Suffolk

In the later Middle Ages Suffolk was one of the most populated and economically advanced counties of England. As identified by an anonymous antiquarian of the early seventeenth century, it consisted of three geographical regions: a central wood-pasture area with fertile soils and the greatest concentration of population; a coastal strip of sheep-corn husbandry; and the breckland, an area of poor soils in the north-west best suited to the farming of sheep and rabbits.2 Historical Atlas Suff. (revised edn.) ed. Dymond and Martin, 20, 80, 147; Chorography Suff. (Suff. Rec. Soc. xix), 19-20. Suffolk contained two substantial franchises, the liberty of St. Etheldreda in the south-east, belonging to the prior and monks of Ely, and the liberty of the abbey of Bury St. Edmunds in the west. The remainder of the county, known as the ‘Geldable’, was under direct royal jurisdiction and shared a sheriff and escheator with Norfolk; it had a northern capital at Beccles and a southern one at Ipswich. When royal taxes were levied, the Geldable paid half of Suffolk’s contribution and the two monastic liberties the remainder, with the abbey of Bury paying two parts to Ely’s one. There also existed several other, generally fragmented liberties. The honour of Clare, centred on Clare castle, also extended into Essex. During Henry VI’s reign it belonged successively to Edmund, earl of March (d.1425), and his nephew and heir, Richard, duke of York. The honour of Eye belonged to the de la Pole earls and dukes of Suffolk, and through it they exercised jurisdiction over scattered parts of east Suffolk. Associated with Eye was the honour of Haughley, sometimes known as the ‘honour of the constable’ because of its close connexion with the office of constable of Dover. Finally, the bishop of Norwich possessed a liberty centred on Elmham in north-east Suffolk. Another liberty, the duchy of Lancaster, was not a significant presence in the county, for its estates there were negligible in comparison to its holdings in Norfolk.3 Historical Atlas Suff. 26, 193; H.R. Castor, King, Crown and Duchy of Lancaster, 56.

The greatest lay landowners in East Anglia were the Mowbrays, although the family exercised little influence in the region during the lifetime of John Mowbray, 2nd duke of Norfolk. Between 1415 and 1425, he spent much of his time in France and the majority of his manors in the region were in the hands of dowager relatives for most of his life.4 T. John, ‘Sir Thomas Erpingham’, Norf. Archaeology, xxxv. 100; ; R.E. Archer, ‘The Mowbrays’ (Oxford Univ. D.Phil. thesis, 1984), 149; Castor, 104-5. The argument of Archer and Castor, that the 2nd duke was little involved in E. Anglian affairs, is followed here, in preference to the claim in R. Virgoe, E. Anglian Soc. ed. Barron, Rawcliffe and Rosenthal, 109, that he was the dominant figure in East Anglia in the later 1420s. His son and heir, who succeeded to the dukedom in 1432, sought a much more active part in East Anglian affairs. The third duke was an inept lord but political circumstances in the later years of Henry VI’s reign allowed him a greater role in the region than he had previously enjoyed. By contrast, William de la Pole, successively earl, marquess and duke of Suffolk, proved a much more effective patron for the local gentry, even though he himself spent little time there. By the late 1430s, he was the most influential magnate in East Anglia, a position bolstered by his successful career as a royal adviser and courtier. His affinity was strong enough to survive him and to continue serving his widow after his downfall and death in 1450. Yet de la Pole dominance was far from complete, and from the mid 1430s onwards (and especially during the 1440s and 1450s) disputes between de la Pole’s followers and those of Mowbray plagued the region and on several occasions these quarrels spilled over into parliamentary elections.5 Castor, 68-70, 74, 83, 93, 94; Virgoe, 109-15.

