HUNGERFORD, Sir Edmund

Edmund was born in the early years of the century, a younger son of Sir Walter Hungerford, a man whose stature grew as the house of Lancaster established itself, successfully emerging as a soldier, diplomat and councillor of outstanding qualities on whom the monarch depended. Sir Walter served Henry V as war-captain, ambassador and eventual executor, and the House of Commons as its Speaker in 1414.9 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 446-53. By means of his own marriages and those he negotiated for his children he accumulated substantial and widespread estates for himself and his family, although the match he arranged for young Edmund, in 1416, was not to prove quite so advantageous as it initially appeared. With the aid of personal letters from Henry V and thanks to the King’s mediation, Sir Walter was able to seal a bargain with Hugh, Lord Burnell, for the marriage of his grand-daughter Margery, the six-year-old daughter and coheiress of Sir Edward Burnell who had died at Agincourt, and an heiress-apparent of Lord Hugh himself. It cost him as much as £1,000 to purchase her espousal to his son and agree to the settlements made in July 1416 whereby it was arranged that after Lord Hugh’s death the Hungerfords would take possession of 11 of his manors, spread across the counties of Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire in the west, and in Oxfordshire, Surrey and Essex further east. In addition, the young couple were promised four more manors in Essex, subject to the life-interest of Margery’s stepmother. These estates should have provided them with an income of at least £157 p.a. (according to valuations provided at Lord Hugh’s inquisitions post mortem four years later). In November 1416 Sir Walter formally secured Margery’s marriage and wardship from the King,10 CPR, 1416-22, p. 49; CIPM, xxi. 653-68; Ancestor, viii. 172-83. and amicable relations between monarch and knight enabled him to obtain in May 1421 ‘of special grace and contemplation of the person of the said Walter’ a royal pardon for any trespasses committed in transactions relating to the marriage settlement.11 CPR, 1416-22, p. 362; CCR, 1419-22, pp. 150-1, 156. Edmund, who on occasion styled himself ‘Lord de Burnell’, successfully took possession of the Burnell estate at Compton Dando, Somerset, and certain lands in Wiltshire, some of which he held jointly with his father. He may also for a while have been seised of the manors in Norfolk previously held by Margery’s father, and Sir Walter took control of Little Rissington in Gloucestershire, as stipulated in the marriage contracts.12 SC2/208/31; SC6/970/7; Feudal Aids, iv. 379; v. 321; VCH Glos. vi. 108. But the awkward fact gradually emerged that Lord Burnell’s settlements were null and void: he appears to have perpetrated a fraud, for it was discovered that he had not been free to dispose of the bulk of his landed holdings, whose descent was governed by entails. The estates accumulated by Bishop Burnell of Bath and Wells in the early fourteenth century had fallen to his great-niece Maud, who left them to the issue of her second marriage to John de Haudlo (whose son took the name Burnell); but when the male line failed in 1420 they should have reverted to the issue of Maud’s first husband, John, Lord Lovell (d.1314). Accordingly, when her great-great grandson William, Lord Lovell, came of age he challenged the title of our MP and his wife. There are some signs of a compromise between the parties. It would appear from the institutions made to the living at Great Cheverell, Wiltshire, that this manor was allotted to the Hungerfords, and Suckley in Worcestershire was also in their possession at a later date. Furthermore, the findings of inquisitions post mortem following the deaths of Hungerford and his widow show that Lovell formally relinquished to them and their issue the manors of East Ham, West Ham, ‘Hellehous’ and Stansted Mountfichet, Essex, and Great Rollright in Oxfordshire. Even so, given their estimated value of just £43 6s. 8d. p.a., these estates by no means matched the Hungerfords’ early expectations. The accommodation with Lovell was probably made in 1440, for in November that year Lord William acknowledged receipt from our MP and his father of £53 6s. 8d., in full payment of the sum due to be paid by them for two parts of the manor of Great Cheverell and the advowson of Sutton Veney, in accordance with an arbitration award made by Archbishop Kemp, the bishop of Norwich, and the judges Sir John Juyn and John Cottesmore.13 CP, ii. 434-6; viii. 217-22; CP40/715, rots. 105-12, 116, 128; 716, rot. 117; HMC Hastings, i. 236. The marriage lasted for Edmund’s lifetime.14 He and Margery obtained a papal indult of plenary indulgence in 1441: CPL, ix. 236.

