CARWYNNAK, John

Carwynnak’s family took its name from the manor of Carwinnick in the parish of Creed, and he himself held lands there, in neighbouring Grampound and in Liskeard, some of which had descended to him from his maternal uncle in about 1425.5 CAD, iii. A4065; iv. A9995-6; v. A13231; E40/4065. No conclusive evidence of his father’s identity has come to light, but he may have been a son or grandson of the man of the same name active in Cornwall in the reign of Richard II.6 That John Carwynnak had a wife called Eve and a son and heir William, who was alive in 1400: Cornw. Feet of Fines, ii (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. 1950), 729; C241/190/85. John’s early life and education are obscure, but he evidently trained as a lawyer and may have had a professional association with his older kinsman John Jaybien† (d.c.1441), the prominent Plymouth lawyer who in his will left him all his law books, as well as a scarlet gown. Carwynnak, whom Jaybien had previously employed as an attorney, went on to serve as one of the lawyer’s executors.7 KB27/713, rot. 5; Reg. Lacy, iv (Canterbury and York Soc. lxiii), 42. He set about this task quickly and diligently, and although the will was not granted probate until February 1447, he had retained a chantry chaplain, one Andrew Parker, to celebrate mass for the soul of the deceased by Michaelmas 1445. However, he was evidently less diligent in paying the clergyman, for Parker was reduced to suing him for his outstanding wages.8 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 491; CP40/774, rot. 141; 780, rot. 256d. Even by the early 1430s Carwynnak had established his own legal practice, and regularly appeared in the Westminster courts as an attorney or a mainpernor.9 CP40/689, rot. 128d; 691, rot. 116; 703, rot. 427; KB27/679, rots. 28d, 41d; 694, rot. 62d; 696, rex rot. 23d; C1/9/396; CCR, 1429-35, pp. 111, 114.

By the late 1430s Carwynnak had settled at Plymouth, where he had acquired property through his marriage to Margaret, the widow and executrix of the merchant William Elys.10 CP40/720, rot. 128d. These holdings aside, Margaret also brought her new husband property elsewhere, including a house in Plympton Erle, to which Walter Selman, one of the leading men of that town, also laid claim.11 CP40/684, rot. 130d. Carwynnak soon began to play his part in public life at Plymouth. He was regularly among the burgesses associated with the portreeve (and later the mayor) in witnessing property deeds, and was called upon to value goods seized as forfeit to the Crown in the port.12 Plymouth and W. Devon RO, Woollcombe mss, 710/668-9; Cornw. RO, Edgcombe mss, ME1445; E122/183/19, m. 1.

It is not clear whether Carwynnak played any part in the negotiations which eventually led to the incorporation of the borough of Plymouth in 1440, but he soon became drawn into the defence of the town’s new privileges. Thus, in early 1441 he appeared as attorney for the new borough in the court of common pleas, where the corporation defended its right to hear pleas in its own mayor’s court for the first time. Well equipped with a copy of the borough charter, Carwynnak proved successful in the plea, and the litigation in question pending before the Westminster justices was duly deferred to the jurisdiction of the mayor.13 CP40/720, rot. 133. By early 1442, Carwynnak was also serving as Plymouth’s coroner, and in view of his experience of life at Westminster he may have seemed a natural choice to travel to the capital as one of Plymouth’s first two MPs, in the Parliament which assembled on 25 Jan. that year. While at Westminster, Carwynnak returned to the common pleas to defend his community once again. The details of the burgesses’ dispute with the abbot of Buckland are obscure, but it evidently related to the abbey’s former rights in the town and its hinterland: in the course of the negotiations over Plymouth’s incorporation the abbot had agreed to exchange his rights as lord of the surrounding hundred of Roborough for the advowson of the church of Bampton, which the burgesses had purchased from the prior of Bath for this purpose.14 CP40/727, rot. 334d.

On this occasion, the burgesses had been joined in their opposition to the abbot of Buckland by the important local esquire James Chudleigh*, but it seems that over the next decade relations between them cooled, and in the spring of 1452 the King’s justices heard complaints from Chudleigh and another local esquire, Hugh Stucley, that a group of leading Plymouth gentlemen and merchants led by the mayor, Stephen Chapman, and the former mayor John Page, and including, among others, Carwynnak and Thomas Hill IV*, had assaulted their servants at Plymouth.15 CP40/765, rots. 308, 308d. Similarly, it may have been in an official capacity that Carwynnak, Chapman and Page seized a mast (‘malum’) belonging to James Durneford at East Stonehouse.16 CP40/758, rot. 251. The town may about this time have suffered from wider unrest, for not long after Carwynnak complained of his own unlawful imprisonment by the mayor in June 1452 (a dispute not settled until 1466),17 CP40/768, rot. 478; CPR, 1467-77, p. 109. and the following year John Page brought charges of trespass against him and a number of associates.18 KB27/768, rot. 59d.

It seems that the former MP was nevertheless highly regarded by his neighbours who in 1457 chose him as mayor of the town.19 Plymouth Mun. Recs. ed. Worth, 15. Further afield, he now also found employment under the Crown, when he was elected one of the county coroners. He may not have cherished his new duties, and it is possible that he himself procured the Chancery writ issued in August 1460 providing for his dismissal from office on the pretext that he was insufficiently qualified for his post.20 C242/11/30. It seems that he was nevertheless promptly re-elected, and his appointment was renewed after Edward IV’s accession.21 KB27/831, rex rot. 6d. The new administration evidently valued his experience, and in October 1462 commissioned him to inquire into imports of Gascon wine into Plymouth in contravention of a royal ordinance. It would appear that he and his fellows were somewhat over-zealous in their task, for within weeks other commissioners had to be appointed following a complaint by a group of Breton merchants that Carwynnak and his colleagues had seized the wines which they had legally imported.22 CPR, 1461-7, pp. 233-4. Rather less is known of Carwynnak’s personal affairs. He continued his private legal practice which brought him into contact with important men and corporate bodies throughout the south-west.23 CP40/703, att. rot. 3d; KB27/679, rot. 41d; 729, rot. 8; CCR, 1435-41, 451; Edgcombe mss, ME1445. In 1460-1 he supplied the city of Exeter with 12 ‘tabuli’, but regrettably nothing is known of their nature or content.24 Devon RO, Exeter city recs., receiver’s acct. 39 Hen. VI-1 Edw. IV, m. 1d. He clearly amassed a degree of wealth, some of which, in the form of two silver cups and two goblets bound with gilt silver altogether worth £20, were stolen from him by a Plymouth yeoman, Robert Cook, at some point before 1466.25 KB27/819, rot. 40; 933, rots. 89, 100.

The date of Carwynnak’s death is unknown, but he was evidently still alive in 1469 when he settled a tenement and ‘Capron’s garden’ in Plymouth’s Southtown on William Yogge and his wife.26 E210/5903. Of his children nothing is known, but by the end of the century his landholdings had passed to coheiresses, one of whom, Iseult, by then the widow of Hugh Strange, esquire, settled her share on the Tretherf family in 1499.27 CAD, iii. A4065; iv. A9995-6. Carwynnak’s relationship to a namesake who was active as a cordwainer in Exeter in the later 1470s has not been established: KB27/870, rot. 11.