TRELAWNY, John

The Trelawnys were an ancient Cornish family with parliamentary traditions reaching back to the reign of Edward II, and took their name from the family seat in the parish of Altarnon. The family’s unfortunate lack of imagination in naming their male offspring meant that at any given time in the fifteenth century there were usually at least three John Trelawnys active in the south-west, and it is not always possible to separate their careers. The first of the John Trelawnys, the subject of this biography, was born at some point between 1361 and 1365, for he was still a minor in 1382 but had come of age by 1386, when he was legally able to sell a tenement in Launceston to the local priory. CIMisc. vi. 376.

Both of Trelawny’s parents were dead by March 1377, when, as his guardian, Sir Ralph Carminowe† presented to the church of Menheniot, a property which had belonged to John’s maternal uncle. Reg. Brantingham, 49. The exact extent of Trelawny’s property (which apart from lands in Menheniot and Launceston also included property in Pennangel, Tregrell and elsewhere in the county) is as obscure as the process of its acquisition, but it appears that he acquired lands both by inheritance and marriage, and by 1400 he and his first wife Maud owned houses at Woolston, Trelawny and ‘Tregarrick’, where they were permitted by episcopal licences to have oratories. Feudal Aids, i. 233; Reg. Lacy, i (Canterbury and York Soc. lx), 183, 185, 189; Cornw. Feet of Fines, ii (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. 1950), 862. Maud, to whom Trelawny was married by the summer of 1393, was the daughter of a neighbouring gentleman, Robert Menwenick, with whose family Trelawny had been closely associated for some time. In July 1389 commissioners of oyer and terminer had been appointed to investigate a complaint by Sir Humphrey Stafford I† of Southwick that Trelawny and Roger Menwenick† (his putative brother-in-law) had gathered a band of armed men at Thurlaton in Cornwall and had attacked Stafford, shooting at him with a ‘gunne’. CPR, 1388-92, p. 134; CCR, 1389-92, p. 338. Four years later, Trelawny and Menwenick were accused of wrongfully and forcibly appropriating to themselves lands in ‘Northbuketon’ and ‘Redaland’; JUST1/1502, rot. 189d. in 1401 the two men were accused by John Durant of an unspecified trespass; KB27/561, rot. 58. while as late as 1422 they were once more associated in a purported disseisin of Launceston priory of common pasture at Trelaske. JUST1/1531, rot. 32.

It is not clear how Trelawny came to represent the borough of Bodmin in the dramatic Parliament of September 1397 (in which his old associate Roger Menwenick sat for Launceston), but he was by this date well connected within his native county. At the Launceston assizes in March 1389 (when he himself – probably on account of his attack on Stafford – was bound over in 500 marks) he had found surety of the peace for the influential Nicholas Broomford†; JUST1/1502, rot. 171. in 1395 he had been named alongside Sir John Herle†, (Sir) John Arundell I* of Lanherne, John Trevarthian† and John Treverbyn† in a settlement of the manor of West Newton; Glos. RO, Sotherton-Estcourt mss, D1571/T1/71. and throughout his life he maintained contacts with the greatest of the Cornish gentry, the Arundells of Lanherne and their cadets. CCR, 1429-35, p. 245; Cornw RO, Enys mss, EN1936; Arundell mss, AR1/264, AR20/19. In February 1407 he joined with Sir John Arundell, then duchy steward in Cornwall, in finding sureties of £1,000 guaranteeing an undertaking by John Hawley† to restore the goods of certain Catalan merchants which he had taken at sea. CCR, 1405-9, p. 247.

In spite of his Membership of the Parliament of 1397-8, Trelawny did not embark on a career of office holding until after Henry IV’s accession, and even then appointments to Crown office remained few and far between. In the autumn of 1400 he was commissioned to inquire into acts of piracy off the Cornish coast, and five years later he was among those ordered to array armed men in the county. He attended the county elections at Launceston in October 1411 (the year when his eldest son, Richard, was returned by that borough), and set his seal to the sheriff’s indenture. He himself did not sit in the Commons again until the first Parliament of Henry V’s reign. The young King drew much of his administration from the ranks of those who had previously served him as prince of Wales and duke of Cornwall, and it is possible that he had come into contact with Trelawny in the context of the south-western duchy. By the end of 1414 John was serving as one of the three county coroners, and he was probably chosen immediately after the new King’s accession. It was the coroners’ duty to attend the county court, and there is little doubt that Trelawny attested the Cornish shire elections of November 1414 and February 1416 in his official capacity. C219/11/4, 8.

