At nearly 3, 900,000 acres, Yorkshire is very comfortably the largest of England’s ancient counties. It is twice the size of the next largest, Lincolnshire, and, as a more revealing measure of its massiveness, some four-fifths the size of Wales. Divided into three ridings, the largest of them, the West Riding, is itself larger than Lincolnshire, and the North Riding, if a county on its own, would be exceeded in size only by the rest of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Devon.2 B. Hobson, W. Riding Yorks. 3-4; W.J. Weston, N. Riding Yorks. 10. Despite its great size the county has a certain geographical definition, bounded to the north by the river Tees, to the east by the North Sea, to the south by the Humber estuary and the rivers Don and Sheaf, and to the west by the Pennines. None the less, the fifteenth-century shire has rightly been characterized as a number of ‘counties’ or ‘communities’ within a county.3 A.J. Pollard, ‘Richmondshire Community’, in Patronage, Pedigree and Power ed. Ross, 51. In part, these corresponded to the three ridings, each of which had their own commission of the peace, but it was probably only in the smallest of them, the East Riding, cut off from the other ridings by the rivers Ouse and Derwent and from Lincolnshire to the south by the river Humber, that there developed any sense of community based on administrative division.
More important than Yorkshire’s internal geographical and administrative divisions in determining the county’s parliamentary representation was the political definition given to various areas by the extensive landholdings of the duchies of York and Lancaster and of the great northern comital families of Neville and Percy. The distribution of these estates defined fairly discreet areas of influence. In the East Riding the Percys, with their lordship of Leconfield and castle at Wressle were the principal lords. In the North the Nevilles, with their castles of Middleham and Sheriff Hutton, had the principal landed interest, although the duchy of Lancaster held the lordship of Pickering and the Percys that of Topcliffe. In the West Riding the duchy of Lancaster was comfortably the main landholder, with the lordships of Knaresborough, Pontefract and Tickhill covering about a third of that riding’s great area, although alternative seigneurial foci were provided by the lordships of Wakefield and Conisborough, in the hands of the duke of York, and, more particularly, the lordship of Spofforth and other property held by the Percys.4 C.E. Arnold, ‘Political Study of the W. Riding 1437-1509’ (Manchester Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1984), 16-29; M.C. Punshon, ‘Govt. and Political Soc. in the W. Riding, 1399-1461’ (York Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 2002), 21-42. The other great landholder in the county, the archbishopric of York, appears to have exercised no influence over Yorkshire’s representation, even during the long archiepiscopate of John Kemp from 1426 to 1452.
In Henry VI’s reign there was a significant change in the balance of influence between these great lords, with the Nevilles rising to a pre-eminent position. This process began at the beginning of the period under review here. In January 1425, after the death of Robert Waterton of Methley, the long serving steward of the duchy of Lancaster honour of Pontefract, Richard Neville (later earl of Salisbury) replaced him in that office, and, in the following October, he succeeded his father, Ralph, earl of Westmorland, in the bulk of the Yorkshire lands of the family to the disinheritance of his elder half-brother, another Ralph. Although these lands were burdened by the interest of his mother Joan Beaufort, until 1440, and the rival claim of the new earl of Westmorland was not laid to rest until 1443, Richard’s local influence was steadily augmented by royal grants. In 1432 he was granted the stewardship of the honour of Tickhill and in 1435 that of the North Riding honour of Richmond, in royal hands after the death of the King’s uncle, John, duke of Bedford. Once the whole family estates were reunited in his possession, even more significant grants followed: in 1444 he was granted in fee tail the two-thirds of the honour of Richmond that were not in the hands of Bedford’s widow and, in the following year, he added to the stewardship of Pontefract the reversion of those of Knaresborough and Pickering, then held by Sir William Plumpton* and Ralph, Lord Cromwell, respectively. In comparison, the other great northern family, the Percys, gained little beyond their restoration after the rebellious career of the first earl of Northumberland. The result was a decisive shift in the balance of local power, and the Percys’ resentment at their demotion was an important factor in the disorders that overtook the county in the 1450s.5 A.J. Pollard, North-Eastern Eng. 249-50, 254-5; Punshon, 149-78.
Yorkshire’s gentry community is difficult to enumerate. The list of 1434 returned by commissioners of those liable to take the parliamentary oath not to maintain peace-breakers omits many of even the county’s leading gentry and almost entirely those below the rank of esquire. It lists only 12 knights (to whom are to be added two of the commissioners, the MPs Sir Edmund Darell and Sir Robert Hopton), 37 esquires, a single gentleman and seven yeomen. Other evidence shows that the number of resident knights was significantly higher: 15 knights attested the county’s parliamentary election of the following year, only six of whom appear in the 1434 list with another elected as MP.6 CPR, 1429-36, pp. 379-80, C219/14/5. Modern studies provide more accurate estimates. It has been calculated that some 44 families with lands in the West Riding were headed by a knight at some point during the Lancastrian period, and members of an additional 34 families were distrained for failing to take up knighthood between 1410 and 1465. Comparative figures are not available for the other two ridings, but there were 20 families with more than four manors each resident in the North Riding and it would be surprising if there were not a similar number in the East Riding, which, although smaller than its neighbours, was agriculturally richer.7 Punshon, 54; Pollard, North-Eastern Eng. 89n. In short, the county had well over 100 families qualified by wealth to provide a knight, and there were thus, as one would expect from the county’s size, an unusually large body of men qualified to represent it in Parliament. This is probably why, at a time when the number of knights in England was declining and, with it, the number elected to Parliament, Yorkshire uniquely maintained the tradition of electing only knights. One obvious effect of such a rule, and probably the intended one, was to reduce competition for seats, for, to state the obvious, the number of knights resident in the county at any one time was very significantly fewer that the number of families qualified to support someone of that status.
