DUFFIELD, William

William Duffield’s career was rather more modest than that of his busy lawyer brother, Richard. The first reference to him dates from soon after their father’s death. Although the bailiffs returned his brother and John Cokson* as the town’s representatives to the Parliament of 1423, the later payment of parliamentary wages by the borough shows that it was William who sat with his brother in the Commons. Richard’s superior standing is reflected in his receipt of daily wages of 12d. against 8d. allowed to William for the 123 days of parliamentary service. Richard was also paid at the superior rate when the two brothers sat again in the Parliament of 1425: William received 6d. a day and Richard twice that rate.1 N.E. Lincs. Archs., Grimsby bor. recs., chamberlains’ accts. 1/600/11, 12. Later, when Richard was once more returned in 1431, William acted as one of the sureties for his attendance. Interestingly, William also attested the county return to this Parliament on 25 Dec. 1430, and this may be indicative of his landholdings outside Grimsby. He seems to have had some modest property at Appleby, well inland of the port, for in 1439 he sued three husbandmen and a smith for taking 40s. worth of his goods from there.2 Lincs. Archit. and Arch. Soc. i. 73; C219/14/2; CP40/712, rot. 143.

In the mid 1430s Duffield found himself in legal difficulties. In March 1434 Grimsby’s chamberlains presented him for having, on 27 Feb., drawn his dagger and threatened John Cokson, the burgess he had earlier superseded as an MP. As Cokson was presented for a similar offence against Duffield, the charges probably relate to nothing more serious than a violent verbal confrontation, presumably connected with the plea of debt Cokson had sued against his assailant in the borough court a few days before. In any event, Duffield’s standing in the town appears unaffected by this charge against him: in the following September he was one of those who voted in the mayoral election. More compromising to him was his failure to answer a plea for the modest debt of five marks sued against him by the powerful Lincolnshire knight, Sir Thomas Cumberworth*, in the court of common pleas. At Easter 1435 he entered into a bond in £5 to the bailiffs of the town, undertaking to save them harmless against both the King and Cumberworth for their failure to execute a writ of arrest against him on this suit. This brought him only temporary relief since a writ of outlawry was issued against him in the following Michaelmas term, and he was left with little choice but to answer for the debt.3 Grimsby bor. recs., ct. rolls 1/101, 12-13 Hen. VI; CP40/699, rot. 232.

The next reference to Duffield does not occur until 31 Jan. 1447 when he was once again elected to Parliament with his brother, although the latter’s election was set aside in favour of the influential outsider, Robert Staunton*.4 Bull. IHR, xlii. 214, 217. Little is known of him thereafter. In January 1449 he had an action pending in the Grimsby borough court against one John Jopson in 25s. which Jopson had allegedly owed his mother and which had been assigned to him by her executor as early as 1426; and in 1450 he contributed 8d. to the expenses of the borough’s MPs, a sum which suggests that his landholdings in the town were not extensive.5 Grimsby ct. rolls 1/101, 27 Hen. VI; assessments for parlty. expenses 1/612/1 (8d. over erasure of 6d.).

Duffield probably died soon afterwards. It is possible that in June 1457, as an old man, he submitted himself to prison in Lincoln castle to avoid outlawry in an action for close-breaking at Grimsby sued by Richard Duffield.6 CP40/796, rot. 57. This Richard was not, however, his brother, who had died in about 1451, and the probability is that this William was not the MP but rather the namesake who was active in the town’s affairs in the 1460s and died in 1473. It was almost certainly this younger William, perhaps our MP’s son, who in 1462 was paid 3s. by the corporation for travelling to London in connexion with negotiations with the new King over the reduction of Grimsby’s fee farm, and who, at the end of a term as bailiff in 1467, was briefly imprisoned by the borough authorities for his failure to pay that farm.7 Grimsby chamberlains’ accts. 1/600/14/3; ct. bk. 1/102/1, f. 10d. His death followed not long afterwards. He may have left his family in straitened circumstances: on 5 Feb. 1473 his widow and two sons, Thomas and Hugh, quitclaimed to William Grimsby* and others their claim to lands just outside Grimsby in the parish of Clee.8 Grimsby ct. bk. 1/102/1, f. 14.