BODULGATE, Thomas

The Bodulgates were a family of some antiquity, being first recorded in Cornwall in the reign of Edward I. Although their landholdings were modest, they were nevertheless well connected among the Cornish gentry, in particular through their close relations with the powerful family of Cergeaux of Colquite and its heirs. Perhaps the most important of these was Alice Cergeaux, wife of Richard de Vere, earl of Oxford, in whose service Walter Bodulgate, probably Thomas’s uncle, rose to prominence.15 Maclean, i. 443-4; ii. 360, 361-2; CAD, iv. A8752; CCR, 1413-19, pp. 161, 418; 1419-22, p. 99; CPR, 1416-22, p. 54; CIPM, xx. 634, 648; Cornw. Feet of Fines, ii (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. 1950), 910, 1126; Cornw. RO, Arundell mss, AR1/995/2; Northants. RO, Fitzwilliam (Milton) Ch. 2289. It is a measure of the Bodulgates’ position within Cornish society that Thomas’s father, Stephen, a younger son, was able to contract a highly profitable marriage to a lineal descendant of one of the two sisters and heirs of Sir William de Brune† or de Bruyn, last of the ancient family of Deliaboll (in St. Teath). In 1399 Stephen was able to reunite the de Brune inheritance in his own hands, when Edward Dallyng, son and heir of the other de Brune sister, granted his share of the lands to the Bodulgates, reserving to himself only an annual rent of four marks for term of his life.16 Maclean, iii. 123-4. The property the Bodulgates thus gained included the manors of Deliaboll, Trecorme and Hammet (in St. Ive), Dannant, and Lamellin (in Lanteglos-by-Fowey), as well as further lands elsewhere in Cornwall. Yet, Stephen Bodulgate’s acquisition of the estates did not go unchallenged. Sir William de Brune had originally intended that his illegitimate son, William, should inherit ahead of his two sisters and in 1388 made a settlement to this effect which had been disregarded after his death. In 1406 Robert Colyn alias Brune*, son of William the bastard, seized the manor of Deliaboll, expelling the Bodulgates and forcing Stephen to seek redress in the royal courts. The dispute dragged on for some years, until in 1425 Colyn’s arrest was ordered.17 Ibid. ii. 355; iii. 123-4; E368/219, rot. 166; JUST1/1519, rot. 86.

Stephen’s estates, which also included the manors of Bodulgate and Dorset (in Lanteglos by Camelford), Trencreek (in Creed), Newhall (in St. Teath), Crowan (in Egloshayle), Helland and Trevarledge (in Advent), as well as further holdings at Trevia and Fentonwoon, St. Gennys, Poundstock, Fowey moor, Bodmin, Camelford, Liskeard and elsewhere in Cornwall, were clearly worth in excess of 100 marks p.a.18 Feudal Aids, i. 199, 205, 214, 229; Coryton mss, DD.CY1054-6; CCR, 1402-5, p. 147; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 208; Cornw. Feet of Fines, ii. 766, 888, 944; JUST1/1540, rot. 75d. Having served as a tax collector under Richard II, Stephen’s new wealth was more than sufficient for him to be elected a coroner in the reign of Henry IV: in the light of the superior status that came with his extensive estates he may have deliberately sought his dismissal from an office he deemed beneath him in 1411 on the dubious pretext that he did not live in the county.19 CFR, x. 73; xi. 26; C242/8/22.

Thomas Bodulgate, the subject of this biography, was probably born in the first years of the fifteenth century as the elder of Stephen’s two sons.20 In Nov. 1420 the reversion of lands in Lamellion (in Liskeard) was settled on John, son of Stephen and Joan Bodulgate. It is possible that John, evidently the younger son, was the man who served as a tax collector in Cornw. in 1421, rather than Stephen’s younger brother of the same name: CFR, xiv. 418. The valuable inheritance which awaited the young man allowed him to contract a marriage into one of the most important families of Cornwall, the Arundells of Trerice. Although Joan Arundell was not an heiress in her own right, this was more than compensated for by the valuable dower she had received from her first husband, head of the ancient family of Carminowe of Boconnoc. These lands, which provided her husband with an income during his father’s lifetime, included the manors of Penpont and Trewinneck (in Altarnun) and a third part of the manor of Tamerton St. Mary, and were probably worth rather more than the ten marks at which they were assessed at Joan’s death in 1454.21 C139/156/10. It was not until Stephen Bodulgate’s death in about 1434 that Thomas succeeded to any of the family lands, and even then they were not freely at his disposal, for his mother survived until 1445, and the size of the portion she retained is indicated by the substantial annual installments of 100 marks, by which the sum of £1,000 owing to her younger daughter Joan and the latter’s husband Edward Coryton was to be paid (probably on account of a marriage settlement).22 CP40/740, rot. 493; Coryton mss, DD.CY1055. Nevertheless, it is probable that the annual value of £10 at which Thomas’s holdings were assessed in 1436 represented something of an underestimate.23 E159/212, recorda Hil. rot. 14 (ix)d.

