CHAMPERNOWNE, Roger

In the late fourteenth century two branches of the ancient Champernowne family became established in Devon as a result of the successive marriages of Sir Richard Champernowne of Modbury. By his first marriage Sir Richard had a son whom he named after himself (and through whom Modbury descended to Hugh Champernowne*), while his second marriage produced a son called Alexander. The marriages of these sons and their sister Joan linked them in close kinship to the most prominent landowners of the region. While Richard married a sister of Sir William Bonville* (later Lord Bonville),7 This ped. becomes apparent from the descent of the family estates and Sir Richard Champernowne’s will: Reg. Stafford ed. Hingeston-Randolph, 422-3. The descent given by J.L. Vivian, Vis. Devon, 162 is wrong. Joan took as her first husband Sir James Chudleigh† of Ashton, by whom she became the mother of James*, and her second marriage to a son of the wealthy Sir Philip Courtenay†, produced Philip Courtenay* of Powderham, who was to become Bonville’s principal ally in the conflicts of the mid fifteenth century.8 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 573-4, where, however, Joan’s fa. is mistakenly given as Sir Alexander Champernowne. In a match evidently designed to provide Sir Richard Champernowne’s younger son with a landed estate, Alexander was married to the eldest daughter and coheiress of Martin Ferrers of Bere Ferrers.

Their first surviving son, Roger Champernowne, the later MP, is first heard of in 1428 when, aged about 17, he joined the retinue of Thomas Montagu, earl of Salisbury, for what was to be the earl’s final expedition to France. He was thus probably present at the siege of Orléans, and only returned home after Salisbury’s death in November.9 DKR, xlviii. 258. It is not known at what date Roger was able to enter his maternal inheritance, although he had probably done so before his earliest election to Parliament. Beyond doubt, however, he was still young and relatively inexperienced when he was first elected to the Commons as a knight of the shire for Devon in 1433, in his father’s lifetime. He must have owed his return to his family’s connexions, rather than to his own standing. Champernowne played no recorded part in the deliberations of the Commons, and he may even have shirked some of the tasks entrusted to the county Members after the dissolution: on this occasion, they were not only charged with the assessment and distribution of the rebates on the Commons’ tax grants that had been agreed, but they were also to identify and swear all those in their county of sufficient standing to take the general oath against maintenance. In Devon, this last proved difficult, for (as the commissioners informed the chancellor) the King’s letters ordering them to return the requisite list of names arrived too late for them to make the necessary proclamation, so they were reduced to administering the oath to anyone who happened to be present on the day. Champernowne may have taken no part in these proceedings, for the other two commissioners (his parliamentary colleague Philip Cary* and Bishop Lacy of Exeter) alone sealed the return into Chancery.10 CFR, xvi. 186, 190; CCR, 1429-35, p. 271; CPR, 1429-36, p. 398; Reg. Lacy, i. 277.

Little over a year later, Champernowne was nevertheless appointed sheriff of Devon. Once again, it appears that he was out of his depth. While it was not uncommon for a sheriff to face allegations of misconduct after leaving office, the litany of misdemeanours with which he was charged was remarkable. It included breaches of the liberties of the royal duchy of Lancaster in making arrests, a failure to pay the annuities owing to the London priory of Holy Trinity from the fee farm of the city of Exeter, and general negligence in the execution of judicial writs.11 E13/140, rots. 26-26d, 29; CP40/713, rot. 372; 715, rot. 247; 716, rot. 76. Among the final writs to arrive during Champernowne’s shrievalty was one ordering the election of knights and burgesses for a Parliament to be held at Cambridge. In December, the venue was changed to Westminster, and the Devon elections were finally conducted by his successor as sheriff later that month. He himself was elected as a knight of the shire, while his cousin Hugh Champernowne secured one of the Barnstaple seats. The background to this double return is unclear, but it may in some way have been connected with the emergence that year of Thomas Courtenay, earl of Devon, from his drawn-out minority, which presented the prospect of a challenge to the balance of power in the region that had prevailed since the death of his father, Earl Hugh, in 1422.

Champernowne’s parliamentary colleague in 1437 was Sir John Speke*, with whom he was to clash just two years later in the context of a dispute over the manor of North Huish. This manor, held in the late fourteenth century by Sir John D’Aumarle, had by 1417 been acquired by D’Aumarle’s stepson, Nicholas Tremayne, who, shortly before his death in September 1438 settled it on his eldest son and heir, Thomas*. Yet before long the latter’s title was challenged by his younger brother, William, whose cause was taken up by Champernowne. The latter, so gossip among his household servants ran, intended to use the brothers’ dispute to seize the manor for himself, and in order to do so secured the services of one of the leading lawyers of his day, Nicholas Radford*. Thomas Tremayne for his part looked for support to Speke, a lesser (albeit Lincolns-Inn-educated) lawyer than Radford, but a landowner of far greater substance and standing in the wider county. It soon became apparent that the indiscrete William Tremayne was nothing short of a liability, and before the end of 1438 Champernowne and Radford cut their losses, although proceedings in various courts continued for some time thereafter.12 Exeter Depositions of 1439 (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. 2013), pp. xvi-xix.

