THORNBURGH, William

The Thornburghs, established in Westmorland since the mid thirteenth century, were one of the leading families of the county behind a very small knightly elite. In the subsidy returns of 1435-6 William was assessed on an annual income of £20, a modest income by the standards of the gentry of many counties but sufficient in impoverished Westmorland to give a family a prominent place in public affairs.2 J. Nicolson and R. Burn, Westmld. and Cumb. i. 117; E179/195/32. This is one reason why the Thornburghs had such a fine tradition of parliamentary service. Before our MP inherited the patrimony, the previous four heads of the family had sat for Westmorland and his father represented both the county and its borough, Appleby. William was to have a less distinguished career, perhaps because of his continual involvement in disorder.

The roots of Thornburgh’s involvement lay in a tangled web of relationships arising from the three marriages of his stepmother, Katherine. Her first husband had been Sir William Threlkeld†, by whom she had a son, Henry*. On Sir William’s death in 1408, this Henry (b.1398) came into the wardship of our MP’s father, who both married the boy’s mother and contracted the boy in marriage to our MP’s sister, Margaret. A potential rival grouping to this alliance of the Thornburghs and Threlkelds arose out of the earlier marriages of the young Henry’s much older half-sisters, the one to to Sir John Lancaster†, and the other to Sir John’s younger brother, William. The Lancasters must have expected to inherit the Threlkeld lands but Henry’s birth frustrated these expectations. The hope of reviving them may have been a factor in prompting Sir John, now widowed, to become a suitor for the hand of Katherine, who was the stepmother both of his own first wife and of our MP. At first the Thornburghs seem to have violently objected to the match. According to a petition presented to the Parliament of December 1421 by Lancaster, then an MP, Thornburgh’s four paternal uncles, acting on the orders of our MP’s elderly grandfather, had, on the previous 27 July, planned to kill him when he was visiting Katherine at her home at Maulds Meaburn.3 RP, iv. 163-4 (cf. PROME, ix. 329). Sir John had married Katherine by Mich. 1421: CP40/643, rot. 366d.

Whether our MP was himself involved in this affair is not known, but if he initially did share his uncles’ hostility to the marriage he was soon ready to make a friend of Lancaster. This alliance was the beginning of a violent and dangerous feud, with our MP supporting Lancaster’s efforts to disinherit his four daughters by his first wife in favour of the male heirs of the Lancaster family. He was no doubt brought to do so by the benefits the plan brought to his stepmother. By a fine levied in Easter term 1425 Sir John settled all his lands upon himself and Katherine in joint tale mail with remainders over to a number of his male kin.4 CP25(1)/291/65/34. Another fine, levied two years later, provides further evidence of this alliance: Sir John and Katherine settled over 300 acres, largely consisting of valuable meadow and pastureland, in Brougham and other scattered vills, on Thornburgh and his wife, Eleanor, in joint tail-male, with remainders in successive tail-male to Thornburgh’s three brothers. Katherine was probably here surrendering her interest in this property arising out of her marriage to Sir Roland, and it may be that the surrender was made at the time of our MP’s marriage into the powerful Musgrave family.5 CP25(1)/249/8/26. However this may be, Thornburgh now had every reason to support Sir John in the dispute over the Lancaster inheritance. Chief among those who opposed the settlement made in 1425 was Robert Crackenthorpe*, an influential lawyer from one of Westmorland’s leading families.

This dispute over the Lancaster inheritance, threatened before Sir John’s death in 1434 and active thereafter, is the clear explanatory strand in the political events of early 1430s Westmorland, and Thornburgh’s alliance with the Lancasters explains his involvement in the serious disorders that overtook the county in that decade. The first serious episode of disorder in these years, although initially apparently unrelated to the feud between Lancaster and Crackenthorpe, soon became subsumed within it. According to a petition presented by the victim to Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury, a group of prominent Westmorland gentry – led by Thornburgh and his brother-in-law, Sir Henry Threlkeld, and acting at the behest of his stepmother and Threlkeld’s mother, Dame Katherine – attacked the house of John Cliburne at Cliburn, ‘at which assawte thei shot a ml arrowes’. They desisted only upon the arrival of three of the county j.p.s, Sir Christopher Moresby†, Hugh Salkeld† and, significantly, Crackenthorpe.6 Since the petition is found among the Early Chancery Proceedings (C1), it has been dated to Salisbury’s chancellorship of 1454-5. But, although it has the same form as the standard Chancery petition, the earl is addressed as ‘my lord’ rather than ‘the lord’ and he is not described as chancellor: C1/24/227. Internal evidence dates it to the early 1430s, and one can only speculate that it came to rest among the Chancery petitions because the earl passed it to the chancellor for action: Cumb. and Westmld. Antiq. and Arch. Soc. n.s. lxiii. 178-83.

