CHAPTER VIII

MOUNT'S BAY

From Loe Bar the Porthleven sands take us on to the busy little fishing-port of Porthleven itself, whose mother-parish is Sithney. It is becoming quite a popular watering-place, not only with Helston folk, who have only about two and a half miles to come, but with visitors from a greater distance. Porthleven is now a separate parish, with a modern church of its own, and a large Methodist chapel at Torleven that cost £3,500. Its name clearly embodies that of St. Levan, whom we shall meet again near Land's End. An association with that saint gives it a tolerable antiquity, but the place lacks any picturesque garb of the ancient, and its chief pleasantness lies about the harbour. There are fine views of Mount's Bay to be gained from the higher grounds. The harbour and docks were incorporated a century since; the pier is 465 feet long, and the basin has stout granite jetties. Granite and china-clay, fire-bricks and fish are exported here, and the fishing done is fairly extensive. The harbourage is good, but rather difficult to make in rough weather; south-westerly winds drive the seas fiercely against its mouth. As might be imagined, wrecks have been plentiful here, and along the Methleigh shore are the graves of many drowned persons—interred here in days when the right to consecrated earth was denied. The coast had also an evil reputation for wrecking—not what the underwriters style "act of God," but the dark and mysterious crime of luring vessels on a rock-bound shore:—

"God keep us from rocks and shelving sands, And save us from Breage and Germoe men's hands!"

The parish of Breage has a specially attractive church, dedicated to St. Breaca, who landed in the Hayle estuary some time in the sixth century; she was an Irish lady, said to have been the sister of St. Uni, of Euny Lelant and other churches. The church is large and shapely, but its ancient character has hardly been preserved by the redecoration that took place in 1890, though happily that restoration revealed some fine frescoes that had been covered with whitewash. One of the figures is the popular one of St. Christopher, like that of Poughill in north Cornwall; other figures are St. Michael, St. Giles, and St. Cury. The altar-slabs are old, and may once have been taken from altar-tombs. There is a good tower-arch, a five-shafted font, and excellent wagon-shaped roofs; chancel-screen and reredos are modern. Of the two bells, one, the tenor, is the largest in Cornwall, with a diameter of 54 inches; it is said that there was formerly a peal, but that the bells were recast into this single form. It is natural to find traces of the Godolphins here, their seat being so near. The national history has much to say of one Godolphin only, Sidney, the Lord Treasurer, whom Macaulay treated not too tenderly; but Cornwall knows of many, and is especially loving to the memory of Margaret, the wife of Sidney, whose tomb is in the church of Breage. She has had the benefit of a memoir by John Evelyn, her faithful friend, and his account of her is a beautiful picture of womanhood. Being appointed Maid of Honour to the Duchess of York in her twelfth year, the girl retained her purity in a Court that was notoriously impure, and it was thus that she met her two friends, the young Godolphin who married her nine years later, and the older man Evelyn, who gave her devotion and tender counsel. It was in 1678 that Margaret Godolphin died, after the birth of her only child. A few days before her illness she had written to her absent husband: "If I might, I would beg that my body might lye where I have had such a minde to goe myselfe, att Godolphyn, among your friends. I believe, if I were carried by sea, the expense would not be very great; but I don't insist on that place, if you think it not reasonable; lay me where you please." To Cornwall her sorrowing husband brought her, laying her in this church of Breage, where her remembrance is of a very sweet savour; and when we recollect how fondly her lord had loved her, and how he never sought to fill the vacant place, we must needs think with greater gentleness of one who, for his age, was a patriotic and high-minded statesman. An earlier Godolphin had been one of the "four wheels of Charles's Wain." There are heroic memories clinging to the now extinct family; and it is well to find that at least the name survives in vital fashion here around their old manor-house. That house is now a farm, but it retains traces of old manorial grandeur—some panelled rooms with great windows, a hall with lofty fireplace, and the fishponds of the gardens. On the seaward side of the house rises Godolphin Hill to a height of about 500 feet, giving a noble view of St. Michael's Mount and Bay. There are many remains of former mining. Tregonning Hill, close by, is somewhat higher, and its summit has a fine entrenchment with a striking inner vallum. The Latin epitaph to Margaret Godolphin upon her altar-tomb was written by Evelyn, and the same inscription was placed upon her coffin. It is followed by her favourite motto, the beautiful Un Dieu, un amy ("One God, one friend"). Evelyn knew better than to write any fulsome compliments upon her tomb.

