MITFORD, Robert

Mitford came from a distinguished parliamentary pedigree. His putative grandfather, John Mitford† (d.1409), was a lawyer whose remarkable career as an administrator spanned four decades and saw him sit in Parliament as a knight of the shire for Northumberland on as many as 13 occasions. Our MP was almost certainly the younger son of John’s son, William, who was also a lawyer and was himself MP for Northumberland on four occasions. William died in March 1423, leaving as his heir another John (d.1457), who was then just under age.4 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 744-8; CFR, xix. 168. Robert’s first appearance in the records is alongside this John: in August 1429 both men attested the Northumberland county election at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Little other evidence survives of his early career, but his appointments as under sheriff in November 1441 and, in the following July, to the quorum of the Northumberland bench suggest that he followed the family tradition in taking a legal training. 5 C219/14/1; JUST3/54/25; C66/451, m. 28d.

At about the time of this appointment, Mitford acquired lands in the county in his own right. Shortly after the death of William Delavel of Seghill in 1441, he acquired from his heiress, Elizabeth Whitchester, and her husband, Sir John Burcester, the manor of Seghill, a few miles north of Newcastle, and five years later the couple additionally granted him property at Brandon in the north of the county.6 CP25/1/181/15/Hen. VI, nos. 9, 12. These apparent purchases were not, however, without complications. The acquisition of Brandon was to the disinheritance of William’s kinsman, John Delavel of Newsham, who had a reversionary interest expectant on the failure of the issue of Dame Elizabeth. A resolution to these rival claims appears to have been found in a marriage between John’s grandson and heir, James Horsley, and our MP’s daughter, Margery. In 1446 the entirety of the Delaval estates, with the exception of Newsham and a moiety of the manor of Benwell, was entailed on the couple and their issue with remainder to our MP.7 Hist. Northumb. ix. 146-9.

These acquisitions increased Mitford’s standing and help to explain his election to Parliament. On 6 Nov. 1449 he was present at Newcastle-upon-Tyne to witness his own return to the Commons. The election was also attested by his putative elder brother, John, and another kinsman, Alexander Mitford. His presence and theirs at the election implies that he had a particular motive for seeking the seat, perhaps connected with continuing difficulties over the Delaval eatates.8 C219/15/7. His standing in the county was further manifest in his pricking as sheriff in November 1452 and, more controversially, in a petition to the chancellor in 1454. This claimed that Mitford ‘by extorcion oppression and othir unlawefull menes have the puple of the cuntre in swich rule and awe that no men of councell nor othir dar openly seye ne do ayesnt him’.9 C1/24/96.

Mitford continued to serve on the commission of the peace and to be appointed to several ad hoc commissions throughout the late 1450s. He appears to have managed not to commit himself to either side in the civil war of 1459-61, although his putative nephew, John Mitford, may have died fighting for the house of Lancaster at the battle of Towton.10 I.G. Mitford Barberton, Comdt. Holden Bowker, 270. He maintained his position on the bench into the new reign, but his last years were dogged by poor health and continuing disputes over the Delaval inheritance. These difficulties are detailed in a petition presented, in the early 1470s, by his son-in-law, James Horsley, to Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland. It outlined how, after the transactions of 1441 and 1446, Elizabeth Burcester had remained as a life tenant in the Delaval properties on condition that they should revert to Horsley and his wife, Margery. However, in 1463 one John Harbottle,

which was broght up with … Robert Mitford, and with him thenne had in most singular trust, seyng and veraly knowyng thavauntage of the saide trike, and that the saide Robert Mytford was sore striken by a sudden palsy and nat like to recovere, rode covertly unto the late lorde Marquys Mountague, and him movid and stirred to by all the lands, etc., of the saide Dame Elizabeth; insomuch that afterwarde the saide Dame Elizabeth, as ane unstable and mysavised gentilwoman, solde all the lands, etc., to the saide late lord marquys.11 Hist. Northumb. ix. 150-1.

Other evidence gives some support for this complaint as John Neville, Marquess Montagu, is known to have paid the Burcesters £400 for the manor of Seaton Delaval and other Delaval properties in 1463. The petition goes on to claim that Montagu, aware of Horsley’s claim, caused him to be indicted for felony and taken to London where, before the chancellor, Bishop Neville of Exeter (Montagu’s brother), he was forced to quitclaim all interest in the Delaval estates. Not until Montagu’s death at the battle of Barnet in April 1471 and the intervention of the newly-restored earl of Northumberland was he able to secure the Delaval inheritance.12 CP25/1/181/15/Edw. IV; CPR, 1461-7, p. 265; Hist. Northumb. ix. 150-2.

Mitford’s role in these events is obscure, perhaps because his illness prevented him from taking part in them. The Burcesters’ enfeoffment and sale of the Delaval estates seems to have ended Mitford’s personal interest in them. He was still named on the quorum of the Northumberland commission of the peace in May 1464, but there are no further references to him and he may have died shortly afterwards. He was succeeded by his son, also Robert. This Robert inherited Seghill and prospered through a good marriage to the daughter and coheir of Thomas Musgrave (d.1482) of Ryall, Northumberland. This eventually brought the Mitfords a moiety of the Musgrave estates in Ryall and elsewhere.13 CIPM, Hen. VII, i. 344; Hist. Northumb. ix. 69.