CHAMBERLAIN, Sir Roger

The son of an East Anglian esquire who associated with leading supporters of the Lancastrian Crown in that region,10 CPR, 1416-22, pp. 105-6, 363; 1419-22, p. 202; CCR, 1422-9, p. 175. Chamberlain was probably raised in the household of the Sussex knight, Sir John Dallingridge†, a prominent servant of Henry IV.11 CPR, 1405-8, p. 452. By the late 1420s he was serving under the King’s uncle, John, duke of Bedford, in France,12 DKR, xlviii. 257; Letters and Pprs. Illust. Wars of English ed. Stevenson, ii (2), 436. where it is likely that he won his knighthood. It is not known how long he was in France, but he returned there a decade later, as one of the ‘worthy’ knights and esquires who accompanied the English negotiators to the Anglo-French conference at Calais in the summer of 1439.13 The Brut (EETS, cxxxvi), 474.

During the 1430s Chamberlain lived in his wife’s county of Kent, possibly because much of his inheritance remained in the hands of his widowed mother.14 CPR, 1429-36, p. 388. In the latter part of that decade his residence was Milton, a parish lying just north of Sittingbourne. It was as ‘of Milton’ that he was involved in a dispute with John Adam* and Henry Hickes*, each of whom had married one of the coheiresses of John, 5th Lord Northwode. Following their marriages, the pair had become embroiled in a long-running quarrel over their wives’ inheritances with members of the Northwode family. By 1437 these opponents had gained the support of Chamberlain, prompting Adam and Hickes to name him as a co-defendant in a suit that they brought at Westminster against the Northwodes for entering their property at Bredhurst and Gillingham.15 CP40/705, rot. 204; 213, rot. 236. By that date it is very likely that Chamberlain had already entered the service of Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, whose Kentish castle of Queenborough lay just a few miles north of Milton. He was certainly the duke’s man by January 1442, when the Crown confirmed to him the office of constable of Queenborough, a position that the duke had granted to him for life at some stage earlier.16 CPR, 1441-6, p. 47.

Despite Sir Roger’s associations with Kent, it was in his native East Anglia that he served as a j.p. and sheriff, and as a member of almost all of his ad hoc commissions. His term as sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk was subsequently a cause of some trouble to him. In November 1442 the Knights Hospitallers sued him in the Exchequer for allegedly failing to act properly upon a writ,17 E13/142, rot. 19. and over the following two years his manor at Gedding and other properties he held at Eriswell in west Suffolk were in the hands of the Crown because he had failed to account fully for his time as sheriff.18 E364/77, m. P; 81, m. C. When he did return to the Exchequer in November 1445 to give a full account, he was promptly faced with litigation from Sir Richard Wydeville and his wife, who were seeking a sum of £30 which the King had granted to them from the issues of the shrievalty during his time in the office.19 E13/144, rot. 17.

While initially advantageous to him, Chamberlain’s links with the duke of Gloucester nearly caused his downfall, for he was among those of Gloucester’s servants taken into custody following the arrest of their master at Bury St. Edmunds in February 1447. The authorities dispatched the apprehended men to prisons across the country, and Chamberlain spent his confinement at Bristol.20 C.L. Kingsford, English Historical Literature, 364. In the following July he and seven others of the duke’s men were indicted for treason at Deptford and tried and condemned in the court of King’s bench. The jury found that they had plotted to release Eleanor Cobham (Gloucester’s disgraced second wife) from her imprisonment for witchcraft and to place the duke on the throne, but there is no doubt that these charges were false. Among those who had taken the indictment and referred it to King’s bench was the King’s chief minister, William de la Pole, marquess of Suffolk. Gloucester had bitterly opposed de la Pole’s policy with regard to France, and it was probably no coincidence that Chamberlain and his associates were condemned just as Suffolk was preparing to cede the county of Maine to the French. According to one contemporary chronicler, while on their way to Tyburn the convicted men beseeched the watching and sympathetic crowds to pray for them because they were innocent of any treason. Hung up at Tyburn, they escaped with their lives because, after the executioner had cut them down and before he could proceed with the drawing and quartering, the watching marquess of Suffolk intervened with their pardons. The authorities released them soon afterwards and formally enrolled their pardons on the patent rolls on 14 July. They probably owed their reprieve to the fact that their master had died immediately after his arrest, since his removal from the scene made it politically unnecessary to execute his servants.21 R.A. Griffiths, Hen. VI, 498; Foedera (Hague edn.), v (1), 178-9; Six Town Chrons. ed. Flenley, 121-2; Gt. Chron. London ed. Thomas and Thornley, 189; Historical Collns. Citizen London (Cam. Soc. ser. 2, xvii), 423; CPR, 1446-52, p. 68.