At least 21 men sat for Suffolk in Henry VI’s reign although it is possible that it had as many as 27 MPs in this period, since the names of the Members for 1425, 1426 and 1460 are unknown. The county’s returns to these three Parliaments and those of 1439 and 1445 have not survived, but commissions to distribute tax allowances reveal the names of those returned to the latter two assemblies. All of the 21 were either primarily resident in Suffolk or possessed sufficient interests there to represent the county in Parliament. Most were natives of East Anglia, with the likes of Thomas Brewes, Sir Henry Inglose, John Shardelowe, Miles Stapleton, Sir Thomas Tuddenham and the Wingfields belonging to well established local families, although some of them were originally from elsewhere. Sir Edmund Mulsho came from Northamptonshire; Sir William Wolf was probably Welsh; and John Timperley, who settled in Suffolk after entering the service of the Mowbrays, appears to have had roots in northern England. It is also likely that John Wodehouse, a man of obscure origin who rose to great wealth and influence, was not originally from East Anglia.

Whether natives or newcomers, the 21 were not as a group predominantly associated with any one part of Suffolk and a majority of them also possessed interests outside the county, mainly in the neighbouring shires of Norfolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire. Several of them did however inherit or acquire properties further afield. Inglose purchased a manor in Rutland and Wolf possessed a manor and other holdings in Middlesex and London in the right of his wife. Tuddenham inherited lands in Yorkshire, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire and John Harleston his father’s manor at Dunton in Bedfordshire. Brewes inherited property in Lincolnshire, Stapleton estates in Berkshire, Hampshire, Wiltshire and Yorkshire and Philip Wentworth manors and lands in Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and Kent. Mulsho succeeded to lands in his native Northamptonshire and Timperley received properties in Surrey by grant of the duke of Norfolk shortly after sitting in the Parliament of 1445. It was only after Henry VI’s reign that John Howard began to acquire significant holdings outside Suffolk: although elected as a knight of the shire for Norfolk in 1455, there were serious objections to his candidature owing to his lack of ‘lyvelode’ and ‘conversement’ there.6 Paston Letters ed. Davis, ii. 119-21.

As was the case in the three and a half decades before 1422,7 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 613. the parliamentary representation of Suffolk was not the preserve of just a few landed families in Henry VI’s reign. The two Wingfields were the only father and son to sit for the county in the period 1422-61, although John Howard was his namesake Sir John’s grandson and Gilbert Debenham the son of the Gilbert Debenham† elected as one of Suffolk’s knights of the shire in 1402. The Wingfields nevertheless continued to supply knights of the shire in the later fifteenth century and beyond and Sir Roger Chamberlain’s son Sir Robert† would represent the county in the Parliament of 1472. Again, in common with the period 1386-1421,8 Ibid. i. 614. there were few notable ties of kinship or marriage between the MPs, although Brewes was Shardelowe’s cousin and heir and Tuddenham was Wodehouse’s ward and son-in-law. Given the lands and wealth involved, the Tuddenham-Wodehouse alliance was potentially very significant, but it proved a failure because the marriage was childless and ended in divorce.9 Virgoe, 117-31.

Reflecting a trend already prevalent in Suffolk and elsewhere in the kingdom before the period under review,10 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 614. only eight of the 21 sat in one or more Parliaments of Henry VI’s reign as actual knights.11 Chamberlain, Sir John Howard, Inglose, Mulsho, Tuddenham, Wentworth, Sir Robert Wingfield and Wolf, of whom Wentworth represented the county in the first two of his known Parls. while an esq. Six others,12 Brewes, John Howard, Jenney, Shardelowe, Stapleton and Robert Wingfield. however, received knighthoods having represented Suffolk for the first (or only) time or not until after the end of the reign. In just 11 of the 20 Parliaments of Henry VI’s reign for which the names of the county’s representatives have survived did at least one belted knight sit for Suffolk, and at only two elections (those of 1429 and 1450) did the county’s electors certainly return two together. Similarly, a minority of the MPs for Norfolk sat in the Commons as knights proper. By stark contrast, all bar two of the known MPs for Suffolk of the mid Tudor period were belted knights.13 The Commons 1509-58, i. 189. Yet social status did matter, since most of the MPs were of considerable standing in the county when they stood for Parliament, whether actual knights or not.