The Yorkshire MPs are known for all 22 Parliaments of Henry VI’s reign save for that of 1459.8 Indentures survive for 18 Parls., and the MPs for those of 1433, 1439 and 1445 are known from the tax comms.: CFR, xvi. 187; xvii. 149, 331. Of the 24 MPs, as many as 11 are recorded as representing the county only once, and none exceeded the five elections for Yorkshire of Sir Edmund Hastings. There is no parallel in the fifteenth century for the intense Yorkshire parliamentary career of Sir Robert Neville†, returned 12 times from 1377 to 1399. Thus, the number of Parliaments per MP is lower for the Yorkshire MPs of Henry VI’s reign than it is in most other counties. Between them the 24 MPs are recorded as having represented the county on 50 occasions, with an additional seven returns for other shires. The county was thus represented by a lower proportion of experienced MPs than was generally the case in shire representation. They took only 22 of the 42 known seats, and there are just two cases of immediate re-election, both involving Hilton who was elected to three successive Parliaments from 1425 to 1427. Two experienced MPs were returned together on five occasions, and two novices on four. This marked a decline in representative continuity compared with the preceding period (1386-1421), when three-fifths of the seats were taken by men with previous parliamentary experience, but the difference is largely to be accounted for by Neville’s exceptional parliamentary career.
Only three of the 24 MPs are recorded as representing other constituencies, and all three did so before their election for Yorkshire (although in the case of Sir Edmund Hastings the two elections came almost simultaneously, as he was elected for Northumberland four days before his first election for Yorkshire in 1407), and none were elected for another constituency after having represented Yorkshire. Of the three parallel cases in the 1386-1421 period (Sir Ralph Euer†, Sir James Pickering† and Sir Robert Plumpton†), only Plumpton was elected for another county after representing Yorkshire, and his case is slightly anomalous.9 Between elections for Yorks. to the Parls. of 1411 and 1416 (Mar.), he appears to have been elected for both Notts. and Yorks. to that of 1414 (Apr.). This pattern might be taken to imply that a Yorkshire seat was more prestigious than that for any other county. Such a conclusion is certainly consistent with the most distinctive feature of the county’s representation. The maintenance of the old tradition of electing only knights ensured that the status of the MPs was generally high. Indeed, the county’s MPs of Henry VI’s reign could boast a remarkable series of connexions, through birth and marriage, with the extant or extinct peerage. As many as 15 of the 24 had at least one such link and some had multiple ones. Seven had peerage descents in the male line. Two would themselves have been peers had not earlier summonses to the Lords been discontinued: Ryther was a direct descendant of Sir William Ryther, summoned between 1299 and 1307, and Ughtred was the great-grandson of Sir Thomas Ughtred†, summoned from 1344 until his death in 1365. Five others were representatives of junior baronial branches. Sir Edmund Hastings and his wealthier cousin, Sir Richard Hastings, for example, represented surviving branches of the Hastings earls of Pembroke, who died out in the senior male line in 1389.10 Neville was descended from a younger son of Ralph, Lord Neville of Raby (d.1367). Hilton represented a cadet branch of the Hiltons of Hilton in Co. Durham, who had been summoned to Parl. from 1295 to 1336; and Stapleton was descended in the male line from Sir Giles Stapleton (d.1321), yr. bro. of Edw. II’s steward of the household, Miles, Lord Stapleton. Peerage descents in the female line were equally common. Melton, for example, was descended from Thomas, Lord Lucy (d.1365) and was a grandson of Roger, Lord Clifford (d.1389) and a great-grandson of Thomas Beauchamp, earl of Warwick.
With the impressive ancestry of so many of the county’s MPs, it is not surprising that several of them should have either themselves married into the peerage or else contracted their sons and heirs to baronial brides. Euer and Strangeways did both. Euer married a daughter of Henry, Lord Fitzhugh, and, in 1439, contracted his son and heir to a sister of Ralph, Lord Greystoke (d.1487). Strangeways greatly increased his landholdings by marrying one of the two daughters and coheiresses of John, Lord Darcy (d.1411), and the grand-daughter of Henry, Lord Fitzhugh, and he went on to marry his son and heir to one of the three daughters and coheiresses of William Neville, earl of Kent (d.1463). This series of descents and marriages shows that the conclusion reached in the survey of the county’s MPs from 1386 to 1421 stands for those of the MPs of Henry VI’s reign: they ‘occupied a place in society somewhere between the lower ranks of the parliamentary peerage and the upper ranks of the gentry’.11 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 730.
Yet, although there can be no doubt of the high social status of the county’s MPs in general terms, there were occasional electoral opportunities for lesser men. Although the restriction of representation to knights inflated the status of the MPs, it also, as noted above, suppressed competition for seats. With the number of knights in England at an historic low in Henry VI’s reign, that restriction was more significant than it had previously been. With so relatively limited a field of potential MPs, a Yorkshire seat, prestigious as it certainly was, was easier to obtain than might have been expected from the county’s size. Thus it was that, in the 1420s and 1430s, several of those elected were men below the county elite. This was most particularly the case in 1433 when, in Darell and Hopton, the county was represented by two comparatively insubstantial men. These two were also parliamentary novices and it may be more than coincidental that three of the four occasions on which Yorkshire was represented by two such novices fell in the 1430s. It is possible that competition for a seat was less strong in that decade. Certainly, Darell, Hopton, Ughtred, Normanvile and Sir Alexander Neville, five of the least substantial men to represent the county in this period were elected in these years.
