| Constituency | Dates |
|---|---|
| Cricklade | 1413 (May), 1421 (Dec.), 1422 |
| Calne | 1426 |
Attestor, parlty. elections, Wilts. 1417, 1426, 1433.
Commr. Glos., Wilts. July 1414–15.
Verderer of the forests of Braydon, Pewsham and Melksham, Wilts. Oct. 1414 – 23 Jan. 1447.
Coroner, Wilts. by July 1419 – 23 Jan. 1447.
More can be added to the earlier biography.1 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 693-4.
By 1429 Cricklade had become involved in a dispute over the Wiltshire manor of Beversbrook (in Hilmarton). In 1406, this manor had been purchased from Sir John Blount by William Worfton† (or Wroughton), from whom it had descended to his son and heir John (aged seven at his father’s death), who had named Cricklade among his feoffees. At the time of Wroughton’s death in 1429, the manor was in contention between Cricklade and William Spershet, the latter claiming an apparently spurious title through one Walter White who, so he stated, had been disseised by the Blounts. The matter came to trial in the court of common pleas in 1435, but it seems that Cricklade won the day, since three years later he was able to convey Beversbrook to William Darell*, who had recently married one of his daughters to the heir, John Wroughton*.2 CIPM, xxiii. 318; CP40/698, rot. 308d; 699, rot. 119; 705, att. rot. 1; CAD, i. C1011.
It is not possible to prove Cricklade’s complicity in the murder of his brother-in-law, Walter Studley*, in February 1438, but it is at least curious to find his eldest son Robert providing bail for the woman who had allegedly ordered the assassination – Joan, the wife of John Hodgkins alias Ferrour.3 KB27/715, rex rot. 1. Within a year of Studley’s death, Cricklade and his sons were said to be harassing the murdered man’s widow,4 CP40/713, att. rot. 1; 715, rots. 620d, att. 8. while his wife Alice’s title to part of the manor of Studley was challenged unsuccessfully by Walter, Lord Hungerford†.5 CP40/713, att. rot. 1; 715, rot. 658. The squabble over the Studley estates continued in the following year, when Cricklade and his wife brought litigation against Hungerford’s grandson, Robert, Lord Moleyns, and his wife Eleanor over wastes on their lands.6 CP40/718, att. rots. 6d, 8. By contrast with these disputes, which arose from Cricklade’s assertion of his title to his wife’s lands, his clash in 1445 with the rising lawyer William Nottingham II* over property in Great Chelworth probably simply emerged from the complexity of their overlapping feudal rights in the manor.7 CP40/738, rot. 382.