MORLEY, Nicholas

The accepted pedigrees of the Morleys of Glynde are not to be trusted, at least with regard to Nicholas’s antecedents.5 For instance, that in Suss. Arch. Collns. xx. 60 gives his parents as Francis Morley of Morley, Lancs., and Margaret, da. of Edward Bekonsall, whereas it is clear from J. Foster, Lancs. Peds. sub. Morley, that Francis and Margaret lived in the early 16th cent. The tradition that he came from Lancashire may, however, be founded on truth, for when in 1445 he came to put his wife’s Sussex estates into the hands of feoffees, among this group was Lancashire’s most prominent figure, (Sir) Thomas Stanley II*, and the latter’s cousin (Sir) Thomas Haryngton I*. Thus, there remains the possibility that Nicholas was related to John Morley* of Wennington.6 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 781-2. It is unlikely, however that he was the Nicholas Morley, a yr. s. of Richard Morley of Braddyll in Blackburn, who joined his fa. and er. bro. in a release of the family lands in Billington, Dinckley and Kenyon to Sir Thomas Stanley in 1449: VCH Lancs. vi. 330. Yet there is also a possibility that he was kin to the Lords Morley, seated in Norfolk, who owned estates in Hertfordshire, the county he represented in Parliament.7 CP, ix. 216-19; Feudal Aids, vi. 434, 460; CIPM, xx. 594-6. That this was the case is suggested by the fact that in 1428 a Nicholas Morley held land in Great Bromley, Essex, which had previously been in the possession of successive Lords Morley, down to Lord Thomas (d.1416), all of them holding it by knight service due to the earls of Oxford.8 Feudal Aids, ii. 155, 219; CIPM, xv. 124; P. Morant, Essex, i. 441.

Whatever his background, Morley established himself in south-east England by the late 1420s, and it seems likely that he was the man of this name who was placed on a commission of arrest in Middlesex headed by Thomas Frowyk I* in June 1428.9 CPR, 1422-9, p. 499. Morley saw military service in France, under the command of Sir Robert Hungerford at Chartres in the following year, and in the retinue of Robert, Lord Willoughby, at St. Severin in 1432,10 Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, nouv. acq. fr. 8605/112; Clairambault 207/111-20. but as his record in local administration makes clear from 1435 until the end of the 1440s he stayed in England. The bulk of his landed holdings came to him through his opportune marriage to the heiress Joan Waleys, which may have been arranged by members of one of the leading families of Hertfordshire, the Leventhorpes. Joan, still a minor and unmarried in 1425, when she was a ward of her brother-in-law Robert Leventhorpe*, married Morley within five years of that date. As one of the four daughters and coheirs of the lands of their mother Joan Turk, she obtained a share of the former Kendale and Turk estates in Hertfordshire and elsewhere, although being younger than her sisters (Beatrice, successively the wife of Reynold Cockayne and William Melreth*, Joan Leventhorpe and Agnes, later wife of John Burgh), initially her portion was probably the smallest one. Nevertheless, all four sisters had an interest in the manor of Brache in Luton, Bedfordshire, where courts were held in all their names in 1430. Before too long the Morleys also took possession of the Hertfordshire manors of Wakeley and Tanneys in Aspeden (where they lived), and Moor Hall in Ardeley, which gave Nicholas a position of some consequence in the community of the shire.11 CFR, xv. 97; Cat. Glynde Place Archs. no. 1137; VCH Herts. iii. 197; iv. 21-22. In 1452 Morley was party to a fine which confirmed the manor of ‘Beauchamps’ in Herts. to his sister-in-law Agnes and her second husband John Patyngdon: CP25(1)/91/116/161; VCH Herts. iv. 82. He acted alone although his wife was still alive. So much is clear from his election to the Parliament of 1435 and his appointment during the parliamentary session as a member of the county bench. Elections to three more Parliaments for Hertfordshire were to follow, besides a role in the administration of the shire as a royal commissioner, escheator and sheriff. Appointment to the last office came after his third appearance in the Commons, in the Parliament of 1442.