A little westward of Tregonning is Germoe, its church dedicated to St. Germoe, or Germoc. The pinnacles of the Perpendicular tower are specially notable, while the gable-cross and corbels of the porch are of a kind rare in this part of the country. The body of the church is Decorated, but its font must be far earlier; it is rather like a huge stoup, of remarkably rude formation, and may perhaps be Saxon in date. But the structure known as St. Germoe's Chair, in the graveyard, is even more curious; it consists of three roofed sedilia, fronted by two pillared arches. W. C. Borlase thought that the erection was simply an altar-tomb, but, as another writer has said, "there is more than one story attached to this chair. One is to the effect that the saint sat in the central chair with the two assessors, one on either side of him; another legend is that the priests rested in the chair; whilst a third is that pilgrims to the tomb of the saint also rested therein. Be that as it may, however, it is possible that this is a shrine, and that the body of St. Germoe rests underneath it." There is a folk-rhyme attaching to the parish:—

"Germoe, little Germoe, lies under a hill, When I'm in Germoe I count myself well; True love's in Germoe, in Breage I've got none; When I'm in Germoe I count myself at home."

Pengersick in this parish has still some remains of a castle built in the time of Henry VIII. by a man named Milliton, but there was evidently a far older castle here belonging to the Pengersicks, and a cluster of ancient legends gathered around the place. Cornish imagination usually stopped short at folk-lore and gave nothing to literature; in folk-lore it was certainly rich. One of the stories is of a former inhabitant of the castle who had doings with a king's daughter abroad, and when she followed him to his Cornish home, he threw both the lady and her child into the sea. The boy was rescued by a passing vessel (of course to return later); the woman changed into a white hare, who one day ran in front of the man's horse, startling it so that it rushed with its rider into the waves, and both were drowned. White hares play a striking part in Cornish traditions. Another story says that the castle was purchased by one of the Millitons, who, having murdered a man, shut himself up here in terror and remorse. A further legend speaks of another Milliton who lived here with a wife whom he hated, and whom he often tried to get rid of, but her wits proved equal to his. At last, feigning reconciliation, he invited her to sup with him, and then suddenly told her that the wine she had drunk was poisoned. "Then we die together," she answered, "for I had my doubts and I mixed the contents of the goblets." A terrible tempest came on, and wild shrieks came from the chamber; the servants, hastening to the room in alarm, found their master and mistress lying dead on the floor, while looking through the window they could see their spirits being carried off in triumph by a winged demon. It is singular how legends of this nature should attach themselves to certain localities and persons; but the occupants of Pengersick appear to have had differences with the clergy in old times, and the priests generally contrived to blacken the characters of those who became obnoxious to them. It was a terrible power, the making or marring of future reputation.

On the coast the beautiful Praa sands stretch for a mile towards Prussia Cove, with Praa Green at their head; the sands in its season are glorified with wild convolvulus, and the gently lapping waves often have little enough to tell us of their disastrous fury in time of storm. But enough has been said on the dismal subject of wrecks. Human remains, supposed to date from the Old Stone Age, have been found at this spot; they, if they could speak, might tell us something well worth listening to. But their memories would be of a Cornwall very different from the present, and they would probably look to see St. Michael's Mount in the midst of a forest.

If we are tired of shipwrecks, perhaps we are not tired of smugglers, and we come on their footsteps in very vivid fashion at Prussia Cove, whose original name was Porthleah. The place was a veritable hot-bed of smuggling long before the days of John Carter, prince of smugglers, who went by the name of King of Prussia, and gave its present name to the little cove. Some say that in boyish play-fights he always assumed the name of King of Prussia, and the title stuck. In Cornwall his reputation quite over-shadowed that of his Continental namesake; so that when the news of the battle of Jena and the defeat of the real King of Prussia reached West Cornwall, a Mousehole man exclaimed, "Misfortunes never come single; I'm sorry for that man. Not more'n six weeks ago he lost three hundred keg o' brandy, by information, so I'm towld." Carter had a brother almost equally famous, Captain Henry, and the two between them, with much able assistance, rendered this coast a very hot corner for the Preventive men. Sometimes it very closely resembled actual war, as when the smugglers, mounting a small battery, fired openly on a revenue cutter. "A smuggler chased by a revenue cutter, being somewhat pressed, ran through a narrow channel amongst the rocks between the Enys and the shore. The cutter, not daring to venture amongst the shoals, sent her boat in. And the King, with his merry men, opened fire on the boat. They loaded up the little guns so that every time they fired the guns kicked over completely backwards, and had to be replaced. The boat was driven back, and the cutter held off for the night. Next morning the fight was renewed, the cutter opening fire from the sea, while a company of riders fired from the hedge at the top of the hill on the rear of the men in the battery. This turned the tables on the smugglers, who sought shelter in Bessie Bussow's house." Nothing serious appears to have happened, however. Bessie Bussow, who kept the "Kiddleywink" inn, has passed to immortality in connection with Bessie's Cove, which Nature seems to have contrived especially for the doings of smugglers. The tempting caverns remain, but we cannot compass much smuggling now, however much we might like to; and the coves are chiefly devoted to crabbing. Men like the Carters were heroes in the profession and gave it a certain amount of dignity; romance and picturesque colour it always had.

