Heytesbury

The three manors at Heytesbury (East Court, West Court and South Court) were all held by the prominent family of Hungerford, having been acquired by Sir Thomas Hungerford† (d.1397) the Speaker in the ‘Bad Parliament’ of 1377 and chief-steward of the duchy of Lancaster, The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 411; iii. 444, 446. and his wife Joan (d.1412). Feudal Aids, v. 224. The substantial estate passed with lordship of the hundred of Heytesbury and other family possessions to their son Sir Walter†, whose distinguished service as a royal councillor, treasurer of England, and, like his father, Speaker of the Commons, led to his ennoblement in 1426. In 1439 Lord Walter was licensed by the King to settle Heytesbury on his second wife Eleanor, the dowager countess of Arundel, for term of her life, and then in tail-male on his own issue. Thus, following his death in 1449 Heytesbury was held by Countess Eleanor, who according to her husband’s descendant and namesake, another Sir Walter Hungerford†, made her home there for her final years. Hungerford Cart. (Wilts. Rec. Soc. xlix), no. 361; Hungerford Cart. ii (Wilts. Rec. Soc. lx), no. 1494. When she died in 1455 the estate passed to Lord Walter’s eldest son Robert, the 2nd Lord (d.1459) and then to the latter’s widow Margaret, Lady Hungerford and Botreaux. CPR, 1436-41, p. 300; CIMisc. viii. no. 332. Lady Margaret’s tenure was severely troubled by the political misfortunes of her son and grandson in the civil war, yet, facing up to strong challenges from Edward IV and his brother Richard, duke of Gloucester, she managed to cling on to Heytesbury and ensured the estate’s eventual inheritance by the male line of the family. CPR, 1485-94, pp. 146-9.

The importance of Heytesbury to the Hungerfords is clear from Lord Walter’s plans to found a hospital there – taking his inspiration from Henry VI’s college at Eton – and by its re-foundation by his daughter-in-law Lady Margaret. M.A. Hicks, Ric. III and his Rivals, 86-88, 119-32. The Heytesbury estate was of considerable value, producing sizeable profits which were boosted by sheep-farming for the production of meat and wool. The receipts before outgoings amounted to £329 in 1429-30, £255 in 1436-7 and £442 in 1443-4, although they declined after the death of Countess Eleanor to no more than £108 p.a. in the years 1455-62, and £136 in 1467-8. At the core of the estate was the borough of Heytesbury. This was never incorporated, and little is known about its administration, save that two bailiffs, appointed by the lord, are mentioned in the manorial accounts. The borough court, called the ‘portmote’, raised revenues of just 21s. 11d. in 1436-7, and 36s. 2d. in 1443-4. Whether the burgages, cottages and shops recorded there in this period amounted to a township of much substance is unclear, yet the borough could boast a guildhall, which in 1461 was described as ‘new’. SC6/1054/1-8; SC2/208/62.

It is perhaps surprising that Heytesbury did not send Members to Parliament during the lifetime of Walter, Lord Hungerford, given his prominent position at the centre of government during the minority of Henry VI. The borough was represented for the first recorded time in the second Parliament of 1449, which met on 6 Nov., just a few weeks after his death. Thereafter, returns were made to the three consecutive Parliaments which followed, during the period that Heytesbury belonged to Hungerford’s widow. After she died, the borough was not apparently represented again until 1467, and returns survive for only three more Parliaments before the reign of Henry VIII. Returns for Heytesbury were recorded on schedules sent into Chancery along with the electoral indentures for the county. These schedules simply listed the names of the MPs along with their sureties. Yet two indentures for the borough itself also survive, for the Parliaments of 1453 and 1455. In the first, made by the sheriff of Wiltshire on 24 Feb. 1453, it was stated that the burgesses of Heytesbury had elected Keston and Cross, in witness whereof were attached the seals of John Mermyn and Thomas Tucker in the name of all the burgesses. It may be that Mermyn and Tucker were the bailiffs, although neither was accorded any office. Irregularities attached to this return: not only were the names of both MPs written over an erasure, but those of the attesting burgesses were also a later addition, fitted into a gap. The indenture of 26 June 1455 attested that Thomas Tucker and Peter E[...]sa (the name now partly illegible) and ‘all other burgesses of Heytesbury’ had elected Hayne and Lyte. Once again the document was defective, for Lyte’s name was squeezed in as an afterthought, and in a different ink. C219/16/2, 3. It may be that the attestor was John Mervyn, an important retainer of the Hungerfords.

