HOO, Thomas I

The Hoos had been established at Luton since the early thirteenth century, and first achieved prominence when Sir Robert de Hoo received a grant from Edward I of free warren on his estates in Bedfordshire and three other counties in 1292. Through the marriage of his grandson Sir Thomas Hoo† to the daughter and heiress of Sir John de St. Leger, the family acquired lands at Wartling and elsewhere in Sussex, together with Offley St. Ledgers in Hertfordshire. One of a succession of knights noted for their prowess on the battlefield, that Sir Thomas fought at Crecy and Calais before representing Bedfordshire in the Good Parliament of 1376. He was succeeded in 1380 by his second son, Sir William (d.1410), whose first wife, the St. Omer heiress, brought the family Mulbarton in Norfolk and Ockley in Surrey. Besides serving as captain of Oye and Hammes, Sir William was employed on several diplomatic missions. His son Sir Thomas (the father of our MP),14 CP, vi. 566-7; Suss. Arch. Collns. viii. 104-31; VCH Beds. ii. 355; VCH Herts. iii. 40; VCH Suss. ix. 138. placed the manor of Luton Hoo in the hands of feoffees in June 1415, shortly before he embarked on Henry V’s expedition to Normandy, where he served at Agincourt in the retinue of Thomas, Lord Camoys, the commander of the left wing. Sir Thomas was appointed by the King’s council in England on 25 June 1420 to accompany Robert, Lord Poynings, in escorting the duke of Bourbon, one of the prisoners taken in that battle, over to the King in France. To ensure that the duke was well guarded on their voyage, Hoo took with him a retinue of 19 men-at-arms and 40 archers, but he himself did not long survive the journey, for he died just a few weeks later, on 23 Aug.15 Add. Chs. 19566-7; Issues of the Exchequer ed. Devon, 363; Suss. Arch. Collns. viii. 110.

The value of our Thomas Hoo’s patrimony is uncertain, and in any case by no means all of the Hoo estates came into his possession. Wartling and other landed holdings in Sussex, which had earlier been valued at £60 p.a., were kept as dower and jointure by his stepmother Elizabeth Etchingham, who married Sir Thomas Lewknor* and was to outlive our MP by at least ten years.16 Feudal Aids, v. 149. Hoo disposed of a small part of his inheritance, some 150 acres of land in Wartling, by sale to Elizabeth’s cousin Sir Roger Fiennes* early in 1423. Thus, although his initial service on ad hoc royal commissions took place in Sussex, he soon took up more permanent residence in East Anglia, at the family manor of Mulbarton, and it was the magnates and gentry of that region with whom he came to be most closely associated.17 CP25(1)/240/85/4; CCR, 1422-9, p. 398; 1429-35, pp. 45-46.

It is not surprising that Hoo, coming as he did from a long line of soldiers, also took up the profession of arms, and it is quite likely that he first crossed to France in his father’s company. Yet no record of his military service during the 1420s has been discovered. At some point before the death of Henry V, he entered the household of the King’s uncle, Thomas Beaufort, duke of Exeter, as an esquire and usher of his chamber, and in November 1422 he was party to recognizances in £1,000 made to Beaufort and others to guarantee that Sir Henry Inglose* would keep certain covenants for the ransom of Sir William Bowet (taken captive at Baugé). Furthermore, he witnessed the will the duke made at Greenwich on 29 Dec. 1426, in which he himself was bequeathed a valuable courser called ‘Dunne’.18 CCR, 1422-9, p. 54; Reg. Chichele, ii. 362. One of Beaufort’s executors, Sir William Phelip†, agreed to act as a feoffee of Hoo’s manor of Mulbarton for its settlement in jointure on his first wife Elizabeth Wychingham in 1428,19 C139/156/11. and it was most likely through Sir William that Hoo came to the attention of his former ward and protégé, William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk. He had probably done so by January 1430 when he was associated with the earl’s kinsman Sir Walter de la Pole* in recognizances to Phelip and others in 500 marks, and in the following October he was named among the earl’s feoffees of estates in seven counties for the provision of jointure for his new wife Alice Chaucer, the dowager countess of Salisbury and relict of Phelip’s brother, Sir John Phelip†, and, with a different group of trustees, of more in Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Norfolk and Yorkshire. Hoo was to be involved in transactions regarding the same estates in October 1431, and relating to de la Pole property in London two years later.20 CCR, 1429-35, p. 30; 1447-54, p. 210; Harl. Chs. 54 I 9-11, 13; CAD, v. A10892; Cott. Ch. xxix 32; CPR, 1429-36, p. 346; Corp. London RO, hr 163/57; CP25(1)/292/68/152.

