Cornish Characters and Strange Events

On S. Bartholomew's Day, August 24th, 1572, had taken place a massacre of the Huguenots in Paris and throughout France, and this had been cordially approved by Pope Gregory XIII, who had had a medal struck to commemorate what he considered a meritorious deed. There could exist no doubt that the Papal emissaries in England were encouraged to assassinate the Queen, though evidence to that effect was not obtained till later.

On June 8th, 1577, Sir Richard Grenville of Stow, sheriff of Cornwall, accompanied by some of his justices of peace, arrived at Wolvedon to search the house for Cuthbert Mayne, a priest who had arrived in England, and who, it was supposed, was harboured by Mr. Francis Tregian.

A hasty and superficial investigation was made, and no seminary priest could be found. Then Mr. Tregian invited the whole party in to dine with him, and when they had been well regaled, and were somewhat flushed with wine, Tregian foolishly joked with the sheriff for hunting and finding nothing. Sir Richard started up and vowed he would make a further inquest, and that more thorough, and, finally, concealed in a hole under a turret, Cuthbert Mayne was discovered, drawn forth, and with him Tregian, for having harboured him, was sent to Launceston gaol, there to await trial.

"In the gaol aforesaid, he was laid in a most loathsome and lousy dungeon, laden with irons, deprived of the use of writing, and bereaved of the comfort of reading, neither permitted that any man might talk with him touching any matter whatsoever, but by special licence and in presence of the keeper."

The assizes were held at Launceston on the 16th September, 1577, when indictments were made against Cuthbert Mayne; Francis Tregian, Esq.; Richard Tremaine, gentleman, of Tregonnan; John Kempe, gentleman, of Rosteague; Richard Hore, gentleman, of Trenoweth, and others. Cuthbert Mayne for high treason: the others fell under the Statute of Præmunire, and later and more specific acts.

The Statute of Præmunire was but one of several that had been enacted from the time of Edward III, against papal interference with the affairs of England. The Statute of Præmunire was passed in 1393. "Whoever procures at Rome or elsewhere, any translations, processes, excommunications, bulls, instruments, or other things which touch the King, against him, his crown, and realms, and all persons aiding and assisting therein, shall be put out of the King's protection, their lands and goods forfeited to the King's use, and they shall be attached by their bodies to answer to the King and his Counsel: or process of præmunire facias shall be made out against them, as in any other case of prisoners."

The Bull that had been found in the possession of Cuthbert Mayne was one from Pope Gregory XIII granting plenary absolution from all their sins to English Papists, as they were unable to attend the Pope's jubilee at Rome, on condition that they should recite the Rosary fifteen times.

The Bull might very well have been treated with the contempt it merited, but the fact of the possession of such a document by Cuthbert Mayne was enough to procure his condemnation, as it was against the laws of England, and had been so for over one hundred and eighty years.

The other gentlemen were liable either as having received Cuthbert Mayne into their houses, or as having heard him say Mass, and as absenting themselves from their parish church.

Here came in the sharpened provisions enacted under Henry VIII and Elizabeth.

As Judge Marwood said at the trial: "We have not to do with your papistical use in absolving of sins. You may keep it to yourselves, and although the date of the Bull was expired and out of force, as you have alleged, so was it always out of force with us, for we never did, or never do account any such thing to be of force or worth a straw, and yet the same is by law of this realm treason, and therefore thou hast deserved to die."

The main indictment ran as follows: —

"Thou Cuthbert Maine art accused for that thou, the 1st October, in the eighteenth year of our Sovereign lady the Queen that now is, did traitorously obtain from the See of Rome a certain instrument printed, containing a pretended matter of absolution of divers subjects of the realm. The tenour of the which instrument doth follow in these words: Gregorius Episcopus, servus servorum Dei, etc., contrary to the form of a certain statute in the thirteenth year of our Sovereign lady the Queen, lately made and published, and contrary to her peace, crown, and dignity. And that you," meaning the rest, "after the said instrument obtained as aforesaid, and knowing the said Cuthbert Maine to have obtained the same from the Apostolic See, the 30th day of April, in the nineteenth of our said Sovereign the Queen's reign, at Golden aforesaid, did aid, maintain, and comfort the said Cuthbert Maine, of purpose and intent to extol and set forth the usurped power and authority of a foreign Prelate, that is to say, the Bishop of Rome, teaching and concerning the execution of the premises, contrary to the said statute and published as aforesaid, and contrary to the place of our Sovereign lady the Queen, her crown and dignity."

