BONVILLE, Sir William

More may be added to the earlier biography.11 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 284-8. There had been an expectation (at least on the part of the lady herself) that Bonville’s aunt Katherine, wife of John Wyke of Nynehead, and widow of Sir John Cobham, would be his godmother, but passing Honiton on her way to the baptism at Shute she encountered Edward Dygher, a servant of the boy’s grandfather, in high spirits. When she reprimanded him (albeit half jokingly) for his good humour and loquacity, he – understanding where she was going, and knowing the child’s baptism to have been completed earlier that day – mocked her with a grin on his face: ‘Kate, Kate, ther to by myn pate comyst ow to late’. Realising that she had been thwarted, the lady angrily mounted her horse and returned home, ‘not seeing the child’s mother again for six months’.12 CIPM, xx. 130.

It was a mark of the standing that Bonville’s family enjoyed in the south-west that William attested the Dorset shire elections in May 1413, some five months before he formally came of age. Thereafter, he was next present at an election when he conducted proceedings in Devon as sheriff in 1423 and otherwise did not attend in person. However, following his acquisition of the lands of his kinsman Sir John Herle* of Tywardreath, he attested the Cornish shire elections at Lostwithiel in December 1436, evidently in an attempt to ostensibly fill the gap in Cornish political society left by the death of his relative, who had been a more regular attender on these occasions, even though his last appearance at a shire election lay back nine years.13 C219/13/2, 15/1. Likewise, Bonville can be found sitting as a j.p. in Cornwall around the same time, whereas he appears not to have done so in Devon prior to his ennoblement.14 E101/555/23, m. 16; KB27/744, rex rot. 3.

In the absence of a full livery list, it is difficult to know much about Bonville’s regional affinity, but it is clear that even before he was elevated to the peerage he was engaged in ‘bastard feudal’ retaining in the same way as other lords. Thus, a gown of his livery was found among the possessions of the leading Cornish landowner Sir William Bodrugan* after his death.15 CP40/749, rot. 312. In the spring of 1448 Bonville accused John Beville of Woolston of assaulting his servant Thomas Rescruk*,16 KB27/748, rot. 69. while, similarly, in early 1461 William Champernowne of Modbury, member of a family connected with Lord Bonville’s brother Thomas* by ties of marriage, complained to the chancellor, Bishop Neville of Exeter, that he had been abused, called ‘traitor and traitor’s man’, and beaten by the earl of Devon’s servants on account of his loyalty ‘to his good lord the Lord Bonville’.17 C1/1/97. The form this ‘good lordship’ might take is exemplified by Bonville’s arbitration of disputes between members of the local gentry, like that between Thomas Tregodek*, Robert Curteys† of Pill, and the coheiresses of Thomas Lawhire in 1446, and that between Henry Bodrugan† and Thomas Bodulgate* in March 1453.18 Cornw. RO, Rashleigh mss, R2197; CP40/699, rot. 338d; 782, rot. 416.

This is not to say that Bonville’s relations with his neighbours were invariably harmonious. There were disputes and occasional violent clashes. Thus, in 1436 Bonville unsuccessfully claimed the vast sum of 2,000 marks in damages from Thomas Carminowe*, who had pre-empted his purchase of the manor of Tywardreath, acquiring it for himself,19 CP40/702, rot. 137d; 703, rot. 124. while in the summer of 1442 he quarrelled with Robert Hill* of Shilston over property rights at Ermington and Ugborough.20 CP40/726, rot. 424.

In line with many of his peers Bonville joined the popular and prestigious fraternity of the Taylors of London, that of St. John the Baptist, in 1428-9, paying the customary entry fee of 20s.21 Guildhall Lib. London, Merchant Taylors’ Co. accts. 34048/1, f. 194v. The focus of his life nevertheless lay in the south-west, not least in the city of Exeter, where his family owned a mansion by the south gate. Whenever he came to the city, Bonville, like other regional magnates, was plied with gifts of food and wine by the city authorities. In return they regularly called upon him for advice, arbitration and other manifestations of his lordship.22 Devon RO, Exeter city recs., receivers’ accts. 1-2, 9-10, 11-13, 16-18, 21-24, 26-27, 39 Hen. VI-1 Edw. IV.

In spite of the failure of his expedition of 1442, Bonville was nevertheless retained to be part of Queen Margaret’s escort in 1444-5, and was paid £31 17s. for his services with two yeomen over a period of 182 days.23 Add. 23938, f. 13d. He could claim a link with the court circle through William Stafford*, an esquire of Henry VI’s household, who was the grandson of Bonville’s great-aunt Elizabeth d’Aumarle. Although the relationship was hardly a close one, it was not lost on contemporaries.24 CP40/723, rot. 323.

It was Bonville himself who precipitated the open outbreak of warfare in Devon in the autumn of 1455. In keeping with his distinguished military career and the notions of chivalric behaviour current among his peers, he issued a formal challenge to personal combat to Thomas Courtenay, earl of Devon. In it, he berated the earl for having ‘oftyn falsly, cowardly and traiturously … arraied and laide in awaite to muscheve and murdre me … and … made divers and many assemblees of suche as shulde be the kinges trewe liege people being arraunt theves, housbrenners and murderers’, and called into question ‘suche worship as can be thoughte’ in him. The earl responded in kind, replying ‘I saye that thou in thi saying in all suche premisses arte fals and untrewe and all othre of thy oppynion being in thy companye.’ In the event the duel never took place and the parties first came to blows at Clyst in December, when Bonville was routed.25 John Vale’s Bk. ed. Kekewich et al. 262-4.

Having subsequently offered his support to the Yorkists, Bonville found it neccessary to ingratiate himself with the Lancastrian side after the Yorkist rout at Ludford Bridge in 1459. Although he had been regularly appointed to royal commissions to raise loans, and indeed had fallen victim to the earl of Devon’s supporters while attempting to carry out the task in 1454, he himself lent money to Henry VI’s administration only once, in early 1460. This ostensible display of loyalty to the Lancastrians can only have been made to divert suspicion about his true colours. His sympathies are likely to have lain with the lords at Calais even then, for he could not bring himself to part with more than the miserly sum of £40.26 E401/868, m. 21. The principal south-western lord in the Yorkist camp after Northampton, it fell to Bonville to lead a contingent of regional levies at the second battle of St. Albans, which would ultimately cost him his life.27 H. Kleineke, ‘“Þe Kynges Cite”’, in The Fifteenth Cent. VII ed. Clark, 148.

Bonville left no will, so the administration of his goods was entrusted to Bishop Neville of Exeter, John Cheyne of Pinhoe and Richard Gildon.28 CP40/840, rot. 15d. Isabel Kirkby’s son aside, he may have had another illegitimate son, for in the summer of 1454 one John Pynnage of Shute, gentleman, was also known as ‘Bonevile Bastard’.29 KB27/774, rex rot. 1; KB9/274/34.