LYMBERY, Thomas

Of obscure parentage, Lymbery trained in the law, although the details of his early education are not known. He is first heard of in December 1433, when he acted as an attorney to transfer seisin of two properties in Bideford in western Devon.9 Devon RO, Dayman mss, Z16/1/10/1. A few years later, in 1440, he was associated with a putative kinsman, one John Lymbery, in a quarrel with the influential Carminowe family over property at Over Bodiniel. Servants of Nicholas Carminowe of Husting and John Colyn of Helland were said to have forcibly entered the Lymbery holding there and expelled the tenant. Challenged by John Lymbury at common law, Carminowe and Colyn, backed by the former’s powerful kinsman Thomas Carminowe* of Ashwater, obtained a list of the jurors empanelled to hear the matter and by threats induced them to pass a verdict against the plaintiff. In view of Lymbery’s superior expertise in the common law, they brought proceedings against him in the Church courts, leaving him to mount a defence in Chancery.10 C1/9/422; 72/52.

Still a comparatively minor lawyer with few important clients, Lymbery may have owed his return to the two Parliaments of 1449 to his one patron of note, the influential courtier John Trevelyan*, who presided over the elections in the far south-west as sheriff of Cornwall. During the course of his shrievalty he employed Lymbery as his receiver of writs in the King’s bench,11 KB27/752, rot. 27d. and he may also have intended him to act on his behalf in the Commons. Lymbery’s candidature seems to have been made palatable to the electors of Dunheved, the duchy borough which returned him, by his agreement to forgo the customary remuneration: for the Parliament of November 1449, which lasted for several months, he and his companion William Mohun* agreed to accept a mere 20s. each in lieu of their wages.12 Launceston bor. recs., B/Laus/139, f. 3v.

Lymbery maintained his ties with the well-connected Trevelyan in subsequent years, and at Easter 1451 he, along with Thomas Tregarthen*, Thomas Tregodek* and William Menwenick*, was said to have been associated with Trevelyan in an assault on the Lostwithiel gentleman Robert Curteys† at Restormel, where Trevelyan was constable.13 CP40/761, rots. 105, 117, 148. Menwenick, a fellow member of Lincoln’s Inn (to which Lymbery had been admitted a few months earlier), had stood surety in Chancery to support him in his quarrel with the Carminowes, and their association was to be a lasting one. Both men were among Thomas Tregodek’s feoffees of the estates of John Lawhire*),14 C1/9/422; 72/52; Cornw. RO, Rashleigh mss, R2198-9, 2201. and together they were returned to represent Dunheved in the controversial Coventry Parliament of 1459. It is likely that Trevelyan, who had once more assumed the effective shrievalty of Cornwall (albeit as deputy to the nominal sheriff, the young prince of Wales) brought about this fresh return, but by that date Lymbery had also acquired another patron of at least local influence in the wealthy John Arundell of Lanherne, whom he served as under sheriff in 1457-8.15 KB9/289/13. Once again, both Lymbery and Menwenick agreed to serve at a modest rate, in this instance lump sums of 6s. 8d. each in wages, augmented by a miserly reward of 3s. 4d. shared between them.16 Launceston bor. recs., B/Laus/143; 144, m. 11.

If Lymbery had found himself increasingly at the heart of the Lancastrian establishment in his county, the Yorkist victory at the battle of Northampton in the summer of 1460 and the subsequent accession of Edward IV in the following spring brought his public career to a temporary end, as both his principal patrons Trevelyan and Arundell were excluded from the corridors of power.17 The suggestion by R. and O.B. Peter, Hist. Launceston, that Lymbery represented Launceston in 1460 appears to be based on a misdating of documents among the town records: B/Laus/143 and B/Laus/144, m. 11 both refer to the Parliament of 1459. The new regime was, however, prepared to be conciliatory, and from 1463 Lymbery was included in occasional ad hoc commissions, while his standing as a man of law found expression in his admission at the end of 1469 to the quorum of the Cornish county bench, on which he would serve intermittently for over 20 years.18 KB27/885, rex rot. 7. Already, he also held office as one of the county coroners, although the dates of his appointment and dismissal are uncertain.19 KB9/330/82-83; CCR, 1468-76, no. 573. In the crisis of 1470-1 Lymbery seems to have kept a low profile, and he succeeded in remaining on good terms with both the Yorkists and the brief Readeption regime. Thus, he was able to serve on the bench under both administrations, and to draw gifts of wine in reward from the burgesses of Launceston who were eager to curry his favour.20 Launceston bor. recs., B/Laus/147, m. 3. Lymbery never rose to the very top of local administration, but he continued to receive periodic lower-level appointments throughout the 1470s and early 1480s, many of them drawing upon his professional expertise. His membership of the county bench aside, he thus served as a justice of gaol delivery and was occasionally charged with inquiries into disputed and escheated lands.21 CFR, xxi. 204, 205, 268, 313; C140/29/38a.

