If the above list is compared with the subsidy roll, to which reference has been made, it will be clear that Bryton is not a surname but a descriptive epithet. The list, in fact, supplies only four surnames, Carthowe, John, Willm and Gerecrist. Of these the first and last are interesting: the first survives in Cornwall as Carthewe and in Brittany as Carzou; the last is a Breton place-name—Kergrist, near Pontivy.[36] As showing that the Breton immigrants did not return to their own country the following entries from the Madron register[37] will be helpful, if not conclusive. Among the burials we have: 1582. Jane, wife of John Brittayne. 1585. Elizabeth, wife of Oliver, the Brittonn. 1587. Joane, wife of John Britton. 1599. Peres Brittayne. Unfortunately the Madron baptisms are missing until 1592 and the marriages until 1577. It is impossible, however, with the Camborne marriages and the Madron burials before us, to resist the conclusion that in the first half of the sixteenth century Bretons arrived, married and were buried in the county. They doubtless left descendants. It is remarkable, however, that whereas, at the present time, in Cornwall the surname Britton or Bridden is rare, in the Midlands, where Breton influence was never considerable, it is comparatively common. The explanation appears to be that the Christian names of the Breton immigrants became surnames, and in this way the number of Christian surnames, which in West Cornwall now amounts to little short of 30 per cent of the whole number, was vastly increased. For how long the tide of Breton immigration had been flowing, when we meet with it in the sixteenth century, it is impossible to say. Its persistence in the first half of that century is not more noteworthy than its arrest in the second half.[38] Brittany had become a French province in 1495 by the marriage of Anne, Duchess of Brittany, to Charles VIII. The tortuous foreign policy of Queen Elizabeth of England, no less than the political and religious complications of her protracted reign, could hardly have been favourable to Breton immigration. The reformed religion and the decline of the Cornish language have prevented a renewal of close relations between the two countries. The mystery and miracle plays constituted another link between Cornwall and Brittany. Whether written in Cornish or Breton they could be understood by the inhabitants of both countries.