DACRE, George

George may have been one of the younger sons of Thomas, Lord Dacre, but there are some difficulties in accepting this identification. Lord Dacre is known to have had at least six sons. The two eldest, Thomas and John, certainly predeceased him, and two others, Richard and Hugh, a clerk, probably did so. The other two, Ralph and Humphrey, lived to succeed him successively as Lords Dacre.1 CCR, 1435-41, pp. 340-1, 342-3, 449; 1441-7, p. 138; 1454-61, pp. 327-9; PROME, xiv. 93-98; CFR, xix. 231-6; CPL, ix. 58; CP, iv. 18-20. This need not be a comprehensive list of his male issue: yet George is not mentioned in any of the entails of the family estates made between 1439 and 1457; and, more significantly, the last of these is framed in such a way as strongly to suggest that Ralph and Humphrey were then Lord Dacre’s only remaining sons and that none of his other sons had left living male issue.2 CCR, 1454-61, pp. 327-9. On the other hand, not all the known sons are named in the entails, and if George was not Lord Thomas’s son it is difficult to suggest an alternative parentage. It is unlikely, on chronological grounds, that he was the lord’s brother, and if he was his nephew, his father has left no trace on the records.

Younger sons and the sons of younger sons of minor baronial families are rarely well documented (unless the family patrimony fell to them) and George Dacre is no exception. His first certain appearance in the records dates from July 1443 when he was one of the captains who mustered at Portsdown on the ill-starred expedition of John Beaufort, duke of Somerset, with a large retinue of 116 archers.3 E101/54/5, m. 1. A few weeks earlier the duke had been granted the King’s part of the lordship of Kendal in Westmorland but this local connexion hardly explains the recruitment. George’s participation is likely to have been a continuation of earlier military service.4 He is probably to be identified with the ‘George Dakys’ who served in Normandy under Sir Richard Haryngton* in the spring of 1442: Archives Nationales, Paris, K67/12, m. 17. It may also have been prompted by his putative father’s recent difficulties. On the previous 20 May, in the presence of the royal council, Lord Dacre had been obliged to enter into a bond to Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury, and Marmaduke Lumley, bishop of Carlisle, in the large sum of 1,000 marks, promising that he, John, Ralph, Richard and all his ‘other sons’ would abide their award in disputes pending between the Dacres and other local landholders, headed by the bishop himself.5 CCR, 1441-7, p. 138. Our MP was perhaps one of these ‘other sons’ and was then sent off to France in the interests of local order.

No more is known of George until 26 Jan. 1447 when he was elected to Parliament for Westmorland. His qualifications as a candidate are less than obvious: his own landholdings are almost un-documented, and although his family did have lands in that county, their territorial strength lay in Cumberland. However, the hustings were presided over by his putative elder brother, John, who was conducting his first election as the deputy sheriff of the county.6 C219/15/4. For the lands of the Dacres in Westmld.: CFR, xix. 234-5; CCR, 1454-61, pp. 328-9. This alone is enough to explain George’s success at an election that was unusual in another respect. Returned with him was someone else who had scant qualifications as a Westmorland MP, namely Nicholas Girlington*, a successful lawyer from the North Riding of Yorkshire. At this date the leading Westmorland gentry appear to have been reluctant to shoulder the burden of parliamentary representation.

Four years after George’s sole recorded experience as an MP, he had his first and only experience of local administration.7 CFR, xviii. 251. His conduct in office as escheator led to litigation which provides most of the remaining references to him. On 16 Jan. 1452 he allegedly seized livestock worth as much as 22 marks belonging to William Tibbay at Orton, about eight miles south of Appleby. This alleged abuse may have been prompted by a private dispute: Lord Dacre held a moiety of the manor of Orton and the obscure Tibbay was perhaps a tenant. Our MP was also alleged to use his powers as escheator wrongfully to seize six oxen belonging to the influential Thomas Crackenthorpe*.8 E13/145A, rot. 45d; CP40/789, rot. 163; 793, rot. 205d.

Tibbay’s action to secure redress provides one of only two indications of our MP’s place of residence. There he is described as ‘of Appleby, esquire’, where his putative father held a burgage, and yet in a general pardon he sued out on 13 Feb. 1458 he is styled as ‘of Maltby, esquire, alias of Sandbeck’. These neighbouring places lie in the North Riding, and one can only speculate upon how he came to have property there. Part of the manor of Maltby had long been held by the gentry family of Maltby, and perhaps Dacre held land there as the husband of a widow of that family.9 CP40/789, rot. 163; C67/42, m. 29; VCH N. Riding, ii. 293. The date of his death is equally a matter for speculation. He last appears in the records in 1459, and it may be that, like his putative elder brother, Ralph, Lord Dacre, he met his death in the civil war of 1459-61. If he survived that conflict, there is only one other possible reference to him. On 26 Apr. 1467 ‘George Dakers, gentleman’ was named as one of the attestors to the Lincolnshire parliamentary election.10 C219/17/1. The Dacres had held the valuable manor of Holbeach in the south of that county, yet, at this date not only was the head of the family, Humphrey, suffering under the disability of attainder, but this manor had passed to the family’s heir general, Joan, wife of Richard Fiennes, Lord Dacre.