A Book of Cornwall

Then one cavalier, with dark, piercing eyes and a pointed black beard, wearing a red feather in his cap, said: "We invite you to eat and to drink with us," and pointed to an empty chair.

Wesley at once took the place indicated, but before he put in his mouth a bite of food or drank a drop, said: "It is my custom to ask a blessing; stand all!" Then the spectres rose.

Wesley began his accustomed grace, "The name of God, high over all-" when suddenly the room darkened, and all the apparitions vanished.

The story of the creation, subsequent history, and extinction of those English boroughs which were swept away by the Reform Bill of 1832, and which were commonly designated as pocket or rotten boroughs, is too curious an episode in Parliamentary history to be allowed to remain in the limbo of Parliamentary reports-a charnel-house of the bones of facts-unclothed with the personal reminiscences and local details which invest these dry bones with flesh, and give to them a living interest.

In a very few years there will not be a man alive who can recall the last election for them. Their story is this: They were creations of the Crown when its tenure of power was insecure, and the object aimed at was to pack the House of Commons with members who were mere creatures of the Crown. The shock of the Reformation had upset men's minds. What had been held sacred for ages was sacred no longer, and the men who had been encouraged to profane the altar were ready enough to turn their hands against the throne. The revolt of the Parliament under Charles I. was long in brewing; its possibility was seen, and the creation of pocket boroughs was devised as an expedient to prevent it.

In order that the Crown might have a strong body of obedient henchmen in the House, a number of villages or mere insignificant hamlets were accorded the franchise, villages and hamlets on land belonging to the Duchy of Cornwall that went with the royal family as an appanage of the Prince of Wales, or were under the control of pliant courtiers. As the country was in a ferment of religious passion, many, if not most, of these new boroughs were specially chosen because far removed from ecclesiastical influence, either because they lay at the junction of several parishes, or because they were places remote from churches.

In Cornwall in the reign of Edward VI. eight petty places were given the privilege of returning two members apiece. These were Bossiney, a mound in a field, with a farmhouse adjoining, West Looe, Grampound, Penryn, Newport, Camelford, and Mitchell.

Queen Mary followed by raising S. Ives to the position of a borough; Elizabeth proceeded to confer the same privileges on S. Germans, S. Mawes, Tregony, East Looe, Fowey, and Callington. Those called into existence by Edward were all under Duchy influence with the exception of Mitchell, "the meanest hamlet within or without Cornwall," which was under the control of the Arundels of Lanherne.

Four of the new boroughs had been places belonging to monastic establishments, but since the suppression of the religious houses they had passed under the domination of the Crown. S. Ives, which had been constituted a borough by Philip and Mary, was in the hands of Paulet, Marquis of Winchester who could be relied upon. For the same reason Callington was given two members in 1584, as this also was held by the Paulets. The fear of ecclesiastical influence is conspicuous in numerous instances. Camelford is two miles distant from a church, and the only chapel in it was confiscated and demolished. Saltash was another churchless place; it belonged to the parish of S. Stephen's, two miles distant, and had in it no other place of worship than a municipal chapel. Grampound was at a like distance from its parish church, S. Creed; Tregony was planted at the junction of several parishes; Mitchell divided between two equidistant churches two miles away. Another remarkable feature in these boroughs is that they rapidly slipped away from the influence of the Crown, and fell under the control of great landlords. Founded for the servile support of the Throne, they became a prey, not even to Duchy tenants, but to private owners, and resolved into saleable commodities, that passed rapidly from hand to hand. In 1783 it was noticed that seven peers directed or influenced the return of twenty members; eleven commoners controlled the election of twenty-one; and the people one only, that of S. Ives. It was a recognised thing that the man who held six boroughs in his hand, that is to say, who could return twelve members to support the Ministry, could demand and obtain a peerage. Even a foreign Jew who, at a pinch, could assist the Ministry by means of three boroughs which he had bought, could exact a baronetage in part payment.

Cornwall returned forty members, as many, excepting one, as the entire kingdom of Scotland; more by two than Durham, Northumberland, and Yorkshire together; and along with Wiltshire, where was another nest of pocket boroughs, more than Yorkshire, Lancashire, Middlesex, Warwick, Worcester, and Somersetshire.

Another interesting feature in the pocket boroughs was the various methods of voting. In some it was close and secret; in others open and democratic. In some the electors were nominated by the patron; in others they maintained a measure of independence, and disposed of their votes to the highest bidder.

One of the most notorious of the rotten boroughs was Mitchell, Modishole, or, as it was sometimes called in error, S. Michael. It is a wretched hamlet on a bleak portion of the great backbone of Cornwall, exposed to every blast from the Atlantic, without trade, without manufacture, almost without agriculture, so poor and unremunerative is the soil. It owed its origin solely to the fact that it was a convenient centre for the distribution of contraband goods that had been run ashore in the bays between Crantock and Newquay. When raised into a borough it existed, without thriving, on the two demoralising businesses of smuggling and elections. In Parliamentary lists it figures as S. Michael's, but the archangel has never had anything to do with it, never had even a chapel there. The place belongs in part to the parish of S. Enoder, in part to that of S. Newlyn.

