Page’s parentage has not been established, but it seems likely that he was a native of Plymouth, the borough that he represented in at least four Parliaments, and where he owned property. He was probably a kinsman of John Page, who served as mayor of the town in 1449-50, 1462-3 and 1468-9 and of William Page who held the same office in 1471-2 and 1474-5.
There is little evidence of Page’s professional career before the accession of Edward IV, nor is it clear what prompted him to seek election to the Parliament of 1455, or, indeed, whether at this date he still fulfilled the statutory requirement for residency in his constituency, beyond the ownership of property there. As no returns for the south-western boroughs of England survive, it is not possible to tell whether Page secured re-election to either of Henry VI’s two remaining Parliaments, or to the first two of Edward IV’s reign. In the intervening years, he made a highly profitable marriage, probably contracted during the months of the court party’s ascendancy from late 1459 to mid 1460. This was to Beatrice, the daughter of the duke of Somerset’s partisan Thomas Thorpe, a former Speaker of the Commons (and like Page a Middle Temple lawyer). Beatrice was recently widowed, and (although she was not her father’s heir) stood to receive a substantial dower from her first husband, the courtier Richard Strickland. In the first instance, however, the couple may have been overtaken by events, which saw the duke of York and his partisans, the Neville earls of Warwick and Salisbury, assume control of the government, and saw the arrest and execution of Beatrice’s father. It was thus not until September 1462 that Page and his wife were able to sue out a royal pardon for their failure to procure a licence for their marriage, and only thereafter that instructions were issued to the escheators of Buckinghamshire, Leicestershire and Wiltshire to assign Beatrice her dower.
By the time of his election to the Parliament of 1467 Page may already have been serving as solicitor to Queen Elizabeth. He was certainly in her employ by the following year, when he appeared on her behalf to stake a dubious claim to 800 marks in ‘queen’s gold’ from the fine imposed on the disgraced London alderman (Sir) Thomas Cook II* in the course of his notorious clash with the Wydevilles in the crisis year 1468.
In the light of Page’s proximity not only to Edward IV, but to his queen, it seems improbable that he served in the Parliament held during Henry VI’s Readeption in 1470-1, as Wedgwood supposed. In his will, drawn up on 15 July 1472, the Derbyshire lawyer Nicholas Statham† recorded that he had ‘resceived xs. of [ ] Bemont, a worshipful squier of the west Countre by the handes of Page in the last parleament. I did nothing therfore and if I did yet it is agenst my conscience for somoche as I was one of the parleament and shuld be indifferent in euery mater in the parleament.’
Certainly, Richard went on to become one of the most trusted servants of the restored Edward IV. In the aftermath of Fauconberg’s uprising in the late spring of 1471 he was one of three lawyers sent into Kent to inquire as to the circumstances of the insurgency.
Although the burgesses of Plymouth once again returned Page to the Parliament summoned in early 1478, in 1472 he had failed to secure a seat for the Devon borough. He was nevertheless present at the Parliament, which continued with several prorogations until the spring of 1475, and took some part in its proceedings, for in the autumn of 1473 he received a substantial reward of £32 ‘for his labours touching the King’s profit in the present parliament’.
Page continued in the post of solicitor-general until the end of Edward IV’s reign, and was periodically included in ad hoc commissions both in the south-west and in Kent, where he had by now evidently settled. There were also other offices and rewards. In June 1475 he was granted an annuity of £20 from the Plymouth customs, and a month later he was appointed to the stewardship of the royal manor of Eltham.
By contrast with, and perhaps at least partly as a result of, Page’s public career, his private legal practice appears to have remained limited. He was nevertheless in considerable demand as a feoffee, with clients including prominent Kentish gentry such as Sir William Pecche* and Sir Richard Guildford†, courtiers such as Sir Thomas Burgh†, Edward IV’s master of the horse, and others, notably Margaret Beaufort, the dowager countess of Richmond.
Syr, wher ye write on to me y shold take an accion in the kynges name ayenst on of Wycomb for cuttyng down and fellyng of certen treys, y have taken an accion redy, and y shall send you the writte. Syr, ye wrote to me in your letter that ye hadde seasid certen corne, whiche was regratyd and forstallid from the comen marketes to the grete hurt of the Comen people. Syr, me semys by my lernyng ye may not sease not none maner cornes in suche case and put thaym under arest: and if ye have don, yt wold be well don to se thaym delyveryd ayen in manerly forme: it is inquerable at the Cessons of pees and in every lete and fraunchise of regrators and forstallers of all maner of vitaill, and, if it be presentid, to make a fyne therfor: but it is not the maner ne the care of the law to sease none forstallid ne regratyd vitaill. I remit the delyng with the delyveraunce hereof to your discreson: but y wold not ye confessid your self to thaym that ye have my don in that case: but honestly take a promys of thaym [that] thay shall not dele so herafter, and for this thay have don thay may be indited, and let thaym have deliveraunce of thaire cornys.
Stonor Letters, ii. 220.
Other services Page performed for Stonor were, ostensibly, of a more whimsical nature. After the death of one of Sir William’s wives he drew upon Page’s knowledge of the likely candidates for a replacement. Having heard that one of them, although wealthy, was ‘so fowle that Parker wuld none of her’, he sought the opinion of Page who informed him that she was ‘but lytyll and sumwhat rownde agoode woman and well disposid, save only that she is sumtyme vexyd with the moder’. Certainly, Page prided himself in knowing Stonor’s tastes: in early 1482 he wrote to him: ‘Wold God it wold plese you to com to your Horton when terme is don: y will geve yow attendance: ther is ther an puncheon or tweyn of wyne abydyng your mastership: y hope suche as woll plese yow.’ Page’s correspondence with Stonor speaks of a cautious man, reluctant to commit his thoughts to paper, but equally concerned that they might not be misrepresented. In a postscript to a letter of early 1482 he told Stonor: ‘As for news y have told this berrer to enforme yow, I fere me he cannot well shew them to your mastership.’
Edward IV’s premature death and Richard III’s usurpation of the crown saw Page replaced as solicitor general by Thomas Lynom. Even so, there is no direct evidence that he, like many others of Edward IV’s former servants, took part in the uprisings in the south of England in the summer of 1483. Indeed, within days of Richard III’s usurpation he had been added to the Kentish bench, and he continued to receive potentially sensitive appointments in the county, including the task of arraying armed men.
In the late summer of 1493 Page may have fallen ill, for on 1 Aug. he drew up a will concerning his lands, and three weeks later he made further, full, testamentary provisions.
Rather more extensive was the list of Page’s individual bequests. Sir Reynold Bray was left a salt, while the overseers of the will, who included the coroner of King’s bench, Henry Harman, each received a ‘stonding cuppe’. Bequests of money, corn and livestock went to the household servants and Page’s godchildren. Most intriguingly, Page bequeathed a selection of household goods, including a featherbed, sheets, blankets and coverlets, as well as six silver spoons, to a damsel called Alice, who was also to have an estate worth 26s. 8d. from his lands at Horton. The witnesses of the will were headed by the Master of the Temple, and also included Henry Harman.
No inquisition into Page’s landholdings survives, although such an inquiry was ordered by royal writ of diem clausit extremum on 18 Oct. 1493, two days before probate of his will was granted.