Cornish Worthies: Sketches of Some Eminent Cornish Men and Families, Volume 1 (of 2)Tregellas, Walter H. (Walter Hawken)
History
Cornish Worthies: Sketches of Some Eminent Cornish Men and Families, Volume 1 (of 2)
Tregellas, Walter H. (Walter Hawken)
Cornwall (England : County) -- Biography
'Being on one occasion much pressed by the Puritan forces, and making
a running fight, he set fire to a large brake of furze in the night,
which the enemy taking for the fires made on the approach of the
King's army, immediately fled with great precipitation, and left him
both bag and baggage, which he seized the next morning.'
By way of comment on these proceedings, Fairfax quartered some of his
troopers at Pendeen,--doubtless to the intense annoyance of the owner
thereof; and as regards Colonel Nicholas, a letter from Cromwell to
Lenthall tells all that I have been able to gather as to that hero's
career. It is dated Edinburgh, 13th June, 1651, and asks the Speaker
to hasten the hearing of Borlase's case, which seems to have been
involved in the conditions of the hurried treaty of Truro, when Hopton
surrendered to Fairfax, and terminated the supremacy of the Royal cause
in the West country.
The Borlases were not, however, without some sort of barren reward for
their faithfulness to the Stuart cause; for Humphry, who was Sheriff
of Cornwall during the last two years of the reign of James II., was
created a peer by that monarch _after his abdication_. Under these
circumstances he, of course, never enjoyed the title. He sometimes
resided at Truthan, in the parish of St. Erme, near Truro, and left his
estates to the Borlases of Pendeen.
Dr. Borlase was born at Pendeen, on 2nd February, 1695, the second
son of his father, 'John of Pendeen, twice Member of Parliament for
St. Ives in Cornwall in the reign of Queen Anne, and Lydia Harris, of
Hayne, county Devon, his wife,' a lady descended, so the writer in the
_Quarterly Review_ informs us, through the Nevilles and Bouchiers, from
Edward III. But the Borlases had also plenty of good Cornish blood
in their veins; and amongst other old families of the soil with whom
they intermarried may be named their not very distant neighbours, the
Godolphins.
With a member of the last-named family John Borlase seems to have had
an altercation one day in church, the particulars of which are set
forth in his victim's petition to Parliament as follows, viz.:
'HONOURED SIRS,
'Life, the precious tenet of mankind, forceth me to inform your
honours that Sunday, the 26th February, 1709, in full view of most
of the congregation of Maddern, John Borlase, one of Her Majesty's
Justices of the Peace, did wilfully break the peace by striking me
almost to the ground with his staff, and if not timely prevented
by one Paul Tonkin, he would have been striking me again. He did
at the same time highly threaten me, with Chrit^{r}. Harris, Esq.,
Jane his wife, and John his son. Mr. Harris ordered his servant to
beat me. Of the truth of the above information I am ready to give
my corroboration. Humbly craving the Honble. Speaker and House of
Commons not to skreene such daring offenders, but to give me leave to
prosecute them as the law directs, is the humble prayer of, Hond.
Sirs,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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