TRETHEWY, William

William, born in the last decade of Richard II’s reign, was the son of a Cornish gentleman well-connected in the east of the shire. John Trethewy was a servant of the wealthy and influential Sir John Colshull† (d.1418), but also maintained links with the Bodrugans and Dernefords.3 C139/89/67, m. 2; Cornw. RO, Edgcombe mss, ME190, 678. His estates included the family seat at Keverell near East Looe, the manor of Treverbyn and various scattered properties throughout the county. In 1450 William Trethewy’s holdings were valued at £10 p.a., clearly an underassessment, for a few years earlier he had claimed that his income from his corn and blowing mills at Treverbyn alone came to twice that sum.4 E179/87/92; C1/17/360; CP40/779, rot. 307.

Following his father’s death in 1420 William may in the first instance have settled down to the administration of his lands, for he played little part in public life, although he was occasionally empanelled on local juries and participated in local inquiries.5 E143/22/5; Reg. Lacy, ii (Canterbury and York Soc. lxi), 202, 240; KB9/307/100; 943/56; KB27/748, rot. 33. Nevertheless, he probably maintained connexions which his father had established in the town of Liskeard, not far north of the family seat, and was thus able to secure election to the Parliaments of 1429 and 1435 as one of the borough’s representatives. He soon also began to play a more prominent part in public affairs. In the summer of 1445 he was appointed a tax collector in his county, and by this date he was already serving as one of the county coroners, an office to which he had been chosen by 1439. It is indeed possible that he was in post as early as 1433, when he was first recorded attending a parliamentary election in the county court (he would do so repeatedly in subsequent years, probably in an official capacity).

If the coronership implied a degree of probity, it is hard to believe that Trethewy was entirely innocent of the acts of violence and lawlessness, or at least high-handed behaviour, with which he was repeatedly charged. In October 1434 he and two kinsmen were in dispute with one Walter Corrgan over property rights at Trethewy,6 KB27/694, rot. 52; 706, rot. 124. while in the summer of 1442 he quarreled with Richard Trelawny† over the rights to a watercourse, which fuelled his mills at Treverbyn. Trethewy alleged that Trelawny had come with 60 armed men, broken down the weirs of the mills and completely stopped the flow of the water, rendering the mills inoperative, and was preventing Trethewy from making the necessary repairs. Trethewy sought the chancellor’s assistance, complaining bitterly of Trelawny’s ties of kinship or affinity (being ‘of there clothing’) to many of the j.p.s and gentry of Cornwall.7 C1/16/373; 17/360; The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 646. These ties (which Trelawny surely shared with many of his neighbours) did not, however, deter Trethewy from taking matters into his own hands, and four years later it was Trelawny who claimed that the coroner and a number of associates had assaulted and maltreated him to such a degree that his life was despaired of.8 CP40/739, rot. 348; 740, rot. 193.

Similarly, at some point prior to 1443 Margaret, wife of William Mohun of Puslinch, Devon, complained in Chancery about an assault allegedly committed by Trethewy and his kinsmen Richard and John Trethewy. She claimed that they had come with 30 followers to the manor of Tredinnick, where she was residing during her widowhood, had ravished Joan, her daughter by her first husband Nicholas Tredeneck, and abducted the girl. The distraught mother had followed the miscreants to the haven of St. Germans, where she had caught up with them and clung to her daughter’s clothes, even as she was being put in a boat. As the Trethewys cast off, Margaret had desperately hung on to the side of the boat, but had been forced to release her grip when they struck at her with their swords. Having been left for dead, she was eventually rescued by a passing vessel, only to return to Tredynek and be set upon again by a larger number of Trethewy retainers who occupied her manor and took her possessions.9 C1/43/49.

