PENSTON, Edmund

The MP may have been a descendant of a namesake who in 1386 had dealings concerning the Wiltshire manor of West Harnham, and in the following year acquired lands in Pitton, Farley and Alderbury, all near the city of Salisbury.7 Wilts. Feet of Fines (Wilts. Rec. Soc. xlix), 98, 103. He himself first appears, described somewhat ignominiously as a ‘husbandman’ of Salisbury, in 1422, when sued in the court of common pleas by another local man, the apprentice-at-law William Alexander*, for a debt of £10.8 CP40/647, rot. 132d. Penston later possessed a house in Wyneman Street in the city,9 Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxxvii. 85. and by the time of his death more than 50 years later he had accumulated properties in the borough of Old Sarum and at Laverstock and Stratford sub Castle, as well as the manor of Winterbourne Cherborough. Precisely when he acquired these holdings is not charted,10 C140/63/50. and although lands and tenements at Winterbourne Cherborough were in his possession by 1428, the manor itself seems to have belonged to William Alexander until his death in 1446.11 Feudal Aids, v. 239; The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 23-24. Penston was called ‘of Winterbourne’ when appointed a tax collector in 1440: CFR, xvii. 144. Even so, Penston’s acquisition of property at Old Sarum may be confidently dated to early in his career, and in 1441 he brought a suit in the common pleas against a local mason for conspiring to defraud him of a messuage there.12 CP40/721, rot. 378.

Penston, usually described as a ‘gentleman’, made his career as an attorney, starting off by taking briefs at the assizes held at Salisbury in the 1420s,13 JUST1/1540, rots. 113, 115. and progressing by 1427 to the court of common pleas at Westminster. There, he regularly appeared as an attorney in suits brought by people from his home county, often acting throughout the following two decades for leading citizens of Salisbury, such as William Hore II*.14 CP40/665, rot. att.; 669, rot. 239d; 688, rot. 209; 700, rots. 116, 117; 715, rots. 181, 211d, 279, 358d; 721, rot. 286. In 1429 he was party to suits brought by Robert Peny of South Tidworth, Hampshire, who entered recognizances in £500 to him and others including William Botreaux I*, the London draper, but the background to their dispute is obscure.15 CCR, 1429-35, p. 29. By 1431 he was of sufficient standing in Wiltshire as to attest the indenture for the shire elections to Parliament at Wilton on 2 Jan., and it was on the same occasion that he himself was returned to the Commons for the decaying borough of Old Sarum. At a later date he was recorded acting as steward of the royal courts conducted at Old Sarum, and it may be the case that he had already been so engaged by the time of his election. While up at Westminster for the Parliament he was also kept busy in the common pleas, both as an attorney and as plaintiff in a number of suits for debt brought on his own account.16 C219/14/2; CP40/680, rots. 220, 246d, 372.

Penston was listed in 1434 among the men of Wiltshire required to take the generally-administered oath not to maintain those who broke the law, and he once more attested the shire elections in the following year.17 CPR, 1429-36, p. 371. He became increasingly active in the courts at Westminster in the later 1430s, both in his own interest (bringing actions for debt against local men such as John atte Fenne* of Wilton), and on behalf of citizens of Salisbury.18 CP40/700, rots. 191, 213; 712, rot. 131d; 715, rots. 181d, 420, 559d. At the elections to the Parliament of 1442 he stood as a mainpernor for one of the Members for Old Sarum, Richard Long*, a younger son of the bishop of Salisbury’s bailiff in the city.19 C219/15/2. A lawsuit heard while that Parliament was in session tells us more about Penston’s status in the neighbourhood. Richard Wodehill, a ‘gentleman’ of Little Durnford, stood accused with others of a serious assault on Penston at Old Sarum on the previous 14 Aug., as well as of the theft of four cartloads of barley and oats. Penston claimed that as a consequence he had been unable to go about his business holding the King’s borough court or to cultivate his land for two months, and sought substantial damages of £100. Wodehill retaliated in the next law term after the Parliament was dissolved. Calling himself an apprentice of the law he alleged that Penston had threatened him at Westminster over a ten day period in June 1440, so that he had dared not pursue suits in King’s bench and the common pleas as counsel learned in the law. Evidently, a dispute between two lawyers in the environs of the central courts had been fired up by local antagonisms.20 KB27/723, rot. 60d; CP40/725, m. 325. In May 1443 Penston stood surety at the Exchequer for the newly-appointed alnagers in Wiltshire and Salisbury: William Ludlow II*, the clerk of the statute merchant in the city, and Simon Poy*.21 CFR, xvii. 259.

