In the year
1463, in the reign of King
Edward IV, a London merchant,
accompanied by his serving man,
was crossing the moors to the
south of Wyke St. Mary, and,
seeking shelter for the night,
met a maiden looking after a few
sheep. At the stranger’s request
she took him to her father’s
humble home, and there the
wayfarer stayed that night. Next
morning Richard Burnsby, for
such was his name, having been
greatly impressed by their
daughter’s wit and beauty, asked
the parents if he might take her
to London to assist his wife. So
Thomasine Bonaventure set off,
travelling pillion behind her
master’s servant, and in a
fortnight’s time was riding
through the streets of London
town, which one day were to ring
with the praises of this unknown
village maid.
After
Thomasine had spent a few years
as a capable and faithful
serving maid, her mistress died,
and she consented to become the
wife of her master. Three years
afterwards her husband died of
the plague, leaving to his wife
- a young and beautiful widow -
the whole of his property. In
one of her letters she announces
her husband’s death and gives
the Reeve of Week St. Mary ten
marks “to the intent that he
shall cause skilful masons to
build a bridge at the Ford of
Green-a-more, yea, and with
stout stonework well laid, and
see that they do no harm to that
tree which standeth fast by the
brook, neither dispoyle they the
rushes and plants that grow
thereby: for there did I pass
many goodly hours when I was a
small mayde, and there did I
first see the face of a faithful
friend.” An old chronicler says:
“Her dower, together with her
youth and beauty, procured her
to the cognizance of divers
well-deserving men, who
thereupon made addresses of
marriage to her, but none of
them obtained her affection, but
only Henry Gall of St. Lawrence,
Milk Street, an eminent and
wealthy citizen, and a merchant
adventurer.”
Soon after
their marriage we find that
“twenty acres of woodland copse
in the neighbourhood were bought
and conveyed by the gracious
lady Dame Thomasine Gall to
feofees and trustmen, for the
perpetual use of the poor of
Week St. Mary, for fewel to be
hewn in pieces once a year and
finally and equally divided, for
evermore on the vigil of St.
Thomas the Twin.”
After five
years Henry Gall died, leaving
his wife a great fortune, and it
is written, “The fame of the
virtue, wealth and beauty of the
said Thomasine spread itself
over the City of London, so that
persons of the greatest
magnitude of wealth and dignity
there courted her, Among the
rest it was the fortune of John
Percyval, Esquire, goldsmith and
userer (that is to say, banker)
to prevail upon her to become
his wife.” He was very wealthy
and of high repute, alderman of
his ward and of noble character.
Their wedding, about the year
1480, was made a kind of public
festival. As a wedding gift of
remembrance to her old home she
directed that “a firm and
stedfast road should be laid
down with stones, at her sole
cost, along the midst of Green-a
moor, and fit for man and beast
to travel on with their lawful
occasions from Lanstephadon
(Launceston) to the sea.”
At another
time she gave forty marks
towards the building of a tower
for St. Stephen’s Church, above
the causeway of Dunheved, and it
was her wish “that they should
carry their pinnacles so high
that they might be seen from
Swannacote Cross, by the moor,
to the intent that they who do
behold it from the Burgage Mound
may remember the poor mayde who
is now a wedded dame of London
Citie.”
In 1486
John Percyval became Sheriff of
London, and in 1498 Lord Mayor,
and was knighted by the King.
A letter
written at this time to her
mother reads:
“Sweet
mother, thy daughter hath seen
the face of the King. We were
bydden to a banket at the royal
palace, and Sir John and I could
not choose but go. There was
such a blaze of lords and ladies
in silks and samite and jewels
of gold, that it was like the
citie of New Jerusalem in the
Scriptures, and thy maid
Thomasine was arrayed so fine
that they brought up the saying
that I was dressed like an
altar. When we were led into the
chamber where His Highness
stood, the King did kiss me on
the cheek as the manner is, and
he seemed gentle and kind. But
then he did turn to my good lord
and husband, and say, with a
look stern and stark enow, ‘Ha,
Sir John! See to it that thy
fair dame be liege and true, for
she comes of the burly Cornish
stock, and they be ever rebels
in blood and bone. Even now they
be one and all for that knave
Warbeck, who is among them in
the West.’ You will guess, dear
mother, how my heart did beat.
But withall the King did drink
to me at the banket and merrily
did call ‘Health to our Lady
Mayoress Dame Thomasine
Percyval, which now feedeth her
flock in the Citie of London.’
And thereat they did laugh and
fleer and shout, and there was
flashing of tankards and
jingling of cups all down the
Hall.”
