GERARD, Peter

Heir to one of the main gentry inheritances in south Lancashire, Peter Gerard first appears in the records in the spring of 1425. On 15 Mar., described as ‘of Bryn, esquire’, he was one of several prominent Lancashire men listed as having been indicted before the j.p.s. at Preston for riot, but no more is known of this incident beyond the simple fact of indictment.2 PL25/1, rot. 3. Soon after his father married him into the prominent family of Strangeways, which, although resident in Yorkshire, had interests in Lancashire and Cheshire. The bride’s place in her family’s pedigree is uncertain, but, on chronological grounds and the evidence of a near-contemporary pedigree, it is very likely that she was the daughter of James, who became a j.c.p. in 1426.3 Collectanea Topographia et Genealogica ed. Nichols, ii. 161. In 1433 Gerard was named alongside his putative father-in-law as a trustee of the goods of John Walsh, a citizen of Chester, and ten years later, he and his putative brother-in-law, another (Sir) James Strangeways, were named together as feoffees in property in Crompton, Lancs.: CHES2/105, m. 2; John Rylands Univ. Lib., Manchester, Clowes deeds, CLD 263.

Gerard’s adult career began with his father’s death in November 1431. He came into an inheritance burdened by the interests of his mother. She held nearly all the family’s Cheshire lands in jointure (although these were valued at only a modest £8 p.a. in her inquisition post mortem), and presumably she additionally held a third of the Gerard’s more extensive holdings in Lancashire.4 CHES2/103, m. 2. None the less, this still left him with property enough to take a part in local affairs. He attested the county’s parliamentary elections in April 1432 and June 1433. Both elections were well attended by the gentry elite, and on each occasion the attestors were headed by five knights. It can probably be taken as an indication of his family’s status that our MP is named first among the esquires who attested the second election (and fourth in the first). His second appearance may also have another significance. (Sir) Thomas Stanley II* was one of those elected and Gerard had already formed a close association with him: Stanley had stood as godfather to his son, Thomas, who was baptized in the church of Winwick (near Bryn) on 15 July 1431. Later, on 1 Sept. 1432, our MP had been named as a feoffee in certain of the Molyneux lands in Sefton and it is likely that he was here acting as a representative of Stanley, whose young daughter had married Richard, son of Sir Richard Molyneux.5 Lancs. Knights of the Shire (Chetham Soc. xcvi), 217-18; G. Ormerod, Palatine and City of Chester ed. Helsby, ii (1), 96n.; Lancs. RO, Molyneux deeds, DDM 17/51. This close connexion with Stanley was to have a significance in the last part of our MP’s career.

Gerard gained a modest augmentation to his landholdings with the death of his great-uncle, John Gerard of Ince-in-Makerfield, in March 1434. This brought the Cheshire manor of Ledsham, valued at a modest £4 p.a. in John’s inquisition post mortem, back to the main line of the family. Advancement of another sort came with his appointment to the Lancashire bench in December 1435. Thereafter no more is known of him until 28 Oct. 1439, when, as his father had done before him, he paid a fine of five marks for failure to take up knighthood.6 CHES2/106, m. 1; Lancs. Knights of the Shire, 192; E159/216, fines Mich. rot. 3. Soon after he contracted his young son and heir to a daughter of a Lancashire knight, Sir Thomas Assheton of Ashton-under-Lyme. More importantly, the death of his aged mother on 15 Sept. 1441 reunited the entire Gerard inheritance in his hands, and this gave him the resources to contract an even better marriage for his daughter Margaret. By the summer of 1444 she had married her second cousin, (Sir) John Boteler* of Warrington, who, as a mere infant, had inherited in 1431 one of the two largest gentry inheritances in the Lancashire. His hand must have been expensive to acquire and it is an indication of Gerard’s new wealth that he should have been able to make that investment.7 Lancs. Knights of the Shire, 192; CHES2/115, m. 5d; Annals of Warrington, ii (Chetham Soc. lxxxvii), 263. Another of his daughters, Margaret, married, more modestly, William Balderston (d.1462) of Balderston: VCH Lancs. vi. 316.

As one of the richest and best-connected of the Lancashire gentry, Gerard was now an obvious candidate to represent the county in Parliament. His opportunity came with the parliamentary summons of 13 Jan. 1445, and his election was probably connected with the absence of his powerful friend, Stanley, on the embassy sent to bring Henry VI’s bride, Margaret of Anjou, to England. Stanley had represented the county in the previous two Parliaments and was to do so in the next five, and his absence created a vacancy that it was natural to fill with a man closely associated with him. Indeed, both those returned – Gerard and Henry Keighley* – numbered among his close associates. For our MP parliamentary service provided the context for an important promotion. There can be little doubt that, alongside his putative brother-in-law, James Strangeways*, he was among those knighted at the coronation of Queen Margaret on 30 May 1445, that is, during the second session of this Parliament.8 He does not first appear in the records as a kt. until 4 Nov. 1445, during the Parliament’s third session: Add. 32103, f. 33. But there is no reason to doubt that the coronation was the occasion of his elevation. At least five other MPs in this Parliament are known to have been knighted at about the time of the coronation, and the same applies to Strangeways. He was presumably chosen for this honour through the patronage of the recently-returned Stanley, who was controller of the royal household. As a knight, Gerard quickly assumed a more prominent part in Lancashire affairs. On 2 Jan. 1446, during the last recess of this Parliament, he was appointed, alongside Stanley, to a Lancashire gaol delivery commission. In the following August he acted as a feoffee in the settlement contingent on the marriage of his first cousin, William, son of the local lawyer, William Gernet*, to Adam Lever. More significantly, later in the same month, he was on a powerful jury of the county assembled before commissioners charged with inquiring into the offences of the Lancashire sheriff, Sir John Byron*.9 DKR, xl. 538; Add. 32103, f. 37; DL7/1/72. Soon after, he began to sit on the county bench. The names of the Lancashire j.p.s. who attended sessions is known, for the most part at least, from Michaelmas 1439, but our MP is not recorded as sitting until 19 Nov. 1446, when he sat at Ashton-in-Makerfield, as he did again at nearby Prescot on 21 Jan. 1447.10 PL15/11, rot. 29d; DL29/117/1936. He died on the following 26 Mar., just as he seemed to be assuming an important part in the affairs of his native county.11 Ormerod, ii (1), 96. He died intestate, for, as late as 1466, his administrators, his wife’s kinsman, Thomas Orell, and Thurstan Anderton, were pursuing one of his debtors in the Lans. assizes: PL15/30, rot. 7d.

Gerard left an heir, who, although he had already been married for several years, was short of his majority. In the following September the Crown demised to the courtier, Thomas Daniell*, the custody of that part of the family lands in Cheshire that had thus come into its hands; and on 20 Feb. 1448 the heir’s mother had a writ for the assignment of her dower in that county. The Lancashire lands remained in the Crown’s hands: in the period Michaelmas 1450-1 Thomas Lathom, escheator of Lancashire, accounted for £5 from the issues of the Gerard holdings in Kirkby.12 CHES2/121, mm. 1, 2d; DL29/101/1801, m. 10. On 30 Dec. 1451 the Crown re-granted the custody of the Cheshire lands in a manner that was more acceptable to the family. The new custodian was the heir’s brother-in-law, John Assheton†, who was to hold the lands, limited to the value of a modest eight marks p.a., for the very brief period that remained until Thomas’s majority. This ended on 2 Aug. 1452 when Thomas proved his age.13 CHES2/124, mm. 1d, 2d; Ormerod, ii (1), 96.