Just one of the 21, John Howard, subsequently attained a peerage and sat in the Lords, but not until after Henry VI’s reign. Although not born into great landed wealth, Howard was a relative of the Mowbray dukes of Norfolk. His grandfather and namesake also had high social connexions, since Sir John Howard’s mother was the daughter of a peer and grand-daughter of William de Ufford, 2nd earl of Suffolk. The Howards were not the only men with such connexions. Shortly before his only known election as a knight of the shire for Suffolk, Stapleton (high-born in his own right) took for his second wife a grand-daughter of Michael de la Pole, de Ufford’s successor as earl of Suffolk. Furthermore, Sir Robert Wingfield’s mother-in-law was a sister and eventual coheir of Thomas Fitzalan, earl of Arundel (d.1415), and the widow of the first Mowbray duke of Norfolk.

Not long after sitting in his first Parliament, John Howard, yet to be knighted, saw military service for he fought at Castillon, the final defeat for the English in France, in 1453. Knighthood was still associated with the pursuit of arms in this period and, like Howard, at least six of the other belted knights among the MPs (Chamberlain, Sir John Howard, Inglose, Mulsho, Sir Robert Wingfield and Wolf) had already served in the King’s wars, whether in France or elsewhere, when they entered Parliament for the first (or only) time.14 Furthermore, it is possible that Tuddenham had won his knighthood serving across the Channel. Two of the other MPs who received knighthoods, Shardelowe and Stapleton, served the Crown in a military capacity after entering Parl. for the first or only time. Three of those who never received the honour of knighthood (Debenham, Timperley and William Tyrell) likewise either probably or possibly campaigned across the Channel before becoming parliamentarians. The successful military careers of Inglose and Mulsho in particular had an important bearing on their standing at home. The spoils of war gave Inglose the means significantly to augment his English estates and so to enhance his status in East Anglia. Mulsho, a younger son, settled in Suffolk after Richard, duke of York, his military commander in France, granted him a manor at Cavendish and other lands there, and it was by virtue of these properties that he was able to sit for the county in Parliament.

Only John Howard and the Lancastrian Wentworth were certainly active in the civil wars at home. Their participation had some consequence for their parliamentary careers, since each sat in assemblies called when the faction he supported was in the ascendant in national politics. In the end, both would die violent deaths for their partisanship. Howard famously fell at Bosworth and the Yorkists executed Wentworth after the battle of Hexham in 1464. While two of the other MPs, Tuddenham and Tyrell, suffered death at the scaffold early in Edward IV’s reign, neither seems actually to have taken up arms for Henry VI at home.

The soldiers among the 21 easily outnumbered the lawyers, even though the ubiquity of attorneys in East Anglia led to calls in the Parliament of 1455 to restrict their number in the region. Only Thomas Cornwallis and William Jenney were definitely lawyers, even if it is likely that Harleston had also received a legal training. The same picture prevails for Norfolk, where just two of that county’s knights of the shire in this period, John Heydon* and John Roys*, were certainly lawyers, although a third, Edmund Wynter I*, was perhaps also educated in the law. Lawyers were apparently more prevalent in the parliamentary representation of Suffolk during 1386-1421 than they were in the period under review,15 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 614. but an increasing interest in securing a seat in the Commons among the established gentry of the shire may explain why fewer members of the legal profession (often men of no great family pedigree) gained election after the accession of Henry VI. Cornwallis, a far less distinguished practitioner of the law than Jenney, also had connexions with trade. Born in Whitechapel and the son of a vintner, he retained property in London, including a crane, wharf and cellars, suggesting that he kept up some of his father’s business concerns. At least six of the other MPs, Debenham, John Howard, Inglose, Mulsho, Stapleton and Wodehouse, involved themselves in commerce to a greater or lesser extent, and their business interests must sometimes have given them common cause with the burgesses with whom they attended Parliament.

