PRESTON, Thomas II

The return for Wallingford to the Parliament of 1453 shows obvious signs of tampering. The name of the man elected with John Burgh IV* has been erased and that of Thomas Preston written in its place, although the description ‘armiger’ remains.2 C219/16/2. The identity of the displaced esquire is now impossible to discover, but there can be little doubt that the man sent to the Commons instead was the ‘clerk’ engaged in the service of Thomas Thorpe*, recently promoted as one of the barons of the Exchequer. As ‘Master’ Thomas Preston he had assisted Thomas Thorpe and his son Roger Thorpe* in their purchase of a building, probably an inn, called ‘Le Belle super le Hoop’, in Great Ilford, Essex, in February 1447.3 E210/4346. The style of ‘Master’ implies that he was an educated man with a university degree, but no trace of Preston has been found in the surviving records of Oxford or Cambridge.

In the Commons assembled at Reading on 6 Mar. 1453 Preston joined a number of Thorpe’s close associates, notably his son Roger, his son-in-law Richard Strickland*, his subordinates at the Exchequer, Thomas Cross* and Thomas Bourne*, and the Lincoln’s Inn lawyer Thomas Umfray*. Irregularity attached to at least two other of these elections, and Strickland – who was scarcely past his minority and according to later reports of unsound mind – was hardly qualified for the role of an MP. Nor did Preston have any firm credentials. The baron himself, sitting for Essex, was elected Speaker, although his election can hardly have depended on the support of these lesser individuals. The close of the second session (at Westminster on 2 July) was followed within a few weeks by the King’s catastrophic mental collapse and political challenges to those who, like Thorpe, had formed an attachment to his kinsman Edmund Beaufort, duke of Somerset. During the Michaelmas term Speaker Thorpe was successfully sued in the Exchequer of pleas by Somerset’s adversary the duke of York for unlawfully seizing his goods worth £2,000, and on 25 Nov. he took the precaution of placing all his own moveable possessions in the hands of a group of courtiers and trustees reflecting his connexions in the Exchequer and the city of London. Among them were the MPs Cross, Umfray and Preston.4 CCR, 1447-54, p. 484. He was replaced as Speaker when Parliament met for its final session in the following February.

In April 1455, during a period in which Thorpe temporarily recovered his influence, Preston was granted for life keeping of a stretch of the river Foss near York, with wages of 6d. per day. This office had previously been held by Master William Hatcliffe, one of the King’s doctors, and before that by one of the clerks of the privy seal, so it may be surmised that Preston similarly enjoyed an otherwise undocumented post at the royal court or in government. In 1457 he successfully sued for an exemplification after losing his letters patent of appointment to his keepership. Significantly, when he surrendered it in February 1459 it was granted to his associate Roger Thorpe.5 CPR, 1452-61, pp. 195, 235, 340, 479. Meanwhile, Preston had run into financial difficulties, and had been outlawed in Middlesex at the suit of one Arnold Hofman on a plea of debt. In July 1458 all his lands and rents were farmed out to Bishop Booth of Durham, then keeper of the privy seal, for as long as they should be in the Crown’s possession. Where precisely these properties were located is not stated, although as Preston was styled ‘formerly of London, gentleman’ it may be assumed that they included holdings in the City.6 CPR, 1452-61, p. 433.

Before the end of Henry VI’s reign Preston was instituted as rector or parson of the church of St. Mary at Hill near Billingsgate. The advowson had been inherited by Richard Strickland, and apparently settled in jointure on his wife Beatrice (Thomas Thorpe’s daughter) at the time of their marriage. After Strickland’s death in 1458 Beatrice married Richard Page*, and it was this couple who presented Preston to the benefice. Yet in the mid-1460s he fell out with them. The quarrel arose from Preston’s perception that the Pages had willfully ignored the testamentary provisions made by Strickland’s maternal grandfather, John Olney, shortly before he died in 1411. Olney’s expressed wishes had been that certain of his properties, notably a messuage in St. Mary’s parish called ‘The Lamb’, should be held by his widow and her as yet unborn child for their lifetimes, and then should pass to the parson of the church and his successors to endow a chantry where a priest would pray for his soul in perpetuity. In a petition sent to the chancellor, Archbishop Neville, after March 1465, Preston complained that the Pages, who had no legal title to this particular property, had wrongfully ousted him and the churchwardens, and were suing him for trespass. Page, he said, intended to destroy the chantry.7 C1/31/39.

Preston is last recorded on 8 Jan. 1467, when he placed his goods and chattels in the hands of John Bedham of London and his old colleague the lawyer Thomas Umfray.8 CCR, 1461-8, p. 397. He died before 21 Mar., the date of letters of administration of his estate.9 Guildhall Lib., London, commissary ct. wills, 9171/5, f. 404. In the following Michaelmas term Richard and Beatrice Page brought an action in the court of common pleas against Bishop Thomas Kemp of London regarding their right of presentation to the church of St. Mary at Hill, made vacant by Preston’s death. Claiming the advowson pertained to a messuage and appurtenances in the parish which they held in Beatrice’s right, on 20 June they had presented one Thomas Wilkinson, but the bishop had unjustly impeded their presentation, to their damage of £300.10 CP40/825, rot. 506. It is of interest, too, that a few months later the Pages also sued out a writ of trespass against Thomas Umfray, and although no details of the charge have been found it seems likely that the suit related to the estate of the late MP.11 KB27/827, rot. 95.