HUGFORD, Thomas (1394-1470), of Emscote, Warws.

Thomas Hugford’s father Robert rose from obscure origins in the service of the Beauchamp earls of Warwick, first in that of Earl Thomas (d.1401), who was probably our MP’s godfather, and then of Earl Richard. At the time of our MP’s birth, his fa. was keeper of Earl Thomas’s household, and the earl was thus a natural choice as godfather. In 1408 he purchased the manor of Emscote in Milverton, just outside Warwick, and, as further adornment to his newly-won gentry status, quickly added a royal grant of free warren in his new estate. CChR, v. 441. At his death in 1411 he left Thomas under age, but by the time his widow died four years later the young man was ready to assume the place in local affairs Robert had created. On 28 Mar. 1416 the Crown awarded him seisin of Emscote, and by 1418 he was already in the employ of Earl Richard. CIPM, xx. 330; CFR, xiv. 146; Egerton Roll 8773, m. 2d.

Hugford’s later career implies that the value of his service to the Beauchamps was augmented by a legal training, yet, curiously, in 1420 he was included on the list of Warwickshire men sent to the royal council as suitable for military service. E28/97/32B; C. Carpenter, Locality and Polity, 46. The evidence for his legal training is indirect. Later in his career he was named, albeit intermittently, to the quorum of the peace and was frequently appointed to gaol delivery commissions. Further, by the mid 1450s, he had been retained de consilio by the dean and chapter of the collegiate church of St. Mary’s, Warwick: Ministers’ Accts. St. Mary’s Warwick (Dugdale Soc. xxvi), 48. His importance to his lord at home, together perhaps with personal disinclination, ensured that he did not serve in France at this date. His rapid rise within the ranks of the Beauchamp retinue was probably determined initially by the absence of others of that retinue with their lord in France. His return to represent Warwickshire in Parliament on 9 Apr. 1425 was an affirmation of the domination of the Beauchamp retinue and a demonstration of Hugford’s place within it, in the same way as his father’s had been some 20 years before. The election indenture is slightly curious in that only ten attestors were named, several of whom were burgesses of the earl’s borough of Warwick, including the two men, Nicholas Rody* and Roger Wootton I*, elected for that borough. It appears that the representation of both county and borough was decided within the Beauchamp retinue. C219/13/3.

Soon afterwards Hugford served his lord in a different forum. In the following November he was part of a group, led by Sir Hugh Cokesey* and including several prominent townsmen of Warwick, involved in a serious confrontation with the servants of Joan Beauchamp, Lady Abergavenny, at Snitterfield, a few miles to the south of Warwick. It is not known what lay behind this affair, but there can be little doubt that they were acting at the earl’s behest. His powerful protection saved them from indictment, and it was not until May 1427 that Lady Joan secured a commission to investigate the clash. Although she named Hugford among the alleged perpetrators, neither he nor his fellows suffered any ill consequences at the hands of royal justice. Carpenter, 378-80; CPR, 1422-9, p. 423.

Two years later Hugford was again elected to Parliament, on this occasion with Sir William Mountfort, one of the principal members of the Beauchamp retinue. Interestingly, he had difficulty securing payment of his parliamentary wages. He had to sue first the sheriff of 1430, Nicholas Rugeley*, against whom he had a judgement for £28 15s., then Mountfort himself, as sheriff in 1431-2, for failure to levy that sum, and finally the sheriff of 1432-3, Sir Richard Hastings*, presumably for the same reason. The raising of wages in the county often led to difficulty, and there is no need to suppose that Hugford’s troubles here reflect any resentment against his pretensions to a county seat. C219/14/1; Parliamentarians at Law ed. Kleineke, 370.

