Middlesex

Among the English shires the county of Middlesex was something of an oddity. Tied in administrative terms to the city of London, it possessed few other urban communities of any significance, and there were no parliamentary boroughs within its boundaries. The greatest resident magnate in the county was the King himself, whose government was by the fifteenth century permanently settled at Westminster. The county’s leading landowners were in their majority ecclesiastical dignitaries and institutions. Apart from the shire’s own religious houses (the great Benedictine abbey of St. Peter at Westminster and the Bridgettine house of Syon abbey at Isleworth, the Benedictine nunnery of Stratford le Bow, the Augustinian priories of Bentley, St. Mary Clerkenwell, Haliwell and Kilburn, the Trinitarian friary at Hounslow and the principal English priory of the Knights Hospitallers at Clerkenwell), a number of London’s institutions, the royal collegiate foundations of St. Stephen, Westminster, and St. George, Windsor, the bishops of London and the dean and chapter of St. Paul’s cathedral all held lands in Middlesex.5 E179/238/90; 240/269. During the reign of Henry VI the estates of the alien priory of Ruislip (a dependency of the abbey of Bec), valued at some £60 in 1437, were initially in the hands of the King’s uncle, John, duke of Bedford, and after his death were granted to the royal physician John Somerset, before being assigned to the King’s new college at Cambridge as part of its first endowment.6 VCH Mdx. i. 156-204.

Compared with the administration of other counties, that of Middlesex was highly fragmented. Its shrievalty was joined to that of the city of London, but it is not clear that the two sheriffs annually elected by the citizens paid much personal attention to their outlying district. Between them they appointed three under sheriffs, two of whom fulfilled judicial functions in London, while the third acted as their deputy in Middlesex, effectively carrying out the full duties of a sheriff there. Until 1446 the under sheriff for Middlesex, like his London counterparts, remained in post for a succession of years; thereafter he became subject to annual appointment like the under sheriffs of other counties. From the mid 1450s the under sheriffs of Middlesex were almost exclusively drawn from the ranks of the clerks of the royal courts at Westminster, for whose meeting place in Westminster Hall they had particular responsibility. Below the sheriffs and their staff, the county’s administration was severely hampered by the plethora of ecclesiastical and other liberties. Alongside the county coroners, there were also separate coroners for the liberties of the abbot of Westminster and the abbess of Syon, for the verge of the royal household and for the King’s bench, which served as court of first instance for Middlesex. To complicate matters further, the Middlesex escheatry was joined to that of the county of Kent.

In the absence of any obvious county town, the shire court of Middlesex moved between three different venues in the south of the county: the town of Brentford, the Ossulstone (or Oswald’s stone), situated at the meeting point of Watling Street and the road running westward out of Essex (the site of modern Marble Arch),7 Ibid. vi. 1. and the Stone Cross in the Strand. In the reign of Henry VI, the county’s parliamentary elections were more often than not held at the Stone Cross, which provided the setting for them on nine occasions: in 1426, 1427, 1429, 1430, 1432, 1435, 1442, January 1449 and 1453. This was, it seems, no deliberate arrangement, but rather a consequence of the normal rotation of the meetings of the county court, for at least five elections (those of 1425, 1433, 1436, 1447 and 1460) were held at Brentford, and at least four (those of 1422, 1423, October 1449 and 1450) took place at the Ossulstone. The venue for the elections of 1439, 1445, 1455 and 1459 is not known.8 C219/13/1-5; 14/1-5; 15/1-2, 4, 6; 16/1-2, 5-6; 330/24.

As far as it is possible to tell, the meeting place of the county court did not determine levels of attendance at parliamentary elections, but nor is it clear that individuals who sealed the election indentures with the sheriff made up the entire electorate. In Henry VI’s reign the numbers of men setting their seals to the election indentures ranged from a minimum of 24 recorded at Brentford in 1425 and 1447 to a maximum of 67 listed in the same venue in 1460, when the exceptional circumstances of the aftermath of the battle of Northampton may have played a part in encouraging the naming of a greater number of attestors. Over the reign as a whole the average number of attestors named in the indentures was 37. While it is tempting also to ascribe the comparatively low numbers of electors recorded in 1447 (24) and 1450 (28) to the peculiar political backdrop to these two Parliaments (the choice in 1447 of the provincial backwaters of Cambridge and Bury St Edmunds as a venue, and the severe unrest in London which caused the mayor and aldermen to have the city streets blocked with iron chains in 1450), the eventual election results do not support any suggestion of foul play. In both cases the Middlesex MPs returned were men of local standing as well as of parliamentary experience.

