 'fall 
 of Walpole). Yet before Boscawen left he was again 
 employed, as at Porto Bello, to rase the different forts 
 which the English had taken on the neighbouring 
 coast; and, whilst engaged on this service, was 
 appointed to the Prince Frederick, of 70 guns, on 
 the death of Lord Aubrey Beauclerk, who gallantly 
 fell at Boca Chica. 
 
 Clinton observes that the siege lasted from January 
 to 24th April, 1741 ; and that as the surf prevented 
 a bombardment from the sea, it was determined to 
 make a lodging on Boca Chica, in order to reduce the 
 fort there. The long-standing jealousy between the 
 navy and the army was, he thinks, the cause of the 
 failure of the siege. However that may be, three 
 thousand men were lost by assaults and sickness ; 
 and the fleet returned to Jamaica. 
 
 On the I4th May, 1742, Boscawen reached home, 
 or rather St. Helen's, Isle of Wight, bringing advices 
 of Admiral Vernon's having sailed on a fresh expedi- 
 tion, which unfortunately proved abortive. But this 
 year was memorable in his life for other than warlike 
 exploits ; for its close witnessed his marriage with 
 the graceful, sprightly, and accomplished Frances 
 Evelyn Glanville, of St. Clere, Kent ; a lady suffi- 
 ciently distinguished in her day to claim, as a 
 Cornishman's wife, the notice which I have ventured
 
 214 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 to append to this sketch of the Admiral, her hus- 
 band, whose epitaph, glowing with eloquence, she 
 was destined to write. 
 
 In the year that he married he was elected Mem- 
 ber for Truro. And here it may be observed that 
 the gallant naval officer was always extremely 
 popular in his native county. One account states 
 that he was ' positively adored ' by the people, and 
 that they insisted on sending him to Parliament as 
 their representative, notwithstanding his reluctance 
 to serve, on account of one member of his family 
 being already there namely, his father in the 
 House of Peers. Again, in 1747 he was elected for 
 both Saltash (another old Cornish borough) and 
 Truro ; but he decided on maintaining his political 
 connexion with the latter. 
 
 The next few months of his life would seem to 
 have passed without any events of public interest 
 occurring ; but, early in 1744, war, arising out of the 
 assistance given by the French to the Young Pre- 
 tender's ill-starred descent upon England, broke out 
 with France ; and Boscawen was made Captain of 
 the Dreadnought, of 60 guns. With her he very soon 
 after captured the Medea, a French frigate of 26 guns 
 and 240 men, commanded by a M. Hocquart whom 
 in the course of our history we shall twice meet 
 again as Boscawen's prisoner. This was the first 
 prize taken in the war. For some time he continued 
 doing what may be called home duty cruising in 
 the Channel, sitting on courts-martial, and acting 
 as Commodore on board the Royal Sovereign, at the
 
 Admiral Boscawen. 215 
 
 Nore. Whilst acting in the latter capacity it fell 
 within his province to send out several of the newly- 
 pressed men as they were brought to him in com- 
 pany with some experienced seamen, in frigates and 
 small vessels, to guard the mouths of many of the 
 minor creeks and rivers along the shores of Kent 
 and Sussex. 
 
 In January, 1746, he was appointed to the Namur, 
 formerly of 90 guns, but afterwards reduced to a 
 third-rate ; and in November of that year, being 
 in command of a small squadron at the mouth of the 
 Channel, he captured two prizes one a large priva- 
 teer from St. Malo, the other a despatch-boat from 
 M. De Jonquiere (the commander of the French 
 fleet on the American station), with advices of the 
 death of the Due D'Anville, and of the consequent 
 failure of the expedition under that officer's com- 
 mand. 
 
 We now approach the time when he was to re- 
 ceive his first wound of consequence, and to perform 
 one of the most gallant and self-denying exploits of 
 his brave career a deed so daring and so brilliantly 
 successful as to excite the jealousy of Anson, his 
 superior officer, and thus to lay the foundation of an 
 ill-feeling between those two gallant seamen which, it 
 is to be feared, can be traced throughout their lives. 
 
 In 1747, whilst commanding a line-of-battle ship 
 in the fleet intended for America, under Admirals 
 Anson and Vernon, he was present at the gallant 
 action of the 3rd May, off Cape Finisterre. ' Here,' 
 says Campbell, ' Boscawen signalized himself equally
 
 216 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 by his heroism and his judgment. The French 
 fleet, having got the weather-gage, kept up a con- 
 stant and well-directed fire on the English ships as 
 they turned to windward to form the line abreast 
 of the enemy. But Boscawen, perceiving that our 
 ships would thereby be disabled before their guns 
 could be brought to bear upon the French line, and 
 his ship being a very superior sailer to any of the 
 rest, and being, besides, the leading ship of the van, 
 pressed forward with a crowd of sail, received himself 
 .the greatest part of the enemy's fire, and singly 
 maintained the conflict until the remainder of the 
 fleet came up to his support ; by which daring but 
 judicious manoeuvre he principally contributed to the 
 success with which on that day the British arms 
 were crowned.* On this occasion he was severely 
 wounded in the shoulder by .a musket-ball. His 
 country, however, was not long deprived of his 
 services by this misfortune, from the effects of which 
 ' he recovered in a few weeks.' At Finisterre all 
 the French ships, ten in number, were taken, in- 
 cluding the Diamant, of 56 tons, commanded by M. 
 Hocquart, who thus became, for the second time, 
 Boscawen's prisoner. 
 
 Shortly after being made Rear-Admiral of the 
 Blue, he was invested with a command which shows 
 the remarkable estimation in which he was held by the 
 
 * Walpole has pointed out, in his ' Memoirs of the last Ten Years of 
 George II.,' how the reserved and proud Anson, ' who had been round 
 the world, but never in it,' had carried off all the glory of the victory at 
 Cape Finisterre, though Boscawen had done the service. In this view 
 Professor Burrows concurs.
 
 Admiral Boscawen. 217 
 
 Government, receiving, as he did, a commission from 
 the King as Admiral and Commandant of a squadron 
 of six ships of the line and five frigates, with 2,000 
 soldiers on board, ordered for the East Indies ; and 
 also as General and Commander-in-Chief of the land 
 forces employed in the expedition ' the only in- 
 stance, except that of the Earl of Peterborough, of 
 any officer having received such a command since 
 the reign of Charles II.' Yet, such were his tact 
 and personal character, that no ill-feeling arose on 
 the part of the troops thus placed under his com- 
 mand in fact, as an officer, quoted by Campbell, 
 quaintly says, ' the Admiral, by his genteel be- 
 haviour, gained the love of the land officers, and 
 never was greater harmony among all degrees of 
 men than in this expedition ;' notwithstanding which 
 it failed in effecting the main objects which it had in 
 view, viz. the capture of Pondicherry, and the attack 
 on Port Louis, Mauritius, en route thither. He sailed 
 from St. Helen's on the 4th November, 1747 ; but 
 owing to bad weather and contrary winds, did not 
 reach the Cape of Good Hope till the 2gth March, 
 1748 ; and here he remained a short time to refresh 
 his jaded crews. 
 
 The difficulties of the landing at Port Louis, and 
 the strength of the batteries by which it was de- 
 fended, were such as to triumph over even the genius 
 and courage of Boscawen; and after vain though 
 most strenuous search for a practicable landing-place, 
 the Admiral called a council of war, at which it was 
 determined that a small boat-party should land
 
 2i8 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 during the night with a view to capturing (if possible) 
 at least one man of the enemy, from whom they 
 might obtain information as to the numbers and 
 situation of the French forces. This ingenious 
 attempt, however, failed ; and at a second council of 
 war it was agreed that the attack on Port Louis, 
 even if it succeeded (which was doubtful), would 
 necessitate the leaving behind so large a force to 
 occupy the place, that it would imperil the chances of 
 capturing Pondicherry, the principal object of the ex- 
 pedition ; and to this it may be added that Boscawen 
 had lost many of his men from their eating a poison- 
 ous fish called the vieille, at the island of Roderique. 
 They accordingly sailed at once for Fort St. David, 
 near Pondicherry, which place they reached on the 
 2gth July ; and here Boscawen took over the com- 
 mand, from Admiral Griffin, of what had now be- 
 come the largest ' marine force belonging to any one 
 European nation that had ever been seen in the 
 Indian seas.' Boscawen marched forward with his 
 army on the 8th of August, and opened the trenches 
 on the 27th. But his men rapidly grew sick in that un- 
 wholesome climate ; his chief engineer was killed ; the 
 monsoons were shortly expected. It was found that 
 the garrison far outnumbered the besiegers, and, 
 ' everything having been done which gallantry and 
 perseverance could perform,' writes Walpole, on 
 the 6th October it was finally determined to raise 
 the siege.* And a gale, on I4th April, 1749, arose, 
 
 * Pondicherry (or Puducheri) as it is called by the natives, seems to 
 have had a somewhat chequered history. It was purchased by the
 
 A dmiral Boscawen. 219 
 
 which seems to have been the main cause of the un- 
 successful termination of the whole expedition the 
 Admiral's flag-ship, the Namur, foundered ; the 
 Pembroke and the Apollo (hospital ship) were also 
 lost, together with a very large proportion of their 
 crews. Providentially, our Admiral and General 
 was on shore at the time. 
 
 Not long afterwards peace was declared at Aix- 
 la-Chapelle, and Boscawen had, at least, the gratifi- 
 cation of having Madras delivered up to him. 
 
 In April, 1750, he returned to England in the 
 Exeter, to find that during his absence he had been 
 appointed Rear- Admiral of the White ; and addi- 
 tional honours soon after fell to his lot. In 1751 he 
 was made a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty, 
 and at the Board's meetings found many oppor- 
 tunities of falling foul of his old foe, Anson, whom 
 he always suspected, perhaps without sufficient 
 cause, of having sent him on what the former knew 
 from the beginning would be the fruitless expedition 
 to Pondicherry. This suspicion, however, would 
 seem to be confirmed by a letter from Walpole to 
 Mann, dated 3ist January, 1750, in which the writer 
 says that Boscawen was unfortunate during the 
 
 French, from the King of Benjapore, in 1672 ; it was taken from them 
 by the Dutch in 1693, who considerably enlarged the town and fortifi- 
 cations. At the Treaty of Ryswick it was restored to France ; in 1748 
 it was, as we have seen, unsuccessfully besieged by Boscawen ; but in 
 1761, after a long, tedious blockade, it was captured by Coote. At the 
 Peace of 1763 it was again restored to France ; in 1778 it was once 
 more surrendered to England, and finally it was delivered up to France 
 in 1783, to become the capital of the French Settlements in India.
 
 22O Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 whole expedition (East Indies), and that Anson sent 
 him upon it ' on purpose to ruin him . . . upon slight 
 intelligence, and upon improbable views.' A jealousy, 
 as we have seen, had previously arisen between the 
 two Admirals over the Cape Finisterre affair, when 
 Boscawen complained loudly of Anson's behaviour. 
 In July, 1751, he was made an Elder Brother of 
 the Trinity House ; and in May, 1754, he was, for 
 the third time, chosen to represent in the House of 
 Commons his old borough of Truro, between which 
 and himself there had existed so long and friendly a 
 connexion ; and now, ' for want of something better 
 to do,' as one of his biographers insinuates, he 
 became a zealous politician. 
 
 In 1755 he was made Vice-Admiral of the Blue ; 
 and, the French beginning to display ambitious 
 projects in America, Boscawen was despatched from 
 Spithead on igth April, with a strong fleet, to 
 frustrate their designs. The French Admiral was 
 M. Bois de la Motte, and he had a large and powerful 
 armament of twenty-five ships of the line, and other 
 vessels, together with a train of artillery, etc., etc. 
 Boscawen's force consisted of eleven sail and a frigate, 
 together with two regiments of infantry. He was, 
 however, afterwards reinforced by six ships of the 
 line and another frigate under the command of Rear- 
 Admiral Holbourne. The English ships waited for 
 the Frenchmen off Cape Ray, Newfoundland ; but in 
 a fog the French Admiral eluded his antagonists, 
 and contrived to get his ships (with two exceptions) 
 into harbour. These two ships Boscawen cap-
 
 Admiral Boscawen, 221 
 
 tured on the loth June, after a gallant engagement 
 of five hours. They contained 80,000 in specie, a 
 large number of French officers, and altogether 
 1,500 prisoners. The two French ships were the 
 Alcide and Lys (each of 64 guns), which were taken 
 by the Defiance and the Dunkirk. Again Boscawen 
 took the first French ships during the war; and 
 again found his old acquaintance, M. Hocquart, on 
 board one of them, who thus for the third time 
 became the British Admiral's prisoner of war. The 
 story of the action is thus graphically told by Lord 
 Mahon : 
 
 ' Only the day before King George III. embarked 
 at Harwich (for his usual summer residence at his 
 beloved Hanover, notwithstanding the strong feeling 
 which existed against his leaving the kingdom at so 
 critical a time) Admiral Boscawen, with eleven ships 
 of the line and two regiments on board, set sail from 
 Portsmouth. His orders were to follow a large 
 French armament which had recently b'een equipped 
 at Brest, and to attack it if designed for the Bay of 
 St. Lawrence. A thick fog off Newfoundland con- 
 cealed the rival fleets from each other; but two 
 English ships, the first commanded by Captain 
 (afterwards Lord) Howe, came within speech of two 
 French ships. The foreign commandant inquired if 
 it was war or peace. Howe replied that he must 
 wait for his Admiral's signal, but that he advised 
 the Frenchman to prepare for war. Ere long ap- 
 peared Boscawen's signal for engaging; Howe 
 attacked, and after an engagement, in which he
 
 222 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 displayed equal skill and intrepidity, succeeded in 
 taking the two French ships the A Icide and the Lys. 
 The rest of the French armament eight or nine 
 ships of the line got safe into the harbour of 
 Louisbourg; and their safety caused as great dis- 
 appointment in England as the capture of their 
 consorts irritation in France. The French Am- 
 bassador in London, M. de Mirepoix, was recalled at 
 these tidings, yet still there was not on either side a 
 formal declaration of war.' 
 
 On the 1 5th November, Boscawen returned to 
 England with his prizes and his prisoners, and 
 anchored at Spithead. 
 
 In the following year, 1756, he commanded the 
 squadron in the Bay of Quiberon, stationed there 
 for the purpose of watching the French fleet ; but, 
 so far as I am aware, was engaged in no important 
 active service on that occasion. His leisure, how- 
 ever, gave him an opportunity of showing the 
 interest he took in the welfare of his men, as well as 
 his resource in alleviating the tedium of their un- 
 occupied time, by setting them to work to cultivate a 
 barren island, and converting it into a fruitful garden, 
 whose produce was an extremely welcome adjunct 
 to the invariable salt junk and biscuit of those days. 
 Promotions, however, came, and he was made, at 
 short intervals, successively Vice-Admiral of the 
 White and of the Red. 
 
 But the year 1758 proved more eventful for our 
 hero; and is perhaps the most memorable in his
 
 Admiral Boscawen. 223 
 
 annals, for it witnessed his gallant attack and capture 
 of Louisbourg 'once mistress of the seas,' and 'the 
 key to French America,' but now consisting of a 
 few fishermen's huts and some moss-covered ruins. 
 This event directly led to the conquest of Canada. 
 
 On the 28th of May, being now full Admiral, he 
 sailed from his old starting-point, St. Helen's. And 
 here it may be well, in order to understand the im- 
 portance of the service on which Boscawen was now 
 engaged, to take a rapid glance at the general 
 position of affairs. 
 
 In 1758 there was war in each of the four 
 quarters of the globe. England was triumphing 
 over the Gallic power in India, and over its settle- 
 ments on the western shores of Africa. And Pitt, 
 having decided on dealing a blow at the French in 
 North America, planned an expedition for the con- 
 quest of Cape Breton and St. John's. Disregarding 
 the old principles of selecting for the command 
 officers whose chief recommendation was their 
 family connexions or their political influence, he 
 selected General (afterwards Lord) Amherst to com- 
 mand the army, and Boscawen to be the head of 
 the fleet. The armament (says Lord Mahon) 
 assembled at Halifax, and consisted of 150 sail and 
 12,000 soldiers. On 2nd June it came to anchor 
 within seven miles of Louisbourg, the capital of 
 Cape Breton. The land-defences of this place had 
 been carefully strengthened by the French, in 
 expectation of the attack; five ships of the line 
 were drawn up in the harbour, and the garrison,
 
 224 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 soldiers and marines together, exceeded 6,000 men. 
 It was with much difficulty, and after stout resistance, 
 that the English effected their landing. Wolfe (who 
 had attracted Pitt's notice by his behaviour before 
 Rochefort) was the first to spring from the boats 
 into the raging surf, and cheer on his soldiers to the 
 charge. . During the whole siege his ardour and 
 activity were equally conspicuous.* The conduct 
 of General Amherst also deserves high praise ; and 
 the most cordial co-operation another proof how 
 judiciously the chiefs had been chosen prevailed 
 between himself and Admiral Boscawen. For the 
 besieged, they kept up their fire with much spirit, 
 and attempted several sallies ; but before the close 
 of July, many of their cannon being dismounted, 
 and divers practicable breaches made in the walls, 
 . they were compelled to capitulate. The garrison 
 became prisoners of war, and were transported to 
 England. Besides the ships captured in the harbour, 
 a large amount of stores and ammunition was found 
 in the place. Wolfe was on this occasion second 
 in command to Amherst; and Clinton, too, notes that 
 * for almost* the first time in a mixed expedition 
 there was perfect accord between all ranks of both 
 services: Boscawen, Amherst, and Wolfe concerted 
 all measures without jealousy, and an eye-witness 
 records that " the soldiers worked like horses, making 
 the roads, and drawing up the cannon, while the 
 sailors went and lent a hand to build up the 
 batteries." ' The whole island of Cape Breton sub- 
 
 * Here, too, Cook, the circumnavigator, won his first laurels.
 
 Admiral Boscawen. 225 
 
 mitted, on the fall of its capital; and the island of St. 
 John's followed the fate of Cape Breton, being 
 occupied by Colonel Lord Rollo with a detachment 
 of troops. Eleven pairs of French colours taken 
 during the siege were, by his Majesty's command, 
 carried in procession, with kettle-drums and 
 trumpets sounding, from Kensington Palace to St. 
 Paul's Cathedral, and deposited there amidst a 
 salute of cannon and other public demonstrations 
 of triumph. They were received by the Dean and 
 Chapter, and put up near the west door of the 
 Cathedral, whilst the guns of the Tower and St. 
 James's Park thundered out their victorious 
 salutes. Sir Henry Ellis, in his edition (1818) of 
 Dugdale's ' St. Paul's,' says that, of the flags and 
 banners hung inside the nave and round the dome, 
 the oldest were those taken at Louisbourg. Nor 
 were the rejoicings confined to London ; a great 
 number of other towns and corporations lighted 
 bonfires in the streets, and sent addresses of con- 
 gratulation to the King ; and a form of prayer and 
 thanksgiving for the victory was read in all the 
 churches in England. 
 
 Among the many brilliant exploits of the British 
 navy during the year 1758 during which period we 
 captured or destroyed 16 French men-of-war, 49 
 privateers, and 104 merchant ships, besides 176 
 neutral ships seized as laden with French colonial 
 produce or military stores Boscawen's share was 
 as we have seen, conspicuous. 
 
 It was not until the ist of November that our 
 VOL. i. 15
 
 226 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 Admiral returned, with four of his ships, to St. 
 Helen's, having, on the way home, fallen in with six 
 French ships off the Scilly Islands, of which, how- 
 ever, he was unable to give his usual good account, 
 as they sailed much faster than his. He neverthe- 
 less managed to disable one of them, the Belliqueux, 
 and drove her up the Bristol Channel, where she was 
 secured by the Antelope. 
 
 The following 6th of December was a proud day 
 for the victorious naval hero ; for, in his place in 
 Parliament, he received the thanks of the House 
 of Commons. In the course of Speaker Onslow's 
 address conveying the thanks of the House, he 
 declared himself ' unable to enumerate and set 
 forth the great and extensive advantages accruing 
 to this nation from the conquest of Louisbourg, 
 with the islands of Cape Breton and St. John,' and 
 described the vote of thanks as ' a national honour 
 from a free people, ever cautiously conferred, in order 
 to be the more esteemed, and the greater reward ; a 
 reward which ought to be reserved for the most 
 signal services to the State, as well as for the most 
 approved merit in it.' Boscawen's reply was 
 characteristically short, modest, and sailor-like. He 
 said, from his place, ' Mr. Speaker, I am happy in 
 having been able to do my duty ; but have not words 
 to express my sense of the distinguished reward that 
 has been conferred upon me by this House ; nor can 
 I enough thank you, sir, for the polite and elegant 
 manner in which you have been pleased to convey 
 to me the Resolution.'
 
 Admiral Boscawen. 227 
 
 The Gentleman's Magazine for August, 1758, gives a 
 long and (to military men at least) an interesting 
 journal of this important siege, of which the follow- 
 ing is a resume* : 
 
 Owing to the violence of the surf, great difficulties 
 appear to have existed in landing the troops and 
 materiel for the operations ; and, on the 23rd June, 
 Boscawen had to inform his colleague that no less 
 than 100 boats had, up to that time, been lost in the 
 various attempts which had been made. Nor was 
 this the only way in which the naval commander 
 endeavoured to contribute to the success of the 
 undertaking, for on the 26th June, with 200 marines, 
 the Admiral took the French post of Kennington 
 Cove, which proved, as General Amherst said, * a 
 great ease to the army.' To add to the difficulties 
 of the undertaking small-pox broke out, and proved 
 fatal in a great many cases 2,000 men dying from 
 this and other causes during the expedition ; whilst 
 dense fogs and stormy weather also frequently hin- 
 dered the progress of their operations ; yet, in spite 
 of a host of similar discouraging circumstances, 
 the work was pushed on with truly British vigour 
 and tenacity. On the 25th of July, Boscawen sent 
 in boats with 600 men into the harbour, and took 
 two French ships the Prudent, of 74 guns, and the 
 Bienfaisant, of 64 guns whose fire had terribly galled 
 the besiegers. The former vessel was burnt, as she 
 was aground ; but the Bienfaisant was captured and 
 
 * A still more complete and detailed account, illustrated by a map, 
 will be found in R. Brown's ' History of Cape Breton.' 
 
 152
 
 228 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 towed into the north-east harbour. Boscawen, in 
 his letter to Pitt of 28th July, 1758, refers to this 
 as ' a particular gallant action ' on the part of his 
 captains. A similar operation was to have been 
 attempted on the following day, but the French had 
 by this time had enough of it ; an offer of capitulation 
 was made by the Governor, and articles were agreed 
 upon, including the surrender of the garrison over 
 3,000 men as prisoners of war, together with sailors 
 and naval officers to the number of 2,606. A vast 
 number of mortars and cannon, etc., were also taken. 
 Thus the strong fortress of Louisbourg fell, the 
 islands of Cape Breton and St. John thereupon sur- 
 rendered, and a deadly blow was inflicted on the 
 French arms.* The insurance on vessels t6 America 
 at once fell from 25 or 30 to 12 per cent., and on the 
 26th August the Lord Mayor of London, with many 
 of the principal citizens, waited on the King to con- 
 gratulate him upon the victory. In the course of 
 their address occurs the following passage, which I 
 quote as illustrative of the importance which the City 
 attached to the event, and of the strong anti-Gallic 
 feeling which prevailed at that time : 
 
 ' May these valuable acquisitions, so gloriously 
 obtained, ever continue a part of the British Empire, 
 as an effectual check to the perfidy and ambition of 
 a nation whose repeated insults and usurpations 
 obliged your Majesty to enter into this just and 
 necessary war. And may these instances of the 
 
 * The year after Boscawen expelled the French from Cape Breton, 
 Wolfe and Saunders drove them out of Canada.
 
 Admiral Boscawen. 229 
 
 wisdom of your Majesty's councils, of the conduct 
 and resolution of your commanders, and of the intre- 
 pidity of your fleets and armies, convince the world 
 of the innate strength and resources of your kingdoms, 
 and dispose your Majesty's enemies to yield to a 
 safe and honourable peace.' 
 
 Exeter, Cambridge, and other important places 
 followed suit. 
 
 Boscawen had surely now received 
 
 ' Praise enough 
 To fill the ambition of a private man ;' 
 
 but his career was not to close without his having at 
 least one more opportunity of distinguishing himself. 
 In the following year, on the I4th April, 1759, he was 
 again afloat ; on this occasion appointed to the com- 
 mand in the Mediterranean, with a view to over- 
 mastering the French fleet. Having vainly endea- 
 voured to entice the enemy out of their harbour at 
 Toulon, the British Admiral withdrew to Gibraltar 
 to refit ; and whilst here, having ascertained that the 
 French ships under M. De la Clue had somehow con- 
 trived to pass the Straits without his being able to 
 prevent them, he came to the conclusion that their 
 object was to effect a junction with the Brest fleet 
 a consummation which of course Boscawen was 
 bound to prevent. At once he gave the order for 
 pursuit, and slipping his war-hounds from the leash, 
 he came up with the enemy in Lagos Bay, some 
 150 sea miles north-west of Gibraltar Straits. He
 
 230 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 had pursued the Frenchmen all night, and came up 
 with them at 2 p.m. on the following day, when, after 
 a furious engagement which lasted some hours, he 
 captured or destroyed nearly half the enemy's ships, 
 and thus 'effectually defeated the magnificent scheme 
 of invading England, with which the French Minister 
 had for some time amused the military ardour and 
 romantic spirit of his countrymen.' It is worth 
 while to give Boscawen's account to the Admiralty 
 of the memorable action in his own words : 
 
 ' I acquainted you in my last of my return to 
 Gibraltar to refit. As soon as the ships were near 
 ready, I ordered the Lyme and Gibraltar, the only 
 frigates ready, the first to cruise off Malaga, the last 
 from Estepona to Ceuta Point, to look out, and give 
 me timely notice of the enemy's approach. 
 
 ' On the I7th, at eight in the evening, the Gibraltar 
 made the signal of their appearance, fourteen sail, 
 on the Barbary shore, to the eastward of Ceuta. I 
 got under sail as fast as possible, and was out of the 
 bay before ten, with fourteen sail of the line, the 
 Shannon frigate, and Mina fireship. At daylight I 
 saw the Gibraltar, and soon after seven large ships 
 lying to ; but on our not answering their signals, they 
 made sail from us. We had a fresh gale that brought 
 us up with them fast till about noon, when it fell 
 little wind. About half an hour past two, some of 
 the headmost ships began to engage, but I could not 
 get up to the Ocean till near four. In about half an 
 hour the Namur's mizzen-mast and both topsail-yards 
 were shot away. The enemy then made all the sail
 
 Admiral Boscawen. 231 
 
 they could. I shifted my flag to the Newark, and 
 soon after the Centaur, of 74 guns, struck.* 
 
 ' I pursued all night, and in the morning of the 
 igth saw only four sail standing in for the land, two 
 of the best sailers having altered their course in the 
 night; we were not above three miles from them, 
 and not above five leagues from the shore, with very 
 little wind. About nine the Ocean, ran among the 
 breakers, and the three others anchored. I sent 
 the 'Intrepid and the America to destroy the Ocean. 
 Captain Pratten having anchored, could not get in ; 
 but Captain Kirke performed that service alone. On 
 his first firing at the Ocean she struck, and Captain 
 Kirke sent his officers on board. M. De la Clue, 
 having one leg broke and the other wounded, had 
 been landed about half an hour ; but they found the 
 captain, M. le Compte de Carnes, and several 
 officers and men, on board. Captain Kirke, after 
 taking them out, finding it impossible to bring the 
 ship off, set her on fire. Captain Bently, of the War- 
 spight, was ordered against the Temeraire, of 74 guns, 
 and brought her off with little damage, the officers 
 and men all on board. At the same time, Vice- 
 Admiral Broderick, with his division, burnt the 
 Redoubtable, her officers and men having quitted her, 
 being bulged ; they brought the Modeste, of 64 guns, 
 off, very little damaged. 
 
 * His tactics were to get to windward of his opponents, notwith- 
 standing the advantage that gave their gunnery at first, whilst waiting 
 to leeward for the attack ; but the British crews were not given to 
 flinching under fire, and when once Boscawen got within half musket- 
 shot of the enemy he ' hammered away into his antagonists' hulls, 
 and it was soon all over with them. '
 
 232 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 ' I have the pleasure to acquaint their lordships, 
 that most of his Majesty's ships under my com- 
 mand sailed better than those of the enemy. 
 
 ' Enclosed I send you a list of the French squadron, 
 found on board the Modeste* 
 
 ' Herewith you will also receive the number of the 
 killed and wounded on board his Majesty's ships (56 
 killed and 196 wounded), referring their lordships for 
 further particulars to Captain Buckle.' 
 
 Well might even the gentle poet Cowper say 
 of so brilliant and important an exploit as this was : 
 'When poor Bob White brought in the news of 
 Boscawen's success off the Coast of Portugal, how 
 did I leap for joy !' 
 
 As part of the results of his victory Boscawen took 
 three large ships and burnt two; and on the I5th of 
 September reached Spithead with his prizes and 2,000 
 prisoners. Unfortunately the victory involved us in 
 .a protracted negotiation with the Portuguese, who 
 complained, not without reason, that the neutrality 
 of their coasts had been violated. It was on this 
 occasion that Pitt, in giving, in his letter to Mr. Hay, 
 then British Minister at Lisbon, his directions for 
 the conduct of the negotiations, loftily writes on the 
 
 * The French Admiral's ship, the Ocean, carried 80 guns ; besides 
 her, the fleet comprised five ships of 74 guns, three of 64 guns, two of 
 50 guns, one of 26 guns, and two of 24 guns. Admiral Ekins could 
 never sufficiently admire Admiral Boscawen's action in shifting his flag to 
 the Newark, during the fight with De la Clue, observing that we have 
 had but one example since Boscawen's time of this being done ; viz., 
 by Commodore Nelson on I4th February. Ekins gives a capital account 
 of this engagement, by a midshipman who was present.
 
 Admiral Boscawen. 233 
 
 1 2th September, 1759 : ' You will be particularly 
 attentive not to employ any favourable circumstances 
 to justify what the Law of Nations condemns !' Yet 
 the great Minister was careful to add in his P.S. 
 that ' any personal mark on a great Admiral who has 
 done so essential a service to his country, or on any- 
 one under his command, is totally inadmissible; as 
 well as the idea of restoring the ships of war taken.' 
 The delicate political considerations involved in this 
 transaction may perhaps account for Boscawen's not 
 again receiving the thanks of the House ; but that the 
 enormous value of the service which he had rendered 
 was not unperceived, may be seen from the fact that 
 the City of Edinburgh embraced this opportunity of 
 presenting the Admiral with its ' freedom.' After a 
 while, however, more substantial rewards followed. 
 He was made a Privy Councillor; and, on 8th 
 December, 1760, a General of Marines, with a salary 
 of 3,000 a year. It may be a matter of surprise 
 with some that no title was conferred upon Boscawen ; 
 but, as a public writer has recently observed : ' Naval 
 services have been by no means so frequently re- 
 warded by peerages as military services, especially of 
 late years ; as may be gathered from the fact that 
 while the Queen has already created thirteen military 
 peers, she has created only two naval peers namely, 
 the late Sir Edmund Lyons, made Baron Lyons 
 after the Crimean War in 1856, and Lord Alcester. 
 Before that the latest naval peerage was the Barony 
 of De Saumerez conferred on Sir James Saumerez in 
 1831 by William IV. ; and before that, again, the
 
 234 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 Viscounty of Exmouth, conferred on the Cornish 
 Admiral Sir Edward Pellew in 1816 by the Prince 
 Regent. And, even from the age of the great French 
 War of the end of last and the beginning of the 
 current century, the titles remaining in the peerage 
 are far from numerous: Nelson, Bridport, Camper- 
 down, Gardner, Graves, Hood, Howe, Rodney, and 
 St. Vincent, nearly or quite exhausting the list.' 
 In the present instance there was probably the 
 further consideration that our Admiral's brother 
 was already a Viscount, whilst his own son was heir 
 apparent to that title. 
 
 We now come to Boscawen's last service once 
 more in the Bay of Quiberon where 'he was posted 
 with a view to his following up Conflans after his 
 defeat by Hawke. In this command he was relieved 
 on the 26th August ; and little remains to be told 
 except the final record that, on the loth January, 
 1761, this thoroughbred seaman and gentleman died 
 of a bilious fever, when only fifty years of age, at his 
 seat, Hatchlands Park, near Guildford, Surrey. But 
 his body was laid amongst those of his ancestors in 
 the remote and quiet little church of St. Michael 
 Penkivel ' grata quies patriae' where no more war- 
 like cannonade was destined to disturb his repose than 
 the sunset and sunrise gun from Pendennis or St. 
 Mawes Castles, or from the guard-ship stationed in 
 the adjacent harbour of Falmouth.* 
 
 His monument, of white marble, is an imposing 
 
 * There is a local tradition that the Admiral caused the tower of this 
 church to be lowered, lest it should serve as a landmark to the enemy !
 
