OSENEY, Thomas

The son of a prominent citizen of Worcester, Thomas first comes into view in 1435, when a couple of chaplains appeared before the city’s authorities to nominate him as a proctor to act on their behalf.6 Collectanea (Worcs. Historical Soc. 1912), 7, 32. His father was involved in the law as well as the cloth industry, and he himself practised as a lawyer. Still alive in the late 1440s, Richard Oseney served with Thomas on all of the commissions of gaol delivery listed above.7 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 880. Presumably the two men were related to William Oseney of Worcester, a ‘husbandman’ found to possess lands and tenements in the city worth £10 p.a. when assessed for taxation in 1431: Feudal Aids, v. 325. Yet Thomas had a wider ranging career than his father, for he was often at Westminster in his capacity as a lawyer. It is also possible that he spent his later years in Bristol rather than at Worcester.

By the mid 1430s Oseney had found work as an attorney at Westminster, since in 1436 he appeared as such for Thomas Swyney* in the court of common pleas, where Swyney, another Worcester man, was pursuing several suits for debt.8 CP40/701, rot. 157d. In the following decades Oseney was similarly employed in both the common pleas and the court of King’s bench, representing among others the abbot of Bordesley, the prior of Worcester and his own father, a plaintiff there in Easter term 1446. Richard Oseney brought his suit against Isolda Rumney, for committing waste in certain houses at Worcester which were part of his inheritance and which she – presumably a family connexion – held in dower. Thomas also acted as a surety in the same court. In Hilary term 1444, for example, he was a pledge there for Norman Washbourne, then in dispute over the Worcestershire manor of Salwey Stanford. In 1449 he was a mainpernor for John Wryngton, a Worcester tailor whom Sir William Peyto‡ of Warwickshire was suing for debt, and in 1450 he performed the same service for William Faws, vicar of Thornbury, Gloucestershire, from whom Henry Clifford was claiming £10.9 CP40/732, rots. 354d, 360, 390; 741, rot. 265d; 753, rot. 9d; 754, rot. 337d; 759, rots. 132d, 234d; 760, rot. 372d . Oseney’s frequent absences at Westminster may explain why he appears never to have held civic office at Worcester. The fact that he was often in London and Westminster must also have made it convenient for him to act as proxy for the abbot of Evesham in the Parliament of 1442. Thanks to his time as the abbot’s proxy, he was by no means a parliamentary novice when elected to the Commons of 1453.

By virtue of his familiarity with the common pleas, Oseney was well placed to bring lawsuits of his own in that court. Most of these suits were for debt, although he also pursued actions against a servant for leaving her employment without permission; against three men with whom he was in dispute over property at ‘Lygh’ (probably ‘Lye’, a township in the Worcestershire parish of Old Swinford); and against Reynold Machon and Agnes his wife. He sued the Machons in 1446, alleging that they had committed waste on three messuages and four cottages at Worcester. These properties belonged to him but Agnes held a temporary interest in them, by right of dower from her previous marriage. The case was tried at Worcester in January the following year when the jury found that the Machons had damaged some, but not all, of these holdings. As a result of his partial victory, Oseney was awarded damages of £6 and permitted to retake possession of the affected properties; although he was also ordered to answer for making a false claim about the extent of the waste caused by the Machons.10 CP40/744, rot. 131; 756, rot. 363; 769, rot 431; 771, rot. 186.

In some of his lawsuits Oseney had a co-plaintiff in the person of his wife, another Agnes, whom he had married some time before 1444.11 CP40/732, rots. 23d, 360; 753, rot. 204; 756, rot. 363; 771, rot. 186; CPR, 1446-52, p. 287. It is not known whether she was his first spouse but he was certainly not her first husband, for she was previously married to Edward Blundell. An obscure Worcestershire esquire, Blundell had held lands at Bromsgrove, where he was buried in the parish church.12 W.A. Cotton, Bromsgrove Church, 81; Ct. Rolls Manor of Bromsgrove (Worcs. Hist. Soc. 1963), 87, 146, 147; T. Habington, Surv. Worcs. (Worcs. Hist. Soc. 1893-5, 1896-9), i. 88, 96, 385; ii. 8. Agnes was Blundell’s executrix and it was in this capacity that she, with Oseney as her co-plaintiff, sued Sir Edward Neville in the common pleas in the late 1440s, over a debt of £20. Soon to become Lord Abergavenny, Neville was a substantial opponent. The younger son of Ralph Neville, earl of Westmorland, he had come into extensive estates in southern England and the Midlands through his first marriage to the daughter and heir of Richard Beauchamp, earl of Worcester. The Oseneys were still trying to secure his appearance at Westminster in late 1452.13 CP40/753, rot. 204; 756, rot. 63; Oxf. DNB, ‘Neville, Edward, first Baron Bergavenny’.

