The Sacheverells were an ancient but not a wealthy family. They had been established at Hopwell, a few miles to the east of Derby, since at least the late twelfth century, and later added by marriage property at Aston upon Trent near Hopwell and further afield at Snitterton near Matlock.
Sacheverell’s father was alive as late as 1414, when named on a jury panel from the wapentake of Wirksworth, but was presumably dead by April 1425, when our MP attested the Derbyshire parliamentary election.
By 1440, however, Sacheverell had distanced himself from Grey, whose violent behaviour had rendered him a liability to his associates. Instead, he established a connexion with Grey’s local rival, the much more powerful Ralph, Lord Cromwell. The latter had recently acquired the manors of South Wingfield and Crich in the locality of our MP’s property at Snitterton, and it was thus natural that he should have sought to find supporters among the local gentry and that they provided a responsive constituency. Sacheverell seems to have entered his service just as Cromwell was reaching a final conclusion to his dispute with Sir Henry Pierrepont over the Heriz inheritance, of which South Wingfield and Crich were a part. Indeed, on 25 Feb. 1441 at Derby, Sacheverell sat on the grand jury in an action of attaint sued by Pierrepont against jurors who had given a verdict in Cromwell’s favour. By Michaelmas 1442 he was acting as Cromwell’s receiver in Derbyshire, and although he soon surrendered the office he remained close to his lord.
In view of this evidence, there can be no doubt that Sacheverell owed his election to the two Parliaments of 1449 to Cromwell’s patronage. He himself was not of enough consequence to command such a place in local affairs. His income was modest: it was assessed at £10 p.a. in the subsidy returns of 1435-6, and at £20 p.a. in those of 1450-1. He never held an office of county administration, and his only appearance on an ad hoc commission was consequent upon his election to Parliament. Such a man was an unlikely MP and it is thus significant that his first election appears to have been contested. The indenture of 16 Jan. 1449 was attested by no fewer than 61 witnesses, none of whom numbered among the county’s leading gentry and who, most irregularly, were not listed in order of rank. It is also noteworthy that two of Cromwell’s servants, John Roos* and Richard Illingworth*, had been returned in the Nottinghamshire election held three days before. Clearly Cromwell was determined to secure the election of his own men. Later in the year his dispute with William Tailboys* gave him a particular reason to do the same again, and it is thus not surprising that Sacheverell was returned at the election held on 23 Oct. 1449. This return did not share the irregularities of its immediate predecessor, but his successor as Cromwell’s receiver in Derbyshire, John Statham, was among the attestors.
When Cromwell drew up his will on 18 Dec. 1451, he named Sacheverell as one of his executors and bequeathed him a silver cup worth £10 for his reward.
Aside from Cromwell, little evidence survives of Sacheverell’s relations with his neighbours. In 1436 he had been a feoffee for Henry Booth*, and in 1450 he acted in the same capacity for Sir Sampson Meverel, the husband of his wife’s sister. In the meantime he appeared as a joint-defendant with Sir Thomas Chaworth* and, on more than one occasion, as a joint-plaintiff with John Curson* in the court of common pleas.
Sacheverell was dead by 1 Feb. 1459, when he is described as such in a list of Cromwell’s feoffees, but a writ of diem clausit extremum was not issued until the following 22 Apr. and there is no record that it was acted upon.