The retention of knighthood as a qualification for election may also have had another effect, making the rank more attractive to the leading gentry of Yorkshire than it was to those in counties where that qualification had been removed. There are signs that some took up the rank to qualify them for election, at least if one may draw an inference from the frequency with which the MPs were selected from the ranks of those who had recently been dubbed. Eight of the 24 – Rokeby (1406), Gascoigne (1429), Ughtred (1432), Darell (1433), Hopton (1433), Stapleton (1437), Neville (1439) and Melton (1450) – were first elected to Parliament within three years of becoming knights. There is, however, another possible explanation. The concentration of these examples in the period 1429 to 1439 supports the conclusion that, in those years, the competition for seats declined, leaving the electors no choice but to look to the county’s new knights rather than more experienced and substantial figures. Considering the MPs’ social origins more broadly, nearly all of them were from knightly families long-established in Yorkshire. The exceptions were Normanvile and Hopton, who were of more modest origins but still from families well-established in the county. Two others had only come into prominence there in the previous generation: Strangeways as the son of a royal justice, Sir James Strangeways, j.c.b., and Waterton as son of Henry IV’s master of the horse, Robert Waterton (d.1425). Haryngton, from a leading Lancashire family, owed most of his considerable lands in Yorkshire to his mother, Margaret, daughter and heiress of the prolific MP, Sir Robert Neville. In so large a county, close kinship ties between the MPs were fewer than in more typical shires. Only two were from the same nuclear family, namely the Savilles, father and son.
As in other counties, however, there was a very close relationship between the personnel of representation and that of shire administration. As many as 16 of the 24 MPs served as sheriff of Yorkshire, several of them for more than one term, most notably Ryther who served four. They also had an impressive record of shrieval service in other counties: four served in Lincolnshire (Hilton, Ryther, Stapleton, who did not serve in Yorkshire, and Waterton), three (Euer, Sir Edmund Hastings and Rokeby) in Northumberland and one (Sir Richard Hastings) in the joint shrievalty of Warwickshire and Leicestershire. Clearly, the county’s MPs were generally of such high status that, if they held lands in another shire, they were likely to have standing enough to qualify for appointment as sheriff there. Considering appointments as sheriff and election as MP in all counties, 12 of the MPs served in Parliament before they were first pricked as sheriff, and five were sheriff before they were MPs. If only terms as sheriff in Yorkshire and elections for that county are counted, then the corresponding figures are 13 and three. In short, election to Parliament generally came earlier in a career than pricking as sheriff. Only 13 of the 42 seats were taken by former sheriffs of Yorkshire (and to the Parliaments of 1427 and February 1449 two such men were elected), and a further three by men who had served as sheriff in another county. This corresponds with the general pattern but it contrasts with that prevailing in Yorkshire in the earlier period when as many as nine of its MPs were sheriffs before they first sat in Parliament.
As in other counties, there was an occasional correspondence between parliamentary service for Yorkshire and pricking as its sheriff: Hilton was appointed while sitting in the Parliament of 1427; and both Sir James Pickering (in 1449) and Haryngton (in 1455), during the prorogations of Parliaments of which they were MPs. On other occasions, an MP was named sheriff at the next prickings after Parliaments in which they had sat, namely Rokeby in 1407, and Sir Richard Hastings and Ryther both in 1426.12 In addition, Sir Thomas Saville, MP in the Parliament of Jan.-Mar. 1442, was one of the three men from whom the sheriff was chosen in the following Nov. If more of these so-called ‘pricked lists’ survived, there would no doubt be other similar examples. There are enough of these instances to suggest the possibility that MPs used their place in the Commons to lobby for appointment to office or else, more probably, that their presence in the Commons singled them out as suitable for such appointment.
Sixteen of the 24 MPs were appointed to the bench in at least one of the ridings, but, in contrast with the shrievalty, only three were appointed to the bench in another shire or shires.13 I have excluded from consideration the appointments of three of these Yorks. j.p.s., namely Constable, Hilton and Strangeways, as j.p.s. in the abp.’s liberties of Beverley and Ripon. Euer was long a j.p. in the palatinate of Durham, Sir Richard Hastings served in Leicestershire and Haryngton was appointed in both Lancashire and Cumberland. None of the MPs was nominated a j.p. in another county without holding the office in Yorkshire; and none was named in all three ridings, although four – Hilton, Sir Richard Hastings, Ughtred and Strangeways – served on the benches in two. This pattern was much the same as had prevailed in the 1386-1421 period. Another similarity lay in the relatively low index of correlation between election to Parliament and current service on the county’s bench. In the earlier period 40 per cent of the seats were taken by serving Yorkshire j.p.s. as against 36 per cent in Henry VI’s reign. Only in the first and last Parliament of that reign was the county represented by two serving j.p.s. and, in the case of the Parliament of 1460, the electors must have made the election unaware that those they returned were in receipt of the current commission of the peace. The two elected, Strangeways and Mountfort, were restored to the North Riding bench by the Yorkist government on 23 Aug. 1460; two days later, before their commission can have reached them, they were elected to Parliament. In as many as eight Parliaments – 1423, 1426, 1432, 1433, 1435, 1437, 1450 and 1453 – the county was represented by two MPs who were not serving j.p.s. As in the case of the shrievalty, a first appointment to the bench generally came later in an MP’s career than his first election to Parliament. Of the 16 MPs who were j.p.s, five had served before sitting in Parliament and 11 were named afterwards (the figures are the same regardless of whether nominations to the bench in other counties are included). If only Yorkshire elections are considered the figures are six and ten.14 Haryngton was a j.p. after he was an MP for Lancs. in 1432 but before he was elected for Yorks. in 1455. It is worth noting that a first appointment to the Yorkshire bench sometimes came very soon after an MP’s first Parliament, as it did in the cases of Neville, Melton and Waterton. In two other cases nomination to the bench came soon after a second Parliament: Normanvile was named to the bench in the East Riding on 14 Apr. 1437 after a Parliament that had ended 18 days before; and Strangeways was first appointed to the West Riding bench shortly after sitting in the Parliament of 1460-1.
