CHANDLER, Ralph

Chandler was the subject of a now well-known letter written by John, Viscount Beaumont, constable of England and a leading Lincolnshire magnate, to the mayor and bailiffs of Grimsby. Dated 15 Dec., the year unspecified, it recommends Chandler, the viscount’s ‘right trusty and wellbeloved servaunt’, as a suitable candidate to represent the town in the Parliament which, it was rumoured, was about to be summoned.1 HMC 14th Rep. VIII, 250. Since Chandler was returned to represent the borough in the Parliament summoned on 20 Jan. 1453 it is tempting to date the letter to 1452.2 HP Reg. ed. Wedgwood, p.cxix. However, Beaumont cites as one of his servant’s recommendations as a Grimsby MP that he ‘is like newely to ben maund’ in the town ‘wherfor of reson he shuld rather shewe his diligence in suche as shall be thought spedefull for the wele of [the] town thanne sum other straung persone’. This is undoubtedly a reference to Chandler’s admission to the freedom of the borough, which occurred on 6 Feb. 1449, and firmly dates the letter to 1448. Its subject is thus the Parliament summoned on 2 Jan. 1449 to which the borough returned a servant of the royal household, William Grimsby*, and a local lawyer, Richard Duffield*. Interestingly, the election to this Parliament, held on 16 Jan., was the only documented occasion on which the town’s MPs were chosen not by the majority vote of the burgesses but by a jury of 12. Beaumont’s polite request was rejected by this jury. One can only speculate on its grounds for doing so. It may be that some controversy attached to Chandler’s admission to the burghal ranks. That admission is the only one recorded in the court rolls with a list of those who consented to it. Perhaps his status of the servant of a lord made him a contentious candidate both for the freedom and election to Parliament. On the other hand, his return for the borough in 1453 implies that that opposition, if such it was, had been overcome by then (unless it is argued that, as a servant of Beaumont as a leading courtier, his claims for election to the strongly-Lancastrian Parliament were irresistible). Further, of the jurors who failed to elect him on 16 Jan. 1449, six appeared among the 23 who, three weeks later, consented to his admission as a burgess. If a reason is needed for the rejection of Beaumont’s nomination, it probably lies not in the borough’s desire to defend a tradition of free election but rather a concern to find MPs who would serve cheaply. Indeed, Grimsby and Duffield undertook to represent the borough for a flat payment of only 40s. each, something that Chandler was perhaps unwilling to do.3 N.E. Lincs. Archs., Grimsby bor. recs., 1/101, 27 Hen. VI, 16 Jan., 6 Feb. It is possible that, after Chandler’s admission to the freedom on 6 Feb., the earlier election was set aside in his favour: P.R. Cavill, The English Parls. of Hen. VII, 126n. If, however, Chandler’s election on 16 Jan. had been prevented by the technicality that he was not yet a burgess, it is hard to see why that deficiency had not been supplied between the receipt of Beaumont’s letter and that election.

Very little else is known about Chandler’s career. The letter is the only evidence of his place in Beaumont’s service. He had significant landholdings in the borough, contributing 2s. 6d. to the expenses of the parliamentary burgesses of November 1449 and 3s. 8d. to those of 1459, but it is not known when or how he acquired them.4 Grimsby bor. recs., 1/612/1, 2 (formerly 1/800/1, 2). There is no record of his holding borough office or voting in a borough election, and he appears only infrequently in the town’s records, being fined 4d. in June 1455 for obstructing a sewer and having a plea of debt pending in the borough court in October 1456.5 Grimsby bor. recs., 1/101, 33 Hen. VI, 25 June; 35 Hen. VI, 20 Oct. No reference to has been traced after 1459.