MENWENICK, William

The Menwenicks took their name from the family seat in the parish of Trewen, some miles to the west of Launceston. They had longstanding associations with the borough of Dunheved, which one of their number, Roger, represented in Parliament in September 1397, and where another kinsman of the same name served as portreeve in 1431-2.15 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 716; Cornw. RO, Launceston bor. recs., B/Laus/61; SC6/814/22. The extent of the family’s hereditary landholdings is uncertain, and it is possible that William himself acquired much of his estates himself.16 It was a different line of the family that held property in ‘Couspenhale’ in the borough of Dunheved: LR2/191, f. 176; SC11/968. Certainly, in July 1454 he leased properties in ‘Great Demman’, parcel of the manor of Bodardle to the north of Lostwithiel, and in the parish of Lanlivery from Sir John Dynham,17 Cornw. RO, Arundell mss, AR1/406; CP40/878, rot. 328. but how he acquired the manor of ‘Tresperveth’ and more than 200 acres in the vicinity of Launceston, all of which were in his possession by 1469, is unknown.18 KB9/325/27.

No details of William’s early training in the law have come to light, but his career was already well under way when he was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn in 1446-7.19 L. Inn Adm. i. 10. In March 1440 he had appeared in Chancery as mainpernor for John Lymbery;20 C1/9/422. two years later he had been employed as an attorney by Elizabeth, youngest daughter of Sir John Gresley* to receive securities of 500 marks from her prospective husband, the Derbyshire esquire Richard Stafford, for a settlement of lands;21 CCR, 1441-7, p. 66. and in subsequent years he acted for a variety of important clients, including the landowners William Benalva, for whom he stood surety in Chancery, and Thomas Tremayne I*, for whom he found bail in the court of King’s bench.22 CPR, 1446-52, p. 230; KB27/736, rot. 65d; 746, rex rot. 45d. He had also attracted the attention of the Crown’s officers in the south-west. At some point in the 1440s he was appointed attorney-general by Thomas Courtenay, earl of Devon, the steward of the duchy of Cornwall, and in the autumn of 1443 he took office as escheator of Devon and Cornwall.23 SC6/1291/2/59/19.

It was about this time that the administration headed by Henry VI’s trusted minister, William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, began to tighten its grip on the duchy, assisted by the minority of the heirs to two of the greatest estates in the county, those of the Arundells of Lanherne and Bodrugans of Bodrugan. There can be little doubt that Menwenick’s return to the controversial Parliament of 1447 for the duchy borough of Helston was officially sanctioned, and even at this date he may have been acquainted with one of the regime’s principal representatives in the far south-west, the courtier John Trevelyan, the duchy’s bailiff itinerant, whom he had succeeded in the escheatorship in 1443, and who sat in the Parliament of 1447 as a burgess for Huntingdon. Over time, their association was destined to grow closer. In the autumn of 1448 Trevelyan, now pricked sheriff of Cornwall, appointed William his receiver of writs in the King’s bench,24 KB27/750, att. rot. 2. and three years later Menwenick stood surety in Chancery for Trevelyan and Henry Holand, duke of Exeter, to whom custody of the duchy of Cornwall park of Restormel and a number of other duchy properties was committed.25 CFR, xviii. 241, 252. It may similarly have been government influence that secured Menwenick his second parliamentary return for the duchy borough of Dunheved in Launceston in the autumn of the troubled year 1450.

In parallel with his official appointments, Menwenick maintained a growing private practice. Before long, he could number among his clients the greatest of the Cornish gentry, the young John Arundell of Lanherne. In the summer of 1452 he was among the arbiters appointed to settle a dispute between Arundell and the earl of Devon’s cousin, Sir Hugh Courtenay* of Boconnoc;26 Arundell mss, AR17/65. he later became one of the feoffees of Arundell’s estates, and after the landowner’s death played a important part in the settlements of dower on his widow, Katherine.27 Ibid. AR19/24-28, 20/27-29, 31; CCR, 1468-76, nos. 1009, 1384; Stonor Letters, i. 129. Other clients in this period included James Derneford of Plymouth and Ralph Reskymer of Reskymer, as well as a range of lesser men.28 Cornw. RO, Edgcombe mss, ME678; Wynell-Mayow mss, WM357; Rashleigh of Menabilly mss, R2198/1-2, 2199, 2201; CAD, iv. A10320; CP40/799, rot. 229; Cornw. Feet of Fines, ii (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc., 1950), 1091. In addition to his legal practice, Menwenick had interests relating to the Cornish tin industry, and could on occasion be found attending to such matters in the stannary courts.29 SC2/157/9, rot. 2d. It is probable that Menwenick’s commercial interests, as much as his professional qualifications, allowed him to establish himself in the borough and coinage town of Lostwithiel, where he served as mayor of the staple between 1457 and 1459.30 C241/241/5; C219/17/1.