In respect of the escheatorship there was a major contrast between the two periods. As many as seven of the 29 MPs for the 1386-1421 period held this office in Yorkshire; by contrast, among those of Henry VI’s reign, only Ughtred did, serving a few years after his only Parliament. Only one MP of either period held the office outside Yorkshire and he was common to both cohorts of MPs, namely Sir Edmund Hastings, who was appointed as escheator of Cumberland and Westmorland while representing Yorkshire in the Parliament of 1407. Since the office, generally the preserve of lawyers and gentry below the first rank of county gentry, was a less significant one than that of sheriff or j.p., the general absence of Yorkshire’s MPs from the ranks of its escheators could be cited as evidence for their high social standing. The contrast between the two periods suggests either that the rank of the Yorkshire MPs as a body rose or else the status of escheators declined.
An examination of the general administrative experience of the Yorkshire MPs at the time of their first elections shows that generally they were poorly qualified in this respect. Of the 24, only three – Constable, Sir Richard Hastings and Hilton – had served as both j.p. and sheriff (whether in Yorkshire or elsewhere) before they first represented Yorkshire. Two others – Rokeby and Strangeways – had been sheriffs, and three others – Euer, Haryngton and Mountfort – had been j.p.s. A further 11 had only one or more appointments to an ad hoc commission of local government to their name before they sat for the county, and the remaining five – Darell, Gascoigne, Hopton, Sir Richard Pickering and Stapleton – had not even that. There may be significance in the fact that all five of these were returned between 1429 and 1437 when, as already remarked, the county’s MPs appear to have generally been of a status beneath the county’s prevailing norm.
The extensive Yorkshire estates of the duchy of Lancaster ensured that some of the county’s MPs served in their administration. In the earlier period as many as eight of Yorkshire’s MPs held duchy office in the county, although there are only four certain instances of an MP holding such office at the time of election to Parliament.15 Sir Peter Buckton† and Sir Robert Plumpton were constables of the honour of Knaresborough when elected to the Parls. of 1404 (Oct.) and 1416 (Mar.); Sir William Dronsfield†, bailiff of Staincross when he was Buckton’s colleague in 1404; and Sir David Roucliffe†, constable of the N. Riding ldship. of Pickering when MP in the Parl. of 1397 (Sept.). In the period under review here only four of the MPs are known to have held duchy office in the county, but there was a closer correlation between that service and their parliamentary careers. Sir Richard Hastings was constable of Knaresborough when elected in 1425 and 1429; and Sir Richard Pickering was a forester in the lordship of Pickering when Hastings’s colleague in 1429.16 The other two known officers – Strangeways, dep. steward of Pickering in the 1460s, and Waterton, dep. constable of Pontefract castle – were only appointed after the end of their recorded parliamentary careers. In addition, one MP was elected while holding duchy office outside the county: Haryngton, when returned in 1455, was steward of Amounderness and Lonsdale in Lancashire.17 Stapleton was constable of the duchy of Lancaster castle of Hertford, but not until after his last Parl.
With respect to the geographical distribution of the residences of the 24 MPs, ten lived in the West Riding, nine in the North, and only five in the East, with Euer and Haryngton having their main residences in county Durham and Lancashire respectively. The under-representation of the East Riding is unsurprising in the context of its relative size, but that under-representation is not apparent in the distribution of seats between the ridings: 15 seats were taken by men from the North Riding (counting Euer, who had a secondary residence there), 14 by those from the West (including Haryngton, whose main Yorkshire estates lay there), and 13 by those from the East. There is nothing to suggest that this distribution was anything but fortuitous. Elections were not informed by a desire on the part of the electors to draw the two MPs from different parts of the county. Indeed, in as many as ten of the 21 Parliaments in the period under review here, the electors returned two men from the same riding. In the assemblies of 1422, 1429, 1449 (Feb.) and 1460, both MPs were from the North; in those of 1435, 1450 and 1453, from the West; and in the Parliaments of 1432, 1447 and 1449 (Nov.), from the East.
