POGE, Thomas

More may be added to the earlier biography.1 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 95-96.

Poge was from a minor gentry family established at West Stockwith in north Nottinghamshire. His father’s career was typical of men of lesser gentry rank: twice appointed to act as a tax collector, John Poge also served as an assessor of the subsidy of March 1404 and, ten years later, on a jury from the wapentake of Bassetlaw before royal commissioners inquiring into the activities of the lollards. He drew up his will at West Stockwith on 4 Dec. 1416, requesting burial in the church of neighbouring Misterton and naming Isabel, his wife, and our MP as his executors, and was dead by the following 19 June. Even before his father’s death, our MP had embarked on what was to be a successful mercantile career. In the general pardon he sued out in June 1415 he is described as a merchant of West Stockwith.2 CFR, xi. 26; xii. 189, 257; KB9/204/1/52; Borthwick Inst., Univ. of York, York registry wills, Apbs. Regs. 18 (Bowet), f. 367; C67/37, m. 39.

Although confirmation is lacking, there can be little doubt that Thomas married Cecily, one of the four daughters of the wealthy Nottingham merchant John Tansley. The indirect evidence for this match is cumulatively compelling. In her will of 1439 Alice, Cecily’s mother, made bequests to Cecily Poge and Thomas Poge, probably our MP’s children; on 10 Oct. 1427 our MP witnessed a jointure settlement on Nicholas Widmerpool and his wife, Elizabeth, John Tansley’s grand-daughter; and with Elizabeth’s half-brother, John Samon, he made a settlement in favour of John Tansley’s daughter Margery on the occasion of her marriage to Ralph Mackerell*. Nor is it difficult to see why Poge should have found such a wife: Tansley, although his principal holdings were in Nottingham, also held the manor of Everton, only a few miles from West Stockwith. Moreover, the fact that our MP came to play a prominent part in the affairs of the borough within a few years of Tansley’s death lends further support to the suggestion that his wife was a Tansley, particularly since there is no evidence that he purchased property in the borough. Cecily was a good match: in his will of 1414 Tansley had bequeathed her 100 marks and one third of all his lands in Nottingham in remainder expectant on the death of her mother. Unfortunately for Poge, however, his wife did not come into these lands until after his death.3 Trans. Thoroton Soc. xxi. 78; Notts. Archs., Widmerpool mss, DD WW 1/24; C139/74/21; Apb. Reg. 18 (Bowet), f. 368.

Poge’s will shows that he died wealthy and well connected. He named four executors: one of the leading county gentry, John Cokfeld of Nuthall, a few miles north of Nottingham, William Neville of South Leverton, a lawyer from the north of the county, William Farceux, vicar of Misterton, and Thomas Tickhill, a London merchant, and perhaps the son of the Thomas Tickhill who had named Poge as an executor in 1419. These executors were active as late as 1441, demanding, in further evidence of Poge’s wealth, a total of £580 against four merchants, including £90 against Thomas Stokkes*.4 York registry wills, Apb. Reg. 19 (Kemp), f. 337d; CP40/722, rot. 394.

The will includes one curious bequest: £3 to John Bingham and William Bradmore* to distribute in alms for the soul of William Clerk of Gedling. Bingham and Bradmore had been the Nottingham coroners late in the reign of Henry V, and it is thus a possibility that this bequest implies that Poge had been implicated in Clerk’s death.5 JUST3/203, rot. 36. His putative widow married Richard Wentworth, younger son of a gentry family from North Elmsall in south Yorkshire, and long survived both her husbands.6 This marriage had taken place by Christmas 1429: Yorks. Deeds, vi (Yorks. Arch. Soc. Rec. Soc. lxxvi), no. 507. She was still alive as late as 1473, when, for the purposes of a subsidy, her lands in Nottingham were valued at nearly £15 p.a. Her probable grandson, John Poge, was assessed on property in the town with an annual value of less than £1 p.a. Later, however, both these estates appear to have been united in the hands of Thomas Poge of Misterton, who, in the subsidy returns of 1504, was assessed on property in Nottingham worth £15 7s., a further indication that our MP’s wife is to be identified as Cecily Tansley. This later Thomas had a landed income sufficient to qualify him for distraint of knighthood in 1509.7 Nottingham Recs. ed. Stevenson, ii. 294; iii. 435; E198/4/27.