Hull was born, probably in the second half of Henry IV’s reign, into a family with strong links with the Lancastrian court. His father, John, served as a King’s esquire under both Henry IV and Henry V, and his mother, Eleanor, was a servant of Queen Joan. The queen, her stepson, and afterwards the young Henry VI and his council rewarded Eleanor’s services generously, and this generosity was extended to her young son who entered Queen Katherine’s household as one of her henchmen.
Hull’s mother was the sole heiress of her grandfather, Sir Baldwin Malet of Enmore, and although some of Malet’s manors had been settled on his widowed daughter-in-law, Edward could expect to succeed eventually to the undivided Malet lands.
Having gathered military experience overseas in the King’s retinue in 1430, Hull was retained by Richard, duke of York, not long afterwards. He accompanied the duke to France in 1436 and was rewarded with a grant of an annuity of £10 in April of that year. Just over a year later, in October 1437, he received a first independent command when he was appointed captain of the fortified Norman town of Conches. Yet he remained in France to exercise his captaincy for no more than a few months. Instead, he now joined the select group of esquires for the body of the young King who had recently been declared of age, and was rewarded with an annuity of 50 marks and a more immediately tangible grant of a share of the value of a ship forfeited to the Crown.
Hull was nevertheless part of the King’s immediate circle, serving as one of the feoffees of the duchy of Lancaster estates, and was often entrusted with tasks such as the receipt at the Exchequer of money for the Chamber.
Hull’s regular missions to the King’s French dominions enabled him to gather considerable expertise in all matters relating to their administration, in particular that of the duchy of Guyenne. On his return from Gascony in early 1442 he reported to the Council, giving a bleak assessment of the deteriorating military situation there. At least partly on the strength of his arguments, the King’s advisers were persuaded to complement their military strategy with a major diplomatic initiative. It was resolved that a marriage should be arranged between the King and a daughter of the count of Armagnac, thus tying this important feudatory to Henry VI’s French crown, and on 28 May 1442 instructions were drawn up for Hull, the King’s secretary, Thomas Bekynton, and Sir Robert Roos, to journey to France to make the necessary arrangements.
The brunt of the negotiations with the count of Armagnac was, it seems, borne by Bekynton, while Roos, who had been elected regent of Guyenne, and Hull set about shoring up the English position on the battlefield. Not long after his arrival at Bordeaux, Roos ordered Hull to assemble his men at Loremont and await the regent’s arrival with further troops. Altogether, the force they mustered numbered some 400 Englishmen and 1,000 Gascons. Having sent scouts ahead of their main force, they slowly marched towards the town of St. Loubouer, where the archers were separated from the main force and placed under Hull’s command. Hull dismounted and led them on foot, ‘to grete merveille of many men how he might endure hit, and gouverned theym in the moost notable wise’. The French army was encamped outside the town, and when the English force reached their advanced sentries around eight o’clock, they killed two or three of the watchmen, before charging the French with the customary battle cry of ‘St. George d’Angleterre’. Taken by surprise, the French ran for their horses and fled the field, incurring heavy casualties, by English estimates losing more than 800 men and 1,000 horses. Hull’s archers then entered St. Loubouer from the south, while the horsemen and other men-at-arms entered from the north, meeting at the cross before the church, where they set up their standards. The whole engagement had taken no more than two hours, and after remaining at St. Loubouer over night, Hull and Roos returned to Bordeaux for breakfast.
The months that followed saw a regular exchange of letters between the English emissaries and Armagnac and his ministers, and during this period Hull took a more active part in the negotiations than previously. The ambassadors nevertheless found time to enjoy the Christmas season, dining together on the great feast days, including those of St. Thomas the apostle and St. Silvester, when revels were held, and New Year’s Day, when they exchanged the customary gifts. Hull gave Bekynton two small vessels full of green ginger and in return received a scarlet cap.
