Cornwall has no great cause to boast of William Noye as her son. He was undoubtedly a shrewd, subtle, and learned lawyer; but he was wholly without principle and consistency. He was the son of Edward Noye, of Carnanton, in Mawgan parish, and grandson of William Noy, or Noye, of Pendrea, in Buryan. He was born at this latter place, it is asserted, in 1577. In 1593 he entered Exeter College, Oxford, and thence removed to Lincoln's Inn to study common law. He represented Grampound in Parliament 1603-14, Fowey 1623-5, S. Ives 1625-7, Helston 1627-31. In Parliament he proved himself an able and determined opponent to the encroachment of the Royal prerogative. Hals says: "In the beginning of the reyne of King Charles I he was specially famous for beinge one of the boldest and stoutest champions of the subjects' liberty in Parliament that the western parts of England afforded; which beinge observed by the Court party, Kinge Charles was advised by his Cabinet Councill that it wold be a prudent course to divert the force and power of Noye's skill, logick, and rhetorique another waye, by givinge him som Court preferment. Whereupon Kinge Charles made him his Attorney-General, 1631, by which expedient he was soon metamorphized from an asserter of the subjects' liberty and property to a most zealous and violent promoter of the despotick and arbitrary prerogative or monarchy of his Prince; soe that like the image of Janus at Rome, he looked forward and backward, and by means thereof greatly enriched himself.--Amongst other things, he is reflected upon by our chronologers for beinge the principal contriver of the ship-money tax, layd by Kinge Charles upon his subjects for settinge forth a navye, or fleet of shipps at sea, without the consent of Lords or Commons in Parliament, which moneys were raysed by writt of the sheriffs of all countys and commissioners, and for a long tyme brought into the exchequer twenty thousand pound per mensem, to the greate distast of the Parliament, the layety, and clergye, who declard against it as an unlawfull tax."