MEREDITH, Morgan

A native of Carmarthen in South Wales, Meredith’s early life is obscure, but in 1435 he petitioned Parliament for letters of denization.5 SC8/198/9896; CPR, 1436-41, p. 560. By then he had probably already been retained by Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, and his naturalization enabled him to reap some tangible reward for his service. On 31 May 1438 he was granted for life, along with Richard Bolton, the manor of ‘Steynteways’ in Westbury, Gloucestershire, which had come into the King’s hands by virtue of the previous tenant’s violation of the Statute of Mortmain,6 CPR, 1436-41, p. 177. and on 4 June the following year he was appointed forester in Carnwyllion and Iscennen, part of the royal forest of Cefn Gorath. It is likely that he had been given a place in Gloucester’s household, for on at least four occasions in 1438 and 1439 he collected at the Exchequer tallies or payments in cash of instalments of the duke’s annuities.7 E403/733, mm. 2, 10; 734, mm. 1, 2. Nevertheless, doubts still persisted over Meredith’s nationality and in July 1441 he saw fit to pay for his letters of denization to be confirmed and enrolled on the patent roll. Described as Gloucester’s ‘serjeant’, in the following spring he received a grant of the office of keeper of all the royal armouries in South Wales.8 CPR, 1441-6, p. 65.

Meredith’s election as a baron for Dover in the Parliament of 1445 is thus to be explained by his position as a servant of the King’s uncle, who as warden of the Cinque Ports regularly wielded his influence in Dover’s parliamentary affairs. Indeed, his fellow baron, Richard Needham*, was also closely connected with Duke Humphrey, by whose appointment he occupied the office of clerk of Dover castle. Both men were given by Dover a single payment of £5 each to cover their parliamentary wages and as a reward for their labours on behalf of the Ports generally, although unlike Needham and Stephen Slegge* one of the barons for Hythe, Meredith received no additional payments from the Brodhull.9 Add. 29810, f. 61; White and Black Bks. of Cinque Ports (Kent Rec. Ser. xix), 20. Following his return from Parliament, he appears to have had no further involvement in the affairs of the Ports.

Nevertheless, over the next few years Meredith established himself among the gentry of east Kent. He had been living in the county since at least 1432 when he had rented property in Greenwich, and by 1441 he had acquired land at Petham, to the south-west of Canterbury, where he sometimes resided.10 CP40/734, rot. 337; KB27/722, rot. 100; E159/228, recogniciones Trin. His connexion with the Isle of Thanet began by 1443 when he received a licence with John Sandeway, of the parish of St. Nicholas at Wade, to export victuals to the Low Countries. St. Nicholas’s parish, moreover, was a limb of Dover and the acquisition of property there would have given him the freedom of the Port.11 DKR, xlviii. 356; Dover Chs. ed. Statham, 181. In January 1446, while he was still sitting in Parliament, he and his wife acquired the manor of ‘Brendcourt’or St. Nicholas Court there,12 CP25(1)/115/319/635; CP40/740, rot. 76; E. Hasted, Kent ed. Drake, x. 239. and to this he added in Michaelmas term 1447 the manor of Denne in Monketon, also on the Isle of Thanet, and later on property in Chilham.13 CP40/780, rot. 234; CP25(1)/116/321/676. Meredith’s integration into Kentish society was doubtless helped by such acquisitions, and his occasional presence in Canterbury.14 Canterbury Cath. Archs., Canterbury city recs., burghmote reg. 1298-1503, CCA-CC-O/A/1, f. 45v.

Although the Parliament at Bury St. Edmunds in 1447 saw the destruction of Meredith’s patron, he, like others of Gloucester’s affinity in Kent, was able to transfer his service to the royal household. By 1450 he was listed among the esquires of the hall and chamber, a position he probably retained until the Household was reformed in late 1454.15 E101/410/6, f. 40; 410/9, f. 43v; PPC, vi. 222-33. During that short period he secured in July 1453 a re-grant of his office of keeper of the armouries in South Wales, notwithstanding the fact that there were by then no armouries maintained in the Welsh castles, with the payment of wages backdated to before the Act of Resumption in the Parliament of 1449-50, which had required him to surrender his Crown posts.16 CPR, 1452-61, p. 106. On this occasion the grant was made in survivorship with John Roger, a more prominent Kentish man with important connexions within the Household and with the King’s half-brothers. The two men were already acquainted, for in July 1452 Meredith and John Sandeway had entered into a recognizance to Roger and William Essex*, the King’s remembrancer in the Exchequer, to pay a debt of 20 marks.17 E159/228, recogniciones, Trin. The nature of the debt is unrecorded, but it was possibly related to Meredith and Sandeway’s export of victuals. In 1456, described as ‘esquire’, the MP was among those members of the gentry of Kent instructed to attend upon the commissioners at Maidstone who had been sent to deal with popular disturbances in the county. Meredith’s last recorded activity was at Canterbury in September 1460 where he witnessed the election of the knights of the shire.18 PPC, vi. 288; C219/16/6.