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Michael's (st.) Mount in Cornwall County England History and GeographyMICHAEL'S (ST.) MOUNT, an extra - parochial liberty, in the hundred of PENWITH, county of CORNWALL, ¾ of a mile (S.) from Marazion, containing 223 inhabitants. This mount, believed in the remote ages of antiquity to have been situated in a wood, consists of a pyramidal mass of granite rocks rising out of the sea, opposite to the town of Marazion, and is connected with the main land by a narrow bank of pebbles, which is overflowed by the tide. Its original name, in the Cornish dialect, signified 'the grey or hoary rock in the wood,' which was subsequently changed to its present appellation; this, according to monkish legends, being deduced from the appearance of St. Michael, its patron saint, to some hermits who resided here, which event led to the foundation of a monastery. It has been supposed that this is the island called Ixtis, mentioned by Diodorus Siculus, whither the tin, when refined and cast into cubic ingots by the Britons who dwelt near the promontory of Belerium, was carried in carts over an isthmus dry only at low water. The time of its consecration to religious purposes is unknown; but a priory of Benedictine monks, afterwards changed to Gilbertines, was founded here previously to the year 1044, at which period Edward the Confessor gave the mount, with all its buildings and appendages, to that community: by this charter it is evident that there was a castle, as well as a convent, on the mount. In 1070, indulgences were granted by Pope Gregory VII. to all persons who should visit the church of St. Michael at the Mount with alms and oblations; hence it became a great resort for pilgrims. In the reign of Richard I., Henry de Pomeroy, an adherent of John, Earl of Cornwall, afterwards king of England, took possession of the mount by stratagem, during the king's imprisonment in Austria, fortified it, and continued to hold it even after the return of that monarch; but on the approach of the army of Archbishop Hubert Walter, aided by the sheriff and a civil force, he surrendered at discretion: the king then restored the convent to the Gilbertines, and placed a small garrison in the castle. After the battle of Barnet, in 1471, John, Earl of Oxford, having fled into Wales, assembled a party of soldiers, and crossed over with them to the Cornish coast: under the assumed disguise of pilgrims, they gained admission into the castle, and soon overpowered the small garrison which defended it. Sir John Arundel, the sheriff, was first sent against the earl, but was repulsed and slain in a vigorous assault upon the castle: others were then commissioned to conduct the siege, which, having continued from September till February, terminated in the surrender of the fortress, on condition that the lives of the earl and his adherents should be spared. In 1498, Perkin Warbeck landed at Whitsand bay, and having been admitted into the castle by the monks, who favoured his cause, put it into a state of defence, and during his march to Bodmin, left his wife, the Lady Catherine Gordon, at the mount, as a secure asylum. The priory of St. Michael, being a cell to the abbey of Mont St. Michel, in Normandy, was seized as an Alien priory by Henry V., during the war with France: it was first given to King's College, Cambridge, and afterwards to the nunnery of Sion in Middlesex, to which it continued to be attached till the dissolution, when the revenue was valued at £110. 12. In 1533, it was given, with all its revenue, to Humphrey Arundel, Esq., of Lanherne, but he having headed a rebellion in Cornwall about 1549, it was seized for the king, and subsequently granted on lease to the sheriff of the county. In 1642, it was fortified for the king, and the Duke of Hamilton was subsequently imprisoned within its walls: it was at last surrendered to the parliament in 1646; and after the Restoration it became the property of the family of the present proprietor, Sir John St. Aubyn. The mount consists of granite, nearly bare of soil, and is extremely steep and craggy. The occasional residence of Sir John St. Aubyn is on the summit of the rock, and partakes of the character both of a fortress and a monastery, being castellated and embattled: the diningroom was the refectory of the convent; and the chapel has been recently fitted up in the ancient English style, for the performance of divine service in one of the angles, at the summit of the chapel tower, which crowns the whole mass of building. On this craggy height are the remains of a moor-stone lantern, formerly used as a beacon for mariners, and vulgarly called St. Michael's chair: the ascent is dangerous, but a superstitious notion connected with having sat therein induces occasional visitors to attempt the adventurous path. The entire height of the mount, from the level of the sea to the platform of the chapel tower, is two hundred and thirty-one feet; the circumference of the island, which comprises about seven acres of land, is about three quarters of a mile: at the foot of the rock is a wharf, and near it a considerable village inhabited chiefly by fishermen. There is likewise a small harbour with a pier, which was rebuilt by Sir John St. Aubyn in 1727, where about forty vessels may find shelter. The principal imports consist of timber from Norway, coal, &c.; the exports are copper-ore, china-clay, and pilchards. From Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England 1831, courtesy of Databases 4 Sale |
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