BENGER, John

The career of the man who represented the Wiltshire boroughs of Westbury and Great Bedwyn in the Parliaments of 1449 (Nov.) and 1467 is difficult to disentangle from those of several synonymous kinsmen, whose lives overlapped with his own. It is indeed just possible that the MP of 1449 (Nov.) was an older man who first sat in the Commons as a burgess for Great Bedwyn in 1420, but this seems unlikely, since the latter, who had been born in the reign of Richard II, was said to be of ‘grete age’ in 1451. It nevertheless seems that this John Benger was alive as late as 1459, when his son of the same name was still styled ‘the younger’.5 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 187-8. Although he was not styled ‘junior’, it may have been the younger man who attested the Wilts. elections of 1450, since the father, who had done so regularly in the 1410s and 1420s, had not set his seal to an indenture since 1422: C219/10/6; 11/2, 5, 7; 13/1; 16/1.

In 1444 the elder John Benger had acquired from Thomas, the impoverished son and heir of Henry Chancy*, the manor of Sunton (or Collingbourne Sunton) in Collingbourne Kingston, which he later granted to his synonymous son, and the latter’s bride, Anne, daughter of Richard Sotewell of Chute.6 Wilts. Hist. Centre, Savernake Estate mss, 9/11/2-6; E326/6756; CCR, 1454-61, p. 38. The acquisition was not entirely untroubled, for within a few years Thomas Chancy’s brother Nicholas challenged Benger’s title, although apparently by means of a forged title deed.7 KB27/774, rots. 4d, 71d; 776, rot. 59d; CP40/796, rot. 318d; CPR, 1452-61, p. 277. Further litigation arose from a dispute with the abbot of Hyde by Winchester over forestry rights at Collingbourne.8 CP40/796, rots. 335, 375d.

Nicholas Chancy was said to have made the contents of his forged deed public in the parish of St. Andrew Holborn, in the heart of London’s legal quarter, and the younger Benger was himself clearly a man of law. It was probably the father who served as bailiff of the bishop of Winchester’s liberty in Wiltshire from 1440 to 1444, and held a similar post in the liberty of the prioress of Amesbury in that county in 1445,9 E368/212, rot. 7; 216, rot. 10; 218, rot. 4; Hants RO, bp. of Winchester’s pipe rolls, 11M59/B1/181, 182 (formerly 159436-7). but it was his son who was added to the quorum of the Wiltshire bench in early 1456, and who subsequently went on to serve on a number of ad hoc commissions there. The younger Benger’s short career of office-holding ground to a sudden halt in the late summer of 1459, when he was dropped from the Wiltshire bench. The background to this sudden fall from favour must probably be sought not in any political connexions, but in a flagrant act of official misconduct. Following the death of Robert, Lord Hungerford, on 18 May 1459, the formal inquiries regarding his estates and heir were abandoned, apparently within a week of the issue of the writs of diem clausit extremum to the county escheators. On 5 June, ten men, including Benger, as well Thomas Tropenell*, the receiver-general of the Hungerford estates, were commissioned to inquire into the extent of the Hungerford holdings and to take the lands into the King’s hands. In subsequent weeks, Tropenell rapidly conducted the ordered inquiries, with Benger by his side, but excluding the other commissioners. Not surprisingly, the returns which they delivered into Chancery within a short time claimed that the deceased baron’s lands were of no value whatsoever. On the same day, Tropenell made sure to secure pardons for himself and Benger, the Hungerford feoffees and the new Lord Hungerford for any offences that might have been committed in the process of transferring the holdings to their new owner.10 CFR, xix. 213; C139/172/17; CPR, 1452-61, pp. 496, 509. It is not clear what prior connexion between the two men persuaded Tropenell to place such full trust in Benger, who had been retained with an annual fee of 20s. by the late lord,11 SC6/971/12. but it seems that the younger man was left to pay the price by losing his official appointments.

Benger nevertheless seems to have maintained a private legal practice, and it may have been as part of such employment that he accepted election to the Parliament of 1467 for the borough of Great Bedwyn. This aside, it was only after the crisis of 1470-1 that he once more took public office. From the autumn of 1473 he once again served in a judicial capacity, first as a justice of gaol delivery and two years later as a j.p. He remained on the county bench for the remainder of the reigns of Edward IV and his young son, Edward V. He might well have continued in the same way under Richard III, but possibly became implicated in the duke of Buckingham’s rebellion in the late summer of 1483. Although Benger was not attainted, he was now permanently removed from the bench and received no other employment under the new King.

Benger’s later years were marred by a renewed dispute over the title to Collingbourne Sunton. By a settlement of 1476 the manor had been vested in the MP, his son John and Philip Tournay in survivorship, with a remainder to the King for term of the life of Sir Edmund Hungerford*, evidently a measure designed to draw the Crown into any litigation over the property. Early in 1479 the King’s justices found in favour of the Bengers’ opponents, but by a succession of writs of error they managed to keep their claim alive into the early months of the reign of Henry VII.12 KB27/898, rot. 47; 899, rot. 47; Sel. Cases in Exchequer Chamber, ii (Selden Soc. lxiv), 66-73. Nothing is heard of the MP thereafter.13 The Benger pedigree in the last quarter of the 15th and first quarter of the 16th centuries is confused. It seems that there were at least two branches of the family whose relationship has not been established with absolute certainty. It is probable that the John Benger who had died bef. July 1511 leaving his brother, George Benger of Pewsey, as his heir, was the MP’s son of that name: Savernake Estate mss, 9/11/8. Another John Benger, resident at Staines, Mdx., the son of Eleanor, da. (and apparently h.) of William Sparsholt of Sparsholt, Hants, died in Oct. 1517, leaving his gds. Richard Benger (c.1504-1529) as h. to his property in Hants and Wilts.: C142/34/15, 29; 50/65-66; PCC 36 Holder (PROB11/18, ff. 280-1); E150/982/3-4; C1/384/6.