MOHUN, Reginald I (1507/8-67), of Hall and Boconnoc, Cornw.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Oct. 1553
Nov. 1554
1555
? 1559

Family and Education

b. 1507/8, yr. s. of John Mohun of Hall (d.1508) by Anne, da. of Richard Coode of Morval, m. Joan or Jane, da. of Sir William Trevanion of Carhayes by Anne, da. of Sir Richard Edgecombe, 4s. inc. William 4da. suc. bro. 1516.2

Offices Held

Esquire of body by Sept. 1552-3; j.p. Cornw. 1547-53, 1559-c.61, sheriff 1552-3, 1559-60, commr. piracy 1565.3

Biography

Mohun’s elder brothers predeceasing him, he succeeded to large estates in the south-west. His maternal grandmother was a daughter of Sir Hugh Courtenay, and on the death of Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devon, in 1556, Mohun shared the large inheritance with the three other co-heirs—Margaret Buller, John Vivian and John Trelawny. Though his name does not appear among those who ‘stood for the true religion’ in the Parliament of October 1553, he was probably the ‘Mr. Mone’ who voted against a government measure in 1555. He did not sit in Mary’s last House of Commons, and was removed from the commission of the peace during her reign. His son possibly went to Padua at this period, but there is no evidence that Mohun himself was a Marian exile: he presumably lived in retirement on his estates after giving up the court office he had held under John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland.

On Elizabeth’s accession he was restored to the commission of the peace, but after his term as sheriff he apparently did not serve again as a justice, his only known public office after 1560 being that of piracy commissioner. He may have been ill, but judging from Star Chamber cases of 1565 he was as factious and lawless as others of the Cornish gentry. In 1565 Sir William Godolphin accused him of forcibly evicting tenants from the Godolphin manor of Lelant and carrying off corn and other crops. Mohun denied violence, but his servants who had carted the corn deposed that he had promised to ‘bear them out’. In the same year a feud between him and John Killigrew I came to a head. It is an indication of Mohun’s standing in the county that he dared to bring before the Council a long list of charges against Killigrew, who in general relied on his relatives at court to protect him from trouble. If so prominent a Cornishman required a parliamentary patron, one need look no further than the 2nd Earl of Bedford, from whom Mohun leased Boconnoc. There is no record of any parliamentary activity by Mohun. He died 22 Apr. 1567 and his inquisition post mortem was taken at Bodmin the following 17 Jan.4

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: N. M. Fuidge

Notes

  • 1. E371/402(1). This, the only known record of the election, gives no christian name.
  • 2. C142/78/116; Vis. Cornw. (Harl. Soc. ix), 145, 239-40; Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 324-5, 501 (Vivian has confused the generations); CPR, 1557-8, pp. 6-7; Maxwell Lyte, Hist. Dunster, ii. 481-2.
  • 3. J. Maclean, Trigg Minor, iii. 139 n; APC, vii. 283.
  • 4. Guildford Mus. Loseley 1331/2; C. H. Garrett, Marian Exiles, 228-9; CPR, 1553-4, p. 411; 1557-8, pp. 6-7; 1560-3, p. 603; 1563-6, pp. 497-8; St. Ch. 5/G1/25, G6/37; APC, vii. 225, 230, 292, 294; C142/150/186.