Cricklade

One of the smaller Wiltshire boroughs, Cricklade was a market town of moderate size and prosperity lying at a strategic position in the north of the county, where Ermine Street crossed the Thames and near the county boundary with Gloucestershire. Its location near a main road appears to have influenced the trades its burgesses followed, since more than half of those identified by occupation in the poll tax return of 1379 were victuallers who must have counted travellers among their most important customers. Weavers, tailors and leather-workers also feature in the return and it is possible that glove making, for which Cricklade would become renowned, was already another local industry by that date.1 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 693.

Although never incorporated, Cricklade received a charter as far back as Henry II’s reign. While a lack of surviving records means that there is next to no evidence for its municipal administration, it appears that it possessed few of the urban institutions typical of the period and that the lord of the borough and hundred of Cricklade retained the profits arising from its courts, markets and fair. As a result, the local guild merchant – assuming there was one – would have been of far less significance than in other towns. The election of the constable, the chief officer of the borough, apparently by the holders of the 30 or more burgage tenements there, took place in the lord’s court. For all but the last few months of Henry VI’s reign Richard, duke of York, was the lord of Cricklade and its related hundred, although in 1422 he was just 11 years of age and a royal ward. Soon afterwards, the Crown sold his wardship and marriage to Ralph Neville, earl of Westmoreland, and he did not come into his own until 1432. For much of the reign the Hungerford family was another presence at Cricklade, perhaps a more immediate one than York. Part of the borough lay within the manor of Abingdon Court, held of the lord of Cricklade. By 1405 it had descended to Joan, daughter and heir of Richard Horne† and wife of Robert More†, and following her death in 1435 it was bought by Sir Walter Hungerford†, Lord Hungerford, one of the wealthiest landowners in Wiltshire.2 Ibid.; The Commons 1509-58, i. 220. Hungerford died in August 1449. His immediate successors were his son, Richard, Lord Hungerford (d.1459), and then his grandson, Richard, Lord Hungerford and Moleyns, a diehard Lancastrian executed in 1464. In spite of their interests at Cricklade, there are few signs that either York or the Hungerfords intervened in parliamentary elections there. So far as the (admittedly limited) evidence goes, none of those known to have sat for the borough in this period were associated with the duke and only a couple with the Hungerfords. Chippenham, another Wiltshire borough where the Hungerfords possessed important interests, provides an interesting contrast, since they appear to have exercised a strong influence over its parliamentary representation for a substantial part of Henry VI’s reign.

A parliamentary borough since 1275,3 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 693. Cricklade did not send representatives to every Parliament between then and 1422 or, apparently, to all of those during the period under review. It does not feature in what remains of the damaged schedule attached to the Wiltshire return for 1425, and it is definitely not included in the schedule made in 1429. The boroughs of Chippenham, Ludgershall and Old Sarum are also missing from the latter document, and it appears that neither they nor Cricklade returned representatives to the Parliament in question. As for the Parliaments of 1439, 1445 and 1460, the returns for the county and boroughs of Wiltshire are lost, save for a solitary indenture drawn up at Wilton in 1460. The chances are, however, that the burgesses of Cricklade did return MPs to those three assemblies, since by Henry VI’s reign Wiltshire’s boroughs sent men to the Commons far more regularly than they had done in the past.

At least 29 men sat for Cricklade in this period although the Christian names of Danyell and Booth, the MPs of 1455, are no longer visible on the official return. Danyell remains of uncertain identity, since the assumption that he was the maverick courtier Thomas Daniell* is very much unproven. It is likely that Booth was Robert Booth, a nephew of both William Booth, successively bishop of Coventry and Lichfield and archbishop of York, and Laurence Booth, bishop of Durham. If so, he was probably also the Robert Booth who sat for Westbury, another Wiltshire borough, in 1459. Only eight of the 29 definitely resided at Cricklade,4 Bailey, Baker, Thomas and Robert Cricklade, Huberd, Huggis, Kemell and Wrythe. although another five certainly lived elsewhere in Wiltshire and so were probably not complete strangers to the borough.5 John Cricklade, Gatcombe, Long, Selwood and Wotton. Yet Booth, Nicholas Jones, Geoffrey Mone and Richard Needham lived outside the county, as perhaps did several of those of unknown residence, of whom there were at least 11.6 Bentham, Castelcombe, Child, Clement, Danyell, Green, Ludwell, Muchgode, Pierson, Whetnals and Wirhale. By contrast, all but one of the identified Members for Cricklade in the three and a half decades prior to 1422 either lived at Cricklade or at least held burgage tenements there,7 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 694. although the many gaps in the evidence render impossible anything like a full analysis of the parliamentary representation of the borough in that earlier period. There certainly appears to have been a marked decline in resident townsmen representing Cricklade in Parliament by the last two decades of the period under review, since the great majority of the outsiders or putative outsiders among the 29 sat for the borough in the second half of Henry VI’s reign. By contrast, it is possible that a few local tradesmen and farmers had dominated the parliamentary representation of Cricklade in the last quarter of the fourteenth century, although by the beginning of the fifteenth residents of higher social status, including lawyers and members of the local gentry, increasingly gained election.8 Ibid. But this survey of the earlier period wrongly asserts that only nine of Cricklade’s MPs between 1422 and 1440 are known.

