SHARNEBURNE, Thomas

A servant of Henry VI’s queen, Margaret of Anjou, Thomas adopted the surname of his maternal grandmother, Clarice, one of the two daughters and coheirs of William Sharneburne (d.1396) of Shernborne in north-west Norfolk. His father, Richard Elleswyke, originated from Ribchester in Lancashire but settled in East Anglia after marrying (apparently in 1404) Margaret, Clarice’s sole surviving child by her husband John Toly. Richard, who can have possessed little or no lands of his own, owed his standing in the region to his wife’s inheritance, as his son Thomas duly recognized with his choice of surname. The Shernborne estates included the manor of Shernborne, of which one moiety had descended to Margaret and the other to her Champneys cousins. They derived their share of the Sharneburne estates from the marriage of Clarice’s sister Margery to William Champneys of East Raynham, and in 1421 William’s son John formally recognized the Ellewykes’ title to a moiety of Shernborne. Whether this marked their acquisition of the Champneys share of that manor from him or was merely an acknowledgement from him of Margaret’s right to the other share is unclear. If not in 1421, the Champneys moiety did in due course pass to the couple’s son, since the subject of this biography died possessed of the whole manor at his death.5 Richmond, 126n-127n; CP25(1)/169/185/56.

Following his marriage, Richard Elleswyke played at least some part in local administration, since he was escheator of Norfolk and Suffolk in 1426-7, and found a role in the Exchequer, where he was a deputy to one of the chamberlains, John Wodehouse*.6 PRO List ‘Exchequer Officers’, 169. A prominent servant of the Lancastrian kings and one of the most influential figures of early fifteenth-century East Anglia, Wodehouse was similarly of obscure background and originally from outside that region. It may well be that he was a northerner by birth like Elleswyke, although it is impossible to tell whether he and Richard already knew each other when the latter married Margaret Toly. However the association came about, Elleswyke enjoyed a good relationship with his patron. He acted for the Wodehouse family as a feoffee and he attended the marriage of John’s daughter Alice to her father’s ward, Thomas Tuddenham*, in about 1418.7 CCR, 1441-7, p. 302; R. Virgoe, ‘Divorce of Sir Thomas Tuddenham’, Norf. Archaeology, xxxiv. 407, 412. Richard also counted among his associates a fellow Wodehouse feoffee, Edmund Wynter I*, the son of another influential servant of the Lancastrian dynasty. In 1422 he and Wynter, who would later marry John Wodehouse’s widow, jointly acquired the wardship of John Shelton from the Crown.8 CPR, 1416-22, p. 413. No doubt Elleswyke’s connexions helped him to acquire another grant from the Exchequer in the following year, the farm of the manor of Ingoldisthorpe, part of the inheritance of the under age Edmund Ingoldisthorpe* and situated in the same part of north-west Norfolk as Shernborne.9 CFR, xv. 39, 112-13, 161-2. Elleswyke may have begun his career in the service of the duchy of Lancaster. In 1415 an ‘Elliswyk’ was dep. chancellor at Lancaster, where a Richard Elleswyke, clerk, was a member of the duchy administration in Hen. V’s reign: R. Somerville, Duchy, i. 477. Given such connexions, it is not surprising that his son was able to gain a position in the queen’s household.

The first known reference to Sharneburne is as a retainer of John Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, in the early 1440s. Described as ‘of Framlingham’, he and other members of the Mowbray affinity, including Sir Robert Conyers*, William Brandon†, John Wymondham*, Thomas Montgomery† and John Timperley I*, were indicted for attacking the property, person and family of the duke’s estranged retainer, Sir Robert Wingfield* in 1443. It was alleged that on 21 Aug. that year, and again on the following 2 Sept., they had forcibly entered the manor of Hoo in Suffolk (a property the previous duke of Norfolk had granted to Wingfield to for life, but which his successor was trying to take back), where they had assaulted Sir Robert and seized his crops. It was further alleged that Brandon, Timperley and others had assaulted Wingfield’s wife and children one Sunday at Letheringham, as they made their way to church, and had tried to abduct his daughter, Elizabeth. The case came before the court of King’s bench, where the defendants stated that the duke of Norfolk was seised of Hoo Hall at the time of the supposed trespass, that they had taken the crops on Mowbray’s orders, in their capacity as his servants, and put themselves on the country. An assize jury sitting at Bury St. Edmunds in July 1445 found them not guilty of the alleged attacks at Hoo and Letheringham, and after due consideration the court permitted them to go sine die the following Hilary term.10 KB27/730, rex rot. 48; 734, rex rot. 3; 735, rex rot. 37; R.L. Storey, End of House of Lancaster, 226.

