ESSEX, William

Sixty years after William Essex’s death, the antiquary John Leland, who referred to him as ‘a politike felaw and in favor of the King’, believed that he had come from a family ‘long since knights of fame in Essex’, whose ‘glorie’ had been ‘almost extincted’ until the MP recovered its fortunes.8 J. Leland, Itin. ed. Toulmin Smith, ii. 16. Yet Leland was almost certainly mistaken in thinking that William was a native of Essex. At one point he was described as ‘formerly of Coventry in Warwickshire’, and a petition in Chancery referred to his arbitration of a Warwickshire dispute ‘about the 16th year of Henry VI’ (1437-8), so it appears that his origins are to be found in that Midland town.9 C67/41, m. 23; C1/29/457. He was probably related to John Essex, who served as mayor of Coventry in 1440,10 Reg. Guild Holy Trin. Coventry (Dugdale Soc. xiii), 48; Recs. Guild Holy Trin. (ibid. xix), 163. and it may not have been coincidental that when, in 1444, Coventry made a loan of £100 to the Crown, the then mayor, Richard Braytoft*, turned first to William Essex at the Exchequer to ‘gett the next assignment’ that might be secured to guarantee prompt repayment.11 Coventry Leet Bk. ed. Harris, i. 214. There are indications that Essex maintained his Warwickshire connexions. It is significant that he sought and obtained for his son and heir the marriage of an heiress from neighbouring Leicestershire, that he was an executor for a Warwickshire man, and that from 1458 (by grant of the Mowbray dukes of Norfolk), he held a life-tenancy of the manor of Alspath in the county.12 L.E. Moye, ‘Estates and Finances of the Mowbray Fam.’ (Duke Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1985), 442; C140/5/46, m. 25.

Once having left Coventry, Essex made his career at the Exchequer and henceforth his activities were always focused on Westminster and the city of London. Presumably after completing some training in the law, he quickly rose to prominence as an attorney in the Exchequer court of pleas, where by 1440 he had already been singled out to act for prominent individuals, such as Sir John Colshull* of Cornwall, as well as for borough officials including the bailiffs of Canterbury.13 E13/141, rots. 29d, 44; E159/217, recorda Mich. rot. 25. Over the next few years he took briefs from Robert Hill* of Shilston, Devon, William Stafford* of Dorset and John Bolton* of York. He also made appearances in the Exchequer of Receipt to collect money and assignments for creditors of the Crown, among them Sir Roger Fiennes*, the treasurer of the Household.14 E13/142, m. 1; 144, rots. 2, 19; Sel. Cases Law Merchant, ii (Selden Soc. xlix), 107; E403/743, m. 7. In 1445 together with his colleague John Croke, another of the professional clerks, he was formally appointed attorney for the duchy of Lancaster, and a few months later the same two clerks were named by Margaret of Anjou to act in a similar capacity in her interests. The two men shared an annual fee of £5 from the queen for at least the next eight years, and they also received grants from the cloth subsidies as part of their remuneration from the Crown.15 Somerville, 458; E159/222, brevia Hil. rot. 2; 223, recorda Hil. rot. 7d; Myers, 194. Yet Essex continued to act as attorney for other clients too, including the dean and canons of St. George’s chapel, Windsor, who paid him a regular fee in the years 1448-50.16 St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, recs., stewards’ accts. XV.48.22. As ‘of London, gentleman’, he often acted as a mainpernor for those securing leases of property temporarily in the Crown’s possession, such as John Gloucester II*, his fellow clerk at the Exchequer, and Master Thomas Kent, the clerk of the King’s council, with whom he formed a close association.17 CFR, xviii. 49, 91, 107, 263. Together with Kent in 1447 he was granted an annuity of £8 6s. 8d. levied for ten years from the farm of Little Weldon, Northamptonshire, the two men being promised tenancy of the manor itself in survivorship after the end of that term.18 CPR, 1446-52, p. 83; E159/224, recorda Trin. rots. 1d, 9d. Among those for whom Essex appeared in the Receipt were Sir Richard Vernon* and Robert Manfeld*, respectively treasurer and victualler of Calais,19 E403/743, m. 7; 767, m. 10; 769, m. 2; 773, mm.1, 8; 779, m. 9; 781, m. 2. and this reflects his personal interest in the administration of that stronghold across the Channel, where he held the post of master of the artillery for six years. Besides this post he had been rewarded with other offices in the King’s gift, such as that of alnager in Northamptonshire and Rutland, which he shared with John Hampton, the favoured esquire for the King’s body, on and off for some 11 years, the two of them successfully fending off the claims of others.20 CFR, xvii. 281; xviii. 194; xix. 142-3; CPR, 1446-52, p. 218. In 1454 he was to make a switch to the alnagership of Warws. and Coventry, but this was abortive: CFR, xix. 102-3. In 1448 Essex was appointed to the offices of tronager and pesager in Poole and controller of the petty custom in London, the latter post being granted with the express approval of the treasurer, Bishop Lumley of Carlisle, and the guarantee that he would hold it until recompensed with another office to the same yearly value.21 CPR, 1446-52, pp. 161, 205.

