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Although no definite relationship has been traced between Thomas and the prominent family of Beville who lived at Woolston, it may not have been mere coincidence that the return recording Thomas’s only known election to Parliament was made by John Beville* of Woolston, then sheriff of Cornwall.

Thomas lived at Nambol, not far from the borough which he represented in the Commons. In 1419 he conveyed to Roger and Joan Kelwa land in the same parish as well as in the parishes of Wendron, St. Anthony, St. Agnes and St. Germans; and they in their turn formally relinquished to him and William Richard* their rights to property further west, in Sancreed and Morvah. Beville may have been a merchant; certainly before 1435 he had contracted debts in London and Middlesex amounting to £58. But it was described as ‘gentleman’ that he then, and again in 1439, took out royal pardons of outlawry for failing to appear in the central courts to answer his creditors. Some time previously, the abbot of Beaulieu, who owned the advowson of the parish church of St. Kevern, had granted Beville the next presentation to the benefice, but because of the latter’s outlawry at the time of the incumbent’s death, exercise of patronage devolved upon the Crown. Beville is last recorded in November 1439, in the course of a dispute with two London merchants over the ownership of a consignment of iron, part of the cargo of a Breton barge taken at sea.

Cornw. Feet of Fines (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. 1950), 935, 936; CPR, 1429-36, p. 433; 1436-41, p. 327; C1/16/555; CCR, 1436-41, p. 353.

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes