PEMBERTON, John

Although not alone among the clerks and officials of the Chancery to be elected to the Commons in Henry VI’s reign (for there were at least eight others), Pemberton was nevertheless unique as being the sole master in Chancery known to have been an MP in this period. He may have belonged to the family of Pemberton living in the north-west of England, for in November 1433 as ‘of London, gentleman’, he acted as mainpernor for Richard and Elizabeth Pemberton of Lancashire then granted at the Exchequer the keeping of lands in the lordship of Denbigh. Other members of the family were expected to take the oath against maintenance as administered in Lancashire a few months later.8 CFR, xvi. 174; CPR, 1429-26, pp. 379, 440. Yet the clerk’s career had begun by the beginning of the previous decade, perhaps initially overseas in Normandy, for a clerk of this name was in the service of Sir William Phelip†, the captain of Harfleur, in August 1421.9 Berkeley Castle mss, BCM/K/7/1/1. If this was the future MP he was then still a very young man. Pemberton served a lengthy apprenticeship in the lower ranks of the staff of the Chancery from 1429 (the earliest date from which a writ bearing his name survives in the Chancery files). His commitment to that government department lasted close on 50 years,10 C244/1/82. but his progression up the ranks is difficult to chart, with his time largely spent on the mundane aspects of the work. The details of his remuneration are similarly obscure, although his inclusion among the recipients of ‘gifts’ of goods and chattels, ensuring his help in the process of their enrolment on the close rolls, no doubt earned him fees to help him make a living. In certain of these transactions in the 1440s he appeared alongside another John Pemberton, who had established himself in the Vintners Company of London.11 CCR, 1441-7, p. 319; 1447-54, p. 76. Together with his vintner namesake Pemberton was a feoffee of a tenement next to Guildhall yard, known as ‘Le Warehouse’, which they conveyed to Geoffrey Boleyn* and his nominees in 1463: Corp. London RO, hr 192/23.

Pemberton’s long association with Walter Green* and his family may suggest links with Staple Inn, which came to Green on his marriage to Elizabeth Warner. His friendship with the Greens had begun by 1443, when along with Robert Oppey, another clerk of the Chancery, he was enfeoffed of the couple’s manor of Bonhunt in Essex and land in Middlesex at Hadley, Enfield and Barnet.12 CP25(1)/293/70/274. Green, an experienced parliamentarian as regularly elected knight of the shire for Middlesex, was to sit with him in the Parliament of 1450, perhaps lending him some guidance in parliamentary procedure. Yet by then Pemberton had been promoted within the ranks of the clerks of Chancery. In April 1450, a few months before the Parliament assembled, he was described as ‘maister of the chauncerye’ when an indenture formalizing a lease (to the advantage of a leading servant of the King’s Household, Ralph Legh*) was sworn before him.13 CCR, 1447-54, p. 254. The Parliament assembled on 6 Nov. after 12 months of political tumult triggered by the fall of Normandy, the murders of the King’s chief minister the duke of Suffolk, the bishops of Chichester and Salisbury, and the treasurer Lord Saye and Sele, and the collapse of order as Cade’s rebellion took hold. It may have proved useful to the beleagured government to have a master in Chancery present in the Commons, but there is nothing in the records to indicate interference in the electoral process.

Even so, the connexion between Pemberton and the borough he represented was slight, and he was only called ‘of Southwark’ on occasion. In July 1454 he was associated with William Bridges II* and Thomas Went*, two local burgesses, as a co-recipient of the moveable goods of Robert Smyth of St. Mary Newenton, and that same year he and the London vintner who shared his name were both appointed executors of the will of Adam Levelord* of Southwark, one of the coroners of Surrey. Pemberton’s links with the borough are also suggested, albeit tenuously, by his presence there in February 1463 when a deed concerning lands in Norfolk was acknowledged before him in his capacity as a Chancery official.14 CCR, 1447-54, p. 505; 1461-8, p. 208; PCC 5 Stokton (PROB11/4, f. 37v.). Yet it was clearly to his position in Chancery that he owed his election, not to any involvement in local affairs. Towards the close of the final session of the Parliament, in May 1451, Pemberton received a mark of royal favour – the grant of a canonry in the royal college of St. Mary in Hastings castle.15 CPR, 1446-52, p. 454. There, John Faukes, a more senior master in Chancery who since 1447 had officiated as the clerk of the Parliaments, was dean of the free chapel. It may well be the case that Pemberton had assisted Faukes in the business of the Parliament, and the canonry was his reward for doing so. Significantly, at the very same time he was presented as rector of the London church of St. Bartholomew the Less, a benefice which added to his income.

Following his Parliament he continued regularly to receive gifts of goods and chattels,16 CCR, 1447-54, pp. 439, 504, 505; 1454-61, pp. 249, 313, 476. and to be closely associated with the Greens. Among the feoffees named with him in 1443 had been Walter Green’s son-in-law Miles Windsor (d.1452), and in March 1456 Pemberton, along with other of Green’s sons-in-law, John Gaynesford II* and John Arderne, as well as with Thomas Acton* (another of the MPs of 1450), acquired at the Exchequer keeping of the manor of Stanwell in Middlesex during the minority of Windsor’s son and heir Thomas Windsor†, as well as the ward’s marriage, for which they paid 200 marks. Green stood surety for them, and went to the Exchequer personally on 20 Apr. to get their patent formally enrolled, but died at the end of the year. The ward made a release of all actions to the surviving keepers, including Pemberton, in August 1462 when he came of age. Green’s widow Elizabeth lived on until 1472 when, in her will, she asked the feoffees of her manors of Cowley Peachey, Middlesex, and Bonhunt, Essex (of whom Pemberton was the only survivor from the original enfeoffment), to make an estate to her executors so they might be sold.17 CFR, xix. 151; E159/232, recorda Easter rot. 6d; CCR, 1461-8, p. 139; PCC 12 Wattys (PROB11/6, ff. 88-89).

Meanwhile, following the victory of the Yorkists at Northampton in July 1460 and the appointment of their supporters to the great offices of state, Pemberton’s career in the Chancery was unaffected by the change of regime. On 6 Sept. he was associated with the new treasurer, Henry, Viscount Bourgchier, in a gift of goods and chattels from an Essex esquire,18 Cal. P. and M. London, 1458-82, p. 156. and at the commencement of the next Parliament, on 7 Oct., he was appointed a receiver of Gascon petitions. This was also the role he was given in the first Parliament of Edward IV’s reign, and although he was not so appointed in that of 1463-5 he was close at hand during its early sessions, to sign writs relating to parliamentary privilege for the MPs Thomas Freeman* and Robert Curteys†.19 KB145/7/3, nos. 7, 84; KB146/7/3/1, no. 68; Parliamentarians at Law ed. Kleineke, 58-63. Not surprisingly, Master Pemberton’s presence was recorded on important occasions, such as the formal handing-over of the great seal from one custodian to another. During the absence overseas of the chancellor, Bishop Neville of Exeter, from August 1463, the great seal was entrusted to Robert Kirkham, keeper of the rolls, and when on 25 Oct. he formally re-delivered it to Neville in his inn in the parish of St. Clement Danes without New Temple the assembled witnesses included Pemberton. As one of the 12 masters he attended the ceremonial dinner which followed the coronation of Elizabeth Wydeville in May 1465. Then too he was present at Westminster on 22 June 1467, when the new chancellor, Bishop Stillington of Bath and Wells, used the great seal for the first time.20 CCR, 1461-8, pp. 210-11; 1461-8, pp. 456-7; Coronation Elizabeth Wydevile ed. G. Smith, 21, 67.

The evidence suggests that Pemberton was a trusted royal official whose prominence as a master in Chancery brought him into contact with a wide variety of people. In 1461 he had been named with the bishop of London and the treasurer of St. Paul’s, as well as William Nottingham II*, the King’s attorney, as an executor of Master Richard Ewen, the archdeacon of Lincoln. Ewen did not die until 1464, and the bishop and treasurer then declined to take on the will’s administration, leaving Pemberton, Nottingham and Ralph Beere* to pursue the testator’s debtors in the lawcourts.21 PCC 7 Godyn (PROB11/5, f. 56); CCR, 1461-8, p. 332; CPR, 1461-7, p. 449; 1467-77, p. 81. Two years later Pemberton was called in to arbitrate in a dispute over a manor in Worcestershire, while closer to home he was chosen in 1471 to help settle a dispute between Henry Barton, prior of St. Mary Overey in Southwark, and one of the canons.22 CCR, 1461-8, p. 410; 1468-76, no. 844. Perhaps in return for his services a London gentleman named Thomas Horne undertook in February 1467 to pay him ten marks a year for the rest of his life. But the arrangement went sour, requiring Pemberton to take legal action against Horne ten years later, to enforce a bond for £100 which Horne entered in October 1472.23 CCR, 1461-8, p. 394; C241/259.18. Further remuneration came in the form of prebendaries, in the dioceses of Bath and Wells, Salisbury and London, and during the Readeption of Henry VI he was granted the wardenship of the hospital of St. Mary Ospringe in Kent. Although Edward IV confirmed him in office, he resigned as warden in December 1472. His relationship with the hospital continued after this date, however, for in February 1473 Richard Wamburne, a chaplain at Ospringe, entered into a bond in £40 with him.24 CPR, 1467-77, pp. 228, 274, 363; CCR, 1468-76, no. 1049a.

No evidence has been traced to show that Pemberton was ever ordained priest, although he may have taken minor orders, for he was called ‘chaplain’ when he became a canon of Wells in 1462, and was a ‘canon residentiary’ ten years later.25 Reg. Bekynton, i. 1463; Reg. Stillington, 551. There is also a possibility that he married. Elizabeth, wife of John Pemberton of Westminster, ‘gentlewoman’, was accused in 1462 of supporting Robert Worth, a London ‘gentleman’ indicted for ravishing Elizabeth Venour, the wid. of the warden of the Fleet prison: KB9/300/25. A later reference reveals more of his family connexions: in February 1473 Peter Pemberton, a London vintner, placed his moveable possessions for safekeeping with Master Pemberton, James and Christopher Pemberton, gentlemen, and Hugh Pemberton†, a London tailor, but how they were all related is not stated.26 Cal. P. and M. London, 1458-82, p. 168. John Pemberton continued to be active in the Chancery authorizing writs until June 1478.27 C253/49/161. He died shortly afterwards, for on 15 July Master Thomas Morton was instituted to the canonry in Wells cathedral and to the prebendary of Shaldeford vacated by his death.28 Reg. Stillington, 656.