Family and Education

b. by 1498, 1st s. of John Carew of Antony by Thomasin, da. and coh. of Roger Holland of Cowick in Exeter, Devon; bro. of John. m. by July 1519, Martha, da. of Sir Edmund Denny of Cheshunt, Herts., at least 5s. inc. ?Roger^† and Thomas 1da. KB 20 Feb. 1547.2

Offices Held

Dep. receiver-gen., duchy of Cornw. by 1529-47; commr. assessionable manors, duchy of Cornw. 1532, 1535, chantries Mdx., London and Westminster 1546, 1548; j.p. Cornw. 1536-d., Devon 1536-d., Mdx. 1547-d.; receiver-gen. lands of Jane Seymour by 1537, Anne of Cleves 1540-3, Catherine Parr by May 1544-Sept. 1545; treasurer, household of Catherine Parr by May 1544-8, ct. first fruits and tenths 21 Apr. 1545-d.3

Biography

Carew owed his first post to the receiver of the duchy of Cornwall Sir John Arundell of Lanherne. As deputy he was appointed in 1532 a commissioner of the stannaries, and in July 1535 a commissioner for the valuation, for leasing, of crown lands in Cornwall and Devon. The only measure of his efficiency in the execution of these duties is a complaint from the bishop of Exeter to Arundell that Carew, although he had allowance from the auditor for its payment, had for three years withheld the tithe tin owing to the bishopric.4

In 1537 Carew, while retaining the duchy post, was appointed receiver to Queen Jane Seymour, probably at the suit of his brother-in-law Anthony Denny, one of the King’s favourite courtiers. After Jane’s death he remained in charge of the lands concerned, and in 1540 he passed, with them, to the service of Anne of Cleves at a wage of £20. He was involved in the divorce proceedings, acting on at least one occasion as interpreter for the English lords sent to the Queen. He was not popular with her, for her continental conception of degrees of dignity led her to treat Carew and his wife as inferior to her steward Jasper Horsey, a prejudice only hardened by her discovery that Carew was charged with reading and copying all her correspondence. In spite of her distrust of him and his dislike of his position Carew remained her receiver until late in 1543 and frequently acted as her envoy to the King. By May 1544 he had moved from the ex-Queen’s household to be treasurer and receiver-general to the Queen Consort: he was to retain the post until it passed to John Cock II in September 1545, having in the meantime become treasurer of first fruits. He coveted the high stewardship of the Marquess of Exeter’s lands in Devon, worth £20 a year and a source of much influence, and although he failed to secure it he obtained instead the stewardship of Havering for which he had offered the King 100 marks. During the last year of the reign he was engaged in a variety of tasks, inspecting buildings at Syon for John Gates and leading the commission to survey the 3rd Duke of Norfolk’s lands.5

In 1547 Carew made his only (known) appearance in Parliament. He was evidently not the original choice made by Peterborough as his name is written over an erasure on the indenture. His service in Catherine Parr’s household must have acquainted him with many of the leading gentlemen in Northamptonshire, whose sheriff, Thomas Cave, was his kinsman by marriage. Carew’s position in the duchy of Cornwall made him known to Sir John Russell, Baron Russell, high steward of Peterborough. In 1548 Carew became a free suitor at the borough court of the dean and chapter, and in that year he appears in the bishop’s court rolls as ‘guardianus ecclesie de Burghbury’, a post still assigned to him in 1553 although he had by then been dead for some time. Probably he had already established the connexion with Peterborough before 1547, but a gap in the court records between 1545 and 1548 leaves this uncertain. It is not clear whether Carew’s acquisition of a burgage in the town was designed to qualify him as one of its Members.6

Carew did not accumulate much property. By 1544, besides his patrimony in the south-west, he had only a house at Hunsdon not far from the palace there, which Prince Edward’s household requisitioned for its own use. Before his death on 22 Aug. 1549, however, he had augmented and consolidated his lands in Cornwall and Devon and had acquired manors in Hertfordshire and Middlesex. His son and his widow had trouble in winding up his accounts as treasurer of first fruits, and it was almost certainly to meet his debts that some of his recently acquired lands were sold off not long after his death. As late as 1557 a commission was set up to examine his accounts and to decide whether his estate was further chargeable with debt. Carew was replaced in the Commons by John Campanett.7

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: S. M. Thorpe

Notes

• 1. Did not serve for the full duration of the Parliament.
• 2. Date of birth estimated from marriage. Vis. Devon , ed. Vivian, 139; Vis. Cornw. (Harl. Soc. ix), 31; Vis. Norf. (Harl. Soc. xxxii), 101, 138, 152; Morant, Essex , i. 43; Clutterbuck, Herts. ii. 106; PCC 30 Ayloffe; C142/89/98, 93/23.
• 3. Duchy Cornw. RO, 114, m. 16, 127, m.2a, 497, m.1a, 498, m.1a; LP Hen. VIII, x-xxi; CPR, 1548-9, p. 137; E101/423/12, f. 12; W. C. Richardson, Tudor Chamber Admin. 489.
• 4. LP Hen. VIII, v, viii, ix.
• 5. Ibid. xv-xxi, add.; W. C. Richardson, Ct. Augmentations, 278, n. 23; Tudor Chamber Admin. 343.
• 6. C219/19/71; Last Days of Peterborough Mon. (Northants. Rec. Soc. xii), intro. xxvi, 71, 74; Northants. RO, Fitzwilliam mss 2463-4.
• 7. LP Hen. VIII, xxi, add.; Chauncy, Herts. i. 388; Clutterbuck, iii. 172 seq.; NRA 5960; CPR, 1547-8, p. 58; 1548-9, p. 88; 1549-50, p. 63; 1555-7, pp. 316-17; C142/89/98, 93/23; HMC Knole, i. 236, 238.