HORDE, Richard

The previous biography underestimates Richard Horde’s remarkable career as an office-holder.3 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 413-14. He served as bailiff of Bridgnorth for no fewer than 14 annual terms, some of them consecutively, and on five occasions he was simultaneously the borough’s bailiff and MP, that is, in the Parliaments of 1414 (Nov.), 1416 (Mar.), 1417, 1420 and 1427. Later in his career he took a part in the administrative affairs of Shrewsbury, where he inherited property in right of his wife, Agnes Perle. He had married her by November 1419, when he joined her and her parents in alienating a garden there. Although she was not her father’s heiress – she had a half-brother living as late as 1461 – she did bring property to our MP on her father’s death in 1429, probably as her mother’s heiress.4 Salop Archs., Mostyn Owen mss, 3890/2/1/1; Trans. Salop. Arch. Soc. (ser. 3), vi. 26. In 1446 our MP and his wife claimed in her right a messuage and two shops in Shrewsbury: CP40/742, rot. 104d. This inheritance was enough partially to divert our MP’s energies from his native town. Aside from serving twice as the bailiff of Shrewsbury, he sat on the council of 12 elected to advise the borough officers and undertook more specific tasks. He rode with John Gamel* to forward the town’s affairs in an unspecified matter at Oxford, presumably when the King was there in October 1438, and in May 1442 he spent three days mediating a dispute between the town and Lilleshall abbey.5 Salop Archs., Shrewsbury recs., assembly bk. 3365/67, f. 16v; bailiffs’ accts. 3365/375, m. 2; 377, m. 1; B.P. Wolffe, Hen. VI, 362.

Horde was frequently a juror in Shropshire inquisitions post mortem, most notably those of John, duke of Norfolk, held at Much Wenlock on 22 Jan. 1433 and of Hugh Burgh* held at Shrewsbury on 26 Oct. 1430.6 CIPM, xxiii. 529; xxiv. 102.