RADFORD, John

John Radford’s kinship with the renowned lawyer and recorder of Exeter, Nicholas Radford, was, at best, tenuous: his grandfather had been a first cousin of Nicholas’s father, indeed, there appears to have been some degree of confusion as to how many generations separated John from their common ancestor.2 KB27/781, rots. 27, 28d. It is all the more indicative of Nicholas Radford’s considerable wealth that his distant kinsman thought the inheritance worth the risk of challenging his murderers – the violent earl of Devon and his retainers – in Parliament and the law courts.

Although it is possible that (as Wedgwood believed) it was Radford’s synonymous father who represented Plymouth in 1450, it seems more likely that it was the younger man who sat in Parliament in both 1450 and 1455. This John probably received some legal training, although (as for his more prominent kinsman) the details of this training are obscure. It is possible that he was at one stage a member of one of the inns of court or Chancery, for he was at times styled ‘of London’. Certainly, he was professionally associated with Nicholas by the autumn of 1448, when he delivered into the court of King’s bench an inquisition over which the latter had presided.3 KB9/260, no. 119. A year later he received his only appointment to office under the Crown, when he was included in a royal commission to inquire into estates which had formerly belonged to the Champernowne family, and in subsequent years he is found acting as counsel in the court of the Exchequer and serving as a feoffee to his neighbours, including his kinsman Nicholas.4 E207/16/4, no. 54; Devon RO, Shelley mss, Z1/27/1/11; 30/17. Similarly, it may have been in a professional capacity that John agreed to appear in the Exchequer to proffer a tally on behalf of Walter Reynell*, the escheator of Devon and Cornwall, at the time of his account in February 1453. According to Reynell, he failed to do so, and litigation between them continued into the reign of Edward IV.5 CP40/780, rot. 15; 798, rot. 123d.

It is likely that John owed his election to Parliament in 1450 to the good offices of Thomas Courtenay, earl of Devon, near whose principal seat of Tiverton his home at Oakford was situated and with whom the family were connected not least through Nicholas Radford, who had formerly been steward of the comital estates and who continued to provide the earl with counsel. Certainly, John was at Westminster during the first session of Parliament, when he found mainprise for the Cornish lawyer Richard Penpons* (a service which he would perform at least twice more in later years).6 CFR, xviii. 189, 240; xix. 15. In the interim, however, he had found himself in prison charged with having, jointly with one Thomas Dollyng, counterfeited a tally for a sum of over £45.7 E159/229, recorda Easter, rot. 6.

