COBERLEY, Thomas

Coberley’s parentage and regional provenance have not been established, although his surname may suggest that his family originally hailed from Gloucestershire. What seems clear is that he received some training in the law, and by the late 1430s was practising as an attorney in the Westminster common law courts.3 CP40/715, rots. 92, 118, 708d; CCR, 1435-41, p. 483; 1441-7, p. 485; 1447-54, pp. 413-14; K.B. McFarlane, ‘A Business-Partnership in War and Admin.’, EHR, lxxviii. 306. In a professional capacity, he was for a number of years employed by a succession of sheriffs of Herefordshire to receive the writs addressed to them by the Westminster courts.4 CP40/721, rot. 330d; 723, rot. 530d; 726, rots. 102d, 307d; 728, rot. 102d; 736, rot. 123d; 737, rot. 107d; 738, rots. 106d, 403d; 739, rot. 128d; 750, rot. 129d; 754, rot. 125d. Equally, it may have been in the course of his private legal practice that in 1445 he was charged with the execution of the will of the Surrey landowner John Winter, like him a member of the circle of the prominent soldier Sir John Fastolf.5 McFarlane, 301. This proved an arduous task, not least because some 24 years earlier Winter had established a partnership with Nicholas Molyneux, another young esquire who would later enter Fastolf’s service, and Molyneux, who was another of Winter’s executors, now appeared on the scene to challenge Coberley’s provisions for the disposal of the Winter estates. In line with Winter’s instructions, Coberley sold the manor of Knolles in Camberwell to the London gentleman William Fitzwalter, and allowed Fastolf to take possession of the tenement in Southwark called the Boar’s Head. Molyneux, hastily returning from the Norman theatre of war, lost no time in challenging his actions in the royal law courts. In May 1449 he and Coberley submitted their disagreement to the arbitration of the leading lawyer William Lacon I*, whose eventual award undid much of what Coberley had arranged.6 CPR, 1452-61, pp. 71-72; C1/21/72; McFarlane, 301-8.

It is not clear why or how Thomas secured election for the borough of Hindon, belonging to the recently consecrated Bishop Waynflete, to the Parliament that assembled at Westminster that autumn, but it is just possible that he was minded to bring his troubles before the Lords and Commons, for he for his part now challenged Lacon (who had also been returned to the Parliament) before the King’s justices of common pleas.7 CP40/769, rots. 477, 477d. The dispute dragged on for several more years, and was eventually settled in 1453.8 CPR, 1452-61, pp. 71-72. The Wiltshire elections of 1449 were presided over by the courtier John Norris*, and on the basis of his likely regional provenance it is possible that Coberley was returned through the intervention of the King’s kinsman Richard, duke of York, one of the leading magnates in Herefordshire and the Marches, and at that time still closely associated with the court.

Few other details of Coberley’s career have come to light, but it is possible that he was the man who in May 1463 was appointed to a royal commission set up to inquire into the Kentish landholdings of the duke of York. He is not heard of thereafter.9 CPR, 1461-7, p. 279.