For the first part of his career William Vernon was not heir-apparent to the great inheritance that was to come to him on his father’s death in 1451. His eldest brother Richard lived into the late 1430s, and the next eldest, Fulk, into the late 1440s. None the less, such was the wealth and prominence of his family that it could secure heiresses for its younger sons. In 1416, at about the time of William’s birth, the Crown granted his father the wardship and marriage of Margaret, daughter and heiress of William Swinfen by the coheiress of the Spernores. Her maternal inheritance was insignificant, but through her father she was heiress to the estates of Sir Robert Pipe, lord of the manors of Netherseal (on the border of Derbyshire and Leicestershire), and Draycott under Needwood and Pipe Ridware (in Staffordshire).
In his youth William seems to have been a combative character. In 1441 one Robert Couper appealed him, described as ‘of Snitterton, gentleman’, for mayhem in Leicestershire, perhaps in the context of an ill-documented dispute between Vernon and the Applebys of Appleby.
In itself this was a minor incident, but its importance lies in its illustration of the developing tension between the two greatest Derbyshire gentry families. Further, even before he had succeeded his father, William had become embroiled in a serious dispute with Blount’s first cousins, the sons of Sir John Gresley*. On 25 Oct. 1446 the Gresley heir, John*, and two of his younger brothers allegedly led a large group in an assault upon a tenant of our MP at Netherseal, which lay close to the main Gresley residence at Drakelow.
Vernon’s extensive involvement in the disorder endemic to his native county at this period was no bar to his election for a second term as one of the county’s MPs. On 23 Oct. 1449 he was returned in company with John Sacheverell* to an assembly which, through two prorogations, lasted until early in the following summer when brought to a dramatic close by the news of Cade’s rising in Kent. The last session had been held at Leicester, and it was from there that Vernon came south, probably in the retinue of Humphrey Stafford, duke of Buckingham, who had been commissioned to resist the rebels on 6 June. The withdrawal of the rebels from Blackheath sent a band of Household men in violent pursuit of them, and a later indictment shows that William, together with his father and younger brother, Edmund, were among this band. On 21 Aug. a Kentish jury indicted them for close-breaking at Tonbridge on the previous 20 June.
Very soon afterwards Vernon faced yet another legal difficulty, although this, like the indictment, was quickly laid aside. In the following Michaelmas term Agnes, widow of John Gresley’s servant, John Hert, appealed him as accessory to the murder of her husband, who had met his death at the hands of Vernon’s men at Burton-upon-Trent. This was terminated by private treaty: an award, now lost but referred to in a later attempt to end the dispute between the families of Vernon and Gresley, ordered Vernon to pay the widow 20 marks in compensation for her loss in return for the abandonment of the appeal.
A few months later, in August 1451, the shape of Derbyshire politics changed when Sir Richard Vernon’s death brought William a great estate, unburdened by a widow’s dower interest and not significantly diminished by the provision made for his younger brothers.
Another inherited difficulty was a rival claim to the family’s important manor of Tong in Shropshire, a claim which had descended to Anne Ferrers, wife of the young and vigorous Walter Devereux II*, a servant of Richard, duke of York. Ominously, in the Shropshire inquisition post mortem of William’s father, the jury returned that the Vernons had Tong ‘per intrusionem’ to the disseisin of the heirs in tail, Anne Devereux and her kinsman, Richard, son and heir of George Longville†.
None the less, despite these difficulties and the simmering rivalries in Derbyshire, William made a satisfactory start to his independent career. On 23 June 1452 he secured a general pardon, in part no doubt as protection against royal actions arising out of his father’s troubled affairs. On the following 4 Nov. he offered surety in Chancery for the good behaviour of the Shropshire esquire, Fulk Eyton, who had been implicated in the duke of York’s rising in the previous February. This need not imply any sympathy for York’s cause on the part of our MP, for he had a family connexion with Eyton, albeit a remote one: Fulk was the godson of Sir Fulk Pembridge†, from whom the Vernons had inherited Tong.