To a certain extent Morley may have owed this standing to his contacts within the royal household, where he received fees and livery as an esquire of the hall and chamber for at least ten years, starting in or before his shrievalty.12 E101/409/11, 16; 410/1, 3, 6, 9. Even though he was not one of the King’s favourites, he did not lack clout: when need arose he could call on the steward and the controller of the Household (William de la Pole, afterwards duke of Suffolk, and Sir Thomas Stanley) to lend their support in the disputes over his wife’s inheritance in Sussex. Although Morley had served in France earlier on in his career, he is not recorded as a war captain until news came of the imminent fall of Rouen in the autumn of 1449. He was then contracted to raise a substantial troop of 29 men-at-arms and 400 archers to join a force to be sent to Normandy for six months, and on 24 Sept. the King authorized suitable payment to this ‘welbeloved squyer’, for the first quarter’s wages, which amounted to £1,113 3s. 4d. Payment for the second quarter was due on the proposed day of muster at the ‘see syde’ on 22 Oct., but although letters of protection were issued to men planning to travel with him, it was not until the following March that Morley’s force actually crossed the Channel, to meet ignominious defeat.13 E404/66/22; DKR, xlviii. 381; E403/777, mm. 4, 13.

During the period when Morley’s career at court and in the administration of Hertfordshire had been progressing smoothly, his wife and her sisters had been engaged in a battle for possession of their late father’s estates in Sussex (principally the manors of Glynde, Hawkesden, Bainden and Patching). These disputes were an ever-present concern throughout the period of Morley’s parliamentary service, and were not to be resolved to his satisfaction until after the accession of Edward IV. They undoubtedly influenced his political alignment in the civil war years of 1459-61. The disputes had begun in about 1423 when John Waleys, the heir of the Waleys estates, had died before reaching his majority, leaving as his next male heir his cousin William Waleys, a minor of unsound mind (known in the family pedigree as ‘the idiot’). Initially, Robert, Lord Poynings, secured William’s wardship, and occupied the principal Waleys manor of Glynde by agreement with the archbishop of Canterbury, but William’s title was challenged by John Waleys’s four sisters and their husbands (including Morley). The matter was put to the arbitration of William Chaunterell, serjeant-at-law, and Alexander Anne*, the recorder of London, who in their award delivered in November 1436 found in favour of the four women. Accordingly, Poynings was ordered to surrender Glynde, and William Waleys was formally disseised on 12 Dec. The coheirs then partitioned the Sussex estates between them, with Glynde being divided between the two Joans (Joan Leventhorpe, now the wife of Robert Lee of Fittleworth, and Joan Morley). Morley expanded his interests in the immediate locality by acquiring in April 1440 from Richard Preston (son of John Preston† the former judge) lands in Ringmer, South Malling and Framfield, but fell out with the Lees regarding the partition of Glynde, so that a formal settlement had to be made a month later. Henceforth, the Morleys were to have a mill and an acre of land at Glynde, to hold in tail, and to receive an annual rent of £13 19s. 6d. from the manor itself. That matters remained unsatisfactory between the Lees and Morleys is evident from an obligation in £40 which bound Lee to respect this arrangement in 1441, and a new agreement was made on 12 Sept. 1442, whereby the Lees’ feoffees leased a moiety of the manor to Morley for five years in return for an annual rent of £14. Whether it was this same moiety or the other, Morley placed his part of the manor in the hands of feoffees on 23 June 1445. This was during the recess of the Parliament of that year (when Morley was representing Hertfordshire for the fourth time), and it was then that he called on the marquess of Suffolk and the cousins Stanley and Haryngton to lend him their support. That he did so can only indicate that he envisaged trouble from a revival of the claims of the male heir, William Waleys. Another potential claimant, William Halle* of Ore formally relinquished to the heiresses and their husbands any title he might have to the Waleys manors in Sussex in December following, but an inquiry held on 14 Mar. 1446 (during the last session of the Parliament of 1445-6) confirmed the rights of the ‘idiot’ Waleys. Dismayed by these findings, on 14 Apr. (five days after the dissolution) the coparceners instituted proceedings in Chancery for the recovery of the lands from the Crown. They asserted that they were heirs-general to the manor of Glynde under an entail made in 1305, and also claimed to inherit under the terms of settlements made by the women’s grandfather Sir William Waleys† on their father John in 1398. The case was transferred to the judgement of justices of the common pleas, and a report was then given to the chancellor.14 Cat. Glynde Place Archs. pp. xii-xv, nos. 9-13, 1504. Ms no. 12 is evidently wrongly dated June 22 Hen. VI (1444), for Suffolk was not made a marquess until 14 Sept. that year. Unfortunately for the heiresses, the latter found for William Waleys, and on 4 July 1446 the King granted custody of all four disputed Sussex manors to (Sir) John Fortescue* c.j.KB.15 CPR, 1441-6, p. 454.

