BRIDGES, William I

Bridges should be distinguished from his more prominent namesake, William II*, whose career was centred on the borough of Southwark, for he evidently made his home at Guildford, where he was chosen mayor in 1427. Service in Parliament early in 1437 was followed by a second mayoral term later that year. Like other Guildford MPs, however, he acquired interests outside the town, and in 1434 had been described as ‘of Sanderstead’ when he was listed among the men of Surrey sworn to abide by the laws relating to maintenance.3 CPR, 1429-36, p. 381. It may be that his marriage to Agnes, the widow of John Pirle, who lived at Purley in the same hundred of Sanderstead, had already taken place. The full extent of Agnes’s dower is not recorded, but clearly she and Bridges had difficulty gaining possession, for following the failure of Pirle’s executors to carry out his wishes concerning his lands in Purley they had to petition Chancery for redress.4 C1/9/101.

Whatever his landed holdings elsewhere, it was doubtless Bridges’ prominence in Guildford which led to his appointment as one of the collectors of the subsidy for Surrey in July 1446 and to his second election to Parliament four years later. Given this long-standing involvement in the borough’s affairs it is not surprising to find that he and his wife acquired property in the town, comprising four messuages which, by Easter 1449, they had conveyed to Henry Fraunceys* and his feoffees.5 CP25(1)/232/73/29. As a ‘yeoman’, formerly of Guildford, Bridges successfully rebutted a suit in the court of common pleas in the summer of 1449 in which he was alleged to have failed to pay arrears of 42s. owing from when he had been receiver of sums of money for a London tailor, Luke Surragh, six years earlier.6 CP40/754, rot. 111.