The Daniel family were well-established at Kenwyn, a parish adjacent to Truro, by the early sixteenth century, and supplied one of the borough’s burgesses in the 1601 Parliament.
By now Daniel was aged over 50, and had apparently contemplated retirement for some time. Indeed, in 1603 he had purchased a house in Truro which he planned eventually to rebuild, while in the following year he had obtained from Parliament the naturalization of his son Alexander and his step-daughter Marie. The advent of the Cockayne Project in 1614, which overthrew the Merchant Adventurers’ operations, finally forced the issue. In August that year Daniel returned to England, having been honoured at his departure from Middelburg with the gift of a gilt cup from the States of Zeeland. A few months later the Drapers’ Company advanced him to the rank of liveryman, citing his ‘antiquity, discretion and sufficiency’.
Daniel was elected to represent Truro in the 1624 Parliament, agreeing to pay his own expenses. He set out for London on 30 Jan., 13 days before the Commons were due to assemble, taking his son Alexander to wait on him. As a port town burgess, Daniel would have been entitled to attend legislative committees considering measures such as the restoration of free trade to the Merchants of the Staple, a proposal which threatened the now reconstituted Merchant Adventurers (24 March). His only recorded appearance in the Commons’ proceedings, however, was on 1 May, when he was granted leave to return home as his house had burnt down.
The fire damage was perhaps less serious than Daniel feared, since he was back in residence by the following March. However, the expense of the repairs was doubtless unwelcome, since his financial position had now weakened. According to Daniel’s son Alexander, who seems never to have come to terms with his father’s remarriage, the root cause of the problem was the cost of rearing a large second family, though he conceded that his father also maintained a more lavish lifestyle than his fixed landed income could support. This parlous situation was compounded in 1619 when one of Daniel’s brothers died owing him over £1,000, which he was unable to recover. By 1622 Daniel himself was several hundred pounds in debt to Whitmore, and although his old partner could afford not to pursue the matter too vigorously, Daniel began to sell off property. Over the next few years the bulk of the Bodmin and St. Germans estates were disposed of, although in 1624 the Penzance manor was set aside as a jointure for Alexander’s wife.
In 1628 Daniel was again returned to Parliament for Truro. Due to a late poll, he left for London only six days before the Members assembled, and may well have missed the opening. His companion this time was his 14-year-old second son Richard, whom he intended to have apprenticed in London, but the boy wanted to go to sea, and had his own way. As before, Daniel featured only once in the Commons’ business; for reasons which remain unclear, he was named on 18 June to a committee to consider Sir Edward Wardour’s* claim to the estate of his father-in-law William Bowdler. Eight days later the parliamentary session ended, and Daniel arrived back in Truro on 6 July. Now reluctant to resume his parliamentary duties on account of his age, as his son Alexander recorded, he did not set out for Westminster again until 23 Jan. 1629, three days after the second session opened, and took no recorded part in its proceedings. He reached Truro again on 20 Mar., ten days after the dissolution.
Apart from a weakness in his leg following the 1621 accident, Daniel enjoyed good health in his latter years, and thus his death on 11 Feb. 1630 was unexpected. He complained that evening of symptoms resembling angina pectoris, ‘his heart seeming ... to be straitened within his doublet’, and died in his sleep around midnight. He was buried in the chancel of Kenwyn church three days later. Only cancelled wills came to light subsequently, and Daniel’s family spent four months arguing out a financial settlement. Administration of his estate, the goods and chattels valued at £524, was finally granted to his widow on 22 June 1630, though remaining obligations to Whitmore were only resolved two years later.