AYSSHTON, Edward

Although Edward was one of no fewer than 11 children of Nicholas Aysshton, a successful Cornish lawyer who rose to become a justice of the common bench, only he and one of his sisters survived their parents.9 Aysshton’s surviving sister, Joan, married Thomas Denny (or Dewy) alias Trevenour: J. Maclean, Trigg Minor, i. 563. The dates of their siblings’ deaths are not recorded, and it is thus impossible to tell whether Edward was marked out for a career in the law at an early age, or whether he followed in his father’s footsteps merely by virtue of his survival. It is, in fact, possible that he had originally been intended to enter the Church, if he was the boy who received his first tonsure from Bishop Lacy of Exeter in 1434, but who subsequently disappears from the registers of the diocese.10 Reg. Lacy, iv (Canterbury and York Soc. lxiii), 155. Certainly, he appears to have assumed the burden of some of the judge’s numerous private appointments at an early date: by 1447 he had succeeded him as the duke of Buckingham’s steward of the manor of Caliland. Before long he was able to make his own way in the world. Within the next three years he had become sufficiently established in the borough of Launceston (not far from the family seat at Callington) to be chosen its steward by the burgesses; from about the same date the burgesses made him regular gifts of wine and money for his counsel, and from about 1460 he also served as the borough’s recorder.11 Launceston bor. recs., B/Laus/139, f. 3; Peter and Peter, 136.

With Judge Nicholas kept busy at Westminster and at sessions of the peace and of assize throughout much of southern England, it fell to Edward to fill the family’s place in Cornish society in his father’s absence. In 1453 the two Aysshtons acquired landholdings in the parishes of St. Mewan and St. Columb Major in central Cornwall, and it is likely that these lands were specifically intended to give Edward a foothold in the county during the judge’s lifetime.12 Cornw. Feet of Fines, ii (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. 1950), 1099. By the mid 1450s the younger man was named with increasing frequency among their neighbours’ feoffees, and his local standing is apparent from the prominence that his name was given, second only to the greatest of the Cornish gentry, such as Sir John Colshull* and William, Lord Bonville*.13 Cornw. RO, Arundell mss, AR1/989, 991, 992; Coryton mss, CY1149; Warws. RO, Fetherston-Dilke mss, CR2981/Dining Room/Cabinet/Drawer 4/1. Yet, Cornwall was not to remain the sole focus of his career, for it seems that by this time he had also attracted the attention of another patron. Although the evidence is inconclusive, it appears that Aysshton may have secured his first return to the Commons in 1455 as a Member for Downton, one of the boroughs of which William Waynflete, bishop of Winchester, was lord.

It was, however, the death of Nicholas Aysshton in March 1466 which propelled Edward to prominence. In succession to his father, he was admitted to the merchant guild at Launceston,14 Launceston bor. recs., B/Laus/156. and that autumn he once again served as the borough’s steward (a curious appointment in view of his tenure of the town’s recorder-ship for at least the previous six years). In 1467 he was returned to the Commons by the borough of Truro, but the details of his election are obscure, and the insertion of his name over erasures on both the sheriff’s indenture and the accompanying schedule may point to some form of irregularity.15 C219/17/1. Interestingly enough, Aysshton’s father had also been involved in a questionable election at Truro in 1435, when his name had replaced that of Thomas Bere* on the sheriff’s schedule of borough Members. More importantly, Aysshton now gained control of the extensive family estates, which, apart from the Surrey manor of Godstone purchased by Judge Nicholas, included more than 1,000 acres of land and other holdings in Launceston, St. Stephen and elsewhere in Cornwall.16 C140/84/34; SC11/968; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 201, 397; E150/1068/1; VCH Surr. iv. 287.

Yet, along with property and consequent status, Edward also inherited from his father a good deal of unfinished business and resultant vexation. Nicholas Aysshton had throughout his career amassed executorships and enfeoffments, many of them from some of the greatest men in the realm, and the unravelling of the tangle in which many of these were left was now the duty of his son and his co-executors, the judge’s factotum Robert Clay* and the clerk John Knoll. It seems highly probable that it was as a precaution against future problems, as well as a remedy for those that had already emerged, that Aysshton sued out a general pardon in December 1468.17 C67/46, m. 14; Fetherston-Dilke mss, CR2981/Dining Room/Cabinet/Drawer 4/2. One such problem arose from Nicholas Aysshton’s role as a feoffee of Sir Thomas Arundell* of Tolverne. The judge had outlived all his co-feoffees, and as he had never re-enfeoffed the Arundells of their property, the legal title to Sir Thomas’s lands had on his death descended to Edward. Challenged in Chancery by Arundell’s son Ralph, Edward declared himself (probably truthfully) to be ignorant of the matter in question, and showed himself ready to return the lands, should this be deemed appropriate by Lord Keeper Alcock (then presiding over the court of Chancery while Chancellor Rotherham attended Edward IV in France).18 C1/47/253-4; 57/348; C253/42/265; 44/63.

