FRAMPTON, John III

Frampton’s connexion with Guildford is not documented before his first election to Parliament for that borough. Although he is to be distinguished from the man of the same name who held the office of King’s fletcher from 1440 until his death in 1460,4 CPR, 1436-41, p. 442; 1452-61, p. 644. he too entered royal service. This was probably towards the end of the Parliament which was summoned to meet at Reading on 6 Mar. 1453 and was eventually dissolved in April the next year, after its nine-week session at Westminster. A month before the dissolution he received a payment of 6s. 8d. as one of the two ushers of the chambers used to house Parliament at Westminster, this sum having been needed to provide reeds to spread on the floors. He can have only recently replaced Simon Edward in the post, now joining the more senior official Richard Baron* (who had been one of the ushers for at least 20 years).5 E403/796, m. 13; E404/70/2/52. The two ushers wore the King’s livery, as issued at the great wardrobe,6 E361/6, rots. 50, 51d, 54d, 56d. and Frampton and Baron were to act side by side in the Parliaments of 1455, 1459, 1460, 1461 and 1463, thus serving under both Henry VI and Edward IV. Previously, Baron and his fellow usher had been paid at the standard rate of £5 for duties at a Parliament and £2 10s. for a great council, but there is no record of any such payments after Frampton took up the role, only of occasional reimbursements for their costs, such as for supplying equipment.7 E403/801, m. 7; 823, m. 8; 824, m. 4.

Frampton’s duties as usher were sporadic, depending on irregular summonses of Parliaments and councils. This left him free for other employment, and his career had accordingly taken a new direction in the late 1450s. Already established in Surrey, by November 1457 he came to be linked with John, Lord Berners, a prominent local landowner, when the two men were fellow trustees for part of the manor of Frenches in Worpelsdon, which belonged to the Wintershalls.8 O. Manning and W. Bray, Surr. iii. 93. Berners was currently constable of Windsor castle, and it was no doubt through his patronage that Frampton succeeded William Okeden* as clerk of the castle, the administrator responsible for supervising works there and on the Crown’s manors and lodges in the vicinity. His tasks included the maintenance of the royal parks at both Guildford and Windsor, and it was this aspect of the post that lay behind the prominence of Frampton and another of his predecessors, Henry Fraunceys*, in the two boroughs close by. Frampton was probably holding the post by the time of his second election to Parliament for Guildford, in 1459. On that occasion, as usher, he would have assisted in the preparation of the meeting rooms at Coventry, while also taking his place in the Commons. Frampton’s third return to Parliament, in 1460, this time as a representative for New Windsor, indicates that he was by then well established as clerk at Windsor castle, and had made himself known to the local townsmen. His office brought with it a stipend of 6d. per day, for which he shouldered substantial responsibilities. The following summer, while engaged in supervising extensive repairs to the castle’s roofs, he was reimbursed the enormous sum of £112 10s. for supplies of lead. During his tenure of the post, lasting until Lord Berners died in 1474,9 E404/73/1/124B; E364/115, rot. 50d. he maintained a balance between his interests in Windsor and Guildford: for instance, in 1467 and 1472 he attested the Surrey county elections conducted at Guildford, but he was witnessing deeds in Windsor at around the same time.10 SC8/755/21, f. 16v; C219/17/1; St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, recs. XV.43.20. In June 1470 his duties as clerk led him to accompany the abbot of Chertsey and other officials for a perambulation of the bounds of the hundred of Godley.11 Chertsey Carts. ed Jenkinson, i. 128.

In about the autumn of 1464 Frampton’s fellow usher of the parliament chambers, Richard Baron, had ceased to busy himself in the office, and Frampton alone received payments for worsted and reeds needed for their furnishing in that year and again in 1468.12 E403/840, m. 4; E405/41, rot. 1d; 48, rot. 2. However, for the Parliament summoned to meet in November 1470, during the Readeption of Henry VI, William Welles assisted him in purchasing fabrics ‘for the apparaile and hangyng of the parlement chambre’.13 E404/71/6/18. Frampton was still employed by the Crown in Michaelmas term 1472, and although not specifically called usher his receipt of payments for cloth on behalf of the keeper of the great wardrobe may indicate that he was still engaged in that position.14 E405/55, rot. 3d. He is not recorded after 1474.