Portsmouth

Until the collapse of English rule in France, Portsmouth continued to be used as an important naval station and port of embarkation for armies sent across the Channel and to Gascony. The forces of Richard, earl of Warwick, and Richard, duke of York, successive lieutenants-general of France, were mustered there prior to departure in the summer of 1437 and spring of 1441, respectively. Similarly, in 1443 the large army raised by John, duke of Somerset, intended for an aggressive attack to counter French threats to both Normandy and Guyenne, also assembled there before crossing to Cherbourg, although in that instance there were delays and confusion over the musters, especially when the duke himself failed to appear on the appointed day. He excused himself to the Council by protesting that although his indentures stipulated the musters would be ‘hooly’ at Portsmouth, they were actually held in two ‘divers’ places, so he and his captains were ‘disseived’. The troops led by Edmund, marquess of Dorset, in 1448, and those hastily called together for the relief of Normandy in the following year, also embarked from Portsmouth. CPR, 1436-41, pp. 85, 87, 144, 538; 1441-6, p. 201; 1446-52, pp. 138, 270, 317; PPC, v. 303-4.

Henry V had initiated an expensive building programme at Portsmouth for the protection of his ships anchored in the harbour, and in June 1422 he sent a warrant from France for all men with land in the vicinity to come on a fixed day to prove their ownership, so that any unclaimed plots might be taken into the King’s hands and used for the works. Cal. Signet Letters ed. Kirby, 918; CCR, 1419-22, p. 263. A fortification (the Round Tower) was built at the entrance to the estuary, and there are contemporary references to the ‘castle’ of Portsmouth. E.g. in E364/109, m. B. But no further works of any significance seem to have been undertaken after Henry V’s death, and a second tower on the Gosport side of the harbour does not appear to have been completed. Hist. King’s Works ed. Brown, Colvin and Taylor, ii. 792-3. The governance of Portsmouth’s defences was not separately administered but came under the control of the constable of the much older castle at Portchester. The constables were individuals who nearly all enjoyed the personal confidence of the King: Sir Roger Fiennes* held the post from 1421 until his death in 1449, and passed it on to his son, Robert*, who was removed in November 1451 in favour of John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, and his son, Viscount Lisle (the Talbots’ brief being for the safekeeping of the castle and town of Portchester and the adjacent coast against the invasion of the King’s enemies, and of the survey and governance of Portsmouth). Following the earl’s death it was granted in December 1453 to Thomas Uvedale* (whose son, Henry, was one of Portsmouth’s MPs at that time), then briefly in December 1454 it passed to Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury, and finally in March 1455 to (Sir) Henry Bruyn, the former MP for Portsmouth. Bruyn occupied the constableship until the beginning of Edward IV’s reign, when it reverted to the Fiennes family in the person of Robert’s cousin William, Lord Saye. CPR, 1446-52, pp. 517, 568; 1452-61, pp. 141, 208, 217; 1461-7, p. 25. Nevertheless, save for the relationship between the MP and the constable in 1453, there is no indication that those so appointed by the Crown took any interest in the borough’s parliamentary representation.

