MICHAEL'S-MOUNT (ST.), a liberty (extra-parochial),
in the hundred of PENAVITH, county of CORNWALL,
f of a mile (S.) from Marazion, containing 223
inhabitants. This mount, believed in the remote ages
of antiquity to have been situated in a wood, consists
of a pyramidal mass of granite rocks rising out of the
sea, opposite to the town of Marazion, and is connected
with the main land by a narrow bank of pebbles, which
is overflowed by the tide. Its original name, in the
Cornish dialect, signified " the grey or hoary rock in the
wood," which was subsequently changed to its present
appellation; this, according to monkish legends, being
deduced from the appearance of St. Michael, its patron
saint, to some hermits who resided here, which
event led to the foundation of a monastery. It has
been supposed that this is the island called Ixtis, mentioned
by Diodorus Siculus, whither the tin, when refined
and cast into cubic ingots by the Britons who
dwelt near the promontory of Belerium, was carried in
carts over an isthmus dry only at low water. The
time of its consecration to religious purposes is unknown;
but a priory of Benedictine monks, afterwards
changed to Gilbertines, was founded here previously to
the year 1044, at which period Edward the Confessor
gave the mount, with all its buildings and appendages,
to that community; by this charter it is evident that
there was a castle, as well as a convent, on the mount.
In 1070, indulgences were granted by Pope Gregory VII.
to all persons who should visit the church of St. Michael
at the Mount with alms and oblations; hence it became
a great resort for pilgrims. In the reign of Richard A.,
Henry de Pomeroy, an adherent of John, Earl of Coriir
wall, afterwards king of England, took possession ol
the mount by stratagem, during the king's imprisonment
in Austria, fortified it, and continued to hold it
even after the return of that monarch; but on the
approach of the army of Archbishop Hubert Walter,
aided by the sheriff and a civil force, he surrendered at
discretion; the king then restored the convent to the
Gilbertines, and placed a small garrison in the castle.
After the battle of Barnet, in 1471, John, Earl of Oxford,
having fled into Wales, assembled a party of soldiers,
and crossed over with them to the Cornish coast:
under the assumed disguise of pilgrims, they' gained
admission into the castle, and soon overpowered the
small garrison which defended it. Sir John Arundel,
the sheriff, was first sent against the earl, but was repulsed
and slain in a vigorous assault upon the castle;
others were then commissioned to conduct the siege,
which, having continued from September till February,
terminated in the surrender of the fortress, on condition
that the lives of the earl and his adherents should
be spared. In 1498, Perkin Warbeck landed at Whitsand
bay, and having been admitted into.the castle by
the monks, who favoured his cause, put it into a state
of defence, and during his march to Bodmin, left his
wife, the Lady Catherine Gordon, at the mount, as a
secure asylum.
The priory of St. Michael, being a cell to the abbey
of Mont St. Michel, in Normandy, was seized as an
Alien priory by Henry V., during the war with France:
it was first given to King's College, Cambridge, and afterwards
to the nunnery of Sion in Middlesex, to which it
continued to be attached till the dissolution, when the revenue
was valued at £110. 12. In 1533, it was given,
with all its revenue, to Humphrey Arundel, Esq., of Lanherne,
but he having headed a rebellion in Cornwall
about 1549, it was seized for the king, and subsequently
granted on lease to the sheriff of the county. In 1642,
it was fortified for the king, and the Duke of Hamilton
was subsequently imprisoned within its walls: it was at
last surrendered to the parliament in 1646; and after
the Restoration it became the property of the family
of the present proprietor, Sir John St. Aubyn. The
mount consists of granite, nearly bare of soil, and is
extremely steep and craggy. The occasional residence
of Sir John St. Aubyn is on the summit of the rock,
and partakes of the character both of a fortress and a
monastery, being castellated and embattled; the diningroom
was the refectory of the convent; and the chapel
has been recently fitted up in the ancient English style,
for the performance of divine service in one of the
angles, at the summit of the chapel tower, which crowns
the whole mass of building. On this craggy height are
the remains of a moor-stone lantern, formerly used as
a beacon for mariners, and vulgarly called St. Michael's
chair: the ascent is dangerous, but a superstitious notion
connected with having sat therein induces occasional
visitors to attempt the adventurous path. The entire
height of the mount, from the level of the sea to the
platform of the chapel tower, is two hundred and thirtyone
feet j the circumference of the island, which comprises
about seven acres of land, is about three quarters
of a mile; at the foot of the rock is a wharf, and near
it a considerable village inhabited chiefly by fishermen.
There is likewise a small harbour with a pier, which was
rebuilt by Sir John St. Aubyn in 1727, where about
forty vessels may find shelter. The principal imports
consist of timber from Norway, coal, &c.; the exports
are copper-ore, china-clay, and pilchards.