RALEGH, Walter

Ralegh came from an old Devon family whose branches had settled at various places in the county. By the middle of the fourteenth century an ancestor of the MP, Peter de Ralegh, held lands at Fardel and Colyton Raleigh.4 Feudal Aids, i. 399, 426. Walter’s parentage is not documented for certain, but by 1428 he held property at Smalridge, which had previously been in the possession of John Ralegh, his putative father. John had died by 1422, when the family seat of Fardel was the home of his widow Elizabeth, who was licensed by the bishop of Exeter to have a chapel there.5 Ibid. 454, 488; Reg. Lacy ed. Hingeston-Randolph, i. 19.

By 1439 Walter had established a connexion with one of the leading landowners of the region, Sir William Bonville* of Shute, and it was by virtue of this association that he came into conflict with Robert Hill* of Shilston, who had married Bonville’s niece. What was at issue were rights of access to a fishery on the river Erme between Ugborough and Ermington, customarily claimed by the proprietors of the manors on either side of the river and their tenants. In late 1439 Hill began litigation against one William Canterhill of Fardell, a chaplain and member of Ralegh’s household, for having fished in his fishery and taken fish worth £10. When the suit was heard before the assize justices a year later, the jury agreed that Canterhill had been guilty of taking salmon and trout, but only awarded Hill 40s. damages and 26s. 8d. in costs.6 CP40/714, rot. 185d; 715, rot. 303; 716, rot. 69d; 717, rot. 100d. Before long, the dispute turned violent. On 23 Nov. 1440 Hill and his men were intercepted on their way to the fishery by a group of Bonville retainers headed by Ralegh and claiming to be protecting their master’s property. Hill and his men had the upper hand in the resultant scuffle, disarmed their opponents and unceremoniously pitched Ralegh into a ‘deep water’, probably the river itself. Protracted litigation in the royal courts ensued, and Hill was able to secure convictions of some of Ralegh’s lesser followers. Now, however, Bonville himself entered the fray, and charged Hill with the infringement of his property and the assault on his servants. As a result of his intervention, in September 1442 the dispute between Ralegh and Hill was submitted to the adjudication of a special commission of oyer and terminer, headed by the chief justice of common pleas, Sir Richard Newton, and John Wydeslade*, the chief prothonotary of that court, and also including Edward Pomeroy† of Sandridge and John Mules*.7 CP40/714, rot. 185d; 715, rot. 303; 716, rot. 69d; 717, rot. 100d; 720, rots. 109d, 331; 721, rot. 331; 723, rots. 4d, 334; 726, rot. 424; CPR, 1441-6, p. 153. Bonville also took care to get his retainer out of harm’s way: in February 1443, when he took up the post of seneschal of Guyenne, Ralegh sailed for France in his retinue.8 E101/695/40.

Perhaps on account of his absence in Gascony, Walter’s public career in the 1440s remained unremarkable. Although he was occasionally empanelled on local juries, he did not hold any Crown office.9 E143/24/3, m. 2; E199/9/11, m. 6; C139/164/16. When at home he may be thought to have led the comfortable life of a substantial country landowner and – if the books said to have been in his possession in the mid 1450s are at all indicative of his personal interests and were not merely heirlooms long forgotten in a muniment room – was a man of broad literary and even scientific interests. In 1455 he was said to have owned not only works by Gower, Chaucer and Hoccleve, but also a number of medical treatises.10 C140/12/7, 25/36; KB27/780, rots. 75, 86. Moreover, Ralegh was already engaged in the nautical activity for which his descendants would become famous. In February 1453 a safe conduct was granted to certain Breton prisoners whom Walter and two associates, William Kydde senior and junior, had taken at sea in the course of a routine trading venture. Ralegh operated out of the port of Exmouth and owned a ship called the St. John, with which he was licenced in May 1455 to trade in the Bay of Biscay.11 DKR, xlviii. 395, 405. By this stage Ralegh had fallen out with the Kyddes, and was suing them for the theft of eight packs of linen cloth.12 The Kyddes claimed that the cloth had been the property of Sir Philip Courtenay (for whom they may have been acting as factors) and that Ralegh had merely been asked to keep it for him. KB27/777, rot. 64; 778, rots. 2d, 70; 779, rot. 18d; 780, rot. 11d; 781, rot. 74; 789, rot. 15.

