MESSAGER, Walter

Messager lived at Fisherton Anger on the outskirts of Salisbury and not far from Old Sarum, the deserted borough which he represented in three Parliaments. Occasionally a witness to deeds sealed at Fisherton, he also did likewise at East Harnham, near-by.1 Tropenell Cart. ed. Davies, i. 158, 160; ii. 195, 248. The full extent of his property-holdings is unclear, although he appears to have been a man of some substance. He sold three shops in Salisbury in 1425 only to acquire eight messuages, eight tofts and 90 acres of land at Fisherton and Bemerton,2 Wilts. Hist. Centre, Salisbury city recs., Domesday bk. 2, G23/1/214, f. 96v; Wilts. Feet of Fines (Wilts. Rec. Soc. xliv), 401. and by an indenture made between him and the wealthy Robert Warmwell of Salisbury 11 years later it was agreed that he might occupy premises constructed as an upper storey to Warmwell’s house at Fisherton.3 Tropenell Cart. i. 182. Besides this, Messager held some land at Amesbury, about seven miles north of the city, and in the city itself he continued to own a tenement in Minster Street.4 Ibid. 151-2; Feudal Aids, v. 240. In an undated petition sent by the dean and chapter of Salisbury cathedral to the King’s Council, they requested that Messager be summoned and compelled to pay the rent and arrears that he owed for a messuage in Salisbury which he had been withholding for 20 years.5 SC8/161/8048. In the tax assessments of 1451 he was said to have land in Wiltshire worth £5 p.a.6 E179/196/118.

Some idea of Messager’s status is given by his appearance as an attestor of the county elections held at Wilton for the Parliament of 1415. His occupation is not recorded, although it would seem that he received training in the law, for in 1421 he was named as an attorney to receive seisin of the manor of East Harnham and estates in Buckinghamshire from the son and heir of Sir Laurence Lynford, and he took on briefs at the assizes held at Salisbury in the years 1422-4.7 Tropenell Cart. ii. 206; JUST1/1531, rot. 47d; 1536, rot. 37; 1540, rot. 110. At the Wiltshire elections held on 29 Sept. 1422 he came forward to offer sureties for the appearance in the forthcoming Parliament of Thomas Stokke*, one of the MPs returned for Great Bedwyn.8 C219/13/1. Messager took his own place in the Commons five years later, as a representative for Old Sarum in the Parliament of 1427. While up at Westminster he was currently engaged in litigation on his own account: John Taillour, a tailor from Salisbury, released all personal actions to him and others, including Henry Bryce of Britford, in June 1428 (not long after the dissolution) and again a year later.9 CCR, 1422-9, pp. 393, 456. Messager was evidently deemed to be a satisfactory spokesperson: he was elected to two more Parliaments, and attested the Wiltshire elections again in 1435.

On occasion Messager was placed in positions of trust, notably as a feoffee of the manor of Ugford St. James near Wilton, which came to John Giles* jure uxoris, and of property in Salisbury,10 Wilts. Hist. Centre, Wilton bor. recs., deeds G25/1/210; Wilts. Feet of Fines, 546. and in 1443 his former colleague Henry Bryce enfeoffed him of lands in Britford and elsewhere, some of which he and his fellows were subsequently licensed to convey to Sir Walter Hungerford†, Lord Hungerford, for settlement in tail-male on his son Sir Edmund Hungerford*.11 Hungerford Cart. ii (Wilts. Rec. Soc. lx), 1262-7; CPR, 1441-6, p. 230. William Alexander*, the Salisbury apprentice-at-law who had sat in the Commons with Messager in all three of his Parliaments, named him with Master Gilbert Kymer, the treasurer of Salisbury cathedral, as a trustee of all his landed holdings outside the city.12 C139/130/10; Salisbury Domesday bk. 3, G23/1/215, f. 7v. Often called upon to be a juror, Messager performed this duty at Salisbury in April 1447 at an inquiry into the possessions of the late Thomas Pakyn* (his companion in the Commons of 1432), and at inquisitions post mortem on the widow of Henry Popham† (in 1448), Sir John Chideock* (in 1450), Richard Milborne* (at Heytesbury in 1451) and John Lye* (at Wilton in June 1453).13 Tropenell Cart. i. 162; C139/131/21; 139/26; 142/19; 149/25. Not recorded subsequently, he probably died within the next few years. By April 1457 certain property in Fisherton Anger which he had once held was no longer in his possession.14 Tropenell Cart. i. 232.