There were other indictments, as that Cuthbert Mayne and these laymen had refused to attend service in the parish church, and that the priest had brought over a number of "vain things," such as an Agnus Dei in silver or stone, which had been blessed by the Pope and had been accepted by the laymen.

They all pleaded "Not guilty," but the evidence against them sufficed for the jury to find that they were guilty, whereupon Cuthbert Mayne was condemned to death, and the rest to forfeit all their lands and property and to be imprisoned.

"Whereupon there was a warrant sent unto the Sheriff of Cornwall for the execution of Cuthbert Maine. The day assigned for the same purpose was dedicated unto S. Andrew; but on the eve before, all the Justices of that County, with many preachers of the pretended reformed religion, being gathered together at Launceston, Cuthbert Maine was brought before them, his legs being not only laden with mighty irons, but his hands also fast fettered together (in which miserable case he had also remained many days before), when he maintained disputation with them concerning the controversy in religion all this day in question, from eight of the clock in the morning until it was almost dark night, continually standing, no doubt in great pain in that pitiful plight, on his feet."

How that could be a great crime to distribute some trumpery toys of crystal, and silver medals marked with the Agnus Dei, one fails to see, but it is possible that they may have been regarded as badges, pledging those who received them to combine in a rebellion against the State, and perhaps also to unite in an assassination plot. That there was such a plot appeared afterwards from the confession of Father Tyrrell. At this time it was suspected, but not proved. That harsh and cruel treatment was dealt out to these men, we cannot doubt, but, as Mr. Froude remarks, "were a Brahmin to be found in the quarters of a Sepoy regiment scattering incendiary addresses, he would be hanged also."

There were in all seven indictments.

At first Francis Tregian had not been committed to gaol, but he was so shortly after, was brought to trial, and was sentenced to the spoiling of his goods and to a lifelong imprisonment.

Barbarous as these persecutions and sentences seem to us to-day, there was some justification for the Queen and Council at the time, surrounded as they were with dangers.

The Papal Bull of excommunication had encouraged the supporters of Mary, Queen of Scots, and plots were made on her behalf which were a constant source of alarm to Elizabeth. One of these plots was managed by an Italian named Ridolfi; the Duke of Norfolk had a share in it, and was executed in consequence in 1572. The great fear was lest France or Spain should take advantage of the situation to invade England, while Mary's friends raised insurrections at home. Mary's friends were active in all parts. Numbers of young Popish priests, trained to hostility towards Elizabeth, were pouring into the country, and conspiracies against her life were numerous, explaining, though in no degree justifying the stringent laws against seminary priests and recusants.

To return to Cuthbert Mayne.

"Wherefore, according to the judgment he had received, the next day he was uneasily laid on a hurdle, and so drawn, receiving some knocks on his face and his fingers with a girdle, unto the market-place of the said town, where of purpose there was a very high gibbet erected, and all things else, both fire and knives, set to the show and ready prepared.

"At which place of execution, when he came, he was first forced to mount the ladder backward, and after permitted to use very few words. Notwithstanding he briefly opened the cause of his condemnation, and protested, that his master (Mr. Tregian) was never privy with his having of these things whereupon he was condemned – the Jubilee and the Agnus Dei; then one of the justices, interrupting his talk, commanded the hangman to put the rope about his neck, and then, quoth he, let him preach afterward. Which done, another commanded the ladder to be overturned, so as he had not the leisure to recite In manus tuas Domine to the end. With speed he was cut down, and with the fall had almost ended his life, for the gibbet being very high, and he being yet in the swing when the rope was cut, he fell in such sort, as his head encountered the scaffold which was there prepared of purpose to divide the quarters, as the one side of his face was sorely bruised, and one of his eyes far driven out of his head.

