DURAUNT, Edward

Duraunt hailed from a family on the borders of gentility. His kinsman, John Duraunt (d.c.1445) of Barcheston, served as a tax collector on several occasions and was assessed on an annual income of £5 in the Warwickshire subsidy returns of 1435-6.3 W. Dugdale, Warws. ii. 601; CFR, xiv. 171, 222; xvi. 284; xviii. 16; E179/92/59. Our MP was not, however, his heir. His parentage is unknown, but it is possible that he was the son of Richard Duraunt of Wolston, a feoffee of Sir Richard Arundel (d.1419).4 CCR, 1419-22, p. 239; Cotton Ch. XXIX. 17. Certainly, from very early in his career, Edward had property at Wolston: in 1445 he sued a local widow and husbandman for trespass, and three years later he claimed a servant had illegally left his service there.5 KB27/735, rot. 7; 749, rots. 50d, 51. It thus seems that he inherited some property, although his holdings must have been very modest and it was to the study of the law that he looked for advancement. He was living in London, almost certainly at one of the inns, in the mid 1440s. In Trinity term 1446, as ‘of London, gentleman’, he offered mainprise in the Exchequer of pleas for a servant of his neighbour, the abbot of Combe.6 E13/144, Trin. rot. 6d. Soon after, he established himself as an attorney in the central common-law courts, acting principally for such Warwickshire landowners as the abbot, Sir William Mountfort*, Henry Everingham*, Thomas Boughton* and George Ashby*, and occasionally for others from further afield, like the London stockfishmonger, Robert Horne, and an alderman of Oxford, John Fitzaleyn*.7 KB27/740, rot. 43; 746, att. rot. 3d; 748, rot. 62, att. rot. 1; 749, rot. 50d, att. rot.; 760, rot. 31d; 766, rot. 7d; CP40/759, rot. 348d.

By 1450 Duraunt’s legal abilities had served to recommend him to one of the most important of his neighbours, Edward Grey, Lord Ferrers of Groby. Early in that year he joined another Warwickshire lawyer, Henry Boteler II*, in standing pledge for the prosecution of a petition brought in Chancery by Grey, and thereafter he was frequently employed in his affairs.8 C1/17/81a; KB27/766, rot. 64; 769, att. rot. 2; CP40/771, rot. 336; 778, rot. 163. It may be relevant here that his kinsman, Thomas Duraunt of Barcheston, had sat on the jury in the inq. post mortem of Grey’s mother, Joan, at Coventry in 1449: C139/133/4. This new and important association, however, hardly serves as an adequate explanation for his election for the Cornish borough of Lostwithiel. The election for Warwickshire of Boughton, another lawyer in Grey’s service, may be taken to imply that Grey wished to secure the election of his own men, but there is no reason to suppose he had any influence outside the Midlands. A much more important influence on the elections to this assembly was Henry Holand, duke of Exeter, who was seeking the support of the Commons in his great dispute with Ralph, Lord Cromwell, over the lordship of Ampthill. His men dominated the representation of the Cornish boroughs; one of those whose return he secured was another Warwickshire lawyer, John Archer II*, who sat for Helston. It is, therefore, tempting to explain Duraunt’s election by the same cause; and yet there is no surviving evidence to connect him with either the duke or Archer.9 C219/16/1; S.J. Payling, ‘Ampthill Dispute’, EHR, civ. 895-6.

At the next election Duraunt appears as an attestor. He is named in the combined county and borough parliamentary return for Warwickshire dated 23 June 1455. Since his name appears next to that of Roger Wootton II*, a leading figure in Warwick, it may be that he was an attestor to the borough election.10 C219/16/3. Little else is known of his career in the late 1450s. Grey’s death in 1457 deprived him of a patron, although later evidence shows that he continued to act for his widow, Elizabeth Ferrers. In Trinity term 1459 he sued a yeoman of Kenilworth and two others for close-breaking at Wolston and Kenilworth and assaulting and wounding him at Wolston, but there is nothing to give this a context.11 CP40/794, rot. 252; 796, rot. 73. Nor is there any direct evidence to show his loyalties during the civil war of 1459-61. It can, however, be inferred that he was not adverse to the change of regime. He had some Yorkist connexions – Grey’s widow had married Sir John Bourgchier, a prominent supporter of York – and his nomination as under sheriff in 1461 by John Greville, a retainer of Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, strongly suggests that he was acceptable to the new regime.

