POLMORVA, John

The origins of the Polmorva family are obscure, but the MP is likely to have been related to the namesake who sat in Parliament for three different Cornish boroughs in the 1330s.5 CAD, iv. A10352; Cornw. Feet of Fines, i (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. 1914), 481, 504, 511, 578, 601. Little is known about his early life or education, but he probably had some legal training, for among various goods of which he claimed to have been robbed in 1402 was a book of statutes.6 KB27/588, rot. 55; The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 27. His putative father, perhaps the John Polmorva who represented Bodmin in the Parliament of 1360, was said to be dead when he was summoned to appear before the King’s council in March 1389, and it may be assumed that around this time the son succeeded to his lands in Bodmin, Tregose, Enyscawen in St. Denis, Pendynmene, Trefrank, Gluvian in St. Columb Major, Enniswarth in Luxulian, and Lostwithiel, altogether worth in excess of £7 p.a.7 C49/47/24/7; C1/6/337.

On All Saints Day 1391 Polmorva was attending mass at his parish church, when unbeknown to him a group of servants of Thomas Peverell† forced their way into his house and abducted his wife. Elizabeth was taken to Peverell’s house at Park and held there for five days until Polmorva agreed to pay £40 for her release. As a result of her ordeal, she lost her mind, and John, aware that Peverell’s status as a j.p. rendered a complaint before the county bench impractical, sued for redress in Chancery.8 C1/7/299-300. Although not prominent enough to be appointed a j.p. himself, in 1397 Polmorva was included in a commission of inquiry into the landholdings of one of his neighbours. Yet, it was only after Henry IV’s accession that the government began to draw on his services more regularly. In 1404 he was among the men commissioned to collect a parliamentary subsidy in Cornwall and two years later he was made Prince Henry’s deputy sheriff in the county. It is probable that he owed the office to the close connexion he had forged with the greatest of the Cornish gentry, Sir John Arundell I* of Lanherne, steward of the duchy of Cornwall, who was to succeed him in the shrievalty in 1407. Having been granted the custody of the lands and heir of John Penrose by Prince Henry, he later transferred these to Arundell. He was clearly trusted by Sir John, who in September 1407 named him among the feoffees to whom he entrusted the bulk of his Devon lands, with instructions to use the profits for the payment of his debts and the marriage of his daughter, Joan. At the same time, Arundell also sealed a lease of his Cornish manor of Conerton and five others, as well as two thirds of the hundred of Penwith, to Polmorva and two other men for their lives at an annual rent of 20 marks.9 Cornw. RO, Arundell mss, AR1/382-4; AR20/16-18; C1/7/80.

In the interim, Polmorva had fallen victim to an armed trespass by Richard Allet†, which may have arisen from the latter’s quarrel with his friend Arthur Hamely. On 3 Oct. 1402 Allet entered Polmorva’s house and carried off armour, silver vessels and other goods of a total value of £100. It took some years for the litigation which followed to come to a head: in the summer of 1407 Polmorva procured a writ of exigi facias in an attempt to have his opponent outlawed. As at the time he was himself serving as sheriff of Cornwall, he was ideally placed to ensure the smooth progression of this process, and even when Allet in turn procured a writ of supersedeas to prevent his outlawry from being pronounced, Polmorva’s dismissal from the shrievalty four days earlier allowed him to refuse to receive this latter document and halt the outlawry proceedings. In early 1408 Allet finally appeared in the court of King’s bench and formally surrendered to the Marshalsea before securing his immediate release by pleading a writ of error.10 E13/123, rot. 20; KB27/585, rot. 36d; 587, rot. 62; 588, rot. 55; The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 27; CAD, ii. C2114. This outcome may well have been agreed between the two men, for in May of the same year they were both acting as mainpernors of John Cheynduyt† to whom custody of the manor of Bodannan had been committed.11 CCR, 1405-9, p. 376-7; CFR, xiii. 109. This was not to remain the only occasion on which Polmorva came into conflict with one or other of his neighbours. Early in 1404 he quarreled with John Beville† of Woolston over custody of the heir of John Tregoys, whom – according to Beville – he had unlawfully seized in 1402,12 CP40/576, rot. 275. while in the summer of 1409 commissioners were appointed to investigate Polmorva’s complaint that Thomas Tregorra and his men had waylaid and ambushed him at night in an attempt to kill him, had stolen his tenants’ rents and threatened his men and servants.13 CPR, 1408-13, p. 112. In the same year Polmorva also quarreled with Sir Otto Trevarthian over the manor of Trelewith near Redruth, but in August they agreed to settle the matter by the arbitration of John Whalesborough†, Richard Respryn†, Geoffrey St. Aubyn and Roger Trewythenick.14 CAD, v. A10484; The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 662; JUST1/1519, rot. 96d.