Some time before this dispute came to trial, political events had seen Aysshton’s career advanced significantly. Over the course of the 1460s, Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, had become increasingly dissatisfied with Edward IV’s rule, and in 1468-9 he made common cause with the King’s brother, George, duke of Clarence, to regain the initiative and remove the group of favourites and kinsmen of Queen Elizabeth who surrounded the monarch. In the summer of 1469 a northern rebellion stirred up by Warwick claimed the lives of two of them, Humphrey Stafford IV*, earl of Devon, and Sir William Herbert*, earl of Pembroke, and before long Warwick had also seized the King and effectively deprived him of the power to govern independently. Stafford’s execution in particular had important implications for the south-west of England, where he had dominated local government, but it was not until King Edward regained his liberty in the autumn of 1469 that he could give attention to the necessary reorganisation of the administration of the region. Whether out of a sense of trust in the loyalty of the son of a man who had served Edward well, or from a lack of reliable regional alternatives in the middle of a political crisis, Aysshton was now appointed to the Cornish commission of the peace. Already, Bishop Waynflete had entrusted him with one of the most important appointments in his gift, that of constable of Taunton castle in succession to the executed earl of Devon.19 Bp. of Winchester’s pipe rolls, 11M59/B1/201 (formerly 155836). This office represented a significant enhancement of Aysshton’s status: it was a strategic military appointment normally reserved for members of the higher gentry, and should, other than at a time of crisis, have been far out of his reach.

If Aysshton had not previously been perceived as a Yorkist loyalist, he was clearly regarded as such by the autumn of 1470, when Warwick, having realized the futility of trying to govern through King Edward, restored Henry VI to the throne. After less than a year as a j.p., Aysshton was removed from the county bench, although he does not appear to have suffered any more wide-reaching reprisals and apparently retained not only the recordership of Launceston, but also the control of Taunton castle, even though Bishop Waynflete had come out strongly in support of the Lancastrian restoration. In any case, in the following spring the tables turned once more. Before the end of May 1471 Edward IV was back on the throne, Henry VI, his son and the earl of Warwick were dead, and Queen Margaret in captivity. Before long, those who had remained loyal to the Yorkist cause reaped their rewards. In June 1472 Aysshton was restored to the Cornish bench, on which he was to serve until his death, and both in that year and the next he was charged with the array of armed men in his native county. In the autumn he was also once again returned to the Commons, this time securing, probably with ease, one of the seats for Waynflete’s borough of Taunton. Yet, in the event Aysshton may have spent more time at Westminster than he might have expected, as Parliament was prorogued time and time again to reassemble for ever fresh sessions. During the third session in October 1473 news of the earl of Oxford’s landing at St. Michael’s Mount arrived, and Aysshton was among a group of south-western gentry who were hastily dispatched to raise troops and retake the Mount.20 As the Cornish election returns for 1472 are lost, it is impossible to tell how many of the commissioners were sitting MPs, but Henry Bodrugan† was at least one other Member who was appointed.

Little is known of Aysshton’s later years, beyond his quarrel with Ralph Arundell of Tolverne. In spite of his Taunton office and his second election for the borough (he once more represented it in 1478) he ultimately remained a Cornishman and never put down any roots in Somerset. Perhaps in view of his absenteeism, as well as out of other political considerations, Bishop Waynflete revoked his appointment as constable of Taunton castle in the autumn of 1476, even though he had confirmed it for term of Aysshton’s life less than two years earlier, in February 1474. Certainly, his replacement, (Sir) Giles Daubeney†, was an appropriate choice, being not only a military man of knightly rank, but also a Somerset landowner of substance.21 Bp. of Winchester’s pipe rolls, 11M59/B1/200, 203, 205 (formerly 155835, 155838, 155840). Aysshton for his part returned to the far south-west, where his administrative abilities found recognition from the council of the young prince of Wales. On the day before the dissolution of his final Parliament he was included in a commission under the prince’s seal to inquire into the tenure of certain lands on Dartmoor.22 E41/378/1.

Aysshton died on 7 July 1481, leaving his 12-year-old son Nicholas as his heir.23 C140/84/34. Custody of the heir and his estates was granted to Sir Robert Willoughby, who had been one of Aysshton’s feoffees, but after the latter’s attainder by Richard III’s Parliament the estates were split between (Sir) Richard Harcourt* and Sir Thomas ap Morgan.24 CPR, 1476-85, pp. 327, 384, 406. Nicholas went on to marry a sister of Archbishop Warham, and died in February 1511. His son and heir, William, was then just three years old.25 E140/1068/1; PROB11/16, f. 300v; Vis. Surr. ed. Bannerman, 15 erroneously describes Aysshton as ‘of Lancashire’.