The period under review appears therefore to mark an acceleration of an existing trend, with the growth in the number of outsiders constituting an extra development. For a Wiltshire borough, Cricklade was by no means unique: many of the MPs for Chippenham and Malmesbury of Henry VI’s reign were not typical townsmen, while outsiders came to dominate the representation of Great Bedwyn in the latter part of the reign. Carpet-baggers certainly came to predominate at Cricklade after 1461. All of the seven known MPs for the borough during the reigns of the Yorkist Kings and Henry VII were gentry and they included the prominent lawyer, John Whittocksmead*. The dozen men known to have sat for the borough between 1509 and the accession of Elizabeth I were likewise all gentry and none of them appears to have resided in Wiltshire.9 The Commons 1509-58, i. 220. As for the period under review, Cricklade’s electors may have willingly accepted some of the non-residents among the MPs. There were sometimes advantages in returning such representatives: some of them may have been prepared to forswear their parliamentary wages, and the lawyers among them were potentially effective advocates in the Commons, assuming that they devoted at least some of their time in Parliament working in the interests of the borough.

In the earlier part of Henry VI’s reign, when the changes occurring in the parliamentary representation of the borough were still relatively nascent, one local family in particular had a strong connexion with the Commons. Thomas Cricklade was the brother-in-law of Walter Studley* who sat for two other Wiltshire boroughs, Calne and Malmesbury, in the early 1420s, the father of two of the other MPs among the 29, Robert and John, and perhaps the father or brother of William Cricklade* who sat for Calne in the Parliaments of 1429, 1431, 1433 and 1435. Furthermore, the Cricklades’ initial links with Parliament may have predated the fifteenth century, since it is possible that Nicholas Cricklade†, a knight of the shire for Gloucestershire in the Parliament of 1352 and a burgess for Gloucester in that of 1355, was one of their forebears. The non-resident John Long was also from a family that gave extensive parliamentary service. His father Robert* sat as a burgess for the boroughs of Old Sarum and Calne in the Parliaments of April 1414 and 1417 respectively, as a knight of the shire for Wiltshire in both Parliaments of 1421 and in those of 1423, 1429 and 1433, and as a burgess for the city of Salisbury in 1442. Robert Long sat alongside two of his other sons, Henry* and Richard*, respectively burgesses for Devizes and Old Sarum, as well as John in the Parliament of 1442. Previously, Henry Long had sat for Old Sarum in 1435 and he was afterwards a knight of the shire for Wiltshire in the Parliaments of February 1449, 1453 and 1472.

The three Cricklades, Thomas, Robert and John, were all lawyers rather than typical townsmen. Alone among the 29, the resident Richard Baker was certainly a local burgess who followed a trade although it is likely that the just as obscure John Huberd was the Cricklade chapman of that name. Not long after sitting for Cricklade in 1442, the much more prominent but non-resident Richard Needham also participated in trade although he did so in London where he became a leading member of the Mercers Company. Of the MPs with a known occupation, the lawyers outnumbered those who followed a trade. Apart from the Cricklades, four others (John Castelcombe, George Howton, John Ludwell and William Wrythe), were definitely members of the legal profession, as was Booth, if the bishops’ nephew. Several of the lawyers were ‘gentlemen’ or ‘esquires’, Needham was a ‘gentleman’, notwithstanding his mercantile activities, and Nicholas Jones, John Long, Robert Muchgode, and William Whetnals were definitely or probably members of the gentry. Although sometimes styled ‘gentleman’, William Kemell, apparently the man of that name from Widhill in Cricklade, was of no great status since he features in some records as a ‘franklin’ or ‘yeoman’.