Portsmouth’s fee farm, fixed at £18 4s. 8d. a year, had been assigned by Henry IV in 1406 to his consort, Joan of Navarre, who continued to receive it until her death in 1437 (save for the period of her imprisonment from 1419 to 1422). CPR, 1405-8, p. 143; CCR, 1422-9, p. 24. It was granted in December 1442 to Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, for life, CPR, 1441-6, p. 146; SC6/1280/6. but in the period 1437-42 and from Gloucester’s death in 1447 until the end of the reign it was paid into the Exchequer. Part of the farm (£4 18s.) was set aside in 1450, by authority of Parliament, to contribute to the expenses of the Household, and six years later the whole farm was granted to John Brecknock*, the treasurer of the Household, for the same purpose. PROME, xii. 89; CPR, 1452-61, pp. 295-6. There is nothing to suggest that the burgesses ever failed to meet the financial demands of the Crown in the period under review, but although the town’s economy was doubtless stimulated by the traffic of Exchequer-funded armies and its role as a naval station, its trade continued to be controlled by Southampton, the unrivalled commercial port of the Solent. Portsmouth was to remain a ‘member-port’ of Southampton right down to the eighteenth century, with customs and subsidies due to the Crown being assessed at the head port rather than locally, despite attempts to encourage the development of overseas trade in the smaller depot. A petition was addressed to the Parliament of 1432 by the inhabitants of the havens of Newport (on the Isle of Wight), Lymington and ‘other havens’ on the Hampshire coast complaining about their loss of trade because vessels coming from foreign countries were unable to unload cargoes there in the absence of resident customs officials to take care of the formalities. They pointed out that in other head ports (such as Chichester) the customers were permitted to appoint deputies to supervise traffic in the havens. The response of the Lords was not entirely satisfactory: although it was agreed that the customers of Southampton could appoint deputies in Lymington, Newport and Portsmouth, this concession was to last for one year only, and merchandise pertaining to the staple were excluded. SC8/26/1271; RP, iv. 417; CPR, 1429-36, p. 205. The men of Portsmouth evidently did not enjoy a share in overseas trade on a scale comparable with that of the merchants of Southampton.

Portsmouth’s charters, dating back to its foundation in 1194, were confirmed in June 1423, near the start of Henry VI’s reign, CPR, 1422-9, pp. 120-1. but the burgesses’ liberties were twice to meet with serious challenge before Henry’s deposition. On 4 Mar. 1435 a royal commission was set up for the arrest and imprisonment of eight named men of Portsmouth and other unnamed ‘malefactors’ who had recently assaulted and resisted with force of arms certain commissaries of John, duke of Bedford, the admiral of England, while they were attempting to execute their office in the town. CPR, 1429-36, p. 471. The matter was not as straightforward as it seemed, however, for instead of the local men being charged, it was the commissaries themselves, John Matthew, an esquire from Adderbury in Oxfordshire, and his assistants, who were indicted on 29 Mar. before the Hampshire j.p.s for an assault on the bailiff, constable, serjeant and town clerk, in breach of Portsmouth’s liberties. It would appear from another indictment, made on 19 Apr., that on his arrival in the town on 14 Feb. Matthew had arrested the master of Le Gost of Bristol and imprisoned him and one of his crew until they paid a fine and were bound over in £100, an action which the burgesses considered to be beyond his powers of jurisdiction. C244/12/24. There exist two different versions of what followed next, both of which were sent to the chancellor, John Stafford, bishop of Bath and Wells. Matthew claimed that on 18 Feb. he had issued a warrant to the bailiff of Portsmouth requiring him to make his return to the admiral’s court, but the bailiff, Walter Baker (apparently the same person as Walter atte Berne the MP), repeatedly refused to accept the warrant and also a writ of attendance bearing the King’s seal, attempting to justify this refusal by displaying a copy of one of the borough charters. According to Matthew this charter made no mention of any privileges relevant to the matter in hand, but he allowed the examination of other charters by William Sydney*, Richard Dallingridge* (both, significantly, members of the bench in the neighbouring county of Sussex) and one ‘Banaster’, who agreed to arbitrate between the parties regarding the question of franchises on the basis that he would postpone holding a court until they had spoken with the chancellor, who would decide whether the town ‘aght to be privyleged fro the sege of the admyralte or no’. Nevertheless, he tried to open sessions at the waterside at the second tide in the afternoon of 3 Mar., whereupon at the first ‘cri’ the local authorities and the commons of the town emerged from their houses armed with staves, glaves, swords, bows and arrows, and assaulted him and his men. The serjeant drew out his baselard as if to strike Matthew, and with ‘great dispite and males’ plucked away the chair from under him and threw it into the sea. The town clerk, Adam Copendale, presented him with a writ from the King to stay the proceedings. Matthew’s chamber was ransacked, his and the duke of Bedford’s books damaged, and his purse, gold signet and seal of office stolen. Furthermore, he was harassed by a gang some 20 strong which surrounded his lodgings and refused to let him pass. The men of Portsmouth told the chancellor a different tale, claiming they acted throughout in defence of themselves and their liberties. They said that Matthew’s man, Hugh Hamelyn, had drawn his sword intending to kill the bailiff, the serjeant seized the weapon in order to keep the peace and the chair accidently fell into the sea in the ensuing skirmish. The town rose up because of a cry that the bailiff had been slain, but, the riot notwithstanding, the bailiff managed to escort Matthew safely to his house. They denied Matthew’s charge that they had cast the writ of attendance to the ground, but insisted that they could not obey his warrant since this was ‘hurting to their privileges’. As to the accusation that they had entered Matthew’s chamber, stolen his goods and disturbed his books, this was strenuously refuted. C1/45/53. The chancellor’s ruling on the case is not recorded, but the duke of Bedford’s death later that year may have strengthened the hand of the Portsmouth authorities.

