LATIMER, Nicholas

Nicholas is first mentioned in the will which his father-in-law Chief Justice Hody made on 17 Dec. 1441, in which the testator referred to the agreement for the marriage between him and Hody’s daughter Joan and left the couple a bequest.9 Reg. Chichele, ii. 605-6. Still a minor,10 He has been distinguished from an older kinsman, Nicholas Latimer of Fittleford, Dorset, whose lands in the county were worth £24 p.a. in 1412: Feudal Aids, vi. 424; J. Hutchins, Dorset, iii. 707, 726; C67/38, m. 16. That Nicholas, who was distrained for knighthood in 1430 and 1439, attested as many as ten parlty. elections between 1407 and 1449. he was next recorded acting alongside his father in the following year, when together they granted manumission to a bondman on the Latimer family manor of East Pulham.11 Hutchins, iii. 707. Although he appears to have had some training in the law and became a member of Clifford’s Inn, Nicholas also found a place in the household of Henry VI, where he was accorded livery in the years 1446-52, latterly as among the esquires of the hall and chamber.12 E101/409/16; 410/1, 3, 6, 9. He received no tangible marks of royal favour, but his place at the royal court might explain his return to the Parliament at Reading in 1453, during the lifetime of his father, for the Parliament was notable for the excessive numbers of Household retainers sitting in the Commons. During the second session he was appointed, along with the other knights of the shire, to distribute tax allowances in their counties.

While his Parliament was still in being, Latimer was appointed sheriff of Somerset and Dorset in November 1453. Four months after his term ended, he secured another office in the spring of 1455, initially as controller of tunnage and poundage in the port of London, and then, in June that year, to the same position with regard to all the customs and subsides collected in Poole, nearer his home. That he served in the latter post for at least four years is surprising, given his poor record as sheriff. Between May and July 1455 several suits had been brought against him in the court of the Exchequer resulting from his failure to respond to royal writs ordering him to make payments from the issues of his bailiwick to such persons as Master Thomas Lisieux, the keeper of the privy seal, John Sydenham* (for his wages as a knight of the shire for Somerset in the same Parliament of 1453-4), and the administrators of the estate of the King’s physician, the late Master John Somerset*.13 E13/145B, rots. 58d, 60d, 61d, 69, 75d; 146, rot. 38d. His under sheriff was later accused of extortion: KB27/803, rex rot. 1d. These suits were all prolonged and never reached a final resolution. Nor apparently did another, brought by Richard, earl of Salisbury, on 28 Nov. that same year, alleging that Latimer had failed to make a payment to him of 50 marks. Yet one of the plaintiffs, John Stourton II*, Lord Stourton, the former treasurer of the Household, proved more successful. His bill against Latimer for £24 came to pleading in October 1456, and when Latimer’s attorney could produce no valid excuse for his failure to comply with the writ the barons gave judgement against him, awarding Stourton the sum due and appropriate damages.14 E13/146, rots. 17, 18, 23d, 57. Latimer himself pursued those owing him money as sheriff in the court of common pleas, but clearly he thought it would be prudent to purchase a royal pardon covering his transgressions while in office. This he did on 4 Jan. 1459, the same day that a pardon was also granted to his ailing father, John.15 CP40/779, rot. 159; C67/42, m. 36. The latter died just a week later, so it was then that Nicholas entered his inheritance.

