HARDEGRAVE, Thomas

Hardegrave came from Stalbridge in Dorset, where members of his family had been living since at least the mid fourteenth century. Precisely when he inherited land there is not known, although in Edward IV’s reign he let out to farm some of his holdings in the locality, and he passed others on to his daughters.3 J. Hutchins, Dorset, iii. 676-7; C1/235/47. It seems very likely that he was related to John Hardegrave, the serjeant of the pantry to Henry V, who left a bequest to the church at Stalbridge. John died, apparently childless, in about 1418, and although he did not mention Thomas in his will (indeed, the future MP might not yet have been born), a chain of connexions linked them together.4 PCC 45 Marche (PROB11/2B, f. 134); CPR, 1422-9, p. 463. The serjeant’s widow Elizabeth took their manor of Avon in Hampshire to her third husband, Thomas Tame*,5 CP25(1)/291/63/37. Elizabeth died childless: C139/58/28. who like our MP became closely associated with the prominent Dorset family of Roger of Bryanston. Tame acted as a feoffee for the wealthy merchant and landowner John Roger† (d.1441) and his elder son and heir John (d.1450),6 CCR, 1435-41, p. 440; CPR, 1446-52, p. 411. while Hardegrave, named along with Tame in the latter enfeoffments, attached himself to John Roger I* (d.1460) the merchant’s younger son, and remained a friend of the family through four decades.

Our MP’s friendship with John Roger I began before the spring of 1441 when he was enfeoffed of Roger’s manor of Freefolk and lands in Whitchurch, Hampshire, and four years later he assisted John in his acquisition of the manor of Church Speen in Berkshire. Such was their bond that on a later occasion he was himself called ‘of Church Speen’.7 E326/5754, 11291; Hants RO, Jervoise of Herriard mss, 44M69/C/572, 584; CPR, 1441-6, p. 331; C67/46, m. 24. Designated ‘esquire’, in June 1444 Hardegrave was granted at the Exchequer keeping of certain Crown lands known as ‘Maidencourt’ in Berkshire for 20 years, only to relinquish the lease 18 months later so that Roger might have it. He stood surety on his friend’s behalf.8 CFR, xvii. 296; xviii. 61. Together the two men acquired that same year (in 1446), the reversion of the manor of Leckhampstead, to fall in after the death of the widow of William Danvers*, an interest they subsequently conveyed (probably in return for a financial consideration) to the dowager duchess of Suffolk.9 Harl. Chs. 54 I 16, 55 D 45; Cott. Ch. xxix 19. It may have been through the patronage of John Roger’s elder brother and namesake, an esquire in the royal household, that Hardegrave had first come to the attention of the King. Early in 1445 Henry VI granted him for life the office of royal otter-hunter, with daily wages of 2d. for himself, 1½d. for a groom, ¾d. for each of eight hounds and 1d. for a dog called a ‘strevell’, all to be paid out of the issues of Essex and Hertfordshire.10 CPR, 1441-6, p. 321. Henceforth, as a permanent member of the Household, he received livery at the great wardrobe.11 E361/6, rots. 50, 52d. Although the grant was annulled by the Act of Resumption passed in the Parliament of 1449-50, no-one was formally appointed to take Hardegrave’s place, and he successfully reclaimed his post in 1452. Further confirmation of his role as otter-hunter came in 1456. Indeed, he performed the tasks expected of him to the satisfaction of successive monarchs, holding the office for over 40 years altogether, until Henry VII seized the throne and extended his patronage elsewhere. By then Hardegrave must have been an old man.12 CPR, 1446-52, p. 521; 1452-61, p. 327.

As a feoffee of the estates of John Roger the elder, who died in 1450, Hardegrave was formally associated with powerful figures about the royal court, such as the King’s chamberlain, Ralph, Lord Sudeley, his carver Sir William Beauchamp*, Lord St. Amand, and the up-and-coming James Butler, earl of Wiltshire,13 CPR, 1446-52, p. 411. and there can be little doubt that the prestige of such associations, taken together with his own status as a royal retainer, were principal factors in his return to the Parliament summoned to meet at Reading on 6 Mar. 1453. The borough of Marlborough, which he represented, pertained to Queen Margaret as part of her dower, and men deemed to be acceptable to the Lancastrian regime might readily be provided with a seat there. He joined several other courtiers in the Commons. Even so, Hardegrave’s career was to be little affected by the political upheavals of 1459-61, leading to Henry VI’s deposition, perhaps because of the Yorkist credentials of his friend John Roger I. The new King Edward IV confirmed him in his office of otter-hunter, with effect from the very beginning of the reign, and he continued to receive livery at the great wardrobe.14 CPR, 1461-7, p. 127; E361/6, rots. 54d, 56d.