Perranuthnoe, a little beyond the modern Acton Castle, whose situation is of great beauty, is locally known simply as Perran; the second half of its name seems to point to an earlier saint than Piran. Perhaps there was a St. Uthnoe whose name survives also at Sithney. The fourteenth-century church is very interesting, with a granite figure of St. James over the south doorway, said to have been brought here from Goldsithney, about a mile inland. Another mile along the coast, and we are at Marazion—

"Where the great vision of the guarded Mount Looks towards Namancos and Bayona's hold."

It is the presence of the Mount that gives its wonderful charm to this wide Bay, beautiful in itself, but from this feature receiving something of the mystic and spiritual, a touch of varying suggestiveness, a glamour of the remote and the unusual. There is nothing else quite like it in Britain; to match and surpass it we have to go to that other Mont St. Michel across the Channel. There is a strange kinship in the two Mounts; but in spite of the superior architecture of the Norman eminence, we might not perhaps be very willing to take it in exchange for our own Cornish mount of St. Michael. It is natural that myth and tradition should haunt here and at Marazion, whose very name has an Oriental suggestion of romance about it. And yet the name seems to mean nothing more romantic than a market-place; and in spite of its alternative Market-Jew, seized eagerly by those who are trying to prove that all Britons are Israelites, neither name must be taken to denote any connection with Jews or Jerusalem. The oldest name was doubtless Marghas-iou, meaning "the markets" in an early form of Cornish; and in a later form of Cornish we have Marasion, which meant the same thing. But Camden says that the name Market-Jew arose from the town's having a market on Thursday, the day of Jove or Jupiter—quod ibi mercatus die Jovis habeatur; an explanation that is probably quite fanciful. Of course, the name has been held to prove the claim of St. Michael's Mount to be the Ictis of the ancients, but the idea that the natives would have carried their tin across to this incommodious little islet for the sake of selling seems absurd, when we consider that they could have sold it much better on the mainland. The description by Diodorus Siculus, often quoted, has a tempting look, but it cannot persuade us that the Mount was Ictis. He says: "They that inhabit the British promontory of Belerium, by reason of their converse with merchants, are more civilised and courteous to strangers than the rest. These are the people that make the tin, which with a great deal of care and labour they dig out of the ground. Then they beat it into square pieces like a die, and carry it to a British isle, near at hand, called Ictis. For at low tide, all being dry between them and the island, they convey over in carts abundance of tin." To suppose that Ictis was the Isle of Wight would carry us too far back, for it was only in prehistoric days that Wight was connected to the mainland so closely; and the general conclusion now seems to be that Ictis was the island of Thanet, in every sense convenient for the traffic. Our connection with the Continent has always been most intimate at this eastern corner, and the tin was conveyed along the trackways from west to east. Sea passage was a consideration in those days. That Phoenicians and other eastern merchants came to the Cornish coasts cannot be denied, and for those who came by sea from the Mediterranean Cornwall was more convenient than Kent; but the more regular centre of traffic must have been at the eastern corner, and in no case can we suppose that this steep rock would have been selected as a market-place. Marazion is different, and may have welcomed many early traders; but there is little to record of its past. It was certainly a smelting-place for tin. Formerly in the parish of Hilary, it now has a church of its own. Historically its chief incident seems to be the attack by the French in 1514; and there was also trouble here in connection with the religious revolt of 1549. The mother-church at Hilary stands so high that it is said St. Ives folk used to make a regular allowance to pay for its spire being whitewashed, that it might serve as a mark at sea. Spires are rare in Cornwall, and this one, of early Decorated style, is of special interest, having happily survived the fire that destroyed the main building in 1853. There are some curious blocked spire-lights. Outside the church is an oblong stone of some size, of which the only decipherable words are Noti-noti, with some indistinct symbols. This has been interpreted as the inscription of a certain Notus; but others have regarded it as simply a Roman milestone.