By that date Penston had become increasingly involved in the administration of Salisbury. In 1436 he had been assessed in St. Martin’s aldermanry for a contribution to the cost of the armed force required for the relief of Calais, and in later years he made similar contributions towards loans demanded from the city by the Crown, and for local works. Even so, he was not counted among the wealthier citizens, and paid no more than 3s. 4d. towards the loan of £40 granted by Salisbury in 1444, and nothing at all towards another raised four years later.22 First General Entry Bk. 321C, 350, 391, 431. Meanwhile, he had been one of the two attorneys elected as stewards to oversee works on the city ditch in November 1441, when representatives from all the different trades and occupations were required to participate.23 Ibid. 362. His legal advice was sought by the authorities over title to a house called ‘le Otemelcornere’, and on other matters.24 Ibid. 393; Salisbury acct. rolls, G23/1/44, no. 1. As a member of the council of 48 he regularly attended civic assemblies in the 1440s, and it is worthy of remark that in the summer of 1449 his name often headed the list of those present.25 First General Entry Bk. 328, 358, 391, 393, 409, 420, 423, 426-9, 431-3.

At one such convocation held in Salisbury in October 1449 and attended by Penston, he himself was elected with William Swayn* to represent the city in the Parliament summoned to meet on 6 Nov. The two men agreed to take half the normal wages of 2s. a day, unless the mayor and commonalty deemed they were to be otherwise remunerated according to their deserts and in return for their labour. (After the close of the Parliament and some delay half-wages was all they received. This was probably not due to any failings on their part, but rather the authorities’ response to the long duration of the Parliament.)26 Ibid. 434, 446; Salisbury ledger bk. 2, f. 3v. On 2 Nov., four days before the Parliament met, Penston was promoted to the council of 24, but, perhaps because he had already set off for Westminster, he was not immediately sworn in at that assembly and in the event he remained a member of the 48 throughout the following year.27 First General Entry Bk. 436-40. Despite this, he agreed to serve again in the next Parliament, summoned for 6 Nov. 1450, being elected at a convocation on 14 Oct., and once more agreeing to accept half the standard wages, as did his fellow MP, the mercer Thomas Freeman*.28 Ibid. 438. Penston provided sureties for the attendance in the Commons of the two men returned for Old Sarum (neither of whom came from the locality), and also attested the shire elections.29 C219/16/1. While the Parliament was in progress, on 18 Nov. Penston was associated with the mayor and bailiffs of Salisbury as joint recipient of a mandate to make proclamation in the city against the publication of false rumours, to commit to prison anyone guilty of doing so and conduct inquiries into riots and illegal congregations. This was in response to the considerable unrest remaining in Salisbury and the surrounding countryside following the violent disturbances of the summer, in the course of which William Aiscough, the bishop of Salisbury, had been murdered.30 CPR, 1446-52, p. 433. While the Parliament was in session before the Christmas break Penston stood surety at the Exchequer for a fellow Member of the Commons, Thomas Walrond*, who was given custody of a Wiltshire manor.31 CFR, xviii. 182.

It was not until six months after his parliamentary service was over that in November 1451 Penston was finally elected and sworn to the 24.32 First General Entry Bk. 448. On the previous 12 Oct. he and Freeman had sued out a writ from Chancery for payment of their wages in the Commons, which instructed the Salisbury authorities to pay them the full rate of 2s. each a day, for 164 days service,33 Ibid. 449. although whether they actually received the full amount or accepted the half-pay they had agreed to earlier does not appear. Penston regularly attended convocations in the course of the 1450s and 1460s,34 Salisbury ledger bk. 2, ff. 3, 4v, 7-9, 11, 12, 16v-18v, 27v, 28, 31-33, 37v, 39v, 42, 48v, 49v, 52v, 53v, 55v, 58, 59v, 60, 63-71, 73, 74. at which, inter alia, he participated in the city’s elections to the Parliaments of 1453, 1455, 1459, 1460 and 1463.35 Ibid. ff. 4, 12, 38, 41, 59v. Nevertheless, his relations with his fellow members of the council of 24 were by no means always cordial. On one occasion he fell out with the irascible mayor William Swayn, his former colleague in the Commons, and on 7 Nov. 1455 arbiters between them decided that to recompense Swayn for slandering him and impugning his honesty Penston should give him a pipe of red wine and pay £1 for a dinner for the whole 24. He was expelled from the council, but only for five days,36 Ibid. ff. 13v, 14v. and his later elections as coroner and auditor attest to a quick return to popularity. In the early 1460s he was ready to serve as an assessor for parliamentary subsidies and to raise money for Salisbury to send troops of armed men to assist royal forces (indeed, two of his own servants joined the army sent north early in 1461, while he himself helped defend the city’s ‘Wymangate’, threatened with attack). Penston was also prepared to make contributions to loans to the Crown, and to offer legal counsel regarding the city’s title to various properties.37 Ibid. ff. 44, 49, 55, 56, 59v, 61, 65v, 70v, 73v.