Meanwhile, probably in the late 1450s, Hardegrave had married Christine, the daughter of Edmund Forster of Southampton, believing her to be Forster’s sole heir to the manor of Nursling and other properties in Hampshire. Yet he soon discovered that there was another claimant to these holdings; indeed, title to Forster’s estate was to remain in contention for over 50 years. In 1456 or 1457 a petition had been sent to the chancellor by Robert Marmyon of Thame in Oxfordshire, who claimed that back in 1434 an agreement had been made between Forster and the petitioner’s father Peter Marmyon that the latter should marry Forster’s only child, a daughter named Joan. Forster had enfeoffed John Roucle of the Isle of Wight of all his lands near Southampton (situated by the river Test at Nursling, Milbrook, Testwood and Totton), to the intent that Roucle would settle them on Forster for life with remainder to Joan and her issue. This was done, and the couple duly produced a son, the petitioner Robert, who was Joan’s heir when she died. But it was now rumoured that Forster, who had survived his daughter, had recently made alienations of the lands, effectively disinheriting his grandson. As Forster was ‘of gret age and vexed with gret sekenes’ (and thus unable to travel), Marmyon requested that a writ be directed to John William*, the mayor of Southampton, and others, to examine him and report their findings to the Chancery.15 C1/26/74. It would seem that after the alleged settlement of 1434 Forster had fathered another daughter, Christine (perhaps by a second wife), and to secure the match between her and the King’s otter-hunter he had promised to give her all his landed possessions, disregarding the claims of the Marmyons. Whether or not the chancellor reached a decision in the matter in the late 1450s, the quarrel again came to a head after Forster’s death. In February 1462 the Marmyons, father and son, entered mutual recognizances with Hardegrave in the sum of £500 to abide by the award of the two chief justices touching the title and possession of all of Forster’s lands, which was to be made before the following Midsummer; meanwhile the Marmyons were to discontinue their suits against our MP. The award was afterwards postponed to the autumn,16 CCR, 1461-8, pp. 101, 156-7. and although its details are not known, Hardegrave evidently triumphed for the time being – at least, he was styled ‘of Nursling, esquire’ when he took out a royal pardon in September 1468.17 C67/46, m. 24.

Yet Hardegrave’s tenure of his late father-in-law’s estate was by no means secure, and became even more vulnerable after Edward IV fled into exile and Henry VI regained his throne in the autumn of 1470. During the Readeption Peter Marmyon emerged as a person of some consequence in Oxfordshire and Berkshire, and taking advantage of Hardegrave’s absence (our MP may even have gone overseas in the royal entourage), he moved into the manor-house at Nursling. Depositions presented before the court of Star Chamber 20 years later held that on 11 May 1471 Hardegrave, fresh from the battle of Tewkesbury of a week earlier (where he had allegedly fought for King Edward), sent two of his servants to Nursling under orders to kill Marmyon, or at any event to extract from him his legal evidences relating to the property. Marmyon persuaded the servants to go away, but when the next morning Hardegrave arrived, intent on arresting him as a traitor, he fled, seeking sanctuary at Beaulieu abbey. Hardegrave, coming up with his men, took Marmyon back to the house, tied him up with a dog’s collar and chain and kept him prisoner in the hall. He sent a messenger to John Hammond†, the recorder of Winchester, who lived nearby, asking him to come to Nursling, where he found our MP threatening the captive with a drawn sword. Hardegrave informed Hammond that Marmyon was a traitor and had robbed him, and proclaimed that ‘were not for feare of God’ he would strike off his head. In desperation, Marmyon promised on oath to make a formal release to his captor of the manor together with all his lands in Hampshire. The release was sealed with the seal of the mayor of Winchester.18 C.L. Kingsford, ‘Proceedings in the Ct. of Star Chamber’, EHR, xxxv. 421-32. On 4 June an order went out from Chancery for Marmyon to be brought before the King’s Council.19 CPR, 1467-77, p. 286.

It may be that Hardegrave managed to retain peaceful possession of Nursling throughout the remainder of the 1470s. During that decade he continued to offer support to the family of his deceased friend John Roger I, and following the death of John’s son and heir Thomas Roger* he managed to obtain Exchequer leases of part of the inheritance of Thomas’s young son, the Dorset manors of Allington and Pymore, in order to protect the heir’s interests.20 CFR, xxi. 93, 149, 216. In the same period he was also preoccupied with a plea in the court of the Exchequer against Sir Laurence Raynford (the sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire of 1465-6), in continuation of a suit he had first brought in 1467 for payment of arrears of his wages as otter-hunter, which initially stood at £15 11s. 9¼d, but had since risen to £16 17s. 5¼d. with the addition of costs awarded him by the barons. Raynford presented to the court a writ dated 24 Oct. 1472 claiming parliamentary privilege as a member of the household of the treasurer, Henry, earl of Essex, and required to be in attendance on the earl during the Parliament currently in progress. The barons disallowed the writ, and increased the costs awarded to Hardegrave by £2. Raynford promptly complained about a ‘manifest error’ in the proceedings, which meant that the record and process had to be examined in the council chamber by the chancellor and treasurer, advised by the justices. This examination was to take place at the end of January 1473, and when the chancellor and treasurer failed to appear, Hardegrave returned to the Exchequer court on 1 Feb. to request that the amount still outstanding (£11 7s. 5¼d.) be levied from Raynford’s goods. Long-awaited satisfaction was eventually made before November.21 Parliamentarians at Law ed. Kleineke, 70-80 (from E13/158, rot. 26).

