MILBORNE, Richard

More may be added to the earlier biography.3 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 735-6.

Although not a Member of the Commons in the Parliament which met at Bury St. Edmunds on 10 Feb. 1447, Milborne was in the town at the time, looking out for his own interests. Famously, it was at Bury that the King’s uncle Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, facing serious challenge from his enemies, met his death. At inquisitions post mortem held in Wiltshire and Hampshire the following November the duke was said to have died in possession of the manor of Laverstock and substantial lands and rents elsewhere, of the value of at least £42 p.a. All these had once been held by Edmund Dauntsey esquire, but, as the jurors reported, by means of a final concord made in 1429 Dauntsey had conveyed them to a group of feoffees (including Robert Long* and John Hody*), to hold to the use of Richard Milborne. Nevertheless, after Dauntsey’s death (in about 1439) his niece and heir Joan, widow of Sir John Stradling, supported by the duke, had entered the estates and expelled the feoffees. The jurors stated that Milborne made a ‘humble supplication’ to the King at Bury, and on 28 Feb. was granted a licence for his feoffees to re-enter the properties. By then most of them were dead, but on 8 Mar. the sole survivor, John Stork†, relinquished his title to Milborne.4 CIPM, xxvi. 548-9. How long Milborne had been kept out of his property by the duke is not revealed, but it may have been up to seven years.

The Wiltshire returns for the tax on incomes levied in 1451 show that Milborne then held land worth £67 p.a., although whether this also included his revenues from his holdings in Hampshire is unclear. He was among the wealthier landowners of his county.5 E179/196/118. On his death later that year he was succeeded by his son Simon. Richard’s service to the Hungerfords had enabled him to call on Robert, 2nd Lord Hungerford, and his son Lord Moleyns to put into effect a settlement relating to Simon’s marriage, but, after the death of Lord Robert, Simon was to be retained for life by Richard, duke of York, by an indenture drawn up at Gloucester on 2 Oct. 1460, when the duke was on his way to the Parliament summoned after the victory of his allies at Northampton. Simon’s indenture contracted him in peace and war, and at the same time the duke granted him an annuity of ten marks. Simon died in 1464.6 Cam. Miscellany, xxxii. 165; C140/12/12.