Page:Devon and Cornwall Queries Vol 9 1917.djvu/103

 Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries. 77 Ambrose Manaton, of Manaton and Trecarell (v. Sir John Maclean's Trigg Minor, vol. ii., p. 670), who was Recorder of the borough from 1622 to 1646, and one of its members in both the short and the long Parliaments elected in 1640. On Aug. 12, 1646, a new writ was issued in his place [Commons'' Journals, vol. iv., p. 621), he being disabled for his somewhat late adherence to the royal cause, this being just a month before Thomas Gewen, of Bradridge, — who was to become as Manaton's successor in the representation, a persistent critic in Parliament of Cromwell's policy — was made Recorder on Sept. 19 (Peter, p. 281). It was before Nicholas Gennys as Mayor that a deposition was laid on May 30, 1642, against a prominent townsman named John Escott, Deputy-Herald for Devon and Cornwall for criticising in pubHc the proceed- ings of Parliament, upon the strength of which deposition the House of Lords took drastic proceedings against the unhappy partisan (Alfred F. Robbins' Launceston, Past a7id Present, pp. 157, 158; 7 S., xii, 247); and in the borough accounts of his mayoral year are several entries of expendi- ture for special beacons and watches in praparation for the coming trouble {Peter, pp. 259, 260). It would almost seem to establish another connection between the Gennys family and Launceston that William Gennis is given among the vicars of St. Olave's, Poughill, a parish in the extreme north- east of Cornwall, where he was buried July 21, 1548 (Boase's Collectanea Cornuhiensis, p. 1446), as it appears that the patrons of that living were the Prior and Convent of Launceston (cf. Hingeston-Randolph's Register of Edmund Stafford, Bishop of Exeter, p. 195). As the date of death is within ten years after the surrender of that Priory, it may be inferred that William Gennis received his presentation from this source. Of all importance, however, as associated with the settle- ment in Ireland of members of the Gennys family of Cornv/all, is the fact stated by H.L.L.D. that they were tenants ou lands held in the neighbourhood of Launceston by Pierce Edcumbe, of Mount Edgcumbe. In 1583, the year before John Gennys became Mayor, the borough accounts have a record that there had been demised by the Commonalty for one thousand years two pieces of land adjoining two tofts upon which had been two shops, late " the enheritance of Peter Edgcombe, of Mounte Edgcombe,