ABRAHALL, John

Much more may be added to the earlier biography.7 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 2-5. The first half of Abrahall’s career was remarkable for his persistent involvement in local disorder, first as an agent of John, Lord Furnival (later Lord Talbot), then as his opponent. This criminal career had begun by June 1408, when, in company with his cousin, Thomas Skydemore, he raided the property of a servant of the royal household, William Hamme, at Holme Lacy, not far from Hereford. This, at least, was the claim made by Hamme in petitions to both the King and chancellor, asserting that he would have been murdered by the raiders had he not been absent from home on royal service.8 SC8/186/9261; C1/69/221; Cal. Ancient Petitions Relating to Wales, ed. Rees, 310-11; CCR, 1405-9, p. 503.

Abrahall’s first marriage was probably less profitable than implied in the earlier biography. Although, by a final concord levied in June 1412, Margaret’s first husband’s manor of Hampton Mappenore, with land at Bacton and Hampton Richard, was settled on the couple for her life, to be held of the heirs of her first husband, this arrangement may not have held. In July 1413, the couple were obliged to bring an assize of novel disseisin against Richard Hampton and John Forster for her property at Hampton Richard (the outcome is unknown), and, later in the same year, the heirs and their husbands conveyed the estate settled in 1412 to the future justice, William Paston. This may not materially have effected the earlier arrangement, yet it is probably significant that the fine of 1412 is the only evidence of our MP’s tenure of his first wife’s lands.9 CP25(1)/83/52/46, 53/3; JUST1/1525, rot. 8. Sir William Hampton’s heirs were his two daughters: Olive, w. of Edmund Wynter I*, and Joan, wife of Robert Scott*.

Since his father survived long into his career and his mother outlived him, Abrahall was dependent on their indulgence and his own efforts to add to whatever profit his first marriage brought. Fortunately for him, his parents were ready to moderate their own interests in his favour: in 1415 his father leased to him various properties in Archenfield at an annual rent of eight marks; and in 1424 his parents accepted an annual farm of £7 in return for the family’s manor place and its land at Abrahall, retaining for their own use ‘the halls … and all the chambers and the kichyn and the colnhowll with an house that is ycalled the Lytalle berne’.10 Glos. Archs., Gage mss, D1677/GHe/2, 3. Our MP was able to find further leases elsewhere: in 1411, as mentioned in the earlier biography, he and Thomas Moore of Baysham agreed to pay as much as £23 p.a. to the dean and chapter of Hereford cathedral for the churches of Baysham and Sellack (near Foy); and in March 1425 he farmed from Thomas Barowe property in Hungerston (in Allensmore) and nearby Clehonger at an annual rent of 73s. 4d.11 Hereford Cathedral Archs., nos. 1824-5; Herefs. RO, Rotherwas mss, AD2/II/132. Of more importance, however, was his acquisition of the manor of Gillow, formerly the property of Sir Fulk Pembridge† (d.1409). This appears to have been a purchase rather than a lease, although the first direct evidence of his interest there implies otherwise. On 8 Nov. 1417 a local esquire, William Burghall, granted the manor to him at an annual rent of five marks. What legal estate Burghall held there is not known, but the more significant settlement was made some five years later: on 14 June 1422 Walter Swan, rector of Pembridge, and John Mey, mayor of Hereford, as feoffees of Sir Fulk’s heir, Sir Richard Vernon*, settled the manor on Abrahall and his first wife with successive remainders to their daughter, Agnes, then wife of a Welsh gentleman, William Thomas alias William Fitzthomas, in fee tail and our MP’s right heirs.12 NLW, Mynde Park deeds, 346(iv), 347(i). Our MP’s da. was married within the Talbot retinue as her husband was an annuitant of Gilbert, Lord Talbot: CIPM, xxi. 320-1. The groom is not to be confused with his more famous contemporary, Sir William ap Thomas, father of Sir William Herbert*. Abrahall may have been responsible for building the gatehouse that still survives there.13 A. Emery, Greater Med. Houses, ii. 535-7. Late in his life he contentiously added the more substantial manor of Eaton Tregoze (in Foy) to these acquisitions, and at his death he was, by the standards of the gentry of the marches, a significant landholder. The lands listed in his inquisition post mortem were valued at £41 p.a., but the jurors omitted the property, including the manor of Gillow, placed in feoffment shortly before his death.14 CIPM, xxvi. 74; Mynde park deeds, 349, 350.

