FULFORD, Baldwin (exec.1461), of Towstock and Great Fulford, Devon.

Fulford came from an established Devon family with a record of Crown service in the region. His father, Henry, was an important man in the locality, who was often employed as a feoffee by his neighbours, and served twice as escheator of Devon and Cornwall, dying during his second term of office. He attested the Devon county elections of 1407 as the earl of Devon’s steward, and those of April 1413 as steward of the King himself, and he may have fulfilled a similar role at the later elections he attended in October 1414, 1417 and 1419. C219/10/4; 11/1, 4; 12/2, 3.

Following his father’s death, Baldwin succeeded to the extensive family estates, including the manors of Great Morton and Marwynchurch in Cornwall and Great Fulford in Devon, as well as several thousand acres in the two counties, holdings which at his death were assessed at more than £100 p.a. C140/3/31, 62/41. It is possible that Fulford controlled Great Morton in his father’s lifetime, for in the autumn of 1436 he brought a suit for an account against the local gentleman Nicholas Legh who had served as his bailiff of the manor between 1413 and 1420: CP40/703, rot. 321. These lands aside, Fulford also had a claim to the holdings of his father’s first wife, Ricarda Durneford, including the manors of Durneford and Hokebeare, in the event of the childless death of her grand-daughter and heir, Elizabeth Bigbury, who had married the Exchequer official Robert Burton. C140/3/31, 62/41. In the event, Elizabeth did die without living issue, but Fulford predeceased her. Fulford’s acquisition of Marwynchurch was fraught with difficulty, for his title was challenged by the influential Sir John Arundell II* of Trerice who claimed a right to the property by his marriage to Joan Durant, descendant of the manor’s early 14th-century tenant. The dispute came to trial at the Cornish assizes in March 1427, but no verdict was reached, for the jury produced by the sheriff had to be dismissed following allegations by Fulford that it had been arrayed by the under sheriff, John Mayhew†, in favour of Arundell and his wife. JUST1/1540, rot. 80. The dispute simmered on into the second half of the 1430s, when Arundell and Fulford were still squabbling over various issues in the courts, and at Fulford’s death Sir John was at hand to seize the property he claimed as his own. SC2/157/6, rots. 4, 5, 13, 14d; C140/3/31, m. 4; CP40/698, rot. 340d; 702, rot. 325d; 703, rots. 558, 559.

The Fulfords’ close connexions with the Courtenay earls of Devon left them, like many of their neighbours, bereft of a patron during the protracted minority of Earl Thomas. It was thus in the retinue of the young earl’s older kinsman, (Sir) Philip Courtenay*, head of a cadet branch of the comital family seated at Powderham on the Exe estuary, that Baldwin Fulford indentured to go to France on Henry VI’s coronation expedition in the summer of 1430. DKR, xlviii. 283. The ties thus newly forged proved politically important, for Courtenay was part of a circle of leading south-western landowners around the treasurer, Walter, Lord Hungerford†, who sought to fill the vacuum of power left by the earl’s minority. There can be little doubt that the connexion with Courtenay played its part in securing the otherwise inexperienced Fulford his return to the Commons in May 1432 as a knight of the shire for Cornwall, and it probably also accounted for his appointment as escheator of Cornwall and Devon within a few months of the dissolution.