In the following years relations between Radford’s patron, the earl of Devon, and his local rival, William, Lord Bonville*, which had been strained since the early 1440s, grew ever more acrimonious. From 1451 the earl resorted to open violence to try and settle the score, and four years later Nicholas Radford, who had numbered both the earl and Bonville among his clients, fell victim to Thomas Courtenay’s armed retainers. It seems unlikely that even in the early months of 1455 anyone connected even indirectly with Bonville could still enjoy Courtenay’s confidence, and it is consequently not certain to what circumstances John Radford owed his election for the borough of Barnstaple that spring, or, indeed, what prompted him to seek election. He was a serving Member of Parliament (which was then in recess) when his kinsman Nicholas was murdered on 23 Oct. 1455. The Commons reassembled on 12 Nov. for their second session, which was dominated by the issue of the unrest in the south-west sparked by the earl’s violent activities. There is no definite record of what part Radford took in the deliberations that led up to the duke of York’s eventual re-appointment as Protector, but it is likely that he was vociferous in his condemnation of the Courtenays. It must have been during this session that he presented a formal petition against the murderers, which – although directed to King Henry VI, and bearing the royal assent without any indication that Lords or Commons had been consulted – may also have been brought to the attention of Parliament: several of the accessories to the murder were later said to have been indicted or attainted by authority or act of Parliament.8 SC8/138/6864; G.H. Radford, ‘Nicholas Radford’, Trans. Devon Assoc. xxxv. 264-8; Chancery Case between Radford and Tremayne (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. n.s. lv), p. xxiv; CPR, 1452-61, pp. 310-11; KB27/809, rex rot. 2. Immediately after the dissolution Radford threw himself with vigour into the prosecution at common law of his kinsman’s killers and the earl of Devon’s men who had taken Nicholas’s property from the custody of Exeter cathedral. Process against the principals continued until the spring of 1457 when the earl and several of his more important associates were able to secure royal pardons.9 KB27/781, rots. 27, 28d, 107d; KB146/6/35/1; CPR, 1452-61, pp. 358, 364; E159/235, brevia Mich. rot. 29d. In the interim, Earl Thomas had turned his attentions on his accuser, but he had begun to run short of friends. Radford was able to secure a jury verdict convicting Courtenay of causing him 6,000 marks in damages, and in November 1457 the earl and his son were each bound over in £1,000 to keep the peace towards him, and had to guarantee that when the earl’s younger sons came of age, they would seal releases of all actions taken against Radford. Further bonds to similar effect were sealed by the earl and his associates at the same time.10 KB27/786, rot. 118, fines rot. 1d. The process against the minor accessories continued into Edward IV’s reign: even in the summer of 1463 one John Gille, a yeoman of Chittlehampton, was hanged for his part in the events of 1455 under the terms of the parliamentary proceedings of that year,11 KB27/809, rex rot. 2. while in early 1469 proceedings continued against John Hengstecote and Richard Hocker, accused of a trespass against Radford in his capacity as Nicholas’s executor, even though the defendants had secured their pardons 12 years earlier.12 KB27/832, rex rot. 32; CCR, 1454-61, p. 254.

It is difficult to disentangle Radford’s other affairs from the fall-out of the murder of Nicholas and the execution of his will. Thus, an enfeoffment of lands that Nicholas had made in February 1455 to John and others led to protracted litigation against the Exeter baker John Tylerd* and his wife. The matter may, however, have been settled before too long, for within a few years the prominent Exeter lawyer Thomas Calwodlegh*, who had been condemned to pay Radford £200 in damages for an alleged trespass, accused Tylerd of having perjured himself in Radford’s favour.13 CP25(1)/46/89/270; C66/481, m. 17d; 484, m. 10d; JUST1/199/14; KB27/785, rot. 40; CP40/786, rot. 424; 800, rot. 109; 803, rot. 112; E401/864, m. 19. Similarly, in October 1462 (Sir) Philip Courtenay*’s bailiffs of Cadleigh heard how two days after the recorder’s death William Saltern of Dowland and his wife Joan had removed from Cadleigh a linen bed, a coverlet and 50lb. of lead that had previously belonged to the dead man, and how on 11 June 1462 Saltern and a group of associates had returned there with an armed band and had stolen two of Radford’s horses. The matter came to trial in King’s bench, but within the year had evidently been settled out of court, and the defendants were acquitted.14 KB9/302/97, 98; KB27/810, rot. 30.

Few details of John’s later career have been discovered. In July 1472 he was attesting property transactions for his neighbours, but no details of a suit he brought against one John Hoper, in which a writ of error was issued in the autumn of 1473, have come to light.15 KB27/849, rex rot. 11; Shelley mss, Z1/20/1/7. Radford died on 21 Nov. 1478, and was succeeded by his son Humphrey, then aged just over five. By this time, John had evidently secured sole control of most of Nicholas Radford’s former lands, including the manor of Poughill, and holdings in Cadleigh, Stockleigh English, Stockleigh Luccombe, Winkleigh Tracy and Witheridge, altogether said to be worth over £3.16 CFR, xxi. 450; C140/67/41. He was survived by his wife, Joan, whom he had appointed executrix of his will, and who went on to marry as her second husband Thomas Gale*.17 CP40/894, rots. 68d, 88.