REYNELL, Walter

Reynell was born in the last years of the fourteenth century as the eldest son of the head of a family which had been established in Devon for some 200 years. More recently, two marriages to Cambridgeshire heiresses in successive generations had given the Reynells an interest in the east of England. Walter’s synonymous father, who had represented Devon in the Parliament of October 1404, had himself married such an heiress as his third wife. However, even during his lifetime it became apparent to him that the Cambridgeshire interest was more of a liability than an asset to the family, causing him to sell all his property in that county to Sir John Tiptoft† in 1423.7 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 204-5; CCR, 1422-9, p. 71. Although the younger Walter had three half-brothers from his father’s third and final marriage, as the eldest son he was heir to his father, as well as to his mother, the heiress of the Malston family. As such he was to acquire extensive estates in the West Country, where he remained firmly based throughout his later life, although in his father’s lifetime he was sometimes described as ‘of Badlingham’, indicating residence in Cambridgeshire. However, as Walter senior survived until the mid 1420s, he had initially to be contented with the manor of East Ogwell, which his father had settled on him and his first wife in 1416 as a temporary endowment.8 Harl. 4031, f. 236.

When Reynell finally came into his inheritance it included besides Malston and East Ogwell in Devon various lands in Cornwall, and along with these Cornish holdings he inherited a dispute with Sir John Arundell II* of Trerice, who claimed them in the right of his wife Joan, Walter’s cousin. The process before the justices of assize had been dragging on since 1423, but had not come to trial as it had proved impossible to empanel a complete jury. When the sheriff of Cornwall, Sir William Talbot†, finally produced a jury in 1425, Joan Arundell rejected it on the grounds that Talbot had made the selection on the nomination of Walter Reynell senior. Although the latter seems to have secured his tenement, Arundell did not give up. He counter-sued, and in 1426 it was the younger Walter who after his father’s death had to fight the cadet of the most important gentry family in Cornwall. When the case came to be pleaded, he claimed the property as part of his maternal inheritance. This time there was no difficulty in finding a jury and it upheld Reynell’s claim.9 JUST1/1536, rot. 26d; 1540, rots. 74d, 77, 81; CP40/660, rot. 139; 711, rot. 439; KB27/653, rot. 44. East Ogwell became the family seat where the Reynells established a burial chapel, traces of which survive to the present day.10 N. Pevsner, Buildings of Eng.: Devon, 349. Once in control of his family estates, Reynell was numbered among the more substantial landholders in south-western England. Drawing an income in excess of £40 p.a., he was prominent enough to figure among the Devon men required to take the general oath against maintenance in 1434.11 E372/275, 284; E159/234, m. 21; CPR, 1429-36, p. 399; Reg. Lacy, i (Canterbury and York Soc. lx), 276, 278.

A few years before his father’s death, Reynell had embarked on a military career, by joining the retinue of Sir Hugh Luttrell† of Dunster, the lieutenant of Harfleur, in 1418.12 DKR, xliv. 609. The connexion thus established was to be of profound significance for his later career, as it brought him into the circle of influential gentry families, including the Hungerfords and Courtenays of Powderham, who dominated political affairs in the south-west in the first half of the fifteenth century. Following a second voyage to France in the retinue of the duke of Bedford in 1421, Reynell continued his association with this circle, attesting charters for the Hungerfords on several occasions in the early 1430s and acting as principal executor of Isabel, former wife of Richard Champernowne of Modbury and daughter of John Bonville of Shute.13 Ibid. 634; CCR, 1429-36, pp. 163, 252. In this latter capacity, he came into conflict with Alexander Champernowne of Bere Ferrers, who sued him for render of £108. The dispute continued after Alexander’s death and by 1445 pitted Reynell against his son and heir, Roger*.14 CP40/713, rot. 180; 734, rot. 263; 737, rot. 142; E13/144, Easter rot. 14. Nor was this Reynell’s only quarrel in these years. In 1439 Maud, widow of Sir Hugh Courtenay† of Haccombe, complained that he had broken her close at North Pool and threatened her tenants,15 CP40/713, rot. 170. and in the same year an action was pending between Reynell and Thomas Adam, a North Pool husbandman over an unspecified trespass. Two years later, Reynell accused John Medelond, a groom from North Pool, and a number of associates for breaking into his property at Malston and assaulting him; what was at stake were apparently rights of pasture at Moreleigh.16 CP40/696, rot. 128; 713, rots. 169d, 180; 720, rot. 360. It may be that Reynell was not in every instance the guiltless party, for he took the precaution of suing out royal pardons on repeated occasions.17 C67/38, m. 25; 39, m. 19; 40, m. 29.

