Family and Education

b. 1504/5, s. of Thomas Pyne of Ham by Margaret, da. of Oliver Wise of Sydenham, Devon. m. Catherine, da. of Christopher Tredeneck of Tredinnick in St. Breock, Cornw., 1da. suc. gd.-fa. 23 Apr. 1510.1

Offices Held

Under sheriff, Cornw. 1531-2; sewer, the chamber by 1538; keeper, Liskeard park, Cornw. 1538.2

Biography

The Pynes had been seated at Ham in the extreme north of Cornwall since the early 15th century. Thomas Pyne died not long after Henry Pyne’s birth, whereupon a life interest in part of his property went to his wife. She married William Kendall, who in February 1511 became her son’s guardian. Kendall belonged to a family with estates near Liskeard and was himself the chief agent in Cornwall of the Marquess of Exeter, high steward of the duchy of Cornwall. It was doubtless his influence which procured Pyne’s election to the Parliament of 1529 for Liskeard with the equally youthful James Trewynnard. Both were presumably returned again to the Parliament of 1536 in accordance with the King’s request for the re-election of the previous Members, but before its successor met in 1539 the Marquess of Exeter had disappeared from the scene and Kendall with him: in the absence of the names of the Liskeard Members for this and the following Parliament we cannot say whether the loss of his patron cost Pyne his seat, but we do know that he was not to reappear in the Commons from 1545.3

Shortly before the arrest of the marquess, Pyne received a grant in survivorship of Liskeard park; he was soon to become its sole holder and remained so until about 1556 when the ground was disparked. Some years before this appointment he had obtained from the duchy of Cornwall a 21-year lease of lands in the park: this he sold to Sir John Arundell of Trerice (whom he served as under sheriff) in return for a reconveyance of the Northground and an annuity of 40s. As Arundell seems not to have observed the agreement, Pyne complained of his behaviour in Chancery in 1547. Arundell for his part had earlier sued Pyne for debt before the lord mayor and sheriffs of London and had him arrested in the City. Although Pyne had obtained livery of the family lands in November 1526, and had acquired a further 1,300 acres on the death of his mother eight years later, he appears to have been in chronic and at times desperate financial trouble. In the summer of 1532, as under sheriff of Cornwall, he tried to obtain £40 by offering to free two prisoners in Launceston gaol. From being a man described as ‘strong in the county’ he probably lost importance as he grew older: some time after 1536 he sold the manor of Ham, perhaps his most important single asset, to Sir John Wyndham, and he lost a lawsuit with his cousin over the title to a Devon manor. His death occurred after the park at Liskeard had been converted to other uses: he was survived by his wife, who married again, and by a daughter who took as her second husband Robert Mordaunt^†.4

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: J. J. Goring

Notes

• 1. Date of birth estimated from age at grandfather’s i.p.m., C142/25/148. Vis. Devon, ed. Vivian, 632, 791; Vis. Cornw. ed. Vivian, 457; Gilbert, Cornw. ii. 242-3.
• 2. St.Ch.2/10/283; LP Hen. VIII, xiii.
• 3. LP Hen. VIII, i, iv; Vis. Cornw. 258; C1/666/36; A. L. Rowse, Tudor Cornw. 169.
• 4. LP Hen. VIII, iv, xiii; CPR, 1557-8, p. 142; Duchy Cornw. RO, 228, m. 3v; C1/666/36, 1046/55, 1182/53, 1282/62; 142/25/132, 148, 82/120; St.Ch.2/10/283; Rowse, 237-8; Vis. Cornw. 383, 457.