Walter Borlase of Treludderow

Walter Borlase (died ), commonly distinguished as Walter Borlase of Treludderow, was a Cornish landowner and administrator during the reign of Henry VIII. A member of the Borlase family of St Wenn, he served repeatedly as a commissioner and assessor concerned with the lands and stannaries of the Duchy of Cornwall, and during the 1530s and 1540s was involved in substantial property transactions in Cornwall.

Borlase became established at Treludderow in St Newlyn East, where lands which he had held under the Bishop of Exeter as part of the manor of Cargoll were confirmed to him and the heirs of his body in 1541. The Cornish historian P. A. S. Pool identifies him as the central figure in the development of the early modern Cornish Borlases: the senior branch remained at Treludderow for more than a century and a half, while several other important branches descended from his sons.

Origins and early life

Walter was a son of John Borlase of Borlas, or Borlas Frank, in the parish of St Wenn. William Copeland Borlase, reconstructing the family from legal records and heraldic material, identified a further John Borlase as Walter's grandfather. A Common Pleas record described Walter as the consanguineus et heres of the elder John and expressly called the latter his avus, or grandfather; W. C. Borlase concluded that Walter's father had died during his own father's lifetime.

W. C. Borlase identified Walter's mother as Margaret Tregian, on the basis of evidence identifying her as the mother of Walter's brother Edward. He cautioned, however, that a further suggestion that the contemporary John Tregian was Walter's half-brother could not be proved.

Walter's date of birth is not securely established. He first appears in the documentary record in 1512, when, acting through an attorney, he brought an action against Peter Thomas, formerly of Penscawen, alleging trespass into Walter's house there. W. C. Borlase cited the original record as the De Banco roll for Michaelmas term, 4 Henry VIII, membrane 45.

Duchy service and landholding

By 4 July 1521, Borlase had entered the administrative circle of the Duchy of Cornwall. He was appointed one of the king's commissioners and assessors for the Duchy's lands and stannaries in Cornwall and Devon. The commission included senior regional figures such as the Bishop of Exeter, Sir Henry Marney, Sir John Arundell and Sir Piers Edgcumbe. Borlase was reappointed in 1525, when the commission extended to assessable lands, stannaries, tin tolls, moors and wastes, and again in 1527 and 1532. His repeated appointment over more than a decade indicates sustained involvement in the management and valuation of Duchy interests.

Borlase also appears frequently in property litigation and conveyances. In 1530 he was one of several parties, together with John Thomas, serjeant-at-arms, William Lanyne and William Farnaby, to a fine concerning the manor of Landegay or Lansegey and a large group of associated properties in Cornwall, for which a consideration of £200 was recorded. In 1535 he appeared with his brother Edward Borlase, a citizen and mercer of London, and others in an action for lands in Cornwall and Devon. In 1537 he was among the parties to another fine concerning the manor of Tregamadon, otherwise Tregavethan.

A memorandum among Thomas Cromwell's papers in 1534 includes a “Walt. Bolace” under the heading “Merchants of the Staple”. W. C. Borlase identified this entry with Walter Borlase and noted that the same material contained a reference to his lands. The entry provides evidence of an association with the commercial world of the Staple, although the surviving reference does not establish the nature or scale of Borlase's own mercantile activity.

Tregian connection

Borlase had a close association with the Tregian family. In 1537 John Tregian of Wolvedon appointed Borlase and John Thomas, serjeant-at-arms, as overseers of his will. Among other provisions, Tregian made the marriage arrangements of his daughter Jane conditional upon the advice of Thomas and Borlase.

The disposal of Tregian's property subsequently resulted in proceedings in Chancery in which Mary, Martha and Katherine Tregian were complainants and Borlase was defendant. The surviving depositions, cited by W. C. Borlase as Tregian v. Burlage, concern, among other matters, the sale of woods to Walter Borlase, John Thomas and William Lanyne. The surviving document was damaged and contained erasures, and W. C. Borlase did not establish the eventual judgment.

Treludderow

Borlase's most important surviving land transaction concerned Treludderow in St Newlyn East. According to W. C. Borlase, Walter had previously held Treludderow and adjoining lands as copyhold from John Veysey, Bishop of Exeter, as part of the episcopal manor of Cargoll. W. C. Borlase described the transaction of 1541 as changing Borlase's tenure from copyhold to freehold.

The official calendar of Henry VIII's papers records more precisely that in December 1541 royal licence was granted allowing the bishop to “demise and confirm” to Walter Borlas and the heirs of his body lands within the manor of Cargoll called Treluddrowe, Chywynnek and Lawen, together with associated property. W. C. Borlase, drawing on additional Exchequer material, also gives the name of a fourth holding as Seghtnans.