Such interests provided several of the MPs, notably John Howard, with significant means to supplement their incomes from land. While a majority of the 21 possessed sizeable estates, it is impossible in most cases to make accurate assessments of their landed wealth. It would appear that Wentworth, who never fully came into his own, and Tuddenham were the heirs to the greatest inheritances. According to the inquisitions post mortem held in Norfolk and Suffolk after his death, the latter’s lands in those counties alone brought in an annual income of some £170, but the findings of such inquisitions were usually underestimates. Another of the 21, Sir John Howard, came into considerable estates in the right of his first wife. After her death, he retained for life ‘by the courtesy’ her lands in Cambridgeshire, Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk. Valued at over £117 p.a. in her inquisitions post mortem, they were probably worth considerably more. Likewise, Inglose’s assessment at £66 p.a. in lands for tax purposes in February 1451 was almost certainly another undervaluation. With regard to land purchases, the self-made Wodehouse made some particularly notable acquisitions. He bought no fewer than 18 manors (two in Cambridgeshire, four in Suffolk and a dozen in Norfolk), and a ‘mansion’ in Norwich, and he was said to have spent more than 2,000 marks building his manor-house at Roydon in south Norfolk.

Whatever the extent of their landholdings, all of the 21 except Mulsho held local government office in Suffolk under the Crown in one capacity or another, although only a dozen did so before becoming MPs. As in Norfolk, therefore, experience of such office was not a prerequisite for prospective knights of the shire. Similarly, maturity in terms of age was by no means essential: indeed, most of those who entered Parliament before serving in local government were still in their early adulthood and had lacked the opportunity to acquire administrative experience. Both John Howard and Shardelowe were only about 24 at the outset of their parliamentary careers, Wentworth was possibly as young as 23 when elected in 1447 and Harleston, Tuddenham and Robert Wingfield also first entered Parliament early in their adult lives. Most of these youthful MPs were from well established families, suggesting that acquiring a seat in the Commons had become part of the cursus honorum for those of rank in the county.

Ten of the 21 served as sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, of whom three held the office before becoming MPs.16 Yet one of these sheriffs, John Howard, did not attain the office until Edw. IV’s reign. Two of these appointees, Debenham and Stapleton, were simultaneously sheriffs and MPs in their first Parliaments, notwithstanding the bar on combining the two positions, and Wentworth was similarly made sheriff six days before his final Parliament assembled in 1459. Apart from these ten, Sir John Howard and Harleston also served as sheriff during their careers, but for different counties. Just five of the MPs held the lesser office of escheator although one of them, Henry Drury, served three terms in that position. Drury received his first appointment as escheator before entering Parliament and Stapleton and Timperley completed their only terms as such before sitting for the county. Brewes became escheator in the autumn of 1435 while attending his first Parliament, but Tyrell had already sat as an MP when he began his term as escheator. Fifteen of the 21 were j.p.s in Suffolk, two thirds of them after entering the Commons for the first or only time, and two others, Wodehouse and Inglose, held the office in Norfolk where most of their lands lay. Perhaps lending substance to hostile doubts raised about his legal qualifications in the mid 1450s, Cornwallis was among those who were never apparently j.p.s. Only Jenney and, very briefly, Harleston were on the quorum as commissioners of the peace and few of the others appointed to the bench were active members of it. A notable exception is Wolf, who worked at least 60 days as a j.p. between 1422 and his death in about 1445. With the exception of Shardelowe, all of the 21 served on ad hoc commissions, whether in Suffolk or elsewhere, with half of them receiving their appointments before becoming MPs. Just three of the 21 appear to have found employment on the Crown’s estates in Suffolk. Two of them, Wodehouse and Tuddenham, held the office of steward of the duchy of Lancaster in Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire (a position in which the latter succeeded the former) when elected for the county. The third, Wentworth, received an appointment as joint constable of Offton, a duchy castle near his home parish of Nettlestead of which he had acquired a lease, either immediately before or shortly after his election in 1449.

There is little doubt that Wentworth owed his interests at Offton to his membership of the royal household. He shared the office of constable with a fellow Household man, William Cotton*, and all the Parliaments in which he sat met in advantageous political circumstances for the Court. Wentworth’s membership of the Household was far from unique, since John Howard, Tyrell, Wodehouse and, perhaps, Wolf, certainly joined it prior to becoming a knight of the shire for Suffolk for the first (or only) time. Two others, Debenham and Tuddenham, also became Household men, as perhaps did Timperley. While neither Debenham nor Tuddenham appears to have joined the royal establishment until after first entering the Commons, the former was certainly one of the King’s esquires when he stood for election as a knight of the shire for Suffolk to his fifth known Parliament in early 1449. One of the Household men, Wodehouse also served the Lancastrian regime at a central government level, and he was both chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster and royal chamberlain of the Exchequer when elected to the Commons of 1422. As the duchy’s chancellor, he had an immediate interest in a particular matter that came before this assembly – the partition of the de Bohun inheritance – so it may well have been primarily in the Crown’s interest that he stood for this, his last Parliament.

