Liskeard

The ancient borough of Liskeard, documented some decades before the Norman Conquest, lay at the heart of the synonymous manor which from the thirteenth century formed part of the estates of the earldom (and subsequently the duchy) of Cornwall. As a consequence most of the town’s privileges originated in grants by successive earls and dukes of Cornwall, although they were subject to periodic confirmation by the reigning monarchs, including that of Henry VI in May 1446.1 Cornw. RO, Liskeard bor. recs., B/LIS/8; CPR, 1441-6, p. 451. Unlike the boroughs of Bodmin and Truro, Liskeard never became one of the principal centres of tin production in the county. Instead, the economic value of the manor to the duchy or its tenant lay in its extensive woodlands and deer park, the second largest in the duchy. The office of keeper of the park was therefore an important one, which in Henry VI’s reign was entrusted to members of the Household such as John Clink†, Richard Brewster, Thomas Bodulgate* and John Trevelyan*.2 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 307; ii. 594; SC6/816/4, m. 9.

In the fifteenth century, the duchy of Cornwall appointed two bailiffs as its officials in the borough, but the burgesses themselves elected a mayor as their chief officer every Michaelmas. The late 1430s witnessed a degree of internal discord, which, following a disputed mayoral election in 1439, culminated in open rioting. On 7 Oct. that year one John Clement was elected mayor, but within a few days a group of discontented burgesses from established Liskeard families marched on the guildhall, forced their way in, and conducted a new election, choosing as mayor the merchant Richard Vage.3 C1/12/237; CPR, 1436-41, p. 371. It is uncertain which party carried the day in the immediate term, but it is possible that an agreement was reached, for the following year John Colys, one of the earlier malcontents, served as mayor, while Clement returned to office the year after.4 SC6/815/13; 821/6, rot. 3d.

Liskeard had first returned burgesses to the Commons in 1295, and been represented regularly thereafter. The method by which these representatives were chosen is obscure, but it seems probable that, as with the election of the mayor, parliamentary elections took place at the guildhall, and that the electorate was limited in size.5 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 307. For much of Henry VI’s reign, successive sheriffs of Cornwall listed the names of the men presumably elected locally in the different boroughs in a schedule which they returned into Chancery along with an indenture counter-sealed by those attending the county court for the election of the knights of the shire. In most cases the returns are uninformative, but in three instances it is clear that the names of the Liskeard Members were apparently tampered with. Thus, in 1447 the names originally recorded had been erased and replaced by those of two other men (both from distant East Anglia), and the same was apparently true of the returns of Thomas Clemens in February 1449 and of John Knoll in 1455. At what stage in the electoral process these alterations were made is impossible to ascertain.

The names of Liskeard’s representatives are known for 17 out of the 22 Parliaments of Henry VI’s reign: no names have come to light for the assemblies of 1439, 1445, 1450, 1459 and 1460. Compared with some neighbouring constituencies, Liskeard’s parliamentary representation in this period is remarkable for the absence of any consistent pattern. Rather, it seems that even by 1422 the local electorate made its choice on a case by case basis and in response to immediate circumstances. Thus, it seems clear that the return of two local cutlers who had recently held borough office (Toker and Colys) to the Leicester Parliament of 1426, and of two East Anglians with no known connexion with the borough to the Bury assembly of 1447 owed everything to the burgesses’ inability to find more suitable candidates willing to travel to the two unattractive venues.6 H. Kleineke, ‘Widening Gap’, in Parchment and People ed. Clark, 131. At other times, a variety of outside influences came into play. The two MPs of 1423, Botreaux and Chiselden, respectively a London merchant and a Somerset lawyer, are likely to have owed their election to the patronage of William, Lord Botreaux, and the same was probably true of their successors in 1432, Skelton and Cartheu. Botreaux influence may also have been brought to bear in Skelton’s earlier elections in 1425 and 1427, although relations between the MP’s likely patron, Sir Ralph Botreaux* (who was returned as a knight of the shire to both of these assemblies) and his nephew, the baron, were under particular strain at that time. Thomas Herle probably owed his seat to his father, Sir John*, while Clay’s return may have been brought about by his longstanding master, the royal justice Nicholas Aysshton* (himself a one-time Member for Liskeard), both of whom sat in the Commons alongside their protégés, albeit for different constituencies.

Beyond reasonable doubt, the return of the Buckinghamshire lawyer Watkins in 1453 was brought about at the behest of Henry Holand, duke of Exeter, who in the early 1450s placed a number of his retainers in south-western seats, and may have been engineered on the duke’s behalf by another of his clients, Thomas Bodulgate, an esquire of the King’s household and one of the joint parkers of Liskeard.7 Ibid. 133. The influence of the duchy of Cornwall (for much of Henry VI’s reign vested in the monarch), may have come into play in the crisis of 1449-50. The sheriff of the day, the courtier John Trevelyan, was at pains to shore up support in the Commons for the administration led by William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk. To this end, he oversaw the return of a number of the regime’s supporters for the boroughs in his shire. At Liskeard, where Trevelyan was joint parker with Bodulgate, the parliamentary seats of 1449 were taken by men connected closely with the two parkers and with the Arundells of Lanherne, who at this date were also closely associated with the royal court. The crisis years aside, there is no clear evidence whether or not the duchy made its influence directly felt in Liskeard’s elections, although several of the MPs returned did hold office in its administration. Thus, Tresithney had at one time served as under sheriff to Sir John Arundell I*, the long-serving steward of the duchy, while Polmorva, another man closely connected with Arundell, had been deputy to the later Henry V, when he, as the prince of Wales, had held the Cornish shrievalty in fee. Baunton was at the time of his election serving as the abbot of Newenham’s sub-bailiff of the duchy’s hundred of Stratton, and Tregarthen (his connexion with Trevelyan aside), was in his own right bailiff of the stannary of Penwith and Kirrier.

