DOWRICH, Thomas I

Little is known of Dowrich’s early life and parentage, but he seems to have hailed from a family which took its name from the ancestral seat of Dowrich near Crediton. He first occurs in the records in 1409 as a mainpernor for a west-country cleric, a capacity in which he was regularly to serve a range of men from that region in the following decades.6 CCR, 1405-9, pp. 515-16. During these early years he appears to have been mainly resident in the Crediton region, and in Henry V’s reign he served on juries from that part of the country.7 KB9/205/3. His role at Westminster may have been more important than the scant documentary evidence suggests, for after Henry VI’s accession he was appointed to the post of bailiff of the duchy of Lancaster in his native county, an office which he retained until 1429, when he was replaced by the prominent Lincoln’s Inn lawyer Thomas Wyse*.8 Somerville, i. 634. This office significantly enhanced Dowrich’s reputation as a lawyer, and by the mid 1420s he was regularly acting as an attorney or mainpernor in the royal courts.9 CP40/652, rot. 293; KB27/649, rot. 55; 652, rex rot. 1; 653, rots. 68d, 76d, att. rot. 1; 656, att. rot. 1. It is likely that his regular appearances in the court of King’s bench led to his appointment in 1425 to the profitable office of one of the filacers.

The clerks of the court were sought after as attorneys by the parties to the cases they recorded, and Dowrich was no exception to this rule. Among the people for whom he acted in both the courts of King’s bench and common pleas were James Chudleigh*, Sir John Arundell II* of Trerice and the prior of Plympton, as well as a large number of lesser men.10 CP25(1)/46/82/84, 87/208, 89/270; CP40/652, rot. 293; 660, rot. 360d; 695, rot. 60; 720, rot. 293; KB27/653, att. rot. 1; 656, att. rot. 1; 670, rot. 31d; 679, rex rot. 5; 680, rot. atts. 1; 681, rot. 68, fines 1; 694, rot. 60; 713, rots. 4, 5, att. rot. 2. Outside Westminster hall he was equally in demand as a feoffee, surety or arbiter, and it is probable that it was his reputation as a lawyer which in 1427 led to his return to Parliament for the borough of Plympton Erle, where he owned a house and where his professional counsel was regularly sought by the townsmen.11 CFR, xv. 32, 325; CCR, 1422-9, p. 322; 1435-41, p. 160; CPR, 1422-9, p. 142; C1/28/205; KB27/675, rot. 65d, rex rot. 8; 693, rot. 76; 704, rex rot. 20. Beyond the confines of his native region, Dowrich was employed by the dean and canons of the college of Windsor, from whom he rented a dwelling in that town. In 1430-1 Dowrich’s servant was paid by the canons for carrying to London evidence in support of their claim to exemption from taxation.12 St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, recs., XV.34.48 dorse; XV.48.9, m. 2. Dowrich’s activity in the law courts did not win him friends in all quarters, and in 1429 he found himself embroiled in a dispute with a local clerk at Plympton Erle whom he accused of having broken into his property there.13 KB27/675, rots. 18, 65d. Likewise it is probable that it was in the course of his professional activity that he had come into conflict with the London cordwainer Robert Tregary, who – as the filacer later complained to the justices of King’s bench – had confronted him in the London parish of St. Andrew by the Wardrobe on 30 Nov. 1433 and had threatened to seek him out with an armed following in order to kill him. By his own account, Dowrich had been so shaken by this encounter that he had not dared to return to his duties in Westminster hall for a full three hours.14 KB146/6/12/2.

It is probable that Dowrich regarded his spell in the Commons as just another professional commission by a corporate employer, for although he was later to attest two Devon shire elections, he never again sat in Parliament. Nor did he actively seek office under the Crown, for after surrendering his duchy office he retained only his filacership and otherwise concentrated on his extensive private practice. So prominent was he, that his counsel was sought not only by men as important as John Hawley* of Dartmouth and Bishop Lacy of Exeter, but also by some of the leading lawyers of his day, such as John Fortescue*, John Copplestone*, John Mules* and John Ash I*.15 CFR, xv. 266; xvi. 45; CCR, 1429-35, p. 104; KB27/729, rot. 7d; C1/160/25, 355/98. At other times, he practiced alongside others of their number, such as Nicholas Radford* and John Wolston*.16 KB27/675, rex rot. 8.

In the second half of the 1440s Dowrich was among the lawyers employed by the city of Exeter in its long-running quarrel with the dean and chapter of the cathedral.17 Letters and Pprs. Shillingford (Cam. Soc. n.s. ii), 3, 6. He accompanied the mayor, John Shillingford*, in the autumn of 1447 for his negotiations with Chancellor Stafford and the chief justice, and performed his duties to the mayor’s satisfaction: Shillingford wrote back to Exeter that ‘Douryssh did well his part…acquytted hym well, and leyde meny myschyffys’.18 Ibid. 6, 7, 12, 19, 20. In the absence of the Exeter citizens, Dowrich took the lead in orchestrating the defence of the city’s case, in line with the mayor’s instructions ‘to applie your gode will and to do your tendre and diligent labour to helpe to make a gode ende’ and to ‘be oon of thoo pryncipall endifferently to entrete ther ynne that most gode may do ther yn’. In particular, he was to use his connexions in the city’s interest to recruit prominent counsel such as Thomas Young II* and William Boef*.19 Ibid. 22, 25-26, 46, 60. Similarly, the following spring Dowrich was associated with the recorder of Exeter, Nicholas Radford, in his attendance on the chancellor and justices.20 Ibid. 61-63. In return for his services he received regular gifts of money, food and wine from the civic authorities, and it is probable that it was he who recommended his eldest son Thomas to the citizens as their parliamentary representative in the two Parliaments of 1449.21 Ibid. 148-50, 152; Devon RO, Exeter city recs., receiver’s acct. 26-27 Hen. VI, m. 2.

Many of Dowrich’s later activities are difficult to distinguish from those of his synonymous son, who was acting alongside his father by 1436 and from the early 1450s grew increasingly prominent.22 Add. Chs. 27621-2; N. Devon RO, Chichester of Arlington mss, 50/11/14/8, 10. Yet, although the elder Thomas was replaced among the filacers of the King’s bench by John Gogh at the end of 1443, he appears to have lived on for another two decades. On 25 Oct. 1461, perhaps on account of his advancing years, he settled some of his estates in Hatherlegh, Wolvedon, East Langbeare and Thorneworthy on his second son Richard, with subsequent remainder to Richard’s younger brother Walter, but by the following spring he had changed his mind and tried to recover his lands by pleading a writ of entry dum non fuit compos mentis. The action failed, for Richard continued to hold the lands for the rest of his life, having presumably recovered his wits.23 C141/4/46; CP40/804, rot. 268d; 806, rot. 103. Walter went on to marry into the Fortescue family: C1/32/330. Thomas Dowrich died in 1464 and was buried in Crediton church. He was succeeded by his eldest son.24 J. Erskine-Risk, ‘A Forgotten Episode in Devon County History’, Trans. Devon Assoc. xxxiv. 394.