GREENWOOD, Hunt (d. 1687), of Liskeard, Cornw.

Hunt Greenwood came from a well-established Liskeard family. Of its adult members in the pre-war period, John Greenwood of Liskeard died in 1629, Edward Greenwood died there in 1637, and in 1641 Alexander Greenwood signed the Protestation return for the town.16Cal. Wills Cornw. and Devon, 122; Cornw. Protestation Returns, 163. It is probable that one of these men was Hunt Greenwood’s father, although as his baptism is not recorded in the parish register his parentage cannot be established with any certainty. His mother was a widow at her death, which occurred before 1649, and through her, Hunt Greenwood was tenant of small pieces of duchy land in the manor of Helston in Kerrier; he was also freeholder of lands in the duchy manor of Liskeard.17Parl. Surv. Duchy Cornw. i. 48-8, 79. Nothing is known of Greenwood’s upbringing, but, by his own account, in 1642 he ‘did enlist himself a soldier in the garrison of Plymouth’ and during the 1640s ‘he hath some part of the said time been a private soldier and some part of the said time been in military command’.18E113/5, unfol. The details of Greenwood’s service in the army are obscure, and he must not be confused with the Derbyshire parliamentarian, Captain Robert Greenwood, who served in Henry Marten’s* regiment in the later 1640s.19Clarke Pprs. ii. 213n; SP28/70, ff. 383, 386.

Hunt Greenwood married a daughter of Anthony Manaton, the rector of the neighbouring parish of St Pinnock and a distant cousin of the royalist Ambrose Manaton*, in October 1646, and he may have returned to civilian life by this time.20Cornw. RO, FP/189/1/1; Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 305. He is not listed as a burgess of Liskeard in the court book of 1647-8, but he must have been elected as such by 29 May 1649, when he was chosen as mayor of the borough.21Cornw. RO, B/LIS/110, 290. This rapid promotion was probably due to the patronage of the new recorder of Liskeard, Colonel Robert Bennett*, and there are early indications that Greenwood was part of the radical group in Cornwall which came to prominence during the commonwealth period. In the summer of 1649, for example, he worked with John Moyle II* for ‘the binding of the tipplers’ in the town; he was also paid for the carriage of letters to John Carew* in London, and made sure that the burgesses also kept in close contact with Colonel Bennett.22Cornw. RO, B/LIS/290. Greenwood went on to serve further terms as mayor of Liskeard in 1651-2, 1655-6 and 1659-60, and was appointed steward of the borough in 1652.23Cornw. RO, B/LIS/293, 294, 295, 296. Bennett was also behind his nomination as a captain in the Cornish militia in March 1650. This appointment caused some confusion at Whitehall. The initial commission was dated 2 March, and a fortnight later the council of state ordered that it should be sent to Cornwall.24CSP Dom. 1650, p. 44, 504. However, Gualter Frost wrote to Colonel Bennett (who had written in support of Greenwood’s appointment) that ‘looking over the letter in which all the names for commissions were presented, I find that all the said names are written upon the margin of the commissions with a blacker ink’ with Greenwood’s ‘overwritten’ with a different ink. Frost clearly thought this was an innocent mistake, and he promised to send a new commission forthwith.25FSL, X.d.483 (52). This was duly drawn up, and dated 19 March.26CSP Dom. 1650, p. 505. Despite this inauspicious start, Greenwood fulfilled his duties diligently. In December 1650, for example, he was working with Bennett in arresting suspected royalist plotters like Sir Christopher Wray*.27FSL, X.d.483 (79).

The commonwealth period also gave Greenwood the opportunity to improve his economic position, perhaps using his military arrears as an initial fund. In 1649 the county committee granted him control of various sequestered estates, including those of Sir John Grenvile.28E113/5, unfol. Working with Captain John Menheir and a merchant, Jonathan Chapman, in the five months between September 1650 and February 1651 Greenwood purchased the fee-farm rents of the boroughs of Liskeard, Bodmin, Camelford, Helston, Grampound, Bossiney and East Looe, and also those of the duchy manor of Tywardreth.29E315/140, ff. 50v, 75, 76v. Greenwood apparently acted as Menheir’s steward during the early 1650s, and his activities caused great resentment among the established gentry. Stephen Jago told his master, Francis Buller I*, in October 1652 that ‘Greenwood of Liskeard keeps a great stir about the duchy rents and hath put the reeve to demand rents out of Golden Mills, Ennishale (part of Golden Barton) and Mr Coryton’s tenement’. Such levies went against the traditional arrangements in the duchy, and Jago continued that ‘I wrote civilly to Greenwood, but he was rough and hath given a warrant to distrain … it would do well that Greenwood were better informed of it, for it is mischievous to pay such a new charge, and you know the humour of these kind of people’.30Cornw. RO, BU/23, unfol.

