WORSOP, William

Originally from the Midlands, Worsop enjoyed the status of ‘esquire’, CCR, 1447-54, p. 21; C219/16/1; Add. 30158, f. 20v. a sobriquet he appears to have owed to his profession as a lawyer, for want of evidence that he possessed lands of any significance. He must have moved to Suffolk by the later 1440s, since he was serving Gilbert Debenham I* as an auditor in March 1447. CP40/752, rot. 433. Possessed of estates near Ipswich, Debenham was a retainer of the Mowbray family, albeit one who was not always on good terms with John Mowbray, 3rd duke of Norfolk. Worsop likewise entered the duke’s service, and it was as ‘of Framlingham’, the ducal castle in Suffolk, that he and other Mowbray men stood bail at Westminster for the notorious Sir Thomas Mallory* in 1454. KB27/772, dorse of rot. between rex rots. 29 and 30. He also followed the 3rd duke’s son and successor, being among those retainers to whom the 4th duke illegally distributed liveries at Framlingham in June 1469. KB27/839, rex rot. 31d; 841, rex rot. 49.

It is impossible to say whether the Debenhams, who had strong family connexions with Ipswich, encouraged Worsop to take up residence in the borough, of which he became a freeman in either October 1456 or the first half of the following year, Add. 30158, f. 20v. His admission to the freedom occurred on ‘Thurs. after Edward, 35 Hen. VI’; it is not clear which feast day is meant and there are several possibilities. or whether he came to associate with them after moving there. Having settled at Ipswich, Worsop gained election as one of the coroners of Suffolk and practised as an attorney in the borough court, and in later years he became a local clerk of the peace, coroner and justice. Suff. RO (Ipswich), Ipswich bor. recs., composite rolls, 1478-9, C/2/10/1/7, 8. Although a member of the legal profession, Worsop also traded as a vintner in the early 1460s, supplying red and white wine to the Mowbrays’ cousin, (Sir) John Howard*, as well as to the borough of Ipswich. Yet this was a difficult time for the wine trade, given the restrictions that the Crown had placed on importing that commodity from the lost duchy of Gascony, and it is likely that the law was always Worsop’s main source of income. N.R. Amor, Late Med. Ipswich, 126, 128; Howard Household Bks. ed. Crawford, i. 219, 274.

Either through external patronage or because they valued his professional expertise as a lawyer, the burgesses of Ipswich elected Worsop to his first Parliament in November 1459. Following his election, he witnessed the return of the knights of the shire for Suffolk to the same assembly in his capacity as one of the county’s coroners. At Ipswich the borough authorities decided that Worsop and his fellow MP, John Rever*, should receive daily wages of 18d. if Parliament sat at Coventry (where, indeed, it met) or York, but only 12d. if it sat at Westminster or Canterbury. The borough made similar stipulations in January 1463, upon returning Worsop to the Parliament due to open at York the following month. He was to receive a daily rate of 20d. while the assembly sat at York, 16d. if it adjourned to somewhere further south, and only 12d. if it met in Westminster. The borough must have valued him as a representative, for the other MP, John Lopham†, was allowed only 12d., whatever the venue. In the event this Parliament was cancelled, as was that called to meet at Leicester in the following March, but burgesses again chose Worsop and Lopham at a fresh election for the assembly which opened at Westminster in late April 1463. Worsop was returned to Parliament for the last time in 1472. As had happened previously, he was allotted higher wages than his fellow burgess, on this occasion John Walworth†. The borough decided to pay him 5s. and Walworth 3s. 4d. for each week that Parliament sat. Unlike Walworth, he was also to receive a daily rate of 1s. during periods when the assembly was not in session. Add. 30158, ff. 23, 24v, 30v; Bacon, 121.

The Parliament of 1472 was not the only occasion when Worsop and Walworth were associated, for they had together taken part, apparently as trustees, in a conveyance of property in London in 1463. CAD, vi. C4076. Thanks to his profession and parliamentary career, the MP would have acquired considerable familiarity with the City and Westminster, and there is some evidence of his activities in both. John Bocking, a servant of the prominent East Anglian knight, Sir John Fastolf, referred in a letter to John Paston* to a testy meeting he had with Worsop and Hugh atte Fenne* in London in the autumn of 1456. According to the letter, they exchanged harsh words over the wardship of the knight’s young relative, Thomas Fastolf†, then in dispute between Sir John and (Sir) Philip Wentworth*. No doubt colouring Worsop’s attitude in this matter was the fact that Wentworth was a friend of Gilbert Debenham, among those Mowbray retainers suspected of supporting him in his quarrels with Sir John. Paston Letters, ii. 118, 161-2. A decade later, Worsop was embroiled in a quarrel of his own arising from a bond he had entered into at London in the spring of 1464. At that date he was a Member of the drawn out Parliament of 1463, which was still in session when subsequently he came to face litigation on account of that security. The bond was supposed to guarantee that he would pay 20 marks to John Pemberton*, one of the masters in Chancery, and William Hawekyswade in May 1465. He failed in this undertaking, prompting them to sue him in the court of common pleas. In Hilary term 1466 he obtained permission to treat with them out of court but the plea roll does not explain the circumstances giving rise to the bond. CP40/818, rot. 456d. In the same period he and Gilbert Debenham II*, son of Gilbert I, also faced proceedings over another bond, this time for £31 10s., which they had given the London pewterer, Thomas Goodlock, in February 1465. C241/249/51. While Worsop must have spent a considerable amount of time in London in his later years, it is unclear whether it was he or a son of the same name who pursued a Chancery case at some stage in the later 1470s or early 1480s. ‘Of London, gentleman’, this William stated that he had entered into a bond on behalf of another Londoner, John Dutton, in relation to a purchase of furs. In due course, Dutton had paid the vendor, a skinner from the City, the agreed purchase price of £10 in full, only for the latter to renege on his promises to surrender the bond. Fearing that he was now in jeopardy of legal action on the strength of the bond, William asked the chancellor to intervene. C1/64/355. According to the record of his admission to the freedom of Ipswich, the MP then had a s. of the same name: Add. 30158, f. 20v.

Notwithstanding his connexion with the City, Worsop remained an office-holder at Ipswich until 1483. He may not have lived much beyond this date and he was certainly dead by April 1488. CIPM Hen. VII, i. 265. According to a family tree, he was succeeded by a son, John, who settled in London. Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, 5th ser. vii. 313. Although it is possible, given the other evidence that the MP had a s. of the same name, that the ‘John’ in the pedigree was a misnomer for a younger William.