Perhaps on account of Fulford’s inexperience and consequent high-handedness, the term of office was destined to be a turbulent one. It culminated in an incident at Dartmouth in July 1433. Having come to the town to seize the goods of several outlaws, Fulford and his men were set upon by an armed mob led by some of the most prominent inhabitants of the port. H.R. Watkin, Dartmouth, 112-13; CPR, 1429-36, p. 279; E136/33/10. This incident may have played a part in ensuring that Fulford’s subsequent career of office holding almost to the end of his life remained limited to occasional ad hoc commissions and a short spell on the Cornish county bench. Instead, he concentrated on the management of his estates, and can be found pursuing a string of lawsuits over infringements of his seigneurial rights. CP40/681, rot. 41d; 682, rot. 51; 697, rot. 46; 720, rots. 30, 216; 730, rot. 370d. By 1436 he had made a prestigious marriage to the daughter of John Bosom, a former MP for Dartmouth and Totnes, which connected her to one of the leading legal dynasties of the south-west. Elizabeth Bosom’s paternal great-aunt, Isabel, had married William Fortescue of Whympstone, and her aunt, Joan Bosom, had married the influential Henry Fortescue† of Wood Barton. The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 299. Unquestionably, Fulford’s wealth was sufficient to qualify him for knightly rank, and in March 1439 he was thus among the men of Devon distrained to take up knighthood or pay a fine in the course of the administration’s latest ploy to raise funds for the French wars. Unlike many others, Fulford put up a fight, and claimed that the sheriff, James Chudleigh*, had failed to give him due notice of the distraint, thus causing him to miss his day in the court of the Exchequer and to forfeit 20s., and demanded that the sheriff pay him damages of 20 marks. E372/284; E13/141, rot. 30d.

The subsequent decade of Fulford’s career is largely obscure. Following his removal from the Cornish county bench in 1442 after a spell of less than three years he was not entrusted with further Crown office beyond an inquiry into acts of piracy in 1445. He did, however, now renew and strengthen his family’s traditional links with the Courtenay earl of Devon, who had been declared of age in 1435 and increasingly began to assert himself politically. Fulford became a feoffee of the earl’s estates and in 1442 stood surety for him at the Exchequer. CFR, xvii. 208; C145/322/16. Perhaps in recognition of this connexion he was admitted to the freedom of Exeter in 1446 in return for his ‘good counsel’. He had acquired property in the city a few years earlier, although later litigation suggests that he may have done so by fraudulent means, taking advantage of the limited literacy of the local mercer William Hoigge. Exeter Freemen ed. Rowe and Jackson, 50; KB27/758, rot. 73. Certainly, the 1440s saw Fulford come into serious conflict with the law: in July 1444 a high-powered commission of oyer and terminer was appointed to investigate the activities of him and his retainers, who were said to have committed a series of extortions and felonies including rape, and while pillaging the countryside had not even stopped short of breaking into parish churches in their search for plunder. CPR, 1441-6, pp. 292-3.

In 1450 Fulford took out letters of protection to go overseas, perhaps in order to make his contribution to the last desperate defence of Lancastrian Normandy, but if he did indeed set out, and had not merely procured the letters to evade legal action of some sort, he left no further trace on the record. There may be some indication of his absence in his failure to participate in the earl of Devon’s campaign of violence in 1451-2 that led to his arrest alongside the duke of York at Dartford. Furthermore, by the autumn of 1453 Fulford had been knighted, and it is possible that he had finally accepted this accolade while on campaign in France. His military service, if that is what it was, may have allowed for his rehabilitation, for not only did he play no part in Thomas Courtenay’s open feud with his rival, William, Lord Bonville*, in 1454-5, but he was among the select group of local landowners, headed by Lord Fitzwaryn, who were commissioned to put down insurrections across the south-west in the summer of 1455. CPR, 1452-61, p. 257.

If Fulford successfully avoided taking sides in the civil war in the west, he showed less dexterity as the dispute over the direction of the government between the duke of York and the court party turned into open dynastic conflict towards the end of the 1450s. In the autumn of 1459 York and his Neville allies, the earls of Warwick and Salisbury, were driven into exile, and the government, dominated by Queen Margaret, sought to place its allies in key positions across the realm. Perhaps on account of his longstanding ties to the Courtenays of Tiverton who were related to the queen by the marriage of the second Earl Thomas (son of Fulford’s earlier patron) to her cousin, Marie of Maine, Sir Baldwin was chosen to take control of the county of Devon as sheriff, and a month later was also added to the county bench. Devon, like other counties on the Channel coast was under threat from the Yorkist earls of Salisbury, Warwick and March who were holed up in the strategic fortress of Calais and were preying on shipping between England and the Continent.

