SINGLETON, Thomas

A Kentish man who owed his connexion with Buckinghamshire to his wife’s estates in that county, Singleton advanced himself in the service of Archbishop John Kemp, a leading figure in both Church and state. Little is known about his family, which took its name from Singleton in the parish of Great Chart near Ashford, but he was probably the son of John Singleton. A minor gentleman with lands in Great Chart and Wye, John had a real estate valued at £20 p.a. when he was assessed for taxation in 1412.6 Feudal Aids, vi. 473. E. Hasted, Kent ed. Drake, vii. 502, incorrectly states that John was a j.p. in Bucks. The same work also claims that he was a descendant of the Henry de Singleton once depicted in a window (now long gone) in the parish church at Great Chart. In June 1421 he stood surety in the Chancery for William Taillour, a Wycliffite chaplain subsequently burnt for heresy at West Smithfield, and he was still alive in 1434, when included in the list of Kent residents expected to swear the oath to keep the peace administered throughout the country that year.7 CCR, 1419-22, p. 199; Two Wycliffite Texts ed. Hudson (EETS, ccci), pp. xvii-xxv; CPR, 1429-36, p. 388.

Thomas Singleton is first heard of in the late 1420s. In January 1429 the manors of Irchester in Northamptonshire and Carlton, which straddled the Northamptonshire-Bedfordshire county boundary, were settled upon him and his wife Agnes and their children, probably shortly after their marriage. The manors, which came to Agnes from her father’s family, were not the only properties she brought to Singleton, since she also inherited more at Hartwell, Little Hampden and Hanslope in Buckinghamshire and at Northchurch in Hertfordshire after her mother’s death.8 CCR, 1429-35, p. 32; VCH Bucks. ii. 296; iv. 354; VCH Herts. ii. 246; C140/70/34. It is not clear whether Agnes also brought the former Luton manor at Garthorpe to her husband. At first sight, the match is a startling one for a man of such insignificant origins, but by this date Singleton was already linked with his fellow Kentish man, Archbishop John Kemp, who had recently made him chief forester of the see of York for life. By now chancellor of England as well as archbishop of York and a royal councillor, Kemp was solicitous on behalf of his servants and dependants, and Singleton can only have enhanced his own status and marriage prospects through his connexion with such an important figure. He served Kemp, a native of Wye, for most of his adult life, although exactly what position he held in the archbishop’s household is unknown.9 Nigota, 263n; R.A. Griffiths, Hen. VI, 298.

Still ‘of Kent’ when he acted as a mainpernor for other gentry from that county in February 1433,10 CFR, xvi. 142, 143. Singleton was appointed to the first of his two terms as escheator of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire in the following autumn, and it was of Buckinghamshire that he was expected to keep the peace in 1434.11 CPR, 1429-36, p. 397. He nevertheless remained linked with his native county, not least through his association with Kemp. He was one of the archbishop’s mainpernors in November 1435, when the Crown granted Kemp the keeping of the manor of Postling (formerly held by Joan Beauchamp, Lady Abergavenney, and part of the Fitzalan inheritance in Kent), and again when this grant was renewed in 1438.12 CFR, xvi. 255; xvii. 43. Later, in March 1446, he witnessed a release to Kemp of the manor of Perry in Wye, one of the properties with which his patron, by then a cardinal, endowed his college in that parish.13 CCR, 1441-7, p. 375; VCH Kent, ii. 325-6.

The release was made while the Parliament of 1445, to which Singleton had accompanied Kemp, was still in session. His attendance on the archbishop at Westminster very much served his own interests, since it afforded him immunity from a suit that Sir Henry Brounflete, a former esquire of the chamber of Henry IV and an influential servant of the Lancastrian dynasty, had brought against him in the Exchequer.14 CP, xii (2), 285-8. Brounflete’s action concerned arrears of an annuity of £10 from the issues of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire which Henry IV had granted to him for life and related to Singleton’s recently expired first term as sheriff of those counties. Brounflete claimed that Singleton had failed to pay him the annuity while sheriff, a plea the latter was called upon to answer in the summer of 1445, during the recess between the second and third sessions of Parliament. Appearing in the person of his attorney, Singleton declared that he had been advised not to answer Brounflete’s plea for the time being. He obtained leave to treat with his opponent out of court and the barons of the Exchequer licensed the parties to negotiate with each other until the following Michaelmas term.15 E13/143, rot. 52d. Presumably these discussions were unsuccessful, because in November 1445 Singleton secured a writ staying Bounflete’s suit. Through this, the Exchequer was informed that Singleton, Kemp’s ‘serviens et familiaris’, was not obliged to answer his opponent, since by custom of England Members of both the Upper and Lower Houses and their servants enjoyed immunity from lawsuits while Parliament was in session.16 E159/222, brevia Mich. rot. 11d.