 Admiral Boscawen. 235 
 
 piece of statuary, the most prominent part of which 
 is a bust designed by Adam, and executed by 
 Rysbrack, which well displays the bluff, portly, and 
 determined features of one of England's bravest and 
 ablest sons. But, to my mind, the best and loveliest 
 part of that trophied memorial is the following in- 
 scription from the pen of the well-beloved partner 
 of all his joys and sorrows : 
 
 ' Satis Gloria sed haud satis Reipublica : 
 
 ' Here lies the Right Honourable Edward Boscawen, Admiral of the 
 Blue, General of Marines, Lord of the Admiralty and one of his 
 Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council. His birth tho' noble, his 
 titles tho' illustrious, were but incidental additions to his greatness. 
 
 ' History, in more expressive and more indelible characters, will 
 inform latest posterity with what ardent zeal, with what successful 
 valour, he served his country, and taught her enemies to dread her 
 naval power. 
 
 ' In command he was equal to every emergency superior to ev'ry 
 difficulty. In his high departments masterly and upright, His example 
 form'd while his patronage rewarded merit. 
 
 1 With the highest exertions of Military greatness he united the 
 gentlest offices of humanity. 
 
 ' His concern for the interest and unwearied attention to the health of 
 all under his command softened the necessary exactions of duty and 
 the rigors of discipline by the care of a guardian and the tenderness of 
 a father. 
 
 ' Thus belov'd and rever'd, amiable in private life as illustrious in 
 public, this gallant and profitable servant of his country, when he was 
 beginning to reap the harvest of his toils and dangers, in the full meri- 
 dian of years and glory, after having been providentially preserved 
 from every peril incident to his profession, died of a fever on the loth 
 of Jany.'in the year 1761, the 5oth of his age, at Hatchlands Park in 
 Surrey, a seat he had just finished at the expense of the enemies of his 
 country, and (amidst the groans and tears of his beloved Cornishmen) 
 was here deposited. 
 
 ' His once happy wife inscribes this marble an unequal testimony of 
 his worth, and of her affection.' 
 
 Here perhaps it may conveniently be added that
 
 236 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 his name is still honourably remembered in the 
 Navy, for the Boscawen, of 101 guns, was one of the 
 Baltic fleet in 1854; and there is a ship of that name, 
 now stationed at Weymouth, used as a naval training- 
 ship for boys. 
 
 The career of Admiral Boscawen depicts his 
 character. It was that of a brave, blunt, determined 
 sailor of the old school. He could not look at a 
 French ship without desiring to fight her; and his 
 determination, according to his enemies, amounted 
 to obstinacy. Walpole tells us how the Admiral 
 in 1757 is said to have been recalled from his then 
 station to serve under Hawke, which he declined to 
 do, ' and his Boscawenhood is now much more 
 Boscawened ; that is surly in the deepest shade ;' 
 and the same writer says, in another place, that he 
 was ' the most obstinate man of an obstinate family,' 
 Yet even Walpole is compelled to pay this somewhat 
 unwilling tribute to the Admiral's worth during the 
 perilous time when he served his country so well : 
 ' Never did the bravery of the English and the 
 want of spirit in the French appear in greater 
 opposition ; the former making their attacks on spots 
 which the French deemed impregnable, threw them 
 into utter dismay ; and dictated a very quick and 
 unjustifiable submission Boscawen's rough courage 
 was fully known before.' And a recent critic, who 
 has already been quoted more than once (himself 
 a naval officer), thus sums up our hero's character : 
 ' He was virtuous like Anson and Hawke, and as
 
 Mrs. Boscawen. 237 
 
 brave and eager for employment and distinction 
 as Nelson himself.' 
 
 But the prize which the Cornish hero must have 
 valued most must have been the eulogium which 
 Chatham, when Prime Minister, addressed to him 
 words with which I may not inaptly close this im- 
 perfect sketch of his life and actions : 
 
 'When I apply to other officers respecting any 
 expedition I may chance to project, they always 
 raise difficulties ; you always find expedients.' 
 
 MRS. BOSCAWEN. 
 
 IT is not too much to say of the Admiral's wife that 
 she was worthy of him, and that she was duly proud 
 of his name and reputation. We have seen how she 
 thought her daughter Elizabeth was no unfit match 
 for a duke, remarking that she was 'A dmiral Boscawen' s 
 daughter ;' and she was dearly fond of the sea, 
 ' delighting in it (as she used to say) beyond all 
 sights and all objects whatever,' until the mournful 
 day came when he for whose sake she had loved it so 
 dearly had ended his connexion with it for ever ; and 
 then she spoke of it as that sea whose memories 
 * had cost her so many tears.' She was the only 
 daughter of William Evelyn Glanville, Esq., of St. 
 Clere near Ightham, Kent, and was of the family of 
 the celebrated John Evelyn, whom she was fond of 
 calling her ' good, old uncle ;' and she took immense
 
 238 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 interest accordingly in the production of Dr. Hunter's 
 new edition of the ' Sylva.'* 
 
 When twenty-four years of age she was married, in 
 December, 1742, to Admiral Boscawen, seven years 
 her senior, and they seem to have been a well-suited, 
 happy couple. Her character is perhaps best seen 
 in the interesting gossiping letters which she and 
 Mrs. Delany (a Grenville of Stow) interchanged. 
 She was also a correspondent of Hannah More and 
 Mrs. Chapone. 
 
 Hannah More, in her * Sensibility,' writes thus of 
 her: 
 
 ' Accept, Boscawen ! these unpolish'd lays, 
 Nor blame too much the verse you cannot praise. 
 For you far other bards have wak'd the string ; 
 Far other bards for you were wont to sing. 
 * * * * * 
 
 You heard the lyres of Lyttelton and Young ; 
 And this a Grace, and that a Seraph strung.' 
 
 And in another place she adds : 
 
 1 On you, 13oscawen, when you fondly melt 
 In raptures none but mothers ever felt, 
 And view, enamour'd, in your beauteous race, 
 All Leveson's sweetness, and all Beaufort's grace ! 
 Yet think what dangers each lov'd child may share, 
 The youth if valiant, and the maid if fair? 
 
 The reason for dedicating this poem of ' Sensibility ' 
 to Mrs. Boscawen is glanced at in the following 
 couplet': 
 
 ' 'Tis this, whose charms the soul resistless seize, 
 And gives Boscawen half her pow'r to please.' 
 
 * Luttrell (v. 594) says that (Sept., 1705) John Evelyn, Esq., was 
 married to Mrs. Boscawen, niece to the Lord Treasurer ( ? Godolphin).
 
 Mrs. Boscawen, 239 
 
 On the death of her husband, Dr. Young thus ad- 
 dressed her, in a postscript to his poem ' Resignation,' 
 
 ' Why mourn the dead ? You wrong the grave, 
 
 From storms that safe resort ; 
 We still are tossing out at sea 
 Our AdmiraFs in port.' 
 
 As another illustration of her intimacy with 
 literary people, and of her fondness for their pursuits, 
 it may be mentioned that Mrs. Boscawen was one of 
 the society of ' eminent friends, both ladies and 
 gentlemen,' who used to meet at Mrs. Montagu's, 
 where she made herself welcome, says Dr. Doran, by 
 ' the strength of her understanding, the poignancy 
 of her humour, and the brilliancy of her wit.' A 
 Mr. Stillingfleet, one of the coterie, was rather 
 slovenly in his costume, and, amongst other delin- 
 quencies, wore grey stockings, which caused Admiral 
 Boscawen humorously to affix to the whole party a 
 name which has now become a household word 
 ' The Blue Stockings.' 
 
 After they had been dining together on the 2Qth 
 April, 1778, at Allan Ramsay's when Dr. Johnson 
 and Sir Joshua Reynolds had been of the party 
 Boswell wrote of Mrs. Boscawen, ' If it be not pre- 
 sumptuous in me to praise her, let me say that her 
 manners were the most agreeable, and her conversa- 
 tion the best of any lady of our party with whom I 
 had the happiness of being acquainted.' Tender- 
 hearted and sprightly she undoubtedly was; and, 
 as an instance of her vivacity, I may perhaps 
 be excused for quoting a passage in one of her
 
 240 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 letters to Mrs. Delany which Lady Llanover has 
 given in those well-known ' Memoirs ' of her ances- 
 tress, to which I have already more than once referred. 
 ' The first time,' writes Mrs. Boscawen, ' I experi- 
 enced the pains of child-bearing, I concluded that 
 no woman had ever endured the like upon the like 
 occasion, and that I could not possibly recover it ; 
 whereas I danced a minuet about my room in ten 
 days, to insult my nurse-keeper and set her a scolding 
 for my diversion !' 
 
 But she was something more than a vivacious 
 letter-writer and a dilettante, for she dabbled too 
 in political affairs, especially in the Cornish elections, 
 giving her interest to- 'the old members' rather 
 than to Sir William Lemon in 1774. She took, 
 of course, great interest in the warlike views of the 
 day; and on returning to her inn one evening whilst 
 she was travelling through the country, on hearing 
 of the retaking of Long Island, ' made a most agree- 
 able supper and drank health to the noble brothers ' 
 the two Howes. When her son-in-law, Mr. 
 Leveson, had the command of the Valiant, man-of- 
 war, conferred upon him in November, 1776, she set 
 to work for him ' with great alacrity,' as she says, to 
 raise a crew of fishermen in Cornwall. In fact, 
 throughout her life her correspondence shows that 
 she took the keenest possible interest in the doings 
 of our army and navy. As an illustration of the 
 warlike spirit which at this time pervaded even the 
 bosoms of the gentler sex, Walpole thus writes in 
 May, 1778 : ' The Parliament is only to have short
 
 Mrs. Boscawen. 241 
 
 adjournments ; and our senators, instead of retiring 
 to horse-races (their plough), are all turned soldiers, 
 and disciplining militia. Camps everywhere, and the 
 ladies in the uniforms of their husbands.' * It is 
 said,' writes Mrs. Boscawen to Mrs. Delany, ' that 
 the Duchess of Devonshire marched through Isling- 
 ton at the head of the Derbyshire Militia, dressed in 
 the uniform of that regiment !' 
 
 Her residence when in London seems to have been 
 generally in Audley Street ; but she also had a pretty 
 place at Enfield, and a small house at Colney Hatch 
 which she used to call her ' nut-shell.' 
 
 When about eighty years of age she was living at 
 Rosedale, a place near the entrance to Richmond 
 from Kew, which was formerly occupied by the poet 
 Thomson, whose table, cane, and chair were long 
 preserved in the house ; and whilst residing here a 
 little poetical correspondence took place which may 
 be worth recording, not only as an illustration of the 
 courtly politeness of the time, and of the respect 
 in which the good old lady was evidently held by her 
 contemporaries, but also because Mrs. Boscawen's 
 letter, written in a firm, almost manly hand, not- 
 withstanding her advanced age, is still preserved in 
 the British Museum, where it will be found in 
 the Additional MSS. Pye, the Poet Laureate, had 
 written a sonnet on Rosedale, which he communi- 
 cated to the Rev. W. Butler, who sent it on to Mrs. 
 Boscawen. The lines, by no means remarkable for 
 vigour or originality, conclude thus : 
 
 VOL. i. 16
 
 242 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 ' Still Fancy's Train your verdant Paths shall Trace, 
 
 Tho' clos'd her fav'rite Votary's dulcet lay ; 
 Each wonted Haunt their footsteps still shall grace, 
 
 Still Genius thro' your green Retreats shall stray : 
 For, from the Scene BOSCAWEN loves to grace, 
 Th' Attendant Muse shall ne'er be long away.' 
 
 The lady graciously acknowledged the compliment 
 conveyed to her in the last two lines, and thus re- 
 plied on the 26th June, 1797 : 
 
 'SIR, 
 
 ' I am sure I ought to return you my gratefull 
 acknowledgm 15 for the obliging Present you have 
 made me of some sweet Stanzas on this spot, and 
 my two Predecessors. Mr. Ross was certainly an 
 Admirer of His, & paid that Respect to his 
 Memory as to retain the little Parlour where Mr. 
 Thomson liv'd, tho' he rebuilt every other Part of 
 the House, extending it very much. 
 
 ' The little Rustick Seat w* inspir'd your poetick 
 Dialogue I found in such a State of decay that I was 
 oblig'd to take it down, but, reserving all the Materials, 
 I have replac'd it in a retir'd part of the Garden 
 much enlarg'd and hung round with votive Tablets 
 or Inscriptions in Honour of your admir'd Poet. 
 His Bust is on the Pedament of the Seat, and in 
 front is written 
 
 ' " Here Thomson sung 
 
 The Seasons & their Change." 
 
 In the Alcove is a little old Table, w h I am assur'd 
 belonged to Him, but Sir, if ever you sh d have leisure
 
 Mrs. Boscawen. 243 
 
 to pay another Visit to your matchless Favourite, You 
 will I hope find Him honour'd by 
 
 * Your most humble Servt, 
 
 ' F. BOSCAWEN.' 
 
 After surviving her husband for forty-four years, 
 and never marrying again, the Honourable Frances 
 Evelyn Boscawen closed her long and amiable life at 
 her house in Audley Street, in March, 1805, at the 
 venerable age of eighty-six; and was buried in the 
 same vault with her husband at St. Michael Penkivel, 
 where a monument designed by her son, George 
 Evelyn, third Viscount Falmouth, and executed by 
 Nollekens, was erected to her memory. An epitaph 
 does her no more than justice. 
 
 1 6 2
 
 DAVY, 
 THE MAN OF SCIENCE.
 
 DAVY, 
 
 THE MAN OF SCIENCE. 
 
 ' Igne constrict o, vita secura.' 
 
 Davy's Motto, 
 
 HE pretty little homestead or as it is 
 called in Cornwall, the * town-place ' of 
 Varfel, (or Barfell as it was sometimes 
 spelt) in Ludgvan, lies on a southern 
 slope, about two and a half miles N.E. of Penzance, 
 and is a somewhat less distance from St. Michael's 
 Mount, a view of which, as well as of the famous 
 Mount's Bay and of the Lizard district, it commands. 
 Varfel seems to have belonged from an early period 
 to the Davy family, some of whose monuments in 
 Ludgvan Church are nearly 300 years old. Either 
 here, on the ' paternal acres,' or in the town of Pen- 
 zance, on iyth December, 1778, at 5 a.m., was born 
 to ' Carver ' Robert Davy (so called from his profi- 
 ciency in his trade as a wood-carver and gilder) and 
 his wife Grace Millett, their eldest son,* who was 
 
 * He was one of five children, two of whom were boys and three 
 girls.
 
 '248 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 destined to emerge from this remote and obscure 
 corner of England, and become President of the 
 Royal Society a man of science so distinguished 
 that Brande, in his celebrated ' History of Chemistry,' 
 spoke of Davy's death as nothing less than ' a serious 
 national calamity.' 
 
 The district of Penwith, with its wild furze-clad 
 granite moors, its rugged cliffs, and emerald bays, 
 proved 
 
 ' Fit nurse for a poetic child ;' 
 
 and the imaginative faculties of the future illustrious 
 chemist were not nursed in vain. Like Pope, he 
 ' lisped in numbers,' reciting, when only five years 
 old, his own rhymes at some Christmas gambols; and 
 his poetic vein never left him, even in the laboratory 
 or in the lecture-room, compelling the aristocratic 
 idlers of London to love Science, because, as they were 
 constrained to confess, under his magic guidance, 
 Science was made beautiful, and was attired by the 
 Graces. It was said by Coleridge that had Davy not 
 devoted himself to Science, he would have shone with 
 the highest lustre as a poet ; and the following youthful 
 lines, full of true local colour, certainly show, as indeed 
 did his whole life, that he had drunk of ' the fount of 
 Helicon :' 
 
 'TO THE LAND'S END. 
 
 ' On the Sea 
 
 The sunbeams tremble ; and the purple light 
 Illumes the dark Bolerium, seat of Storms ! 
 Drear are his granite wilds, his schistine rocks
 
 Davy, the Man of Science. 249 
 
 Encircled by the wave, where to the gale 
 The haggard cormorant shrieks ; and, far beyond, 
 Where the great ocean mingles with the sky, 
 Behold the cloud-like islands* grey in mist.' 
 
 It was this poetic temperament, derived (as his 
 brother, Dr. Davy, thinks) from their grandmother, 
 which induced the gifted Dr. Henry, F.R.S., thus 
 to refer to the subject of this memoir : 
 
 ' Bold, ardent, enthusiastic, Davy soared to 
 greatest heights ; he commanded a wide horizon, and 
 his keen vision penetrated to its utmost boundaries. 
 His imagination, in the highest degree fertile and 
 inventive, took a rapid and extensive range in pursuit 
 of conjectural analogies, which he submitted to close 
 and patient comparison with known facts, and tried 
 by an appeal to ingenious and conclusive experiments. 
 He was imbued with the spirit and was master in 
 the practice of inductive logic ; and he has left us 
 some of the noblest examples of the efficacy of that 
 great instrument of human reason in the discovery 
 of truth. He applied it, not only to connect classes 
 of facts of more limited extent and importance, but 
 to develop great and comprehensive laws, which 
 embrace phenomena that are almost universal to the 
 natural world. In explaining those laws he cast 
 upon them the illumination of his own clear and 
 vivid conceptions ; he felt an intense admiration of 
 the beauty, order, and harmony which are con- 
 spicuous in the perfect Chemistry of Nature; and he 
 expressed those feelings with a force and eloquence 
 
 * The Scilly Isles.
 
 250 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 which could issue only from a mind of the highest 
 powers and of the finest sensibilities.' 
 
 Davy's first school was at Penzance, his first 
 schoolmaster a Mr. Bushell ; his next, the Rev. Mr. 
 Coryton, seems to have been one of the old rough 
 sort, determined that his pupils should not lack cor- 
 rection, even if they did not profit by his instruction. 
 He used to address the little boy in the following 
 doggrel, whenever he thought he saw an opportunity 
 of administering castigation : 
 
 ' Now, Master Davy, 
 Now, sir ! I have 'ee ! 
 No one shall save 'ee 
 Good Master Davy !' 
 
 But neither Mr. Coryton, nor Dr. Cardew,'the excel- 
 lent master of the Truro Grammar School, to which 
 place Davy was for a short period removed, when 
 fourteen years old, seems to have perceived any 
 remarkable genius in the scholar except that the 
 latter discerned at least his taste and skill in poetry, 
 and in his translations from the classics into English 
 verse. One of the efforts of his muse was an epic 
 poem, ' The Tydidiad,' written when he was twelve 
 years old. In truth Davy, when a schoolboy, was 
 generally composing either ballads or valentines (in 
 Latin or English) for his school- fellows, in making 
 fireworks, or in fishing or shooting, thus proving 
 what has been so often proved before that 'the boy 
 is father to the man.' His oratorical displays some- 
 times addressed to a crowd of juveniles assembled in
 
 Davy, the Man of Science. 251 
 
 front of the Star Inn at Penzance, sometimes to a 
 row of empty chairs in his own bedroom and his 
 turnip-lantern exhibitions (which afterwards developed 
 into the wonderful mimic volcanoes with which he 
 astonished and delighted his audience at the Royal 
 Institution) were highly popular ; the price of admis- 
 sion to the turnip-lantern shows is said to have been 
 paid in an extremely low currency pins. It would 
 moreover appear from an entry of his in the blank 
 page of his Schrevelius that Harlequin was his 
 favourite part in a pantomime. Of his youth, which 
 all accounts agree in representing as genial and 
 amiable, little more remains to be said, but that he 
 was very awkward with his hands (often blotting out 
 an error in his MS. by dipping his fingers into the 
 ink-bottle) could never get out of the * awkward 
 squad ' in the Volunteer Corps which he joined 
 that he was round-shouldered and clumsy had no 
 taste or ear for music, and possessed a singularly 
 inharmonious voice. Clearly, the outward gifts of 
 our hero were not such as were likely to help him 
 forward on his way through life. To judge what 
 a change the fire of genius, years of study, and the 
 advantages of moving amongst cultured and refined 
 society can accomplish, his portrait, when he was 
 about thirty-three years old, by Lawrence,* prefixed 
 
 * Presented to the Royal Society by Lady Davy, after her husband's 
 decease. This picture had a narrow escape from being lost ; it was, 
 however, discovered by Mr. Davies Gilbert in the garret of a man named 
 Newton, who was to have engraved it, and was rescued at the cost of 
 10, paid to the landlady, who was unable to get her rent from her impe- 
 cunious lodger. There are other portraits of him by Lonsdale, as P.R.S.;
 
 252 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 to Dr. Paris's * Life ' or perhaps rather that by 
 Phillips, R.A., which will be found in Polwhele's now 
 rare little volumes the ' Biographical Sketches,' and 
 in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' for 1829, should be 
 examined. 
 
 As he grew up he is described as being of about 
 the middle height, of remarkably active frame, and 
 with a mobile countenance, which, though the 
 features were not regular, was full of expression and 
 vivacity. He had bright, wavy, brown hair, and 
 eyes ' tremulous with light;' and his voice so improved 
 by cultivation and experience that it became remark- 
 ably melodious. When to this are added his wonderful 
 talents, his grand discoveries, and his eloquence, his 
 sanguine temperament, his purpose firm, his spirits 
 singularly cheerful and elastic, and his disposition 
 ever philanthropic, it will easily be believed that his 
 society was sought by all classes ; and it is not to be 
 wondered at if the attractions which such oppor- 
 tunities presented laid him open to the charge 
 (from some quarters) of cultivating too much the 
 wealthy and the powerful.* Davy, however, was too 
 wise not to perceive the advantage of interesting 
 
 by Howard (when Davy was twenty-three) ; by Jackson (when he was 
 forty-five) ; a bust ; and the statue erected in December, 1878 (after the 
 portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence, in front of the Market-house, Pen- 
 zance, near Davy's old house in Market Jew Street, (now rebuilt,) and 
 about half-way between it and the Star Inn. He also appears in the 
 print of the Woburn Sheep-shearing, published by Garrard in iSn. 
 
 * More than enough has been made by Davy's critics of his admira- 
 tion for the aristocracy ; but ' it is not true ' (as George Eliot observed) 
 ' that a man's intellectual power is, like the strength of a timber beam, 
 to be measured by its weakest point.'
 
 Davy, the Man of Science. 253 
 
 such persons in the pursuits to which he was 
 himself through life devoted. But he was really 
 fond of intelligence in all classes, whenever and 
 wherever he met with it ; and there is an amusing 
 story told of one of his street acquaintances, who 
 showed the moon through a telescope, and who 
 always refused to take Davy's penny, because, as the 
 man said, of their being ' brother philosophers.' 
 
 But, to return to his youthful days. Davy's school- 
 ing probably did not cost his parents much, for in 
 Dr. Cardew's time the charges were only 18 a year 
 for board, and 4 for teaching, and perhaps some 
 of these were paid by a very kind friend of the 
 family, Mr. John Tonkin of Penzance. He ' put on 
 harness ' in 1793, when little more than fourteen 
 years old (the year before his father died), by being 
 articled on i6th February, to Dr. J. B. Borlase of 
 Penzance, a gentleman who seems to have taken a 
 kind and appreciative interest in the welfare of the 
 lad. 
 
 Davy seems to have bestowed a fair amount of 
 attention upon the studies pertaining to his profession, 
 and is said to have been particularly kind and atten- 
 tive to his master's patients, especially those of 
 the poorer classes ; but ' nourishing a youth sublime ' 
 on the preparation of pills and potions was out of 
 the question ; and we gladly find that, ere long, a 
 more intellectual banquet was to be laid before him. 
 He was at this time passionately fond of fishing and 
 shooting, the former of which pursuits he dearly 
 loved to the last : casting longing looks, even within
 
 254 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 a few days of his death, on the waters of Lake 
 Leman on which he had often in earlier days thrown 
 a fly. His charming book ' Salmonia ' (pace the 
 shade of Christopher North) shows what a deep 
 interest he always took in fishing, and, indeed, in 
 Natural History generally. It is amusing to note 
 here, that in later years his costume, hat included, 
 when he went fishing, was, for purposes of conceal- 
 ment, green; when, however, he went shooting he 
 adopted scarlet garments for distinction, having a 
 great dread of being shot. Declamations by the 
 shores of Mount's Bay were also a source of great 
 pleasure to him, when a boy, and many a time did 
 he harangue the waves, when he could not secure a 
 human auditory. 
 
 We may be sure that chemistry was not omitted ; 
 and, in the attic of a house belonging to that worthy 
 friend of the family Mr. Tonkin such apparatus 
 as Davy could muster might have been found : phials, 
 wine-glasses, teacups, and tobacco-pipes, and a few 
 acids and alkalies were amongst the principal items, 
 and most treasured of all an old clyster-pipe, 
 washed ashore from a wreck, out of which he had 
 contrived to manufacture an air-pump ! 
 
 The crisis of Davy's life at length arrived. Mr. 
 Davies Gilbert (then named Giddy) a Cornish gentle- 
 man eminent for his attainments, had his attention 
 called to the youngster's scientific knowledge, and 
 became his friend and patron little thinking at the 
 time that he was hereafter to become Treasurer of 
 the Royal Society under Davy, and at length to
 
 Davy, the Man of Science. 255 
 
 succeed his protege as a President. It is noteworthy 
 here that Trelissick House, on the Fal, built by 
 Davy's grandfather, for Mr. Daniell, became after- 
 wards the property of Mr. Gilbert, and is now one of 
 the seats of his grandson, Carew Davies Gilbert, Esq. 
 Davies Gilbert also brought into public notice the 
 Rev. Malachi Hitchins, once a miner, afterwards the 
 principal calculator of the Nautical Almanac, and 
 (conjointly with Samuel Drew) an historian of Corn- 
 wall; also the Rev. John Hellins, many years assistant 
 to Dr. Maskelyne. He was moreover an early friend 
 and adviser of Richard Trevithick (q.v.}. 
 
 It is said that when the boy Davy first saw Mr. 
 Davies Gilbert's laboratory his tumultuous delight 
 knew no bounds. Other appreciative friends now 
 came forward; amongst them Dr. Edwards of Hayle 
 Copper House, and Professor Hailstone, and Dr. 
 Beddoes, representatives of the rival geological 
 schools of Neptunists and Plutonists, as they were 
 then called, to both of whom Davy was able to render 
 valuable information ; though he himself, with his 
 usual sagacity, sided with the Plutonists. Gregory 
 Watt, the youngest son of the renowned James 
 Watt, was another of Davy's early acquaintances at 
 Penzance; and from Watt the youth derived much 
 valuable information and advice. 
 
 One result was the offer of an appointment, when 
 he was about nineteen years old, as assistant in Dr. 
 Beddoes's Pneumatic Hospital, at Dowry Square, 
 Clifton,* an establishment founded for the purpose 
 
 * The house was in the corner which formed the north angle of the 
 square.
 
 256 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 of investigating the nature of the gases, with especial 
 reference to their remedial influences. 
 
 This was an appointment after the young chemist's 
 own heart. The salary was sufficient for his modest 
 wants, and he forthwith renounced all claims to his 
 share of the small family property, in favour of his 
 mother and sisters. He threw himself at once with 
 ardour into his work, and originated those celebrated 
 but highly dangerous experiments on the effects of 
 nitrous oxide, which indeed nearly cost him his own 
 life, but which in their result have alleviated the 
 sufferings of tens of thousands of his fellow-creatures. 
 The description of one of the ' seances,' when ex- 
 periments were tried on many different persons in- 
 cluding Southey, then Poet Laureate were described 
 by Davy in an amusing little poem. 
 . The friendship with Southey was not only on a 
 scientific basis; the Poet recognised his brother- 
 poet's faculty: and accordingly Southey submitted 
 to Davy the proofs of his mystic poem ' Thalaba,' 
 for criticism ; whilst the younger bard contributed to 
 the 'Anthology' of the elder. And while on this sub- 
 ject it may be added that Coleridge (another of his 
 Clifton acquaintances), who often referred to Davy's 
 enchanting manners, used to say, so Barrow tells us, 
 that he was in the habit of attending Davy's lectures 
 at the Royal Institution, ' in order to increase his 
 stock of metaphors.' On another occasion Coleridge 
 remarked: 'There is an energy and elasticity in 
 Davy's mind which enables him to seize on and 
 analyze all questions, pushing them to their legitimate
 
 Davy, the Man of Science. 257 
 
 consequences. Every subject in Davy's mind has 
 the principle of vitality living thoughts spring up, 
 like the turf under his feet.' And Davy, of course, 
 could not fail to admire the genius of Coleridge it 
 was he who persuaded the dreamy poet to give his 
 well-known series of eighteen lectures on Shakespeare 
 at the Royal Institution in 1808. Home Tooke was 
 another of Davy's admirers, and was so enchanted, 
 with him early in his career that he engaged Chantry 
 to make a bust of the Cornish philosopher. 
 
 It is further evident that Southey had the highest 
 possible opinion of Davy's talents, for he wrote thus 
 to Taylor: 
 
 ' Davy is proceeding in his chemical career with 
 the same giant strides as at his outset. His book 
 upon the nitrous oxyd will form an epoch in the 
 science. I never witnessed such indefatigable 
 activity in any other man, nor ardour so regulated 
 by cool judgment.' 
 
 In fact our poet-chemist must have been altogether 
 a most fascinating man. An old personal acquaint- 
 ance of his writes in the 'Gentleman's Magazine,' 
 1845, tria t ' when Davy is at ease, and excited in con- 
 versation, his splendid eyes irradiate his whole coun- 
 tenance, and he looks almost inspired.' But perhaps 
 the best analysis of Davy's powers is that given in 
 Good Words for 1879, by Professor Ferguson, who 
 has also written by far the most generally interesting 
 account of the great chemist's discoveries : 
 
 VOL', i. 17
 
 258 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 'Davy's mind,' he says, 'presents so many charac- 
 teristics, that one cannot help thinking of it when 
 perusing the narrative of his life and discoveries. It is 
 that of the highest type of experimentalists. There 
 is never any straining after either facts or laws. If 
 there was a practical problem to solve, there was 
 an instinctive perception required of the means to 
 be employed. He asked his questions ; Nature re- 
 plied gently, kindly. How could she keep silent 
 when the being she had made to learn from her 
 inquired ? There was never anything superfluous, 
 for he always saw the aim of the replies no less 
 than of the questions, and knew what to do next. 
 
 ' Was it a question in science ? the same instinct 
 guided him to the means. The intensest perception 
 of real analogies led either to the discovery of new 
 bodies, and to the unravelling of obscure and per- 
 plexed phenomena, or to the enunciation of views of 
 general action, which are only now adopted in all 
 their extent and recognised as true. It was thus 
 that he declared against the oxygen theory of acids 
 that he was never a devoted convert to Dalton's 
 atomic views and that he was so thoroughly a 
 dynamician in a science which is still almost entirely 
 statical. The laboratory, rather than the study, 
 was the scene of his triumphs ; it was there where 
 his strength lay. No phenomenon was too minute 
 to escape him ; no consequence too improbable not 
 to be brought into connection with the premises ; no 
 law too wide to be grasped in its known entirety. 
 In all his work, in all his thinking, there is a magnifi-
 
 Davy, the Man of Science. 259 
 
 cence, an ever-burning light which makes us lift up 
 the head and gaze with purified vision upon the 
 world, and a wild freshness, a provocative thought 
 which, while we recur to it again and again, and are 
 never sent away empty, are no less proofs of this 
 man's vivid and enduring individuality.' 
 
 Davy's note-books now became rapidly filled with 
 the Results of his studies, with Reflexions, with Reso- 
 lutions, and with the most ambitious prospectuses of 
 his future labours. Dr. Davy gives, in his ' Life ' of 
 his brother, an interesting specimen, written in 1799, 
 when Davy had taken a house in Dowry Square, 
 Clifton. Two hours before breakfast were to be 
 devoted to his ' Lover of Nature,' or the ' Feelings 
 of Eldon ' the five hours from nine to two to experi- 
 ments the time from four to six was to be spent in 
 reading, and from seven to ten p.m. in the study of 
 metaphysics. So passed the time away at Clifton, 
 amidst the most congenial pursuits, thoroughly 
 sympathetic friends, and in the enjoyment of an 
 income which, modest as it was, enabled him to 
 assist his mother in the education of his younger 
 brother. But for one thing he bargained John was 
 not to be placed under Mr. Coryton. 
 
 Clifton, however, ere long became too small a 
 sphere for Davy; and in 1801 an appointment as 
 Assistant Editor of the Journals, Director of the Labo- 
 ratory, and Assistant Lecturer (with a view to his 
 ultimately becoming the Professor of Chemistry) to 
 the then newly-founded Royal Institution, in London, 
 
 17 2
 
 260 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 was joyfully accepted ; his salary being fixed at 100 
 guineas a year, with a room, and coals, and candles. 
 The Duchess of Gordon, amongst other leaders of 
 fashion, attracted by his youth and simplicity, as 
 well as by his enthusiasm and eloquence, took him 
 by the hand; and his success became assured. Com- 
 pliments, invitations, and presents, Dr. Paris tells us, 
 were showered upon him from all quarters ; his society 
 was courted by everybody, and all were proud of his 
 acquaintance. In 1802 he commenced a long series 
 of lectures before the Board of Agriculture, on the 
 connexion of Chemistry with Vegetable Physiology, 
 which have been translated into almost every Euro- 
 pean language : in fact, Sir Humphry has been well 
 named the father of Agricultural Chemistry.* In 1803 
 he obtained the enviable distinction of being elected a 
 Fellow of the Royal Society, and two years after- 
 wards, having become a Member of the Royal Irish 
 Academy, he found himself a correspondent of all 
 the chief scientific men of the day. 
 
