Totnes

Situated on the estuary of the river Dart, the town of Totnes had a long history, and even in the Anglo-Saxon period had been of some importance. It was one of the fortified burghs of Wessex, and in the tenth century came to house one of the royal mints. After the Conquest, the Normans established their control over the town with a castle, the remains of which still survive, and for a further two centuries Totnes remained a prosperous centre of commerce. Gradually, however, the town’s mercantile importance declined, as the upper reaches of the estuary began to silt up, and it was superseded by the rapidly growing port of Dartmouth. At the time of the 1334 tax assessment, the wealth of Totnes was nevertheless said to be nearly equal to that of Tavistock and accounted for as much as three quarters of that of Dartmouth: overall, the town ranked sixth among the 19 boroughs of Devon, and only the city of Exeter and the ports of Sutton Prior and Barnstaple were then substantially wealthier.1 Lay Subsidy 1334 ed. Glasscock, 65-66.

In the fifteenth century, following the town’s loss of the Channel trade to Dartmouth, the Totnes economy was principally based on the manufacture of cloth and the working of leather, and the development of a coarse local type of fabric played an important part in reviving the borough’s fortunes in the second quarter of the century. This new-found prosperity found its expression in an ambitious programme of rebuilding the local parish church of St. Mary to rival the contemporary projects in the wealthy cloth towns of East Anglia. Messengers were sent as far afield as Callington, Buckland Brewer, Tavistock and Ashburton to select a suitable design for the new belfry, and many of the leading burgesses, including several who represented Totnes in the Commons, were called upon to serve as overseers of the works or to collect the necessary funds from their neighbours.2 H.R.Watkin, Totnes Priory and Town, i. 364, 380, 383, 407, 421, 425; ii. 954-57; N. Pevsner, Buildings of Eng.: Devon, 868.

The overlords of the borough of Totnes were the Lords Zouche of Harringworth, who appointed the constable of the castle and a steward of the borough, and from time to time styled themselves ‘of Totnes’, but whose principal landed interests otherwise lay in the Midlands. Other peers with interests in the borough’s hinterland included the Holand earls of Huntingdon and dukes of Exeter whose principal south-western seat was at nearby Dartington, and the Courtenay earls of Devon. Also to be counted were several influential gentry families, including the Dynhams of Kingskerswell to the north and Pomeroys of Berry Pomeroy to the west: as recently as 1407 a Pomeroy of knightly rank had represented Totnes in the Commons.

The internal government of Totnes was shared between the lord’s officers, and the townsmen who annually in mid October elected a range of officials headed by a mayor, receiver and mayor’s bailiff. As in many other urban communities, the eventual administrative structure had its origins in a merchant guild, and it was from the office of the senior of the guild’s two stewards that the mayoralty had evolved in the early fourteenth century. It seems that even in the reign of Henry VI the conventions that ruled the town’s governance were far from universally accepted. In early 1425 fines were imposed on any freemen failing to obey a summons before the mayor’s court, and that April one John Hill, who had acted as town crier without the licence of the town authorities, was made to surrender his bell and seek formal confirmation in his post.3 Watkin, i. 351-3. More serious conflict broke out in May 1435, when the serving mayor, John Shapwick, was attacked by a gathering of burgesses who deprived him of his mace of office and prevented him from carrying out his duties, at least for a time. The background to this incident is obscure, but it may have been related to the townsmen’s assertion of their independence from their lord, whom Shapwick had previously served as constable. It is not clear whether Shapwick (who complained of his mistreatment both in Chancery and before the justices of common pleas) was restored to office, but the event may have been more pivotal than would at first sight appear, for in subsequent years several of his assailants came to monopolize the offices of mayor and receiver.4 C1/9/301; CP40/702, rot. 127; Devon and Cornw. N. and Q. v. 134-5.