Although there is no sign that Latimer had continued to be linked with the Household in the late 1450s, he nevertheless fought on the Lancastrian side, in Queen Margaret’s army, both at its victory at Wakefield, on 30 Dec. 1460 (when he was apparently knighted in the field), and at its defeat at Towton on 29 Mar. 1461. Accordingly, in Edward IV’s first Parliament, assembled in the following November, he was attainted.16 PROME, xiii. 43-47. His forfeited estates were granted in February 1462 to (Sir) John Howard*, in tail-male.17 CPR, 1461-7, pp. 111, 200. Latimer was with the Lancastrian army which returned from France in October that year, and he joined its commanders Henry Beaufort, duke of Somerset, Jasper Tudor, earl of Pembroke, and Ralph Percy at Bamburgh castle in Northumberland. The garrison under the lieutenant Percy surrendered to Edward IV at Christmas following, and Beaufort and Latimer were among those who then formally submitted to Edward’s authority, as vested in the earls of Warwick and Worcester. Afterwards, Sir Nicholas came before the King in person and swore an oath to be his true liegeman.18 Letters and Pprs. Illust. Wars of the English ed. Stevenson, ii (2), [778, 780]; RP, vi. 230-1. He was accorded a general pardon on 30 June 1463, during the prorogation of the second Parliament of the reign,19 CPR, 1461-7, p. 269. yet although pardoned, he was not given back the family estates, with which the King had rewarded his loyal supporters. To recover them, he was forced to negotiate with Howard, and it cost him dear. An initial agreement made between the two men stipulated that Latimer would pay Sir John 1,000 marks by instalments (two of 250 marks each, then five yearly payments of 100 marks apiece), and although Howard permitted him to farm the principal Latimer manors of Duntish and Dewlish, this was at a cost of £40 p.a. A second agreement, sealed in March 1465, had Latimer making a down payment of £40 and promising another of 240 marks, before paying £50 every year until Howard was contented. Howard himself obtained additional confirmation from the Crown of the grant of the Latimer estates.20 Howard Household Bks. intro. Crawford, 176-7, 468; CPR, 1461-7, p. 458; J.R. Lander, ‘Attainder and Forfeiture’, Hist. Jnl. iv. 139-40. The task of raising the money demanded was a daunting and frustrating one for Sir Nicholas. Somehow he had managed to keep certain properties out of Howard’s grasp, and received from them issues of £8 p.a. until a royal inquiry of 1 July 1466 revealed the subterfuge. Although, on 7 Aug., he was granted these particular holdings (six messuages and some 700 acres of land in Whitechurch and East Pulham, and a moiety of the manor of Child Okeford), a few days later Sir Edward Grey received in tail-male the Latimer manor and advowson of Loxton, Somerset, worth up to £16 a year.21 CIMisc. viii. 359-60; CPR, 1461-7, pp. 525, 537. Latimer petitioned the King in the Parliament which met on 3 June 1467 about his plight. He pointed out that although his pardon meant that he was ‘habled unto youre Lawes’, the restoration to his livelihood was still denied him, even though he had dutifully stayed in England, been faithful to King Edward, and promised to continue to do him service ‘to his lyves ende’. The payments and sureties he had been forced to render to those to whom Edward had granted his lands were an ‘importable charge’. He asked to be restored to his name, inheritance, possessions and livelihood as if the Act of Attainder had not been passed against him. The Commons supported the petition, which, by the advice of the Lords, the King granted, and it was exhibited on the last day of the Parliament, 12 May 1468. Even so, it was stated in the parliament roll that the Act of Resumption passed in the same Parliament was not to be prejudicial to any person who had been granted Latimer’s forfeited estates.22 PROME, xiii. 284; RP, vi. 230-1; CPR, 1467-77, p. 90. Furthermore, Latimer had evidently been expected to ease the passage of his petition in Parliament by making a loan to the King.23 E403/840, m. 4. Other transactions reflect on his straitened circumstances. He and John Newburgh II* were bound in the staple at Poole in 1466 to pay John Mone* as much as 500 marks for merchandise bought from him, but the debt remained unpaid 14 years later, and in the meantime Mone acquired some of Latimer’s property at Child Okeford, presumably as security. Another creditor was a merchant from Lucca to whom Sir Nicholas owed £140 at the Westminster staple; while a bond in £100 made him subject to litigation initiated by Sir Edward Grey.24 C241/254/85; 258/47; 262/5.

It is difficult to determine what, at this stage of the late 1460s, prompted Latimer to attach himself to the King’s brother, George, duke of Clarence, although the two men may well have come into contact in Dorset, where the duke now held estates, and perhaps Latimer, somewhat naively, supposed that Clarence might help him to come to the King’s favour. Alternatively, he may have been aware of the duke’s growing disaffection with his brother and hoped that Edward’s overthrow would lead to the recovery of his inheritance. Either way, he misjudged political developments. The duke plotted with Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, to depose Edward, and in the backlash to their rebellion, in April 1470, Latimer was again identified as a traitor and his estates were confiscated once more: in July they were placed with those of other rebels under the supervision of a receiver-general appointed by the King.25 CPR, 1467-77, p. 218; PSO1/34/1782B. Fortunately for Sir Nicholas, the tables were turned shortly afterwards, and when Clarence and Warwick took control of the government in the name of Henry VI that autumn he was listed at Clarence’s side on a commission sent into Dorset on 27 Oct. to search for and arrest felons.26 CPR, 1467-77, p. 247. Ten days later he was appointed sheriff of Somerset and Dorset for the second time. The duke’s abandonment of his ally Warwick and return to his brother’s side in the following spring, after Edward returned from exile, resulted not only in Latimer’s retention as sheriff, but also, in May 1471, his elevation by the restored monarch to the rank of knight banneret. Given this promotion, it seems likely that he had fought at Barnet on 14 Apr. in Clarence’s force, and had probably also participated in the battle of Tewkesbury on 4 May.27 W.A. Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 15.