 Davy's debut as a lecturer at the Royal Institution 
 appears to have been highly successful ; ' the spark- 
 ling intelligence of his eye,t his animated manner,' 
 according to one critic, and ' his youth, his natural 
 eloquence, his chemical knowledge, his happy illus- 
 trations, and well-conducted experiments, excited 
 universal attention and unbounded applause.' It has 
 
 * Just as another Cornishman Richard Trevithick was the first 
 who applied steam to agriculture. 
 
 t Becker tells us how the ladies so admired his handsome eyes that 
 they vowed they were ' made for something besides poring over 
 crucibles.'
 
 Davy, the Man of Science. 261 
 
 been well said that ' under his touch the coldest 
 realities blossomed into poetry.' But the real secret 
 of his success was this that he was master of his 
 subject ; and that his whole heart was in his work. 
 His mode of life, his brother tells us, was at this 
 time extremely simple, his fare frugal, his rooms 
 slightly furnished, and the only ' thing of beauty ' 
 which they contained was an exquisite little porcelain 
 Venus, the gift of his early friend Wedgwood, with 
 whom he was associated in some of the very first 
 attempts made in this country in the art of photo- 
 graphy. 
 
 In 1806 and 1807 he was selected to deliver the 
 Bakerian Lecture (the subject chosen being the 
 ' Chemical Agencies of Electricity') an honourable 
 distinction leading, as it probably did, to his promo- 
 tion in the latter year to the posts of Secretary to the 
 Royal Society, and Member of the Council. Of this 
 paper Dr. Whewell said, ' It was a great event 
 perhaps the most important event of the epoch under 
 review,' and as such ' it was recognised at once all 
 over Europe.' Probably no man's life was happier 
 than Davy's at this period ; his income was ample, 
 his work was his pleasure, and his disposition was 
 happy and sanguine. Whilst holding constant and 
 friendly intercourse with his brother philosophers at 
 home and abroad,* he had also plenty of time for 
 relaxation ; and made several pleasant excursions to 
 
 * Amongst the former of whom may be mentioned De Quincey, 
 Godwin, and Coleridge, who used frequently to meet at the miserable 
 rooms of the latter, then at the office of the Courier newspaper, in the 
 Strand.
 
 262 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 Scotland* and Ireland; everywhere sketching, making 
 notes, fishing, or pursuing his inquiries amongst the 
 natives with a vivid pertinacity and good-nature 
 which at once astonished and delighted them. His 
 brother (who used occasionally to occupy an adjoin- 
 ing bedroom at the Royal Institution) tells how 
 Humphry might frequently have been heard during 
 the night addressing in fervid tones some imaginary 
 audience, or humming aloud an angler's song. In- 
 deed, it might almost be said that during this period 
 one cloud only darkened his horizon. He was seized 
 with typhus fever, caught during an inspection of 
 Newgate Prison, which he visited with a view to 
 arranging for its disinfection; but, as Dr. Dibdin 
 remarked in his introductory lecture to the Institu- 
 tion : 
 
 ' Death his dart 
 
 Shook, but delayed to strike.' 
 
 During Davy's visits to Ireland in 1810 and 1811 he 
 lectured before the Dublin Society, and whilst in the 
 Irish metropolis had conferred upon him by Trinity 
 College the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. 
 During the first week 550 tickets for his lectures 
 were sold at 2 guineas each, and the price ultimately 
 rose to from 10 to 20 guineas. His own pecuniary 
 remuneration was also handsome ; in the former 
 year he received 500 guineas, and in the latter 750. 
 The result of his researches during the eleven years 
 
 * It was on one of these occasions that Davy, when out shooting 
 partridges one day at Rokeby, persuaded Roderick Murchison to come 
 up to town, and ' set to at science.'
 
 Davy, the Man of Science. 263 
 
 whilst he was officially connected with the Royal 
 Institution may, Dr. Davy thinks, be conveniently 
 divided into two portions, viz., the earlier one, termin- 
 ating with his great discovery of the decomposition 
 and recomposition of the fixed alkalies, by the aid of 
 an enormously powerful voltaic pile which he had 
 specially constructed for him, and the cost of which 
 was defrayed by subscription the reward of his trium- 
 phant and all-important electro-chemical researches ; 
 and the later period, which re-established the simple 
 nature of chlorine. His views on these subjects 
 were adopted by all the leading chemists of the age ; 
 and, with few exceptions, were after a short time 
 promulgated in the schools. To the theory of 
 tanning he also gave much attention, experimentally 
 wearing for some time one shoe tanned with oak 
 bark, and the other with catechu. He published the 
 results of his inquiries in the * Philosophical Trans- 
 actions ' for 1803. 
 
 It is not uninteresting here to note that Davy, on 
 becoming connected with the Royal Society, did not 
 entirely relinquish his intentions of prosecuting 
 what might probably have been a more lucrative 
 career his original profession of medicine. But 
 not even such a prospect nor even that of an illus- 
 trious career in the Church (to which it is said the 
 Bishop of Durham and others, charmed by his 
 eloquence as a lecturer, urged him) could draw 
 away his affection from science. And he was not 
 without his reward ; for he had the satisfaction of 
 reading in Cuvier's address to the French Institute,
 
 264 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 whose members were of course rival scientists, 
 that ' Davy, not yet thirty-two, in the opinion 
 of all who could judge of his labours, held the first 
 rank among the chemists of this or of any other age.' 
 
 The month of April, 1812, was an eventful one in 
 Davy's life. It saw his retirement from the post of 
 Secretary to the Royal Society ; it saw him receive 
 the honour of Knighthood, then rarely bestowed 
 upon men of science ;* and last, but not least, it saw 
 him married to Mrs. Apreece, whose maiden name 
 was Jane Kerr (of Kelso), a wealthy, amiable, and 
 intellectual widow, to whom he appears to have been 
 devotedly attached : he described her, in a letter to 
 his mother, announcing the intended marriage, as ' a 
 woman equally distinguished for virtues, talents, and 
 accomplishments ;' and to his brother as ' the most 
 amiable and intellectual woman I have ever known.' 
 To this tribute to her worth it may be added that, 
 when Scott went on his tour to the Hebrides, his 
 ' dear friend and distant relation,' Mrs. Apreece 
 (afterwards Lady Davy), went with the family party: 
 she had been, Scott says in one of his letters, ' a 
 lioness of the first magnitude in Edinburgh ' during 
 the preceding winter. And when writing to Byron, 
 inviting him to Abbotsford, Sir Walter mentions as 
 one of the visitors who made his home attractive : 
 ' The fair, or shall I say the sage, Apreece that was, 
 Lady Davy that is, who is soon to show us how 
 much science she leads captive in Sir Humphry.' 
 
 * On 2oth October, 1818, he was made a Baronet.
 
 Davy, the Man of Science. 265 
 
 But there are ' cabinet ' portraits of the lady 
 and her husband in ' The Life of George Ticknor ' 
 (p. 57, vol. i.) which may be introduced here. 
 
 ' 1815, June 13. I breakfasted this morning with 
 Sir H. Davy, of whom we have heard so much in 
 America. He is now about thirty-three, but with 
 all the freshness and bloom of twenty-five, and one 
 of the handsomest men I have seen in England. 
 He has a great deal of vivacity talks rapidly, though 
 with great precision and is so much interested in 
 conversation that his excitement amounts to nervous 
 impatience, and keeps him in constant motion. He 
 has just returned from Italy, and delights to talk of 
 it; thinks it, next to England, the finest country in the 
 world, and the society of Rome surpassed only by 
 that of London, and says he should not die contented 
 without going there again. 
 
 * It seemed singular that his taste in this should be 
 so acute, when his professional eminence is in a 
 province so different and remote ; but I was much 
 more surprised when I found that the first chemist 
 of his time was a professed angler ; and that he 
 thinks, if he were obliged to renounce either fishing 
 or philosophy, that he should find the struggle of 
 his choice pretty severe. 
 
 * 15 June. As her husband had invited me to do, 
 I called this morning on Lady Davy. I found her 
 in her parlour, working on a dress, the contents of
 
 266 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 her basket strewed about the table, and looking 
 more like home than anything since I left it. She 
 is small, with black eyes and hair and a very 
 pleasant face, an uncommonly sweet smile ; and 
 when she speaks, has much spirit and expression 
 in her countenance. Her conversation is agree- 
 able, particularly in the choice and variety of her 
 phraseology, and has more the air of eloquence than 
 I have ever heard before from a lady. But, then, 
 it has something of the appearance of formality 
 and display, which injures conversation. Her 
 manner is gracious and elegant ; and though I 
 should not think of comparing her to Corinne, yet 
 I think she has uncommon powers.' 
 
 The honeymoon, the greater part of which was 
 spent in Scotland, was scarcely over, before, in the 
 month of June, he dedicated to his wife his ' Elements 
 of Chemical Philosophy,' as a pledge of his continued 
 ardour for science, as well as of his love for her ; 
 and Davy returned to his scientific pursuits. In the 
 following November he nearly lost his eyesight, whilst 
 performing the dangerous experiment of effecting the 
 combination of azote, as nitrogen was then called, 
 and chlorine. He soon, however, completely re- 
 covered the use of his eyes, and took a trip into his 
 native county ; fishing and geologizing on the way. 
 It was about this time also that Davy made the first 
 experiments in electric lighting, by producing the 
 voltaic arc by the use of carbon ; the discovery was 
 improved by Foucault, who substituted retort-carbon
 
 Davy, the Man of Science. 267 
 
 for wood-charcoal. (Comte du Moncel's ' L'Eclairage 
 Electrique,' Paris, 1880.) 
 
 With reference to this, now highly important, sub- 
 ject, a writer in the Times for 22nd October, 1881, 
 points out that ' Sir Humphry Davy showed that 
 when a powerful current passes across the point of 
 contact of two carbon rods, their points become 
 heated ; and on separating them to a short distance, 
 an arc of light shoots between them, and the carbons 
 are raised to a white heat.' The writer adds, that 
 ' all lamps (until lately) had this point chiefly in view ; 
 namely, to introduce an arrangement which should 
 keep the carbon-points at the fixed distance found to 
 be the most advantageous.' Surely here was the 
 germ of that discovery which is now becoming so 
 rapidly developed. 
 
 In the autumn he went with Lady Davy for a long 
 tour on the Continent, accompanied by the illustrious 
 Faraday, who was a bookseller's apprentice when 
 Davy first knew him, as his assistant and secretary ; 
 and equipped (as on previous similar occasions) 
 with a portable chemical apparatus. He passed 
 (with a special passport from Napoleon) through 
 Paris feted by all the Parisian savants, including 
 Laplace, Gay-Lussac, Thenard, etc., but treating 
 them, it is said, somewhat haughtily thence through 
 France and Switzerland into Italy, by way of Nice to 
 Genoa, where he rested a few days in order to make 
 some ineffectual experiments on the torpedo; and 
 so on to Florence, visiting en route all the most
 
 268 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 remarkable extinct volcanoes in the south of France. 
 This year he was elected a Corresponding Member 
 of the ist class of the French Institute, who had 
 previously awarded to him their prize of 3,000 livres 
 for his treatise on ' Chemical Affinities.' In the spring 
 of 1814 he reached Rome, where he spent a month ; 
 and thence visited Naples; all the while filling his 
 note-books with interesting entries, personal, scien- 
 tific, and poetic. On his return homeward he made 
 the acquaintance of Volta, then seventy years old, 
 at Milan, and he records his pleasure at conferring 
 with the ingenious and amiable old man. 
 
 Midsummer found him at his beloved Geneva ; and 
 here he spent three delicious months in a villa whose 
 garden sloped down to the cool blue waters of the 
 lake. He wintered at Rome, busily occupied with his 
 scientific pursuits, with shooting wild-fowl in the 
 Campagna, and in the enjoyment of the intellectual 
 society of the Eternal City; not omitting to 
 transmit the results of his studies for publication 
 in the ' Philosophical Transactions.' It was about 
 this time that the Geological Society of Penzance 
 was started ; and it need scarcely be said that it had 
 from the first the best wishes of Davy, who contri- 
 buted specimens to its cabinets, and subscribed a 
 handsome sum towards its expenses. 
 
 This was not the only institution of a scientific 
 nature of which Davy was an early patron, if not 
 indeed an originator. Sir Roderick Murchison, in his 
 'Biography' by Geikie, mentions that Davy, Croker, 
 and Reginald Heber were the real founders and
 
 Davy, the Man of Science. 269 
 
 earliest trustees of the Athenaeum Club. And Sir 
 John Rennie, in his ' Autobiography,' says as follows : 
 
 f Sir Humphry Davy, in the year 1825, originated 
 the Zoological Society, and asked me to join, which 
 I did most willingly; and perhaps it has been the 
 most popular and successful of any modern society 
 of that kind. It commenced operations by pur- 
 chasing the well-known Cross collection of Exeter 
 'Change, in which, in my early days, I took an 
 especial delight ; for, considering all things, it was a 
 very wonderful collection, and it is difficult to under- 
 stand how, in such a confined and unhealthy spot, it 
 could have been maintained in such good condition. 
 The only other exhibition of the kind in London was 
 at the Tower; the collection of animals there con- 
 sisted of presents from the sovereigns of different 
 countries. These were afterwards lent to the Zoo- 
 logical Society, who established their museum in the 
 Regent's Park ; and taking it altogether, it is pro- 
 bably the finest and best maintained in the world.' 
 
 In the spring of 1815 he returned to England, via 
 Mayence and Brussels, and bought for his residence 
 a house in Lower Grosvenor Street, No. 28. 
 
 There is perhaps no subject connected with the 
 career of Davy with which his name is more in- 
 separably and more honourably associated than that 
 now to be mentioned, and it was a subject which 
 even the genius of a Humboldt had failed to master 
 namely, the brilliant and philanthropical discovery of
 
 270 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 the Safety Lamp (the original lamp in its first and 
 simplest form is preserved in the Royal Institution), 
 which has often been described in detail. His 
 brother goes fully into the train of reasoning and of 
 experiments which led to its construction. It is, as 
 he says, a cage of wire-gauze which actually makes 
 prisoner the flame of the deadly fire-damp, and in 
 its prison consumes it. This grand invention and 
 it is not the less grand because it is so simple by 
 which in all probability more lives have been saved 
 than by any other invention of similar character, 
 Davy nobly refused to patent, lest the sphere of its 
 usefulness should be restricted : indeed, throughout 
 his life he was indifferent to mere money; he was 
 constantly giving away things for which he had no 
 immediate use, and never kept a book after he had 
 once read it. He received for the invention of the 
 Safety Lamp unbounded praise and heartiest thanks 
 from the great body of coal-owners and coal-workers 
 of the Tyne and Wear especially; and was presented 
 by them, on nth October, 1817, with a magnificent 
 service of plate worth 2,500,* at a public dinner at 
 the Queen's Head Hotel, Newcastle, when the Earl of 
 Durham (then Mr. Lambton) said in the course of 
 his speech : ' If your fame had needed anything to 
 make it immortal, this discovery alone would have 
 carried it down to future ages, and connected it with 
 benefits and blessings.' 
 
 * By his will Davy provided that, in certain contingencies, this 
 service should be melted down in order to provide a fund for the 
 reward of original, meritorious discoveries in Science, either 'in Europe 
 or Anglo- America.'
 
 Davy, the Man of Science. 271 
 
 Of this lamp (which the miners call ' a Davy,' the 
 inventor, with his usual philanthropic spirit, often 
 said, ' I value it more than ANYTHING I EVER DID.' 
 The Emperor of Russia sent him a magnificent 
 silver-gilt vase, the cover of which was surmounted 
 by a figure of the God of Fire weeping over his 
 extinguished torch, and the present was accompanied 
 by an autograph letter. Early in the following year, 
 his services to Science and to Humanity were recog- 
 nised, somewhat tardily, by his having a baronetcy 
 conferred upon him by the English Sovereign.* 
 
 In the summer of 1818 he contemplated a second 
 visit, with Lady Davy, to the Continent. The pro- 
 gramme included Flanders, Austria, Rome, and 
 Naples, t to the two last of which places he went 
 
 * Byron's lines in the first canto of ' Don Juan ' will doubtless recur to 
 many of my readers : 
 
 ' This is the patent age of new inventions 
 
 For killing bodies and for saving 'souls, 
 All propagated with the best intentions ; 
 
 Sir Humphry Davy's lantern by which coals 
 Are safely mined for in the mode he mentions.' 
 
 Jackson's account of Timbuctoo ; the narrative of Robert Adams, a 
 sailor ; Dr. Leyden's ' Discoveries in Africa,' and other works, are then 
 hinted at ; and the poet goes on, sardonically, to say that all these 
 
 ' Are ways to benefit mankind, as true 
 Perhaps, as shooting them at Waterloo.' 
 
 f Whilst at Naples he made the acquaintance of one of the guides up 
 Vesuvius, whom Davy commissioned to inform him from time to time 
 of the state of the volcano ; the man used occasionally to communicate 
 with him, and the letters reached Sir Humphry, notwithstanding their 
 phonetic address : 
 
 ' Siromfredevi, 
 
 'Londra.'
 
 272 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 commissioned by the Prince Regent to investigate at 
 Pompeii the bases of the colours employed by the 
 ancients in their frescoes ; and to discover, if possible, 
 some chemical process of unrolling the papyric MSS. 
 affected by the fire at Herculaneum : in this, how- 
 ever, he was unsuccessful ; and his want of success 
 a thing so unusual with him afforded him infinite 
 chagrin. Most of the summer and part of the 
 autumn of 1819 were spent in luxurious repose at the 
 baths of Lucca ; but the winter found him again at 
 Rome, all the while making notes and storing up 
 thoughts for his delightful book, ' The Consolations 
 of Travel.' 
 
 In the summer of 1820 he returned, by way of the 
 south of France, to his house in Grosvenor Street, 
 and deeply interested himself in an inquiry into the 
 * Connexion between Magnetism and Electricity,' the 
 result of- which he communicated to the Royal 
 Society on the I2th November. 
 
 Again he visited Scotland ; and Lockhart gives a 
 graphic account of the -party at Abbotsford, in the 
 autumn of this year, as they started on a sporting 
 expedition, in which, after sketching the portraits of 
 some members of it, Scott's biographer goes on to 
 say: 
 
 * But the most picturesque figure was the illustrious 
 inventor of the safety-lamp. He had come for his 
 favourite sport of angling, and had been practising it 
 successfully with Rose, his travelling companion, for 
 two or three days preceding this; but he had notpre-
 
 Davy, the Man of Science. 273 
 
 pared for coursing fields, or had left Charlie Purdie's 
 troop for Sir Walter's on a sudden thought ; and 
 his fisherman's costume a brown hat with flexible 
 brim, surrounded with line upon line, and innumer- 
 able fly-hooks ; jack-boots worthy of a Dutch smug- 
 gler, and a fustian surtout dabbled with the blood of 
 salmon made a fine contrast with the smart jackets, 
 white cord breeches, and well-polished jockey-boots 
 of the less distinguished cavaliers about him.' 
 
 After a merry lunch at Newark Castle they all 
 moved on towards Blackandro, and, Lockhart con- 
 tinues : 
 
 ' Davy, next to whom I chanced to be riding, laid 
 his whip about the fern like an experienced hand, 
 but cracked many a joke, too, upon his own jack- 
 boots; and, surveying the long eager battalion of 
 bush-rangers, exclaimed : " Good Heavens, is it thus 
 that I visit the scenery of the ' Lay of the Last 
 Minstrel'!" He then kept muttering. to himself as 
 his glowing eye (the finest and brightest that I ever 
 saw) ran over the landscape, some of those beautiful 
 lines from the conclusion of the ' Lay ': 
 
 " But still 
 
 When summer smiled on sweet Bowhill, 
 And July's eve with balmy breath 
 Waved the blue bells on Newark heath, 
 When throstles sang on Hareheadshaw, 
 And corn was green in Catterhaugh, 
 And flourished, broad, Blackandro's oak, 
 The aged harper's soul awoke," etc., etc. 
 
 ' Mackenzie ("The Man of Feeling"), spectacled 
 
 VOL. I. l8
 
 274 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 though he was, saw the first sitting hare, gave the word 
 to slip the dogs, and spurred after them like a boy. 
 All the seniors, indeed, did well as long as the course 
 was upwards ; but when puss took down the declivity, 
 they halted, and breathed themselves upon the knoll, 
 cheering gaily, however, the young people who dashed 
 past and below them. Coursing on such a mountain 
 is not like the same sport over a set of fine English 
 pastures. There were gulfs to be avoided, and bogs 
 enough to be threaded ; many a stiff nag stuck fast, 
 many a bold rider measured his length among the 
 peat-hags; and another stranger to the ground besides 
 Davy plunged neck-deep into a treacherous well- 
 head, which, till they were floundering in it, had 
 borne all the appearance of a piece of delicate green 
 turf. When Sir Humphry emerged from his involun- 
 tary bath, his habiliments garnished with mud, slime, 
 and mangled water-cresses, Sir Walter received him 
 with a triumphant " Encore /" But the philosopher 
 had his revenge ; for, joining soon after in a brisk 
 gallop, Scott put Sibyl Grey to a leap beyond her 
 prowess, and lay humbled in the ditch, while Davy, 
 who was better mounted, cleared it and him at a 
 bound. Happily there was little damage done, but no 
 one was sorry that the "sociable " had been detained 
 at the foot of the hill. 
 
 ' I have seen Sir Humphry in many places, and in 
 company of many descriptions ; but never to such 
 advantage as at Abbotsford. His host and he de- 
 lighted in each other, and the modesty of their 
 mutual admiration was a memorable spectacle.'
 
 Davy, the Man of Science. 275 
 
 Davy was,, by nature, a poet ; and Scott, though any- 
 thing but a philosopher in the modern 'sense of that 
 term, might, I think it very likely, have pursued the 
 study of physical science with zeal and success, had 
 he chanced to fall in with such an instructor as Sir 
 Humphry would have been to him, in his early life. 
 Each strove to make the other talk, and they did so 
 in turn more charmingly than I ever heard either 
 on any other occasion whatsoever. Scott, in his 
 romantic narratives, touched upon a deeper chord of 
 feeling than usual, when he had such a listener as 
 Davy ; and Davy, when induced to open his views upon 
 any subject of scientific interest in Scott's presence, 
 did so with a degree of clear energetic eloquence, and 
 with a flow of imagery and illustration, of which 
 neither his habitual tone of table-talk (least of all in 
 London) nor any of his prose writings (except, 
 indeed, the posthumous " Consolations of Travel ") 
 could suggest an adequate notion. I say his prose 
 writings, for who that has read his sublime quatrains 
 on the "Doctrine of Spinoza" can doubt that he 
 might have united, if he had pleased, in some great 
 didactic form, the vigorous ratiocination of Dryden 
 and the moral majesty of Wordsworth? I remember 
 William Laidlaw whispering to me one night, when 
 their " rapt talk " had kept the circle round the fire 
 until long after the usual bed-time of Abbotsford: 
 " Gude preserve us ! this is a very superior occasion ! 
 Eh, sirs!" he added, cocking his eye like a bird. 
 " I wonder if Shakespeare and Bacon ever met to 
 screw ilk other up!" 
 
 18 2
 
 276 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 I am also indebted to Lockhart for the following 
 story : 
 
 ' When Sir Walter Scott was debating in his mind 
 the Prince Regent's offer of a baronetcy, he wrote to 
 his friend Morritt : " After all, if one must speak for 
 themselves, I have my quarters and emblazonments 
 free of all stain but Border theft and high treason, 
 which I hope are gentlemanlike crimes ; and I hope 
 ' Sir Walter Scott ' will not sound worse than ' Sir 
 Humphry Davy,' though my merits are as much 
 under his, in point of utility, as can well be imagined. 
 But a name is something, and mine is the better of 
 the two."' When Mrs. Davy, Dr. Davy's wife, told 
 Sir Walter Scott, at Malta, that her husband was 
 writing his brother's life, Sir Walter said, ' I am glad 
 of it ; I hope his mother lived to see his greatness.' 
 And it is pleasant to be able to record such was the 
 case. 
 
 Not only Sir Walter Scott, but even the cold and 
 reserved Poet of the Lakes, was deeply impressed with 
 Davy's genius. Lockhart tells us that when Sir 
 Walter and Wordsworth ascended Helvellyn, 'they 
 were accompanied by an illustrious philosopher, who 
 was also a true poet, and might have been one of the 
 greatest of poets had he chosen ; and I have heard 
 Mr. Wordsworth say that it would be difficult to 
 express the feelings with which he, who .so often had 
 climbed Helvellyn alone, found himself standing on 
 its summit with two such men as Scott and Davy.' 
 
 The crowning honour of Davy's life now awaited
 
 Davy, the Man of Science. 277 
 
 him. His friend Sir Joseph Banks himself the 
 successor of such men as Sir Christopher Wren, Sir 
 Hans Sloane, and Sir Isaac Newton who had held 
 the post of President of the Royal Society for forty- 
 two years, died on igth June, 1820, and Sir Humphry 
 was, almost unanimously, elected on the soth of the 
 following November. He continued to fill the post 
 for seven successive years, and his annual addresses 
 are very characteristic specimens of his eloquence 
 and suavity. He retained the old practice of deliver- 
 ing his speeches in full court dress,* and with the 
 Society's mace (Oliver Cromwell's celebrated ' bauble ') 
 laid before him. He also continued his predecessor's 
 practice of having weekly evening gatherings of the 
 most distinguished men of science of the day, so long 
 as he remained in Lower Grosvenor Street ; but they 
 were discontinued on his moving, in 1825, to 26, 
 Park Street, Grosvenor Square. 
 
 Davy now began to find that 
 
 ' Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.' 
 
 He was worried by the numerous small duties which 
 pertained to his prominent position, and was sadly 
 disappointed at not being able to prevail upon the 
 Government of the day to take up his somewhat 
 magnificent views as to the development of the Royal 
 
 * As a rule he is said to have been careless about his costume ; it 
 was with the greatest difficulty that he was persuaded to don a quasi- 
 court dress in order to be presented to the Empress Josephine, and his 
 negligent appearance and manners often surprised his Continental 
 acquaintances. About one thing, however, he was rather particular ; 
 and that was to wear a wide-brimmed hat whenever he could.
 
 278 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 Society, and the subordination of certain other great 
 public establishments to it. He used to complain 
 that the Government were only too glad to get any- 
 thing they could out of the Society, but were loth 
 to give back anything in return. I gather too, from 
 what Dr. Davy says, that symptoms of failing health 
 began, even thus early, to show themselves. He 
 somewhat relaxed the severity of his labours made 
 trips to Ireland, Wales, and Scotland (dining at 
 Edinburgh with Sir Walter Scott), chiefly with a view 
 to enjoying the fine scenery, and the fishing and 
 shooting ; but, as regards Wales, also with the object 
 of devising means for remedying the results produced 
 by the noxious copper effluvia from the Smelting 
 Works at Swansea. 
 
 In the autumn of 1821 he paid a visit to Penzance ; 
 always fond as indeed most Cornishmen seem to 
 be of embracing an opportunity of revisiting his 
 native place. On this occasion he was entertained 
 at a public dinner ; and he left his old home, doubt- 
 less expecting to see it again and again : but this was 
 destined to be his last visit. 
 
 From 1823 to 1826 may be described as the last 
 period of his scientific labours ; and it was in a great 
 measure devoted to investigations, undertaken at the 
 request of the Government, into the best .mode of 
 preventing the destruction of the copper-sheathing 
 of vessels by the action of the sea. This Davy 
 to some extent accomplished by coating the copper 
 with tin ; but, unfortunately, the tin did not prevent
 
 Davy, the Man of Science. 279 
 
 (as the copper- did) the fouling of the metal by 
 accretions of seaweeds and shells ; and the practical 
 result was nil. 
 
 He was much disappointed at this, having taken 
 great pains in the matter, and having even made a 
 voyage to the North Sea for the purpose of conduct- 
 ing his experiments. Of this excursion, which 
 included visits to Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, 
 he has left copious records though, as a general 
 rule, he had now discontinued his diary and these 
 include his reflexions not only on the scenery, etc., 
 through which he passed, but, according to his custom, 
 his impressions of the distinguished men of science 
 and others with whom he came in contact. Those 
 circumstances which impressed Davy most deeply he 
 often recorded, as was his practice throughout his 
 life, in verse. A specimen may be given here in the 
 following fragment written at Ullswater, which he 
 visited in August, 1825 : 
 
 ' Ye lovely hills that rise in majesty 
 Amidst the ruddy light of setting suns, 
 Your tops are bright with radiance, while below 
 The wave is dark and gloomy, and the vale 
 Hid in obscurest mist. Such is. the life 
 Of Man : this vale of earth and waters dark 
 And gloomy but the mountains range above ! 
 The sky the heavens are bright ! ' 
 
 But he could not succeed in shaking off the illness 
 of which he had had more than one warning; and 
 even his elastic spirits began to flag under its 
 depressing influence. The spring of 1826 found him
 
 280 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 worse ; he complained much of rheumatism, and of 
 slight numbness in his limbs ; and the death of his 
 mother in the autumn still further affected his health. 
 With great pain and effort he delivered what proved 
 to be his last address to the Royal Society a body 
 whose mission was so like his own, ' ad inquisitionem 
 et inventionem naturae verse et interioris rerum om- 
 nium' on St. Andrew's Day, 1826; and shortly after 
 he suffered a slight attack of paralysis, which, how- 
 ever, did not prevent his revising his discourses, nor 
 even deter him from projecting new scientific trea- 
 tises. During his recovery he liked nothing better 
 than having novels and romances read to him, 
 partly I should think to divert his mind from the 
 small worries which were inevitable to one occupying 
 the post which he filled, but which at this juncture 
 pressed upon him with increasing force, and indeed 
 probably conduced to his determining upon another 
 visit to the Continent in January, 1827, accompanied 
 on this occasion only by his brother, Dr. John Davy, 
 an army surgeon. 
 
 The winter journey was rough and dreary. Paris 
 was avoided, on account of the too great excitement 
 which it was feared its society might induce ; and 
 the roads along which the travellers drove, bad at 
 the best, were now in their very worst condition from 
 the snow. The scenes through which they passed 
 were uninteresting, the occasional roadside churches 
 being the only noteworthy objects ; and these they 
 rarely failed to enter, the sick philosopher generally 
 dropping on his knees for a silent prayer.
 
 Davy, the Man of Science. 281 
 
 So they passed on, notwithstanding the severe cold 
 and the snow, over the Mont Cenis, into Italy, 
 reaching Ravenna on the 27th February Davy, 
 strange to say, rather the better than the worse 
 for his cold and cheerless expedition. Here he 
 rested for some time, occupying himself chiefly in 
 shooting, fishing, and reading Byron, whose acquaint- 
 ance (with that of the accomplished Countess 
 Guiccioli) he had previously made at this place. 
 His note-book was kept up, and was filled with 
 numerous acute observations on subjects connected 
 with natural history and chemistry, interspersed with 
 expressions of pious humility and of gratitude to 
 ' the Great Cause of all being.' His health im- 
 proved ; and in March, 1827, Dr. Davy returned 
 to Corfu, whilst Sir Humphry shortly afterwards 
 started on a solitary expedition through the Eastern 
 Alps and down the Rhine. But his health now 
 declined; he frequently had to apply leeches and 
 blisters, and he lived so abstemiously as to con- 
 siderably reduce his strength and spirits. ' Valde 
 miserabilis !' he often exclaimed in his note-book ; 
 and once he wrote, ' Dubito fortissime restaurationem 
 meam.' It was no doubt whilst in this mood that 
 he wrote to Mr. Davies Gilbert from Salzburg, on 
 3Oth June, 1827, announcing his retirement from the 
 office of President of the Royal Society.* Whilst 
 on one of his numerous fishing expeditions, a 
 
 * The Davy medal of the Royal Society was, in 1882, presented, in 
 duplicate, to D. Mendelejeff and Lothar Meyer for their discovery of 
 the periodic relations of the atomic weights.
 
 282 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 pursuit* which, as we have seen, he passionately 
 followed all his life long, he wrote about this time, 
 the following pensive lines, more stto, on contem- 
 plating a rapid river : 
 
 ' E'en as I look upon thy mighty flood, 
 Absorb'd in thought, it seems that I become 
 A part of thee, and in thy thundering waves 
 My thoughts are lost, and pass to future time, 
 Seeking the infinite, and rolling on 
 Towards the eternal and unbounded sea 
 Of the All-Powerful, Omnipresent Mind.' 
 
