ASHBY, Nicholas

Nicholas was probably the son of John Ashby, a gentleman with property both in Stafford and its neighbourhood and, some miles to the south of that borough, in Essington, Wednesfield and Wolverhampton. John attested the Staffordshire parliamentary election of 6 Dec. 1436, and was still alive in the following year when he had an action pending in the court of common pleas for close-breaking at Wednesfield.2 Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. xvii. 139; new ser. iii. 136; C219/15/1. His estates appear to have been divided between what were almost certainly his two sons, namely our MP, who took the property around Stafford, and James Ashby, who took that around Wolverhampton. The lands in the vicinity of Stafford – at Dunston, Bradley and Forebridge – were held of Humphrey Stafford, earl of Stafford and (from 1444) duke of Buckingham, and had, on our MP’s death, an annual rental value of 40s. 4d.3 Egerton Roll 2190; CP40/788, rot. 414. To this is to be added the value of three messuages in Stafford itself that, according to a later legal action, had been entailed on our MP by John Ashby. Nicholas’s own efforts brought an interest in further property: on 1 Feb. 1439 he joined James in farming the rectory of Marston, near Stafford, for a term of seven years (although their right was contested by William Lee*).4 CP40/718, rot. 308. These holdings were enough to make him a man of substance in the borough, and that substance was enhanced by the patronage of at least one local landholder. A chance reference shows that, at some unknown date, he was receiver-general for John Bokyngham, prior of Henry V’s Carthusian foundation at Sheen. This appointment is to be explained by local connexions. The priory held property in the immediate vicinity of Stafford, and it may even be that the prior himself came from the borough. Suggestively in this context, early in his career Ashby is found in association with another Bokyngham: on 2 Mar. 1441 Thomas Coole of Cannock named one Thomas Bokyngham as attorney to deliver seisin to Ashby of a cottage and grange in Foregate, Stafford.5 CP40/818, rot. 217d; Staffs. RO, St. Thomas’s priory mss, D938/210.

Little else is known of Ashby’s career because that career was cut short prematurely. In 1444 he was named to an inquiry commission, the purpose of which appears to have been to protect the rights of the Hextalls, a family closely connected with the duke of Buckingham, in property in Stafford. This, at least, was the consequence of the commission’s findings. In 1446 Ashby made a settlement as a feoffee of Thomas Thornes*, a Shrewsbury burgess with lands in Staffordshire.6 Wm. Salt. Arch. Soc. xii. 261; CIPM, xxvi. 239; Salop Archs., Philipps mss, 4229/1/8. His election to Parliament three years later may have owed something to his connexion by tenure with the duke, for his fellow MP, Richard Bruyn*, was in the duke’s service.7 C219/15/6. Very probably, had he lived, he would have been elected again, but he died, comparatively young, on 27 July 1450, leaving as his son and heir a boy named John, only five years old.8 J.W. Bradley, Stafford Chs. 204, identifies Nicholas Ashby as bailiff of Stafford in 1452 and 1456, but this is an error. The boy’s period in the duke’s wardship was brief, for he was dead by Michaelmas 1454 when his sister Margaret was the duke’s ward.9 Egerton Roll 2190; Staffs. RO, Stafford family mss, D641/1/2/59-60, 62-63. By this date Ashby’s widow (a woman of unknown family) had remarried, taking as her second husband, Robert Greville, and the new couple sued our MP’s putative brother James for dower in six messuages in Essington.10 CP40/775, rot. 120d. Greville is perhaps to be identified with an annuitant of Richard Neville, earl of Warwick: C. Carpenter, Locality and Polity, 216, 656, 697. The identification is, however, far from certain, particularly because he is described as ‘Richard’ rather than ‘Robert’: CP40/818, rot. 217d. This was not the only dispute to arise out of his affairs. In February 1457 his daughter, Margaret, and her husband, John Donne of Stafford, claimed against James the three messuages in Stafford that John Ashby had settled on our MP. While this action was pending before the borough’s bailiffs, James conveyed all his land in Stafford and its immediate neighbourhood to an impressive group of feoffees, headed by Richard Wydeville, Lord Rivers, and (Sir) Edmund Hampden*, presumably for protection of title.11 CP40/788, rot. 414; St. Thomas’s priory mss, D938/212. Interestingly, the feoffees also included Queen Margaret’s clerk of the signet, George Ashby*, who was very likely a kinsman of our MP. James was also involved in litigation as our MP’s executor. In 1466 he and the other executor, Thomas Everdon*, a local lawyer who had represented Newcastle-under-Lyme in the same assembly as Ashby sat for Stafford, sued the vicar of Chewton Mendip (Somerset) for money owed to Ashby as the prior of Sheen’s receiver-general.12 CP40/818, rot. 217d.