FURBOUR, Richard

A local man of obscure background, Furbour exercised a minor office in his home town by the date of his second Parliament. Earlier on he had twice provided sureties for Marlborough’s MPs, and he himself was chosen to represent the borough three times. On all three occasions one of the knights of the shire he accompanied to the Commons was William Darell*, currently serving as under treasurer of England by nomination of Sir Walter Hungerford†, Lord Hungerford. Yet the two men later fell out: in the summer of 1435 Darell brought a suit in the court of common pleas against our MP, whom he disparagingly described as a ‘husbandman’, claiming that Furbour owed him £5.4 CP40/698, rot. 219d. Furbour’s career was largely spent in estate-management, serving as bailiff in Wiltshire on behalf of St. Swithun’s priory for at least 15 years, and also securing a like appointment on the estates in the county belonging to the earl of Stafford. It may be the case that he was engaged in the administration of the Stafford lands as early as October 1435, when he was returned to Parliament for Great Bedwyn, where part of the earl’s inheritance lay.

On 1 Dec. 1439 Furbour appeared in the Exchequer as a surety for John Staunford of Rushall, assigned keeping of the Wiltshire manor of Charlton (now reverted to the Crown following the death of Queen Joan), for a payment of £22 a year; and on the same day Staunford reciprocated by guaranteeing that our MP and Walter Everard* would pay £40 p.a. throughout the course of a seven-year-lease of the lands pertaining to Clatford priory (similarly part of the late queen’s dower).5 CFR, xvii. 115, 116. Yet the expectations of all three men that they would make a reasonable profit from their leases were to be dashed when the King granted his uncle Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, annuities in the same sums of money, charged on the properties concerned. In effect Furbour, Staunford and Everard were now being held responsible for twice the farms they had agreed, and finding the additional charges insupportable they petitioned for redress and surrendered their patents. Eventually, on 27 Jan. 1443, the three were pardoned all payments due at the Exchequer.6 CPR, 1441-6, p. 143; E159/219, brevia Hil. rot. 8. Meanwhile, to add to his woes Furbour was also being sued in the common pleas by Philip Morgan*, the Salisbury lawyer, who alleged in 1441 that he was unlawfully withholding £20 of his money; and five years later John Basket*, the former sheriff of Wiltshire, claimed that our MP (now called ‘yeoman’) owed him £40.7 CP40/721, rot. 235d; 724, rots. 225, 352d; 740, rot. 451.

Furbour was no longer bailiff of the liberties of St. Swithun’s at Michaelmas 1447, and it is uncertain whether he was the man of this name who was present at a civic assembly held at Salisbury on 10 Sept. 1450.8 First General Entry Bk. Salisbury (Wilts. Rec. Soc. liv), no. 437. However, given his previous employment as bailiff of the earl of Stafford’s hundred of Kinwardstone, it seems likely that it was he who in October 1455 was given by Earl Humphrey (now duke of Buckingham) an annuity of 20s. from the issues of Norton-in-the Moors, Staffordshire, as a reward for past and future service.9 C. Rawcliffe, Staffords, 239, from Staffs. RO, Stafford fam. mss, D641/1/2/60, m. 9v.