NANSKELLY, John I

Although the sheriff’s indenture recording the Cornish elections of 1447 names Sir Hugh Courtenay* of Boconnoc’s colleague as ‘John Kelly’, the address given leaves little doubt that the man elected was in fact John Nanskelly of Bosmaugan, a landowner from a parish to the immediate south of the county town of Lostwithiel.3 It seems unlikely that, as Wedgwood supposed, the MP was John Kelly of Southwick, Devon, who is not known ever to have resided at Bosmaugan. This man, who married Joan, er. da. of John Austell*, served as escheator of Devon and Cornwall in 1437-8 and died in 1465, leaving his infant gdda. Edith as his next heir (HP Biogs. ed. Wedgwood and Holt, 509; C139/140/28; E13/141, rots. 53, 54; E199/9/8; CFR, xvii. 10; CPR, 1441-6, p. 307; C67/41, m. 25; C140/17/24). Another John Kelly, who settled in the Exeter parish of St. Petrock and traded as a mercer, served as mayor of Exeter in 1457-8, 1461-2, and 1477-8, and died in 1481, leaving a son, Oliver: Devon RO, Exeter city recs., mayor’s ct. rolls 11-12 Hen. VI to 17-18 Edw IV; CPR, 1461-7, pp. 101, 232; 1467-77, p. 250; C140/81/51. A third namesake came from Penryn in Cornw. : CPR, 1441-6, pp. 47, 107, 289. The Nanskellys were an ancient family with extensive holdings in south-western Cornwall. The family’s pedigree in the fifteenth century is confused, not least by its habit of naming its sons either John or Richard, occasionally even gracing siblings with identical names. The MP was probably one of the two sons, both called John, of another John Nanskelly, who in 1394 settled the remainder of his lands on them in tail. At the time, both of the younger men were under age, but it had already been decided that the elder of the two was to marry Joueta, the daughter of Henry Richard, a Bodmin burgess.4 CAD, iv. A10086. It may have been the yr. of the two who went on to become a London draper and died before 1452: CCR, 1435-41, p. 453; CPR, 1446-52, p. 494. From this marriage Nanskelly in turn appears to have had two sons (in line with family tradition named John and Richard), and two daughters, Lavina and Joan.5 Joan may have become the w. of John Tresulek, on whom Nanskelly settled his property in Trencreek: Cornw. RO, Edgcumbe mss, ME74-77, 79, 1052/1-2. Richard, the younger son, learnt the tanner’s trade and settled in the town of Helston,6 CAD, iv. A8570, 8954, 9924; CPR, 1441-6, p. 219. where through marriage to Isabel, the daughter of John Coly, he acquired extensive property.7 CAD, iv. A8684, 10047, 10313, 10359. The elder son, John, eventually went on to sit in Parliament alongside his father, albeit on the burgesses’ benches as Member for Truro.

The background to Nanskelly’s election as knight of the shire is obscure. As far as it is possible to tell, he was of lesser standing and wealth than the men who normally represented Cornwall in the Commons, and he is not known to have had any particular qualifications, such as training in the law, which might have recommended him to the men of the county. As, unusually by this date, Parliament had not been summoned to Westminster, it may be that no man of greater substance could be found willing to undertake the onerous and expensive journey to Cambridge, as the initial summons stipulated.8 The renewed summons redirecting the Commons to Bury St. Edmunds was only issued on 20 Jan., four days after the Cornish county elections had taken place: C219/15/4. Nanskelly may have had private reasons for wishing to attend Parliament, for he headed a group of his relatives in the assembly: apart from his son, John II, two kinsmen, William* and Stephen Jane*, were returned as burgesses for Truro and Launceston respectively. It is possible, although not certain, that the election of this family grouping was in some way connected with Nanskelly’s drawn out dispute with Oliver Tregasowe* over the manor of Bosmaugan. John had held this manor jointly with Thomas Burnebury, until they had been disseised by Tregasowe. At Burnebury’s and Nanskelly’s bidding Baldwin Fulford*, acting in his capacity as a j.p., had ridden to the manor with an armed retinue on 15 Aug. 1441, and finding Tregasowe entrenched in the property had forcibly arrested him and held him prisoner at Lostwithiel. Litigation over the matter nevertheless continued until the eve of Nanskelly’s return to the Commons.9 CP40/698, rot. 337; 727, rot. 306; 738, rot. 103; 742, rot. 106.

Few other details of Nanskelly’s life have come to light. In April 1422 he had made a settlement of his property in Bodmin, Grampound and elsewhere in the county on feoffees headed by the prominent lawyer Edward Burnebury* with successive remainders to his children and other kinsmen.10 CAD, iv. A9992. After his return to Parliament, in June 1450, he settled some of his property in Nanskelly, Dodwood, Penhale, Newhamstreet near Truro, and elsewhere on his son Richard and the latter’s wife, retaining for himself only an annual rent for life of 40s.11 CAD, iv. A10359. It is possible that he died not long after, for less than a year later, in April 1451, Richard in his turn conveyed the properties to the wealthy local esquire Nicholas Carminowe in return for only a nominal rent of a grain of corn for the first 14 years and 26s. 8d. thereafter.12 CAD, iv. A9854.