Cornwall

Mitchell, alias Michael, alias Medishole, was owned by the Arundell family of Lanherne, the lords of the manor with which the borough was co-extensive. The borough government was rudimentary. The parliamentary returns for 1584, 1589 and 1597 state that election was made by the bailiff and burgesses, but the return for 1563 mentions the constable, burgesses and free inhabitants. In 1572 Sir John Arundell of Lanherne is named as one of the burgesses. In that year, and again in 1601, the portreeve is specified but not a constable or bailiff.

Newport adjoined Dunheved, and the two together constituted Launceston. Newport originally belonged to Launceston priory, around which it was built, but at the dissolution of the monasteries was annexed to the duchy of Cornwall. It first sent Members to Parliament at some time between 1512 and 1529. The surviving Elizabethan parliamentary returns usually state that election was made by the two bailiffs and a number of burgesses. In 1572 a portreeve was mentioned.

By the opening of this period East Looe was part of the duchy of Cornwall. After a lapse of time it resumed sending Members to Parliament in 1571, probably through the influence of the 2nd Earl of Bedford, lord warden of the stannaries and lord lieutenant of Cornwall. Its right to do so was challenged in the House 6 Apr. 1571. Some years later in an Exchequer suit concerning the market, the leading inhabitants claimed, wrongly, that East Looe ‘now is and at all time heretofore hath been charged with the setting forth and finding of burgesses to her Majesty’s Parliament’.

West Looe, also known as Port Looe and Portpighan, by the beginning of this period was part of the duchy of Cornwall. In 1574 it received a charter of incorporation which describes the governing body as a mayor, 12 principal burgesses and a steward. Membership of this council, a self-perpetuating body, was for life, but the rest of the inhabitants helped choose a new mayor each year from two nominated principal burgesses.

Liskeard, a duchy of Cornwall borough, had sent Members to Parliament since the reign of Edward I. It owed its prosperity to fairs and markets and to its position—re-established early in Elizabeth’s reign—as one of the ‘coinage’ towns of the stannaries.Carew’s Surv. Cornw. ed. Halliday, 202; CPR, 1566-9, p. 236. Elizabeth confirmed its privileges by charter in 1587. The town was governed by a common council of nine capital burgesses or governors, from whom a mayor was chosen each year.

Grampound was a duchy of Cornwall borough, forming part of the manor of Tybesta. The town was decayed in Elizabeth’s reign and, according to the antiquary Richard Carew, ‘the corporation but half replenished with inhabitants, who may better vaunt of their town’s antiquity, than the town of their ability’.E. F. Halliday, Richard Carew of Anthony.

Helston, a stannary town, was part of the duchy of Cornwall. The borough’s privileges were confirmed in 1559, and it was incorporated as the mayor and aldermen of Helston in 1585. Government was vested in the mayor, four aldermen and a number of burgesses.G. R. Lewis, The Stannaries, 126; Duchy of Cornwall, receiver gen. accts.; Weinbaum, Charters, 115; H. S. Toy, Hist. Helston, 166, 495.

‘Those buildings commonly known by the name of Launceston’, wrote Richard Carew, ‘consist of two boroughs, Dunheved and Newport’. Dunheved was the old borough around Launceston castle, Newport the more recently enfranchised borough by the ruins of Launceston priory. The Elizabethan returns and Crown Office lists were usually consistent in making the distinction, political commentators of later periods less so.’

Once hand in glove with the local pirates, the citizens of Fowey, according to Richard Carew, made ‘great amendment of their former defects’ and turned to honest trade. The borough first sent MPs to Westminster in 1571, and the implication must be that the 2nd Earl of Bedford, lord lieutenant of the county and lord warden of the stannaries, was behind this. But there was evidently a breakdown in communications, for the borough’s right to the franchise was challenged—unsuccessfully—in the House on 6 Apr. that year.

Callington was the last Cornish borough to be enfranchised.Oldfield, Rep. Hist. 253It was jointly owned by Sir William Paulet 3rd Marquess of Winchester and William, 7th Lord Mountjoy, but in a number of cases no connexion is obvious between either of these noblemen and the man elected. This applies to Thomas Lawton, a London lawyer and one of the first two MPs. The other was also a London lawyer, who, however, had been retained by Mountjoy in the past.