MICHELL, William

A smith by trade, Michell was one of the most obscure of Northampton’s MPs in Henry VI’s reign. His father was probably a brasier of the town who was dead by 1426. If this identification is correct, then it was our MP’s mother or stepmother, Joan, who sued him on pleas of debt and account in that year. Earlier, in 1421, he had himself been plaintiff in a plea of trespass brought against a smith and locksmith of the town.1 CP40/663, rots. 157d, 193; KB27/642, rot. 93. Nothing more is known of him until his election to Parliament in 1435 and thereafter there are only a few references that can even speculatively be assigned to him. He is perhaps to be identified with the plaintiff who, in 1442, successfully brought an action of trespass against one of the county gentry, John Parles, who claimed him as his villein. In common with other such actions this suit was probably collusive, designed to affirm the free status of the plaintiff in a court of record, but it raises the possibility that Michell had recent servile ancestry (or perhaps had purchased lands to which labour services attached).2 KB27/725, rots. 7, 31. More doubtfully, our MP may be the William Mighell, who claimed damages against Thomas Fortho of Stony Stratford and other lesser men for assaulting him at Potterspury in the south of the county in July 1452.3 KB27/768, rot. 64.