Family and Education

m. 1376, Katherine (d.1436), da. and h. of Bartholomew Penhergard, wid. of Thomas Trengrek,1 1da.

Offices Held

Controller of the stannaries, Devon 1376-7.

Receiver of the duchy of Cornw. in Devon and Cornw. 28 Mar. 1377-17 Sept. 1381.2

Commr. of inquiry, Cornw. Dec. 1377, Jan. 1379, Som., Devon, Cornw., Glos., Bristol Feb. 1379 (piracy), Cornw. Mar. 1380 (shipwrecks); oyer and terminer Feb. 1379.

Escheator, Devon and Cornw. 25 Oct. 1381-12 Dec. 1382, 1 Nov. 1383-11 Nov. 1384.

Biography

Roger may well have been the son of Richard Juyl^†, a prosperous tin merchant who represented Bodmin in the Parliaments of 1371 and 1381 and served as mayor of the same borough in 1370. Richard was a tenant on the duchy of Cornwall manor of Trematon, and owned a house in Dartmouth, Devon, as well as land in Landulph, Cornwall, and property in Bodmin.3 Clearly there was a close relationship between the two men, for part of Roger’s estate (lands in ‘Rescadue’ and Rescassa in Gorran and a house in Bodmin) was held by Richard Juyl and his wife for life. Before Roger’s marriage to Katherine Penhergard the issues from her inheritance were received by William Talbot^† and his wife Margaret. The latter, who held some of the Penhergard property for life, was probably Katherine’s mother, for in later years Katherine referred to Talbot’s son, Sir William Talbot*, as her ‘brother’. So, besides providing him with property in Bodmin and Bodiniel and the manor of Wadfast in Whitstone, Juyl’s marriage also gave him important contacts among the gentry of the shire.4

Nothing is recorded about Juyl until the year of his marriage (1376) when he was already serving as controller of the stannaries in Devon, an office for which he was accountable to the receiver of the duchy of Cornwall. His rise within the duchy administration was unusually rapid, for only a few months later he was himself appointed as receiver (apparently owing his promotion to the advisors of the young duke, Prince Richard) and he retained the post after Richard’s accession to the throne. During his receivership Juyl was named on various royal commissions in Cornwall and elsewhere in the West Country, and in August 1378 he was sent a mandate to see to the fortification of Trematon castle in view of threatened invasion from France. In the following April he made a personal loan of £20 (his entire annual salary) to the King, to help finance the country’s defence. But there were criticisms of his behaviour as receiver: in May 1379 certain Genoese merchants who had left 12 bales of spices and other wares in his keeping at Fowey complained that he had retained five of the bales for his own use. The receivership entailed the handling of very large sums of money, and even though there is evidence that Juyl spared no effort in pursuing the duchy’s debtors, he clearly found difficulty in the collection and correct disbursement of the revenues. On 17 Aug. 1381 Sir John Kentwood*, the steward of the duchy, was ordered to bring him before the King’s Council to answer for certain sums of money for which he had failed to render full account, and also to confiscate his chattels and keep them until further notice. Nor were these empty threats: a few weeks later, Juyl was actually dismissed from his office and told to deliver to William Brantingham* all the rentals, memoranda and account rolls pertaining to the receivership. At the same time he had to face charges brought in the King’s bench by William, earl of Salisbury, for neglecting to keep up the payments of the annuity of 200 marks to which the earl was entitled from the profits of the stampage of tin in Cornwall. By 3 Oct. Juyl had still failed to present himself before the Council, but when he eventually did so his line of defence must have been sound, for on the 25th he was appointed as escheator of Devon and Cornwall. Nevertheless, on this occasion the Council was taking no chances that he might defraud the Crown: he was required to find mainpernors for his good and faithful demeanour towards the King, along with guarantees that he would dutifully answer at the Exchequer for the profits of his new office. Accordingly he asked three highly distinguished figures, Sir Robert Tresilian^†, c.j.KB, Sir Peter Courtenay^† and Sir John Cary^†, to provide securities under a penalty of £100 on his behalf. Juyl’s reappointment as escheator two years later in 1383 is some indication that in this office at least he had performed satisfactorily; and, in fact, it was not until after the political upheavals of 1388 that any action was taken against him for the recovery of nearly £180 outstanding at the end of his duchy receivership. In 1389 certain of his lands and those of his mainpernors, worth £15 15s. a year, were in the hands of the sheriff of Cornwall.5

The confiscation of Juyl’s property and chattels at this time followed only after Chief Justice Tresilian’s execution, and it seems clear that the two men had been business associates. Indeed, it was subsequently discovered that certain premises in Bodmin (notably a house known as ‘Gromond’, a park, meadows and ‘Fattestenements’) had been illegally acquired by Juyl and transferred to Tresilian.6 Coincidentally, Juyl was in debt to John Fitelton for 40 marks and to Sir John Trevet for £20, and this and the financial difficulties caused by the earlier confiscations may well account for his sale of property to Sir Henry Ilcombe* in 1390. Moreover, he was undoubtedly unpopular in some quarters: in July 1390 Roger Moyle of Cornwall persuaded one John Preston of Whitnash, Warwickshire, to lie in wait for him outside Temple Bar and kill him, and in the event, although Juyl escaped, Preston succeeded in robbing his servant of two gold rings set with precious stones. It is rather surprising, therefore, that it was at this stage of his career, and not during the period when his fortunes and influence in Cornwall had been at their height, that Juyl was elected to Parliament for Truro. He is last recorded a year later, in 1392, when he entered into recognizances in the staple court at Southampton, agreeing to pay two men from Liskeard the sum of £35. He never honoured this debt,7 and died before June 1397. Juyl’s widow, Katherine, lived on for nearly 40 years, apparently without marrying again. She eventually died in 1436, leaving as her heir Juyl’s daughter, Joan, the wife of John Luke.8

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

Variants: Juell, Jule.

• 1. CCR, 1374-7, p. 458.
• 2. CFR, ix. 267; SC6/812/18, 20, 21, 813/1, 2.
• 3. E101/263/19; Reg. Black Prince, ii. 120, 126, 139; Cornw. Feet of Fines (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. 1914), 654; J. Maclean, Trigg Minor, ii. 244, 250; Reg. Brantingham ed. Hingeston-Randolph, 386, 660; CAD, iv. A9943.
• 4. Cornw. Feet of Fines (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. 1950), 769, 773; CCR, 1374-7, p. 458; CFR, xvii. 6.
• 5. CFR, ix. 7, 123, 219, 262, 267; CPR, 1377-81, pp. 271, 638; 1381-5, p. 78; CCR, 1377-81, pp. 166, 186; 1381-5, p. 80; C241/164/25, 31, 72, 73; E364/23 m. H; KB27/482 m. 19.
• 6. CPR, 1385-9, p. 546; 1388-92, p. 55; CIMisc. v. 143, 178, 204.
• 7. CPR, 1388-92, p. 283; 1391-6, p. 645; C241/181/107.
• 8. CFR, xvi. 299, 333; xvii. 6; C139/80/20.