 This was a favourite thought of his. He amplified 
 it in a letter which he addressed from Rome in the 
 following year to his friend Poole : 
 
 ' I have this conviction full on my mind,' he wrote, 
 ' that intellectual beings spring from the same breath 
 of Infinite Intelligence, and return to it again, but by 
 different courses. Like rivers born amid the clouds 
 of heaven, and lost in the deep and eternal ocean 
 some in youth, rapid and short-lived torrents ; spme 
 in manhood, powerful and copious rivers ; and some 
 in age, by a slow and winding course, half lost in 
 their career, and making their exit by many sandy 
 and shallow mouths.' 
 
 The current of his own life now carried him back 
 in one of its eddies to London, which he reached on 
 6th October. 
 
 The winter was passed in town, but the state of 
 
 * He would often go two or three hundred miles for a day's fishing, 
 and has more than once patiently fished all day long without a rise ; 
 he was, however, generally a successful as well as an enthusiastic 
 fisherman, but seems to have been thought somewhat clumsy in his 
 manipulation.
 
 Davy, the Man of Science. 283 
 
 his health prevented any great exertion, and did not 
 permit his seeing much society ; yet the world can 
 scarcely be said to have been the loser ; for in his 
 retirement he composed (being now nearly fifty years 
 of age), that delightful book, dear to every angler, 
 ' Salmonia.'* Returning spring revived his desire to 
 revisit what he considered the finest scenery in the 
 world, namely, the Alpine valleys of Illyria and 
 Styria ; and at the end of March he left England, 
 accompanied by a young medical gentleman (his 
 godson), Mr. Tobin, the son of a much-valued old 
 friend. His pursuits were much as usual, and, living 
 somewhat more generously, he more than once enter- 
 tained some faint hopes of his ultimate recovery; 
 * attaching,' as he himself put it, ' a loose fringe, of 
 hope to his tattered garments.' His mind was fully 
 active during this summer, as may be judged from 
 his having now planned his well-known work, ' Con- 
 solations of Travel,' which he used to say ' contained 
 the essence of his philosophical opinions ;' and from 
 his having sketched out a slight plan for his own 
 memoirs. Stress of weather detained him a short 
 time at Wurzen, and here he occupied the time of 
 his detention by writing his little Irish romance, 
 ' The Last of the O'D'onoghues.' He also now sent 
 to press the second edition of his ' Salmonia,' which 
 he thought 'twice as good, as well as twice as big' as 
 the first. At Trieste he resumed his experiments on 
 
 * The first edition was genially reviewed by Sir Walter Scott in the 
 Quarterly Review^, xxxviii. 503. Sir Walter used to say of Davy, in 
 allusion to his well-known preference for his old associates and acquaint- 
 ances, that 'he never forgot a friend.'
 
 284 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 the electric eel, and at length satisfied himself that 
 under no conditions did the shock affect the magnet. 
 This formed the subject of a paper the last of a 
 series which continued almost uninterruptedly for a 
 period of twenty-eight years published by the Royal 
 Society. It was about this time that he made the 
 noble and touching entry in his diary : 
 
 ' Si moro, spero che ho fatto il mio dovere ; e che mia vita non e 
 stato vano ed inutile.'* 
 
 The curtain rises on the last act, at Rome, where 
 he passed the winter. Here where he describes 
 himself, in a letter dated 6th February, 1829, to his 
 friend Poole, as ' a ruin among ruins ' he received, 
 a fortnight after that date, his last and fatal shock of 
 paralysis. It was quite unexpected by him, and he 
 was barely able to write one or two hurried letters to 
 his brother, begging him to come quickly. He now 
 quite made up his mind that he was about to die ; 
 but his mind continued calm and clear, and he urged 
 Dr. Davy, when he at length arrived, not to give 
 way to any vain regrets, but to regard the matter 
 philosophically. Even in this extremity, the con- 
 sideration of the strange powers of the torpedo 
 exercised a fascinating influence over him ; and he 
 directed experiments and dissections of the fish from 
 the bed upon which he not only believed himself to 
 be dying, but upon which he thought, more than once, 
 that he had actually died. Only with great difficulty 
 was he persuaded by his wife and surrounding friends 
 
 * It should, perhaps, be remarked here that Davy was an excellent 
 . linguist.
 
 Davy, the Man of Science. 285 
 
 that he had not as yet passed the dark portals of the 
 grave. 
 
 It will hardly be believed that from such a state 
 as this he rallied. Yet such was the case ! Lady 
 Davy had brought with her from England an early 
 copy of the second edition of his ' Salmonia ;' and 
 he read it with avidity. Indeed reading or rather 
 being read to was now almost his only pursuit. 
 Moore's ' Epicurean,' Shakespeare, ' The Arabian 
 Nights,' and ' Humphrey Clinker,' by turns engaged 
 his attention ; and at length he not only thought 
 recovery possible, but by April was actually able 
 to take drives about Rome and its neighbourhood, 
 entering fully, with his companions, into all the en- 
 joyment of the charms of a brilliant Italian spring. 
 
 At length, leaving Rome, ' by slow and easy stages,' 
 they came to Geneva, which place they reached on 
 the 28th May, by the Mont Cenis route. Here the 
 little party took up their residence at La Couronne 
 hotel, which overlooks the lake ; and Davy expressed 
 an earnest desire once more to throw a fly on it. 
 He was very deeply affected on hearing of the 
 death of his old friend Dr. Thomas Young ; but 
 dined heartily with the others at five o'clock. After 
 dinner he was heard joking with the waiter as to 
 the cooking of the fish, and desiring that he might 
 be furnished with a specimen of every variety which 
 the lake contained ; and, after being read to as usual, 
 he went to bed at nine. In rising, however, from his 
 chair at the dinner table, for this purpose, he gave 
 his elbow a rather violent blow, the sensations result-
 
 286 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 ing from which frightened him very much, and pro- 
 bably accelerated his decease. At half-past two in 
 the morning the servant aroused Dr. Davy with the 
 information that his illustrious brother was much 
 worse. The doctor flew to the chamber, but only in 
 time to see Sir Humphry expire, just as the morning 
 of the 2gth of May, 1829, began to dawn. 
 
 His will was proved under 30,000, and Lady 
 Davy was appointed sole executrix. Paris says 
 that he left 100 to the Penzance Grammar School, 
 the interest to be devoted to a prize for the best 
 scholar, provided the school kept holiday on the 
 anniversary of his birthday ; but I do not find this in 
 the will. I believe that the interest on the money is 
 still paid, but that the holiday is omitted. 
 
 A public funeral was decreed him by the autho- 
 rities and literati of Geneva, including his friends 
 Decandolle and Sismondi, who highly appreciated 
 him ; and his mortal remains were deposited in the 
 cemetery at Plain-Palais, close to those of Professor 
 Pictet.* It was Davy's wish, as expressed in his 
 will, to be buried wherever he might die : ' Natura 
 curat suas reliquias,' he wrote ; and on his monu- 
 ment will be found the reason of this lofty reliance 
 namely, because he was 
 
 ' Summus arcanorum Naturae indigator.'f 
 
 Thus died, without issue, and within a few months 
 
 * The centenary of his birth was celebrated at Penzance in February, 
 1879. 
 
 f There is also a tablet to his memory in the north transept of West- 
 minster Abbey.
 
 Davy, the Man of Science. 287 
 
 of his great friends Wollaston and Young, Sir 
 Humphry Davy, poet and philosopher, before he 
 had completed his fifty-first year a man (to use the 
 words of Dr. Paris) ' whose splendid discoveries 
 illumined the age in which he lived, adorned the 
 country which gave him birth, and obtained from 
 foreign and hostile nations the homage of admira- 
 tion and the meed of gratitude.' 
 
 His genius it would be presumptuous in me to 
 endeavour to analyze or describe. I have attempted 
 a biographical sketch rather than an essay on Davy's 
 proper place in the ranks of science ;* but he 
 was undoubtedly one of the master-spirits of his 
 age ; and I gladly select, from among many other 
 similar accounts, the peroration of the eloge pro- 
 nounced upon him by Baron Cuvier before the 
 Institute of France : 
 
 ' Ainsi a fini a cinquante ans, sur une terre 
 etrangere, un genie dont le nom brillera avec eclat 
 parmi cette foule s'eclatante de noms dont s'enar- 
 guillit la Grande Bretagne. Mais, que dis je, pour 
 un tel homme aucune terre n'est etrangere ; Geneve 
 surtout ne pouvait pas l'tre, ou, depuis vingt ans, il 
 comptait des amis intimes, des admirateurs sans 
 cesse occupes de repandre ses decouvertes sur le 
 Continent ; aussi, le deuil n'eut pas ete plus grand 
 
 
 * Dr. Paris, F.R.S., has appended to his 'Life of Davy' an his- 
 torical sketch of the revolutions in chemical science produced by his 
 discoveries, and also a list of his chief works, which may conveniently 
 be consulted by those who desire more detailed information as to Davy's 
 scientific triumphs.
 
 288 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 ni les obseques plus honorables pour un de leur 
 concitoyens les plus respectes.' 
 
 The talented and indefatigable editors of the 
 ' Bibliotheca Cornubiensis ' have observed that, since 
 the formation of the Royal Society, fifty-eight persons, 
 either born in Cornwall or long resident within its 
 borders, have become, through their eminence in 
 mineralogical and other pursuits, Fellows of that 
 body. A full list of their names is printed in the 
 index to Messrs. Boase and Courtney's work; and 
 in it they rightly say that Cornishmen may be par- 
 doned for believing that no such record of distinction 
 in scientific knowledge could be drawn up from any 
 English county of corresponding size and popula- 
 tion. I will only add my opinion that, amongst the 
 foremost in that bright roll of honour, stands forth 
 the name of HUMPHRY DAVY.
 
 ADMIRAL VISCOUNT EXMOUTH. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 ADMIRAL VISCOUNT EX MOUTH. 
 
 ' Hearts of oak ! our captain cried 
 When each gun 
 From its adamantine lips 
 Spread a death-shade round the ships, 
 Like the hurricane eclipse 
 Of the sun.' 
 
 CAMPBELL. 
 
 HE life of this gallant sailor and good man 
 was told so admirably in 1835, by my late 
 valued friend, Edward Osier, F.L.S. for 
 many years editor of the Royal Cornwall 
 Gazette, and himself one of our Cornish Athenae that 
 his memoir must necessarily form the backbone of 
 any account of Lord Exmouth's career. To Mr. 
 Osier's well-known work I would therefore refer 
 those who desire a more detailed account than 
 space allows me to give to the subject of this 
 chapter. I should, however, add that I have been 
 fortunate enough to gather some facts to which even 
 Mr. Osier does not refer in his elaborate memoir. 
 
 Lord Exmouth's career was both eventful and 
 distinguished ; but, notwithstanding its brilliancy, his 
 chief glory was his unswerving devotion to his 
 
 19 2
 
 292 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 country, irrespective of all party feeling (and he was 
 a strong Tory) his generosity in recognising to the 
 fullest extent the merits of his subordinates his 
 combined strictness and kindness to his men and 
 his constant recognition of the Divine Hand in all 
 his victories. No vessel under the orders of Pellew 
 was ever taken by the enemy. 
 
 Like many another Cornish worthy, Edward 
 Pellew was a man of comparatively small beginnings. 
 Originally, it is said, of Norman extraction, the 
 Pellews were an old-established West Cornwall 
 family, whose tombs may still be found at Breage. 
 Humphry Pellew, his grandfather, an American 
 merchant, the builder of part of the little town of 
 Flushing in Falmouth harbour, took for his wife, 
 in 1692, Judith Sparnon of Sparnon and Pengelly 
 in Breage, by whom he had six children; but the 
 children of Samuel, the youngest son (who was 
 only eight years old when his father died in 1721), 
 were at length the only male survivors of the family. 
 This Samuel Pellew, Lord Exmouth's father, a man 
 of determined character, commanded a post-office 
 packet on the Dover station. He married in 1752 
 Constance, daughter of Edward Langford, Esq., of 
 a Herefordshire family, settled at or near Penzance 
 a woman, Mr. Osier says, ' of extraordinary spirit,' 
 and fitted, as indeed her husband also was, to be a 
 parent of heroes. 
 
 In 1765 Samuel Pellew died, leaving a widow and 
 six children; of whom Edward, the second, was 
 born at Dover, igth April, 1757. In 1765 he re-
 
 Admiral Viscount Exmouth. 293 
 
 moved with his mother to Penzance; and here, when 
 quite a child, gave an early instance of his love of 
 the * pomp and circumstance of glorious war,' by 
 walking all the way from Penzance to Helston, 
 in order to follow a troop of soldiers ; and of his 
 indomitable courage, when somewhat older, by' 
 removing from a burning house a quantity of gun- 
 powder which had been stored there. He frequently 
 played truant from school in order to get into a boat 
 at the quay ; and was a great favourite with the loafers 
 there, who taught him to box. Bottrell says that 
 Mrs. Pellew and her family lived in a thatched cottage 
 * near the Alverton entrance to Fox's gardens ;' the 
 house still stands, on the left-hand side of the road as 
 the traveller leaves Penzance for the Land's End. 
 
 The Truro Grammar School, where the Rev. R. 
 Polwhele was one of his schoolfellows, as appears 
 from his ' Reminiscences,'* was the next scene of his 
 combative energy ; and here he thrashed so many of 
 his schoolfellows, that, in order to escape a still 
 severer thrashing with which the head-master (then 
 Mr. Conon) threatened him, he ran away, and 
 against his grandfather's consent, but luckily for 
 English glory, and for his own fame went to sea. 
 Whilst at Truro, hastening through the courtyard of 
 the Red Lion Hotel to assist in putting out a fire, 
 Pellew found the high back gate shut ; but he sprang 
 over it, and I remember the spot being pointed out to 
 me in evidence of his strength and agility. His freaks 
 
 * Polwhele says that he stood in great awe of Ned Pellew, who, he 
 believes, once thrashed him.'
 
 294 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 on the water in after-life were of the most daring kind, 
 and he often set the example on board ship, when 
 no sailor could be found bold and active enough to 
 perform some dangerous act of seamanship. 
 
 In the year 1770, being then about thirteen or four- 
 teen years of age, Edward Pellew entered the Navy 
 in the Juno, and went his first voyage to the Falkland 
 Islands. Thence, under the same captain (Stott), he 
 sailed in the Alarm to the Mediterranean, where, at 
 Marseilles a place which he was destined afterwards 
 to save from destruction by its own inhabitants he 
 left the ship, in consequence of a gross and uncalled- 
 for insult inflicted by the Captain on one of Pellew's 
 brother midshipmen, named Cole. 
 
 He next joined the Blonde., under Captain Pownoll 
 who had been trained in the school of another 
 Cornish naval hero, Admiral Boscawen and with 
 whom he soon became a prime favourite. It was on 
 board the Blonde that he so alarmed and amused 
 General Burgoyne, by standing on his head on the 
 yard-arm when the General came on board to make 
 his ill-starred expedition to America ; and from the 
 fore-yard of the same ship Pellew sprang to rescue a 
 man who had fallen overboard. His magnificent phy- 
 sique and perfect courage enabled him to perform 
 similar services on more than one occasion. 
 
 A smart engagement with a superior American 
 force on Lake Champlain was his next exploit, in 
 which, though unsuccessful, he found another oppor- 
 tunity of showing his coolness and bravery ; and his 
 services on this occasion gained him his lieutenant's
 
 Admiral Viscount Exmouth. 295 
 
 commission. Shortly afterwards he very nearly cap- 
 tured, single-handed, the American Commander-in- 
 Chief Arnold. The stock and buckle, which General 
 Arnold left behind him in his flight, were long (and 
 perhaps still are) preserved by the Pellew family. 
 
 Joining Burgoyne's unlucky army, and sharing in 
 all the dangers and hardships which it underwent, 
 Pellew, though only twenty years old, was summoned 
 to the council of war at Saratoga, at which (against 
 his own advice) it was resolved, in October, 1777, to 
 capitulate to an American force of double the strength 
 of the English. On his way home to England, in a 
 transport, he fought an American privateer, and beat 
 her off with his usual pluck and skill.- 
 
 On receiving his commission to a guard-ship, he 
 threatened to throw it up rather than remain at so 
 inactive a post; and it was not until he declared his 
 intention to command a privateer that he obtained 
 his appointment to the Licorne, in which he sailed 
 for Newfoundland in the spring of 1779. He re- 
 turned, however, to England in the following winter, 
 and joined the Apollo, under his old friend his * only 
 one on earth,' as he said Captain Pownoll, taking 
 part in an engagement with the French frigate 
 Stanislaus, on which occasion the Captain left to 
 Pellew the honour of completing her capture. 
 
 The old sloop Hazard, of which he was promoted 
 to be commander, was his next ship, and the East 
 Coast of Scotland his station in the summer of 1780. 
 Then followed the Pelican, a French prize, whilst 
 commanding which he drove ashore some French
 
 296 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 privateers near the Isle of Bass, an exploit for which 
 he was made a post-captain on board the Suffolk : 
 thus obtaining every step in his profession as a 
 reward for some successful action. When it is 
 added that, whilst in temporary command of the 
 Artois, he captured on ist July, 1782, the French 
 frigate Prince of Robego, we may conclude this part 
 of his career by observing that this was his last ser- 
 vice before the Peace, which left him without any 
 employment in His Majesty's service for four years. 
 The year 1783 saw him a denizen of Truro,* and 
 married to Susan, daughter of J. Frowde, Esq., of 
 Knowle, in Wiltshire. Doubtless, in his wooing, he 
 told her 
 
 ' Of all the wonders of the mighty deep, 
 Tales that would make a maiden love to weep, 
 Of perils manifold and strange, and storms, 
 Battle, and wreck, and thousand feller forms, 
 Which Death, careering on the terrible sea, 
 Puts on to prove the true knight's constancy.' 
 
 It was probably about this time, also, that he 
 became, according to Polwhele, a member of the 
 Truro Corporation. He soon, however, removed to 
 Flushing, near Falmouth, a curious little village, 
 which had for Pellew, as we have seen, family 
 associations, and where his elder brother, Samuel 
 Humphry, formerly a surgeon of Marines, was col- 
 lector of the Customs. 
 
 In 1786 we find him on board the Winchelsea, and 
 once more on the Newfoundland station, into every 
 harbour of which he squeezed his ship with the 
 
 * Polwhele says that Pellew lived in the house where his own mother 
 and grandmother had resided.
 
 Admiral Viscount Exmouth. 297 
 
 utmost intrepidity, often exhibiting remarkable feats 
 of personal strength and activity. 
 
 The Winchelsea was paid off in 1789, and till 1791 
 Captain Pellew served in the Salisbury, of 50 guns, 
 again on the Newfoundland station ; and this time 
 with his younger brother, Israel, as first lieutenant. 
 He afterwards became Admiral Sir Israel Pellew, 
 K.C.B. an officer whose distinguished career was 
 scarcely less illustrious than that of his more cele- 
 brated brother. He was born at Flushing in 1761, 
 and died at Plymouth in 1832. His ship, theAmphion, 
 of 32 guns, blew up in the Hamoaze, Plymouth, on 
 22nd September, 1796, and only her commander and 
 a few others escaped with their lives. 
 
 Once again the distasteful ' piping times of peace ' 
 came round ; and Pellew, for want of something to 
 do, turned farmer. His experiments in this capacity 
 were made on the little family estate of Treverry, near 
 Falmouth ; but they were a failure ; and the declara- 
 tion of war against France, in February, 1793, pro- 
 mised him a most agreeable relief after his enforced- 
 idleness. He was appointed to the Nymphe (formerly 
 a French frigate) of 36 guns ; and, to Cornishmen at 
 least, his connexion with this ship manned as she 
 was for the most part by Cornish miners, eighty of 
 whom joined her at Spithead is one of the most 
 interesting parts of his career. On the evening of 
 igth June, 1793, the Nymphe came up with the 
 French frigate Cleopatra,* of 40 guns, and after a 
 
 * The Cleopatra 's crew numbered 320, the Nymphe 's only 240.
 
 298 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 furious cannonade of three-quarters of an hour, the 
 Cornish crew, most of whom had certainly smelt 
 powder before (underground), though none had ever 
 before heard a cannon fired, had the proud delight of 
 seeing the enemy's pennant hauled down, and of cap- 
 turing the first frigate in the war, thus illustrating 
 Drayton's lines in his ' Barons' Warres ' : 
 
 ' For courage no whit second to the best, 
 The Cornishmen, most active, bold, and light.' 
 
 For this action Pellew was knighted ten days after- 
 wards. The Portsmouth correspondent of the Gentle- 
 man's Magazine, writing in July, 1793, of this engage- 
 ment, says that 'the commencement of the action 
 between the Nymphe and Cleopatra was the most 
 notable and awful that the naval history of the world 
 ever recorded. The French captain ordered his ship 
 to be manned, and, coming forward on the gangway, 
 pulled off his hat, and called out, " Vive la nation !" 
 when the ship's company gave three cheers. Captain 
 Pellew, in like manner, ordered his men from quarters 
 to the shrouds, and gave three cheers to " Long live 
 King George the Third !" and his putting on his hat 
 again was the signal for action, one of the most despe- 
 rate ever fought.' The captain of the Cleopatra, Citoyen 
 Mullon, was buried in Portsmouth churchyard. 
 
 In January, 1794, he joined the Arethusa, which 
 formed one of the cruising frigates of the Western 
 Squadron, a branch of the service which our hero 
 may be said to have originated. In the engagement 
 between the small French and English squadrons on 
 23rd April, 1794, off the Isle of Bass, he captured the
 
 Admiral Viscoimt Exmouth. 299 
 
 Pomone, a larger vessel than his own, and carried her 
 into Portsmouth harbour, on which occasion Pellew 
 received the warmest thanks of the First Lord of the 
 Admiralty, and of Earl Howe. Another French 
 squadron was, in the following August, driven ashore 
 near Brest, by Pellew and his brave companions in 
 arms ; and the Channel was thus practically cleared 
 of the enemy's cruisers for a while. But the follow- 
 ing October saw the Frenchmen once more on the 
 move ; and it was not until after a smart engagement 
 off Ushant between the Artois and the large French 
 frigate Revolutionnaire, on which occasion Pellew com- 
 manded the squadron, that the French navy was 
 completely cowed. 
 
 On the 2nd January, 1795, private intelligence 
 having reached Sir Edward that the enemy's fleet, 
 consisting of thirty-five sail of the line, thirteen 
 frigates, and sixteen smaller vessels, had put to sea 
 from Brest, he set forth from Falmouth with his 
 little squadron of five ships to reconnoitre; but no 
 engagement resulted from this expedition. 
 
 He now joined the Indefatigable, which he success- 
 fully insisted upon having cut down and rigged after 
 his own method. She sailed from Falmouth on 2nd 
 March ; and shortly after, the squadron of which she 
 formed part captured fifteen out of a convoy of 
 twenty-five vessels near the Penmarcks rocks. 
 
 The scene now shifts to Plymouth Sound, where 
 he performed, on 26th January, 1796, one of the 
 most heroic acts that it has ever fallen to the lot of
 
 3OO Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 man to accomplish. He was in evening dress, and 
 on his way to a dinner-party, when he heard that a 
 large ship, an East Indiaman, the Dutton, was on 
 the rocks under the citadel, and that no one was 
 able to go to her assistance ; but, with his usual 
 hardihood, he swam out to her through the surf, 
 and thus became the means of saving the lives 
 of between 500 and 600 of his fellow-creatures. 
 This service he -performed at the imminent risk of 
 his own life, and when, as we have seen, no other 
 witness of the wild scene had the courage to make 
 the attempt. For his gallant conduct on this 
 memorable occasion he was created a baronet, as 
 Sir Edward Pellew, of Treverry. The Corporation 
 of Plymouth voted him the freedom of their town, 
 and the merchants of Liverpool presented him with a 
 service of plate. The civic wreath and the stranded 
 ship which appear as honourable augmentations on 
 his coat-of-arms were derived from this event. 
 
 On the 20th April following, our sailor was again 
 at sea, and the action was fought between the Inde- 
 fatigable and the Virginie, which ended as usual 
 with Pellew in victory. ' He takes everything /' 
 said the brave French Captain Bergeret, weeping 
 bitterly as he surrendered his sword to his opponent. 
 
 November, 1798, witnessed the well-known futile 
 descent of the French upon Ireland. In the in- 
 effectual steps taken by the British fleet to prevent it, 
 Pellew had no share beyond watching Brest, and 
 reporting progress. But in January, 1799, he fell in 
 with the Droits de VHomme, and, in the midst of a
 
 Admiral Viscount Exmouth. 301 
 
 furious gale, and after an engagement of eleven 
 hours (during the latter part of which the Indefatig- 
 able was assisted by the Amazon, Captain Reynolds),* 
 the French ship was driven on shore in the Bay of 
 Audierne. The Amazon was also wrecked, and the 
 Indefatigable herself had a narrow escape. 
 
 The capture of a few privateers is all we now 
 have to chronicle until we hear of Sir Edward making 
 the daring proposal of attacking with a few frigates 
 the whole of the French fleet then in harbour at 
 Brest ; but, whether from timidity on the part of the 
 Admiralty, or, as was suggested, from the jealousy of 
 Pellew's superior officer, Lord Bridport, the offer was 
 declined. 
 
 The Impetucux, one of his captures from the French, 
 was his next ship; and in her, at Bantry Bay, he 
 promptly quelled a mutiny, which, but for his courage 
 and sagacity, would probably have extended to other 
 ships, whose disaffected crews, demoralized by the 
 reports of the mutinies at Spithead and the Nore, 
 were, it is said, only waiting a successful result of the 
 rising on board Sir Edward's ship. The Impetueux 
 soon after joined Earl St. Vincent in the Mediter- 
 ranean, and formed part of the force which pursued 
 the combined fleets from the Mediterranean to Brest. 
 
 In the siege of Ferrol, August, 1800, the Impetueux 
 played an important part ; but, Pellew's advice 
 (which seemed to Sir J. B. Warren too dangerous to 
 
 * Admiral Reynolds was afterwards drowned in the Baltic, in the 
 St. George, on Christmas Day, 181 1. One of the writer's uncles, William 
 Hawken, a Truro boy, and an excellent swimmer, who was a midship- 
 man on board, was also, with many others, drowned. W. H. T.
 
 3O2 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 follow) not being taken, the place was not captured ; 
 though it was afterwards discovered that Pellew's 
 advice should have been followed, and that the garri- 
 son were quite prepared to lay down their arms. 
 
 A short period of retirement which he spent in the 
 bosom of his family at Trefusis, on the shores of 
 Falmouth harbour, followed. 
 
 The year 1801 saw him nearly at the head of the 
 list of post-captains, and appointed a Colonel of 
 Marines. In the following year he was elected 
 Member for Barnstaple ; but inactive posts did not 
 suit him, and at the very first moment possible he 
 returned to his beloved profession, being appointed 
 to the Tonnant, of 80 guns, one of the Channel fleet. 
 Detached from the squadron, together with the Mars 
 and the Spartiate and five other sail of the line, which 
 were placed under his orders, he blockaded the French 
 at Corunna and at Ferrol. But he was recalled by 
 the Ministry in order to support the Government 
 against an attack made upon their Naval Adminis- 
 tration by Pitt, and on Pellew's excellent speech on 
 this occasion the vindication of the Ministry is said 
 to have in a great measure depended. 
 
 On 23rd April, 1804, he was promoted to be 
 Rear-Admiral of the White, and was appointed 
 Commander-in-Chief in India, hoisting his flag in 
 the Culloden. Whilst on this station he was ever on 
 the alert for French and Dutch privateers, of most 
 of which the Admiral himself or his captains never 
 failed to give a good account, to the great advantage 
 of British commerce. The destruction of the enemy's
 
 Admiral Viscount Exmouth. 303 
 
 fleet at Batavia, on 2nd November, 1805, was an 
 expedition on a larger scale. In this Sir Edward's 
 son, Captain Fleetwood Pellew,* in the Terpsichore, 
 took a prominent part ; and a successful attack upon 
 Sourabaya, in Java, soon followed. This sums up 
 his Oriental experiences ; and in February, 1809, he 
 sailed from India with a fleet of Indiamen under his 
 convoy, and safely arrived once more in England, 
 after a narrow escape during a severe gale. The 
 spring of the following year, 1810, saw him, on board 
 the Christian VII., and Commander-in-Chief in the 
 North Sea, effectively blockading the Dutch fleet in 
 the Scheldt. 
 
 In 1811, in the Caledonia, he succeeded Sir Charles 
 Cotton as Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean 
 fleet, jealously watching the coast from the Ionian 
 Islands to Gibraltar, and striving, with the utmost 
 energy and success, to promote the efficiency and 
 welfare of all who served under him. He was pre- 
 sent at the capitulation of Genoa in February, 1814 ; 
 and shortly afterwards saw the termination of the 
 war, and the confinement of Napoleon as a prisoner 
 in the island of Elba. 
 
 Of this happy event advantage was taken by the 
 Government to confer on our hero the dignity of a 
 baron an unexpected honour to him and he chose 
 ' Exmouth of Canonteign ' as his title, that being an 
 estate which he had purchased as a family property. 
 He also obtained the pension usually granted for 
 services so distinguished as his had been (it amounted 
 
 * Pellew had four sons and two daughters.
 
 304 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 to 2,000 a year), and the next year he received the 
 additional honour of being made a G.C.B. 
 
 He went to the Mediterranean again in 1815, on 
 the return of Napoleon from Elba, hoisting his flag 
 in the Boyne, with his brother, Sir Israel Pellew, as 
 Captain of the Fleet. Naples he rescued from 
 anarchy on the flight of Murat before the Austrian 
 army, and for this service King Ferdinand gave him 
 the Order of St. Ferdinand and Merit. Next he 
 saved Marseilles from the rebel Marshal Brune ; and 
 finally spent the winter of this year in Leghorn roads. 
 
 The commencement of 1816 found him preparing 
 for what is perhaps his most celebrated exploit, viz., 
 the siege of Algiers ; the objects of which, it will be 
 remembered, were to obtain the release of all the 
 Ionian slaves, who, by recent political arrangements, 
 had become British subjects; and to repress the 
 piratical excursions of the Barbary States. 
 
 The preliminary reconnoitre was admirably per- 
 formed by Captain Warde, and the squadron, shortly 
 afterwards, set sail for Algiers, where the demand 
 for the release of the Christian slaves was forthwith 
 promised. Tunis and Tripoli followed suit ; and 
 Lord Exmouth returned to Algiers in order to press 
 upon the Dey the abolition of Christian slavery. 
 Only evasive answers could, however, be procured ; 
 and, having secured from the Dey a promise at least 
 to treat, the British Admiral returned for a short 
 space to England for further instructions. 
 
 It need scarcely be said that Mr. Osier's de-
 
 Admiral Viscount Exmouth. 305 
 
 scription of the siege of Algiers, the guilty ' pirate 
 city,' is given with all that perspicacity and fulness 
 of detail which characterized all his literary work ; 
 and to his account the technical reader may confi- 
 dently be referred. The formidable sea defences 
 alone consisted of 500 guns; and these Exmouth 
 proposed to attack with only five sail of the line ! 
 Nelson is said to have named (under incorrect infor- 
 mation, it is true) twenty-five as the proper force; but, 
 at any rate, the attack of such fortifications as these 
 by a few ships was quite a novelty in the annals of war. 
 
 Joined by five frigates, four bomb-vessels, and five 
 gun-brigs, the fleet sailed from Portsmouth on the 
 25th July, 1816, practising regularly with their guns 
 on the voyage, and arriving before Algiers on the 
 26th August. 
 
 Very early on the following morning, after wait- 
 ing long and anxiously for the sea-breeze, which 
 came at last, the Queen Charlotte, with Lord Exmouth 
 (now sixty-five years of age) on board, led the attack 
 amidst three ringing cheers from his men ; and in a 
 few minutes her broadsides destroyed the defences 
 of the Mole. It was reported that 500 Moors were 
 killed by the first discharge of the English guns. 
 The Algerines then attempted, in their gunboats, to 
 board the British ships ; but, as soon as they were 
 discovered through the smoke, the heavy guns of 
 the Leander and other ships sent 33 out of the 
 37 which composed the flotilla to the bottom. 
 The enemy's ships at anchor were then fired ; and 
 by ten at night, after a cannonade of nearly nine 
 
 VOL. i. 20
 
 306 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 hours, the town and fortifications of Algiers were in 
 ruins. 128 men only were killed and 690 wounded 
 in the British ships, and 13 killed and 52 wounded in 
 the Dutch squadron losses by no means excessive 
 under the circumstances ; the enemy's loss, which 
 must have been fearful, is not known. Lord Exmouth 
 was struck (but only very slightly wounded) in three 
 places ; yet his coat \vas slit and torn by musket-balls 
 as if it had been slashed by a madman's scissors.* 
 
 British sailors had never fought more bravely and 
 determinedly, or in grimmer silence. When wadding 
 failed, they cut up their clothes as a substitute for it ; 
 and even the women on board handed the shot and 
 shell to their husbands. The Impregnable and the 
 Leander suffered most from the enemy's fire ; the 
 former was hulled by 263 shot, 209 of which were 
 between wind and water, and she herself discharged 
 6,730 round shot. 
 
