GOSSE, William

William Gosse continued a long-standing family tradition of service in the Commons. His grandfather and namesake had represented Bridgwater in Henry V’s first Parliament, and his father had found seats in two other south-western boroughs during Henry VI’s minority. The younger William was first returned during his father’s lifetime, in January 1449 (when he shared a lump payment of 40s. in lieu of his customary wages with his parliamentary colleague, John Mauncell*), one of at least three occasions when Richard Gosse attended the election of the knights of the shire in the county court at Ilchester and set his seal to the sheriff’s indenture.2 Bridgwater Bor. Archs. 1445-68 (Som. Rec. Soc. lx), no. 757; C219/15/6. Nothing is known of Gosse’s activity in the Parliament which proved painfully unresponsive even to the duke of Somerset’s most dramatic account of the deteriorating military situation in France. The Commons’ comparative indifference may have been shared by Gosse, who – unlike his father – never demonstrated any interest in parliamentary affairs by attesting an election return, or left any clear evidence of his political sympathies in the crisis of the final years of Henry VI’s reign. It is, however, possible that he and his family had some connexion with Bridgwater’s lord, Richard, duke of York, for not did William’s father represent another of the duke’s boroughs, but at an unspecified point in the second half of the fifteenth century William himself was apparently acting for ‘the King’s mother’ (probably Duchess Cecily of York, rather than Lady Margaret Beaufort) in a matter concerning the castle ditch of Bridgwater:3 The undated letter is ambiguous, and it is not entirely certain whether Gosse, to whom the duchess was sending instructions to put matters in respite, was acting for her or for the community: Bridgwater Bor. Archs. 1468-85 (Som. Rec. Soc. lxx), no. 1038. if this was so, it would serve to explain Gosse’s return to the highly partisan Parliament summoned in the aftermath of the battle of Northampton with the purpose of cementing a Yorkist settlement of the throne.

Certainly, Gosse did something to earn the gratitude of the newly-crowned Edward IV, for in December 1461 he shared with George Middleton* (who had sat alongside him in the Parliament of 1460 as a burgess for Dorchester) and William Seward a grant of the Somerset manor of Huntspill, forfeited by the recently executed earl of Wiltshire.4 CPR, 1461-7, p. 86. His share in this manor (said to be worth in excess of £36 p.a.) substantially augmented his paternal inheritance to which he had succeeded not long before. This included some 30 houses and gardens and over 1,000 acres of land in Bridgwater, Cossington, Stogursey, Taunton, Wembdon and elsewhere in Somerset, and must have been worth rather more than the £20 13s. 4d. a year at which his grandfather’s holdings had been assessed in 1412.5 Bridgwater Bor. Archs. 1468-85, nos. 1013, 1024; C1/240/31; Feudal Aids, vi. 503; Som. Archs., Baker mss, DD\BK/2/2/1. In 1436 Richard Gosse’s Somerset estates had been valued at just £16 p.a.: E159/212, recorda Hil. rot. 14 (vii). The respect that Gosse now enjoyed among his neighbours found its expression not only in his frequent attestation of their property deeds and his occasional empanelment on local juries,6 Bridgwater Bor. Archs. 1445-68, no. 837; 1468-85, nos. 916, 931, 936, 944, 955, 956, 990, 1034; KB9/300/58a. but also in the Bridgwater community’s retention of his services as counsel at an annual fee of 13s. 4d. In this capacity he attested corporate deeds and participated in discussions ‘pro commodo communitatis’, receiving periodic gifts of wine for his efforts.7 Bridgwater Bor. Archs. 1445-68, nos. 830, 850; 1468-85, nos. 968, 1007.

Few other details of Gosse’s career have been discovered. In 1471 and 1472 he twice found sureties for the appearance of one James Neweham before the King’s council, and in a separate, probably unconnected episode in July of the latter year, the details of which remain obscure, the mayor of Bridgwater and other commissioners were ordered to arrest him and his putative brother John Gosse and to bring them before the council for their part.8 CPR, 1467-77, p. 356; CCR, 1468-76, nos. 927, 974. Gosse nevertheless lived on for almost another 30 years, and did not die until 1501, when a writ of diem clausit extremum was issued in his name. He left no children, so on his death his estates passed to his two nieces, Joan and Agnes, who within months of his death were embroiled in a dispute with their uncle’s executor, John Smyth alias Botelmaker.9 CFR, xxii. 720; C1/240/31.