Launceston

Founded in the eleventh century by Robert, count of Mortain, the borough of Dunheved had by the fifteenth century become the most important of the three townships then in existence on the site of modern-day Launceston. Dunheved was then owned by the duchy of Cornwall, whereas its lesser neighbours, Launceston St. Stephen and Newport, continued under the over-lordship of the local Augustinian priory of St. Stephen. Count Robert’s removal of the market from its Saxon site at St. Stephen’s had given his new foundation added commercial weight, and although at the end of Edward III’s reign the priory town’s adult population apparently still outstripped that of Dunheved, the latter’s strategic location on the key road leading into Cornwall from Devon further increased its importance.5 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 303. Nevertheless, Launceston could not compete as a trading centre with prosperous towns like Bodmin and Lostwithiel, and Dunheved’s customary contribution to a parliamentary tenth and fifteenth of £2 16s. 8d. was less than a third of what was paid by Lostwithiel, and only just over a tenth of the sum required from Bodmin.6 Lay Subsidy 1334 ed. Glasscock, 32-33, 35.

What gave Dunheved importance beyond the strategic value of its castle, was its place as a judicial centre of Cornwall, which it had retained (in spite of its inconvenient location near the border of the shire) from its status as caput of the honour of Launceston, created in the eleventh century to encompass all the lesser honours of the fief of the counts of Mortain. In the fourteenth century, the most important of the courts held at Dunheved were the sessions of the peace and the county assizes, and the burgesses attached enough significane to the privilege of having these held within their bounds as to seek its formal confirmation from Richard II in 1386.7 CChR, v. 304-5.

Before that date, Launceston’s claim to be the sole venue for the sessions had by no means been universally accepted, and similar uncertainty prevailed throughout the Middle Ages over the meeting place of the county court. Richard of Cornwall’s charter to the burgesses of Dunheved stipulated that eight county courts should be held in the borough every year,8 CPR, 1381-5, pp. 263-4. but in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the court had more often than not met instead at Bodmin and Lostwithiel, and in 1383 it was said that just three county courts were being held at Dunheved in any one year. In the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries the majority of parliamentary elections for the shire of Cornwall were held at Lostwithiel, and although in Henry VI’s reign the balance shifted slightly towards Dunheved (where the elections of 1422, 1432, 1442, 1447 and 1449 were held),9 C219/13/1; 14/3; 15/2, 4, 6, 7. by the early sixteenth century Launceston had been almost completely superseded by Lostwithiel as the normal venue for the county elections, with just a single such event (in January 1545) recorded as taking place there between the accessions of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.10 The Commons 1509-1558, i. 49. Launceston nevertheless continued to be an important centre of jurisdiction and law-enforcement in Cornwall, and in Leland’s day had ‘a hawle for syses and sessions’ and ‘a commune gayle [gaol] for al Cornwayle’ within the walls of its castle.11 J. Leland, Itin. ed. Toulmin Smith, i. 325.

An inquiry into the precise meaning of Dunheved’s privileges ordered in 1383 provides much of the available evidence for the borough’s internal government. The rule of the medieval town apparently rested almost entirely in the hands of the burgesses, a group probably corresponding to the guild merchant. Little is known of the guild’s organization, but it does not seem to have differed much from similar guilds in other towns: members were admitted by patrimony on their father’s death for a nominal fee of 16d. (as, for instance, Edward Aysshton* was in 1466), or by payment of a more substantial fine of 6s. 8d. (as proffered by Thomas Clemense* in 1477).12 Launceston bor. recs., B/Laus/156, 163. The chief officer of the borough had been known by the title of ‘mayor’ from at least the mid thirteenth century, but the method of his election took rather longer to become established. As a result of a dispute in 1319 it was agreed that henceforth the borough’s eight aldermen and a dozen burgesses of the better, more worthy sort, should make the choice, and that if they were unable to agree one of the aldermen was to be chosen mayor by his peers with the help of only four of the body of 12 burgesses. Although in 1383 it was held that the mayor and the two portreeves (the duchy of Cornwall’s officers in the borough) should be elected ‘by common assent’, it seems improbable that they were submitted to a further process of general acclamation subsequent to their election.13 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 304. Mayor, aldermen and portreeves aside, in the fifteenth century there is also evidence of a range of lesser officials, including two stewards responsible for the borough’s financial affairs, a keeper of ‘le clok’, a mayor’s clerk, a steward’s clerk, a mayor’s bailiff, a sergeant, a mayor’s steward and under steward, and a recorder.14 Launceston bor. recs., B/Laus/137, 139, 141, 143, 147, 158, 162, 164. The duties of most of these officials are difficult to establish, and in more than one instance the terminology employed appears confused, or at least confusing: in 1444 John Palmer presided over the borough court as steward of Dunheved’s bailiffs, Philip Hoigg and Serlo Howe, but the same record names Palmer and Robert Cork as bailiffs of the portreeves.15 KB9/249/27; KB27/739, rex rot. 21d.