The choice of the inexperienced Ralegh as one of the Devon Members for the Parliament summoned to meet at Reading on 6 Mar. 1453, against the backdrop of the threatening loss of the last English possessions in Gascony, can be most readily explained by his nautical experience combined with the influence of his old patron, the now ennobled Lord Bonville. Bonville’s adversary, Thomas Courtenay, earl of Devon, who had sought to settle their long-running rivalry by violent means in the autumn of 1451, was only slowly re-establishing himself among the lords following his participation in the duke of York’s ill-judged bid for power at Dartford in 1452, and was in no position to push for the election to the Commons of his own supporters. Accordingly, Bonville’s retainers Ralegh and Walter Reynell* took the Devon county seats. It is not known what part Ralegh played in the first two sessions of the Parliament, although it is possible that in Bonville’s interest he supported the replacement of York as lieutenant of Ireland by Bonville’s friend, the earl of Wiltshire. Equally, he may have lent weight to the measures proposed against anyone who had taken up arms against the King at Dartford – another cause manifestly close to Bonville’s heart.13 PROME, xii. 218. During the summer recess, however, events took a dramatic turn. On 17 July the principal English force remaining in France was defeated at Castillon, and its commander, John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, killed, along with a number of other prominent English captains. Shortly after, the King suffered a complete mental and physical breakdown, which left him unable to rule. Parliament had been due to reassemble on 12 Nov., but was now immediately prorogued again. When the Commons finally reassembled at Westminster on 14 Feb. 1454 they found that two of their Members, the Speaker, Thomas Thorpe*, and Ralegh had been imprisoned during the recess, and were missing from their ranks. Thorpe owed his incarceration directly to the ill-will of the duke of York, but the circumstances of Ralegh’s imprisonment are more obscure. Certainly, he also faced powerful opponents, for on 17 Jan. he found sureties in the vast sum of 4,000 marks guaranteeing his appearance in Chancery on the following day. Following his hearing, he was committed to the Fleet where he probably remained when the Commons reassembled.14 PROME, 254-5; C244/75/92. In Thorpe’s case, the remonstrance of the Commons, citing parliamentary privilege, proved in vain, although he was freed soon after the dissolution. For his part, Ralegh is not known to have regained his freedom before mid December, when he sealed bonds for £200 guaranteeing his appearance before the Council early in the following year.15 CCR, 1454-61, p. 45.

Nor did Ralegh’s troubles end there. The earl of Devon now unleashed a campaign of sustained violence against Bonville and his supporters. During a first swathe of offences, two of Ralegh’s servants were attacked and robbed of their master’s goods at Dean Prior in May 1454,16 KB27/774, rex rot. 31; 775, rot. 82d; 776, rots. 31, 32; 777, rots. 45d, 46d. but it was in the autumn and winter of 1455 that the campaign reached its climax: the earl’s forces occupied the city of Exeter, laid siege to Powderham castle (the seat of Sir Philip Courtenay*, Bonville’s principal associate in the county), and over a period of weeks conducted raids on the houses of various other members of the Bonville affinity. Ralegh’s turn came on 16 Dec., when his house at Exmouth was ransacked and seized his money and goods, including gowns, plate and jewels, to a total value of over £648.17 KB27/780, rots. 75, 86; 782, rot. 110d; 785, rot. 24d. On this occasion, however, the earl had over-reached himself. After his release from captivity in 1453 he had abandoned his earlier friends and instead realigned himself with the court and the King’s leading minister, the duke of Somerset. Accordingly, following the court’s defeat and Somerset’s death at the battle of St. Albans in May 1455, Bonville had needed little prompting to abandon an administration that could offer him little protection from his enemies, and sided with the victorious Yorkists. That autumn he sought, and before long found help from the duke of York, who accepted a renewed appointment as Protector to put an end to the earl of Devon’s violent activities.

