The Story of an Ancient Parish Part 4

Francis Harvey, who succeeded Alexander Dawe, was the son of Sir Anthony Harvey, Kt., and Lucy Lister of Swarland, near Felton, in Northumberland. The family of Harvey was remotely connected with the G.o.dolphin family, through the Carews.[32] Francis Harvey was born 2nd March, 1562. He was educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, but migrated, after taking his B.A. degree, to Emmanuel College, which had been recently founded by his relative, William Mildmay, as the home of a mild and aristocratic form of Puritanism. It is interesting to note that Sir William G.o.dolphin, who died in 1613, was at Emmanuel College at the same time as Francis Harvey. Perhaps it may not be too fanciful to conclude that an intimacy between William G.o.dolphin and Francis Harvey ripened into close friends.h.i.+p in the quiet Cambridge home of Puritan learning, and that thus the son of a Northumberland squire came to settle in the remote West. Francis Harvey married Mary Yorke, a lady of ancient family, in Phillack Church, in 1595; their descendants were long settled at Maen in this County.

Soon after obtaining the living of Breage, Francis Harvey was preferred to the living of St. Erth, which he continued to hold jointly with Breage until the day of his death. Whilst the Reformation had struck at many evils, it had left one of the greatest of the abuses of the Church practically untouched. One of the chief factors in preparing the popular mind for the Reformation was the abuse of Church patronage; French and Italian Priests, in many cases not speaking the English language, had been foisted upon the English people, to the exclusion of their own kith and kin. This evil system had begun with the Conquest and had continued right down to the Reformation, accentuated and intensified by the fact that a single person was capable of holding numerous benefices, which in many cases he had never seen, to the exclusion of others worthier and holier than himself. It was this condition of things that alone rendered the Reformation possible. The storm of the Reformation burst, but swept in vain round this crowning abuse. After the Reformation the abuse of patronage presented itself even in more odious forms, and the best life of the Church withered and died under its poisonous shadow. Francis Harvey was not an excessive pluralist; he held only two livings, though his cousin, William Cotton, who succeeded him, enjoyed a good baker's dozen or more.

An event happened in the first few months of the inc.u.mbency of Francis Harvey which would long linger in the minds of his flock, and which for years to come would be spoken of by the cottage and farm house evening firesides. The 23rd July, 1595 was a hot summer's day; a thick haze lay over the sea, which gradually lifted, disclosing four Spanish s.h.i.+ps of war lying off the coast, over against Mousehole. Their hostile intentions were soon evident; boatloads of armed men began to put off from the s.h.i.+ps. A force of over two hundred Spaniards was quickly landed without opposition. The little town of Mousehole was soon in flames, and a handful of brave men who scorned flight perished at their own doors.[33]

The Spanish force streamed up the hill[34] their course marked by blazing roof-trees. The old grey village Church of Paul on the ridge soon became the special object of their fury, and its stones to this day bear grim witness to the devouring flames that once enveloped them. The inhabitants of Mousehole fled in a terrified mob towards Penzance, the roar of the s.h.i.+ps' guns adding speed to their flight. It seems Sir Francis G.o.dolphin had ridden forth earlier in the day from G.o.dolphin House, and saw either from G.o.dolphin or Tregoning Hill the dense clouds of smoke hanging over Mousehole and Paul, whilst the booming of the guns of the four wars.h.i.+ps in the Bay would speedily make the whole situation clear to the mind of this keen soldier trained in the Irish Wars under Ess.e.x. Without delay he spurred his horse to the scene of action and encountered the flying crowd a little westward of Penzance. He succeeded for a time in infusing something of his own brave spirit into the minds of the fugitives and the men of Penzance capable of bearing arms. A move was made upon the Spanish position, and the Spaniards, seeing the advancing force, retired to their s.h.i.+ps, only again after a short period to disembark at Newlyn, which they speedily set on fire, and began to move on Penzance. In vain, sword in hand, the brave Sir Francis endeavoured to rally the people to the defence of their town and homes; he was speedily deserted by all save a few of his own servants. As the Spaniards entered the town he had no alternative but to ride away, surrounded by his little company of brave followers.

