CURTEYS, Tristram (d.1423), of Lostwithiel, 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

Dec. 1421

Family and Education

2nd s. of Thomas Curteys* and bro. of John II*. m.Thomasina,1 1s.

Offices Held

Biography

On 12 June 1415 Tristram Curteys took out royal letters of protection which were to cover his military service overseas as a member of the retinue of Edward, Lord Courtenay (heir apparent to the earldom of Devon), and he probably, therefore, took part in Henry V’s first invasion of France. He is recorded as a witness to a deed of May 1417, dated at Lostwithiel, for which borough he was first elected to Parliament two years later. His name was on the list of knights and esquires of Cornwall sent to the King’s Council early in 1420 being the men from the county best able to serve in the defence of the realm, but no evidence survives of further military service on his part. In May that same year he entered into recognizances for £40, undertaking not to prosecute one John Deneshangre in respect of the patent under the seal of the duchy of Lancaster granting his parents an annuity of £20 from the manor of Passenham, Northamptonshire, which patent Deneshangre had handed over to him in Chancery. Curteys was again in Chancery in October 1422, on this occasion standing surety for one John Puddynge.2

Curteys died six months later, on 15 Apr. 1423. He was buried in the north aisle of Lostwithiel church, where there survives a monumental brass with his effigy in armour. His son Robert (who was to become mayor of Lostwithiel in 1445 and 1447), was then only a child, and it was not until 1440 that he was able to bring a suit in Chancery against his father’s trustees for failing to fulfil their obligations. Apparently, Tristram Curteys had placed his property in Cornwall in the hands of feoffees, including William Wynard, the recorder of Exeter, but one of them, Richard Respryn*, had refused to release the accumulated revenues, amounting to 300 marks, to Curteys’s heir.3

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

  • 1. Add. Ch. 13042.
  • 2. DKR, xliv. 570; CCR, 1419-22, p. 108; 1422-9, p. 54; E28/97/6; HMC 5th Rep. i. 602.
  • 3. Mon. Brasses Cornw. ed. Dunkin, pl. 9; C1/9/408, 17/341; J. Leland, Itin. ed. Toulmin Smith, i. 204; C241/232/4; Mems. Lostwithiel, 170.