All the MPs inherited property in Yorkshire, and as many 20 had lands outside the county at the time they represented it in Parliament.18 The five who did not were Darell, Gascoigne, Hopton, Normanvile and Sir Richard Pickering. Normanvile is a slightly doubtful case as he may have had lands in Notts. Darell did not acquire his wife’s Lincs. lands until after he had been an MP. Measuring their individual landholdings at the maximum estate they reached at any point in their parliamentary careers (excluding lands held for term of life or years or by royal grant, but including those held in right of wives), 15 of the MPs had estates in the North Riding, and 11 each in the West and East Ridings. Many of the MPs also had property in the seven counties that surrounded Yorkshire, most notably as many as seven in Lincolnshire. Not surprisingly their lands also extended into the two northernmost counties of Northumberland and Cumberland, with six holding land in the former. It is more surprising to find that the MPs are also represented in the south and the south Midlands: four in Northamptonshire, three in Leicestershire; and one each in Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Somerset, Hampshire and Hertfordshire. In total, the MPs had estates in 17 counties outside Yorkshire, an indication of their wealth as a body. Yet, for the most part, these external landholdings were entirely subsidiary to their interests in Yorkshire. Only in the cases of Haryngton, whose principal holdings were in Lancashire, Sir Richard Hastings, who had extensive property in Warwickshire and Leicestershire, and Euer, whose principal residence was at Witton-le-Wear in County Durham, could their estates outside Yorkshire have been considered as more important than those within it.
More difficult to quantify is the income derived by the MPs from these lands. Contemporary tax assessments survive for only four of the MPs: in 1435 Waterton, Euer, Neville and Hopton were assessed on annual incomes of £235, £140, £100 and £60 respectively. Since other evidence suggests that Neville and Hopton were among the least substantial men to represent the county, it can be assumed that most of the MPs could rely on an income of over £100 p.a. The richest of them was probably Sir Richard Hastings, who, when elected for Yorkshire in 1429, could probably rely on an income of over £300 p.a. from property in six counties. Others, with fair confidence, can be said to have had incomes to rival Waterton’s £235 p.a., namely Strangeways, whose wife was coheiress of the baronial family of Darcy, Stapleton, Constable, Haryngton, Melton and the Savilles. The least affluent of the MPs appear, alongside Hopton, to have been Darell, Mountfort, Normanvile and Sir Richard Pickering, but, of these, only Hopton seems to have been worth significantly less than £100 p.a. It was probably more than coincidental that four of these MPs were first elected between 1429 and 1433.
Northern MPs generally had a higher level of involvement in military campaigns than did those from counties further south. Almost all of Yorkshire’s MPs, who were of an age to do so, fought in the war in France, and several of them did so over a prolonged period. As many as 14 of the 24 are known to have served across the Channel. Six fought in one or more of the campaigns of Henry V, namely Rokeby, Sir Richard Hastings, Euer, Ryther, Tempest and Sir Richard Pickering. The MPs of many other counties could boast a similar level of participation in the French war at the height of its popularity and success. Where, however, the military experience of the Yorkshire MPs as a class differed from that of those representing less militarized counties was in their continued commitment to service overseas after the death of Henry V. Two had distinguished military careers in these years. Haryngton first went to France in 1429 and campaigned there intermittently until the mid 1440s. Melton, as he waited to inherit his family lands, was lieutenant of the castle of Rouen under John, Lord Talbot, in the early 1440s and, after a period of French captivity, participated in the campaign which ended with the loss of Normandy. To these notable careers are to be added several lesser ones. Darell, Gascoigne, Hopton and Normanvile all served in the coronation expedition of 1430-2, and Darell went on to die in the English recapture of Fécamp in Normandy in the autumn of 1436. Constable and Stapleton appear to have fought in the Calais campaign of 1436. Clearly the leading Yorkshire gentry continued to commit themselves to the French war in the reign of Henry VI. By contrast, they were less involved in the intermittent warfare against the Scots than MPs from counties further north, although Tempest may have participated in the campaign of August 1400, and Haryngton (and perhaps also Mountfort) was present at the English defeat at the battle of Sark in 1448.
The political geography of Yorkshire ensured that its gentry were heavily committed in the civil war of 1459-61. Not only did the landed interests of Neville and York, on the one side, and Percy and Lancaster, on the other, powerfully oppose each other within the county’s borders, but the county was itself a battleground, the site of two of the great battles of these years: the Yorkists’ defeat at Wakefield on 30 Dec. 1460 and their victory at Towton on Palm Sunday 1461. Of the 24 MPs, 11 were living for at least part of this period of conflict, and most are recorded as participants. Several of them are known to have fought at one or other of the battles on the county’s soil, and others very probably did so too. Sir James Pickering was killed in the service of his lord, the duke of York, at the battle of Wakefield, as also may have been his son and heir. Haryngton, in the Yorkist ranks in the Ludford campaign and then imprisoned and attainted by the Lancastrians, fell at the same battle, again in company with his eldest son, John. Euer also lost his eldest son: Ralph Euer was killed on the Lancastrian side at Towton. At least two others of the 11 were represented at these battles, although without fatal results: Gascoigne’s son and heir, another William, was knighted by the earl of Northumberland fighting for Lancaster at Wakefield; and Strangeways was in the Yorkist ranks at Wakefield. Here certainty gives way to speculation, but it is very likely that three other of the surviving MPs, Melton, Mountfort and Sir John Saville, fought for York at one or both of these battles. Sir John’s Saville’s son and heir, John, is known to have been with York in the Ludford campaign of 1459, and it is likely that Sir John joined his son in arms when the war came to Yorkshire. Given the proximity of his home at Thornhill to the battlefield of Wakefield and his position as steward of the lordship of Wakefield, it would be surprising if he was not at that battle, and, as sheriff of Yorkshire at the time of Towton, it is likely that fought there too. Melton, appointed sheriff of the county in the aftermath of the Yorkist victory at Northampton in July 1460 and a feoffee of the duke of York, is also likely to have fought at Towton at least. As effective lord of the manor of Towton (technically held by his young grandson), it would have been difficult for him to have stood aside. A similar argument can be made in respect of Mountfort, who represented the county in the Yorkist Parliament of 1460: his disappearance from the records at this point raises the real possibility that he was a victim of one of the battles.
