RODNEY, Sir Walter

The Rodneys were of great antiquity, established in Somerset by the end of the eleventh century. When Henry VI came to the throne, the family could already look back on almost a century of parliamentary service. One of Walter’s ancestors had represented Somerset in the Parliament of September 1336, and other members of the family had sat for the shire on repeated subsequent occasions. The line was only broken after the death in 1413 of Walter’s grandfather (who had been returned for Somerset in 1406), for Walter’s father, Sir John, apparently never sat in the Commons. He died in May 1420 just seven years after succeeding to the family lands, and aged only about 33. His untimely death left his son and heir a minor aged just five, and since Sir John, although a substantial landowner, had not been a tenant-in-chief, the heir and his estates became the subject of a struggle between the feudal overlords. Part of the Rodney estates were held from the honour of Gloucester, and these were now seized by Richard Beauchamp, the newly created earl of Worcester, but it seems that the heir himself was successfully claimed by the abbot of St. Mary Graces in London, who granted custody to the boy’s maternal grandfather and uncle, Sir John and Sir Oliver St. John.4 CIPM, xxi. 616; CCR, 1419-22, p. 174; Reg. Bubwith (Som. Rec. Soc. xxx), ii. 403-4; E118/1/10. Within five months of her husband’s death, Walter’s mother, Agnes, had made a will, by which she had entrusted her young sons to her father and brother, and it is possible that she did not survive Sir John Rodney for long.5 PCC 51 Luffenham.

Walter was not, however, to remain with his mother’s family for more than a few years. It seems that some part of the family lands was held in chief, for Rodney recalled later that he had at one time been the King’s ward, and by the mid 1420s his wardship had come into the hands of Walter, Lord Hungerford, probably by royal grant.6 C139/24/34, m. 3; Reg. Stafford (Som. Rec. Soc. xxxii), ii. 167; C1/27/95. Hungerford was an extremely able steward of his family’s fortunes, whose advancement was not least a result of his skilful manipulation of the marriage market. Rodney was just one of the valuable heirs whose wardships and marriages he acquired to provide for his six children. It is probable that while in the Hungerford household Rodney became acquainted with another young west-country landowner in Lord Walter’s wardship, Philip Courtenay* of Powderham, who like him married one of Hungerford’s daughters.7 The two men were distantly related by marriage, for Philip’s mother, Joan Champernowne, had married Rodney’s gdfa. as his 2nd wife: C67/37, m. 17.

Rodney came of age in about 1436, but he may have secured livery of his inheritance rather sooner, for by the summer of 1431 he was engaged in litigation over some of the family property in Dinder.8 CP40/682, rot. 25. As well as testamentary bequests of £100 from his father and one third of her goods from his mother, he acquired his extensive family estates which extended across much of northern and central Somerset.9 PCC 51 Luffenham. The family seat of Rodney Stoke aside, they included the manors of Backwell, Lamyatt, Saltford, Dinder, Twerton, Lovington, Congresbury and Winford, and holdings in Wells and Barton Regis near Bristol, as well as a substantial number of houses, gardens and shops in that port itself.10 Reg. Stafford, ii. 230, 277; Reg. Bekynton (Som. Rec. Soc. xlix), i. 565, 899, 1083; Som. Feet of Fines, 208; Bristol RO, St. Thomas the Martyr parish recs., P/St.T/D/1, 47, 66, 68; St. Philip and St. Jacob parish recs., P/St.P and J/D/5(c); All Saints parish recs., P/AS/D/CS A19a, b. As his paternal great-grandfather’s widow, Alice Bonville, had finally died in March 1426 (after depriving two successive generations of Rodneys of one third of their income), Walter was able to command greater revenues than any of his immediate ancestors – probably rather more even than the £90 13s. 4d. at which his lands were valued shortly after his death.11 C140/21/42.

Before long, and almost certainly with the help of his father-in-law, Rodney assumed the place in county administration for which his wealth qualified him. In October 1439 he took his place on the county bench, and less than a month later he was pricked sheriff of Somerset and Dorset.12 Patronage, Crown and Provinces ed. Griffiths, 125, 127; M. Cherry, ‘Crown and Political Community, Devon’ (Univ. of Wales, Swansea, Ph.D. thesis, 1981), 247, 265. There is some suggestion that this term of office was not a happy one, marred, perhaps, by Rodney’s relative youth and inexperience. Among the sheriff’s responsibilities was the custody of the royal gaol at Ilchester. As the sheriff could not be expected to be permanently present in person, this duty was generally discharged by an under keeper. It may have been by misfortune or by carelessness of James Brytte, the under keeper, that during Rodney’s tenure of the shrievalty one William Grimsby was able to smuggle tools into the prison which the inmates used to bore through the walls of the gaol and make their escape. Walter’s officers and serjeants succeeded in recapturing most of the escapees, but the hapless sheriff himself had to rely on his connexions at the centre of government to secure a pardon of the substantial fines for which he would otherwise have been liable.13 E159/219, brevia Mich. rot. 12d; CPR, 1436-41, p. 569; 1441-6, p. 41.

If such a performance raised any eyebrows among the career administrators at Westminster, it was hardly noticed in the ranks of the Household which Rodney had joined by the summer of 1441, undoubtedly once again through Lord Hungerford’s good offices. By the autumn of that year, he was receiving robes as a King’s esquire,14 E101/409/9; 11, f. 38. and it is possible that he received the knighthood which had been bestowed upon him by the end of 1446 at the coronation of Queen Margaret in May 1445. It is probable that his membership of the Household had some part to play in his election as one of the knights of the shire for Somerset in the short Parliament of 1447 at Bury St. Edmunds. His colleague, Sir Edward Hull*, was attached to the queen’s entourage, while a wider influence of Lord Hungerford’s circle may be discerned in the return of Rodney’s brother-in-law, John Hill III* of Spaxton, as one of the MPs for Taunton. Nevertheless, Rodney was not imposed on the county electorate from outside. He played a full part in the life and administration of his native Somerset, by serving as a j.p. throughout the 1440s and 1450s. Furthermore, he was occasionally empanelled on grand juries, and during the final decade of Henry VI’s reign was regularly appointed to royal commissions both in Somerset and in adjacent shires.15 KB9/105/2/230.

