OSBOURNE, William, of Canterbury, Kent.

William’s father, a Canterbury weaver, was a prominent member of the city’s ruling elite in the first half of the fifteenth century, first serving as cofferer in 1414, acting as a jurat in 13 years between 1418 and 1450, and officiating as one of the bailiffs for six annual terms between 1431 and 1447. CCA-CC-F/A/1, ff. 111, 133v, 139,164v, 170v, 182, 186, 193v, 207v, 214, 220, 231v, 237v, 270v, 279, 287v, 302; CCA-CC-F/A/2, ff. 3, 10, 22v, 27v. Despite a long career in city government Osbourne senior seldom left Canterbury on civic business, but as bailiff he became deeply involved in the city’s dispute with the abbot of St. Augustine’s regarding jurisdiction over the manor of Langport, and in October 1436 he was bound, along with his fellow bailiff William Bonnington*, to abide by the award made by arbitrators appointed by Cardinal Beaufort. Canterbury city recs., Woodruff’s list, CCA-CC-WOODRUFF, bdle. 44, no. 24. His final appearance in the civic records was at Michaelmas 1449 when he was elected as jurat for the last time and it is presumed he died shortly afterwards.

Meanwhile, the future MP, always distinguished from his father in the records of Canterbury by the description ‘junior’, had been admitted to the freedom of the city by inheritance on 29 Sept. 1437. CCA-CC-F/A/1, f. 239v. He is not to be confused with the William Osbourne of Canterbury, wheeler, admitted to the freedom of the city as the son of Thomas Osbourne on 23 June 1435: ibid. f. 226. His relationship to John Osbourne (d. 1467) of Little Chart, elected jurat 11 times between 1430 and 1452, is unclear: Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone, Canterbury archdeaconry ct. wills, PRC 17/1, f. 69. Instead of following his father’s trade he entered the legal profession. The grant of the freedom was clearly related to Osbourne’s representation of Canterbury’s interests in the lawcourts at Westminster and it coincided with his formal appointment as the city’s attorney. CCA-CC-F/A/1, f. 250. The first important occasion on which he acted in this capacity was the long dispute with the abbot of St. Augustine’s. In Michaelmas term 1437 he defended two groups of citizens who had been indicted for forcibly entering the precincts of the abbey while visiting the hospital of St. Lawrence at the feast of the hospital’s saint in August 1436. At the head of the first group were his father, William Osbourne senior, and William Bonnington, the bailiffs of Canterbury, while he himself, described as ‘William Osbourne of Canterbury, junior, clerk’, was listed as a member of the second group. In their defence and as part of a thinly veiled attempt to assert the rights of the city over those of the abbey, Osbourne claimed that the hospital was parcel of the liberties of the city and that the citizens were accustomed to progressing there to present alms every year on the feast-day. Juries eventually acquitted both sets of defendants. KB27/706, rex rots. 29, 36; S. Sweetinburgh, ‘Production of St. Lawrence’s Hosp. Regs.’, in The Fifteenth Cent. XIII ed. Clark, 110-13. In the following Trinity term Osbourne represented William Benet*, who as a former bailiff of Canterbury had been indicted for wrongfully collecting fines due to the King from the hamlet of Langport. Interestingly, Osbourne chose not to defend Benet on the grounds that two different bailiffs had been named in the original inquisition into this offence but that the manor was in fact within the liberties of the city for which they paid a fee farm to the Crown. This defence suggests that this matter was also seen as part of the city’s jurisdictional dispute with St. Augustine’s. If this was the case then Osbourne and his colleagues were disappointed: although Benet was acquitted with a fine, the King reserved the right to recall the bailiffs and citizens of Canterbury to answer the charges. KB27/709, rex rot. 2. Indeed, the case was recalled into KB in Hil. term 1448: KB27/747, rex rot. 24d. The importance that the city placed in the legal proceedings can further be measured by the payments they made to Osbourne for his expenses. In 1441 he was paid 10s. for obtaining a copy of the judgement against Benet. CCA-CC-F/A/1, ff. 243v, 250, 276v.