There is another stone, formerly outside the church but now taken within, which gives the name of Constantine Cæsar, thus establishing its date as 306. Marazion is a pleasant little place, but of course its chief interest is as the stepping-stone to St. Michael's Mount. It is well known that Mount's Bay gives many traces of submerged forest, and the old Cornish name of the Mount, meaning "the hoar rock in the wood," gives further evidence. William of Worcester tells us that it once stood six miles from the sea, in a track of country that must have been a portion of the lost Lyonesse. The archangel himself is said to have appeared on its summit in the fifth century, but we need not associate the name of the Mount with any visit of this sort, for churches on high places were constantly dedicated to the charge of St. Michael, with the idea that he could protect them from evil powers of the air. There may have been a religious cell here at a very early date, but the earliest establishment of which we are certain is the chapel endowed by Edward the Confessor, and gifted to the monks of St. Michel in Normandy. The position of the Mount caused it to become not only ecclesiastic but a secular stronghold, and it is in this connection that it chiefly claims historic notice. In the time of Richard I. it was held for King John by Henry de Pomeroi, but in no part of the country was John greatly beloved, and on the return of Richard from captivity the garrison surrendered voluntarily, Pomeroi, it is said, committing suicide. During the Wars of the Roses some fugitives from the battle of Barnet gained admittance to the Mount in the disguise of pilgrims, and then, declaring themselves, held the castle against all comers. Doing his duty as sheriff of the Duchy, Sir John Arundell was killed in attacking them, and they resisted till a pardon was granted them. In those days almost the only danger in such a spot was the risk of famine; apart from that the place was practically impregnable. Yet during the religious rebellion of 1549 it twice yielded to attack, being taken for the King during the absence of its governor, Arundell of Lanherne, and retaken by the Cornish; in both cases we must suspect that the defence was half-hearted or the supplies insufficient. In the Civil War Sir Francis Basset held the Mount for the Royal cause, but surrendered after a gallant defence when his case became hopeless. The Mount is now the seat of Lord St. Levan, the representative of the St. Aubyn family, who gained possession after the Bassets; and the little hamlet of St. Michael lying at its foot is occupied by their retainers. The entire rock is only about a mile in circumference, yet room is found on the very small portion of level ground for a tennis-court, and even golf is sometimes played. Anciently a resort of pilgrimage as the shrine of St. Michael, the pilgrims that now cross by the causeway at low tide, or are rowed over to the small quay, are lovers of the romantic and the picturesque; but they are not allowed to ramble at will about the buildings. Only a part is shown, including the chapel, which is Perpendicular with some older fragments. The tower was a sort of lighthouse or beacon for the guidance of fishermen—churches have often fulfilled this double purpose, a lighthouse for both worlds; and the lantern is now known as St. Michael's Chair, with a tradition that whichever of man and wife sits there first will thereafter rule supreme in all domestic matters; but the true Chair, as Carew described it, was "a little without the castle," a craggy seat on the western side of the Mount, where there was once an oratory. There was good reason why pilgrims should resort hither in the past: "Know all men that the most Holy Father Gregory, in the year from the incarnation of our Lord 1070, bearing an affection of extraordinary devoutness to the Church of St. Michael's Mount, has piously granted to all the faithful who shall reach or visit it, with their oblations, a remission of a third part of their penances." The human aspect peeps out in the mention of alms and oblations; centres of pilgrimage have always had a rich pecuniary value. Southey deals with St. Michael's Chair in one of his ballads, which reminds us that St. Keyne, whom he also treated poetically, is supposed to have visited the Mount when she came to Cornwall—to which we must add a surmise that this saint may not have been a woman at all, but was really St. Kenwyn. The Mount is only insular during high tide, yet at such times, exposed to the full force of the sea, the passage sometimes becomes impracticable; and there are many low tides when it is not safe or even possible to cross the causeway. Perhaps at any time those who see the rock from a distance can best appreciate its charm. From Marazion to Penzance there are three miles of flat, uninteresting road—perhaps the dullest bit of coast-road in all Cornwall, were it not for the beauty of the Bay.