Nevertheless, Essex did not occupy either of the posts in the customs service for long; he had relinquished them by the time he was returned to the Parliament of 1449-50. In this Parliament, the only one in which he is known to have sat in the Commons, he represented Dorchester, a borough with which he had no recorded connexion. Clearly, he was in breach of the statutes with regard to residential qualifications, but it is now impossible to tell whether his name was written on the schedule accompanying the Dorset indenture by the sheriff’s officers or was not inserted until after the indenture reached Westminster. The latter conjecture is quite feasible, for more than half of the men returned by the Dorset boroughs on this occasion were, like Essex, complete outsiders to the county. Furthermore, a number of them were also employed at the Exchequer: Thomas Cross* and John Gloucester II were his fellow clerks, and Andrew Kebell* comptroller of the pipe. During the parliamentary sessions they would have been at hand in the Commons to assist the treasurer’s remembrancer Thomas Thorpe* (then sitting for Northamptonshire) when questions were raised regarding the Crown’s pressing need for subsidies and loans as English possessions in Normandy fell catastrophically to the French. Less clear is the political role they may have played in the second session, when the King’s chief minister the duke of Suffolk was impeached. The Parliament, meeting for its third session at Leicester, was dissolved in early June 1450 at the outbreak of Cade’s rebellion. Essex managed to escape the criticism aimed at many of Suffolk’s followers, proving to be more fortunate than his friend Thomas Kent, who on 4 July was indicted for plotting to put the duke’s son on the throne by marrying him to Margaret Beaufort. Essex stood bail for him, but 15 months elapsed before he secured acquittal in the King’s bench.22 KB27/762, rex rot. 8.

After the dissolution of the Parliament, in November 1450 Essex was rewarded for his commitment to serving the King and the queen with promotion to the office of King’s remembrancer (replacing the disruptive Thomas Daniell* and John Troutbeck*). This he retained until he died – a period of nigh on 30 years, and through several changes of regime.23 CPR, 1446-52, pp. 405, 415. He ousted the politically disgraced Thomas Daniell* and John Troutbeck*. Although he now resigned his post of master of the artillery in Calais, he continued to play a part in the affairs of the garrisons, notably with regard to the payment of their wages, by acting in the years 1450-2 as a procurator for those in the retinue of the captain of Calais, Humphrey, duke of Buckingham. Provision for the payment of arrears of wages was made from the wool customs by grant of the Parliament in which he had sat.24 DKR, xlviii. 385; E159/227, recorda Mich. rot. 3; 228, recorda Trin. rot. 28. In the 1450s Essex was given special rewards for making searches through the records of the Exchequer on the instructions of the treasurer, tasks which preoccupied him in the vacations as well as during term-time. Thus, in May 1455 he received £10 for his work both in searching the records and writing up rolls and memoranda to provide over-views of the state of the realm to be declared to the King and Council; and in 1457 he was particularly commended for his endeavours concerning the imposition of fines on esquires with £40-worth of land who had refused to take up knighthood.25 E403/781, m. 11; 786, m. 14; 801, m. 3; 809, m. 4; 812, m. 3. More obscure was his work ‘circa scriptora London’, which earned him a bonus in June 1459. Such payments came over and above his regular fees of £20 p.a.26 E403/819, m. 4.