 The next morning, the 28th of July, the Dey, 
 Omar Pasha, a brutal and ferocious ex-Aga of 
 Janissaries, whilst Algiers was in flames, and her 
 sea-batteries pounded into ruins, sent in his complete 
 submission; peace was signed under a salute of 21 
 guns for England, and the same for Holland ; and 
 3,003 slaves, of whom 1,083 were Christians, and some 
 of whom were English, were liberated, and returned 
 to their respective countries. 
 
 Honours now fell thick and fast upon Lord Ex- 
 
 * He had a jaguar on board at the bombardment of Algiers. He 
 gave the animal, on his return to England, to the Marchioness of Lon- 
 donderry, who presented it to the Tower menagerie.
 
 Admiral Viscount Exmoiith. 307 
 
 mouth. He was created a Viscount by George III. ; 
 the Kings of Holland, Spain, and Sardinia conferred 
 knighthood upon him; the City of London voted 
 him its freedom ; Oxford conferred upon him the 
 degree of D.C.L. ; and he received the thanks of 
 Parliament; the letter from the Speaker, dated 3rd 
 February, 1817, conveying them, being as follows : 
 
 ' In transmitting to your Lordship this honourable 
 testimony of the gratitude of your country, I cannot 
 withhold the expression of my own personal satisfac- 
 tion that this age of military exploits has not closed 
 without so splendid an increase of our naval glory ; 
 and that the great work, of which all Christian 
 States had so long and justly desired to see the 
 accomplishment, has been performed with a display 
 of skill and valour which have enrolled your Lord- 
 ship's name upon the annals of the nation in the 
 most distinguished rank of her naval commanders.' 
 
 Pellew had now attained the summit of his am- 
 bition ; and, in 1817, having been appointed to the 
 naval command at Plymouth,* was instrumental in 
 saving from destruction the historic fortress of Pen- 
 dennis Castle, which, from motives of economy, the 
 Government of the day had proposed to destroy. 
 
 He passed the close of his life quietly near Teign- 
 
 * Whilst holding this appointment he received Queen Caroline on her 
 arrival in Plymouth Sound, and was one of the witnesses at her cele- 
 brated trial. The mob were so exasperated at his evidence that, on 
 the night of June 8th, 1820, they broke his windows, whereupon he 
 issued from the house with sword and pistol, and dispersed them. The 
 Grevillc Memoirs. 
 
 20 2
 
 308 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 mouth, the only additional honour which was 
 bestowed upon him being that of his appointment, 
 in 1832, as Vice-Admiral of England, a post which, 
 however, he only filled for a few months ; for, on the 
 23rd of January, 1833, in the seventy-sixth year of 
 his age, the old sea lion calmly passed away, in pious 
 confidence, to his rest. A brother officer who was 
 often with him during his last hours, said, ' I have 
 seen him great in battle, but never so great as on his 
 death-bed.' 
 
 He was buried at Christow, the parish in which 
 are the family mansion and estate of Canonteign ; 
 and in the church there an elaborate marble monu- 
 ment records his faith and piety, his honours and his 
 virtues. 
 
 There are three or four good portraits of Pellew, 
 of which the three-quarter length by Northcote in 
 the National Portrait Gallery is perhaps the best. 
 It gives the unmistakably Cornish physiognomy of 
 the original, and does full justice to the determined 
 look of the lower part of his face. It was exhibited 
 at the Royal Academy Exhibition at Somerset House 
 in 1819, when Pellew was sixty-two years of age. 
 Another fine portrait is by Sir Wm. Beechy (en- 
 graved by C. Turner), a full-length, representing 
 the hero on the deck of the Queen Charlotte at the 
 siege of Algiers, giving orders for furling her main- 
 sail, when she was in imminent danger of being set on 
 fire by an Algerine vessel, which was in flames 
 close by.
 
 SAMUEL FOOTE, 
 WIT AND DRAMATIST.
 
 SAMUEL FOOTE* 
 
 WIT AND DRAMATIST. 
 
 'He was a fine fellow in his way, and the world is really im- 
 poverished by his sinking glories. I would have his life written with 
 diligence.'! DR. JOHNSON. 
 
 T is not a little remarkable that the fame 
 of Samuel Foote, great as it was during 
 his lifetime, and for some time after 
 his death, has so rapidly dimmed ; for he 
 was not only a capital mimic, a boon companion, 
 a most generous master to his subordinates, a 
 ready wit, and an accomplished actor, but he was 
 also a fair scholar, a bitter though an avowed satirist, 
 and a prolific, as well as skilled, dramatic writer and 
 critic. He wrote about thirty pieces for the stage 
 (which were translated into the German in 1796), 
 and the list of his works in their various editions oc- 
 cupies about.thirty pages in the MS. British Museum 
 
 * It may be well to note that there was another Samuel Foote, per- 
 haps a family connexion of our hero's, who held the Plymouth Theatre 
 from 1780 to 1784. 
 
 f According to Taylor, the author of ' Monsieur Tonson,' the grave 
 Murphy intended to write Foote's life ; it was afterwards written by 
 Cooke.
 
 312 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 catalogue. His slightest sayings were carefully pre- 
 served ; and the very slightness of some of them is, 
 perhaps, one of the strongest evidences of the fame 
 which he enjoyed. 
 
 Foster says of him, in the Quarterly Review for 
 1854, that his writings are ' not unworthy of a very 
 high place in literature ;' and that his name ' was 
 once both a terrible and a delightful reality.' And 
 yet, notwithstanding the amusing picture which they 
 present of the manners and conversation of London 
 a hundred years ago, they have not sufficed to 
 preserve his fame. Who of the rising generation 
 has ever read anything of Foote's besides his ever- 
 ready and often quoted bon-mots; or knows anything 
 more of his plays than has been learnt from an 
 occasional representation of ' The Liar ' on the stage ? 
 It is hardly necessary to inquire into the cause of 
 this, for the joker's reputation is proverbially fleeting. 
 Moreover, Foote's pieces are somewhat too slightly 
 constructed, depending not so much upon the plot 
 or the denouement as upon such a delineation of the 
 various characters as seems hardly to. come within 
 the scope of our modern actors ; but, nevertheless, it 
 certainly does cause one to reflect how soon a man, 
 not without strong claims to be remembered, may 
 be forgotten. Yet, while he lived, his name was 
 in every man's mouth, and in a vast number of con- 
 temporaneous books. ' No man,' says Baker, ' was 
 more courted when in the zenith of his fame : for 
 instance, when the Duke of York returned from 
 the Continent, he went first to his mother's, then
 
 Samziel Foote. 
 
 to His Majesty's, and directly from them to Mr. 
 Foote's.' And yet it should be well understood that 
 he was, withal, no toady. To the Scotch noble- 
 man, boasting of his old wine, which he doled out in 
 very small glasses' It is very little, of its age,' said 
 Foote, handling his glass. He congratulated the 
 Duke of Cumberland on his digestion, when the Duke 
 said he had come for the purpose of swallowing all 
 Foote's good things ' for,' said the coarse wit, 
 'you never bring any of them up again.' And when 
 the Duke of Norfolk consulted him as to going to a 
 masquerade in a new character 'Go sober,' was 
 Foote's instant reply. 
 
 It will be the object of the following memoir not 
 only to sketch the life of the Truro wit, and to 
 enumerate most of his plays in chronological order, 
 but also to give one or two short specimens of his 
 powers as a writer : the difficulty on the latter point 
 being to make a selection from the very numerous 
 examples left to us. But it should always be re- 
 membered that the parts played by Foote are, as 
 written, but a very faint reflexion of what he actually 
 uttered, often impromptu. 
 
 Samuel Foote was the older of two sons of Samuel 
 and Eleanor Foote, of Truro. His younger brother 
 Edward, a clergyman, was all but an imbecile, and 
 in his later years depended almost entirely upon 
 his elder brother for support. Samuel was born, 
 not as is generally stated, at the Red Lion Inn, 
 in Boscawen Street, which was at one time the
 
 314 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 residence of Henry Foote a distant relation ; but 
 'at Johnson Vivian's* house, near the Coinage Hall' 
 (now removed). So far as I can ascertain, this 
 house must have stood nearly opposite to the Red 
 Lion, on the site of the old King's Head inn, 
 where, Lysons says, a nunnery of Poor Clares once 
 stood, and close to the spot where Lemon Street 
 and Boscawen Street now join. Polwhele suggests 
 that the inscription * I. F., 1671,' still to be seen over 
 the door of the Red Lion, refers to John Foote, the 
 dramatist's grandfather.^ His father was M.P. 
 for Tiverton, Mayor and Alderman of Truro, a 
 Commissioner of the Prize Office, and Receiver of 
 Fines for the Duchy of Cornwall ; and had his 
 summer residence at Pencalenick, about a mile east 
 of the new city. And here it may be said that Foote 
 was to the last very proud of his genealogy. His 
 father died at ' Pednkallinick,' as his epitaph records, 
 on I2th March, 1754, in the seventy-sixth year of his 
 age, and was buried at St. Clement's, near Truro : 
 his grave-stone is on the east wall of the little north 
 transept. But the Footes had another residence in 
 the same parish, namely, at Lambesso, where, ac- 
 cording to Lysons, they were seated in the days of 
 Charles II. His mother was a daughter of Sir 
 Edward Goodere, Bart, (a descendant of the Earl of 
 Portland), M.P. for Herefordshire; she was a lady 
 of considerable vivacity, from whom Foote is 
 
 * Mr. Vivian was Mayor of Truro in 1741 and again in 1754. 
 f There was a John Foote, an eminent attorney, who lived at Lam- 
 besso, was town-clerk of Truro in 1676, and Mayor in 1678 and 1696.
 
 Samuel Foote. 315 
 
 supposed to have derived what Carlyle calls the 
 ' aroma ' of his character, rather than from his 
 father. She was eighty-four years of age when she 
 died, and ' Hesiod ' Cooke (who wrote Foote's life) 
 says, she was as sprightly at seventy-nine as most 
 women are at forty. She was as thriftless as her 
 celebrated son himself, and he had ultimately to 
 grant her an annual allowance. The following letters 
 once passed between them : 
 
 'DEAR SAM, 
 
 ' I am in prison for debt : come and assist 
 ' Your loving mother, 
 
 ' E. FOOTE.' 
 
 * DEAR MOTHER, 
 
 ' So am I ; which prevents his duty being 
 paid to his loving mother by 
 
 * Her affectionate son, 
 
 *SAM FOOTE.' 
 
 However, he added, by way of postscript : 
 
 ' I have sent my attorney to assist you ; in the 
 meantime let us hope for better days.' 
 
 Samuel Foote, the subject of our sketch, was 
 christened on I7th January, 1720, at St. Mary's 
 Church (on the site of the Cathedral now in pro- 
 gress), and was educated first at the Truro Grammar 
 School, under Mr. Conon, where he was particularly 
 fond of his Terence, and afterwards under Dr. Miles, 
 at Worcester. Notwithstanding his strong propensity
 
 316 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 for jokes and tricks, he was a favourite with his 
 master, and made fair progress with his studies ; and 
 he never failed, when visiting Truro, to call at the 
 old school, and, in mock-heroic style, to beg" a 
 holiday for the boys. 
 
 In 1737, he was entered at Worcester College, 
 Oxford, which had been in 1714 founded anew by 
 a connexion of the Foote family,* and worked toler- 
 ably hard, acquiring considerable proficiency in the 
 lighter classical authors ; but his chief delight lay in 
 caricaturing the Provost, Dr. Gower, and in playing 
 tricks upon him and the verger of the College 
 Chapel. One of these tricks consisted in tying a 
 wisp of hay to the bell-rope which hung outside the 
 chapel, in a lane down which certain cows went to 
 grass. The cows naturally snatched at the tempting 
 morsel, and rung the bell in a most weird manner, 
 to the alarm of the authorities, who determined on 
 sitting up to watch the rope one night in order to 
 discover the author of the trick played upon them. 
 Another of Foote's Oxford freaks is recorded by 
 Murphy, who says that whilst at Oxford the future 
 player and dramatist acted in the part of Punch. 
 
 Shortly after he came of age, which was in 1741, 
 he was entered at the Inner Temple, where he dis- 
 tinguished himself chiefly by the magnificence of his 
 chambers, and by the smartness of his oral criticisms 
 
 * A case, with pedigree and opinion, signed Henry Brooke, Oxon, 
 Jan. 21, 1737, states that Mr. Foote was a 'cognatus and con- 
 sanguineus ' of the founder of Worcester College, Sir Thomas Cooke 
 of Bentley, Worcestershire, and was therefore entitled to a fellowship. 
 MSS. Worcester College.
 
 Samuel Foote. 317 
 
 on the actors of the day, when discussing their 
 merits and their faults with other sparks and critics 
 at the Grecian, in Devereux Court, or at the Bedford 
 Coffee-house in Covent Garden. The dry study of 
 the law had little or no attraction for our volatile hero ; 
 and Dr. Barrowby (the friend and adviser of Macklin in 
 his controversy with Foote's chief rival, Garrick*) has 
 thus sketched the Truro youngster for us at this period 
 of his life. One evening, says he, I saw a young man 
 extravagantly dressed out in a frock-suit of green 
 and silver lace, bag-wig, sword, bouquet, and point 
 ruffles, enter the room,t and immediately join the 
 circle at the upper end. Nobody recognised him ; 
 but such was the ease of his bearing, and the point 
 and humour of remark with which he at once took 
 part in the conversation, that his presence seemed 
 to disconcert no one, and a sort of pleased buzz of 
 * Who is he ?' was still going round the room un- 
 answered, when a handsome carriage stopped at the 
 door, and the servants announced that his name was 
 Foote, that he was a young gentleman of family and 
 fortune, a student of the Inner Temple, and that 
 the carriage had called for him on its way to the 
 
 * Garrick and Foote did not get on well together they were ' two of 
 a trade,' with the usual result ; and, whenever they met, our hero, who, 
 as Davies says, ' ran a-tilt at everybody, and was at the same time 
 caressed and feared, admired and hated by all,' never failed to launch 
 the shafts of his satire against Garrick, who was obliged to sit dumb in 
 his presence. It has been said that while the wit of the one shone like 
 a star, that of the other blazed like a meteor :'yet the two often dined 
 with each other. 
 
 f Foote was such a dandy, when a young man, that he was often 
 mistaken for a foreigner.
 
 318 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 assembly of a lady of fashion. Vanity was indeed to 
 the last one of Foote's besetting sins, and he could not 
 shake it off, even on the stage ; for he was very greedy 
 of applause, and often sacrificed his fellow-actors 
 performances to his own ends. * Fine feathers, how- 
 ever, do not make fine birds ;' and Foote must have 
 relied a great deal on the skill of his tailor ; for he 
 was in person rather short and stout exactly like 
 his mother and his features were plain and coarse. 
 Yet, his arch smile and merry eye, preserved to us 
 in his likeness, when fifty years old, by Colson (en- 
 graved by Caroline Watson), redeemed his otherwise 
 commonplace visage, and made him, on the whole, 
 not an unattractive-looking person. Zoffani also 
 painted two admirable portraits of him, in character; 
 but the best is that by Sir Joshua, now at the 
 Garrick Club, painted about the year 1760, when 
 Foote was forty years of age. 
 
 Two of Foote's * three fortunes ' came chiefly 
 through his mother, who succeeded to the Goodere 
 family property, said to have been worth about 
 5,000 a year, in a most strange and tragic manner ; 
 but he also inherited some property left by his 
 father. Mrs. Foote's elder brother Sir John, a man of 
 weak intellect, was entrapped on board his brother 
 Samuel's ship, the Ruby, in Bristol Roads, and was 
 then and there strangled by him a crime for which 
 the younger Goodere was deservedly hanged.* 
 
 * Cooke, with what, I suppose, he intended as a witticism, introduced 
 Foote to his club at Covent Garden as ' Mr. Foote, the nephew of the 
 gentleman who was lately hung in chains for murdering his brother."
 
 Sarmiel Foote. 319 
 
 Foote, at that time in terrible pecuniary straits 
 in fact, literally a stockingless Foote, as he himself 
 would perhaps have said wrote, for 20, a pamphlet, 
 describing the murder, and endeavouring, but vainly, 
 to exculpate his uncle and namesake. It was pub- 
 lished anonymously in April, 1741. 
 
 With so much wealth and popularity as he had 
 even thus early acquired, it is wonderful that Foote 
 continued his legal studies for so long a period as 
 three years ; but, in fact, he can hardly be said to 
 have done this, for he had already begun to earn 
 money by his pen (chiefly by writing a few pamphlets), 
 having contrived in a couple of years, like the prodigal 
 of old, to ' waste all his substance in riotous living,' 
 and to fall into sad straits. 
 
 Accordingly, his connexion with the stage, to 
 which he seems to have been introduced by some 
 excellent amateur actors, his valued friends the 
 Delaines, now commenced, in 1743, by his taking a 
 share with his friend Macklin in the wooden theatre 
 in the Haymarket, known as ' The Little' or ' Summer 
 Theatre,' and ' The Hay ' the laudable and dis- 
 tinguishing feature of the performances being a 
 natural mode of elocution and gesture, as contra- 
 distinguished from the stilted and drawling sing-song 
 style then in vogue (from which Foote used to think 
 Garrick himself was not entirely free), and at least 
 an attempt to dress the characters in something like 
 correct costume. And here it may be convenient to 
 observe that the title of the ' English Aristophanes,' 
 by which Foote came to be generally known, is not
 
 320 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 altogether applicable to -him. Foote could lay small 
 claim to Aristophanes' genius as a poet ; whilst, on 
 the other hand, he never libelled his country or his 
 gods, as did the illustrious Greek. 
 
 With that strange infatuation which induces so 
 many born comic actors to fancy themselves trage- 
 dians, he made his debut as a paid actor at the above 
 theatre on 6th February, 1744, as Othello ; the per- 
 formance was, as might have been expected, an utter 
 failure, as were likewise his attempts at Shylock* 
 and Pierre on other occasions. The same may be 
 said of his essay at genteel comedy as Lord Fopping- 
 ton, in 'The Relapse.' But in the following winter 
 he found his true line, and appeared at Drury Lane 
 in the characters of Sir Paul Pliant, Fondlewife, and 
 Bayes; in all of which (especially in the latter) he 
 succeeded admirably, and his success determined 
 his career as that of a comic player and writer. 
 
 His first piece, ' The Diversions of a Morning,' in 
 which he himself played the part of Puzzle (intended 
 for Macklinf), was brought out at the Haymarket 
 in the spring of 1747 ; but the satire was so keenly 
 felt by many of the persons represented, mostly 
 prominent actors of the day, that, at their instance, 
 the magistrates withdrew Foote's license, and he 
 adopted an expedient which it is said had also been 
 employed by Garrick at the Goodman's Fields 
 
 * He played Shylock, in 1758 (with Kitty Clive as Portia?), for 
 his benefit at Drury Lane. On another occasion he was advertised to 
 play Polonius, but seems to have thought better of it. 
 
 t Foote is said to have realized .500 in five nights by his caricatures 
 of Macklin in his burlesque lectures.
 
 Samuel Foote. 321 
 
 Theatre, of evading the interdict of the justices by 
 inviting his friends to * drink tea ' with him ' at play- 
 hottse prices,' and entertaining his audience with 'The 
 Diversions of a Morning ' whilst tea was getting ready, 
 a ' tea ' which never appeared. 
 
 This venture had what was then considered the 
 long run of forty representations ; in fact, ' to drink a 
 dish of tea with Mr. Foote ' became the rage of the 
 season. It was succeeded by a somewhat similar 
 performance entitled 'An Auction of Pictures,'* 
 in which Foote ' knocked down ' sundry worthless 
 persons of the day at ruinous prices, contriving 
 that the stage company of purchasers should make 
 satirical observations on the subjects of the pictures. 
 Peter Aretine, 'the Scourge of Princes,' says Davies, 
 was not more dreaded than Foote had now become ; 
 and in this piece the satire was again so biting that 
 Foote made many enemies, for there was some- 
 what of a vindictive character in his vein. Yet, not- 
 withstanding, perhaps partly in consequence of, the 
 coarse and furious lampoons with which he was 
 assailed, and of which notable specimens will be 
 found in Churchill's ' Rosciad,' and in Chetwood's 
 ' General History of the Stage,' the town continued 
 to run after and applaud him. And here it may be 
 added that Polwhele records how Foote's address 
 and politeness had a similar soothing effect upon two 
 gentlemen who called to cudgel him for caricaturing 
 
 * Afterwards enlarged and produced, unsuccessfully, as 'Taste,' a 
 comedy, at Drury Lane, in 1752. Foote presented this comedy to 
 Garrick, as the profits were to be given to a poor actor, named 
 Worsdale. 
 
 VOL. I. 21
 
 322 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 them, to that which Incledon's singing had on a 
 somewhat similar occasion. 
 
 The same season saw the production of ' The 
 Knights,' in which Foote introduces the character of 
 Timothy, who speaks in the Cornish dialect ; the per- 
 formance of this part by a Mr. Castallo was warmly 
 applauded. Foster says of this piece that 'it is 
 the first sprightly running of a wit which to the last 
 retained its -sparkle and clearness ; that its flow of 
 dialogue is exquisitely neat, natural, and easy ; and 
 that its expression is always terse and characteristic.' 
 
 About this time, 1748, he got another windfall of 
 money from the Goodere estates ; and, not warned 
 by the misery and poverty to which his previous 
 recklessness and extravagance had reduced him, 
 again went on in his old way, now setting up his 
 carriage with the motto ' Iterum, iterum, iterumque,' 
 on its panels, in allusion to his having been left a 
 third fortune. The story goes that the only attempt 
 that Foote ever made to regulate his money matters 
 was to keep one paying and one receiving pocket. 
 Four years of fast living in France dissipated nearly 
 all his money, and the year 1752 witnessed his 
 return to London, confuting by his arrival all sorts of 
 rumours which had been circulated as to his death 
 by many who had felt the sting of his whip, and 
 who doubtless were believing, because they hoped, 
 the rumours true. To these Foote alludes in the 
 prologue (said to have been written by Garrick) 
 to * The Englishman at Paris ' his next produc- 
 tion.
 
 Samuel Foote. 323 
 
 ' Sir Peter Primrose, smirking o'er his tea, 
 Sinks from himself and politics, to me. 
 
 " Paper, boy !" " Here, sir, I am !" " What news to-day?" 
 "Foote, sir, is advertised " "What ! run away?" 
 " No, sir, he acts this week at Drury Lane." 
 " How's that," cries feeble Grub ; " Foote come again ? 
 I thought that fool had done his devil's dance : 
 W T as he not hanged some months ago, in France ?" ' 
 
 Foote once again took the Haymarket Theatre in 
 1754 ; and, for a few nights, ridiculed Macklin's 
 celebrated School of Oratory, in the ' Inquisition.'* 
 But he soon returned to Drury Lane, as an actor 
 chiefly in his own pieces, and at the same time was 
 occupied in preparing for publication his amusing 
 farce of 'The Knights.' 'The Author,' which was 
 successful, but which was suppressed by the Lord 
 Chamberlain in consequence of the severity of its 
 satire on Mr. Ap Reece (Cadwallader), appeared in 
 
 * And this reminds us of the frequent squabbles, almost immediately 
 forgotten by both parties, which used to take place between Foote and 
 Macklin. Thus, on one occasion, in order to test Macklin's boast as to 
 his retentive memory, Foote ran off the well-known nonsense story : 
 ' So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage-leaf to make an apple- 
 pie,' etc. Macklin broke down in his attempt to remember them, but 
 the lines themselves have since formed, on more than one occasion, the 
 test of a scholar's power in turning them into Latin or Greek verse ; 
 witness the following attempt, which I have found in Notes and Queries^ 
 5th series, vol. ix. p. n : 
 
 ' Protenus ilia foras sese projecit in hortum 
 
 Pluribus e caulis foliis resecaret ut unum, 
 
 Dulcia conficeret coctis quo crustula pomis ; 
 
 Quum subito attonitam vadens impune per urbem, 
 
 Monstrum horrendum ursze visum est per claustra tabernae. 
 
 Inseruisse caput patulisq : adstare fenestris 
 
 " Usque adeo ne omnis saponis copia dent ?" ' 
 and so on. 
 
 212
 
 324 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 1757; and, probably owing to complications arising 
 out of the matter, early in 1758 Foote went to 
 Dublin with Tat'e Wilkinson the mimic (who 
 imitated Foote himself so well, as more than once to 
 deceive a shrewd audience). With the same com- 
 panion Foote visited Edinburgh during the following 
 season, where they reaped a good harvest. It was 
 whilst on this occasion in Ireland that he exclaimed 
 of the Irish peasantry : ' I never knew before what the 
 English beggars did with their cast-off clothes.' In 
 the winter, however, the two returned to Dublin, and 
 here on 28th January, 1760, that clever comedy, 
 'The Minor,' made its first appearance, but with 
 indifferent success, so that Foote lost a considerable 
 sum of money. During his first visit to Dublin, in 
 January, 1758, having hung a room at his lodgings 
 in black, and provided himself with a dark lanthorn, 
 Foote disseminated hand-bills to the effect that 
 ' there was a man to be met with at such a place who 
 wrote down people's fortunes without asking them 
 any questions.' He is said to have carried on the 
 deception with great success for many days, some- 
 times clearing as much as 30 a day, it is said, from 
 his dupes. He soon after returned to London, and, 
 having enlarged and improved 'The Minor,' brought 
 it again before the public, and this time with the 
 most satisfactory results, the theatre closing, after 
 the piece had run thirty-eight nights, ' with a full 
 treasury.' Foster thinks its three acts are worth 
 almost any five that he knew. The object of the 
 play was to ridicule religious cant, and especially
 
 Samuel Foote. 325 
 
 Whitefield, then in the height of his popularity.* 
 The story runs that Foote submitted the MS. to 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Seeker, with a 
 request that his Grace would strike out anything 
 that, from a religious point of view, might appear 
 objectionable. But the Archbishop knowing the 
 sort of character he had to deal with returned 
 the MS. untouched, observing that if he erased or 
 corrected anything, Foote would probably have ad- 
 vertised the piece as ' corrected and prepared for the 
 press by the Archbishop of Canterbury.' * The 
 Minor ' elicited many sharp pamphlets and letters 
 against Foote, but he readily disposed of them all in 
 a reply which he published, replete with learning, 
 wit, and satire ; and which contains an admirable 
 vindication of the Comic Muse. It has been said 
 that if all his other works had perished, this one letter 
 would have sufficed to establish his wit, scholarship, 
 and sense as of the rarest order; every line tells. His 
 defence of the course which he adopted in ridiculing 
 Whitefield contains the following spirited passage : 
 ' Why should I not ridicule what is done in a church 
 if it deserves ridicule ? Is not the crime greater if 
 you pick a pocket at church ? and is the additional 
 reason why a man should not have done it, to be the 
 only argument why he should not be punished for 
 doing it ? You call profaneness an offence ; you 
 will not have ignorant men idly invoke the name or 
 
 * It must be remembered that Whitefield said of him, ' However 
 much you all admire Mr. Foote, the devil will one day make a /<*>/- ball 
 of him.'
 
 326 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 attributes of the Supreme ; and may not I ridicule a 
 fanatic whom I think mischievous because he is for 
 ever polluting that name with blasphemous associa- 
 tions mixing it with the highest, the meanest and 
 most trivial things ; degrading Providence to every 
 low and vulgar occasion of life ; crying out that he 
 is buffeted by Satan, if only bit by fleas, and, when 
 able to catch them, triumphing with texts of Scrip- 
 ture over the blessing specially vouchsafed ?' 
 
 Foote seems at this time to have lodged in Suffolk 
 Street, and to have got into several petty quarrels 
 with his fellow-actors, whose manners and defects he 
 imitated only too closely, and whose antecedents he 
 used to make fun of: for instance, alluding to Gar- 
 rick's having failed in his first start in life as a wine- 
 merchant, Foote used to say : ' I remember Davy 
 when he used to live in Durham Yard, and all his 
 stock-in-trade was three quarts of vinegar in what he 
 called his wine-cellar.' But such were his tact and 
 jolly manner, that the estrangements were rarely of 
 long endurance ; and most, if not all of the offended 
 parties were, sooner or later, glad to shake hands 
 with the reckless mimic. He was always, however, 
 implacably hostile to newspaper critics then, by the 
 way, a new institution and very coarse in his remarks 
 upon them, although the critics generally wrote of 
 him with respect and praise ; but it should be added 
 that at one time managers were almost invariably 
 their own critics, and the innovation was to them 
 most unwelcome. Nor did he think, much of the 
 reliability of the judgment of the public. In Foote's
 
 Samuel Foote. 327 
 
 'Treatise on the Passions,' he says: 'There are 
 12,000 playgoers in London ; but not the four-and- 
 twentieth part of them can judge correctly of the 
 merits of plays or players.' 
 
 In January, 1762, ' The Liar,' the plot of which 
 was taken from the Spanish, was produced at Covent 
 Garden, and those who, like the writer of these 
 pages, have had the good fortune to see the late 
 Charles Mathews in the piece, will readily believe 
 that it was highly successful. * The Orators ' shortly 
 followed ; it is said that it was in this piece that he 
 intended to introduce Dr. Samuel Johnson, and that 
 he was only deterred from doing so by the sturdy 
 Doctor's threat that, if Foote did, .he would get 
 on the stage and soundly thrash the mimic with an 
 oaken cudgel. But Johnson had a real regard for 
 Foote and his abilities. Resolved not to be pleased 
 with him, the Doctor was compelled to give in, and 
 to laugh with the rest of the company that Foote was 
 entertaining. ' Sir,' said Johnson, ' the dog was so 
 very comical that he was irresistible.' Charles James 
 Fox thought even more highly still of Foote's con- 
 versational powers. In fact he generally got the 
 better of his opponents in all verbal encounters : but 
 the tables were once turned against him. He leased 
 the Edinburgh Theatre for 500 guineas a year a 
 lawsuit arose, and Foote was defeated. The Scotch 
 lawyer called upon him for his bill of costs ; and 
 on Foote's paying him the money and observing 
 to the lawyer that he would no doubt, like most 
 of his countrymen, return in the "cheapest way
 
 328 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 possible, was drily answered : ' Yes, I shall travel 
 on foot. 1 
 
 ' The Mayor of Garrat ;'* ' The Patron ' (in which 
 he ridiculed the ' Enthusiasm of Antiquaries,' draw- 
 ing his friend and host, Lord Melcombe, in the 
 character of Sir Thomas Lofty, which Foote played 
 himself) ; and ' The Commissary ' (in which the Duke 
 of Newcastle figured as Matthew Mug), followed 
 * The Orators ' at the Hay market in rapid succes- 
 sion, bringing Foote considerable profit, and his 
 worldly success now seemed assured. But early in 
 1766,- a sad accident whilst hunting (when he broke 
 his leg) marred his prospects, and embittered the 
 close of his career. Amputation above the knee was 
 pronounced necessary, and, though this was, of 
 course, before the days of chloroform, he bore the 
 terrible operation with remarkable fortitude, and 
 could not, even then, resist the temptation to joke, 
 begging the surgeons to deal gently with him, as 
 it was his ' first appearance in the character of a 
 patentee ' an allusion which will presently be made 
 apparent. From this time he always wore, and 
 played in, a cork leg. It was pitiable, O'Keefe re- 
 marks, to see Foote leaning sorrowfully against the 
 wall of his stage dressing-room while his servant 
 dressed this sham leg to suit the character in which 
 his master was to appear ; but in an instant resuming 
 all his high comic humour and mirth, he hobbled 
 
 * This play was so successful that Foote launched out into all sorts 
 of extravagances, including the purchase of a magnificent service of 
 plate, at a cost of j 1,200.
 
 Sanmel Foote. 329 
 
 forward, entered the scene, and gave the audience 
 what they expected, their fill of laughter and de- 
 light. 
 
 The Duke of York, with whom Foote seems to 
 have been a favourite, now procured for him a Royal 
 Patent for a summer theatre, thus enabling him to 
 keep it open between the I4th May and the i/jth 
 September ; and in May, 1767, the old theatre having 
 been pulled down, and a new one erected in its 
 stead, Foote appeared, as Himself, in ' An Occasional 
 Prelude,' concluding with the following not ungrace- 
 ful allusion to his Royal Highness's timely succour in 
 the hour of misfortune : 
 
 ' Consult,' he says, referring to the audience on the 
 opening night : 
 
 ' Consult with care each countenance around, 
 Not one malignant aspect can be found 
 To check the Royal hand that raised me from the ground.' 
 
 The ' Devil on Two Sticks,' an excellent little 
 piece, which appeared in 1768, and which ran for a 
 whole season, is said to have brought Foote some 
 three or four thousand pounds ! This play is a satire 
 on 'medical quackery. Amongst others caricatured 
 was Sir William Browne, 'whose wig, coat, and 
 contracted eye firmly holding an eye-glass, and his 
 remarkably upright figure were all there ; but the 
 caricaturist had forgotten Sir William's special 
 characteristic his muff, which the good-tempered 
 doctor sent to Foote, to make the figure complete !' 
 
