GOUGH, John

The name Gough was a common one among Englishmen of Welsh origins, but it is likely that the man who represented Devizes in 1437 hailed from south-western England. His parentage has not been established with any degree of certainty, but he was the son of a man of the same name from whom he was distinguished by the style of ‘junior’. The father was apparently still alive in 1432, when the son received a life annuity of 40s. from John Chichester of Raleigh in Devon.12 CCR, 1429-35, p. 22; CIPM, xxv. 103. A family of modest means, the Goughs nevertheless held some scattered lands on both sides of the river Tamar. By the end of the fifteenth century, their estates included holdings in Allercombe, Adbury, Dodcote and Kilkhampton in Cornwall, and in Dipford and Meddon (in Hartland) in neighbouring Devon, lands then thought to be worth nearly £20 p.a.13 CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 827, 870; CP40/664, rots. 103, 310.

The younger John evidently received some training in the law, but no details of his education have come to light. It is probable that he owed his pension from Chichester to his professional services to the wealthy esquire, and throughout his career he was employed as an attorney, mainpernor or feoffee by a variety of individuals. Equally, it seems likely that his sole recorded return to Parliament also came about as part of his legal practice. From the 1430s the men of Devizes, who had previously shown a strong preference for local clothiers as their parliamentary representatives, increasingly turned to professional men to safeguard their interests in the Commons. Thus, in 1431, 1432 and 1435 they returned John Giles* and in 1433 John Whittocksmead*, and there can be little doubt that Gough’s candidature was also acceptable to the borough elite, since his parliamentary sureties included in John Craye* a man of impeccable local credentials.14 C219/15/1.

By this date, Gough may already have formed the association with the rising lawyer John Fortescue* which would determine his later career. During the 1420s and 1430s Fortescue had gathered considerable parliamentary experience in the service of four west-country boroughs, but in 1437 (his last Parliament) he at last sat as a knight of the shire, being returned for the county of Wiltshire. It may thus not have been mere coincidence that Gough sat for a borough in the same county, where neither of them had landed interests of significance. In subsequent years, Gough remained part of Fortescue’s inner circle, being regularly associated with him in his land transactions and enfeoffments.15 CCR, 1435-41, p. 245; 1441-7, p. 443; 1447-54, p. 398; 1454-61, pp. 107, 172, 192, 308; CPR, 1446-52, p. 221; 1452-61, p. 150; CFR, xvii. 242; xviii. 86, 88; CP25(1)/46/87/211, 221; 88/229; 91/115/135; 116/162; 117/195; KB27/750, rot. 39; C146/3154; Devon RO, Fortescue mss, 1262M/TSO/87-89. Most importantly, not long after Fortescue’s appointment as chief justice of the King’s bench in January 1442, and undoubtedly through his patron’s good offices, Gough secured the lucrative office of one of the filacers of the court, and before long he added to this the post of clerk of the warrants (or of the rolls).16 There may have been an initial attempt to promote Gough to the post of filacer for Oxon., Berks. and Worcs., but this evidently came to nothing, as his name was crossed out at the foot of the roll: KB27/724, rot. 13. Even after accepting these appointments, Gough apparently maintained his private practice. Like many other Westminster filacers, he found regular employment as receiver of writs for one sheriff or another, most frequently those for the counties of his native south-west. Among the sheriffs he so served were Sir Edward Hull* and Sir Walter Rodney*, respectively sheriffs of Somerset and Dorset in 1438-9 and 1439-40, Thomas Baud*, sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire in 1446-7, Henry Fortescue† and John Trevelyan*, sheriffs of Cornwall in 1447-8 and 1448-9, and John Nanfan*, sheriff of Devon in 1457-8. Alongside these official clients, there were also other, more colourful, characters seeking Gough’s professional services, none of them perhaps less reputable than the ruthless Richard Tregoose* who employed him as an attorney and surety towards the end of his long career of lawless behaviour in the summer of 1452.17 C254/146/349; KB27/765, rots. 37d, 52.

By comparison with his well-documented professional activities, little is known of Gough’s personal affairs, many of which are difficult to distinguish from those of his synonymous father and son. It may, however, have been he who in 1434 quarrelled with William, Lord Botreaux: the cause of their disagreement is unknown.18 CCR, 1429-35, p. 312. It was the title of Gough’s wife to her paternal inheritance in Welcombe in north-western Devon that was at stake in a lawsuit that in the autumn of 1448 occupied the justices of both Westminster benches. The Goughs’ title, based on a donation made over a century earlier in the early years of Edward III’s reign, was challenged by John Coblegh and Isabel his wife. The difficulty of proving a title that ancient in court became apparent not least in the impossibility (acknowledged by both parties) of persuading the long-dead witnesses to the original deed to appear to give evidence. Eventually, a verdict in favour of the Goughs was passed by Nicholas Aysshton* and his factotum Robert Clay*, sitting as assize justices, but the Cobleghs lost little time in renewing the quarrel by suing out a writ of error.19 KB27/751, rot. 77; CP40/751, rot. 479.

The exact date of Gough’s death has not been established, but it probably occurred not long before 29 June 1470, when a writ of diem clausit extremum in his name was sent to the escheator of Devon and Cornwall.20 CFR, xx. 260. He was succeeded as filacer by a namesake, perhaps his younger son,21 The younger John Gough resigned his filacership to the use of John Holme on 28 Nov. 1495: KB27/933, rot. 107; J.H. Baker, Men of Ct. (Selden Soc. supp. ser. xviii), i. 762. although the family lands passed to Richard Gough, probably the MP’s elder scion. On Richard’s death in 1504 these lands were divided among his four daughters, and through one of them a portion eventually came into the hands of the Grenvilles.22 Gough must be distinguished from several contemporary namesakes, including a lawyer who was active as an attorney in Ire. in the late 1420s and who in 1443 was granted the reversion of the office of second chamberlain of the Irish exchequer and the post of second baron of the same: CPR, 1422-9, p. 445; 1441-6, pp. 145, 180, 404; SP46/183, f. 36.