SEYNTAUBYN (ST AUBYN), John (c.1613-84), of Clowance, Crowan, Cornw.

The family of John Seyntaubyn (or St Aubyn) traced its roots to thirteenth-century Devon, but had been seated at Clowance in south west Cornwall by the beginning of the fifteenth century.26Signature: Cornw. RO, AU/8 (1657); TSP iv. 451 (1656). Seyntaubyn’s father, who died in 1639, had been recorder of Penzance and sheriff of Cornwall, and it was intended that his son would take his place among the county’s elite.27Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 437-8; CSP Dom. 1635-6, pp. 149, 569. Seyntaubyn was educated at the Middle Temple, and in 1637 married the ‘virtuous and beautiful’ daughter of a neighbouring gentleman, Francis Godolphin II of Treveneage.28MT Admiss. i. 125; Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 438; J. Taylor, John Taylor’s Wandering to see the Wonders of the West (1649), 14 (E.573.12). He was elected to the Cornish borough of Tregony in March 1640, but there is no record of his activity in the Short Parliament that followed, and it is not known why he was passed over in the Long Parliament elections.

During the first civil war Seyntaubyn sided with Parliament, and most of his estates were sequestered to fund the royalist war effort.29Cornw. RO, B/35/26. Parliament responded by appointing him to various administrative posts in Cornwall (although they remained notional while the county was in royalist hands). From the spring of 1643 he was routinely included in assessment and sequestration commissions, and on 18 April 1644 he was appointed as vice-admiral of South Cornwall by Robert Rich, 2nd earl of Warwick.30A. and O.; HCA30/864, bundle 1643-4. On 1 July 1644 Seyntaubyn was chosen to be a member of the new county committee for Cornwall, and on 15 July he was nominated as sheriff of the county.31A. and O.; CJ iii. 561b, 576b; LJ vi. 634b. Seyntaubyn was also given military commissions. By the summer of 1643 he was serving as captain of a troop of horse in the regiment of Lord Robartes, which made up part of the Plymouth garrison, and by the spring of 1646, when the New Model entered Cornwall, he had become colonel of his own regiment. In this capacity he signed the Truro articles that marked the surrender of Sir Ralph Hopton’s* royalist army in March, and also the articles agreed when the garrison at Pendennis finally surrendered in the following August.32Misdemeanours of a Traitor, sig. A2v; E113/5, unfol.; Sprigge, Anglia Rediviva, 229, 236, 309; LJ viii. 227b.

Seyntaubyn was nominated as captain of St Michael’s Mount on 12 March 1647 (an order confirmed by both Houses on 4 June), as part of an initiative by the political Presbyterians to keep strongholds in the hands of trustworthy men.33CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 563; CJ v. 110b; LJ ix. 238a. It was no coincidence that his period of office lasted no longer than the Presbyterian hegemony, and that on 3 August 1647 Sir Thomas Fairfax* commissioned the more politically reliable Colonel Robert Bennett* to be governor of the Mount.34Cornw. RO, AU/3, 5; FSL, X.d.483 (36, 120-1, 137). Despite this, Seyntaubyn was more than willing to work against the common enemy. In May 1648 he played an important role in countering the royalist rising at Penzance, meeting the rebels at Marazion and keeping them talking while sending messengers to summon the parliamentarian forces in the east of the county.35A Letter from the Isle of Wight (1648), 3 (E.445.28). After the rebellion was suppressed, Seyntaubyn examined the captured the rebels, and was among those thanked by the Commons thereafter.36Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/2/168; Coate, Cornw. 239, 241. Seyntaubyn continued to work in the local administration after the regicide. He was named to the assessment commissions appointed in April and December 1649; by early 1650 he had been added to the Cornwall commission of the peace; and he continued to serve as vice-admiral until at least August 1650.37C193/13/3, f. 9v; A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 203; 1650, p. 311; C231/6, p. 205. Cooperation had its advantages. In 1652-3 Seyntaubyn was busy with a legal suit to gain compensation for horses seized from him by Warwick, 2nd Baron Mohun during the early months of the civil war, and he also revived an old claim to the Isles of Scilly, which had been decided in the favour of his wife’s relatives, the Godolphins, in 1636.38C10/16/113; CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 72.