The precise date of this assault is unknown, but there can be little doubt that it was one of the ‘graundes et outragiouses riotes’ involving the Thornburghs and Threlkelds which was set to be investigated at the meeting of the county bench at Appleby on 23 Mar. 1434. What happened next is laid out in a petition presented by Crackenthorpe soon afterwards to Chancellor Stafford, which alleged that Thornburgh and Sir Henry successfully intimidated the jurors into refusing to reveal the truth about the riots. Then, as Crackenthorpe as one of the j.p.s made his way home, Thornburgh joined his uncle, Oliver Thornburgh, and Sir John Lancaster’s fraternal nephew, William, in laying in wait to kill him in Whinfell forest. Forewarned, the j.p. returned home another way. He claimed in his petition that his would-be assailants were acting on the order of Sir John Lancaster, Katherine, and other Lancasters, who were anxious to prevent inquiry into recent disorders. His testimony was supported by Ralph Neville, earl of Westmorland, and (Sir) Thomas Parr*, who, in an attached schedule, repeated his account.7 C1/12/192-4; Cumb. and Westmld. Antiq. and Arch. Soc. n.s. x. 489-93.

None the less, despite this support, the petition achieved nothing. Indeed, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Crackenthorpe was the representative of the weaker of two factions in the county’s politics. This had been made clear at the elections held in the previous summer: Sir Henry Threlkeld and Thornburgh’s father-in-law, Sir Richard Musgrave, were elected for the county; and Thornburgh himself was returned for Appleby.8 C219/14/4. Thornburgh’s career over the next few years further demonstrates the ascendancy of his faction in county politics. On 7 Nov. 1435 he was named as escheator in Westmorland and Cumberland and, while still in office, he joined his enemy Crackenthorpe on the Westmorland bench in the spring of 1437. Moreover, he also found a place in the service of the Crown: on 4 Jan. 1438 he was described as a royal esquire in the grant to him of an island in Lake Windermere said to be worth no more than 4s. p.a. clear. Four months later he gained another small mark of favour when his minor outlawry on a plea of debt was pardoned. Indicative of his wealth and influence at this date is the indenture he entered into in the following August with Sir Richard Vernon*: he agreed to lease Vernon’s Westmorland manors of Maulds Meaburn and Newby from Martinmas 1438 for 20 years at £33 p.a., the renewal of an arrangement entered into by his father in 1419.9 CPR, 1436-41, pp. 110, 124; Cumb. and Westmld. Antiq. and Arch. Soc. n.s. xii. 371-6.

This period of prosperity for Thornburgh was not destined to last as tensions in the county came to a boil. Sir John Lancaster’s death in 1434 had brought the quarrel over his inheritance into the open.10 Thornburgh was among the jurors at Sir John’s inq. post mortem held at Penrith on 12 Oct. 1434: CIPM, xxiv. 402. Soon after, three local clerics, presumably acting for the Lancaster coheiresses, recovered seisin of the manor of Rydal and other of his lands against his widow, his heirs male and Thronburgh. In defiance of this judgement the defendants re-entered, and this provoked the issue of a royal commission of inquiry on 12 Feb. 1438 to the sheriff the county, namely Crackenthorpe’s ally, Parr. An inquiry held by Parr on 25 June found that Thornburgh and the Lancasters were guilty of disseisin and awarded damages of £116 against them, but this simply served to make a bad situation worse.11 C260/145/23. It is a fair speculation that it was this judgement that led Thornburgh and his kin to take the law into their own hands. On 25 Aug., three weeks after our MP had taken the lease of the Vernon manors, the Thornburghs and Lancasters joined in murdering Crackenthorpe at Brampton near Appleby (one of the Lancaster manors). On this occasion they could not rely on intimidation to avoid indictment. At a session of the peace at Appleby on 11 Sept., held before Thomas, Lord Clifford, Sir Christopher Moresby and Thomas Burgham*, a jury laid presentments. Further, in Hilary term 1439 the victim’s widow, Elizabeth, appealed our MP, his brother Roland, his uncle Oliver, and John Lancaster as principals in the murder of her husband, naming John’s brother, Christopher Lancaster*, Sir John Lancaster’s widow, Katherine, our MP’s brothers, Leonard and Edward, and other lesser Thornburghs among many accessories.12 CPR, 1441-6, p. 191; KB27/711, rot. 36d. Even this, however, in the short term at least, failed to bring the Thornburghs to heel. According to a powerful commission of inquiry issued on 11 Mar. 1439, on a further complaint by the murdered man’s widow, they and the Lancasters had continued a systematic campaign of robbery against her and her tenants which they had begun in her husband’s lifetime.13 CPR, 1436-41, p. 273.