In the summer of 1415 Trelawny set out to fight in France in the retinue of Edward, Lord Courtenay, heir to the earldom of Devon, and probably fought at Agincourt alongside him. It is likely that he owed the knighthood which had been bestowed on him by 1417 to his exploits on this occasion. Later family tradition had it that the grateful King had permitted Trelawny to augment his armorial bearings by three oak or laurel leaves in recognition of his valour during the expedition. DKR, xliv. 569, 571; Devon and Cornw. N. and Q., xxiii. 257. In 1417 he set out on a second journey to Normandy in the company of Thomas Beaufort, the newly created duke of Exeter. Although he had formally continued to hold his coronership during his previous bout of military service, on this occasion the Crown ordered his replacement, perhaps expecting a longer absence than previously. DKR, xliv. 602; CCR, 1413-19, p. 464. Before long, Trelawny entered the King’s own immediate service, and it was as a ‘King’s knight’ that on 27 Sept. 1419 at Gisors Henry V granted him an annuity of £20 from the coinage of tin in Cornwall. CPR, 1422-9, p. 9.

Sir John returned to England in time to seek election to the first Parliament of 1421, and he had good cause to do so. During his absence, his distant cousin Robert Trewythenick had died without offspring, leaving Trelawny as next heir to the family property. On his return, he laid claim to the lands, but met with a stiff challenge from the grasping Sir Ralph Botreaux*, and was left with no alternative but to petition Parliament for a special assize. C49/14/9. In the event, Trelawny recovered seisin, but the property at Trewinnick (in St. Erwan) would cause him further problems a few years later, when he brought charges of trespass against a group of local gentry, including Nicholas Hody, Thomas Kendale*, and Robert Skelton*. KB27/679, rot. 60d; 680, rot. 47; 681, rot. 17. It may have been with these troubles in mind that late in 1433 Trelawny settled the remainder of the manor of Trewinnick, should his own issue fail, on Thomas Courtenay, the young earl of Devon. Cornw. Feet of Fines, ii. 1007.

Within the borough of Launceston, not far from his residence at Altarnon, Trelawny was well respected. In November 1414 he had been called upon to witness a grant by the local authorities for the foundation of St. John’s chapel, R. and O.B. Peter, Hist. Launceston, 120. and later tradition had it that in acknowledgement of his military exploits the burgesses placed over the gate of the parish church the inscription ‘He that will do ought for me, Let him love well Sir John Trelaunee’. Devon and Cornw. N and Q., xxiii. 257. When he married for a second time he found his new wife in another established Launceston family, the Tregodeks. It may have been she who brought Sir John a claim to the Devon manor of Coryton over which he was squabbling with Edward Coryton in 1425. CP40/656, rot. 106.

In December 1421 Trelawny had been elected to the Commons for the final time, and on that occasion was accompanied to Westminster by his younger son, John, who had been chosen one of the burgesses for Liskeard. Interestingly, he was not entrusted with his county’s representation in the first Parliament of the young Henry VI’s reign, but was nevertheless present at the parliamentary elections, and sealed the sheriff’s indenture. Despite his absence from the Commons, Trelawny rapidly secured confirmation of his valuable annuity, which – in spite of the chronic financial difficulties of the young King’s administration – continued to be paid until the end of his life. CPR, 1422-9, p. 9; SC6/814/14; 1291/1/6/57-62; 9/37, 42-44, 46, 47; E159/205, brevia Mich. rots. 28d, 30d, 31; 207, brevia Mich. rots. 10d, 11. He was still receiving it in 1434, and probably died around that time. SC6/1291/1/6/59, 61. He was succeeded by his eldest son Richard.