Early in the following year, Polmorva contracted to serve in the retinue of the captain of Oye in Picardy, the London mercer John Lardener. It is not clear whether he actually had any intention of sailing for France, for the protection he had been granted for this expedition on 18 Mar. was revoked five weeks later, as he delayed at Westminster, perhaps in connexion with an assize of novel disseisin brought against him and a number of associates by one John Tallan.15 CPR, 1408-13, p. 190; CCR, 1409-13, p. 123. More seriously, by 1413 he had also quarreled with the heirs of Sir Richard Sergeaux†, who included the powerful earl of Oxford, Richard de Vere, and had been outlawed at their suit.16 KB27/617, rot. 31; CP40/609, rot. 122; 610, rot. 199; 611, rots. 183, 476. Before long, Polmorva was able to have his outlawry quashed by pleading a writ of error, but he took the precaution of remaining in England for the next few years and played his part in the administration of his county. He attested the shire elections of 1411 and November 1414, served on a royal commission to inquire into instances of piracy along the south-western coast in 1412, and between 1414 and 1416 three times acted as a tax collector.

In 1418 Polmorva once more sought to fulfill his old ambition to fight in France and in January he joined the retinue of Thomas Beaufort, duke of Exeter. Beaufort set out for Normandy in May, and this time John appears to have also gone, for he disappears from the English records for the remainder of Henry V’s reign. If he stayed with Beaufort throughout these years, he may have participated in the successful Norman campaign right up to the relief of Cosne in August 1422, only then, like Beaufort, returning to England with the dead King.17 DKR, xliv. 609; CP40/628, rot. 135; CP, v. 203.

Before embarking for France, Polmorva had married the widow of the lawyer Roger Trewythenick, with whom he had long been acquainted. In the reign of Richard II Trewythenick had been one of the busiest parliamentarians in the south-west, but it seems unlikely that his example provided any particular inspiration for Polmorva, who secured election for the borough of Liskeard when Henry VI’s first Parliament was summoned in October 1422. Although his connexion with the infant King’s guardian may have recommended him to the burgesses, it is probable that he ultimately owed his return for the duchy of Cornwall borough to the influence of the duchy steward, Sir John Arundell. In any case, Polmorva attended the shire elections at Launceston and attested the indenture which recorded the names of both shire and borough Members. It is uncertain whether he ever took his seat. While in France, he had contracted an illness of some sort – it is tempting to speculate whether it was the same that claimed the life of Henry V. Whatever the truth of the matter, by early November 1423 he was dead. He was survived by his second wife, Joan, and his putative daughter, Alice, who had married the influential Nicholas Carminowe. The latter lost no time in claiming his wife’s inheritance, much to the distress of the widow who complained bitterly that her dead husband’s son-in-law, ‘le plus graunde extortioner, oppressour et maintainour de tout le paijs’, had entered her dower lands, seized charters and muniments, driven away her livestock and carried off her household goods.18 C1/6/11, 337-8; Cornw. Feet of Fines, ii. 959; Vivian, 74.