Great Bedwyn

Situated some six miles from Marlborough and fewer than five from Hungerford in Berkshire, Great Bedwyn was overshadowed by both urban communities. Its taxable population of just 87 adults in 1377 indicates that it was among the smallest and least important of the Wiltshire boroughs represented in the period here under review.1 VCH Wilts. iv. 309. Earlier in the Middle Ages the town, then containing 25 burgages and a royal mint, had been a relatively prosperous centre of the Wiltshire woollen industry, and it was then that its large and magnificent church had been built and a prebend of Salisbury cathedral established there. Long before the fifteenth century, however, the mint was moved to Marlborough, the trade in cloth virtually disappeared and Great Bedwyn dwindled into insignificance. Writing 100 years later Leland could describe the vill as ‘but a poore thinge to syght’.2 Ibid. 117-19; J. Leland, Itin. ed. Toulmin Smith, v. 79-80.

Henry I alienated the surrounding hundred of Kinwardstone, the manor of Wexcombe and other lands appurtenant to Bedwyn to the Marshal family, from whom they descended to the Staffords. The feudal lordship of the borough passed down the generations in the same way. From 1403, owing to the minority of Humphrey, earl of Stafford, wardship of the liberty fell to Henry IV’s queen, Joan of Navarre, as part of her dower estates. She in turn leased it to her chief steward, Sir William Sturmy*, whose seat at Wolf Hall lay in close proximity to Bedwyn, and whose considerable influence in the locality was further enhanced by his position as hereditary warden of the nearby forest of Savernake. Although the earl of Stafford came of age and entered his patrimony in 1423,3 CIPM, xxii. 369; CPR, 1422-9, p. 75. it appears that Sturmy continued to farm Bedwyn and the neighbouring estate until his death in 1427.4 Stafford held the borough as well as the hundred and Wexcombe in 1428: Feudal Aids, v. 264. For rents paid to him from burgages in Bedwyn in the 1440s and 1450s, see Add. rolls 27679, 28005, 28006. Bedwyn’s burghal status rested on prescription alone, and it did not possess any municipal institutions. The area was probably administered by men appointed by Sturmy, and after his death the most important local officials were the earl of Stafford’s bailiff and the steward of his estate. Since 1405 the latter post had been filled by John Bird* – who served under the queen, Sturmy and Stafford in sequence – and from the mid 1440s it was held by the Stafford nominee John Stourton II*, created Lord Stourton in 1448.

Although before Richard II’s reign Great Bedwyn had been rarely represented in Parliament, it did send Members to at least ten of the 16 Parliaments assembled between 1378 and 1390 (Jan.). Thereafter, in the years before Henry VI’s accession, returns were made only for the Parliaments of 1399, 1420 and 1421 (Dec.). While the borough was represented fairly consistently throughout the rest of the fifteenth century, in Henry VI’s reign gaps in the returns remain for the Parliaments of 1425, 1439, 1445 and 1460. Furthermore, one of the representatives is impossible to identify (an MP in 1455, whose last name, illegible on the return, began with a C), and ‘Daneell’, an MP in 1447 whose first name is similarly illegible, can only tentatively be identified with Thomas Daniell the prominent member of the royal household. It is nevertheless certain that 30 different individuals took the 36 recorded seats.

Very few of these individuals displayed any strong commitment to serving Great Bedwyn in Parliament, for 25 of them only ever represented this constituency once, and of the rest four (Richard Bridges, Collingbourne, Hall and Hardene) did so just twice. Welles was exceptional in sitting for Great Bedwyn three times in the period here under review. For the most part the seats were filled by men lacking any previous experience of the Commons: 25 of the 36 places were taken by apparent newcomers. It is worthy of remark, too, that on five of the 11 occasions that an experienced man was returned, he had gained that experience by previously representing a different constituency. Only in 1432 had both of Great Bedwyn’s MPs been elected to the Commons before, and both of them had sat in the immediately preceding Parliament (Collingbourne for this same borough and Bridges for Ludgershall). This was very much out of the ordinary. Otherwise, re-election to consecutive Parliaments only happened in November 1449, in the case of Welles.