The Spaniards remained in Penzance Bay until the 25th July, when they put out to sea in a north-west breeze, just in time to escape capture by a force of British s.h.i.+ps rounding the Lizard, which they must have seen in the offing. The anxiety and dread of the people of Breage, standing with straining eyes watching the course of events in the plain below during those two fateful days, must have been great indeed. One wild rumour after another of dire deeds transpiring beneath them, by the sea, would pa.s.s through their midst. There would be little sleep in the village during the two anxious nights the Spanish wars.h.i.+ps lay in Penzance Bay. Many minds would turn to another night of anxiety and dread a few years before, when the great Armada had pa.s.sed the Lizard early in the forenoon, and was making its way up Channel, followed by the English Fleet.

"For swift to East and swift to West the ghastly war flame spread, High on St. Michael's Mount it shone; it shone on Beachy Head."

Francis Harvey died whilst still practically a young man, 2nd March, 1607. We copy from our burial register the almost pathetic entry recording his death and burial, so different is it by contrast to the endless laconic entries of death that precede and follow it. Evidently the entry was made by the hand of one who knew and loved him. It is written in a clear and elegant hand, and the entry carries with it something of truthfulness and sincerity that brings the image of Francis Harvey up out of the mists of the past, as that of a true and good man of a mild and gentle type of Puritan piety. The entry is as follows:--"_Francisus Harvey, theologus hujusque parochiae Vicarius c.u.m jam quadragesimum quartum annum aetatis vix attigesset. Secundo die Marcii extremum diem clausit, et ut per totum temporis curriculum transegit vitam minime non inhonestam sic obiit, mortem non minus plane piam. Sepultusque fuit die quarto tunc proximum insequente. Anno Domini 1607._"

Francis Harvey was succeeded by his cousin, William Cotton, M.A., described in the Exeter Registers as "the beloved son of the Bishop." He resigned the living of Breage after holding it but little over a year.

Walker, in his "Sufferings of the Clergy," includes William Cotton in his list of suffering Clergy during the Commonwealth. However deeply the sufferings of William Cotton may have touched the feelings of a former age, they are not likely to move the sympathies of our own. As well as being Vicar of Breage, he was also Precentor and a residentiary Canon of Exeter Cathedral, and held the livings of Silverton, Whimple and Duloe, and possibly others at one and the same time. His brother, Edward Cotton, was equally well provided for by his father. It was outrageous pluralism of this kind that alienated the people from the Church and prepared the way for the wild outpourings of religious bigotry and frenzy under the Commonwealth. William Cotton, with the failure of the royal cause, was compelled to resign the ma.s.s of patronage which he held. He died at his seat of Bottreux Castle in 1649 or 1650. Walker informs us that in his veins "flowed the blood of crowned heads of England, Scotland and Ireland, and other great personages of the highest rank," and that "he was a person of a meek and humble spirit, of a grave and sober conversation, of exemplary piety, charity and learning."

Edward Cotton was succeeded by William Orchard in 1608. In the record of his inst.i.tution in the Episcopal Registers he is described as "Preacher of the Word of G.o.d"; this phrase will perhaps serve to disclose the bias of his mind and the theological bent of the times. Unlike his predecessors Harvey and Cotton, he had graduated at no University. Most possibly in his own mind he regarded such inst.i.tutions as unnecessary for one who was led by the Spirit of G.o.d. It is possible that he owed his appointment to the living of Breage to Sir William G.o.dolphin, the then Squire of G.o.dolphin, and friend of the statesman Cecil, who, it seems more than probable, acquired a Puritan bias when a student at Emmanuel College, the Cambridge home of Puritanism.

