SKENOCK, William

By the time of Henry VI’s accession the Skenocks had long been a family of some standing in the town of Launceston. Although no member of the immediate family is known to have sat in Parliament in earlier reigns, a kinsman, Simon Skenock, had served as reeve of the duchy of Cornwall borough in 1402-3, and the family may also have been related to William Penfoun* who sat in three Parliaments in the late 1420s and early 1430s.5 In 1448 Skenock was granted the remainder of lands in Launceston and elsewhere in default of Penfoun’s issue: SC6/819/12; Duchy of Cornw. Off., enrolled manorial accts., DCO 33; Cornw. Feet of Fines, ii (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. 1950), 1141. William Skenock’s parentage has not been established with any degree of certainty, but he was probably a son or other kinsman of John Skenock, a gentleman from Egloskerry who was active in the 1420s.6 CP40/670, rot. 234d. Equally, no details of his education have come to light, but he probably trained in the law, for by the mid 1430s he was practising in the Westminster courts as an attorney.7 KB27/702, rot. 98d; 713, rot. 66d. It may have been his professional expertise combined with his impeccable local credentials which recommended him to the burgesses of Dunheved for election to Parliament in 1437. Certainly, Skenock met the requirement for residence by virtue of his property in the town: in addition to the family’s hereditary holdings, in 1440 he was granted at the Exchequer a share in the farm of eight messuages and 36 acres of land there for a term of seven years, and a duchy rental of 1463 recorded two tenements and a garden in the hands of his heirs.8 CFR, xvii. 171; SC11/968. This property aside, the family also held extensive estates, covering more than 1,000 acres of land, at Egloskerry, Treskeynek, Cardinham, Boscastle and elsewhere in Cornwall.9 C1/225/17; C142/59/41.

Skenock married twice, but the identity of his first wife, Alice, by whom he appears to have had a son, William, is obscure.10 C1/225/17; KB145/6/17. By contrast, his second marriage was highly profitable, if not necessarily prestigious, for he secured the hand of Elizabeth, bastard daughter of the wealthy John Trewint, who had ensured by an entail that in the event that he should die without legitimate issue his extensive estates should fall to this illegitimate daughter and her offspring. As a result of this match, Skenock was eventually able to acquire Trewint’s holdings at Trewint in Blisland and Launcells among other places.11 C1/573/42.

There is nothing to suggest that Skenock distinguished himself in the Commons, nor does he seem to have subsequently taken a particular interest in parliamentary affairs, for although his brother John was twice recorded attending the Cornish shire elections held in Launceston, William, as far as is known, never did so. Instead, he may have concentrated on his private practice, making regular appearances in the royal courts.12 KB27/735, att. rot. 1; 746, rex rots. 2d, 28; 751, rot. 24; CP40/734, rot. 4. There, he entered the employ of successive sheriffs of Cornwall as one of their officers and receivers of writs, and it was probably this previous experience of shrieval administration that recommended him to Thomas Whalesborough for appointment as under sheriff in 1441-2. In his conduct in office, Skenock appears to have attracted less controversy than some other holders of the under shrievalty, but in 1444 he clashed sharply with a fellow Launceston lawyer, John Lowys I*, whom he accused of breaking into his house, physically attacking him, carrying off various jewels and cloth items, and unlawfully inducing one of his maidservants to leave his household. Lowys denied these accusations and claimed to have acted in self-defence, for according to his version of events Skenock had physically attacked him, and thus only had himself to blame for the injuries he had sustained.13 CP40/734, rot. 401; 736, rot. 339. This was not the only controversy in which Skenock became embroiled in these years. By early 1446 he was suing Nicholas Stevyn, a gentleman from Liskeard, for return of a bond, while simultaneously seeking the return of certain chattels from the Bridport mercer John Sterre, Christine Boweley, widow of the merchant William Boweley* (who had sat in Parliament alongside Skenock in 1437), and a third man from the Dorset town.14 CP40/740, rot. 217. A little over a year later, Skenock himself was being charged in the courts with a failure to return a property deed concerning holdings in Launceston and neighbouring Neuport to their proper owner, Robert Trecarell.15 CP40/746, rot. 482. The practice of a professional lawyer harboured its dangers, as Skenock came to discover in May 1447, when William Benalva, a gentleman for whom he had stood bail in the large sum of 500 marks, failed to appear in court on the set date. It took him and Benalva’s other sureties, Thomas Bodulgate*, William Menwenick* and John Durant, more than two years to secure a pardon of the payment.16 CPR, 1446-52, p. 230; E28/78/22. Meanwhile, in 1448 he appeared before the justices of common pleas to complain of an infraction of his property at Launceston and Nether Exe in neighbouring Devon by a group of individuals of low status from the latter county, and, more seriously, he appealed a group of Cornishmen led by two gentlemen, William Pencors and Thomas Broun, of robbery.17 CP40/748, rot. 161d; KB27/750, rots. 58, 69.

It is not clear to what circumstance Skenock owed his second return to Parliament in the spring of 1453 after an interval of 16 years, and it is possible that it was simply his local standing and willingness to undertake the task that recommended him to the electors. As on the occasion of his previous return he does not seem to have risen to any prominence in the Commons. Nor is there any suggestion that on his return to the south-west he became embroiled in the violence that swept the region in the following year. The exact date of his death, which occurred before Easter 1462, is not known.18 CP40/805, rot. 49d. He was survived by his second wife, who became his executrix, and whose inheritance eventually fell to their son, John, called ‘the younger’ to distinguish him from his kinsman, the MP’s grandson. The Skenock patrimony fell to William’s putative elder son and namesake, and from him to his son John, called ‘of Egloskerry’, but at the latter’s childless death in or not long before 1499 the lands were reunited in the hands of another John, the son of John ‘the younger’, albeit only after a lengthy legal battle between Amice, the widow of John ‘of Egloskerry’, another kinsman, Thomas Skenock, and the eventual heir.19 C1/225/17; 573/41-45; C142/59/41. John ‘of Egloskerry’ was probably a lawyer like his gdfa., for in 1445 he was called ‘courtholder’, whereas his father William was only referred to as ‘yeoman’ at the time: KB27/735, rot. 79.