The consequence of this electoral practice was a high turnover of Members: the 34 Liskeard seats available between 1422 and 1460 for which the incumbents’ names are known were divided up among 28 men, all but three of whom only sat for the borough once in this period. The exceptions were Skelton, who was elected four times, Clemens who sat on three occasions, and William Trethewy who claimed two seats. In addition, John Cork, returned just once under Henry VI, had also claimed a further Liskeard seat on a previous occasion, in 1420. This meant that as many as 23 of the 28 MPs had not sat in the Commons prior to their first or only return for Liskeard in this period, and that in at least eight Parliaments during the reign Liskeard appears to have returned two novices. Yet, taking into account multiple returns, the borough was still more regularly represented by men with parliamentary experience than this might suggest. While only Skelton in 1432 and Clemens in November 1449 were directly re-elected, in at least eight of Henry VI’s Parliaments one Liskeard MP had previously served in the Commons, and in 1435 both of the borough’s Members were so qualified: in the light of the missing returns in the second half of the reign these are probably conservative figures.

Moreover, allowing for their service for other constituencies either before or after representing Liskeard, several of the town’s MPs in this period built for themselves substantial parliamentary careers. John Trewint sat in seven Parliaments between 1419 and 1435, representing Truro and Lostwithiel as well as Liskeard, Skelton added a return for Launceston to his four elections for Liskeard, Nd Cork managed four returns for Bodmin, Liskeard and Helston between 1419 and 1423. Clay, like Skelton, was elected to the Commons on five separate occasions, although in his case two of his Parliaments were as a representative not for a Cornish borough but for that of Plympton Erle in Devon.

It was probably a consequence of the external influences brought to bear on Liskeard’s parliamentary contests that a majority of the borough’s MPs were not local men. Indeed, in several cases they were not even Cornishmen. Just five of those who represented the borough during the reign are known to have come from Liskeard itself; 16 came from elsewhere in Cornwall, two from Devon, and five from even further afield: William Botreaux was a London draper, Robert Chiselden lived at Wells in Somerset, John Watkins hailed from Buckinghamshire, while Robert Chalers and Thomas Costantyn were of East Anglian origin.

A large number of the men who sat for Liskeard might well have recommended themselves to the burgesses on account of their professional qualifications as much as through the intervention of a patron. At least nine of them were qualified lawyers: Chiselden and Skelton were practising attorneys at common law, Clay served as an associate justice of assize, Cork was a member of the quorum of the Cornish bench, and Thomas Giffard, Robert Vage, Thomas Clemens and Thomas Tregarthen all appear to have had legal training. Most outstanding in the profession was Walter Moyle, who would rise through the ranks to become a justice of common pleas. By contrast, merchants or artisans were conspicuously absent from the ranks of Liskeard’s MPs. Toker and Colys were both cutlers, and Botreaux a draper, but the latter plied his trade elsewhere, in London. The remainder of Liskeard’s representatives were, as far as it is possible to tell, members of the landed gentry. The only one of these to stand out for his comparative wealth was William Trethewy, who was among the few Cornish landowners who in 1451 were thought to be worth as much as £10 p.a.8 E179/87/92.

The status of a high proportion of Liskeard’s MPs as men of law or landed gentry also found its reflection in their regular presence in the county court on the occasion of the elections of the knights of the shire. As the indentures at least until 1453 attested the elections of the burgesses of the six Cornish boroughs as well as those of the knights, it is unclear in what capacity they did so. Indeed, the ranks of those attesting the Cornish shire elections included all but one of those Liskeard MPs whose residence within the borough might be thought to have excluded them from participating in the choice of the county’s representatives. Moreover, in 1411 Richard Fouke had explicitly sealed the document in his capacity as mayor of Liskeard.9 C219/10/6. Seven of Liskeard’s MPs in Henry VI’s reign attested a single election for Cornwall, four (Clemens, Colys, Tregarthen and Tresithney) witnessed the shire indentures at least twice in the course of their careers, Polmorva was recorded on three occasions and Herle on four, while William Trethewy attended no fewer than five shire elections between 1433 and 1453, and Cork attested the election indentures as many as ten times between 1419 and 1437. Just nine of the MPs are not known ever to have been present on such an occasion, but Robert Clay, who never sealed an election indenture, still attended the shire court (perhaps in his official capacity as clerk of the peace) and was certainly there for the elections of 1431 when he stood surety for his master Nicholas Aysshton. Several of the MPs who hailed from outside the county attended parliamentary elections in their native shires: Watkins’s presence was recorded at five Buckinghamshire elections between 1426 and 1449, Giffard attended two elections in Devon, and Chiselden was present at the Somerset elections of 1423.