Throughout this period of the 1440s and 1450s Essex had been much involved in the affairs of Londoners, as is clear from his regular appearances as a recipient of the goods and chattels of a number of skinners, haberdashers, dyers, fishmongers and tailors.27 CCR, 1441-7, pp. 147, 201, 291, 355; 1447-54, pp. 325, 336, 341; 1454-61, pp. 35,61, 479-80, 482. He was described on occasion as ‘of London and Kensington, gentleman’, and Leland was to report that he purchased lands ‘aboute London’.28 C67/41, m. 23; 42, m. 33. His appointment as a member of the quorum on the Middlesex bench in July 1454 is a further indication as to where his territorial interests lay, and it was in the same month that he and his wife Edith received a settlement of the manor of ‘Westewne’ in Kensington, with appurtenances in Brompton, Chelsea, Tyburne and Westburne, which were entailed on their offspring. To this estate they added a messuage and some 90 acres in Fulham three years later. Essex was to die in possession of the manor of Wendon in Fulham as well as 27 acres of land in Knightsbridge. His landed holdings were valued at his death at £35 p.a., but undoubtedly his income from fees had made him much wealthier than this figure suggests.29 C140/77/80. Besides the holdings listed in his post mortem he is known to have acquired more property in Chelsea in 1472,30 CP25(1)/152/97/41. and to have also held property on the Surrey bank of the Thames at Barnes, Putney and Mortlake.31 CCR, 1485-1500, no. 760. The full identity of his first wife is not certain, although she is credibly said to have been a member of the Marowe family,32 Genealogist, n.s. i. 6-7. and the preference given to our MP’s three children in the will of William Marowe, the grocer and sometime mayor of London, confirms the supposition that they were closely related. It is unlikely on chronological grounds that Edith was Marowe’s daughter, but she may well have been his sister. Essex was party to Marowe’s affairs in the late 1450s, notably as a feoffee of the grocer’s ‘great place’ called ‘Le Culver’.33 Corp. London RO, hr 187/13, 51; 195/40.

Despite the changes of regime during the civil war years, Essex continued to be appointed to the Middlesex bench for the rest of his life, and his reputation as a hard-working and conscientious official at the Exchequer prompted Edward IV to confirm him in office as remembrancer and led to his exemption from the Act of Resumption passed in the Parliament of 1463-5.34 CPR, 1461-7, p. 24; PROME, xiii. 161. In the 1460s the issue rolls show him receiving payments on behalf of John Wenlock*, Lord Wenlock, personally delivering sums of money to the King’s chamber, and taking rewards for such tasks as the enrolment of certain letters patent and writs.35 E403/824, m. 3; 832, m. 2; 835, m. 2. In May 1465 the King made him a special gift of £100 after he had suffered ‘great losses’ and ‘jeopardie’ when, on returning from a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Winifred in Shrewsbury abbey, he had been taken captive by rebellious Welshmen. Perhaps the money was intended to pay his ransom.36 E404/73/1/40. That autumn Essex purchased from the treasurer, Walter Blount*, Lord Mountjoy, the marriage of Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of William Babthorp, for which he agreed to pay 200 marks. Others had sought this prize: indeed, the King, unaware of the arrangement negotiated by Mountjoy, had already given it to one of the knights of his chamber, (Sir) William Norris*. To compensate Norris he instructed Essex to pay the sum due directly to him.37 CFR, xx. 160, 169; E405/43, rot. 1; PSO1/27/1403; E404/73/1/101. The purchase had important social and financial consequences for the remembrancer’s family, for he married the heiress to his young son and heir, Thomas, who thereby (according to Leland) acquired land worth 100 marks a year.38 Leland, ii. 16. There are other indications of the MP’s growing wealth. In the course of his career Essex had occasionally made small loans to the Exchequer, though none of them had so far exceeded £20,39 E401/830, m. 26; 868, mm. 15, 21; E405/40, rot. 1. but when in June 1468 the King requested loans amounting to £10,000 on behalf of the duke of Burgundy, to this sum Essex contributed as much as £200, which he followed later that same year with another £100.40 E404/74/1/45; E405/48, rot. 1d; 49, rot. 1d.