The second challenge to Portsmouth’s liberties came in 1447, when a royal charter was granted to Southampton giving the town the status of a county, for this new county included ‘the port of Portsmouth’ along with the town, port and precinct of Southampton itself. In its last clause, however, the charter provided that no prejudice, under pretence of this grant, should accrue to the bailiffs, burgesses or inhabitants of Portsmouth with regard to any privileges granted to or used by them previously, so quite clearly Portsmouth’s burghal status was unaffected. Chs. Southampton, i. (Soton. Rec. Soc. 1909), 70-81. Edward IV confirmed the borough charters in 1461. CPR, 1461-7, p. 145.

The defence of the town’s liberties was no doubt one of the tasks assigned to Portsmouth’s MPs, and it was probably not coincidental that Walter atte Berne was elected to the next Parliament summoned after the fracas of February 1435, at a time when the chancellor was considering the question of admiralty jurisdiction in the town. The names of Portsmouth’s Members are known from the surviving returns for only 17 of the 22 Parliaments meeting between 1422 and 1460, although those for one more, that of 1455, were transcribed by William Prynne† in the seventeenth century. The returns themselves reveal nothing about the electoral process. For the seven consecutive elections from 1422 to 1431 Portsmouth was included with the two other parliamentary boroughs in Hampshire on the indenture for the shire-knights, in terms which suggest a common election in the shire court at Winchester. C219/13/1-5; 14/1, 2. Yet it is very unlikely that the borough elections did take place there, for in 1435, 1437 and 1447 the returns for Winchester, Southampton and Portsmouth were recorded on a separate schedule (merely stating the names of those elected along with their sureties). C219/14/5; 15/1, 4. Furthermore, there survive for the Parliaments of 1432, 1433, 1442 and 1449 (Nov.) responses from the bailiffs of Portsmouth to precepts sent to them by the sheriff of Hampshire, implying that the elections had indeed been conducted in the town, not in the county court. Regrettably, none of the participants are named. C219/14/3, 4; 15/2, 7. Further indication of locally-held elections is provided by the existence of Portsmouth returns in the form of brief indentures made between the sheriff and the bailiff in February 1449, 1450, 1453 and 1455. Although no other parties are mentioned, the indentures state that each election had been made with the consent and assent of the whole community. C219/15/6; 16/1-3.

Owing to the lack of contemporary local records two of the 24 men elected for Portsmouth in this period (Borewell and Notfeld) have not been identified. The rest fell into two distinct categories: those who resided in or very near the town, and were actively involved in its trade and government; and non-residents whose interests as members of the landowning gentry or as administrators led to a participation in the wider affairs of the county and beyond. They are best dealt with separately.

