PACHET, Thomas

Pachet is notable both for his involvement, late in his relatively short career, in a curious marital dispute and for his long and remarkable will. His antecedents have, in large part, to be inferred from the bequests in that will. Although he wished to be buried in the church of the Greyfriars in Worcester, the city in which he made his career, he also had a close interest in the church of Belbroughton, about 15 miles to the north, to which he left, among other things, as much as 16 marks for a priest to pray for his soul for two years. It is a reasonable inference that he originated from that parish, and that he was a near kinsmen, perhaps even the son and heir of another Thomas Pachet, who, described as ‘of Belbroughton’, sued at least two actions in the court of common pleas in the 1420s complaining of close-breaking at his home.2 PCC 12 Godyn (PROB11/5, ff. 90v-92); CP40/643, rot. 294d; 667, rot. 105. Further evidence that our MP’s origins lay in that Worcestershire parish is provided by his close relationship with the lord of the manor there, Thomas Burdet*, described in the will as ‘my maister’. He was thus probably a migrant to the city, in which he certainly held property at his death, although the precise location, extent and manner of acquisition of that property are unknown. If his only known wife was his only wife, it is certain that he won no property there by marriage, for she was a widow from Mitcheldean in Gloucestershire.3 This marriage had taken place by Easter 1458, when the couple were sued for debt by the influential Herefs. lawyer, Thomas Fitzharry*: CP40/789, rot. 185. Her first husband, Thomas Woodward, who had property at Birlingham, Worcs., as well as at Mitcheldean, had been a tax collector in Worcs. in 1432 and Glos. in 1440: CFR, xvi. 104; xvii. 147. He was dead by 25 Aug. 1455, when his feoffees settled a modest property in Mitcheldean on Agnes: CP40/820, rot. 273.

That marriage was in the future when Pachet first appears in the records. The first reference to him dates from 10 June 1449, when, at Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire, he took a bond in £12 from a husbandman of nearby Wormington. By Michaelmas term 1450 he was acting as an attorney in the court of common pleas, soon numbering among his clients, mostly from Worcestershire, Burdet himself.4 CP40/759, att. rot. 6; 763, att. rot. 6; 768, rot. 27d; 780, rot. 116. Clearly he had a legal education, and his will provides a clue to its form. He bequeathed to his cousin, Richard Tolle, a London tailor, an old featherbed which he had at Lyon’s Inn, an inn of Chancery.5 PCC 12 Godyn. It is a fair inference that he had received his basic education at the Inn, and that he then continued to maintain a room there for the rest of his career. There is no evidence that he advanced to an inn of court, and it may be that he preferred instead to combine the modest legal role of attorney with a part in local administration rather than seeking promotion in the profession. However this may be, by 28 Feb. 1453 he was acting as under sheriff of Worcestershire to John Brome II*. On that day, in discharge of his office, he delivered the indenture for the Worcester parliamentary election to Brome for return into Chancery.6 C219/16/2. This is the earliest reference to his involvement in the city’s affairs, but it is very likely that his family was already established there. It certainly was by the time of the next Parliament, for John Pachet*, who was either Thomas’s brother or first cousin, was elected to represent the city.

Pachet’s practice in the central courts expanded in the late 1450s, and he took responsibility for many of the Worcestershire cases. Aside from Burdet, he numbered such prominent Worcestershire figures as Eleanor, widow of (Sir) Humphrey Stafford I*, (Sir) Walter Skulle*, and Joan, widow of Sir William Lichfield*, among his clients, as well as lesser individuals such as the husbandman indicted of murder for whom he offered bail in 1459. He also offered pledge for the prosecution of Chancery petitions, doing so, significantly in the context of his later involvement with the Lucys, for the executors of Sir Walter Lucy of Dallington (Northamptonshire) in the late 1450s.7 CP40/789, rot. 36; 796, att. rot. 1; 797, rot. 198; KB27/791, rex rot. 4d; C1/26/139. But his practice at Westminster was not burdensome enough to preclude his involvement in county administration. In 1456-7 he was escheator, and in 1458-9 he again took up the duties of under sheriff, on this occasion under Walter Wrottesley, the nominee of the county’s hereditary sheriff, Richard, earl of Warwick.8 CP40/794, rot. 33d; E5/539. With such a background Pachet was an obvious candidate as a borough MP and he was elected for Worcester to the Yorkist Parliament of 1460. Whether this election can be taken as evidence of any sympathy with that cause is difficult to say. It may be relevant that he had indirect connexions with the earl of Warwick, one of the Yorkist leaders, not only as Wrottesley’s deputy but also through Burdet, who, although his relations with the earl were somewhat equivocal, numbered among his annuitants and was, perhaps significantly, acting as sheriff of Worcestershire at the time of Pachet’s election.9 C219/16/6. Further, as described below, there is some later evidence to connect Pachet with another of Warwick’s men, Thomas Wake of Blisworth (Northamptonshire).

