From the days of Richard II., the St. Aubyns have frequently filled the post of High Sheriff of Cornwall, and have also served their country as Members of Parliament and Justices of the Peace. For several descents they have been Baronets, until at last the name of 'Sir John St. Aubyn, Bart., M.P.,' has become in Cornwall a 'household word.' Of the earlier members of the family I have found little of interest, unless, indeed, it be the remarkable physique of one of them, Sir Mauger de St. Albin, who lived at Barnton; in Risdon's 'Devonshire,' it is stated that he was a man of enormous strength and stature, as is evidenced by a huge stone thrown by him to a great distance, and by his very large effigy on a tomb in the church. On their settling in Cornwall, the St. Aubyns followed the accustomed (perhaps the almost inevitable) practice of intermarrying with the old county families--the Tremeres, the Trethurfes, the Trenowiths, the Grenvilles of Stow; and, in later times, with the Arundells, the Godolphins, the Pendarveses, the Killigrews, the Bullers, the Bassets, the Prideauxes, and the Molesworths. Of the fruit of one of the pre-Reformation marriages--namely, that of Thomas St. Aubyn (who was Sheriff of Cornwall in 1545) with Mary, fourth daughter of Thomas Grenville of Stow, we have a touching little notice in the MSS. Lisle papers preserved at the Public Record Office. Thomas is writing to his sister-in-law, Honor Grenville, Viscountess Lisle; and the following passage occurs in his letter: 'My daughter Phelyp is departyd on Crstmas Day, Almyghtie (God) pardon her soule; and my wyffe hath take grette discōfort therbye; but, I thank our Lord, she doth take it better way, and thankyth god of his sending.' From this marriage of Thomas St. Aubyn with Mary Grenville, descended his grandson, Thomas,--the St. Aubyn of Carew's days--of whom that historian of his native county wrote thus: 'Saintabin, whose very name (besides the Conquest roll) deduceth his first ancestors out of France. His grandfather married Greinvile; his father, one of Whittington's coheirs: which latter couple, in a long and peaceable date of years, exercised a kind, liberal, and never-discontinued hospitality. He himself took to wife the daughter of Mallet; and with ripe knowledge, and sound judgment, dischargeth the place which he beareth in his country.'