HAUGHTON, Roger

Haughton was from a family of minor gentry or sub-gentry status, settled at Swinney, a few miles to the north-west of Bridgnorth. Probably the son or grandson of William Haughton, who attested four Shropshire parliamentary elections between 1413 and 1420, he was the first of the family to make a mark. Indeed, later pedigrees of the family trace their descents from him.1 C219/11/2, 7; 12/2, 4; Vis. Salop (Harl. Soc. xxviii), 230-1. In 1423 William was a juror in the inq. post mortem of Margaret Fitzalan, wife of Sir Roland Lenthall, and he last appears in the records in 1426 when defendant in a plea of debt: CIPM, xxii. 118; CP40/663, rot. 287d. He first appears in the records in 1438, when recorded as owing suit at the Lacons’ manor court at Willey, neighbouring Swinney. In 1447 he attested the Shropshire parliamentary election, his modest status reflected in the fact that he was named last of the 34 attestors.2 VCH Salop, x. 240; C219/15/4.

That status may, however, have been supplemented by a legal training. There is no direct evidence here, but most of what is known of his career relates to the discharge of the functions that generally fell to the lot of the minor local lawyer. In Michaelmas term 1448 he joined the Shrewsbury lawyer, William Bastard*, in offering surety in the court of King’s bench for the Shropshire esquire, Robert Chorleton of Apley; in August 1454, before the j.p.s. at Bridgnorth, he stood surety that a local yeoman would behave well towards Elizabeth, widow of John Wynnesbury*; and at the Shrewsbury assizes in October 1457 he was a surety for the good behavior of one John Crosse.3 KB27/750, fines rot. 1; KB29/86, rot. 20d; 88, rot. 9d.

Haughton occasionally found himself on the other side of the law. When royal justices of oyer and terminer came to the county in the autumn of 1452 to hear indictments against those who had supported the duke of York’s rising at Dartford, a billa vera was returned against him for an offence unrelated to that rising. It was alleged that in September 1449 he had broken the close and house of his neighbour, Alice Kenley, at Hughley and stolen goods worth about 20s. He was quickly acquitted.4 KB9/103/1/20; 2/35, 36.

The highpoint of this modest career was election to represent Bridgnorth in the Parliament which met in November 1459 in the wake of the rout of the Yorkists lords at Ludford Bridge. There is nothing surprising about Haughton’s return: Bridgnorth often nominated its gentry neighbours, and he had property interests in the borough. By Michaelmas 1463 he was paying an annual farm of 14s. 2d. to the dowager-duchess of Buckingham for a tenement there with tavern and shops.5 C219/16/5; Egerton Roll 2190. The more interesting question is not why the borough electors should have chosen him, but why he should have wanted to sit. The answer may have lain in Lancastrian sympathies. This is a reasonable inference from two pieces of later evidence. First, he appears to have had a connexion with the Lancastrian Talbots. On 22 Dec. 1460, at Shrewsbury, he sat as a juror at the inquisition post mortem of John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, killed fighting for Henry VI at the battle of Northampton in the previous July; and much later, in 1480, he was summoned to answer the Crown for illegally taking the livery of the earl’s younger son, Gilbert Talbot†.6 C139/179/58; KB27/876, rex rot. 50. Second, and more revealingly, he enjoyed a brief period of prominence during the Readeption. Described as ‘King’s servant’, on 6 Dec. 1470 he was provided by the restored monarch with a corrody in the abbey of Halesowen (Worcestershire), and a week later he provided surety for a lessee of Crown property in Shropshire. Against this background, it might also be reasonable to infer that his nomination to the burdensome task of collecting the subsidy of 1463 had been a mark of disfavour from the Yorkist government.7 CCR, 1468-76, no. 626; CFR, xx. 105, 110, 287.

After the Readeption, Haughton made four further appearances in the records. On 5 June 1471 he witnessed a deed at Bridgnorth for Sir Robert Green†, whose grandfather had hailed from the borough and who had retained property there; on 17 Sept. 1472 he attested the Shropshire parliamentary election; and early in 1473 he was one of several lesser gentry named to commission of sewers for the river Severn. He was still alive in Michaelmas term 1480 when facing prosecution for illegally taking the Talbot livery. He probably died soon afterwards.8 Staffs. RO, Sutherland mss, D593/B/2/12/6/5; C219/17/2; CPR, 1467-77, p. 354; KB27/876, rex rot. 50.

The Haughton family went on to achieve a greater standing, acquiring property at Beckbury, a few miles to the east of Swinney. Richard Haughton (d.1505), who was probably the MP’s son, enjoyed a successful career. Like his putative father, he took the Talbot livery, and he went on to prosper under Henry VII. On 19 Sept. 1485 the new King appointed him as constable of the castle at Bridgnorth, and in 1493 he was named joint-keeper of the royal park at Abberley (Worcestershire), further indications, perhaps, of the family’s Lancastrian credentials.9 KB27/876, rex rot. 50; CPR, 1485-94, pp. 21, 471. Richard is commemorated by a still-surviving incised slab in the church at Beckbury. John Leland, when he visited the county in the 1530s, noted the Haughtons as a gentry family worth £40 p.a.10 VCH Salop, x. 242, 246; J. Leland, Itin. ed. Toulmin Smith, iii. 67.