LEE, William

Of unknown antecedents and estates, Lee probably owed his connexion with Suffolk to his marriage. It has proved impossible to ascertain whether he and William Lee of Swaffham Prior, Cambs., were one and the same person, even though William of Swaffham may have had links with the Mowbrays, the ducal family with whom the subject of this biography was certainly associated. In the later 1440s, for example, the Mowbray retainer Gilbert Debenham I and a yeoman of Framlingham (where the Mowbrays’ castle in Suff. lay) were among those who stood surety for William Lee of Cambs. in the ct. of c.p. Earlier in the same decade, this William (who was certainly dead by the spring of 1483) served terms as sheriff and escheator of Cambs. and Hunts. and as a j.p. in Cambs., and it appears that he should be identified with the William Lee who was an esquire of Hen. VI’s Household in the 1440s and early 1450s. It is also worth noting that, like the subject of this biography, William of Cambs. had a wife named Elizabeth, albeit an extremely common name in this period. In 1463 the couple made a release of lands in Northants. and Oxon. to Robert Danvers*, j.c.p., apparently following the latter’s purchase of these properties. Nearly two decades earlier, William Lee had been among those involved in Danvers’s acquisition of a ‘great garden’ in Southwark: VCH Cambs. x. 283; C1/62/260; CP40/751, rot. 132; E101/409/9, 11, 16; 410/1, 3, 6, 9; CPR, 1441-6, p. 449; 1446-52, pp. 108-9; CP25(1)/294/74/10; F.N. Macnamara, Mems. Danvers Fam. 112; CAD, i. C1200; vi. C4200. Possibly the William Lee who acted as a feoffee in that county for Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, and his countess in the spring of 1430, CP25(1)/224/115/14. he was certainly playing a part in the public affairs of Suffolk by 1437, when he attested the return of its knights of the shire to the Parliament of that year. Whatever his origins, he made a respectable marriage since his wife was from a well established East Anglian family, if not of the first rank. It would appear that he enjoyed a good relationship with the Harlestons, for he was an executor of his eldest brother-in-law, John Harleston (d.1458). PCC 26 Stokton. He was also a Harleston feoffee, and on at least one occasion he called upon his other brothers-in-law, Henry and Robert Harleston†, to act as sureties on his behalf. Another connexion was his wife’s uncle, John Clopton, a fellow executor of John Harleston’s will with whom he was associated as a feoffee, both for the Harlestons and for other gentry of the region. CCR, 1461-8, p. 406; CFR, xx. 68; Suff. RO (Bury St. Edmunds), Barrow parish recs., EL/13/12/16; CP25(1)/224/120/14; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 52. Among others for whom Lee acted in this capacity were Alice, widow of William Cotton*, and her second husband Thomas Chevele, and Henry Wodehouse, the son and heir of John Wodehouse*. C1/26/362; E159/216, brevia Hil. rot. 18d; CPR, 1436-41, p. 385.

As a Wodehouse feoffee, Lee came into association with Sir Thomas Tuddenham*, a leading member of the East Anglian affinity of William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, but he himself was linked with the Mowbray dukes of Norfolk. In the early 1440s he bore the address ‘of Framlingham’, the Mowbray seat in Suffolk, and he attained some degree of prominence in the service of John Mowbray, 3rd duke of Norfolk, if not always of a positive sort. On more than one occasion he was implicated in the lawless activities of that lord and members of his affinity, most notably when he participated in disturbances against Mowbray’s estranged follower Sir Robert Wingfield*. A major cause of friction between Mowbray and Wingfield was the manor of Hoo lying immediately to the west of Wingfield’s residence at Letheringham in east Suffolk. The duke’s father had granted the manor to Wingfield and his wife for life, but in 1443 Mowbray decided to annul the grant and sent a band of his retainers to seize it back. According to a subsequent indictment, Lee and other members of the Mowbray affinity, including Sir Robert Conyers*, Thomas Sharneburne*, William Brandon†, John Wymondham*, Thomas Montgomery† and John Timperley I*, forcibly retook the property on 21 Aug. that year, assaulting Wingfield and seizing his crops in the process. The presenting jury also found that Lee, Brandon, Timperley and others rode to Wingfield’s home manor of Letheringham, where they had assaulted his wife and children and attempted to abduct his daughter Elizabeth, less than three weeks later. These indictments, taken in mid September 1443, led to a trial at Bury St. Edmunds in July 1445. By then, however, the duke and Wingfield were reconciled and the trial jury returned a verdict of not guilty. The dispute between Mowbray and Wingfield was not the only occasion when the duke, an inept lord, quarrelled with one of his followers, and he subsequently fell out with Lee. In late 1452 he removed Lee, Timperley and Gilbert Debenham I* from his council, although for what reason is not recorded. It is nevertheless possible that the quarrel arose from infighting within the ducal following, for at this time Timperley was facing charges of treasonable practice which Roger Church, one of the most lawless of all Mowbray’s men, maliciously had brought against him. Although the rift between the duke of Norfolk and his three retainers was not a permanent one, it is not clear exactly when Lee made his peace with his lord. On 21 Feb. 1453 he was indicted, as ‘late of Framlingham castle’, of having led a raid on the property of one John Skarnyng in the previous October, but it is impossible to discern the exact state of his relationship with Mowbray at the time of the alleged offence. KB9/85/1/49; 85/2/63; KB27/730, rex rot. 48; 735, rex rot. 37; R.L. Storey, End of House of Lancaster, 226-7; CCR, 1441-7, pp. 213, 215; H.R. Castor, King, Crown and Duchy of Lancaster, 112, 113, 116, 117; Paston Letters ed. Davis, i. 72; G.H. Ryan and L.J. Redstone, Timperley of Hintlesham, 7.