"After he was cut down, the hangman first spoiled him of his clothes, and then in butcherly manner, opening his belly, he rent up his bowels, and after tore out his heart, which he held up aloft in his hand, showing it unto the people. Lastly, his head was cut off, and his body divided into four quarters, which afterwards were dispersed and set up on the Castle of Launceston; one quarter sent unto Bodmin; another to Barnstaple; the third to Tregony, not a mile distant from Mr. Tregian's house; the fourth to Wadebridge."

Not only was Francis Tregian adjudged to forfeit his goods, but he was also prosecuted by a goldsmith, who claimed a debt of £70.

Accordingly he was sent up to London to the King's Bench prison, "strongly guarded by a ruffianly sort of bloody blue-coats, with bows, bills, and guns"; and the arms of Tregian were pinioned behind his back with cords. With him were associated the other Papists; and they met with insult and harsh treatment all the way to London. There he was again tried and cast into prison.

We are gravely informed that before these calamities befell Francis Tregian, a premonition of coming woes had been given to his wife.

"Mr. Tregian, her husband, not many days after they were first married, enforced for ten months to follow the Lords of the Council, his wife always in the mean season lying with a very virtuous maid, a sister of her husband's, it chanced that one night looking for fleas, as the manner of women is, she espied in her smock sundry spots, the which she perceived to carry the shape of sundry crosses. Whereat she, much marvelling, besought her sister to behold the same; whereupon, when both had long looked and wondered, at length endeavouring to number them, they found contained in the same smock no less than one hundred and twenty-five crosses, and after, upon more curious search, they likewise found sundry other, both on her pillow and in her sheets."

This omen of coming evil was now verified, but not by flea-bites. Francis Tregian remained in prison cruelly treated, and when he attempted to make his escape, manacled and fettered in a loathsome dungeon. From his cell he wrote in verse to his wife, but did not display much brilliancy of poetic art.

My wont is not to write in verse,You know, good wife, I wis.Wherefore you well may bear with me,Though now I write amiss;For lack of ink the candle coal,For pen a pin I use,The which also I may allegeIn part of my excuse.For said it is of many menAnd such as are no fools,A workman is but little worthIf he do want his tools;Though tools I have wherewith in sortMy mind I may disclose,They are, in truth, more fit to paintA nettle than a rose.

And so on, never rising to a higher level.

But his wife was allowed to visit him, and indeed reside with him in prison. "And although through the rigour of authority they have been often separated, sometimes two months, sometimes seven, sometimes more, she hath borne him, notwithstanding, eleven children since he was first imprisoned. Some are dead, but the most part are alive."

Francis Tregian was first committed to prison in the twenty-eighth year of his age, and in the year 1595, when he had been about sixteen years in prison, some notes were drawn up concerning him, from which some quotations may be made.

In all the sixteen years' space he had never been permitted to enjoy the benefit of the open air otherwise than when being removed from one prison to another. He was first imprisoned at Launceston, then was removed to Windsor Castle; thence removed to the Marshalsea, and then again carried back to Launceston Castle. Then he was conveyed to the King's Bench prison, and lastly to the Fleet.

For seven or eight years together he enjoyed good health; "but in the end, through cares, studies, filthy diet, most stinking air, and want of exercise, he became very sickly, and so continued by the space of six or seven years; notwithstanding at this present the state of his body is much mended, and is like to recover his perfect health."

His mother was the eldest sister of Sir John Arundell, Knight, of Lanherne. His great-grandmother was one of the daughters of Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorchester, half-brother to Queen Elizabeth, the wife of King Henry VII, and daughter of Edward IV. He married the eldest sister of Lord Stourton. His wife's mother was eldest sister of the Earl of Derby. Francis Tregian remained in prison eighteen years, and was finally released by order of Queen Elizabeth in or about 1597, after which he lived in London on the bounty of his friends.

His son, Francis, managed to repossess himself, by the assistance of some of his friends and relatives, by purchase of some portion of the ancestral property, but in January, 1608, owing to the hostility provoked by the Gunpowder Plot against the Papists, the family was again plundered of the estates, and when the Heralds' Visitation of Cornwall was taken in 1620, the family had disappeared from the list of the landed and heraldic gentry.