Meanwhile, in 1430, during the King’s absence on the coronation exhibition, Hoo had been appointed sheriff of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, and at the close of the year he was returned to the Parliament due to assemble on 12 Jan. 1431 as a knight of the shire for Norfolk. It may be presumed that his connexion with the earl of Suffolk (summoned to Parliament for the first time, after a long period of military service in France) was a significant factor in his election. Besides his role as the earl’s feoffee, he may already have been acting as chief steward of his estate at Costessey in the county, an office which earned him a fee of as much as £20 p.a. This may have been the life-annuity recorded in the assessments for the tax on incomes from land and fees made five years later. Significantly, Hoo was the only de la Pole annuitant listed who was not a member of the earl’s family.21 E163/7/31/1. In February 1432 he stood surety at the Exchequer for Earl William when he was granted keeping of the important honour of Wormegay. At the Norfolk elections to Parliament held on 31 Mar. following, Hoo attested the return of Sir Thomas Tuddenham*, another of the earl’s retainers. Their careers had long run in parallel, for Tuddenham had also been in the duke of Exeter’s service up to 1426, and had joined Hoo in the Commons the previous year (representing Suffolk). Together with Tuddenham, whom he had made his feoffee, in November that year Hoo obtained at the Exchequer the wardship and marriage of the heir to lands in Hertfordshire (although they lost the right to the marriage several years later for failing to pay any purchase money to the treasurer). Hoo’s association with Tuddenham led later to his acting with the earl of Suffolk in transactions on his behalf.22 Richmond, 239; CFR, xvi. 60, 121; xvii. 38; CCR, 1429-35, p. 361; C219/14/3.

Hoo embarkation with the army which sailed for France under the command of John Holand, earl of Huntingdon, in the spring of 1433 and achieved some military success against the Armagnacs, marked the beginning of a prolonged period of duty overseas. He was briefly back in England a year later, then appearing on the list of Bedfordshire gentry required to take the generally administered oath not to maintain malefactors,23 DKR, xlviii. 293; CPR, 1429-36, pp. 373-4. but on 14 May 1434 he indented to serve in France for a further six months, with his own retinue of 19 men-at-arms and 60 archers, and on 18 June commissioners were appointed to take the musters of the force, including him and his retinue, when it arrived in Calais. Hoo and the other captains took passage from Dover and Sandwich.24 E404/50/302; 51/130; DKR, xlviii. 298; CPR, 1429-36, p. 359. It was probably on this campaign that Hoo won his spurs, and following the death of the duke of Bedford, Regent of France, in September 1435, he may have also been engaged (albeit only briefly) as keeper of the seals for the administration of the kingdom.25 Duchesne, 448; Suss. Arch. Collns. 111. Yet not all his actions were in keeping with the chivalric ideal. After the collapse of the Anglo-Burgundian alliance, the commons of Caux rebelled against English rule, and succeeded in taking Harfleur and Tancarville. Hoo took part in the operations in the Pays de Caux to suppress the rebellion: according to a contemporary account, he joined the Lords Talbot and Scales and Sir Thomas Kyriel* at the head of a force of 2,000 men which on 4 Jan. 1436 ‘roode in to the contre and brent and slew all that myght be taken’. They burned down Lilbon, killing 800 inhabitants; another 1,000 were slain at Caux and ‘many a riall markett toune’ was destroyed. Furthermore, they determined to ruin the economic basis of the region: ‘all the bestis they brought before them un to Caux, and ther thei solde a schepe for the valew of a peny and a kow for xii d. And thus all the contre of Caux was destroyed both of men and of bestis, and of all her goodis’. In carrying out reprisals against the peasant army, they took many prisoners, some of whom were executed for treason. Talbot’s garrison in Rouen needed to be reinforced, and on 24 Jan. he sent Hoo to Gisors with 100 men to strengthen the English presence there. Hoo returned to England a few weeks later, only to take out letters of protection on 19 May to go back to France, this time in the retinue of the earl of Suffolk. For a short while in the spring, perhaps during his absence, Gisors fell to the French, but after its recapture Hoo, as Talbot’s lieutenant there, maintained a force not only for the defence of the town, but also for service in the field.26 Chrons. London ed. Kingsford, 140; A.J. Pollard, John Talbot, 23, 82, 91; DKR, xlviii. 313. He succeeded Talbot as captain of Gisors, where he remained until November 1437, moving in the following January to Mantes. There he served as both bailli and captain of the garrison for almost four years.

