LAMBTON, William

The Lambtons of Lambton in county Durham, not far from the Northumberland border, were an ancient gentry family with a pedigree that could be traced back to the late twelfth century. Our MP’s father was an obscure figure who took little part in the public affairs of either the palatinate or Northumberland, and he himself began to take an independent local role before his father’s death. His early career is difficult to trace. The first mention of him dates from April 1420 when Robert Bellasyse granted his manor of Henknoll (county Durham) to the elder William Lambton and his three sons, Robert, William and Thomas.5 HMC Var. ii. 18. At this date the future MP was a younger son, but Robert, the eldest of the three brothers, died soon after, leaving him as their father’s heir.6 This Robert’s death can be dated no more precisely than between Apr. 1420 and Jan. 1430, but it probably occurred towards the beginning of the 1420s: HMC Var. ii. 18; DURH3/2, f. 259v. By 1423 he had entered the service of Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland: in February of that year he was among a group of feoffees to whom Northumberland granted four Yorkshire manors. Throughout the 1420s he regularly received assignments at the Exchequer on behalf of the earl (who served as warden of the east march between 1417 and 1434).7 CPR, 1422-9, pp. 127; E403/660, m. 3; 663, m. 6; 666, m. 11; 677, m. 15; 683, m. 6;. 688, m. 7. This close connexion explains why, even though he had yet to inherit the family estates, he took a prominent part in local affairs. In December 1426 he was pricked as sheriff of Northumberland; during the following year he was sent to Scotland to negotiate concerning the hostages held for the payment of the ransom of the Scottish king, James I; and in February 1430 he was named as escheator of Northumberland, an unusual position for someone who had already served as sheriff. 8 CFR, xv. 156, 305; PPC, iii. 356-9; E403/683, m. 8; Cal. Scots. Docs. iv. 1013. He is not recorded as acting as escheator, and it may be that his appointment did not take effect. Only at this point did he inherit the family estates. His father, who had been inactive for many years and was probably nearly 80, died on 20 July 1430. According to his inquisition post mortem held in county Durham, he died seised of the manor of Lambton with lands at nearby Picktree (held of the bishop of Durham), Penshaw and Offerton, together valued, no doubt very conservatively, at an annual value of £5 15s. 2d.9 DURH3/2, ff. 259v-60v.

Now head of the family, in December 1430 Lambton was elected as one of the knights of the shire for Northumberland, probably in the interest of the Percy earl, who was eager to ensure the payment of assignments made to him for the defence of the east march. His re-election for the county, together with the election of his son Robert for the Westmorland borough of Appleby, to the next Parliament, which met in May 1432, is to be explained in the same terms. Indeed, it was perhaps in connexion with the earl’s custody of the march that the day before the end of this latter Parliament Lambton was appointed as one of the collectors of customs and subsidies in the port of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The customs promised a ready source for the earl’s assignments.10 C219/14/2, 3; CFR, xvi. 54. He was reappointed during the second session of the Parliament of 1433, in Nov.: CFR, xvi. 171.

Lambton’s promising career was cut short by his untimely death on 4 Mar. 1434. A writ of diem clausit extremum was issued from the Durham chancery on 21 Mar. and the inquisition post mortem held three days later. The jurors found that, aside from the property listed in his father’s inquisition, he also held the manor of Tribley, near Lambton, which he appears to have acquired by purchase. His son and heir, Robert, was said to be aged 28 or more. William was buried in the church of the Carmelite Friars in London, indicating that he had probably died while on business at Westminster.11 DURH3/2, ff. 273v-4v; 37, m. 8. At the same time an inquisition post mortem was held for William’s mother, Alice (who had died at the end of the previous year), which returned that, according to the terms of a deed of 1381 that had settled the manor on our MP’s parents for life, Lambton should descend to our MP’s son and heir. On 26 Sept. Bishop Langley allowed Robert Lambton to succeed to his family’s estates in the palatinate.12 DURH3/2, f. 269v; 37, m. 12d.

The execution of Lambton’s will was placed in the hands of his two eldest sons, Robert and Thomas (d.1473), and over the next few years they were engaged in occasional litigation at Westminster in pursuit of their father’s debtors.13 CP40/703, rot. 411; 707, rots. 286d, 407d. His widow, Elizabeth, outlived him by some six years. She made her will on 27 Aug. 1439, asking to be buried in the church of St. Helen on the Walls in York. York was perhaps the city of her birth, but few clues remain to identify her. She gave £6 for a priest to sing for her late husband’s soul for a year and disposed of her jewels, plate and other household stuff among her four sons and two daughters. She provided for the marriage of her younger daughter, Alice, and for Elizabeth Wales, her grand-daughter. The execution of the will was committed to her son, William (a clerk who ended his career in 1468 as master of Balliol College, Oxford), and Alice, while Robert and Thomas were named as supervisors. Another son, Sir John, made a career among the Knights Hospitallers of Rhodes.14 Test. Ebor. ii. 72; Surtees, ii. 174; Biog. Reg. Univ. Oxf. ed. Emden, 1087-8.