Page:A Book of the West (vol. 2).djvu/196

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146
BUDE


Lord Mayor of London, succumbed to her charms of face, and above all of manner, and he became her third husband. But he also died, and she was once more a widow. The lady was by this time content with her experience as a wife, and returning from London to Week S. Mary—think of that! to Week S. Mary, the wind-blown and desolate—she devoted her days and fortune to good works. She founded there a college and chantry, and doubtless largely contributed towards the building of the parish church. She repaired the roads, built bridges, gave dowries to maidens, and relieved the poor. She contributed also to the building of the tower of S. Stephen's by Launceston.

Her college for the education of the youth of the neighbourhood continued to flourish till the Reformation, and the best gentlemen's sons of Devon and Cornwall went there for their education. But as there was a chantry attached to the school, this served as an excuse for the rapacity of those who desired to increase their goods at the cost of Church and poor, and school and chantry were suppressed together. Week S. Mary till lately had its mayor, and was esteemed a borough, though it never returned members.

Externally it is fine, the tower remarkably so. In the tower may be observed curious results of a lightning flash.

The coast of North Cornwall right and left of Bude is very fine; the carboniferous rocks stand up with their strata almost perpendicular, but there are bays and coves that allow of descent to the sea.