Abrahall was outlawed at the Shropshire county court on 6 Dec. 1414 for his failure to answer the indictments laid against him when King’s bench had come to that county earlier in the year. Only four days later he secured a general pardon, but he was slow to plead it in court. He was thus technically an outlaw when named as escheator of Herefordshire in 1417 and elected to represent the borough of Hereford in the Parliament of 1419. This election presents several interesting features. The borough’s election was held on 10 Oct., three days after that for the county, and it is not unlikely that he took that seat because his candidature for the county seat had been thwarted by the candidature of two royal servants, John Merbury* and John Russell I*.15 KB27/634, rex rot. 12; C219/12/3. The borough indenture departs from the norm in that the county sheriff, Thomas Holgot†, and one of the leading county gentry, Richard de la Mare*, are named among the attestors, who numbered as many as 30. One might additionally infer that he had a particular reason for wishing to attend this assembly, and the legal records support this inference. Indeed, at the time of his election he faced a crisis in his affairs, provoked by an appeal as an accessory to the murder of William ap Howell at Ross-on-Wye on 10 Nov. 1418. According to a petition presented to the chancellor by the murdered man’s cousin, Philip Maidstone, the Abrahalls had threatened him with death for supporting the appeal of ap Howell’s widow, but they were powerless to prevent it taking its course. On the octave of Michaelmas, only days before his return for Hereford, Abrahall came into King’s bench to answer, and, on his plea of not guilty, he was committed to the Marshalsea. There, if the record is taken at face value, he remained until the following 18 May, in other words throughout the Parliament to which he had been elected.16 C1/4/128; KB27/634, rot. 110. No doubt, however, he was treated more favourably. On 20 Oct., four days after Parliament assembled, he sued out the writ of non molestetis necessary to the pleading of a pardon, and three days later he duly pleaded his pardon of December 1414, not against the appeal, but against his outlawry of three years before.17 KB27/634, rex rot. 12; C67/37, m. 60. But it was not until November 1420, when the widow (presumably after accepting compensation from him) withdrew her suit, that he could rest easily from the legal consequences of some at least of his earlier criminal acts.18 KB27/634, rot. 110; 638, fines rot. 1. The King’s suit on the appeal, scheduled to be heard at Hereford on 28 July 1421, was allowed to lapse, although not before our MP and his father had been put to the inconvenience of personal appearances in King’s bench: KB27/634, rot. 110.

