Helston, a duchy of Cornwall borough and a coinage town, had received its first royal charter in 1201; its privileges were confirmed in 1512, 1547 and 1553. In the absence of borough records for the period little is known of its municipal government, but the Elizabethan charter incorporating it as the mayor and aldermen possibly did little more than ratify the existing position.
The borough of Grampound belonged with the adjacent manor of Tybesta to the duchy of Cornwall and in 1539 it paid a fee-farm of £12 to the duchy. Its earliest known charter had been granted in the first half of the 14th century by John of Eltham, Earl of Cornwall, and royal confirmation had recognized it as a free borough with a guild merchant and freedom from toll throughout the county; it had two fairs and a market. There was a hundred court in the town, and the burgesses held lands and mills by charter of the duchy. Later confirmations of its privileges included two in 1515 and 1547.
In the later middle ages the name Launceston was used, sometimes confusingly, to cover three separate townships, Launceston St. Stephen, Dunheved and Newport. The most important of these, Dunheved, was founded soon after the Conquest, and as head of the honor of Launceston became the judicial headquarters of Cornwall with the county gaol in the castle. But its position, so near the border with Devon, made it highly inconvenient of access, and by the early 16th century Lostwithiel had largely superseded it.
The borough of Camelford belonged with the manor of Helston-in-Triggshire to the duchy of Cornwall. It had received its first charter in 1260 and several confirmations of its privileges in the 14th and 15th centuries; the charter of 1475 was confirmed in 1553. In the absence of municipal records few details have come to light about its administration, but it had a reeve, whose title was changed to mayor during the financial year beginning at Michaelmas 1552: Richard Cock held the office throughout the 1550s.
The harbour and township of Bossiney lay within the manor of Tintagel, which with the borough and castle belonged to the duchy of Cornwall: the manor was sometimes called Bossiney. By the reign of Henry VIII the castle was ruinous and although served by a constable and other officers it barely sufficed for a prison. The erosion of the castle by the sea and its neglect by the duchy had contributed to the decline of the settlement beneath its walls and the migration of many inhabitants to the township a mile away to the east.
Bodmin, a stannary town whose Saturday market was described by Leland as ‘like a fair for the confluence of people’, but which was included in the Act of 1540 for the re-edification of towns westward (32 Hen. VIII, c.19), had returned Members to the Parliament of 1295. Until the dissolution of Bodmin priory in September 1538 the prior was lord of the borough; successive medieval charters were granted to the prior, convent and ‘their’ burgesses, but the mayor and townsmen often quarrelled with the priors about their rights.
The town of Truro achieved corporate existence in the 1150s when Richard Lucy, afterwards Henry II’s chief justiciar, separated it from his manor of Kenwyn at the head of a main tidal creek of the Fal estuary. Lucy conferred on the inhabitants certain liberties (including the right to have a court of their own, to levy tolls and rents and to manage their own commercial affairs), and obtained confirmation of his charters from Reynold, earl of Cornwall, as well as from the King.
Lostwithiel was founded some time in the 12th century at the lowest bridging point across the river Fowey, by a member of the powerful family of Cardinan, owners of the manor of Bodardle, which then included the greater part of the parish of Lanlivery. The borough was established before 1194, when Robert Cardinan paid the King ten marks for the privilege of holding a market there, but his grand daughter was induced to sell not only her castle of Restormel (built in about 1200) and its park, but also this township to Henry III’s brother, Richard, earl of Cornwall.
Liskeard, unlike Launceston (Dunheved), Lostwithiel and Truro, was not a ‘new’ town, planted in the early Middle Ages by a local lord. First mentioned in about 1000, it was of similar antiquity to Helston, having grown up gradually near Bodmin moor upon which the tin workings of the stannary district of Foweymore were later located. The courts of the stannary were often held at Liskeard, but the town never became a centre of the tin trade on the same scale as Lostwithiel or Truro.
By the later Middle Ages three separate townships had grown up at Launceston: Launceston ‘St. Stephen’, Dunheved and Newport. Each of the three at various times adopted the name of ‘Launceston’, and confusion between them increased after 1529 when both Newport and Dunheved returned Members to Parliament, for Newport made returns as ‘Launceston’ and Dunheved (which until then had generally done the same) took to using its ancient name. However, in the 14th and early 15th centuries Newport was of minor importance, and the histories of the other two townships may be easily disentangled.
