PARKER, William III, of Brumstead and Great Yarmouth, Norf.

In 1378 young William Parker was heir to a manor in Brumstead, several miles to the north-west of Yarmouth, and to lands nearby at Stalham, Ingham, Happisburgh and Ruston, as well as to a moiety of the manor and advowson of Eccles, which were held for life by his mother, Margaret. The latter’s previous marriage into the important Yarmouth family of Ellis (she was stepmother of John Ellis II) gave Parker links with the town, and when, at Michaelmas 1381, Brumstead was settled on him and his wife in tail, the wealthy Yarmouth merchant, Hugh Fastolf, was a party to the transaction.CCR, 1377-81, pp. 138-9; CP25(1)168/177/65. Yet such connexions do not fully explain why this otherwise obscure landowner should have been elected to Parliament by the burgesses of Yarmouth in 1410, especially as by that time both Ellis and Fastolf were long dead. Parker’s appointment as a collector of customs and subsidies was made while the Commons were still in session, and after the end of his term of office he is not recorded alive again. In her will made on 8 June 1420, his widow, Margaret, describing herself as ‘of Yarmouth’, requested burial next to him in St. Peter’s church at Brumstead. She gave her seals, including those bearing the arms of Eccles, to Oliver Mendham, clerk, and died before 30 Nov. 1423—the date of probate. In 1439 Mendham, as a trustee, conveyed to William Dengaine and Margaret his wife and the latter’s issue moieties of the manors of Brumstead and Eccles, with remainder to Alice, wife of Peter Dengaine, and her heirs, and ultimately to the right heirs of William Parker. Presumably Margaret and Alice were William’s daughters or grand daughters.Norf. RO, Reg. Hyrnyng, f. 116; F. Blomefield, Norf. ix. 288-9.