Thomas trained in the law and in 1424 he and a kinsman – possibly his brother John – undertook to keep their first Christmases at the prestigious law school of Lincoln’s Inn. By this date he may already have had some degree of experience in his chosen profession, for earlier in the same year he had acted as a mainpernor for two professional lawyers, Robert Treage* and Richard Penpons*, to whom the duchy of Cornwall manor of Helston was granted for a term of 15 years.24 CFR, xv. 72. Bodulgate’s qualifications aside, other considerations may also have played a part. There were serious questions over the means by which Treage and Penpons had procured the grant of the manor and borough of Helston, to which Margaret, widow of Richard II’s one-time standard-bearer, Sir Nicholas Sarnesfield, had a good claim. In particular, so Margaret Sarnesfield alleged, the collusion of Sir John Arundell of Trerice, Treage’s brother-in-law, had played a vital part in defrauding her. In the plotters’ search for a reliable surety at the Exchequer, Bodulgate, by this stage probably already married to Arundell’s daughter, must have seemed an obvious choice.25 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 639.

That the Bodulgates took an interest in the governance of the realm more generally, as well as that of their region, may be the implication of the presence of father and son at the parliamentary shire elections of 1425, yet Thomas himself was not to attend another such occasion after his father’s death. This was not for want of connexions in the region. Alongside his earlier associate Treage, Bodulgate acted as a pledge for John Tretherf* of Tretherffe when the latter sought the chancellor’s assistance in enforcing a marriage agreement.26 C1/69/98. In 1426 the wealthy Sir John Passhele, heir to a share of the estates of the Cergeaux family, appointed Bodulgate alongside a fellow Lincoln’s Inn lawyer, Adam Somaster*, as his attorney in England for the duration of his campaign in France.27 E159/203, recorda Mich. rot. 5. Three years later, Passhele settled his estates in Kent, Sussex and Oxfordshire on feoffees headed by his own father-in-law Richard Wydeville* of Grafton, and his kinsman by marriage, William Haute*, but also including Bodulgate – probably in a professional capacity. On the eve of a renewed expedition to France in the company of the duke of Bedford in 1431 this arrangement was supplemented by a further enfeoffment for the fulfillment of Passhele’s will.28 C139/149/26; C1/24/6-8D; The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 325. It is not known at exactly what point relations between Sir John and his feoffees turned sour, but the middle years of the fifteenth century saw a string of lawsuits between Passhele on the one side and Bodulgate and William Benalva, one of Sir John’s Cornish retainers, on the other. Central to the dispute was possession of the advowson of the church of Lanreathow in Cornwall, to which Bodulgate had presented on Passhele’s behalf during the latter’s absence in France.29 Reg. Lacy ed. Hingeston-Randolph, i. 121; Reg. Lacy, ii (Canterbury and York Soc. lxi), 239. Bodulgate and Benalva claimed to have been enfeoffed of the manor of Lanreathow to which the advowson was annexed as surety for the payment of Passhele’s debts to various Londoners, but Sir John denied this and insisted that Benalva, who had been in his service, was seeking to defraud him, despite having been granted an annual pension of 20s., and had taken advantage of his master’s illiteracy to do so. Despite having initially appeared as Benalva’s co-defendant, before too long Bodulgate was able to extract himself from the tangled proceedings and not only stood surety for his co-feoffee, but was later also named to mediate between the parties.30 C1/15/143, 16/322-24B, 155/63; E28/78/22; CPR, 1446-52, p. 230. There may also have been some collusion between Bodulgate and Benalva in a dispute between the former and the Liskeard merchant Richard Vage over property in that town. In Sept. 1444 Vage had been convicted by a jury, which included Benalva, of disseising Bodulgate and his associate John Beket of certain houses in Liskeard, but in early 1446 Vage appeared in the court of King’s bench and accused Benalva and his fellow jurors of perjury in his opponents’ favour. No verdict is recorded, but in the event, the property dispute appears to have been settled by arbitration in November of the same year: CP40/730, rot. 301; KB27/739, rot. 42; 742, rot. 136d, fines rot. 2d; KB145/6/23. Relations with the Passheles thereafter appear to have remained cordial, and proceedings against the feoffees over the family estates in the south-east begun by Sir John’s son John* in the court of Chancery not long after his father’s death were more than likely collusive.31 C1/24/6-8D. Nevertheless, Bodulgate emerged from the affair with considerable personal gain, for in October 1454, within days of agreement over the Passhele estates being reached, the last surviving feoffee of John Passhele’s grandmother, Philippa Swinburne, formally demised the manor and advowson of Lanreathow to Bodulgate, his friends John Trevelyan and John Arundell, the lawyer John Glyn, and most importantly, his patron Henry Holand, duke of Exeter.32 CCR, 1447-54, p. 501.

