STARGRAVE, Richard

Since this MP lived in Hampshire for at least part of his career he may have been related to John Stargrave, who had been appointed tronager and pesager in Southampton in Henry IV’s reign, and owned land in East Woodhay which later became known as the manor of ‘Stargraves’.1 CPR, 1409-13, p. 398; VCH Hants, iv. 306; Feudal Aids, ii. 346. Richard’s early life is poorly documented. The fact that he was a member of Henry VI’s household is recorded only in a petition dated after that King’s deposition in 1461, although it is probably safe to assume that he had entered Henry’s service before his first election to Parliament in 1459. Presumably, he was elected to this strongly loyalist assembly at Coventry in order to add to the numbers in the Lower House prepared to support the proscription and attainder of the Yorkist lords. He is not known to have had any connexion with the Sussex borough of Bramber which elected him, nor with Bramber’s lord the duke of Norfolk. On 5 June 1460, six months after the dissolution, he was appointed to a royal commission in Hampshire ordered to arrest certain named persons and take them to Winchester castle to be placed in the custody of its constable, John Grenefeld II*, another member of the Household. This was just a matter of days before the Yorkist earls landed in Kent and commenced their march to Northampton, where they were victorious in battle against the royal army on 10 July. Subsequently, with the Yorkists in control of the administration, Stargrave ceased to be employed at Court, and indeed he found himself the target of orders very similar to the ones he had been sent in June. On 2 Jan. 1461 a commission was directed to Thomas Roger* and his brother John Roger II* (who had been constable of Winchester castle until replaced by Grenefeld in 1459), to arrest him along with three members of the Nutkyn family of Andover and bring them to the Chancery.2 CPR, 1452-61, p. 654. There can be little doubt that Stargrave had opposed Yorkist rule in the locality.

Whether Stargrave was indeed arrested, and what happened to him two months later when Edward IV seized the throne remains uncertain. The petition already mentioned – addressed to the new King’s chancellor, George Neville, bishop of Exeter – alleged that Stargrave had used his ‘power’ as a retainer of Henry VI to unlawfully enter land belonging to the Cricklade family of Andover and required the tenant, Richard Curteys, to hand over the rent of £5 p.a. Furthermore, he had sued Curteys for debt in the court of the mayor and bailiffs of Winchester when he refused to comply, and through his ‘mesnes et alliaunce’ looked likely to prevent him from leaving prison.3 C1/28/380.

It is difficult to find an explanation for Stargrave’s return to the Parliament summoned for 3 June 1467 as a representative of Steyning, the Sussex borough adjacent to Bramber, although his motive for seeking election may have been to gain the parliamentary privilege of freedom from arrest. The threat to his liberty now came from powerful enemies. On 26 Sept., during the recess, he was the object of a second commission of arrest, this time headed by (Sir) John Lisle II* and the sheriff of Hampshire and once more including John Roger, who was Lisle’s son-in-law. The commissioners were instructed to bring him to Chancery with a number of other men from Winchester, including as before members of the Nutkyn family. In the commission Stargrave was described as a ‘hosteler’, so it would appear that since his expulsion from the Household he had made a living as an innkeeper.4 CPR, 1467-77, p. 53. However, he was styled ‘gentleman’ not long afterwards, when, on 11 Nov., he was bound over in £5 to two Londoners, William York the younger and John Brigges, for the payment of 50s. on the following 22 Jan.5 CAD, vi. C5964. It seems unlikely that this arrangement was connected with the order for his arrest; rather the latter concerned a serious offence, about which nothing has been discovered.