GERARD, John I

The Cheshire Gerards acquired a large estate in south Lancashire through the marriage of our MP’s great- grandfather, William, to Joan, sister and coheiress of Peter de Burnhull of Bryn (in Ashton-in-Makerfield).2 VCH Lancs. iv. 142-3. The status that went with so extensive a holding was augmented by the long and successful career of our MP’s father. Sir Thomas combined military with administrative service. He fought against the Scots in the 1380s and represented Lancashire in three Parliaments from 1384 to 1394. Although he is not known to have been connected with the house of Lancaster before the revolution of 1399, he went to Ravenspur to support Henry of Bolingbroke’s invasion and served as the first sheriff of Lancashire of the new reign. He was rewarded with an annuity of 20 marks and fought for the King in the campaigns of 1403 and 1405.3 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 176-8. By contrast the career of our MP was, at least as far as it is reflected in the surviving records, one of little distinction.4 He is not to be confused with his uncle and namesake who married the heiress to the manor of Ince-in-Makerfield and died in 1434: VCH Lancs. iv. 102. It was almost certainly this John who served with other Lancs. men in the retinue of Thomas Radcliffe† of Winmarleigh during the Scottish campaign of 1400: E101/43/4, m. 20. Nor is the MP to be identified with the capt. of Lancaster tower in Calais with whom he is wrongly conflated in The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 177. This John was a servant of John Beaufort, earl of Somerset, under whom he served in the garrison at Carmarthen in 1403 and who, as capt. of Calais, appointed him capt. of the said tower in June 1405: E101/43/21, m. 1; C76/85, m. 7; CPR, 1405-8, p. 119; 1416-22, pp. 170-1; 1422-9, p. 67; E101/69/2/315. It was probably this John who fought on the Scottish campaign in the retinue of the Edmund, earl of Stafford: E101/42/16, m. 37. He is distinguished from the MP by the fact that he died before Dec. 1427: CCR, 1422-9, p. 360.

Gerard was a mere boy when he first appears in the records: on 7 June 1393 his godfather, John Fairfax, the vicar of Prescot, a few miles from the Gerard family home at Bryn, bequeathed him, ‘unum equum ambulantem vocatam Lyard Rouclyff’.5 Test. Ebor. i (Surtees Soc. iv), 189. He was said to be 30 in the inq. taken on the death of his father in 1416: Lancs. Inqs. i (Chetham Soc. xcv), 123-4. This is probably a slight underestimate. The second reference to him is more significant. In the early summer of 1400 he was, despite his youth, involved in two episodes vaguely described, in a mutual release of actions, as ‘open violence’. Here he was following his father, then serving as the county sheriff, in supporting their neighbours, the Langtons of Newton-in-Makerfield, in their long-running dispute with the Standishes of Standish over the advowson of Wigan church. On the following 4 Oct. the young John was party to an indenture by which he and the Langtons undertook not to prosecute the Standishes for any of events of those days.6 Standish Deeds ed. Earwaker, 35. Soon after this he was married into one of the leading gentry families of Lancashire, the Botelers of Warrington, near-neighbours of the Gerards and their feudal overlords in respect of their manor of Windle (near St. Helen’s). This marriage, an alliance between two families that had been active in the support of Bolingbroke, had been made by 28 Apr. 1402 when his father gave the bride jointure in a significant part of his Cheshire lands: the manors of Nether Bradley and a moiety of the manor of Kingsley with lands in Norley, Newton, Frodsham and Cuddington, a compact estate in the north of the county, were settled on the couple and their issue with remainder to Sir Thomas Gerard in tail-male. The licence for this settlement limited the annual value of the lands to 20 marks, but, even if this limitation was adhered to, it still represented a generous settlement, and one for which the bride’s family, represented by her mother and brother, Sir William Boteler†, since her father was dead) probably paid as much as 200 marks.7 CHES2/103, m. 2; DKR, xxxvi (2), 196. The bride cannot have been particularly young as her brother seems to have been of age as early as 1393, and it may be that she was some years our MP’s senior.