By contrast with the experience of some other towns in the south-west, Dunheved’s history in the reign of Henry VI was relatively untroubled. Relations with the local priory were usually cordial, no doubt helped by the absence of a direct seigneurial relationship comparable to the one which caused conflict between Bodmin and its overlord. Nor – and arguably in spite of its status as a duchy borough – was Launceston directly drawn into the larger-scale disorder that marked the increasingly acrimonious conflict between the earl of Devon and Lord Bonville* in the 1440s and 1450s. The borough’s charter had been confirmed by Henry V in 1414, but the burgesses evidently saw no need to seek a similar sanction from Henry VI or his council until the dynastic crisis of 1460, when the mayor John Page himself rode to London ‘to safeguard the rights and franchise’ of the borough.16 CPR, 1413-16, p. 267; Launceston bor. recs., B/Laus/143.

Dunheved had regularly returned burgesses to Parliament from 1295. While the shire elections, when held at Launceston, took place at the castle, the borough’s own elections were probably as a matter of course conducted at the guildhall, as was certainly the case in 1467. The extent of the franchise is hard to determine, but it probably did not go beyond those involved in the elections of the borough’s mayor. Thus, in 1471 the town stewards accounted for the cost of two gallons and a potell of wine, and a further quart of red and white wine, as well as one penny-worth of bread, all consumed by the mayor and community at the election of the borough representatives. In view of the quantities of refreshments provided, the total number of electors present cannot have been substantial.17 Launceston bor. recs. B/Laus/147, m. 3.

In the first half of the reign of Henry VI the sheriff of Cornwall routinely included the names of the MPs elected by the county’s boroughs in the indenture attesting the election of the shire knights, and also listed them and their sureties in an accompanying schedule. From 1442, the names of the burgesses were given only in the schedule, and any mention of their election was omitted from the indenture. In 1453, the election indenture stipulated that the named attestors ‘eligerunt milites pro communitate comitatus predicti et burgenses burgorum de Launceston, Lostwithiel, Leskyrt, Bodmyn, Helston burgh et Trereu pro qualibet communitate burgorum predictorum … quorum quia militum et burgensium nomina patent in quadam sedula hanc indenture annexa’, but there seems to be little doubt that the boroughs’ choices continued to be made locally before being listed together in the return by the sheriff and his officers.18 C219/16/2. In the reign of Edward IV, successive sheriffs of Cornwall sealed separate indentures with the electors of each of the boroughs in their shire.

The names of Dunheved’s representatives are known for all but two of the Parliaments held in Henry VI’s reign. The returns for the Parliaments of 1439, 1445, 1450, 1459 and 1460 are lost, but the names of the borough’s MPs for 1445, 1450 and 1459 can be established from local records. Twenty-five different individuals are recorded, but two of these, Henry Notte and John Hat, may have been fictitious. Two distinct phases in the borough’s pattern of representation during this period may be discerned. The first, roughly corresponding to King Henry’s minority, saw a high degree of continuity from the latter years of Henry V.19 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 776. Of the 22 seats available between 1422 and 1437 as many as 19 were taken by men who had previously served in the Commons, and on four occasions one of the Launceston MPs was re-elected directly, while two further elections saw both of the MPs from the previous assembly returned again. This record of continuity was facilitated above all by the exceptional parliamentary career of John Palmer, who sat for the borough in every Parliament bar one from 1425 to 1435, and served in a total of 11 Parliaments altogether. By contrast, at least four of Dunheved’s Members during the minority had acquired their early parliamentary experience in the service of other constituencies prior to their first return for Launceston: Richard Allet and William Penfoun had represented Bodmin, Robert Skelton Liskeard, and Nicholas Aysshton both Liskeard and Helston. One notable exception to the normal pattern in these years was the Parliament of 1426, to which Launceston returned two novices: it is likely that the borough’s more regular representatives were put off by the assembly’s meeting-place at Leicester, which offered none of the opportunities for the conduct of private business promised by the law courts of Westminster and the nearby markets of the city of London.

