RUSSELL, Richard II

The first reference to Russell dates from Hilary term 1429 when he appeared in person in the court of King’s bench to pursue Thomas Verbom, a husbandman of Hereford, for breaking his closes in Hereford and neighbouring Canon More in the previous August and taking carts, trees and crops to the value of £20. This suggests that he was a resident of that city and was elected as such to the Parliament of 1432.1 KB27/671, rot. 57; 672, rot. 80d; C219/14/3. The Speaker in this Parliament was the Herefordshire lawyer, John Russell I*, but, if our MP was related to him, their shared surname is the only evidence.2 He is to be distinguished from a namesake, an esquire who almost certainly numbered among the Speaker’s kinsmen. It was this Richard who, for example, was a juror at the inq. taken at Hereford on 24 Jan. 1433 on the death of John Mowbray, duke of Norfolk: CIPM, xxiv. 114. He seems to have been a man of some modest substance. He was among the Hereford men considered important enough to be required to take the oath of 1434 not to maintain peace-breakers; in 1441 he witnessed a conveyance made by the Herefordshire esquire, John Skydemore*, of property in the city; and in 1447 he had a plea of debt pending in the Hereford mayor’s court, for as much as £40 against his old adversary Verbom.3 CPR, 1429-36, p. 377; Herefs. RO, Hereford city recs., mayor’s ct. roll 25 Hen. VI, BG11/2/6; CCR, 1435-41, p. 455. Yet he was not among the Hereford citizens assessed to the subsidy of 1450-1, suggesting that his property was worth less than 40s. p.a. He was alive as late as 27 July 1451, when he witnessed a local deed.4 E179/117/64; Hereford city recs. MT/VIII/29.