Although Hoo may not have been continuously in France in this period,27 Cat. des Rolles Gascons, Normans et Francois ed. Carte, ii. 294. records of his activities under Talbot and payments of his wages at Mantes suggest that he was active there for most of the time, and in July 1441 he led a detachment from Mantes to serve with the army of Richard, duke of York, the lieutenant-general of France, newly-arrived from England. Having joined in raising the siege of Pontoise, he was assigned by Talbot to re-victual its garrison.28 Add. Chs. 445, 581, 3892; Wars of the English, ii. 320. That autumn he succeeded Lord Fauconberg as captain of Verneuil, and by the following January he had also taken on the prestigious role of master of York’s household, a post which placed him in a position to offer advice to the duke on strategic matters. That same month, François de Surienne, an Aragonese knight in Henry VI’s service, came to Rouen to propose a scheme to York for taking the fortress of Galardon, and it was agreed that he and Hoo would have charge of Galardon if they were successful, with 120 mounted men-at-arms and 380 archers under their command. All booty was to be divided equally between the two captains. They conscripted the men as required, and Surienne’s part of the company received payment of wages in July 1442.29 Add. Chs. 463, 467, 1203. At that date Hoo was probably in England, for on 18 May he had received assignments at the Exchequer on York’s behalf, and on 29 June, called a ‘King’s knight’ he was granted an annuity of £40 out of the issues of Norfolk as reward for his services in the wars in France over a long period. However, on 5 July he made an acquittance to the receiver-general of Normandy for wages of the garrison at Verneuil.30 E403/745, m. 4; CPR, 1441-6, p. 81; Add. Ch. 12144. Hoo’s growing experience of the military situation in France could also be put to use for diplomatic purposes. On 9 Sept. he was appointed to join an embassy led by York to treat for peace with Charles VII.31 Foedera, xi. 13-14, although PPC, v. 212 dates this 9 Oct. When negotiations failed, the duke placed him once more in his former captaincy of Mantes, where he nominally remained in office until the English surrendered some seven years later.32 Add. Chs. 12163, 16261-2.

