John Basset, MP

Family and Education b. c.1624, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Sir Francis Basset of Tehidy by Anne, da. of Sir Jonathan Trelawny of Trelawne, Pelynt. educ. L. Inn 1639. m. Anne, da. and h. of Robert Delbridge of Barnstaple, Devon, 3s. 2da. suc. fa. 1645.1

Offices Held

J.p. Cornw. July 1660-d., commr. for assessment Aug. 1660-d.; v.-adm. N. Cornw. Sept. 1660-d.2

Biography Basset’s ancestors acquired Tehidy, nine miles from St. Ives, by marriage about the middle of the 12th century, and first represented Cornwall in 1332. Basset’s father, who obtained a new charter for St. Ives in 1639, was a prominent Cornish Royalist, and Basset admitted that he too had acted with the King’s army, though he alleged that he had been under age at the time. He claimed the benefit of the Truro articles, but was fined £200 at one-sixth, though his property consisted solely of a couple of horses and the reversion of Tehidy (valued at £190 15s. a year) after his mother’s death. In 1657 he was compelled to sell St. Michael’s Mount, which his father had fortified, to John St. Aubyn.3

After the Restoration Basset petitioned for a baronetcy on the grounds that

his father, Sir Francis Basset, was always loyal, and during his three years’ shrievalty in Cornwall caused all the boroughs there to recall their members in order to act with the late King at Oxford. He raised the posse comitatus by the Queen’s orders, and brought 6,000 men to the borders of the county to check the Earl of Essex, so that the Queen escaped to France, and he raised £3,700 for the service, which the petitioner has had to repay. He also sought possession of estates in Cornwall, Northamptonshire, and Sussex as compensation for his losses. No grants of land were made to him, but he was made vice-admiral of North Cornwall. He was involved in a double return with Edward Nosworthy I at St. Ives at the general election of 1661, but died before it was resolved in his favour on 18 Dec. His grandson Francis was returned for Mitchell in 1702.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690 Author: Eveline Cruickshanks Notes 1. Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 18. 2. Ind. 24557. 3. Gilbert, Paroch. Hist. Cornw. ii. 227; J. H. Matthews, St. Ives, 206, 219, SP23/210/843. 4. CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 439-40; Cal. Treas. Bks. i. 29, 41, 191, 144; CJ, viii. 336.