OSMUNDLAW, William

The Osmundlaws were a long-established family which came to some local prominence due to the active career of our MP’s father. The first of the family recorded as an MP, he was elected for Carlisle in 1383 and for Cumberland in 1397 (Sept.), served terms as sheriff and j.p. in his native county, and supported the rank of knight. He was also well connected: in about 1407 Ralph Neville, earl of Westmorland, chose him as bailiff of the forfeited Percy liberty of Cockermouth.2 CPR, 1405-8, p. 316. The son, however, did not make the same mark, and very little can be discovered about him. When he sat on a jury at Carlisle in 1441 to prove the age of John Skelton, he gave his own age as 47. Such testimony is notoriously unreliable, but a date of birth in the mid 1390s is consistent with all else that is known of him. His father died between March 1419 and June 1420, when according to the testimony of our MP at the proof of age, his widow, Joan Baron (our MP’s stepmother), married Gilbert Hoton. Her survival into his majority may be one reason why he did not emulate his father.3 CIPM, xxv. 614; C1/29/338.

Osmundlaw first appears in an active role in 1421. In Hilary term he and his wife nominated an attorney in a plea relating to her dower in the court of common pleas, and in Michaelmas term he appeared personally in that court to pursue several debt actions as administrator of his father’s goods. Later, he appeared as a juror in two inquisitions post mortem: the first, in respect of Joan Whiteheved, was held at Wigton, not far from his home at Langrigg, in July 1425; for the second, the subject of which was a much more important individual, Sir William Leigh†, he travelled further afield to Penrith in May 1428.4 CP40/640, att. rot. 2; 643, rot. 511; CIPM, xxii. 442; xxiii. 41. His election for the Westmorland borough of Appleby came shortly afterwards.5 The MP is to be distinguished from a namesake of Kirkby Stephen, Westmld., who made a career as a London draper: CP40/651, rot. 61d; 655, rot. 359; 657, rot. 207d; 678, rot. 170. The return is slightly irregular in that his name and that of his fellow MP for the borough, John Burgh II*, a local lawyer, have been added to the indenture and the dorse of the writ of summons after the documents were first drawn up. The indenture is dated 21 Dec. 1430, and it was presumably after that date that the two men undertook to step into a breach occasioned by the lack of other suitable and willing candidates. As the filacer responsible for the far northern counties in the court of common pleas, Burgh had important business at Westminster, and it may be that Osmundlaw had a similar, if less pressing, incentive to go there. While at Westminster, he was the defendant in an action of debt sued against him by John Blennerhasset*.6 C219/14/2; CP40/680, rot. 242d.

Osmundlaw was a man of some means. On 1 July 1434 he entered into an indenture with the abbey of St. Mary, York, which owned the manor and lordship of Bromfield in the immediate neighbourhood of his home. He agreed to farm the manor together with the tithes pertaining to the parish church for a term of six years at the considerable annual rent of £40.7 His kinsmen, Robert and Thomas Osmundlaw, joined with him in providing the relevant sureties: W. Dugdale, Monasticon, iii. 567-8. Not surprisingly, he was named as one of the Cumberland men deemed important enough to be sworn to keep the peace in the general oaths of that year. In 1436 he was distrained to answer one of the leading gentry of the county, Sir Christopher Curwen*, for a debt of £10 in the court of common pleas.8 CPR, 1429-36, p. 383; CP40/700, rot. 272. Soon after, on 8 Jan. 1437, he was among the 16 men who attested the county parliamentary election held at Carlisle, and he did the same at the next election for which information survives, namely that of 1442, when as many as 73 attestors were recorded. Curiously, his name appears towards the end of this second list, behind those of men of apparently lesser wealth and status, but, if so lowly a rating is inconsistent with what we know of his resources, it is, judging from his lack of local office, a fair estimate of his local weight.9 C219/15/1, 2.

There are few other references to Osmundlaw. On 22 Nov. 1438 he was a juror at Carlisle when an inquisition post mortem was taken on the death of Isabel Colville, one of the two daughters and coheirs of Sir Peter Tilliol*. His knowledge of the affairs of the Tilliols may explain why, at Wigton on 20 Feb. 1449 before the county j.p.s., he served on a jury which indicted William Tilliol for forcible entry into the lands held by Isabel’s sister, Margaret, with her husband, Thomas Crackenthorpe*.10 CIPM, xxv. 220; KB9/288/2. He last appears in the records in Easter term 1451, when he was sued for a debt of 20 marks by the abbot of St. Mary’s, York, presumably in connexion with some default in his lease of the manor of Bromfield.11 CP40/761, rot. 156d.

Osmundlaw must have died soon afterwards, for by the end of the decade his son and heir, William, had both inherited the family estates and died. In Hilary term 1458 the younger William’s widow, Elizabeth, in company with her second husband, William Euer (who, if he was related to Sir William Euer*, was not one of that important man’s sons), brought an action for dower against her neighbour, (Sir) William Martindale*, who lived at Westnewton, and in the following November had judgement on Martindale’s default. This, however, did not conclude the matter. In the early 1460s she had recourse to the chancellor, complaining that Martindale had disseised her of her jointure and ‘with grete myght’ taken her son, John, away from her on the pretext that he had a right to the boy’s wardship.12 CP40/788, rot. 169d; 790, rot. 237d; C1/29/338. Although the family had a long later history, our MP is the last of the Osmundlaws known to have sat in Parliament, just as his father had been the first.13 C219/16/5; Cumb. and Westmld. Antiq. and Arch. Soc. n.s. xvi. 175-95.