Throughout this period, Lymbery also maintained an extensive private legal practice. The most important of his lay clients included Edward Courtenay of Boconnoc (who, after the execution of Henry Courtenay of Tiverton in 1469, was heir male to the earldom of Devon),22 CCR, 1476-85, no. 224. and the wealthiest of the Cornish gentry, the Arundells of Lanherne. Lymbery was regularly named among the witnesses of John Arundell’s deeds,23 Cornw. RO, Arundell mss, AR1/45, 48, 89, 90, 105/1, 177, 268, 270, 362, 363, 389-91, 393, 710; AR4/1259. and in later years, both Arundell and his wife, Katherine, one of the coheiresses of Sir John Chideock*, employed him as a feoffee.24 Ibid. AR19/25-28, 20/27-29, 31, 32; CCR, 1468-76, no. 1009; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 181; C1/59/123. Closer to home, the burgesses of Launceston continued to seek his good will by gifts of wine, and by the end of the 1470s the prior of Launceston retained him as his steward.25 Launceston bor. recs., B/Laus/164, m. 2; CPR, 1476-85, p. 178. It is possible that in this capacity Lymbery negotiated the agreement between the prior and the royal justice Richard Chokke, who were quarrelling over the execution of the will of the deceased Lord Botreaux: in December 1480 Lymbery was appointed by royal writ of dedimus potestatem to oversee the mutual bonds of the parties and to place a memorandum of their acknowledgement on the record.26 CCR, 1476-85, no. 742.

Lymbery’s skill in remaining neutral in times of crisis was again to stand him in good stead in the mid 1480s. His appointment as assessor of a parliamentary subsidy by the council of young Edward V in April 1483 was confirmed in August by Richard III’s administration, and although his dismissal from the Cornish bench in December may have owed something to his known connexions with Sir Thomas Arundell of Lanherne and Edward Courtenay, both of whom rose against King Richard in October, by November 1484 Lymbery had regained sufficient trust to be returned to his former position. He continued to sit on the Cornish bench for the remainder of Richard III’s reign and in the spring of 1485 was charged with further duties as a commissioner to inquire into acts of piracy. It is nevertheless surprising that he was stripped of all his official appointments in the aftermath of the battle of Bosworth: two of his principal patrons, Arundell and Courtenay, had been in exile with the pretender, and might have been expected to intercede on his behalf. It is thus possible that it was Arundell’s unexpected death, perhaps of the sweating sickness, in the early weeks of the reign, which removed such protection, and did not allow him to revive his fortunes until the following spring. In February 1486 he was eventually reappointed as a j.p., but his judicial activity aside, his public service under the new King was to remain limited. He was in any event advancing in years, and his extensive private practice, now dominated by the protracted settlement of Arundell’s affairs and service across England as legal counsel to important men like Edward, Lord Hastings, may have taken its toll.27 Hants RO, Jervoise of Herriard mss, 44M69/A7/7/2, m. 3.

The date of Lymbery’s death is obscure, but he probably died at some point before the end of 1492, when he was omitted from the Cornish commission of the peace. His wife had predeceased him, so it was his putative daughter Joan, the wife of William Taverner, who became executrix of his will.28 C1/207/101. The extent of the inheritance that Lymbery left to his descendants is unclear, but he seems to have owned lands in Padstow, which by the early sixteenth century were in the hands in Stephen Polwhele, and a glimpse of the spoils of his legal practice is provided by a series of lawsuits for debts totaling more than £37 which he brought against a number of south-western gentry and merchants in 1486.29 C1/550/25; CP40/895, rot. 74d.