AWGER, Richard

Information about this MP remains elusive. There is a possibility that he was the Richard Aunger from Petworth in Sussex who at some point before January 1431 complained with other English merchants that their vessels the Gabriel of ‘Hundeflete’ and the George of Winchelsea, with their cargoes valued at £1,500, had been despoiled by Scots. King James authorized them to seize Scottish merchandise to an equivalent value, an action which they were then permitted to have executed in English and Flemish ports. That Richard also shipped wheat from Poole in Dorset over to Dieppe in the 1430s.1 CPR, 1429-36, p. 105; CCR, 1429-35, p. 202. It may be speculated that this merchant had dealings with the burgesses of New Shoreham, further along the coast, which led to his election to Parliament several years later, but there is no proof that this was the case. Otherwise, we may speculate that the MP was the man of this name employed in the administration of Ashdown forest, which pertained to the duchy of Lancaster.

The MP was perhaps related to Henry Auger (d.1495), an esquire from Newenden in Kent who became a member of Henry VI’s household and was closely associated with Cardinal Kemp.2 CFR, xviii. 87, 100, 105, 264; xxii. no. 504. Henry was especially active on royal commissions in the period 1457-61, in particular for the organization of naval expeditions, notably a fleet to be sent to the north of England at the start of Edward IV’s reign. Henry VII made him bailiff of Winchelsea.3 CPR, 1494-1509, pp. 11, 352.