In addition to what our MP managed to acquire by marriage, he held in tail-male two manors in Wiltshire and that of Down Ampney in Gloucestershire, worth about £30 p.a., which his father settled on him and his wife.15 Ancestor, viii. 179-83; C141/6/25; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 137; iii. 620-1; VCH Essex, vi. 11. This was less than had been originally set aside as his share of the family estates. In the spring of 1423 Sir Walter had been planning to settle on Edmund in tail-male four other manors and three hundreds in Wiltshire, but he changed his mind a few months later, perhaps when realization dawned that his financial outlay for the Burnell marriage would not reap the dividends expected.16 CPR, 1422-9, pp. 111-12, 269. Nevertheless, a later plan, made in 1444, for our MP and his male issue to have some Hungerford property and land in Staunton by Highworth did reach fruition.17 CPR, 1441-6, p. 230; Hungerford Cart. ii (Wilts. Rec. Soc. lx), 1264, 1266.

Sir Walter’s status after Henry V’s death, as the late King’s executor and now a respected member of the Council of Regency, was marked by his elevation as Baron Hungerford early in 1426. This enabled him to find Edmund a prominent place in the household of the young Henry VI. Following his knighting by Henry at Leicester that spring Sir Edmund became one of just three knights holding the privileged positions of ‘henchmen’ to the King, and for many years thereafter he was to belong to a small and highly-select group of knights of the royal chamber. In the late 1420s numbering just five (the others being Sir Robert Roos, Sir William Beauchamp*, Sir Thomas Beauchamp* and Sir John Beauchamp),18 E361/6, rots. 17, 18d; E101/408/9. in subsequent decades this group was reduced to only three or four, among whom Sir Edward maintained a constant presence.19 E101/408/23-25; 409/8, 9, 11, 16; 410/1, 3, 6, 9. On 6 Feb. 1430 he and three other knights were each given annuities of 40 marks for their daily attendance on the newly-crowned King, as his carvers.20 E404/46/182. Naturally, they were expected to accompany Henry to France for his coronation there, joining the army led by the King’s tutor, Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, and a few days later Hungerford contracted to take with him a personal retinue of 11 men-at-arms and 36 archers. They sailed for Calais in April.21 E404/46/242; E403/693, m. 14; 695, m. 4A; R.A. Griffiths, Hen. VI, 57. Probably while they were in Normandy, he and Sir John Beauchamp received by royal grant lands at Saint Sauveur.22 Add. Ch. 483. Hungerford may have constantly remained abroad at the King’s side until Henry returned home in 1432, although occasional visits to England may be implied by the inclusion of his name among the witnesses to the foundation charter for the family chantry at Farleigh Hungerford in August 1430, and his receipt in the following February of an Exchequer lease of the manor of Sutton by Chiswick, Middlesex. His father Lord Hungerford authorized the latter, as treasurer of England.23 Hungerford Cart. ii. 1274; CFR, xvi. 25. The lease was held only for six years instead of the 20 originally offered: CPR, 1441-6, p. 139. When the four royal carvers finally came home with the King, their annuities were increased to £40 each, on the advice of the Council, of which Sir Edmund’s father remained a member, even though he was replaced as treasurer.24 PPC, iv. 128; CPR, 1429-36, p. 267.