At the time of Roger’s parents’ marriage, his grandfather, Sir Richard Champernowne, had provided them with an annual income of £40, but Alexander Champernowne’s survival until 1442 meant that Roger himself was probably in his thirties before he gained full control of his inheritance.13 CCR, 1381-5, pp. 580, 587-8. Alexander Champernowne’s inqs. post mortem for Lincs. and Northants. respectively give the date of his death as 30 June 1441 or 1442. Litigation in his name still in progress in Hil. term 1442 suggests that the latter date may be the correct one: CIPM, xxvi. 19-20; KB27/723, rot. 71. There is some suggestion that particularly in the 1430s his financial circumstances were straightened, a state of affairs that he sought to remedy not merely by dubious land dealings, as in the case of the North Huish dispute, but also by forays into trade and ultimately by borrowing. In particular his arrangements with his trading factor, John Cokeworthy* of Yarnscombe, proved unsuccessful and resulted in protracted litigation between the two men.14 CP40/755, rot. 519; 758, rot. 185d; 760, rot. 181; 786, rot. 46; C1/45/371. Nor did the death of his father solve his difficulties, for as Alexander’s executors embarked on the task of settling his affairs, they came into conflict with those of Roger’s aunt Isabel Bonville, headed by the influential Walter Reynell* of Malston.15 CP40/734, rot. 263; 737, rot. 142; E13/144, Easter rot. 14.

The full extent of Champernowne’s estates in Devon cannot readily be established, although his inheritance from his parents gave rise to a range of petty squabbles with tenants and neighbours over incursions into wood and pasture lands, damage done by wandering livestock, and attacks on servants, such as might preoccupy many of his contemporaries.16 KB27/723, rot. 71; 775, rot. 3; 776, rot. 2d; 777, rot. 37; 778, rot. 4; 779, rot. 17d; 781, rot. 1d; 796, rots. 5d, 47d; CP40/734, rots. 100d, 183, 202d; 745, rot. 61d; 758, rot. 186. He also possessed two manors and other landed holdings in the Midlands. More than a year before his death, Alexander had settled on his son his manor (known as ‘Champernounz maner’) in Ropsley in Lincolnshire, and eventually Roger would also come into possession of the Northamptonshire manor of Coton and lands in Claxton in Leicestershire, altogether of an annual value of about £9.17 CIPM, xxvi. 19-20; Warws. RO, Fetherston-Dilke mss, CR2981/Dressing Room/In or on wardrobe/Box 2/22. Champernowne’s activities in the years immediately following his father’s death are obscure: two isolated commissions aside, he attracted no Crown appointments, and it looks as if he set out for France once more, for in 1445 and 1446 he twice sued out letters of protection to cross over to Picardy in the retinue of Humphrey Stafford, duke of Buckingham, then captain of Calais.18 DKR, xlviii. 366, 370; C76/128, m. 2. Champernowne’s principal residence at Bere Ferrers lay in the silver-mining area of the south-west, and not surprisingly the industry played an important part in his career. In the early 1430s he had been forced to answer John, duke of Bedford, for attacks on the miners working in the royal mine near his home, and he was subsequently said to have made use of Bedford’s death to take his revenge on the hapless labourers.19 C1/9/404. Bedford held the King’s mines by grants of 1427 and 1433: CPR, 1422-9, p. 393; 1429-36, p. 289. In the following decade the profits of the Devon mines attracted the attention of the King’s grasping principal minister, William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, and after his death his widow, the dowager duchess Alice, accused Champernowne of having forcibly seized 106 thousands and 184 lbs. of lead to the value of £353 18s. 4d. at Bere Ferrers. This theft was alleged to have taken place on 16 Oct. 1451, just three weeks after Champernowne had been commissioned along with the recently-appointed controller of the King’s mines to take possession for the Crown of all precious metals mined in Cornwall and Devon. Naturally, he would have begun the task at the workings on his doorstep.20 CPR, 1441-6, p. 334; 1446-52, p. 533; KB27/784, rot. 5. It was probably also in the execution of his official duties that he disputed with Thomas Wyse* of Sydenham possession of 300 ‘bolles’ of silver ore, which Wyse claimed to have delivered to him.21 C1/16/300; CP40/755, rot. 273d; 758, rot. 294. During his protectorship in the summer of 1454 the duke of York obtained the keeping of the mines in the south-west, only to provoke some local opposition: in the late 1450s Champernowne and Henry VI’s principal metal prospector, the German mining expert Adrian Sprynker, were accused of threatening the duke’s tenants at Bere Ferrers and Liskeard.22 CPR, 1446-52, p. 561; 1452-61, pp. 158, 291; CP40/786, rots. 315, 401; 787, rots. 102-102d. Probably also connected with the mining industry was Champernowne’s clash with the Plymouth gentleman William Edgcombe*, a former keeper of the Devon silver mines, who, so he claimed, was seeking to dispossess him of his property at Bere Ferrers by means of forged title deeds.23 CP40/754, rot. 188; 758, rot. 250d; 761, rot. 200; 779, rot. 181d; 780, rot. 154d; 781, rot. 146; 786, rot. 44; 787, rot. 245.

