NICOLL, John I

More may be added to the earlier biography.8 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 838-9.

Many of Nicoll’s activities are hard to distinguish from those of his namesakes and putative kinsmen, but it was probably the MP who served as sub-bailiff of the duchy of Cornwall hundred of Pyder for the prior of Bodmin in 1437-8, an office previously held by another kinsman, Thomas Nicoll. It is rather less certain whether it was also he who had acted as reeve of the duchy borough of Bossiney (near Tintagel) ten years earlier,9 SC6/820/14, rot. 4d. and (despite the family’s connexions in Lostwithiel) it was probably a namesake, the son of Richard Nicoll, who served as portreeve of Lostwithiel in 1433-4.10 Cornw. RO, Tremayne mss, T/503; Cornw. Feet of Fines, ii. (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. 1950), 791.

In January 1430 Nicoll faced serious trouble, for at that month’s sessions of the peace at Bridgwater in Somerset he and the Liskeard cutlers Reynold Toker* and John Colys* were indicted of the capital offences of coin-clipping and counterfeiting, which they were said to have committed at Wells in September 1422. In Trinity term the accused surrendered to the Marshalsea prison, but they had already arranged bail by means of the prominent lawyers Nicholas Aysshton*, William Trethake* and John Polruddon*, as well as the influential esquire Peter Edgecombe of Cothele. The issue was finally settled in the autumn at the Launceston assizes, when the accused were promptly cleared by a jury.11 KB27/677, rex rot. 3.

As a former mayor, Nicoll was highly respected by his Bodmin neighbours and frequently attested their deeds.12 Add. Ch. 15357-8; Cornw. RO, Arundell mss, AR1/484; Carlyon mss, CN798/1, 2. Particularly close, however, were his connexions with John Colyn† of Helland, a Cornish gentleman of similar standing to his own. In about 1411, Colyn married Nicoll’s daughter, Elizabeth, and Nicoll later ranked prominently among the feoffees of the Colyn estates and attested his son-in-law’s deeds.13 Arundell mss, AR1/352, 353, 355, 356.

In the second half of his life, Nicoll seems to have established links with Sir William Bonville* of Shute. In 1442 he was one of a group of Cornishmen under Bonville’s leadership appealed for mayhem by Richard Dawne, and among the possessions seized from him by the sheriff of Cornwall in 1444, to recompense Philippa, widow of Sir William Bodrugan*, for goods said to have been taken from her was a robe of Bonville’s livery.14 KB145/6/21; CP40/749, rots. 312, att. 1; 754, rot. 115. This clash was no isolated incident, for many years earlier, in 1405, the sheriff of Cornwall had been ordered to make a similar seizure of goods on the grounds that Nicoll and his wife, Elizabeth, had taken a casket of jewels from one John Puret.15 Coode and French mss, CF2/596/1.

The execution of Nicoll’s will was entrusted to his son, Otto, and the latter’s wife, Joan. At the time of Otto’s death in 1452 this task had not yet been completed, so it fell to Joan and her new husband, Thomas Luccombe the younger. It seems that Nicoll had another son, John, for a fine made in October 1458 included the service of John Nicoll, ‘son and heir of John Nicoll, late of Bodmin’.16 CP40/773, rot. 453; CP25(1)/34/45/8.