UFFENHAM, John

Uffenham’s origins are obscure, although he is known to have been living in Wilton by the late 1430s, and to have held property in the town, in South Street, by 1443, when he settled it on William Lok and his wife. Yet his place of residence was then given as Heytesbury. CP40/715, rot. 424; Wilton deeds, G25/1/213. For his alias cf. his pardon, in Nov. 1452, as ‘John Uffenham alias John Laurence of Heytesbury, Wilts. gentleman’: C67/40, m. 9. How he had come by this property in Wilton is not recorded, but he acquired more there, probably by purchase, in 1455. To these holdings he added in the same year six messuages and lands and rents elsewhere in the south of the county, in Downton, Wick, Barford, Woodfalls and Redlynch; and in 1459 he acquired a sizeable landed estate at Urchfont, a few miles from Devizes. Wilts. Feet of Fines (Wilts. Rec. Soc. xli), 613, 618-19, 642. In the late 1450s and subsequently he was sometimes called ‘of Downton’, CCR, 1454-61, p. 311; VCH Wilts. xi. 34; KB27/804, fines rot. and towards the end of his life he had lands in Tisbury and Dinton. Wilts. Hist. Centre, Misc. Estate recs. 130/14; E13/157, m. 37.

Presumably, these interests in land had been accumulated by investing the profits of a successful career as a lawyer. Uffenham’s election for Old Sarum in 1433 came at the beginning of this career, and probably owed something to his choice of profession. His links with nearby Wilton are regularly documented from then on. In 1435 he was employed by John Whithorne*, a veteran of 11 Parliaments for Wilton, to render his account at the Exchequer as bailiff of the Wiltshire liberties of the bishop of Winchester, and at the elections held at the county court at Wilton for the Parliament of 1437 he stood surety for John Mundy*, one of those returned for the borough. E159/212, rot. 3d; C219/15/1. Uffenham himself was elected to represent it on the first of at least five occasions in 1442. Details of his participation in the proceedings of the Commons are lacking, although the stewards’ accounts for Wilton noted payment of his expenses that autumn at Salisbury, where he had gone with the mayor John atte Fenne*, seeking to excuse the burgesses from contributing to a loan demanded by the Crown. Wilton stewards’ accts. G25/1/88. Later, he acted as atte Fenne’s executor: CP40/779, rot. 618d. Lacunae in the records for Wilton before the mid fifteenth century, mean that the full extent of Uffenham’s participation in local administration is unclear until the 1450s, from when he occasionally served as an auditor and member of the council of 12.

Meanwhile, in 1445 Uffenham had taken over from a fellow lawyer, John Giles*, the post of clerk of the peace in the county, which he was to keep for at least 13 years. While so engaged he attested the Wiltshire election indentures of 1447 and 1453. A significant factor in his several elections to Parliament is likely to have been his business in the law courts at Westminster. There he regularly acted as an attorney in the common pleas and King’s bench for landowners from his home county, such as Henry Chancy*. e.g. CP40/715, rots. 421d, 424; Yr. Bk. 49 Hen. VI (Selden Soc. xlvii), 138-9. Frequently, he was engaged by sheriffs of Wiltshire required to attend the court of the Exchequer. Thus, he was an attorney there for (Sir) John Baynton* (initially in 1445 but again 14 years later when Baynton was ill and unable to attend in person), and for Philip Baynard*. E13/143, rot. 33; 145A, rot. 57d; E159/235, recorda, Easter rots. 12-13. Other sheriffs kept him busy in the common pleas receiving writs on their behalf. CP40/715, rot. 424; 750, rot. 314; 782, rots. 305d, 311d, 312, 414; 835, rot. 342d; 838, rot. 148d; 839, rot. 25d. While up at Westminster he took the opportunity to bring pleas on his own account, sometimes for sums owing to him as fees for his counsel. CPR, 1446-52, p. 482; 1452-61, p. 3; 1467-77, p. 77; CP40/724, rot. 18d; 800, rot. 18d; 855, rot. 264d. By the autumn of 1449 Uffenham had been elected one of the four coroners of Wiltshire, CPR, 1446-52, p. 306. and it was while holding that office that he was returned to at least three more Parliaments.

Uffenham often had personal dealings with his fellow MPs. In April 1449 William Kayser* of Wilton (who was to be his companion in the Parliament which met in November) mortgaged his lands to him for 40 marks, CCR, 1447-54, p. 167. and he was frequently associated with John Whittocksmead*, another busy lawyer and a fellow Member of the Commons in six of his Parliaments. When he was returned for Wilton to the Parliament of 1450, with Whittocksmead representing the shire, he stood surety for the appearance in the Commons of both the Downton MPs and (using his alias of Laurence) also both those elected for Hindon. C219/16/1. Three years later he stood surety in the Exchequer for John Mundy, then obtaining custody of property at Christchurch Twynham in Hampshire. CFR, xviii. 268. Like Mundy, Uffenham belonged to the circle of the Lords Hungerford, numbered among the wealthiest and most influential of Wiltshire’s landowners. Whether his close connexion with them developed from his residence at Heytesbury, where they had their seat, or whether he acquired property in the vill after he entered their service cannot now be discovered. All that is known is that he appeared in the law courts as attorney for Sir Walter Hungerford†, Lord Hungerford (d.1449); he was among the Hungerford men alleged to have maliciously conspired at Shaftesbury in 1448 to indict Thomas Pole† of Salisbury for the theft of 300 sheep at Broad Chalk from Sir Robert Hungerford (afterwards 2nd Lord Hungerford); CP40/738, rot. 451; 773, rot. 465. he was a mainpernor at the Exchequer in 1451 for Lord Robert’s brother Sir Edmund Hungerford*; Lord Robert named him as an attorney to deliver seisin of one of his manors in 1453; and their stepmother, Eleanor, dowager countess of Arundel, employed him as her spokesman in the common pleas and King’s bench. CFR, xviii. 208-9; Tropenell Cart. ed. Davies, ii. 197-8; CP40/768, rot. 157; 773, rot. 465; KB27/762, rot. 1d. In 1459 Uffenham was a co-feoffee with Lord Hungerford of lands in Fisherton Anger; three years later, in 1462, he acknowledged a deed in London on behalf of his widow, Lady Margaret; and from 1463 to 1475 he was a feoffee of land in Laverstock and elsewhere in which the Hungerfords had previously had an interest. CCR, 1454-61, p. 402; 1461-8, p. 144; Tropenell Cart. i. 60-62. Nevertheless, there is now no way of showing whether these most prominent of Uffenham’s clients played any direct part in securing his elections to Parliament. Whatever the case, the electors may well have considered that his links to the powerful might work to the advantage of their communities.

