HOLMAN, William, of Oxted, Surr.

The identification of the Gatton MP of 1459 presents some problems, as his name was not an uncommon one. It does, however, appear that he came from a local family with landholdings at Chaldon, Merstham and Oxted in the immediate vicinity of the borough he represented. Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone, Streatfield mss, U908/T434/2, 7-9, 14. It is not clear whether the Holmans of Oxted were related to their namesakes based at Ticehurst in neighbouring Suss.: E. Suss. RO, Dunn mss, DUN1/5, 29, 30, 39. Much of this property lay within the lands of the steward of the lordship of Reigate, John Timperley I*, to whom John Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, had entrusted control of his Surrey estates in the late 1440s, and it is possible that Timperley played a part in arranging for his tenant’s return to the Commons. In the autumn of 1459 the duke, who had been an early partisan of Richard, duke of York, in his opposition to Henry VI’s court, stood isolated, following the flight of York and his allies, the Neville earls of Salisbury and Warwick, and thus had good cause to seek the election of his tenants and retainers to the Parliament that would eventually attaint York and the Nevilles. It is not known what part, if any, Holman played in the Commons, and his later activities are hard to distinguish from those of his synonymous son and heir. It seems unlikely that the MP can be identified with the man who served as keeper of the gaol of Ilchester in Somerset from 1450 to 1458: CPR, 1446-52, p. 406; 1452-61, p. 427. Equally, the Guildford man whose will was proven before the bp. of Winchester in 1463 was probably a namesake: Hants RO, Reg. Waynflete (21 M65/A1/13) pt. 1, f. 76.