Even though, thanks to his wife’s estates, Singleton was easily qualified to enter the Commons as a knight of the shire, he is likely to have enjoyed the backing of his patron, now serving a second term as chancellor of England, when he stood for election to the Parliament of 1450. Late in the first session of this assembly, he was among those to whom the Crown granted licence to found a guild at Aylesbury, the nearest town to his principal manor at Hartwell. The grantees were headed by Cardinal Kemp, who was probably involved at Singleton’s behest since he had no obvious connexions with Buckinghamshire.17 CPR, 1446-52, p. 412. Following the death of John Stafford, archbishop of Canterbury, just over a year after the Parliament was dissolved, Singleton and others of Kemp’s associates received a grant of the temporalities of Canterbury, to hold until Kemp was translated to that see from York.18 CFR, xviii. 264. The grant of the temporalities of Canterbury is dated 7 June 1452 in the fine rolls, but this must be a mistake, since Stafford survived until the following 25 June.

The by now elderly Kemp did not long survive Stafford, for he died on 22 Mar. 1454. Shortly after losing his patron, Singleton faced renewed litigation from Sir Henry Brounflete in the Exchequer. In Michaelmas 1454, shortly before beginning his second term as sheriff, he responded by pleading (through his attorney) that he had received a receipt from Brounflete, acknowledging payment of his annuity, ten years earlier. The case was referred to a jury but does not seem to have reached a conclusion. In mid 1455 Brounflete brought a fresh bill in the Exchequer, this time to claim that his annuity was still £15 in arrears. This latter suit was successful, for Singleton was ordered to pay him both the sum demanded and damages of 13s. 4d.19 E13/145B, rots. 20d, 67d.

It was also during his second term as sheriff that Singleton was sued by the London mercer, Walter Aleyn. Aleyn’s suit, likewise heard in the Exchequer, arose from a bond for £20 which the Buckinghamshire esquire, Bernard Brocas, had given him. He alleged that Singleton had deliberately ignored a royal writ ordering him to bring Brocas to Chancery to answer the bond, a plea to which Singleton responded by seeking permission to treat with his opponent out of court. Agreeing to this request, the barons of the Exchequer licensed the parties to negotiate: it was the first of several such licences and it seems the matter was settled privately.20 Ibid. rot. 58.

While sheriff, Singleton purchased a royal pardon dated 1 Oct. 1455. It would appear to have had no connexion with the shrievalty since it refers to him as the former escheator of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire rather than as sheriff.21 C67/41, m. 25. By now nearing the end of his life, he was appointed to just one more ad hoc commission, although he continued to serve as a j.p. The Crown issued him another pardon on 6 Jan. 1458,22 E159/235, brevia Mich. rot. 34d. and reappointed him to the commission of the peace in the following July. Just months later he was dead, for in the spring of 1459 Edmund Brudenell was pursuing a suit for debt against his widow Agnes, executrix of his now lost will, at Westminster.23 KB27/742, rot. 383.

By 1461 Agnes had remarried, taking for her new husband Henry Petit. Seven years later, she and Petit were embroiled in litigation in the court of common pleas where a London fishmonger claimed that Singleton had died owing him just over 70s. This plaintiff was named John Kemp but his relationship, if any, with the MP’s late patron is not known.24 CP40/800, rot. 3d; 802, rot. 424d; 826, rot. 116. Petit predeceased Agnes, who also outlived Elizabeth, her only surviving child by Singleton. When she died in 1479, her heir was her grandson William Hampden, Elizabeth’s son by Richard Hampden of Kimble, a younger son of John Hampden I*. Not surprisingly, given that she must have been of a relatively advanced age when they married, Agnes bore Petit no children, meaning that all her estates passed to the Hampdens.25 C140/70/134.