BENTLEY, Richard

To the earlier biography it should be added that Bentley’s career was typical of that of a minor local lawyer, holding the offices – coroner and under sheriff – generally associated with such men. The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 193-4. His second term as under sheriff probably began when the influential William Burley I*, who had a close association with Shrewsbury, was named to the shrievalty. His frequent appearances at the county elections were, for the most part, a function of this office-holding.

Bentley is frequently found giving and receiving bonds. On 4 May 1435, for example, he came before the barons of the Exchequer to acknowledge a debt of 47 marks to John Bugge, treasurer and receiver-general of Queen Joan, presumably in respect of payments due to the queen-dowager from the Shrewsbury fee farm. Earlier, on 22 Sept. 1433, he had joined another important burgess, William Burley II*, in the borough court in an undertaking to pay £11 to Robert Malory, the prior of the hospital of St. John of Jerusalem in England, and Walter Barley, the priory’s preceptor of Halston in Shropshire. He and Burley were then labouring under the disability of outlawry for debt at the prior’s suit (perhaps through arrears as farmers of some of the priory’s property in Shropshire), and this recognizance was probably part of the agreement that led to the outlawry’s reversal two months later. The largest of the bonds to which Bentley was a party involved the widow of another of the town’s MPs: in the borough court on 30 Apr. 1429 Sibyl, widow of John Perle*, acknowledged a debt of as much as £100 to him and William Poynour the elder, but there is nothing to show the bond’s purpose. E159/211, recogniciones Easter 13 Hen. VI; CPR, 1429-36, p. 311; Shrewsbury recs., assembly bk. 3365/67, ff. 54v, 55.

In 1434 Bentley was involved in an interesting suit that shows that his remuneration as a lawyer was not confined to monetary fees. He claimed that one of the leading townsmen, John Scriven†, had undertaken, in return for his legal counsel, to enfeoff a chaplain of a messuage in the town to be held to his use. Our MP then invested in building and repairs there only for Scriven to disseise the chaplain on a fraudulent pretext. KB27/693, rot. 3; 694, rot. 11.

Bentley was dead by 12 Oct. 1436, when a writ was issued to the sheriff of Shropshire for the election of a new coroner. Such writs sometimes erroneously describe the holder of the office as dead, but, despite the reissue of the order for his replacement on 8 Feb. 1441, there is no need to suspect an error here. CCR, 1435-41, pp. 74, 405. Even if one takes scepticism so far as to discount the evidence of both these writs, the MP was certainly dead by 25 Oct. 1445 when he was described as a deceased feoffee of Sir William Mallory of Moreton Corbet, Salop: CIPM, xxvi. 282. The earlier biography suggests he died leaving only daughters, but a namesake was active in Shrewsbury after 1445. When the names of the 12 aldermen came first to be entered in the borough’s assembly book, three of the original body (established in the Parliament of that year) were dead, and a Richard Bentley is named as one of the three replacements. This was probably our MP’s son and heir and the father of the daughter (the widow of Ralph Hilton), who made conveyance of part of the Bentley lands in 1480. CCR, 1435-41, p. 405; assembly bk. 3365/67, ff. 33v, 68v; Salop Archs., deeds, 6000/124.