FORSTER, William III, of Wilton, Wilts.

Forster was assessed for the tax on landed incomes granted in his third Parliament as receiving £5 p.a. from his holdings in Wiltshire. Although their location is not always certain, he may have been the man who in 1436 acquired property in ‘Great Sheepbridge’, where a namesake had previously held land in the first decade of the century, while in the county town of Wilton he is known to have owned a messuage and four acres of meadowland, which eventually passed to his son John. E159/212, recorda Hil. rot. 14 (vii)d; Wilts. Feet of Fines, 308, 498, 643. Lacunae in the borough records in the first half of the century make it impossible now to chart Forster’s activities there, although it is clear that he lived in the town, and was active enough in local affairs to be elected as its representative in the Commons on at least four occasions. Yet before he first entered Parliament he had established influential contacts beyond the confines of Wilton. In 1420-1 he was paid 10s. for riding to Poole on the business of Sir Walter Hungerford†, the steward of Henry V’s household, and this connexion continued after Sir Walter’s elevation as Lord Hungerford and treasurer of England. In October 1431 Forster shared with an important Hungerford servant, Thomas Brown II*, a lease at the Exchequer of two-thirds of the Wiltshire manors of Amesbury and Winterbourne, which they were to hold for 12 years. SC6/1119/9; CFR, xvi. 64-65. The association may have had some bearing on Forster’s election to the Parliament summoned to meet in the following May, although by then Lord Hungerford was no longer treasurer. A year after the dissolution, Forster attested the indenture recording the election at Wilton of the knights of the shire in the Parliament of 1433, on the same occasion being returned with them as a borough representative. It is not known how much he was paid overall for his service in the Commons, but in 1433-4 the steward of Wilton recorded a payment of 26s. 8d. to him as an MP. Wilton stewards’ accts. G25/1/89.

How often or for how long Forster occupied positions of authority in Wilton is rarely recorded, although in February 1436 he served as a juror for the inquisition post mortem on John, earl of Arundel, C139/71/37. and he was certainly steward in 1452-3 and perhaps mayor the year after. He may have died in office, as John Brown* is also recorded as mayor during the official year of 1453-4. By 1460 the MP’s son and heir John Forster had come into his property in Wilton, only to sell it in reversion to Robert atte Fenne*. Wilts. Feet of Fines, 643. That autumn John served on juries in Wilton at the inquisitions post mortem following the deaths of the earl of Shrewsbury and duke of Buckingham on the battlefield at Northampton. C139/179/58; 180/59.