TREAGE, Robert

More may be added to the earlier biography.2 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 639-40.

Treage’s descent from the thirteenth-century head of his family, William Treage, continued to be called into question even after he defeated at law his kinsman Michael Treage in 1406. Thus, in the autumn of 1432 he was once more in dispute over part of his inheritance, this time with one John Tomkyn Trefewa.3 CP40/687, rot. 330d. Otherwise, much of the litigation in which he found himself embroiled arose from his professional connexions. Thus, it is probable that a suit for a debt of £20 brought against him by William Wynard in about 1431 arose from their joint lease of the alien priory of Modbury. Similarly, in the summer of 1425 Treage was suing John Colyn†, his colleague in the Parliament of May 1421, and his mother Ingrid for a debt owing to him from Thomas Colyn†, whose will John and Ingrid were executing at the time.4 CP40/682, rot. 235d; CP40/658, rot. 413.

Central to Treage’s concerns in the 1420s and early 1430s was nevertheless the protracted dispute over the royal manor of Helston-in-Kirrier, which he had been granted jointly with the rising lawyer Richard Penpons* in 1424, in flagrant disregard of an earlier grant by Richard II to his standard-bearer, Sir Nicholas Sarnesfield, and the latter’s wife, Margaret, in survivorship. Indeed, Margaret’s title had been confirmed by Henry V as recently as 1415.5 CFR, xv. 72; The Commons 1386-1421, i. 300. Almost immediately, she began legal proceedings to recover her valuable property, and claimed that the grant to Penpons and Treage had been made possible only by the fraudulent arraignment of a jury by the sheriff, Sir John Arundell II, Treage’s brother-in-law.6 C254/138/141. In 1429, Margaret brought her claim before the Commons. When the resultant writ of nisi prius proved ineffective, she returned to Westminster two years later to present a fresh petition to a new Parliament. It is interesting that the experienced parliamentarian Treage chose not to take up the battle himself, but instead made way for Penpons and his wife’s nephew Nicholas Arundell* to take two Cornish borough seats.7 RP, iv. 384; C219/14/2. He may well have regretted not riding to Westminster himself, when less than four months after the dissolution the manor and borough were returned to Margaret, and a few weeks later commissioners were appointed to investigate any wastes of which Treage and Penpons had been guilty during their tenure.8 CPR, 1429-36, pp. 107, 133, 275; E207/14/8. Certainly, before withdrawing Penpons had stripped the manor of valuables, including some 6,000 lb. of unrefined tin, and he responded to Margaret’s claims in the court of common pleas by accusing her of invading the manor with armed might.9 CP40/685, rot. 437; 687, rots. 313, 478d; 691, rot. 129d; 692, rot. 445.

Despite Treage’s activities throughout Cornwall, particularly close ties bound him to the minor gentry of the far south-west. His well documented connexion with Richard Penpons through their joint tenure of Helston-in-Kirrier aside,10 E207/14/8; E159/210, recorda Hil. rots. 6d, 12. he also associated with him in other respects, as, for instance, in the spring of 1430, when he and William Trethake* served as arbiters in a disagreement between Penpons and John Tretherf*.11 CP40/677, rot. 138; 691, rot. 331. Treage probably served as attorney for Sir Thomas Arundell* throughout the latter’s term as sheriff of Cornwall from May 1422 to November 1423.12 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 63.