Constituency Dates
Hereford [1421 (May)], 1429, 1431, 1432, 1437
Family and Education
prob. s. of Thomas Buryton† of Hereford. m. Joan (fl. 1451),1 The earlier biography (The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 446-7) suggests, on the evidence of a visitation pedigree, that his w. was Esther, da. or sis. of ‘Sir William Downton’, but, aside from the intrinsic unlikelihood of a townsman’s marriage to a knight’s da., contemporary evidence shows that his w. and the mother of his children was named Joan: Reg. Spofford (Canterbury and York Soc. xxiii), 292. The MP is to be distinguished from William, son of Oliver Buryton of Salop, who was retained by William Beauchamp, Lord Abergavenny, in 1401 and continued to receive his fee of £5 p.a. to the death of Lord Abergavenny’s widow, Joan, in 1435: CPR, 1399-1401, p. 538; SC11/25; CIPM, xxiv. 514. 2s. Thomas* and John*.
Offices Held

Attestor, parlty. elections, Hereford 1419, 1420, 1435, 1442, Herefs. 1429, 1435.

Mayor, Hereford Oct. 1442–3.2 In the earlier biography Buryton is erroneously said to have been mayor in 1443–4, when Henry Chippenham held the office: KB9/245/20.

Address
Main residences: Hereford; Stoke Lacy, Herefs.
biography text

More can be added to the earlier biography.3 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 446-7.

The payment of wages to Buryton for his service in the last of his five Parliaments became a matter of dispute. On 1 Dec. 1436, according to a defence pleaded against his action for the payment of wages at the standard rate of 2s. a day, he and his fellow MP, Thomas Newton II*, appeared before the mayor, Henry Chippenham*, and undertook to serve in Parliament for wages of four marks, however long the assembly should last. The two MPs had presumably been elected in response to the writs of 29 Oct. 1436 summoning Parliament to meet at Cambridge, but new writs were issued on 10 Dec. moving the assembly’s location to Westminster. A fresh election was then held in the guildhall on 8 Jan., the date of the surviving election indenture, confirming the result of the previous one. Perhaps this was why Buryton and his colleague acted after the assembly as though they had been absolved of their promise to serve cheaply. They sued out royal writs to the mayor and bailiffs for the payment of the full wages of £14 8s. John Woodward, who had succeeeded Chippenham as mayor, pleaded the earlier agreement as justification for the payment of no further sum above the four marks that he claimed had been paid on 30 Apr. 1437, five weeks after the end of the Parliament. The matter was still pending in June 1438, when Buryton sued out another writ for payment, but it is not known whether he ever secured it.4 Parliamentarians at Law ed. Kleineke, 248-55. Woodward was fined 20s. in 1439 for an insufficient return to this writ: KB27/714, fines rot. 1d.

Buryton was dead by 25 Apr. 1448, when Thomas Spofford, bishop of Hereford, granted his widow, Joan, and son, Thomas, an annual rent of 20s. to be taken for their lives from the manor of ‘Berton Episcopi’ within the liberty of the city of Hereford. In 1451 his widow and son were jointly assessed on an income of £5 p.a.5 Reg. Spofford, 292; E179/117/64.

Author
S.J.P.
Volume
Commons 1422-1461
Notes
  • 1. The earlier biography (The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 446-7) suggests, on the evidence of a visitation pedigree, that his w. was Esther, da. or sis. of ‘Sir William Downton’, but, aside from the intrinsic unlikelihood of a townsman’s marriage to a knight’s da., contemporary evidence shows that his w. and the mother of his children was named Joan: Reg. Spofford (Canterbury and York Soc. xxiii), 292. The MP is to be distinguished from William, son of Oliver Buryton of Salop, who was retained by William Beauchamp, Lord Abergavenny, in 1401 and continued to receive his fee of £5 p.a. to the death of Lord Abergavenny’s widow, Joan, in 1435: CPR, 1399-1401, p. 538; SC11/25; CIPM, xxiv. 514.
  • 2. In the earlier biography Buryton is erroneously said to have been mayor in 1443–4, when Henry Chippenham held the office: KB9/245/20.
  • 3. The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 446-7.
  • 4. Parliamentarians at Law ed. Kleineke, 248-55. Woodward was fined 20s. in 1439 for an insufficient return to this writ: KB27/714, fines rot. 1d.
  • 5. Reg. Spofford, 292; E179/117/64.