HORDE, John

This MP is not to be confused with his younger contemporary, John Horde† of Bridgnorth. The latter was the son and heir apparent of Thomas Horde* and represented Bridgnorth in the Parliaments of 1470 and 1472; our MP, on the other hand, took his own father’s place as one of the principal townsmen of Shrewsbury. His father had represented the borough in Parliament on at least ten occasions and served as bailiff there for four annual terms. John’s career was almost as active: over a period of over 40 years, he was a Shrewsbury MP on at least six occasions (and, given the loss of returns for the later part of his parliamentary career he almost certainly sat more often) and bailiff for five terms. Further, he followed in his father’s footsteps in another sense, in that he played a part in county affairs: in the 1460s he served as escheator and held office in the household of a Shropshire peer. The wealth that supported this activity was apparently modest. In the subsidy returns of 1450 he was assessed on an annual income of only 60s.9 E101/681/39.

Horde’s impressive career began in difficult circumstances. In 1435 his father was murdered by another leading townsman, Thomas Mytton, and John soon found himself in dispute with his stepmother and her new husband, Richard Burley, who also numbered among the borough elite. According to an indictment taken before the county j.p.s at Ludlow on 17 Sept. 1437, five days earlier he stole goods worth as much as 160 marks from his stepmother. Both he and his accomplices, who included two other leading townsmen in the brothers Thomas Thornes* and Robert Thornes*, were acquitted in the following February, and it is likely that they were acting under provocation.10 KB27/706, rex rot. 24; 707, rot. 57d, att. rot. 1d. At the time of the alleged offence our MP had a petition pending against his stepmother before the chancellor. He claimed that, two years after his father’s death, she had forged a testament and deeds in his father’s name. In them she fraudulently named as her late husband’s feoffees her brother, Robert Coyne, and two local gentry, John Wynnesbury* and Hugh Cresset*, and asserted that they held on condition that they re-enfeoff her for her life with remainder to her right heirs. This threatened our MP with complete disinheritance. And, although it was far from unknown for a father to allow infatuation for a second wife to overcome his duty to the issue of a first, it is probably safe to conclude that John was the intended victim of a fraud. The chancellor appears to have taken this view, for the course of Horde’s later career demonstrates that he successfully defeated the plot, if such it was, against him.11 C1/9/296.

Horde’s public career did not begin until several years later, implying that he had only recently come of age at his father’s death. His first administrative task was an important one. His fellow burgesses of Shrewsbury returned him, in company with one of the serving bailiffs, Richard Stury*, to a Parliament that was to prove of real significance to the town. During the third session, which met between 20 Oct. and 15 Dec. 1445, the borough petitioned for a new and complex constitution, and there is every reason to suppose that its MPs were instrumental in securing the successful passage of this bill.12 RP, v. 121 (cf. PROME, xi. 508). There must, however, be a doubt about whether Horde attended for the whole period of this long Parliament. It lasted 191 days spread over four sessions and the borough accounts record separate payments totaling £11 5s. to Stury, that is, 1s. for each day of the Parliament together with an allowance at the same rate for 34 days spent travelling. Horde, on the other hand, is recorded as receiving only 20s. ‘ex convencione’ with a further 46s. 8d. as a reward for his service in the Parliament. Since Stury was paid 65s. for his attendance at the third session (that is, 1s. for each day of the 57-day session with an allowance for eight days of travelling) it might be speculatively suggested that Horde’s attendance was confined to this crucial third session.13 Shrewsbury recs., bailiffs’ accts. 3365/377, mm. 4, 5, 5d.

It is curious to find that Horde was named to neither the body of 12 aldermen nor the council of 24 established by the new constitution.14 For the original 12 and 24: Shrewsbury assembly bk. 3365/67, ff. 68v, 69; RP, v. 121. But there can be no doubt that he numbered among the most important burgessses. On 8 Oct. 1446 he joined other leading Shrewsbury men in witnessing a deed at Betton Alkmere for Richard, eldest son of Sir Richard Lacon*; and two years later he was one of the 25 electors entrusted with nominating the borough officials.15 CCR, 1441-7, p. 437; Salop Archs., deeds 6000/6722; Shrewsbury assembly bk. 3365/67, f. 18v. Soon after he himself accepted a series of elections: he was returned to represent the borough in both of the Parliaments of 1449, and in between he was elected to his first term as bailiff. In the 1450s Horde was among the burgesses who formed a connexion with the town’s powerful neighbour, Richard, duke of York. This may explain his election to the Parliament of 1455, held in the aftermath of the Yorkist victory at the first battle of St. Albans, in company with the town’s leading Yorkist, Richard Eyton*, although it is not until two years later that there is direct evidence of his own Yorkist connexion. In November 1457 the duke’s eldest son, Edward, earl of March, named him and Eyton as his attorneys to deliver property in the town to another burgess, Degory Water.16 C219/16/3; Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. liv. 84.

This reference implies that there was some political significance to an action sued in the court of King’s bench in Hilary term 1460: Edward, prince of Wales, Humphrey, duke of Buckingham, James, earl of Wiltshire, John Ormond and William Holand, all among the leaders of the Lancastrian cause, sued an action of trespass against Horde, Eyton, Water and three other burgesses, John Grafton†, Roger Pontesbury† and Adam Goldsmith. The subject of the action is unknown – not surprisingly it disappears from the plea rolls with the change of regime – but there is every reason to suppose that the defendants represented a strong Yorkist faction in Shrewsbury and that the action arose out of some event in the Ludford campaign. Given this evidence of a Yorkist affiliation, it is slightly surprising to find Horde as a juror at the inquisition post mortem, held at the county town, of John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, killed on the Lancastrian side at the battle of Northampton. If, however, he did have some association with Talbot, this is the only indication.17 KB27/795, rot. 43; 796, rot. 45d; 797, rot. 8d; C139/179/58.

