WHARTON, Roland

The Whartons were a numerous family with a fifteenth-century pedigree that can only be a matter of conjecture. Roland is almost undocumented but certain inferences can be drawn from his election for Appleby in 1433. First, as deputy sheriff, Henry Wharton, who may have been his father, was responsible for returning the result into Chancery, and it is a fair speculation that he had a hand in securing his return.2 C219/14/4. Henry had also been dep. sheriff when Richard Wharton† had been elected for Appleby in 1419: C219/12/3. Second, the election came at a time of intense conflict in the politics of Westmorland, and Roland’s return suggests he was connected with the faction then in the ascendant. The other Appleby MP, William Thornburgh*, and the two knights elected for the county, Sir Henry Threlkeld* and Sir Richard Musgrave, were a closely connected group: Thornburgh and his brother-in-law, Threlkeld, had acted together in recent disorders, and Musgrave was a close kinsman of Thornburgh’s wife. Since Henry was probably the husband of Musgrave’s sister, the Whartons were also connected with this group.

There is little else to be said about Roland. If he was Henry’s son by Elizabeth Musgrave then he must have been a young man when he sat in Parliament and is thus almost certainly to be identified with the namesake who was modestly active in the 1450s and 1460s. On 28 Sept. 1455 he joined his putative elder brother on juries at Penrith and Brougham inquiring into the lands of the Whartons’ feudal overlord, Thomas, Lord Clifford.3 C139/159/33. This Clifford connexion disposed him to favour the Lancastrian cause, or at least to oppose their local rivals, the Nevilles. In Michaelmas term 1461, curiously described as a gentleman resident at the Neville stronghold of Penrith, he was among those sued by Alice, widow of Richard, earl of Salisbury, and other executors of the earl, for taking livestock worth £600 from Plumpton Park, near Penrith, before the earl’s death at the battle of Wakefield. His fellow defendants included a prominent Lancastrian, Humphrey Dacre, and there can be no doubt that the alleged offence was political rather than merely criminal. Wharton was attached to answer, but the result of the suit has not been traced. He was alive as late as 1469 when he served on an inquisition jury.4 CP40/802, rot. 442; CP40/804, rot. 241; C140/29/42.