Whether gentry or not, it is likely that most of the 29 were of little significance as landowners, not least because few of them were active in the local administration of Wiltshire or other counties. If the bishops’ nephew, Robert Booth became one of the wealthier landowners in Bedfordshire through his first marriage, since the dower estates of his bride, the wealthy widow of John Enderby*, were worth over £80 p.a. Yet the match occurred after the Parliament in which Booth appears to have sat for Cricklade, since Enderby survived until 1457. On a lesser scale, Thomas Cricklade and John Long also greatly augmented their landed holdings through their marriages, both contracted before they first entered Parliament. According to his assessment for the subsidy of 1412, Cricklade held lands worth at least 20 marks p.a. and he had his legal earnings to supplement his landed income. His eldest son, Robert, who appears to have died before coming into his inheritance, was also a substantial figure. Important enough for inclusion in the list of those Wiltshire residents the government required to swear the oath against maintenance of 1434, he must also have enjoyed a significant income as a lawyer. The total value of the properties held by Long and his wife is uncertain, but it probably well exceeded the £20 p.a. given in the tax assessments of 1451 and the £26 p.a. suggested at their inquisitions post mortem. There are also assessments from 1451 of just £3 p.a. in lands for William Kemell of Widhill (further evidence that he was very much of the lesser gentry), and a mere £2 for ‘John Huberd of Wiltshire’, perhaps the MP of 1437. Subsidy and post mortem evidence for the rest of the 29 is singularly lacking although Needham must have accrued significant moveable wealth in London and the will of Geoffrey Mone, another resident of the City, indicates that he was a relatively prosperous figure. Needham’s role as an attestor in three of London’s parliamentary elections in the mid fifteenth century is a further indication of his substance. Similarly, the participation of John Wotton in the return of the knights of the shire for Gloucestershire to the Parliament of 1427 and of Long and the Cricklades in several returns for the county of Wiltshire during the reigns of Henry V and Henry VI suggests that they possessed interests of at least some significance in those counties.

Thanks to the complete loss of Cricklade’s records, there is no evidence for the borough offices that some of the MPs may have exercised or what part, if any, the tenure of such positions might have played in their return to the Commons. Only Thomas Cricklade, Castlecombe and Needham certainly held office directly under the Crown at a county level, but Needham neither performed those responsibilities in Wiltshire nor exercised them before sitting for Cricklade in the Parliament of 1442. Similarly, while Castelcombe was a subordinate of the sheriff of Wiltshire in 1456-7 this was two decades after he had sat in his last known Parliament. Assuming he was the bishops’ nephew of that name, another of the 29, Robert Booth, played a more significant role in local government than any of these three men but, like Needham, he did not do so in Wiltshire or until after representing Cricklade in the county. The office-holding records of two of the other MPs, John Bailey and William Clement, indicate that they were already of mature years when they took up their seats. By contrast, John Long entered the Commons in 1442 aged only about 20 and there is no evidence of his holding any office before (or, indeed, after) that date.

Some of the 29 found employment on estates belonging to the Crown or in the royal household. Thomas Cricklade and Bailey were verderers of royal forests in Wiltshire when elected to the Parliaments of 1422 and 1427 respectively, and by the end of Henry VI’s reign, if not before his election in 1459, Hugh Pierson was the queen’s parker at Devizes. It is likely that Needham was already a ranger in one of these forests, Clarendon, at the time of his return to the Parliament of 1442, but he owed the appointment to his patron, Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, rather than the King. Outside Wiltshire, Howton served as a feodary of the duchy of Lancaster in the neighbouring counties of Oxfordshire and Berkshire prior to gaining election as a burgess for Cricklade for the second time in 1453. It seems safe to assume that Pierson and his fellow in 1459, William Clement, a groom of the Chamber in the late 1430s, sat in the King’s interest given the political circumstances of the Parliament of that year. At least two of the other MPs are likely to have gained their seats through an association with the Court. Cricklade’s representatives in the Parliament of 1447, Thomas Child and William Whetnals, were probably the men of those names respectively appointed to the offices of yeoman of the King’s buckhounds and yeoman of the King’s cellar not long after the dissolution of that assembly. It is also possible that John Green gained election to the Parliament of 1433 while a yeoman of the royal avenary and that Robert Bentham was another minor Household man.