Greenwood, like Bennett, was equivocal in his attitude towards the protectorate, although he was prepared to serve in the Cornish militia, and briefly (from Dec. 1653 until Mar. 1654) joined Jonathan Chapman and others as farmer of the inland excise in Cornwall, at a rent of £520.31E113/5, unfol. He was also involved in the 1654 election for East and West Looe. According to the borough records for East Looe, Greenwood was paid 10s. ‘for drawing the indentures for the burgess’ on 12 July 1654, and it may have been his electoral management that ensured the return of Bennett’s ally, John Blackmore*.32Cornw. RO, DC/LOO/125/4/1. During this period, Greenwood’s political associates remained the same as in earlier years. In 1654 Bennett granted him the right of ‘assession’ over his newly-acquired duchy lands at Tintagel.33Coate, Cornw. 274. Under his will, drawn up on 5 March 1657, Captain Menheir made Greenwood one of his trustees, with responsibility for managing his estate, which was mostly made up of the fee-farm rents that they had purchased jointly in 1650-1.34C9/23/74. By this time, Greenwood had become a Baptist, and a leading member of the religious community in eastern Cornwall. In March 1656 Abraham Cleare at Plymouth told Bennett of his concern at the success of the Quakers in converting members of the Baptist churches, and asked for help ‘to prevent the spreading of that gangrene about the parts near Liskeard’. Cleare also advised Bennett that ‘if you spoke in faithfulness to Brother Greenwood to set a greater edge to his activity’, the threat could be dealt with.35FSL, X.d.438 (174).

Greenwood’s election for Liskeard in January 1659 reflected his importance in the borough rather than his relationship with Bennett and other critics of the protectorate in East Cornwall. His activity in the Commons is unknown, and the only surviving reference to him is a resolution of 24 March allowing him leave to go into the country for a month ‘and look after his family, now visited with sickness’.36CJ vii. 619b. After the collapse of the protectorate and the restoration of the Rump Parliament, Greenwood remained a figure of some significance in Cornwall. On 26 July 1659 he was named as a militia commissioner for the county, and when new officers were considered in August, he was recommended to Bennett by Richard Lobb*.37A. and O.; FSL, X.d.438 (127). In the autumn of 1659 Greenwood was elected mayor of Liskeard for the fourth time.38Cornw. RO, B/LIS/296. Like Bennett, Greenwood was sufficiently distanced from the army to retain his local position in the early months of 1660. His attitude was one of caution. On 23 January he wrote to the sequestration commissioners explaining that he had not received their previous letter, and hence had missed their deadline for a reply. He told them that he had compiled a list of suspected people but that he and the other local commissioners ‘have seized no estate, nor received any money, and conceive it advantageous to this service for the present to be quiet, and observe the actions of men’.39CCC 775. His cautious attitude did not attract any official censure, and on 26 January 1660 he was appointed as an assessment commissioner for Cornwall.40A. and O.

After the Restoration, Greenwood was left to defend his earlier activities. He was identified as one of the receivers of public monies, and called to account in a process that continued at least until February 1663.41SP28/152/2, unfol.; E113/5, unfol. Apart from official investigations, in 1660-1 Greenwood also faced a chancery suit from the children of Captain Menheir, who claimed that he had not fulfilled his duty as trustee of their father’s will, and had kept the profits of the fee-farm rents for himself.42C9/23/74. Greenwood seems to have weathered these storms. In March 1661 he was among the ten wealthiest residents of Liskeard in the valuation for settling the militia; on 8 November 1661 he contributed 5s. to the free and voluntary present to Charles II; and in the mid-1660s he maintained a three hearth house in the town.43Cornw. RO, B/LIS/321A; Cornw. Hearth Tax, 95, 250. It is possible that he was the man described as ‘Greenwood, a non-conformist’ in an intelligence report on the republican conspiracy of 1663, but this seems unlikely, as his fellow conspirators were described as Presbyterians.44CSP Dom. 1663-4, p. 405. Greenwood did remain in contact with his earlier associates, however. On 1 June 1669 Edward Kekewich told Colonel Bennett that he had met Greenwood the day before, and that he had been advised not to do anything further ‘in the business of the orphans’ without consulting Bennett.45FSL, X.d.483 (191). In 1682 Greenwood’s daughter Ann was married to Richard Tingcombe of Lansallos, and his son, Edward Greenwood of Liskeard, was party to the settlement, signed on 30 May.46Cornw. RO, CN/837; CN/839a/1. Greenwood died in the summer of 1687, and was buried at Liskeard on 4 August of that year. His son died in 1697, and his widow was buried at Liskeard in 1702, but nothing further is known of the family.47Cornw. RO, FP/126/1/2; Cal. Wills Cornw. and Devon, 122.