Farnham

Farnham had grown up in the west of the county, next to the river Wey and on the major road from Southampton to London. Lordship of the synonymous manor and hundred had passed into the hands of the bishops of Winchester as long before as the seventh century, and Farnham’s status was noted by the compilers of the Domesday Book, who observed that ‘St. Peter always held it’. VCH Surr. ii. 579, 590. The importance of the place for its episcopal overlords stemmed both from its geographical position and from the income they derived from the manorial estate, which by the close of the thirteenth century amounted to over £134 p.a. – a figure which remained relatively stable until the late fifteenth century. E. Robo, Med. Farnham, 78-79; Pipe Roll of Bpric. of Winchester 1301-2 (Hants Rec. Ser. xiv), 205-6. Farnham’s castle, established early on as a permanent residence for the bishops, continued to be well maintained and lavishly appointed throughout the Middle Ages. Annales Monastici ed. Luard (Rolls ser. xxxvi), 51; O. Manning and W. Bray, Surr. iii. 134; Robo, 81; VCH Surr. ii. 599-605. In the period here under review, Cardinal Henry Beaufort authorized renovations there, and the investment in the castle made by his successor as bishop, William Waynflete, was particularly notable: between 1470 and 1475 Waynflete spared no expense in building an impressive brick tower on its south side. G.L. Harriss, Cardinal Beaufort, 369, 374; V. Davis, William Waynflete, 120.

By 1225 the town which developed under the shelter of the castle held the status of a borough, and accounts of its revenues (in the form of a fee farm, court perquisites and other dues) began to be detailed separately from those for the manor. The inhabitants gradually acquired rights and privileges from successive bishops, and in 1247 received their first charter of liberties, enabling them to govern the town themselves, choose their own bailiffs, hold an assize of bread and ale and an annual fair on All Saints’ Day, and to retain all tolls which had previously been paid separately to the see of Winchester. In return, from then on they paid an increased fee farm of £12 p.a. VCH Surr. ii. 585-6; Robo, 173-4, 176-7. Hardships resulting from the plague of 1361 meant that Farnham’s payments to the bishop fell seriously into arrear, but in 1399 William of Wykeham leniently pardoned the bailiffs of their personal liability, thereby writing off a 40-year-old debt. In Henry IV’s reign Bishop Beaufort renewed the borough’s charter, and Farnham’s liberties were further confirmed by Waynflete in 1452. Robo, 105, 182-4; VCH Surr. ii. 586; Manning and Bray, iii. 131. The burgesses’ limited degree of self-government was doubtless granted in the knowledge that officials appointed by the bishop would continue to exercise influence in the locality on his behalf. Particularly important in this respect were successive constables of the castle, who in the fifteenth century included John Clipsham*, Sir John Boys* and (Sir) John Seymour I*, the last-named serving in this capacity from 1440 until his death in 1464. Hants RO, bp. of Winchester’s pipe rolls, 11/M59/B1/162, 178, 181, 187, 190, 193, 194, 197 (formerly 155828, 155829, 155832, 159418, 159433, 159436, 159441, 159444).

From the episcopate of Beaufort onwards the bishops’ pipe rolls reveal little about Farnham’s social and economic life. Yet its serious financial problems of the late fourteenth century proved to be temporary, and seem to have given way to a period of sustained growth, supported by Farnham’s weekly market, which became well known for its trade in wheat. VCH Surr. ii. 583, 587. The size of the town’s population in Henry VI’s reign is difficult to calculate. Eighty-three burgesses had been assessed to pay subsidies in 1332, placing Farnham in fourth place in the county behind Guildford, Kingston and Southwark; while in 1524-5 its taxable population stood at 143 and the town had overtaken Guildford in terms of the number of taxpayers listed. Surr. Taxation Returns (Surr. Rec. Soc. xi), 11-12, 128; J.D. Sheail, ‘Distribution of Wealth in Eng.’ (London Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1968), ii. 383ff.

Farnham should be compared with the other boroughs currently under the lordship of the bishops of Winchester. In this respect, Taunton in Somerset, which had regularly made returns to Parliament since 1307, stood in contrast to two boroughs in Wiltshire: Downton which had intermittently returned MPs from the thirteenth century, but although regularly called upon to make returns had only done so once (in 1413) between 1365 and 1442; and Hindon, which had been asked to send representatives to nine of the Parliaments summoned between 1378 and 1385 but failed to comply, so that it was not actually represented until the late 1440s. Despite its relative growth and prosperity, Farnham was represented in Parliament on just two occasions in the later Middle Ages, in 1311 and 1460. On the earlier occasion this was possibly as a consequence of the involvement of Bishop Woodlock in the ongoing struggle between Edward II and the earls. VCH Surr. ii. 590..

Political considerations again applied in the period here under review. In 1460, in marked contrast to the circumstances surrounding the summons of the previous Parliament (which had met at Coventry in 1459 and attainted the Yorkist lords who had risen in arms against the Lancastrian court), that called to meet on 7 Oct. followed after the Yorkist victory at the battle of Northampton on 10 July, and with the King firmly under the control of the victors. Farnham’s lord Bishop Waynflete, a loyal Lancastrian, had been promptly replaced as chancellor of England, but he may have attempted to make the most of any political influence that remained to him by getting his servants or associates elected to the Commons. In this he proved successful at Taunton, which returned two keepers of his episcopal parks, John Bishop III* and John Wolffe*, but we do not know the outcome of any elections at Downton and Hindon as the returns for those boroughs are now lost.

How the elections of 1460 were conducted at Farnham remains a mystery as the names of the MPs are recorded only on the schedule which accompanied the indenture for the knights of the shire for Surrey. C219/16/6. Presumably, the sheriff, Robert Fiennes*, had taken it upon himself to send a precept to the authorities at Farnham instructing them to make a return – something which had not happened for almost 150 years. He, formerly an esquire for the King’s body, may well have remained a staunch supporter of the house of Lancaster, and his estrangement from his brother Richard, Lord Dacre (soon to emerge as a favourite of the future Edward IV), explains his lack of involvement in local government under the Yorkist King. Of the two men returned for Farnham, nothing has been discovered about Richard Beaufitz, although it has been speculated that he was related to Thomas Beaufitz and his son, Robert, both of whom served as clerks of the foreign estreats of the Exchequer, a connexion which may have brought him into contact with Waynflete during the latter’s chancellorship of 1456-60. Henry Tuddenham’s career is much better documented. The illegitimate son of Sir Thomas Tuddenham*, Henry shared his father’s firm identification with the Lancastrian court, and his political sympathies certainly echoed those of Farnham’s lord. They had led to his involvement in a number of politically sensitive disputes in his native East Anglia. Henry’s connexion with Waynflete may have been a by-product of the protracted arguments over the will of Sir John Fastolf, in which both men were involved. Waynflete, Sir John’s principal executor, increasingly saw the Fastolf lands in the context of his own plans for the re-foundation of Magdalen College in Oxford, and probably looked upon Tuddenham as a useful ally against the other executors, including John Paston* and William Yelverton*.