GUILDFORD, Edward

More may be added to the earlier biography. The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 254-5.

Plenty of evidence survives to show that Guildford was a man frequently in dispute with his neighbours, and that he often resorted to violence. As recounted in the earlier biography, he was bound over in £200 to keep the peace to Patrick Seyntoweyn in 1412, and the subject of a commission of arrest in the following year. On 27 Apr. 1415 he purchased a pardon from Henry V, C67/37, m. 42. apparently because he was already in more trouble, for just nine days later four of his friends pledged £40 each in Chancery that he would keep the peace towards the Rochester lawyer Henry Hicks*, and on 9 May he himself was bound over in 100 marks to do Hicks no harm. Despite this restraint Guildford continued to threaten the lawyer and his family. According to a petition sent to the chancellor, in November 1416 he and an accomplice forcibly evicted Hicks’s father John from his property at Rolvenden and stole his goods, allegedly following this two years later with a second assault in which John was physically dragged out of his house by his legs and thrown onto the highway outside his close. The injured man referred to ‘la graunt pearde, extorcion, oppression et allyance’ of his adversary. Eventually, in May 1423 it was ruled in the court of the Exchequer that Guildford and his mainpernors of eight years earlier should be held to account for this breach of the peace, and forfeit their bonds. Three of the mainpernors had died in the meantime, but Guildford and John May were summoned to answer. Denying culpability, they asserted that the close in question was parcel of Guildford’s own estate; they had not intended to harm Hicks while asserting his rights. Proceedings continued until Michaelmas term 1424 when a local jury supported Guildford’s version of events, and the barons of the Exchequer eventually decided he should be acquitted. C1/4/114; E159/199, recorda Easter rots. 7, 7d, 16d; 201, Mich. rots 4, 21d. A fracas at Cranbrook, occurring meanwhile in the spring of 1420, may have been another aspect of the same quarrel, for when the matter came before the justices of King’s bench the defendant, William Knyght of Brenchelsea, who Guildford claimed had assaulted him, was represented in court by Henry Hicks. KB27/638, rot. 69d. Another of Guildford’s quarrels also concerned a neighbour, John Pittlesden. In 1422 the two men took turns to break into each other’s property in Rolvenden, allowing their livestock to damage crops. While Guildford pursued Pittlesden in the common pleas, the latter sued our MP in King’s bench, with the result that in Michaelmas term 1425 Guildford, his mother and his sureties (who included his son-in-law John Bamburgh*), were fined for failing to appear to answer a charge of robbery. CP40/648, rot. 247; 649, rot. 204; 651, rots. 88, 89; KB27/658, fines rot. 1.

An even more serious incident concerned an alleged plot to murder Guildford in March 1439. Richard Goodgroom, a mole-catcher and petty criminal, had turned King’s approver and accused John Sinclair, a ‘gentleman’ from Faversham, and Thomas Wolf, another local man, of conspiring to poison the MP, in revenge, it was said, for his part as sheriff of Kent in putting down a lollard rebellion the previous year. As a consequence of Guildford’s actions five of Sinclair’s friends had been executed for treason. A jury found Goodgroom’s allegations unfounded, but they still may be evidence of local resentment of the manner in which our MP had crushed the rising. R.L. Storey, End of House of Lancaster, 199-209; Bull. IHR, xxxvii. 100-2.

Despite his hot temper, Guildford remained a leading member of Kent society, and he frequently acted as a feoffee alongside his fellow gentry, including his sons-in-law, Robert Horne* and Bamburgh, and Gervase Clifton*. CP40/746, rot. 480; 751, rot. 368d. More surprising, and providing a complete contrast to the reports of his criminal exploits, are the records of his activities as a j.p., as revealed in a recently-discovered roll from his archives, compiled while he was serving on the bench. Although Guildford never attended the quarter sessions held in Kent, he was fully engaged in peace-keeping in his home area, by wielding authority over the bailiffs and constables of the Wealden hundreds. The roll illuminates the formal and bureaucratic business required of a j.p.: responding to writs from the King, chancellor, sheriff or another justice, and dealing with the preliminaries, before the issues reached quarter sessions, or with matters that never did. ‘The procedures that he operated and the records he kept were thoroughly professional and technically correct’. M. Hicks, ‘Out of Session. Edward Guildford of Halden’, Southern Hist. xxviii. 24-45, quote from p. 37. Guildford’s roll, calendared by Hicks, is now Hants RO, 111M94 W/T/1/2.