ETON, Richard

Eton was one of the wealthier townsmen of Warwick and had poorly-documented landholdings elsewhere. He was closely connected with the lord of the borough, Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick. When, in October 1418, he first appears in the records, it was to offer mainprise in a royal grant made to two lawyers in the earl’s employ, John Throckmorton I* and William Wollashull*. Soon after, in February 1420, he was a mainpernor alongside Throckmorton in another grant.1 CFR, xiv. 255; CPR, 1416-22, pp. 257-8. His association with the earl no doubt explains the frequency with which he attested parliamentary elections, but he did so as one of the county gentry rather than as a townsman. As an attestor to the joint county and borough returns of 14 Apr. 1421 and 26 Oct. 1422, his name appears among the county electors.2 C219/12/5, 13/1. This implies that he held Warwickshire property outside the borough, although there can be no doubt that he lived in the town. He is described as ‘of Warwick, gentleman’ when, at a gaol delivery session there in February 1422, he stood surety for a labourer of Alcester.3 JUST3/67/13.

In September 1423 Eton was elected to Parliament for Warwick in company with Nicholas Rody*, a more prominent servant of the earl. Two years later, in November 1425, he acted with Rody and other townsmen in a more violent context: they were part of a group led by Sir Hugh Cokesey* involved in a serious confrontation with the servants of Joan Beauchamp, Lady Abergavenny, at Snitterfield, a few miles to the south of Warwick. It is not known what lay behind this affair, but there can be little doubt that they were acting at the behest of the earl. His powerful protection saved them from indictment, and it was not until May 1427 that Lady Joan secured a commission to investigate the clash. She named Eton, styled again as ‘of Warwick, gentleman’, among the alleged perpetrators, but neither he nor his fellows suffered any ill consequences at the hands of royal justice.4 C219/13/2; C. Carpenter, Locality and Polity, 378-80; CPR, 1422-9, p. 423.

On 27 Aug. 1428 Eton granted a messuage and a house in Evesham (Worcestershire) to Throckmorton and others. The purpose of the grant does not appear, but our MP seems to have been alienating property of his own for he had been described as ‘of Evesham’ in 1420.5 E210/4385; CPR, 1416-22, pp. 257-8. Later, in 1432 and 1433, he again appears as an attestor to Warwickshire parliamentary elections; on these occasions in indentures which make no obvious distinction between the county and borough attestors. Such appearances are further evidence of his comparative importance among the men of Warwick; so too is his nomination in 1434 among the very few men of the town considered substantial enough to be required to take the parliamentary oath not to maintain peace breakers. He was also one of the few Warwick men assessed to the subsidy of 1436, when his annual income was put at £6, enough to justify his appearance among the county attestors at the end of the same year.6 C219/14/3, 4, 15/1; CPR, 1429-36, p. 384; E179/192/59. Some of this income may have been derived from property he held in the right of his wife, Agnes. By a final concord levied in 1439 he joined her in conveying to Richard Sharp, a merchant of Coventry, her life interest in a third of three messuages and 150 acres of land in Coventry and three nearby vills. A later lawsuit shows that she was the widow of a Coventry man, Thomas Bedford, and it is clear that she had a life interest in this property as his widow, perhaps with Sharp as the heir.7 Warws. Feet of Fines (Dugdale Soc. xviii), 2598; CP40/724, rot. 387. In 1429 Thomas Bedford had held the property from which this dower was drawn: ibid. 2548. Her marriage to our MP probably came about through Richard Bedford*, a royal auditor who lived in Warwick and was, like Eton, connected with the Beauchamp earl.

Little else is known of Eton. On 24 Oct. 1438 he allegedly led a group which drove away from Evenlode certain livestock belonging to one John Petite. A month later Petite complained to the chancellor that he could not successfully sue actions of either replevin or withernam because our MP had taken the animals into Warwickshire and had no goods in Worcestershire from which he could be compensated. No reference to Eton has been traced after Michaelmas term 1442 when he and his wife, as the administratrix of her former husband’s goods, were pursuing an action of account against the wealthy London mercer, William Melreth*.8 C1/9/205; CP40/727, rot. 266.