The extremely influential Wodehouse enjoyed the acquaintance of many leading lay and ecclesiastical figures. By 1414, for example, he was in receipt of an annuity of ten marks charged on the issues of the lordship of Hanworth, Norfolk, by grant of John Mowbray, the Earl Marshal, and he was a proxy for the abbot of Bury St. Edmunds in the Parliament of 1423, an assembly of which he was not himself a Member. Yet it is unlikely that Wodehouse, a man of importance in his own right, owed anything to such acquaintances for his parliamentary career. All of his fellow MPs likewise had ties with at least one great magnate and, by contrast, these links did help some of them to gain election to the Commons. Wentworth, Tyrell and Tuddenham were firmly associated with the powerful William de la Pole, whose circle at one time or another also included Brewes, Inglose, Shardelowe, Stapleton and, perhaps, Wolf. Not all of these men were associated with that lord at the time of their elections, although Stapleton married his second wife, a de la Pole, prior to his return in 1439 and Wentworth and Tyrell were probably already de la Pole men when elected in 1447. It is nevertheless possible that Tuddenham (a former retainer of the late Thomas Beaufort, duke of Exeter), who subsequently earned considerable notoriety as an adherent of de la Pole, had yet to join the earl of Suffolk’s affinity at the time of his election in 1431. Like Tuddenham, three other MPs, Shardelowe, Wolf and Debenham, had also previously served that duke of Exeter, but Debenham ended up joining the affinity of the duke of Norfolk rather than that of de la Pole after Beaufort’s death in 1426. Inglose formed his link with de la Pole some time after sitting in his only Parliament as a knight of the shire for Suffolk, and it is unclear whether he enjoyed the support of an influential patron when he stood for the Commons in 1423. At that date his former lord, Thomas, duke of Clarence, whom he had served in France, was dead and it would appear that he had yet to enter the service of John, duke of Bedford. Chamberlain, Shardelowe and Wolf also campaigned with Bedford across the Channel, and the former went on to serve Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, the Mowbrays and Richard, duke of York. His connexion with Gloucester nearly proved fatal to him, for after the duke’s downfall and death in 1447 he narrowly avoided execution at Tyburn. Chamberlain’s subsequent election to the Parliament of 1450 bears testimony as to how quickly political circumstances and personal fortune in this unsettled period could change. It is likely that he had already entered the service of York, who had largely assumed Gloucester’s mantle in national politics, when he stood for election to that Parliament. Mulsho, his fellow knight of the shire, was certainly a retainer of York at this date. It is also possible that Cornwallis was one of York’s men when he stood for the previous Parliament of 1449-50. As for John Howard, the other representative for Suffolk in 1449-50, he may to some extent have had the duke of Norfolk to thank for his earliest advancement, including his election to that assembly. On the other hand, it is worth noting that Norfolk wielded limited influence in East Anglian politics during the 1440s,17 Castor, 111-12. and it is unlikely that either Howard or another Mowbray retainer, Timperley, one of the knights of the shire of 1445, owed their seats entirely to his intervention on their behalf.