Although pardoned, Chamberlain did not immediately recover his lands, which the Crown had confiscated after his arrest. Within a year of his near execution, however, he joined none other than the marquess of Suffolk in a conveyance of property transacted on behalf of that peer’s retainer, Sir Thomas Tuddenham*.22 CP25(1)/224/118/24. At the end of 1449, Sir Roger regained all his possessions at Queenborough, except his armour,23 E28/79/67. and he must have resumed his command there soon afterwards. He had an opportunity to prove his loyalty to the Crown during the latter stages of Cade’s rebellion in the following year. In July 1450 he beat off an attempt by Cade and a small group of followers to storm Queenborough castle, an encounter in which Cade received the wound from which he died soon afterwards.24 Griffiths, 616; M. Keen, Eng. in the Later Middle Ages, 434. Apart from defending Queenborough, Chamberlain helped more widely to suppress the revolt in Kent where he apprehended a couple of rebels, Geoffrey Kechyn and ‘Capitan Boucher’. He subsequently submitted to the King a petition referring to his capture of the two men and to his expenses in maintaining the castle and its garrison, and he received 40 marks as a reward.25 E403/784, m. 11; E404/66/202.

In the aftermath of the revolt Chamberlain gained election to Parliament as a knight of the shire for Suffolk. The Parliament of 1450 met in an atmosphere hostile to the Court, and during its first session the Commons demanded the dismissal of several prominent courtiers associated with the late William de la Pole and called for a stringent Act of Resumption.26 PROME, xii. 184-6. Chamberlain’s fellow knight of the shire was Sir Edmund Mulsho*, a retainer of Richard, duke of York, who had largely assumed Gloucester’s mantle in national politics and was the government’s foremost opponent. It is very likely that he himself had received the duke’s backing when he stood for election, since he was soon to become (if he was not already) York’s steward at Swanscombe. Despite forming a connexion with York, he was still prepared at this date to associate with men who had served de la Pole. A few months after the dissolution of Parliament he was a co-plaintiff with Sir Thomas Tuddenham in a dispute over lands in Suffolk.27 KB27/762, rot. 68.

Although he had become steward of Swanscombe, it is possible that Chamberlain spent less time in Kent after the early 1450s, since in July 1452 he relinquished his command at Queenborough castle. He was described as ‘late of Stone by Dartford’ in a royal pardon he obtained in the following October but as ‘of Suffolk’ in a like pardon of September 1455.28 C67/40, m. 11; 41, m. 30. His admission to the freedom of Ipswich in 1454 is perhaps another indication that he was now spending more time in Suffolk.29 Add. 30158, f. 17v. He received his pardon of 1452 some seven months after York had surrendered to the King at Dartford, having failed to overawe the government with a show of armed force, but there is no evidence that he had participated in the duke’s abortive demonstration. When the Parliament of 1453 opened at Reading in March that year, the government was in a stronger position than at any time since the crises of the late 1440s and early 1450s. It was only because Henry VI suffered a mental breakdown in the following summer that York was able to return to the centre of affairs and assume the position of Protector of England. Chamberlain petitioned the Parliament for a private Act overturning his indictment and conviction for treason and restoring his estates to him and his heirs. In the petition he declared that the jurors at his indictment and trial had acted out of ‘fere and drede of gret manaces’ when giving their verdicts. His petition was successful, although the Act passed in his favour contained a proviso that none of the King’s servants should have to answer for the events of 1447. 30 RP, v. 449 (cf. PROME, xii. 323); CPR, 1452-61, p. 154.