 But, 'lightly come, lightly go;' Foote could not
 
 330 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 keep money as easily as he could earn it ; and, on his 
 way once more to Ireland, he fell in with some black- 
 legs at Bath, to whom he lost all his money ; so that 
 he was ' ruined once more,' and actually had to 
 borrow 100 in order to complete his journey. 
 The ' Devil on Two Sticks,' however, took as well 
 in Dublin as it had done in London ; Foote was 
 again rehabilitated, and was received with great 
 favour at the Castle. 
 
 His play 'The Lame Lover,' produced in London 
 in 1770, did not prove a success ; it was followed, 
 in 1771, by the * Maid of Bath ;' and by the ' Nabob ' 
 in 1772. But the ' Primitive Puppet-show,' or 
 rather * Piety in Pattens,' in which the ' Puppet- 
 show' was introduced, brought crowded houses to 
 the Haymarket in 1773 ; it was performed by wooden 
 puppets nearly as large as life. In the prologue, 
 spoken by Foote in proprid persona, and in a scarlet 
 livery, as was the practice with the theatrical 
 managers of the time, he says : ' All our actors are 
 the produce of England ... to their various families 
 you are, none of you, strangers. We have modern 
 patriots made from the box it is a wood that carries 
 an imposing gloss and is easily turned; for constant 
 lovers we have the encircling ivy ; crab-stocks for old 
 maids ; and weeping- willows for Methodist preachers ; 
 for modish wives we have the brittle poplar ; their 
 husbands we shall give you in hornbeam ;' and so on. 
 In this piece he ridiculed ' Sentimental Comedy ;' it 
 was not one of his most successful productions ; 
 but the ' Exordium ' was very clever, and is given
 
 Samuel Foote. 331 
 
 entire in the Town and Country Magazine, vol. v., 
 
 P- 319- 
 
 ' The Cozeners' appeared in 1774, with a prologue 
 written by Garrick, to whom Foote was again recon- 
 ciled, after a quarrel caused by Garrick's refusing to 
 lend his successful but impecunious friend the 
 sum of "500. ' The Cozeners ' fairly enough cari- 
 catured Mrs. Grieve as Mrs. Fleecem a woman 
 who extorted money from her victims by promising 
 to procure for them Government appointments. 
 Now, Foote himself was generally thought to have 
 obtained an annuity from Sir Francis Delaval, by 
 bringing about a marriage between him and Lady 
 Nassau Powlett, with whom Foote had been very 
 intimate. It was, however, too bad of Foote to 
 caricature, under the name of Mrs. Simony, the 
 widow of the Rev. Dr. Dodd, then only recently 
 hanged. But Foote's aims were really not lofty ; he 
 sought, as Dr. Doran says, less to reform vice and 
 folly than to produce amusement (sometimes un- 
 scrupulously enough), by holding them up to ridicule. 
 And here it must be observed that, although he was 
 thin-skinned, and not over- courageous, yet Davies 
 wrote of him : ' There is hardly a public man in 
 England who has not entered Mr. Foote's theatre 
 with an aching heart, under the apprehension of 
 seeing himself laughed at.' 
 
 The following year saw Foote involved in one of 
 the most disastrous and disagreeable events of his 
 life namely, his prosecution at the instance of the 
 profligate Duchess of Kingston, whom Foote had
 
 332 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 prepared to lampoon in a little piece called ' A Trip 
 to Calais,' in respect of her then approaching trial 
 for bigamy, when she was found guilty by the House 
 of Peers. The Duchess's influence, however, pre- 
 vailed to prevent the appearance of the piece, and 
 the Lord Chamberlain's license was withheld ; and 
 correspondence of a most virulent nature between 
 Foote and the Duchess ensued. It was on this 
 occasion that Foote penned the following defence of 
 his writings : ' During my continuance in the service 
 of the public I never profited by flattering their 
 passions, or falling in with their humours. In ex- 
 posing follies I never lost my credit with the public, 
 because they knew I proceeded upon principle.' 1 The 
 Duchess tried to buy off her persecutor, but in vain ; 
 attacks on each side, of the grossest and most 
 virulent nature, now appeared in the papers ; and an 
 expensive prosecution of Foote on a foul but 
 imaginary charge, by one Jackson,* was instituted ; 
 but Lord Mansfield summed up in Foote's favour, 
 and the result was his immediate and honourable 
 acquittal (the jury not even turning round in the box 
 to consider their verdict). The worry and anxiety 
 attendant upon so abominable a persecution shat- 
 tered Foote's health and spirits, and .unfitted him 
 for awhile for appearing again on the stage. He 
 accordingly sold his patent, including the theatrical 
 wardrobe and leave to perform any of Foote's un- 
 published plays, to George Coleman, for 1,600 
 
 * It is noteworthy that the same miscreant attempted, likewise in 
 vain, to set up a similar charge against Garrick.
 
 Samuel Foote. 333 
 
 a year ; and he only went on the stage thrice after- 
 wards. 
 
 During the quarrel with the Duchess of Kingston 
 Foote had bitterly satirized some of her worthless 
 creatures in a piece called ' The Capucin ' the last 
 that he ever wrote except ' The Slanderer,' which, 
 however, he left unfinished at his death. 
 . In May, 1777, he made another attempt to appear 
 on the stage ; but illness and anxiety had made fear- 
 ful havoc with his looks and his gaiety; and a 
 paralytic stroke whilst acting in his own piece, * The 
 Devil on Two Sticks,' put an end for ever to his stage 
 performances. He retired to Bath, and there his 
 health and sprightliness somewhat recovered ; but it 
 was only a flickering of the expiring candle in its 
 socket. The doctors advised him to try Paris, and 
 thither, from his house in Suffolk Street, Pall Mall, 
 he proceeded, by way of Dover, in the following 
 October, with a presentiment that he should never 
 return to Town alive. It was here, whilst waiting 
 at the Ship Inn for a favourable passage, the conver- 
 sation occurred with the cook-maid, and probably 
 Foote's very last jokes, without which no account of 
 him seems to be considered complete. The woman 
 was boasting that she had never left her native place, 
 when Foote retorted by saying that he had heard 
 upstairs that she had been ' several times all over 
 Greece,' and that he himself had seen her at ' Spit- 
 head.' On the following day, the 2ist October, 1777, 
 he had another paralytic seizure, and was no more. 
 On the 3rd November he was buried by torch-light
 
 334 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 in the west cloister of Westminster Abbey.* No 
 stone marks his resting-place ; but there is an epitaph 
 to his memory at St. Mary's, Dover, of which the 
 following is a copy : 
 
 Sacred to the memory of 
 
 SAMUEL FOOTE, ESQ., 
 
 Who had a Tear for a Friend, 
 
 And a Hand and Heart ever ready 
 
 To Relieve the Distressed. 
 
 He departed this life Oct. 2ist, 1777 (on his journey to France), 
 at the Ship Inn, Dover, 
 
 aged 55 years. 
 
 This inscription was placed here by his affectionate Friend, 
 Mr. Wm. JewelLf 
 
 He left, besides portraits and small legacies to 
 sundry of his friends, the bulk of the property re- 
 maining to him to his two natural children, Francis 
 and George ; and I may here observe that, not- 
 withstanding Cooke's positive statement that Foote 
 married a Worcestershire lady, and that shortly after 
 the wedding he took her to his father's house at 
 Truro ; and Polwhele's dictum that he married Miss 
 Polly Hicks, of Prince's Street, Truro (she is said 
 to have been sixteen and Foote eighteen when they 
 married, but she died early of consumption) I have 
 been unable to discover with certainty whether or 
 not he was ever really married. Certainly, no Mrs. 
 Foote ever appeared upon the scene when he lived at 
 
 * I am indebted to the courtesy of Mr. Wright, the Clerk of the 
 Works at Westminster Abbey, for the information that Foote's grave 
 must be somewhere near the middle, perhaps a little north of the 
 middle, of this cloister, though its exact site cannot now be ascertained. 
 
 t The treasurer of Foote's theatre.
 
 Samuel Foote. 335 
 
 ' The Hermitage,' North End, between Fulham and 
 Hammersmith (to which place he had moved from 
 Parson's Green, where Theodore Hooke afterwards 
 lived) . Here he used to be very fond of entertaining 
 his friends, amongst whom were many members of 
 the nobility, and occasionally even royal personages, 
 with his usual wasteful extravagance. There is a 
 story of his having been ' reconciled ' to his wife 
 whilst he was living at Blackheath ; and another 
 story of his old fellow-collegian Dr. Nash, the his- 
 torian of Worcestershire, having called to see him 
 when confined for debt in the Fleet Prison, and find- 
 ing a supposed Mrs. Foote hiding somewhere in the 
 room ; but there are, I believe, no proofs positive of 
 the reckless, dissipated subject of this memoir having 
 ever submitted to the marriage tie. 
 
 The Gentleman's Magazine for 1777 says of him 
 that ' As no man ever contributed more to the enter- 
 tainment of the public, so no man oftener made the 
 minds of his companions expand with mirth and 
 good-humour ; arid in the company of men of high 
 rank and superior fortune, who courted his acquaint- 
 ance, he always preserved a noble independency. 
 That he had his foibles and caprices no one will pre- 
 tend to deny ; but they were amply counterbalanced 
 by his merit and abilities, which will transmit his 
 name to posterity with distinguished reputation.' 
 
 We commenced this article by considering how 
 fleeting this reputation was ; yet still it is strange that 
 in this case it has died from amongst us so soon.
 
 336 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 Garrick said of Foote that he was a man of wonder- 
 ful abilities, and the most entertaining man he had 
 ever known ; and this was a tribute from a rival 
 rrfanager and actor, be it remembered. Fox, eminent 
 conversationalist as he was, said that whatever was 
 the subject of conversation, ' Foote instantly took 
 the lead, and delighted us all.' Davies, Tate Wil- 
 kinson, and Horace Walpole joined in the chorus 
 of his praise ; and even Dr. Samuel Johnson, who 
 perhaps feared Foote as much as he disliked him, 
 admitted that he was a scholar, that his humour was 
 irresistible, and that he could drive any of his rivals 
 out of the room by the sheer force of his wit. The 
 remarks of Sir Walter Scott and Lord Macaulay fall 
 flat after such tributes as the above ; and they are 
 probably to be explained by the fact that they never 
 came within the range of the personal influence of the 
 man without having done which they can hardly be 
 considered competent judges of so amusing an actor, 
 and such an invariably ready, courageous wit and 
 satirist as was Samuel Foote.
 
 THE GODOLPHINS OF GODOLPHIN, 
 
 STATESMEN, JURISTS, AND DIVINES. 
 
 VOL. I. 22
 
 THE GODOLPHINS OF GODOLPHIN, 
 
 STATESMEN, JURISTS, AND DIVINES. 
 
 ' A Godolphin was never known to want wit ; a Trelawny, courage ; 
 or a Grenville, loyalty.' Old Cornish Saying. 
 
 ERTES,' says Hals, * from the time 
 that this family was seised of Godol- 
 phin, such a race of famous, flourish- 
 ing, learned, valiant, prudent men have 
 served their prince and country, in the several 
 capacities of members of parliament, justices of the 
 peace, deputy-lieutenants, sheriffs,* colonels, cap- 
 tains, majors, and other officers, both military and 
 civil, as scarce any other family this country hath 
 afforded ; which I do not mention (for that my 
 great-grandmother on the one side, the wife of Sir 
 John Arundell, of Tolverne, knight, was daughter of 
 Sir Francis Godolphin, knight, sheriff of Cornwall, 
 2ist Elizabeth), but as their just character and merit; 
 and I challenge the envious justly to detract from 
 the same.' 
 
 * From 1504 to 1638 the Sheriff of Cornwall was frequently a Godol- 
 phin. One of them was also Lord Warden of the Stannaries, and two 
 other members of the family were Vice- Wardens. 
 
 22 2
 
 340 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 Without stopping to inquire whether or not Hals's 
 great-grandmother was not Ann the sister of Sir 
 Francis Godolphin (instead of his daughter), that 
 gossiping historian's claim on behalf of his ancestry 
 may at once be conceded ; indeed, it is very singular 
 that he did not specify one of the family who lived 
 much nearer his own time, and whose illustrious 
 name makes those of the other Godolphin s 'pale 
 their (comparatively) ineffectual fires.' We shall, 
 however, come to treat in his proper place of Sidney 
 Godolphin, the friend of Marlborough, the trusted 
 Prime Minister (for so he might be called) of James 
 II., of William III. and of Anne, and for many years 
 the moving though almost silent spirit of English 
 politics. 
 
 It will be convenient to commence our remarks 
 by a description of the family seat where they had 
 settled for so long a period that Colonel Vivian, 
 in his genealogical table, has been obliged to com- 
 mence the pedigree with John, Lord of Godolphin, 
 ' sans date ;' but probably he flourished about the 
 time of Henry III. or Edward I. 
 
 Godolphin, which gives its name to a high hill 
 about half-a-mile to the south-west of the house, is 
 situated in the parish now called Breage ; and in the 
 parish church, so named after the Irish St. Breaca, 
 as well as in numerous other churches and church- 
 yards of western Cornwall,* lie the bones of many 
 
 * Notably in the adjoining parish of St. Hilary, where, in the S.E. 
 corner, forming the floor of a pew, is, or rather was, a Godolphin 
 monument inscribed with a turgid Latin epitaph consisting mainly of a 
 play upon the word ' delphinus.'
 
 The Godolphins of Godolphin. 341 
 
 a Godolphin, while their helmets one of them sur- 
 mounted by the ' canting ' crest of a dolphin hang 
 rusting * in monumental mockery' over some of the 
 tombs. The remains of the mansion (now occu- 
 pied as a spacious and comfortable farmhouse), the 
 many roads of approach to it, the antique gardens, 
 and the broad, terraced hedges, still testify to its an- 
 cient importance. For a place of much consideration 
 it evidently was, even down to the time of Sidney 
 Godolphin, and later. Those were days when the 
 only newspaper which came to so remote a corner of 
 England and which was procured weekly, together 
 with his despatches (whilst he was in Cornwall), 
 by the Lord Treasurer's own special messenger to 
 Exeter lay on the table in the hall at Godolphin, 
 now called the King's Room, for the benefit of 
 the neighbouring clergy and gentry. Dr. Borlase 
 gives a more or less conjectural view of the house in 
 its glory, surrounded by its park and groves ; and 
 what is supposed to have been a view of it was found 
 on a panel in Pengerswick Castle; but its glories 
 have long departed. Yet, although Godolphin has not 
 vanished from off the face of the earth, like Killigrew, 
 the early abode of the Killigrews in St. Erme, and the 
 two Stows, the residence of the Grenvilles of Kilk- 
 hampton, sufficient remains to indicate to the passer- 
 by that here may once have lived a family as dis- 
 tinguished as that to whom Hals so proudly refers. 
 The surface of the surrounding landscape is now 
 scarred by mines and clay-works; and the little 
 stream, crossed just below the house by Godolphin
 
 34 2 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 Bridge, is discoloured by mine-refuse, disfiguring 
 instead of beautifying the scene. 
 
 * No greater Tynne Workes yn al Cornwal then be 
 on Sir Wylliam Godolcan's ground,' wrote Leland, 
 and his statement long held true. It was remarked 
 by the late W. J. Kenwood in 1843, that in eighteen 
 years Wheal Vor, an adjacent mine, had raised tin 
 to the value of a million and a quarter sterling, of 
 which 100,000 was profit to the adventurers. To 
 be a steward of the Godolphins was held to be a sure 
 method of attaining wealth and influence ; indeed, 
 there is a humorous story told of one of the Godol- 
 phin ladies' excusing her late appearance at the 
 dinner-table one day by saying that she had been 
 down to the smelting-house ' to see the cat eat the 
 dolphin;' the allusion being to the respective marks 
 on the Godolphin tin and that smelted at the same 
 time by Coke, the steward, who bore cats on his coat- 
 of-arms. The Godolphin of the period thereupon in- 
 troduced some much-needed reforms in the manage- 
 ment of his tin business. 
 
 About a mile to the south of the house, and rising 
 nearly 600 feet high a considerable elevation in 
 western Cornwall rises Tregoning (or more pro- 
 perly, Treconan) Hill the dwelling of Conan from 
 whose summit, looking to the south-west, the eye 
 commands a vast stretch of waters, over which the 
 sailor might pass to the West Indies without seeing 
 land, unless he chose to touch at the Azores. 
 Nearer at hand, and seeming almost under our 
 feet, lie the noble curves of the Mount's Bay, with,
 
 The Godolphins of Godolphin. 343 
 
 for a central feature, the rocky islet 'both land 
 and island twice a day,' as Carew says on which 
 stand the Castle and Chair of St. Michael ' Kader 
 Mighel ' still looking 
 
 ' Tow'rd Namancos and Bayonas' hold.' 
 
 Turning our gaze towards the north-west, we 
 see sapphire waves roll on the golden sands which 
 fringe the shores of St. Ives Bay ; and, towards 
 the west, the Land's End district so melts into 
 the grey haze of the Atlantic, that it would be 
 as hard to say where the land ended and the sea 
 began, as it would be now to gather the whole 
 truth as to the lost land of Lyonesse, traditionally 
 reported to have been submerged between Bolerium 
 and the Isles of Scilly. 
 
 Such were the surroundings of Godolphin. The 
 building itself, originally a castle or fortified resi- 
 dence of some sort, was in ruins in the days of 
 Edward IV. William of Worcester, in 1478, says 
 of it: 
 
 ' Castellum Godollon dirutum in villa Lodollon ' ; 
 and Leland, in the days of Henry VIII., describes 
 it in the following words : 
 
 ' Carne Godolcan on the Top of an Hille, wher 
 is a Diche, and there was a Pile and principal Habi- 
 tation of the Godolcans. The Diche yet apperith, 
 and many Stones of late Time hath beene fetchid 
 thens. It is a 3 Miles from S. Michael's Mont by 
 Est North Est.'
 
 344 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 Rebuilt as Godolphin Hall in the days of Elizabeth, 
 it appeared as a quadrangular mansion, with a fine 
 portico of white granite along the north front, con- 
 structed by Francis, the second Earl ; but this was 
 the last flickering of its lamp. The rooms over 
 the portico were, it is said, never fitted up, and the 
 mansion of the Godolphins is now occupied by Mr. 
 Rosewarne, a zealous guardian of its crumbling 
 walls. 
 
 Concerning the etymology of the name there has 
 been much dispute. Some have claimed for it a 
 Phrenician origin, and said that the word signifies * a 
 land of tin ' certainly a not inappropriate deriva- 
 tion. Hals is not very dogmatic (as he often is) as 
 to the meaning. He thinks it may mean ' God's 
 Downs,' an ' altogether wooded down or place of 
 springs,' and utterly repudiates Carew's suggestion 
 that it means ' a white eagle.' Others have suggested 
 ' Goon Dolgan ' Dolgan's Down. This, at least, is 
 clear, that the name, as applied to persons, has had 
 more than one narrow escape of becoming extinct. 
 Once, towards the close of the fourteenth century, or 
 early in the fifteenth century, when Ellinor Godol- 
 phin married John Rencie ; but her husband assumed 
 the patronymic of his wife. Up to that time, 
 and, indeed, for many generations afterwards, we 
 constantly find the Godolphins intermarrying with 
 good old Cornish families, many of whom are now 
 extinct. I find in their family tree such names 
 as Trevanger, Trewledick, Antrewan, Prideaux, 
 Tremrow, Carminowe, Erisey, Bevill, Killigrew,
 
 The Godolphins of Go dolphin. 345 
 
 Trenouth, Cararthyn, Carankan, Tredeneck, Pen- 
 darves, Carew, Grenville, Arundell, St. Aubyn, Bos- 
 cawen, Hoblyn, Molesworth, etc. In short, there are 
 very few Cornish families of any distinction in whose 
 veins the blood of the Godolphins of Godolphin did 
 not mingle. 
 
 The first Godolphin of note (although, according 
 to Lipscombe, they came in with the Conqueror) 
 would seem to have been one who also bore the ill- 
 omened name of Knava ; and who, in 1504, was, as 
 Hals tells us, 'struck Sheriff' of Cornwall. King 
 Henry VII., Hals goes on to say, ' declared his great 
 liking of that gentleman in all circumstances for the 
 said office, but discovered as much dislike of his 
 name after the English, not understanding the 
 import thereof in Cornish, and so further said, 
 that as he was pater patrice, he would trans-nominate 
 him to Godolphin, whereof he was lord ; and ac- 
 cordingly caused or ordered that in his letters-patent 
 under the broad seal of England, for being Sheriff of 
 Cornwall, he should be styled or named John Godol- 
 phin of Godolphin, Esq re , and by that name he 
 accounted at the year's end with that King for his 
 office in the exchequer, and had his acquittance from 
 thence, as appears from the record in the Pipe office 
 there.' Another Cornish gentleman who bore the 
 name of Erisey was, it will be remembered (see the 
 story of the Killigrews), also considered, by James I., 
 to be unfortunate in his patronymic ; but in his case 
 the family name remained unchanged until it became 
 extinct.
 
 346 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 Sheriff John's son, Sir William, Vice-Warden of 
 the Stannaries, was also sheriff of the county in the 
 reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Elizabeth. 
 He was a warrior of note, and a favourite of bluff 
 King Hal, ' who,' Polwhele says, * for his services 
 conferred on him the honor of knighthood, and 
 constituted Sir William warden and chief steward of 
 the Stannaries. He lived to a great age, and was 
 several times chosen one of the Knights of the Shire 
 for Cornwall in the Parliaments of Henry VIII. and 
 Edward VI. He likewise acquired much fame by 
 his conduct and intrepidity in several military com- 
 mands, particularly at the siege of Bologne.' Carew 
 ranks Sir William among the Worthies of Cornwall, 
 saying : ' He demeaned himself very valiantly be- 
 yond the seas ; as appeared by the scars he brought 
 home ; no less to the beautifying of his fame, than 
 the disfiguring of his face.' Thomas Godolphin, his 
 brother, was also present at the above-named siege, 
 ' and on Thursday, the I4th August, 1544, he, Mr. 
 Harper, and Mr. Culpepper were hurt with one shot 
 from the town.' 
 
 Whether it was this Sir William, or his son (who 
 bore the same name and title), who distinguished 
 himself by his ' valiant carriage ' against the Irish 
 rebels towards the close of Elizabeth's reign, is not 
 quite clear ; but I am inclined to think it must have 
 been the latter, as the first Sir William was gathered 
 to his fathers in the year 1570, and was buried at 
 Breage. 
 
 It was the former Sir William's brother Thomas
 
 The Godolphins of Godolphin. 347 
 
 who took for his first wife a Grenville, and from 
 them descended, for three generations, those Godol- 
 phins who probably led happy lives for (so far as I 
 am aware) they have ' no history ' and whose 
 Christian name at least would imply their peaceful 
 careers, for there were three Gentle Godolphins in 
 succession. But from Thomas's second union, with 
 Katherine Bonython, sprang the more famous mem- 
 bers of the family. One of these was Sir Francis,* 
 Vice- Warden of the Stannaries, who was knighted in 
 1580: he was with his father and uncle at Boulogne, 
 and was the contemporary and friend of Richard 
 Carew, whom he helped in writing the ' Survey of 
 Cornwall.' 
 
 Carew thus refers to his colleague : 
 
 ' This Hill (Godolphin) hath, for divers descents, 
 supplied those gentlemen's bountiful minds with 
 large means accruing from their tin-works, and is 
 now possessed by Sir Francis Godolphin, knight, 
 whose zeal in religion, uprightness in justice, provi- 
 dence in government, and plentiful house-keeping, 
 have won him a great and reverent reputation in 
 his country ; and these virtues, together with his 
 services to Her Majesty, are so sufficiently known to 
 those of highest place, as my testimony can add 
 little light thereunto : but by his labours and inven- 
 
 * Lipscombe, in his ' History of Buckinghamshire,' says of him that 
 'he was very ingenious, and entertained a Dutch mineral man, by 
 whose instructions he practised a more saving way of making tin. He 
 also undertook the coinage of silver out of the mines of Wales and 
 Cornwall.'
 
 348 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 tions* in tin matters, not only the whole country 
 hath felt a general benefit, so as the several owners 
 have thereby gotten very great profit out of such 
 refuse works, as they before had given over for un- 
 profitable ; but Her Majesty hath also received 
 increase of her customs by the same, at least to the 
 value of 10,000. Moreover, in those works which 
 are of his own particular inheritance, he continually 
 keepeth at work 300 persons, or thereabouts ; and 
 the yearly benefit, that out of those his works accrueth 
 to Her Majesty, amounteth, communibus annis, to 
 1000 at least, and sometimes to much more.' 
 
 And there is one other little episode of Cornish 
 history with which the name of Sir Francis Godol- 
 phin will always be associated : the repulse of the 
 Spaniards from Penzance in 1595. 
 
 There was an old Cornish prophecy which ran thus : 
 
 ' Ewra teyre a war meane Merlyn 
 Ara Lesky Pawle Pensanz ha Newlyn,' 
 
 * No doubt Carew here refers to Sir Francis's invention of mine 
 stamps for crushing the ore. An earlier Godolphin seems to have also 
 given attention to this branch of mining, for Leland says : ' From Mr. 
 Godolcan's to Trewedenek about a 4 miles. Wher Thomas Godalcan 
 (yonger) sun to Sir Willyam buildith a praty House, and hath made an 
 exceeding fair bio House Mille in the Rokky Valley thereby.' In fact 
 the neighbourhood of Godolphin seems to have been the birthplace of 
 many important mining inventions. Near here the first steam-engine 
 for draining the mine was put to work, early in the present century, at 
 Wheal Vor ; and the following is recorded in the Register of Breage 
 Church : 'James Epsley sen' of Chilchampton Parish Bath and Wells 
 Summersetshire he was the man that brought that rare invention of 
 shooting the rocks (viz., blasting them with gunpowder) which came 
 heare in June 1684 and he died at the Bal (the mine) and was buried at 
 breage the i6th day of September in the yeare of our Lord Christ 1689.'
 
 The Godolphins of Godolphin. 349 
 
 signifying that there should land upon the rock of 
 Merlyn (at Mousehole), those that would burn Paul 
 Church, Penzance, and Newlyn. And so it fell out 
 that, during a fog, at dawn on the 23rd July, four 
 Spanish galleys landed 200 men, armed with pike 
 and shot, who burnt all the houses at Mousehole as 
 they passed, and at length set fire to Paul Church 
 itself. The peaceable inhabitants, being then only 
 about 100 in number, and ' meanly weaponed,' as 
 Carew says, 'fled on the approach of the buccaneers, 
 but were rallied by Sir Francis Godolphin on Pen- 
 zance Western Green, and proceeded to attack the 
 enemy, who, however, managed to regain their boats, 
 in which they now anchored off another little fishing- 
 village Newlyn. Here they landed 400 pike and 
 shot, and marched upon Penzance, Sir Francis en- 
 deavouring to intercept them. But the flanking fire 
 from the galleys was too galling for the poor Cornish 
 folk, and (though none were seriously hurt) they 
 gave way, dispersing in various directions, and some 
 of them flying into the town of Penzance. At the 
 market-place, which is in about the centre of the 
 town, Sir Francis ordered them to make their stand 
 * himself staying hindmost, to observe the enemy's 
 order, and which way they would make their ap- 
 proach :' but only about a dozen men could be got 
 together, and Sir Francis had to take to flight, the 
 Spaniards setting fire to Penzance also, and then 
 again returning to their galleys. Meanwhile, the 
 story of the attack got wind, and increased numbers 
 of Cornishmen assembled on the open spaces near
 
 350 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 Marazion, when they drove the Spanish galleys 
 from the shore. Succours from Plymouth arrived 
 on the 25th July ; and the English ships, having also 
 heard of what had happened, were on the look-out ; 
 but a favourable breeze from the N.W. set in, and 
 the enemy were unluckily enabled to make good 
 their retreat. 
 
 Like his father, Sir Francis married twice : his 
 second wife was Margaret Killigrew, and thus he be- 
 came identified more closely than ever with Royalist 
 interests. The Godolphins had obtained from 
 Elizabeth a lease of the Scilly Isles, and more than 
 one member of the family had acted as a sort of 
 little viceroy there ; 'Dolphin Town, as it is now 
 called, on the island of Trescaw, still bears witness 
 to their former sway. Here, at Elizabeth Castle, 
 on St. Mary's Island, Charles II. found shelter 
 when he sorely needed it ; and from the Scilly 
 Isles the Godolphins and the Grenvilles con- 
 ducted many a bold exploit during the Civil War; 
 until at length the fleet of the Commonwealth 
 compelled the desperate Knights to surrender, as 
 we shall see further in the history of the Gren- 
 villes. 
 
 The next few years saw a great number of deaths 
 in the Godolphin family. Sir Francis, the Penzance 
 hero, died, and was buried at Breage in 1608 his 
 son, Sir William, following him four years afterwards. 
 In 1619 John, who succeeded his father as Captain 
 of Scilly, died too; and in 1640 the last of the 
 brothers, the second Sir Francis, Recorder of
 
 The Go do lp kins of Godolphin. 351 
 
 Helston, a borough with which the Godolphins kept 
 up a parliamentary connexion, of the old style, for 
 many years. 
 
 The story of the Godolphins now conveniently 
 divides itself into two parts, viz. : first, the history 
 of the descendants of the above-named John ; and 
 secondly, that of the more celebrated line which de- 
 scended from his brother Sir William. 
 
 John, ' Captain of Scilly,' had married a lady 
 bearing the singular name of Judith Amerideth, and 
 had by her three sons, and I think as many 
 daughters. Of their offspring, Sir William and John 
 alone claim our attention ; and the former, solely on 
 account of his being the father of another Sir William 
 who was Ambassador at Madrid. The Ambassador 
 was one of John Locke's most intimate friends when 
 they were schoolboys together at Westminster, but 
 was ' no great scholar ;' he went to Oxford, and only 
 got his M.A. degree by nomination of the Crown, 
 for, truth to tell, he was too busy about politics to 
 attend to his studies. In politics, however, he seems 
 to have achieved some distinction, for he was Lord 
 Arlington's secretary and right-hand man, and was 
 always a staunch adherent of the Stuarts. He 
 went to Madrid with the Earl of Sandwich, as 
 his 'assistant;' and Locke joined the Embassy as 
 secretary, through Godolphin's interest, in March, 
 1666. 
 
 He died without issue, and it was suspected that 
 his religious views had been tampered with in his
 
 35 2 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 latter days,* and that he had left his property to 
 ' superstitious uses ;' whereupon the Act 10 William 
 III. was passed for ' confirming and establishing the 
 administration of the goods and chattels of Sir 
 William Godolphin, Knight, deceased.' It recites, 
 that he lived at Madrid 'surrounded by Fryers, 
 Priests, and Jesuits, as he lay Bedrid,' and that on 
 the 3Oth March, 1696, he made a will appointing 
 four of such persons his ' Testamentoros,' and leaving 
 them legacies. The Act declares this document to 
 be null and void ; and refuses to recognise the 
 clause in which Sir William declares his soul to 
 be * his Universal Heir.' But the four testamentoros 
 were to get their legacies, and the property was 
 then duly allotted amongst those to whom Sir 
 William had intended it should be left, before he 
 departed from England, viz., to his brother Francis, 
 of Coulston, and his nephew Charles. To the poor 
 of Camelford he left 20, and 10 each to the poor 
 of Liskeard, and of St. Mabyn. The Godolphin 
 school at Salisbury was founded out of the pro- 
 ceeds of Sir William's estate. The whole of the 
 details of this transaction may be read in the ' Ex- 
 tractum ex extractu pacis,' preserved in the British 
 Museum (^^- 5 ). 
 
 During two or three succeeding generations, this 
 branch of the family continued to give Governors 
 
 * According to a passage in the ' Epistolary Curiosities of Rebecca 
 Warner,' the House of Commons voted an address to the King praying 
 for the recall of Sir William Godolphin on a charge of high treason, ' for 
 he is one of the plotters,' and Godolphin was accordingly recalled in 
 1678 or 1679.
 
 The Godolphins of Godolphin. 353 
 
 and Deputy-Governors to the Isles of Scilly,* until 
 at length the male line died out, and the Godolphin 
 blood became perpetuated by intermarriages with, 
 amongst others, the eleventh Earl of Huntingdon, 
 and (within the last few years) by the marriage of the 
 Vicar of Sydenham, in Kent, the Rev. H. W. Yeat- 
 man, with Lady Barbara Caroline Legge, daughter 
 of the fourth Earl of Dartmouth. At Acton Church, 
 near Ealing, were the tombs of Sir John Godolphin 
 (1679), and of his daughter and heir Elizabeth, maid- 
 of-honour to Queen Katharine of Braganza. 
 
 One is tempted to linger somewhat longer over 
 John ' of Doctors' Commons, Doctor of Laws,' the 
 third son of John and Judith Amerideth. He was 
 born at Godolphin, in Scilly, on 2gth November, 
 1617, and entered at Gloucester Hall, Oxford, in 
 
 * For information as to one of these Godolphins I am indebted for 
 the following notes to a source to which I am under the deepest obliga- 
 tions the ' Bibliotheca Cornubiensis ' : 
 
 ' Letter from John Vemey to sir R. Verney. 
 