Hoo probably spent most of 1443 in France, although he was dispatched to England on a number of occasions bearing messages for Henry VI, and returned with the King’s letters to Charles VII. Such a close involvement in communications between the two monarchs made him an obvious choice as a member of the important embassy appointed in February 1444 under the earl of Suffolk, instructed once more to enter negotiations for a treaty of peace. In view of his efforts in this regard, Henry VI made him a handsome gift of £100, by warrant dated 21 Feb. Hoo left London on the following day, and was kept busy for the next four months. The outcome of the envoys’ discussions with Charles VII’s representatives was the treaty of Tours, agreed on 28 May, which provided for a truce initially set to last for two years. Hoo was to be paid at the rate of 20s. a day from the date he left London until 27 June when he returned to report to the King at Sheen, and although there was some delay over payment his accounts, as accepted on 17 July, showed that he was owed £134.33 E404/60/124, 233; DKR, xlviii. 362; Foedera, xi. 60-67; E364/77, m. N; CCR, 1441-7, pp. 232-4. Barely a week after this matter had been settled, Hoo received instructions to go back to France with another one of the ambassadors, Sir Robert Roos, to visit Margaret of Anjou, whose marriage to Henry VI had been arranged by Suffolk while they were at Tours. Since the two men were to be paid according to their estate, Roos received an advance payment of £182 before they set out, and Hoo just half this amount. He was absent from 22 Aug., and when, in November, the earl of Suffolk joined him and Roos in France, the royal wedding took place by proxy. Hoo formally escorted the new queen to England, where her marriage to King Henry was solemnized at Titchfield on 22 Apr. following. During his absence Sir Thomas had been promoted in status, for the Exchequer allowed him payment at the rate of £2 per day, double his previous entitlement, and making a total of £375 as recompense for his service.34 Wars of the English, i. 460; E101/324/12; E404/60/242-3; 62/204. This elevation also reflected his appointment as chancellor of France and Normandy, which happened at an unknown date before 19 Dec. 1444. As chancellor he received 1,000 gold salus paid by the duke of Orléans as a fine on the following 18 Mar.35 Add. Ch. 3989; Wars of the English, ii. 360-1. While in England in the summer of 1445 Hoo had a part to play in the welcome accorded to the ambassadors from France and Spain who arrived early in July. His pursuivant ‘Bonneavanture’ guided some of their party from Dover to Canterbury and found them lodgings on 4 July, and five days later Hoo and Roos ‘en grant abillemens de robes et de chevaux harnaches dargent’ greeted the ambassadors at Rochester, and then escorted them with due ceremony to London on the 14th.36 Wars of the English, i. 90, 93, 95, 97, 101, 154.

Hoo’s association with William de la Pole, shortly to be created marquess of Suffolk, was paying dividends: just a few days later, on 19 July, Henry VI made him the handsome grant in tail of the castle, lordship, barony and honour of Hastings. This caused some friction in the locality, owing to the uncertainty of the King’s title. The Crown’s reversionary interest in the rape of Hastings and its appurtenant manors of Crowherst, Burwash and Bibleham, parcel of the honour of Richmond, had been granted in tail by Henry IV to Sir John Pelham*, who took possession after the death of the earl of Westmorland in 1425 and subsequently settled the properties on his illegitimate son, another Sir John. Naturally enough, the latter protested when they were seemingly included in the grant to Hoo, and petitioned the King to reverse it. A compromise was reached in February 1446, whereby Pelham formally relinquished the barony, honour and rape to Hoo’s feoffees (the marquess of Suffolk, his retainers Tuddenham and John Heydon*, and Hoo’s half-brother Thomas among them), while reserving to himself the three manors and other properties in dispute; Hoo confirmed Pelham’s title to the latter.37 CPR, 1441-6, p. 350; The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 42-43; Add. Chs. 23801, 23808, 30046-7; VCH Suss. ix. 3. Suffolk and Heydon were pardoned in Nov. 1446 as Hoo’s feoffees: C67/39, m. 20. Also during this stay in England, Sir Thomas had married for the second time, his new wife being Eleanor, daughter of Lord Welles, and in November 1445 he had settled on her in jointure his principal manors of Hoo, Mulbarton (despite its earlier settlement on the issue of his first wife), Offley and Cockernhoe, which were now entailed on his male heirs.38 CP25(1)/293/71/308. It would appear from Hoo’s will that Welles promised to settle on the couple lands worth 100 marks, in return for a payment of 800 marks from his new son-in-law, but neither transaction was completed before Hoo’s death nearly ten years later.

