Francis Bassett

James Bassett of Tehidy and his wife Jane, the daughter of Sir Francis Godolphin.

[2] During the Civil War in 1643, he acted as a Royalist in the western part of Cornwall, raising money and drilling forces for the king.

Letters of his to his wife 'at her Tehidy' are preserved, recording the Royalist victories of Stamford Hill near Stratton, and of Braddock Down near Lostwithiel, at the latter of which (or at any rate very shortly after the fight) he, with most of the Cornish gentry, was present, and was knighted on the field.

He records in another letter to his wife that after the battle 'the king, in the hearing of thousands, as soon as he saw me in the morning, cryed to mee "Deare Mr. Sheriffe, I leave Cornwall to you safe and sound"’.

Their children included John Basset (died 1661), eldest son and heir and Francis Basset, second son, of Taunton, Somerset, a puritan who in 1661 was accused of a conspiracy against King Charles II, of which charge he was honourably acquitted after a letter which he was alleged to have written was proved a forgery.