 ' "Capt: Godolphin, govenor of Scilly, was this week killed at the 
 Cockpit ordinary in Drury Lane by Mr. Buncombe who also received 
 3 wounds. Godolphin was a wild young gentleman and tho' he usually 
 came to church yet 'tis said as he lay dying none but papist priests were 
 in his room 9 Nov 1682. (MS. penes Sir Harry Verney, bart. Clayden 
 house, Bucks.)" 
 
 ' " The gentleman who killed Mr. Godolphin, governor of Scilly, is 
 lately dead of his wounds which he received in that duel II Deer. 1682. 
 (News Letter MS. penes Sir F. Graham, bart., Nelherby hall, Cumber- 
 /and.)"' 
 
 Mr. Godolphin, Governor of Scilly, whose death is above spoken of, 
 was possibly William, eldest son of Fras. Godolphin, of Coulston, 
 Wilts. 
 
 VOL. I. 23
 
 354 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 1632, taking his Bachelor's degree in 1636, and that 
 of Doctor in 1642-43. I believe that if he did not 
 at any time reside at St. Kew, in Cornwall, at least 
 he must have had some thoughts of doing so, for he 
 held, for some time, Tretawne,* an old Jacobean seat 
 of the Molesworths in this parish ; and he married 
 Honor, a lady of that old Cornish family. A granite 
 stone, about twelve inches square, let into the wall 
 of the back kitchen, and inscribed 
 
 MOLESWORTH 
 1620 
 
 commemorates the connexion of the Molesworths 
 with their quondam residence of Tretawne. 
 
 Polwhele says that Dr. John 'was at first 
 puritanically inclined, but afterwards took the 
 engagement,' and in conjunction with Dr. William 
 Clarke and C. G. Cock, Esq., was, in 1653, 
 constituted a Judge of the Admiralty. He seems to 
 have always had a leaning in the direction of 
 polemics, notwithstanding his being a member of 
 the legal faculty, and his having been made one of 
 the King's ' Advocates ' at the Restoration ; certainly 
 his works on Divinity are more numerous than those 
 on Law. His ' Orphan's Legacy, or Testamentary 
 Abridgment,' which is in three parts the first 
 treating of Last Wills and Testaments, the second, 
 of Executors and Administrators, and the third of 
 
 * According to Sir J. Maclean, in his ' Deanery of Trigg Minor.'
 
 The Godolphins of Godolphin. 355 
 
 Legacies and Devises was, no doubt, a useful hand- 
 book of the period ; and his ' Repertorium Canonicum ' 
 (1687) ' an abridgment of the Ecclesiastical Laws of 
 this Realm consistent with the Temporal : wherein 
 the most material points relating to such persons 
 and things as come within the cognizance thereof 
 are succinctly treated ' is a laborious attempt to 
 exhibit in their legal bearings the relations of Church 
 and State, especially asserting the King's Supre- 
 macy. 
 
 But probably he will be better remembered by 
 his ' Holy Limbeck, or a Semi-Century of Spiritual 
 Extractions,' and by his ' Holy Arbour' than by either 
 of the foregoing works, or by his 'Zwrfyopos 6a\a<r<rto<? t 
 or a view of the Admiral's Jurisdiction.' The title of 
 the * Holy Arbour ' runs as follows, in the fantastical, 
 metaphorical style of the time : 
 
 'The Holy Arbour contayning y e whole Body of 
 Divinity, or A Cluster of Spirituall Grapes, gathered 
 from the Vines of certaine Moderne and Orthodox 
 Laborers in the Lord's Viniard ; Pressd For the 
 Spirituall delight and benefit of all such as thirst 
 after Righteousness.' 
 
 And the Dedication, in similar vein, commences thus : 
 * To the Truly Honorable, the Poor in Spirit. 
 
 ' Right Humble, 
 
 ' The mighty Nazarite's Riddle, Out of the 
 Eater came Meat, and out of the Strong came Sweet- 
 
 232
 
 356 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 ness (Judg. xiv. 14) was the second course served in 
 at his Marriage Feast ; which by way of Allusion may 
 not unaptly be applied to you. Came not the Spirit 
 of God upon you at the Conquest of that devouring 
 Lyon, in the fierce Assults of his ingenious 
 Temptations ? At your return from which Spiritual 
 Combat, began you not to feed on the Peace of 
 Good Consciences, when the Word of the Lord 
 became as Honey in your mouthes ? Is not this a 
 Riddle to the Uncircumcised of the World ? 
 
 ' In congratulation of which no common Victory, 
 is this Address no less properly then humbly 
 prostrated to you onely, as the most faithful 
 Guardians of this Holy Arbor ; whose unfenced 
 Ambulage, when spiced at your approach by the 
 fragrancy of your Innocency, craves the Subterfuge 
 of your Prayers.' 
 
 Our author died in 1678, in or near Fleet Street, 
 and was buried in the north aisle of St. James's 
 Church, Clerkenwell, leaving one son, Francis, who 
 died in 1695, and who was buried with his wife, 
 Grace, at St. Columb Major : down to within the 
 last hundred years their descendants have hovered 
 round the neighbourhood, and found like resting- 
 place for their remains. 
 
 We must now revert to that branch of the 
 family which comprises, as I have said, its more 
 distinguished members, and which sprang from the 
 union of Sir William Godolphin (who died and was
 
 The Godolphins of Godolphin. 357 
 
 buried at Breage in 1613) with Thomasine Sidney, 
 of Wrighton in Norfolk, a lady who bequeathed her 
 maiden surname to many of her descendants down 
 to the present day. 
 
 One of their sons, Sidney, uncle of a yet more 
 illustrious namesake, was killed in a skirmish 
 during the Civil War, on Dartmoor, in February, 
 1 643.* The Parliamentary forces had been defeated 
 at Boconnoc, and Hopton thereupon 'flew with a 
 party volant ' towards Plymouth. His army, how- 
 ever, received a temporary check at Chagford ; but 
 Sir John Berkeley at length drove out the Parlia- 
 mentary forces who quartered in that little village ; 
 and here the brave young Sidney Godolphin was 
 slain. 
 
 He was, says Clarendon, 'a young gentleman of 
 incomparable parts, who, being of a constitution and 
 education more delicate, and unacquainted with con- 
 tentions, upon his observation of the wickedness of 
 those men in the House of Commons, of which he 
 was a member, out of the pure indignation of his 
 soul against them', and conscience to his country, 
 had, with the first, engaged himself with that party 
 in the west ; and though he thought not fit to take 
 a command in a profession he had not willingly 
 chosen, yet, as his advice was of great authority 
 with all the commanders, being always one in the 
 
 * Sidney was born at Godolphin. He was M.P. for Helston, 1640, 
 and supported Lord Strafford against the majority of the House. He 
 wrote, amongst other poems, a song on Thos. Killigrew and Wm. 
 Murray, so Wood says. He was buried at Okehampton.
 
 358 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 council of war, and whose notable abilities they had 
 still use of in their civil transactions, so he exposed 
 himself to all action, travel, and hazard ; and by too 
 forward engaging himself in this last, received a 
 mortal shot by a musket, a little above the knee, of 
 which he died in the instant, leaving the misfortune 
 of his death upon a place which could never other- 
 wise have had a mention to the world.' And 
 Clarendon gives yet another and more elaborate 
 portrait of him (' Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon,' 
 vol. i. p. 51) : 
 
 * Sidney Godolphin was a younger brother of 
 Godolphin, but by the provision left by his father, 
 and by the death of a younger brother, liberally 
 supplied for a very good education, and for a cheer- 
 ful subsistence, in any course of life he proposed to 
 himself. There was never so great a mind and 
 spirit contained in so little room ; so large an 
 understanding and so unrestrained a fancy in so very 
 small a body ; so that the Lord Falkland used to say 
 merrily, that he thought it was a great ingredient 
 into his friendship for Mr. Godolphin, that he was 
 pleased to be man ; and it may be, the very remark- 
 ableness of his little person made the sharpness of 
 his wit, and the composed quickness of his judgment 
 and understanding the more notable. He had spent 
 some years in France, and in the Low Countries ; 
 and accompanied the Earl of Leicester in his 
 ambassage into Denmark, before he resolved to be 
 quiet, and attend some promotion in the Court, 
 where his excellent disposition and manners, and
 
 The Godolphins of Godolphin. 359 
 
 extraordinary qualifications, made him very accept- 
 able. Though everybody loved his company very 
 well, yet he loved very much to be alone, being in his 
 constitution inclined somewhat to melancholy, and 
 to retire amongst his books ; and was so far from 
 being active, that he was contented to be reproached 
 by his friends with laziness ; and was of so nice and 
 tender a composition, that a little rain or wind 
 would disorder him, and divert him from any short 
 journey he had most willingly proposed to himself; 
 insomuch as, when he rid abroad with those in 
 whose company he most delighted, if the wind 
 chanced to be in his face, he would (after a little 
 pleasant murmuring) suddenly turn his horse and 
 go home. Yet the civil war no sooner began (the 
 first approaches toward which he discovered as soon 
 as any man, by the proceedings in Parliament, where 
 he was a member, and opposed with great indigna- 
 tion) than he put himself into the first troops 
 which were raised in the west for the King; and 
 bore the uneasiness and fatigue of winter marches, 
 with an exemplar courage and alacrity ; until by too 
 brave a pursuit of the enemy, into an obscure village 
 in Devonshire, he was shot with a musket ; with 
 which (without saying any word more than, Oh, 
 God ! I am hurt) he fell dead from his horse ; to 
 the excessive grief of his friends, who were all that 
 knew him; and the irreparable damage of the 
 public.' In fact the first Sidney Godolphin would 
 seem to have been a universal favourite. 
 
 In the 'Select Funeral Memorials,' pp. 10, n, by
 
 360 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 Sir K. J. Egerton Brydges, Bart., occurs the 
 following passage concerning him : 
 
 * He was a person of excellent parts, of an incom- 
 parable wit and exact judgment, did love Hobbes of 
 Malmesbury, in some respects and exhibited to him, 
 and was entirely beloved by him, who not un- 
 deservedly gave him this character* after he had 
 unexpectedly received a legacy from him of "200 : 
 " There is not any virtue that disposeth a man either 
 to the service of God or to the service of his 
 country, to civil society or to private friendship, that 
 did not manifestly appear in his conversation, not as 
 acquired by necessity, or affected upon occasion, 
 but inherent and shining in a generous constitution 
 of his nature." In another place also ' (p. 390, in 
 his ' Review and Conclusion of the Leviathan ') 
 ' Hobbes speaks thus of him : " I have known clear- 
 ness of judgment, and largeness of fancy, strength 
 of reason, and graceful education ; a courage for 
 the war, and a fear for the laws, and all eminently 
 in one man ; and that was my most noble and 
 honoured friend, Mr. Sidney Godolphin, who, hating 
 no man, nor hated of any, was unfortunately slain 
 in the beginning of the late civil war, in a public 
 quarrel, by an undiscerned and undiscerning hand, 
 etc." And to the foregoing we may add that his 
 elegy was written by Dr. Donne. 
 
 The following lines may serve as an example of 
 his ingenuity whilst, in 1623, a student at Oxford 
 
 * In his preface to the ' Leviathan,' which Hobbes dedicated to 
 Sidney's brother, Francis.
 
 The Godolphins of Godolphin. 361 
 
 and it may be added that he also translated from 
 Virgil ' The Passion of Dido for ^Eneas,' which 
 Waller published : 
 
 'CarolvsRedvx' 
 
 , r v I haVD Ita te a MIffo LVget Hlfpania, 
 
 Cnronagramme < -.7. T T /IT* * T f 
 \ Vt I repoffefib pla geftlt AngLIa. 
 
 Insolita Angligenas admittere gaudia mentes. 
 Hesperiam msestos cogis inire modos. 
 
 'SIDNEY GODOLPHIN, 
 Equitis auratifilius 2 Coll. Exoti.' 
 
 The gallant young Sidney had a brother named 
 William, who was colonel of a regiment for 
 Charles I., and who died in 1636, aged twenty-four; 
 and another brother, Francis, who was knighted 
 at the Coronation of Charles II., in recognition, no 
 doubt, of the ' many acceptable remittances ' which 
 Le Neve tells us he had made to the King when in 
 exile, as well as of the loyal spirit which his family 
 had always shown. His loyalty even displayed itself 
 whilst he was yet a student at Exeter College, 
 Oxford; as is evinced by the following copy of verses 
 which I find in the same volume as the above : 
 
 ' Nullum ade6 ingenium sterile est, vel barbara Musa, 
 Cui non materiem gaudia tanta darent. 
 Hesperiam, Princeps, alienumq ; sethera, tardo, 
 Ast fortunate, CAROLVS exit equo. 
 Et postquam mores multorum vidit, & vrbes, 
 Spe maior, fama clarior, en redijt 
 Quiq ; comes fecum fidissimus exijt, & dux, 
 Maximus, ae morit6. Dux redit ille Comes. 
 Haec inter tantam cecinit mea Musa catervam, 
 Qu& docta; magis, baud laetior vna, canunt. 
 
 ' FRA. GODOLPHIN, 
 Equit. Aur.fil. not. max. i Coll. Exon.' 
 
 Sir Francis (to whom Hobbes dedicated his
 
 362 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 * Leviathan ') was Member for the little Cornish 
 Borough of St. Ives in 1640. He married Dorothy 
 Berkeley, and had seven children, most of whom 
 (and their children likewise) were buried in West- 
 minster Abbey. Three only of Sir Francis's off- 
 spring are, however, known to fame Sir William, 
 created by Charles II. 552nd baronet of England, 
 who died unmarried in 1710, leaving 5,000 a year 
 to his more illustrious younger brother, the celebrated 
 SIDNEY ; and Henry, who became Dean of St. 
 Paul's and Provost of Eton, dying at Windsor in 
 I 733- We shall get glimpses of the three brothers 
 in the pages of Evelyn and of Pepys. The Dean 
 and Sidney each married a Margaret. Dr. Henry's 
 spouse was his cousin, the only daughter of the first 
 Sidney Godolphin who fell at Chagford ; while the 
 great Minister of State was blessed with the hand of 
 that sweet Margaret Blagge whose saintly fame has 
 been perpetuated in the pious Evelyn's ' Life of 
 Margaret Godolphin.' 
 
 Before, however, proceeding to sketch the career 
 of the more prominent SIDNEY, let us look at the 
 memorials preserved of the good Dean. He was 
 the fourth son of Sir Francis, and was educated first 
 at Eton, and then at Wadham, and All Souls' Col- 
 leges, Oxford. Of the latter College he became a 
 Fellow, and he took his degree of D.D. in 1685. 
 Ten years after, having been for some time Vice- 
 Provost, he was made Provost of Eton, of which 
 he was, according to Maxwell Lyte, ' a kind ruler ;' 
 and on the 23rd of April, 1696, we find Evelyn visit-
 
 The Go dolphins of Godolphin. 363 
 
 ing him there, and dining with him. A few years 
 before, Evelyn had been to St. Albans with the two 
 brothers, William and Henry, to see the library of 
 the Archdeacon, Dr. Cartwrite : * a very good collec- 
 tion,' especially in divinity as might have been 
 expected. The party visited the Abbey which 
 Evelyn calls * the greate church,' and which, he 
 adds, was 'now newly repair'd by a public contri- 
 bution.' Nor had the pleasant diarist omitted to 
 attend on the sacred ministrations of his friend, for 
 we find it duly recorded that, on March i5th, 1684, 
 ' At Whitehall preached Mr. Henry Godolphin, a 
 prebend of St. Paules, and brother to my deare friend 
 Sydnie, on Isaiah Iv. 7.' On the i8th July, 1707, 
 Dr. Godolphin was installed Dean of St. Paul's; and 
 he lived long to enjoy his dignities, for he reached the 
 good old age of ninety or, according to other ac- 
 counts, eighty-four. He was a most pious and chari- 
 table man, and gave 4,000 to Queen Anne's Bounty 
 a charity in which the Godolphins seem to have, 
 from the first, taken much interest. He was moreover, 
 and so were some others of his family,* munificent 
 benefactors and restorers of Eton College ; the 
 Provost's Monument, which is on the south side of 
 the chapel, has a long and highly eulogistic Latin 
 inscription recounting his munificence and his 
 virtues. 
 
 * Cf. Lyte's 'Eton College,' p. 356. 'A legacy of 5,550 from 
 Lord Godolphin did little to amend the fare of the unfortunate collegers, 
 for only a part of the interest was annually expended in providing pud- 
 ding on Sundays, the remainder of the money being allowed to accu- 
 mulate for the benefit of a future generation.'
 
 364 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 Ecton, in his account of Queen Anne's Bounty 
 ('Thesaurus Eccles.,' 4to., Lond., 1742), mentions 
 that Dean Godolphin gave, in conjunction with 
 others, ' the sum of 3,910 for the augmentation of 
 small livings upon the plan of that bounty.' . . . ' He 
 gave a 1,000 towards the alterations of the chapel 
 as it is at present, the which alteration (made about 
 the year 1700) is widely different from the original 
 plan given by the Founder, An - Regni 26- With 
 this money the organ, it is said, was purchased, as 
 being charg'd at about that sum. He adorn'd the 
 outer court with a statue of the Royal Founder, 
 cast in copper; placed on a marble Pedestal, and 
 fenc'd in with Iron Palisades. Further, he be- 
 queathed by his last Testament the sum of 200 for 
 the buying books to the use of the College Library. 
 He built the Alms Houses for 10 poor women.' 
 (Huggett's MSS., Sloane, No. 4843, f. 102, 103.) 
 He also built, or rather rebuilt, in 1695, the extensive 
 brick mansion of Baylis, or Baillis, near Stoke 
 Pogis. 
 
 It was reported at the time, according to 
 Luttrell, that on the death of Dr. New, in 1706, 
 Dean Godolphin was to have succeeded him as 
 Bishop of Exeter, but this promotion he never 
 received. 
 
 The Provost of Eton left two sons and one 
 daughter. Francis, one of his descendants, and 
 third baron, succeeded to the title of Baron Godol- 
 phin, of Helston, in 1766, on the death of the 
 second earl, when the earldom became extinct ; and
 
 The Godolphins of Godolphin. 365 
 
 as Francis Baron Godolphin died without issue in 
 1785, the barony also failed. 
 
 But statelier figures are about to appear upon 
 the scene : the solemn, silent Minister, in whose 
 breast were locked the State secrets and intricate 
 policies of a succession of English monarchs, and 
 his devout and spotless wife, who, ' a saint at Court,' 
 verily walked in the flames of ' the fiery furnace, and 
 felt no hurt, neither did the smell of fire pass upon 
 her.' Of Margaret, John Evelyn's exquisite ' Life ' 
 is familiar to many ; but for her husband's career we 
 have to search the annals of the Courts of Charles II., 
 of his brother, James, of William and Mary, and of 
 Anne : favoured and trusted by them all ; until at 
 length his sturdy resistance to the growing tendency 
 of the last of the Stuarts to accept the counsel of 
 irresponsible advisers instead of that of the Ministers 
 of her Crown, caused the final rupture between the 
 Queen and her Lord High Treasurer. 
 
 Born about the year 1630, of great natural abilities, 
 educated at Oxford, and sprung from a family who 
 were loyal to the backbone, Sidney Godolphin, when 
 only about fifteen years old, was made, on the Resto- 
 ration, first Page, then Groom of the Bedchamber. 
 'Never in the way, and never out of the way,' as the 
 witty King said of him. In the following year, and 
 during every Parliament of Charles's reign, he sat in 
 the House of Commons as Member for Helston, an 
 old coinage-town, and then the nearest place of im- 
 portance to the family seat in Cornwall. In Parlia-
 
 366 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 ment, though rarely opening his mouth, he was soon 
 looked upon as a great authority, not only on all 
 questions of trade and finance, but in matters of high 
 policy as well. In 1668, he accompanied his brother 
 William on a mission to Spain. Twice, in 1678, was 
 he an envoy to Holland on the question of the 'sepa- 
 rate ' peace proposed by France ; and his services on 
 that occasion, when he received the valuable assist- 
 ance of Sir William Temple, were rewarded in the 
 following year by an appointment to the post of 
 Fourth Commissioner of the Treasury, in the room 
 of the Earl of Derby. It was about this time that 
 Pepys first became acquainted with him ; and Pepys 
 thus records his impressions : 
 
 ' February 5th, 1667-8. Moore tells me what a 
 character my Lord Sandwich hath sent over of Mr. 
 Godolphin, as the worthiest man, and such a friend 
 to him as he may be trusted in any thing relating to 
 him in the world ; as one whom, he says, he hath 
 infallible assurances that he will remain his friend : 
 which is very high, but indeed they say the gentle- 
 man is a fine man. 
 
 ' loth Feb y , 1667-8. Made a visit to Mr. Godol- 
 phin at his chamber ; and I do find him a very 
 pretty and able person, a man of very fine parts, 
 and of infinite zeal to my Lord Sandwich ; and one 
 that says, he is (he believes) as wise and able a 
 person as any prince in the world.' 
 
 Indeed, Pepys seems to have been on intimate
 
 The Godolphins of Godolphin. 367 
 
 terms with the Godolphins; witness the following 
 charming account of a dinner-party which he gave 
 them : 
 
 'January 23rd, 1668-9. To the office till noon, 
 when word brought me that my Lord Sandwich was 
 come ; so I presently rose, and there I found my 
 Lords Sandwich, Peterborough, and Sir Charles 
 Harbord ; and presently after them comes my Lord 
 Hitchingbroke, Mr. Sidney and Sir William Godolphin. 
 And after greeting them and some time spent in 
 talk, dinner was brought up, one dish after another, 
 but a dish at a time ; but all so good, but, above all 
 things, the variety of wines and excellent of their 
 kind I had for them, and all in so good order, that 
 they were mightily pleased, and myself full of con- 
 tent at it : and indeed it was, of a dinner of about 
 six or eight dishes, as noble as any man need to 
 have, I think ; at least, all was done in the noblest 
 manner that ever I had any, and I have rarely seen 
 in my life better anywhere else, even at the Court. 
 After dinner my Lords to cards, and the rest of us 
 sitting about them and talking, and looking on my 
 books and pictures, and my wife's drawings, which 
 were commended mightily: and mighty merry all 
 day long with exceeding great content, and so till 
 seven at night, and so took their leaves, it being 
 dark and foul weather. Thus was this entertain- 
 ment over, the best of its kind and the fullest of 
 honour and content to me that ever I had in my 
 life ; and I shall not easily have so good again.'
 
 368 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 Shortly after his appointment to the Treasury, 
 Godolphin was made a Privy Councillor ; and, with 
 the Earl of Sunderland and Mr. Hyde, formed that 
 triumvirate which was so greatly in the confidence of 
 the King : indeed he may be said to have already be- 
 come one of the moving spirits of the age. Charles 
 was particularly anxious that Sidney Godolphin should 
 convey to the House of Commons his determination 
 never to consent to the exclusion of the Duke of York 
 from the succession ; but there was an old, wise head 
 upon Sidney's young shoulders, and, adroitly evading 
 the task, Sir William Temple became his cat's-paw on 
 that occasion. For a few months, in April, 1684, he 
 succeeded Sir Lionel Jenkins, now grown very old 
 and infirm, as a Secretary of State ; and in the 
 August of that year, on the retirement of the Earl 
 of Radnor (whom the Earl of Rochester succeeded 
 as President of the Council) our Sidney became First 
 Commissioner of the Treasury. On the 8th of the 
 following month, he was raised to the peerage, with 
 the title of Baron Godolphin of Rialton, in Cornwall. 
 
 Rialton is an old manor-house on the banks of 
 the little stream which finds its way into the sea at 
 St. Columb Perth. It formerly belonged to the 
 Priory of Bodmin, was for a long time in the 
 possession of the family of Munday, and was 
 granted to Sir Francis Godolphin in 1663. A great 
 part of it was destroyed by fire towards the close of 
 the last century, and the remains of it are now oc- 
 cupied as a farm-house. It was built by the haughty 
 Thomas Vivian, last Prior of Bodmin ; whose initials
 
 The Godolphins of Godolphin. 369 
 
 and arms may still be traced on various parts of the 
 picturesque remains : C. S. Gilbert, in his ' History 
 of Cornwall ' (vol. ii. p. 673), gives a view of the 
 S.E. entrance. 
 
 On the accession of James II., the well-known 
 means by which that King essayed to bring over to 
 his own creed those by whom he was surrounded 
 were employed upon Lord Rochester, amongst others. 
 He was made First Commissioner, in the place ot 
 Lord Godolphin, to whom was confided, in lieu, the 
 post of Chamberlain to the Queen. But James's 
 tactics failed ; and it was not long before the skilled 
 financier was again at the Treasury this time as 
 Second CommissioHer, with, for his colleagues, two 
 Roman Catholic noblemen, Lord Bellasis and Lord 
 Dover a conjunction which the High Church party 
 could not, for a long time, forgive their Protestant 
 colleague. What would they have said had they 
 known that, on the approach of the Prince of 
 Orange, Godolphin was the man whom James 
 selected to carry on his affairs during the King's 
 temporary absence in the west ; and that to this 
 trusted Minister, together with the Marquis of Hali- 
 fax and the Earl of Nottingham, were confided the 
 proposals for an ' accommodation ' which James sent 
 to William, at Hungerford, on December 8th, 1688 ? 
 That these proposals failed in their object is matter 
 of history; but it is, perhaps, not so generally known 
 that the exiled King, pressed for money whilst at 
 Rochester, was obliged to have recourse to his 
 Minister for a gift of a hundred guineas ! He is said 
 VOL. i. 24
 
 37O Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 to have accompanied James to the coast, and to 
 have kept up a correspondence with that monarch 
 until his death. Sidney Godolphin was no man of 
 ' mere abstract ideas.' He moved entirely in the 
 sphere of practical politics ; and, notwithstanding his 
 intimacy with the Stuarts, and his having been one 
 of those who, in the Convention Parliament, had been 
 in favour of a Regency perhaps, indeed, partly be- 
 cause of all this he soon found favour with the new 
 King of England. 
 
 Can it be believed that throughout a career so 
 rapid and so brilliant, the powerful Minister was 
 sighing for repose, and retirement to the old home 
 in Cornwall ? Evelyn* assures us that such was 
 the case with his ' deare friend,' at any rate, during 
 the brief years of his happy married life. But 
 Margaret his well-beloved Margaret had died in 
 giving birth to Francis, their only son. 
 
 And now that we have seen her illustrious husband 
 reach the pinnacle of his ambition, we may turn for a 
 while to the story of his wife. She was descended 
 from a good family out of Norfolk,-f and her father 
 was a Colonel Blagge, Groom of the Bedchamber 
 
 * Evelyn's ' Life of Mrs. Godolphin ' is well worth the perusal of 
 those who have not made its acquaintance. Enthusiastic it undoubtedly 
 is, but it is full of interest ; especially, to my mind, the share which his 
 heroine so reluctantly took in the Court play of ' Calisto,' wherein she 
 represented, with the most perfect grace and propriety, ' Diana, God- 
 dess of Chastity.' Evelyn says the ladies ' were all cover'd with 
 Jewells.' 
 
 f A pedigree of this family, and short accounts of some of its more 
 distinguished members, are given in Bishop Wilberforce's edition of 
 Evelyn's ' Life,' 1847.
 
 The Godolphins of Godolphin. 371 
 
 to Charles I. and II. She was born on 2nd August, 
 1652, and reluctantly came to the court of the then 
 Duchess of York Anne Hyde when only about 
 fifteen years of age, leaving it for that of the 
 Queen on the death of the Duchess in. 1671. She 
 was always of a pious and retiring not to say 
 melancholy disposition, and would have infinitely 
 preferred the quiet innocence of a country house 
 to the tumult and dissipation of such a Court as that 
 to which she was now introduced. As an instance 
 of the almost morbid tendency of her mind, Evelyn's 
 description of her attitude in the portrait which she 
 gave him may be cited : 
 
 ' She would be drawne in a lugubrous posture, 
 sitting upon a Tomb stone adorned with a Sepulcher 
 Urne,' 
 
 An engraving of this picture is prefixed to the 
 edition of Evelyn to which I have just referred. It 
 quite embodies the spirit of Tennyson's lines to 
 another Margaret : 
 
 ' O sweet pale Margaret, 
 O rare pale Margaret, 
 What lit your eyes with tearful power, 
 Like moonlight on a falling shower ? 
 Who lent you, love, your mortal dower 
 
 Of pensive thought and aspect pale, 
 
 Your melancholy sweet and frail 
 As perfume of the cuckoo flower ? 
 From the westward-winding flood, 
 From the evening-lighted wood, 
 
 From all things outward you have won 
 A tearful grace, as tho' you stood 
 
 Between the rainbow and the sun. 
 
 24 2
 
 372 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 The very smile before you speak 
 That dimples your transparent cheek, 
 
 Encircles all the heart, and feedeth 
 The senses with a still delight 
 
 Of dainty sorrow without sound, 
 
 Like the tender amber round 
 Which the moon about her spreadeth, 
 
 Moving through a fleecy night.' 
 
 It may be easily imagined that with such a tem- 
 perament she bent her mind with extreme difficulty 
 to what she considered her duty namely, to be in 
 the Court, and yet not of the Court faithfully dis- 
 charging all the duties allotted to her, and preserving 
 a cheerful face, though her heart was aching at the 
 recklessness and sensuality with which she was sur- 
 rounded. And yet, says Evelyn, ' Arethusa pass'd 
 thro' all those turbulent waters without soe much as 
 the least staine or tincture in her christall ; with her 
 Piety grew up her Witt, which was soe sparkling, 
 accompanyed with a Judgment and Eloquence soe 
 exterordnary, a Beauty and Ayre soe charrneing and 
 lovely, in a word, an Address soe universally takeing, 
 that after few years, the Court never saw or had 
 seen such a Constellation of perfections amongst all 
 their splendid Circles.' 
 
 But her release from her uncongenial duties was 
 at length, with difficulty, .obtained ; and she retired 
 to her friends, Lord and Lady Berkeley (relatives of 
 her future husband), at Berkeley House.* Evelyn, 
 
 * In the Grace Collection (Small Catalogue No. 898) is a water- 
 colour u rawing, 'View of Old Devonshire House, formerly Berkeley 
 House, about 1730.' This was the house which passed from the 
 Berkeleys to the first Duke of Devonshire, and was destroyed by fire 
 1 6th Oct., 1733. It stood where Devonshire House stands now.
 
 The Godolphins of Godolphin. 373 
 
 writing in his usual rapturous way whenever he had 
 anything to say of his exquisite Margaret, gives 
 the following pretty picture of her flight from the 
 Court : 
 
 ' You will easyly figure to your selfe how buissy the 
 young Saint was the next morning in makeing upp 
 her little carriage to quitt her prison ; and when you 
 have fancied the conflagration of a certain Citty the 
 Scripture speaks of, imagine this Lady trussing upp 
 her little fardle like the two daughters whom the 
 angell hast'ned and conducted ; butt the similitude 
 goes no futher, for this holy Virgin went to Zoar, 
 they to the cave of Folly and Intemperence ; there 
 was no danger of her lookeing back and becomeing a 
 statue for sorrow of what she left behind. All her 
 household stuffe, besides a Bible and a bundle of 
 Prayerbookes, was packed upp in a very little com- 
 pass, for she lived soe farr from superfluitye, that she 
 carryed all that was v'allueable in her person ; and tho' 
 she had a courtly wardrobe, she affected it not, 
 because every thing became her that she putt on, 
 and she became every thing was putt upon her.' 
 
 She afterwards moved to lodgings which Evelyn 
 himself built for her, ' over against his Majestie's 
 wood-yard in Scotland Yard,' at Whitehall ; settling 
 here, as he says, ' with that pretty and discreete 
 oeconomye soe naturall to her ; and never was there 
 such an household of faith, never Lady more worthy 
 of the blessings she was entering into, who was soe
 
 374 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 thankfull to God for them.' Her housekeeping and 
 the mode in which she kept her faultless accompts 
 are all lovingly dwelt upon ; and, indeed, she seems 
 to have been a bright example of the Wordsworthian 
 line, of 
 
 ' Pure religion, teaching household laws.' 
 
 At length, after many tormenting misgivings as to 
 whether she was justified before God in so doing, 
 she married Sidney Godolphin, ' that singular and 
 silent lover,' whose gravity and temper at Court 
 all knew so well, on i6th May, 1675, at the 
 Temple Church. The marriage was a private one, 
 for reasons which are by no means clear, and for 
 which even Evelyn can hardly quite forgive her; 
 though he says, ' If ever two were created for each 
 other, and marriages, as they say, made in heaven, 
 this happy paire were of the number.' Two or 
 three years after their marriage she was brought 
 to bed at Whitehall, of her first-born son, Francis 
 to the great joy of herself and her husband. But 
 shortly afterwards a fever with alarming symptoms 
 set in, causing the following touching letter to be 
 written by her husband to Evelyn : 
 
 * My poore wife is fallen very ill of a ffevor, with 
 lightness in her head. You know who sayes the 
 prayer of the faithfull shall save the sick : I humbly 
 begg your charitable prayers for this poore creature, 
 and your distracted servant London : Saturday, 
 9 o'clock.' 
 