It is not certain when or how Bodulgate first entered Holand service, but he may already have been a member of the household of Henry’s father John Holand, earl of Huntingdon, in June 1430, when he was dispatched from the Tower of London (where Huntingdon resided as constable) to take the news of the birth of the Holand heir to his aunt, the countess Marshal.33 C139/170/43. The link proved a lasting one. Three years later Bodulgate accompanied the earl on an expedition across the Channel, and in 1436 he was likewise in John’s retinue on a fresh expedition to Guyenne. His position in the Holand household was by this date clearly an important one, for he was entrusted with receiving the wages of the earl and his retinue, as well as making payment at the Exchequer for quantities of arrows bought in London and for other equipment for the expedition.34 DKR, xlviii. 291, 292; E101/53/22; E207/14/14; E403/734, mm. 8, 10. In early 1444 the earl’s services to Henry VI were rewarded by his restoration to his father’s dukedom of Exeter with a grant of precedence second only to the King and the duke of York, and he for his part gave rewards to his own retainers. Among these was Bodulgate who was granted the office of constable of Trematon and the keeping of the duke’s Cornish estates.35 E152/10/544, m. 4. Following John Holand’s death, Bodulgate remained, at least initially, in the service of his young son. Between 1447 and 1449 he served as one of the trustees of the under-age duke’s lands, and after Henry Holand’s coming of age he continued to act for him as a feoffee and surety for various royal grants of land.36 CFR, xviii. 77; xix. 163; CCR, 1447-54, p. 501; CPR, 1452-61, p. 513.

In view of John Holand’s proximity of blood to the house of Lancaster (through his mother he was Henry V’s first cousin), it is not surprising that his servants also found employment under the Crown. Thus, in December 1439 Bodulgate was rewarded for his good offices in taking the war chest for Huntingdon’s latest expedition to Plymouth.37 E403/736, m. 10. In 1441 he was added to the Cornish bench, and – perhaps also to some extent through his patron’s good office – having secured election to Parliament as knight of the shire for Cornwall in 1442, he was included in a string of royal commissions in the county. By the time of John Holand’s elevation to the dukedom of Exeter Bodulgate had also acquired a position in the royal household. Initially ranked among the serjeants of the household, he went on to be liveried as an esquire of the hall and chamber, a position in which he continued to the end of Henry VI’s reign.38 CPR, 1441-6, p. 298; 1446-52, p. 87; E101/409/16, 410/1, f. 30v; 410/3; 410/6, f. 40; 410/9.

Membership of the King’s household gave Bodulgate a degree of power in his own right, beyond his influence as the duke of Exeter’s chief officer in Cornwall. In October 1444 he acquired the lucrative position of controller of the south-western gold and silver mines, and he continued to be included in royal commissions in the region.39 CPR, 1441-6, p. 298. Perhaps more importantly, Bodulgate found himself drawn towards a fellow Cornishman among the ranks of the royal household, the duke of Suffolk’s retainer John Trevelyan, and between them the two men proceeded to amass a wealth of grants of south-western lands and offices. Together they were entrusted with the custody of a range of duchy of Cornwall manors which had previously been in the custody of John, Lord Fanhope, for a term of seven years, and a few years later they were appointed joint parkers of the duchy park at Liskeard.40 CPR, 1446-52, pp. 80, 87; Wolffe, 254, 255; Trevelyan Pprs. i (Cam. Soc. lxvii), 29-32. In February 1447 Bodulgate provided sureties in Trevelyan’s acquisition of the estates of John Penrose junior, an idiot, and later that year the two men were associated in the – as it would later emerge forcible – acquisition of the Kentish manor of Stone.41 CFR, xviii. 67; Trevelyan Pprs. i. 28; R. Virgoe, ‘Ancient Indictments in K.B.’, in Med. Kentish Soc. (Kent Rec. Ser. xviii), 221. Trevelyan reciprocated the following year by mediating between Bodulgate and the Calais merchant John Batte, and he was later to perform a similar service for him in a dispute with Sir John Colshull*.42 CAD, iii. D768; Arundell mss, AR17/66. A connexion between Bodulgate and John Lematon*, with whom he was associated in a gift of goods and chattels in November 1448, and whom he appointed one of his feoffees around the same time, may also have owed something to their mutual acquaintance with Trevelyan.43 CCR, 1447-54, p. 93; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 208.