Hoo spent some time in France during the spring of 1446,39 Add. Chs. 12283, 12285, 12291; E403/759, m. 17. but was at home again later that year. His military achievements won the ultimate accolade at a chapter of the Garter held at the Lion Inn at Brentford on 11 July in the presence of the King, when he was successfully nominated KG by the marquess of Suffolk with the support of his former commander John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury. While in England he took the opportunity to sue out a royal pardon.40 Reg. Order of the Garter ed. Anstis, 130-1; C67/39, m. 14. Hoo received letters of attorney as going abroad again on 2 Dec., and thereafter he was active as chancellor of France, for instance ordering the ‘esleuz’ of Avranches to make the assessment for the ‘aide’ in May 1447. His role was a difficult one, for in Rouen there was considerable confusion as to who should be regarded as lieutenant-general – York or Edmund Beaufort, duke of Somerset. The official records of the Norman administration reflected the belief that York would return for another term of office, and indeed in May 1447 the power of the chancellor was described as ‘for and in the name of the duke of York’.41 DKR, xlviii. 368; Add. Ch. 12660; EHR, civ. 293. Somerset formally took over in the autumn, but Hoo was still left in charge of the administration. On 15 Jan. 1448 the deadline for the handover of Maine to Charles VII expired, and French troops massed on the borders threatening to seize the capital, Le Mans, causing the ruling council at Rouen serious concern. Five days later Hoo wrote to Sir Pierre de Breze, the seneschal of Poitou and chamberlain to King Charles, to assure him and his king that Henry VI had every intention of handing Maine over at the earliest opportunity. Hoo’s alarm was all the greater because he had no illusions about the nature of contemporary warfare: ‘if the fighting men were once assembled over the country, either upon the one side or the other, it would be no easy matter to cause them to withdraw and depart’. War seemed inevitable. Despite his assurances and appeals Charles’s military preparations continued, and by mid February the siege of Le Mans was in prospect. Hoo wrote to de Breze again to report the arrival of yet another English embassy, but to no avail.42 Wars of the English, i. 198-206; R.A. Griffiths, Hen. VI, 502-3. He was still in Normandy attempting to cope with the crisis when the chapter of the Garter met at Windsor in April, yet he may well have been at home on 2 June, when, expressly for his good service in England, France and Normandy, he was created Lord Hoo of Hoo and Hastings, a title to be held in tail-male. Undoubtedly, he owed this elevation to the marquess of Suffolk, who on the very same day was raised to a dukedom.43 Reg. Order of the Garter, 135; CPR, 1446-52, p. 165; J.E. Powell and K. Wallis, House of Lords, 484-6.

In the autumn the new Lord Hoo recruited men from Sussex to join his garrison at Mantes.44 DKR, xlviii. 379. He was summoned to the Parliament called to meet on 12 Feb. 1449. Probably during the first session, acting alongside Reynold Boulers, abbot of Gloucester, as an official mouthpiece for the duke of Somerset, as lieutenant-general of France, they communicated to the Lords and Commons the imminent threat the English authorities were facing in Normandy. Boulers informed the Parliament that he and Hoo had been sent by Somerset to tell the King about the disastrous series of events leading to a ‘doutfull and dangerous disposition’ of the country. In particular, they were to demonstrate how the ‘grete puissance and long advysed ordenaunce’ of the enemy, ‘the which daily fortifie and repaire, stuffe all their garisons in the fronters of the Kynges obeisance’, had led to breaches of the truce and the seizing of the King’s loyal subjects as prisoners ‘as it were pleyne werre’. He reported that Charles VII had proclaimed that all nobles should prepare for mobilization on 15 days’ notice; and that he was capable of raising a force of 60,000 men. Normandy was not ready to resist such a force; none of the fortresses were sufficiently purveyed, victualled or armed, and the last meeting of the three estates had made clear that it was impossible to raise further taxes in the duchy.45 PROME, xii. 37-38, 54-55. The appearance of Boulers and Hoo at Westminster was to seek for urgent funding, but by the time the Commons made a grant of taxation in the summer it was too late. By then, other pressing matters had called for Hoo’s attention across the Channel, notably a meeting of English and French ambassadors arranged to take place at Pont-de-l’Arche on 15 May. But although the English delegation, including Hoo, arrived on schedule, the French attacked and captured the town the next day, taking prisoner one of his compatriots, Lord Fauconberg. Hoo made his escape just in time. Nor was he present when Mantes fell to the French; his lieutenant was forced to capitulate on 26 Aug. The duke of Somerset, the King’s lieutenant, named him among the principals who were to discuss and conclude terms for the surrender of the Norman capital, Rouen, which happened on 29 Oct.46 Narratives of Expulsion of English ed. Stevenson, 425; Wars of the English, ii (2), 608-17.