Ralegh was now placed at the head of the grand jury empanelled to present indictments against Earl Thomas and his retainers for the murder of Nicholas Radford*, and their other crimes. The detailed accusations, including lengthy inventories of stolen goods, bear witness to the relish with which the jurors performed their task.18 KB9/16/50, 66. Nevertheless, within a year Ralegh himself was once again facing charges, perhaps still with regard to his earlier acts of privateering. On 22 Nov. 1456 he sealed a bond in 1,000 marks, guaranteed by Lord Bonville and two others, promising to appear in Chancery a week later, only then to be required to find further sureties for his renewed appearance early in the following year.19 CCR, 1454-61, pp. 171-2. It is possible that the courts eventually found against Ralegh. On 23 Nov. 1461 he sealed a bond for a further appearance in Chancery and a payment of £600 to the King, and he subsequently handed this sum over: CCR, 1461-8, p. 86; E403/829, m. 7; E404/72/3/30; E405/40, rots. 3, 5d. About the same time, he was associated with Bonville and James Chudleigh* in litigation against Roger Champernowne* of Bere Ferrers, whom they accused of having purloined a bag of muniments from Plympton Prior in the summer of 1452.20 KB27/781, rots. 4, 62; 795, rot. 47. These disputes aside, Ralegh’s other preoccupations in the final years of Henry VI’s reign included the execution of the will of his putative kinsman, the lawyer John Copplestone, who died in October 1458. Copplestone’s affairs were convoluted, and it took more than a year even for probate to be granted. Litigation over the debts owing to the testator, which included substantial sums such as 100 marks owed by Elizabeth, Lady Bonville and Harington, continued for a number of years.21 CP40/810, rot. 296d; C1/73/85; E159/240, fines Trin. rot. 1d.

The Yorkist victory at the battle of Northampton left Ralegh an important supporter of the new regime in a region dominated by Lancastrian partisans. The new rulers quickly appointed him to office. In July and November 1460 he was included in general commissions for the arrest of malefactors in Devon; on 18 Aug. he was added to the quorum of the county bench; in October he was among the commissioners ordered to investigate an act of piracy said to have been committed by Le Petir Courtenay, a ship owned by Sir Hugh Courtenay* of Boconnoc and another vessel called Le Galiot (a task for which Ralegh was undoubtedly well qualified); and in January 1461, following the disastrous engagement at Wakefield that had claimed the life of the duke of York, he was among the men ordered to seize all the armaments and weaponry belonging to Thomas Courtenay, the new earl of Devon (the son of his former adversary, who had died in 1458), that they could lay their hands on.22 CPR, 1452-61, pp. 607, 649, 652, 656. Lord Bonville’s capture and execution at the battle of St. Albans on 17 Feb. made men like Ralegh all the more valuable to the Yorkists seeking to impose their rule in the south-west. Following Edward IV’s accession on 4 Mar. he was confirmed as a j.p., and in subsequent months was among the landowners charged with seizing the forfeited lands of the earl of Devon (executed in April) and Sir Baldwin Fulford (executed in September), as well as being employed on commissions of array and for naval defence. Other similar commissions followed in the course of the next three years.23 CPR, 1461-7, pp. 28, 34, 37, 64, 99, 232, 233, 301, 346. At the same time Ralegh was also engaged in helping to settle the affairs of his dead patron, Lord Bonville. Following the attainder and forfeiture of Bonville’s son-in-law, (Sir) William Tailboys* of Kyme, he, John Dynham (the future Lord Dynham) and Thomas Dymmok were granted a third of Sir William’s estates to hold to the use of his widow, Elizabeth, during her lifetime.24 CPR, 1461-7, p. 89.

Ralegh himself died on 17 Oct. 1464, leaving his wife, Joan, as his executrix.25 CPR, 1467-77, p. 4; CP40/826, rot. 118; 845, rot. 111d. As his son and heir, William, died just 11 days later, his inheritance fell to his five-year-old grand-daughter Joan.26 C140/12/7; 25/36. A week before his death, Walter had placed his lands in the possession of a feoffees headed by John Dynham. This was evidently intended as a precaution to avoid a Crown wardship, but in vain, for July 1467 the custody of Ralegh’s lands and heir was sold to (Sir) John Say II* for 100 marks, and as late as October 1479 the feoffees were still embroiled in litigation over the estate.27 CFR, xx. 204; C140/25/36; E405/47, rot. 3; CP40/835, rot. 257; 845, rot. 111d; E159/244, recorda Mich. rot. 33d; 246, recorda Mich. rots. 16, 17. The provisions of Ralegh’s will are unknown, but it is possible that he foresaw his elder son’s untimely death and wished to save his estates for his family by settling them on his younger son, Walter. Ultimately, this plan succeeded and by the early 1470s the younger Walter had established himself at Fardel.28 Stanford, 75-89; C67/49, m. 32. Their line endured, and in the sixteenth century a number of Ralegh’s descendants sat in Parliament for mostly south-western constituencies, among them Queen Elizabeth’s favourite, yet another Walter†.29 The Commons 1509-1558, iii. 173-4; 1558-1603, iii. 273-6.