“Mr. Bond, in his ‘Topographical and Historical Sketches of the Boroughs of East and West Looe,’ writes—
‘This pool is distant from Looe about twelve miles off. Mr. Carew says—
It is a lake of freshwater about a mile in circumference, the only one in Cornwall (unless the Loe Pool near Helston may be deemed such), and probably takes its name from Dome-Mer, sweet or fresh water sea. It is about eight or ten feet deep in many parts. The notion entertained by some, of there being a whirlpool in its middle, I can contradict, having, some years ago, passed all over in a boat then kept there.’
Such is Mr. Bond’s evidence; but this is nothing compared with the popular belief, which declares the pool to be bottomless, and beyond this, is it not known to every man of faith that a thorn-bush thrown into Dosmery Pool has sunk in the middle of it, and after some time has come up in Falmouth (? Fowey) Harbour?
Notwithstanding that Carew says that ‘no streams it empt, nor any fill,’ James Michell, in his parochial history of St. Neot’s, says: ‘It is situate on a small stream called St. Neot’s River, a branch of the Fowey, which rises in Dosmare Pool.’
There is a ballad, ‘Tregeagle; or Dozmaré Poole: an Anciente Cornish Legende, in two parts,’ by John Penwarne.... Speaking of Dozmaré Pool, Mr. Penwarne says—
‘There is a popular story attached to this lake, ridiculous enough, as most of those tales are. It is, that a person of the name of Tregeagle, who had been a rich and powerful man, but very wicked, guilty of murder and other heinous crimes, lived near this place; and that, after his death, his spirit haunted the neighbourhood, but was at length exorcised and laid to rest in Dozmaré Pool. But having in his lifetime, in order to enjoy the good things of this world, disposed of his soul and body to the devil, his infernal majesty takes great pleasure in tormenting him, by imposing on him difficult tasks, such as spinning a rope of sand, dipping out the pool with a limpet shell, etc., and at times amuses himself with hunting him over the moors with his hell-hounds, at which time Tregeagle is heard to roar and howl in a most dreadful manner, so that, “roaring or howling like Tregeagle” is a common expression amongst the vulgar in Cornwall.’”
By The Rev. Prebendary ROGER GRANVILLE
According to the Episcopal Registers of the diocese of Exeter, a marriage license was granted on September 12th, 1612, to “Anthony Payne of Stratton, and Gertrude Deane of the same.” These were evidently the parents of the famous Cornish giant, who served as henchman to Sir Bevill Grenvile at Stowe.
When the Civil War broke out, Anthony Payne followed Sir Bevill to the battlefield, and was doubtless present with him at the engagements of Bradock Down, Modbury, and Sourton, in the early months of 1643. On the 16th of May the battle scene had shifted to his own home at Stratton, where every inch of ground must have been perfectly familiar to him. The Earl of Stamford had occupied a strong position on a hill within a mile of the little town. From five in the morning till three in the afternoon the battle raged, and though the Parliamentarians had the superiority both of numbers and position, they could not prevail over the brave Royalists. At three word was brought to Hopton and Grenvile that their scanty stock of powder was almost exhausted. To retreat would have been fatal. A supreme effort had to be made. Trusting to pike and sword alone, the lithe Cornishmen pressed onwards and upwards, led, can we doubt it, by Anthony Payne?
The boldness of the attack seems to have struck their opponents with terror. Stamford’s Horse turned and fled, and in vain Chudleigh attempted to rally his Foot. He was surrounded and captured, and his men, left without a commander, at once gave way and retreated, and soon the victorious commanders embraced one another on the hard-won hill-top, thanking God for a success for which, at one time, they had hardly ventured to hope.
The following July Anthony Payne was at the battle of Lansdowne, near Bath, where his brave master was mortally wounded. When Sir Bevill fell the fight would have been lost for the King, and in another moment the Cornish would have crowded down the hill. It was the quick nobility of Anthony Payne which won the battle, and the deed should give him an enduring place in history.