Yet, even in Lostwithiel Menwenick did not enjoy universal popularity. By the spring of 1447 he was in dispute with the influential townsman, Robert Curteys†, who, so he claimed, had abducted his servant Christine Aleyn with the aid of a local tanner.31 KB27/750, rot. 116. Menwenick’s powerful connexions allowed him to get the better of his opponent, and at Easter 1451 Curteys appeared before the justices of common pleas at Westminster to complain that Menwenick, aided by Trevelyan and the latter’s brother-in-law, Thomas Tregarthen*, as well as his fellow lawyer Thomas Lymbery*, had attacked him at Restormel, and kept him in prison until he agreed to pay ten marks for his release.32 CP40/761, rots. 105, 117, 148. The quarrel may have been settled by arbitration, for before the end of the decade Menwenick was witnessing Curteys’s property deeds.33 CAD, iv. A10364. Another dispute in the early 1450s concerned the lands of William Heye, who had named Menwenick one of his feoffees, and who went on to accuse the lawyer of seeking to deprive him of his property and of forging deeds relating to it.34 C1/22/54; CP40/779, rot. 605d; 784, rot. 381.

By this date Menwenick had established a further link with an important aristocratic patron. The de Vere earls of Oxford possessed Cornish interests by virtue of the marriage of Earl Richard (d.1417) to Alice, one of the daughters and coheirs of Sir Richard Cergeaux† of Colquite. In the autumn of 1452 Menwenick appeared in Chancery as part of a group of other men associated with Earl John, including John Paston* and John* and William Jenney*, in support of Oxford’s secretary and factotum, Thomas Denys, who was embroiled in an acrimonious dispute with Thomas Ingham* of Norwich, father of his wife’s first husband, and by early 1454 he was also being employed by the earl in other capacities.35 C4/26/3; CP40/779, rot. 407.

There is good reason to suppose that Menwenick’s renewed election for the duchy borough of Launceston in 1459 owed much to wider political considerations. The Parliament would prove one of the most partisan of Henry VI’s reign and central to its proceedings was the attainder of the duke of York and his adherents, exiled in Ireland and Calais since their rout at Ludford Bridge, and the court thus had every reason to seek the return of its trusted supporters. Equally, however, it is possible that the electors of Launceston simply struggled to find affordable candidates: the wages of 6s. 8d. that Menwenick was paid hardly made a journey to Coventry seem worthwhile, even when augmented by an equally ‘generous’ reward of 3s. 4d., which he had to share with his colleague, Thomas Lymbery, and which was sweetened by an additional gift of wine.36 Launceston bor. recs, B/Laus/143; 144, m. 11. Nor is it clear whether Menwenick and Lymbery remained at Coventry for the duration of Parliament, for on 10 Dec., ten days before the dissolution, both were named as witnesses to a deed of John Arundell of Lanherne sealed at Bonordon in the Cornish parish of Gorran.37 Arundell mss, AR4/1259.

