CRACKENTHORPE, Robert (d.1438), of Howgill, Westmld and Skirwith, Cumb.

More can be added to the earlier biography. The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 684-6.

Crackenthorpe’s principal patron in the early part of his career was John, Lord Clifford, who appointed him as his deputy as sheriff of Westmorland. At an unknown date, Clifford’s mother, Elizabeth Roos (d.1424), granted our MP a life interest in lands in Penrith with an annual value of one mark: CIPM, xxii. 305. After Clifford’s death at the siege of Meaux in 1422, his widow married Ralph Neville (d.1484), earl of Westmorland, and our MP immediately entered the young earl’s service. In the Parliament of 1427, of which Crackenthorpe was a Member, the earl presented a petition to the King, asking that the custody of his estates be granted to our MP and a clerk, William Sharwe, pending his proof of age. Letters patent to this effect were issued on 4 Dec., four days before Parliament was prorogued, and there is an interesting coincidence in timing between the granting of the petition and a grant made by the earl to our MP. On the following 3 Jan. the earl granted him, described as his esquire, a life interest in property in Bedfordshire ‘pro bono consilio suo nobis impenso’. These lands, at Potton, Sutton and Stratton, had been valued at a modest 40s. p.a. in the inquisition post mortem taken in the death of the earl’s grandfather, and Crackenthorpe quickly alienated his interest, presumably as a sale, to local men, headed by another lawyer, John Enderby*, who, coincidentally, was also an MP in 1427. One can only speculate why the earl should have chosen to reward Crackenthorpe with lands so distant from the MP’s home, but here again there is an interesting coincidence. One of those named by the earl to deliver seisin to Crackenthorpe was another lawyer of northern origins, Thomas Manningham†, who both lived very near the lands granted and was, like our MP, of Lincoln’s Inn. CPR, 1422-9, p. 458; CP40/674, cart. rots. 1d, 3, 3d; CIPM, xxii. 639.

As noted in the earlier biography, the last years of Crackenthorpe’s career were seriously disturbed by violent resistance to his attempts to make good his wife’s claim to her share of the Lancaster lands. It is an open question whether these attempts were justified. At the time of their marriage his wife had not been coheiress-presumptive to the Lancaster estates; and there is no reason to suppose that her father contravened any marriage contract when, in 1425, after the death of his only son, he settled all his lands in Cumberland and Westmorland upon himself and his second wife, Katherine, in tail male, with remainders over to various male kinsman. None the less, Robert appears to have seen this settlement as a frustration of his legitimate expectations, and, in 1431, he secured the resettlement of the manor of Skirwith near Penrith (Cumberland), entailed in the male line in 1425, upon himself and his heirs. CP25(1)/291/65/34; Cumbria RO, Kendal, Le Fleming of Rydal mss, WDRY/92/81. After Sir John Lancaster’s death in June 1434 he made a concerted effort to defeat the earlier settlement. This task had been made the more difficult by the findings of an inquisition held at Appleby in the following October when Sir John was said to have died seised of his Westmorland lands under the tail male settlement of 1425. Crackenthorpe thus resorted to law. He sued one of the remainder-men, John Lancaster of Howgill, for close-breaking at Kirkby Thore, presumably in respect of Sir John’s lands there, and there is every reason to suppose that he was the sponsor of the assize of novel disseisin brought by four clergymen against Katherine, John and other Lancasters for the manors of Rydal, Howgill, Deepdale and Glencoyne (all entailed in 1425). Late in 1436 this was heard before royal commissioners, including Sir Richard Musgrave* and Sir Robert Leybourne*, and the plaintiffs recovered seisin and damages of 20 marks. CIPM, xxiv. 402-3; CP40/700, rot. 57d; C66/437, m. 6d; KB27/703, rot. 78.

Crackenthorpe, unwisely as it transpired, continued the offensive. In Easter 1437 he secured a writ of waiver against Katherine as Sir John Lancaster’s executrix for a debt of £40. More significantly, on the following 14 Oct., sitting as a j.p. at Kendal with Sir Thomas Strickland*, he took several indictments of felonious theft against John Lancaster; and, on 12 Feb. 1438, he sued out a royal commission of inquiry to the sheriff of Westmorland, his ally, (Sir) Thomas Parr*, on the grounds that the Lancasters had re-entered the manors recovered by the assize. This is the immediate context of the violence of the following summer. An inquiry held by Parr on 25 June found that the Lancasters were guilty of a second disseisin and awarded damages of £116 against them. CP40/705, rot. 227; KB9/229/4, m. 26; C260/145/23.

It is a fair speculation that it was this judgement that led the Lancasters to take the law into their own hands. On 25 Aug. they were joined by their allies, the Thornburghs, in murdering Crackenthorpe at Brampton near Appleby. At a session of the peace at Appleby on 11 Sept., held before Thomas, Lord Clifford, who had recently come of age, Sir Christopher Moresby† and Thomas Burgham*, a jury laid presentments against the murderers. The original indictment has not been traced, but it is referred to in a pardon enrolled on the patent roll: CPR, 1441-6, p. 191. Further, in Hilary term 1439 our MP’s widow, Elizabeth, appealed John Lancaster, William Thornburgh* and four others as principals in the murder of her husband, naming John’s brother, Christopher Lancaster* and Sir John Lancaster’s widow, among nearly 60 accessories. KB27/711, rot. 36d; 714, rot. 36. Even this, however, in the short term at least, failed to bring the Lancasters and Thornburghs to heel. According to a powerful commission of inquiry issued on 11 Mar. 1439, on a further complaint by Elizabeth, they had continued a systematic campaign of robbery against her and her tenants which they had begun in her husband’s lifetime. None the less, she was able to secure her share of the Lancaster inheritance. The heat had gone out of the dispute by June 1443, when the Crown pardoned two of the Thornburghs, Oliver and Roland, of their outlawries incurred on her appeal. CPR, 1436-41, p. 273; 1441-6, p. 191. Two months later Elizabeth agreed with her three sisters, Christine, Isabel and Margaret, that she and Christine, widow of Sir Robert Haryngton (brother of Thomas Haryngton I*), would share the manors of Deepdale, Glencoyne, Howgill and Knock Shalcock, and that Margaret, widow of Sir Matthew Whitfield, and Isabel, wife of Thomas Fleming of Church Coniston (Lancashire), would have the manor of Rydal, the most valuable of the Lancaster lands. Le Fleming of Rydal mss, WDRY/Box 92/90. By a fine levied in Mar. 1438 our MP and his wife had joined the Flemings in surrendering their rights in the Lancashire property of the Lancasters – a moiety of the manors of Caton and Priest Hutton – to Sir Richard Haryngton and Christine: PL17/6, no. 52; VCH Lancs. viii. 80-81. When our MP’s widow died in 1462, she was seised of the manors of Howgill and Skirwith together with other Lancaster property. C140/7/6.