CHRONICLES OP CORNISH SAINTS. I. — S. CUBY. 317 



missionaries, without any fixed episcopal duties. Still, tlie dis- 

 tinctive functions of the episcopal order seem to have been always 

 recognized in the Celtic Church, and the of&ce was uniformly held 

 in great reverence. 



On Cuby's return to Cornwall, "he was asked," says the 

 memoir above referred to, " whether he would be king of the 

 Cornishmen 1 but he would not accept the power of the present 

 world." " He was occupied more with the study of literature," 

 says Leland,* " than with that of paternal possessions." His father, 

 no doubt, had died during his absence ; and he, being the eldest 

 son, might have claimed the throne ; but he resigned his right to 

 his brother Melyan, and devoted himself to the sacred work of 

 his higher vocation. 



The place above all others in Cornwall where we should expect 

 him under such circumstances to take up his abode, was Tregony ; 

 for although it is now, to use the words of Whitaker, "a. mere 

 kind of village, without trade, without industry, without money," 

 it was in Cuby's time a town of imj)ortance. It had been, in days 

 still earlier, a Eoman Station ; and, doubtless, much of Eoman 

 enterprize and civilization still lingered there. The tide, which 

 has long since receded from it, then flowed far above the town, 

 bringing merchant-vessels to the very base of the Castle-hill ; and 

 the main street of the town sloped doAvn to a quay, whence the 

 mineral treasures of the central mining district were exported. 

 Tregony was at that time one of the most thriving and populous 

 towns west of Exeter ; and it pre-eminently claimed the sympathy 

 of Cuby on his return to his native land. 



Ten disciples, we are told, accompanied him, — holy men who 

 owed their conversion to his instrumentality, and whose Christian 

 zeal prompted them to share his labours. With them, as sub- 

 ordinate ministers, we may suppose that he settled for a time in 

 the parish that now bears his name, on the outskirts of the busy 

 town of Tregony, and within an hour's walk of his brother's 

 castle at Veryan. There is, at the present time, by the brook 

 which bounds the south-west side of the parish, a field called the 

 Centry or Sanctuary. The name shows that in by-gone days the 



• De Script: Brit, 65. 