Hardegrave’s tenure of Nursling once more met with challenge in the early 1480s. On 20 Nov. 1481 the Marmyons, not regarding themselves as bound by the release made to Hardegrave under duress in 1471, registered an agreement in Chancery whereby Sir William Stonor† purchased Nursling and other properties from them in return for a number of annuities, amounting to £32 p.a. Stonor’s feoffees duly ‘recovered’ the manor and some 1,760 acres of land and £7 rent in the court of common pleas,22 C146/9863; Kingsford, 423; CCR, 1476-85, nos. 841, 899; CP40/928, rot. 300. and Stonor himself found solid local support for his title in the person of the prominent Hampshire landowner William Berkeley†. Naturally, Hardegrave did not take too kindly to these attempts to dispossess him, and set about harassing Stonor’s tenants. Nevertheless, a note among Stonor’s papers dating from about 1482 suggests that he sought to negotiate. It stated that ‘Hardgrave desires a trety by maister Barkeleys manes, and thes be the men he wold have on his syde: J. Rogers [probably John Roger II*], Th. Welles*, Morgan Kydwell and John Coke of the Ile of Wyght’.23 Kingsford’s Stonor Letters and Pprs. ed. Carpenter, 226-7, 466-7.

Hardegrave remained confident that he was in the right regarding ownership of Nursling, or at least managed to persuade a suitor for the hand of one of his three daughters, Joan, that his wife’s title was entirely sound. On making an agreement for Joan’s marriage to Thomas, son of Geoffrey Dormer of Thame and Kingsey, Oxfordshire, he promised the couple properties in the Hampshire parishes of Nursling, Eling and Milbrook, and more in Dorset, to the yearly value of 20 marks.24 C1/197/66-68. Thomas Dormer was to claim that that his father, who had enthusiastically negotiated the marriage with Hardegrave, promised him and Joan lands in Oxon. to the same value, but broke his promise. Furthermore his half-brother, another Geoffrey Dormer, had taken an action of debt for £100 in their father’s name against him, causing him to be arrested and imprisoned in Newgate. In his defence Geoffrey and the vicar of Thame testified that Thomas did indeed owe £100, to repay a loan from his father, which he had spent ‘unthriftly’. In addition, during the latter part of Edward IV’s reign he sought to have the patent regarding his office as otter-hunter altered so that his son-in-law Dormer might share it with him, but this ambition was not achieved before the King’s death; it was on 8 Dec. 1484 that Richard III granted him and Dormer the post jointly. The wages were adjusted, so that the two men received 3½d. a day between them, but the groom had the same amount as before and there were now 18 running dogs.25 CPR, 1476-85, pp. 501-2; C1/59/1-3. It might be thought that Hardegrave was by then too elderly to perform his duties in person, but in any case he and Dormer were removed from office shortly after Henry VII’s accession.26 CPR, 1485-94, p. 23.

Hardegrave died at an unknown date before August 1491. It was then, according to Sir William Stonor, that Dormer, John Wallys of Oxfordshire (who had married another of Hardegrave’s daughters), and an armed gang some 60-strong had entered ‘his’ manors of Nursling and Beaufeo, evicted his tenant James Markes and stolen goods and crops. On being summoned to the Star Chamber to answer the charge, Dormer and the rest denied there was any truth in Stonor’s bill. Dormer protested that while Stonor was a man of ‘great might’, he himself was a poor man with no livelihood save the lands in question; he had earlier sued a bill before the King and Council against Stonor for his wife’s inheritance, and when the matter had been directed to the justices of the common pleas the latter had examined the evidences and found his title proven. He said he had allowed Markes to occupy his lands, but when he made distraint for rental arrears the tenant, aided by 140 of Stonor’s friends and servants, had assaulted him and put him in jeopardy of his life. The alleged trespass of August 1491 was merely his feoffees coming peaceably to discharge Markes from his tenancy. Stonor then brought proofs to court to demonstrate that the release made by Peter Marmyon to our MP in 1471 had been made under duress, and that Marmyon had been legally seised of the manor at the time of a recovery against him by Stonor and Berkeley. Witnesses to the events of 1471 supported Stonor’s case.27 Kingsford, 421-31. In proceedings in the court of common pleas in 1494 Stonor rehearsed the Marmyon title, while Dormer denied that Joan Marmyon had ever had issue, insisting that his mother-in-law Christine Hardegrave had been Forster’s sole heir.28 CP40/928, rot. 300. Suits over Nursling continued between Dormer and Stonor’s heirs for several years more, but Dormer ultimately lost the case.29 CP40/960, rot. 315d; VCH Hants, iii. 433-9. In the closing years of the century he was also engaged in another suit in Chancery, in association with his wife’s sisters (Elizabeth Wallys and Alice, wife of Walter Coker), over muniments relating to the women’s inheritance from their father Hardegrave in Dorset, namely five messuages and some 600 acres of land in Stalbridge and elsewhere.30 C1/235/47. Elizabeth and John Wallys and their son later sold ‘Hargrove’ in Stalbridge for £43 6s. 8d.31 Hutchins, iii. 677. For the descent of the Cokers of Stour Paine, see ibid. i. 310.