If, however, Pachet approved of Edward IV’s accession in 1461, it had little perceptible impact on his career. He maintained his close association with Burdet, for whom, in 1463, he twice offered surety for appearance in Chancery, and continued to act as an attorney in the central courts, representing, in 1462, both Worcester cathedral priory and the abbot of Evesham.10 C244/97/24, 192; CP40/805, att. rot. 1. In one respect, however, his career in the early 1460s differed from that in the late 1450s in that he now played his administrative role in the city of Worcester rather than the county of Worcestershire. At Michaelmas 1462 the citizens elected him and John Broke*, with whom he had represented the city in the Parliament of 1460, as their bailiffs. His term led him into the sort of legal difficulties that often attended such office-holding. A draper of the city, Henry Lambe, complained to the chancellor that Pachet and Broke had acted illegally and partially in releasing from their custody prisoners against whom Lambe had a judgement of damages in the city court, but the case was quickly dismissed. Less happily for Pachet, his obligation to account as bailiff in the Exchequer enabled one of his creditors, Thomas Harryson, to use the expeditious process of the Exchequer of pleas to recover debt and damages of over £25 against him.11 Collectanea (Worcs. Historical Soc. 1912), 6; C1/29/82; E13/150, rot. 33d.

These difficulties were, however, the mere backdrop to Pachet’s intriguing involvement in much more significant affairs, an involvement that shows he was a considerably more influential man than the run of Worcester bailiffs. In the early 1460s he acquired a new client in Anne Ormond, who, as he mentions in his will, retained him at a generous annual fee of four marks. She was a woman in need. Her husband, Thomas Ormond, younger brother of James, earl of Wiltshire, had been attainted in the first Parliament of the new reign, and, as a significant heiress in her own right (she was one of the coheiresses of (Sir) Richard Hankford*), she sought insurance that her own assets would escape forfeiture. In this she appears to have been successful: on 18 May 1463 the Crown entrusted her extensive lands, which lay in the West Country, to eight trustees, among whom, significantly, was our MP, to hold for the life of her attainted husband, presumably to her use.12 PCC 12 Godyn; CPR, 1461-7, p. 265. There are two reasons why she may have granted Pachet a fee: either she did so after he had become one of her trustees to encourage him to protect her interests, or else the fee predated his nomination as a trustee and that he had been one of her advocates in securing a favourable settlement. To judge only from the diversity of their geographical interests, the first interpretation is to be preferred, yet Pachet had some, admittedly indirect relations with her even before May 1463. Among his clients were members of the Lucy family, and Margaret, the young widow of Sir William Lucy*, was Anne’s maternal half-sister.

Margaret Lucy, like Anne, had found herself in a vulnerable position in the wake of Edward IV’s accession, and it was Pachet’s part in her controversial affairs that dominated the last part of his career. On 5 Nov. 1464 he was obliged to enter into a bond in £200 to the chancellor to appear before him on the following 3 Dec., a bond that was renewed for further appearances from day to day.13 CCR, 1461-8, pp. 271, 273. The burden probably arose from the accusations levelled against him by the Oxfordshire lawyer, Thomas Danvers*. Although these are known only from a petition of slightly later date, this petition need not represent the first appearance of the matter before the chancellor. In any event, it is of unusual interest. In it, Danvers described a conspiracy against him by our MP and Margaret Lucy’s maternal half-brother, Sir Henry Fitzlewis. He alleged that, after entering into a contact of marriage with Margaret, representations had been made to him by Sir Henry of the need to deny that any such contract had been made. This, as Sir Henry allegedly described the matter to Danvers, was necessary to save the young widow’s ‘worship’ because, fearful of their disapproval, she had assured the earl of Warwick ‘and other estates of her kin’ that no such contract had been made. In return for the prospective groom’s co-operation, Sir Henry promised that the contract would be honoured and offered, as a guarantee, a bond in £1,000 from himself and his half-sister that the marriage would take place within six months. Danvers sought redress because he had now learnt that all this was an elaborate ruse to facilitate Margaret’s marriage to the Northamptonshire esquire, Thomas, son of Thomas Wake*. According to the petition, Pachet’s part in this elaborate fraud had been to persuade Margaret to draft, in her own hand, a letter of credence on behalf of Sir Henry so that Danvers would believe the yarn spun to him, and to draw up the obligations, which Sir Henry then omitted to seal.14 C1/31/298. If this was true, Pachet was perhaps merely offering his services as a lawyer to Margaret and her half-brother. Yet if his interest was so limited, it is curious that Danvers should have named him and that he should have shared the discomfiture of the principals. On 8 Oct. 1465 a powerful commission was issued for his arrest together with that of Wake and Margaret.

