HALSEWELL, Robert

This MP’s family took its name from the Somerset vill of Halswille in Goathurst, which an ancestor held of the prior of Taunton in the late thirteenth century. In 1428 this property pertained to William Halsewell (who attested the Somerset elections in 1421 and 1427), but thereafter its descent is obscure, and it may not have fallen to the MP until late in his lifetime.2 Feudal Aids, iv. 293, 301, 345, 370; VCH Som. vi. 48. Robert appears to have been a younger son, and his usual place of residence is uncertain, although on one occasion he was referred to as ‘of Eston’, which may be identified as Easton in Gordano, located to the north-west of Bristol.3 E403/767, m. 7. The Halsewells were closely related to the Sydenhams, among them Richard Sydenham, j.c.p. and his son Simon, who as bishop of Chichester from 1431 to 1438 was summoned to the Parliaments in which Robert sat in the Commons in that decade. His involvement in the Sydenhams’ affairs for over 40 years undoubtedly influenced the course of his career.4 Biog. Reg. Univ. Oxf. ed. Emden, iii. 1838; WARD2/56/201/6; 57A/204/55.

To judge from certain aspects of that career Halsewell may have been trained in the law, and in later years he was styled ‘gentleman’ or ‘esquire’. He first appears in the records in March 1422, when simply as ‘of Somerset’ he stood surety at the Exchequer for two men from Wiltshire – Henry Chancy* of Collingbourne and John Benger† the younger – then granted the wardship and marriage of the son and heir of Henry Thorp†, the former knight of the shire.5 CFR, xiv. 427. A few months later he was returned to his first Parliament, as one of the representatives of the impoverished port of Lyme Regis in Dorset. Although he had no known connexion with Lyme or its burgesses, and the circumstances leading to his election are obscure, he was to represent the borough again three years later. Meanwhile, Halsewell once more appeared as a mainpernor in the Exchequer in July 1423, this time on behalf of the prior of the alien Benedictine house at Llangennith in Glamorgan, a cell of the Norman abbey of Evreux, who took on the farm of the priory estates. The patent endured until 26 Nov. 1430 when Halsewell himself secured the lease.6 CFR, xvii. 45, 80; xviii. 24. Halsewell ceased to have the farm in July 1433: CFR, xviii. 156. The treasurer of England to whom he owed this concession was Walter, Lord Hungerford†, a leading landowner in Somerset and Wiltshire and distant relation of his own kinsmen the Sydenhams. Nor is this the only indication that he benefited from Hungerford’s patronage. It was by Hungerford’s bill as treasurer that he gained appointment as controller of customs at Southampton in 1428, only to be removed when Hungerford ceased to be treasurer in 1432.7 CPR, 1422-9, p. 447; 1429-36, p. 179. For some indication of his activities in office, confiscating smuggled cloth and selling it for the Crown: E159/207, recorda Hil. rot. 8d.

When Halsewell was returned to Parliament for the third time, in 1433, it was as a representative for the Somerset borough of Bridgwater, situated some three miles from the family home.8 For his later dealings with people of Bridgwater see e.g. a quittance to a local woman for £16 13s. 4d. in 1463: Bridgwater Bor. Archs. 1445-68 (Som. Rec. Soc. lx), 832. Perhaps he was already engaged in the administration of the former Mortimer holdings in the town, which had only recently descended by inheritance to Richard, duke of York, but although Bridgwater’s castle served as the administrative headquarters of York’s Somerset estates there is no direct indication that the parliamentary elections were subject to the duke’s influence. While the second parliamentary session was in progress, in November that year, Halsewell was appointed collector of customs at Bristol, a post he held for eight months.9 CFR, xviii. 168, 169, 171, 185. His association with the Wiltshire gentry, and in particular those belonging to the circle of Lord Hungerford, continued in 1436 with his nomination as a feoffee by Richard Milborne*, the steward of Hungerford’s estates, and he stood as mainpernor at the Exchequer in July 1437 for Thomas Brown II*, a prominent member of Lord Walter’s household.10 CCR, 1435-41, pp. 98, 100; CFR, xviii. 334. Together with Hungerford himself and the peer’s friend Bishop Sydenham, Halsewell was a trustee in the 1430s of lands in Devon belonging to their mutual relative John Sydenham*. In his will of January 1438, the bishop named Halsewell (to whom he left ten marks), as one of his executors, while asking Hungerford to supervise their work. As Sydenham’s executor, the following Midsummer Halsewell received £2 as part of the rent which the society of Lincoln’s Inn paid the bishops of Chichester for the site of their foundation, and he was still active on his late kinsman’s behalf six years later, bringing lawsuits against the prelate’s debtors.11 Reg. Chichele, ii. 559-60; L. Inn Black Bk. i. 8; CP40/738, rot. 258. Meanwhile, Halsewell had attended his fourth Parliament, in 1437, on this occasion representing Taunton. He had no known connexion with the borough or its lord, Cardinal Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, although he did take on the responsibilities of a trustee of property in the town towards the end of his life.12 Som. Feet of Fines (Som. Rec. Soc. xxii), 130. Halsewell twice attested the shire elections for Somerset held at Ilchester (on the second occasion being party to the return as a shire knight of his kinsman John Sydenham), but there is no evidence that he himself ever sat in Parliament again.

