Grampound

Grampound, granted its first charter in the fourteenth century, was closely connected with the duchy of Cornwall, whose manor of Tibesta surrounded the borough. Parl. Surv. Duchy Cornw. ii. 178-9. The borough owed its early prosperity (and its name) to its location at the great bridge or grand pont across the River Fal, which carried the road linking Lostwithiel and Truro; but by the beginning of the seventeenth century it was in decline, being described by Richard Carew† as having lost even its entitlement to the name, as ‘the bridge there is supported with only a few arches, and the corporation but half replenished with inhabitants, who may better vaunt of their town’s antiquity than the town of their ability’. Carew, Survey, f. 140v. The growth of neighbouring Tregony – which received its charter in 1621 – further depressed Grampound, and in 1642 the borough had no more than 500 inhabitants, while 20 years later the number of substantial houses was pitifully small: only six were recorded as having four or more hearths. HP Commons 1604-1629; Cornw. Protestation Returns, 113, 278; Cornw. Hearth Tax, 71. Despite this, Grampound enjoyed a fully fledged corporate structure, with a mayor, eight aldermen, recorder and a clerk, and an indeterminate number of freemen. Parochial Hist. of Cornw. ii. 113. There were also moves to establish a greater degree of corporate formality during the seventeenth century: mayors’ accounts survive from 1625, and were made compulsory for all magistrates in 1653; by the early 1650s the town serjeants were provided with elaborate coats and cloaks; and in the same period there were moves to have the borough charter confirmed by the commonwealth authorities. Cornw. RO, J/1951, 1953-6, 2069.

This growing sense of corporate identity can also be seen in the parliamentary elections of the early Stuart period, when the borough expected to determine one of the seats, and even rejected the duchy nominee in 1624. Such independence of spirit was the exception, however. The duchy interest may have been in decline during the 1620s, but other outside interests could dominate Grampound’s elections at will, especially the Rashleighs, who sided with William Coryton* and the interest of the earls of Pembroke, and their opponents, the Mohuns and Grenviles. HP Commons 1604-1629. Traces of this patronage network can be seen in the elections of 1640. In the Short Parliament election on 19 March 1640, three MPs were returned in two indentures, while the duchy nominee, Sir Thomas Reynell, was ignored. C219/42/21-2; DCO, ‘letters and warrants, 1639-43’, f. 44v. The Commons considered the case on 20 April, and decided that only one of the candidates, John Trevanion (whose seat at Carhayes was five miles from the town), had been ‘well returned’; the claims of the other two, William Coryton and ‘Mr Mohun’ (probably Reginald Mohun), had not been resolved before the Parliament was dissolved. CJ ii. 7a. Coryton was successfully returned in the elections for the Long Parliament on 19 October, but he chose to sit for Launceston instead. His fellow MP, James Cambell, was a son-in-law of John 1st Baron Mohun. C219/43/23-4. Sir John Trevor, who was related to the Trevanions, was elected as Coryton’s replacement shortly afterwards. Coate, Cornw. 248. Once again, the duchy’s attempts to intrude its own man, Philip Warwick*, were unsuccessful. DCO, ‘letters and warrants 1639-43’, ff. 66-7.

Grampound played little part in the civil wars, although its position on one of the main roads meant that it was occasionally chosen as quarters for the different armies. In August 1644, as the noose tightened around the parliamentarian army of Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, trapped at Lostwithiel, Grampound was briefly garrisoned by troops of Sir Richard Grenvile; and in the spring of 1646, as Sir Ralph Hopton’s* demoralised royalists retreated, part of the army was again quartered in the town. Coate, Cornw. 140-1, 208. Similarly, the town was used by the troops of Sir Hardress Waller* marching westwards to put down the rising at Penzance in the summer of 1648. Cornw. RO, J/1952. Politically, the late 1640s saw a complete change in Grampound. The end of the first civil war swept away the interest of Coryton and the Mohuns, and on 30 July 1646 the mayor and burgesses responded by appointing Hugh Boscawen*, a leading Presbyterian, as their recorder. Cornw. RO, J/2078. Boscawen was to prove the dominant figure in Grampound over the next decade and beyond, and he was regularly entertained by the corporation, as recorded in the mayors’ accounts for 1647-8 and 1652. Cornw. RO, J/1952-3.

During the commonwealth, when Boscawen was in bad odour, there was an opportunity for others to influence the borough – in February 1651, for example, the fee farm rents were sold to a consortium including Colonel Robert Bennett’s* ally, Hunt Greenwood* – but Boscawen soon recovered his position during the protectorate. E315/140, f. 76v. It was no doubt his interest that secured the borough seats for Thomas Herle and Robert Scawen, in the elections for Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament on 14 January 1659. C219/46/10. A similar pattern of patronage continued after the Restoration, with the Herles, and another local family, the Tanners of Courte, dominating the elections with the blessing of the Boscawens. The Trevanion interest, which secured one of the seats in 1661 and 1679, was the only survival of the pre-civil war patronage patterns in the borough. HP Commons 1660-1690.