“Catching his master’s horse, with a fine knightly impulse, he set little John Grenville, a lad of sixteen, who had followed his gallant father close, on the hacked and gory saddle, and led him to the head of his father’s troop. There was no more giving way after this sight, and the Cornish followed the lad up the hill like men possessed. By this time, too, the musketry had practically routed the Parliament Horse, which were already retreating; and so, while Sir Bevill lay dead on the hillside, his own regiment, led by his giant servant and his little son, gained the top.” (Norway’s “Highways and Byways in Devon and Cornwall,” p. 196.)
There is surely “no finer story to be told than this; nor can there have been, since first men began to slay each other, many sights more noble than that of the child, tearful, excited, triumphant, set upon the great charger, a world too high for him, and led up the hill at the head of his dying father’s troop.” What wonder that the King knighted the boy-warrior at Bristol on the 3rd of August following, for his bravery at Lansdowne fight (cf. Metcalfe’s “Book of Knights,” p. 200), or that Prince Charles, his own contemporary in age, attracted by his heroism, chose him out of all others to be his personal attendant and intimate friend ever afterwards—a friendship that was only broken by death!
We wish that we could bring ourselves to believe that the letter (on page 117), breathing the spirit of rare nobility, and stated by Mr. Hawker to have been written to Lady Grace Grenvile after her valiant husband’s death by his true-hearted giant retainer, was authentic. We fear, however, that it originated in the study at Morwenstow, and is the product of Mr. Hawker’s own versatile and gifted pen.
What became of Anthony Payne after this is not certainly known. Did he return with his master’s body to Stowe, and remain on there to protect his mistress during the four unquiet years of her widowhood? There is, indeed, a tradition which would bear out this supposition, if it is true. It relates that the poor Queen, in her flight (within a week after her confinement) from Exeter, to avoid capture by Lord Essex, escaped to Okehampton with a small body of attendants, where she was met by Anthony Payne, who guided her to Stowe by a series of tracks and lanes, in order to secure greater secrecy, and that from Stowe she went to Lanherne, and so on to Falmouth, whence she escaped to France. In confirmation of this theory a letter is said to have been seen from Lady Grace, in which she mentions the fact of the Queen having slept at Stowe, and of her departure to Lanherne. But the letter is no longer extant, if it ever existed, and it has been proved pretty conclusively by Mr. Paul Q. Karkeek, in a very interesting paper on the subject of the Queen’s flight, that from Okehampton the Queen went to Launceston, the most direct route, under the escort of Prince Maurice, and from Launceston to Falmouth.
Or did Anthony Payne remain on with his young master, who narrowly escaped meeting his father’s fate at the second battle of Newbury, and afterwards took a prominent part in the defence of the West under his uncle, Sir Richard Grenvile, and who so gallantly defended the Scilly Islands, the last rallying point of the Royalists, against Admiral Blake, in 1651, that he obtained exceptionally favourable terms when he was at last compelled to capitulate?
Nothing is heard of Payne again till the Restoration. Then honours were showered thickly on the Grenviles in recognition of all that they had done and sacrificed for the royal cause, and especially of the signal services they had rendered, in conjunction with their cousin, George Monk, in restoring the Monarchy. Sir John Grenvile was created Earl of Bath, and made Governor of Plymouth, where he at once undertook to rebuild and strengthen the fortifications, which had been much damaged in the late war. Upon their completion Lord Bath appointed Payne, whom he evidently still held in great favour, as a yeoman of the guard and halberdier of the guns. The King made a surprise visit by sea in July, 1671, to inspect the new citadel, accompanied by the Dukes of York and Monmouth and a large retinue. They were entertained by Lord Bath at his own cost with great profusion, and the Merry Monarch professed himself highly pleased with his visit. It was probably on this occasion that he commanded Sir Godfrey Kneller to paint Payne’s portrait,[163] which is now in possession of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, at Truro, and which was engraved as a frontispiece to the first volume of Gilbert’s “History of Cornwall.”
Payne remained at Plymouth until old Time pulled the giant down. Obtaining leave to retire, he returned home to Stratton, and died in the same house in which he was born. It is now “The Tree Inn.” On the wall is the following inscription, on a tablet which formerly marked the battle-field.