Thus, of the 11 Yorkshire MPs alive when the civil war began in 1459, as many as six can be said, with near certainty, to have taken up arms in the cause of York against only two (and both perhaps only in the persons of their sons) in the cause of Lancaster.19 There is no evidence that the other three took any part. Waterton seems to have been suffering from some mental or physical incapacity; and Ughtred may have been disqualified from action by age. Stalpeton, given his service in the royal household, may have been disposed to support Lancaster, but he was unaffected by the change of regime. Whether, however, this bias towards York amongst this small cohort reflects the political loyalties of the Yorkshire gentry as a whole must be doubted. There is good evidence that the Lancastrian cause enjoyed strong support in the county, and it is more likely that the Yorkist loyalties of the MPs as a body reflected no more than the electoral success of York and the Nevilles in the 1450s. These Lancastrian loyalties are suggested by the actions of the sons of two dead MPs: two of Normanvile’s sons and Darell’s son and heir, George, were in the Percy ranks at Towton.
Divisions between the Percys, fomenting rebellions against Henry IV, and the Nevilles, leading the suppression of these rebellions, had posed problems for the Yorkshire gentry in the 1400s as they did in the 1450s. These divisions are reflected in the careers of the few of the 24 MPs who were active at this early date. Rokeby, as sheriff of Northumberland in 1405 and sheriff of Yorkshire in 1408, distinguished himself in opposing the rebels of 1405 and 1408, taking a leading part in the final defeat of the earl of Northumberland at Bramham Moor. Another MP, Thomas Saville, then at the very beginning of his career, won a royal grant for his support against the 1405 rebels. On the other hand, the support that the rebels enjoyed in Yorkshire is reflected in the family history of other of the county’s MPs. Despite their father’s long service to the house of Lancaster, both (Sir) Richard Hastings and his elder brother Sir Ralph took up arms for Archbishop Scrope in 1405. The future MP secured a pardon but his elder brother was executed. Another MP, Ryther, similarly required a pardon for his involvement, and a third, Sir William Tempest, was potentially compromised by his brother Nicholas’s involvement in the rebellions.
Yorkshire’s indentures, for the first part of the period under review here, differ in character from those in other counties. They record not the names of a varying number of attestors drawn from the county freeholders but rather those of the attorneys of the ‘common suitors to the county court’ (‘sectatores communes ad comitatum’). These suitors were, for the most part, the most powerful men in the county. Routinely represented by their attorneys were the archbishop of York, the earl of Westmorland, and, after his restoration in 1416, the earl of Northumberland. Typical of these returns is that of 25 Aug. 1427 when 11 attorneys were noted as present, headed by the archbishop’s attorney with, at the bottom of the list, the attorney of Thomas Metham of Metham, head of an ancient knightly family of the East Riding. Two of those represented were women, namely Joan, dowager-countess of Westmorland, and Maud, widow of Peter, Lord Mauley (d.1415).20 C219/13/5.
Whether the choice of the MPs was restricted to the assembled suitors must, however, be doubted. The indenture for the previous election, that of 28 Jan. 1426, names eight attestors and refers to the assent of other unnamed suitors.21 C219/13/4. Even, however, if the franchise was narrowly confined, that confinement did not survive the statute of 1429 which established the 40s. franchise. The first indenture after this statute, that made on Christmas day 1430, names 12 attorneys but adds that the election was made by them, six others named, all obscure men, and ‘many others’; and the next return, dated 31 Mar. 1432, takes the same form.22 C219/14/1, 3. Curiously, in these two returns, the handful of attestors named in addition to the attorneys were men of little significance, implying that none of the county’s leading gentry were present on these occasions. If, however, they were indeed absent, their indifference did not last long. The next surviving return, dated 12 Sept. 1435, marked a further departure. There was no longer any mention of the attorneys. Instead 33 attestors were named, headed, remarkably, by 15 knights, including six past and future Yorkshire MPs, namely Euer, Ughtred, Darell, Normanvile, Sir Richard Pickering and Hopton. Interestingly, two of the attestors, Sir Robert Roos* and Thomas Metham, were men who had appointed attorneys at earlier elections.23 C219/14/5.
The next extant indenture, that of 8 Jan. 1442, is even more remarkable, with quality giving way to quantity. No fewer than 451 attestors were named, headed by three knights, including Metham (now dubbed). No previous indenture for any county named more. It is also noteworthy that care has been taken to ensure that the list was an accurate one: several of the attestors are designated as either ’senior’ or ‘junior’ or assigned a place of residence, no doubt to ensure accurate identification, and a few names have been either deleted or amended. It may be that the election was contested, for, on 20 July, about three months after the Parliament ended, a commission was issued to the justices of assize to inquire into whether the election had been conducted in accordance with the statute of 1429. Unfortunately, the result of this inquiry is unknown and there is no evidence to give a context to such a possible contest. Even, however, if the election was not contested on polling day, the presence of so many electors marked the assertion by the broad class of Yorkshire’s freeholders of their right to participate in elections against the older tradition that restricted the franchise.24 C219/15/2; CPR, 1441-6, p. 108.