Nevertheless, and in spite of his earlier connexions with John Trevelyan, Menwenick does not seem to have been regarded as a die-hard supporter of Henry VI’s rule, and following Edward IV’s accession in March 1461 he rapidly came to terms with the new regime. In spite of the execution for treason of one of his earlier patrons, the earl of Oxford, in February 1462, that July he was commissioned to hold an assession court of the duchy of Cornwall.38 R. and O.B. Peter, Hist. Launceston, suggested that Menwenick sat for Launceston in both 1460 and 1461, but it appears that their claim was based on the misdating of documents among the town records: Launceston bor. recs., B/Laus/143 and B/Laus/144, m. 11 apparently both refer to the Parliament of 1459, while B/Laus/147, m. 2 is an acct. for 1470-1. Two years later, he was among a panel of men appointed to inquire into the landholdings of the attainted Lord Hungerford, and in 1466 he was added to the quorum of the Cornish bench. By this date he was also serving as one of the stewards holding manor courts on the duchy of Cornwall’s estates. In his conduct of these official duties, Menwenick seems to have been concerned above all to further his own ends: when presiding at the assession court in 1462 he secured for himself and his Lostwithiel neighbour Nicholas Lour the farm of the pannage of the parks of Hellesbury and Lanteglos for a term of seven years, and later, in 1476, he also held the duchy mill of Langford in the manor of Restormel to farm.39 J. Maclean, Trigg Minor, ii. 294; SC6/822/3, m. 6; B. P. Wolffe, R. Demesne in English Hist., 160. Furthermore, while holding court as duchy steward at Trematon in about 1466, his interpretation of the procedures of the common law in favour of his old Lincoln’s Inn associate Richard Fortescue*, who was engaged in a vicious and longstanding quarrel with Thomas Stonor II*, caused Stonor’s bailiff to complain with indignation:

And as for the Corte of Tremeton, y have mycche laburr ther; but yette y have notte geffe no ple ther, for [Fortescue] ys asoynyd ij tymys a rewe yn his oune pleynte. And that sawe y never yn no place but ther: but that ys Menwynnycke, a felow of Corte of his, ys doyng, the whycche ys Steward ther.40 Stonor Letters, i. 78.

Throughout these years Menwenick maintained a busy private practice, serving the greater gentry of his county as a witness, arbiter, or feoffee. Among his clients were the wealthy Henry Bodrugan†, Edward Courtenay of Boconnoc (the future earl of Devon), members of the Reskymer and Vivian families and the lawyer John Glyn†, and also some of the urban communities of the region, like the townsmen of Liskeard who in 1467 rewarded his services with a gift of wine.41 C140/38/45; 46/57; CP40/808, rot. 109d; E210/1574; C1/22/54; 175/29-31; Cornw. RO, Liskeard bor. recs, B/Lis/265, m. 2; Edgcombe mss, ME617, 618, 1388; CAD, i. B1201; iv. A9898; CCR, 1461-8, p. 393; CFR, xx. 201. There is no indication that Menwenick took any particular interest in parliamentary matters, and he is only known to have attended a single election, that at Lostwithiel in 1467, when he himself presided over the contest as mayor. Likewise, his unbroken public career in the crisis years that followed may have owed much to his ability to maintain a degree of political impartiality. There is a suggestion that the administration established by the earl of Warwick in the autumn of 1470 in the name of Henry VI considered him a reliable supporter, for he was appointed to a string of judicial commissions. The burgesses of Launceston also once again called upon him to represent them in the Readeption Parliament. It is probable that it was he who returned from Westminster with a proclamation from the restored King, a weighty matter which caused the mayor and leading burgesses to consume a whole gallon of wine while they considered it.42 Launceston bor. recs., B/Laus/147, m. 3. The ms. gives James Menwenick, but it is likely that this is a scribal error, and that it was in fact the borough’s parliamentary representative who returned with the royal proclamation. As on the occasion of his previous elections, Menwenick’s remuneration was sparse: the town steward accounted for just 6s. 8d. paid to him in reward, and it was small recompense that on his return home at Christmas he was given a gallon of white wine to share with Thomas Tregarthen and John Carminowe.43 Launceston bor. recs., B/Laus/147, mm. 2, 3.

Conversely, however, when Edward IV returned to the throne in the spring of 1471, Menwenick did not apparently face any consequences for his association with the Lancastrian regime. He continued as a member of the quorum of the Cornish bench, and by 1473 was once more being appointed as a justice to deliver the county gaol at Launceston of offenders,44 C66/532, m. 14d; 540, m. 8d. in spite of a private clash around this time with the influential esquire of Edward IV’s body, John Fortescue†.45 CP40/866, rot. 34. In any case, Menwenick did not live on for much longer. He is last heard of in the spring of 1478, when he appeared in the court of King’s bench to bring a bill of trespass against Thomas Clemense, who – so he claimed – had violated his property at Liskeard,46 KB27/859, rot. 45. and he may have died not long after, since that summer he was omitted from the Cornish county bench on which he had sat without interruption since 1466. Certainly, he was dead by the autumn of 1481, when his son and executor, John, was engaged in litigation over the settlement of his father’s affairs.47 CP40/878, rot. 328; C1/175/29-31, 213/41.