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- "[A]mong the most prominent west-country gentry in the late fourteenth century, serving as MP for Devon and Somerset on ten and seven occasions respectively, and receiving a large number of local offices and commissions. He was a liveried retainer of the leading regional magnate, Edward Courtenay, earl of Devon, a close political and family bond that was destined to be violently sundered in the mid-fifteenth century." [Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, entry on his namesake grandson]
According to the History of Parliament: MP for Somerset, 1366; Devon, 1371, 1376, 1378, 1379, Nov 1380, 1381, May 1382, Oct 1382; Somerset Oct 1383, Apr 1384; Devon Apr 1384; Somerset Nov 1384, 1386, Feb 1388, 1393, 1395; Devon Jan 1397, Sep 1397; Somerset 1399; Devon 1402. He was also elected for Devon in Oct 1377 but was on active service overseas, so his seat was taken by Thomas Pomeroy. Not counting this last, this comes to twelve times for Devon and nine times for Somerset.
Sheriff of Somerset and Dorset 1 Nov 1381 - 24 Nov 1382; of Devon, 15 Nov 1389 - 7 Nov 1390.
"The Bonvilles, of French origin, established themselves in Devon shortly after the Conquest and by the end of the 14th century their wealth and standing in the county had become second only to that of the Courtenays. The antagonism between the heads of the respective families in the mid 15th century, which expressed itself on the battlefields of the Wars of the Roses and ended in the extinction of the main Bonville line, was exacerbated if not caused by jealousy of the material prosperity of the Bonvilles, for which Sir William himself was largely responsible. At his death in 1408 he was holding some 40 manors, and extensive lands and rents, in Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire, providing his grandson and heir with an income sufficient to justify his elevation to the House of Lords. Such material assets led Sir William into wide fields of public service and military enterprise. In 1369 he served under the duke of Lancaster at Caux and later at Boulogne, and in October 1377 he was again absent overseas and unable to take his seat in Parliament. His military career, however, was only an interlude in a remarkably active political life: beginning in 1366, Bonville sat, either for Devon or Somerset, in 20 out of the 33 Parliaments convened in the next 36 years. His position in the West Country, if not already evident from this near monopoly, may be gauged by the frequency of his appointments to royal commissions, some of which were of major importance." [History of Parliament]
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Nielsen Hayden genealogy
Abt 1332 - 1408 (~ 76 years)
[2, 3]