Francis Tregian, the elder, at last retired to Lisbon, where he died on the 25th September, 1608. He was allowed by the King of Portugal sixty crowns a month. On his tombstone it was stated, falsely, that he had endured twenty-eight years of imprisonment in England. As a specimen of the malignant lies that were spread abroad relative to Queen Elizabeth, is this – given in a life of Francis Tregian by Francis Plunket, son of one of his daughters: —

"Aulam Elizabethæ adit … Regina per pedissequam illum invitat ad cubiculum, intempesta nocte; recusantem adit, lectoque assistens ad impudica provocat; rennentem increpat. Castitati suæ cusam gerens ex Aula se proripuit, insalutata Regina; quæ idcirco furit, et in carcerem detrudi jubet."

Such words fill one with disgust and indignation against the pack from Rheims and Rome, who, unable to reach the Queen with their daggers, bespattered her with foul words.

The Life of Francis Tregian was published in Portuguese, at Lisbon, by Francis Plunket, in 1655. The narrative of his imprisonment, written in 1593, is published in extenso by J. Morris, The Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers, 1st series, London, 1872, from the original MS. in S. Mary's College, Oscott.

A summary is in C. S. Gilbert's Historical Survey of Cornwall, 1817.

ANN GLANVILLE

Saltash was formerly a very much more important place than it is to-day. Now the tubular bridge of Brunel connects Cornwall and Devon, and railway trains slip along it, making communication with Plymouth from Cornwall easy and speedy. It was not so in former times. Then travellers from the West on their way to Plymouth or to London, if they did not go by coach by the great highway from Falmouth, by Bodmin and Launceston, were brought up by the strip of blue water that formed the estuary of the Tamar and Tavy, called the Hamoaze, and there, after halting at Saltash they were forced to cross in the ferry or by boat. Saltash signifies the Saltwater – ash = usk, and Hamoaze is the Border water, oaze = usk as well.

The Saltash boatmen plied a good trade, conveying over the passengers from Cornwall to Devon. Moreover, houses were cheap at Saltash, and old salts lived there, where they could smell the sea air, and every now and then crossed into Plymouth to do their shopping. From time immemorial there had been boat-races in the Hamoaze, and the women of Saltash were not behind the men at plying the oar.

Mr. Whitfeld in his Three Towns' History says: —

"The Saltash festival was by no means wholly intended for the encouragement of the males, for the 'ladies' feathered their oars with such dexterity that few of the opposite sex would enter the lists against them. Before the races for these damsels of uncertain age were started, blue favours were tied round their white caps by members of the committee. The fair rowers were attired in short white bedgowns and blue cap-guards, and their gigs shot around the course of five miles 'like so many birds.' From a sporting point of view the feature of the first regatta was a life or death competition between Jacky Gould and the Glanvilles. If Jacky's boat, Miller's Daughter, was the crack, Alarm was scarcely inferior, and Paul Pry was a first-class craft. Crash! went the starting-gun, and the competitors dashed away with a flood tide and a breeze from the northward. When they left on their ten-mile course one vast shout went up, the boats flew as instinct with life, every nerve on the stretch. The first five miles were covered in thirty minutes, and as the boats turned the committee vessel there were deafening shouts of 'Bravo, Jacky.' 'Well done, Glanville!' Then these hearts-of-oak flashed on their second round, and excitement intensified as the telescope reported progress. When the boats reappeared the suspense broke into a feverish roar, and calls to the rivals were tossed like corks on a sea of voices. Swiftly they drew near, the boats in a line, the interest increased to painful intensity as the race was neck-and-neck. The judge stood by, red-hot poker in hand, and as the bow of the Alarm, pulled by the Glanvilles, first touched the hawsers of the committee vessel, Bang! went the signal gun; 'See the Conquering Hero' burst from the band, and hundreds clustered round to congratulate the victors, and condole with Jacky Gould, who was only five seconds behind, though the boat was two feet shorter, and one of his crew had broken an oar."

The Glanvilles were amphibious – or rather lived almost wholly on the water during the day, only returning to the land for sleep at night.

The name is old. The first Glanvilles of whom we know anything authentic were located at Whitchurch, near Tavistock, where they were tanners, but a Judge Glanville raised the family to a higher position, in the reign of Elizabeth. Some, however, remained in a modest position, as did these boatmen of Saltash, and as did a huntsman to the late Mr. Kelly, of Kelly.

