KELSY, Robert

Nothing is known of Kelsy’s origins. He first appears in the records on 8 Oct. 1439, when Robert Neville, bishop of Durham, granted him a minor wardship without payment.4 DURH3/42/67. The grant describes him as the bishop’s servant, and it may be that Neville had brought him to Durham on becoming bishop in the previous year. However this may be he soon received a signal mark of episcopal favour. On 21 Sept. 1443 the bishop granted jointly to him and Maud, widow of William Fulthorpe, the manor of North Duffield in the East Riding of Yorkshire, to hold during the minority of John Salvain, free of the payment of any farm. This was a very valuable grant. Six days earlier Sir Thomas Lumley and others had undertaken to pay an annual rent of as much as 100 marks for the manor; and although the quick surrender made by these farmers suggests that this was an exaggerated valuation the property was undoubtedly extensive.5 DURH3/43/23. The grant may have had a further dimension. Shortly afterwards Kelsy and Maud were recorded as man and wife, and it may be that the bishop had brokered the marriage and then made a grant in the couple’s favour. The Fulthorpes were an important family in the palatinate, and William’s uncle, Thomas Fulthorpe (d.1456/7), was a justice in the court of common pleas.6 CP40/737, rot. 62; C.D. Liddy, Bishopric of Durham in the Late Middle Ages, 42; CCR, 1429-35, p. 120. The marriage was thus one well beyond the expectation of Kelsy’s modest birth.

No doubt Kelsy’s election to represent the Westmorland borough of Appleby in the Parliament of 1447 was also an aspect of his service to the bishop, for he, like most of that borough’s MPs, had no interests there.7 C219/15/4. Further responsibilities soon came his way. In November 1448 Neville secured a new grant of liberties from Henry VI, which, among other things, allowed him to name his own j.p.s and justices of gaol delivery in his lordships of Northallerton and Howden. A few months later Kelsy was named to the commissions in both lordships for what was to prove a short-lived innovation.8 DURH3/44/91, 111, 114; Yorks. Arch. Jnl. xlvii. 106-7. His omission from the quorum suggests he did not owe his advancement to a legal training: DURH3/44/91, 111, 114. He was also entrusted with another office: on 12 Jan. 1449 the bishop appointed him clerk of the markets and keeper of the alnage seal within the bishopric for life. This was intended as a source of reward as well as responsibility since he was to pay a modest 13s. 4d. p.a. for the profits of the office.9 DURH3/44/115.

By the late 1440s Kelsy was one of Bishop Neville’s most intimate servants. This explains why, on 6 Oct. 1450, the bishop was prepared to allow him a long lease of one of his principal properties, the manor of Crayke in the North Riding of Yorkshire; he was to hold it for the term of 40 years at an annual payment of £10 to the bishop together with a further £14 5s. p.a. to the bishop’s steward and parkers there. The extensive building that Neville was undertaking at Crayke – he was responsible for the still-surviving solar tower there – makes this lease an indication of special favour.10 DURH3/44/108; A. Emery, Greater Med. Houses, i. 327-9. Very soon after Kelsy added a royal lease to his developing property interests: on the following 27 Jan. he shared with a much more important Neville servant, Sir James Strangeways*, a grant of the manor of Laverton in Kirkby Malzeard (West Riding) for a term of ten years at a farm to be agreed with the Exchequer.11 CFR, xviii. 188.

By this date Kelsy was probably acting as steward of the bishop’s household. No record of his appointment survives: it is known only that his last account as steward terminated on 12 May 1455. This showed a debt of over £487 to various creditors both for provisions and loans raised by Kelsy on the bishop’s behalf, and on the following 27 Sept. Neville gave him power to raise this sum from the lands of the bishopric.12 DURH3/45/5. Shortly before surrendering the stewardship Kelsy had belatedly begun what was to be a very short career in the local administration of the Crown. In 1454-5 he acted as escheator in Northumberland, a county in which he is not known to have held land; and while in office he was commissioned to inquire into the lands of the earl of Northumberland, killed at the first battle of St. Albans. He duly sat as commissioner at Newcastle-upon-Tyne on the following 29 Oct., taking responsibility for delivering the inquisition into Chancery (probably at the time he came into the Exchequer to render account as escheator).13 CPR, 1452-61, p. 299; C139/160/37.

This, however, is Kelsy’s last appearance in an active role, and there is some indirect evidence to suggest that he died soon afterwards. Three times in 1455 he had offered mainprise when the Darcy lands were committed to the keeping to William Claxton of Old Park (Durham); when, on 1 Mar. 1456, this grant was renewed his place as surety was taken by William Kelsy, who, it may be inferred, was his son.14 CFR, xix. 120, 129, 134, 150-1. William preserved the family’s connexion with the Nevilles of Middleham, entering the service of Richard Neville, earl of Warwick. As such, he was elected to represent Poole in the Parliament of 1467. Another Kelsy, Richard, a clerk, was a servant of the earl’s brother, George, archbishop of York, and he too may have been our MP’s son.15 M. Hicks, Warwick, 251-3; C1/59/104.