Page:The parochial history of Cornwall.djvu/146

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104
BOTUSFLEMING.

for the second name, it signifies "Flemings," making amends, or supplying defects (see Verstegan on the word Bote), and seems from the name to be a church founded or endowed by some gentlemen of that name, in order for the commutation of penance for sins committed, and to pray for the founder's soul, his ancestors, and relatives; by which expedients most religious houses and churches heretofore were built. Originally these Flemings came from Stoke Fleming in Devon, so called, for that once a nobleman of Flanders resided there, and was lord thereof: one of whose posterity, tempore Richard I. in this place, held by the tenure of knight's service seven knights' fees, by the name of Stephen Flandrensis (Carew's Survey of Cornwall, p.48), who probably was the founder of this church, still bearing his name. His son Richard Flandrensis was sheriff of Cornwall three years, from the third to the sixth year of King John's reign. Finally, the estate, name, and blood of those Flemings, tempore Henry IV. ended in a daughter and heir, which was married to John Coplestone, of Coplestone, in the county of Devon.

This district of Bote-Fleming, at the time of the Norman Conquest, was rated under the name of Pillaton, still contiguous therewith. But at the time of the inquisition of the Bishops of Lincoln and Winchester into the value of benefices in Cornwall 1294, in order to the Pope's annats, Ecclesia de Bote-fflemmen in Decanatu de Est Wellshire, was rated iiis. iiiid. In Wolsey's Inquisition, 1521, £16. 15s.; and the parish rated to the 4s. per pound Land Tax 1696, £103. 14s.

Mutten-ham, id est, the Mutton dwelling or habitation, alias Mott-an-harn, the meeting or court dwelling, in the year 1689 was the dwelling of my kind friend John Waddon, Esq. (a justice of peace and deputy-governor of Pendennis Castle for King James, under John Earl of Bath); in which house and place his lordship first treated with the Prince of Orange's Commissioners, in order to render into his possession the