HERCY, Hugh

The Hercys traced their descent from Malvesin de Herci, constable of Tickhill castle, who married one of the two daughters and coheiresses of Gilbert de Arches of Grove in north Nottinghamshire during the reign of King John. Early in the fourteenth century, they had acquired the other moiety of Grove and soon held a compact estate with manors at neighbouring West Retford, Weston and Ordsall, all held of the duchy of Lancaster honour of Tickhill. Remarkably for a family that survived so long in the male line, they subsequently failed to add significantly to this property and hence suffered a decline relative to those families that followed a more acquisitive policy. Nevertheless, they remained of account. Sir Hugh Hercy† represented the county in Parliament in the early fourteenth century, and our MP’s father not only sat in Parliament but also served on the county bench and as sheriff.4 His term as sheriff in 1414-15 has been omitted in error from The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 347.

Hugh was not to be of the same significance in local affairs. During the early years of his career, this may, in part at least, have reflected the encumbrances on his estate: under the terms of his father’s will of 31 Jan. 1425, the manor of Eaton and lands at Thrumpton were settled on Hugh’s younger brother, Thomas,5 Borthwick Inst., Univ. of York, Abp. Reg. 5A (sede vacante), f. 410 (abstracted in Test. Ebor i (Surtees Soc. iv), 409). Moreover, the will assigned a significant part of his father’s moveable goods to the payment of a marriage portion of £100 to his sister, Isabel. and his patrimony was additionally burdened with the dower of his mother, who survived until at least 1435. The extent of her holdings is unknown, but, since his parents’ feoffees made several presentations to the churches of Grove and West Retford between 1426 and 1435, it is fair to conclude that he came into little land until some years after his father’s death.6 Clergy of N. Notts. (Thoroton Soc. xx), 84.

Hercy’s standing may also have been damaged by his early involvement in what appears to have been a serious riot. In a petition to the royal council, the prior of Blyth complained that on 27 Mar. 1428 an armed body of 400 men had thrown down several of his houses and driven away his tenants. Our MP was not one of those cited in the petition, nor was he one of those indicted of riot before the county j.p.s, but he was among those whom, on 16 June, commissioners were ordered to arrest and bring before the royal council. The appearance of the rioters before the council resulted in the referral of the dispute to arbitration. On 28 July Hercy, with the two other gentry implicated in the riot, John Gateford and Hugh Cressy, on the one part, and the prior, on the other, entered into mutual bonds in the large sum of 500 marks to abide the arbitration of six arbiters, three of whom, Sir Henry Pierrepont*, Thomas Clarell and Richard Wentworth, had been chosen to act in the interests of Hercy and his confederates. Unfortunately the outcome of their deliberations is not known, but the absence of later evidence of dissension between the priory and its neighbours suggests that the dispute was brought to a satisfactory conclusion.7 SC8/84/4181; KB9/223/2/74; KB27/671, rex rot. 4; CPR, 1422-9, p. 466; CCR, 1422-9, pp. 409-10; S.J. Payling, ‘Law and Arbitration’, People, Politics and Community ed. Rosenthal and Richmond, 149. Hercy witnessed two charters for Wentworth in the early 1430s: Notts. Archs. Newark Magnus Charity mss, 1/16, 20.

Little else is known of the first part of Hercy’s career. As early as 1423, when still a minor, he had, in company with his father, attested a Nottinghamshire election. Five years later, on 8 Sept. 1428, with his mother and Constable half-brothers, he confirmed the estate of his maternal uncle, Sir Thomas Cumberworth*, and Katherine, his wife, in the manor of Scremby in Lincolnshire, saving his own remote interest under an entail of 1400. In the following autumn he again attested a parliamentary election. Surprisingly, given the fact that his landed resources remained meagre and that he had yet to play any part in the administration of his native shire, he himself was returned to Parliament on 24 Mar. 1432. While sitting as an MP, he, with his half-brother, John Constable, acted as mainpernor in Chancery for Cumberworth, when the latter was granted the custody of a Lincolnshire manor.8 C219/13/2, 14/1, 3; Hatton’s Bk. of Seals ed. Loyd and Stenton, no. 489; CFR, xvi. 93.

Yet if Hercy’s return to Parliament is surprising, even more so is his later career. It might be expected that once he had come into his mother’s dower lands, he would assume the role in local administration which his father had taken. In the tax returns of 1436 he was assessed at a respectable annual income of £40 – an assessment which probably included the lands of both his mother and younger brother, for neither of them occur in the returns – and, soon after, this income was to be further augmented by the inheritance his second wife brought him.9 E179/240/266. His yr. bro. Thomas was still alive in 1434 when the two brothers were sworn to the peace in Notts.: CPR, 1429-36, p. 409. Although she was only one of four coheiresses of the Leek of Cotham inheritance, and in the division of the inheritance was assigned a smaller share than her two elder sisters, she did bring her husband the manor of Saundby, well placed to augment the Hercy patrimony in the north of the county.10 For the division of the Leek inheritance in 1439: Wyggeston Hosp. Recs. ed. Thompson, no. 841; Notts. Archs. Portland of Welbeck mss, 157DD/P/8/3. It is not known why the two eldest sisters received more generous assignments than their younger sisters. Yet this increased wealth was translated into a lesser rather than a greater role in local affairs. He never held administrative office (the nearest he came was inclusion on the pricked list for the shrievalty in 1441), nor was he named to any of commissions of local government. References to him in an active role are rare, although he did sit on a county grand jury in Nottingham in February 1441, and in the following May he took the trouble to secure an inspeximus of a royal grant of 1254 which had given his family free warren in their demesne lands in Grove and elsewhere.11 C47/34/2/3; C260/144/18/20; CPR, 1436-41, p. 531.

