Page:The histories of Launceston and Dunheved, in the county of Cornwall.djvu/56

 4Q LA UNCESTON. careful recorders of matters affecting their lands, it is im- probable that the Prior would have given a false origin for the title to a chapel which, whatever its actual site, was very near to his Priory. In Borlase's Catalogue of the Kings of Britain and Princes of Cornwall (ed. 1754), it is said that Brian, the nephew of Cadwallo, convoked at Exeter an assembly of that king's British subjects, and that Cadwallo afterwards became master of all Britain, except of the parts which the Saxons held. Cadwallo died in the year 676. The Saxons did not hold Cornwall. The victorious king may have conferred on his valiant nephew the distinction of Count or Earl (Comes), and have given him estates, and a resi- dence, and dominion, in this important division of his kingdom ; hence u Brianus Cornubiae " would accurately designate him. We have failed to discover any other person who at all answers to the plain language of the Charter ; but our suggestion that the Brian of the seventh century was really the donor of the site of the first chapel in Launceston dedicated to St. Leonard, must be accepted only as a possi- bility. The name " Briend " twice occurs in the Domesday of Cornwall, each time as the holder of a manor under Earl Moriton. Mr. Walter De Gray Birch, F.S.A., intimates that the Brian of our Charter may have been Briend Fitz Count, a supposed son of the celebrated Robert of Gloucester. This Briend was Lord of Abergavenny, and founded a leper-house there. He went on a crusade at the accession of Henry II. (1154), and died circa n 55. Some difficulties attend this theory. It is not clear that the lepers of Gillemartin possessed a hospital in Laun- ceston. They had a chapel there, and a chapel at Gille- martin. They surrendered the former for a grant, by the Prior, of extended privileges, among these being a resident