Following the Parliament of 1449-50, Howard would not again sit for Suffolk until Edward IV’s reign although, as previously mentioned, he did controversially gain election for Norfolk in 1455. Chamberlain, Inglose, Stapleton, Tuddenham and Robert Wingfield also sat for Norfolk, where some of their estates lay, after representing Suffolk in their first Parliaments, although Wingfield did not do so until Edward IV’s reign. Wodehouse, by contrast, had sat in at least five earlier Lancastrian Parliaments as a knight of the shire for Norfolk prior to his election for Suffolk in 1422. Only he and Sir John Howard certainly entered Parliament before 1422, and only Brewes and John Howard are known to have gained election to the Commons after 1461. Apart from Sir John Howard, a knight of the shire for Essex in the reign of Richard II and for Cambridgeshire in the reign of Henry IV, at least three of the 21 sat for constituencies other than Norfolk or Suffolk: Sir Robert Wingfield represented Hertfordshire and Debenham Ipswich in their last and penultimate Parliaments respectively, while Jenney had served as a parliamentary burgess for Horsham and Dunwich before becoming a knight of the shire in 1455.

Following the summoning of Henry VI’s first Parliament, the Suffolk electorate chose to return two experienced parliamentarians, Sir John Howard, a leading member of the East Anglian gentry, and Wodehouse, a prominent servant of the Lancastrian dynasty. In the following Parliament, however, both knights of the shire were newcomers to the Commons and, so far as is known, this was also the case in the assemblies of 1427, 1431, 1447, 1449-50 and 1450. Yet the electors usually preferred to return at least one man with previous parliamentary experience and there was considerable continuity in the parliamentary representation of the shire. In each of the Parliaments of 1429, 1435, 1442 and February 1449 one of Suffolk’s MPs had sat for the county in the assembly immediately preceding and at least eight of the 21 represented it more than once in the period under review. Debenham sat for Suffolk on no fewer than six occasions, Wentworth and Sir Robert Wingfield on four, Harleston on three and Brewes, Drury, Tyrell and Wolf on two.

The elections, presided over by the sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, took place at the shire-house in Ipswich. The extant indentures returned to the Chancery were drawn up between the sheriff on the one hand and the county’s coroners and a varying number of attestors on the other.18 Although just one of the coroners was involved in the election of 1422. As far as the evidence goes, elections were generally far better attended from 1433 onwards, a period in which rivalries between members of the Mowbray and de la Pole affinities were a significant feature of local politics. To a large extent, these divisions were self-generating rather than orchestrated by the patrons of the two followings who, while influential, never enjoyed complete control over East Anglian elections.19 K.B. McFarlane, Eng. in the 15th Cent. 1-21. More often than not, William de la Pole did not involve himself directly in Suffolk’s affairs, and in only one election, that to the Parliament of 1447 (where his political rival Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, was brought down) were both of the county’s knights of the shire his clients. The MPs in question, Wentworth and Tyrell, were also attached to the Court, of which de la Pole himself was then the leading magnate member, as at that date was the current sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, Thomas Daniell*.

Before 1447, the electors frequently achieved a balance by not electing two men associated with the same patron. The elections of 1432 and 1437 do not fit this pattern, since on each occasion the men returned were the Mowbray followers, Sir Robert Wingfield and Debenham, but it is unlikely that they owed much to the dukes of Norfolk for their seats. In 1432 the second duke, largely detached from regional affairs, was still alive and disputes between members of the Mowbray and de la Pole affinities had yet to become a serious issue; in 1437 the third duke had only just attained his majority. Although quarrels between members of the two affinities began to come to the fore in the mid 1430s, parliamentary elections in Suffolk were not particularly contentious until the late 1440s and 1450s, when affected by a combination of local rivalries and factional divisions on a national level.

