FOULESHURST, Thomas

The Fouleshursts were a Cheshire family: the senior branch was established at Edleston, and a junior one, of which Thomas became head, at nearby Barthomley. In the early 1350s Thomas’s grandfather, Sir Robert Fouleshurst (d.1389), a servant of Queen Philippa and the Black Prince and a noted soldier who distinguished himself at the battle of Poitiers, acquired the manor of Barthomley and other property in Cheshire by marriage to the daughter and heiress of Thomas Praers.1 G. Ormerod, Palatine and City of Chester ed. Helsby, iii (1), 300. He married the Praers heiress when she was still a minor, but the Black Prince’s ‘affection’ for him allowed him premature seisin of her lands: Reg. Black Prince, iii. 79. For his tomb in Barthomley church: D. and S. Lysons, Magna Britannia, ii (2), facing p. 447. His son extended the family’s estates beyond the boundaries of Cheshire through his marriage to a Leicestershire heiress. We can only speculate how this marriage came about. Joan Fitzpiers had been just four years old at the time of her father’s death in 1374. Her wardship and marriage came briefly into the hands of the Crown due to the minority of her overlord, Henry, Lord Ferrers of Groby, but Ferrers came of age in 1377 and it is likely that he was responsible for contracting her in marriage.2 CIPM, xiv. 26.

On her husband’s death in 1404, Joan purchased from Henry, prince of Wales, the custody of the Fouleshurst lands and the wardship and marriage of her young son for as much as 400 marks, an indication that the family was one of substance.3 DKR, xxxvi. 188-9. Their Cheshire lands, principally consisting of the manors of Crewe and Barthomley near the Staffordshire border, were probably worth about £50 p.a.4 Ormerod, iii (1), 306. Joan’s will, drawn up on 1 Dec. 1415, demonstrates that the main focus of the family’s interests was still their native Cheshire despite the Leicestershire estates she had brought them. Her husband was buried in the chancel of Barthomley church, the traditional burial place of the family, and she wished to be buried alongside him. Indeed, there is nothing in her will to reveal her Leicestershire origins beyond small bequests to the nuns of Langley and to the Augustinian and Franciscan friars of Leicester.5 Reg. Chichele, ii. 78-79. Moreover, she had given her son in marriage into one of the leading Cheshire families. Nevertheless, despite the fact that her connexions were predominantly with her adopted county, she had been at her ancestral home of Glenfield when Thomas was born, and it was in the church there that he was baptized.

Thomas was still a minor on her death, and there can be little doubt that he spent the next few years in the household of his father-in-law at Over Peover, 13 miles to the north of Barthomley, for it was there that his son and eventual heir, Robert, was born and baptized on 8 Jan. 1419. Despite, however, his apparent early residence in the palatinate, when our MP came of age he made his career in Leicestershire. His administrative career there was brief but active. He attested as many as six parliamentary elections held there between 1420 and 1435 and was himself elected in 1423 and 1431. His appointment to the shrievalty in 1433 further marked him out as a man of influence in his adopted county.6 C219/12/4; 13/1-5; 14/2, 5; CFR, xvi. 175. Part of the explanation for this active role lies in his association with one of the leading magnates of the county, William, Lord Ferrers of Groby, of whom he held his manor of Glenfield. In October 1427 he witnessed a deed for Lord William; the two sat together as loan commissioners at Leicester in June 1431; and, most significantly, in 1435 Fouleshurst was named as one of the feoffees of Thomas, Ferrers’ second son. Such an association would explain why Thomas Ferrers headed the list of attestors to Fouleshurst’s second return to Parliament, and it is a fair speculation that the MP was more closely associated with his family than the surviving evidence implies.7 CIPM, xiv. 26; J. Nichols, Leics. iv (2), 610; Leics. RO, Shirley, Earls Ferrers of Staunton Harold mss, DE2243/2, unsorted; C. Carpenter, Locality and Polity, 320-1; C219/14/2. In 1443 his brother Richard, styled as ‘of Groby’, witnessed a deed for Lord Ferrers: Quorndon Recs. Supp. ed. Farnham, 25.

No doubt had Fouleshurst lived his career would have flourished further, but he died on 23 June 1439 at the comparatively early age of 42. He left a son and heir a few months short of his majority. His place of burial is unknown, although it is probable that he rested at Glenfield. An alabaster tomb, long since lost, in the now-ruined church there was decorated with the arms of Fouleshurst, and as after his death Cheshire once more became the main area of his family’s concerns, he is the only likely occupant. His widow, Cecily, entered into a heavy recognizance in 1,000 marks not to marry without royal licence, calling on her father, her son, Robert, and her-brother-in-law, Richard Fouleshurst, to be her sureties. Later she married John Curson* and, after his death in about 1457, the wealthy Yorkshire knight, Sir John Melton*, de jure Lord Lucy. Melton too she survived, and she must have been over 80 on her death in 1484.8 Nichols, iv (2), 614; Ormerod, iii (1), 307; CP, viii. 255; C141/6/18.

Cecily’s long survival might have proved a considerable drain on the resources of our MP’s son, Robert, had not he, shortly after his father’s death, inherited the estates of the senior branch of the Fouleshursts at Edleston.9 He inherited the ancient Cheshire estates of the family, but the lands that had come to the Edleston Fouleshursts through Margaret, da. and h. of Sir Walter Baskerville of Bredwardine (Herefs.), returned to the surviving male line of the Baskervilles: CIPM, xxv. 417-19. With such an augmentation of his lands in Cheshire, it is not surprising that he made his public career there rather than in Leicestershire and that he cut a figure of greater weight than his father. In 1440 he married Joan, daughter and heiress of Sir Richard Vernon (d.1419) of Shipbrook, a marriage negotiated by her mother, Eleanor, and one that might have been contracted in our MP’s lifetime. He served as escheator of Cheshire in 1460-1, and as an esquire of the body to Henry VI’s son, Edward, but nevertheless adapted himself to the Yorkist regime, taking up knighthood shortly after Edward IV’s accession. Robert’s position was not compromised by his support for the Readeption, during which he served as the sheriff of Cheshire, and, until his death in 1498, he played a prominent place in the county’s affairs.10 Ormerod, iii (1), 307-8; Admin. Co. Palatine of Chester (Chetham Soc. ser. 3, xxxv), 183-5.