Although they may have rarely represented Great Bedwyn, as many as 14 of the 30 MPs sat for other constituencies in the course of their careers, a statistic which clearly demonstrates that these men were far from reluctant to enter Parliament, albeit not overly concerned about which community returned them. Eight of the 14 were elected for different boroughs in the same county of Wiltshire (Welles for Downton, Richard Bridges for Ludgershall, Collingbourne, Erle and Furbour for Marlborough, Skargill for Westbury, John Sturmy for Ludgershall and Marlborough, and William Bridges for Downton and Wootton Bassett); others were returned for boroughs in the neighbouring counties of Dorset (Hall for Weymouth, Mallory for Wareham, Skargill for Bridport and Umfray for Lyme Regis), and Somerset (Tropenell for Bath); while Boteler and William Bridges represented more distant places (Coventry and Southwark, respectively). Furthermore, one of this group, Welles, went on to secure election as a knight of the shire (for Hampshire).5 If ‘Daneell’ may be identified as Thomas Daniell, he had previously sat for Cornw. and was elected for Bucks. to the same Parl. of 1447.

These statistics might suggest that the borough’s representation was heavily dominated by outsiders, but this was only true for the latter part of Henry VI’s reign, after the King attained his majority; it was not the case in the 1420s and 1430s. In effect, the period may be divided into two contrasting parts. In the Parliaments assembled from 1420 to 1437 men from the immediate locality of Bedwyn, or at least resident within the bounds of Wiltshire, well outnumbered those coming from elsewhere, with only three of the 24 recorded seats being definitely taken by outsiders.6 Thomas Hussey I (in December 1421), Lynby (1433) and Hall (1435). Both of the representatives in the Parliaments of 1422, 1423, 1426, 1431, and one of those elected to six more Parliaments (1420, 1421 (Dec.), 1427, 1432, 1435 and 1437) came from Bedwyn or its neighbourhood. These local men were John Benger†, Chancy, Collingbourne, Corp, Erle, Furbour, Hardene, Maurice Hommedieux†, Polton, Stokke and John Sturmy, and to this group of 11 may perhaps also be added Panter. Given that the borough had been largely unrepresented in the fourteenth century it is hardly surprising that no strong family traditions of service in the Commons had been established, although Polton came from a family which had supplied former MPs for Marlborough, and Robert Collingbourne was the son and heir of Richard Collingbourne†, who had also represented that borough in the past. Those coming from elsewhere in Wiltshire in this early part of the period were John Everard II* (from Salisbury), Richard Bridges (perhaps also from that city), Thomas Tropenell (then living at Neston) and Robert Wotton (whose place of residence is not known, but whose putative kinsman Nicholas Wotton II* was shortly to acquire the manor of Little Bedwyn).

For the most part those returned between 1420 and 1437 were men of relatively modest means, possessed of only a small amount of property. Even the lawyer Tropenell had at this early stage in his career (in 1429) scarcely begun to fulfil his ambition to become a landowner of substance; we can only speculate that he already exhibited the exceptional qualities which would later make him an indispensable retainer to the baronial family of Hungerford. Two other MPs of these years were also men of law, active as attorneys at the assizes or in the central courts at Westminster: Hardene (1423, 1426), a ‘gentleman’ and former clerk of the peace in Wiltshire, and Collingbourne (1431, 1432), who had been educated at Winchester College. Furbour (1435), although disparagingly referred to in lawsuits as a mere ‘husbandman’ or ‘yeoman’, may be better described as an administrator, given his roles as bailiff of the Wiltshire liberties belonging to St. Swithins priory, Winchester, and later if not already of the hundred of Kinwardstone, an office he owed to the earl of Stafford.

In the early 1420s Sir William Sturmy’s influence over the borough’s representation may be readily discerned. In 1420 his retainer and feoffee John Benger was elected for Great Bedwyn with another close associate, John Everard II; and in 1422 one of the seats fell to his nephew Robert Erle (Sturmy’s right-hand man, whom he later named as an executor and legatee of lands worth £40 p.a.), while the other went to Stokke, a retainer always ready to be of use to Sir William and his circle. The connexion of Chancy (1423) with the knight is less well-documented, but his fellow MP Hardene was another feoffee of Sturmy’s lands, and George Polton, Hardene’s companion in 1426, was the nephew of Thomas Polton, bishop of Worcester, who as Sturmy’s friend was asked to oversee the administration of his will. After Sir William’s death, Great Bedwyn elected in 1431 his illegitimate son and executor, John Sturmy, who enjoyed amicable relations with the legitimate coheir to the Sturmy estates, John Seymour I* (his own nephew of the half-blood).

