EUER, Henry

Henry Euer was by far the best-born man to represent Scarborough in Henry VI’s reign. He was a younger son of one of the principal northern families, the Euers of Witton-le-Wear in County Durham and Old Malton in Yorkshire, and the grandson of Henry, Lord Fitzhugh (d.1425), after whom he was probably named. He was also a lawyer, at least if one may judge from his appointment, late in his life, to the quorum of the peace in the North Riding. His return, very early in his career, to represent the town is to be seen in the context of his family’s residence at Old Malton, only some 18 miles away, and the ambitions of his father. It is clearly not coincidental that Henry was elected to a Parliament in which his father, for the fourth and last time, was returned for Yorkshire at hustings that Henry himself attended. Unfortunately there is nothing to show why the Euers should have been so anxious to be represented in this assembly.1 C219/15/6.

As is the case with many younger sons of even the most significant gentry families, Henry makes only intermittent appearances in the records. In February 1452, styled as ‘of London, gentleman’, he stood surety when John, son and heir-apparent of Sir John Langton† of Farnley (Yorkshire), took from the Crown a lease of the King’s mills under the castle of York. His residence in London suggests, particularly in the context of his later appointment to the quorum of the peace, the possibility of attendance at an inn of court, but this can be no more than speculation. Later, in September 1457, after the executors of his aunt’s husband, Sir Alexander Neville*, had refused to act, he assumed the administration of his goods in company with his brother, Master William, rector of Brompton (near Scarborough), and cousin, William Neville.2 CFR, xvii. 259; Test. Ebor. ii (Surtees Soc. xxx), 208-9.

If Euer followed the lead of his nearest kinsman, his loyalties probably lay with Lancaster during the civil war of 1459-61. His eldest brother, Ralph, was killed in that cause at the battle of Towton, and in May 1461 at York, before the new chief justice of common pleas, Sir Robert Danby, a North Riding neighbour of the Euers, our MP, together with two of his surviving brothers, Robert and Master William, contracted to pay fines to Edward IV of £2,000 each. No doubt these ruinous sums were not levied but were intended as a suspended penalty until the family should have proved their loyalty. On the following 12 Aug. the recognizances were duly cancelled.3 CPR, 1461-7, p. 39.

From the early 1460s, if not before, Euer lived at Malton.4 In 1463 he sued one Robert Dalton for a messuage there: CP40/810, rot. 239. It is possible that his father had granted him an interest in the family’s manor there. Indeed, in his will, our MP refers to ‘my manor of Olde Malton’. The other possibility is that he created a subsidiary manor for himself, for his will refers to property purchased both in New and Old Malton. Nor was this the extent of his acquisitions. He also acquired land at nearby Wykeham and Scarborough together with more further afield (although still in the North Riding) at Whitby and Stokesley.5 Borthwick Inst., Univ. of York, York registry wills, prob. reg. 5, f. 115. These acquisitions are otherwise undocumented and were, no doubt, only of small parcels of land, but they show that by time of his death he had gone some way to creating an estate of his own.6 Leaving aside the property he acquired through his 2nd wife, these purchases were not the extent of his landholdings. The will refers to ‘other lands’ without specifying them and, in 1465, he brought an action of close-breaking in respect of property at Nunthorpe near Stokesley: CP40/814, rot. 417d.

Euer’s father died in the autumn of 1465, and his mother less than two years later. The father’s will does not survive but that of the mother, made on 12 Feb. 1467, does. It is notable in its bequests of livestock, and, judged upon them, Henry was her favourite son. Aside from the seven ‘stotts’ (probably referring to cattle), 20 ewes and two oxen from Witton-le-Wear that each of her three surviving sons were to have, Henry was to have all her ‘husbandery’ at Old Malton, namely six oxen with plough and wain, together with two ‘staggs’ (probably in the sense of young horses).7 Test. Ebor. ii. 284-6. Henry and two of her other sons, Master William and John, were named among her executors.