But the only memento of poor Anthony Payne is a hole in the ceiling, through which his coffin, being too large to be taken out of the window or down the stairs in the usual way, was lowered from the room above. Even the very place of his burial is uncertain. Some say he was buried in the north, others in the south aisle of Stratton Church, on July 13th, 1691, at an age which was little short of eighty years. Let us hope that a sufficient number of appreciative friends may shortly be found who shall be willing to contribute towards the erection of some memorial in Stratton Church worthy of one who proved himself all his days a faithful, loyal, true-hearted servant.
In the parish register of Stratton, which begins in the year 1687, the following entries appear:—
| Burials. | |||
| Sibilla, wife of Anthony Payne | 9 | July, | 1691 |
| Anthony Payne | 13 | „ | „ |
| William and Mary Payne | 20 | Aug., | „ |
| William Payne | „ | „ | 1697 |
| Richard, son of Anthony Payne | 27 | March, | 1699 |
| George „ „ „ „ | 1708 | ||
| Nicholas Payne | 1 | Aug., | 1710 |
The occurrence of four deaths so close together in 1691 suggests that they may have been caused by some epidemic. The previous book has unfortunately been lost, so that it is impossible to verify the dates of Anthony’s baptism and marriage.
The sexton points out a spot in the south aisle where he says that he saw a large grave opened, 8 ft. by 3 ft., at the restoration of the church in 1887, and that this was generally supposed to be the grave of Anthony Payne. Among the many skeletons unearthed at that time was a thigh bone 2 ft. 9 in. long.
During some excavations in the west end of the north aisle a slate stone came to light, very thin and decayed, bearing the names of Nicholas and Grace Payne. These were thought locally to be the parents of the giant, but there is no proof of this.
The Rev. Canon Bone, of Lanhydrock, who was Vicar of Stratton when the church was restored, has kindly supplied a copy of the inscription on the stone. One corner had been broken off, and the remainder bore the following words:—
Canon Bone says—
“The stone was removed to the Vicarage, but it had worn so thin that it broke up, and unfortunately the fragments were lost. I do not know whether the attribution of the stone to Antony Payne’s parents was more than a likely guess.”
The Paynes were evidently a numerous clan in Stratton about that time, but though many names and dates are available, there is little to establish the relationship of the different members of the family. According to a pedigree in the possession of Mr. Herbert Shephard, an Anthony Payne married a Miss Dennis, and had by her a son Hugh. No date appears on the document, but it will be seen below that a Hugh Payne is mentioned as riding to Launceston in 1688. As the giant died in 1691, this Hugh might be his son.
It should be mentioned that in the old registers his Christian name is spelt “Anthony,” the omission of the “h” being peculiar to Hawker.
In the records of the Blanchminster Charity in the parish of Stratton (compiled by R. W. Goulding, 1898) the names of several Paynes appear. The following are some of the entries:—
(1603) “Paid to Nicholas Paine for writtinge of the Quindecem booke 8 [d.].”
By a “Feoffment,” dated “12 Jan., 1618-9,” Walter Yeo and another make over to William Arundell and others, including Anthony Payne and Nicholas Payne, certain property at Mellhoc and elsewhere.
(Either of these, Anthony or Nicholas, might be the father of the giant.)
In a “Feoffment” dated “20 March, 14 Charles II. (1662),” the names of Nicholas and William Payne appear.
“18 March 1688. Item pd Hugh Payne p Riding to Launceston upon the Report yt (that) the ffrench were landed 00 02 06.”
“After the Stockwardens’ account for 1719 there is a statement by Anthony Payne,” etc.
(This Anthony Payne might be a son of the giant.)
The flagon which contained the giant’s allowance of liquor is mentioned by Hawker in a private letter. He says—
“It is now safe in its usual place under my Escritoire.... The Bottle itself is Antony Payne’s Allowance which used to be filled for him every morning at Stowe, and as I measured it last week and found it Six Quarts it ought to have sufficed him.”
