John Arundell, Esquire, of Trerice in Cornwall, later given the epithet "Jack for the King", was a member of an ancient Cornish gentry family, who as a Royalist during the Civil War served King Charles I as Governor of Pendennis Castle, Falmouth, which in 1646 he retained in a heroic manner during a five-month long siege by Fairfax, during which his forces were reduced by hunger to eating their horses, and finally received an honourable surrender. He served twice as MP for the prestigious county seat of Cornwall, and for his family's pocket boroughs of Tregony and Mitchell and also for St Mawes. His family "of Trerice" should not be confused with the contemporary ancient and even more prominent Cornish family of Arundell "of Lanherne", six miles north of Trerice, "The Great Arundells", with which no certain shared origin has been found, but which shared the same armorials, the Arundell swallows.
In 1597 he was elected Member of Parliament for Mitchell, Cornwall, a pocket borough. He subsequently served as MP for the prestigious county seat of Cornwall in 1601 and 1621 and was Sheriff of Cornwall in 1607. He was elected MP for St Mawes in 1624 and for Tregony in 1628, and sat until 1629 when KingCharles I decided to rule without parliament for eleven years. In April 1640 he was re-elected as MP for Tregony in the Short Parliament. He was not elected to the Long Parliament, unlike his two sons, Richard Arundell, elected for Lostwithiel and John Arundell for Bodmin. Following the outbreak of the Civil War he was a Royalist, remaining loyal to the King, and was present in 1643 at the Royalist victory at the Battle of Braddock Down in Cornwall. In about 1643 he was appointed governor of the royal Pendennis Castle in Cornwall, built by King Henry VIII to guard the entry to Falmouth Harbour. After the Royalist defeat at the Battle of Naseby in June 1645, the Parliamentary army swept through the West Country, and Arundell defiantly refused the demand of General Fairfax to submit, and replied to him: He maintained a five month long siege in heroic circumstances, during which his garrison was reduced by hunger to eating their horses. Finally he surrendered in August 1646, making Pendennis Castle the last but one to have held out for the King. In 1651, following the establishment of the Commonwealth, he was fined £10,000 by the new government, a large sum later reduced to £2,000, and although his estates were sequestered and let, he was able to retrieve them on payment of a further sum.
Marriage and children
He married Mary Cary, a daughter of George Cary of Clovelly, Devon, Sheriff of Devon in 1587, who constructed the harbour wall at Clovelly, by whom he had children including:
John Arundell, of Trerice, eldest son and heir, MP, who died childless.
Richard Arundell, 1st Baron Arundell of Trerice, 2nd son. He was raised to the peerage following the Restoration of the Monarchy by King Charles II, partly in recompense for his father's Royalist sentiment and heroic defence of Pendennis Castle. Before his elevation to the peerage he served twice as MP for Lostwithiel, April 1640 and November 1640 to January 1644, and twice for Bere Alston, 1660 and 1662–1665.
Nicholas Arundell, of Gwarnick, near Truro, 3rd son, MP for Truro 1661-6. The old Beville seat of Gwarnick had been inherited on the first marriage of his great-grandfather "Jack of Tilbury" was situated 3 miles north-west of Truro.
Death
Arundell died in December 1654, six years before the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, when the family's fortunes were restored and when his second son, Richard Arundell, who had been active in the Sealed Knot conspiracy, was raised to the peerage by King Charles II as Baron Arundell of Trerice, partly in recognition of his father's service to the Crown.
Literary portrayals
He is a character in the historical novel The Grove of Eagles by Winston Graham, which portrays him sympathetically.