Through their extensive grants of lands and offices Bodulgate and Trevelyan came to dominate the far south-west, becoming two of the King’s principal lieutenants in Cornwall.44 Patronage, Crown and Provinces ed. Griffiths, 128. If Bodulgate’s high level of attendance at the Cornish sessions of the peace in the 1440s and 1450s is representative of the diligence with which he carried out his offices and was matched by his participation in the work of the numerous ad hoc commissions to which he continued to be appointed, he took his role seriously.45 KB9/242/60; 249/30d, 32d, 36d; KB27/778, rex rot. 28d; E101/554/42, nos. 1-4, 6; 555/23, m. 16. The customary gifts of food and wine with which he and his wife were presented by the leading authorities of the Cornish boroughs are indicative of his leading position in the shire in these years.46 Liskeard bor. recs., B/LIS/264. Similarly, many of the more important men of the region sought his friendship and counsel. Alongside Walter Lyhert, bishop of Norwich, and the young John Arundell of Lanherne, the greatest non-noble landowner in Cornwall, he served as a feoffee for Richard Trelawny† of Trelawny, and in 1445 he headed the witnesses to enfeoffments of Arundell’s own estates.47 KB9/307/31; C1/28/298; Arundell mss, AR19/4-6, 17/1. Arundell, like Trevelyan, was drawn into the orbit of the King’s chief minister, William de la Pole, marquess and later duke of Suffolk. Bodulgate, for his part, seems to have kept his distance, relying instead on the patronage of the duke of Exeter. It nevertheless seems likely that he could not have been returned as a knight of the shire for Cornwall in 1445 and February 1449 alongside the duke’s henchman Thomas Daniell* and the unruly Richard Tregoose*, another of Suffolk’s Cornish supporters, without at least de la Pole’s tacit acquiescence.

When the Commons assembled in February 1449, the English position in France, where the truce had expired the previous month, was ostensibly precarious. Nevertheless, and despite the presence of household men like Bodulgate and de la Pole retainers like Tregoose, the financial provision for the war made by Parliament was far from generous. Even before the dissolution it became apparent that too little had been done too late, and only ten weeks after Members had returned home, fresh writs were issued summoning a new Parliament to Westminster. The mood of the country was volatile, and in the face of the loss of Normandy and of the effective bankruptcy of the Crown, the Lords and Commons not only passed an act resuming royal grants of lands and annuities, but effectively impeached the hated duke of Suffolk, who was exiled and murdered.48 J.S. Roskell, Speakers, 237, 239. Bodulgate was less clearly associated in the popular mind with the regime of the hated duke, but he was nevertheless subject to the provisions of the Act of Resumption which stripped him of the bulk of his Crown lands and offices, and at the Kentish sessions in August 1450 he and Trevelyan were indicted of extortion, as Jack Cade’s rebels had demanded.49 Virgoe, 221-2, 228; R.A. Griffiths, Hen. VI, 641. In the event, the rebellion was quickly and comprehensively crushed and Bodulgate soon recovered what he had lost – and more. The two men were soon back in control of the park of Liskeard;50 SC6/816/4, m. 9. in August 1452 Bodulgate was granted a general pardon to put an end to any legal proceedings still pending against him; in September he and the lawyer Thomas Clemens were appointed joint constables of Tintagel; and in May 1455 he also shared the post of havener of the Cornish ports with Geoffrey Kidwelly. At the same time, Bodulgate and Trevelyan found little difficulty in gaining exemptions from many of the payments they owed to the Crown on account of their offices.51 Maclean, ii. 362.