Abrahall, true to form, chose to make this respite a brief one. After the conclusion of the Parliament, his quarrel with Lord Talbot’s brother-in-law, Sir Thomas, son and heir-apparent of Sir Thomas de la Barre†, escalated, prefiguring his alienation from Talbot himself. The reason for his hostility to de la Barre is unknown. It may have had something to do with ap Howell’s murder (for Maidstone, the supporter of the appeal, was a servant of de la Barre), and with the disputed ownership of the manor of Strangford, near Ross-on-Wye (on 3 Dec. 1419 the county j.p.s were ordered by the Crown to oust Abrahall from this manor and restore another de la Barre servant, David ap Rees of Pencoyd).19 CCR, 1419-22, p. 24. Both Maidstone and ap Rees served under de la Barre in France in 1420: DKR, xliv. 615; E101/49/36. However this may be, the dispute, although brief, was intensely waged. At an unknown date, but probably at the same time as Maidstone sued Abrahall in Chancery (perhaps even while our MP was sitting in Parliament), Sir Thomas alleged that Abrahall’s servants had plundered his crops at Dewsall, taking them into the franchise of Archenfield, where Abrahall had the return of writs concerning trespasses.20 C1/4/181. This complaint, at least if another petition presented by de la Barre is to be taken at face value, prompted our MP into further unlawful exploitation of his local influence. At a session of the peace on 2 Mar. 1420 a series of false indictments was laid against Sir Thomas and his servants by a jury composed of Abrahall’s ‘cosyns amys et aliez’.21 SC8/296/14760. The indictments referred to are those dated in the official record to 1 Mar., when several of de la Barre’s servants, including David ap Rees, were accused, inter alia, of laying in wait to kill Abrahall at Rotherwas: KB27/656, rex rot. 15d. Interestingly, our MP also suffered an irregular indictment at this time, presumably at de la Barre’s hands. On 6 Mar., before the Shropshire j.p.s at Bridgnorth, he was indicted for the felonious theft of a clock from John Burley† at Broncroft, an offence for which he had been indicted and pardoned in 1414: KB9/995/14; KB27/634, rex rot. 12; 666, rex rot. 2. As a result de la Barre was committed to the Fleet, and was thus, so he claimed, unable to take his place in the forthcoming expedition to France. The petition must have had the desired effect for he duly mustered at Southampton on 6 May, and the dispute was ended when he died soon afterwards, probably on campaign.22 E101/49/36. He was dead by 15 Dec. 1420: CIPM, xxi. 798.

Abrahall’s influence in the Talbot franchise of Archenfield and his ability to secure false indictments before the j.p.s is a measure of his remarkable influence, an influence that his repeated illegalities had done nothing to curtail. It may be that his famous clash with John, Lord Talbot, in 1423 was provoked, in part, by Talbot’s determination to restrain him, their former friendly relationship compromised by our MP’s dispute with de la Barre. But another factor was Abrahall’s service to Beatrice, widow of John’s brother, Gilbert, Lord Talbot (d.1418), for whom he was acting as receiver-general by about 1420. In clashing with Lord John, he may, to put the most gallant interpretation on his activities, have been seeking to protect her interests as well as his own. This is implied by an action brought by Talbot in 1423, seeking redress against our MP, Beatrice and her new husband, Thomas Fettiplace*, for close-breaking and the theft of charters at Whitchurch (Shropshire), a part, perhaps, of Beatrice’s efforts to secure her jointure.23 CP40/651, rot. 566; CIPM, xxi. 318. In the same term Beatrice sued Talbot for the advowson of the church at Whitchurch, and it is clear that Talbot was intent on wresting the manor from her: CP40/651, rot. 566.

Whatever, however, lay behind the breakdown of Abrahall’s relationship with Talbot, both their quarrel and our MP’s long criminal career came to an effective close at a session of the peace held before Talbot himself on 4 Oct. 1423. Abrahall was indicted for a whole catalogue of offences, including laying in wait with 1,000 men to kill Talbot and his brother, Sir William Talbot, yet it seems that neither the j.p.s nor the jurors were anxious that he should answer for these alleged crimes. The indictments were absurdly and obviously flawed, several of the offences alleged against him, including two murders, were dated to July 1424, and, unlike the ap Howell appeal, they put our MP to little trouble. Writs ordering his outlawry did not receive the shrieval co-operation necessary to make them effective, and Abrahall waited until Michaelmas term 1427 before appearing in King’s bench successfully to plead insufficiency against him.24 KB27/666, rex rot. 8. The most likely explanation for this curious use of the law is that the indictments were intended by Talbot and other influential figures in the county as a warning to Abrahall that his lawlessness would no longer be tolerated. If this was the case then the warning worked. His criminal career was over.