I rather conclude from the frequent mention of the name of Orchard in the Breage Registers about the time of his inc.u.mbency, that his family had been settled in the parish at the time of his appointment. A George Orchard married a Dorcas Coode of Methleigh, and an Edward Orchard married a Jane Sparnon of Sparnon. The Coodes and Sparnons at this time, with the exception of the G.o.dolphins, were the chief families of the parish, ranking considerably above the rank of yeoman. William Orchard became a widower in 1619. The record in the Breage Register of the death and burial of his wife is as follows: "_Anna Orchard uxor Wilhelmi Orchard, Vicarii hujus parochiae, filia Johis Yeo, gent, died 9th Feb.

and was buried 11th Feb. 1619._" His daughter Mary married John Coode of Methleigh; their descendant owns the estate of Methleigh at the present time.

Whilst Sir William G.o.dolphin and Parson Orchard were both Puritans, they were both loyalists. They would have shuddered with horror "at those days which were coming upon the earth," and which to a great extent were the logical outcome of the Puritanism which they and others professed acting upon the popular mind; they were putting new wine into old bottles, regardless of the inevitable result, as good men will do in every age. Though Sir William G.o.dolphin was not destined to see the day that his king perished on the scaffold, it was the lot of William Orchard to see it forty years later, and ultimately for conscience sake to be ejected from his home and office. Rather than be untrue to the light within him, like so many of his brethren, William Orchard elected to go into the wilderness. It was his lot never to return to his benefice, though his son at the Restoration pet.i.tioned Parliament on his behalf for revenues from the living of Breage, of which he deemed his father to have been defrauded.

It was during William Orchard's inc.u.mbency that Breage for the first and last time was favoured with a royal visit in the person of Charles, Prince of Wales, afterwards Charles II. When the royal cause was irretrievably lost, Charles fled to Cornwall on his way to seek refuge in the Scilly Islands. For some days he rested at G.o.dolphin House, and what remains of the suite of rooms he occupied is still shewn there. It would be interesting to know how Charles spent the few days of his sojourn in Breage, and how he wiled the time away, and whether, after the good custom of those days, in spite of the danger of his position, he joined in the Sunday wors.h.i.+p at Breage Church. It is possible to picture the swarthy youthful face, with the thick heavy red lips and with _ennui_ written upon it, looking wearily from the G.o.dolphin aisle upon William Orchard, as hand upon hour-gla.s.s he unfolded Puritan truth from a maze of conflicting facts.

But the evil days drew on apace; Prince and Parson had alike to go before the storm. Soon after the swearing of the Solemn League and Covenant by Parliament in 1644, the t.i.thes of Breage were sequestrated or confiscated by the Government; [35]William Orchard with Antony Randall, curate of Germoe, and Robert Smith, curate of Cury, were thus reduced to dire poverty. Their paris.h.i.+oners, touched by their trials, and regarding them no doubt as honest and faithful men, on the 8th May, 1649, pet.i.tioned Parliament that a yearly grant might be made to them of 40 each out of the confiscated t.i.thes of St. Keverne. Their prayer was answered, but after four years of weary waiting, the tried clerics complained to Parliament that their grants had been withheld by the County Committee, and humbly requested "that the rents may remain in the Tenants' hands." On the 17th August, 1653, the County Committee made answer to Parliament, that "by information of Colonel Rous, M.P., the Vicarage of Breage is sufficiently endowed, and that the Ministers thereof are malignant and scandalous, and that Antony Rous of Wotton, John Bawden of Trelask, and three others are appointed trustees for disposing of the grant made by Parliament to four such able and G.o.dly ministers as they shall judge meet to place in their room." Whilst the hypocritical cant of this declaration provokes a smile, at the same time it arouses mournful reflections on the violence and bigotry that is ever wont to dog the steps of human effort after political and religious reformation.

"The able and G.o.dly minister" chosen to supplant William Orchard at Breage was one James Innes. Doubtless he was a man of extreme opinions both in politics and religion, but like William Orchard in the hour of darkness he was able to play the true man, and rather than conform at the Restoration to tenets in which he did not believe, he vacated his office even before Black Bartholomew's Day, 24th August, 1662. He found an asylum in Scotland in the household of the Earl of Lauderdale, where he performed the office of chaplain in conformity with the Presbyterian use.