In March 1454 Bodulgate’s wife died, and such was his standing once again that he could look for a second marriage that promised significant social advancement. Perhaps drawing upon his family’s old connexions with the heirs of the Cergeaux family, Thomas was able to negotiate a match with Elizabeth, sister of the young Lord Grey of Codnor and stepdaughter of Sir Richard de Vere, a younger brother of the earl of Oxford and son of Alice Cergeaux. Although the Greys were among the most impoverished of the English baronial families, their line was nevertheless an ancient one, and the marriage opened the prospect that, should Lord Grey die childless, Bodulgate’s children might stand to inherit the Grey title, indeed, he might even himself be summoned to the House of Lords in his wife’s right, as other men were. In the immediate term, however, Bodulgate had to content himself with a payment of 300 marks from Sir Richard de Vere, who had married Lord Grey’s mother. Around the time of his marriage, de Vere had sealed a bond for 1,000 marks to Elizabeth and to Thomas, Lord Scales, as surety for payment. This bond later came to Bodulgate’s hands, who sued for its execution, even though Sir Richard had paid the 300 marks, and seized de Vere’s manor of Astlyns in Essex, despite the fact that its reversion had already been sold to the London draper Thomas Winslow II*. Following an arbitration by Elizabeth, Lady Scales, in the late summer of 1469 the manor passed to the Essex landowner Walter Writtle*, a one-time colleague of Bodulgate’s in the Parliament of 1455, and his wife, Katherine.52 C1/38/113; C131/75/11 (ex inf. James Ross); R. Coll. of Physicians, London, LEGAC/Ashlyns deeds 7-22.

It seems that the outbreak of popular outrage at the depredations of the members of the King’s household expressed in Jack Cade’s rebellion had made little impression on either Bodulgate or his associate Trevelyan. Having recovered their fortunes and offices, they soon also resumed their old high-handed practices. Thus, Bodulgate assisted his friend in depriving the latter’s son-in-law, Henry Ash, of property in Bishop’s Lynn, and was even able to draw his young patron, the duke of Exeter, into the transaction.53 C1/28/301-2. Similarly, in the spring of 1454 Bodulgate and Trevelyan colluded with the sheriff of Cornwall, Thomas Whalesborough (Trevelyan’s father-in-law), to remove the long-serving county coroner William Trethewy* from his office. The pretext given was that Trethewy was dead, but when the coroner proved himself to be very much alive by petitioning the chancellor for redress, Bodulgate and Trevelyan procured a fresh writ declaring Trethewy to be insufficient to fill his office, and induced Whalesborough’s under sheriff, Richard Clerk†, to discharge him in spite of a royal writ of supersedeas cancelling earlier instructions. Unusually, on this occasion the two men failed in their designs, and repeated attempts to replace Trethewy in subsequent years also came to nothing.54 C242/11/20, 21; C1/24/37-38, 254; CCR, 1454-61, pp. 13, 157; KB9/297/121; 299/28-29. The background to Bodulgate and Trevelyan’s vendetta against Trethewy is uncertain, and equally puzzling is Thomas’s quarrel with the wealthy, if unruly, Henry Bodrugan† about the same time. In March 1452, so Bodulgate claimed, Bodrugan had forcibly broken into his manor of Trencreek and had taken away seven horses with their full harness. These horses, so Bodrugan maintained, had been the property of the duke of Exeter and John Trevelyan, on whose behalf he had removed them from the manor. A few months later, Bodulgate struck back. In June he raided Bodrugan’s property at ‘Netherclyker’ near ‘Trethu’ and took £20 in cash, the price he claimed for the horses. An attempt at arbitration by William, Lord Bonville*, in the following year came to nothing, and litigation between the two men was still ongoing in the summer of 1456.55 CP40/779, rot. 218; 782, rot. 416; 786, rot. 406d; KB27/765, rot. 31d.