After
twenty-five years of married
life, Sir John died in 1504, and
Thomasine, who lived for another
thirty-five years, “employed the
residue of her life to works no
less bountiful than charitable -
namely, repairing highways,
feeding and apparelling the
poor, etc.” In her will, dated
1512, she makes her cousin, John
Dinham, residuary legatee and
leaves £20 to her brother, John
Bonaventer.
She died in
1539 at the age of eighty-nine.
Stratton Church accounts show
that on the day on which she was
to be “remembered” prayer was to
be made for the repose of her
soul and two shillings and two
pence paid to the priests for
bread and ale.
Both she
and her husband were very loyal
to their native places. He,
amidst many duties, endowed
Macclesfield, near which he was
born, with a free grammar
school, “because there were few
schoolmasters in that country,
and the children, for lack of
teaching, fell to idleness and
consequently live dissolutely
all their days.”
At Week St.
Mary Dame Percyval founded a
chantry and a college, or
grammar school, of which there
are some picturesque remains,
notably a recessed doorway with
carved tympanum, a piece of
battlemented wall, a well, and
the steps leading up to the top
of the wall, where the college
bell was hung.
It has been
thought that the chantry and
college were abolished under the
Chantry Act of 1545, and that
the connection of the school
with the Chantry of St. John in
the Church gave the pretext for
this action. Carew says: “In
Thomasine Bonaventer’s grammar
school divers of the best
gentlemen’s sons of Devon and
Cornwall had been virtuously
trained up in both kinds of
divine and humane learning under
one Cholwill, an honest and
religious teacher; which caused
the neighbours so much the
rather and the more to rewe that
a petty smacke only of popery
opened the gap for the
suppression of the whole by the
statute made in Edward Vi’s
reign touching the suppression
of Chanterie.”
The fact
however seems to be that when
the Commissioners came to Week
St. Mary to inspect the chantry,
the school was already in decay.
This is confirmed by the
following extract from the
report of the Trustees of the
Launceston Charities in 1859:
“Among the records at the Record
Office, London, are certain
Certificates of the
Commissioners appointed in the
reign of King Henry the Eighth
and King Edward 6th to take the
surveys of all Chantries,
Colleges, and Free Chapels in
the County of Cornwall, and that
by a Certificate made in or
about the 27th year of the reign
of King Henry 8th it appears
that a Chantry then existed in
the parish of Week St. Mary in
the County of Cornwall on the
foundation of Dame Thomazine
Percival, wife of Sir John
Percival, Knight, to find a
priest for ever not only to pray
for her soul within the Parish
of Week St. Mary, but also that
the said priest should teach
children freely in a school
founded by the said Dame
Percival not far from the said
Parish Church, and he to receive
for his yearly stipend a salary
of £12 and 6 shillings to be
levied of the lands given
amongst other uses to that
intent and purpose: to find a
manciple or usher also to
instruct and teach children
under the said schoolmaster, and
he to have for the maintenance
of his living yearly 26
shillings and 8 pence. To give
to the Laundress to wash the
clothes of the Schoolmaster and
Principal for her reward yearly
13 shillings and 4 pence and the
remainder of the said lands and
possessions belonging to the
said Chantry the Trustees willed
should be expended in the
keeping of an obit yearly (18th
April, see Tywardreath Obituary)
for her within the Parish Church
aforesaid.”
“From a
similar certificate of certain
other Commissioners appointed in
the second year of King Edward
VI (1548) and by a memorandum
thereto, it was noted that the
Borough of Launceston was a very
meet place to establish a
learned man to preach and set
forth the word of God to the
people and also to teach
children in their grammar and
other necessary knowledge, and
that whereas the said school at
Week St. Mary was then in decay,
the said Borough of Launceston
was a very meet place to have
the foundation of the said
school removed unto.
“By the
ninth and tenth certificates of
the said Commissioners issued
some time in the reign of King
Edward VI, it appears that the
said Chantry of Week St. Mary
was removed to Launceston, and
that the schoolmaster, usher and
laundress of the said school of
Week St. Mary were to continue
their services at their
accustomed wages (amounting
together to £17 13s 3d) at
Launceston.”
It was
Horwell Grammar School, as it is
now called, in Launceston, that
benefited by the action of the
Commissioners, so that “Dame
Percyval’s” Charity was not
misappropriated by the Crown,
but passed from her beloved Week
St. Mary to Lanstephadon, which
she also loved.
(Copyright Notice)
This extract has been taken from
the book "A ROMANCE IN WEEK ST.
MARY" by M.V.H. & A.L.S.
published by Frederick Warne &
Co Ltd 1930. "Every effort has
been made to trace the copyright
holders and they will be duly
acknowledged if they come
forward" |
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