Page:The histories of Launceston and Dunheved, in the county of Cornwall.djvu/407

SALE OF RECTORY. 369 the same Rectory, To hold the premises unto and to the use of the said Giles Keylwey and William Leonard, their heirs and assigns, for ever, To be held as of the Manor of Stokenham, in the County of Devon, by fealty only, in free soccage, and not in chief. And the King covenanted against all incumbrances on St. Thomas, except a certain yearly rent of 106s. 8d., going out of the rectory for the stipend of a chaplain, yearly to be paid. This exception may have applied either to a sole survivor of the pensioners for £5 6s. 8d. who had submitted to King Henry's supremacy when he dissolved the Priory (p. 29), or to the stipend of a chaplain then actually serving the cure ; and the inventory of church goods sent to Lostwithiel in the preceding year, and the constable's journey thither, were perhaps to furnish information to a commissioner, who, on the king's behalf, was then making preliminary searches into the circumstances and values of church pro- perty which his majesty was intending to offer for sale. We have stated, at pages 29-30, what was the annual value of the rectory of St. Thomas just before Henry took possession of it. We do not possess means of tracing the descent of the rectory, so called, or of the tithes, since they got into the hands of Keylwey and Leonard ; but the kindness of a present proprietor of lands in the parish and hamlet enables us to suggest a possible origin for the existing peculiar right exercised by the ratepayers of St. Thomas of electing their curate. Mr. Treleaven, of Moor View, shows us one of his deeds, dated 25th June, 30 Car. 2 (1678), by which John Carpenter conveyed to John Ruddle One third part of the tithes, or tenths, of corn, grain, and garb, and all other tithes, both great and small, and all offerings and profits arising from the Rectory of the parish of St. Thomas the Apostle, out of all those two meadows called Landreen, late in the posses- sion of Solomon Keswell, and also out of all that one field or close of land called Dockacre, alias Quarry parks, late in the possession of James Hoskin, situate in the parish of St. Thomas the Apostle. 2 B