RESKER, Stephen

Like many of Truro’s MPs in the fifteenth century, Resker was an obscure man of whose career little is known. His family probably took its name from the manor of Roskear in St. Breock, but the extent of Stephen’s own landholdings, if any, is uncertain. They are unlikely to have been more substantial than those of his putative kinsman Henry Resker, who in 1451 was thought to command an annual income of £2 from lands in Cornwall.2 E179/87/92. Equally uncertain is Resker’s parentage although it is possible that he was a son of the lawyer John Resker who in 1385 served as attorney for the judge John Penrose of Escalls, and sat on the Cornish bench between 1389 and 1391.3 CPR, 1385-9, p. 9; 1388-92, pp. 138, 342; C.J. Tyldesley, ‘Crown and Local Communities in Devon and Cornw. 1377-1422’ (Univ. of Exeter Ph.D. thesis, 1979), 73. Stephen is not known to have ever held office either under the Crown or the duchy of Cornwall, or indeed locally, although the lack of any records of the borough of Truro makes it impossible to be certain. He had some connexions among the Cornish gentry, and in April 1424 stood surety in the court of King’s bench for the lawyer John Polmorva* alongside several other local men, including John Trewint* and John Chinals†.4 KB27/617, rot. 31. Nothing else is known of Resker’s own life, but it is possible that the John Stefyn Resker who in April 1451 attested an agreement between Richard Nanskelly and Nicholas Carminowe was the MP’s son, who in accordance with Cornish custom used his father’s forename as a distinguishing middle name.5 CAD, iv. A9854.