Page:The histories of Launceston and Dunheved, in the county of Cornwall.djvu/408

 37o ST. THOMAS CHURCH. Such of our readers as know the locality will be aware that Landrcen, or Landreyne, is in the parish, and Dockacre in the hamlet. Thus it appears that, within 130 years after the sale to Keylway and Leonard, the rectory, or the tithes of the parish, had become divided into very small portions, which were held by various persons. Our inference is (but we submit this only as conjecture), that the advowson, or right to present to the living, never actually vested in Keylwey and Leonard, or if it did, that, being of no substantial money value, it was neglected by them ; that they dispersed the material portion of their acquisition, the tithes, by sale to the landowners ; and that the ratepaying inhabitants would thus almost naturally begin to select a curate for the spiritual offices and necessi- ties of their parish. Similar circumstances in the adjoining parish of St. Stephen led to exactly similar results. Some person with more leisure will, perhaps, try to ascertain whether, on the death or cesser of the last chaplain nomi- nated by the prior and his brethren to St. Thomas, the king, who had expelled them, or his son (Ed. VI.), ever presented a priest to the incumbency. In immediate con- nection with this inquiry, it may occur to the reader that the Commissioners, Godolphin and others, on the 14th February, 1548-9 (p. 343), certified to the king that, of the twelve parish churches adjunct to Launceston of which the king had become patron by the dissolution of the Priory, " no vicar was ever endowed of any of them, for they were wont to be served with the religious persons of the said Monastery." Of course this was only partially true ; for each of the parishes was older than the Priory. It is clear that the church of St. Thomas was never left vacant. In the parish chest are two fragments of leaves of registers of marriages and burials, the earliest entry on which relates to the year 1563, and the latest to the year