FAYREFORD, Alexander, of Southwark, Surr.

Of Fayreford’s early life and career little is known, even though his father was a person of some standing as coroner of the marshalsea of the Household for over 35 years, from 1417 to about 1453. CPR, 1416-22, p. 112; E101/258/7. Alexander had probably acquired some legal training before 1440, when, alongside his father, he appears to have acted as an attorney in a case concerning two Hertfordshire men brought before the court of the marshalsea. J. Amundesham, Chron. S. Albani ed. Riley, ii. 216. Perhaps he acted as his father’s assistant or deputy until in late 1450 he was appointed joint coroner with him for term of their lives, replacing the recently-deceased Thomas de la Pylle*, who had held the office with Robert Fayreford since December 1443. CPR, 1446-52, p. 408; 1441-6, p. 238. Father and son officiated together until Robert retired, at some point between August 1452 and September 1453. E101/259/22, 23. Alexander then filled this important post alone for another four years, until November 1457, when he was replaced by John Say II* and his brother Thomas. The former had been granted the reversion of the coronership several years earlier, to fall in after the death of Robert Fayreford, CPR, 1441-6, p. 310; 1452-61, p. 399. and this had just occurred. Alexander’s dismissal, despite his own appointment for life, marked a change of emphasis for the office of coroner, and perhaps also for the way in which it was perceived by the burgesses of Southwark. As local men and parishioners of St. Olave’s, the Fayrefords may have helped to maintain the delicate balance between traditional hostility towards the court of the marshalsea, based on its perceived erosion of local custom, and an appreciation of its value in keeping at bay the competing claims of the city of London over the borough. D. Johnson, Southwark and the City, 69-72. The Says, on the other hand, were political appointees who had no local ties and may perhaps have been less sympathetic to the concerns and ambitions of the borough community.

The opportunity for such a change in policy had arisen with the death of Fayreford’s father. In his will, dated and proved in August 1457, Robert asked to be buried in St. Olave’s and left bequests to his brother and sister and the residue of his goods to his wife Juliana, with reversion to his son Alexander and two daughters. PCC 10 Stokton (PROB11/4, f. 72). Two months after his enforced retirement from the marshalsea Alexander took out a pardon as former coroner and esquire of Surrey, C67/42, m. 31. but his dismissal had left him without a dependable source of income. It is likely that he was due to inherit property in Southwark from his father, but his mother retained a dower interest and it was together with her that he brought a suit in the common pleas against a Southwark armourer for a debt of 46s. 8d., at the same time as he himself was being sued by a local clerk for £2. The pleas were in progress in the Michaelmas term of 1459, CP40/795, rots. 289, 359. and coincided with Fayreford’s election to the Parliament summoned to assemble at Coventry on 20 Nov. It may be that the burgesses of Southwark still regarded him as a potentially useful intermediary with members of the royal household, now established at some distance from the capital. His usual description as an ‘esquire’ marked him out as different from the townsmen. It was as so designated that in the following June he was appointed to a commission to rid Southwark of prostitutes, and that in September 1460 he was listed among those present at Guildford for the election of the shire knights for Surrey. C219/16/6.

The change of regime in 1461 coincided with increasing financial difficulties for Fayreford. In the summer of 1463 he was brought to the common pleas to answer two clerks from the parish of Walton-on-Thames, who claimed that four years earlier he had been bound to them in £40 which he had failed to honour. Thomas Went*, who had been his fellow MP for Southwark at the Coventry Parliament, was among those who provided bail on his behalf. CP40/809, rot. 353d. Failure to appear in court to answer for another debt, owed to Geoffrey Feldyng*, a London mercer and alderman, resulted in his outlawry, although in October that year he secured a pardon. Yet this was not the end of his troubles, for further lawsuits led to him being outlawed again: he obtained another pardon in November 1467. CPR, 1461-7, p. 257; 1467-77, p. 5; CP40/815, rot. 303. A further indicator of straitened circumstances came at around the same time, with Fayreford relinquishing property he and his wife held near the border of Surrey and Middlesex. One beneficiary was Richard Aubrey who, by Easter 1468, had acquired from the Fayrefords a messuage and some 130 acres of land in Littleton and Laleham (Middlesex), and Strode (Surrey); while another transaction, completed a year later, saw the Fayrefords transfer ownership of a messuage and two gardens in Staines. CP25(1)/152/97/33, 36; 232/75/15. Nothing is recorded about Fayreford after the spring of 1469.

In his testament, which has not been found, Fayreford asked his widow to pay £20 to a priest to sing for his soul for three years. This she had not done by the time she came to make her own will, on 12 July 1491, explaining that he had failed to leave her sufficient goods to cover the charge. While she now gave 20s. to the Charterhouse at Sheen for prayers for the two of them, she was disinclined to be buried next to him, choosing instead to lie the grave of her first husband, William Walsale, in the London church of St. Thomas the Apostle. PCC 2 Dogett.