STOCTON, William I

A brother of the prominent London mercer John Stocton, William Stocton was probably a clothier or wool merchant, even though he was considered a ‘gentleman’ by the end of his life.6 CFR, xviii. 256. Wycombe was an important town for cloth production, and by the fifteenth century Bradford-on-Avon, which may have become his second place of residence after his marriage, had either already become another such centre or was developing into one.7 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 278; VCH Wilts. v. 42. Almost certainly the grandson of the John Stocton of Amersham who died in the first half of the 1420s,8 CAD, iii. C3718; CP25(1)/22/118/13; PCC 9 Wattys. he is first heard of in the spring of 1419 when, as ‘William Stokken junior’, he took seisin of three messuages in Wycombe from John Peytevyn and his wife. In September the following year either he or his father conveyed away an interest in a local rent, and one of them acquired a wardship from the prior of the Hospitallers, lord of the manor of Temple Wycombe, in March 1426.9 CP25(1)/22/117/16; Centre for Bucks. Studies, CH1 T/5/4, T/6/5; ct. roll, manor of Temple Wycombe, 1415-32, D176/4, m. 4. At the latter date William Stocton was sitting for Wycombe in Parliament, but it is not clear whether this was the subject of this biography or his father, or which of the two men began a term as mayor of Wycombe later that year. The elder William was certainly dead by 1448 when his widow and executrix, Matilda, was pursuing a suit for an alleged debt at Westminster.10 CP40/748, rot. 81.

Outside Wycombe, the Stoctons were involved in county affairs, in so far as the MP or his father attested the return of the knights of the shire for Buckinghamshire on at least three occasions in the late 1420s and early 1430s, including the controversial election of 1429. At a county court held at Aylesbury on 31 Aug. that year William Stocton was among those who witnessed the return of John Hampden II* and Andrew Sperlyng* to the Parliament called for the following 22 Sept., but the sheriff Sir Thomas Waweton* sent into Chancery a false indenture recording that Sir John Cheyne I* and Walter Strickland I* were the men elected. A judicial commission subsequently established that the election of Hampden and Sperlyng should have held good, although by then the Parliament was over.

So far as the evidence goes, the MP was particularly active in his latter years, when he himself sat in two consecutive Parliaments.11 It is assumed that he was not the William Stocton appointed to two comms. of the peace in Berks., a county in which he is not known to have had any interests, in 1454. The Berks. j.p. was probably a lawyer since he was a member of the quorum. In May 1452, a year after the second of these eventful assemblies was dissolved, he stood surety in Chancery for Richard Bulstrode* and two associates who had jointly acquired the keeping of lands at Great Missenden from the Crown. In the following September he himself was associated with Sir Thomas Boteler, Richard Restwold* and Henry Michell in obtaining a similar royal grant of lands at Chalfont, for a yearly farm of one mark.12 CFR, xviii. 256; xix. 17. It was also during the early 1450s that Stocton was involved in various land transactions in Wiltshire, in the capacity of a feoffee for the lawyer Thomas Tropenell*, a servant of Robert Hungerford, 2nd Lord Hungerford. Hungerford was another of Tropenell’s feoffees, but it is not known if Stocton also became one of that lord’s followers.13 Tropenell Cart. ed. Davies, ii. 30-31, 53-55, 197-9. Tropenell lived at Neston, just a few miles north of Bradford-on-Avon, the town where Stocton ended his days.

In his will, dated 24 Aug. 1452 and proved on 8 Sept. 1454,14 PCC 1 Stokton. Stocton asked to be buried in the parish church of Bradford rather than at Wycombe. He left the church 6s. 8d. in recompense for forgotten tithes, assigned a like amount to its vicar to pray for his soul and set aside further sums towards its fabric and for other building works at Salisbury cathedral and the parish church of All Saints, Wycombe. He further directed that every priest attending his burial should receive 8d. and every clerk 4d., left 9s. 4d. to the 13 poor men of ‘le Spetill de Bradforde’ (presumably St. Margaret’s, a leper-house in Bradford),15 VCH Wilts. iii. 334. and assigned £6 for the support of a priest who would sing for the souls of him and his parents for a year after his death. Stocton bequeathed £3 6s. 8d. and a piece of black cloth for a hood (‘pro capicio’) to his brother John; 20s. to a son of the latter; and 40s. and a piece of green cloth to his sister-in-law Katherine. He also left robes to two other nephews, his sister’s sons Edmund and John Hampden of Wycombe, and to his servant William Strode and his fellow burgess Walter Colard*. Finally, he committed all his remaining goods and chattels to his wife Cecily and Nicholas Hall, esquire. He named her and Hall as his executors, in which role they were still active in the later 1450s,16 CP40/787, rot. 79d; 788, rots. 186, 392d; 791, rot. 368d. and his brother John as the will’s overseer. If he made a separate will for his lands, it has not survived, and there is no direct evidence for his landholdings, whether in Buckinghamshire, Wiltshire or elsewhere.

It is unlikely that Stocton was survived by any children since none is mentioned in his will. His widow had found a new husband in Thomas Rogers† by 1457, when she and Rogers made a formal release of four messuages and other lands at Wycombe to the MP’s brother John Stocton, and to John’s feoffees and heirs.17 CP40/787, rot. 79d; CP25(1)/22/124/20. Mayor of London in 1470-1, John was knighted by Edward IV in May 1471, following the King’s return to the capital after the battle of Tewkesbury.18 C.D. Ross, Edw. IV, 175. Perhaps considerably younger than his brother, Sir John retained his links with Buckinghamshire until his own death in 1473. In his will of March 1471 he provided for two chaplains, one at Wycombe and the other in Amersham parish church, to sing for the souls of himself, his late wife Katherine, his grandparents John and Margaret Stocton, his two brothers (the MP and Thomas Stocton), and his sister Margaret Hampden (presumably the mother of Edmund and John Hampden). He also set aside sums for considerable building projects at Wycombe, including the extension of the church of All Saints. John was survived by his widow Elizabeth, whom he appointed one of his executors, and two sons.19 PCC 9 Wattys.

In the mid or late 1490s the mayor and burgesses of Wycombe filed a Chancery bill to complain that the work on the church had yet to begin. According to the bill, they had continually requested Sir John’s executors to perform the will although it was not until after the deaths of her co-executors that the conscience-stricken Elizabeth had tried to rectify the situation. She had done so by conveying lands worth £20 p.a. which she had held in Wycombe and elsewhere in Buckinghamshire to Henry VII’s secretary, Robert Sherborn, on the understanding that he would take responsibility for the project. In the event, Sherborn had neglected to act, meaning that the chancel and its adjoining side chapels had fallen into a state of near collapse. Protesting that the church’s parishioners could not themselves afford to pay for the urgently needed work, they asked that Sherborn might answer for his neglect in the Chancery. Presumably the bill achieved its aim, for around the turn of the century new arcades were inserted in the walls between the chancel and its chapels and the southern chapel was practically rebuilt.20 C1/234/8; VCH Bucks. iii. 129.