MERYNG, Sir William

More may be added to the earlier biography.2 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 725-7.

Meryng’s paternal uncle, Francis, named him as one of the executors of his will, dated 1 Feb. 1405.3 Borthwick Inst., Univ. of York, York registry wills, prob. reg. 3, f. 234. For the earlier hist. of the fam.: Trans. Thoroton Soc. lxxvii. 42-44. At this date he appears to have been resident at Thrussington in north Leicestershire, where his mother’s inheritance lay.4 He is described as ‘of Thrussington’ in a plea of trespass pending against him and others in 1404: KB27/571, rot. 14. By a fine levied in 1413, a reversionary interest in this manor was settled on him expectant on the failure of his mother’s issue by John Burdet.5 CP25(1)/291/63/2. It was at about this time that he secured a more substantial and immediate landed interest, albeit one he was to hold only for his wife’s life. His marriage to Millicent had not occurred at the time of the income tax of 1412, for she was assessed as a widow, but had done so when the fine was levied a year later. Indeed, it may be that the fine was part of the marriage settlement for it conveyed to the couple the reversion of lands in Costock in south Nottinghamshire expectant on the death of our MP’s mother. The marriage was a good one for Meryng: not only did Millicent have dower from two husbands (worth £30 p.a. in Nottinghamshire according to the subsidy returns of 1412) but she was young enough to bear issue.6 E179/159/48. By her 2nd husband she was the mother of John Markham, c.j.KB in the 1460s. She is commemorated by a fine brass in the church of East Markham: Mon. Brasses: Portfolio Plates of the Mon. Brass Soc. no. 129.

During the 1410s our MP was involved in two disputes: the one with John Tuxford, the husband of his uncle Francis’s widow, over property in Markham Clinton; the other with Thomas Cressy, a local man who made his career as a mercer in London, over a manor in nearby Kingshaugh. In Michaelmas term 1414 he appeared personally in the court of King’s bench to plead a pardon for his part in the serious disorders contingent on the first of these disputes, and in May 1417 he was required to find mainprise in the same court to do no hurt to Cressy.7 KB27/614, rex rot. 9; 624, rex rot. 19. These disputes, which appear to have ended in partial or complete victory for the Meryngs, stand at the beginning of the family’s rise to join the elite of gentry families in their native shire. In the subsidy returns of 1435-6, when our MP’s income was no longer inflated by the interests of his first wife, he was assessed on an annual income of as much as £61, and he played a far more prominent part in local affairs than any of his ancestors.8 E179/240/266.

In addition to the extensive military service cited in the earlier biography, Meryng served at sea under Hugh Courtenay, earl of Devon, in the spring of 1420.9 E101/49/34, m. 1. On the last occasion he sat as an MP, Meryng had difficulty in securing the payment of his parliamentary wages in full. In June 1443 he sued the sheriff, John Wastnes*, in the Exchequer of pleas for failure to pay him £4 10s., the balance of the sum of £14 due to him.10 Parliamentarians at Law ed. Kleineke, 373. In his will of 17 July 1449, he requested burial in the priory of Newstead, a departure from family tradition. Earlier heads of the family appear to have been buried in the church of Sutton on Trent near Meering.11 York registry wills, prob. reg. 2, ff. 200v-201.

Sir William exploited his longstanding connexions with the royal household to find places there for his two sons, William and Thomas, and a wife for his daughter, Millicent. By 1441 both sons were in receipt of Household robes and Millicent had taken as her husband Thomas Staunton*, the usher of the Chamber. During the 1440s and 1450s both his sons benefited from grants of royal office, and the prospects of the younger son, Thomas, were further improved by his marriage, before November 1445, to Margaret, daughter and heiress of Hugh Tonge of Tong near Bradford in the West Riding.12 S.J. Payling, ‘Political Society in Notts.’ (Oxf. Univ. D. Phil. thesis, 1987), 295-6.

The earlier biography is in error in identifying Sir William’s eldest son as an MP. William Meryng†, who represented Nottinghamshire in the Parliament of 1478, was our MP’s grandson, son of his son William who died in 1466.13 CFR, xx. 177.