Grove of Eagles

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I was born on the 25th February, 1578. Later in the year my father married Dorothy Monck, an heiress, of Potheridge in Devon, and by her had fourteen children nine sons and five daughters of whom only four died in infancy.

I did not know my mother. I was brought up in my father’s house, as his son, and bore his name of Killigrew, and was christened Maugan.

We came from St Erme, near Truro in the county of Cornwall where one Ralph Killigrew about 1240 was granted permission by Henry III to bear arms. Ralph’s great-great- grandson was called Simon, and this Simon in 1385 married Joan, of Arwenack, which is at the mouth of the River Fal, and the family moved there and was enriched. Five generations later when the eighth Henry, at war with the French, thought to build a castle commanding the mouth of the River Fal, he chose as his site an old ruined fort on Killigrew land hard by Arwenack House; and the John Killigrew then living my great-grandfather was created first captain of the castle and knighted the same year.

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