SWYNNERTON, Humphrey

The Swynnertons of Swynnerton were a family of great antiquity and, for a period in the fourteenth century, of considerable prominence. Humphrey’s ancestor, Sir Roger Swynnerton, prospered under the young Edward III, who granted him the manors of Great and Little Barrow (Cheshire), forfeited by Hugh Despenser, earl of Winchester, and summoned him to Parliament in 1337. Sir Roger died soon afterwards and the summons was not repeated for any of his descendants, but his son, Sir Thomas† (d.1361) maintained a close link with Edward III as door keeper of the King’s hall in the late 1340s and later as one of the custodians of King John of France.2 CP, xii(1), 585-8; A.J. Gross, ‘Adam Peshale’ (London Univ. Ph.D. thesis), 126-31. The marriage of Sir Thomas’s son, Sir Robert†, to Elizabeth Beck, heiress to the manors of Tean and Hopton (Staffordshire), promised the Swynnertons further advancement. Unfortunately for the prospects of the family’s male line, however, not only was this promise not realized but, by one of those curious tricks of inheritance, the marriage occasioned a loss rather then a gain of property. Elizabeth died leaving only a daughter, Maud, who lived to inherit both her maternal inheritance and that part, a significant one, of the Swynnerton estate entailed on the couple at marriage.3 Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. vii (2), 41-42, 44-47. Maud, thrice married, had a very colourful career, most notably evidenced by the famous murder of her father-in-law, Sir John Ipstones†, in 1394: The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 480; Gross, 101. Consequently her half-brother, Thomas Swynnerton, came into a much reduced inheritance, essentially comprising those lands that Sir Roger had held before becoming the recipient of Edward III’s patronage.

Humphrey Swynnerton was Thomas Swynnerton’s grandson.4 Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. vii (2), 49. A mere boy on his father’s death, he was brought up in the wardship of the great baronial family of Stafford, with which his family had long been connected. Since he shared a Christian name with Humphrey, earl of Stafford, it is not improbable that he was the young earl’s godson. In May 1429 the dowager-countess, Anne, presented to Swynnerton church by reason of his minority, and it was not until about 1447 that his probable godfather (by then duke of Buckingham) granted him livery of the family lands.5 NLW, Peniarth mss, 280, p. 43. He was certainly of age by Mich. term 1447 when he sued a local gentleman for cutting down and taking his trees and underwood worth as much as £40 from Swynnerton: Wm. Salt. Arch. Soc. n.s. iii. 179. This close connexion with the duke explains why Swynnerton’s short but intense adult career began so brightly. Despite his youth, he was appointed as sheriff of his native county almost immediately after his coming of age. His appointment came at what proved to be a difficult time, and it is possible that he played a part in the suppression of Cade’s revolt. This at least is implied in the grounds on which he sought and was given a pardon of account, namely ‘the greet insurreccion, stiring and rebellion’ prevailing in the realm during his term of office.6 E159/229, brevia Mich. rot. 22d. Further, other evidence shows him to have been at Leicester, where Parliament was in session, on 14 May 1450, probably in the duke’s retinue, and it is thus likely that he was also in that retinue when it left Leicester soon after 6 June to campaign against Cade.7 C1/18/9; R.A. Griffiths, Hen. VI, 610-11. Swynnerton was not at Leicester as an MP, for all the MPs in this Parl., save those for Lincs. and Grimsby, are known. He was again in royal service a few months later: early in October he was ‘awaiting’ upon the King at Kenilworth, and as a result he failed to appear in the Exchequer to account and was fined £15.8 E159/229, brevia Mich. rot. 22d.