From “Collectanea Cornubiensia,” by G. C. Boase (1890), we get the following details as to the portrait of Anthony Payne. In August, 1888, the collection of antiquities at Trematon Castle, near Saltash, was sold by auction on behalf of the executors of Admiral Tucker. One of the lots was the portrait of Payne, and it was sold to a Plymouth dealer for about £4. Through the good offices of Major Parkyn of Truro, Mr. Harvey, on February 12th, 1889, purchased the picture from Skardon & Sons of Plymouth, and presented it to the Royal Institution of Cornwall at Truro.
[The Editor will be very glad to hear from any reader who may be able to supply further information about Anthony Payne, his birth, life, will, etc., that could be added to a future edition of this book.]
By The Rev. Prebendary ROGER GRANVILLE
Hals states that Sir Thomas Grenvile (temp. Henry VI.) was the first of the family who resided at Stowe, but Bishop Brantyngham licensed a chapel there for Sir John de Grenvile on August 30th, 1386, and Henry de Grenvile was buried at Kilkhampton about 1327, and the inquisition after his death was taken there, and I believe that Henry de Grenvile was the first to reside regularly at Stowe. His father, Bartholomew, constantly signed deeds at Bideford, and Bishop Stapledon granted him a license for the celebration of divine service “in capellâ suâ de Bydeford.” So that I think it is safe to say that the Grenviles resided at Stowe from at least the reign of Edward III.
The place was maintained in much style, I expect, in the time of Sir Roger de Grenvile, “the great housekeeper,” famed far and wide for his princely hospitality. Charles Kingsley’s description of the old house in Elizabethan times is probably pretty accurate.
“A huge rambling building, half castle, half dwelling-house. On three sides, to the north, west, and south, the lofty walls of the old ballium still stood, with their machicolated turrets, loop-holes, and dark downward crannies for dropping stones and fire on the besiegers, but the southern court of the ballium had become a flower-garden, with quaint terraces, statues, knots of flowers, clipped yews and hollies, and all the pedantries of the topiarian art. And towards the east, where the vista of the valley opened, the old walls were gone, and the frowning Norman keep, ruined in the wars of the Roses, had been replaced by the rich and stately architecture of the Tudors. Altogether the house, like the time, was in a transitionary state, and represented faithfully enough the passage of the old Middle Age into the newer life that had just burst into blossom throughout Europe, never, let us pray, to see its autumn and winter,” etc.
Hawker’s reference to Stowe having been turned into an academy for all the young men of family in the county is correct. He is quoting from George Granville’s (Lord Lansdowne) letter to his nephew, who tells us that Sir Bevill—
“provided the best masters for all kinds of education, and the children of his neighbours shared the advantage with his own. Thus, in a manner, he became the father of his county, and not only engaged the affection of the present generation, but laid a foundation of friendship for posterity which has not worn out to this day.”
John Granville, Earl of Bath, pulled down old Stowe, and in its place, though on a different site a little farther from the shore, built a magnificent new mansion (covering 3½ acres of ground, and containing, it is said, 365 windows) out of the moneys he had received from the Government as a debt owing to himself and his father for their sacrifices to the royal cause. Dr. Borlase describes this new house as “by far the noblest in the west of England, though with not a tree to shelter it.” And in the MS. diary of Dr. Yonge, F.R.S., a distinguished physician of the latter part of the seventeenth century, the following entry occurs in the year 1685:—
“I waited on my lord of Bathe, then Governor of Plymouth, to his delicious house Stowe. It lyeth on ye ledge of ye North Sea of Devon,—a most curious fabrick beyond all description.”
Here lived John, Earl of Bath. His son Charles, Lord Granville, shot himself (accidentally the jury found) while preparing for the journey into Cornwall to take down his father’s body for burial, and they were both buried together in Kilkhampton Church, September 27th, 1701. His boy, William Henry, then nine years of age, succeeded, but died of small-pox, unmarried, May 17th, 1711, aged nineteen.