The name of Mitchell given it was surely given in satire, for in Cornish this word signifies greatness.

The place consists at present of nineteen houses. At the time of its disfranchisement it had 180 inhabitants, but only three of these were qualified to vote, whose names were Retallack, Vincent, and Parker, and these three returned the two last members who sat for Mitchell.

A few sycamore and ash and thorn trees brave the gales that sweep the desolate slope on which the old borough stands. It has a handsome old inn with granite porch, some quaint old houses, one with the date 1683 on the parvise, and a diminutive town hall.

Whether the borough ever had a seal is uncertain: no impressions are known to exist. The town hall has gone through a series of uses since the place ceased to be a borough. For a while after 1832 it was a dame's school, then was converted into a Wesleyan chapel, then into one of the Church of England, next into a manure store, then into a carpenter's shop, and now it is a beer brewery, in a hamlet made up almost wholly of total abstainers.

The place, as already said, consists of nineteen houses. There is not a shop there. The dame's school has been transferred from the town hall to a one-roomed cottage, that crouches under a bank, and is overshadowed by sycamores.

The privileges it possessed proved to it a curse, for if there were voters in it sufficiently independent to think differently from the patron, he tore down their dwellings. After the last election but one Sir Christopher Hawkins swept away numerous cottages from his land, so as to reduce the number of voters, not because they were recalcitrant, but because all demanded payment for their votes; and to diminish the voters, as he did, from eighty to three meant a corresponding reduction in election expenses. At the election of 1831 there was no voting at all. The steward invited some two dozen individuals to dine with him in the inn; of these three only were nominated to vote. A worm-eaten chair was thrust on the balcony of the inn, and the nominee of the patron was declared chosen and chaired.

Immediately after this election the same patron, Sir Christopher Hawkins, pulled down twelve more houses; amongst these a handsome mansion opposite the town hall, that had been erected by Lord Falmouth in 1780, when he was dominant in the borough, and all the stonework was carried away for the construction of Lord Falmouth's new house at Tregothnan.

In the penultimate election there were but thirteen electors, who were nominated by the patron. But even these were not altogether submissive. A stranger came amongst them, and by large promises induced most of them to agree to vote for him as second representative. Dread of their patron, however, in the end proved too strong, and they returned both his nominees. The stranger, however, assured them that he would send them presents all round, and on a certain day the carrier arrived with a large chest addressed to the free and independent electors of Mitchell. On opening it, the chest was found to be full of stones, and to have thirteen halters on the top properly addressed to the several electors, among whom, by the way, were three parsons.

The unfortunate borough during the later years of its existence was a battleground of many combatants. It was never certain who had the right to vote. This question was left in ambiguity till 1700, and every successive election gave rise to a petition and Parliamentary inquiry.

In 1639, when Courtenay and Chadwell were elected, a petition was sent up to the House appealing against it, and the plea set up was that the members had got in by the aid of voters who were not qualified.

Between this date and 1705 the borough came before the Election Committee no less than fifteen times, and the right of voting was altered from time to time.

In 1660 the question arose whether the right of voting lay in the commonalty at large or in two functionaries called Eligers, nominated by the lord of the manor, and in twenty-two free men of their appointment. The Committee of the House considered that it rested with these nominees, and that the householders of Mitchell had no electoral rights whatever. But in 1689 the Committee decided that "the right of election lay with the lords of the borough, who were liable to be chosen portreeves, and in the householders of the same not receiving alms." Here was a fundamental change. All at once universal suffrage was introduced. Next year (1690) Rowe, for the second place, got in by thirty-one votes against twenty given for Courtenay. Upon investigation, it was proved that Rowe had bribed a dozen voters with £5 or £6 apiece.

In 1695 another election took place, when four members were returned, two by a deputy-portreeve, and two by the actual portreeve, a certain Timothy Gully, who was an outlaw, and lived in White Friars.

The struggles of Anthony Rowe and Humphrey Courtenay occupy and almost proverbialise this epoch. About 1698 it was noted that "the cost of these struggles had been enormous, and William Courtenay, son and heir of Humphrey, was forced to petition the House to be allowed to sell his entailed estates to defray them."

Rowe was pronounced elected in 1696, but was unseated as speedily on appeal from the defeated side.

In 1707 "the traditional contest takes place at Mitchell between Rowe and two others. Rowe, who was elected, was soon confronted with the inevitable petition."

The right of voting for this distracted borough had already been changed from one of nominees of the patron to one purely democratic, and now, in 1701, it was again changed. This time it was invested in the portreeve, and in the inhabitants paying scot and lot.

For nearly half a century no election petition came up from Mitchell, but in 1754 the scandals became more flagrant than before, and the interest of the political world was drawn to this obscure and ragged hamlet. Lord Sandwich had squared the returning officer, and his candidate was elected by thirty against twenty-five. The Duke of Newcastle now disputed this election. There were, at that period, two taverns at Mitchell, each with its picturesque projecting porch on granite pillars. Each of these became the centre of party cabal and caucus, and this continued for ten months, during which ale and wine flowed and money circulated, and the electors ate and drank at the expense of the Earl of Sandwich and the Duke of Newcastle, and devoted all their energies to swell their several factions at the expense of the other. At last the duke's candidates, Luttrell and Hussey, were returned vice Clive (a cousin of the Indian Clive) and Stephenson, who were sustained by the earl.

