PERKYN, Richard

The choice of Cambridge, rather than Westminster, as the meeting place of the Parliament of 1447 presented many of the smaller English boroughs with serious problems in finding men prepared to undertake their representation, and the eventual change of venue to the backwater of Bury St. Edmunds made matters worse. The men returned by Lostwithiel in that year were among the most obscure to sit in any of Henry VI’s Parliaments. No details of Richard Perkyn’s career have been discovered, but he was probably a local man and may have been related to John Perkyn, who in 1425-6 had served as portreeve of the duchy of Cornwall borough of Bossiney.1 SC6/820/12, rot. 4d. Equally it is possible that he was in some way related to John and William Perkyn who in 1450 were joint owners with John Trevelyan* of the Edward of Polruan, then accused of acts of piracy.2 CPR, 1446-51, p. 313.