Hoo was summoned to the Parliament due to meet eight days later on 6 Nov.47 His summons was added later to the list of those called on 23 Sept., so it may be that he had not then been expected to be able to be present: CCR, 1447-54, p. 161. It was clear to contemporaries that he would be able to reveal much about Somerset’s misconduct of affairs at this time, although many blamed Hoo himself for the debacle.48 Wars of the English, ii (2), [721]. The loss of Normandy and the incursion of substantial numbers of defeated, disgruntled and unemployed soldiers from France, all too ready to display their exasperation openly and violently against Somerset and Hoo, contributed to the mood in the Commons, leading to the impeachment of the King’s chief minister the duke of Suffolk early the following year. Hoo was among the ‘Lordes . . beyng in Towne’, for whom the King sent on 17 Mar. to come to his ‘innest chamber’ in the palace of Westminster. There Suffolk again denied the charges brought against him by the Commons, and received judgement from the King, who, disregarding the Lords’ advice, ruled that he was to be exiled for five years as of 1 May. The duke was murdered soon after he embarked.49 PROME, xii. 105. Hoo’s whereabouts as the south-east rose in rebellion under Jack Cade are not known, although he may have stayed until early June at Leicester (where Parliament had assembled for its third session on 29 Apr.). In the eyes of the rebels, he was at one with other Household men in league with Suffolk, and there can be no doubt of his unpopularity in Kent.50 Three 15th Cent. Chrons. (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxviii), 102. It was later claimed in a petition sent to the duke of Buckingham as warden of the Cinque Ports that a ‘cogship’ belonging to Peter Arnold of Hastings was seized by one of Cade’s followers on 12 June on the grounds that Arnold and the master of his vessel were intending ‘to lede oute of this londe lord saye [James Fiennes*, Lord Saye and Sele, the cousin of Hoo’s stepmother], John Faux [Faukes] clerc of the parlement and the lord hoo fals Traytours unto this lond’.51 SC1/51/48. Curiously, in September Hoo risked his life to hurry to meet the duke of York as he was on his way to London. He may have concluded that after Suffolk’s demise York was destined for greater prominence at court and a more central role in policy-making. Perhaps too he felt let down by Somerset and remembered York’s lieutenancy of France as a golden era. However, near St. Albans Sir William Oldhall* had to intervene to protect him from ‘the western men’ who were accompanying the duke and sought to kill him, and despite his appeal to York he was clearly viewed as belonging to the court party. On 13 Oct. two of his servants placed in the safekeeping of a London widow named Margaret Holmage a great chest called a ‘standard’ containing Hoo’s sanguine-coloured gown lined with martens, a length of green velvet, a scarlet robe furred with miniver and a fur of marten, said to be worth £40.52 The goods had still not been recovered more than two years after Hoo died: CP40/787, rot. 426. It may be that Hoo was intending to wear these robes at the opening of the Parliament on 6 Nov., but he was one of the four peers, including Somerset and the dowager duchess of Suffolk, among the 29 individuals whom the Commons demanded to be excluded from the King’s presence, since they were clearly responsible for all the ills that had fallen on the kingdom. Henry VI stubbornly refused to exile them all; his exemption of the peers named enabled him to implement as much or as little of the petition as he chose.53 PROME, xii. 184-6; Griffiths, 308-10. Perhaps as an immediate consequence of the King’s response, violence flared, and on the day appointed for the exclusion, 1 Dec., a mob of York’s followers tried to seize and kill Somerset, then staying in the Dominican house at Blackfriars, and although he escaped by boat the friary was sacked. ‘And in the morowe they dyspoyled the placys and louggynges of many dyvers lordys, and they bare away alle the goodys that were with ynne hem’, prominent among those so robbed being Lord Hoo and his friend Sir Thomas Tuddenham, the keeper of the royal wardrobe. York intervened directly to restore order, by riding through the city with a great force and arresting one of the looters, whom he dispatched to the King.54 Paston Letters ed. Davis, ii. 47; Historical Collns. Citizen London (Cam. Soc. ser. 2, xvii), 196.

