OGLE, John, of Unthank and Fawdon, Northumb. and Prescot, Lancs.

John was the younger son of Sir Robert Ogle I, a leading landowner in Northumberland and county Durham, and one of the most important servants both of the Crown and the bishop of Durham on the northern borders. As befitting a younger son of so substantial a family, some landed provision was made for him: in May 1435 his father settled upon him the manor of Unthank in the south-west corner of Northumberland. Ogle, app. xix (164). This settlement enabled him to establish an independent part in local affairs. In March 1442 the Crown granted him, jointly with two lesser men, the farm of certain fisheries along the river Tweed for seven years at an annual payment of £12. The profits of these fisheries had previously been enjoyed by Sir William Elmden* when he was receiver-general of Bamburgh castle, and it is possible that Ogle’s grant was in part designed to ease the financial burden on his brother, then one of the keepers of Roxburgh castle. Alternatively, it may indicate an early connexion between Ogle and Henry Percy, Lord Poynings, who became warden of the east march in April 1440. Whatever the case, the grant was soon superseded: in 1444 the farm was given to a less appropriate recipient, the Kentish esquire Thomas Brown II*, in what appears to be another example of the confusion that pervaded royal patronage in Henry VI’s majority. CFR, xvii. 212; Cal. Scots. Docs. iv. 1398.

Ogle’s connexion with the Percys explains his appointment, on 9 Nov. 1447, to the Northumberland commission of the peace. Eleven days later the earl of Northumberland granted him a life annuity of £10, an indication perhaps of his promotion in the retinue attendant on his first appointment to public office. CPR, 1446-52, p. 592; J.M.W. Bean, Estates Percy Fam. 92n. With these judicial responsibilities went military ones. On 3 Apr. 1449 the King wrote to Ogle, his brother Sir Robert, their first cousin, William Bertram*, and Sir Ralph Percy, thanking them for their recent report on the defence of the borders and assuring them that ‘the purveance and saufgarde of the saide countrees and marches ... hath ben righte sadly communed of by the lordes of this oure parlement’, and that Parliament would attend to the matter once more after the Easter vacation. Letters and Pprs. Illust. Wars of English ed. Stevenson, i. 491. Such service moved the earl to give him yet further reward: on the following 12 Oct. he was granted a life interest in the manor of Fawdon. Ogle, app. xx (165). Appointment as escheator came two months later, and on 1 Oct. 1450, while holding that office, he was present at Newcastle to see himself returned as one of the knights of the shire for the county. He took advantage of his time at Westminster to gain a new grant of the Tweed fisheries. On 24 Mar. 1451, five days before the end of the assembly’s second session, they were let for ten years, again at £12 p.a. by the mainprise of his fellow knight of the shire, his cousin William Bertram. CFR, xviii. 146, 189-90; C219/16/1. This was a remarkable series of appointments for a younger son and reflects both the local importance of Ogle’s family and perhaps also the MP’s own abilities.

Further appointments came his way in the early 1450s. In July 1451, two months after the dissolution of Parliament, he was named as collector of customs in Berwick-upon-Tweed, almost certainly at the behest of Lord Poynings, still warden of the east march. However, the appointments made in various ports at this time were never fulfilled and Ogle does not seem to have exercised the office. CFR, xviii. 191; E356/19, rot. 42. In November 1451 he was placed his only ad hoc commission, alongside Lord Poynings, to inquire into breaking of the Anglo-Scottish truce by Newcastle merchants who had seized the goods of a Scottish ship which had run aground in bad weather. In the same month the farm of the Tweed fisheries was re-granted to him in the wake of the Act of Resumption. Against this background it is not surprising that, on 1 Mar. 1453, he should have been re-elected as MP for Northumberland. CPR, 1446-52, p. 532; CFR, xviii. 247-8; C219/16/2.

For a few years after his second Parliament Ogle’s local importance increased further. In September 1454 his brother granted him a life interest in his manor of North Middleton near Angerton. Ogle, app. xiii (83). More significantly, two months later he was appointed to the post of collector of customs in Ipswich, again presumably to secure the payment of assignments made for the defence of the east march. Unfortunately for him, the office proved a burdensome one. In May 1456 he and his fellow collector, William Herman, were sued by John Tiptoft, earl of Worcester, former treasurer of England, for certain tallies assigned on the Ipswich customs in repayment of loans he had made to the Crown, and in July it was no less a person than Richard, duke of York, who sued Ogle in the Exchequer of pleas for £1,339 9s. which had been assigned to York when he had been Protector of the realm two years earlier. No decision was recorded in any of the cases, but the expenses and trouble incurred in answering such pleas may have been considerable. He probably relinquished the office without regret in the autumn of 1456, and a year later he was appointed instead as controller of customs in Great Yarmouth. CFR, xix. 105; E13/146, rots. 60, 79; E356/20, rot. 35; CPR, 1452-61, p. 328.

The financial liabilities that naturally arose out of customs’ administration largely explains why Ogle sued out a general pardon in November 1458 at the end of his term as controller, but there may also have been a political dimension. His brother, Sir Robert, had played an important part, fighting in the Neville ranks, in the Yorkist victory in the first battle of St. Albans in May 1455. Whether our MP shared these Neville and Yorkist sympathies is not certain. He was much more closely associated with the Lancastrian Percys than his brother had been; on the other hand, in June 1460, when the Lancastrians were in control of government, both he and his brother were removed from the Northumberland bench. C67/42, m. 5; CPR, 1452-61, p. 673. The available evidence goes no further, but it is probably safe to assume that John did not share his brother’s partisanship. In the wake of Edward IV’s accession, Sir Robert was promoted to the peerage and benefited considerably from royal patronage. By contrast, John took no further part in public affairs.

In the 1460s Ogle appears to have abandoned his native county for Lancashire. He already had interests there in the late 1450s: in 1457, with his first wife Katherine (about whom nothing is known), he purchased property in Upton and Widnes, and in December 1458 he gave his daughter, Grace, a portion of 100 marks on her marriage to Thomas, son and heir of John Daniell of Daresbury in neighbouring Cheshire. DL30/5/69; CAD, v. A11393,12478. By 15 May 1460 he had made his own marriage in the county, taking as his second wife a daughter of Roger Booth, a representative of a junior branch of one of Lancashire’s leading gentry families. In 1462 Booth granted his farm of the manor of Prescot to Ogle and his wife, presumably as part of a marriage settlement. This farm was held from the provost and scholars of King’s College, Cambridge, and Ogle was still rendering account for it in 1468. In April 1467, described as an esquire resident at Prescot, he purchased property in nearby Rainhill and Eccleston from John Woodfall. Ogle, app. xx (169, 170); King’s Coll., Cambridge, archs. PRE/96, KCE/42/9.

The date of Ogle’s death is not known, but no reference has been traced to him after January 1472. Ogle, app. xx (170). His widow outlived him by many years, and in August 1497, described as the widow of Thomas Lathum of Congleton (Lancashire), she and Thomas Stanley, earl of Derby, were granted the rectory at Prescot by Walter Feld, the provost’s clerk at King’s College. This was probably secured to provide a living for her younger son, Humphrey Ogle, who was also named as a recipient in the grant. King’s Coll. Archs., PRE/1. Margaret lived to a great age and was still alive in March 1506 when, along with her elder son Roger (d.1515), she purchased property in Whiston (Lancashire). Humphrey enjoyed a successful career in the Church, rising to become a canon of Hereford cathedral. As an old man, he was committed to prison for his support for the rebels during the Pilgrimage of Grace. Ogle, 169, app. xx (171).