RUSSELL, John II

Russell’s family had been possessed of manorial estates in north Wiltshire since the early fourteenth century, most notable among them being Quidhampton in Wroughton, Manton in Preshute, Bradfield in Hullavington, VCH Wilts. xi. 241-2; xii. 171; xiv. 110; Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxxvi. 97-98, 100-4. and its principal seat at Lydiard Millicent. In 1412 John’s father Thomas, the grandson of Sir Oliver Russell and son of Sir Robert† (who had sat as a knight of the shire in 1384), was in possession of lands worth £21 p.a. in the county, according to the tax assessments, although five years later his moveable possessions in the city of Salisbury were seized by the authorities to recover rental arrears of £18 for his property there (charged at the rate of £4 10s. p.a.). Feudal Aids, vi. 537; First General Entry Bk. Salisbury (Wilts. Rec. Soc. liv), 117, 179. John had inherited this patrimony by the time of his first election for Wiltshire, then being possessed of at least 22 messuages (including buildings in Marlborough and Salisbury), and over 1,700 acres of land. C140/42/44. His holdings were deemed to be worth more than in his father’s day, for he was distrained to take up knighthood on the basis that his annual income from land and fees exceeded £40. The date he came into this inheritance is not known, for no inquisitions post mortem survive either for his father or for his elder brother, another Thomas. The father, about whom nothing else is recorded, died before November 1420, for it was as his ‘son and heir’ that Thomas took out letters of protection as about to embark for France in the retinue of Sir Walter Hungerford†. DKR, xliv. 621. The date of his death, and whether it occurred while he was overseas, has not been discovered.

John Russell was a common name in the fifteenth century, He shared it, among others, with a poet who served Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, as usher of his chamber and marshal in his hall (so describing himself in his ‘Boke of Nurture’): K.H. Vickers, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, 393; Manners and Meals in Olden Times ed. Furnivall (EETS, orig. ser. xxxii), 115-98. so although we may confidently assume that like his brother the MP engaged in military activities across the Channel it is impossible to pin down his exact whereabouts in the early part of his career, or even to identify precisely which war captains he served. There is now no way of knowing if he was the man of this name stationed in the garrison of Harfleur under the command of Thomas, duke of Exeter, in 1417-18. Nor can we be entirely sure that the same John Russell who represented Wiltshire in 1450 had first entered the Commons 24 years earlier, in 1426, as returned for the borough of Calne. However, Calne was not far from the Russells’ home, and the hiatus might be explained by prolonged absence in France. John Russells served in the field at Chartres in 1429 in the force led by Sir Robert Hungerford; in that of Robert, Lord Willoughby, at Pontoise at the close of the same year; and under John, earl of Arundel, at Vernon in 1431-3 and Pont de l’Arche in 1434. E101/48/17, 18; Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, nouv. acq. fr. 8605/112. We are on firmer ground when it comes to service in the retinue of Richard, duke of York, for we know that the duke employed the MP as an official on his estates at home in England in later years –the link perhaps stemming from the duke’s role as feudal overlord of the Russells’ manor of Bradfield. Thus, we may be reasonably certain that this John Russell joined the duke’s company at Honfleur in June 1437, while York was lieutenant-general of France, and that a year later he was numbered among the soldiers in the company of the duke’s leading retainer, Sir William Oldhall*. Caen, Archives Départementales du Calvados, F153; Bibliothèque Nationale, fr. 25777/1764, 1782. Russell was entrusted by the duke to convey messages to the King’s Council in England, and in February 1444 the Council sent him to Normandy with letters and instructions to the duke, for which task and the expenses of his voyage he received payment of £20 at the Exchequer. E403/751, m. 5.

Russell was at home acting as steward of York’s Gloucestershire estates in the late 1440s, and of those in Wiltshire in 1449-50. In September 1450, in the aftermath of Cade’s rebellion, Duke Richard returned from Ireland and actively canvassed for his supporters to be elected to the Parliament summoned to meet on 6 Nov. Russell, as one of his estate officials, was among those closely aligned to the duke who sought and secured election, in his case as a knight of the shire for Wiltshire. His kinsman Robert Collingbourne* attended the hustings at Wilton to lend him support and act as a mainpernor for his appearance in the Commons. C219/16/1. There, a number of York’s followers joined him, and the duke’s chamberlain Oldhall was chosen as Speaker. Johnson, 105, 238. But Russell is not mentioned in SC6/850/26, 31 (1447-8 and 1466-7). SC6/1115/1 (1449-50) records him dealing with a dispute between the receiver and the farmer of land at Sevenhampton. He was himself farmer of the agistment of the duke’s great park at Wootton ‘Vetus’. While the second parliamentary session was in progress in February 1451 Russell was named to his first ad hoc commission of local government, to take an assize of novel disseisin regarding property in Christian Malford, in which Elizabeth Russell (probably a kinswoman of his) appeared as a defendant. Among his fellow commissioners was John Dewall*, MP for Wiltshire in the previous Parliament, whom he named among the feoffees of his lands in the following September. The other feoffees included the lawyer John Langley II* and Russell’s kinsman Collingbourne. C140/42/44. No record has been found to show conclusively that early the next year he followed his lord York to Dartford, as a member of his substantial army, but it is at least possible that he did so, for on 3 July 1452 he purchased a royal pardon. C67/40, m. 26.