Little else is known of Gerard as he waited to inherit the main family estates in Lancashire. He is probably to be identified with the namesake, described as ‘of Lancashire’, who stood surety in 1408 when the Crown committed to Sir Robert Urswyk of Tatham (with whose younger half-brother Thomas* our MP was later to sit in Parliament) and Thomas Strickland* the keeping of the lands of a Westmorland knight, Sir William Threlkeld†. Later, on 21 May 1414 at Wigan, he was implicated in further clashes in support of the Langtons in their dispute with the Standishes, but no more precise details are known. More peacefully, on 18 June 1415 he and his uncle John served as jurors in the inquisition post mortem taken of the death of their wealthy neighbour, Sir William Atherton of Atherton.8 CFR, xiii. 137; Standish Deeds ed. Porteus, 129; Lancs. Inqs. i. 107. Five days later a John Gerard sued out letters of protection as departing for France, but it is unlikely (although it is certainly possible), that this was our MP. Not only are there other candidates, most particularly the lieutenant of the Lancaster tower in Calais, but there is no other evidence of our MP’s military service.9 C76/98, m. 13.

On his father’s death on 27 Mar. 1416, Gerard inherited manorial property at Ashton-in-Makerfield, Kirkby, Melling, Windle, Brindle, Anderton, Skelmersdale and Rainhill, all in south Lancashire, to add to the north Cheshire estates settled on him at his marriage. In his father’s inquisition post mortem these Lancashire lands were valued at as much as £150 p.a., but, given that the manor of Ashton-in-Makerfield was said to be worth an improbably high 100 marks a year, it is likely that this was an overestimate. In 1450 John’s grandson, Thomas Gerard, was to be assessed on an annual income of £70 p.a. and this was perhaps a more realistic assessment of the family’s wealth.10 Lancs. Inqs. i. 123-4; PL3/3/28d. None the less, John certainly numbered among the richer members of the Lancashire gentry, and it is surprising that he did not now come to take a more active part in county affairs.

Gerard’s career as lord of Bryn began promisingly enough. On 16 July 1416 he was one of four local men, including William Gernet*, to whom the Crown entrusted the wardship of the lands of his brother-in-law, Sir William Boteler, who had died at the siege of Harfleur. Doubts about the legitimacy of Sir William’s young son, John Boteler I*, made the grant a potentially contentious one, and it is likely that Gerard and his fellow grantees had sought it, in part at least, to protect the interests of the young heir.11 For reasons that are unknown our MP was replaced as a grantee by Sir Peter Legh in Dec. 1417: Lancs. Inqs. i. 114. Less than two years later he was appointed both to the county bench and as a commissioner of array in his native hundred of West Derby. The highpoint of his career came a few years later. On 2 Nov. 1422, described as ‘of Bryn, esquire’, he was elected to represent Lancashire in the first Parliament of Henry VI’s reign.12 Lancs. Knights of the Shire (Chetham Soc. xcvi), 213. Thereafter, however, he appears to become a more obscure figure than a man of his wealth should have been, with his administrative activity seemingly confined to a commission of array in the spring of 1427.13 CPR, 1422-9, p. 405.

This inactivity may explain a curious later reference. In January 1430 Gerard’s wife was nominated to act as sole arbiter in the intractable dispute over the advowson of Wigan church. Her nomination no doubt reflects the connexions between the Gerards and both the protagonists in the dispute, the Langtons and Standishes, but it is odd that it was she rather than her husband who was chosen to act. Although our MP had joined his father in supporting the Langtons in 1400 and 1414, he had, in 1421, modified this stance by marrying his daughter to Constance to Alexander, son and heir apparent of Laurence Standish. His wife’s nomination implies that he was incapacitated in some way, and this surmise gains some indirect support both from Gerard’s apparent inactivity and his death not long afterwards on 6 Nov. 1431.14 Standish Deeds ed. Porteus, 140-1, 285; CHES2/103, m. 2. On the other hand, there is some evidence to the contrary. Our MP was not so incapacitated as to make a journey to Westminster earlier in that year: on 22 Feb. he had appeared personally in the Exchequer to pay a fine of five marks for failure to take up knighthood.15 E159/207, fines Hil. rot. 4d. In short, on the available evidence, there is no satisfactory explanation for Gerard’s apparently diminishing role in local affairs. He was succeeded by his adult son, Peter, who, in 1445, became the third successive head of the family to represent Lancashire in Parliament.