FAUCONER, Thomas

More can be added to the earlier biography.4 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 59-61.

Further afield, Fauconer also possessed property at Collingbourne in Wiltshire, which he had acquired by about 1409 from the Blanchard family, although his title apparently continued to be disputed.5 E13/129, rots. 2d, 3; CP40/594, rot. 271. It seems likely that the acquisition of this estate coincided with his marriage to the high-born Philippa Halsham, whose family possessed the nearby manor of Collingbourne ‘Valence’.6 CIPM, xvi. 461, 885, 906; xvii. 662-4. The prestigious nature of match was not noted in the earlier biography, as the identity of Philippa’s parents had not then been discovered.

The autumn of 1414 saw Fauconer pitted in the law courts against a range of royal officials who, so he maintained, had in various ways impeded his recovery of a series of commercial debts. The defendants in the suits he brought included Sir Thomas Pomeroy†, a former sheriff of Devon, Henry Forster†, the duchy of Lancaster’s bailiff of Leicester, and Peter Halle, the steward of the archbishop of Canterbury’s liberty in Kent.7 E13/130, rots. 3, 3d, 4. Of a similar nature was Fauconer’s pursuit of the former treasurer, Sir John Pelham*, for the substantial sum of £300 which had been assigned to him by tally in July 1406, but had never been paid. Pelham sought to avoid the charges by offering to clear himself by compurgation, but Fauconer reasonably argued that in the circumstances such a defence was inadmissible.8 E13/135, rot. 17d; CP40/650, rot. 104; 660, rot. 317d.

The early years of Henry V’s reign were also the period of Fauconer’s protracted vexation arising from his prosecution of the circle of lollards associated with Richard Baker alias Gurmyn. While Gurmyn himself had been burnt as a heretic during Fauconer’s mayoralty of London, his associates, the wool packer (or woolmonger) John Russell and his associates, the joiner John Eston and the pewterer Richard Anable, continued to make trouble for the former mayor. Among the charges they brought was the claim that on 10 Sept. 1415 he had entered their houses in Langbourne Ward and had seized goods worth £91 3s. 8d. which had evidently at one time belonged to Gurmyn. These goods included various vessels of silver and gilt, pewter and latten, two dozen silver spoons, a silver powder box, a signet, 12 rings of gold and silver, a range of cloth items, clothes, weapons, furnishings and muniments.9 E13/131, rots. 3, 12, 12d; C. Kightly, ‘Early Lollards’ (York Univ. D.Phil. thesis, 1975), 519-22. In the spring of 1417 arrangements were made for the marriage of Fauconer’s young daughter, Katherine, to William, the only son of Sir William Moleyns†. For Moleyns, the intention of the match was to safeguard his family’s hold on the manor of Gresham in Norfolk. To achieve this lucrative marriage, Fauconer agreed to purchase Gresham from Richard Wyot*, and that this would subsequently form the couple’s jointure. On 20 May Moleyns settled his manor of Brill in Buckinghamshire on his son and Katherine, probably as security for Gresham which, a week later, was settled on Sir William, pending the conclusion of the marriage. Events did not turn out as planned, for in May 1423 the younger William married a Cornish heiress. This prompted Fauconer to enter Gresham, which he was entitled to do under the terms of the settlement made six years before. In early June 1425 Sir William Moleyns died, leaving Wyot to try to recover the manor. The intervention of the influential Thomas Chaucer* proved decisive, and after lengthy negotiations Fauconer agreed to be bought out. Later that month he and his co-feoffees granted Gresham to Chaucer, Wyot and others. With the ultimate destination of the manor still to be determined it may well have been at the instigation of Chaucer that, on 27 Jan. 1427, Katherine made the required public declaration that she had made a ‘contracte pretense of matrymonye with William Moleyns’ when she was a minor. Soon afterwards Gresham was sold by Chaucer and his colleagues to William Paston, the judge.10 C.F. Richmond, Paston Fam.: First Phase, 48-52.