During his shrievalty, Swynnerton had an important matter of more personal concern to pursue, namely his marriage to his cousin, the coheiress of the Swynnertons of Hilton, descendants of Roger, Lord Swynnerton’s younger brother, Sir John Swynnerton†. The match had a complicated gestation. The bride’s father, Thomas, son of John Swynnerton†, had died on 31 Dec. 1448, and two weeks later, even before writs had been issued for the routine inquiry into his lands, the wardship and marriage of his heir was granted to Exchequer officials, Thomas Mallory* and Brian Roucliffe.9 Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. vii (2), 49. It must, however, be doubtful whether this grant ever took effect. Shortly before his death Thomas Swynnerton had taken insurance against wardship, securing the necessary royal licence to convey all that he held in chief, principally the hereditary stewardship of the forest of Cannock, to feoffees headed by the duke of Buckingham and John Stanley II*. This precaution bore fruit: when his inquisition post mortem was belatedly held 11 months after his death, its findings proved entirely unfavourable to the royal grantees. All the deceased’s property was found either to be in the hands of either the feoffees or the widow, who had jointure in Swynnerton’s two manors, those of Hilton and Essington. In short, the Crown had no right in the wardship, and it must therefore be supposed that the marriages of his two young daughters – Anne, said to be 14 years old by the jurors, and Alice, said to be a year younger – were not sold by the grantees but rather contracted through local connexions.10 CFR, xviii. 96, 101-2; CPR, 1446-52, pp. 127-8; C139/135/33.

It might also be that Swynnerton’s nomination as sheriff was connected with his marriage, particularly as, in what can hardly have been a coincidence, the other coheiress became the wife of the escheator, Richard Beaufo. Not improbably the two men used the influence of their offices to help secure the marriages, although, in our MP’s case, the crucial factor was probably his connexion with Buckingham. In any event, he had married Anne by mid-way through his term of office: in May 1450 the couple brought a petition before the chancellor complaining that John Stanley was unlawfully detaining deeds relating to her inheritance.11 I. Rowney, ‘Staffs. Political Community’ (Keele Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1981), i. 46-7; C1/18/9. That inheritance was a significant one. In addition to two Staffordshire manors and the hereditary stewardship of the forest of Cannock, it included the manor of Whilton in Northamptonshire and various rents in Lincolnshire. Yet, unfortunately for the two grooms, the manors of Hilton and Essington long remained in the hands of Thomas Swynnerton’s widow, and thus, although the match was of long-term advantage to our MP’s family, it brought him little immediate profit.

Over the next couple of years Swynnerton was faced with the routine financial difficulties that arose out of service as sheriff. Not only was he fined for three failures to appear in the Exchequer to account, but in Easter term 1452 another Staffordshire man, William Mynors, an elderly yeoman of the Crown, sued him for failure to pay him his fee of 6d. a day, assigned on the issues of the county. Fortunately for Swynnerton, he secured some protection against such inconveniences later in the same year: when the royal court was at Reading in November he sued out letters of privy seal to the Exchequer, pardoning him his fines and awarding him the standard pardon of account in £40.12 E13/145A, rot. 45d; E159/229, brevia Mich. rot. 22d.

No more is known of Swynnerton until his election to Parliament on 26 June 1455. He was returned with (Sir) William Vernon*, who had been in the duke of Buckingham’s retinue in the campaign against Cade, and it is likely that the duke’s patronage was a factor in their return. The prevailing political dispensation had turned very much to the duke’s disadvantage with the King’s defeat a month before at the first battle of St. Albans, and he was probably particularly anxious to have his own men in the forthcoming Parliament. During the course of this three-session assembly Swynnerton found trouble of his own to distract him from his master’s affairs. For an unknown reason, he fell into a violent dispute with a wealthy esquire, John Delves† of Apedale, some ten miles from Swynnerton.13 There may have been a tie of kinship linking the two men, for, according to one ped., Delves’s paternal uncle, Henry, was the husband of our MP’s sis., Ellen: Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. vii (2), 53n. The first known manifestation of this quarrel dates from the first prorogation of the Parliament. According to a complaint made by our MP to the chancellor, on 27 Oct. 1455 Delves, at the head of more than 40 armed men, had set his house at Swynnerton on fire and abducted one of his servants. Further, on the following 24 Nov., by which time Parliament had reassembled, the same armed gang broke into his house at Acton (in the parish of Swynnerton) and assaulted his grandmother, Constance Rodyche. Any hopes he may have had of securing redress at common law were reduced by Delves’s appointment, between these two attacks, as the Staffordshire sheriff, and it was perhaps for this reason that he appealed to the chancellor. Delves’s failure to answer the resultant summons led to the issue, on 21 Jan. 1456, of writs of proclamation against him.14 C1/160/17; C255/3/10.