Hull remained in France for a few months after his appointment to the office, but was back in England by 16 May 1443, more than two weeks before he was formally confirmed in post by Henry VI.
Hull’s term of office hardly complete, fresh travels beckoned. As the Armagnac marriage had come to nothing, the King and his ministers had instead settled upon a different French marriage in the hope of securing a negotiated peace with Charles VII. Led by de la Pole, now marquess of Suffolk, a large contingent of nobles and gentry, with Hull in its ranks, sailed for France to bring home Henry VI’s bride, Margaret of Anjou. The expedition lasted for more than six months,
Hull’s duties about the persons of both the King and queen required him to spend much time at court, and like many other members of the royal households he joined the prestigious London fraternity of St. John the Baptist.
In spite of the connexions Hull thus maintained in Somerset it cannot be doubted that he owed his return to Parliament early in 1447 more to his links at court than to the part he played in Somerset society. The Parliament, overshadowed by the arrest and death of the King’s uncle, the duke of Gloucester, was dissolved after just three weeks, and there is no indication whether Hull distinguished himself in any way. His spell in the Commons may, however, have introduced him to the ways and procedures of Parliament, and provided him with the motivation to avail himself of the opportunities for electoral management offered by his renewed shrievalty in 1448-9. There can be little doubt that in February 1449 Hull was instrumental in securing one of the Somerset county seats for his wife’s brother-in-law, Thomas Wake*. While Wake could claim to fulfil the requirement for residence in the shire at least in so far as he was in possession of his wife’s valuable manor of Clevedon, he was normally resident in Northamptonshire (which he had in fact represented in the Commons on two occasions in the 1430s) and played no part in Somerset life.
This was not to be the only occasion on which Hull exerted his influence to pursue his wife’s hereditary interests. In 1450 the Lovell heirs, headed by Hull, sold the Somerset manor of Stathe to Walter Norton, a Bristol merchant, for the sum of 200 marks. Norton was probably the loser in this transaction, for the manor had been in his family’s possession since the late fourteenth century. It had originally been alienated by Margery Hull’s ancestor Sir Edmund Clevedon† by a mortgage, and Sir Edward’s claim, if any, was as dubious as the one he had to Titchwell.
Throughout the 1440s the King’s rewards to Hull had continued to flow. In April 1441 he was granted the keeping during the heir’s minority of the lands of Robert Kenne, a royal ward, consisting chiefly of the manors of Kenne and Kingston Seymour.
The Act of Resumption passed towards the close of the Parliament of 1449-50 initially seemed to threaten Hull’s annuities – indeed he was one of the very members of the King’s court at whom the Act was directed – yet, such was his favour with the King that he was allowed to retain 100 of his 150 marks p.a.
In the spring of 1451 Hull had been active at Plymouth taking the musters of fresh forces to be sent to Gascony, where the military situation was growing disastrous. But despite all efforts, Bordeaux fell to the French on 24 June. For a time Hull’s energies were concentrated at home, where he served as sheriff of Devon from Michaelmas. But even before his term had expired, his military experience was called upon. In June 1452 he and Gervase Clifton* were ordered to take an armed force to sea for a period of three months from 17 July to 16 Oct., ostensibly for the relief of the island of Jersey. However, the size of their force, each of them taking a retinue of 1,000 men, suggest a more ambitious undertaking. This was certainly the assessment of the French, who feared an invasion of Normandy. Yet, in the face of the crisis in Gascony, England’s resources were too thinly spread to allow for simultaneous assaults on several fronts. Thus, Hull’s attention was soon redirected to Gascony, where the earl of Shrewsbury required his assistance in the recovery of Bordeaux, and where he himself – at least nominally – still held office.
Yet Hull never returned to England to enter his stall at Windsor. On 17 July 1453 English rule in Gascony came to its dramatic conclusion at the battle of Castillon. Among the most prominent casualties were the earl of Shrewsbury, who was killed in the battle, and Sir Edward Hull, who was either killed or so badly wounded that he died within hours.