Later indentures name a relatively small number of attestors headed by a few of the shire’s leading gentry. The exception is the indenture of 3 Nov. 1449 which is discussed below. Since the early elections after the 1406 statute were attested only by the attorneys of the suitors, fewer of the county’s MPs appear as attestors than was the case in other counties. Only 12 of the 24 are recorded as attending elections, with only Sir Alexander Neville attending as many as three.
The influences determining the county’s representation changed as the period progressed, although one factor appears as a constant, namely the declining influence of the Crown, so powerfully represented locally by the duchy of Lancaster. Under the first two Lancastrian Kings royal servants had been very prominent among the Yorkshire MPs. To every one of the 16 Parliaments from 1399 to 1421 for which returns survive, the county had at least one MP who was retained by the house of Lancaster and, on as many as ten occasions, both the MPs were. The record under Henry VI was very different. Hilton still drew a generous royal annuity when elected to three Parliaments in the 1420s and Stapleton was a senior household man when elected three times from 1437 to 1453, but other MPs had but the remotest connexions with the royal house. Both Melton and Haryngton spent brief periods in the Household in the 1440s, but their subsequent parliamentary service was determined by their adherence to the Yorkist lords. Such a pattern is consistent with what has been observed in other counties, namely the decline of the royal retinue in Henry VI’s majority, but, in Yorkshire, the death in 1425 of Robert Waterton, the local focus of duchy loyalties, may have served as an accelerant to this decline. It is not coincidental that the only Yorkshire MPs who gained significantly from royal patronage, namely Hilton, Sir Edmund Hastings and Rokeby, were of the generation that was active at the beginning of the Lancastrian period.
In the first part of the period the parochial self-interest of the candidates appears to have been a significant factor in determining representation, perhaps in part because of the declining influence of the Crown. In 1423 Rokeby, whatever his royal connexions, probably sought and won election to forward his suit to the Crown for the payment of his war wages, then seriously in arrears; and Tempest, to forward his dispute with the bishop of Durham over the manor of Trafford Hill. Later, the young and untried Stapleton secured election to the Parliament of 1437 not principally to serve the Crown but rather to advance the cause of the famous soldier, Sir Thomas Rempston†, who was, or was soon to be, his father-in-law. Rempston was then in French captivity, and the Commons petitioned in this Parliament against the Exchequer’s refusal to pay 1,000 marks promised by the Crown to the discharge of that ransom.
Later, as tension mounted in central politics from the later 1440s, the county’s elections became subject to the more powerful influence of national political allegiances. The conflation of the dispute between Percy and Neville for regional hegemony in the north with that between York and Lancaster for control of central government made Yorkshire’s elections in the 1450s a trial of strength between powerful factions. Even, however, before these battle lines were firmly drawn, the choice of the county’s MPs had become restricted to those committed to one of these great families. To both the Parliaments of 1447 and 1449 (Nov.) the county returned Normanvile, a Percy retainer, in company with a servant of the Nevilles, Sir James Pickering. On the second occasion, the apparent compromise may have been hard won as the hustings brought a major gathering of the leading county gentry. The sheriff, Sir John Conyers, a leading Neville man, named 100 attestors, headed by no fewer than 15 of the county’s knights. At their head was Sir Thomas Percy (soon to be Lord Egremont), a younger son of the earl of Northumberland, and among them several others closely associated with the two great families, most notably among the Neville men, Strangeways.25 C219/15/7; Pollard, North-Eastern Eng. 248.
The next election was informed by a new consideration as it came after the return, in contentious circumstances, of the duke of York from Ireland in early September 1450. He successfully influenced the election in Yorkshire just as he did those in other counties in which he had a strong landed interest. On 5 Oct. Sir John Saville, steward of the duke’s lordship of Wakefield, was elected with Melton, who, like Saville, had served under the duke in France. It has been argued that their election was an early manifestation of York’s alliance with the Nevilles; and the Nevilles certainly approved of the election of those of the duke’s affinity as their man, Sir James Pickering, conducted it and the attestors were headed by Christopher Conyers, the earl of Salisbury’s steward at Middleham. The most that can be said, however, is that the Nevilles were sympathetic to the duke’s cause, as too at this date may also have been their Percy rivals. At any event, the election seems to have been less contentious than the preceding one: only 34 attestors, at least two of whom, William Fairfax and Richard Aldborough, were closely connected with the Percys, are named with not a knight among them.26 C219/16/1
The next election, held on 5 Mar. 1453, came when the uneasy co-operation that had characterized recent relations between Percy and Neville threatened to degenerate into open violence, as it was to do a few months later. Again, however, the election seems to have resulted in compromise. Although it was conducted by Strangeways as sheriff, the two men elected – Stapleton and Gascoigne – were more closely associated with Percy than with Neville. Neither, however, could be described as partisans. Indeed, Gascoigne had been at odds with the Percy earl in the mid-1440s. The most likely explanation for their election is that they were candidates acceptable to both great families, with what was (in the political circumstances of 1453), the additional recommendation of connexions with the royal household – Stapleton directly and Gascoigne through his son.27 C219/16/2.