None the less, death meant that this tangled affair caused Pachet no further difficulties. At Worcester on 9 Dec. 1465 he drew up a long, detailed and revealing will.15 PCC 12 Godyn. He had very clear plans for his only child, John, who, after spending enough time at school to learn ‘sufficiently his grammer and to sing and Rede in the chirch to serve god’, was to be apprenticed to Henry Newman, a London mercer. Newman was to be entrusted with a stock of 100 marks, which was ‘to growe’ to the boy’s advantage and be given to him ‘assone as he is owte of prenticehood’. It can be inferred from the will that this plan was not to the liking of Pachet’s wife, for the testator harshly decreed that if she would not allow the boy to be ‘rulyd after that forme’ she was to have ‘none halfpenny worth goode of myn’.16 It is an open question whether she was John’s mother. His youth at our MP’s death is consistent with his parents’ marriage in the late 1450s. Yet, in 1466, her first husband Thomas Woodward’s heir was a married grand-daughter: CP40/820, rot. 273. In short, she cannot have been the mother of both her husbands’ sons.

This stricture aside, however, Agnes was treated favourably. She was to have all his cattle and household goods, save his clothes and armour, several items of plate and jewellery, including the flat cross of gold which he was accustomed to wear about his neck, as well as all the goods and plate that she had brought to him at their marriage. Further, she was to hold all his property in Worcester (unfortunately not specified in detail) for the term of her life, an act of generosity facilitated by John’s youth, with successive remainders to John and his issue and then to Pachet’s executors for sale for the benefit of his soul (this was to the exclusion of the line represented by his uncle, Richard Pachet, suggesting that the property was of his own acquisition).17 The only other landed property specified in the will was the parsonage of St. Peter the More in Worcester, leased for 20 years from Abbot Edmund of Pershore. He bequeathed the remainder of the lease to John Salwey, the vicar of the church of St. Peter, for unpaid tithes and prayers.

Pachet’s most valuable item of plate (at least if one may fairly judge from the descriptions in the will) – ‘a grete crosse of gold’ decorated with sapphires and pearls – was reserved for his son, who was also to have his principal item of armour, a pair of cuirass with harness, which had once been his late brother’s. His other modest military accoutrements were divided. His swordHis H, ‘garnysshed with siluer’, was bequeathed to Burdet, and Thomas Lygon†, a Worcestershire lawyer, was to have a pair of brigandines, curiously designated as ‘neuer woren but oon midsomer night’ with the sleeves of fine mail that went with them. Other items, such as a gorget of mail and a salett with visor, were left to a servant, Edmund Forster, who appears to have been high in his master’s favour. He was also to have the featherbed ‘that I lye on’ together with wages of 40s. for spending a year in the execution of the will.

Pachet also appears to have been on particularly close terms with his uncle, Richard Pachet, even though Richard and his son, another John, were excluded from the possibility of inheriting his property. He left Richard all the goods and debts that should have come to him as his father’s son under the terms of his father’s will, the execution of which had remained incomplete, together with the money that might be raised by the sale of property in Rowley (Worcestershire). This had been purchased by his father, but our MP now decreed that it be returned to the ‘right heires’ if they repaid the purchase price. Presumably the land was entailed, and Pachet was anxious to make amends. Another matter also troubled his conscience. As receiver of Master John Stokes, presumably in Stokes’s role as prebendary of Inkberrow (Worcestershire), he had been unable to raise various moneys due from Stokes’s ‘pouere tenentes which some of theim be dede some ben stole away and some goon abeggyng for pouerte’, and now, rather than discharge himself by carrying these sums over to new accounts as a charge on the defaulting tenants, he bequeathed £10 to Stokes ‘to helpe those pouere people and to discharge me as conscience wull’, adding, seemingly rather gratuitously, that, ‘I wull take on my soule that I haue lost more therby than won and have geve to other men the substance of my fee to help to labo[ur] hit’. The task of implementing these many bequests he entrusted to Forster, Lygon and a cleric, Richard Brid, and, although the will does not explicitly assign him the role, the bequest of £20 to Burdet suggests he was intended as supervisor.

The executors did not have to wait long to begin their work, for Pachet was dead by 23 Jan. 1466, when the will was proved. By Trinity term 1466 they had actions pending in the court of common pleas for recovery of debts due to the testator, the record of which was, as the will put it, in a ‘litle blak boke’. Among the debtors sued was one Richard ‘Arnes’, described as a gentleman of Worcester, and it is possible that he is to be identified with the Richard ‘Arses’, who, in the same term, joined his wife, Elizabeth, grand-daughter and heiress of Thomas Woodward, in suing Pachet’s widow for waste in a messuage, grand enough to have a gatehouse, and five cottages in Mitcheldean.18 CP40/820, rots. 179, 273. It remains to be demonstrated that our MP was the ancestor of the famous sixteenth-century courtier, William Paget†, created Lord Paget of Beaudesert in 1549, and through him of the later earls of Uxbridge and marquesses of Anglesey.19 The Commons 1509-58, ii. 42.