Like may other south-westerners, Bodulgate possessed shipping interests which were not always confined to legitimate trade. In 1443 he had been in trouble with the authorities in this respect, after he had provided sureties in Chancery for two Fowey pirates, John Selander and Hankyn Loo, who had been ordered to make restitution to the Portuguese merchant Alfonso Mendes for a cargo of fruit and wine taken at sea. When Selander missed his day in court, Bodulgate’s security of 100 marks was declared forfeit.56 CCR, 1441-7, pp. 148, 244. It is not clear whether Bodulgate had been complicit in Selander’s offence or whether he had merely taken advantage of the opportunity to make a profit out of other men’s crimes, for this he was certainly prepared to do on other occasions. Thus, in November 1449 an Aragonese galley, the Seynt Antonye and Seynt Francisse, was taken off the port of Plymouth by two Cornish vessels, the Makerell of Fowey and the Edward of Polruan, the latter a ship owned by Bodulgate’s friend Trevelyan. The Spanish ship’s owner, one Francisco Jungent, petitioned the Westminster authorities for redress, and succeeded in having several royal commissions appointed to investigate the matter. Among the men entrusted with this task was Bodulgate, who in January 1450 was ordered to survey the stolen ship and cargo.57 Reg. Lacy, iii (Canterbury and York Soc. lxii), 57; CPR, 1446-52, pp. 319, 320; C.L. Kingsford, Prejudice and Promise, 96. This he did with relish, losing no time in securing what part of the spoils he could, and in late February he and the wealthy John Arundell of Lanherne purchased the confiscated Edward for the sum of £100 – without doubt with Trevelyan’s collusion.58 CPR, 1446-52, pp. 312-13; Kingsford, 102. By early 1452 the Spaniards’ goods had still not been restored, and in response to fresh complaints a new commission was appointed, headed by the influential (Sir) Hugh Courtenay* of Boconnoc, a peculiar choice, as Courtenay was himself among the victuallers of the Edward. Nevertheless, the new commissioners immediately set about their task and soon returned a list of goods stolen from the Spanish galley which they had taken from those who had received them. Among the individuals named was Bodulgate, who was found in possession of 13 pieces of arras and tapestry.59 C145/315/4. Yet, this was only part of the story, for Courtenay had seized the cloth from one of Bodulgate’s servants who was taking it to his master in London, and Thomas struck back without delay, having his opponent convicted of the assault and imprisonment of his servant by a jury and securing a writ for his arrest.60 CP40/779, rots. 452, 456d; 780, rot. 436d; KB27/793, rex rot. 24; C1/24/223. There was a separate potential cause for friction between Bodulgate and Courtenay, for Courtenay’s wife was one of the coheiresses of Thomas Carminowe*, part of whose inheritance was in Bodulgate’s hands as his wife’s dower from her first husband: C139/156/10. While supposedly investigating the seizure of Jungent’s ship, Bodulgate nevertheless still found time to trawl the Channel for further prizes: a few years later Sir Edmund Mulsho* claimed that in November 1451 Bodulgate had been in command of a vessel which had seized his ship Mary, coming from Ireland with a cargo of hides, tallow and a Breton prisoner intended for ransom, and had taken them to Fowey. In his defence, Bodulgate did not dispute the facts as related by Mulsho, but merely claimed that the ship had not been worth as much as his opponent had stipulated, and had not, in fact, been Mulsho’s property.61 C1/25/207-8; C253/35, no. 506; Kingsford, 102. Likewise, in April 1460 two carvels called the Mighill of Fowey and the Carvele of Tuke, said to be operating on Bodulgate’s orders, attacked and seized a Spanish ship, the Marie of Biscaye, on its voyage to Bristol. Despite its letters of safe conduct under King Henry’s seal the ship was taken to Fowey, and Bodulgate was said to have received stolen goods to the value of £439 from its cargo.62 C1/29/26-27; Kingsford, 200-2.

There is no evidence to suggest that Bodulgate allowed himself to become drawn directly into the duke of Exeter’s increasingly erratic activities in 1453-4. As a known Holand retainer, he may, nevertheless, have been regarded with suspicion by the Nevilles, who during the duke of York’s protectorates in 1454-6 gained influence over the government as his allies. This, certainly, was the perception of the Trelawny heirs, who in February 1455 petitioned the earl of Salisbury as chancellor for assistance in recovering their lands, of which Bodulgate had kept control, ostensibly by virtue of a concession by Agnes, the widow of Richard Trelawny.63 C1/1489/93. On 30 June, not long after the court party’s defeat at the battle of St. Albans, there was an apparently violent clash between Bodulgate and another Trelawny, John, in the parish of St. Ives, which did not, however, prevent Bodulgate (who had apparently instigated it) from being once more elected knight of the shire in the county court at Lostwithiel on the same day.64 CP40/786, rot. 405. Parliament assembled at Westminster on 9 July, but at the end of the month was prorogued until November. In September, while the Commons were in recess, the quarrel between Bodulgate and the Trelawnys came to trial at the Launceston assizes, but after a series of delays it was referred back to the court of common pleas at Westminster, where it was still pending at the time of the dissolution and beyond.65 CP40/783, rot. 317. Others also availed themselves of the changed political circumstances to settle old scores. Among those who challenged Bodulgate in the courts during the duke of York’s brief ascendancy were men like Lord Bonville’s son-in-law, William Tailboys*,66 CP40/781, rot. 160. and Robert Vage, a Cornish-born yeoman of Henry VI’s household.67 CP40/787, rot. 515.