The next male heir was George Granville the poet, who presented his cousin, Chamond Granville, to the Rectory of Kilkhampton on October 22nd, 1711, and on December 31st, 1711 (after serving in the Parliaments called in the fourth and seventh years of Queen Anne), he was created Lord Lansdowne of Bideford, “a promotion justly remarked to be not invidious, inasmuch as he was at that time the heir of a family in which two peerages, that of the Earl of Bath and Lord Granville of Potheridge, had recently become extinct.”
Lord Lansdowne’s claim to the estates of the Earls of Bath was, however, disputed by the two surviving daughters of John, first Earl of Bath, viz. Lady Jane Leveson-Gower and Lady Grace Carteret. A family law suit was the result of this claim, which lasted for some years. With the death of Queen Anne (who had specially honoured him with her favour, making him Comptroller of her household, and also Secretary of State for War, and afterwards Treasurer) Lord Lansdowne’s prospects darkened. He was supposed to be in favour of the exiled Stuarts rather than of the House of Hanover; and there seems no little doubt that he was more or less implicated in the scheme for raising an insurrection in the West of England, which Lord Bolingbroke and the Duke of Ormonde were at the head of. At any rate, Lord Lansdowne was seized as a suspected person, and on September 26th, 1715, was committed, along with Lady Lansdowne, to the Tower, where they were confined as close prisoners. Whilst there he compromised the law suit for £30,000, and the Devonshire property passed to Lady Jane Leveson-Gower, and the Cornish to Lady Grace Carteret, who was created Countess Granville in her own right.
Stowe, having stood for a little over half a century, was pulled down in 1739. In Polwhele’s “History of Cornwall” it is stated that a man of Stratton lived long enough to see its site a cornfield before the building existed, and after the building was destroyed a cornfield again. The materials were sold piecemeal by auction. The carved cedar wood in the chapel, executed by Michael Chuke,[164] was bought by Lord Cobham and applied to the same purpose at his mansion of Stowe in Buckinghamshire. The staircase is at Prideaux Place, Padstow, while the Corporation of South Molton, who were then building a new Town Hall, Council Chamber, etc., purchased the following:—
These articles, with many others, were taken to Bude, shipped to Barnstaple, and thence carted to South Molton. The outlay for the whole only amounted to £178! The “carved Cornish and Triumph of Charles II.” is still to be seen over the fireplace in the old dining-room in the Town Hall at South Molton.
No doubt the isolated position of Stowe, and the long distance from London was one cause of its being destroyed. Lord Carteret was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Devonshire in 1716, and the previous year he had been doing all he could in support of the new Hanoverian establishment. While the Jacobite rebellion was at its height in the north, Carteret was writing from Stowe to Robethon, the French Secretary of George I.—
“I am now two hundred long miles from you, situated on a cliff overlooking the sea, and every tide have fresh prospects in viewing ships coming home. In this corner of the earth have I received your letter, and without that I should have heard nothing since I came. Sept. 25, 1715.”—Brit. Mus. Sloane MSS. 4107, fol. 171, etc.
Another cause may have been the bursting of the “South Sea Bubble,” in which Countess Granville and the Carterets had invested a good deal of money. Lord Carteret wrote to a friend in October, 1720—
“I don’t know exactly how the fall of the South Sea has affected my family, but they have lost considerably of what they had once gained.”
The stables alone remain, and these have been converted into a farmhouse, the tennis-court into a sheepcote, and the great quadrangle into a rick-yard, and civilisation, spreading wave after wave so fast elsewhere, has surged back from that lovely corner of the land, let us hope only for a while.
