PHILLIP, William

Phillip was one of several Southwark MPs who were employed by the royal government in this period and is notable for having served both Henry VI and Edward IV as a serjeant-at-arms. It is likely that he was the ironmonger who was living in Southwark by October 1438, when an inn called The Falcon and certain shops and houses were leased to him by the feoffees of John Boteler for 16 years at an annual rent of five marks. That William Phillip, now described as an esquire, was apparently still residing in the neighbourhood in June 1454, when a tenement belonging to him was mentioned in an arbitration award.3 Cart. St. Thomas’s Hosp. Southwark ed. Parsons, 99, 101. Meanwhile, at an unknown date Phillip had been enfeoffed of a messuage in Southwark called The George, and in June 1445 he had been one of the recipients of the goods and chattels of a burgess called Henry Emson.4 C1/57/332-7; CCR, 1441-7, p. 317. Around that time Phillip also became active in the city of London, particularly in the parishes close to London Bridge. He and his wife were among the subjects of a plaint of intrusion brought by John Cracall, the parson of St. Margaret’s Bridge Street early in 1446, and before he drew up his will in 1463 he acquired buildings in the parish of St. Mary at Hill near Billingsgate.5 Cal. P. and M. London, 1437-57, p. 89; PCC 3 Godyn.

Phillip received fees and livery as an esquire in the hall and chamber of the Household for over ten years from Michaelmas 1441,6 E101/409/9, f. 38; 11, f. 38v; 16, f. 35; 410/1, f. 30; 3, f. 31; 6, f. 40. although he may have entered the royal establishment at an earlier date, for when on 17 Jan. 1453 he was granted the office of serjeant-at-arms for life, it was in recognition of his service ‘on both sides of the sea’, which indicates that at some point he had served in Normandy or Gascony. The office brought with it a daily wage of 12d., to be taken from the fee farm and issues of London and Middlesex, as well as a yearly grant of livery.7 CPR, 1452-61, p. 39. Two months later he was returned as one of the representatives for Southwark in the Parliament summoned to Reading on 6 Mar., a Parliament notable for the large number of courtiers in the Commons. Even so, Phillip’s position in the household of Henry VI did not cause him to take up arms in the Lancastrian interest in the civil war of 1459-61. On 14 July 1461 the sheriffs of London and Middlesex were ordered to pay him the arrears in wages which had accumulated since the accession of Edward IV on 4 Mar., and two days later his tenure as one of the serjeants-at-arms was secured when the new monarch confirmed him in office.8 CCR, 1461-8, p. 9; CPR, 1461-7, p. 123. Now, however, the post of serjeant-at-arms was not granted him for life, and he was one of as many as 21 men made serjeants (each of them receiving the same daily wage of 12d. and the same livery as was worn by esquires in the Household) before the end of the year.

Of Phillip’s career after this date little is known, and there is nothing to show that he was the man of this name who, a retainer of John Tiptoft, earl of Worcester, was granted the bailiwick of Haw and Tirley in Gloucestershire on 19 Apr. 1462, just five days after Tiptoft’s appointment as treasurer of England.9 CPR, 1461-7, p. 183. In view of his continued career in royal service it is clear that he was not the William Phillip alias Ferrour of London, esquire, who was among the seven men (including Roger Thorpe*) petitioned against in Edw. IV’s first Parl. in Nov. 1461. The seven had ‘offended ayenst the roiall mageste, corone and dignete’ of the new King (seemingly for fighting at Wakefield against his father the duke of York), and were required to appear in the ct. of KB to submit to the King’s grace. When they failed to do so they were excluded from the general pardons granted in Feb. 1462 and July 1463: PROME, xiii. 56-57; C67/45, m. 49; CPR, 1461-7, p. 292. William Phillip the ‘King’s serjeant-at-arms’ made his will on 20 Apr. 1463. Asking to be buried by the south door of the London church of St. Mary at Hill, he left bequests to three fraternities in the church, but also asked his wife to arrange for his obit to be celebrated in Pontefract priory, Yorkshire (which suggests that either he or Margaret had family in that county). Of the three sons he mentioned in his will two were also called William. Phillip instructed his executors (Margaret, John Colyn, chaplain, and William Marowe*, the London alderman) to sell his lands and tenements in Sheen, Surrey, while his widow was to keep his shops and solars in St. Mary’s parish. The will was proved on 20 Mar. 1464.10 PCC 3 Godyn.