The seeds of Puritanism sown by men like Orchard and Innes did not die, but lay germinating in the hearts of the Cornish people, rendering possible the great work of John Wesley a hundred years later. Such men succeeded in a great measure in destroying the pre-Reformation mechanical ideals of salvation in the hearts of the people, which prepared the way for the stirring of the dry bones in future years.

Richard Carew's Survey of Cornwall, published in 1602, gives a vivid picture of the conditions of life in Cornwall prevailing during the period we have been considering in this chapter. The condition of the mining population, he tells us, was much worse than that of the agricultural population.[36] We gather from his pages that the wages of the miners were so inadequate that sooner or later indigence compelled them to have recourse to their employers, who supplied them with food and clothing in advance of their wages at usurious prices. The Stannary Courts, we are informed, were utterly corrupt and saturated with the spirit of perjury and injustice.[36] The houses of the working people, we gather at this period, were made of clay, possessing neither windows nor any attempt at ceiling or plastering[36]; a hole in the wall being considered sufficient to do duty for a chimney. The miner and labouring people generally, we gather, were alike dest.i.tute of shoes and stockings, and we may add, of course, of any rudiments of education.

Leland, when he visited the parish, found large mining works along the coast from Trewarvas Head to Praa Sands. Sir Francis G.o.dolphin a generation later developed the ancient mines of Great Work and Wheal Vor upon scientific principles and a scale of vastness. .h.i.therto undreamt of.

The mines, it is evident, brought riches and prosperity to the owners of the soil, but not to the people who dwelt upon it; to them, as Carew makes clear, they meant too often degradation and oppression. The harvest of this evil sowing is still being reaped at the present day. It is but too true that with the Reformation the people lost a powerful protector in the Church. With all her faults--and they were many--until the Reformation the Church had been consistently the friend of the poor; her clergy until that period, had been the members of a great corporation, and as such stood in no dread of "the petty tyrant of the fields." With the coming of the Reformation all was changed, and the Parish Priest became too often the creature and parasite of the wealthy, moved but too frequently by fear and policy to neglect the claims of his flock, with for three centuries, disastrous results alike for Church and people. The people at the Reformation were ready to rise and to die for the Church, as we have seen in our own neighbourhood; three centuries later they regarded her with utter suspicion and disfavour. Few with any acquaintance with the facts of the case will deny that the material and moral condition of the people, under much cruel injustice and exploitation, grew worse for some generations after the Reformation, because there were none to hold the balance of justice between cla.s.s and cla.s.s and stay the hand of the oppressor, at any rate in the remote places of the country.

In the western part of the County the mines tended to produce an utter neglect of agriculture, the effects of which were bad in every way. They also led to the reckless destruction of much valuable timber for the purpose of making mine props. Western Cornwall, now so denuded and bare of trees, in ancient days was thickly wooded; round Ashton now not a tree is to be seen, yet the name perpetuates the memory of the time when Ashton was the Down where the ash trees grew.

Carew tells us that there were few sheep in Cornwall in his days, and that those there were had little bodies and fleeces so coa.r.s.e that their wool went by the name of Cornish hair. The horses, he says, were small and hardy and "quick travellers over rough and hilly country," but he goes on to say that by hard treatment and overwork they were soon worn out and rendered unfit for service. Owing to the practical absence of roads till long after Carew's time, vehicular traffic was practically impossible; horses were therefore used as pack animals, and a regular system of transit of goods prevailed through the County by means of pack horses. The tracks that pa.s.sed by the name of roads[37] for the six rainy months of the year, were practically impa.s.sable quagmires of mud, making intercourse, save of the most urgent character, practically impossible. It was on account of the extreme difficulty of communication through the long winter months that the gentry of the district established for themselves town houses in Helston, in which they might exchange the isolation of the country for some measure of friendly and agreeable intercourse.

The land used for tillage seems to have been chiefly manured with sea sand and sea weed; the little ploughing there was would, of course, be done by oxen, a method which at any rate had the merit of producing a strong and vigorous breed of cattle, which in size would perhaps more than favourably compare with some of the animals to be seen at the present time.