Referring to this ruined mansion, Edward Moore exclaimed—
By R. PEARSE CHOPE
The real Coppinger, around whose name Mr. Hawker has woven such a fascinating legend, has been identified by the Rev. S. Baring-Gould, in a footnote to his account of “The Vicar of Morwenstow” (edit. 1899, p. 113), with an Irishman of that name, having a wife at Trewhiddle, near St. Austell, by whom he had a daughter, who married a son of Lord Clinton. However, there can be little doubt that the Coppinger Mr. Hawker had in his mind lived nearer at hand, in the adjoining parish of Hartland, where several of these tales, together with others of a similar nature, are still told about him. His name was Daniel Herbert Coppinger or Copinger, and he was wrecked, probably at Welcombe Mouth, the end of the romantic glen which separates Welcombe from Hartland, on December 23rd, 1792. He was hospitably received and entertained, not by Mr. Hamlyn, but by Mr. William Arthur, another yeoman farmer, at Golden Park in Hartland. While there he scratched the following inscription on a window-pane, which was preserved for many years, but has now disappeared:—
“D. H. Coppinger, shipwrecked December 23rd, 1792; kindly received by Mr. Wm. Arthur.”
In the following year he married Ann Hamlyn, the elder of the two daughters of Mr. Ackland Hamlyn, of Galsham, and his wife Ann, who was one of the last of the ancient and gentle family of Velly of Velly, a family which had held a prominent position in the parish for at least five hundred years. The marriage is thus entered in the parish register:—
“Daniel Herbert Coppinger of the King’s Royal Navy and Ann Hamlyn mard (by licence) 3 Aug.”
Far from being “a young damsel,” the bride was of the mature age of forty-two. Two years later her sister, Mary, was married to William Randal, but there is no record or local tradition of any issue from either marriage. What rank Coppinger held in the Navy is not known, but his name does not appear in the lists of commissioned officers.
For about two years he carried on his nefarious business of smuggling, and stories are still told of the various methods he adopted of outwitting the gauger. His chief cave was in the cliff at Sandhole, but another is pointed out in Henstridge Wood, a couple of miles inland. On one occasion, perhaps after Coppinger’s time, the caves were watched so closely that the kegs of brandy which had been landed were deposited at the bottom of the zess, as the pile of sheaves in a barn is called, of an accommodating farmer. The gauger, who had his suspicions, wished to search the zess, but the farmer was so willing to help him in turning over the sheaves that his suspicions were allayed, and he went away without finding any of the incriminating articles. On another occasion the result was not so satisfactory for the farmer. On the arrival of the gauger, he produced some empty kegs in order to give his wife an opportunity of hiding a supply of valuable silks which had been left in their care. The safest place she could think of in her hurry was the oven, but she forgot that it had been heated for baking a batch of bread. The result was that, although the gauger failed to find them, they were burnt to ashes.
Mrs. Coppinger’s mother went to live with her other daughter and son-in-law at Cross House in Harton. She was the owner of Galsham, and retained possession of her husband’s money, and the tale runs that, in order to obtain money from her, Coppinger, having been refused admission, had been known to stand, with a pistol in each hand, on the lepping-stock, or horse-block, in front of the house and threaten to shoot any person who appeared at the door or any of the windows unless the required sum was produced. It is even said that once, as he was passing the house, he saw his brother-in-law, Randal, at the window, and fired at him without provocation, but luckily missed his aim.
Mrs. Ann Hamlyn was buried on September 7th, 1800, after which date the farm became the property of Mrs. Coppinger. Coppinger spent what he could, but apparently became bankrupt, for in October, 1802, he was a prisoner in the King’s Bench, in company with a Richard Copinger, who is stated to have been a merchant in the island of Martinique. What became of him afterwards does not seem to be known, but it is said that he lived for many years at Barnstaple, in receipt of an allowance from his wife. She herself went there to live out her days, and died there on August 31st, 1833, at the age of eighty-two. She was buried in the chancel of Hartland Church, in the grave of her friend, Alice Western, and by the side of her mother. Coppinger’s name can still be seen, inscribed in bold characters “D. H. Copinger” on a window-pane at Galsham. Galsham is now the property of Major Kirkwood of Yeo Vale.
Writing to his brother-in-law, Mr. J. Sommers James, in September, 1866, Mr. Hawker asks him, “Do you remember Bold Coppinger the Marsland Pirate? He died eighty-seven (?) years ago. I am collecting materials for his Life for All the Year Round;” and again in November of the same year, “Hadn’t you an Aunt called Coppinger?”
It is interesting to note that Coppinger has “entered fiction” through the pages of Mr. Baring-Gould’s “In the Roar of the Sea.”
