HILL, Robert (c.1391-1444), of Shilston, Devon.

Robert Hill was one of a number of south-western MPs of this period whose fathers had made their fortunes in the legal profession and advanced to the royal judiciary. M. Cherry, ‘Crown and Political Community, Devon’ (Univ. of Wales, Swansea Ph.D. thesis, 1981), 358 suggests that the MP of 1442 was in fact the judge’s gds., the s. of another Robert Hill junior. His synonymous father, who had ended his career as a justice of the common bench, had married as his second wife the thrice-widowed Joan, daughter of Otto Bodrugan† (d.1389) of Bodrugan, and her numerous children from her previous marriages provided the Hills with extensive connexions among the gentry of the south-west. CFR, xv. 145, 189. One of his stepbrothers was a one-time knight of the shire for Cornwall, William Bodrugan†, whose son, Sir William*, one of the wealthiest landowners in fifteenth-century Cornwall, represented the county no fewer than five times. The links within this family network were strengthened by the successive marriages of Robert’s sister Joan (d.1440), first to Sir Otto Trevarthian of Trevarthian (another stepbrother), and after his death in 1420 to Thomas Carminowe* of Ashwater. C139/103/37; CFR, xiv. 275; xvii. 164. Carminowe’s daughters (Hill’s nieces) later married into two leading Devon families, the Carews and Courtenays.

Like many members of the late medieval gentry, Hill married at a young age, and following the death of his first wife in 1417 was left a widower aged only about 26. CIPM, xxiv. 124. He soon married again, and his alliance with Margaret Champernowne provided him with further valuable connexions in south-western society. Vivian, 229. Margaret’s brother Hugh* (her father’s heir) would represent Barnstaple in the Commons in 1437, but more importantly, her mother, Isabel, was the sister of one of the leading men in the south-west in Henry VI’s reign, Sir William Bonville* of Shute.

In common with many of their neighbours, the Hills possessed longstanding ties with the senior line of the Courtenays, the earls of Devon. The elder Robert Hill had been employed by both by Earl Hugh (d.1377) and Earl Edward (d.1419) and had represented their borough of Plympton Erle in Parliament in the 1370s, while another kinsman Sir John Hill† served Earl Edward as steward in 1379 and 1381-2. Cherry, 229, 356-8. During the protracted minority of Earl Thomas in the 1420s and 30s, however, the younger Robert sought alternative patronage, and thus forged new ties within the grouping at court headed by the treasurer, Walter, Lord Hungerford†, which in Devon was represented by Hill’s wife’s uncle, Bonville, and her cousin, (Sir) Philip Courtenay* of Powderham. By 1430, Hill was witnessing property deeds for Courtenay, and he would later be named among the feoffees of Bonville’s estates. CCR, 1461-8, p. 7.

It seems that the young Robert took his first steps on the public stage even in his father’s lifetime, for it was probably he who, styled ‘Robert Hill junior’, attended the Devon shire elections in April 1421 and set his seal to the sheriff’s indenture. C219/12/5. It is just possible that this was in fact an older kinsman, Robert Hill† of Spaxton, who held estates worth more than £40 in Devon, even though the bulk of his interests lay across the border in Som., where he certainly did attest the elections to that same Parl. Yet, it seems that it had already been decided that he would not follow in the family tradition of training in the law, but would instead avail himself of the wealth that his father had amassed to lead the life of a well-to-do landowner. In keeping with such a destiny, in 1423 he and his younger brother John joined the retinue of Thomas Beaufort, duke of Exeter, and sailed for France. DKR, xlviii. 225, 226. Just two years later Hill’s father died and he came into his inheritance. The family’s lands were scattered in and around the towns and villages of Shilston, Spriddlescombe, Spriddlestone, Brixton, Newton Ferrers, Plympton Erle, Plympton Prior, Great Modbury, Ugborough, Kingsbridge, North Ludbrook, Dodbrooke, and Aveton Giffard, but the annual rents alone amounted to some £31 p.a., more than the £30 at which the total holdings had been assessed in 1412. CP40/740, rot. 403; Feudal Aids, vi. 417 Moreover, on two occasions in the 1430s Hill would be distrained to take up knighthood, suggesting that his annual income easily exceeded the £40 p.a. that would come to represent the income qualification for a knight of the shire. E372/275, 284. His inclusion among the men required to take the general oath against maintenance in 1434 gives a further indication of his standing in the county community. CPR, 1429-36, p. 399.