In the spring of 1434 Sir Edmund was listed second to his eldest brother Sir Robert Hungerford among the gentry of Wiltshire required to take the generally-administered oath not to maintain those who broke the peace.25 CPR, 1429-36, p. 370. As yet he had taken no part in the administration of the county; nor had he engaged in any dealings with the local gentry worthy of notice. Perhaps for these reasons his election at Wilton as a knight of the shire in the Parliament of 1435 may have been contested. An unprecedentedly large number of 75 attestors put their names to the indenture sealed on 6 Sept. (whereas in normal circumstances those doing so rarely exceeded 30).26 C219/14/5. Undoubtedly he owed his election to the standing of his father, whose influence over the representation of the county may be traced back to before 1415. Indeed, only one of the 18 seats in the nine previous Parliaments of the reign had not been filled by a friend or close associate of Lord Walter. It may therefore be the case that controversy at the election of 1435 (if such there was) was focused on Sir Edmund’s fellow shire-knight, John Seymour I*, who contrary to the established practice was not one of the Hungerford circle. Another factor was the absence of Lord Hungerford himself, currently travelling home from the Council of Arras, where negotiations for peace had broken down. By the time the Parliament met on 10 Oct. the Council was fully aware of the crisis facing English rule across the Channel, caused by the duke of Burgundy’s defection and the death of the Regent, the duke of Bedford. It needed support in the Commons to raise funds for a military challenge to Burgundy, and such support would have been readily provided by Lord Hungerford’s son. While the Commons were in session in November the MP was appointed sheriff of Wiltshire. His standing in the locality was further enhanced in July 1437 with the office of keeper of the two royal parks at Corsham and custodian of the lordship there, to hold for ten years from the death of Queen Joan. However, as this fell contrary to a grant of the reversion made by Henry V for the foundation of a religious house at Isleworth, Hungerford’s grant was revoked the following year with regard to the first fruits of Corsham.27 CPR, 1436-41, pp. 72, 186; CFR, xvi. 339-40; E159/215, brevia Mich. rot. 34d; E364/72, m. Id. Nevertheless, he made Corsham his principal home when he was not staying in Gloucestershire at Down Ampney. His interests were extended into Devon in 1438, when, along with his brother-in-law (Sir) Philip Courtenay*, he took on the farm of Dartmoor forest, the castle and borough of Lydford and the manor of Southteign from the duchy of Cornwall.28 SC6/816/4, m. 2.

The 1440s were a decade of plenty for Sir Edmund, who enjoyed a close relationship with the King and a place in his inner counsels. Indeed, certain household men, Sir Edmund among them, might be seen to have exerted a disproportionate influence over Henry VI’s governmental decisions.29 J. Watts, Hen. VI and the Politics of Kingship, 142; E28/66/2; PPC, v. 182. He was on intimate terms with the King’s secretary, Master Thomas Bekynton, who, writing to the MP on 12 June 1442, asked him to convey his respects to the King, then at Great Bedwyn, and reported that he had just met Sir Edmund’s father at Devizes: Lord Hungerford was in good health and sent his blessing, as well as a message that he and the bishop of Salisbury had visited Sir Edmund’s wife at Down Ampney a few days earlier, where they had made free with his wine cellars.30 Letters Margaret of Anjou (Cam. Soc. lxxxvi), 73, 80; Corresp. Bekynton ed. Williams, ii. 178. In the previous November Lord Hungerford, who had been chamberlain of the duchy of Lancaster since 1425 and now felt ‘senior iam confractus’ relinquished the post so that the King might grant it to Sir Edmund for life; and two years later the latter was made steward of the southern parts of the duchy on similar terms. Accordingly, he was among the distinguished group of feoffees to whom the King granted estates of the duchy by charters from 1443 onwards (confirmed in the Parliament of 1445),31 DL37/9/5, rot. 1; 14/3; PROME, xi. 404-10. and Henry called upon him to assist in the formalities for his college foundation at Cambridge.32 King’s Coll. Cambridge, GBR/0272/KCAR/6/2; SJP 111, 116; CPR, 1441-6, p. 279. On three occasions Hungerford was nominated to join the distinguished Order of the Garter, to which his father belonged, albeit without success (probably because he lacked a record of outstanding military service).33 Reg. Order of the Garter ed. Anstis, ii. 127, 141, 150. The King generously made him grants of wine in the port of Bristol, and gave him the wardship of young Thomas Saint Maur, free of payment. Together with other household men he reaped the rewards of proximity to the royal person: jointly with John St. Loe*, an esquire for the King’s body, he obtained custody of the Dorset lordship of Gillingham for ten years; he shared with Sir Richard Vernon* the wardship and marriage of Richard Longville; and together with another esquire for the body, John Hampton II*, he received over £100 forfeited to the Crown, as well as the keeping of lands held by Sir Richard Lacon*’s stepson John Grendon, purportedly an idiot.34 CPR, 1441-6, pp. 20, 23, 27, 153, 168, 326, 408-9, 452; CFR, xvii. 210; The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 624-5; E159/223, brevia Hil. rot. 2d. Hungerford married the Seymour heir to his da. Philippa: R.C. Hoare, Modern Wilts. (Westbury), 5. He and Hampton were paid £100 by Sir Richard’s illegitimate son William Lacon I* to relinquish their claim to the Grendon lands: CCR, 1441-7, pp. 435-7. Hungerford’s control over duchy of Cornwall property was strengthened in August 1446 when he and Sir Philip Courtenay were granted Dartmoor forest and other estates in Devon for life, paying at the Exchequer the rent they had rendered previously, this being subsequently fixed at 100 marks a year.35 SC6/816/4, m. 2; CPR, 1441-6, p. 456; 1446-52, p. 23. Two months later a grant to Hungerford alone gave him the wardship and marriage of the Wiltshire heir John Thorpe.36 CPR, 1446-52, p. 2; E159/223, brevia Easter rot. 8d; 227, brevia Hil. rot. 18.

