HUBAND, John

Established at Ipsley by the late eleventh century, the Hubands were one of the oldest – although far from the most distinguished – landed families of the west Midlands. During the later Middle Ages they attained their greatest prominence in the person of Huband’s great-grandfather and namesake, Sir John Huband, who distinguished himself in Edward III’s Crécy campaign. Sir John’s successor was his third but eldest surviving son Thomas, whose own son and heir Richard was the MP’s father. A shadowy figure, Richard married the even more obscure Alice Walcot. Although she was an heiress it is not known what lands she brought to the Hubands. It was through Huband’s own marriage to Elizabeth Chaterley that the family acquired the manor of Astwood and other estates in Worcestershire, at one time the property of Elizabeth’s maternal grandfather, Makelin Musard. He and Elizabeth reserved these estates for their younger sons, whose elder brother Thomas was the heir to Ipsley.3 VCH Warws. iii. 124; VCH Worcs. iii. 115; CP25(1)/294/75/9.

It would appear that Huband himself had succeeded to the latter manor by 1428, when the King’s subsidy commissioners in Warwickshire recorded that he held a knight’s fee in Ipsley and at Hillborough in Temple Grafton.4 Feudal Aids, v. 191. Although ‘Richard’ Huband of Ipsley was among those in Warws. expected to swear the widely-administered oath to uphold the peace in 1434 (CPR, 1429-36, p. 384) this was perhaps a scribal error for John. It is also possible that the MP had a younger brother of that name, since a ‘Richard Hybbawe’ attested the return of the knights of the shire for Worcs. to the Parl. of 1432. By then he had already sat in his only known Parliament, the assembly that had granted the subsidy in question. His fellow MP during his time in the Commons was John Vampage*, a lawyer of modest social origins who almost certainly owed his Membership of the successive Parliaments of 1426 and 1427 to the patronage of Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick. He himself had perhaps likewise benefited from an association with the earl when standing for Parliament, since the Hubands were also part of the Beauchamp connexion.5 C. Carpenter, Locality and Polity, 330; CCR, 1435-41, p. 99. Huband did not serve the Crown at a county level until after leaving the Commons. He would complete two terms as an escheator but was otherwise remarkably uninvolved in local government since he did not become a j.p. and was appointed to just one ad hoc commission.6 In the early 1430s, a John Hubard (otherwise Huberd or Herbert) was a retainer of Robert Willoughby in France. Were he the MP, his absence abroad might explain a lack of involvement in local administration. However, this soldier was campaigning across the Channel at the beginning of 1431, while the subject of this biography was escheator in Worcs.: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, Fr. mss, 25770/659; Clairambault mss, 207/111-20; Archives Nationales, Paris, AK 63/24/2; Add. Ch. 7970.

If never prominent in county administration, Huband was (at least for a time) active in the affairs of the guild of the Holy Cross at Stratford-upon-Avon, a town situated some ten miles south-east of Ipsley. In 1436, he and his wife Elizabeth paid an entry fine of 20s. for admission to the guild, in the records of which he was acknowledged as one of its ‘cheife benefactors’. At some point in 1440-1 he, Sir Thomas Burdet* and other prominent guildsmen attended a meeting at Stratford at which the brethren provided for the rebuilding of a house in the town’s High Street belonging to the guild. In 1442 Huband’s eldest son Thomas and his wife Margaret were likewise admitted as brethren, and an account for the year July 1442-3 shows that the guild’s master gave wine to the MP on ‘divers’ occasions. He did so for the ‘profit’ of the guild, although in what sense is unrecorded.7 Shakespeare Centre Archs., Guild of Holy Cross, Stratford-upon-Avon mss, BRT1/1, ff. 44v, 50, 54; BRT1/3/50.

