MILFORD, William II

Milford was the son of a namesake who represented Totnes in the Parliament of 1425, and many of his early activities are difficult to distinguish from those of his father. Consequently, nothing is known for certain of his career prior to his election to Parliament by the burgesses of Tavistock in November 1449. Although there is no clear evidence that Milford ever resided in the town, he fulfilled the statutory requirements at least in so far as his mother owned property there, which would eventually pass to him by inheritance.4 CP40/852, rot. 460d. The men of Tavistock frequently returned members of the legal profession, and it is likely that a professional qualification also played a part in Milford’s case. Certainly, from the early 1450s he was employed as a trustee by a range of individuals both in the south-west and in London.5 CCR, 1454-61, p. 116; 1468-76, no. 87; CP40/775, rot. 109. Legal training was presumably also what recommended him to Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, whose service he had entered by the summer of 1453, and from whom he held lands in South Tawton.6 E13/145B, rot. 3d; C1/75/62.

In 1454-5 Milford served as escheator of Devon and Cornwall, an onerous office which brought him into conflict with one Thomas Vyell of Sutcombe who accused him of unjustly seizing livestock and goods worth more than £32. The dispute was submitted to the arbitration of Nicholas Radford* and Henry Wyke, who, according to Milford, made their award on 22 Oct. 1455 (by coincidence the day before Radford’s brutal murder).7 E13/146, rot. 35. It would seem that by this date much of Milford’s professional life was centered on the Westminster law courts, and it was as a result of this employment that in 1458-9 he was appointed under sheriff of Middlesex, an office increasingly monopolized by the clerks of the common law courts.8 The endorsements naming Milford as under sheriff do not give a Christian name: KB9/291/8, 13, 51. The term of office coincided with England’s descent into open civil war, and by the end of 1459 Milford’s earlier patron, the earl of Warwick, found himself exiled in Calais. Yet, within eight months the tables had turned, and in July 1460 Warwick returned home in triumph, decisively defeated the adherents of the house of Lancaster at Northampton and seized the person of Henry VI. The victors summoned a Parliament to meet in October, and among their supporters to secure seats was Milford, who was elected by the burgesses of Wareham, a borough belonging to the duke of York. On the day after the writs of summons had been issued, Milford had been appointed controller of the customs at Exeter and Dartmouth, and he was only dismissed from the post three weeks into the session of the Commons. Although York’s death at Wakefield at the end of December, and the approach of a Lancastrian army headed by Queen Margaret in February 1461 caused Parliament to be abandoned, the Yorkists ultimately carried the day, and on 4 Mar. York’s son and heir, Edward, earl of March, was proclaimed King.

Before long, Milford’s services were rewarded, when in June 1461 he and York’s retainer William Browning I* were granted a seven-year lease of the manor of Sevenhampton Denys (Seavington) in Somerset, and lands in Ippelpen and elsewhere in Devon. A year later, in October 1462, the lease was granted to Milford alone at an annual farm of 20s.9 CFR, xx. 16; CPR, 1461-7, p. 210. Now, however, this grant came under threat from the Act of Resumption passed by Edward IV’s second Parliament. As most of the returns for this assembly are lost, it is impossible to know whether Milford was himself a Member of the Commons, but he did successfully sue for a royal proviso exempting him from the provisions of the Act, having, it seems, secured the support of the clerk of the Parliaments, John Faukes,10 C49/60/7. and on expiry of his patent in July 1468 it was replaced by a life-grant to him of Sevenhampton Denys.11 CFR, xx. 16; CPR, 1461-7, p. 210; 1467-77, p. 95.

When he secured this latter grant, Milford had recently completed a further spell in the Commons, this time as Member for Barnstaple. By this date, that borough regularly returned outsiders, but it is possible that Milford owed his seat to the influence of King Edward’s sister, Anne, duchess of Exeter, who held Barnstaple as part of her endowment. Milford held the manor of Winkleigh Tracy to farm from the duchess, although it is not clear whether she also employed him in a professional capacity.12 SC6/HenVII/1234, rot. 2d; 1235, rot. 2d. Nothing is known of Milford’s contribution to the deliberations of the Commons, but he evidently continued to enjoy the administration’s trust, as during Parliament’s summer recess he was included in a commission to inquire into the forfeited estates of Thomas Butler, younger brother of the attainted earl of Ormond. Yet, such trust may have been to some extent misplaced, for it seems that Milford’s loyalty still belonged, first and foremost, to the earl of Warwick. In the two years that followed the dissolution of the Parliament of 1467, Warwick became increasingly estranged from his cousin the King, and in the summer of 1469 he took the monarch captive and attempted to rule in his name. Although Edward IV regained his liberty and initially sought to placate his opponents, renewed unrest stirred up by Warwick in the early months of 1470 eventually forced the earl to seek refuge in France, taking with him the King’s equally malcontent brother, the duke of Clarence.13 C. Ross, Edw. IV, 132-45. It is not clear what part Milford had played in Warwick’s activities, but the general pardon which he secured on 12 May 1470, shortly after his patron’s flight, may indicate that he had taken his master’s side in some way, even though he had chosen not to accompany him into exile.14 C67/47, m. 5. His allegiances remained unchanged, and in the autumn, when Warwick returned at the head of a French fleet and restored Henry VI to the throne, Milford was at hand to be appointed to a judicial commission in Middlesex. Beyond this, there is no suggestion that he rose to any degree of prominence under the Readeption regime, but his accommodation with it was in the eyes of King Edward (who returned within a few months) sufficient to warrant at least some sanction. Consequently, Milford’s lease of Sevenhampton was cancelled in June 1471, and it was not until September that he was finally granted a full pardon.15 CFR, xxi. 52; C67/48, m. 24.

While as a qualified lawyer Milford’s services continued to be of value to the Crown, he subsequently remained restricted to minor administrative tasks such as receiving appointments of attorneys in the court of Chancery.16 C254/149/35. He nevertheless continued his private practice, and this may have allowed him to build up the ties which secured his return to Parliament for the duchy of Cornwall borough of Helston in 1478. By this date, the choice of Cornish Members of the Commons was regularly monopolized by the duchy authorities in the guise of Prince Edward’s tutor, Anthony, Earl Rivers, and it is probable that Milford likewise owed his return to the patronage of Rivers, for whom he had found surety in Chancery about this time.17 E.W. Ives, ‘Andrew Dymmock’, BIHR, xli. 226-8; H. Kleineke, ‘Widening Gap’, in Parchment and People ed. Clark, 134; C1/54/3.

Milford’s private life, otherwise unexceptional, was periodically punctuated by the kind of niggling estate disputes typical of the minor gentry. Thus, at some point in the second half of the 1470s he petitioned the chancellor, Bishop Russell of Lincoln, for redress against the influential local esquire Andrew Hillersden, who had come into possession of muniments relating to a tenement in Totnes, which Milford had purchased from one John Symond.18 C1/58/236. At another time, his title to property at South Tawton was called into question by John Robchyn and John Oxnam, who with the aid of possibly bogus royal bills and seals claimed authority to levy certain sums from the lands, and, not content with this degree of harassment, by night burnt the hedges around the holdings.19 C1/75/62.

It is not clear for how long Milford survived these dramatic events. He is last recorded acting as a mainpernor in June 1479, and may have died not long afterwards.20 CFR, xxi. 551.