The first group numbered 14, of whom six represented Portsmouth only once each, although two sat three times and two others, Henry Abraham and John Carpenter, appeared quite frequently with four and six returns, respectively. The 14 mostly came from local families, with the obvious exception of Adam Copendale, a northerner who spent the early years of his career living and trading in London; but only the Abrahams produced more than one MP in this period and even they (Henry, Richard and Robert, who clearly occupied a prominent place in local affairs) filled no more than seven parliamentary seats between 1410 and 1450. Little is known about the landed holdings of MPs from this category, and it may be presumed that these were neither extensive nor of much value. Richard Abraham and Richard Gay were described in royal pardons as husbandmen, but for the most part members of this group made a living by trade, dealing in such commodities as cloth, wine, malt, iron and salt. It is of interest that the burgesses returned two local merchants, John Carpenter and John Versy, to the Parliament of 1432, when the petition regarding the appointment of customs officials in the port was an item of business. Richard Beye, Richard Hert and Simon Stubbere had all been engaged in shipping victuals across the Channel to the garrisons in Normandy in Henry V’s reign, and although only one of the 14 MPs here under consideration, Robert Abraham, is known to have owned a ship, others may well have done so, too. The trading activities of Versy and Copendale appear to have been especially wide-ranging. Versy had commercial dealings with merchants from London, Ireland and Florence, while Copendale, who had started off in London as a brewer, subsequently styled himself a citizen and vintner, and contracted to supply victuals to the castle of Fronsac in Acquitaine; perhaps he settled in Portsmouth to facilitate his shipments to and from France.

The move south also gave Copendale the opportunity to participate in local government, first as town clerk and later as bailiff. During this period the principal borough officials were a single bailiff and two constables, E.g. Add. Ch. 15855; Winchester Coll. muns. 15242. assisted (as we have seen from reports of the events of 1435), by a town clerk and a serjeant. Not all the names of successive bailiffs are recorded, but even so 13 of this group of 14 MPs are known to have occupied the office for at least one annual term. Richard Abraham, Robert Abraham and Robert Fougle served at least three terms each, and Versy as many as six. Slightly more than half of the group (eight) are known to have had experience of the bailiffship or another local office before their elections to Parliament; indeed, three were elected to Parliaments summoned in the Michaelmas term which fell immediately after the end of their official year, so it may be the case that they were chosen as MPs because they were obliged to go to the Exchequer to render their accounts for the fee farm and might thereby save the borough additional expenditure on parliamentary wages. On one occasion, in 1425, the incumbent bailiff (Hert) was actually elected one of the MPs, and on another, in 1427, a sitting MP (Carpenter) was made bailiff, but otherwise bailiffs were not required to leave their duties to represent the borough in the Commons. Only four of this group (Henry Abraham, Copendale, Fougle and Versy), were ever appointed to royal commissions: and in all four cases this happened only after they had sat in the Lower House at least once. Perhaps parliamentary service was what drew them to the attention of the government. Abraham was appointed a collector of fifteenths and tenths in Hampshire, and the rest were placed on commissions of inquiry or arrest following acts of piracy committed in the Solent or the Channel off Portsmouth. Exceptionally, Copendale alone was singled out for appointment to a longer-term office – as searcher of the port of Southampton – and he occupied this post for over three years before his return to Parliament in 1449.

Resident burgesses dominated the representation of Portsmouth up to 1450, filling at least 23 of the 30 seats for which we have returns between 1422 and November 1449. Even so, not much store was placed on continuity, for in five of these Parliaments both men returned were apparent novices; in only three were both Members experienced in the workings of the Commons, and re-election happened in just four instances (1423, 1425, 1432 and 1437).

