remarkably rich in prehistoric remains. The name is _pen-sans_, the
"holy headland"; evidently misread by the town authorities as "holy
head," when they adopted the head of John the Baptist as the town
arms. There was an ancient chapel standing on the present Battery
Rocks, and this without doubt was the sacred headland which the title
refers to. The mother-parish was St. Madron, about 2 1/2 miles to the
north-west; and it is by no means clear who Madron was. Some think he
was an Irish Medhran, some a Welsh Madrun; some even assert that he
was none other than the great Padarn of Wales. But in 1835 St. Mary's
was built at Penzance, on the site of an old chapel to Our Lady, of
which some relics are preserved. The town was granted a market in
1332, a charter in 1512, and in 1614 deeds of incorporation. But the
most important event in the history of early Penzance was its burning
by the Spaniards in 1595. There was an old Cornish folk-rhyme which
foretold that--

"They shall land on the rock of Merlin,
Who shall burn Paul, Penzance, and Newlyn";

and perhaps this led the inhabitants to regard the enemy as invincible
when they really did land, especially as their descent took place on a
rock at Mousehole that bore the name of Merlin. The Spanish were left
to do pretty well as they pleased, burning and pillaging Mousehole,
Paul, Newlyn, and Penzance, but they thought it advisable to retreat
to their galleons in Mount's Bay for the night, and next day, the
countryfolk having plucked up some heart, and there being rumours of
English seamen drawing near, it was found prudent to decamp
altogether. A new town rose from the ashes of the old one, but there
was further trouble in the time of the Civil War, and Penzance
suffered for loyalty to the King. Under the circumstances we must not
look for any remains of great antiquity in the town, though that which
is historical antiquity is mere youth in comparison with the
immemorial age that invests this farthest corner of Britain with a
garb of wonder and mystery. Close to Chyandour (the "house by the
water"), and not far from the Penzance terminus, is the Lescudjack
encampment, or castle, which carries us back to the early settlement
of the shores of Mount's Bay; only about three miles inland are the
huts of Chysauster, where there was evidently an extensive village in
days long before Penzance was dreamed of. Whether it was that this
farthest neck of land became the refuge o