HALSALL, Richard

It is possible that this MP was an obscure resident of the Surrey borough he represented in Parliament, for Guildford’s representation in the reign of Henry VI was still dominated by its residents and those drawn from its near vicinity. Yet it is more likely that Halsall’s election to the Parliament of February 1449 was anomalous, and that the MP is to be identified with a younger son of an ancient Lancashire gentry family of the second rank. Although he was a lawyer of some standing very little is known of him, probably because he died just as he began to win significant promotion in his profession. He first appears in the records in the autumn of 1434 when he was party to a final concord by which his cousin Henry Scarisbrick, made a resettlement of the manor of Scarisbrick. In October 1440, described as resident at Halsall, he was one of those who offered surety in the massive sum of 2,000 marks that his first cousin, Thomas Haryngton II*, would appear before the King and council.3 Lancs. Final Concords (Lancs. and Cheshire Rec. Soc. l), 100; CCR, 1435-41, p. 444. On 21 Nov. 1448 he joined another first cousin, Henry Bold of Bold, in leasing from King’s College, Cambridge, the rectory of Prescot near Bold. In the indenture he is himself described as ‘of Bold’ and he may thus have had lands there, but there is no other evidence of his landholdings.4 King’s Coll., Cambridge, archs. PRE/135. Bold was the son of our MP’s paternal aunt, Ellen: VCH Lancs. iii. 405. His apparent election for Guildford a few months later has no obvious context, but his parliamentary service seems to have advanced his career. On 6 Nov. 1450, the first day of the next but one Parliament, he was appointed as the King’s serjeant-at-law and attorney in the courts of his native palatinate of Lancaster during good behaviour.5 DL37/19/14; PL3/3/24.

Halsall did not live long enough to make many further appearances in the records. In the contract made on 18 Jan. 1452 for the marriage of Scarisbrick’s daughter, Margaret, to Nicholas Blundell, provision was made for the groom’s ‘exhibicion to the Scole of gramere by the advice and lymytacion’ of our MP, who was also to take responsibility for correcting any deficiencies in the contract. Five days later, with his brothers Henry and Gilbert, rector of the church of Halsall, he was present in the cemetery there to witness a declaration of legitimacy and good character made before a public notary by Scarisbrick.6 CAD, v. A12603; Lancs. RO, Scarisbrick deeds DDSc 43A/165. It was at this point his career seems to have been brought to an end by premature death. On 8 July 1452 he was succeeded in his palatinate office by another Lancashire lawyer, Thomas Urswick II*, and it is likely that death is the reason for his replacement. His joint-lease of the rectory of Prescot came to an end at about the same time: he and Bold were still the lessees in May 1452 but they had been replaced by the autumn of 1453.7 DL37/20, m. 2; King’s Coll. archs. PRE/136-7.

On the death of his elder brother Henry in August 1471, leaving two daughters as his coheiresses, the bulk of the family property, including the manor of Halsall, descended to our MP’s son, Hugh. Richard’s direct male descendants remained at Halsall until 1625, when the manor was sold by Sir Cuthbert Halsall†, whose improvidence and litigiousness brought ruin on the family.8 Lancs. Inqs. ii (Chetham Soc. xcix), 109-10; The Commons 1604-29, iv. 521-2; VCH Lancs. iii. 195.