HILLING, Robert

Of obscure parentage, Hilling came from a family of limited means and standing, and was for much of his career styled a mere yeoman.3 There was an earlier Robert Hilling, perhaps the MP’s father or another older kinsman, active at Ugborough in the middle years of Hen. IV’s reign: CP40/587, rot. 110. He is not known to have inherited landholdings of any substance, but was nevertheless able to contract a modestly profitable marriage. His proposed bride, Isabel Spenser, was a servant of one John Hughe, and perhaps also his ward, since Hughe agreed to provide her with a cash dowry of six marks and promised to settle on her a house and 20 acres of copyhold land in the manor of King’s Brympton. However, after the marriage had taken place, Hughe changed his mind and refused to honour the agreement, leaving Hilling to seek redress in Chancery from his widow and executrix.4 C1/61/269. Other property that eventually came to Hilling’s hands included a tenement in Spreacombe (in Morthoe), and holdings in West Hagginton.5 CP40/758, rot. 222d ; Cornw. RO, Arundell mss, AR19/20. He may also have laid claim to holdings in Spriddlescombe (in Modbury), for it was there that he and a group of low ranking associates from Plympton were said to have disseised one John Uglowe of a tenement in 1438.6 CP40/710, rot. 127d.

In spite of his apparently modest status, by the early 1440s Hilling was of sufficient status to be included among the local men commissioned to investigate an act of piracy off the Devon coast. It is probable that he owed this appointment at least in part to an aristocratic patron, Thomas Courtenay, earl of Devon, lord of the borough of Plympton Erle where Hilling resided by this date.7 KB27/706, rot. 106. He was to maintain close ties with the earl in subsequent years, and at some point seems to have taken up residence in his household at Tiverton.8 C67/49, m. 34. Equally, whatever local credentials he possessed aside, there can be little doubt that Hilling owed his two successive returns to Parliament for Plympton Erle to Thomas Courtenay. The Devon shire elections for the Parliaments of November 1449 and 1450 were heavily dominated by the earl’s adherents and his retainers were returned for the county seats, as well as for several of its boroughs.

If it had been the earl of Devon’s intention in packing Parliament to strengthen opposition to the court circle and above all to Henry VI’s chief minister, William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, he was only partially successful. While de la Pole was impeached, exiled, and ultimately murdered, Courtenay’s grievances against his regional rival William, Lord Bonville*, and his ally, the newly-minted earl of Wiltshire, remained unaddressed. Courtenay thus withdrew to the south-west to plot other ways of settling his personal scores. In the autumn of 1451 he led an army into Somerset and Wiltshire and laid siege to Bonville in Taunton castle, until persuaded to withdraw by the duke of York. Early in the following year, Courtenay was once more on the move, this time evidently with York’s full acquiescence. By the beginning of February he had once again gathered his armed retainers and marched eastwards, while his supporters staged uprisings in several Devon towns, including Plympton Erle. In the event, at Dartford York allowed himself to be duped by the blandishments of the lords about the King, now led by the duke of Somerset. York’s leading allies were placed under arrest and the rising collapsed. Yet, while the leaders were held in captivity for some time, their more junior supporters were allowed to purchase royal pardons. Among those who did so later in 1452 was Hilling, whose part in the events of 1451-2 is otherwise obscure.9 C67/40, m. 15; M. Cherry, ‘Crown and Political Community, Devon’ (Wales Univ. Swansea Ph.D. thesis, 1981), 274; R.L. Storey, End of House of Lancaster, 89-101.

It seems, however, that he learnt his lesson, for there is no evidence to suggest that he took any part in the fresh violence stirred up by the Courtenays in 1454-5, unless the charges of robbery that his old enemy Uglowe brought against him and a group of associates in the autumn of 1455 were in some way connected with the disorder fomented by the earl’s sabre rattling at that time.10 KB27/778, rot. 3d. He may in any event have been kept busy by his private affairs. An ongoing concern was the convoluted matter of the Holcombe inheritance. At some point in the late 1440s or early 1450s one of Hilling’s neighbours, the childless John Holcombe, settled his landholdings in Langage, Venton and elsewhere in Devon on feoffees, who were to allow their revenues to be used for the benefit of Holcombe’s soul for ten years after his death, before settling the lands on his right heirs. The details of Holcombe’s will were complex and included ambitious projects such as the building of two arches in the parish church of Plympton, and as a consequence he had explicitly appointed Hilling as receiver of the moneys involved. Following Holcombe’s death in March 1453, the feoffees settled his lands on Hilling, who for the next ten years was left to his own devices in carrying out the testator’s wishes. It was only after the ten-year-term stipulated by Holcombe’s will had expired that one Robert Langman, a feoffee to the heirs, began legal action claiming that Hilling had unlawfully gained possession of the property and had arbitrarily treated it as his own. Proceedings continued into the 1470s and were eventually settled by an agreement under which the disputed estates were divided and Hilling was allowed to keep the holdings in ‘Shakeston’, while the remainder reverted to Langman and John Holcombe’s rightful heirs.11 C1/39/183; 41/271-4; 47/20-23; 53/92; 66/1; C253/44/261; CCR, 1468-76, nos. 1181, 1361.

In the interim, there were other disputes. In 1456 Hilling sued a local blacksmith for his negligence in trying to cure one of his horses which had resulted in the animal’s death.12 KB27/781, rot. 4. An association with the Chalons family brought him into conflict with one of the more prominent men in the region, Walter Reynell* of Malston, after he stood surety for Thomas Chalons of Yealmpton for a debt of £10 the latter owed to Reynell. Chalons’s refusal to pay resulted in a series of suits in Chancery and the court of common pleas which continued into the 1460s.13 C1/45/347; CP40/820, rot. 33.

Perhaps on account of his longstanding service to the Courtenays, Hilling secured no further Crown office after Edward IV’s accession, although he was occasionally empanelled on local juries.14 KB27/827, rot. 53d; C140/28/34, 36; 48/1; 49/24; 55/27. He apparently maintained his links with his old patron’s sons. When Henry VI was restored to the throne in the autumn of 1470, and in his wake John Courtenay, the old earl’s last surviving son, returned to claim his father’s earldom, this connexion might have appeared to be a valuable one. Within a few months, however, the tables had turned, Edward IV regained the throne and Hilling hastened to secure a pardon from the restored King, which was granted in April 1472.15 C67/49, m. 34.

By the mid 1470s Hilling had apparently moved into the city of Exeter’s extramural parish of St. Sidwell.16 CP40/850, rot. 191. He was still alive in the early months of 1477,17 E199/9/12/8; C140/55/27. although the date of his eventual death is uncertain. He was succeeded by his son William, who eventually rose to serve as under steward of the duchy of Cornwall in Devon to Prince Arthur, and to whom it fell to renew the dispute over the old Holcombe lands.18 SC6/HenVII/1081, m. 5; C1/53/92, 66/1.