By the late 1460s Euer was becoming a man of independent standing in the North Riding as exemplified by his addition to the quorum of the peace there in July 1468.8 C66/521, m. 29d. Soon after, he acquired new connexions and property by marriage. His first wife has not been identified, but, probably late in 1469, he took as his second a daughter of Sir Robert Danby, the same chief justice before whom he had earlier been bound in heavy penalties, and the widow of Robert Lascelles, a North Riding esquire of modest wealth.9 Test. Ebor. iii (Surtees Soc. xlv), 198n; iv (ibid. liii), 334. This marriage, perhaps made through a combination of local and legal connexions, may have had a political significance. Danby was closer to Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, than a royal justice should have been to any lord, and was removed when Edward IV was restored to the throne in the spring of 1471. Further, our MP’s nephew, Sir William Euer, was one of the knights fined for supporting the Readeption. Yet there is no evidence that Henry had followed the leads of his nephew and father-in-law. Indeed, what little evidence there is stands to the contrary, for he was removed from the North Riding bench during the Readeption, only to be restored when Edward IV was again King.10 E.W. Ives, Common Lawyers: Thomas Kebell, 233; CCR, 1468-76, no. 849; CPR, 1467-77, p. 637.

Later, in February 1475, Euer exploited the advantage of his second marriage by purchasing from the Crown for 100 marks the wardship and marriage of his stepson, Robert Lascelles (b.c.1462).11 CFR, xxi. 277; C140/52/29. But, just as his career was beginning to flourish, it came to an end. He made a long and interesting will on 17 Oct. 1476.12 York registry wills, prob. reg. 5, f. 115; Test. Ebor. iii. 222-5. He wanted to be buried in the Gilbertine priory at Old Malton, where both his parents were buried, specifying a very particular position, namely before the altar of St. John the Baptist where the priest ‘usith to say confiteor’ (the prayer at the beginning of the mass). A secular priest was to pray for his soul either at that altar or else in his manor of Old Malton. To his wife he left all the household goods at Old Malton with, in an echo of his mother’s will, two wains, two ploughs and 16 oxen. She was also to have the marriage of her son and his ward, Robert, who was to have his own lands a year before his majority if he submitted to his mother’s governance. Until Robert was 21, the testator’s brother John was to have an annuity of two marks from the Lascelles lands and what remained of the issues (after the heir’s finding and the annuities specified below) was to go to the marriage of our MP’s daughter, Margery. But Henry can hardly be charged with the improper exploitation of the wardship, for three other annuities of 20s. were limited to three members of the Lascelles family with 10s. p.a. to his wife’s brother, Richard Danby. Two of his best horses were bequeathed to his nephew, Sir William Euer, and his brother, Master William. His feoffees, not named in the will, were to settle on Katherine a life estate of all his purchased lands in New Malton and so on, with remainder, in successive tail general, to his daughter, his brother John and then his brother Robert. If the issue of all three failed then the lands were to be sold by his executors, the estates left to his two brothers were conditional on their making estate to his wife for her life of the lands of which they were seised to his use. All his other lands, which, unhelpfully, are not specified, were to be settled in the same way save that, between the remainders to John and Robert, was one limited to the issue of his dead brother Thomas (d.1475).

The wider family was also remembered in an unusual provision. Euer’s widow was to have 20 nobles of ‘old gold’, from which 20 rings were to be made and distributed between his brothers and sisters, his widow’s brothers and sisters, and his nephew, Sir William, and Sir William’s wife (presumably Margaret, daughter of (Sir) Robert Constable*), and another nephew, ‘young’ Robert Ughtred, son of his sister Katherine. If any were left another nephew, William Conyers of Sockburn, Yorkshire, son of his sister, Margery, was to have one, ‘for a remembrance to praye for my sall’ (which was presumably also the purpose of the other rings). His executors were his widow and two of his brothers, Master William and John, acting under the supervision of his brothers-in-law, Sir Christopher Conyers of Sockburn, and James Danby.

Euer’s date of death poses a difficulty. His will was not proved until 5 Dec. 1477 and yet he seems to have been dead for some time by then. Death is the most probable reason for his exclusion from the North Riding commission of the peace issued on the previous 20 Feb.; and he was certainly dead by 26 June 1477. His widow contracted her son in marriage to Eleanor, daughter of Richard Conyers of South Cowton and niece of Sir John Conyers of Hornby, for a portion of 130 marks.13 CPR, 1467-77, p. 637; C1/242/52.