The King’s recovery from his illness during the Christmas of 1454 ended the duke of York’s protectorate. The latter’s rival, the duke of Somerset, returned to government, and the consequent breakdown in relations between York and the Court led to the battle of St. Albans in May 1455. There is no evidence that Chamberlain (by now of relatively advanced years) participated in this Yorkist victory, but his links with York assisted his return as a knight of the shire for Norfolk to the Parliament that met later that year. In the weeks preceding the Parliament his candidature was backed by York’s ally, John Mowbray, third duke of Norfolk, and on 8 June the duchess of Norfolk wrote to John Paston* to ask him to support Chamberlain and John Howard* in the forthcoming election. As far as the electors of Norfolk were concerned, Sir Roger, who held property at Rockland in the south of the county, was an acceptable candidate but Howard was not because he had no livelihood in the shire. In the event, both men were returned, which says much for the local influence which Mowbray then enjoyed, a consequence of York’s ascendancy in national politics during the latter part of 1455.31 Paston Letters ed. Davis, ii. 117, 119-20; Feudal Aids, iii. 646; CPR, 1467-77, p. 515; H.R. Castor, King, Crown and Duchy of Lancaster, 179-80.

In her letter the duchess described Chamberlain as her ‘servant’. It is not the earliest evidence of an attachment with the Mowbrays, since in the previous year he had joined other followers of the duke of Norfolk in standing surety for the notorious Sir Thomas Mallory* in King’s bench.32 KB27/763, rex rot. 3d; 772, dorse of rot. between rex rots. 29 and 30. Indeed, his connexion with the Mowbrays may have dated back some years earlier, for it is possible that he travelled to the Calais conference of 1439 as a member of the duke of Norfolk’s retinue. It is also possible that he came to form his links with the Mowbrays through his other patron, the duke of Gloucester, who had received custody of the Mowbray estates after the death of the previous duke of Norfolk in 1432 and held them until the third duke had come of age in 1436.33 PPC, iv. 132. Whenever they were formed, these links appear to have been lasting ones, since Chamberlain is said to have became a councillor of the third duke’s son, the last Mowbray duke of Norfolk.34 Howard Household Bks. ed. Crawford, p. xx.

The duke of York again assumed the role of Protector of England in the Parliament of 1455, which officially rehabilitated the duke of Gloucester, a politically adroit move on York’s part.35 Griffiths, 748. York’s second protectorate came to an end before the dissolution of Parliament, but not before he and his allies had secured a significant political advantage, namely the control of Calais, which proved an extremely important base for the Yorkists during the latter stages of Henry VI’s reign.36 Keen, 444-5. Chamberlain probably spent some time at Calais in the late 1450s, for he was appointed to a commission there, along with Sir Edmund Mulsho and others, in March 1457. On the following 1 July he received letters of protection prior to going abroad in the retinue of York’s ally, the earl of Warwick.37 DKR, xlviii. 421. Their destination was almost certainly Calais, since the earl, who was captain of the town, held a conference with the Burgundians at nearby Oye early that month. Some three months later Chamberlain returned to Calais with Lionel, Lord Welles (who, ironically, would end up dying for the Lancastrian cause) with reinforcements for its garrison.38 E404/71/2/78; CP, xii (2), 443-4.

Despite his links with York, Chamberlain was no political diehard. In February 1458, as the political crisis in the country deepened, he secured another royal pardon,39 C67/42, m. 27. and he took part in the election of Suffolk’s knights of the shire to the Parliament of the following year, the partisan assembly that attainted the Yorkist leaders, by then in exile. Yet he became a j.p. in Norfolk in November 1460, after York had returned to government and secured recognition as heir to the throne, and he was restored to the bench in Suffolk, from which he had been removed after his arrest in 1447, following the accession of the duke’s eldest son as Edward IV. Edward’s hold on the throne was far from secure in the early months of his reign and it was crucial for him to widen his support. No doubt this consideration, and the need to appear a just ruler, prompted him in February 1462 to commission Chamberlain and others to investigate an unlawful disseisin his father had allegedly committed in Suffolk.