Adherence to the cause of York probably explains why Horde sued out a general pardon in March 1460, when the Lancastrians were firmly in control of government. But if he suffered difficulties as a result of this adherence he soon had a compensating reward. On 20 June 1461, soon after the earl of March had assumed the throne, he was named to the offices of chief bailiff and feodary of the King’s honour of Wallingford with fees assigned upon the fee farm of his native town.18 C67/43, m. 5; CPR, 1461-7, p. 18. The responsibilities attached to these offices explain why, in a pardon of July 1462, he is assigned the alias ‘of Henley-on-Thames’, but occasional residence in the Thames valley did not diminish his involvement in Shrewsbury affairs. He was rather belatedly added to the 12 aldermen at an unknown date in the 1460s (in succession to his stepmother’s husband, Richard Burley), and in 1467 he was chosen by the electors to further the town’s interests in Parliament.19 C67/45, m. 18; Shrewsbury assembly bk. 3365/67, f. 68v. After the end of the first session (which lasted from 3 June to 1 July) the borough paid £3 10s. to him and his fellow MP, John Trentham*. This was not for their wages but rather for their costs in forwarding Shrewsbury’s business in Parliament. The nature of that business is not precisely clear: the accounts say the costs were incurred in securing royal letters directed to the bailiffs in respect of the conservation of the peace and the good government of the borough, letters which were publicly read before the community.20 Shrewsbury bailiffs’ accts. 3365/398, m. 2. In addition, Horde was paid wages of £3 16s., while Trentham received only £3 6s. 8d.: 3365/401, m. 2d.

The Parliament of 1467 had a very long prorogation. It did not sit between 1 July 1467 and 12 May 1468. When it did reassemble, Horde was in office as escheator of Shropshire, a mark of his new importance in the 1460s. On 11 Nov. 1467, six days after this appointment, he sued out a pardon of outlawry that provides further evidence of his enhanced standing. The pardon describes him as steward of the household of the young Shropshire peer, John, Lord Strange of Knockin. Strange had only recently come of age – the 1467 Parliament was the first to which he was summoned – but our MP’s association with the family was of long-standing. Between the deaths of John’s father, Richard, Lord Strange, in 1449 and his mother, Elizabeth, early in 1454, Horde had been one of the feoffees she employed in the making of a controversial settlement of her considerable jointure, including the caput honoris of the Strange family, to the advantage of her second husband, Roger Kynaston.21 CPR, 1467-77, p. 9; CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 805.

Horde was elected to Parliament for Shrewsbury in 1472, and again he was called upon to act in a matter of special importance for his fellow townsmen. The borough accounts record a payment of £3 10s. 2d. for his expenses in resisting the threatened resumption of the town’s grant of murage. The Parliament proved to be a long one, lasting over an unprecedented seven sessions and not concluding until March 1475, and while at Westminster during one of three sessions of 1474 he was called upon to defend the borough from another potential loss. There was a proposal, arising from an unknown source, that the county court should be removed to Bridgnorth from its traditional venue at Shrewsbury castle. Horde received 15s. 1½d. from the bailiffs for securing a royal writ ordering the court’s restoration.22 Shrewsbury bailiffs’ accts. 3365/407, mm. 8, 10. It is not known what he received in wages, only that, at the end of the assembly, he received 58s. 4d. in part payment: 3365/409, m. 1d. On 21 May 1474, during the fifth of the Parliament’s sessions, Horde purchased woollen cloth worth 70s. from a London draper, and his failure to complete payment led to an action against him in the Exchequer of pleas when, in November 1478, he came to account as a Shrewsbury bailiff. Worse from his point of view was the action brought at the same time by a fellow townsman, Thomas Thornes, who claimed that our MP, and the other bailiff, Roger Knight, owed him £11 11s. 11d. as a forfeited pledge. The bailiffs were unable to deny his complaint, and Thornes recovered the sum with damages of £1.23 E13/163, mm. 23, 24d.

Horde’s third term as bailiff was also troubled by a controversy arising from the borough parliamentary election held on 16 Jan. 1478. According to a petition presented in the name of 158 of the townsmen Horde’s behaviour on this occasion was not beyond reproach. Having convened the election in company with Roger Knight, he was annoyed when Robert Beyneon† and John Guttyn†, ‘contrary to his entent’, received the most votes. His response was to leave the hustings, not waiting ‘to receyve the presentement and verditte of that election’. The task was left to Knight, who remained to receive the verdict of the electors. Presumably Horde, having done such sterling service for the borough in Parliament, was angry not to be returned again, although it is difficult to see what the petitioners were complaining about. The official return made by the county sheriff correctly names Beyneon and Guttyn as the borough’s MPs, and there is thus nothing to suggest that Horde did anything to subvert the election beyond his premature withdrawal from the hustings. Perhaps the petitioners feared that he would do so and that this was the purpose of their complaint.24 Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. lvii. 164; C219/17/3. The dispute had no lasting impact on Horde’s relationship with his fellow burgesses, who again chose him at their bailiff in 1482 and 1486. His last office was that of one of the borough auditors in 1487-8. Alive early in 1489, he was dead by Hilary term 1492 when his widow, Elizabeth, was plaintiff as his executrix.25 CP40/907, rot. 209; 919, rot. 31d.