STRICKLAND, Walter II

Strickland was heir to one of the most significant gentry inheritances in Westmorland, but his father’s long survival ensured that his own career was of less importance than it might otherwise have been. His family’s high standing is apparent in the terms on which he was contracted in marriage in November 1426 to a daughter of Nicholas Croft of Dalton, a few miles to the south of Sizergh. For this alliance Croft was ready to pay as much as 470 marks in return for an immediate jointure of 20 marks p.a. to be settled on the couple with an additional grant to be made on Sir Thomas’s death. This settlement explains why the young Walter was assessed on an income of £13 p.a. in the subsidy returns of 1436.1 H. Hornyold, Strickland of Sizergh, 53-54; E179/195/32. Another sign of his family’s prominence is his election to Parliament in his father’s lifetime. On 4 Jan. 1442 he was returned in company with another young man, his neighbour, Richard Redmayne*, at hustings attended by several of the county’s leading gentry, among whom was Sir Thomas.2 C219/15/2.

By the time of this election Strickland had already served a term as escheator, but from these beginnings his administrative career did not develop. This failure is only partially explained by his father’s survival until as late as 1455 and the subsequent diminution of his resources attendant on his mother’s even longer life.3 Hornyold, 56. Unfortunately, it is not known when his mother died, only that she survived his father. His lands may have been additionally burdened by a settlement of lands worth 20 marks p.a. on his yr. bro. Robert: Hornyold, 54-55. It is not known whether Robert was still alive in 1455. After 1455 he did not assume the place his father had long held on the county bench nor did he become, as his father had been, a regular appointee to ad hoc commissions of local administration. This is all the more surprising as by other measures, aside from his family’s wealth, he was a man of substance. By the early 1440s, and probably through the patronage of his uncle, Walter Strickland I, he had won a place among the esquires of the royal household.4 He was in receipt of robes as an esquire of the Household by 1441-2 and was still receiving robes when the accts. fail in 1451-2: E101/409/9; 410/9, f. 42v. On 6 Apr. 1446 the Crown appointed him as keeper of the park of Calgarth in Windermere, with its daily fee of 6d., in succession to his recently-deceased uncle, and later in the same year Thomas Daniell, a prominent courtier, entrusted the Stricklands, father and son, with the stewardship of the lands in the lordship of Kendal that he held by royal grant.5 CPR, 1441-6, p. 426; CCR, 1441-7, p. 337; Recs. Kendale, ed. Farrer and Curwen, i. 149; ii. 72.

To the patronage of the Crown Strickland added that of the great local peer, Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury. Curiously, that patronage was extended only shortly after our MP had been among the local gentry sued by the earl for close-breaking at Plumpton near Penrith.6 CP40/743, rot. 478. The action was still pending in Hil. term 1448: CP40/748, rots. 354, 389. Yet, this disagreement notwithstanding, on 1 Sept. 1448 Walter entered into an indenture with the earl, undertaking in return for a life annuity of ten marks assigned in the earl’s lordship of Penrith, to be always ready, well-armed and arrayed, ‘to ryde come and goe with to and for the said Erl’ both in England and abroad. The terms of the indenture clearly show that service in France was envisaged, for it contained the routine terms regarding the division of winnings of war between lord and master, although there is no evidence that he served abroad either after or before this date.7 Private Indentures (Cam. Miscellany, xxxii), 128. It has been wrongly and implausibly claimed that Strickland could raise 290 armed followers: R.L. Storey, End of House of Lancaster, 122. This error arises from the misdating of a retinue list printed by J. Nicolson and R. Burn, Westmld. and Cumb. i. 96-98. In fact, that list relates to Walter Strickland† (d.1569): D. Scott, Stricklands of Sizergh, 70.

These important connexions, however, did not bring Strickland to any notable local prominence, at least as far as the surviving records are an accurate guide. Even after he had succeeded to the family patrimony he remained in obscurity. What little is known of him in the late 1450s relates only to his private affairs. In 1456 he fell into a protracted dispute with his near neighbour, Thomas Chamber II*, whom he accused of illegally hunting in his park at Sizergh.8 Pleas were still pending between them in 1459, but their final outcome is not recorded: e.g. CP40/781, rot. 63d; 795, rot. 21d. In 1458 he appeared personally in the court of common pleas to sue several members of the gentry family of Preston, resident at Levens, for the same offence.9 CP40/790, rot. 162d. He was on better terms with his more important neighbour, Richard Redmayne, his fellow MP of 1442. On 22 July 1458 they secured a papal dispensation for the marriage of Strickland’s daughter, Margaret, to Redmayne’s eldest son, William†, who were related within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity. As befitting his rank, Strickland gave his daughter the generous portion of 200 marks.10 Hornyold, 61; Scott, 71.

Against this background, it is not surprising to find that Strickland played no recorded part in the civil war of 1459-61, despite the annuity he drew from the Nevilles. The only indication that he was supporter of that family was his nomination to a commission of June 1461 for the arrest of three local Lancastrians.11 CPR, 1461-7, p. 34. He did not benefit from the change of regime. Indeed, if he still held the Calgarth parkership, he lost by it, for on 24 July 1461 that office was granted elsewhere, and a year later he felt insecure enough to sue out a general pardon.12 CPR, 1461-7, p. 127; C67/45, m. 24. He may have already lost his parkership by Act of Resumption, although no grant of the office is recorded on the patent roll between his appointment in 1446 and that of 1461. None the less, in 1464 he formed a new connexion, albeit an indirect one, with the Yorkist regime, by marrying his son and heir, Thomas, to a sister of his neighbour and feudal overlord, the prominent Yorkist, Sir William Parr†.13 Hornyold, 60. His son, who was knighted fighting for Edward IV at Tewkesbury on 4 May 1471, was to prove himself a loyal Yorkist, but our MP had not lived to see his son’s career develop.14 R. Horrox, Ric. III, 41, 51. For Sir Thomas’s career: Hornyold, 64-68. He died shortly before 15 Aug. 1467, when the prior of Cartmel was commissioned by the archbishop of York to veil his widow.15 Test. Ebor. iv (Surtees Soc. liii), 340; Hornyold, 60. He had still been alive in the previous Trin. term: CP40/824, rot. 518. No inq. post mortem survives, although writs for the taking of one were issued on 8 Oct.: CFR, xx. 196. She survived until at least 1482 when she was named as executrix of the will of her son-in-law, Sir William Redmayne.16 Test. Ebor. iii (Surtees Soc. xlv), 281.