Penston served as a juror at the inquisition post mortem on John Stourton II*, Lord Stourton, conducted at Salisbury early in 1463,38 C140/8/18. and was called upon in 1465 to be a trustee of the property in Salisbury and lands in Fisherton Anger which William Pakyn had inherited from his father Thomas*. As such he conveyed the property concerned to another body of feoffees ostensibly headed by the earl of Warwick, in the interest of the acquisitive lawyer Thomas Tropenell*.39 Tropenell Cart. ed. Davies, i. 163-4, 260-2. Another position of trust saw him acting for Thomas Hussey I* and his wife, the widow of the late lawyer William Alexander.40 Salisbury Domesday bk. 3, G23/1/215, f. 7. Yet other neighbours regarded him in a less favourable light, so that in a number of lawsuits he appeared as a defendant. As an executor of John Aport the elder of Salisbury, and along with the younger John Aport*, he was sued by the executors of a mercer called Robert Newman (d.1457), who accused them not only of usury (by surcharging in the sale of merchandise), but also of fraud in accounting practices;41 C1/26/373; C253/35, nos. 170, 171. and towards the end of Penston’s life the mayor and commonalty of Salisbury petitioned the chancellor against him and William Stourton*, Lord Stourton, accusing the two men of unjustly preventing the civic body from receiving a bequest of 21 messuages and several gardens in Castle Street. Penston, as the sole surviving feoffee to the use of the late Robert Caterton, had allegedly sold the property to Stourton, contrary to the stipulations in Caterton’s will.42 C1/54/7.

Penston was appointed a tax collector in Wiltshire for the second time in 1468, and it was partly to obtain exoneration from any failings in performing this task that on 5 May 1472 he took out a pardon (as ‘of Salisbury, gentleman, and formerly of London’).43 C67/49, m. 25. After an unexplained gap in his attendance at civic assemblies lasting from 1465 to 1470, he had resumed his involvement in the city’s government. Having participated in the city’s elections to Parliament held on 16 Sept. 1472, he was one of just four citizens named with the mayor as party to the formal indenture drawn up with the sheriff of Wiltshire. If he had ever played a significant part in the authorities’ long drawn out dispute with Bishop Beauchamp it has not been recorded, but he was nevertheless one of 58 citizens named with the mayor when they formally submitted to the bishop in June 1474.44 Salisbury ledger bk. 2, ff. 97, 103, 106v, 108-9, 110v, 111, 113v, 117, 126v, 127, 129. The city’s submission is given in full in R. Benson and H. Hatcher, Old and New Sarum, 183-4. Active until the end, Penston did service as a juror at sessions of the peace held in the city by the earl of Arundel in December 1476.45 KB9/136, mm. 3, 19, 65, 77.

Penston died on 1 Jan. 1478. By a settlement of August 1472 he had arranged that after his death his manor of Winterbourne Cherborough should pass to his daughter Joan, wife of Thomas Burton, and her issue, with remainder to his bastard son Simon. In the event, Joan predeceased him, so his heir was his six-year-old grand-daughter, named after her mother. John Aport, the Salisbury merchant, took the profits of Penston’s lands at Stratford sub Castle after he died, perhaps doing so as the little girl’s guardian.46 C140/63/50. Penston was buried in St. Edmund’s church, Salisbury.47 Churchwardens’ Accts. St. Edmund and St. Thomas, Sarum ed. H.J.F. Swayne, 21.