In Henry VI’s reign, the borough’s parliamentary elections were held in the town on the authority of precepts sent to the mayor and bailiffs by the sheriff of Devon. No details of the electoral franchise are known for certain, but in 1447 Mayor Richard Tucker claimed that two years previously Thomas Gille I had been elected by John Borehede, then mayor, John Harry and William Thomas, then bailiffs, ‘and their fellow burgesses of the said town’.5 KB145/6/26. If the names recorded in the fifteenth-century rolls of ‘free assize’ represented the totality of the freemen of Totnes the total electorate might have numbered around 100 individuals, but it seems not unreasonable to suppose that the procedure followed in choosing MPs mirrored that of the election of the town’s officers, who were picked by a presenting jury of 12 men. Subsequent to the election, the men of Totnes would communicate their choice to the sheriff who would include it in an indenture and schedule recording the names of all burgesses elected throughout Devon along with those of the knights of the shire. The borough’s choice did not in every instance predate the election of the shire knights. While in the autumn of 1449 the sheriff issued his precepts on 14 Oct. and the Totnes elections were held on 25 Oct. in good time for the meeting of the county court on 4 Nov., in January of the same year and in 1450 the precepts were not issued until the day of the county court itself, and the Totnes elections were on each occasion not held until two days later. Similarly, in February 1445 the MPs for Totnes were chosen a day later than the knights of the shire, and in 1460 likewise the sheriff’s precept was only issued on the day of the county court.6 Ibid.; Watkin, i. 398-9, 402, 410, 413.

As late as 1399 the borough’s MPs sued out a writ de expensis for the payment of their wages at the customary rate of 2s. per day, but even at that date this was unusual, and it may be that the burgesses had already adopted the practice of negotiating their representatives’ payment on every individual occasion. This was certainly the case in 1445, when Thomas Gille I purportedly agreed to serve for a mere 6s. 8d. At the end of the unusually lengthy Parliament, Gille nevertheless sued out a writ de expensis and demanded full payment – it is not known with what success.7 CCR, 1399-1402, p. 109; KB145/6/26.

The names of both of Totnes’s MPs are known for 18 of the 22 Parliaments held in the reign of Henry VI, and one of them for that of 1445. By comparison with some other boroughs, Totnes does not appear to have attached much importance to continuity in its representation: no fewer than 28 men shared these 37 seats between them. Although Cosyn managed to secure election to six out of the eight Parliaments held in the ten years between December 1421 and 1431, and Fortescue had represented Tavistock four times before he was first returned at Totnes,

their parliamentary careers were exceptional. Overall, just 14 of the seats were filled by men who are known to have previously sat in the Commons, and only in 1431 and 1450 are both Members known to have been so qualified.8 Somaster had been elected for Exeter in 1432, but had not taken his seat and was thus still a parliamentary novice when he was returned for Totnes a year later. Furthermore, on only four occasions was one of the men who had represented Totnes in the previous Parliament directly re-elected (although two others were returned for Totnes after representing another constituency in the preceding Parliament), and this was true of both Totnes Members just once, in 1450.9 In view of the loss of the Totnes returns for most of the reign of Hen. V it is not possible to be certain that, particularly in the 1420s and 30s, there were not more men with parlty. experience among its representatives. While this pattern may have reflected a lack of concern for parliamentary experience on the part of the borough’s electorate, it is equally possible that many local men were reluctant to sit in the Commons, and the evident parsimony of the townsmen in remunerating their MPs may have played a part in promoting this attitude. Certainly, Cosyn aside, only six men (Calwodlegh, Chesewell, Fortescue, Thomas Gille I, Hobbes and Worthy) are known to have represented Totnes more than once, and none of them sat for the town more than twice. Conversely, however, for several of the borough’s MPs election for Totnes provided a spring-board for long parliamentary careers in the service of other constituencies. Following his two returns for Totnes, Calwodlegh sat a further four Parliaments for the city of Exeter, Thomas Gille I sat in a further seven assemblies for Dartmouth and Barnstaple, and Thomas Gille II and Walter Reynell were each elected once more, respectively for Dartmouth and the shire of Devon. Fortescue, who had already represented Tavistock four times before being first returned for Totnes, subsequently went to the Commons three more times as a burgess and once as a knight of the shire for Wiltshire before being summoned to attend the Lords as chief justice.

In keeping with their apparent lack of interest in the past experience of their representatives, the leading burgesses of Totnes avoided serving in the Commons themselves. Of the borough’s MPs in the reign of Henry VI only Pralle ever occupied the mayoralty, and he only did so some years after representing Totnes in Parliament. Worthy had at least served in the lesser office of reeve before his election, and Smith was just about to complete a term in the same post when he took his seat in 1427; but Brock would not be elected reeve until 30 years after sitting in Parliament, and, similarly, Cohew’s nomination to a series of minor local offices post-dated his parliamentary service.

Nor had most of the Totnes Members achieved any prominence in the Crown’s service before their returns. Just four of them had held Crown office before they were elected for the borough: Reynell and Smith had previously served on ad hoc commissions, while Medelond was the royal keeper of silver mines in Devon when elected and the Bristol merchant Wych was then searcher in the ports of southern Devon. Although a number of the borough’s representatives went on to distinguish themselves in the King’s service, just two of them – Somaster, who became under sheriff of Devon in 1433 and Calwodlegh, who was made escheator of Devon and Cornwall while sitting in the Commons of 1450 – secured official appointments in the immediate aftermath of their elections: in both cases their existing professional reputations may have been a more important factor than their Membership of the Commons.

