ROCHE, Nicholas

Roche’s parentage is obscure, but it is possible that he was related to the Reynold Roche who was present at the Cornish shire elections of 1407. The family was clearly of some standing, owning lands extending over more than 1,000 acres in the parishes of St. Merryn, St. Issey, St. Breock and elsewhere in north Cornwall, which Nicholas was later to describe as his ‘old inheritance’, and the assessment of his annual income at £5 in 1451 was probably an underestimate.2 E179/87/92; C1/58/51. Nicholas further increased his estates by a marriage which brought him holdings in the parishes of St. Columb Major, Roche, St. Dennis, St. Wenn, Lanhydrock and elsewhere in central Cornwall.3 SC8/344/15; C1/58/51; Cornw. RO, Arundell mss, AR1/484-5. The ordinary agrarian revenues from these lands aside, Roche also had interests in tin mining. Like many south-western landowners he received a tin toll from the miners working on his lands, and was a regular suitor in the stannary courts of Blackmore.4 SC2/157/6, rots. 9d, 11d; SC8/344/15.

Although Roche is not known to have held any property in either of the boroughs he represented in Parliament, his tenure of land nearby may have been deemed sufficient to qualify him under the statutory requirement for residency. Certainly, he had close links with the burgesses of Bodmin, for his sister, Thomasina, was married to a local man, one John Walter.5 Arundell mss, AR1/484. He was also extremely well connected among the Cornish gentry, and by the end of Henry VI’s reign often attested deeds for the great Arundells of Lanherne.6 Ibid. AR1/48, 177, 268; AR4/527; AR20/24-26. Roche held office under the Crown as a royal commissioner only once, in the early years of Edward IV’s reign, but he regularly served on local juries,7 C140/7/15; E143/22/5; CP40/718, rot. 319d; E179/87/90, no. 4. and may have taken some degree of interest in parliamentary affairs, for as well as sealing the sheriff’s indenture recording the Cornish shire and borough elections on the occasion of both of his own returns to the Commons, he also did so on a further occasion in 1437.8 C219/14/4; 15/1, 2.

In the second half of his life Roche was forced to fend off a series of challenges to the tenure of his and his wife’s estates. He had entrusted his brother Richard with the safe keeping of his muniments, but at Richard’s death they came into the hands of another kinsman, John Roche, from whom Nicholas was forced to recover them by litigation in Chancery.9 C1/58/51. More seriously, around the same time the unruly Sir Henry Bodrugan† laid claim to some of the revenues of Meliora Roche’s estates, including the valuable toll on tin. Claiming some form of overlordship, Bodrugan proceeded to drive away Roche’s cattle in distraint. When Roche petitioned Prince Edward’s council for redress, Bodrugan claimed to be well within his rights as heir of his father, Sir William*. In June 1475 Roche quitclaimed his title to Bodrugan, but the dispute continued to simmer for at least another three years, and in April 1478 it was submitted to arbitration.10 SC8/344/15; Cornw. RO, Edgcombe mss, ME442-3.