SOWDELEY, Reynold

Sowdeley’s parentage has not been discovered, although he evidently hailed from Shropshire. Few details of his career have come to light, but it appears that he received some training in the law, for by 1461 he was appearing as an attorney at the Exchequer.3 E13/147, rot. 32d; C1/33/317. It is not known what property, if any, Reynold inherited from his parents, but by his marriage to Joan, one of the three daughters and coheiresses of Richard Horton of Dothill, a Shropshire gentleman of sufficient standing to be required to take the general oath against maintenance in 1434, he eventually acquired a share in his father-in-law’s holdings of more than 200 acres in Horton, Preston upon the Weald Moors, Dothill, Wellington and elsewhere in the county.4 CP40/877, rots. 34, 35d; VCH Salop, xi. 177.

What motivated Sowdeley’s return to the Commons in November 1449 is uncertain, for he had no known connexions with the borough that he represented, but his provenance from the Welsh marches may point to a link with Richard, duke of York, lord of one third of Bridgwater, who by virtue of his descent from the Mortimer earls of March possessed extensive estates in that region. In the political crisis that followed the collapse of English rule in Normandy several lords critical of the administration of William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, among them York and his eventual ally Thomas Courtenay, earl of Devon, went to considerable lengths to secure the return of their supporters and retainers to the Commons: it would appear that in the case of Bridgwater York succeeded in doing so.

An integral part of Sowdeley’s professional practice was his service to successive sheriffs of Shropshire and neighbouring Staffordshire, among them the Staffordshire landowner William Mytton*. As a result of Mytton’s failure to settle in full his account for his shrievalty in 1457-8, Sowdeley, as his attorney, was ordered to be placed under arrest. He was, however, able to persuade one of Mytton’s other servants, Robert Caldecote, to allow him to put a tally assigned on the sheriff’s revenues which happened to be in his possession forward as surety for the debt owing from his master, and thus to remain at liberty.5 C1/33/317. Before long, he was once again attached to a shire-house, on this occasion as under sheriff of Shropshire to Roger Eyton*, who had been an early supporter of the duke of York.6 E13/152, rot. 44.

Few other details of Sowdeley’s life have come to light. In November 1464 Robert Corbet of Madeley, Shropshire, was bound to him in two bonds for £20 each, but the background to this transaction remains obscure. The date of Reynold’s death has likewise not been discovered, but he was still practising as an attorney in 1480, and in the summer of 1481 was embroiled in litigation against his wife’s coheirs, William Steventon of Dothill and Humphrey Tytley of Titley, before the justices of common pleas over the division of the Horton inheritance. It seems that the Sowdeleys had at least one son, since some of the Horton property continued in the hands of members of the family into the mid sixteenth century and beyond.7 CP40/874, rot. 450; 877, rots. 34, 35d; VCH Salop, xi. 177.