Despite his importance within the Beauchamp retinue at home, Hugford spent a brief period in his lord’s service during the great coronation expedition of 1430-2. He was with the earl of Warwick in Rouen by 22 Aug. 1431 and among those who accompanied the countess to Paris in the following December for the crowning of Henry VI as king of France. He then returned to England with the earl and countess in the following February, and is not known to have accompanied the earl on any of his later journeys overseas. Warws. RO, Beauchamp household bk. CR1618/W19/5, ff. 84, 135, 172v. Instead he was entrusted with important tasks at home. By Michaelmas 1433 he was acting as the earl’s receiver-general, and no doubt it was as a servant of the earl that at about the same time he was added to the Warwickshire bench. Two years later, on 12 Sept. 1435, he was elected to Parliament for the third time, and, as he waited to take his seat, the earl named him to act as his deputy in the hereditary shrievalty of Worcestershire. A.F.J. Sinclair, ‘Beauchamp Earls of Warwick’ (London Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1988), 350; C219/14/5; PRO List ‘Sheriffs’, 158. Soon after, despite the fact that his own lands were narrowly confined to the near neighbourhood of Warwick, the earl deputed him to take a central part in the administration of the great Welsh estates of the earl’s second wife, Isabel Despenser. He was replaced as receiver-general by his younger brother, John, and from about 1436 he was given instead the constableship of Cardiff castle and the receivership of the lordship of Glamorgan, offices that brought him annual fees of £40. Sinclair, 350; CPR, 1446-52, pp. 274-5.

Given the intimacy of Hugford’s association with Beauchamp, not to mention the demands that service to the earl placed on his time, it is surprising to find that this service was not exclusive. Between about 1432 and 1437 he was receiver-general of the estates of Humphrey, earl of Stafford. This appointment is difficult to explain, particularly as there is no other evidence to connect him with Earl Humphrey, and it is probably to be seen simply as a tribute to his talents as an administrator. C. Rawcliffe, Staffords, 201. Certainly he remained first and foremost a Beauchamp man, and it was thus natural that when, on 8 Aug. 1437, Earl Richard drew up his will in preparation to taking up his duties as the King’s lieutenant-general in France, he named Hugford as one of his executors. The charge this placed upon him played an important part in his later career. The earl had ambitious and expensive plans for the creation of a new chapel in the collegiate church of St. Mary at Warwick to serve as a grand setting for his even grander tomb. To the completion of this task he assigned the revenues of several manors which he committed to the executors, namely Hugford, Nicholas Rody and a chaplain, William Berkeswell (who later became dean of St. Mary’s). Test. Vetusta ed. Nicolas, i. 233; M.A. Hicks, Ric. III and Rivals, 341-2.

This task fell to Hugford sooner than he might have expected. The earl died at Rouen on 30 Apr. 1439, leaving a son and heir, Henry, of only 15 years old. It was natural in these circumstances that Hugford and other old retainers should assume responsibility for the administration of the inheritance. On 16 May the Crown waived part of its wardship rights by granting the earl’s unenfeoffed lands to eight trustees, among them Hugford, to hold to the use of the widow and executors. A few months later, on 1 Sept., Hugford was among the feoffees of the earl who sued from the Crown a licence to alienate in mortmain lands worth £40 p.a. to the collegiate church of St. Mary, as a prelude to the building of the new chapel. His election to Parliament on Christmas Day 1441, at hustings conducted by Sir William Mountfort, may be seen as a sign that the Beauchamp affinity continued to function. CPR, 1436-41, pp. 279, 429; C219/15/2. As the young Henry began to assume control over his great inheritance, Hugford retained his prominent place in that retinue. Although in August 1443 he was replaced in his offices in the lordship of Glamorgan by John Nanfan*, it was only so he could assume new responsibilities closer to home as constable of Warwick castle and surveyor of the Beauchamp estates in Warwickshire and Staffordshire. This new posting may explain his brief addition to the quorum of the peace in his native county. Further, probably as compensation for the loss of the valuable fees pertaining to the Welsh offices, the new earl granted him an additional life annuity of £10. CPR, 1446-52, p. 268; Sinclair, 350-1.

Hugford’s place in the Beauchamp retinue enabled him to build on the foundations that his father had laid, more firmly establishing the family among the Warwickshire gentry. In 1436 he added to his lands through the purchase of a quarter part of the manors of Newbold Comyn (in Leamington Prior), and Morton Underhill, Worcestershire, which had recently been divided between four coheiresses. In the subsidy returns of 1436 he was assessed on an annual income of £38, which although probably a reasonable estimate of his landed revenue was a significant underestimate if his fees were included. Warws. Feet of Fines (Dugdale Soc. xviii), 2590; VCH Worcs. iii. 423-4; VCH Warws. vi. 158; E179/192/59. His local standing is also measured by the match he contracted for his daughter: in the autumn of 1439 she married John, son and heir-apparent of Hugford’s neighbour and fellow Warwickshire MP of 1425, Sir Edward Doddingselles*, although the marriage was quickly terminated by the groom’s death. CPR, 1436-41, p. 343.