After Henry VI’s formal declaration of age, Launceston’s representation underwent a noticeable change. In the absence of a return for the Parliament of 1439, it is not possible to date this change exactly, but it had clearly taken place by 1442. Just five out of the 16 seats available between 1442 and 1459 for which MPs’ names are known were taken by men with previous parliamentary experience, and only one of the MPs (Thomas Lymbery in November 1449) is known to have been re-elected directly. During this period, only William Menwenick, who had sat for Helston two years before first taking a seat for Dunheved, had gathered experience as MP for another constituency. Rather, Launceston itself now served as a training ground for novices who would later sit elsewhere: William Bishop went on to represent Bodmin, while Nicholas Hervy sat in the Commons in 1459 and 1467 as a Member for Hindon in Wiltshire. Moreover, on at least one occasion, in 1442, it seems that the burgesses were unable to find anyone willing to travel to Westminster on their behalf: neither Henry Notte nor John Hat can be identified, and the two names may indeed have been a fiction, inserted into the return to meet the Crown’s formal requirements.

In the light of these findings, it is not surprising that over the whole period under review a high proportion of Launceston’s MPs (17 out of 25) represented the borough just once,20 This figure includes Burnebury who sat in a total of seven Parliaments, but only one fell in Hen.VI’s reign. while just three men did so twice, and two three times. John Palmer aside, only Edward Burnebury, John Cory and Simon Yurle made parliamentary careers for themselves in the service of their native borough, sitting in seven, six and five Parliaments respectively, but in the case of the first two the bulk of these careers fell outside the period. The failure of the majority of the men to sit for Launceston in Henry VI’s reign to gain direct re-election did not, however, preclude all of them from building lengthy parliamentary careers elsewhere. Of the eight Launceston MPs who also represented other constituencies, Penfoun and Hervy each sat in Parliament three times, and Skelton five times, but the longest and most exceptional parliamentary career was that of Nicholas Aysshton who after sitting in the Commons on no fewer than ten occasions between 1421 and 1439 went on to be summoned in his capacity as justice of the common pleas to attend the Lords in every Parliament from 1445 to 1463, ensuring his presence in an impressive total of 21 Parliaments altogether.

Of the borough’s identifiable Members, under half (eight of 23) are known to have lived in Launceston itself, but a clear majority (14) came from elsewhere in Cornwall (three of them residing at Lostwithiel). Just one, the earl of Devon’s under steward William Bishop, was a complete outsider with no known residence or landholdings in Cornwall, but his master’s estates and offices in the county probably meant that he was a familiar figure, certainly in Cornwall’s easternmost parliamentary borough. As might be expected in the light of Launceston’s role as a judicial centre of the south-west, lawyers were predominant among its parliamentary representatives from an early date. In the reigns of Richard II and the early Lancastrians a large proportion of the parliamentary seats were taken by a small group of professional lawyers, and this trend not only continued but apparently intensified under Henry VI. Eleven of Launceston’s MPs in the period under review (Aysshton, Bishop, Burnebury, Hervy, Lymbery, Lowys, Menwenick, Palmer, Skelton, Skenock and Yurle) can be positively identified as men of law, and at least three of these (Lymbery, Lowys and Menwenick) are known to have trained at, or later joined, Lincoln’s Inn. Two others (Allet and Bate) probably also practiced the law, but the evidence is too incomplete to tell whether they did so professionally, or merely as any educated man might. A further five of the 23 were members of the landed gentry, about whose professional activities, if any, nothing is known, and in five other cases no details of their trade or occupation have been discovered.

