Page:The parochial history of Cornwall.djvu/108

66 Mohun, who had issue, as I take it, another Charles Lord Mohun, who was slain in a duel between him and the Duke of Hamilton, who both died on the spot, temp. Queen Anne: after which his daughters and heirs sold this lordship and all his lands to Mr. Thomas Pitt, recently returned from the East Indies.

The ancestor of this ancient and famous family of the Mohuns came into England with William the Conqueror, by the name of William Mowne or Sapell, and was after the Conquest by him made Governor of Dunster Castle, who had issue William Mowne the second Lord of Dunster Castle, whose son, the third William, as Matthew Paris saith, did keep and fortify the same against King Stephen, for the use of Maud the Empress It is told us by our chronologers and historians, that he was made Earl of Somerset by King Henry the First, 1135, and that he was founder of a priory of Black Canons of Bruton in Somersetshire, where Edgar Earl of Cornwall had before founded an abbey of Benedictine monks. (Vide Monasticon Anglicanum, tom. ii. p. 205,) to which charter were witnesses William de Moyn, his son, and others.

This William Earl of Somerset had issue another William, who is said also to have been Earl of Somerset: but Brooke, York Herald, says that this William and his son Reginald Lord Dunster both died in the time of William Earl of Somerset, so that Reginald de Moyn his grandson was the second and last Earl of Somerset of his name and family, who lost this hereditary office by siding with the Barons against King Henry the Third, A. D. 1297, after it had remained in his family about fifty years.

After the family became private gentlemen at Boconnoc, their names are found sometimes noticed; the first Sheriff of Cornwall, 6th Edw. VI. 1 Eliz. 13 Eliz. and 19 Eliz.