In the following year Chamberlain gave testimony in the controversy over the late Sir John Fastolf’s estates. In a deposition recorded on 6 Apr. 1463 in the presence of the prior of Ixworth, Suffolk, he declared that he had accompanied the duke of Norfolk upon his visit to Fastolf at Caister in September 1459, shortly before the knight’s death. During the visit, the duke had urged Fastolf to sell him the reversion of his manor at Caister, but Sir John had responded by begging Mowbray not to press his case, since he intended to leave his East Anglian lands to his ‘cousin’, John Paston. The deposition was very much in Paston’s favour, since it also emphasized that the duke had acknowledged that Paston was indeed Fastolf’s heir.40 Paston Letters, ii. 543-4. As is shown in a plea roll of the Exchequer recording further legal process between him and the Wydevilles (to whom he still owed money in connexion with the suit they had brought against him two decades earlier), Chamberlain died a little over a year after making his deposition. The roll records that the Wydevilles took out a writ of capias on 2 July 1464, to which in the following October the sheriff of Kent returned that their opponent was dead. Given that the Exchequer directed the writ to that sheriff, it would appear that Chamberlain had ended his days in Kent.41 E13/145A, rot. 56d.

It is likely that Sir Roger had held property in Kent in the right of his wife, even though she was not her father’s heir, and at one stage he possessed holdings at Rye in east Sussex which he appears to have acquired on his own account.42 E. Suss. RO, Rye mss, RYE/137/16-17. Yet the bulk of his lands lay in Suffolk, where he had inherited manors at Stoke Nayland and Naughton, as well as at Gedding.43 W.A. Copinger, Suff. Manors, i. 228; iii. 196; vi. 274. Not long after coming into his own he had exchanged Stoke Nayland for Philip Maunoke’s manor at Thorpe Morieux, perhaps because the latter property was closer to Gedding.44 CCR, 1429-35, pp. 248, 252. Later, in November 1448, Thorpe Morieux had featured in an agreement between him and John Arundell, dean of Windsor. By means of this, Chamberlain and his feoffees (among them Henry, Viscount Bourgchier) had undertaken to pay Arundell an annuity of 40s. from that manor unless or until they provided the dean with lands in Windsor or its vicinity of the same value, but the circumstances giving rise to this arrangement are unknown.45 Canterbury Cath. Archs., Dean and Chapter mss, CCA-DCc-ChAnt/M/310, 312; ChAnt/S/398; ChAnt/T/28-29; C241/236/14. Outside Suffolk, Sir Roger had inherited manors at Epping and Little Wigborough in Essex and Rockland in Norfolk although he did not retain the Wigborough property, which he sold to Richard Buckland*, another servant of the duke of Gloucester, in 1434.46 Feudal Aids, iii. 646; vi. 444; Essex Feet of Fines, iv. 20, 21. He had also sold a couple of tenements in London which he had previously purchased from the duke of York’s servant, Sir William Oldhall*, to William Rous*.47 C1/29/94. Following his death, Chamberlain was buried in the church of Ixworth priory, the religious house for which his son and heir, Sir Robert Chamberlain, obtained substantial papal privileges nearly 20 years later.48 CPL, xiii. 158. The MP’s will has not survived but a suit heard in the court of common pleas in the later 1460s shows that his executors were his widow, Margaret, and Stephen Wymbyssh, a yeoman from Buxhall, Suffolk. They were the defendants in this case, brought by the Mowbray retainer, John Timperley II*, who sought a debt of £20 arising from a bond that Sir Roger had entered into with him at Framlingham, the Mowbrays’ seat in Suffolk, just before Christmas 1455.49 CP40/827, rot. 206d.