Although the burgesses of Launceston made regular gifts of wine, food and ale to the greater men and more important lawyers of the south-west,21 Launceston bor. recs., B/Laus/139, f. 5. there is little indication that outside influences played much of a part in determining their choice of MPs. Nevertheless, the majority of those elected had connexions beyond the borough’s boundaries that may in some instances help to explain how they came to the burgesses’ attention. Allet was connected with the Lords Botreaux of Boscastle, Aysshton was a steward on the earl of Stafford’s Cornish estates, and John Payn and William Penfoun may respectively have been linked with the Colshull and Bodrugan families.

In striking contrast to other boroughs, such as Bodmin, where the burgesses were in regular conflict with the local prior of St. Petrock, at Launceston relations between the burgesses of the duchy borough and the priory of St. Stephen appear to have usually been cordial, and were only rarely disrupted by minor disputes between individual burgesses and the monks.22 CP40/635, rot. 329; 727, rot. 419. In part at least, such clashes resulted from the need of the inhabitants of Bodmin to assert their independence from their lord, and it is thus perhaps not surprising to find the men of Dunheved siding with the prior of Launceston even in opposition to a secular peer. In 1432 Thomas Lanoy and Robert Skelton were among a number of Launceston men accused in association with Prior William Shire of assaulting and imprisoning the servants of William, Lord Botreaux.23 CPR, 1429-36, p. 273. William Skenock and Simon Yurle also had close connexions with the priory, while Thomas Lymbery served as the prior’s steward.

If there was any palpable external influence on Launceston’s choice of parliamentary representatives, it was that of the borough’s overlord, the duchy of Cornwall, for much of Henry VI’s reign vested in the Crown in the absence of a royal heir. For much of the reign, the duchy’s influence may have been exercised at best informally: the duchy officials among Dunheved’s Members were probably familiar figures in the town. Bate served as deputy to the duchy’s receiver-general, Mayhew was deputy bailiff of the stannary of Foweymore, and Menwenick was the duchy’s steward at Trematon. In the crisis years from 1447 to 1450, the duchy’s influence may have been exercised more directly. Bishop and Menwenick were respectively under steward and attorney-general to Thomas Courtenay, earl of Devon, the steward of the duchy in Cornwall, and Menwenick had also held a Crown appointment as escheator of Devon and Cornwall. Moreover, in 1448-9 the shrievalty of Cornwall was held by the leading duchy official and courtier John Trevelyan*, and at least two of the Launceston Members returned that year (Hervy and Lymbery) were associates of his.

If the burgesses of Dunheved paid comparatively little heed to outside influences when choosing their parliamentary representatives, it would seem that they set rather greater store by a man’s place in the merchant guild and urban administration of Launceston. The patchy survival of the borough records means that it is not possible to compile a full list of office-holders, but even so it is known that a number of MPs had held office there prior to their return. Cory had been mayor twice before first sitting in the Commons, Lanoy had been both mayor and portreeve, and Mayhew certainly held the latter office, if not the former. Allowing for the uncertainty over the borough’s electoral practices, Palmer was apparently unique in presiding over his own election on at least two occasions, in 1429 and 1432, and was probably serving as steward of the borough in 1431, when he was re-elected.

Cost was a factor in deciding Dunheved’s choice of MPs, as in that of other smaller communities. By the reign of Henry VI the men of Launceston no longer paid their MPs at the traditional rate of 2s. per day, instead concluding separate agreements when each Parliament was summoned. Thus, for his service in the lengthy Parliament of 1445-6 John Lowys was paid just 13s. 4d., while his lesser colleague John Bale had to content himself with half that sum.24 Launceston bor. recs., B/Laus/138, f. 6v. For the Parliament of 1449-50 the more prominent lawyer Thomas Lymbery and his colleague William Mohun received the slightly larger payment of 20s. each, but ten years later Lymbery and his fellow MP Menwenick evidently had strong personal reasons for wishing to sit in the highly partisan session at Coventry, as they were content to serve for a mere 6s. 8d. each – a payment scarcely improved by the derisory reward of 3s. 4d. they shared on their return to Cornwall.25 Ibid. 143; 144, m. 11. It was perhaps this extreme parsimony which in the 1440s caused the borough authorities serious difficulties in finding men willing to serve as their representatives, and in 1442 necessitated the return of two apparently fictitious names.