Thereafter, Halsewell busied himself in the affairs of other members of the Somerset gentry and in administrative matters on behalf of the Crown. Described as ‘literatus’ he acted as proctor for a priest presented by Alexander Hody* to the chaplaincy of the chantry at Woolavington, and in May 1447 he was rewarded at the Exchequer for seizing three packs of wool subject to confiscation to the King.13 Reg. Stafford, ii (Som Rec. Soc. xxxii), 279; E403/767, m. 7. In an unspecified official capacity he became associated with William Browning I*, the receiver of the duke of York’s estates in Somerset and Dorset, in November 1453. The duke instructed the two men to investigate why the revenues collected from his third part of the borough of Bridgwater had recently declined, and they responded in July 1454 (when York was Protector) that profits overall had fallen by 75s. p.a. (of which the duke’s share was 25s.), because several holders of burgages had left their tenancies owing to unsupportable charges.14 Bridgwater Bor. Archs. 773. The report was referred to later in a petition from the burgesses to the duke’s widow, Cecily, mother of Edw. IV, requesting exoneration from paying a further 10s.: ibid. 819. That Browning viewed Halsewell as someone in whom he could place his trust is clear from the MP’s inclusion in 1458 with his kinsman John Sydenham among the feoffees of Browning’s principal manor of Melbury Sampford in Dorset.15 Dorset Feet of Fines (Dorset Recs. x), 385. More unexpectedly, he was also enfeoffed of lands far away in the parishes of Chipstead and Chevening in Kent by John Chepstede, who held him in ‘grete and high trust’, but following Chepstede’s death allegedly refused to convey the property to his widow. He only complied with her request, in February 1459, after she had petitioned the chancellor.16 C1/26/384; CCR, 1454-61, pp. 366-7. Although never among the closest advisors to the Hungerfords, Halsewell continued his association with them after they fell on troubled times, culminating with the attainder of Robert, Lord Hungerford and Moleyns, in Edward IV’s first Parliament. In 1463 Moleyns’s mother Lady Margaret named Halsewell as an attorney to put into effect the sale of certain of her manors to Bishop Bekynton of Bath and Wells, in an attempt to pay their debts.17 HMC Wells, i. 499.

Halsewell’s final years were troubled by lawsuits, some of them arising from his executorship of the will of John Gerard (d.1465) of Sandford Orcas. He petitioned the chancellor in about Hilary term 1470 with regard to an action taken against him by his former associate William Browning for a debt of £20 supposedly owed by the deceased,18 C1/43/229-31; CP40/829, rot. 163d; 834, rots. 32d, 34. and in the same term, now called ‘of Goathurst, gentleman’, he was attached to answer (Sir) William Courtenay* in a suit over the marriage of Robert Gerard, John’s son and heir. Courtenay alleged that Halsewell had abducted Robert, whose wardship pertained to him, at Yeovil in early October 1465, but in his defence Halsewell asserted that young Gerard had in fact been the ward of Humphrey Stafford IV*, Lord Stafford of Southwick, who on 20 June that year, also at Yeovil, had granted custody of the youngster to him. Clearly, in 1470 the opportunistic Courtenay was taking advantage of the chaotic political situation in the West Country following Stafford’s execution at Bridgwater the year before.19 CP40/834, rot. 362. It looks as if the ward was married to Halsewell’s gdda. Isabel, for in a petition against Richard Vowell*, her grandmother’s executor, she was called Isabel Gerard: C1/204/75.

Halsewell, by then long in years, may not have lived much longer. In February 1473 he was party to an indenture confirming the interest for life of the widowed daughter-in-law of the late John Sydenham in property in Somerset and Dorset,20 WARD2/56/201/6; CAD, iv. A9150. and in the following August he was one of the patrons of the church of Goathurst, when the man presented was one of his sons, Nicholas Halsewell BA. The latter, who studied at Oxford to become a doctor in medicine, was to rise to eminence as a founder member of the College of Physicians. The MP’s oldest son was William,21 Regs. Stillington and Fox (Som. Rec. Soc. lii), 263, 1001; Biog. Reg. Univ. Oxf. ii. 858; Som. Archs., Kemeys-Tynte mss, DD\S\WH/312. and another son, John, fathered Nicholas Halswell† (d.1564) of Halswell and Goathurst, who followed his grandfather’s lead by representing Bridgwater in two Parliaments of the mid sixteenth century.22 The Commons, 1509-58, ii. 287-8. Our MP’s widow Katherine obtained on 20 Nov. 1476 licence from the diocesan to have religious services performed in her oratory at Goathurst.23 Reg. Stillington, 645.