Hungerford attested the election indentures for Wiltshire to the Bury St. Edmunds Parliament of February-March 1447, when two of his colleagues at Court, Sir William Beauchamp and John St. Loe, were returned. It was intended that the Parliament would impeach the King’s uncle the duke of Gloucester, and the duke’s death while under arrest at Bury opened up further opportunities for members of the Household, with the distribution of his lands and offices. There seems to have been no personal animosity between Gloucester and Hungerford, who was confirmed in the various posts in Wiltshire he already held by the duke’s grant. Further, while the Parliament was in progress on 24 Feb. he was granted in tail-male the lordship of Hampstead Marshall, Berkshire, for a farm of 20 marks a year,37 E159/229, brevia Trin. m. 2. No enrolment of letters patent has been found. and at the end of March he was assigned for life all the lands and goods forfeited by one of Gloucester’s retainers, Robert Cappes, who had fled abroad through fear of arrest on suspicion of treason.38 CPR, 1446-52, p. 44. Other less well documented gifts also came his way. Henry VI had a propensity for granting the same benefits to more than one recipient. Thomas Daniel* informed the King in February that the grant to him of a certain fine owed by the founder of a chantry was valueless because Henry had already handed it to Hungerford; he was compensated with a payment of £100.39 E404/63/22; Watts, 154. Later in the year, in July, Sir Edmund successfully petitioned for the manor, park and hundred of Mere, Wiltshire, which Lord Hungerford held for life by grant of Henry V, to be awarded to the two of them in survivorship.40 SC8/248/12361; CPR, 1446-52, p. 79; E159/235, brevia Hil. rot. 2d. The pickings went to those with the earliest information and most ready access to the monarch. A month later our MP and Gilbert Parr, an esquire for the body, learning that the duke of Exeter was ‘eithre dede or in point to dye’ hastily petitioned King Henry to have Exeter’s farm of the castle and lordship of Berkhampstead. The King signed the petition without knowing whether the duke was yet alive, and Hungerford and Parr got their patent sealed just two days after the duke’s death.41 C81/1370/50; CPR, 1446-52, p. 84; B.P. Wolffe, R. Demesne in English Hist. 104-5. He and Parr kept the farm of Berkhampstead until after 1454 (SC6/816/4, m. 5), even though in June 1453 it was realized that the reversion of Berkhampstead should have passed in 1447 to Queen Margaret in accordance with an Act at the Bury Parliament. Hungerford and Parr were accordingly excused all debts due and exonerated from Exchequer processes: E159/229, brevia Trin. m. 14. In February 1448 our MP shared the confiscated goods of a traitor with Sir Edmund Hull*, a carver in the queen’s entourage.42 CPR, 1446-52, p. 130.

