HEGGE, William

Hegge may have been a villein by birth. This at least is the implication to be drawn from a suit pleaded in Michaelmas term 1443. The powerful courtier, Sir Thomas Tuddenham*, was attached to reply to William and John Hegge for taking their goods at Grimscote, a few miles to the south-west of Northampton. This was a collusive action: Tuddenham appeared immediately to answer, claiming the Hegges as villeins appurtenant to his manor there; and at an assize session at Northampton on 15 July 1444 the verdict, as it routinely did in such cases, went for the plaintiffs. The most likely explanation is that there was some doubt about their status and that they had compounded with the defendant for collusive litigation confirming their freedom.2 KB27/730, rot. 53d.

Hegge could certainly afford to do so for by this date he had established himself as a taverner and vintner in the county town.3 Nothing is directly known of his commercial interests, but they may have been fairly extensive. In Trin. term 1454 he claimed a total of nearly £67 against five defendants, including Sir Richard Vere and Thomas Berkeley†: CP40/774, rot. 212. It was as such that, in the same term as he brought his action against Tuddenham, he found himself as a defendant in an action of trespass sued by Edmund, Lord Grey of Ruthin. Among his co-defendants were several leading townsmen, headed by Henry Stone*, and the action clearly arose out of what seems to have been a serious quarrel between the town and its powerful neighbour. Grey had already been ordered by the royal council to maintain the peace towards the townsmen.4 KB27/730, rot. 22; PPC, v. 305-6.

No more is known of Hegge until his election to represent the borough in the Parliament of 1450. Three years later, on 3 July 1453, he sued out a royal exemption from office in the name of ‘William Etherton alias Hedge of Northampton, vintner’, and it may be that he adopted the name of Etherton to disguise further his servile origins. Yet he continued to be known as Hegge and his exemption did not forestall his election as bailiff in the following Michaelmas. Some irregularity in his conduct while serving in that office may explain why he was summoned to appear personally in Chancery to answer certain unspecified charges. His failure to answer the summons led, on 23 Feb. 1454, to the issue to the mayor of a commission for his arrest.5 C219/16/1; CPR, 1452-61, pp. 92, 169. No more is heard of the matter and it is unlikely that it occasioned Hegge any serious inconvenience. Soon after, however, Hegge was involved in a difficulty of another sort. In Hilary term 1455 another former MP and bailiff, John Makesey*, sued him and as many as 20 others, including another leading townsman, William Syward alias Peryn*, for laying in wait to kill him at Kingsthorpe, just outside the town, assaulting and imprisoning him, and taking his goods worth £5.6 CP40/776, rot. 290d. There is no evidence to give this alleged offence a context, but the number of defendants implies that it reflects a more serious offence than the generality of such actions.

Thereafter Hegge makes few further appearances in the records. He was summoned to appear as a juror before justices of assize at Northampton in July 1457, and in Hilary term 1460 a writ of outlawry was issued against him at the suit for debt of a merchant of Bishop’s Lynn. He probably died very soon afterwards. In an account of the Northampton property of Thomas Tresham*, probably to be dated 1460 or 1461, there is reference to a vacant tavern, once in the tenure of our MP at an annual rent of 26s. 8d.7 CP40/786, rot. 162d; 796, rot. 77; Northants. RO, Finch Hatton mss, 548; CIMisc. viii. 346.