Family and Education

s. of Noel Paderda^† of Paderda by his w. Joan. m. by 1391 Joan, da. and h. of William Taillour of Bodmin, 4da.1

Offices Held

Under sheriff, Cornw. c. Mich. 1409-10.2

Biography

Paderda’s father sat for Liskeard in 1379 and saw service as both a coroner in Cornwall and the steward of the Cornish estates of Bishop Stafford of Exeter. His landed holdings, situated for the most part in the east of the county, were entailed in 1370, probably just before Thomas’s birth, on his male heirs with successive remainders to his daughters.3 Besides this inheritance, through his marriage to Joan Taillour Thomas acquired even more substantial properties, notably the barton of Penbugle in the parish of Bodmin and large tracts of land in the neighbourhood of Truro, which had been acquired by her grandfather, a wealthy merchant. And still more property in Cornwall came his way as a result of various transactions with Walter Smith of Trelay, probably a kinsman. In 1400 Thomas and his wife and children were living at Paderda with his father, Noel, and all of them were granted licences by the diocesan bishop to worship in the oratory in the manor-house.4 Noel evidently died a few years later, shortly before 1407-8 when a rent-roll was compiled for Thomas, listing his possessions in Cornwall. These, grouped in three different areas (round Truro, near Bodmin and in east Cornwall) gave him an income somewhere in the region of £40 a year.5

Apart from the records of legal proceedings about his wife’s inheritance, only an occasional mention of Paderda has been found prior to his return to Parliament in 1411. Even so, it is clear that his estates made him a figure of some consequence in the shire: in 1395 he had been specially asked to be present at Launceston to witness an agreement between the prior of Launceston and the mayor and commonalty of Dunheved regarding the maintenance of the chapel of St. Mary Magdalene. Early in 1411 he was present in Chancery as a mainpernor for the prior and one of his fellow canons, and other appearances there later on the same year, as well as his stay at Westminster for the Parliament which lasted nearly seven weeks, indicate that he spent a good deal of the year away from home. In 1412 Paderda’s wife sought payment of a debt which had been owing to her grandfather and his heirs for nearly a century, since 1315. Paderda was probably still living in November 1412 when Sir William Coggeshall (knight of the shire for Essex in the same Parliament) was pardoned his outlawry for failing to appear in court to answer his suit for 24 marks.6 However, he had died before September 1414, by which date his widow was married to Nicholas Beket. The estates left by Paderda to his four daughters attracted husbands of some note, among them two rising Cornish lawyers, John Cork* and Nicholas Aysshton*.7

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

Variants: Padirda, Patreda.

• 1. Reg. Stafford ed. Hingeston-Randolph, 278; J. Maclean, Trigg Minor, i. 266.
• 2. Duchy of Cornw. RO, ministers’ acct. 40.
• 3. CCR, 1377-81, pp. 261, 400; Reg. Stafford, 26, 288, 314; Cornw. Feet of Fines (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. 1914), 653; ibid. (1950), 850.
• 4. Maclean, i. 266, 309-11; CCR, 1392-6, p. 171; Cornw. RO, Acc. 277, AD24/1; CAD, iii. D704; Cornw. Feet of Fines (1950), 868, 870; Reg. Stafford, 278; JUST 1/1502 m. 200, 1519 m. 99, 1522 m. 7.
• 5. Add. Roll 64389; Cornw. Feet of Fines (1950), 918.
• 6. R. and O.B. Peter, Hist. Launceston, 301; CCR, 1409-13, pp. 196, 213; C241/204/37; CPR, 1408-13, p. 442.
• 7. CAD, iii. D421; Cornw. Feet of Fines (1950), 918; Maclean, i. 266, 309.