FRAMPTON, William

Throughout the first quarter of the fifteenth century the head of the family of Frampton of Moreton and Buckland Ripers was John Frampton, who sat as a knight of the shire for Dorset in the second Parliament of 1404,6 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 117-18; C139/22/22. and held lands in that county and neighbouring Wiltshire which provided him with an annual income in excess of £66. On his death in 1425 he left a widow, Margaret, who as she lived on until 1447 or later in possession of a sizeable jointure and dower in the Frampton estates,7 Feudal Aids, ii. 73, 114; CP40/745, rot. 255d. kept the heir, John’s eldest son, Robert (d.1465),8 C139/22/22; C140/14/35, 36. out of a large part of his paternal inheritance for several years. Robert became a figure of some consequence in Dorset, but although he attested five of the county elections between 1435 and 1460 he is not recorded as ever sitting in Parliament himself, unlike two of his siblings. Robert’s income and social status warranted elevation to knighthood, but he declined to take up the honour and was fined accordingly.9 For more about the family, see Hutchins, i. 395-8. Robert married (1) Alice (d.1450), da. and h. of Hugh Deverell of Combe Deverell, by whom he had several children who died young; (2) Eleanor, the mother of his son and heir, James (c.1452-1523): CPR, 1452-61, pp. 333-4; C139/162/19; C140/14/35. The evidence for the landed holdings of his younger brothers is unsatisfactory, but William’s place of residence was sometimes given as Buckland Ripers, the principal family manor,10 CFR, xviii. 59. and the proximity of this home to Weymouth and its location just a few miles to the south of Dorchester meant that he became well known in the two towns which returned him to Parliament. His later residence at Chilfrome, another manor held by the Framptons, lay not far to the west of the county town, on the river Frome.

If, as seems likely, William was the ‘Frampton de medio Templo’ who in April 1447 delivered into King’s bench an indictment presented at Melcombe Regis 13 years earlier,11 KB9/996/34d. then his training in the law had probably been completed before his earliest election to Parliament in 1431. Despite his youth and lack of experience in local administration, on this first appearance in the Commons he had been entrusted by the burgesses of Dorchester with the task of presenting a petition of importance to the town’s economy. This requested exemption from the workings of the statute of weights and measures passed in the previous Parliament (1429-30), on the grounds that it negated the liberties granted to them by royal charter. The petition met with success, in the form of an Act specifically protecting Dorchester’s interests.12 SC8/25/1242; PROME, x. 472-3. Neither the records of Dorchester or Weymouth (which Frampton represented in 1433) refer to him as one of the burgesses-proper; but it may be assumed that his legal education had recommended him to the authorities. He also caught the attention of Richard Cheddar*, the former shire knight for Somerset, and his mother Joan, the wealthy widow of Sir Thomas Brooke† (d.1418), who together in 1434 granted him a tenement on ‘La Downe’ in Midsomer Norton. William’s brother John had been a feoffee of Joan’s estates for the past 13 years, but it looks as if he too had been engaged in her service in the locality or at Westminster. As accorded with his professional status, Frampton was styled ‘gentleman’ both in 1438, when he was a recipient of the goods and chattels of a London goldsmith, and in November 1446, when he stood surety at the Exchequer for the prominent Dorset landowner John Filoll*, himself a member of the Inner Temple.13 Harl. Ch. 46 H 16; CCR, 1441-7, p. 75; CFR, xviii. 59. Yet his legal practice did not depend on employment as an attorney in the central courts, and his recorded appearances in the court of common pleas on his own behalf were of little consequence – mostly concerning personal suits for debts of just £2 each.14 CP40/745, rot. 166d; 757, rot. 428; 758, rot. 186d.

Frampton attested the Dorset elections six times between 1449 and 1472, and as well as this at the hustings for the Parliament of 1453 he stood surety for the attendance in the Commons of those elected – John Carent* and Nicholas Latimer*.15 C219/16/2. Later in the 1450s he became preoccupied with lawsuits against Robert Tredosa, an esquire who shared possession of the manor of ‘Weybayhouse’ in Upwey with William’s brother John.16 Feudal Aids, ii. 73, 114; Hutchins, ii. 840-1. In Michaelmas term 1454 Tredosa brought an action for trespass in King’s bench against him, to which William responded with a counter plea four years later. On the latter occasion he claimed to be a ‘servant’ of John Faukes, master of Chancery and clerk of the Parliaments, thereby taking advantage of the privileges accorded to the clerical staff of the Chancery, although his official role is not recorded.17 KB27/774, rot. 16d; 788, rot. att. 1d. A suit against Tredosa’s co-defendant continued until 1465 or later: KB27/818, rot. 42d. It was probably John Frampton’s portion of the estate at Upwey that was in contention, for at his death, which occurred round about that time, he left an heir who was still a minor. Certainly, at the time of his own death William was in possession of a moiety of the manor, which he held for payment of a nominal rent of 1d. to the then lord of Buckland Ripers (his nephew James).18 C140/13/46; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 1065.

From the early 1450s until late in life, Frampton was engaged in the administration of the widespread estates of the heiress Katherine Chideock, successively wife of William Stafford* (d.1450) and (Sir) John Arundell of Lanherne (d.1473), lending assistance to her staff in the capacity of an attorney for conveyances of seisin and after her death in 1479 as a steward.19 Arundell mss, AR/1/940; 2/688-91, 1226-7; 4/2116; 19/16. Although this employment brought him into the sphere of her son Humphrey Stafford IV, Lord Stafford of Southwick and earl of Devon, the connexion did not lead to his appointment to ad hoc commissions of local government during the period when Humphrey benefited from the personal favour of Edward IV; in fact, Frampton was not appointed to the Dorset bench until 1472, some three years after the earl’s death. The appointment led to amicable relations with two of his fellow j.ps., William Browning I* (the earl’s executor) and John Newburgh II*. Browning named Frampton as a feoffee, and as such ten years later he joined Newburgh in purchasing a royal licence for the endowment of a chantry in Cerne abbey in their colleague’s memory.20 CPR, 1476-85, p. 256. By then, the families of Frampton and Newburgh had drawn close through the marriage of William’s nephew James to Newburgh’s daughter Anastasia.21 PCC 20 Logge (PROB11/7, f. 149); C142/43/9.

In November 1487 Frampton relinquished any residual interest he may have kept in the manor of Milborne Deverell, which had once belonged to his sister-in-law Alice (Robert Frampton’s first wife).22 CCR, 1485-1500, no. 362. He must then have been a very old man. At his death on 12 Aug. 1494, the heir to his lands was found to be his kinsman John Frampton, born in 1464 or before, whose relationship to him is not explained in the post mortem. William’s moiety of the manor of Upwey was said to be worth £10, and his third part of the manor of Chilfrome, held of the barony of Dunster, £4.23 CFR, xxii. no. 500; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 1065. How he had come by the third part of Chilfrome is unclear, for although his father had held two knights’ fees there of the honour of Dunster in 1406, after that date these were held by the heirs of Lord Bryan: Honour of Dunster (Som. Rec. Soc. xxxiii), 110, 127, 196, 207; Hutchins, ii. 641-2.