CUMBERFORD, William (d.1472), of Comberford, Staffs.

According to an elaborately decorated pedigree drawn up by Sampson Erdeswick in 1594, the Cumberfords could trace their ancestry to one Adam de Comerfort, lord of Comberford near Lichfield, through seven generations before the time of our MP. Add. Ch. 17326. According to this ped. the fam. bore the arms gules, a talbot passant argent, but at the time of our MP they adopted gules, a cross engrailed or, five roses of the field, the arms of the heiress to whom he married his son and heir. This may be to exaggerate their antiquity, but the family was certainly established at Comberford by the 1320s. Its members had played no significant part in local affairs until the time of our MP’s father, a single nomination as tax collector in 1388 representing the extent of their recorded involvement in county administration. CCR, 1327-30, p. 401; CFR, x. 268. None the less, our MP’s background was more distinguished than that of the majority of those who, like both him and his father, made their careers among the minor officers of the central courts. The greater distinction of his birth may explain why he was a much more prominent man than his colleagues. No evidence survives to illuminate his legal education, but in securing office in the common pleas his father’s service as a filacer there from about 1412 was no doubt of vital importance. Our MP was acting as an attorney in that court by Easter term 1432, representing several of his county neighbours, including Sir William Lichfield*, and occasionally those from further afield, like Joan, widow of Sir John Pelham*, who nominated him in a Sussex suit of Easter term 1436. CP40/685, att. rot. 2d; 700, att. rot. 1; 701, att. rot. 1d. In the following Michaelmas term he too became a filacer, filling the vacancy occasioned by the death or resignation of John Burgh II*, the officer responsible for the counties of the far north. It is perhaps a measure of his father’s influence that our MP did not directly replace Burgh. Rather Richard Shipley, the filacer responsible for the litigious counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, was translated to Burgh’s less profitable office, leaving our MP to succeed him in what was one of the most lucrative filacerships. CP40/702, rots. 5, 21; 703, rots. 5, 21.

Soon afterwards Cumberford won promotion of another sort. His father’s death in 1440 brought him the family inheritance and a place in the affairs of his native county which he was quick to exploit. William’s father last appears as a filacer in Easter term 1440: CP40/717, rot. 6. He had succeeded him by the following term when he sued a wright for defaulting in a contract to build a house at Comberford: Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. n.s. iii. 155. In April 1442 he was retained as legal counsel by the leading local lord, Humphrey Stafford, earl of Stafford (duke of Buckingham from 1444), at an annual fee of 40s.; and it is a fair surmise that it was as the earl’s nominee that he had been elected to represent Newcastle-under-Lyme in the Parliament that had concluded very shortly before this grant was made. C. Rawcliffe, Staffords, 236; C219/15/2. He probably also had the earl to thank for nomination to the quorum of the Staffordshire bench in the following November, and his lord’s patronage was no doubt helpful in securing him further appointments in the King’s legal administration. On 11 Feb. 1443, he was named alongside the long-serving filacer, William Armeston, as attorney of the duchy of Lancaster in the court of common pleas, and on 16 July 1444 he was commissioned as one of the royal justices itinerant in south Wales, where Stafford’s influence was strong. When the justices met there in the following September, he discharged the several apparently contradictory roles of justice, King’s attorney and clerk of the sessions, and at the sessions held at Kidwelly and Monmouth in 1445 and 1447 he acted in the more limited role of clerk to two more prominent lawyers. Such occasional service was remunerative – he was paid £17 for his appearances at the three sessions – but he seems to have quickly abandoned it at this date in favour of concerns closer to home. DL37/10, m. 1d; 11/149; 12/76, 111, 112; 13/111; 16/ 84; R. Somerville, Duchy, i. 458. It was probably from early in 1446, when he was appointed to his first ad hoc commission in his native county, that he began to take a more active role in local administration. At the same time his responsibilities in the common pleas were increased by Armeston’s surrender of his share of the attorney-ship in his favour, with its annual fee of £5. Further, by letters patent dated 17 May 1446, he had the office on better terms, namely for life rather than simply during pleasure. DL37/13/37; DL28/5/6, f. 11; Somerville, 457.