None the less, Abrahall’s clash with the uncompromising Lord Talbot had caused local disruption alarming enough to prompt the presentation of several petitions to the Parliament which assembled at Westminster on 20 Oct. 1423. No doubt through the agency of the Speaker, the influential Herefordshire lawyer, John Russell, these were taken up by the Commons, who went so far as to request the King’s bench be sent to the county to investigate the offences of Abrahall, Lord Talbot and nearly 80 of their followers listed by name. The government’s positive response was in the affirmative, but nothing was done, probably because the heat had already gone from the dispute.25 PROME, x. 187-8.

The county’s election indenture of 1432 names as many as 170 attestors, adding, for good measure, that the election was witnessed by 200 men. This strongly implies that there was a contest, and it is possible that Abrahall was the defeated candidate. The election was witnessed not only by Abrahall himself, but also by his father, his son-in-law, William Fitzthomas, his brother-in-law and nephew, Philip and John Cokkes, and several other of his associates including Thomas Moore, Thomas Barewe, Richard Fulcher (later one of his feoffees) and Roger Blount.26 C219/14/3. Five of those indicted as his partners in crime in 1423 – Philip Cockes, John Orchard†, Griffith Kylbrest, Richard Trevays and Philip Jorvard – are named among the attestors: KB27/666, rex rots. 8, 17d. If, as seems likely, they came to Hereford to secure his return, they failed, but not, as appears to have been the case in 1419, because those seeking election were too influential to be prevailed against. This was true of one of those elected in 1432, the ubiquitous Russell, also elected in 1419, but not of the other, William Walwyn*, who, although from one of the county’s leading families, was a younger son who played no other traceable part in the county’s affairs other than to take this seat. Nevertheless, the reluctance of the county electors to return Abrahall was soon overcome. In the extraordinary late flowering of his career, he represented the county in three successive assemblies. Before 1437, when he was appointed to the Herefordshire bench, he had to his administrative name only a term as escheator some 20 years before, but in the last six years of his life he was remarkably active in both royal and baronial service. The most likely explanation for this transformation was his entry into the service of Humphrey Stafford, earl of Stafford.

As with his first experience of parliamentary service, Abrahall effectively exploited his time in the later assemblies. On 23 Jan. 1437, two days after the beginning of his second Parliament, he sued out pardons for outlawries incurred for failure to answer several debt pleas (taking advantage of the deaths of the plaintiffs), and later in the session he was added to the Herefordshire bench. On 21 Dec. 1439, the day on which the first session of his next Parliament was prorogued, he was named as receiver-general of the former de Bohun lands in dispute between the Crown and the Staffords.27 CPR, 1436-41, p. 7; CFR, xvii. 123.

Shortly before his death Abrahall made a significant property acquisition. On 27 Apr. 1439 he entered into an agreement with Richard ap Harry, elder brother of the Herefordshire lawyer, Thomas Fitzharry*, to exchange his manor at Ocle Pychard for ap Harry’s moiety of the manor of Eaton Tregoze, some 12 miles to the south of Ocle Pychard and near our MP’s home at Gillow. The exchange was to be provisional, to be void if ap Harry should succeed in acquiring the other moiety of Eaton Tregoze, in the hands of his cousin, John Chalons, but Abrahall forestalled this possibility by himself acquiring Chalons’s share. On 5 Feb. 1443 he paid £16 to the Crown for the unlicensed acquisition of both moieties, which were held of the King in chief. So were the seeds shown for a later dispute.28 C115/51/3550; CPR, 1441-6, pp. 146, 147.

