BABINGTON, Norman

The short, but active, career of Norman Babington is an illustration of the prominent part in local affairs that could be assumed by a younger brother of a wealthy and successful careerist. Significantly, it was not until his brother William became chief justice of the common pleas in 1423 that he first appears in an official role. By this time he must already have been middle-aged for his elder brother had been of age by 1395 if not before. He himself is first found in the records as a servant of Sir Gerard Usflete of North Ferriby (Yorkshire): in July 1417 he and William were among those Usflete asked to carry out his will, in which Norman was bequeathed ten marks for his loyal service, and in February 1421 the administration of the will was granted to him, described as the testator’s domicellus.2 Borthwick Inst., Univ. of York, Abp. Reg. 18 (Bowet), ff. 373-4; Test. Ebor. i (Surtees Soc. iv), 397-8. It is likely that Norman had come into his service through Sir Gerard’s wife, Elizabeth, sister and coheiress of Thomas Fitzalan, earl of Arundel, and widow of Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk; and that he had in turn entered her retinue through his elder brother, who was serving as her steward in Derbyshire in 1415 and was a councillor of her son, John, duke of Norfolk. By the early 1420s our MP was serving her in the more intimate capacity of household steward.3 L.E. Moye, ‘Estates and Finances of the Mowbray Fam.’ (Duke Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1985), 378; R.E. Archer, ‘The Mowbrays’ (Oxf. Univ. D. Phil. thesis, 1984), 343. The duchess’s third husband, Sir Robert Goushill (d.1403), had been a Notts. man, and this may explain the entry of the Babingtons into her service. No doubt it was this which prompted the dowager-duchess to make what appears to have been a generous settlement in favour of him and his wife, who was probably also her servant, perhaps at the time of their marriage.4 William Nesfield, who may have been the bride’s grandfather, had enjoyed a fee from the Mowbrays: S.K. Walker, Lancastrian Affinity, 103n. The settlement explains why later heralds were prepared to record her as a da. of John Mowbray, duke of Norfolk: Vis. Oxon. (Harl. Soc. v), 145. By a fine levied in Trinity term 1425, shortly before her death, she settled on the couple in fee a small part of her Fitzalan lands, namely a third of the manor of Woolston in Chigwell and a ninth of that of Margaretting in Essex, together with thirds of the manor of Kemberton and of 1,000 acres of wood in Wellington in Shropshire. Although these were not valuable properties – in Norman’s inquisition post mortem they were valued at only eight marks p.a. – they were an important endowment for a landless younger son.5 Essex Feet of Fines, iv. 6; VCH Salop. xi. 220; VCH Essex, iv. 31; CIPM, xxiv. 156-7. Further, the duchess’s generosity to him and his wife extended beyond the lands conveyed in the fine. On 20 May 1425 she wrote to the justice of Cheshire, Peter de la Pole†, instructing him to levy a fine conveying a third of the manors of Dunham-on-the-Hill and Wimbolds Trafford to the couple and Norman’s heirs. They did not, however, long hold these lands for, in 1427, they sold them to William Troutbeck, chamberlain of Chester and chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, who had previously leased them from the duchess.6 G. Ormerod, Palatine and City of Chester ed. Helsby, ii (1), 38; DKR, xxxvii (2), 24.

While the duchess’s lands provided Babington with a landed income, they were too scattered to give him an independent stake in local society. For this he depended on a grant from his brother of the manor of East Bridgford, which opened the way for him to play an active role in the administration of his native county.7 Vis. Oxon. 145. This grant had been made by Trin. term 1423 when our MP sued a wright of Southwell for the negligent construction of timber doors for his house there: CP40/650, rot. 455. Also important in this regard were his own connexions. Like his brother, he appears to have been a friend of the richest of Nottinghamshire’s gentry, Sir Thomas Chaworth*, for whom he acted as a surety and feoffee in 1423 and 1426, and he was closely associated with Ralph, Lord Cromwell, for whom he was a feoffee in 1431 and perhaps earlier.8 CCR, 1422-9, pp. 139, 315; CP25(1)/291/65/18; CPR, 1429-36, p.147; J.T. Godfrey, Notes Derbys. Churches, iv. 222. In the later part of his life he undertook the burdens of local administration that would have come the way of his elder brother had he not been a royal justice. He attested the parliamentary election of April 1425 and was himself returned at the next election in the following February. He was able to turn his time in Parliament to his personal advantage for, during the second session, he purchased a pardon for ten marks for the unlicensed acquisition from the duchess of lands held in chief. His appointment as escheator followed a few months after the close of Parliament, and at the end of his term of office he was elevated to the shrievalty. His reward for this activity was a modest pardon of account in £30 as sheriff. Named second on the list of attestors to the parliamentary election of September 1429, he was himself again returned in December 1430, attested the 1432 election and was elected for the third time on 22 June 1433.9 C219/13/3, 4, 14/1-4; CPR, 1422-9, p. 341; E159/205, brevia Easter rot. 6d. While sitting in this Parliament he was appointed to the shrievalty once more. This intense burst of administrative and parliamentary activity was brought to an abrupt end by his death in office on 1 Mar. 1434.

Babington’s widow appears to have continued to reside in Nottinghamshire for, in the subsidy returns of 1450, she is styled ‘of East Bridgford’. Her assessment of only £13 in 1435-6 and as little as £7 in 1450 shows how attenuated had been the landed resources with which her late husband had supported his administrative career. Soon after his death, in her capacity as his executrix, she sued several pleas of debt and account.10 E179/159/84; 240/266; CP40/699, rot. 295; 700, rot. 64. More significant, however, was a case in which she appeared as a defendant. In June 1437 Sir Roland Lenthall, widower of Elizabeth Fitzalan’s sister, Margaret, sued an assize of novel disseisin against her for a third of the Shropshire manor of Kemberton. On her default a month later, she was found guilty of disseisin vi et armis and damages of as much as £96 were awarded against her. Her continued failure to appear led to her waiver in the following January, and she remained outside the law until the following October, when Lenthall acknowledged himself content of the damages and she made fine of half a mark with the King. Her pledges on this occasion – Richard Bingham, the future royal justice, and Richard Willoughby* – show that she maintained important connexions among the gentry of her adopted county.11 C88/122/18; CPR, 1436-41, p. 234. The disseisin is said to have taken place in 1425, and significantly Kemberton does not appear in Margaret’s inq. post mortem. On her death in March 1451, the estates she had held jointly with her husband, with the exception of Kemberton, passed to the retired chief justice as her late husband’s heir. Although she had no lands to which they were inheritable, the jurors in her inquisition post mortem returned as her heirs her two nieces, who had married into the Yorkshire families of Hungate and Constable of Bossall.12 C139/142/18.