After this "stranger succeeded stranger in the representation of Mitchell." In 1784 the two patrons were Lord Falmouth and Francis Basset, Esq. No sooner was the election declared than a petition against the return was sent up to the House, and the Committee found that the evidence of bribery and corruption by one of the returned members was so gross that he was forthwith unseated.

Sir Christopher Hawkins of Trewithen, Bart., was sole owner of the borough between 1784 and 1796, and he held it with an iron grasp. By means of pulling down houses, this crafty baronet thinned down the electors to sixteen, and finally further reduced the number to three. Sir Christopher held Grampound and Tregony as well in his fist, and had runners at his several boroughs to keep him informed how election proceedings went on in each place. His high-handed proceedings and his closeness in everything not connected with elections made him vastly unpopular. One morning a paper was found affixed to the gates of Trewithen.

"A large house, and no cheer,
A large park, and no deer,
A large cellar, and no beer.
Sir Christopher Hawkins lives here."

Sir Kit died in 1829, unmarried, when the title became extinct, but his memory continues green, if not sweet, in the minds of Cornishmen of the parts where he ruled.

In 1806 one of the representatives of the borough was Arthur Wellesley, the subsequent Duke of Wellington.

During eleven years, 1807-1818, there were nine elections at Mitchell. No event of importance occurred after 1818, except the extraordinary and significant revelation made at the contested election of 1831, when Hawkins, the nephew of Sir Christopher, got two votes; Kenyon, a Tory, five; and Bent three. In the following year the five electors of Mitchell found their borough disfranchised.

There were, when I visited Mitchell in 1893, two old men, brothers, of the name of Manhire, one aged ninety-four, who could recollect the last election, and could tell some good stories about it.

Trerice, the ancient seat of the Arundells, is near Mitchell, which, it may be remembered, was made into a borough because completely under their control. But their influence rapidly declined, and they lost all power over the voters. The old house is converted into a farm, and is no longer in the possession of the Arundells. Its fine carved oak furniture was scattered.

More charmingly idyllic than Trerice is Lanherne, another seat of the Arundells. Roger de Arundell was at home when the Conqueror came to England. William Arundell had his lands forfeited for rebellion in the reign of King John, but they passed to his nephew, Humphrey Arundell, in 1216. His son, Sir Renfrey Arundell of Treffry, married the daughter and heiress of Sir John de Lanherne in the reign of Henry III., and since then Lanherne became one of the favourite family seats of a house that acquired the baronies of Wardour and Trerice.

Lanherne lies in the loveliest vale in Cornwall, shut in and screened from the blasts that sweep from the Atlantic. The old house was abandoned in 1794 to the nuns of Mount Carmel, who fled to England for refuge from the storms of the French Revolution. The front of the mansion is of the date 1580, and is eminently picturesque. A modern range of buildings has been added for the accommodation of the nuns, but it is not unsightly. The lovely pinnacled tower of the church of S. Mawgan rises beside the ancient mansion, at a considerably lower level, and the interior is rich with sculptured oak, and with monuments of the Arundells.

Alas! the mighty family that once dominated in Cornwall, second in power only to the Princes of Wales, royal dukes of that duchy, is now represented in Cornwall by empty mansions, alienated to other holders, and by tombs.

The motto of the family is "Deo data-Given by God." It might be properly supplemented, If the Lord gave, the Lord hath also taken away.

Lanherne is in the parish of S. Mawgan. The church has been coldly and unsympathetically renovated by Mr. Butterfield. It contains very fine carved bench-ends and a screen that deserve inspection. The tower of the church is peculiarly beautiful, and the church rises above a grove of the true Cornish elm, growing like poplars, small-leaved.

Carnanton was formerly the dwelling of William Noye, a farmer of Buryan, who was bred as student-at-law in Lincoln's Inn, and afterwards became M. P. for S. Ives in Cornwall, in which capacity he stood for several Parliaments in the beginning of the reign of Charles I., and was one of the boldest and stoutest champions of the rights of Parliament against absolute monarchy. Charles I. then made him his attorney-general, 1631, whereupon his views underwent a complete change, "so that," as Halls says, "like the image of Janus at Rome, he looked forward and backward, and by means thereof greatly enriched himself." He it was who contrived the ship-money tax, which was so obnoxious, and was a principal occasion of the Rebellion.

The attorney-general one day was entertaining King Charles I. and the nobility of the court at dinner in his house in London. Ben Jonson and other choice spirits were at the same time in a tavern on the opposite side of the street, very much out of pocket, and with their stomachs equally empty.

Ben, knowing what was going on opposite, wrote this little metrical epistle and sent it to the attorney-general on a white wood trencher: -

"When the World was drown'd
No deer was found,
Because there was noe Park;
And here I sitt