As Henry VI’s reign went on, the return of outsiders by various urban constituencies became enough of a concern to result in statutory legislation requiring Members of Parliament to reside in the city or borough they represented. As far as it is possible to tell, just over one third of the MPs for Totnes in the period under review could claim to conform fully with this requirement. In a looser sense, however, the picture is less bleak, for a further third resided in the town’s immediate hinterland. Only a few, some of them prominent lawyers (Calwodlegh, Fortescue and Somaster), noble retainers or royal servants (Cokkys, Hobbes and Medelond) came from further afield, mainly from the locality of Exeter and the comital household at Tiverton, while Wych the merchant originally hailed from the distant port of Bristol. Moreover, the cohesion of the group of men who represented Totnes was further strengthened by ties of kinship: the two Gilles were father and son, and Pralle was married to the elder Gille’s daughter. Fowell for his part was Reynell’s son-in-law, and Ritte was related to Wood’s wife. Later, in the reign of Edward IV, Calwodlegh’s son would follow in his footsteps in gaining a parliamentary seat at Totnes.

In terms of their trades or professions, the MPs fell into three groups of almost equal size. Of the 28 recorded, 11 were merchants and 11 practised the law (although two of these appear to have had interests in both fields). Of the merchants, at least two (Cohew and Worthy) were members of the merchant guild of Totnes (as was the lawyer Pralle), and two others, the victualler Chesewell and the brewer Dobbe, who may also have traded in mercery, were also local men. More extensive were the trading links of Hill, which extended throughout Devon, and More, who had commercial connexions in France, but even they were eclipsed in importance by the shipowners Smith and the two Gilles, as well as the Bristol merchant Wych. Their legitimate business aside, all of these men occasionally stepped outside the law and engaged in acts of piracy, as did the lesser trader Tregold. Of the lawyers, at least two (Somaster and Fortescue) were educated at Lincoln’s Inn, both of them serving as governors there prior to their first return for Totnes. The remainder all had landed interests, two of them (Cokkys and Hobbes) serving as parkers to the earl of Devon. Those Totnes Members who were active as privateers in the Channel could by inference also lay claim to some personal experience of the French wars, the conduct of which repeatedly came to preoccupy the Commons in their deliberations. Otherwise, only Milford, who had served in France with Hugh Courtenay, earl of Devon, and Reynell, who had garrisoned Harfleur under Sir Hugh Luttrell† of Dunster in the reign of Henry V, could speak with any authority on military matters.

Like the townsmen themselves, William, Lord Zouche, the lord of the borough throughout the reign of Henry VI, appears to have taken little if any interest in its parliamentary representation. Zouche was under age when he succeeded his father in 1415, and did not formally enter his inheritance until 1425, but even thereafter he remained at best a minor player on the political stage.10 CP, xii(2), 944-5. Only two of the Totnes Members in the period are known to have been personally associated with him: Calwodlegh perhaps already served as his steward at Totnes, and Ritte was likewise a client of his. Zouche’s relative inactivity left the road clear for others. Tregold and Penne were both servants of the dukes of Exeter, but it was the leading magnate in the county, Thomas Courtenay, earl of Devon, who availed himself of the opportunity to put forward his own candidates for the borough’s seats during the crisis years from 1449. Cokkys, Hobbes and Davy were all Courtenay servants, the latter two directly implicated in the campaign of violence unleashed by the earl in the autumn of 1455, when they helped ransack the houses of the friends and retainers of Courtenay’s old rival William, Lord Bonville*, at a time when Davy at least should have been sitting in the Commons at Westminster. Milford and Fortescue likewise had ties with the Courtenays of Tiverton that dated back to the days of Earl Thomas’s father. It is possible that the wealthy Pomeroys of Berry also made their more limited influence felt, especially as many of the local men among the borough’s MPs were drawn into the family’s orbit. Thus, Thomas Gille I, More, Pralle, Reynell and Wood were associated with the Pomeroys in various ways, while Tregold acted as a feoffee for Edward Pomeroy† and Brock as an attorney for the latter’s executors. Reynell was closely linked with Lord Bonville, but there is no evidence to suggest that this connexion played a decisive part in his return for Totnes, and the same was true of the Gilles’ ties to the Dynhams of Nutwell.