BURNEBURY, Edward

More information can be added to the earlier biography.4 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 436.

Burnebury’s brother John, the treasurer of Exeter cathedral, was not his only contact in Devon’s county town, although it is possible that it was on John’s recommendation that the citizens included him among the ‘grete barre’ of prominent lawyers who advised them and acted for them in the royal courts. In March 1428 Burnebury was admitted to the freedom of the city, the customary entry fine being waived, and like other notable men of his profession he was provided with periodic gifts of food and wine by the citizens.5 Devon RO, Exeter city recs., receivers’ accts. 6-7, 8-9 Hen. VI; Exeter Freemen ed. Rowe and Jackson, 46. A few years earlier, in 1425, he had also acquired a house and garden in Exeter from Richard Crese† and Alice his wife, although he probably did not occupy it himself, for the Creses retained a life interest in the property.6 Add. Ch. 27619; Exeter mayor’s ct. roll, 4-5 Hen. VI, rot. 54d.

Burnebury’s employment by the citizens of Exeter was just one of the numerous examples of his professional services to his neighbours, but the geographical focus of his practice normally lay further west, in his native Cornwall. Thus, in the mid 1420s he acted alongside Thomas Wyse* as counsel for John Wyse* and Richard Trevanion† in their acquisition of custody of the estates and offices formerly belonging to their mutual kinsman Oliver Wyse†,7 C254/138/63. and about the same time his services were also sought by the prior of St. Stephen’s, Launceston, who employed him in negotiations with the men of Liskeard.8 Cornw. RO, Liskeard bor. recs., B/Lis/78; C139/89/67. He may already have been one of the prior’s tenants, for his heirs were later said to hold a tenement in St. Stephen’s and Newport, the priory town adjacent to the duchy borough of Dunheved in Launceston.9 CP40/788, rot. 435. A putative kinsman, John Burnebury, later lived in Dunheved itself.10 KB27/739, rex rot. 21d.

In view of Burnebury’s consequent local credentials, as well as his record of parliamentary service and the propensity of the burgesses of Launceston to choose as their representatives in the Commons men with previous experience, it seems unlikely that Edward would have faced much difficulty in securing his return to the first Parliament of the new reign in 1422. It is nevertheless interesting to note that his name was apparently entered belatedly, over an erasure and in far too narrow a space, on the schedule accompanying the sheriff’s indenture which Burnebury attested himself.11 C219/13/1.

By 1425 Burnebury had at least two sons, Gabriel and Valentine, by his wife Joan. It is less clear whether the later Launceston MP Thomas Burnebury was also a legitimate descendant of his.12 Add. Ch. 27619. Certainly, of the three only Thomas played a part in the squabble over the lands of the Moyles of Bosmaugan which broke out within a few months of Burnebury’s death between his widow, a daughter of John Moyle of Bosmaugan, and her niece Joan, daughter of her brother Richard and wife of Oliver Tregasowe*.13 CP40/688, rots. 451d, 464; 689, rots. 123, 139, 403, 403d, 447; 691, rots. 130, 134d. In August 1441 Thomas Burnebury and John Nanskelly I* complained to the local j.p. Baldwin Fulford* that they had been disseised of their manor at Bosmaugan by Tregasowe, whereupon Fulford arrested the intruder and placed him in Launceston gaol.14 CP40/727, rot. 306.

A renewed inquiry into the circumstances of Edward Burnebury’s death in December 1439 may have been motivated by the chronic shortage of money which engulfed Henry VI’s administration by this date, for the following February various of his goods, seized by the Crown on account of his presumed suicide, were sold to Thomas Carminowe* for the princely sum of £600.15 E159/212, brevia Mich. rot. 40; E401/765, m. 39.