By the late 1440s Cumberford was a prominent lawyer, albeit of the second rank, but not of himself an obvious candidate for election as knight of the shire. As far as professional lawyers were concerned, that honour was generally confined to those on the verge of elevation to the elite of the coif, and it was almost unknown for a mere filacer to sit for a county. Nevertheless, on 9 Jan. 1449 he was elected to represent Staffordshire in Parliament in company with a senior Household man and Stafford retainer, John Hampton II*. The indenture names only 12 attestors, who are said to have made the election ‘in maiori numero’, an echo of the phraseology of the writ of summons rather than an indication of a contest. The duke of Buckingham’s nomination undoubtedly explains his election. C219/15/6. His ensuing service in the Commons must have diverted him from his duties as a filacer. Although the first parliamentary session took place in the vacation between the legal terms of Hilary and Easter, the second coincided with the Easter term and the third with that of Trinity. Moreover, the third session was held at Winchester rather than Westminster, and, if our MP attended, he must have been absent from the court of the common pleas for some four weeks.

Cumberford’s connexion with Stafford was important to him in another way for it served to advertise his legal abilities both to other men associated with the earl as to others. In January 1444 the wealthy Nottinghamshire knight, (Sir) Hugh Willoughby*, had appointed him as one of his executors, and it was clearly more than coincidental that Stafford was nominated among the overseers. Similarly, in May 1449 (during the first prorogation of the Parliament in which he sat for Staffordshire) his nomination as a feoffee of Sir James Butler, soon to be created earl of Wiltshire, probably owed something to the duke’s kinship with Butler’s wife. Less than a year later, Sir William Lucy*, who had served under Stafford in France, chose our MP to act in a very important final concord by which the Percy of Atholl inheritance was settled on him and his wife, Elizabeth, daughter and coheiress of Sir Henry Percy, to the frustration of the expectations of her son, Thomas†, later Lord Burgh. Nottingham Univ. Lib., Middleton mss, Mi F 6, no.14; HMC Hastings, i. 2; CP25(1)/293/72/351.

This is not, of course, to say that Cumberford existed for others only as the servant of the duke. His friendship with a rising young lawyer, Thomas Lyttleton of Frankley in Worcestershire, was principally a function of their common profession. Lyttleton’s father, Thomas Hewster*, had been first prothonotary of the common pleas when Cumberford began his career there, and it is not surprising that our MP should have taken an interest in the son’s advance to the higher reaches of the legal profession. In May 1448 he was among those who offered mainprise in the court of King’s bench that Lyttleton would keep the peace to his stepson John Chetwynd, and thereafter the two men frequently acted together. KB27/748, rex rot. 33d; CCR, 1447-54, p. 181; CP25(1)/211/24/21. Our MP also won the trust of the great soldier, John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury. By the early 1440s he was acting as the earl’s attorney in the court of common pleas, and when the earl drew up his will on departure for France in the autumn of 1452 he was named as one of the executors. His service to the Talbots continued into the career of the next earl, whom he served as a feoffee in the Staffordshire manor of Alton. CP40/726, rot. 289; 737, rot. 398d; Lambeth Palace Lib. Reg. Stafford and Kempe, f. 312v; C139/179/58. On 5 Jan. 1461 our MP’s kinsman, Christopher Cumberford, delivered into Chancery the Salop inq. taken on the second earl’s death, and at about the same time, he acted as a mainpernor for the first earl’s widow: CFR, xix. 295; xx. 28.