Besides grants of land, wardships, goods and money, those in the King’s favour were also given lucrative offices, such as those Hungerford enjoyed in the administration of the duchy of Lancaster. His posts as constable of Devizes castle and surveyor of the park there and of the forests of Melksham, Pewsham and Chippenham, given him by the duke of Gloucester, were confirmed to him when the premises reverted to the Crown after Gloucester’s death; and Queen Margaret also made him steward of Marlborough and Devizes.43 CPR, 1441-6, p. 168; SC6/1055/16-19. Nor was his sphere of influence restricted to Wiltshire: from August 1449 he shared offices in Wales for the duration of the minority of Lord Abergavenny’s heir,44 CPR, 1446-52, pp. 274-5. and a few months earlier he had been appointed controller of the gold, silver, copper and lead mines throughout the realm (with the exception of those in Devon and Cornwall), which had been granted to the King’s chief minister William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, and John Lematon*.45 CPR, 1446-52, p. 213. Members of Suffolk’s circle, such as John Norris*, clearly regarded him as a trustworthy friend,46 CP25(1)/13/85/4, 6, 20, 21; 87/7; E326/5620; CCR, 1441-7, p. 496; 1447-54, p. 140; CPR, 1446-52, pp. 261, 277-8. and Hungerford’s own links with the duke played their part in helping him preserve his prominent position at Court. In the previous year he had become one of a group of feoffees to whom certain estates acquired by Suffolk and his duchess Alice were to remain after their deaths.47 CP25(1)/293/71/329; CCR, 1447-54, pp. 38-39, 211-14. He did not relinquish his fiduciary interest until after the duchess’s death in 1476: CAD, v. A10956-7.

The affairs of Sir Edmund’s own family remained of central importance to him, and he was always ready to lend support to his father,48 CCR, 1429-35, pp. 132-3, 223. and to their friends and neighbours, such as the Paulets.49 C66/440, rot. 9d; C139/88/49; CCR, 1435-41, p. 250; CP40/716, rot. 104. When his father and eldest brother Sir Robert obtained custody of the estates of the late Margery, Lady Moleyns, during the minority of her grand-daughter Eleanor in 1439, he had stood surety on their behalf, thereby helping to secure the heiress’s marriage for his nephew Robert,50 CFR, xvii. 91. and in the summer of 1449 when Lord Hungerford was facing death, he called upon our MP to act with his heir Sir Robert and the latter’s son Lord Moleyns as his executors. Sir Edmund received by his father’s bequest a treasured gold cup with a cover decorated with a sapphire.51 CPR, 1446-52, p. 268; Lambeth Pal. Lib., Reg. Stafford, f. 117; The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 452; J.S. Roskell, ‘Three Wilts. Speakers’, Wilts. Arch. Mag. lvi. 340-1.

