THORNBURY, Sir Philip

More may be added to the earlier biography. The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 589-91.

The recent publication of a series of letters and other documents relating to the Arneburgh family has revealed something of Thornbury’s part in the tangled affairs of that family. Immediately before her death in November 1443, his kinswoman, Joan, one of the daughters and coheirs of Sir Geoffrey Brokholes by Ellen Roos, made a settlement of her estates in Hertfordshire, Essex and Warwickshire, naming him as a feoffee and remainderman. After Joan died he made life difficult for her widower and executor, Robert Arneburgh, by refusing to co-operate with him. Arneburgh claimed that she had willed the sale of all her fee simple lands while awarding him first option of purchase, and that Thornbury was thwarting the will by refusing to release his interest in them. Why Sir Philip should have done so is not clear, but if he had designs on the lands himself he was to be disappointed for, in July 1453, arbiters awarded them to Joan’s niece, Ellen, and her second husband Ralph Holt. C. Carpenter, Armburgh Pprs. 30, 36-38, 44, 173-4.

Just under four years later, Thornbury made a resettlement of his own estates. By means of a final concord levied on 3 Feb. 1457, he took a life interest in his manors of Bygrave and Little Munden, after which Bygrave was to pass to his son-in-law and daughter, Nicholas and Margaret Appleyard, and to Margaret’s sons, and Little Munden to the Appleyards’ daughter Elizabeth and her husband, William Bastard*, and to Elizabeth’s male issue. E211/310, mm. 2-4. William was the ‘Bastard’ who hoped to secure an interest in Joan Arneburgh’s estates: Carpenter, 176-7. Carpenter, 36, wrongly speculates that this man was Richard Bastard of Bedford. Unlikely to have met with the whole hearted approval of the Appleyards’ son John, this curious division of the Thornbury estates was bitterly resented by the MP’s own son, Richard Thornbury. Through the settlement, Richard and his sons were awarded no more than contingent remainders in the properties, in the event of the failure of Margaret or Elizabeth to bear male issue. Richard and his sons appear to have blamed Bastard for these arrangements, presumably because they believed he had unduly influenced the by now elderly MP, and shortly before Sir Philip’s death Richard assaulted and threatened Bastard at Little Munden. KB27/786, rot. 111d. As it happened, the Bastards obtained possession of Little Munden before Sir Philip died, because he surrendered possession of the manor and other properties in that parish to them in August 1457. In return, they agreed to pay him a rent of £19 and four cartloads of hay for his horses each year, and to allow him various hunting rights on the lands in question. E211/310, m. 4. This copy of the indenture drawn up between Thornbury and the Bastards is dated 17 Aug. ‘36 Hen. VI’ (that is, 1458), but this must be a mistake for 35 Hen. VI, since he was certainly no longer alive in August 1458. This arrangement proved short-lived, since by the following February Thornbury was no longer alive. His biography in The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 589-91, mistakenly states that he was dead by February 1457, failing to take into account that the date of probate of his will, ‘6 Feb. 1457’, is in Old Style (6 Feb. 1458 in modern dating): PCC 11 Stockton (PROB11/4, f. 84).

Richard did not long survive his father, dying ‘ex morbo pestilenciali’ in London on 15 Dec. 1458. KB29/88, rot. 11d. It thus fell to his son, Thomas, to continue the campaign against Sir Philip’s eccentric settlement. Thomas proceeded by brutal violence: at about 4 p.m. on 9 Jan. 1462 he and his servants murdered not only William Bastard but also William’s young son, Philip (who was probably Sir Philip’s godson) and his clerk, John Hadington, at Sacombe, a few miles from Little Munden. Bastard’s widow both appealed his assailants in the court of King’s bench, in which her husband had served as a filacer, and petitioned the Commons in the Parliament of 1463, seeking expeditious process against them. KB27/799, rex rot. 4; 808, rot. 84; SC8/92/4571. Thomas and five others she appealed as principals in the murders were outlawed on 29 Sept. 1463, but Thomas, at least, was able to recover his fortunes, dying seised some years later of the manor of Whitelackington in Somerset. KB29/94, rot. 1; C1/61/102. He did not, however, succeed in depriving the widow of her manor of Little Munden. She retained it until 1481, when she sold it to her wealthy neighbour, William Say†, whose father, John Say II*, had been party to the final concord of 1457. CAD, iii. A5236; CP40/885, cart. rot.d; J. Biancalana, Fee Tail and Common Recovery, 360.