Later that decade Huband fell into dispute with the Gloucestershire esquire John Langley II*, who in May 1446 began a suit against him and several of his servants in the court of common pleas. According to Langley, Huband and his men had entered his land at Over Siddington in that county in the previous January, and attacked and wounded his servant David Rogger. When the case came to pleadings in the spring of 1447, the defendants by their attorney Richard Chaterley* (perhaps a relative of Huband’s wife) claimed that the property in question belonged to the Hubands in her right. At a trial held locally several months later, however, the jury found that they had wrongfully disseised Langley, who won £95 in damages, expenses and costs. Langley did not however win a complete victory since the jury dismissed his assertion that the defendants had attacked Rogger, meaning that he was required subsequently to answer for his false allegation. No doubt, it was in connexion with the same quarrel that a jury indicted Huband and his co-defendants of certain trespasses in Gloucestershire. In mid 1450, the sheriff of the county was ordered to ensure that they came to Westminster to answer the indictment in King’s bench, although they had still not done so by the end of the same year. It appears likely that the Langley-Huband dispute had arisen from a claim – possibly highly speculative – which the Hubands had made for the manor of Over Siddington, at one time the property of Elizabeth’s Musard ancestors and which Langley had purchased from John Stonehouse in 1434.8 CP40/745, rot. 416; KB27/757, rex rot. 16d; 758; CCR, 1429-35, pp. 343-4; CPR, 1429-36, pp. 449-50.

Whatever the outcome of the indictment, Huband was soon spending much of his time away from both Gloucestershire and the west Midlands. Exactly when he became deputy constable of the royal castle of Rhuddlan in North Wales is not recorded, but it is very likely that he was in office by the spring of 1452, since he was referred to as ‘of Rhuddlan’ and ‘late of Astwood’ in a royal pardon issued to him on 24 May that year.9 C67/40, m. 23. In October 1452, he and John Moton acquired a lease of the pleas and perquisites of the town court of Rhuddlan, of a croft known as ‘Castell crofte’ and of various other rights, including market tolls and a fishery, and by 1452-3 he was farming the castle itself.10 DKR, xxxi. 211; xxxvii (2), 389-90. He held office at Rhuddlan by appointment of the constable, John Beauchamp, Lord Powick, who was a distant relative of the by now extinct earls of Warwick and whom he may earlier have served in Worcestershire. Powick, who was constable for life by virtue of a royal grant of 27 May 1439,11 CPR, 1436-41, p. 284. almost certainly left it to his subordinate to fulfil his duties. In February 1456, the latter received another royal pardon mistakenly referring to him as ‘constable’ rather than the deputy, an error which no doubt reflected the daily reality.12 C67/41, m. 11. Huband was still exercising his responsibilities at Rhuddlan early in Edward IV’s reign, for when he obtained yet another royal pardon in June 1462 he was described as deputy constable of Rhuddlan as well as of Ipsley and ‘Westwode’ in Warwickshire.13 C67/45, m. 29.

After 1462, Huband disappears from view until February 1470 when he and Elizabeth settled the manor of Astwood on their younger son Humphrey.14 CP25(1)/294/75/9. It would appear that he was still alive seven years later, for in April 1477 John Huband esquire was one of the jurors at Warwick whom George, duke of Clarence, terrorized into convicting the unfortunate Ankaret Twyneho of the crime of poisoning his late duchess.15 CPR, 1476-85, pp. 72-73; PROME, xiv. 361-5. Whenever he died, Huband’s successor was his eldest son and heir Thomas, already a man of mature years given that he had served as escheator of Warwickshire and Leicestershire in 1450-1. During the mid 1480s, Thomas’s own son and heir Richard quarrelled with his uncle Edward Huband of Astwood, one of the MP’s younger sons. In a suit heard in the court of common pleas, Richard accused Edward of breaking into his closes at Ipsley and cutting down trees; Edward responded by claiming that the wood at Ipsley belonged to him, by virtue of a demise made by the MP in October 1461. A subsequent Chancery suit shows that uncle and nephew were still at odds with each other several years later.16 Peds. Plea Rolls ed. Wrottesley, 466-7; C1/97/53.