In January 1442 Osbourne was elected to the first of three Parliaments. He received wages for 62 days attending at Westminster including time spent travelling to and from his home, and combined his duties as an MP with those as Canterbury’s attorney, receiving 6s. 8d. for distributing papers to counsel concerning a case in the Exchequer brought against William Benet. Ibid. f. 285. At the start of the Parliament the serjeant-at-law John Fortescue*, who had received an annual fee of 20s. from Canterbury for his legal advice for the previous 15 years, was promoted to chief justice of the King’s bench. Osbourne took him the final instalment of his fee from the city, and was himself paid the 20s. in the next accounting year. Ibid. ff. 185, 190, 198, 206, 213, 218v, 230, 236v, 250, 269, 276v, 285, 294v. About the same time, Fortescue arranged for his admission to Lincoln’s Inn, and he was pardoned vacations at the chief justice’s request. Osbourne was resident at the Inn between Christmas 1443 and Easter the following year. During the same period he also acted as auditor to the Inn’s pensioner, John Bedell. Baker, ii. 1179. In 1445 he was elected for a second time as MP for Canterbury. On this occasion he and his colleague, John Mulling*, agreed to serve for 12d. a day rather than the accustomed 2s. This reduction in parliamentary wages, made at the ‘special request’ of the citizens of Canterbury, may reflect the burdens placed upon the community by keeping two men at Westminster for the duration of this long Parliament. Both Osbourne and Mulling received wages for 100 days’ service. CCA-CC-F/A/1, f. 306; CCA-CC-F/A/2, f. 7. In was during the third of the four parliamentary sessions, on 9 Nov., that Osbourne received reassignment of bad tallies at the Exchequer on behalf of the city. E403/759, m. 4. It was probably in his capacity as attorney that he accompanied William Benet to London in 1445-6 regarding some irregularities in the election of the bailiffs of Canterbury. In 1447 he was elected to his third and final Parliament which met at Bury St. Edmunds on 10 Feb. This time he received wages for 31 days – ten days longer than the short parliamentary session, but reflecting the time taken to travel there. CCA-CC-F/A/2, f. 15.

The brevity of this Parliament was probably a welcome respite to Osbourne, whose interests and responsibilities elsewhere were increasing at this time. The nature of his contacts in London are hinted at by a recognizance made in December 1446 to him and Robert Miller, a London draper, by Thomas Markle for a debt of £14 8s. CCR, 1441-7, p. 464. In Also in that year Osbourne had been elected as one of the four governors of Lincoln’s Inn. His year of office appears to have ended in acrimony. On 28 Nov. 1447 he was ordered to repay 41s. to the Inn, the dues owed by a deceased fellow Thomas Alcester, because, acting without the approbation of his co-governors, he had disposed of Alcester’s goods without collecting the debt. If it remained unpaid Osbourne was to be ‘put out of the fellowship’. L. Inn Black Bks. i. 18-19. Whether he repaid the 41s. or not is unrecorded but there are no subsequent references to him in relation to the Inn. Earlier that year Osbourne had been described as an apprentice of the law when he had sealed an inquisition in Kent. KB9/255/2/61. His standing in his local community does not seem to have suffered unduly as a result of his troubles with Lincoln’s Inn. In May 1449, for instance, he was one the arbitrators in a dispute between Thomas Pittlesden of Tenterden and William Brenchelse of Benningden. CCR, 1447-1454, p. 136. He also continued as Canterbury’s attorney. It was in this capacity that he was at the centre of the negotiations surrounding the grant of the city’s new charter in 1448. He received 28s. 10d. for his expenses in this regard and a further 3s. 9d. for having a record of the new charter made in King’s bench. CCA-CC-F/A/2, f. 26v. This was Osbourne’s last significant piece of business on the city’s behalf: at Michaelmas 1449 he was replaced as the city’s attorney by John Essex. Ibid. f. 30.

Whether Osbourne ever held property in Canterbury is not known. The William Osbourne who purchased four messuages in Northgate, Canterbury, in 1440 was probably our MP’s father: CP25(1)/115/314/522. Curiously, his disappearance from the city’s records in 1449-50 coincided with that of his father the jurat. It may be that he died about this time, or perhaps simply moved away and ceased to practice the law. What exactly happened to him is made more difficult by the presence of several contemporary William Osbournes in east Kent. William Osbourne ‘of Hartlip’ made his will in Sept. 1464, leaving everything to his wid. Alice (Canterbury archdeaconry ct. wills, PRC 17/1, f. 44) and William Osbourne ‘senior, of Elham’ made his in July 1465, naming his son, John, as his executor: ibid. f. 173. The latter William had purchased lands in Elham in 1441: CP25(1)/115/314/532. The identity of Isabel, wid. of William Osbourne of Kent, who was pardoned in 1468, is not known: C67/46, m. 19. The William Osbourne of St. Dunstan’s parish by Canterbury who drew up his will on 8 Apr. 1471 may have been our MP but this seems unlikely as there is nothing to link him with St. Dunstan’s or any of the properties in Wingham and Sheldon mentioned in the will. Canterbury archdeaconry ct. wills, PRC 17/1, f. 374.