In some cases churches have been built in performance of vows, and at
the Tichborne Trial one of the witnesses deposed how Sir Edward
Doughty made a vow, when his son was ill, that if the child recovered
he would build a church at Poole. Contrary to all expectation, the
child "did recover most miraculously, for it had been ill beyond all
hope, and Sir Edward built a church at Poole, and there it stands
until this day." There are numerous stories of the same kind, and the
peculiar position of the old church of St. Antony, in Kirrier,
Cornwall, is accounted for by the following tradition: It is said
that, soon after the Conquest, as some Normans of rank were crossing
from Normandy into England, they were driven by a terrific storm on
the Cornish coast, where they were in imminent danger of destruction.
In their peril and distress they called on St. Antony, and made a vow
that if he would preserve them from shipwreck they would build a
church in his honour on the spot where they first landed. The vessel
was wafted into the Durra Creek, and there the pious Normans, as soon
as possible, fulfilled their vow. A similar tradition is told of
Gunwalloe Parish Church, which, a local legend says, was erected as a
votive offering by one who here escaped from shipwreck, for, "when he
had miraculously escaped from the fury of the waves, he vowed that he
would build a chapel in which the sounds of prayer and praise to God
should blend with the never-ceasing voice of those waves from which he
had but narrowly escaped. So near to the sea is the church, that at
times it is reached by the waves, which have frequently washed away
the walls of the churchyard." But vows of a similar nature have been
connected with sacred buildings in most countries, and Vienna owes the
church of St. Charles to a vow made by the Emperor Charles the Sixth
during an epidemic. The silver ship, given by the Queen of St. Louis,
was made in accordance with a vow. According to Joinville, the queen
"said she wanted the king, to beg he would make some vows to God and