We gather from Carew "that some gentlemen allowed their cattle to go wild in their woods and waste ground, where they were hunted and killed with crossbows and pieces after the manner of deer." At this time the Deer Park attached to G.o.dolphin House took in a large part of the present parish of G.o.dolphin; the remains of the high walls of this ancient park may still be seen on the south-western slopes of G.o.dolphin Hill.

In Carew's time the women and children of the West of Cornwall carried on the industry of mat-making to a large extent. These mats were made of coa.r.s.e gra.s.s, and were exported to London in great numbers for the purpose of floor and wall coverings.

Carew informs us that the Cornish had no oaths and never swore, but that they made up for it by a plentiful indulgence in curses, maledictions and the giving of spiteful nicknames.

The two chief practising physicians[38] in the County in Carew's time were Rawe Clyes, a blacksmith, and a Mr. Atwell, parson of St. Tue; the latter obtained the most wonderful results from recommending a diet of apples and milk.

The chief pastimes of the country people at this period, as far as can be ascertained, were wrestling, hurling and shooting with arrows. The game of hurling, in both its forms, seems to have been even more rough and dangerous than Cornish wrestling, and was attended, if Carew speak correctly, frequently with fatal results and serious injury to life and limb; yet he goes on to say "was never Attorney or Coroner troubled for the matter." It was in the larger game of "Hurling the County" that most of the serious damage was done; this wild game was played over miles of country by men both on horseback and on foot. The goals were as a rule a couple of towns or villages three or four miles apart. The match seems to have been arranged, in the first place, between two country gentlemen, who on the occasion of some appointed holiday would gather as their respective supporters, as far as possible, the male inhabitants of two or three neighbouring parishes. Each squire headed the mob he had thus raised to the appointed rendezvous. When the two ma.s.ses of men, under their respective commanders, were brought face to face, at an appointed signal, a silver ball was thrown into the air. The object of the game was for each side to endeavour to capture the ball and carry it to their own goal some miles distant, in spite of the efforts of their opponents to hinder them in their purpose. The struggle would be waged over miles of country, to the right side or to the left, through rivers, ditches, woods and bogs, the ball being now pa.s.sed from one on foot to one on horseback, no effort being spared to drag the possessor of the ball to the earth by the opposing side. Little wonder that such a game often resulted in deaths and serious maimings.

A Cornish amus.e.m.e.nt of a milder character that came to an end with the seventeenth century was the performance of the ancient Miracle Plays. A vestige of the custom still survives in some places in the bands of children who at Christmas time go from house to house, dressed to impersonate a medley of characters, repeating garbled s.n.a.t.c.hes of doggerel, which are in reality fragments of the ancient plays in the last stage of evolution and disintegration. In their earliest form the Miracle Plays were performed by the Clergy in their Churches to ill.u.s.trate to an ignorant age, alike without literature and the faculty of using it, the truths of the Christian religion. These plays continued to be performed in Churches to a greater or less extent down to the time of the Reformation.[39] The Reformation endeavoured to draw an unreal line of demarcation between sacred and profane, and the drama thus came to be placed beyond the pale as worthless and sinful, with the natural disastrous result that it became quickly degraded and debased, like many other harmless, healthful and pleasure-giving inst.i.tutions and pastimes.

The Miracle Plays that have come down to us in the Cornish language[40]

are first the Ordinalia: this is a trilogy consisting of the Plays of the Beginning of the World, the Pa.s.sion and the Resurrection, with an interlude on the death of Pilate; this work is based on a French original of the fourteenth century. Secondly, we have the Play of the Life of St. Meriasek, of Breton parentage; and lastly, a work based on the Ordinalia, containing many more English words, written by William Jordan, of Helston, in 1611; the work deals with the Creation of the World and the Deluge. The Cornish language was spoken in the West of Cornwall until the beginning of the eighteenth century[41]; by the close of that century it had entirely disappeared. In Carew's time the Cornish Miracle Plays were performed in the open fields, and were resorted to by the country people with great delight; he tells us however, by his time they had become vulgarized and depraved to no small extent, possibly by the introduction of bucolic gag of a Rabelaisian character.

