GOLY, John, of Liskeard, 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

Family and Education

Offices Held

Bailiff of the stannary of Foweymore, Cornw. 1380-1, 1382-5, 1386-8.1

Biography

Nothing is known of Goly’s background, but he was evidently a minor official within the administration of the duchy of Cornwall, of which all three of the boroughs he represented in Parliament formed parts. He held leases on lands in the manor of Liskeard which belonged to the duchy, and at the assession court held in November 1392 he stood surety for several other manorial tenants. However, his last term of office as bailiff of the stannary of Foweymore, situated between Bodmin and Launceston, ended before his election to Parliament by Liskeard in 1391, and within a few years of his dismissal he would appear to have entered the service of the prior of Launceston. A jury empanelled at St. Neot in May 1399 stated that in the previous January Goly had been one of the prior’s men who had seized the vicar of Liskeard while the latter was under the arrest of the local tithingman, and had also stolen a book and two towels belonging to the parishioners. More serious charges were to follow: in February 1400 a jury at Lostwithiel alleged that the prior, having been ‘of the seut [suit] and wylle of the treyson that the zeurl of Huntyngdon was a taynt [attainted] ther inne’, had conscripted Goly and others to march to the earl’s support, their intention being to put him on the throne. Whether any judicial action was taken against them is not known, but in any case Goly himself seems to have been at liberty two years later, then being sued by Stephen Trenewith* for trespass. By the summer of 1406 the property which he had leased from the duchy at Liskeard (namely, four messuages and 150 acres of land, for which he paid an annual rent of 41s.) had returned to the direct control of duchy officials.2

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

  • 1. E306/2/4; SC6/813/1, 5, 7, 9, 818/11, 819/1.
  • 2. CIMisc. vi. 376, 418; vii. 101; CPR, 1401-5, p. 76; E306/2/7.