While some of the 29 enjoyed royal patronage, others among them either certainly or probably enjoyed connexions with important magnates, lay and ecclesiastical, or other significant figures. Howton, for example, counted the abbey of Cirencester and Sir Edmund Hungerford* (a younger son of Walter, Lord Hungerford) among his patrons at the time of his election in 1449. His fellow lawyer, Wrythe, may have served the powerful Beauforts, although it is unclear if he was still associated with that family at the time of his election in 1450. Assuming that he was the bishops’ nephew, Robert Booth may have enjoyed his uncles’ support when standing for the Parliament of 1455. Needham was a household servant of Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, a tie that probably explains his election in 1442, given the lack of previous connexions between him and Cricklade or, indeed, the wider county of Wiltshire. Bailey had been a retainer of the Montagu earls of Salisbury since the late fourteenth century, while at the time of his election in 1435 William Gatcombe, formerly in the service of the distinguished Sir William Sturmy*, was associated with Sturmy’s grandson and coheir the shire knight John Seymour I* and accompanied him to the Commons. Finally, John Long’s father was a trustee and legal adviser of Walter, Lord Hungerford. Notwithstanding the Long family’s ties with Lord Hungerford and the patronage that Howton received from Sir Edmund Hungerford, it is worth reiterating that there is no evidence of associations between the other MPs and the Hungerfords, or of ties between any of the 29 and another magnate with an immediate connexion with the borough, Richard, duke of York. It therefore appears that neither the Hungerfords nor York had much interest in securing the borough’s seats for their followers, a disinterest apparently shared with the lords of the borough and hundred of Cricklade and of the manor of Abingdon Court in the decades immediately preceding 1422.10 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 693.

There is no evidence that the most experienced MP of the 29, Robert Cricklade, who sat in at least nine Parliaments in the space of a decade and a half, had a patron to thank for his parliamentary career. Of the others returned to more than one Parliament, Howton was elected on at least five occasions; Thomas Cricklade, Ludwell and Needham on four; Gatcombe on three and Bailey, Bentham, Castelcombe, Child, Clement, John Cricklade, Mone and Selwood on two. Assuming he was the Member elected for Westbury in 1459, Robert Booth also sat in at least two Parliaments. Yet it should be noted that although 15 of the 29 sat in more than one Parliament in the course of their careers, only four (Thomas and Robert Cricklade, Castelcombe and Howton) were returned for this particular constituency, Cricklade, for two or more times. Fourteen of them also represented other boroughs, with the exception of Needham (MP for Dover in 1445 and 1447 and London in 1460) and Mone (a burgess for Bridgwater in 1437), all in Wiltshire, and six were experienced parliamentarians who had already done so before their elections for Cricklade. Just three of the MPs, Thomas Cricklade, Bailey and Ludwell, certainly began their parliamentary careers before Henry VI’s reign, and there is no evidence that any of the 29 sat after that King was ousted from the throne. Notwithstanding the gaps in the evidence, it would appear that Cricklade had its most continuous period of representation in terms of personnel during the first 11 years of the reign. Thomas Cricklade and his sons Robert and John represented the borough in at least four of eight Parliaments in those years, including that of 1422 when Thomas and Robert sat together.

For much of the first half of the fifteenth century Cricklade, Chippenham and the other Wiltshire boroughs sent delegates to the county court for the drawing up of the formal returns of their MPs. By that stage, however, the boroughs had probably already chosen their representatives, presumably in the local court of the borough and hundred in the case of Cricklade. While administratively convenient for the sheriff, this system (introduced in 1407 and ended by a statute of the Parliament of 1445) was open to abuse, since it was particularly easy for him to insert the names of his own candidates on the official return. For the greater part of the period under review the sheriff simply recorded the names of the boroughs’ MPs in schedules attached to the returns for Wiltshire’s knights of the shire, and it was only in the later years of the reign that individual election indentures were drawn up for each borough.11 M. McKisack, Parlty. Repn. English Bors. 59-60. Of those borough indentures still extant, none save that for Wotton Bassett in February 1449 predates 1453, and there are just two for Cricklade – relating to the Parliaments of 1453 and 1455. The first, bearing the same date as the indenture for the county, 27 Feb. 1453, was between the sheriff of Wiltshire, Edmund Stradlyng, on the one hand, and representatives of the borough on the other. It features eight named attestors, including the two constables of the hundred and town of Cricklade and John Huberd, perhaps the MP of 1437, and an undisclosed number of ‘other burgesses’. Possibly the indenture of 1455, drawn up 11 days after the election of Wiltshire’s knights of the shire, took the same form as that of 1453, but only the names of the then sheriff, George Darell, and one of the attestors, Thomas Waleys, are fully visible on this badly damaged document.12 C219/16/2, 3. For the next Parliament, that of 1459, there are no extant indentures for any of the Wiltshire boroughs although a fragmentary schedule supplies the names of the representatives of most of them. This mutilated survival is of especial interest for its erasures, over which are written several of the MPs’ names, including those of the burgesses for Cricklade, William Clement and Hugh Pierson. Possibly the latter two men were not the free choice of the electors and, notwithstanding the statute of 1445, the sheriff had rejected the original candidates. Their election came at a particularly low point in Yorkist fortunes, not least those of the lord of Cricklade, Richard, duke of York. As already noted, Clement was a groom of the Chamber in the late 1430s and Pierson may already have entered the queen’s service by 1459.