BOLE, Ralph

In spite of representing Bedford in at least two Parliaments, Ralph is not known to have held office within the borough, unlike his relative, Thomas Bole*, who served as a bailiff and mayor there. Not necessarily a tradesman, he features as a ‘yeoman’ in legal records from the first half of the 1440s.2 KB27/727, rot. 53; CP40/773, rot. 423. There is little definite evidence for his property in Bedford although he did hold various closes and plots in the town’s fields, and he, his wife, and Roger Bole (perhaps his son) received a quitclaim of a tenement in St. John’s parish from John Hamond of Bromham in December 1447.3 Beds. Historical Rec. Soc. xxv. 51, 53; CCR, 1447-54, p. 118.

On several occasions Ralph had dealings with important men from outside Bedford. In December 1429, for example, William Waweton* conveyed his interest in certain lands in the borough to John Beaufort, earl of Somerset, and others, including John Ragon*, John Fitzgeffrey* and Ralph and Thomas Bole. While the purpose of this transaction is unclear, presumably the Boles were involved as feoffees.4 Beds. and Luton Archs., deed, 1429, W23. Later, in the mid 1430s, Bole and his kinsman, Thomas, featured in a lawsuit heard in the court of common pleas at Westminster. In pleadings of Hilary term 1436, James Moston* of Bedford and three co-plaintiffs, his wife and two associates, Thomas Hunt† (also of Bedford) and John Lyttelbury, alleged that Sir Thomas Waweton*, a kinsman of William Waweton, was unjustly detaining two obligations, each for £100, entrusted to him for safe-keeping on 1 Mar. 1433. One of the bonds was from the plaintiffs to the two Boles; the other was from the Boles to the plaintiffs. While the plea roll does not explain the circumstances of this transaction it seems likely that the securities were bonds exchanged prior to arbitration between Moston and his associates on the one hand and the Boles on the other. It is unlikely that Sir Thomas was motivated by any malicious intent since he declared himself ready to deliver the bonds to whomsoever the court directed.5 CP40/700, Juyn rot. 103d.

During the following decade, Ralph himself was a party in at least three other lawsuits at Westminster. In February 1443, he and Roger Bole brought a bill in the court of King’s bench against William Pope, master of the hospital of St. Leonard in Bedford. They alleged that Pope, then a prisoner in the Marshalsea, owed them £40, a debt arising from a bond that he had entered into with them in London a year earlier.6 KB27/727, rot. 53. In the two other actions, sued in the common pleas in 1444, Ralph was the defendant and the plaintiff was Sir William Beauchamp*, a landowner with interests in Bedfordshire as well as his native Wiltshire. In one, the knight alleged that Bole had trespassed on to his land at Fenlake, Harrowden and Coton with his livestock; in the other, he accused Ralph of having taken livestock from his park in the same parishes.7 CP40/733, rots. 423, 423d; 734, rot. 437d.

In July 1446 Bole witnessed a deed recording a mortgage that Thomas Leche of Ridgmont had afforded Baldwin St. George with regard to properties in the parish of St. John, Bedford. Thomas Bole also witnessed this transaction, but probably he was a namesake of the previously mentioned Thomas.8 Beds. and Luton Archs., Bedford bor. recs., deed, 1446, BorBE2/61; The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 274. Like St. George, Ralph appears to have become a follower of John Cornwall, Lord Fanhope. In mid 1452, nearly a decade after the peer’s death, he and the former Fanhope retainers, (Sir) John Wenlock* and William Pekke*, conveyed certain lands in Bedfordshire which they, along with Fanhope and the late John Laurence*, had received by feoffment of John and Alice Green, to Richard Botiller and his wife.9 CPR, 1436-41, p. 246; Beds. and Luton Archs., deed, 1452, TW II/204. There is no evidence for Ralph postdating this conveyance.