The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume 3 (of 4)
History
The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume 3 (of 4)
Cornwall (England : County) -- History; Geology -- England -- Cornwall (County)
Sir Richard Vyvyan was seized at Trelowarren, conveyed by water to
Pendennis Castle, and from thence to the Tower. Mr. Basset, of Tehidy,
would also have been arrested if he had not left his house; and other
proceedings were taken of equal violence.
These acts, however necessary at the time, produced their moral
effects of creating feuds and permanent irritations, so that while the
principal agent was admired by one party, and received the reward of
an hereditary seat in parliament, as was industriously propagated, in
return for these services, the opposite party detested his name, and
usually joined to it an epithet drawn from the inferior apparitors of
the common law.
This gentleman, created Viscount Falmouth in 1720, married Charlotte,
daughter and coheir of Charles Godfrey, Esq. and his wife Charlotte
Churchill, sister of the great Duke of Marlborough. They had a very
numerous family; the eldest son, Hugh Boscawen, succeeded of course to
his father’s estate and hereditary seat in parliament; very little is
remembered about him. He is believed to have been kind and benevolent
in private life, and the Editor is anxious to avail himself of this
opportunity for acknowledging an act of generous and feeling
liberality exercised by this gentleman to the benefit of a near
relation, about fourscore years ago. In ability he probably fell much
below the usual standard of his family, for he is known to have been
cajoled into marrying a kept mistress; and idle tales are circulated
of his mistaking “Optat ephippia Bos” for the Latin of his own name,
and Horace Walpole for the Roman poet. It is probable these mistakes
never literally happened, but such anecdotes are usually
characteristic of the individual; if however they really were made,
the credit of the family has been amply redeemed by a nephew, who has
given to the public one of the best translations of Horace extant in
any language.
Of his various brothers very little also is known or remembered,
excepting of one, and that one is Admiral Boscawen, the glory not of
Cornwall but of his country, the Nelson of his time.
Edward Boscawen went early to sea, expecting (as the Editor has heard
from one to whom he related the circumstances) to be advanced almost
immediately through family interest and connection to the station of a
Lieutenant; when the order was suddenly made for subjecting all
midshipmen to a service of six years at the least. “To this order,” he
was accustomed to say, “I owe all my knowledge of seamanship, and to
this order the British Fleet is mainly indebted for the superior
knowledge and skill of its officers.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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