Not long after succeeding to the family lands, Hill had to fend off a challenge to his tenure of his seat at Shilston brought by Hugh Yon*, a gentleman from the Dartmouth region, apparently in the right of his young wife, Elizabeth. In association with the prominent Dartmouth merchant Nicholas Stebbing*, the Yons were said to have trespassed on Hill’s property and threatened his tenants, while Hugh and Stebbing had apparently also procured forged deeds that falsified the terms of the property’s descent. The proceedings begun by Hill against them in the King’s courts were repeatedly delayed, not least by Yon’s repeated acquisition of letters of protection on the strength of planned expeditions to France and Gascony. Finally, Hill succeeded in having these letters annulled, and early in 1433 Yon was convicted and ordered to pay substantial damages, although Stebbing was acquitted of the charges against him. A further delay ensued, as Yon had failed to provide his attorney, William Kirkesby*, with the requisite warrant, but there was no further question of a challenge to Hill’s title to his manor. CP40/682, rots. 119d, 306d; 689, rots. 121, 329d; 693, rot. 139.

Hill now assumed the place in county administration appropriate to his wealth and status. In November 1428 he was pricked as sheriff of Devon, serving a term extended by three months beyond its normal duration on account of the crisis that ensued from the French victory at Patay and the subsequent coronation of the Dauphin as Charles VII. Occasional royal commissions followed, but, oddly for someone who had held the shrievalty, Hill was never appointed to the county bench. Certainly there had been some complaints over his official conduct (William Dounebant, prior of Cowick, claimed that he had failed to execute a writ of attachias against Richard Holland* and an associate), but these were at the level that was normal for any sheriff, E5/485. and there is no suggestion that they led to any prolonged disfavour at court, since in June 1437 Hill along with John Palmer* was able to secure a grant of the farm of the Cornish manor of Wadfast. CFR, xvi. 333; SC6/823/31; E13/142, rot. 1.

Moreover, Hill clearly commanded some respect among his neighbours, which saw him called upon to witness property deeds and adjudicate disputes. Plymouth and W. Devon RO, Woollcombe mss, 710/50. One of the more curious episodes of this nature concerned allegations of theft brought against one Reynold Nicoll in 1435. Both Nicoll and his accuser, William Wilberdon, had influential backers, respectively in the persons of John Prideaux of Adeston and his kinsman William Prideaux of Hole in the case of Nicoll, and Richard Fortescue and John Prutteston in the case of Wilberdon, and the matter was subjected to the adjudication of Hill. It was, however, agreed that, should no other evidence be forthcoming, Hill should examine a certain soothsayer over the matter, which soothsayer would specially be brought to Shilston for this purpose and in such a way as to prevent the parties from influencing him beforehand. In the event, it seems, the examination never took place, as before long the parties were trading accusations of misconduct. CP40/703, rot. 340. Of course, Hill was not universally popular. He defended his interests in the law courts with some success, CP40/691, rot. 58; 713, rot. 169; 714, rot. 259; 715, rots. 223d, 327; 717, rot. 183; 721, rot. 342; CP25(1)/46/86/191. and perhaps not always by licit means. John Tolk, sued by Hill before the justices of the King’s bench for a violent assault on one of his servants, Stephen Jane*, complained to the chancellor that although an action at common law was open to him in this matter, Hill was ‘so grete a doer and maintener’ and known as ‘the grettest extorsioner and oppresser of pouere men’ in the shire, that no jury would find against him and no man of lesser wealth and standing than himself could gain anything by suing him in the traditional way. C1/75/91; KB27/685, rot. 10.