Few of the local men returned for Great Bedwyn in the 1420s and 1430s made much of a mark beyond their immediate neighbourhood, although Chancy had been appointed warrener of Purbeck in Dorset by Henry IV (a post he retained until his death over 40 years later), and as already mentioned Hardene had served as clerk of the peace in Wiltshire. Only Chancy and John Sturmy were ever appointed to royal commissions (both of them to collect parliamentary subsidies in the county), and, after his two Parliaments for Bedwyn, Collingbourne served two terms of office as under sheriff of Gloucestershire and another of Somerset and Dorset. A few of this group were of sufficient standing to be named as attestors at the elections of the knights of the shire for Wiltshire, conducted at the county court at Wilton: Chancy, Polton, Sturmy (twice), Tropenell and Wotton (each three times), Collingbourne (five times, including on the two occasions that he was returned for this borough), and Erle (six times including in 1422 when he was returned for Bedwyn).

The three outsiders elected before 1437 came from contrasting backgrounds. Thomas Hussey I* (December 1421), probably a lawyer, became a landowner of substance in Dorset, where his interests were focused; Lynby (1433), an attorney originally from Nottinghamshire, although currently living in Hertfordshire, worked as a clerk at the Exchequer; and Hall (1435), generally described as a ‘gentleman’ or ‘yeoman’, was a servant of the chancellor John Stafford, bishop of Bath and Wells. The last, Hall, was also to be numbered among the outsiders who dominated the representation of Bedwyn in the 1440s and 1450s. Indeed, by contrast to the period 1420-37, in the years 1442 to 1460 the borough’s representation was completely taken over by outsiders: not a single local man secured a seat. Even the two MPs known to have had landed interests in the county (Alderley and Notte) had no recorded association with Bedwyn itself. Outsiders to Wiltshire filled at least 13 of the 16 recorded seats, and it looks as if both MPs in six of the eight Parliaments (1442, 1447, 1449 (Feb.), 1449 (Nov.), 1453 and 1459), were of this sort.

Four of them were lawyers: Welles (1442 and both Parliaments of 1449), a member of the Inner Temple, came from Hampshire where he was currently engaged in the service of St. Swithins priory, and was made deputy steward of the bishop of Winchester’s estates at some point before Michaelmas 1449; Boteler, Welles’s companion in 1449 (Feb.), had been brought up in Coventry, a borough which he later served as recorder and MP after it was enfranchised in 1451; Umfray (1453), coming from an Essex background, was a fellow and former pensioner of Lincolns Inn; and Alderley (1455), probably from a Gloucestershire family, was an attorney in the court of common pleas. Another was an administrator: William Bridges (1450), a ‘gentleman’ from Southwark, was the receiver-general of King’s College, Cambridge, recently founded by the King.

There is no sign that Humphrey, earl of Stafford (and from 1444 duke of Buckingham), or the staff on his estates showed any particular interest in the representation of Great Bedwyn. Nor is there much evidence of links between the MPs and the royal court, save that both men returned to the Parliament of 1447, summoned to meet at Bury St. Edmunds, may have been members of the Household. To this Parliament, notable for the numbers of royal retainers in the Commons, Great Bedwyn returned one of the yeomen of the King’s chamber (Skargill, a Yorkshireman who lived at Havering atte Bower in Essex), together with ‘— Daneell’, who if correctly identified as Thomas Daniell, was one of the King’s henchmen and usher of his chamber. Daniell had already risen far from his Cheshire origins, and was currently beneficiary of Henry VI’s patronage with offices in the north of England and Warwickshire as well as being a j.p. in Buckinghamshire, searcher in the port of London and sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk.

A notable and unusual feature of the outsiders returned for Bedwyn is that several of them had close links with the Exchequer, or were clerks in other departments of government. As already noted, Lynby was an attorney and clerk in the Exchequer, and Hall a servant of the chancellor. Mallory, a young Cambridgeshire esquire returned to the Parliament of 1449 (Nov.), belonged to the circle of Exchequer officials associated with Thomas Thorpe* the treasurer’s remembrancer, as also did Umfray, who was elected in 1453 to the Parliament at Reading which saw Thorpe elected as Speaker of the Commons. Umfray’s companion in that Parliament was Richard Baron, who for the previous 20 years had held office as one of the two ushers of the chambers where Parliament and great councils met. Finally, to the Coventry Parliament of 1459 the borough returned another of the royal clerks: Alomby, a man of possibly northern origins who worked in the office of the privy seal. It seems likely that the Lancastrian government found it useful to have members of its administrative staff sitting in the Commons, especially at this stage in the country’s descent into civil war. Nevertheless, it remains a mystery as to why the obscure Geoffrey Southworth was returned with Alomby, for, coming from a Lancashire family though then living in Yorkshire, he had no known links with the central government.