Hoo escaped with his life, but his doings in Normandy now faced official scrutiny. On 20 Dec. he was summoned to Chancery under pain of £200,55 C253/32/169. and on 14 Jan. 1451 Sir Richard Haryngton* and Hugh Spenser were commissioned to investigate the petition of William Kirkeby, who had served in the fortalices of St. Lô and Caen and claimed that although Hoo and his colleagues in France had received grants from the three Norman estates to fortify these strongholds, they had signally failed to do so. Then on 10 Feb. another commission was set up under the earl of Warwick to examine the complaints of soldiers made against Hoo for withholding their wages. That July there were large scale disturbances in Norwich in which Hoo was the principal target, the rebels calling him a traitor; and further inquiries were put in motion in February 1452, this time headed by his former commander the earl of Shrewsbury.56 CPR, 1446-52, pp. 435, 439, 444, 537; KB9/85/1/6. Whether any action was taken against Hoo does not transpire. A year later he was summoned to attend Parliament at Reading on 6 Mar. 1453. Attendance of the Lords was poor, especially after the King fell mentally ill that summer, and during the brief session in February 1454 it was ordained that every Lord who failed to appear should be fined, provided that he was not prevented from attending because of sickness. Some 15 of the absentees, including Hoo, were excused owing to ‘sekeness and feeblenesse’, but even so the Council still fined them on 24 May, in Hoo’s case as much as £20. Five days later he was called to a great council due to meet on 25 June, but again he failed to turn up. Further summonses required his appearance on 21 Oct.57 PPC, vi. 181-2, 186, 217; E159/230, recorda Easter rot. 16.

It seems that Hoo’s debility was genuine. He died at his half-brother Thomas’s manor-house at Roffey in Sussex on 13 Feb. 1455,58 C139/156/11; C1/44/187. having made a will the day before. The instructions Hoo issued to his executors and feoffees offer few hints that his finances were in a parlous state. The bequests were such to be expected of someone of his standing. He wished to donate land worth 20 marks p.a. to Battle abbey to provide for two monks to sing in perpetuity for his soul at the altar dedicated to the Burgundian Saint Benignus; ordained that his half-brother should have an annuity of £20 from the Sussex manors of Wartling, Bucksteep and Brooksmarle which his stepmother Elizabeth, now widow of Sir Thomas Lewknor, still occupied; and made provision for his widow, Lady Eleanor. That all was not well is suggested by his instructions that the rape of Hastings should be sold in order to raise 1,000 marks for division among his three daughters by his second wife as their marriage-portions; and by the fact that he still owed his father-in-law Lord Welles 800 marks as part of his contract of marriage made ten years earlier. If Welles now failed to complete his side of the bargain, Lord Hoo’s half-brother was to sue him under a statute of the staple for £1,000. Hoo left an otherwise unidentified girl named Joan £20 for her marriage, telling his wife to look after her until she was wed, and life-annuities of £1 each to seven servants. No doubt dreading the enormity of the task of facing up to Hoo’s many creditors, his executors (his widow and Thomas Hoo), refused to act. Accordingly, administration of the will was granted by Archbishop Bourgchier on 7 Dec. to the testator’s stepbrother Richard Lewknor*.59 Suss. Arch. Collns. viii. 119-21; Reg. Bourgchier, 173. His stepmother later received a pardon as executrix of his will too: C67/42, m. 4.

