XVI 



The President remarked that documents of this kind ought 

 not, certainly, to be neglected or overlooked, as matters of con- 

 siderable interest to the county might be found in them. The 

 present one was of the date of Henry VI, and it shewed what 

 was the course resorted to in those days by the clergy when they 

 felt themselves wronged. There was in the Record Office of the 

 Court of Chancery — in the new room which had recently been 

 opened gratuitously — a book called "The Prince's CouncU Book" ; 

 and in this were documents that had been addressed to the Prince 

 of Wales for the time being, or the Lord Warden, complaining of 

 great injuries done to Church property in the Duchy. He believed 

 that, to this day, there was an admitted bound through the 

 church-yard at Helston. There need not be any alarm henceforth ; 

 fur tlimgs were now placed on a different footing. Many of the 

 documents, however, to which he had referred, threw much light 

 on the subject of bounds ; and if any persons wanted to ascertain 

 what was the state of things a few years after the creation of the 

 Duchy, they would do well to search them, as they contained 

 numerous complaints as to alleged breaches of bounds by miners ; 

 and this Institution ought very much to encourage communications 

 on such subjects. — Then again these documents showed the early 

 growth of the Court of Chancery, and the existence of a period 

 when it was not very clear what was the nature of proceedings in 

 that Court. In the document wliich had been read, there was an 

 aj)plication by the rector of a parish to the Lord Chancellor, com- 

 plaining that this Harry and other people were doing just as they 

 pleased, and that unless the rector hacl the authority of the High 

 Court of Chancery, he should never be able to restrain them. 

 This was among the earliest instances of such application to the 

 Court of Chancery. Recently a volume of early records of that 

 Court, compiled by a friend of his, had been published by the 

 Society of Antiquaries ; and they showed that the foundation of 

 a vast number of the applications to the Lord Chancellor was 

 that the applicant wanted to restrain the aggressions of some 

 powerful man in his neighbourhood, and he applied to the Lord 

 Chancellor, not because there was no common-law remedy, but 

 because at that time there was no person like the Lord Chancellor, 

 strong enough to give protection against a powerful neighbour. 

 — As to Mr. Hare's suggestion that the records of the Stannary 

 Court might possibly throw light on the result of the proceedings 

 taken against Harry, that was out of the question, as the records 

 of that Court did not extend further back than the reign of Queen 

 Anne. There were, however, the archives of the Record Office, 

 in wliich such documents would be found fully recorded. 