While tackling the formidable task of executing his father’s will, Sir Edmund was confronted from the beginning of the 1450s with a series of crises, which first beset the government and the Court, and then inflicted his family. Initially, he kept his head above water even after the duke of Suffolk had been sent into exile and then murdered in the spring of 1450. At that time he was at Leicester where the Parliament of 1449-50 assembled for its third session on 29 Apr., and where he was singled out with eight other individuals as the King’s principal counsellors. They, headed by Viscount Beaumont and including Lords Cromwell, Sudeley, Saye, Stourton*, Beauchamp of Powick and St. Amand (the last two Hungerford’s former colleagues as knights of the chamber), as well as (Sir) Thomas Stanley II*, were granted exemption from the Act of Resumption passed during the session with regard to royal grants made to them as a group, individually or jointly with anyone else. Two other exemptions were more specific to Hungerford, ensuring that nothing he held by the King’s gift would be taken away; nor was the Act to be detrimental to him and Courtenay regarding their lease of the duchy of Cornwall estates. In effect, he was allowed to keep benefits worth £140 p.a.52 PROME, xii. 121, 132; Watts, 283; E163/8/14. Sir Edmund’s potential influence over the King during this summer of crisis and widespread rebellion excited concern. In the next Parliament, which met at Westminster on 6 Nov., the Commons demanded that certain persons, among them Sir Edmund, be removed from the royal presence, as having been ‘behaving improperly around your royal person’, so that the King’s possessions had been ‘diminished, laws not executed [and] peace not observed’; they should be required to keep to a distance of 12 miles from the King with effect from 1 Dec. Yet Henry regarded Hungerford as indispensible: in agreeing to the demand he stipulated that anyone who waited continually on him should remain at his side.53 PROME, xii. 184-6.

The Parliament passed another Act of Resumption, but it was not too long before Hungerford recovered from its effects and received fresh royal grants. Thus, in July 1451 he and one of his retainers, George Howton*, were given an Exchequer lease of the manor of Marston Meysey, Wiltshire, for 20 years, and he retained custody of the castle and lordships of Mere, Corsham and Hampstead Marshall, albeit on less advantageous terms than previously. More unsatisfactorily, in October he and Courtenay were evicted by the sheriff of Devon from the duchy of Cornwall estates in that county, and held to account for sums due.54 CFR, xviii. 208-9; Wolffe, 254, 279, 286; CPR, 1452-61, pp. 37-38; SC6/816/4, m. 5. He and Courtenay were pardoned all sums due from them, and protected from Exchequer processes on 3 Feb. 1453: E159/230, brevia Easter rot. 13d. Even so, he secured a fresh grant of the Thorpe wardship in June 1452,55 CPR, 1446-52, p. 554; CCR, 1454-61, p. 487. Thorpe proved his age in Feb. 1454: C139/155/45. and in May 1453 he was pardoned any sums due from Hampstead Marshall on the basis of his expenditure on repairs to the property and enclosure of the park, as well as the loss of revenues caused by the insurrections.56 E159/229, brevia Trin. rot. 2.

Yet this proved to be a period of calm before the storm. In the fateful summer of 1453 the Hungerfords were hit by a crisis of their own when Robert, Lord Moleyns, was captured at the battle of Castillon, and held to a very substantial ransom; Sir Edmund was drawn into the Herculean efforts needed to raise it. His father Lord Walter had purchased from the mother of Richard Quatermayns* the manor of Corton at Hilmarton in Wiltshire, which he left to our MP when he died in 1449. Now, the latter sold it back to Quatermayns for 460 marks to put in the ransom fund.57 Magdalen Coll. Oxf., Corton mss, 5, 13, 17, 23, 60. The transaction was not completed until 1463. He passed the sum raised from the sale to Lord Moleyns’s mother, who in return mortgaged to him part of her own inheritance, the manor of ‘Lokynton’ at Kilmersdon in Som. At the same time the secure rock of his privileged position at Court cracked under the stress of the King’s mental collapse. Yet even when the Household was reduced in size by the council ordinances of November 1454, he clung on to his role as a carver, as one of just two knights so designated.58 PPC, vi. 220-33. It therefore seems likely that he was at the King’s side at the first battle of St. Albans in May 1455, and nothing was done by the victorious Yorkists to remove him from his place. In the Parliament which followed their victory he was accorded exemption from the Act of Resumption with regard to his constableship of Devizes and custody of the park and forests there, which he had been promised for life, and he received a pardon, on 8 Nov., as the King’s steward and carver. In December he was called upon to render military aid to the duke of York, Protector for a second term, as his forces moved into Devon to quell the serious disturbances there.59 PROME, xii. 423; C67/41, m. 15; PPC, vi. 270. A year later, as the political pendulum swung again, his various Exchequer leases were all renewed, albeit at increased farms,60 CFR, xix. 177-8. and the continued favour of the King and the Lancastrian government in the later 1450s was demonstrated by the grant in February 1457 of an exemplification of letters patent regarding his posts at Devizes, on the grounds that the originals had been lost, while at the same time, as reward for his good service, he was assigned the lordship of Corsham for life, paying 116 marks p.a.61 CPR, 1452-61, pp. 336, 350. Hungerford was called upon to be sheriff of Gloucestershire later that year, and in May 1459 he and Howton secured a renewal of their lease of Marston Meysey for a further 18 years.62 CFR, xix. 240. Yet there are signs that as the balance of power shifted to the queen and her immediate circle, Sir Edmund was left in the side-lines. Significantly, he was excluded from the body of feoffees of the duchy of Lancaster estates when it was re-constituted in the Parliament at Coventry that November.63 PROME, xii. 468-77.

