NICOLL, Otto

Otto was a son of the merchant and county coroner John Nicoll of Bodmin, whom he served as an executor. On account of his official duties in the shire court, John was a familiar figure in the town of Lostwithiel (the seat of the duchy of Cornwall’s administration in the county), where he owned some property,3 To complicate matters, there was also a possibly related Nicoll family in that town: Richard Nicoll† had represented Lostwithiel in the Commons in 1378, and his son John was presumably the man who served as portreeve there in 1433-4: Cornw. Feet of Fines, ii (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. 1950), 791; Cornw. RO, Tremayne mss, T503. and it was most likely his influence which secured Otto’s election to the Commons in 1437. Nevertheless, his return seems to have commanded some support among the leading men of the borough, for no less a man than the mayor of Lostwithiel himself, Stephen Kendale†, stood surety for him at the time of his election.4 C219/15/1.

By the time of his return to the Commons, Otto had already fallen foul of the law, for according to the influential (Sir) Renfrew Arundell* he had in November 1431 invaded the manor of Lanivet with 20 armed men and held it against his powerful opponent for more than a fortnight.5 CP40/722, rot. 304; 723, rot. 119. Similarly, in 1442 he was among a group of Cornishmen (including apart from John Nicoll also Thomas Lanhergy* and William Bere*) said to have been associated with Sir William Bonville* in the maiming of one Richard Dawne.6 KB145/6/21. The extent of Nicoll’s lands, which in 1451 were thought to be worth some £10 p.a., has not been established.7 E179/87/92. His landed income aside, he apparently also had interests in the tin industry, for in the autumn of 1435 he had sued one John Carwen, clerk, in the stannary court of Blackmore for assault and battery.8 SC2/157/6.

The focus of Nicoll’s life nevertheless remained in Bodmin, where he appears to have assumed his father’s place in local society following in the older man’s death. From the early 1440s he was periodically empanelled on local juries (including those taking the inquisitions post mortem of Sir William Bodrugan* and Henry, duke of Warwick), and attested his neighbours’ property deeds, and by the autumn of 1448 he was sufficiently prominent among the merchants of Bodmin to be elected to the mayoralty in two successive years.9 CIPM, xxv. 607; xxvi. 446; KB27/748, rots. 33, 71; CCR, 1447-54, p. 192; Coode and French mss, CF2/215/61. It was while serving as mayor that Nicoll attended the parliamentary elections for Cornwall at Launceston, perhaps reporting in person the choice of the men of Bodmin at the hustings over which he had presided, and he put his seal to the sheriff’s indenture recording the names of the knights of the shire.10 C219/15/7.

Particularly close ties connected Nicoll with his brother-in-law, John Colyn† of Helland, who had sat for Lostwithiel several years before him. In 1438 the two men were associated in a settlement of some of Nicoll’s lands, and in 1446 Otto found sureties of £100 for the fulfilment of the contract of marriage between Colyn’s daughter Elizabeth and Thomas Treffry the younger.11 Cornw. Feet of Fines, ii. 1037; The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 640; Maclean, iii. 366. Nicoll did not live long after his final mayoralty, dying before October 1452. The execution of his will was entrusted to his widow Joan, who went on to marry as her second husband Thomas Luccombe the younger.12 CFR, xix. 1; CP40/773, rot. 453.