Less happily, Vernon’s other activities were bringing him further problems to add to those left by his father. Unwisely he fell into a quarrel with the powerful Sir John Talbot, who in July 1453 succeeded to the earldom of Shrewsbury. The cause of their enmity is a matter for speculation. Three years earlier Talbot had returned an award in the dispute over the manor of Tong, but since this had awarded the manor to the Vernons (albeit on payment of £60 to their rival), it is unlikely to have resulted in resentment on Sir William’s part. A more likely cause was Talbot’s increasing influence in north Derbyshire, where the Vernons had long been dominant.
Thereafter, Vernon’s difficulties were compounded when this quarrel became subsumed in the much wider conflicts which overtook the county, ranging Walter Blount against most of the leading gentry. These have been interpreted as a local manifestation of the rivalry between Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, and the duke of Buckingham, with Blount representing Warwick, and his opponents Buckingham. More probably, the disorders represent the damaging interaction of purely local rivalries among the leading gentry, in which Vernon was prominently involved, with the crisis in national affairs.
This offence and others were investigated on 1 July 1454 when the duke of York, then Protector, and John Talbot, now earl of Shrewsbury, took indictments at Derby. Vernon and three of his brothers were indicted for their part in the raid on Elvaston, and they were also the subject of two private bills. One of these was brought by Blount, naming all those he believed to be implicated in the sack; the other was from a local lawyer, John Tunstead of Tunstead, who had once been a retainer of Vernon’s father. The lawyer complained that on the previous 4 May Vernon had assaulted him at Ashbourne and took lead worth £40.
These steps against Vernon and others more deeply implicated in the disorders seem to have put an end to the worst of the trouble. Peace, however, was not yet restored, and the divisions seem to have played a part in determining the elections of the following summer. On 26 June Vernon was elected for Staffordshire at hustings dominated, judging from the list of attestors, by Buckingham’s men. A week later, at the hustings at Derby, Walter Blount was returned with Robert Barley*, a servant of the earl of Shrewsbury. No direct evidence survives to indicate that these results were the product of contests, but there is some indirect evidence. According to a later indictment before the Staffordshire j.p.s., on the day before the Derbyshire election Blount’s brother, Thomas*, assaulted Vernon’s brother, Roger, and two other prominent figures who had been involved in the sack of Elvaston at Branston near Burton-upon-Trent, and it is a reasonable inference that his aim was to prevent their attendance at the election.
Against this background, it is not surprising that the government, controlled by York in the aftermath of the first battle of St. Albans, should have seen the need for further remedial measures to end the feuding. On 12 July, three days after Parliament assembled, Sir John Gresley, and Roger Vernon were summoned to appear before the royal council to answer for recent riotous assemblies. Their appearance before the council led to the referral of the matter to the arbitration of Buckingham, who had influence with both families. The damage seemingly caused to the duke’s relationship with the Vernons by the Trussell affair had been mended by this date for, on the previous 1 Aug., Sir William had been granted an annuity of £10 by the duke; Gresley had been in receipt of such a fee for several years.
Buckingham returned his award on the following 12 Sept. He decreed that the parties ‘shalbe full frendes and of frendely delyng’, laying aside ‘Rancre of herte’, and that any future cause of quarrel between them should immediately be referred to his judgement or, in his absence, that of his son and heir. Unfortunately, the award makes no mention of the original cause of the dispute (probably because this had been addressed in the award of 1447 and that made late in 1450 or early in 1451 and was solely concerned with settling compensation for the servants of the disputants who had suffered injury). Anne Hert was to have full payment of the 20 marks awarded to her under the terms of the previous award for the murder of her husband by Vernon’s adherents; and scales of compensation were laid down with respect to injuries received by the servants of the disputing parties in the course of the conflict. For example, Thomas Webbe, a tenant of Sir William at Netherseal, was to have £8 6s. 8d. for the serious injuries he had suffered at the hands of Gresley’s servants. This seems to have effectively marked the end of the quarrel between Gresley and Vernon.
Vernon was able to put himself on the right side of the law by securing a general pardon on 20 Nov. 1455, and in the following February he added to it a writ of non molestetis addressed to the Exchequer, presumably to end further process against him on his father’s accounts as treasurer of Calais.