By this date Margaret of Anjou, Henry VI’s bride, had recently arrived in England. It is not certain exactly when Sharneburne joined her household, although probably he did so soon after her arrival. One of the ladies-in-waiting who accompanied the new queen from France was Jamona Cherneys (or Sharneres) and Thomas married her in about 1446. A native of Anjou like the queen, Jamona was naturalized in March 1449.11 CPR, 1446-52, pp. 212, 240. An account for Margaret’s household of 1452-3 shows that Jamona received £10 p.a. as one of her ‘damsels’, and Sharneburne wages of £6 3s. 1½d. for the 197 days he attended the queen that year. It also records that Margaret gave both of them New Year’s gifts: Thomas received a gold ring and his wife an item of jewelry.12 Myers, 183-4, 225-6. During the same accounting period, Sharneburne accompanied the queen on a visit to Norwich in April 1453, and while in the city she sent him to summon Elizabeth Clere, widow of Robert Clere of Ormesby, to her presence. Not daring to disobey, Elizabeth went to Margaret, who was much taken by her and suggested that she should find a new husband.13 Paston Letters ed. Davis, i. 249. Thomas must have seemed a suitable messenger to send to Elizabeth, since he was an associate of her brother-in-law, the Household esquire, Edmund Clere*, and a feoffee of the Clere family.14 CAD, iv. A7775, 7875. As a member of the queen’s household, Sharneburne was well placed to secure grants from the Crown and to help friends and relatives. In July 1453, for example, he acquired the keeping of the lands of the outlawed Norfolk esquire, John Berney,15 CFR, xix. 36. and some time in the early 1450s he sought the queen’s help on behalf of his ‘cousin’, the London draper, Ralph Josselyn†. Josselyn’s enemies had disseised him of the manor of Aspenden in Hertfordshire and enfeoffed the property on Henry Holand, duke of Exeter, so Sharneburne asked the queen to write to the duke, requesting him to allow the draper to enter the property.16 Letters Margaret of Anjou (Cam. Soc. lxxxvi), 107-8; VCH Herts. iv. 19.

Sharneburne’s frequent presence at Court might explain why he was never appointed to the commission of the peace or to any ad hoc commissions in Norfolk, but his position in the queen’s household influenced the part he played in local politics. Like other Household men, by the late 1440s he was associated with the government of William de la Pole, marquess (later duke) of Suffolk, and with the de la Pole interest in East Anglia, despite his previous links with the duke of Norfolk. As a result, he earned the enmity of Sir John Fastolf and other opponents of de la Pole in the region. In October 1448, during his first term as escheator in Norfolk and Suffolk, he held an inquisition which found that Fastolf’s title to his manor of Titchwell in Norfolk was unlawful. According to the inquisition, it was the rightful inheritance of two sisters, Margery and Agnes Lovell, respectively the wives of the courtier Sir Edward Hull* and Thomas Wake*. Acting upon this finding, the King seized the property and soon afterwards farmed it out to Hull for the undervalued rent of ten marks p.a. Fastolf disputed the legality of the inquisition, claiming that Sharneburne, counselled by the de la Pole retainer, John Heydon*, had instructed his under escheator, John Dalling, to forge it, but it took him some five years to recover the manor.17 P.S. Lewis, ‘Sir John Fastolf’s lawsuit over Titchwell’, Historical Jnl, i. 1-20; A.R. Smith, ‘Litigation and Politics’, in Property and Politics ed. Pollard, 63. Fastolf and Sharneburne remained opponents and in September 1458 the latter stood accused of having helped to maintain a false indictment which John Andrew III* had brought against Sir John’s servant, Thomas Howes.18 Add. 27444, f. 57.

Within a year of his term as escheator coming to an end, Sharneburne was returned to the Commons as a knight of the shire for Norfolk. Between 1439 and 1450 the MPs for the county were mostly de la Pole clients but the elections to the Parliament of 1449-50 witnessed an anti-government reaction, prompted by English failures in France and general discontent with Suffolk’s regime at home.19 R. Virgoe, ‘Three Suff. Elections’, Bull. IHR, xxxix. 185-96. Of the knights elected for Norfolk and Suffolk, Sharneburne was the only man connected with the Court and de la Pole. His fellow MP for Norfolk, Sir Robert Conyers, was linked to the duke of York, to whom all those opposed to the Court and de la Pole looked for leadership. Sharneburne cannot have had a comfortable time as an MP, since the Commons impeached de la Pole who was subsequently murdered on his way into exile before the Parliament ended.

