Part 7

Clarendon too (book x., par. 73) tells how they 'refused 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 Cornwall, 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,[39] 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 confiscated, 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 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 reversion after his father of the government of Pendennis Castle which I had formerly bestowed upon you,[40] 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 12th '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 (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 Arundell 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 monument 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 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 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, 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 Godolphin, nor John, his vertuous and hopeful succeeding son, who married with Carew.' It will be remembered 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 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[41] married Joane le Soore of Tolverne, in the reign of Edward I., two or three generations before this.[42]

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 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 5s. 9d. There is also extant the will of John Arundell, 7th 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 Tolverne; 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 anything 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 MINOR ARUNDELLS._

The story of the Arundells of Cornwall is nearly told. There were, as I intimated at the commencement 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[43] 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 Menadarva: 'The last gentleman of this family dying without issue male, his sisters married to Tresahar and others, became for a time, possessed of this lordship; 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 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 of 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 Arundell who married Elizabeth Danet, of Danet's Hall. 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 Montpesson, 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 distinction seems to have arisen in Cornwall; and their places soon 'knew them no more.' They became scattered throughout the county,[44] 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 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 Theodore Palæologus[45] 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 Byzantine Emperors of the East.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] Mr. H. S. Stokes has written a pleasant descriptive poem on 'The Vale of Lanherne,' illustrated by numerous excellent lithographic views after one of our best Cornish landscape-painters, J. G. Philp.

[20] 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.

[21] There was a John Michell, Dean of Crantock, in 1455: he may have been the man.

[22] 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.

[23] 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 seem, 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 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."'

[24] 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.

[25] According to some writers near Scariff, according to others off Cape Clear.

[26] 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.'

[27] Dr. Oliver has thrown grave doubts on the existence of this College; and may, in fact, be said to have disposed of it altogether.

[28] 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.'

[29] There is an hereditary tradition at Lanherne that the Mass has always been celebrated there ever since the Reformation.

[30] A sort of green-stone, so called from its being found at Cataclew Point, near Trevose Head, Padstow.

[31] Tonkin says: 'Trerice in this parish (St. Allen) belonged to a younger branch of the Arundells 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 in Cornwall called Trerice, which signifies 'the place on the fleeting ground;' but _the_ Trerice is in the parish of Newlyn.'

[32] 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.

[33] Possibly Cuillé, in the Department of Mayenne, Canton of Cossé-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 Angoulême, 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.

[34] In the year 1523, 'Duncan Campbell, a Scottish rouer, after long fight, was taken on the sea by John Arundell, an esquier of Cornwall, who presented him to the King.'--_Holinshed._

[35] The Grenvilles and the Arundells intermarried frequently about this period.

[36] 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 (1726) 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.'

[37] See the account of the Basset family, _post_.

[38] The original 'Articles of Surrender,' are in the British Museum, Egerton MSS., 1048, fo. 86.

[39] 16 Car. II., 23 March, 1664.

[40] Sir Wm. Killigrew resigned the Government in 1635.

[41] 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.

[42] 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.

[43] It is probably incorrectly described as a 'manor;' and I believe the Bassets bought the property from the Arundells in 1755.

[44] 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.

[45] For an account of the Palæologi, 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._)