Judging from the pages of Carew, in the seventeenth century, with all its grossness and barbarism, there was much real friends.h.i.+p and happy intercourse amongst the people, possibly more than there is now. The Harvest Homes, the Church Ales and the Church Festivals of Dedication, with the Guary or Miracle Plays, all led to much friendly intercourse and hospitality. Carew says on these occasions, "the neighbour parishes lovingly visit one another"; friends came from a distance, and were hospitably entertained with resultant kindliness and good fellows.h.i.+p.

The Church Ales seem to have been run on much the same lines as the present Harvest Teas, with the exception that instead of tea, beer and cider were drunk, and that the venue of the feasting was laid at the Public House, instead of the village School or Inst.i.tute.

Perhaps we shall obtain the most accurate glimpse of the character of the people, and the state of Western Cornwall generally at this period, from the State Papers. Here are a few gleanings culled at random from this source. In 1526 a Portuguese s.h.i.+p was wrecked at Gunwalloe and much cargo saved. It was seized by the servants of John Militon, of Pengersick, Thomas St. Aubyn and William G.o.dolphin, and when the owner appealed to the Justices he was told it was the custom of the country, and that no redress was possible. A commission of enquiry ensued, followed by Star Chamber proceedings, and the defence was the usual one, for which any number of witnesses could always be obtained, that the owner had sold his property on the sea sh.o.r.e!

In 1575 an information of fifteen Articles was laid against Sir William G.o.dolphin and the Killigrews, of Arwenack; thirteen of these concerned piracy.

In 1582 a Spanish s.h.i.+p put into Falmouth; she was boarded by a gang of men, who after removing the cargo as booty to Arwenack, took the s.h.i.+p to Ireland, throwing the crew overboard on the voyage. A Cornish Jury afterwards found there was no evidence to show by whom the deed was done. The Privy Council came to the conclusion very quickly that the plot originated with and was carried out by the orders of Lady Killigrew, of Arwenack.

In 1603 a Ma.r.s.eilles s.h.i.+p was plundered and the cargo carried to the Scilly Islands. The owner appealed to Sir Francis G.o.dolphin, who made an order to his son John, then Governor of those Islands, to restore the cargo. John G.o.dolphin expelled the unfortunate owner from the Islands and he could obtain no further redress.

In 1626 a Flemish privateer, which had been hovering like a bird of prey around the South-Western coast, was driven ash.o.r.e and wrecked. The country people must have enjoyed the wrecking of this hostile s.h.i.+p with even more than their usual zest.

Dr. Borlase, writing in 1795, describes the methods of the mining population near the coast in his day in dealing with vessels in distress. His description would no doubt do equally well for the period we are considering. He says "The wreckers were mostly Tinners, who as soon as a s.h.i.+p was seen sailing near the coast left their work and equipped themselves with axes, and followed the s.h.i.+p along the coast, often to the number of two thousand men. They would cut a large trading vessel to pieces in one tide. They strip half-dead men of their clothing and cut down all who resist them."[42]

The following is a pleasing picture of the people of Germoe taken from a letter of the year 1710. "The people of Germoe, called Tinners, are a mad people, without fear of G.o.d or of the world. I cannot say a good word for them." Here is another extract from a letter of the period bearing date 30th October, 1671. "The Speedwell was cast away on the rocks at Pengersick. The rude people plundered her of all that was between decks, but the matter being noised about Sir William G.o.dolphin, Mr. Hugh Boscawen and Mr. John St. Aubyn came to the wreck, and by their care preserved most of the goods from the violence of the country people."