The death, in June 1446, of Henry Beauchamp, soon after he had been elevated to the dukedom of Warwick, posed a new threat to Hugford and others who depended on the Beauchamps for their status. The duke’s heir was a daughter, Anne, only two years old, and thus their tenure of office was threatened by royal grantees as the unenfeoffed parts of the great inheritance came into what promised to be a long wardship. This challenge was, however, surmounted, and the effective administration of the estate remained in the hands of long-serving retainers. In the case of Hugford this was apparent from his appointment in 1448, by the duke’s widow, as her deputy in the hereditary shrievalty of Worcestershire. Hicks, ‘Between Majorities’, Historical Research, lxxii. 33-34; PRO List ‘Sheriffs’, 158. He may have had reason to regret his appointment to the shrievalty, for not only was part of his property briefly seized in 1451-2 on his failure to account, but in Oct. 1450 he was fined £25 for allowing prisoners to escape from Worcester castle: E199/45/8; CPR, 1452-61, p. 43. Yet all was again set to change. Anne died early in 1449, leaving as heir her paternal aunt, another Anne, the wife of Richard Neville. The retinue had a new leader and again it succeeded in surviving intact. Hugford was among those who found a place in the new earl’s service: on 20 Apr. 1450 Neville granted him a life annuity of ten marks assigned upon the Warwickshire lordship of Berkswell. SC6/1038/2.

Nevertheless things could not continue as they had once been. Neville, as a great northern magnate, had his own men to reward, and Hugford, once a central member of an affinity, now became, if not a peripheral one, then one who was more remote from his lord than he had previously been. Although in the mid 1450s he was acting as supervisor of the new earl’s estates in the west Midlands, the other offices he had held under the Beauchamps passed from him. Bodl. Dugdale mss, 13, p. 434; Hicks, Ric. III and Rivals, 348. Indeed, in one sense he remained a servant of Earl Richard Beauchamp, for, with Rody and Berkeswell, he continued to administer the lands of the Beauchamp trust, worth over £300 p.a., and to oversee the rebuilding at St. Mary’s, which was not completed until the early 1460s. A surviving letter of the Neville earl, dating from either 1457 or 1458, was addressed to him in this capacity as executor, asking that Sir William Oldhall* be reinstated as steward of the trust manor of Saham Toney (Norfolk) in place of Sir Thomas Tuddenham*. Trans. Birmingham Arch. Soc. lix. 2-8. Although not as important a man as he had once been, Hugford continued to play his part in county administration. He frequently sat as a j.p. and on 23 June 1455, in the wake of the Yorkist victory at the first battle of St. Albans, he was elected to Parliament at an election attested by his eldest son, John. KB9/290/7; C219/16/3. His removal from the bench in November 1458 reflects his place in the Neville retinue, as does his restoration and promotion to the quorum after the Yorkist victory at the battle of Northampton. According to the enrolled comms. he was not reinstated until 16 Dec. 1460 (CPR, 1452-61, pp. 679-80), but he sat, in company with the Neville earl, as a j.p. at Warwick on the previous 30 Sept.: KB9/313/57.

This phase of Hugford’s career was also important in another sense for it witnessed the marriage of his son John to Margaret, daughter and heiress of Nicholas Metley*, with whom he had represented Warwickshire in the Parliament of 1435. This marriage, which took place in about 1451, not only brought a significant addition to the family’s wealth, but also led to a major dispute. The marriage had been made by Hil. term 1452, but probably only shortly before because the bride was not born until the mid 1430s: CP40/764, att. rot. 1. The story of the dispute, described in a contemporary narrative drawn up in the interest of the Hugfords’ opponents, a junior branch of the Catesbys, belongs largely to the career of our MP’s son, but Thomas played a part in its early stages. According to the narrative, after his son’s marriage Thomas had several times asked Robert Catesby, one of Metley’s executors, to sell him the manor of Wappenbury (near Emscote), which Catesby had purchased from the Metley estate. Catesby’s refusal led the Hugfords, father and son, to hold a ‘grugge’ against him, the consequences of which were worked out after the battle of Towton in 1461 when the Hugfords found themselves on the victorious side, and the Catesbys, as adherents of Lancaster, on the losing. The narrative describes our MP, no doubt with ironic intent, as ‘called a worshipfull man and a wise’, and, presumably to emphasize Robert Catesby’s courage in resisting him, as one who ‘bare gret rule in the Shire’. E163/29/11, m. 4.