While it is known that Russell was an officer on York’s estates in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, it is not easy to pin down when he was appointed and how long he held the posts concerned. What is certain is that when York’s estates were forfeited by Act of Attainder in the Coventry Parliament of 1459 the stewardship of his lordship of Fasterne and all his other possessions in Wiltshire, along with the keeping of Fasterne park and Braydon forest, were granted for life to his enemy James Butler, earl of Wiltshire, expressly for his military service against the rebellious Yorkists. These were offices that Russell had held previously, by York’s appointment. With his lord now exiled in Ireland, Russell came to terms with the Lancastrian government, though it cost him dear. He paid as much as £40 to buy the pardon from Henry VI issued on 16 Mar. 1460. But it was not long before the tables were turned, and at some point, probably soon after the victory of the Yorkist earls at Northampton in July that year, the duke restored Russell to his offices as rider of Braydon forest and master of the game in Fasterne park, once more granting them to him for life. CPR, 1452-61, p. 576. HP Biogs. ed. Wedgwood and Holt, 732 states that he was an attestor at the parlty. elections for Wilts. in 1460, but returns for that county do not survive: this is a mistake for Dorset, where the attestor was John Russell III*.

Following Duke Richard’s death at Wakefield and the accession of his son as Edward IV, his old retainer Russell continued to be of service to their house. He was associated with the new King’s friend William, Lord Hastings, and his brother Ralph Hastings*, in receiving the goods and chattels of a Marlborough man on 1 Aug. 1461, CCR, 1461-8, p. 137. and was named to a commission of inquiry in September. Not surprisingly, he secured election for his home county to the first Parliament of the reign, which assembled on 4 Nov. following. The electoral indenture for Wiltshire has not survived, but we know that Russell was one of the MPs for when, three weeks later, his servant Richard Elworth was arrested to answer a charge in King’s bench, he was allowed a writ of privilege accorded to protect Members and their servants from arrest while Parliament was in progress. KB145/7/1, no. 40. Despite his background of commitment to the house of York, Russell was not required to take up a role in local administration, save when it came to the appointment of assessors of taxes in July 1463. He was, however, pricked to be a juror at Salisbury in January 1469, for the important trials for treason of (Sir) Thomas Hungerford* and Henry Courtenay, heir to the earldom of Devon, presided over by the duke of Gloucester, and with the King himself being present in the city. KB9/320/6. It seems likely that Russell’s health was failing: at the end of March that year Sir John Greville was granted the offices at Fasterne and Braydon in reversion, to fall in at his death. CPR, 1467-77, p. 152.

Russell made his will on 4 Oct. 1469, and describing himself as ‘late’ of Hullavington, esquire, he brought it before the mayor and bailiffs of Oxford for enrolment in their court two days later. His reasons for doing so are difficult to discover, for so far as is known he did not own property in the town. In his will he left a noble each to the four orders of friars in Oxford and to those at Marlborough to conduct his obit and offer prayers for the souls of his grandfather, parents and first wife. He requested burial in the churchyard of the parish where he happened to die, and donated to the church a set of vestments of blue damask. The church at Lydiard Millicent was to receive a cope of purple damask, a chalice, two silver cruets, a pax of silver gilt, and a pair of blue damask vestments, as well as 2s. for the rode light; the priest there was to say masses for a year on his soul’s behalf. Russell’s widow Lettice was to keep for her lifetime all his lands and tenements in the city of Salisbury, the manor of Bradfield, a house recently built next to Hullavington church, and a toft in Wootton Bassett, all of which he had already given her in jointure. These properties were to remain after her death to his son John and the latter’s issue. The sum of 100 marks was to be provided for the marriage of his daughter Alice. Lettice was named as the sole executor, with Sir John Willoughby† assisting her as supervisor, and Russell charged his son, if he wished to have ‘Goddys blessynge and myne’, not to trouble Lettice in possession of the lands and goods he had given her for life, otherwise he would ‘have my cursse’. The will was witnessed by Master William Goodyer, a doctor of civil law, and two ‘gentlemen’, Richard Gilbert† of Salisbury and William Baker of Hungerford. Russell had procured the seal of the mayor of Oxford to authenticate the testament, as his own was not widely known. Liber Albus, no. 230. He may have died soon afterwards, although the precise date of his death is not recorded.

Russell’s son and namesake did not long survive him, for he died on 6 May 1471. This was just two days after the battle of Tewkesbury, and it may well be the case that he had fought there but died from his injuries. There is nothing to indicate whether like his father he had stayed loyal to the house of York, although, conversely, neither is there anything to show that he supported the Readeption of Henry VI. Several of the feoffees of the Russell lands named by our MP 20 years earlier had died in the meantime; the survivors granted them to a new body on 22 Feb. 1472 to hold to the use of the next heir. Since the younger John Russell died childless, this heir was their distant kinsman William Collingbourne, esquire (the son of the MP’s feoffee Robert), whose great-grandmother had been the sister of Sir Robert Russell, the MP’s grandfather. C140/42/44; Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxxvi. 103-5 (including a 17th-cent. copy of the inq. p.m., now Wilts. Hist. Centre, Misc. Estate Recs. 335/84).