In January 1460 the earls launched a raid on Sandwich under the leadership of John Dynham. The Lancastrian government was desperate for a champion to challenge the invaders until in February Fulford, still serving as sheriff, agreed to undertake the keeping of the seas for three months, asserting that ‘on payne of lesyng of his hed he wolde destroy the erle of Warrewyk and his nauey, yef the kyng wolde graunte hym his expensis’. This Henry VI’s ministers promised, but in order to pay Sir Baldwin and the duke of Exeter, who had likewise agreed to equip a fleet, they had to raise loans of 4,500 marks. Fulford’s force mustered in the first days of March, but achieved little before his commission expired, ‘and whenne he had consumed and wasted alle that money, his vyage was done and [he] wente home ayene’. English Chron. (Cam. Soc. lxiv), 85; E404/71/4/28, 36; Letters and Pprs. Illust. Wars of English ed. Stevenson, ii. 512-16; DKR, xlviii. 440; CPR, 1452-61, p. 564; Paston Letters ed. Gairdner, i. 185; R.A. Griffiths, Hen. VI, 857; M.A. Hicks, Warwick, 175; P.A. Johnson, Duke Richard of York, 201. In the 18th cent. the Bristol antiquary William Barrett claimed to have seen ‘an old parchment in Mr. Canynge’s cabinet’ which represented Fulford’s original bond to take the earl of Warwick’s life: W. Barrett, Hist. Bristol, 220. With Fulford’s fleet back in port and the duke of Exeter’s forces in mutiny, the Channel was clear for the Yorkist lords to cross from Calais and land in England. This they did at the end of June and on 10 July a royal army was defeated at Northampton. Still sheriff of Devon, Fulford was allowed to see out his term of office, but found himself removed from the county bench within a month of the Yorkist victory.

Although the Yorkists now controlled London and the King’s person, many in the south-west retained strong sympathies for the Lancastrian dynasty. Chief among these was Thomas Courtenay, earl of Devon. It is not clear when Sir Baldwin joined the earl in Queen Margaret’s army in the north, or whether he was present at the battle of Wakefield on 31 Dec. 1460, when the duke of York and the earls of Salisbury and Rutland were killed. He had, however, joined the Lancastrian force by early February 1461, and was presumably present in its ranks at the second battle of St. Albans on 17 Feb. Alongside the Somerset lawyer Alexander Hody*, a servant of the duke of Exeter, he headed an advance party of 400 armed men sent to Barnet in the aftermath of the engagement to negotiate terms for the surrender of the city of London. They were met by some of the aldermen, who promised to send money and supplies to the queen, but procrastinated over the issue of opening London’s gates. On the following Saturday, Fulford and Hody advanced to Aldgate and demanded entry. This the mayor, Richard Lee*, refused, and sought to gain time by making available the promised supplies. Now, however, Fulford and Hody lost control of their men, who had been promised plunder and began to pillage in the suburbs. The enraged commons of London for their part also rose up against their political leaders’ orders and drove the assailants to flight. C.L. Scofield, Edw. IV, i. 145-6; Letters and Pprs. ii. 777; Griffiths, 872-3. This spelled the beginning of the end of Queen Margaret’s bid to recapture the capital. She withdrew northwards, accompanied by Henry VI whom she had recovered from his Yorkist minders on the battlefield of St. Albans. Back in London, the duke of York’s son was proclaimed King Edward IV on 4 Mar., and just over three weeks later on 29 Mar. an army under his leadership routed the remaining Lancastrian forces at Towton in Yorkshire.