Nevertheless, Hercy’s general inactivity did not prevent him from drawing on an influential group of feoffees when he came to settle his estates in the mid 1440s. On 1 Mar. 1444 he conveyed his manor of Weston to two of his wife’s brothers-in-law, John Markham, a rising lawyer, and Richard Willoughby*, from one of the leading families of the south of the county, together with Richard Bingham, another lawyer who was soon to attain judicial rank. A little over a year later, on 20 May 1445, he granted his manors of Grove and Eaton to Bingham, Willoughby and two other influential men, William Babington* and John Roos*.12 Notts. IPM (Thoroton Soc. iii), 74-75. Bingham’s presence among these feoffees is probably to be explained by the marriage, which occurred at an unknown date, of our MP’s eldest son, Hugh, to Margery, Bingham’s daughter and half-sister of John Wastnes*, a neighbour of the Hercys. Indeed, it is possible that these conveyances were a part of the settlement for the marriage, and that the feoffees were not seised to Hercy’s use but to that of the couple. This would certainly explain why he was assessed at only £20 p.a. in the tax returns of 1450.13 J. Nichols, Leics., ii. 295; E179/159/84. Oddly, whatever may have been the purpose of the conveyances, the feoffees remained seised of the three manors into the career of our MP’s grandson, Humphrey. Indeed, when Humphrey died in 1511, the manors of Grove and Eaton were still in the hands of Richard Bingham, the grandson of the last surviving feoffee of 1445, while that of Weston would have been subject to the feoffment of 1444 had Humphrey not entered to settle it on his heir’s marriage.14 Notts. IPM, 74-75. The feoffees presented to the church of Grove between 1464 and 1472, but the advowson had reverted back to the fam. by 1487: Clergy of N. Notts. 84.

Hercy’s will, drawn up on 21 Aug. 1455, suggests that his domestic resources were far more limited than might be expected from a man of his landed wealth. Although his manor-house appears to have been substantial, with its own chapel, bake-house and malt-kiln, its contents, judging from those listed in the will, were unimpressive. The only plate mentioned, all of silver and all to pass to his heir, was a salt-cellar, two bowls and 12 spoons. With this the heir was also to have, from the kitchen at Grove, two brass pots, one of which was known as ‘grete Gybbe’, some pewter vessels, and a large pan with a kettle; from the chapel there, a chalice, missal, breviary and corporal-cloth; and some other items, the most valuable of which was a bed. It is interesting to note how closely the moveable property he left to his heir compares with that which his father had left him 30 years earlier. Sir Thomas’s will also mentioned the 12 silver spoons and the two brass pots – these were probably heirlooms – and the only significant difference between the items he listed is that there is no mention of a chapel. One must doubt, however, if the domestic resources of the Hercys were really as attenuated as these two wills imply, particularly as Sir Thomas was able to bequeath to his daughter a marriage portion of £100 to be raised from his moveable goods.15 Borthwick, Abps. Regs. 5A, f .410; 20 (Booth), ff. 266v-7 (abstracts in Test. Ebor. ii (Surtees Soc. xxx), 200-1).

According to a monumental stone on the chancel floor of Grove church, Hugh died on 11 Dec. 1455.16 R. Thoroton, Notts. ed. Throsby, iii. 264. His will was proved on the following 9 Apr. His widow, whom, along with Richard Willoughby, he named as his principal executor, long survived him. On 4 Feb. 1467 she obtained, on payment of 20 marks, a royal licence to found a perpetual chantry in the parish church of Saundby, with a chaplain to say prayers, among others, for the souls of her parents and late husband, and endow it with lands to an annual value of £5.17 CPR, 1461-7, pp. 543-4. If the inclusion of Richard, duke of York, on the bede roll is an indication of our MP’s political affiliations, it is the only evidence of his support for York. William Saundby and Elizabeth, his wife, were among those remembered in chantry foundation of 1467, probably because the manor of Saundby had come to the Leeks through William: CCR, 1399-1402, p. 560. A few years earlier, in 1464, she had presented one of her younger sons, Thomas (d.1465), to the same church, and she lived long enough to make another presentment in 1479. The Hercys regained their earlier prominence during the career of Sir John†, but, on his death in 1570, their ancient estates were divided between his eight sisters.18 Clergy of N. Notts. 163; The Commons 1509-58, ii. 345-6.