Family and Education

m. (1) by 1398, Margery; (2) by 1406, Margaret.

Offices Held

Biography

In April 1387 Gourlyn stood surety at the Exchequer for John Tremayne when the latter was granted the keeping of the manor of Gatecombe on the Isle of Wight. In the following year he accompanied the same person (or else a namesake) to the Merciless Parliament at Westminster. Gourlyn was clearly a man of some substance: in 1398 he and his first wife arranged for the settlement, on them and their heirs, of 27 messuages and 4½ acres of land in and about Truro; and in 1406, now with his second wife, he obtained from Bishop Stafford of Exeter a licence to have his own oratory. He figured as a witness to the shire elections held at Grampound in 1407. He is last noticed in 1417 when he and his wife granted a lease for 100 years to Thomas Sebyl of Truro and his heirs of three messuages and several acres of land in the parishes of Kenwyn and Truro, for which a rent of 41s. p.a. was to be paid, initially to them but after their deaths to Margaret’s heirs. The last provision suggests that these were properties which Gourlyn held jure uxoris.

CFR, x. 179; C219/10/4; Cornw. Feet of Fines (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. 1950), 810, 925; Reg. Stafford ed. Hingeston-Randolph, 275; CAD, iv. A10044, 10350.

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes