UMFRAY, Thomas

Although the background of this MP is obscure, he would appear to have come from Essex and may have been the son of a namesake who farmed the manor of Chipping Ongar from Anne, countess of Stafford, in the early 1420s. On 15 Oct. 1423 that Thomas Umfray visited Heron in East Horden to discuss various matters regarding his tenancy with John Tyrell*, the steward of the countess’s lands in the county, only to find Tyrell in the parish church lifting his great-nephew John Torell* from the baptismal font – or so he was to report at Torell’s proof of age 21 years later. CIPM, xxvi. 351. It is likely that the MP was the Thomas Umfray who two years later, in 1446, together with his widowed mother, Margaret, and with Hugh, son and heir of Roger Lightfoot, conveyed to William de la Pole, marquess of Suffolk, and others a plot known as ‘Dagenham Place’ and other property in Barking. CCR, 1441-7, p. 433. VCH Essex, v. 199 sheds no further light on the Umfrays or this transaction. Unfortunately, the Umfrays’ interest in these holdings is not otherwise documented; nor is there any other indication that the MP was linked with de la Pole, whose influence with the King was growing rapidly.

Umfray had been admitted to Lincoln’s Inn four years earlier, with the description of ‘clericus’, which suggests that he was an educated man. He made himself useful in the administration of the Inn, where he served as a pensioner in 1449-50. In the course of his term of office he was returned to two Parliaments as a representative of the Dorset borough of Lyme Regis. As he had no recorded connexion with the town or its inhabitants, it must be assumed that he was elected because he agreed to sit for little or no remuneration, or else offered his services as a lawyer. Yet in this period Lyme not infrequently returned men connected in some way with the royal Exchequer, and although Umfray’s links with that department of government were tenuous (or at least appear so in the surviving records), they may provide the true explanation for his election too. In April 1451, during the recess between the second and third sessions of the Parliament of 1450-1, he appeared in the Exchequer as ‘of London, gentleman’ to provide sureties for Sir John Burcester, Roger Thorpe* and Thomas Cross*, then made custodians of royal honours and other landed possessions of the late earl of Pembroke. CFR, xviii. 197. Roger was the son and Cross a servant of Thomas Thorpe*, as treasurer’s remembrancer one of the leading officials of the Exchequer, and a person of rising political importance. The connexion was undoubtedly significant.

Umfray was returned to Parliament for the third time in 1453, on this occasion representing the Wiltshire borough of Great Bedwyn. He was joined in the Commons by his former associates Roger Thorpe and Thomas Cross when Parliament assembled at Reading on 6 Mar., and it seems probable that like them he supported the election as Speaker of Thorpe’s father Thomas, now one of the barons of the Exchequer and sitting as a knight of the shire for Essex. A few days after the end of the second session, which met at Westminster from 25 Apr. to 2 July, Umfray was one of those chosen as arbitrators by Sir Philip Thornbury* of Hertfordshire and Reynold Arneburgh* of Huntingdonshire in their long-running dispute with Ralph and Ellen Holt over the Brokholes inheritance in Essex, Suffolk and Warwickshire. An award made on 21 July was to be formally acknowledged by him in October. CCR, 1447-54, pp. 448, 473-4; The Armburgh Pprs. ed. Carpenter, 38-39. It was while Parliament was in recess that same summer that Henry VI became mentally incapacitated, and his illness prompted a political crisis of major proportions. In November the King’s kinsman Edmund, duke of Somerset, was imprisoned in the Tower by his opponents, and Somerset’s ally, Speaker Thorpe, took refuge in the sanctuary of the church of St. Martin le Grand. When, on 25 Nov., Thorpe placed his goods and chattels for safe-keeping in the hands of the dean of St. Martin’s and a group of well-wishers, among them were Umfray, Cross and another of their fellows in the Commons, Thomas Preston II*. CCR, 1447-54, p. 484. Before the start of the final session of the Parliament, at Westminster on 14 Feb. 1454, Thorpe was imprisoned at the suit of the duke of York, and notwithstanding parliamentary privilege the Lords ruled that he should remain in prison and that the Commons should elect another Speaker. J.S. Roskell, Speakers, 254-5.

Umfray’s association with Thorpe had no effect on his career at Lincoln’s Inn, which continued with his appointment as a governor later in that year. During his term he shared responsibility for leasing out 11 recently-built chambers at the Inn, at the rate of £2 per chamber, and this led to the creation of the new post of treasurer, with Umfray being the first man to fill it. As treasurer he took over from the governors the task of keeping account of all receipts and expenditure. L. Inn Black Bks. i. 25-28. He held office until 1458. While there were no appointments to Crown office to provide firm evidence of Umfray’s political stance during the civil-war years, it is clear that he remained loyal to the house of Lancaster, and there is a possibility that he was the ‘King’s servant’ of this name who in August 1459, as a reward for his labours in making searches on the King’s behalf, was granted a licence to ship wool from London and Ipswich free of customs for ten years, in return for a fixed payment of £20 p.a. CPR, 1452-61, p. 513; DKR, xlviii. 436. He benefited from the attainders of the Yorkist lords in the Parliament at Coventry, by on 28 Mar. 1460 receiving at the Exchequer the farm of rents in the town of King’s Walden in Hertfordshire for a ten-year period. More significantly, on the same day he provided sureties for Eleanor, dowager duchess of Somerset, granted keeping of the lordship of Purbright in Surrey which had been forfeited by the duke of York, and he acted likewise on her behalf on the following 26 May, when she obtained custody of certain lordships forfeited by the earl of Warwick. CFR, xix. 261, 272. Umfray’s whereabouts are not recorded during the tumultuous events of the following year, but it is worth noting that it was not until 20 Oct. 1462, some considerable time after the accession of Edward IV, that he obtained a pardon from that monarch. C67/45, m. 17. Circumstantial evidence points to his continuing association with the Beauforts. In 1467 Sir Richard Darell brought a suit against Umfray in the court of common pleas alleging that on 23 Mar. 1463 Umfray had broken into his house at Littlecote in Wiltshire and stolen a bond in which Margaret, countess of Stafford, was bound to a London merchant named Robert Hill in £12. The countess was Margaret Beaufort, daughter of the late duke of Somerset and widow of the ‘earl of Stafford’ (son and heir apparent of the duke of Buckingham) who had been killed with her father at St. Albans in 1455. Darell had married her and placed her to board with his mother at Littlecote. CP40/823, rot. 155; Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. n.s. iv. 141. Why Umfray should have become involved in her affairs is not known, although he was certainly known to Hill, who entrusted him with his goods and chattels in 1464. CCR, 1461-8, pp. 238-9.

In the pardon of 1462 Umfray was described as ‘alias of Great Waltham’. It is uncertain how he acquired his landed interests there, although his marriage to Agnes, daughter of Robert Bury of Terling, did lead to his further association with this part of Essex. According to a petition sent to the chancellor by Bury’s widow, on 16 June 1462 Umfray and his brother-in-law John Bury had led 40 armed men in an attack on her house and had stolen chattels and title deeds; they had so threatened and menaced her that she dared not live there any more. In July 1463 Umfray and his wife transferred to John Bury land called ‘Fanners’ in Fairstead, in which she and her issue had a remainder interest. C1/27/192; CAD, vi. C4174. By the time of his death Umfray extended his holdings in the same area to include the manor of Redley Hall and some 450 acres of land and five tenements in Terling, Great Waltham and Fairstead, valued in all at £14 5s. p.a. C131/76/4.

Umfray’s fellowship of Lincoln’s Inn continued: in the mid 1460s he promised to remain in residence for three vacations within three years. L. Inn Black Bks. i. 43. And his professional services were of use to those living in London, such as Thomas Preston, his former parliamentary colleague who was now rector of the parish church of St. Mary at Hill, and a tailor, Roger Holbeche, for whom he acted as an executor. CCR, 1461-8, p. 397; C1/27/281; 28/201. Other clients included landowners from Essex, whom he served as a feoffee. CCR, 1468-76, no. 140; Essex Feet of Fines, iv. 55; CPR, 1476-85, p. 364. The late 1460s saw him as part of the circle of the Bourgchier family, whose head was the earl of Essex, although there is nothing to indicate that he was ever engaged in the administration of their estates in the way that his putative father had been by the earl’s mother. CCR, 1468-76, no. 335.

Umfray died in debt. On 30 June 1468 he entered a bond for 40 marks at the staple of Westminster, but failed to pay his creditor at the following Easter as required. Accordingly, an order was issued for his arrest on 12 Oct. 1469, only for it to be found that he had died within the previous three months. An inquiry held on 12 Mar. 1470 listed his landed holdings, and also stated that he had kept sundry and valuable goods including silver plate, carpets and candelabra in his chamber at Great Waltham, and that these as well as large numbers of livestock were then in the possession of John Lee, the London draper. C131/76/4. As executor of Umfray’s will Lee took out letters of protection on the following 25 Oct. to sail to Calais in the retinue of the earl of Warwick, but the letters were revoked five days later. DKR, xviii. 448; CPR, 1467-77, p. 228. Umfray’s widow died before 15 May 1485. CCR, 1476-85, no. 1442.