Nevertheless, as a general rule Reynell’s relations with his neighbours appear to have been cordial. He was frequently called upon to attest their property transactions and he regularly served on local juries.18 KB9/15/2/80, 155, 168, 183; E134/24/3, m. 2; C260/149/11; JUST1/199/13, mm. 2, 3; H.R. Watkin, Dartmouth, 125, 127, 129. His failure to hold more senior office until comparatively late in his career may have represented a conscious choice on his part.19 In 1404 his father had even procured a royal grant exempting him from office-holding: CPR, 1401-5, p. 390. It is thus reasonable to suppose that it was his local standing, rather than any external intervention, to which he owed his return to the Parliament of 1447 for Totnes, the parliamentary borough closest to his home at East Ogwell. Nothing is known of his role in that assembly, but his service in Parliament does seem to have brought him to the government’s attention and in the next few years he was appointed to a succession of ad hoc commissions. Perhaps as a reward for his services, in October 1449 he and Henry Drew were granted the keeping of the manor of Inceworth in Cornwall, which was in the King’s hands after the death of John Champernowne.20 CFR, xviii. 148; C254/146/114.

The crisis years of 1450-1 were, it seems, also troublesome for Reynell, albeit for reasons only indirectly connected with the wider unrest that swept England in the aftermath of the loss of Normandy. A major diplomatic crisis had been caused by the seizure in 1449 of the Hanseatic Bay Fleet by the Dartmouth shipman, Robert Wenyngton alias Cane*. In July 1450, commissioners were appointed to arrest Wenyngton, among their number Reynell, and it seems that in execution of this royal commission Walter was openly attacked by a gathering of some of the leading townsmen of Dartmouth, including John Brushford*, Robert Steven*, John Gayncote*. They allegedly forced him under duress to release to Wenyngton all personal actions pending between them, and to free a prisoner, who was at the time in the hands of one John Lake. Wenyngton, the ring leader, aside, at least one other of Reynell’s assailants may have been settling a personal score, for Gayncote was currently engaged in litigation with him in the court of common pleas.21 CPR, 1446-52, pp. 387-8; CP40/755, rot. 453; 760, rot. 208d; 761, rot. 200; 766, rot. 122d. This incident aside, by the late spring of 1451 Reynell had clashed with a group of local gentlemen from Stokenham, members of the Ince family, several of whom were then styled ‘late of Malston’ and may thus at one time have been in his own service. In June 1452 Thomas Ince, two of his kinsmen, and two other men of some substance (Roger Leigh ‘esquire of Stokenham’ and Richard Vernon, ‘gentleman of Malston’) were indicted of having in May 1451 led a gang of armed malefactors to take Reynell’s wine from Stokenham and Slapton.22 KB9/270A/79. Although the indictment sent into KB by Nicholas Radford* gave the offenders Devon addresses, it seems probable that the ringleaders were in fact from the south-east: Thomas Ince normally resided at Stapleford Abbots in Essex and on that basis Roger Leigh may have been a kinsman of the synonymous landowner from Shelley in the same county who had represented Arundel in the Parliament of 1442.

