Helston

A parliamentary borough since the middle ages, Helston owed its prosperity to its dual role as market town for the Lizard peninsula and entrepôt for the tin trade of western Cornwall. In 1642 it had a population of perhaps 1,000, and 20 years later it could boast 17 houses with five or more hearths.1 Cornw. Protestation Returns, 12; Cornw. Hearth Tax, 118-9. Under the charter of incorporation of 1585 (renewed by Charles I in 1641), the borough was governed by a mayor, town clerk and recorder, with four aldermen assisted by an unspecified number of freemen, who together had the right of election. Despite its prosperity and well-developed governmental structures, in the early seventeenth century Helston’s parliamentary elections had been almost entirely dominated by outside interests, notably the courtly Killigrews and the duchy of Cornwall; and from the mid-1620s both were overshadowed by another powerful local family, the Godolphins of Godolphin.2 HP Commons 1604-1629. The duchy put forward as candidates Philip Warwick* for the Short Parliament and Edward Nicholas† for the Long Parliament, but both were ignored.3 DCO, ‘letters and warrants, 1639-43’, ff. 44v, 67. Instead, the Godolphin interest reigned supreme in the two elections, with Sidney Godolphin and his cousin William being returned for the Short Parliament, while in the autumn Sidney sat alongside his brother Francis Godolphin I.

During the first civil war, Helston was necessarily brought into the royalist fold, but there was an underlying lack of enthusiasm for the cause, despite the devotion to the king displayed by the Godolphins. A significant number of the inhabitants were ardent supporters of the crown, including George Collins, who fought for the king in 1644-5, and Francis and Thomas Robinson, who were officers in the Scilly garrison under Francis Godolphin I.4 CCAM 1323; CCC 1587, 2854. Others were closet parliamentarians, and in September 1645 the royalist commander, Sir Richard Grenvile, considered Helston, St Ives and Truro to be ‘the three most rotten towns in the west’, and a likely focus for uprisings.5 CCSP i. 277. Helston was one of the last places held by Charles I’s army in the spring of 1646, and when Exeter surrendered in April of that year, the garrison was given the choice of marching to Oxford or to Helston.6 CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 417. The town was indefensible, however, and the remaining royalist troops were forced to retreat to the Scilly Isles or Pendennis Castle shortly afterwards. Sidney Godolphin had been killed in 1643, and Francis I disabled in 1644, but it was only on 21 December 1646 that the Commons order new elections for the borough, and the writ for these was not issued until the spring of 1647.7 CJ v. 21a; C231/6, p. 86. The election was held on 20 April, with the mayor, Humphrey Penhellick, presiding.8 C219/43/26. The collapse of the Godolphin interest had left Helston open to other influences, especially those of local brokers like Richard Erisey*, Francis Godolphin II* and Thomas Gewen*, and this no doubt explains the return of two neighbouring landowners of modest means but Presbyterian persuasions, John Penrose and John Thomas.

The second civil war of May 1648 saw a royalist uprising in western Cornwall, centred on neighbouring Penzance. The ‘Gear rout’ (as it became known) threw Helston into confusion, as, according to one townsman, ‘we were suddenly in great fears and dangers’, and ‘our cavaliers had vapoured most terribly’, and threatened to rise up and take the town. It was said that the ringleaders included ‘John Pierce, who was sergeant under [George] Collins, [who] had warned all the rogues to be ready at an hour’s call, and had listed 40’.9 A Letter from the Isle of Wight (1648), 3-4 (E.445.28). Even after the arrival of troops under Colonel Robert Bennett*, and the suppression of the Penzance royalists, Helston was still at risk, as a force of rebels landed near the town, forcing the mayor and a small group (‘all that we durst trust were not above 20, and all the muskets were but 15’, including ‘Alexander Penhellick and others’) to keep them out of the town until Bennett’s return.10 A Letter from the Isle of Wight, 5-6. The earlier divisions within Helston had been re-opened by the threatened uprising, and, in an additional twist, soon afterwards the town’s parliamentarians were confronted with the radicalism promised by the brave New Model world. In June 1648, with the troops still in residence, the town held a fast day, at which, according to John Moyle, ‘Sir Hardress Waller*, Colonel [Robert] Bennett* with the rest of our military Janissaries (as they termed themselves) absented themselves and would not join with us’.11 Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/2/170.

During the 1650s Helston seems to have returned to its quiet pursuit of profit. The town remained a centre for local government, with the county sequestrations committee meeting there in July 1650, and the pressing officers operating from there in the summer of 1653.12 CCC 276; CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 91. There was no sign of open division within the town, but there was no hiding the fact that the community contained unrepentant royalists like George Collins – a ringleader of the 1648 rising who was forfeited for treason in 1652 and still regarded as a ‘delinquent’ in 1656 – as well as parliamentarian sympathisers like Alexander Penhellick – who had defended the town in 1648 and served as a local assessment commissioner from December 1652.13 CCAM 1323; CCC 736; A. and O. It seems that the majority tried to remain neutral, perhaps influenced by their minister, Robert Jago, who had been appointed as vicar in 1633, remained in post during the civil wars, and survived in the 1650s to become a member of the Presbyterian classis, with a stipend augmented by the state in February 1657.14 Coate, Cornw. 339; CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 281. Other influences over the borough were less stable, however. The manor of Helston, formerly a possession of the duchy of Cornwall, had been sold to Colonel Anthony Rous* in 1649, and in November 1652 he also contracted, through an intermediary, to purchase the fee farm rents of the borough (a transaction completed in 1654).15 Parochial Hist. of Cornw. ii. 181; E315/140, f. 76v; SP28/330, f. 75. This made Rous the dominant figure in the town when it regained its right to return MPs (suspended under the Instrument of Government of 1653) in the new year of 1659. The election of 12 January saw the return of Rous’s kinsman, Robert Rous, and another outsider, the moderate Presbyterian Londoner, Thomas Juxon. These were almost certainly Rous’s placemen, but the indenture was the first in the period to include a large number of signatures and marks of the freemen, as many as 28 being legible.16 C219/46/11-12.

During the Restoration period the borough’s parliamentary patronage dissolved into chaos. In the elections for the Convention in April 1660 a resurgent Killigrew interest, supported by George Monck*, was challenged by the existing patrons, represented by Anthony Rous and the former parliamentarian townsman, Alexander Penhellick, in a double return so complicated that the election was declared void. In July, when the resultant by-election was held, Francis Godolphin I increased the confusion by re-emerging as a third force in the borough. Later in the 1660s the Godolphins were able to regain their dominance over Helston, and this set the electoral pattern for the rest of the century.17 HP Commons 1660-1690.