A few months earlier, in May 1459, Sir Edmund’s brother Robert, 2nd Lord Hungerford, had died. In his will he had left Sir Edmund a pair of silver gilt ‘flascons’, inscribed with his arms, but did not name him among his executors. This must have been a relief, but even so, as a trustee of the family estates he was duty-bound to assist his widowed sister-in-law, Lady Margaret Hungerford, confronted with the enormous task of satisfying creditors and repaying the large loans taken out to pay the ransom of her son Lord Moleyns (now 3rd Lord Hungerford). The feoffees made a landed settlement in October 1460 on Moleyns’s son and heir-apparent Thomas Hungerford* on his marriage to Anne Percy, and arranged for other estates to be held by Moleyns for life, with remainder to the young couple. But within a matter of months the family fortunes suffered a further blow. Moleyns, continuing the Hungerfords’ commitment to the house of Lancaster, which stretched back over 100 years, fought for his King at Towton, and accordingly suffered attainder in Edward IV’s first Parliament in 1461. In March 1463 the King allowed that Lady Hungerford might freely enjoy all the lands she held in dower or otherwise, and that the feoffees might keep their estate according to Lord Robert’s will and demise land to the yearly value of £200. But after Lord Moleyns’s execution in 1464, Thomas and Anne found themselves in sore need of the help of his great-uncle Sir Edmund and the other feoffees in their desperate efforts to keep the estates settled on them in jointure.64 PCC 17 Stokton (PROB11/4, ff. 131v-133), printed in Som. Med. Wills (Som. Rec. Soc. xvi), 186-93; CCR, 1454-61, p. 439; CIMisc. viii. 327-8, 332; CPR, 1461-7, pp. 283-4; HMC Hastings, i. 253-4; M.A. Hicks, Ric. III and his Rivals, 167-73.