Although we shall probably never learn precisely how Great Bedwyn’s representatives came to be chosen, we cannot ignore the signs of repeated interference in the electoral process. During the fourteenth century parliamentary elections at Bedwyn had been initiated by a precept sent by the sheriff of Wiltshire to the earl of Stafford’s bailiff, and probably took place in the manorial court. In common with the other Wiltshire boroughs, in the fifteenth century returns were made on schedules sent by the sheriff to Chancery along with the indentures recording the elections of the knights of the shire. Evidence that these schedules were regularly tampered with may provide a clue regarding the mechanisms employed to secure the return of outsiders, or otherwise influence the result. Thus, on the schedule for the Parliament of 1421 (Dec.) the name of Thomas Hussey was written over an erasure; in 1422 those of both Bedwyn MPs were inserted in a different hand and ink from the rest of the schedule; in 1426 Polton’s name covered an erasure and was given as Geoffrey rather than the much more likely George; while similar tampering replaced the names of individuals originally returned with those of Lynby in 1433, Hall in 1442 and Boteler in 1449 (Feb.).7 C219/12/6; 13/1, 4; 14/4; 15/2, 6. Indentures for the separate Wiltshire boroughs have for the most part been lost. In Bedwyn’s case they survive only for the Parliaments of 1453 and 1455. That for the former, dated 24 Feb. 1453 and made with the sheriff Edmund Stradling, stated that the ‘burgesses of the borough’ had elected Umfray and Baron, and that the seals of Robert Collingbourne and Thomas Gilpryn were attached to authenticate the return on behalf of all their fellows. Even so, the names of both MPs recorded on the indenture were written over erasures. Yet, as on the earlier occasions when the schedules had been tampered with, we can only guess at what stage the names of Umfray, the Lincolns Inn lawyer, and Baron, the usher of the Parliament chamber, were inserted in the document. Perhaps the substitution was not made until after the Parliament assembled at Reading, and at the behest of a royal government seeking to fill the Commons with its supporters or at least compliant yes-men.8 C219/16/2. The indenture of 1455 is too damaged to reveal similar discrepancies: C219/16/3. Similarly, in what had by then become a regular practice, the names of Great Bedwyn’s MPs for the Parliament summoned to Coventry in 1459 (the privy-seal clerk, Alomby, and the obscure Southworth), were written on the schedule in the place of two others which were rubbed out.9 C219/16/5.

A postscript may be added to this discussion of the representation of Great Bedwyn in Henry VI’s reign. It was claimed in the late seventeenth century that this unimportant and minor township had been granted a charter by Edward IV. In 1673 Charles II formally confirmed a charter dated 30 Nov. 1468 whereby Edward IV granted to the ‘men and residents’ of ‘his’ town of Great Bedwyn that it would be a free borough incorporated in the name of a single bailiff, burgesses and community. The bailiff was to be elected annually at the feast of the Annunciation (25 Mar.), and to have the authority of a j.p. The burgesses could hold a market every week on Monday and two fairs every year (one at the Annunciation, the other at Michaelmas); and they were to be free of tolls throughout the realm. In return they should pay an annual rent of 46s. 9d. into the Exchequer. But all was not as it would appear. This charter was not enrolled either on the charter rolls or the patent rolls of Edward IV’s reign, and no record of any annual payment from the borough into the Exchequer has been found in that period. At the time of the supposed grant the lord of the Bedwyn estate was Henry, duke of Buckingham, a minor whose wardship had been granted to the King in 1464 by the dowager-duchess Anne and Archbishop Bourgchier, her co-executor of the late Duke Humphrey’s will, and then transferred by the King initially to his sister and then, in 1465, to his queen. Custody of the ward’s estates had remained with the dowager-duchess, who married (Sir) Walter Blount*, Lord Mountjoy.10 CPR, 1461-7, pp. 298, 324, 463-4. It is, therefore, hard to determine to whose advantage a grant of a charter to Bedwyn might have been. Rather, we may suspect that the charter was a forgery produced on behalf of the manorial overlords in the seventeenth century and for their own political ends. It looks as if it was copied from the charter which Edward IV granted to Much Wenlock on the previous day, 29 Nov. 1468. The initial clauses are the same: the ‘men and residents’ of the town were incorporated in the name of a bailiff, burgesses and community, and the bailiff was to be elected annually (albeit at Michaelmas) and to be a j.p. The weekly market was to be held on a Monday too, and the burgesses were to be quit of tolls. Yet Much Wenlock was given far more concessions, and was not obliged to render anything at the Exchequer.11 C66/3140, no. 15; CChR, vi. 229-32. For Great Bedwyn in 1673 (although the charter is not mentioned) see The Commons 1660-90, i. 445-7.