Hill’s sole return to the Commons may have been directly connected with an acrimonious dispute with his wife’s uncle, Sir William Bonville, that came before the King’s courts about this time. In the autumn of 1440 the serjeant-at-law John Fortescue* had acquired a 20-year lease of a fishery on the river Erme between Ugborough and Ermington, and had then sublet it to Hill for a term of a year. By custom, the proprietors of the fishery were entitled to access it across the landholdings of the tenants of the manors on either side of the river. On 23 Nov. 1440 Hill found his right to do so challenged by Bonville’s retainers, headed by Walter Ralegh*, who claimed to be protecting their master’s property, and had helped themselves to Hill’s fish in quantities said to amount to 100 salmon, 200 bass, 200 trout and 200 other fish, altogether worth £10. Their exchange grew heated, but Hill and his men retained the upper hand, succeeded in disarming Ralegh and his followers, and – to add insult to injury – unceremoniously threw Ralegh into a ‘deep water’, probably the river itself. Protracted litigation in the royal courts ensued, and Hill was able to secure convictions of some of Ralegh’s lesser followers. The two esquires’ dispute itself was submitted to the adjudication of a special commission of oyer and terminer, headed by Sir Richard Newton c.j.c.p. and including Edward Pomeroy† of Sandridge, John Mules* and John Wydeslade*. CP40/714, rot. 185d; 715, rot. 303; 716, rot. 69d; 717, rot. 100d; 720, rots. 109d, 331; 721, rot. 331; 723, rots. 4d, 334; CPR, 1441-6, p. 153. Now Bonville himself entered the fray, and charged Hill with the infringement of his property beyond what was reasonable on account of the fishery, and with the assault on Ralegh and his men. CP40/726, rot. 424.

It was in the middle of these proceedings that Hill sought and gained election to the Commons. The earl of Devon, Thomas Courtenay, was now of age, and already relations between him and Bonville were turning sour, not least as a result of the government’s mishandling of the appointment to the vacant post of steward of the duchy of Cornwall. In view of Hill’s own rocky relations with his wife’s uncle, it seems likely that his candidature enjoyed the earl’s support, as did that of his brother-in-law, Thomas Carminowe. It is not clear whether the squabble over the Ermington fishery and the events of 1440 ever reached the floor of Parliament, but the aftermath of the assembly created further problems for Hill. Although he and Carminowe were issued with the customary writs de expensis and delivered these to the sheriff, William Wadham, a kinsman on his mother’s side, at Exeter in April 1442, as late as October they had still not received all of the money owing to them. Nor was this the only point of friction with Wadham, who also proved reluctant to complete the outlawry proceedings against the chaplain Willam Canterhill, one of Ralegh’s associates in the Ermington affair. E13/142, rots. 2d, 11d, 19d; E5/521.

It is not clear how, or indeed whether these matters were settled in Hill’s lifetime, for he died in the spring of 1444. During the final two years of his life he was appointed to occasional ad hoc commissions in his native county, but his overriding concern was perhaps the execution of the will of his brother-in-law, Thomas Carminowe, who died in December 1442. In spite of the elaborate settlements Carminowe had made before his death, the task proved complex, and a lengthy legal battle ensued, but Hill’s own death prevented him from being drawn into it fully. CFR, xvii. 276; C1/18/61. Hill’s will, like that of his brother-in-law, was contested, and a special inquiry was ordered in November 1445. CPR, 1441-6, p. 465. One complication was Hill’s third marriage, late in life, to the widow of the lawyer John Bosom, who survived him. By early 1446, she was suing his executors (who included the prominent lawyers Nicholas Radford* and William Hyndeston*) for her dower. CP40/734, rot. 100; 740, rot. 403.