TREVANION, John

The Trevanions were an ancient gentry family from southern Cornwall. Early in Edward III’s reign one of John’s ancestors had risen through the ranks of the legal profession to become a justice of the common bench, and although no member of the family is known to have sat in the Commons before the reign of Henry IV, they were of sufficient standing for John’s great-uncle and namesake to secure in marriage the hand of one of the wealthiest heiresses in the county, Joan, sole legitimate daughter of Otto Bodrugan† of Bodrugan.3 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 650, 657, 658; CCR, 1429-35, p. 413.

The marriage of Trevanion’s parents had done much to enmesh the Trevanions even further in the complex network of marital relations in which they were already entangled. John’s mother was one of the coheiresses of the Arundells of Carhayes and her sister had married the landowner John Trevarthian†, who after her death in 1393 went on to marry Trevanion’s widowed great-aunt, Joan Bodrugan. Since Sir John Trevanion’s death, Joan in her turn had survived a further husband (and claimed dower from his heirs). The result of these complex arrangements was that by the mid 1420s not only the Carhayes estate but also a portion of the Trevanion lands remained in the hands of Joan Bodrugan and her fourth husband, Robert Hill j.c.p., and it was not until her death in 1428 that John gained control of the manor of Grogoth in Cornelly (then said to be worth some £5 6s. 8d. p.a.), the remainder of which had descended to him from his great-uncle.4 Devon and Cornw. N. and Q. xxiii. 258; CCR, 1429-35, p. 413; CIPM, xxiii. 125. In 1492 Grogoth was thought to be worth as much as £8 p.a.: E306/9/5.

John Trevanion is first heard of in association with his elder brother Richard and a bastard kinsman, Thomas Trevanion of Tregony, in the context of a purported assault on John Fursdon†. Fursdon, who had gained experience of parliamentary process as a burgess for Liskeard in 1420, petitioned the Commons in the Parliament of 1423, claiming that on 29 June 1423 the Trevanions had invaded his manor of Fursdon with more than 100 armed men, broken the doors and windows, beaten Fursdon’s wife to near death and abducted his stepdaughter, said to be heiress to lands worth 100 marks p.a. Parliament had referred this petition to the King’s council, which (preoccupied with more urgent matters) had still failed to provide redress when Fursdon petitioned the chancellor, Bishop Langley, for appointment of a commission of inquiry in the following year.5 C1/5/41; CPR, 1422-9, p. 229. The attack on Fursdon was evidently not the first time the Trevanions had fallen foul of the law, for in July 1415 all three brothers and their wives took the precaution of suing out royal pardons for an offence which is now obscure.6 C67/37, mm. 27, 29. Although John seems to have been some years younger than his brothers, relations were apparently cordial, and in 1428 he served as one of the executors of his brother Richard.7 CP40/670, rot. 284d.

It is not clear what prompted Trevanion to seek election to the Commons as one of the Members for Lostwithiel in 1433. As far as it is possible to tell, he had not previously shown much interest in parliamentary affairs, and is recorded attesting county elections only once, in late 1436.8 C219/15/1. It is possible that the influence of his distant kinsman Sir William Bodrugan*, who served as one of the knights for Cornwall in 1433 played a part, but there is no definite evidence to support such a hypothesis. Conversely, however, service in the Commons appears to have brought Trevanion to the government’s attention, for two weeks into the autumn session he was appointed to his only recorded royal commission with instructions to investigate an act of piracy in his native county.9 CPR, 1429-36, p. 348.

Little else is heard of Trevanion who was dead by November 1438, when his widow, Joan, was said to have granted custody of their only child, Annora, to Sir William Bonville*. The mother may not have done so willingly, for not long afterwards Bonville complained that within weeks, in mid December of the same year, she and Thomas Carminowe*, brother of her second husband, Walter Carminowe, had spirited the girl away from the Carminowe residence at Belly. Annora later went on to marry William Cornu.10 CP40/714, rot. 324; 810, rot. 356. Trevanion must be distinguished from several contemporary and near contemporary namesakes, whose relationship cannot be established with absolute certainty. The man who attested the Cornish shire elections of 1449 (Feb.) was probably he who in the proof of age of John Trenewith* taken that same year gave his age as ‘60 and more’ (C139/140/42). It was probably Trevanion’s great-nephew John, the grandson of his brother Richard, who in association with his illegitimate kinsmen John Cotha Trevanion and Thomas Trevanion was accused of the murder of Robert Allington in 1463. He was pardoned for the supposed offence, and went on to attest the Cornish shire elections in 1477 and June 1483, and in the reign of Richard III served as dep. bailiff itinerant of the duchy of Cornwall to Sir James Tyrell†, surviving until 1492 (KB27/810, rot. 45; 825, rex rot. 33; C67/46, m. 4; C219/17/3; KB9/367/4; C1/58/335; 78/106; E306/9, no. 5; Trevelyan Pprs. i (Cam. Soc. lxvii), 87-88). John’s son and heir, Sir William (c.1469-1518), became a gentleman usher of the King’s household and acquired from Hen. VII several of the Cornish manors forfeited by Sir Henry Bodrugan†. Several of his descendants went on to sit in the Commons in the 16th and 17th centuries (C142/33/16; 34/41; C1/365/56; 526/4; The Commons 1509-58, ii. 609; iii. 482-3; 1558-1603, iii. 58-60, 528-9).