It was, however, the ultimate fall of the Lancastrian dynasty that proved Bodulgate’s final undoing. The Yorkist triumph at the battle of Northampton in July 1460 brought his career of office-holding to an abrupt end. In March he had served as a commissioner to seize the goods of the attainted Yorkists, probably with some zeal, and the new rulers had no use for a man of his conspicuously Lancastrian loyalties and questionable morals. As men like Bodulgate and Trevelyan had much to lose from the replacement of Henry VI with a representative of the house of York it is hardly surprising that the two men sought to shore up support for the faltering Lancastrian dynasty to the last. Thus, in March 1461 they were said to be in open insurrection against the newly-crowned Edward IV, ironically at the same time as a group of junior members of the Trelawny family connected with the Lancastrian earl of Devon seized the opportunity offered by ‘the troble tyme’ to expel Bodulgate and his fellow feoffees from the former estates of Richard Trelawny. So seriously did the administration of the new King take the threat that the two former household esquires presented that within three weeks of Edward’s accession a high-powered commission headed by Sir William Bourgchier, now Lord Fitzwaryn (with whom Bodulgate had at one time shared custody of the Holand estates), and (Sir) Philip Courtenay* was appointed for their arrest.68 KB9/307/31; KB27/816, rex rot. 35; C1/28/298; CPR, 1461-7, p. 28. If the charges of insurrection facing the two men were not enough, the Bristol merchants whom Bodulgate had deprived of their goods in the Marie of Biscaye now petitioned the chancellor for redress, and in May 1462 they were awarded no less than £300 in recompense, leviable from his estates.69 C1/27/262, 29/26-27; Kingsford, 200-2. Having evidently avoided capture in 1461, Bodulgate proved equally reluctant to appear at Westminster to pay this sum in the following year, and in May 1463 new commissioners were ordered to arrest him and the leading crewmen of the two Cornish carvels.70 CPR, 1461-7, p. 278. This only served to complicate Bodulgate’s difficult situation, for he was already fighting a writ of arrest issued in the autumn of 1462 to the sheriffs of London at the suit of two Genoese merchants, Galeotto and Lionello Centurione, who were pursuing him for a debt dating back to the spring of 1458. In his defence against their claim Bodulgate drew upon the full arsenal of tricks available to his legal mind, as well as an apparently forged acquittance, but when convicted to pay the debt by a jury in the court of common pleas, he was forced to take recourse to suing out writs of error.71 CP40/799, rot. 14; 802, rot. 178d; 803, rots. 301, 302; 806, rot. 14; KB27/809, rots. 38, 38d; KB145/7/2. This, however, was not all. About the same time, John Trevelyan’s son-in-law, Henry Ash, turned on the men who in the previous decade has assisted his wife’s father in depriving him of his Norfolk property, and began litigation against Bodulgate and his fellow feoffees in Chancery.72 C1/28/301-2. Further difficulties arose from suits for debt begun by several London merchants and their executors, on account of which Bodulgate was formally outlawed in 1465.73 CP40/825, rot. 317d; 827, rot. 405; Maclean, ii. 362. He succeeded in having his outlawry quashed by the courts, but to add further to his woes, his brother-in-law, Henry, Lord Grey of Codnor, still without legitimate issue, now also found himself in significant financial trouble and was reduced to selling some of the family estates. To add insult to the injury of seeing his wife’s potential inheritance frittered away, in July 1467 Bodulgate was forced to acquit (Sir) Richard Illingworth* and the latter’s son Richard of any claim she might have to the Hampshire manors of Upton Grey and Tunworth.74 CCR, 1461-8, p. 443.

