UVEDALE, William I

William was overshadowed by his elder brother, John, whose very active career in local government contrasts with his own meagre showing. As a feoffee of estates in Kent belonging to their late brother-in-law, Reynold Peckham, in 1421 he joined John in making a presentation to the rectory of Warehorne, although it was John who was the principal custodian of the inheritance of their nephew, another Reynold*, and took charge of his affairs.3 Reg. Chichele, i. 200. Of their own family estates in Hampshire and Surrey, John naturally inherited the bulk, which provided him with an estimated income of £173 p.a., but a settlement allowed William to occupy Titsey, and it was there that he sometimes resided in the 1430s. Not far away, just across the border with Kent, he held Northstead in Chelsfield, where he retained an interest until his death, and on occasion he evidently lived on these Kentish properties, which may have come to him by marriage.4 CPR, 1429-36, p. 380; E. Hasted, Kent ed. Drake, ii. 92; CCR, 1454-61, pp. 182-3. Despite the disparity in the expectations of the two brothers, William enjoyed a comfortable income of £50 p.a. from his holdings in Surrey and Kent, according to the assessments for the tax of 1436.5 Surr. Hist. Centre, Woking, Loseley mss, LM/1719.

Before his election to Parliament, Uvedale established important connexions. In the spring of 1430, Sir Roger Fiennes* of Herstmonceux, on the point of departure for France in the army accompanying Henry VI for his coronation, entrusted him with his goods and chattels and made him a feoffee of his Kentish manors of Burham and Cudham as well as of his bailiwick in Windsor forest.6 CCR, 1429-35, p. 46; CPR, 1429-36, p. 56. It would, therefore, seem likely that it was he who was then sheriff of Surrey and Sussex, even though the letters of appointment called the sheriff ‘William Uvedale the younger’, especially as his nephew William II was scarcely out of school.7 CFR, xv. 297. No distinction was made when the sheriff was allowed £40 on his account at the Exchequer: E159/207, brevia Mich. rot. 5d. On entering the Commons Uvedale could renew his acquaintance with the clerk of the Parliaments, William Prestwick, who was among his co-feoffees of the Fiennes manors. He was well known to a member of the Upper House, too, for Reynold West, Lord de la Warre, had granted him for life an annuity of £5 charged on the manor of Hale in Hampshire. Indeed, the families of Uvedale and de la Warre were distantly related and regularly assisted each other in their affairs.8 E163/7/31/1; W. Berry, Hants Gen. 198. William and his lord both played a part in arranging the marriage of William’s nephew, Thomas (the heir apparent to the principal Uvedale estates) to the daughter and heiress of Thomas Foxley*. When, at Easter 1435, John Martin, j.c.p., a feoffee of Foxley’s manor of Apperfield in Cudham, agreed to transfer seisin of it to Foxley and his new wife Theobalda (to the detriment of his daughter’s inheritance), William was reported to have said that if any man went to Apperfield to interfere with his nephew’s tenure of the manor ‘he shulde sore repente it’. The threat was taken seriously.9 CCR, 1454-61, pp. 182-3. In July 1436 Lord de la Warre entrusted the brothers John and William Uvedale, together with his own son, with all his jewels, gold and silver plate and other goods and chattels; and William as a feoffee of the de la Warre manor of Church Speen in Berkshire, was to be party to its sale to John Roger I*. Furthermore, he stood surety for de la Warre at the Exchequer in 1443, and in 1445 again received custody of the lord’s moveable possessions (this time in association with his nephew Thomas).10 CCR, 1435-41, p. 63; 1441-7, pp. 10, 365-6; CPR, 1436-41, p. 119; 1441-6, p. 331; CAD, i. B1093-4; CFR, xvii. 295. While it is impossible to say how much importance should be attached to this connexion in regard to William’s election to Parliament in 1432, it may not have lacked significance.