There was a curious hiatus in Cumberford’s career in 1451 when, for reasons that are unknown, he either surrendered or was dismissed from his filacership. The latter is the more likely explanation, and it may be that his burgeoning career meant he had outgrown the position. If this is so then he was tempted back on the death or retirement of one of his superiors, Thomas Brown III*, second prothonotary of the court. In Easter term 1454 our MP was chosen to replace him: his experience and connexions made him the obvious choice. CP40/773, rot. 2. Of equal significance to him at this time, or at least to the future of his family, was the acquisition of a young heiress. On 15 Feb. 1454 two other lawyers, Robert Ingleton* and Robert Tanfeld*, had granted him and John Lynton the wardship and marriage of Joan (b.1447), daughter and heiress of John Parles of Watford in Northamptonshire, which they had purchased from the Crown for 100 marks two years earlier. No doubt they sold it on at a profit, but, as a bride for his son and eventual heir, John, Cumberford probably considered it a good purchase (despite the fact that her mother, Margaret, held a significant part of the Parles estates until her death in 1459). C139/146/15; 178/56; Add. Ch. 17326. For another kinsman he found advancement of a different kind: in the late 1450s he employed his influence to secure the filacership of Norfolk and Suffolk in the court of King’s bench, held by Lynton since the 1430s, for Robert Cumberford. Their precise relationship is unknown, but Robert was probably his younger brother. The evidence for their kinship, beyond their common surname, is provided by an entry in the roll of attorneys on the King’s bench plea roll for Hil. term 1460. (Sir) John Stanley II, as sheriff of Staffs., named Robert as his dep. to receive and return writs ‘ad instanciam’ of our MP: KB27/795, att. rot. 1.

Cumberford’s new office as a prothonotary undoubtedly enhanced his status. The prothonotaries, as the acknowledged experts on the customs and procedures of the court of common pleas, were important figures, frequently called upon by the justices for their advice on procedural matters. Year Bk. 49 Hen. VI (Selden Soc. xlviii), 82. New responsibilities did not, however, diminish his local activities. He continued to sit frequently as a j.p. in Staffordshire and intensified his involvement in the affairs of local landholders. For our MP sitting as a j.p.: CPR, 1441-6, p. 250; KB9/271/100; 275/51; 277/37; KB27/784, rex rot. 25d. On 30 June 1455, in company with Lyttelton, he returned an award in the complex local dispute between John Stanley II* and John, son of the recently-deceased attorney-general, John Vampage*; and at about the same time Ralph Butler, Lord Sudeley, chose him among others to act as a feoffee for the protection of Sudeley’s niece, Elizabeth, widow of Sir William Ferrers of Chartley. KB27/828, rot. 93; CPR, 1452-61, p. 232; Warws. Feet of Fines (Dugdale Soc. xviii), 2657; CCR, 1454-61, pp. 49-50. He also maintained his place in the service of the duke of Buckingham, acting for him in 1458 in the arrangements made for the marriage of the duke’s younger son, John, to the heiress of the wealthy Henry Green*, and later as a feoffee for the implementation of his will. CPR, 1452-61, p. 469; 1467-77, p. 158; Westminster Abbey muns. 15195. His friendship with another lawyer retained by the duke, namely Lyttleton, probably explains the royal grant made to him early in the following year: the manor of Arley in Staffordshire, lately held by William Burley I*, was committed to him and two colleagues, William Wore, dean of the collegiate church of Stafford, and Henry Filongley*. Since one of Burley’s two daughters and coheirs was Lyttleton’s wife, it seems that this grant was designed to wrest this valuable manor out of the hands of the feoffees to whom Burley had committed it shortly before his death. This was certainly the view of the feoffees, who succeeded in having the grant revoked by a judgement in Chancery in Easter term 1460. CFR, xix. 227; KB27/793, rot. 28, rex rot. 9. In 1465 the feoffees surrendered the manor to our MP and others acting for Lyttleton: CPR, 1461-7, p. 459; HMC Hastings, i. 151.