In the four Parliaments here under review Heytesbury was represented by eight different individuals. Even so, four of these individuals came to their seats with previous experience of the Commons, having earlier sat for other constituencies (in the cases of Basyng, Bentham and Hayne for different Wiltshire boroughs; in that of Cross for Shaftesbury in Dorset). Thus, only in the Parliament of 1450 was Heytesbury apparently represented entirely by novices. The eight came from a variety of backgrounds, yet shared one common factor: none of them were resident in the borough. Indeed, only Basyng and Hayne are known to have lived within the county boundaries – the former at Brinkworth in the north, the latter in Salisbury, which he had represented in Parliament ten years earlier and where he was currently a member of the city council of 24. Two others came from the neighbouring county of Somerset: Nyter belonged to a family living at Kingsbury Episcopi and Lyte to one seated at Lytes Cary. Three of the MPs hailed from even further away, for Cross, originally from Huntingdonshire, Keston from Leicestershire and Joynour from London all lived and worked in the capital. Bentham’s origins are unknown. Similarly, the eight were of differing social status and professions. Even though Basyng, Cross, Hayne, Joynour, Keston, Lyte and Nyter were all styled ‘gentleman’ or ‘esquire’ at some point in their careers, these descriptions blanket a wide variety of occupations. For instance, Basyng and Nyter were both trained in the law, putting their expertise to the use of members of the gentry; Cross made his career as a clerk in the Exchequer; and Joynour, initially a silversmith, had joined the Grocers Company of London and become an important creditor of the Crown.

The eight MPs had little in common and lacked any cohesion as a group, yet one thread joining them together may have been a link with the royal household. To the Parliament of November 1449 were returned Basyng and Bentham. The former, a minor landowner and lawyer from Wiltshire, probably owed his return to Sir Edmund Hungerford*, a well-known figure in the Household (as one of the King’s carvers), who as a younger son and executor of the recently-deceased Lord Hungerford may well have wished to have one of his associates in the Commons at a time when he was tidying up his late father’s affairs. Bentham was probably the minor household servant of this name, who had earlier served Henry V and his queen and was currently a yeoman of the Crown and porter of Wallingford castle. Significantly, the sheriff making the return was John Norris*, one of the select group of esquires for the King’s body. C219/15/7. In 1450 Heytesbury was represented by Joynour, who had already embarked on an impressive programme of money-lending to the Crown. Recently appointed collector of tunnage and poundage in London and controller of the mint in the Tower, he had established links with the treasurer of the Household (John Stourton II*, Lord Stourton), and his election should undoubtedly be viewed in the light of the Crown’s need for supporters in the Commons at a time of crisis following the loss of Normandy and in the aftermath of Cade’s Rebellion. Joynour’s companion, Nyter, came from a different mould, for through his close association with the Gorges family he may be thought to have been promoted by Richard, duke of York, then emerging as the chief opponent to the Lancastrian regime. It is difficult to explain the return of Keston in 1453, although like Bentham he may have been a minor royal servant. His companion, Cross, an Exchequer clerk of at least seven years standing (and destined to remain in that government department for over 20 years more), was a servant of Thomas Thorpe*, the baron of the Exchequer who was elected Speaker in this Parliament. The irregularities in the return and the emendation of the indenture may point to its having been changed at Thorpe’s instigation. Finally, in 1455 the MPs were Hayne and Lyte. Hayne had previously held royal office as clerk of the works at Clarendon, while Lyte had earlier served the late duke of Exeter, and had been a coroner in Somerset before his dismissal in 1450. What distinguished the two of them, however, was apparently a connexion with the lady of Heytesbury, the Countess Eleanor, who died in August 1455 at the close of the first session of the Parliament. Both men were present as jurors at the post mortem held in Wiltshire three months later; and Lyte also acted as such when inquiries were conducted in Somerset and Dorset. This might suggest that Lyte, at least, was a member of the countess’s estate staff or private household, while Hayne is known to have been in receipt of a life-annuity of 26s. from her Hungerford estates. It is of interest, too, that both Hayne and Lyte attested other elections to this same Parliament, in Salisbury and Somerset, respectively, thus being in breach of the statutes which required MPs to be resident in the places they represented.