THROCKMORTON, John I

More may be added to the earlier biography.2 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 606-9.

While evidence for Throckmorton’s legal training is lacking, it is possible that he attended the Inner Temple.3 J.H. Baker, Men of Ct. (Selden Soc. supp. ser. xviii), ii. 1528.

In 1435 the treasurer of England, Ralph, Lord Cromwell, commissioned Throckmorton, Richard Quatermayns*, Richard Buckland* and William Venour to fit out two ships, Le Peter and Le Julyan of Newcastle to guard the seas against the King’s enemies between 25 July and Michaelmas that year. During this period their vessels, manned by 220 sailors and soldiers, seized a ship from Bristol called the Cristofre for trading illegally with Iceland and Norway. The Cristofre was brought to London for appraisal and sale, with Throckmorton enjoying a share of the proceeds.4 E159/212, recorda Hil. rot. 12d, which gives the third quarter of 1436, rather than 1435, as the period of the commission. But clearly this is a scribal error: see, for example, E403/721, m. 14.

For the purposes of the subsidy of 1436, Throckmorton was calculated to enjoy a landed income of £69 p.a. – possibly an underassessment as such valuations often were – indicating that he possessed estates of a respectable size by that date.5 E159/212, recorda Hil. rot. 14 (i). A previously unnoticed part of these holdings was a moiety of the manor of Farndon, Northamptonshire, which he held for life by grant of his patron, Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick.6 A.F.J. Sinclair, ‘Beauchamp Earls of Warwick’ (London Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1988), 78.

Among Throckmorton’s duties as the earl’s executor was negotiating with the Crown over sums owed to Warwick for his service as captain of Calais and lieutenant of France and Normandy. Associated with him in this business were Thomas Hugford* and two fellow lawyers, the King’s attorney-general John Vampage* and John Langley II*. On 25 May 1439, by an indenture to which the four were party as representatives of the widowed countess of Warwick, the King agreed that Beauchamp’s executors should have £2,175 in satisfaction of the debts due to him for the captaincy of Calais, in return for a repudiation of sums owed in respect of his time as lieutenant.7 E403/734, m. 7.

Throckmorton was also an executor of Robert Andrew*, a fellow lawyer and Beauchamp retainer with whom he had been on friendly terms. Their dealings with each other had included bringing an assize of novel disseisin against Sir Maurice Berkeley I* in 1434. It is unclear whose was the principal interest at stake in this action, concerning property in Siston, with which they had been associated with Guy Whittington*, then sheriff of Gloucestershire.8 C66/435, rot. 17d. After the childless Andrew died in April 1437, Throckmorton’s second daughter, Agnes, was married to Thomas Winslow I*, the son and heir of Andrew’s widow (another Agnes) by her previous husband, a match probably approved by the testator before his death.9 T.R. Nash, Worcs. i. 452a.