 The immovable man was moved to bitter agony
 
 The Godolphins of Godolphin. 375 
 
 now ; and worse was to come : for ' sweet, pale 
 Margaret ' soon passed away to a world more worthy 
 of her than that in which her lot had been cast. 
 Evelyn says : 
 
 ' This fatall houre was (your Ladyshipp* knows) 
 about one o'clock, att noone on the Munday, Sep- 
 tember the nineth 1678, in the 25 year and prime of 
 her age. O unparalell'd loss ! O griefe indicible ! 
 By me never to be forgotten never to be overcome ! 
 Nor pass I the sad anniversary and lugubruous 
 period, without the most sencible emotion, sorrow 
 that draws tears from my very heart whilst I am 
 reciteing it.' 
 
 I doubt whether there is anything more tender 
 and dolorous in our literature than the following 
 letter which she addressed to her husband her 
 * deare man,' * the husband that above all living I 
 vallue,' as she Used affectionately to call him. The 
 letter was not found till after her death : 
 
 ' My deare, not knowing how God Allmighty may 
 deale with me, I think it my best course to settle my 
 affaires, soe as that, in case I be to leave this world, 
 noe earthly thing may take up my thoughts. In the 
 , first place, my deare, believe me, that of all earthly 
 things you were and are the most deare to me ; and 
 I am convinced that nobody ever had a better or 
 
 * Lady Silvius, to whom Evelyn dedicates his book, written long 
 after Margaret's death. The original .MS. was sold at Puttick and 
 Simpson's, in 1861.
 
 376 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 halfe so good a husband. I begg your pardon for 
 all my Imperfections, which I am sencible were 
 many ; but such as I could help I did endeavour to 
 subdue, that they might not trouble you ; for those 
 defects which I could not rectifye in myselfe, as want 
 of judgement in the management of my family and 
 household affaires, which I owne myselfe to be very 
 defective in, I hope your good nature will excuse, 
 and not remember to my disadvantage when I am 
 gone. I ask your pardon for the vanitye of my 
 humour, and for being often (more) melancholy and 
 splenetick* than I had cause to be. I was allwayes 
 asham'd of myselfe when I was soe, and sorry for it, 
 and I hope it will come into the number of those 
 faults which I could not help. Now (my deare) God 
 be with thee, pray God bless you, and keepe you 
 his faithfull servant for ever. In Him be all thy joy 
 and delight, satisfaction and comfort, and doe not 
 grieve too much for me, since I hope I shall be 
 happy, being very much resign'd to God's will, and 
 leaving this World with, I hope, in Christ Jesus, 
 a good Conscience. Now, my dear, if you please, 
 permitt me to ask leave to bestow a legacy or two 
 amongst my friends and servants. . . . Now, my 
 dear, I have done, if you please to lay out about an 
 hundred pounds more in rings for your five sisters, 
 to remember me by. I know nothing more I have 
 to desire of you, but that you will sometymes think 
 of me with kindness, butt never with too much 
 griefe. For my Funerall, I desire there may be noe 
 
 * In the sense of having depressed spirits.
 
 The Godolphins of Godolphin. 377 
 
 cost bestowed upon it att all ; butt if I might, I 
 would begg that my body might lye where I have 
 had such a mind to goe myselfe, att Godolphin, 
 among your friends. I believe, if I were carried by 
 Sea, the expence would not be very great ; but I 
 don't insist upon that place, if you think it not 
 reasonable ; lay me where you please.' 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to say that her last wish 
 was religiously complied with,, and in Breage Church 
 her remains lie, under a plain marble slab, awaiting 
 the Resurrection of the Just.* Her husband, with 
 some of his brothers and sisters, attended the 
 funeral (the cost of which is said to have been about 
 1000), and on her coffin was soldered a copper 
 plate, thus inscribed : 
 
 ' Here lyes a pearle none such the ocean yields 
 In all the Treasures of his liquid fields ; 
 But such as that wise Merchant wisely sought 
 Who the bright Gemm with all his substance bought. 
 Such to Jerusalem above translates 
 Our God, to ado me the Entrance of hejr Gates.' 
 
 While I write, I hear of an intention to dedicate 
 the funds ' collected at this year's (1881) Harvest 
 Festival at St. Breage, towards the cost of a spire 
 to surmount the church tower, in memory of the 
 
 * The entry in the Register is that she was buried on the 2yth Sept., 
 1678. On the north side of the church is a door, now blocked up, 
 which is said to have been the entrance to the Godolphin pew.
 
 378 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 saintly Margaret Godolphin, and her Ruth-like de- 
 votion to her husband and her husband's people. 
 
 But to return to her solemn and now solitary 
 husband who never married again and whom we 
 left installed in the favour of a King almost as taci- 
 turn as his great ancestor, or as the Minister him- 
 self. More troubled times were at hand for him. 
 Party spirit, and, above all, jealousy at his rise and 
 his secure position close to the throne, were at 
 work ; and we accordingly find him assailed in the 
 House of Commons by Hambden and others ; but, 
 whatever he may have felt, rarely condescending a 
 reply. He was made. Third Commissioner of the 
 Treasury in 1689, and First Commissioner in each 
 of the three following years ; and, the King, on the 
 death of Mary his consort, going across the sea to 
 head the Confederate Army in the Netherlands, 
 Godolphin -was made one of the Nine Justices for 
 managing the affairs of the Realm ; still, however, 
 retaining his post at the Treasury. This state of 
 things continued, with slight variations, till the close 
 of William's reign, when the astute statesman left 
 his post for a while, in order, as it was supposed, to 
 facilitate his re-appointment on the accession of 
 Anne. 
 
 In 1702, only a few days after she ascended the 
 throne, the Queen made Godolphin Lord High 
 Treasurer of England. He accepted the post re- 
 luctantly yet he ' conducted the Queen,' says 
 Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, ' with the care and
 
 The Godolphins of Godolphin. 379 
 
 tenderness of a father, or a guardian, through a 
 state of helpless ignorance ' ' the weight of affairs 
 now lying chiefly on his shoulders ;' and those were 
 times when wariness and courage were as essential 
 as at almost any period in the history of our 
 country. One of his first steps was to induce Anne, 
 out of her somewhat scanty resources, to subscribe 
 100,000 towards the expenses of the new war ; to 
 abplish the sale of Places ; and to settle her firstfruits 
 and tenths for the augmentation of small benefices 
 (the origin of the well-known Queen Anne's Bounty) 
 steps which, though they of course involved 
 heavy pecuniary sacrifice, were highly popular with 
 the nation, and tended to enthrone a Queen in the 
 hearts of her people. 
 
 He was much interested in endeavouring to carry 
 out the Treaty for the Union with Scotland, and his 
 brother Charles, now M.P. for Helston, and First 
 Commissioner of Customs, was one of the Commis- 
 sioners appointed for the purpose ; but their efforts 
 for the time failed ; the weight of the English 
 National Debt, and the repugnance of the Scotch 
 to Episcopacy, being the main difficulties in the 
 way. 
 
 It would occupy too much space to describe in 
 detail even if it were now possible to do so the 
 intricate policy of Lord Godolphin and his firm friend, 
 the great Marlborough another West-country man, 
 born at Ashe in Devonshire at this juncture. Suffice 
 it to say, that the famous warrior absolutely refused 
 the command of our armies unless Sidney Godol-
 
 o 
 
 80 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 phin was at the Treasury : he was the only man in 
 England, Maryborough said, on whom he could im- 
 plicitly rely for being punctually furnished with the 
 indispensable ' sinews of war.' Nor would it be 
 profitable to enter very deeply into the party politics 
 of the time. The difficulties which the great general 
 and the skilled financier had to contend with were 
 legion. Rochester, the Queen's maternal uncle, 
 had to be got rid of ; and afterwards ' the careless 
 Harley,' who yearned to be independent of Godolphin 
 a far more difficult task, and for succeeding in 
 which, I believe, Anne never forgave him. On this 
 occasion Godolphin wrote to his quondam colleague, 
 ' I am sorry to have lost the good opinion I once 
 had of you ; but I must believe my own senses. I 
 am very far from having deserved this of you. May 
 God forgive you for it !' The bitter feelings which 
 these transactions produced may be seen in the 
 * Secret History of Arlus (Harley),' and in John 
 Lydgate's ' The Beasts in Power.'* Again, in 1705, 
 Charles Caesar attacked Godolphin in the House of 
 Commons for keeping up, together with Marlborough 
 and others, a treasonable correspondence with the 
 Court of St. Germains ; and the speaker used lan- 
 guage so intemperate that he was committed to the 
 Tower for the remainder of that session. The fact was 
 
 * In the familiar correspondence of the period between the Marl 
 borough and Godolphin clique, the Queen was referred to as ' Mrs. 
 Morley,' Marlborough as 'Mr. Freeman,' the Duchess as 'Mrs. Free- 
 man,' and Godolphin as ' Mr Montgomery.' Most of this correspon- 
 dence is preserved at Blenheim ; many parts of it are in cypher, and 
 the cypher is frequently changed.
 
 The Godolphins of Godolphin. 381 
 
 that the correspondence had taken place at least 
 so it has been said with the full privity and sanc- 
 tion of William, who is even reported to have ex- 
 pressed his admiration of the results of Godolphin's 
 * coquetting ' with the exiled James and his French 
 Court. 
 
 Attacks upon his consistency and his principles 
 all failed ; for, as Bishop Burnet has observed, 
 ' The credit of the nation was never raised so high 
 in any age, nor so sacredly maintained :' and so 
 a new mode of annoying him was invented in an 
 attempt to depreciate his abilities. He was thus 
 satirized in ' Faction Displayed ' : 
 
 ' Volpone* who will solely now command 
 The Publick Purse and Treasure of the Land, 
 Wants Constancy and Courage to oppose 
 A Band of such exasperated Foes. 
 For how shou'd he that moves by Craft and Fear 
 Or ever greatly Think, or ever greatly Dare ? 
 What did he e'er in all his Life perform, 
 But sunk at the Approach of ev'ry Storm ? 
 But, when the tott'ring Church his Aid required, 
 With Moderation Principles inspir'd 
 Forsook his Friends, and decently retir'd. 
 Nor has he any real just Pretence 
 To that vast Depth of Politicks and Sence ; 
 For where's the Depth, when publick Credit's high, 
 To manage an o'erflowing Treasury ?' 
 
 But, notwithstanding all this, the great Minister 
 pursued his successful career as a huge mastiff 
 passes on his way regardless of the yelping curs 
 at his heels. His honours increased. In 1704 
 
 * It was under this name that Sacheverell attacked Godolphin in his 
 celebrated sermon.
 
 382 Some Cornish, Worthies. 
 
 he was made a Knight of the Garter;* in the 
 following year he was appointed Lord Lieutenant 
 of his native county, in the room of John, Lord 
 Grenville ; and about the same time his son, (whose 
 birth, as we have seen, had cost his mother her 
 life,) being now seven-and-twenty years of age, be- 
 came Lord Warden of the Stannaries. 
 
 Congratulatory addresses were from time to time 
 sent up to the Throne on the success of the English 
 arms on the Continent. In some of them reference 
 is specially made to Godolphin's share in the national 
 triumph ; and when the victory of Ramillies on the 
 23rd May, 1706, was celebrated, Godolphin was 
 selected to accompany the Queen to the thanks- 
 giving service at St. Paul's on the 27th of the 
 following month. That great battle, which caused 
 the French to evacuate Flanders, and secured the 
 best part of the Spanish Netherlands to Austria, 
 compelled France to offer terms of peace, which 
 Godolphin wisely rejected ; for three or four success- 
 ful sieges were necessary in order to secure Flanders. 
 But this, too, like almost every other action of his 
 life, was afterwards brought forward by his enemies 
 as. a charge against him. And here is perhaps, a 
 convenient place to refer to another of his acts as a 
 War Minister. It will be remembered that at the 
 beginning of the eighteenth century all the seaboard 
 of America north of the St. Lawrence was in French 
 
 * He wears the collar and jewel, (recalling the line which refers to 
 the star ' That gleam'd on Wise Godolphin's breast,') in his portrait by 
 Sir Godfrey Kneller, and carries in his hand his white wand of office.
 
 The Godolphins of Godolphin, 383 
 
 possession. But in 1710 Godolphin granted six ships 
 and a few hundred soldiers, with a sort of general 
 commission, to one Nicholson, who, in May of that 
 year, compelled the garrison at Port Royal (after- 
 wards known as Annapolis) to surrender ; thus acquir- 
 ing for England the whole peninsula of Nova Scotia, 
 and giving to the then capital of the province a name 
 which will always associate the place with the 
 memories of Queen Anne and her illustrious chief 
 Minister of State. It cannot be supposed from his 
 silence under attack and he almost invariably held 
 his tongue that he did not writhe under his 
 oppressors. ' Oh !' he wrote to Marlborough, * a 
 slave in the galleys is in paradise compared with 
 me!' 
 
 Another object, and one worthy of the great 
 statesman's ambition, was at length happily accom- 
 plished about this time the union of England and 
 Scotland ;* a matter in which he manifested unusual 
 zeal and activity. The Commissioners, wisely 
 selected by Godolphin holding their meetings at 
 his official residence, which stood on the site of 
 Henry VIII. 's cock-pit at Whitehall at length 
 happily brought it about 'to her Majesty's great satis- 
 faction.' It was on the occasion of giving her assent 
 to this Bill that Anne uttered the noble words, which 
 may have been penned for her by Godolphin himself, 
 * I desire and expect from my subjects of both 
 
 * An event to which ' it may be remembered Andrew Fairservice 
 referred ' every symptom of depravity or degeneracy which he remarked 
 among his countrymen, more especially the inflammation of reckonings, 
 the diminished size of pint-stoups, and other grievances.'
 
 384 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 nations that henceforth they act with all possible 
 respect and kindness to one another, that so it may 
 appear to all the world that they are heartily dis- 
 posed to become one people.' 
 
 It is pleasant to be able now to quote a friendly 
 critic, and I gladly avail myself of this opportunity 
 of inserting the following lines by Dr. Garth, appa- 
 rently in reply to an attack made upon Godolphin, 
 entitled 'Arlus and Odolphus,' in which the real 
 names of those alluded to are easily seen through 
 their thin disguise : 
 
 ' Ingratitude's a Weed in every Clime, 
 It thrives too fast at First, but fades in Time. 
 The God of Day and your own Lot's the Same, 
 The Vapours you have rais'd obscure your fame, 
 But, tho' you suffer, and awhile retreat, 
 Your Globe of Light looks larger as you set.' 
 
 We must pass briefly over his share in the Occa- 
 sional Conformity Bill, in which he was said by 
 some to have felt in one way and voted in another ; 
 and also his unfortunate attempt to provide for some 
 poor Palatines both in London and at Godolphin 
 Town in Scilly : at the latter place he proposed to 
 maintain them as soldiers for the garrison. But, 
 notwithstanding that the project was abandoned, 
 it raised a hornets' nest about his ears. Some 
 of his accusers (see the Medley, nth June, 1711) 
 asserted that Ministers had appropriated to their 
 own use some of the thirty-five millions voted by 
 Parliament ; and more than one hot-brained partisan 
 even clamoured that Godolphin's head should pay 
 the price of the maladministration of his office.
 
 The Godolphins of Godolphin. 385 
 
 The Weekly Examiner (No. 47) stated that the 
 Ministry had borrowed money at 5 per cent., whilst 
 they charged the unhappy creditors upon the bills 
 assigned to them from 20 to 40 per cent. These 
 and other similar lying accusations were some of 
 them pronounced by both Houses of Parliament to 
 be ' false and scandalous ;' whilst others were promptly 
 and thoroughly disposed of in a pamphlet written by 
 Walpole ; but the slanderous scribblers, and still 
 more the irresponsible advisers and gossips round 
 Anne's toilet-table and at her music-parties, on 
 whom the Queen had latterly taken a fancy for rely- 
 ing, did to some extent attain their end by discredit- 
 ing for a while her responsible Ministers. 
 
 And here it should be said that Godolphin, though 
 a Tory at heart for ' a Whig was his aversion ' at. 
 once discerned the rising genius of Walpole, favoured 
 him with his protection, and recommended him to 
 Marlborough; and, when our great statesman was 
 dying, he said to the Duchess of Marlborough, who 
 stood by his bedside, ' If you ever forsake that young 
 man, and if souls are permitted to return from the 
 grave to the earth, I will appear to you and reproach 
 you for your conduct.' 
 
 Both Marlborough and Godolphin loudly and 
 vehemently protested against the line of conduct 
 which Anne had adopted in slighting their counsels, 
 whilst she, with characteristic sturdiness, refused 
 to listen to their reproofs and entreaties. Wyon 
 gives a letter from Godolphin to the Queen on 
 the subject of the appointment of the Duke of 
 
 VOL. i. 25
 
 386 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 Shrewsbury (the ' King of Hearts ') vice the Marquis 
 of Kent, as Chamberlain the like of which, he 
 thinks, can scarcely ever before have been addressed 
 to a sovereign by one of her subjects, observing 
 that ' He reproached her in round terms for per- 
 mitting herself to be directed by a private ministry. 
 Her conduct, he said, would draw ruin upon 
 herself and the kingdom, and would force every 
 man in the Council, except the Duke of Somerset, to 
 run from it as he would from the plague. He put it 
 to her what effect an entire change of Ministers 
 was likely to have upon her allies abroad, and 
 whether the war was likely to be carried on well by 
 people who had been averse to it from the beginning.' 
 Nevertheless, Godolphin loyally assured the Queen 
 that, whatever course she determined to adopt, never 
 would he in any way offer the least obstruction to 
 her or to her Ministers. 
 
 Need it be added that after passages such as these 
 the star of Godolphin paled ? To what avail was it 
 that, in 1706, he had been made Earl of Godolphin 
 and Viscount Rialton ? His life was a burden to 
 him, as we have already seen ; he was sick of the 
 popularity which Sacheverell's* violent diatribes 
 against the Government had secured for him; and 
 he was weary of the intrigues of the discontented 
 Whigs, and the taunts and sneers of the ultra-Tories. 
 His nerves were shattered from constantly walking 
 among many pitfalls ; his mind was distracted by the 
 
 * Especially that ' fiery, forward tool's ' (as he was called by one of his 
 opponents) sermon at St. Paul's, on 5th Nov., 1709, for which he was 
 ordered to appear at the bar of the House of Commons.
 
 The Godolphins of Godolphin. 387 
 
 irksome dilemmas with which he had for so long a 
 time been compelled to deal; and he could no longer 
 brook the black, unforgiving looks of his royal mis- 
 tress. Yet he might have truly exclaimed, as Sir 
 Robert Walpole did of himself afterwards, ' My 
 crime is my long continuance in office : in other 
 words, the long exclusion of those who now combine 
 against me.' Was it a greater relief to him or to 
 her when, in August, 1710, the Queen dismissed 
 Godolphin from his post, and desired him, accord- 
 ing to one account, that ' instead of bringing the 
 Staff of Office to her, he would break it, as easier to 
 them both.' Swift says that in doing so, the Earl 
 flung the pieces into the fire, an act which greatly 
 annoyed the Queen. And with Godolphin fell his 
 son then Cofferer to the Household and his son's 
 wife, the Lady Henrietta, one of the Ladies of the 
 Queen's Bedchamber. 
 
 The time had come at length for Harley and St. 
 John to reap the fruits of their triumph ; and, though 
 Marlborough* had more than once warded off the 
 
 * It is curious and instructive to notice how Marlborough himself 
 had suffered from the attacks of his assailants. Green, in his ' Short 
 History of the English People,' says : ' In the bitter moments before his 
 fall, he bade Godolphin burn some querulous letters which the persecu- 
 tion of his opponents had wrung from him. ' My desire is that the 
 world may continue in their error of thinking me a happy man, for I 
 think it better to be envied than pitied.' Yet he could write philoso- 
 phically enough, and in somewhat similar vein, from Tirlemount, to his 
 irritated Duchess, who had been deeply stung by one of the many 
 libellous pamphlets which were now making their appearance : ' The 
 best way of putting an end to that villany is not to appear concerned. 
 The best of men and women in all ages have been ill-used. If we can 
 be so happy as to behave ourselves so as to have no reason to reproach 
 ourselves, we may then despise what rage and faction do. ' 
 
 252
 
 388 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 blow not only for the sake of the friendship and the 
 family ties* which had so long subsisted between him 
 and the Minister, but for the sake of Queen and 
 country that blow fell at last. But the result was 
 terrible also to the financial credit of England. The 
 Treasury was put into commission ; and vast was the 
 commotion in Change Alley. Bank shares at once 
 fell from 140 to no, and soon to 106 ; whilst the 
 Bank refused a loan of 400,000 to the new Govern- 
 ment. ' That Godolphin should retire,' wrote Marl- 
 borough to his Duchess on ist October, 1706, ' is 
 impossible, unless it be resolved that everything 
 must go ill abroad, as well as at home ; for, without 
 flattery, his reputation is as great in all Courts as well 
 as at home ; that such a step would go a great way 
 with Holland, in particular, to make their peace with 
 France, which at this time must be fatal to the 
 liberties of Europe.' 
 
 Then came the Report of the Commissioners of 
 Public Accounts (i7th March, 1711-12), in which they 
 stated, but did not dare to print their statement, that 
 there were certain irregularities in the dealings of the 
 English with the Scotch Treasury ; and Godolphin's 
 oath was confronted by another to the contrary from 
 the Earl of Glasgow. Burnet describes this affair 
 as an effusion of ' Tory malice,' and adds that ' the 
 Earl of Godolphin's unblemished integrity was such 
 that no imputation of any sort could be fastened 
 upon him.' 
 
 * Godolphin's only son married Lady Henrietta Churchill, the Duke's 
 daughter.
 
 The Godolphins of Godolphin. 389 
 
 To what could all this misery tend but to the 
 breaking up of a constitution never one of the 
 strongest, and to the 'last scene of all, that ends 
 this strange, eventful history'? Sidney Godolphin 
 died, after a long and excruciating illness, at the 
 Duke of Marlborough's house near St. Albans, on the 
 I5th September, 1712, in the sixty-eighth year of his 
 age ; and his death so deeply affected Marlborough, 
 that he left his native country, which had been as 
 ungrateful to him as to his dearest friend, to live 
 ' beyond sea.' 
 
 Four Dukes namely, Richmond, Schomberg, 
 Devonshire, and Marlborough were the pall-bearers 
 when the remains of one of our most illustrious 
 Cornishmen were interred at night in Westminster 
 Abbey. Here, in the south aisle of the nave, his 
 monument was raised by his daughter-in-law, Lady 
 Henrietta Churchill, who, in default of male issue, 
 afterwards became Duchess of Marlborough, on her 
 father's death in 1722, and who found a resting-place 
 within the same venerable walls, twenty-one years 
 afterwards.* Of her husband, Francis, the second 
 and last Earl of Godolphin, there is nothing of much 
 importance to record ; t the history of the Godolphins 
 
 * William Congreve, the poet, who died igth Jan., 1728-9, left a 
 legacy to the Duchess of Marlborough of about .10,000, with a portion 
 of which money she erected a monument to his memory in Westminster 
 Abbey. Cf. Sam. Johnson's ' Lives of the Poets ' (P. Cunningham's 
 ed., 1854), ii. 240. 
 
 f He was buried in the chancel of St. Mary Abbots, Kensington, in 
 1766, aged seventy-seven. Mrs. Delany tells us that he gave his two 
 nieces, the Miss Owens, .5,000 apiece.
 
 39Q Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 may be said to end with that of the illustrious Sidney. 
 Yet from the union, in 1698, of the second Earl 
 and Lady Henrietta, some of our noblest families 
 derive their ancestry. Anne, then Princess, offered 
 in the most delicate terms to endow the bride 
 with a marriage portion of "10,000, but could 
 not prevail upon the Lady Henrietta's parents to 
 accept more than half that sum ; they contributing 
 5,000 themselves. 
 
 One daughter, named after her mother, Henrietta, 
 married Thomas, Duke of Newcastle, but they had 
 no offspring. The correspondence between the 
 Duchess of Marlborough and Sir John Vanbrugh on 
 the subject of the marriage between Lady Henrietta 
 Godolphin and the Duke of Newcastle, forms an 
 appendix to the second volume of Mrs. Thomson's 
 ' Memoirs of the Duchess of Marlborough.' Lady 
 Henrietta had 22,000 to her portion, procured by 
 the Duchess, according to her own account. But 
 for all sorts of small family gossip, often of an 
 amusing nature, the Egerton and Additional MSS. 
 in the British Museum should be consulted 
 especially Additional MSS. 28,052. 
 
 The Lady Mary Godolphin, eventually sole heiress 
 of the family, married Thomas Osborne, fourth Duke 
 of Leeds, and from them sprang an illustrious 
 succession, which it hardly falls within my pro- 
 vince to describe; a similar remark applies to 
 members of other branches of the family. The 
 name of Godolphin has, however, been carefully 
 retained by those in whose veins Godolphin blood
 
 The Godolphins of Godolphin. 391 
 
 still flows ; as in the cases of Francis, fifth son of 
 the Duke of Leeds, and Baron Godolphin ; Lord 
 Sidney Godolphin Osborne, who died in 1861 ; 
 and in those of more than one Duke of Leeds, 
 including the ninth and present Duke, George 
 Godolphin. 
 
 A portrait bust adorns Godolphin's marble cenotaph 
 in the south aisle of the nave at Westminster; and 
 there is also a fine portrait of the Great Minister, 
 by Sir Godfrey Kneller, in the collection of the Earl 
 of St. Germans, of which J. Smith has scraped a 
 mezzotint. They both convey the impression which 
 the story of his life would lead one to expect. 
 Thoughtfulness, reserve mingled with sadness, and 
 power, were the chief characteristics of his counte- 
 nance as of his career. And a like reticence seems 
 to have influenced biographical writers ; for, so far as 
 I am aware, there is no good monograph life of 
 Sidney Godolphin. His gloomy expression was 
 notorious ; it procured for him more than one 
 nickname, and has been handed down to us in 
 grey-eyed, savage-faced, ' miserrimus ' Swift's line : 
 
 ' And wine cheers up Godolphin's cloudy face.'* 
 
 I do not, however, believe that there is any reason 
 for supposing that he drank to excess. For literature 
 and the fine arts he cared little ; but he was a devoted 
 
 * Toland's ' Invitation to Dismal.' There was no love lost between 
 the Godolphins and the ferocious satirist. Lady Henrietta Godolphin 
 cut him dead at a card-party at Lady Clarges'. ' She's a fool for her 
 pains,' wrote Swift to Stella, 'and I'll pull her down for it !'
 
 392 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 and successful admirer of the fair sex notwithstand- 
 ing the personal drawback of his face being much 
 disfigured by small-pox; and Swift tells us that 
 Godolphin would ' sometimes scratch out a song in 
 praise of his mistress, with his pencil and card.' His 
 devoted and romantic admiration of Mary of Modena 
 was a frequent subject of remark ; and he was 
 always sending her little presents ' such as ladies 
 love.' Gamble, he certainly did ; but it has been 
 said, by himself as well as by Burnet, that he took 
 to cards so much as he did, in order to avoid the 
 necessity of talking a thing which he detested 
 having to do. Cock-fighting and horse-racing were 
 very favourite amusements with him, as with so 
 many others of that time; and at Newmarket, during 
 the racing season, he used to keep open house. His 
 son seems to have had a similar love for the turf; and 
 to the latter we are indebted for the introduction into 
 England of the famous Godolphin Arab. This horse 
 had a curious history. He was presented by some 
 Arab chief to Louis XIV., but was not admired by 
 the French Monarch, and was ultimately condemned 
 to cart-work ; but the keeper of an English coffee 
 tavern recognised the merits of the animal, brought 
 him to England, and sold him to Godolphin. 
 
 The details of the great Minister's sporting ex- 
 penditure were known only to himself; it was 
 generally believed that he won, both on the turf and 
 at the card-table ; but this at least is certain, that, 
 notwithstanding his long tenure of office, and his 
 having been left 5,000 a year by his brother, Sir
 
 The Godolphins of Godolphin. 393 
 
 William, he died very poor ; indeed, the Duchess 
 of Maryborough endorsed on his letter of dismissal 
 from his office, that Sidney Godolphin, Lord High 
 Treasurer of England, left scarcely enough money 
 to pay his funeral expenses. The following is the 
 endorsement referred to : 
 
 ' Had not his elder brother happened to die, he 
 had been in very low circumstances after having 
 been in several reigns for more than twenty years, 
 though he was a man that never made any great 
 expenses, for he won at play, and mortally hated all 
 kinds of show and grandeur, but he was very 
 charitable and generous ; and though he had lived 
 so long, and had great employments, when he died 
 he had not in the world but about 14,000 in tallies, 
 of which sum seven was mine, three Mrs. Rundal's, 
 a thousand Mrs. Curtis's (a woman that looked after 
 my two elder children), and many other small sums 
 that he took of helpless people who thought them- 
 selves safe in his hands ; and when all his debts 
 were paid there could hardly be enough to bury him.' 
 It may not be out of place to note here, that Mrs. 
 A. T. Thomson has vindicated, in a most spirited 
 and successful manner, the charge, brought by some 
 of the scandalmongers of the day, of a liaison 
 between the Duchess and Godolphin. 
 
 And yet, notwithstanding his own poverty, so far 
 as regarded the public weal hardly ever was there a 
 statesman of more reliable, cool judgment, or a 
 more skilled political economist ; nor did anyone
 
 394 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 possess in a higher degree, says Mr. Wyon, the then 
 rare virtue of incorruptible integrity. 
 
 Although Godolphin had been the trusted Minister 
 of Sovereigns of so various temperaments holding 
 his own with them all yet that he was no sycophant 
 or hypocrite is clear from his having run counter to 
 the wishes of both Charles II. and James II., by 
 voting for the Exclusion Bill, and by favouring the 
 suggestion of a Regency even when the accession of 
 William III. seemed inevitable. Men seemed to 
 have felt that in Godolphin's hands they were safe. 
 We have seen the effect which his fall produced 
 amongst the financiers of London ; and in the con- 
 cluding sentence of one of Evelyn's letters (addressed 
 though it was to Godolphin himself) we find, what 
 is no doubt a true echo of the regard in which he 
 was generally held : 
 
 ****** 
 
 ' In such a tempest and overgrown a sea, every- 
 body is concerned, and whose head is not ready to 
 turne ? I am sure, I should myselfe almost despaire 
 of the vessel, if any, save your Lordship, were at the 
 helme. But, whilst your hand is on the staff, and 
 your eye upon the star, I compose myselfe and rest 
 secure. 
 
 ' Surrey Street, i6thjune, 1696.' 
 
 Well might Swift write in one of his letters to 
 Stella, dated i8th Sept., 1712 : ' The Whigs have 
 lost a great support in the Earl of Godolphin. It is 
 a good jest to hear the Ministers talk of him with
 
 The Godolphins of Godolphin. 395 
 
 humanity and pity, because he is dead, and can do 
 them no more hurt.' Lady Henrietta Godolphin 
 never forgave Swift for his way of writing about her 
 father-in-law. She, as we have seen, cut him at a 
 card-party at Lady Clarges', just as sturdy, honest 
 Dr. Johnson cut him in the street. 
 
 Godolphin's character has thus been sketched by 
 another hand ; and with it the name and the fame 
 of Sidney Godolphin will always be indissolubly 
 joined : * He was of quick apprehension and wonder- 
 ful dispatch ; almost unerring judgment ... of 
 few words, but great Truth : few promises but strict 
 performance ... by nature grave, reserved and 
 taciturn, but without arrogance or scorn of others ; 
 and when he most relaxed and let himself into the 
 greatest freedoms, they were such as might be told 
 abroad without any hazard of his fame or Virtue.' 
 
 Bishop Burnet has thus summed up his character 
 and career : 
 
 * He was a Man of the clearest Head, the calmest 
 Temper, and the most incorrupt of all the Ministers 
 of State I have ever known. After having been 
 thirty Years in the Treasury, and during Nine of 
 those Lord Treasurer, as he was never once sus- 
 pected of Corruption, or of suffering his Servants to 
 grow rich under him, so in all that time his Estate 
 was not increased by him to the Value of 4OOO/. 
 He served the Queen with such a particular Affec- 
 tion and Zeal, that he studied to possess all People 
 with great personal esteem for her : And she herself
 
 396 Some Cornish Worthies. 
 
 seemed to be so sensible of this for many Years, that 
 if Courts were not different from all other Places in 
 the World, it might have been thought that his wise 
 Management at home, and the Duke of Marl- 
 borough's glorious Conduct abroad, would have 
 fixed them in their Posts, above the little Practices 
 of an artful Favourite.' 
 
 But Courts are different from other places; and we 
 have seen that in the Court of Anne, the memory of 
 Godolphin's virtues was ' written on water.' Had 
 he lived but two years longer he might, like Marl- 
 borough, have once more been restored to Royal 
 favour at the Court of George I., and in yet another 
 reign have been again the First Minister of the 
 Crown of England. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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