Fowey was one of the rotten boroughs that were disfranchised. It was created by Elizabeth in 1571. In 1813 the borough manor of Fowey, formerly the property of the Duchy, passed from the control of the Rashleighs to Lucy of Charlescot, in Warwickshire; it was sold for £20,000 and an expenditure of £60,000 to acquire whole influence over voters. The Lucys opposed Lord Valletort, who had represented the borough since 1790--a long time for a Cornish borough--and desperate contests ensued, with varying success. When disfranchisement came they found they had laid out vast sums, and had nothing to show for it. ---------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER XIV. THE FAL Truro--The cathedral--Probus tower--S. Kea--Polgerran--King Geraint--His tomb--S. Just--Mylor--Falmouth a modern town--How it sprang up--The Killigrews--Arewenack--A station for the packets--Church--Pendennis Castle--The Manacles--The Black Rock--Mr. Trefusis of Trefusis--S. Mawes Castle--Roseland--Smuggling--S. Mawes a borough--S. Tudy--The climate of Falmouth--A sunbeam. The cathedral city of Cornwall is planted at the head of a long creek that unites with the Tresillian river, and together they join the Fal. The name is thought to signify Three Roads, that united at this point. The town lies in a hollow, and the descent into it from the railway station is considerable. It has been a place of more consequence in the past than Bodmin, and several of the Cornish county families had their town residences in Truro, going there for the winter, to enjoy assembly balls and card parties. The cathedral soars up above the houses, and is a fine structure, doing vast credit to the county, which has strained every nerve to erect it at a time of depression and the death of the chief industry. When completed the effect will be very noble. One may regret that the architect chose as his style a foreign type--French Early Pointed--instead of adhering to the Perpendicular, which is that of the churches of the county. Now, instead of looking like the mother of these, which are her chicks, she holds herself up as of a distinct and alien breed. The poorest features are its over-enriched porch, which is elaborate without being pleasing, and the reredos, which looks as if shorn away at the head, and cries out for rich pinnacle-work to take off its ugly baldness. But perhaps the most pleasing portion of the cathedral is S. Mary's aisle, that belonged to the old parish church. An enduring debt of gratitude is due to the first Bishop of Truro, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, in making a bold stand against the designing of the building being left to local incapacity.