William’s brother John made him a feoffee of Tatsfield and Woldingham in Surrey in 1438 or the following year, probably in order to facilitate a settlement on his heir when he died a year or so later.11 O. Manning and W. Bray, Surr. ii. 408-9. By then, if not much earlier, William had married Joan Lufwyke, who in 1409, on her previous marriage to William Kendale, had received in jointure the manor of Littlebrook and lands in the parishes of Stone and Dartford in Kent, which were entailed on her issue. In March 1439 William Raufe of London, the sole surviving feoffee of this estate, formally released his title to her and Uvedale. Joan’s father had also transferred to Raufe his interest in the Saracen’s Head in the London parish of St. Gregory by St. Paul’s, which he now also conveyed to Uvedale and others, and in his will of the following year Raufe instructed his executors to complete the sale of this ‘magna placea sive taberna’ to Uvedale for 40 marks, provided that Uvedale agreed to pay five marks a year to his widow. Since she and Uvedale were both named as executors the business was no doubt easily arranged between them. By royal licence of May 1441 Uvedale placed the tavern in the hands of his own feoffees, who included his nephew Reynold Peckham, but further transactions carried out in 1446 were unlicensed, and royal pardons had to be sought after his death.12 CCR, 1435-41, pp. 257, 430-1; 1441-7, p. 457; Reg. Chichele, ii. 572; CPR, 1436-41, p. 541; 1446-52, p. 403; E159/223, brevia Mich. rot. 13.

In July 1444 Uvedale sold Littlebrook and other of his now deceased wife’s holdings to Roger Appleton, senior, the Exchequer official, for 300 marks, of which a third part was paid immediately, and in November Appleton also agreed to pay him an annuity of £20 for life. Unfortunately, very shortly after the sale the lands were flooded by the Thames, and rendered almost worthless. Accordingly, in the following January Uvedale remitted to Appleton 100 marks of the purchase price, so that £10 might be spent on flood ditches and the construction and repair of the ‘water thorough’, £14 on strengthening the river banks, and the rest applied at Appleton’s discretion for the celebration of masses and distribution of alms for the good of the souls of Uvedale and his wife, parents and friends. Furthermore, Uvedale, by reason of his many illnesses, and expecting to die in the near future, wished Appleton to be properly compensated for the loss of his livestock, so bound himself and his heirs to give him the sum of £24.13 CCR, 1441-7, pp. 282-3; C1/18/149; Surr. Arch. Collns. iii. 86-88; Sloane Ch. xxxii 43. Other transactions made in preparation for Uvedale’s death included the purchase in November 1446 of a licence to convey his manor of Addington, Kent, which he held from the King in chief, to the use of John Leigh* of Hythe (a fellow Member of the Parliament of 1432) and the latter’s heirs.14 CPR, 1446-52, p. 6.

The sale of Addington had not been completed at the time of Uvedale’s death, when Leigh still owed him 200 marks. In the will he made on his deathbed on 24 Oct. 1449, he directed his executors to collect this sum and spend it in its entirety on stipends for four chaplains attached to the newly-founded college of All Souls, Oxford, who were to celebrate daily masses for his soul and that of Roger Heron, clerk, for as long as the money lasted. Uvedale asked to be buried in the parish church of St. Mary Overy in Southwark, to which he left £20 for the fabric, 20s. for the prior and 6s. 8d. to every canon. His executors, who included William Godyng* the former MP for Southwark, were instructed to arrange for 2,000 masses to be said for him in all possible haste, to spend £20 on altars and roads in the parishes near his lands, and to use the profits of the sale of the Saracen’s Head for works of piety. Uvedale generously released all his tenant-farmers from payment of three month’s rent. Since he was childless, the family manor of Titsey now reverted to his nephew Thomas, to whose sons, Reynold†, Henry* and Nicholas he left bequests of 20 marks-worth of stock at Northstead and gowns trimmed with martens’ fur. The will was proved on 4 Nov.15 Lambeth Palace Lib. Reg. Stafford, f. 176 (printed in Surr. Arch Collns. iii. 154-8). Shortly afterwards, Uvedale’s executors petitioned the chancellor claiming that Roger Appleton had defaulted on payment of the annuity due to the deceased for life: he owed £20 and the penalty of £2. They strongly rebutted Appleton’s assertion that on the contrary they owed him £77 6s. 8d.16 C1/18/149, 150.