While proceedings against these men were still ongoing, political events in the south-west reached a crisis. In late 1451 open fighting had begun between Thomas Courtenay, earl of Devon, and his old rival William, Lord Bonville*, supported by the earl of Wiltshire. While the immediate troubles were ended by the intervention of the duke of York, the balance of power was tilted towards Bonville and his adherents. The earl was indicted before the Somerset justices on 11 Jan. 1452, and Bonville and Wiltshire were pardoned for their part in the unrest on 19 Feb.23 R.L. Storey, End of House of Lancaster, 90-92. Six days earlier, Reynell replaced the earl’s retainer Thomas Calwodlegh* as escheator of Devon and Cornwall, an office which the latter had held since December 1450.24 CFR, xviii. 252. Courtenay’s support of York’s armed rising at Dartford later on that year further strengthened Bonville’s hand in the south-west, and the earl’s arrest left the road clear for Bonville’s supporters: two of them, Reynell and Walter Ralegh*, were returned as knights of the shire for Devon to the Parliament summoned to meet at Reading in March 1453.25 Patronage, Crown and Provinces ed. Griffiths, 133. Reynell’s proximity to the party in favour at court now made his support valuable, and, oddly, he found himself retained as mainpernor by men accused of having raised troops in support of the earl of Devon.26 KB27/771, rex rot. 96v. For much of the parliamentary session of February-April 1454, Reynell was his shire’s only representative in the Commons, as his colleague was arrested over a private dispute, but even so nothing is known of what part, if any, he played in the deliberations of the House.

Nor has any evidence been found of his movements in the critical months that followed the dissolution and led up to the battle of St. Albans in May 1455. Yet, when the victors of the battle summoned a fresh Parliament, both he and Ralegh were present in the shire court at Exeter for the county elections, and set their seals to the sheriff’s indenture.27 C219/16/3. What is clear, is that Reynell continued to be a part of Lord Bonville’s circle, and in the late autumn he paid the price. In the aftermath of St. Albans, Bonville had realigned himself with the victors. This left the earl of Devon bereft of the support of his old ally, the duke of York, and taking matters into his own hands he began an open armed feud with Bonville, which culminated in a pitched battle at Clyst heath. The earl then occupied the city of Exeter, and set about conducting a series of systematic raids on the property of Bonville’s friends in the surrounding countryside. Reynell’s turn came on 10 Nov., when goods worth ten marks were taken from his house at Exeter, while on 1 Dec. a group of men led by Thomas Holland* of Cowick seized the contents of his muniment room. Even so, by comparison with the earl’s other victims, some of whom lost several hundreds of pounds-worth of goods, he escaped lightly,28 KB27/780, rot. 84d; 782, rot. 47d; 787, rex rot. 4. and in the following year he had the satisfaction of being empanelled along with his son Robert in the grand jury presenting the indictments of the earl and his adherents.29 KB9/16/50, 66.

Following these judicial proceedings Reynell disappeared from the political scene for a few years. Instead, he concentrated once more on his private affairs, as well as outstanding business relating to his past offices. Thus, he sued a number of local gentry, including John Radford* and John Byconnell* for debts and obligations.30 CP40/779, rot. 171; 780, rots. 15, 123d. More drawn out was the action he brought against Robert Hilling* which, begun in the court of common pleas in the autumn of 1453, still continued in the summer of 1466, although he was eventually able to secure his opponent’s conviction, leaving Hilling to seek redress in Chancery.31 CP40/771, rot. 169; 820, rot. 33; C1/45/347. Reynell’s assertion of his seigneurial rights brought him into conflict with the abbot of Tavistock, who accused him and William Fowell* of having abducted a ward from Hatherlegh.32 CP40/805, rot. 15d. While concentrating on his own affairs, he nevertheless maintained close connexions with Bonville right up to his patron’s death in early 1461.33 CP40/800, rot. 15d. As a consequence, he was appointed to another commission of arrest during the Yorkist-dominated Parliament of 1460, and continued to receive commissions, at least one of which was of military importance, in the first half of 1461. Thereafter, Reynell seems to have retired completely from the political stage. The reasons behind this are unclear, as he continued to be associated with important Yorkist families such as the Dynhams,34 CFR, xx. 38. and failing health appears to be an unlikely explanation, for he continued to defend his rights in the law courts and did not die until 25 Feb. 1476.35 CP40/810, rot. 78. Reynell outlived his elder son, leaving his 15-year-old grandson John as next heir to his lands. In May 1474 he had transferred all of his estates to a group of feoffees headed by John Denys* of Orlegh.36 C140/52/22. Neither Reynell’s younger son nor his grandson are known to have sat in Parliament, but the family’s traditions of parliamentary service were revived in the sixteenth century, when several successive generations of the family were returned.37 The Commons 1558-1603, iii. 284-5.