CULHAM, John

Although the return for the Huntingdon election of 1445 has not survived, a lawsuit which came to pleading in the court of common pleas four years later shows that Culham and John Copull* were the burgesses elected. The plaintiff, William Rede of Waresley, alleged that Thomas Gilmyn, under sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, had unjustly taken a horse from him in October 1447, but Gilmyn had distrained the animal while trying to collect money that the latter county owed in wages to its knights of the shire in the Parliament of 1445. Besides referring to the MPs in question, Robert Stonham* and Everard Digby*, the plea roll also happens to record that Culham and Copull were the burgesses for Huntingdon in the same Parliament.5 CP40/752, rot. 340.

Unlike the majority of those who sat for Huntingdon during Henry VI’s reign, Culham did not reside in the borough. Judging by the fact that he served on some of his commissions of the peace and gaol delivery as a member of the quorum and was known as a ‘gentleman’,6 CP40/703, rot. 181d; CCR, 1447-54, p. 31. he was almost certainly a lawyer. His background is obscure but it is likely that he came from Huntingdonshire since, save for the position of under sheriff, he exercised all his commissions and offices under the Crown in that county. In June 1440 the coheiresses Julia Parker and Eleanor Thornton demised ‘Russhebyes’, a manor in Abbots Ripton, to Culham and others acting as his feoffees, presumably following his purchase of that property. Later, in March 1448, he had it settled upon himself and a number of prominent trustees, including Sir Nicholas Styuecle*, Robert Stonham and Thomas Wesenham*.7 CP25(1)/94/36/28; VCH Hunts. ii. 205; C140/41/38. Abbots Ripton was a parish where Ramsey abbey held manorial properties, and by Michaelmas 1442 Culham had become the abbot’s bailiff, a position he was to hold for another 22 years.

The records of the common pleas indicate that Culham also had links with another Huntingdonshire parish, for he features as ‘of Leighton Bromswold’ in a suit that John Harleston II* brought against him in that court in 1436. Harleston alleged that Culham, Roger Hunt* and a barber from St. Neots had taken four horses and the sum of two marks from him at Great Thurlow in west Suffolk.8 CP40/703, rot. 181d. This is not the only evidence of an association with Hunt, a prominent figure in Huntingdonshire and Bedfordshire, since Culham stood surety for him when he obtained the keeping of the castle and honour of Huntingdon.9 CFR, xvii. 194.

At the end of 1441 Culham witnessed the return of the knights of the shire for Huntingdonshire to the Parliament of 1442, the first of the at least eight elections he attested over a period of three decades. In 1450 he was among the ‘gentlemen’ listed in the certificate sent to Chancery by those who supported the return of two members of the Household, Robert Stonham and John Styuecle*, as knights of the shire in the controversial county election of that year. Given that Culham pursued his career on a county level, albeit as a minor figure, it is not entirely clear why the burgesses of Huntingdon should have elected him in 1445. Yet there were other occasions in this period when outsiders represented them in Parliament and, if Culham was indeed a lawyer, it might have chosen him for his professional expertise. Furthermore, he had had previous contact with the borough, for in June 1440 he and two associates, William Webbe and Thomas Bowlas, had received a grant of a tenement and garden in the borough’s parish of All Saints, perhaps in the capacity of feoffees.10 Add. Ch. 33570.

From the early 1440s, Culham was frequently a feoffee. He acted as such for a local merchant, Richard Sapcote, in 1442 and, 15 years later, the royal servant, Thomas Wesenham, enfeoffed his manor of Conington in the same county upon Culham and others to the use of his will. There were also occasions when various individuals, probably facing litigation, entrusted their goods and chattels to his care.11 VCH Hunts. iii. 114; C67/41, m. 4; C140/64/71; CCR, 1447-54, pp. 31, 167-7; 1461-7, p. 87; 1468-76, no. 903. In the meantime he also found time to look after his own interests, for he came to an agreement, probably in the early 1450s, to purchase the manor of ‘Hinton’ in the Isle of Ely parish of Haddenham from his ‘cousin’, Thomas Freman, for 200 marks. The completion of this transaction was not a smooth one, however, for some time between late 1456 and about 1458, by which stage Freman was dead, Culham filed a bill in Chancery against two of his relative’s feoffees, John Prysote*, c.j.c.p., and John Cheyne II*, for refusing to surrender their right to the property. In the bill, he claimed to have paid the whole purchase price, save £21, during the lifetime of Freman, who had given him a bond for £300 as a guarantee that the feoffees would make the desired release. Prysote’s answer to the bill has survived. He said that Freman, shortly before his death, had requested him not to release the manor unless and until Culham complied with the sale agreement. He added that he would release the property when he received proof of the proper fulfilment of the agreement. It would appear that Culham was subsequently able to satisfy the judge in this regard, since in April 1459 Prysote and Cheyne made a formal quitclaim to him.12 C1/26/481; CCR, 1454-61, p. 390. Yet it appears that he did not retain the manor for long, for there is no evidence of his holding any property in Cambridgeshire when he died.

Culham remained active until late in life. He was appointed to a commission of array in February 1470 and during Henry VI’s Readeption he joined the Huntingdonshire bench, although it was not until mid 1471 that he was placed on the quorum. The following March, just eight months before his death, he, John Mynstrechaumbre† and others received a grant of a tenement in St. Mary’s parish in Huntingdon.13 CAD, iii. A5089. Culham died on 4 Nov. 1472, having made his will two years earlier. In the will, he left his manor at Abbots Ripton to his wife, Eleanor, for life, after which it was to pass to his ‘cousin’ and heir, Walter Greeke. The jury at the inquisition post mortem taken after Culham’s death valued the manor at six marks p.a. His widow would appear to have lived for another 20 years, since a writ of diem clausit extremum following Eleanor’s death was issued in early 1493.14 C140/41/38; CFR, xxii. no. 446. There is no evidence that Eleanor was the Eleanor Thornton mentioned above.