VERNON, Richard

Very little is known of Richard Vernon, for although he was the heir apparent to one of the greatest gentry estates in the Midlands he did not live long enough to make a significant impact on local affairs. He may have been brought up in the household of his cousin, Edmund Stafford, bishop of Exeter. This, at least, is one explanation of the grant to him by the bishop of the manor of Bridgeford in Staffordshire. Since the bishop died in 1419, this grant must have been made when Richard was a mere boy. Later he was assumed to have had an interest in Stafford’s property at Clifton Campville near his father’s manor of Harlaston, for on 6 Nov. 1427 he quitclaimed his right there to the late bishop’s feoffees.1 CCR, 1422-9, pp. 378-9, 380-1; 1441-7, p. 377.

In the same year Vernon’s father contracted a very favourable marriage for him: as the daughter of the only peerage family with its principal residence in Derbyshire, Elizabeth Grey was a more than suitable match. No direct evidence survives of the terms of the marriage settlement but she is likely to have brought a large portion: her sister Lucy was bequeathed one of 500 marks in their father’s will (now lost) and there is no reason to suppose that she was not treated equally well.2 C1/6/162. A fine levied in 1427 reveals something of the provision the groom’s father made for the couple. Manors in Hazlebadge and Baslow in north Derbyshire were settled on them in reversion: the first expectant on the death of the groom’s grandmother, the second, on that of Isabel Pembridge, to whom the Vernons stood heirs.3 CP25(1)/39/43/13.

Vernon was yet a minor at this date. Like other members of his family he may have spent some time fighting in France, perhaps serving in the garrison at Caen in the late 1420s.4 A Richard Vernon served in the garrisons at Harfleur in 1421, Caen in the late 1420s and Essay in the late 1430s, and later participated in the expeditions of 1441 and 1443: Rouen, Archives Départmentales de la Seine-Maritime 100J/30/32; Bibliothéque Nationale de France, Paris, fr. 25768/308, 346; 25769/512; 25775/1388, 1400, 1411; E101/53/33, m. 3; 54/5, m. 3. If this military career belonged to one man, it cannot relate to our MP. But if it did not, it is possible that the young Richard was in the garrison at Caen. However this may be, he must still have been a very young man when, on 27 Mar. 1432, he was elected to represent his native county in Parliament. Only the heirs apparent of the greatest gentry families could expect to sit for a county before coming into their inheritances, and Richard’s election was an expression of his father’s great wealth and influence.5 Sir Richard headed the attestors: C219/14/3. This, however, was to be the limit of his public career. On 6 Dec. 1436 he joined his father in attesting his brother Fulk’s return to Parliament, but this is the last reference to him in an active role.6 KB27/692, rex rot. 7; C219/15/1. He was certainly dead by 10 Dec. 1442, when his wife’s mother made a grant of land to her daughter as a widow. But it is almost certain that he did not live even that long. On 5 Apr. 1438 Fulk was appointed steward of High Peak jointly with their father. Had Richard been alive it would probably have been he who was the beneficiary of this royal grant. By early 1444 his widow had married John Zouche of Bulwick in Northamptonshire, younger brother of William, Lord Zouche of Harringworth (d.1462). On her death in 1460, she left a 14-year-old son by this second marriage as her heir.7 R. Somerville, Duchy, i. 551; C139/175/4.