TREDENECK, John (by 1508-66), of Tredinnick in St. Breock, Cornw.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. by 1508, 1st s. of Christopher Tredeneck of Tredinnick by Jane, da. and coh. of John Gosse. m. Frances, da. of one Sutton of Lincoln, Lincs. 2s. 1da. suc. fa. 1531/32.1

Offices Held

Commr. relief Cornw. 1550; j.p. 1547, 1558/59-d.2

Biography

John Tredeneck’s forbears had long been seated at the place from which they took their name. His father was a figure of standing in Cornwall who served on the county bench from 1515 until his death and was pricked sheriff in 1530. Tredeneck had his first experience of Parliament during his father’s lifetime, and doubtless his election at Lostwithiel, a borough situated about 14 miles from his home, was achieved with paternal support, but as he took precedence over a local gentleman, Richard Bryan alias Croker, he may have been the duchy nominee for the constituency: his brother-in-law, Henry Pyne, who entered the House at the same time, had a link with the steward of the duchy and the warden of the stannaries, the Marquess of Exeter. Tredeneck was presumably chosen to sit for Lostwithiel again in 1536 in compliance with the King’s request that the previous Members should be re-elected, but he is not known to have reappeared in the Commons until after the accession of Elizabeth, although in 1545 he attended the election of the knights of the shire at the county court. It seems likely that his earlier Membership had yielded him a wife, his marriage into the Sutton family of Lincoln being best explained as a consequence of his association in the House with Vincent Grantham of that city, whose first wife was also a Sutton.3

The long intermission in Tredeneck’s parliamentary career may have been due as much to personal as to political considerations. He did not hesitate to take the law into his own hands, being not unfairly described as ‘a busy man and a troublous among his neighbours’. In December 1531 he abetted a raid by his father on some property, four years later he joined his brother-in-law, John Carminowe, in stealing cattle, and in 1543 he abducted a ward. On the other hand, whereas some of his kinsmen supported the western rebellion in 1549, he remained loyal to the crown, a decision which perhaps influenced Queen Mary when she removed him from the bench. His ventures in trade and mining do not always appear to have prospered: after he and his partners (one of them John Thacker of Hull) in the export of wool had failed to pay their customs the lands of one of the group were confiscated in 1549, and as members of a syndicate to exploit recently discovered mines in the south-west he and another were obliged to go to Chancery in 1563 to obtain their share of the profits. Tredeneck sued out a general pardon in 1559 and died seven years later, being buried at St. Breock on 20 June 1566.4

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: J. J. Goring

Notes

  • 1. Presumed to be of age at election. Vis. Cornw. ed. Vivian, 457-8; PCC 22 Thower.
  • 2. CPR, 1547-8, p. 82; 1553, p. 351.
  • 3. Paroch. Hist. Cornw. i. 130; LP Hen. VIII, ii; C219/18/15.
  • 4. St.Ch.2/22/73, 24/141, 150, 28/58; APC, iii. 222; vi. 118; CPR, 1553-4, p. 502; C3/36/45.