VERNON, Sir Richard

More may be added to the earlier biography.6 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 712-17.

Vernon was born at his mother’s manor of Stackpole on the south Pembrokeshire coast.7 CHES3/26, 12 Hen. IV, no. 3. His mother was to be buried at Stackpole: Derbys. Arch. and Nat. Hist. Soc. Soc. Jnl. xxii. 11. She was the heiress of her grandfather, Sir Richard Stackpole, and coheiress, through her great-grandmother, to a share of the inheritance of Richard Turberville of Coity in Glamorgan.8 CIPM, xix. 989; CFR, xii. 226-7; C47/9/32. Her claim to the latter led to a dramatic event shortly after Vernon came of age. In the autumn of 1412 she was besieged in Coity castle by another of the Turberville heirs, William Gamage, and Sir Gilbert Denys† of Siston (Gloucestershire) ‘with no moderate multitude of armed men’. Gamage and Denys were briefly imprisoned by the Crown for their temerity, and Joan seems to have made good her title to a share of the castle and of the nearby manors of Llanharry, Newland and Newcastle.9 CPR, 1408-13, pp. 433, 476; CCR, 1409-13, pp. 367, 407; 1413-19, p. 17; The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 772. With the Stackpole inheritance further to the west in Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire, Joan held quite extensive, although not valuable, lands in Wales, but her survival until as late as 1439 kept them out of our MP’s hands. Although he was to play some part in Welsh affairs, notably as deputy justiciar of South Wales in the 1430s, Derbyshire was the focus of his considerable activities.

As noted in the earlier biography, Vernon’s wardship was granted by the Crown to Sir Roger Leche†. Ward and guardian appear to have been on poor terms. According to an indictment laid before royal commissioners of inquiry in June 1414, the young Vernon, when only 15 years old, had gathered 100 men at Haddon because he feared that Leche intended to kill him.10 M. Jurkowski, ‘John Fynderne’ (Keele Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1998), 291.

Vernon’s connexions with men of higher rank were extensive. In the summer of 1417 he mustered in the retinue of John Mowbray, earl of Norfolk, and it was his service in the first part of the ensuing campaign that earned him his knighthood.11 E101/51/2, m. 27. More intimate was his association with John (d.1430) and Henry (d.1444), successive Lord Greys of Codnor, to whose sister his eldest son Richard was married in about 1427, although this family tie did not prevent the serious confrontation between him and Lord Henry at the Derbyshire election of 1433. Further evidence of his early association with Ralph Neville, earl of Westmorland (d.1484), dates from July 1435, when he is described as of the earl’s ‘councell’.12 Plumpton Corresp. (Cam. Soc. iv), p. li. In about 1421 the earl’s mother, Elizabeth Holand, had granted Vernon an annuity of four marks: CIPM, xxii. 150. More interestingly, in Sept. 1430 he attended the election of a new abbot of Burton abbey, successfully pressing the monks to elect the nominee of William Heyworth, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield.13 I. Rowney, ‘Staffs. Political Community’ (Keele Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1981), ii. 262; HMC Middleton, 248-50.

Much more important to Vernon, however, was his later connexion with a lord of greater political weight. His friendship with Ralph, Lord Cromwell, may have been closer than the earlier biography allows. On New Year’s Day 1448 he was present at Cromwell’s new manor house at South Wingfield to hear an oath by Richard Willoughby* that he would not impede the performance of his father’s will. Earlier, in 1437, he and his friend, Sir John Cockayne*, had joined Cromwell in receiving a quitclaim from Elizabeth Swillington of her right in the disputed Heriz inheritance.14 Nottingham Univ. Lib., Middleton mss, Mi D 1624; Magdalen Coll. Oxf. Misc. 256. Such associations were a natural conduit to the profits of royal patronage. Cromwell, treasurer from 1433 to 1443, must have been of help to him here, as too was Humphrey, earl of Stafford, and (from 1444) duke of Buckingham, who appointed him as his deputy in the great office of constable of England and as knight steward of the court of chivalry.

Vernon was ready to exploit his offices and influence in the furthering of his own private quarrels. As mentioned in the earlier biography, his alleged extortions as steward of the High Peak provoked a complaint to the royal council in 1440, and there can be no doubt that his great influence could be an impediment to justice in his home county. One victim was Nicholas Fynderne of Findern, who, in the late 1430s, complained to the chancellor that Vernon had disseised him of property in Willington and then employed his ‘gret rule’ over the county’s jurors to obtain a verdict destructive of his title.15 C1/1489/132; CP40/699, rot. 112; Derbys. RO, Harpur Crewe mss, D2375M/47/1; Jurkowski, 468-70. Even more unfortunate was a Cheshire gentleman, Richard Moreton of Congleton, who was unwise enough to support a rival claimant to our MP’s property at Hazlebadge. At a session of the peace held at Bakewell in August 1439, at which Vernon presided, Moreton was indicted for felonious theft and riot. In 1445 he sued an action of conspiracy against our MP and others, claiming damages of £400 for a long period of imprisonment as a result of this false indictment. Sir Richard responded by taking another indictment against Moreton in the leet court of the lordship of High Peak in his capacity as steward there.16 KB9/231/1/131; KB27/730, rot. 108d, rex rot. 40; 738, rot. 114; 739, rex rot. 8d. Whether his victim secured redress is unknown, but these episodes are evidence enough of an unhealthy concentration of power in his hands. Significantly, one of his fellow defendants in the conspiracy action was John Tunstead, one of his feedmen and a j.p. of the quorum in the county, just as had been Gerard Meynell*, who had acted for him against Fynderne.17 S.M. Wright, Derbys. Gentry (Derbys. Rec. Soc. viii), 66, 249.