There is evidence to suggest that Duraunt was a corrupt under sheriff. If a complaint made to the chancellor by Richard Dalby II* is to be credited, in December 1461 he had refused to serve writs of replevin upon Sir Richard Verney, who had taken a large quantity of livestock from Dalby’s manor of Brookhampton. The petitioner complained that our MP was of Verney’s ‘covyn and assent’ and would serve no process upon him.12 C1/27/359; C. Carpenter, Locality and Polity, 496 Towards the end of his extended term of office he again appears to have acted in defence of another lawless member of the leading Warwickshire gentry. At the county court held on 31 Oct. 1463 he released to bail Robert Rous of Ragley, gentleman, and others, who had surrendered themselves to custody rather than face outlawry on an appeal of murder. The sheriff’s deputy, John Abell, however, then made the false return into King’s bench that the appealed had not appeared and hence that outlawry had been returned against them. At the next county court on 28 Nov. Duraunt, ready to cite them as outlaws, had to be reminded by one of the coroners that they had appeared. This is the story told in petitions presented to the chancellor and to the King in the Parliament of 1463-5, from which it seems that Duraunt was guilty of incompetence rather than corruption. None the less, when the chancellor examined him on 30 Jan. 1464, he had him committed to ward and then bound in heavy sureties for his future appearance. Clearly there was some suspicion about his conduct, and it may be that he was acting in favour of Thomas Burdet*, who was in violent dispute with the Rous family.13 SC8/138/6863; C1/28/271; C244/97/45. Cf. Carpenter, 501.

Such an interpretation is certainly consistent with the estimate of Duraunt’s character given in a vivid account of the dispute over the Metley lands drawn up in the reign of Henry VII. There it is said that he ‘was holden a craffty man and a perellous in his countre and hadde an evyll name there in that byhalfe’, and an example is given of his dishonesty. At a ‘day of communication’, between John Hugford† and Robert Catesby in the Greyfriars at Coventry, probably in 1464, Duraunt had acted as one of Hugford’s counsellors. After requesting that Catesby surrender his evidences for examination, he had retired to the chapter house and duplicitously copied them.14 E163/29/11, m. 5.

In other contexts, however, Duraunt appears as victim. In August 1462, as, on the orders of the sheriff, he attempted to levy the sum of 40s. 10d. against one of the county j.p.s, Thomas Moston of Hunscote, he was assaulted by Moston and some 100 armed men. Moston was duly indicted before his fellow j.p.s. on the following 28 Sept., and on 18 May 1463, when he was detained in the Marshalsea, our MP brought a bill against him for the same offence. This marks the beginning of a long dispute – Duraunt was still pursuing Moston for redress as late as 1473 – and it may be that the assault of 1462 was an episode in rather than the cause of their rivalry.15 KB9/302/17; KB27/808, rot. 93d; 844, rot. 47d.

Despite such difficulties, Duraunt’s local legal practice continued to thrive. In 1465, for example, he acted as attorney for the abbot of Combe and Philip Neel of London at the Warwickshire assizes; and in the same year he was Sir John Bourgchier’s attorney in the court of common pleas as he was also to be on later occasions.16 JUST1/1547, rot. 2; CP40/810, rot. 326; 818, rot. 203; 832, rot. 403d; KB27/829, att. rot. 1. Early in 1466 he was acting as deputy to the sheriff of Warwickshire, Thomas Throckmorton*, receiving writs at Westminster for execution in the county. His prominence as a local attorney served to recommend him to the burgesses of Warwick as an MP, and he was elected on 11 May 1467.17 CP40/810, rot. 326; C219/17/1. On 25 June, while Parliament was in session, he offered mainprise in Chancery for a gentleman of Coventry, John Swayn, and during the prorogation he returned to Warwickshire, acting as attorney for John Brome II* at the county assizes held on 15 July.18 C244/104/118b; KB27/829, rot. 83. Soon after he added to his responsibilities the important office of clerk of the peace in his native county, but he served only briefly.19 Stephens, 172.

Duraunt’s activities diminished in the 1470s. On 1 Aug. 1472, he offered mainprise in a grant made to William Hugford†, who had sat for Warwickshire in 1467; in October 1473, he delivered into King’s bench an indictment taken at the sheriff’s tourn; and in the following Hilary term he was named as an attorney in King’s bench by the dean and chapter of St. Mary, Warwick, and the abbot of Combe.20 CFR, xxi. 117; KB9/334, m. 34d; KB27/850, att. rot. 1d; CP40/862, rot. 60. He did not survive long thereafter. He was dead intestate by Easter term 1477 when the administrators of his goods had actions of debt pending in the court of common pleas. His career had been typical of a minor local lawyer who ran the cursus of under sheriff, borough MP and clerk of the peace.