It is difficult to locate Champernowne exactly in the complex politics of the 1450s, which caused considerable unrest in his home county. Whereas his legitimate kinsmen of the Modbury line of the Champernownes were associated with their close relative, Lord Bonville, he, like his bastard cousins, seems to have made common cause with the earl of Devon. In July 1454 he was summoned to appear in Chancery alongside the earl’s sons Henry and Thomas, their cousin Sir Hugh Courtenay* of Boconnoc and the earl of Oxford’s brother Sir Robert de Vere*, another Courtenay man, to answer for certain riots.24 E28/85/36. Whereas the three Courtenays were clearly being summoned to answer for their disruption of the Exeter peace sessions at Easter, the reasons for the inclusion of de Vere and Champernowne are less clear, as they are not named in the original indictment (KB9/16/67). Yet, he may have learnt his lesson, for he appears to have played no part in the earl’s campaign of open violence in 1455, even though that autumn he took the precaution of securing a general pardon of any past offences. He was thus at liberty in November 1457 to find sureties before Chief Justice Fortescue* for Earl Thomas’s future good behaviour.25 C67/41, m. 28; KB27/786, rots. 121, 121d. At the same time Champernowne was still in dispute with Bonville and two members of his circle, James Chudleigh (his own cousin) and Walter Ralegh* over offences said to have been committed five years previously.26 KB27/775, rot. 35; 776, rot. 3d; 777, rot. 10d; 780, rot. 8; 781, rots. 4, 62; 782, rot. 18d; 799, rot. 3d; 801, rot. 2, 20. Following the earl’s death in 1458, Champernowne continued to be trusted by the court party, with which the new earl achieved a reconciliation that allowed him to marry Queen Margaret’s cousin. A brief spell on the Devon bench that autumn and appointment as a commissioner of array in both Cornwall and Devon in December 1459 (following the attainder of the Yorkist lords in the Parliament at Coventry), may indicate that he continued to be held in regard by the queen’s party, and – in the light of his recent clashes with the duke of York’s tenants – probably not without justification.

Despite this, Champernowne’s allegiances seem to have become suspect, for he played no part in local administration in the first half of 1460, and the place at the very heart of the Yorkist regime which he filled in the aftermath of the battle of Northampton may suggest that he had provided some signal service to the earls of March, Warwick and Salisbury during their exile in Calais and following their triumphant return to England. In November 1460 he was entrusted with the shrievalty of Cornwall, an appointment which placed him alongside such stalwart supporters of the Yorkist cause as John Dynham of Nutwell and Humphrey Stafford IV* of Enmore who were respectively pricked as sheriffs of Devon and Somerset. Furthermore, in the summer of 1461, after Edward IV’s accession to the throne, Champernowne was added to the county bench in both Devon and Cornwall. Any further reward that he might have received from the new King was pre-empted by his death in mid November, having only just completed his term as sheriff.27 Champernowne’s inq. post mortem gives the date of his death as 14 Nov., but in the account of his successor in the shrievalty he was said to have died on 10 Nov.: C140/18/48; E199/6/30. Confusingly, there is a writ of diem clausit extremum dated 24 Apr. 1461: CFR, xx. 3. He may have been ill for some time, as he had already been omitted from the peace commission issued for Devon on 3 Nov.28 CPR, 1461-7, p. 563. He died intestate and childless, leaving as his heir and administrator his 46-year-old brother, John, who was occupied for some years in settling his affairs. The place of his burial is uncertain, although it was most likely the church of St. Andrew at Bere Ferrers, where John later also asked to be buried ‘between the tombs of Martin de Ferrers and Alexander Chambernon’ (the brothers’ grandfather and father).29 Reg. Bourgchier (Canterbury and York Soc. liv), 200; C140/18/48; CPR, 1461-7, p. 224; 1467-77, p. 327; CP40/810, rots. 58d, 234; 830, rot. 15d; C1/45/371; C67/45, m. 45; PCC 23 Wattys (PROB11/6, f. 173).