In the light of these troubles it must have been scant recompense that the Bodulgates continued to be highly regarded by the burgesses of Liskeard, who even in the mid 1460s continued their earlier practice of making gifts of wine to the couple.75 Liskeard bor. recs., B/Lis/265, m. 2. Like his brother-in-law, Thomas found himself in serious financial difficulties and was reduced to pawning some of his wife’s jewelry at a fraction of its real value.76 C1/66/399. If he escaped imprisonment or more serious sanctions, he may have had to thank connexions among the new rulers, such as John, later Lord Dynham, from whom he held some of his estates.77 C140/36/17. Nevertheless, in view of the decline of his fortunes under King Edward’s rule, it is probable that in these years Bodulgate observed the growing discontent among sections of the nobility with considerable interest. By 1468 the disaffection of Richard, earl of Warwick, and the King’s own brother, George, duke of Clarence, had grown to such a degree as to lead them to open rebellion. Although the King initially succeeded in pacifying them, in the autumn of 1470 he found himself exiled and Henry VI restored to the throne. A number of prominent Lancastrians who had spent the 1460s in exile now returned to England, among them Bodulgate’s old patron, Henry Holand, duke of Exeter. Bodulgate’s movements in the final weeks of 1470 are obscure, but it is possible that he was already shoring up support in the south-west, allowing Exeter, who did not return until February 1471, rapidly to gather forces to counter King Edward’s anticipated invasion. In mid March Exeter led this army, with Bodulgate in its ranks, towards Newark, where they joined up with the men raised by the earl of Oxford and William, the former Viscount Beaumont. Informed of their presence there, Edward IV, already at Nottingham, led his forces to face them, only to find that the three peers and their men had slipped away south during the night. Edward turned towards Coventry where he forced Warwick to withdraw behind the walls, and successfully beat off an attempt by Exeter and Oxford to relieve the besieged army. 78 C. Ross, Edw. IV, 156, 164. Edward’s decision to march on London on 5 Apr. gave Warwick, Oxford, Exeter, Beaumont and the marquess of Montagu the opportunity to unite their forces and set out in pursuit of the Yorkist pretender. On 13 Apr. the Lancastrians under Warwick’s command drew up to the north of Barnet, preparing to face King Edward’s men. In spite of his age, Bodulgate was in Exeter’s retinue, and was rewarded by his master with a knighthood, perhaps on the very eve of the engagement.79 Later lawsuits over Bodulgate’s property styled him a knight: C1/66/399; CP40/852, rot. 414d. The battle, fought the following day in dense fog, was a confused and bloody affair. Exeter’s men were soon embroiled in intense hand-to-hand fighting with the forces of Richard, duke of Gloucester, and, despite initially discharging themselves well, finally succumbed to the enemy’s onslaught in the chaos that followed the earl of Oxford’s unintentional assault on his own side. Exeter had been in the thick of the fighting, and was left for dead on the battlefield, but was eventually found and escaped. Like many of his closest retainers, Bodulgate was less fortunate. Perhaps while defending his lord, he was killed in the fighting.80 CFR, xxi. 2; CPR, 1467-77, p. 444. Bodulgate’s inq. post mortem erroneously dates his death to 8 Apr.: C140/36/17.

Bodulgate was survived by his second wife, Elizabeth, who was left to attend to the payment of his debts, as he had failed to make a will before riding out to Barnet. She subsequently married the East Anglian esquire John Welles (d.1495), and some years after her first husband’s death was still seeking to recover items of jewelry she had laid to pledge for him.81 C1/66/399. She survived Welles by no more than a few months, and was clearly dead before the death of her brother Lord Grey in 1496.82 CIPM Hen. VII, i. 1229; CP, vi. 131-2. As Bodulgate left no offspring, his lands passed to his two elderly sisters, 60-year-old Joan (d.1486), widow of the lawyer Edward Coryton, and 65-year-old Isabel, widow of Thomas Rescarrek.83 CIPM Hen. VII, i. 208; C140/36/17. This inq. gives the name of Isabel’s husband as John, whereas an earlier lawsuit, CP40/740, rot. 493, calls him Thomas. Although the heirs were able to secure letters patent exempting Thomas from any posthumous parliamentary attainder and the consequent forfeiture of the estates, in the wake of Bodulgate’s death in battle against his anointed King some of the men who had in the past lost lands to him felt emboldened to challenge his heirs for them. In the autumn of 1473 the former MP’s distant cousin William Shetford petitioned the Commons, seeking to revive his family’s ancient title to a moiety of the de Brune estates, claiming to have been deprived by his coheir, Bodulgate, who had used his influence to oust the Shetfords. Parliament readily agreed that Shetford had been unjustly disseised, but wresting control of the lands from Bodulgate’s heirs proved another matter, and litigation between them and the Shetfords continued far into the sixteenth century.84 Coryton mss, DD.CY1056; CPR, 1467-77, pp. 389-90, 444; PROME, xiv. 141-3; SC8/29/1448; C49/37/11; C1/480/28-34, 564/38, 568/19-30. Not long after the Commons had heard Shetford’s claim, John Trevelyan, who unlike his former associate Bodulgate had achieved a lasting reconciliation with the Yorkist regime, also launched a legal attack on the heirs, claiming to have entrusted his dead friend with certain muniments and charters which the Corytons and Rescarreks were now refusing to return. It is possible that in the event this dispute was settled amicably, for in the autumn of 1480 the chancellor decided in favour of the Bodulgate heirs by virtue of a – possibly deliberate – default on Trevelyan’s part.85 C1/53/293.