Rodney’s relations with his neighbours were generally cordial, although his closest links remained with members of the Hungerford circle. Thus, he was frequently among the witnesses or feoffees named by Lord Walter and his son and heir, Lord Robert (d.1459), in their property transactions,16 CPR, 1436-41, p. 300; 1441-6, p. 230; CCR, 1447-54, p. 147; CFR, xvii. 91; Tropenell Cart. ed. Davies, ii. 89, 104-6, 108, 130, 131-3; Wilts. Hist. Centre, Radnor mss, 490/1480. and he is found in a similar role in the deeds of his wife’s brother-in-law, (Sir) Philip Courtenay, and the latter’s son-in-law, James Luttrell.17 CPR, 1446-52, p. 284; 1461-7, p. 286; 1467-77, p. 522; C147/155; C1/48/268. When Lord Walter made his will in July 1449, he was insistent that his executors should recover from Rodney a debt of 50 marks incurred in connexion with the marriage of John Hill to Walter’s sister Margaret, but he did leave bequests to his daughter, Rodney’s wife.18 Lambeth Palace Lib., Reg. Stafford, f. 117. Other ties in the locality were forged through mutual proximity to the King: on occasion, Rodney attested deeds for his former parliamentary colleague, Sir Edward Hull, the latter’s mother (herself a kinswoman of his grandmother by their common descent from Thomas Lyons of Long Ashton), the royal justice Richard Chokke and the King’s former secretary, Bishop Thomas Bekynton.19 CCR, 1447-54, p. 245; Reg. Bekynton, i. 847, 889, 1539; Som. Feet of Fines, 104; KB27/774, rot. 79; Bristol RO, Ashton Court deeds, AC/D/1/74.

As the kingdom descended into open civil war in the second half of the 1450s, Rodney was more than once called upon to rally the men of Somerset to the King’s banner, but there is nothing to suggest that he took a prominent part either in support of Queen Margaret, or of the duke of York and his adherents. Nevertheless, his role in arraying the men of Somerset against the exiled Yorkist lords in the winter of 1459-60, were sufficient to ensure that the administration of the new King Edward IV should regard him with some suspicion. Consequently, he was removed from the Somerset bench in early 1461 and not entrusted with even minor local commissions until the summer of 1463. It may have been the greater proximity of his son and heir to the Yorkist regime which saved him from more serious disgrace, for Thomas Rodney was sufficiently trusted to be charged within weeks of Edward’s accession with the delicate task of seeking out and capturing the duke of Exeter’s servant Alexander Hody*, whom the new rulers were anxious to seize and punish for his part in the death of the duke of York at the battle of Wakefield.20 CPR, 1461-7, p. 31. Sir Walter himself maintained his long-standing friendship with the Hungerfords, and was among those of the family’s old servants who stood by the widowed Lady Margaret Hungerford in the mid 1460s, when she was being pursued in the law courts for substantial debts by Richard Quartermayns*.21 CP40/814, rots. 79, 446, 453.

Although by no means an old man, Rodney now began to put his affairs in order. One central concern at this time seems to have been title to the Somerset manor of North Load. This had been settled on Sir John Rodney by William Norlod, more than half a century before, but had been forcibly seized during Walter’s minority by Nicholas Frome, abbot of Glastonbury. Rodney petitioned the chancellor, Bishop Neville of Exeter, for appointment of commissioners to investigate the question of the ownership of the manor, pleading that while there were still witnesses ‘of aunciente and credence’ to the original enfeoffment alive, they were ‘gretelie aged, decrepite and right feble, not liklie long to life ne endure’. The subsequent inquiry, held before the dean of Wells, Nicholas Carent, and the royal justice Richard Chokke, heard the evidence of 22 witnesses aged between 30 and 95, and including the dean’s own brother, William Carent*. A majority of the witnesses recalled the formal livery of seisin by Norlod to Sir John Rodney some 46 years earlier, remembering how Norlod had ordered all his servants to leave the manor-house, had shut the door, and had placed the ring of the door into Rodney’s hands, but it was the abbot who eventually prevailed: in February 1466 Rodney quitclaimed his rights to the manor.22 C1/27/95; 28/276; C4/6/95; CCR, 1461-8, p. 328.

Sir Walter did not live to see his former master Henry VI return to the throne in 1470, for he died on 17 Jan. 1467, aged about 52. He was succeeded by his 30-year-old son Thomas, who did not survive him for long,23 C140/21/42; CFR, xx. 177. for within two years writs of diem clausit extremum were issued for Thomas, upon whose infant son John, born just a year earlier, the family lands then devolved. Initially, these Rodney estates lay once again at the mercy of a rapacious overlord, for the honour of Gloucester to which they escheated had descended to Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, and after his death at Barnet in 1471 fell to the King’s brother George, duke of Clarence, who lost no time in claiming his rights. It was in his hands that the lands were reunited after the death of Thomas Rodney’s widow Isabel in July 1476. The young heir did not live to enjoy the full profits for much more than a year, for the revenues continued to be efficiently siphoned off by the King’s servant Richard Croft† who had married Thomas Rodney’s daughter, another Isabel.24 C140/65/4; 68/49; C1/65/233; CFR, xx. 247.