Latimer’s close links to Clarence are also demonstrated by a royal licence of July 1472, in which he was named among those who were to be enfeoffed of the Staffordshire manors of Kinver and Stourton, which, previously held by the recently-deceased John Hampton II*, now passed to the duke and were later to be granted by him to Tewkesbury abbey.28 CPR, 1467-77, p. 346. When elections were held for the Parliament summoned to assemble on 6 Oct. that year, Sir Nicholas was returned for Dorset, and John Latimer, probably his son, for the borough of Shaftesbury. The attestors of the Dorset indenture included another kinsman of theirs, Henry Latimer esquire, perhaps John’s brother.29 C219/17/2. While Parliament was in progress Sir Nicholas was active in the interests of Clarence and his friends. On 21 Oct. he joined with the duke and two fellow Members of the Commons, Sir Roger Tocotes† (sitting for Wiltshire), and Sir John Willoughby† (representing Somerset), in attesting a grant of certain manors in Somerset, Dorset and Devon made by Edward Courtenay, the son and heir of Sir Hugh Courtenay*, to Sir Philip Courtenay† (sitting for Devon). These manors were the price paid for the support of Sir Philip and Clarence in preventing a posthumous attainder of Sir Hugh (who had fallen at Tewkesbury on Queen Margaret’s side).30 CCR, 1468-76, no. 962; M.A. Hicks, False, Fleeting Perjur’d Clarence, 172. The business of the Parliament, especially during its sessions in 1474, focused on the King’s proposals for an invasion of France, and when this eventually took place in the summer of 1475 Latimer enlisted in Clarence’s retinue. Yet even then he was moving away from this lord and committing himself to another: by Michaelmas that year he had been retained as chamberlain to the young duke of Buckingham, Henry Stafford. As a consequence of his new position, he was made a feoffee of Buckingham’s estates, and appointed as an itinerant justice in his marcher lordships in 1476. The justices were drawn from the circle of Stafford’s counsellors and officials, and were headed by the steward of his household and his chamberlain, neither of whom, however, seem to have attended the sessions. Latimer’s services were rewarded with a handsome annuity of £20.31 Statutes, iii. 271, 276; T.B. Pugh, Marcher Ldships. 21, 84, 293; JUST1/754/3. He had showed uncharacteristic good sense in leaving Clarence before his fall in 1478, and although still dogged by debts in other respects he seems to have re-established a place in local government in keeping with his status. Having been appointed to the Dorset bench, in 1479 he was party to the settlement which brought to an end the ‘great variance’ between John, Lord Cobham, and his stepmother Joan, the widow of Sir Edward Brooke*. The parties submitted to the King’s judgement, and by his award a distinguished group of feoffees, including Latimer and headed by the bishops of Lincoln and Exeter, were to hold as surety the Brooke seat at Holditch.32 CCR, 1476-85, no. 748. There is, however, more than a suggestion that Latimer’s financial difficulties continued, resulting in writs for his arrest for old debts, and causing him in 1482 to sell some 500 acres of land.33 C241/257/29; 258/47; Dorset Feet of Fines (Dorset Recs. x), 411.