As Hoo died without surviving male issue, the barony of Hoo and Hastings became extinct,60 CP, vii. app. F. and the principal family manors, settled in tail-male at the time of his second marriage, were to pass after his widow’s death to his half-brother. The coheirs to the rest of his estates were his four daughters: Anne, the child of his first wife, who had been married several years earlier to Geoffrey Boleyn*, the London alderman; and another Anne, aged eight, Eleanor aged six and Elizabeth aged four, the daughters of his second wife.61 C139/156/11. The widow, Lady Eleanor, took as her second husband an esquire from Lancashire named James Laurence (the son and heir of Robert Laurence*).62 KB27/826, rot. 28d; C67/45, m. 8; PL15/21, rot. 12d. Disputes over Hoo’s estates and the performance of his will continued for more than 30 years after his death. Richard Lewknor petitioned the chancellor at least four times when Hoo’s surviving feoffees, (Sir) John Wenlock*, Tuddenham, Heydon and Thomas Hoo, allegedly refused to sell the rape of Hastings as required in the will. It was later stated, however, that with the assent of the other feoffees, and in accordance with Lord Hoo’s wish that he should have first refusal, Thomas Hoo himself purchased it for 1,000 marks, although in the aftermath of the civil war of 1459-61 he was persuaded to sell it to Edward IV’s friend, William, Lord Hastings. Thomas divided the money up as marriage-portions for his nieces, whose marriages he arranged: Anne and Elizabeth were wedded to two London mercers, Roger Copley and Thomas Massingberd, and Eleanor to his kinsman Thomas Etchingham, the son and heir apparent of Sir Thomas Etchingham. He made an agreement with Sir Thomas that if his son died while Eleanor was still under the age of 15 her marriage-portion would be paid back, but when this indeed happened and Eleanor married James Carew he refused to give the couple the money. Hoo replied to Carew’s complaint that Lord Hoo had died indebted in great sums to diverse persons, so that the money raised from the sale of the rape was not enough to satisfy his creditors, yet even so he had fulfilled his brother’s bequests and met other charges on his nieces’ behalf. He denied receiving back the money from Etchingham, and asserted that Eleanor had married Carew without the assent of her mother and himself.63 C1/26/117-19; 44/185-9; CPR, 1461-7, pp. 137-8. After the death of Lord Hoo’s stepmother Elizabeth Lewknor in 1465, his widow and her husband James Laurence petitioned to say that the feoffees of the reversion of the Hoo family manors in Sussex refused to transfer possession to her, even though his debts had now been paid and Thomas Hoo had been satisfied of his lands worth £20 p.a. Thomas denied this, and replied that only Richard Lewknor knew whether the debts had in fact been satisfied; he should be sent for, and the claims of his nieces also needed to be considered. In his turn Lewknor said that Lady Eleanor had removed various jewels, goods and bonds before the administration of the will had been committed to him, so he had insufficient resources to complete his task.64 C1/41/239-44. After Lady Eleanor’s death Hoo did distribute some of his late brother’s estates among his nieces. For instance, Elizabeth Massingberd received the manors of Bucksteep and Brooksmarle in 1475.65 Add. Ch. 29770. Even so, their squabbles over their inheritance continued for many years more, until Hoo’s childless death in 1486 enabled his four nieces to inherit the principal family manors in accordance with the entail of 1445.66 Add. 39376, f. 151v; 39377, f. 18; Peds. Plea Rolls ed. Wrottesley, 426; C145/329/1; Genealogist, n.s. xxii. 185. Elizabeth Massingberd m. (2) by 1480, John, s. and h. of John Devenish*; and Anne Copley m. (2) by 1488, William Greystock (this marriage is not noted in CP). Lord Hoo’s eldest daughter Anne Boleyn was great-grandmother of her namesake, the second queen consort of Henry VIII.