ODYNGLEY, Henry

No trace of a man of this name has been found among the records of Wareham or elsewhere in Dorset, and it is very likely that Odyngley, like his fellow MP John Brokeman* (who hailed from Essex), was a stranger to the county. Indeed, an exceptionally high number of those returned for the Dorset boroughs to this particular Parliament, summoned to assemble at Reading in March 1453, were not resident in their constituencies. This MP may have taken his name from Oddingley near Droitwich in Worcestershire, and have been a relation or associate of Thomas Froxmere* of Droitwich, who was returned to this same Parliament for the borough of Weymouth. Froxmere clearly owed his election to his maternal uncle Henry Filongley*, a leading retainer of James Butler, earl of Wiltshire. The earl had established himself as an important landowner in Dorset through marriage to the heiress Avice Stafford, and it is significant that it was his servant Filongley from Warwickshire who headed the list of attestors to the shire indenture, even though he was not a member of the Dorset gentry, and lacked any personal stake in the county which would qualify him to be an elector.1 C219/16/2. Filongley himself was elected for Warwickshire.