Nothing is recorded about the dispute for the next four years, although it is unlikely that Morley and the rest were content with this state of affairs. During the early spring of 1450 Morley was absent in France with the army led by Sir Thomas Kyriel*, and it may be that like his commander he was taken captive after the disastrous defeat at Formigny (although evidence of any negotiations for a ransom is lacking). He returned home by June, when the disturbances in Sussex triggered by Cade’s rebellion presented an opportunity for the Waleys coheirs to seize possession of the disputed manors by force. This prompted Chief Justice Fortescue to place them in the hands of his three fellow judges of the King’s bench on 14 June.16 KB27/757, rot. 33d. By then Cade and his followers were camped on Blackheath, and within a matter of days were confronted by the King and a royal army. Significantly, Morley was later accused of slandering Fortescue ‘upon the Blakehethe to the ryght grete perell of suche as wer better thanne they both’, and also ‘at Baldoke in Hertfordchire in the feire tyme ther the last somyre ... to the gret perell and lykely oundoynge of the same Sir John and god hadde not defended hym’.17 E. Suss. RO, Glynde Place archs., GLY/23. Moving onto the offensive, in the following Michaelmas term William Waleys (or more likely his guardians) commenced an action in the common pleas against the Morleys and Lees for allegedly breaking his closes at Glynde, taking timber worth £20 and removing crops and a chest containing muniments. In reply, the coparceners revived their case against Waleys on 4 Nov. The Morleys strenuously denied the truth of the inquiry of 1446 and sought the cancellation of the letters patent granting custody of the Waleys manors to Fortescue. Needless to say, the latter opposed the efforts of Morley’s wife and her sisters to win Glynde, and the enmity between the parties hardened. A year later, on 6 Nov. 1451, a new royal grant of custody was made to a group of men including the lawyer William Boef* who were almost certainly acting on the chief justice’s behalf.18 CP40/759, rot. 104; 768, rot. 35; Cat. Glynde Place Archs. nos. 14, 16, 17; C1/28/431; CPR, 1446-52, p. 498. Despite the murder of his erstwhile patron the duke of Suffolk in the previous year, Morley did not lack for friends at court. For the past ten years he had been a co-feoffee with the Lords Sudeley and Beauchamp of Powick of a manor in Hertfordshire, and this connexion still continued.19 CCR, 1447-54, p. 317. Yet Fortescue was a formidable opponent, and the prospects for recovering Glynde remained poor.

Morley’s return to Parliament in 1453 may reflect his position as an as yet loyal servant of Henry VI and member of his Household, as were many other of his fellow MPs, yet if so, he was one who had lost standing among his peers. Although he is not known to have had any connexion with Bramber, the borough he represented, it was not far from the disputed Waleys estates, and gaining election there may have symbolized his determination to exert influence in the locality. Even so, this was the first time he had entered the Commons as a parliamentary burgess rather than a shire knight, and it may be that he had only looked for a seat elsewhere after being denied election in Hertfordshire (where the successful candidates were two other Household servants). The concern of the Lords and Commons at the news of continued threats to English garrisons in France led Morley to enlist for military service once more. Ten days after the end of the second session (2 July), he took out letters of protection to cross the Channel in the retinue of Sir Thomas Fynderne*, the lieutenant of Guînes.20 C76/135, m. 3. How long he stayed with Fynderne is unclear, although it is possible that he returned to Westminster for the final session of the Parliament from February to April 1454, during the protectorate of the duke of York.