Yet, these problems aside, Vernon was too wealthy a man to suffer any sustained exclusion from local affairs. On 10 Jan. 1458 he was present at a very important session of the peace at Derby, where indictments were taken against Humphrey Bourgchier* for entry into the property of the prominent Lancastrian, the earl of Shrewsbury, Vernon’s former foe. His apparent reconciliation with the earl probably reflects the emergence of a militant Lancastrian party in Derbyshire, of which both were part. A little over a year later, on 10 Feb. 1459, another prominent Lancastrian and his neighbour in north Derbyshire, Sir William Plumpton*, named him as an arbiter in his murderous quarrel with the Pierreponts. On the following 30 Oct. he was named to a powerful commission of oyer and terminer, headed by Shrewsbury and Buckingham, to investigate treasons and other crimes in Staffordshire and neighbouring counties, and soon afterwards he was appointed to the Lancastrian array in his native Derbyshire.
The first years of Yorkist rule were a very difficult time for Vernon. In Trinity term 1461 writs were issued for his outlawry and that of many of his adherents on the felony charges laid against him in 1454, and on the following 4 July a commission was issued for the arrest of his brother Roger. The first of these problems was removed when he secured a general pardon from the new King on the following 3 Dec. (he wisely took the precaution of having it enrolled on the patent roll), but his earlier Lancastrian affiliations and the influence of his local rival, (Sir) Walter Blount, still stood between him and the recovery of his position in local affairs.
Vernon’s weakness left him vulnerable. In Easter term 1462 Alice, widow of Henry Walron, appealed him as an accessory to the murder of her husband in Nottinghamshire. Walron had been a servant of the earl of Warwick, and it was perhaps this that led Vernon, together with another Lancastrian, (Sir) Edmund Mountfort* (who had even less reason to love the earl) into alleged complicity in his murder. Unfortunately no other details survive.
In these circumstances it would be unwise to interpret as marking a recovery in Vernon’s affairs his nomination as a subsidy commissioner in the previous July (indeed, many of the men entrusted with this uninviting task were drawn from those excluded from government), or to exaggerate the significance of his successful suing out of another general pardon.
These considerations render Vernon’s return to represent Derbyshire in the Parliament of 1467 all the more surprising. At an election held on 14 May he was elected with Blount’s son and heir, William†. The return itself is irregular in that Vernon himself headed the list of attestors, with his brothers, Thomas and Edmund, immediately following him (the latter written over an erasure), and further down the list appear his brother and son, Roger and Richard. Further, most unusually, some of the attestors are named twice: 73 names are listed, but four of these are duplicates.
By this time, however, Sir William was dead. Indeed, he did not survive the Parliament of which he was a Member. He was presumably at Westminster when he drew up his short will on 28 June, a few days before the prorogation. This document shows that the family’s great wealth, or at least his estimate of it, had not been diminished by its recent troubles. This is reflected in the bequests of 500 marks to each of his four daughters for their marriages, and generous provision for his younger sons: Richard was to have a life interest in the disputed manor of Hazlebadge; William, an annuity of 20 marks for his life; and Ralph, the manor of Roworth (in New Mills) in fee together with a life interest in all Sir William’s purchased land. He was also concerned to make adequate provision for his widow. To allow their son and heir to make so grand a marriage she had evidently surrendered property settled on her on her own marriage, and Vernon now provided that she should have either the lordship of Marple (in Cheshire) or that of Tong in compensation. There was only one other provision: a priest was to be found to pray for his soul for three years in the church of St. Bartholomew at Tong, where his tomb was to be made according to his ‘degree’. Those entrusted with implementing his wishes were his wife, the prominent Staffordshire lawyer, William Cumberford*, and a priest, John Peniston, chaplain at Haddon.
Sir William died two days after making his will. Writs were issued for the routine inquiry into his estates on the following day, but the relevant inquisitions were delayed until the following October. The findings were brief, and, since his son and heir was of age, of little interest to the Crown. Save for the manors settled on his heir on marriage and the valuable manor of Harlaston, in which his wife had a jointure interest, he died sole seised of the bulk of the family estates, having made no feoffment for the implementation of his will. This explains the injunction in his will: ‘I charge my wife as she will answere to god to hir pour and my son Herry upon my blissing that this my will be perfourmed in that therin is’.