Suffolk’s fall provoked a reaction against his followers in East Anglia. In November 1450 Sharenburne, Sir Thomas Tuddenham, John Heydon and other prominent de la Pole retainers were indicted before William Yelverton* and other justices of oyer and terminer sitting at Norwich. The presenting jury alleged that in October 1441 the accused, with de la Pole’s support, had confederated in the city, where they had plotted to maintain illegal suits and to extort money from its citizens and the people of Norfolk.20 KB9/272/5. As far as Sharneburne is concerned, these charges are scarcely credible, for he was a Mowbray retainer in the early 1440s, but they do indicate how closely he had become identified with the de la Pole affinity before the end of that decade. His indictment is likely to have come to nothing, since he was pardoned in July 1451 for failing to appear before Yelverton and the other justices of oyer and terminer. The pardon cited his previous good service to the King and queen and stated that a fear that his enemies would kill him had prevented him from coming before the justices.21 CPR, 1446-52, p. 454.

Following de la Pole’s downfall, the duke of York attempted to assert his authority over the government of the country, but he failed to oust the duke of Somerset, who had assumed Suffolk’s mantle, from the centre of power. This allowed the Court to regain the initiative, one sign of which was Sharneburne’s appointment as sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk in late 1452. As sheriff he was responsible for organizing the elections of the knights of the shire for those counties to the Parliament of 1453. In Norfolk he returned Sir Thomas Tuddenham and Sir Andrew Ogard*, formerly a retainer of the duke of York but by then a steward of the queen’s household. In Suffolk he eventually returned the courtier, (Sir) Philip Wentworth*, and Gilbert Debenham I*, in opposition to attempts by York’s ally, the duke of Norfolk, to impose his own candidates. According to Sharneburne’s version of events, Sir William Ashton, John Howard* and many other Mowbray servants had threatened his under sheriff, Thomas Grys, and his clerk, William Peyntor, before the election in Suffolk. He alleged that they had forcibly brought Peyntor to the duke of Norfolk, who (it was implied) pressured him to return his nominees to Parliament. He further alleged that on election day, 12 Feb., several of Mowbray’s leading retainers had led a force of 600 armed men to the county court at Ipswich, where they had returned Thomas Daniell* (who held no lands in Suffolk) and John Wingfield† (who was not resident there) as knights of the shire. The election, at which neither Sharneburne nor his deputy was present, was clearly irregular and was subsequently declared invalid. A new election was held at the next county court on the following 12 Mar., when Wentworth and Debenham were returned. A change in political circumstances, namely York’s return to government after the King fell victim to a bout of incapacitating illness in the summer of 1453, probably explains why no immediate action was taken against Mowbray’s men. Ashton and 16 others were subsequently obliged to appear in King’s bench in Hilary term 1455, but they were able to secure a provisional release sine die upon a legal technicality. In the meantime, the duke of Norfolk had prepared a complaint against Sharneburne in the form of a petition to the Crown, in which he accused the MP of ‘imagining and purposing to make knights after his own intent’. Although there is little doubt that Mowbray had attempted to influence the election, it seems equally clear that Sharneburne had been determined to return candidates who enjoyed the support of the Court. As sheriff he was scarcely unpartisan, for in February 1453, a few days after the abortive election in Suffolk, he had pricked a grand jury which had indicted Ashton, along with other Mowbray retainers and the duke of York’s chamberlain, Sir William Oldhall*, at Ipswich. According to the jury’s far-fetched findings, the accused men had organized Cade’s rebellion three years earlier and had plotted against Henry VI.22 Virgoe, ‘Three Suff. Elections’, 185-96 (see also KB27/775, rot. 20d and PPC, vi. 183); KB9/118/30 (printed in J.R. Lander, Wars of the Roses, 63-64).