It is likely that Oseney came into contact with other members of the nobility, since he became a feoffee of Thomas Burdet*, a retainer of the Staffords, earls of Stafford and dukes of Buckingham. Late in Henry VI’s reign and in the early years of that of Edward IV, he was associated with other members of the Stafford affinity in helping Burdet to defend his title to the Warwickshire manor of Bramcote, although it does not necessarily follow that he himself was one of the Staffords’ followers.14 CPR, 1452-61, p. 523; Derbys. RO, Burdett of Foremark mss, D156 M/T 5/1; C88/147/36.

Conceivably Oseney had moved away from Worcester by the time he had become involved in Burdet’s affairs, for a Thomas Oseney resided at Bristol during the later 1450s and in the following decade. A witness of Bristol deeds from 1456 onwards, by 1458 this Thomas was serving as the town clerk, an office which he still held in 1467. He held property in ‘Smythstrete’ in that town, including a tenement which Sir Walter Rodney* granted to him and his wife in 1464.15 Bristol RO, St. Thomas the Martyr parish recs., P/St.T/D/311-15; All Saints parish recs., P/AS/D/HS C 5; St. Philip and St. Jacob parish recs., P/St.P and J/D/5(f); Cat. Med. Muns. Berkeley Castle ed. Wells-Furby (Bristol and Glos. Arch. Soc.), i. 445; Gt. Red Bk. of Bristol, iii. 61, 158-9; Trans. Bristol and Glos. Arch. Soc. xv. 179, 181. Presumably, he was also the man who features in a safe conduct the Crown issued in December 1461 to three Bretons, prisoners of Thomas Oseney, William Joce and John Benham, given that Joce was a prominent Bristol merchant.16 C76/145, m. 5; C67/40, m. 23; 45, m. 12. Sir Walter Rodney’s deed of 1464 is the main basis for supposing that the Worcester man had moved to Bristol, since it shows that Thomas of Bristol was married to an Agnes. Alternatively, it is possible that there were two namesakes whose wives shared the same Christian name, a very common one at the time.

Wherever he was then residing, Oseney was certainly still alive in the autumn of 1473. In Michaelmas term that year he sued a bill in the Exchequer against John Broun and Thomas Bledlowe, the outgoing sheriffs of London and Middlesex, from whom he sought £7 16s. 8d. Through his attorney, Richard Bristoll, he pleaded that he had won this sum from Barnard de Grays, in a court held by one of their predecessors in 1467. While in office, however, Broun and Bledlowe had released de Grays, then a prisoner in the Counter, from custody, even though he had yet to pay the damages in question. The matter was referred to a jury, although in the event the defendants were dismissed sine die, having handed over the money before a trial could take place. In January 1474, on the day set for the trial, Oseney informed the court of this fact in the person of a different attorney, his own son Richard, another lawyer.17 E13/159, rots. 31, 31d. For Richard’s legal career: J.H. Baker, Men of Ct. (Selden Soc. supp. ser. xviii), ii. 1179.

This suit provides the last definite reference to the MP, although William Walker, a butcher from Worcester, received a pardon in November 1482, for failing to answer a suit for debt (contracted at Bristol) brought against him by a Thomas Oseney.18 CPR, 1476-85, p. 294. The MP’s paternal grandmother, father and son were all buried in Worcester cathedral – a sure sign of his family’s local standing – but it is not clear whether he himself was also interred there.19 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 881; PCC 8 Vox (PROB11/10, ff. 62-3). He did however feature in a mural monument (viewed by Thomas Nash in the eighteenth century but now gone) in St. Alban’s, one off the city’s parish churches. This depicted Agnes Oseney, dressed in a bonnet, mantle and gown, with her two husbands and children on either side of her. To her right was the figure of Blundell, wearing armour, and to her left that of Oseney, in civilian dress. The monument also displayed the Oseney arms, sable a fesse embattled argent. An inscription requested the onlooker to pray for her, Blundell and Oseney, for John Blundell, her son by her first marriage, and for Richard, Agnes, Anne and Joan, her children by Oseney. If the inscription included any dates, Nash neglected to record them, although Richard is known to have died in the latter part of 1493.20 Nash, pp. cxxii-cxxiii; Trans. Worcs. Arch. Soc. n.s. xxi. 49.