MEDOCROFT, William

Medocroft is one of the more obscure men to have sat for the borough of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in Henry VI’s Parliaments. According to the testimony given in a proof of age in June 1444, he was then 66 years old and had a son baptized in Newcastle’s church of All Saints on 1 Aug. 1421. Such testimonies are, however, generally mere formulas of no historical value. When he again gave evidence in a proof held in April 1446, he relied on the same formula, claiming to have had a son baptized on 11 Nov. 1423, in this case in the town’s church of St. John the Baptist. Further, he had not only moved from one of the town’s parishes to another in the early 1420s, he had, in the mid 1440s, become younger, as in 1446 he was only 62.3 CIPM, xxvi. 155, 465. The probability is that he was younger still. Nothing is known of him before the early 1420s and it is unlikely that he was then as old as 40.

Medocroft’s career began with a marriage that was excellent both socially and materially. His wife was not only the daughter of a local knight but she had a dower interest in the property of two husbands who had both died young. From her first husband, William Strother, the nephew of John Strother†, who represented Newcastle in three Parliaments from 1417 to 1421, she had lands in a number of neighbouring vills centred on Kirkharle, some 20 miles to the north-west of Newcastle.4 CIPM, xxii. 390; Northumb. and Durham Deeds, 59-60. From her second, Thomas Hebburn, MP for Newcastle in the Parliament of March 1416, she acquired minor landholdings further north, principally an interest in the manor of Newton-by-the -Sea. No doubt both these husbands also had property in Newcastle itself, but this is undocumented. Isabel’s holdings explain why, in the subsidy returns of 1450, Medocroft was assessed on an annual income of as much as £14 (although, for reasons unclear, he refused to pay).5 CIPM, xxii. 127; E179/158/54, m. 3d.

This marriage took place soon after Hebburn’s death in July 1422, and one can only speculate about how a match, seemingly as socially disadvantageous for the bride as it was advantageous for the groom, came to be made. Perhaps Medocroft had numbered among Hebburn’s servants. Whatever the case, his wife’s standing allowed him to make a career in Newcastle. He attested the town’s parliamentary election in October 1423 and was soon himself returned to the Parliaments of 1425 and 1427, while in the meantime attesting both the county and borough election to the Parliament of 1426.6 C219/13/2-5. Although he never served as either sheriff or mayor of the town, he was, seemingly only for a brief period either side of 1430, constable of the staple there. This implies that he had mercantile interests but these leave only minor traces on the surviving records. In Easter term 1430 he was one of five men, all described as merchants of Newcastle, sued for debts of ten marks each by Thomas Warcop† of Lammerside (Westmorland), and on the following 23 June, again described as a merchant, he entered into a bond in £20 to a London ironmonger, John Hatherley†.7 C241/223/25; CP40/677, rot. 98d; CCR, 1429-35, p. 59. A month later, he and other Newcastle merchants entered into more onerous financial undertakings to Thomas Langley, bishop of Durham, and their failure to discharge them resulted, in Easter term 1440, in a series of actions in the court of common pleas by the bishop’s executors, with as much as £100 being claimed against our MP.8 DURH3/37, mm. 2d, 3d; CP40/717, rot. 94.

Little else is known of Medocroft. He again appears as an attestor of parliamentary elections in the late 1440s, and he was alive as late as the summer of 1456 when the dower interest of himself and his wife is mentioned in a deed concerning the Strother inheritance of her first husband.9 C219/15/4, 6; 16/1; Northumb. and Durham Deeds, 59-60. Assuming that the sons mentioned in the two proofs of age of the 1440s are fictions, there is no evidence that she had issue by our MP.