COLSHULL, John II (c.1391-1418), of Tremodret in Duloe and Binnamy in Week St. Mary, Cornw.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386-1421, ed. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark, C. Rawcliffe., 1993
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Apr. 1414
Nov. 1414

Family and Education

b.c.1391, s. and h. of John Colshull I*. m. Anne, 1s. ?1da. Kntd. between May and Oct. 1415.1

Offices Held

Commr. of inquiry, Devon Jan. 1414 (lollards).

Biography

Not until the death of his mother in October 1413 did John Colshull, then aged about 22, obtain any appreciable property in the West Country, though he and his wife were already jointly seized of the manor of Swannacott (Cornwall) by grant of his father, presumably as a marriage settlement. The former Huish and Tresilian lands, inherited in 1413 and held by Colshull until his death only five years later, included 15 manors in Devon and Cornwall, part of the borough of Truro, and the island and castle of Scilly. On his death these and other properties widely scattered in the region passed to his son, John, who was not yet two years old and so became the ward, by royal grant, of (Sir) John Arundell I* of Lanherne.2

Colshull’s career was short and lacking in incident. Admittedly, he made two appearances in Parliament, and both within the same year (1414), but he was appointed to only one royal commission preceding service abroad. It was in July 1414 that he went to France in the retinue of Richard Courtenay, bishop of Norwich, the King’s ambassador, but evidently he returned home early, and his royal letters of protection were revoked on 20 Nov. (the second day of the Parliament). In May 1415 Colshull again took out letters of protection, this time to serve under Edward, Lord Courtenay, in Henry V’s first expedition to Normandy, and it was during this campaign that he was knighted. (Whether he himself fought at Agincourt is not known, but Courtenay certainly did.) On 30 May 1416, along with Sir John Arundell, Colshull contracted to serve at sea with a combined retinue of 40 men-at-arms and 80 archers, a force they were to assemble at Southampton on 22 June. Of his other activities there is little trace, save that in 1415 he had stood surety for John But* who, like Colshull’s fellow mainpernor John Arundell II*, was a close associate of Thomas Chaucer* of Ewelme, the Speaker in his second Parliament; that he attended the Cornish elections to the Parliament of 1416 (Mar.); and that he acted as a feoffee for John Whalesborough*. Shortly before his death Colshull sued Richard Geke of Molland (Devon) for a trespass.3 He died on 5 July 1418, aged about 27.4

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Notes

  • 1. Ibid. 211.
  • 2. CCR, 1413-19, pp. 477, 497; C138/8/36, 34/41; C139/89/67; Reg. Stafford, 64; CFR, xiv. 54, 238, 288; CPR, 1413-16, p. 138.
  • 3. DKR, xliv. 553, 563-4; CPR, 1413-16, pp. 255, 281; 1416-22, p. 224; CCR, 1413-19, pp. 420-1; C219/11/8.
  • 4. CFR, xiv. 238; C138/34/41.