Part 3

A notice of this remarkable man would be incomplete 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; 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,[15] 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.[16]

FOOTNOTES:

[4] 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, 1738).

[5] Allen's sister married a Mr. Philip Elliott.

[6] For particulars, see 'Parliamentary Papers,' 1807, 1812, and 1813. The following extract from the _London Gazette_ of 16th 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, gentleman, 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.

[7] 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.

[8] 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.'

[9] This lady, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Holden, was Mr. Allen's second wife.

[10] In the Rebellion of 1745 he raised and equipped at his own expense a corps of 100 volunteers.

[11] Engraved by Meyer for Polwhele's 'Cornwall.'

[12] The local guide-books to Weymouth state that Allen, whilst here, invented an ingenious form of bathing-machine for his own use.

[13] 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.

[14] Wood was author of three architectural treatises: one of them descriptive of Bath; and another entitled 'The Origin of Building; or, the Plagiarism of the Heathens Detected, 1741.' The former work contains an elaborate, illustrated account of the mansion at Prior Park.

[15] A member of this family--a Truro man, it is believed--accompanied Sir Francis Drake in his famous voyage round the world.

[16] 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,' are 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.

There were three Cornishmen in succession, more or less known, who bore the above name. The grandfather, of whom little more is now ascertainable than that he was Registrar of the Archdeacon of Cornwall's Court (then held at St. Neot's),[17] 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 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 Library.[18] 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 Discourse on Seals in England,' and fragments of a 'History of Cornwall,' etc., as to which copious information is afforded in the 'Bibliotheca Cornubiensis.'

Many of his MSS. are preserved in the Additional, 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 'Fœdera.'

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 Conformity Bill; but, on the information of one Colonel Paul, he, as well as five or six other members of Parliament, 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 probable that in this capacity he may have been suspected 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 manœuvre.

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 30th December, 1754. 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 prefixed to the Rev. Mark Noble's history of that institution. 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 Cornishman, 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] 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.

[18] 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.

_THE ARUNDELLS_,

ECCLESIASTICS AND WARRIORS.

_THE ARUNDELLS OF LANHERNE_, _TRERICE AND TOLVERNE_,

ECCLESIASTICS AND WARRIORS.

'The princely Arundells of yore.'

H. S. STOKES.

On 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 landscape generally, with one exception scantily timbered. 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 the sea at Portcothan Bay; secondly, to the Vale of Lanherne, which extends from St. Columb Major to Mawgan Porth, 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, indeed, 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 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.[19] 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 thirteenth century; for they bore swallows in their escutcheon at least as early as the days of Henry II.; 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 Hirundelâ velocior alite quæ dat Hoc Agnomen ei, fert cujus in ægide signum Se rapit agminibus mediis clypeoque nitenti Quem sibi Guillelmus lævâ prætenderat ulnâ Immergit validam præacutæ cuspidis 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), synonymous terms, signifies the "wolf's 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 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 Arundells 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 Dñi Regis et verus patronus hujus ecclesiæ, qui hanc capellam fieri fecit.' He died in 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 Lanhadron.

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 Trekinnen.

'Johannes D'Arundle held military feus in Treawset and in Trenbeith, in 3rd Hen. IV. (1402). Also a "parv. feod." in Trekinnen.'

From the Records preserved at Exeter, the following 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. Maii, MCCXLVI.'

(_Exeter Cathedral Martyrologium._)

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 18th 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.

The rectors of St. Ewe, St. Mawgan juxta Carminow, and St. Wynwole (Gunwalloe) also receive bequests. He gives 13s. 4d. to the light of St. Michael's in the Mount,[20] and the same sum towards the construction 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;[21] 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 honorificè et meliori modo quo sciunt xls.'[22] 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 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 discrepancies 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,[23] in Duloe parish, the 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 subsisted between the two branches of the family. Their children, Margaret and Sir John, married, the former with a Beville, and the latter with a Carminow; and now, for the first time, the name of Trerice also appears 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:--