Trethewy’s own connexions are in evidence in his inclusion in early 1445 among a group of important gentry, headed by the earl of Warwick’s leading retainer John Nanfan*, whom William Tanner alias Clerk, who had married the widow of the recently-deceased Sir William Bodrugan*, accused of having conspired to have him indicted and imprisoned on false charges of purloining the Bodrugan muniments, which rightfully pertained to the earl.10 CP40/736, rot. 338; 737, rot. 311. Following the extinction of the main line of the Beauchamps of Warwick with the death of the young countess Anne in 1449, the earldom devolved on Anne’s uncle by marriage, Richard Neville, and many former Beauchamp retainers transferred their allegiance to the new earl. This may also have been true of Trethewy, who before long found himself caught up in the escalating rivalry between Henry VI’s court and the lords allied with its leading critic, the King’s kinsman, Richard, duke of York. For two brief periods in 1453-4 and 1455-6 the King’s incapacity provided York with the opportunity to take charge of the government, but his control, particularly of the provinces, remained incomplete. In the localities, the representatives of the court were as influential as ever, and were able to target the servants of York’s associates. Thus, in May 1454 Thomas Whalesborough, then sheriff of Cornwall, in collusion with two leading Cornish courtiers, Thomas Bodulgate* and John Trevelyan*, claimed that Trethewy was insufficient to hold the office of coroner and secured the issue of a writ ordering a new election. Trethewy for his part turned for assistance to the chancellor, Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury, a leading ally of the duke of York, and the earl of Warwick’s father. He was granted a writ of supersedeas, which was delivered to the under sheriff, Richard Clerk†, at the shire court at Lostwithiel on 22 July, but notwithstanding its provisions, Clerk proceeded to the election of a new coroner and summarily dismissed Trethewy from office. A series of fresh and indignant petitions to the chancellor secured Trethewy’s reinstatement, but following the King’s recovery Neville was dismissed from the chancellorship in March 1455. Once more in the ascendant, Trethewy’s opponents struck again. A fresh attempt to remove him from office on the grounds of being too preoccupied with other business may have failed when the King relapsed and York became Protector once more, but in October 1456, when York’s protectorate had ended, the question of William’s insufficiency was raised again.11 C242/11/20, 21; C1/24/37, 38, 254; CCR, 1454-61, pp. 13, 157. In parallel, there were other attempts to discredit the coroner. In the summer of 1454 the lawyer John Glyn accused Trethewy of taking various goods including wine and woad from him in the high street at East Loo, and the sheriff, Whalesborough, was only too glad to certify that the goods had been taken out of the county.12 KB27/774, rot. 108.

It is more difficult to fathom what lay behind the appointment of a high-powered commission of oyer and terminer, headed by Henry Holand, duke of Exeter, in June 1459, which was instructed to investigate the offences of a number of named individuals, headed by the Somerset gentleman Peter Shetford*, and including Trethewy, Thomas Clemens* and several members of the notorious Trelawny family.13 CPR, 1452-61, p. 518; KB27/793, rot. 3. There has to be some suspicion that private interests brought about this investigation, and certainly Trethewy continued to command some respect in the south-west. In October 1458 he was admitted to the freedom of the city of Exeter on payment of the customary entry fine of £1; the burgesses of Liskeard plied the coroner with gifts of wine;14 Cornw. RO, Liskeard bor. recs., B/LIS/265, m. 2. and even men as prominent as the Launceston lawyer William Menwenick* called upon him to serve as their feoffee.15 Exeter Freemen ed. Rowe and Jackson, 53; C1/213/41.

Equally, the Yorkist victory and Edward IV’s accession in 1461 proved a boon for Trethewy, who was confirmed in post as coroner.16 C242/12/2. Yet, even now he did not enjoy uniformly good relations with all his neighbours. At one point in the mid 1460s a local man, Edward Hydon, appealed him and his kinsmen Thomas† and Robert* for robbery and breach of the peace, and the Trethewys were committed to Launceston gaol. However, the family’s long-standing association with Sir John Colshull*, then sheriff of Devon, ensured their escape. When ordered to produce Trethewy in court at Westminster the sheriff returned that the prisoner was too infirm to make the journey without endangering his life, a claim vigorously denied by Hydon.17 KB27/823, rot. 13; 825, rot. 20; 832, rot. 76d. In the event, Trethewy was cleared of the accusation at the assizes in Cornwall, and turned the tables by himself bringing legal action against Hydon and his supporters for their false appeal, as well as an alleged assault on his servants.18 KB27/832, rot. 76d; CP40/818, rot. 274.

There may have been an element of truth in the claim that Trethewy’s health was failing, for he did not live for much longer. He had surrendered his office of coroner by 1471, when he was replaced by his kinsman Thomas Trethewy, and had certainly died by late 1473.19 C242/13/2; E405/57, rot. 1d. His heir was his daughter Joan, who married first a member of the Reskylly family and later in life one John Wylgarn. Perhaps unaware of the nature of her father’s title to them, she settled some of the properties which he had held as a feoffee for William Menwenick on her second husband in jointure, and for some time they continued to be involved in litigation with the lawyer’s heirs over the issue.20 C1/213/41. There is no suggestion that Trewewy ever served in the French wars. The letters of protection that he procured on the pretext of intended service in the Calais garrison in July 1445 and March 1455 were clearly intended to thwart his domestic enemies, rather than having any basis in fact, and were eventually revoked: CPR, 1441-6, p. 375; 1452-61, p. 235; CFR, xvii. 330.