There is no evidence that Sharneburne took part in the battles of the later 1450s, after differences between the Court and the duke of York degenerated into armed conflict. In June 1455, within three weeks of the Yorkist victory at the battle of St. Albans, he became controller of customs at Bishop’s Lynn, an appointment perhaps intended as a form of banishment, since he was expected to exercise it in person. A few months later, he had affairs of his own to attend to, since in November 1455 he entered a bond for £500, in recognition of his agreement to have his differences with Elizabeth, widow of Sir Thomas Ilketshale, referred to arbitration.23 F. Blomefield, Norf. x. 358. Sir Thomas, a maternal great-uncle of Sharneburne, had died childless in 1421, leaving as his heirs his sister, Margaret, his great nephew, Laurence Fitzpiers, and his niece, Margaret Elleswyke, Sharneburne’s mother.24 CIPM, xxiii. 652. Margaret was the daughter of Ilketshale’s sister, Joan. The dispute between Sharneburne and Elizabeth related to the Ilketshale manors at Kelling and Hedenham in Norfolk. Through his mother, he had inherited a share of both properties, but Elizabeth and her second husband, William Deyvile, had occupied the manors after Ilketshale’s death. While the award of the arbitrators, Sir Thomas Tuddenham and John Heydon, has not survived, they are known to have instructed Sharneburne to pay Elizabeth 120 marks, in yearly instalments of 20 marks, perhaps in lieu of her dower rights.25 PCC 16 Stokton. Richmond, 127n, suggests that at the end of his life Sharneburne was in the process of acquiring those parts of Kelling and Hedenham not inherited by Margaret Elleswyke, stating in support of this hypothesis that Sharneburne’s eldest son and heir, John Sharneburne, died seised of both manors in their entirety in 1484. But John’s will and inq. post mortem show that in fact he held no more than moieties of those properties at his death, and that he died in 1487, not 1484: PCC 31 Milles (PROB11/8, f. 247); CIPM Hen. VII, i. 309.

Notwithstanding his problems with Kelling and Hedenham, a change in political circumstances allowed Sharneburne to augment his landed interests elsewhere, albeit on a temporary basis, in 1456. At the end of February that year, the King relieved the duke of York of the office of Protector of England, a position he had assumed in the wake of his victory at St. Albans, and a few days later Sharneburne and Henry Bourgchier esquire (the son of the treasurer) acquired a 20-year lease of the royal lordship of Castle Rising in west Norfolk.26 CFR, xix. 152.

Again appointed escheator in Norfolk and Suffolk in November 1458, Sharneburne died early in the following February, before completing his term. In his will, dated 31 Jan. 1459 and proved on 28 Apr. that year,27 PCC 16 Stokton. he asked the queen to act as its principal overseer, praying that she would be a ‘good and gracious Lady’ to his widow Jamona and to all his children. Mindful of his obligations towards Sir Thomas Ilketshale’s widow, he arranged for Jamona to receive a sum of 300 marks he had entrusted to his relative, Ralph Josselyn, for safekeeping, so that she could pay Elizabeth Ilketshale her 120 marks, in accordance with the arbitration award of a few years earlier. He also directed that Jamona should have all his plate, except for two salt cellars, which his eldest son John was to receive on attaining his majority, and a silver cup, which he had set aside for the clerk, William Pepir. In addition, he left her all his napery, bedding and hangings and the contents of his chapel of St. Edmund at Shernborne although the chaplain there was to have what he needed to ‘sing well’. To Edward, his second son, he left his armour, consisting of a helmet (‘salet’) decorated with silver, coat armour (‘briganderes’), gauntlets and leg harness. As for his employees, Sharneburne rewarded each of his domestic servants 12d. and each ‘riding servant’ 20d. For his spiritual welfare, he directed Jamona to find a priest to sing for him and his friends at Shernborne after his death and he asked the curates of the parishes of Shernborne and Snettisham to seek the prayers of their devout parishioners. Sharneburne chose for his executors Jamona, the lawyer John Fyncham and William Pepir, and he asked Sir Thomas Tuddenham to assist the queen as an overseer.

In the section of the will relating to his lands, Sharneburne demonstrated a concern to provide for each of his four children, even though he died possessed of a relatively modest estate. First, he confirmed his wife’s right to hold the manor of Shernborne and lands in nearby Saddle Bow for life, in accordance with a settlement he had previously made for her, probably at their marriage. After her death, these properties were to pass to his eldest son, John, and his male issue. Secondly, he confirmed Elizabeth Ilketshale in an annual pension of ten marks which she received from his moiety of Hedenham, apparently over and above her 120 marks. After her death, Jamona was to use the revenues of this property to bring up John and their other children. Thirdly, he directed that Jamona should also have the profits of his moiety of Kelling for their children’s upbringing, after which it was to go to his daughter, Margaret (presumably named after the queen), when she married. Finally, he set aside lands for his younger sons, Edward and Anthony, to receive when they reached the age of 21: Edward was to have a tenement at Snettisham in west Norfolk and Anthony another in Essex.

Following the overthrow of the Lancastrian dynasty, Sharneburne’s widow took the precaution of purchasing a royal pardon, dated 14 Feb. 1462.28 C67/45, rot. 38. The date of her death is unknown but she comfortably outlived her late husband, beside whom she was eventually buried in the chancel of the parish church at Shernborne.29 Blomefield, x. 360. During her long widowhood she allowed their son John to take possession of the manor of Shernborne, in return for an annual pension of £20. As it happened, she also outlived John, for she was still alive when he died in 1487.30 PCC 31 Milles; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 309.