BORLASE, [John]

The identification of the man who represented Launceston in 1450 is complicated by the loss of his Christian name from the sheriff’s return. There were at that time several adult members of the Borlase family whose economic and social position might have qualified them to serve in the Commons, but perhaps the most likely candidate would appear to be John Borlase of Borlase Frank, son and grandson of former MPs, and the only member of the family to be assessed in Cornwall for the income tax granted by the Parliament in question.2 E179/87/92. Wedgwood suggested that the MP might have been Thomas Borlase of Borlase Burgess (or Middle Borlase) in St. Wenn. He was the son of an Andrew Borlase by Katharine, da. of Thomas Polsagh, and a nephew of Mark Borlase of Borlase Frank: HP Biogs. ed. Wedgwood and Holt, 93; Borlase, 27. A third, but less likely, candidate is Robert, s. and h. of the tin merchant John Robyn Borlase of Borlase Wartha (in St. Columb Major) by his w. Alice. Robert was born in about 1410, and for much of the 1430s and 1440s was engaged in an acrimonious dispute with the notorious Richard Tregoose*: C1/16/196, 17/406-7, 70/65, 77; C254/142/21, 80; CP40/693, rot. 71; 694, rots. 135, 323d, 456; 700, rot. 335; KB27/742, rots. 112d, 177. John Borlase of Borlase Frank must be distinguished from Robert’s younger brother, John: CPR, 1441-6, p. 16; CP40/694, rots. 135, 323d, 456d; 700, rot. 335; E207/14/8.

Few details of John Borlase’s career have been discovered, and at the time of his sole recorded return to Parliament he had only recently succeeded to his family estates. Nevertheless, before long he was squabbling with his neighbours over the fruits of the lands. In Easter term 1454 Thomas Bere* accused him, his brother Roger and their kinsman Thomas Borlase of Borlase Burgess of having in August 1452 stolen a horse and 60 cartloads of wheat and oats, a claim which the Borlases denied.3 CP40/773, rot. 316. Relations with other neighbours, such as the Fowey merchant John Salter II* (to whom Borlase leased a house at Fowey) were more harmonious, although they also could turn sour, as in the case of Thomas Metherose the younger, who had employed our MP as a feoffee-to-uses, but found him reluctant to release the property once it was in his hands.4 Cornw. RO, Rashleigh of Menabilly mss, R138/1, 2, R235; C1/54/309.

In the second half of the 1460s, Borlase’s property at Bodmin, Fowey and St. Wenn on several occasions fell prey to incursions by local peasants, who were said to have broken into his houses and carried off his goods, but it is unclear whether the experience of renewed lawlessness in the south-west played any part in persuading John to reach an accommodation with the regime of the restored Henry VI in 1470-1.5 CP40/821, rot. 68; 825, rot. 67d; 835, rot. 60. That he had become guilty of some misdemeanour – at least in the eyes of the ultimately victorious Yorkists – seems to be the implication of the general pardon of all offences before 21 Sept. 1471 which he was granted by letters under Edward IV’s signet and sign manual on that day.6 PSO1/35/1829; CPR, 1467-77, p. 280.

The date of Borlase’s death is uncertain, but it may have been he, rather than his synonymous son, who attested the Cornish shire elections of December 1477. It was the younger man who sealed the shire indenture for the Parliament summoned in Edward V’s name nearly six years later, but as he was still styled ‘junior’, it seems likely that his father was alive even then.7 C219/17/3/14; Trevelyan Pprs. i (Cam. Soc. lxvii), 87-88. The younger John, who had married a daughter of William Kingdon*, appears to have predeceased his father, so the former MP’s ultimate heir was his grandson Walter Borlase.8 Borlase, 25.