During the siege John-for-the-King set fire to Arwenack lest the Parliament-men should make a battery of it. It is a common saying that the Killigrews, in their loyalty, put a light to it themselves. But strangely enough the owner at this time was “ye infamous Lady Jane,” who had been divorced by Sir John Killigrew but kept possession of his house for her life--a curious state of things that definitely settles the question of the firing of Arwenack. It was this Lady Jane who gave the famous chalice to the town of Penryn, “when they received mee that was in great miserie.” It was not this lady, however--as is often said--but Dame Mary of Elizabethan days, who boarded the Spanish ship in a true Elizabethan spirit and took her cargo home to Arwenack.[11]
Although this harbour “ys a havyng very notable and famose,” it lacks the charm of Fowey and Dartmouth; and it is only in the upper reaches that the Fal has the beauty of the Dart. It is wisest to start from Falmouth. The hills at first are low and the estuary wide; but when Carrick Roads have narrowed into King Harry’s Reach and the river sweeps past us between the rolling woods, we remember Hawker singing of his native Cornwall and “her streams that march in music to the sea.” We take our winding way past the ferry to which King Harry never came, past many alluring creeks, past Tregothnan--the home but not the house of Admiral Boscawen--and round the green banks of Woodbury, till we see Truro’s white cathedral against the sky.
When we finally drive away from Falmouth our most prudent course is to go out of the town past the recreation-ground, and take the road that leads to the Lizard by Constantine; for though the longer road by Helston is by far the better of the two, there are dark whispers heard in this neighbourhood, sometimes, of measured distances and other perils. We see on the left the by-road to Penjerrick, where Caroline Fox wrote her delightful journal and charmed so many men of mark; pass through Constantine, a village of solid stone houses, and thatch, and gardens, and run down into Gweek. It was here that Hereward the Wake twice rescued the Cornish princess from unpleasant suitors. The high green walls of oak and ash that Hereward saw are further down the river, but this is the head of the tide where King Alef’s palace stood, and the champion of England slew the giant, and where now a brisk trade is carried on in bone-manure. Whatever may be the truth about Hereward, the last fact admits of no doubt.