Here the trail of the dispute ends, but at the same time Swynnerton found other perceived foes to sue. In Easter term 1456 he brought an action of conspiracy against two Cheshire gentry, John Savage the elder and younger, claiming damages of as much as £400 against them for having had him falsely indicted of felonious theft before the Cheshire j.p.s. His claim is not to be taken literally, for, if true in every detail, he had been in prison at Chester throughout the first session of the 1455 Parliament.15 KB27/779, rot. 10; 784, rot. 86. He alleged that he had been imprisoned from Aug. 1454 until his acquittal on 9 Sept. 1455. Again the result of this litigation is unknown, but here at least the cause of dissension is clear. The two families were involved in a long-running dispute over the manors of Great and Little Barrow, granted by Edward III to Lord Swynnerton but then lost with the jointure settlement made to secure the Beck heiress.16 Rowney, i. 101; CP40/799, rot. 369d.

Soon after this Swynnerton added a term as escheator to his office-holding, and would no doubt, in more peaceful times, have later secured nomination to the county bench and further appointments. That he did not was due to his premature death, although the date and circumstances of that death are matters for speculation. On 22 Dec. 1459 he conveyed his wife’s lands to feoffees headed by his lord, the duke of Buckingham, and including the local lawyers, Thomas Everdon* and John Harper*; and he was still alive in Michaelmas term 1460, when he sued his kinsman and neighbour, Thomas Swynnerton of Butterton, for close-breaking at Acton. This rules out the possibility that he fell with Buckingham at the battle of Northampton.17 Rowney, i. 101; CP40/799, rot. 369d. It is, however, near certain that like his lord he was active in the Lancastrian cause. On 22 Dec. 1461 a commission was issued for his arrest to answer before the royal council for spreading falsehoods against the statute of 1378, in other words, seeking to breed dissension among the great men of the realm by disseminating lies. Clearly he was perceived as an enemy of the Yorkists; and it may even be that he had fallen in opposing them, for there is no evidence that this commission was issued against a dead man. According to a lawsuit of 1468, on 20 June 1461 his widow had purchased 42 oxen at Walsall.18 CPR, 1461-7, p. 101; CP40/826, rot. 101d. It is, of course, possible that the date given in the action is an error, but it is at least equally likely that his arrest was ordered on a misinformation and that he had fallen in battle, probably at Towton.

By the time of his death, Swynnerton’s wife may have inherited her share of her patrimony, for in the commission of 1461 Humphrey is described as ‘late of Hilton’.19 CPR, 1461-7, p. 101. Interestingly, however, the stewardship of Cannock remained in feoffment until Oct. 1483, when the son of the last surviving feoffee conveyed it to our MP’s son, another Humphrey: Add. Ch. 73213. She soon remarried within the Stafford retinue: by 13 Dec. 1463 she was the wife of John, son and heir-apparent of William Mytton*.20 Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. n.s. ii. 118-19. Her descendants by our MP survived in the main male line until the death of their great-grandson, another Humphrey†, in 1562, although Sir John Swynnerton† (d.1616), one of the founders of the East India Company and lord mayor of London, appears to have been their descendant in a junior line.21 Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. vii (2), 57-60, 64: The Commons 1509-58, iii. 414; 1558-1603, iii. 469; 1604-29, vi. 488-9.