During the protectorate, Seyntaubyn served as one of the commissioners for securing the peace of the commonwealth, working under the local major-general, John Disbrowe*.39TSP iv. 451. He may have used his position to settle unfinished personal grievances, as in August 1656 when he tried to extract money owed to his father by Jonathan Rashleigh*.40Cornw. RO, RS/1/65. Seyntaubyn was elected as one of the MPs for Cornwall in the elections for the second protectorate Parliament, presumably with the approval of Disbrowe. Seyntaubyn’s activity in Parliament seems to have been influenced by his official role in the west country. In October 1656, for example, he was named to committees to consider abuses in the wine trade and also to the general committee for trade, and he was also appointed to a committee on the improvement of revenue from estates sequestrated from Catholics.41CJ vii. 436b, 442a, 444a. These were all matters of potential interest to a commissioner for securing the peace of the commonwealth. Seyntaubyn’s local focus can also be seen in his inclusion in a committee in December to consider a bill to enable his fellow justice of the peace, Richard Carter, to sell his father’s estates to pay his debts.42CJ vii. 466a. Seyntaubyn seems not to have attended Parliament after the middle of December, and when the House was called at the end of the month he was listed as a defaulter.43Burton’s Diary, i. 284. On 23 May 1657 he joined Thomas Gorges* in sending a petition asking for their military accounts from the 1640s to be settled, and the commissioners at Worcester House were ordered to issue both men with debentures for their arrears, payable from crown lands.44CJ vii. 538a.

In 1657 Seyntaubyn purchased St Michael’s Mount from the heirs of its former owner, the royalist Sir Francis Bassett, but the garrison, still commanded by Colonel Bennett, refused to allow him to take possession.45Cornw. RO, AU/8. As a result Seyntaubyn petitioned the council in March 1658, and the matter was referred to the treasury commissioners, with Bennett being asked to provide further information as to the state’s own title to the island.46CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 320. A local enquiry was also held to consider whether the Mount had been a royal possession, and the deponents agreed that he should hold it on the same terms as those enjoyed by Robert Cecil, 1st earl of Salisbury, under James I.47Cornw. RO, AU/6-8 In July 1658 the treasury commissioners’ report was considered by a council committee, which was charged with reconciling Seyntaubyn’s rights and the safety of the state, but the matter apparently remained unresolved in August, when the committee was again ordered to consult with Seyntaubyn, and nothing more was done after the death of Oliver Cromwell* in September.48CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 93, 113. In January 1659 Seyntaubyn was elected as MP for St Ives (where he had served as recorder since 1646) and St Germans, and chose to sit for the former.49CJ vii. 615a. He was named to two committees during this Parliament, concerning the purchase of lands from John Paulet, 5th marquess of Winchester, and the claims for compensation by supernumerary forces in Lancashire.50CJ vii. 634b, 638a.

After the fall of the protectorate, Seyntaubyn continued to serve on local commissions. He was again appointed as a justice of the peace on 7 May 1659, and he was included in the assessment commission appointed in July.51C231/6, p. 432; A. and O. In August Richard Lobb* told Bennett that he considered Seyntaubyn to be ‘faithful’, and recommended that he should be assigned one of the militia troops of horse for Cornwall.52FSL, X.d.483 (127). The military coup in October 1659 was generally opposed by the Cornish gentry, and Seyntaubyn was among those who met at Truro in late December and issued a proclamation, published in January 1660, in favour of restoring the ‘true Parliament’.53Coate, Cornw. 308; Publick Intelligencer no. 210 (2-9 Jan. 1660) 998 (E.773.41). He was named to the assessment commission in the same month, and in March 1660 was reappointed as a militia commissioner and restored to his position as vice-admiral of South Cornwall.54A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 571. George Monck* clearly considered Seyntaubyn to be worth cultivating, and on 12 March he ordered Bennett to vacate the Mount and ‘to deliver up the possession of the house unto Colonel John Seyntaubyn, with all the ordnance, arms, ammunition and provisions of war and victual therein, to be by him kept and preserved for the use of the state’.55Cornw. RO, AU/9/2.

Despite enjoying the good opinion of Monck, Seyntaubyn’s fortunes flagged after the spring of 1660. He was returned as MP for St Ives in the Convention, but did not secure election in later Parliaments. He was stripped of his position as recorder of St Ives after the Restoration, and in 1662 faced investigation for his activities during the 1640s and 1650s.56E113/5, unfol. Seyntaubyn died in 1684 and was buried at Crowan church. His eldest son, also John†, was created a baronet in 1671, and sat for the Cornish borough of Mitchell in 1679.57HP Commons, 1660-90.