This description, if, indeed, it had ever held good after Duke Henry’s death in 1446, was certainly not true of Thomas Hugford in the 1460s. He was being supplanted in local affairs by his sons, both John and William. The dispute narrative makes no further references to him after his initial intervention, blaming John alone for the persecution of the unfortunate Catesby. More significantly, it was John (according to the narrative a member of the earl of Warwick’s retinue at Towton), who was elected to represent Warwickshire in the Parliament of 1463 and was appointed to the shrievalty of Warwickshire and Leicestershire during the course of the assembly; and it was Thomas’s younger son, William, escheator of those counties as early as 1452-3, who was MP for Warwickshire in the 1467 Parliament. HP Biogs. ed. Wedgwood and Holt, 478-80; Carpenter, 486n. By contrast, Thomas’s recorded activities were confined to appearances as a j.p. and the still ongoing business of the Beauchamp trust. On 20 July 1461, for example, he sat in company with John, who had been commissioned as a j.p. only six days earlier; and on 8 Jan. 1465 he heard an indictment concerning a theft from Richard Hotoft*, the stepfather of his son’s wife. KB9/313/57-58, 60. Later, in September 1468, acting on the licence granted nearly 30 years before, he and the other surviving executor of Earl Richard Beauchamp, Dean Berkeswell, conveyed three former Beauchamp manors to the new earl and countess of Warwick preparatory to their alienation in support of the collegiate chapel at Warwick. Unfortunately, however, Hugford did not live to witness the final conclusion of the project in which he was so long involved. By the time the new chapel was consecrated in 1475 he had been dead for five years. Hicks, Ric. III and Rivals, 343. His death, after a career of 50 years, occurred between 7 Mar., when he was named to a commission of array, and 10 July 1470, when writs of diem clausit extremum were issued in respect of his lands. A surviving illustration of his lost brass gives the date of death as 23 Apr. 1469, so, if only the year is in error, he died on that day in 1470, but, if the year is correct and the month incorrect, then he died on 23 Mar. 1469 (old style), that is, 1470. CPR, 1467-77, p. 218; CFR, xx. 260; Dugdale, i. 279.

Hugford made a will of his landed property on 2 Mar. 1470. John, who already had property of his own through his Metley marriage, was to have nearly all his lands, both those that had descended to him from his own father and those he had purchased. This property he enumerated as the manor of Emscote, a fishery in the water of the river Leam (which he had acquired, in 1431, from Earl Richard in exchange for lands he held within the bounds of the earl’s park at Warwick), and property in Milverton (presumably the premises his father had taken on a lease of 100 years in 1408 from the church of St. Mary’s), Warwick and Long Itchington, and other land, specifically described as his purchases, in Newbold Comyn, Mitton and Warwick. All that was left to his younger son, William, was a purchased tenement in ‘le Jury’ in Warwick. Shakespeare Centre Archs., Saunders colln., ER1/65/414, 418. His executors were his two sons and his elderly brother, another John. CP40/868, rot. 477. His executors were still attempting to collect debts due to him as late as 1492: PCC 18 Doggett (PROB11/9, f. 142).

Fittingly, Hugford was buried in the new chapel of St. Mary’s, the building of which he had overseen. The Tudor antiquarian, John Leland, noted among the tombs in the body of the collegiate church those of three of the Hugfords, ‘avus, pater, filius’, heirs of Emscote, and there can be no doubt that this is intended to refer to our MP, his father and son. The fine brasses, the one to Thomas and his wife, the other laid in memory to his parents, are now lost. Confusion about the place of burial of our MP and his father has arisen from the illustrations of the brasses published by Dugdale and bound with his account of Emscote: Dugdale, i. 279. This has led various modern authorities mistakenly to place their burial there.