The Middlesex election returns were formally made out in the name of the joint sheriffs of London and Middlesex, but it is not clear whether the sheriffs themselves presided over the shire court, or whether they routinely delegated the conduct of the election to their under sheriffs. The under sheriff had probably presided in February 1421, when the indenture was marked ‘per Robertum Warner, subvicecomitem’, although it is possible that this engrossment merely indicated the official who had delivered the return into Chancery.9 C219/12/5. From 1422 to 1429 the election returns named the under sheriff (Warner) among the attestors sealing the indenture with the sheriffs (the exception being the return of 1425, when Warner was himself elected).10 C219/13/1-5; 14/1. Subsequent returns make no mention of the serving under sheriffs (John Broun from 1430 to 1437, John Drayton from 1439 to 1445, Thomas Mullyng in 1447, Thomas Segden in 1453, Robert Beaufitz in 1455 and Richard Whele in 1459 and 1460) among the attestors, although in 1435 Broun was one of the two sureties for the knights of the shire.11 The identity of the Mdx. under sheriffs for 1448-9 and 1449-50 has not been established.

The names of the MPs for Middlesex have been established for 21 of the 22 Parliaments of Henry VI’s reign, but no return survives for the Parliament of 1455, and for that of 1449 (Nov.) only one of the names is legible. Eighteen men divided these 41 seats between them. Among them, members of three families, the Charltons, Frowyks and Greens, predominated. As many as 25 of the Middlesex seats available in the period were taken by a member of one of these families; on seven occasions they supplied both of the county’s MPs, and only in the three Parliaments of 1433, 1437 and 1449 (Feb.) did they secure no seats at all. This remarkable statistic owed much to the exceptional parliamentary careers of three men, Sir Thomas Charlton of South Mimms and his synonymous son, who were each returned six times, respectively between 1414 (Nov.) and 1431, and 1442 and 1460, and Walter Green of Hayes, who was a Member of nine Parliaments between 1414 (Apr.) and 1450. Green’s record was nearly matched by Gawtron, who was a Member of seven separate assemblies between 1410 and 1429, although he only represented Middlesex twice, for much of his career preferring to take his seat with the three other MPs from London, and only one of his Middlesex returns fell within the reign of Henry VI. The same was also true of Henry Somer, who like the Charltons was returned six times, but found his last seat in Cambridgeshire in 1432. Two Thomas Frowyks respectively secured five and four elections, while Anne and Ash were each returned three times (Ash finding his first seat at Totnes in his native Devon), and Henry Frowyk II, Maidstone, Wroth and Lematon were each elected twice (the latter cutting his parliamentary teeth as a burgess for Reigate). Just five of Middlesex’s MPs in the period only served in a single Parliament each.

As a consequence, Middlesex was normally represented by men of sometimes considerable prior parliamentary experience. No fewer than 31 of the 41 seats for which the Members’ names are known were taken by men who had sat in the Commons on a previous occasion, and in at least half of Henry VI’s Parliaments both shire-knights were so qualified. By comparison, it was rather less common for a Middlesex MP to be re-elected directly: only Anne in 1432 and the former Speaker (Sir) Thomas Charlton in 1460 achieved this distinction. This was probably no mere happenstance: there is a clear sense that the leading county families took turns in representing their neighbours in the Commons, and thus probably did not actively seek re-election. Nevertheless, it is notable that just ten Middlesex seats were filled by apparent parliamentary novices during this period, and that only once (in 1442) were two novices returned together: the circumstances of that year’s election were clearly exceptional, for one of those elected was the King’s personal physician, John Somerset, while the other, Thomas Charlton, was for the first time taking his ageing father’s place as one of the county’s representatives.

Their personal records of parliamentary service aside, many of the county’s MPs could also boast (in some cases long) family traditions of Membership, or went on to establish them anew: the Charltons, Frowyks, Shorditch and Wroth all followed their fathers into Parliament, as Green probably did also; Ash, Sir Thomas Charlton, Thomas Frowyk I, Green and Tanfeld all had sons who went on to secure election to the Commons, while Sir Thomas Charlton, Lematon, Henry Frowyk II and Thomas Frowyk I possessed brothers or half-brothers with parliamentary experience. In addition, the Charltons, Henry Frowyk II, Gawtron, Green and Somer all married the daughters of former Members.