By Michaelmas term 1458 Cumberford was acting as attorney in the common pleas for the young Edward, prince of Wales, and this connexion, together with his close ties with the duke of Buckingham, the earl of Shrewsbury and the duchy of Lancaster, no doubt inclined him to the royalist cause in the conflict of 1459-61. The duke’s patronage was probably instrumental in securing for him on 7 Nov. 1459, soon after the rout of the Yorkists at Ludford Bridge, a royal grant of what he already held by private purchase, namely the Parles wardship. CP40/791, rot. 321; CFR, xix. 249. In the following February he was one of those commissioned to inquire into and seize the lands and goods of the attainted Yorkist, Sir William Oldhall. In these circumstances, the change of regime in March 1461 is unlikely to have been welcome to him. None the less, although he makes fewer appearances in the records from that date, the new King’s accession and, perhaps more significant to our MP, the death of the duke of Buckingham in the previous July, seem to have had little direct impact on his career. His status as a professional lawyer largely insulated him from political change. He retained his office of prothonotary and place on the quorum of his county bench, as also, more surprisingly, that as the duchy attorney in the court of common pleas. He was still active as duchy attorney in Easter term 1463, and he probably held the post until his death: CP40/808, rot. 336, 336d. Nor, of course, did the duke’s death end Cumberford’s connexion with the Staffords. Indeed, on 13 Aug. 1460, a month after the duke’s death, the dowager-duchess awarded him a substantial life annuity of £10, and at about the same time she granted him a minor wardship which he was quick to sell on. Soon afterwards he was serving as the steward of her Staffordshire estates. SC6/1117/11, mm. 6-7; Harl. 1985, f. 4; Rawcliffe, 216. In the early 1470s his kinsman, Christopher Cumberford, was her receiver in Glos., Hants. and Wilts.: Rawcliffe, 209.

The prothonotary’s career in the 1460s was unspectacular. In May 1465 he joined five others, headed by Thomas Frowyk II*, in raising the massive sum of 1,000 marks to purchase the wardship and marriage of Richard, son and heir of the wealthy Middlesex knight, (Sir) Thomas Charlton*. CFR, xx. 151; E13/151, rot. 44d. In an echo of earlier connexions, he was named, on 28 June 1467, as one of the executors of (Sir) William Vernon*, a former retainer of the duke of Buckingham who had adapted less well to the Yorkist regime. But he also found new employers. On 20 Dec. 1463 he was retained as counsel to William, Lord Hastings, at the standard fee of 40s. p.a.; by 1467 he was in receipt of the same sum from Edmund Grey, earl of Kent; and in June 1469 he was consulted by Margaret Beaufort, countess of Richmond, and her husband, Sir Henry Stafford, in their attempts to make good their claim to the lordship of Kendal (Westmorland). PCC 23 Godyn (PROB11/5, f. 193); J.H. Baker, Men of Ct. (Selden. Soc. supp. ser. xviii), i. 551; Grey of Ruthin Valor ed. Jack, 69; M.K. Jones and M.G. Underwood, King’s Mother, 118

Cumberford’s earlier loyalties reasserted themselves during the Readeption. He was present in the Parliament which met at Westminster on 25 Nov. 1470, not seemingly as a Member of the Commons but rather as a legal adviser to the Lords. This, at least, is the implication to be drawn from a privy seal warrant dated on the following 28 Jan., while the Parliament was still in session: his name was joined with that of the three royal serjeants-at-law and the attorney-general as worthy of reward for attendance and ‘greet laboures’ in the present Parliament by the King’s ‘speciall commaundement in sundry matiers concernyng the wele of us and of this oure Reaume’. He received a payment of 20 marks to share with his clerk. E404/71/6/39. This, however, raises a question. Unlike the judges, the King’s serjeants and the attorney general, Cumberford did not owe his apparent presence in the Lords to the personal writ of summons these officers routinely received, and one can only speculate that he was present as a parliamentary proxy for an ecclesiastic who did not attend.

Cumberford did not suffer for this apparent lapse. In Walter Blount*, Lord Mountjoy, who had married the dowager-duchess of Buckingham in the mid 1460s, he had a connexion among the leading Yorkists; and in Hilary term 1472 he was among those to whom Blount conveyed valuable properties with the intention of keeping them out of royal wardship should he die before his grandson and heir reached his majority. At about the same time our MP took the sensible precaution of suing out letters of general pardon: these were awarded him on 6 Feb. 1472 as ‘of Comberford, gentleman, alias of London’. This was almost the last act of his life. On the following 21 May the mayor and community of Coventry and William Bristowe chose him and John Catesby, serjeant-at-law, as arbiters in their dispute over common pasture, but he did not live to discharge the function. CP25(1)/294/76/80; HP Biogs. ed. Wedgwood and Holt, 244n.; Coventry Hist. Centre, Coventry bor. archs. BA/F/10/15/1; HMC 4th Rep. X. 146. In the plea roll of the court he served for so long his death is noted as having occurred on the following 11 June. Four days later, Sir John Fogg†, as the King’s chief clerk in the court, appeared there to nominate Roger Brent† his successor as second prothonotary. CP40/843, rot. 494.