Having troubled to invest in his estate, it would have been surprising if Abrahall had decided to disinherit his son, William, born to him, probably by his third wife, late in life. The earlier biography is in error in supposing, on the evidence of an inquiry before Bishop Spofford of Hereford, that he had intended to do so by diverting his lands to his nephew and the bishop’s domicellus, John Cokkes. That inquiry concerned only the Abrahall lands at Tredoughan (in the lordship of Goodrich) in which the bishop was a feoffee.29 Reg. Spofford (Canterbury and York Soc. xxiii), 254-5. These lands, valued at only 10s. p.a. in 1487, were only temporarily lost to William, for he died seised of them: CIPM Hen. VII, i. 262. In addition he should also have lost the manor of Gillow, settled on his half-sister in 1422, but he was possessed of it in the 1480s, when his title was violently challenged by his nephew of the half blood, John ap Gwillim ap Thomas: STAC2/20/305. The immediate issue raised by our MP’s death was not William’s disinheritance but rather the liability of the estate to royal wardship. On 14 Mar. 1443, only six days after Abrahall’s death and two days before Chancery issued the routine writ for an inquisition into the deceased’s estates, John Norris*, an important esquire of the royal household, sued out a grant of the wardship.30 CPR, 1441-6, p. 166; CFR, xvii. 233. Yet the grant never took effect. Abrahall’s status as a tenant-in-chief was uncertain: the only property he had held in chief was his recently-acquired manor of Eaton Tregoze, which, with the rest of his lands, he had, with royal licence, put in the hands of feoffees, headed by John Berewe, archdeacon of Hereford, shortly before his death.31 Mynde Park deeds, 349-50.

To add a further complication, Abrahall’s title to one moiety of the manor of Eaton Tregoze was disputed by ap Harry, who took advantage of our MP’s death to reassert his title. Since the escheator was then his brother, Thomas Fitzharry, the matter could not be left to that official to resolve. This explains the royal commission issued on 8 July for an inquiry into what our MP had held in chief. Before Henry Oldcastle* and Thomas Bromwich* at Weobley on the following 14 Sept., a jury returned that Abrahall had been seised of the disputed moiety.32 CPR, 1441-6, p. 201; CIPM, xxvi. 74. This provoked a furious reaction from the ap Harry brothers, who threatened and assaulted Oldcastle in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent him returning these findings and then complained in the court of common pleas that, although earlier retained by them as counsel, he had betrayed a supposed weakness in their title to Abrahall’s widow.33 E28/71/54; KB9/245/113; CP40/734, rot. 472. In 1445 they succeeded in having the findings overturned, and our MP’s young son was left only with the other moiety.34 CFR, xvii. 297; KB27/734, rot. 36; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 262.

Abrahall’s widow lost little time in remarrying: by 1 Dec. 1443 she was the wife of John Cheyne, son of Thomas Cheyne of Chesham Bois (Buckinghamshire) and nephew of Sir John Cheyne I*. The new couple were soon assailed with difficulties, arising in part from our MP’s land transactions. On 1 May 1444 Eustace Whitney†, who may have been her brother, claimed the massive sum of 1,000 marks against them and others, including Dean Berewe, for breaking his close at Ocle Pychard, and in Trinity term 1445 a Herefordshire jury came into King’s bench and awarded the plaintiff over £200 in costs and damages. Later litigation shows that this was part of a dispute over the manor there that our MP had contentiously exchanged with ap Harry for a moiety of the manor of Eaton Tregoze.35 KB27/786, rot. 30; CP40/785, rot. 264. At the same time the couple were faced by actions of debt sued by the King and others on the probably mistaken apprehension that they were Abrahall’s executors. In Hilary term 1444 the King sued Perryne and two Herefordshire esquires, Walter Hakeluyt of Dinmore and Thomas Skydemore of Rowlstone, as his executors, for £258 6s. 8d.; but, a year later, the King’s lawyers had come to a different understanding of the executors’ identity, demanding £200 against Perryne and her new husband.36 CP40/732, rot. 249d; 736, rot. 445; 737, rot. 87d. It seems more likely, however, that Abrahall died intestate and that no one could be found to take responsibility for the administration of his goods. This, at least, is the claim made in a Chancery petition by another of his creditors, and it would have been an appropriately disorganized end to a disturbed career.37 C1/15/10a.