All of the Middlesex MPs during this period fulfilled the statutory requirement for residence within the county, although several of them also possessed houses in London, and those attached to the royal court may have spent much of the time following the monarch on his meanderings around the Thames valley and the wider realm. In their majority, the Members’ homes were in the south and east of the shire, at Isleworth (Maidstone), Ealing (Thomas Frowyk II), Chelsea (Shorditch), Westminster (Ash, Myrywether, Somerset and Tanfeld), Hackney (Anne), Tottenham (Somer), Edmonton and Enfield (Wroth), but there was a small but significant group who lived in the west, at Hayes (Green and Warner) and Hillingdon (Sir Thomas Charlton), just south of Ickenham where Shorditch and Myrywether possessed country houses. The senior line of the Frowyks and their kinsman Thomas Charlton normally lived at South Mimms in the very north of Middlesex.

The Frowyks and Charltons were not alone among the Middlesex MPs of Henry VI’s reign in possessing close ties in the city of London: like Thomas Frowyk II’s father, the mercer Henry Frowyk I*, Gawtron, a member of the Grocers’ livery, was also a freeman of London. Warner apparently never entered the livery, but married the widow of another London mercer. The Gray’s Inn lawyer Anne worked his way up the ladder of civic legal offices, serving successively as under sheriff, common serjeant and recorder of the city. Nevertheless, for the most part the men returned by the Middlesex electorates were substantial landowners, rather than merchants or lawyers. Most of them comfortably fulfilled the statutory requirement of property worth more than £40 p.a. sufficient to qualify them for knighthood. In 1436 Shorditch’s possessions in London and Middlesex were valued at £40 p.a., Anne’s lands in Yorkshire, Somerset and Middlesex at £44 and Ash’s holdings in Cornwall, Devon and Middlesex at £53, while Henry Frowyk I’s property in London and Middlesex that would descend to Thomas Frowyk II was said to be worth £54. At the upper end of the income scale that year were Sir Thomas Charlton, who was said to have lands in Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, London and Middlesex worth £100, while Thomas Frowyk I was believed to draw £90 p.a. from his property in Middlesex and elsewhere. At the lower end of the scale were Maidstone, whose estates in Cornwall, Kent, Hertfordshire and Middlesex were valued at just £36, and Wroth who was believed to draw only £26 from property in Middlesex and Somerset.12 E179/238/90; 240/269; S.L. Thrupp, Merchant Class Med. London, 378, 381. That Wroth’s wealth was probably rather greater than this assessment implies is apparent from the inclusion of his son and heir in the distraints of knighthood of 1458 and 1465. Like him, Green, Shorditch and Somer were also at various times fined for their failure to accept the status of a knight. Among the few men of law returned for the county in the reign of Henry VI Anne was by far the most distinguished, although Ash, Thomas Frowyk II, Tanfeld and Warner all also conducted busy private legal practices. As a university-trained physician, Somerset was not only unique among the Middlesex Members, but exceptional among all the MPs of the period. His wealth, much of which came from fees and other monetary rewards, clearly far exceeded the £8 p.a. at which his property in Middlesex and Norfolk was assessed in 1436.13 E159/212, recorda Hil. rot. 14(vi)d. Indeed, his subsequent transmutation of annuities of as much as £140 into land and offices brought him a far greater and more secure income.

While it is not clear that tenure of Crown office played any part in the considerations of the Middlesex electorate, the county’s apparent predilection for men of local standing meant that most of its representatives in the period under review had at one time or another served the Crown in an official capacity. Thus, 27 of the 41 seats for which the MPs’ names are known were taken by current members of the county bench. In view of the restriction of the joint shrievalty of London and Middlesex to freemen of London, it is not surprising that none of the county’s MPs during this period ever held that post, but Warner had been under sheriff of Middlesex for several years (and was indeed serving as such at the time of his return in 1425), while Anne had been an under sheriff of London some years prior to his first appearance in the Commons. Anne also held the joint escheatry of Kent and Middlesex (in between his second and third Parliaments), Myrywether had been constable of the town of Westminster, and Warner the Crown’s bailiff of Middlesex. Sir Thomas Charlton, Henry Frowyk II, Thomas Frowyk I, Gawtron, Green, Maidstone, Somer, Tanfeld and Warner had all been appointed to ad hoc commissions in Middlesex prior to their first or only return for the county in this period, and Anne, Ash, Thomas Charlton, Thomas Frowyk II, Myrywether and Shorditch received similar appointments later in their careers.