After the death of Edward IV, Latimer followed the lead of his lord Buckingham in supporting Richard of Gloucester’s seizure of the throne, and he attended Richard’s coronation on 6 July 1483.34 Excerpta Historica ed. Bentley, 384; Coronation of Ric. III, ed. Sutton and Hammond, 271. Yet his lack of judgement led him back into trouble almost immediately. When Buckingham rose in rebellion, just three months later, Latimer and Sir William Knyvet† were the only members of the duke’s close circle to play an active part; it appears that the rest of the duke’s councillors had already chosen to dissociate themselves from such a foolhardy venture. Latimer was in the rebel forces at Salisbury on 18 Oct., although the authorities mistakenly commissioned him to hold inquiries about the traitors a few weeks later.35 Rawcliffe, 33, 147; R. Horrox, Ric. III, 167; CPR, 1476-85, p. 435. In the Parliament of January 1484 he was formally attainted for the second time in his career, and for the third time his estates were subject to forfeiture.36 PROME, xv. 26-27. Surprisingly, he was still spared his life, and was accorded a general pardon, on 26 Apr. It came at a high price: a month later he entered into a bond in 1,000 marks to guarantee his future loyalty to Richard III, with a kinsman, Henry Latimer of Weston, Dorset, and Richard Bagot of Blithfield in Staffordshire, standing surety on his behalf.37 CPR, 1476-85, p. 435; CCR, 1476-85, no. 1243. Inquisitions held on 14 Nov. showed that Latimer had been possessed of lands in Milborne St. Andrew and the manors of Duntish and Dewlish, in all valued at £74 p.a., and that these were now in the possession of John, Lord Zouche (in accordance with a royal grant). Yet on this occasion Sir Nicholas’s plight seems not to have been quite so desperate as in the 1460s, a circumstance perhaps due to the ability of his son-in-law, the lawyer and future Speaker, John Mordaunt†. Two days after the inquisitions were held he came to an arrangement with Mordaunt that he would place Dewlish in the hands of eight persons (four of them being Mordaunt’s nominees), to hold to his use for his lifetime, and in the event of his death without male issue thereafter to the use of Mordaunt and his wife Edith, Latimer’s daughter. Then, on 10 Dec. Mordaunt and three others, including the younger John Newburgh†, secured a grant of the Latimer estates from the King.38 CIMisc. viii. 504; CCR, 1476-85, no. 1379; CPR, 1476-85, p. 527; BL Harl. 433 ed. Horrox and Hammond, i. 236-7; iii. 148.

Latimer is not known to have risked his life at the battle of Bosworth, yet the victor swiftly rehabilitated him. During Henry VII’s first Parliament, meeting in November 1485, Sir Nicholas was restored to the bench in Dorset, and his attainder of the previously year was reversed.39 PROME, xv. 102-5. Even so, the aged knight proved to be incapable of learning political lessons. He now engaged the lawyer John Calowe* to further his attempts to gain back full control of his estates in the royal courts. In a contrived case begun in 1492 and continued until October 1493 one John Smyethe brought actions against Calowe for the Dorset manors of Dewlish, East Pulham and Duntish, another in Somerset and some 1,700 acres of land, of which Latimer had purportedly enfeoffed him. As a consequence, Calowe was required to appear in Chancery to answer a suit brought by Edith Mordaunt and her husband, who alleged collusion between Latimer, Smyethe and Calowe to deprive Edith of her inheritance. In the same period, a suit over Dewlish, initiated by Sir John Turberville† also required Calowe to attend the court as a defendant.40 C1/101/39-43; CP40/924, rots. 203d, 204. Testimony in a later suit in Chancery claimed that Turberville paid Latimer 1,000 marks to purchase East Pulham and other lands, and that their respective counsel, Smyethe and Calowe, had contrived between them settlements in favour of Latimer and his male issue and then of Turberville and his heirs: C1/139/6. Furthermore, when the Cornish rising against Henry VII broke out in 1497 Latimer again showed his inimitable ability to back losers.41 P. Vergil, Anglia Historia (Cam. Soc. 3rd ser. lxxiv), 106; I. Arthurson, ‘The Rising of 1497’, in People, Politics and Community ed. Rosenthal and Richmond, 7, 16. Curiously, on this occasion the authorities were remarkably slow to notice his culpability and to remove him from the bench, but on 26 July 1501 his friends were bound over on his behalf to pay a fine of 400 marks in instalments of 100 marks each, two of which were deferred until after his death, and on 19 Nov. two Dorset esquires, Thomas Hussey of Shapwick and John Coker of Mappowder, together with Latimer himself, were each bound to Henry VII in 500 marks to guarantee that Sir Nicholas would be true in his allegiance to the King for the rest of his life. In view of his previous record the King was wise to bind him with such stringent penalties.42 CCR, 1500-9, nos. 37, 122. Nevertheless, he pardoned Sir Nicholas on 1 May 1502,43 CPR, 1494-1509, p. 281. perhaps because of the trust he placed in Mordaunt, to whom the profits of Latimer’s manors were being paid.44 CCR, 1500-9, no. 232.

In his will of 1504 Mordaunt referred to his wife Edith as being ‘one of’ Sir Nicholas’s heirs,45 Beds. Wills (Beds. Hist. Rec. Soc. lviii), 68-71. and since the Latimer estates were eventually to descend to their son John, Lord Mordaunt, it would seem that her putative brothers had by that date both died without issue.46 Hutchins, iii. 705; CP, ix. 193-5. Latimer himself did not mention any descendants in the brief will he made on 8 Feb. 1505, in which he named his second wife, Margaret, as the sole executor. The will was proved on the following 17 Apr.47 PCC 29 Holgrave (PROB11/14, f. 225). The testator was buried in the church of Buckland Newton, Dorset.