Meanwhile, Sir Edmund had been forced to tread a careful line as the King he served for 31 years lost his wits and his throne. There is no evidence that he himself fought in any of the battles of the civil war of 1459-61, but it was inevitable that he would lose all his principal offices when the Yorkists took control of the government. It is therefore surprising that in May 1461 he and Howton were able to renew their lease of Marston Meysey for 20 years,65 CFR, xx. 20. and that in the 1460s he remained on the Wiltshire bench, was appointed to ad hoc commissions (including those of gaol delivery), and served as sheriff of Gloucestershire again in 1464-5. Somehow he had managed to avoid being tarred with his nephew’s brush.66 Although the avalanche of suits brought against him in the Exchequer in 1466 for failures in his duties as sheriff show that he no longer enjoyed royal protection there: E13/152, mm. 6, 25, 31d, 48d, 49, 56d, 61d, 65. What is more, he even escaped the consequences of the treasonous behaviour of his great-nephew (Sir) Thomas Hungerford, the heir to the forfeited peerage title, in 1468. At a time of rumours of plots to restore Henry VI to the throne, Sir Edmund hastened to take out a royal pardon on 29 Sept. that year, although he remained in danger. A letter sent from London on 9 Dec. to Sir William Plumpton*, reporting that the earl of Oxford had been committed to the Tower and had confessed to treason, and that (Sir) Thomas Tresham* had been incarcerated too, also sent news that ‘there is arest Mr. Hungerford the heir unto Lord Hungerford and one Courtney, heir unto the earl of Devonshire ... and it is said that Sir Edmund Hungerford is send for’.67 C67/46, m. 18; Plumpton Letters (Cam. Soc. 5th ser. viii), no. 16. Employing diplomatic skills honed by years at the royal court, Sir Edmund proved able to convince the King of his loyalty, but he could not protect his great-nephew: Sir Thomas was tried and executed at Salisbury a month later. The allegiance of other members of the family came under official scrutiny in the spring of 1470 after the duke of Clarence and earl of Warwick rebelled against the King: among their followers whose estates were to be forfeited that April were two of Sir Edmund’s sons, Edward and Edmund Hungerford. In these circumstances, it is significant that Sir Edmund himself was appointed to a commission of inquiry in Gloucestershire in October 1470 after Clarence and Warwick had seized power and restored Henry VI to the throne.68 CPR, 1467-77, pp. 218, 247; PSO1/34/1782B, 1783. That same month of October, he obtained a licence from the restored King to join John Forster† of Bristol in a trading venture to Iceland.69 DKR, xlviii. 448. Perhaps this was one of the measures the Hungerfords needed to adopt to try to recoup their fortunes by any means possible. During the Readeption, on 26 Jan. 1471 Sir Edmund’s son Edward obtained the farm of Corsham for seven years, and four days later he himself sued out a pardon from the King he had served so long.70 CFR, xx. 293; C67/44, m. 3.

Seeking to protect their interests in a precarious political climate, in November 1469 Hungerford and his wife had placed estates in Wiltshire and Somerset in the hands of feoffees;71 CP25(1)/294/74/72. and he sold certain manors in Dorset and Wiltshire which his father had acquired by purchase.72 CCR, 1468-76, nos. 647-8. At an unknown date Sir Edmund played a part in arranging the marriage of his son Edmund to the earl of Shrewsbury’s daughter, Joan, widow of James, Lord Berkeley,73 CP, ii. 132-3. and he also applied his mind to the welfare of the souls of his late father and brother by, in the spring of 1472, witnessing the foundation of the almshouse at Heytesbury in accordance with their wishes, and attending the ceremony in the chapter house of Salisbury cathedral for the blessing of the Hungerford chantry there.74 Hungerford Cart. ii. 1426-8, 1435-6. His sister-in-law Lady Margaret, who had been the driving force behind the fulfilment of both Lords’ wills, made her own last testament in August 1476. Although she did not ask Sir Edmund to be an executor or supervisor, she did stipulate that he and his male issue should inherit the Hungerford estates at Heytesbury and other specified places should the direct male line of the Lords Hungerford (now represented by her grandsons Walter† and Leonard) fail.75 Hoare, Modern Wilts. (Heytesbury), 95-102.

The elderly Sir Edmund died on 26 Mar. 1484, leaving as his heir his eldest son Thomas.76 C141/6/25. His similarly aged widow made her will on 2 Mar. 1486, asking to be buried next to him in the church at Down Ampney; a missal left her by Sir Edmund was bequeathed to the newly-built chapel of the Holy Trinity there, along with chapel ornaments and service books. Thomas was to have the contents of the house at Down Ampney, although it was a younger son, Edward, who became Margery’s executor.77 PCC 27 Logge (PROB11/7, f. 207v); CIPM Hen. VII, i. 137; iii. 620-1. Thomas was later knighted, but for unknown reasons he did not receive royal licence to enter his inheritance until December 1493.78 CPR, 1485-94, p. 465.