While the leading county gentry were dominant in supplying the county’s MPs, the presence of the royal palace, the great departments of state and the law courts at Westminster left their mark on its parliamentary representation. Thus, Somer had been keeper of the privy wardrobe under all three Lancastrian monarchs, and when returned in 1429 was the serving chancellor of the Exchequer and warden of the mint at the Tower, offices in which he was succeeded by Somerset, the young Henry VI’s tutor and personal physician. Ash, who by 1441 was under steward of the King’s household, may already have held that post at the time of his second election for Middlesex, in 1439. At the time of his election to the Parliament at Coventry in 1459, Myrywether had been employed in the much more lowly role of serjeant of the scullery of the Household for more than a decade; but by contrast in the autumn of 1460 Middlesex was represented by the controller of the Household, Thomas Charlton, who had been promoted to that exalted position in the aftermath of the battle of Northampton. To the Parliament of February 1449 the county returned Tanfeld, the attorney-general to Queen Margaret of Anjou, and Lematon, formerly parker of the duchy of Cornwall park at Liskeard. While there is no suggestion that the county electorate was under normal circumstances susceptible to pressure from the royal court, it seems clear that this is precisely what happened on that particular occasion, when two courtiers – the one, Tanfeld, from Northamptonshire, and the other, Lematon, from Northumberland – were returned in favour of anyone from a leading Middlesex family.

If the officers of the Westminster administration recommended themselves to the Middlesex electorate by any special expertise, it might well have been with regard to the supervision of the King’s over-stretched finances, a subject which came to dominate most of Henry VI’s Parliaments. Somerset (who had come to hold office at the Exchequer rather late in his career) aside, Somer had made his career at the Exchequer, serving successively as clerk of the receipt, a baron of the Exchequer of pleas, under treasurer to Sir John Tiptoft† and Sir John Pelham*, and finally chancellor of the Exchequer and warden of the exchange and mint. Maidstone gathered early administrative experience as a teller at the Exchequer, and completed a spell as assayer of the mint and controller to the master of the mint, before becoming controller of the Lombard Street exchange. Lematon likewise was serving as warden of the exchange, mint and coinage at the time of his election for Middlesex. Gawtron, Green, Somer and Tanfeld had all served as royal customs officials in different ports, while Ash, Green, Maidstone and Somer were all involved in the assessment or collection of parliamentary taxation.

A number of Middlesex MPs possessed close ties with important landowners of the region, in their majority (albeit not exclusively) religious rather than lay. By the time of his last return Anne was serving as bailiff of the abbot of Waltham’s liberty and as steward of the manor of Walthamstow Thony for Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick. Green was steward of the estates of Philip Morgan, bishop of Ely, while Tanfield held a similar post under two successive bishops of London (Robert Gilbert and Thomas Kemp). Thomas Frowyk II was greatly in demand: a feed councillor of Bishop Kemp, he also served as steward of the abbess of Syon’s lordship of Isleworth and of the estates of Westminster abbey. Ash likewise served Syon abbey, as steward of the abbey estates in his native Devon (and held similar appointments in the service of the King’s one-time tutor, the Beauchamp earl of Warwick, and of William, Lord Zouche). In no instance, however, is there any suggestion that these lords played a part in securing their clients’ return to Parliament.

It was a mark of the remarkably cohesive gentry community of Middlesex and the domination of the county’s parliamentary representation by its members, that the men who sat in the Commons for Middlesex also played their part in the elections in the county court and set their seals to the sheriff’s indentures. Thus, Green was so recorded on 15 occasions between 1411 and November 1449, Sir Thomas Charlton 13 times between 1411 and 1442, Thomas Frowyk I 11 times between 1417 and 1442, and Wroth nine times between 1420 and 1449. Shorditch’s and Maidstone’s presence is recorded at six Middlesex elections each, Lematon’s and Somer’s at four, and Thomas Charlton and Thomas Frowyk II were each present on two occasions. Ash attested three Middlesex indentures, but had previously been wont to do so in Devon. Myrywether’s presence is recorded only once, at the elections of 1460, but it is likely that his true record, like that of Henry Frowyk II (who attested five elections between 1447 and 1478) is obscured by the loss of most of the election returns of Edward IV’s reign. Somewhat exceptional were Warner, who as under sheriff attended the court ex officio, and Anne, whose two documented attendances at the Middlesex county court were probably also motivated by tenure of office. Only Gawtron, Somerset and Tanfeld, as far as it is possible to tell, never witnessed a Middlesex election (although the last was present at a minimum of two in his native Northamptonshire).