Henry VI and his queen were forced to go into exile in Scotland, while their supporters took refuge in a variety of strongholds in the further-flung regions of England. It is not known whether Fulford fought at Towton, or whether he had returned to the south-west immediately after the disaster before the gates of London, but he was active in raising support for the deposed King in the south-west up to June 1461, when commissioners headed by the abbot of Tavistock and including, among others, Sir Baldwin’s old comrade-in-arms (Sir) Philip Courtenay, his sons Philip† and Humphrey, and the mayors of Exeter, Dartmouth and Totnes, were instructed to capture him and the duke of Exeter’s bastard brother, William, and their supporters. CPR, 1461-7, p. 33.

With his pursuers on his track, Fulford set sail for Brittany. However, the Channel was being watched, his ship was overtaken at sea by a vessel commanded by one John Staplehill, and Sir Baldwin and his companions were taken prisoner and brought to Bristol. Three 15th Cent. Chrons. (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxviii), 77; Scofield, i. 200. Here, they were kept under arrest until 4 Sept. to await King Edward’s arrival. The King himself presided at the trial, and presumably witnessed Fulford’s execution as a traitor five days later. Fulford’s severed head was dispatched to Exeter, where it was put on display on a stake in the market place. It was to remain there for almost two years until March 1463, when Sir Baldwin’s son, Thomas, successfully petitioned to be allowed to remove and bury it, since the flesh was rotting and ‘it daily falleth down’ at the feet of the citizens. Orig. Letters ed. Ellis, i (1), 16; C. Ross, Edw. IV, 48, 402; KB29/92, rot. 12d; E28/89/28; Three 15th Cent. Chrons. 77; M. Cherry, ‘Crown and Political Community, Devon’ (Univ. of Wales, Swansea Ph.D. thesis, 1981), 329. Fulford’s formal attainder did not take place until Parliament assembled more than two months after his execution. His estates were declared forfeit, and parts of them in Dunsford, Fulford, and elsewhere in Devon were granted to his captor Staplehill as a reward. Other parts of the estate were distributed among other Yorkist partisans, including John Fortescue†, the former chief justice’s nephew. Letters and Pprs. ii. 778; Scofield, i. 220; CPR, 1461-7, pp. 54, 117, 192, 212, 372. Staplehill, however, had designs on the remainder of his victim’s possessions, and on two further occasions in 1462 and 1464 was able to secure additional grants of portions of the Fulford estates. CPR, 1461-7, pp. 228, 359.

Already, however, Sir Baldwin’s elder son, Sir Thomas, had begun his bid for the restoration of his family’s fortunes. He came to terms with the new regime and, after securing permission to end his father’s public humiliation and bury his head, in late 1464 recovered some of the family estates, as well as the reversion of the remainder after the deaths of the original grantees. He now also turned on his father’s captor: with a sizeable retinue he entered his family’s old seat at Fulford, and, finding Staplehill absent, threatened his wife, tied the servants up hand and foot and carried off all the moveable goods. Finally, in 1467 he had the satisfaction of having his father’s attainder formally reversed by Parliament. CPR, 1461-7, pp. 372; PROME, xiii. 283-4; C1/27/424.

Sir Baldwin’s wife, Elizabeth, had been granted some of the issues of her husband’s forfeited lands for her sustenance even before her husband’s execution, and she was also allowed to retain the lordship and manor of Great Morton and further lands and rents in West Putford and ‘Bukkysh’. She later went on to marry Edward IV’s attorney general, (Sir) William Huddesfield† of Shillingford. The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 299; CPR, 1461-7, pp. 64, 372. Her daughters by her first husband married into the Devon gentry. Thomasina Fulford became the wife of John Wyse, younger son of John Wyse* of Sydenham and brother of Thomas Wyse*, while Alice married William, son and heir of Philip Cary* of Cockington. Vivian, 378; C1/480/13. Sir Baldwin’s younger son, John, embarked on an ecclesiastical career and rose to become archdeacon of Exeter. Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, ix. 15, 17, 19, 60. For two generations after Sir Baldwin’s death his family played no part in the parliamentary representation of the south-west, but Sir Thomas’s grandson John was later to sit in Edward VI’s final Parliament in 1553. The Commons 1509-58, ii. 175-6.