The Babthorp wardship was not the only one in which Essex bought an interest. In 1466 he joined Hugh atte Fenne*, another prominent Exchequer official, in paying 400 marks for the wardship and marriage of the wealthy heir Nicholas Carew (the grandson of Nicholas Carew*, the former shire knight),41 CPR, 1461-7, p. 518; Surr. Feet of Fines (Surr. Arch. Collns. extra vol. i), 194; CFR, xx. 187, 189; Myers, 284-5. and together with William Stokker in November 1469 he paid 50 marks for the marriage of the heir of Thomas Mallory* (who had been a fellow Member of the Commons of 1449-50).42 CFR, xx. 258, 261; E405/51, rot. 1; 57, rot. 2d. Essex successfully weathered the storm of the Readeption, retaining his post at the Exchequer throughout the crisis years of 1469-71. Following Edward IV’s return from exile he was associated with the King’s brother the duke of Gloucester in a transaction in Kent in June 1471. The pardon he took out in February 1472 was probably no more than a formality.43 CAD, ii. C2654; C67/48, m. 19. In May 1475 our MP shared with the chief baron of the Exchequer, (Sir) Thomas Urswyk II*, and others the wardship of the son and heir of Walter Writtle*,44 CPR, 1467-77, p. 514. a retainer of the current treasurer, Henry, earl of Essex. The earl himself evidently regarded him as someone on whom he could depend, and not only agreed that he should continue in office as remembrancer but decided when the under treasurer (Sir) John Say II* died in April 1478 to promote him to that post as well. The under treasurership gave William rewards and fees of as much as 200 marks a year, and placed him among the earl’s closest counsellors.45 CPR, 1467-77, p. 541; E403/845, m. 9; 848, m. 10; 850, m. 3; E405/67, rots. 2d, 3; 68, rot. 5.

It is a measure of the respect in which he was held that in the course of his career Essex had often been asked to serve as an executor for colleagues and friends. Among these were the Warwickshire lawyer Thomas Bate* (d.1459), the former chief baron of the Exchequer Peter Arderne (d.1467),46 PCC 17 Stokton, 17 Godyn (PROB11/4, ff. 127v-128; 5, ff. 149v-51); CP40/810, rot. 326; 824, rot. 284d. and his wife’s putative kinsman the wealthy William Marowe. In the will of the latter, made in 1464, our MP’s three children, Thomas, Margery and Elizabeth, were each bequeathed ten marks and a reversionary interest in property in St. Clements Lane, London, should the issue of Marowe’s own children fail. Essex himself was left £10. A year later he made sure that Marowe’s widow might remain in possession for her lifetime of the great London mansion of which he was a feoffee.47 PCC 9, 11 Godyn (PROB11/5, ff. 67-68v, 84v-88v); London hr 187/51; 195/34, 40. Essex was also an executor of John Croke (d.1477), his former associate at the Exchequer who had become a wealthy skinner and alderman. To wind up Croke’s affairs he was forced to bring a suit in Chancery against the staplers of Calais.48 PCC 33 Wattys, 4 Logge (PROB11/6, ff. 252-3; 7, ff. 26-28); Med. London Widows ed. Barron and Sutton, 156; C1/64/1048; London hr 207/30. Yet another Exchequer colleague, Hugh atte Fenne (d.1476), also asked him to be an executor, and, well aware that the task (which included the foundation of a college at Herringby) would be an onerous one, set aside 40 marks as recompense for his trouble.49 E41/168; R. Virgoe, ‘Will of Hugh atte Fenne’, Norf. Rec. Soc. lvi. 42-57. Atte Fenne referred to him as his ‘cosin’: Virgoe, 51. In addition, Essex served as a feoffee for another associate, John Poutrell,50 CP25(1)/294/77/1. and for several landowners in Surrey, including Thomas Basset*.51 CCR, 1468-76, no. 896; CP25(1)/232/76/2; C1/74/11, 469/1.

After the death of his first wife, our MP had married the daughter of a lawyer from Sussex, in a match which does not appear to have been made for material gain. On the contrary, it brought with it financial liabilities, for Elizabeth Mille had taken on the executorship of her mother’s will. Fortunately, in 1473 her brother Richard provided that she should have £140 from the family lands in order to fulfil her duties.52 CIPM Hen. VII, iii. 743. Essex himself died on 26 May 1480, while still in office as under treasurer.53 C140/77/80. His son and heir Thomas, then aged 20, was to become a regular member of the Middlesex bench under Henry VII, but it was in Berkshire that the MP’s grandson Sir William Essex† (c.1470-1548) made his mark. The latter was contracted in marriage in 1487 to Elizabeth, the daughter and heiress of Thomas Roger (d.1488) of Benham Valence, thereby increasing his family’s fortunes by as much as 300 marks p.a. He represented Berkshire in at least two Parliaments.54 Elizabeth was the gd.da. of Thomas Roger*. The Commons 1509-58, ii. 106-7; Genealogist, n.s. xxiii. 26; Leland, ii. 16.