Notwithstanding the lawlessness of his following and an unfortunate habit of falling out with his retainers, the duke of Norfolk came in the mid 1450s to enjoy far more prominence than hitherto in East Anglian affairs. He owed his good fortune to the ascendancy that his ally, Richard, duke of York, achieved in national politics during 1454 and the later part of 1455. When the elections for the Parliament of 1455 were called, the Mowbray retainer John Wingfield†, the eldest son and heir of the recently deceased Sir Robert Wingfield, was sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk and all four of the knights of the shire for those counties were Mowbray men. In Suffolk Wingfield presided over a shire court attended by no fewer than 300 people, of whom the two coroners and 154 others were named as attestors, and the men returned were his own brother, Robert Wingfield*, and William Jenney*. Castor, 179-80; R. Virgoe, E. Anglian Soc. ed. Barron, Rawcliffe and Rosenthal, 64, mistakenly states that the indenture lists 205 attestors. The number of attestors might suggest a contested election, and the proceedings at the shire-house were certainly the subject of controversy a few months after the dissolution of Parliament. In June 1456 Walter Writtle* of Essex, who had sat in that assembly as a burgess for Maldon, appeared in the Exchequer to accuse the sheriff of having returned Jenney illegally because the majority present had actually chosen Lee as Robert Wingfield’s fellow knight of the shire. John Wingfield pleaded that he should not have to answer Writtle’s suit because another Essex esquire, William Mounteney, had already brought a similar action, still sub judice, against him. Writtle riposted that Wingfield’s plea needed no answer, and the court continuously postponed making any judgement until 1461 when all record of the case ceases. A curious feature of Writtle’s suit is his assertion that both Wingfield and Lee were residing at Monks Eleigh in west Suffolk at the time of the election, since there is no other evidence connecting either of them with that parish. Lee’s only known places of residence are Framlingham and London, while it was as ‘of Framlingham castle’ that Wingfield received a royal pardon during the Parliament of 1455. Whatever actually happened at the shire-house, it is possible that internal rivalries within the Mowbray affinity had played a part in the election of the knights of the shire for Suffolk to this assembly. Conceivably, John Wingfield had refused to return Lee in revenge for the part that the latter had played in the attacks on his family in 1443, but it is unclear why Lee himself did not complain to the authorities. There is no evidence that Writtle was another Mowbray man or had a stake in East Anglian politics at this date. The fact that he made a claim for £100, the sum awarded by statutes of 1429 and 1445 against sheriffs who made false returns, raises the possibility that it was merely the prospect of financial gain that prompted him to bring his suit. Virgoe, 57-58, 64; E13/146, rots. 69-70, 81d; C67/41, m. 11.

Following the death of the duke of Norfolk in November 1461, Lee was active in matters relating to his late patron. In February 1462, when the Crown assigned the keeping of the Mowbray manors of Dalby Chacombe and Witherley in Leicestershire to the dowager duchess’s brothers Thomas Bourgchier, archbishop of Canterbury, and Henry Bourgchier, earl of Essex, he and Richard Southwell* stood surety for those powerful siblings. A year later, he himself obtained the keeping for nine months of another Mowbray manor, Flecknoe in Warwickshire, quite possibly on behalf of the young 4th duke of Norfolk, then still in his minority, rather than on his own account. CFR, xx. 67-68, 75.

In the same period Lee clashed with Thomas Colt*, an important servant of the newly established Yorkist Crown. Colt had purchased the wardship and marriage of Robert Trace of Moulton, Suffolk, son and heir of John Trace, from the late Richard, duke of York, in January 1459, only to lose custody of the child in the following March, while in exile with York in Ireland. Following the accession of Edward IV, however, he took steps to regain the wardship by means of at least two lawsuits in the court of common pleas, one against the London merchant, William Trace, and the other against Lee, himself referred to as ‘late of London’ in the plea roll. In pleadings of 1462 Colt claimed that Trace and Lee had abducted young Robert in London on 3 Mar. 1460, with the assistance of William Philipot, also of London, and another Robert Trace of Moulton. It seems clear that William Trace and this other Robert were the boy’s relatives, but the reason for Lee’s involvement in the dispute is impossible to ascertain. In response to the suit directed against him, Lee sought and gained licence to interplead with Colt out of court, his old associate, Gilbert Debenham, and John Timperley (probably John Timperley II*) being among those who stood surety for him. Two further such licences extended these negotiations until the spring of 1463, although with what result is unknown. CP40/804, rot. 136d; 805, rot. 347.

Later that decade, Lee took part in another quarrel, this time with John Damet, whom he sued in the common pleas. In pleadings of Hilary term 1471 he claimed that Damet had unjustly dispossessed him of a messuage and 20 acres of land in Bury St. Edmunds and nearby Fornham All Saints. Damet countered that he held these lands jointly with the Essex esquire, Thomas Skargill*, by demise of one Roger Fylpot. The parties agreed to submit the matter to a jury, although one had yet to sit a year later. CP40/834, rot. 377. It is possible that Lee did not live much beyond the early 1470s, for he disappears from view following his appointment to an ad hoc commission in May 1473.