BOCHELL, William

A Somerset ‘gentleman’, probably trained in the law, Bochell may have been a kinsman of a namesake from Taunton who was outlawed for failing to answer a suit for debt in or before 1405.3 CPR, 1405-8, p. 128. That William’s bro. John Bochell held together with his w. Isabel 12 messuages and over 400 acres of land near Minehead, which they relinquished in 1404: Som.Feet of Fines, 16-17. He himself was first recorded some 15 years later, as a witness to a conveyance of property in Bridgwater,4 WARD2/57A/204/59. and in September 1427 he was at Ilchester attesting the Somerset shire elections to Parliament for the first of six times. Bochell’s own election to the Parliament of 1429 as one of the burgesses for the impoverished Dorset port of Melcombe Regis may be attributed to his links with the man responsible for returning the writ as the sheriff of Somerset and Dorset, (Sir) John Stourton II*. His ties to the latter’s uncle, John Stourton I*, who accompanied him to the Commons as one of the shire knights for Somerset, became very close. While the Parliament was in progress Bochell was made a feoffee for a settlement on Stourton’s daughter Cecily and her husband John Hill I* of Spaxton, and shortly after they returned home following the dissolution in the spring of 1430 he was enfeoffed of some of Stourton’s own lands.5 CIPM, xxiv. 358; Som. Feet of Fines, 78. In 1433 he was party to a final concord regarding the Dorset manor of Hinton Parva, in assocation with William Carent*, who was married to Stourton’s niece.6 Dorset Feet of Fines (Dorset Recs. x), 344. This connexion with the influential John Stourton I continued for several years: in November 1434 Bochell stood surety at the Exchequer when Stourton purchased the marriage of his grandson, John Hill III*;7 CFR, xvi. 226. he attested Stourton’s final election to Parliament a year later; and in 1438 he was named among his executors.8 Som. Med. Wills (Som. Rec. Soc. xvi), 145-6. Stourton was for many years a member of the Somerset bench and probably encouraged Bochell’s own participation in county administration. Bochell sometimes took on the duties of a messenger for the sheriff, for example being sent by him in 1436 to ask Sir Thomas Brooke* to come to the Chancery if he wished to plead against the cancellation of certain letters patent.9 CPR, 1429-36, p. 517. That same year, or early in the next, he took over from Edward Cullyford* the post of clerk of the peace, an office he was to occupy for about ten years.

Few details are known about Bochell’s private affairs. His dealings in land place him near Bridgwater again in 1435, when he and his wife received from Henry Horsey possession of two messuages and several acres in Cannington and at Swindon in Charlinch;10 Som. Feet of Fines, 88; CCR, 1435-41, p. 159; VCH Som. vi. 94. although four years later the couple acquired a reversionary interest in a number of properties and some 175 acres of land in East Coker, situated near Yeovil and close to the border with Dorset.11 Som. Feet of Fines, 98. Bochell was rarely noticed by the government at the centre, but in May 1444 he obtained at the Exchequer keeping of the manor of Ryme in Dorset for five years, on agreeing to pay an annual farm of £16 1s. 8d. William Lovell I* of Wincanton, one of the filacers of the King’s bench, provided mainprise on his behalf, and later (in 1447) took over from him as clerk of the peace.12 CFR, xvii. 295.

In 1450 Bochell and his wife settled their reversionary interest in the property in East Coker on John Hymerford* and his issue by his wife Alice, who was probably their daughter; while at the same time the young couple received from Robert and Eleanor Hymerford (perhaps John’s parents), a substantial estate in North Curry.13 Som. Feet of Fines, 113-14. In transactions completed three years later, Bochell himself acquired from the Hymerfords buildings and some 200 acres of land in Hymerford in Dorset. He is last recorded as ‘of East Coker, alias of Nash, Somerset, gentleman’, in a royal pardon dated 3 Nov. 1455.14 Dorset Feet of Fines, 374-5; C67/41, m. 21.