Page:The Cornwall coast.djvu/302

 296 THE CORNWALL COAST prayer and liturgy. It is strange that such things should be, and we can only imagine the haven to be welcome to those who, in their declining years, crave perfect peace and retirement after the stress of uttermost sorrow or restless buffetings. There are paintings of Vandyke and Rubens in the chapel. Outside the door is an old cross, brought from Gwinear, which is supposed to be Anglo- Saxon; its inscriptions have never been deciphered. They are thought to be in both Saxon and Latin. There is a secret chamber in the older part of the convent, dating from those Elizabethan days when priests lurked about the Cornish country-side, nourishing their faith in the villagers, who were very slow to welcome the Reformation, and always seeking if possible to stir a rising against the new order. It is said that a priest was once successfully concealed here for eighteen months. Many stirring things are told of the Arundells, who were dauntless Royalists. One is the siege of Wardour Castle in 1643, when it was heroically defended by Blanche, wife of Lord Arundell, who was with the King at Oxford. This lady, with a garrison of fifty, so stoutly resisted the Parlia- mentary attack that most honourable terms of capitulation were granted ; but these terms were not kept. It was another Arundell, then a very old man, who defended Pendennis. The family had another house at Trerice, about three miles south-east of Newquay ; and at the Restoration, when their confiscations were removed, the title of Lord Arundell of Trerice, now extinct, was created. Carew has some curious remarks about them. He says : " Their name is derived from Hirondelle, in French, a swallow, and out of France at the Conquest they came, and six swallows they gave