CAMBERTON, William

What little is known of Camberton suggests that he was one of the more important men to represent Carlisle in Henry VI’s reign. He was a member of a minor gentry family, which, judging from actions in the court of common pleas, existed in two branches, one established at Camerton on the Cumberland coast, and the other at Penrith. William belonged to the former branch, at least if one may judge from a law suit of 1426 when he and John Camberton, perhaps his brother, sued a husbandman for close-breaking at Brigham near Camerton.1 CP40/660, rot. 157. The Penrith Cambertons appear to have been associated with Ralph Neville, earl of Westmorland, and it may be that our MP shared this connexion.2 In 1425 Christopher Camberton served as a juror in the inq. post mortem taken at Penrith on the death of Ralph, earl of Westmorland: CIPM, xxii. 653. The evidence is indirect but interesting. On 26 Mar. 1428 William was one of three Cumberland men who indented to serve in France in the retinue of the famous soldier, Thomas Montagu, earl of Salisbury. The probability is that they entered into this undertaking as connexions of the earl of Westmorland’s son, Richard Neville, Montagu’s son-in-law.3 E101/71/2/829A.

If so, Camberton may also have owed his election to Parliament a few months earlier to this connexion, although it is at least equally likely that his parliamentary patron, if he had one, was a lesser man. This is suggested by two curious coincidences. First, his fellow Carlisle MP in the Parliament of 1427 was the well-connected local lawyer, John Helton*, who two years previously had represented Appleby in company with Robert Roche*, the husband of Alice, widow of our MP’s kinsman (perhaps even his father) John Camberton. Second, in February 1426 our MP’s putative brother, John, offered pledge for the payment of a fine by Helton. It may thus be that he owed his election to Helton’s influence.4 CP40/576, rot. 191d; 583, rot. 177; KB27/670, rot. 39.

When Camberton had engaged to serve in Montagu’s retinue, he had undertaken to bring with him a man-at-arms and six archers, suggesting that he was a man of some substance. He continued that military career into the 1430s. In November 1431 he was in the garrison at Falaise serving under Robert, Lord Willoughby of Eresby, and in the following May he took the field under the same commander. It is not clear what happened to him thereafter. If he was the same man who joined the force led by John, Lord Talbot, in 1437, it is strange that he should have been styled there ‘archer’ rather than man-at-arms.5 Rouen, Archives Départementales de Seine-Maritime, Collection Danquin, 100J/31/37; Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, Clairambault mss, 207/111-20; Evreux, Archives Départementales de l’Eure, sous-série IIF/4069/N. It may be that he died fighting in France.