The group of non-residents consisted of eight quite disparate individuals, who all had little in common with the townsmen of Portsmouth or even with each other: three were practitioners of the law or active in estate administration; one was a landowner from the Isle of Wight; another was the mayor of Southampton; two were heirs-apparent to prominent gentry families; and the last was a clerk in the Chancery. In the 1420s Portsmouth returned Richard Parker (1426), whose principal concerns were focused on the administration of the New Forest; William Bekke (1427), who lived further along the coast at Bosham, and was currently a coroner in Sussex; and Richard Hunt (1429), from Southampton or Winchester, whose skills as an administrator led to prolonged employment by St. Swithin’s priory and successive bishops of Winchester. Hunt’s fellow MP in 1429, John Garston, was an esquire from Newport on the Isle of Wight whose income of over £40 p.a. qualified him for knighthood – an honour he declined. In 1431 Portsmouth returned Thomas Belle alias Rygold, a merchant who although he occasionally traded through Portsmouth (and owned a boat built there), had made his mark in the government of Southampton where he was currently serving as mayor for a second term. So, in effect, when Belle joined Southampton’s MPs (the experienced parliamentarians William Soper* and the recorder William Chamberlain*) in the Commons he provided their home-town with a third representative. The character of Portsmouth’s representation changed most dramatically with its returns to the successive Parliaments of 1450, 1453 and 1455. To all three Parliaments the borough elected Robert Waskham, who although he came from a local family had made his career as a chancery clerk, and for much of the time must have lived at or near Westminster. Hunt, his companion in 1455, was currently bailiff of the Soke of Winchester for Bishop Waynflete. Those of 1450 and 1453 were two esquires, both eldest sons of wealthy members of the gentry. Henry Bruyn, ‘borne to gret reputacion and wel anherited’, had received from his father Sir Maurice the family property in Dorset as a marriage settlement, but chose to live at Rowner, near Portsmouth, a manor which he managed on Sir Maurice’s behalf. A soldier like his father, he was considered well able to take charge of the defence of the Isle of Wight, and was knighted not long after his appearance in the Commons in 1450, most likely in recognition of his military service in Gascony. He went on to command garrisons at Dublin as well as nearer home at Portchester. Henry Uvedale (1453), the eldest son of Thomas Uvedale, the head of a wealthy and distinguished Hampshire family, had inherited from his mother a manor in Hertfordshire, but occasionally resided at Marwell in Hampshire. He is unlikely to have been a stranger to the burgesses of Portsmouth for the family seat at Wickham, the home of his uncle William Uvedale II* at Tichfield and his mother’s manor-house in Sussex were all three situated fairly close by.

With the exception of Bruyn, who was called ‘bailiff of Portsmouth’ when he made the return to the Parliament of November 1449 (yet does not seem to have carried out the other tasks associated with the bailiffship), none of this group of eight are recorded holding borough offices. Their experience of royal office, however, was considerably broader than that of the resident burgesses: Bekke had served as a coroner of Sussex for perhaps 17 years before his election in 1427, and had also done duty as escheator in that county and Surrey; Uvedale occupied the escheatorship in Hampshire and Wiltshire before he sat in the Commons for the second time (in 1467); and Hunt carried out the duties of under sheriff of Hampshire before his second election, in 1455. Of the eight, Bruyn was the most experienced in local government, since before his single return in 1450 he had not only occupied the shrievalty itself, but was currently serving on the county bench; but Waskham, a personal associate of the master of the rolls of Chancery at the time of his three returns for Portsmouth, undoubtedly knew more about government at the centre. While Garston and Belle had been appointed as tax collectors and commissioners before their respective elections to Parliament, four of the rest – Hunt, Parker, Uvedale and Waskham – were not appointed to royal commissions until after they first entered the Commons.

External influences may account for the elections of Waskham’s companions in the Parliaments of 1450, 1453 and 1455. There is some cause to suspect the interference of Richard, duke of York, in Henry Bruyn’s election to the Parliament assembled in November 1450, for until June that year Bruyn had been serving as the duke’s lieutenant and steward of the Isle of Wight, and had lost the offices when the Act of Resumption of the previous Parliament had deprived York of the lordship of the island. Petitions sent by the islanders before the Act was passed commended Bruyn and asked that he be kept on to defend the island against the French, but these had been ignored, and Bruyn probably sought election to the Parliament meeting in November to try to regain his post. Whether he was encouraged by this grievance actively to support York’s followers in the Lower House is open to speculation. By contrast, Henry Uvedale, returned in 1453, was an esquire in the household of Bishop Waynflete of Winchester, who had granted him the wardship and marriage of an heiress to take as his wife. This, coupled with the local importance of Henry’s father (appointed keeper of Portchester castle while the Parliament was in progress), might well have carried weight with the burgesses when it came to making their choice of representatives. Richard Hunt had earlier enjoyed the patronage of Henry Beaufort, the previous bishop of Winchester, who appointed him bailiff of the Soke for life. Accordingly, he was still in office, in Waynflete’s service, when returned to his second Parliament, in 1455.