LAWLEY, John

Lawley’s kinship with John Wenlock ensured that he enjoyed a more prominent career than he would otherwise have done. Wenlock, an influential figure from the moment he entered into Queen Margaret’s service in the mid 1440s, was the grandson of Lawley’s maternal uncle, Nicholas Wyvell, and, on Wenlock’s death in 1471, his common-law heir was Lawley’s nephew, Thomas.4 CCR, 1476-85, no. 210. The relationship between the two men was personal as well as familial. By the late 1440s our MP was in Wenlock’s service: on 15 Mar. 1449, while sitting in the Commons for the Wiltshire borough of Downton, he was named as a feoffee in Wenlock’s purchase of the manor of Fenelesgrove (Bedfordshire).5 CPR, 1446-52, p. 228. Indeed, it is likely that Wenlock’s patronage explains his elections for both Downton and, in 1450, another Wiltshire borough, Wootton Basset. But Lawley had other recommendations as an MP. He followed the example of his putative uncle, William, a filacer of the court of King’s bench, in acquiring a legal training. When, in 1437, he was returned for Bridgnorth, which William had also represented, he must have been a very young man, probably studying at an inn of Chancery or court.6 C219/15/1.

At this early stage of Lawley’s career his father, Thomas, was still alive, and it was not until Thomas’s death in 1442 that he begins to make regular appearances in the records.7 In suits of Mich. term 1442 and Hil. term 1443, John and his mother, Agnes, are identified as Thomas’s administrators: CP40/727, rot. 166; 728, rot. 249d. Early references to him are typical of a lawyer at the outset of his career. In 1443, for example, he appeared personally in the court of common plea to sue a tranter and others for assault and theft at High Ercall, not far from Shrewsbury, and in May 1449, described as ‘of London, gentleman’, he stood bail in the court of King’s bench for Walter Hopton, a Shropshire esquire indicted of felony.8 CP40/728, rot. 250; KB27/752, rex rots. 22, 22d, 24d. He was probably resident in London for much of the time. At some date before December 1448 he leased, from the prior and convent of his native Wenlock, two cottages in the parish of St. Mary Axe in Lime Street ward, probably as a temporary home.9 CIMisc. vii. 473. His frequent presence in the capital would explain his willingness to accept election to six successive Parliaments between 1447 and 1455 (although the first of these was held away from Westminster). On 9 Mar. 1456, three days before the end of this last assembly, he sued out writs of parliamentary privilege in favour of two of his servants, both London merchants. They had been arrested to answer pleas of debt sued before the steward of the duchy of Lancaster liberty of Savoy, and the duchy bailiff was ordered to release them.10 C244/80/133.

None the less, although seemingly mainly resident in London, Lawley also played some part in the affairs of his native county, where, like many young lawyers, he served a term as escheator. It may have been as a result of this office that he came into conflict with another local lawyer, Thomas Acton*: at an unknown date between September 1451 and 1452 the authorities of Shrewsbury spent 16d. on wine for the bailiffs and others who had gathered to maintain the peace between the two men.11 Salop Archs., Shrewsbury recs., bailiffs’ accts. 3365/380, m. 1d.

Lawley’s career was transformed by the Yorkist victories of 1460-1. (Sir) John Wenlock had abandoned Lancaster for York in the late 1450s and quickly became an important proponent of his new cause. This explains why our MP benefited from the Yorkist victory at the battle of Northampton on 10 July 1460.12 For examples of Lawley acting for Wenlock in a private capacity in the 1460s: CP25(1)/294/74/19; CCR, 1461-8, p. 186; 1468-76, no. 1199. A few weeks later he was named, for the first time in his native county, to an ad hoc commission of local government, and soon afterwards he was added to the bench there.13 CPR, 1461-7, pp. 608, 676. His own identification with the Yorkists is made clear by his nomination, by a more important Shropshire lawyer, William Lacon I*, as a feoffee in two disputed Buckinghamshire manors: the other feoffees were the duke of York, York’s two sons, and Wenlock.14 CCR, 1454-61, p. 483. In these circumstances, it is not surprising that, through his kinsman’s agency, he should have benefited from royal patronage. In November 1460 Wenlock was appointed chief butler of England and soon after he named our MP as his deputy; and on 1 July 1461, a few months after Edward IV’s accession, Lawley was granted for life the office of the King’s general attorney in North Wales. Two weeks later, the mayor and sheriffs of London were ordered by the Crown to admit him as the city’s coroner, an office appurtenant to that of deputy chief butler; and in March 1462 he shared with Wenlock and William Clerk† the guardianship of the temporal possessions of the Shropshire priory of Much Wenlock in royal hands, albeit briefly, by voidance.15 CCR, 1461-8, p. 9; CPR, 1461-7, p. 123; CFR, xx. 79-80. These rewards, although unspectacular, were handsome enough, and in the following October Lawley was briefly offered yet better when, by royal letters patent, he was appointed as marshal of the Exchequer, with its annual retainer of £5 and casual fees to a greater sum. This office was in the gift of the dukes of Norfolk, and he was to hold the office only during the minority of the present duke, who had been born in 1444. Yet the duke was already active, and he appears to have had the grant set aside in favour of the prior claim of his servant, Richard Southwell*.16 CPR, 1461-7, p. 214. In the previous Feb. the Crown had committed the office to Southwell, who certainly exercised it after the duke came of age: CPR, 1461-7, p. 115; PRO List ‘Exchequer Offs.’, 154.

