DAY (DEYE), John, of Lostwithiel, Cornw.

The Days had lived in Lostwithiel since, at the latest, the 1330s, and a kinsman of John’s, Thomas Day, had served not only as portreeve and three times mayor, but also, in 1369-70, as bailiff of the nearby stannary of Blackmore.Caption of Seisin (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. xvii), 37; Reg. Black Prince, ii. 141; SC6/817/8, 818/1, 5; C241/164/143; Duchy of Cornw. RO, ministers’ acct. 15. John, too, was engaged in the tin trade, and indeed in September 1398, a year before his only known election to Parliament, he brought a large consignment of tin, weighing over 8,000 lbs., to be coined and stamped in the coinage hall at Lostwithiel. On another occasion he was named on a list of merchants who owed customs dues at the port of Fowey, down river. Day held various properties in Lostwithiel, although no specific details of them have survived. He served as a juror at inquiries, made there in 1400, into the recently forfeited estates of the rebel, John Holand, earl of Huntingdon, and as to the names and whereabouts of his supporters. Day’s only known mayoralty came late in life. He is last recorded in November 1423 when, at the Staple of Westminster, he acknowledged that, for merchandise purchased from Robert Kayl and Thomasina, widow of Tristram Curteys, he owed them £40, which he promised to pay before Candlemas following (2 Feb. 1424).E101/264/4; E122/113/3; Cornw. Feet of Fines (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. 1950), ii. 929; JUST 1/1495 m. 34d; C145/276/12; Add. Ch. 13042.