It was only after Cumberford’s death that his widow Agnes fell coheiress to the inheritances of the two Rutland gentry families of Browe and Heliwell. When the couple had married, probably in the early 1450s, such a prospect had been a distant one. The will of her mother, Agnes, made on 3 Dec. 1450, implies that her daughters were not then married: Lincs. AO, Reg. Chedworth, ff. 7v-8. Our MP had, however, married the younger Agnes by Hil. 1453 when they acted together in a final concord: CP25(1)/211/24/21. Not until the late 1460s was it seriously considered. By a final concord levied in 1467 her brother, John Heliwell, granted his manor and advowson of Gunby in south Lincolnshire and lands at nearby Teigh in Rutland to our MP in fee, and it may be that this was intended as the Cumberfords’ share of the Heliwell inheritance. CP25(1)/294/74/58; CCR, 1468-76, no. 43. The inheritance of his wife’s uncle, John Browe, represented a potentially greater windfall, but it was one that he was not destined to see for Browe’s death coincided with his own. In any event very little of the inheritance was destined to pass to his wife: not only had Browe sold his most valuable manor, that of Woodhead, but other property passed to the heir male and then to Margaret, one of the sisters of our MP’s widow, and her husband, Thomas Sherard† of Stapleford in Leicestershire. Furthermore, after our MP’s death, his widow (who married William Newport of Lichfield as her second husband) seemed ready to add to Margaret’s endowment by surrendering her right in part of the Heliwell lands. By an indenture dated 20 June 1476 she sold her land in Teigh to Thomas’s father, Geoffrey, for an unspecified sum paid that day to her attorneys, headed by George Cumberford (presumably her younger son). The sale, however, had a limiting condition: it was not to be prejudicial to the rights of either her son and heir, John Cumberford, or her sister, Margaret. On 20 Nov. 1478 the bargain took a further step when John accepted the payment of 100 marks in return for a quitclaim to the Sherards of his right in lands in Teigh and in a water mill called ‘Boureton millez’ near Buckingham. Leics. RO, Sherard mss, DG40/290A, 293. John could afford to make such surrenders for the inheritance of his own wife was sufficient to give him a significantly greater estate than his family had previously enjoyed. By a final concord levied in 1482 her manors of Byfield and Watford in east Northamptonshire were settled on the couple with remainder over to her right heirs.

The making of this marriage was the prothonotary’s principal legacy to his family, but there were others. Another of his putative younger sons, George, was also found the hand of an heiress, albeit a minor one. His wife brought him a share of the manor of Creslow in Buckinghamshire. CP25(1)/179/96/51; VCH Bucks. iii. 337. Further, like most lawyers, our MP also augmented his patrimony through purchase. In 1453 he acquired in fee some 200 acres in Lichfield and its surrounding vills; in 1460, a manor at Kingswood near Wilmcote in Warwickshire; and in 1470 property at Newport Pagnell and Tickford in Buckinghamshire. CP25(1)/211/24/21; Warws. Feet of Fines, 2668; E326/2801, 2803, 2807. Another more extensive apparent acquisition is more likely to represent either a mortgage or a simple feoffment-to-use. By a final concord levied in 1451 a scattered estate, comprising the manor of Barnt Green in Alvechurch (Worcs.) with a few hundred acres of land at Bilton (Warws.) and Tansor and Barnwell (Northants.), was conveyed to him in fee: Warws. Feet of Fines, 2647. The manor did not descend in the family: VCH Worcs. iii. 254. Curiously, although the family survived late into the seventeenth century, the founder of its fortunes was the only one ever recorded as an MP.