SOUTHWORTH, Geoffrey

Southworth had a brief but interesting career. He was from a gentry family settled at Samlesbury, near Preston, and Southworth, near Warrington, in Lancashire. If he was from the family’s main branch, he was perhaps a younger brother of Richard Southworth (d.1472).1 For a ped. of the Southworths: VCH Lancs. vi. 305. Nearly all that is known of his career relates to his part in the protracted dispute between the Southworths and another Lancashire family, the Bolds, on the one hand, and the borough of Shrewsbury, on the other.2 For a general acct. of this dispute: D.R. Walker, ‘Shrewsbury in the 15th Cent.’ (Univ. of Wales, Swansea Ph.D. thesis, 1981), 333-9. The point at issue is unknown, but it led to serious violence. In the Parliament of 1455 two Shrewsbury merchants, William Bykton and Roger Pontesbury*, complained that they had suffered a series of persecutions at the hands of Robert Bold and his servants. Our MP is not mentioned in their litany of complaint, but they identified his putative brother, Richard Southworth, as one of Bold’s principal maintainers. Further, the petition asserts that it was in Richard’s house at Houghton, near Southworth, that Pontesbury was imprisoned and tortured.3 SC8/96/4769. Evidence of Geoffrey’s involvement in the feud only comes later. The borough accounts for September 1457-8 refer to deputations, all headed by one of the bailiffs, Nicholas Fitzherbert*, sent to Tarporley, not far from Chester, and to Chester itself, to negotiate with our MP in respect of the townsmen who had been indicted in Staffordshire for illegally arresting him. This indictment has not been traced, but it would seem that the town had taken the law into its own hands and detained Southworth as one of its tormentors.4 Salop Archs., Shrewsbury recs., bailiffs’ accts. 3365/385, mm. 2-3. The result of these deliberations is unknown, but the men of Shrewsbury seemingly learnt their lessons, thereafter pursuing our MP within the forms of the law. On 23 Nov. 1458 Southworth, described as resident at Preston, and William, son of Alexander Radcliffe*, were obliged to enter into a bond of 300 marks to appear before the royal council, in all probability to answer the complaint of the burgesses. At about the same time one of the main victims of the feud, William Bykton, brought an action of trespass against several members of the Bold and Southworth families, including Geoffrey, styled as ‘of Southworth, gentleman’.5 CCR, 1454-61, p. 399; KB27/793, rot. 99; 794, rot. 15.

The indictment and execution of two of Bold’s servants at Wenlock then seems to have taken the heat out of the dispute, although there remained some outstanding matters between our MP and Shrewsbury. Interestingly, a settlement appears to have been reached while Southworth was sitting in the Commons in the Coventry Parliament of 1459. The borough accounts for 1459-60 record a payment of £4 sent to him there. Further, on 12 Dec., during the Parliament, four leading burgesses, including John Trentham*, then representing Shrewsbury, and Nicholas Fitzherbert, undertook in bonds to make four payments of £10 to him, the last instalment at Christmas 1461. Curiously, given that both Southworth and Trentham were supposedly sitting in Parliament at Coventry (an assembly that did not end until 20 Dec.), these bonds were dated at Westminster.6 Shrewsbury bailiffs’ accts. 3365/387, m. 1d; 388, m. 7d; CP40/809, rots. 158, 159d, 160.

Southworth’s connexion with the Bolds explains his marriage to the widow of Sir John Bold, formerly captain of Conway castle. She must have been significantly his senior, for she had been married to Sir John, as his second wife, before June 1422 (and probably some years earlier). On Sir John’s death she had married Gilbert, a younger son of Sir Henry Scarisbrick (d.1420) of Scarisbrick, but was again a widow by the late 1450s. In a writ of 19 Apr. 1458 she was described as ‘Elizabeth Boulde, once of Carlton-in-Craven, widow’, and it was presumably very soon after this that she married Southworth.7 VCH Lancs. iii. 405; KB27/789, rot. 11d. Her landholdings are not well documented, but beyond whatever Bold lands she held in dower or jointure she had in her own right the manor of Carlton-in-Craven, near Skipton in Yorkshire.8 She has been identified as da. of Sir John Dawtry: T.D. Whitaker, Craven ed. Morant, 223. By a fine levied in 1434 a reversionary interest in her manor of Carlton was settled on her two sons by Sir John Bold, Boniface and Brian: CP25(1)/280/157/1. In 1433 Boniface had married Margaret Scarisbrick, whose uncle his mother was to marry a few years later: VCH Lancs. iii. 267n. Her attractions as a bride for a younger son like Southworth are obvious.

Southworth’s part in the dispute with Shrewsbury marks him out as a man ready to involve himself in controversy and conflict, and this tendency is even more strongly apparent in the last acts of his short career. These pose an interpretative puzzle. He was elected, as an outsider, for the Wiltshire borough of Great Bedwyn to the militant Lancastrian Parliament of 1459. Yet he was killed fighting for the house of York at the battle of Wakefield a year later. If he was already identified as a Yorkist his election is perplexing, particularly for a borough whose lord was one of the leaders of the Lancastrian cause, Humphrey, duke of Buckingham. It is tempting to conclude then that his conversion to York came only after the Parliament, and there is some indirect support for such a supposition. On 13 Sept. 1460, when the duke of York was at Chester, journeying from Ireland to Westminster to claim the throne, he retained our MP’s kinsman, John Southworth, then mayor of Chester, at a generous fee of £10 p.a.9 C219/16/5; CPR, 1461-7, p. 129. Perhaps this marks the beginning of a new allegiance for the Southworths.

However this may be, Geoffrey’s death at Wakefield is certain, evidenced as it is by a Chancery petition. His widow claimed that, immediately after the battle, William Singleton of Broughton, a few miles from Samlesbury, had detained her, telling her that ‘His His’’’’’neither knight nor Esquier [would] feche hir frome his place’ and extorting from her the grant of an annuity of six marks assigned upon her lands in Yorkshire. Then, presumably to secure payment of the annuity, he had distrained her tenants and plundered her goods and livestock (to the improbably high value of 100 marks).10 C1/27/202. By the time this petition was presented – at a date before 15 Mar. 1465 – she had remarried, taking a husband from the new King’s household in John Convers*, serjeant-at-arms. Not improbably Singleton had been another suitor for her hand and his failure to secure her led to the dispute.

The consequences of Southworth’s involvement in the dispute with the borough of Shrewsbury continued to be felt, albeit mildly, after his death. On 5 Mar. 1461 Laurence Booth, bishop of Durham, committed administration of his goods to Henry Radcliffe, who took it upon himself to pursue the four burgesses who had bound themselves to our MP in 1459. As this suit was pending in the court of common pleas in 1463, the borough authorities paid 3s. 9d. for victuals and wine given to two lawyers, Thomas Acton* and John Salter, for their counsel in the matter, with what result is unknown.11 CP40/809, rots. 158, 159d, 160; Shrewsbury bailiffs’ accts. 3365/392, rot. 1.