It may well have been said of the Miners of Cornwall, as far as wrecking was concerned, "Wheresoever the carcase is, there will the vultures be gathered together." Mr. Hunt, in his "Popular Romances of the West of England," narrates a story of the mid-eighteenth century, which still lingers in the popular mind, of a terrible fight that took place between Miners from Breage and Wendron, over the spoils of a s.h.i.+p cast upon the rocks near the Lizard. In old times, it seems, a gigantic ash tree used to stand upon the Downs near Cury; from its great size and the loneliness of its situation, it had in the course of time come to be a popular landmark. In the case of the wreck in question, the Wendron Tinners had the advantage over their Breage brethren in the matter of distance, and thus were able more quickly to fall upon the spoil, break up the unfortunate s.h.i.+p, and rifle the unhappy castaways of their belongings. Like the true artists they were in the art of appropriating the property of others, they worked quickly, and ere much time had elapsed they had reached the great ash tree of Cury on their journey home laden with spoil. Under this historic tree they encountered the band of Tinners from Breage, who soon realised from the rich booty in the hands of the men of Wendron that nothing more was to be done that day in the way of wrecking on the Lizard rocks. Baffled of their prey, and frantic with fury, the horde of men and women from Breage rushed upon their Wendron compatriots, and the tide of brutal fight raged for hours round the Cury ash tree. Mr. Hunt tells us that a Wendron man named Gluyas having been disabled was borne out of the fight by his friends, and placed upon the top of a hedge. A Breage woman named Prudy, seeing this paladin lying disabled on the hedge, rushed upon him exclaiming, "Ef thee artn't ded, I'll make thee," and smote him upon the head with the iron upon her paton till he expired. Mr. Hunt concludes this story by stating that the fiend Prudy, as far as judicial investigation was concerned, was allowed to go untouched, because fights at this period between parishes were matters of such common occurrence as to excite but little comment, and fatal casualties so frequent as to be regarded as matters of no moment. In this statement, as we have seen, he is borne out by Carew writing in a previous generation. Down to fifty years ago the brutal system of Parochial rivalry and violence continued, at any rate in a mitigated form. A friend wrote to Mr. Hunt: "So late as thirty years ago (circa 1850) it was unsafe to venture alone through the streets of the lower part of Helston after nightfall on a market day owing to the frays of the Breage, Wendron and Sithney men."

This statement was fully borne out by an aged friend of the writer, now dead, who told him that in his youth even funeral processions of Miners brought to Breage from other parishes were a.s.sailed with showers of stones, and an attack which either ended in hasty retreat or a prolonged free fight. It may be added, however, that Sunday was kept as a truce of G.o.d, and on that day a dead Miner from outside the parish might be borne to his rest without an a.s.sault being delivered on his friends as they followed him to the grave. This aged friend also informed the writer that to such an extent did this brutal system of savagery prevail that no Miner could pa.s.s from his own parish to another without being a.s.sailed and maltreated. Indeed, whenever Miners crossed the borders of their own parishes, they did so in bodies for mutual protection. Well on into the first half of the last century, fighting seems to have been one of the chief topics of interest, if not the chief amus.e.m.e.nt of the neighbourhood, and fights for wagers were of constant occurrence in Breage parish, on Trew Green and elsewhere. To conclude this brief summary of past conditions, one cannot help feeling that there was something to be said for the old Roman view as to the results of the occupation of mining on human character. It is a dismal picture, truly, this of past conditions in the West of Cornwall, but when we contrast it with the present it fills the mind with hopefulness, and reveals the vast latent possibilities in human nature for improvement and progress.

If out of this dark and barbarous past we have so recently emerged, what bright possibilities may not lie in the coming time seems but a reasonable thought.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] Kalendar of State Papers. Domestic Series.

[32] MS. in the possession of Fleet-Surgeon Harvey.

[33] Paul Church Burial Registers.

[34] Carew's Survey of Cornwall.

[35] Reports of the Committee of Compounding.

[36] Carew's Survey of Cornwall pp. 49, 59, 183, etc.

[37] Carew says "There are not any roads in the whole kingdom worse than ours, hastily repaired only when some great man pa.s.ses that way in his coach."

[38] Carew p. 172.

[39] See the Article "Drama" in "Encyclopaedia Britannica" by Mr. A. W.