Page:The histories of Launceston and Dunheved, in the county of Cornwall.djvu/339

 HENRY TRECARELL. 305 way for the beautiful structure, concerning whose erection there is this melancholy tradition : The family of Trecarell had long been seated at Tre- carell, in the parish of Lezant, about four miles south of Dunheved. The place Trecarell had evidently given its name to the family. Jordan, of Trekarl, witnessed the grant of Earl Reginald (1140-76) to the Priory of Laun- ceston. In 1270 John, of Trekarl, was present at the execution of a deed by Sir William Wysa, of Greyston ; and about the year 1385 Henry, of Trecarl, attested a deed by Roger Page, of Launceston. In 1445 Robert Trecarell took a grant of lands in Dounheved and in Newport, and in the same year his cousin and heir, John Trecarell, con- veyed a tenement in Dounheved to John Mayowe. In 15 1 1 Henry Trecarell bore arms. He had built a pretty Ladye Chapel at Trecarell ; he had almost completed a guests' hall to be attached to his mansion there; and immense blocks of sculptured granite provided by him were awaiting their resting-places in the mansion itself. His wife and his infant son were the delight and the hope of his life. Suddenly there was brought to him the mes- sage, "While the nurse was, just now, absent for a few minutes from your darling child, his head sank into a basin of water near him, and he is dead!" It is said that the horror-stricken mother survived the shock only a few hours, and that she and the heir of Trecarell were buried together in the little Ladye Chapel. Henry Trecarell, the husband, the father, dropped for ever the intended monument to himself, and thenceforth devoted his wealth and his affec- tions to a higher ambition — the glory of God. The unfinished hall, the neglected masses of stone still lying scattered or applied to meanest uses at Trecarell, attest the portion of the story which we have already told. We now tell the other portion of it. Cornish historians say that Henry Trecarell rebuilt the x