GAMBON, William

Gambon’s parentage has not been established, but he was probably a scion of the Gambons of Moreston in Halberton. William settled at Tavistock, where he traded as a merchant, but he may also have owned property in London and its suburbs.1 C1/137/32; Cheshire and Chester Archs., Moore-Dutton colln. DMD/N/4/3. Few details of his career are known, but it appears that not long after his sole recorded return to the Commons he was indicted before the Devon bench of the murder of one Nicholas Martyn, whom he was said to have stabbed to death with a dagger on 6 Jan. 1448. Gambon claimed to have been indicted by the malice of his enemies, and in April 1448 he was granted a full pardon.2 CPR, 1446-52, p. 148. Gambon is not known to have served as mayor or portreeve of Tavistock, but he played a part in public life at least in so far as he occasionally attested settlements of the property belonging to the parish church.3 Devon RO, Tavistock parish recs., 482A-1/PF4.

Gambon’s later activities are difficult to distinguish from those of a younger namesake who survived into the first decade of the sixteenth century,4 Devon RO, Highweek feoffees’ recs., 1638F/T23, 30-34, 35A, L26A; N. Devon RO, Chichester of Arlington mss, 50/11/12/22-24. There was a younger namesake, in clerical orders, active at Tavistock in the 1460s, when he was accused by John Honychurch* of breaking into his house and assaulting his servant, Robert Honychurch: KB27/830, rot. 41. It was yet another namesake, a clerk from Denbury, who in October 1480 was indicted at a Devon sheriff’s tourn for having in July 1474 broken and entered the houses of John Stonehower at Denbury and Ottery St. Mary. Having assaulted Stonehower’s wife, Joan, he ‘adtunc et ibidem cum lancea [carnali] et duobus lapidibus in posteriore parte eiusdem Willelmi pendentibus ipsam Johannam inter duos femores in quadam framine piloso situato in posteriore parte eiusdem Johanne percussit et perseravit’: KB9/359/2. but it may have been the former MP who in early 1467 was sued by Thomas Gille II* for embezzling some of the Gille family muniments entrusted to his keeping by Thomas Gille I*.5 C1/31/6. Equally, it may have been he who in 1472 was executing the will of his putative kinsman John Gambon.6 CP40/845, rot. 29.