In these circumstances, and even given the striking laxity with which the law was applied by the Crown in the far north, it is not remarkable that Thornburgh was removed from the county bench in the following November. Thereafter he and his family struggled to regain a position in local affairs, and it seems that the murder also marked the effective defeat of their Lancaster allies in the quarrel over Sir John Lancaster’s inheritance. It may also have led Thornburgh into financial difficulties: in 1440 he sold over 100 acres in Brougham to one of the j.p.s before whom he had been indicted, Thomas Burgham.14 CP25(1)/249/8/31.

Not until 1 Apr. 1442 did Thornburgh secure letters patent of pardon, but then he and his brothers were able to win a little ground. It was presumably at their petition that, in the following July, a writ of certiorari called the inquisition held before Parr into Chancery. Eleven months later, on 3 June 1443, his brother Roland and uncle Oliver secured a royal pardon on the contradictory grounds that they had been maliciously indicted for Crackenthorpe’s murder and that they had reached a settlement with his widow on her appeal.15 CPR, 1441-6, pp. 64, 191; C260/145/23. This apparent recovery of fortunes coincides with the first evidence that our MP had found a place in the earl of Salisbury’s retinue: on 30 June he was one of those gathered at the earl’s castle at Middleham (Yorkshire) to witness the settlement of a dispute between William Stapleton* and Thomas, Lord Clifford.16 Cumbria RO, Carlisle, Musgrave of Edenhall mss, D/Mus/E172. He resumed his public career in a modest way two months after, when he served on a jury before the royal justices of gaol delivery on their annual visit to the county, and he did so again in 1446 and 1447.17 JUST3/70/15, 18, 19. In the meantime, described as ‘late of Maulds Meaburn, esquire’, he secured a further pardon on 1 Nov. 1446, and a few months later he attested a county election for the only recorded occasion in his career.18 C67/39, m. 18; C219/15/4.

Thereafter, however, Thornburgh’s undistinguished career quickly came to an abrupt end, at least as far as the records are concerned. In view of his turbulent life, it is fitting that the last reference to him in an active role should concern another dispute, on this occasion with his erstwhile friend, Sir Henry Threlkeld. On 9 Nov. 1447 (Sir) Thomas Haryngton I* returned an award after the two men had entered into mutual bonds in 300 marks. If its terms are any guide, the matter dividing them was a petty financial one: Haryngton awarded that Thornburgh pay Threlkeld seven marks in cash in discharge of a debt together with a further mark ‘for a gowne of blak the whiche the said William knowledge that a man of his ware’.19 Cumb. and Westmld. Antiq. and Arch. Soc. n.s. xxiii. 198-9. The arbiter, a leading member of the earl of Salisbury’s retinue, was acting here to bring an end to a dispute within that retinue (Threlkeld had been retained by the earl as early as 1431), and it is in connexion with the earl that Thornburgh last appears. When the earl became chancellor in April 1454, he admitted his servants to the privilege of suing debtors in Chancery: Thornburgh was among them.20 R.L. Storey, End of House of Lancaster, 120, 122-3.

In interpreting Thornburgh’s career, it is unfortunate that it is not known when he entered the Neville retinue. It can only be said that there is no direct evidence that he had done so before the summer of 1443. It might, however, be the explanation for his designation as a royal esquire as early as 1438, and if this is so it is possible that the earl’s great quarrel with his nephew of the half blood, the earl of Westmorland, exacerbated our MP’s own dispute with Crackenthorpe, who was prominent in the nephew’s service. However this may be, Salisbury’s patronage was significant in advancing our MP’s brothers, Leonard and Edward, in the late 1450s, probably after our MP’s death.21 H. Summerson, Med. Carlisle, ii. 440, 442. Leonard enjoyed particular success, marrying an heiress from Lincs., probably with the earl’s patronage, and going on to hold many important offices there, including that of feodary of the honour of Richmond and customer of Boston: Lincs. Archit. and Arch. Soc. vi. 67. This had occurred by Hilary term 1458, when his widow was sued for a debt of £3 by the prior of the cathedral church of Carlisle.22 CP40/788, rot. 379d. She was alive as late as August 1474: PL15/42, rot. 3.