Vernon’s power began to wane in the later years of his life, and there are early indications of the problems that were to dog the career of his son and eventual heir, William. Perhaps the most threatening development was the claim of Sir Richard’s erstwhile friend, Sir William Ferrers of Chartley, to the important manor of Tong in Shropshire, which had descended to our MP from his great-uncle, Sir Fulk Pembridge†. Ferrers’s claim lay through his own mother, Ellen, grand-daughter and coheir of Sir Thomas Birmingham†, and was based on an entail of the early 1320s. In February 1450, with a trial pending at common law, their rival claims went to the arbitration of Sir John Talbot and Ralph, Lord Sudeley, who confirmed Vernon’s title, but acknowledged that the rival claim was not without merit by awarding Ferrers £60 in compensation. Nor was this the end of the matter. Indeed, Ferrers’s death in the following June may have intensified rather than diminished the threat, for his daughter and heiress, Anne, was the wife of the young and vigorous Walter Devereux II*, a servant of the duke of York. Death saved our MP from further trouble, but the Devereux claim was to pose serious difficulties for his son and heir. Ominously, in our MP’s Shropshire inquisition post mortem, the jury returned that he had Tong ‘per intrusionem’ to the disseisin of the heirs in tail, Anne Devereux and her kinsman, Richard, son and heir of George Longville†.18 E159/235, brevia Mich. rot. 21d. This finding gives added significance to the royal grant to Vernon in 1445 of Longville’s wardship and marriage: CPR, 1441-6, p. 326.

Other legal difficulties troubled Sir Richard’s last years. At the assizes at Stafford on 23 July 1451, a month before his death, damages of £100 were won against him by two prominent lawyers, Thomas Lyttleton and William Burley I*, who claimed the manor of Kibblestone as lessees of Sir William Trussell†. This was an important reverse in his attempt to make good his groundless claim to the lands of Margaret Trussell, who had been the wife of his paternal great-uncle, Sir Fulk Pembridge. It made a mockery of the verdict and damages (absurdly assessed at £2,080) Sir Richard had won against Sir William, seemingly by the bribery of the jury, at an assize of novel disseisin in September 1448.19 Wm. Salt. Arch. Soc. n.s. iii. 188-91, 200. A further and probably related indication of his declining position is his resort to actions of maintenance against several prominent Staffordshire gentry, including John Gresley*, John Stanley II*, Ralph Egerton* and Thomas Astley*. Since some of the defendants were closely associated with the duke of Buckingham, it is probable that he had forfeited the duke’s goodwill by pursuing a baseless claim against Trussell, a fellow member of the ducal retinue.20 KB27/757, rot. 31.

Legal difficulties were matched by financial ones arising out of Vernon’s tenure of the treasurership of Calais. The revenues of the town made only a limited contribution to the costs of its defence and Exchequer advances were inadequate to cover the shortfall. His six years in the office left him with an accounting deficit of over £17,000 and his heir and executors with a considerable problem.21 G.L. Harriss, ‘Struggle for Calais’, EHR, lxxv. 32n. No doubt this was one reason for his readiness to surrender the office in May 1451 but his resignation may also have been precipitated by serious illness. A correspondent noted in the previous March that ‘Vernon has had great sekenes on hym before Cristmas, god mend hym as he [is] begyning to do’.22 W. Smith, ‘R. Finance and Politics, 1450-5’ (Manchester Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1998), 146. This recovery proved a very temporary one. His will does not survive, but a case in the court of common pleas shows that it was made in London (in the parish of St. Peter Paul’s Wharf) and that the executors were his younger son, John, and an old family servant, John Brown. After his death on 21 Aug. 1451, it was allegedly proved before the archbishop of Canterbury but the text does not survive.23 CP40/788, rot. 130; Wright, 249.

In happier times Vernon’s great wealth had enabled him to contract a series of advantageous marriages for his younger sons. One of these matches has previously escaped notice: in the 1440s Edmund Vernon married his father’s ward, Joan, the heiress of both her father, William Hondisacre alias Frodesley of Handsacre in Staffordshire, and her mother, Margaret, daughter and coheiress of Sir Robert Mavesyn (d.1403) of Mavesyn Ridware in Staffordshire. Sir Richard’s daughter, Elizabeth, married the King’s attorney-general, John Vampage*, to whom he mortgaged his manor of Aylestone (Leicestershire) in 1447.24 CCR, 1435-41, pp. 298-300; CP40/726, rot. 227d; 753, rot. 297; 767, rot. 412; C140/82/15; CCR, 1441-7, p. 493.

Vernon’s wealth was also manifest in an extensive building programme at Haddon Hall and the remodelling of the parish church.25 A. Emery, Greater Med. Houses, ii. 386-9; Gothic Art for Eng. ed. Marks and Williamson (Victoria and Albert Museum cat.), 296. Despite, however, this investment in his ancestral home and the threat to the family’s title to the manor of Tong, it was in the collegiate church at Tong, the foundation of Sir Fulk Pembridge’s widow and his own mother-in-law, Isabel Lingen, that he chose to be buried. A fine alabaster monument to himself and his wife survives there.26 G. Griffiths, Hist. Tong (2nd edn.), 39-42.