Such divisions had come fully out in the open by the autumn of 1449, a time of serious political crisis for the Court and William de la Pole, by then the King’s chief adviser. As already noted, the men returned for Suffolk to the Parliament which opened on 6 Nov. that year and impeached de la Pole in the following February were John Howard, a cousin and retainer of the duke of Norfolk, and Cornwallis, perhaps linked with Richard, duke of York. The indenture was witnessed by no fewer than 159 attestors in the wake of a contested election at which a third, unsuccessful candidate, Sir Geoffrey Radcliffe, had sought one of the seats. By means of a subsequent lawsuit against Giles St. Loe, the sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk at the time of the election, Radcliffe claimed that he, not Cornwallis, should have sat alongside Howard. In pleadings of Michaelmas term 1450, he accused St. Loe of having breached the statutes of 1429 and 1445 regulating the sheriffs’ conduct of parliamentary elections. Through his attorney he asserted that a majority of the electorate had selected him as Howard’s fellow MP but that the sheriff had unlawfully returned Cornwallis instead. He therefore demanded that St. Loe should pay him £100, the sum awarded by the statutes against sheriffs who made false returns, and sought damages of £200. St. Loe, likewise represented by an attorney, contradicted these claims, declaring that a majority of the 40s. freeholders attending the shire court had in fact elected Cornwallis. The parties agreed to refer the matter to a jury but further legal process ensured the postponement of the intended trial, and in the autumn of 1452 the court discharged St. Loe, because Radcliffe, for reasons now unknown, would no longer pursue his suit.20 CP40/759, rot. 433. The exact circumstances of this dispute are impossible to fathom, and it is unclear whether there were links between it and wider quarrels, whether national or local.

After the summoning of the next Parliament in the autumn of 1450, York actively canvassed for the return of his supporters to the Commons. Notwithstanding the Court attachments of the sheriff, John Say II*, Suffolk’s electors, as already noted, returned Mulsho, one of the duke’s retainers, and Chamberlain, soon to enter York’s service, assuming he had not already done so. By the time of the elections for the Parliament of 1453, however, the Court had regained the political initiative. The duke of Norfolk, who had allied himself to York, nevertheless made a determined effort to influence the election in Suffolk, meaning that the county witnessed another election dispute. In 1453 the sheriff, Thomas Sharneburne*, a member of the de la Pole affinity, eventually returned the de la Pole follower and courtier, Wentworth, and Debenham, by then alienated from Mowbray, but not (as he subsequently complained) without some difficulty. According to Sharneburne, prior to the election Sir William Ashton, John Howard and many other servants of the duke of Norfolk had threatened his under sheriff, Thomas Grys, and abducted William Peyntour, the sheriff’s clerk. He further alleged that on election day itself (12 Feb.) several of Mowbray’s leading retainers had brought a force of 600 armed men to the county court at Ipswich, where they had returned as knights of the shire the duke’s men, Thomas Daniell, who held no lands in Suffolk, and John Wingfield†, who did not reside there. Although Sharneburne was far from non-partisan, the election was clearly irregular since neither he nor Grys was present. It was therefore declared invalid and Wentworth and Debenham were returned at a new election held at the next county court.21 Virgoe, 54-57; Castor, 157, 178; Egerton Roll 8779; KB27/775, rot. 20d; PPC, vi. 183; J.R. Lander, Wars of the Roses, 63-64. The political situation had changed yet again when the election to the Parliament of 1455 took place, for its summoning followed the duke of York’s victory at the first battle of St. Albans. This time the presiding sheriff was the John Wingfield involved in the controversy of 1453; he returned two other Mowbray servants: his own brother Robert and Jenney. Three hundred men, including over 150 attestors,22 But not as many as 205 as suggested by Virgoe, 64. attended the election, raising the possibility of another contest. Contested or not, it was a subject of controversy a few months after the Parliament was dissolved. In June 1456 Walter Writtle*, who had sat in that assembly as a burgess for Maldon, appeared in the Exchequer to accuse the sheriff of having returned Jenney illegally because the majority present had actually chosen William Lee‡ as Robert Wingfield’s fellow knight of the shire. Internal rivalries within the Mowbray affinity may explain the whole affair, since Lee was also a retainer of the duke of Norfolk. Not known to have had any links with Mowbray, Writtle’s motivation for bringing his suit was probably financial, because he made a claim for £100, the sum awarded by statutes of 1429 and 1445 against sheriffs who made false returns.23 Virgoe, 57-58, 64; E13/146, rots. 69-70d, 81d. The last election of Henry VI’s reign for which evidence has survived is that to the Parliament of 1459, the partisan assembly that attainted the duke of York and his leading allies. The Court controlled elections to this Parliament, packing the Commons with its supporters, among them the knights of the shire for Suffolk, Tyrell and Wentworth, who were returned under the auspices of a sheriff then loyal to the Lancastrian regime, William Calthorpe*.