By R. PEARSE CHOPE
The tale of the shepherdess who became Lady Mayoress was told by Carew in his “Survey of Cornwall,” and her biography has since been sketched by many different authors, such as Lysons in “Magna Britannia,” W. H. Tregellas in “Cornish Worthies,” and in the “Dictionary of National Biography,” and G. C. Boase in “Collectanea Cornubiensia.” An account appears also in the “Parochial History of Cornwall;” and a book by E. Nicolls, entitled “Thomazine Bonaventure; or, the Maid of Week St. Mary,” was published at Callington in 1865, only two years before Mr. Hawker’s article appeared in All the Year Round. The Churchwardens’ Accounts of St. Mary Woolnoth, from which extracts were given in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1854 (vol. xlii. p. 41), and in the “Transcript of the Registers of the United Parishes of St. Mary Woolnoth and St. Mary Woolnoth Haw,” by J. M. S. Brooke and A. W. C. Hallen (1886, p. xvi.), contain the following entries:—
“1539.—Item receyved of the Master and Wardens of the Merchint Tayllours for the beame light of this church according to the devyse of Dame Thomasyn Percyvall widow late wyf of Sir John Percyvall Knight deceased
xxvjs. viijd.
Item receyved more of the Master and Wardens of Merchint Tayllors for ij tapers thoon of vij lb. and the other of v lb. to brenne about the Sepulture in this Church at Ester ijs. iiijd. and for the churchwardens labor of this church to gyve attendance at the obit of Sir John Percyvall and otherwyse according to the devyse of Dame Thomasyn Percyvall his wyf
iiijs. vjs. iiijd.
Item receyved of the said Master and Wardens of Merchint Taillors for the Repacions of the ornaments of this church according to the will of the said Sir John Percyvall
vjs.
Item receyved of the Maister and Wardens of Merchint taillors for a hole yere for our Conduct for kepying the Antempur afore Saint John with his children according to the will of the said Dame Thomasyn Percyvall
xxs.”
A monument erected to Sir John Percival in the old church is mentioned by Stow, but it is no longer in existence. Sir John’s will hangs in the present church.
The following account of the chantry founded by Dame Percival at Week St. Mary was extracted by Oliver from the Chantry Rolls of Devon and Cornwall, preserved among the records of the Court of Augmentations:—
“Saynt Marye Weke.—See Cert. 9, No. 6. The chauntrye called Dame Percyvalls, at the altar of Seynt John Baptist, in the north yeld within the same church. Founded by Dame Tomasyne Percyvall, wyf of syr John Percival, knt., and alderman of London. To fynd a pryste to praye for her sowle in the paryshe churche of Saynt Marye Weke; also [to] teach children freelye in a scole founded by [her] not farr distant from the sayd parishe churche; and he to receyve for his yerelye stipend xijli. vjs. To fynde a mancyple also to instructe children under the sayd scolemaster, and he to have yerelye xxvjs. viijd. To a laundresse for the scolemaster and mancyple yerelye xiijs. iiijd. And the remayne of the lands (all charges of reparacons of the tenements and houses, chalys and ornaments, being first allowed) should be expended in an obytt yerelye for her in the paryshe church.—Cert. 10, No. 8, xiijs. iiijd. to ye pore peple yerelye.
“The yerelye value of the lands and possessions,
xvli. xiiijs. viijd.
“Cert. 9, No. 6. Md.That one John Denham, of Tyston [Devon], one of ye feoffees of founders of the said scole, kepyth land named Ashe in Broadworth and other quylytts thereto adjoinyng, parcel of possessions gyven for sayd scole; and with ye profytts thereof payeth iiijli. yerely to ye manciple ther, and xiijs. iiijd. to ye launder of ye said scole-house.” (Oliver, “Monasticon Dioecesis Exoniensis,” p. 483.)