Meanwhile, the lawsuits over the Waleys inheritance appear to have been committed out of Chancery for hearing by arbiters, and ‘by mediation of their friends’ it was eventually agreed between the parties that William Waleys and his heirs-male should have the whole manor of Glynde in satisfaction of his interest in the estate, and that the four sisters and their heirs should have the other three manors in dispute (Hawkesden, Bainden and Patching). This was put into effect in a final concord of Michaelmas term 1455: Glynde was settled in tail-male on William Waleys, with remainder to John Waleys ‘of Devon’ (his nearest male heir), and a final remainder to the right heirs of Sir John Waleys† (the great-grandfather of the coheiresses). Although legal process continued regarding Hawkesden and Bainden,21 CP25(1)/241/91/4; CP40/780, rots. 132d, cart. 1. a second fine to the same effect was levied in 1457, whereby William Boef and his wife Elizabeth (the heir’s mother) conveyed these and Patching to the coheiresses and their representatives. Meanwhile, Chief Justice Fortescue’s intentions had been made clear. He sought to retain permanent control over the estate at Glynde by marrying his daughter Margaret to John Waleys of Devon, who at some point in the next three years succeeded his kinsman William. For the time being Fortescue had his way, but his ambitions for his daughter were not to be realized in the long term, thanks to the Yorkist victory at Northampton in July 1460 and the Lancastrians’ fall from power. On 1 Aug., within three weeks of the battle, John Waleys formally conveyed Glynde to Morley, an action he confirmed by deeds dated December 1461 and by a final concord made early in 1462 (by which date his father-in-law Fortescue was in exile and he himself was excluded from Edward IV’s pardon and under threat of forfeiture as a traitor).22 Cat. Glynde Place Archs. ped. and nos. 28, 29, 31; CP25(1)/241/91/17, 92/2; CPR, 1461-7, pp. 292, 519; PROME, xiii. 56-57. Whether Morley properly compensated him for the loss is open to doubt, although he later claimed to have purchased the manor for a ‘certain sum of money’.23 C1/27/59.

Morley’s quarrel with the staunch Lancastrian Fortescue had undoubtedly helped to determine his political stance in the closing years of Henry VI’s reign. After the Parliament of 1453-4 there is nothing to suggest that he had any further connexion with the court, and it is worthy of remark that he was not appointed to any ad hoc commissions in the period 1457-60, while the queen’s party and Fortescue were in the ascendant. Following the battle of Northampton he once more secured election to Parliament, this time as a representative of another Sussex borough, New Shoreham. Of Morley’s support for the Yorkists at this time there is no doubt. While the second session of the Parliament was in progress, on 30 Jan. 1461, he was ordered to take charge of the purveyance of horses, wagons and carts for the carriage of victuals and habiliments of war in the counties of Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, in order to resist ‘the rebels’ – that is the forces of Margaret of Anjou then marching south – and four days later he was commissioned with John Benstede to summon the men of Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire to come well armed and arrayed to defend the castles, cities and towns of the region.24 CPR, 1452-61, pp. 641, 659. It is very likely, therefore, that he fought on the losing, Yorkist, side at the battle of St. Albans on 17 Feb., and perhaps also took the field at Towton at the end of March when victory went the other way. The new regime, under Edward IV, placed him on the Hertfordshire bench after an absence of 24 years.