There occurred a terrible tragedy in the family, when Eulalia Glanville, niece of the Judge, murdered her husband, old John Page, a merchant of Plymouth, and was burnt alive for the crime, as one of petty treason, at Barnstaple, in 1591.

In 1824 at the regatta was offered a prize of £8 for a four-oared race for women, but no Glanville was in that. Ten years later, in 1834, at the regatta £20 was offered for boats sculled by women, and in this pulled a Mary Glanville. But the queen of women scullers of the Glanville stock was Ann, and she only entered it by marriage, by birth a Warring.39 Mr. P. E. B. Porter, in his Around and About Saltash, 1905, thus describes her: —

"Ann Glanville was undoubtedly a remarkable woman for many reasons. Only such a place as Saltash, in such a naval port as this, could have produced a character like it. Only such a country as England could have produced such a woman. She was a genuine representative of Saltash in its great nautical days, when it was alive with business. The British tar was to her the ideal of a man and the very highest type of a hero. Into whatever trouble Jack got when ashore, however he might have been forsaken by all else in his reckless frivolity, he never wanted for a backer if Ann Glanville was near. And there was not a ship in the navy, in those days, that had not some story to tell of Ann's life and energy, and in which her name was not cherished as only a British sailor can cherish the memory of a friend. In a perfectly true sense, Ann Glanville was a mother to the British tar indiscriminately; she was known as Mother, and called Mother, by all."

Ann was born at Saltash in 1796, and was the daughter of a man named Warring or Werring. She married a man several years her junior in years, and by him became the mother of fourteen children. He was a waterman, she a waterwoman, and their children, every boy and girl, water-babies.

He had his boat, and when he was otherwise engaged – nursing the children, for instance, or merry-making in the tavern – she rowed across to Devonport.

Not passengers only, but goods were conveyed to and from Plymouth by the boats. Corn, crockery, drapery, everything except live cattle went in them. These latter by the ferry. Sometimes she rowed out officers to their ships, sometimes conveyed play-actors over from Plymouth into Cornwall, and on the great event of the elections at Saltash, candidates, electors, pot-boilers, political orators. Meat and vegetables went over in these boats to Plymouth market: a gentleman remembers Ann bringing round as many as seventy or eighty bags of corn in her boat from South Pool, pulling the great cargo alone, conveying it from Sutton Pool to Butt's Head Mill, a point two miles above Saltash.

Ann's husband fell ill and was long confined to bed, and the house and then the whole burden of supporting the family fell to her. But she had strong arms and a stouter heart, and managed not only to keep the wolf from the door, but the doctor as well.

"Have you got a doctor here, or have you to send over to Plymouth for one?" she was asked.

"Well, I believe there may be one here, but, thank God, here us most commonly dies a natural death."

Ann's fame as a rower at regattas spread throughout England. Some sixty or seventy years ago the crew of Saltash women was one of the most important features, not only in the Hamoaze, but all over the county wherever aquatic sports were given. She always rowed stroke. It was very rarely that Ann and her crew were beaten in a match – never by other women. The strength and endurance of these women, and their daring in accepting challenges and in the contests on the water, attracted universal attention. They competed for prizes at Hull, Liverpool, Portsmouth, Dartmouth, etc., and it must not be supposed that a male crew yielded the palm to them out of masculine courtesy, for the men did not at all relish being beaten by a "parcel o' females," as they were sure to have the fact thrown in their teeth afterwards.

Mrs. Harriet Screech, a daughter of Ann Glanville, rowed along with her mother in some of these contests, pulling the bow-oar, the least arduous post, assigned to her as the youngest of the crew. When engaged in a match at Fleetwood before the Queen, they gave the men so sound a beating that Her Majesty requested to have Ann presented to her.

But the most famous event of her life took place in 1850, when Captain Russell, of H.M.S. Brunswick, suggested to her that she and her crew should go over to Havre to the regatta there and challenge the Johnny Crapauds. She was quite prepared, and started under the escort of Captain Russell.

When the Frenchmen heard of the challenge from les Anglaises de Saltashe, they shrugged their shoulders, and hardly regarded it as serious. And when the strong, muscular women appeared in their white-frilled caps prinked out with blue ribbon, their short petticoats, white dresses, with a blue neckerchief tied over the shoulders and crossed behind the back, they looked puzzled.