Carew’s quaint account is worth quoting in full:—
“S. Marie Wike standeth in a fruitfull soyle, skirted with a moore, course for pasture, and combrous for travellers. This village was the birth-place of Thomasine Bonaventure, I know not, whether by descent, or event, so called: for whiles in her girlish age she kept sheepe on the fore-remembred moore, it chanced, that a London marchant passing by, saw her, heeded her, liked her, begged her of her poore parents, and carried her to his home. In processe of time, her mistres was summoned by death to appeare in the other world, and her good thewes, no lesse than her seemely personage, so much contented her master, that he advanced her from a servant to a wife, and left her a wealthy widow. Her second marriage befell with one Henry Gall: her third and last, Sir John Percival, Lord Maior of London, whom she also overlived. And to shew, that vertue as well bare a part in the desert, as fortune in the meanes of her preferment, she employed the whole residue of her life and last widdowhood, to works no lesse bountifull, than charitable: namely, repayring of high waies, building of bridges, endowing of maydens, relieving of prisoners, feeding and apparelling the poor, &c. Amongst the rest, at this S. Mary Wike, she founded a Chauntery and free-schoole, together with faire lodgings, for the Schoolemasters, schollers, and officers, and added twenty pound of yeerely revennue, for supporting the incident charges: wherein as the bent of her desire was holy, so God blessed the same with al wished successe: for divers the best Gent. sonnes of Devon and Cornwall were there vertuously trained up, in both kinds of divine and humane learning, under one Cholwel, an honest and religious teacher, which caused the neighbours so much the rather, and the more to rewe, that a petty smacke onely of Popery, opened a gap to the oppression of the whole, by the statute made in Edw. the 6. raigne, touching the suppression of Chaunteries.” (Carew, “Survey of Cornwall,” edit. 1769, p. 119.)
Mr. W. H. Tregellas states that at the death of Sir John Percyvall, about 1504, his widow retired to her native place; but Carew’s words do not appear to justify this inference, and it is stated in the Stocken MSS. in the Guildhall Library that she was buried at St. Mary Woolnoth. Mr. Tregellas does not appear to have been able to trace the will; but Lysons, whose account was published in 1814, says definitely that the will was dated 1512, and this statement has been accepted by subsequent writers. By this will she bequeathed to her brother, John Bonaventer, £20; she made her cousin, John Dinham, who had married her sister’s daughter, residuary legatee, and committed to his discretion the chantry and grammar school founded in her lifetime; she gave a little gilt goblet, having a blue flower in the bottom, to the Vicar of Liskeard, to the intent that he should pray for her soul; and towards the building of the tower of St. Stephen’s by Launceston she left 20 marks. Robert Hunt, in his “Popular Romances of the West of England,” says that Berry Comb, in Jacobstow, was once the residence of Thomasine, and was given at her death to the poor of Week St. Mary. The “Parochial History of Cornwall” gives 1530 as the approximate date of her death.
The following is extracted from a little book entitled “Some Account of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene, Launceston,” by S. R. Pattison, 1852:—
“Adjoining is a marble monument, in memory of Sarah, the wife of the Rev. John Ruddle, interred near this place, in 1667. Below the family arms is the following epitaph, entitled “The Husband’s Valediction:”—
A stately monument of fine variegated marble, in the south aisle, is charged with the arms of Bligh, and the following Latin inscription:—
“Juxta hoc marmor jacet Carolus Bligh, Gen.
Aldermanus et hujus municipii sæpius Prætor
Qui cum sibe satis, suis parum diu vixerat
Pietate plenus obiit A.D. 1716, Die 8bris 2do
Hunc jam Æternitatem inhians Iudith uxor 27 Maii
An. Dni.
1717mo secuta est.”
The Botathen Ghost story, as told by “the Rev. Mr. Ruddell” himself, occupies five pages of C. S. Gilbert’s “History Survey of Cornwall, 1817” (vol. i. pp. 115-119). Gilbert does not mention how he came by it. Hawker’s version is obviously a paraphrase of this, with some embellishments of his own.
Michael Scott, the Wizard of the North, was a mediæval scientist around whose memory many traditions have gathered. Compare “The Lay of the Last Minstrel,” canto 2, stanza 13. The Monk speaks.