On occasion, Uffenham’s probity might be called into question. As a feoffee for John Bartour of tenements in Sutton Mandeville and Tisbury, he conveyed them to Bartour and his wife Edith in 1454, only for Bartour to claim in a petition sent to Chancery several years later, that after Edith’s death he had refused to release his title. CCR, 1454-61, p. 434; C1/42/11. Another feoffeeship brought him to courts as a plaintiff. He was a trustee of the estates in Wiltshire and Hampshire of Simon Milborne, esquire (the son and heir of Richard Milborne* of Laverstock), but in November 1470, six years after Milborne’s death, he was forced to petition the chancellor after being wrongfully expelled from the lands, of which he was then the sole surviving feoffee, by virtue of false information given at the inquisitions post mortem. CCR, 1454-61, p. 366; C44/31/22.

Uffenham was actively employed throughout the 1460s and 1470s as bailiff of the liberties in Wiltshire belonging to Bishop Waynflete of Winchester, and certain major religious houses, and he continued to be favoured as a candidate at parliamentary elections. At Wilton on 30 Aug. 1469 he was elected to the Parliament summoned to assemble in York, although in the event it did not meet, Wilton gen. entry bk. G25/1/21, f. 600. and his final election, in 1472, was as a representative for Devizes. On this occasion he was accompanied to the Commons by one of his sons, Roger, who had been returned by their home town, Heytesbury. By this date John was sometimes styled ‘senior’, to distinguish him from another of his sons. e.g. KB9/136/86 (as coroner). It is therefore uncertain which John Uffenham held office as bailiff of two Wiltshire hundreds in 1475. Towards the end of his life John senior became involved in the administration of Salisbury, as an elected member of the council of 24. Although he opted to pay a fine of £2 rather than serve as alderman, he was prepared to take on the duties of auditor and to join the mayor in negotiations with the dean and chapter to resolve disputes over certain property in the city. He attended civic assemblies until 22 Sept. 1480, Salisbury ledger bk. 2, G23/1/2, ff. 137v-140v. but died shortly before the following 21 Jan., when writs were sent to the sheriff of Wiltshire for the election of a coroner in his place. C242/13/36. His death was also noted at Wilton: gen. entry bk. G25/1/21, ff. 40, 41, 589. He was probably buried in the parish church of St. Edmund in Salisbury, where the great bell was tolled to mark the respects of the citizens. Churchwardens’ Accts. St. Edmund and St. Thomas, Sarum ed. Swayne, 24. HP Biogs. ed Wedgwood and Holt, 894-5, wrongly identified him with the John Lawrence of Malmesbury, Wilts. whose will of 5 Sept. 1488 was proved on 17 Oct. following: PCC 16 Milles (PROB11/8, f. 155v).

John Uffenham the younger had followed his father into the legal profession, becoming a member of the Middle Temple. CP40/895, rots. 252, 255; 896, rot. 181d. John ‘junior’ was placed on the quorum of a comm. of gaol delivery at Old Sarum castle in Sept. 1471: C66/527, m. 11d. At Michaelmas 1482 he relinquished the fee of 20s. p.a. previously paid him by the authorities at Wilton for his counsel, so as to be exonerated from holding office in the town, although he did agree to serve as portreeve there six years later. Wilton gen. entry bk. G25/1/21, ff. 43, 53. Having inherited the family estate in Downton, he settled it with other lands in jointure on his wife Alice in 1495. He died on 12 Aug. 1503 in possession of a ‘hostel’, 31 burgages and 25 acres of land there and four messuages and two acres of meadow in Wilton, which together with more property in Fugglestone, Broad Chalk and Whiteparish then passed to his nephews, the sons of his brother Roger, who had died earlier that same year, on 8 Feb. VCH Wilts. xi. 34; CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 703, 792. HP Biogs. 895 wrongly gives the date of Roger’s death as 1505 – the year that his inqs. post mortem were held. In his will, made on 7 Aug., John had left all his lands and tenements to his wife for life, but she survived him for only a few days. PCC 25 Blamyr (PROB11/13, ff. 209v-10). Roger Uffenham’s sons were all under age, and custody of the eldest, Richard, was granted to Sir Richard Beauchamp†, Lord St. Amand, in 1505. CPR, 1494-1509, p. 485. It was this young man who eventually laid claim to other Wiltshire lands as heir to his grandfather, John Uffenham alias Laurence, our MP. C1/586/25-26.