The next two documented elections, however, were entirely determined by the victory of the Neville faction in both local and national politics. At hustings convened on 23 June 1455, a month after the victory of the Nevilles and the duke of York at the first battle of St. Albans, the Yorkshire sheriff, Sir John Saville, presided over the election of (Sir) Thomas Haryngton, one of the earl of Salisbury’s most important retainers, and Sir James Pickering, who had moved from the service of the Nevilles to that of the duke. At the hustings of 25 Aug. 1460, some six weeks after the Neville victory at the battle of Northampton, two servants of the Nevilles, Strangeways and Mountfort, both of whom had attested the 1455 indenture, were returned.28 C219/16/5, 6. No doubt had the county’s returns survived for the Coventry Parliament of the preceding year, 1459, in which the Yorkist lords were attainted, one would find that two partisans of the Percys had been elected.
As Yorkshire was the only county that maintained the tradition of returning only knights, its MPs as a group were of a higher social status that those in other shires. Yet the maintenance of this tradition, while inflating the general status of the MPs, reduced competition for seats. Despite the county’s unique size, there were fewer men qualified for election than in all but the smallest English counties. What is more difficult to determine is the intensity of competition for seats among this restricted group. In the 1430s competition seems to have slackened, if one may judge from the number of comparatively insignificant knights then elected. In general, however, the county returned wealthy knights, implying a seat for the county enjoyed a high status. Another difficult question concerns the impact on competition of the political factions of the late 1440s and 1450s. There are two possibilities: either political clashes increased competition by making the elections a vital trial of strength between the Nevilles and Percys; or else they reduced it by deterring the candidature of all but those committed to the faction then in the ascendant. It is probable that the latter is the case in the 1450s. It is hard to imagine anyone committed to the Nevilles seeking election in 1459 or anyone committed to the Percys doing so a year later. In the late 1440s, however, as relations between the two great families began to come under strain, competition may have had freer rein, finding resolution in the return of one MP from each faction.
- 1. PROME, xii. 31.
- 2. B. Hobson, W. Riding Yorks. 3-4; W.J. Weston, N. Riding Yorks. 10.
- 3. A.J. Pollard, ‘Richmondshire Community’, in Patronage, Pedigree and Power ed. Ross, 51.
- 4. C.E. Arnold, ‘Political Study of the W. Riding 1437-1509’ (Manchester Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1984), 16-29; M.C. Punshon, ‘Govt. and Political Soc. in the W. Riding, 1399-1461’ (York Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 2002), 21-42.
- 5. A.J. Pollard, North-Eastern Eng. 249-50, 254-5; Punshon, 149-78.
- 6. CPR, 1429-36, pp. 379-80, C219/14/5.
- 7. Punshon, 54; Pollard, North-Eastern Eng. 89n.
- 8. Indentures survive for 18 Parls., and the MPs for those of 1433, 1439 and 1445 are known from the tax comms.: CFR, xvi. 187; xvii. 149, 331.
- 9. Between elections for Yorks. to the Parls. of 1411 and 1416 (Mar.), he appears to have been elected for both Notts. and Yorks. to that of 1414 (Apr.).
- 10. Neville was descended from a younger son of Ralph, Lord Neville of Raby (d.1367). Hilton represented a cadet branch of the Hiltons of Hilton in Co. Durham, who had been summoned to Parl. from 1295 to 1336; and Stapleton was descended in the male line from Sir Giles Stapleton (d.1321), yr. bro. of Edw. II’s steward of the household, Miles, Lord Stapleton.
- 11. The Commons 1386-1421, i. 730.
- 12. In addition, Sir Thomas Saville, MP in the Parliament of Jan.-Mar. 1442, was one of the three men from whom the sheriff was chosen in the following Nov. If more of these so-called ‘pricked lists’ survived, there would no doubt be other similar examples.
- 13. I have excluded from consideration the appointments of three of these Yorks. j.p.s., namely Constable, Hilton and Strangeways, as j.p.s. in the abp.’s liberties of Beverley and Ripon.
- 14. Haryngton was a j.p. after he was an MP for Lancs. in 1432 but before he was elected for Yorks. in 1455.
- 15. Sir Peter Buckton† and Sir Robert Plumpton were constables of the honour of Knaresborough when elected to the Parls. of 1404 (Oct.) and 1416 (Mar.); Sir William Dronsfield†, bailiff of Staincross when he was Buckton’s colleague in 1404; and Sir David Roucliffe†, constable of the N. Riding ldship. of Pickering when MP in the Parl. of 1397 (Sept.).
- 16. The other two known officers – Strangeways, dep. steward of Pickering in the 1460s, and Waterton, dep. constable of Pontefract castle – were only appointed after the end of their recorded parliamentary careers.
- 17. Stapleton was constable of the duchy of Lancaster castle of Hertford, but not until after his last Parl.
- 18. The five who did not were Darell, Gascoigne, Hopton, Normanvile and Sir Richard Pickering. Normanvile is a slightly doubtful case as he may have had lands in Notts. Darell did not acquire his wife’s Lincs. lands until after he had been an MP.
- 19. There is no evidence that the other three took any part. Waterton seems to have been suffering from some mental or physical incapacity; and Ughtred may have been disqualified from action by age. Stalpeton, given his service in the royal household, may have been disposed to support Lancaster, but he was unaffected by the change of regime.
- 20. C219/13/5.
- 21. C219/13/4.
- 22. C219/14/1, 3.
- 23. C219/14/5.
- 24. C219/15/2; CPR, 1441-6, p. 108.
- 25. C219/15/7; Pollard, North-Eastern Eng. 248.
- 26. C219/16/1
- 27. C219/16/2.
- 28. C219/16/5, 6.