The recital of the grant, as reported by W. C. Borlase, credited Walter with substantial improvement of the estate. Lands formerly characterised as barren, furzy and unenclosed were said to have been made productive through his expenditure and labour; he had enclosed them with hedges and ditches and built several houses. The settlement nevertheless preserved obligations to the episcopal lord: Walter and his heirs were required to accommodate the bishop's surveyor and steward, their servants and six horses for one night each year at their own expense.

The evidence therefore places Treludderow firmly within the tenurial structure of the manor of Cargoll at the time of Walter's acquisition and improvement of the estate. The 1541 settlement established a hereditary interest for Walter and the heirs of his body and provided the basis for the long association of his descendants with Treludderow.

Borlase continued to be recorded as a substantial landholder after the settlement. In the subsidy of 1543 he was assessed in Newlyn on £20 in lands and was himself one of the commissioners for the assessment. W. C. Borlase noted that Walter's abbreviated signature and seal survived on the roll. He was assessed again in Newlyn in 1545–46 and appears in the subsidy for St Newlyn in 1549–50.

In 1548 John Borlase of Borlas Burgis conveyed to him property at Newlyn Churchtown, Fentonworan, Lappa, Lappa Mill, Goon-Wynnowe and Royton for 100 marks.

Marriages and children

The identity of Borlase's wives is not entirely certain. Later family tradition connected his establishment at Treludderow with marriage to an heiress of the older Treludderow family. An account attributed to the antiquary William Hals stated that a daughter of Oates or Otho Treludderow married a Borlase near the end of Henry VIII's reign, and early Borlase pedigrees identified her husband as Walter. W. C. Borlase considered the tradition plausible because Walter subsequently possessed Treludderow, but he did not produce a contemporary marriage settlement or other direct evidence naming this woman as Walter's wife. Pool likewise records the later family tradition that Walter married the heiress of Treludderow, while treating it as part of the family's genealogical reconstruction rather than contemporary evidence.

A later marriage is better documented. A Boscawen pedigree identified Christiana Boscawen, daughter of John Boscawen of Tregothnan and Elizabeth Lower, as first the wife of Thomas Enys of Enys and subsequently the wife of Walter Borlase. W. C. Borlase considered the identification corroborated by Christiana's surviving will.

Christiana's will, dated 11 January 1552 in W. C. Borlase's transcription and proved on 16 May 1553, described her as a widow and divided the residue of her estate among six children: William, Edmund, Walter, Frances, Elizabeth and Margaret. Walter's brother Edward had already referred in his own will of 1544 to “two of my brother Walter Borlas his youngest daughters”, providing contemporary evidence that Walter had several daughters by that date.

W. C. Borlase regarded James and John Borlase as securely belonging to Walter's earlier family. He considered a daughter Juliana, named in the Tonkin pedigree, probable, while a son Nicholas recorded in a Buckinghamshire visitation was more uncertain. Because the evidence for the earlier marriage is principally genealogical and antiquarian, the maternity of Walter's older children cannot be established with the same confidence as the six children named in Christiana's will.

Death and legacy

The exact date of Borlase's death is unknown. He was still recorded in the subsidy material for 1549–50, while Christiana's will subsequently described her as a widow. W. C. Borlase consequently dated Walter's death to approximately 1550–1552; Pool gives the date more generally as about 1550.

Walter's importance to the later history of the family lay both in the consolidation of Treludderow and in the number of later branches descended from him. Pool describes the senior Cornish branch as remaining at Treludderow for more than a century and a half after Walter's death. His son Edmund Borlase founded a line which included Sir John Borlase (1575–1647), a soldier who later held senior office in Ireland. Another younger son, also named Walter Borlase, settled at Trannack in Sithney, married Mary Lanyon and died in 1602; from this line descended the Borlases of Pendeen, including the eighteenth-century antiquary and naturalist William Borlase.

Pool also corrects a significant error in older family pedigrees. The wealthy Borlase family of Buckinghamshire did not descend from Walter of Treludderow: their ancestor was Edward Borlase, the London mercer who died in 1544 and who was Walter's younger brother rather than his son. The distinction had already been established by W. C. Borlase from documentary evidence in the nineteenth century.

Walter thus occupies a pivotal position in the documented history of the Cornish Borlases. The earlier family had been established at Borlas Frank in St Wenn, but Walter's public service, property transactions, improvement of Treludderow and 1541 hereditary settlement created the landed base from which the principal later Cornish branches developed.