Lawley could comfort himself that, without the Exchequer responsibilities he had been promised, he had more time to take his part in Shropshire affairs. He remained on the bench there throughout the 1460s, and in 1463 the borough authorities of Shrewsbury paid him and another local lawyer, Thomas Horde*, for attending a tractum between them and Nicholas Fitzherbert*, perhaps in their capacity as local magistrates. He was also active locally as a feoffee and arbiter: in February 1465 he acted as a feoffee in the acquisition by Thomas Acton, with whom he had once been on unfriendly terms, of the manor of Aldenham near Bridgnorth; and in November 1466 he joined Acton in returning an award concerning the ownership of the manor of Steventon near Ludlow.17 Shrewsbury bailiffs’ accts. 3365/388, rot. 1d; Salop Archs., Acton mss, 1093/2/170; KB27/834, rot. 27. More interestingly, he may have played a part in securing a charter of incorporation for his native borough of Much Wenlock, granted in November 1468 on the petition of his patron, Lord Wenlock. He certainly served as the new borough’s first bailiff, and it is likely that he took the parliamentary seat allocated to Much Wenlock in this charter in at least one Parliament (the borough’s MP is known only for the assemblies of 1472 and 1478). However this may be, the apparent end of Lawley’s career in the Commons in 1455 is almost certainly a trick of the records, as Bridgnorth’s MPs are largely unknown between 1460 and the 1480s.

Other evidence shows that in the 1460s, as in the earlier part of his career, Lawley divided his time between Shropshire and London, and one of his visits to the capital led him into difficulties. In Easter term 1464 he claimed £20 in damages against two Londoners, a gentleman, Richard Walwyn, and a fishmonger, Robert Coton, for having, in the previous November, wounded and imprisoned him for three days in the parish of St. Botolph (in the ward of Portsoken). He obtained his release, so he alleged, only by paying his captors 40s. The matter sounds a serious one; but a Year Book report provides a more accurate perspective than the exaggerated formulations of common-law pleadings. On the day before the alleged assault Lawley had been sued by the two Londoners in the court of the Tower of London, and in approaching him they were, in their contention, lawfully acting on a writ of capias awarded against him on this plea.18 CP40/812, rot. 236d; Year Bk. Mich. 4 Edw. IV (Reports del Cases en Ley, 1679), pl. 18, f. 36.

Evidence has not been found to date accurately Lawley’s marriage to a widow from Berkshire, but it is perhaps to be assigned to the 1460s, the most prosperous period of his career. By settlement of her first husband, Isabel had a life interest in the manors of South Moreton and Tidmarsh, valued together at £30 p.a. in her inquisition post mortem.19 C140/61/24. No doubt Lawley’s connexion with Wenlock, whose first wife had property in that county, helped to recommend him as a husband, but a Chancery petition of 1471 suggests that he owed the match largely to his own efforts. Isabel’s kinsman, Alexander Browning*, complained that our MP had ‘gretely instaunsed and moved’ him to labour his suit, promising him £40 if the match should be brought about. Instead, however, Lawley rewarded him by bringing ‘diverse fayned plaints of trespasse and dette’ with the aim of imprisoning him until he surrendered his claim for the money.20 C1/20/137. The petition, addressed to the abp. of York, can be dated from its endorsement, ‘before the King in Chancery Thursday 14 March’. The only possible year is 1471, and since Edw. IV did not land in Eng. until 12 Mar., the petition must have been presented during the Readeption.

Interestingly, during the Readeption, Lawley was removed from the Shropshire bench and reappointed in Berkshire, perhaps because he was now resident on his wife’s estates. Soon after, however, he received a major reverse when Wenlock was killed fighting for Queen Margaret at the battle of Tewkesbury. As a consequence he lost his offices as deputy butler of England and coroner of London, and with Edward IV’s restoration he was removed from the Berkshire bench, not regaining his place until 1475. Nor did the Lawleys benefit from their position as Wenlock’s common-law heirs. Wenlock was not attainted, but, from the Lawleys’ point of view, he might as well have been. The Crown behaved as though he died without heir, and granted most of his lands to the chancellor, Thomas Rotherham, bishop of Lincoln. Accordingly, on 16 May 1477 our MP, described as ‘of Wenlock, gentleman’, and his nephew released to the chancellor and other notables all their right in Wenlock’s lands in Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and London.21 CCR, 1476-85, no. 210; CP40/862, cart. rot. d. Soon after, he incurred a loss of a different sort. On his wife’s death in the following autumn her most valuable property, the manor of South Moreton, valued at £20 in her inquisition post mortem, passed to her first husband’s heir, Robert Lenham.22 CFR, xxxi. 405; C140/61/24. This loss may explain why, in 1478, Lawley was removed from the bench in Berkshire and returned to that of his native shire.

Little can be discovered about the last years of Lawley’s career. In 1480 John Shrewsbury, prior of Wenlock, sued him, in company with the prior of St. James, Dudley, for contempt against the statute of provisors. No details of the potentially interesting case have been found.23 KB27/873, rex rot. 19d; 879, rot. 7d. In March 1483 he acted as an arbiter in a dispute over the manor of Sheriff Ledewich, and in the following December he was appointed to the bench for the last time. He was alive in May 1484, when named to Richard III’s commission of array in Shropshire, but he does not appear thereafter.24 Salop Archs., deeds 4406/5075/33; CPR, 1476-85, p. 401.