As Fortescue was now out of the way, and the male heir of the Waleys family had relinquished his claim to Glynde, Morley could concentrate his efforts on excluding his sister-in-law Joan and her husband Robert Lee from the manor. The Lees refused to recognize his tenure of the whole manor, as demised to him by John Waleys of Devon. Lee had enfeoffed a cleric Thomas Boleyn (probably the brother of Geoffrey*), with his share of the manor before the whole had been restored to William Waleys, and he brought a case in Chancery claiming that Boleyn should transfer it to new feoffees to hold to the use of him and his wife. Morley entered a bill supporting his own claim to the manor. The case was evidently transferred out of Chancery to the arbitration of Richard Chokke, j.c.p., who judged in February 1464 that Morley should have the manor and Lee and his heirs an annual rent of £8 6s. 8d. charged on it.25 C1/27/58, 59; 28/56, 57, 431; Cat. Glynde Place Archs. nos. 36, 37. Clearly, in this respect Morley gained more than the share he and his wife had been allotted by the award of the early 1440s, but we do not know the extent of his financial outlay in securing John Waleys’s withdrawal from the scene, and even though he could now proudly declare himself ‘lorde, possessor and owener’ of Glynde, he was still not accepted by a group of tenants. They, ‘of theyr owen untrue ymaginacion amonges them’, as he complained in 1465, had long conspired to disinherit him and his wife, and by making ‘untrue suggestions and sinister informations’ to the council of Cardinal Bourgchier, the archbishop of Canterbury, threatened to disturb his relations with the feudal lord. As an expression of his innocence of all allegations, he said he was willing to be bound in £100 to abide the cardinal’s ruling.26 Glynde Place archs., GLY/962-5.

Morley now made Glynde his home, and Sussex replaced Hertfordshire as the focus of his participation in local administration. He became a member of the Sussex bench in 1463, so remaining for 11 years (perhaps until his death); and his seventh election to Parliament, in 1467, was as a representative for yet another borough in that county. When the Commons assembled he was the defendant in a suit brought by a draper from Ashwell in Hertfordshire, who alleged that over 20 years earlier Morley had bought from him at Aspenden 28 yards of woollen cloth, called ‘mustarde oylers’, costing 40s., but had never paid. However, Morley denied the charge in court, and the verdict went in his favour.27 Cat. Glynde Place Archs. no. 2727. Even though he seems to have lived mainly in Sussex at this time, he retained his landed interests in Hertfordshire and pursued his own debtors there, albeit with limited success.28 CPR, 1467-77, pp. 320, 322. Morley was appointed to royal commissions during the Readeption of Henry VI, but his continued membership of the bench in the summer of 1471 suggests that the restored Edward IV found no reason to question his loyalty.

Morley’s final appointment as a j.p. was dated 4 Nov. 1473, and as he is not recorded subsequently he may have died soon afterwards. His eldest son and heir, Robert, whom he had made party to transactions relating to Glynde in 1472, entered the service of their overlord Cardinal Bourgchier, and held office as sheriff of Surrey and Sussex in 1488-9. He died in 1516.29 Cat. Glynde Place Archs. no. 1199; Reg. Bourgchier, 74; PCC 23 Holder (PROB11/18, ff. 178v-180). Our MP also left two daughters, both of whom made good marriages, the one to the son and heir of John Erneley* of Sidlesham, Sussex, and the other successively to John Hervy† of Thurleigh, Bedfordshire, John Isle† of Kent and John Paston† (although only her first marriage took place in her father’s lifetime).30 Cat. Glynde Place Archs. ped. aft. p. xviii. The papers in the Glynde archive show that it was not until nearly 100 years after Nicholas’s death that the Morleys succeeded in extinguishing the rights of all other claimants to the manor. Yet he had done most of the work in defeating the Waleys claim and ousting his wife’s sisters and their representatives.31 Ibid. p. xvi. His descendants seem to have lacked the ambition and good fortune to rise above the class of monor county gentry; they were satisfied with executing the duties of j.p.s and sheriff for which they were fitted by rank, and occasionally represented the Sussex boroughs in Parliament in the sixteenth century.