SHORE, Ralph

More may be added to the earlier biography.1 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 371.

By 1415 Ralph Shore’s putative father had married, as a second or later wife, the widow of Robert Stokkes.2 CP40/618, rot. 7d. This connexion with the leading family of Derby may have increased the stature of the Shores in local affairs, but they were men of account in their own right. In Hilary term 1421 Ralph was sued for a debt of £40 in the court of common pleas by a German merchant, an indication of extensive commercial interests, and he himself was frequently a plaintiff in similar actions in the same court.3 CP40/618, rot. 203d; 640, rot. 228d; 670, rot. 340.

Soon after Ralph Shore’s death his widow Isabel married his fellow townsman, Nicholas Gomon.4 In Hil. term 1433, as executrix of Shore’s will, she and her new husband sued several pleas of debt: CP40/688, rot. 382d. The marriage was destined to be a short one: on 10 May 1433 Gomon was murdered by Nicholas Meysham* in the course of a dispute over the governance of Derby between the borough elite and a fraternity headed by Meysham. She petitioned the Commons in the second session of the Parliament of 1433, asking for expeditious legal process against Meysham and his adherents, and in Hilary term 1434 she appealed them of murder.5 SC8/113/5619; KB27/691, rot. 55d; 694, rot. 4. When royal commissioners of oyer and terminer came to Derby on the following 1 Apr. a jury of the town, including Robert Shore, probably our MP’s son, duly indicted Meysham of the offence, but soon after the matter was compromised. In Michaelmas term 1435 the widow paid a fine of one mark for failure to prosecute her appeal by pledge of two of those she appealed as accessories.6 KB9/11/18; KB27/698, fines rot. 1d. The Derby jury also laid an indictment in respect of an assault on our MP in Apr. 1430 (the earlier biography has June in error), but this seems to have been unrelated to later disturbances in the town: KB9/11/17d.

The prominence of the Shores in the affairs of Derby was not continued in the next generation. Ralph appears to have had three sons.7 Robert, the juror, and Henry Shore were among the townsmen sworn to the peace in 1434: CPR, 1429-36, pp. 410-11. By a fine levied in Easter term 1442 one of these, John, conveyed his interest in six messuages and 30 acres of land in the town, then still in the hands of our MP’s widow, to the local lawyer, Richard Chaterley*.8 Derbys. Feet of Fines (Derbys. Rec. Soc. xi), 1094. This must have represented a significant part of the family inheritance, but its loss did not mark the end of the family or of its connexion with Derby. In his will of 1494 a London mercer, William Shore, former husband of Edward IV’s mistress, ‘Jane’ (rectius Elizabeth), made provision for the disposal to charitable purposes of his interests in Derby – including a dwelling place in Iron Gate, which he bequeathed to the town’s Trinity gild, and a new house in St. Mary’s Gate – and he was buried in the church of Scropton, some ten miles to the west of the town and near the home of his relatives by marriage, the Agards.9 PCC 10 Vox (PROB10/11, ff.77v-78v); J.C. Cox, Notes on Churches Derbys. iii. 266; Derbys. Arch. Jnl. cvi. 127-39.